Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (78 page)

a grim hole at the far end of the Torture Chamber in the bowels of the

Tower, so built that a man could neither stand nor lie full length. Sunk in

utter darkness, crouched in the foul reek of their own filth, men had gone

blind and raving mad in Little Ease, reduced to poor gibbering wrecks,

covered from head to foot with lice and sores. And Edward Campion had

once been their trusted friend—

“How long has he been there?” she asked furiously.

Leicester swallowed and looked out of the window.

“Four days—so Walsingham said.”

“
Four days
! By God, I’ll break that damned Puritan’s neck!”

Leicester caught her hand as she moved to walk past him.

“You can’t blame Walsingham, madam—he’s only doing his job—and

doing it well, you have to admit.”

She compressed her lips with rage. “Yes! Thanks to him my prisons

have never been so busy, nor my streets so full of gibbets—and that

shrivelled spider gloats over every new victim, I swear he does. Well,

he won’t add Campion to his list—I shall write out an order for his

immediate release.”

“Madam, you know that can’t be done unless he recants and forswears

the Pope’s authority—do you want riots in the streets?”

Elizabeth sank on to the window-seat and bit her lip. He was right

of course—Parliament would expect her to make an example of such a

famous man. After a moment she looked up uncertainly.

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“Suppose we were to see him—you and I as old friends. Suppose

we persuade him to affirm his loyalty by one attendance at a Protestant

service—”

“Yes—yes, by God, you’re right, madam! Even Walsingham would

admit it’s worth a try for a man of such public standing.”

She stood up and the sunlight turned her curls to burnished copper.

“I don’t give a damn for Walsingham’s opinion—or even Burghley’s

in this instance! If Campion yields just one iota to show his good faith,

he can say Mass in St. Paul’s Cathedral for all I care! How soon can you

arrange the meeting, Robin?”

Leicester frowned and examined the watch which hung on a golden

chain around his neck.

“Well—he can’t be brought to court. It would have to be my house

in the Strand—say this evening?—and there would have to be witnesses

of course—Burghley and one or two other members of the Council.”

She nodded and touched his arm with gratitude.

“See to it then. And when he recants, I’ll bring him back to court in

my own barge.”

For a moment Leicester regarded her steadily in the harsh July sunlight,

disquieted by her sudden optimism. Campion had been a member of his

own household. He had known the man very well before his defection

to Rome, rather more closely than the Queen had, and what he remem-

bered most vividly about him was his absolute integrity and stubborn

sense of right. Suddenly, in Leicester’s own eyes, the outcome seemed

frankly less than hopeful.

“Madam,” he began slowly, “if we fail to move him in his resolution,

pardon will be out of the question. The Catholics will take it as a sign of

weakness and that is the last thing we dare to show at the moment. You

do understand that, don’t you?”

She turned her head away from him and looked out of the window.

“When I want Walsingham’s advice I will hear it from his lips,” she

said curtly. “Go now and make the necessary arrangements.”

He bowed and left her.

t t t

The hours that Campion had spent cramped in a space rather less generous

than a coffin would afford had bent and stiffened his joints. He stumbled

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when they dragged him out and poured cold water over his naked body,

scraping the caked filth from his skin. Dried and dressed in rags, he was

bundled into the waiting barge, bent double between his guards like an

old man, and he blinked in the cool dusk of the summer evening as the

plain prison barge floated down the dirty river.

They landed at the water stairs among a flurry of swans and he looked

up at the great house silhouetted against the clear sky, the roof rising in

four gables, terminating at the eastern end in a battlemented tower which

made the building resemble a church. Campion felt a wave of shock flood

through him. Leicester’s town house! Surely he was not to be granted the

privilege of seeing his old friend and patron after all this!

As he mounted the stairway, his reeling senses recorded the fleeting,

familiar glimpses of portraits and furniture and the smooth, polished wood

of the banisters beneath his gaunt fingers. At the top of the staircase, the

heavy double doors swung open before him and momentarily he was

dazzled by the blaze of candles from the room within. At last his eyes

focused on a small group of soberly clad gentlemen standing around an

oak table, equipped with pen and ink. Beyond them he saw Leicester

and beside him, in absolute disbelief, he recognised the Queen, dressed

in black satin blazing with diamonds, a fantastic stiffened ruff framing

her thin face. He noted that the blazing hair was a wig, the face a mask

of skilfully applied paint, and he was reminded of a wax effigy. She no

longer looked quite real and he failed to identify the gay, laughing woman

who had dazzled him with her attention more than fifteen years before.

Leicester, too, he scarcely recognised with his silver-grey hair, ruddy face,

and considerable girth, the penalty of too many years of good living and

unrestrained indulgence at the table. He felt a little shock of pity for them

both, two glittering but jaded personalities who had lost their immortal

souls for a ride on fortune’s wheel.

The Queen came a step towards him and held out a long pale hand

which shimmered with huge gems in the candlelight; as he knelt to

kiss it, he closed his eyes and felt time roll back in his feverish memory

fifteen years…

Hot sunlight playing on the stately stone buildings of Christchurch,

church bells pealing in mad welcome, the high-pitched Latin paean of

young boys’ voices:

Vivat Regina! Vivat Regina
!

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Susan Kay

Edmund Campion had shouted as loud as anyone in that crowd for the

red-haired Queen whose reputation as a scholar was a byword in Oxford.

