“No!” He tried to snatch them back. “Who are you? By what right—?”
“Orders of Walsingham,” one of them said. “Walsingham. You’ve heard of him? Cecil? Have you heard of him?”
“By what right—?”
“The Queen of England! Have you heard of her?”
VI
“So now we have them?” asked Elizabeth. “All of them?”
Francis Walsingham indicated the papers on the table that ran the length of his chamber. They were neatly arranged, and each bore a tag underneath. “Start here, Your Majesty,” he said, gently steering her to the left. “The earliest are here.”
The first tag was dated October 1568.
“You see that she was already writing to the Spanish ambassador such provocative things as ‘Tell your master if he will help me I shall be Queen of England in three months and mass shall be said all over the country,’” said Walsingham. “That was during the hearings!”
Elizabeth picked up the letter and read it. “Yes, I see.” Her voice was grim. “My dear cousin. And she sent me needlework as a New Year’s gift shortly thereafter. Of course I, above all people, realize that prisoners will say and promise many things to anyone.”
Walsingham shot a look at her. Wasted sympathy! “Next, the marriage contract with Norfolk.” He indicated a paper labeled August 1569.
“Hmm.” Elizabeth studied it. “So this is what a marriage contract looks like! Pray God I never have to sign one! Ah, poor dear Charles IX. I was forced to reject his proposal. Now they say he has already wed. So short a time—how can one believe the protestations of love? But here, Norfolk and Mary—!” She dropped the thing as if it were a snake. “My dear cousins both.”
“Now, Madam. Here are the letters from November of 1569, the communications with Northumberland and Westmoreland. And now, our coup: these letters of Bailley’s.”
“And what, precisely, is the business with Bailley?” Elizabeth never forgot a name, but his connection with the Queen of Scots was most important.
“He was recruited to carry messages from the Continent back to Mary and Norfolk. Ridolfi—you remember that banker, Ridolfi?—was their agent in the plot; he was to seek aid from Philip for the purpose of invading England, deposing you, and freeing Mary. Now these letters, oh”—his voice rose an octave in excitement—“give us the link we need! Bailley is a servant of Leslie’s, who is Mary’s principal adviser. But some letters are in cipher, and are addressed to ‘30’ and ‘40.’ I assume they are noblemen here. Never fear, we will find out. I have taken the liberty of arresting Leslie. I trust you do not object.”
Elizabeth felt herself on the verge of trembling. The mysterious lords “30” and “40” … who could they be? Who were the traitors?
Am I completely surrounded by traitors? Whom can I be sure of? she wondered.
* * *
Bailley gritted his teeth as they led him down the steep, dank spiral stair into the dungeon of the White Tower, the oldest part of the Tower of London. The upper reaches of the White Tower had a banqueting hall and a fair stone chapel where kings and queens had lain in state; but in the bowels of the earth there was a room that had never seen daylight or a happy human moment. The odour of wetness and vermin was overwhelming as he stepped over the threshold. The flickering torches in wall sockets showed every wall to be lined with torture instruments: Skeffington’s Gyves, casicaws, manacles, fetters, and bilboes. In the middle of the room stood an enormous rack.
“No!” cried Bailley. “No!” He tried to twist away. “I have committed no crime, you have no right—!”
“Still harping on your rights?” said the warder. “It is not your rights that are in question here, but your knowledge. Pray share that knowledge with us, and you’ll never know the rack.”
Bailley stared at the legendary machine in fascinated horror. It was a rectangular frame of wood about six feet long, resting on legs some three feet high. The legs were secured by being sunk into holes in the floor. At the head and foot of the frame were two rollers, that could be wound by turning handles. Dangling from the ends of the rollers were four ropes, one for each limb of the torture victim.
“No!” Bailley was shoved onto the ground and held on his back in the middle of the frame while two of the guards tied his ankles and wrists to the machine. Then they stood back and began winding the winches, lifting Bailley up and stretching him until, like a sheet, he was suspended over the frame. His joints gave a few sighs and pops as his weight settled.
“This is a healthy stretching,” said one of the men. “It can almost feel good. Now you can truthfully say you have been on the rack. But to avoid any discomfort, it would be well to tell us … everything. But we will wait for our superior to explain. Ah … here is our esteemed rackmaster.”
A well-dressed man appeared at the entrance to the chamber and stepped smartly over to the rack. The perfume of his gloves struck Bailley as an obscene part of the torture.
“My friend, I see you have made the acquaintance of a device of which we are all justly proud here in the Tower,” he said silkily. “The finest oak frame, the length of it, the fixedness of it—there is none like it in the land. Those portable devices”—he made a gesture of dismissal—“if one has no space, of course, can serve, after a fashion. Yet Her Majesty has graciously provided such quarters as required to give the rack its full potential.”
Bailley kept staring at this man. How did one become a rackmaster? Was it a talent that started in boyhood, being particularly adept at dismembering live frogs, at drowning kittens and docking puppies’ tails?
