Elizabeth I (116 page)

The letters of introduction, illuminated in red and gold, presented to the captains went thus:

And then followed a letter setting forth our intentions and our well wishes, in English, Latin, Spanish, and Italian. I gave them the letters along with the completed miniatures and sent them on their way.

The summer passed pleasantly. The harvest was still not good, but neither was it disastrous. The Continent was quiet. The government ran smoothly with Essex gone, its chief irritant removed. I appointed the Earl of Worcester and the Earl of Shrewsbury to fill vacancies on the Privy Council and enjoyed the quiet balmy days of July and August.

Then came September, and the news I had hoped never to hear: The Spanish had landed in Ireland. Thirty-three ships, with five thousand troops, arms, and ammunition, had anchored at Kinsale on the southern part of the island. They were under the command of Don Juan de Águila, who had led the attack on Mousehold in 1595.

Our troops were primarily in the north, fighting O'Neill and his adherents, and these reinforcements were in the south. If the O'Neill forces could get south and join with the Spanish, we would be outnumbered.

Quickly I ordered reinforcements to Ireland and wrote Lord Deputy Mountjoy, “Tell our army from us, that every hundred of us will beat a thousand of them, and every thousand, ten thousand. I am the bolder to pronounce it in His name, that has ever protected my righteous cause. I end, scribbling in haste, Your loving sovereign, E.T.”

If only it were true that our numbers counted disproportionately. But that was wishful thinking. We had been winning in Ireland. Now came the test. At last the Spanish had directly engaged us on land.

“Old Sixtus,” I muttered. “It is too late for you to offer your reward of gold to Spanish boots on our soil.” He had not lived to see it. Good.

It is satisfying to outlive one's enemies, and the schemes of one's enemies. One of the unheralded benefits of age.

A
utumn, and the time of gathering in. My sixty-eighth birthday came and went, and I did not encourage anyone to mark it. I did not want to remind the world of my age. But I could not escape marking it myself.

I took a short Progress to Reading and Hampshire and was pleased to see farmers selling their produce along the road. The wagons were not heaped as high as they would have been in a good year, but at least there was something. That sharp smell of leaves crackling underfoot filled my nostrils and made me think—as that autumnal scent would always make me think—of Marjorie. I had just heard that Henry Norris had died and joined her in the family tomb. He had not endured long without her.

With a sigh, I turned my thoughts to more immediate and pressing concerns. The subsidies granted by Parliament in 1597 had run out this spring, and I had called another one to meet in October.

This one would be difficult. They grew ever more demanding and encroached more and more upon my royal prerogative. Traditionally, Parliament's role was to advise, and advise only. But they could introduce bills for me to approve. I could—and did—forbid them to put forward bills on the church, the succession, and monopolies.

I halted my horse and looked around the fields, the stubble in them like little picket fences. Like the farmers who tilled these fields, I must tend to Parliament. Both grew unruly without care. Both must be made to yield for our subsistence.

I conferred with Francis Bacon, who had become quite an accommodating servant of the Crown. His trenchant mind was at my service, as he had proved in the Essex trial. Afterward he had been vilified as a turncoat, so he wrote an apology to defend himself. I am not sure it convinced anyone.

He seemed sad eyed as he entered my consulting room, bowing solemnly.

“Come, come, sir, it is too fine a day to look so drear,” I told him. “Soon the winter will give you cause enough.” Outside the Greenwich windows, the autumn sun sparkled on the Thames.

“True, Ma'am, but clouds already hang upon me.”

I had forgotten. Anthony had died. “Forgive me. I forgot that you mourn your brother.”

“It was expected, of course. He had declined for years. Yet the scandal of the Essex affair hastened his end.”

“There was no scandal in it for him, and it is no shame to faithfully serve a master. No one blamed him for any of it.”

“He was devastated at the turn of events.”

Some survive better than others,
I thought. “Francis, the new parliament ...” I must steer onto the real road I wished to travel. Talk of Essex was a dead end, literally.

“I will be sitting in it, as you know,” he said. “And it is my highest wish to serve Your Majesty's concerns.”

