Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (8 page)

Robin stared at the floor; his father shook him furiously.

“Is it true?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dudley pushed him away with a curse.

“My own son! God’s blood, is it possible? Can’t you be trusted out of

my sight for five minutes?”

“She said I was a low-born Dudley,” Robin burst out hotly in defence.

“She said my grandfather was a traitor! She asked for it!”

“Asked for what?” inquired Dudley, ominously calm.

Robin was silent.

“What’s a Little Bastard?” asked Guildford suddenly.

Dudley’s hand suddenly shot out and cuffed Robin smartly across

the ear.

“You oaf ! You clod! You surely were not such a fool as to call her that!”

“It’s only what everyone calls her,” muttered the boy, tenderly feeling

his ear.

Dudley put his hands resolutely behind his back and strode to the

window. It was perfectly true of course. Even the ambassadors called her

that—but not to her face!

He imagined the scene. And suddenly, in spite of his annoyance, his

lips began to curl beneath a trim moustache. He turned to look at his son.

“What did she hit you with?”

“A Bible, sir—I think.”

Dudley laughed shortly.

“Well—there are worse ways of spreading God’s word, I suppose.”

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He came back and rubbed the boy’s red ear with rough affection. “So!

The little lady made a lasting impression on you, hey? Will you retire

from the field or live to fight another day?”

Robin lifted his head and shared his father’s smile without resentment.

“If it please you, sir—I should like to fight.”

“That’s what I thought.” Dudley put a hand on the boy’s shoulder

and walked him to the door. “Take my advice and leave insults to the

women, Robin, a sharp tongue is the only weapon they have. Get out

the broadswords and show her what a low-born Dudley is made of. I

fancy when the two of you are done with fighting you’ll be the best

of friends—”

Dudley was a remarkably clever man; when he made a calculated

prediction of events it was usually shrewd and accurate. Within a month

Robin was actively seeking her spiteful company. She was quick and

abrasive and more full of mischief than any boy he knew. He was not

ashamed to call her friend and as a mark of his respect, he admitted her to

his secret retreat in the bushes at Hampton Court.

“It’s not very big, is it?” she complained. They were sitting like two

peas in a pod, with her gown billowing over his muddy boots.

“It’s big enough,” he said sulkily. “You didn’t expect an anteroom,

did you?”

She looked up at the central branch.

“Is that what holds it in place?”

“Yes—
don’t do that
!”

She was swinging on the branch with all her weight and a second later

the whole fragile structure collapsed on top of them.

“You mean rat!” he burst out. “You’ve ruined it.”

“I didn’t know that would happen,” she said innocently. “I’m only

a girl.”

Slightly mollified he sat down again, clearing a path in the debris first.

After a moment she began to collect up the branches.

“I’m going to build a better one,” she announced. “Are you going to

help me?”

“No,” he said sullenly. “Why should I?”

She gave him a push with her foot.

“Get out of my way then, you’re sitting in the entrance.”

For the rest of the afternoon he sat and watched and jeered; when she

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had finished he was quietly amazed; it was more than half as big again.

Flushed with triumph she came to stand beside him.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” she said modestly.

“It’s all right, I suppose, for a first attempt. But it won’t last. One gust

of wind and the whole thing will fall to pieces.”

She smiled and said, “We’ll see.”

Buoyant as a cobweb, the thing stood there week after week, defying

the laws of gravity and several storms. Years later, when he heard the

accusations of “no human agency” applied to the fantastic, fragile

substance of her vast success, he remembered that secret place and how

he had thought, It isn’t possible. Tomorrow it’s sure to be down.

They went there often, holding their breaths when Henry’s courtiers

passed to and from within a few feet of them, but they were never

discovered, not even by Guildford Dudley who spent many wasted hours

searching for them.

“Guess what!” said Robin, one cold October morning when they sat

on his cloak because the grass was damp. “John brought a kitchen maid

to our bedroom last night. I saw him take her.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Where did he take her?”

“On his bed of course. You don’t suppose they did it on the floor like

peasants, do you?”

There was a blank, bewildered look on her face and understanding

burst upon him in a delightful thunderclap. So she didn’t know every-

thing, after all!

“Do you want me to tell you how a man takes a woman?” he

inquired loftily.

“Thank you,” she said, stiff and defensive, “I already know.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t believe it,” he said slowly.

“You really don’t know, do you? You don’t know the first thing about

it. You—ow!”

She had seized his little finger and bent it backwards.

“Tell me then, master high and mighty Dudley, who can’t decline the

simplest Latin noun—tell me what you know, if anything.”

He pulled his finger away and looked at her, suddenly sly.

“Knowledge is expensive,” he said. “What’s this piece worth to

Your Grace?”

She considered a moment. “I’ll do your Latin translation tomorrow.”

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“And the next day?”

“Oh, all right!” she said ungraciously. “Now get on with it.”

When he had told her all she needed to know she gave him a

derisive nudge.

“I don’t believe you. Love isn’t like that. Who would want to do

anything so disgusting?”

“It’s true,” he said angrily, “every bit of it. Even kings and queens do

it like that.”

She flushed to the roots of her hair.

“They don’t! My father and Queen Katherine—they do not.”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, she began to cry wildly. “I hate you, Robin

Dudley, I hate you. Go away!”

