Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  Cecil managed to catch Elizabeth before the great banquet at the Duke of Arundel’s magnificent palace, the Nonsuch, and delay her a moment in her privy chamber.

  ‘Your Grace, I have to speak with you.’

  ‘Spirit, I cannot. The duke has prepared a banquet for an emperor, he has done everything but roll the meat in gold leaf. I cannot insult him by being late.’

  ‘Your Grace, I am duty-bound to warn you. The Pope has increased his threat against you, and there is much gossip against you in the country.’

  She hesitated and frowned. ‘What gossip?’

  ‘They say that you are favouring Sir Robert over and above any other man.’ — Mealy-mouthed — Cecil scolded himself. — But how can I tell her to her face that they are calling her Dudley’s whore? —

  ‘And so I should,’ she replied, smiling. ‘He is the finest man at my court.’

  Cecil found the courage to be clearer. ‘Your Grace, it is worse than that. There are rumours that you and he have a dishonourable relationship.’

  Elizabeth flushed red. ‘Who says this?’

  — Every alehouse in England. — ‘It is widely said, Your Grace.’

  ‘Do we not have laws to prevent me being slandered? Do we not have blacksmiths to cut their tongues?’

  Cecil blinked at her fierceness. ‘Your Grace, we can make arrests, but if something is widely spoken and widely believed we are at a loss. The people love you but …’

  ‘Enough,’ she said flatly. ‘I have done nothing dishonourable, and neither has Sir Robert. I will not be traduced in my own hearing. You must punish the gossips that you catch and it will die down. If it does not I shall blame you, Cecil. No-one else.’

  She turned but he detained her. ‘Your Grace!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It is not just a matter of the common people gossiping about their betters. There are men in the court who say that Dudley should be dead before he brings you down.’

  Now he had her full attention. ‘He is threatened?’

  ‘You are both endangered by this folly. Your reputation has suffered and there are many who say that it is their patriotic duty to kill him before you are dishonoured.’

  She blanched white. ‘No-one must touch him, Cecil.’

  ‘The remedy is easy. His safety is easy. Marry. Marry either the archduke or Arran and the gossip is silenced and the threat is gone.’

  Elizabeth nodded, her hunted, fearful look on her face again. ‘I will marry one of them, you can count on it. Tell people that I will marry one or the other, this autumn. It is a certainty. I know that I have to.’

  ‘Caspar von Breuner will be at dinner. Shall he be seated beside you? We have to recruit his support for our struggle with Scotland.’

  ‘Of course!’ she said impatiently. ‘Who did you think would sit next to me? Sir Robert? I have given everyone to understand that I am reconsidering marriage with the archduke, I have shown his ambassador every attention.’

  ‘It would be better for us all if anyone could believe you this time,’ Cecil said frankly. ‘The ambassador has hopes, you have seen to that; but I do not see you drawing up a marriage treaty.’

  ‘Cecil, it is August, I am on progress, this is not a time to draw up treaties.’

  ‘Princess, you are in danger. Danger does not stop because someone has cooked you a banquet and the hunting is good and the weather is perfect. The Earl of Arran should be in England any day now, tell me that I can bring him to you the moment that he arrives.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You can do that.’

  ‘And tell me that I can draw funds for him and start to muster an army to go north with him.’

  ‘Not an army,’ she said at once. ‘Not till we know that he has the stomach to command one. Not till we know from him what his plans are. For all you know, Cecil, he could have a wife tucked away somewhere already.’

  — That would hardly prevent you, judging from your present behaviour with a married man — Cecil thought, ill-tempered. Aloud, he merely said: ‘Your Grace, he cannot be victorious without our support, and he has the greatest claim to the Scottish throne. If he will lead our army to victory, and you will take him as your husband, then we have made England safe against the French not just for now, but forever. If you will do that for England, you will be the greatest prince that the country has ever had on the throne, greater than your father. Make England safe from France and you will be remembered forever. Everything else will be forgotten, you will be England’s saviour.’

  ‘I will see him,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Trust me, Cecil, I put my country before anything. I will see him and I will decide what I should do.’

  The candles and crucifix were brought out of storage, polished, and displayed on the altar of the Royal Chapel at Hampton Court. The court had returned from its summer progress in spiritual mood. Elizabeth, going to Mass, had taken to curtseying to the altar and crossing herself on arrival and departure. There was holy water in the stoop and Catherine Knollys ostentatiously walked out of the court every morning to ride to London to pray with a reformed congregation.

  ‘What is all this now?’ Sir Francis Bacon asked the queen as they paused at the open doorway of the chapel and saw the choristers polishing the altar rail.

  ‘This is a sop,’ she said disdainfully. ‘For those who wish to see a conversion.’

  ‘And who are they?’ he asked curiously.

  ‘For the Pope who would see me dead,’ she said irritably. ‘For the Spanish whom I must keep as my friends, for the archduke to give him hope, for the English Papists to give them pause. For you, and all your fellow Lutherans, to give you doubt.’

  ‘And what is the truth of it?’ he asked smiling.

  She shrugged her shoulder pettishly and walked on past the door. ‘The truth is the last thing that matters,’ she said. ‘And you can believe one thing of the truth and me: I keep it well hidden, inside my heart.’

  William Hyde had a letter from Robert’s steward, Thomas Blount, requesting him to be ready for Robert’s men who would come within three days to escort Amy and Mrs Oddingsell to the Forsters at Cumnor Place for a brief visit, and then on to Chislehurst. A scrawled note inside from his lordship told William the latest news from court, of the gifts that Robert had received from the queen, now returned to Hampton Court, and indicated that William would shortly be appointed to a profitable post in one of the Oxford colleges, by way of thanks for his kindness to Lady Dudley, and to maintain his friendship for the future.

  He went to Amy with the letter in his hand. ‘It seems that you are to leave us.’

  ‘So soon?’ she said. ‘Did he say nothing about a house here?’

  ‘The queen has given him a great place in Kent,’ he said. ‘He writes to tell me. Knole Place, do you know it?’

  She shook her head. ‘So does he not want me to look for a house for him now? Are we not to live in Oxfordshire? Shall we live in Kent?’

  ‘He does not say,’ he said gently, thinking that it was a shame that she should have to ask a friend where her home would be. Her very public quarrel with her husband had obviously wounded her deeply, he had watched her shrink inside herself as if shamed. In recent weeks she had become very devout and it was William Hyde’s view that churchgoing was a comfort to women, especially when they were in the grip of unhappy circumstances over which they had no control. A good priest like Father Wilson could be counted on to preach resignation; and William Hyde believed, as did other men of his age, that resignation was a great virtue in a wife. He saw her hand go to her breast.

  ‘Are you in pain, Lady Dudley?’ he asked. ‘I often see you put your hand to your heart. Should you see a physician before you go?’

  ‘No,’ she said with a swift, sad smile. ‘It is nothing. When does my lord say I am to leave?’

  ‘Within three days,’ he said. ‘You are to go first to Cumnor Place to visit the Forsters, and then to your friend Mr Hayes at Chislehurst. We shall be sorry to lose you. But I hope you