My Enemy, the Queen (37 page)

It was very romantic and charming, and I had enjoyed the episode. I wondered why I had denied myself so long.

They left the next day, Leicester taking his farewell of the Queen and placing himself at the head of the party which also contained my lover and my son.

I heard later that they were lavishly entertained at Colchester, and the following day went to Harwich, where a fleet of fifty sail was waiting to take them across to Flushing.

Robert wrote to me in great exultation, telling me of the tumultuous welcome he had received everywhere, for the people regarded him as their savior. At Rotterdam, where it was dark when the fleet arrived, Dutchmen lined the bank, every fourth man holding aloft a fiery cresset. The crowds cheered him and he was taken through the market place to his lodging, where a life-size statue of Erasmus had been erected. From Rotterdam he had gone to Delft, and there he lodged in the very house where the Prince of Orange had been murdered.

he celebrations,he wrote, rew more splendid as I passed through the country. Everywhere I was regarded as their savior.

The people, it seemed, had suffered greatly for their religion and, being in dread of defeat from the Spaniards, saw the coming of Leicester with money and men from the Queen of England as their great hope.

He had gone there to command an army, but there was no fighting at this stage. It was all celebration and what Leicesterand Englandere going to do for the country. I had been somewhat surprised when the Queen had chosen Leicester for this task as he was a politician not a soldier; he had a way with words not swords. I wondered what would happen when the fighting started.

But he had his triumph first. For several weeks the revelry continued, and then came the great moment of decision. He wrote to me at once, for this was something he could not keep to himself.

t was on the first day of January when a deputation was making its way to my lodging. I was not dressed and while my toilet was being completed one of my men told me that the ministers had come to say something to me. They were going to offer me the Generalship of the United Provinces. I was uneasy, for the Queen had sent me to fight for them and with them, not to govern them; and attractive as such an offer was, I could not accept it without consideration.

I pictured him, his eyes gleaming. Was it not what he had wanted? He had been the Queen man for so long. Like a little dog on a chain, I had once gibed. y sweet little creature, let me pet you and you may only go as far as the chain by which I hold you will allow you to.

What it must have meant to him to be offered the crown of the Netherlands!

I turned back to his letter.

made no answer and continued to consider the matter. You will be pleased to hear that I have made Essex General of the Horse. I spent much time listening to sermons and singing psalms, for these are a people who take their religion very seriously. Now I must tell you that I have discussed this matter with the Queen secretary, Davison, who is here, and with Philip Sidney and they are both of the opinion that I must satisfy the people by accepting the offer. So, my dearest Lettice, I am now Governor of the United Provinces.

There was a later note.

have been installed at The Hague. I wish you could have seen this impressive ceremony. I sat beneath the arms of the Netherlands and England, on a chair of state, and all about me were representatives from the principal states. Thanks were given to the Queen and to me, the Lieutenant General, now Governor of the United Provinces. I took the necessary oath and swore to protect them and work for their good and that of the church. How I wish you were here! You would have been proud of me.

ow, my dear Lettice, I want you to join me. Remember you come here as a queen. You will know how to do that. We shall live here and you will no longer be in exile as you call it. I long to see you.

I read and reread that letter. I was to go as a queen. I should be royal as she was, and beautiful as she never could be. Life was going to be exciting. I was exultant. What would she say, what would she do, when she heard that I was going to the Netherlands as Leicester Queen?

I lost no time in beginning my preparations. I would go as a queen. I would be more splendid than Elizabeth had ever been.

So at last I was coming to my triumph. I was realizing what it meant to be Leicester wife. I should be Queen with no one to command me, and if it must be at The Hague instead of Greenwich and Windsor, what cared I?

Merchants came to Leicester House with the finest materials that existed. I planned my wardrobe with frantic haste and the seamstresses were busy night and day. I ordered coaches with the arms of the Netherlands entwined with those of Robert. I designed rich ornaments for myself, my companions and even the horses. I had decided to take a company of ladies and gentlemen with me. The cavalcade which rode to Harwich would excite the people of the countryside because they would never have seen anything so splendid before. What I would show them would be a hundred times more rich, more luxurious than anything the Queen had ever possessed.

