Just a Queen (20 page)

What could I have done?

Twenty-three

I have left my self-imposed isolation and I am seated at my desk again. Before me are paper and my quill, fully charged with ink. There is a letter I must write; there are functions and duties I must fulfil. The Queen of Scots is dead these four days and it is past the time when I must harness my grief and go on.

I have discovered much about myself and about being a queen over the days I have shut myself away to mourn. I believe now that from the day the Queen of Scots fled her kingdom and threw herself upon my mercy, this was the only, the inevitable, end. My sister Mary once said of me that I was her death and she mine and I now see that so it was between my cousin Mary and me.

I have spoken already of the unease that surrounded all of us, as fresh rumours of plots and conspiracies circled around my court daily. The last time I remember feeling anything close to happiness was almost two years ago, when the country celebrated the twenty-seventh year of my reign. A grateful population organised many parades and tributes to acknowledge the peace, stability and prosperity that
my long reign had given them. Indeed, it is perhaps my
longevity that my people should most be grateful for. Following my father's death, Englishmen had to endure the brief and turbulent reigns of three princes in twelve years. They went from Protestant to Catholic and, when I inherited the throne, back to Protestant again. They endured a regency during my poor little brother's time, a nine-day queen under tragic Jane Grey and the threat of civil war as Mary attempted to gain her rightful throne. And then, when she did just that, the English had to put up with the hated Philip of Spain. The English never can abide being ruled by a foreigner.

I knew when I came to the throne that stability and predictability were what my people longed for and that is what I have always aimed to give them – as far as my frail flesh would allow. Over twenty-seven years my people have come to know me and, I flatter myself, many of them have come to love me. It certainly felt as if they did that November day in 1585 when all London came out to celebrate the anniversary of the proclamation of my sovereignty.

Dressed entirely in white, I travelled in my gold state coach. Ahead of me rode my faithful and most loyal servant, William Cecil and with him Secretary Walsingham – a newer man, but one who has been at my side for more than a decade. Behind the coach rode Robin Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, my oldest friend, my closest confidant and the only man I have ever loved. When I claimed the throne of England I chose as my motto ‘
semper eadem
', always the same. And, as I looked at the two grey heads in front of me and the balding head behind I felt a rush of affection and gratitude for their long, patient and loyal service. They had been always the same, as had I. As I waved at the assembled multitudes in response to their hullabaloos, my heart and thoughts were with my own good fortune in having selected such good and stalwart men to be my guides through the infernal difficulties of rule.

It moves me to think of the overwhelming sense of gratitude and partnership I felt towards my old friend William Cecil that day. I sent him from my court in my terrible grief, fury and – yes – terror in the wake of Mary's execution and, much as I value him and know that he has only my safety at heart, I still cannot bear the thought of bringing him back. Perhaps it is almost because of the faith I have in his judgment that I feel so particularly angry that even the brilliant Cecil could think of no better remedy for the dilemma of my cousin than to have her head. But, as we rode through the cheering crowds on that day not so very long ago, that dreadful calamity was still ahead of us and did not then appear inevitable – at least to me.

Beside Cecil rode Walsingham, his taller, younger back clothed as always in black. He sat straight in the saddle whereas Cecil was nodding and ducking his head to acknowledge the crowd. Walsingham appeared to look neither right nor left, but I knew my spymaster was as always on high alert. He was scanning the faces in the crowd for danger or threat.

Behind my carriage rode Robin. I recall that I often turned in my seat to catch his eye and share my delight in the occasion. As he rode past the cheering crowds, he doffed his feathered hat and waved it enthusiastically this way and that. As the crowd roared ‘God save Queen Elizabeth', he joined them at full throat. As some threw roses at our procession, he caught them and threw them back – often aiming them at the prettiest girls lining the way. Once, when I was younger, such an action might have displeased me; now I smiled to myself and repeated
semper eadem
under my breath. Older my Robin might be, and more corpulent upon his horse, but he had not changed. He would have an eye for a pretty face until the day he died.

