Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I

TWENTY-TWO

Spring: Year of Our Lord 1588

Richmond Palace

Langford House

Summer: Year of Our Lord 1588

Whitehall Palace

English Coast

I decided that I had to find out for myself if there was deceit afoot in my home or if I was, in my weariness, threading together unrelated incidents. Thomas had not yet returned from Hurst, but he would that evening; to that end, his secretary was already at Sheen.

“Could you please write a note for me?” I asked him.

“Certainly, Lady Northampton,” he said, wary. I had my own secretary, after all.

“Please just pen, ‘If you want to make plans together, privately, meet me tomorrow evening in the large closet off of the long galley,’ ” I said. “Half nine. And then sign it, ‘Gorges.’ ”

He cocked his head. “Not Northampton?”

“No,” I said brusquely. “I am a Gorges as well, am I not?”

He nodded. “Yes, of course.” He sealed the note and stamped it with Thomas’s seal, as that was all he had at hand.

“Please deliver this to my cousin Sofia,” I said. “But speak nothing else to her, on pain of termination.” I could tell that concerned him; I was easy mannered most of the time.

I checked on my children after they had dined; we had been so often at Richmond that they had thawed to me and clamored for my attention after dinner. It was all the sustenance I needed; besides, I was too worried to eat. Sofia had taken dinner in her chambers. Perhaps she’d sensed my mood, or perhaps she was planning for a rendezvous.

Thomas returned home the next day, weary. I did not meet him or speak to him, even after he sent for me. Once I had my servants ensure that he was abed for the night, well before eight, I took the slipper and Wyatt poem in hand and went to the closet, where I waited, alone, in the dark.

It had not escaped my attention that I was here in a closet confronting a woman, a relative, who desired to tryst with my man. The first time, with Karin and Philip, I had been but a girl who was willing to overlook the ill done her. This time, I was neither a girl nor willing to ignore or excuse treachery.

This time, I would fight.

At exactly half nine the door crept open. I could see her, because of the torches still lit in the hallway, but she could not see me.

“Thomas?” she called into the dark as she moved forward. She had dressed most becomingly, perhaps most unseemly for an unmarried woman, and had brushed her hair to a shine.

As she grew closer she saw that it was me, and not Thomas. She recoiled.

“You were mayhap expecting to see someone else?” I asked. I held up the slipper and the scrap of paper to her. I didn’t need to ask anything else; her face betrayed her.

“I meant no harm,” she said. “I was often alone. Thomas was often alone. We became . . . companions.”

“Companions!” I shouted, not caring who heard me, though the children’s chambers were on another floor, and this wing was far from them.

“I have no one,” she said. “You have left me bereft and alone.”

“You came here on my good graces, at my good pleasure, and my long hours of service have kept you these many years while you plotted against me: to take my home, my husband, and my children.”

“It’s not hard to rob the house that goes untended,” she retorted.

I held my hand at my side so I would not strike her. Was she void of remorse or conscience? It put me in mind of one of Master Lyly’s lines: all is fair in love and war. I would not give her the man she wanted, a nobleman, so she’d determined to take mine.

“I have made arrangements for you to travel to Wales,” I said. “Lord Pembroke is now governor of Wales, and they reside at Ludlow. Young Upjohn is nearby and is still willing to take you to wife, though I cannot understand why.”

“Wales?” she shrieked. “What is in Wales? Nothing. Barbarians!”

I lowered my voice. “The forebears of the Queen’s Majesty come from Wales. Is she, too, a barbarian?”

At that she shrunk. She knew I would not fear to tell Elizabeth of those sentiments.

“You could return to Sweden,” I said, “in shame. Your choice. You have until tomorrow morning to let me know which you choose. You have been an instrument of trouble in my home, and you are no longer welcome here.”

She dipped a saucy bow and left the room. I waited until she left and then I followed behind her and walked into Thomas’s chamber unannounced. I stood near his bed. “I should like to speak with you,” I said, waking him.

