A Favorite of the Queen: The Story of Lord Robert Dudley and Elizabeth 1 (8 page)

But the Princess, who had always instinctively bestowed her smiles in the right quarters, was naturally not without friends. Poor as she was and mighty as was Northumberland, she was the richer in friends.

Concealed on his person, the courier had another note for the Princess. It had been sewn in his shoe for safety, and when she read it Elizabeth saw that it had been written by a certain William Cecil, a man whom she believed to be her friend. “The King is already dead,” ran the note. “It is the wish of Northumberland to place Jane Grey and his son Guildford on the throne, and to seize the persons of yourself and your sister. To obey the summons would be to place yourself in Northumberland’s hands.”

And so to bed went the Princess Elizabeth, after penning a note to the Duke regretting that she was too ill to leave Hatfield.

She was in danger. She knew it. But when had she ever been far from danger? She thought of gentle Jane Grey whom Northumberland would
make Queen of England. Poor Jane! What did she think of these honors which were to be thrust upon her? Jane was learned, but what was the good of erudition if cunning did not go with it? Jane was a puppet. She would be no more Queen of England than Edward had been King. Her fate had been decided on when she had allowed Northumberland to marry her to his son Guildford. It had been obvious to Elizabeth what would follow as soon as that marriage had taken place.

Elizabeth remembered young Guildford well. He was a weakling. She, being strong, had an unerring instinct for smelling out weaklings. Now, had it been Robert …! She wanted to laugh aloud when she thought of Robert, who had married a simpering country girl. How could he have been such a fool! Yet was he such a fool? If he had not married his rustic bride he would have been married to the Lady Jane Grey. But was that such an enviable position? Only time would show. In any case Robert had no right to have married a country girl.

She laughed into her pillow, forgetting her danger, for this short moment, in her memories. What a pity Kat Ashley was not with her. What fun they would have had with the cards … telling fortunes … seeing if anything came to light concerning Robert Dudley (a tall dark man) as they used to look for Tom Seymour.

How stupid to think of Tom now. She could never think of him and that dreadful time, without a tremor. Tom was beautiful with his great booming laugh, his mighty oaths and his strong arms. Tom Seymour … nothing but a headless corpse! And he had almost taken her with him to the grave, as in life he had wished to take her with him to the throne … to the marriage bed.

Never again must she be so weak as she had been with Tom. What an escape! She might have been tempted to marriage … to love. Tom was such a tempter. No one should tempt her in that way again. A Princess who is only a step or two from the throne must learn her lessons and learn them quickly, for there is often no second chance of doing so.

Now in this moment which she felt to be full of unknown dangers she must brood on that earlier danger still so clear to her.

She could picture him distinctly. She believed she would never forget him, the jaunty Admiral in his gorgeous garments who had come to her
after the death of his wife, Katharine Parr, feigning great grief. But was it real grief, when all the time his eyes were pleading with her, telling her that he was now free?

Intuitively she had felt the inclination to hold back; it had ever seemed to her that the trimmings of courtship were more enticing than any climax could be. Elizabeth, almost seduced but never quite, was a much more attractive picture to her than Elizabeth conquered. It was an Admiral to woo her whom she had wanted—not a husband to command her. Men were amusing, yet intent on one thing. Elizabeth wished to be amused, titillated, enjoying in imagination that which she had the good sense to know could never in reality compare with such dreams.

Yet there had been times when she had been on the point of surrender to that fascinating man; there had been times when his cajoling ways had almost got the better of her good sense.

She was older now; she was wiser. When he had come to woo her she had been reluctant, aloof, in no way the same girl who had romped with him during his wife’s lifetime. He had been clever in his way, but not quite clever enough. There had been so many ugly rumors connected with his name, and how could the Princess Elizabeth consent to marry a man who, it was said, had poisoned his wife that he might marry her?

No, the death of Katharine had been the first object lesson; the heartbreaking death of Thomas the second, and his had struck her so hard that it would never be forgotten.

How clear, in her memory, he was to her, as though he stood at the side of the bed now, laughing at her with passion in his eyes, trying to pull off the bedclothes as he had in Chelsea, to tickle, to slap, to kiss.

He had won Kat Ashley to his side. What had he said to Kat? Had he made light love to her with his eyes as he knew well how to do? Had he promised her rewards on the day the Princess Elizabeth became his wife? Kat was quickly his slave, as were so many of the women about their Princess. Kat began to find him a good influence in the cards … dear silly Kat! Elizabeth could hear her voice now with the trill of excitement in it. “Here is a good marriage for you, my darling; the best marriage that you could make. Now let me see, who is this husband I have here for you? He has a golden beard and he is handsome … how handsome! I believe he is
connected with the sea …” Then Elizabeth would burst into laughter, and call Kat a fraud, and ask what the Admiral had given her to make her say that. They would laugh and giggle, abandoning the cards to talk of him.

She believed she had toyed with the idea. Yet had she seriously intended marriage with him? Already at that time her thoughts had soared high above him. Her brother Edward sickly, her sister Mary not very young and delicate too—and then … herself.

Was she glad that the Council would not agree to her marriage with the Admiral? When she had been asked if she would marry him her answer had been characteristic of her: “When the time comes and the Council shall give its consent, then shall I do as God puts into my mind.”

And would she have eventually married Thomas? At that time he could flatter so charmingly; he could plead so passionately.

