1571, February, Sheffield Castle: Mary
I am hopeful, I am so hopeful. Weeks now, I think, and we will both be free.
Marie
I dress with particular care in black and white, sober colours, but I wear three diamond rings (one is my betrothal ring from Norfolk) and a band of rich bracelets just to demonstrate that though my crown has been taken from me and my rope of black pearls stolen by Elizabeth, I am still a queen, I can still look the part.
Lord Morton is visiting me from Scotland and I want him to go back with the news that I am ready and fit to take my throne. He is due at midday but it is not till the mid-afternoon and it is growing dark and cold that he comes riding into the courtyard.
Babington, my faithful pageboy, comes dashing into my rooms, his nose red from the cold and his little hands frozen, to tell me that the nobleman from Scotland has finally arrived and his horses are being stabled.
I seat myself in my chair, under my cloth of estate, and wait. Sure enough, there is a knock at the door and Shrewsbury is announced with Morton. I do not rise. I let him be presented to me and when he bows low I incline my head. He can learn to treat me as a queen again; I don’t forget that before he was as bad as any of them. He can start as I intend we shall go on. He greets me now as a prisoner, he will next see me on my throne in Edinburgh. He can learn deference.
Bess comes in behind the two men and I smile at her as she curtseys. She dips the smallest of bows, there is little love left between us these days. I still sit with her on most afternoons, and I still give her hopes of her prospects when I am returned to the throne; but she is weary of attending on me, and beggared by the expense of my court and the guards. I know it, and there is nothing I can or would do to help her. Let her apply to Elizabeth for money for my imprisonment. I am hardly going to pay my own jailors for incarcerating me.
The worry has put lines on her face and a grimness about her that was not there when I first walked into her house more than two years ago. She was newly married then, and her happiness glowed in her face. Her pride in her husband and her position was fresh for her. Now she has lost her fortune in entertaining me, she may lose her house, and she knows she has lost her husband already.
‘Good day to you, my lady countess,’ I say sweetly and watch her murmur a reply. Then the Shrewsburys take themselves off to the corner of the room, I nod to my lute player to play a tune, and to Mary Seton to see that wine and little cakes are served, and Morton sits on a stool beside me and mutters his news in my ear.
‘We are ready for your return, Your Grace,’ he says. ‘We are even preparing your old rooms at Holyrood.’
I bite my lip. For a moment I see again, in my mind, the dark red stain of Rizzio’s blood on the floor of my dining room. For a moment I think what a return to Scotland will mean to me. It will be no summer of French roses. The Scots were ill-suited to me before, and matters will not have improved. I shall have to live with a barbaric people and dine with a bloodstain on my floor. I shall have to rule them with my will and all my political skills. When Bothwell comes we can dominate them together, but until he arrives I will be in constant danger again of kidnap and rebellion.
‘And the prince is being prepared for his journey,’ he says. ‘He is looking forward to going to England, we have explained to him that this will be his home for the future, and he will be King of England one day.’
‘He is well?’
‘I have reports for you from his nurse and from his governor,’ he says. ‘Also, from his tutor. He is well and forward. He is growing strongly and learning his lessons.’
‘He speaks clearly now?’ Early reports had been of him drooling and failing to close his mouth in eating and in speech. A prince who is to command two kingdoms, perhaps three, has to be beautiful. It is harsh: but this is the way of the world.
‘Much improved, as you will see.’
I take the package of reports and hand them to Mary Seton for reading later.
‘But I have a request,’ he says quietly.
I wait.
‘We hear from the English ambassador that you are in correspondence with the King of Spain.’
I raise my eyebrows and say nothing. It is surely not Morton’s business who writes to me. Besides, I am not directly in touch with the King of Spain. He is meeting my emissary Ridolfi, who is travelling to the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, to the Pope himself, and then to Philip of Spain. The joke is that Elizabeth gave him a pass of safe conduct out of the kingdom, having no idea that he was my emissary, touring her enemies to raise a campaign against her.
‘And also with the King of France.’
‘And?’ I ask frostily. ‘Et puis?’
‘I have to ask you, while matters are so sensitive, that you don’t write to them,’ he says awkwardly. His Scots accent, always rather thick to my ears, grows more impenetrable as he is embarrassed. ‘We are making agreement with Baron Burghley on behalf of the English court –’
‘Baron Burghley?’
‘Lord William Cecil.’
I nod, the ennoblement of my enemy can only make things worse for me and the old aristocracy – my friends.
‘We are making an agreement, but when Lord Cecil finds secret letters to and from enemies of the state and you, he does not trust you. He cannot trust you.’
‘The French are my kin,’ I point out. ‘He can hardly blame me for writing to my family when I am far from home and utterly alone.’
Morton smiles. He does not look overly concerned at my loneliness.
‘And Philip of Spain? England’s greatest enemy? Even now he is building ships for an invasion. He calls it an armada, to destroy England.’
‘I do not write to him,’ I lie readily. ‘And I write nothing to my family which Cecil cannot read.’
‘Actually, Your Grace, you probably write nothing at all that he does not read,’ he emphasises. ‘He probably sees every letter that comes and goes, however clever you think you have been with your secret couriers and number codes and invisible ink.’
