Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (85 page)

am held in chains. I have no counsel. You have deprived me of my papers

and all means of preparing my defence…”

This had begun to go rather well. Several of the commissioners began

to look shaken and ill at ease, but Burghley and Walsingham held the

trial with a firm rein and swamped sympathy with raucous argument.

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It became a personal duel between Mary and the cold, white-bearded

gentleman who had stood behind her rival for thirty years—the formi-

dable little figure of William Cecil.

“Ah, you,” sobbed Mary at last, “you are my adversary!”

“That is true,” said Burghley with superb calm. “I am the adversary of

all Queen Elizabeth’s adversaries—”

Fearful of the verdict that would be taken at Fotheringay, Elizabeth

ordered the Commission back to London to finish their business in the

Star Chamber. At the end of October, unable to influence the outcome,

she received her sombre foremost councillors in silence.

“And the verdict?”

“Guilty, Your Majesty.”

Her eyes flickered a moment over their faces.

“Was the decision unanimous, gentlemen?”

“Unanimous save for one voice—Lord Zouche declared himself still

unsatisfied as to the guilt of the Scottish Queen.”

Lord Zouche was a brave young man. She wished she had the courage

to say she shared his doubts, but she dared not test their loyalty so far.

She turned away and slowly they filed out, until only Burghley remained,

hovering at her side like a bird of prey.

“Forgive me, madam—but we are all agreed that her sentencing

should be handled now by Parliament.”

So they were bringing in their ultimate weapon, secure in the knowl-

edge that she could not hold out against the demands of the Commons.

“
Parliament
!” she echoed dully.

Burghley lifted his hunched shoulders.

“The burden will be better shared, madam—and the world’s opinion

better satisfied. I strongly advise that the writs go out at once for assembly

next month.”

“Hold your damned Parliament then if you must,” she spat, and

walked out of the room. In the doorway she threw over her shoulder

bitterly, “But don’t expect me to open it, will you?”

And she did not.

t t t

Along the mud-sloughed roads Leicester rode on the last stage of his

journey to court, his mind full of the disasters from which his urgent

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recall to England had snatched him in temporary respite. A hopeless cata-

logue of military skirmishings designed to threaten the Duke of Parma’s

minor garrisons had culminated in the mad charge he had led at Zutphen.

He had fought like a madman on that field and his dreams still dripped

blood and the bitter memory of his brave nephew, Philip Sidney, dying

of the savage wounds received that day. He wondered how he was going

to face the Queen, what he was going to say to explain away the dreary

cycle of failure which had hounded his every move. It had been hard to

keep his mind on military action once he knew from Walsingham what

was afoot in England. He had begged to be recalled immediately, but the

Queen had insisted he remained at his post until the conduct of his affairs

was satisfactorily arranged.

Now as he turned into the courtyard and swung down from his

horse, he wondered what kind of reception he could expect. Abuse?

Recriminations? Demands for an accurate account of his expenses? It was

more than a year since he had seen her and there were many young men

at court only too eager to step into his shoes during his absence—that

virile toad Raleigh, for one, would have wasted no time, he was certain

of that. And Hatton, too, would have been making hay while the sun

shone. It was this uncertainty of his reception which had prompted him

to bring his step-son, the young Earl of Essex, back to court with him.

If she must smile on another man let it be Essex rather than Raleigh.

He could control Essex for as long as the boy remained his financial

dependant, but since his sojourn in the Netherlands, his fear of Raleigh

had become obsessive—

By the time he had stripped and washed his muddy face and dressed

again, the formal summons to the Queen’s presence had arrived. He

went nervously along the corridors, limping a little under the burden of

increasing obesity, and the combination of speed and anxiety caused him

to mop his red face with a handkerchief. He was bitterly aware that the

strains of the last year had not improved his physique. What would she

think when she saw him at last, a bloated old man with receding white

hair, who had failed her miserably?

He had expected a formal audience, but to his surprise he was shown

into her withdrawing chamber and her women, evidently on her instruc-

tions, immediately curtsied and withdrew, leaving them alone. For a brief

moment, before he bowed, he looked into her ravaged face and was

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shocked at the change in her; like him she appeared to have aged ten years

in the last twelve months.

All his carefully rehearsed excuses went out of his head, and he held

out his arms to her like a schoolboy.

“Will you kiss the conquered hero?” he demanded jauntily. “Or make

him live on bread and water to pay for his miserable failures first?”

She walked up to him, keeping a tight hold of herself, and poked him

ungently in the stomach.

“Bread and water wouldn’t come amiss, would they—what on earth

have you done to yourself out there, you bloated toad?”

He kissed her thin hand impudently. “I’ve been eating for two,

madam, since it’s damned obvious you haven’t been—you promised to

eat while I was gone.”

She smiled suddenly. “And
you
promised not to.”

He shrugged. “Well—a lot of promises have gone under the bridge

since then.” He took both her hands and put them around his neck and

saw the happy tears brimming in her eyes at last.

“Oh, Robin,” she whispered against his doublet. “Thank God you’ve

come home safely.”

“You should have let me come before,” he said gruffly, holding her

close. “How do you think I felt all those miles away from you, knowing

the danger you were in—I should have been here—”

“You’re here now,” she said. “That’s all that matters.”

He grimaced slightly. “Here to face my critics—I imagine there are

quite a few of them waiting to tear my campaign to pieces.”

