The Queen's Bastard Read online

  “I was privy to a prodigious duel of wit between the Scotsman and the Queen. You know, brother,” Ambrose added slyly, “I think your Elizabeth likes this Melville too well. I see the way she smiles sideways at him.”

  “On with your story,” interrupted Robin, more jealous and annoyed than he wished to appear. “What did you hear?”

  As Tamworth began dressing his master in a rich surcoat of royal blue, Ambrose lay back on the bed, his head propped on the pillow of his arms, and began relating with great relish the intelligence he had gathered.

  “Well, firstly, Melville demanded to know if Elizabeth was, in fact, dangling promise of the succession before Mary’s eyes, with the stipulation that the Scots queen meekly submit to England’s choice for her husband. Elizabeth feigned horror at the thought, then countered with the accusation that Mary was plotting blackmail with her threats of marrying a Catholic husband and inciting civil war in England. Melville must have sensed they were treading on dangerous ground, so he quickly quoted Ambassador Throckmorton’s quip that he dearly wished one of the queens were a man so they might marry each other!”

  Dudley and Ambrose roared with laughter at that, but in a moment Robin became serious. “I think we must keep our eyes fastened on Lady Lennox and her long-legged, lady-faced son Darnley. I am amazed she schemes so openly for a marriage between Mary and the boy,” said Robin, “begging Elizabeth’s leave to send him to Scotland so he can be flaunted before the Scots queen’s eyes.”

  “Mary and Darnley are the same age, both Catholic, and he does have a fair claim to the throne of England — Henry the Seventh’s own grandson,” reasoned Ambrose.

  “Indeed,” said Robin, slipping into a pair of soft Moroccan leather boots. “And Lady Lennox loses no opportunity to flaunt the same before Elizabeth.”

  “And Elizabeth has herself considered the match, no doubt, though today she calls such talk treasonous. I think Lady Lennox should curb her tongue or watch her neck.”

  “Speaking of necks,” said Robin, now magnificently clad in his investiture costume, “how think you the peer’s mantle will hang about my own?”

  “Proudly,” replied Ambrose Dudley, rising from the bed to admire his brother in all his glory. “And indeed hard won.”

  He had a hundred times been admitted to the Presence Chamber, but now as he stood waiting outside the door flanked by two high lords of the realm, Robin Dudley found his heart thumping in his throat. Suddenly the doors swung inwards, giving him sight of Elizabeth directly ahead, seated regally upon her throne under the great Canopy of State. She was flanked on one side by the French ambassador and on the other by James Melville, who wore for the occasion not his kilt but a fine brown doublet in the English style. There, too, stood William Cecil, clutching in his hands a rolled parchment. They all wore looks of the gravest decorum, and even Elizabeth lacked her usual smile.

  As Dudley and his companions entered and moved down between the two rows of spectators to the staid march of a single trumpet, Lord Hunsdon fell in before them carrying over his outstretched arms the peer’s mantle, a cloak of scarlet velvet lined with pure white ermine. From the corner of his eye Dudley could see on one side the tall, slender Lord Darnley, holding the Sword of State. Standing behind him was his mother, Lady Lennox, whose sly, conniving character was mirrored in her weaselly countenance. Opposite Darnley stood Ambrose, proudly holding another ceremonial sword and baldric.

  The moment Dudley entered, Elizabeth had fixed her eyes upon him. It seemed the orbs were like two great magnets pulling him to her, drawing him toward his destiny. As he fell to his knees before her, and the solemn intoning of the ceremony began, Robin Dudley lost all sense of time and place. Though he saw William Cecil move to the Queen’s side, heard the Secretary read from the patent, and was aware that Lord Hunsdon had brought forward the cloak, all movement round him was vague and blurred, the droning Latin phrases running together in one long benediction.

  “Creavimus Lord Denbigh.” The words were suddenly sharp and clear: We have created Lord Denbigh.

