Elizabeth I (72 page)

“Never!” I cried. How could my authorities have collapsed like that? “Upon my honor, this renegade Irishman shall not overthrow me!”

“Let us weigh the cost before making any pronouncements,” he said. “It is likely to be very high. We have never yet found an answer to how to manage Ireland. It does not help that no one—soldier or official—wants to be assigned there. It is a thankless, futile task.”

“Up until now,” I said. “But I confess, I have not given it my full weight of attention in the past.” I felt my eyes narrowing, as if I were entering an arena. “But when I do that, I will find a solution to the ‘Irish problem,’ as some call it.”

I sent him on his way with instructions to make copies of the report and call the council first thing in the morning.

Hugh O’Neill. I had known him when he was in England, a ward in Leicester’s household. We encouraged many of the highborn Irish to spend time here, thinking it would convert them to our ways. What fools we had been! All it did was give them a glimpse into our weaknesses.

Hugh was born about the same year as I took the throne. When I knew him he was in his early teens; he returned to Ireland when he was fifteen. He was short, stocky, and dark haired, with a large head, but with an ease of manner far older than his years. He came from one of the oldest Irish clans, a nobleman among them, and stood to become the next chieftain of the O’Neills, although the Irish did not go by strict primogeniture, as we did. There was always some confusion and suspense about who would succeed, often solved by a timely murder or riot.

He mastered our tongue and our ways; he could speak like a man from London, and when he returned to Ireland he helped quash—fighting alongside English troops—a rebellion in Munster fomented by the one of the clans. For that I rewarded him with an earldom, making him Earl of Tyrone. But it was never clear what side he was on. He had contacted the Spanish and invited their help. And now this triumph at Yellow Ford. It was the greatest military defeat the English had suffered since losing Calais almost exactly forty years ago. My sister Mary had said, “If you open my heart, you will find written on it ‘Calais.’” I must not allow “Ireland” to be written upon mine!

I remembered Leicester standing with his arm around the boy’s shoulders, saying, “He’s a good lad,” and ruffling his hair. Hugh had looked up at him (being so short, he looked up at most people) and smiled a guileless smile. A serpent’s smile! And when I think of it, it was almost the same pose Leicester had used with young Essex. Another fetching lad, grown up to be dangerous. The shadow of these men fell across Leicester, as if to hang upon them was to hang upon poison.

The hastily assembled Privy Council met midmorning, and the disaster was laid before them. As I had been, they were stunned.

“More information has come in,” said Cecil, spreading out his papers. “Thirty officers were killed at Yellow Ford, along with the loss of horses and cannon. Made bold by this, the Irish have risen in the other counties and overrun the English settlements. Our people are fleeing to Dublin, but there’s no protection there, with only a five-hundred-man garrison. They are loading onto the first boats they can find to take them back here, abandoning the settlements. We stand to lose all of Ireland. And if the Spanish land, holding it against us, we can never get it back.”

“Where are they now?” asked George Carey.

“The rebels have been burning and looting to within three miles of the walls of Dublin; they may capture it any day.”

“Tell them about the way our brave authorities have sought to solve the problem,” I said. As I had lain awake, thinking of it had heated me to a white-hot heat.

“They have sent offers to O’Neill for a truce,” said Cecil.

“That’s a pretty way to phrase it,” I said. “Begged, you mean.” I looked up and down the table. “Yes, we have begged to that man! My own Crown appointments, my deputies, the lord justices, have begged! I tell you, I will not let it be said that the Queen of England, who has faced down the might of Spain, ever bowed her knee to this base, born-in-a-thicket Irish rebel! I shall never endure such dishonor, nor let England endure it.”

“What, then, shall we do?” asked Lord Cobham, warden of the Cinque Ports, mournfully.

I was incredulous. “We must conquer them. We must, at long last, commit enough men and troops to Ireland.”

“But ... where will we raise the money? Parliament has already voted the double subsidy. That only pays off past debts,” said Buckhurst.

“And to raise the army?” cried Cobham. “No one wants to go there. There isn’t an able commander available. Our troops can’t operate there, in those bogs and wild terrain. The Irish don’t fight fair in the open air like real armies; they attack and then melt back into the mists. The rain rots everything—the food, the ammunition, the weapons, even our papers and our clothes. We are felled by marsh fever. The Irish live off the land—or maybe they don’t even eat! But we have to bring all the food with us. And where are we going to get it? Four disastrous harvests have left us with starvation in our own country. We are already having to import grain from Denmark and Danzig.”

