Elizabeth I (70 page)

We were at Greenwich for May, the best palace to be in springtime. I had been glad to leave wintry Whitehall behind. Besides, there were unpleasant memories of the last days there, and I wanted to efface them. I still shook with indignation when I remembered that encounter with Lettice Knollys. Yes, I had agreed to see her as a condition for Essex’s return to court. But the more I thought of it, the more I resented it. I had bestowed the Earl Marshal title on him, and that should have been sufficient. That he kept bargaining and wheedling like a market vendor was distasteful and cheapened him—or rather, my opinion of him. We had had to trick him into thinking he had won a war of wills, when he should have realized it was a war that should never have been fought. A subject does not contend with his sovereign.

And when a sovereign makes his or her position clear, a subject should take note, not keep badgering. But no! That wooden-headed son, pushed on by his brazen mother, kept pursuing me, finally cornering me in my own private passageway like a hunted animal. If they thought thereby to have won some sort of victory, they were fools. Now I could only see her would-be gift, the Boleyn necklace, as a cheap attempt to stake familial claims in my heart.

55

T
he July sunshine was clear and bright, and beneath my windows the flowery border was filled with fluttering butterflies. One of the Greenwich gardeners had, in fact, created what he called a butterfly garden, filled with a jumble of plants that attracted them—rosemary, lavender, verbena, mede-sweet, and the charmingly named go-to-bed-at-noon. I loved to lean out the window and watch them, although at midday, when the sun was highest, everything lay still and even the butterflies rested.

It was too glorious a day to be indoors, but a matter of supreme importance had to be settled in council: the right man to replace Lord Burgh as lord lieutenant of Ireland. It was long overdue and crucial that we decide on our policy from here on. The O’Neill was becoming king of Ireland while we cowered in our outposts. He was starving out our fort at Yellow Ford, near Ulster.

There was a dearth of capable men to appoint. At length I had settled on Sir William Knollys. He was not brilliant, but he was experienced, sensible, and loyal. I would announce this decision today.

The councillors filed in, wearing their lightest shirts and breeches, no capes, no hats. I hoped to have the business over with quickly and release everyone out into the fine day. Only the inner circle was present: young Cecil, Essex, Admiral Howard, Archbishop Whitgift, old Lord Buckhurst, the young Lord Hunsdon.

I welcomed them and proceeded to nominate Sir William Knollys for the post, listing his previous appointments and qualifications. Around the council table there were nods.

Suddenly Essex stood up and said, “With your leave, Your Majesty, I must object. My uncle is not the right man for the post. I put forward Sir George Carew instead. He’s had experience in Ireland, has served there in various capacities, and is a better fit.”

I was surprised at his objection. Nonetheless, I said, “Does anyone here care to comment?”

Robert Cecil now stood up. “It is clear that my lord of Essex wishes to send Carew away from court to diminish his influence. He fears a rivalry and would vanquish all opposition.”

“What a foolish idea!” said Essex loftily. “Why should I fear such a man as Carew?”

“Because he is growing in influence, having just returned from an embassy to King Henri IV with me. You seek to clip him before he grows any further.”

“Why, what do you mean, man? The lord lieutenantship of Ireland is a much higher post than being second on an embassy to France. An embassy that achieved nothing, I might add. The French have determined to make peace with Spain, leaving us all alone to fight Philip. So you might as well have stayed home.”

“You know Ireland is a graveyard of ambitions. It has chewed up many a man. Going there is like going to Hades—a man never returns, or if he does, he is just a shade. You want to send Carew there, send him into oblivion, so he can’t oppose you.”

“How dare you insult my father? He was one of those who died in Ireland, as well you know.”

“Gentlemen,” said Admiral Howard, rising to join them. “Pray, be calm.”

“Cease the squabbling,” I said. “It is pointless. I have decided that it is Sir William Knollys.”

“You are making a mistake. That is a foolish choice.” Essex jutted out his chin.

“My lord—” Whitgift reached out to Essex, making shushing gestures, wagging his finger furiously.

“I cannot let this pass!” Essex said, glaring at me. “I am being mocked and undermined. I will not tolerate it!” Abruptly, he turned his back on me.

Such a thing had never been done, nor seen, in all my years, that a subject upbraid his sovereign and then turn his back on her. I stared at his wide back, his shoulders at my eye level, his head a head higher. He was a large man, and his back looked as forbidding as a closed door.

“Go to the devil!” I cried, anger flooding through me at his effrontery. I smacked him on the ears from side to side, ordering, “Get you gone and be hanged!”

So swiftly that the eye could barely follow, he whirled around and grabbed the hilt of his sword, meaning to draw it on me. Quick-thinking Howard stepped between us and clamped his hand down over the pommel to prevent Essex from actually following through on his gesture, which would have been instant treason.

“I neither can nor will put up with so great an affront, nor would I have borne it from your father’s hands!” he cried. He stepped back, his eyes wild.

“If I were my father you would not walk a free man from this room,” I reminded him. My voice was deadly cold, as it is when I am most angry. “You would go directly from council table to the Tower. And you would not linger long there, either. And as for affront, I have given you none, other than to refuse your suggestion. Hardly a cause for treason.”

