Just a Queen Read online

We were silent for a moment and then Cecil tactfully changed the subject to matters of state, perhaps the trouble we were beginning to have almost constantly with my young cousin the widowed Queen of France and Scotland, but I do not recall the details of the rest of our conversation, all those years ago. I doubt that even then I was paying much attention. I was preoccupied with what Amy Dudley’s death would mean for me and for my reputation.

  ‘They are saying the English queen is to marry her horsemaster.’

  It was a few days later and Cecil stood as far away from me as possible, just inside the door. He was scratching at his beard, a gesture I knew indicated unease.

  ‘Who dares say such a thing? Clap them in irons! Send them to the Tower! It is treason to talk so.’

  ‘I cannot clap all of London in irons, Your Majesty. And I cannot arrest the crowned heads of Europe either. Nor even the Queen of Scots.’

  ‘The Queen of Scots?’

  ‘Aye, Your Majesty. Ambassador Throckmorton has just this morning sent me a most anxious letter.’ He shook the parchment at me. ‘Quoting her exact words.’

  I snatched the paper from his fingers, scanned it and read aloud.

  ‘“So the Queen of England is to marry her horse-keeper, who has killed his wife to make room for her—”’ I looked up in shock. ‘God’s blood, she will live to regret this slander!’

  But bluster as I might, at that moment I was the one with the shattered reputation. I could bellow and threaten but as Cecil well knew, she had the best of me. I covered my face with my hands and sobbed aloud. That my few moments of harmless pleasure should have come to this! But I swallowed my tears and tried to regain my composure. ‘Everyone is talking, good master secretary? Everyone?’

  ‘Many were talking before the death of Lord Robert’s wife, but now the scuttlebutt has risen to a crescendo. They are sure you intend to marry him. Worse, as the Queen of Scots suggests and as I have already informed you, some are saying that Robert Dudley killed his wife so that he could become your husband. Some are even saying you are implicated in her murder.’

  ‘Are they mad? I have nothing to gain by Amy Dudley’s death and everything to lose.’

  ‘Indeed, madam.’

  There was something about Cecil’s tone I did not like. I looked him square in the eye. ‘You too, Cecil? You think I may have had something to do with this unfortunate woman’s demise?’

  ‘God forbid, Your Majesty! But there will need to be an inquest and Dudley will remain under suspicion for some time.’

  ‘He had nothing to do with it either. He is not a fool. He knows I would never have married him.’

  ‘Then he knew more than the rest of us, Your Grace.’

  I did not reply. Cecil had never liked Robin. They were different men and, I suppose, rivals competing to have the greater influence over me. But he was right. I had weakened and allowed myself to imagine sharing the burden of the throne with my old friend and most trusted soul mate, the man whom I had christened ‘my eyes’. Now I could see what a fool I had been. Worse, everyone else could see it too.

  I would never be able to marry the one man I loved. I had no interest in marrying some foreign prince, some man I had never met, but I had secretly toyed with the idea that I might find a way to marry Robin Dudley. And, had Amy died of her illness, it could have been so. A man I truly loved, all English and my subject – I could still have held the reins of government firmly in my own hands – or so I had told myself. (Now, so much older and wiser, I realise that was a fond delusion.) Yet perhaps I could have enjoyed love and companionship, maybe even children. Recognising the impossibility of my foolish hope, I staggered and had to sit down.

  ‘Are you well, madam?’ Cecil held a hand out to me, but I could not answer him, for fear of further weeping.

  There was an inquest, of course, and it returned a finding of accidental death. It did no good. The scandal thrilled all of Catholic Europe and dismayed those who had held such high hopes for me, their Protestant queen. I had to endure many humiliations, lectures and slights in the months that followed and I had to take my punishment without protest. I had to endure unwanted advice from my friends as well and, indeed, from my servants, although Kat, bless her soul, refrained from telling me that she had warned me of the consequences of my foolish behaviour.

