Jean Plaidy - The Murder in the Tower: The Story of Frances, Countess of Essex
Frances, delighted, showed the note to Robert, but he frowned.
“My love,” he said, “we must be careful from whom we accept gifts.”
“But he has so many horses and he wants to give them.”
“He wants a post at Court. The secretaryship, I believe. I cannot have him think that by giving you four fine horses he can buy my support.”
He immediately wrote a note of thanks to Winwood telling him that his wife could not accept such a costly gift; but Frances was so disappointed and Winwood so eager to make the present, that at last Robert relented; and Frances rode through the city in her fine coach drawn by four of the most magnificent horses ever seen.
And Sir Ralph Winwood, watching her, congratulated himself that he had done a very wise thing.
She should have been happy, for Robert was a tender husband; she loved his simplicity; and it seemed a marvelous thing to her that one who had been so long at Court should have retained an innocence.
He was so different from her. Was that why she loved him so passionately? Perhaps. For her love did not diminish with marriage; rather did it grow.
Yet she would sometimes wake at night, sweating with terror. How strange this was, when before she had not had a qualm of conscience! When she had been working toward her goal she had thought of one thing only—success. And now she had achieved it she was unable to forget the road she had come to reach it.
What had started this? Was it a look in the eyes of Jennet when she had spoken sharply to her? Was Jennet reminding her that she knew too much?
Jennet had always been a saucy girl; she had shown respect it was true, but there had often been a suggestion of mockery beneath it.
“Jennet,” she had said, “would you like this gown? I have scarce worn it and I think it would become you.”
Jennet had taken it with less gratitude than a maid should show to her mistress.
“I’ll swear you’ve never had such a gown,” said Frances.
“No, my lady.”
“Yet you do not seem surprised to possess it.”
“I know my lady is grateful to me. We have been through so much together … to reach this … happiness.”
Then Frances remembered the darkened room, the incense, the low almost caressing voice of Dr. Forman; and Jennet watching in the shadows.
She would like to rid herself of Jennet; but Jennet knew too much. She dared not.
She, Frances Howard, dared not rid herself of a servant!
It was small wonder that she sometimes awoke in fright.
“My lady, there is a female to see you.”
“A female? Ask what she wants. No … no … One moment. What sort of a female?”
The fear had touched her again. She must go carefully. There was so much to hide.
“A respectable looking female, my lady.”
“I will see her. Bring her to me.”
They brought her; and the door was shut on them leaving them alone together.
“My name is Mrs. Forman, my lady. You were a friend of my husband’s, the late Dr. Forman.”
“I think you are mistaken.”
“Oh no, my lady. You wrote to him often you remember. He called you his daughter and to you he was ‘Sweet Father.’”
“Who told you this?”
“He used to show me his letters. I have them still. You see I was his wife and I worked with him. That is why, now he is gone, I have fallen on evil times and I thought that as such a good friend of the doctor—”
The woman must not know that she was afraid. She smiled and said: “Why, if times are hard with you, you must allow me to help you.”
Give them money. It was easy. There was so much money.
“My lady,” said Dr. Franklin, “the potions I procured for you were very costly. My experiments demanded a lavish use of these. I neglected other clients to serve you and, my lady, I find I have lost two hundred pounds this year because of this.”
“Two hundred pounds this year?”
“Two hundred pounds a year, my lady, would satisfy me well, with a little extra for food and my boat hire.”
Franklin smiled at her, the lazy smile of power. These people were no longer humble as they had been. They had worked for her and as a result a man had died. That was something they could not forget.
How many more of them? she wondered. There was Mrs. Turner’s maid, Margaret, who had run many errands to find what the lady had needed; there was Mrs. Turner’s manservant, Stephen. They all wanted their little rewards—their silence money.
There was Mrs. Turner herself—not that she would do anything so vulgar as to ask for money. But they had been dear friends, had they not? That friendship must not cease because they had achieved success together.
“Sweetest lady,” said Anne Turner, “I’ll confess I am never happy away from your side. We worked well together did we not? It is foolish of me but I am almost sorry that we have successfully completed our task and I can no longer be of service to you.”
