Elizabeth I (17 page)

Walsingham died three days later. He was buried at night, for fear that his creditors would take advantage of his funeral to demand their payments. It was not fitting. As I said, if England had the money, a loyal servant would not meet such an end, but retire rich and fat. Those who served me paid a high price. I hoped heaven could reward them in the fashion I could not.

I
was concerned about Frances. My glimpse into her diary and her love-smitten sighs over Essex alarmed me. To be in love with Essex was a recipe for misery for someone like her. He held a high title and would doubtless make a marriage only from the ranks of his equals. And he was a womanizer, a man who enjoyed women's company overmuch. Like others of his sort, he was able to convince his quarry that his interest was genuine and singular. Obviously he had inherited this talent from his mother. It was no place for a girl like Frances to venture. The sooner she realized it, and, in self-preservation, stamped on her feelings for Essex, smothered them like a dangerous campfire, the better for her.

Was it my business to find a husband for the fatherless, dowryless girl? Did I owe my faithful Walsingham that? And was it my business to call Essex off, tell him to cease teasing Frances?

I disliked meddling in people's private lives. As Queen, I knew I had the prerogative, which is another reason I avoided it. It built up resentment, and to what end? It served no ultimate purpose.

I was debating this one fine May morning, sitting glumly at my desk, when Marjorie came to me and said, “Your Majesty, there is important news.” She waited for me to look up, then said, “Frances Walsingham has married the Earl of Essex.”

“What?” was all I could say. Then: “When?”

“Supposedly—although I don't know for certain—they married right after, or even before, Walsingham died.”

“Secretly!” Oh, she was a clever girl, cleverer than I had given her credit for.

But my original feelings were not altered. He would not make her happy. She was no fit mate for Essex, who would need a fiery and strong woman to balance him. I had a chill thought: Had he married her because she was Sir Philip Sidney's widow, and Sidney had bequeathed his sword to Essex? Surely he did not feel duty bound, in an Old Testament sense, to take on his relict wife as well?

“This is a tragedy for them both,” I said. “I need to speak to Essex. Summon him here.”

We met in the privacy of my inmost chamber. I was sitting when he arrived. I did not rise. He knelt before me. I let him remain there a long time before granting him leave to stand.

“Well, Essex, what have you to say for yourself? Marriage is for life. I have heard of some yeomen having the same wife for fifty years. Is that what you want—to have Frances Walsingham your wife forever?” He had already made quite a name for himself among the ladies of the court. His amorous eyes roved everywhere. He far outdid his stepfather. “You must be faithful to her, if I allow this marriage. How like you that?”

His expression revealed that he had not expected this demand. So, he sought to both be chivalric and wed his dead hero's widow but to pleasure himself among more sensual, obliging ladies.

“I bow before Your Majesty's wisdom and request,” he said, his head still bowed.

“Think carefully,” I said. “I am the Virgin Queen and, regardless of rough humor in some quarters and abroad, I know I am what I claim to be. From that purity and that virginity I draw my power. I do not tolerate deviations in my court. Do you wish to remain in my service? For I am willing to grant you leave to retire to the country, along with your mother.”

“Oh, I do wish to serve you!” he cried. “Oh, pray, do not cast me aside! I want to be the knight in your livery!”

He looked so earnest, standing there: straight and keen eyed.

“You are no longer Galahad, that purest of knights,” I told him. “There was a time when I saw you as such.”

“That was Sir Philip Sidney,” he said.

“Bah!” Before I could stop myself, it was out. “His death was a waste!”

Essex went white. I had uttered a sacrilege. “It was noble! ‘My need is greater than thine'—when he gave his water to another suffering knight!”

“Oh, you're a fool, Essex!” That came out, too, before I could stop it. “He had no business being there at all. The entire campaign to help the Dutch was mismanaged. He should never have left his leg armor off. He should not have given his water to another. It was all posturing!” There, I had said it.

“You strike at the foundation of my values,” he said. “All that I believe in, you lay the ax to its roots.”

“So you married Frances in order to feel noble? Very well then, feel noble. That will be your reward. Do not expect any other.”

He bowed his head again. I could see that he was shocked. He had expected applause and reward for his chivalric duty. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Absent yourself from court for a while,” I said.

He opened his mouth to complain but shut it again.

He was gone. The foolish boy—his head all aswim with the flattery of having Frances swoon over his shirts, no doubt, and his perceived death duty to his dead friend. I shook my head; this jolt had certainly awakened me. But the lingering miasma of memories of Leicester now intertwined themselves, like smoke, around the living Robert Devereux, his stepson. Why did I care what he did? My own motives became suspect to me.

