CHAPTER SIX

It was early spring, and the Hertfordshire countryside was very green. The weather was warm after a fiercely cold winter, there had been no rain for several days, and many of the trees and hedges were in bud.

The Queen had moved from Whitehall Palace to stay with her maternal cousin Lord Hunsdon on the estate which she had given him out of Royal lands. Hunsdon itself had been her father’s hunting box; he and Anne Boleyn had often stayed there and hunted over the flat Hertford country, and Elizabeth herself had spent some time there as a child. The small house had been re-built into a splendid mansion with elaborate gardens boxed in with yew hedges, and with rockeries, fountains and statues and little paved walks, similar to the beautiful stylized gardens at Hampton Court. Lord Hunsdon was already very wealthy; he could offer Elizabeth a magnificent suite of rooms in his new house, with an enormous tester bed made especially for her visit and hung with valuable Flemish tapestries.

The Queen liked travelling; she was not deterred by the appalling roads or the discomfort of a protracted journey with a long wagon train rumbling behind her. Dudley, as Master of the Horse, was responsible for her transport and the safe arrival of all her personal plate, dresses, horses and servants. Removing Elizabeth from London to Hunsdon, a distance of thirty miles, was a complicated and detailed operation, like transporting a small army with supplies, but Dudley was so efficient an organizer that she was encouraged to travel further and more often than any of her predecessors. She was especially fond of Hunsdon, because the hunting was excellent, and also because she had an affection for her cousin. It was a peculiar affection, and it included her other maternal relatives, the Careys. They were connected through the Boleyns and, though distant kin, they were all that remained of her family, and a sentimental quirk, quite alien to her rational and self-sufficient spirit, entitled them to a place in her inner circle of favourites.

She had left on a hunting expedition that morning, taking Dudley with her as usual and a company of fifty ladies and gentlemen. She felt very well and exhilarated, freed from the routine of Council meetings and audiences; only the most urgent despatches were sent to her from London, and no courier had disturbed her for three days. It was a successful hunt; the Queen’s grey horse led the field, and the Queen’s arrow brought down a magnificent five-pointed stag which Hunsdon had saved for her visit. It was a happy, informal morning, full of sport and excitement, and the company gathered for a picnic under some beech trees.

Servants had already arrived by wagon, bringing the food and the cutlery in baskets, and the Queen lunched with Dudley and two of her ladies a little apart from the others. She sat on a heap of cushions, with a white linen cloth spread on the ground, her own cup-bearer and steward in attendance, and ate chicken and lark pie, and several kinds of salted fish, with ale or wine to drink. She laughed a great deal with Dudley and took a forkful of sugared ginger off her own plate to feed to him.

Elizabeth leant back against the tree trunk, and held out her hand to Robert. He kissed it and held it when she tried to draw it back.

She smiled at him, a mischievous contented smile.

“There will be more scandal,” she said, “but I don’t care. What a magnificent day it has been! Do you know, Robert, it makes me wish I were not a Queen but just the wife of some country gentleman, and able to spend my life like this!”

“It’s all well enough for one day or a few days,” Dudley laughed at her and leant back until their shoulders touched. “But you are a Queen by nature, Madam, and all Queens like to play milkmaid now and then. But not for too long. I know you—you’ll be restless and irritable by the end of the week, longing for Cecil to come paddling in like an old tabby cat, full of some crisis about Scotland or France.”

“Cats are all the more dangerous because they’re quiet. And Cecil is no tabby.”

“And no tiger either,” he retorted.

He only ridiculed the man because he knew he was a person to be feared. He hated him even more because he had never been able to influence Elizabeth against him. She had made Dudley a Privy Councillor, given him a valuable monopoly on the import of wines which brought him enormous wealth, and he was admitted into many governmental secrets, but there was one impenetrable barrier between them and that was the power of William Cecil.

“There are quiet tigers,” she reminded him. “They don’t all strut through the forest like you, my Robert, or bellow like old Sussex. Tiger is a good description of Cecil. I shall remember it.”

She picked up a sweetmeat from the little gold dish made in the shape of a galley, with Cupid at the prow. Robert had given it to her as part of his New Year gift. He had also given her a splendid set of ruby buttons and a pair of Spanish leather gloves, tanned to the softness of velvet and covered from knuckle to wrist with her cypher in diamonds and pearls.

She loved sweets; there was always a dish of them by her bedside, on the backgammon board or the chess table, and even on her table when she was in Council. Violets, roses, cachous covered in sugar and marzipan. She ate and drank very little, with a rather plebeian taste which preferred the coarse ale to Spanish wine, but she was as greedy as a child for anything sweet. She watched Robert for a moment; the shade of the beech tree dappled the ground around them with patterns of sunshine and shadow, and the patterns shifted with the movement of a slight breeze.

“Talking of crisis and Scotland and France,” she said at last, “I have a proposition to make to you. I might be able to give you that status you have wanted for so long. Are you interested?”

