Page 303 of A Column of Fire

We were married in Kingsbridge Cathedral at Christmas, almost a year after Sylvie died. It was a subdued ceremony. Weddings are usually about young people starting out in life, but ours seemed more like an ending. Walsingham and I had saved Queen Elizabeth and fought for her ideal of religious freedom; Barney and I and the English sailors had defeated the Spanish armada; and Margery and I were together at last. It seemed to me that all the threads of our lives had drawn together.

But I was wrong. It was not over yet; not quite.

Part Five

1602 to 1606

28

Rollo Fitzgerald lived through the last decade of the sixteenth century in a fury of disappointment and frustration. Everything he had tried to do had come to nothing. England was more resolutely Protestant than ever. His life was a failure.

And then, with the turn of the century, he perceived that there was one last hope.

Queen Elizabeth was sixty-six when the new century began. It was a great age, and she was becoming haggard, pale and melancholy. She refused to look to the future, and made it an act of treason to even discuss the question of who would succeed to her throne. ‘Men always worship the rising rather than the setting sun,’ she said, and she was not wrong. Despite her prohibition, everyone was talking about what would happen when she died.

Late in the summer of 1602, a visitor from Rome came to see Rollo at Tyne Castle. It was Lenny Price, who had been a student with Rollo at the English College back in the seventies. The lively pink-faced youth of those days was now a grey-haired man of fifty-five. ‘The church has a mission for you,’ said Lenny. ‘We want you to go to Edinburgh.’

They were standing on the roof of one of the castle towers, looking across farmland to the North Sea. Rollo’s pulse quickened at Lenny’s words. Scotland was ruled by King James VI, the son of Mary Stuart. ‘Mission?’ he said.

‘Queen Elizabeth has no heir,’ Lenny said. ‘None of the three children of Henry VIII ever had a child. So King James is the likeliest candidate to succeed Elizabeth on the throne of England.’

Rollo nodded. ‘He’s had a book published explaining his right to the throne.’ James believed in the power of the written word, a useful philosophy for the king of a small, poor country such as Scotland.

‘He’s clearly manoeuvring for it. He’s seeking support – so Rome thinks this is the moment to extract promises from him.’

Rollo felt a warm surge of hope, but forced himself to be realistic. ‘Despite his mother, James is no Catholic. He was taken from Mary Stuart when he was a year old, and from then on, the poison of Protestantism was dripped daily into his childish ear.’

‘But there’s something you don’t know,’ said Lenny. ‘Almost nobody knows, and you mustn’t tell anyone.’ He lowered his voice, even though they were alone. ‘James’s wife is a Catholic.’

Rollo was astounded. ‘Anne of Denmark, the queen of Scotland, is a Catholic? But she was raised Protestant!’

‘God sent a devout man to speak to her, and she saw the light.’

‘You mean someone converted her?’

In a near-whisper, Lenny said: ‘She has been received into the Church.’

‘God be praised! But this changes everything.’

Lenny raised a cautionary hand. ‘We don’t think she’ll be able to convert her husband.’

‘Does he not love her?’

‘Hard to say. Our informants in Scotland say they’re fond of one another. And they have three children. But they also say that James is a pervert.’

Rollo raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘With young men,’ Lenny explained.

Men who loved men committed a cardinal sin, but many of them were priests, and Rollo was not shocked.

Lenny went on: ‘James knows his wife has become a Catholic, and he’s accepted the fact. If we can’t expect that he’ll restore England to exclusive Catholicism, perhaps we can hope for tolerance.’

Rollo winced at the wordtolerance. For him it was immorality, a mark of backsliding, error and decadence. How could the Catholic Church now be demandingtolerance?

Lenny did not notice. ‘We must move to exploit this situation, and that’s where you come in. You must take a message to Edinburgh from the Catholic Church in England. If James will promise us freedom of worship, we will not oppose his bid for the English throne.’

Rollo saw immediately that this was the right thing to do, and his heart lifted in optimism. But there was a snag. ‘I’m not senior enough,’ he said. ‘The king of Scotland won’t see me.’