The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell (50 page)

He had therefore begun a campaign of letter writing to Elizabeth.

Now he could look back and see how transparent his correspondence had been. All the fine words and flattery—talk of kissing her “fair correcting hand,” protestations that he remained Her Majesty’s humblest, most faithful, most devoted vassal, the whole world being a sepulchre till his exile from her might be ended—all had fallen on deaf ears. No, worse.

They had alerted her to his wild desperation. Shown her the softest part of his underbelly, the precise spot where she might sink her blade for the deadliest effect.

But the time came and passed for the regranting of the Farm with only a maddening silence on Elizabeth’s part. The delay, fraught with so much trepidation, began to bring on his fevers again. He grew alarmingly thin and his eyes were ringed with black.

Word of Mountjoy’s successes against the rebels in Ireland continued filtering back to London along with his urgings of patience to Essex and his refusal to play any part in Robert ’s plans to restore himself to favor, save by “ordinary means.” Essex cursed Mountjoy’s cowardice and faithlessness, forgetting that he himself would have done the same had the tables been turned.

He was supping with Southampton and Henry Cuffe at the end of October when news of the Farm of Sweet Wines arrived at Essex House.

The queen had decided to withhold it, indeed keep the revenues for her

“poor shrinking treasury.” It had been a moment without compare in his life. He had vomited, then slumped over the table, his arms outstretched in front of him, a thousand thoughts and images jamming his brain. He was lost, ruined, disgraced. He might be hounded from the country by his creditors or marched off to debtors’ prison. All his many titles would prove empty, worthless without money to support his estate.

Elizabeth had done this to him. She was a witch, a vicious demon, an eater of men’s souls. She hated him.
Why did she hate him? What had he
done that had so offended her?
he ’d cried to Southampton and Cuffe, who knelt helplessly beside their friend. He
had
loved her—if not as a woman for many years—as a true subject. His recent letters protesting his devotion had been sincere. But a man had to live, and Elizabeth knew very well that he lived and died by her grace alone.
Why was she punish-ing him so!

Everything had turned on that terrible night. His mind, already strained, had snapped like a dry twig. Fits of hysterical laughter would suddenly turn to uncontrollable weeping. His retorts to the royal dismissal were very loud, very public, and very rude. “The queen’s mind,” he had announced at a crowded Essex House gathering, “is as twisted as her wretched old carcass!”

And suddenly his cohorts’ schemes for rebellion seemed less far-fetched. Anthony Bacon’s much reduced but enthusiastic network of spies were producing evidence every day that Robert Cecil and his other enemies—Raleigh, Howard, Grey—were part of a great conspiracy, with violence against “the Essex Faction” its certain outcome. Indeed, it was these very men—his enemies—who were responsible for his misfortunes. They who had poisoned Elizabeth’s mind against him.

Francis Bacon’s last letter to him, one in which the lawyer, now amongst Elizabeth’s closest confidants, had warned Essex one more time against his dangerous conceits. He said he was sorry that his lordship

“should fly with waxen wings, doubting Icarus,” but Essex, erratic and beyond reasoning, had been blind to the analogy, perhaps blinded by the same sun—Gloriana—whose furious heat would in the weeks to come melt his own waxen wings and send him crashing down to earth.

“Rebellion.” He moaned aloud, the terrible word echoing in the high-ceilinged cell. How could he ever have led a rebellion against the Crown? Elizabeth was the rightful Queen of England, blood and heir of Great Henry. What could have possessed him to presume supremacy over his liege? Even the arch rebel Tyrone had bowed his head in humil-ity to Essex as a vassal of a rightful monarch. No, there was no good excuse for his behavior. Not his illness. Not his fury nor his thirst for revenging the Farm of Sweet Wines being taken from him. He had led, and in turn, had allowed his friends and supporters, each of them a man in desperate financial straights, to lead him into the worst kind of treason. Had he been saner he would have seen clearly that all of them—

Blount, Rutland, Cuffe, Southampton—had either fallen out of favor with the queen or lost his family fortune, or both. All were wild with thoughts of a new regime, their favor and titles and fortunes restored.

