The Marriage Game (24 page)

For ten days after that he did not attend Elizabeth in the court or attempt to come to her chamber at night. At first anger tided her along, and jealousy. Had he—the traitor—dared to carry out his threat? Was
he at this very moment paying court to some bejeweled hussy with a rich father and fat manors? She almost howled at the thought. By God, she’d have both their heads! But as the days went by with no sight of Robert, and whispers proliferating at court about a rift, she grew concerned. Where was he? How dare he take leave of absence without permission? She needed him here, on the council, where his duty lay—not to mention by her side and in her bed.

She sat sulking through council meetings, snapping at everyone. The item highest on the agenda was the Queen of Scots’ marriage. At least, Elizabeth reflected crossly, it was not hers. She could almost feel some sisterly affinity with her rival, for it seemed that queens were the particular prey of marriage-making male advisers. That might just account for Mary having recently made overtures of friendship. There had even been talk of a meeting between the two queens. Elizabeth wasn’t sure that she wanted to come face-to-face with the cousin whose beauty was lauded throughout Christendom; Heaven forbid, she herself, nine years the senior, might be found wanting! And there were so many contentious matters that lay between them, not the least of which was Mary’s disquieting plan to marry King Philip’s son, Don Carlos.

Mary’s motives were deplorably transparent. She was obviously aiming for a strong Catholic alliance that would overthrow Cecil’s carefully negotiated Treaty of Edinburgh and put pressure on Elizabeth to acknowledge her as her heir—at the very least! And if Mary married Don Carlos, the might of Spain could end up camping right on Elizabeth’s doorstep, threatening invasion. Not to be tolerated!

But Elizabeth knew that Mary had been duped. She had gotten it into her pretty, brainless head that Don Carlos was a brave and gallant prince who would champion all her dangerous causes. But through her rather better diplomatic channels, Elizabeth was aware that the Spanish prince was not only deformed, but mad. He liked to torture animals. He was sadistic and violent toward servants and the girls he pursued with evil intent. There was even a tale that, misliking a new pair of shoes, he had forced the hapless cobbler to eat them. A fine husband for the Queen of Scots he would make!

“But she is determined to have him,” Cecil said, having discussed all this with Elizabeth.

“I have warned her that if she marries Don Carlos, I would consider her my enemy forever afterward,” Elizabeth told him. “I wrote to her; I said, consider well your steps. I also offered England’s firm friendship if she would be guided by me in her choice of husband.”

“I doubt she will agree to that,” Sussex observed, shaking his head.

“I recall Your Majesty suggesting that Queen Mary might wed an English lord,” Cecil remembered. “That might be a way of keeping Scotland friendly.”

An idea occurred to Elizabeth then, an idea so perfect in most ways that it almost took her breath away. Here was her opportunity to neutralize the threat posed by Mary Stuart—and be revenged on the treacherous Robert.

She would offer him as a husband for the Queen of Scots.

That
would pay him back for putting unkind pressure on her—and no doubt on Parliament—and for his monstrous threat to look elsewhere for a wife. Well, she would give him one, served up on a platter with red hair and a crown, just as he liked them!

“We will offer her Lord Robert,” she announced, beaming.

“Lord Robert?” echoed her astonished councillors, to a man.

“Lord Robert,” she affirmed, looking very pleased with herself.

“Madam,” Cecil said, “should we not wait until his lordship returns from Warwick before discussing this?”

“Warwick?” It was now Elizabeth’s turn to be astonished. What the devil was he up to there? Visions of him secretly plighting his troth to some well-dowered milksop country bumpkin came to mind, followed by a highly satisfying fantasy of his being dragged in chains to the Tower, the headsman plodding vengefully at his heels.

“Did you not know, madam? He is visiting his brother.”

She recovered herself hastily and took refuge in a lie. “Of course, yes. But it will do no harm if we discuss my proposal in his absence. You may persuade me it is a foolish idea, and then there will be no need to bother him with it. But gentlemen,” and she looked at them with gimlet eyes, thinking rapidly, “there could be many good reasons
for such a marriage. Lord Robert’s loyalty has never been in doubt. He is indebted to me for his advancement, and he is not the man to forget it. He would work tirelessly to represent our interests in Scotland. Once wed to him, Queen Mary would be out of the marriage market, and the threat from Spain would recede. Moreover, he is a staunch Protestant, and as such would be far more acceptable to the Lords of the Congregation than Don Carlos, who is not only Catholic but insane.” The more she considered it, the more pleased she was with herself for thinking up such a marriage.