He rolled and turned toward me. “Now?”

I picked up a vase that was next to his bed stand and threw it at a wall that was not hung with tapestry. It shattered and water dripped down the wall, leaving the blooms askew on the floor. Truly alarmed, he got out of bed, put on some breeches, but remained bare-chested to delay, I gathered, our conversation no more.

“Have you bedded her?” I asked quietly.

He looked at me bewildered, but sleep-drunk no longer. “I do not know of whom you speak,” he said.

I reached over and took his quill and ink and threw them against a wall. “The pretty miss you recite such fine poetry to,” I said, shaking the scrap of poem at him. “Wyatt?”

He looked confused. “I recite poetry to no one,” he said, “but you.”

“Have you bedded her?” I asked him quietly. I held up the slipper. “I found this under your bed.”

He looked at me without flinching. “No. But she’s asked me to, more than once. She came to me at night and sat on the foot of my bed, whereby, I suppose, she left a slipper. I didn’t bed her. But I considered it.”

I went forward to strike him and he caught my wrist in his hand before I could. I stood there, trapped, and when he was sure I was not going to strike him he let go of my wrist and backed away.

“And what if I had bedded her, eh?” he asked. “Would that be something to run and tell Walsingham? Perhaps he could have me followed and flogged for it.”

I grew cold. “Walsingham . . .”

“Oh, yes,” Thomas said. “You went running to him with the recusant ring instead of asking me, your husband, what it was. He was so proud of you, of your loyalty.”

“Mayhap if you’d told me first, I would not have had to run to anyone!” I shouted. “Where’s the loyalty in that?”

“I trusted you to understand that I would always have your best interests in mind and there was no way I was going to risk you, or our children, until the plot had been defused!” He ran his hand through his hair. “All of this!” he continued. “The missions, the fortress, the envoys, the courts, the errands, the ultimate betrayal of my family and the risk of my life. All of it,” he said, “I do for you. So you would have pride in me, and be not ashamed that you had taken me, untitled, as a husband. And what is my thanks? Bearing tales to Walsingham.”

He sat down on the bed, silent. “All of this, Elin,” he finally said, “I’ve done for you. But you are never here. A man wants a wife who carries his name, who is home to greet him when he returns, who hunts with him and reads with him and plays chess with him. Who warms his bed. Is that so hard to understand?”

I crumpled onto the floor. “No,” I said. “In truth, it’s not.”

“You’re gone more often than not,” he said. “Sofia is here more often than gone.” He looked at me. “But I haven’t bedded her. I swear that to you. I haven’t bedded her.”

I put my head in my hands and began to cry. He came from the bed and sat with me there, on the floor. “Elin,” he said. “Elin. Do not mourn so.”

“How did it come to this?” I asked. “Not so long ago you and I held one another, defying the queen, promising to love one another and let nothing and no one come between us. And here we are, with nothing left to bind us together.”

He held my hand and clasped his finger over my wedding ring and then drew my hand to his lips. And then he put his lips on mine and kissed me softly. I kissed him back and before many more moments had passed he picked me up from the floor and helped me from my gown and moved me to the bed.

I spoke many languages at court, and Thomas did, too, but there was one language that he spoke only with me, and I with him. We used no words to reassure one another in that language that there were yet many unshakable bonds of love between us.

Afterward, I did not sleep, nor did he.

“Where did the Rosary ring come from?” I asked him, touching the wedding band of gold on his finger.

“My cousin,” he said, voice still sorrowing. “I had to win them to confidence, misleading them into believing that I was a Catholic so they would share the plans they had with me, plans not for good, but for evil, for overthrowing the queen and replacing her with Mary. I regret deceiving them, but there was no other way.”

“Is that why you hadn’t gone to church with me?”

He nodded. “I worshipped in private, though.”

I slid nearer to him. “You do not have to explain yourself to me. It was my error.”

