Just a Queen (6 page)

Moreover, Robin was ambitious. Our match was now out of the question, but perhaps I could offer him another queen. I could see his interest was piqued. His family had always longed for a throne and I was offering him one.

‘I will make you Earl of Leicester and Baron of Denbigh, as I promised, and then I will send you north to woo a queen.'

‘The wrong queen.'

‘Beggars cannot be choosers, my lord.'

Of course, as all history now knows, the marriage of Dudley and the Queen of Scots was never to be. Indeed, she rejected him sight-unseen with a sneer and an insult, dismissing him as my horse-master and implying (rather more accurately) that it was only because I could not have him myself that I suggested him as a suitable consort.

Foolish woman, all may have turned out differently if only she had swallowed her pride and chosen the man Dudley over the boy she eventually married.

Seven

‘Your queen has dark hair, I believe, my lord? Is your mistress's hair lovelier than mine, or does mine have the advantage?' Perhaps I had taken too many glasses of claret with my dinner. I was normally abstemious, but Cecil and I were deeply involved in calling back the debased metal coins my father had put into circulation. We wished to improve the quality and the value of English sovereigns, an honourable and necessary task, but the work was long, arduous and dull. My back ached from hunching over my desk, totting up figures, and I curled my fingers in on themselves as I caught sight of them. The ink from my quill stained them and, despite the unguents my ladies had rubbed vigorously into them, the marks remained.

I was relieving my ennui by amusing myself with poor Sir James Melville, the Queen of Scots' new ambassador to my court. I had taken him into my bedchamber and showed him some of my keepsakes, mementoes and most precious jewels, including my great ruby. As I displayed them to him, I hinted that all of these could one day belong to his mistress. It was politic to keep gently reminding the Scots that I fully intended her as my heir, even though I would never call her such officially.

‘And which of us is fairest, my lord?'

‘The fairness of both queens is beyond dispute.'

‘You speak in riddles, my lord. It is a plain question and I would a plain answer. Which of us is the fairer – or the plainer?' I believe I giggled.

‘You are the fairest queen in England, and she the fairest in Scotland.'

‘That is no answer, my lord. Which of us is taller?' I was testing his honesty. Many had told me of the Queen of Scots' great height.

‘Our queen.'

‘And how does your queen amuse herself, Sir James?'

‘She is fond of playing the lute and the virginals.'

‘And plays them well?'

‘I am told she does, Your Grace, for a queen.'

Then a foolish idea seized me. I can blame the wine, but my own vanity was really at fault. I pride myself on my skill at music, which I like to think I inherited from my father. I find great relief from the cares of state when I play upon the virginals, and sometimes imagine running away and making a living as a troubadour, dressed as a boy. I wonder if Master Shakespeare realises how much the women in his audience yearn to shed the burden of their sex and live as freely as boys? I think men waste little time imagining what it is like to be a woman.

Often, in those early years, when the pomp and circumstance of the day were over, when the bed curtains were safely pulled around me, and Kat Ashley or Blanche Parry was snoring gently in the truckle bed nearby, I wept for fear. All day, every day, grey-bearded men with degrees from universities asked me to make decisions. I tried hard to make good ones, but always feared that I knew nothing and that many mocked me quietly behind my back. Perhaps that is why I felt so compelled to prove my virtues to my cousin's representative.

In the grip of my idea and the wine, I got up from the banqueting table, feigning tiredness, but as I left the room, I signalled for my cousin, Lord Hunsdon, to follow me. ‘In a few minutes' time, contrive to bring Sir James Melville to the gallery near my virginals. I will be playing upon them. I want you to tell Sir James this because I will be behind the tapestry so he will not be able to see me. Will you do this?'

‘Of course, Your Grace.'

‘Give me a few moments to begin, and then bring him hither.'

Of course, I played out my little charade and my song. Sir James professed surprise upon discovering me and I simpered with maidenly modesty at being so discovered. (I suspect I was about as convincing as one of Master Shakespeare's boy actors playing the heroine.) I bade him kneel on a cushion and listen as I went through my repertoire and then, of course, I asked him which queen played the better. He showered me with compliments, yet, although it was precisely what I had wanted, I found it all a little hollow. When I woke the next morning, despite my pounding head and the foul taste in my mouth, I only turned truly sick when I remembered my desperate showing off to the Scottish ambassador. Then, I groaned aloud and pulled the covers over my head.

My foolishness was not cured by my shame, however. A few nights hence I contrived to have Sir James surprise me again as I danced a particularly athletic and demanding figure. Once again, I asked him which queen was the lightest on her feet and he again awarded the prize to me. And even as I kept relentlessly pushing the poor man to measure two queens against one another, part of me felt embarrassed and humiliated. I hated revealing myself so nakedly and yet I felt compelled to do so.