I needed to leave this stuffy chamber. A ride out in the countryside promised to be just the thing. No one could talk to me while I was galloping across fields.

Marjorie rode with me, as did my guards, but in essence I was alone. We left the environs of London behind swiftly once we had passed beyond Moorfields, those open fields lying outside the Moor Gate where laundresses stretched out their drying sheets on hooks and mischievous boys practiced archery.

This May the plowed fields were already springing with wheat. In wild meadows, the bluebells were in bloom, waving bravely. The air was clear and fresh, scented with flowering hawthorn from the hedgerows.

Robert Devereux's face as he pleaded his case floated before me as I galloped along. His big brown eyes, his newly sprung beard, his bluster and bravado all made him seem younger rather than the mature man he would claim to be. He was—how old? Twenty-two this past autumn. At twenty-two I had still been playing the dutiful subject of my tyrannical sister, subject to house arrest and constant vigilance that my slightest word might not be misinterpreted. By God! What luxury young Essex had. He did not have to worry that he would lose his life for a wrong answer!

We rushed under a low-hanging oak branch, and I ducked. Out on the other side, open fields beckoned. We emerged out of the shadows and into the bright sunshine.

Essex, Essex—what drove him? He was the last of an old breed of man—feudal, noble, seeking glory for its own sake. It stirred me in some ways, for I, too, was of an older time. My father had sought battlefield recognition on the fields of France, even when he was near to death, so incapacitated and swollen with his mortal illness he had to be lifted onto his horse with a hoist.

But the truth was that military commands, and heroes, had not held much political sway in a century in England. Essex had come too late. His time had passed him by.

My horse tired, and I felt his pace slackening. I would not urge him past his capacity, and so I pulled him up. I had finished thinking, in any case. What else was there to consider? Only what place I would give Essex. I would await his actions before deciding.

Marjorie reached me and halted by my side. She was panting, and her horse was lathered. “No one can keep up with you!” she said. Then our grooms pulled up as well, and we all rested.

The fields spread out around us. In the stillness of midday, only butterflies were stirring—small white ones flitting from row to row. In the distance a village nestled in a hollow, shaded by trees planted long ago. I could see a maypole sticking up like a finger on its outskirts. The old ways, the old customs. I felt a great pang at the rate at which they were disappearing.

“Come,” I said to Marjorie and my companions. “A maypole. Let us go see!”

T
he rain kept falling, as it had for the past two days. Farmers were glad of it after our dry spell, I was sure, but their concerns were far from pressing to me. I wanted juicy pears and cherries as much as anyone else, but without the money to pay for them, I could not have them grace my table, for all that they grew in the orchards. Money. Money. What did my dear father like to quote from Proverbs? “The wealth of the rich is their fortified city.” Puritans knew how to keep one eye on the practicalities of life, while keeping the other on the Scriptures.

Frances started to enter the room, then saw me and backed out. I could barely stand the sight of her, she who had wrecked the ship of our possible fortune. I was trying to master my feelings, but they must still show. It was not her fault, and I should not resent her. No, it was my son's!

He was, wisely, hiding from me. Ever since he had slunk back here with his bride, he had avoided being alone with me. A week now. They had been here a week, and then this wretched rain started. Turning away from the doorway, so Frances would not know I had seen her, I stared out at the dripping trees and the misty fields. The oak leaves had lost their bright new color and were halfway to their summer size; water ran off their scalloped edges and splattered on the ground.

Robert had made a gross misstep in marrying Frances Walsingham. Elizabeth was furious, sending them both from court. It was hideously like what had happened eleven years ago when I married Leicester. I thought all that would be put behind us, that Robert would work patiently to restore our fortunes. What if Elizabeth banished him forever? But no, that could not be. If he had betrayed her by marrying without her consent, I, his mother, was doubly betrayed. For he was meant to be our deliverance.

A particularly big gust of wind hit the trees, swaying them and slapping their branches against the window. Just then I saw Robert dashing between them, ducking down to protect himself. A moment later he stumbled into the hall, soaked. Thinking himself alone, he stamped the water off and shook out his hat.

“Don't spray water all over the chest!” I barked.

Startled, he dropped his hat to the floor.

“And not on the carpet, either!”

Sheepishly, he bent down to retrieve it. “I beg pardon,” he said.

“And well you should,” I replied. “When you have changed your clothes, you shall come to me in the solar.”

He was caught at last.

Now he stood before me in the warmest room in the house, while the rain lashed outside. I stood looking at him for a moment, trying to see him not as a mother but as a stranger would. His physical presence was so commanding. He also had a sweetness of nature that revealed itself only after one had been in his presence for a while. On first and second impressions he won hearts. Oh, he had been gifted in all things, my son. The gods must be laughing at us.