Virginia Henley (44 page)

“Wheest, lassie; human nature being what it is, Elizabeth’s courtiers will fall o’er theirselves to be first in line to bow and scrape before the new King of England.”

“But, Maggie, they are used to having a magnificent royal personage. James Stuart doesn’t even look like a king.”

“Och, he’ll descend on London with all the trappings. He’s been waiting fer this day fer decades; mark my words.”

The apartment door opened and Isobel walked in looking as if she had seen Elizabeth’s corpse. Clearly, she was in a state of shock. “The Court is in mourning. I cannot cope, Catherine.”

“Make her some chamomile tea, Maggie. I shall go down to the Wardrobe Department and do whatever is necessary, Mother.”

When Catherine encountered Philadelphia, they hugged each other. “Your long vigil is over. Why don’t you go and rest?”

“I could sleep for a month, darling, but there is much to do. If I let down my guard I shall come to a standstill.”

“Mother is in a state of shock, as if this is the end, but Maggie says life is for the living and already the Court’s focus has turned to King James.”

“Maggie is right. This isn’t the end; it is a new beginning. Queen Anne and her ladies are barely in their thirties. The new king and queen have young children. You’ll see. The Court will come to life in a brand new golden era.”

At 10:00 A.M. Cecil delivered the first reading of the Proclamation at Whitehall Palace naming James Stuart sovereign.

By nightfall there were bonfires and bell ringing to celebrate the accession of the new king, and as Philadelphia had predicted, a certain excitement began to manifest at the dawn of a new age.

Elizabeth’s body was wrapped in cerecloth, according to her wishes, and at midnight was placed on the royal barge and taken to Whitehall to lie in state while funeral arrangements were made.

Philadelphia visited Isobel the next day. “I think it would be a wonderful gesture if each of Elizabeth’s ladies had the choice of one of her gowns. I believe the queen would want that.”

“How can you suggest such a thing?” Isobel was shocked and offended. “It would be desecration!”

“No, Isobel. It is a practical way of thanking her Ladies of the Bedchamber, her ladies-in-waiting, her maids of honor, and her Ladies of the Wardrobe for their devoted service. Once the new queen arrives, you do realize that all will belong to her?”

Isobel’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of it. Your idea has merit, but many of Her Majesty’s gowns are sewn with jewels.”

“Only semiprecious jewels, Mother,” Cat interjected, “like crystals, jet, garnets and carnelians. There are no diamonds, rubies, emeralds or real pearls.”

“Courtiers are already thinking ahead about garments for King James’s coronation. The gift of a royal gown would save her ladies much expense, Isobel,” Philadelphia pointed out.

“Coronation?” Isobel was horrified. “Her Majesty is not yet buried. How can people be so heartless? The Court is in mourning. I shall be in mourning for the rest of my life.”

Philadelphia glanced at Cat with pity but hung on to her patience. “There is much to do. We have to move the Court from Richmond Palace back to Whitehall. Thank you, Isobel, for agreeing to gift the queen’s ladies with her gowns. Elizabeth is smiling down upon you.”

“Elizabeth, are you venting your fury upon me?” Robert Carey, on his headlong dash north, had made careful arrangements to have ready the best horses at stages all along the road from London to Edinburgh, but not all was going according to plan.

With every mile north the weather deteriorated, and just before he reached the inn where a fresh horse awaited him, his mount slipped on the icy road and he was thrown from the saddle. He got gingerly to his feet and examined his rapidly swelling leg. “I pray it’s not broken,” he muttered as he groped in the darkness for the reins of his horse. He slid a hand over its forelegs. “Thank God, you don’t seem any worse for wear, old man.”

He limped into the inn’s stable and told the hostler that of necessity his plans had changed. “I will need a carriage, a stout team of horses and a driver.”

“Ye need a doctor to look at yer leg, sir.”

“No time for that, I’m afraid.” He gave the man gold. “While you ready a carriage, I shall go inside and get some warm food.”

