by G Lawrence
Others were not so sure. People had begun to take up the title granted by my people of “Virgin Queen” and were now celebrating my maiden state. Plays reflected this, as did poetry and song. Once, I had hoped they would do this, celebrating that I had sacrificed personal happiness for the good of my people, but now it had come about, I was less sure. It seemed if I took one stance, my people would take the opposite.
My fools entertained as the dance went on, Tomasina making men weak with mirth as she cracked jest after jest. Tarlton performing his trade by pulling faces meant to represent my men as they discussed the fraught issue of my marriage. There was no escaping marriage and love at court that season, but the difference was that this time I was not sure I wanted to.
Do I not deserve the same as others? I asked myself.
You are not the same as others, said something inside me. You are the servant of your people, their mother, destined to offer up your blood, your happiness, your sorrow… whatever they need, so they might live.
Chapter Eighty-Three
Greenwich Palace
Summer 1579
Water lapped sinuously against the side of the barge, making a delicate accompaniment to the music my Moorish musicians played. The sun was hot, but the breeze on the Thames cool as I enjoyed hearing compliments devised by Simier.
My state barge was a glorious creation. It was rowed by twenty oarsmen, and was a swift craft, cutting through water gracefully, seemingly without effort, like a swan. Boasting two cabins, ornamented with glass windows and draped in tapestry and painted cloth, as well as a shining deck usually replete with cushions, as it was now, it was a wonder many talked of and came to see when moored at the Paris Gardens on the Surrey shore of the Thames.
The Paris Gardens were generally not a place many would think to visit if not for my barge. They were suffused with criminals, a known haunt of beggars, vagabonds and cutpurses, and were also famed for harbouring immigrants, men of whom many were suspicious, often without good reason. There were grand residences there, but much of the area was a realm of close-packed houses, a labyrinth of tiny, dangerous streets, where stink-trades, like tanning and brewing took place. Brothels were also numerous, granting a fine excuse for some noble customers to frequent those houses, using my barge as the “true” reason they were in that area.
“I am so pleased you decided to sign the passport allowing my master to come to England, Majesty,” Simier said, reclining on plump velvet cushions, a goblet of wine in hand.
“No more than I. I become more eager each day to see the Prince.”
“I, too, wish to meet the Duc,” Hatton said. Standing a short distance from us, he was leaning on the banister, watching the water. He turned to us with a smile. “The Duc appears a man of sense, for he adores my beloved mistress.”
I returned his smile, holding a pomander ball to my nose. The river smelt rank, and my golden ball filled with spices, wax and herbs held back the noxious scent. I wore one at my girdle too, alongside the pouch containing my letters and notes. Of late, that pouch was filled more by the letters of Anjou than affairs of state.
It was a sweet day, and I was lost in pleasant thoughts as Simier wooed me on behalf of his master. And then, everything changed.
“Get down!”
Something whizzed past me, not six feet from my head. “I am slain!” I cried out, breathless with fear. There was a scream and all breath left my chest as Simier threw himself across my body, sheltering me from attack.
I heard a cry and a thump. Another shot rang out, fracturing the air. Glancing up in horror to see one of my boatmen crumpled in a heap on the floor, I cried out as I saw blood, and went to aid him, but was held back by Simier.
“My lord,” I said. “Remove yourself!”
“They are shooting at you, Majesty,” he panted. “I offer my life in place of yours, for the sake of my master’s heart.”
Hatton, who had cast his goblet into the river and raced to me, would have reached me too late. Simier, this man many protested against, saying his master meant to murder me as part of a Catholic plot, had saved my life.
The boat had taken on a furious pace, trying to set some distance between us and another boat, the one from which the shots had been fired. By the time we returned to Greenwich, the court was in uproar. I was met at the water steps by more guards than I had thought I possessed, and marched to my rooms. When I got there, my hands were shaking. My ladies jostled about me, but Kate and Helena, knowing the signs of a fit of panic, pushed them back. Blanche took them from the room, leaving me with only my most loyal women.
“Lie on the floor, Majesty,” Blanche said, pulling cushions before a chair. “Put your back and head on the floor and your feet on this chair.”
Docile in fear, I obeyed, and found that this new method she had found stopped my head spinning. “Blood rushes back to the head,” she said as colour returned to my cheeks. “Dee was right.”
Later, it was found that the assassin, a Master Thomas Appletree, was not an assassin at all, just an excruciatingly foolish man.
“He claims it was an accident,” Cecil said, “and appears to be in earnest. He is terrified, Majesty, that he did you harm. All he keeps asking is if you are well or no.”
“Thanks to Simier, I am fine.”
“We will thank the French Crown,” Cecil said, looking decidedly ruffled in spirit.
“We will.”
“And Appletree?”
