The mockery – at least so it seemed to me – of this speech wounded me to the quick. Elizabeth must have known just what my feelings were for Ellinor Huntingdon, that arrogant, overbearing – and tale-bearing – bigot who had shattered our childish dreams and youthful affection. The Queen well knew the injury she would do to me and to herself if, in her absolute power, she ordered me to marry the born enemy of all my instincts, of all my hopes. Again I was consumed with hatred for that incomprehensible something in the character of my Royal beloved; full of bitterness and wounded pride I bowed my head before this disdainful earthly Majesty and, without saying a further word, rode away from Greenwich Park.
Why rehearse once more the battles, the humiliations and the “politic” reasoning that followed? Robert Dudley played the marriage broker and the Queen had her will. I married Lady Ellinor and spent four frigid summers at her side and five frustrated winters, warmed only by the heat of our dislike. Her dowry has made me rich and free from material care; her name has made me envied and honoured among my countrymen. Elizabeth enjoyed her malicious triumph, for she knew that I, her spiritual bridegroom, was in the cold arms of an unloved wife whose kisses were no cause for jealousy for the “Virgin” Queen. As I stood at the altar I swore two oaths: marital fidelity to my wife and, from the depths of my blighted eternal love, vengeance on the cruel mistress who toyed with me, Queen Elizabeth.
It was Bartlett Greene who pointed the way to my revenge.
In the meantime, however, Elizabeth sucked the last drop of malicious pleasure from my torment by involving me in the most intimate aspects of her political schemes. She confided to me that reasons of state made her own marriage advisable. As she asked my opinion as to what kind of qualities I thought her ideal consort should possess, her eye never left my face and her lips were parted in the smile of a torturer observing his victim’s suffering. Finally she decided that I was the ideal person – to travel the courts in search of a husband. And this burden, too, I shouldered to complete my humiliation. Nothing came of the marriage projects, and my diplomatic career finished when Elizabeth changed her political alignment and I fell seriously ill in Nancy – and in the guest chamber of one of the candidates for the hand of my Royal Mistress. My pride and courage crushed, I made my way home to England.
On the very day of my dismal return to Mortlake – it was a warm early autumn day of the year 1571 – I learnt from my first wife, Ellinor, who had the nose of a beagle when it came to news, that Elizabeth had sent word that she was to return to Richmond, which was unusual so late in the year. Ellinor could scarce conceal her spiteful jealousy, even though she remained as cold as marble towards me, in spite of the fact that I had been away for so long.
And Elizabeth did, indeed, return to Richmond. She came with but a small retinue and took up residence as if she intended to stay for some considerable time. Now, it is scarcely a mile from Richmond to Mortlake; an early encounter with the Queen was inevitable and likely to be repeated, unless she had expressly desired not to see me. The opposite was the case and Elizabeth received me the next day with great honour and friendship, just as she had sent two of her own physicians to attend me in Nancy and ordered her most trusted courier, William Sidney, to see to my every need.
Even now she showed herself most concerned for my welfare and, through words casually dropped here or there, through the bewildering shower of favours she poured on me, made it daily clearer how relieved, how happy she was in her regained liberty and how grateful she was to have escaped the bonds of a marriage which could have inspired in her neither love nor fidelity. In brief, her hints often seemed to flutter round the flame of our secret union, and it often seemed to me as if my unfathomable Mistress were at the same time mocking Ellinor’s quibbling and fruitless jealousy and justifying it. For more than a month my blind devotion kept me tied to my Lady’s apron strings; and more than at any other time she bent an earnest and approving ear to my boldest plans to bring glory to her and her government. Once again she seemed fired with enthusiasm for the idea of a Greenland Expedition and set everything in train to examine the plans and make preparations.
In several reports drawn up by the Admiralty my meticulously prepared dispositions and projects were judged to be practicable and the military advisers were in enthusiastic agreement. Week by week the Queen became more impatient to start the Great Enterprise. I believed I was close to the goal of my life’s ambition, and Elizabeth’s lips – lips magically radiant with a most auspicious smile – had spoken the word that would have made me Viceroy of all new lands subject to the English crown – “King of the Throne beyond the Western Sea”. But in one single night my life’s glorious dream was shattered in the most cruel, most miserable, most bitter reversal any man’s heart and soul have ever had to suffer. What the hidden event was that led to it, I do not know. Even today darkness surrounds the dreadful mystery of the collapse of my hopes.
This much I do know:
A final meeting of the Privy Council with all
