Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (102 page)

out of the tapestry with cold rage.

“You’re a fool, Robert,” she said after a moment, “do you know that?

In thrillage to an old crone of sixty-six!”

“She is not—”

“She is! Sixty-six! It’s—it’s positively indecent, the two of you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mother,” he said icily, “we’re not lovers.”

Thank God!” snapped Lettice, biting off a thread with a vicious gesture.

“I really would tremble if I thought you had been so foolish. I never

wanted you to go to court, but Leicester would have it that he needed

you. I might have known how it would be. First my husband, now my

son. Sometimes I think she singled you out simply to spite me—to pay

me back for Leicester!”

Essex withdrew to the chimney-piece in frigid dignity, his pride cut

to the quick.

Legacy

“The Queen favours me for myself,” he insisted stubbornly. “I won’t

hear you or anyone else say otherwise. Surely it’s obvious from this news

that she is wretched without me.”

Lettice laughed shortly and pushed her tapestry aside.

“You speak of wretchedness? Look at yourself, boy—pale as a corpse

and thin as a crow. Every time she turns her back on you, you fret your-

self into a shadow—it sickens me to see it!”

He shrugged off her concern impatiently and reached for his cloak.

“Nothing matters now except that I go back to court in triumph,

despite the Father and the Son.”

“You don’t have to go back,” said Lettice jealously. “Not immedi-

ately. Let her wait.”

He bent to kiss his mother’s cheek carelessly.

“The Queen is like the tide, Mother. She waits for no man.”

And he went out of the room with a jaunty step that made her

suddenly want to weep.

t t t

The Queen was writing when the little hunchbacked Secretary was

shown into her room and she did not look up as he approached her desk.

He executed a clumsy bow to the top of her jewelled head and felt

the familiar sting of her indifference. By God, she would look up soon

enough if Essex had entered the room, or even Burghley. Must he be

constantly reminded by her cool manner that he would never have the

charm of his rival or the sheer stature of his own father?

As he waited there, with a wad of papers clutched against his chest and

his weak eyes dazzled by the winking diamonds in her hair, he had time

to reflect on the past months of failed diplomacy in his own camp.

A brief embassy to France had disclosed the fact that the French

King—supposedly England’s staunch ally—was secretly negotiating a

separate peace treaty with Spain. The untimely news had been received

in Council like a lighted firecracker, instantly igniting the latent hostility

between the rival factions. Essex had seized upon it as a vindication of his

own aggressive war policies and since then a succession of violent council

meetings had weighed war and peace in an atmosphere of increasing

personal animosity.

“We have been played false!” Essex had insisted, shouting down

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Burghley’s quiet pleas for moderation. “The only way to win this war is

to fight it—to spare no effort and no expense—”

“My lord,” Burghley interposed softly, “the Treasury is not a bottom-

less vault in which you may dip your hands whenever you please.”

Essex turned on him with savage contempt.

“When we want the opinions of counting clerks at this table we’ll

ask for them—those who have lost their spirit for the fight should stay at

home and sit by the fire—where they belong!”

Burghley fumbled with the Bible which lay beside him and flicked the

book open at the fifty-fifth psalm. Silently he pushed it over to the young

man who sat opposite him, pointing to one line with a twisted finger.

Essex looked down and read aloud:
“Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall

not live out half their days
!” He looked across at the old man and laughed

suddenly. “Is that your idea of a threat, my lord? Is it supposed to put fear

and trembling into my heart? By God, sir, it’s small wonder the French

mock us when we follow the mealy-mouthed advice of a dotard.”

“That will do, my lord!” The Queen’s voice had cut across the argu-

ment and immediately there was silence. But there had been no disguising

the naked hostility which now existed between the war and peace parties.

The rivalry between the Essex and Cecil factions was slowly coming to

a head and the Queen was well aware of it. If she was not very careful in

maintaining the balance, she might easily lose control of the game. Now,

as she wrote and ignored Cecil with quiet deliberation, her mind was

busy resolving the issue. At last she laid her pen down and looked up.

“Well, little man,” she said pleasantly. “What business today?”

He laid the papers on her desk and she immediately began to glance

through them. She read quickly, still possessing the power of total recall,

and he knew that shortly every word on that stack would be locked in the

vast storehouse of her memory. It was a gift he envied.

He cleared his throat hesitantly.

“If I might most respectfully request Your Majesty to consider the

unrest in Ireland? As long as the post of Lord Deputy remains empty,

Tyrone’s rebel forces will continue to gain ground.”

The Queen frowned. There was always unrest in Ireland and

sometimes she felt it was endemic in that savage land. As far back as

she remembered a steady stream of loyal, eager men had gone out there

to contain the ferocious revolts of local chieftains and had taken only

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heartbreak, and lost reputations, to their graves. Essex’s father, Walter

Devereux, had been one of them and she bit her lip angrily, recalling how

that timely death had set Lettice Knollys free to cast her cap at Robert

Dudley. Ireland had a lot to answer for in her book!

And yet Ireland could not be ignored. Spain fanned the treachery

there, still seeking a landing point for invasion forces, and it was certainly

true that the post of Lord Deputy must be filled as soon as possible, before

Philip got himself a foothold in the land.

She tapped her long, painted nails on the polished table top and

watched Cecil between half-closed lids.

