Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (60 page)

investiture and witness the Virgin Queen of England tickling the neck of

the new-made Earl who knelt before her. Robin looked up at her with a

familiar grin and she parted her lips in a burlesque of a kiss, while Andrew

Melville held himself rigid to suppress his burning desire to stride up and

slap her presumptuous face. He had already suffered a great deal from the

English Queen in the preceding weeks. On more than one occasion, she

had backed him into an impossible diplomatic corner, demanding to know

whether he considered her to be more beautiful than his own mistress.

Who was the better musician, the better dancer? He had grown scarlet

with embarrassment beneath her wicked gaze as the outrageous questions

became increasingly personal and he was uncomfortably aware that her

attendants were doubled up with amusement at his acute discomfort.

“And which of us is the taller, Sir Andrew?”

“My mistress stands several inches above Your Majesty.”

“Ah, then she is too tall, for I myself am exactly the right height for a

woman—do you not agree, sir?”

What could he say? How could he ever face his own mistress again?

He had never in his life been made to look such a wooden idiot, but

this investiture was the final straw. How dared she insult his Queen by

offering this shabby adventurer, the man who was commonly reputed to

have murdered his wife in order to find a place in the royal bed? And how

dared she publicly demonstrate the relationship which was obviously still

between them as though her original suggestion had not been insolence

enough! Tickling his neck on a solemn state occasion—what did they do

in the privacy of her apartments if this was how she behaved in public?

And as for that disgusting suggestion that the three of them should form

one household—he glanced up and quailed, for the ceremony was over

and she was bearing down upon him once more. And if she made one

more tasteless remark—just one!—he was going to throw diplomacy to

the winds.

“Well, Melville—what do you think of my new creation?”

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“No doubt he will adorn his place,” said Melville drily. “He is fortu-

nate indeed to have a princess willing to reward him for his services.”

She knew what he meant by that and was amused.

“I detect a certain lack of enthusiasm, Melville.” She glanced point-

edly at Darnley, who bore the Sword of State and a bored expression. “I

hope you don’t prefer that long lad over there for your mistress.”

Melville was startled. How in God’s name had she got wind of their

interest in Darnley? Did she want Darnley for herself ? Certainly her

tone implied that she would not consider Mary’s interest in him in a

friendly light.

“Why, madam,” he replied hastily, “no woman could prefer that

beardless lady-faced boy to so fine a man as Lord Leicester.”

She smiled coyly, inclined her head in approval of his answer and

beckoned the new Earl to her side. Melville drew aside in some relief.

As far as he could tell, he had assuaged her suspicions, but her attitude

had confirmed his private opinion: Darnley was a good catch that must

be netted with the minimum of delay. For if she knew, she would stop

it—her tone had made that quite clear.

The reaction in Scotland to the Earl of Leicester’s suit was exactly

what Elizabeth had hoped for. Mary was blind with rage and deaf to

the most elementary promptings of common sense. Neither her advisers

nor her half-brother were able to reason with her and persuade her to

call Elizabeth’s bluff. The insult was intolerable. The Horsemaster, the

murderer, the son of a traitor and—worse than any of these—the cast-off

lover! How dared Elizabeth try to pass him on as though he were a well-

worn slipper whose comfortable fit she could heartily recommend. It was

disgusting—
disgusting!
—and she would not give the proposal a moment’s

serious thought, no, not even with the subtle promise of the English

succession as a wedding present.

Rage stripped away the mask of patience and restraint which Mary

had cultivated for nearly three years, exposing her raw emotions to the

air. And Elizabeth allowed Darnley to escape to Scotland at the precise

moment when she judged her cousin to be ready to fall in love with

the first handsome candidate who crossed her path. Darnley was an

English subject—he would bring Mary nothing but his Tudor blood

and his remote claim to the English throne, as Mary’s outraged bastard

brother, James, did his best to point out to her before it was too late. As

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he watched his half-sister’s helpless infatuation take its natural course,

James pleaded, begged, and finally threatened; while Elizabeth, apparently

furious at the turn events were taking, demanded Darnley’s immediate

return to England. The open hostility from James and Elizabeth was

sufficient to convince Mary that Darnley must be a good match. He

was also a Catholic and the most handsome and charming young man

she had ever had the good fortune to meet. The choice seemed patently

obvious to her—she was heartily tired of humouring her enemies. Her

marriage to Darnley was conducted in almost indecent haste, simultane-

ously satisfying a physical lust and a personal spite against her half-brother

and her English cousin, the two people she had begun to hate more than

anyone else on earth.

Within a month, the marriage was celebrated by civil war. James led

her outraged Protestant nobility in open rebellion against her and she

rode into the field against him, nursing a devastating personal knowledge

of the perverted drunkard who was now her King-Consort. The peace

which Mary had so skilfully preserved in Scotland since her arrival was

shattered beyond repair, while in England Elizabeth smirked as the new

Earl of Leicester paid out his thousand gold pieces and seriously began to

wonder if she had second-sight.