Fortunately my humiliations were as nothing compared with the self-inflicted disasters that were about to befall my cousin.

‘Henry Darnley has applied for a passport.' Cecil and I were going through the list of tasks for the day.

‘Good riddance,' I said without looking up from my quill.

‘He wishes to travel to Scotland.'

Now I did raise my eyes. Henry Darnley was the son of Margaret Lennox, the daughter of my father's older sister, Margaret, and so a cousin of the Queen of Scots and, of course, also of mine.

‘What say you, Sir Spirit?' I stretched my ink-stained fingers to loosen the knotted and cramped muscles in my hands.

He is a quick-witted man, but a slow and cautious speaker. ‘He is a drunkard and a wastrel, too full of his own importance. He will not be missed at this court, but he could cause trouble in Scotland.'

‘Aye, my lord, but trouble for whom? He is a good-looking young man and I remember his fair face towering above the courtiers when they stood in a cluster. He must be taller by half a hand than the Queen of Scots.' I knew, as only another woman could, that the Queen of Scots would not willingly marry a man of lesser stature than she was herself.

‘He will, of course, pay his respects to his cousin on his arrival.'

‘Indeed, Your Grace. In fact, I have been informed that his mother has filled his head with ideas that he should seek the hand of the royal lady.'

‘No doubt, for they say he inherited his wits from his addle-headed mother. He is a Catholic, of course.'

‘Of course.'

‘Should we be troubled by this possible alliance, my Spirit? Or would it be politic to let my cousin go to the devil in her own way?'

Cecil scratched at his chin with the feather of his quill as he often did when deep in thought. ‘There is no good reason to deny him the passport, Your Grace.'

‘Request approved, then, my lord. We will let events unfold as they may. What is the next item of business?'

We had killed the impressive hind we had been chasing all morning, and the game-keepers were beginning the butchery. We would soon be feasting on fine venison. The dogs had been tied up some distance away, but still they bayed furiously as the smell of fresh blood hit their nostrils. I take no pleasure in the gory business of removing the entrails of such a fine beast and had led my mount some distance away. The afternoon was hot and getting hotter, so I dismounted and sat upon a fallen log beneath the canopy of a greenwood tree. My master of horse, the newly created Earl of Leicester, joined me on my perch. I pulled at my leather gauntlets and peeled them from my hands – with some difficulty. I was still sweating slightly from the effort of the chase. The cool breeze on my skin was delicious. I unbuttoned the jacket of my riding costume and thrust my booted feet out in front of my heavy skirts. How I longed to pull off my shoes and let my toes luxuriate in the cool grass, but a queen must be a queen at all times and queens are never barefoot. I let the gloves fall and a manservant appeared from nowhere and caught them before they hit the earth. I was finally growing used to all my small needs being taken care of instantly. Possessions were no more a burden to me than the fine wine I drank or delicate food I ate. They appeared, I used as little or as much of them as I cared to, and then they disappeared to trouble me no more.

‘A fine kill, Your Majesty.'

‘Aye, my lord, and the beast gave us even finer sport.'

‘You cleared that stone wall with a foot to spare! As fine an example of horsemanship as I have ever seen.'

I was delighted by his compliment. I knew it was important to these manly men that their queen could match them in their sport. ‘I think we must give credit to my mount, Robin, and to your great care of her. It was she who did all the work. My task was merely to hold tight.'

‘You are too modest, Your Grace. It takes not just great skill but great heart to gallop at such a barrier without fear.'

‘They say the Queen of Scots has tired of her new husband already.'

‘She was a fool to marry him.'

‘Do not be too hard on her, my lord. I have some understanding why she made the choice she did.'

‘Have you, Your Grace? Perhaps you can enlighten me, it is more than most of us who knew Darnley can fathom.'

‘Aye, but what choice did she have? Monarchs are usually wed to people they have never seen. My father's younger sister, Princess Mary, was only eighteen when she was shipped off to France to marry King Louis, a man many decades older than she and whom she had never set eyes upon. Is it any wonder that as soon as her husband died she married her attendant Charles Brandon? He was young and she knew him and so could choose him.'

‘I would think knowing Henry Darnley would have the opposite effect.'

‘She didn't know him, my lord. I am not claiming that. She is only just getting to know him now, it seems. But she had met him and I am sure he made himself as agreeable as he could, in the beginning.'

‘He is a handsome enough stripling and women are easily seduced by a pretty face.'

‘Methinks my sex is not alone in that weakness, my lord.'

