Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (75 page)

“You are mad,” he said quietly, “quite mad, if you think I will be

party to such an arrangement.”

She sighed wearily. “Is your pride to be greater than mine? If I can

live with your wife, surely you can live with my husband. Bend a little,

Robin—think of the child.”

“Oh, God, if that’s all!” he burst out suddenly. “How can you

delude yourself like this? Christ, you’re forty-five—the chances of your

conceiving a first child at your age must be virtually nonexistent.”

Her eyes narrowed into blazing slits of hostility. She could forgive him

his marriage, even his physical assault on her, but that blow to her insane

vanity was beyond the pale.

She was Queen again now, as taut and dangerous as a baited cat.

“You’ll be sorry for that,” she said, and flinging her cloak around her

shoulders she turned to go.

“Why?” He barred her path to the door and caught her arm. “Because

I’m the only man in England who dares to cross your will and tell you

what you don’t wish to hear?”

“Get out of my way—I was mad to come here! If you don’t want your

son to sit on the throne of England that’s your loss, but mine will. I shall

marry the Duke of Alençon and fill my womb with or without your aid.”

“Not while I live,” he said furiously. “Not after tonight.”

She laughed in his face.

“You honestly think you can stand against me in this? Do so, if

you dare!”

“Oh, I’ll dare.” There was a note of deadly, acid calm in his voice

now. “I’ll break your world in two like an apple before I stand by and see

you marry another man. Leave me alive now and I’ll split the Council,

the court, and the whole country on the issue. By God, I’ll make things

so hot you’ll think you already burn in hell!”

“So be it!” She inclined her head curtly and there was silence, as after

the formal challenge that precedes a duel.

She walked out of his room as an enemy; and from that moment on

they were truly at war.

t t t

436

Legacy

“Burghley!”

Halfway across the room, the Lord Treasurer turned back slowly to

her desk and looked at her curiously.

“I have something to tell you and you had better sit down, it’s going

to come as a shock.”

He sat down and looked at her in sudden alarm.

“Your Majesty?” he prompted cautiously, as she rose and wandered

away from him uneasily.

“This French marriage—I intend to make it.”

His mouth fell open, surrounded by a snow-white beard.

“But Your Majesty said—”

“Never mind what I said. I’ve changed my mind,” she retorted sharply.

“It’s a woman’s privilege, isn’t it?”

He gave her a quick, suspicious glance, as though wondering whether

this was another of her jokes, and read the steely determination in her

eyes with a mixture of elation and concern. He got up stiffly and groped

for her hand.

“Do you really mean this, madam?”

“Am I in the habit of saying things I don’t mean?” she snapped and then,

as suddenly, burst out laughing. “No—don’t answer that. Just bear in mind

what I have told you and see the negotiations are conducted accordingly.

We can expect opposition in Council from—from a certain quarter. I shall

expect you to overrule it and guide the final verdict. Do you understand?”

He nodded grimly. It was not going to be easy.

“I shall do my best, Your Majesty.”

“I don’t want your best, Burghley—I want my own way. And I expect

you to see that I get it.”

“Yes, madam,” he muttered.

“That’s all. You may go now,” she said curtly and turned away.

t t t

Alençon arrived at Greenwich shortly after dawn on an August morning

which promised to be sultry. He was bundled unceremoniously into

Simier’s bed, still wearing doublet and hose, where he promptly fell

asleep after his trying journey. Simier settled in the early morning light to

scribble a note to the Queen, telling her how narrowly he had restrained

the Duke from bursting into her bedchamber.

437

Susan Kay

“…with great difficulty I got him to bed at last—” Simier eyed the

sleeping lad with an ironical eye—“and I would to God you were with

him there as he could then with greater ease convey his thoughts to you.”

Elizabeth received the note with unsmiling silence. She was in

deadly earnest now and weary of exchanging indelicate innuendoes

with Simier—when this business was concluded it would give her great

pleasure to send the French ape packing.

It took the Ladies of the Bedchamber two hours to array their mistress

for the first meeting and they were in a fine twitter of nerves as they

fastened the long rope of pearls around the white neck, placed a small

cartwheel ruff beneath the pointed chin, dressed her hair high and

decked it with shimmering diamonds. They watched her stealthily for

some sign of emotion, but she was calm and perfectly composed, her

mood unfathomable.

When Alençon was led before her at length, her eyes smiled and

coolly appraised him at the same time; she looked him up and down

with the same calculating glance she might have given to a stud horse.

She had expected nothing; she was not disappointed; he would serve her

purpose. And at least he was not ugly and hunchbacked, as his enemies

said. Plain and a little short in the leg, but the brown eyes were intelligent

and sophisticated and they rested on her with a flattering look of relief.

Alençon could hardly believe his good luck. He had come with an

air of martyrdom, prepared to marry a vain, middle-aged spinster for the

sake of a crown, in much the same sort of mood as Philip of Spain had

prepared to sacrifice himself in Mary Tudor’s bed. He was pleasantly

surprised by the woman who met his eyes. She was astonishingly well

preserved for her age, tall and elegant with an indefinable air of majesty.

So Simier had not been lulling him with the description he had sent

home in despatches. He edged closer, his critical glance sweeping over

her. The hair was a wig, but wigs were fashionable and worn by much

younger women than the Queen. There was a network of fine lines

around her striking eyes and a slight furrow on the high forehead, the

result of years of terrible decisions and constant anxiety, but she was still

a handsome woman by any count, and he was immediately conscious of

her magnetism. He stayed for twelve days, playing the attentive suitor,

and at the end of those twelve days he was a lost man, raving to Simier

of his good fortune.

