The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (36 page)

Then in a perfumed cloud the great beauty who was his mother had swept out of his room. Young Robert Devereaux had finished dressing that morning filled with a vague dread. He loved the Earl of Leicester, more perhaps than he had loved his own father. Why did his mother not love the man? He was good and kind, handsome and a brave soldier. He had taken great pains to refurbish the old wreck of Wanstead Estate just for his mother’s pleasure. Why did she not love Leicester? And why, Essex remembered himself thinking that morning twenty years before, did she not love
him,
her own son? He was a sweet and thoughtful child, a fine student. And he was handsome—

he knew his mother liked her men handsome. Oh why could he never please her! And wasn’t it fearfully dangerous to deceive the queen?

Was not what his mother and Leicester planning to do treasonous?

Would they both end up with their heads on pikes over London Bridge? Would
he
?

By the time Essex had finished his ride this morning and fallen fully clothed onto his bed, his mind felt as though it were a crowded cell, and he a prisoner within it. He found himself wishing for the oblivion that attended one of his feverish headaches, but instead he lay immobile while thoughts wheeled before him in a never-ending parade.

Everyone wanted him back at Court. There were cries and demands and beseechments from every corner, yet he would oblige none of them.

How could he return? He was ill. That was his best excuse and one that was, much of the time, true. But what was he saying? He
had
returned, not once but twice—and both times he ’d been driven back to seclusion at Wanstead by Elizabeth’s cruel obstinacy.

Of course it was understandable if she still harbored resentment against Essex for his outrageous behavior in the Privy Council Chamber that cursed morning two months before. He ’d laid a threatening hand on his sword, after all—an unquestionably treasonable act. All of Court had been agog.
Essex would surely be sent to the Tower for his treachery,
it was said. Some whispered that the block was not out of the question. Yet the queen, to everyone ’s astonishment, had taken no action against him.

None whatsoever. Neither punishment nor reprimand. Instead he ’d been allowed to withdraw from Court in his own time, as though
he
had been the injured party. Of course the incident set tongues wagging at the implications. How intimate were the entanglements between the queen and her favorite that she should take no action against him? What secrets did they share? Was blackmail involved? Had Elizabeth simply been paralyzed with horror, or was she planning some terrible revenge? Surely they were not still lovers!

It had been quite extraordinary and amazed even Essex that his act, unconscious as it might have been, had gone unpunished. At first he ’d reveled in the power that he still held over Elizabeth. He still fascinated her, he had decided. She must still adore him.

But once smothered by the quiet and solitude of Wanstead, his relief and celebration quickly turned sour and his bouts of black brooding were more and more often punctuated by fits and fevers so dangerous that the queen had sent him her personal physician. Essex had been forced to admit that Crosley’s
Guaiacum
cure had failed. Something would have to be done to halt the disease ’s progress. Perhaps mercury after all.

Oh God, he had chosen a terrible moment to leave Court!
In the best of circumstances his absence benefited his enemies. There were several fac-tions hell-bent on his destruction. But this self-imposed exile had been severely aggravated on two accounts. Shortly after his shocking performance in the Privy Council Chamber, old Burleigh had taken to his bed.

It soon became apparent that it was his deathbed. Elizabeth had forgotten everything and run to his side. This man—her most trusted councilor for half a century—was, she insisted, her twin spirit. She sat vigil at his bedside for nearly a week, holding his withered hand, feeding him gently, like a child. When it was done, she was inconsolable, much as she had been when Leicester had died. But her grief must surely have been compounded by her age and the grinning specter of her own death.

All Essex’s true friends had written, begging him to renounce his banishment and make peace with the queen, fearing her heart would harden to hatred should he prove intractable in her time of agonizing loss. So he had steeled himself, prepared his apologies and ridden into London where he had taken a conspicuous place in Burleigh’s mourning procession, shrouded and hooded in a great black cloak, with all appropriate demonstrations of grieving. But they had apparently proven insufficient for Elizabeth. Perhaps she required wailing and beating of the breast, for when he had requested the audience with her that all had insisted would be needed to heal the breach between them, she had politely demurred, citing the wretchedness of her own condition, not even suggesting a future meeting.

