Elizabeth I (80 page)

“He will start out fair but end in darkness and water,” they muttered.

Looking out the window at the darkness that gave no rain for us, I reminded myself—over and over—of the reasons why Robert had accepted this task. He had put them, very succinctly, in a letter to Southampton.

“Into Ireland I go. The Queen has irrevocably decreed it. The council passionately urges it. And I am tied in my own reputation.”

And now he was gone, for fair or ill, and Christopher with him. Having just been released from prison, Southampton would follow shortly.

Of the quartet of friends, only Will stayed in London. True to his promise, he finished his play about Henry V and, to my surprise and delight, put a reference to Robert in it, equating him with the great warrior king. The opening chorus said, “Were now the general of our gracious empress, as in good time he may, from Ireland coming, bringing rebellion broached on his sword...” Whenever audiences heard that, they cheered. All the nation’s hopes were bound up in Robert.

64

ELIZABETH

March 1599

I
watched from Whitehall as Essex and his troops paraded past, glowing in their distinctive tawny liveries. If looks could win a war, then the Irish did not stand a chance. There was no doubt about it: He could muster a following. Men who would never have gone to Ireland joined him, partly drawn by the promise of rewards he was known to be (too) generous with, and partly to share in the glory they believed he was sure to reap. Row upon row of them passed down the Strand, heads high and plumes waving, before turning to head north out of the city and on to Chester. The sun hit the silver trappings on their saddles and ornamental bridles, and the biblical phrase “terrible as an army with banners” came to mind.

Crowds ran alongside the mounted men, crying “God save Your Lordship!” and “All for glory!” So they had cried when I rode out during the Armada attack. But that was more than a decade ago, and it was Essex they called for now.

Growling thunder muttered off in the distance, but the sun still shone here. I stood silently as the army passed away, out of sight. Later we learned that the heavens had opened up and drenched them with rain and hail the moment they were beyond the London walls. Omen? Some said so.

And now we were to wait. Wait for the troops to sail, to land, and to make their way to Dublin. There the lord justices would administer the oath of loyalty and present Essex with the ceremonial sword of state. Only then would business begin, the campaign be launched.

As soon as he could assemble his troops, Essex was to march north and confront The O’Neill. It would to be difficult to stay here, motionless, awaiting news. I had never felt more helpless.

Easter came, and with it a glorious English spring—daffodils, cuckoos, violets, and lily of the valley. No matter what surrounded me, it was impossible for my heart not to soar in such beauty, returned after a long absence. It acted as balm for my fretfulness.

But soon came word that the Earl of Rutland, whom I had expressly forbidden to join Essex, had gone secretly. Instead of sending him back, Essex had welcomed him and made him colonel of foot soldiers, knighting him in the bargain. In addition, the moment Essex had his commission giving him the power of appointments, he had made Southampton his master of the horse. I immediately sent orders countermanding this and called Rutland home. And as for Southampton, I demanded his immediate demotion.

I found this challenge to my authority so disturbing that my sleep fled. I had looked Essex right in the eye and told him that he must not do this; he had done it anyway, as if his obedience ceased to exist once he was out of sight. What was I to do? I could not recall him; O’Neill must be answered. I must use one disobedient subject to chasten another. But after it was over, Essex must be dealt with.

Those left behind were more tractable. There were Robert Cecil, Charles Blount, Walter Raleigh, and Admiral Howard. The latter three had all fought in their time but, in declining to go to Ireland, were all that remained to shield me should Essex make a threatening move. I hated thinking this way, but no Tudor who was blind to the possibility of betrayal had retained the throne.

I ordered the florid dedication in Hayward’s
The History of Henry the Fourth
to Essex, which stated, “You are great indeed, both in present judgment and in expectation of future time,” to be ripped from all the remaining copies of the book. I also granted Robert Cecil the mastership of the Wards of Court. He had earned it; he would use it wisely. Let Essex howl when he found it beyond his grasp.

