The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (49 page)

Sadly, Tibbot had found much pleasure and sustenance in his English employers and was even now engaged with his huge galleys in patrolling the western Irish coasts, seeking interception of the Spanish troop ships on their journey north to Ulster. Grace refused to relinquish one last hope that Tibbot’s deepest loyalties would emerge in such a conflict, and he ’d perhaps allow a ship or two to escape them and sail to the aid of O’Neill and the Irish cause. Well, she could hope . . .

She saw very little of Maeve and the grandchildren now. Miles was still hostage to the English, though not in Clifford’s house, he dead, at O’Donnell’s hand. By now Miles would be a proper English gentleman, Grace thought, trying to quell her bitterness at the thought. She lived at Rockfleet these days, slave to her aching bones. She hardly sailed with her fleet anymore, leaving the captaincies to younger men who, blessedly, remained loyal and still called themselves “Grace O’Malley’s men.” Her many spies and messengers were her nets flung out into the sea of the world. When she ’d draw them in, bits of news, like so many glittering silver fish, could be collected and stored. So even there in her windswept isolation, the war and the world were alive, and she a part of it still.

Seventy years old
. ’Twas hard to believe. In her mind she was still a young woman. She was lonely, yes, but allowed herself no pity for it. Of late, when the pain could not be eased by an infusion of willow bark and henbane, she would find herself dreaming of Spain. Oh ’twas so warm.

The bright blue sky. Andalusian hills sizzling under a white-hot sun. And she ’d remember Eric, their lazy float on the Nile barge, the great-tusked elephants playing on a reed-choked shore. She ’d smile recalling the fireworks viewed from a gondola in Venice Lagoon, the feel of his sweet lips on her face. But that was another time, another place, she knew. It existed only in her mind, her memories, and would be extinguished entirely when she lay down and took her last breath.

But here she was now, in disguise again—Essex would surely be amused. “Oh, Robert, Robert,” she whispered as though, so close by him, he might hear her. But now the gray walls of the Tower receded from view and Grace knew she must take herself in hand. She ’d placed herself and her crew in terrible danger for this outrageous scheme, and it would be foolish to allow her weakness and sniveling to threaten Essex’s one chance at rescue. Upriver at Hampton Court lay his only possible salvation. Elizabeth sat with her Court at the great palace there. Richard Tyrell—a rare Englishman born with an Irish heart—had been lent to Grace by Hugh O’Neill. He could scarcely spare his captain out of Munster, but he was the only man she trusted who, with his English voice and manners, could find her a way into Elizabeth’s presence without endan-gering her crew. Posing as the captain of this English cog—one Grace had conveniently lifted from its crew in the Bay of Biscay—Tyrell had already brought them through the first naval checkpoint at the mouth of the Thames, and again at Tilbury.

She would go and speak to Tyrell now, finalize their plans—the sealed letter to the queen begging for a secret audience and signed

“Granuaile,” a name unrecognizable to all but Elizabeth. Grace knew it was more likely that the queen would refuse the meeting—even call for her arrest—than grant yet another favor to “the mother of all the rebellions” in Ireland. But old as she was, Grace was still a gambler, and the odds that the queen’s curiosity would outstrip her rage, though slim, were worth the risk, even of her own life.

Hampton Court—the brick square the size of a small city—was coming into view. She must steady herself, she thought, summon all her resources so she could speak with the wit, authority, and eloquence of an old Brehon judge.

Well, she was ready as she ’d ever be. It would not be long now.

Essex had done his best for Ireland. Now she ’d do her best for him.

20

ROBERT DEVEREAUX lay abed staring at the mildewed ceiling and realized it was perhaps the most interesting feature of his windowless cell. Then it occurred to him how sharp were his perceptions and how clearly and cogently he was thinking. Now, waiting for word from the queen as to whether he would live or die, he almost longed for the haze and confusion, violent ravings and religious melancholies that had plagued his mind for the past year, even as recently as yesterday. It seemed suddenly that the pox and his various fevers had lost their grip on his body and soul. He could see everything—the events now past, his mad behavior, follies and tribulations so clearly!

Certainly his downfall had begun with his return to England and his forced audience with the queen. No other moment, unless perhaps his failed uprising, could demonstrate his muddle and insane logic so well.

