Elizabeth I (64 page)

“These hands are courtesy of Topcliffe,” he said. “I was tortured several times but did not break, although the bones in my hands did. They hung me by my wrists for hours.”

“Believe us or no, we have been prisoners for three years,” said Aylward. “Ever since the Easter raids of 1594.”

I remembered those raids. The government had made a sweep of houses suspected of harboring missionary Jesuit priests, and had netted many. But the biggest catch of all was the famous John Gerard, their leader. He has successfully evaded them for years, able to pass as a courtier who liked hunting, gambling, card playing, and fashionable dress. When he was not hiding in plain sight like that, he could live for days in unbelievably small hiding places, including under a fireplace grate at one time. Another time he had stood in an underground sewer when a Catholic house was raided at five in the morning. If anyone could escape from the Tower, it would be Gerard. But what if he was an impostor, sent to trap us?

“Prove that you are who you say you are,” said Robert.

The man gave a rueful laugh. “I am sorry, I cannot provide identification papers. I can only show my hands.” He held them up, a gruesome sight.

“Your companion might have done that,” said Gelli. “Unless Topcliffe branded you, we cannot know you suffered at his hands.”

“That may have been coming, but I did not stay to avail myself of that,” said the man. “Since you do not believe us—and understandably so—but have been charitable enough to give us some food, we will be on our way.” He rose.

“Not so fast,” said Gelli. “Explain how you got out of the Tower—if you did.”

“Simple but not easy. We were lodged in the Salt Tower, which is one of the outer towers overlooking the moat on the river side. With the compliance of our keeper, who was sympathetic to our cause, we were able to arrange to have friends waiting on the wharf.”

“Yes, but how did you get out of the Tower?”

“We threw a small line across the moat; our friends caught it and fastened a larger line to it, which we hauled up to the roof. Then we went hand over hand across. Gerard's hands could barely hold. That finished them off,” said Aylward.

“They must have missed us by now, or they surely will by morning,” said Gerard.

“Let them stay,” I said. “I believe them.”

“Bless you, lady,” said Gerard. He sank back down.

“Lay out pallets here,” I said. “They need to sleep.” While the men went to get them, I said, “I am not of your faith but admire your courage—and those of you who still remain steadfast even though your country affords you little reward.” Catholics could not sit in Parliament or hold university positions. There was no Catholic in any government circle. To persist in Catholicism meant no career in public service.

“Those are the people we come to minister to, my lady,” said Gerard. “They have no one but us to sustain them. So we gladly risk our own lives if that can preserve their faith. The great households provide some shelter, but they still need priests. There has been trouble at Cowdray, one of the mainstays. The new heir there is more militant and has run afoul of the government authorities, more's the pity. Many a baptism was performed there until recently.”

“I
did
know both Robert and Gelli at Cambridge,” said Aylward. “And I knew they were Protestant. But I also knew . . . forgive me ... that recently Robert has had a falling out with the Queen, so I was hoping that it might be safe to come here. I am sorry to presume, but we were desperate.”

I smiled. “We
are
a Protestant house,” I said. “My father, in fact, was so staunchly Protestant he left England when Queen Mary reconciled it to the church. But now ... it is less a conviction than a political necessity,” I admitted. Suddenly I felt ashamed. In the light of such pure faith—like that of my father, even if at the opposite end of the spectrum—I always felt soiled and compromised. But how many among us burn with a true religious flame? “I am glad you are here,” I said. “Please rest well.”

“We will,” said Gerard. “And we promise to be gone before first light!” In the gentleness of his voice, in his quiet humor, I saw the charm that had won so many.

True to their word, before I was up, the men were gone. They had neatly folded the linens and blankets. Resting on one of the pillows was a saint's medal. I picked it up as if it were poisonous. In a way it was. I turned it over. It was St. Lucy.

St. Lucy ... St. Lucy ... What did I know about her, indifferent Protestant that I was? She had something to do with eyesight, and her day was the shortest of the year. That would make her a good patron saint for me, since I liked nighttime. But Protestants did not have patron saints. Perhaps I could ask Christopher. He had been brought up Catholic. He might know.

I folded it in my palm. It was their thank-you gift, the only proof they had been here, and I treasured it.

“They're gone?” Behind me Robert was standing, seeing the folded bedding. “Almost without a trace. Thank God!”

“I had never seen a Jesuit,” I said. “I had been told they were demons with cloven hooves and tails. Instead I found a humane and intelligent man.”

He laughed dismissively. “They say the devil himself can appear to be humane and intelligent.”

“He's certainly intelligent, and good enough company that the Puritans fear the rivalry,” I said. “Although they don't give him much competition in that regard.”

“Nonetheless, I'm glad they're gone. I hope no one links them to us. That's all my enemies at court would need to use against me!”

