The Queen's Cipher (43 page)

Elizabeth read his thoughts. “I have not forgotten how oft
Richard II
was performed in the streets of London. As for the actual unseating of King Richard, did the playwright really think we would allow actors to perform such a seditious scene on the London stage?” 

“You mean William Shakespeare,” Bacon interjected. “His name is on the playbook.”

“Not on the first quarto. That bore no name. Strange that an author should hide from sight and then put his name to a piece of work after it has incurred my displeasure. I have not met this fellow Shakespeare but he must be a bold knave. What think you, Bacon?”

“As in all matters, I agree with your Majesty.” 

Elizabeth gave her learned counsel a hard stare. “I recall the Earl of Essex claiming he was ill used by those who printed him and played him upon the stage. Upon the stage, sir! Tell me, is Essex Bollingbroke and did you make him so?”

There was fear in Francis Bacon’s eyes as he answered her. “Nay, madam, I must protest my innocence. That was not of my doing.”

“What of the other play that bore Shakespeare’s name - the comedy of lost love. Shall we talk of that?”

The moment of truth had finally arrived. He knew what he wanted to say, had rehearsed it many times over, but now when the opportunity existed he was struck dumb.

It was too late! He had waited too long to speak. Francis could feel the weight of her inner turmoil and pitied her. She had led a life of lies and convenient fictions.

“Pray tell me this then: why did Essex seek popularity in the theatre?”

“He was following your excellent example, madam.”

The Queen’s thin painted eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Come, sir, your meaning.”

“His lordship had not forgotten how the Queen’s Men were formed at your express command and how their repertory of plays was designed to stir up your subjects’ patriotic feelings.”

It was a bold thing to say and he waited apprehensively for Elizabeth’s reaction. To his immense relief a smile spread across her face. “It is quite apparent that stage-plays can be used to busy an audience to such a perception.”

At last, Bacon thought, we are beginning to understand one another and communicate properly.

“After his victory in Cadiz I told my Earl of Essex not to court popularity through foreign adventures; rather he should serve in the Privy Council where, as your obedient servant, he might control military matters. Above all, I said, he should not go to Ireland.”

Elizabeth hardly seemed to be listening. “I did not have long to wait for his return, did I? To his eternal shame, Essex made a truce with Tyrone and rushed back to London, entering my private chamber at Nonesuch while I was still at my toilet and he in mud spattered clothes and riding boots. Instead of committing him to Lord Keeper Egerton’s custody, I should have sent him to the Tower for his impertinence. What is to be done, Bacon?”

“I hold the Earl in the highest esteem but there are some positions for which he is ill-suited. It would be a mistake to send him back to Ireland.”

“Back to Ireland,” the queen shrieked, sweeping the chess pieces off the board in a fit of anger. “Essex will never set foot in Ireland again. You can count on that!” 

Elizabeth stood up, sweeping her underskirts across the floor. The audience was over.

“We will talk again Francis, when I visit you at Twickenham Park.”

She had used his Christian name and planned to honour his household. The tide had truly turned.

30 JUNE 2014

The rain was pelting down out from a leaden sky as a forlorn looking figure loped through Temple Gardens with upturned collar and a newspaper covering his head. There was so much water in the air Freddie could barely see the outline of the Inns of Court, let alone Seymour Guest’s chambers.

Sheltering in the nearest alcove, he tried to focus on the brass nameplates attached to the stairwell wall - Trumble, Middleton-Potts, Mulcaster and Guest. He turned to give Cheryl the thumbs up. She was following at a more sedate pace, protected from the elements by his black umbrella.

“I hope this barrister bloke is worth getting wet for,” she grumbled.

Her high heels clattered on the stone staircase as they climbed to the third floor where they could hear voices and see a light shining beneath an office door.  The door opened and a youngish female in a black suit rushed out. Her bulging briefcase brushed against his thigh.

“Sorry,” she gave him a fleeting smile. “I’m in a bit of a hurry. Late for court, you know.”

Inside the room a clerk was handing out work for the day. Watching the briefs being distributed reminded Freddie of feeding time at the zoo, although, unlike their caged counterparts, these legal eagles seemed less than grateful for what they were receiving.