Elizabeth, taken quite by storm, would of course have believed her person, and perhaps her kingdom, to be under siege. He ’d come straight from the battlefield, armed, and crashed through her doors a filthy and repulsive character. And by her earlier, specific prohibition of just such an act, she had advertised her fear of it. But how strong Elizabeth had been! She ’d never shown that fear for even a moment during the first audience. She ’d spoken gently to him and very peacefully. After some minutes she ’d suggested that he go to his apartments and freshen himself before they talked further, and when he returned they had conversed pleasantly for nearly two hours.

He ’d gone down to dinner then, joining his friends at the long table, filled with joy and relief at his reception. He thanked God that after all his storms abroad, the queen had greeted him with so sweet a calm.

He ’d ignored the smug looks from across the hall where Robert Cecil dined with Walter Raleigh and Lord Grey, though he had wondered briefly why the Gnome had failed to warn Elizabeth of her Lord Lieutenant’s imminent arrival. Now he was able to see Cecil’s cold logic.

Allow Essex to show himself a reckless and dangerous villain, a man who
would blithely disregard the queen’s direct orders. Allow Essex to dig his own
grave.

But he ’d not known that then. He ’d continued in a rare state of euphoria through dinner, delighted when a page invited him back to Elizabeth’s presence for continued talks that afternoon. But when he ’d arrived, her demeanor had shifted considerably. Where had been warmth was now chill. Mildness had given way to sharp questioning. That steel trap of a brain was all too apparent. Suddenly the audience was over, but she demanded he be questioned by the Privy Council, who sat waiting in the next room. At that moment Essex felt the first stab of fear, that his admittedly rash actions might spawn disastrous consequences. But just how disastrous he could never have imagined.

The Council’s questioning had been hard and direct. Why had Essex deserted his post and, against the queen’s direct orders, returned without permission to England? How could he have possibly concluded so lenient a truce with an enemy who had broken so many treaties in the past? How had he allowed his army to deteriorate to such a pathetic condition? What had possessed him to create so many knights? Why had he ridden into Court unannounced in such roughneck company?

Essex had begun explaining with some confidence, but it had soon failed him under the endless battery of scorn and suspicion. They’d interrogated him continuously until eleven o’clock that night, and when they were done announced that he was under house arrest. Lord Egerton had taken him, under heavy guard, to York House, on the Strand, not far from Essex’s own home. But the imprisonment was nevertheless complete. He was allowed no visitors, not even his wife, and he was prohibited from leaving his room even for a simple walk in the garden.

During the early days of his captivity, he ’d been unable to eat, and rarely slept. When he did sleep his only dreams were nightmares. Then he fell ill—so appallingly ill that a rumor had spread through London that their favorite nobleman, Lord Essex, had died. There were church bells rung, tearful eulogies spoken from dozens of London pulpits, and even public mourning before the rumor was squelched.

His imprisonment dragged on for almost a year before he was brought before a commission in the Star Chamber to receive his official censure. While he was charged only with the minor crimes of contempt and disobedience, it had proven the most humiliating day of his life. Not one man had stood for his entrance, nor removed his cap, nor offered any sign of courtesy. Then Essex, bareheaded, had been made to kneel for hours on a stone floor before the panel as his “offenses” were read out. Several men came forward to give evidence of Lord Essex’s ignominious actions. The Attorney General, that pompous buffoon Lord Coke, had called his going into Ireland “proud and ambitious,” his time spent there “disobedient and contemptuous,” and his leaving “notorious and dangerous.”

Francis Bacon, claiming that it pained him horribly, nonetheless laid aside his longtime loyalty to the earl and read from the letter Essex had written when he ’d been drunk and furious with Elizabeth. “ ‘Cannot princes err?’ ” Bacon quoted to the gasps of the court. “ ‘Cannot subjects suffer wrong?’ ” Bacon had then concluded smugly that by Common Law of England a prince ‘could do no wrong.’ ” This had proven the most shocking and damaging evidence of all.

