Elizabeth (35 page)

Lord Burleigh suffered from gout; it was an unfair affliction because he was an abstemious man. He walked with a stick, his left foot thickly bandaged, his hair and beard were white and his stoop was more pronounced. He looked alarmingly old, and the exigencies of his service were increased by the fact that the Queen seemed unable to relax or remit the pressure on her Councillors.

It was late afternoon when he hobbled to her rooms; a page had roused him from a weary doze, snatched when he imagined she had gone out hunting.

Leicester was with her; at her suggestion he gave up his chair for the Minister.

“I know you were resting,” she said. “but my Lord Leicester came with some news just as I was going out. I need your advice, Burleigh. Sit down and ease your leg.”

Leicester turned to him.

“Walsingham told me this morning that he has arrested my old protégé, Edmund Campion,” he said.

Burleigh nodded.

“He was found hiding in Berkshire,” he remarked. “We've known he was in England; he came with two other Jesuits last summer and Walsingham was sure he would return to the University area. There are many Papists there, but more in the North, that's why it took so long to catch him. This is a great coup, Madam.” He turned towards Elizabeth. “Campion's defection to Rome was bad enough; his return here as a missionary Jesuit has done more to hearten the Papists in twelve months than all the other renegade priests put together.”

“I remember him well,” Elizabeth said. She was frowning. During a visit to the University in the early years of her reign, she had received an address from the young Oxford student, and his wit and erudition had impressed her so deeply that she recommended him to Leicester. He had been a gay young man, ambitious and glib-tongued and obviously dazzled by the attentions of the great. His future had been brilliant; he was already famous for his scholastic achievements, and it was many years since the Reformed Church Had recruited a man of such outstanding intellect. He was a favourite at Court for a time and considered for the highest ecclesiastical office. He was the last man imaginable to abandon everything and enrol in the outlawed Church of Rome.

“He's in the Tower,” she continued, “and Robert suggested that from our point of view it would be better to reconvert him, than make another martyr.”

“It would certainly damage Catholic prestige,” Burleigh agreed. “So far none of these traitors have recanted. If Campion admitted his error and renounced the Pope's authority, it would be a triumph.”

“I should be glad to see it,” the Queen said. “I would rather have the loyalty of a man like Campion than his life. Robert knows him well, and Robert thinks that promises of pardon will not move him, but a personal interview might.”

“It sounds outrageous to suggest that the Queen should see a confessed criminal,” Leicester explained, “but Campion is not an ordinary traitor; he is a famous man, a respected scholar, a leader. He is also very human from my memory of him. He had great regard for me once, and he loved the Queen. If we were both to see him and persuade him, I believe he would retract everything.”

“It's worth it.” Elizabeth stood up. “No one need know of the meeting, Burleigh. What do you say?”

The Minister pulled himself upright and winced at a twinge from his swollen foot.

“See him by all means, Madam. I agree with Lord Leicester—Campion alive and reconciled to the Protestant religion will be worth more than fifty Jesuits hanging at Tyburn. I will tell Walsingham myself.”

They had put Campion in the dungeon known as the Little Ease; it was not much bigger than a hole in the wall and he had been crouched there for four days, unable to stand or sit or lie. When they took him out he had to be carried; he was crippled with cramp and covered with filth. He had been washed and given a ragged suit of clean clothes and something to eat. He sat in a small boat between a guard of four soldiers while they rowed up the Thames in the darkness, his head bowed and his lips moving as he prayed. No one would tell him where he was being taken; he supposed that some members of the Council wanted to examine him, but such interviews usually took place in the Tower and the prisoner answered their questions on the rack. They moored at the steps of a large garden; he walked with difficulty supported by his guards. It was a cool and lovely evening with a brilliant display of stars. He smelled the scent of flowers and shrubs, and blinked as he came through a side door.

“Where am I?”

No one answered him; he found himself standing in front of another door, and when it opened suddenly he covered his eyes to protect them from a glare of light. He had lived in darkness for four days and for the first few moments he had to be guided into the room as if he were blind.

