Elizabeth I (23 page)

The mayor had arranged a commemoration of that glorious summer day, the third battle of the Armada invasion. The Spanish had tried to land on the Isle of Wight, to secure a firm base only two miles off the mainland.

As we watched, small boats patrolled the waters just beyond the docks, flags identifying them as “Spanish” or “English” waving from their masts. They would demonstrate some of the naval tactics used in that battle.

Velvet-covered chairs were brought for the honored spectators, and we sank down to be entertained.

Out on the water, the exhibition boats, bearing long banners identifying their assigned roles, mimicked the action. On board the “Spanish” ship
Duquesa Santa Ana
, an actor threw out armloads of rolled parchments, screaming, “The Bull! The Bull! The Holy Father has a whole shipload of Bulls!”

Ah, well, wily Pope Sixtus had gone to his reward last year and perhaps was amused by our little reenactment here, looking down from ... Or was he looking up?
I
do not pretend to know a man’s eternal destination. Let him rest in peace.

Another “Spanish” ship sailed past, this one identified as the flagship of supreme commander Medina-Sidonia himself,
San Martin
. The men on board were prancing and preening, wearing enormous feathers, dyed outrageous colors, that floated and flapped in their hats. “To parade in London!” they shouted. We all laughed heartily. The cocksure Duke of Parma had reportedly ordered his velvet suits for his triumphant state entry into London. Now, if they survived at all, they must hang in his quarters to mock his empty pride. More likely they had been torn and used to bind up wounds.

In the real battle, the wind—the English wind, we liked to call it—had picked up and begun to favor us. Everyone knew this part of the story by heart. No longer had our ships been dependent on the longboats to pull them, but were able to maneuver on their own. Frobisher’s
Triumph
, the largest ship in our fleet, had hoisted sails from its trapped position and was pursued by
San Juan de Portugal
, their swiftest ship, but it barely moved in comparison. Over on the other side, Admiral Howard and Drake had attacked their seaward wing, pressing them toward the treacherous Owers Bank, an arm of rocky shallows that reached out toward the entrance of the Channel up to the Isle of Wight and on to Portsmouth and Southampton. If only they had been lured there! In wishful thinking, the “Spanish” ships in the enactment we were watching foundered and ran aground, but in real life they had seen the danger in time and steered away. However, in swerving to avoid the bank, they had missed the entrance they were seeking and been swept out and beyond that landing place. There had now been no place for them to anchor; they had been forced to continue down the Channel.

“We had been awake all night,” said George Carey, “listening for any splashing oars that would mean the Spanish were landing. Oh, to see them sail away, their gilded rumps glowing in the afternoon sun, was the happiest sight I ever saw!”

“As they headed toward us in London,” I reminded him. The defensive chain that had been strung across the Thames had been swept away at the first spring tide, and the fortifications defending the approaches to the city had not been completed. That left London with precious little protection as the beacon fires flared to warn us the Armada was coming toward us.

“Our only protection lay in our wooden walls, as the oracle at Delphi told the Athenians. In both cases, our ships,” said George.

The play boats were coming in to shore now, their demonstration over, their oars raised in salute. They had given us a brave show. I waved at them, fluttering my handkerchief.

The mayor made his way over to us, grinning widely.

“You have pleased us well,” I said.

“It is not over yet,” he replied. “I have two more living mementos of that heroic occasion.” Behind him, trumpets blasted. “First, the man who alerted us all.” He ushered a stooped, unkempt man forward and led him to me.

“This is the hermit who lives in the ruins of St. Michael’s Chapel at Rame Head—on the foreground beyond Plymouth—who kept a watch and was the first to light a beacon fire.”

“Is it even so?” I leaned forward to look closely at him—the matted hair, the ragged cloak, the dusty feet. Was he an old monk, left over from the forbidden monasteries? Did he mumble his beads and walk in the tumbled-down ruins of his former cloister? Or was he just mildly mad?

“Indeed, yes,” he said, in a voice as thin as frost. “I watch year round. But when I saw those ships, so thick and black on the water, sailing in a huge crescent, I knew them for what they were. The enemy. I lit the brush as quickly as I could.”

He wasn’t mad, unless so much solitude had warped him. “You did well,” I assured him. Impulsively, I reached into my purse and pulled out a token from the victory—a square of cloth from one of the captured Armada banners. They were being treated almost as saints’ relics, as far as holiness went. “This is from one of those proud ships. Proud no longer, but sunk!”

“I, then, shall be proud to fly it upon my shoulder,” he said, smiling. His cracked lips parted to show yellowed teeth.

“And here is the other valiant protector,” the mayor announced. “Sir George Beeston, brave commander of the
Dreadnought
and a great fighter in the action you have just witnessed.”