I turn my head away from him to indicate my irritation. ‘I have no state secrets,’ I say flatly. ‘I must be allowed to write to my friends and family.’
‘And Ridolfi?’ he asks suddenly.
I hold my face quite still, I do not show the smallest flicker of recognition. He could stare at me as if I were a portrait and he still would not see my secret. ‘I know nothing of any … Ridolfi,’ I say as if the name is strange to me. ‘I know nothing of any letters.’
‘I beg of you,’ Morton says awkwardly, all flushed with sincerity and embarrassment at being forced to call a lady and a queen a downright liar. ‘I will not quibble with you over who you know, or who you write to. I am not a spy. I am not here to entrap you. Your Grace, I am your true friend and I am here to make the arrangements to return you to Scotland and to your throne. And so I beg of you not to set any plots in motion, not to write to any conspirators, not to trust anyone but myself and Lord Shrewsbury here, and the Queen of England herself. We are all determined to see you returned to your throne. You have to be patient; but if you will be patient and honourable as the great queen that you are, then we will see you restored this year, perhaps this Easter.’
‘This Easter?’
‘Yes.’
‘You give me your word?’
‘Yes,’ he says; and I believe him. ‘But will you give me yours?’
‘My word?’ I repeat icily.
‘Your word, as a queen, that you will not plot with the enemies of England.’
I pause. He looks hopeful, as if my safe return to Scotland and all his plans are hanging on this moment. ‘Very well. I promise,’ I say solemnly.
‘Your word as a queen?’
‘I give you my word as a queen,’ I say firmly.
‘You will not receive or send secret letters? You will not engage in any conspiracy against the peace of England?’
‘I give you my word that I will not.’
Morton
sighs and glances over at Shrewsbury as if he is much relieved. Shrewsbury comes closer and smiles at me. ‘I told you she would promise,’ he says. ‘The queen is determined to return to her throne. She will deal with you and with all of your loyal countrymen with spotless honour.’
1571, March, Sheffield Castle: George
The queen and I ride home in the bright midday spring sunshine, a wagon following behind us with two roe deer for Bess’s flesh kitchen. The queen is in light-hearted mood; she loves hunting and rides better than any woman I have ever met, she could outride most men.
When we come through the great gate for the stable yard my heart sinks to see Bess waiting for us, hands on her hips, the very portrait of an offended wife. The queen gives a little ripple of suppressed laughter and turns her head so Bess cannot see her amusement.
I dismount and lift the queen down from the saddle, and then the two of us turn to Bess like children waiting for a reprimand.
She gives an unwilling curtsey. ‘We are to go to Tutbury,’ she says, without preamble.
‘Tutbury?’ the queen repeats. ‘I thought we were to stay here and then go to Scotland?’
‘A letter from the court,’ Bess says. ‘I have started packing again.’
She hands over the sealed letter to the queen, nods distantly at me and strides off to where the travelling wagons are being made ready for another journey.
All the joy is wiped from the queen’s face as she hands the letter to me. ‘Tell me,’ she says. ‘I cannot bear to read it.’
I break the seal and open the letter. It is from Cecil. ‘I don’t quite understand,’ I say. ‘He writes that you are to go back to Tutbury for greater safety. He says there have been some incidents in London.’
‘Incidents? What does he mean?’
‘He doesn’t say. He says nothing more than he is watching the situation and he would feel happier for your safety if you were at Tutbury.’
‘I would be safer if I were in Scotland,’ she snaps. ‘Does he say when we are to go?’
‘No,’ I say. I pass the letter to her. ‘We will have to go as he bids. But I wish I knew what is in his mind.’
She slides a sideways glance at me. ‘Do you think Bess will know? Might he have written to her separately? Might he have told her what he fears?’
‘He might have done.’
She slips off her red leather glove and puts her hand on my wrist. I wonder if she can feel my pulse speed at the touch of her fingers. ‘Ask her,’ she whispers. ‘Find out from Bess what Cecil is thinking, and tell me.’
1571, March, on the road from Sheffield Castle to Tutbury: Bess
As always, they ride ahead and I labour behind with the wagons laden with her luxuries. But once they are arrived at the castle and my lord has seen her safe into her usual rooms, he leaves her, and rides back to meet me. I see his surprise at the amount of wagons, there are forty on this trip, and at my weariness and dustiness as I ride at their head.
‘Bess,’ he says awkwardly. ‘What a number, I did not …’
‘Have you come to help them unload?’ I ask acidly. ‘Did you want me, my lord?’
‘I wondered if you had news from Gilbert, or Henry, or anyone else at court,’ he says hesitantly. ‘Do you know why they have sent us back here?’
‘Does she not tell you?’ I ask sarcastically. ‘I would have thought she would have known.’
He shakes his head. ‘She is afraid that they are going to renege on their promise to send her back to Scotland.’
We turn up the lane towards the castle. It is muddy as usual. I have come to hate this little castle. It has been my prison as well as hers. I will tell him everything I know, I have no taste for torturing him, nor the queen.
