“So you are all for letting Norfolk go that he may plot my downfall?”

“Why not marry Norfolk to someone else, Your Majesty? That would be the best way to put an end to this plan for marriage with Mary.”

She smiled at him. She could trust Cecil. His mind worked in the same way as her own. “I think, Sir Spirit, that you have a good plan there.”

But even as he was leaving her presence a messenger arrived, with the news that all through the North of England the bells were ringing backward. The men of the North, those ardent Catholics who had risen against her father in the Pilgrimage of Grace, were now ready to rise again; and they looked on Mary Queen of Scots as their leader. The Queen was aghast. War she dreaded more than anything; and here was war in her own country, the most hated of all wars: civil war.

Cecil said: “They will try to reach Mary, and our first task must be to remove her from Tutbury. I will send men there at once. We will send her with the utmost speed to Coventry.”

The Queen nodded her approval.

Civil war! Her own people rising against her. The thought made her wretchedly depressed until her anger replaced such feelings. Mary had caused this. Wherever Mary was, there would trouble be. Mary was her hated rival whom she longed to put to death, but for the sake of royalty—that divine right of Kings—she dared not.

The rebellion was speedily quelled. Poor and simple men from the hamlets and the villages were hanging from the gibbets for all to see what happened to those who rebelled against the Queen.

In her wrath, men said, she is as terrible as her father was.

Six hundred men who had followed their leaders were now lifeless hanging corpses, and the North was plunged into mourning.

They must learn, said Elizabeth; they must understand the rewards of treason to the throne.

But Mary she merely kept more closely guarded, while Norfolk lived on in the Tower.

Norfolk had learned his lesson, said the Queen; and she was not entirely sure that he was responsible for the rising. As for Mary, adulteress, murderess, and fomenter of plots that she might be, as a Queen she was apart from ordinary mortals.

Elizabeth’s ministers shook their heads in sorrow and anger. They assured her that she risked her life while Mary lived; she also risked the safety of England.

Elizabeth knew she was risking much, but she felt that in tampering with the privileges of royalty, she risked more.

Mary could not learn her lessons and it was not long before she was plotting again. This time the services of a Florentine banker, named Ridolfi, were employed. Ridolfi lived in London, where he had a branch of his business, but he traveled freely about the Continent, and for this reason he was chosen to carry messages between the Pope, the Spanish ambassador, and the Catholic peers in England.

Norfolk, now home at his county seat, was still under some restraint since his release from the Tower. He was approached by Ridolfi, and, weakling that he was, under the spell of Mary to whom he had been sending money and gifts, found himself once more drawn into mischief and danger.

This time the danger was unmistakable, for messages had come from Alba himself, who promised that if Norfolk would start a revolt, he would send an Army to England to consolidate any success.

The Queen, snapping her fingers at Cecil’s detractors, had created him Lord Burghley; and Burghley was not a man to forget that Norfolk was under grave suspicion, although no longer a prisoner. A messenger from Ridolfi was captured as he landed in England from the Continent, where the Florentine now was. The message was vague and merely indicated that all was going well; but Burghley and his spies were on the scent; and when Norfolk’s servants were put to severe questioning, it was discovered that a plot was in train, involving Norfolk, Mary, the Catholic peers, and—most disturbing—the Pope, Philip, and his commander Alba.

Burghley’s spies were busy and, when letters were smuggled in to Mary, they were intercepted; so the plot was discovered before it had fully matured.

Burghley could restrain his impatience no longer; he presented his evidence to the Queen, with the result that Norfolk was arrested and the Spanish ambassador sent back to his own country.

Now the Queen’s ministers were calling for the blood—not only of Norfolk but of Mary. Elizabeth was calm, as always in moments of danger.

Strangely enough she was still reluctant to execute either Norfolk or Mary. The truth was that she hated strife; she hated executions. Her father and sister had left a bloody trail behind them, and she did not wish to rule as they had—by fear. She had given her consent to the execution of the six hundred at the time of the rebellion, but that, she assured herself, had had to be, for royalty must be maintained and men must learn that it was a cardinal sin to rise against their ruler. Yet, Burghley would reason with her, had not Norfolk rebelled? Was not the Queen of Scots more worthy of death than those six hundred men?

