My Enemy, the Queen (42 page)

She declared that the contents of Leicester House and Kenilworth should provide the means to pay his debts, and lists of these should be made at once so that those selected for sale could be brought out.

She was merciless where I was concerned and I was enraged but could do nothing about it.

One by one the treasures had to be soldll those things which had been precious to me and part of my life. I wept with rage over them and inwardly cursed herut as always I must bow to her will.

Even so, those enforced sales were not enough to settle all the debts, but I felt it important to raise a memorial to him in Beauchamp Chapel. It was of massive marble and bore his motto Droit et Loyal. I had an effigy of him made in marble wearing the collar of St. Michael; and beside him was a space for me when my time came.

So passed the great Earl of Leicester. A year later I married Christopher Blount.

Essex

Essex,

Your sudden and undutiful departure from our presence and your place of attendance, you may easily conceive how offensive it is, and ought to be, unto us. Our great favours bestowed on you without deserts, hath drawn you thus to neglect and forget your duty; for other constructions we cannot make of those your strange actions. We do therefore charge and command you forthwith upon receipt of these our letters, all excuses and delays set apart, to make your present and immediate repair unto us, to understand our further pleasure. Whereof see you fail not, as you will be loth to incur our indignation, and will answer for the contrary at your uttermost peril.

The Queen to Essex

For a time I reveled in my marriage and I was happy. I had a handsome, young, adoring husband who was not constantly in attendance on another woman. My son Robert, Earl of Essex, was fast becoming one of the Queen first favorites, and it seemed likely that he would eventually take his stepfather place.

ne of these days I will tell the Queen that she must receive you at Court,he told me.

He was very different from Leicester, who had always been so cautious and devious. Sometimes I trembled for him. He had so little tact and was not going to pretend to what he did not feel for the sake of expediency. This could be attractive in its initial stages, but could it last with a woman as vain as the Queen, and one so accustomed to adulation as she was? At the moment Essex was refreshingly youthful, an enfant terrible. He himself had always been inordinately vain, but was he overestimating his influence with the Queen?

I discussed this with Christopher, who was of the opinion that the Queen was so enamored of his youth and good looks that she would forgive him a good deal. Christopher youth and good looks had done likewise for him, I reflected; but I should not be ready to endure insolence, however young and good-looking he might be; and I doubted Elizabeth would either.

I had thought it wise to wait a year before marriage in view of the rumors about Leicester death and the fact that my new husband was some twenty years younger than I. The year that followed was a happy one.

We had always been a loyal family. One of Leicester most endearing qualities had been devotion to his; and although my children had been on the best of terms with the first of their stepfathers, they were nonetheless ready to accept the second.

My favorite daughter was Penelope. She was something of an intrigante, as I myself was, and whatever her misfortunes, they never depressed her, and she was constantly looking around for exciting adventures. I knew, of course, that her life was not quite what it seemed. She lived quite decorously at Leighs in Essex and in Lord Rich London home. In the country she appeared to be a model of virtue, devoting herself to her growing brood. She now had five childrenhree sons, Robert, Henry and Charles, and two girls, Lettice (named for me) and Penelope for herself. But when she came to Court she was full of plans.

She deplored the fact that the Queen would not receive me, and kept assuring me that Essex would lose no opportunity to get me reinstated.

f Leicester could not do it, do you think Essex can?I demanded.

h,laughed Penelope, o you think Leicester tried hard enough?

I had to agree that he would have found it difficult to plead the cause of his wife, who was ostracized for the very reason that she was his wife.

They were often at Leicester Housey two daughters, my son Walter, and very often Essex. His friendship with Charles Blount, with whom he had fought a duel over the chess queen, had grown, and Charles, who was after all the elder brother of my husband, was very much one of the family. Frances Sidney was also a frequent visitor; and the talk round my table was full of vitality and sometimes wild. I did not care to restrain them, because I thought it would call attention to my age as they were all younger than I, although at times I wondered what the Queen would have thought could she have heard them.

