My Enemy, the Queen (26 page)

e must act quickly,said Robert, and the others agreed with him. I should leave immediately and go back with my father to Durham House. Robert, with Warwick and North, should stay at Wanstead and prepare for the coming of the Queen.

I had to agree. My triumph in the Queen bed was over.

Reluctantly and somewhat deflated I left Wanstead and went back to wait as patiently as I could for Robert to come to me.

I suppose the journeys to and fro and all the excitement proved too much for me in my condition; and perhaps because I had brought about the loss of a child before, life was punishing me. In any case I gave birth to a stillborn child and in as much secrecy as we could manage.

It was some little time before Robert could come to me, for the Queen was so pleased with his company at Wanstead that she insisted on his returning to Greenwich with her. When he came I had recovered from the worst of my misadventure and he comforted me by saying we would have a son before long. The Queen had shown no suspicion, so we had been unduly alarmed.

He was confident that when the time came he would be able to break the news to her gently and with the least disaster to ourselves. For the time being I could plead illness; and the fact that she was chattering continually about the proposed French marriage would make it all so much easier.

We were together for a while at Durham House, but I did wish that we could declare our marriage openly.

ll in due course,soothed Robert. He was so ebullient. After all, he had come through a great number of upsets with the Queen and survived. I was not so sure of myself. I remembered that I had once before been exiled from the Court for a very long time.

Still, life was exciting. I was Robert wifeirmly married to him in a ceremony witnessed by my father; and my nature did revel in playing this dangerous game with the Queen.

Betrayal

Leicester considered his own ambitious hopes at an end, and privately married the widowed Countess of Essex, of whom he was deeply enamoured. Simier, having penetrated this secret, gave immediate information of it to the Queen, as he suspected that her regard for Leicester was the principal obstacle to her marriage with Anjou.

Agnes Strickland

There followed months of subterfuge. I returned to Court, and whenever we could be, Robert and I were together. The Queen kept him a great deal with her, and I had to witness my husband making verbal love to my rival, which I have to confess caused me no small jealousy.

I knew of course that Elizabeth would never take a real lover and that in this respect she lived in a world of make-believe which had no substance in reality; and Robert tried to make up for my irritation with all this. We would exchange glances daringly in the Queen presence; I would suddenly feel the pressure of his body against mine and the spark of desire would flare up between us even in the Presence Chamber. I warned him: ou will betray us one day.And I would be pleased that he risked so much. He shrugged his shoulders and pretended not to care, but I knew all the time that he was very eager to keep our secret in spite of the risks he took.

I gave the Queen an amber necklace decorated with pearls and gold for the New Year gift and she declared herself delighted with it. She commented, though, that I looked a little pale, and she wondered whether I had recovered from my illness.

Robert had thought he should be especially lavish with his gifts just in case she thought he was not paying her as much attention as usual, and I helped him choose a beautiful clock set with rubies and diamonds, and some ruby and diamond buttons with bodkins to match for use in her hair. I knew she would delight in wearing them because he had given them to her.

I often saw her looking at them fondly and caressing them when they were in her hair; and she kept the clock beside her bed.

It was a bleak cold January day when Jehan de Simier arrived in London. He was a voluble gentleman with great charm of manners which delighted the Queen, particularly when he made a show of being overwhelmed by her beautynd indeed she was a glittering figure when she received the Frenchman. She told how delighted she was that his master had renewed his courtship. She had thought of him constantly and it would appear that, this time, nothing would prevent their marriage.

She danced with him and played the virginals for his pleasure. She was so anxious that he should carry a good report of her to the Duc. She said that she was glad that she had not taken his brotherho as the Duc of Anjou had once courted her. He had been unfaithful and married someone else and she was delighted with the prospect of marriage with dear Alencon, as he had been, and Anjou, as he was now.

She looked at least ten years younger; dressing sessions were longer and she was very meticulous, scolding us if we did not dress her hair as she wished. Attending her was an ordeal but at the same time amusing. She was not irritable but gave to sharp little bursts of anger if she thought we did not do our best and we often had a slap or a pinch for our pains. I was amazed by herthough she had never looked her age because of her youthful figure and that amazingly white skin which she took such care to preserve. She could behave like a young girl in love for the first time. Yet she was deluding even herself, for she had no intention of marrying this French Prince.

She kept Simier at her side and made sure of his comfort. She asked him many questions about the Duc. How did he compare with his brother? she wanted to know.

e is not quite as tall as his brother,was the answer.

hear that the King of France is indeed handsome and surrounds himself with almost as handsome young men.

he Duc dnjou is not quite so fair as his brother,was the answer.

believe the King to be a trifle vain.

Simier offered no answer to that, for naturally he did not want it reported that he had uttered treason against his King.

s the young Duc dnjou eager for this match?asked the Queen.

e has sworn to win Your Majesty,was the answer.

t is not easy to marry a man whom one has not seen,she said.

Simier replied eagerly: adam, if you will but sign his passport, he will lose no time in coming to you.

Now her true feelings began to emerge, for there was always some excuse why the passport should not be signed.

Robert was amused.

he will never make the French marriage,he said.

f she doesn, what will she do when she hears about us?I asked.

t will make no difference. She cannot expect me to remain unmarried any more than she intends not to marry herself.

She made it clear that she liked to have Simier dance attendance on her; she wanted to receive charming letters from her suitor; she declared herself longing for a glimpse of him, but the passport remained unsigned.

Catherine deMedici, the prospective bridegroom mother, was clearly getting restive. Wily as Elizabeth herself, she would realize that this matrimonial adventure was going the way of all the others; and there was no doubt that the Queen of England was a glittering prize for her young son, who had only distinguished himself by being exceptionally undistinguished.