Through the night as the coach hurtled northward, Robert got little sleep until the whisky he had procured dulled his pain. Midday on March 25 his team of horses was changed and the posting inn provided another driver and another hot meal. He did not take the time to bathe or change his clothes. He simply propped his aching leg on the opposite seat and pressed on.

He reached Carlisle Castle early on March 26 and gave the news to Philadelphia’s husband, Lord Scrope, who knew he was on his way to take the momentous news to England’s new king. Robert asked for a messenger and scribbled a note to be taken to his wife, Liz, asking her to meet him at Holyrood Palace.

“Why don’t you bed down for a few hours? You’re exhausted.”

“Nay, Thomas, if I leave now I may be able to reach James before he retires to bed tonight.”

As it turned out, Robert missed his goal by one hour. It was almost midnight when he hurried through Holyrood’s passageways with a King’s Guard at his side. At the bedchamber door he told those guarding it that James had given orders to deliver the news he brought, day or night. After a few moments’ delay, they ushered Robert Carey into the presence of James Stuart.

Carey, disheveled and travel-stained, had difficulty going down on one knee. “The queen is dead; long live the king!”

“Eh, laddie, ye speak true?” James tugged at his sparse beard.

“My cousin Elizabeth died two hours past midnight on March 24, Sire. I salute you by your rightful title of King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland.” He placed Elizabeth’s locket-ring in James Stuart’s hand.

James’s Gentlemen of the Bedchamber busied themselves bringing the king a bed robe and lighting the candles. James took the ring over to the light and gazed down upon it as it lay in his palm. “’Tis the bonniest thing I’ve ever seen.” The large gold ring was lined on the inside with mother of pearl and ringed on the outside by a circle of rubies. The ring was opened by pressing on a big pearl that lifted her hinged initial,
E,
made from huge square diamonds.

James’s fingers fumbled and shook as he opened the locket. “Look at this,” he bade Robert. “’Tis a miniature paintin’ of herself an’ one o’ Anne Boleyn, the mother she spent her reign disownin’. Blood is thicker than water. Our mothers are always wi’ us, deny them how we will.” James lifted his eyes and gazed at Robert as a thought struck him. “The laddie was right. Hepburn foretold the day I would become King o’ England!”

Patrick Hepburn had spent the last two days preparing his people of Crichton for his departure. He put Jock Elliot, the captain of his moss-troopers, in complete charge. He asked David Hepburn if he wanted to travel to London with him as his attendant, and that young man readily agreed. David packed their trunks; Patrick locked his important documents and gold in a strongbox, and they selected a pair of packhorses.

Hepburn, booted and spurred, broke his fast in the Great Hall, with all his people present, early on the morning of March 27. When he was finished eating, he climbed onto a trestle table and waited for silence. “King James will shortly travel to London to be crowned King of England. I will be one of the nobles going with him. I may be away for as long as six months, and when I return I shall be bringing a bride home with me.”

The people in the hall erupted in cheers and shouts of approval, which were accompanied by the deafening clatter of pewter tankards banging on the tabletops. On his way out, Patrick winked at Jenny Hepburn. “Don’t do aught I wouldn’t do, lass.”

The women of his clan clustered round him, kissing him, touching him and wishing him Godspeed. All at Crichton knew, as he did, that his time had come. In the stables, the two men mounted, and each led a packhorse into the courtyard. Jock Elliot held Sabbath and Satan on stout leashes so they would not follow their master. Patrick saluted Jock. “Look after the dogs for me.”

On the ride to Edinburgh, Hepburn felt confident that all he had seen in his visions had come to pass. He had known the very moment that Elizabeth had drawn her last faint breath, and he’d “seen” Philadelphia pass the locket ring to Robert Carey. Last night he had even envisioned the moment Jamie learned that the queen was dead and heard him say,
“The laddie was right. Hepburn foretold the day I would become King o’ England.”