“Have you quite run out of breath now, Cobham?” I was upset. Everything he had said was true. But it did not change the fact that we had to fight in Ireland. “If you had been Noah, the ark would never have been built.” I looked around at the panicked faces. “We will meet again tomorrow. Draw up a preliminary list of expenses and recruiting and victualing strategies. I expect no excuses.” I turned and left the chamber.

Where was the Earl of Essex? Enough malingering and pouting. I would command his presence, and he had best present himself with no delay. I would pit one of Leicester’s old wards against the other.

In the month since he had attempted to draw his sword on me, I had awaited some approach by him, some attempt at explanation. He should have been grateful that I let him run free rather than sending him to the Tower. Instead, he had written me insolent letters, as if I should apologize to
him
.

“The intolerable wrong you have done both me and yourself not only broke all the laws of affection, but was done against the honor of your sex. I cannot think your mind so dishonorable but that you punish yourself for it, how little soever you care for me. But I desire, whatsoever falls out, that Your Majesty should be without excuse, you knowing yourself to be the cause, and all the world wondering at the effect. I was never proud till Your Majesty sought to make me too base.

“And now my despair shall be as my love was, without repentance. Wishing Your Majesty all comforts and joys in the world, and no greater punishment for your wrongs to me than to know the faith of him you have lost, and the baseness of those you shall keep.”

He was a child, and his missive would have been laughable were he not so dangerous. His very ability to recast events to construct an interpretation that no sane person could come to was frightening. That ability coupled with real power was lethal. He did not have the power yet. But his ability to invent and abjure himself of all blame was a skill to watch. My wariness toward him increased. And that wariness, tinged with fear, heightened my guard.

58

T
he morning made things clearer. The council meeting in the afternoon would be grim, but that was hours away. So I was startled when Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, asked for an audience. I would see him in the afternoon—could it not wait?

He was a good and honest servant, and if he asked to see me, it was not for anything frivolous. I bade him come in. He entered the chamber, and as he did so, a puff of hay-scented air came through the window. His yellow, strawlike hair seemed to go with it. He was one of the few adults to keep the blond hair of a child.

“Have you received word from the Earl of Essex?” he asked, kneeling.

“No, nothing. Why? I summoned him to the council meeting. I expect to see him there.”

“It is as I feared,” he said. “I received this memorandum of advice from him regarding the Irish crisis. I had stressed in no uncertain terms that he must attend. Instead, he sent this.” He handed me a sheet of paper with a long list of items.

“I did not ask for a list; I asked for his person.” I flung the list onto my table.

“He is not coming,” said Egerton. “He sent word that you should digest his ideas set forth here, and then he shall come.”

“By God!” I cried. “He dares to disobey my summons?”

“He feels slighted.” Egerton held up his hands as if to ward off blows. What, did he think I would strike him, too?

“He has lost his reason!” I shouted.

“If you would know his mind, you must read this. He wrote it to me. It is no treason to our friendship if I show it to you. If a man writes something down in black and white, he must be prepared for others to read it. It would be treason against my loyalty to you for me not to let you see it.” He drew forth another letter, a much longer one.

With grave foreboding I took it and began to read.

First the sword, now this. He refused to submit to me. What other word was there for it but “treason”?

“I must think on this,” I said carefully. “Thank you for bringing it to me.”

Walking like one possessed back into my bedchamber, I found Marjorie and Catherine staring at me. “Has someone died?” Catherine asked, her soft voice even more soothing than usual.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh, who?” cried Marjorie, well acquainted with sudden news of death.

My safety,
I wanted to say.
The unqualified love of my subjects.
“Many have died in Ireland,” I murmured, not wanting to pour my heart out, even to her. If I waited a moment, perhaps the feelings would subside. It is never good to blurt things out.

She cocked her head knowingly. “This is not new tidings,” she said. “The Lord Keeper did not rush here to tell you what you already knew.”

“It’s Essex,” said Catherine. “The naughty boy has gone astray again.”

“Why do you suppose that?”

“Only he seems to have this ability to trouble you,” she said. “As my children do me.”

“Oh, it is more than that!” I protested. “He is hardly my child.” Both more than and less than that he was.

“You behave erratically toward him, and always have,” said Catherine. “I know, as a mother, that to do so confuses children. They need to know what to expect.”