Виктория Холт - My Enemy the Queen

Within a few days we were on our way to Germany.

We remained in Germany for five years, and as I grew from a child to a woman, I was aware of great restlessness and dissatisfaction with life. It is hard to be exiled from one's own country; we all felt it deeply, my parents most of all, but they seemed to take refuge in religion. If my father had previously leaned heavily towards Protestantism, he was, at the end of his sojourn in Germany, one of its strongest adherents. The news from England was one of the main reasons for his conviction. Queen Mary's marriage with King Philip of Spain had sent him into depths of despair.

"Now," he said, "we shall have the Inquisition in England."

Fortunately it did not get as far as that.

"There is one thing," he used to say to us, for naturally we saw more of him than we ever did in England when he was engaged on Court matters, "the people's dissatisfaction with the Queen will turn them to Elizabeth. But meanwhile the great fear is that Mary will have a child."

We prayed for her infertility, and I found it ironic to contemplate that she was praying equally fervently for the opposite.

"I wonder," I said flippantly to my sister Cecilia, "whose petition will be the more favorably received. They say Mary is very devout, but then so is our father. I wonder whose side God is on-Catholic or Protestant."

My sisters were shocked by my talk. So were my parents.

My father used to say: "Lettice, you will have to guard your tongue."

That was the last thing I wanted to do because my outspoken comments amused me and certainly had their effect on other people. They were a characteristic—like my smooth, delicately tinted complexion—which set me apart from other girls and made me more attractive.

My father never ceased to congratulate himself on his wisdom in escaping from the country while it was possible, though when she first came to the throne Mary showed signs of leniency. She freed Lady Jane's father, the Duke of Suffolk, and was reluctant even to sign the death warrant for Northumberland, who had been the puppet master pulling the strings he had attached to poor Jane and Guildford which had made them Queen and Queen's Consort for their brief nine days. If it had not been for the Wyatt Rebellion she might have spared Jane herself, for she was well aware that the young girl had clearly had no wish to take the crown.

When the news of Wyatt's ill-fated rebellion came to us in Germany, there was great gloom in the family because the Princess Elizabeth herself seemed to be involved.

"This will be the end," groaned my father. "So far she has had the good fortune to escape her ill wishers ... but how can she do so this time?"

He did not know her. She might be young but she was already skilled in the art of survival. Those frolics with Seymour which had ended in his journey to the scaffold had provided a lesson well learned. When they charged her with treason she had shown herself to be astute, and it was impossible for her judges to confute her. She parried their accusations with diplomatic dexterity so that none was able to prove the case against her.

Wyatt died by the ax, but Elizabeth escaped. She was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a while at the same time as Robert Dudley. What a bond that made between them I was to discover. We heard later that after many months she had been released from the menace of the Tower, whence she was taken to Richmond, and there confronted by her half sister the Queen and told of the latter's plan to marry her off to Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy.

"They want to get her out of England," cried my father. "That's clear enough, God knows."

Shrewd as ever, the young Princess declined the match and with great temerity told her sister that she could not marry. Elizabeth always knew just how far to go and in some way she succeeded in convincing Mary that marriage with any man would be distasteful to her.

When she was sent to Woodstock in the charge of Queen Mary's faithful Sir Henry Bedingfeld, the Knollys family breathed more easily, particularly as rumors of the Queen's bad state of health kept filtering in.

Terrible news came to us from England of the bitter persecution of Protestants. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer were all burned at the stake with three hundred other victims, and it was said that the smoke of the Smithfield Fires was like a black pall hanging over London.

How we applauded our father's wisdom! Who knew, had we stayed he might have been one of those destined for such a fate.

It could not continue, he told us. The people were weary of death and persecution. The whole country was ready to rise in revolt against the Queen and her Spanish adherents. However, when the news came that she was pregnant we were in despair. Her hopes—"God be praised," said my father—were soon proved to be without foundation. Poor sick Mary, she wanted a child so badly that she could delude herself into suffering all the signs of pregnancy when she was barren.

But we, who shamelessly longed for her death, had little sympathy to spare for her.

I remember well the misty November day when the messenger came with the news. It was the day we had been waiting for.

I was seventeen years old then, and I had never before seen my father so excited.

In the hall he cried: "Rejoice in this day. Queen Mary is dead. Elizabeth is proclaimed Queen of England by will of the people. Long live our Queen Elizabeth."

We knelt and gave thanks to God. Then we hastened to make our preparations for our return.

We arrived back in time to see her coronation. What a day that was with the people rejoicing and telling themselves that good times lay ahead. The smell of smoke from the Smithfield Fires still seemed to cling to the air but that only added to the jubilation. Bloody Mary was dead and Elizabeth the Good ruled our land.

I saw her leave for the Tower at two of the afternoon of that January day; she was dressed in the royal robes of a queen and she looked the part in her chariot, which was covered with crimson velvet over which was a canopy borne by her knights, one of whom was Sir John Perrot, a man of mighty girth who claimed to be the illegitimate son of Henry VIII and therefore brother to the Queen.

I could not take my eyes from her in her crimson velvet robe, ermine cape and cap to match her robe under which her fair hair showed, glinting red in the sparkling frosty air. Her tawny eyes were bright and eager, her complexion dazzlingly fair. I thought she was beautiful in that moment. She was all that our mother had told us. She was magnificent.

