Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I

ELEVEN

Year of Our Lord 1575

The Palace of Whitehall

Kenilworth Castle

The new year brought not Mary, Queen of Scots, in Her Majesty’s fine garments, but I. The queen’s miniaturist, Nicolas Hilliard, was painting a set of portrait panels for the queen. The queen sat to have her face painted but grew impatient after but a few hours.

“Helena,” she said, “you favor us in feature, in hair color, and in build. Will you sit in our stead while the body is being painted?”

I nodded, thrilled. “Gladly! I do favor you; we could be sisters.”

She indulged me with a slight smile and overlooked my impertinence. The queen took her leave, and some of the ladies brought Her Majesty’s fine gowns and jewels into my apartment, just down the hallway, and helped me to dress in her garments.

“Begone, evildoers!” I said in my most regal, imitative voice when they’d finished.

“As you wish, Majesty,” one of the maids jested, and pretended to kiss my ring. I waved them on and one of them let Mr. Hilliard into my chamber.

For the first portrait I was dressed in a rich black gown with the finest gold embroidery. It was laced with pearls and puffs of cream roses. About my neck I wore the queen’s jeweled flower choker, and pinned to my gown was a phoenix brooch. I thought about the phoenix as I sat. Only one phoenix lived at a time, and after its death, it mysteriously renewed itself from the ashes of destruction to bring forth new life. As such, it was a symbol of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also of our queen, who had arisen, magnificently, from the ashes of the destruction of her mother.

It put me in mind of an idea. “Master Hilliard,” I said, “may I have a word with you after you are finished?”

“Certainly, Marchioness,” he responded. “Please call me Nicolas.” And a few hours later, among the tang of linseed oil and the buttery smears of paint, he kept his word.

“I would like to commission you,” I said. “For two miniatures.”

He cocked his head. “Certainly, Lady Northampton. Of whom?”

“You must promise to keep this to yourself. I understand that might be difficult for an artist, who surely paints for the pleasure of others’ eyes. But I promise you that if you will keep this secret, it will be a commission that will be valued in a way none of your other works are.”

He smiled. “I love mystery. When shall my subject sit for me? I leave for France after I finish these panels for the queen, and may not be back for some years.”

“These subjects cannot sit for you,” I said. “I must find something for you to work with. I shall set about it immediately, and when I sit in Her Grace’s place for the portrait with the pelican device, I hope to have something for you.”

A few days later, I excused myself from service for the day and made my way to Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. After announcing my arrival, one of his men took me to his study.

He stood when I entered and bowed his head. “To what do I owe this pleasure, Marchioness?”

“May I sit, please?” I asked. I was not weary but he looked frail, and I knew he was ill but would not sit unless I did. He nodded toward a chair near the window and then drew one beside me.

Matthew Parker had been the queen’s first choice for Archbishop of Canterbury and had served her whole reign. Moreover, he was the man whom Queen Anne Boleyn had charged with the spiritual care of her daughter, Elizabeth, just before Anne’s execution.

“I wish to present something to the queen,” I said. “And I believe you are the only one who can help me.”

“Yes?” He nodded. “Continue.”

“I wish to commission miniature portraits of the queen and her mother. However, I am not aware of any portrait of Queen Anne from which this may be drawn.”

He agreed. “They were all . . . destroyed. Or hidden.”

“I know. I wondered, perhaps, among your papers, might there be a sketch of some sort?”

He regarded me at length, wondering, I supposed, if I were to be trusted. I now understood that everyone was steeped in skepticism in the English court; it was perhaps our fifth humor here, in addition to the black and yellow bile, phlegm, and blood of which all were made.

“One moment,” he said. He tottered out of the room, dignified but delicate, and returned nearly an hour later. He placed a palm-sized piece of paper in my hand. I looked at it and saw a raven-haired Elizabeth looking back at me.

“Queen Anne,” he said. “Queen Elizabeth favors her mother as well as her father, does she not?”

