Elizabeth I (125 page)

My physician tried to dose me with potions, but I refused them all, despite the urgings of Helena, Cecil, Harington, and cousin John Carey. “Poison!” I said. “It will hasten my end.” I saw them exchanging pitying looks, agreeing silently that the Queen had lost her wits. But I had no wish to prolong whatever road it was I had embarked on.

Charles came to see me. It was difficult to see who was in a worse state.

“They told me Your Majesty was not well,” he said, bowing.

“I—” I clutched at my throat. It stung to talk. “They have yoked my neck with an iron chain,” I croaked out. “I am tied, I am tied. All is changed for me.”

“It is changed for us all, dear friend,” he said. “Catherine, your companion and cousin, my wife, is gone. Rather than feeling bound, I feel cast adrift.”

“Oh, Charles,” I rasped. “We have lost so many. It grows harder, not easier.”

“Perhaps there comes a point at which losses no longer matter,” he said. “I have not attained that wisdom yet.”

“Nor I,” I admitted. “Nor I.”

My conviction grew that I would never leave Richmond. I glanced around me, imprinting it all in my mind. The privy chamber, with its inlaid writing table. The frieze of blue plaques ornamenting the passageway. The ridiculous flush privy in the bathroom. At the same time, these things seemed to be receding into a past that grew ever more ghostly.

John Dee begged audience, and I allowed him in. As soon as I saw him, I rasped, “You sent me to Richmond to preserve me. But look! I fail, I am languishing. You misread the charts.” I glared at him. “You sent us here to die! Catherine has fallen already, and I am not far behind. This place has undone us.”

He grasped his bony hands, twisting them fiercely. “Perhaps I misread the signs. Forgive me! The devil tricks us. Richmond may prove another Samarra! You must leave tonight!”

“You will have me chase throughout the kingdom?” I smiled. “I am done with hasty removals. And what do you mean by Samarra?”

“It is an old tale I learned in Europe, from an Arab physician. It goes thus: A servant went to the Baghdad market for his master. There he saw a pale woman he knew instantly was Death. He turned away, rushed back to his master, and requested permission to flee to Samarra. His master granted it, and the servant set out on a swift horse. Troubled, the master went to the marketplace himself and confronted the pale woman. ‘What did you do to frighten my servant so?’ She demurred and said, ‘I was startled to see him here in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him this afternoon in Samarra.’ That, my Queen, is the tale.”

“So this is my Samarra,” I said. “I will remain and greet the dark angel.”

Dee looked distressed. I attempted to assure him. “Sooner or later we must stand our ground, or be branded cowards. That is not a label for a queen.”

Richmond it was to be, then. Death would stride forward, and I would greet him courteously. Someone had once told me that death is most unthinkable, most heinous, when we are in the blush of health and life. And Archbishop Whitgift had said, “We are not granted dying grace until the moment comes. It is the final gift of Our Lord. We cannot claim it betimes.”

Had he granted it to me? Was I ready?

“You must not go to bed,” said Dee. “As long as you stay out of bed, you are safe. That is what I came to tell you.”

“Safe?” I laughed, although it tore my throat. “There is no safety for one of my years.”

But the admonition stuck in my mind.
As long as you stay out of bed, you are safe.
I had meant to attend a service in the chapel royal, but I did not have the strength. So they laid cushions for me on the floor. I could hear it all, could hear the sung prayers, through my little balcony window that overlooked the chapel.

Afterward, John Carey and Harington tried to make me rise. But I did not have the strength. I wanted to lie there.

“Dearest friend,” urged Helena, “please at least let us put you in bed.”

I turned on her. “Bed! No! That is the end!”

“Ma’am! The bed is your friend,” she said.

“No, it is my enemy. Bring me tapers here!”

I was still Queen, and they had to obey. They brought candles and set them all around me, a glowing fence of slim beeswax tapers.

“A taper of pure virgin wax,” I said, touching one nearest me. “Such I have been. Tell them. Tell them. I have poured myself out for my people, and kept myself only for them. Burned my store of life for them.”

“I will, I will,” said Helena. Her face was gathered and puckered. Weeping. It wreaks havoc on a woman’s face. I wanted to tell her so but somehow could not speak.

The day ebbed. I watched the sun leave the windows I gazed upon. And then, like a whisper, I saw the first of them. My visitors.

Peeking cautiously around the screen set up to shield me, the face of William Cecil. But he was not the old man I had attended on his deathbed but the young man who had sat at my first council meeting the day after I had become Queen. He grinned impishly and said, “Good work, my lady, good work.”

Politely he stepped to one side. Another face peered around the screen.

“The Spaniard eats dust at last!” Francis Drake stepped out, his cheeks glowing apple red. “I knew it was a matter of time.” He joined Cecil, standing reverently beside him.

Dimly another figure resolved himself in my vision, a dear sight. Robert Dudley. He came to me and took my hand. I swear I felt his touch, felt the warmth of his fingers. Then he receded.

Marjorie Norris came next, her hair dark again, as it was when she earned the nickname “Crow.” She was laughing, beckoning to me.

A young, glowing face. Small mustache. “
Ma chérie,
” he whispered.

François.