  I loathed the mortification that came with the scandal, particularly because I knew that I had been foolish and made myself vulnerable. I was also shaken with grief and loss. I had banished Robin from court and I missed him terribly. Worse, I knew that now our relationship could not even be what it had been before.

  My relationship with ‘my eyes’ had changed forever. Had this been Amy Dudley’s intention or had she not thought of us at all? Was it merely an accident? But, if so, why had she dismissed all possible witnesses? I felt she had committed the grievous sin of suicide and was suffering the torments of hell and I felt responsible for that too. I had never liked her; I was guilty of hoping that her malady would remove her and make way for me.

  Now, from a distance of twenty years, I can see that what seemed a terrible loss may, in fact, have been a blessing in disguise. When I look at where scandal and love and lust have led my poor cousin, I am even more grateful. With no possibility of marriage, a dangerous temptation had been removed. I learnt to keep scandal at bay and to rein in my own feelings. I was also devastated for Robin. His loss of hope and of reputation was even greater than mine and he felt such things keenly. Worse, I had to distance myself from my old friend and I had to do it publicly. He was an ambitious man, eager for honours and the world’s admiration. I had promised to raise him to the rank of earl. He had done all I asked of him, and more, but now, to raise him so publicly after what had occurred was impossible.

  ‘Lord Robert, do you see these documents upon my table, ready for signing?’ It was some months after the death of his wife and Robin, newly returned to court, stood beside my table with the other privy councillors. The documents I pointed to were the letters patent for the earldom of Leicester. All eyes followed his. Robin took a deep breath and looked at me rather than the documents, knowing full well what they were. I returned his gaze, sorry for what I was about to do but queens may not do what the heart wishes. They must do what the head commands.

  As all the great men in the chamber watched I picked up my quill and played with it, pretending to contemplate whether I would sign. Suddenly I threw it aside and picked up my penknife. There was no sound from the gathering, except a long sigh from Robin. After a moment, I slashed the document into pieces.

  ‘I think not,’ I said, theatrically tossing the papers aside. ‘After all, the Dudleys have been traitors for three generations.’

  I did not need to see Knollys, Cecil and the others to know that they were mightily pleased to see poor Robin’s humiliation. The man himself fell to his knees.

  ‘There is no man in your kingdom as loyal to you as I am, Your Grace, and you know this to be true. It is unkind of you to say otherwise.’

  Poor Robin, his shock and disappointment were writ large upon his face. Unlike Cecil – or indeed his queen – he has never been much good at hiding his feelings.

  Seeing his distress, I softened and leant forward to pat his cheek. ‘No, no, the bear and ragged staff,’ I said, referring to his family crest, ‘are not so soon overthrown.’

  He would get his earldom soon enough, but I needed to show my councillors, my court, my country and all of Christendom that I was the queen and he was, and always would be, nothing but my master of horse.

  Five

  A fine lady sat on the end of my bed. She had dark hair and eyes and wore a large sparkling jewel around her neck. Her face seemed kind and she held an elegant hand out towards me. It seemed uncannily like my own. She whispered my name in a soft, French-accented voice. ‘Elizabeth,’ she said, plainly, adding no title or honorific. I sat up and reached for h
er hand, but just as we were about to touch, she snatched hers back and pointed to her throat. Blood was oozing from the skin, but from no wound that I could see. It ran, red and glistening, from the base of her neck, down the cleft of her breast and under the edge of her bodice. Her white hands were stained with it and suddenly I could smell its thick, metallic odour and taste it, sticky and meaty inside my mouth.

  Another dream or, perhaps, delirium: a man on a fine white horse riding away from me along a cliff road. The sky very blue, the grass green, the wind whipping at his clothes, his hair and the glossy mane and tail of his horse. I cannot make out his face, but I know I must catch him. I call out to him, but my voice is tossed aside by the wind, I spur my own horse, but a hand catches my bridle and my horse rears. When I have regained control, I look at the owner of the hand. I raise my crop high, ready to whip him for his impertinence and force him to let go, but, impossibly, another hand grasps my crop – as if from the sky – and holds it firmly aloft.

