The Virgin's Lover Read online

“But such a test of fortitude! Never to argue when they were so overbearing!”

  Amy giggled. “I cannot begin to tell you,” she said. “And the worst of it is that Sir Robert is not like that. When I first met him at my father’s house he was such a boy, so sweet and loving. We were going to take a little manor house and keep sheep and he was going to breed horses. And here I am, still waiting for him to come home.”

  “I always longed to go to court,” Mrs. Woods remarked into the wistful pause. “Mr. Woods took me once to see the old queen at her dinner and it was very grand.”

  “It takes forever,” Amy said flatly. “And the food is always cold, and half the time it is so badly cooked that everyone goes back to their own rooms and has their own food cooked for them there, so they can have something good to eat. You aren’t allowed to keep your own hunting dogs, and you cannot have more servants than the Lord Chamberlain allows, and you have to keep court hours… up late and to bed late till you are so tired you could die.”

  “But that life pleases Sir Robert?” Mrs. Woods observed acutely.

  Amy nodded and turned her horse for home. “It does for now. He was born in the palaces with the royal family. He lived like a prince. But in his heart I know that he is still the young man that I fell in love with who wanted nothing more than some good pastureland to breed beautiful horses. I know I must be true to that—whatever it costs me.”

  “But what about you?” Mrs. Woods asked gently, bringing her horse alongside the younger woman.

  “I keep faith,” Amy said staunchly. “I wait for him, and I trust that he will come home to me. I married him because I loved him just as he is. And he married me because he loved me, just as I am. And when the newness of this queen and the reign has worn off, when all the pensions and the places have been snapped up and the privileges all dispensed, then, when he has the time, he will come home to me, and there I will be, in our lovely house, with his beautiful foals at foot by the mares in the field, and everything just as it should be.”

  Elizabeth’s flirtation by private letter with Philip of Spain went far enough to alarm William Cecil, went far enough to alarm Catherine Knollys. But Mary Sidney, in low-voiced consultation with her beloved brother Robert Dudley, was reassuring.

  “I am certain she is only securing him as an ally,” she said quietly. “And amusing herself, of course. She has to have constant admiration.”

  He nodded. They were riding together, ambling home from hunting on a long rein, both horses sweaty and blowing. Ahead, the queen was riding with Catherine Knollys on one side and a new, sweet-faced young man on the other. Robert Dudley had taken a good look at him and was not concerned. Elizabeth would never fall for a pretty face; she needed a man who would make her catch her breath.

  “As an ally against France?” he suggested.

  “It’s the pattern,” she said. “Philip stood with us against France when they took Calais; we stood with him when they threatened the Netherlands.”

  “Does she want him to stand her friend so that she can go against the Scottish regent?” he asked. “Does she like Cecil’s plan to support the Scottish Protestants? Does she say anything when she is quiet and alone with you women? Is she planning for war, as Cecil says she must?”

  Mary shook her head. “She is like a horse with flies. She cannot be at peace. Sometimes she seems to think that she should help them, she shares their faith, and of course the French are the greatest threat to our peace. But other times she is too afraid to make the first move against an anointed monarch. She worries what enemies she might unleash here. And she is in living terror of someone coming against her secretly, with a knife. She dare not do anything to increase the number of her enemies.”

  He frowned. “Cecil is very sure that France is our greatest danger and that we must fight them now, while the Scots themselves are turning against their masters. This is our moment while they are calling on us for help.”

  “Cecil would have her marry Arran,” Mary guessed. “Not Philip. Cecil hates the Spanish and Popery more than anyone, though he always speaks so calmly and so measured.”

  “Have you ever seen Arran?”

  “No, but Catherine Knollys speaks very highly of him. She says he is handsome and clever, and of course his claim to the throne of Scotland is second only to Mary, Queen of Scots. If the queen marries him and he defeats the regent and takes the throne, then their son would unite the kingdoms.”

