A Favorite of the Queen: The Story of Lord Robert Dudley and Elizabeth 1 (17 page)

It was June, and he had heard from the jailers and his servants that preparations were going forward for the reception of the Prince of Spain, who was already on his way to England.

The Queen was not yet forty; she would marry Philip and if there were children of the marriage, there was small hope of Robert Dudley’s regaining his freedom.

“My lord,” said his jailer one day, “prepare to leave this cell. You are to be taken to the Bell Tower, there to share a room with your brother the Earl of Warwick.”

He felt elated. He might have known that Fortune would not allow him to continue gloomy. It would be good to be with brother John.

The brothers embraced warmly. Imprisonment had left a deeper mark on John, Earl of Warwick, than on Robert; John had had no charming adventure with which to while away the time. He brightened with the coming of Robert, although they were very sorrowful recalling their father and Guildford.

“It might have been you … or I,” they reminded each other. “Mere chance made it poor Guildford.”

“Yet,” said John, “how do we know we shall not meet a like fate?”

“Nay!” cried Robert. “If they intended that, the deed would have been done ere now. If we stay here quietly and nothing happens to call attention to us, we shall, ere long, be free.”

John smiled. “That is like you, Robert. You always believed that something miraculous was reserved for you.”

“How can you know that it is not!”

“What … for a poor prisoner in the Tower!”

“Other poor prisoners have survived and risen to greatness.”

“You are indeed a Dudley,” said John, not without a trace of sadness in his smile.

Fortune was turning in their favor. They were to be allowed to have visitors. Their wives might come and see them in their cells; their mother might also come.

Jane came first, and bravely she smiled at her two sons. John looked ill, she thought; Robert had scarcely changed at all.

“My darling,” she cried. “Why, John … how thin you are! And you … you are still my Robin, I see.”

“Still the same, dear Mother.”

“You keep your spirits up, my dearest son.”

“And mine too,” put in John. “He refuses to believe that we are unfortunate. We are certain of a great future, he says.”

“Come,” said Robert, “it is not the first time the Dudley fortunes have been in the dust.”

“Do not speak thus,” begged Jane. “That was how your father talked.”

“But Father was a great man. Think of all he did.”

Jane said bitterly: “All he did! He led his son to the scaffold, that with him he might shed his blood in the cause of ambition.”

But Robert laid his arm about her shoulders. “Dear Mother, that is the way of the world.”

“It shall not be your way, Robert.”

“Nay, do not fret. The axe is not for us. See how they keep us here.
They leave us in peace. We are well fed, and now we may have visitors. Soon the day of our release will come.”

“I pray for it each night,” said Jane fervently.

She wished to know how they were fed, how their servants behaved.

“We are allowed more than two pounds each week for food,” said Robert, “and more for wood and candles. So you see, Mother, if we do not live like kings, we do not live like beggars.”

“I rejoice to hear it. But there is an evil odor here.”

“It comes from the river.”

“We dread the hot days,” said John.

“I will speak to the servants. They must take great care to keep the apartments sweet. This is not a good place to be in … especially during the summer.”

Robert was determined to drive away gloom. He was sure, he told her, that soon they would be free. He guessed it. He knew it. He had a way of knowing such things.

She could smile as she listened to Robert.

“How glad I am, dear John, that your brother is with you.”

“It has been merrier since he came,” said John.

And when Jane left them she felt happier than she had since she had lost them. That was due to her darling.

He can charm away even my miseries, she was thinking.

Amy came to
see Robert. John asked that he should be taken to another cell, that husband and wife might be alone together.

Amy clung to Robert, covering his face with kisses. He returned her embrace and for a short while he was ready to make love to her. It was so long since they had met.

“Robert,” she insisted, “you still love me?”

“Have I not made that clear?”

“I have been so unhappy …”

“And what have I been, do you think?”

“But it has been so
miserable
without you. I thought that you would
die
.”

“Nay. I have many years before me.”

“Yes, Robert, yes. Do you think you will soon be free?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“But you do not seem to
care
.”

He was thoughtful for a second or so. He was thinking of freedom, the return to the life in Norfolk, farming, riding, making love to Amy. Was freedom so desirable? How foolish Amy was! He had a fancy for a different woman—a sharper-tongued, subtler woman, with flaming red hair and an imperious manner. He wanted a Princess, not a country girl.

“Of what do you think?” she asked suspiciously.

Had she sensed his desire for another woman? he wondered. Had she more discernment than he gave her credit for?

He said: “I have been thinking that if I had not married you I might not be here now.”

“Where would you be then?”

“In my grave.”

