Christmas passed with its attendant festivities and the New Year of 1603 was ushered in by fierce, biting winds and sleet. The bare trees bent and creaked before the icy blasts and many a beggar crouched shivering, wrapped in rags upon the doorsteps of the churches and in the filthy hovels, lanes and alleyways of London.
The wind howled around the palace of Richmond, shaking the casements and lifting the heavy draperies and sending chilling draughts along the galleries. The palace was strangely hushed but an undercurrent of anxiety and fear held everyone in its grasp. Elizabeth was ill.
On the 12th January she had first felt unwell.
“’Tis naught but a cold in the head,” she had informed those persons anxiously enquiring after her health and on the 14th she had moved to Richmond which compared to Whitehall and Westminster—which were deathly cold and almost impossible to heat to any comfortable degree—was reasonably warm. The change of air seemed for a little while to give her strength but on the 28th February she became worse.
The news of her illness spread like wildfire throughout the land and once again prayers were offered up in every church for her recovery. Her subjects could not envisage a life in England without Elizabeth and there were many who had never known another Sovereign. This time their prayers could avail her little for she felt the cold hands of death upon her.
During the past year she had become so weary of life. She was alone, surrounded by young people whose very youth and vivacity irked her for everyone had gone and only she was left and the terrible depression overwhelmed her for longer and longer periods. She hardly slept at all for as soon as she closed her eyes the ghosts of the past came trooping back. Her father in all his bluff, cruel glory. Her mother with her raven hair and sorrowful eyes. Her sister Mary and Edward, her brother and all her old friends and associates. She would press her fists hard against her closed lids to blot out the mocking face of Mary Stuart and the bitter-sweet, reproachful countenance of Essex until finally she would rise from her bed and sit huddled in a chair, alone in the darkness—save for her memories.
But now that death stared her in the face and beckoned to her with ghostly fingers, the indomitable spirit arose once more within her and she fought with all her strength to banish death. She refused to take to her bed. She refused even to lie down upon the cushions which had been set upon the floor of her Presence Chamber, but stood motionless, her back only slightly bent, her eyes blazing.
“Do not think to conquer me. I have defied the greatest of Kings and the edicts of the Pope, begone from me for I will not yield to you!” she silently defied the unseen enemy.
For fifteen hours she stood but finally that will of iron could hold out no longer. The Lord Admiral, Charles Howard, her only surviving kinsman, begged her to lie down and she was gently placed upon the cushions. Her braided wig was slightly askew and her face was grey and haggard. The old man who himself had just buried his beloved wife, kissed the gnarled hands.
“Madam, dearest cousin, I beg of you take some nourishment?”
Elizabeth remained silent but Lord Charles persisted and finally she agreed. He placed one arm behind her head and gently raised her while with the other hand he fed her broth from a spoon. Tears misted his eyes as he remembered how graceful and elegant she had once been.
“For my sake, madam, if for no other, will you rest upon your bed?” he begged her.
The old fire flashed in her eyes. “No, and if you were in the habit of seeing such things in your bed as I do when in mine, you would not persuade me to go there.”
Young Cecil, the deformed but brilliant son of his dead father, asked quietly, “Does Your Majesty see any spirits?”
She glared at him. “He thinks I am insane,” she thought. “I scorn to answer such a question, sir!”
“Madam, to content the people, you must go to bed,” he urged.
She smiled at him contemptuously. “Little man, if your father had lived ye durst not have said so much, but ye know that I must die and that makes ye so presumptuous.”
With an effort she raised herself. “Begone! All of you, save for my Lord,” she cried, placing a hand upon Howard’s arm as an indication that he alone was to remain.
When the door had closed behind them she sank back once more and the tears started in her eyes.
“I am tied with a chain of iron about my neck,” she said.
“No, you have the courage of a lion!”
“I am tied, the case is altered with me. Even now I know that they are waiting for me to die and that in some stable a rider awaits in readiness to ride with haste to my nephew of Scotland.”
Howard remained silent for he knew she was right and he could find no words of comfort or denial.
For twenty-four hours she lay staring at the floor, one finger placed in her mouth—a habit which had also been her mother’s. Her ladies stood helplessly about her. Then she was removed to the great carved bed where she lay like a shrivelled, emaciated doll beneath the rich brocade and ermine coverlet.
On March 23rd it was obvious that she could not last for much longer and the Archbishop of Canterbury was called to her bedside.
The Archbishop knelt and prayed and when he had finished he said quietly, “Madam, you have been long a great Queen here upon earth, but shortly you must yield an account of your stewardship to the great King of Kings.”
The blue eyes rested upon the cross which hung upon his breast and slowly she nodded. For nearly seventy years she had journeyed upon this earth. For forty-four of those years she had guided and steered her people safely through the greatest peril since the coming of the Normans. She had given them peace and prosperity and now at last the weight of the crown was to be lifted from her weary head.
She closed her eyes, slipping into a peaceful sleep where her cares disappeared like the morning mists before the sun. She was a girl again and she felt once more the warmth of the spring sunshine upon her face as she walked the gardens of Hatfield.
Beneath a tree a handsome, young man upon a great horse beckoned to her and she felt the stirrings of joy within her breast as she lifted her skirts and ran lightly through the sweet grass towards him, as she called out to him.
“Wait. Robin. Wait for me!”