The most dangerous enemy, p.3
The Most Dangerous Enemy, page 3
part #3 of The Elizabeth of England Chronicles Series
“My Queen…” he whispered, his ashen face growing whiter and his tone urgent as he saw suspicion on my face. “Elizabeth, my lady, believe me, I did not kill my wife. I would never do something so wicked, not for all the wide world.”
Staring at him, how I wanted to believe him! My heart ached to see his pallid face, and the lines of care knotted on his forehead… but my mind warned me that there are things in this world that a man may risk much for, if he wants them badly enough.
We rode back to Windsor fast, and in silence, as my mind asked a thousand questions that my heart did not want to answer.
Chapter Two
Two Years Earlier…
Hatfield House
Autumn 1558
We rode from Hatfield for London in the bright, chilly dawn of a late November morning. Squirrels in tawny jerkins of red scampered across Hatfield’s park gathering fallen nuts to hide for the depths of winter. Most of the trees were bare of their leaves; stripped clean by winter winds, they held their bare arms aloft in supplication to the skies. I stood, flushed faced and excited in a great milling throng of my new Councillors, loyal servants, common people and Yeoman Guards as we made ready to embark from the palace where I had lived as a princess to take possession of my capital, as its Queen. My sister was dead, and with her the greatest threat to my life, or so I thought then, had been removed. I was light, giddy, and restless with the thrill of the day.
The Queen of England… How little I had thought in my youth that I should ever become such! Had my brother lived and bred, I would have lived my life as a princess of the realm, possibly being sent someday from these lands I loved so dear, to become Queen of another land. Had my sister lived, I might well have found myself eventually standing at the block within the confines of the Tower, facing the same fate as my own mother. But with the death of my siblings, I, Elizabeth Tudor, the last of the line of our great father, was now brought to the throne and crown of England… I was but twenty-five years old. I was the Queen.
The crowds that had gathered to cheer our parting looked limitless to me as I mounted my horse. The faces of both common men and nobles shone and although icy rain threatened to fall, nothing could dampen the spirits of all who came to cheer me. The fields and parks of Hatfield were an ocean of people; everywhere there was the hum of conversation and laughter on the wind.
It was intoxicating.
I smiled and laughed, waving to the crowds of hundreds as they gathered, jesting with my men. These past few days since the death of my sister and my own ascension seemed to have passed in a blur of activity and work. But now, I was ready to ride to London and take my seat at the head of this great country. Beside me, his strong thighs pressed firmly against his brilliant white charger, was my new Master of Horse, Robert Dudley. Dressed in white and green, my own colours, he easily cut the most handsome figure there. His face was as proud and as happy as my own as he japed and conversed with others.
It is a fine day to be at the side of a fine man, I thought gaily. My spirits could not have been lifted more. Out of the darkness of years of fear, imprisonment and suspicion I had risen to a position of power, of authority… and perhaps of safety… although there would always be dangers for a woman such as me. A Protestant who had kept her faith hidden under a mask of Catholic obedience under the reign of her sister…. A princess who many considered to be a bastard, and no fit heir to the throne… A woman, who had no business, many would say, ruling the bodies and blood of men or a nation… Yes indeed, there would always be those who said I had no right to my own inheritance. And yet, here I was; still alive, still here, despite so many attempts to remove me. And even if there were dangers to face, I was in a greater position now than I had ever been before. At last, I had no master, for I was master of all.
It was a heady feeling. I was perhaps a little drunk with excitement.
Cecil and Parry, my great advisors, had already ridden off, hastening to London to prepare to prepare my Council, my royal household, my kingdom, for my coming. In the short days since Mary’s death, I had appointed my Council, mostly of new men, retaining but a few of the most useful and most powerful of my sister’s immense and unwieldy Council. In total, I had perhaps twenty members; a drop in the ocean to the hoards that had surrounded my sister with confused politics and policy, bringing England to disorder and turmoil. Although some of those I had chosen to retain had acted against me when I was a prisoner, I was willing to overlook this, in return for their loyalty and experience now. But I was determined not to be ruled by any… I wanted not the mass of mystification that had so clouded the short years of Mary’s reign or the petty factionalism which had darkened the brief time my brother was King.
Mary’s old Council had gathered to me at Hatfield in the days after my sister’s death, uncertain; no doubt hoping that my memory had grown suddenly unstable, and that I would little remember the slights and insults to my name and character that many of them had been a part of creating.
“I feel,” I had said to them, “… that forty-four Councillors, such as my royal sister had, makes for disorder, rather than for order, my lords. After all, if there are too many voices speaking, then one cannot hear a single word amongst the jumble.”
Many who were assured of their places on my new Council chuckled at my words, as many others muttered and grumbled quietly. But they would not speak out. They feared that I would seek revenge on them for my long terms of imprisonment, or all the times I faced possible execution. I smiled. Let them fear! It would make them better able to dance for the tunes I would play them if their feet were lifted by the lightness of trepidation. Much as my father had been feared and loved in equal measures, so I intended to be as well. I would keep them all guessing, that way, they would never be able to predict or control me.
