Elizabeth: The Golden Age (22 page)

On the very tip of England, the Cornish coast, a young man stood in a watchtower. He’d been there for weeks, doing his best to maintain focus, to keep his eyes on the far-off horizon. It was a deadly dull post. No enemy ships ever passed him, and the ocean was starting to blur. The previous day he’d caught himself falling asleep, so this morning he’d brought with him a knife and a piece of wood and had set to carving it, promising himself that he’d be sure to look up every few minutes.

He’d heard all the stories about the Armada, about the King of Spain—the Demon of the South, as he was called. They said he’d told a man condemned by the Inquisition that if his own son, the prince, were guilty of heresy, he would lead him with his own hands to the stake.

He rolled his shoulders, rocked his head back and forth, and turned his attention to the wood in front of him. But as he raised his knife, something caught the corner of his eye. The blade and wood clattered to the ground as he stared at the sea. Over the rim of the world appeared the long line of the Spanish fleet, a floating wall, black and menacing.

He raced down the steps of the tower, lit a bundle of sticks, and thrust them again and again into the beacon that stood nearby. As it caught fire, flames rising into the sky, he watched and soon saw a second beacon erupt on the next headland. Then a third on the next, and a fourth, and a fifth, until the line of fire stretched the entire length of the coast, warning all of Britain.

It was time. The queen must be informed at once.



“Majesty...” Walsingham was being hesitant with her. He’d been treating her like a wounded bird for three days. It was unbearable.

“Say what you mean to, old man,” she said, blue eyes flashing. They were rimmed with red, and she knew that although none of her courtiers would dare comment—let alone make an empty gesture of sympathy—she despised the fact that her heartbreak was obvious.

“It is perhaps not wise to lose control of your temper in such a fashion. Gossip, you know—”

“I have dealt with gossips from the time I was a girl. You would have me tolerate betrayal? Deceit? Lies? From a Lady of the Privy Chamber? The rules are clear, Moor. None of my ladies may allow a gentleman to court her without my express permission. You would have me make exception to this? Because I liked Bess? Because I liked Raleigh?”
Liked
Raleigh? She had loved him.
Loved
him. And for what? She hated the very sound of their names.

“No, Majesty. I would have you chastise the guilty parties in private. I would have you show nothing to the court but your serene, graceful self.”

“Let them see me for who I am. Let them fear my anger.” A queen should not have to contend with such treatment. She wondered how Raleigh liked the Tower and doubted that his accommodations there could be uncomfortable enough.

The other members of the Privy Council had hung back during this conversation, keeping eyes averted and faces turned. Elizabeth spun around, looking toward them, opening her mouth to say something and then stopping. She flew to the window. Outside it, the last of the warning beacons, the one within view of Whitehall burst into flames, and her heart raced. The Armada. All pettiness dropped away, and great calm centered itself in the core of her chest. She was again focused on her country, her people. This was what it meant to be a queen. England would always matter more than the trivial concerns of a human heart.

“So it begins,” she said as excitement and delicious anticipation worked their way into her soul. “Gentlemen, our ships sail in English waters. Our armies stand on English soil. We will not be defeated. Believe me: I am England.”



“You see, it’s not so bad,” Raleigh said as Bess looked woefully around his room in the Tower of London. “It’s small, granted, but I don’t plan on doing much entertaining, and it’s furnished adequately for a man of my station.”

“How can you joke?” she asked. “It’s dreadful.”

“Not at all. There aren’t even bars on the windows, and the guards let me walk outside when the weather’s good. I’d expected much worse.” And before he could stop himself, he rubbed his neck, glad his head was still attached. Bess reached for him, put her hand on top of his.

“I’ve found rooms nearby. The baby and I will be comfortable there.”

“You are well, Bess?”

“Not so well without you.” She looked at the floor and he saw a tear drop from her cheek.

“We must make the best of it,” he said, looking at her face and memorizing every inch of it. “Do not be sad. We knew this could happen.”

“I’m afraid,” she said.

