Elizabeth I (112 page)

“And?”

“Sentenced to death, my lady.”

“When?”

“A fortnight from now.”

They were giving him longer than they had given Robert. Perhaps they wanted him to recover sufficiently. “And the others?”

“Sir Charles Danvers received the same sentence. He will suffer on the same day as Sir Blount, March 18. Gelli Meyrick and Henry Cuffe will go next week, March 13.”

“And the last, Sir John Davies?”

“Not sure of that, my lady.” He looked more furtive than ever, and I thought,
Oh, God, they may reprieve him. Why? Why?

“Did Sir Christopher have any message for me?”

He shook his head. “I did not speak to the prisoner. They dispatched me straightway with this report.”

“I thank you.” I supposed I should reward him. Reward the messenger for evil news. But it was not his fault. “Here.” I gave him some money and let him go.

Now Frances crept into the room. She had barely recovered from her difficult childbirth and was moving slowly. Why had I ever disliked her? She had turned out to be the most steadfast of my daughters. She sank down into a chair and waited, her large, dark eyes fastened on the fatal envelope.

My fingers trembled a bit, but I tore it open and started reading. Obligingly, she moved a candle closer to me on the table so I could read the hateful writing better. “We, the loyal servants and councillors of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth, hereby record and testify to the proceedings of the trial of the rebels of the late uprising against Her Majesty....” At least they had the decency not to call them traitors until the verdict had been announced. It went on, detailing the interrogation and Christopher’s confession of intent to draw blood from the Queen. Their ends were to seize the Tower, hold the Queen hostage, call a parliament to force the removal of all the “evil councillors”—Cecil, Raleigh, Coke, Cobham. Who would rule in this interim they demurely avoided stipulating.

The councillors remarked that far from seizing the Tower, it was ironic that he was now being tried inside it.

The confessions of the others were included, but I did not concern myself with those. That was between themselves, the Queen, and God.

Frances and I sat quietly in the room, as if in a chapel keeping vigil. She was now twice a widow, and I would be thrice one. Our fates now linked us inexorably. As battle makes brothers out of men, widowhood forged a strong bond between us.

86

I
had no desire to leave the house and kept as secluded as a desert monk. Indeed, the house was my own monastic cell and within it were all the memento mori I needed to contemplate mortality. I was suspended between two dates—every day was one further removed from Robert’s death and one closer to Christopher’s. Carefully Frances and I gathered and folded up Robert’s clothes and possessions. Some she would keep for the children, others give to the poor, others keep for the memories. I asked only for one of his miniatures and an odd little Spanish church carving of a cherub he had brought back from Cádiz.

“Cádiz,” I said, holding it, examining its gilded wings. “The last time he was happy.” I stroked the angel’s head.

“We all have a time that turns out to be our pinnacle of happiness,” she said. “But at the time we think there is more to come.”

“What was yours, Frances?”

She stopped smoothing the cloak she was ready to fold. “I think it was when Robert first made clear his intentions,” she said. “I had had one noble knight in my life. I had not thought to have another. I was seventeen when Philip died and I thought my life was over. Truly, it just began when I married Robert.”

“You said you would not draw a breath an hour after his death,” I reminded her. “Yet here you are, still breathing.”

“We surprise ourselves,” she said. “Each breath I draw, I draw in pain. But I have to keep breathing so my children are not orphans.”

Our pain was compounded when we learned that others had managed to buy their way out of execution. The Earl of Rutland got off for twenty thousand pounds, the Earl of Bedford for ten thousand, and Lords Sandys, Monteagle, and Cromwell for five thousand, four thousand, and three thousand, respectively. The Earl of Southampton, although condemned along with Robert, still lived in the Tower. His mother was said to be pleading powerfully for him, and I knew that she would end up paying a huge fine and he would go free. Technically these men were still prisoners and would be until the last penny was paid, but freedom loomed.

I petitioned the lieutenant of the Tower to be able to see Christopher or to write to him, but he said that was not possible. Then I inquired—oh, dreadful question—whether his body would be released to the family. The answer came back, no. The body of a convicted felon was the state’s, and he would be buried in the churchyard of St. Peter ad Vincula—outside, as befitted a man of low rank. Only one glimmer of mercy shone through: The Queen had commuted his sentence to beheading. He would not suffer the horrors of hanging, disemboweling, and being drawn and quartered, as the unfortunate Meyrick and Cuffe did on March 13.

On the morning of March 18 I broke my word to myself. I would force myself to look on at Tower Hill. I, who had brought him into the world, had not witnessed Robert’s exit from it. Perhaps the last duty I could perform as a wife was to accompany Christopher on the final steps of his journey. It was to be public, unlike Robert’s.