“I curse this room. I curse the day I was born, which I rue and will make everyone rue—” He rushed out the door, his feet clattering on the stairs and then dying away.

For an instant utter silence hung in the room. Then one of the guards said, “Your Majesty, shall we go after him and arrest him?”

Quickly I thought it out. His actions demanded that he should at least be detained, if not charged with treason. But I shook my head. “Let him go,” I said.

He would most likely run back to Wanstead. He would take to his bed and sulk and fall ill. I would get messages that he was on his deathbed.

The noontime sun poured into the room, and the hot air, laden with the pungent smell of dust and drooping leaves, hung over us like a pall. The councillors remained where they were, some standing, some sitting.

“Gentlemen, you may go,” I said. “Do not speak of this outside this chamber.”

The day had been robbed of its beauty for me. The serenity of what saints called the blessed hour of noontide had been shattered. Walking down the grassy lawn to the riverside, I barely heard the cries of the wheeling gulls and lapwings. Before me several tall-masted ships rode at anchor, idle now, awaiting orders.

A subject had defied and threatened me in public. Not only that, he had implied I was not a true prince, that I was less because of my sex. “Nor would I have borne it from your father’s hands,” he had said. “In other words, he would bear more from a king than from a queen. A queen is less than a king.” He questioned the very foundation of my power.

In the privacy of my inner chambers, I divulged to Catherine what had happened in council that morning. She would hear it from her husband in any case. Without the admiral’s quick action, things might have turned out very differently. I still trembled to think about it. In recounting it, my voice shook. The more I thought about it, the larger it loomed, unlike other things that dwindle in perspective.

“I can still see his hand gripping the sword, with Charles’s hand covering it, smothering his action,” I said, my voice a whisper. “I think it was his father’s sword. Or perhaps it was Sidney’s.”

Catherine’s plump and usually serene face had assumed a masklike rigidity. “What difference whose sword it was?” she very sensibly said. “What matters is what he intended to do with it. What do you think that was?”

“I don’t know. It could have just been a threatening gesture, like a stage prop. Or he could truly have meant to harm me. In his temper, perhaps he would have done so, unthinkingly. But regardless, by doing it in council, it was a true public challenge.”

“What caused him to do it? Was he sitting down and suddenly leaped up? Did someone say something?”

“You make a good examiner, Catherine. Yes, let us trace the steps. I had boxed his ears for turning his back on me.”

“As if he were an unruly schoolboy? You insulted him, then, as he saw it?”

“He did claim I had insulted him,” I admitted.

She crossed the room and threw open the shutters. The hottest part of the day had passed, and the air was cooling. It made the room less confining. She poured out a goblet of summer wine—diluted with fresh water and flavored with mint—and handed me the slender glass. She knew I would find it soothing.

“Dear one, this is a most peculiar situation. You ask what subject would brook his prince so boldly, and in public? A telling question. But it has no answer that does not take into account another question: What other subject would you have felt free to smack in public?”

“I smacked that Bess Throckmorton,” I said, “for her insolence and lies. And I’d have done the same with Elizabeth Vernon, if her liaison with Southampton were not punishment enough. He asked permission to marry her and I refused. Then he asked permission to go abroad. But he sneaked back home to marry her—with the connivance of Essex, I might add. Essex challenges me at every turn.”

“I don’t mean ladies in the privacy of your chamber, I mean statesmen in public,” she said.

“I did throw a slipper at Walsingham once,” I said.

“And you missed.”

“Deliberately. I have a good aim.”

“A slipper is one thing—it signals a comedy—a slap is another.”

I did not like her leadings here. I was finding them painful. But I would not shrink from what they told me.

“Do you think I have behaved in an unnatural fashion toward him?” I asked.

“Everyone thinks so, although I know nothing untoward has happened between you.”

“What do people say?”

“That you are lovers,” she said.

“They said that about Leicester,” I said. “It was not true.”

“Since the age difference between you and Essex is so extreme, it makes for hotter gossip.”

I had a dreadful thought. “Perhaps ...
he
believes it in some fashion. He thinks I am in love with him and want to be his lover,” I whispered. The night at Drayton Bassett ... His assumptions had almost been proved true.

“Perhaps,” Catherine agreed. “And your lovers’ quarrels, with him playing sick and your humoring him, confirms it to him.”

Never again. How had I been so blind and foolish?

I ended it, in my own mind. I would demote him from that exalted and special place in my affections where I had mistakenly placed him. Like John Knox yanking an idolatrous statue from a niche and smashing it on the floor, just so would I do to the young earl. Down from the crevice that protected him, down onto the floor to mix with ordinary men. Let him see clearly in harsh daylight exactly where he stood and what he was made of.

56

I
reland continued to fester. In the end I made William Knollys lord deputy of Ireland, a lower rank than lord lieutenant. That exalted post still needed filling. But this time its holder had to be a man capable of strength and resolution, someone to make the Irish tremble. I could not think of such a man, and until we had him, I would not send another weakling. The Irish problem needed someone like my father or, dare I say it, the Duke of Parma—someone ruthless and clearheaded.