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I brought them all out, his gifts over the years, love-tokens all of them.
And, I thought, there will never be another.
How ironical was life! God had given me this magnificent victory and had taken away the one I loved—shall I say better than anything else. No, that would not be quite true. I loved my country more than anything else, more than my own life or that of Robert. And I had just been given the finest example of God's grace when my seamen with the help of His winds had scattered the mighty so-called invincible armada along the inhospitable coasts of Scotland and Ireland and driven off the Spanish menace forever. But at the same time He had dealt me this most cruel and tragic blow.
He had taken Robert from me.
Time passed, but I did not notice. There were knocks at my door, but I ignored them. I could not bear to look on anyone at this time.
I do not know how long I kept them out. I don't know whether I should have eventually let them in.
Burghley spoke to me from outside, begging me to open the door. But I just sat in stony silence. I cared for nothing. I could think of nothing but: Robert is dead.
Vaguely I heard Burghley's voice outside the door.
“Your Majesty, for God's sake open the door. Are you ill? We beg you to let us in.”
But still I sat there. I could only think of Robert, who had been so alive and now was dead.
There was a whispering outside my door. Then I heard the tremendous noise as the door burst open.
Burghley stood there. He hastened forward and seeing me cried: “Thank God. We feared for Your Majesty.” He was on his knees. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. We were very much afraid. Your Majesty, you must rouse yourself. England needs you.”
And as I looked at him—my dear tired old Spirit, who had been my good friend for so long—I knew that he was right.
I put out my hand. He took it and kissed it.
“You speak truth,” I said. “I must about my business.”
And then I began to live again.
THERE WERE RUMORS about his death. They aroused my anger to such an extent that my grief was somewhat assuaged. Could it be true? There had been so many suspicions concerning the ma
Could it really have been that Robert had been murdered?
I should not believe it. It was idle gossip. Heaven knew, I had suffered enough from that—and so had Robert. But rumor persisted.
His wife, that she-wolf, Lettice Knollys, had taken a lover, it was said— her husband's young Master of Horse, Christopher Blount.
How dared she! She who had the most wonderful man in the country so to demean herself…and him…by taking a lover! I never hated her so much as I did at that time, for although I had hated her for taking him from me, I hated her more for turning to someone else who must be inferior—for how could anyone equal him?
It was said that Robert had discovered the liaison and had intended to take revenge on her. But she had maneuvered that he should drink the poisoned cup which he had prepared for her.
It could not be true. No one would ever be able to do that to him. I would not believe that he had died through poison. The doctors said it was a fever and I knew he had caught that in the Essex salt marshes. He had said so himself before he went back to her.
Yet I wanted to believe it. I wanted to hate her more than I had ever done before.
One of his servants declared he had seen the Countess give the Earl a goblet, after drinking the contents of which, the Earl had collapsed.
I believed she was capable of that and if she had taken a young lover… Oh, I had warned him that he would one day come to feel her poisoned fangs.
But the autopsy revealed no poison in his body and she was exonerated; but I should never be sure for I knew that the clever Dr Julio, like many Italians, had poisons which killed and left no trace.
I hated her because he had loved her enough to brave my wrath and marry her; but I would certainly hate her more if it were proved that she had hastened his death and robbed me of the one person I loved more than I ever could anyone else.
When his will was read it did not seem that he was aware of her infidelity, for he left her well provided for and there was no hint that he had a rival for her affections.
How touched I was when I read what he had written:
“And first of all, before and above all persons, it is my duty to remember my most dear and gracious Sovereign, whose creature, under God, I have been, and who hath been a most bountiful and princely mistress…”
So he went on to praise me and to say that it had been his greatest joy in life to serve me. He prayed to God to make me the oldest prince that ever reigned over England. And he bequeathed to me a jewel with “three fair emeralds with a large table diamond in the middle and a rope of pearls to the number of six hundred.” These gifts were to have been mine when he entertained me at Wanstead…so he must have known that he was near death.
After that he went on to write of his wife:
“Next to Her Majesty, I will return to my dear wife, and set down for her that which ca
He could have known nothing of her infidelity—if infidelity there was—when he wrote that. He had left her Wanstead and Drayton Basset in Staffordshire and two manors—Balsall and Long Itchington in Warwickshire. I was glad Kenilworth did not go to her. Strangely enough he acknowledged paternity of Douglass Sheffield's son—that one who called himself Robert Dudley—and he had left him well provided for. Although Kenilworth had gone to Robert's brother, Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, on his death it was to go to Robert's base-born son.
I was sure Lettice was grinding her teeth about that. The biggest prize— splendid Kenilworth—was not for her.
I was glad. I could not have borne thinking of her there in that beautiful castle where I had spent such a memorable time with Robert.
So she was free now… free to marry her lover, which the brazen creature could not do immediately, but she did within a year of Leicester's death. She was bold, that one. I admired her in a way—but I hated her more than ever.
Robert proved to have been deeply in debt. His debts to the Crown alone were over twenty-five thousand pounds. He had spent extravagantly on gifts to me, and I was touched to discover that, apart from the upkeep of his magnificent houses, that was his main expenditure. The houses had of course cost him very dear; he had the richest curtains and tapestries I had seen outside royal palaces. In fact some of Leicester's rooms had been much grander than those of Greenwich or Hampton.
I had always rejoiced that he lived like a king even though I had denied him the satisfaction of being one.
Some of those houses had been passed on to Lettice Knollys. Well, she should pay his debts. I let it be known that I insisted that Lord Leicester's debts should be paid in full and the burden of those debts rested on the shoulders of that careful, loving and obedient wife.
She immediately declared that she had not the means to pay her late husband's debts to which I replied that she had valuable articles in those grand houses which were now hers and they could be sold… all those art treasures, all those fine carpets and hangings and four-poster beds. Their sale would meet the cost of Leicester's indebtedness.
How she must have raged! I imagined her at Wanstead among her newly acquired possessions. She had thought herself so clever to have married rich Leicester. Well, now she should discover that he owed his greatness to me, and if I said she should give up the articles she valued to pay what her husband owed, then she would do so.