“And perhaps mine,” he said. “I could have shared more, but, well, we were grown apart and you are always with the queen and—”

I put my finger to his lips. “I have told Sofia that she can choose between Wales and Sweden.”

“Will Upjohn have her?” he asked.

“I believe so. I’ve been honest with Mary about my concerns all along, and she told me that Upjohn was taken with Sofia, as he preferred a spirited woman.”

“I well understand that,” Thomas said.

I looked at him with surprise and hurt.

“Nay, nay, love, not Sofia, never.” He kissed me. “A spirited woman.”

I sighed and settled back. “And yet, even with her gone, that shan’t solve our problems,” I said.

“There is no solution.” He looked away.

I lay my head on his chest. This was my moment, perhaps my last chance, to show my husband what he meant to me. I had made many missteps along the way, but I would not make one now.

“I shall leave Her Majesty’s service,” I said. “Not altogether. I shall be present from time to time, but in the main, I shall be with you and the children.”

He sat up, dislodging me. “What?”

I sat up and drew the coverlet about me. “I shall leave her active, constant service.” Lady Knollys, after all, had worked herself to death in service of the queen, to the detriment of her husband and children.

Thomas had remembered that, too. He shook his head. “It cannot be done. If she would not allow Lady Knollys to leave her service for but even a short time, nor Lady Cobham, she will certainly not allow you to leave. She depends upon you. She loves you. She craves your comfort and companionship.”

“So do you,” I whispered as I took his head in my hands.

He pulled me to him so I would not see the tears that I felt instead. “I do. But she will not abide it. She will disallow it.”

“She can hardly throw me in the Tower,” I said, trying to jest though I did not feel like it.

“No, she can do worse,” he replied. “She can strip us of our lands, our titles, our commissions, our rents, our offices, our grants, our gifts, and everything we need to raise our children, educate them, and marry them well. We could be left with no preferment at all. Look at poor Davison. He sits, still in the Tower a year later, for lawfully carrying out her order.”

“I am willing to risk that if you are,” I said.

He drew my ear near and whispered in it. “ ‘Tangled I was in love’s snare, oppressed with pain, torment with care, of grief right sure, of joy full bare, clean in despair by cruelty—But ha! ha! ha! full well is me, for I am now at liberty.’ ” He looked me in the eye. “That’s Thomas Wyatt. And it be only for my wife.” He pulled me toward him and we made love again while the sun rose.

As I got dressed, he asked, “When shall you tell her?”

“After the war with Spain is over,” I said. “If you agree.”

He nodded. Neither of us wished to abandon her at the most difficult hour in her rule.

• • •

I called Sofia to me later that day.

She spoke but one word. “Wales.”

“Prepare your belongings,” I said. “I shall take you to Salisbury and you shall be met there by some of the Pembrokes’ menservants, who will take you to Upjohn. I shall give you a lady maid as your wedding gift.”

At that, she softened, perhaps expecting nothing at all. I did not wish to ruin her life. I merely wished for her to not ruin mine.

I sent word to the queen that I would not be at court that day but requested an audience with her that evening, and word came back that the queen had agreed.

My husband and I spent the day bow hunting, he behind me, his arms around me, and I cared not at all if I killed a stag because I had recaptured the only thing that mattered. It put me in mind of a saying: a bow long bent at last waxeth weak. My marriage was bent to the point of breaking, and I must repair it.

We spent the late afternoon in one another’s arms, again, in my chamber, because on the morrow I would leave for Salisbury and he for Dover as the country prepared for war.

“If something should happen . . .” I began. In truth, I knew not which something I meant: war, the queen, an untimely death.

“If something should happen, Elin, we are already whole,” he said, kissing me into silence.

“Hans mun är idel sötma, hela hans väsende är ljuvlighet. Sådan är min vän, ja, sådan är min älskade.”

“It has been long since you have spoken Swedish to me. What say you?”

“From the Song of Solomon,” I said. “ ‘His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend.’ ”

• • •

“Come, Helena.” The queen beckoned me forward. “You seem weary.”

