Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (87 page)

For six weeks Davison had hung around the Queen’s apartments

waiting for this summons and, as he hared back through Greenwich Park,

it crossed his mind that it was entirely typical of her to send this summons

when he was snatching his first spell of air and exercise for many days. He

had been caught napping and he had the terrified suspicion that by the

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time he reached her presence she would use this unforgivable delay as an

excuse to send him packing. The Council would skin him alive!

“But I wasn’t to know,” he argued furiously with himself. “I wasn’t

to know—I’m not a mind reader, damn it!” He rushed into his closet,

grabbed the warrant and a handful of other papers requiring her signature

and bolted down the corridors, like a mouse in a maze.

He arrived in the Queen’s room, red-faced, sweating and out of

breath, expecting abuse; but to his astonishment she turned from her

quiet contemplation of the gardens and welcomed him gaily.

“Good morning, William.” She smiled sunnily at his hat which he had

forgotten he still wore and he flushed scarlet as he snatched it off. “Such

a lovely day—I see you have been out.”

“A short walk in the park,” he managed to gasp.

“Ah yes, exercise—” She seated herself calmly at her desk and held out

her hand for the papers. “Exercise is a cure for all ills. I believe physic to

be false and unnatural to the human body.”

There was something very terrible in this easy good humour after all

those weeks of tortured indecision and he entertained a fleeting suspicion

that her mind was unbalanced. She began to sign the papers without

looking, chattering all the time like a magpie.
And there was the warrant!

Her pen flew over the surface, adding that twirling, fantastic signature and

she tossed the paper on to the floor at the side of her desk.

There was a long moment of deadly silence before she looked up

at him.

“Are you aware of what has just occurred, Davison?”

He swallowed nervously, unable to take his eyes off the paper on

the floor.

“Fully aware, Your Majesty.”

“And are you not heartily sorry to see it done at last?”

“I am sorry for the necessity, madam.” His voice was quaking. Why

had Walsingham had to take to his bed now of all times and leave him,

poor unsubtle Davison, to handle this momentous issue? “But, of course,

not to see Your Majesty take the honourable course,” he added hastily.

Again that terrifying smile flashed at him and made him shiver invol-

untarily. She signed the rest of the papers without a murmur and then

glanced down at the warrant on the floor, frowning at it as though in an

effort to recall what it was.

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“Take that to the Lord Chancellor for sealing, as secretly as you can,

Davison, but be sure you show it to Walsingham first—the joy of it will

probably kill him outright.”

He was suddenly very anxious to get away from her dreadful levity

and as he bowed and backed towards the door, he heard her begin to talk

feverishly to herself.

“It’s done—it’s done at last—but I never desired it—all my friends

know how it grieves me—yes, they all know—I would have thought by

now that one of them—”

His hand touched the door handle.

“Wait!”

Slowly, reluctantly, he crept back to her desk, dreading what he might

hear. She looked up and pinned him with a steely glance.

“I consider it a remarkable thing that those who guard her have not

seen fit to ease me of this burden—”

“Madam—I beseech you—”

“Go to Walsingham.” Her voice was suddenly as cold and hard as a

snap of ice. “Together you will write to Paulet and tell him to shorten the

life of this Scottish Queen in private.”

“But, madam.” He gesticulated in wild despair. “This is neither

honourable nor wise.”

“Wiser men than you have suggested it,” she snapped angrily. “You

will write to Paulet, do you understand? And from now until it is done I

wish to hear no more about it.”

t t t

Paulet sat in his icy room and fingered Walsingham’s letter in horrified

amazement. Paulet was hard and cruel and far from clever, but he was not

a fool. He had no personal regard for the Queen of Scots, but had had a

very healthy regard for his own life; and he had a shrewd suspicion what

the reward for obedience would be in this case. The role of scapegoat was

not one that particularly appealed to him.

He took up his pen and wrote with self-righteous regret that he could

under no circumstances “make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience as

to shed blood without law or warrant,” neatly passing the responsibility

back to his Queen.

t t t

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Davison flapped out of the Queen’s room and rushed to Sir Christopher

Hatton’s apartments in a fine twitter of nerves.

“Sir—sir, I need your advice.”

Hatton was alert immediately.

“What’s amiss?”

“The Queen—the Queen, sir. I was with her just now. ‘Is the

warrant sealed?’ she asks. ‘Why yes, madam,’ I replied. ‘Jesus, why all

this haste!’ says she—I’m afraid, sir, I’m very much afraid of what she

really intends—and—and of how it affects me. I recall the late Duke of

Norfolk’s execution and her animosity towards those who urged it upon

her. My shoulders are too weak to hear such a burden alone—I beseech

your assistance with the Council.”

Hatton smiled faintly and reached for his ivory cane.

“I understand, my friend. You have done well to bring this matter so

far, but I think it is time the warrant was laid in Lord Burghley’s hands.

Come—we will go now.”

Burghley stared at the warrant on the table before him. It took him

just five minutes to make the most momentous decision in his career, five

minutes during which he remembered that moment when he had bowed

before her and sworn that he was hers to command in all things.

Just see that you remember that, my friend. At all times.

