The Marriage Game (43 page)

“Is that the reason for this great and continual melancholy?” Hatton drew her into a window embrasure to give them a little privacy and allow her time to compose herself. “Great Queen, marry me, and learn what true devotion is! I swear I will make you happy again. I worship at your feet! Let me worship at the altar of Hymen!”

“Christopher, I do not want to marry!” Elizabeth burst out, punching Hatton in the ribs. “Marriage can only be injurious to me, and you, dear Lids, are like the rest. You want me for my crown.”

Hatton was taken aback by such brutal candor. “I protest, madam, that my love for you overrides all else. It is unnatural for a man not to marry, and indeed it is against the law of God. Were you to have me, I would be the happiest soul alive!”

“Alas, faithful Lids,” she said, smiling weakly, “I am done with men.”

She perked up considerably whenever letters arrived from Robert. She had missed him unbearably during his absence, and deeply regretted their quarrel. So what if he had married?
That woman
was never coming to court, so he was right—nothing need change. She would have as much of him as before, and more, if she had anything to do with it. She would keep him at her side for as long as it pleased her, and be damned to
that other
, whom she refused to name, even to herself.

“Write and tell him,” she commanded Hatton, “that his absence has been too long-drawn-out. I would that he does as his physician says, but if the waters of Buxton do not cure him now, he is not to encumber himself and me with such long journeys in the future.” That should reestablish who was in command, and what was expected of Robert. It was his queen’s wishes that counted, not his wife’s. And it should be clear to him that he was to behave toward her as if nothing had changed. That way she could permit him to remain her favorite, as before. She doubted that the pain of his betrayal would ever go away, but this way it was manageable—and she might even find
that, one day, she could forgive him. For now, however, she would make life difficult for him, and give him cause to rue his ill-considered marriage.

Her bad mood persisted. She snapped and grouched at her councillors all that summer and lashed out in temper at her hapless maids. Everyone knew why, and that did not improve her humor, because she liked to be seen as being in command of herself. Robert, back at court and finding it virtually impossible to obtain leave to go home and support Lettice through a difficult pregnancy, felt as if he was treading on eggshells. He had made a decision never to mention his marriage in Elizabeth’s hearing, but still it lay between them like a dividing sword. Gone was the intimacy of their past friendship; rarely now did they share jokes or correspond when apart, unless it was on official business. Instead Elizabeth found herself losing her temper over silly things, berating Robert with her sharp tongue, and waxing obstinate when he came asking for favors.

It did not help that she was suffering from an excruciating toothache, the result of eating too many sweet delicacies. Her poor face was inflamed, and she would sit in council rocking with the pain, biting on a clove, and pressing a hot, damp cloth to her cheek. Often she would not attend meetings at all, which sometimes brought the business of the realm to a standstill.

Her councillors clucked soothingly, but they had a kingdom to run and some matters were pressing.

“Madam, about the French marriage—” Walsingham began.

“Not now!” Elizabeth rapped.

“Then maybe we should discuss our shipbuilding program,” Burghley said quickly. “Philip’s fleet grows by the day.”

“The marriage is the more pressing matter,” Walsingham persisted. “It could be years before the armada is ready to sail.”

“Did you hear what I said?” Elizabeth screeched, bending down swift as quicksilver and throwing her pointed slipper at him. “By God, you wearisome Moor, you deserve to be hanged for your impertinence!”

Walsingham had ducked and escaped injury. He straightened himself
and regarded her evenly. “Then, madam, I ask only that I be tried by a Middlesex jury. They are notoriously lenient these days.”

Even Elizabeth, in agony as she was, had to smile at that. But the pain persisted, preventing her from sleeping. Finding her moaning in misery in her privy chamber, Robert—who had come in response to a peremptory summons to discuss the threat from the Netherlands—knelt beside her, as of old, and soothed her, rubbing her angry-looking cheek and fetching more cloves and wet compresses.

“Bess,” he said, reverting without thinking to his familiar name for her, “you will have to have this tooth pulled. You have been suffering for months.”

“Yes, I
have
been suffering for months,” she retorted. She was not talking about toothache.

