A Favorite of the Queen: The Story of Lord Robert Dudley and Elizabeth 1 (4 page)

Robert was entranced by his father’s conversation. He boasted to Guildford as they strolled in the Tower gardens or those about their father’s
Chelsea Manor house: “As our father rose, so shall we … higher and higher …”

There were places for the family at Court; and one day Robert was taken to the royal nurseries, where he met the pale Prince—quiet and delicate, full of wisdom he had learned from books; and with the little Prince were the two eldest Grey girls, Lady Jane and Lady Catharine. The girls were quiet and very pretty; and the Prince was fond of them. Guildford, who accompanied Robert, could not make up his mind who was the prettier, Jane or Catharine. Guildford was too young to appreciate the honor of playing with such noble persons.

One day when they were in the nursery, there was a visit from the Prince’s half-sister. That was a day to remember—a day like no other, Robert thought it. When Edward was in command, the talk would be of Latin verses which he and Jane had composed together, or some such matters. Robert had never taken kindly to such arts and graces; he would show his prowess on a horse or at the games, which he always won.

But on that day when the young girl came to the nursery everything was different. Her hair was red, her eyes blue, and she had a sparkling quality which would bubble into laughter or as suddenly into anger.

Robert was quick to sense that all the children were afraid of her, and that she was afraid of none, even though her brother was heir to the throne and she was called a bastard.

Her governess came with her; the Princess giggled with her and she might have been a serving maid until she remembered that she was the Prince’s sister and became as haughty as a queen.

She was a year younger than Robert, and Robert was glad, for he felt that gave him some advantage.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “I have not seen you here before.”

“I am Robert Dudley.”

“Say ‘Your Grace’ when you address me. I do not know a Robert Dudley.”

“You did not,” he said, “but you do now.”

“I do not think that I shall continue to do so,” she answered, turning away. She approached her brother and said: “Brother, what ill-mannered boys are these that you have allowed to be brought to your apartments?”

Young Jane and Catharine looked on in concern, and Edward was uncomfortable.

Robert was the most important person in the world. His mother and Guildford had always thought so. He was no ill-mannered boy; he reminded himself that the Princess was a bastard, but remembering also the gracious manners which his father had taught him, he knelt before the Prince and said: “Your Grace, I kneel before you. I am not so ill-mannered as to forget the honor due to your Royal Highness.”

The Princess laughed and stamped the floor with her foot. “Get up, you fool!” she commanded. “We want no Court manners here.”

Robert ignored her: “I was about to say, your Royal Highness, that I would not bandy words with another in your presence. Have I your gracious permission to rise?”

“Yes, yes,” said Edward. “Get up.”

“If I have the esteem of your Royal Highness, I wish for no other,” said Robert pointedly.

Then the Princess looked again at him and she continued to look. His dark hair curled about his neck. Beside him poor Edward looked more puny than ever. Robert’s skin was pink and healthy; poor Edward suffered so from spots and rashes. And the other boy, Guildford, was frail compared with his brother.

The Princess then began to think that this Robert Dudley was the handsomest boy she had ever seen, and because of his personal beauty she was ready to forgive him his arrogance—and in truth she liked his arrogance, for it matched her own.

She went to him and tapped him on the arm; and when he looked haughtily down at her he saw that she was smiling at him in a very friendly fashion.

“Enough, Master Robert!” she said. “What games do you play?”

He showed her how to play “Pope Julius’s Game,” which he had learned from his elder brothers. She sat by him smiling at him. She set the pace; it was she who usually suggested what games they should play; the others, he could see, had always been ready to follow her.

“Now,” she cried, “we shall compose verses. Each member of the
party must add a line.” She looked sternly at Robert: “And,” she added, “it must rhyme.”

She beat him at the game, but he said it was a foolish one and not a man’s game. She retorted that if it were indeed a little foolish he must be very foolish since he could not play it even as well as little Catharine.

She herself was expert with her lines; but after a while she grew tired of the game and showed them the newest Court dances, although how she knew of such matters Robert could not understand.

She herself danced with Robert. “You are the only one of a size worthy of me,” she told him, as she paired Jane and Edward, Catharine and Guildford.

“You would dance well, Master Dudley,” she said, “with a little more practice.”

“I would we could practice together,” he said.

She fluttered her eyelashes and said demurely: “Your Grace.”

And just to please her he said it. She was very satisfied, and so was he. It was indeed a very satisfactory occasion.

Often he met her in the royal nursery, but one day she was not there. She had been retired, Edward told him, to Hatfield, where she would stay with her governess.

How dull it was without her!

King Henry died
and the puny little Edward was King of England. John Dudley could view the new reign with confidence, for his standing was even higher under the new King than it had been under the old. Henry had appointed him a member of that Council which was to form a Regency and govern the kingdom until Edward was of age. John Dudley was climbing to the summit of his hopes, but there were two men who stood in his way. These were the uncles of the King, the Seymour brothers; Edward, now Duke of Somerset, the sober statesman, and Thomas, now Lord Sudeley, the handsome philanderer. The only characteristic these brothers
appeared to have in common was their overwhelming ambition, and if Edward had the power, Thomas had the popularity. He was not only the favorite of the young King, but the Princess Elizabeth was said to blush when his name was mentioned.