“Let me explain how it works,” the rackmaster was saying. “We will tighten the winches, and at each half-turn you will be lengthened. Why, we can make you a foot longer than God did!” He laughed loudly, slapping his thigh. “But the joints protest. They do not want to be stretched, stubborn things! They rip and tear out of their sockets—it is always a surprise to learn which can be more stubborn, the mind at withholding information, or the sinews in clinging to their bones. That is what makes this work anything but routine.” He paused. “This is your last chance. Tell us everything: the extent of the conspiracy, everything the Spanish and the Pope said, the ciphers and codes.”
“No.”
The rackmaster nodded and four guards—one at each corner—began winding the winches. Bailley’s body jerked upward and quivered as he was held perfectly horizontal and the roller was secured at that tautness by ratchets and iron stops. Then the winches were turned another half-turn, and his shoulders groaned. There was a jolt as one became dislocated. His body sagged downward, but the slack was quickly taken up by another turn of the winch.
He screamed. His shoulder was on fire, and pain was searing through his chest.
“Now, then. The information.”
Bailley was choking and babbling. Suddenly his hip ligaments tore. He fainted.
“Throw water on him,” said the rackmaster with disgust. “This one is hardly worth torturing, he’s so soft!”
* * *
John Leslie, the Bishop of Ross, was shoved into the room. He stared at the stretched form of Bailley lying on the rack.
“We’ll have cleared it soon enough,” said the rackmaster. “You will not have to wait long!” He nodded to the guards, and they began unfastening the ropes. Bailley dropped to the ground with a thud. They dragged him off; Leslie noticed the abnormal angles of his ankles. The body bumped and jounced as two of the guards hauled him across the floor and out of the room.
“I’ll talk, I’ll talk! No, don’t touch me!” wept Leslie. “What do you want to know? The letters? I’ll tell you! The Queen of Scots? She’s wicked, she doesn’t deserve the noble Duke of Norfolk for a husband. She poisoned the French King François, she murdered Darnley, and as for Bothwell—she tried to murder him too! Yes, she led him out to the field at Carberry Hill so he could be killed!” Leslie fell cowering on the ground in a heap, his hands up to ward off imaginary blows.
“See what a stouthearted servant the Queen of Scots has,” sneered the rackmaster. “May she always be served by such.” He looked at the shuddering Leslie and shook his head. “He is not worthy of our noble instrument!”
* * *
“More information?” asked Elizabeth wearily, as Walsingham hurried in to her privy chamber, papers clutched under his arm. “I am not sure I wish to know any more. But no, ignorance is always worse than pain. Pray proceed!” Her head was aching; she had been feeling ill for the past three days. She was sure it was bad carp that she had eaten on the previous Friday.
“You will rejoice at this news, Your Majesty,” said Walsingham. “Dumbarton Castle has fallen! A surprise attack on it has taken the stronghold for the Lords! Only Lord Fleming escaped, by scrambling down the rock and making his getaway. But all the rest are prisoners … with the exception of Archbishop Hamilton. They hanged him in his priestly robes.”
“Who dared?” asked Elizabeth. “Was there no trial?”
“It was the Earl of Lennox who ordered the execution. He now claims that the Archbishop murdered his son Darnley.”
“When he came to the hearings, he swore it was Bothwell. He cannot have it both ways! Oh, what is the truth up there? Is there any regard for truth?” She was close to tears.
“Your Majesty,” said Walsingham, “I thought you would be pleased.”
“Pleased? With more murders and lies up there? You fool!” She threw her fan at him. She hated the fan anyway; it was Spanish.
Walsingham ducked. “We work very hard for you,” he said self-righteously. “Is it our fault that the world is a foul and disloyal place? Leslie has betrayed his Queen, and told us the extent of the plots. Now we have stumbled on another link: Norfolk has been sending money to the Queen’s party in Scotland. It is French money, crowns and francs, direct from her dower allowance.”
“Well, what of it?” Elizabeth snapped. “How do you expect her to spend her money? Aiding the Earl of Lennox?” She poured some water from a pitcher into a shallow bowl and dipped her handkerchief into it, then applied it to her temples.
“I care not how she spends her money, but these servants of Norfolk who were carrying the gold have betrayed him as well!”
Elizabeth sank down into her chair. “Tell me, pray, of something besides betrayal. Is there no loyalty anywhere?” She felt even sicker.
“Only to you,” he said. “Cecil and I, Robert Dudley, Hatton, Sussex—we are all loyal! And we have discovered the few who are not. Are you ready? The ‘40’ in the codes was the Queen of Scots herself, and ‘30’ was the Spanish ambassador. And if you doubt this, the correspondence recovered from Dumbarton reveals the extent of Mary’s dealings with Alva, the Pope, and Spain.”
“What of Norfolk?” she asked faintly.
“He had ordered his servants to destroy all his secret letters from Mary, but they hid them instead, and brought us to them. They were hidden under floor mats, and the ciphers were in the roof tiles. The Duke,” he pronounced slowly, “is guilty of treason.”
“Is there to be a trial here?” she asked. “Or am I expected to act like the Scots and proceed without one?”
“In England there is always a trial,” Walsingham said proudly.
