Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (93 page)

gers toiled through the broiling sun to bring the news to the Escurial,

where Philip received the tidings with unblinking calm. Even now that

monumental patience remained unshaken and he neither chastised his

commander nor reproached his heavenly superior for failing him in such

a manner. Instead he thanked the Lord “it was no worse”; and no one

in that dark penitential palace saw fit to point out that it could not have

been much worse.

“In God’s actions reputation is neither lost nor gained,” he said quietly.

“It is best not to talk of it.”

And so he did not talk, merely shut himself up in that airless, pala-

tial tomb, to pray and plan afresh, while only his confessor dared to

approach him.

Howard, who had lost only sixty men during the fight, now faced

widespread loss from a virulent outbreak of dysentery, and turned the

English fleet for home. The English seamen who had repelled the enemy

lay dying for want of care in the streets of Margate, while Burghley,

frantic to staunch the flow of money from a rapidly emptying Treasury,

parrotted the government’s defence in refusing help:
To spend in time

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of need is wisdom; to spend without need brings bitter repentance.
As in all

epidemics, the weak would die, the strong would recover. There would

be no worthwhile return on money invested merely to ease men a little

more comfortably into their graves. The English sailors could consider

themselves lucky to be paid for their efforts—it was more than the

Spanish would be.

When Burghley’s message was brought to Margate, the English

commanders stared at each other in grim silence. They did not question

whether the Queen knew of this decision, for it bore the familiar stamp of

that rigorous and ruthless paymistress. So the English sailors received their

due and nothing more, while Howard, Drake, and Hawkins shrugged

their shoulders and provided wine and arrowroot for the sick out of their

own pockets.

When it became clear at last that there would be no attack from Parma

after all, Elizabeth left Leicester to wind up the camp at Tilbury and

returned to London. The city was a mad throng of pealing bells and

hysterical crowds who packed so densely into the narrow streets that her

progress was brought to a virtual standstill more than once. She had always

been loved, but now she might have been a pagan deity, for never before

had their homely affection soared to such a sacrilegious peak of worship.

They thanked God for the victory, but it was to the woman who had led

them through that victory that they turned the visible evidence of their

gratitude, weeping and cheering and fighting to get a glimpse of her,

while the open litter bore her along the streets in her moment of supreme

and solitary triumph.

She drank in their homage, the unstinting love for which she had

hungered since her confused and lonely childhood. But now it was so

strong, so powerful, that it had begun to frighten her a little. They were

calling her invincible, beginning to believe that she could go on endlessly

protecting them from harm, solving all their problems. The people

who milled about her in the streets saw no further than this resounding

victory—the Spanish were smashed, it was the end of the war. But she

knew it was only the beginning, a respite in a long series of costly hostili-

ties which would relentlessly sap away the gains of thirty years of peace.

For as long as she lived, she would never be at peace with Spain again.

As she travelled slowly through the London streets, she felt all the

elation draining out of her, like wine through a hairline crack in a glass

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Susan Kay

goblet. A sense of unknown dread was closing in on her quite irrationally,

throwing up a silly phrase to trouble her.

What price victory?

The sun beat down upon her uncovered head, but it could not drive

away the creeping chill around her heart. She found herself suddenly

thinking of God. She had gone dutifully through the motions of being

a good Protestant for countless years, just as she had once presented the

face of a good Catholic to the world. But she had not thought—truly

thought—about God for a long time. For the past few years she had been

quietly certain that He did not exist. But now, thinking of her faithless-

ness which He had not yet seen fit to punish, she found a fear which was

very close to panic.

She would lay no claim to this victory. She would strike a medal

acknowledging God’s hand in this and strike it without begrudging the cost.

And when it was done, perhaps she would be free of this sense of

something owing, a nameless payment as yet in shadow, casting a chill

breath upon a summer’s day.

She turned the medal over in her mind, feeling its weight, tracing the

inscription, for already she knew what it would say.

God blew and they were scattered.

Ah—He was a jealous entity, God, as greedy of His servants’ undivided

worship as she was herself. But
that
ought to satisfy Him.

She lifted her hand to the crowds and acknowledged their adulation

without anxiety now. When the swaying litter came to rest at length

in the palace courtyard, Essex, as Master of the Horse, came to lift her

down from the cushions. It had been a long and gruelling journey and he

looked at her with some astonishment.

“Why, madam,” he exclaimed, “you are
still
smiling.”

She laughed and spread her hands in a reckless gesture of triumph which

seemed to embrace him and the whole palace sprawling around her.

“Let me smile,” she said defiantly, looking not at him but at some

unfixed point in the sky. “What in the world can spoil my joy?”

A heat haze shimmered over the palace and in the distance there was

a faint rumble of thunder.

Essex laid her hand upon his sleeve with a familiar gesture.

“We had best go in, madam. I believe it’s going to rain.”

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Chapter 5

N
ight after night the bonfires flared and the people danced

in the streets outside the palace, chanting the Queen’s name like

an incantation. The court was in a wildly festive mood, not shared by the

Queen and her chief advisers. They were plagued by financial difficulties

in the Armada’s wake and had little heart for victory celebrations. The

crown had borne the cost virtually alone, and when Elizabeth glanced at

the men who shared the burden of government with her, she was alarmed

to see the toll the Armada had taken. Burghley, so crippled with gout that

he sometimes had to be carried into her presence in a chair; Walsingham

gaunt and yellow-faced from the disease which was slowly consuming

him; Hatton plagued by a liver complaint; Leicester obese and feverish.

