Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

Elizabeth was happy to let Dudley order the celebrations as he thought best. Like everyone else she was dazzled by his confidence and his easy happiness in his restoration. To see Dudley at the center of attention, in a glittering room while a masque unfolded to his choreography, and the choir sang his lyrics, was to see a man utterly in his element, in his moment of glory, in his pride. Thanks to him the court glittered as if the decorations were gold and not tinsel. Thanks to him the greatest entertainers in Europe flocked to the English court, paid in notes of promise, or sweetened with little gifts. Thanks to him the court went from one entertainment to another until Elizabeth’s court was a byword for elegance, style, merriment, and flirtation. Robert Dudley knew, better than any man in England, how to give a party that lasted a long, glorious fortnight, and Elizabeth knew, better than any woman in England, how to enjoy a sudden leap into freedom and pleasure. He was her partner in dancing, her lead on the hunting field, her conspirator in the silly practical jokes that she loved to play, and her equal when she wanted to talk of politics, or theology, or poetry. He was her trusted ally, her advisor, her best friend, and her best-matched companion. He was the favorite: he was stunning.

As Master of Horse, Robert took responsibility for the coronation procession and entertainment, and shortly after the final great celebration of Twelfth Night he turned his attention to planning what must be the greatest day of her reign.

Working alone in the beautiful apartment at Whitehall Palace that he had generously allocated to himself, he had a scroll of manuscript paper unrolling down a table big enough to seat twelve men. From the top to the bottom the paper was covered with names: names of men and their titles, names of their horses, names of the servants who would accompany them, details of their clothing, of the color of the livery, of the arms they would bear, of the special pennants their standard-bearers would carry.

Either side of the list of the procession marched two more lists of those who would be spectators: the guilds, the companies, the waits from the hospitals, the mayors and councillors from the provinces, the organizations who had to have special places. The ambassadors, envoys, emissaries, and foreign visitors would watch the parade go past, and must have a good view so that their reports to their homes would be enthusiastically in favor of the new Queen of England.

A clerk danced from one end of the table scratching out and amending the scroll to Robert’s rapid fire of dictation from the lists in his hand. Every now and then he glanced up and said, “Purple, sir,” or “Saffron, nearby,” and Robert would swear a fearful oath. “Move him back one then, I can’t have the colors clashing.”

On a second table, equally as long as the first, was a map of the streets of London from the Tower to Westminster Palace, drawn like a snake along a vellum roll. The palace was marked with the time that the procession should arrive, and the time that it would take to walk from one place to another was marked along the way. A clerk had painted in, as prettily as an illuminated manuscript, the various stopping places and the tableaux that would be presented at each of the five main points. They would be the work and responsibility of the City of London, but they would be masterminded by Robert Dudley. He was not taking the chance of anything going wrong on the queen’s coronation procession.

“This one, sir,” a clerk said tentatively. Robert leaned over.

“Gracechurch Street,” he read. “Uniting of the two houses of Lancaster and York pageant. What of it?”

“It’s the painter, sir. He asked was he to do the Boleyn family too?”

“The queen’s mother?”

The clerk did not blink. He named the woman who had been beheaded for treason, witchcraft, and incestuous adultery against the king, and whose name had been banned ever since. “The Lady Anne Boleyn, sir.”

Robert pushed back his jeweled velvet cap and scratched his thick, dark hair, looking in his anxiety much younger than his twenty-five years.

“Yes,” he said finally. “She’s the queen’s mother. She can’t just be a gap. We can’t just ignore her. She has to be our honorable Lady Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, and mother of the queen.”

The clerk raised his eyebrows as if to indicate that it was Robert’s decision and would fall on his shoulders and no one else’s; but that he, personally, preferred a quieter life. Robert let out a crack of laughter and cuffed him gently on the shoulder. “The Princess Elizabeth is from good English stock, God bless her,” he said. “And it was a better marriage for the king than others he made, God knows. A pretty, honest Howard maid.”

The clerk still looked uneasy. “The other honest Howard maid was also executed for adultery,” he pointed out.

“Good English stock,” Robert insisted unblinkingly. “And God Save the Queen.”

“Amen,” the clerk said smartly, and crossed himself.

Robert noted the habitual gesture and checked himself before he mirrored it. “Now,” he said. “Are all the other pageants clear?”

“Except for the Little Conduit, Cheapside.”

“What of it?”

“It shows a Bible. Question is: should it be in English or Latin?”

It was a question that went to the very heart of the debate currently raging in the church. Elizabeth’s father had authorized the Bible in English and then changed his mind and taken it back into Latin again. His young son Edward had put an English Bible into every parish church, Queen Mary had banned them; it was for the priest to read and to explain; the English people were to listen, not to study for themselves. What Elizabeth would want to do, nobody knew. What she would be able to do, with the church full square against her, nobody could guess.

Robert snatched his cap from his head and flung it across the room. “For God’s sake!” he shouted. “This is state policy! I’m trying to plan a pageant and you keep asking me questions about policy! I don’t know what she will decide. The Privy Council will advise her, the bishops will advise her. Parliament will advise her, they will argue over it for months and then make it law. Pray God people will obey it and not rise up against her. It is not for me to decide it here and now!”

There was an awkward silence. “But in the meantime?” the clerk asked tentatively. “The cover of the Bible for the pageant? Should it be English or Latin? We could put a Latin copy inside an English cover if she preferred it. Or an English copy. Or one of both.”

“On the cover write BIBLE in English,” Robert decided. “Then everyone knows what it is. Write it in big letters so it is clear it is part of the pageant: a prop, not the real thing. It is a symbol.”

The clerk made a note. The man-at-arms at the door walked delicately over to the corner, picked up the expensive cap, and handed it to his master. Robert took it without acknowledgment. Other people had been picking up for him since he was a child of two.

“When we’ve finished this, I’ll see the other procession,” he said irritably. “Whitehall to Westminster Abbey. And I want a list of horses, and check that the mules are sound.” He snapped his fingers for another clerk to step forward.

“And I want some people,” he said suddenly.

The second clerk was ready with a writing tablet and a quill in a little pot of ink.

“People, sir?”

“A little girl with a posy of flowers, an old lady, some sort of peasant up from the Midlands or somewhere. Make a note and send Gerard out to find me half a dozen people. Note this: one old lady, frail-looking but strong enough to stand, and with a strong voice, loud enough to be heard. One pretty girl, about six or seven, must be bold enough to cry out and take a posy of flowers to the queen. One bright apprentice boy to scatter some rose petals under her horse’s feet. One old peasant from somewhere in the country to cry out, “God bless Your Grace.” I’ll have a couple of pretty merchants’ wives as well and an unemployed soldier, no, rather, a wounded soldier. I’ll have two wounded soldiers. And I’ll have a couple of sailors from Plymouth or Portsmouth or Bristol, somewhere like that. Not London. And they are to say that this is a queen to take the country’s fortunes overseas, that there is great wealth for the taking, for a country strong enough to take it, that this country can be a great one in the world, and this queen will venture for it.”