He turned to her quickly, and the grip of his fingers made her wince.

“If you mean what I hope,” he said. “If status means marriage with you.…”

“You have always wanted to marry a Queen, haven’t you, Robert?” she said lightly. “Well how would you like to marry one at last?”

“What do you mean, Madam? There’s only one Queen I have ever wanted.”

“You can’t have me.” Elizabeth withdrew her hand and sat upright. She had sent Lady Knollys and Lady Warwick out of hearing; the servants had gone to their own food. “We are agreed about that, aren’t we?”

“I’m not,” he said. “I never have been; I never will be. I only know better than to mention it to you unless you do. When you spoke like that a moment ago I thought you had changed your mind.”

“I change my mind a great deal,” she admitted. “That is a woman’s privilege, and damnably useful it is at times. But my mind won’t change on that count. My aversion to marrying you, my Robert, is as strong as my love for you. Never be in doubt about either. But if you want a Queen as a wife, why not the Queen of Scotland?”

She saw the surprise and then the anger on his face.

“You are mocking me,” he said. “I must beg you not to, Madam; it’s a sore subject and I have no sense of humour for it.”

“On the contrary, I am quite serious. My cousin needs a husband; unlike me, she is only too anxious to lose her independence. I can’t think of anyone who would restrain her ambitions and serve my interests better than you, if you filled the place. What do you say, Robert? If you cannot be King of England, Scotland is not such a poor consolation prize—and she is said to be very beautiful.”

He gave an angry laugh.

“I doubt if she’d thank you for the suggestion. You forget I have a murderous reputation, so foul that you wouldn’t marry me, and even more foul in her eyes because I am supposed to be your lover. I have never seen Mary Stuart, but I hardly think she’d welcome your leavings.”

“I think she’d welcome anything if a promise of the English succession went with it. Sit back, Robert, and don’t lose your temper. Supposing the idea appealed to her, what would your answer be?”

“My answer,” he said coldly, “is ‘no’. You must find another means of getting rid of me.”

“Why is it ‘no’?” she persisted. “You would have great power, equal sovereignty, if you were clever with her.… Why, Robert, you could be a King!”

“Because I am so unmanned through you that I’d rather stay here as a pet dog,” he said. “Find another candidate, Madam. I won’t accommodate you.”

“If you were really unmanned, Robert,” Elizabeth told him softly, “you would have said ‘yes’. And that would have been a foolish answer because I have no intention of letting you marry her or anyone else. But I may ask you to play at it for a while. Will you do that for me?”

“Play at it?” He stared at her and then suddenly shrugged. “You are beyond me. You put the idea forward, tempt me with it, and then tell me I had no freedom of choice anyway.”

“On reflection you would have seen that. But first impulses are more valuable than decisions. I am glad you refused. But I shall want you to play at it, as I said. I intend suggesting you as a candidate; firstly because I know she will be outraged, as you pointed out. Then I will sweeten the suggestion with a lot of promises, and at the same time I shall violently oppose another person who is on her list of suitors. It is only an idea, and it’s a pity to spoil a lovely afternoon by talking about intrigue, but I cannot do this unless you help me.”

“Who is this other candidate?” he asked her. “And why should you put me forward as the alternative to him?”

“Because it might be the one way of making her choose him. Who he is does not matter yet.”

“Was this Cecil’s idea or yours, Madam?” He helped her up, and the Queen smiled coolly into his face.

“Cecil knows nothing of my real reason. Don’t credit him with this idea, it is entirely mine. He will think you are pursuing your ambitions and that I am being over-trusting of you. A lot of people will warn me that if you marry Mary Stuart you’ll join her in an attack on my throne. You must be prepared for it and bear it patiently. You must bear a good deal in the next few months, but remember two things. You are not going to Scotland. And you must not be surprised when I pretend that you are.”

When the hunting party returned to Hunsdon, Elizabeth said that she was tired and needed rest. She changed out of her dusty riding clothes after inspecting the carcass of the big stag which Lord Hunsdon promised to have skinned and the head mounted for her, and which she then presented to him as a memento of her visit. She dressed in a long robe of crimson brocade with a collar and sleeves trimmed with sable and a little half hood of black velvet, edged with the same fur. Her ladies lit wax candles, part of the luxury her cousin provided for her, since the tallow lights smelt unpleasantly strong, and the Queen sat down at the virginals to play and amuse herself, having dismissed her attendants. She liked solitude when she wanted to think; she often played for hours in an empty room, apparently absorbed in the music, while her mind worked out some tangled problem, separating the threads and re-weaving them into a pattern of her own.

Mary Stuart would reject Robert. Any woman proud of her lineage and her reputation would take the suggestion as a gross insult, and she know from Randolph in Edinburgh and Lethington in London, that the Scots Queen was very sensitive about both. Just as Mary had tried to judge Elizabeth, so the Queen imagined her rival, as her fingers moved over the keyboard of the virginals, bringing the beauty of a Galliard by Herriot to life in the still room.

