Elizabeth I (127 page)

Lying in bed, I wondered what I had left undone. Nothing that others could not finish. There was Ireland, but only the surrender treaty, with its terms, remained to be signed.

The succession. It was obvious that James would succeed me. I did not regret never having named an heir. There always was an heir, of the body or not, and the kingdom went on. The only problem came when it was disputed. But my adversary the Scots queen had solved that for me admirably, providing only one candidate.

Parliament. It was growing in strength, demanding to be elevated into an arm of government, no longer content to style itself advisory only. That was an ominous development, but I had done my best to retard it. Another challenge for James.

Religion. In spite of predictions, the Catholics had survived. Not everyone had been won to my sensible middle way, to the Church of England. The Puritans found it still too popish, the Catholics, heretical. Well. One cannot satisfy everyone.

Finances. I had begun my reign with a dismal financial situation, had rectified it, only to find myself dragged backward into desperate straits by the wars. Now the kingdom stood as I had first found it—in debt, sliding toward bankruptcy, despite my personal sacrifices to stem it.

But with the Spanish war essentially over, and the Netherlands launched as a successful independent entity, those expenses should vanish. Ireland, too, would no longer drain us. James should have no trouble restoring the treasury to solvency.

Had I pleased people? Certainly the protection from civil war had conveyed a great blessing upon them. Perhaps that was my greatest gift—years and years of quiet at home, so English life could flourish. The French, torn by religious wars, did not enjoy the theater, country fairs, or taverns. Ordinary life—that was what civil war robbed people of.

The defeat of the Armada had given the people the conviction that they were protected by God, that England was a chosen land, for it was the “English wind” that had saved us in the end. Our seamen were skillful, but it was the wind that had destroyed the Spanish fleet. And not once, but over and over again, in the Armadas of 1595, 1596, and 1597, as if to make a point.

And the question others would ask long after I was gone: Was I wrong not to marry? Wrong politically, that is? And I could answer that one resoundingly: No, I was not wrong. As the Virgin Queen, I had united my people far more than I could have done with any consort. They knew they had my undivided loyalty.

I touched my coronation ring. This bound me to them. It had from the beginning, and I had never betrayed those vows. I twisted it. It had, lately, been difficult to move, as if it were adhering to my very flesh.

All the doubts—of not having loved enough, not having given enough, not to my country but to one person, one beloved person who might have reigned with me as my consort. Those doubts—it was time to let them go now.

What was done was done.

M
y pervasive sadness did not depart, and the coming of March, with its promise of spring to follow, made no difference. I forced myself to grant an audience to the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli, a charming young man, as the best Italians are. One part of me delighted in the belated diplomatic recognition; the other part barely grasped it, as if something far away tugged at my hem.

I heard from Ireland. The O'Neill would acquiesce to my terms. We had won. Along with the dispatch, a chunk of stone from the smashed coronation chair of Tullaghoge was enclosed.

I withdrew it from its pouch and fingered it. It was about the size of my palm, irregular and gray brown. Within it lay the mystery of what made a king in Ireland. Had we the right to destroy it?

“It seems a simple enough thing,” I said.

“So was the bread at the Last Supper,” said Cecil.

“This is more easily destroyed,” I answered. How prescient of Jesus to leave behind no relics, no holy of holies, merely a piece of bread that must be baked, over and over, in its own time.

I pointed to my own coronation ring as an equivalent. I tried to pull it off, but I could not move it.

Cecil tried to help me, but he only succeeded in irritating the finger. “It has grown into the flesh,” he said.

“As it has grown into my soul,” I said. It was part of me.

“I fear it is cutting off your blood. Look how the finger swells.”

“It has done so before,” I assured him. “It is my blood rushing out to unite with my people.”

“Symbols must not disguise dangerous events,” he said. “I must call a physician. We need his opinion.”

Over my objections, he called the physician. One look at my red and throbbing finger, and he shook his head. “It must come off, Your Majesty.”

“Never!” I snatched my hand away and enveloped it in my other one for protection.

“It will cause your finger to die and rot,” he said.

“I am wedded to my people, my land, and my realm,” I said. “The ring is my pledge of that.”

“It will kill you,” he said.

“I accept that. I have always known it. Did I not tell my people at Tilbury, ‘I will lay down my life in the dust for you'?”

“A swollen ring finger is not the same as a Spanish invasion. Be reasonable, Your Majesty.”

“No!”

“It is only a piece of metal. Do not risk your life.”

“Please, my dear Queen. My father's voice joins with mine, as we would not lose you for such a trifling thing,” said Cecil.

Before I could hide my hand, the physician had his pliers out, pulled my finger, and cut the metal. Warmth flooded my finger.

