Elizabeth I (115 page)

Ahead of me loomed the slope of Tower Hill, with the scaffold perched upon it. So many had died here, so many sanctified it by their blood. Thomas More, who supposedly quipped as they steered him up the steps that he appreciated their help in mounting the scaffold, but as for the coming down, he would shift for himself. Cardinal John Fisher, whom Henry VIII had warned that if the pope sent him a cardinal's hat there would be no head to put it on. Henry Howard, the poet Earl of Surrey. Guildford Dudley. Thomas Cromwell. All of Anne Boleyn's supposed lovers, as well as Catherine Howard's genuine ones.

I threaded my way through the crowd, more tightly packed the closer I got to the scaffold. Finally I was jammed between two hulking men, but their size prevented anyone from pushing me aside. I was as close as I could get, and I could smell the hay strewn over the platform—fodder to absorb the blood. The headsman, with his black hood, was waiting, as was the block. Two clergymen stood by. At length there was a roar and I saw two men being brought out—Christopher and Charles Danvers. They would pass close to me as they mounted the steps, and I found myself paralyzed as I watched them approach. Christopher would come within an arm's length, but I could not move. Then, suddenly, I could, and reached out and grabbed his sleeve. He turned, unrecognizing, and the soldier guarding him hit my arm away. Then he mounted the steps, dragging his feet.

The bandage was gone but a livid scar ran down the right side of his face. He seemed dazed, unable to comprehend what was around him. The Crown representative read their crimes and their sentence. The clergymen stepped forward to speak in low tones to the men. Then the official asked if they wished to make a statement.

Christopher seemed to suddenly awaken. He spoke in a clear voice of his treason and said that he deserved to die. He said he forgave all his enemies, especially Sir Walter Raleigh. Then he cried, “I die a Catholic!” Looking wildly around, he saw me. “No, no!” he said. “Go!” Still I stood rooted, and he said, “Obey my last wish!”

He had given me permission. I could go, and not witness the horrible end. I obeyed. Turning my back on Tower Hill, I ran, my hands clapped to my ears. But I still could not drown out the shouts of glee that went up when the headsman struck.

E
aster morning, April 12. The winter was over, all of it, gloriously over, and the pall that had descended on February 25, Ash Wednesday, the day of Essex's execution, lifted at last.

The gloom that had attended Lent this year—both in nature, with its bone-chilling mists and lingering frosts, and in my heart—now dissipated. I had thought the sound of birdsong and the bright yellow of new-sprung flowers would never come again, or if they did, would have lost the power to gladden me. But they still had the magic to make things new.

Throughout the land people gathered to watch the sun dance as it rose on Easter morning, an old belief. Here in the palace we put a bowl of water in the eastern window of the privy chamber to catch the phenomenon. Catherine, Helena, and I bent over it, watching eagle-eyed, but the sun only danced because of ripples in the water.

“I suppose one needs truly to believe,” said Catherine. “One needs to look with the eyes of a child.”

“Yes, we are all too old and have seen too much,” agreed Helena. “Even little Eurwen will be acquiring the eyes of her elders now. Most likely this is her last Easter to see the sun dance.”

“Most like,” I said. “She will be thirteen now.” The age I was when my father died. On that day I had stopped being a child. “I will bring her back to court.” I needed to, for she had lost a kinsman and would forever associate me with the act of his death if I did not bring her close to me again.

We were still at Richmond, unusually late for this time of year. Usually we had transferred to Greenwich by now. But that had allowed Helena to stay with me longer, and I enjoyed that. Attired in our most sumptuous dress to honor the occasion, we, along with the entire household, attended the Easter service. The pale light from a hundred tapers in the chapel royal was lost in the blaze of sunlight streaming in the windows; only the thick Easter candle, meant to burn for forty days, held its own.

The wider world soon came calling in the persons of French and Scottish envoys. Both came on account of Essex—the French to ascertain what had happened, the Scots because he had called them. By the time James responded to Essex's plea that he send troops to assure that Cecil did not take over the government and give the succession to the Spanish, Essex was dead. Gamely James's envoys carried out their diplomatic mission, seeking to distance themselves from the fallen courtier. I entertained the Scots and assured them of our continued friendship and support. They almost trembled with eagerness to mention the succession but read the warning in my eyes.

As for the French, Henri IV had sent Marshal Biron as his envoy to express his condolences and thanks for my safety. It took all my willpower to arrange suitable entertainment to honor him. But I needed to be sure of French support, particularly in the coming months, when we wished to bring the dragging, draining, pointless war with Spain to a close.