Y
ou must watch this play with me,” I told Marjorie and Catherine. “I know you don't fancy plays but I need your opinion. But you,” I turned to the younger ladies, “might enjoy it. They say the actor playing Richard is quite dreamy. He has to be, for his face to match his poetic words.”

The Lord Chamberlain's Men were to present the controversial
Richard II
this afternoon at Windsor. London had talked of little else, and although I had sent observers to the theater to report back to me, I needed to see it for myself.

It should have been an easy summer, with all the quarrelsome and strutting men away. No Raleigh, no Blount, no Essex. But once again we had foul weather; this was the fourth bad summer in a row, the fourth ruined harvest. Now it was seeming truly unnatural, and the people were growing more desperate and there was more talk of violence in the countryside. Parliament would meet and we would try to find a remedy, or failing that, immediate help for the destitute. There were few rides out through the countryside, and, sensing my unpopularity and not wishing to inflame it further, I did not go on Progress.

This
Richard II
did fan the flames. The Puritans had tried to close the theaters again and I was determined not to let them. But what irony that my power to keep them open allowed a play to put questionable ideas in people's heads.

The Puritans, that thorn in my side! I must contend with the stiff-necked, self-righteous Puritans on one side and the recusant Catholics and their sneaky secret priests on the other. I had been sorrowed by the actions of the new heir at Cowdray. Dear Anthony Browne had died, passing on the title to his grandson, who had openly flouted my religious laws, daring me to move against him. There had even been a small, secret monastery on the grounds. Reluctantly I had done so, closing their chapel with its Catholic rites and shutting the monastery, barring it up. Someone had tried to burn it down, as if to make that prediction of Guy Fawkes's come true.

Out in the countryside, the escaped Jesuits from the Tower were still at large working their mischief.

The Puritans, for their part, especially hated the theater, because actors pretended to be what they were not. Men dressed as women, posed as Julius Caesar, and so on. They cited Scripture—“A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing, for the Lord your God detests anyone who does this”—to prove these things were abominations. Their scrutiny of Scriptures meant they could find a verse to support just about anything—one of the dangers of letting the unlearned have free access to Scripture. But as someone said, not without truth, the Puritans were against bearbaiting not because it brought pain to the bear but because it brought pleasure to the spectators.

Taking our places in the Great Hall, we settled ourselves. Rain was drumming on the roof overhead. Another fair summer's day denied us. It was just as well to be indoors.

The handsome young actor playing Richard was the first out on the stage and the first to speak. “Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,” he said with a flourish. The play then plunged straightway into the story, a story any Tudor child had written on his or her heart. It was the wellspring of our dynasty, the act that set in motion the bloody civil war that lasted a century. It began when King Richard II was forced to resign his crown to his cousin Henry of Bolingbroke. This deed was a great transgression. Could an anointed sovereign ever truly resign the crown? A coronation was a sacrament, the right of it conveyed by blood, and the act of anointing and crowning permanent and inviolable. Could anyone undo it?

I assumed that was what the play would explore, and in one sense I was not disappointed. The play's King Richard made his case for that, saying,

But others made the point that a king forfeited his right to be king if he neglected his kingdom; that the king could sin by harming his own land. It sounded dangerously close to Puritan doctrine.

Richard himself admitted that “we are enforced to farm our royal realm,” while John of Gaunt put it more bluntly, saying, “This dear dear land ... is now leas'd out—I die pronouncing it—like to a tenement or pelting farm,” and “Landlord of England art thou now, not king.”

I felt great relief. No one could accuse me of that. I was criticized for being penny-pinching, but better that than mortgaging the country.

King Richard went off to Ireland, and while he was gone his disgruntled nobles defected to Bolingbroke. By the time he returned, the Crown was all but lost. However, he refused to fight for it and even offered to resign it before Bolingbroke asked.

What sort of king was this? Even my sister Mary, who people assumed was a soft, pious woman, fought for her crown, wrested it from Lady Jane Grey's illegal grasp.

Richard was dispatched to the Tower, then transferred to Pontefract Castle, where he was murdered, following a hint of Bolingbroke that someone needed to rid him of “this living fear.”

The way Richard was presented in the play, one could only conclude that he was a poor sort of king, but that the man who usurped his place was a villain, albeit a competent one. I was descended from both of them. I liked to think I had Richard's artistic sensibility and Bolingbroke's realism and practicality, rather than their weaknesses.

The play seemed abnormally short. And the action moved too quickly from the crisis to the end. “Something is missing,” I said. It did not feel right.

The master of revels, Edmund Tilney, stood up. “There is an injunction against performing the actual abdication scene. I have forbidden it to be seen.”

“But it is written?” I asked.