Just a Queen (17 page)

‘Yes, Your Majesty, Elizabeth, sweet Madam Ysabeau.'

I caught my breath. No one had called me that since my father died.

‘I am truly sorry for this. I had no wish to hurt you or to humiliate you.'

‘It is the fate of queens to be unlucky in love. You forget, I have known many and they were all broken-hearted.' Then I smiled at him, the man I have loved all my life. It was a wan smile, but a smile nevertheless and he returned it, equally ruefully.

‘We will be good friends.'

It was a promise not a request.

‘Maybe, but not for now. Leave for Kenilworth tomorrow.'

‘I will, Your Grace.'

‘But do not give my regards to your wife. I may be able to forgive you one day, but I doubt very much I will ever be able to forgive her.'

A few nights later, in a fever of misery and unable to sleep, I passed the hours until morning by writing another verse, pouring out my grief over my lost hopes and my lost youth.

When I was fair and young, and favour graced me,

Of many I was sought their mistress for to be.

But I did scorn them all, and answered them therefore,

‘Go, go, seek some otherwhere,

Importune me no more'

How many weeping eyes I made to pine with woe;

How many sighing hearts I have no skill to show.

Yet I the prouder grew, and answered them therefore,

‘Go, go, go seek some otherwhere,

Importune me no more'

Then spake fair Venus' son, that proud victorious boy,

And said: ‘Fine dame, since that you be so coy,

I will so pluck your plumes that you shall say no more'

‘Go, go, go seek some otherwhere

Importune me no more'

When he had spake those words, such charge grew in my breast

That neither night nor day since that, I could take any rest.

Then lo, I did repent that I had said before,

‘Go, go, go seek some otherwhere

Importune me no more'

The next morning, tired and muddle-headed though I was, I decided that I would allow a man to importune me once more. Banishing Robin was one thing; permanently banishing a woman as socially ambitious as Lettice Knollys was much more satisfying. But it was not sufficient on its own. If Robin could marry another, he should not forget that I still – even at forty-five – had many glittering suitors still vying for my hand.

‘What say you, Cecil, to the Duke of Anjou?'

‘What would you wish me to say, Your Grace?'

‘Am I but a foolish old woman, setting my cap at a man so many years my junior?'

‘On the contrary, Your Grace. You are a wise queen putting the affairs of state ahead of the affairs of her heart.'

‘A queen can have no heart, my lord, as you well know.'

Twenty

I cannot recall how many princes, dukes and kings were at one time my suitors. There were very few I took seriously. Names were suggested for reasons of policy from the day I was born. My sister Mary was betrothed to the King of France from childhood, although no marriage ever took place. My mother, I am told, lobbied hard for me to be betrothed to the dauphin of France because such a promise would cement my legitimacy and her hold on the throne – to little avail. Mary Stuart was engaged to Francois, yet another dauphin, from birth and brought up beside him from infancy, trained from childhood to be his wife. Yet they were married only a few short months before he also died. How fate delights in pulling the rug from underneath us. We no sooner think our future certain and secure than everything changes.

Oddly it was the dauphin Francois's baby brother – despite an awkward seventeen-year disparity in our ages – who represented the last chance I was ever to have at marriage. He was Catherine de Medici's second youngest child, christened Hercule at birth, he changed his name to Francois in honour of his dead brother. Given he was not quite five feet in height, I can understand his desire for the change. How humiliating for such a small man to be named for the strongest man of legend. Yet again, the destinies of my cousin Mary and I shadowed one another. She married one of Catherine de Medici's sons called Francois, and I almost married the other one.

Anjou was not handsome, as I was to discover when he came to court in person, but what he lacked in inches and fair features, he made up for in personality. He was lively, vigorous and full of charm. I was forty-five the year that our flirtation came to a head and he was still in his twenties, but I remained the greatest matrimonial prize in Europe and as a younger son his prospects were not so sanguine that he could afford to pass up such a chance. My doctors declared me well able to bear children; news that thrilled me and chilled my blood in equal measure.

He sent his man Simier to my court to see just how old and ugly I had become, no doubt, and report on whether such a match could in reality be contemplated. I liked Simier. I called him my monkey and paid great attention to him, both in honour of his master and because his company amused me. There was something exciting about playing with the idea of matrimony and intimacy with a charming proxy. Simier was as mischievous and wily as his namesake and despite all our flirtatious banter we both knew that I would never marry him and he would never fall in love with me. We two could play at love without getting burned.

