Elizabeth I (70 page)

I clutched at Robert's doublet, back in the privacy of Essex House. My fingers made welts on it, stigmata of desperation. “What is happening?” I cried. “Why is she doing this?”

“The woman's name is whimsy,” he said. “It extends from something like a sudden change of dinner venue to aborting military plans at the last minute. Can you count the number of times she has sent me on a mission only to try to cancel it after I am on my way? I've lost count. That's why I always try to get far away from court as quickly as I can, before she changes her mind. Once she tried to pull me back from Plymouth as we were waiting to embark for the Lisbon raid. She even sent a ship after me!”

“It's too much to be a coincidence,” I said. “It has happened twice now.”

“Twice? Twice is nothing to her!”

“Do you hate her?” I suddenly asked. “For your words are venomous.”

He seriously considered my question, as if he had never examined the possibility. “Hate her? Not her, but ... what she is becoming. Her mind is growing as crooked as her carcass!”

“Robert!” What if someone heard? “Have a caution!”

“We've no spies here,” he said. “I am sure of it.”

“Do you truly think ... ,” I whispered, “that she is failing?”

“No, not failing, but growing more devious and obstructive. She goes less and less in a straight line to anywhere, that's what I meant by ‘crooked.' ”

“If so, then we must figure out a way to cross her path as she ducks and dodges.” Even as I said it, I realized that meant I had let go of the hope we could come to a true meeting of the minds. That saddened me.

“We will waylay her outside her private chambers—‘run into' her in the private passage outside the royal apartments. Remember, I have access to them,” he said.

“I don't like the idea of it,” I said. It would hardly be conducive to a pleasant meeting.

“It's this or nothing,” he said. “She gives us no other choice. Now make yours.”

With great misgivings, I decided to try it. I disliked everything about the method, but perhaps the surprise element would work in my favor. She would be caught off guard and might drop her hostility. Surely she had soft feelings for me somewhere in her memory.

The modesty outfit was getting a bit worn, considering it had never actually been seen by the Queen. I carried the beautifully wrapped Boleyn necklace, ready to present it and make my speech.
Your Majesty, I wish you to have this, which belonged to your aunt, my grandmother, in token of the ties between us.
Or something like that. I was careful not to rehearse it overmuch, fearing to rob it of spontaneity and sincerity.

It was midafternoon, and the Queen would be returning to her rooms after dinner and some conferences. Robert knew the way she took, coming in from the gardens to avoid traversing the suite of public rooms and the gallery. He stationed himself at one doorway and motioned me to stand directly in front of it. As we waited, at first I felt shaky with wondering what she would do when she saw us. Then that worry passed and changed to wondering if she might outwit us once again and avoid the private passageway. Finally it all dropped away and I just wanted to get it over with. I could not stand another moment of this.

Just then I heard voices down the passageway; several women swept down it together. Then the Queen, with two attendants, rounded the corner. She stopped when she saw me, hesitating. She was puzzling whether to proceed or turn abruptly and go back. But this passed through her mind in an instant and the hesitation was almost unnoticeable. Squaring her shoulders and drawing herself up—where was this crooked carcass Robert had described?—she came slowly toward us. Her face was blank, showing neither pleasure nor displeasure.

As she came closer, I saw that the French ambassador had been right: Her face had aged. I would not describe it as “very” aged, though. Her posture was perfect and the clothes she wore—a green afternoon dress with a tawny collar—flattered her and showed off her small waist.

Robert leaped out from behind the doorway and startled them. The other ladies I knew from our days in the royal chambers together: Marjorie Norris, gone gray now, and Catherine Carey Howard, my cousin. They looked timidly welcoming but awaited Elizabeth's reaction.

“Why, my Lord Essex,” said Elizabeth. “You loiter inside on such a bracing day?”

“Once my feet resounded in these passageways at Your Majesty's bidding,” he said, bowing and kissing her hand. “You have only to call again and I will fly to you for indoor amusements.”

She raised him up and looked at me, showing no recognition. “And who have you brought?”

She knew very well! What was she doing?

“My most beloved mother, whom you said you would receive,” he said.

Before she could demur, I stepped forward and curtsied so low my knee hit the floor. “I am Your Majesty's most loyal subject.”

Silence. Then she said, “You may rise.”

I did, and said, “And your most loyal cousin.” I kissed her hand, and leaned forward to kiss her breast. Rotely, she returned the kiss on my cheek. I handed her the box. “I wish you to have this in token of the love between our families.” I knew better than to say “between us.”

She took it, then started to hand it to Marjorie, unopened. Robert grabbed it away and said, “Nay, but you and the ladies must see it. It is most rare!” He flipped the lid open and showed the
B
necklace lying on its velvet pad.

“It belonged to my grandmother, your aunt Mary Boleyn,” I said. “It has always been my greatest treasure, and I want you to have it.”

