Elizabeth (41 page)

She was the Queen, and now at last, with Mary dead, they looked to her, and loved her; she had so often spoken of them tenderly as her children when she wanted to thwart their desire for an heir of her body; now the addresses of loyalty and affection which came to Greenwich with every courier, brought the tears to her eyes and an ache of anxiety for them to her heart. Whatever happened she would not beggar them to save herself. She had spent her life making her country strong and rich and prosperous, and England was repaying her with men and money and promises to die to the last man in her defence. She gave Leicester the command of the men defending London. He and Hunsdon could be trusted never to surrender. Now at last the waiting was over, the arguments, the indecisions, the doubts—they belonged to the past. She was over fifty and she had been Queen for nearly thirty years. Before the month was out, should would either be dead or she would be safe on her throne until she died in her bed. And now all fear had left her. She felt cold and calm and strangely exhilarated. She had been waiting for Philip for years, not the few short weeks since the Armada left Spain, and she had always known he could not be kept at bay for ever. From the moment of Mary Stuart's death, war was inevitable. Now it had come and in the greatest crisis of her life, Elizabeth was in command of herself and her own situation.

Her brain was clear, her emotions were under control. The war was not a religious crusade, as Spain was trying to make out; it was not the onslaught of the powers of the Inquisition, with which her parsons were terrifying their congregations up and down the country. It was what it had always been, a contest for power between her and Philip, and that was how she was going to fight it, without crosses and banners and priests, but with cannon. God was at the right hand of the victor. That was Elizabeth's belief, and it was the belief of the commanders of her fleet, many of whom were pirates by profession and all the more skilful for that. When she first heard the news that the Armada had been sighted off the coast of Devon, she had retired into her oratory and prayed for a few moments. She had asked God to give her victory, without arguing or promising, and allowed herself to hope He was interested in the outcome and prepared to intervene. Then she sent for Leicester and Burleigh and Lord Howard of Effingham, who was her cousin on her mother's side and the Admiral in command of all her ships.

They were announced within a few minutes, and Burleigh hobbled in on his stick, followed by Leicester looking every day of his age, his fine figure running to flesh, and the grey hairs showing in his beard. The tall dark sailor, Howard of Effingham, came last. They bowed and kissed her hand, and Leicester helped her into a chair and stood beside it.

Elizabeth spoke first to the Admiral:

“What is the latest news of the Spanish fleet?”

“They are sailing slowly towards Plymouth, Madam. They're heavy ships and well loaded; they can't make much speed and the wind has dropped. That was my last report.”

“And our own ships?”

The Admiral frowned. He wished the Queen would leave the conduct of the war to her captains; he also wished that she did not know so much about sea tactics. The fleet was in Plymouth harbour, and the last he had heard from a messenger who had ridden through the night, was a disturbing account of near chaos when the Armada was first sighted. If the Spanish Commander sailed into Plymouth and engaged in a close attack, his superior armaments would blow the small English fleet out of the water. The order to draw anchor and scatter into the open sea had come as a surprise, and many of the heavier ships had fouled each other's lines and drifted into a dangerous bottleneck near the harbour mouth. He did not yet know whether they had got out, or whether the Duke of Medina Sidonia had seen his opportunity and altered course to engage them.

“Well?” Elizabeth spoke sharply. “Where are they?”

“In Plymouth harbour, Madam.”

“If they're caught there, they'll be blown to pieces and we will have nothing to stop the Spaniards from embarking Alva's troops and landing them at Dover! What the devil are the captains doing? Are they asleep down there—tell Drake and Hawkins that if Medina Sidonia catches them sitting like a flock of geese in Plymouth, they'd better sink with their own ships, for I'll hang them at Plymouth dock!”

“They are all men of experience, Madam,” Burleigh interrupted. “You can leave your defence in their hands; from our reports on the Spanish Commander it's unlikely he will alter course and disobey his instructions. He has been told to go to the Channel and anchor near Dunkirk to take on the invasion troops. He's not a seaman, and I feel sure he will do as he's been told. We have little to fear.”