438

Legacy

“No delays, Jean. Whatever her terms—agree to them.”

Simier inclined his head dubiously.

“As you wish, my lord.”

“Forty-five,” murmured Alençon, shaking his head in slow disbelief.

“What’s her secret, Jean—does she drink the blood of new-born babies?

They say that works, you know—never fancied it myself, mind.”

Simier turned away abruptly.

“She devours
men
, my lord—and devours them whole.”

“Then I shall be gladly consumed. Get me back as soon as this damned

country will allow, Jean—and when I’m gone, don’t let her forget me.”

All the Duke’s close attendants were aware of the change in their

master. Alençon the rake, the cynic, the irrepressible little egotist, was

behaving like a schoolboy in love for the first time. He wept when he took

his leave of Elizabeth and a shower of passionate letters swamped her in

his wake, enough, remarked the French Ambassador, Mauvissière, to set

fire to water. A superb diamond betrothal ring glittered on her finger and

Elizabeth quietly congratulated herself on uniting pure political gain with

personal ends in a masterly fashion. She had ignored her physical needs

for more than twenty years, allowing the interests of the state to supersede

them, while she squeezed every last ounce of benefit from the marriage

game. She had surmounted the huge emotional obstacle in her path at last

and she felt entitled to a taste of happiness. Now and then in the quietness

of her room she had an odd, uneasy memory of an empty cradle rocking

forlornly in the corner of an empty nursery, but she pushed it aside and

refused to dwell on it. It was absurd to even think of comparing herself

with her sister Mary. There
would
be a child and she would survive its

birth, as she had survived everything else—threat of execution, smallpox,

even poison. Did she not possess the luck of the Devil?

But England refused to share her optimism and the Duke had scarcely

left when the inevitable discontent, vigorously fanned by Leicester and

his associates, broke out in a dangerous outcry. A widely circulated and

intensely loyal pamphlet told her none too politely that though she was

the “crowned nymph of England” she was too old and too delicate to be

thinking of children and that her suitor was no less than the “old serpent

himself” and his advances “unman-like, unprince-like.”

The pamphlet was an open insult to France, and Elizabeth was savage

with anger. There was nothing for it but to reassure the Duke of her

439

Susan Kay

good intentions and she ordered every copy to be seized, condemning

the author and the publisher to suffer the public loss of their right

hands. More cruel and vindictive than anyone had yet seen her, she

declared it a pity the author could not be hanged, and she remained

unmoved when they told her that when the deed had been done he

had promptly pulled off his cap with his left hand and shouted “God

save the Queen.”

She affected to be unconcerned by the incident, but inwardly it had

deeply unnerved her. She woke in alarm for several nights and fancied

that a bloody hand was pulling the fringed coverlet on her bed. Always

profoundly aware of public opinion, she now sensed the need for firm

support from her advisers and in October she formally asked for the

advice of her Council. For twenty years they had begged her to marry,

and she expected them to beg her now, confident that Burghley could

control the divisions in spite of Leicester’s virulent opposition.

The Council sat, and went on sitting in sterile argument on a cold

October day from seven in the morning until eight at night, without stir-

ring from the room to take food or drink or to answer the calls of nature,

until at last five were for the marriage. And seven against it.

For once all Burghley’s elderly, assured leadership seemed to fail him

in the bitter debate and it was as much as he could do to keep an open

verdict. His hostile glance reached across the table and was mirrored in

Leicester’s dark eyes and for a moment it was as though the old wounds of

personal enmity had never healed. The meeting concluded in the general

agreement that the Queen must make her own decision on the issue and

there was a dignified stampede for the privy.

The following morning they waited on the Queen—Burghley, Sussex,

Hatton, and Leicester—a sombre, uneasy little group who knew their

message would not please.

“Well, gentlemen?”

Burghley cleared his throat and stared at the floor. Suddenly he could

not look her in the eye.

“The Council feels that as a whole, madam, it cannot advise you on

this matter.”

“
Cannot
advise me!” She stood up and her steady hawk’s eyes blazed

black and hard. Each councillor felt a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of

his stomach and Leicester’s dark face turned pale and tense.

440

Legacy

“God’s death, you call yourself my Council and dare to come in here

and say you cannot advise me!”

“Madam.” It was Sussex, anxious, trying to avert the storm he saw

gathering. “If the Council only knew your own feelings on the matter—”

She laughed shortly, bitterly, and turned away from him.

“My feelings! Which one among you has ever thought to consider

them? I looked for a unanimous request for me to proceed with the

marriage. You surely will not dare to say you doubt the wisdom of

continuing my father’s line with a child of my own body!”

Their silent, doubting faces looked back at her blankly and she

clenched her hands into fists. How dared they haggle and barter over

her as though she were a barren cow for whom no good price could be

found. Christ’s soul, the insolence—the mealy-mouthed self-righteous

insolence of these little men who surrounded her, whom she had made

and could as easily ruin by lifting one finger. Little men, little men! What

would they be without her?

“I was a fool to ever consult you all in the first place.” There was a

curious, choked sound to her voice as she flung out her hands to them in

despair. “Why am I alone to be denied children? I want a child—is there

no man among you who can understand that?”

Suddenly she began to cry, wild, hopeless sobs that shook her frame

and made her hide her face from them. Instinctively Leicester would have