The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(4)
Twelve years younger than the queen, the thirty-nine-year-old Eleanor was not easily frightened. Dressed soberly in a black gown that perhaps hinted at cultural mourning, the dark-eyed countess said stoutly, “The Spanish share our faith. And we have less quarrel with foreign soldiers who fight and then leave, than we do with men who seize our lands for their own and pretend they belong.”
“As did the FitzGeralds,” Elizabeth pointed out waspishly. “Not all that many generations ago.”
“Long enough ago that we have earned the right to govern our own lands, and ensure our children can do the same,” Eleanor blazed back. With two sons and four daughters, the countess had all the protective instincts of a mother. Perhaps even more than her husband’s future, she wanted to ensure her children’s.
At this point Lord Burghley intervened with his trademark logic. “If you believe the Spanish will allow you self-governance, then you are being willfully blind. It is just possible that King Philip is willing to commit troops merely for principle’s sake, but Mary Stuart wants much more. Surely you have heard the rumours that their youngest son will be proclaimed Prince of Ireland in the coming year.”
“He is two years old. We do not fear a child. Not the way we fear men who have determined the best way to rule Ireland is to murder every last Irish soul, thus leaving a clean slate for the English.”
Elizabeth waved a hand in disdain. “I am not impressed by overwrought melodrama. If you want the fighting in Ireland to stop, the answer is simple: evict the Spanish. When you have done that, then England and Ireland will have something to say to one another. Until then, go back to your husband. Tell him I have no place for traitors at my court. You will be escorted back to your ship tomorrow. My lady countess,” she added pointedly.
The queen almost thought the woman would respond, for Eleanor had a very Irish glint in her eyes, but protocol prevailed. When Lady Desmond had left, Elizabeth looked at the one man in her government sure to have even more disdain for the countess than she herself. Burghley was a realist, but Francis Walsingham despised Catholics and the Spanish in equal measure. Long an advocate of a swift, harsh end to Ireland’s rebellions, he was even more fiery now that the Irish were supported by Philip’s troops.
“Well?” she asked her Lord Secretary pointedly.
Walsingham’s hooded eyes had never grown easier to interpret. “The Spanish won’t go. Not until they’ve made a serious play for Dublin.”
“Dublin will never fall.”
“Not in battle, but it might be starved into submission. If the Spanish decide to blockade the port—”
“Then they will be committing to open warfare against all our forces,” Elizabeth snapped. “Philip isn’t prepared for that.”
“Yet.” Walsingham let the syllable hang ominously, but said no more.
Elizabeth would like to have believed her Lord Secretary had learned discretion during his banishment from her court two years ago, but she doubted it. Walsingham was who he was and she valued him for it. Even if sometimes she wanted to kill him as well.
Of the two of them, Walsingham did not hold grudges. And though Elizabeth did, she knew the difference between wisdom and vanity. He had hurt her pride two years ago with his opposition to her proposed French marriage, but she could swallow pride for the greater good. Especially as there was no chance of that particular dispute resuming, for Francis, the young Duc d’Anjou, had died earlier this year of a tertian fever. It was just as well the queen had thought to take Anjou for herself and tied Anabel to James of Scotland, or else England would be doing some rapid maneuvering at this point.
“Keep an eye on the Netherlands,” Elizabeth reminded Walsingham unnecessarily. “If Philip begins removing troops from the Low Countries, then we can begin to worry about Dublin and our own shores. For now, he is stretched thin on the ground.”
Lord Burghley cleared his throat.
“Yes?” she prompted.
“Sir Walter Raleigh has been making quiet inquiries into the Somerset estates. Raleigh would be most willing to buy Farleigh Hungerford from the crown. If the crown has decided to sell, that is.”
“The crown has not so decided.”
A long silence. “As long as it remains in crown control, Your Majesty, there are those who expect Stephen Courtenay will be reinstated to his titles.”
“They can expect whatever they like. But I promise you one thing—as long as I live, Stephen Courtenay will never again be the Earl of Somerset. Spread that report, if you like.”
It hurt her to say it, but not because she had second thoughts. Stephen had committed treason. Any other man in her kingdom would have paid for those crimes with his head. But Stephen was Minuette’s son. So Stephen lived—but without title or lands or even his home. He had been in France for nineteen months now. As far as she was concerned, he could stay there indefinitely.
And if he helped keep his brother, Kit, out of England as well? All the better.
—
Maisie Sinclair had never been to Yorkshire before. Indeed, save for a precious few days two years ago visiting Stephen Courtenay in the Tower of London, she had not spent time in England at all. Despite her birth and childhood in Edinburgh, so close to the border that there always seemed to be alarms about whether the English were coming, Maisie’s travels had taken her seemingly everywhere save her nearest neighbor. After her short-lived Irish marriage, Maisie had turned to the Continent. Since 1582 she had spent time in the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and France. Now, at last, she was on her way home. Three and a half years after sailing from Scotland as the fifteen-year-old bride of an Irishman she’d never met, Maisie was prepared to make her play in Edinburgh.