Essex, enraged, sped back to Wanstead. But his sulking had been cut short when news arrived several days later of the appalling defeat of Elizabeth’s army by the Irish rebels at Blackwater Fort—a defeat now infamously known as the Battle of the Yellow Ford. The Earl of Tyrone—indeed he
had
taken the title of The O’Neill—was being hailed as the King of Ireland, and he had quickly and with frightening ease begun bringing all of that blighted country under his control. His armies—unbelievable that they could be called armies at all—had streamed south into Leinster and Munster, overrunning the Pale and the plantations till there was hardly an English settler left in Ireland who was not dead or running for his life. All over the country the Crown’s armies, foolishly packed with Irish recruits, soon found those soldiers turning coat and defecting to the other side, most of them carrying with them their English weapons.

The shock and horror of The Yellow Ford had, in one afternoon, seen Henry Bagenal and
two thousand
of his men slaughtered, and brought England to its knees. ’Twas unthinkable, but Ireland was on the brink of being lost to a pack of ragged rebels! Elizabeth, humiliated and furious, had raged at her council to
do something
. They had quickly begun scrambling about, sending out orders for muster, stepping up food and arms for the reinforcements.

But their hands were tied. They were altogether stymied and not a little embarrassed, for their Master of Ordnance—nay,
High Marshall of
England
—was absent from their ranks. His cooperation was essential, as was his advice and flow of foreign news from his man Anthony Bacon’s large network of spies.

And so began a trial of strength between a subject and his queen, the likes of which had never before been witnessed in England.

Elizabeth would command Essex’s return to Court. He would refuse, claiming ill health. She would demand he appear in the Council Chamber. He would agree to come, as long as there was promise that she would, herself, be present. She would make no such promise. He would stand firm and break off communications.

All his friends grew alarmed, aware of how close to the fire the earl was playing. Southampton had finally come in person to Wanstead, painting in vivid detail the plots that Essex’s enemies were hatching all round London. Talk permeated even the lowest of taverns, Southampton insisted. Essex was losing popular support.

“She is laying in wait to humiliate me!” Essex had cried to his friend.

“ ’Tis a trick to seduce me back into her web. Once she has me entrapped, she ’ll bite off my head. I tell you, I will not go!” In the end he had, of course, gone. England’s sovereignty had been at stake. And he was yet the nation’s greatest hero. With all the dignity he could muster, he had made his appearance in the Council, only to find that the queen had declined to attend that session. And the next. Gritting his teeth, he asked to see the queen privately. She refused. He had written her a lengthy letter, giving his best advice on the Irish question. She had even refused to take delivery of it.

He ’d been right all along, he ’d raged at Southampton. He learned that she ’d spread word at Court that Essex had “played long enough on her, and she meant to play awhile on him. To stand upon her greatness as he did upon indignation.” Finally and most maddeningly, Elizabeth had made it known that she expected repayment of Essex’s recently accrued and substantial debts to her. Immediately.

Back to Wanstead he rode with a fire burning in his heart. He railed against the queen to his terrified servants. He shrieked abuse at her into the wind, and cried out in his angry dreams all the blackest and most heartbroken of diatribes. A few staunch friends argued against his hubris. There was no advantage to defying the queen, they said. He had antagonized everyone at Court and on the Council. By his actions he only strengthened his enemies and weakened his friends. But news filtered back that although the queen would be glad to have Essex back, she wanted him as a suppliant and not as the swaggering courtier, the presumed “equal” he had been before. He ’d recoiled at such a thought, his pride suffering.

One evening, roaring drunk, he had composed a letter in his own defense. “There is no heart more humble to his superiors than I,” he had scrawled across the page, “but the vilest of all indignities has been done to me. What? Cannot princes err? Cannot subjects receive wrong? Is an earthly power or authority infinite? Pardon me, pardon me, but I can never subscribe to these principles. I have received wrong and I feel it!

