My Enemy, the Queen (33 page)

He found me holding it in my hands.

o placate Her Majesty,he said.

ou mean the loversknots?

hat just a design. I mean the diamonds.

t what I call a rather bold design, but I am sure the Queen will approve of it.

he will be delighted with it.

nd no doubt ask you to clasp it round her neck?

shall claim that honor.He must have sensed my mood, for he added quickly: erhaps if she is softened enough I might ask the all-important question.

nd that is?

hat she will receive you at Court.

ou would not please her by begging such a favor.

evertheless I intend to do my utmost to bring it about.

I looked at him cynically and said: f I were there, your position would be difficult, Robert. You would have to play the lover to two womennd both of them of uncertain temper.

ow, Lettice, let us be sensible. You know I have to placate her. You know I have to be in attendance. It makes no difference to us.

t makes a great deal of difference. It means I have a husband whom I rarely see because he is constantly dancing attendance on another woman.

hel come round.

see no sign of it.

eave it to me.

He was jaunty and confident as he went off to put the loversknots round the royal neck, while I asked myself how long I was expected to endure this. There had been a time when I had been reckoned to be the most beautiful woman at Court; and the reason I was not known as such was not due to a fading of my charms, but simply because I was not there.

I asked him as soon as I had an opportunity how the Queen had liked the necklace. He smiled complacently.

t pleased her mightily. She would wear it immediately and has scarce put it aside since.

clever choice, I see. And was she any more inclined to look with favor on the giver wife?

He shook his head gloomily. ou know her temper. She became moody when I broached the subject and made it clear that she was not ready to consider it yet.

I knew that I was as far from being received at Court as ever.

It was true we entertained at Leicester House, Kenilworth, Wanstead and our other smaller residences and then I came into my own, but it seemed that whenever I was enjoying my role as wife to the most influential man in England, the Queen would decide that she would visit the Earl of Leicester and that meant that Leicester wife must disappear.

My patience was beginning to run out. Robert was still my loving husbandhen he was with mend I made it my business to make sure that there was no other woman in his lifepart from the Queen. Whether this was due to a slackening of desire because of his increasing years, the satisfaction he derived from me, or fear of incurring the Queen displeasure, I could not say; but whatever else Robert was he was the Queen man, and that was something she was never going to allow himr meo forget.

He might be satisfied with his rising star but I was certainly not with my declining one.

In my frustration at being excluded I gave way to even wilder extravagance. I wore more glittering gowns when I rode out, and added to my retinue. As I passed through the streets people stood in greater awe than before and once I heard it whispered: he a grander lady than the Queen herself.And that gave me pleasure but only temporarily.

Was I, Lettice, Countess of Leicester, going to allow myself to be pushed aside simply because another woman was so jealous of me that she could not bear to hear my name mentioned? It was not in my nature to accept that. Something was going to happen.

I was considerably younger than Leicester, considerably younger than the Queen. They might be satisfied with the state of affairs, but I was not.

I began to look around and found that in our own household there were some very attractive men. That I had lost none of my appeal I could see by the covert glances that came my waythough none, fearing Leicester terrible wrath, would dare make their meaning clear.

Naturally this state of affairs could not go on indefinitely.

In May of that year news reached England of the death of Anjou. There was talk of his having been poisoned, as there always was when someone important died, and one suggestion was that Robert spies had been responsible because he feared the Queen might marry Anjou. That was nonsense and even Robert enemies gave little credence to the story. The fact was well known that the Queen Little Frog Prince had been a poor specimen of manhoodtunted, pockmarked as he was, he had indulged his senses to excess and no doubt because of his frail physique had suffered through this.

The Queen went into deep mourning for him and bewailed her loss. He was the one man she would have married, she declared, but no one believed her. I was never quite sure whether she deluded herself into thinking she might have married him; it was certainly safe to think so now that he was dead. It was difficult to understand how she, so clearheaded in state matters, should have his strange obsession about marriage. I think that it might have soothed her in some way to let herself believe that had Anjou lived she might have married him. She now needed Leicester close to her, so that one lover could compensate her for the loss of the other.

Anjou death was followed by that of the Prince of Orange, the hope of the Netherlands, who was assassinated by a fanatic incited by the Jesuits. There was deep gloom throughout the country and the Queen was constantly in conference with her ministers, which meant that I scarcely saw my husband at all.

When he did pay me a brief visit he told me that the Queen was not only concerned about what was happening in the Netherlands, but the success of the Spaniards there made her very much afraid of Mary Queen of Scots. Ever since that queen had been the prisoner of ours, there had been alarms. Plots were constantly formed to rescue her and set her on the throne. Robert told me that again and again Elizabeth had been advised to get rid of her, but she believed that royalty was divine and whatever annoyance Mary of Scotland caused her, she still remained royal and a crowned queen at that. There could be no doubt of her legitimacy and claim to royalty, which made her all the more deadly an enemy. Elizabeth once told Robert that she was prepared to die at any time because no one life was more threatened than her own.

The Court was at Nonsuch and I was at Wanstead when my little son health took a turn for the worst. I called in our physicians and the gravity of their comments threw me into deep despair.

My little son had been subject to fits which left him very weak after they occurred; and all that year I had feared to leave him to nurses. He seemed to find great comfort in my presence and looked so sorrowful when I even hinted at going away that I could not leave him.

The July heat was oppressive and as I sat by his bedside I thought about my love for his fatherf which he was the fruitand how important Robert had once been to me, dominating my life. I had thought then that the affection between us would last forever and even now I knew that I should never be quite free of it. If we could have lived together without the shadow of the Queen over us, I believe ours might have been the greatest love story of our times. Alas, though, she was there. There was a trio where there should have been two. The Queen and Robert were larger than life, I always thought; and perhaps I, too, had a little of that quality. Not one of the three of us would set aside our pride or ambition, our self-love, or whatever it was. If I could have been the meek, adoring wife which Douglass Sheffield might have been, it would have been easier. I could have been content to remain in the shadows and allow my husband to wait upon the Queen, to give her the adulation she demanded and accept this as necessary to his career.

I could never do that; and I knew that sooner or later I would make that clear.

And now our child was in danger and I felt that when he dieds I feared he wouldhe link which bound me to Robert Dudley would have grown a little weaker.

When I sent a messenger to Court to tell Robert of the condition of our son, his response was immediate.

As I greeted him in the hall I could not resist saying: o you came. She spared you.

should have come had she not,he answered. ut she is most concerned. How is the boy?

adly sick, I fear.

Together we went to our child.

He lay in his bed looking small and wan in all that magnificence which I had made for him. We knelt by his bed and Robert held one hand and I the other and we assured him that we should stay with him as long as he wanted us.

That made him smile and the pressure of those hot little fingers on my hand filled me with such emotion as I could scarcely bear.

He died peacefully while we looked on and then our grief was so intense that we could only cling together and mingle our tears. We were not the ambitious Leicesters at that timenly two unhappy, bereaved parents.

We buried him in the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick and we had a statue made of him lying on his tomb in a long gown; the description described him as the oble Impeand stated who he was and the date of his death at Wanstead.

The Queen sent for Robert and declared that she was determined to comfort him. She wept for the dear lost child and said that Robert sorrow was hers. Her sympathy, however, did not extend to the child mother. Not a word did she send me. I was still the outcast.

That was a year of disaster, for it was not long after the death of my child that a most scurrilous pamphlet appeared.

I found this in my bedchamber at Leicester House so someone must have put it there intentionally for me to see. It was the first I heard of it but in a short time the whole Court, the whole country were to be talking of it.

The target was Leicester. How he was hated! There could never have been a man who aroused such envy. He was now once more high in the Queen favor and it seemed that none could ever displace him. Her affection for him was as steadfast as her hold on the crown. Robert must have been the richest man in the country; he spent lavishly and was often embarrassed for money, but that only meant that he had temporarily spent more than he could afford. He was at the Queen side when she made important decisions, and some said, he was King in all but name.

So they envied him and their hatred was venomous.

I looked at the small book which was entitled The Copye of a Letter wryten by a Master of Arte at Cambridge.

On the first page my husband name caught my eyes.

ou know the Bear love which is all for his paunchI read, and I was soon in no doubt that the Bear was Robert.

There followed an account of his relationship with the Queen. I wondered what she would say if she ever saw it. And then his crimes. Naturally Amy Robsart death was one of the highlights. According to the pamphlet, Robert had acquired a certain Sir Richard Verney to murder her and made the way clear for the Queen and him to marry.

Douglass Sheffield husband was mentioned as having been poisoned by Leicester and was said to have died of an artificial catarrh which stopped his breath. I knew what was coming next, for I could not hope to escape the libel. There it was. Leicester had taken me in lust while my husband lived and when I was with child we destroyed the child and afterwards he had my husband murdered.

It seemed that any person who had died mysteriously had been poisoned by him. Even the Cardinal de Chatillon was alleged to have been a victim because he threatened to make it known that Leicester had prevented the marriage of Elizabeth with Anjou.

Robert Dr. Julio was mentioned as the man whose expert knowledge of poisons had aided Leicester in his wicked work.

I was astonished. I read on and on. So much in this book could be true, but it defeated its end by the absurd exaggerations and accusations. On the other hand it was a blow at Leicester, and the manner in which his name had been coupled with that of the Queen would create a very unpleasant situation.

Within a few days the pamphlet, which had been printed in Antwerp, was circulated throughout London and the country. Everyone was talking about what they were calling Leicester Commonwealth.

Philip Sidney came riding over to Leicester House. He was furious and declared that he was going to write a reply in defense of his uncle. The Queen made an order of the Council that the book hich she declared to her knowledge was entirely falsehould be suppressed; but that was not an easy thing to bring about. People were ready to risk a good deal to get their hands on Leicester Commonwealth. It was more interesting, though, than Philip beautifully written piece in which he asked the man who had written this scurrilous pamphlet to come forth, but he knew him to be a base and wretched tongue that dared not speak his own name. He added that on his father side he belonged to a great and noble family, but his chief honor was to be a Dudley.

It was no use. Leicester Commonwealth flourished; and all the evil stories, which in the past had been hinted and whispered, were now set down in printnd more calumnies added.

There could be no doubt that as that tragic year passed Robert was the most talked of man in England.

The Overseas Adventure

The Delegation arrived at the great chamber and spoke n oration to me… . They came to offer me, with many good wordes for Her Majestie sake, the absolute government of the whole provinces.

Leicester to Burleigh

The Queen is so discontent with your acceptance of the government there, before you had advertised and had Her Majestie opinion, that, although I, for my own part, judge this action both honourable and profitable, yet Her Majestie will not endure to hear my speech in defence thereof.

Burleigh to Leicester

With great oaths and referring to the Countess of Leicester as he She Wolf the Queen declared there should be o more courts under her obeisance than her own and would revoke you from thence with all speed.

Thomas Duddley to his master the Earl of Leicester

The circulation of Leicester Commonwealth could not fail to have its effect, even on me. I began to wonder how much of it was true and to look at my husband through fresh eyes. It was indeed a strange coincidence that the people who had stood in his way had been removed at remarkably convenient moments. He was, of course, rarely on the scene of the crime, but then he had his spies and servants everywhere. I had always known that.