“I've always found it dangerous to rely too much upon your enemy's stupidity to save you from your own mistakes,” Elizabeth snapped at him, and then she glared at Lord Howard of Effingham. She felt the slight pressure of Leicester's hand upon her shoulder, trying to calm her, and angrily pulled her arm away.

“I am anxious, gentlemen, and not just for myself. Lord Howard, you and your captains are responsibile for the safety of the whole country, for the lives of thousands of my people, apart from my own. It is a heavy burden, but it is a feather compared to the load I bear. My life is nothing—I'd lay it down tomorrow if it would save England from becoming a part of the Empire of Spain. If I wore breeches instead of a skirt, my questions would seem perfectly natural. Send word to Plymouth, my Lord; tell the fleet that England and the Queen depend upon them.”

“I will do better, Madam. I'll deliver the message myself. If the Armada sails round the coast and goes into the Channel we will follow them. My plan is to engage them continuously; with that load and the tonnage of the ships themselves, we should be able to outmanoeuvre them and beat them in a running sea fight. This is agreed between all the captains, and I swear to God, Madam, I'll bring you the victory or I won't come back myself.”

He bent over her thin hand and kissed it. He was a rough man, without sentiment or scruples, powerful enough to profess himself a Roman Catholic and loyal enough to enjoy the Queen's confidence in spite of it. He had spent most of his life at sea, and he was irritated with her interference; at the same time he admired her grasp of a situation which they both knew to be in favour of the enemy. She was extraordinarily courageous; there were no womanly tears and flutterings for her own safety and she looked so frail and drawn that his heart was touched and his weatherbeaten face turned red. She was the Queen and she never let anyone else forget it for a moment, but she was also his kin, and he was more personally attached to her than he would admit.

When he had left she turned to Burleigh.

“What is the mood in the City of London?”

The Minister smiled.

“Confident and loyal, and ready to fight. Offers of money have been coming in from every Guild and Livery, and the citizens are arming. The churches have been full since early this morning. When I came here there were couriers from the midlands and the east, all telling the same tale. If Alva lands here, which God forbid, every man able to hold a sword will come out into the streets to fight for you.”

It was amazing to Burleigh that, after so many years and so many upheavals, the Queen was more popular than she had ever been. He had underestimated the power of her hold upon the common people of the country; for now the clever speeches and the exhausting, costly progresses through towns and villages were showing their true value. They knew her by sight, and the many personal contacts she had made were rallying them to her when fear of Spain and a disinclination to part with their money and expose themselves to risk might have seriously weakened her authority. It was true to say that there was no peace party; there was not one dissentient group prepared to throw the Queen to her enemies and make a separate treaty with Philip, and he thanked God over and over again that Mary Stuart was not alive to rally those few Catholics still at liberty. And they were few indeed, with the exception of Howard of Effingham who was the Queen's man first and a Catholic afterwards, every notable Catholic or suspected Catholic had been arrested days ago.

“Let it be known that I share their confidence,” she said. “There must be no panic anywhere. You must help me draft a proclamation and have it circulated throughout the country. We'll do that later this evening. I shall show myself at the first opportunity and I shall also visit my troops. If they are going to die for me, they should know what I look like. And know that I'm not skulking in some inland fortress while I send them out to shed their blood.”

“I will come back in two hours, if that pleases you, Madam.” Burleigh took her hand and after he had kissed it, bending with some difficulty, the Queen gave his an affectionate squeeze.

“You've got a grey beard and a gouty foot, but you're as brave as any man I know,” she said. “Be of good heart, my friend, Philip won't feed you to the flames, nor poor Robert, either.”

She looked up at Leicester and nudged him.

“I know how my Navy and my cities are faring; now I want to hear about the Army. Come back in two hours, Burleigh.”