What he said was true. But Mary was a Queen, and Norfolk was the first peer in the land.

She faced her ministers; she listened to their railings against Mary and Norfolk.

“This error has crept into the heads of a number,” said one man, “that there is a person in this land which no law can touch. Warning has already been given her. Therefore the axe must give the next warning.”

“Shall we say,” said another, “that our law is not able to provide for such mischief? If this is so it is defective in a high degree. Mercy was shown my lord of Norfolk but no good followed.”

Then came the great cry from all: “To the scaffold with that monstrous dragon, that adulteress and murderess. And to the scaffold with the roaring lion of Norfolk.”

She temporized as she knew so well how to do. She gave them Norfolk, and on a hot June day he walked out to the scaffold on Tower Hill; but she would not give them Mary.

NINE

During these politically troublous times, Robert’s private life was providing complications.

Robert, as he himself admitted, was a frail man where women were concerned; yet the Queen did not seem to understand how frail he was in this respect; she did not seem to understand the strain she put upon him. He longed for children. He had two charming nephews of whom he was very fond—Philip and Robert Sidney; they were to him as sons; but he was not a man to be content with his sister’s sons.

Burghley had a son of his own. It was true that Robert Cecil was a puny creature, had been hard to rear and had inherited his humped back from his studious mother. Only Robert Dudley, the most virile, the most handsome at Court, was without legitimate children.

His first and most cursed marriage had been a childless one; he knew that was due to Amy and not to himself; he had proved that. But illegitimate children were not what he wanted; to them he could give his affection, but not the Dudley name.

For some years he had been having a very pleasant love affair with Douglass, Lady Sheffield. This was highly dangerous, but his passion for Douglass had been so strong that, to satisfy it, he had been ready to risk discovery and the Queen’s displeasure.

He remembered well the beginning of their love affair. The Queen had been on one of her summer pilgrimages which she had insisted should take place every year. A great procession would set out from Greenwich, Hampton, or Westminster—the Queen usually on horseback but sometimes in a litter followed by numerous carts containing furnishings and baggage. All must show a gusto to equal her own in these journeys.

The people would come for miles to see her pass, and stage entertainments for her. She loved the easy manners of the people who, she declared, though they might lack the grace of her courtiers, loved her no less than they did.

As to the route which should be followed, she changed her mind again and again. One farmer, having heard that she was to go one way, and then had decided against it before finally taking the road she first intended, shouted beneath the window of the inn where she was staying that night: “Now I know the Queen is but a woman; and she is very like my wife, for neither can make up their minds.” Her ladies were shocked. How dared the man thus talk of the Queen? But Elizabeth put her head out of the window and cried to her guards: “Give that man money to shut his mouth.”

One man called to the royal coachman to “Stay the cart that I may speak with the Queen!” And the Queen, smiling graciously, commanded that the cart be brought to a full stop; and not only did she speak to the man but she gave him her hand to kiss.

These familiarities endeared her to the people. When she stayed at humble inns, she would insist that the good innkeeper did not beggar himself to entertain her; but when she stayed at noble houses she expected lavish display.

On the occasion of which Robert was thinking, the party rested at Belvoir Castle, the estate of the Earl of Rutland; and among those noblemen who came from the surrounding country to pay homage to the Queen was Lord Sheffield.

The most beautiful woman in that assembly was Douglass, Lady Sheffield. She was of high birth, being a Howard of the Effingham branch; she was young and impressionable.

She had heard of the great Dudley who had recently been created Earl of Leicester and offered as husband to Mary Queen of Scots. Circulating about the country were stories in which the Queen figured largely; the whole of England had gossiped about the love affair, the murder of Amy, the children they had had, and of the Queen’s passionate jealousy regarding him. It seemed to Douglass that this Earl of Leicester was not so much a man as a god—often a malignant god, but an intensely fascinating one.