The most reckless of them all was Essex, who was growing more and more sure of his domination over the Queen. Charles Blount warned him now and then that he ought to have a care, but Essex just laughed at him.

I used to watch him with great pride, for I was sure it was not just a mother prejudice which made him supreme in my eyes. He was no more handsome than Leicester had been in his youth, and he possessed the same magnetism; but whereas Leicester had seemed to possess all the perfections nature could bestow on a man, Essex very weaknesses were more endearing than Leicester strength had been.

Leicester had always calculated the effect of what he did, weighing up the advantage to himself. Essex very impulsiveness was appealing because it was dangerous. And honestt least as he saw it. He could be very gay and then suddenly melancholy; he was vigorous and excelled at outdoors pastimes; then suddenly he would fall ill and have to take to his bed. He had a strange loping walk which made it possible to pick him out in a group from a long distance, and somehow it touched me deeply whenever I noticed it. Of course he was very handsome with that mass of auburn hair and those dark eyeshe coloring he had inherited from mend of course he was very different from the other young men who circulated about the Queen. They were sycophants and he was never that. Moreover, he had a genuine passion for the Queen; he was in love with her in a way, but never did he subdue his own nature to suit hers. He would not pretend that she was all-knowing, if he disagreed with her.

I was very afraid as to where his impulsive steps would lead him and I was constantly begging him to take care.

When he sat with Penelope, Charles Blount, Christopher, Frances Sidney and myself, he would talk of what he hoped to do.

He believed the Queen should be more bold with the Spaniards. They had suffered a bitter and humiliating defeat and it should be followed up. He was going to tell the Queen what course of action she should take. He had great plans. For one thing he wanted a standing army.

oldiers should be well trained,he cried, waving his arms enthusiastically. ach time we go to war we have to train men and boys anew. We want them ready. I am constantly telling her this. When I take my army to the war I want soldiers not plowmen.

he will never agree to let you go out of the country,Penelope reminded him.

hen I shall go without her consent,retorted my son loftily.

I wondered what Leicester would have said.

Sometimes, tentatively, I reminded him of how his stepfather had behaved towards the Queen.

h, he was like the rest,retorted Essex. e dared not cross her. He pretended to agree with everything she said or did.

ot always, and he crossed her more than once. He married me, remember.

e never crossed her openly.

e remained her favorite to the end of his life,I added.

o shall I,boasted Essex, ut I shall do it my way.

I wondered, and continued to fear for him, for although Penelope was close to me, it was Essex who was my favorite. I thought how strange it was that the Queen and I should love the same men and that for so long the man who was of most importance to her should be to me also.

I knew that she still mourned Leicester. I heard that she kept a miniature of him which she looked at often; and that she had the last letter he had written her in a box which was labeled: is last letter.

Yes, it was like a strange joke of fate that now my husband was dead the man she should most care about should be my son.

Essex was complaining that his debts were many and that, although the Queen showed her favor by keeping him at her side, she had bestowed nothing of value on himo titles, no lands, such as those she had given to his stepfather; and he was too proud to ask her for them.

He was restive and longed for adventure of a kind that would bring him money. War was the answer, for, if it were victorious, spoils went with it. Moreover he was growing more insistentnd others agreed with himhat war with the Spaniards should be pursued.

The Queen agreed at length that an expedition might be sent out. Don Antonio, the ex-King of Portugal, had been deposed a year after he had come to the throne on the death of King Henry, and had been living in England ever since that time. Now King Philip of Spain had sent the Duke of Alva to claim Portugal for Spain. As the Portuguese were resentful of the Spanish usurpation, Portugal appeared to be a good battlefield. Sir Francis Drake was to take care of the fleet operations and Sir John Norris those of the land.

When Essex hinted that he should go, the Queen flew into a rage and he knew that it was useless to say more to her, but, being Essex, he was not deterred, and planned to go without telling her.

