The Marriage Game (35 page)

Elizabeth sat stony-faced. If she had thought herself insecure before, she realized that her position was now even more precarious, and that she might never know a moment’s peace again in the wake of this new danger.

It did not help that Mary Stuart was now an unwelcome prisoner in England. Two years ago Mary had escaped from Scotland with only the clothes on her back, and come into England seeking Elizabeth’s support, hoping that her dear sister would furnish her with an army to defeat her rebellious lords.

“What shall I do with her?” Elizabeth now demanded of her council.

“Surely Your Majesty will not do as she asks?” Cecil had said.

“I’m not a fool, William!” she snapped. “She has claimed my crown; it has been her life’s ambition to sit on my throne, and she still covets it, if I am any judge of character. God knows, she never ceased demanding to be named my successor. Do you think I would give her the wherewithal to press her claim?”

“A wise decision,” Cecil hastened to say. “But we still have to decide what to do with her.”

“Whatever we do with her, she will make trouble for me,” Elizabeth said. “She is tainted by scandal; the Scottish lords insist she is an adulteress and a murderess, and she has never been cleared of that charge. Do you think that I, a maiden queen, could receive such a person at my court? I have my reputation to protect. So she must not come anyplace near where I am.”

“Send her back to Scotland,” Sussex said.

“But she is a sanctified queen who has been appallingly treated by her traitorous subjects and unjustly deposed and imprisoned,” Elizabeth declared, “and if she has never been cleared of the charges laid against her, neither have they been proved.” Of course, Mary was a brainless fool, marrying Darnley, alienating her nobles, subsuming herself to Bothwell, then arriving in England penniless and expecting her dear sister to provide her with an army.

“If we keep the Queen of Scots in the North, as Your Majesty suggests, we will be placing her at the heart of a region peopled by Catholic recusants,” Cecil warned. “That could prove most dangerous.”

“As I said, William, she will make trouble for us whatever we do with her.” Elizabeth sighed. “Therefore I dare not leave her at liberty.”

Well, she had done her best. She had arranged for Mary to be held securely in the North pending a hearing of her case in England, and appointed the faithful Sir Francis Knollys as her jailer, much—she knew—to his distress and that of his wife, her dear Kate, whom Elizabeth had insisted on keeping with her at court, hating the idea of being apart from her beloved half sister. Knollys had asked, again and again, to visit Kate, or had begged permission for her to visit him, and his pleas grew even more frantic when Kate fell ill. But then Kate had died, at the Queen’s side but far from her distraught husband—and all because of Elizabeth’s selfishness. She saw that now, as she had not at the time, and found it hard to forgive herself. It was a grief she would have to live with always. The expensive funeral she arranged in Westminster Abbey had borne witness to her remorse.

Before that catastrophe, the Scottish lords had produced a set of letters—“Conveniently found in a casket in the possession of one of Bothwell’s men,” Cecil told the Queen—claiming that Mary had written them to Bothwell in the weeks leading up to Darnley’s death.

Elizabeth read the transcripts. They contained shocking, foul proofs of adultery and murder, and it was at that point that her sympathy for Mary evaporated. And once the English commissioners had read this damning evidence, Mary’s fate was sealed. Again Elizabeth found herself in an impossible position. The majority of her subjects hated and feared the Queen of Scots; the Scottish lords did not want her back in Scotland; and she could not risk giving such a dangerous creature her freedom, for Mary would surely plot against her.

The English tribunal, set up in York to hear Mary’s case, had its instructions. It found that nothing could be proved against her. The Scottish lords, who had attended with their helpful casket of letters, went home. Mary, to their relief, did not. She was to remain in honorable captivity as Elizabeth’s guest. Naturally there were protests from King Philip and other Catholic rulers, most of whom wanted Mary on the throne of England, for they saw her as the rightful Catholic claimant. All the more reason, Elizabeth knew, not to set her free!

Yes, the realm had suffered turbulent upheavals, and she had to face the sobering fact that she was alarmingly vulnerable to her enemies at
home and abroad, and that her Catholic subjects might at any time rise against her, especially now that there was a Catholic claimant to the throne living in England. It was ironic that she, who had vowed many times never to make windows into men’s souls, was now forced to the point where she must consider all Catholics potential traitors. And now there were rumors that Norfolk, the premier Catholic peer, had been scheming to marry Mary, to God knew what end. Elizabeth had sent Norfolk to the Tower after the rebellion, then set him free at the urging of Cecil and Robert, on the grounds that the duke had been more fool than traitor. He was her cousin too, and had confessed himself in error. Now, in the wake of her excommunication, she wished she had kept him under lock and key.

Cecil was bracing himself for yet another confrontation with his often difficult queen, who was sitting at the head of the council board impatiently tapping her fan on the edge of the table.

She was looking as strained as he felt, and no wonder. She had aged a little, he thought. She was thirty-seven now, and the years of troubles and responsibility had not been kind to her. Normally she took great care with her appearance when she went abroad at court or in public, and it was obvious that she used cosmetics to prolong the semblance of youth and loveliness; but today she was wearing the same old black dress that she had worn to council meetings for the past three days. It did her few favors. It did not matter to Cecil, who cared little for outward display; but he knew that Elizabeth cared passionately that men saw her as ever-young and the embodiment of beauty.

What mattered to him was that her childbearing years were running out, and once again he was mentally girding his loins to enter battle with her on the subject of her marriage.

“Well, William? What’s on your mind?” she asked sharply.

He sighed. “Madam, these recent plots and conspiracies, and the late northern rebellion, have been trying for us all. They have shown us how insecure your realm is. But it would be less so if Your Majesty had a husband at your side and sons to succeed you.” Warming to his argument, he went on, “Without an heir, madam, you stand alone.
You are unguarded, at risk from traitors, invaders, and assassins. And if you die without heirs, there will be no bar to Queen Mary succeeding here. Everything you have worked for will be overthrown.”

