My Enemy, the Queen (4 page)

In the first place he was one of the tallest men I have ever seen and he emanated power. Power, I believe, is the very essence of attractiveness in men. At least it has always been so with me until I grew older. When I discussed lovers with my sistersnd I did frequently because I knew they would play a big part in my life said my lover would be a man who would command others; he would be rich and others would fear his wrathll except myself. He would fear mine. I realize that in describing the sort of lover I desired, I am in truth describing myself. I was always ambitiousot for temporal power. I never envied Elizabeth her crown, and I was glad that she had it because when the rivalry was strong between us I could prove that I could triumph over her without it. I wanted attention to be centered on me. I wanted to be irresistible to those who pleased me. I was at this time beginning to realize that I was a woman of deep sensual needs and that they would have to be satisfied.

Robert Dudley, then, was the most attractive man I had ever seen. He was very darklmost to swarthiness, his hair growing thick and nearly black; his dark eyes were lively and gave the impression of seeing all; his nose was slightly hooked; his figure was that of an athlete, and he held himself like a king in the presence of a queen.

I sensed the change his arrival created in Elizabeth. Her pale skin was tinged with pink.

Tis Rob,she said, s we might have expected. So you come to us thus unannounced.The soft caress in her voice belied the sharpness of her words, and it was clear that the interruption was by no means unwelcome, clear too that she had forgotten my mother and me.

She held out her beautiful white hand; he bowed as he took it and kissed it, keeping it while his eyes went to her face and by the smile they exchanged I could have sworn they were lovers.

ear lady,he said, made haste to come to you.

ome calamity?she replied. ome, tell me.

ay,he replied, nly the desire to see you which would not be put aside.

My mother hand was on my. shoulder, turning me towards the door. I looked back at the Queen. I had supposed I should wait for permission to retire.

My mother shook her head as she inclined it towards the door. We went out together. The Queen had forgotten us; so had Robert Dudley.

When the door had shut behind us, my mother said: hey say there would be a marriage between them but for the fact that he already has a wife.

I kept thinking about them. I could not forget the handsome, elegant Robert Dudley and the manner in which he had looked at the Queen. I was piqued that he had not cast even one glance in my direction, and I promised myself that if he had I should have made him take a second. I kept seeing him in his white starched ruff, his padded hips, his doublet, his bombasted breeches, the diamond in one ear. I remembered the perfect shape of his legs in their close-fitting hose; he had been garterless because of the symmetry of his legs, which allowed him to dispense with articles so necessary to men less well equipped.

The memory of that first meeting remained in my mind as something I had to avenge, because on that occasion when the triangle was formed neither of them gave a thought to Lettice Knollys whose mother, a short time before, had most humbly presented her to the Queen.

It was a beginning. After that I was often at Court. The Queen had a strong friendly feeling for her mother family even though the name of Anne Boleyn was rarely mentioned. This was characteristic of Elizabeth. There were certain to be many people in the country who doubted her legitimacy. None would dare refer to it, of course, on pain of death, but she was too wise not to accept the fact that it was in their minds. Although Anne Boleyn name was rarely mentioned, the Queen was constantly calling attention to her own resemblance to her father Henry VIII and in fact stressed the similarities whenever possible. As she undoubtedly had a look of him, this was not difficult. At the same time she was always ready to favor her mother relations, as if in that way she might make amends to that forsaken lady. My sister Cecilia and I thus became maids of honor to the Queen and so within a few weeks we were ladies of the Court. Anne and Catharine were too young, but in due course their time would come.

Life was full of excitement. This was what we had dreamed of during the dull years in Germany and I was just of an age to enjoy it.

The Court was the center of the country magnet drawing to it the rich and ambitious. All the great families of the country circulated about the Queen, each vying with the other in magnificence. Elizabeth, at the very heart of it, loved display and extravagances long as she did not have to pay for it; she enjoyed pageantry, gaiety, balls and banquetslthough I noticed that she was abstemious regarding both drinking and eating. But she was fond of music and was tireless where dancing was concerned, and although she danced mainly with Robert Dudley, she did take a fleeting delight in any handsome young man who could dance well. She fascinated me mainly because of the diversity of her character. To see her in some extravagantly glittering gown dancingnd often coquettishlyith Robert Dudley, so that the performance was like the titillating preliminary to an amorous climax, gave an impression of such lightness which in a queen would seem fatal to her future; then she could change suddenly; she would be acerbic, serious, asserting her authority and even then showing men of great talent like William Cecil that she had a complete grasp of a situation and it would be her will that would be done. As no one could be sure when her lighthearted mood would be over, everyone must tread cautiously. Robert Dudley was the only one who overstepped the mark; but I saw her, on more than one occasion, administer a playful slap on his cheek, familiarly affectionate and yet at the same time carrying with it a reminder that she was the Queen and he her subject. I saw Robert take the reproving hand and kiss it, which softened her mood. He was very sure of himself in those days.

