The King's Deception

“You must have been one of the first women in?”

“I was. We were changing history.”

She wondered why she was here and Pazan seemed to sense her anxiety.

“Sir Thomas wanted me to pass on some details not provided to you in London. Information that is not written down for reasons that will become obvious. He thought I would be the best person to explain. My expertise is Tudor England. I teach that at Lincoln, but I occasionally provide historical context to our intelligence agencies.”

“And did Sir Thomas choose this locale?”

“He did, and I concurred.” Eva pointed across the hall. “The portrait there, of Elizabeth I. It was presented by the Canon of Canterbury, to the college, in 1686. It’s illustrative of what we are going to speak about.”

She glanced at the image of the queen in a floor-length dress. Geometric patterns from the puffed sleeves and kirtle complemented one another, the hem edged with pearls. Two cherubs held a wreath over Elizabeth’s head.

“It was painted in 1590, when the queen was fifty-seven years old.”

But the face was that of a much younger woman.

“That was about the time all unseemly portraits of Elizabeth were confiscated and burned. None was allowed to exist that, in any way, questioned her mortality. The man who painted this one, Nicholas Hilliard, ultimately devised a face pattern that all painters were required to follow when depicting the queen. A Mask of Youth, the Crown called it, which portrayed her as forever young.”

“I never realized she was so conscious of her age.”

“Elizabeth was quite an enigma. Her countenance was strongly marked, though always commanding and dignified. A hard swearer, coarse talker, clever, cunning, deceitful — she was truly her parents’ daughter.”

She smiled, recalling her history on Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

“What do you know of Elizabeth?” Eva asked.

“No more than what books and movies portray. She ruled for a long time. Never married. The last Tudor monarch.”

Eva nodded. “She was a fascinating person. She chartered this college as the first Protestant institution at Oxford. And she was serious about that. Thirty local priests, all fellows of colleges, were executed during her reign for either practicing Catholicism or refusing to recognize her as head of the church.”

She stared again at the portrait, which now seemed more a caricature than an honest representation of a woman dead over 400 years.

“Like her father,” Eva said, “Elizabeth surrounded herself with competent, ambitious men. Unlike her father, though, she remained loyal to them all of her life. You received a preview of one earlier.”

She did not understand.

“I was told you saw a page from the coded journal.”

“But I wasn’t told who created it.”

“That journal was masterminded by Robert Cecil.”

She knew the name Cecil, one of long standing in England.

“To understand Robert,” Eva said, “you have to know his father, William.”

She listened as Eva explained how William Cecil was born to a minor Welsh family that fought alongside Henry VII, the first Tudor king. He was raised at the court of Henry VIII and educated to government. Henry VIII’s death in 1547 set in motion ten years of political turmoil. First the boy, Edward VI, reigned, then died at age 15. His half sister, Mary, daughter of Henry’s first wife, then occupied the throne. But she gained the title bloody because of her propensity to burn Protestants. During Mary’s five-year reign Cecil kept the young princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, at his home, where she was raised away from court. In 1558, when she finally became queen, Elizabeth immediately appointed William Cecil her principal secretary, later titled secretary of state, a position that made him chief adviser, closer to her than anyone else. Her reliance and trust in Cecil never failed. No prince in Europe hath such a counselor as I have in mine. Over forty years Cecil was the great architect of Elizabethan reign. I have gained more by my temperance and forebearing than ever I did by my wit. One observer at the time noted that he had no close friends, no inward companion as great men commonly have, nor did any other know his secrets, some noting it for a fault, but most thinking it a praise and an instance of his wisdom. By trusting none with his secrets, none could reveal them.