  They tell me I was very ill.

  Not long before the signs of my illness appeared, my ladies and I had watched leaping flames in the centre of my capital from the windows of Greenwich Palace. Even from such a distance, they glowed fiercely orange against the night sky.

  ‘What is this conflagration?’ I asked the assorted company.

  ‘The spire of St Paul’s has been hit by lightning, Your Majesty.’

  ‘The flames are from the great wooden dome!’

  A gasp escaped from many lips, including mine. Many crossed themselves and some fell to their knees and began praying. But while it is all very well to plead with God, there were more practical measures that had to be taken against fire in a crowded city. ‘Can nothing be done to staunch the flames?’

  ‘Some sailors have formed a line, Your Majesty, and are passing buckets of Thames water from hand to hand. Others are climbing the roof and beating the flames back with damp hides.’

  ‘Stout-hearted fellows! See they are suitably rewarded. Is there anything else that can be done?’

  ‘All that can be done is being done, Your Grace.’

  We watched the flames burn until midnight. In the morning I travelled into my capital to survey the damage. It was horrifying to behold. While the flames had been beautiful and exhilarating seen from a distance, the aftermath was awful. The spire and the entire magnificent roof of God’s pre-eminent house was nothing but a smoking and blackened mess. Filthy puddles of the same Thames water that had beaten back the flames lay in the nave and all the holiest places in the cathedral. It seemed sacrilegious to see such holy places besmirched. Weary and blackened men were still picking their way through the ruins, mopping up what they could. I took care to speak to each one I saw and thank them heartily for their service.

  ‘This is God’s work, Your Majesty. A direct message from the heavens.’ The Dean of St Paul’s was guiding me through the broken cathedral, with real tears in his eyes – whether from the smoke or grief at the loss of the great steeple and dome, I know not.

  ‘Why would God burn his own cathedral?’

  ‘To warn us, Your Grace, about our sins and the fiery punishment that awaits us all if we do not repent.’

  Those about me crossed themselves and a cold shiver ran down my spine. I sometimes wished that God would send the faithful more direct messages. What sins, exactly? Was it the Protestants he was warning me against or the Catholics? Each of my subjects, I knew full well, would interpret this heavenly message according to his or her own beliefs.

  ‘You must have a care, Your Grace. Portents such as these should never be ignored.’

  It began with a headache and a hot fever, but after that I remember little other than the strange dreams that crowded my brain. I think I remember cool compresses on my forehead and a soft voice pleading with me to sip some water. I think I also remember the feel of ice on my tongue, but otherwise, I lost two days.

  I remember waking slowly, with a terrible, stale taste on my tongue and the sensation of crusted mucus at the corners of my mouth. My throat felt sore and dry and when I went to cry out for water, I was mortified that no sound followed. Was it another dream? I swallowed painfully and tried to raise myself on my elbows, but, weak as a mewling kitten, I collapsed back onto my pillows. The movement attracted the attention of the doctors and women clustered in the corner of the room.

  ‘The queen stirs!’ It was Kat’s voice. In an instant, she and the doctors were by my side. I pointed at my throat.

  ‘She wants water; give her water!’ And hands lifted my head to a beaker. It was a relief to fill my foul mouth with cool water and douse the furnace that was burning there. I finished the cup in two or three swallows and gestured for more.

  ‘Slowly, slowly or she will just bring it all back up.’ A male voice; an apothecary. Now they restricted me to small sips, but I began to feel refreshed.

  ‘You have been gravely ill, Your Majesty, with the pox, but your fever has broken and you will recover.’ Kat’s face was close to mine, so she spoke quietly, nevertheless the news was terrifying.

  The pox! My hands flew to my face, feeling for the pustules that mark the skin of those who suffer this foul malady. Many who contract smallpox die; many who recover are permanently disfigured. Few escape its clutches unscathed. My shaking fingers found nasty, scabby lumps all over my face and I sobbed at the horror of it.

