My Enemy, the Queen (6 page)

The great point was that Robert was now free to marry her. The whole Court, the whole country, and, I suspected, the whole of Europe waited to see how she would respond. One thing was clear. On the day she married Robert Dudley she would be judged guilty, and that was what men like my father were afraid of.

The first thing she did was send Robert away from Court, which was wise. They must not be seen together so that people would in any way connect the Queen with the tragedy.

Robert, expressing great distresseigned or otherwise (although perhaps he could have been distraught by what had happened even if he had arranged it)ent his cousin, Thomas Blount, to Cumnor Place to take charge of the proceedings, and there followed an inquest at which the verdict was Accidental Death.

How difficult Elizabeth was during the weeks which followed. It was so easy to offend her. She swore at ushe could curse like her royal father, it was said, and took a great pleasure in using his favorite oathsnd then would give us a nip or a slap. I believed she was undergoing torment. She wanted Robert and yet she knew that to marry him would be tantamount to an admission of guilt. She would know that in the streets of the cities people would be discussing the death of Amy Dudley, and the words of Mother Dowe would be remembered. Her people would suspect her; if she married Robert they would not respect her again. A queen had to be above ordinary passions. They would see her as merely a weak and sinful woman; and she knew that if she were to keep her hold on the glittering crown she must retain her people devotion.

At least that was what I surmised occupied her thoughts as she loured in her apartments. But later I began to think I was wrong.

Robert returned to Courtold and boastful, certain that soon he would be the Queen husband. After a while he grew sullen, and I, in common with the rest of the world, badly wanted to know what they said to each other when they were alone.

Now I believe that she had no hand in Amy death, that in a way she had no real wish to marry Robert; she preferred to be unattainable as she had been while his wife lived. She wanted Robert to have a neglected wife not a dead one. Perhaps she did not want marriage because in a strange way she was afraid of it. She wanted romantic attachments; she wanted admirers pining for her love; but she wanted none of that climax which would be triumphant for them and so distasteful to her.

I wonder if that were indeed so.

Whatever the reason, she did not marry Robert. She was too wily for that.

And it was at this time that Walter Devereux came to my notice.

The First Encounter

herself [Elizabeth] helping to put on his robes, he sitting on his knees before her, and keeping a great gravity and discreet behaviour, but as for the Queen, she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck to tickle him, smiling, the French Ambassador and I standing beside her.

The Scottish Ambassador, Sir James

Melville, on the occasion of Robert

Dudley being created Earl of

Leicester.

She [Elizabeth] said she was never minded to marry. I said, adam, ye need not tell me that. I know your stately stomach. Ye think, gin ye were married, ye would be but Queen of England, and now ye are King and Queen baithe may not suffer a commander.

Sir James Melville

God death, my lord, I have wished you well, but my favour is not so locked up in you that others shall not participate thereof. I will have here but one mistress and no master.

Elizabeth to Leicester

Fragments Regalia

I married Walter in the year 1561, when I was in my twenty-first year. My parents were pleased with the match, and the Queen readily gave it her nod of approval. Walter was the second Viscount of Hereford then, about the same age as myself, and because his family was one of standing, it was considered a good match. The Queen remarked that it was time I had a husband, which gave me some misgiving and I wondered if she had noticed that my eyes often wandered in Robert Dudley direction.

I had come to the conclusion that Robert would never marry anybody but the Queen. Walter had asked me several times to be his wife. I was quite fond of him and my parents wanted the match. He was young and, as my father pointed out, appeared to have a good future ahead of him which would keep him at Court, so I chose him from several suitors and settled for married life.

It is not easy to remember in detail how I felt about Walter, all those years ago. The Queen had hinted that I was a girl who should be marriednd she was right. I believe for a while I even thought I was in love with Walter and gave up dreaming of Robert Dudley.

After the ceremony, Walter and I went to his ancestral home, Chartley Castle, a rather impressive edifice rising from a fertile plain. From its high turrets it was possible to see some of the finest scenery in Staffordshire. It was about six miles southeast of the town of Stafford and situated halfway between Rugby and Stone.

Walter was proud of Chartley and I expressed great interest in it because it was to be my home. It had a circular keep and two round towers which were quite ancient, having been constructed as long ago as 1220. They had already stood up to more than three hundred years of wind and weather and looked ready to withstand three hundred more. The walls were twelve feet thick and the loopholes were built so that arrows could be shot horizontally, which made it a wonderful fortress.

There had been a building of some sort there in the days of the Conqueror before the castle was built and the present Chartley had been erected on that old site.

t belonged to the Earls of Derby,Walter told me, nd it was during the reign of Henry VI that it came into the Devereux family, when one of the daughters of the house married a Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex. Wee had it ever since.

I agreed that it was indeed a noble castle.

The first year of my marriage was happy enough. Walter was a devoted husband, deeply in love with me, and marriage and all it entailed agreed with my nature. I went occasionally to Court, where the Queen received me affectionately. I fancied she was more than mildly pleased that I was married, which showed that she had become aware of the pleasure I took in masculine society. She hated the attention of any man to stray from her even for a few moments, and perhaps she had noticed some of her favorites eye me with approval.

Walter had never been among those favored. He lacked that dashing gallantry which she so much admired. I think he was too innately honest to think up the extravagant compliments which they were all expected to pay and which when considered were really rather absurd. He was for the Queen and the country; he would serve them with his life; but he simply could not dance attendance on her as those in her innermost circle must.

This meant of course that we were not so often at Court as I had previously been, but when we did go she never forgot her good cousinyselfnd invariably wanted to hear how I was enjoying married life.

