An Anointed Queen

The letters have been read and the plot is real. Her cousin, a crowned queen held in England for nineteen years, has been in correspondence with men who intended to kill her and put that cousin on her throne.

Parliament has asked twice. Her council asks daily. The warrant is drawn up and it sits on the desk, and everyone in the building is waiting for one signature.

Signing it means executing an anointed queen — something no one in Europe has done to a reigning monarch. It tells every Catholic power that a crown is not protection, and it invites them to test whether hers is. It also tells her own subjects that killing the queen is worth attempting, because the punishment arrived nineteen years late.

Not signing it leaves a living, legitimate alternative to her throne inside her own borders, and every plot for the rest of her life will have somewhere to point.

The pen is on the desk. It has been for three months.