My new men smirked at me; they understood, perhaps, the delight I took in making Mary’s old Councillors squirm under my soft slipper. Many of my new Council were men who had tasted the bitterness of suspicion of treason under my sister. Many were men who had indeed actually been involved in treason. But the traitor of one reign can become the loyal supporter of the next, as I, perhaps above all people, knew well. As long as they remained loyal to me, then I would have them. But there were also men whom I wanted at my side who were not even as yet in England. Sir Francis Knollys was one of those.
“Tell the man to hurry home,” I smiled warmly on announcing Knolly’s position within the Council, which caused some dark mutterings at the back of the chamber. Knollys, like so many others, had fled England as Mary had made good her promise to light fires at the feet of Protestants and burn their bodies to ‘save’ them from their beliefs. I would bring those men and women home now; those of my own faith would have no cause to fear to tread on the shores of England again. But I had no intention, in those early days of my reign, to punish those of my sister’s faith. As long as the men and women of England were loyal first to me, and obeyed my commands, then, I reasoned, they could worship as they wished within their hearts.
The people of England had been commanded to first worship one way and then another, and then another…The faith of this country had been turned over and over so many times by my family that England was now a mixture, a stew-pot of Catholic and Protestant, often with hostility bubbling at its surface… I would have to find a method to resolve the faith of the country to the satisfaction of everyone, to find ways to appease the souls of all those who lived here. I had to find a way to unite us all, Protestant and Catholic, under one faith, that of England. We could not continue as we were, constantly warring against each other; neighbour against neighbour and son against father… No, I would have to find a way for all my people to exist and worship under the united banner of my crown, and I would find ways to make them do so, in peace.
I had already given thought to the matter, pondering on the path between the Christian faiths that my father had forged. In time, I hoped to find such a way for England, and for the people of God… to bring peace, rather than continued destruction and division.
“Tell Knollys to hasten home, for he has work to do… And his wife, my own cousin, Catherine, must be at my side as one of my ladies of the Royal Bedchamber.” There were a few short gasps; the positions of the ladies of the Bedchamber were most prestigious in a queen’s royal household, and the most coveted. There were a few here amongst my gathered supporters who would be jealous of my cousin, born of the notorious Mary Boleyn, and her new position.
I spread my hands out before me. “The time for the exile of the English is over, my lords!” I cried in a ringing voice. “And this prince of England calls them to come home, without fear and in peace. We will suffer our people no more to live apart from hearth and home. Let the exiles of my sister’s reign return to our shores, and we will find ways to live together in clemency and peace.”
There had been much cheering and much banging of fists on the table at that statement, although Catholics who remained on my Council or about my court glanced at each other warily. The tide had turned, they knew that well enough. Before her death, I had promised my sister that I would keep England a Catholic country. But I had not said for how long I intended to keep England Catholic… and it was the coming of change they feared. They knew that I was a Protestant at heart. Each of my siblings had turned the faith of the country to match their own, and they suspected that I would do the same. But I had had much time to think on the matter of religion; my people would not find me as ungenerous as my brother and sister.
I glanced over my people with warmth and joy in my heart. On that day, I could imagine that there was much hope for the world, for England and for her people… after all, what had I had but hope, the grace of God and my own wits to survive on in order to reach this glorious position? I felt on that day as though everything were possible.
I proclaimed the first appointments of my Council and household: Cecil was my Secretary of State; Parry, Comptroller of the Royal Household; Robert Dudley, my Master of Horse and his brother, Ambrose, was Master of the Ordnance. William St Loe, a loyal servant who had protected me in the Wyatt rebellion was named Captain of my Yeomen Guard, the personal guards of my body. As for my women: Kat was my First Lady of the Bedchamber and Mistress of the Robes; Blanche was made Second Lady of the Bedchamber and Keeper of the Queen’s Books and Jewels, and my beloved Anne, Elizabeth, and Fair Geraldine, all ladies of the Privy or Presence Chamber. Within the walls of my palaces, access to the Queen was all-important.