Mary had done very well, and her life in that barbarous country must have been gall to a spoilt and spirited girl who had been taught to regard her position as inviolate. She had gone from a life of cushioned unreality in France, where her least wish was a law to her uncles and her foolish husband, and survived three years of nominal rule over a pack of undisciplined ruffians and a scruffy, loud-mouthed clergy with no respect for their superiors. She had not made one false step, but Elizabeth’s instinct insisted that the credit was mostly due to her advisers. The Guises were masters of diplomacy and intrigue; they had obviously primed their niece how to avoid the dangers implicit in her sex and her religion; and men like Lethington and presumably her bastard half-brother, James Moray, had guided her along the difficult way of conciliation when she might have been tempted by ignorance and temper into a trial of strength with her nobles and her heretic Church.

Unlike Elizabeth, whose childhood had been a succession of upheavals and humiliations, Mary had not learnt the hard lessons of craft by long experience and personal error. She had been told how to avoid mistakes, which was a disadvantage because the only way to learn was from the consequences when one made them. She was not naturally deceitful; Elizabeth had divined enough naïveté in the letters she received to know that when Mary was intriguing she did it badly and with many witnesses. She was ambitious and proud and full of a mediaeval belief in the Divinity of Kings which had somehow survived the monotonous murders of so many of her Scottish ancestors. She probably suffered from the delusion that her sex protected her from that hazard, and as she looked out at the darkening view’ from her window Elizabeth remembered her mother, who might well have seen it from a room in the demolished hunting box, and smiled contemptuously.

Mary was not evil, in the sense that Elizabeth understood evil. She was not cruel, like some of the English ladies of rank who had their servants thrashed and branded for petty theft. When Chatelard’s head was cut off in front of her, Mary fainted. But she had ordered the execution, and the episode with the poet had done more than anything else to raise her in Elizabeth’s estimation. Provided that she had killed the man from policy and not from any fatuous regard for sexual virtue. She had no lovers, and her suitors were encouraged at a strictly political level, but Randolph reported that she had great charm over men; some of the roughest of the Border Lords were making fools of themselves trying to be gallant.

What kind of woman was Mary Stuart? Would she possess the quality of judgment and acumen without which no woman could hope to rule over men? Would she see beyond the apparent blunder of suggesting Dudley as a husband for her, and look into the motives behind the motives? Would she see what manner of man the alternative was, before she committed herself to him through pride and a mistaken idea that she would be defying her interfering cousin?

Would she really be so headstrong and lacking in judgment, as Elizabeth believed and was prepared to gamble on, as to manoeuvre on behalf of Henry Darnley? Darnley. Her hands struck one of Herriot’s bright chords, musical and clear as running water. Darnley had Royal blood and an ambitious mother whom Elizabeth personally hated. But he was a stupid, bad natured youth, with a private taste for drink and vice and nothing to recommend him beyond charming manners and a handsome face. He was the sort of man that she would have kicked aside with her foot at the very age when she was involved with the Admiral. At fifteen she would have seen through him. But she had always had that faculty. She had known in her heart that the Admiral was an adventurer, ready to despoil a child in the pursuit of his ambitions, even though she loved him. She had known what Robert was too, though she had loved Robert, and still did. Robert had refused to go to Scotland because he had been taken unawares; he had got into the habit of loyalty to her, and habits did not break down in a few seconds. But if he went to Scotland and acquired a young and beautiful wife, her own remark might have come true, and Robert, the faithful lover and loyal suitor, was not so faithful or so loyal that he might not have marched against her as the husband of the Queen of Scots. It was possible to see men as they were and yet to love them. But her one hope was that Mary woud not see through Henry Darnley, if and when he reached Scotland, as Elizabeth intended he should at the right moment. For if she recognized him as a degenerate and a coward, she would know that such a man would not survive in Scotland, and nor would she if she were to become his wife.

All the mistakes Mary had avoided, Darnley would make for her. If only Mary could be tricked into marrrying him.

The sound of Elizabeth’s playing drifted out into the corridors, where some of the house servants had gathered to listen. The stately music reached its climax, the climax of the Scottish Court dance, the Galliard, and when the last notes died away, someone said reverently that the Queen’s Majesty played like an angel.

Maitland of Lethington had not even blinked; privately Elizabeth admired his self-control. He had listened to her astounding proposal without allowing a sign of surprise to cross his face. It was not a handsome face in the strict sense of the word but it was pleasing, with an intelligent eye and a neat little beard under a rather humorous mouth. He was a clever man, and she liked him; he was polished in his manners, and she liked that too. She also liked him because she knew from the letters to Mary which were intercepted and copied, that he admired her in spite of himself. They were sitting under an artificial awning made of lattice work entwined with flowering shrubs and foliage erected outside on the terrace of Greenwich Palace. The river flowed past them further down, its waters reflecting the light of torches from the barges moored by the jetty. The Queen had invited him to an evening reception, followed by a banquet and a masque. She had left the Great Hall, accompanied by Cecil, and with Lethington on one side of her and the Secretary on the other, she had just suggested Robert Dudley as a husband for the Queen of Scots.