As sure in the saddle as he was on his own two feet, my master of horse let the reins fall and joined the spirit of the occasion with every gesture. When he looked up and saw me laughing at his delight, he roared with laughter too and blew me extravagant kisses, a gesture that made the crowd cheer even more loudly. He gathered an armful of thrown roses and then rode up to my open window and handed them to me with exaggerated courtesy. I laughed, kissed one of the blooms and gave it back to him.

‘Long live Queen Elizabeth! Long live good Queen Bess! Long live Leicester! God save England!'

I leant back against the cushions in my coach and hugged myself from sheer delight. It was a splendid day, a delightful day. I had forgotten how much the love of the people spurred me on. At that moment, in that coach, led and followed by my most faithful servants, surrounded by my people who loved me, I was deeply grateful that God had seen fit to allow me to rule England.

It does me much good to remember that moment in light of the disasters that followed.

The first disaster was that I allowed myself to be persuaded to go to war: a course of action that has never been my inclination. I hate the bloodshed of war, I hate the danger of it and, particularly, I hate the cost. As so often has been the case in my strange life, I was forced into committing myself to battle against my will. My poor little frog, my erstwhile suitor, the Duke of Anjou so lately appointed King of the Netherlands, had not enjoyed his reign for long. He died of a fever only a few months after he left my shores. Now Spain, seeing its advantage in the vacuum his unexpected demise had created, was rattling its sabres at the border. In terror, the Protestant majority in the lowlands turned to me for aid. Reluctantly I sent Robin to the low countries as my lieutenant general. Aware that their recurring lack of leadership made them particularly vulnerable to monarchs and princelings looking to expand their territory, the impudent fools then made my master of horse their governor general! Worse, his vanity piqued, Robin accepted the title, against my express orders. The lowlanders then added insult to injury by declaring him absolute general: one word away from absolute monarch! Was his ambition so monstrous that it could override his loyalty to me? I forced him to renounce the honour by reminding him that while he might have foolishly accepted a silly title, I had all the real power. I threatened that I would make peace with the Duke of Parma and offer the Spanish warlord the low countries on a platter just to humiliate their newly minted ‘absolute general'. That pulled them back into line.

Eaten up with the blow to his vanity, Robin then proceeded to make a mess of the campaign anyway, winning me nothing and costing me much, including the loss of his nephew Sir Philip Sidney, a wise and good man, fatally wounded by an arrow. His mother, Robin's sister and my dear friend, Mary Sidney, was devastated by her son's death. Such heartbreak, such waste. She died only a year later. I miss her still.

*

I hate war. I do not understand it and I do not wish to wage it. I loathe the uncertainty that accompanies a contest of force and the lack of control war causes me to have over the actions of even the most loyal and beloved servants. Once a man finds himself at the head of an army, it seems to go completely to his own. As a queen, I cannot ride into battle at the head of my troops. I must perforce send a substitute. To place a man, any man, however trusted and loyal, at the head of armed men who swear fealty to him is always dangerous.

But it was not simply my humiliation in the low countries that caused me anxiety. Walsingham and Cecil had informed me of yet another plot to assassinate me and between us we had agreed to let the conspirators think that they were undetected to see who else we could flush out. I knew that Cecil and Walsingham would give both their lives before they would allow any real harm to come to me, but I could not help feeling constantly on alert. My skin prickled and itched with the old sense of dread, as I waited for the unseen dagger to suddenly plunge itself into my flesh. I required my food taster to be extra vigilant and ate no fruit nor drank any wine or ale that had not first been tasted by someone else.

It was another cursed Jesuit who set the plot in motion, a fanatic called John Ballard who recruited Anthony Babington, a rich and headstrong young Catholic, who in his turn recruited six more courtiers to plot my grisly murder. I knew them all – not well, I grant you, but their faces were familiar and I had treated them with grace and courtesy. So, unlike the babbling lunatic, or addle-brained schoolmaster who had not set eyes on me nor I on them, I felt the betrayal as well as the fear. Walsingham had instructed Mary's gaoler Sir Amyas Paulet on what to look out for. We did not have to wait long.