Oddly enough, I was quite prepared in those early days of marriage to spend a certain amount of time in the country. I even developed a fondness for the life. I took an interest in my home. It was cold and drafty in the winter and I had great fires roaring in the grates; I made rules for the servants. They must be up at six in summer and seven in winter; the beds and fireplaces must be cleaned by eight and fires started for the day. I became interested in the herb gardens and made one of the servants who was especially interested in herbal art instruct me. I arranged flowers in bowls and set them about the house; I sat with the women and embroidered the new altar cloth they were working on. It seems scarcely possible now that I could have thrown myself so whole-heartedly into the country life.

When my family visited us or we had people from the Court to stay, I took a pride in showing what a good housewife I had become. I was proud of our Venetian glasses, which sparkled so delightfully in candlelight when they were filled with good muscatel, romney or malmsey; and I made the servants polish the silver and pewter until the whole scene was reflected in their shining glory. I was determined that our table should be admired for the good fare we offered our guests. I liked to see it laden with meat and fowl and fish, pies fashioned into fanciful shapes, which usually contrived to do some honor to the visitors; and we did the same with marchpane and gingerbread, so everything was much admired.

People marveled. ettice has become the best of all hostesses,they said.

It was another trait in my nature that I must always be the best and this was like a new game to me. I was satisfied with my home and my husband; and I gave myself wholeheartedly to that enjoyment.

I used to love to walk through the castle and imagine the days of the past. I had the rushes swept regularly so that our castle was less odoriferous than most. We suffered a good deal from the proximity of the priviesut what house did not?nd I made a rule that the emptying of ours should be done while we were at Court so that we should escape that unpleasantness.

Walter and I would ride round the estate and sometimes walk near the castle. I shall always remember the day he showed me the cows in Chartley Park. They were slightly different from cows I had seen elsewhere.

hey are our very own Stafford cows,said Walter.

I examined them closely, interested because they were ours. They were sand-white in color and there were smudges of black on their muzzles, ears and hoofs.

e must hope that none of them produce a black calf,Walter told me, and when I wanted to know why he explained: here a legend in the family. If a black calf appears that means there will be a death in the family.

hat nonsense!I cried. ow can the birth of a black calf affect us?

t one of those stories which become attached to families like ours. It all started at the time of the Battle of Burton Bridge when the owner of the house was killed and the castle passed temporarily out of the family.

ut it came back to them.

es, but it was a tragic time. A black calf was born at that time and so it was said that black calves meant disaster for the Devereux family.

hen we must make sure that no more are born.

ow?

et rid of the cows.

He laughed at me tenderly. y dear Lettice, that would indeed be defying fate. I am sure the penalty for that would be greater than the birth of a black calf.

I looked at those large-eyed placid creatures and said: lease, no black calves.

And Walter laughed at me and kissed me and told me how happy he was that I had, after much persuasion, agreed to marry him.

Of course there was a reason for my contentment. I was pregnant.

My daughter Penelope was born a year after my marriage.

I experienced the delights of motherhood and of course my daughter was more beautiful, more intelligent and better in every way than any child who had been born before. I was well content to stay at Chartley with her and could not bear to leave her for long. Walter believed at that time that he had found the ideal wife. Poor Walter, he was always a man of poor judgment.

However, while I was crooning over my daughter, I became pregnant again, but I did not experience quite the same ecstasy over this one. I had never remained absorbed for any length of time in any of my enthusiasms and I found the prenatal months irksome. Penelope was showing a spirit of her own, which made her not quite the docile child she had been; and I was beginning to think with increasing longing of the Court and to wonder what was happening there.

I heard the news from time to time and a great deal of it was about the Queen and Robert Dudley. I could imagine how irritated Robert must be by her continued refusal to marry him now that he was free. Oh, but she was wily. How could she marry him and escape the smears of scandal? She never could. For as long as she lived, if she did so, she would be suspected of complicity in the murder of Amy Dudley. People still talked of itven in country places like Chartley. Some murmured that there was one law for the people and another for the Queen favorites. There were few people in England who did not believe Robert at least guilty of his wife murder.

Strangely enough, the effect it had on me was to make me more fascinated than ever. He was a strong man, a man who would have his way. I indulged in fantasies about him and was delighted because the Queen would not have him.

Walter continued to be a good husband, but that wonder he had found in my societynd which had endeared him to mewas no longer there. A man cannot go on being amazed at the sexual prowess of his wife, I suppose; I was certainly not enchanted by his, which had never seemed to me more than one might have expected from any man. It was only because I had been eager for such experiences that I had been so delighted by them. Now with a year-old daughter and another child clamoring to be born, I went through a period of disenchantment, and for the first time I began to be unfaithfulin thought.

I could not go to Court in my state but I was always eager to know what was going on there. Walter came back to Chartley with news that the Queen was ill and not expected to live.

I felt a terrible depression, cheatedhich was strange, for I could not see into the future. Perhaps it was a blessing that I could not, though even if I could have foreseen I wonder if I should have acted differently. I doubt it.

Walter was gloomy and I guessed my parents too were wondering what would happen to the country if the Queen died. There was a possibility that Mary Queen of Scots, who had been forced to leave France on the death of her young husband Francois Deux, might be offered the throne.

hy,said Walter, wo of the Pole brothers did their best to march on London, their object being to put Mary Stuart on the throne. Of course they declared they had no wish to do this and merely wanted the Queen to name Mary of Scotland as her successor.

nd bring back Catholicism!I cried.

hat was their aim.

nd the Queen?

ick unto death. She sent for Dudley. She would have him with her at the end, she said.

is not the end yet,I put in quickly.