Those were exciting weeks. I longed to begin my journey.

One February day, when I was in the midst of these preparations, I heard that William Davison, the Queen secretary, who had accompanied Robert to the Netherlands, had arrived at Court to give the Queen a full account of what had happened.

Robert Governor of the United Provinces! Accepting such an office without consulting her! Taking a post which meant his living out of England! Her rage was terrible, said those who saw it.

Someoneho must have liked to ferment troubleentioned that Robert Countess was also preparing to join him with the state of a queen.

How she swore! They said that her father never surpassed her in that. She swore by God blood that she would teach Leicester and his She-Wolf a lesson. So they were playing at King and Queen, were they? She would teach them that royalty was not something to be taken up by commoners, simply because they were misguided enough to think themselvesrroneouslyworthy of it!

She sent Heneage off at once. He was to go to Leicester and tell him he must arrange another ceremony. And in this he would give up his governorship and tell the people of the Netherlands that he was but a servant of the Queen of England and was now in deep disgrace for having acted without her permission. Then he could come back and kick his heels in the Tower.

Poor Davison was berated and hardly allowed to speak, but after a while she listened and then when her rage had subsided a little she must have thought of the humiliation she was imposing on Robert and modified her judgment. He would, of course, give up the governorship, but it must be relinquished in a manner which would bring the least humiliation. But he must not think she was not furious. She had declared publicly, so that foreign princes might know, that she was determined not to take the Governorship of the Netherlands, and now one of her subjects had snatched it, seeing in it a prize which he could enjoy. It would appear that she had given that permissionor none would believe that a subject could have dared presume so muchand it would be believed that she had broken her word.

s for that She-Wolf,she cried, he can unpack her jewels. She can lay aside her fine gowns. She can give up all thought of riding in glory to The Hague. Instead she can go humbly to the Tower and beseech the privilege of seeing the prisoner, making sure how she conducts herself, lest she find a long stay awaiting her in that place.

Poor Robert! How brief was his glory. Poor me, who had thought to come out of the shadows only to find myself back in them. And the hatred of the Queen grown even more intense towards me, for I knew that she would convince herself that I, not her beloved Robin, had planned and schemed to put myself upon a throne.

After that disastrous Netherlands adventure, none but Robert could have survived. I had always known he was no soldier. He would have been wonderfully impressive during those parades through the streets. I could picture him at the ceremonies; but it was a very different matter when it came to facing the experienced and ruthless Duke of Parma, who could not be expected to stand aside while Robert indulged himself and the people with great spectacles.

It was a great blow when Parma struck where it was least expected and took the town of Grave, which Robert had thought to be well fortifiednd afterwards that of Venlo.

The wrath of the Queen added to his difficulties, for no money was coming from England for the soldierspay and the officers were quarreling among themselves. Robert told me much later of the nightmare he lived through and how he never wanted to see the Netherlands again.

The entire campaign was a disaster, and for us there was a personal tragedy.

I was very fond of the Sidney family, and Philip was the favorite of us all. Mary, his mother, and I had become friendly since we were both exiles from Courthe voluntarily and I most reluctantly. She still wore a fine veil over her face and rarely went to Court although the Queen continued to welcome her and respect her desire for privacy in her own apartment in the royal residences.

In May I had news from Mary that her husband health was worsening. He had been ailing for some time and had refused to rest; so it was not surprising to hear soon after that he was dead. I went to Penshurst to be with her, and I was glad I did, for in August, Mary herself died. Her daughter, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, came to Penshurst to be with her mother at the end, and we deplored the fact that Philip was with the armies of the Netherlands and could not be present.

