Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (65 page)

t t t

The news of Leicester’s betrayal acted on Norfolk like a bullet from

a gun on a startled rabbit. He rushed away from the court in a blind

panic, first to his London house, then to his estates in Norfolk. Elizabeth

immediately closed all her ports, and his attempt to get a message to Alva,

the Spanish commander in the Netherlands, met with failure. Without

Spanish support he knew he was lost, and when a peremptory royal

command summoned him to the Queen’s presence at Windsor, he gave

in to the inevitable. In a frantic attempt to avert the planned rebellion,

he sent a message begging the Earl of Westmorland not to stir now or it

would cost him his head, and set out himself to surrender to the Queen’s

mercy at Windsor. As soon as he came within sight of the great stone-

walled castle, he was surrounded by an armed guard and diverted to the

Tower, there to pace and sweat and pray that his allies would obey his

desperate command.

But it was too late now to retract, even though the northern earls

themselves had begun to lose their nerve. Westmorland was goaded into

action by his sharp-tongued wife, and Northumberland by the urgings of

a loyal servant. On the 14th of November, with an army at their back,

they stormed Durham Cathedral to tear up the English translation of the

Bible and trample it underfoot, proclaiming their rebellion to be an act

of religious warfare, the first blow in the battle to maintain the Catholic

faith in England. Then they marched south to free their figurehead,

the Queen of Scots, only to find that Elizabeth had already spirited her

“guest” away by force of arms to Coventry. The Catholic population,

which they had expected to fall upon them with open arms, looked on

in polite bewilderment, reluctant to trade peace and growing prosperity

for the claims of a foreign sovereign who had already wreaked havoc in

her own country. The rebels were defeated before they had begun by the

ten years of security and plenty which Elizabeth’s rule had bestowed on

England; and when the Queen’s army moved into the field against them

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under the leadership of the Earl of Sussex, the leaders fled in ignominious

defeat across the Scottish border, leaving the humble peasants, who had

followed their landlords blindly, to face the consequences.

And the consequences were severe. The most hardened members of

the Council were shocked to learn how Elizabeth intended to handle her

rebellious subjects, for it was the first time she publicly revealed the iron

hand which now governed England beneath that velvet glove of loving

care. Some six hundred peasants were hanged at her personal insistence,

while the landowners who had raised the rebellion were spared, so that

the crown might take their estates forfeit to cover the cost entailed in

crushing it. Justice was sacrificed on the altar of hard economic fact. It

was savagely cruel and unfair; but it worked. The North of England learnt

the reward of treason and learnt it so well that it was to be the last blood

shed there for the rest of the Queen’s reign. Elizabeth knew when it paid

to be cruel.

In the Tower of London, Norfolk drew his first breath of relief when

he heard that the Privy Council did not consider that he had actually

committed treason. He smiled to himself and admitted that, thanks to

Elizabeth’s prompt action, they were technically quite correct. His plans

might have been nipped in the bud with a vengeance, but they were

not quite extinguished. He was smuggling letters out in bottles hidden

in the dark, dank privy, making good use of the Tower’s shortcomings

as his royal cousin had once done before him. Already there was public

agitation for his release and he was not unduly concerned to hear that

Elizabeth had screamed at the Council that she would have his head on

her own authority if the law could not provide for it. They also told him

that she had fainted outright in the council chamber immediately after

saying that and he thought he knew his royal cousin by now. She might

kill six hundred faceless peasants without a qualm, but her own flesh and

blood was an entirely different matter.

In the triumph of his reprieve, the amorous overtures from Mary and

the veiled hints of assistance from Spain remained an irresistible tempta-

tion. Whenever common sense and timidity assailed him, he comforted

himself with the plain fact that no one—no one at all—had been beheaded

in England since the Queen came to the throne.

Could it be that she was a little squeamish when it came to the axe

that had already claimed her mother, her step-mother, and her first lover?

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Mulling over the possibility, Norfolk began to feel remarkably safe. She

was only a woman after all, a weak and feeble vessel destined to be taken

advantage of by men. And it was becoming increasingly obvious that she

could not continue to hold the premier peer of the realm captive without

hard evidence. He had no difficulty at all in signing the paper which

reaffirmed his oath of loyalty to her and he swore publicly to have no

further dealings with the Queen of Scots.

Leicester looked at the paper with undisguised disgust. He had been

sure that he had heard the last of the man who would now be his most

deadly enemy, but there he was riding off to liberty, cock-a-hoop at

having escaped virtually scot free.

“I had to release him,” said Elizabeth quietly. “For his own good I

would have preferred to keep him under guard, but they were growing

restless down in Norfolk. I dared not provoke another rising.”

“And what now, madam?”

“Now I am afraid I shall have to give him enough rope to hang

himself. Cecil’s spies will watch his every move—it can only be a question

of time…”

t t t

Norfolk wrote hastily to Mary’s agent, the Bishop of Ross, explaining

that his signature on Elizabeth’s deed meant nothing. He had signed it

under duress and he hoped the Queen of Scots would understand that he

was as ready to become her husband as he had ever been.

Within months, the perfect opportunity presented itself. The Pope,

justifying Cecil’s worst nightmares, chose that moment to excommu-

nicate Elizabeth officially, thus freeing all Catholic subjects from their

allegiance to her and issuing an open invitation for someone to stick a

dagger in her heart in God’s holy cause. From that moment on, everyone

accepted that her ultimate assassination was a foregone conclusion and

that sooner or later she would meet a violent and untimely end.