I looked at her pointedly; it was not that she did not care for her ladies; we all knew that she well loved us. But it was true that I was not accustomed to her asking after my well-being. I wondered if her instincts, sharp as a broken shell, had picked up on the shift in my mood.

“I should like a few days’ leave, Majesty,” I said. “I wish to travel to Salisbury.”

“Salisbury?” she asked, surprised. “Yes, of course, but whatever for?”

“My cousin Sofia is to be married to a young Welsh squire. We’re to meet some from the Pembrokes’ household at Wilton and she will travel with them to Wales.”

The queen softened and sat back in her large chair. “A marriage? Are there congratulations to be offered? It seems hastily arranged.”

“My cousin was corresponding with my husband,” I said bluntly.

The queen leaned forward again, shocked. “Surely not Sir Thomas! He did not involve himself in an unchivalrous manner?”

“Nay, Majesty, despite her vigorous efforts otherwise.”

She eased again. “Well then, a young and lovely cousin who favors you and desires the man you’ve chosen for your own. What shall we do? Have her thrown into the Tower?”

I smiled, appreciating that these many years after her Robin had married Lettice she was able to jest about it, though the “she-wolf” had never been forgiven. I now understood her torment in a most personal manner.

“Do not tempt me, my lady!” I teased back. “I shall return in but a few days.”

“See that you do, my good lady marquess,” the queen said wistfully. “I shall miss your companionship while you are gone. I cannot do without you.”

And yet, she must do without me. My heart and mind filled with foreboding, and while my back was firm, my knees were not.

I left Sofia at Wilton, in good hands, and then rode out to Langford with some of my household’s men and six craftsmen I had hired in London.

We came upon the ruins, and I indicated that I wanted them to begin to make some part of the house habitable.

“A kitchen, of course, and the privies. The hall and some chambers, and the library.” I had counted the cost before leaving London, using some of the money we’d earned on Drake’s last journey as well as many of my own rents I had been saving. I had not told Thomas. It was to be a gift for him after the war. Our living area would not be grand; it would be small, a yolk of life surrounded by ruins, but it would be ours. I took one of the stones with me; they were unique, pinkish brown.

I made my way back to London before the fleet sailed, and sent the rock to Thomas. He would know it had come from Langford, and though he did not know what I was about, he would understand that I was sending him a bit of our home.

He had a messenger deliver a gift to me, a gold salamander brooch with a ruby eye. The queen spied me wearing it and smiled. Salamanders were the gift of lovers, designed for heat.

But lovers come in tamer varieties, too, and that spring and summer the queen dined often, and alone, with Lord Robert. There was nothing improper between them, of this I was sure, as I was still on constant attendance. But when the heat between them had withdrawn, it left a warm field of affection and companionship. Lettice Knollys was never at court, but rumor had it that she was sharp with Lord Robert. I knew not if that were true, but I heard its opposite, merriment and pleasure from the queen’s dining chamber and I saw Lord Robert and her, many a night, heads down over a chess game.

Watching them together, wondering what might have been had they married, put me in mind of a chess move—the willful sacrifice of a queen made to strengthen the realm’s overall position. Each day she paced her chambers waiting for word from her men on the coasts. When the missives arrived, she read them, quickly, and fired back instructions.

Lord Howard of Effingham had letters sent to the coastal towns, instructing them to arm themselves and prepare for battle. Walsingham had certain information that the Spanish were preparing to attack within months. They had 138 ships prepared, many more than the 61 that the queen had in her fleet. But their ships were bloated, oceangoing vessels, heavy and self-important like the Spanish king, whereas the English fleet was made up of galleons that were made for piracy: sleek and sharp and able to quickly respond and redirect when necessary, like our queen. More important, they carried two thousand cannons, more than twice the number that the Spanish carried, a gift that her father, King Henry, fascinated by artillery, had bequeathed to his daughter. I couldn’t help but think he would be proud to see her, in her red-haired glory, facing the Spanish head-on.