He went. They did not speak again for over a week, a long tense

week during which the younger children, quick to sense the hostility

between them, sided pointedly with Elizabeth, as experience had

taught them it was wise to do. Even Guildford Dudley decamped to the

enemy with the half-shamed explanation that he had never expected

a princess to pinch so hard. It was Robin’s first experience of royal

disfavour, and he found it every bit as uncomfortable and humiliating

as he was to find the real thing in later life. The only attention he

received in the schoolroom was from their tutor, and that was more

unwelcome than ever.

“I am a patient man, Master Robert,” said Dr. Cox sanctimoniously,

examining a dog-eared piece of Latin prose with distaste, “but there is a

point where unrequited patience and discipline cease to meet. Be pleased

to accompany me into the next room at your earliest convenience.”

The children stared as Robin got up and sauntered with feigned

nonchalance after the tutor, but only Elizabeth looked up from her work

when he returned with clenched teeth. She watched him walk gingerly

to the window-seat and lower himself with care on to a cushion. After a

moment she slipped off the wooden bench and joined him.

“Did it hurt?”

He unclenched his teeth just sufficiently to say, “No.”

“That’s what I thought.” She went back to the table and fetched the

sheet of parchment she had been working on. “Here—you can copy it

if you want.”

“Can I?” His strained face relaxed and lit up; he held out his hand

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and she withdrew the paper just beyond his reach, looking at him with a

curious suppressed excitement.

She said very softly, “It’s not true, is it?”

There was a moment of silence while he looked from her face to the

paper and shifted his throbbing body on the cushion.

“No,” he said at last, “it’s not true. I made it all up to annoy you.”

As he watched, the corners of her mouth curled slowly up into a

smile of delight.

“Liar!” she said, and dropped the paper down beside him.

He never forgot the absurd incident, trivial as it seemed at the time,

a child’s quarrel in which she had had the last word after all. Years later,

when her name had blazed a trail of flaming light across Europe, he would

recall that moment when he first acknowledged her superior will.

Their friendship healed after its breach, as it would later heal time

and time again, and life resumed its petty round of study and play, giving

neither warning nor preparation for the tragedy which was less than a

month away.

t t t

In November the tranquil Indian summer of the King’s fifth marriage

erupted with a violence that devastated several lives.

The King was the first casualty. When Archbishop Cranmer pushed

that piece of paper into his pudgy hand at morning service, he thought his

head would burst with rage and grief. Others had loved his Rose, even as

he had done. Names were before him, dates—oh God, they would pay

for this.

Winter descended, like a curtain upon a stage, and the court, touched

with frosty fears, huddled in small whispering groups to talk of the little

Queen’s crimes. In the forgotten nursery, a terrified silence reigned.

Robin Dudley from the height of his superior knowledge had elucidated

“adultery and high treason” for the benefit of the youngest. There was

nothing more to be said; they all knew what would happen now. Even

so, no one was quite prepared for the screaming. Peal after peal of it went

shivering through the gallery of Hampton Court, screams born of blind

terror which splintered through the palace on the day Katherine Howard

tried to reach Henry and beg for her life.

The unearthly cries shuddered across the schoolroom where Robin

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Susan Kay

Dudley, staring at the Princess Elizabeth, saw a look he never wished to

see again on the face of any human creature. Suddenly, the screams were

mingled with the shouts and footsteps of guards. Katherine had almost

reached the King in the Chapel when they took her and, still screaming,

dragged her away.

She never saw the King again. There was no trial. An Act of Attainder

was passed against her and on the 13th of February little Katherine

Howard followed Anne Boleyn to the block.

When it was all over a great quiet spread over the palace, an air almost

of desertion. Courtiers kept themselves to themselves, revels ground to a

halt, corridors stood silent.

In the quiet of the countryside Katherine Champernowne watched

her charge with increasing concern. For what seemed an unnatural length

of time Elizabeth showed no outward sign of grief. And then the night-

mares began and the childish roundness fell away from her cheeks. She

was pale and sullen and aggressive, less readily affectionate than before and

the spectacular tantrums of her early years returned.

“I can’t deal with it any longer—she’s quite beyond me!” sobbed the

governess one evening, when a particularly irrational and violent outburst

from her charge had reduced her to tears. “I’m going to write to the King.”

Blanche Parry stared at her steadily in the firelight.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, madam. She’s the last person the

King wants to be reminded of under the circumstances. He might have

you removed from your post and then—God forgive me for saying

this—I wouldn’t trust that child alone in a room with a length of rope.”

Kat turned deathly pale. “She’s only eight!”

“She can tie a knot, can’t she?—that’s all it takes. She may not show

it, but she’s very fond of you, madam.”

“I’m fond of her,” admitted Kat, “more than fond. But when she

screams like that I’m damned if I know what to do.”

“Let her scream,” said Blanche wisely, “until she learns how to cry.”

t t t

The clock in the schoolroom ticked steadily, for life continued and so did

lessons. Katherine’s death had left small impression on the Dudley boys

and the little Prince was young enough to lose an unpleasant memory in

the pressing urgency of daily concerns.

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But Elizabeth harboured a strange obsession with the gallery that led to

the Royal Chapel at Hampton Court. She faithfully collected the morbid

snippets of conversation drifting around and embroidered tales that made

the younger children wide-eyed with fear.

“The gallery’s haunted!” she said with grim authority. “That’s why no

one cares to walk there alone after dark.”

The silence which greeted this remark, profound and very satisfying,

lasted roughly ten seconds, the time it took for Robin Dudley to retrieve