His Dark Lady (55 page)

‘So Spain moves ever closer to England,’ Elizabeth remarked, and shuddered. ‘I can see why this must indicate stronger and more urgent preparations to defend our shores. But how does it change our policy on my cousin’s long imprisonment?’

Lord Howard looked apologetic. Rolling up the map, he tucked it under his arm. ‘While your royal cousin lives, she excites a vision in every Catholic man, woman and child of an England brought back under the yoke of Rome. Her very existence is a threat to yours, Your Majesty, and those who seek to protect her would think nothing of bringing about your death to achieve that end. You have had, I believe, recent proof of this determination in a letter from His Majesty the King of Scotland.’

Elizabeth looked away uncomfortably. She knew the letter of which he spoke, an insolent and subtly threatening missive sent via Sir William Keith, no doubt in the hope that it would frighten her into obedience.

‘King James feels a son’s right and proper anxiety for his mother, that is all,’ she commented, though she saw from her councillors’ faces that none of them believed the lightness of her dismissal.

She waved away a servant who had come to her side bearing a
flagon
of wine. ‘Bring me ale,’ she told the man impatiently, then turned her head to study the councillors about the table. ‘Gentlemen, my lords, I do not see that any of this brings forward a pressing need for my cousin’s execution. We have had threats, plots and assassination attempts enough these past twenty years to kill a dozen queens. Yet here I am, still alive, and will remain on the throne of England until forcibly dislodged.’

Lord Howard bowed. ‘Yes indeed, Your Majesty. But consider this, if I may be so bold. With your cousin alive, the English Catholics have hope of a future where they may see Mary on the throne, and so will lend their hands to any invasion force which promises such a reward. But if Mary were to die, the only Catholic contender for the throne in the event of an invasion would be King Philip of Spain. He is a Catholic, yes. But also a foreigner, and one whose rule alongside your late sister was not popular with the people.’

Elizabeth looked at him, then at her other councillors. ‘So you believe the Catholics among my people will encourage an invasion by Spain if my cousin is alive, but resist if she is dead?’

‘Precisely!’ Sir Christopher Hatton exclaimed, bringing his hands together loudly, then caught her eye and added, ‘Your Majesty has grasped the matter in a nutshell.’

Lord Burghley leaned forward and gently pushed the warrant for Mary’s execution back in front of her. ‘Sign, Your Majesty, I implore you. There is no need for any further action to be taken at the present moment. But at least if you have signed the warrant, her execution can be carried out in the event of an invasion without any need to prepare the document or pass it under the Great Seal. Do you see?’

Still Elizabeth hesitated, looking round the table at the solemn faces of her Privy Councillors. She saw Robert nod intently, his gaze fixed on her face as though imploring her to go ahead, and to his right-hand side Walsingham tapped the table as though in agreement. Even old Sir Francis Knollys was watching her with undisguised approbation. It seemed not one of them was prepared to argue against this terrible decision.

As she debated whether or not to put her signature to the dreaded paper, a shadow seemed to pass over the small-paned window that
faced
the Greenwich gardens, as though someone had walked past in the icy weather, or a cloud had briefly obscured the sun. Her lips parted, and she remembered running through a rose garden as a small child, searching desperately for someone, with her nurse calling for her to come back, and then the tears of frustration when she was dragged away.

‘Not yet! Not yet!’ she exclaimed, no longer able to bear what was being asked of her.

Rising from her seat, Elizabeth strode from the chamber, pausing in the doorway only to look back accusingly at her chief councillors.

As the days passed, Elizabeth began to wonder about the wisdom of not signing her cousin’s death warrant. Perhaps there were some among them who secretly wished for Mary to depose her and seize the throne. She thought of each courtier in turn, and went through his smiles and flattering comments in her mind, suspecting them all, even her own beloved Robert at times. For he spent longer and longer at home with Lettice these days and not at her side, for all she had brought him safely home from war.

Was it possible that Robert too, whose hatred for the Catholics was well-known, might desire a change of queen? What poison did Lettice drip into his ear at night when they lay together at Wanstead?

Early one morning, Elizabeth walked out with her ladies in the sharp winter weather, wrapped in a fur-lined cloak and with her black velvet cap pulled down to cover her ears. She needed time and space to think, and she never thought more deeply than when walking and enjoying the beauty and order of nature.

Rounding a magnificent holly-bush in the palace gardens, rich with red berries, Elizabeth came face to face with Lettice Knollys on Robert’s arm.

She came to an abrupt standstill, her breath steaming on the cold air. Lettice lowered her horrified gaze at once and dropped into a deep curtsy, her head bent. Robert bowed, his own expression defiant, though Elizabeth noted how he let go of his wife’s arm, taking a quick step away from her.

‘Your Majesty,’ he said heavily, as though bracing himself for the storm to come.

So Lettice had come to court at last, and without seeking proper permission! Elizabeth took a moment to examine her cousin in silence. The extravagant folds of her broad-skirted red velvet gown, with its simple cloth-of-gold bodice, shimmered in the grey morning like an exotic bird’s plumage, her belt hung with gold and scarlet braided tassels, her cap feathered and slanted, her white ruff as broad as Elizabeth’s own. Several large jewelled rings adorned her white gloves, and the golden cross about her neck sparkled with rubies. At her back knelt a young black pageboy in livery, a quivering dog in his arms, its white fur preened and a diamond-studded collar about its neck.

Lettice herself looked as vibrant as ever, as though the years had barely touched her, her face still smooth and unwrinkled as she glanced up at the Queen.

Hateful woman! Elizabeth felt her temper begin to rise and did nothing to control it.