I stood leaning on my desk with my back turned to Walsingham and Cecil. In front of me was the tapestry that hung behind my chair and sheltered me from any draughts that might come through the wainscoting. It was one of the six magnificent tapestries of the
City of Ladies
, based on the illuminations in Christine de Pizan's book of the same name, a book that was a great favourite of mine. As my two advisors unravelled the details of the plot so that I could fully understand the danger I was in, I stared transfixed at the tiny painstaking stitches that created the vision of a queen in red and white and a great lady in brilliant blue. They were laying the foundation stones of the city walls built to protect the fair sex from men.

‘Babington wrote to the Queen of Scots on the 12th July, Your Grace, outlining all the details of their plot, including their plans to assassinate you. I have here the letter he wrote should you care to peruse it.'

It was quite remarkable to me how perfectly the tiny white stitches delineating the ermine trim of the queen's medieval robe gave way to the red of her velvet gown. The demarcation was precise and yet delicate. The skill of the embroiderer was breathtaking. I waved my hand at Walsingham to indicate I had no interest in reading the traitor's letter.

‘The queen received the letter in a very clandestine manner. After decoding it and copying it carefully, my agents placed it in the bung of a barrel of ale being delivered to the castle, so that she would have no reason to be suspicious of its origin.'

No matter how often I looked at these tapestries, I never ceased to be diverted by how the two fine ladies, despite their exquisite clothes and ornate headdresses, were building the wall with trowels and planes and squares, like any common workmen. The stitching was just as exquisite forming the rude stones and tools – even the shavings planed from the blocks of the wall – as when it delineated the ladies' long fingers and silken sleeves.

‘Sir Amyas tells me she pondered how to answer the letter for some days, clearly aware that she took a great risk, but answer she did, Your Majesty, and her answer is enough to condemn her.'

The woman in blue was smoothing the mortar, the queen in red was laying the stones and the wall they had wrought was fine and curved, complete with niches for statues and decorative plants. Yet it looked strong enough to protect the women within from the predations of the men without.

‘She went through the plot in detail, not excluding your “tragical execution”, Your Grace, and agreed to it in every particular.'

On the other side of the embroidered wall, the lady-builders and some new companions were reading plans, moulding pots and preparing to measure angles and make calculations to ensure their City of Ladies was airy and well proportioned – a delight to the eye as well as a joy to occupy.

‘We arrested the plotters as you know, Your Grace, and all have been tried and condemned to endure the full agonies of a traitor's death. We have also arrested the Queen of Scots and searched her rooms. We found sixty different ciphers, Your Majesty, and this.' Walsingham now proffered another paper, but I did not even turn to look at it, let alone take it from his hands. I was too busy looking at the tiny stitches of the gracious white columns that bore the portico sheltering the women architects, builders and engineers as they made their plans for their city of elegance and safety. ‘It is a list of every English nobleman who has pledged allegiance to the Scottish queen.'

I sighed and at last turned away from my favourite tapestry. Mary had owned one of the six herself, I believe, as do many other noblewomen. Perhaps we all gain the same comfort from them as we do from Christine de Pizan's book: that what men say about our gender and the scorn they visit upon us about our nature is not the truth. I looked at the two good and wise men in front of me. Their faces were solemn and although I knew their long pursuit of my cousin was at last at an end, they looked as if they took no more joy in this result than I did and for that I was grateful. Walsingham still pressed the list on me.

I took it and read the names written there. Many of them surprised me and all of them wounded me, but still I knew that there was only one action I could take. When I had finished the list and read every name carefully down to the bottom, I took two steps to the fire and dropped the paper into the heart of it.

‘
Video taceoque
,' I said to the two men before me. ‘I see and I am silent.'