Elizabeth (37 page)

“Go to the Bishop of Glasgow in Paris,” she said, “and tell him that you have seen this, my final testament, and that I have solemnly disinherited my son James from his right to the throne of England. I declare the King of Spain to be my heir. Tell him to inform King Philip, and say that as soon as I can find a means of getting letters out, I will confirm this in writing.”

Now, she thought, staring into the fire at Chartley, if I die, I've given Elizabeth's mortal enemy the right to take her crown. Now Philip will invade her; nothing can stop him. And if he wins, he'll march on Scotland and my wretched son.…

She saw Seton watching her and smiled. Poor Seton; Seton who was always anxious, trying to cheer her when she was depressed, soothing her when she gave way to bursts of impotent anger, sitting for hours beside her when she wept and recalled the past. She loved Seton; she loved Nau, and Curie, his junior; she loved the spaniel dogs that sat round her feet and slept on her bed at night. But these were trivial loves, insufficient barriers to the unending agony of her regrets and her frustrations. Their selfless loyalty was a poor compensation for the betrayal of Darnley, and Bothwell and her brother and now her son. Life had been cruel to Mary, cruel in its seeming generosity at the beginning, holding out hopes of dazzling brightness, and quenching them one by one in treachery and violence and blood. She was not resigned or at peace; she could not forgive her enemies, living and dead; she could only console herself with trying to strike them from the grave.

Walsingham ignored the man standing in front of him and went on writing for some moments. He was aware that the other shifted and coughed; when he put down his pen the Secretary stared at him coldly.

“I trust no one saw you come here, Master Gifford.”

“No one, Sir Francis. No one knows I left Chartley village; I gave it out that I was ill.”

Gifford's brown eyes flickered away from the Secretary's face and fixed on the wall. He had a shifty look, and he was nervous. He had first met Elizabeth's master-spy when he was arrested for Catholic activities, and he had never overcome his fear of him. He was not a brave man, and his convictions were influenced by a natural love of intrigue. He had quickly sacrificed them to save his life, and entered the service of the Queen. He was an ignoble character, but an able spy; he had long since overcome his scruples at betraying the men he had worked with and who trusted him in ignorance of his desertion to the enemy. Walsingham had chosen him as his agent, and he understood that his final pardon depended upon the success of the trap being prepared for Mary Stuart.

“What progress have you made?” Walsingham asked.

“I've opened a source for the Queen's letters,” Gifford replied. “I approached Sir Amyas Paulet's steward and he has agreed to smuggle papers in and out of the house in a beer cask which is replenished every week. I told him it was in your service and that his life depended upon his discretion. The first letter was from me, it reached her two weeks ago, and I have her reply with me.”

Walsingham read the note; there was nothing in it but an expression of thanks and a warning to be careful. She begged him to write to Morgan, her agent in Paris, and let her have the answer.

“You have done well,” he said. “Has Morgan replied to you?”

“He has indeed.” Gifford placed a packet on the table. “I opened it, Sir Francis; but no one would know the seal was tampered with.”

Walsingham read the letter slowly. He had forgotten the spy standing in front of him; at one moment he gave a little exclamation of triumph, and when he looked up again at Gifford his narrow mouth was smiling.

“We have the beginning of a new plot here,” he said. “Sir Anthony Babington has approached Morgan—he begs to know how he can serve the Queen of Scots … he has a following of loyal Catholics like himself, ready to spend their lives to free her. All he needs is direction. By God, he shall have it. I know him—he's here in London! Send this letter to Chartley, and make yourself known to Babington. Tell him you are the Queen of Scots' agent, and that you have heard of him through Morgan in Paris. Find out anything you can and impress on him that he must write full details of his plans to the Queen and do nothing till he receives her agreement in writing.”

“You can rely on me.” Gifford bowed.

“The important thing is Mary Stuart's sanction,” Walsingham said. “We know now that Babington is a traitor; we can lay hands on him at any time. The Queen is the prize I want. Urge Babington to any method, suggest that the assassination of Queen Elizabeth is the only way of saving Mary Stuart. Emphasize that. And make him write to her in such a way that she agrees to it. You understand me, Gifford——” His pale eyes fixed the spy with an expression that made his knees tremble with fright. “If you bungle this, you'll die for your original offence. There's a room in this house of mine where I sometimes question traitors, and I'll see that you visit it and only leave it for the gallows. If you succeed, I'll reward you out of my own purse, and recommend you to the Queen.”

