P. Chisholm - An Air of Treason

She sat back and looked pleased with herself.

“A divorce?” Carey breathed. It was obvious, but he had only just started to wonder about it.

“Yes,” said Lettice. “Good King Henry did it twice of course, so much less upsetting than finding someone guilty of adultery and beheading them. It was before Bess of Hardwick divorced her husband and it would take an Act of Parliament but still…What couldn’t happen was my lord of Leicester doing the divorcing or the scandal would be too much and Convocation would block it. The Queen didn’t want any trouble like that, she was so hot for him. So the plan was for Amy to ask for an annulment on grounds of non-consummation.” Lettice nibbled a third wafer like a greedy squirrel and winked. It was a frightening sight.

Carey’s lips were parted at this brand new angle on the story. “But…” he began.

“Convocation would have granted it-they’d been plumped specially. Parliament would have granted it if Amy petitioned because they were desperate for Her Majesty to marry and get an heir even though they hated the Earl. She was getting old, after all, she was 27 in 1560. Amy would be given a nice pension and some property and be free to marry again while she could still have children and my lord of Leicester would become King.”

Now that made a lot of sense. A lot more sense than the notion of the Queen being so insane as to murder her lover’s wife.

“So perhaps Burghley did the…”

“Fooey,” said Lettice unexpectedly, “I don’t think Burghley did anything because he didn’t know. Nobody knew. Just the Queen, Amy, and Robert Dudley. Nobody else at all. They made sure the musicians played loudly when they were planning it and they didn’t speak in English and sometimes they wrote to each other but then they burnt the letters. It was a secret. Amy was still at Cumnor Place but she sent letters saying that she was willing to talk about bringing a petition for divorce. She was just dickering for more money and a nicer manor house and more land. She wouldn’t come to Court; she didn’t like it, said she didn’t want to be bullied out of her money.”

Lettice pursed her lips again and leaned forward confidingly. “She was a dreadful girl, dull, twitter-headed, greedy, obstinate. I never liked her and I certainly didn’t know anything about all this at the time. And she was so pious. Robert laughed about how worried she was about having to swear in court that they hadn’t consummated their marriage because they had, she just never quickened, no matter what she did, she was barren. But she was terrified about hell and damnation for swearing it falsely. That drove the Queen mad.”

Carey kept to himself his immediate thought that the Queen, whose indecisiveness drove every one of her servants crazy with impatience, had well-deserved to face the thing herself.

“And then…the stupid girl fell down the stairs or somebody pushed her and the whole thing fell apart. Poor Dudley was the one everybody thought did it so he couldn’t even marry the Queen though he was free.” Carey nodded and Lettice smiled smugly. “Of course, it was lucky for me because then I could marry him, not the Queen.” A shadow passed over her face. “I wish she would let me come back to Court now he’s dead. It’s not fair of her, is it?”

Carey shook his head sympathetically.

“I so love to see all the new fashions and hear the new music. My son tells me the news of course and I advise him and his wife. Poor Frances. She’s so brainy for a pretty girl. It’s terrible for her really. She’s pregnant again, you know?”

Lettice finished the last wafer and sat back as far as she could in the gaudy cage of her dress.

“Hmm. What did my Lady Essex think about the Cornish lands?”

“Oh, she has no idea. She wouldn’t let poor Robin so much as ride down to look at them, said her father taught her that anything that looked too good to be true probably wasn’t true, the boring old creep. So he missed out on them.”

Carey nodded again, thinking better of Lady Essex. He, too, had learned that maxim from Walsingham.

“She’ll be sorry when the gold starts to flow,” said Lettice brightly, nodding her head so her feather bobbed. “I’ll tell my lord son I’ve told you about the Queen’s divorce and he can tell you anything else he learned from his stepfather. You know, my lord of Leicester was a wonderful father, he taught Robin to hunt and ride-even after his own poor little boy died, he was kind to his stepson. I remember once when…”

Carey smiled and nodded at a very fond tale about the young Earl of Essex’s first pony. He had forgotten how boring Lettice Knollys could be but he now had to get rid of her urgently because Dr. Lopez’s potions were summoning him.

“My lady cousin,” he said with as much unctuous sincerity as he could ladle into his voice, “I am so grateful to you for coming all this way and telling me this extremely important secret. I am truly amazed at it.”

Not really, more amazed he hadn’t thought of it before. Lady Blount looked pink-cheeked and happy and creaked obediently to her feet as Carey offered his hand to help her up.

“Please don’t tell anyone at all what you’ve told me,” he warned.

“Oh don’t worry, Robin, not even my lord Treasurer Burghley, though he’s such an old friend and he was asking me the other day. You know he was the one who introduced me to my lord of Leicester after my lord realised the Queen would never really marry him?”

Which put Burghley squarely back in the dock for the murder of Amy Robsart, despite all his protestations. If Amy had agreed to petition for divorce that would ultimately make Dudley king and Burghley would have been out of a job the same week. Desperate men do desperate things. In 1560, the then-Sir William Cecil had not yet made his fortune from the Treasury and the Court of Wards. It was all very clear. The Queen wouldn’t like it coming out at all though and what about Mr. Secretary Cecil? Speaking of which, why on earth had she set all this in motion anyway? Why hadn’t his father warned him?

Carey bowed Lettice, Lady Blount out of Cumberland’s pavilion, blinked longingly at the men playing veneys in the central area of the camp while Sergeant Ross ran the sword class with his usual combination of wit and bullying. Unfortunately he had an urgent and probably unpleasant appointment with the jakes.

Some time later, Carey ambled into town again to see if he could spot the musician he had been following the previous night. His eyes did seem to be getting better-he had to squint and things were a bit blurry but at least he didn’t have to tie a scarf across them. He was in search of a good tailor in case he could find a better doublet for ordinary wear than his green one and perhaps one of the short embroidered capes that were all the rage and possibly one of the new high-crowned hats…Passing Carfax he heard a great deal of shouting as a short puffy man was arrested for coining and horse-theft. The man’s face was purple; he kept shouting that he was Captain Leigh on urgent business. His henchman, a big louring thug, suddenly broke free of the two lads holding him, knocked down a third and took to his heels down the London road. A few people gave chase but didn’t try too hard on account of his size and ugliness. Carey didn’t fancy it himself. Meanwhile, the horsethief had been cold-cocked on general principles and hauled off to the Oxford lockup.

The first tailor he found on the High Street, was showing some very good samples of fine wool and Flemish silk brocades in his window, so he wandered in and asked questions. Alas, the prices were even more inflated than in London and the man explained smugly that he couldn’t be expected to produce anything in time for the Queen’s Entry on Friday as all his journeymen were working flat out already. And there were only two other tailors in Oxford town.