Mrs. Turner was therefore often a guest at the house of the Earl and Countess of Somerset and it was a great pleasure to her to be at Court again.
So, much as Frances tried to forget Sir Thomas Overbury, these people would not allow her to. It seemed that every day there was someone or some thing to remind her.
She became ill and Robert was anxious.
“What ails you, my love?” he asked her. “You seem nervous. Are you worried?”
“Nay, Robert,” she said. “I am well.”
“But you are not,” he told her tenderly. “You have changed. Others have noticed.”
“I think the long delay over the divorce was more upsetting than I realized. I so longed for it to be over.”
“Well now it is, and we can forget it.”
You may, she thought. But how can I?
She had thought it so simple to murder a man who stood in the way. But it seemed it was not.
Overbury haunted her. He would not let her forget. It was true she saw no ghost; but ghosts took many forms; they did not always have to materialize in order to make themselves felt.
Robert, alarmed for her health, took a house in Kensington for her, but as it did not improve there they went to Chesterfield Park; then Robert decided that she must see the King’s physician, and James himself insisted on this. He could not have his Robbie worried after all the trouble they had had to get him married.
So Robert bought a house in Isleworth, and the King’s doctor, Burgess, attended the Countess.
He could not understand what was undermining the Countess’s health, but he believed she would be well when the spring came.
That was a cold winter; the Thames itself was frozen and there was no escaping the bleak cold winds.
ENTER GEORGE VILLIERS
James was brooding uneasily when the arrival of Sir John Digby at the palace was announced.
Money! He could never find enough. It was not that he spent a great deal upon himself. If he asked his Parliament for it they would begin to snarl about his favorites, declaring that they were the ones whose greedy hands depleted the Exchequer.
One of the ministers had said that those handsome young men who were spaniels to the King were wolves to the people. They were eager to drag Robert down; he knew it. They were jealous of Robert on whom he was coming more and more to rely. Robert was the perfect companion, the perfect minister; he never criticized; he never attempted to impose his will. He worked for his master wholeheartedly and through love.
But it was a pretty pass when the brewers were at the door of the palace declaring they would supply no more goods until their bills were paid. Sixteen thousand pounds they said the palace owed them and on account of this they were all but ruined; they must have payment. They had even dared to go to law. Such a state of affairs could not be allowed. No tradesman could summons the King. There was only one way of dealing with such a situation if the dignity of royalty was to be maintained. The brewers who had dared act so were sent to the Marshalsea Prison for lèse majesté.
But James was a man who must consider a matter from all angles. He saw the brewers’ point of view, and recognized that it was unjust that a merchant should supply goods, receive no payment and when he asked for it be thrown into prison. Only James’s fervent belief in the Divine Right of Kings would have allowed him to act as he did; and even so his conduct depressed him.
Such were his thoughts when Sir John Digby entered and asked to speak privately to him.
James willingly gave the permission. He was fond of Digby, a personable man in his mid-thirties who had come to Court from his native Warwickshire in the hope of following a career in diplomacy. He had come to James’s notice at the time of the Gunpowder Plot when he had been sent to convey a message to the King; James had been impressed immediately by his good looks and intelligence, and Digby had become a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and one of the King’s Carvers.
James had recognized the man’s integrity—a quality found all too rarely at Court—and had decided on his advancement. Opportunity had come to Digby a few years previously when James had sent him to Madrid as his ambassador to arrange a marriage between the Infanta Anne and Prince Henry. Digby had quickly discovered that the Infanta was already betrothed to Louis XIII of France; and when Philip III had suggested a match between the Prince and his younger daughter Maria, Digby had sensed a lack of seriousness on the part of the Spanish monarch and advised against the marriage. But although that matter had come to nothing Digby had proved himself a worthy ambassador in other ways.
Now his manner was very grave as he bowed before the King.
“Well, Johnnie,” said James, “I can see ye’ve brought me news which you’re hesitating to deliver. Is it so bad then?”
“I fear, Your Majesty, that this is going to be a shock to you.”
“Well, lad, I’ve suffered many a shock in my life and mayhap I’ll see a few more before I die. So let me hear this one.”
