My Enemy, the Queen (43 page)

I watched his progress with delight, wonder and triumph because this was my son who, in spite of his maternal parent, had found his way into her heart. At the same time I was apprehensive. He was so rash. He did not seem to realize the danger all about himr if he did, he did not care. His enemies were everywhere. I greatly feared Raleighlever, subtle, handsome Raleigheloved of the Queen, but never quite as she had loved my twoy husband and my son. Sometimes the irony of it all would present itself to me and I would be hysterical with laughter. It was like a quadrille. The four of us weaving our pattern to the tune which was not entirely of her making. One of the dancers had left the dance now, but the three of us remained.

Essex had no head for money. How different from Leicester! And Leicester had died deep in debt. I often wondered what would happen to my son. The richer he becamehrough the Queen bountyhe more generous he was. All those who served him benefited. They declared they would follow him to the ends of the earth but sometimes I wondered if their loyalty would have been so firm if he ever lacked the means to pay for it.

My darling Essex! How I loved him! How proud I was of him! And how I feared for him!

It was Penelope who drew my attention to his increasing devotion to Frances Sidney. Frances was a very beautiful girl; her darkness inherited from her father, whom the Queen had called her Moor, was arresting; but because she was quiet she always seemed a little apart from the rest of the young who congregated around my table.

Penelope said that Frances appealed to Essex because she was so different from him.

o you think he intends to marry her?I asked.

t would not surprise me.

he is older than he is widow with a daughter.

e has always felt protective towards her since Philip died. She is calm and unobtrusive. She would not attempt to interfere with what he planned. I think he would like that.

y dear Penelope, there is not a man in England who can have a brighter future than your brother. He could marry into one of the greatest and richest families in the land. He cannot choose Walsingham daughter.

y dear Mother,retorted Penelope, t is not our choice but his.

She was right, but I could not believe it. Sir Francis Walsingham wielded a great deal of power in the country; he was one of the Queen most able ministers, but she had never made him one of her real favorites; he was in the category which was acceptable for talent. The Queen would have been the first to admit that he had served her well. He had set up one of the finest spy systems in the world, and a great deal of this he had paid for out of his own resources. He it was who had been the prime mover in bringing the members of the Babington conspiracy to justice, which had resulted in the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. He was a man of great honesty and integrity, but he had certainly not amassed a fortune, nor had he gained great honors. But this Essex swept aside. He had decided to marry Frances Sidney.

Penelope and I with Christopher and Charles Blount talked to him, and Charles asked what he thought the Queen would say.

know not,cried Essex. either would her disapproval deter me.

t could result in your banishment from Court,Christopher reminded him.

ood Christopher,boasted Essex, o you think I do not know how to manage the Queen?

ray do not even mention such a thing,begged Charles. f such words were carried to the Queen

e are all friends here,retorted Essex. eicester married, and she forgave him.

ut not his wife,I reminded him bitterly.

ad I been Leicester I should have refused to go to Court without my wife.

ad you been Leicester, my son, he would never have retained the Queen favor throughout his life. I do beg of you, take care. Leicester was to her what no man ever was or will be, yet he knew he had to walk with care.

am to her what no man ever was or shall be. You will see.

Of course he was young and arrogant, and she had made much of him. I wondered whether he would ever begin to learn.

The young people admired him. They lacked my experience and approved of his boldness, and once again I did not wish to seem old and unadventurous, so I was silent.

Perhaps our opposition to the match made Essex all the more determined.

He came to see me on his return from Seething Lane, where Sir Francis was living, and told me that he had won his approval for the match.

he old man is very ill,said Essex, nd I think he cannot last long. He told me that he has little to leave Frances for his debts are many. He said he doubted there would be enough money to bury him with dignity, so much had he spent in the service of the Queen.

I knew Walsingham was right and I thought him a fool for doing so. Leicester had served the Queen and made a very profitable affair of itet he also had died in debt, and at this very time I was bemoaning the loss of certain treasures which had had to be sold to pay them.

The outcome was that my son and Walsingham daughterwho was Philip Sidney widowere married secretly.

I was shocked when I called on Sir Francis to see how ill he was. He was delighted, though, by his daughter marriage. He told me that he had been anxious about her future. Philip Sidney had left little and he had little to leave either. o live in the Queen service is a costly matter,he said.

Indeed he was right. When I think of what Leicester had spent on New Year gifts to the Queenhe diamonds, the emeralds, the necklaces of loversknots thought it was small wonder that my treasures had to go to pay for them.

Poor Sir Francis died soon after that and he was buried secretly at midnight because a proper funeral would have been too expensive.

The Queen was sorry and mourned for him. shall miss my Moor,she said. ye, miss him sadly. He was a good servant to me and I did not always treat him kindly, but he knew well that my respect for him went deep, and I was not the ungrateful mistress I might sometimes have appeared to be. I hear there is very little left for his poor widow and his girls.

After that she took a little interest in Frances and made her sit and talk to her. This had a rather unfortunate sequel because Frances quickly became pregnant.

The Queen was very observant of her women; she seemed to have an extra sense where their romantic attachments were concerned.

Frances herself told me what happened.

The Queen never minced her words and it often seemed that she tried to remind people of her father Henry VIII by a certain masculine coarseness.

She prodded Frances in the stomach and demanded to know whether she carried anything there which a virtuous widow should not. Frances was not the most subtle of women and she immediately flushed scarlet, so that the Queen knew her suspicions were correct.

That extraordinary interest in the sexual activities of those about her, which could flare into sudden anger, bewildered many. She behaved as though the act of love fascinated her while it disgusted her.

Frances said she received a sharp nip in the arm with a demand to explain by whom she was pregnant.