Her keen black eyes examined it. Was there a flicker of a smile on her thin lips? She handed the box back to me. “I already have one,” she said. “An identical one that belonged to my mother.”

Then she walked around us, leaving us standing in the passageway.

I
am touched,” I told John Whitgift, and I was.

The archbishop merely nodded, but I could see in his dark eyes how pleased he was. “I was only hoping that Your Majesty would come here before the roses faded.”

“Mine, or theirs?” I asked, but seeing that John took the jest as a true question, I quickly added, “Yours will bloom anew every year.”

My Archbishop of Canterbury had planted a sunken rose garden, a tribute to my royal house and my own private taste in flowers, at his riverside episcopal palace. Its centerpiece was a trellis of entwined red and white bushes, since even his skilled gardeners could not re-create the actual Tudor badge of both red and white petals on one flower. Around the borders he had set masses of eglantine roses—my favorite. Musk roses filled in the spaces between them.

“You have created a rose heaven,” I said. Their distinctive scent, made sharper by a morning rain, enveloped us. If only roses could bloom all summer instead of so fleetingly. Their quick vanishing makes us see them more keenly while they are still visible.

“When we go to heaven, there will be more than just roses to greet us,” he said.

Heaven. There were now a great many people waiting there for me; more than were still here on earth with me. Perhaps life is like an hourglass, with dear ones the sand that slips from the upper glass—the earth—into the second—eternity. The bottom one is ever filling, the upper one forever draining.

“I still like to think of heaven as a garden,” I said. “Pray, show me the rest of yours.”

It had been a hard winter, making the sight of flowers doubly welcome. There had been times, when the sleet dashed and slid against my windows, that I thought warmth would never return. But this May had been exuberant, as if offering apologies for the long, cold months. Now I glided along as John led me up the stairs to the raised walkway above the long garden terrace that divided the privy garden from the orchard. On the left side were four neat quadrangles of flower beds, their plantings making a mosaic of color; on the right, the frothy white of a large orchard in full bloom. If I looked closely, I could discern variations in the white treetops, and even some pale pink.

“What trees are in your orchard?” I asked.

“Plum—but that's finished blooming now—cherry, pear, apple, apricot. I've had success with the apricots; you know how difficult they can be.”

My father had first had them brought over from Italy. At the time, it was thought they would never survive here, but by catering to their delicate needs, some gardeners had been lucky with them.

Striding along the walkway, seeing the gentle flowers and swaying, flower-laden branches and beyond them the stately curve of the river, it was easy to think my realm a sun-lapped, well-tended garden. But the winter had been difficult not only weatherwise but also politically. The lord lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Burgh, Black Jack Norris's hated commander, had died suddenly, the victim, some said, of poisoning. The rebels had corrupted the inner circle of English command, it was rumored, so that they could do away with the leader. I had appointed deputies to temporary command, but for now my forces there were without a true commander, and the void was telling. The rebel forces, under The O'Neill and O'Donnell, were making steady gains, uniting traditionally quarreling Ulster, a deadly development. There were even reports that Grace O'Malley was joining them on the western side of the island. I had been remiss in recalling the repressive Richard Bingham from her area, and now I reaped the consequence. Grace was not a woman to brook insult or inaction any more than I was.

Ireland. I remembered when my father had first proclaimed himself King of Ireland, a formal declaration of liegeship after four hundred years of English invasion and occupation. I had been eight years old and wondered why he changed his title from “Lord” of Ireland to “King.” I had even asked him, and he had said with a laugh, “It's tidier that way, making me king of everything—England, France, Wales, and Ireland—instead of lord here and king there.” Of course, that had not been the reason, and I was not many years older before I knew that my father had tried to tame the Irish by making them Protestant, and he could not legally dictate their religion unless he was their king. The plan did not work, of course, and the Irish stayed Catholic—a dangerous outpost of southern Europe right at my back door.

During my reign, I had tried half measures with Ireland to save expenses. I had sent the smallest forces I could, and their mandate was limited: to keep the peace in the precariously held English areas of the island and try to domesticate the native Irish—by bribing them with English titles, instituting English law to replace theirs, introducing them to our customs.

It had not worked. The chieftains were willing enough to assume English titles, but they merely added them to their native ones. They resented our enforcing English law, and they found our customs repellent. We had been secure in our possession of Ireland only because they squabbled so much with one another that they could not pool forces to turn on us. That, apparently, was ending now, with the cooperation of the two Ulster chiefs.

There had been another reason we could keep them in check: Our armies were better trained and equipped and obeyed a chain of command. The Irish had individual warriors of great bravery but no logistical or strategic experience. That, too, was ending. The O'Neill had learned warfare on the Continent, the same great training field as young Englishmen.

What must I do now? Should I continue the same policy or increase our presence there? If it were not for the Spanish, the “Irish problem” would not be a pressing one.

“—Puritans are squalling again. They will never be quiet, but must disrupt good honest folk—”