"I feel so ill," he said.

"You have eaten too much."

"She always said I did."

"And she is right. Rest now. Are you thirsty?" He nodded. "Would you like me to pour you some wine?" I went on.

"Yes, do. The jug is on the table with my goblet."

I went to the table. My fingers trembled as I lifted the jug and poured wine into that goblet which had previously contained that intended for me. What is the matter with you? I admonished myself. If he meant you no harm, then all is well, and he will come to none either. And if he did ... am I to blame?

I carried his goblet to the bed, and as I handed it to him his page, Willie Haynes, came into the room.

I said: "My lord suffers from a great thirst. Bring some more wine. He may need it."

The page went out as Leicester finished the draught.

The next day stands out clearly in my mind, even after all these years. The fourth of September—the summer still with us, the faint tang of autumn snuffed out by the sun at ten of the clock.

Leicester had said we should be leaving that day. While my women were dressing me in my riding clothes, Willie Haynes came to the door. He was pale and trembling. The Earl was lying very still, he said, and looked strange. He feared he was dead.

Willie Haynes' fears were proved correct. That morning, in the Cornbury Ranger's Lodge, the mighty Earl of Leicester had slipped away from this world.

So he was dead, my Robert, the Queen's Robert. I felt stunned. I could not get out of my mind the picture of myself carrying the goblet to the bed. He had drunk that which had been intended for me ... and he was dead.

No, I did not believe that. I was distraught. It was as though part of me was dead. For so many years he had been the most important figure in my life ... he and the Queen.

I murmured: "Now there are only two of us." And I felt desolate.

Of course there was the usual outcry of "Poison"; and suspicion was naturally directed against me. Willie Haynes had seen me give him the wine and mentioned this. That the man believed to be the arch-poisoner of his day should be caught with his own medicine seemed rough justice, if he had indeed been, and I knew that suspicion of having killed him would follow me to the grave. I was panic-stricken when I heard there was to be a postmortem. I did not know whether I had poisoned Leicester or not. It may well have been that the wine he had intended for me, and which I had given him, had been unadulterated. His health was such that he could have died at any time. I had not tampered with it. How could I be blamed?

It was a great relief when nothing indicating poison was found in him. But then Dr. Julio was renowned for his poisons which after a very short time left no trace in the body. So I can never be certain whether my husband intended to poison me and I turned the tables by poisoning him—or whether he died from natural causes.

His death is as mysterious as that of his wife, Amy.

Christopher was eager for us to marry, but I remembered the story of the Queen, Robert and Amy Robsart, and I had to restrain his youthful impulsiveness. Of course I was not the Queen, with the attention of the world on me; but I was now the widow of the most talked of man, not only in England but in the whole of Europe.

"I said I would marry you," I told him. "But later ... not yet."

I wished that I had been at Court so that I could have seen how the Queen received the news. I heard later that she said nothing but stared blankly before her; then she went to her private chamber and locked the door. She would not eat, nor would she see anybody. She wished to be alone with her grief.

How great that grief was I could guess. It shamed me in a way. It made me realize the immense depth of her nature; of her capacity for love and vindictive hatred.

She would not emerge from her room of grief. At the end of two days, her ministers became alarmed, and Lord Burleigh, taking some others with him, had her door burst open.

I could imagine her feelings. She had known him so long-since they were children. I knew that it would seem to her as though a light had gone out of her life. I could imagine her facing her cold cruel mirror and seeing the old woman whom she had refused to look at before. She was old—no matter how the handsome young men danced round her; she knew they begged only for favors. Stripped of her crown, the light would be doused, and the dance of the moths would be over.

But there had been one, she would tell herself—her Eyes, her Sweet Robin, the only one in the world whom she had really loved—and he was no more. And surely she would think of how different her life would have been if she had risked her crown and married him. What intimate joys they would have shared! Perhaps she would have had children to comfort her now. What pangs of jealousy she would have missed, and what joy it would have given her to know that I could never have shared his life!

