The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots

by Kate Williams

  Mary was sick and wasting but in the minds of Elizabeth’s courtiers, she was an ever-growing threat. When William of Orange was shot by a Spanish Catholic in July 1584, it seemed as if Elizabeth would be next in the firing line, murdered by a Catholic plot. All the circumstances were against Mary. The Throckmorton arrest, the fact that Elizabeth was now too old to bear an heir, the behaviour of the Spanish and French ambassadors; it was all too much. Cecil and Walsingham were considering more strenuous laws to protect Elizabeth’s person.

  Still worse, Bess of Hardwick became jealous of Talbot’s attention to Mary and his spending of her estate on Mary’s entourage. He was in an impossible position, guarding a prisoner who no one wanted but who had to be kept in grandeur, without the money to do so. The happy days of conversation over embroidery over, Bess tormented Talbot with accusations. She was already resentful after Elizabeth had thrown a proverbial fit over the marriage of Bess’s daughter, Elizabeth, to Darnley’s brother in 1574 (it had taken place without the Queen’s permission, and thus Elizabeth viewed it as a disobedient, even treasonous, act). Bess was discontented with her life and marriage, and her fury turned on Mary.

  Gossip about the exact nature of Talbot’s and Mary’s relationship started to spread, and even Elizabeth started to discuss the scandal – and it reached courts around the world. Talbot had long been accused of being too kind to Mary, pushing for her to visit Buxton, allowing her huge retinue, subsidising her expenses and letting her socialise with local families. Now, everyone said, they knew why. Like so many men before him, he had been seduced by the Scots queen.

  Mary realised that she was in serious danger once more. First, she begged for a full investigation and demanded to be allowed to clear herself. When no reply came, she lost her temper and sent Elizabeth a lengthy denunci­ation of Bess that was shocking in its content: Bess, who had been one of Elizabeth’s Ladies of the Bedchamber before losing her position in the aftermath of the scandalous secret marriage of Katherine Grey, had been talking wildly over those embroidery sessions. She had, Mary said, accused the queen of taking Leicester as a lover, asking him to marry her and having been ‘with him an infinite number of times with all the familiarity and licence as between husband and wife’.7 The queen had also had affairs with various other men, including favoured politician and future Lord Chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton, and kissed the French ambassador and engaged in familiarities with him, before betraying state secrets to him. She had also come close to sex with the Duke of Anjou, letting him enter her room when she was only wearing her nightdress and dressing gown. Even more hurtfully, wrote Mary, Bess had said that Elizabeth was unable to conceive and so ‘would never lose your liberty to make love and always have your pleasure with new lovers’.8 Perhaps the most damaging of all was Bess’s reported claim that the courtiers competed to offer her the most excessive praise, none of which they believed.

  Mary even said that when Elizabeth had been ill, Bess had prophesied a violent death and the accession of Mary. It was eye-watering stuff and written to shock Elizabeth and cause her pain. But it probably never reached her, for Cecil seized it. Cecil was stunned by the document and increasingly fretful about the growing Catholic power in Europe. Bess protested her innocence. And, fortunately for her, there was nothing in there that had not been said by other gossips or in foreign pamphlets, such as the rumour about Leicester. There was no real new information that only Bess would have been privy to. But if she were innocent, then Mary was guilty of sending evil slander. Mary had been wrong to write the letter. For although Bess was cleared, the whole affair was highly embarrassing to Talbot. He escaped criticism but he would no longer be allowed to guard Mary.

  Mary was moved to the custody of Sir Ralph Sadler who, at seventy-seven, had been hoping for a quiet retirement. The passionate falling-out between Mary and Bess marked an indelible black line over her time with Talbot. Unfortunately, he felt so vulnerable to criticism after the exposure of Bess’s unguarded words about the queen that he lost all sympathy for Mary. The man who had been her great friend and protector became her formidable enemy.