During this time young Robert saw his father become one of the most powerful men in England. He was now the Earl of Warwick, which in itself was significant, for that title had been extinct since the death of the grandson of Warwick the King-maker. Had a new king-maker arisen?

The family was very rich, for the Warwick estate was now theirs. Jane Dudley was apprehensive; often she thought how happy she would have been if her husband could have been content with what he had won. In the last reign no man had been important, except the King; now there were several men all struggling for pre-eminence. She wished she could have talked freely to John; she wanted to warn him. How he would laugh if she did! He had never considered her opinion worth asking for.

Young Robert knew of her fears and tried to soothe her.

“Why, Mother,” he said, “my father will win. He will beat the Seymours.”

“Your father will beat all who oppose him,” said Jane; and her voice trembled. She could not dismiss from her mind memories of that day when her father had brought John home. Such sights as John had seen on that day were often to be witnessed on Tower Hill.

“I’ll tell you why my father will beat them, Mother,” said Robert. “He is now in command of the King’s armies, and therefore his position is as strong as that of the Lord Protector Somerset.”

And Jane had to be content with that.

The new Earl of Warwick lost little time in arranging advantageous marriages for his children. His eldest son John should be affianced to the daughter of the Protector himself; his daughter Mary was to marry the King’s friend, Henry Sidney.

“Your turn will come, Robin,” said his mother.

Robert’s answer was: “I, Mother? I shall choose for myself.”

When he thought of marriage he thought of the redheaded Princess. Was he looking rather high? Robert did not think so. Who could be too high for Robert? Moreover she was a bastard. Yet he did not object to that.
He had admired her spirit, the way in which she had commanded the children, the way in which she had cajoled him into calling her “Your Grace.” What impudence, and yet what dignity! What arrogance mingling with a certain promise of … he was not quite sure what.

“Yes,” he affirmed, “I shall choose for myself.”

Strange rumors were afloat.

The younger Seymour was attainted of high treason. He had plotted, it was said, to seize the government and marry the Princess Elizabeth.

Robert was bewildered by the news. He had, of course, seen Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley, rich and magnificent, swaggering through the Court, the eyes of the women gleaming as they followed him. All had agreed that Thomas Seymour was the handsomest man in England; but at that time Robert was yet a boy and no one had noticed him.

The rumors were shocking, for they involved the Princess. Robert was angry when he heard of them. He did not believe them, he told himself; and yet when he thought of her, smiling at him, fluttering her sandy lashes, how could he be sure that what he heard was not true?

His mother talked of the rumors with the ladies of her household; she would sit in the gardens at Chelsea and talk with her friends.

“Was it true then … the Princess but a girl of thirteen and a Princess … so to conduct herself!”

It did not help matters that the man with whom the Princess was reputed to have behaved so disgracefully was the husband of her stepmother, Katharine Parr.

Robert heard it all, the story of the flirting and the rough horseplay; he heard of the occasion when the daring Seymour had cut her dress to pieces while sporting in the gardens of the Chelsea Dower House; there were stories of his visits to her bedchamber, of tickling and smacking and kissing while the Princess was in bed. The Princess Elizabeth had been known to ride in a barge on the Thames like a light woman.

Robert thought of it all, pictured it, saw Seymour and the Princess in that embrace which it was said had exposed the guilty affair to Katharine Parr when she had come unexpectedly upon them and witnessed it.

There was no end to the tales, and snatches of conversation stayed in his mind.

“And have you heard the rumors? I had it from a very reliable source … someone who knows … from the midwife herself. Do not speak of this to any other. One dark night the midwife was awakened from her bed by men and women in masks and made to follow them, bringing with her the tools of her trade. She was blindfolded until she reached a certain house, and there she delivered a child. She was warned that if she spoke a word of what had happened her tongue would be cut out. The lady who needed her services was young and most imperious. She had red hair …”

Robert was more angry than ever then, but his anger turned to sadness when he heard that she was taken to the Tower.

There she was questioned, and it was said at that time that when Thomas Seymour lost his head on Tower Hill, the Princess Elizabeth would soon follow her lover.

Robert, at sixteen
, was restless for adventure.

At that time the two most powerful men in England were jostling each other for first place; one of these was the Lord Protector Somerset, the other was Robert’s father, who suddenly found that he had the advantage over his political enemy.

Thomas Seymour had been beheaded without being granted an opportunity to speak in his defense. This in itself was shameful, but carried out at the command of his own brother seemed ignoble in the extreme. The popularity of the Lord Protector was waning; and that of his opponent consequently waxed.

Then came the rising of the peasants of Norfolk who were starving on account of the enclosure laws. They were marching on London when the Earl of Warwick, as General of the King’s Armies, set out against them and defeated them on their own ground in Norfolk.

The insurrection had been suppressed with great cruelty, and trouble averted. The country was grateful to Warwick for his speedy and ruthless action. The Norfolk landowners considered themselves deeply indebted
to him, and Robert, who was with his father in Norfolk, became a guest at the large country estate of Sir John Robsart, lord of the manor of Siderstern.