Elizabeth I (53 page)

Lying in my bed, the small window open for what little air could come in, I would hear them shouting and singing below, on the street. Sometimes the songs were obscene, making me laugh in spite of myself. Sometimes they were pretty, with melodies that lingered in my mind. But more and more what I heard were songs praising the Earl of Essex, heralding him as the people's darling and their hope.

He was indeed ever bold. I remembered “
Dwi yu dy garu di
,” “I love you.” He had said it on that private journey, far, far away from court. But what did he mean? And why had he said it? There was nothing certain about him, nothing you could rely on, and he could turn against you in an instant.

All the court assembled to receive the Earl of Essex in the audience chamber. I wore the gold chain of state bequeathed me by my father. It hung heavily on my breast, the weight of the gold pulling at my neck. But
he
had worn it and never bowed his neck. Neither would I, and may his statecraft be with me now, with the chain to remind me of his presence.

Old Burghley and young Robert Cecil were seated on either side of me, and the rest of the Privy Council on benches flanking us. A long carpet stretched from the door to the base of the throne. Down at the far end a tall figure appeared, long legs outlined against the dark blue of the carpet.

“The Earl of Essex,” a herald announced.

“He may approach,” I said.

Walking slowly, his elegant figure exquisitely dressed in blue and white, the puffy feathers of his hat waving with every step, he came to me. For an instant, while he was still far away, he seemed every handsome courtier I had ever known. But as he came closer, he could only have been himself, the most elusive of them all. My child, my gallant, my adversary.

He fell to one knee, sweeping off his hat. The plumes trembled. The top of his head, with its wealth of hair, gleamed.

“You may rise,” I said, and he did. “Welcome back to England, my lord,” I said. “We have heard reports of your doings but prefer that you tell us all, now.”

He looked around at the arena of his rivals and partisans. The swaggering Raleigh was standing to one side, arms crossed. Admiral Howard sat on the Privy Council bench, and his brother Thomas nearby. Francis Bacon stood quietly, his sharp eyes fixed on him. George and John Carey waited patiently.

“May I begin by the ending, which is, that it was a glorious success! Let me read a list of our achievements.” He unrolled a small parchment. “First, all Philip's war vessels were destroyed, disabled, or driven away. Second, we took all the stores of naval supplies in the warehouses into our possession. Third, the city itself was captured. Fourth, the most prominent citizens are being held for ransom. Fifth, all the merchant ships and their cargoes have been intercepted, so that they will never reach the Indies or Spanish hands. Sixth, we took in a ransom of one hundred twenty thousand ducats for the city itself.”

All eyes were now upon me, for my response. “Spanish loss is not our gain,” I pointed out. “Treasure at the bottom of the ocean does us no good. Much of the plundered goods seem to have disappeared.”

“We have achieved the primary purpose of the mission, which was to inflict insult, damage, and grief on the King of Spain. That we have done. We have thoroughly humiliated him. More is not possible, in the taking of only one city. And if I had had my way, there would have been a seventh prize. We would have held Cádiz instead of torching it, held it as an outpost of England to be a thorn in Spanish flanks, to have a permanent base to interfere with their treasure fleets.”

“It was a foolish idea, and rightly overruled,” I said. “It would have been outrageously expensive to man and maintain, and vulnerable, being fifteen hundred miles away.”

“I humbly disagree, Your Majesty,” he said. “And had my idea been followed about stopping in Lisbon rather than scurrying straight home, we would have been twenty million ducats richer. We missed the treasure fleet by only forty-eight hours, sailing right past it.”

There was something different about him. I tried to make it out. Then I realized—the beard. It had an odd shape. “You have taken on a new fashion, sir,” I said.

Just as I thought it would, the personal comment threw him off. He fingered the beard. “Yes. I grew it on the voyage and have decided to wear it evermore. I call it the Cádiz cut.”

“It looks more like it was chopped off at the bottom,” I said. “So you wish to be identified with Cádiz for the rest of your life? You may think better of that. For we tell you”—and now I rose—“we are most displeased! We invested fifty thousand pounds in this venture, and what do we have? Nothing! A Cádiz beard? Your vile servant Anthony Ashley has made more money than we! For he still has the cash from the stolen diamond, stolen from us, your Queen!”

“I swear to you, whatever money there is is yours!”

“We know well enough there is none left! We have heard about the streets of Cádiz running with wine and oil, the burst sacks of sugar, raisins, almonds, and olives, and the Spanish church bells, armor, hides, silks, carpets, and tapestries loaded onto our ships. But, sir, they have all disappeared!”

“It was a brave and noble venture. It was worthy of Drake,” he insisted.

At the mention of Drake, heads bowed, briefly.

