Elizabeth I (61 page)

Elizabeth was renowned, and resented, for her vacillation on matters of state, especially in military affairs. She constantly sent orders countermanding her commands, and only when men were finally at sea were they free of her imperious changes. On land she was not much better; her notorious reluctance to sign necessary decrees was legendary, usually involving several rounds of papers.

I felt uneasy when I saw the actor playing Bolingbroke. Tall, reddishhaired—and with a spade-shaped beard. Richard mockingly described Bolingbroke’s “courtship to the common people.” Imitating his walk, he said, “How he did seem to dive into their hearts with humble and familiar courtesy.” He turned. “What reverence he did throw away on slaves, wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles.” He made a face at the audience, a false grin. “Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench.” He swept off his hat. “A brace of draymen bid God speed him well, and had the tribute of his supple knee.” He knelt with a flourish. “With ‘thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends,’ as were our England in reversion his, and he our subjects’ next degree in hope.”

The audience had spotted Robert by this time, and they turned to look at him as those lines were recited. It could not have been more pointed. Instead of ignoring them, Robert bowed his head. The fool!

On went the play to its conclusion. The “plume-plucked Richard” was first deposed, then murdered. Bolingbroke lamented “that blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.” He vowed a trip to the Holy Land to wash himself clean in repentance. However, he kept the crown on his head.

The audience went wild applauding. Then the manager announced that the fortunes of Bolingbroke would be explored in later plays about the result of his action: the bloody War of the Roses.

Thus we were invited to lament the horror of the evil deeds while thrilling to the gore and irrevocable decisions that led to doom. Such is the theater.

The likeness of Bolingbroke and Essex was unmistakable. I felt that Will had betrayed us. Under our roof he had had ample opportunity to observe and capture Robert’s mannerisms. Now he reflected them back in this grotesque character.

Never trust a writer, he had warned me. All the world is ours to kidnap and transform as we will, to our own purpose.

49

C
ecil and Raleigh left the theater and returned to their homes of Salisbury and Durham House, respectively, parting cheerily. Clearly the sober subject of the play had not depressed their spirits—a sign they were so enamored of their new-laid plans they felt impervious to political threat. I waited until we were safely within doors finally to ask Robert what had passed between them.

He tossed his hat toward the bust of Augustus, where it settled squarely on his head, feathers quivering. “Fortune favors me today in small matters as well as large,” he observed. He sat down on a padded chair, pleased with himself. “My political foes came to
me
,” he said. “Did you ever think that would happen?” He reached over to a platter where dried fruit was always heaped, plucked a fig, and dropped it in his mouth. “We now have a common purpose—or rather, three separate purposes that twine together. By joining forces, we further all three. Cecil wishes to soothe the Queen’s bad temper, caused in part by the outré status of me and Raleigh. Raleigh wants to be restored to his old post as captain of the Queen’s Guard; I wish to be empowered to mount a Cádiz-style anti-Spanish attack. With Cecil to persuade her for us, we can succeed.”

“But why would Cecil wish to help you? What is in it for him? He never does anything without a purpose.”

Robert had to think a moment. “He cannot advance himself while the government is paralyzed. The Queen will—the Queen won’t—the Queen will—and in the meantime nothing happens. Men of action—me and Raleigh—who can break the dam have been unwelcome at court lately.”

“And while you are away on this mission? Have you forgotten that every time you leave, Cecil grabs another office?”

“I am aware of that. But while I am held prisoner here I can achieve nothing. And—Mother, I long to get away! If only I could never come back!”

“Like Drake? He always wished to get away, and now he lies beneath the blue waves off the coast of South America.”

“Maybe I’d go ashore in the tropics and stay there. They say the Azores are beautiful—a string of islands a thousand miles from Portugal. Paradise. A man could be happy there—”

He was going to start that again. “Nonsense. Not your sort of man; perhaps that Indian Raleigh brought back. You are an Englishman, and a Welshman, going back generations. This is your soil; this is where you must grow.”

“Grow to greatness—” Now he got that dreamy look on his face, the one he had as a child at Chartley. “But the sun itself, that should nourish me, is fading. Or should I say the sun herself?”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s slipping, I think. Girls in her chamber tell me she misplaces things, cannot always remember a face or a name. She limps from a foot injury and tries to hide her lameness.”

“Who says this?”

“Elizabeth Vernon. She tells Southampton everything she notes.”

“Or everything she imagines. I have heard the like whispered for years.”

“Mother, she is old.”

“She is only in her midsixties. My father lived vigorously into his eighties. Old Burghley is still holding on, and he’s almost eighty.”

“She’s grown more cantankerous, indecisive, and meddlesome.”

“She was always cantankerous, indecisive, and meddlesome. You are just not old enough to remember.”

“You haven’t seen her in years. If you did, you’d note the difference.”

“Then get me an audience. I am the mother of her foremost subject. Make her receive me.”

“I cannot make her do anything. No one can. That’s the frustration.”

“Then charm her into it. She’s susceptible to that, and you are the best in the world at it.”

“Now you flatter
me
,” he said. “Lately she has been immune to my charm.”

“When you return from this next voyage, you will have a new lease on her favor. But ...” I looked at his beard, which I never had learned to like. “Were you not offended by the caricature of you tonight? I think it criminal of Will to have done it.”

He shrugged. “He plays to his audience. He knows what people want, what is on their minds. All the talk of the common people has been about me, so he wanted to tap into that.”

