Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

‘We are certain to lose if we leave it too late,’ Cecil said. ‘But I think we can possibly win if we send our army now.’

  ‘Perhaps in the spring,’ she temporised.

  ‘In the spring the French fleet will be moored in Leith dock and the French will have garrisoned every castle in Scotland against us. You might as well send them the keys now and be done with it.’

  ‘It is a risk, it is such a risk,’ Elizabeth said miserably, turning to the window, rubbing at her fingernails in her nervousness.

  ‘I know it. But you have to take it. You have to take the risk because the chance of winning now is greater than you will ever have later.’

  ‘We can send more money,’ she said miserably. ‘Gresham can borrow more money for us. But I dare not do more.’

  ‘Take advice,’ he urged her. ‘Let us see what the Privy Council has to say.’

  ‘I have no advisors,’ she said desolately.

  — Dudley again — Cecil thought. — She can barely live without him. — Aloud he said bracingly: ‘Your Grace, you have a whole council of advisors. We shall consult them tomorrow.’

  But the next day, before the meeting of the Privy Council, there came a visitor from Scotland. Lord Maitland of Lethington came in disguise, authorised by the other Scots lords secretly to offer the queen the crown of Scotland if she would only support them against the French.

  ‘So, they have despaired of Arran,’ Cecil said, his joy so great that he could almost taste it on his tongue. ‘They want you.’

  For a moment Elizabeth’s ready ambition leapt up. ‘Queen of France, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England,’ she breathed. ‘Lands from Aberdeen to Calais. I would be one of the greatest princes in Europe, one of the richest.’

  ‘This makes the future of the kingdom a certainty,’ Cecil promised her. ‘Think of what England could do if joined with Scotland! We would be safe at last, and safe forever from the danger of invasion from the north. We would break the risk of invasion from the French. We could use the strength and wealth of Scotland to go onward and forward. We would become a mighty power in Christendom. Who can tell what we might achieve? The crown of England and Scotland together would be a power in the world that would be recognised by everyone! We would be the first great Protestant kingdom that the world has ever known.’

  For a moment he thought he had managed to give her his own vision of the destiny she could claim.

  Then she turned her head away. ‘This is to entrap me,’ she complained. ‘When the French invade Scotland I would have to fight them. They would be on my land, I could not ignore it. This would force us to fight them.’

  ‘We will have to fight them anyway!’ Cecil exclaimed at the circularity of her thinking. ‘But this way, if we win, you are Queen of England and Scotland!’

  ‘But if we lose then I am beheaded as Queen of England and Scotland.’

  He had to control his impatience. ‘Your Grace, this is an extraordinary offer from the Scots lords. This is the end of years … no … of centuries of enmity. If we win, you have united the kingdom, as your father wanted, as your grandfather dreamed. You have the chance to be the greatest monarch England has ever known. You have the chance to make a united kingdom of these islands.’

  ‘Yes,’ Elizabeth said unhappily. ‘But what if we lose?’

  It was Christmas Eve, but the court was far from merry. Elizabeth sat very still in her chair at the head of the table, her Privy Councillors around her, her only movement the constant rubbing at the cuticles of her fingernails, buffing her nails with her fingertips.

  Cecil concluded his arguments in favour of war, certain that no-one of any sense could disagree with the relentless plod of his logic. There was a silence as his peers took in his long list.

  ‘But what if we lose?’ the queen said bleakly.

  ‘Exactly.’ Sir Nicholas Bacon agreed with her.

  Cecil saw she was in an agony of fear.

  ‘Spirit,’ she said, her voice very low. ‘God help me, but I cannot order a war on France. Not on our own doorstep. Not without certainty of winning. Not without –’ She broke off.

  — She means not without Dudley’s support — he thought. — Oh, merciful God, why did you give us a princess when we so desperately need a king? She cannot take a decision without the support of a man, and that man is a fool and a traitor. —

  The door opened and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton came in, bowed to the queen and laid a paper before Cecil. He glanced at it and then looked up at the queen and his fellow councillors. ‘The wind has changed,’ he said.

  For a moment Elizabeth did not understand what he meant.

  ‘The French fleet has sailed.’

  There was a sharply indrawn breath from every councillor. Elizabeth blanched a paler white. ‘They are coming?’ she whispered.

  ‘Forty ships,’ Cecil said.

  ‘We only have fourteen,’ Elizabeth said, and he could hardly make out the words, her lips were so stiff and cold she could hardly speak.

  ‘Let them set sail,’ Cecil whispered to her, as persuasive as a lover. ‘Let our ships get out of harbour where they can at least intercept the stragglers of the French fleet, perhaps engage them. For God’s sake, don’t keep them in port where the French can sail in and burn them as they go by!’

  The fear of losing her ships was greater than her fear of war. ‘Yes,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Yes, they should set sail. They must not be caught in port.’

  Cecil bowed swiftly, dashed off a note, and took it to the doorway for a waiting messenger. ‘I am obliged to you,’ he said. ‘And now we must declare war on the French.’

  Elizabeth, her lips nipped raw and her cuticles picked away, walked through the court on her way to take communion on Christmas Day like a haunted woman, a smile pinned on her face like a red frayed ribbon.

  In her chapel she looked across and found that Robert Dudley was looking at her. He gave her a little smile. ‘Courage!’ he whispered.

  She looked at him as if he was the only friend she had in the world. He half-rose from his seat, as if he would go to her, crossing the aisle of the church before the whole of the court. She shook her head and turned away so that she should not see the longing in his eyes, so that he should not see the hunger in hers.

  The Christmas Day feast was carried out with joyless competence. The choristers sang, the ranks of serving men presented course after course of elaborate and glorious dishes, Elizabeth pushed one plate after another aside. She was beyond eating, she was beyond even pretending to eat.

  After dinner, when the ladies were dancing in a masque specially prepared for the occasion, Cecil came and stood behind her chair. ‘What?’ she said ungraciously.

  ‘The Hapsburg ambassador tells me that he is planning to return to Vienna,’ Cecil said quietly. ‘He has given up hopes of the marriage between you and the archduke. He does not want to wait any more.’

  She was too exhausted to protest. ‘Oh. Shall we let him go?’ she asked dully.

  ‘You will not marry the archduke?’ Cecil said, it was hardly a question.

  ‘I would have married him if he had come,’ she said. ‘But I could not marry a man I had never seen, and Cecil, as God is my witness, I am pulled so low I cannot think of courtship now. It is too late to save me from war whether he stays or goes, and I never cared a groat for him anyway. I need a friend I can trust, not a suitor who has to have everything signed and sealed before he will come to me. He promised me nothing and he wanted every guarantee a husband could have.’

  Cecil did not correct her. He had seen her under house arrest, and in fear of her own death, and yet he thought he had never seen her so drained of joy as she was at this feast, only her second Christmas on the throne.

  ‘It’s too late,’ Elizabeth said sadly, as if she were already defeated. ‘The French have sailed. They must be off our coasts now. They were not enough afraid of the archduke, they knew they would defeat him as they defeated Arran. What good is he to me now the French ar