Виктория Холт - My Enemy the Queen

Poor Davison was berated and hardly allowed to speak, but after a while she listened and then when her rage had subsided a little she must have thought of the humiliation she was imposing on Robert and modified her judgment. He would, of course, give up the governorship, but it must be relinquished in a manner which would bring the least humiliation. But he must not think she was not furious. She had declared publicly, so that foreign princes might know, that she was determined not to take the Governorship of the Netherlands, and now one of her subjects had snatched it, seeing in it a prize which he could enjoy. It would appear that she had given that permission—for none would believe that a subject could have dared presume so much— and it would be believed that she had broken her word.

"As for that She-Wolf," she cried, "she can unpack her jewels. She can lay aside her fine gowns. She can give up all thought of riding in glory to The Hague. Instead she can go humbly to the Tower and beseech the privilege of seeing the prisoner, making sure how she conducts herself, lest she find a long stay awaiting her in that place."

Poor Robert! How brief was his glory. Poor me, who had thought to come out of the shadows only to find myself back in them. And the hatred of the Queen grown even more intense towards me, for I knew that she would convince herself that I, not her beloved Robin, had planned and schemed to put myself upon a throne.

After that disastrous Netherlands adventure, none but Robert could have survived. I had always known he was no soldier. He would have been wonderfully impressive during those parades through the streets. I could picture him at the ceremonies; but it was a very different matter when it came to facing the experienced and ruthless Duke of Parma, who could not be expected to stand aside while Robert indulged himself and the people with great spectacles.

It was a great blow when Parma struck where it was least expected and took the town of Grave, which Robert had thought to be well fortified—and afterwards that of Venlo.

The wrath of the Queen added to his difficulties, for no money was coming from England for the soldiers' pay and the officers were quarreling among themselves. Robert told me much later of the nightmare he lived through and how he never wanted to see the Netherlands again.

The entire campaign was a disaster, and for us there was a personal tragedy.

I was very fond of the Sidney family, and Philip was the favorite of us all. Mary, his mother, and I had become friendly since we were both exiles from Court—she voluntarily and I most reluctantly. She still wore a fine veil over her face and rarely went to Court although the Queen continued to welcome her and respect her desire for privacy in her own apartment in the royal residences.

In May I had news from Mary that her husband's health was worsening. He had been ailing for some time and had refused to rest; so it was not surprising to hear soon after that he was dead. I went to Penshurst to be with her, and I was glad I did, for in August, Mary herself died. Her daughter, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, came to Penshurst to be with her mother at the end, and we deplored the fact that Philip was with the armies of the Netherlands and could not be present.

It seemed a blessing in a way that Mary Sidney should die before the great tragedy befell her, for I knew her feelings well enough to understand that what was about to happen would be the cruelest blow of her life.

It was September—a month after the death of Lady Sidney— when Leicester decided to attack Zutphen.

The story of what happened was pieced together afterwards, but it is one of recklessness and heroism, and I often think that if Philip had been more realistic and less knightly it need never have happened.

A series of incidents led to what followed. When he left his tent he fell in with Sir William Pelham, who had forgotten to put on his leg armor. Foolishly, Philip said that he must not have an advantage over a friend and discarded his own. It was a ridiculous gesture for which he paid a high price, for later, during the action, a bullet struck his left thigh. He was able to remain on horseback, but suffered greatly from loss of blood and, surrounded by his friends, he cried out that he was dying of thirst rather than loss of blood. A water bottle was thrust into his hands, but just as he was about to drink he saw a dying soldier on the ground who called feebly for water.

"Take it," said Philip in words which have become immortalized. "Thy necessity is greater than mine."

He was carried to Leicester's barge and taken down to Arnhem and lodged in a house there.

I called on his wife, Frances, and found her, although heavily pregnant, preparing to leave. She said she must go to him, for he would need careful nursing.

"In your condition, you are unfit," I told her; but she would not listen, and her father said that since she was of such a determined mind he would not stop her.

So Frances went to Arnhem. Poor girl, her life had not been such a happy one. She must have loved him, though. Who could help loving Philip Sidney? Perhaps Frances knew that the love poems he wrote to my daughter Penelope were not to be taken as a slight to herself. There were not many women who would have accepted such a situation but Frances was an unusual woman.

Philip suffered acute agony for twenty-six days before he died. I knew his death would be a great blow to Robert, who had looked upon him as a son. His gifts, his charm, everything about Philip had been of such a nature to win admiration, and he was not one to inspire envy as men such as Robert, Heneage, Hatton and Raleigh did, for Philip was not ambitious. He was a man possessed of rare qualities.

I heard that the Queen's grief was intense. She had lost her dear friend Mary Sidney, whom she had always loved, and now Philip, whom she had so much admired, was dead.

The Queen hated war. She declared it to be senseless and to bring no good to any. All her reign she had sought to elude it, and now she was thrown into depression because of the loss of her dear friends and the ever more closely encroaching threat from Spain, which this rash and foolish adventure in the Netherlands had done nothing to ward off.

Philip's body was embalmed and he was brought home on a ship the sails of which were black and which was therefore called the Black Pinnance; and in the following February there was a memorial service for him in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Poor Frances had already been delivered of a stillborn child, which perhaps was to be expected after all she had endured.

Leicester came back to England, for the winter was no time for military campaigns, and with him came my son Essex.

First Leicester went to Court. There would have been trouble if he had not, and his position was precarious. I could imagine his misgivings when he presented himself to his royal mistress. Essex came to me. He was very upset by the death of Philip Sidney, and he wept as he told me that he had been at his deathbed.

"A nobler man never lived," he cried, "and now he is dead. He was pleased that the Earl of Leicester was with him. There was a deep love between those two, and my stepfather was in great grief at his passing. Philip left me his best sword. I shall treasure it always and hope I shall be worthy of it."

He had seen poor Frances Sidney—a brave woman, he said, for she had been in no fit condition to cross the sea. He would do all he could to help her, for that was what Philip would have wished.

After reporting to the Queen, Leicester came to me. The latest adventure had aged him, and I was shocked by his appearance. He had had a return of the gout and was weighed down with depression by the manner in which the adventure had turned sour.

He talked to me earnestly: "God be praised the Queen has not withdrawn her favor from me. When I came to her and knelt, she made me rise and she looked at me earnestly with tears in her eyes. She saw that I had suffered much, and she said that I had been a traitor to her. But what hurt her most was that I had been a traitor to myself, for I had wantonly ignored my health when I knew that the care of that was the first command she gave me. Then I knew that everything was forgiven."

I looked at him—this poor parody of the once glorious Leicester, and I was amazed at the woman. He had defied her and believed he had found a way to wear a crown in the Netherlands which would have meant deserting her and, greatest blow of all, had planned to send for me to share it with him. Yet she forgave him.

By God's truth, I said to myself, she loves him. Indeed she does.

The last episode of the tragic story of Mary of Scotland was about to break. She was imprisoned at that time at our own home of Chartley, which now belonged to my son, Essex. He had been very reluctant to allow it to be used as a prison for the Queen, and had protested that it was too small and inconvenient. However, his objections had been overruled, and in those chambers, so well known to me and my family, where I had played merry games with my children, the last dramatic scenes of the Scottish Queen's life took place. There she had become involved in the Babington Plot, which was to lead to her destruction; and the next phase of her sad journey was to the fateful castle of Fotheringay.