  Sir Ralph Sadler and his son-in-law were to take Mary to Wingfield and then back to the horrors of Tutbury Castle. Sadler, who had known Mary for years, was shocked at the change in her. He found her much altered, her body wasted and ‘not yet able to strain her left foot to the ground’,9 in constant pain and tearful. He felt dreadfully sorry for her and could not resist her pleas. Her rooms at Tutbury were dark and damp with no sight of the sun and she grew sicker every day. Mary begged him to let her have a little air and exercise and he agreed to take her out with his hawks along the river near the castle. He took fifty men with him to guard her and they were no more than three miles from the castle – but when Cecil heard about Mary’s brief moments of liberty, he was furious. Even though she could barely walk and was still heavily guarded, she remained so dangerous, in Cecil’s eyes, that she could not go out, even surrounded by fifty armed escorts.

  Sadler was promptly deprived of his position and Mary was handed to Sir Amyas Paulet, who vowed from the beginning not to be swayed by Mary’s pleas. His duty was to Elizabeth and, in his eyes, God, and as he put it, ‘others shall excuse their foolish pity as they may’.10 He was violently anti-Catholic, had worked against her in the French court and was a close associate of Walsingham. Her tears would have no effect on him. Up until then, the fiction had been that Mary was in protective custody. Now, she was in prison. He had been told to ensure she never left the building, even to take the air. Mary was in strict confinement and she was not allowed to corres­pond with associates on the outside. Paulet put all of Mary’s staff in isolation, refusing to allow them to mix with the other servants, and they had to be searched leaving and entering the castle – if he allowed them to leave. Mary’s servants were not even allowed to walk on the castle walls. He was particularly obsessed with Mary’s three laundresses who resided outside the castle, demanding that they were strip-searched on leaving and entering. Still worse, Paulet denied Mary all of the grandeur that had supported her poor, battened-down heart. When he entered her chamber, he tore down her cloth of state, shouting that there was only one queen in the country. He burst in and searched her cabinets at random and even broke down her door. Mary had no privacy and no respect and he seized and tore open her letters and read the contents. She still had thirty-eight attendants and servants but Paulet hated them and she was not allowed to give money to the local poor in case this won them over to taking messages for her. For Paulet, Mary was a direct threat to Elizabeth and he would control, reduce and humiliate her in whatever way he could. Mary begged Elizabeth for help, complaining of his brutality. But Elizabeth replied that Mary had always said she would bow to what Elizabeth wished – and Paulet was what the queen wanted.11

  Mary grew seriously ill under Paulet’s cruel treatment. She called her new guard ‘one of the most zealous and pitiless men I have ever known’.12 Her legs were still inflamed and the slightest movement made her cry out and she could not walk without her secretaries supporting her. Her legs were covered with open wounds that had to be dressed daily in, as Paulet put it, ‘gross manner’ and she was constantly sick with headaches, stomach pains, fainting and insomnia. She was allowed out in a carriage only once or twice a month with armed soldiers surrounding her. Mary was frantic and desperate. Elizabeth was ignoring her and Paulet was treating her shockingly. France had given her nothing.

  Mary saw no choice but to throw her lot in with Spain and beg Philip for help. And Philip himself was leaning towards war, believing that the only way to gain dominion over the Atlantic Ocean was by conquering England. Plots were beginning to spring up and Mary wrote to the Spanish ambassador for details about the activities of Catholics in England and the growing enthusiasm for invasion.

  In the autumn of 1584, all London was talking about an outrageous, obscene, treasonous book that had come from Paris, brought over on the boat in secret, swapped under the tables at tav
erns, sold in the darkness of alleyways, taken to houses at the dead of night. The lord mayor managed to seize a copy and sent it to Walsingham. The lurid pages were all about Robert Dudley, accusing him of having and misusing his power over the queen, suggestively declaring that he had been engaged in ‘diligently besieging’ her and taking up ‘all the ways and passages about her’.13 He was also said to be seducing various ladies at court, naming both Lady Douglas and Lettice Knollys (who he apparently conquered with an aphrodisiac potion made of his own semen), and paying them off, and the old accusations about the mysterious death of Amy Robsart were dredged up. He was hated by Catholics on the continent for his anti-Jesuit stance and because of the gossip that he would try to put his own illegitimate children on the throne. Elizabeth announced an amnesty for the people of England to relinquish their copies of the dreadful book without punishment but few appeared. There were pages praising Mary’s claim to the throne and so Dudley decided that Mary was behind the whole thing. On this occasion, the Queen of Scots was probably innocent but Dudley’s attitude towards her changed for ever. He was now her implacable enemy.