  Robin looked up into Elizabeth’s eyes as she lifted the heavy mantle and fastened it round his shoulders. Still there was utter solemnity in her face, but before her hands left he felt to his delight and surprise her cool fingers tickling his neck. He stifled a smile, though he could see by their expressions that the French and Scottish ambassadors had witnessed the affectionate gesture, one Elizabeth had taken no pains to hide. At her nod, Lord Warwick stepped forward with the sword he held and presented it to the Queen. Now as Cecil read again from the parchment, naming Robert Dudley earl of Leicester, Robin wondered what the somber secretary’s thoughts might be at this moment — thoughts of this raising, and also of Robin’s recent appointment to the Privy Council. These could not but rankle.

  Now came the cincturum gladii, the girding of the sword. Moving carefully with the unwieldy blade in its baldric, Elizabeth placed it about Robin’s neck, the point secured beneath his left arm. Finally when she’d laid about him his cape and coronet, and handed him the rolled parchment of his two patents, she allowed herself a demure smile. Robin had hardly the time to return it before a dozen trumpets began blaring. The Queen rose, Robin stood aside, and she swept grandly from the Presence Chamber, with all bowing deeply as she passed.

  Now in a great rush everyone surrounded the newly made Earl of Leicester to lend their congratulations. Whether friend or enemy, each knew that this bold and arrogant lord was, for better or worse, their queen’s own creature, and a man with whom they would be forced to reckon.

  Dinner was served in the Privy Chamber on the day of the earl’s making. He sat to Elizabeth’s right, and Melville to her left. It had been a splendid meal, one fit for a king … and for his Queen, thought Leicester, already accustomed to the name he would henceforth bear. The conversation, between the many rich courses, had waxed at times light and fanciful, then swung pendulum-like to matters weighty and political. Finally, inevitably, talk had turned to the marriage plans for Mary Queen of Scots. Giving little warning, Elizabeth had shocked the room into silence with a loudly announced revelation that she had known since the day of his arrival at Court of Ambassador Melville’s secret negotiations with Lady Lennox for Darnley’s marriage to Mary. Robin Dudley suppressed a smile of pleasure as the normally unflappable Melville blanched with embarrassment, and Lady Lennox shrank with fear. In a wholly unconscious movement, her fingers went round her neck in a protective gesture. But Elizabeth was not yet finished.

  “Whilst you have been plotting and scheming behind my back — though happily neither out of my sight nor hearing — I have found an eminently suitable husband for my cousin Mary, one whom she cannot help but find attractive both as a man and a political asset.”

  Elizabeth stopped and looked round the room at the faces of her guests, each and every one puzzled, for all possible candidates had been discussed, nay argued over, ad infinitum. Who on earth could she mean? Robin again subdued his smile, knowing that Elizabeth, his brilliant Elizabeth, would stun them all with the perfection, or at least the outrageousness, of her choice. When she spoke, her voice was strong and steady, though her gaze seemed to focus on no one in particular.

  “I nominate for my cousin Mary’s consideration, with my full and passionate blessing … the most honorable Earl of Leicester!”

  Fifteen

  Lions and roses, thought Kat Ashley as she gazed up at the underside of the canopy of the Queen’s bed. Or were they gryphons? she wondered. In all the years she had cared for Elizabeth, she had never once seen the canopy in this way. Lying motionless within the fine lawn sheets and velvet coverlets, her eyes fixed on the ancient carven images above, she wished to say aloud how beautiful it appeared to her, how lovely a sight it would be to see such a thing upon waking each morning. But the stroke she had suffered had rendered her speechless. All the words and ideas she might form inside her head became a senseless jumble as they passed through her lips.

  In the chaos
of her collapse during a meeting of the maids, and afterwards with a frantic Elizabeth summoned to her side, Kat had been fully conscious and entirely without pain. She had heard the Queen’s terse instructions to lay her lady in the great Bed of State, and the waiting ladies’ shocked whispers that no such thing had ever before been done. Kat felt the many hands gently lifting her flaccid body, though she had no sense of her right side whatsoever. The royal doctors had taken her pulse and somberly offered their opinions.

  The Queen’s old servant knew that she was dying, but as she lay contemplating the riot of interlocking mythical beasts and vines and garlands of Tudor roses above her, she realized with sweet surprise that she was not at all afraid of death. She had lived a fine life of privilege, first lady of the chamber to Elizabeth, whose reign, after a faltering start, appeared to be steadying. Kat’s marriage to John Ashley had been a good one, and she oftentimes thought it was well that they had never been blessed with children, for their union was entirely steeped in service to the Queen.

