Elizabeth I (11 page)

“He's skilled for twenty years old, don't you think?” Leicester said.

Twenty—life's sweet time. “Yes,” I agreed.

“When I go to Buxton, let him have my rooms at St. James's. He will use them well. I would like you to get to know him better.”

“Very well,” I said. “We'll play cards, dance—and wait for your return.”

He took both my hands and kissed them, lingering over them. “We have been through much together, my love,” he said softly. “But this last was best of all.”

He left three days later. He would, of course, have to take his wife, Lettice, with him. He would travel to Buxton, some hundred miles from London, in slow stages, stopping off to see Sir Henry Norris at Rycote en route. I sent a little token to him there, a cordial made by one of my ladies from mint-flavored honey.

I felt nothing ominous. Quite the opposite. I imagined him receiving the gift. I imagined his spirits rising as he traveled through the countryside, away from duties, and then his body restoring itself as he took the course of treatment. The exultation, the relief at England's victory, and his performance as commander, all would buoy his recovery.

Then Burghley called on me and asked for privacy. He moved slowly into the room and sank down. His face was twisted in pain and he gripped the arms of the chair.

“You should have sent a messenger,” I chided him. “You must take care of yourself. Do not undertake any unnecessary meetings.”

“This one is necessary.”

“A secretary would have sufficed.” I shook my head. “Diligence is one thing, but ...” The look on his face stopped my chattering.

“Oh, would that someone else could have come in my stead!”

“What is it?” Now a cold feeling was stealing through me.

“Robert Dudley has died,” he said.

“No.” That was the first thing I could think. It could not be. It must not be.

“He died eight days after leaving London,” he said. “He reached Rycote, then went a day's journey beyond that, to Cornbury Park. After that he worsened and could not leave his bed. Six days later, he died, of a continual burning fever. In the ranger's lodge. I am sorry.” He looked down at the floor as if he could not bear to see my face. “They say the trees in the park are visible from his bed. His last sight would have been—pretty.”

Pretty. Trees. Were the leaves turning there? Or were they still green?

“Trees ...,” I said. “Trees.” Then I began to weep.

I stayed shut up in my chambers for two days. No one was allowed in—not Marjorie, not Catherine, not Blanche, not the lowest chamber servant to attend even to necessities. I did not refrain from showing happiness in public, but I would not show the face of grief. And so I waited for it to pass, knowing that only its sharp edge would pass, never the body of grief itself.

Timid knocks indicated food outside the door. I never opened it to see. Then more knocks, and a letter was slid under the door. I recognized the handwriting immediately: Robert Dudley's.

There is something mysterious and frightening about receiving a letter from someone just deceased, as if he or she is speaking to you from the grave, a wavering voice. Deep sadness and foreboding filled me as I opened it with shaking hands and read.

There was no secret, special message. It was an ordinary letter, teasing, affectionate, hopeful of the future, concerned with tokens. He had no suspicion that death was near.
In the midst of life we are in death
, says the burial service. But its opposite is true: In the midst of death we are very much in life.

We had been wrong. Something cruel had, indeed, separated us.

A day later Burghley ordered the door broken open. He found me sitting calmly. I would rise now, and carry on.

“He is to be buried at Warwick Chapel,” he said. “Near his son.”

His young son with Lettice, who had died at age six. “I see.” But I would never go there, never see it.

“There is gossip—” he said delicately.

“What sort of gossip?” Was Robert Dudley never to be free of ugly gossip? Would it pursue him even into the grave?

“That his wife, Lettice, poisoned him. That she had to, because he planned to poison her.”

“Those old lies!” Leicester's enemies had long called him a poisoner, with any sudden death being laid to his machinations. Then: “Why would he plan to poison Lettice?”

“There was talk that he had discovered her infidelity with Christopher Blount, the young man he had made master of the horse. Some twenty years her junior.”

“Absurd,” I shot back. Surely she would not dare to betray Leicester, the man she had used every wile to get.

“The story goes that she poisoned him with the flagon of poison he had prepared for her.” Burghley looked apologetic. “That is only what people are murmuring.”

“They won't stop until they blacken his name forever. Even in death he can't escape their venom.”

“This one blackens the widow Lettice most of all,” he said.