  In late 1584, Walsingham persuaded the queen that Mary still wished to have her killed. He pushed forth ‘The Instrument of an Association for the Preservation of her Majesty’s Royal Person’ or the ‘Bond of Association’, in which signatories pledged to hunt down and kill anyone who was pursuing a plot against the queen. They vowed ‘never to accept, avow, or favour any such pretended successor, by whom or for whom any such detestable act shall be committed or attempted’ – Mary would be held responsible, even if she was not involved. The government directed the signatures as it was passed around the country but presented it rather as a spontaneous uprising of protectiveness.14

  In the following Spring this became law, in an ‘Act for the Queen’s Safety’, declaring that if she were murdered, the beneficiary (they meant Mary) and her associates were to be retrieved and killed. It essentially enabled any Englishman (or woman) to hunt down and kill anyone involved in plots ‘compassed or imagined, tending to the hurt of her Majesty’s royal person’. Some MPs raised objections about the possible anarchy that could ensue – what if people simply slaughtered who they felt like, killing old enemies and declaring that these men had been trying to murder the queen? If Elizabeth was killed, did this mean that both Mary and James would have to be executed? Then who would rule? Elizabeth made it clear that if Mary was executed for plotting, James should be exempt as long as he had not been involved. The Act was passed and Elizabeth decided to limit her royal progress planned for the summer and instead remain at her own residences.

  The Act placed Mary and Elizabeth in direct opposition. Elizabeth then played a wily game. She turned to the young king of Scotland herself, offering the possibility of recognising him and indeed putting him in line to the English throne after her death. As she was fifty-one and suffering from illness, it would be understandable if James, a hearty teenager, decided she was almost dead anyway. The simple point for James was that Mary, imprisoned and powerless, could give him nothing.

  For James, Elizabeth’s recognition meant more than the words of his mother. He couldn’t remember Mary and she was still a divisive figure. And he was perspicacious enough to see that being put in line as the heir to the English throne would mean more to his subjects than supporting his mother ever would. He promptly wrote to Mary saying that he would honour her with the title of ‘queen mother’ but she could never again be queen.15 The poor captive fell into a frenzy of shock and vomiting when she received the letter, scribbling back in fury that he insulted her with his title and ‘there is neither king nor queen in Scotland except me’. She was utterly heartbroken at what she called his ‘enormous ingratitude’ that she felt ‘no punishment, divine or human’ could ever equal. She scrawled that ‘I am so grievously offended at my heart at the impiety and ingratitude that this child has been constrained to commit against me.’16 She railed wildly that she would deprive him of the crown and give it to his greatest enemy. But her words had no effect other than making her ill. Elizabeth was delighted by her triumph and James cared only for securing his position in Scotland.

  Mary had always had some hope that her son would save her. And she was growing increasingly fearful that she might be quietly poisoned, her long-term sickness used to excuse a sudden death. Now, she threw herself towards anyone who promised her rescue – entering the underworld of spies and plots. And this was just what Cecil and Walsingham wanted. For Cecil, Mary had always been a threat to Elizabeth and a talisman for English Catholics to cling to. Without her, there would be no one for them to put on the throne in place of Elizabeth – for James was occupied in Scotland, and was Protestant. Cecil had become so obsessed with Mary that he had come to believe that dispatching her would pretty much nullify the Catholic threat. As he told Leicester, ‘so long as that devilish woman lives, neither her Majesty must make account to continue in quiet possession of her crown, nor her faithful servants assure themselves of safety to their lives’.17