“Drake would never have returned so empty-handed. He never would have dared to come to us with
nothing
.” I drew in a deep breath. “In addition, sir, you have sought in many ways to glorify yourself from this mission, and against our express orders about publication. How dare you disobey us? For as we have authority to rule, so do we look to be obeyed. There will be no general thanksgiving throughout the land”—I shot a look at Whitgift—“and we, ourselves, will publish an authorized version of the mission, drawing on several reports. There is to be none other. And last, we are outraged that, again disobeying our orders, you knighted sixty-seven men on this venture. You hold the office too cheaply, handing it out like ale at a country fair. To be a knight means worthy service and deeds, not simply being your friend. We shall unknight them, by God!”

Robert Cecil leaned over, asking permission to speak. I granted it.

“Your Majesty, I must speak on behalf of the new knights' wives. I think the men themselves would be content, but their wives will make their lives miserable if they must so soon give up being called ‘lady.'”

A ripple of laughter flowed over the room, growing louder and louder.

“You have a good point, as usual,” I said. “Very well. The ladies have done no wrong and should not suffer for the earl's misjudgment.”

Essex's spade-shaped beard was trembling. “Him! Him!” He pointed to Cecil. “While I was away, he beguiled Your Majesty into making him principal secretary, going behind my back.”

Oh yes. There was that matter, as well. “We are astounded that you should accuse him of tricking us, implying that he is not worthy of the office. And, sir, we have heard that you claimed we needed your permission to bestow it.” I was getting angrier and angrier. I touched the gold chain, to steady myself. My father had a temper, but he never let it blind him; he used it to manage others. “If this is untrue, then speak now.”

“I understood that you would make no such appointment.”

“Then it was your own fancy that led you to that understanding.
We
understood that you were to make no knights without merit. We are Queen here and free to choose whom we will to serve us. God's breath, we shall suffer no one ever to have it in his power to command us! And that, sir, is all. You are dismissed.”

His face flushed, he bowed deeply, turned, and walked slowly down the long aisle. Behind him, the court was silent and stunned and then burst into a buzz of conversation. The courtiers spilled out across the carpet, closing his wake like waters refilling a trench.

“Was it necessary to berate him like that?” Old Burghley leaned over to me. “Public shame can make a man an enemy.”

“He'll get over it,” I said quickly, as if to convince myself. He did not seem the sort to hold on to anything—grudges or plans.

“I would not be too sure,” he said. “Do not assume anything, about anyone.”

“Now you sound like Walsingham. Did he not say, ‘There is less danger in fearing too much than in fearing too little'?”

“A wise maxim. God rest him.” Burghley wheezed. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his sweating face. I noticed, sticking out above his gown, how thin, wrinkled, and strained his neck was.

“I've a mind to make him surrender his part of the ransoms for the Spanish prisoners, as a way of restitution for his bungling of the spoils.”

“I would advise against that, Ma'am,” he said.

“He owes it to me!”

“I think in all fairness he did the best he could. The other commanders and he were at odds. Too many commanders is a recipe for failure, or, at the very least, for confusion.”

“Are you questioning my judgment in appointing them? By God, my lord treasurer! Out of either fear or hope of favor you seem to regard my Lord of Essex more than myself!” He had even shaken Burghley's loyalty to me!

Without realizing it, I had raised my voice, and now the Privy Councillors were turning to listen. Burghley frowned, and that irritated me even more. “You are a miscreant! You are a coward!” I said, loud enough that they could hear.

“I am no coward,” he said stoutly. “But there are those who fit that description, and we do well to ensure they fear us and not him.”

In the end, there were two more satisfactions from the Cádiz mission. The aggressive participation of the Dutch in the campaign marked their complete sundering from Spain. I could feel that the money and troops I had committed to their struggle—the drain on my treasury that had begun over a decade ago—had finally paid dividends. It had achieved something, after all. The Protestant Netherlands were a fact now. Spain had lost them forever.

The other satisfaction was that, with the losses from Cádiz, Philip could not repay his loans from the Florentine bankers that autumn. They noted, “
Il re di Spagna è fallito
”—“The Spanish king is broke”—and a number of banks failed, causing them to say that 1596 was the year they and the King of Spain went bankrupt together.

I
t had happened. The third harvest in a row had failed, and now desolation stalked the land. Belatedly the sun shone, making a bright October, mocking us. It gave cheerful sunshine to the poor begging at city gates, to farmers, their own stores gone, scrabbling in the fields for food. Vagrants roamed the roads, threatening people. Discharged sailors and soldiers from the Cádiz mission loitered everywhere, looking for work and food. With Robert Cecil and George Carey's supervision, the government drew up a plan to provide food for the needy, but it was not nearly enough, for our attempts to buy grain from our Protestant allies had failed. We had no means of distributing it widely, nor enough of our own stored up to alleviate the crisis. Wednesdays and Fridays were declared fast days, but that affected only the rich. The poor were fasting already.

I was at Nonsuch. The days were magnificent, the sun shining as if through a golden glass, bathing the countryside in a mellow, tawny glow. The oaks stood proudly, rustling in their deep oxblood red leaves, not yet fallen, and beneath them darted an occasional fox, its coat matching the leaves. But where I was used to hearing the strains of harvest songs from the fields, there was silence, and the full October moon shone on empty fields.