The Marriage Game (54 page)

He gave her the brief facts of his final days in the Netherlands, but she could see that the long journey had tired him, and reluctantly let him go to get some rest.

In council the next morning Burghley and Walsingham expressed genuine pleasure at having Leicester back. They would! Elizabeth thought venomously. They wanted his support for what was to come, knowing that she placed a high value on his opinions. Sure enough, Robert added his voice to theirs, and at a private supper in her chamber that evening he went creaking on his knees and begged her to have Mary’s death warrant drawn up and sign it.

“You really have no choice, Bess,” he pleaded. “It is only of you and this blessed kingdom that I think.”

The next morning Elizabeth announced that she would have the sentence on Mary publicly proclaimed. But that night she did not sleep at all, fearing that she had committed herself to the inevitable consequence of doing so. She groaned inwardly when, just before dinner, the French ambassador came seeking an audience and beseeched her to show clemency toward the Queen of Scots.

“Matters have gone too far for that,” she told him. “This just sentence was passed on a bad woman protected by bad men. If I am to live, Queen Mary must die.” She was holding to her resolve—just.

Parliament sent another deputation urging her to have the sentence carried out. But now she showed herself distracted and undecided. “Clearly it has been decided that my surety cannot be established without a princess’s head. It is grievous that I, who have pardoned so many rebels and winked at so many treasons in my time, should be forced to this proceeding against such a personage. What will my enemies say?” she shrilled. “That for the surety of her life, a maiden queen was content to spill the blood even of her own kinswoman? I should have cause for complaint if any man should think me given to such cruelty, when I am guiltless and innocent! Nay, I am so far from it that, for my own life, I would not touch her! If other means can be found, I would take more pleasure than in anything under the sun. I pray you, excuse my doubtfulness, and take in good part my answer answerless.”

She was barely existing, hardly eating, and troubled by nightmares of severed heads and bloody axes. She found herself dwelling more on her poor mother than she had for years, and resolved that no queen should go to the block by her hand.

Burghley, Walsingham, Hatton, Robert, and the rest repeatedly used all their powers of persuasion to make her do what her people—and Parliament—expected of her. They were relentless. If she had thought that Robert would spare her, she’d been badly mistaken. He was as firm as his fellows.

“If you do not order this execution, you will lose all credibility,” he warned her.

“And men will say that the weakness of your sex is clouding your judgment,” Burghley added, severe.

“Had I been born crested, not cloven, you would not speak thus to me!” Elizabeth retorted hotly. “It is nothing to do with the weakness of my sex! It is about doing what is right!”

For all her misgivings, the sentence was proclaimed early in December, and in London there was a huge outburst of rejoicing. Bells pealed for joy and the sky that night was lit up with the glow from a hundred celebratory bonfires.

Burghley laid the death warrant, drafted that day by Walsingham,
before Elizabeth. “For Your Majesty to sign,” he said, in a voice that brooked no opposition.

“Not yet, good Spirit,” she told him. “Give me time.”

“Parliament has spoken, madam. It has ratified the sentence. You
must
face the inevitable.”

Walsingham was equally adamant, as were Robert and all her other councillors. “Sign! Sign!” was all they kept saying to her. Then she had to fend off the Scottish and French ambassadors, who were both urging her to show mercy. How could she refuse these two friendly kingdoms?

Out of the blue came a letter from Mary’s son James, who had become King of Scotland when she was forced to abdicate nineteen years ago. James had the temerity to tell her:
King Henry VIII’s reputation was never judged but in the beheading of his bedfellow
. That infuriated Elizabeth. Her father had been duped, the victim of evil men. Mary, in contrast, was a murderess and traitor who would have had her royal cousin assassinated. There was no comparison, none at all!

“He is making a token protest, that is all,” Robert opined. “He is more concerned about securing the succession than saving his mother’s life. He writes that honor constrains him to insist on her being spared. That sounds a bit halfhearted to me.”

“But some of the lords of Scotland are now threatening war on England if I have her executed,” Elizabeth said anxiously.

“Be minded of what their ambassador said, madam,” Burghley put in. “He said there is no sting in this death. And he should know.”

It was the most agonizing decision of her life. She knew—and God knew it had been made clear to her often enough—where her duty lay, but could not bring herself to order Mary’s death. The stress this caused affected her so profoundly that she feared she might go mad. She felt so alone, for everyone else was pressing her to sign the warrant, but as the weeks passed she began to run out of excuses and grew weary of reciting her objections. Her soul’s quietness had flown away. She was constantly on the verge of tears; she lost weight, as she could
not eat; sleep came only fitfully, and she was plagued by the headaches that had manifested themselves so often, and increasingly viciously, in recent weeks. She felt ill, and dared not admit it to anyone, in case it appear that old age was encroaching and she was losing her grip on affairs. What was she to do?

1587
 

Christmas had come and gone, and Elizabeth hardly noticed. Still playing for time, she authorized Burghley to prepare a new warrant from Walsingham’s original draft, and it was duly drawn up and given into the safekeeping of her secretary, Davison. She told herself she did not mean to use it, but in fact resentment was building in her against Mary, who had caused her all this anguish on top of plotting her death. She found her resolve hardening.

Then the Scottish ambassador, James Melville, came to her once more, pleading for Mary’s life.

“There would be no need for Your Majesty to order her execution were she formally to renounce her claim to the throne in favor of her son. King James is a Protestant, so he would never become a focus for Catholic plots against you.”

Ha! she thought. But he would attract malcontents and those who—even now—wanted a man on the throne; inevitably a faction would form around him. She had never forgotten how her sister’s self-seeking courtiers had deserted her for the rising star, herself. Besides, she had not yet named anyone as her successor, and never would, for these reasons. The very idea put the fear of God—and treason—into her.

