Every good thought or intention I had ever had and failed to act on
came back to haunt me. The letter I meant to write to a soldier's
widow, and forgot until too late, the flowers I had meant to have cut
and sent to the chamber where the cook lay ill, the time I had promised
to pray for someone and had not. Even the blue skies I had failed to
pause for a moment and appreciate.
I was human, but I believed that God expected more than that of me. I
compounded my sin by assuming that God wished me to be perfect, and
that I had failed During that time, I had to catalogue all my
shortcomings and accept each one of them, hating myself in the process.
But one day, miraculously, it stopped. I could stand before God as a
human being. I crept all the way into the room and sat silently,
immersed in the Presence. It was God who had opened the door and
beckoned me closer.
I sat silently, day after day It was like sitting in a rainbow. I was
drenched in His love, awestruck by it. I scarcely dared to breathe, or
even move, because I was so afraid it would disappear this feeling. I
was like a lover, hurrying into the mystical Presence, just as I used
to run to Bothwell. And waiting for me, always, was the heart of God,
and a seat for me in it.
And then, one day, He was not there I crept to my accustomed place and
waited, but He did not come. I was abandoned. The door was closed and
locked.
Had it all been a hoax? Was it only my intense longing, my loneliness,
my imagination, that had created it? That was the cruel lest feeling
of all, the greatest betrayal I had ever faced.
Everyone noticed my sadness. But I could tell no one. They assumed it
was because of bad news from Scotland, no news from Scotland, the onset
of my rheumatism, the perfidy of Elizabeth. But those things could all
be borne if I had my Lover, without Him, all was dark. I had come to
depend on Him, and in such a short time. At length I told my
confessor, thinking he would be scandalized or puzzled, But no, he was
familar with it. He told me that I must put aside my guilt at feeling
perhaps I had driven Him away, and simply wait. Wait for the return.
The weeks were long. But at length He did return, but in a different
form. He was no longer a lover whom I met secretly, but diffused all
about me, like the deep spring air For a time everything seemed bathed
in the Presence, like the fiery rays of a sunset. Then gradually they
faded, and I found myself back to formal prayers.
Once again I must ascend the ladder, hoping for that glorious vision at
the top.
Will I ever be free? Is God keeping me here, a prisoner in this world,
to purge me for the next? It is true I have had many sins,
although the ones that seemed largest now seem smaller, while the
smaller loom larger. I can no longer tell which ones require the most
penance, which are the most offensive to God.
She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. She felt herself to be at
the bottom of a long shaft, with the eye of God focused on her.
EIGHT
The Parliamentarians assembled in London; the elected commoners went to
their accustomed meeting place of St. Stephens Chapel at 1 Westminster
Palace, and the Lords to a hall at the south end of the palace. This
Parliament was very Protestant, containing a number of members who
belonged to that wing of the Anglican Church now called Puritan. They
came, eager to settle the question of the Queen of Scots, the plotting
Papist spider in their midst.
The Speaker of the House, Mr. Bell, addressed the problem in his
opening speech. "There is an error which we have noted: that there is
a person in the land whom no law can touch." Member after member rose
and spoke his mind about this default.
"A general impunity to commit treason was never permitted to any,"
cried Thomas Norton.
"Shall we say our law is not able to provide for this mischief? We
might then say it is defective in the highest degree!"
Mr. Peter Wentworth, a fiery Puritan, called Mary "the most notorious
whore in all the world." Mr. St. Leger chimed in with "the monstrous
and huge dragon and mass of the earth, the Queen of Scots."
Another old Puritan, his voice trembling, stood and let loose. "If I
should term her the daughter of sedition, the mother of rebellion, the
nurse of impiety, the handmaid of iniquity, the sister of
unshamefastness; or if I should tell you that which you know already
that she is Scottish of nation, French of education, Papist of
profession, a Guisan of blood, a Spaniard in practice, a libertine in
life: so yet this were nothing near to describe her, whose villainy
hath stained the earth and infected the air. To destroy her would be
one of the fairest rid dances that ever church of God had." He waved
his arms wildly.
"Yea, hear ye her crimes: assuming the arms and title of Queen of
England. Arranging a marriage with the Duke of Norfolk without the
Queen's knowledge. Raising a rebellion in the north. Seeking foreign
aid from the Pope,
the Spaniards, and others, by Ridolfi, in order to invade England.
Procuring the Pope's bull to depose Queen Elizabeth," another added.
"Let us cut off her head and make no more ado about it!" said Richard
Gallys, a member from New Windsor.
"Yes!"
A joint committee of the two houses of Parliament visited Elizabeth
with their suggestion: that Mary be executed or, at the very least,
excluded from the succession, and a bill passed to try her for treason
if any other plots were formulated in her name.
But Elizabeth refused utterly. "Shall I put to death the bird that, to
escape the hawk, has fled to my feet for protection? Honour and
conscience forbid!"