They were very close, their faces lit by the torches burning in sconces against the walls; her dress glittered in the shifting light; it was so stiff with jewels and so heavily panniered that he wondered how she was able to move in it.

On these occasions she looked more and more like the effigy of a Queen, so stately and over-jewelled that she literally dazzled the eye. She had a wonderful sense of the theatrical; she was clever enough to sacrifice mere feminine charm to achieve an effect of glittering majesty. She looked ageless and remote; her deliberate personification of power was inhuman and rather frightening. Lethington could not help regretting his own Queen’s warm, informal personality. It attracted many, but it also placed her within reach of her enemies. He could not imagine John Knox arguing with Elizabeth Tudor and reducing her to tears.

“Madam, you surprise me,” he said. “I know your affection for my sovereign but I had no idea it could lead you to such self-sacrifice. How could you bear to part with someone who is so dear to you?”

“Nothing is dearer to me than friendship between your Queen and myself, and peace between our kingdoms,” Elizabeth answered. “My affection prompts me to offer a man whom I know from my experience would make my cousin a most worthy husband. The whole world knows that I would have married him myself, if I had a mind to marry anyone. There is no higher compliment I could pay her than that.”

Cecil moved in his chair. “You know Lord Robert. He is able and loyal; Her Majesty would give him a title and endowments suitable to the husband of your mistress. I can heartily endorse her suggestion, and I know that it comes from her heart.”

“I’m sure it does,” Lethington smiled. He was already imagining the rage and incredulity of Mary when he wrote to her; for a moment he shared her anger at the presumption of this damnable woman and her smooth-tongued Councillor to dare suggest that tarnished adventurer as a possible husband for the Queen of his country. But he gave no sign. He did not really believe that either of them were serious.

“The whole difficulty between our two kingdoms could be solved by such a marriage,” Elizabeth continued. “My fear, and it’s one I have never concealed from you, my Lord, is that a foreign Prince may win my cousin and prevail upon her to enter into an alliance against me. I don’t doubt her good faith, but I fear her youth and the weaknesses of women where their affections are involved. An unscrupulous Scottish Consort could do irreparable harm; not only to our mutual peace but to my cousin’s prospects of inheriting my throne. An Englishman of noble birth and excellent qualities like my Lord Dudley would ensure Queen Mary a happy domestic life and a firm liaison with me. I should be happy to name her my successor as a wedding present. You may tell her that.”

Lethington nodded. It was in fact a serious proposal as well as a gross impertinence, couched in terms of open blackmail.

“I shall be happy to inform my mistress immediately. Naturally she will encounter one doubt, Madam, which has already occurred to me. Lord Robert is known to be deeply attached to you; would he be willing to transfer his affections elsewhere? My Queen is a gentle lady and anxious to make a marriage that is based on mutual love as well as policy. For this reason, I fear she may doubt the wisdom of your proposal.”

Elizabeth smiled.

“My cousin is reputed to be the most beautiful Princess in Europe; my Lord Dudley is certainly a handsome man in the prime of his youth. The sight of her would be enough to banish all sentimental thoughts of me from his mind. Believe me, my Lord, I’ve given much thought to this and I cannot see a better solution. Let me tell you something—I once drew up letters patent to create Robert Earl of Leicester, did you know that?”

“Yes, Madam.” Lethington glanced sideways at the impassive Secretary. “I also know that you changed your mind and cut the document to pieces instead of signing it.”

“This time, I should sign it,” she answered coolly. “I have my father’s temper, you know, and poor Dudley’s patent was presented to me after a quarrel. The earldom was a personal token of my gratitude for his good service. I withdrew it for my own reasons—you know how changeable women are, my dear Lethington, and I’m no exception. But nothing would please me more than to honour him as high as your mistress could wish. He shall be Earl of Leicester, and you shall propose him as my official candidate for my cousin’s hand. I shall write and personally recommend him to her.”

“My Queen will be overwhelmed,” Lethington murmured. He wondered how he could restrain Mary from replying to that personal recommendation in terms which would result in war. It would be all the more difficult since she was seriously interested in the suit of Henry Darnley. He had seen Darnley several times, thanks to the persistence of his mother, Lady Lennox, and he had been able to tell Mary that Darnley was extremely good-looking and with pleasing manners. He also described the Countess of Lennox as a troublesome and ambitious old virago, who would have to be left behind in England if the marriage were seriously considered.

As for Robert Dudley, he knew him well and disliked him intensely. He had always suspected that William Cecil shared his antipathy, and he could only suppose that he supported this extraordinary suggestion in order to get him out of England and break his influence with the Queen.