  Kat knew immediately what I dreaded. ‘It is too early to tell if you will be scarred, Your Grace,’ she whispered. ‘But because the fever’s duration has been so short, the doctors are optimistic.’

  Still, I turned my face into my pillows and wept inconsolably.

  They told me they had despaired of my life. Master Cecil rode from London to Hampton Court to be by my side. I knew full well what this must have cost him, having seen his awkward horsemanship. He rode hard, arrived at midnight and, still dusty from his journey, sat through the rest of the night by my sick bed. As I hovered between life and death, for two frantic days my council debated the merits of my handful of possible successors. Cecil wanted to follow my father’s will and make poor Jane Grey’s sister Lady Katherine the queen. Dudley and his faction, on the other hand, supported the claims of Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, due to his Plantagenet blood. No one, it seems, mentioned the obvious claimant – my cousin, the recently widowed Queen of France and sole Queen of Scots, yet whether they spoke her name or not, she was the spectre haunting those who squabbled in whispers over my delirium. The only point all in my government fervently agreed upon was that I must not die. If I did, there would be bloodshed.

  Although I do not remember it, the succession must also have been on my fevered brain because they told me that when I first woke I commanded that Robin be made protector of my realm. Apparently I told the gathered grey beards that as God was my witness, although I had always loved Lord Robert dearly, nothing improper had ever passed between us.

  The optimistic doctors were right for once. I not only recovered but, as the illness left me, my pustules subsided and left no scars. Robin’s sister, Mary Sidney, the other member of the Dudley family beloved by me, was not so lucky. It was not only Kat and Blanche Parry’s cool hands I had felt soothing my fever and coaxing me to drink a little, but also the small, soft hands of Mary Sidney. Kat and Blanche were spared, but as a result of her devotion, poor Mary contracted the same disease. As I recovered, she sickened and grew far worse than ever I had been. For days on end, we despaired of her life, but finally she rallied. God spared her life, but not her beauty.

  ‘I am so sorry, my dear Mary.’ I touched her cheek gently with my fingers as she curtsied before me.

  ‘It is a small price for the privilege of nursing you, Your Grace, and seeing you once more in fine health.’

  ‘A woman’s beauty is a high tariff indeed. We all have to pay Father Time with it, if we live long enough, but you have paid the price early and to a
much harsher master, and I am sorry for it.’

  ‘You are very kind, Your Majesty.’ And Mary’s eyes, so like her brother’s, filled with tears and one or two spilt over and slipped down onto her now thickened cheeks.

  ‘It is as well you have a husband and children, a brother and a queen, who love you for the beauty you display within. A beauty that has only been enhanced by your physical sacrifice.’

  She wept now, in earnest. ‘It is my husband I pity, to be saddled with a wife grown so ugly.’

  ‘Hush, child,’ I said, although she was, in truth, a few years my senior. And I leant forward and dried her tears with my kerchief. ‘Your husband loves you as I do for your character and great heart and, yes, for the tears that do you honour. Your service will not be forgotten.’

  My ladies have always been my refuge. They do not talk to me of politics or statecraft. They do not pester me to marry men I have never laid eyes on and put my life at risk bearing their children – well, none but Kat. They do not ask me day in and day out to make decisions, to decide one way or another when my instinct is almost always to bide my time and see what directions others take before deciding upon my own. Sometimes, one or two of their number have infuriated me by marrying without permission, but most of my ladies have been patient and loving. I have lost some now to marriage and to death. I mourn the loss of my Kat to this day and dear, gentle Mary Sidney has also departed this world. I miss her too. But I have gained others and in their company, I feel as a man must when he returns to the comfort of his hearth.

  Why would I ever wish for the demands of a husband when I have wives such as these? The men of my privy council and my parliament could never understand my views about this. To them it was impossible to imagine that any woman young enough to bear children would not long to shackle herself to one of their number and become a brood mare. Indeed, after my brush with mortality, far from gratitude at my survival, I was greeted with ever more vociferous demands that I marry and bear children.