Tomorrow .. . tomorrow the Duke would die. And she must wait to hear
of how his head had fallen, just as her father had waited .. . no, it
was too dreadful.
No beheadings until now. No treason in high ranks until now. My
cousin's blood. And they will say, She is her father's daughter after
all. Blood will out. Next it will be .. . whom?
Elizabeth stood looking out the window. She was at Richmond, and she
could see the river flowing past, dimly lighted by the half moon. The
night was passing, Norfolk's last upon earth. His last moonlight, his
last bedtime .. . The river was flowing past the Tower, too, and he
could see and hear it as well. This same water would be passing the
Duke in an hour or so.
Must it be so? Must he die? Once his head was off, there was no
putting it back on.
She could not help but smile at the idea. If only it were possible to
reattach a head, to say, "Oh, we change our minds, pray live after
all." But the only time to do that was before the deed.
She was trembling.
As if I were the one being executed. And well I know what it is to
wait in the Tower.
Suddenly she called for a page, and directed him to bring Cecil to her
immediately.
Cecil, still suffering the aftereflects of his latest debilitating
attack of gout, made his way painfully into Elizabeth's privy chamber.
He was forced to lean on a stick, but his greatest concern and worry
was what he would face with his Queen.
He saw her standing in the middle of the room, her hands clasped
demurely. Without her wig and makeup she looked very young, as she had
when first she had come to the throne. "Madam," he said, bowing as low
as he could.
"Thank you for coming at midnight, dear Cecil. I trust your wife was
not too inconvenienced."
"She is accustomed to it, Madam."
Elizabeth laughed. "One of the disadvantages of your office. I trust
becoming Lady Burghley will make up for it." She whirled around, her
mood changing in a second. "Oh, Cecil, I mislike this execution!"
He had feared that was it. "It is most unfortunate," he agreed.
"He is my cousin! His grandfather and my grandmother were brother and
sister!"
"Yes, it is most unfortunate," Cecil repeated. What did she expect him
to say?
"Remember the Bible how Cain was punished for spilling the blood of
Abel. The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to
receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." What if God punishes me? I
can bear it of myself but I am more than myself, and I fear he will
punish the realm through me. And I I, who have taken England for my
husband and child as well will not bring misfortune on my land."
Cecil sighed. "Cain slew Abel through anger and malice. This is an
entirely different situation. Twenty-six peers of the realm including
myself have examined the evidence and concluded that he is a traitor
and dangerous to the realm. Ear from bringing disaster on the land if
you execute him, danger will result if you do not."
Elizabeth was scratching her arms, leaving long thin white marks on
them. "But he is of my own blood!"
"It is unfortunate," Cecil could only repeat. He paused.
"Justice must be done," Elizabeth finally said. "He has been found
guilty."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"To balk justice is injustice."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Yet mercy is a higher virtue than justice."
"In God, yes."
"Am I not God's anointed on earth? Should I not look heavenward for a
model of my behaviour, rather than to the peers of the realm?" she
asked.
"Madam, this looking heavenward can be a highway to tyranny. When a
ruler begins to disregard the laws of his land in favour of heavenly
guidance, he often tramples the most basic justice underfoot. Stick
with the paths of the law, and you cannot be led astray into
tyranny."
"You are right," she said, sitting down abruptly in a chair. "And I am
in danger from all these plots! My cousin did not hesitate to traffick
with my sworn enemies! He regarded my life lightly, so it seems. His
head wished to feel the weight of a crown. Well, it shall feel the
edge of a sword instead!" She slapped the edge of her hand down on the
chair arm.
"Yes, Your Majesty." Cecil bowed. Relief flooded him.
"But not tomorrow," she said. "Stay the execution. I promise it is
merely postponed, not cancelled."
The crowds were milling around the newly erected scaffold on Tower
Hill, the mound just outside the walls of the Tower where public
executions were held. There had been no executions in London in
Elizabeth's reign, and the old scaffold had rotted from disuse. The
people had started coming at dawn, staking out a good position to see
the killings. It promised to be a good show, as the blue-black clouds
had parted and revealed a pallid sky behind them. There would be no
rain or snow, the plague of a winter execution.
On the new scaffold was the venerable block from the old one, hallowed
by the chops that had severed the heads of Thomas More, Cromwell, Anne
Boleyn's lovers, and Henry Howard himself, the Duke's own father. It
had two depressions in it, for the shoulders on one side and the chin
on the other, with a strait in between where the neck could lie flat
and exposed to the axe.
A thick mat of fresh straw was spread all over the platform, and cloths
to cover the headless bodies were at the ready. Separate cloths were
provided to catch the heads as they fell forward. The cloths matched
so that when the parts were gathered up for burial, the correct head
would accompany the body .. . that is, if the heads were not required
to be displayed on London Bridge.
