Elizabeth I (6 page)

Some ten women were serving now as gentlewomen of the privy chamber, and out of those, only four senior ones personally served me in my bedchamber. Being a lady of the bedchamber was the highest honor my attendants could have. Three of those four, my Crow and my Cat and my Blanche, I would keep with me now. The fourth, Helena van Snakenborg from Sweden, I would send home to be with her husband.

I had six maids of honor, unmarried girls from good families who served in the outer chamber and slept together in one room, the maidens’ chamber. All of them must depart.

If the ladies in waiting were the ornamental regalia of my entourage and the ladies of the privy chamber a mix of companions and assistants, the maids of honor were the youthful jewels that shone and sparkled for a season or two. They were apt to be the most winsome and tempting of the small number of women at court. A king’s eye was often drawn to them. My mother had been a maid of honor, and so had two other of my father’s wives. Here, however, there was no king’s eye to catch, only those of predatory courtiers.

They lined up obediently, tremblingly. Excitement vied with apprehension. “Ladies,” I said, “it saddens me that, for your own safety, I must send you away. It may be that I will have to move quickly to a secret location, should the Spanish land, and I will not need your services. I pray that this is an unnecessary precaution. But I could not expose any of you to the dangers of enemy soldiers.”

One of the maids of honor, Elizabeth Southwell, tall and graceful, shook her head. “Surely our lives are not more precious than yours. We should be with you when—when—” Her large blue eyes brimmed with tears.

“As Charmian and Iras were, when Cleopatra took her last stand against the Romans!” said Elizabeth Vernon, shaking her abundant reddish curls.

“I don’t plan to kill myself with an asp,” I said. “Nor would I require you to follow suit. I wish you to go home, for now. Do you understand?”

“Is the danger very great?” asked Bess Throckmorton. She was the daughter of a late favorite councillor. But Bess always had a hint of insolence about her, and the other maids of honor seemed to admire it.

“That depends on how close they manage to get,” I said.

The older ladies of the privy chamber said little, merely nodding.

“You may pack this afternoon, to be gone by morning,” I said.

Bowing, they took their leave. All except young Frances Walsingham and Helena.

Frances waited until we were alone, then she said, “Your Majesty, I wish to stay. I feel it is my duty to remain by your side.”

I looked at her. She was a plain little thing, not at all befitting the widow of the glorious Sir Philip Sidney. Ever since his death, she had effaced herself so that she was hardly visible. Even her name made her invisible, being the same as her father’s—Francis Walsingham. I thought it very odd for father and daughter to share a name. “Frances, it is your duty to obey me.”

“But my father is embroiled in running the war! I am not just a little girl to be sent home. I know too much ever to be free of fear and worry. I will do better to remain at the center of things. Please, please, let me stay!”

I shook my head. “No, Frances, you must go. For my own peace of mind.” I turned to Helena. “And you, too, my dear friend. You must return to your husband and children. Families should be together now.” That made Frances’s request all the more unusual. “Frances, your little daughter—my goddaughter, let me remind you—she needs you. You must be with her when there is threat of war and turmoil.”

So they departed—Frances glumly, Helena lovingly, kissing my cheek and saying, “It will not be long. I shall soon be back.”

Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher were out to sea, along with a goodly part of the navy. I suddenly had questions about the ships and the agreed-upon deployment, details only a seaman would know. Of all my able-bodied seafarers, only Walter Raleigh was still on shore to be consulted. Oh, how he had protested against his assignment—to be responsible for the land defenses of Devon and Cornwall. To stay at home when the others would set sail. To yield his custom-built fighting ship, the
Ark Raleigh
, to Admiral Howard as his flagship, now renamed the
Ark.
But he had bowed to necessity and done an excellent job not only fortifying Devon and Cornwall but inspecting the defenses all along the coast and up into Norfolk. He argued for heavy cannon to protect the deepwater ports of Portland and Weymouth as well as Plymouth, the port closest to Spain. It was essential, he said, to prevent the Armada from securing a protected, deep harbor to anchor in.

Raleigh had managed to levy an impressive number of citizens to serve as land defense. But they were armed with home weapons—billhooks, halberds, longbows, pikes, and lances—which were no match for a professional soldier’s musket and armor. Our land defense was puny. Only our sailors could save us.

Walter arrived in his best attire, his face glowing with hope. I quickly dashed it. I was not going to alter his assignment and send him to sea.

“Your Majesty,” he said, trying to hide his disappointment, “I am here to serve you in any way you in your wisdom deem best.”

“Thank you, my dear Walter,” I said. “I rely on that.” I always enjoyed his company. His compliments were not so extravagant that I could not believe them. He was attentive without being fawning. He was pleasant without straining to be ingratiating, and he was not above gossiping. He also was good-looking and every inch a man. That was why I had made him captain of the Queen’s Guard, an entire company of two hundred tall, handsome men in gold and red livery. Their duties were to protect me and attend on my person. I certainly encouraged them to attend to that duty.