Now you demand my return to Court, but remember, I would never have gone into exile had you not chased me from you as you did, driven me into this private kind of life. When the unhappy news came from yonder cursed country of Ireland, I knew your grief at having your armies so brutally beaten back, and my duty was strong enough to rouse me out of my deepest melancholy. I offered my attendance. Rejected. I sent a letter. Rejected. What am I to think?

“I have preferred your beauty above all things. Received no pleasure in life but by the increase of your favor toward me. But the intolerable wrong you have done me and yourself has broken all laws of affection, and done harm against the honor of your sex. I was never proud, Your Majesty, till you sought to make me base. My despair, which is great, shall be as my love was—without repentance. I fear this world is not fit for me, for she which governs it is weary of me and I, therefore, am weary of the world.”

Then he had collapsed and slept the sleep of the dead. When he ’d woken and looked for his writings, all he ’d found were scratched-out drafts. But his seal and sealing wax had clearly been used. He rang for his servant and learned to his horror that several letters had been sent off with a courier to London in the middle of the night. Essex had broken down and wept. Such raw sentiments—sincere as they were—were pure folly, even blasphemous, and could not but lead him to a bloody end.

One did not chastise a rightful ruler like a child, nor impugn her God-given authority. He was clearly out of his mind, had allowed the blasted pox to poison his thinking.

He had thereafter, with great trepidation but as much resolve, begun the “mercury cure.” He ate sparingly and drank only watered-down wine.

He took long walks in Wanstead Wood and breathed in the good country air. Slowly his nerves calmed and he began to see a clear light ahead.

Finally, last night, he had slept peacefully and dreamed sweet dreams.

This morning, fresh headed, he had ridden out on the piebald gelding and glimpsed the promise of a bright future. But when he had returned from the ride, that first sight of Wanstead House had sent him spiraling into these latest, frenzied ruminations.
No, he must not allow a relapse.

Essex pulled himself up from bed and forced himself to his feet. He moved to the window and threw it open, gulping in the sobering air.
He
must fight Elizabeth no longer,
he decided. She was simply unwilling to be conquered. If he forced her to his will, she would never forget, nor forgive him. If he yielded he ’d be doing nothing unworthy.
He must sue for
peace with her!
Elizabeth was a great queen and, he was forced to admit, he loved her deeply. Loved her as a son loves a mother, certainly more than his own mother. And if truth be told, he silently admitted, a blush of red rising in his cheeks, he was desperate for her love in return. And even more, for her to approve of him and all he did.

He would go to Court and by his kind persistence find a way back into the queen’s presence. There he would open his heart, make his humble apologies, suffer the barbs of her deserved anger. Then gently and, in love, speak the truth to her. They would, together, take Ireland in hand and conquer it. Elizabeth was
waiting
for her wise councilor to come, he knew it. She needed him as much as he needed her. With Burleigh’s death there was no one else in the whole world who could partner her in this particular and dangerous dance. Whatever it took, he would provide it. ’Twas his destiny as surely as it was hers.

Essex rang for his servant, and when the man appeared, Robert Devereaux was very calm. Calmer and more peaceful, in fact, than he had been in many a long year. A pure light burned in his eyes.

“We shall ride to London this afternoon,” he said with quiet surety.

“To London and the queen.”

ASUPPLIANT SHE REQUIRED
,
so a suppliant he would become.

The razor-edged halberds at the queen’s bedchamber door parted with a soft whoosh, and the two guards stood at attention, their eyes staring straight ahead. He wondered suddenly if they saw him as an enemy or a friend. Was he “Essex, great hero of Cadiz?” or “Poor syphilitic Essex,” whose reputation had been washed up like so much flotsam on the shores of the Azore Isles?
But why was he worrying about the opinion of
door guards?
His purpose today was to find his way back into Elizabeth’s good graces, or prepare to retire permanently from Court.

He found her standing at her favorite silver-topped writing desk perusing a stack of documents to be signed. She held an ink-dipped quill in the fingers of her right hand and he found he could not take his eyes from them, still long and delicate and beautifully white. Whilst the years had taken their toll on Elizabeth’s face and form, her hands had yet been untouched, and in remembering them lightly gripping his prick he felt a faint contraction there.