Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (90 page)

he had a fine sense of what was fitting. His enterprise would not be led

by a vulgar pirate, like Drake, but by the highest-ranking nobleman at

the court of Spain.

And let the Duke not fear the inadequacies of his own judgement—

he would not, at any stage, be called upon to use it! A weighty dossier

containing the King’s personal and meticulously detailed instructions

upon how to proceed at every point would accompany the Spanish

Admiral. And with God at his right hand, guiding the whole enterprise,

there would be nothing—
could
be nothing—but victory ahead.

With all the calm serenity of a fanatic, Philip considered the order of

procedure, the plan which could not fail. One hundred and fifty armed

ships would sail up the Channel, embark the Duke of Parma’s army at

Dunkirk, and land in England. The landing was all with which Medina

Sidonia need concern himself—Parma’s army would do the rest. Thirty

thousand of the most highly trained troops in the world would make a

butcher’s shop out of any battlefield the English chose to make a stand

upon; England was notorious for the poverty of her military defences.

Frowning slightly, Philip took a magnifying glass to Parma’s letter that

lay before him on the desk.

“…when we talked of taking England by surprise, we never thought of

less than thirty thousand. Now she is alert and ready for us and it is certain

that we must fight by sea and land, fifty thousand would be too few!”

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Even Parma! Everywhere the doubting Thomases, nowhere the encour-

aging word for what he knew in his heart to be so unquestionably right.

Was there no one in Europe who shared his faith in God’s obvious design?

And yet—he dabbed absently at the watery discharge which obscured

the vision of his inflamed eyes—and yet there might be something in

what Parma said.

A parrot cry of peace might induce England to abandon her

defensive preparations. In God’s actions there was no such thing as an

underhand trick.

Philip’s conscience was at peace as he wrote out orders to that effect.

t t t

“These negotiations are a smoke screen to blind us,” said Leicester furi-

ously. “Parma doesn’t want peace!”

“He doesn’t want war either,” remarked Elizabeth steadily, looking

up from the maps and muster sheets which crowded her table. “Not after

the wretched winter he’s just spent under canvas on short rations. He’s

lost fifty per cent of his army through disease and desertion. Would you

want war in his place?”

“No.” Leicester flushed and looked away suddenly. “But then I’m

not half the commander Parma is, nor shall I ever be. The man’s a mili-

tary genius.”

“Even a military genius can have his bellyful of delays and contradic-

tory instructions. Naturally I don’t trust the man’s real intentions. But if

I were dear brother Philip, I’d trust Parma’s loyalty even less. The peace

talks will continue until the last possible moment. If they fail—”

“
When
they fail!”

“Then we will fight.”

“With what may I ask, madam—an army full of raw recruits who

scarcely know one end of a pike from another?”

“They’ll have to land before it comes to that. I might ask you to

remember that the French call me the Queen of the Sea with good reason.”

“And I might ask you to remember that the Queen of the Sea decom-

missioned her fleet last July—why, God alone knows.”

Elizabeth tapped her pen ominously on the table top, frowning a little.

“Are you suggesting that I should have kept idle seamen on full pay

for over a year, waiting for a fleet which is still in harbour? Do you know

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what it costs to keep the fleet-in-being?” She made an impatient gesture

as he seemed about to reply. “No, you damn well don’t! Lord knows, you

can’t even keep your own household solvent. Twelve thousand pounds

a month those wooden sea-dragons devour—if I’d taken the advice of

panic-mongers like you, we’d be bankrupt by now.”

He stood his ground doggedly; he still insisted it was a suicidal risk

to take.

“A calculated risk,” she countered calmly. “All my contacts assured me

that I had a year’s grace after Drake’s raid. So what are you bellyaching

about? Time has proved me right, has it not?”

“You’re always right,” he said slowly, staring at her rather curiously,

“sometimes I almost think—”

He let the sentence trail and absently struck the enormous globe which

stood near the window, sending it spinning wildly.

When it came to rest, he found he was gazing full into the English

Channel.

“The fleet shouldn’t stay here like a flock of sitting ducks,” he grum-

bled. “I say let the captains put to sea and take the offensive.”

“The fleet stays here to defend the coast.”

She spoke without raising her eyes, intent on the document before

her, but her voice was categoric.

He fell silent. After a moment she became aware of his contemplative

gaze and looked up at him with a wry smile.

“And you need not look at me like that—I am in full possession of

my faculties.”

“Of course,” he said hastily. “How should it be otherwise?”

She met his gaze steadily, knowing that his memory had flown to the

previous year.

“It could have been otherwise,” she admitted softly, “but that is over,

Robin—over for good. Look at me. Am I not in command of myself now?”

The contours of his weathered face, ravaged by intermittent bouts of

ill-health, were suddenly softened by a gentle smile.

“In perfect command of us all, my Queen. And no difference of

opinion over battle tactics will ever shake my faith in your judgement.”

She laughed outright.

“Oh, you respect my
luck
—I know that by now, Robin.”

As she turned back to her work, ignoring him once more, he found

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himself reflecting on the communal belief in her luck. It certainly existed.