‘They say she cannot bear his company anymore and shuns him at every opportunity.'

‘How she must be repenting her precipitate trip to the altar.'

Cecil and I had not expected our vague plan to go quite as well as it had. No sooner had Darnley presented himself to his cousin the queen than she fancied herself madly in love with him. Within a few months of meeting they were married, and Mary, besotted with her fair-of-face new husband, declared they were to rule as equals.
She even commanded that Henry Darnley be addressed as
king. Now, only a few months later, word reached us that the scales of infatuation had begun to fall from her eyes.

‘Poor Mary. I did try to offer her a better husband, but she would have none of it.'

‘She was not the only one who felt that way.' Robin had dropped his voice very low and leant closer to me on our wooden seat.

‘I suppose I can understand Mary reacting to my offer of you as her husband as if I had intended an insult, but do not pretend to me, my lord, that if she had been more open to the idea, you would have refused the honour. You are a Dudley and your family has always desired a crown.'

‘I do not desire a crown; I desire you.'

‘But that desire can never be fulfilled, and I think you would have made a much better husband for Mary than the vain youth she now finds herself saddled with. And you would have been my ally in her court and, of course, “my eyes”.'

‘It does no good to think of things that will never be – as you so often tell me.'

Robin had drawn back from me and I could see that he was not well pleased by the idea that I could part with him so easily.

‘I am glad she would not have you, my lord. I would have missed you. But it was not a foolish suggestion of mine. You are the best man for husband in all of Christendom and she may have married the worst.'

Just then the grooms threw the entrails of the slaughtered beast to the dogs, and their yelping as they fought over the choicest pieces of still warm innards distracted us from our conversation.

‘The sun is low in the sky, my lord, and the shadows are long. It is time to return.' I mounted my spirited mare, rested now and well watered and Robin, having handed me up, put his foot in the stirrup.

‘I will race you, my lord!'

I spurred my horse into a gallop, leaving the new Earl of Leicester hopping awkwardly on one leg.

‘Let us test the filly's mettle!' I called to him over my shoulder.

Eight

I was indisposed when I heard that the Queen of Scots was with child. The irony of the moment was one I had to keep to myself, for I had been on my close stool adjusting my garter and changing my soiled wallops with the help of a maidservant and this is business that can never be discussed. The dull ache that so regularly accompanied my monthly cycle had not improved my mood, so when the messenger from the Scots court was announced and one of my ladies discreetly rapped on the closed door to tell me so, I was not well pleased. I also recognised that the news must be urgent (and so unlikely to be welcome) before anyone would dare to interrupt me while I was about such intimate pursuits.

‘Whatever tidings he brings can wait a few more moments!' I barked through the door.

My maidservant looked up and, wiping her hands on a fresh linen wallop, assured me that all was secure and I was free to emerge from my private chambers. I paused to apply some rich perfumes to various parts of my person. I had a horror of any revealing odour escaping from beneath the confines of my gown.

There are many things that distress me about the passage of time. I have only to look in a mirror to see the marks that the years have etched upon my face. As time has passed I have reduced the number of mirrors hanging on the walls of my apartments. I no longer take any pleasure in catching sight of myself unawares.

I was never beautiful. I knew the truth of this despite all the protestations to the contrary. It is one of the things I value most about Cecil: he never flatters me. He has not once remarked upon my appearance. I believe he is utterly indifferent to it. When I was young, however, I was attractive in my own way. My hair was auburn and fell silkily down my back. My eyes were large and black and well set. My nose, too strong for beauty, had character and proportion and my cheekbones were high and my face well moulded. My skin was bright and fair, if a little pale. My lips have always been too thin and my teeth have never been good, but I was lively and vivacious and men found me desirable. My figure is still good. It is not marred by the thickness that marks women who have suffered through many pregnancies.

The one compensation of my age, however, is the cessation of my monthly cycle. Unlike other women, I could not withdraw from the wider world when my bleeding was upon me. The tide of history rolled on, regardless of my physical woes. I could never reveal my travails to any who served me; we dealt with the matter in silence, as women do. Kat knew, and Blanche and my bedservant and laundress, and maybe Cecil was also aware of the changes in my mood that so often accompanied my menses, but none ever broached the subject. It is the curse of Eve, sent along with the pains of childbirth to punish her female descendants for their part in the corruption of Adam. We poor women can do nothing but bow our heads and suffer in silence and shame.