He saw that Elizabeth had held out her hand to be kissed, which was the signal for his dismissal. It was as pale and cool as marble, her exquisite fingers were not spoilt by rings, except the ring she had accepted at her Coronation as a symbol of her marriage to the State.

When he left them Elizabeth turned to Cecil.

“He’ll have to convey the message,” she said, “and I think he believes it’s serious. He also believes that she will be furious.”

“He has a secret appointment with Darnley and his mother again tomorrow,” Cecil said quietly. “The Countess sends him messages every day.”

“When the times comes, I’ll send that old harridan to the Tower,” she snapped. “It will convince my dear cousin how angry I am at the marriage and it will give me immense satisfaction.”

“How can you be so sure this plan will succeed, Madam?” Cecil asked her. “What will you do if she swallows that bribe about the succession and accepts Dudley?”

Elizabeth laughed. “You know very little about women, my dear Cecil. Madam is growing mighty confident; she has come to the point where she is intriguing to marry one of my subjects behind my back—that’s a step forward after all her tact these past two years, and she has a high stomach, all the Stuarts are as proud as Lucifer. Robert himself gave the answer when he said she’d hardly take my leavings. That miserable Lennox pimp has Tudor blood; that will be his marriage gift to Mary, and more likely to appeal to her than any promises of mine. If she did agree to Robert, I should simply refuse him permission to leave England and the negotiations would come to nothing.”

“I am relieved,” Cecil said dryly, “to hear that you wouldn’t consider the marriage as a last resort. That has tormented me all the way through.”

“You don’t trust Robert, do you?” she said. “And you don’t trust me either, to suppose I would keep anything back from you?”

“Do you trust him that far?” Cecil retorted. “Do you think he could be sent to Scotland to be tempted into invading England, and not fall?”

“No.” Elizabeth stared out to where the lights were flickering along the river. “I trust no man that far, except you.”

“How can you love a man you do not trust?” he said softly. “How can you keep him by you, turning you from the thought of other men, how can you honour him and lavish presents upon him, knowing that he is unworthy of you?”

“How can you ask that question when you are married and you don’t know what it means to need another human being? Robert has many faults; God knows I hear enough about them, but I don’t want a man of saintly principles, I want a good companion, a good dancer, a good horseman, a prop to lean on, even if in fact it’s he who does the leaning.… I can give you a dozen answers to that question of yours, all of them true and none of them the right one. Robert is ambitious and shallow; he hasn’t your brain or Sussex’s honour, or Hunsdon’s chivalry, but in his way he loves me and he needs what I can give him. That is something I need, and I can have him on my terms and trust him just as far as it is fair to expect of any man, when I am neither his mistress nor his wife. Now go in and send him out to me.”

Three people were sitting in a small room in a house not far from the Royal Palace of Whitehall; the curtains were drawn, closing out the evening sunlight, and there were no servants to wait on them. The wine was poured by the younger of the two men, and the second man watched him closely while he listened to the Countess of Lennox praising the virtues of her son. Lady Lennox had a harsh voice and a domineering, mannish attitude; she sat like a man with her knees spread wide under her skirts and her hands resting on them, leaning forward to impress the Scottish envoy with what she was saying.

Her rather coarse and florid features, with the darting green eyes and the hard mouth, were in complete contrast to the rounded good looks of her son. Lethington took the glass from his hand and thanked him.

Henry Darnley was so tall that he had to stoop low over Lethington’s chair. He was very fair, with hair that curled like a child’s, and bright blue eyes; if the face was too smooth, without beard or moustaches, the figure was undeniably graceful and slim. He had an air of refinement and good breeding which made his relationship to that gross, blustering woman difficult to reconcile, though the precious Tudor blood flowed in his veins from her.

Lady Lennox was the daughter of Henry VII’s sister, therefore granddaughter of Owen Tudor and blood cousin of Elizabeth. She was also the blood cousin of Mary Stuart.

“There isn’t a better match for the Queen than my son,” she declared. “Look at him, my Lord—is there a better favoured young man in Europe?”

Lethington caught her son’s eye and exchanged a smile. He noticed that Darnley had blushed and looked uncomfortable while the Countess made her appraisals of him, as if she were trying to sell a thoroughbred horse.

“Nobody doubts your qualities, Lord Darnley.” Lethington turned on him. “And your maternal pride only does him justice, Madam,” he added.

“There are only two obstacles to the marriage that I can see; firstly my Queen will not make any promises without having seen your son, and secondly, the Queen of England has made Dudley Earl of Leicester and apparently believes that my Queen is prepared to take him as a husband. Under those circumstances, I don’t see how your visit to Scotland can be arranged openly, and there can’t be a contract without a visit.”

“The whole world is laughing at Queen Mary,” Lady Lennox snapped. “God knows how she can have allowed Elizabeth to go so far with this ridiculous proposal, raising that scoundred to the peerage and telling everyone that he is going to Scotland as her personal token to the Queen. If I were Mary I would have torn up the letter and returned her the pieces as an answer.”

