Elizabeth I (86 page)

My idyll was over.

E
verything ran backward. Back along the road to Southwark, back through Southwark, the same vendors and the same advertisements for plays, back past the theaters and the bear pits—not leisurely now; we were in a great hurry. The faces looked up at me, the hands waved, and I felt myself to be a shield between them and disaster. They looked trustingly at me, secure in my keeping. My person was their protection, as it had been for forty years. I would not fail them now.

The council was waiting, ready to act. I looked out at their faces: Robert Cecil, narrow faced, unblinking. Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, wild frizzy hair barely contained under his cap. George Carey, dark eyed like a Spaniard. The old workhorses: Lord Buckhurst, William Knollys, Archbishop Whitgift, sitting quietly, waiting.

“I came forthwith,” I said. “I could discern no disturbance or action in the countryside I passed through, but that was a long way from the coast. What reports do you have?”

Admiral Howard stood and asked Cecil, “The report I brought to Her Majesty is a day old. What news do you have since then?”

“None, my lord,” said Cecil. “Since the fleet was first sighted two weeks ago on the north coast of Spain, we have had no word. They may be far up the French coast by now.” Anticipating my question, he said, “We have ordered the coastal militias to assemble and the beacons readied. We await your decision about what ships to deploy.”

“I would deploy some on the west coast,” said Cecil.

“Yes, the Armada is likely targeting Ireland for a landing,” said Carey.

“I am thinking more of a force coming
from
Ireland,” said Cecil.

William Knollys shook his head, making his three-colored beard tremble. “From Ireland? You think O'Neill will attack us? Or that Grace O'Malley?”

“The man I am thinking of has the same first name as I but a loftier title. He has a spirit of disaffection and a large army. I have never thought he went to Ireland to subdue the Irish, but rather to reinstate himself in the Queen's favor. Since the Irish campaign has gone sour, he may try another route to imposing his will on the Queen.”

Essex. Cecil had spoken the unspoken thought.

“We have forbidden his return,” I said. “We withdrew that privilege. He cannot return until his task is done.”

“When has he ever obeyed when it did not please him to obey?” said Cobham.

Both Cobham and Cecil were adversaries of Essex, Cobham having become one when I bestowed the Cinque Ports post on him rather than the importuning Essex. I had to keep that in mind. But their words could not be dismissed.

“Charles Blount—now Lord Mountjoy—has also said we should be wary, take precautions,” said Cecil.

Mountjoy was the most experienced soldier left behind guarding England. His words carried weight.

“We consider ourselves warned,” I said.

My nerves were on end. Each agonizing day there was no further word of the Spanish and no word from Ireland. I knew the fate of the realm was delicately balanced.

Finally something happened, but not what we were scanning the horizon for. Rather than rely on a letter, Essex sent his secretary, Henry Cuffe, to report to us.

I had met Cuffe before. He was formerly a scholar of Greek at Oxford and had welcomed me there with a poem on one of my official visits. At the time, I had been struck by his good looks and oratory; I had thought he would go far. But somewhere along the line he had left academia and cast his lot with politics. It had saddened me when I learned of it. Like many, I endowed the scholar's life with an aura it probably did not possess in daily living.

“Your Majesty,” he said, dropping to one knee. “I am honored to be the one entrusted to present the correspondence of the earl to you.” He held out a box.

I took it, motioning him to stand. Inside was a report from Essex. Quickly I read it, my eyes whipping through the formal phrases and postures, devouring the true contents. The earl's army was greatly weakened. He had lost many men. Nonetheless, he was going north to confront O'Neill, on my orders.

“I am even now putting my foot into the stirrup,” he wrote, “and will do as much as duty will warrant and God enable me.”

“So he has set out?” I asked Cuffe. “He has truly gone?”

Cuffe nodded.

“Where does he plan to engage O'Neill?”

“Our intelligence tells us he is in the vicinity of Navan. We will march there and confront him.”

“Does your intelligence give you any reckoning of the size of his army?”

“It is difficult to gauge. The Irish army is not a solid body like ours. It assumes many shapes and numbers, contracting and expanding with the weather and its mood. But we think it is around six thousand men.”

Twice the size of ours! “I see.”

“But a stout fighting Englishman is worth five of—”

“Spare me this, Cuffe. You know it is nonsense. You are an intelligent man. Give me credit for being intelligent as well. So the earl goes out to confront his enemy, having squandered his strength and advantage, to meet him now from a position of weakness.”

“That is too dark an assessment, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Convince me otherwise,” I countered.

He reeled off a list of excuses—the advice of the Irish Council, the unhealthiness of the land, the perfidy of our allies.