Many of them spoke, in those weeks before the uprising, of placing Essex
himself
on the throne. That had never been his intention! He would simply relieve the tired old woman of her crown and place it on James’s head. If Robert Cecil and Raleigh somehow lost their lives in the course of the coup, all the better.

Every day the Essex House courtyard had teemed with larger and more frenzied crowds of swaggering swordsmen, drinking, gambling, even sleeping there. Puritan preachers would come and shout fiery ser-mons to inflame listeners whilst inside Essex and his coconspirators would plot and plan in earnest. From where could more arms be pro-cured? More rebels? Which captains would lead which companies?

The country was primed for such an uprising, Essex was every day reminded. One of his followers had ridden into Wales to the Essex family seat, going from house to house, large bands of Welsh squires joining up to fight. They had even begun marching toward London, armed and in the service of the good earl’s rebellion. Londoners especially were fed up with the doddering old queen. Both Puritans and Catholics, victims of Elizabeth’s “strictly conforming” Protestantism, chose to believe that Essex the king would be more lenient toward their religious leanings.

Only the final choice had to be made.
To what destination would the
rebels march? The Tower of London, where the huge arsenal, if captured,
would brilliantly supplement their own cache of arms? The City, just beyond
the Tower, where Essex was sure he could count on the greatest number of
supporters pouring from their homes to march behind him? Or the Court—the
true goal of their ambitions, where the queen and her blighted councilors sat?

Which was best to seize first?

They had been so lost in their blistering arguments that Essex and his rebels had fallen oblivious to all else, unaware that the boisterous gather-ings at the house on the Strand had attracted much attention. Indeed, that their plans for an uprising were public knowledge! The conspirators had become so outrageous and bold that on the first Saturday of February they’d demanded that the actors at the Globe put on a special performance of Will Shakespeare ’s
Richard the Second
—a play that featured in it the deposing of a rightful king. How stupid they’d been!

The play had proven the final provocation. That same night a messenger from the Privy Council was sent to Essex demanding he present himself to them for explanation. The messenger was turned away. Secretary Herbert was sent then, but he too was dismissed out of hand.

Rebellion.
Thought of that Sunday dawn and what came after—the dismal “twelve-hour uprising”—twisted Essex’s gut. All that could have gone wrong, did. But that was not surprising, he thought, even now shaking his head in disbelief. That doomed venture ’s captain had been insane at the time, hate maddened and fearful beyond reasoning. How many times can it be whispered in a man’s ear that his friend, his love, his
mother
now conspired to kill him, before the sly rumor becomes truth?

And that the crooked little Gnome was with her, nay, ’twas
he
whispering in her ear, made it all the worse. Together the Faerie Queen and wizard dreamed Lord Essex into his grave.
“Put an end to the burden he’s become,”
he imagined them saying. “
Once beloved, now dangerous. Lose him.
” He had in the end truly believed they conspired to take his life. Their reasons? Clearly, Robert Cecil’s heart pumped jealous blood. He was the runt of the Court, his devious mind his only weapon, for his manly worth was next to nothing. He coveted Essex’s strength and beauty, secretly longed to be a soldier. He
hated
Essex.

The queen was simply a faithless woman. The Farm of Sweet Wines, flowing warm and red, had been his lifeblood. By withholding it she had struck a blow she believed was mortal. She had never loved him. Could never have loved and cut so deeply. Of this he ’d been sure.

Enough reason, he ’d believed, to strike before they could murder him.

Lord Knollys, his uncle, and three others from the Council—of all those who sat at the Privy table, his four best friends—had braved the rabble at Essex House that Sunday morning and strode into the yard. They’d come to plead good sense, to offer a hearing for the earls’ complaints. What they found was the earls of Essex and Southampton stirring a boiling cauldron of sedition. The crowd, inflamed, would have killed the delegation, torn them to pieces, but Essex had lured the party inside the house, up the stairs and into his windowed study overlooking the Thames. Once inside he ’d made them prisoners, setting a guard of musketeers at the door.