But, if I am honest, there was another reason for the seriousness with which I contemplated marrying Anjou. This pockmarked, minor princeling, many inches shorter than me in height, who had few prospects represented my last chance. He came from a fine family and would cement relations with France. A match with him would irritate and tempt my parliament. And Robin, the Earl of Leicester, so lately married himself, was the member of my privy council most adamantly opposed to the match. There were many reasons to consider such a marriage. It is even possible that I allowed Robin to return to court so that he could see with his own eyes just how tempted I had suddenly become by the idea of holy matrimony.

Revenge is sweet and the more liberties I allowed Simier, the angrier Robin became. I enjoyed seeing him so discomfited. I began to allow Simier intimacies and signs of favour that I had only previously shown to Robin. I even invited him into my bedchamber.

‘This, my monkey, is my inner sanctum.' I threw open the doors. My ladies stood clustered about us, so there was no hint of real scandal – just of naughtiness that would be whispered about everywhere at court and, of course, throughout Christendom. Simier stepped across the threshold and onto the fine Turkish carpet that covered most of the floor.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Tapis. What a fortunate carpet you are to receive the tender toes of the queen every morning.'

My ladies greeted this with stifled giggles. I raised an eyebrow, but his respectful disrespect was thrilling. Encouraged by our response, he stepped forward and fingered the velvet of my bed curtains.

‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle Rideaux. How fortunate you are to be the sight that my queen sees every morning, the moment she opens her eyes.'

He continued this artful flirtation, delighting my ladies and me to the point where I wondered if I should extract my
pot de chambre
from its hiding place beneath the valance and formally present it to him. Should it be a Monsieur or a Madame? I wondered. I resisted the temptation, knowing how shocking it would be, yet such was my confidence in the wit of Monsieur Simier, that I knew that if I had done so he would have handled the situation with aplomb. It impressed me that Anjou had such a companion and the sense to send him as representative. Few of my suitors had realised how persuasive a little risqué fun can be to a woman whose days are mostly spent up to her elbows in official ink.

The final item he touched was my nightcap. It was an exotic little confection intricately sewn by one of my ladies.

‘Ah ha! And here is
la Duchesse Bonnet de Nuit
! So soft, so silken, its fragrance.' And he raised the cap to his nose and inhaled deeply. ‘So intoxicating! It is so pretty!'

And now he twirled it on his finger.

‘So coquettish for a Duchesse and yet its task is so serious. To keep the head of its queen safe and warm throughout the night. It is both a
Bonnet de Nuit
and a beautiful
garde de corps
.'

The assembled company laughed delightedly and Simier, unable to resist an audience, held the cap high with one extended arm and bowed low to it. A little piece of mummery that produced yet more delighted laughter.

‘If you are so taken with the nightcap, my lord Simier, you must keep it. It will be a memento of our friendship.'

‘Majesty, your generosity knows no bounds, but I will only keep it until my master, the Duke of Anjou, arrives on the shores of your kingdom. I received word from him this morning that he intends to sail for England as soon as the winds blow fair. All things being equal, Your Grace, he could be by your side in person by this time next week! And this nightcap, so recently upon a maiden's head—' He paused so we could all appreciate his pun, ‘—could be in his possession in only a few days.'

Then he winked at me.

But I went cold. When Simier's master arrived the game would no longer be the same. With the duke, marriage negotiations would be deadly serious.

Anjou duly arrived, but he was not in the country officially, so our meetings had to be private. Even at the court ball, the French duke had to conceal himself behind an arras. I love to dance and I enjoyed the idea that this young man was watching my every move. I leapt as high as my legs could propel me, I landed as softly as my feet would allow. I curtsied low, I stretched my arms high, I showed off my virtuosity. Some of those in the court smiled behind their fans or their hands to see me do so, one of them frowned like black thunder. I gave every outward sign of having the time of my life but my mind was in a torment of indecision. Was this the man I should marry? Would he make me happy or torment me once his prize was won, the way Philip had tormented my sister? Yet, if I refused him and so humiliated him before all Christendom, I also risked making an enemy. I had to play my game carefully. I had to appear interested (as I thought this, I spun daintily on one foot and bowed low towards the arras) but not too interested. At this, I spun away and bestowed an admiring smile on my partner Christopher Hatton.

I gave my suitor an affectionate nickname as it did not seem reasonable for the servant to be so favoured when
the master was not. I christened him my
grenouille
,
my frog. It suited him: he was little with a large mouth and slightly protuberant eyes. In this I believe he took after his mother, the great Catherine. He walked with a slightly bent gait on sway legs that were nevertheless strong and nimble. He had also given me a rather charming earring in the shape of a frog.

As I have said, he was not handsome, but I judged him to be shrewd, with a keen appreciation of the position in which we two found ourselves. He was not impossible to imagine as a husband. What he really thought about me, I know not. As a queen, I was a prize earnestly to be sought, but as a woman? I was not a fool. If I had been an ordinary Englishwoman with no kingdom on offer, my frog would not have looked at me twice.