He came to say goodbye to me a few days before he left, and I was flattered to be taken into his confidence on this very secret matter, especially when the Queen was excluded.

I said: he will be furious with you. It may be that she will not take you back.

He laughed at that. He was so confident of knowing how to deal with her.

I warned him, but not too seriously. To tell the truth, I was rather pleased at the thought of her anger and frustration at losing him.

How he loved intrigue! He and Penelope planned together.

The night he left he was going to invite Penelope husband, Lord Rich, to his chamber to sup with him, and after his guest had left he would make his way to the park where his groom would be waiting for him with fleet horses.

rake will never allow you to board his ship,I told him. e knows full well it would be against the Queen wishes, and he is a man who would not risk offending her. |

Essex laughed. rake will not see me. I have arranged with Roger Williams to have a ship waiting for me. We shall put to sea and conduct a campaign of our own if they won let us join with them.

ou terrify me,I said; but I was proud of him, proud of that bold, reckless courage which I believed he had inherited from me, for it certainly had not come from his father.

He kissed me, all charm and concern. ay, dearest Mother, fear not. I promise you this: I shall come home so covered in glory and with so much Spanish gold that all men will marvel. I will give the Queen a part of it and make it clear to her that if she will keep me at her side she must accept my mother, too.

It all sounded very fine, and such was his enthusiasm that, temporarily at least, I could believe him.

He had written several letters to the Queen explaining what he was doing, and these he had locked in his desk.

He set out in the early morning for Plymouth and after riding ninety miles on his horse, he sent his groom back with the keys of his desk and instructions that these were to be given to Lord Rich, with the request that he should open the desk and take the letters to the Queen.

The fury of the Queen when she received those letters was so great that those at Court said it was the end of Essex. She swore about him, calling him all the unflattering names she could think of, and promising herself that she would show him what it meant to flout the Queen. I could not repress a certain gratification at her frustration and disappointment while at the same time I was apprehensive as to how deeply Essex had injured his chances.

She immediately wrote to him, commanding his return, but it was not until three months later that he came home and when he did he showed me the letters she had sent him. She must have been in a fine rage when she wrote them.

When the letters came into his hands after weeks of adventures ostly disastrouse did have enough wisdom to realize that immediate obedience was essential.

The expedition had been a failure, but Drake and Norris returned with cargoes of rich treasure stolen from the Spaniards, so it was not entirely a lost effort.

Essex presented himself to the Queen, who demanded an explanation of his actions, at which he fell onto his knees and told her how enchanted he was to see her. It was worth everything he had suffered to see her again. She might punish him for his folly. He did not care. He had come home and been allowed to kiss her hand.

He really meant that. He was delighted to be home; and she, in her glittering gown and her aura of regality, would have struck him afresh with her unique quality.

She made him sit beside her and tell her of his adventures, and she was clearly happy to have him with her, so that it was obvious that everything had been forgiven.

t is as it was with Leicester,said everyone. ssex can do no wrong.

It may be that Elizabeth, knowing that he had gone away to make his fortune, determined that he should learn to make it at home. She became generous to him and he began to grow rich. Most important of all she gave him the right to farm customs on the sweet wines which were imported into the country and thus presented him with an opportunity to reap a big income. This right had been one of her gifts to Leicester and I knew, through him, what an asset it had been.

My son was the Queen first favorite and, oddly enough, he was in love with her in his own peculiar way. The question of marriage, which had occupied Leicester for so long, would never occur to him; but she fascinated him completely; he adored her. I saw some of the letters he wrote to her and they glowed with this extraordinary passion. This did not prevent his affairs with others and he was getting a reputation for philandering. He was, of course, irresistibleith his looks, his charming manners and court favor. I could see how he suited the Queen at this time of her life. She would never love him as deeply as she had loved Leicester, but this was different. This young manho spoke his mind so freely, who detested subterfugead placed her on a pedestal to be adored and she was enchanted.