The Marriage Game (20 page)

One evening in late spring he took her to the Miter Inn in Holborn.

“Queen Elizabeth,” drawled an elderly fellow in his cups, “now there’s a woman, I say. King Harry to the life, God save her. But she’s a fool to tangle herself with that whoreson Dudley.”

“He murdered his wife,” a woman said, and there were several murmurs of assent.
Aye, aye. That he did
. Under the table Elizabeth laid a restraining hand on a bullish Robert’s hand.

“So I say the Queen should let him alone,” the old man continued, warming to his theme. “What do you think, mistress?” He leered at Elizabeth.

“I think we should ignore malicious rumors,” she replied, smiling beneath her heavily painted face. “But it is heartening to hear you speak lovingly of the Queen.”

“They ain’t rumors,” put in a girl in dishabille, who was plainly a whore.

“And you are intimately acquainted with the whoreson Dudley?” Elizabeth rounded on her, enjoying herself immensely. The company roared with laughter. Only Robert was stony-faced.

“But the Queen should get herself married soon,” the innkeeper chimed in. “Stands to reason, country needs an heir. And it ain’t natural, a woman wanting to stay a virgin.”

Elizabeth stiffened. “What ‘ain’t natural’ about that? It strikes me that a lot of women would be much happier without the ties of marriage.”

“Gawd, if they all said that, the world’d grind to a halt,” the old man commented.

“Aye, but it’s a man’s world, and there’s no denying that!” Elizabeth countered.

“You tell him, girl!” the whore said, and the other women chorused their approval.

“She still has to wed,” the innkeeper persisted.

“But not that bastard Dudley,” growled the old man. Robert’s hand moved instinctively to where his sword was normally belted to his
waist. He had, of course, left it behind, but still carried in its place a small dagger. London was not a safe city at night. Elizabeth nudged him. It was time to leave.

“Well, my masters, you have been good company!” she declared. “I pray that we will meet again.”

One of the women was eyeing her closely.

“I’ve seen you before,” she said. “Was it here?”

“Very likely,” Elizabeth said briskly, and rose to her feet, downing the rest of her drink in one go and gathering her cloak around her. “God give you good night!” she cried.

When they left the inn, both she and Robert were unsteady due to the strength of the ale. There was a cherry tree outside, and he drew her into his arms beneath its concealing branches. He was very drunk and seemed to have forgotten about the way he had been insulted. He kissed her deeply, holding her close, then drew away and swept her a wobbly bow.

“Dance with me, my lady!” he demanded.

Elizabeth giggled. “Here?” she asked.

“Yes!” And he grabbed her hands, humming a tune and swinging her about, capering wildly around the tree. She was laughing so much when they had spun to a halt that she could barely catch her breath.

“Oh to have the freedom to do this every night!” she cried to the stars. “I do envy my subjects!”

As they strolled along by the river toward Whitehall and the night air had its effect, Robert stopped laughing and grew morose.

“How can you let them get away with such talk, Bess?” he protested.

“You forget, I was not the Queen tonight,” she said, “and they are ignorant folk, but loyal. Do not let their rude talk discomfit you. We have better things to think of.” And she drew close to him, slipping her arm inside his cloak.

At night she and Robin were lovers in all but the final consummation, sleeping spent in each other’s arms after increasingly inventive acts of passion. With a little imagination, there was no end to the things one
could do to give and receive pleasure, and she often wondered why, for him, all this was not enough. By day, people paid court to Robert as if he were King already; he looked, carried himself, and behaved like a great prince.

Elizabeth, notwithstanding her growing reputation for parsimony—unfair, she thought, especially as she had inherited a bankrupt kingdom; she was only being careful—proved herself a generous lover. She restored the earldom of Warwick, confiscated after the execution of Robert’s father, to his brother Ambrose, and with it vast swathes of land. But she continued to evade the subject of marriage whenever Robert raised it, and he was no nearer to calming her fears about sex, although God knew he had tried. Each time he had done so, she’d seized the initiative for some other kind of love-play, or the tears had welled—and he did not have the heart to press her. It occurred to him that even if she did consent to marry him, it might be a marriage in name only.

It was well over a year since he had been cleared of culpability in Amy’s death—surely a decent enough interval for mourning. There was no reason now why he and the Queen should wait. But it was proving impossible to pin Elizabeth down on the matter, and she was still insisting that she might marry one of her many foreign suitors. It was increasingly hard to stay optimistic. Despair engulfed him.

That summer the court departed on a great progress to the eastern shires. At Ipswich they lodged in Christchurch Mansion, the magnificent house of Sir Edmund Withipoll—a monastery before King Harry dissolved it, although there was little left from the monks’ days, for now costly oak paneling clad the walls, the chambers were appointed with richly carved beds and chairs and tables, and supper had been served on silver-gilt plates. Robert was allocated a bedchamber next to the Queen’s. It was a big house, but not
that
big, and given the close proximity of everyone else, Elizabeth deemed it unsafe for him to visit her at night, so he was sleeping alone when he was awoken by the most plaintive voice. He sat up quickly, dazed, rubbing his eyes, and
was astounded to find Lady Katherine Gray kneeling right by his bedside, weeping pitifully.

“My lord, I beg of you to help me,” she sobbed, her thin shoulders shaking.

“For God’s sake,” he hissed, “hush! The Queen sleeps next door. What would she say if she caught you here?”

“Oh,
please
,” sniffed Katherine, even more pathetically. She was a pale, slight girl, certainly not worth being discovered with him in what would look like an alarmingly compromising situation. And to make matters worse, he thought, envisaging a majestic presence looming in the doorway, Elizabeth loathed her, not only because Katherine was, by law, her heir—although she would never,
ever
acknowledge her as such—but also because the young woman had foolishly made it her business to court Spain, hoping that King Philip would persuade the Queen to declare Katherine her successor—her
Catholic
successor. But what the blazes was Katherine doing here, crying her heart out, in the middle of the night? More to the point, what would Elizabeth think if she heard her and found them here together? Robert was utterly mortified at the thought. Visions of the Tower took shape in his brain. He was desperate to get Katherine out of the room.