Digby took a scroll from his pocket and said slowly: “I have prepared this and think it my duty to lay it before Your Majesty. It is to give this to you—and to do it with my own hands—that I am here in London.”
James took the scroll, unrolled it and frowned at it. It was a list of names—all well-known people of his Court.
“I believed, Your Majesty, that certain information was leaking to Spain and I set my spies to watch how this could be. I have now completed my investigation. That list, Your Majesty, contains the names of your ministers and courtiers who are accepting pensions from the King of Spain for the service they do him.”
“Traitors?” murmured James.
“That is so, Your Majesty. I fear that when you read those names you will be deeply shocked.”
James was hastily scanning the list. He knew he could trust Digby, but he could scarcely believe what he read. Yet there it was in detail. The names and the amounts of the pensions.
He would not bear to study the list too closely because he was afraid of finding one name there and if he found it he knew he would never trust any man again.
“Thank you, Johnnie,” he said. “You’re a good servant. Leave the list with me. I wish to examine it closely. You will be hearing more of this, but leave me now, and tell my servants that I wish to be alone.”
When Digby retired James returned to the scroll.
Northampton! The rogue! And Northampton had been a close friend of Robbie’s … and was now related to him!
The Countess of Suffolk—his mother-in-law! He had never trusted her, knowing her for a rapacious woman.
Thank God! His name was not there.
Of what had he been thinking? Robbie, a traitor! Never. Thank God he could rely on Robbie.
The scroll had ceased to be so very important. After all, was he surprised that he was surrounded by rogues?
But he was glad to have seen the scroll because it had proved to him that he had not been mistaken in Robbie.
James decided to say nothing of the discovery. He had been warned that he was surrounded by men who took bribes from Spain, but he could see no good in making the matter public. He would be cautious in dealing with those people concerned, but it would be very unsettling to have a scandal now. The Essex divorce was still talked about. It was known that recently he had suggested offering baronetcies to any who could pay six thousand pounds for them; the matter had come to nothing, largely because there were so few who would have been ready to pay the price for the title. But somehow these matters leaked out and were talked of.
No, he wanted no more scandal.
So James gave no sign to those who were in the pay of Spain that he was aware of this, but he watched them very closely.
Northampton, meanwhile, was having many a secret meeting with the Spanish ambassador.
Count Gondomar had quickly realized the importance of this wily statesman, who was now related by marriage to the King’s favorite young man; and as that young man was the sort to be easily led, Count Gondomar was very hopeful for the future.
“It would be an excellent thing,” he told Northampton, “if a marriage could be arranged between the Prince of Wales and the Infanta Maria. I believe that if this marriage could take place, in a few years we should see the Catholic Faith back in England.”
Northampton agreed with this; he was ready to earn the pension he drew from Spain and he was against that French marriage for the Prince of Wales which was now being suggested.
“How does the Earl of Somerset feel about the Spanish match?”
Northampton smiled. “I doubt not,” he said, “that when I have had a word with him he will feel it to be an excellent proposition.”
“Then, my good friend, we shall have the King on our side. For I have heard it said that what Somerset desires today, His Majesty desires tomorrow.”
“Your Majesty is in urgent need of money,” said Robert. “Why should you not fill your coffers with Spanish gold?”
“By agreeing to the Spanish match for Charles, Robbie?”
“Yes, Sire. Philip would give the Infanta a magnificent dowry.”
“The people are against a Spanish marriage, lad.”
“Because they fear the Catholic religion would be brought back to England.”
“Which it never will be. I know this of the people of England. They remember Bloody Mary and the threat of the Armada. This country made itself the natural enemy of Spain in the days of Drake and Elizabeth. Legends die hard. The English would never have the Inquisition on these shores; and that means they are suspicious of Catholics, and particularly Spaniards.”
“Then Your Majesty does not wish to benefit from the Spanish gold?”
“I wouldna say that, Robbie. There’s no harm in your doing a little negotiation with Gondomar. Sound the man. See what they’ll offer. Whether we decide there should be a French or Spanish marriage ‘tis as well to know all that’s entailed. And Robbie, we’ve been long enough without a Secretary of State. I’ve decided on Winwood.”