When he could see at last, Campion gave an audible gasp of surprise. He recognized the Queen, though it was ten years since he had seen her last. For a moment the pale face, framed in a blazing crown of red hair and winking diamonds, swam in front of him; he thought, irrelevantly and with pity, that she looked old and hardened beyond belief. Leicester, his old friend and patron, was standing beside her, thicker and ruddier than he remembered him, a middle-aged man in a scarlet doublet with a golden chain round his neck. And on the other side he recognized her former Secretary, the sober, self-effacing William Cecil. His beard was long and white; he looked a kindly, venerable old man.

“I see you have not forgotten us, Master Campion.”

Elizabeth was shocked in spite of herself. She stared at the bent and bearded scarecrow and failed to identify the upright, rather dandified young churchman who used to ornament Leicester's circle. Campion stumbled and went down on one knee.

“Forgive me, your Majesty. The light blinded me for a moment; I thought I must be dead or dreaming.”

He heard the guards going and the door closing. He was alone with the three most powerful people in England, the three principal enemies of his faith. He was to be judged by the Queen herself.

“You may stand, Campion,” Leicester said, “and you have nothing to fear. The Queen and Lord Burleigh and I are your friends; we only want to help you if we can.”

Campion stood up awkwardly. His head was clear now, and with a flash of his old wit he thanked them.

“Excuse my clumsiness; my room in your Majesty's prison was tailored for a smaller man, and I am still a little cramped.” Leicester smiled; but the Queen's expression did not soften. She was suddenly irritated by the condition to which Campion was reduced, and angrier still that he could stand there in his ridiculous torn clothes, a young man made old and feeble overnight, and make a joke of what had been done to him.

“You were a loyal subject once,” she said sharply. “Why did you betray me, Campion?”

“I have never betrayed you, Madam.” His voice was quite steady, almost gentle.

“You are a Papist and a Jesuit, don't you call that treason? Don't you know it is treason to come here as a priest and stir my people up against me?”

“I have never stirred anyone to anything but the practice of their faith. And I would be a traitor to God if I failed to do that.”

“It is forbidden to come here,” Burleigh said. “You knew the penalty for returning. England is no place for traitors to the Queen.”

“England is the only place for Englishmen.” Campion turned to him. “And no law on earth can keep us out, and keep us from serving the Queen in the way that is right. I am no traitor to her or to my country. I have always loved both, my Lord.”

“If you loved me,” Elizabeth said, “you would not join my enemies. I made much of you once; my Lord Leicester gave you his patronage, advanced you and recommended you. You could have been a great man in my kingdom, and you threw it all away to leave your country like a hunted dog and lick the feet of those who hate me. What is your excuse, Campion? You stand here face to face with me, your Queen—now tell me. Excuse your treason if you can!”

“The truth is not treason as I understand it, Madam. I came to the truth in spite of myself; I had been blind for many years, as blinded by ambition and temporalities as I was by the lights in this room when I first entered. I could indeed have been great in your kingdom, and thereby lost my place in the Kingdom of God. I am not a brave man, Madam, nor a strong one. I fought my conscience as long as I could; I was a traitor to you then because I upheld what I knew to be a lie. I am loyal to you now, when I tell you that the Church of Rome is the Church of Christ, and that true Englishmen will come and seek to save your soul, because they love and revere you. The gallows and the rack will not deter that love. Death will not change it. Living they will try for your conversion; dying they will pray for it. And pray for England.”

“I have not brought you here,” Elizabeth said bitterly, “to listen to a sermon. The Pope has excommunicated me; he has absolved you from your allegiance to me. Now, as an Englishman, answer me this. If England were invaded, whom would you obey, the Pope or me?”

“Before you answer,” Leicester interrupted, “think well, Campion.”

