She was up and dancing when he came. She pirouetted merrily at the sight of him.
“This is good news you bring us,” she cried. “I have not felt so well for many weeks as I do on contemplating the birth of this fair son to my sister.”
Melville knelt before her and kissed her hand.
He said with emotion: “My Queen knows that of all her friends Your Majesty will be the gladdest of this news. Albeit her son has been dear bought with peril of her life. She has been so sorely handled in the meantime that she wishes she had never married.”
Elizabeth was pleased with this remark which the wily Scot had clearly added for her pleasure.
“You will be gossip to the baby Prince, Your Majesty?” asked Melville.
Elizabeth said that she would be pleased to stand godmother to the child.
But when she dismissed the ambassador and there was no longer need to play a part, she remembered with some disquiet that here was another claimant to the English throne who could not lightly be dismissed.
There was now no doubt that the Earl of Leicester had lost much of the Queen’s favor. Norfolk and Sussex came out in the open and showed their dislike on every occasion. Only Cecil, being wiser, kept aloof from the feud between them.
For the Twelfth Night Festivities the Queen astonished all by proclaiming Sir Thomas Heneage King of the Bean—a role which normally would have fallen to Robert Dudley, for none had the wit, the charm, and the gaiety to play the part as he had always played it.
Robert was secretly furious but he could do nothing. It was impossible for him to have private audience with the Queen, and he wished to speak to her in a way which he could not use before others.
Elizabeth appeared to be completely diverted by the new favorite. Norfolk and Sussex tittered together, and some of their followers were involved in quarrels with Robert’s men.
It was an intolerable position for Robert. Cecil was outwardly his friend, but Robert knew that he was merely following his cautious course; one word from the Queen that her indifference had turned to dislike, and Robert would have hardly a friend at Court. As for the people, he had never been popular with them; they had blamed him for all the scandal which had touched the Queen.
He was wondering whether he would support the marriage with the Archduke. But he could not do that; it would be to deny all that he had hoped for. He had ceased to look at Lettice, and was greatly disturbed because the Queen did not seem to be interested, while she herself continued to smile at Heneage. He had believed in the first place that when he dropped Lettice, she would drop Heneage; but she was clearly showing him that he and she were no longer on the old terms. If he were to continue at Court he would, like everyone else, have to obey the Queen.
He felt desolate and melancholy; and the Twelfth Night Festivities seemed to him the climax of his suffering, for during them Heneage was deliberately insulting. He ordered Leicester to ask the Queen a question, which was: “Which is the more difficult to erase from the mind, an evil opinion created by a wicked informer, or jealousy?”
This was a significant question, made doubly so since the man Elizabeth had once so evidently loved must ask it of her.
With the nonchalance to be expected of him, Robert put the question to the Queen, who smiling, pretended to consider deeply before answering: “My lord, it is my opinion that both are hard to be rid of, but jealousy is the harder.”
After the revels Robert, in a fury, sent one of his men to Heneage’s apartments with a warning that he should prepare himself for the arrival of the Earl of Leicester, who was about to set out with a stick with which he would administer a beating to Thomas Heneage.
Heneage’s reply was that the Earl of Leicester was welcome, but if he should come with a stick he would find a sword waiting for him.
Robert was baffled. He dared not provoke a duel, for duels had been forbidden by the Queen herself.
When the Queen heard of this she dismissed from Court the gentleman who had dared to take Robert’s message to Heneage. Dueling was forbidden by her command, and any man who took part in any attempt to provoke one should be punished.
She sent for Robert.
“As for you, my lord Leicester,” she said, without looking at him; “I beg of you, retire to your apartments.” She stamped her foot suddenly, crying out: “God’s Death, my lord! I have wished you well, but my favor is not so locked up in you, that others shall not participate thereof, for I have many servants, unto whom I have and will, at my pleasure, confer my favor; and if you think to rule here, I will have to teach you otherwise. There is one mistress here and no master. Those who by my favor become impudent, must be reformed. They should remember that as I have raised them up, so could I lower them.”
Robert bowed and without a word retired.
In the utmost dejection he kept to his apartments for four days. But at the end of that time Elizabeth cried in pretended surprise: “Where is my lord of Leicester? It seems some time since I saw him.”
He presented himself, and although she was gracious to him, she was no more than that.
Leicester is in decline, said his enemies gleefully.
Yet again she acted as though he meant no more to her than any other courtier.
Sussex openly flouted him while the Queen looked on.
Antagonisms flared up. Robert insisted that his followers wore blue stripes or laces that he might know them immediately and recognize any stranger among them. Norfolk put his followers into yellow laces. Quarrels were continually breaking out between the two factions; and the Queen’s reprimand was as harsh for Robert as it was for Norfolk.
In despair Robert asked permission to leave Court, and to his even greater despair it was granted.
He went to Kenilworth, asking himself if his dream were over. Not only did he fear that she would never marry him, but it seemed she had taken a violent dislike to him.
He tried to interest himself in enlarging the castle and extending its parks. When Kenilworth had come to him it had been a small estate, but he had spent thousands of pounds enlarging and beautifying it; and now it was one of the most magnificent places in the country.
Robert soon found that more trouble lay ahead, when his kinsman and servant, Thomas Blount, came riding to Kenilworth Castle. He had brought news that a man had sworn to Norfolk and Sussex that he had, for the sake of the Earl of Leicester, covered up a crime which the Earl had committed some time since; this concerned the death of Leicester’s wife which without doubt had been a case of murder.
The man who was thus attacking him, said Blount, was Amy’s halfbrother, John Appleyard.
“He has been talking in Norfolk, my lord; and this having come to the ears of those noble lords, they have lost no time in seeking out Appleyard and promising him rewards if he will say in a Court of Justice in London what he has been saying to his rustic friends.”
Robert laughed wryly. He said: “To think I have rewarded that man. Much land and possessions he owes to me. In the last years he has asked me now and then for help, but since I left Court I have not responded to his requests as readily as I did, so he must seek to be revenged on me.”
“My lord,” said Blount, “you must deny this charge. You have done so before. You will do so again.”
Robert shrugged his shoulders. “Once,” he said, “I was the Queen’s friend. Now I no longer enjoy that privilege. I see now that but for her I should not have escaped my enemies when Amy died.”
“But for her, Amy would not have died!” said Blount fiercely.
“The verdict was accidental death!” retorted Robert.
But he was listless. For the first time in his life a woman had turned against him and, no longer desiring his company, wished to be rid of him.