Elizabeth I (78 page)

The holidays over, the decorations and accoutrements—masks, staves, bells, papier-mâché unicorns, curtains for the plays—carted off by the master of revels to be stored in Clerkenwell Green, it was back to the workaday world. Shorn of our resplendent costumes, plain-dressed Essex met with a somberly dressed me in the privy chamber. It was time to talk of Ireland.

“How soon do you reckon you will be ready?” I asked him.

“Recruiting takes time,” he said. “And procuring the victuals, especially as it is now winter, and—”

“I did not ask for excuses, I asked for a timetable.” I hated to be so short with him, but there were many aspects to be covered.

“March,” he said. “I will be ready in March. But the expenses—I am running into problems—”

“You are deeply in debt to the Crown, in spite of your income from the sweet wine monopoly and all your lands. You seek to borrow more?”

“If I could be granted the mastership of the Court of Wards, vacant now that Burghley is gone ...”

“A very lucrative post. I haven’t decided yet how to award it. Essex, you are familiar with the Bible verse about being faithful in small things before you can be entrusted with large ones? Your continual need for more and more money to meet your expenses bespeaks a lack of thrift and management and hardly recommends you for more.”

“I have grave responsibilities,” he said. “I can hardly be expected to foot the entire bill for the war. Someday, the state itself will be seen to be responsible for that.”

“The state is responsible. I have been selling off Crown lands. Do not tell me I am not the one financing the war!”

“I did not mean that. Only that someday—”

“I will not require the repayment of the ten thousand pounds you owe me, not yet. Will that help?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Very well then, but it will become due. I am not forgiving the debt, merely postponing it.”

“Your Majesty forgives very little,” he said.

“You have noted this? Then mark it well.” It was time I spoke what I knew. Nay, more than time. I stood up, aware of how he towered over me. No matter. “You have behaved toward me in a treasonous fashion before the Privy Council. You know to what I refer. I have also heard of the rebellious insults you have directed at me, both in writing and in speech. Behind my back you have mocked, challenged, and implied that I am less than I am. If you thought these words would never reach me, you are naive.”

His face was a mask like the ones from the late revels. He stared back at me.

“Therefore, let me say it once, and take heed. I have borne these insults to my person. But I warn you, do not touch my scepter. The moment you do so, I must carry out the law against you, regardless of my own feelings in the matter. You will enter into dangerous terrain.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“I think that you do. Remember, I did not wish to execute Mary Queen of Scots. But the law required it. She tried to touch my scepter.”

He gave a nervous laugh. “Is it my fault foolish people link me to Bolingbroke or put up placards about my lineage? Should I be punished for their actions?”

“No, nor have you been. I am not speaking of what others say or do, only what you say or do.” Behind his narrowed eyes I could almost feel his mind churning. “Enough of this. We understand each other. Now, as to your appointments for Ireland, whom do you have in mind?”

A broad smile now spread across his face as the subject turned away from himself. “I propose my stepfather, Sir Christopher Blount, as marshal of the army and a member of the Irish Council of State.”

“Why, what experience has he had?” The harlot Lettice’s husband! His primary experience was in cuckolding Leicester, I suspected.

“He’s a good soldier. He led a column of land forces at Cádiz and Faro and performed well in the Azores expedition. He’s in his late thirties, old enough to command respect from the soldiers under him, young enough to fight alongside them in the field. And, although I can’t be sure, I think he did some service for Walsingham. He was brought up Catholic and had an entrée into those circles, making him useful as an informant. Of course, he can’t talk about it.”

“No,” I said. “No, he isn’t suitable.”

Essex frowned. “He seems very suitable to me. And
I
have seen him in the field myself.”

“And I haven’t, you are saying. No, I’ve not been there. But one doesn’t need to actually be somewhere to comprehend it. He can serve as an officer, that’s all. And not on the Irish Council, either.”

“As you say.” His words were submissive, but not his tone. “I propose Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, as my master of the horse, in charge of the cavalry.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think we need to discuss the reasons. We both know them.”

“You do not trust my judgment,” he said.

“I trust my own better,” I replied. “I must think of England’s needs, not yours.”

“Let us, then, discuss the terms of my service, since you place so little faith in me,” he said petulantly. “What are my duties, what are my constraints—besides, that is, not being able to choose my own officers?”

“Ah, now, that attitude is precisely what I meant. You speak insultingly to me but I, out of fondness and our cousinship, will overlook it.” I paused to emphasize my words. “I am prepared to give you great scope in your position. You shall serve as my viceregal envoy in Ireland. That means you have the power to proclaim and punish traitors, award knighthoods, levy troops, issue pardons under my Great Seal, and take on all royal rights except issuing coinage.”

For the first time in the interview, a genuine smile spread across his face. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“However, you must rule through the Irish Council of State, not on your own. You must submit to their judgment. And I warn you—no more making knights for scant service. It is a bad habit of yours and I will have an end to it. It denigrates the office and makes knaves into ‘Sirs.’ Let someone truly earn it in Ireland, by bravery and might of arms.”

“I bow to your judgment and conditions,” he said.

This was the time when I should call for refreshments, have someone play the virginals to celebrate our agreement. But I wanted to press on through all the business. “I am thinking that the army itself should be around sixteen thousand, the cavalry around thirteen hundred. That will be the largest army I have gathered and sent in all my reign. I will put you in command of six thousand infantry. For the rest, five thousand should be used to fortify Dublin and the Pale, two thousand to garrison Connaught, and another three thousand to secure the south, Leinster and Munster.”

