Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (83 page)

A tall woman in a dull grey gown, still beautiful in spite of a thickened

waist, shoulders stooped with rheumatism, and continual ill-health, stood

by a window at Chartley. The July sun brought out the brassy glints in

her chestnut wig and her long, hazel eyes were fixed on the secretary who

bent over his work at the table in front of her.

At last the man laid the cipher down, shot an anxious glance at his

mistress’s face, and handed the letter over with considerable reluctance.

Mary tapped the paper against a white hand and pinned his glance with

shrewd eyes.

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Susan Kay

“What is it, Jacques?” Her voice was gentle and even after all these

years still retained its French accent. “Why that look?”

Jacques Nau swallowed nervously. “Madam, there is sufficient in that

letter to take us all to the scaffold. I implore you not to answer it.”

He saw the flame of hope leap behind her eyes then and her fingers

closed convulsively around the paper.

“I will consider your advice, of course.” Mary was never imperious

when she could be conciliatory and she owed much to the loyal affection

of the friends who had chosen to share the hardships of captivity with her.

Though she had no intention of harkening to Nau’s advice, she did not

wish him to think she held it in contempt. Smiling gently, she waved him

from the room and watched him bow himself out.

“Wait in the next room, Jacques. I may need your services again.”

When the door had closed behind him, she took the letter to the light

at the window and leaned against the casement, where Babington’s words

danced out from the paper, like little black imps.

“…myself with ten gentlemen and one hundred of our followers, will

undertake the delivery of your royal person from the hands of your enemies.

For the despatch of the Usurper (from the obedience of whom we are by

the excommunication of her made free), there are six noble gentlemen, all

my private friends, who, for the zeal they have to the Catholic cause and

Your Majesty’s service, will undertake that tragical execution.”

The letter slipped from Mary’s hand and fell to the floor; for the

moment she could read no more.

She closed her eyes and tried to think with complete dispassion what

this would mean. Escape. Freedom. The crowns of Scotland and England

at last. A welcome chance to settle with her dear, devoted son who ruled

in her rightful place without a qualm of conscience. Not one serious

move had James ever made on her behalf. He was Darnley’s son, after all,

rotten to the core. In all the dark story of male treachery, nothing had

hurt Mary so much as the indifference of the son who had never known

her. And revenge for eighteen years in an English prison, grovelling on

Elizabeth’s whim for petty favours like a visit to the Buxton baths, which

had become the highlight of her narrowed existence. And the price? That

one little phrase:
the despatch of the Usurper.

She bit her lip and stared out of the window, seeing nothing. Never

had any plot required her to commit herself in such direct terms!

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Her mind framed the cousin she had never seen. Elizabeth, bastard

by birth, and bitch by nature. The first, Mary had always known. The

second, she had learnt slowly and painfully since that fatal day in France

when she had claimed the English throne. Some people said all her trou-

bles stemmed from that moment, others that she had been a victim of

her own emotions and played false by the lusts of men. She supposed in

a way they were both right, but in the end it all came down to Elizabeth.

Two women fated to fight to the death. She smiled, remembering how

Bothwell had once said the pair of them would not make one honest

woman between them. Dearest Bothwell, never one to mince his words,

even now she could still weep at the memory of his death, ten years

before, chained like an animal in a Danish prison, driven violently insane

by years of captivity. A fate which might yet be hers if she did not seize

her chance of freedom now. All it required was her written consent to

Elizabeth’s murder, and she owed Elizabeth nothing at all—except her

life. For nearly twenty years the English Queen had shielded that life

against the Scottish lords, against the English people and Parliament and

her own Council, playing the dual role of gaoler and protectress.

But only a fool would think in sentimental terms of the Queen of

England. Mary had done that once, lulled by false promises of friendship,

and had spent eighteen years paying for the mistake. And she would go

on paying for it for the rest of her miserable life unless she acted now.

This would be the last chance; Jacques’s reaction had told her that

very plainly. It would be the last chance and she was suddenly glad to

find life or death within her reach. She had known all that life had to

offer of pleasure and pain. The years of scintillating luxury and homage

in France, long rides at the head of her armies across the bleak, invig-

orating moors of Scotland, love and hatred, passion and intrigue. Her

life story read like a blood-stained legend, too extreme, too black and

white, to be true. And yet it had been true. She had packed more living

into her first twenty-six years than all the crowned heads of Europe

put together, and all that had happened since had been in the nature

of a grey, leaden shadow extending year after year with unceasing

monotony. Her life had ended the day she set foot in England. For

eighteen years she had existed in twilight, waiting to live again, and

now she knew that if she could not live, she would rather die than go

on existing in meaningless limbo.

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Susan Kay

Returning to the desk, she rang a little handbell and when Jacques

Nau reappeared, she smiled and waved him to be seated.

“Trusty and well beloved…” she began calmly, and her expression

brooked no opposition.

He took up his pen and began to write what she dictated without

further argument.

t t t

The letter lay open in Walsingham’s trembling, triumphant hand.

“…the affairs being thus prepared and forces in readiness, both within

and without the realm, then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to

work, taking order upon the accomplishing of their design, I may be

suddenly transported out of this place.”

