Queen of This Realm - Plaidy Jean (читать бесплатно книги без сокращений .txt) 📗

On the day he died his son Robert brought me a letter which his father had written to him. Burghley had been just strong enough to dictate it to his secretary, but he had signed it as well as his swollen hands would allow him “Your languishing Father, Burghley.”

“I pray you diligently and effectually,” the letter ran, “let Her Majesty understand how her singular kindness doth overcome my power to acquit it, who, though she will not be a mother, yet she sheweth herself, by feeding me with her own princely hand, as a careful norice; and if I may be weaned to feed myself, I shall be more ready to serve her on the earth; if not, I hope to be, in heaven, a servitor for her and God's church…”

He had added a postscript:

“Serve God by serving the Queen, for all other service is indeed bondage to the devil.”

I lifted my eyes to Robert Cecil's face. They were filled with tears.

I said: “My grief is as great as yours.”

HOW I MISSED Leicester at that time! The old days were gone forever. Men were not as they had been. They were a disappointment to me. My men were all leaving me—Hatton, Heneage, my dearest Leicester and now Burghley.

I had Robert Cecil, but then he was not handsome, and I did enjoy having handsome people around me. Essex, it was true, was very attractive in appearance, but so feckless and unreliable that he gave me more pain than joy. He was still sulking in exile. Yet if he had been a little humble, a little contrite, I could have pardoned him.

Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, was a good-looking man and I would have favored him. He was clever and a lover of the arts. He had become the patron of my favorite poet and playwright, William Shakespeare, and I applauded him for this; but he was reckless and arrogant, and did little to win my favor.

I could have had a great interest in him for his chief passion in life was literature; but he was such a wild young man—living among actors and writers of plays in odd corners of London. He was an adventurer of sorts but not the like of Raleigh and Drake. He was a man who wanted to experience life at all levels. He annoyed me because he must have known that I would be interested in him, yet he snapped his fingers at the Court and preferred to consort with his literary friends.

He had become a great friend of Essex; and that was one of the reasons why I watched him with some anxiety. I felt sure that Southampton would be a bad influence on Essex.

For one thing he was said to be fond of his own sex and I heard that he had had many love affairs with men at the Court and outside it, which in itself was enough to make me view his friendship with Essex in some dismay.

Some months previously he had made an unpleasant scene in my Presence Chamber. True, it was after I had gone to bed, but I frowned on such conduct whenever it took place.

Southampton had been playing primero with Raleigh and another gentleman. On my departure the Squire of the Body, Ambrose Willoughby, asked them to stop play, which was the custom after my retirement.

Southampton swaggeringly told him that he had no intention of stopping play until he wished to, at which Willoughby retorted that he would call the guard and forcibly stop the play. Raleigh, who had apparently been winning, pocketed his gains and said he would leave. This infuriated Southampton who shouted after Raleigh that he would remember this against him. Raleigh, who never failed to take a financial advantage, shrugged his shoulders and went off smiling; but Southampton then turned to Willoughby whom he blamed for the whole matter. A fight ensued during which Willoughby got the better of Southampton and pulled out some of his hair.

When I was told of this next morning, I laughed aloud. I complimented Willoughby and made it clear to everyone that I was delighted because Southampton had been taught a lesson.

I suspected that Essex condoled with him. Let him! I thought. Essex was still in exile.

My dislike for Southampton did not diminish when I heard that he had challenged Lord Grey of Wilton to a duel.

Fortunately I heard of this in time and forbade it, sending messages to both Southampton and Wilton telling them that they should reserve their services for me, and not hazard their lives in private quarrels.

I would be glad to be rid of Southampton. I was growing to dislike him more and more. For one thing I found his friendships with other men distasteful. He was constantly with people like Francis Bacon; and they were all friends of Essex. Southampton was always in the center of some quarrel. If he was not challenging someone, he was urging others to do so. One of his friends, Sir Charles Danvers, picked a quarrel with a Hampshire nobleman named Long and killed him. Before Danvers could be brought to justice Southampton smuggled the murderer out of the country.

I was relieved when Southampton was given a minor post in an embassy in Paris. But while he was away I discovered that one of my ladies, Elizabeth Vernon, had become pregnant. This state of affairs always enraged me, and when I had slapped and pummeled the secret out of the girl, I was appalled to find that the man responsible was Southampton.

I sent her away in disgrace and shortly learned that, hearing of her plight, Southampton had hastened home from Paris and married her.

And all this without asking my permission! They were both sent for a spell in the Fleet Prison. They were not there long, but I did make it clear that Southampton's chances at Court were over.

I had at last decided that Essex should return to Court. I should have been very happy if he had given me an apology, and would most willingly have accepted it; but it seemed that was asking too much of his proud nature.

He did appear at Burghley's funeral. More than five hundred followed the hearse, and Essex, shrouded in a hooded black mourning cloak, was conspicuous among those who came to show their respect to the great statesman. I heard that he had seemed overcome with grief—some cynics suggested that it might be more for his own plight, than for the loss of the man in whose house he had once lived.

After the funeral he had gone to Wanstead House, there to live quietly as he was not received at Court.

If only he would have sent one little word to tell me he was sorry for his really outrageous behavior, I would readily have put it down to the indiscretion of youth. But he did nothing of the sort. He was too proud to admit himself in the wrong.

I thought then: What will become of Essex in the end? He has no greater enemy than himself.

News came that he was very ill at Wanstead. Some said he grieved because of his exclusion from Court. He was arrogant and foolish, but he was still Essex, the one to whom I had looked to soothe the hurt left by the loss of Leicester.

So I gave permission for him to return to Court, and I implied that that unprecedented scene in the chamber when I had boxed his ears, was forgotten.

But such scenes are never forgotten. I would remember that one for as long as I lived; and when he returned, pale and wan, but as arrogant as ever, I found myself longing for Leicester more than ever. It had become clear to me that there was no one who could take his place, and it was folly to pretend there ever could be.

Ireland was as usual in upheaval. We had not sent Sir William Knollys or anyone so far; but someone must go now. I wanted Lord Mountjoy to take the post. In spite of his irregular life with Penelope Rich he was an extremely able and reliable man, and I really believed he might have a chance of succeeding in this very difficult task.

Incredible as it might seem, Essex once more raised objections to this choice.

“No, Your Majesty,” he said. “Mountjoy is not the man. He has no experience of war. He has only a small estate and therefore cannot supply many followers, and he is too interested in literature to make a good soldier.”