When she was alone with Robert, she sighed and leant back against the chair as if she were exhausted.

“Come and sit beside me.”

He went to the other side of the room and poured out a glass of wine and gave it to her. In the last two years they had both been ill, and she allowed him to bully her about her food and lack of sleep, and agreed to leave the dancing and music she loved when he insisted that she was tired, but he had never been able to curtail the hours she spent on governing, or to take a single State paper, however unimportant, out of her hands. When he was ill, he was subjected to every remedy Elizabeth could think of, supervised like a child and surrounded by fussing doctors who had been made answerable for his recovery to the Queen herself. They cosseted and cared for each other and reacted with terror to the slightest threat of illness. It was unthinkable that she should die, because he would not know how to exist without her, and the idea of death and Robert reduced Elizabeth to hysteria with worry. They sat together like an ageing man and wife, their hands entwined, symbolizing the bondage of two lonely people who had nothing but each other. It had been true of Elizabeth for several years, and it was true of Robert, too. His wife, gay, voluptuous, tender Lettice Essex for whom he had risked so much, was still gay and still voluptuous, and she had slowly tired of a husband whose duties kept him at Court and whose energies were vitiated by the demands made upon him by the Queen. She had always been jealous and she had been in love with him for a remarkable length of time in view of her character, but eventually she discovered that she was no longer irritated and anxious when Robert was away, and no longer excited and eager when they were together. She was still young and handsome, with an undiminished appetite for the pleasures of life. Robert was too tired and too obsessed with the Queen to give them to her, and she was now the mistress of Sir Charles Blount.

At that moment his personal disillusionment was very far from Leicester's mind. He had been working day and night, snatching a few hours of sleep and eating where he worked, in a desperate attempt to arm and organize the army gathered at Tilbury. He understood the problems of provisioning and transport and he had gained some military experience in a short-lived expedition to the Netherlands some years before, but he knew that an engagement with Alva's troops would be tantamount to suicide. Since they had heard that the Armada had left Spain, he had felt as if he were living through a nightmare; it was all the more unreal because Elizabeth had been foretelling it almost since her accession and he had begun to think it would never be an actuality.

The Spanish galleons were enormous; English spies had compared them to floating fortresses; he knew very little about seamanship but something about gunnery and he could not imagine how they could possibly be sunk. He did not know the quality of his own untrained troops, and he thought of Alva and the Spanish halberdiers and pikemen, and the strength of the Spanish artillery, and he could see nothing ahead of them all but defeat.

“Don't be so anxious,” Elizabeth said quietly. “I don't want to hear about the Army. I know that you've done your best with what you have, Robert.”

“They have too few arms and no experience, but they don't lack courage. None of them will desert you whatever the odds.”

“I know that.” She looked at him suddenly. “I also know that you are losing hope. You see all the odds against us, and none in our favour.”

“I haven't your faith in a gang of pirates and a few ships. I'd sooner we had a strong army and matched the Spaniards here in the field.”

“Many things can win or lose a battle, and the English are better seamen than soldiers. They'll fight all the harder for knowing that Philip will have every man of them hanged if they lose; he hasn't forgotten Cadiz, or the treasure ships we took from him.”

“It will go hard with all of us if he wins,” Leicester said slowly.

“It will indeed. He will put me to death, and you and Burleigh and most of the Council. But he is not going to win, Robert.” She stood up suddenly. “I did not kill the Queen of Scots and execute so many of my own subjects just to give England to Philip at the end of it all. He is not going to win, and his ships will never anchor in an English port. That is what I believe and what I command you to believe with me. I shall go down to Tilbury and address your troops; I shall show them that I am not afraid of Philip. And by God, I'm not any longer!”

“You think God will give us the victory?” he asked. He had begun to take an interest in religion; it quieted his mind.

“I think we will take it for ourselves,” the Queen answered.

“If we win, it will be because of you,” he said.