A Fine Madness by Alan Judd (best classic books TXT) 📕

shuffled among his when they shared a room. This was credible, since that was the kind of argument Christopher enjoyed. And not only he – many true and Godly theologians have described and disputed such heresies.

But I had underestimated the fever of those times, the lust for conspiracy and heresy. Pleased to be back in harness and doing the state’s service, I had naively assumed that all would be as in Mr Secretary’s day. Although a forward Salvationist, he was a pragmatist whose nose told him when too much enthusiasm threatened the workings of the state. He would stamp upon Protestants as hard as upon Catholics. But in these new times competing hands tugged on the tiller of the state and Kyd’s papers were taken as confirming what Kyd and Robert Greene and Richard Baines said about Christopher’s provocations and his association with Ralegh and the free-thinkers. Lord Essex’s faction still saw Ralegh as a rival and used any weapon to attack him or anyone associated with him. At the same time, Lord Burghley and Robert Cecil would not defend Ralegh because of the trouble he caused in parliament by opposing Protestant immigration.

Thus was I summoned again by Sir Robert Cecil to my old perch in the New Library. He used it, he told me, for discreet meetings because few knew of it and fewer still were allowed in. Theoretically, the Earl of Essex had access, as I have said, but he disdained it as not a grand enough stage for his appearances. Besides, he had no fondness for books and maps. Robert Cecil smiled his thin small smile as he told me that, which I took to be a reference to the Earl’s military misadventures. But that was after we had done our business.

He began by asking whether I had heard anything of or from the Earl of Essex or any of his circle since the coining business. ‘They know you and Thomas Walsingham were there and spoke in Marlowe’s favour,’ he said. ‘Have you seen anything of Nicholas Skeres or Ingram Frizer?’

‘No, sir. I know Skeres wears the Earl’s livery but Frizer—’

‘Frizer is rumoured to be associated with the Earl’s party, perhaps via Skeres. Have you seen him since the examination?’ I had not and didn’t know he was associated with the Earl. ‘He may not be. In fact, my hunch is that he is not. He is Thomas Walsingham’s man and probably loyal. But Skeres is very much of the Earl’s party. Have you seen Robert Poley?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Skeres and Frizer are very thick with him.’

‘With Poley it is never easy to tell—’

‘I know, I know.’ He stared at the globe which had been so beloved of Mr Secretary. But he did not turn or touch it, as Mr Secretary was wont, meditatively, with his fingertips. He simply sat with his hands flat upon the desk and his eyes on the great sea. Then he turned to me. ‘You have dealt in secrets many years, Mr Phelippes. You were trusted by Sir Francis as few men were. I am now going to tell you another secret, one as great as any you have known.’ He paused again. ‘I would like your assurance that you will keep it close.’

‘You have it, sir.’

‘And you understand the consequences if you do not?’

I did.

‘We are preparing the succession.’

Even now, sir, after these many years and when everything Sir Robert plotted has come about, I feel the hairs on my neck prick when I recall those words. The succession to Queen Elizabeth, her lack of an heir, was an arrow in the eye of all her privy counsellors throughout her reign. It had caused the death of a queen and was the subject of plots and speculations throughout Europe, not to mention the executions that flowed from it within this realm. Although she was well aware of it, the succession problem could not even be mentioned to Her Majesty. She would hear nothing of it, would not acknowledge the possibility that she might not reign forever. It was dangerous even to think of it, in fact treason to discuss it. Yet Robert Cecil did with me that day in May.

‘The Queen will die,’ he said, ‘if not tomorrow, the day after, this year, next year, ten years hence. But die she will. If we do nothing there will be confusion, civil war, invasion and the settlement we have built these last forty years will be gone. Our only hope of peaceful succession is James VI, King of Scotland. He and the Queen share blood. That was why we had to execute his mother and why we must now have him on the throne. He covets the English crown as well as his own. We know that. He will overlook the execution of his mother in return for the throne.’

You understand, sir, that these were not my words but Sir Robert’s? I would not wish King James to think that I spoke of him in such manner. And I know, of course – I know to my cost – that he was not prepared to overlook his mother’s execution entirely.

Well, Sir Robert then told me firmly that no proposals had been made, nothing definite said, the succession not even mentioned, but there was secret correspondence between the two Courts, an agreement on the need for mutual understanding and for a reliable, discreet channel of communication. ‘Her Majesty knows nothing of this,’ he said. ‘But she is shrewd, she is bound to suspect. She prefers not to know but trusts us to see to it while ensuring that nothing ever, ever is known of it. If it comes out, heads will roll.’

That was not a figure of speech. Messages between the two Courts were carried by Robert Poley, who had certain business of his own with certain Scottish gentlemen and so an ostensible reason for journeying there. He did not know what he conveyed, though he knew enough to know it was more than his