Once upon a time Elizabeth would have glared at him for venturing to bring up yet again the sore subject of her marrying, but she too had been shaken by the perils of the past months.

She turned to Cecil now. “You speak truth, my Spirit,” she said at length. “I agree, the matter is urgent. I should marry. The birth of a Protestant heir, especially a son, would put paid to Mary’s aspirations.”

Cecil, Robert, and the rest were looking at her in amazement. No resistance? No histrionics? Matters must indeed be desperate!

“I am relieved that Your Majesty has come to this decision at last,” Robert said, as all eyes swiveled toward him.

“Yes,” she replied, glaring at him, “even though I am as averse as ever to the idea of marriage.” She turned back to Cecil. “Who shall it be?”

Robert suppressed his anger. She was playing with him again—with them all, for all he knew.

“Shall we try to revive the match with the Archduke?” Sussex asked.

“We can send an envoy, but the Emperor has made it clear that he is no longer interested,” Cecil said. “His son was kept dangling for too long.”

“He is courting a fat Bavarian princess,” Elizabeth sneered. “So much for his devotion to me!”

“He has been kept waiting for an answer for eleven years,” Robert observed. “I understand how he feels.”

Elizabeth shot him a look aimed to pierce his presumption like an arrow.

“In fact, there is a new proposal from France,” Cecil announced. “King Charles has suggested a match with his brother, Henri, Duke of Anjou. He sees it as the cornerstone to a new alliance between England and France against Spain. And madam, we need the friendship of France at this time, given that Spain supported the rebellion.”

“You do not need to tell
me
that,” Elizabeth reminded him. “How old is the Duke of Anjou?”

“Nineteen, madam.” Cecil’s face was impassive. Robert was trying not to laugh.

“Well, I am too old for him,” Elizabeth declared.

“Not at all,” Cecil soothed her. “Your Majesty’s beauty is renowned; no man could resist you. You have the gift of eternal youth.”

Elizabeth ceased being tetchy and smiled. Such compliments, even from crusty Cecil, were the breath of life to her.

“Shall I send Sir Francis Walsingham to France to discuss the matter?”

Walsingham was Cecil’s protégé. He had a brilliant mind, huge ability, and a severe Puritan outlook. These were qualities that not only commanded the respect of the Queen, but could also prove useful to her, and she liked Walsingham for himself, for they were well matched intellectually and she knew that he was devoted to her. She had taken to calling him her Moor, on account of his customary black clothes and swarthy looks. Sir Francis had been placed in charge of Cecil’s spy network; he loathed Catholics, especially the Queen of Scots and the Spaniards. On that account alone Elizabeth knew that she could trust him implicitly.

Walsingham went dutifully to Paris, with instructions to say that the Queen welcomed the idea of a marriage to the Duke of Anjou, but that she could not change her religion, and would expect any husband of hers to abide by the laws of England.

When he returned, some weeks later, one look at his lugubrious face told Elizabeth that negotiations had not gone well.

“The duke is surrounded by priests, madam,” he reported, distaste in his tone. “He is adamant that he will never abandon his faith. But that is not the only reason why I would advise against pursuing this marriage.” He coughed, clearly not relishing what he had to say, for his was a strictly moral soul. “He is not a normal man. He is corrupt, like all the Valois. For one so young, he is notorious for his womanizing, yet he also favors men. He is completely given to voluptuousness and reeks of perfumes. If you had seen the way he dresses, the jewels, the rings … Well, delicacy prevents me from saying more.”

“You have said enough, my Moor,” Elizabeth reassured him, thinking
that she could never take a husband whose vanity might lead him to see himself as her rival. As for his sexual proclivities …

“But where does this leave us with the French?” Cecil asked.

“I will deal with that, good Spirit!” Elizabeth smiled.

She summoned Fenelon, the French ambassador. She took care to dress in virginal white, and made a great play with her fan, so as to appear both coy and demure.

“Monsieur, you are most welcome,” she told the gallant Fenelon, whom she much liked. “It is of marriage that I wish to speak.”

“By all means, Your Majesty,” he answered eagerly. Was the plum to fall into his lap so easily? He was aware of how many had gone before him and failed.

“Few have any idea of how much I have regretted staying single for so long,” Elizabeth declared. Robert, standing nearby, drew in his breath.

“Madame, I can help with that state of affairs,” Fenelon hastened to assure her. “I would deem it a great honor if I could bring about a marriage between Your Majesty and the Duke of Anjou.”

“Ah, but I am too old for marriage,” Elizabeth said sadly, “even though I have never received a proposal I liked better. The duke is so much younger than me.”

“So much the better for you!” Robert joked. She laughed, but she had detected an edge to his voice. He was not getting any younger either.

The interview ended with Fenelon assuring the Queen that her hand would be the greatest prize to which Anjou could aspire, and that he would do everything in his power to bring the negotiations to a happy conclusion.

“We have France in our grasp,” Elizabeth murmured to Robert after the ambassador bowed himself out. “Pretend that you support the match.”

“You can rely on me,” he told her, resigning himself to yet another round of the game.

The recent threats from foreign aggressors—from the Queen of Scots, the Spaniards, and the Pope—had made all loyal Englishmen even prouder and more protective of their queen. They knew how much she loved and cherished her true subjects, and many of them would have laid down their lives for her. That November this upsurge of national fervor and affection gave birth to a new celebration, that of Elizabeth’s accession day. Bells pealed, thanks were rendered in every church for a queen who had delivered England from popery, and there were spectacular jousts at Whitehall, at which Elizabeth appeared garbed as Albion’s shining sun, and Astraea, the virgin goddess of justice.