by G Lawrence
But curiosity will have to wait, I told myself. Accepting Alençon in England now was a foolish idea.
Not long after, we heard that de la Mole and Coconnas had been put to death. Charles knew that to execute the King of Navarre would cause war, so he offered up these men, these innocents, to save his pride, and give him reason to keep his brother-in-law a hostage.
They died as criminals, publicly decapitated before roaring crowds. I sorrowed for this young man, whose love had shone from his heart as golden light when he talked of his Princess. And it seemed I was not alone.
On the night after their execution, the heads of the two men vanished from the spikes they had been set upon at the Palace de Greve. It was widely rumoured that Princess Margot, Queen of Navarre was the person responsible, taking her lover’s head from its seat of humiliation, to a place where it could be interred, with honour and respect.
*
Succumbing to pressure from my Council, that April I sent troops to Edinburgh. This was no invasion force, but simply aid, from a sovereign of one country to the Regent of another. My troops aided Morton in preventing Mary’s supporters from maintaining control of the castle. Besieged by cannon fire manned by English gunners, the castle fell. As it came under the control of Morton, so was vanquished the last hope Mary’s supporters had to restore her.
In the aftermath, Governor Kirkcaldy was executed and Maitland, once Mary’s foremost supporter, died in mysterious circumstances. Some said he had taken his own life, others claimed he was murdered, but whatever the truth, men intended to use his corpse shamefully. Mary Fleming, one of Mary’s Maries, wrote to Cecil, telling him that her husband’s body was to be put to the same punishment that others had been accorded after death; to be put on trial for treason. Wishing to spare her husband’s corpse this last indignity, she wrote to Cecil pleading for him to intervene, which he did. I wrote to Morton and told him that I, his ally, would not look happily upon barbarous traditions, and Maitland should be buried with immediate effect. Morton complied.
Shrewsbury wrote that my cousin of Scots showed little emotion when she heard of the fall of Edinburgh Castle and the fate of her supporters, but said he thought it had affected her. This loss was a blow to her ambitions of freedom, but Maitland had not always been loyal to her cause, and perhaps Mary remembered that. It was also likely that Mary understood the fall of the castle and her last remaining men represented a turning point. Morton was proving an efficient regent, a man to be feared. With the fall of Edinburgh, peace seemed possible, and Mary knew that would bring no good to her.
But whilst willing to accept my aid, Morton was less willing to discuss terms about Mary. I wanted her gone, and had again suggested she return to Scotland and be put on trial for Darnley’s murder, which would offer Morton good reason to hold her as a prisoner, rendering her impotent, but Morton, like Mar, was not willing to do such a thing unless it led to execution.
“He will not have her, Majesty,” said Cecil. “And were we in his position, we would not either.”
“Mary of Scots should be taken care of by the Scots. Her continued presence here causes nothing but embarrassment, for both our countries.”
“And trouble,” said Cecil.
“And trouble,” I agreed.
“Morton knows that if she were sent back, he would have to agree to keep her alive. Your Majesty has said that too many times for him to doubt. He would take her back if he could condemn her to death, but not as a prisoner. She is too dangerous.”
Mary, it seemed, heard soon after that she was not wanted by her people. I think it was the one last weight on the scales of our relationship. Soon she was declaring she was the only hope of English Catholics, and would see the faith restored. “I will not leave my prison, but as Queen of England,” she said.
Mary had lost one throne, and thought to take another, but I was not about to shift aside for her. Where once she had attempted peace and moderation between the faiths, she saw now, as increasing numbers of recusants were sent to prison, that portraying herself as the saviour of the Catholic faith might win her supporters to claim my throne. It was not an example of her piety, as the Pope claimed. It was an example of her political acumen. Mary was no fool. She saw such a stance would win her followers, and she took it so she might gain power. In truth, although it angered me, I could not help but admire her. It was a clever move, for she knew I was not about to execute her. She could set herself up as my replacement, a forlorn damsel in need of rescue from the wicked Queen, whilst all the time she was nothing of the sort.
A sagacious play, indeed, but whilst I was not about to execute her that did not mean she was would get away with it. If I found her doing wrong, she would be punished. Mary thought to set herself up as my nemesis, but whilst her claims and actions were dangerous, she was still mired deep in fantasy. She was my prisoner, and I was her master.
Watchful eyes kept Mary in their sights. Walsingham soon told me his men believed Mary had another secret message channel, used to sneak letters to King Phillip and the Pope, but also to receive news back on the outside world.
“My agents are all about her,” Walsingham told me. “We will keep watch.”
I had no reason to doubt Mr Secretary.
Chapter Nineteen
Greenwich Palace
Late Spring 1574
“For your daughter,” I said to Douglas Sheffield.