“As you so rightly say, Sir Robert, someone must go to Ireland—

Ireland or Hell—it’s one and the same place I’m led to believe.” Her

painted lips curled in a sarcastic smile. “And since no Englishman makes

his fortune there I suppose some unfortunate soul will have to be invei-

gled into accepting the post. Not a position to give a friend, eh? I take it

you have a man in mind?”

The question was shot at him so suddenly that he started. He wished

she would not look at him like that, as though she had already analysed

every thought in his head and dismissed them as uninteresting and insig-

nificant. It took him a moment to regain his composure and calmly parrot

his prepared line.

“Madam, I can suggest no one better qualified for the post than Sir

William Knollys.”

Knollys was Essex’s uncle and a strong supporter in his nephew’s camp.

It was not difficult to see why Cecil hoped to link his rival’s name with a

campaign that, of its very nature, must prove at best a limited success and

at worst an uninspired disaster. Cecil hoped to discredit Essex’s man and

thereby weaken the Earl’s influence at the council table. Normally she

would not take sides so openly—but now, it might be just the opportunity

she was looking for to make an insidious inroad in the Earl’s standing.

But she showed no active interest; that was not her way.

“The matter will be aired in Council,” she said coolly, and waved her

hand in dismissal, without looking at him.

t t t

Every window made to open in the council chamber at Greenwich had

been pushed wide to admit the cooler air which blew in from the river.

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They admitted other things too, the talk and laughter of the gaily clad

courtiers who walked the lawns beneath in their stifling court costumes;

and the shouts of the bargemen who sailed the river beyond. Greenwich

stood close to the river, fronting the broad sweep of the Thames, so that

ships sailing up to the London port could be clearly seen from the windows.

But no one in the council chamber was listening to the sounds of

life which flooded in from the river on that sticky July day. The room

had assumed a tense silence, the kind of silence that precedes some

mighty conflagration.

It had begun quietly enough. A small group of councillors surrounded

the Queen in the window embrasure where she stood, a little desperate

for air, in a suffocating gown of gold and silver, which weighed like a

shroud of lead on her thin frame. It was too hot for business. Cecil was

sweating copiously inside his dark suit and Essex’s handsome face was red

and strained. No one was in a good mood, and the Queen was intent on

despatching the matter in hand with the minimum of time and effort.

She glanced at Cecil momentarily and then announced her intention of

appointing Sir William Knollys as Lord Deputy of Ireland.

Essex stiffened, catching sight of Cecil’s faintly smug expression.

“Madam,” he said with an edge to his voice. “I beg leave to remind

you that Sir William Knollys is my uncle.”

Elizabeth turned impatiently.

“And what, pray, has that to do with his appointment, my lord?”

Essex instinctively clenched his fist towards her and took a step

towards her.

“My uncle has no experience.”

“He will quickly gain it”

“To what purpose, may I ask—merely to satisfy the whim of a hunch-

back? If you want the right man for the job, I suggest Sir George Carew.”

Carew was Cecil’s man. Even for Essex, it was a grossly transparent

move and Elizabeth laughed outright, her humour suddenly restored.

“My lord, you make yourself ridiculous. I advise you to be silent if you

cannot be serious. The matter is settled.”

He caught the ruff at her wrist angrily; he was falling into the routine of

a private scene with her and there was a deathly hush among the spectators.

“Madam—I will not stand by while such an appointment takes place.

My advice—”

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“When I want your advice, young man, I will ask for it!”

“All I ask is that you have the courtesy to hear me out before you

make such an arbitrary decision.”

“I have heard all I wish to hear from you, sir.” She paused and

looked around the intently listening group. “My lords—Sir William

Knollys is appointed!”

With a great oath, Essex turned his back on her, a public gesture of

contempt which no man had dared to make in forty years.

With a strangled gasp of fury, she lunged forward and struck him a

resounding blow across the ear and the sound of it rang in the silent room

like a gunshot.

“Go to the devil and be hanged!” she spat.

He swung round upon her, white with murderous rage, and to their

utter disbelief they saw him reach for his sword. With a choking cry,

old Howard of Nottingham rushed between them before he could strike

her, clamping his hand on the Earl’s arm and shaking the sword to the

floor. The room was suddenly galvanised to life and Essex was seized from

behind. His arms were pinned, but no one could silence his scream of rage.

“God’s death, I would not have borne such an insult from your father’s

hand! I’ll not bear a blow from you or any woman!”

There was no sound in the room, except that of Essex struggling like

a wild wounded animal against his captors. With a great wrenching effort

he threw off their hands and rushed to the door, slamming it open. They

made to go after him, but the Queen said in a thin whisper, “No, my

lords. Let him go.”

She stood where he had left her, deathly white, motionless, and

ominously silent, staring after him.

She could not believe it had happened.

This time, said the court knowingly, buzzing with the news like a vast

sprawling hive, this time he had gone too far. This time it would be the

Tower and the block; and they waited in an agony of suspense for the

guards to go marching to his apartments and make the expected arrest.

An hour later Essex was seen clattering down the main staircase, with his

followers at his heels. In the courtyard he vaulted into the saddle of his

favourite mare and rode out through the main entrance of Greenwich, like

a madman leading a force from the gates of Hell. Rumour had it he would

make for Wanstead, where doubtless he would find the Queen’s forces

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waiting for him, but by the end of that day not a single armed man had set

foot outside the palace. The Queen remained alone in her private apart-

ments and no one knew what to make of it. Why hadn’t she acted? Was