“So it does. So it does.” But surely even Lettice would not stoop to that. But ... her first husband had conveniently died when her liaison with Robert Dudley had been discovered. People credited Robert with it. But who stood to gain most? Lettice, not Robert. Lettice would gain an amorous and wealthy husband, better than the failure she already had. Robert would lose even the glimmer of hope of marrying me, and court influence as well. Yes, who stood to gain most?

I thrust these ugly thoughts from my mind. They were not worthy of me.

T
he next three months were a round of joy for my country and my subjects. There had been no other time in our history that had given us such widespread rejoicing. Agincourt had taken place in another country, and while a great victory, it did not ensure our very survival. While my spirits soared with gratitude and relief, my heart was heavy at my personal loss. It was a perfect reflection of life itself, the sweet and the bitter commingled in one drink.

But all things must end, even celebrations. In November I set forth to put the cap on our observances with a ceremony rivaling my coronation.

The procession began at Somerset House, the grand mansion I lent to Lord Hunsdon on the Strand midway between Whitehall and the Temple. We had an understanding that he allow foreign ambassadors to lodge there and to stage grand events. Today he welcomed me as more than Queen and cousin—he welcomed me as a fellow combatant in the defense against the Armada.

“What, dear cousin—no armor today?” he joked.

“It is not meet to wear it into church,” I said.

“Oh, I didn't know that,” he said. “It is regular clothes that don't feel right to me.” He was eager, no doubt, to get back to the north, where he was warden.

This day I was wearing a gown with an enormously long train that would be borne by Helena Ulfsdotter van Snakenborg, Marchioness of Northampton, the highest-ranking noblewoman in the land. I had made her so—or rather, allowed her to retain her title after she was widowed and remarried a lesser-ranking man. I thought of her as my own possession, for I had persuaded her to stay in England long after her official embassy in the retinue of Princess Cecilia of Sweden twenty years ago. Cecilia was long gone, her mission quite forgotten, but her charming countrywoman was now part of our court and a favorite server in my private chamber.

“It is quite heavy, Helena,” I warned her.

She merely shook her head. “I am strong. Am I not an Ulfsdotter?”

“You don't look like a wolf,” I said. “But I always admired the Scandinavian animal names—wolf, bear, eagle—Ulf, Bjorn, Arne. They
mean
something.”

“They can be hard to live up to,” she said, picking up the train to practice. “Better to be John or William.”

Somerset House and its courtyard were filling with the four hundred people who would make up the procession. Indoors the councillors, nobles, bishops, French ambassador, ladies of honor, household officials, judges, and law officers took their assigned places; outside a vast throng of clerks, chaplains, sergeants at arms, Gentlemen Pensioners, harbingers and gentlemen ushers, and footmen waited to line up in the correct position.

My chariot, pulled by two white horses, was covered with a canopy, topped with a replica of my actual imperial crown. I got into it, and Helena followed, gathering up my train to keep it off the street. At a signal the procession began to move, with the harbingers, gentlemen ushers, and heralds walking in front. Nearly all the rest followed in their wake, and then I set out in the chariot. The Earl of Essex walked behind me, leading my palfrey. It was the place Leicester should have had.

Behind him came the ladies of honor, then the yeomen of the guard.

Slowly, slowly, we made our way down the Strand, past Arundel House, past Leicester House—another sharp reminder of him, it stood dark and deserted now. Then to the entrance of the city, where musicians played atop the gate and I was welcomed by the mayor and alderman in scarlet robes. All the way to St. Paul's the streets were lined with the city companies dressed in blue liveries. The buildings and railings were all hung with blue as well, rippling softly in the breeze. Wild cheers greeted me at every corner. In many ways it was like my coronation day; but in other ways very different.

Besides the obvious contrast in weather—a cold January day, the sun sparkling off the snow, and this warm, overcast November one—the mood was different. Then I was a promise, a hope, an unknown. Now I had made good my promise, and a promise fulfilled is better than a hope. Together my people and I would celebrate that satisfaction.

We reached St. Paul's, and the chariot halted before the west door, where the Bishop of London received us, flanked by the dean and a mass of other clergymen. After a brief prayer, they led us in procession down the aisle of the nave, chanting a litany. On each side of the aisle hung the eleven banners captured from the Armada. All were ragged and stained, a silent testimony to what they had undergone. All had some religious emblem or symbol. But what else could one expect from a fleet that had crosses on its sails?