Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (70 page)

temptation to unite herself with the author of all this homage was irresist-

ible and she admired the skill and cunning with which he had baited this

trap. Leaning a little on his arm, she looked up into his face and answered

him gently, without mockery.

“Then for the last time my answer must be no. You can stop the

clocks, my love, but you can’t turn them back. It’s too late for us,

Robin—sometimes I think it always was. Outside your fairytale the real

world still exists and calls you a murderer. If I married you even now it

would destroy us both.”

He slammed his clenched fist against the stone bear in an agony of

bitter disappointment.

“For Christ’s sake—must I spend the rest of my life answering for a

crime I didn’t commit? I was not responsible for Amy’s death.”

“I know.” It was the first time she had ever admitted that to him and

he was staggered.

“How long have you known that?” he asked sharply.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me! How long?”

“Since the verdict of the inquest.”

“And all this time you’ve let me believe—” He broke off, seeing

suddenly how he had been used. What a dance she had led him, what

a cruel dance! “Sometimes I think you have no heart at all, madam!”

he muttered.

“You’re wrong, Robin—my heart knows its place, that’s all. Look—

you have cut your hand.”

407

Susan Kay

“Perhaps it would suit you better if I cut my throat!” he said bitterly.

She sighed, took the little lace handkerchief from the golden girdle at

her waist, and dabbed his grazed knuckles with it. He submitted to her

ministration like a sulky little boy and she was gently amused by him.

“Oh, Robin, did you really expect me to fall into your arms because

of a few fairy lanterns?”

“I don’t know,” he said wearily. “I just hoped, as I always hope, so

perhaps I am the fool you appear to count me, after all. I suppose that is

your last word on the subject—you don’t want me to ask again, do you?”

She lowered her eyes demurely.

“You can ask as often as you like, if only you agree not to fall about in

a rage when ever I refuse.”

In spite of his angry disappointment, he had to smile faintly at that.

Vain as a peacock and so inherently sure of her damned power over them

all that it was impossible to protest against that vanity. It was part of the

unique audacity that set her apart from the rest of her sex.

He put his hand on the back of her waist and drew her closer into the

warm shelter of his own body. She did not draw away.

“At least promise me one thing, that you will think no more of

Alençon,” he begged.

“I can’t give you that promise, Robin—not with Europe so unset-

tled—but if ever I should be forced to marry anyone but you, then it will

only be for policy and nothing will change between us.”

“You expect your husband to accept me?” he said incredulously.

“He’ll do as I tell him if he wants a quiet life. Does that satisfy you?”

“No,” he said ungraciously. “But then that’s of no consequence, is it?

I’ve no choice in the matter. You will do exactly as you please and it is

your right for you are the Queen and I am merely your humble servant.

Parallel lines, madam—how right you were all those years ago. We shall

never meet now.”

They went back inside the castle and spoke no more on the matter.

The extravaganza at Kenilworth served no active purpose other than to

put him deeply into debt; the marriage negotiations continued and with

each month that passed Alençon loomed larger and more menacing on

the horizon.

Despair attended the ultimate death of Leicester’s last hope and made

him an easy victim of Lettice’s machinations. When the Earl of Essex

408

Legacy

died in Ireland during an outbreak of dysentery, she brought a mental

battering-ram against her lover’s defences.

And in September of 1578 Robin married her at Wanstead with the

deepest secrecy—and resignation.

409

Chapter 6

S
o you have finally given her up! i always wondered Just how

long it would take before you conceded defeat.”

Burghley placed a heavily bandaged foot on a low stool and slowly

sipped the tankard of mulled ale which Leicester, suddenly remarkably

solicitous of his comfort, had offered him. “And I suppose the meaning

of all your pathetic letters grovelling for my friendship is that you hope I

won’t seek opportunities to tell the Queen what you have done—is that

not so, my lord?”

Leicester tugged uncomfortably at his beard and avoided the Lord

Treasurer’s frosty blue eyes.

“I knew you would find out, so it seemed best to confess it to you.

You are the only man who would dare to tell her.”

Burghley smiled coldly and shifted his painful foot on its cushion. “My

dear Leicester, you grossly overestimate my courage. The Greeks used to

execute messengers who brought bad news—I’ve no mind to provoke

Her Majesty into reviving the custom.”

“Now you exaggerate.” Leicester turned away, gnawing anxiously on

a fine golden toothpick. “She has so many men I doubt if she’d have time

to notice my domestic arrangements. It’s hardly likely to break her heart,

is it?”

Burghley stared at him steadily and balanced the tankard on the arm

of his chair.

“Forgive me—is that not exactly what you desire? I understand the

lady in question has been your mistress for some considerable time. What

Legacy

possessed you to marry her now, knowing what it will mean if the Queen

finds out?”

“Why the devil shouldn’t I marry?” Leicester burst out in peevish self-

defence. “Why shouldn’t I get myself a legitimate son to carry on my

father’s name? You’ve seen the way she treats me, it must have given you

enough delight in the past. She has no feeling for me—no feeling at all—”

“If you believe that, Leicester, then you really are the fool I always

took you for.”

Leicester sank on to a hearth stool and flung the toothpick away with

an angry gesture.

“She has a damn peculiar way of showing her love then!”

“So for that matter have you.” Burghley looked at him shrewdly.

“Oh, you don’t deceive me, Leicester—I know how deeply you love

the Queen. God knows, over the years I have come to consider it your

only saving grace. You at least can boast of her cruelty—yet better men

than you have loved her and left no mark at all on her heart. You may

spare a little pity for Hatton, who finds himself physically unable to take a

mistress while she lives—yes, he told me that once. And how he will end

I do not care to think, for a man must take his comfort somewhere. So

you see, my friend—you are not alone in your affliction.”

