Characters Mentioned
* historically identified person
*Carleill, Christopher – 33, step-son of Francis Walsingham
*Cecil, William, Baron Burghley – 53, principal advisor of Queen Elizabeth
*Drake, Sir Francis – 43, sea captain, explorer, and privateer
*Gilbert, Humphrey – colonizer who died at sea, 44 at time of death. Walter Raleigh’s half- brother
*Francis, Duke of Anjou – 28, heir to the French throne
Holbein, Hans – (1497-1543), painter of a mural created in 1537 depicting Henry VII and his son Henry VIII and their respective wives
*Howard, Thomas – Duke of Norfolk, 34 at time of execution, 1572
*Mendoza, Bernardino de –43, Spanish ambassador sent to London in 1578
*Philip II, King of Spain – 56, Queen Elizabeth’s fiercest European enemy
*Somerville, John – would be assassin of Queen Elizabeth, hanged himself in prison in 1583 at the age of 23
*Stuart, Mary – 41, former queen of Scotland, cousin of Queen Elizabeth
*Throckmorton, Francis – 29, English conspirator to overthrow Queen Elizabeth
*Walsingham, Francis – 52, Queen Elizabeth’s ambitious principal secretary
Commentary
This section provides necessary historical context regarding Queen Elizabeth’s peril owing to planned assassination to be effected by Catholic enemies, domestic and foreign. It highlights also the tension between the Queen and Francis Walsingham regarding who should receive a patent to manage and benefit from an expedition to North American to found a colony from which privateers would attack Spanish treasure ships.
Section 2
As was her custom, Elizabeth had taken her dinner in her privy chamber, the many dishes arriving punctually at noon. Dressed in a simple, loose-fitting black gown edged with ermine, to reduce the pain of chewing she had selected again a thick soup containing bits of chicken to be washed down by wine mingled with three parts water. A sweet cake had concluded the sparse meal.
Every one of the twenty dishes that had been offered her had been tasted by her presence chamber guards. Courtiers and Privy Council advisors in that chamber and ladies in waiting, seated on the privy chamber floor – the farthingale of their gowns making sitting on chairs difficult – had consumed what she had rejected.
The ceremonial serving, the pomposity of it, was remarkably silly. She acknowledged it; but she would not have it otherwise, for it bespoke allegiance to and reverence for the royal monarch. It was for the protection of her subjects and the Church of England that she served, and sacrificed. Her people’s affection and loyalty were her due.
Each day, brandishing a ceremonial rod, to the sound of trumpets and kettle drums, her gentleman led into the presence chamber many servants carrying tablecloth, eating utensils, drinking glasses, and twenty or more choices of cuisine. Gentlemen guards stood tall about the table while ladies in waiting laid out the cloth and placed the dishes. Thenceforth, a maid of honor dressed in white silk entered followed closely by a lady in waiting carrying a tasting fork, the lady immediately prostrating herself three times before Elizabeth’s empty chair. The lady then gave each guard a taste of every dish after which Elizabeth’s ladies carried the dishes into the privy chamber for Elizabeth’s selection.
Guarded in her residence day and night, never left alone, Elizabeth could not be assassinated directly. Food tasting prevented indirect assassination.
There had been ample cause for concern. For her entire reign she had had to confront the ramifications of her renunciation of Catholicism. Only by threatening to marry the heir to the French throne had she been able to forestall Philip of Spain from attempting to depose her. This tactic had not stopped Catholics in England and Europe from scheming to remove her and reestablish Catholic rule in the person of Mary Stuart, Elizabeth’s cousin, former queen consort of France, former Queen of Scotland, forced to abdicate her Scottish throne by Protestant Scottish lords. The past fifteen years per Elizabeth’s orders, Mary had been confined at Sheffield Castle closely watched by Sir Francis Walsingham’s many spies.
In 1571 a rebellion in northern England fomented by Catholic earls had convinced Elizabeth that Mary was indeed a threat. That same year Elizabeth’s chief councilors, Lord Burghley and Walsingham, had discovered the Ridolfi plot. Spanish troops, assisted by Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, whose intention was to become Mary Stuart’s royal consort, were to depose Elizabeth and reestablish Catholicism. The plot foiled and Norfolk executed, to achieve a defense treaty with France to forestall Spanish aggression, Elizabeth had initiated negotiations to marry the immediate heir to the French throne, and then, after he, Henry had become King, his brother and heir, Francis, the Duke of Anjou. Entertaining the prospect of marriage, Anjou, despite being Catholic, seeking military glory, had declared himself champion of the Huguenot Dutch. Anjou’s subsequent actions in the Netherlands had revealed his avarice and incompetence. Most of Elizabeth’s advisors and the general public had opposed the proposed marriage. Recognizing finally that her marriage could only be to her people, Elizabeth had ended the charade. The possibility of an alliance between England and France dashed, only King Philip’s desire to conquer the Netherlands first had kept him from invading England.