After six months of degradation and misery with a debauched brute for

a husband, pregnancy was Mary Stuart’s sole triumph, all she had to show

for the marriage that had split her kingdom and turned her half-brother

into a traitor. Only the devotion of her closest adviser, the stunted little

Italian musician David Riccio, saved her from abject despair, as slowly

and carefully he began to rebuild the bridges which her hasty marriage

had destroyed. It was soon obvious to Darnley, to the Scottish lords, and

to the anxiously watching English councillors that Mary was receiving

too much good advice and that something drastic would have to be done

about it. So on a bitter March night, with a savage brutality unparalleled

even in Scottish history, Riccio was stabbed to death in the presence of a

mistress six months gone with child. Darnley held Mary while the Lords

Ruthven, Morton, Lindsay, Kerr, and Douglas plunged their daggers into

the little Secretary in a frenzy of blood lust; he stood by, with quiet

satisfaction, while Kerr pressed a cocked pistol against Mary’s side and

threatened the life of his unborn child. He was a king at last, taking a

kingly revenge on an inferior rival, and his conscience never stirred; but

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later, alone with his wife, his sense of self-preservation did and the signs

of nervous agitation were unmistakable to Mary. She had neither time

nor strength to waste voicing her loathing of this spineless traitor—that

could come later when she was safe. Now she needed the pitiful craven

to engineer her escape, and she began to play mercilessly on his fears

with such success that a mere night later saw her riding with Darnley to

the safety of Lord Bothwell’s castle at Dunbar. And when the news was

brought to England, Elizabeth astonished her own advisers by applauding

the courage and cunning by which Mary had won free of her enemies.

“I’m only sorry she didn’t stab Darnley with his own dagger at

Dunbar!” she cried. “The mean-minded knave should be boiled alive for

the way he’s treated her.”

It was too much for Leicester’s logic. He had to point out to her that

it was she who had sent the mean-minded knave to her cousin in the first

place, but she did not appear to hear as she stalked up and down the room

with an angry swish of brocade.

“They say he held her and forced her to watch it all—a helpless girl

carrying his own child.”

“Madam, that helpless girl is your deadly enemy, you’ve said so your-

self before now. And you knew Riccio was to be murdered. I showed

you Randolph’s letter weeks ago—you approved of it.”

She shot him a look of hostility.

“I approved the principle, not the means. Neither you nor Cecil told

me that it was to be done in her presence with the poor devil clinging to

her skirts and screaming like a stuck pig. They say her gown was soaked

with blood—”

Elizabeth stood in the centre of the room, clenching and unclenching

her hands. They were alone, so he could not accuse her of play-acting for

the benefit of watching ambassadors.

“If I’d known it was to be done like this I’d have warned her—I swear

I would.”

He was silent, trying to reconcile this angry sympathy with the cold

cunning of her diplomacy. Increasingly, he was beginning to see the

woman and the Queen as quite separate entities. A pity one never knew

which one would be called to face!

At last he said cautiously, “Well, it’s done now. Does it really

matter how?”

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“It could have caused her to miscarry.”

Robin shrugged. “I’d say it’s not too late, even now, to hope for that.”

“
Hope
?”
she picked up an inkwell from her desk and flung it at him

wildly. “You think I hope for the death of unborn children? God, what

an insensitive pig you are. Get out of my sight and don’t come back until

you’ve wiped that gloating smile off your face.”

He picked his way carefully over the trail of ink and bowed himself

out of the room, reflecting that it was rarely possible to know just what

she would welcome. Evidently the only kind of treachery she seemed to

approve of was her own.

In the corridor beyond he met Cecil, who glanced at his ink-splashed

doublet with a quizzical expression.

“Still angry, I see,” the Secretary remarked. “This is perhaps not the

time to seek audience.”

“Not unless you aspire to decapitation by inkwell,” said Leicester drily.

The two men exchanged a guarded smile. For a fleeting moment there

was an alliance of puzzled male sympathy, as strong and irrational as that

which had suddenly united Elizabeth with her sworn enemy.

They withdrew together beyond the Privy Chamber, civil with each

other now, as political necessity had increasingly forced them to be.

“What do you make of this business with the Scottish Queen, Sir

William?”

Cecil frowned and glanced round cautiously to ensure they would not

be overheard.

“I think it a great pity they allowed her to escape. Given time and the

right support, she will regain her full power and influence in Scotland.”

Leicester gave him a heartless little smile.

“Time is the one thing no one can give her—from what I hear she

has no hope of surviving the birth. Three more months, Sir William, and

God may resolve our problem for us.”

Cecil sucked in his lower lip and gnawed the edge of his greying beard.

“The fortunes of every Englishman may now depend upon the fate

of Mary Stuart in childbed. I hope you’re right, my lord—indeed I hope

you’re right.”

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Chapter 3

A
ll the windows of the great hall had been pushed open

and a gay riot of music and laughter spilt out into the sweet

dusk beyond. It was a sultry June evening and not a breath of air stirred

the silent trees in the rambling riverside gardens of Greenwich, as Sir

Andrew Melville rode hell for leather into the empty courtyard and

tumbled from his spent horse. Grooms hurried forward to take the

reins from his hands and he paused a moment to draw his sleeve across

his sweating face, before stumbling through the clouds of midges into

the palace.

In the hot, airless corridor beyond the Great Hall he encountered the

Secretary of State who stiffened visibly at the sight of him.

“Melville! What news?”

“It’s a son, Sir William—a fine, bonny prince.”

“And your Queen?” Cecil’s voice was sharp with anxiety.

“A hard and difficult labour—but, God be thanked, the doctors say

she will recover.”

Cecil gave him his cold hand.

“You bring us wonderful tidings,” he said stonily, his sombre face

as fixed and unsmiling as a death’s-head. “I know Her Majesty will be

overjoyed when I inform her.”

Melville made a quick step towards the door of the Great Hall.

“But surely I should deliver news of such moment in person.”