She was over medium height and very slender, which made her seem younger than she actually was. She was twenty-five at this time, and to a girl of seventeen that seemed quite old. I noticed her hands, for she called attention to them by displaying them as much as possible. They were white, elegant with long tapering fingers. Her face was oval and longish; her brows so fair that they were scarcely perceptible; her eyes were piercing—a golden yellow, but often later I thought they sometimes seemed quite dark. She was a little shortsighted and often when she was endeavoring to see she gave the impression of penetrating into the minds of those about her, which made them very uneasy. There was a quality about her which even then—young as I was and on such an occasion—I was able to perceive, and it thrilled me to watch her.

Then my attention was caught and held by someone else as arresting as she was. This was Robert Dudley, her Master of Horse, who rode with her. I had never seen such a man. He was as outstanding in that assembly as the Queen herself. In the first place he was very tall and broad-shouldered and possessed one of the handsomest faces I had ever seen. He was stately, noble, and his dignity matched that of the Queen. There was nothing haughty about his expression; it was grave, and he had an air of extreme but quiet confidence.

My eager looks went from him to the young Queen and then back again.

I noticed that the Queen paused to speak to the most humble people, smiling and giving them her attention, brief as it must be. I learned in time that it was her policy never to offend the people. Her courtiers often felt the weight of her displeasure but to the common people she was always the benevolent Queen. When they cried: "God save Your Grace!" she answered: "God save you all!" reminding them that she was no less conscious of their well-being than they were of hers. Nosegays were offered to her and however humble the giver she took them as graciously as though they were rare gifts. It was said that one beggar gave her a branch of rosemary at the Fleet Bridge, and it was still in her carriage when she came to Westminster.

We rode with the procession—after all, were we not her kinsfolk?—so we saw the pageants of Cornhill and the Chepe, which was gay with banners and streamers which fluttered from every window.

The next day we were present at her coronation and saw her walk into the Abbey on the purple cloth which had been spread for her.

I was too bemused to pay much attention to the ceremony, but I thought she was beautiful when she was crowned first in the heavy crown of St. Edward and afterwards in the smaller one of pearls and diamonds. The pipes, the drums and the trumpet sounded as Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England.

"Life will be different for us now," said my father. And how right he was.

It was not long before the Queen sent for him. He was given an audience and came back to us full of enthusiasm and hope.

"She is wonderful," he told us. "She is all that a Queen should be. The people adore her and she is full of goodwill towards them. I thank God that he has preserved me to serve such a Queen, and so will I with my life."

She admitted him to her Council and intimated that she wished her good cousin, Catherine—my mother—to become a lady of her Privy Chamber.

We girls were jubilant. This would mean that we would go to Court at last. All those hours of musical tuition—madrigals, lute and harpsichord—all the dancing, bowing and curtsying, everything we had endured that we might comport ourselves with grace, had been worthwhile. We chattered interminably; we lay awake at night discussing our future, for we could not sleep, so excited were we. I might have had some premonition that I was going to my destiny, so deeply did this wild exultation possess me.

The Queen expressed a desire to see us—not en bloc but singly.

"There will be places for you all," my mother told us excitedly. "And indeed you will have opportunities."

"Opportunities" meant good marriages and that was a matter which had deeply concerned our parents during our exile.

The day arrived when it was my turn to be presented to Her Majesty. Vividly I remember to this day every detail of the gown I wore. It was of deep blue silk, bombasted, and with a bell-shaped skirt and slashed sleeves. The bodice was tightly fitting and my mother gave me a girdle, which she greatly prized, to wear about my waist. It was set with small precious stones of varying colors and she told me it would bring me luck. Soon afterwards, I decided that it had. I had wanted to have my hair uncovered for, to tell the truth, I was extremely proud of it—but my mother said that one of the new French hoods would be more suitable. I was a little rebellious about this, for the veil which flowed out behind concealed my hair; but I had to give way this once, for my mother was very nervous as to the effect I might have on the Queen, and she stressed the point that if I displeased her I could spoil not only my own chances but those of the others as well.

What struck me most forcibly at the first meeting was her aura of sovereignty, and at that moment—although neither of us knew it then—our lives became entwined. She was to play a more important part in my life than anyone else—except perhaps Robert —and my role in hers, in spite of all the momentous events of her reign, was not insignificant.

No doubt I was a little naive at the time in spite of my attempts at worldliness. The German years had been stultifying but I was to realize at once that there was in her a quality which I had never seen in any other person. Her twenty-five years, I knew, had been filled with terrifying experiences, enough to break most people forever. She had come near to death and indeed lived under its shadow, as prisoner in the Tower of London, with the ax again and again ready to fall on that fragile neck. She had not been quite three years old when her mother had gone to her execution. Was she old enough to have remembered that? There was something about those big tawny eyes to suggest that she did and that she would learn quickly and remember what she had learned. She was notoriously precocious—a scholar in the nursery. Oh yes, she remembered! Perhaps that was why though Death had followed closely behind her through those precarious years it had never succeeded in catching up with her. She was regal—so briefly a Queen—and yet to be one minute in her company was to know that she wore her royalty effortlessly, as though she had been preparing for it all her life—which perhaps she had. She was very slender, straight-backed, and her fair skin had been inherited from her father. Her elegant mother had been dark-haired, olive-skinned. I, not Elizabeth, had inherited those dark eyes, which were also said to be like those of my grandmother Mary Boleyn, but my hair—abundant and curly—was the color of pale honey. It would be foolish to deny that this combination was very attractive, and I had quickly realized this. From what I had seen of Boleyn portraits Elizabeth had inherited nothing from her mother, except perhaps that indefinable brilliance, which I was sure her mother must have possessed to have so bewitched the King that he rid himself of his royal Spanish wife and broke with Rome itself for her sake.