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ‘Green Ribbons’

  In 1585, Mary Seton, forty-three and long suffering from illness, her heart still pained by the loss of her fiancé, decided that she must repair to a convent and fulfil her destiny as a bride of Christ. She would live in the convent of Rheims that was presided over by Mary of Guise’s sister, Renée of Guise, and devote her life to God. She had served Mary faithfully for so long – essentially for all of her life. She had risked terrible punishment and death by dressing as the queen while she escaped from Lochleven and she had stayed with her in shocking prisons, been with her for her triumphant return to Scotland in 1560, her awful miscarriage and dreadful abdication in 1567. Without Mary Seton, her great link to the past and the witness to her glory, the Queen of Scots had lost a steadying influence – and started to fall down the hole of plots and schemes, a sixteenth-century Alice in Wonderland who did not see what was around her.

  Tutbury was in a shocking state of repair and needed airing, so Mary and her household were shifted to Chartley Hall, also in Staffordshire, on Christmas Eve 1585 (much to the complaint of the owner, the young Earl of Essex).

  Mary was hawkishly watched by Paulet but she was determined to outwit him. Her deliverance came with the arrival of the twenty-five-year-old son of a Catholic landowner, Gilbert Gifford, who popped up and offered to take Mary’s letters for her. He had been engaged on and off in studying to be a Catholic priest, had a recommendation from one of her agents in Paris, and seemed an ideal saviour. Mary schemed brilliant ways to have her letters sent secretly to France and Spain, deciding that alum, the sixteenth-century version of invisible ink, was too easily detected, and instead one could write secret messages across the agreed pages of new books, with ‘green ribbons attached to the books that you’ve had written in this way’.1 She and her corres­pondents created over sixty codes, the keys to which she kept in her papers. She also planned to hide letters in the soles of shoes that were sent to her from Paris and in the slats of the boxes used to send her clothes, even in tiny caskets floating at the top of beer casks, which were delivered every week.

  Unfortunately, it was all a trap.

  Cecil and Walsingham had realised that putting Mary under Paulet’s strict surveillance and forbidding her correspondence had been a self-defeating project. If Mary stopped writing letters, then they would never have any evidence against her. So in a breathtakingly brilliant plan, Gifford was recruited. When living on the continent, attempting to train as a priest, he had come into contact with anti-Elizabeth groups and entered into discussions about assassinating the queen. In Paris, he met Thomas Morgan, who had been a secretary and a spy for Mary from 1569 to 1572. He had been imprisoned in the Tower for three years and then fled to France, where he busied himself creating conspir­acies to put Mary onto the throne. Gifford was in conversation with Morgan and Charles Paget, exiled Catholic and son of Sir William Paget, formerly Lord Privy Seal to Mary I, who h
ad fled to France in 1581. Morgan and Paget played a key role in Mary, Queen of Scots’ life, corresponding with her secretaries, Claude Nau and Gilbert Curle, and between them they were said to have ‘governed from thenceforth the queen’s affairs at their pleasure’.2 Morgan and Paget also helped the Scottish ambassador administer Mary’s funds from her dower lands in France, for which they gained a pension. The Duke of Guise, Philip of Spain and powerful Catholic interests across Europe wanted Mary back on her throne.

  Thus, Gifford was in conversation with the elite groups of Catholic plotters and those who were hell-bent on getting Mary into power. The problem was that Walsingham’s brilliant spies were onto them – and so Paget also worked as a double agent, feeding information back to Walsingham. He probably did so only so that he could move between France and England at will and to avoid suspicion, and he spent more time enthusing to Walsingham about his devotion to Elizabeth than he did actually passing on information. Walsingham saw through his fine words and never trusted him, writing that ‘Charles Paget is a most dangerous instrument.’3 He needed a better agent. When, in 1585, Gifford arrived in England from France, Walsingham pounced. Gifford was captured, arrested and interrogated by Walsingham, probably with the assistance of torture. He promised to be a double agent and Walsingham gave him the code name of No. 4.