Dear Thomas! He always talked too much. Great power had been his through his charm and beauty, and power was such a potent drug; it went to the head; it soothed the fears; it played tricks with a man’s vision until he was twice the size he was in actuality. Thomas had boasted that he had ten thousand men ready to serve him, that he had persuaded the master of the Bristol mint to coin large sums of money which should be used in his service; he would marry Elizabeth and then … all would see what they should see.

And so Thomas was taken to the Tower on a charge of high treason.

What a time of terror when Kat Ashley and Parry the cofferer were also taken to the Tower, and she herself kept prisoner at Hatfield with guards outside her door, not allowed to venture out into the grounds without an escort! How apprehensive she had been for Thomas! How she had dreaded what Kat and Parry would say in the hands of the questioners!

And what had they said? How could she blame them? She did not. In fact she longed for the day when her dearest Kat would be restored to her. How could she have expected such as her dear tittle-tattling Kat or Parry to keep quiet? They were born gossips, both of them.

Soon the whole country was tattling. Out came the story—every little secret, every little scene, magnified, colored, so that a little innocent flirting became an orgy of lust.

She flushed at the memory, but even so she began to laugh. Oh, why
was not Kat here that they might chat together! She herself loved a gossip. She wished now to talk of Northumberland, and Jane Grey, and weak Guildford Dudley on whose head, Elizabeth doubted not, Northumberland would do his best to cram a crown. What fun it would have been during this “illness” to take the cards and to find a tall dark man—Lord Robert Dudley this time, as once they had found an Admiral—and for Kat to purse her lips, put her head on one side and mutter in that serious voice which could send Elizabeth into fits of laughter: “I think I see a handsome young man. He is about Your Grace’s age … and he comes out of the past …”

But how foolish to think of Kat, who had been taken from her, and of Robert Dudley, that foolish boy who had married a country girl!

Yet … how pleasant! And it was necessary to think pleasant and frivolous thoughts when at any moment life might become deadly serious and dangerous.

But now her thoughts had gone to the saddest moment of her life when they had come to her to tell her that Thomas was dead—her beautiful Thomas. She had been surrounded by spies; she had known they were watching her, trying to trip her, and she knew that every word, every look, would be noted and reported. Lady Tyrwhit (how she hated that woman whom they had given her in place of Kat!) had had her sly eyes on her, always watching, hoping that there would be some betrayal of feeling to report to her master the Protector, that false brother of dear Thomas.

She had faced them, calmly and courageously. Yes, she could look now with approval on that young Elizabeth who had not shown by a flicker of her eyes or a twitch of her lips that her heart was almost breaking.

“Your Grace,” had said that spy Tyrwhit, “this day the Admiral laid his head upon the block.” And she waited for the effect of her words.

Elizabeth looked back at the woman with no expression whatsoever on her face. Yet she knew she must speak. Lady Tyrwhit must not be allowed to report that her grief had made her speechless.

“This day,” she had said, “died a man with much wit and very little judgment.”

It was said of her that either she was without feeling or she was a magnificent actress. She was a great actress. That was the answer; for without doubt she had loved Thomas.

And was she not acting all the time? Was it not necessary for her to act, to feign simplicity? How she had acted after the death of Thomas! She had lived quietly at Hatfield, giving up her days to study, reading Cicero and Livy, studying the Greek Testament, reading aloud the tragedies of Sophocles, studying Italian and French. She dressed simply, wore her hair unfrizzed—she who loved fine clothes and who loved to have her red hair frounced and curled, and to wear rich velvets and sparkling jewels. But she was clever enough to know that it was necessary to live down the reputation which the Seymour scandal had given her, and that to live in obscurity was the only way of preserving her life during those difficult days.

Her friends kept her closely informed of affairs at Court, and from the seclusion of Hatfield or Woodstock, she was aware of the heady progress of the Duke of Northumberland, thinking often of the gay Lord Robert who, had he not been so senseless as to marry a rustic girl, might have been a greater power in the land than a poor Princess who must keep as still as a lizard on a stone for fear any movement by her should attract the attention of her enemies.

She watched the tussel between Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, whom she would never forgive for what he had done to Thomas, and John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who was the father of that young man who interested her as no one had since the death of Thomas.

And now Somerset was dead. That which he had done to Thomas had been done to him. It was fearsome, thinking of the heads which fell so readily.

She needed to laugh in order to calm herself, to make light of her misfortunes so that when the test came she might face them with equanimity.

But what could she do now but lie abed … and wait?

The waiting was
over sooner than she expected.

Faithful friends brought the news. The would-be King-maker had been defeated. Mary was proclaimed Queen of England. Now was the time for Elizabeth to recover from her malady.

She did so without any fuss; and her first move was to write a letter to the Queen conveying her congratulations and her delight in her sister’s accession. There was an answer to that note: a command to meet Mary at Wanstead, that they might ride into the Capital together.

Elizabeth made ready for the journey. She was excited as always at the prospect of pageantry and a return to Court. Again and again she warned herself of her difficult position. Master Parry, who had come back to her service, also warned her. He flattered her in his sly way; she knew his words for flattery, but flattery was a luxury she would not go without.

“Your Grace must be careful to hide your beauty. The Queen will not be pleased at being outshone.”

“Nonsense, Master Parry!” she retorted. “How can I in my simple garments outshine the Queen’s royal velvet and glittering jewels?”

“Your Grace’s eyes sparkle more brightly than jewels. Your skin is more soft than any satins.”

She tossed her red hair, calling his attention to it; and he smiled that sly smile which he did not attempt to hide from her. “Your Grace has a crown of gold more beautiful than any that ever sat on the brow of King or Queen.”