I pondered for a moment. Cecil and Walsingham thought it an accident. Appletree had no previous record of discontent, turned up loyally for Mass, and had no ties to dangerous people. It appeared it had been an accident indeed, but he could have taken my head off.
“I want him condemned to death,” I said, almost smiling as Cecil looked frankly astonished. It was not in my nature to be so heartless, usually. “But,” I said. “When the rope is about his neck, you will send a last minute pardon, and set him free.”
Cecil slumped in his chair and managed to chuckle. “You mean to teach him a lesson?”
“Indeed. It does no good to allow imbeciles to accidentally shoot their Queen, does it? This will be a warning to other young men.”
It was done as I ordered. Poor Appletree was hauled through London, and taken to the gallows. Just as the noose was slipped about his neck, as braying crowds shrieked for his death, and as he had started to pray with febrile lips, my pardon was delivered.
That was one young man who would not think to play with guns again.
As a further precaution, a proclamation was sent out forbidding anyone from carrying a handgun at court, and another limited the common use of handguns, dags and harquebuses. What that accident had made clear to me was that guns were dangerous, in the hands of assassins or fools.
Only gentlemen of a certain income were now permitted to carry them, and only if they measured more than a yard in length. This would make them easier to spot. Constables were told to stop anyone carrying a gun, regardless of station and were to check if they were loaded. Travellers were still permitted to carry dags, as it was senseless, in some ways suicidal, for them to set out defenceless on roads where bandits would waylay them, but they were told they must carry their pistols in plain sight, on the arched front of their saddle.
Since some said the shot was meant for Simier, it was publicly announced that the French envoys were under my personal protection. There were rumours Robin had hired Appletree and this ‘accident’ was nothing of the sort. I was left unsure, but Simier started to wear a second doublet, of thick, padded linen, under his court clothes.
It was not long after that Simier took his revenge.
*
On the same day I narrowly escaped the beckoning hand of Death, Fitzmaurice and his fleet were sighted off the shores of Ireland.
We had word of it from Ormonde. Fitzmaurice and his men sailed into Dingle Bay and announced they had come to fight the “She-Devil” who refused to hear the words of Christ spoken by his vicar, t
he Pope. They received acclaim, but Ormonde and his captains were ready for them. Within days, Captain Courtenay had seized Fitzmaurice’s fleet and Ormonde sent in five hundred men to fight them. Pirate captains of the South West patrolled the coast, watching for any sign this attack would turn about and come for England. Fitzmaurice’s men raced into forests and bogs, conducting a campaign of surprise attacks, and Ormonde and his loyal captains pursued them.
“Ireland always seems to descend into tribal warfare,” I said to Cecil.
“It is the terrain,” he noted, staring at his notes. “This method has proved successful in all times since passed, so men continue to use it.”
Fitzmaurice’s troops, however, were mainly Italian and Spanish, so even if their leader understood the terrain, his men did not. This was likely to go on for some time, but early reports were favourable, and we had Ormonde on our side. Popular with the Irish chiefs, he spoke with passion against foreigners coming into Ireland, and men listened. Many knew that Fitzmaurice was, in truth, only out for personal reward, but the suppression of the Gaelic language and Irish culture had done damage. Some were willing to hide the invading troops, sustaining them with food and joining with them to fight.
“I am attempting to ascertain if France is also embroiled,” Cecil told me. “My man, William Parry, is keeping watch at court.”
Parry was a gentleman who kept a house in Paris. He gathered information on the Guise and other leading Catholic families, but Walsingham had small faith in his abilities. “I know the Baron has confidence in him,” he had said to me. “But I think him too obvious to be of true use.”
Perhaps another part of Walsingham’s distrust came from the fact that Parry had attempted to intervene for English Catholic exiles, although Walsingham did admit there were benefits to this. If exiles could be divided amongst themselves, or brought back into loyalty to England, this could be beneficial. “In that regard, Parry is useful,” Walsingham noted.
I nodded. It was more to my liking that once-rebels might turn back to us. I mourned when my children felt themselves forced to head to other countries rather than stay in England. It made me feel like my sister, and the more exiles fled England, the more I felt we were breaking the wrong path.
*
The next day, Simier took revenge on Robin.
Sure in his heart that the shots on the Thames had been meant for him, and thinking to remove a court assassin from post before Anjou came to England, Simier took action. To damage Robin, he would hurt me.
Although everyone knew of it by then, Robin’s marriage had not been announced, but Simier, thinking I knew not, took it upon himself to not only tell me, but to make sure everyone was talking of it.
Coming to me whilst I was with my ladies as well as several gentlemen, Simier announced he had ill news. Before I could stop him, he laid bare Robin’s marriage.