By now Essex had ridden too far down the road of rebellion to return. Cries from the courtyard below—three hundred men ready to fight—loudly called for the march to begin. But march
where
? The Tower and the City beyond? The Court?

The mob made their choice. “To the Court! To the Court!” they shouted, knowing Elizabeth sat there quite unguarded but for a score of castle guards and as many courtiers ready to raise their swords in her defense.

But hold a moment. More men and arms awaited in the City and the
Tower. Would not his coup succeed better with three times more rebels and
guns? Then again, how long would Elizabeth remain so poorly guarded?

Here was his moment. That one which, in his choosing, would raise him or defeat him. And in that moment, when the scales of Fate would have tipped as easily one way as the other, a great, blanketing fog enveloped his brain, thick warm mists that blunted his senses. All round him men were shouting—his friends, the rabble, the Privy Councilors pounding on his study door to be released. As in a dream their cries began melting into a great white roar. He felt drunk, wobbly, and his men, moving with slowed motion, seemed blurred round the edges. He ’d begun to panic, as though the reins of a whole team of horses had slipped from his fingers and down between a dozen thundering hooves! They were all waiting for him to speak, to command them, unaware of his desperation. Someone shouted for silence. They would hear their leader’s orders.
He must speak now!

“To the City!” Essex cried. “To the City!”

“Not the Court and the queen?” someone cried back.

But logic was absent in that courtyard. All Essex could see in his wretched state was the prospect of greater numbers. More rebels. More firepower.
A great mass of men descending on the palace might mask his
deficiencies. It will work,
he thought frantically.
Get the men. Get the guns.

Then
march to Court.

The three hundred had followed him out through the gates of Essex House, followed him through the streets to the City. The march had for a time cleared his head, but once they’d reached the City’s heart, he crying, “To the queen! To the queen! A plot is laid against my life!” and no one had risen to his cries—
not one man
—he ’d grown dizzy again, almost faint. They’d passed the house of the noblemen who’d been with him since the start—Bedford, Sussex, Cromwell, Mounteagle—expecting them to pour out with their troops—but they did not come.
Where were
they?
But of course, he ’d told himself, only half believing the voice in his head, they would all be waiting at the sheriff ’s house. “Reinforcements at the Sheriff of London’s house!” he cried to his now grumbling army. “March on!”

But the sheriff—faithless coward—had sneaked away moments before their coming. The house was empty, the thousand troops nowhere to be found. Chaos ensued round him then. Men shouting. His captains hissing in his ear, “What now, Essex? Let us march on the queen
now!
”

But he was mind-boggled. Quite beside himself. The sheriff ’s house seemed a fine refuge from the madness. Quiet. He went inside, called his captains in after him. They’d leaned close, waiting for his command.

Finally he spoke.

“Let us dine,” he said.

Indeed, Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, in the critical hour of his bid for the English throne, called for a light repast to be served at the sheriff ’s table. Even now, lying on his cot in the dark Tower cell, Essex could feel himself blush with shame. For
three hours
the rebellion’s leaders had eaten all the stores in their absent host’s pantry. Essex had even changed his sweat-soaked shirt for one of the sheriff ’s clean ones. It had all seemed perfectly logical then. As they emptied the sheriff ’s finest casks, no one had contradicted their leader nor expressed his misgivings.

But at Whitehall the Council had begun to act. They’d called for faithful Londoners to surround the queen in her palace. They’d sent a strong Privy Guard to block the rebels’ way home to the house on the Strand.

Then, the fog in Essex’s mind lifting slightly, he perceived the mounting dangers. He ’d risen, full of wine and cold meat, and strode outside still wearing his napkin tucked in the neck of his shirt. Southampton had hardly time to remove it for him when Essex cried to his troops—those brave souls foolish enough to still remain—cried in his defense that he acted only for the queen’s good, fought this day against “evil atheists in Spain’s employ.”

With Essex leading they’d tramped through the streets for hours more, denied passage this way and that by the queen’s guards. Fired some volleys. Were fired upon. Christopher Blount had been shot in the cheek. Essex fainted twice and was brought back to the world sweating and shrieking.