  Her Elizabeth … Kat’s thoughts floated effortlessly down a long corridor of their years together. She found she could gaze into chambers as she soared ghostlike past their open doors, overlooking moments as if they were captured in time — the first day the sad-eyed toddler had been placed in her care, the heartbreaking audiences Elizabeth had endured with her father, Henry, the schoolroom at Hatfield Hall where the child had dazzled Kat and her tutors with the brilliance of her mind, and the strange passion they had shared for Thomas Seymour, husband of the dowager queen Catharine Parr.

  The girl had become, more than Kat’s charge, her duty. She had quickly become kin, the child she had never borne of her body, the greatest love of her life. John, bless his heart, had endured this without jealousy. A lesser man might have felt betrayed. Betrayed. The moment that word crossed her mind, Kat’s dreamy state was shattered into a hundred pieces. Guilty thoughts and judgments crashed pell-mell in her head, making her squirm under the bedclothes and moan piteously. Lady Rochford hurried to her side and took up her hand with soothing noises, but Kat was over-whelmed with emotion.

  The one troubling act of her tenure in Elizabeth’s service had been replacing Dudley’s and her child with a dead infant. Kat’s reasoning and reassurances to herself had at the time seemed sound enough. She had done it in the name of good sense, for the good of England. The bastard’s existence would, despite the Queen’s best efforts, some day have come to light and destroyed forever what was left of Elizabeth’s reputation and chances for marrying properly as, of course, she must. But now as Kat lay helpless in this bed awaiting the Reaper, that act seemed the lowest of betrayals. She had withheld the Queen’s flesh and blood from her. Surely this was God’s domain and His alone. What had she done! She must right this wrong. ’Twas not too late. She must tell Cecil to hie to Enfield and bring the boy back to Elizabeth. Then she and the Secretary would beg her forgiveness. She must speak to Cecil! She tried to call out his name, but her lips and tongue disobeyed her, and only unintelligible syllables emerged. Trapped in mortification and guilt she could not confess, she writhed with frustration.

  The door opened and Elizabeth swept into her bedchamber. With one gesture she cleared the room of waiting ladies and physicians, and moved to Kat’s side. Her face was a mask of misery, and it occurred to Kat that the Queen’s earlier concerned expression had been replaced by one of utter resignation.

  “Lord Cecil …” Elizabeth began.

  Kat clutched Elizabeth’s arm with her still functioning left hand and again tried, unsuccessfully, to speak. Elizabeth’s face twisted with anguish.

  “Lord Cecil is with his wife in the country. He has been sent for, Kat.” She gazed down at the woman looking so frail under the coverlets. “Can you give me a sign that you are comfortable?” Kat squeezed the hand that Elizabeth held with a force that surprised a smile out of the Queen. “Good, good.” Elizabeth sat down on the bed then and reclined against the headboard, gently draping her arm round Kat’s head and shoulders, cradling her. Thus Kat could not see the Queen’s face, but could only hear the words she was crooning in a soft voice in her ear.

  “I cannot believe that I am losing you,” she said. “You have been ever present in my life from before I can clearly remember.” Elizabeth was silent for a long time before she spoke again. “God has been good to me, Kat. I have had three mothers. Catharine Parr saved me from oblivion and bas-tardy. She was kind beyond imagining and gave me my queenly education, and in return I betrayed her, lusting after her husband. Young and naive though I may have been, I had no excuse for it.” She was silent again for a very long time, and when she spoke her voice cracked and wavered.

  “I have come to know the mother who gave me life.” Kat tried to make sense of this. Anne Boleyn had given Elizabeth life. Anne Boleyn had died before Elizabeth was three. “For so many years I knew nothing of her,” continued the Queen, as if answering Kat’s silent questions. “I could not recall her face nor her voice nor the time we shared when I was very small. But soon after I took the throne an old woman — perhaps you remember her, Lady Sommerville — brought me my mother’s own journal, a secret diary which she had kept her whole life … till the day she died.” More silence, as though Elizabeth was finding it difficult to piece the words together coherently.