She looked up into his lined face and said angrily, “If they’ve got

anything to say they can say it to me—I’d like to see the man among

them who could have done any better. Anyway, you won’t be here to

face them—I’m sending you straight to Buxton to take the waters.”

“Then—you don’t need me at court?” There was an anxious note in

his voice suddenly and she touched his face.

“It’s precisely because I need you with me that I’m sending you away.

It frightens me to see you looking so ill. When you come back, I shall

need all the support you can give me, Robin. They found her guilty—

you know that by now, I suppose—they’re going to try to force my hand

at last.”

He said nothing. He had come back to England for the precise

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purpose of joining his voice to those of his colleagues who were urging

her to sign Mary’s death warrant; but somehow it did not seem the

appropriate moment to tell her that. She appeared to be under the

impression that he was going to help her to make a stand against them

all and there would be time enough for her to learn over the next few

weeks that she was wrong.

t t t

Stone walls shut out the outside world, enclosing Mary in a strange

serenity. The pealing bells and heartfelt psalm-singing, which had greeted

the news of her trial and sentence all over London, could not penetrate

Fotheringay’s grim silence.

She had watched indifferently from a doorway while Paulet ripped

down her cloth of estate, because in law she was a dead woman and

unworthy of such trappings. Her calm smiles and idle speeches infuriated

the humourless Puritan; he could sting her neither to fear nor anger, and

his futility mocked him. In the bare stone patch where the cloth of estate

had stood, she hung a cross and pictures of the Passion. She would not be

troubled much longer by Paulet’s spite; she had only a few weeks left to

live and she did not wish to mar them with futile outrage.

Approaching death with the peaceful resignation of one who has

knowingly taken a fatal gamble and lost, she had no regrets at her rejec-

tion of Elizabeth’s promise of leniency. A proud and noble martyrdom,

for the sake of her faith, was better than a shameful life lived out in

prison as the object of Europe’s contempt. She would leave this world

with spirit and courage and hope, glad of the merciful release for, “
In my

end is my beginning.”

It was her motto.

She wrote a restrained and dignified letter to Elizabeth, requesting

burial in France, thanking her for the priest who had been sent to comfort

her last days, and inquiring ironically whether Elizabeth wished her to

return a diamond, which had been the pledge of friendship between

them, now or later. But she finished on a note of quiet threat:

“Do not accuse me of presumption if I remind you that one day you

will have to answer for your charge, and for all those whom you doom…I

desire that my blood and my country may be remembered in that time.”

The letter was her last barb against her cousin but, in order to be

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permitted to send it at all, Paulet made her wipe her face with the sheets

of parchment to prove that they had not been lanced with poison.

If there was peace in the winter-bound world of Fotheringay, it was not

mirrored at Greenwich where revelry had ground to a halt and the corridors

were hung with whispers. The Queen made few appearances in public. She

was harried day and night by advisers, clamouring for her signature on the

death warrant, and had taken refuge in her private apartments.

The heavy velvet curtains of her withdrawing chamber were drawn

against the icy winter winds which buffeted the casements and she sat

close to the fire, laced into a heavy cloth of silver gown, chewing the

scarlet paint off her long nails and staring moodily at the carved and

gilded ceiling.

Her supper, untouched on a silver tray beside her, caught her attention

at last and made her clap her hands irritably.

“Take it away,” she said curtly.

As Elizabeth Throckmorton curtsied nervously and removed the

offending tray from the room, the Countess of Warwick laid her embroi-

dery aside with a frown and left her seat by the hearth to kneel at the

Queen’s feet.

“Madam—” Her voice was a stern reproach and Elizabeth looked

away guiltily.

“Tomorrow,” she muttered.

The Countess sighed and gripped her hand.

“You said that yesterday, madam—and not so much as a manchet of

bread has passed your lips all day. It can’t go on! Another week like this

and the only death warrant you will have signed is your own.”

Elizabeth freed her hand and stood up wearily.

“Burghley is waiting in the ante-room, Anne. Send him in, if you please.”

“I know where I’d
like
to send him,” said the Countess, getting with

difficulty to her feet. “It’s a disgrace the way they’re hounding you,

madam—Robert knows my mind on the matter, Lord knows I’ve made

it plain enough.”

The Queen smiled faintly. Leicester was Lady Warwick’s brother-in-

law and the Countess seldom gave him any quarter.

“Anne! You know he couldn’t stand against the entire Council in this.”

The Countess sniffed.

“When did he ever stand against anyone, begging your pardon, madam?”

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“I won’t have him maligned in my presence,” said the Queen sharply.

“He is not well.”

Lady Warwick curtsied with unruffled calm. She was a trusted friend

who knew her mistress well and was not afraid to speak her mind on any

subject.

She said with asperity, “I shall tell Goodrowse to prepare you a sleeping

draught,” and went to admit the old Lord Treasurer.

Burghley came into the room leaning heavily on his staff and snapped

his fingers to the Queen’s remaining women, signing them to leave. For

a moment he awaited Elizabeth’s angry reaction to his unprecedented

impertinence, but she was staring into the fire as though she had not

even noticed. Too exhausted to care, he thought quickly, and for once

his excitement outweighed his concern. If he ever had a chance to master

her will, it was now—

He surpassed himself with his own eloquence that night, and she

listened, supine in her chair, like a snake mesmerised by its charmer,