 

March 28 was a bleak, cold day, with clouds that threatened London with rain. Catherine and Maggie flanked Isobel as they stood on the Strand outside Arundel House. Philadelphia had taken them by carriage to Kate’s house because the walk from Whitehall to Westminster Abbey, where Elizabeth was to be interred, would prove too far for Isobel in her melancholy state.

The funeral procession was headed by more than two hundred poor women, followed by the packed ranks of royal servants and household officers. “The Lord Admiral and Treasurer Stanhope made all the arrangements, though Kate’s husband isn’t yet over his own loss,” Catherine told her mother.

As Elizabeth’s leaden coffin on its bier, drawn by four black horses with black plumes, drew abreast, Isobel began to sob. When Catherine spotted the admiral and the treasurer following in the coffin’s wake, she took her mother’s arm. “Here come the wives and daughters of the nobility. We can join the procession here. Walk on her other side, Maggie, just in case.”

Every noble lady present wore a black gown, black cloak and black veil. The Yeomen of the Guard brought up the rear, with their halberds trailing downward as a mark of respect. After the service at Westminster Abbey, Elizabeth was interred in the crypt beside her grandfather Henry VII.

As they left the abbey for their return to Whitehall, the rain that had threatened all day began to fall. “Even the angels are weeping!” Isobel cried melodramatically. When they arrived back at their chambers, Catherine and Maggie put Isobel to bed. But even the next day, she did not rally; she sat in a rocking chair wreathed in black, looking stunned as a bird flown into a wall.

Cat, glad to escape, went down to the Wardrobe Department and began the task of putting all the late queen’s garments into storage. Whitehall Palace began to empty as more and more noble courtiers made hasty preparations to ride north so that they could greet the king as he journeyed from Scotland.

“I shall go too,” Philadelphia informed Cat. “I will not allow the ambitious flatterers and arse-lickers to be before me, darling. And in any case, I expect my husband, Scrope, joined James’s party when it reached Carlisle Castle.”

Only two more days until my birthday!
Cat hugged the thought to herself.
Will Patrick come?
Her thoughts flashed about like mercury, her emotions roiling like the sea in a storm.
Of course he’ll come! Patrick is in love with me and can’t wait to marry me.
Her excitement grew to such a pitch, she became breathless with anticipation. Her mood was so mercurial, she was suddenly overcome with doubts.
Of course Hepburn won’t come. You are such a foolish female. Hepburn told you he’d wed you by April first just to pacify you. Now that James is king, all will have changed for Lord Bloody Stewart!

When she was certain he would come, Cat felt dizzy with joy. When she convinced herself that he would not come, she was in the depths of despair. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, and she feared that by the time her birthday arrived, she wouldn’t be able to breathe.
If he doesn’t come, I’ll kill myself!
She swore.
That’s ridiculous. If Hepburn doesn’t come, I shall kill HIM!

 

Patrick Hepburn rode in the king’s cavalcade beside Robert Carey as they departed Carlisle Castle. “Congratulations on your appointment as Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber. I predict you will go far, Robert. Jamie considers you his most stalwart English supporter, and I doubt you can do any wrong in his eyes.”

“I am extremely happy for my wife. Queen Anne has welcomed her wholeheartedly and declared that Liz is her first English friend. The queen has given her charge of Baby Charles, who is only three. Liz is over the moon.”

“Liz has great maternal instincts.” Patrick grinned. “Thank God we are traveling with James and not Anne. It will take the Queen’s Court at least a month to get organized for the journey.”

“My conscience plagues me a bit because Elizabeth was my cousin and I did what was expedient for once.”

“I
always
do what’s expedient; my conscience
never
plagues me.”

“That’s because you don’t have one,” Robert jested.

Hepburn grinned. “Guilty as charged.”

Robert’s brother, the new Lord Hunsdon, and his brother-in-law Scrope rode up, ready to rag the youngest Carey. “By God, Thomas, who would have thought the runt of the litter shrewd and calculating enough to raise our status to such dizzying heights?”