“Pish!” I said.

He laughed. Then he said, “It is not our mistakes up until now that will count. It is what will happen when the earl finally confronts The O'Neill.”

He spoke true. “Surely he won't be such a fool as to challenge him to combat.” Essex's favorite, meaningless, offer.

“The O'Neill is twenty years older,” said Cuffe. “It might not be a bad strategy.”

“Pish!” I said again. “As if he would gamble away his kingdom on such a thing. He's older, and as wily as they come. Even if Essex won, O'Neill would not honor it. He would only pretend to, using it to buy time. No, I utterly forbid such an action.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” He looked miserable—the dilemma of the intellectual man forced to serve, and excuse, his inferior.

“I will write my instructions to your master.” How he must hate that phrase, and its truth. “But I count on you to convey them in all the force I have just used to you.” I took a deep breath. “And now let us speak of other matters. You, sir, I remember from Oxford. What made you abandon that home to make a new one with the Earl of Essex?”

“Even scholars need to eat, Your Majesty,” he said. “Service with the earl offered better worldly prospects.” He stood, the remnants of his pride still visible in his posture.

“Worldly prospects, yes,” I said. “But there is more. There is another world beyond that world.”

“Do you mean heaven? That's too far away.”

“No, I meant earth. A reputation. A body of work that lives on. Politics—it is a whiff of smoke, soon dissipated, soon forgotten.”

“The higher reaches of both offer immortality,” he said. “Not having the merit to attain either, I am better off to cast my lot with the one that pays highest.”

“A Machiavelli.”

“No, a practical man. Many must deny their ambitions or higher callings in order to put a plate on the table.”
You would not understand that
was his unspoken comment.

“A man must do what he must,” I admitted. “First we must survive.”

“Unfortunately, yes. That is the great truth.”

I looked carefully at him, at this young man who had veered off the path he was most suited for. His alert green eyes, his commanding height, his quick mind all bespoke his appeal and gifts. But they were compromised, devalued, in his service to the earl, where he would labor in obscurity.

Again, the waiting. Day after day tiptoed by, as if they, too, were holding their breath with the rest of us. Essex had gone north. Even at this very moment something was happening, but I could not know what.

A Captain Lawson arrived. Unlike Cuffe, he was sweaty and rough. It befitted his announcement: Rather than engaging O'Neill or vanquishing him, after going north and hunting for the elusive rebel, Essex had met with him in secret conference and concluded a treaty that essentially capitulated English interests.

“Outline them,” I commanded this Lawson.

“He conferred with O'Neill in the midstream of the Lagan River between the two armies drawn up at the ford of Bellaclynth. First Essex challenged him to a duel, but the Irishman declined. Then he invited him to a parley, on neutral ground, where they could discuss their positions. The Irish army was stationed just behind the hills, out of sight, so we could not judge its size. Essex met with him, and after they parted, he announced that they had settled on a truce, renewable every six weeks, that guaranteed peace. The Irish are to keep possession of all their conquests until that moment, and the English promised to establish no new garrisons.”

“There were no witnesses to this? The two men spoke alone?”

“That is correct, Your Majesty.”

“Treason!” I cried. “To parley with a traitor, in secret, no witnesses present, against my express command to speak to him only if he sued for unconditional surrender or begged for his life. And then he has settled a truce with him, on terms entirely favorable to the Irish? It is nothing short of capitulation. To let them keep all their conquests. To hold back from manning new forts. A truce, renewable every six weeks, buying them time until the Spanish land to join forces with them.” Oh, God! I had been betrayed. England had been betrayed. We were destroyed in Ireland.

The enormity of the blow quite took my breath away. Not only the money and men sacrificed, but the future. Ireland gone! An enemy, a rebel, at our back door, free to welcome the Spanish.

I excused myself, went into a private chamber, and tried to control myself.
Stop trembling. Think
. I closed my eyes and willed myself to become still. Moments passed, and then I reemerged.

“I shall write the earl,” I said. “And you shall take the letter directly back, pausing not a whit.”

I withdrew and composed a letter. It was dated September 17, 1599. I told him of my anger and distrust. “To trust this traitor upon oath is to trust a devil upon his religion.” That was the crux of it. I ordered him to press on against The O'Neill. I refused to confirm any of the terms he had settled on with him. I declared them utterly null and void.

As I wrote, so furiously I can barely remember the wording of the letter, any more than a screaming victim can remember what he cried as he was set upon, I could not know he would never see it.

Thrusting it into Lawson's hands, I had a sudden question. “When did this illegal parley take place?”