Anjou left my kingdom after a mere four days, but I was no clearer about my eventual decision. If anything, seeing him in person, talking to him as I had done at length, had just made everything more complicated.

It did not help that so many in my court and my country were so opposed to the match. Protestant preachers sermonised fervently against ‘foreign marriages'. Pamphleteers weighed in with anti-French sentiment. Some of them had to be punished for their impertinence; one man lost his right hand. Did they presume that I had not thought of such arguments myself? Did they think me in need of their ‘advice'? When would they learn that their queen was so constituted that she would weigh the pros and cons of any major decision carefully, so carefully, in fact, that half the time they criticised her for her indecision, while the other half they worried that she was about to go off and do something foolish. How they insulted me.

Moreover, I could not help but point out how much they all earnestly wished me to marry and bear children and yet how many objections they found to any husband I could actually bear to contemplate.

Parliament was due to meet in October, but I put a stop to that. I had no intention of allowing those men to lecture me. To placate public opinion and also to indicate to Anjou and the French that I was taking the idea of this marriage seriously I formally called together my council to seek their advice on the best course of action for myself and the realm. I left them alone to their cogitations. On no account did I wish to be present as they solemnly debated my future. I knew what they would be weighing up; was marriage to a French Catholic better than no marriage and so no chance of a legitimate heir? Like me, they could see by my wrinkles that it must be this marriage or no marriage at all.

My councillors sat for days discussing the pros and cons. I sat with my ladies, trying to distract myself with a book, with playing on the virginals, a game of cards, but in as high a state of internal agitation as I could remember. How I envied my cousin Mary then. She had not dillied or dallied over marriage. When the desire took her she leapt straight into the arms of the man she loved. She lived to regret her impetuosity, no doubt, but at least she had not had to endure the humiliation of all these great men deliberating over the intimate fate of her person!

But did I love Anjou? I had loved Robin – of that I was certain – but I did not love the frog. Could I learn to love him? Would he make me happy? Would he relieve me of some of the burdens of rule? Would I have a companion to soothe my fears? Would he thrill me physically? Would I at last experience the passion that had led so many other women to their ruin? Aye, and there was the rub. What if I fulfilled my subject's greatest desire and conceived a child? At my advanced age, there was a high possibility that such an event might kill me and no guarantee the child would live. And if I survived the birth and bore a boy, as all the men around me wished, how long would it be before men would plot to elevate my son and be done with me? They say it is natural for women to long for sons. Whenever I thought of the possibility all I felt was cold fear. Did Mary, Queen of Scots, lose her throne and eventually her head – partly because she had born a healthy boy?

In some moments I felt that the marriage was a positive thing and sincerely what I wanted; in others the mere thought made me feel ill. I was unable to settle to any of the trivial distractions deemed suitable for women. Would that also be my fate if Anjou insisted on taking over the rule of my kingdom as men are wont to do? I began to pace my chamber, fantasies of delight and disaster battling for dominance in my brain.

‘Will they never end this meeting?' The third day of my council's deliberations was drawing to a close.

‘They sat from eight in the morning until seven in the evening, yesterday, Your Grace.' Mary Sidney looked up from her embroidery, then we heard them approaching.

I stood to receive them and my ladies withdrew to the far side of the room. Cecil led the deputation and I could see by his face that the news I was about to receive was not what I wanted to hear.

‘I do not like your face, Lord Burleigh.'

‘It is the face God and time have given me, Your Majesty, and you must forgive me for it.'

‘No, my lord, it is not your features I dislike; it is the expression they wear and that, Cecil, is of your own making.'

‘In this case, I fear, it is of circumstances' making.'

‘What is your collective advice about the suit of the Duke of Anjou?'

And then, because suddenly I could not bear to hear what decision they had come to, I began to argue my suitor's case.

‘Is he not a goodly man? An honourable man? The scion of one of the noblest royal houses in all of Christendom? Would not such a grand marriage greatly enhance this kingdom's prestige and give us a badly needed ally against the Hapsburgs in Spain? Have you not, all of you, argued with me for years about the necessity, the duty, nay, the natural order of things that I have disrupted by remaining a virgin? Have you not, all of you, reminded me of my duty to beget an heir to safeguard the succession and so the peace and harmony of this nation? And now, my lords, when I decide to do just that, why so many long faces?'

‘Is this your real opinion on the matter, Your Grace? That you heartily wish to marry the Duke of Anjou?'

‘It is not my opinion that I have asked you to consider, it is your own.'