Elizabeth: The Golden Age (17 page)

“I told them not to let anyone but you come in,” Elizabeth said, watching as Bess closed the door, sinking her again into darkness. “Sit with me.” The queen was sitting in a tall-backed wainscot chair, elaborately carved from oak, lacking anything that might offer comfort, no pad on its narrow seat. Her father had used it in his youth, and she’d always felt unaccountably sentimental about it. Bess crossed the room slowly as her eyes adjusted to the dim light and sat on the floor at Elizabeth’s feet.

“They say she’s taller than me,” Elizabeth said. “Her hair is auburn in color. Her eyes are blue. Some say she’s beautiful. I’ve seen her portrait, and she does seem to me to be beautiful. But portraits lie. I’ve never seen her in my life.”

“Nor have I, Majesty.”

Elizabeth took Bess’s hand, thinking about all the times Walsingham had come to her with evidence against Mary. He wanted the fallen queen brought to trial after Throckmorton’s scheme unraveled; Elizabeth had refused. The Privy Council had passed, in 1584, a Bond of Association, which Parliament voted into law the following year. Any person with claims to the throne of England who knew about a plot against the queen would lose his—or her—place in the line of succession and be put to death, the former punishment rather underwhelming, given the latter. The law had slightly modified the bond presented by the Privy Council: their version insisted that the claimant should be put to death even if he had no knowledge of plans to overthrow the current monarch. Standing to benefit from such treachery would have been enough to prove guilt. But Mary, now, was implicated much further.

“They say she plotted to kill you.”

“Yes, it’s true. I’ve read her letters.”

“They say she must die.”

“They say—they say.” Elizabeth rose from her chair, the backs of her legs pushing it against the wall, and stalked toward the window. “She’s a queen, Bess. Or was, for a time. My mother was a queen. For a time. I was not even three years old when—when her life was cut short.” Elizabeth closed her eyes, fighting the beginnings of a headache. Her memories of Anne Boleyn came from other people’s stories; she didn’t even have hazy visions of her own. They told her she’d been a passionate woman, vivacious, with a wit that had captivated the king. And that she’d loved her little daughter with all her soul, visiting the baby at Hatfield House, where Elizabeth had been sent soon after her birth.

Elizabeth had not inherited her mother’s dark eyes, nearly black, that were said to have mesmerized her father. But Anne had been unfaithful to the king and was found guilty of adultery and treason and executed on Tower Green. She’d asked for a French executioner, whose sharp sword would be more likely to take only one swift stroke to sever her head, an end far preferable to multiple clumsy blows of a heavy axe.

There were other rumors, though. Rumors that the charges against Queen Anne were lies. That she’d never betrayed Henry. That her inability to produce a son led to her downfall. That her beautiful daughter, Elizabeth, had not been enough to satisfy the king.

“Oh, I dread this act. I dread it with all my soul.” Elizabeth had begun to sway. Bess steadied her. “Thank you, Bess. I could not do without your friendship.” The girl blushed and called for a servant to bring lavender tea, but the queen would not drink it, succumbing instead to the painful misery growing in her head.

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“Again you come to me,” Elizabeth said, offering Raleigh her hand as he bowed in front of her.

“I knew you would be troubled. But you cannot doubt that she must be brought to trial,” he said.

“I don’t fear the trial, only the verdict.”

“The law must be obeyed.”

“Queens are not subject to ordinary laws.”

“Think on it no more,” he said. “There’s nothing more to be done until judgment is passed, and you must find something else to occupy your mind lest you drive yourself mad.”

“So, amuse me, Water, make yourself endlessly distracting.”

“Call for your musicians. I want to dance with you.”

She obeyed him and found herself surprisingly thrilled at this small act of submission. They danced until they were both so tired they could hardly draw breath, until the musicians looked as if they would collapse from exhaustion and the courtiers who watched knew without doubt that the queen had fallen in love.

Chapter 14

Fotheringay Castle stood bleak and unwelcoming on the fens some seventy miles from London, an imposing gathering place for the nobles of the realm who’d come to watch the trial of Mary Stuart. Elizabeth had appointed commissioners—thirty-six of them—to hear the case and determine a verdict. They came from the most noble families in her realm, were men she trusted above all others. No one else could be in charge of something so grave.