Why was he so obtuse? “The play presents you as a scheming people pleaser,” I said. “A malevolent man with wicked motives. Do you not think the Queen will hear of it? Will it not confirm her worst suspicions of you?”

He laughed. “A play is a play. They are just for entertainment. They don’t mean anything.” He stood up. “Since it disturbs you so much, do you want to see my copy?”

That night, by the poor yellow light of three candles, I pored over the play. It was hard to read, but I was determined. It was my duty as a mother to read every word of a work maligning my son.

There was so much in it that pointed to him. It was impossible to pass over. And there was a scene in it that had not been played in the theater, a scene where Richard resigns his crown, handing it over to Bolingbroke. Obviously it was considered too incendiary to be seen.

But why would the Queen think my son aimed at replacing her? In the play, King Richard had unfairly banished Bolingbroke—not just from court, but from the country—and confiscated his lands and property, giving him every excuse to take up arms against him. In Robert’s case, the opposite was true. The Queen had favored him, bestowed gifts upon him that, Bacon said, were disproportionate to his deserts. She was the font of his fortunes. Robert had stood beneath its cascades and drenched himself in its shining drops.

As I continued reading, I got more and more angry. Will had deliberately written it to sow suspicions against Robert in the mind of the Queen. God knew it took little to agitate her. Why had he turned on his erstwhile friend? And didn’t he realize that, next to the Queen, Robert was the most dangerous enemy to make?

I kept reading, unable to stop, until the eastern window grew gold and overpowered the feeble candles. At times the beauty of the words made me forget their poison, but I steeled myself to read past that. The fact that the poetry imprinted itself in the mind, without effort, made it all the more hopeless to combat, like a substance that will dye our fingers with one light touch.

I tingled with fire, the fire of righteous anger, and it blotted out the deep fatigue underneath. Otherwise I never would have set out as soon as the morning permitted to confront Will. I knew better than to commit anything to paper, and so I must go in person. Better rested, and upon reflection, I would have stifled my feelings and exercised the ultimate caution: not going at all.

He lived in the Bishopsgate section of the city. Oh, I had kept up with his whereabouts, unable to draw a curtain across his existence. I even knew where he lodged—in humble rooms above a tailor’s shop. I congratulated myself on my foresight in having this information, which I had gleaned by asking the right offhanded questions of Southampton and Robert.

Wearing a light summer cloak that nonetheless had a deep hood, I set out with my most closemouthed footman to hurry through the streets of London. A litter would attract too much attention, so I had to pick my way through throngs of people, avoid stepping in litter and puddles, and take the shortest route. Unfortunately, Bishopsgate lay on the other side of the city, and that meant trudging through the crowded poultry and stock market streets at Cheapside and the milling around the Royal Exchange. Finally I was at Bishopsgate Street, with its shops and taverns. Now to find the right house. I prided myself that I had never sought it before, but now I wished I knew exactly where it was. I was loath to ask, but I had to. Soon I found the storefront: a forgettable shop like a thousand others. Inside, a tailor and apprentice were bent over a box of buttons. They looked up when I walked in and eyed my cloak. When I asked where I might find Master Shakespeare, their faces fell. They had hoped for a fine commission for another such cloak as the one I wore. Upstairs, they told me, on the third floor.

What a dark and confined space this was, like the inside of a snail shell. There was barely room to keep my elbows from hitting each side of the staircase as I ascended, holding my skirts. On the first landing a tiny window let in a shaft of light. On the second there was no window. On the third a slit allowed me to see the door to one side.

It was a little door, narrow and unpainted. He lived here? I took a deep breath and knocked before I could lose my resolve. No answer. A shiver of relief passed through me. My courage had not failed; I had come; I had knocked. Now I could go in peace.

The door flung open, and Will stood staring at me. His expression was blank, but his eyes widened as they looked at me and all around me.

“I am quite alone,” I assured him.

Still he stood staring, then silently beckoned me in. I followed him into a dingy, poorly lit antechamber. He backed in, then sat on a bench. Still wordless, he indicated a chair for me, one with a back and a cushion: the most comfortable one, no doubt.

“Laetitia,” he finally said. It was not a greeting but a question.

“Your
Richard II
!” I burst out. He must know, it was important that I set it straight, that I had come on business. Strictly business. “It castigates Robert! I am most distressed about it. Why have you done it?”

“It isn’t about Robert Devereux,” he said calmly. “It’s about a king who lived two hundred years ago.”

“Then why does everyone think otherwise?”

He shrugged in that way I had once found endearing and now found infuriating. “I cannot help what people think, what they choose to read into something. I told the tale as it came to me, trying to be as true to the facts as I could. These people are long dead; they do not walk the streets of London or sit on a throne. Richard, I believe, lies right here in Westminster Abbey, and Bolingbroke in Canterbury Cathedral. You can visit their tombs if you like, assure yourself that they are indeed gone.”

“No, they live daily on the stage! Spouting your words! You have brought them back to life.”

“Have you seen the play?”

“Yes, and read it, too, every word.”

He looked pleased. I could tell he wanted to ask me what I thought about it—as a play. “And?”

“And what?”

“If you saw it with no prejudice, would you have assumed it was about Robert?”

“Yes! The beard alone would have told me.”

“Laetitia, there were no stage directions about the actor’s beard. That was a choice of the actor himself. If he had taken up a trident, would you have thought him to be Poseidon? If all the evidence you have is the beard, you can throw that out.”

“The description of him as courting the people’s good opinion pointed at Robert. You know he has been hailed by crowds everywhere, and how it annoys the Queen.”