  She saw Dudley’s face darken. “He is our greatest danger,” he said, and she knew he was not speaking of the danger to England but the danger to themselves.

  “She likes you better than any other man at court,” she said, smiling. “She is always saying how skilled you are and how handsome. She is always remarking on it, and even the youngest maids-in-waiting know that if they want to please her they only have to say how well you ride, or how well the horses are managed, or what wonderful taste you have in clothes. Laetitia Knollys is positively unmaidenly in the way she talks about you, and the queen laughs.”

  She had thought he would laugh, but his face was still sullen. “What good is that to me, since I have a wife?” he asked. “And besides, Elizabeth would not marry to disoblige the throne.”

  He shocked her into complete silence.

  “What?” she asked.

  He met her astounded gaze frankly. “Elizabeth would not marry against policy, whatever her desires,” he said flatly. “And I am not free.”

  “But of course not!” she stumbled. “Robert, brother, I knew you were her favorite—all the world can see that! We all tease the queen that she has eyes only for you. Half the men at court hate you for it. But I never dreamed that you thought of anything more.”

  He shrugged. “Of course I think of it,” he said simply. “But I cannot imagine how it might come to me. I am a married man and my wife is not strong; but she is not likely to die within the next twenty years, and I would not wish it on her. Elizabeth is a Tudor through and through. She will want to marry both for power and for desire, just as her sister did, just as her father always did. Arran would be a brilliant match for her; he could unite the Scots against the French and defeat them in Scotland, then he could marry her and make England and Scotland into one unbeatable kingdom. Then he would dismiss me.”

  Mary Sidney shot an anxious sideways glance at her brother. “But if it is best for England?” she suggested shyly. “Then we should side with Arran? Even if it might be against our own personal desires? If it is best for England?”

  “There is no England,” he said brutally. “Not as you mean. There is no entity that knows itself as England. There is just a neighborhood of great families: us, the Howards, the Parrs, the Cecils, up-and-coming, the Percys, the Nevilles, the Seymours, and the greatest bandit-tribe of them all: the Tudors. What is good for England is good for the greatest family of them all, and the greatest family of them all is the one that manages its own business the best. That is what our father knew; that is the plan he had for us. Now, the greatest family in the land is the Tudors, not so long ago it was us. It will be us again. You watch for the good of our family as I do, sister, and England will benefit.”

  “But however you plan for our family, you cannot hope to marry the queen,” she said, her voice very low. “You know you cannot. There is Amy… and the queen herself would not.”

  “There is no point in being the favorite unless you raise yourself to the first man in the land,” Robert said. “Whatever title you take.”

  Just as suddenly as she had arrived at the Woods’ house, in mid-March Amy told them that she must leave them.

  “I am so sorry you are going,” Mrs. Woods said warmly. “I had hoped you would be here in time to see the May in.”

  Amy was distracted by happiness. “I will come another year, if I can,” she said rapidly. “But Sir Robert has just sent for me to go to meet him at Camberwell. My mother’s cousins the Scotts have a house there. And of course, I have to go at once.”

  Mrs. Woo
ds gasped. “To Camberwell? Does he mean you to go to the City? Will he take you to court? Shall you see the queen?”

  “I don’t know,” Amy said, laughing with pleasure. “I think he may want to buy a London house for us, so that he can entertain his friends. His family had Syon House before; perhaps she will give him that again.”

  Mrs. Woods put her hands to her cheeks. “That enormous palace! Amy! How grand he is becoming. How grand you will be. You must not forget us. Write and tell me all about it when you go to court.”

  “I will! I will write and tell you all. Everything! What the queen is wearing, and who is with her, and everything.”

  “Perhaps she will take you as one of her ladies-in-waiting,” Mrs. Woods said, visions of Amy’s importance unfolding before her. “His sister is at court in her service, is she not?”

  At once Amy shook her head. “Oh no! I couldn’t do it. He would not ask it of me. He knows I cannot bear court life. But if we had Flitcham Hall for all the summer, I could live with him in London in the winter.”