“Don’t be.” He pulled her onto his lap. “If the queen were going to execute me, she’d have already done it. All there is to do is to remain patient and pray that eventually she releases me. But in the meantime, I cannot have you sad.”

“What would you have me do?”

“Entertain me. The only good thing about prison is that the doors are locked, and the guards have promised not to open mine until you knock to signal that you’re ready to leave.”

“I’m not sure I’m capable of entertainment.”

“I think you are.” He kissed her, slowly, savoring the taste of her. “If my stay here is to be of some duration, I wonder if I could perhaps convince my jailers to move me to larger quarters and have you with me. Would you live with me in the Tower, Bess?”

“I would live with you anywhere,” she said, returning his kisses. Jail, she soon found out, was not quite so dreadful as she’d been led to believe.



Elizabeth felt better—slightly—the moment the boat glided through the dark water. She was completely disenchanted with her courtiers, everyone at Whitehall. They scattered out of her way, afraid of her mood, when she approached. Walsingham and Burghley kept telling her to be calm, and her Privy Councilors all stopped talking when she entered the room. It was unbearable. So, she’d started to play the game, to put on an air of easy grace, to hide her anger. But she felt no need to keep anything from John Dee.

Hiding something from a man of his psychic abilities would be a futile effort, or so she told herself, glad for the excuse to not check her emotions.

When she arrived at his dock in Mortlake, she’d stormed into the house, not waiting to be announced, hardly waiting for the door to be opened, and stood before him, alone, full of anger and confusion.

“Majesty, this is a surprise.”

She glared at him. “The fall of an empire, you told me,” she said, prowling through his cluttered rooms, picking up instruments that looked interesting, then dropping them back down almost at once. “Why do I begin to feel like poor King Croesus? Who took at face value the words of the Oracle of Delphi?”

“You know your Herodotus. Excellent. But as I already told you, prophecy is an art, not a science.”

“The Pythia told Croesus that if he crossed the Halys River, a great empire would be brought down. She did not mention that the empire was his, not the Persians’.”

“Croesus should have considered the option,” Dee said. “One can’t find fault in the Pythia’s words.”

“I will not stand for clouded words. So, tell me: Did you mean the English empire? Because by God, England will not fall while I am queen. If that’s your prophecy, sir, prophesy again.”

“You want me to tell Your Majesty only what Your Majesty chooses to hear?” Dee asked.

“I will not be a toy of the fates. Have I not faced an assassin’s bullet and lived?” She saw puzzlement in his eyes and did not like it. She sighed and felt the stabbing pain return to her stomach just as the seeds of a headache formed at the base of her neck. “Just tell me there’s no certainty. The shadows of ghosts, you said. Any outcome is possible. Give me hope.”

“The forces that shape the world are greater than all of us, Majesty. How can I promise you that they’ll conspire in your favor, even though you are the queen?” he asked. “But this much I know. When the storm breaks, each man acts in accordance with his own nature. Some are dumb with terror. Some flee. Some hide. And some spread their wings like eagles and soar on the wind.”

Elizabeth drew herself up. She knew her nature well, and it was noble. She’d made the mistake—again—of loving a man, of putting her faith in friends. It was not the path upon which God had placed her. Her heart was nothing more than a human flaw, and she must learn to control it, ignore it. She’d been made for England, for her people, to lead them and protect them. To bring them glory. She had to see and believe and feel that these betrayals that made her suffer in her very core were nothing but petty concerns when compared with the duty she owed her country. She would rise above it, never think of it again. She closed her eyes and banished the pain from her heart.

“You’re a wise man, Dr. Dee.”

“And you, madam, are a very great lady.”



Raleigh heard keys clanging outside his door before it swung open and the guard admitted a servant carrying his dinner on a tray. “Excellent,” Raleigh said. “I’m famished and your food is not so bad. All things considered, this lodging is no worse than some I’ve taken on my own.”

The servant did not reply.

“But the days are beginning to grow tedious. I think that should my stay here be a long one, I’ll have to find something to occupy my time. Perhaps I’ll write a book. A history of the world. How far do you think I could get before returning to the queen’s good graces?”

“I know not, sir,” the servant answered.