Her councillors heard her out patiently, but when she fell silent, Cecil spoke. “These are strong justifications for the match, madam, but there is one matter that I must raise, and I’m sure I speak for us all. It was everyone’s understanding that Your Majesty had promised to marry Lord Robert yourself, and very soon.”

“It is what we have all hoped and prayed for,” Bacon put in.

Norfolk’s face said plainly that he was neither hoping nor praying for any such thing, but he nodded and said “Aye” along with the rest.

“My lords, I am willing to make this sacrifice for the future security of my realm,” Elizabeth said, determined to argue her corner but suddenly realizing what the sacrifice would actually entail. Never to see Robert again, or but rarely; nevermore to enjoy his stimulating companionship, lie in his arms, or feast her eyes on the manly charms that so delighted her. Already she was jealous of pretty, brainless Mary enjoying that which she had denied herself. In fact, Elizabeth could not bear the thought. Of course it might be too late—Robert might already be wed to the country bumpkin, which prospect she could not bear either. Oh, why,
why
had she quarreled with him? Now look what he had made her do! She would either have to give him up to the Queen of Scots or suffer the humiliation of seeing him married to another. God’s blood, what a mess!

She swallowed. She must be a queen first, a woman second. That was the only way to retain the respect of the men who served her. “I want to see England and Scotland draw close in friendship,” she declared bravely. “It will be hard for me to renounce Lord Robert, but I will do it willingly for the advantage of my people.” She consoled herself
with the thought that royal marriage negotiations were usually so prolonged, it would be months, if not years—or not at all—before she had to part with her Eyes. She was surprised to find herself thinking of him as hers once more, when only minutes before she had been prepared to consign him to oblivion—or the Scottish court. It amounted to the same thing.

Cecil was beaming at her approvingly. Oh, she knew his game. Nothing would please him more than to see Robert exiled to Scotland and swaggering about in his gallant finery among the thistles and the sheep. Once he was safely on his way north, her court would once more be open house to the ambassadors of princes hopeful to win her hand—and her kingdom. “An excellent plan, madam,” Cecil said.

But the others looked dubious.

“With respect, it is unlikely that the Queen of Scots will agree,” Sussex warned.

“She may surprise us,” Elizabeth said, with more conviction than she felt. “After all, Lord Robert is a very proper man, and she has known only a weak, sickly boy for a husband. Let her once set eyes on his lordship and her opinions may rapidly change!” She cleared her throat, feeling murderous toward both of them at the thought. “Gentlemen, I will see Queen Mary’s ambassador, and raise the matter with him.”

And I will do it now, she thought, rising from her chair, before I lose my nerve.

She summoned the ambassador, Sir William Maitland, as suave and crafty a diplomat as one could hope (or not) to meet. He was a dark, personable fellow whose lean, inoffensive features concealed one of the most clever and devious minds in Scotland. Naturally he wore the plain black attire favored by the Calvinist Scottish lords, but he wore it with elegance, and it was of good cloth. Elizabeth received him in private, smiling munificently, then took a deep breath.

“Sir William, as a fellow sovereign, we are conscious of the problems facing your good mistress Queen Mary in finding a suitable husband,” she said.

“Your Majesty is most kind to concern yourself with Queen Mary’s
affairs,” Maitland said smoothly, anticipating a tirade against the appalling Don Carlos.

“I will do more than that for her,” Elizabeth continued. “I am prepared to offer her a husband in whom Nature has planted so many graces that she will prefer him to all the princes in the world.”

“And who might that be, madam?” Maitland asked.

“Lord Robert Dudley,” Elizabeth replied, as if a fanfare was sounding in the background. To her fury, Maitland chuckled.

“A merry jest, madam! Ha! Ha!”

“I was not jesting,” she barked.

He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Ah. Of course. A thousand pardons, madam.” He was actually stuttering. “I had understood that you were to marry Lord Robert yourself. Well, ahem, indeed, this is great proof of the love you bear my queen, that you are willing to give her something—I should say someone—so dearly prized by yourself.”