I tried to schedule my duties around my monthly cycle, but sometimes a clash was unavoidable. How I dreaded the sense of stickiness on my thighs that told me, if a meeting went overlong, that my wallops were over-burdened. I was queen, I could ask for a recess and I did so, but my face felt hot as I hurried from
the room, deathly afraid that a telltale mark stained the
embroidered cushion upon my chair, or that some unspeakable but familiar female smell had escaped from me as I swept out. I know not if such things did occur, no one would ever have dared mention them, but I did not wish the men who served me ever to be reminded of my weakness as a woman.

There is another compensation of age, of course. I am still alive. The Queen of Scots will never now grow any older.

But, I lose track of my story and must return to a past when I was young, fertile and full of hope. When I emerged from my close-stool, the messenger handed me the letter that announced that the Queen of Scots was with child. It was hardly unexpected news. She was a young woman, recently married. It was the usual result – indeed the primary purpose – of such arrangements, yet it hit me like a blow. ‘Your mistress is with child? And so quickly.'

‘Aye, Your Majesty. The entire country rejoices at the tidings.'

‘I shall write personally to your mistress with my congratulations.'

I waved the man away and retreated to my private apartments. There I gave way to a surge of emotion: part grief, part envy. As I sobbed, my womb heaved and cramped and drove home my own barren state. The blood that flowed from it had never felt quite as repellent.

‘Oh!' I cried out. Good Mary Sidney was immediately by my side.

‘What ails Your Grace?' She placed a comforting hand on the small of my back.

‘The Queen of Scots is with child.' And as I spoke the words, a particularly nauseating cramp twisted my innards, causing me to groan aloud.

‘But you seem ill, my lady, and in pain. Surely such news alone cannot have brought you to this state?'

‘No. It is women's troubles merely. As you say, the news of the Queen of Scots' pregnancy is hardly unexpected.'

‘Allow me to fetch you a warm compress, good madam, and an infusion. They can help soothe the pains.'

‘It is foolish of me to complain of them so. The Scottish queen will face far worse when her time is upon her.'

Like a royal death, a royal pregnancy always brings with it a sense of uncertainty. Will the child be a boy or a girl? Will it survive the dangers of birth? If the mother is a mere queen consort, as my mother was, as Katherine of Aragon was when pregnant with my sister, there is less concern – at least among the men who rule the world – whether the mother will survive. The child she bears is all in all to them, especially if it is a boy. But in the Queen of Scots' case, as it was with my late sister Queen Mary Tudor's strange phantom child, as it would have been had I ever had a child of my own, when the mother is queen in her own right, then her death can create both great difficulty and great opportunity. A queen heading towards the birthing stool is the female equivalent of a king going to war. If a monarch dies, then everything changes.

Whether Mary Stuart gave birth to a girl or boy was not the most pressing concern for my court or for me. What mattered was that if she and her child survived they would be first and second in line to my throne. If she died and the child lived, he or she would be my most obvious heir, unless I had a child myself one day. The Queen of Scots was not simply gestating a child in her womb, but the future of our two nations.

In the months that followed the news of Mary's pregnancy, the scandals around her reckless choice of husband intensified. All Christendom was hungry for stories about Henry Darnley's drunken rampages, tantrums and demands. He wanted to be called King of Scotland, we were told, and when she refused to give him the title, he cursed and humiliated his pregnant wife publicly.

Like the Irish, the Scots have always been barbarians with their rough manners and incomprehensible, guttural accents. There is jockeying for power in all courts, but in Scotland they are quicker to take offence and quicker to pull out their swords. As we prepared to go on progress, to Woodstock, near Oxford, where I had once spent so many weary months as a prisoner, my courtiers and I traded stories about the shocking and unbridled behaviour of the men beyond our northern border. I could not help feeling a little sorry for Mary as we laughed at the bumpkins she ruled over. She was French: fine-made, elegant, nobly born. No wonder the gulf between the queen and her subjects seemed to grow week by week, month by month, much as did her belly.

We were seated at dinner, a few of my intimates and I, when one of Robin's manservants came into the room and whispered urgently in his master's ear.

‘By heaven, man! Are you certain of this?' Robin's agitation brought the general hubbub to a halt. The only noise that remained came from the musicians playing in the gallery above. I signalled that they should stop. They did so, though one lone trumpeter squeaked tunelessly as he brought his solo to an abrupt conclusion. The discordant note hung upon the air as we all turned to look at the earl.

‘What news, my lord, is so striking that you must bring our revels to an end?'

I would not have been the only person in that room wondering if the Queen of Scots' child had died in her womb, maybe taking his mother with him. Ah, think of all the troubles both queens would have been spared if only God had seen fit to do just that.

‘The Queen of Scotland's husband and a group of peers of her realm have murdered the queen's Italian music master in front of her very eyes and in the face of her protests!'

