Revenger (55 page)

Shakespeare took a sip of wine. “And what of Sir Walter?”

“He is back in the Tower. I am sure he would not be content to have the massacre of the Roanoke colony bruited about, for it would leave him in a yet more parlous state, his patent from the Queen turned to ashes.”

“Do
you
wish it advertised, Sir Robert?”

“You know me better than that, John.”

Indeed, Shakespeare had been reflecting on how like Sir Francis Walsingham his new employer was. Both men shared an extreme, almost cold level of caution. In their world of intelligencing, knowledge was all, and to be guarded jealously. Cecil would not want word of the Roanoke slaughter to see the light. Ralegh must be freed and his rivalry with Essex nurtured. That way both men would be weakened, leaving the course free for Cecil. To that end, Eleanor Dare must be silenced.

“She will stay in the North Country,” Shakespeare assured him. “She is living with my wife’s mother and contents herself with her inks and quills and parchments. I do believe she wishes naught but peace and solitude.”

“And we shall wink at the death of Mr. McGunn. What of the brother-in-law?”

“Foxley Dare continues to pursue a claim that his brother be declared dead so that he and the boy may inherit the property. He would not wish a counter-claim. Anyway, who would believe a man with a reputation for swiving geese?”

Cecil did not smile. “The important thing is that McGunn is dead. It is now clear how widespread and malign was his influence. In Mr. Secretary’s day, such an insect would have been squashed underfoot long since. You will ensure such men never hold sway in this realm again, John.”

Shakespeare had considered McGunn’s role. He had been
the hub of an infernal wheel, whose spokes touched lives in terrible ways: the tragedy of the Roanoke colonists; his funding of the Essex treachery; the corruption of Christopher Morley; Winterberry and the Le Neves. All spokes led back to McGunn. But Shakespeare also found himself wondering about the event that lay behind it all—the pitiless killing of his wife at a small rocky outcrop of Ireland known as Smerwick. He asked Cecil about it—was there truth in the claim that Ralegh had blood on his hands?

“I do believe so,” Cecil said. “My father told me that Ralegh carried out the killings with grim efficiency, watching his soldiers hewing and punching six hundred unarmed and bound men, and hanging pregnant women. They were cruel days. Ralegh’s half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert, had a row of Irish heads lining the path to his tent. I heard also that when Ralegh caught an Irishman stealing willow branches from an English camp, he demanded to know what they were for. ‘To hang English churls,’ the man said. Ralegh had him strung up there and then, saying the branches would serve as well for an insolent Irishman. I cannot stomach such things, which is why I strive for peace, not war. That is what you sign up to, John, when you agree to assist me. You understand that?”

“We are as one, Sir Robert. Except …”

“Except my use of Mr. Topcliffe. I believe you had the same problem when you worked for Mr. Secretary Walsingham.”

The anger rose in Shakespeare’s gullet. “I have to speak plain, Sir Robert. The man tried to ensnare my wife. He takes pleasure in torture. He has raped the young Bellamy woman. He conspired with the poisonous Morley. I say that Topcliffe is worse than any of England’s enemies.”

“Sit down, John,” Cecil ordered. “Let me tell you that I share your feelings. And yet …”

“There is no ‘and yet,’ Sir Robert.”

“And yet I need Mr. Topcliffe, just as Mr. Secretary needed
him. There is no doubting his loyalty to the crown or to England.”

“He is a man who does not balk at torture, rape, and murder.”

“Enough, John. Sit down.” The Privy Councillor’s voice became quieter. “Please, listen to me. These are desperate times. Spain will come with a yet more powerful fleet next spring or summer. And her agents continue to worm their way into the body of England—in secret ways which it is our task to stop. You are my longbow in this, John—but Topcliffe is the poison tip of my arrow.”

Cecil, small and precise and still, never lost his composure as he spoke. Their eyes met. At last Cecil smiled and reached out his hand in friendship. “Come, John, we need each other. Let us speak of pleasanter things. Let us speak of a bright future for England. I need you—and I believe you need me.”

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to many people, who have helped me in myriad ways. In particular, I would like to thank my agent, Teresa Chris, and Kate Miciak, Vice President and Editorial Director of Bantam Books, for their superb advice and unstinting support. I would also like to thank the toxicologist Professor Robert Forrest (any mistakes are mine, not his); Jean Bray, the archivist at Sudeley Castle; Cosy Bagot Jewitt at Blithfield Hall; and, as ever, my wife, Naomi.

Books that have been especially helpful include
Arbella Stuart
by P. M. Handover;
The Second Cecil
by P. M. Handover;
Robert, Earl of Essex
by Robert Lacey;
Arbella: England’s Lost Queen
by Sarah Gristwood;
Palaces & Progresses of Elizabeth I
by Ian Dunlop;
Dr. Simon Forman: A Most Notorious Physician
by Judith Cook;
Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony
by Karen Ordahl Kupperman;
Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of England’s Lost Colony
by Lee Miller;
Poor Penelope
by Sylvia Freedman;
The Lady Penelope
by Sally Varlow;
St. Thomas’ Hospital
by E. M. McInnes;
Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth
by Mary S. Lovell;
Sir Walter Raleigh
by Raleigh Trevelyan; and
Sir Walter Ralegh
by Robert Lacey.