“That was the Queen’s first impulse,” Lethington explained patiently. “She is fully sensible of the insult which has been offered her, and it has strengthened her determination to marry without the approval of Queen Elizabeth. But as the best candidate is your son, who is here in England, it has been necessary to pretend to take the suggestion of Dudley seriously, until we can arrange for Lord Darnley to flee the country. When he is safely in Scotland, my Queen will make her decision and show Queen Elizabeth exactly what harm that monstrous proposal has done her.”

“I would go at any time,” Darnley interposed. “I am not afraid of Elizabeth.”

“My son is no coward, as you can see,” his mother said. “He has my stomach, my Lord. I’m perfectly sure that when Queen Mary sees him the match will be made—I’ve had trouble enough chasing the women away from him since he was sixteen.”

Again Darnley looked modestly embarrassed; it was an expression that suited him. There was nothing in the frank blue eyes to show that a dull headache pulsed behind them, or that his limbs were stiff after a night spent in one of the lowest brothels in Cheapside. His mother had certainly defeated the eligible young ladies who had made advances to him, but she was ignorant of the conquests he made among the servant girls and prostitutes. He preferred to keep his amusements secret from her; it was bad enough to live under her eye, to be bullied and cursed and cajoled by turns, and generally kept in the position of an overgrown child. Her voice grated on him; he hated the loud tone which never softened; he shrank when it became an angry bellow, and hurried away to the wine cupboard and drank to calm himself and to give himself the feeling of courage and self-confidence which was lacking whenever he was sober. And he was not sober very often now. The strain of the intrigue to marry him to the Queen of Scotland had driven him deeper into debauchery; he lost himself in sexual excesses which were already tinged with vice, and in an alcoholic daze he dreamed wild dreams of independence in Scotland, free of his mother’s domination, married to a young and beautiful woman who could realize all the Countess’s ambitions for him without his having to achieve them for himself. In Scotland he would be his own master; he would be important and powerful, and he shared his mother’s opinion that Mary Stuart would find him irresistible. Most women were attracted to him; so were men. He could see that even the astute Scots Ambassador was impressed. He had played the part of a dutiful, accomplished son so skilfully that it was easy to lie and posture in his relations with everyone else. Only in the wretched bawdy houses, accompanied by a few companions of the same tastes as his own, only there did the cruel, immature, bullying nature show itself. He was able to pay for the bruises, the smashed furniture, the wanton destruction that climaxed his entertainment and to swagger out into the world, feeling that his spirit was as impressive as his body.

“My husband might be able to go to Scotland,” Lady Lennox was saying. “Our estates were sequestered under the late reign, and it would be a valid excuse to go there and try and get them restored.”

Lethington nodded. “Quite possibly. But if your husband went, how would that help Lord Darnley?”

“He could send for him,” she said. “If the Queen refused permission, he’d have to slip over the Border without it. We could do it easily; leave all that part of it to me.”

“We.” Lethington looked blandly into her face; he wondered how he could persuade Darnley to leave his mother behind.

He stood up.

“Lady Lennox, we’ve had a most profitable talk. My Queen asked me to convey her warm good wishes to you when she last wrote; she also entrusted a message for Lord Darnley, which I must deliver before I leave you.”

As the Countess made no move to go, he added, “The message is for him alone. I can’t give it, even before you.”

When the door had closed behind her, Lethington turned to Darnley. Both men sighed at the same moment and then laughed.

“I never saw King Henry of England,” the envoy said, “but I imagine your excellent mother bears a strong resemblance to him!”

“So I believe,” Darnley answered pleasantly. “I’m not sorry I don’t share it; it’s quite enough to have the blood without the temper or the manners. What was the message, my Lord—I’m desperately eager to hear it.”

“The Queen said that she was anxious to see you as soon as it could be contrived. She feels sure that her cousinly affection for you will be strengthened by a meeting and she assures you that whatever public display she makes in this business of the Earl of Leicester, her heart is totally disengaged, and waits upon your coming.”

Darnley bowed; he was inwardly feeling so out of sorts that his emotions were easily touched and Lethington saw tears in his eyes.

“From the moment you gave me that locket with her portrait,” he said slowly, “I fell in love with her. Tell her that I shall come to Scotland; tell her that if she doesn’t choose to marry me I shall still remain there to serve her in the humblest capacity she cares to name.”

“I will tell her,” Lethington said. He was suddenly touched by the boy; impressed by his sincerity, moved by the simple nobility of his words. He could imagine him beside Mary, both of them superbly tall and slim, with the same fine-bred look about them, both going out to conquer in the glory of their youth.…

“If you marry my Queen, care for her,” he said. “She will need you, my Lord Darnley. There isn’t a nobler Princess in Europe.”

“I know that,” Darnley answered. “I only want to be worthy of her.”