Resolutely he ignored that. “It must be taken out,” he repeated. “Shall I send for the barber-surgeon?”

“No!” she cried.

“Bess, it will be over in seconds, and that is surely much better than the terrible pain you are experiencing.”

“No!” she repeated. “I do not want to lose my teeth. King Philip has had most of his out, I hear, and now he has to live on slops!”

He let it rest there. He stayed with her through the night, trying to distract her by reading to her and comforting her when the pangs became too hard to bear. It seemed, miraculously, that they had slipped effortlessly into their former companionship, and he was glad of that, although his thoughts kept straying to Lettice at Wanstead. He missed her so much, and he was tired, unutterably tired, and craving his bed. But he was so deeply relieved to be restored to a better footing with Elizabeth that he was happy to put up with that.

In the morning, groggy from lack of sleep, he left Elizabeth slumbering at last. As he passed out of her apartments he met the Bishop of London, come to take morning service in the Chapel Royal. He liked Bishop Aylmer, a stout Protestant like himself, and mentioned that the Queen was unwell and might not be able to attend.

“What ails Her Majesty?” the bishop asked, all concern.

“Toothache,” Robert told him. “She has had it for months, but will not suffer the tooth to be pulled.”

“I sympathize,” Aylmer said. “I too have been suffering. Hmm. Listen, I have a suggestion.”

That afternoon, as Elizabeth sat listlessly cradling her cheek in her presence chamber, where musicians were doing their best to distract her with the sublime melodies of Phalèse and Mainerio, and her courtiers were standing around impatiently waiting for her to rouse herself and notice them, Bishop Aylmer was announced.

“You are welcome, Bishop,” she said, rousing herself. “My lord of Leicester informed me of your coming.” Leicester and Aylmer exchanged complicit glances.

“Your Majesty, I come to express my sympathy for the trouble with your tooth,” the bishop began. Elizabeth looked at him wrathfully. “I too have toothache,” he persevered, “and I am told that Your Majesty fears to have your tooth extracted. Well, fear not. I have brought with me a barber-surgeon, who has agreed to take out my tooth in Your Majesty’s presence, so that you may see that there is nothing dreadful about it.”

“He is a brave man,” Robert murmured to Sussex.

“Rather him than me,” Sussex muttered. “I’m not sure what I’d fear more—Her Majesty’s countenance or the pincers!”

Elizabeth was biting her lip and frowning. “Very well, Bishop,” she said at length. “Show me.”

The waiting barber-surgeon was fetched from the antechamber, and a chair was set on the floor. The barber-surgeon placed a cushion over its back, and the bishop laid his head on it and opened his mouth wide. As Elizabeth looked on with morbid fascination, the barber-surgeon produced an alarmingly large pair of iron pliers, which he used to grip the offending molar. There was an excruciating crack, and the bishop’s hands tightened on the arms of the chair, but he did not make a sound, even though the surgeon had to use some force to pull out the tooth before holding it aloft in triumph. His patient stood up
rather shakily, wiped the blood from his mouth, and bowed to the Queen.

“And now, madam, will you let this fellow take out your own tooth?” Robert asked.

Elizabeth was about to refuse, but a vicious shaft of pain made her change her mind.

“We will,” she capitulated, and signaled her ladies to follow her and the barber-surgeon into her privy chamber, where the operation was finally performed with very little fuss.

The tooth was gone but her bad mood remained. Even the best efforts of Ippolita the Tartarian and her fellow fools could not rouse Elizabeth, nor could the little black boy whom she kept in her privy chamber, dressed in wide breeches and a jacket of black taffeta and gold tinsel; he tried capering about in his usual comic fashion and juggling balls in the air, but she regarded him listlessly.

She had no excuse now to refuse to see her councillors, but when next she took her seat at the head of the board, it was to find them united against her.

“Madam, you must act to prevent the Duke of Anjou from leading a French army into the Netherlands,” Burghley insisted. “I urge you to marry him now. We are of one mind on this.”

Robert took it upon himself to speak for them all, as he did increasingly these days. “Your Majesty cannot afford any delays,” he said bluntly. “I speak as a faithful and true subject when I say that there must be no dithering, no procrastination, and no stalling. This marriage must go ahead. Our very security depends on it.”