No doubt Simier thought I had gone pale as milk because I was shocked by the news, but this was not so. Shocked I was that he would be so indiscreet, but my face turned white because now I had nowhere to hide. The secret was out. I was humiliated before the world.
I had hoped to allow the news to leak slowly, as it had already done, and ignore it if at all possible. People would either think I knew nothing of Robin’s marriage, or I had known all along but was not the jealous fiend they all supposed me to be. I had thought to save myself this shame. Simier made sure I could not. When he was done, I rose, thanked him and left.
There was no more hiding. No more concealing my abject humiliation. It was out. I felt naked, bared before the eyes of the world.
Mary Sidney swiftly retired from court, knowing that I often took out annoyance at Robin upon her, and soon, I sent for Lettice.
“Are you going to apologise?” I asked as she rose from her curtsey.
“I have nothing to apologise for, Your Majesty,” she said, her blackberry eyes glinting with defiance. “I married where I loved, and within my station.”
“You married where I loved.”
“You refused the Earl.”
“You will address me as Majesty, or you will be sent to the Tower.”
“On what charge, Majesty?”
“Whatever I decide.”
My grim tone made her face turn pale, but she stuck her chin in the air. “I will not sorrow for taking a worthy man as my husband, Your Majesty.”
Rage was building in my blood, threatening to consume me. “You knew how this would hurt and shame me,” I said. “And you did it for that purpose.”
“What cause would I have to wish to shame and hurt you, Majesty?”
“Jealousy and spite,” I said. “You were angry at me for not supporting your false claims for more money after the death of your husband; that was the spite. But there is another reason. There has always been. It festers in your heart. You regret that your grandmother was Mary and not Anne Boleyn, do you not? But for my father preferring one sister to another, your mother might have been in my place. A twist of fate made me Queen, but might have made you a princess.”
“Such a thought has not occurred to me.”
“You are lying, cousin. I see it in your eyes. But know this, as the sun lightens the earth, so there will be but one Queen in England. The Earl of Leicester may have been hoodwinked into becoming your husband, but I am not deceived by you. You are a false creature, and I despise you.”
She muttered something dangerously close to “the feeling is mutual,” and I leapt from my chair. Striding to her, I pulled back my hand and slapped her hard across the face. As she reeled and recovered, I boxed her ears.
“Get out of my court!” I screamed. “Think not to come near me again! No more are you my cousin!”
Lettice’s eyes were full of rage as they met mine, but she dropped to a curtsey and left with swift speed. Soon, everyone had heard of our meeting.
Within days I could not move a step without someone tumbling to a halt in their conversation, and casting a sympathetic eye, or knowing sneer, upon me.
I hated it. Hated their pity, hated their smirks. Without love left to me, I hated the world, I hated Robin. And most of all, I hated Lettice.
Chapter Eighty-Four
Whitehall Palace
Summer 1579
Robin stood in my chambers. I had sent my women to the other room upon his request for an audience.
“Well?” I snapped. “You wanted to see me?”
“I heard of your argument with Lettice.”
“That is between us,” I replied. “Nothing has it to do with you. You were but the instrument of her revenge upon me, and were brainless enough to become that tool.”
“Lettice protests you were unjust, Majesty.”
“Lettice protests many things which turn out to be false. Her belly, for one thing.”
Seeing a look of discomfort wash across Robin’s face, as though he had bit into a pippin and found it was a crab apple, I chuckled. “Yes,” I went on. “You were taken for a fool there, Robin. That woman is not with child. Do you know why she married you? She was without the income she desired, and saw you were a man she could easily manipulate. That woman is a hill-digger, and you were the mound she delved into.”
I flared my nostrils as I drew in breath. “But there were personal reasons, between Lettice and me, for what was done. She wanted revenge on me for denying her more money, which, if she was a true mother, she should have only celebrated was going to her children, and she wanted to pay me back for her being born to the wrong side of the Tudor family.” I looked him up and down. “There was no child. She simply knew it was a good trick to get you to the altar, so she might shackle you to her.”
Robin fell silent. I could see he had considered the notion Lettice might be using him for money, but he had not thought of the other considerations.
“Since you were played, my lord Earl,” I said. “There is a little space in my heart to pity you.”
“You would forgive me?”
“You have not apolog
ised.”
“I am sorry for causing you pain, Majesty.”
“Then I am sorry you are saddled to a she-wolf.” Robin’s face shifted. “You have more to ask of me?” I demanded.
“To ask, if, one day, I might present my wife to you… if she might be called back to court.”
“Sent you to beg for her, has she?” I shook my head. “If she is a wolf, you are her little puppy. She uses you again, and again you fall for it. You weak-minded fool! I have no wish to see that she-wolf ever again. I can barely stand to look upon you, let alone her.”
“You would appear more magnanimous if you offered forgiveness.”