“It is beautiful, Majesty,” said the lady. In her hands was a gown. Douglas had returned to court a month ago, and everyone knew, despite the panels secreted in her gown, that she was with child… Robin’s child.
Robin had informed me Douglas was carrying the “badge of his sin” as he so eloquently put it, and since he had promised, this time, to uphold the child as his own no matter the sex, I had forgiven him. Knowing her child was to be recognised, albeit as a bastard, Douglas was happy. Actually, she seemed a little too happy, leading to rumours the two were, in fact, secretly married.
Robin denied this in the strongest terms, and insisted whilst he had mistresses, his heart was mine alone.
“See it remains that way,” I had said. “And make sure Douglas does not suffer for this. I am fond of her.”
Robin had promised, although it was impossible for Douglas to be entirely protected from the hateful names whispered behind her back. To uphold her, I had her in my chambers often, and favoured her, as with the gown for her daughter from her marriage to Lord Sheffield. She would have to leave for the birth, of course, but the fact that Robin had learnt his lesson made me warmer towards him.
“I thought on all you said,” Robin told me as we wandered the gardens, the scent of May blossom rich on the wind. “About what men owe to women, and I decided you were right. My affair with Douglas is done, but this child and the woman who bears it should not be punished for the pleasures we sought.”
“I am pleased to hear that. It cut me deep when you declared you would only recognise a son.”
“Because that was what your father did to you when he took you from the succession,” he said. “I understand, and I am sorry to have taken the same shameful path. If it has not been made clear to me that a woman may do all a man might, given the chance, I should have looked to you, and understood.” He smiled. “I think it is that… sometimes I think of you not as a woman or a man, but just Elizabeth, the most glorious of all creations, and the only one who has my heart.”
I smiled, taking his arm. I understood, for there were times I looked on him the same way. Creatures not of this world were we two, but beings born of eternal and enduring love, which despite all we faced, and all the pain and suffering we inflicted on one another, would always burn, a white, blazing torch, casting away the darkness.
*
“It is good you found this out,” I said to Walsingham.
“Not so good that it is going on, however, Majesty.”
“My cousin will not cease to plot, but if all her men are found so easily, we are not in trouble.�
�
A young lad had been arrested in Scotland and confessed to being Mary of Scots’ secret courier. He would pick up packages of letters in Doncaster, smuggled from her comfortable prison, and take them to her supporters in Scotland. The lad had told Regent Morton’s investigators that the man he picked up letters from was Alexander Hamilton… tutor of the Earl of Shrewsbury’s children.
“I had to release him,” Walsingham said, speaking of Hamilton. “All we had against him was the word of this lad. There were no letters in his house or on his person, so we had no firm proof. The Scottish lad, Steward, refused to be interviewed in England, and Morton will not release a Scottish citizen into my custody, so Hamilton has returned to his post.”
“But you have someone on his tail?”
“Of course, but the man knows he is being watched, so another channel will likely be set up. There is the possibility he is innocent, and his name was used so the Queen’s supporters could extract him from Shrewsbury’s house and plant one of their own in his stead, one more dangerous.”
“All the same, hearing who he associates with will be interesting. And, in time, he will either be shown to be innocent, or may resume old habits.”
“That is true,” Walsingham said. “But I think, Majesty, there is a wider web. We are seeing but one small strand at the moment, but more is hidden.”
“If there was ever a man who might find a web, Walsingham, it would be you.”
“What we really need,” he said, almost to himself, “is someone close to the Queen of Scots. Someone she trusts, and not just a maid.”
“You think my past efforts without merit?” I had placed a maid in Mary’s household to spy on her.
“Certainly not without merit,” he said. “But a maid can only be of so much use to her. If it were a man, with contacts on the outside, friends in high places, she might reveal a great deal more.”
“You have someone in mind?”
“Perhaps, but it may take time to place him there if he is to enter without suspicion.”
I smiled. “You will not be lacking for pursuits in the meanwhile, Walsingham. There is a web for my spider to find.”
*
“Could he be spared by Death?” I asked, looking with feigned sorrow on the French Ambassador. “Considering his bodily disposition?”
King Charles IX of France was dead. Although the ambassador swore consumption had carried him off, there were already rumours it was syphilis, a disease rampant in the French royal house.
“Will Monsieur be summoned home from Poland?” I asked and smiled. “I must become accustomed to calling my old suitor King Henri now, must I not? And my captive suitor, his brother, is now Duc d’Anjou, not Alençon. Much change, lord ambassador, for your people and mine. I sorrow with you for the death of your King, my good brother. Please let the Queen Mother know I weep for her. To lose a child is a cruel fate.”