“Any letter from my wife today?”

“Not yet.”

Bess wrote to him every day and visited as often as his jailers would allow. He missed her more than should have been possible, missed her even before she’d left when she came to him here. All he wanted was to have her back again, but he would have to wait, and waiting was something he despised. He blew out a sigh, changed the subject. “What news comes from the coast? Is the fleet at sea?”

“Yes, sir. May God preserve them.”

“Who’s in command?”

“Lord Howard and Sir Francis Drake, sir. That’s all I know.”

“England is in good hands,” he said, wishing he was with them. The memory of spraying salt and endless sea taunted him. He rubbed his hands, which were growing soft, losing their calluses, and he thought of the feeling of rough ropes raising sails.

“As you say, sir.” The servant bowed and left the room, the click of the key in the lock following quickly.

Raleigh abandoned his food and stepped to the window, looked out over Tower Green. Would Elizabeth spare him? Or would his life end here? The flip confidence he showed Bess when she came to him was not entirely sincere. He fell to his knees and prayed that God would help him find his way back to his wife and to the fleet.

Chapter 20

The Spanish ensign streamed from the masts of every ship, its yellow crosses on red backgrounds bright against the white cliffs of Dover, so close they seemed to have already been planted on shore. It was a daunting sight—but more so from a distance than from the decks of the massive ships. The English were preparing for a naval battle, but the Armada was not as strong as suspected.

The ships were not so well armed as they might have been, and before they’d set sail, desertion and disease had run through the sailors, forcing the Duke of Medina Sidonia to round up any men he could find. Supplies were short, food spoiled, and the duke had heard too many warnings of disaster from noted astrologers. He’d been seasick almost from the moment they’d left Lisbon, and so far, their mission had met with nothing that even approximated glory.

But he did not despair. Before they set sail, a simple friar had come to him to assure him God would be with them on their most holy crusade. And his words were the most sincere Medina Sidonia had ever heard.

He chose to believe them.

Storms had battered the great fleet on its journey to England, and the ships had suffered. Not all of them were new—some were converted merchant vessels, and not all were in the best of shape. Much would depend on Parma and his army, on the invasion, on the Armada serving more as support than an attacking force.

A small skiff pulled up alongside Medina Sidonia’s ship, and a royal messenger scrambled up the side, bringing a letter from the king. Philip told him that in Spain, masses were being said almost continually, saints petitioned—the entire country was at prayer. The world was waiting for this victory, and God would not allow His mission to fail.



The English fleet had sailed from Plymouth, and all that the people in London could do was pray. Elizabeth had decided to go to St. Paul’s, away from the palace, closer to her subjects, needing to be buoyed by their adoration, walking slower than was her habit, carrying herself tall. Her entourage was heavily armed, soldiers carrying glittering weapons, their boots thudding and shields clanking as they marched beside her. Two thousand men protected her, and although she appreciated their devotion, she wondered if the country would not be better served by having them fight with the army.

The Ladies of the Privy Chamber had become more obsequious than ever since she’d ejected Bess from court, each hoping to become the queen’s new favorite. They brought her sweets, shoes, books, and jewelry, all of which left her singularly unimpressed. She was beginning to despise the disposable nature of humans: lose one, replace with another. It did not feel right. She did not want a new companion.

Bess, she’d been told, had taken up residence near the Tower, wanting to be near her husband, a fact Elizabeth found profoundly irritating. Raleigh and his wife—she hated the sound of the word—should have prostrated themselves before her, should have begged for forgiveness. That they’d gone quietly was nothing short of infuriating. Infuriating and heartbreaking and she would fill the void in her chest left by them not with someone else but with ballast of stone. Philip’s Armada could not have come at a better time. She was as grateful for the distraction it brought as she was terrified by it.

Elizabeth opened her eyes wide as they adjusted to the dim light, not missing at all the bright scrutiny of the sun. She pulled the cathedral’s cool, musty air deep into her lungs as she focused her not inconsiderable intelligence, preparing herself. She already had the unmitigated support of her people; now was the time to rally them to action. She began giving orders.