Two months ago Elizabeth had celebrated her fiftieth birthday. She had been queen for nearly twenty-five years. A month ago an insane young Catholic, John Somerville of Warwickshire, enflamed by Jesuit pamphlets, had bragged in public that he would shoot her with a pistol and see her head on a pole. Quickly arrested, he awaited execution. Somerville had been but one example of the rabid hatred radical English Catholics possessed. Walsingham apprised her almost daily of the peril and Mary’s desire to replace her, revealed in letters she had written to Catholics abroad. Elizabeth had arisen late this morning hoping to thrust aside temporarily her many burdens. Having finished her dinner, she had set about translating another section of Cicero. Afterward, because she had stayed up into the early morning hours writing correspondence, she had hoped to reserve one or two hours to nap.
That would not be.
The sound of her gentlemen usher’s entrance startled her.
“Your majesty. I present for your acceptance the presence of your chief secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham.”
What is it this time? she thought. Francis Throckmorton, probably. The latest insane plotter. “Yes, yes, admit him,” she responded. She closed the opened two pages of Cicero’s writing on her book mark.
“Your Highness.” Walsingham’s double-layered white ruff separated starkly his dark facial skin, beard, and mustache and his full length, midnight-black mantle. She rose. Three feet away from her he knelt, bowed his head.
“Rise.” She was in a mood to box his ears, again. Or throw her slipper. She was not wearing any! Her “Moor,” dark as ever, was about to press upon her another action she would not want to take. “What do you have that cannot wait?”
“Throckmorton.” His right knee yet on the thick carpet, he gazed up at her.
“I had thought so. Proceed!”
“Since I last spoke, we have searched his London house. Infamous pamphlets, list of papist lords and harbors where Spanish soldiers could safely be disembarked. The Spanish ambassador is mentioned. We have racked young Throckmorton. He has given up nothing. A second, more severe session will surely break his resolve.”
“You want my authorization.”
“I do. It is imperative. I believe that we will have sufficient evidence of the Scottish whore’s complicity to convince you, finally, that she must be tried and executed.”
His adamancy, conveyed by facial expression, choice of words, and intonation, vexed her. “Tread lightly, sir, how you describe monarchs ordained by God. You know well my thoughts about that!”
His left hand made a supplicating gesture.
“Speak cautiously, least I acquaint your head with the heft of this book. Cicero I will have you know!”
“I seek at this time only your authorization.”
She looked at him. Thin, narrow face; long nose; receding black hairline; furrowed forehead; eyes encircled by … what? Responsibility? Fatigue? Ambition? He served her well. Partly because he spoke his mind. Because he was a steadfast Protestant. Because he hated Spain. Because his intelligence exceeded, perhaps, her own and he followed orders he opposed. Such as attempting to negotiate a marriage agreement between her and Anjou.
She released a long breath. She gazed briefly at Holbein’s wall mural of her parents and grandparents, particularly of her father, legs wide apart, confrontationally defiant.
God’s blood, she was her father’s daughter! “You have my authorization, as you have had these past several years my approval of the plundering of Spanish treasure ships. Drake has done more to enrage Philip than … you say that Mendoza is implicated?!”
“The Spanish ambassador’s name is mentioned.”
“See to it that Throckmorton specifically implicates him! I will savor Mendoza’s response!”
“I shall.”
The interview, for her, had concluded. He tarried.
“God’s love, rise!” It occurred to her that he had more to say. “Yes?”
He rose, with reluctance towered over her.
“A matter of collateral urgency.” His dark eyes fastened on hers.
“How so?”
“The expedition to the New World. We must found a colony north of Florida but south of where Gilbert had planned to colonize so as to seize in the Caribbean and south of the Azores shipments of Spanish gold! And discover and mine on the new continent comparable riches!”
“We have spoken about this. I have told you the treasury lacks the funds to finance this venture! You must show me a plan that involves private investment! I wait to see such a plan!”
“I am close to showing you a plan.”
“You do know that you have competition.”
She saw in his eyes, despite his skill at concealing emotion, a flash of temper.
“You speak for my issuance of a patent, similar to that I gave Gilbert. Authorization to sell vast acreage to wealthy investors.”
“How else am I to raise sufficient capital?”
“Agreed. And who is to hold this patent, and profit grandly from it? Your step- son, Christopher Carleill?”
“He would be the captain.”
“But who would hold the patent? You?”
His eyes did not blink. “Who but I have the connections to make successful such a risky, complicated venture?”
“Again, agreed. I will look at your plan.”
After Walsingham had left, she was not of the mind to translate or nap. Her blood was up. Walsingham wanted his due. He expected it! Early during her reign, advisors had thought they could intimidate her, because she was a woman. There were times when Walsingham tried. She had allowed no man to control her!
She looked again at Holbein’s mural. She looked at her father. She read part of the Latin inscription on the sarcophagus that separated father and son from their wives.
If it pleases you to see the illustrious images of heroes, look on these: no picture ever bore greater. The great debate, competition and great question is whether father or son is the victor. For both, indeed, were supreme.
Like her father she would not be swayed.
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