“Calm down and tell me what ails you,” he whispered, suddenly, horribly, aware that beneath the bedclothes he was naked. Oh God!

Katherine Gray swallowed and made an effort to stop crying. “My lord, you have influence with the Queen. Tell her—
please
tell her—that I beg her forgiveness. I have married the Earl of Hertford in secret, without her permission, for I did love him and she had said no—and now I am with child. My lord is abroad on an embassy, and I am alone and do not know what to do. I fear Her Majesty’s wrath so much I wish myself in a far land …”

Robert wished her in a far land too—in fact, anywhere, so long as it was not this bedchamber. Fear made him cruel. “Her
righteous
wrath,” he muttered, furious with the girl. “You stupid little fool. How do you think Her Majesty will react when she knows that the person next in line to her throne has married without her consent and is carrying an
heir? Have you thought of the implications for the Queen—and the succession?”

Katherine crumpled in misery, crying harder than ever.

“Get out!” Robert commanded. “I cannot help you, nor would I if I could.”

She rose, a pathetic picture of woe, and left the room without another word. As soon as he heard the quiet click of the latch, Robert began to breathe more easily.

He realized that he would have to tell Elizabeth what Katherine had revealed to him. The matter was too weighty and dangerous, and if he concealed it, he would be guilty, probably, of misprision of treason. But the next morning, when he approached the Queen, who was wearing a loose gown edged with fur, and eating her breakfast of manchet bread, pottage, and light ale in the room that had been appointed her privy chamber, he found her frowning and distant.

“Have I offended Your Majesty?” he asked, panic seizing him at the thought of what she might have overheard.

“Leave us,” she commanded her women. When they had gone, she wiped her mouth and laid down her napkin. “Who was in your room last night?” she asked, her eyes blazing. “I swear I heard a woman’s voice.”

“You did, Bess, and it was not what you think,” Robert declared, mustering a wounded expression, as if to say,
How could you think such ill of me?
“There
was
a woman in my room, and I have come to tell you about her. It was Lady Katherine Gray.”

“Lady Katherine Gray?”
Elizabeth echoed, astounded.

“Yes, Bess. She woke me up, begging me to tell you that she is with child, having married the Earl of Hertford in secret.”

Elizabeth erupted, calling her cousin names not usually heard on the lips of a well-bred, well-educated lady. She shouted and raged, threatening all kinds of punishments. The rack and the thumbscrews were mentioned. But Robert knew that her fury proceeded from fear. Should Katherine bear a son, that child might live to challenge Elizabeth’s title; moreover, he would be a dangerous lure for any who felt that England should be governed by a king instead of a queen.

There was no moving her. She was adamant. She summoned those councillors who were with her on progress and commanded that Lady Katherine and her husband must go to the Tower, and stay there while she decided what was to be done with them.

“Seek out witnesses to this pretended marriage,” she instructed. “You will not find them, I’ll wager. Then we will have it declared invalid, and Lady Katherine will be shown to be no better than she should be.” And no one, of course, would want her to be Queen after that.

“That would suit Her Majesty,” Cecil observed to Robert afterward. “She hates and fears any who might be perceived as a rival. Mark my words, no proofs of this marriage will be found. The Queen wills it, whether they exist or not.”

It proved to be the case. The council ruled that there had never been a valid wedding ceremony and that the issue of Lady Katherine’s union with Lord Hertford was illegitimate and unfit to inherit. The punishment for the couple’s defiance was imprisonment.

Robert wondered if Elizabeth’s jealous vengeance proceeded in part from her awareness that Lady Katherine had been alone with him in his room that night.

1562
 

In the dark days of January, Robert again sought out Bishop de Quadra. This time there were no hints about converting back to the old faith.

“The French,” he said, “are offering me substantial bribes to use my influence with the Queen on their behalf. But I will refuse them if King Philip backs my suit to Her Majesty. A word from him carries great weight with her. Would you write on my behalf to His Majesty?”

Quadra sniffed. “Her Majesty is already aware that my master is anxious to see her wed. She knows also that he has high hopes of you, Lord Robert. Therefore a letter such as your lordship suggests would be quite unnecessary. As I see it, the real stumbling block is Her Majesty’s inability to reach a decision about her marriage. I will raise the matter with her again, if you wish it.”

“Oh, I do indeed, and I am most grateful to Your Excellency,” Robert said. He hoped fervently that someone other than himself could make Elizabeth see sense.

Elizabeth drew Quadra into a window embrasure, out of earshot of her courtiers, when he asked to speak to her privately. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Robert watching them. Aha, she thought.

“Madam,” the bishop began, “I have not liked to press you on this
matter, but I have come to ask whether you have made up your mind to marry.”

“Is this about the Archduke?” she asked, guessing that it wasn’t.

“Not specifically, madam,” he replied. “The word is that you have committed yourself elsewhere.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Bishop, you should know that I am as free from any engagement as the day I was born; and I have resolved never to accept any suitor I have not met. I have realized that, as I cannot in all honesty ask great princes to come here for my inspection, I will have to marry an Englishman. And that being so, I can find no person more fitting than Lord Robert.” She paused, noting gleefully the surprise on the bishop’s face at her candor. “What I need,” she went on, “are letters from friendly princes, including my dearest brother, King Philip, recommending that I marry Lord Robert. Then my subjects can never accuse me of choosing him in order to satisfy my own desires. And Lord Robert himself would very much like such recommendations.”