It was soon clear that she had taken a liking to me. I danced as well as she did, though none would have dared acknowledge this. At Court no one danced as well as the Queen; no woman gown was as becoming as the Queen; no one beauty could possibly compare with hers; she was supreme in all things. I knew full well, however, that I was spoken of as one of the most beautiful women at Court; the Queen acknowledged this and called me ousin.I had a certain wit too, which I warily tried on the Queen. It did not displease her. She found that she could indulge her Boleyn relations from pleasure as well as duty to her dead mother, and there were frequent times when she kept me at her side. In those first days we, who were to confront each other in such bitterness and with such hatred in the years to come, then often laughed together, and she showed so clearly that she enjoyed my company. But she did not allow mer any other of her pretty ladieso be near her when Robert was with her in her private apartments. I often used to think that the reason she must constantly be told she was transcendingly beautiful was because she was unsure of it. How attractive would she be without royalty? I asked myself. But it was impossible to imagine her without it because it was so much a part of her. I would study my long lashes, my heavily marked brows, my luminous dark eyes and rather narrow face framed in masses of honey-yellow hair and exultantly compare my face with that pale one with its almost invisible lashes and brows, its imperious nose, its white, white skin which made her look almost delicate. I knew that any unprejudiced observer would admit that I was the beauty. But her royalty was there and with it the knowledge that she was the sun and the rest of us merely planets revolving around her, dependent on her for our light. In the days before she had become Queen she had been delicate and had suffered several illnesses during her hazardous youth and had, so we had heard, often been on the point of death. Now she was Queen she seemed to have thrown off these ailments; they had been the growing pains of royalty; but even when she had dispensed with them the pallor of her skin preserved the air of delicacy. When she painted her face, which she loved to do, she lost that look of fragility, but whatever she did, the royalty remained, and that was something with which no woman could compete.

She talked to me more frankly than she did to most of her ladies. I think it was due to the family connection. She enjoyed clothes inordinately and we often talked of them in a most frivolous fashion. She had so many gowns that even the wardrobe women could not be sure of the number; her figure was slender and the fashions which were so hard on plump women became her as well as they could any. She endured tight lacing and the uncomfortable whalebone busks we had to wear because they called attention to the tiny waist; and her ruffs were of gold and silver lace and frequently magnificently jeweled. Even in those days she sometimes wore what we called ead-borrowed hair false pieces to give additional body to her red-gold locks.

I am writing of the days before the Amy Robsart scandal. She was never quite so lighthearted after that, never quite so carefree. In spite of her incessant demand for expressions of wonder at her perfections she was always ready to learn from experience. That was another of the many contrasts which made up her complex nature. She would never chatter so freely to anyone again as she did to me before the tragedy.

I think in those days she really might have married Robert if he had been free; but at the same time I sensed that she was not too unhappy about his previous attachment, which made her marriage to Robert impossible. This I was too naive to realize at the time and I believed that the reason she was pleased he was married to Amy Robsart was solely because that marriage had saved him from an alliance with Lady Jane Grey. But that was too simple an explanation. It was obvious that I had a great deal to learn then about that devious mind.

She talked of him to me and I often smile to recall those conversations now. Even she, with all her power, could not see into the future. He was her weet Robin.She called him fondly her yes,because he was always on the watch for her well-being, she told me. She enjoyed giving pet names to the handsome men who surrounded her. None, though, could compare with her Eyes. We were all certain that she would have married him if he had had no wife, but when that encumbrance was removed she was too wily to step into the trap. Few women would have been as wise. Should I? I wondered. I doubted it.

e were in the Tower together,she told me once, because of Wyatt rebellion, Rob because of the Jane Grey matter. Poor Rob, he always said he had no great feeling for it and that he would have given all he had to see me on the throne.I saw the soft look come into her face which changed it completely. That rather hawklike expression completely disappeared, and she was soft and feminine suddenly. Not that she was not always feminine. That quality never failed to show itself in her sternest moments, and I always believed it was, in some measure, her strength, the very reason she was able to make men work for her as for no one else. Being a woman was a part of her genius. I never saw that look, though, for anyone but Robert. He was the love of her lifeext to the crown, of course.

is brother Guildford had married Jane,she went on. hat sly fox Northumberland had seen to that. It could have been Rob magine that. But Fate married him off so he was not available, and although it was a mesalliance, it is one for which we must be grateful. So there we were in the Beauchamp Tower. The Earl of Sussex came to me. I remember it clearly. Would not you, Cousin Lettice, if you thought that before long your body would be deprived of its head? I had made up my mind that it would be no ax for me. I would have a sword from France.Her expression was blank suddenly and I knew she was thinking of her mother. ut in fact I never intended to die. I determined that it must not come to that, and I stood firm against them all. Something within me said: ave patience. In a few years all this will have changed.Yes, I swear it. I knew this would come to pass.

t was the prayers of Your Majesty subjects which you heard,I said.

She never saw through flattery, or perhaps she did and liked it so much that she gobbled it up like a gourmand who knows it is bad for him but finds it irresistible.

hat may be. But I was taken to the Traitor Gate and for a momenthough only for a momenty heart failed me. And as I alighted and stood in the water, because the fools had misjudged the tide, I cried out: ere lands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs. Before Thee, oh God, I speak it, having no other friend but Thee alone.

know it well, Your Majesty,I told her. our brave words were recorded. They were both brave and clever, for the Lord, put thus on His mettle, must prove that He was as good an ally as all your enemies put together.

She looked at me and laughed. ou amuse me, Cousin,she said. ou must stay with me.

Then she went on to explain: t was all so romantic. But then anything concerned with Rob always is. He made friends with the warder boy, who adored him. Even little boys are aware of Robin charm. The boy brought him flowers and Robin sent them to me by way of the child and there was a note for me enclosed in them. Thus I knew he was in the Tower and where. He was always audacious. He might have got us straightway to the block, but then, as he said when I taunted him with this, we were both halfway there already. And he never visualized failure; that is a quality we share. When they allowed me to walk out for exercise in the precincts of the Tower I went past Robert cell. Oh, they were afraid to be too harsh with me, those jailers. Wise men! There was a chance I might remember one day. And so should I. But I found Robin and saw him through the bars of his window and that encounter sweetened our prison stay for both of us.

Once she started talking of Robert she found it difficult to stop.

e was the first to come to me,: Lettice,she went on. hat was right and fitting. The Queen, my sister, was sick unto death. Poor Mary, my heart went out to her. I was ever her good and faithful subject as all should be to their sovereign. But the people were sickened by what had happened during her reign. They wanted an end to religious persecution. They wanted a Protestant queen.