In the house at Camberwell Amy went into the parlor with the Scotts and Mrs. Oddingsell, swore them to the strictest of confidence, and announced that her husband was to be given the very highest order of chivalry, the Order of the Garter, a pretty little house at Kew, a grant of lands, a profitable office, and that best of all he had asked her to find them a suitable house in Oxfordshire.

“Well, what did Mrs. Woods tell you?” Mrs. Oddingsell demanded of her radiant charge. “And what did I say? You will have a beautiful house and he will come home every summer, and perhaps even the court will visit on progress, and you will entertain the queen in your own house and he will be so proud of you.”

Amy’s little face glowed at the thought of it.

“This is to rise high indeed,” Ralph Scott said delightedly. “It’s no knowing how far he may go on the queen’s favor like this.”

“And then he will need a London house, he will not be satisfied with a little place at Kew, you will have Dudley House or Dudley Palace, and you will live in London every winter, and give such grand feasts and entertainments that everyone will want to be your friend, everyone will want to know the beautiful Lady Dudley.”

“Oh, really,” Amy said, blushing. “I don’t seek it…”

“Yes, indeed. And think of the clothes you will order!”

“When did he say he would join you at Denchworth?” Ralph Scott asked, thinking that he might call on his cousin in Oxfordshire and promote his relationship with her husband.

“Within a fortnight, he said. But he is always late.”

“Well, by the time he comes, you will have had time to ride all around the country and to find a house he might like,” Mrs. Oddingsell said. “You know Denchworth already, but there are many old houses that you have never seen. I know it is my home, and so I am partial; but I think Oxfordshire is the most beautiful country in England. And my brother and sister-in-law will be so pleased to help us look. We can all go out together. And then, when Sir Robert finally comes, you will be able to ride out with him and show him the best land. Master of the Queen’s Horse! Order of the Garter! I would think he could buy up half of the country.”

“We must pack!” Amy cried, seized with urgency. “He says he wants me to go at once! We must leave at once.”

She dragged her friend to her feet, Mrs. Oddingsell laughing at her. “Amy! It will take us only two or three days to get there. We don’t have to rush!”

Amy danced to the door, her face as bright as a girl’s. “He’s going to meet me there!” she beamed. “He wants me there now. Of course we have to go at once.”


William Cecil was in low-voiced conference with the queen in the window embrasure at Whitehall Palace, a March shower pelting the thick glass of the window behind them. In various states of alertness the queen’s court waited for her to break from her advisor and turn, looking for entertainment. Robert Dudley was not among them; he was in his great chambers organizing river barges with the head boatmen. Only Catherine Knollys stood within earshot, and Cecil trusted Catherine’s loyalty to the queen.

“I cannot marry a man I have never seen.” She repeated the answer she was using to everyone to delay the courtship of the Archduke Ferdinand.

“He is not some shepherd swain that can come piping and singing to court you,” Cecil pointed out. “He cannot come halfway across Europe for you to look him over like a heifer. If the marriage is arranged then he could come for a visit and you could be married at the end of it. He could come this spring and you could be married in the autumn.”

Elizabeth shook her head, instantly retreating from the threat of decisive action, at the very mention of a date on the calendar. “Oh, not so soon, Spirit. Don’t press me.”

He took her hand. “I don’t mean to,” he said earnestly. “But your safety lies this way. If you were betrothed to a Hapsburg archduke, then you have an alliance for life, unbreakable.”

“They say Charles is very ugly, and madly Catholic,” she reminded him.

“They do,” he agreed patiently. “But it is his brother Ferdinand that we are considering. And they say he is handsome and moderate.”

“And the emperor would support the match? And we would have a treaty of mutual support if I married him?”

“Count Feria indicated to me that Philip would see this as a guarantee of mutual goodwill.”

She looked impressed.

“Last week, when I advised you in favor of the Arran match, you said you thought this match the better one,” he reminded her. “Which is why I speak of it now.”

“I did think so then,” she concurred.

“It would rob the French of their friendship with Spain, and reassure our own Papists,” he added.

She nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

Cecil sighed and caught Catherine Knollys’s amused sidelong smile. She knew exactly how frustrating Elizabeth could be to her advisors. He smiled back. Suddenly there was a shout and a challenge from the doorway and a bang against the closed door of the presence chamber. Elizabeth blanched and started to turn, not knowing where she could go for safety. Cecil’s two secret bodyguards stepped quickly toward her; everyone looked at the door. Cecil, his pulse hammering, took two steps forward. Good God, it has happened. They have come for her, he thought. In her own palace.

Slowly the door opened. “Beg pardon, Your Grace,” the sentry said. “It’s nothing. A drunk apprentice. Just stumbled and fell. Nothing to alarm you.”

Elizabeth’s color flowed back into her cheeks, and her eyes filled with tears. She turned into the window bay to hide her stricken face from the court. Catherine Knollys came forward and put her arm around her cousin’s waist.

“Very well,” Cecil said to the soldier. He nodded to his men to step back against the walls again. There was a buzz of concern and interest from the courtiers; only a few of them had seen the sudden leap of Elizabeth’s fear. Cecil loudly asked Nicholas Bacon a question and tried to fill the silence with talk. He glanced back. Catherine was talking steadily and quietly to the queen, reassuring her that she was safe, that there was nothing to fear. Elizabeth managed to smile, Catherine patted her hand, and the two women turned back to the court.

Elizabeth glanced around. Count von Helfenstein, the Austrian ambassador representing the Archduke Ferdinand, was just coming into the long gallery. Elizabeth went toward him with her hands outstretched.

“Ah, Count,” she said warmly. “I was just complaining that there was no one to divert me on this cold day, and praise be! here you are like a swallow in springtime!”

He bowed over her hands and kissed them.

“Now,” she said, drawing him to walk beside her through the court. “You must tell me all about Vienna and the ladies’ fashions. How do they wear their hoods, and what sort of ladies does the Archduke Ferdinand admire?”


Amy’s energy and determination to meet her husband meant that she had packed her goods and clothes, organized her escort, and said farewell to her cousins within days. Her spirits did not flag on the long journey from Camberwell to Abingdon, though they spent three nights on the road and one of them in a very inferior inn where there was nothing to eat at dinner but a thin mutton broth and only gruel for breakfast. Sometimes she rode ahead of Mrs. Oddingsell, cantering her horse on the lush spring grass verges, and the rest of the time she kept the hunter to a brisk walk. In the warm, fertile countryside with the grass greening, the pasture and the crops starting to fill the fields, the escort felt safe to drop behind the two women; there was no threat from any beggars or other travelers as the empty road wound over an empty plain, unmarked by hedges or fields.

Now and again Robert’s armed escort closed up as the way led the party through a wood of old oak trees, where some danger might be waiting, but the countryside was so open and empty, except for the solitary man plowing behind a pair of oxen, or a lad watching sheep, that it was not likely that anything could threaten Lady Dudley as she rode, merrily from one friendly house to another, secure of her welcome and hopeful of a happier future at last.

Mrs. Oddingsell, accustomed to Amy’s mercurial changes of mood which depended so much on the absence or promise of Sir Robert, let the young woman ride ahead, and smiled indulgently when she heard the snatches of song that drifted back to her.

Clearly, Sir Robert, with his candidate on the throne, with a massive income flowing into his coffers, would look around for a great house, would look around for a handsome estate, and in very short order would want to see his wife at the foot of his table and a son and heir in the nursery.

What was the value of influence at court and a fortune in the making without a son to pass it on to? What was the use of an adoring wife if not to run the estate in the country and to organize the house in London?

Amy loved Robert very deeply and would do anything to please him. She wanted him to come home to her and she had all the knowledge and skills to run a successful country estate. Mrs. Oddingsell thought that the years of Amy’s neglect and Robert’s years under the shadow of treason were over at last, and the couple could start again. They would be partners in a venture typical of their time, furthering the fortunes of a family: the man wheeling and dealing at court, while his wife managed his land and fortune in the country.

Many a good marriage had started on nothing more tender than this, and forged itself into a strong good partnership. And—who could tell?—they might even fall in love again.