Lethington left him then; he went out of the house by a back stairs used by servants and returned in a plain coach to his own lodgings outside the fashionable river area. He had no idea that Cecil had spies among the servants in the Lennox household, and that every visit he made to them was known to the English Government. He felt completely satisfied that if Mary married Henry Darnley she had made the best choice among the Princes of Europe.

The newly created Earl of Leicester was at his post in the Queen’s ante-room. He stood a little apart from the crowd of people who were always gathered there hoping to catch the Queen’s attention when she came out. He had altered in the last few months, as if the title Elizabeth had bestowed upon him had carried several years with it. He was more handsome than before, his figure pared down to muscle and bone by exercise, and his clothes were richer and yet more subdued than in the days when he first found favour and had money to squander on himself. His doublet was cloth of silver, the buttons were freshwater pearls edged with diamonds, and there were more diamonds in the hilt and scabbard of his sword. He wore a ruff of starched and double-pleated linen and the white cloth made his face darker skinned and his eyes blacker. It was no longer the face of the rather raffish adventurer, obviously on the watch for an opportunity to advance himself. Now it was stamped by self-confidence and pride; the eyes were haughty and inclined to stare. The Earl of Leicester, immensely rich, increasingly influential, a Privy Councillor, a Knight of the Garter, owner of estates in the country and valuable land close to London, the man being groomed for marriage with the Queen of Scotland and heiress to the English throne, was the successor of the upstart Robert Dudley, the culmination of a life devoted to ambition and the restoration of his lost fortunes.

But Elizabeth was his existence; Elizabeth was his title and his wealth and his entire significance. Without her he would have ceased to exist within a matter of days. He had made love to her and resisted her and fallen into the mortal mistake of treating her like other women; but when that phase was over and the correct adjustment made, he had found his position not only secure but in no way unmanly. It was possible to live as he did in permanent submission to the will of a woman only when that woman was Elizabeth and consequently so far above her own sex and its frailties that it was rather like serving a spectacular King.

The part of their relationship which now seemed strained and artificial was the most intimate; he instinctively felt it incongruous to embrace someone of whom he was fundamentally afraid. He wondered whether she shared his uneasiness; it was only an exercise in mutual frustration, and he suspected that she found it as unsatisfactory as he did, because the occasions when she indulged in amorous play were more and more infrequent.

Instead there was a greater warmth and intimacy in the purely platonic gestures of affection. He felt genuine love for Elizabeth when he held or kissed one of her hands, or helped to lift her from her horse; he had begun to take a fanatical pride in her achievements as if she were an extension of himself. They had entered a conspiracy to outwit the conventional world and make her unique among Queens as well as among women, and she was determined that they should remain together on their own peculiar footing and on their own agreed terms. He came into her rooms when she was dressing; not to indulge in liberties as their enemies imagined, but to help her choose her clothes for the day. He had a keen eye for what was both majestic and becoming. He picked out her largest jewels, suggested wider skirts and bigger ruffs, encouraging any fashion which made her outstanding. She was the Queen; she must never be mistaken for anything else whatever she was doing.

She was not only his consuming interest but his sole occupation. He was busy every moment of the day attending to her personal needs and her public necessities; he sat at the Council Chamber with her, escorted her when she went out, joined her hunting parties, and was never excused from a single evening’s entertainment. It was widely accepted, even before the creating of his title and his expected marriage, that the way to the Queen could only be opened by Dudley. Cecil never asked favours for anyone.

He had played his part in the marriage farce with Mary Stuart as faithfully as she had demanded of him, though there were times when he needed her reassurance that it was all a trick, so convincingly did Elizabeth discuss his suit to the Scots Queen. And at those times she laughed and stroked his hair, and whispered that she meant to rivet a great chain round his leg with her own hands, just to make sure that he never left her.…

He had more enemies than at any time in his life; his earldom had emphasized the fact that he was no longer a bedchamber companion but a man of power and increasing substance whose voice counted for something in the government of the country. He was hated and courted at the same time; everyone who met his eye in the ante-room made him some acknowledgment, including some of Elizabeth’s highest born and haughtiest nobles. The one exception who never looked at Robert or spoke to him if it could be avoided, was the Duke of Norfolk. He too was in the ante-room and his expression implied that the Queen’s favourite, standing within five feet of him, did not exist.

He was a tall, thin man, with the prominent Howard features, and an intelligence which was chiefly occupied in the contemplation of his own importance. He was further elevated by close blood relationship with the Queen for the previous Duke had been the uncle of Anne Boleyn. They were a curious family, unscrupulous and mediaeval in their outlook; the uncle had not hesitated to sit as chief judge at the trial of his niece and to pronounce the sentence of death upon her. The present Duke lacked his ferocious predecessor’s cunning; he had once condescended to tell Dudley some time earlier that unless he withdrew from the Court and ceased distracting Elizabeth from her foreign suitors he would be removed by the swords of his superiors.

Elizabeth had ordered both men to apologize and forbidden the duel which Dudley proposed to fight with the Duke, but they had remained mortal enemies.

