My Enemy, the Queen (50 page)

I see the three of us, side by side: Elizabeth and Leicester myself in the background important to them as they are to me. And then strangely enough Essex, the Queen, myself.

And they are gone and I live on.

I am over ninety. It is a very great age. I can be forgiven for fancying I am sometimes back in the past.

I like it best when my grandson, Essex, comes to see me. He is a man of great strength, punctilious in his zest for the right, a man who will do his duty, however unpleasant. He does not seek great honors. He is a great soldiere could not be less like his father.

I hope my grandson will come to see me soon. Perhaps he will come for Christmas. I should like to see him then. He talks to me a great deal about the King and the Parliament and the troubles with the Church. He thinks that one day there will be a disagreement between the King and the Parliament, and he will not be on the side of the King.

I tell him that he talks like his father, recklessly. But in truth he is far from reckless.

He sits there before me, his arms folded, looking into the future.

How I hope that he comes this Christmas!

Early on Christmas morning in the year 1634, when her MAIDS WENT TO HER BEDROOM IN DRAYTON BASSET THEY FOUND HER AS THOUGH SLEEPING PEACEFULLY.

She was dead.

Leicester had died forty-six years before and Elizabeth thirty-one.

She was ninety-four years of age.

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