Mary had managed to delay the commission by refusing to participate. She was a queen, a sovereign, not subject to the laws of England, and insisted the trial was illegal. But in the end, Sir Christopher Hatton had persuaded her to let it continue. He would allow her complaint to be formally recorded—but without a trial, she would never have the opportunity to prove her innocence.

The night before the proceedings were to begin, she found a letter from her cousin tucked casually next to a plate on her dinner tray. She picked it up, fingered the paper, noted that Elizabeth’s italics were as perfectly elegant as ever, but hesitated to open it. After two bites of bread and a flavorless spoonful of some thin soup of ambiguous origin, she broke the seal.

You have in various ways and manners attempted to take my life and to bring my kingdom to destruction by bloodshed. I have never proceeded so harshly against you, but have, on the contrary, protected and maintained you like myself. These treasons will be proved to you and all made manifest. Yet it is my will that you answer the nobles and peers of the kingdom as if I were myself present. I therefore require, charge, and command that you make answer, for I have been well informed of your arrogance. Act plainly, without reserve, and you will sooner be able to obtain favor of me. Elizabeth

Her cousin’s words incensed her. She pushed her food away from her, knocking over a heavy goblet, wine leaving a dark stain on the table. She started to pace. “I have not threatened her,” she said, clutching Geddon to her chest with one hand while she shook the paper at her ladies with the other. “I have plotted desperately to secure my own safety—to escape from these prisons to which I’ve been confined. I have ordered men to assist me. But I have not planned to kill a queen.”

She pulled out a stack of papers she’d carried with her from Chartley House and motioned for Annette to sit with her. She had the sharpest mind of any of Mary’s ladies and was the best suited to help her put the finishing touches on her defense.

“Here,” she said, thrusting the pages at Annette. “Read these while I continue writing.” She had started work on her statement the day Paulet had told her of the charges against her and continued to polish her words every day since they had brought her to Fotheringay.

“They cannot find you guilty,” Annette said when she reached the end of the first page.

“I hope you’re right,” Mary said. “After twenty years as a prisoner, I fear I grew complacent. I’ve done everything I could to organize an escape.”

“And you were always thwarted,” Annette said.

“Yes, but even when plots were discovered, I was never implicated. It gave me a dangerous sense of security.”

“Do you know what they claim as evidence against you?”

“Not precisely. My letters, I assume.” She tried to remember exactly what she’d written in that last missive. They had asked her to give them orders, to issue the command, and she’d done that—but she’d phrased her words with great care, stopping short of directly telling them to assassinate Elizabeth. Of course, it was evident that the queen’s death was part of the plan, but how could she be held accountable for that? She was not the author of the scheme. “So, these Englishmen,” Annette said. “They can be sent to their deaths for being party to a threat to the queen?”

“Yes.”

“But you are not English.”

“Precisely. Perhaps if I am able to distance myself from the conspirators, that will be enough. I am not responsible for their plans.”

Annette finished with the papers and an ugly laugh flew from her throat. “These people are so pathetic. You, madam, have the strongest legal claim as Elizabeth’s heir. Would they send to death the successor to their throne, when their own queen is a dried-up spinster? Who would they have rule when she is gone?”

“My son, of course.” Mary sighed, thinking of the boy— James, King of Scotland. Not a boy, not any longer.

“Why did the English queen never marry?” Annette asked.

“I don’t know. But she will make herself ridiculous as she ages. It’s all fun to collect men like trinkets when you’re young and beautiful, but it won’t last.” Mary relished the thought of her cousin, old and alone and pathetic, the men who claim to adore her laughing behind her back. But if she wanted to be alive to see it, she needed to finish her defense.

Fog twisted through the fens the next morning, snaking around bare tree limbs and settling on dropped leaves rotting in heaps on the damp ground. Mary leaned against the window, fingering the lead cames between the diamond-shaped panes of glass, barely feeling the hard coldness of the surface. Cold did not bother her; it helped focus her mind. A sharp rap on the door announced the servants bringing her breakfast. She was not hungry but ate every morsel, pronouncing it all delicious, wanting to project nothing but contented confidence.