It seemed a blessing in a way that Mary Sidney should die before the great tragedy befell her, for I knew her feelings well enough to understand that what was about to happen would be the cruelest blow of her life.

It was September month after the death of Lady Sidneywhen Leicester decided to attack Zutphen.

The story of what happened was pieced together afterwards, but it is one of recklessness and heroism, and I often think that if Philip had been more realistic and less knightly it need never have happened.

A series of incidents led to what followed. When he left his tent he fell in with Sir William Pelham, who had forgotten to put on his leg armor. Foolishly, Philip said that he must not have an advantage over a friend and discarded his own. It was a ridiculous gesture for which he paid a high price, for later, during the action, a bullet struck his left thigh. He was able to remain on horseback, but suffered greatly from loss of blood and, surrounded by his friends, he cried out that he was dying of thirst rather than loss of blood. A water bottle was thrust into his hands, but just as he was about to drink he saw a dying soldier on the ground who called feebly for water.

ake it,said Philip in words which have become immortalized. hy necessity is greater than mine.

He was carried to Leicester barge and taken down to Arnhem and lodged in a house there.

I called on his wife, Frances, and found her, although heavily pregnant, preparing to leave. She said she must go to him, for he would need careful nursing.

n your condition, you are unfit,I told her; but she would not listen, and her father said that since she was of such a determined mind he would not stop her.

So Frances went to Arnhem. Poor girl, her life had not been such a happy one. She must have loved him, though. Who could help loving Philip Sidney? Perhaps Frances knew that the love poems he wrote to my daughter Penelope were not to be taken as a slight to herself. There were not many women who would have accepted such a situation but Frances was an unusual woman.

Philip suffered acute agony for twenty-six days before he died. I knew his death would be a great blow to Robert, who had looked upon him as a son. His gifts, his charm, everything about Philip had been of such a nature to win admiration, and he was not one to inspire envy as men such as Robert, Heneage, Hatton and Raleigh did, for Philip was not ambitious. He was a man possessed of rare qualities.

I heard that the Queen grief was intense. She had lost her dear friend Mary Sidney, whom she had always loved, and now Philip, whom she had so much admired, was dead.

The Queen hated war. She declared it to be senseless and to bring no good to any. All her reign she had sought to elude it, and now she was thrown into depression because of the loss of her dear friends and the ever more closely encroaching threat from Spain, which this rash and foolish adventure in the Netherlands had done nothing to ward off.

Philip body was embalmed and he was brought home on a ship the sails of which were black and which was therefore called the Black Pinnance; and in the following February there was a memorial service for him in St. Paul Cathedral.

Poor Frances had already been delivered of a stillborn child, which perhaps was to be expected after all she had endured.

Leicester came back to England, for the winter was no time for military campaigns, and with him came my son Essex.

First Leicester went to Court. There would have been trouble if he had not, and his position was precarious. I could imagine his misgivings when he presented himself to his royal mistress. Essex came to me. He was very upset by the death of Philip Sidney, and he wept as he told me that he had been at his deathbed.

nobler man never lived,he cried, nd now he is dead. He was pleased that the Earl of Leicester was with him. There was a deep love between those two, and my stepfather was in great grief at his passing. Philip left me his best sword. I shall treasure it always and hope I shall be worthy of it.

He had seen poor Frances Sidney brave woman, he said, for she had been in no fit condition to cross the sea. He would do all he could to help her, for that was what Philip would have wished.

After reporting to the Queen, Leicester came to me. The latest adventure had aged him, and I was shocked by his appearance. He had had a return of the gout and was weighed down with depression by the manner in which the adventure had turned sour.

He talked to me earnestly: od be praised the Queen has not withdrawn her favor from me. When I came to her and knelt, she made me rise and she looked at me earnestly with tears in her eyes. She saw that I had suffered much, and she said that I had been a traitor to her. But what hurt her most was that I had been a traitor to myself, for I had wantonly ignored my health when I knew that the care of that was the first command she gave me. Then I knew that everything was forgiven.