Leicester lifted her down from the litter and the President of Magdalen

College, that notorious Puritan, hurried forward to kiss her hand. She

smiled her charming smile and admired his outfit.

“Loose gowns become you, Doctor—how sad that your opinions

should be so narrow.”

A ripple of laughter ran through the students as her words were picked

up, repeated, and passed on, and Campion had been close enough to see

the hated President blush hotly. The Queen’s eyes, dancing with sly and

subtle humour, had made the young man burn with desire to capture her

amused attention.

Later, in the long round of intellectual debates, his chance came. He

had prepared a brilliant paper on the influence of the moon upon the tides

and all the time he spoke he was aware of those eyes upon him, keen

with interest. When he had finished she smiled and beckoned him to her

side, where the Earl of Leicester still stood, tall, magnificently dressed,

flat-stomached as an athlete.

“You speak too well, sir, to be lost among this crowd again. Robin, surely you

can find a place for him?”

“It would be a pleasure, madam.”

“And your name, sir?”

“Edmund Campion, madam—Your Majesty’s most loyal and devoted servant.”

“Edmund Campion, do you acknowledge me as your Queen?” The

panelled room rushed back into his sight. The Queen’s voice was harder

and harsher than he remembered it, as though the long years had worn

away some of its musical intonation. Looking up into her face he saw she

no longer had laughing eyes.

“I acknowledge you as my Queen.” He paused, and added firmly, “As

my lawful Queen.”

“Then it is not your belief that the Pope may lawfully excommunicate

and depose me?” she continued eagerly.

His eyes flickered but did not leave her face.

“Madam, it is not for me to judge between Your Majesty and His

Holiness.”

She sighed and made a quick movement to still Lord Burghley who had

leaned forward to ask the vital question upon which the man’s life hung.

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“Campion, long ago I believe we were friends. My lord of Leicester

showed you great favour, did he not?”

“He did indeed, madam, and I was deeply grateful for it.”

“Your gratitude has taken a strange form—defection to Rome—

treason,” she said softly.

“Madam, there has never been any treason in my heart. I am a priest.

My mission is to save souls, not to engage in seditious activities.”

His eyes as they rested on her face were gentle and humorous,

and even now she could not quite see them as those of a fanatic or a

martyr. So much wit and humour in that rather gallant frame would

have brought him the Presidency of St. John’s, if not a bishopric in

the English Church, had not his sudden and unlooked for defection to

Rome ruined a promising career, making him an outcast and a fugitive

in his native land. If he recanted now he would be a trophy for the

Protestant Church. His example would weaken the roots of the entire

Jesuit mission and prove that more could be gained by reason and bribery

than by harsh, repressive laws which shed the blood of the guilty and the

innocent without distinction.

“Lord Burghley will ask you one question,” she said gently. “Think

well before you answer.”

The question, a device of Burghley’s, was to earn the title of “the

bloody question” because there was no reasonable answer that could

satisfy both the demands of the state and the demands of the Roman faith.

Burghley cleared his throat and Campion turned to look at him with

quiet respect, then bowed his head.

“If the Pope should send an army to depose Her Majesty, Edmund

Campion—what would you do?”

There was a pause, a moment of breathless stillness in the evening air.

“My lord, I would do as God should give me grace.”

Burghley grunted and pressed his lips together in vexation at time

wasted on a fool. The man had signed his own death warrant and as far

as Burghley was concerned there was no more to be said. Instinctively

he began to tidy the papers on the desk before him and had opened his

mouth to summon the guards, when the Queen shook her head and held

up her hand in a quick, commanding gesture.

“One moment, my lord. Rise, Campion, and look at me.”

He did as he was bidden and she held out both her hands to him once

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more. Automatically he knelt at her feet, pressing her fingers fervently to

his lips as though in mute apology.

“You mean me no harm, I know that, but you must recognise the

threat you present to the English Church and through that, the state.

I have a proposition to make to you and I hope you will listen.” Over

Campion’s head she saw Burghley stir indignantly and ignored him,

concentrating all her will and all her charm on the man who knelt at

her feet. “All I ask is that you show your goodwill publicly by attending

one Protestant service. I give you my word it need only be one and that

you will be free to worship as you please after that, in total freedom.

Campion, I believe you to be a good and gentle man. I am asking you to

prevent bloodshed in this land we both love.”

She was clever, he admitted that, very, very clever, and the quiet,

sane, pleading voice brought him to the very brink of spiritual chaos. It

would be so easy to do what she wanted in the spirit of self-justification,

to bend a little to the wind of necessity, and say—
What does it really

matter
?
Just once! Just once, she said, and looked at him almost tenderly,

as though she really cared, with just enough weariness in her eyes to

make him ashamed of laying yet another burden on her shoulders. She

knew exactly how to play on a man’s feelings; she was not ashamed of

emotional blackmail and he could feel himself sliding effortlessly into her

trap, lured to the rocks by a siren’s voice.

He opened his mouth to agree and closed it again, seeing the rocks on

which his soul would be torn asunder just in time. He would not barter his

place in Heaven to buy a little extra time on earth and spend it in comfort.

“Madam, forgive me,” he said gently. “I cannot do as you ask.”

She withdrew her hands from his and let them fall into her lap in

despair as the summer evening darkened steadily beyond the tall case-

ments. The reasons of state and the reasons of faith had met and clashed

and fallen apart, irreconcilable. Campion, like Sir Thomas More in her

father’s day, remained the Queen’s good servant—but God’s first. There