Queen of This Realm - Plaidy Jean. Страница 109

There was a saintliness about Philip Sidney—in spite of the fact that he had written those love poems to Penelope Rich, another man's wife. She was the she-wolf's cub so perhaps she had some special powers, inherited from her mother, to turn men to her.

Philip Sidney had certainly been devoted to Penelope in spite of his having a good wife in Walsingham's girl, Frances.

The story was that parched with thirst he called for a drink and as he was about to take it he saw a dying man looking longingly at the water. He was reputed to have said: “Take it. Thy need is greater than mine.”

People who die young are always regarded as saints. Too good for this life! people say. So it was inevitable that they should have said that of Philip Sidney.

Robert had him taken to his barge and he was carried down the river to Arnheim. Frances Walsingham—who was such a good wife to Philip and did not deserve to endure the devotion he showed to Penelope Rich, spiritual though it was supposed to be—went out to nurse him, although she was pregnant.

But Philip Sidney died, in spite of all the care that was lavished on him.

I was sure Robert would be deeply grieved.

Everything had gone wrong for him since the day he had left with his magnificent equipage for the Netherlands.

He should never have gone. I should never have been inveigled into supporting the Dutch. I should have obeyed my own instincts which were for peace.

I hated war more than ever. My suspicions that there was no profit in it were confirmed. But Spain! It was always Spain. But what we were doing in the Netherlands would not deter Spain.

In the midst of all this that which came to be known as the Babington Plot emerged. And Mary Stuart became an even greater preoccupation than the Netherlands.

OFTEN WHEN I LOOK BACK OVER MY LIFE AGAIN AND AGAIN I acknowledge the debt I owe to my ministers. Mine seemed to have been a period which nurtured great men. I venture to think I may have influenced this in some way. Although they respected my intellect they could never forget that I was a woman and that very fact brought out in them a protective instinct. These men would have served a king well but with a difference. I was a woman and for that reason I had a little more power than a man would have had. They were always conscious of my femininity—my fierce loves and hates, a certain predictable unpredictability—which sounds a contradiction, but which is not really so. They knew how my temper would rise; they knew it could quickly subside; they knew that while I ranted and raged I never lost sight of what was best for Elizabeth—and that meant for England. They served me with an extra devotion. They were all, in a certain measure, in love with me, and I do not say that in any frivolous or coquettish way. It was not a sexual love—or perhaps I should say lustful. It was a deep abiding affection.

Even my pretty men—Hatton, Heneage, Robert—were statesmen; there were my adventurers like Drake and Raleigh, and they were not adventurers only. But perhaps the most important of all were my serious ministers, headed by Burghley and Walsingham. I believe my reign would have been different without those two. They enjoyed special privileges, both of them; I allowed them to criticize my actions for I knew that they could serve me best through complete frankness—and indeed neither Burghley nor Walsingham would have served me otherwise. They were both men of absolute honesty; and they helped me to shape my destiny.

Sir Francis Walsingham was a stern Protestant—a small man of slim figure who almost always dressed in plain black garments. He lived for his work, which was to protect me and England and to bring about peace and prosperity. No one loved his country more than Walsingham, and it was a passion he and I shared.

He was outspoken and would not alter his opinions because he thought they were unpopular. That was what I liked about him. Even at the height of our disagreements, when I would rage at him, he refused to change.

I could have sent him to the Tower, I could have threatened him with death and Walsingham would have said: “Your Majesty must do with me as you wish, but I know you are wrong in this.”

As if I would harm a hair of his dark head! I loved the man for his integrity, his obsession with his work, and his complete dedication to my safety. He was my beloved Moor and it was always with the utmost pleasure that I looked upon that dark-skinned face with the brilliant all-seeing dark eyes.

Walsingham had a special place among my advisers. For a number of years now he had been building up a very efficient spy organization. It was a task ideally suited to him for he was a man who liked to work in secret; and at the very heart of his plans was the necessity to keep me on the throne and safeguard the future of a Protestant England.

He had agents all over Europe as well as in our own taverns and such places in England; and he had a constant finger on the pulse of feeling everywhere. Nothing was too unimportant for his attention; and although he received the considerable sum of four thousand pounds a year, this was not enough for his needs and he used a great deal of his own fortune to augment the cost.

His great obsession was to prevent the return of Catholicism to England. He saw acute danger from two people: Philip of Spain and Mary of Scotland. His spy service was especially active in Spain. He had agents in Madrid, Corunna and San Lucar taking in Cadiz and Seville; and also in Lisbon. He was watching Philip's preparations in his shipyards and he reported that Spain was building an impressive armada. He had several agents in France—another country which had always to be watched. He also had them in Germany and the Low Countries. Consequently I always knew what was going on long before I received official news; I realized how important this was.

But I believed he considered Mary of Scotland, the rheumatic-racked prisoner in the drafty castles of England, a greater menace even than the great King brooding in his gloomy Escorial.

Once he said to me: “As long as that devilish woman lives, Your Majesty cannot feel safe in the possession of your crown, nor can your faithful servants be assured of their lives.”

I had chided him. He exaggerated, I said. I knew Mary had aspirations to a crown and that one possibly mine, but she was a wretched creature more often ill than in good health, and she was my prisoner.

He would not have it. He assured me that Philip was looking very seriously to Mary of Scotland as a figurehead for the Catholic army.

“Hasn't he always?” I asked.

“Not as seriously as of late. Conflict with Spain may come, Your Majesty. It is in Philip's mind. Why should he have his shipyards working at full speed? It is coming, and Mary of Scotland should not be here to make a rallying point for the Catholics in this country.”

What Walsingham wanted was Mary's death. He was not a bloodthirsty man. His desire was purely a matter of plain reasoning. She was a menace and some means should be found for disposing of her.

He was a little reproachful for he had given me good grounds—legitimate ones—for bringing her to the block. What other monarch would have allowed her to live after the Ridolfi Plot which had resulted in the execution of Norfolk? I had had adequate reasons for destroying her and yet I had let her go free. Why? demanded Walsingham.

Did he not know that I had an aversion to shedding blood? I know men had died in my reign and I had done nothing to stop the executions. I had allowed a good and honest man like John Stubbs to lose his right hand; Edmund Campion had been barbarously killed. Mary was different. Mary was a queen and a kinswoman. I had never set eyes on her and yet she had played a dominating part in my life. I would be haunted by remorse forever if I signed her death warrant. I knew she was a menace to me; I knew that she was trying to plot my death. Why then could I not agree to hers when those about me, who had my well-being so much at heart, were urging me that it was the only wise action to take—the only safe one?