She stared at him for a moment, then she threw her arms about him. “Why, Robert, I am some use to you then.”

He laughed aloud because the sun was shining outside and it was good to be alive. He lifted her and kissed her with that sudden abandonment which was a way of his.

Now he was the passionate lover as he had been in the beginning, and when he was thus he was quite irresistible.

Amy was happy. She was with him again. He loved her; he was glad they had married.

She did not know that the memory of a Princess was constantly with him and that his thoughts of her filled him with a delightful blend of excitement, desire, and ambition.

The days were
hot and sultry. The smell of the befouled river pervaded the cell. The sweating sickness had come to London, and the most dangerous place in the City was the Tower.

Day after day the corpses were taken out, but the place was still overcrowded, as it had been since the Wyatt rebellion. The heat hung over the river and the prisoners lay languid.

One morning John complained of feeling very sick indeed. Robert looked anxiously at his brother. The Earl’s face was a sickly yellow color and, to his horror, Robert saw the drops of sweat forming on his brow.

John had contracted the dreaded sweating sickness.

Five of Robert’s brothers and sisters had died of this terrible disease. He wondered: Is John to be another?

But he determined that it should not be so. He would not lose John that way. Here was something to be done after weeks of inactivity, and he was glad of it.

He called to their two servants. They came running in.

“The Earl is sick,” he said; and he saw the terrible fear in their faces. He felt reckless; in spite of his anxiety for his brother he almost laughed. He was not afraid. He knew that he would not die miserably in prison of the sweat. He would do his utmost to save his brother; he would be the one who was constantly with him, ministering to him, because he felt himself to be immune from infection. For greatness, he was sure, awaited Robert Dudley.

It was a glorious feeling to be unafraid among the fearful.

He said coolly: “Go at once to my mother. Tell her what has happened. Ask her to send some of her simples to me. Tell her she is not to come visiting until I send the word. Be very sure of that.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Already they were looking at him as though he were a god.

He returned to his brother and, lifting him in his arms, he carried him to his bed and covered him up. He sat beside him and, when the palliatives arrived from his mother, he himself administered them.

He talked to John, trying to arouse him. It was said that if the patient did not come out of his coma during the first twenty-four hours he would die.

Robert often wondered afterward how he lived through that day and night; he himself must have been almost delirious.

He found he was speaking his thoughts aloud. “The Princess Elizabeth is in love with me. Bars separated us and I could not approach her, yet was I assured of her love. If ever she becomes Queen, greatness awaits me … greatness such as our father never knew … the greatness he would have had for Guildford if all had gone as our father wished. I think of our grandfather—humble lawyer, a farmer’s son who rose to sit in the Council chamber of a King. I think of our father who became Protector of England—almost the King he wished Guildford to be. In two generations from obscurity to greatness … only to die on the scaffold. I am of the third generation. I shall learn from the mistakes of others. Perhaps in the third generation a Dudley shall be a king.”

Yes, he must be almost delirious to speak such thoughts aloud.

John opened his eyes suddenly and said: “Brother, is that you?”

Then Robert knew that he had successfully nursed John through the sweating sickness, and he was certain that the sickness could not touch him. He was as certain of this as he was of the glorious future which awaited him.

There were many
Spaniards at the Court that summer. None could find so much favor with the Queen as a Spaniard. Her bridegroom had come and she doted on him.

Jane Dudley—although she could not go to Court, was often found outside the palaces in which the Queen was residing.

She pleaded with old friends. She gave gifts to the Spanish ladies. She would tell them of the fate of her sons. Would not this kind lady, that kind gentleman, seek a moment, when the Queen was in a soft mood, to speak a word for poor Jane Dudley?

There were many who felt pity for her; and so those words were eventually spoken to the Queen.

Mary loved her husband, and love had softened her.

“Poor Jane Dudley,” she said, “what has she done to suffer so?”

Jane was a heartbroken mother, and now that Mary soon hoped to be a mother, she understood maternal hopes and griefs. Jane’s sons had risen against the crown, but they had obeyed their father in this. Mary in love was a kindly Mary.

As the hot summer gave place to autumn she decided she would pardon the Dudleys. They would still be attainted of high treason, of course, which meant that their lands and goods would not be restored to them; but they should have a free pardon.

Jane was almost delirious with delight.

At last her sons were to be free. Land and riches? What did they want with those? Let them live quietly, humbly; let them abandon their ambition which had proved so fatal to the family.

But Jane’s joy was clouded. His imprisonment in the Tower had changed her eldest son John from a strong man to a weakling. He died a few days after his release.