Gifford nodded. He was very pale. “I told you, Sir Francis, you can rely on me. I shall do what you say, and you shall have the Queen of Scots as well as Babington. I swear it.”

One evening late in March Elizabeth left Whitehall Palace to dine with Lord Burleigh at his house in the Strand. The gardens were crowded with courtiers, and the banks of the river lined with the people of London, all waiting to see the Queen sail up the Thames in her barge. Nothing could stop her displaying herself to the people; Burleigh warned and Leicester begged, reminding her of the danger of assassination and pointing out that the leader of the Netherlands Protestants, William of Orange, had been killed in his own house by an agent of Spain. But the Queen refused to hide herself. The London crowds loved her, and she was not going to become a memory to them or appear through a barricade of armed men as if she were a prisoner in her own kingdom.

She walked through Whitehall Gardens, with an escort of eight Gentlemen Pensioners in front and behind, and two torch bearers; it was already dusk, and the flaming lights made her such a perfect target that Leicester followed her with his hand on his sword. Two hundred members of the Court and the household were crowded on either side of the path; they were curtsying and bowing as she passed, and she walked at her usual stately pace, refusing to hurry. A bullet or a fanatic with a knife could have killed her at any moment. Leicester was less reckless about personal danger as he grew older; but though Elizabeth hated illness and dreaded dying in her bed, she had a magnificent, fatalistic courage about being murdered; her bravery was a reproach to him and to many members of the Council who employed food-tasters and slept with armed men outside their bedroom doors since the Throckmorton plot. She looked deceptively young in the torchlight, and her carriage was as graceful and upright as if she were a girl. She wore a dress of white brocade, the stomacher and outer petticoat glittering with diamond and emerald embroidery, a fan-shaped collar of stiffened lace framed her head, and a long cloak of green velvet, lined with white ermine, fell from her shoulders. She smiled and waved, and once she looked over her shoulder at him and smiled, as if she sensed his anxiety. He was thankful when she reached the jetty, and the heralds sounded a fanfare by the barge.

Two other men among the crowd were watching her as closely as Leicester; one was tall and fair, with a rather mild and handsome face; his companion nudged him as the Queen passed within five feet of them. He was pale, with a very dark beard and hair and fanatical black eyes which glowed with hatred as he watched Elizabeth.

“Why do we wait, Babington? Why not strike now—or tomorrow?”

Robert Barnewall was an Irishman, scion of an ancient Catholic family which had suffered bitterly under the punitive expeditions sent to quell religion and rebellion in that unhappy country. He had travelled to London with the express purpose of killing the Queen whose heresy and tyranny had made her in Ireland the most hated of all the English sovereigns.

Like Babington, Barnewall was admitted to the Court by his gentle birth and he was free to stay there as long as he could maintain himself financially and was able to conceal his religion. Babington watched the Queen for a moment before answering. He was not as prejudiced as Barnewall; he was able to admire her dignity and appreciate her courage, and to admit to himself that if she had not been the enemy of his religion and responsible for the death of so many of his friends, he might have loved and served her, and been proud to do so. He was not bloodthirsty or lawless and he had a respect for the person of the monarch which Barnewall could never understand. But Catholic or Protestant, Babington could never serve Elizabeth because she was an enemy of the woman he had loved since he was a boy in his teens. He could see her and judge her with complete indifference, because his imagination and his emotion were dominated by the memory of Mary Stuart. He was blind to every woman and unaware of any purpose but the one to which he had dedicated his life. He was going to release the Queen of Scots, and it was unfortunate but relatively unimportant that the only way to do it was to kill the Queen of England.

“Why are we waiting?” Barnewall whispered fiercely. “All the others are willing—Savage has sworn an oath to do it, so have I! What are we waiting for, in the name of God?”

“Queen Mary's reply,” Babington said under his breath. “Gifford will have it in a few days.”