A dapper gent in a striped shirt and ankle boots complained bitterly about an indecent assault case. “Slim pickings, George,” he said. “It’s only marked a hundred guineas and I have to go all the way to Dulwich.”

George Pallister caught sight of the wet looking couple standing in the doorway. “Can I help you?” His voice was outwardly deferential but unyielding.

“We’re looking for Mr Guest’s room. We have a ten o’clock appointment.”

The clerk’s face relaxed. “You must be Dr Brett. I was told to look out for you. The room is second on the left. He said you should go right in.”

The room was much as he had imagined with molded architraves, a Georgian sash window, framed certificates on wood panelled walls and a mahogany desk covered in legal briefs tied up with pink tape, symbolizing a barrister’s emotional detachment from his cases.

Cheryl looked about her and sniffed. “Might as well make myself at home,” she muttered, taking off her raincoat.

The squat but well-tailored figure of Seymour Guest bustled in. He was full of apologies. “My dear chap, sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve been in a holding cell with the Camden strangler. No DNA evidence and a forced confession. We’ll be pleading ‘Not Guilty’. But
who
is this?”

Freddie tried to keep a straight face as he made the introductions. When he had asked to bring a female friend with him Guest had obviously imagined some unprepossessing Oxford bluestocking, not the desirable creature lounging on his sofa in the silver micro-mini skirt Freddie had begged her not to wear. We’re not going clubbing, he told her, as they left their Bayswater hotel. “You’re such a prude,” was the reply, “the skirt matches the silver metallic threads in my nude tights or hadn’t you noticed?”

Seymour Guest certainly had. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her legs. Freddie watched in amusement as the portly barrister tried to charm Cheryl with his jury tricks, wrinkling up his eyes, coaxing and flattering, but receiving only monosyllabic replies.

How his friend had aged. Although still in his thirties, he was almost bald and his once boyish face deeply wrinkled. The massive forehead hadn’t changed but the bones of the jaw beneath it were blanketed in flesh. There had been too many legal dinners, too much claret.

They had first met at a fellows cricket match when Guest still had hair on his head. That was when the barrister had dropped his bombshell, telling him he was joining the Bacon Society. To a newly tenured Shakespeare academic this sounded like professional suicide. Wouldn’t holding such a controversial opinion hinder his advancement at the bar? Guest had laughed at these concerns, telling him Sir Francis Bacon was the first ever Queen’s Counsel and that, one day, he hoped to emulate him. That day had arrived.

“Thank you for seeing us,” Freddie began. “I believe congratulations are in order.”

“On becoming a Queen’s Counsel, you mean, nothing to it. Hang around the Old Bailey long enough, drink a few bottles of wine and, hey presto, you get to swap your stuff gown for a silk one.” 

“You are too modest. It’s a great achievement. You’ve risen up the legal pecking order.”

“That’s where you are wrong, my boy. To the public, criminal lawyers seem quite glamorous, convicting the guilty and protecting the innocent, but, inside the legal profession, they are held in contempt. The big money is in commercial law. Anyone wanting to know why our politicians have so little regard for our fundamental liberties, when so many of them are lawyers, should study their CVs. They didn’t waste their time defending habeas corpus. Now, how can I help you?”

“Can I talk to you in confidence?” Freddie sounded uncertain.

“Rest assured of that.” Guest sat back in his chair. Judging by the expression on his face, he didn’t much care for confessions. They tended to muddy the water.

Freddie cleared his throat. “I think Francis Bacon may have been involved in the writing of Shakespeare’s plays.”

There was a stunned silence. Seymour Guest beat a tattoo on his desk with fingernails that had been chewed to the quick. “You realize the importance of what you are saying. Think of the publicity we’d get if we could reveal that one of Oxford’s brightest academics had had a change of heart.”

“You promised to respect my confidence.”

“And I’ll keep my word. How can I be of assistance?”

“Can you wear two hats at the same time? Can you be both a Shakespeare theorist and a dispassionate lawyer?”

“Yes, with some difficulty,” Guest said smugly, whipping a pair of spectacles out of the breast pocket of his three piece suit and polishing them vigorously. “What do you want to know?”

“I’d like you to answer a few questions that puzzle me - that’s if you can spare the time.”