  “I should think you could!” Mrs. Woods giggled. “But what about your gowns? Do you have everything you need? Can I lend you anything? I know I’m probably terribly out of fashion…”

  “I shall order everything new in London,” Amy declared with quiet joy. “My lord always liked me to spend a small fortune on clothes, when he was at the height of his glory. And if I see some stuff that would make you a riding cloak like mine, I shall be sure to send it to you.”

  “Oh, please do,” Mrs. Woods said, visions of her friendship with Amy introducing her to the glamorous circle of court. “And I shall send you the strawberries, as soon as they come out. I promise.”

  Mrs. Oddingsell put her head around the door; already she was wearing her traveling cloak with her hood up against the cold morning air. “My lady?” she asked. “The horses are waiting.”

  Mrs. Woods gave a little cry. “Such a hurry!”

  But Amy was halfway out of the door. “I cannot delay; my lord wants me. If I have forgotten anything I will send a man back to fetch it.”

  Mrs. Woods saw her out to the waiting horses. “And do come again,” she said. “Perhaps I may call on you in London. Perhaps I shall call on you in your new London house.”

  The waiting groom lifted Amy into the saddle and she gathered up the reins. She beamed down at Mrs. Woods. “Thank you,” she said. “I have had such a merry visit. And when my lord and I are settled in our new house you shall come and stay with me.”

  Cecil wrote Elizabeth one of his memoranda, in his own hand, for her eyes only.

  Whitehall Palace

  The twenty-fourth day of March.

  Reference your constant correspondence with Philip of Spain.

  1. Philip of Spain is a committed Catholic and will expect his wife to follow his religious practice. If he tells you any different he is lying.

  2. He may protect us from France in this present peril with Scotland, but he will also lead us into war with France on his terms and for his cause. I remind you that they would not have attacked Calais but for him. And he will not help us win it back.

  3. If you were to marry him we would lose the support of the Protestant English who hate him.

  4. And not gain the support of the Catholic English who hate him too.

  5. He cannot marry you since he was married to your half-sister, unless he has Papal dispensation.

  If you acknowledge the power of Pope to rule then you have to accept his ruling that your father and Katherine of Aragon were truly married, in which case your own mother was no more than the king’s mistress and you would be regarded as a bastard. And so, not the rightful heir to the throne. So why would he then marry you?

  6. Any child born to King Philip of Spain would be brought up as a Catholic.

  7. This would be your child. You would have put a Catholic prince on the throne of England.

  8. Clearly you will not marry him, so at some point you will have to jilt King Philip.

  9. If you leave it too long you will make the most powerful man in Europe look a great fool.

  10. That would not be a wise move.

  “I am so sorry,” Elizabeth said sweetly to Count Feria, the Spanish ambassador. “But it is impossible. I admire your master more than I can say.”

  Count Feria, after months of uneasy marriage negotiations with a woman he had always disliked and mistrusted, bowed low, and hoped to keep the conversation within the bounds of reason and in diplomatically acceptable language.

  “As he admires you, Your Grace,” he said. “He will be saddened by your decision, but he will always be your friend, and a friend to your country.”

  “I am a heretic, you see,” Elizabeth said hastily. “I absolutely deny the authority of the Pope. Everybody knows that I do. The king cannot possibly marry me. I would embarrass him.”

  “He will be your brother, then,” the count said. “Your loving brother, as he always has been.”

  “It would have been quite, quite impossible,” Elizabeth repeated, even more earnestly than before. “Please convey to him my sorrow and my regret.”

  The count, bowing low, was getting himself out of the presence chamber as speedily as he could, before this volatile young queen embarrassed them both. Already he could see tears gathering in her eyes, and her mouth was trembling.

  “I will write to him at once,” he said soothingly. “He will understand. He will understand completely.”

