The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory
‘It is spun gold,’ she says. ‘Real gold thread. That is why it glitters so. Do you want to sew with it?’
‘If you wish,’ I say, as if I don’t much mind.
‘Good!’ she says, and she beams as if she is genuinely delighted that we will work together. ‘You will start at that end and I shall start at this and bit by bit we shall come closer and closer together.’
I smile in reply, it is impossible not to warm to her.
‘And at the end we shall meet in the middle, head to head and the greatest of friends,’ she predicts.
I draw up my chair and the fine fabric loops from her lap to mine. ‘Now,’ she says quietly, when we are settled with our gold thread. ‘Do tell me all about my cousin the queen. Have you been much to her court?’
Indeed, I have. I don’t boast but I let her know that I have been a senior lady-in-waiting at the queen’s court, at her side from the earliest of days of her reign, her friend when she was nothing more than a princess, friends with her friends, loyal informant to her advisor.
‘Oh, so you must know all her secrets,’ she says. ‘Tell me all about her. And tell me about Robert Dudley. Was she really so desperately in love with him as they all said?’
I hesitate at that. But she leans forward to engage me. ‘Is he still so very handsome?’ she whispers. ‘She offered him to me, you know, in marriage, when I first came to Scotland. But I knew she would never part with him. She is lucky to have such a loyal lover. It is a rare man who can love a queen. He has devoted his life to her, has he not?’
‘Forever,’ I say. ‘From the moment she came to the throne and formed her court. He came to her then and he has never left. They have been hand in glove for so long that they finish each other’s sentences, and they have a hundred secret jokes, and sometimes you see her just glance towards him, and he knows exactly what she is thinking.’
‘Then why does she not marry him, since he is free?’ she asks. ‘She made him an earl so that she could propose him for me. If he was good enough for me he must be more than good enough to marry her.’
I shrug. ‘The scandal …’ I say very quietly. ‘After his wife’s death. The scandal has never gone away.’
‘Can she not defy the scandal? A queen of courage can live down a scandal.’
‘Not in England,’ I say, thinking: and probably not in Scotland either. ‘A queen’s reputation is her crown, if she loses one she loses the other. And Cecil is against him,’ I add.
She widens her eyes. ‘Cecil commands her in even this?’
‘He does not rule her,’ I say carefully. ‘But I have never known her go against his advice.’
‘She trusts him with everything?’
I nod. ‘He was her steward when she was a princess with few prospects. He managed her small fortune and he saw her through the years when she was under suspicion of treason by her half-sister Queen Mary. He kept her safe. He guided her away from the rebels whose plans would have destroyed her. He has always stood by her; she trusts him as a father.’
‘You like him,’ she guesses from the warmth in my voice.
‘He has been a true friend to me also,’ I say. ‘I have known him since I was a young woman living with the Grey family.’
‘Yet I hear he is ambitious for his own family? Building a great house, seeking alliances? Matching himself with the nobility?’
‘Why not?’ I ask. ‘Does not God Himself command us to use our talents? Does not our own success show that God has blessed us?’
She smiles and shakes her head. ‘My God sends trials to those He loves, not wealth; but I see that your God thinks like a merchant. But of Cecil – does the queen always do as he commands?’
‘She does as he advises,’ I temper. ‘Most of the time. Sometimes she hesitates so long that she can drive him quite wild with impatience, but generally his advice is so good and their strategy is so long-planned that they must agree.’
‘So he is the one who makes her policy? He decides?’ she presses.
I shake my head. ‘Who knows? They meet in private.’
‘This is a matter of some importance to me,’ she reminds me. ‘For I think he is no friend of mine. And he was an inveterate enemy to my mother.’
‘She usually follows his advice,’ I repeat. ‘But she insists that she is queen in her own country.’
‘How can she?’ she asks simply. ‘I don’t know how she dares to try to rule without a husband. A man must know best. He is in the very shape of God, he has a superior intelligence. All else aside, he will be better educated, he must be better taught than any woman. His spirits will be more courageous, his determination more constant. How can she dream of ruling without a husband at her side?’
I shrug. I cannot justify Elizabeth’s independence. Anyway, everyone in the country would agree with her. It is God’s will that women are subject to men, and Elizabeth herself never argues against it. She just does not apply it to herself. ‘She calls herself a prince,’ I say. ‘As if being royal exceeds being a woman. She is divinely blessed, she is commanded by God to rule. Cecil acknowledges her primacy. Whether she likes it or not, she is set above everyone – even men – by God Himself. What else can she do?’
‘She could rule under a man’s instruction,’ she says simply. ‘She should have found a prince or a king or even a nobleman who could be trusted with the good of the country and married him, and made him King of England.’
‘There was no-one …’ I begin defensively.
She makes a little gesture with her hand. ‘There were dozens,’ she says. ‘There still are. She has just got rid of the Hapsburg courtier, has she not? In France we heard all about them. We even sent our own candidates. Everyone believed that she would find a man that she could trust with the throne and then England would be safe. He would rule and make treaties with other brother kings. Treaties that could be based on the word of an honourable man, not on the changeable views of a woman; and then she could have conceived sons to come after him. What could be more natural and right? Why would any woman not do that?’
I hesitate, I cannot disagree. It is what we all thought would happen. It is what Queen Mary Tudor, Elizabeth’s half-sister, tried to do, obedient to her wisest advisors. It is what this Scots queen did. It is what parliament went down on their knees to beg Elizabeth to do. It is what everyone hopes will happen even now, praying that it is not too late for Elizabeth to have a baby boy. How should a woman rule on her own? How did Elizabeth dare such a thing? And if she does, if she continues on this unnatural course: how shall she secure her succession? Very soon it will be too late. She will be too old to have a child. And however great the achievement of a reign, what is the use of a barren throne? What use is a legacy if there is no-one to inherit? What will become of us if she leaves the kingdom in turmoil? What becomes of us Protestant subjects under a Papist heir? What of the value of my property then?
‘You are a much-married woman, are you not?’ The queen peeps at me.
I laugh. ‘The earl is my fourth husband, God bless and keep him,’ I say. ‘I have been so unlucky to be widowed three times. Three good men I have loved and lost, and mourned each one.’
‘So you, of all people, cannot believe that a woman is best left alone, living alone, with only her fortune, and neither husband nor children nor home?’
In truth, I cannot. I do not. ‘For me, there was no choice. I had no fortune. I had to marry for the good of my family and for my own future. My first husband died when we were both children and left me with a small dowry. My second husband was good to me and taught me how to run a household and left me his estate. My third husband even more so. He left me his houses and all his lands entirely to me, in my own name,