  “She was a good woman, Kat. Not the vile creature and witch we were all led to believe she was. She did never take those men nor her brother as lovers, that carnal crime for which they all died. She was innocent, and my father knew she was innocent. But he wanted her dead. And why? Because … because I was born a girl and not the son he required. For all I adored him, sought to please him, reveled in my likeness to him, my father never loved me, Kat. But my mother did. She loved me. She died for me.” Kat could feel Elizabeth’s body trembling, hear her ragged breathing to hold back the tears.

  “But of all my mothers, Kat, you have been, by far, the most faithful.” Now ’twas Kat attempting to hold back the tears, but she found she could not. They began to run in silent rivulets down her cheeks as Elizabeth went on. “You were there for me, Kat, always there for me. You bathed me, dressed me, scavenged for me in the years we had no money from my father. You cared for me tenderly in my illnesses, you suffered with me, rejoiced with me. You put my good always before your own. Under threat of torture you were loyal to me, Kat. You never ever betrayed me.”

  Kat had been lost in Elizabeth’s affectionate litany until the uttering of that terrible word. She prayed the Queen would return to the comfortable truths of their love for one another, leave this poisonous subject, but she did not.

  “When I lost my child,” she went on, “something inside me withered, some soft part of my womanhood, and I was utterly bereft. Only you gave me the comfort I needed to go on living. Only you. So of all my mothers, Kat, you are the one I have loved the most. And I cannot bear …” Elizabeth was weeping now, her body heaving with great sobs. “I cannot bear losing you.”

  Kat began with all her will and all her might to speak. Elizabeth felt the woman straining in her arms, and moved so that she might see her face, understand her communication. The lips moved and weak sounds did emanate from Kat’s throat. But all of her valiant efforts proved fruitless. Elizabeth was left to interpret the piteous utterances as best she could.

  “I know you love me, too, Kat. I know you love me.”

  But the words, if the Queen had been somehow able to decipher them, or Katherine Ashley to more properly enunciate them, would have conveyed the desperate message she truly intended.

  “Forgive me, Elizabeth,” she would have said. “In God’s name, forgive me.”

  Sixteen

  The year that I was eight we all suspected my Mother was going mad, and the Queens visit to Enfield Chase during her Summer Progress for a day of hunting seemed destined to realize our fears. From the moment we received the letter from the Earl of Leicester announcing Her Majestys intention to inspect and partake of the incomparable w
oodlands and rich game of her royal property, each member of our household was engaged in fervid preparations to provide our beloved Monarch with a visit she would long remember. And whilst we all keenly appreciated the honor, and strove in our way to create a worthy show, Mother spun wildly and uncontrollably like a top, with an invisible hand winding her up again and again with no stopping.

  Her preparations were frantic and endless. Directions and orders to children, husband, servants were not spoken but shrieked. She moved like a whirlwind thro her domain — the manor house, the yard, the kitchen, the buttery and laundry, kicking hapless chickens out of her way, swatting a maid for the tiniest imperfection in the fold of a napkin, or a cook for lumpiness in a sauce. She slept little, ate less. Her eyes glittered with an unnatural brightness, and her cheeks hollowed. The gowns she wore began to hang on her bony frame. She hired the neighborhood seamstress to tailor the dresses to her skeletal body, proclaiming shrilly that this was the fashion, that the Queen herself was thin as a reed.

  I came in for more than my share of punishment, for Mother was most insistent that we children shine before the Queen like fine cut gemstones. Her Majesty loved music, so the girls would perform on lute and recorder, singing a duet as well. My brother John and I would recite — John a passage from Euripides and I some verse, blessedly in English, as I had shown neither facility nor interest in reading Latin or Greek. This fact, that my education was in sore need of broadening, had never before caused my Mother consternation, for I was the second son and, too, the child she loved the least. But on this occasion, when our performance would reflect directly upon her self, she prevailed upon me to perform with a murderous intensity. And I could never please her. I stumbled with the words, stuttered and failed to speak loudly enough to be heard. When I faltered under her scathing glare she shouted at me, berating my ignorance and clouting me sharply on the head. She shouted at John and the girls too and once slapped Meg when she dared excuse her failure to practice because of two broken lute strings.