Shakespeare had considered McGunn’s role. He had been the hub of an infernal wheel, whose spokes touched lives in terrible ways: the tragedy of the Roanoke colonists; his funding of the Essex treachery; the corruption of Christopher Morley; Winterberry and the Le Neves. All spokes led back to McGunn. But Shakespeare also found himself wondering about the event that lay behind it all-the pitiless killing of his wife at a small rocky outcrop of Ireland known as Smerwick. He asked Cecil about it-was there truth in the claim that Ralegh had blood on his hands?
“I do believe so,” Cecil said. “My father told me that Ralegh carried out the killings with grim efficiency, watching his soldiers hewing and punching six hundred unarmed and bound men, and hanging pregnant women. They were cruel days. Ralegh’s half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert, had a row of Irish heads lining the path to his tent. I heard also that when Ralegh caught an Irishman stealing willow branches from an English camp, he demanded to know what they were for. ‘To hang English churls,’ the man said. Ralegh had him strung up there and then, saying the branches would serve as well for an insolent Irishman. I cannot stomach such things, which is why I strive for peace, not war. That is what you sign up to, John, when you agree to assist me. You understand that?”
“We are as one, Sir Robert. Except…”
“Except my use of Mr. Topcliffe. I believe you had the same problem when you worked for Mr. Secretary Walsingham.”
The anger rose in Shakespeare’s gullet. “I have to speak plain, Sir Robert. The man tried to ensnare my wife. He takes pleasure in torture. He has raped the young Bellamy woman. He conspired with the poisonous Morley. I say that Topcliffe is worse than any of England’s enemies.”
“Sit down, John,” Cecil ordered. “Let me tell you that I share your feelings. And yet…”
“There is no ‘and yet,’ Sir Robert.”
“And yet I need Mr. Topcliffe, just as Mr. Secretary needed him. There is no doubting his loyalty to the crown or to England.”
“He is a man who does not balk at torture, rape, and murder.”
“Enough, John. Sit down.” The Privy Councillor’s voice became quieter. “Please, listen to me. These are desperate times. Spain will come with a yet more powerful fleet next spring or summer. And her agents continue to worm their way into the body of England-in secret ways which it is our task to stop. You are my longbow in this, John-but Topcliffe is the poison tip of my arrow.”
Cecil, small and precise and still, never lost his composure as he spoke. Their eyes met. At last Cecil smiled and reached out his hand in friendship. “Come, John, we need each other. Let us speak of pleasanter things. Let us speak of a bright future for England. I need you-and I believe you need me.”
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to many people, who have helped me in myriad ways. In particular, I would like to thank my agent, Teresa Chris, and Kate Miciak, Vice President and Editorial Director of Bantam Books, for their superb advice and unstinting support. I would also like to thank the toxicologist Professor Robert Forrest (any mistakes are mine, not his); Jean Bray, the archivist at Sudeley Castle; Cosy Bagot Jewitt at Blithfield Hall; and, as ever, my wife, Naomi.
Books that have been especially helpful include
Historical Note
Queen Elizabeth is a bit-part player in this novel, yet her relationship with twenty-four-year-old Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, stands at the heart of the story-and of the late Tudor age itself.
What did the fifty-eight-year-old sovereign want from this ambitious yet hopelessly inadequate young man? Yes, she loved his charm and good looks, but I believe she also enjoyed goading his beautiful mother, Lettice, the cousin she despised for marrying her own great love, Leicester. It was as if she were saying “You may have won Leicester, but I have your son.”
And what did Essex want from Elizabeth? He wanted money, because he was desperately short of the stuff, and he wanted power. Indeed, he wanted her job, as the world was to discover with his wretched coup attempt in 1601.
At his trial, Sir Robert Cecil accused him: “You would depose the Queen. You would be King of England.” The Earl of Northumberland asserted that Essex “wore the crown of England in his heart these many years.”
Essex’s “affair” with Elizabeth-and his deadly rivalry with both Cecil and Ralegh-dominated the Queen’s declining years. The Earl had become her favorite courtier in 1587, yet the cracks were immediately apparent. In the summer of that year, they had a furious and very public quarrel that set the scene for many rows to come.
That first fight was over the Queen’s snub of his sister Dorothy when she was barred from the royal presence for a perceived misdemeanor. In a rage, Essex accused Elizabeth of listening to gossip from his rival Sir Walter Ralegh. The more he insulted Ralegh (who had nothing to do with the snub), the more the Queen threw back insults against Essex’s mother, Lettice.
Essex stormed out in the middle of the night, taking Dorothy with him. The Queen sent a courtier after him to apologize and ask him back. And so the morbid, hot-and-cold affair of the aging Queen and the moody young swain began. He would walk out and sulk; she would beg him to come back.
Yet she never trusted him with the power he craved. He continually demanded promotion, but she invariably gave the best jobs to someone else and, in doing so, fed his paranoia.
He often defied her. During his 1591 military campaign in northern France, he knighted twenty-four officers against the express orders of the Queen. When she heard what he had done, she was livid. She would not normally knight half that number in a whole year, and he hadn’t even won a battle, let alone a war.
The year of Essex’s “cheap knights” was the beginning of his drive for the top. By giving knighthoods-as he was entitled to do when leading an expeditionary force-he was buying loyalty. The following year, Essex set about becoming a statesman. He took on the Bacon brothers, Francis and Anthony, and they advised him that intelligence-gathering was the way to make a political impact.
His lust for power was stoked up by certain Machiavellian friends such as Gelli Meyrick and Henry Cuffe, but mainly by his ruthlessly ambitious sister, Penelope Rich. She pushed him to rebellion and was a prime cause of his downfall.
And then there was Arbella Stuart. Essex would have easily seen how advantageous a match might be with the young girl, a serious claimant to the throne of England. He used his charm well, supporting her at court and flirting with her when others avoided her because of her haughtiness. There was court tittle-tattle about their closeness, and he is also believed to have conducted a secret correspondence with the impressionable girl, though this does not survive.
Did he have plans to marry her? Surely he considered it. His marriage to Frances Walsingham was an inconvenient formality and easily disposed of if necessary. That was the way the Essex clan did things. His mother
