‘I never saw a halberd carried with such a flourish. ‘It was no great part,’ Simon said, modestly but truthfully, ‘but at last I have shed my petticoats and wigs.’Ĭhristopher raised his glass. Simon had been on loan to Philip Henslowe, who was short of players, three having died in the late summer of the sweating sickness. It was not Burbage’s company which had been playing at the Rose. It was a double celebration, being also Simon’s nineteenth birthday, and several of his fellow players had joined us – Guy Bingham (musician and comic), Christopher Haigh (young romantic) and Richard Burbage (heroic), second son of James Burbage, head of Simon’s company. We were sitting, Simon Hetherington and I, beside a generous fire in a tavern on Bankside, south of the river and not far from the Rose, where Simon had just given his first performance in a man’s part, having at last been able to turn his back on the women’s roles he had played with such success as a boy. When I had first encountered him he was a prisoner in the Marshalsea, yet there, too, he lavished his money on rich food, receiving his mistress at fine dinners in his room, while refusing to see his wife and daughter. A man of obscure birth, dubious employment and cautious patrons, he yet commanded considerable wealth. The source of his riches was one of the many mysteries which surrounded Poley.
And had murdered a fellow prisoner, the Bishop of Armagh, with a gift of poisoned cheese. Instead he had remained for more than two years a prisoner, yet a prisoner (so it was said) who lived like a lord. Whatever he believed, he had ensured that Poley was securely locked away in the Tower when the plot was uncovered, but unlike the other conspirators, Poley was not executed by that most brutal of methods – hung, drawn and quartered. Had he been a sympathiser as the conspirators had believed, almost to the end? Or had he been truly working as an agent for my sometime employer, Sir Francis Walsingham? Perhaps even Sir Francis himself was unsure.
He had played an ambivalent part in bringing the Babington plotters to justice and I was still unsure where his loyalty lay, if indeed he had any. As long as he remained a prisoner in the Tower, the secret of my identity was safe, a secret which could cost me my life. That in which it is published and without a similar conditionīeing imposed on the subsequent purchaser.Ĭoat-of-arms of the Portuguese royal dynasty of AvizĬontemporary drawing of the English army on the marchįor two years I had believed myself safe from Robert Poley, that scheming viper of a double agent. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than Ann Swinfen has asserted her moral right under theĬopyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifiedĪll Rights reserved.
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