The Queen was going too fast; she was angered by the spiritual quality of the man. She did not want to hear about the Church of Christ and the salvation of her soul; she did not want to see Campion as a man of sanctity and ideals, however mistaken. She did not live her own life upon that plane and she could not deal with him unless he came down to the level which she understood.

But life was not a bribe unless Campion could be made to value it. He was weakened and ill; aggression would stiffen him but a few words of kindness and friendship might bring his spiritual resolution down in chaos.

“I thought very well of you,” Leicester went on. “I was proud of your achievements, and proud to be your patron. I was your friend then, and still am. Reflect, Campion. All that the Queen asks is that you should be loyal—that you should promise not to aid her enemies if they strike against her. Is that so unreasonable? Isn't that being more merciful than you have any right to expect? You came back to your own country expecting death and cruelties and you find this—your Queen and sovereign Prince receives you, and gives you a chance to mend your faults. And promises you a full pardon and a place at Oxford.”

He turned to Elizabeth for confirmation and she nodded. Leicester was right. This man was important; he was famous and respected. He must be made to recant, for if he betrayed Rome, hundreds of his fellow English Catholics would follow. Threats were useless. She could see that; she could see with terrible clarity that if Campion left this room unreclaimed, the utmost rigours of torture would not move him. And for a moment she looked at him and wondered without anger, where he found the source of his strength.

“I will ask very little of you,” she said quietly. “I shall not punish you or humiliate you, Campion. All you need do is avow your loyalty to me personally, and make one attendance at the established service. Only one. What you do after that and how you choose to worship God is no concern of mine. I am no persecutor; I have no wish to interfere in any man's religious faith. If all my Catholic people would acknowledge me and reject the edict of the Pope, they could say Mass with my personal blessing. You are a man of note; your example could bring peace to England, you could save many rash and foolish men from death by showing them that it is right to compromise. Give me your hand, Edmund Campion. Swear to obey me as your lawful Queen in the face of all my enemies, and you shall leave this room free and fully pardoned.”

She held out her hand to him. For a moment Campion hesitated. It was not a hesitation of purpose; the Queen and Leicester misunderstood it. He wavered, because he wondered whether he could take it when he was about to refuse to do what she wanted. It was strange that he, who had imagined his own weakness, dreading his defection under torture, often lying without sleep during the weeks preceding his arrival in England, should have felt no temptation to yield at all. In theory it was so easy; he had only to disavow the edict of the Pope and go to a heretic service once, and he could live again in his own country, pursue his studies, return to the beloved University, and pass the rest of his life in peace. It was so easy, and he could feel the will of the three people in the room, pressing upon him, urging him to consider and accept. The strongest was the woman, the hard, shrewd-eyed woman who saw nothing beyond the material threat to her power. To her the Pope was a hostile old man, building an alliance with her foreign enemies. There was no link with the humble Fisherman of Galilee, no miracle in the contest fought by the first of all the Popes and the handful of poor illiterate Jewish disciples, against the might of pagan Rome. There was no miracle in their victory, and through them the victory of the Christian faith over the world. It was simple for her to demand the Pope's rejection. It was like transferring loyalty from another king. He could never explain to her that it was impossible to reject truth. And the Pope and his significance in the fierce, greedy, power-ridden world, were an essential part of Campion's truth, and the whole of his truth was a belief in the plan God made for men.

It was sad and at the same time unbearably joyous to realize that, compared to that, Elizabeth had nothing to offer him.

He came and gently kissed her hand.

“I swear to be loyal to you in everything my conscience will permit. But it does not permit me to deny the power of the Vicar of Christ or to attend a service which I believe to be false.”

For a moment he looked straight into her eyes; he could see the anger and the disappointment in them. He saw something else. There was a sudden change, an alteration of the light in the black pupils. It was gone in a second, but he saw it. Disappointment, anger—and regret. He had doomed himself, and he had also doomed her, for she would have to deliver him to the workings of the laws she had made.

“Forgive me, Madam,” he said gently, and for a moment he looked into her face and smiled.