Catherine deMedici and the King of France sent a secret letter to Robert which he showed me, and in which they suggested that when the Duc dnjou came to England, Robert should be his adviser and help to show him the ways of the country; they were most eager to impress on him that the marriage would in no way endanger his position.

Robert was amused and gratified because it meant that his power was realized even in France.

he will never take Anjou,he said. hear he is an ugly little creature.

nd she has always had such a fancy for handsome men,I added.

Tis true,replied Robert. er interest is immediately aroused by a handsome face. I am warning her to keep playing along with the French, and you see she has not granted him his passport, as I have advised her.

hat does she say when you are alone with her?I asked. ow does she explain this coquettish attitude towards the French Prince?

h, she has always been the same. When I criticize him, she tells me I am jealous, and that pleases her, of course.

have always wondered how she, who is so clever, can so successfully play the fool.

ever be deceived by her, Lettice. Sometimes I think that everything she does has some ulterior motive. She keeps peace between England and France while she pretends there will be an alliance. I have seen her do it again and again. She believes firmly in peace, and who can say she is not right? England has prospered since she came to the throne.

t least if you confessed to her now she could not be angry.

ould she not! Her rage would be terrible.

ut whyince she herself is contemplating marriage with this French Prince?

ever ask her why. She would be furious. She may marry, but not I. I am to be her devoted slave all the days of my life.

he is going to discover her mistake sooner or later.

tremble to think of it.

ou tremble! You have always been able to manage her.

have never had to face her with such an event before.

I slipped my arm through his. oul do it, Robert,I said. ust bring out that charm which none of us can resist.

But perhaps he did not understand the Queen as well as he thought he did.

It was impossible to keep my marriage secret from my daughters.

Penelope was vivacious and so much like me in looks that the relationship was immediately obvious to observers, except that many of them declarednd as I don believe in false modesty, I will say they were righthat we looked like sisters. Dorothy was quieter but attractive in her own way; and they were both of an age when they were interested in what was going on around them, particularly if it involved a man.

The Earl of Leicester was a frequent visitor to the house and as they were aware of his secret comings and goings they found this intriguing.

When Penelope asked me if I was having a love affair with the Earl of Leicester, I told her the truth, which I thought was the best answer.

The girls were both excited and delighted.

ut he is the most fascinating man at Court!cried Penelope.

ell, why should that prevent his marrying me?

have heard it said there is not a lady at Court to rival you for beauty,said Dorothy.

erhaps they said that to you knowing you were my daughter.

h no. It is so. You look so young in spite of being the mother of us all. And after all, if you are rather old, so is the Earl of Leicester.

I laughed but protested: am not old, Dorothy. Age is determined by one spirit and mine is as young as yours. I have made up my mind never to grow old.

shall do the same,Penelope assured me. ut, Mother, do tell us about our stepfather.

hat is there to tell you? He is the most fascinating man in the world, as you know. I have been determined to marry him for some time. Now I have done so.

Dorothy looked a little anxious. Rumors evidently reached the schoolroom nowadays, I thought, and wondered uneasily if they had heard of the Douglass Sheffield scandal.

t a perfectly legal marriage,I said. our grandfather was present. That speaks for itself.

Dorothy looked relieved, and I drew her to me and kissed her on the cheek.

ever fear, dear child. All will be well. Robert has talked to me a great deal about you girls. He is going to make brilliant marriages for you.

They listened with shining eyes while I explained that their stepfather position was such that the highest families in the land would be honored to be allied with his.

nd you, my daughters, are now related to him, because he has become your stepfather. Now you are going to start to live. But you must remember that, just as yet, our marriage is a secret.

h yes,cried Penelope. he Queen loves him and couldn bear him to marry anyone else.

hat true,I agreed. o remember it, and not a word.

The girls nodded vigorously, clearly delighted with the situation.

I was wondering whether we should pursue the proposed match between Robert nephew, Philip Sidney, and Penelope, which Walter and I had thought might be advantageous, but before I had time to broach this matter with Robert I received a message from him to say that he had left Court for Wanstead and he wanted me to join him there without delay.

The journey was only six miles so I set out immediately wondering what had made him leave Court so abruptly.

When I arrived at Wanstead he was waiting for me in a state of anger. He told me that in spite of his advice the Queen had granted Simier the passport he had been clamoring for.

his means that Anjou will now come here,he said.

ut she has never seen any of her suitors before except Philip of Spain, if he could be called one, and he never came wooing her.

cannot understand it. All I know is that she is deliberately flouting me. I have told her again and again what folly it is to bring him here. When she sends him back it will create bad feeling in France. While she pretends to consider and coquettes by letter, it is a different matterhough dangerous as I have repeatedly told her. But to bring him here that madness.

hat has made her do this?

he seems to have lost her senses. The thought of marriage has had this effect on her before, but she has never yet gone so far.

I knew what Robert was thinking, and he may have been right. He was the man she loved, and if she had an inkling that he had married someone else she would indeed be furious. That outburst of hers about not demeaning herself by marrying a servant whom she had raised up could well have been the outward sign of an inner wound. She wanted Robert to herself exclusively. She herself could flirt and frolic, but he should know that it was never serious. He was the one. Now Robert was wondering whether she had heard rumors concerning us, because it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep our secret.

hen I heard what she had done,he told me, went to her and before some of her attendants she demanded to know how I dared come without first asking permission to do so. I reminded her that I had done it frequently without reproof, and she told me to take care. She was in a strange mood. I said I would remove myself from Court as she seemed to wish that, to which she replied that if she wished it she would not have hesitated to say so, but now I had suggested it, she thought it a good idea. So I bowed and was about to leave when she asked why had I come bursting thus unceremoniously into her apartments. I indicated that I did not wish to speak before her attendants and she dismissed them.