And in his Science as he did Excell,
In her high Favour he did always dwell…
December of 1602, London, England. A grieving and feeble Queen Elizabeth I has decided to retire her court to Richmond Palace, a move that will require her royal apothecary, Hugh Morgan, and his staff to perform the expected scenting of every hall, room, wardrobe, and piece of cloth the queen will encounter. While planning this momentous undertaking, Morgan recounts to his apprentice stories from the nearly thirty years of service to the queen as the man responsible for her medicines, her cosmetics, and most unforgettably, her scent. With tales of new botanical discoveries, poisoned plots, and experiments in early aromatherapy, Morgan’s story offers new insight into the scented life of Queen Elizabeth I.
Chapter 1
By the stormy dawn of January 21st, just at the strike of seven, Elizabeth had decided that the heavy, old, stone walls of Whitehall Palace had been simply too loud with recriminations from the dead. Staring down at her from great portraits imprisoned in gilded frames were the disapproving looks of those who had preceded her, forbidding sleep. Meanwhile, despite just recently having fully recovered from a malady of the head, a stale stench had settled into her chambers and refused to leave her in peace.
Too well she knew that stench these days! It was one that no pomander of clove or powder of ambergris could mask. The pus of festering shame oozed freely and mingled with the bitterness of unbearable loss. And so fierce was the frigid winter wind banging at the clattering sills that the heat from the fire below caused little tears to run down the glass panes inside. How she longed for her perfect little box of warmth that was Richmond, away from this moldy, dripping vault that served no purpose now but to enshrine sorrow.
And then it struck her, and she could wait no longer. He would need to come. And right away.
“One, two, three,” she counted aloud in a croak of exhaustion before hoisting her torso upright and throwing her scarlet covers back. An itch at her right cheek brought a bony digit to her face; the price of relief was a dusty lump of white lead mixed with vinegar now stuck under her fingernail. Looking down, she removed the detritus with a flick of her other forefinger and watched it fly across the bed. She then leaned to the table at her right and rang the tiny brass object that would double as a trumpet call to her attendants. And then she waited, hearing only the angry winter.
She repeated it again, more fiercely. This time she followed with her own trumpet, “Now!”
Awoken by the bell and the call of her mistress Elizabeth, Her Majesty, the farsighted chambermaid rose from her stool in such a panic that at setting off down the still-dark hallway she tripped over the privy bucket seated just before her, thankfully empty, and tumbled to the wooden floor.
“Heffer’s teets!” Anne cried before righting herself, patting her bruised wrist, and calling out to Mary Aston, the current lady-in-waiting, asleep in the smaller chamber adjacent.
“NOW!” demanded Elizabeth, pleased to hear the commotion outside in the hall. “NOW!” she repeated at seeing Anne’s curtsy in the doorway.
“Yes, Ma’am. I understand, Ma’am. I’ve already called Mary Aston, Your Majesty.”
“NOW!” repeated Elizabeth upon Mary’s arrival.
Mary understood, curtsied, and next hurried to the apartments of the Lord of the Royal Chamber, Wilson, himself just rousing and in a state of undress that made it unthinkable for him to open the door to greet the young Aston. Instead, he would make do by shouting loudly that he would meet her at the queen’s chambers. Fortunately, Mary understood.
Wilson, now appropriately clothed but without candle, first sprinted down two black flights of stairs and across a sleet-pummeled courtyard whose exit seemed to stretch further away the closer he got to it. When he finally arrived at Her Majesty’s messengers, he orated a request between attempts at catching his breath and warming his hands. To a young redheaded man he passed a folded note sealed with a red wax stamp who in turn passed the message on to an older rider who, warmly bundled, set off on horseback just outside the office, into a torrent of ice and wind.
“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty. Morgan has been called,” explained Wilson upon bowing, steadying himself, and entering the queen’s chambers just minutes later. Whitehall groaned awake with the news; there would be no time to waste.
. . . . . . . . .
It would take a messenger on horseback a full 75 minutes to arrive to Hugh Morgan, the esteemed queen’s apothecary, residing at the moment not at his private residence in Battersea where he kept an exotic garden of rare and newly discovered flora, but at his grocer’s offices in Camden, a full hour closer by carriage to Whitehall. That is, 75 minutes in good weather. Any advantage a rider might have had because of Morgan’s proximity was sacrificed to the vehemence of England’s unpredictable January.
After the messenger had delivered the request successfully, Morgan turned to his young apprentice Marshall and explained the gravity of the situation, “The queen would like to move from Whitehall to Richmond, and as soon as possible.”
Marshall, new to this world of Elizabeth I, noted the loss of color from his master’s cheeks, and responded with, “But the weather, sir! No one could possibly-” But Morgan, now pacing back and forth in front of the shop window examining the curtain of silver outside, interrupted with the list of tasks that would need to be completed for the successful relocation of Her Majesty.
“First, everything that is to be transferred must be fumigated with powder of Florentine iris lest we invite vermin,” explained Morgan. “All textiles including upholstery of furniture, clothing, bed linens, wash linens, curtains, cleaning linens, pillows, wigs, and such must have their seams powdered heavily after laundering with water of roses. Once complete, we will sprinkle everything with a perfume of rose, iris, lavender, rosemary, musk, galbanum, and calamus. Ideally this needs to be done before items leave Whitehall. Calculate the grams please. Likewise, all carrying cases such as trunks, bags, and crates need to be cleaned, powdered, and scented.”
Holding a small clothbound notebook and newly wet quill up against his chest, the apprentice (who had only turned 16 the Sunday past) nodded enthusiastically and repeated the list of items back to him.
“Very good. Next, all seven vehicles of transport must themselves also be similarly fumigated with iris, rosewater, and perfume. Contact the other stockists for we’ll likely need much more of that iris than we’ll find at Whitehall, and there’s clearly not enough time to have it sent from the other residences.”
The young apprentice noted to contact that old hairy-nosed geezer Harald Williams from Covent Garden as well as the right John Mercy next door, just in case.
“Finally, Richmond itself must be opened, aired, and fumigated following the same protocols. Iris powder, rosewater, perfume. I imagine that we’ll need to call out, oh…” counting on his fingers now and looking back out the front window, “maybe eighty to ninety?”
“People, sir?”
“Of course, people, Marshall. This will take nearly a hundred people almost two days of work.”
“I do beg your pardon, sir,” he added, slightly embarrassed by his question but picturing throngs of workers hurrying in and out of Whitehall’s palace gates with beds, gowns, and candelabras, smelling of sweat and an evening at the theatre.
“There will also be the question of Her Majesty’s leather cloak. Contact the tanners and ask them to come and retrieve the musk oil for perfuming, will you? Can I trust you to get this in motion, young man?”
“You can count on me, Master Morgan, sir.” But as quickly as he had expressed his reliability a faint flicker of fear arose that this would all be challenging to accomplish on it’s own, but the storm would make it impossible.
“Rose. Iris. Perfume. Stockists. Tanner. Let’s make it one hundred people. I’ll let Wilson at the palace know you’re working on it,” he reached for his coat and then his hat.
“Yes sir.”
“And see how much vanilla John Mercy has. We’ve committed ours to the kitchen and the queen will want it for a charm. Now, I must away to Her Majesty,” he explained, wrapping himself in a warm mantle of wool.
“But the weather, sir?”
“The weather be damned; may the rising sun burn off the haze of morning. The queen is on the move!”