Elizabeth was all serene graciousness once more.

“However,” Maitland continued, “I feel certain that Queen Mary would not wish to deprive Your Majesty of all the joy and solace that you receive from the company of Lord Robert.”

The smile froze on Elizabeth’s face. Joy and solace? she thought. There had not been much of that lately. But not so long ago there had, oh, there had …

She was not unmindful of the implication in Maitland’s words, and was determined to refute it by showing him that giving up Robert would not hurt as much as he thought. She said lightly, “Unfortunately, Lord Robert’s brother, the Earl of Warwick, is not as handsome as he, for had this been so, Queen Mary could have married him and I myself could have become the wife of Lord Robert.”

“Your Majesty ought to marry him anyway,” Maitland replied, “and then when it shall please God to call you to Himself, you could leave the Queen of Scots heiress to both your kingdom and your husband; that way, Lord Robert could hardly fail to have children by one or the other of you.”

Elizabeth smiled again, but tightly. Not the tedious matter of her death again! Did Maitland expect her to die so soon? If she had anything
to do with it, she would long outlive that simpering, empty-headed she-cat now queening it in Edinburgh.

She realized that she had gone too far now in what had begun as a malicious game of revenge. There was Cecil, praising Robert to the skies whenever Maitland hove into view. “Sir William, a better Protestant you could not find! And a man of many parts, talented in warfare, in learning, in statecraft.” Elizabeth had never thought to hear the like from Cecil’s lips, and eyed him suspiciously.

But Maitland was playing along! “A more proper and fit husband for my good mistress could not be found. This will indeed be a marriage made in Heaven!” Yet it was writ plain on his face that the proposition of Robert as a husband for his queen was nothing short of an insult. Those raised aristocratic eyebrows said in no uncertain terms that it was beyond belief that anyone would
think
that Mary would stoop to wed a commoner still under a cloud of suspicion on account of the death of his wife. Elizabeth wouldn’t have minded wagering that Maitland would say nothing to the Queen of Scots of how he had praised Robert. But Mary would hear of it, she did not doubt! Bishop de Quadra, that inveterate gossip, knew about it, and he would certainly tell King Philip, who was bound to mention it …

But wait a minute, she told herself, with a sense of abject relief—there was another contender for Mary’s hand, another English nobleman who would certainly be far more acceptable to her: Lord Darnley. He was just seventeen, a great, gangling lad with a supremely good opinion of himself and looks that could slay a maiden at fifty paces. What was more, he was Elizabeth’s own cousin on the Scottish side—his ambitious mother, the Countess of Lennox, was the daughter of her aunt, Margaret Tudor—and the royal blood of England ran in his veins. Henry VIII, in his wisdom, had excluded the Scottish descendants of his sister Margaret from the Act of Succession, believing that he was about to conquer Scotland and marry the infant Queen Mary to his son, Prince Edward. But the Scots had, not unnaturally, resisted his rough wooing, which consisted mainly of a vicious swathe of slaughter throughout the Scottish lowlands and the burning of Edinburgh.
Yet there were those, even now, who held that Lord Darnley—whose legitimacy had never been in question—had a better claim to the succession than Mary Stuart; at least he’d been born in England!

That, in fact, was the chief drawback to Mary marrying Darnley. Let them unite their two claims and they could prove very dangerous adversaries indeed. Another was that Darnley was a nasty piece of work and spoiled rotten—which led to the third drawback, his scheming, doting lady mother, who was even now in the Tower for having plotted in secret to send him north and wed him to Queen Mary.

Hmm, thought Elizabeth. And hmm again. Darnley’s very nastiness could be used to her advantage. Give Mary enough rope, and she might hang herself. Elizabeth pondered. She doubted that Darnley had the brains to carry through any treasonable plan successfully, but even so, would it be wise to let him loose north of the border?

The matter needed much thought and delicate handling. For now, it was best to act as if there could be no question of Darnley marrying Mary. And in mooting Robert as a husband for her, Elizabeth had hit on the perfect way of showing the gangling boy and his adoring, meddling mother that she meant business. But she had now seen a way of rescuing both herself and Robert from the impossible situation she had created.