Elizabeth I (111 page)

Now I had a message from Admiral Charles Howard, seeking a time to return Robert’s sword. He had handed it over when he surrendered. I had been part of his life that day—my last time to be so—as Penelope, Frances, and I were forced to while away the hours with the imprisoned Privy Councillors while my son went out to raise a rebellion. The councillors were as embarrassed as we were. They were good men, gentle men, who had been forced into their roles and bore Robert no ill will.

All of it was painful, misconceived, and this final act with the councillors was a fitting close to the whole venture. The admiral had allowed us free passage out of the house, holding their fire for two hours. Now he had the last act in this misbegotten drama to get through: returning Sir Philip Sidney’s sword.

Robert had refused to see any of us in his last days. Frances went into labor and delivered a daughter whom she named Dorothy, but Robert was never to know of her.

Robert had been buried in St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower. Buried with the queens and martyrs, I told myself. At least his resting place would always be preserved. And someday, someday, long in the future, all the particulars of his case would melt away, and people remember only his gifts and beauty. Time erases details, and only outlines remain. Robert’s outline was so singular the common people already felt called to make ballads about him.

I went back to bed. I would sleep. I would think of Christopher in the morning, when the light made it easier. Christopher still lived, nursed by a tailor into whose shop he had been carried, wounded, on that fateful day of uprising; two royal guards now stood watch over him. I had no access to him, and he had sent me no messages. If I could have only a quarter hour with him, perhaps I could understand what had happened. I knew only that the laughing, ebullient young man I had married had changed into another creature entirely, and I had no inkling why. I was soon to be a widow for the third time. But never before had I lost my husband before he actually died.

“The Earl of Nottingham, Lord Admiral Charles Howard.” My servant announced our noble visitor. I was ready, wearing all the insignia I was entitled to as countess: my eight-rayed coronet, my ermine-trimmed robe with its prescribed length of train. Once these things had been vitally important to me.

“We welcome him,” I said.

The white-haired admiral entered the hall and approached me, treading softly. I had not seen him in years and knew him only from Robert’s animosity toward him. He had resented sharing command with him on naval ventures, insisting on signing his name above the admiral’s, until Lord Howard had cut out Robert’s signature in exasperation. Ah, well, that was one of the details fading away already.

“My Lady Leicester,” he said, bowing. “I have the honor to return the sword of the Earl of Essex, surrendered to me.” He held it out, a shining token.

“It is my honor to receive it,” I said, taking it. “It will be kept for the earl’s son. He is only ten years old now. May he always use it in defense of the realm.”

I laid it on a cushion. In some ways it was a hateful thing. I wished little Rob could stay far away from anything requiring a sword. It ended in either death or dishonor, it seemed. At the very least it meant a man could not pursue anything worthwhile but must go chasing after the French or the Spanish or Irish or whatever enemy was in fashion at the time.

“So, my good earl, will you stay with us a bit?” I rang for refreshments before he could refuse.

We could speak of anything except my son. Or my husband. Very well, I understood that. “I trust Lady Catherine is well,” I said: the polite, innocuous inquiry. “Is she still with the Queen?”

“Very much so,” he said. “With the death of Marjorie Norris last autumn, she is her closest companion.”

“It is good when blood relatives can also share our lives,” I said. Mine were all distant or estranged, starting with the Queen.

“They may visit Hever Castle together,” he said. “Perhaps you could join them.”

Hardly. But he was trying to be polite, poor man. And it was a good sign that Catherine, my cousin, had not spoken openly against me.
Perhaps, perhaps ... No, Lettice, that is foolish.
“Perhaps so. I have never been there, for all it was my grandmother’s girlhood home.”

“I have recently seen a newfound portrait of your grandfather William Carey,” he said. “He was a handsome man.”

If he
were
my grandfather, and the King were not ... Again I smiled. “I would like to see it,” I said.

But was it not possible that Mary Boleyn had found him more pleasing than the demanding King and had preferred him, and that all this speculation about the King being the father of her children was mere wishful thinking, because having royal blood—even if the royal from which the blood comes is not admirable—was preferable to being a commoner? Again, the outlines fade.... The great bulk of Henry VIII eclipses the slender one of William Carey.

“If they invite me, I shall surely come,” I said. Polite talk.