A sad, accusing figure, dressed in blue velvet. He shook his head, waving his spade-shaped beard. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

Grace O’Malley’s figure resolved itself, her red hair tumbling over her bodice. She smiled down at me. “My adversary,” she said. “You have triumphed—for now. But it is all one. We shall see. The story of Ireland is never finished.”

Then Catherine, the most recently departed. Her image was strongest of all. I could swear she stood in front of me. She held out her hands silently. I could feel their touch, could feel them pulling me up. I rose from the cushions.

“Her Majesty rises!” All around me the living, more invisible than the dead, cried out. “Escort her to her bed!”

The bed, no, not the bed. Suddenly, in my ear, Robert Cecil was speaking. “Your Majesty, to content the people, you must go to bed.”

I turned, fixed him with my eye. “Little man, ‘must’ is not a word to be used to princes.” I lay back down.

And so I remain. Here on the floor, on the cushions, not submitting to the shades, not going to bed. Anxious people watch over me. I still see the departed ones, crowding around, jostling against the living ones crowding my chamber.

“Did I not say, did I not promise you, I do not wish to live longer than my life can serve my people!” I cry. But no one can hear. I have become silent and invisible.

My reign has ended. I have kept my promise.

EPILOGUE

LETTICE

November 1633

I
am touched. Ten of my grandchildren and five of my great-grandchildren have come all the way to Drayton Bassett in honor of their
grandmère
’s ninetieth birthday. This proves that time bestows the ultimate gift of respectability upon all scoundrels. If one lives long enough, one becomes venerable. It is a recompense for all one has lost.

I have outlived all my children and some of my grandchildren. Time passes both slowly and quickly here in the country, and it is hard to believe that we have had another king after James. The suspense about what James would turn out to be was answered rather quickly: dull. Following the gaudy splendor of Elizabeth would not have been easy for anyone, but this awkward, gauche man made a dreadful contrast. It did not take long for the people to become disenchanted with him and to resurrect the idol of Elizabeth in their minds. The phoenix indeed rose again, and she soars ever higher as the years pass and nostalgia grips the people, even—or especially—those who were not alive when she reigned.

Tell me, tell me, what was she like?
Even my own grandchildren and great-grandchildren pester me with the question. I suspect they may have come here less for my birthday than to hear about Elizabeth from a true witness.

There were some surprising turns of events after King James arrived. The Earl of Southampton was released from the Tower and appointed to court offices, even—oh, deep irony—the monopoly of the sweet wines that had broken Robert. If only Robert could have waited! It was barely two years between his rebellion and the end of Elizabeth’s reign. He could have passed that short time studying, playing with his children, and when James arrived, all would have been restored. Even the mellowness of time cannot dull that sharp edge of regret when I think upon it.

His widow, Frances, who swore to Robert Cecil that if her husband died she would not wish to draw a breath for even an hour afterward, remarried. Her new husband, Sir Richard de Burgh, the Earl of Clanricarde, bore an eerie resemblance to Robert. Like the widow who married seven brothers in succession in the question put to Our Lord by the Sadducees, Frances seemed to marry different versions of the same man: Sidney bequeathed his sword and his wife to Robert; Robert’s successor looked like his twin. They had three children. Frances died just last year. It is quite true, I have outlived everyone.

Some of the pardoned conspirators in Robert’s rebellion involved themselves in the most shocking assassination plot ever uncovered in England: the Gunpowder Plot. They tried to blow up not only the King but all of Parliament as well. No one was hurt, due to a timely tip, but this time the conspirators were executed. A certain Guy Fawkes has given his name to the entire plot, but there were many more involved.

King James was not popular, and since he died after twenty-two years here, his son King Charles I has proved even less popular. He tries to rule with the imperious will of the Tudors, without a spoonful of their charm, tact, and wit. Trouble is brewing, as Parliament is not the docile creature it was in the past.

My memories. What of them? I can barely remember Walter, my first husband. Robert Dudley, too, is fading. Christopher is the strongest presence, the one I yearn to talk to, to have him explain what happened. Will Shakespeare. I saw him once more, at Southwark Cathedral, where I stood staring at a burial plaque of Edmund Shakespeare, born 1580, died 1608. So he had come to London, acted, and died. That saddened me greatly. While I was reading it, I became aware that someone behind me was quietly reading it as well. I turned to see Will.

“Your Edmund?” I asked. It seemed natural to see him, in this place, to speak again after eight years.

He nodded. “He should not have come to London.”

“Had you died young, they would have said that of you,” I said. “But how could you not have come, regardless of what would have happened one way or the other?”

He smiled, that slow, thoughtful smile. “I had to come,” he agreed. “We both had to.” He looked older—much older. “I am thinking of retiring,” he said. “But as always when I think about something, I test it out first by writing about it. What would happen if a king were to retire?”

“Many people wish our present one would consider it,” I said.

He laughed. “Laetitia, always stay as you are,” he said.

Because I liked the sound of it, I did not ask him what he meant by it. In the years since I have often repeated
Laetitia, always stay as you are
to myself when I face disheartening times or people.

I never saw him again. He died eight years later and is buried at Stratford. I do not visit his grave. After all, I cannot visit my son’s or my last husband’s, so I cannot insult them by visiting Will’s instead.