Elizabeth I (113 page)

So I smiled and teased and flattered Biron. When he touched on Essex, I assured him I would have spared him had I been able. I said this with a sigh of melancholy. If I had been able ... so many things I would have done. Or not done.

“Ma’am,” he said, leaning near me in affected confidentiality. “Do you know what my sovereign said upon hearing of your masterful handling of the uprising?”

“I am sure I cannot guess,” I replied, and waited for him to tell me.

“He said, ‘She is only a king! She only knows how to rule!’”

“Ah, well,” I said, flattered against my own better judgment. But finally to have attained parity as a king—the competitive and meaner part of me danced a little dance and nodded upward toward my father. Son or no son, he had had what he sought in the succession to his reign.

After the French emissaries were dispatched, it was time to address some matters at home. The East India Company merchants planned to send four ships to the Far East. However, they wanted my blessing on their venture and asked me to write letters to the exotic rulers they expected to meet with, and to provide them with the proper gifts to present.

“For if we come in the name of our Queen,” said the spokesman for the company, “they are like to pay us more heed.”

“But they will have never heard of me,” I said.

“Oh, that does not matter,” he said. “The mere sight of the royal seal will impress them.”

“How many do you expect to encounter?”

“Perhaps half a dozen. Could you provide letters for that many, just to be on the safe side?”

“I can draw them up, but leave the name blank, so you can fill it in,” I said. “And as for gifts, what would catch the fancy of these rulers?”

“Something from England,” he said. “But it must be waterproof and unbreakable and not subject to spoilage on the long voyage.”

“You set me a hard task, gentlemen,” I said. “It is difficult to find something uniquely English that will also fit those criteria.”

“Oh, and it must be small as well. We do not have much space on board.”

“I must think upon it,” I said. “What lands do you hope to reach?”

“Sumatra, Java, the Moluccas,” he said. “And whatever else we stumble on. Perhaps even China.”

I could almost smell the spices, wafting across the warm water from the islands. “The tropics rot cloth, so I cannot make a gift of that. A delicate clock would rust in the sea air. Dogs are out of the question, although the sultan of the Turks was impressed with our native breeds, the bloodhounds and mastiffs.”

“We can trust Your Glorious Majesty to provide exactly the right gift.”

“I will do so,” I said. “I am proud that we are sending English ships and merchants so far away. We have established many trading stations all over the East. In years to come they should pay off.” Our failure to set up any permanent colonies or even trading posts in the New World was a pity, but it could be counterbalanced by those on the other side of the globe. At least we knew that was rich in spices, pearls, and silk. So far the New World had yielded only gold, unfortunately in the hands of Spain. “Do you have any thought, or hope, of finding Terra Australis Incognita? If it exists, that is.”

“We are not equipped to go that far south,” he said. “And in any case, it would be so cold there that the spices we seek would not grow.”

“But it probably is a myth,” said his companion. “So far no one has sighted any land that far south.”

“That is for another generation, then,” I said. “We must leave them something of their own to discover.”

That afternoon I thought hard about what I could possibly send to the Far East with them. Their restrictions were so severe even a fairy could not find berth on their ships. Something small ... something waterproof ... something unbreakable ... something impervious to salt ... something unmistakably English ...

“I have it!” said Helena. “It is so obvious.”

“Is it? Then why is it not obvious to me?”

“When I came from Sweden with Princess Cecilia’s embassy, King Gustav sent miniatures of himself to everyone—do you remember?”

“Yes, I do. I still have one—somewhere.” More and more I had to say that, not having a precise recollection of where long-unused things were. “It was charming.”

“Well, then—you could send a similar gift to the foreign rulers. They would never have seen an English queen. It would be a novelty for them. You can order duplicates of a portrait you have already approved.”

“Yes ... I suppose ... Very clever of you.”

“A little glass plate will allow it to withstand the salt air, and the size will be perfect. And imagine what they will think when they see what a ruler of Europe wears. They will covet the same!”

“Thank you, Helena. You have done me a great favor.”

“Just one thing. As a reward, I want one for myself.”

“You shall have it.”

Over the years, my costumes had become even more elaborate. I gave the people an unchanged portrait of their Queen, a fixed element in their lives. All else might change, but your Queen does not. That is the message I wished to send them. But I was getting old, and I noted the telltale signs: how increasingly impatient I had become with repetitions, how rigid about carrying through with something. To others that looked like stubbornness, but I knew it was because if I did not do it immediately, it would slip my mind. And there was forgetfulness, which I had been living with for a while. The constant effort to disguise these things—these failings?—were worse than the failings themselves. Yet I knew the keen eyes and the whisperings, the wolves ready to pounce if they smelled weakness. I would not give them that opportunity.

The letters of introduction, illuminated in red and gold, presented to the captains went thus:

And then followed a letter setting forth our intentions and our well wishes, in English, Latin, Spanish, and Italian. I gave them the letters along with the completed miniatures and sent them on their way.

The summer passed pleasantly. The harvest was still not good, but neither was it disastrous. The Continent was quiet. The government ran smoothly with Essex gone, its chief irritant removed. I appointed the Earl of Worcester and the Earl of Shrewsbury to fill vacancies on the Privy Council and enjoyed the quiet balmy days of July and August.

Then came September, and the news I had hoped never to hear: The Spanish had landed in Ireland. Thirty-three ships, with five thousand troops, arms, and ammunition, had anchored at Kinsale on the southern part of the island. They were under the command of Don Juan de Águila, who had led the attack on Mousehold in 1595.

Our troops were primarily in the north, fighting O’Neill and his adherents, and these reinforcements were in the south. If the O’Neill forces could get south and join with the Spanish, we would be outnumbered.

Quickly I ordered reinforcements to Ireland and wrote Lord Deputy Mountjoy, “Tell our army from us, that every hundred of us will beat a thousand of them, and every thousand, ten thousand. I am the bolder to pronounce it in His name, that has ever protected my righteous cause. I end, scribbling in haste, Your loving sovereign, E.T.”

If only it were true that our numbers counted disproportionately. But that was wishful thinking. We had been winning in Ireland. Now came the test. At last the Spanish had directly engaged us on land.

“Old Sixtus,” I muttered. “It is too late for you to offer your reward of gold to Spanish boots on our soil.” He had not lived to see it. Good.

It is satisfying to outlive one’s enemies, and the schemes of one’s enemies. One of the unheralded benefits of age.

88

A
utumn, and the time of gathering in. My sixty-eighth birthday came and went, and I did not encourage anyone to mark it. I did not want to remind the world of my age. But I could not escape marking it myself.

I took a short Progress to Reading and Hampshire and was pleased to see farmers selling their produce along the road. The wagons were not heaped as high as they would have been in a good year, but at least there was something. That sharp smell of leaves crackling underfoot filled my nostrils and made me think—as that autumnal scent would always make me think—of Marjorie. I had just heard that Henry Norris had died and joined her in the family tomb. He had not endured long without her.

With a sigh, I turned my thoughts to more immediate and pressing concerns. The subsidies granted by Parliament in 1597 had run out this spring, and I had called another one to meet in October.

This one would be difficult. They grew ever more demanding and encroached more and more upon my royal prerogative. Traditionally, Parliament’s role was to advise, and advise only. But they could introduce bills for me to approve. I could—and did—forbid them to put forward bills on the church, the succession, and monopolies.

I halted my horse and looked around the fields, the stubble in them like little picket fences. Like the farmers who tilled these fields, I must tend to Parliament. Both grew unruly without care. Both must be made to yield for our subsistence.