“Bring me the proof, written, irrefutable and positive…” He had that

proof now, the bosom serpent had coiled to strike for the very last time.

He had learnt more of European conspiracy over these last months

than he had for a long time, for her correspondence had been truly

prolific. A woman with nothing better to do, he mused with malicious

amusement; soon she would have more pressing concerns on her mind!

Common sense told him to strike now, but fanaticism had taken control

of his cool brain and he knew he could get more out of Babington, much

more, if he let this letter go through. It needed only a little alteration and

he would have the whole pack in his net.

You are aware, aren’t you, Walsingham, of how I would reward forgery
?

By forgery she had meant the acquiescence of Mary to the murder

plot, and he had not tampered with that. The fact that he would have

done if necessary conveniently slipped his mind. And, besides, she need

never know. The alteration would be so small, just enough to get further

information out of Babington.

Walsingham had conducted his work with masterful efficiency; he was

not to know that his one error of judgement would ring down through

centuries of heated controversy.

He forged a postscript, asking for names and details of procedure; but

the letter was eleven days reaching Babington; and when he had read it he

began for the first time to smell the faint scent of treachery.

t t t

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Elizabeth had lived in daily expectation of secret death for over four

months. She had gone about her duties as normal and confided her fears

to no one, not even Burghley. She told herself firmly that it would soon

be over, but as the weeks crawled away and still Walsingham did not act,

she began to think he never would, that he would go on waiting, waiting,

trying to be more and more sure, until it was too late. Could she trust

him? He had little enough cause to like her, she had often been unreason-

able and unkind to him. Was she in league with her own enemy?

No! It was absurd, ridiculous, she was becoming crazed with the

long suspense. How could she suspect Walsingham? And yet—it was

possible—anything was possible in this treacherous world where no man

could be trusted.

Each night she lay staring at the bed curtains wondering whether they

would shortly part to reveal the sudden gleam of an assassin’s knife, while

the conflicting arguments and suspicions chased through her confused

brain, turning her now hot, now icy cold. She had believed she did not

greatly care if death came violently, but suddenly it was so real, so close,

that her nerves were stretched as taut as a piece of ragged string. She

was aghast at her inward cowardice when a sudden draught moving the

tapestries, or an unfamiliar creak of the floorboards sent an icy plunging

through her stomach and covered her with a clammy sweat. Her public

appearances were now interminable ordeals which left her trembling with

exhaustion. She had begun to feel like a hunted animal, desolately alone

without Leicester, who was still struggling vainly in the Netherlands and

who was also the only other member of her Council who knew exactly

what was happening.

Six men were at liberty in her palace, waiting for the right moment to

arrange her murder, and there had been a time in Richmond Park when

she had believed that moment had come. Walking with Hatton and a few

of her ladies, unguarded as was her wont, she had come face to face with

a man she recognised from the portrait—that incredible portrait!—which

Walsingham had shown her with such fierce indignation. Barnwell was

a swarthy Irishman, his eyes set a little too close together for comfort: he

wore a short Spanish cloak which hid his right hand from view, and there

was a nervous expression on his face.

She wanted to scream: “Arrest this man,” but there was nobody at

hand to do it, only poor bumbling Hatton, who was not even armed. To

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scream was just as likely to panic the man into action as drive him away

and if she had been mistaken she would have destroyed the essence of

Walsingham’s mission. So she did the only thing she could think of and

stared at him with a piercing, unwavering glance which dared him to go

through with whatever he intended.

Already jumpy and uneasy, that fixed stare shattered Barnwell’s nerve.

He bowed, averted his eyes and began to edge away from the little group.

As he did so, he heard the Queen laugh on a high, sharp note and turn

to Hatton.

“I’m well guarded today, am I not, Kit, with no man near me who

wears a sword at his side?”

“Your Majesty?” Interrupted curtly in mid-eulogy on her many

perfections of mind and body, Hatton blinked at her in surprise. Barnwell

had slipped away to the back of her attendants now and Hatton had not

the faintest idea what had prompted a remark so alien to their conversa-

tion. “I’m sorry, madam—what did you say?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, placing her hand on his arm. “Nothing

at all. Please continue with your verses.”

Hatton frowned faintly and cleared his throat, for he had lost his thread

by now and wished he had brought his notes. They walked on and after a

moment the familiar, stilted voice began to pour the old honeyed hyper-

bole into her ears. She scarcely heard a word he said, staring abstractedly

in front of her, lost in dark thought, moving with an effort on legs which

seemed to have turned to jelly.

Oh Robin, if only you were with me now…

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Chapter 3

T
he vague unease that babington had experienced on receipt

of Mary’s letter grew steadily after the unexpected arrest of John

Ballard, a fellow conspirator. It was true that Ballard was a known Catholic

priest and that Catholic priests daily faced the possibility of arrest; but the

incident alerted Babington’s sense of self-preservation—better developed

than his powers of political intrigue—and he began to make plans to leave

the country. He applied to Walsingham for a passport to visit France and

received instead an invitation to dine with Walsingham’s secretary, an

inquisitive man who plied him with wine and such penetrating questions

that Babington hastily left the house and went straight into hiding.

Fear for the Queen’s safety now panicked Walsingham into action,