Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  It was as Cecil had expected. She had a mortal terror of making a mistake. It was as if she had lived on the brink of disaster for so long that she could bear to step neither forward nor back. And she was right to be cautious. Every decision in England had a hundred opponents, every change had a thousand. Anything that threatened a man’s individual prosperity made an enemy of him, anything that was to his benefit made him a grasping, unreliable ally. She was a queen new-come to her throne and the crown was dangerously unsteady on her head. She did not dare consider anything that might undermine the power of queens.

  Cecil made sure that no sign of these thoughts showed on his face. It was his deep-rooted belief that the intelligence of a woman, even one as formidably educated as this, could not carry the burden of too much information, and the temperament of a woman, especially this one, was not strong enough to take decisions.

  ‘I could never support a rebellion against a ruling queen,’ she specified.

  Tactfully Cecil avoided mentioning the years when Elizabeth had been the focus and sometimes instigator of a dozen plots against her pure-blood, anointed half-sister.

  ‘It is all very well you wanting us to support the Scots Protestants against the regent, Queen Mary of Guise, but I cannot support any rebels against a ruling king or queen. I cannot meddle in another’s kingdom.’

  ‘Indeed, but the French princess will meddle in yours,’ he warned her. ‘Already she has the arms of England quartered on her shield, she considers herself the true heir to England, and half of England and most of Christendom would say she has the right. If her father-in-law, the French king, decides to support her claim to your throne, the French could invade England tomorrow, and what more useful stepping stone than Scotland and the north? Her mother, a Frenchwoman, holds Scotland for them as regent, already the French soldiers are massing on your northern border; what are they doing there, if not waiting to invade? This is a battle that must come. Better that we fight the French army in Scotland, with the Protestant Scots on our side, than we wait for them to come marching down the Great North Road when we do not know who might rise up for us and who might rise up for them.’

  Elizabeth paused; the appearance of the English leopards on the shield of the daughter of Mary of Guise was an offence which went straight to her jealously possessive heart. ‘She dare not try to claim my throne. No-one would rise up for her in preference to me,’ she said boldly. ‘No-one would want another Catholic Mary on the throne.’

  ‘Hundreds would,’ Cecil said dampeningly. ‘Thousands.’

  That checked her, as he had known it would. He could see that she lost a little colour.

  ‘The people love me,’ she asserted.

  ‘Not all of them.’

  She laughed but there was no real merriment in her voice. ‘Are you saying I have more friends in Scotland than in the north of England?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Philip of Spain would stand my ally if there was an invasion,’ she declared.

  ‘Yes, as long as he thinks that you will be his wife. But can you keep him thinking that for much longer? You cannot really mean to have him?’

  Elizabeth giggled like a girl and, unaware of betraying herself, glanced across the room towards Robert Dudley, seated between two other handsome young men. Effortlessly, he outshone them. He tipped back his head to laugh and snapped his fingers for more wine. A servant, studiously ignoring other thirsty diners, leapt to do his bidding.

  ‘I might marry Philip,’ she said. ‘Or I might keep him waiting.’

  ‘The important thing,’ Cecil said gently, ‘is to choose a husband and get us an heir. That is the way to make the country safe against the Princess Mary. If you have a strong husband at your side and a son in the cradle, no-one would want another queen. People would even overlook religion for a safe succession.’

  ‘I have been offered no-one I could be sure to like as a husband,’ she said, warming to her favourite, most irritating theme. ‘And I am happy in my single state.’

  ‘You are the queen,’ Cecil said flatly. ‘And queens cannot choose the single state.’

  Robert raised his goblet in a toast to the health of one of Elizabeth’s ladies, his most recent mistress, her friend nudged her and she simpered across the room to him. Elizabeth apparently saw nothing, Cecil knew that she had missed none of it.

  ‘And Scotland?’ he prompted.

  ‘It is a very great risk. All very well to say that the Scottish Lords Protestant might rise up against Mary of Guise, but what if they do not? Or if they do, and are defeated? Where are we then, but defeated in a war of our own making? And meddling in the affairs of an anointed queen. What is that to do, but to go against God’s will? And to invite a French invasion.’

  ‘Either in Scotland or in England we will have to face the French,’ Cecil predicted. ‘Either with the Spanish on our side or without them. What I am advising, Your Grace – nay, what I am begging you to understand – is that we will have to face the French and we should do it at a time and a place of our choosing, and with allies. If we fight now, we have the Spanish as our friends. If you leave it too long, you will have to fight alone. And then you will certainly lose.’

  ‘It will anger the Catholics in England if we are seen to join the Protestant cause against a rightful Catholic queen,’ she pointed out.

  ‘You were known as the Protestant princess, it will come as little surprise to them, it makes it no worse for us. And many of them, even stout Catholics, would be glad to see the French soundly beaten. Many of them are Englishmen before they are Catholics.’

  Elizabeth shifted irritably on her throne. ‘I don’t want to be known as the Protestant queen,’ she said crossly. ‘Have we not had enough inquiry into men’s faiths that we have to chase after their souls once more? Can’t people just worship in the way that they wish, and leave others to their devotions? Do I have to endure the constant inquiry from the bishops to the Commons as to what I think, as to what the people should think? Can’t it be enough for them that we have restored the church to what it was in my father’s time but without his punishments?’

  ‘No,’ he said frankly. ‘Your Grace,’ he added when she shot him a hard look. ‘You will be forced again and again to take a side. The church needs leadership, you must command it or leave it to the Pope. Which is it to be?’

  He saw her gaze wander, she was looking past him to Robert Dudley who had risen from his place at table and was strolling across the room to where the ladies in waiting were seated on their table. As he approached they all turned towards him, without seeming to move; their heads all swivelled like flowers seeking the sun, his current favourite blushing in anticipation.

  ‘I shall think about it,’ she said abruptly. She crooked her finger to Robert Dudley and smoothly, he altered his course and came to the dais and bowed. ‘Your Grace,’ he said pleasantly.

  ‘I should like to dance.’

  ‘Would you do me the honour? I have been longing to ask you, but did not dare to interrupt your talk, you seemed so grave.’

  ‘Not only grave but urgent,’ Cecil reminded her grimly.

  She nodded, but he saw he had lost her attention. She rose from her seat, her eyes only for Robert. Cecil stepped to one side and she went past him to the centre of the floor. Robert bowed to her, as graceful as an Italian, and took her hand. A faint hint of colour came into Elizabeth’s cheek at his touch. She turned her head away from him.

  Cecil watched the set of dancers form behind the couple, Catherine and Francis Knollys behind them, Robert’s sister, Lady Mary Sidney, and her partner, other ladies and gentlemen of the court behind them, but no pair even half as handsome as the queen and her favourite. Cecil could not help but smile on the two of them, a radiant pair of well-matched beauties. Elizabeth caught his indulgent look and gave him a cheeky grin. Cecil bowed his head. After all, she was a young woman, not only a queen, and it was good for England to have a merry court.

  Later that