So I smiled and teased and flattered Biron. When he touched on Essex, I assured him I would have spared him had I been able. I said this with a sigh of melancholy. If I had been able ... so many things I would have done. Or not done.

“Ma'am,” he said, leaning near me in affected confidentiality. “Do you know what my sovereign said upon hearing of your masterful handling of the uprising?”

“I am sure I cannot guess,” I replied, and waited for him to tell me.

“He said, ‘She is only a king! She only knows how to rule!'”

“Ah, well,” I said, flattered against my own better judgment. But finally to have attained parity as a king—the competitive and meaner part of me danced a little dance and nodded upward toward my father. Son or no son, he had had what he sought in the succession to his reign.

After the French emissaries were dispatched, it was time to address some matters at home. The East India Company merchants planned to send four ships to the Far East. However, they wanted my blessing on their venture and asked me to write letters to the exotic rulers they expected to meet with, and to provide them with the proper gifts to present.

“For if we come in the name of our Queen,” said the spokesman for the company, “they are like to pay us more heed.”

“But they will have never heard of me,” I said.

“Oh, that does not matter,” he said. “The mere sight of the royal seal will impress them.”

“How many do you expect to encounter?”

“Perhaps half a dozen. Could you provide letters for that many, just to be on the safe side?”

“I can draw them up, but leave the name blank, so you can fill it in,” I said. “And as for gifts, what would catch the fancy of these rulers?”

“Something from England,” he said. “But it must be waterproof and unbreakable and not subject to spoilage on the long voyage.”

“You set me a hard task, gentlemen,” I said. “It is difficult to find something uniquely English that will also fit those criteria.”

“Oh, and it must be small as well. We do not have much space on board.”

“I must think upon it,” I said. “What lands do you hope to reach?”

“Sumatra, Java, the Moluccas,” he said. “And whatever else we stumble on. Perhaps even China.”

I could almost smell the spices, wafting across the warm water from the islands. “The tropics rot cloth, so I cannot make a gift of that. A delicate clock would rust in the sea air. Dogs are out of the question, although the sultan of the Turks was impressed with our native breeds, the bloodhounds and mastiffs.”

“We can trust Your Glorious Majesty to provide exactly the right gift.”

“I will do so,” I said. “I am proud that we are sending English ships and merchants so far away. We have established many trading stations all over the East. In years to come they should pay off.” Our failure to set up any permanent colonies or even trading posts in the New World was a pity, but it could be counterbalanced by those on the other side of the globe. At least we knew that was rich in spices, pearls, and silk. So far the New World had yielded only gold, unfortunately in the hands of Spain. “Do you have any thought, or hope, of finding Terra Australis Incognita? If it exists, that is.”

“We are not equipped to go that far south,” he said. “And in any case, it would be so cold there that the spices we seek would not grow.”

“But it probably is a myth,” said his companion. “So far no one has sighted any land that far south.”

“That is for another generation, then,” I said. “We must leave them something of their own to discover.”

That afternoon I thought hard about what I could possibly send to the Far East with them. Their restrictions were so severe even a fairy could not find berth on their ships. Something small ... something waterproof ... something unbreakable ... something impervious to salt ... something unmistakably English ...

“I have it!” said Helena. “It is so obvious.”

“Is it? Then why is it not obvious to me?”

“When I came from Sweden with Princess Cecilia's embassy, King Gustav sent miniatures of himself to everyone—do you remember?”

“Yes, I do. I still have one—somewhere.” More and more I had to say that, not having a precise recollection of where long-unused things were. “It was charming.”

“Well, then—you could send a similar gift to the foreign rulers. They would never have seen an English queen. It would be a novelty for them. You can order duplicates of a portrait you have already approved.”

“Yes ... I suppose ... Very clever of you.”

“A little glass plate will allow it to withstand the salt air, and the size will be perfect. And imagine what they will think when they see what a ruler of Europe wears. They will covet the same!”

“Thank you, Helena. You have done me a great favor.”

“Just one thing. As a reward, I want one for myself.”

“You shall have it.”

Over the years, my costumes had become even more elaborate. I gave the people an unchanged portrait of their Queen, a fixed element in their lives. All else might change, but your Queen does not. That is the message I wished to send them. But I was getting old, and I noted the telltale signs: how increasingly impatient I had become with repetitions, how rigid about carrying through with something. To others that looked like stubbornness, but I knew it was because if I did not do it immediately, it would slip my mind. And there was forgetfulness, which I had been living with for a while. The constant effort to disguise these things—these failings?—were worse than the failings themselves. Yet I knew the keen eyes and the whisperings, the wolves ready to pounce if they smelled weakness. I would not give them that opportunity.