The door of the Queen’s room opened and her page of the bedchamber called out: “The Earl of Leicester to the Queen’s Majesty!”

Everyone turned and looked as the Earl went in; only Norfolk remained quite still, his eyes fixed on a point on the opposite wall.

Elizabeth was dressed for the evening reception; she dined in public once a day, and then attended a play in the Palace Great Hall, or joined her Court in the dancing which she loved.

She wore a gown of brilliant emerald green, with a petticoat of white satin embroidered with emeralds and pearls; the same jewels were round her neck and blazing in her hair.

She held out both hands to Robert and he kissed them.

“They say Venus came out of the sea,” he said, “and looking at you tonight, Madam, I believe them. You should never wear anything but emeralds.”

Elizabeth laughed; he could see that she was in high spirits; her pale face was flushed and she stood back, giving him time to admire her costume.

“Then you know what present to give me next year. I will wear nothing but emeralds, my fond Leicester, unless you should happen to choose rubies or diamonds instead! However, this time I have something for you. Come here.”

She brought him to the cabinet which stood against one wall, and unlocked it herself. When she opened the door he saw a magnificent goblet shining in the recess. It was made of gold, the lid and rim were studded with diamonds, and engraved with his crest, the bear and ragged staff.

She held it out to him, smiling.

“A loving cup,” she said. “For you, my Robert, as a reward for playing the lover to someone else.”

“I cannot thank you,” he said after a moment, “there aren’t enough words in the English language. My beloved, I have never seen anything so magnificent in my life.”

“It’s a compensation.” Elizabeth closed the cabinet door and relocked it. He knew that she kept a fabulous ruby in one of the drawers. The jewel was too big to wear, but she liked to take the huge stone out and look at it. It was destined to be set in the Crown when she could be persuaded to part with it. “A compensation for not marrying my cousin in Scotland,” she continued.

“You mean the negotiations are broken off?”

“Not yet, but it’s only a formality now. That’s why I sent for you. Alas, my love, she has decided to resist your impetuous siege, and give her heart to someone else. The Earl of Lennox has just asked permission to go to Scotland. I have given it, and I’d wager that little goblet of yours that his son Darnley will sneak after him in a matter of days. She is about to spit you out, and swallow the true bait.”

“Thank God for it,” he said quickly. “I wish them joy of each other.”

“We’ll drink to that.”

There was a silver jug of wine already set out for them; he poured some into the splendid goblet and handed it to her.

“No other woman will ever put her lips to that cup,” he said.

“Not to the cup or the owner.” Elizabeth sipped slowly and he drank from it after her. “Here’s health to the Queen of Scots, and health to her bridegroom, may she see nothing beyond his blue eyes! It’s my confident hope that she won’t; other women haven’t, and from all I hear she’s so bent on spiting me that she’ll fall on his neck the first time they meet.”

Dudley looked at her and slowly shook his head.

“I’m no match for you; God knows I can’t see how you could let her marry a man with a claim to your throne, however distant. The whole world will say she’s outwitted you.”

“We’ll see what the world says after a year of marriage to that pup,” Elizabeth retorted. “We’ll see what her nobles and her Reformers say when they find their Consort in the Edinburgh brothels.”

“How do you know this when Lethington doesn’t?”

“It’s my business to know what anyone does who has a claim to my throne, however distant,” she mocked. “Cecil has eyes and ears in every Palace and bawdy house in the kingdom. Darnley keeps his pleasures secret, but there are no secrets to be kept from me. He’ll ruin my cousin once she gives him rein. There’ll be no invasion of England with Darnley riding beside her unless she wants a drunkard in the saddle. I’d go further and say that her nobles will probably murder him before the year is out!”

“You always win, Madam,” Robert said slowly. “I know you so well and yet I don’t know you at all. There isn’t another woman in the world who could have made such a plan and manoeuvred her enemy into carrying it out for her. By God, England should be proud of you!”

“And proud of Cecil, too. I thought of it; he helped me to execute it every step of the way. And he never doubted its success.”

For a moment Leicester’s face darkened.

“You told me I was the only one who knew.”

Elizabeth patted his shoulder.

“I had to say that; knowing how jealous you are of him, I knew you’d make difficulties if you thought he was a party to it. Come now, Robert, take me out into the ante-chambers; I must see Lethington tonight and pretend to be uneasy about Lennox’s visit. And I shall find a few words for the Countess of Lennox; they’ll be the last she’ll hear from me before I put her in the Tower.”

At midnight on February 13th, 1565, the people of Edinburgh were brought out of their beds by a strange and terrifying phenomenon. The empty streets were filled with the sound of fighting, as if a ghost army were engaged in combat. There were cries and the clash of swords and the echo of hooves in the deserted squares and alleys, under a freezing cloudless sky. The next morning John Knox climbed into his pulpit at St Giles’ Cathedral to point out that the phantom omens of war and disaster coincided with the arrival of Lord Henry Darnley in the City.