My Enemy, the Queen (17 page)

Dr. Julio, Robert physician, being an Italian, was becoming known as Leicester poisoner, so it was small wonder that it had been said at the time of the Earl of Sheffield death that Robert had had him removed. But why, when he had no wish to marry his widow? Except, of course, that Sheffield was at the time threatening divorceaving discovered that Douglass had committed adultery with Robert. That would have created a scandal which Robert would want to avoid at all costs, for if it came to the Queen ears he would be in great trouble.

That Robert was of a dark and devious nature mattered not to me. I wanted a man who could challenge me. I wanted no mild, ineffectual creature like my husband. I was heartily tired of Walter, and I was as deeply enamored of Robert Dudley as any woman could be. That was why when I saw him talking earnestly to Douglass Sheffield, I was filled with uneasiness.

It was a Sunday. The Queen had attended church in the morning, and as the weather was warm and pleasant, it was decided that some players from Coventry should do Hock Tide, a play about Danes, for her entertainment.

I was mildly amused to see these rustics in their improvised costumes and their local accents portraying men of whom they could have had no conception. The Queen was delighted with them; she enjoyed being among the simple country folk, and to bring home to them the fact that, glittering and glorious as she was, she had a great respect and love for them. Again and again on our progress we must stop by the road if any humble person approached her; and she never failed to have a kind word or reassurance to offer. There must have been many people in the country who would cherish an encounter with her throughout their lives and serve her with the utmost loyalty because she had never been too proud to speak to them.

So now she gave as close an attention to the Coventry players as she would have done to any of the Court actors, and sat in her chair laughing when laughter was expected and applauding only when applause was looked for.

The play was about the coming of the Danes, their insolence, violence and the outrages they inflicted on the English countryside. The chief character was Hunna, King Ethelred general, and of course the play ended in the defeat of the Danes. As a tribute to her sex, the captive Danes were led onto the stage by women, at which the Queen loudly applauded.

When it was over, she insisted that the players be presented to her that she might tell them how much she had enjoyed their play.

ood men of Coventry,she said, ou have given me much pleasure and shall be rewarded. Yesterday hunting brought us several good bucks and I shall order that you be given two of the finest, and in addition you shall have five marks in money.

The good men of Coventry fell on their knees and declared they would never forget the day they had had the honor of playing before the Queen. They were loyal men, and after this day there would not be one of them who would not willingly give his life for her.

She thanked them and, watching her, I noticed how she preserved that rare and royal gift in that she could lose none of her dignity and yet at the same time be completely at ease with them and make them so with her. She could lift them up without descending from her royalty. I was aware of her greatness as never before; that we should be rivals for the same man filled me with an intense excitement and the fact that he was ready to risk so much for the fulfillment of his passion for me was an indication of its depth.

This emotion between us was something which must not be denied. We were bold adventurers, both of us, and I could be sure that the danger was as irresistible to him as it was to me.

It was that very day that I found an opportunity of speaking to Douglass Sheffield.

The play being over and still some hours left before twilight, the Queen, riding side by side with Robert and followed by certain of the ladies and gentlemen, had left for the forest, when I saw Douglass Sheffield walking alone in the gardens and I went to her.

I came up with her near the lake as if by chance and called a greeting.

t is Lady Essex, is it not?she asked, and I answered that it was, and that I believed she was Lady Sheffield.

e should know each other,I went on, here is a family connection through the Howard family.She was one of the Effingham Howards and it was my great-grandmother, wife of Sir Thomas Boleyn, who was of the family.

o we are distant cousins,I added.

I studied her intently. I could understand what Robert had found attractive. She had the quality which many of the Howard women had. My grandmother Mary Boleyn and Catherine Howard must have been somewhat similar. Anne Boleyn had something morehis immense physical attractiveness plus a calculating streak which made her ambitious. Anne had miscalculatedf course she had had a very fickle man to deal withnd she had ended up headless, but with a little dexterous handling of her affairs and aided by the birth of a son, it need not have happened as it did.

Douglass then was the soft and yielding type, sensuous and making no demands in return for what she gave. Her sort immediately attracted the opposite sex, but very often it was not durable.

I said: he Queen grows more and more enamored of my Lord Leicester.

Her mouth drooped and she looked rather sad. I thought: There is something, then.

o you think she will marry him?I went on.

o,said Douglass vehemently. e cannot do that.

cannot see why. He wants it and at times it seems she is as eager as he is.

ut he could not do it.

I began to feel uneasy. hy not, Lady Sheffield?

ecause She hesitated. o, I must not say. It would be dangerous. He would never forgive me.

ou mean the Earl of Leicester would not?

She looked perplexed and tears came into her eyes.

s there anything I can do?I asked soothingly.

h no, no. I must go in. I don know what I saying. I have been unwell. I have my duties, so

thought you looked sad of late,I said, determined to detain her. sensed there was something and that I must speak to you. There is a bond between those whose blood is linked, I believe.

She looked a little startled and said: t may be so.

ometimes it is helpful to talk to a sympathetic listener.

don really want to discuss anything. There is nothing to be said. I shouldn have come. I should be with my son.

ou have a son?

She nodded.

have four children, Penelope, Dorothy, Robert and Walter. I miss them very much.

o you have a Robert too?

I was alert. hat is your son name?

She nodded.

ell,I went on, t a good name. That of our Queen husband if she ever decided to marry.

he could not,said Douglass, falling into the trap.

ou seem vehement.

t is when you talk of their marrying

t is what he is hoping for. Everybody knows it.

f she had wanted to marry him she would have done so long ago.

fter the mysterious death of his wife,I whispered. ow could she?

