Elizabeth I (16 page)

Before he arrived publicly, I had one thing I must do to settle my own mind. I must take him to see my astrologer, John Dee. Dee saw the future and cast horoscopes; he had selected my coronation day as the most favorable. I trusted him utterly.

So I enticed Simier and Monsieur out for what I pretended was a little sightseeing excursion on the river. Close-mouthed guards sat discreetly in back of the royal barge—indeed, they accompanied me most everywhere, silently and unobtrusively, but that is necessary for a ruler these days.

We plied our way upstream from Greenwich, past the wild Isle of Dogs, under London Bridge, past the mansions lined up between the city and Westminster.

“And now we leave the city for the country,” I said, as we swept past Westminster, continuing upstream. By this point the river was narrowing, and it was easy to see both banks as the barge kept to the middle. Green riverside paths, old oaks with vast, spreading crowns, and half-timbered inns lined the shores, with swans paddling lazily in the shallows. On the left bank, Barn Elms, where Walsingham lived—lived in ignorance of my royal visitor. Just after it came Mortlake, Dee’s home village.

“We’ll stop here,” I said suddenly. “There is someone I want you to meet.”

“A hidden suitor?” asked Monsieur. “Do you have them everywhere?”

That was an amusing thought. “This is where my astrologer and adviser lives,” I said. “He does not care to come to court.” After we docked and alighted, Monsieur and Simier craned their necks, looking for a grand house, but saw nothing of that sort. “It must be a long walk for us,” they said.

“No, it is just opposite the church.” Already we had attracted a crowd of followers, mainly children. “He lives in his mother’s house.”

At that Monsieur burst out laughing, until Simier said, “So do you, my lord.”

Having Catherine de’ Medici for my mother-in-law was not an appealing thought.

As we reached his cottage, suddenly the door flung open and John Dee peered out. He did not seem surprised or flustered to see me, as most would. “Pray enter.” He snapped the door shut behind us.

“Allow me to present my noble guests from France, envoys of François, Prince of Valois,” I said. Best to continue the disguise. “John, you were not a tad surprised to see me here? I come seldom. Usually you come to me at court.”

“I expected you,” he said. “I would be a poor astrologer if I did not.” He was tall, handsome, graceful—he would have made a perfect courtier, except that he lacked the slightest social instincts.

“I was treating my guests to the pleasures of a river excursion. Nothing is more lovely than a day here in high summer. Then, on a whim, I decided we should stop here, give them a glimpse of a small riverside village.”

“What of the mysteries of the past that you can call up?” asked Simier. He was strangely subdued.

“It isn’t the past men fear,” said Monsieur, “but what is to come.”

“Indeed,” said Dee. He led us back through the cramped hall and then into an annex. I saw an array of skulls and stuffed animals crowded on shelves, as well as flasks filled with bilious green and angry red liquids and piles of rolled scrolls. But we did not stop here; he marched toward a murky chamber at the far end. Dee lit several candles. “This is better for what I wish to see,” he said. “The crystals and mirrors do not like the bright light.”

He unrolled some scrolls and began talking about how his studies showed that we English had rights to a world empire, and I could be queen of a British empire, and so on.

Hideously embarrassed that he should spout this in front of the French, I merely nodded. Dee and I must discuss this in private. Truly, the man had no sense of place and persons. “Let us leave the earthly realm for the stars,” I said. “You, who traffic in the constellations, reveal our
immediate
destinies.” Well he knew it was forbidden by law to cast my horoscope to predict my life span, but this was safe.

As did I, Dee turned to the topic with relief. “I always have yours at the ready,” he said, laying hold of a scroll. “I do it every week. This week’s”—he spread its crackling surface out beside a candle—“specifies that in the months to come you will be constrained by conflicting loyalties, very strong ones.”

“Pish,” I said. “That is a general state of affairs. Come, come, give us a novelty.” Nodding toward Monsieur, I said quickly, “Now for my guest’s horoscope.”

“I was born on March 18, 1555,” said Monsieur. “At Fontainebleau.”

Dee spread out two more scrolls and studied them intently, then stopped and consulted the celestial globe.

“I was the eighth of ten children,” said Monsieur helpfully. “I am of the royal house of France!” he blurted out.

Dee fastened his amber eyes on Monsieur. “Your birth date has told me well enough who you are,” he said, then bent back over the charts. “Your birth was favorable and so were your early years. Then, I see, there was misfortune—a setback.” He looked alarmed. “I—I see that you may be offered a kingdom ere long. I can tell you this, sir, you should grasp it, because it will make no difference in the end.”

Enough of this. I motioned to Dee to stop. “This is not a good day for you,” I said. “You are seeing little of matter. Show us some of your other toys.” It had been a mistake to come here.

After a polite interval had passed, I thanked Dee for his hospitality in our impromptu visit. On the way out, his mother appeared and Monsieur and Simier bowed and flattered her, asking if she were Dee’s younger sister rather than his mother.

While they were so engaged, Dee whispered urgently in my ear, “I did not tell you the worst,” he said. “I saw in the duke’s horoscope his miserable end. It is
biothanatos
, Your Majesty.”

It was so dire he had not dared to put it in English. But I knew my Greek, and what it meant was “violent death by suicide.”