I looked at her eyes, jet-black and yet warmed with humor and wit, her oval face, her intelligence. I could clearly see my own mother in my mind’s eye, and wondered if the queen ever grieved that she had perhaps no vibrant memory of her mother. This thought encouraged me all the more on the path I’d set upon. “She does favor her, too,” I said. “May I keep this?”

He nodded. “You may.”

We made small talk for but a few minutes more and I could see he was tiring, so I thanked him again and rode, with my menservants, back to Whitehall. I was soon in contact with Robert Brandon, the queen’s jeweler.

In May, just weeks after I had visited him, Archbishop Parker passed away, having fulfilled his duty to both Queen Anne and to her daughter, Queen Elizabeth.

• • •

Having mourned Parker, the queen had her master of revels hold several lavish and merry entertainments in the sunny month of early summer. At open court, the dancing spilled out onto the finely cared-for garden grass, so many were in attendance. The musicians stationed themselves so the dancers both inside and out could participate. I felt a hand upon my back and turned.

Thomas Gorges.

“Would you honor me with a dance, Elin?” he asked.

I couldn’t speak for a moment I was so surprised and, I admit it, taken with the man. When I was able to again, I said, “I would be most pleased.”

We were, of course, among all the other dancers, changing partners and dancing in line, but I could see that his eyes never left me. Although I took care to speak with and look at others, were they given leave, my eyes would have settled upon him alone.

We sat down, at long last, at a banqueting table. “Du vack,” he said to me.

I cocked my head, wondering if I had somehow misheard him as the crowd was still loud. “I beg your pardon, Thomas?”

He sighed. “You are beautiful.”

I laughed. “Ah! Du är vacker!” Of a sudden, my eyes filled with tears. “It has been too long since I have heard Swedish. It is sweet to my ears.”

“It has been too long since I have heard your voice. It is sweet to my ears,” he said. “I was sorry to hear about the marquess.”

I nodded; he meant it, I could see. “He was a wonderful man,” I said. “He’s been gone a little more than three years.”

“I know,” he said. “An appropriate mourning period.”

We spent the evening talking, about his life, mostly outside of court, and mine, mostly within. He was a witty companion, and he asked after my thoughts twice as often as he shared his own. He was careful to make certain my wine was refreshed and that I had any of the sweetmeats that the queen’s men passed. He joked, he spoke lines, he laughed loudly and well. I felt strength emanate from him and he drew me. “Why,” I dared ask, “why have you not sought me out these many years if you had wished to hear my voice?”

He shrugged. “After you married Northampton, you became a marchioness. It seemed”—he recalled his turn as Endymion—“impossible to reach for the moon.”

I nodded. He spoke truth. This could not be easily overcome.

“The queen has only just recalled me to more active service. She has not yet knighted me,” he said. “But I have hope that as I grow in her favor and usefulness, she will.”

Soon it was time for me to return to the queen, and as we stood up and he walked partway with me, he stepped upon my gown’s long train, tripping me, and I fell headlong to the ground. I pulled him down with me and as we fell my hand was firmly, and indelicately, planted upon his thigh. Our faces were within an inch of each other; I could sense his desire to lean forward and kiss me, but he pulled away as others drew near.

“Oh, forgive me!” I said, mortified to have found myself in that position, with my hand thusly placed, and in public.

“No, it is completely my fault,” he said. Others politely looked away and I hurriedly bid him good night, told him I wished to see him forthwith, and went to inspect the damage to my train. Truly, though, I was horrified to have made such an undignified spectacle of myself and my position.

The next day the queen was guest of honor at a play given on her behalf, and afterward, there was a banquet, but with fewer attending. As she circulated we saw Thomas with a large ribbon wrapped around his right leg.

She made her way to him. I shan’t lie; I had some concern over what he might say and how she might respond. “Cousin Gorges,” she said. “What is that garment around your leg? And is that a medal tied to it? Are you a player again today?”