There is always routine business to be attended to, even when great matters are at hand. Learned men have noted how, at a death, the widow will concern herself with minute aspects of the household, whether that cupboard door is aslant or that sack of flour tied well about the neck, when all the while her husband lies dead in the upper chamber. Just so it was with me. While all hung in the balance in Ireland, I busied myself with playing the virginals, attending concerts, taking little Eurwen on boat rides to show her London from the water, and inventorying my wardrobe.

I never discarded any gowns, although I often gave them away to the ladies who served me. Since my measurements never changed and I neither shrank nor expanded, being exactly the same height and breadth I was upon my accession, everything still fit. But I could never wear all of them again, even though they fit, for they were styled for a younger person. And I did not want to make sacred relics of them. I bestowed them on the startled Eurwen.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Marjorie asked. “I do remember when you first wore that green velvet, that day by the river.”

I embraced Eurwen. “I am sure. It belongs on a girl, and that I am long past.”

“Godmother, you are too generous,” she said. “In Wales, when will I wear it?”

“It is not valuable,” I lied. “Wear it when the sun rises one morning and you awake feeling special, for no reason at all. Wear it in the fields and at the supper table, and think of me.”

All told, there were some three thousand gowns. “Enough for almost ten years, if I changed costumes every day,” I said. Perhaps I should make a point of it. Perhaps if I did that, I would ensure my life for the next ten. There were tales about such things, a task that had to be completed before death could come. I seriously considered it, not for that reason but because I wished to wear all of them once more before ... before I could not.

I looked at the piles of gowns. My horizon had changed. I had never thought of wearing, or doing, anything for the last time. No! I would not think of it now!

News began to trickle in from Ireland, and it was bad. Shocking. Several messengers arrived with posts of Essex’s great victories. But there were no victories. He had taken what amounted to a Progress through the south and west of Ireland, instead of heading north to Ulster. The Irish Council had convinced him that it was too early to go north, that there would not be sufficient grass yet to sustain the horses. The cattle, to be used for food, were all in southern Ireland and could not be rounded up because that area was in the hands of the rebels and, besides, they were still thin from the winter. Therefore, before they could take on The O’Neill, they had to retake the south.

That was their argument. I suspected that some who had been part of the council for some time had their own vested interests in giving this advice. They all had property there! Essex listened to them, as it suited him to get his feet wet in this way before turning to his real task.

So he marched his men out, going through Leinster and then into Munster, making many futile attempts to engage the enemy but mainly being greeted as a hero in towns where nothing was achieved but empty ceremony. His one victory, if you could call it that, was to take the castle of Cahir from some rebels. In the meantime, his officer Sir Henry Harrington was defeated at Wicklow, with half his troops deserting, and the governor of Connaught, Conyers Clifford, defeated and killed in the most gruesome way, with his head hacked off and sent to the Prince of Donegal. It was a loss almost as great as the one at Yellow Ford—three thousand soldiers gone.

It was now July, and Essex’s forces had melted like snowmen, shrunk by desertions and disease. From the original number of foot soldiers, there remained only thirty-five hundred; of cavalry, three hundred. And he had the nerve to request two thousand more troops!

I may have been so angry before. It is possible. But I believe I was angrier now than I had ever been. This fool, having stripped the kingdom of money to support the expedition, was losing the war for England before it even began.

Oh, how The O’Neill must be laughing. How Hugh O’Donnell must be commissioning ballads about it. How the Prince of Donegal must be drinking toasts to Clifford’s head, set up in his Great Hall. How England and its Queen must be mocked from Lough Foyle in the north to Kinsale in the south. That I, who had bested Philip and the might of Spain, was now the plaything of the wild Irish and of my own wayward subject!

Oh! The impotent fury I felt, when I could do nothing but clench my fists and curse at them, hundreds of miles away.

There were letters, of course. That was my only way of reaching them, and they were so slow and ineffective. But I poured all my scorn and invective into one. I hunched over my writing table, my glasses (which I needed now to read but did not like to admit to) perched on my nose, my pen digging into the paper with the force of my trembling hand.

I am known for my “answers answerless,” my way of using subterfuge to both conceal and state my meaning. But not now. I could hardly find words blunt and strong enough to directly express myself.

No lavish greeting. Instead: