My Enemy, the Queen (48 page)

Essex, however, scornfullynd wisely for onceefused to run away.

Poor Frances was in great distress. She wanted to be with him but he would not have her. In desperation she went to Court to sue for the Queen clemency.

Essex wife, who was disliked by the Queen, though not as fiercely as I was, of course, was the last person who should have attempted to plead with her, although certainly I, his mother, would have been even more unwelcome. But of course these young people didn know Elizabeth as I did. They would have laughed to scorn my certainty that Essex present disgrace was in some measure due to the fact that he had burst into her bedchamber and seen her unadorned.

Frances was naturally sent away with orders not to come to Court again.

My son case was tried at the Star Chamber. The accusation was that he had, at great cost, been given the forces he had demanded; he had disobeyed instructions and returned to England without permission; he had entered into conference with the traitor Tyrone and made terms which were not fit to be listened to.

This was the fall of Essex. A few days later his household was broken up and his servants told to look elsewhere for masters whom they could serve. He had become so ill that we despaired of his life.

I believed that the Queen conscience would smite her. She had once loved him well and I knew how faithful she was in her affections.

s he really as ill as you tell me he is?she asked Mountjoy, who assured her that he was.

She said: will send my doctors to him.

Mountjoy answered: t is not doctors he needs, Madam. But kind words from Your Majesty.

At this she sent him some broth from her own kitchens with a message that she would consider visiting him.

During those early days of December we really thought he was dying. He was prayed for in the churches, a fact which irritated the Queen because permission had not been asked of her that this should be done.

She said that his wife might visit him and tend him; then she sent for Penelope and Dorothy and received them kindly.

our brother is a much misguided man,she said to them. understand well your grief and I share it.

I often think it might have been better if Essex had died then, but when he saw Frances at his bedside, and understood that the Queen had given her permission to come to him and when he heard that Penelope and Dorothy had been received by the Queen, he began to be hopeful, and hope was the best medicine he could have had.

I was not allowed to see him, but Frances came to tell me that his health was improving and that he was planning to send the Queen a New Year gift.

I thought of all the elaborate New Year gifts Leicester had bestowed on her and how I had had to sell my treasures to pay for these. However, it was a good thing to send the gift, and I was eager to know how it was received.

It was neither accepted nor rejected.

It was pathetic to see the effect on him when he heard that his gift had not been rejected. He rose from his bed and in a few days was walking about. He looked better every day.

Frances, knowing how anxious I was, sent frequent messages. I would sit at my window waiting for them and thinking of the Queen, who would be anxious too, for she did love him. And I had seen with Leicester that she was capable of deep feelings. Yet she would not allow me, his mother, to go to him. She was almost as jealous of his love for me as she had been of Leicester.

I heard, in due course, the alarming news that the Queen had sent his gift back to him. It was only when she feared his life was in danger that she relented.

Now that he was no longer sick, he must continue to feel the weight of her anger. So, though recovered from his illness, he was in equal danger from the Queen and her enemies.

Fate seemed determined to rain blow after blow on my poor boy. I wished that Leicester were living. He would have been able to advise and plead Essex cause with the Queen. It was heartbreaking to see this proud man dejected, almosthough not quiteccepting defeat. Christopher was of little use. Although we had been married so long, he seemed the boy he had been at that time when his youth had appealed to me. Now I longed for maturity. I thought constantly and longingly of Leicester. Essex was a hero to Christopher; he could see no wrong in him; he believed that everything that had brought him to this pass was due to ill fortune and his enemies. He could not see that Essex greatest enemy was himself, and that fortune will not keep smiling on one who abuses her.

Events were moving to a swift and terrifying climax. There was a great deal of talk about a book which had been written by Sir John Hayward. When I read it, I could see how dangerous it was at such a time, for it dealt with the deposition of Richard II and the accession of Henry IV, the implication being that if a monarch were unworthy to rule, it was justifiable for the next in succession to take the throne. It was most unfortunate that Hayward had dedicated this book to the Earl of Essex.

I could see how Essex enemies, such as Raleigh, would seize on this and use it against him. I could hear their telling the Queen that the book implied that she was unfit to rule. As it had been dedicated to Essex, had he had a hand in writing it? Did the Queen know that Essex, with his sister Lady Rich, had been in correspondence with the King of Scotland?

The book was withdrawn and Hayward imprisoned, and the Queen remarked that he might not be the author but was pretending to be in order to shield some mischievous person.

Penelope and I would sit together, talking of these matters until we slept for very exhaustion, but we arrived at no conclusion and could see no end to the problem.

Mountjoy was in Ireland, succeeding where Essex had failed, and Penelope reminded me that Essex had said Mountjoy would be no good for the task, being too literary minded and caring more for books than battles. How wrong he had been! Indeed, had my poor Essex ever been right?

He was in debt, for the Queen had refused to renew the license on the farm of sweet wines which she had bestowed on him; and on this he was relying to pay his creditors. It seemed his fortunes could not be lowerut of course they could.

He had never been able to see himself clearly. In his opinion he was ten feet high and other men pygmies. I realized during those terrible days that I loved him as I loved no one elseince that time when I had been obsessed by Leicester. This was a different kind of love, though. When Leicester had coarsened and neglected me for Elizabeth, I had fallen out of love with him. I could never stop loving Essex.

He was in Essex House now and all sorts of people were congregating there. It was beginning to be known as the meeting place for malcontents. Southampton was constantly with him, and he was one of those who were out of favor with the Queen. All men and women who were disgruntled, who believed that they had not received their dues, gathered together and murmured against the Queen and her ministers.

Oh, my reckless, thoughtless son! In an access of rage against the Queen, in his anguish for lost favor, he shouted in the hearing of several that he could not trust her, that her conditions were as crooked as her carcass.

I wished that I could have reached him. I wanted to tell him that John Stubbs had lost his right hand, not because he had written against the Queen marriage, but because he had said she was too old for childbearing. But it would have been useless. That remark could take him to the scaffold, I knew, if ever his steps should be turned that way; and of course he was rushing headlong towards it.

His great rival, Sir Walter Raleigh, seized on those words. I could imagine how they would be slipped into the Queen ear. She would hate him the more because once she had loved him. She would still be haunted by the scene when he had slipped into her bedchamber and discovered a gray, old woman.

The rest of the story is well known, how the plot was made that he and others should seize Whitehall, insist on an interview with Elizabeth, force her to dismiss her present ministers and summon a new parliament.

It probably sounded simple when they planned it. How different it was to put it into action. Christopher was secretive, so I knew that something was afoot. I saw little of him during those days because he was constantly at Essex House. I learned afterwards that Essex was expecting envoys from the King of Scotland, in which case he promised himself he would have good reason for rising and hoping for help from the Scottish King.

It was natural that all these happenings at Essex House attracted attention. Essex spies discovered that there was a plot afootith Raleigh at the head of ito capture him, perhaps kill him, and in any case get him into the Tower. Whenever my son had ridden through the streets of London, people had come out to watch him and to cheer him. He had always been an object of interest and that charm of his had been a source of fascination. He believed now that the city would be for him, and if he rode out, calling the people to rally round him that he might right his wrongs and theirs, they would follow him.

On a Saturday night several of his followers went to the Globe Theatre and bribed the players there to perform Shakespeare Richard II, so that people might see that it was possible to depose a monarch.

I was so alarmed that I asked my brother William to come to, me without delay. He was as uneasy as I was.

hat is he trying to do?he demanded. oes he not know he is risking his head.

illiam,I cried. beg of you, go to Essex House. See him. Try to make him listen to reason.

But of course Essex never had listened to reason. William went to Essex House. By that time some three hundred people were thereotheads, fanatics, all of them.

William demanded an interview with his nephew, but Essex refused it, and because William would not go away he was hustled into the house and shut into the guardsroom.

Then Essex did the foolhardy thing. He marched out into the streets with two hundred of his followersy poor misguided Christopher among them.

Oh, the folly of ithe childish stupidity!

I feel sickened even now when I think of that brave, foolish boy, riding through the streets of London, with his inadequately armed men behind him, shouting to the citizens to join him. I could imagine their blank dismay as these worthy people hastily turned away and went into their houses. Why should they rebel against a Queen who had brought prosperity to them, who had triumphantly saved them from destruction by Spainll because she had fallen out with one of her favorites?

The call of Rebellion went up, and in London and the neighborhood men were called on to defend the Queen and the country, and a force was quickly mustered against Essex. There was little fighting but enough for several to be killed. My Christopher was gored in the face by a halberd and fell from his horse so that he was left to be captured, while Essex retreated and managed to reach Essex House, where he quickly burned letters from the King of Scotland and any which he thought might implicate his friends.

It was night when they came to take him.

I was so angry. His friend Francis Bacon, whom he had helped so much, had spoken for the prosecution. When I thought of all Essex had done for Bacon I raved to Penelope and called him alse friend and traitor!

Penelope shook her head. Bacon had been called upon to make a choice. He had to weigh up his obligations to the Queen and to Essex. Of course, said Penelope, he must choose the Queen.

ssex would have chosen his friend,I pointed out.

es, dear Mother,she replied, ut look to what his acts have brought him.

I knew my son was doomed.

Yet there was one bright hope to which I clung: The Queen had loved him, and I could remind myself how again and again she had forgiven Leicester. But Leicester had never raised an armed rebellion against her. What excuse could there be for Essex? I had to be reasonable and admit that there was none.

He was found guilty, as I had known he would be, and sentenced to deathnd poor Christopher with him. I was bewildered and desolate, for I feared that I should shortly be deprived of a husband and a son.

It was a nightmare into which I had strayed. She could not do it. Surely she could not do it. But why not? Those about her would assure her that she must. Raleighlways his enemy-Cecil, Lord Grey, all of them would explain to her that she had no alternative. Yet she was a woman of strong feelings. When she loved she loved deeply, and she had surely loved him. Next to Leicester he had been the most important man in her life.

What if Leicester had done what Essex had dared? But he never would have. Leicester was no fool. Poor Essex, his was a career littered with suicidal actions, and now there was nothing that could save him.

Or was there?

My husband and my son were condemned to death. I was her kinswoman. Would she have a little pity for me? If only she would see me.

I thought she might see Frances. She had always had an affection for her Moor, and this was his daughter. Moreover, Essex had been notoriously unfaithful to Frances, and the Queen would have pitied her for that, and that would surely have softened the hurt his marrying had inflicted.

Poor Frances, she was desolate. She had loved him dearly and had been with him near to the end of his freedom. I wondered whether he had been tender with her then. I hoped so.

rances,I advised her, o to the Queen. Weep with her, and ask her if she will see me. Tell her I beg her to grant this favor to a woman who has been twice widowed and is likely to be so again. Beg her, in her mercy, to see me. Tell her I know that her great good heart is there beneath her stern royalty, and tell her that if she will see me now I will bless her throughout my life.

Frances was granted an audience during which the Queen had commiserated with her and told her it was a sad day for her when she had lost a great man in Sidney and married a traitor.

And, to my surprise, I too was granted an audience.

So, once again, I was in her presence. But this time on my knees to plead for my son life. She was dressed in blackor Essex, I wonderedut her gown was covered in pearls; she held her head high above the ornate ruff and her face looked very pale against the too red curls of her wig.