  “I am so sorry!” Elizabeth cried as the ambassador backed away swiftly the double doors. “Pray tell him that I am so filled with regret!”

  He raised his head from his bow. “Your Grace, think no more of it,” he said. “There was no offense given and no offense taken. It is a matter of regret for both parties, that is all. You remain the warmest friend and ally that Spain could desire.”

  “Allies always?” Elizabeth begged, her handkerchief to her eyes. “Can you promise me that, from your master? That we will be allies always?”

  “Always,” he said breathlessly.

  “And if I need his help I can count on him?” She was near to breaking down, as at last the doors opened behind him. “Whatever happens in the future?”

  “Always. I guarantee it for my master.” He bowed his way through to the safety of the gallery outside.

  As the doors closed on his hasty retreat, Elizabeth dropped the handkerchief and gave Cecil a triumphant wink.

  Elizabeth’s Privy Council was meeting in her presence chamber. The queen, who should have been sitting in state at the head of the table, was pacing between the windows like an imprisoned lioness. Cecil looked up from his neat pages of memoranda and hoped that it was not going to be an impossibly difficult meeting.

  “The treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis puts us in a far stronger position than ever before,” he began. “It ensures peace between Spain, France, and ourselves. We can count ourselves as safe from invasion for the time being.”

  There was a chorus of self-satisfied assent. The treaty which guaranteed peace between the three great countries had been a long time in negotiation but was a first triumph for Cecil’s diplomacy. At last England could be sure of peace.

  Cecil glanced nervously at his mistress, who was always irritable with the smug male style of the Privy Council. “This is almost entirely thanks to Her Grace’s skill with the Spanish,” he said quickly.

  Elizabeth paused in her tracks to listen.

  “She has kept them as our friends and allies for long enough to frighten France into agreement, and when she released Philip of Spain from his promises to her, she did it with such skill that Spain stays our friend.”

  Elizabeth, soothed by flattery, came to the head of the table and perched on the arm of her great wooden chair, head and shoulders above the rest of them. “That’s true. You may go on.”

  “The treaty, and the security it brings us, gives us the safety to make the reforms that we need,” he went on. “We can leave the question of Scotland for
the moment, since the treaty assures us that the French will not invade. And so we are free to turn to the urgent business of the country.”

  Elizabeth nodded, waiting.

  “The first should be to make Her Grace supreme governor of the church. As soon as we have got that passed, we will adjourn parliament.”

  Elizabeth sprang up and stalked to the window once more. “Is this our first business indeed?” she demanded.

  “Good idea,” said Norfolk, ignoring his niece, the queen. “Send them back to their fields before they start getting ideas in their thick heads. And get the church bolted down.”

  “All our troubles over,” said one idiot.

  It was the spark to the tinder of Elizabeth’s temper. “Over?” she spat, erupting from the window like an enraged kitten. “Over? With Calais still in French hands and small chance of buying it back? With Mary still quartering English arms on her shield? How are our troubles over? Am I Queen of France or am I not?”

  There was a stunned silence.

  “You are,” said Cecil quietly, when no one else dared to speak. In theory she was. The English monarchs had always called themselves King of France even when the English holdings in France had shrunk to the pale of Calais. Now it seemed that Elizabeth would continue the tradition even though Calais was gone.

  “Then where are my French forts, and my French territories? I will tell you. In the hands of an illegal force. Where are my guns and my walls and my fortifications? I will tell you. Pulled down or turned on England. And when my ambassador goes to dine at the French court, what does he see on the plates of the French princess?”

  They were all looking down at the table, willing the storm to pass them by.

  “My coat of arms!” Elizabeth shouted. “On French plate. Has that been resolved in this treaty which you are all so thrilled with? No! Has anyone even addressed it? No! And you think that the most important business of the kingdom is the leadership of the church. Not so! My lords! Not so! The most important business is to get me back my Calais, and get that woman to stop using my coat of arms on her damned plates!”