“Be silent,” Elizabeth snapped, furious at his presuming to tell her what she must and must not do. As for faithful and true subject … he was one to talk!

“My lord of Leicester speaks truth,” Hatton ventured, only to have the Queen turn her head away. The meeting ended in a stalemate.

Robert tried a new tactic—or rather, redeployed an old one. He went home to Leicester House and took to his bed, feigning sickness. It was a ploy that had worked before, and he was confident it would
bring Elizabeth hastening to his side. But she stayed stubbornly away, and when he finally got bored of waiting and returned to court, her manner toward him was chilly.

In August, still brooding on her councillors’ shortcomings, she departed on a progress to the eastern shires. While she was in Norwich Cathedral, being shown the shields of her Boleyn ancestors high above the chancel, news was brought to her that Anjou had not only invaded the Netherlands but accepted an invitation to become governor of the Protestant states and defender of their liberties against what was termed the “Spanish Tyranny.”

She simmered all through the dinner that had been laid on in the cloisters, and when she got back to the bishop’s palace, exploded in rage.

“
You
allowed this to happen!” she shouted at her councillors.

“Madam, we have been begging you to take some action!” Robert protested.

“It was not
I
who did nothing to prevent what has happened!” she flung back. “Now I shall have to placate Spain. I will write a message of support to King Philip. In the meantime, send word covertly to Anjou that we would speak with him of marriage.”

Her councillors released a collective sigh of relief.

The progress was a great success. Wherever Elizabeth went, she drew the hearts of the people after her. She had the common touch that came so easily to her family. Fêted, complimented, and adored, she returned to London in a much better frame of mind.

Robert, however, did not enjoy a peaceful homecoming. There was Lettice, radiantly beautiful, her stomacher unlaced to accommodate her great belly, screeching yet again that she had been grossly slighted.

“I am the Countess of Leicester!” she declared. “I will not be hidden away as if I have done something wrong. My father is not at all happy at the way I have been treated. He wants a public wedding, to make all things secure.”

“The Queen cannot break our marriage,” Robert said.

“I would not put it past her to try.” His wife was beside herself. “Remember
Katherine Gray! That is why my father is adamant that there must be a second ceremony, with all my kin present.”

“Listen, sweetheart,” Robert soothed, “even Elizabeth cannot overturn a lawful marriage.”

“You think not? She has done it before. And she will not receive me, proof enough that she does not recognize me as your wife!”

“Did you expect her to receive you?” His patience was a little frayed now. “In her eyes, you displaced her. Give her time. She may yet thaw toward you. You must stay calm and think of the child. Once it is born, things may well be different.” He doubted it, but he hated to see Lettice so distressed, and was prepared to say anything to calm her and have a quieter life. Was ever man so beset by two women? It was like living between Scylla and Charybdis!

“You don’t help,” Lettice sniffed.

“I?” Robert was startled. “What have I done?”

“You are seeing Douglass Sheffield and your bastard. Don’t think I don’t know.”

“It’s true,” Robert admitted. “Of course I have seen her. She is bringing up my son, whom I love. You would not deny my right to be a father to him, surely?”

“I have no quarrel with you seeing your son. For your sake, I would welcome him into our household and be as a mother to him. But I do not want you to see Lady Sheffield again.”

Robert knew that he had to put Lettice first in regard to his seeing Douglass, even if she was behaving increasingly unreasonably these days. He did not want her upsetting herself at this time; a happy outcome to her pregnancy was important to them both. He was forty-six, after all, and needed an heir. His heart had leapt when she suggested bringing his son to live with them. Of course, it was the ideal arrangement—and it showed how generous-hearted his dear wife was, and how much she loved him even to think of doing this for him. Only a very special woman would suggest raising her husband’s bastard as her own.

“Are you very sure about my bringing Robin here?” he asked her, hoping he had heard aright. “As a peer of the realm, I am within my
rights to demand custody of my son, and nothing would please me more than to have young Robin live here with us. Then I would have no need to see Lady Sheffield again, and can break off all contact with her.”