She shivered. often think about Amy Dudley. I have nightmares about her. Sometimes I dream I am in that house and that someone creeps into my room

ou dream that you are his wife and he wants to be rid of you. How strange!

o

believe you are afraid of something.

ow men change,she said wistfully. hey are so ardent and then it is someone else who claims their attention.

nd their ardor,I said lightly.

t can be rather frightening.

t would be with a man like the Earlafter what happened at Cumnor Place. But how do we know what happened there. It a dark secret. Tell me about your little boy. How old is he?

e is two years old.

I was silent, calculating. When had the Earl of Sheffield died? Was it not in 1 that I had heard how the Howard sisters were pursuing Robert? It was in that yearr perhaps the nexthat Lord Sheffield had died and yet in the year 5 Douglass Sheffield had a two-year-old son called Robert.

I was determined to discover what this meant.

I could scarcely expect her to pour out her secrets on this occasion even though there was a relationship between us. I had learned far more than I could have hoped from the rather foolish woman. But I would make a determined effort to discover the truth.

I tried to be sympathetic and friendly when she said she was suffering from a headache. I took her back to her apartment and gave her a soothing potion. Then I made her lie down and told her I would let her know if the Queen returned.

Later that day she told me that she had been feeling very unwell when we had met in the gardens and she was afraid she had talked a lot of nonsense. I reassured her and said we had merely had a friendly chat and how pleasant it was to meet a cousin. My potion had done her so much good and she wondered if I would give her the recipe. Of course I would, I told her. I understood perfectly these feelings of depression. After all, I had children of my own and longed to be with them.

el have another chatsoon,I said.

I was determined to get to the bottom of the Douglass Sheffield affair.

The next day the Queen was entertained in the afternoon by a farce called A Country Bridal. This was, in a manner, poking fun at rustics, and I wondered that the Queen did not feel it was an insult to some of her people. The bridegroom, who was well over thirty, wore his father worsted jacket of a tawny color, a pair of harvest gloves on his hands, and a pen and inkhorn strapped to his back. He hobbled onto the grass. A great deal of football was played in the country and often players were injured during the game, so the hobble was meant to imply that he had broken a leg at play.

With him were the mummers and Robin Hood with Maid Marian. The Queen foot tapped as she watched the dancing, and I expected at any time that she would join in.

The bride in her worsted gown came next; she had made her face excessively ugly and wore a wig of hair sticking out in all directions. The spectators roared with laughter at the sight of her, and there were many of them, for the Queen had especially asked that any of those around the neighborhood should be allowed to see the show. So they had come in their hundredsot so much to see the country wedding as to be in the company of the Queen. She herselft her best as she always was when the people were presentmiled graciously, reserving her ill humor for her attendants later on. The bridesmaids were in their mid-thirties and, like the bride, quite ugly.

People rolled about in ecstasies of mirth to see the married couple stagger off, and I could not help thinking that this was rather a dangerous show to have put before our unmarried Queen, and the fact that the bride and groom made a great effort to tell us their ages could have been considered as touching Elizabeth. Perhaps that was what Robert had intended. Perhaps he wanted to show her that she was waiting too long. Of course anyone less like the ugly clumsy bride there could not be. She sat there, supreme in her power and her glorylittering with jewels, her exquisite ruff about her neck, her head held high, looking beautiful, and young too, if one did not look too closely at her face, for her body was as slender as a young girl and her skin was so delicate and white. She must have seemed like a goddess to these country folk, even apart from her jeweled garments. She was always fastidious and took regular baths, and those of us who attended on her must do the same, for she could not abide evil smells. When she visited country houses the cleaning of them had to begin weeks before her arrival. Ill-smelling rushes made her turn away in disgust, and of course there was the ever-present problem of the privies. I had often seen that somewhat curved nose quiver with distaste on more than one occasion and some sharp remark would be made about the ill preparation for her visit.

Considerable inconvenience was caused, when we traveled, by the Queen bath, without which she could not manage. Few country houses could provide her with one. In Windsor Castle there were two rooms set aside for her bath, and the ceilings of these were of glass so that she could see the whiteness of her body while she bathed.

Only among the humble people would she accept uncleanliness, and she never showed by a twitch of her nostrils that she noticed their odors. She certainly had the art of queenship at her fingertips.

On this occasion she received the ugly bride and groom and told them how much they had made her laugh, and they, like the Coventry players, were overcome by her graciousness and I knew would give her their utmost loyalty forever.

I was deeply concerned with my own problems. When Douglass Sheffield had mentioned her son Robert, I had become very suspicious. My first impulse was to waylay Robert and demand the truth about Douglass and her son. Could I do that? After all, he was not exactly responsible to me for his actionsparticularly those which had occurred some time ago. True, he had said he would marry me if I were free. That meant little. I was not free. I wondered if at some time he had said the same to Douglass, and then by a strange coincidencer was it coincidence?he became free soon after he had talked of marrying her.

No. I would not tackle him. Douglass was a fool. I could overcome her scruples with a little delicate handling, and perhaps I should be more likely to get the true story from her than from Robert. Moreover, it would not have been easy to talk with him, for he had to dance continual attendance on the Queen. We could perhaps escape to the room in the tower, but there was a possibility that there my desire might overcome my common sense. I must be firm with myself. If Robert gave me his version of the story how could I be sure it was the truth? I doubted not he would have some plausible story to tell, whereas Douglass would not have the wit to make one up.

During the next days I cultivated Douglass. She was easy prey. There was no doubt that she was worried about her future; and that she was madly in love with Robert there was no doubt either.

In a few days of revels in which she was obligeds I waso see Robert in continuous attendance on the Queen, I had brought her to a state when she was eager to confide in someone, and who should that be but kind and sympathetic Cousin Lettice?