Historical Note

Queen Elizabeth is a bit-part player in this novel, yet her relationship with twenty-four-year-old Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, stands at the heart of the story—and of the late Tudor age itself.

What did the fifty-eight-year-old sovereign want from this ambitious yet hopelessly inadequate young man? Yes, she loved his charm and good looks, but I believe she also enjoyed goading his beautiful mother, Lettice, the cousin she despised for marrying her own great love, Leicester. It was as if she were saying “You may have won Leicester, but I have your son.”

And what did Essex want from Elizabeth? He wanted money, because he was desperately short of the stuff, and he wanted power. Indeed, he wanted her job, as the world was to discover with his wretched coup attempt in 1601.

At his trial, Sir Robert Cecil accused him: “You would depose the Queen. You would be King of England.” The Earl of Northumberland asserted that Essex “wore the crown of England in his heart these many years.”

Essex’s “affair” with Elizabeth—and his deadly rivalry with both Cecil and Ralegh—dominated the Queen’s declining years. The Earl had become her favorite courtier in 1587, yet the cracks were immediately apparent. In the summer of that year, they had a furious and very public quarrel that set the scene for many rows to come.

That first fight was over the Queen’s snub of his sister Dorothy when she was barred from the royal presence for a perceived misdemeanor. In a rage, Essex accused Elizabeth of listening to gossip from his rival Sir Walter Ralegh. The more he insulted Ralegh (who had nothing to do with the snub), the more the Queen threw back insults against Essex’s mother, Lettice.

Essex stormed out in the middle of the night, taking Dorothy with him. The Queen sent a courtier after him to apologize and ask him back. And so the morbid, hot-and-cold affair of the aging Queen and the moody young swain began. He would walk out and sulk; she would beg him to come back.

Yet she never trusted him with the power he craved. He continually demanded promotion, but she invariably gave the best jobs to someone else and, in doing so, fed his paranoia.

He often defied her. During his 1591 military campaign in northern France, he knighted twenty-four officers against the express orders of the Queen. When she heard what he had done, she was livid. She would not normally knight half that number in a whole year, and he hadn’t even won a battle, let alone a war.

The year of Essex’s “cheap knights” was the beginning of his drive for the top. By giving knighthoods—as he was entitled to do when leading an expeditionary force—he was buying loyalty. The following year, Essex set about becoming a statesman. He took on the Bacon brothers, Francis and Anthony, and they advised him that intelligence-gathering was the way to make a political impact.

His lust for power was stoked up by certain Machiavellian friends such as Gelli Meyrick and Henry Cuffe, but mainly by his ruthlessly ambitious sister, Penelope Rich. She pushed him to rebellion and was a prime cause of his downfall.

And then there was Arbella Stuart. Essex would have easily seen how advantageous a match might be with the young girl, a serious claimant to the throne of England. He used his charm well, supporting her at court and flirting with her when others avoided her because of her haughtiness. There was court tittle-tattle about their
closeness, and he is also believed to have conducted a secret correspondence with the impressionable girl, though this does not survive.

Did he have plans to marry her? Surely he considered it. His marriage to Frances Walsingham was an inconvenient formality and easily disposed of if necessary. That was the way the Essex clan did things. His mother had married Leicester knowing that he was still married to Lady Douglass Sheffield. And many believed Leicester had murdered his first wife, Amy Robsart, to enable him to marry Elizabeth and share her throne.

And yes, Arbella did have a tutor called Morley who was sacked by Bess of Hardwick in 1592. Was he spying on Arbella? Historians have speculated that he was a Walsingham intelligencer (some have even suggested he might have been the playwright Christopher Marlowe, who had been a spy). After Walsingham’s death, who controlled this Morley? By 1592, Essex House was quickly becoming one of the main centers of espionage.

In the end, Essex was a weak, contemptible character. He attempted a coup, but he accused others of provoking him to it, turning on Penelope with venom. He had nothing to gain, for he was already under sentence of death, but he wrote a confession in which he laid the blame on her. “I must accuse one who is most nearest to me, my sister, who did continually urge me on with telling how all my friends and followers thought me a coward, and that I had lost all my valor. She must be looked to, for she hath a proud spirit.”

It is easy to see parallels in the story of Macbeth—the proud but flawed soldier urged on to treachery by women. Shakespeare would have known the Essex tale at the time of writing his great tragedy. Penelope as Lady Macbeth? Or the three of them—Penelope, Dorothy, and Lettice—as three witches stirring a cauldron of sedition?

In the event, Penelope (whose bedroom at Essex House was, indeed, draped all in black) was spared—probably because of her relationship with Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who was winning victories in Ireland and was needed by Elizabeth.