“The reports I have received about your work on the coasts have been excellent. I am only grieved that they were such a shambles to begin with,” I told him.

“We are so seldom invaded that it is natural we neglected to see to them. Not since your father’s day has an invasion been a serious possibility,” he assured me.

“There have been some successful ones. The Romans, for one. The Vikings. The Normans. It is certainly not impossible.”

“We had no navy to counter any of those,” he said.

“The navy, yes. That is why I have called you. Do we have the exact figures for the makeup of the Armada now? “

“Not an exact figure, but we believe that it has around a hundred and thirty ships. Not all those are fighting ships; many are just supply boats and scouts. They have very few purpose-built fighting ships, and those twelve they commandeered from the Portuguese, who are much better seamen. They also got four galleasses from Naples. But whether an oared gunboat can really be effective outside the Mediterranean remains to be seen.”

“On paper we are stronger,” I said, to reassure myself. “Ever since Hawkins took over the finances of the navy and redesigned our ships, we have become the most modern navy in the world. We now have thirty-four redesigned galleons out of almost two hundred ships. But the decision to replace soldiers with guns ...” I shook my head. It had never been tried, and what if it did not work? Using ships themselves as weapons, rather than using them to convey soldiers to do the fighting, seemed risky. Nonetheless, we were committed to it now. Hawkins’s design, substituting gun decks for poop decks, meant that there was no turning back.

“It is no mistake, my gracious Queen,” he said, reading my thoughts. “Our ships are much faster and more maneuverable. We can sail closer to the wind and turn quicker. We have dedicated gunners for the cannon and twice as many big guns as the Armada per ship. We have four times the firing rate and four times the accuracy. Windy conditions will favor us; calm conditions will favor them. But the Channel is never calm. Everything is on our side.”

I smiled at him. It was hard not to smile at him. “Well, that is what Pharaoh thought when he set out chasing Moses across the Red Sea. God loves to bring a prideful nation down.”

“Then he should love to bring
them
down. Your Majesty, from what I’ve heard, the officers and the ships are bedecked as if they were attending a banquet. The noblemen dress according to rank, with gold-decorated armor, jewels, gold insignia, and velvet cloaks. The musketeers wear plumed hats—for battle as well, I presume—and decorated powder flasks. The ships are painted red and gold and have flags flying from every possible mast and yard. It must look like laundry day at a housewife’s cottage.”

I could not help laughing. “More like a cathedral, I would think, with all the saints and Wounds of Christ and Virgin Mary banners flapping.”

He knelt, suddenly, and took my hands. “I assure you, upon my life, we are prepared. Have no fear.”

I raised him up, drawing him back to his feet and looking into his eyes. “I have never been afraid of any man, woman, or foreign foe. My heart does not know what fear is. I am Queen of a brave people. Should I be less brave than they?”

He smiled. “You must be—and are—bravest of all.”

June turned into July, and intelligence about the Armada—so large that it took an entire day to pass any point on land—revealed that although it had left Lisbon the first week of May, severe storms had crippled it so it had taken shelter at Corunna, a port on the north shore of Spain. Drake and his fleet of a hundred armed ships aimed to strike at it there as it lay wounded and vulnerable at anchor in harbor. But when they were within sixty miles of Corunna, they were betrayed by the wind, which turned on them and blew northwest, toward England—perfect for the Spanish to resume their deadly journey. Afraid that the Spanish would slip right past them and get to England before they could, they had no choice but to turn and head for home. It turned out to be the same day the Spanish left Corunna, so they arrived back at Plymouth just in time. The winds that had so severely hurt the Spanish had done little damage to our ships—a good omen.

I had packed away my finery, ordered the jewels locked in the guarded Tower of London, retreated to Richmond, farther up the Thames. And waited.

From my palace window I could see the river, its ripples showing the ebbing tide current. The waxing moon played on its surface, making bright patches that broke and rearranged themselves as the water rolled past. On the opposite bank the reeds and willows were painted silver by the moonlight, the swans resting among them standing out as stark white. A night for lovers.

And then, a red glare through the silver moonlight. A beacon, twinkling from miles away. Then another. The Armada had been sighted. The local militia was called to assemble.

“Light! Light!” I called for candles. There would be no sleep tonight. I heard the commotion in the palace as messengers arrived, and then one was brought before me. He knelt, trembling.

“Well?” I said. “Tell me all.” I motioned him up.

He was only a lad, perhaps fifteen. “I tended the beacon on Upshaw Hill. I lighted it when I saw the one on Adcock Ridge. It would have taken twenty-four or thirty-six hours since the first one was lit to the west.”

“I see.” I had my guard pay him. “You have done well.”

But in truth I knew no more than I had just by seeing the beacon myself. Only when knowledgeable witnesses arrived would the truth be revealed. “Prepare yourselves,” I told my guard. Raleigh, the head of them, was away in the west counties. He must have seen the Armada. How far along the coast had it gotten?