I had within my power all the offices and appointments in England, to give to those who had served me justly and loyally, through all the years of danger we had faced. I was also just as set on removing those who did not deserve such advancement, those who had served my sister in similar positions…
My first demotion amongst my own ladies was to remove Katherine and Mary Grey from long-held positions in the Bedchamber, and make them maids of honour instead. Although they were my cousins, being the granddaughters of my father’s younger sister, Mary Tudor, I liked neither of the Grey girls. I had liked their elder sister; the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey… but neither of the living Grey girls had an ounce of that poor lady’s intelligence or wit. I had met them but infrequently at court, and found Katherine to be a pretty, if rather simple-minded maid, and the youngest, Mary, was a tiny woman, standing only four foot high due to an accident in her birth, who seemed to have no conversation or charm to her at all. I wanted the women about me to have snap and sparkle, charm, intelligence and learned minds… But, if I was being honest with myself, it was not their simple wits I disliked the Greys for… Ever since their sister had been placed unlawfully on the throne after the death of my brother, many had whispered about the potential for another of the Grey line to do so again. My father had made the Greys the heirs to the throne after his own blood. Royal blood, however diluted, ran in their veins, and I knew that many would look to them as alternatives to me. The Greys could be dangerous. I did not want them getting ideas above their station, and I was certainly not going to honour them with the best positions in my private chambers. Let them be maids of honour instead of ladies-in-waiting then! Let them know where they truly ranked in my estimations!
Perhaps my choice was petty, but I also had no wish to reward merely on the merits of blood. If the Grey girls proved loyal to me, then I would raise them up. But for now, I had no wish to plant a Grey at my side and have my court glancing at them as a substitute for me if they disliked something I did in my reign…. No, the Grey girls could fall down a place or two. But I would still have them close enough to keep a sharp eye on them. I could not afford to trust them, not yet.
I had so many positions to appoint and favours to hand out that it may have seemed as though I were the mistress of all power and wealth! I was, however, soon grimly informed of the reality of the situation in my realm…
“There is little to be had in the treasury, Your Majesty,” Cecil had said sombrely one evening at Hatfield as he, Kat, Parry and I sat surrounded by papers and proclamations which needed our attention before my men were to ride for London. “And the debts of your sister’s reign will hang over us for a long time,” he continued, glaring at a row of figures as though he could change them with but the strength of his mind.
“You are saying I am a Queen… without income?” I asked in disbelief.
Parry smiled. “Not without income, Your Majesty,” he said. “But with more expenses than your revenues presently cover. You are a queen with great debts.” He flared his nostrils thoughtfully. “Some changes will have to be made if we are to lift the country’s finances out of this depression.”
“Wherein are we so poor?” I asked, running my eyes over the sheets they had handed me and thinking that I had perhaps had more spare revenue when I was a princess than I did now as Queen. “Was it the war with France alone that caused this?”
“That certainly did not help, Your Majesty,” Cecil replied glumly. “The taxes levied to fund the war with France are still a great strain, even now. There are debts to be paid when a country enters into conflict, and we will be paying for your sister’s slavish adoration for her Spanish Prince and his warlike aspirations for a long time yet. But this is not all that has crippled us. Your sister’s return of Crown lands and revenues to the Catholic Church, to the pocket of the Pope; the wages and expenses of so vast a Council; bad harvests, and the expenses of all those whom you sister’s…” Cecil cleared his throat. “… Generosity… maintained at court at the expense of the Crown… All these things have gravely reduced the royal treasury.” He looked up at me with grave eyes. “England is in a sorry state, Your Majesty.”
I pursed my lips and heaved in a breath. “Then these things must be amended. The Council is reduced, so we have a saving there….” I rapped my fingertips on the table in front of me. “Let it be known that I will support no hangers-on at court. I would have you flush out all those who have no honest reason to be there, and make them leave. Let the nobles know that if they have posts at court, then they must find their own ways to support their ladies or heirs if they wish to come to court as well. Only those with an office or under direct invitation to our court will find their wants paid for; I will support no others. And those ladies of my private chambers who have husbands or fathers with good incomes will be reliant on them for money, not on me.”
I tapped the paper against my lips as I thought. “And we will enter talks of peace with France. This war was entered into under one sovereign of England, but under me, it will come to an end. We have lost Calais; we are bleeding money through this alliance with Spain. I would have the return of Calais put into the peace talks, but as it is, we do no good by continuing on this warlike path and impoverishing our lands and people further.” Cecil was eyeing me as though he wanted to say something more.
“Speak, Cecil,” I said impatiently. “It does no good to me to have you wilting there for fear of speaking your mind. If you have counsel, then speak it to me.”
“Your Majesty,” he nodded gratefully, “there is also the matter of the Crown lands and riches that were returned to the Catholic Church…”
I nodded. “In matters religious, my lords, we must step both wisely and cautiously,” I held up a hand as Cecil went to protest. “I know what you are about to say, Cecil, and I am truly of one mind and spirit with you. I am no Catholic, and I wish for the true religion, the religion in which I was raised, to come once more unto England and open the eyes of my people. But the reigns of my sister and my brother have scarred these lands. I do not want for these lands to become more rent than they are already on the matter of religion, and so we will tread with care on the wishes of Catholic and Protestant alike. I intend to bring this country to the true faith, to a united faith, but with more care and consideration than my forebears. If the people of England are shown graciousness and kindness, then I believe they will not fear the passage of this country to the true faith and will come to embrace it and the word of God with gratitude, and in peace.”