He gestured to a tall man who had been waiting beside the trumpeters. His cloak snapped smartly in the wind, and he carried himself like a man who had never bowed under a burden. Only as he came closer did I see that his beard was totally white and his leathery face a mass of wrinkles, like a well-worn purse.

He was ancient! He bent one knee—not stiff, I noted—and said, “Your noble husband, lady”—looking at Catherine—“knighted me on the deck right out here after the battle. Me, at the age of eighty-nine.”

Very few things make me cry, but I felt tears gathering in my eyes. This old man, defending the realm, made me proud to be Queen of the English people as never before.

“We have heard of you, sir,” I said. “Let me give you something to commend you for that battle.” I unpinned the Armada brooch I was wearing, a miniature of myself with the fleet in the background, encircled by pearls. “Your sovereign is grateful for such a subject.”

Many other men would demur or make a show of refusing, but Sir Beeston took the gift and said only, “I shall treasure it as coming from your very person.” He did not linger, looking fawningly at me, as a younger man might have, but stood up briskly and took his leave, which had the effect of my wishing he would come back. That which is most pleasing disappears too soon.

I awoke the next morning unsure of where I was—or should I say,
when
I was. I had so thoroughly gone back in time that it was with a start that I realized I was grappling with the still-ongoing war with Spain.

And I had come to Portsmouth not to be entertained with sweet remembrances of an old victory but to ascertain where we stood in the new confrontation. King Henri IV
must
come across to meet me. We
must
talk in person. He was a clever man and should know this. I had bankrolled him long enough for him not to be unaware of how critical it was for him to show himself in my court.

Robert Cecil understood the urgency of it, and he had outdone himself in the hinting letters he had sent the French king. I was coming to rely more and more on him, his sure touch and commonsense approach. His father had raised a worthy successor.

It was now a fortnight since Henri had received our softly worded summons. He knew the dates we would be in Portsmouth. Surely any day now we would spot his ship on the horizon. I felt it would be today.

Now, this morning, as I kept going to the window and peering out, Cecil shook his head. “Old women have a saying, ‘A watched pot never boils,’ ” he said.

I laughed. “And a watched horizon always remains empty,” I said. “You speak true.” But somehow I felt I could will him to appear.

After four days we could wait no longer. There was nothing further to do in Portsmouth, and if we lingered another day it would become obvious we were waiting for something. I was deeply grateful for the Armada exhibition and hoped I expressed it sufficiently. But I stood looking forlornly out to sea while the mayor was orchestrating the leave-taking ceremonies. I felt deserted, abandoned by a false lover.

Soon enough I learned what was happening in France. No wonder the king did not want to face me. He had failed to make use of the troops I had sent, squandering their lives and my money. Of the four thousand men I had dispatched under Essex, the best and finest-equipped of any expeditionary force I had ever provided, only fifteen hundred remained. The other twenty-five hundred had given their lives up to disease while they waited in vain to join forces with the elusive French. Essex, easily duped, had led them hither and yon over hill and dale in France with no discernible purpose other than that he liked wearing his fine livery and commanding troops. As a reward for this foolishness, he knighted twenty-four men—for doing nothing. I was livid. I recalled him and published my declaration—in bold print, so even the French king could read it—to bring the troops home.

21

LETTICE

March 1592

I
wore mourning yet again. And this one I felt deeply. A woman might earn the cruel nickname of Merry Widow if she sees the death of a husband as less a loss than a deliverance. This is a common feeling, yet some women disguise it better than others. But there is no mother who welcomes the death of a child, no matter how wayward.

My youngest son, Walter, was dead, my sweet boy. And he was dead because of the fecklessness of his brother, Robert, and our prideful ambition. Of my four children, Walter alone never gave me sorrow. He was only twenty-two, killed in that inept war with the Spanish in France under the leadership of Robert.

How pleased we had been with Robert’s appointment! How puffed up with what it signified: The Queen had bestowed a major command on Robert. He was on his way to distinguishing himself militarily and rising above the other courtiers who were confined to the halls of court.

Not that she had a great deal to choose from. Those fit to command land forces were few. There was Black Jack Norris and then there was ... no one. The sea fighters had dispersed—Francis Drake and his cousin John Hawkins in disgrace from the failed Portugal venture, Richard Grenville dead after a heroic but suicidal one-man battle in his ship
Revenge
against fifty-three Spanish ships, Martin Frobisher retired to the country life in Yorkshire.

In earlier days, there would have been a host of fire-blooded young men qualified to take the field. Now there was only Robert.

Oh, how we had rejoiced over his elevation. His ascendancy over the scrabbling little Cecil now seemed assured. In vain his friend Francis Bacon had reminded us that military command was not the route to power in a Tudor court, and had not been even as far back as Henry VIII’s.