The Virgin’s Lover. Philippa Gregory

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      She left Robert alone for an hour to cool his temper and then she went upstairs to the cramped back bedroom, expecting to find him in their little rope bed, eager to tell him that she had won their battle, that he would not go to the fields, and that he should have a horse to train, perhaps the first of many. But the plain linen sheets were turned down, the headboards undisturbed, the room was empty. Robert was gone.

      

       Summer 1558

      Robert Dudley came to court with a grim determination. He had faced the abuse of his wife’s family, and thought he could not fall much lower. But now, in Richmond, the new-built beautiful palace that he loved as his own home, he discovered what it was to be humbled every day. Now he joined the crowd of petitioners that he had once walked past, wondering idly that they could find nothing better to do than beg for favours. Now he joined the ranks of the men who had to wait for the attention of their betters, in the hopes of being introduced to someone higher up the stair of ambition. Everything at the Tudor court came from the throne as the fountainhead of money, position, and place. Power flowed into the lesser tributaries of the great positions of the court and from there was divided and subdivided. Torrents of wealth cascaded from the badly managed treasury; but you had to be in favour with a man who was already in favour to tap a little of the flow for yourself.

      Robert, who had once been the greatest man at court, second only to his father who ruled the king, knew only too well how the system worked from the top. Now he had to learn how it worked at the very bottom.

      He spent days at court, staying in the household of a friend of his brother-in-law, Henry Sidney, seeking preferment: anything, a place or a pension, or even service in the household of a minor lord. But no-one would employ him. Some men would not even be seen speaking with him. He was over-educated for any lowly place; how could you ask a man who could speak three languages to write a list of goods that needed to be fetched from another house? He was despised by the ruling class of Catholic lords, who had seen him and his father drive through the Protestant Reformation in King Edward’s years. He was far too glamorous and bold and colourful for anyone to seat below the salt at their table, or use as a junior equerry. No petty lord gained an advantage with the eye-catching Robert Dudley standing behind his chair. No-one would take the risk of being outshone by their own servant. No lady of any reputation could take a man who exuded such powerful sexual charm into her household, no man would employ him near his wife or daughters. No-one wanted Robert Dudley, with his dazzling dark looks and his sharp wit, in any personal office, and no-one would trust him out of their sight.

      He hung around court like a handsome leper and learned to the last chilly note the voice of rejection. Many men who had been glad to be his friend and his follower when he had been Lord Robert now denied that they had ever known him. He found that memories were extraordinarily short. He was outcast in his own country.

      Philip of Spain’s favour now counted for nothing. He seemed to have abandoned England and her queen. He was living in his glamorous court in the Netherlands and was said to have taken a beautiful mistress. Everyone said he would never come to England again. His deserted wife, Queen Mary, confessed that she had been mistaken for a second time – she had failed to conceive his child, she would never now give England an heir. She shrank inside her clothes, and hid inside her private rooms, more like a widow than a ruling queen.

      Robert, unable to trade in his own dishonoured name, sign a legal bond, or join a company of merchants, knew that he would never progress until the slur of treason was lifted from his name, and only Queen Mary could restore him. He borrowed a new hat and a new cape from his brother-in-law Henry Sidney and stood in the queen’s presence chamber one damp, misty morning, waiting for her to come out of her rooms on the way to her chapel. Half a dozen other petitioners waited nearby, and they stirred as the door opened and the queen, head down and dressed in black, came out, accompanied only by a couple of women.

      Robert feared she would go past him without looking up but she glanced at him, recognised him, and paused. ‘Robert Dudley?’

      He bowed. ‘Your Grace.’

      ‘You wanted something of me?’ she asked wearily.

      He thought he would have to be as blunt as her. ‘I wanted to ask you to lift the attainder for treason against my name,’ he said frankly. ‘I served your husband at St Quentin and Calais and it cost me what was left of my fortune, and also my young brother’s life, Your Grace. With this mark against my name I cannot enter into business nor hold my head up. My wife has lost her inheritance, a little farm in Norfolk, and you know I have lost all my father’s gifts to me. I would not have my wife demeaned and in poverty for marrying me.’

      ‘Women always share in their husband’s fortune,’ she said flatly. ‘Good and bad. And a bad husband is a wife’s despair.’

      ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But she has never admired my fortunes. She only wanted to live quietly in the country and I would have done better for her if I had done as she wished. We cannot even live together now, I cannot endure her family, and I cannot buy her a roof to put over her head. I have failed her, Your Grace, and it is wrong of me.’

      ‘You were at the fall of Calais,’ she remembered.

      Robert met her eyes with a look that was as bleak as her own. ‘I never forget it,’ he said. ‘It was an ill-managed business. The canals should have been flooded to serve as a moat, but they did not open the sea-gates. The forts were not maintained and manned as we were promised. I did the best I could with my troop, but the French outnumbered and outmastered us. I did not fail you for lack of trying, Your Grace. Your husband himself commended my fighting at St Quentin.’

      ‘You always were silver-tongued,’ she said with a little ghost of a smile. ‘Your whole family could charm their way to Paradise.’

      ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘For too many of them are there already. Those of us who are left are brought very low in these days. I had seven brothers and five sisters in the nursery with me, twelve bonny children; and now there are only four of us left.’

      ‘I too am very low,’ she confessed. ‘When I came to the throne, Robert, when I defeated you and your father, I thought that all my troubles would be over. But they were just beginning.’

      ‘I am sorry it brought you so little joy,’ he said gently. ‘The crown is not a light burden, especially for a woman.’

      To his horror he saw her dark eyes fill with tears which spilled down the tired skin of her cheeks. ‘Especially a woman alone,’ she said softly. ‘Elizabeth may yet find that out for herself, though she is such a proud spinster now. It is unbearable to rule alone, and yet how can one share a throne? What man could be trusted with such power? What man can take the throne, and take a wife, and yet let her rule?’

      He dropped to his knee and took her hand and kissed it. ‘Before God, Queen Mary, I am sorry for your sadness. I never thought it would come to this.’

      She stood for a moment, comforted by his touch. ‘Thank you, Robert.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