My Enemy, the Queen (13 page)

When visitors came to Chartley I heard scraps of newsery often about the Earl of Leicester, who continued to dominate life at Court, and to these I listened avidly. He was still in high favor with the Queen, and the years were passing. It seemed unlikely now that Elizabeth would ever marry. She had recently flirted with the idea of taking the Duc dnjou, but like all her previous proposed matches, it came to nothing; and she would soon be forty, which was a little old for childbearing. Robert was still her favorite man, but no nearer to marrying her than he had ever been. And with each passing year the possibility must be becoming more and more remote.

There were uneasy rumors about certain amours of his. It was hardly to be expected that a man like Leicester would be prepared to be dangled on a string forever. I heard that two ladies of the Court (one of these was Douglass, wife of the Earl of Sheffield, and the other her sister, Lady Frances Howard) were both enamored of him and vied with each other for his attention.

e likes them both well enough,said my informant, a visitor from Court who stayed a night or two at Chartley on his way North, and he added with a sly smile: ut the Queen has noted their follies and she likes them not.

Certainly she would not like it if they were involved with Leicester. I expected their dismissal would soon come as mine had. I was surprised to discover that I could still be jealous. I remembered hearing it said that there was something fascinating about the Howard women. Anne Boleyn was a Howard through her mother; Catherine Howard, who had been Henry VIII fifth wife, had possessed that same attraction. Poor girl, it had cost her her head, though if she had been a little more subtle she might have saved it. They were not subtle, though, these Howards. They were attractive to men because they had need of them; but they were not calculating enough to take advantage of their assets.

I was now avid for news, and I asked myself how I could ever have thought I had ceased to be concerned with Robert Dudley. I knew very well that I only had to meet him again and I should be as eager for him as I ever was.

I asked my visitor what he knew about the Douglass Sheffield and Frances Howard matter.

h,he told me, umor has it that Lady Sheffield became Leicester mistress when they were both staying at Belvoir Castle.

I could picture it. The affair would progress rapidly as mine had, for Robert was a very impatient man and as the equivocation of the Queen drove him to distraction he would not want to endure similar frustration from other quarters.

he story goes,went on our visitor, hat Leicester had written a love letter to Douglass in which he recklessly said he deplored the existence of her husband, thus implying that he would have married her if she had not already been a wife. Then, they say, came the hint that Sheffield might not long be there to plague them.

I gasped in horror. urely he could not have meant

fter the death of his wife there have been rumors about him. The silly Douglassut perhaps she was not so silly and intended it to happenropped the letter on her return home, and it was found by her sister-in-lawho had little love for hernd promptly showed it to the cuckolded husband. They parted beds that night and Sheffield went off to London to arrange a divorce. He had the letter, you see, with what might be construed as a threat against his life considering the direction it came from.

ll men in the public eye are envied and slandered.I found myself fervently defending Robert. nd surely there never was one more so than the Earl of Leicester.

ell, you see, he has this Italian physician.

ou mean Dr. Julio.

o he is called. He is in truth Giulio Borgherini, but people find difficulty in pronouncing his name. He is said to have great knowledge of poisons and to use them in the service of his master.

ou believe this?

He shrugged his shoulders. here was the death of his wife. People will never forget that. They will always remember it when something like this arises.

When he had left us I thought a good deal about Robert. I was bitterly hurt that he should want to marry Douglass Sheffield.

Walter came back. He was puffed up with pride because of the Queen approval and had some wild scheme in his head about colonizing Ulster. The Queen had made him a Knight of the Garter and Earl of Essex title which had formerly been in his family through a marriage with the Mandevilles. That it was restored to him was a sign of the Queen great favor.

I was a countess now and should have liked to accompany Walter to Court, but the Queen invitation was clearly for him alone, so I was obliged to remain behind.

When he returned he was full of the latest scandal. As I might have expected it involved Robert Dudley.

hey say,he told me, hat the Earl of Sheffield, having discovered that his wife had betrayed him with Leicester, decided to seek a divorce. Imagine the scandal that would have meant. I doubt it would have pleased Her Majesty.

s she still as enamored of him as ever?

learly so. She is peevish when he is not at her side and it is a marvelhe manner in which her eyes follow him around.

ell me about the Sheffield scandal.

nnecessary now. He died.

ied!

h yes, just at the right moment to avoid the scandal. It not difficult to imagine the Queen wrath if she had known Leicester was philandering with Lady Sheffield.

ow did he die?

hey say poison.

hey always say these things.

ell, he is dead and that means that Leicester will sleep easy at night.

nd Lady Sheffield has he married her?

e heard nothing of marriage.

hat is Lady Sheffield like?

Walter shrugged his shoulders. He never noticed what a woman looked like. He was more interested in politics than private lives, and it was only due to Leicester position in the country that he considered his love affairs for a moment; they were only important because they might alienate him from the Queen.

Walter was more concerned with a plot to marry Norfolk to the Queen of Scots, which Lady Scrope had possibly set in motion when she was with her husband at the time he was guarding Mary with my father.

Norfolk had always been a fool. He had already been married three times and all his wives had died. He was in his thirties, and no doubt the reputation of the Queen of Scots enthralled him. She was reckoned, after all, to be one of the most fascinating women of the day, and she had had three husbands to match Norfolk three wives. Doubtless the foolish fellow thought it would be rather intriguing to be a queen consort. So the plot went on. Norfolk professed to be a Protestant, but at heart he was a Catholic. I expect that he imagined he could one day be King of England in all but name. He could never forget that his family was of higher rank than the Tudors.

It was not a secret plan, and when it reached the Queen ears she sent for Norfolk, and those present at the meeting read in it a stern warning to Norfolk.

The Queen had said that it had come to her ears that Norfolk was eager to change his title of Duke for King.