“That is a great comfort,” said Leicester bitterly. “I believe she collects

men’s souls and locks them in that casket by her bed—mine, Hatton’s,

countless others—all neatly labelled and preserved in vinegar like speci-

mens in a laboratory, meaningless trophies, souvenirs of a past conquest.

The moment you’re conquered she loses interest, leaves you caught in

her web like a fly, struggling to remember where you left your manhood.

What she’s searching for God only knows, but she’s never found it yet.”

Cecil looked away into the fire.

“It may be safer if she never does,” he said darkly.

Leicester’s eyes were suddenly alight with curiosity. He leaned forward

to fill Burghley’s tankard again.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I’ve been in her power for a long time, ever

since I was a child. She hooked me young and I need her, like some men

need opium. I know how she snares the rest, but you—now, you’re the

riddle. Perhaps you’re the key to her whole mystery. A devoted husband,

viceless some would say.” Leicester’s lips curled maliciously. “Only you

and I—we know better, don’t we, Sweet William? You’re the coldest,

411

Susan Kay

shrewdest, most ruthless devil I’ve ever met. So tell me, man to man, all

differences aside—what’s the secret of her hold over
you
?”

Cecil gave him a thin-lipped smile. His eyes were suddenly veiled.

“It was you who once spoke of witchcraft,” he said coolly, and got

abruptly to his feet. He had no desire to continue this conversation any

further. It smacked of the confessional and a great deal more that he

assured himself he did not hold with.

Leicester rose with him, snubbed and uneasy once more, sensing he

had offended Burghley.

“I didn’t mean to pry. Every man to the Devil his own way—as the

Queen would say.”

Burghley laughed suddenly and Leicester’s head jerked up at the dry,

rasping sound, so utterly alien to this humourless man.

“My lord?” he said cautiously.

Burghley shook his head slowly.

“I am not entirely the humourless bore you think me, Leicester—I can

smile at irony like the next man.”

“Irony?”

“You and I and the Queen. I never thought I should live to say this, my

lord, but you have your uses. She’s a great deal easier to work with when

she’s happy—and you have made her happy, I grant you that. But that

won’t save you if she ever finds out about your marriage. Should that day

dawn, I for one pray I shall not be in the same palace. And as for you, my

lord—well, I rather think you will wish you were not in the same world.”

t t t

Europe was in ferment. In the Netherlands the Dutch Protestants waged

eternal war against their Spanish overlord, while vague talk of “the

Enterprise of England” loomed now big, now small, according to Philip’s

doubts and fears and hesitancy—and the state of his exchequer. There

were anxious moments for him when the French crown passed to Henri

of Anjou and the power of Mary Stuart’s Guise relatives threatened to

become supreme once more. The new King’s brother, Alençon, became

heir to the French throne and his position as a confirmed troublemaker in

France took on consequence. It was soon evident that the King of France

would be thankful to see the back of him, preferably by packing him off

to England…

412

Legacy

Having fanned Philip’s unease by her overtures to France, Elizabeth

swung the see-saw of negotiations back to Spain. Her treasury was

swollen by the spoils taken from Spanish ships by English pirates, and

Philip would dearly have loved to snub her. But the terms of the treaty

she offered, with its promise of trade, was irresistible to him in his strait-

ened means and after a brief struggle with his finer feelings, he agreed to

sign it. Elizabeth was complacent. Nominally at peace with Spain, she

continued to lend secret aid to the Dutch rebels, in her customary under-

hand manner, anxious to keep Philip’s attention on his own territories.

She flatly refused to come out in the open as the acknowledged leader

of the Protestant world, knowing that such an action would plunge her

into war within six months. She could accomplish a great deal more,

at a fraction of the expense, by skulking in the shadows, her dealings

shamelessly unfettered by scruples; she had become a past master at the

diplomatic knee in the groin.

When Philip’s bastard brother, that romantic young knight-errant,

Don John of Austria, descended on the Netherlands to crush opposition,

she rapidly disgorged £20,000 in aid for the Dutch. She had no patience

with religious warfare and had scandalised Philip’s envoy by pointedly

inquiring why the King of Spain could not allow his subjects “to go to

the Devil their own way.” But she knew Don John’s intention was to use

the Netherlands as a springboard to launch the “Enterprise of England.”

She dared not allow him to install himself safely there—equally, she dared

not risk open war. Secret aid was as much as she was prepared to hazard.

When Don John’s troops began to flatten resistance, Elizabeth’s

Council panicked and demanded immediate intervention and open war.

Against the war fever she hung back, ignoring their bleating that only a

miracle would save her if she did not act decisively now, gambling on

her personal knowledge of Philip’s character. He was on the brink of

bankruptcy, jealous and suspicious of his heroic half-brother’s loyalty,

starving his troops of money and reinforcements. Philip did not seek war

with England at the moment and she was not going to hand it to him on

a golden platter of armed intervention.

The policy of inaction horrified the Council, and even Burghley, who

did not lack for cool nerves, began to wonder if she had pushed her luck

too far at last. It seemed that nothing in this world would prevent the

Spaniards overrunning the Netherlands and invading England.

413

Susan Kay

And then she got her miracle. Unsupported, Don John’s venture

floundered, crumbled, and ended with his dispirited death, some said of a

broken heart at his half-brother’s treatment of him.