Too, there was a certain wry satisfaction in the fact that many of the newer cannons had been made by melting down bells from confiscated Catholic church property. The pope, the queen’s declared enemy, had financed some of her firepower.

The last day of May, her lord admiral set out with his fleet for Spain but was driven back by strong winds. “We have danced as lustily as the most gallant dancers in court,” Howard wrote to Walsingham, who conveyed it to the queen. Walsingham set down the letter. “But he is eager to get back to sea as soon as possible.”

“Tell him to wait,” the queen said, pacing in her Presence Chamber.

“Wait, Majesty?” Walsingham looked worried. “Why?”

“We have . . . a premonition,” she said. “We have a deep concern that the Spanish shall outmaneuver him and make for our shores.”

Walsingham did as he was told and sent the letter, but Lord Howard wrote back immediately and said, “I must and will obey; and am glad there be such at court as are able to judge what is fitter for us to do than we here; but by my instructions which I had, I did think it otherwise.”

The queen, able to discern and follow sound counsel, backed off and told her lord admiral that he should do as he saw best.

By the middle of July the Spanish had made it to the English coastal waters. Due to strong winds and the hand of God, most said, the English fleet was able to slip past and surround them, the winds at their back.

Thomas and Essex were in Dover and rode hard back to court to apprise the queen. Things were at a tense but anticipatory standoff.

“Our men danced on the shore as the Spanish came into sight,” Thomas said.

“And Drake finished his game of bowls before boarding his ship,” Essex finished with not a little admiration. But board Drake did, and at the beating of his drum, his crew and the others mustered for battle.

Lord Robert begged the queen to come to inspect her troops at Tilbury. “You shall, dear lady, behold as goodly, as loyal, and as able men as any Christian prince can show you.”

Walsingham disagreed and begged the queen not to go, fearful for her safety. Those of us who knew her well could see that the idea of riding out to war with Lord Robert was something she was unlikely to pass by.

Her Robin promised that he would guarantee her person to be as safe as it would be at St. James’s Palace, and staked his life upon it.

“We agree!” she said. Before she left, she wrote to Lord Howard and asked how things progressed.

“Their force is wonderful great and strong,” he replied, “and yet we pluck their feathers little by little.”

Thomas, who had ridden nearly the entire shoreline to prepare the towns for battle, reported that bonfires had been lit all along the coast to spread news of the armada’s sighting.

“It’s the English way,” he said. Seventeen thousand men had been readied in the southeast. I imagined that the Spanish, approaching the realm and seeing those bonfires, may have thought that they had misjudged the strength or determination of the little isle.

I helped the queen pack her trunks before she left, in August, to Tilbury. Although she was fifty-four years old, she wore a silver breastplate over her white velvet dress, and held a truncheon in her hand.

“A truncheon instead of a scepter, Majesty?” I asked.

“Each in its own time is required for rule,” she answered. She rehearsed her speech in front of us ladies.

“My loving people,” she began. “We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourself to armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects, and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all, to lay down my life for my God and for my kingdom and for my people, my honor, and my blood, even in the dust.”

I wanted nothing more than to mount a horse and ride alongside her.

Lord Howard ordered some of his ship’s hulks to be laden with pitch and gunpowder, then set afire and sailed into the Spanish fleet anchoring at Calais. The fleet, once ablaze, became disoriented and panicked. The Spanish then headed north, taking a more dangerous and roundabout way home. In the end, only half of the armada made it safely back to Spain. The great crusade to which the pope and several Catholic nations had contributed ended in humiliation at the hand of a brave queen and her Catholic admiral.

The war was won, and England rejoiced, but the queen’s Robin was unwell. I saw him as they returned to court; he was said to have been ill since the eve they dined together in his tent after the queen’s speech at Tilbury.

She worried on his behalf. When they returned to Whitehall, I thought he looked ill unto death. Selfishly, I wondered, should he die, could I find the courage to leave her, too?