“By God’s passion, that would be cutting my own throat!” she flared. “No, by God! Your master shall never be in that place.”

“Then, madam,” persisted Melville, trying, not very well, to suppress his anger, “will you please consider delaying the execution, if only for one week.”

Elizabeth had worked herself up into a frenzy. “Not for an hour!” she shouted.

Her bad temper was further fueled by a message from King Henri of France, telling her that he would deem it a personal affront if she put Mary to death.

“Now that is the shortest way to make me dispatch the cause of so much mischief!” she growled. Yet still she would not sign the warrant.

“Is it not more than time to remove that eyesore?” Burghley asked testily, when next the fate of the Queen of Scots was debated in council.

The others grunted their exasperated assent.

“She has been at the center of every conspiracy against Your Majesty!” Walsingham reminded Elizabeth, who was grimacing at the head of the board.

“No!” she said again, and kept on saying it.

Later, after she had left the room following yet another outburst of distress, Robert stayed behind with his colleagues. “She will not do it unless extreme fear compels her,” he told them.

“Then let us put about some rumors to frighten her and harden her resolve,” Hatton suggested. “Spread it around that the Spaniards have invaded, or London is on fire, or the Queen of Scots has escaped.” The others nodded in assent, the gleam of conspiracy in their eyes.

The rumors, ignited in the most volatile places, caught hold like Greek fire, prompting widespread panic throughout the kingdom, and resulting in men donning their armor in case of invasion and guards posted on the main roads. Still Elizabeth was immovable, knowing there were no real threats to justify the hysteria. But when the council informed her they had arrested and questioned the French ambassador in connection with a plot against her life that
almost certainly
involved the Queen of Scots, they swept away her fears of provoking the French by executing Mary.

“Suffer or strike!” she declared, anger surging against that black spider
spinning yet another web of intrigue. “In order not to be struck,
I
must strike!”

She summoned Davison. “I am much disturbed by these reports,” she told him, “and am resolved to sign the Queen of Scots’ death warrant without further delay. Please bring it to me.”

Davison laid it before her. She read it over, picked up her quill and signed her name.

“I wish the execution to take place as soon as possible,” she told him. “It is my pleasure that it be done in the great hall of Fotheringhay, not in the castle courtyard. Ask Sir Christopher Hatton to attach the Great Seal of England to the warrant, then have it shown to Sir Francis Walsingham. The grief of it will nearly kill him,” she jested grimly. “Have the warrant sent to Fotheringhay with all speed. I do not wish to hear any more of it until it is done.”

As soon as a jubilant Davison had hastened off with the warrant to find Burghley and tell him the astounding news, Elizabeth regretted what she had done. Yet she dared not recall the offending document; her councillors would be in an uproar if she did that. But after another sleepless night, and another punishing megrim, she sent word to Davison that he was not to lay the warrant before Lord Chancellor Hatton until she had spoken with him again.

Davison came running. “Madam, it has already been sealed,” he informed her. Of course; they would not have wasted time.

“Why is everyone in such a hurry?” she asked, her voice sharp with panic.

“They but wish to expedite Your Majesty’s bidding,” he told her. God grant that she was not about to change her mind!

“Swear on your life that you will not let the warrant out of your hands until I have expressly authorized you to do so,” she commanded.

“Very good, madam,” Davison muttered, taking care not to swear anything.

“And Sir William …” The Queen’s ringing tone stopped him in his tracks, but then she lowered her voice. “Contact the Queen of Scots’ jailer, Sir Amyas Paulet. Ask him to ease me of my burden and quietly deal with her, so I can announce that she has died of natural causes.”

Davison could not believe what he was hearing. Was the Queen really asking that stern, upright Puritan Paulet to commit murder for her? “He would never consent to such an unworthy act!” he blurted out.

“Wiser persons than I have suggested it,” Elizabeth told him. “My lord Burghley and my lord of Leicester think it a politic solution, and it would save us from the threat of reprisals from abroad. And Davison, I am answerable to none for my actions, but to Almighty God alone, and in this my conscience is clear. I follow Cicero’s principle that we must strive for the highest good.”

“Yes, madam, I am sorry, madam. I will write to Sir Amyas,” Davison said reluctantly, knowing it would be a wasted effort, for the answer would be a pious and outraged no.

Informed that the Queen might be wavering, Burghley summoned a secret emergency meeting of the council.

“Do we, or do we not, dispatch the warrant without further reference to Her Majesty?” he asked. The response was a unanimous yes; and to avoid Davison being blamed, all ten councillors present agreed to share responsibility for what they were about to do.

“Then it is agreed,” Burghley said decisively. “But not one of you is to discuss the matter further with Her Majesty until Queen Mary is dead, in case she thinks up some new concept of interrupting and staying the course of justice.” He then dashed off an order for the sentence to be carried out. “Send this to Fotheringhay with the Queen’s warrant,” he instructed Davison. “Do it today!”

Elizabeth sent for Davison. “I have had a nightmare about Queen Mary’s execution,” she confided to him.

“But Your Majesty still wishes to go ahead with it?” he asked, trying to conceal his alarm.

“Yes, by God!” she said. “Even so, I might have wished things done in better form. Have you heard back from Sir Amyas?”

“I fear so,” Davison replied. “I have his letter here. He says that his life is at Your Majesty’s disposition, but God forbid he should make so
foul a shipwreck of his conscience, or leave so great a blot to his own posterity, as to shed blood without law or warrant.”

“I wonder at his daintiness!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “It is strange to me, the niceness of those who say great things about my surety, but in deeds perform nothing. Write a sharp note to Sir Amyas, complaining that the deed is not already done.”