Will not tend to yer desire:
Unwash’d hands, ye maidens know,
Dead the fire though ye blow!
Everyone rushed to help with the log, lord and lady alike, as well as the servants for it was considered good luck for the coming year to aid in bringing in the Yule log. Although Elizabeth usually preferred Christmas festivities in which others participated while she watched, Conn’s wild revelry reminded her of her childhood in her father’s court with all its unbridled gaiety, and she was frankly enjoying it. He was an exciting man, her wild Irishman, and far less complex than his elder sister, her enemy and her friend.
Christmas Day began with the entire court attending services in the queen’s chapel. Most had been up all the night, helping to ring in Christ’s birth as midnight had come, and bells all over England pealed joyously. Afterward there had been a great deal of drinking, and too soon it was time to attend chapel. The queen had had the good sense to get a few hours’ sleep as did some of her women.
St. Stephen’s Day followed Christmas, and then St. John’s Day, The Feast of the Holy Innocents, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and finally the Feast of Twelfth Night. Each evening saw dancing, and feasting, and masking, and games as the court cavorted happily. On New Year’s Day Conn O’Malley, the Royal Lord of Misrule, presented the queen with a brooch so magnificent that it was talked about for several days. The design was that of a crowing cock that had been carved from a solid ruby. The bird’s wing and chest feathers were outlined in gold. He had a bright diamond eye, and was crowned with a golden coxcomb that was tipped with diamonds. The cock was then placed upon a round golden sunburst whose rays were studded with tiny diamonds. The brooch had been presented in a carved ivory box that had been enclosed in a cloth-of-silver bag.
Elizabeth was visibly astounded, and delighted by the magnanimity of his gift. The queen was in a particularly good humor today. For several months she had borne a painful ulcer upon her leg which, as suddenly as it came, now healed. For a moment she could not find her voice, and when she did she said, “Yer a rogue, Conn, but yer a rogue with exquisite taste.”
He smiled. “The ruby came off a Portuguese galleon that my brothers took. They thought I should enjoy the stone, and so they sent it to me. I, however, thought of the design, and had my jeweler execute it. I am the cock, but ye, my Gloriana, are the sun without whom I could not crow. Remember me whenever ye wear the brooch.”
The queen nodded thinking as she did that she couldn’t ever remember amongst all the flattering tongues that spoke to her one that spoke with such sincerity. There was nothing hidden in Conn’s nature, and she found it a relief.
When Twelfth Night came Conn was wise enough not to try to surpass his New Year’s gift. He gave the queen a simple chain of gold and diamonds to which her brooch might be attached thus serving a double purpose for the jewel. It might be either pin or pendant. The queen was delighted, and the other men of her court envious of the current influence held by Master O’Malley.
“Ye’d think he was to the manor born instead of a bog-trotting, ignorant Irishman,” sneered the Earl of Leicester to Lord Burghley.
William Cecil smiled a frosty smile at Robert Dudley. “I find Master O’Malley quite harmless both politically and dynastically. He pleases the queen with his antics, and asks nothing in return. It is a refreshing attitude on the part of a gentleman of this court, and an unusual one. What is there to dislike in the man, my lord?”
“He is a commoner! He has no right to be here at court rubbing elbows with his betters, even making mock of them in his exalted position.”
“Yer jealous,” observed Lord Burghley, “but lest that jealousy overcome yer memory, remember who created ye Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudley. It is the queen who is
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