With all these things before me, I knew it could not be. Part of me was relieved; the other part mourned. François arrived ceremoniously in a few days and was formally received at court. Our secret courtship was ours to remember and cherish, but under public scrutiny it was a different matter altogether. We were no longer our own selves but belonged to others.

Yet still I confounded even myself with the betrothal declaration before witnesses in the gallery at Whitehall. Why did I do it? There are those who see me as the master of all subtle games and political gestures, but in this case I was the slave of my own confusion. Perhaps I wanted to experience, just for a day, the emotions of a bride-to-be. For it lasted only a day. That night shrieks of fear and misgivings in my own mind kept me awake all night.

When the sun rose that morning, I knew I could not go through with it.

I told François that I could not pass such a night, ever again. I took the ring back. And closed the door on marriage forever.

Dee was right that François was doomed. He died a sad death from fever—not violence or suicide, unless it be suicide to venture onto a battlefield—only two years after leaving our shores—still fighting to claim some glory for himself in the ugly fields of the Netherlands. I wore mourning. I was mourning the death of my youth.

And Dudley? Eventually we resumed our relations, but always
she
was there between us. True, she stayed away from court, but that was small consolation. She was in the background, plotting and planning, like a spider. Their son died early, and they had no others. Dudley was heartbroken; besides his love for the boy, he was in desperate need of an heir. What good the granted title of Earl of Leicester, the vast estate and castle of Kenilworth, without a son to leave it to? And that had come true.

Both François and Dudley were gone, leaving no family trace, while Lettice and I remained, abiding.

A stirring, a strong burning smell wafted toward me. The sun had set on Mortlake, out the western window. Walsingham was groaning, turning. The past had flitted, full formed, all in only a moment; now it vanished. I was here once again. Frances had returned, her arms full of herbs, and she was putting some new ones on the fire. That had brought me back.

I smiled at her. The diary was gone off her chair. She had seen to that herself.

Walsingham died three days later. He was buried at night, for fear that his creditors would take advantage of his funeral to demand their payments. It was not fitting. As I said, if England had the money, a loyal servant would not meet such an end, but retire rich and fat. Those who served me paid a high price. I hoped heaven could reward them in the fashion I could not.

14

May 1590

I
was concerned about Frances. My glimpse into her diary and her love-smitten sighs over Essex alarmed me. To be in love with Essex was a recipe for misery for someone like her. He held a high title and would doubtless make a marriage only from the ranks of his equals. And he was a womanizer, a man who enjoyed women’s company overmuch. Like others of his sort, he was able to convince his quarry that his interest was genuine and singular. Obviously he had inherited this talent from his mother. It was no place for a girl like Frances to venture. The sooner she realized it, and, in self-preservation, stamped on her feelings for Essex, smothered them like a dangerous campfire, the better for her.

Was it my business to find a husband for the fatherless, dowryless girl? Did I owe my faithful Walsingham that? And was it my business to call Essex off, tell him to cease teasing Frances?

I disliked meddling in people’s private lives. As Queen, I knew I had the prerogative, which is another reason I avoided it. It built up resentment, and to what end? It served no ultimate purpose.

I was debating this one fine May morning, sitting glumly at my desk, when Marjorie came to me and said, “Your Majesty, there is important news.” She waited for me to look up, then said, “Frances Walsingham has married the Earl of Essex.”

“What?” was all I could say. Then: “When?”

“Supposedly—although I don’t know for certain—they married right after, or even before, Walsingham died.”

“Secretly!” Oh, she was a clever girl, cleverer than I had given her credit for.

But my original feelings were not altered. He would not make her happy. She was no fit mate for Essex, who would need a fiery and strong woman to balance him. I had a chill thought: Had he married her because she was Sir Philip Sidney’s widow, and Sidney had bequeathed his sword to Essex? Surely he did not feel duty bound, in an Old Testament sense, to take on his relict wife as well?

“This is a tragedy for them both,” I said. “I need to speak to Essex. Summon him here.”

We met in the privacy of my inmost chamber. I was sitting when he arrived. I did not rise. He knelt before me. I let him remain there a long time before granting him leave to stand.

“Well, Essex, what have you to say for yourself? Marriage is for life. I have heard of some yeomen having the same wife for fifty years. Is that what you want—to have Frances Walsingham your wife forever?” He had already made quite a name for himself among the ladies of the court. His amorous eyes roved everywhere. He far outdid his stepfather. “You must be faithful to her, if I allow this marriage. How like you that?”

His expression revealed that he had not expected this demand. So, he sought to both be chivalric and wed his dead hero’s widow but to pleasure himself among more sensual, obliging ladies.

“I bow before Your Majesty’s wisdom and request,” he said, his head still bowed.

“Think carefully,” I said. “I am the Virgin Queen and, regardless of rough humor in some quarters and abroad, I know I am what I claim to be. From that purity and that virginity I draw my power. I do not tolerate deviations in my court. Do you wish to remain in my service? For I am willing to grant you leave to retire to the country, along with your mother.”

“Oh, I do wish to serve you!” he cried. “Oh, pray, do not cast me aside! I want to be the knight in your livery!”