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ I say. ‘All I know from Henry is that the queen seems likely to accept the French prince in marriage. Cecil is advising her to take him. In those circumstances I imagine Cecil thought it best to have the Queen of Scots somewhere that he could prevent her persuading her family against the match, which she is certain to do, or stirring up any other sort of trouble.’
‘Trouble?’ asks my husband. ‘What trouble could she cause?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘But then, I have never been very good at predicting the trouble she can cause. If I had foreseen the trouble she could cause I would not be here now; riding before forty wagons to a house I hate. All I know is that Cecil warned me that he feared there was a plot but could find no evidence.’
‘There is no plot,’ he says earnestly. ‘And Cecil can find no evidence because there is none. She has given her word, don’t you remember? She gave her word as a queen to Lord Morton that there would be no plots and no letters. She will be returned to Scotland. She swore on her honour she would not conspire.’
‘Then why are we here?’ I ask him. ‘If she is as innocent and honourable as you say?’
1571, April, Tutbury Castle: George
‘This is a most unnatural thing, I am sure, a most illegal thing. A damned wicked and dishonourable thing. Wrong, against custom and practice, another innovation, and another injustice.’
I come to my senses and find I am muttering to myself as I walk along the outer wall of Tutbury Castle, gazing out, but not really seeing the fresh greenness of the spring landscape. I don’t think I will ever look out to the north again without fearing that I may see an army coming to besiege us.
‘Illegal surely, and in any case wrong.’
‘What is the matter now?’ Bess says, coming to my side. She has thrown a shawl over her head and shoulders and she looks like a farmer’s wife run outside to feed the hens. ‘I was just in the garden and I saw you striding about and muttering to yourself like a man driven insane. Is it the queen? What has she done now?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘It is your great friend, Cecil.’
‘Burghley.’ She corrects me just to irritate me, I know. That nobody is now a baron and we must all call him ‘my lord’. And for what? For persecuting a queen of the blood until she is driven halfway to treason?
‘Burghley,’ I say mildly. ‘Of course, my lord Cecil. My lord Cecil the baron. How glad you must be for him. Your good friend. How grand he has become, what a pleasure for all who know and admire him. And he is building his grand house still? And he has substantial money from the queen, posts and preferments? He grows wealthier every day, does he not?’
‘What’s the news? Why are you so angry?’
‘He has pushed a bill through parliament to disinherit the Queen of Scots,’ I say. ‘Disinherit her. Now we see why he ordered us here where she could be so closely guarded. If ever the country would rise for her, you can see they might rise now. Declaring her invalid to inherit! As though parliament can determine who is the heir to the throne. As though it does not go by blood. As though a bunch of commoners can say who is a king’s son! It makes no sense, apart from anything else.’
‘Burghley has achieved this?’
‘She must see this as false dealing to her. In the very month when she is due to go back to Scotland as queen, Cecil sends us here, and pushes through a bill that says that no-one of the Roman Catholic faith can ever be a monarch of England. Their faith is to disbar them as much as if they were …’ For a moment I am speechless, I cannot think of an example. It has never been like this in England before. ‘A Jew …’ I manage. ‘If one can imagine such a thing as a Tudor Jew, a Stuart Jew. A Mussulman, a Hindoo pretender. They are treating her as if she were a Turk. She is a child of the Tudor line – Cecil is saying she is a foreigner to us.’
‘It makes Elizabeth safe from a Papist assassin,’ Bess says shrewdly. ‘There is no point in any hidden priest making a martyr of himself by killing her if it does not put a Papist on the throne.’
‘Yes, but that’s not why he’s done it,’ I exclaim. ‘If he cared so much to protect the queen he would have rushed the bill through last year when the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth and commanded every Papist criminal in the c
ountry to murder her. No. This is just to attack the Queen of Scots at the very moment when we have a complete agreement. This is to drive her into rebellion. And I will have to be the one who has to tell her what he has done. It was to be an act of absolute faith between the two queens; and I am the one who has to tell her that she has been cheated of her inheritance.’
‘You can tell her that her plotting has all been for nothing then.’ There is a vindictive pleasure lilting in my wife’s voice. ‘Whatever she has written to Norfolk or to her foreign friends, if she is debarred from the throne she can promise what she likes but they will know her to be a liar without friends in England.’
‘She is no liar. She is the heir,’ I say stubbornly. ‘Whatever anyone says, whatever Cecil says in parliament. She has Tudor blood, she is nearest to the throne, whether they like it or no. She is the next heir to England. What else do we say? That we pick and choose the next king or queen depending on our preference? Are monarchs not chosen by God? Are they not descended one from another? Besides, all the Kings of England before this one have been Papist. Is the religion of the fathers of the Kings of England now to be an obstacle to their being king? Has God changed? Has the king changed? Has the past changed too? Has Cecil – I beg your pardon, Baron Burghley – has he the power to disinherit Richard I? Henry V?’
‘Why should you be so upset?’ she asks unpleasantly. ‘Has she promised you a dukedom as reward when she is Queen of England?’
I gasp at the insult on my own castle wall from my own wife. But this is how things are now. A land steward is a baron, a queen is disinherited by the House of Commons, and a wife can speak to her husband as if he were a fool.
Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Page 134