“I have many, as you are well aware, Master Bacon. Most of them, as with most of life, have to do with finances. Even the Bible says, ‘Money answers everything.'”

He looked startled. “It does? Where?”

“Ah, Francis, you do not bury yourself in Scriptures?” I laughed to let him know I was teasing. “Ecclesiastes says, ‘A feast is made for laughter and wine maketh merry, but money answers everything.'”

“It certainly pays for everything.”

“In spite of frugality that would rival a desert father's, and selling Crown lands and jewels and even my father's Great Seal, the country is sinking toward bankruptcy,” I said. “We must end this pointless war with Spain. Until then, I must call on Parliament once again for money. I hate it, and they hate it, and there is nothing I can do about it!” I felt my neck growing hot with anger at my helplessness. I had tried so hard, and yet England was as bad off as when I had come to the throne.

“I am sure they will grant whatever you request,” he assured me. “As for expenses—I inherited Gorhambury House from my brother. It is a lovely place, but the burden of keeping it weighs on me.”

“I have fond memories of visiting your father there,” I said. “Tell me, is the door still sealed up? The one I walked through?”

“Indeed it is,” he said. “You must return so that we can reopen it.”

“When this is settled, I can make pleasure jaunts. But the ... the recompense for your service at the Essex trial ... Is it not sufficient to allay the expenses of Gorhambury?” How delicately we must tread around the payoff to Francis for so ably opposing Essex in the trial. I had given him the twelve-hundred-pound fine levied on Sir Robert Catesby. Many of the adherents of Essex had been fined and let go. I hated to part with even a penny of the money, but Francis had earned it.

“I am grateful,” he said. “But the expenses at Gorhambury are ongoing. As I noted in my essay on wealth, better a one-time expense than a continual one.”

“And what is a kingdom but that very thing? It must be continually nourished. Yet even as I nourish it, it nourishes me. We draw strength from each other.”

He nodded. Then he said, “There is something that Parliament means to address, and that you may oppose. They will demand a reformation of the monopolies. They say that such reforms were promised in the last parliament and have not been carried through.” He paused, as if waiting for me to explode. I think he even stepped back two feet.

“I am well aware of the problem, but the monopolies are necessary.”

“With all respect, Your Majesty, why are they necessary?”

“How else can I reward people? Good God, I have no means otherwise! Oh, in the middle of my reign, before these ruinous war expenses, I had a surplus to distribute to worthy people. Titles, too, and lands; offices and appointments in the government. Even an honest man could make a wind-fall on the Court of Wards—Burghley did. But in the last decade, that has dried up. I have nothing extra to bestow. The monopolies fill the gap. I would like the income for the Crown, but it is cheaper to yield it than to pay loyal supporters nothing. The monopoly on sweet wines, though, I have kept. It enabled Essex to live like a king, and now it helps pay my creditors.” I stopped for breath. What a tirade.

“The people resent them,” he said. “Your reasons may be valid, but all they know is that they must pay unreasonable rates for common items like starch, playing cards, and salt.”

“We all have irksome things in our lives. God knows, mine started with being a woman in a role cast for a man!”

He inclined his head. Never had a gesture of submission seemed less submissive.

“Oh, very well!” I said. “I know that subject is old. I have, I like to think, overcome it! But the monopolies—there are two kinds. Some are well earned by their discoverer, or their perfecter, someone who finds a better way to tan gloves, or to set type. Why should another profit from his labor? If anyone can come in and snatch, or share, the profits, what incentive do people have to invent something?”

“I do not think those are the ones in contention,” he said. “The ones resented are the ones I named, common household products. There are dozens of them. Did Raleigh invent playing cards? No. Why, then, should he collect duties on them?” His eyes flashed. “Because he is a royal favorite? If so, the Crown takes from the poor to give to the wealthy. It is a reversal of what Robin Hood did, and he is celebrated as a hero.”

“That was a long time ago,” I said.

“I am only warning you,” he said. “As a loyal servant should.” He bowed deeply.

I wrestled with this after he departed. Everything he had said was true. But beyond that lay the question of royal prerogative. It should be within my rights to bestow monopolies on deserving subjects. At what point should I yield to public pressure?