“I shall pray for your success.” Henry’s eyes lit up. “Do you think I might come with you?”
“Not for a moment, my dear friend. The heir to the throne would never be allowed to risk his life.”
“If I could make my own decisions I should come.”
“When the time comes for you to make your own decisions, your duty will lie here, and not in Orinoco.”
“None will rejoice more than I on the day you return in triumph; and Walter, when I am King everything that you have suffered shall be made up for … a hundredfold.”
Raleigh patted the young man’s hand.
“I shall serve you with my life, my King.”
Henry, feeling too emotional for comfort, hastily changed the subject. “You have heard of course that there is a move to marry Elizabeth to the Prince of Piedmont.”
“I have heard.” Raleigh shook his head. “I should not care to see our Princess married to the son of the Duke of Savoy; and I hear there is another project.”
“That I should marry his daughter. What think you of this match?”
“It does not please me.”
“Then do not hesitate to speak of your objections.”
“I shall not.”
“There has been a suggestion that Elizabeth should marry the King of Spain. As you know there are many secret Catholics at Court, in spite of the moves my father has made against them; and I believe that some of his ministers are in the pay of Spain. I should protest strongly against a Catholic marriage for my sister, and so would she.”
“A great deal depends on Salisbury’s attitude.”
“His desire is for closer alliance with the Princess of the German Protestant union, and the young Elector Palatine is looking for a bride.”
“And Elizabeth, what does she feel?”
“Poor Elizabeth. She is not very old, you know. It is a sad fate which befalls our Princesses. They must marry and go into a strange land. At least that is a fate which we avoid.”
“You are very fond of your sister, and you will suffer from the parting.”
“I shall come to you more often and expect you to comfort me. But perhaps by then you will be on the way to Orinoco. Who can tell?”
Henry saw the far-away look in his friend’s eyes, and knew that he was already picturing himself on the high seas.
He is longing to set sail, thought Henry. And when he goes I shall have lost him for a while; and if ill should befall him, perhaps for ever. And if Elizabeth marries and goes away, I shall have lost her too.
There was one other he had lost.
He thought of her occasionally and then he was aware of a nostalgia for the days of his innocence. He had never replaced Frances, having no further wish for a mistress. She could still make him sad. He had believed her to be perfect and his ideal had been shattered on the day when he had learned that Carr was also her lover.
There in the upper chamber of the Bloody Tower he felt a desire never to grow up, if doing so meant that he must lose that which, in innocence, he had cherished.
Northampton, secretly in the pay of Spain, having made a friend of Robert Carr, sought to carry him along with him. On the other hand Prince Henry and his sister were fiercely against a Catholic marriage.
Henry, who loved his sister more devotedly than he loved anyone else, was convinced that she could be happier with a man of her own faith; she too shared his opinion.
The antagonism between Robert Carr and the Prince of Wales intensified, although Robert’s pleasant easy- going nature made an open breach difficult. He rarely took offense and was always deferential in his manner to the Prince, but Henry hated the man; whenever he saw him, he pictured him making love to Frances, who, now chafing against life at Chartley, would have felt some comfort to know that she was not forgotten at Court.
Tom Overbury was constantly watching his friend’s enemies; and there were two who gave him great cause for alarm. One was the Prince of Wales; the other, Lord Salisbury. But Lord Salisbury was an old man and of late had shown signs of failing health; and Overbury had secret ambitions which he hoped to see fulfilled when the old man died. To whom would fall the Secretaryship and the Treasury? Why not to Robert Carr?
Perhaps this was hoping for too much? But Robert—with Overbury working in the background—would be capable of holding these offices.
Overbury was growing more and more excited during these months.
Salisbury eventually succeeded in making the King see the advantages of the German marriage, and the Princess Elizabeth was formally plighted to the Elector Palatine, Frederick V.
This was in a way a defeat for Northampton of whom Robert Carr had made a friend, and Overbury was dismayed because such a matter was enough to set courtiers asking: Is the favorite losing his influence with the King?
