The Marriage Game (47 page)

Anjou had instructed Simier to finalize negotiations for the marriage, but by now the great swelling of opposition to it in London had spread to the shires. The Spanish ambassador feared that there would be a revolution in England if the wedding went ahead. Leicester’s nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, even had the temerity to write Elizabeth a letter in which he reminded her of the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Eve and the perfidy of the French; Anjou’s own mother, he begged to remind her, was the Jezebel of their age, and her son would be wholly unacceptable to Elizabeth’s Protestant subjects.

Elizabeth cried tears of rage when she read it. By God, his uncle had put him up to this! Robert, though, was beyond reach of her temper, so she bawled out Sidney and banished him from court. But there was no trace of her fury and inner turmoil when she returned to London after her summer progress and went in procession through the City in a bid to win over her dissenting subjects. So radiant and gracious did she look on her fine Spanish horse, smiling and raising her hand in greeting, that the people marveled and fell to their knees as she passed, honoring and indeed worshipping this veritable goddess who had come among them, and calling down on her a thousand blessings. The Virgin Mary might have been banished from English churches, but the Virgin Queen had now taken her place in the minds of loyal Englishmen.

Elizabeth was appalled therefore when a scurrilous pamphlet against her coming marriage, written by one of those damnable Puritans, John Stubbs, appeared on the streets of London and threatened her very precious popularity.

“This must be suppressed,” she demanded, banging her fist on the council board.

“Without doubt,” Burghley agreed. “We cannot allow such offensive language against monsieur.”

“Or the House of Valois,” Walsingham added. “ ‘Rotten with disease and marked by divine vengeance for its cruelties,’ ” he read aloud. “As for the assertion that the duke is eaten by debauchery, that is an outright calumny.”

“I mean to punish the perpetrator severely, so that our allies the French see how we deal with those who cause such offense against them,” Elizabeth declared. “Publish a proclamation condemning this pamphlet as lewd and seditious, and have all copies confiscated and burned. Then have a preacher go to Paul’s Cross to assure my people that I have no intention of changing my religion when I marry. He must say that I have been brought up in Christ, and will live and die in Christ.”

When the people heard, they shouted out their thanks and appreciation, but they resented the criticism of Stubbs, whose words had awakened their ingrained distrust of the French. Alarmed, Elizabeth consulted her judges, and ordered that Stubbs be arrested and hanged for sedition, along with his publisher and his printer.

“But madam, sedition is not a capital crime,” Burghley protested.

“Then they shall have their right hands cut off, and be sent to prison,” she decided. She took care to remind the people of her renowned clemency by pardoning the elderly printer, but declared that she would rather have her own hand cut off than mitigate the sentence against Stubbs and his publisher.

She was watching from a window when the two unfortunate men were brought to a scaffold erected in front of Whitehall Palace. When the executioner brought down his cleaver and struck off the offending hand that had written the pamphlet, Stubbs took off his hat with his left hand, cried out, “God save Queen Elizabeth!” and promptly fainted. Elizabeth was angered to see looks of sympathy and disapproval on the faces of the silent crowd. She felt gravely shaken. She could not bear to think that she had forfeited the goodwill of her subjects.

With this very much in mind, she prorogued the Parliament that
had met to conclude the marriage treaty, asked her councillors for advice, and predictably plunged them into a heated debate. Robert and Hatton had mustered five of their colleagues to argue against the marriage, and Burghley had enlisted four others who were in favor of it. In the end the councillors had to ask Elizabeth to open her mind to them as to her own inclinations.

“Madam, we lay this before you, as you seem not to be pleased with any person or any argument that appears to be against the marriage,” Burghley explained.

Elizabeth had already realized that it would be folly to go ahead with the treaty in the face of opposition from her councillors and her people. But it came to her that in not going ahead, she would probably be saying farewell to her last chance of marriage and motherhood, and to the dismay of all the men seated along the council board she suddenly burst into tears. It was the fault of those who had set out to wreck the negotiations! she sobbed. They were to blame!

“I marvel that you, my councillors, should think it doubtful whether there would be any greater surety for me and my realm than to have me marry and bear a child to inherit and continue the line of Henry VIII,” she wept, glaring daggers at Robert. “I see that it was foolish of me to ask for your advice, but I had anticipated a universal request made to me to proceed in this marriage. I did not want to hear of any doubts!” She broke off there, too distressed to go on, having envisaged the empty, barren years ahead, and herself alone, advancing into old age without ever having known the consolations of wedlock and children. She really had meant to commit to marriage this time; she had done her best to conquer her fears of the nuptial bed and childbirth, even though they threatened at times to overwhelm her—
and all for nothing!