All went about their duties looking drawn and haggard, men made old

before their time by the unceasing demands of high office.

The Queen, too, was nearly fifty-five, and not immune to the effects

of exhaustion, but there was little time to rest. Her days were full, her

evening commitments punishing, and she made only one small conces-

sion to her weariness. And that was to dine privately with the Earl of

Leicester every night following his return from Tilbury, with all her

servants dismissed and he alone serving as carver and taster.

One evening towards the end of August, he sat at her table and picked

at the Viand Royal in moody silence. Through the glow of the candelabra

between them, Elizabeth watched him steadily and thought she knew

what had robbed him for once of his famous appetite.

In the warm aftermath of victory she had been filled with a sudden desire

Susan Kay

to reward those long years of loyal affection, and had had the letters patent

drawn up to create him Lord Lieutenant of England. She had been on the

point of signing it when Burghley and Hatton, both deeply aggrieved, had

begun to harp peevishly on the dangers of raising a mere subject to such

unprecedented authority. The post would give him power almost equal

with her own, and it would not do, said Burghley sourly—the people

would not like it! So—because the habit of considering the people had

become second nature to her, she had laid down her pen and promised

to give the matter further consideration before making a decision. Bitterly

disappointed, Leicester had made little secret of his resentment.

Now she leaned across the table and covered his hand with her own.

“Still sulking, Robin?”

He looked at her with a tired smile and shook his head absently.

“Something amiss with the meat?” she suggested with mounting

unease.

“The meat’s fine.”

“Then what’s wrong? Why have you eaten nothing?” She paused

uncertainly. “Are you ill?”

He looked away guiltily and fingered the silver salt cellar.

“Robin!”

“It’s nothing,” he said hastily. “Just fatigue and a touch of fever—I

didn’t want to worry you.”

“I
knew
it!” she exclaimed furiously. “I knew it at Tilbury. I shall send

you back to Buxton as soon as it can be arranged.”

“I don’t want to leave you, madam.” His voice was oddly intense and

mutinous, but she was too preoccupied to notice.

“Stupid man! Of course you must go—I command it!”

“I see.” He began to fold his napkin grimly. “And in my absence I

suppose Essex will keep you loving company.”

His tone took her so completely by surprise that she could only stare

at him in bewildered silence, too amazed to be angry.

At last she said warily, “What do you mean by that uncalled for remark?”

“I should have thought it was perfectly obvious.” He flung the napkin

down and got unsteadily to his feet. “You’re replacing me, madam—do

you think I don’t know it?—slowly, with dignity, putting me out to grass

and putting that—that arrogant little pipsqueak in my place!”

“But—it was you—”

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“Oh, yes—it was I who brought Robert to your notice. For pity’s sake

don’t remind me of it. Perhaps I thought I could trust you not to go hunting

in the nursery—I should have known better! Is he your lover—
is he
?”

Her eyes on his were aghast, humiliated, hurt, and suddenly ful of tears.

“No, he is not my lover,” she said with tremulous dignity.

They were silent, watching each other as though their lives depended

on the outcome of this encounter. Then she held out one hand to him;

and wordlessly he knelt to kiss the tip of her jewelled slipper.

t t t

Court duties came first; there was no way, at this time, they could be

avoided. And so it was very late that night before she dismissed all her

attendants and he was able to come to her. In the big state bed they met

as equals and knew that it was over at last, the long, bigger struggle for

mastery between them. They met with all the passionate tenderness of

a life-long love affair, but now the final satisfaction eluded them; and

Leicester, whose fault alone it was, wept and said they were accursed.

She drew him down upon her breast and no shadow of her cruel

disappointment touched her voice.

“My love,” she whispered, “it doesn’t matter.”

Evidently the wrong thing to say, for he immediately stiffened in her

arms and turned away from her on the pillow.

“I am impotent in your bed and you say it doesn’t
matter
?”

His hair still curled thinly at the nape of his neck and was black here

and there in those places where it had not turned white. She put out a

hand to touch it gently.

“You’re tired,” she began hesitantly. “And unwell. It was unreason-

able of me to expect—”

“A
man
?”

“You were ten men at Tilbury,” she told him stoutly.

“But not in the Netherlands.” He turned to look at her accusingly. “I

failed you there, just as I have failed you now.”

She shook her head sadly.

“No failure of yours can ever compare with the way I have failed you

all these years. So let there be no more talk of blame. When you come

back from Buxton you will be well again and it will be different. We

could go to Ricote. Just a few attendants. Margery is so discreet—”

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He smiled faintly and she was poignantly reminded of a child comforted

in grief by the promise that a favourite toy could be mended. Could you

mend manhood like a broken bone? She had no real idea; but she prayed

it was true, knowing herself to be responsible for the breakage.

Long after he slept, she lay awake, cherishing his weight against her

breast. At dawn she woke him gently and watched him dress in the cold,

cruel light, furtive as any young lover creeping away to avoid discovery.

The state bed was like an enormous empty cavern when he had gone; she