The Parliamentarians then presented her with a third demand: that she
proceed with the execution of the Duke of Norfolk.
Elizabeth was spending the mid-May afternoon walking through the
gardens at Hampton Court, seeing the new-blooming primroses, columbine,
and roses, and examining the strawberry beds where her favourite
berries came from. Christopher Hatton had mentioned that he would like
to lease the estate of the Bishop of Ely at Holborn because one reason,
at least of the delectable strawberries there.
"Then I could smother you with baskets of them," he said.
"Please! The juice stains," said Elizabeth. "The Bishop is most
reluctant to agree, so I hear. But perhaps I shall speak with him
myself." She smiled at Hatton and he all but swooned.
Elizabeth had transferred to Hampton Court a few days earlier; now more
members of court arrived by twilight, coming up in lighted boats,
making stars on the water, laughing and singing. The night air was
soft and they strolled toward the courtyards, in no particular hurry to
arrive in their quarters. Moths, drawn to their lanterns, flitted with
silent wings about them.
Only Cecil limped up the pathway with urgency, thumping along with his
stick. There was something he must show his Queen, something that
might induce her to act at last.
"We have recovered this from the correspondence of the Queen of Scots,"
he said, extending a piece of paper to her in privacy. "It is a letter
to the Duke of Alva Philip's general! Oh, it was in cipher, but we
have broken the cipher."
Elizabeth took it, feeling a terrible dread. She held her magnifying
glass over it, and read: . and to my most beloved brother Philip, I
adjure him to send ships to Scotland to take possession of the prince
my son, and bring him to safety. I am closely guarded here in England,
and yet I still number many as my friends and allies. There is yet a
strong party in my favour, and lords who favour my cause, of whom,
although certain ones are prisoners, the Queen of England would not
dare touch their lives.
"So!" she said. "Mary thinks I 'dare' not touch Norfolk!" She threw
down the letter and kicked it. "Does she not realize it is only
through my mercy that he lives, that I fear no one? Am I not the
daughter of a king, and have a king's courage? And have I not spared
her out of my own courage?" she screamed.
Cecil put up his finger to his mouth. "Quiet, Your Majesty. Her spies
may be about. Yes, she is bold, and overconfident. The people scream
for her execution, and who protects her? You! Yet she does not
appreciate it, evidently. Now let me remind you that the Duke of
Norfolk has been duly tried and condemned. If you do not allow the
sentence to be carried out, the rest of the realm will think as she
does: that you dare not. Then they will see you as weak, vacillating,
helpless, like Richard II. And then what? Rebellion, sedition, all
the things you hope to avoid! For the love of peace, dear sovereign,
you must carry through the sentence."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I will not be pushed into anything my
conscience mis likes so."
"If you hope to save her, then you must yield on Norfolk. It is as
simple as that." His gout was paining him, and he longed to sit and
rest his leg. "It is one or the other. Which do you choose?"
"Neither!"
"Then read this letter from Knox. It will most like decide your mind.
He urges the execution of all, but particularly her. He says" Cecil
extracted the paper and read it slowly " 'if you chop not at the root,
the branches that appear to be broken will bud again." She is like a
very hardy tree, that can spring up again and again, no matter how it
is trimmed back. No matter how closely you have her guarded, no matter
how you seek to frighten her, she will always be blooming with fresh
treasons and mischiefs in this land. Or rather, inciting others to do
so."
"There must be a way to stop her, short of killing her!"
"Nay, Madam. Hear again what Knox has written: "Apply the axe to the
root of the evil. Until the Scottish Queen is dead, neither the
English Queen's crown nor her life can be in security." "
"Knox is redundant." She shivered. "I thought he was mortally ill."
"He, too, is resilient."
Just then there was a knock on the chamber door. A basket was
delivered, with a note to Gloriana, fair Goddess. Elizabeth opened it,
saying, "I trow this is not from Knox!"
It was from Hatton.
Dearest, fairest goddess, I send you these to put upon your palate. You
yourself are sweeter, richer, and they shall draw from your essence to
themselves. Ah! I faint with the thought!
She handed the note to Cecil, who read it with raised brows. He did
not dare laugh at it. The Queen had noticeably brightened.
It was a basket of strawberries, both the red and white varieties,
including some of the tiny woodland type. Hatton must have ventured
out in the late afternoon to find them. Elizabeth tasted one and
smiled. "These are excellent," she said, offering them to Cecil.
They sat silently eating them. Then Elizabeth said, "I will recognize
James VI as King. And I will allow the execution to proceed."
"Of both?"
"The Scottish Queen has not been tried and found guilty," Elizabeth
said quietly.
"Which is precisely why Parliament wants a provision that she be
brought to trial if any other plots come about. She must be made to
account for her actions! If not this time, then the next."