How could Robert have done this to her? He had made
his
choice and married where he would, so why had he tried so forcefully to prevent her from doing so? Was she not entitled to some happiness too? Anjou had been more than ready to make concessions; she could have loved him, she told herself, yea, and made a success of the match. But Robert had made it his business to suborn many who would have been
in favor of it,
and
inflamed public opinion, she was sure. Her heart burned with resentment. She would not, could not, look at him, this man who had betrayed her more than once, and in so doing denied her the kind of happiness permitted to the meanest of her subjects.

She sat there weeping, the paint on her face blurring and streaking as the tears fell. Her councillors did not know whether to approach her, offer comfort, or withdraw. In the end they slunk away, deciding it was best to leave her be for now, and summoned her ladies to attend her. To a man, they felt uncomfortable about what had happened. Even those who had supported the marriage felt guilty about placing their mistress in a situation where she’d had to choose, especially after she craved their advice. Robert could not have felt worse, yet he was still convinced that he had done the right thing for Elizabeth, and for England, in opposing this marriage.

Much arguing and deliberation followed, not to mention recriminations, and in the morning Elizabeth was surprised when the councillors asked to see her again. To their relief, they were told that she was dancing galliards, her usual morning exercise, and were pleased to find her in control of herself once more, with no trace of the emotional storm of the previous afternoon.

“Madam,” said Burghley, “we are come to tell you that we are ready to offer you our wholehearted support in furtherance of the marriage with monsieur, if it shall please you.”

“Well, this is a change of heart on the part of some of you,” she said, looking pointedly at Robert, who would not meet her eye.

“We have been moved to it by Your Majesty’s obvious desire to have issue, and because you have made it plain that you want the duke for a husband,” Burghley explained.

“I marvel at those of you who were against the marriage!” Elizabeth reproved, her tone sharp. “Had it not been for your eloquence, the majority would have been content for it to proceed.”

No one dared to say anything. At length Burghley broke the silence. “Will Your Majesty promise to give us an answer?”

“I will, after I have thought on it,” she consented at length, “but I think it not meet to declare now what my decision will be.”

When they had gone, she felt inexpressibly sad, and this melancholy remained with her, a heavy pall cast over her former happiness. She felt cross with everyone and snapped at those who dared approach her. In truth, she was alarmed at the prospect of what would happen if she followed her inclinations and said yes, as she wanted to do. Anjou’s handsome face kept coming to mind, and she could not help wistfully recalling their stimulating banter and his thrilling compliments. Should she give up her chance of happiness with him? If she seized it, would her subjects rebel, as they had when her sister Mary married Philip of Spain? The mood of the public was hostile toward Anjou and all he represented. There might be others, like Stubbs, who would speak out and inflame popular opinion. It even occurred to her that this marriage could potentially cost her the throne.

She attended the next council meeting, sitting stiffly at the head of the board, and made it clear from the first that she was not speaking to Robert. When Walsingham opened his mouth to say something, she flared at him, “You had best go home, Francis, since you are good for nothing but protecting the interests of the Puritans. And you can go too, Christopher. You opposed me, and I don’t want to see your face at court for at least a week.” Feeling like naughty schoolboys, the two men left the room.

“Why don’t you banish me too?” Robert said suddenly.

“Shall we move on?” Elizabeth asked the rest, ignoring him and putting on her most statesmanlike manner. “Now, my lords, it is clear to me that I cannot accept Anjou as a husband and retain the love of my subjects.” Some faces around the table registered relief; but Burghley looked ineffably sad. Twenty years of scheming to get the Queen wed had come to nothing, and England still did not have her heir.

“It is important, however,” Elizabeth was saying, “that we prolong the marriage negotiations to keep the French friendly. You will attend me in council three days hence, and bring with you the French ambassador.”

On the appointed day, she dressed herself splendidly in virginal white satin, and placed on her elaborately be-wigged head a gossamer
veil embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lis, the emblem of France. When she was seated in her chair of estate, she addressed the men before her. “My lords, Your Excellency, I am come to inform you that I am determined to marry and that you need say nothing more to bend me to it. I command you all to discuss what is necessary for concluding the treaty. Baron Simier and I have drawn up the marriage articles, and we will both sign them. I make one proviso: that I be allowed two months in which to dispose my subjects, as represented in Parliament, to agree to the marriage before I conclude the treaty. If I am unable so to dispose them, the agreement will be null and void.”

She was stalling, as of old, but this time she was half-hoping that Parliament would agree, even though she knew there was little likelihood of it. It was at times like these that she felt very much the loneliness of her exalted position. There was no one impartial in whom she could confide. She remembered her father saying, long ago, that princes took in marriage spouses brought them by others, while only poor men made their own choices. She almost wished she was poor.

There was Anjou to think of too. She had led him to believe that she was sincere in her intentions, and hated to imagine that he might think ill of her for imposing this new condition. But there was a chance that he might be able to help. In some agony of mind, she wrote to him:

She smiled weakly at that. It conjured up so many happy memories.

Soon afterward, Simier went home to France, laden with gifts but leaving the marriage articles unsigned for now. And Anjou did not take the hint and abjure his faith.