“There. You are saved.” He handed me the twisted remnants of the ring.

I took it sorrowfully. Its intricate pattern had been severed. Then I picked up the stone fragment from Tullaghoge.

“So we are both shorn of our authority, The O'Neill and I,” I said.

“Nonsense,” said Cecil. “He lost his by military defeat. No one has deprived you of yours.”

But I felt naked, disenfranchised, as though the realm had divorced me, revoked my power.

The place on my finger where the ring had been was deeply indented. I rubbed it; the mark felt engraved, stamped on the flesh. Perhaps it would remain.

The heaviness of soul did not depart from me, and in its wake came heaviness of body. My legs were cold, my bones ached, and I was troubled with sleeplessness. Then my throat was seized with pain, developing an abscess that made speaking torture. I put off a meeting with De Beaumont, the French ambassador. I did not feel up to it. Instead, I wrote a letter to my old fellow ruler and friend Henri IV, admitting that bit by bit, the fabric of my reign was beginning to tear and fade away. Somehow the confession was easiest to make to another monarch.

My physician tried to dose me with potions, but I refused them all, despite the urgings of Helena, Cecil, Harington, and cousin John Carey. “Poison!” I said. “It will hasten my end.” I saw them exchanging pitying looks, agreeing silently that the Queen had lost her wits. But I had no wish to prolong whatever road it was I had embarked on.

Charles came to see me. It was difficult to see who was in a worse state.

“They told me Your Majesty was not well,” he said, bowing.

“I—” I clutched at my throat. It stung to talk. “They have yoked my neck with an iron chain,” I croaked out. “I am tied, I am tied. All is changed for me.”

“It is changed for us all, dear friend,” he said. “Catherine, your companion and cousin, my wife, is gone. Rather than feeling bound, I feel cast adrift.”

“Oh, Charles,” I rasped. “We have lost so many. It grows harder, not easier.”

“Perhaps there comes a point at which losses no longer matter,” he said. “I have not attained that wisdom yet.”

“Nor I,” I admitted. “Nor I.”

My conviction grew that I would never leave Richmond. I glanced around me, imprinting it all in my mind. The privy chamber, with its inlaid writing table. The frieze of blue plaques ornamenting the passageway. The ridiculous flush privy in the bathroom. At the same time, these things seemed to be receding into a past that grew ever more ghostly.

John Dee begged audience, and I allowed him in. As soon as I saw him, I rasped, “You sent me to Richmond to preserve me. But look! I fail, I am languishing. You misread the charts.” I glared at him. “You sent us here to die! Catherine has fallen already, and I am not far behind. This place has undone us.”

He grasped his bony hands, twisting them fiercely. “Perhaps I misread the signs. Forgive me! The devil tricks us. Richmond may prove another Samarra! You must leave tonight!”

“You will have me chase throughout the kingdom?” I smiled. “I am done with hasty removals. And what do you mean by Samarra?”

“It is an old tale I learned in Europe, from an Arab physician. It goes thus: A servant went to the Baghdad market for his master. There he saw a pale woman he knew instantly was Death. He turned away, rushed back to his master, and requested permission to flee to Samarra. His master granted it, and the servant set out on a swift horse. Troubled, the master went to the marketplace himself and confronted the pale woman. ‘What did you do to frighten my servant so?' She demurred and said, ‘I was startled to see him here in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him this afternoon in Samarra.' That, my Queen, is the tale.”

“So this is my Samarra,” I said. “I will remain and greet the dark angel.”

Dee looked distressed. I attempted to assure him. “Sooner or later we must stand our ground, or be branded cowards. That is not a label for a queen.”

Richmond it was to be, then. Death would stride forward, and I would greet him courteously. Someone had once told me that death is most unthinkable, most heinous, when we are in the blush of health and life. And Archbishop Whitgift had said, “We are not granted dying grace until the moment comes. It is the final gift of Our Lord. We cannot claim it betimes.”

Had he granted it to me? Was I ready?

“You must not go to bed,” said Dee. “As long as you stay out of bed, you are safe. That is what I came to tell you.”

“Safe?” I laughed, although it tore my throat. “There is no safety for one of my years.”

But the admonition stuck in my mind.
As long as you stay out of bed, you are safe.
I had meant to attend a service in the chapel royal, but I did not have the strength. So they laid cushions for me on the floor. I could hear it all, could hear the sung prayers, through my little balcony window that overlooked the chapel.

Afterward, John Carey and Harington tried to make me rise. But I did not have the strength. I wanted to lie there.

“Dearest friend,” urged Helena, “please at least let us put you in bed.”