Elizabeth cursed the act which now made Cecil’s persecution inevi-

table, knowing its trumpet call to martyrs would shatter the compromise

by which she had kept religious peace for over twelve years. But she

shrugged her shoulders at her enemies at home and abroad and raised

the arch-heretic Cecil to the peerage at last, as she had promised. In

February 1571 he became Baron Burghley and his unassailable position

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was recognised by everyone of influence; Leicester was particularly ingra-

tiating in his congratulations.

The inevitable intrigue between Norfolk and Mary was soon flour-

ishing with the assistance of the Spanish Ambassador, de Spes, and the

services of a Florentine banker, Ridolfi. The murder of Elizabeth was the

spearhead of the plot and Norfolk requested ten thousand Spanish troops

to effect the
coup d’etat
that was to follow. He did not receive them, for

though Philip was bent on making as much trouble as possible for his

sister-in-law, he was the last one to intervene actively merely to place

Mary Stuart on the English throne. To the end of her life Mary was to

believe blindly in Philip’s friendship for her and never see the naïvety of

her request to the Spanish Ambassador: “Tell your Master that if he will

help me, I shall be Queen of England in three months and Mass shall be

said all over the kingdom.” Philip had no doubt that once Mary had come

into her own, her Guise relatives would rediscover their old affection for

her; and he had no wish to see Mass said in England by French priests!

So there were no troops from Philip; instead, Cecil’s army of spies

ferreted out every piece of information which illustrated the Duke’s

guilt, the Scottish Queen’s acquiescence, and the half-hearted collusion

of Spain. The Spanish Ambassador was sent packing to his homeland,

while Norfolk found himself back in the Tower, this time under

sentence of death.

Elizabeth calmly signed the warrant for his execution by the axe, the

scaffold on Tower Hill which had rotted away from disuse was rebuilt,

and everyone expected that would be the end of the matter. No one

who had seen her at the time of the Northern Rebellion entertained the

slightest hope of a reprieve and no one was more astonished than

the new Lord Burghley to be summoned to the Queen’s bedchamber

in the middle of the night and be told that Norfolk’s execution must not

take place the following morning.

Looking absurd in his chamber robe and furred slippers, Cecil stared at

her as she sat up in the state bed, sheet white, biting her lower lip.

“But why, madam?” he gasped. “Why?”

“I don’t know why!” she sobbed furiously. “Don’t ask me why—just

do as I say, God damn you, and cancel it!”

For the next two months there was a raging battle between the Queen

and her advisers to obtain her signature once more on Norfolk’s death

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warrant and to persuade her to have Mary’s drawn up. For more than eight

weeks the lives of Mary and Norfolk hung on the balance of Elizabeth’s

whim, while the clamour of the English Council for their deaths rose to

a furious pitch. And then, on a cold March night, the disaster they had all

feared for so long struck at last.

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Leicester could not recall the last occasion on which he had taken a game

of chess from the Queen, but he was going to win tonight, he knew it

suddenly as she moved her knight. It was a rash move, careless, indif-

ferent, curiously unlike her and it gave him his chance for a quick kill. He

was so elated at the prospect of victory, so ruthlessly absorbed in his own

strategy, that when she suddenly rose from the table and told him curtly

to put the pieces away, his first impulse was to vent his bitter disappoint-

ment in a string of obscene oaths. One win, one little win, it was all he

had wanted from her and she must even deny him that much satisfaction!

In moody silence he began to throw the gold chessmen back into their

box. When he had finished he sat in sullen silence, staring into the fire,

waiting for dismissal. He never knew precisely what made him look up

at that moment, sixth sense, intuition, but whatever it was it came just a

second too late. She fell across the little table so heavily that it overturned

and sent the chessmen scattering into the four corners of the room.

Elizabeth
!

Sweat broke out all over his body, as he fell on his knees beside her

and turned her over.

Spasms of pain convulsed her and she clutched at his sleeve, grey-

lipped in her panic for breath. When he lifted her, hampered by the

weight of the court gown, she went suddenly limp in his arms. He carried

her into the bedchamber, through a wake of panic-stricken women, with

her vast sweep of black satin skirts spilling over his arms and trailing to his

feet like the magnificent plumage of a dead bird.

As he laid her on the bed he spat curt commands at the hovering

women.

“Get her doctors—get Burghley—and help me to get her out of this

damned gown before she suffocates.”

Glancing round, he saw them staring at him wildly, paralysed with

fear, like rabbits caught in a bright glare.

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“Move!” he roared, and they dispersed immediately, leaves in the

fierce gale of his authority.

When Burghley came through the door of the bedchamber, Leicester

went to meet him and their eyes locked in an agonised glance, the certain,

grim knowledge that if the worst happened now, then their heads would

be the first to roll under the revenge of Norfolk and Mary.

“How is she?” Cecil’s voice trembled as he scanned the Earl’s

white face.

Leicester shook his head, chewing his lip, and Cecil stiffened in fearful

anticipation.

“So bad?” he whispered hoarsely.

“I’ve never seen her like this before—never! She’s in such pain she can

scarcely breathe. To me it looks like poison.”

Cecil felt his brain reel at the suggestion.

“Impossible,” he said woodenly. “We’ve been so careful, every

precaution—”

“Don’t be a fool!” snapped Leicester. “Are you telling me you can