‘Red velvet, cloth-of-gold, and even diamonds about her dog’s neck? What, is your wife a queen to dress herself so lavishly?’ she demanded of Robert. ‘I had heard rumours of your wife’s excessive finery in the past, but dismissed them as malicious gossip. But now it seems your recent elevation to the governorship in the Low Countries has gone to Lady Leicester’s head. I only pray she can keep it long enough to enjoy her expensive wardrobe.’

Lettice started at that threat, her lips parted, though she said nothing.

Elizabeth enjoyed her rival’s discomfort as she raged on, glaring at Robert. ‘Nor do I recall inviting your wife to court. Though if I had, be sure I would have expected her to dress in more sombre colours, as befits one of my ladies. Explain yourself, if you please!’

‘Forgive me, Your Majesty. It was very wrong of me not to seek your permission for Lettice to visit me at court.’ Robert spoke slowly and with difficulty, though the flush in his cheeks told her of his anger, too. ‘Lady Leicester has come to pay her last respects to my nephew and to console his young widow in her grief. She and her servants will return to Wanstead as soon as we have buried Philip.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ Elizabeth said coldly, and regarded her favourite with warning. ‘There can be only one queen, Robert, and
all
other pretenders to that title should beware they do not lose their heads over it.’

Returning to her state apartments in a high temper, Elizabeth called at once for a quill and ink, and also for William Davison, the new Junior Secretary of State. He came straight from the breakfast table, crumbs still in his beard, his expression alarmed.

‘Fetch the warrant for my cousin’s death that was given into your charge, sir,’ she told him curtly. ‘Before I change my mind.’

William Davison returned a short while later with the royal warrant, more presentable and with his beard hurriedly combed through, several other men at his back as though to bear witness to the event.

Elizabeth read through the wording several times, then took up the quill, dipped it in black ink and signed the death warrant with a flourish,
Elizabeth R
.

‘There,’ she said, and laid down the quill. ‘Master Davison, you may take this document away for safe keeping. But you are not to act upon it without further instruction from me.’

Eight

ILLUMINATED BY HUNDREDS
of flickering candles, the ancient nave of St Paul’s stood silent as the doors at the far end, open to the thin February daylight only moments before, darkened now with a throng of men. The assembled nobles and gentry closest to the roodscreen turned to look as the funeral procession approached the door to St Paul’s. Led by a black-robed priest, carrying a plain cross before him, the pallbearers entered to the slow beat of a drum. On their shoulders lay the lead-lined coffin of Sir Philip Sidney, dead these past five months but not yet interred, the arguments over his debts having been so protracted. Behind the coffin walked his brother and heir, Sir Robert Sidney, his handsome face stony as he struggled to contain his grief.

At a signal from the bishop, Lucy drew in a long breath, counted silently in her head, and launched into song. She had been given only days to learn the music chosen by the Queen, and had struggled at first with the Latin. Her greatest fear had been that, after so many months away from court, only able to sing for herself and never allowed to practise her craft as she had done before, she would not be able to hit the notes perfectly or would find her voice weak or wanting. Now, though, the nervousness she had felt earlier that morning drained away, leaving her in a state of absolute calm.

Clasping her hands before her chest, Lucy lifted her head high, and sang as though she had never been away from court. She thought of Sir Philip Sidney, so handsome and full of promise, a
great
soldier and scholar, a poet whose work had never failed to touch her heart. She remembered his charming smile, the way he had jousted with the other nobles to entertain the Queen on summer progresses, his shouts of triumph at his wins, his laughter and easy sportsmanship when he lost. The high, unaccompanied notes of her song haunted the ancient church like his presence, touching its sturdy rafters and beams, its stone flags and whitewashed walls, the spaces where the people stood, the ornate roodscreen behind which the priests waited to conduct the Mass.

Beyond the open door to St Paul’s, massed hordes of gentry and commoners lined the city streets, some there by decree, others simply hoping for a glimpse of the young man’s coffin as it passed that morning. Hundreds had stood outside the church in silence that morning as the Queen and her entourage had arrived, Lucy among them. Some had shouted the Queen’s blessing and showered her ladies with the fragile petals of spring flowers; others had knelt in respectful silence, heads bowed in prayer for the dead young man whose life they had come to celebrate, their caps held in their hands.

Her song finished, Lucy stepped back and stood to one side beside the screen, suddenly trembling. She felt sick and only managed not to faint by staring hard at one of the bright stands of candles nearest her, focusing on the golden, flickering flames and breathing in the sweet scent of the dried herbs strewn among the rushes.

Daring to look up later, while the bishop was intoning some message of hope from the high pulpit, she caught Lord Leicester’s gaze on her face.

Lord Leicester nodded, giving her the faintest of smiles, then looked back at Sir Philip’s coffin, his face once again grim.

After the coffin had been conveyed down into the crypt, the procession returned to Greenwich Palace by road and river, the soldiers’ banners flying in the icy February weather. It seemed hard to Lucy, a chill sunshine on her face, the signs of new growth in every field and on the river bank, that Sir Philip Sidney would never see another spring nor ever grace the court again with his dancing and poetry. But then she remembered Jack Parker, who had died through no fault of his own, but simply for having agreed to marry her and conceal her shame. And her son, born dead, his tiny waxen eyelids
never
opening to see her face. And Cathy’s young husband too, fallen in the struggle to secure the Low Countries – and Lucy wept, covering her face in her hands, for all the deaths and the misery of life.

The Queen summoned her that evening to the Privy Chamber at Greenwich. The room had emptied of courtiers except for the Queen’s ladies and her royal guards, now constantly in attendance at Walsingham’s command.

It was the first time Lucy had seen Queen Elizabeth face to face since leaving court, and she knew an instant of terror before entering the chamber. The Queen had sent her away on such hostile terms, Lucy could not quite believe she had been persuaded to allow her return.