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

I should have hated the dying woman, but I could not. It was not her fault. Her husband had made her do it. And doubtless he was right. Of course he had been Essex's enemy, but then so were many others—Cecil more than any and with him men who were my good friends, and friends of the country therefore. My emotions would have betrayed me if I had seen the ring. Perhaps I should be grateful because it had been kept from me and I had been able to do what, in my heart, I knew was best for my country.

She lay there, her eyes appealing. All she wanted to bring her peace now was my forgiveness.

I took her hand and kissed it. I said: “It is all over now. He is dead… as we all soon shall be.”

She was smiling contentedly.

The next day I heard she was dead. Another friend gone.

I HAD TO PUT him from my mind. I kept thinking how different it might have been. He would be alive today if I had received the ring and known that he was repentant. But what was the use? It was over. He had gone to join others whom I had loved.

Sometimes I felt very alone, although I was surrounded by my courtiers and rarely had a moment to myself.

But my health improved. There was so much to occupy me and I spent long hours with my Council. Affairs of state pressed heavily. Mountjoy was doing well in Ireland. The Spaniards were threatening again and rumor had it that they would go for our weakest point, which was Ireland. What loyalty could we rely on there! The Irish would be ready to sell themselves to Spain just to spite the English even though they knew that under the Spanish heel they would enjoy less freedom than they did at this time.

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.