Queen of This Realm (80 page)

Authors: Jean Plaidy

Tags: #Fiction - Historical, #Royalty, #England/Great Britain, #16th Century

BOOK: Queen of This Realm

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I was as popular as I had ever been. I had wondered whether I should lose a little of my people's affection after the death of Essex, for oddly enough, in spite of his many failings, the people had loved him and regarded him as a kind of romantic hero. They mourned him and there were ballads written about him. But they had lost none of their love for me. They were a realistic people and they would understand that I had had no alternative but to sign that death warrant.

I told the Parliament that though God had raised me high, what I regarded as the glory of my crown was that I reigned with the love of my people. “I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me a queen,” I said, “as to be Queen of so thankful a people.”

My dear, dear people! I had never once forgotten their importance to me—and they knew it.

Thus I could live in contentment—or as near to it as a lonely woman can be.

It was a good year. Mountjoy crushed Tyrone's forces and successfully put an end to the Irish rebellion. So the Spaniards gave up their plans of invasion. There had been some brilliant victories at sea which resulted in the
capture of several treasure ships; and when harvest time came we had a higher yield than for many a year.

I was in better spirits than I had been for a long time, reveling in each day and determined to make the most of it. I dressed with even greater care and when I was wearing one of my splendid gowns, aglitter with gems, when my luxuriant red curled wig was in place, my women assured me that I looked like a girl—and I felt like one.

I took brisk walks; I danced three or four galliards without the least sign of breathlessness. Sometimes, in the evenings when I would admit to a little tiredness, I would watch the others dance and sit tapping my feet to the music, having to restrain myself lest I get up and join them.

“You don't dance as high as I used to when I was your ages,” I complained.

I was well all through that year of 1602. Peace and prosperity had settled on England. The days were satisfyingly full, and it was only at night when I looked back sadly on the past and remembered all those who had gone.

But as the winter progressed, I felt less healthy. I was becoming forgetful and could not remember the names of people I knew well. A weariness would come to me and sometimes I felt an unpleasant dryness in my mouth as though my body were on fire with fever.

I tried to plan the Christmas festivities, but a lassitude had come upon me and I did not want to be bothered with them.

Sleep did not come easily now and I would lie awake thinking over the past, and there were times when I could believe that I was back in those glorious days of my youth; I lived again through the time of my accession to the throne, perhaps the greatest days of all of my life, when I had looked forward with such joy and confidence to what was to come.

I had never eaten heartily; now I found it hard to eat at all. My ladies fussed over me and I was too tired to reprove them.

One night, when I was unable to sleep, I saw a strange light in my room, and as my eyes grew accustomed to its brilliance, I saw a figure in the fire. It was myself, exceedingly lean, and yet somehow radiant.

I thought: Leicester, Burghley, Hatton, Heneage, Essex… they have all gone. Now it is my turn.

In the morning I spoke of the vision to one of my women. It might have been Lady Scrope or Lady Southwell—I forgot such details almost as soon as they had happened. I asked her if she had ever seen visions in the night, and for a few seconds she could not hide her alarm and I saw the thoughts in her eyes.

I said: “Bring me a mirror, for mirrors, unlike courtiers, do not lie.”

So she brought it to me and I looked at my face—the face of an old woman who had lived for nearly seventy years … old, white … unadorned… tired and ready to go.

So the end is near. I was never more sure of anything. I can feel death all around me.

I shall write no more. This will be the last. So I sit, thinking of all that has gone, the dangers of my youth, the glory of my middle life, and the sadness of the end. Leicester, I thought, you should never have left me. You should have stayed to the end and we could have gone together.

Much has been said of me. There have been many rumors, and perhaps there always will be for kings and queens are remembered and spoken of long after their deaths. Their smallest acts are recorded and commented on and they are magnified or diminished, shown as good or bad, according to the views of the recorder. Of my life much will be written. But no one can take away the greatness of events and for those who love the truth it will be seen as a good reign.

And what will they say of me? I am not like other women. I did not seek to subjugate myself to men. I demanded their submission to me. I have been a good queen because I loved my people and my people returned my love. But men will say, Why did she not marry? There must be some reason why she refused us all. There was, but they will not believe it, because all people judge others by themselves. So many of them are so overwhelmed by the importance of the sexual act, that they cannot believe that it is of little importance to others. I had no desire to experience it. This they will never believe, but it is so. I enjoyed having men about me because I liked them as much as—if not more than—women. I wanted them to court me, to compliment me, to fall desperately in love with me. Did they not have to do that to win my favor?—except, of course, the brilliant ones whose minds I respected. I wanted perpetual courtship, for when the fortress is stormed and brought to surrender, the battle is lost. The relationship between men and women is a battle of the sexes with the final submission of the woman to the man. The act itself is the symbol of triumph of the strong over the weak. I was determined never to give any man that triumph. The victory must always be mine. I wanted continual masculine endeavor, not triumph. I wanted, during every moment of my life, to be in absolute control. All physical appetites were unimportant to me. I had to eat and drink for my health's sake, but I always did so sparingly. I did not want that momentary satisfaction which comes from the gratification of appetite in whatsoever form it is.

So I was always in control of my men unlike my poor Mary of Scotland, and consequently I had come to the end and could say with gratified resignation
Nunc Dimittis,
and pass on.

It has amused me to hear some say that I was, in fact, a man. Yes, that makes me laugh. I have been a good queen, a wise queen; I have brought my country into a far happier and more prosperous state than it was in at my accession. I have tried to be tolerant. I have failed in this on one or two occasions, but that was only because I feared it would be dangerous to be lenient. Therefore men say: “No woman could attain so much, so she must have been a man! Only a man could be so great and wise.” So in spite of what I believe to be my excessive femininity they say: “She was secretly a man.”

They hint that there was something strange about me, that I was malformed, that I could not have children and that was why I remained a virgin.

They are wrong, all of them… except Mary of Scotland's Ambassador Melville all those years ago. I shall never forget his words.

“I know your stately stomach. Ye think gin ye were married ye would be but
Queen
of England and now ye are King and Queen baith…ye may not suffer a commander.”

He had the truth there. And I kept my determination to remain the commander of them all… and not even Robert could tempt me to share my crown with anyone.

My crown and my virginity…I was determined to keep them both, and I did.

I can feel the end coming nearer. I was born on the eve of the day which is celebrated as the nativity of the Virgin Mary. I wonder if I shall die on the festival of the annunciation. It would be appropriate for the Virgin Queen.

Now I lay down my pen, for the end is coming very near.