The actual sentence was the one of hanging first, then disembowelling,
drawing and quartering, followed by beheading. But doubtless the Duke
would only be beheaded, while the other two would endure the entire
sentence.
The crowd cheered when Kenelm Berney, a young man who had plotted to
kill Cecil, was brought out. He made the usual farewells and prayers,
and was strung up and hanged until he was dead thus being mercifully
spared suffering when the rest of the sentence was carried out to the
letter.
Within fifteen minutes his remains had been removed, the straw changed,
and his partner, Edmund Mather, led out. He, too, suffered a quick
death.
Now the crowd hushed, awaiting the Duke. This was what they had come
for; the two ordinary traitors were just a prelude, an appetizer. The
highest lord in the land was to have his head cut off! Why, it had
been so long since such a sight once common enough had been available.
Some children had never even seen it, and had to make do with their
elders' reminiscences: "The buzzards swooped down on Sir Francis
Weston"; "More made a joke about his beard, begging the headsman not to
cut it, for it had done no treason"; "Henry Howard had an unusual
amount of blood in him; it kept flowing for ten minutes, and ruined the
headsman's shoes." Now they would see it for themselves, and be able
to tell their own children.
Someone was coming forward, wearing the Queen's livery. He was going
to read off the sentence, and then the Duke would be brought out,
wearing gorgeous apparel. The people got even more excited.
"It is the wish of Her Majesty the Queen that the execution of the Duke
of Norfolk not take place today," the messenger announced.
The crowd groaned. Some of them cursed.
The execution was moved to the last day of February, at six o'clock in
the morning. At four o'clock, Elizabeth recalled the warrant.
Elizabeth lay in her bed, so ill she thought she was dreaming when the
faces of Robert Dudley and Cecil appeared before her eyes. She had
lain thus for several days, and the realm was paralyzed with fright.
What if she died? What would happen to them? The Duke of Norfolk yet
lived, as did the Queen of Scots. Would Spanish troops arrive to put
Mary on the throne? There was no successor to the throne named.
Without Elizabeth they were lost. All that stood between them and
chaos was the life of an unmarried thirty-eight-year-old woman.
"You must rally," whispered Dudley. "I myself will feed you, like a
father with his babe."
He and Cecil looked at each other. If she lived provisions would have
to be made. She could evade them no longer.
Elizabeth maintained that her life had never been in danger, that she
had only suffered from tainted fish that she had eaten. True, she had
had a fever and violent stomach pains and vomiting, but that was only
normal in such cases. Her body was purging itself from the poison of
the fish.
The Council was adamant: she must call a Parliament to deal with the
grave issues of the day. She could not continue to take all upon her
own shoulders her fragile shoulders.
With grumbling acquiescence, she sent out writs for a new Parliament in
late March.
In April, while the new members of Parliament were making ready to come
to London, Elizabeth made a treaty with the French. Her erstwhile
suitor Charles IX had now married elsewhere, but Elizabeth pretended to
be interested in the next son, Henri, who was eighteen years younger
than she.
The negotiations for this treaty had been going on for some months, the
French always insisting that Mary be included in any provisions. But
on the day that the English envoy was taking leave of the French King,
letters arrived from the French ambassador in London confirming Mary's
part in the Ridolfi Plot.
Charles, the king, exploded with anger and disgust. "Ah, the poor fool
will never cease until she loses her head. I meant to help, but if she
will not be helped, I can do nothing more." He waved his jewelled
fingers. His spaniels trotted forward eagerly, expecting a sweet.
"Yes, my love," said Catherine de Medicis. "It is most sad."
Charles took a long sip of his sugar water from a stemmed Venetian
goblet. He sighed. "Dear Mr. Ambassador, this treaty will doubtless
be of great benefit to both our countries. Let us leave the Queen of
Scots out of it entirely, and reword its provisions to be a defensive
treaty between our two realms. If either of us is attacked by anyone
we will come to one another's aid." He reached down and nuzzled the
top of a dog's head. The animal flung himself on his back and wiggled
on the rug. Another dog whined.
"Do you permit the Queen of Scots to receive gifts?" he asked the
ambassador. "I could send her some puppies. Perhaps that would
console her."
SEVEN
Mary opened the basket eagerly. She could hear the sounds of the
puppies inside, and could feel the warmth from their little bodies. She
peered in.
Curled up in the warm lined basket were three black-and-tan puppies,
toy spaniels. Just seeing them took her back to France, where the
royal family had had so many of this type. Her brother-in-law, King
Charles, had sent them.