“I will have only six thousand?”

“That is enough for your purposes. A larger army would have trouble marching to Ulster. The terrain is boggy, uneven, and filled with fords and narrow passes. And it is to Ulster you must go, and straightway. Land, gather your supplies, and march. Hunt O’Neill down. That is your mission.”

“He will be waiting.”

“Of course he will be waiting! Surprise is out of the question as our tactic. He knows we have to ferry an army and supplies across the sea. But he can only prepare up to a point. Take him on as soon as you can, when your men and horses are freshest and your supplies greatest. Ireland will sap them all. So strike fast.”

This woman thinks she’s a general,
he was doubtless thinking.
But she’s just an old creature who’s never gone to Scotland, let alone across the water to Ireland. She’s never seen a rebel or a battlefield. She never even saw any ships from the Armada!

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said.

I had read much of battles both modern and ancient, and that can teach a person about war. But it was also in my blood. I was the daughter of Henry VIII; I was descended from the Conqueror, and before that Arthur himself. I belonged on a battlefield, and I would know my way around one by instinct.

Now was the time to call for the refreshments. At last we were finished with business, and I had spoken openly and honestly to him.

He sat back, relaxing in his chair. It was a relief to have this behind us. If his powers were less than he would have liked, they probably still exceeded his expectations.

Before the drink and tidbits could arrive, a messenger asked leave to come in and see Essex. I asked him to speak, and he said simply, “Edmund Spenser has died. He gave up the ghost shortly after you left, my lord.”

Essex went as pale as a ghost himself. Then he did something very odd for a Protestant. He crossed himself.

“Ireland killed him!” he cried.

63

LETTICE

January 1599

H
e had seemed well enough this morning. I had seen him sitting on his bench in his room, drinking warmed ale, hunched in his blanket. He had looked up as I passed and given a wistful smile.

“Essex is off to Whitehall this morning to see the Queen,” I told him. “When he returns, we will know what his fate is to be.”

“May his fate be good and Ireland’s bad,” Spenser said.

It was bitterly cold, with a damp that deepened its sting. Just after Christmas London had been blanketed with snow, and now icy shreds of it clung to windowsills and steps and exposed tree roots. January 13, St. Hilary’s Day, by tradition the coldest day of the year, was trying to live up to its reputation. I wished with all my heart that Spenser could tolerate a fire in his room, for that was the only way to provide warmth.

Robert had gone to face the Queen and finally speak directly about his commission. I had begged him to keep his head cool and his tongue under control. I could only pray that he would.

I asked Frances to join me in my chamber, so we could sit and sew to calm our nerves. I hated needlework, but it was very soothing when the mind was jumpy. I did not see enough of Frances and scolded myself for that, but she was so easy to overlook. I was pleased that she was expecting again. Except for little Robert, born soon after their marriage, there had been no others. Perhaps he shunned her bed, but he owed her more children. She was having a difficult time with this pregnancy, and I assured her that that meant a trouble-free child.

“A child who troubles you in the womb will never trouble you afterward,” I said. “Elizabeth Vernon, now, she had such an easy nine months, but the girl cries all night long, and also”—dare I say it?—“looks like a monkey.”

In spite of herself, Frances giggled. “She does, doesn’t she?” she agreed. “And both her parents so pretty.”

We spoke of other things, court gossip mainly, who was sleeping with whom, fashions, and so on. Mindless subjects to beguile the time. Frances surprised me with her keen interest in these things and her near-perfect recall of dates, names, and details. Perhaps she was not such a prig as I had thought her, or, like some overlooked people, she made it her business to revel in others’ doings. She was the daughter of a spymaster, after all.

“I’ll ask Spenser to join us,” I said, after we had exhausted all pending liaisons and divorces. It was time to elevate the conversation.

But when I went to his room, I found him sprawled on the floor, toppled from his bench. His cheek was pressed against the stone floor, the dry rushes partially covering his mouth. They did not move with his breath.

Gently I turned his head and held my hand before his nostrils, but I felt nothing. His feathered hat was perched on a chair post; I hurriedly pulled a feather out and put it by his nose, but not a tendril of the feathers stirred. He was dead.

I took his hand; it was cold, but then, it had been cold all along. The poor, poor wretch! How Robert would grieve.

His death shocked me but did not surprise me. He had arrived a dead man, only going through the outward semblance of living.

“Farewell, friend,” I whispered. “You leave us too soon.” He was only forty-six.

In three days’ time there was to be a grand funeral for the man called England’s greatest living poet. He would be interred in the south transept of Westminster Abbey to lie beside our greatest poet, living or dead, Chaucer. Robert was paying all expenses. In the sorrow and busyness of preparing for the funeral, he had no time to speak of his interview with the Queen, other than to assure me it had gone well and he had been given nearly everything he had hoped for.

January 16 was a nasty day, with spitting sleet and clouds hanging so low over London they nearly pressed on rooftops. Tiny sparkles of frost clung to fence tops and weather vanes. It was fortunate the coffin could be taken to Westminster Abbey on foot rather than having to use a funeral barge, for ice chunks were drifting on the Thames, remnants of the recent freeze.

It was to be a poet’s funeral, as a soldier would have a military one. Instead of marchers, trumpets, and drums, he would be escorted to the grave by fellow writers. They had composed elegies and poems to be read at the graveside.