She and I were as close as we had ever been. Her grief was mine. I was surprised how much I had cared for him, since in the last years I had turned from him. But I had done so because she had come between us. There was going to be a deep emptiness in my life now that he was gone ... as there would be with hers.

But, as always in times of stress, she remembered at length that she was the Queen. Robert was dead but life went on. Her life was England, and England would never die and leave her alone.

I was in a state of anxiety because I feared that in view of Robert's discovery of my affair, he might have altered his will, and expressed his reason for doing so.

But no. There had been little time, and he had changed nothing.

I was the executrix, with his brother Warwick, Christopher Hatton and Lord Howard of Effingham to assist me. I had not realized how deeply in debt he was. He had always spent lavishly, and at the time of his death was having a gift made for the Queen which consisted of a rope of six hundred pearls on which hung a pendant. This pendant contained an enormous central diamond and three emeralds, encircled by a band of diamonds.

She was the first he mentioned in his will—as though she were his wife; he thanked her for her goodness to him.

Even in death she came first. I allowed myself to savor a certain jealous anger. It salved my conscience.

He had made his will while he was in the Netherlands and he had believed then that I was in love with him.

He had written:

Next to her Majesty, I will return to my dear wife and set down for her that which cannot be so well as I would wish it, but shall be as well as I am able to make it, haying always found her a faithful and very loving and obedient, careful wife, and so I do trust this Will of mine shall find her no less mindful of my being gone, than I was always of her, being alive.

Ah, Robert, I thought a little sadly, how I should be mourning if it was as you believed then, and how different it might have been if you had not had a royal mistress. I loved you once and I loved you well, but she was always there between us.

I was dismayed to find his bastard, Robert Dudley, liberally treated in his will. He was now thirteen years old and on my death and that of Robert's brother, the Earl of Warwick, he was to inherit a great deal. He would also receive certain benefits when he was twenty-one, and he was to be well provided for until he reached that age.

Of course, Robert had never denied that this boy was his; but since he was also Lady Stafford's, I thought that she and her husband might have provided for him.

To me was left Wanstead and three small manor houses including Drayton Basset in Staffordshire, which I eventually made my home. Leicester House was mine including all plate and jewels therein, but to my sorrow and secret rage Kenilworth had been left to Warwick and on his death was to pass to the bastard Dudley.

Moreover, as I have said, Robert was more deeply in debt than I had realized. His debts to the crown were twenty-five thousand pounds. He had been very generous to the Queen, and his gifts to her had been responsible for a great part of his debts. I expected that since he had died in her service this would be remembered. It usually was in such instances.

Alas, she had no intention of relenting towards me one jot. She had her vengeance. She had come out of her solitude, determined that every pound of his debts should be paid. Her hatred towards me had not abated because of his death.

She declared that the contents of Leicester House and Kenilworth should provide the means to pay his debts, and lists of these should be made at once so that those selected for sale could be brought out.

She was merciless where I was concerned and I was enraged but could do nothing about it.

One by one the treasures had to be sold—all those things which had been precious to me and part of my life. I wept with rage over them and inwardly cursed her—but as always I must bow to her will.

Even so, those enforced sales were not enough to settle all the debts, but I felt it important to raise a memorial to him in Beauchamp Chapel. It was of massive marble and bore his motto Droit et Loyal. I had an effigy of him made in marble wearing the collar of St. Michael; and beside him was a space for me when my time came.

So passed the great Earl of Leicester. A year later I married Christopher Blount.

Essex

Essex,

Your sudden and undutiful departure from our presence and your place of attendance, you may easily conceive how offensive it is, and ought to be, unto us. Our great favours bestowed on you without deserts, hath drawn you thus to neglect and forget your duty; for other constructions we cannot make of those your strange actions... . We do therefore charge and command you forthwith upon receipt of these our letters, all excuses and delays set apart, to make your present and immediate repair unto us, to understand our further pleasure. Whereof see you fail not, as you will be loth to incur our indignation, and will answer for the contrary at your uttermost peril.