“My God! But what can an inquest do?”
“It can discover what happened. Because people are saying that she did not fall down the stairs but someone pushed her!” Mary says through a mouthful of bread and meat. “And so Sir Robert has to withdraw from court, and go into mourning on his own. He’s going to his house at Kew, and Elizabeth is prowling round her rooms like a hungry wolf. She can’t go to see him; she can’t even write to him. He’s suspected of murder; she can’t be connected. She doesn’t go out and has almost imprisoned herself in her rooms. The court dines without her. Nobody knows what to do. And he—he is halfway to ruin. Everyone is saying that he murdered his wife to marry Elizabeth, and some people are saying that she knew.”
I am enormously cheered at the thought of Elizabeth losing Robert Dudley, just as I am parted from Ned. “She did know! At any rate, she knew that Amy Dudley was going to die! But who is saying that it was Elizabeth?”
“The Spanish ambassador himself!” Mary reminds me. “And he had it from Cecil. He has told everyone. She will never be able to see Dudley again. Everyone says she knew that he was going to kill his wife. And if they find him guilty of murder, they will execute him, and serve him right.”
“They’ll never behead Robert Dudley!” I say bitterly. “She’ll never let them. Not him. Not her favorite.”
“It doesn’t matter who he is, if he killed his wife,” Mary declares. “Not even Elizabeth is above the law of the land. If the Oxfordshire inquest names him as a murderer, then she can’t pardon him. And besides, he’s hardly the first of that family to be beheaded.” She sees my face as I think of our sister, who signed herself “Jane Duddley.” She puts out her hand. “I didn’t mean her. I never think of Jane as a Dudley.”
I shake my head at the sudden vivid thought of my sister and the spoiled Dudley boy. “They’re none of them any good,” I say spitefully. “But Robert was the best of them.”
Once again, Ned and I are estranged. I had thought he would come to me at once and beg my pardon, but he does not. I am miserable without him, but I cannot bring myself to apologize when I am not at fault. I see him walking with Frances Mewtas and dancing with her, and each time my jealousy and unhappiness are renewed. I am determined to punish him for his infidelity, but I think that no one is in pain but me.
The court is subdued and uneasy. It seems as if nobody is happy as the days get shorter and the leaves turn color, and the summer, which seemed as if it would last forever, drains away a little more every day. The blue fades from the sky and the clouds go gray and a cold wind gets up and blows down the Thames valley.
Elizabeth is lost without Robert Dudley, who is still away from court, skulking at his pretty house at Kew, wearing full black and shamed to the ground. He is waiting, as we all are, for the results from the Abingdon coroner and the judgment of the inquest jury. He may get back to court—he is a Dudley, after all: they bounce back after anything but beheading—but he can never marry the queen now. Even if the jury rules that his wife was killed by an accidental fall, everyone believes that he has packed the jury. It does not really matter if this is true or not. It is his reputation that is on trial, and that is as dead as his poor wife. The struggle for the queen is over. Not even Robert Dudley can imagine that he will ever be accepted as a suitable advisor or courtier by the country, the Privy Council, or even the queen herself. He has disqualified himself by the crime that he thought would advance his cause to the throne.
William Cecil is quietly victorious in the absence of his old rival. He manages to be at once regretful and dominant: the queen must marry a Protestant prince, Robert Dudley is infamed by the death of his wife. The queen, who was so besotted, is like a heartbroken widow without the man she loves. But her determination to survive as queen holds her tight as a vise. She says not one word of Robert, and her pinched little face is constantly turned towards Cecil, her head cocked for his discreet counsel, and she does exactly what he tells her. Nobody doubts that she will marry as he thinks best, since her attempt to marry for love has ended in death and disgrace.
I am back in favor, but I can’t say it is a very merry place to be. Elizabeth is sick with silent longing for the man she loves; I, one pace behind her, am yearning for Ned. I almost want to tell her that I understand her pain, that I am feeling the same. But then I remember that it is her fault that Ned and I are parted. We are not doomed by sin, we were free to marry. It is her fault that I am so unhappy. One word from her would restore me to the only man I will ever love. But she will not say that word. She will never say it. She wants everyone to be as lonely and bereft as herself.
WINDSOR CASTLE,
OCTOBER 1560
It gets colder and there is no more boating on the river for pleasure. The court is to return to London. Amy Dudley’s death is named as an accident. Robert Dudley, his month of mourning concluded, his name as clear as it will ever be, is allowed back to court. Elizabeth, with the eyes of the world on her and on her lover, knowing that everyone believes him to be a murderer, greets him very quietly, and Robert Dudley joins the court with uncharacteristic gravity.
They have to be together, they cannot help themselves; everyone can see that. But there will be no talk of marriage ever again: William Cecil has seen to that. It was he who spread the rumors that Dudley would kill his wife, and it was he who told everyone that the country would never bear a Dudley as king. It doesn’t really matter if either of these things is true or false: the whole of Christendom believes it, and Elizabeth and Dudley stoop under the shared burden of their shame.
My cousin Margaret Douglas, the poor woman—ugly, old, and papist—is summoned to court during this gloomy time. She is not here to be honored, but to be watched. Elizabeth, despairing of getting any truth from the long interrogations of Margaret’s crazed advisors—a double spy, a soothsayer, a turncoat priest—has decided to keep a close eye on her at court. They know that Margaret has approached the French Queen of Scots, but they don’t know what she has offered.
At once, all the issues of precedence begin all over again as the woman, a known papist, who should really be humbled by her disgrace, tries to push in front of me, the Protestant heir. I am so unhappy at the loss of Ned I really can’t make myself care enough to push back. It is a relief when Margaret is allowed to return to her home in Yorkshire, still suspected, still papist, still old and ugly of course.
I decide that I will write to Ned and tell him that when the court returns to London and falls into the routine of city life, I don’t wish to see him. I know this is meaningless: we cannot help but see each other, we are attending the same queen, we are serving at the same court. We will see each other every day.
“But I don’t wish to dance with you, or have you lift me to my horse, or attend me to chapel, or single me out in any way at all,” I write stiffly. I drop a tear on the page and I blot it with my sleeve so that he cannot see that I am crying over this. “I wish you every happiness with Frances. I myself will never marry. I have been deeply disappointed in love.”