But as I approached the area of Tower Hill, the thick crowds made me regret my decision. I had never attended a public execution, but they were supposed to serve a moral lesson, striking fear into the hearts of the onlookers. In practice, though, they treated it as an amusement, like bearbaiting and cockfighting, only better, since the victims were people and not animals. I tried to shut my ears to the jolly laughter and chatter of the crowd. All these people were free, free to waste their lives and substance, free to abuse their gifts, while Christopher was not even free to write a letter. I hated them.

Ahead of me loomed the slope of Tower Hill, with the scaffold perched upon it. So many had died here, so many sanctified it by their blood. Thomas More, who supposedly quipped as they steered him up the steps that he appreciated their help in mounting the scaffold, but as for the coming down, he would shift for himself. Cardinal John Fisher, whom Henry VIII had warned that if the pope sent him a cardinal’s hat there would be no head to put it on. Henry Howard, the poet Earl of Surrey. Guildford Dudley. Thomas Cromwell. All of Anne Boleyn’s supposed lovers, as well as Catherine Howard’s genuine ones.

I threaded my way through the crowd, more tightly packed the closer I got to the scaffold. Finally I was jammed between two hulking men, but their size prevented anyone from pushing me aside. I was as close as I could get, and I could smell the hay strewn over the platform—fodder to absorb the blood. The headsman, with his black hood, was waiting, as was the block. Two clergymen stood by. At length there was a roar and I saw two men being brought out—Christopher and Charles Danvers. They would pass close to me as they mounted the steps, and I found myself paralyzed as I watched them approach. Christopher would come within an arm’s length, but I could not move. Then, suddenly, I could, and reached out and grabbed his sleeve. He turned, unrecognizing, and the soldier guarding him hit my arm away. Then he mounted the steps, dragging his feet.

The bandage was gone but a livid scar ran down the right side of his face. He seemed dazed, unable to comprehend what was around him. The Crown representative read their crimes and their sentence. The clergymen stepped forward to speak in low tones to the men. Then the official asked if they wished to make a statement.

Christopher seemed to suddenly awaken. He spoke in a clear voice of his treason and said that he deserved to die. He said he forgave all his enemies, especially Sir Walter Raleigh. Then he cried, “I die a Catholic!” Looking wildly around, he saw me. “No, no!” he said. “Go!” Still I stood rooted, and he said, “Obey my last wish!”

He had given me permission. I could go, and not witness the horrible end. I obeyed. Turning my back on Tower Hill, I ran, my hands clapped to my ears. But I still could not drown out the shouts of glee that went up when the headsman struck.

87

ELIZABETH

April 1601

E
aster morning, April 12. The winter was over, all of it, gloriously over, and the pall that had descended on February 25, Ash Wednesday, the day of Essex’s execution, lifted at last.

The gloom that had attended Lent this year—both in nature, with its bone-chilling mists and lingering frosts, and in my heart—now dissipated. I had thought the sound of birdsong and the bright yellow of new-sprung flowers would never come again, or if they did, would have lost the power to gladden me. But they still had the magic to make things new.

Throughout the land people gathered to watch the sun dance as it rose on Easter morning, an old belief. Here in the palace we put a bowl of water in the eastern window of the privy chamber to catch the phenomenon. Catherine, Helena, and I bent over it, watching eagle-eyed, but the sun only danced because of ripples in the water.

“I suppose one needs truly to believe,” said Catherine. “One needs to look with the eyes of a child.”

“Yes, we are all too old and have seen too much,” agreed Helena. “Even little Eurwen will be acquiring the eyes of her elders now. Most likely this is her last Easter to see the sun dance.”

“Most like,” I said. “She will be thirteen now.” The age I was when my father died. On that day I had stopped being a child. “I will bring her back to court.” I needed to, for she had lost a kinsman and would forever associate me with the act of his death if I did not bring her close to me again.

We were still at Richmond, unusually late for this time of year. Usually we had transferred to Greenwich by now. But that had allowed Helena to stay with me longer, and I enjoyed that. Attired in our most sumptuous dress to honor the occasion, we, along with the entire household, attended the Easter service. The pale light from a hundred tapers in the chapel royal was lost in the blaze of sunlight streaming in the windows; only the thick Easter candle, meant to burn for forty days, held its own.

The wider world soon came calling in the persons of French and Scottish envoys. Both came on account of Essex—the French to ascertain what had happened, the Scots because he had called them. By the time James responded to Essex’s plea that he send troops to assure that Cecil did not take over the government and give the succession to the Spanish, Essex was dead. Gamely James’s envoys carried out their diplomatic mission, seeking to distance themselves from the fallen courtier. I entertained the Scots and assured them of our continued friendship and support. They almost trembled with eagerness to mention the succession but read the warning in my eyes.

As for the French, Henri IV had sent Marshal Biron as his envoy to express his condolences and thanks for my safety. It took all my willpower to arrange suitable entertainment to honor him. But I needed to be sure of French support, particularly in the coming months, when we wished to bring the dragging, draining, pointless war with Spain to a close.