As soon as she’d finished eating, she was escorted downstairs. Close to a dozen gentlemen were seated around a long table in the center of the room. Benches lined the two walls parallel to the table. Sir Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor, sat in the first one, the rest filled with earls of the realm and other nobles. Perpendicular to the table on one side was a single long bench with a high back: here sat Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Francis Walsingham. Of the other four men with them, she recognized only one: Sir Amyas Paulet. Against the wall near the door and opposite the other end of the table, stood a single, magnificent chair. A throne, intended for the queen, who, Mary had been told, would not appear.

She composed herself, smoothing the soft fabric of her black gown, and stood at her full height, taller than the men who brought her to face her accusers. They led her to a chair not far from Elizabeth’s empty one, across from the Lord Chancellor. She did not sit, preferring to stand while she spoke.

“So many councilors here, but none for me,” she said, a charming smile on her face. Her clear voice filled the cavernous hall, the sweetness of her syllables bouncing off the hard stone walls.

“My father was a king, and I am cousin to the queen of England. I came to this country seeking protection from my enemies and the rebels in Scotland who forced me from my throne. Your good queen promised me help, yet instead of receiving it, I was taken captive.

“I cannot recognize the laws of your country because I am a queen myself. Submitting to your justice would weaken not only my own position but that of every other sovereign ruler in the world. And yet here I stand, alone, with no one to speak on my behalf. Everything I own has been taken from me, including my papers. Papers that would have helped in my defense.

“I will make no attempt to deny that I desperately want my freedom, and that I have done all I can to secure it. Is that not understandable? Would any of you gentlemen, finding yourself in similar circumstances, act in any other way? Would you not resist? Defend yourself?

“I have tried, with the help of loyal friends, to escape my bonds. But in doing so, I have wished no harm to your own Queen Elizabeth, nor have I encouraged others in planning such a scheme. But I am a queen with a claim to the throne of England. I do not share your faith, and there are, among you, subjects who prefer me to my cousin. I cannot be held responsible for the criminal acts and sedition of such people.

“It is my faith—the faith into which I was born—for which you judge me, and I cannot stop that. You will do as you wish. And if the worst is to come, my motto will see me through: In my end is my beginning.”

She’d spoken beautifully. She knew that. But when the commissioners would not let her hear the witnesses against her, nor show her the letters they claimed as evidence— letters they insisted were written in her hand—her heart sank. Her intentions, her simple desire for freedom, would not matter to the men sitting in judgment of her; she had no doubt what their verdict would be. At the end of the second day of the trial, she told them she forgave them for what she knew was inevitable.

The verdict should have come at once, but Elizabeth ordered her commissioners back to London, where all the evidence gathered by Walsingham and his cohorts was studied in the Star Chamber, a court made up primarily of the queen’s Privy Councilors, and full of the same men who’d already heard Mary’s case. More testimony was given, and the Scottish queen’s own secretaries did not pause in their condemnation of their sovereign. Ten days later, the decision was announced at Westminster: Mary Stuart was “not only accessory and privy to the conspiracy but also an imaginer and compasser of Her Majesty’s destruction.”

Parliament met not long afterward and proclaimed the verdict, but Elizabeth delayed the public reading of her proclamation of the sentence for more than a month. That Mary would be put to death was obvious, and the document need not state it directly. No one doubted the execution would come quickly—all of the country was clamoring for it. But Mary would not yet be put out of her misery.

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The light in Elizabeth’s library was dim, not bright enough to read by, but she did not care and made no move to light more lamps. She had come here for solace and sat in silence, pressing her hands flat together, feeling the pulse of her blood in them, then pulling them apart, over and over. She ought not be so conflicted; Walsingham had shown her all the evidence. Mary’s guilt was undeniable. But no one other than herself—and Mary, she supposed—appreciated the difficulties of finding a queen culpable of a capital offense. Once again, she felt her isolation, lonely even when people surrounded her. Only another queen would understand how empty adoration could be.