Elizabeth I (124 page)

W
e were huddled close in the royal box overlooking the chapel, Catherine and I. The seeping cold of winter, with Whitehall being so near the river, ate into our bones.

It was fitting for Advent, the time of preparation for Christmas. Cold and dark. The blue twilight descended early, wrapping us in what seemed continual night, with just a lightening in the sky halfway through the cycle.

Always at Advent, guest preachers—usually renowned for their oratory—were invited to court. This Sunday it was Anthony Rudd, Bishop of St. David's.

He rose up in the pulpit and began preaching on Psalm 82, verses six and seven: “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

“Yea, the princes fall. Where is Nebuchadnezzar? Where even Solomon? They all vanish, shrivel like grass in a hot furnace!”

He looked at the congregation. “If even David met his end, how can you hope to escape? Examine your lives. What if the angel of death appeared tonight?”

He looked around, moving his head slowly from right to left. “Some of you will leave here, go home, lie down to sleep tonight—and not awaken.”

Beside me, Catherine gave a violent shiver. I pulled her closer to me.

“And a ruler has a double responsibility. For the ‘things' a ruler leaves behind are not grain in a barn, or livestock, but the very security of the kingdom. He—or she—has a duty to ensure a smooth passage into another's hands.”

This was too much. I stood up, wrenched open the little privacy shutter that shielded me from the people below, leaned out, and bellowed, “You have preached me a good funeral sermon! I may die when I please!”

Heads swiveled to see me.

“That is enough!” I shouted. “Proceed with the service, which is your main duty!”

Afterward, in my apartments, Catherine divested herself of her layers of cloaks and furs. “I take it you will not invite him again,” she said.

“Indeed. He can depart for Wales and stay there. Impudent cleric.” I hid my disquiet under indignation.

The realm was waiting for my death—my transition—my passage. Bishop Rudd had slapped me in the face with it today. They were holding their breaths, wondering when the scepter would slip from my hands, to be grasped by another. I was well aware that Robert Cecil had a clandestine correspondence with James in Scotland and that one of his stipulations to the Scots monarch had been that he not press me on the succession. Be patient, he had advised. All things come to him who waits. He thought himself so clever, but he was transparent to me. Once a packet had arrived for him from Scotland and been handed to him in my presence. Rather than open it, he sniffed it and declared it had a “strange and evil smell” that might indicate it had been in contact with an infected person. Therefore, he insisted on sending it outside to have it fumigated. It was all I could do not to laugh and say,
When it has been purged of the secret message from James, bring it back in to be read in my presence.

But they were wrong, all of them. I was not like to die soon. There was nothing amiss with me. Nor was I ready. James would have a long wait.

In the meantime, Cecil at his new house on the Strand, Catherine and her husband, the admiral, at Arundel House, and my cousin George Carey in his London townhouse all entertained me in honor of the Christmas season. I was pleased to see the heirs of Burghley and Hunsdon so ensconced in their dwellings, but I enjoyed most of all having the admiral show me his mementos from his victories at sea. Catherine presided by his side but seemed pale and weak. My repeated inquiries as to her health were brushed aside.

Just before New Year's, an old face appeared. John Dee, down from his post at Manchester, presented himself at court.

“My dear magus,” I said, taken aback by the change in him. He looked beaten down, a smaller version of himself. “Your duties at Manchester release you for the holidays?”

He bowed, his long white beard flopping, almost hitting his knees. “They were relieved to see me go,” he said. “I am sure of it.” He straightened. “It has been a tedious few years. They will let me go next year, I am sure of it.”

“We all either die in office, John, or are let go,” I told him. I was not sure which was preferable.

He looked around my privy chamber, his dark eyes taking in every object. “Your Majesty trusts me?”

I laughed. “Have I not let you guide me in crucial things? My coronation date, my future with the French prince—God rest his soul.” François—I still missed him. Missed what I was with him.

“Indeed you have,” he affirmed. “I came because I saw danger for you here. I was consulting the star charts and the glass, and they both told me you must leave Whitehall for Richmond. Death lurks here!”

His surety took me by surprise. He usually softened his warnings. “Indeed?”

“Yes. You must transfer immediately. Do not linger! Whitehall is a death trap for you.”

He was fierce about it. In fact, I had never seen him more committed to a prediction.

“But we have New Year's celebrations planned, and plays for Twelfth Night,” I argued.

“You must not let festivities be an obstacle,” he said. “Just so those eating and feasting are often swept away.”

“John, you are sounding like one of those tedious prophets crying in the wilderness. I will not upset my court by leaving in the middle of celebrations I have invited them to. What talk it would cause! They are already murmuring about that sermon. I will not give them any more food for gossip.”

He crossed his arms, glared at me. “Your stubbornness imperils your precious royal self.”

“It has before, and it will again. But I do not want to cause alarm, and a hasty removal will do just that.”

“I have done my part,” he said. “I can do no more!”

That night I told Catherine, Helena, and the other ladies of the chamber to ready themselves for a move. “As soon as the Twelfth Night play is done, we will depart for Richmond.”

“At night?” Catherine cried in alarm.

“No, but as soon as dawn breaks.” It would be cold then, but I felt impelled to do it. Dee's eyes had frightened me.

Daybreak on January 6 revealed a drizzly mist enveloping the buildings so thickly that I could not see the great gatehouse across the courtyard. The river was invisible, masked by a fog that lay over it like a cloud. Cold gripped the rooms as we passed through them on our way out to the water steps. As our footsteps sounded, they seemed to drum out,
Flee, flee, for your father died here in just such weather.

It was true. My father had kept to his sickbed at Whitehall for three weeks in January, and then, just as the month was about to end, he died. Perhaps Dee had felt that time reverberating, wanting to repeat itself.

“Are you sure you want to transfer now?” asked Helena.

“Yes,” I replied, walking faster. Let me find a plausible reason. “It is warmer there. The heating system at Richmond is better.”

“Perhaps so,” said Catherine, struggling to keep up. “But the fifteen miles of river in between are colder than either palace.”

“We shall bundle up in the royal barge,” I assured her.

Behind them trailed the other ladies of the chamber, as well as Eurwen. I should have sent her back to Wales before the weather turned, but I had promised her a festive Christmas at court. Now it was too late; she would have to come with us to Richmond and wait until spring to return home.

Torches lit our way down the mossy steps to the barge, its oars-men waiting. As we pushed off, I saw the mist swallow Whitehall, obliterating it.

Soon it began to sleet, the icy particles hurling themselves against the windows. We were going with the tide, but still it would take hours to reach Richmond. Suddenly the heaps of furs and heated bricks seemed a pitiful defense against the elements.

Oh, John Dee,
I thought,
are you sure you saw what you saw? This is folly.

Beside me, Catherine began to shiver violently, and everyone huddled together for warmth.

Past Lambeth, then past Barn Elms and Mortlake. I tried to see the little landing at Mortlake, but it was curtained by fog. After Mortlake willows and reeds lined the banks, making lacy patterns. And then the towers of Richmond behind their guarding wall, spires piercing the mist, their vanes glinting. At last.

“Ladies, you have been hardy travelers,” I said. “Soon we will be warm.”

I could not have guessed I would not be warm again.

The dreariest part of the year now commenced—holiday gaieties over, roads iced and dangerous, seas stormy and almost impassable, wood and food carefully husbanded. The court was skeletal. Many courtiers were at home, attending to neglected business. Helena departed for her own family, as they lived nearby.