Guest glanced at his wrist watch. “I’m expecting an instructing solicitor from Anderson, Greengrass and Ware at midday. It’s a juicy aggravated assault. But until then you have my undivided attention.” 

Freddie put on a sincere but troubled face. “One of the things that stop me from revealing my conversion to your cause is the royal birth theory which is widely dismissed as a dangerous kind of lunacy. Is there anything to be said for the idea that Bacon was Elizabeth’s love child?”

The barrister stroked his chin before speaking. “It is not wholly without merit. Elizabeth’s relationship with Francis is an interesting one. She was much taken with him when he was a child, making visits to the Bacon household to see him. Later things changed. She gave him the cold shoulder. Then in her declining years, when she had to deal with the Essex rebellion, they became very close. Bacon acted as her advisor and also as a legal prosecutor and report writer.” 

“And earned many people’s hatred for deserting his benefactor,” Freddie interjected.

“Ah, yes, Essex was still popular with the masses but he was an incredibly rash and stupid man.”

There was evidence, Guest said, that Essex was plotting to invade Elizabeth’s kingdom with Scottish and Irish troops, yet this was never mentioned at his trial. Had it been, Francis Bacon’s brother would have been in the dock. Anthony was Essex’s principal secretary.

Freddie nodded in agreement. “Someone else who escaped censure was William Shakespeare. After all, it was his play,
Richard II
, which was performed just before the rebellion. Yet, instead of summoning the actor-playwright to appear before the judicial inquiry, one of Shakespeare’s fellow shareholders faced the music and, in his private report to the queen, Bacon went out of his way to exonerate the players.”

“Odd, isn’t it.” The barrister scratched his bald head.

“So was she?”

Guest had finally got his wish. The sexy girl on his sofa was talking to him.

“Was she what?”

“Was she Bacon’s real mother? Do you believe in the royal birth or not.” the girl asked.

Guest wasn’t used to being interrogated. “There is no direct proof, no written or oral testimony, that Queen Elizabeth gave birth to a baby in 1561 but there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence; indirect or secondary facts that allow the reasonable inference of the principal fact without establishing such an inference to be true.” 

Cheryl snorted with disgust. “Cutting through all the legal bullshit, is that a yes?”

The barrister shook his bald pate. “No, it’s not. I’m an agnostic on the royal birth issue, but I am bound to say the chronology is fascinating.”

Seymour Guest brushed imaginary dust off his expensive jacket and ran through the facts. Francis Bacon was born on 22 January, 1561.  If he was Elizabeth’s child, she must have become pregnant the previous spring and that was when foreign ambassadors, paid to miss nothing, began to file reports on Elizabeth’s passionate affair with one of her courtiers, Robert Dudley. He was a handsome, magnetic figure who had grown up with Elizabeth, they had been in the Tower together, and, on her accession, she made him Master of the Horse.

“Did they have sex?” Cheryl’s hazel green eyes bore into him.

Guest gave her a pained look. “We don’t know. The historian David Starkey comes up with a Clintonesque blueprint: Dudley had sex with Elizabeth but she did not have it with him. But she certainly loved him – they spent a lot of time together in private and made romantic river journeys on the royal barge and Elizabeth made sure that Dudley’s wife Amy was kept well away from court. The Spanish and Venetian diplomats claimed Elizabeth visited Lord Robert’s chamber day and night.”

“Sounds as if they were having it off,” she said, glancing slyly at Freddie.

Noticing her body language, Guest winced. “Her courtiers certainly thought so. The gossip was that Elizabeth would marry Dudley once he got rid of his wife.”

“Well, she did die, didn’t she?” Cheryl inquired. “It’s one of the few things I learned at school about Tudor history. Do you think she was murdered?”

Amy Dudley’s body had been found at the foot of a flight of stairs in Cumnor Place on September 8th 1560.  Historical opinion was divided on the cause of death. Some thought she committed suicide while others treated her as a breast cancer victim. However, the recent discovery of the Coroner’s Inquest Report left little room for doubt. Amy had two head wounds, one two inches deep, the result of violent blows probably delivered by a sword.

“If it was murder, Lord Robert must be the chief suspect. He wanted to be king and Amy was standing in his way.”