He drew near, grinning at me. “No, Majesty, I do not wear a costume. But last night I had the pleasure of a dance with the lovely marchioness. We were in the garden, and I stepped on her train, causing her to lose her balance. We tumbled and her hand fell upon my right leg. It was thus honored in a way I fear my left leg may never be, and it desired to boast its achievement to all. And—I know not if the good lady will forgive me for tripping her thusly.”

The queen broke out in cheer and laughter. “We are certain in her kindness she will forgive you.” At that she laughed again, put her hand fondly upon his face for a moment, and then her Robin came to lead her to dance, leaving Thomas and me alone.

“I did not discomfort you with my jest?” he asked, as if it mattered not.

I shook my head. “On the contrary, I am thrilled! No one has ever so boldly breached protocol for my favor. And you knew just what the queen would esteem, and,” I added, “it brought pleasure and joy to my life, which can, sometimes, be one of lonely privilege.”

“Have I won it, then?” he asked. “Your favor?”

“Yes.” I nodded, my face hot with pleasure, his eyes alight. “Yes, indeed. That was never in question.” We spent the evening talking. I recited some poetry to him that I had memorized the night before, to please him. We danced till nigh everyone else had left, and at the end of the evening I asked, “Will you be coming on Progress with us next month?”

“I cannot,” he said. “The queen called me to court to award me the dispensation of suits in the Court of Chancery,” he said, “and collect and keep the many fees therein. It shall greatly raise my estate, though I shall be busy in London and then in the countryside on sundry duties for Her Majesty. Perhaps until the new year.”

My heart dropped. “It’s well that she thinks so highly of you,” I said. “She will soon even better esteem you as you carry out these undertakings on her behalf.”

“Yes,” he said. “It will be to our advantage. If you’ll wait.”

In spite of the fact that she favored us both, I knew the queen would not be pleased when she found out the depth of Thomas’s feelings for me, and mine for him. Perhaps this would raise him to knighthood, which she awarded infrequently. “I shall wait,” I said.

Before we left on Progress, Her Majesty settled some new estates on me. She gave me all of the goods and chattel of William Barker, who had been attainted in the affair of Norfolk and Mary, Queen of Scots. I was named first of the ladies accompanying her on Progress, a great honor and a mark of her friendship and affection, which I greatly esteemed.

• • •

The Sunday before we set out on Progress the queen honored the two composers of her court, William Byrd and Thomas Tallis, by accepting their dedication to her of their Cantiones sacrae, though the Church of England no longer used Latin in their services. It was the composers’ understated way of asking if they would be permitted to quietly practice Catholicism, as they remained loyal to her. By her acceptance, she was showing that she allowed them the freedom of worship and continued to value their service to her. Court language was more often unspoken than said.

She was eager to set out. We were eager to set out. The gossip around court was that Lord Robert, having set aside Douglass Sheffield and claiming that he had not married her at all, was going to make one last, grand, romantic effort to win the forty-two-year-old queen’s hand, and it was a distinct possibility that she would say yes. Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, after all, had given birth to children into her forties.

When we arrived at Kenilworth Castle, the theme of the entertainments was immediately clear. The Arthurian Lady of the Lake greeted the queen, who arrived, of course, at the head of the four hundred courtiers and servants who came with us.

“This had been my lake and my abode, until your Royal arrival,” she said. “And now that you are here, you are mistress of all.”

“Thank you, good lady,” the queen responded. “But withal we had understood that this castle was ours before it was given to you, and mayhap return likewise.”

I hid a smile. Lord Robert had meant to make her mistress of all that was his, but she had gently rebuked him by reminding him from whom his largesse came. The queen gave, and the queen could just as easily take away.

Otherwise, she allowed herself to be refreshed in the mild countryside. Fireworks took place nearly every evening, and because the queen loved birdsong, Lord Robert had built a gilded aviary outside her apartment windows. Each morning when she awoke, she rose to the sweet song she loved, and she loved Lord Robert more for it. He joined her in her chamber each morning, and we left them by the window to talk.

