I stood back and we ladies all applauded loudly.

“You must tell that to your men, Your Grace,” Anne Dudley said. “They will be heartened by it, as we are.”

In April, it was reported to her, “The pope is daily plotting nothing but how he may bring about your utter overthrow. . . . The King of Spain is busy arming and extending his power to ruin both you and your estate. Will not Your Majesty, beholding the flames of your enemies on every side kindling around, unlock all your coffers and convert your treasure for the advancing of worthy men for the arming of ships and men of war to defend you?”

She nodded. “I shall. And if he attempts to penetrate my shores, I shall meet him myself.”

•   •   •

The air was unstable round us as it is before a storm. Elizabeth recalled Raleigh from his expeditions, understanding that she would have need of his fleet.

Drake, too, was on his way back to England; he sailed into Cadiz harbor, where, he said, he “singed the King of Spain’s beard” by destroying thirty-seven galleons gathering to form an armada against the English. He made his way to a Spanish fort, which he captured, and harried all of the Spanish vessels he could find along the way, perhaps as many as a hundred, burning their cargo, including all materials needed to make water and larder caskets for the entire Spanish fleet. He told the queen, “Philip will be hard-pressed to replace these in an expeditious manner, which means they will have to store their food and water in unseasoned timber, which will bring rot on quickly.”

And, at the last, Drake captured the St. Philip, a Spanish merchantman laden with spices, bullion, jewels, and expensive fabrics, just before arriving, hailed as a hero, in Plymouth.

“Her Majesty asked me to meet Drake, knowing we are friends, but also to inventory the haul for her,” Thomas said to me one morning. He showed me the letter he’d received from the council.

You shall first deliver our letter to Sir Francis Drake and acquaint him with your instructions: you shall see the bills of lading of the prizes taken: you shall see what is best to be conveyed hither by land or sea, and what to be sold locally: you shall consider the safest means of transport: you shall cause all coffers and boxes you judge or know to have gold, stones, jewels, etc., to be opened before Sir Francis Drake and yourselves. . . .

“The queen will take her thirty-five percent and then the rest shall be divided upon the investors. And Francis is rich,” Thomas said, but with no rancor. All England loved the man we knew to be our own pirate; men wished to be like him, women wished their husbands were. I simply wished for my husband to return to me.

The queen sent Thomas because she knew him to be meticulous to the penny; she knew where every cent in her kingdom was, to whom it was due, and what was due her. Although she would treat Drake fairly, she never gave anything away without necessity. “Drake’s actions will delay Philip as he must restore his lost fleet, if he can, and will give England more time to prepare. But it will also spur him on to brutal war if he can; he is no man to be tweaked by a woman, queen or no.”

I had not brought up the topic of the Wyatt poem with Thomas; what would I have said? There was no evidence at all, except the fear that lodged in my heart like a bone in the throat, that told me it was meant from Sofia to my husband. With war imminent, it did not seem a likely time for me to try to solve the problem of Sofia’s potential marriage or my own. And so, like the hulls of those burnt galleons, Thomas and I drifted.

Whilst Thomas was at Plymouth, the queen met with her councilors to plan fortifications against the Spanish. And then, in the midst of things, came a package, by sea, from the czar Ivan the Terrible of Russia.

We were at Richmond when the queen received an emissary of the czar. The queen met him in a private chamber flanked by me, Anne Dudley, Mary Radcliffe, and some other ladies as well as some of her noblemen.

“My master would like you to consider his gifts, and perhaps, his hand in marriage,” the envoy said, which brought a fit of giggles from the maids in the back of the chamber and a stern look from Her Majesty. At fifty-four, she was flattered to be still considered matrimonial material. Mary and I opened his packages in the presence of the queen; he gave her four pieces of Persian cloth of gold and two whole pieces of cloth of silver, a fair large Turkish carpet, one hundred black, very rich sable skins, and two gowns of white ermine.

The queen was gracious and instructed me to find some suitable gifts to return to Ivan with his servant, but she had no intention of marrying him.

Later, in her chamber, we ladies wrapped ourselves in the black skins and the queen in her gown of white ermine. I taught her a few words of Russian, which I had learned as a girl in the north, and as she ably mimicked me, we ladies burst out in laughter.

It was a much-needed moment of lightheartedness, as it came clearer each day that war was upon us.

•   •   •

The months passed and we prayed against and prepared for the Spanish. Thomas spent much of his time working for Lord Howard of Effingham, the queen’s cousin and lord admiral, and even Essex, as he prepared Hurst Castle and all ports north and south to withstand Spanish attack if they could.

War was upon me at my home, too. The queen spent much of early 1588 at Richmond Palace, which was rare, but which I relished, as I was able to stay in my own home and enjoy my children as we were but a few feet away. One evening, as I bent down to retrieve a ball that Edward had rolled down a long gallery and into Thomas’s room, I spied something under Thomas’s bed frame.

I leaned down and picked it up. It was a dainty, jeweled slipper. Sofia’s slipper. I sank to the floor and bade Edward to play with his brother for a moment.

What must I do? I prayed. What can I do? I recalled the story I’d shared with Her Majesty, of the bosom serpent in the garden.

It only took one serpent to destroy Eden.

And then a second thought: it also took two willing participants.

I wrote to Mary Herbert.



TWENTY-TWO

Spring: Year of Our Lord 1588