He recalled the curious quiver of fear which he had felt as she spoke. It

was almost as though she had foreseen this very moment when he would

be in a position to usurp her authority in a manner both unprecedented

and cavalier. But surely this was what she was waiting for him to do. And

after all, it was not the first time he had staked his career on a hunch by

sending a woman to her death. A great deal passed through the complex

corridors of Burghley’s mind during those endless minutes of hesitation,

but at the end of them his decision was firm and unshakeable. He knew

what had to be done now; and he sent out a secret summons to all the

available members of the Privy Council.

The next morning, tense and expectant, eight men trooped into his

private room and took their seats. There was a portentous silence as

Burghley rose stiffly to his feet and addressed the little gathering.

“My lords, the Queen has done her part in signing the warrant, all

indeed that the law requires to make the execution legal. But
despatching

it, gentlemen, as I am sure you are all aware, is a very different matter and

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one which could take considerable time. Time we do not have. I am sure

you all understand how easily a change of mind could take place.” The

cool eyes swept round all those watching faces. “Here is the warrant.” He

flourished the document from which dangled the Great Seal of England.

“For my own part, gentlemen, I see no reason to trouble Her Majesty

further with details of procedure. I therefore propose that we should all

take responsibility for despatching the warrant without delay.”

The response to Burghley’s remarkable proposal was a unanimous

agreement that no man would inform the Queen of their action until the

deed was accomplished. Talking quietly among themselves, the council-

lors drifted out to take dinner, but Leicester lingered in Burghley’s room,

absently kicking a log in the hearth and sending a shower of sparks into

the chimney.

Burghley watched him cautiously from the security of his armchair.

“Well,” said the Earl at last, staring bleakly into the flames, “I only

hope we’ve done the right thing.”

“If you had any doubts, Leicester, you should have voiced them at

the appropriate time,” retorted Burghley coolly. “I hope I don’t need to

remind you of your commitment to this undertaking. It would take more

than thirty pieces of silver to buy your way out of this, I assure you!”

Leicester sighed; he seemed too distracted to take offence at that

unkind snipe against his integrity.

“I advised secret murder, did you know?” he mused quietly. “I hear

from Davison that she took my advice, after all. Don’t you think—”

Burghley frowned. “Paulet will never agree—he knows he would

shoulder the blame for it. And for precisely that same reason we’ll never

get an assassin of our own past his guardianship. Put it out of your mind,

Leicester—it’s much better the honourable way.”

“
Honourable
!” Leicester turned to look at him ironically. “You call

sending it behind her back honourable? I hardly think that will be her

choice of word.”

“We’re all in this together,” Burghley insisted steadily, “and a united

front will be our shield against her anger.”

Leicester shook his head sombrely.

“There’s no shield in all the world that will protect you after this, my

friend. I’d hazard a rough guess and say it will probably mean the end of

your career.”

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Burghley smiled faintly. “Yes—you’d like that wouldn’t you,

Leicester? Old grievances die hard even after all these years. But whatever

the outcome I shall always stand by my decision. The Queen’s life must

be preserved at any cost.”

Leicester turned from the fire and looked at him squarely.

“Even at the cost of her sanity?”

Burghley looked away uncomfortably.

“It won’t come to that.”

“Won’t it? I wish I was so sure. She worries me, Burghley, I think

we’ve pushed her too far. Oh, Christ, man, can’t you see how unstable

she is? The news of this could send her right over the edge. Are you

happy to face Philip with the Queen incapable of active government? Do

you think we’d stand a chance without her?”

“You could be wrong,” insisted Burghley doggedly. “Will you answer

for her life if you are?”

Leicester turned away abruptly. It was an impossible choice.

“I pray that I
am
wrong,” he said dully. “I pray for it more than anything

else in this world. And if I were you, Burghley, I would start praying too,

night and day, until the moment comes when she has to be told.”

t t t

In the Great Hall of Fotheringay Castle there was silence as Mary Stuart

knelt before the wooden block, her eyes blindfolded and buried deep

in a black cushion. She had behaved throughout the ceremony with all

the tragic composure of a Druid sacrifice and her dignity had awed the

hostile crowd to the point of breathless reverence. She had repented her

crimes, large and small, she had forgiven her enemies and made her peace

with God during that endless February night when she had knelt at her

prie-dieu until dawn. She had meant to die like a saint in the eyes of man

and God, but now in the all-engulfing darkness, waiting for that final act,

her mind reached not out to Heaven, but to Hell.

Such a small thing really, but it had robbed her of her inward compo-

sure and made her last moment on this earth one of overwhelming

hatred. In her natural pride she had taken it for granted that she would

be despatched from this life, as befitted her rank, by the mercifully swift

caress of a sharp sword. But in less than a second her head would be

severed by the common headsman’s axe which she had seen waiting,

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half concealed in the straw which covered the scaffold. For that and for

that alone she vowed eternal vengeance on the woman she imagined had

ordered it out of spite.

Dear God…give me grace to haunt her all the rest of her days!

The words were stifled in the black velvet of the cushion and before

the last syllable had died on her trembling lips the axe had fallen. Three

times it arched through the still air, hacking with all the clumsy butchery

she had dreaded, before Mary’s head at last rolled away from her body.

The executioner grasped the head by the hair and swung it aloft, only to

find himself grasping an empty chestnut wig. Grey-haired and smeared

with blood, the head rolled across the scaffold like some hideous ball and

a gasp of horror went up from the spectators, for the eyes were open and

the lips—it was plainly seen—the lips were still moving. From beneath her

red skirts Mary’s little terrier crept whimpering and came to cower in the

pool of blood between the head and the slumped body. For a long time