For all her quietness, Frances had dignity; she lifted her head and said: y husband.

our husband!cried the Queen. do not recall anyone asking my permission to marry you.

adam, I did not think I was of sufficient importance to make that necessary.

ou are the daughter of the Moor and I always had a regard for him. Now he is dead your welfare is more than ever my concern. He married you in secret to Philip Sidney and excused himself with talk of no importance! I rated him sharply then, and you knew it. And have I not kept you here beside me since he died!

es, Madam, you have been most gracious to me.

o you thought fit to marry. Come. Tell me who he is.

Frances was terrified. She could only burst into tears at which the Queen suspicions were aroused. Frances asked leave to retire that she might compose herself.

ou will remain,said the Queen. ow tell me when you married, and Il swear it was that the child you carry might be born in time. I tell you this: I will not have this lewd behavior in my Court. I do not treat this matter lightly.She then took Frances by the arm and shook her roughly, and when Frances fell to her knees she received a blow at the side of her face to remind her that she was withholding information which the Queen was demanding.

Frances was aware that sooner or later she would have to reveal her husband name and that the Queen fury would be great. She was old enough to remember what had happened when Leicester had married me.

Because of Frances obvious fear, the Queen began to grow suspicious.

ome, girl,she cried. ho is your partner in this? Tell me, or Il beat it out of you.

adam, we have long loved each other. Ever since my first husband was so cruelly wounded

es, yes. Who? Tell me, girl. By God blood, if you do not obey me, you will be sorry. I promise you that.

t is my Lord Essex,said Frances.

She said that the Queen stared at her as though struck dumb, and forgetting she was in the presence of her sovereign, from which only permission should release her, so great was her terror that she rose to her knees and stumbled from the room, while the Queen just stood there staring at her.

As she ran away she heard the Queen voice, raised and deadly.

end for Essex. Bring him here without delay.

Frances came straight to me at Leicester House in a state of collapse. I got her to bed while she told me what had happened.

Penelope, who was at Court, came shortly after her.

ll hell has broken loose,she said. ssex is with the Queen and they are shouting at each other. God knows what will be the outcome. People are saying that before the day is out Essex will be in the Tower.

We waited for the storm to burst. I remembered so vividly the time when Simier had told the Queen that Leicester was married. She had wanted to send him to the Tower and had only been restrained from doing so by the Earl of Sussex. But she had relented. I did not know how deep her affection went for my son, but I did know that it was of a different nature from that which she had borne my husband. That had gone deep, entwined with the roots of her girlhood. I believed that which she bore my son was a more frail plant and I trembled for him. He would lack the tact of Leicester. He would show bravado where Leicester would have brought out his considerable diplomacy.

I waited at Leicester House with Penelope and Frances. In due course Essex came to us.

ell,he said, he is furious with me. She calls me ungrateful, reminding me that she brought me up and can as easily cast me down.

favorite theme,I commented. eicester heard it again and again throughout his life. She did not suggest sending you to the Tower?

think she is on the point of doing so. I told her that much as I revered her, I was a man who would live his own life and marry where he chose. She said she hated deceit and when her subjects kept secrets from her it was because they knew they had something to hide, to which I replied that, knowing her uncertain temper, I had had no wish to arouse it.

obin!I cried aghast. ou never did!

omething of the nature,he said carelessly. nd I demanded to know why she was so against my marriage, at which she replied that if I had come to her in a seemly manner and told her what I wished, she would have given the matter her consideration.

nd refused you permission!I cried.

nd that would have meant that I should then have been obliged to disobey you instead of merely displeasing you.

ne day,I told him, ou will go too far.

I was to remember those words later, and even then they sounded like a tocsin ringing in advance to warn me of danger.

ell,he went on, swaggering a little before us, he told me that it was not only the secrecy which angered her but that I, for whom she had had grand plans, should have married beneath my station.

I turned to Frances, understanding her feelings. Had it not happened once to me? I wanted to comfort her and I said reassuringly: he would have said that of anyone unless she were royal. I remember how she was readyr said she waso consider a princess for Leicester.

t was an excuse to hide her fury,said Essex complacently. he would have been mad with rage whomsoever I had married.

he point is,said Penelope, hat happens now?

in disgrace. Cast out of Court. ou will want to dance attendance on your wife,she said, o we shall not be seeing you at Court for some time.I bowed and left her. She is in a vile mood. I do not envy those who serve her at close quarters.

I wondered how much he cared. He did not appear to in the least at that moment, which was comforting for Frances.

hink how much he loves you,I pointed out to her, o incur the Queen displeasure for your sake.Those words were like an echo coming down through the years repetition of the danceith Essex the Queen partner now, instead of Leicester. There was the usual buzz of speculation at Court. Essex is out.

What excitement for the othersen like Raleigh, who had always been at odds with him, and the old favorites. Hatton perked up considerably. Poor Hatton, he was showing his years, which was particularly noticeable in a man who had been so active and at one time the best dancer at Court. He still indulged and even took the floor with the Queen, as graceful as ever. Essex had outshone them all; and it was the younger ones like Raleigh and Charles Blount who stood to gain from his disgrace.

Poor Hatton did not benefit long from the decline of Essex. He became more and more weak during the days that followed and before long retired to his house in Ely Place, where he suffered acutely from an internal disease and died by the end of that year.

The Queen was melancholy. She hated death, and no one was allowed to mention it in her hearing. It must have been sad for her to see her old friends dropping from the tree of life like so many overripe plums, riddled by insects and disease.

It made her turn more and more to the young.

When Frances gave birth to a son we called him Robert after his father. The Queen relented. Essex might come back to Court, but she did not wish to see his wife.