A horrified gasp escaped from many at this declaration, including myself. ‘And the queen, is she safe? And what of the babe she is carrying?'

By way of answer Robin turned towards his manservant. ‘Both unharmed, Your Majesty, but they say the man died clutching the terrified queen's skirts and calling out her name, begging her to protect him as the murderers rushed in and stabbed him repeatedly. They say her dress was rent by the men's knives and that Rizzio's blood – for that was the Italian's name – his blood covered her gown.'

I leapt to my feet, my hand at my mouth in genuine shock. I may not have grieved if Mary had died from the complications of childbearing. After all, I had not laid eyes on the woman and still have not. Such events are the will of God, but this insult to a sovereign – any sovereign – was not to be borne.

‘But that is disgraceful! Unbelievable! To draw your sword in the presence of your prince is treason enough, but then to use it, with so little regard for the safety of the queen and the child she is carrying! I thought the Scots mere buffoons, but I see I was sadly mistaken. They are traitors and savages to use their queen so.'

‘We must not forget, Your Majesty, that one of their number was an Englishman and her husband and, indeed, the father of her child.'

I knew Robin had said Darnley was one of the murderers, but the horror of that had not registered with me fully until that moment.

‘He has been corrupted by the company in which he has found himself.' The Duke of Norfolk spoke hurriedly in defence of his fellow Catholic.

Robin was having none of it. ‘Perhaps, my lord, but we all know what a fool Lord Darnley is; only now he is a murdering fool.'

‘She may have disliked him before, but she will hate him now.'

I was filled with pity for my cousin, and then my pity at her terrible predicament became fear for myself. I looked at the assembled company and fixed my gaze on William Cecil. ‘And yet all of you continue to pressure me to marry.' I left the chamber, before my feelings could betray me further.

I still am not sure why the news undid me so completely, dreadful though it was. Was it that my cousin's vulnerability, despite her status as queen, brought home the reality of my own? Did her situation remind me that monarchs stay safe only by the sufferance of the men who surround us? Men who have little respect for female rule? All I knew was that I needed to get away from all the men in that room. Well, almost all of them.

‘I had no wish to upset you. My only wish is for your happiness.' Robin had followed me from the dining chamber and now knelt at my feet, his face creased with concern.

‘How now, my eyes?' I was making an effort to subdue the turbulent feelings that assailed me.

‘No, good madam, how do
you
do? I can see that your cousin's plight has upset you.'

Kind words have always undone me faster than harsh ones and his pity unleashed tears. He stood and put his arms around me, pulling me close so that I could weep upon his chest. It felt very good to be held so and, God forgive me, I allowed my body to collapse against his. I could feel the strength in his arms and his back and it soothed me.

‘Elizabeth, Elizabeth,' he whispered urgently and then he began to kiss me gently along my hairline, then on my eyelids, as if to kiss my tears away and, then, lifting my face from his chest, upon my lips – gently at first and then more urgently. Something long dormant had come back to life deep inside me. For the first time since his wife tumbled headlong to her death, I kissed him in return, opening my mouth beneath his. I felt him sigh, a deep and heartfelt sigh; an expression that exactly mirrored my own feelings of relief and, yes, release. Suddenly his hands were caressing and stroking me. He kissed my ears, my neck and lower still, all the while moaning and whispering words of love.

‘Oh, Elizabeth, my queen, my lady, my love, my own, how I have longed—'

He bent me backwards now and I could feel the heat rising within him being answered by a heat of my own. Suddenly he lifted me off my feet and his hand went up and under my skirts. The shock and thrill of his hand on my thigh still, all these years later, causes my heart to beat faster. But, all the while, a hard little voice whispered in my ear, ‘This was the Queen of Scots' undoing. You cannot allow yourself to be similarly undone.' So, almost without realising what I did, I put my own hand upon his and halted its movement. His mouth was once again over mine, but I spoke regardless, through his kiss. ‘We must stop this now, we must. We cannot do this, my dearest, we cannot.'

After a moment's resistance, when for a terrible second I thought he meant to force me, I felt him release me. He placed me gently back upon the floor. I bent and smoothed my skirts back into their rightful place and then raised my head and looked up at him. His eyes were closed and his chest heaved. From under his eyelids, great tears rolled and were lost in his beard. I took out a handkerchief and wiped them away as gently as I could.

He grasped my wrist and pushed my hand away. ‘You torture me.'

‘Do you not think I suffer just as you do?'

He shook his head, like a heartbroken boy.

‘Then you know me little. You are all that I want and all that I cannot have.'

I freed my hand. He remained silent, his face sullen and closed against me. Without another word, he turned and left the room and I stood where he had left me, frozen and alone.