“What else can I do to show my love to you, Elizabeth?” he asked. I knew of no other who called her by that name. “Shall I bring in other jugglers or finer jewelers? Gifted playwrights or poets who can better declare what is inside my heart than I can do with my ill-timed words and inadequate expressions?”

She shook her head and turned her back to us so we could not hear her response. But his face lit, and so he had hope, and so we who loved her did, too.

Lord Robert had players perform mystery plays of biblical miracles, hoping to show, perhaps, that nothing was impossible with God’s help, and he surely felt God meant for them to be together. He had players act out Arthurian legends as an homage to Elizabeth’s Tudor Welsh roots. He mostly had plays of romance and love performed, though, and very often, when it was a small group of us, he took the part of the lead so he could declare to her publicly what I knew he said in private. That softened her, and those same words softened me, too. Although I had been approached by other men of the court, some very highborn, I found them hidebound.

We stayed for nineteen days, and on the eighteenth, I dismissed her other women and said I would ready the queen for bed myself that evening. The married women welcomed a night with their husbands without duty and the others trusted me enough to know the queen’s mind that they did not question me. The queen herself, though, was surprised when she returned from her bath. She dismissed her lady maid, though. I had served her trustworthily for ten years.

“I shall help you this evening, Majesty,” I said, combing through her hair, which was still fiery, though beginning to be shot through with a few gray strands. I mixed up a small bowl of vinegar, honey, and fresh mill water, and then handed her a tooth cloth and golden pick so she could clean her teeth.

“Lord Robert has put on an amazing display for you, Majesty, these past weeks,” I began. “He loves you well.”

“And I, him,” she said. I realized that she was not speaking in the royal sense, but woman to woman, using I.

“In like manner?”

I held my breath, wondering if a rebuke would be forthcoming, but none was. Blanche had told me that Kat Ashley had often been able to speak freely with the queen, as she had been as a mother to her. I hoped that the queen would take my rare, forthright questions as those of a younger sister who both admired and loved her well.

“They’ve said Lord Robert is ill suited for me.”

“A finely bred falcon will not be best suited to a dove, madam, but rather to a high-flown hawk.”

“And Lord Robert is a high-flown hawk,” she responded.

I grinned. “Yes, madam. Or a peacock.”

The queen laughed aloud. “Women commend a modest man but like him not.”

“Though you are queen, you are a woman, too,” I said softly.

“Yes,” she agreed. And after a minute, “I have known the love of a man. I have held the hand and heart of a man, but I have not known the touch of a man. The flesh and heart want what the mind forbids. I decided at a young age that my head must be that which rules, not my heart, lest I lose both.”

I understood that.

“Do you not long for such a touch?” I dared ask.

“I have loved Lord Robert since I was a girl,” she said. “I am given to him in all manner but one. I had, and have, passion. But I put it under glass, Helena, lest it set my kingdom on fire.”

“Glass will snuff out a fire, Majesty,” I said, brushing her long hair.

“As Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians, ‘There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married cares for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.’ I am both virgin to the world and wife to my realm, and it is him whom I must first serve and please.”

I glanced at her coronation ring, which she never removed, and recalled reading a script of her speech in which she declared, “I have already joined myself in marriage to a husband, namely the kingdom of England.”

“Then what, my lady?” I asked.

“Within weeks of my marriage to Robin this kingdom would fracture into factions like a shattered platter, never to be whole again.”

My mind returned to the portrait Nicolas Hilliard had so recently painted, of the pelican that pricks its own breast to feed its children, sometimes mortally wounding itself in the process. “Does Lord Robert know?” I whispered, wishing I could somehow stanch that mortal bleeding for her.

She nodded, wiped her tears with the back of her hand, blotted out the deep misery etched upon her fair face. And then Elizabeth reverted back to queen. “We informed him tonight.”