In truth, I did not sorrow for Charles. He had never been stable, and had taken too wild a part in the massacre for me to ever rest easy. But Anjou, or King Henri III, as I must now call him, was even worse. Fanatically Catholic, and, if rumours were to be believed, firmly in the pocket of the Guise, this new King was not about to bring stability to France. If anything, he would bring chaos home with his baggage.
King Henri was brought home so quickly from Poland that his castle gates shuddered as he raced past. The Poles were, justifiably, incensed that their King had abandoned them in pursuit of a greater prize. I was no less disturbed. There was no knowing what my erstwhile suitor would do when he claimed his crown. Would he move to revoke all rights for Huguenots, or tear up the Treaty of Blois? No one knew. We had to prepare for the worst. That meant stepping up friendship with Spain.
“Phillip proposes sending a new ambassador,” said Walsingham.
“I am sure that will go as well as the last,” I said. “If only Guzman de Silva would come back. He is a good man.”
“I think it most unlikely Phillip would send de Silva again, my lady. He knows the two of you formed a bond.”
“So whom must I suffer this time?”
“His name is Bernardino de Mendoza,” said Walsingham. “And from all I hear, he is of the same ilk as de Spes.”
“How wonderful. Another meddler, just what we need.”
“Should I request an alternative?”
“There is no point, Walsingham. Phillip knows that with the succession of Henri, we are at a disadvantage. Request a different ambassador and we will only get another of the same breed, perhaps worse. If we want to scare France into remaining friends, we must appease Spain.” I massaged my brow, feeling a headache begin behind my eyes. “But get Mendoza watched, from the first moment he arrives. De Spes was habitually in league with traitors, and may have transformed men into rebels who might have remained peaceful. If this ambassador is the same, we will have a demon in our midst.”
Sometimes, I wished I was not so perceptive.
As I sent word that Phillip’s ambassador would be welcomed with open arms, we learned Allen’s priests had been sighted in England. Some of Allen’s men were no doubt only in England to grant beleaguered English Catholics an opportunity to keep their faith. Others were bent on causing trouble. Since there was no way of knowing which was which, they all had to be treated the same. There was also word Phillip was more than behind Allen and his Jesuit allies, but was funding them.
“So, as you play friends with me, dear brother, you plot with my sworn enemies,” I said quietly, reading a note from Walsingham. Phillip had dispatched money to Allen, and the ‘Enterprise of England’, a new plot of old thought, to overthrow me and set Mary on my throne, was apparently being talked of at Phillip’s court.
Allen’s priests were known as seminary priests, to distinguish them from men ordained in the Catholic faith during my sister’s reign. Although I had not wanted this news to get out, it was inevitable that it would. Soon enough the word seminary was synonymous with that of traitor.
Jesuits, the tutors of the foolish young men flocking to Douai, were members of the Society of Jesus, a sect founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, once a nobleman of the Basque region of Spain. It was a relatively young order, founded in my father’s time, by Ignatius and six other men. They swore vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, and were passionately loyal to the Pope. Ignatius had been a soldier, so perhaps it was only to be expected his followers set out in a militaristic fashion, accepting orders anywhere in the world, often living in extreme conditions.
They were hardy zealots, the worst possible kind. Their men were schooled admirably in classical studies and theology, and their schools turned out priests with sharp minds. Their main aim was to prevent Protestantism spreading, and halt it in its tracks where it had. The term Jesuit was actually an insult, as they appropriated the name of Christ in all they did, which was not looked on with affection, particularly by Protestants. They already had almost one hundred colleges on the Continent, and although I did not begrudge them this, I did mind when they started to turn missionary eyes upon England. They had already seen notable successes in winning countries back to Catholicism, such as Poland, and thought to do the same to England.
I was not secure. I could not be with these men infiltrating my kingdom. But no matter how hard they pushed, I would not retaliate by punishing English Catholics. Never would I act against the many.
The few would be punished for treason, but I would not become my sister. That was what my foes wanted, for if I did, I would breed anger, resentment and rage, which would come back at me three-fold. The only way to beat them was to remain calm, collected, and compassionate, giving lie to falsehoods about my wickedness.
The moment we became the monsters they claimed we were, our enemies won.
Chapter Twenty
Windsor Castle
Summer 1574
“I did more than send a message, Majesty, I sent a messenger, and I hope that will be an end to it.” Robin sounded both weary and fraught as
he explained the efforts he had gone to with Essex. “I told him he was being fed false information. Lettice is my friend. I have no designs on her.”
Robin had sent a man to Essex in Dublin, to recount his version of events both at court and in relation to gossip about Lettice. It seemed this had gone a long way to mending the gulf between them, and Essex appeared to believe now that Robin was not attempting to sabotage his career.
“I am pleased to hear you are friends once more,” I said. “But it would aid his temper, I think, if you would cease to send gifts of game to Lettice.”