The Virgin’s Lover. Philippa Gregory

      Today, they adored him; he was Elizabeth’s favourite, he was the most handsome man in England. He had been their bonny darling when a boy, he had gone into the Tower as a traitor and come out again as a hero. He was a survivor like her, he was a survivor like them.

      It was a perfect procession and a perfect service. Elizabeth took the crown on her head, the oil on her forehead, and the orb and sceptre of England into her hand. The Bishop of Carlisle officiated in the pleasing conviction that within a few months he would be celebrating her marriage to the most devout Catholic king in the whole of Christendom. And after the coronation service the queen’s own chaplain celebrated Mass without uplifting the Host.

      Elizabeth came out of the dark Abbey into a blaze of light and heard the roar of the crowd welcome her. She walked through the people so that they could all see her – this was a queen who would pander to anyone, their love for her was a balm for the years of neglect.

      At her coronation dinner her voice was lost in her tightening throat, the blush in her cheeks was from a rising fever, but nothing would have made her leave early. The queen’s champion rode into the hall and challenged all comers and the new queen smiled on him, smiled on Robert Dudley, the most loyal ex-traitor of them all, smiled on her new council – half of them constitutionally unfaithful – and smiled on her family who were suddenly recollecting the bonds and obligations of kinship now that their niece was no longer a suspect criminal, but the very lawmaker herself.

      She stayed up till three in the morning until the trusted Kat Ashley, presuming on the intimacy of having been governess when Elizabeth was a girl and not a great queen, whispered in her ear that she must go to bed now or be dead on her feet in the morning.

      — God strike her dead on her feet in the morning — thought Amy Dudley, sleepless, waiting through the long, dark winter night for the cold dawn, in far-away Norfolk.

      Robert Dudley, rising like a young Adonis from the bed of one of the court ladies, giving her a nonchalant parting kiss while he unclasped her hands from about his neck, and coming into the Queen’s presence chamber at Whitehall smartly enough next day, was still too late to catch Elizabeth alone. He found her already in close-headed conference with William Cecil, seated over a little table with papers before them. She glanced up and smiled at him but she did not wave him to approach, and he was forced to stand against the wood-panelled walls with the dozen or so other men who had risen early to pay their compliments and found that Cecil had got in first.

      Dudley scowled and tried to overhear the low-voiced conversation. Cecil was dressed in dark clothes: — like a clerk — Dudley sniffed; but his wealth showed in the quality of the rich velvet and in the expense of the cut. His ruff was of the finest lace, lying in soft folds around his neck, his hair long and lustrous, spread on his collar. His eyes, warm and compassionate, never wavered from Elizabeth’s animated face, answering her remarks about the great kingdom with the same steady quietness that he had used when he was advising her how best to run her country estates. Then it had been Cecil alone who had kept the princess from folly, and now it was Cecil alone who had the reward for those years of service.

      She trusted him as she trusted no other, he could advise her against her own desires and she would listen. Indeed, when she appointed him to be her Secretary of State she had made him swear that he would tell her the truth without fear or favour, and sworn to him a pledge in return: that she would always listen to his words and never blame him if his advice was not to her liking. No other member of the Privy Council had exchanged such an oath with the new queen; there was no-one else who mattered.

      Elizabeth had seen her father dismiss advisors whose counsel was against his wishes, she had seen him arraign members of his own council for treason because they brought him bad news. She did not care that her father had become a tyrant, hated by his closest advisors, she believed that was the very nature of kingship; but she was warned by the fact that he lost the best minds of the kingdom because he could not bear to take advice.

      And she was not yet old enough to want to rule alone. The crown was unsteady on her head, the country was filled with her enemies. She was a young woman, only twenty-five years old, with neither mother nor father nor a beloved family to advise her. She needed to be surrounded by friends that she could trust: Cecil, her teacher Roger Ascham, her former governess Kat Ashley, and her plump, gossipy cofferer Thomas Parry with his wife Blanche, who had been Elizabeth’s nanny. Now that Elizabeth was queen she did not forget those who had been faithful to her when she had been princess, and there was not one old friend who was not now enjoying a small fortune in rich repayment for the years of waiting.

      — Why, she actually prefers the company of inferiors — Dudley thought, looking from Cecil at the table to Kat Ashley at the window. — She was brought up by servants and people of the middling sort and she prefers their values. She understands trade and good housekeeping and the value of a well-run estate because that is what they care about. While I was walking around the royal palaces and spending my time with my father commanding the court, she was fussing over the price of bacon and staying out of debt.

      — She is small scale, not a queen at all yet. She will stick at the raising of the Host because she can see it; that is real, it happens before her nose. But the great debates of the church she would rather avoid. Elizabeth has no vision, she has never had time to see beyond her own survival. —

      At the table, Cecil beckoned to one of his clerks and the man stepped forward and showed the young queen a page of writing.

      — If a man wanted to dominate this queen, he would have to separate her from Cecil — Robert thought to himself, watching the two heads so companionably close together as she read his paper. — If a man wanted to rule England through this queen he would have to be rid of Cecil first. And she would have to lose faith in Cecil before anything else could be done. —

      Elizabeth pointed to something on the page, Cecil answered her question, and then she nodded her agreement. She looked up and, seeing Dudley’s eyes upon her, beckoned him forward.

      Dudley, head up, a little swagger in his stride at stepping forward before the whole court, came up to the throne and swept a deep elegant bow.

      ‘Good day, Your Grace,’ he said. ‘And God bless you in this first day of your rule.’

      Elizabeth beamed at him. ‘We have been preparing the list of my emissaries to go to the courts of Europe to announce my coronation,’ she said. ‘Cecil suggests that I send you to Philip of Spain in Brussels. Shall you like to tell your old master that I am now anointed queen?’

      ‘As you wish,’ he agreed at once, hiding his irritation. ‘But are you going to stay indoors at work all day today, Your Grace? Your hunter is waiting, the weather is fine.’

      He caught her longing glance towards the window and her hesitation.

      ‘The French ambassador …’ Cecil remarked for her ear only.

      She shrugged. ‘The ambassador can wait, I suppose.’

      ‘And I have a new hunter that I thought you might try,’ Dudley said temptingly. ‘From Ireland. A bright bay, a handsome horse, and strong.’

      ‘Not too strong, I hope,’ Cecil said.

      ‘The queen rides like a Diana.’ Dudley flattered her to her face, not even glancing at the older man. ‘There is no-one to match her. I would put her on any horse in the stables and it would know its master. She rides like her father did, quite without fear.’

      Elizabeth glowed a little at the praise. ‘I will come in an hour,’ she said. ‘First, I have to see what these people want.’ She glanced around the room and the men and women stirred like spring corn when the breeze passes over it. Her very glance could make them ripple with longing