The Last Tudor

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,

AUTUMN 1564

Nobody believes that the queen intends to part with Robert Dudley. But she persuades James Melville that she means it, and William Cecil makes preparations for a meeting of Scots and English commissioners at Berwick to sign a marriage agreement and an alliance. Thomasina the dwarf looks at me with a hidden smile, as if we two, who see Elizabeth when she is not showing off her dancing, or her music, or her scholarship to the Scots ambassador, know more than these men who are obliged to admire her. To make her favorite a worthy suitor, she decides that he has to be Earl of Leicester and Baron Denbigh, and all the court attends the great hall to watch Robert Dudley, the son of a traitor and the grandson of a traitor, kneel before the queen and arise an earl. Queen Mary must be assured that Elizabeth loves Robert Dudley like a brother, and respects him as a temporal lord. But Elizabeth cannot even complete this charade without spoiling the scene. As he kneels in homage she caresses the back of his neck. The Scots ambassador sees it; we all see it. She might as well announce to the world that she loves him and he is completely under her thumb. It is impossible: Mary Queen of Scots will never take Elizabeth’s leavings when they are not even pushed to the side of her plate. It is as if Elizabeth’s spittle is still on him.