He stood. I should have called Frances to receive the sword. I had meant to call her later in the visit, so as not to tire her. Now he was leaving. Too late. And I could not ask him about Christopher, nor the impending trial.

“I take my leave,” he said. “I can only say, my heart is grieved.”

“As you must know, I am grieved beyond words.”

I accompanied him to the door.

“He was a son to be proud of,” he said as he fastened his cloak. “Never forget that.”

“It is a comfort,” I said.

The door opened and closed, and he was gone.

But what of my husband? Would no one console me for him, speak kind words, write ballads? Christopher was nobody, nothing to the state. He had lived, and would die, unknown. And I, his wife, must grieve for him alone.

The trial would be held in the Tower, not Westminster Hall. Alongside him would be tried Sir John Davies, Sir Charles Danvers, Gelli Meyrick, and Henry Cuffe. Although I knew I would be turned away, I had to try to see Christopher. The authorities would not reveal the address of the tailor shop, but I did not need the authorities. I knew where Ludgate was; I knew where the fighting had taken place and where Christopher had fallen, unconscious. All I had to do was go there, and any obliging gossip on the street would point me to the nearby shop. So it proved.

It was a small, unprepossessing shop, little more than one room. I saw the bolts of wool and linen, saw the wooden worktable through the front door. But one large guard caught me staring and rushed out. “Begone! Do not loiter here!” he yelled.

“My husband lies within,” I said. “I wish to speak to him.”

“The traitor Blount?”

“There’s been no trial yet, and until there is he cannot be labeled ‘traitor.’”

“He’s guilty as Judas and will go his way,” said the man. “Now leave. The prisoner is allowed no visitors. That was the rule in letting him stay here to recover, rather than being clapped straightway in the Tower.”

“He is recovering, then?” I asked.

“He’s mending well,” said the man. “He’ll be well enough to stand up at his hanging.”

“Please!” I begged him. “For the mercy of Christ!”

“If I let you in, I would be the next to stand trial. Now go.”

It was no use.

Stumbling home, passing easily through Ludgate, where Christopher had fallen, I felt worse than if I had not gone. Knowing that I could do nothing to help him or even to help myself was torture. I resolved to be there when they took him out for his trial, to at least press close to him on the street.

I expected there would be secrecy surrounding the exact date of the trial, and starting the next day I returned early in the morning and stood watch across the street. Nothing that day. Nothing the next. Or the next. But then, on March 5, almost two months since the uprising, early in the morning (but I had come still earlier), a contingent of armed guards arrived at the house. Soon a litter emerged, with a prone figure lying on it. It had to be Christopher. The guards took their time shouldering the burden, arranging their grip, backing up.
Now!
I darted out from around the corner and grabbed the edge of the litter before the guards could react. I peered into it and saw Christopher’s drawn, bandaged face, with a blanket muffling his neck and body.

He had trouble focusing his eyes and clearly did not recognize me. The jolt to the litter startled him, and then he knew what was happening. “Lettice!” he murmured.

“Damned wench!” A guard dug his fingers into my shoulder and yanked me away. The force of his pull tumbled me onto my knees. When I found my feet again, the litter was already halfway down the street. I ran after it, but the ring of guards around it meant I could not get close. I followed it past St. Paul’s, down Cannon and Eastcheap, and then finally to the Tower itself. The ugly gray walls, which looked cold even in high summer, loomed ahead. I stopped, knowing I could follow it no farther. Solemnly, like a funeral cortege, it passed across the bridge spanning the moat and disappeared.

I stood, catching my breath. On my left side rose Tower Hill, where the scaffold awaited. I would not be back. I would not join the crowd at the execution.

I cast a last glance at the stone walls enclosing my dead son and now holding my living husband.

The day was interminable. I knew the verdict was already decided and the trial but a legal exercise. Still, I could not help picturing Christopher trying to answer the accusations. Did he have to do it from his litter? Or did they lift him onto a chair? Let it be a chair with a back support, not a stool. Surely they did not make him stand.

It was full dark when an official messenger from the Privy Council delivered an envelope to me with the pronouncement. He looked about furtively and made to leave the moment the envelope touched my hand. But I stopped him. The very least he could do was to formally tell me the verdict.

“Sir Christopher was found guilty,” he said.