Norfolk must have been so shaken with those big tawny eyes on him that he denied this. He stammered that the Queen of Scots was an adulteress and suspected of murder, and he was a man who liked to sleep on a safe pillow. When the Queen replied that some men might be ready to take risks for the sake of a crown, Norfolk replied that he was as good a prince in his bowling alley in Norfolk as she was in the heart of Scotland. A rather dangerous remark for the same might have been said of Elizabeth at Greenwich. He then plunged further into danger when he said that he could not marry the Queen of Scots knowing that she pretended to the crown of England, and that if he did so Queen Elizabeth might charge him with seeking the crown of England.

The Queen retorted tartly that she might well do so.

Poor foolish Norfolk! He must have signed his death warrant in that moment.

It was surprising to heargain through visitors from the Court hat the Earl of Leicester had oddly enough forgotten the enmity between himself and Norfolk and placed himself on the Duke side. Heaven knew what was in Robert mind, but I grew to discover that he could be as devious as Elizabeth herself. I believe now that he was afraid Elizabeth would diehe was often ill and on several occasions since her accession her life had been believed to be in dangernd if she did, Mary Stuart would come to the throne.

Robert was a man who could appear courteous and gentle outwardly while he was planning murder. Always to the forefront of his mind would be his own advantage. While he decided to support Norfolk he told him that he would arrange a meeting with Elizabeth so that he could present the case to her.

In view of his previous conversation with the Queen, Norfolk should have known better. Elizabeth, no doubt primed by Robert, for it would be characteristic of him to place one foot in each camp, nipped Norfolk proposition in the bud, before he was able to begin to explain the advantages of a match between himself and Mary, taking his ear between her thumb and forefinger and pinching it so hard that he flinched.

would wish you,she said, o take good heed of your pillow.

She was reminding him of his observation that he liked to sleep on a safe one and telling him as clearly as she could that the one he was proposing to take would lead him to another kind of pillow block of wood on which he might rest his head until the ax descended to sever it from his body.

Norfolk heart must have quailed, for he fell on his knees, vowing that he had no desire for marriage, only to serve her.

Unfortunately for him he was not speaking the truth, and as it came out afterwards when he received secret communications from the Queen of Scots, he was soon once again deep in the intrigue to marry her and rescue her from captivity.

Walter was immersed in his plans for Ulster, but when he went to Court he did hear a little of what was happening in those circles. He was disturbed because the Catholic threat to England was growing and the Queen refusal to marry complicated it. While she lived, the country was safe for Protestantism, but if she died it could be plunged into war. He told me that ministers were constantly discussing the seriousness of a situation in which the succession was insecure, a fact which left England very vulnerable, particularly with the Queen of Scots actually in captivity in the country. Walter secretly agreed with this and told me that even Leicester had joined those who supported the plan for Norfolk to marry Mary Queen of Scots, so that she could be assured of an English husband. He could then make a Protestant of her, and if Elizabeth were to die and Mary inherit the throne, the religion of England would not change.

William Cecil was against such a marriage, but there were many influential men in the country who would have been pleased to see Cecil deposed. As Leicester had joined the plotters he was chosen to explain to the Queen the danger in which Cecil was placing the country. His present policy was alienating those influential Catholic countries, France and Spain, and to placate them it might be necessary to send Cecil to the block.

I heard from several sources what had happened at that meeting of the Council and never had the Queen shown her true nature so openly as she did on that occasion. I could picture her clearly. Her greatness must have been evident as she faced those schemers. The ax for Cecil! She broke out into a torrent of abuse for all those round that table who had dared suggest such a thing.

She reminded them that these were not the days of her father when ministers were sent to the block to make way for others. Cecil was against the marriage of Mary of Scotland and Norfolk, was he? They should know that Cecil mistress agreed with him, and they should be well advised to watch their actions, lest they find themselves in that position into which they were trying to hustle Cecil. She would like them to inform their friend, the Queen of Scots, that if she did not take better care of them, some of her friends might find themselves shorter by a head.

When Walter discussed this with me, I said that I supposed they would drop their plan to remove Cecil now, but he shook his head and hinted that they might be conspiring against him in secret.

I was a little afraid then because I knew that Robert was involved, and I wondered what would happen if the Queen discovered that he was working against her. His treachery would be a thousand times worse than that of anyone else. I could not understand myself. I had wanted revenge on him for what he had done to me. I had often, overwhelmed by my young bitterness declared o myself, of coursehat I should like to see him dismissed from Court as I had been. And now, here I was, worried because he was in acute danger.

But even though he was deeply involved with the conspirators, I might have known he would find a way out. I heard the story in snatches: How news had come to the Queen that Robert was dying and how she left everything to go to his bedside. She loved him. There was no doubt of that and I think that hers was a more abiding passion than that which Mary of Scotland ever had for Bothwell. With Mary it had been that irresistible physical attraction which had overwhelmed her so that she had bartered her crown for it; but she never had for him that enduring devotion which Elizabeth felt for Robert. Elizabeth simply wanted her throne more than she wanted Robert. But she loved him all the same.

He was relying on that affection to extricate him from a very dangerous situationnd it worked.

I could well imagine that pathetic bedside scene, with Robert lying there enacting the deathbed scene with great panache. All her love would have flowed to the surface. She could be so loyal to those whom she loved, just as she could never forgive those whom she hated.

I could picture Robert account of his devotion to her. How he feared for her and had been led to believe that it was best for Elizabeth that Mary should marry Norfolk. And that was the reason why he had given his support to the plan solely out of love for her and now he could not forgive himself for acting without her knowledge, although he had done it out of his concern for her. He was clever with women. He knew how to give just the right amount of flattery; he was very artful with the artless comment. It was small wonder that so many women loved himnd Elizabeth was one of the many.