It had taken all of Essex’s will to bear the excruciating pain in his knees and the betrayal of his peers who had—some of them—been numbered among his friends. Finally they had let him stand, then lean, then sit, but the proceedings continued. He was allowed to speak, but there had been nothing he could do but apologize. They’d been unmoved by simple apology, however, and groveling had been necessary. Weakened by his fevers and the pain of the day’s ordeal, he fell to his knees once again, begging that they believe his sincere confession—

his inward sorrow for the great offenses toward Her Majesty. There was no excuse for his crimes of error, negligence, and rashness—not even his youth or illness. He would tear his heart from his breast with his own hands, he ’d cried, rather than lose the queen’s affection.

Finally it was over and he ’d been freed, allowed to return to Essex House. It was depressingly empty, all one hundred and sixty of his household staff dismissed and instructed to find other employment. But worse, he was strictly prohibited from going to Court—a sentence like unto death for a man such as himself. He was nothing without Court life, and he would soon be horrified to learn that Court life went on perfectly well without him.

Meanwhile the queen had appointed Lord Mountjoy to lead the Irish Expedition. His sister’s lover—now the father of her two children—

had sailed for Ireland with grievous misgivings about his command. At first he ’d written to Essex, pained at the treatment his friend had received in the Star Chamber, and offered up an audacious plan. On his, Essex’s, and Southampton’s behalf, he would write to James of Scotland. Everyone knew that despite Elizabeth’s refusal to name her successor, the Scottish king was everyone ’s choice. The three Englishmen would promise their support for James’s claim at the time of Elizabeth’s death. Perhaps, they suggested, the king would consider rescuing Essex from captivity. Mountjoy offered four thousand of his troops to join with a Scottish force coming south into England for that purpose. But once Mountjoy had experienced command in Ireland for several months, he ’d surprised himself, the Council, and the queen with several victories over the rebels. And soon, with his own career flourishing under the approval of Her Majesty, he ’d politely withdrawn his support for Essex’s cause.

It had thereafter fallen to Essex himself to begin a correspondence with James. Perhaps—considering his recent censure—it was reckless, but Elizabeth was very old and could not have long to live. Surely it was sensible to align oneself with the next regime. He had, on good intelligence from one of his Court spies, suggested to James that Robert Cecil was conspiring with their old enemy Spain to install the infanta on the throne instead of himself. This news so alarmed the Scottish king that he took the threat quite seriously and wrote back to Essex. It was a short but encouraging note on parchment that Essex folded small, placed in a black velvet pouch, and wore round his neck day and night.

Once more his men were around him—Southampton, Blount, Henry Cuffe, and others. But rather than soothing his spirits, they tried to rouse his rebellious passions. They brought news every day from the City of London that the common people there were behind him. More and more soldiers and swordsmen and knights—veterans of the Irish wars—were riding back and filling London streets and inns. Drunken, brawling roustabouts loudly swearing their allegiance to their great and misunder-stood commander, Essex.

He ’d had news from another trusted source that the Sheriff of London had a thousand armed men who would come to Essex’s aid at a moment’s notice. Never, said the sheriff, had the common man so loved their hero. Never had they been more ready to fight. If ever the Earl of Essex chose to lead a coup, all these men would indeed stand behind him.

But Essex had been unready for such an action. He ’d been badly weakened by his year-long ordeal at York House, brought low by his illness and the shock of his humiliating treatment in the Star Chamber. He clutched at the shreds of his old existence, as tattered as they were, for it soothed him to remember how lofty and magnificent he had once stood.

These were the heights, he was sure, to which he might once again climb if he could but regain Elizabeth’s love.

But the vultures were at his door. All his hungry and annoying creditors had come knocking, at first politely, then with growing contempt as they realized the great man had nothing with which to pay them. The clothiers, jewelers, grocers, saddlemakers, gambling partners. Everyone was demanding their due and each day their cries grew louder. Of course there was a solution. It was the
only
solution. In September his grant of the Farm of Sweet Wines was due to be renewed. ’Twas the Farm that had made him a rich man for the previous ten years, the Farm that had allowed for his elevation and the financing of his military and naval expeditions. His enemies and creditors no doubt huddled together in taverns whispering that the queen, in her displeasure with Lord Essex, would never regrant him the Farm, and he would be forever and utterly destroyed. His creditors would curse their losses. His enemies would laugh at his ruin.