“Gifford urges assassination, and Gifford insists on delay. The two don't match, Babington. We should strike at once; the longer we hesitate, the greater the danger of discovery. Too many people know of this already; if one tongue wags, that will be the end of us all.”

“I will do nothing without the Queen's consent,” Babington answered. “Gifford is adamant about that and he is in closer touch than we are.”

“She is leaving now.” Barnewall nodded towards the barge, its interior lit by blazing torches. The oarsmen stood for a moment, waiting till the figure in the shining white satin dress seated itself in the bows. The watching crowds along the river banks were cheering. Then the oars slowly dipped into the water; the trumpets sounded again, and the gilt and painted barge began to glide away from the bank and up the river.

“I pray to God it sinks with her,” Barnewall said bitterly.

“And I pray,” Anthony Babington murmured, “that I see the day my own Queen rides in it in state to her Coronation.”

They separated and Babington went back to his lodgings outside the Palace grounds, to see if there was any news from Gifford.

Nau, Mary Stuart's secretary, stood in front of her writing-table and shook his head. He felt inclined to wring his hands he was so agitated. Mary looked up at him. She was smiling and her expression was animated; she seemed to have shed ten years in the last few weeks.

“Madam, I beg you, I implore of you—do not answer that letter!”

The Queen placed her hand on Anthony Babington's long account of the plans he was making to release her and fulfil the vow he had made to her so many years ago at Sheffield, when, as he reminded her, he promised to do her a real service one day.

“Don't be foolish, Nau. I've been receiving and sending letters out for weeks in perfect safety. The method is perfectly safe. Certainly I'm going to answer this—nothing can stop me!”

“But ordinary mail is one thing, Madam,” Nau pleaded. “Letters to France and Spain and communications with your agent are your right, no one could blame you for them, or for complaining about your circumstances. But this man proposes to assassinate Elizabeth! He's made you his accessory by writing such a letter; if you answer it and encourage him, you could be charged with his crime!”

“Only if he is discovered. And you forget, I know Babington. He would do anything for me. Why quibble, my poor friend; as long as Elizabeth lives I shall never be free, and so long as she hangs and quarters Catholics the Catholics will try and murder her. Babington says he wants my authority; supposing I refuse it, or ignore it, and he does nothing, when he might have succeeded! Oh, Nau, Nau, I've lived this wretched life too long to worry about risks. I'll take this chance and any chance that comes, so long as there's hope of freedom.”

“Madam, this life is better than death,” the secretary said slowly. “I know what it means, because I've shared it with you for many years. And one sentence in this letter could mean the end of everything for you. ‘The usurping competitor must be despatched … six gentlemen will undertake the tragic execution.' If you took my advice you would send that letter to Elizabeth in London!”

“You are not serious, Nau,” the Queen said slowly. “I know that, and I forgive you. I also know how faithfully you've served me; there was no need to point it out. I am in your debt and, God help me, I have no way of repaying you except with thanks. I am a prisoner and alone; if I lose hope and resign myself I shall die as quickly as if I were executed.

“If you love me, Nau, never again suggest that I should betray Anthony Babington or any other friend of mine, just to save myself. Now sit at your table please, and take down my reply.”

Nau was right; for the first time in her long and fruitless struggle with Elizabeth, she was staking her own life. Many Englishmen had died for her in the last nineteen years; men she had known and men that she had never seen. They had suffered cruelly on her account, fighting for her and for what she had come to represent, rejecting the worldly success of that supremely successful woman whose triumphs only showed the failures and tragedies of her own misspent life in darker contrast. It was rare for Mary to feel unworthy or to question her own fitness for the sacrifices she inspired. In the few moments while Nau waited to write down her words to Babington, she came closer to genuine prayer than for many years. If Babington succeeded, the waste and the bloodshed of the past would not have been in vain; if she came to the throne of England at last, she made a solemn promise to rule with all the virtues of prudence and justice which her champions expected. If she won, Elizabeth would die, and Mary could not pretend a single scruple. If she lost, then she would suffer with Babington and his followers, and now that the moment of final decision had come, she was no longer afraid of death or of anything but the continuing martyrdom of imprisonment and despair.