A curious blend of loyalty and optimism pervaded England, with Catholics

and Protestants moving hand in hand to defend Queen and country,

all informed with a dog-like faith in the ability of the woman who led

them. The aldermen of London—never noted for their generosity—had

roundly declared their intention of providing double the figure that

had been asked of them in men and ships. All over the country it was

the same, no whisper of fear or panic anywhere, just a steady pulsing

vein of gay patriotism which flowed from the heart of Elizabeth’s calm

confidence. Mad or sane, it was her touch on the bridle which steadied

and her touch alone; her unique charisma which made her people—so

notoriously fickle and variable—now swear to defend her to the last man

against the canting little saint in the Escurial.

In the smoky taverns, maudlin with beer, they spoke of her as Gloriana,

embellishing the image of their goddess with every tale they had ever told

of her brilliance, her cunning, her essential humanity. They sniggered

over the long list of suitors, the crowned heads of Europe who had made

fools of themselves for more than twenty years running after her.

“
Chaste and well-chased, eh
?”

Oh yes, they dearly loved it, the proud, insular English—a good laugh

at the expense of a foreigner and no one had given it with more unfailing

regularity over the years than Elizabeth Tudor. The suitors she had

cozened, the pirates she condoned, the ambassadors she had deceived—

one had to admire her nerve, and the astonishing manner in which she

had got away with it all. They lauded her mercy and calmly ignored its

few outrageous exceptions, for whatever she had done she was nothing

like so hasty in revenge as her dread sire.

Thirty years of travelling among her people had taught her to under-

stand their needs. Puritanism had raised its gaunt head in Parliament to

no avail, for she had kicked out the unpopular bill to create “the English

Sunday,” that bill which at one stroke would have banned cock-fighting,

bear-baiting, fairs, and markets—in short, everything which made a day

of rest worth having to the common man. She had refused the imposi-

tion of the death penalty for adultery, blasphemy, and heretical opinion,

and had rescued the theatrical companies of London from suppression by

creating her own company. No Puritan had yet dared to stand up in the

Lower House and suggest the suppression of the Queen’s men!

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Susan Kay

She still maintained a humorous indifference to the many abortive

attempts to assist her to her permanent repose. It was her continued ill-

guarded appearances in the streets of London which had won her the

warmest response from her people, who loved spunk above all things.

They said she was without fear. They were wrong. But they would never

know, and that perhaps was the greatest testimony to her courage.

Leicester watched her with exasperated tenderness, the same odd,

baffled, begrudging admiration which had dogged him all his life, ever

since that first moment when he had scowled at her across the nursery

floor. If his only claim to fame was to have been loved by the most

remarkable woman of her age he would be proud of it. And for him her

weakness was the only true measure of her stature. It seemed little short

of a miracle to Leicester that she should be sitting still in her old place,

with the reins of government firm in her hands. She had locked away

the terror and the guilt which had threatened to destroy her reason, so

that now once more she appeared to stand erect and unassailable on her

pinnacle. Appeared—perhaps it was no more than that; but for England,

for the moment, it was enough. And he was more proud of her for that

than for all the long succession of political achievements which had gone

before. Robert Devereux, the young Earl of Essex, had wrought the first

little miracle, the initial effort of will; the threat to England had done the

rest. By the end of spring 1587 she had climbed out of her dark abyss

of despair sufficiently to make decisions again. And the first, the most

significant, was the pardoning of her chief minister. While Drake, on

her personal commission, was wreaking havoc on Philip’s fleet at Cadiz,

Elizabeth, with her full court, had descended on Burghley at Theobalds,

at what was virtually a moment’s notice.

Mildred Cecil, inwardly furious, had supervised the chaos among

her staff in stiff-lipped silence, while Burghley stood all morning by the

window, shaking furtively like a man with an ague, and peering down

the great drive for the first glimpse of fluttering pennants which would

announce the royal entourage. There was the usual chaos as the court

dispersed into the Great Hall to squabble over refreshments, served by a

small army of servants, while the Queen was escorted ceremonially to her

old suite of rooms in uncomfortable silence.

She walked the length of the Vine Chamber and stood for a good

five minutes looking over the gardens on the south side of the house,

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watching the marble fountain which threw up a great spray of water as

high as the house.

Her silence weighed heavily on the spirits of her host and hostess, just

as she had intended it should. She knew, without looking, that Mildred’s

face was an unflattering cherry hue, and Burghley’s chalk-white with

tension. Finally she peeled off her gloves and tossed them, with her cloak,

into the arms of a waiting maid of honour, announcing curtly that the

ladies might have her leave to withdraw.

The women withdrew in a scurry of hasty curtsies, closing the heavy

double doors behind them, and Mildred went, with a sinking heart, to pour

a fine, pale ale into three silver goblets waiting on a table near the hearth.

The Queen had very little use for Mildred Cecil at the best of times;

now she made no pretence at civility.

“I said the ladies might leave, madam. Are you deaf—or do you believe

yourself, like your husband here, to be above my authority?”

In the centre of the room, Burghley stood with his chin sunk against

the base of his scrawny neck, his eyes fixed on the floor, and his hands

clasped around his staff for support. Over his white head, Mildred met her

rival’s glance with an unguarded glimmer of hostility, before she too sank

into a deep curtsey, and went out of the room, leaving behind the last

hope of tranquillity in the twilight of her marriage. She lingered outside

the door just long enough to hear the Queen say in a vastly altered tone,

“Sit down, you old fool, before you fall”—but she did not wait to hear

Burghley’s reply. She was not a masochist!

Through a maze of corridors stalked the lady of the manor, frowning

at all she saw on her way. The house was a mausoleum now. What

had originally been conceived as a modest, private residence, destined