“Even if the verdict is known in advance,” said Elizabeth. “I remember reading an account of the trial of an abbot: ‘he was taken away to be tried and executed.’ Let us not follow that example. Let us truly examine the evidence before pronouncing.”
Walsingham looked at her, puzzled. “So it can be dragged out as long as possible?”
* * *
The wet and sleeting May was unseasonable even for Scotland. There had been ice and snow even in April, and flowers did not appear until May, when they were promptly frozen, some of them still in the bud. Each side took it as an evil omen for the other: the King’s Men, as the Regent’s party was now called, said that as long as the land was divided, the skies would weep; the Queen’s Men said that the very Heaven shielded its face from the sight of traitors.
With the fall of Dumbarton Castle, the King’s Men could now turn their full attention to the stronghold of Edinburgh Castle, still held by Maitland and Kirkcaldy of Grange. The foremost fortress commanded the capital and held the regalia, the principal store of ordnance, and the register house of the records of the kingdom. Day after day the Queen’s Men fired cannon balls down on the town, and when the Lords attempted to hold a Parliament in the Canongate, they had to crawl about on their hands and knees to avoid the cannon fire. Their enemies dismissed the gathering—which tried to pass forfeits against men still loyal to Mary—as the “Creeping Parliament,” from the men’s posture.
In control of Edinburgh, Mary’s supporters held their own Parliament the following month, in the Tolbooth, the traditional meeting place. The regalia from the castle was brought down to give weight to the proceedings, but the Parliament was less well attended than the “Creeping” one just held. The Hamiltons, Huntly, and Lord Herries were there, but in the summer—a chilly one like the spring—Cassillis, Eglinton, and the hitherto loyal Boyd went over to the Lords.
In August, Regent Lennox called a Parliament at Stirling.
* * *
The Great Hall was readied for the occasion. Although there was little money in the treasury, Lennox ordered all that could be done for show and a few pence. The floors were scrubbed, the fireplaces cleaned, the benches oiled. Flowers, gathered from the fields, were strung in ropes and festooned over the walls and draped around the doorways. An imitation set of regalia was made, and new robes were hastily sewn up for the five-year-old King James.
On the day that he was vested in his ermine and velvet, the boy looked at his grandfather and said solemnly, “I will open the proceedings.” His voice was low and he spoke in a dull monotone.
Lennox nodded. He stole a scrutinizing look as the boy stood admiring the mock crown. The child had a head too big for his body and sad, baggy eyes. He did not resemble either his gold-and-ivory father or his sparkling, elegant mother. Truth to tell, he did not even resemble the swarthy little Riccio. Where had he come from? He was like a changeling. But no matter; the title of King would suffice to cover all his shortcomings.
Trumpets sounded as the crown, sceptre, and sword were borne into the hall on three separate velvet pillows, followed by the sombre, measured steps of little James, then of his grandfather. James mounted his throne and Lennox took his place below him. The Lords and burgesses seated themselves, after a blessing was read by the ailing Knox in a shaky voice.
Suddenly James, looking upward to a small opening in the ceiling, said loudly, “This Parliament has got a hole in it!”
The assembly, including Knox, were struck with fear. The child was prophesying!
“‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength,’” whispered Knox.
* * *
Kirkcaldy and his men were approaching the rocky cliffs of Stirling. They rode silently, their guns and swords at the ready. So these Lords meant to have a Parliament using imitation regalia? Did they think themselves safe here? Did they vainly imagine that the only place where they would have to assume undignified postures was within the scope of cannon fire from Edinburgh Castle? How foolish! Their enemies had arms, legs, and horses, and were not confined to Edinburgh.
They climbed the path winding up to the castle walls, and a Queen’s sympathizer let them in the postern gate, as previously arranged. The men fanned out, keeping a careful watch. The upper courtyard was deserted; the Parliament was still sitting, evidently.
The sound of the horses’ hooves penetrated into the Great Hall. The men inside rose from their seats. They flung open the doors and ventured out, nervously looking this way and that.
“Get them!” called Kirkcaldy, with a whoop. “Avenge the Hamiltons!” He swooped down on one terrified laird and was chasing him when he caught sight of Eglinton emerging from the hall. “Old friend!” he yelled. “Rejoin us!” He g
rabbed the man and dangled him from the side of his horse. Eglinton writhed and tried to twist free.
Kirkcaldy’s men were chasing the Parliamentarians like a farmer chasing chickens across a barnyard. Then from the building emerged both Lennox and the little King.
“Stop!” cried Lennox. “I command you to surrender!”
A Captain Calder, one of Kirkcaldy’s regular soldiers, turned in the saddle and fired at Lennox. The Regent fell, gasping. Blood flew and sprayed the King.
Kirkcaldy dropped Eglinton and cried, “Retreat! Retreat!” and galloped toward the escape gate. His men followed, leaving bodies strewn on the ground and Lennox gasping, tearing at his bloodied doublet.
* * *
Lennox died in a few hours. Before allowing himself to be taken inside, he had inquired about the King. “Is he safe?” he had whispered. When Knox had nodded, then Lennox said softly, “If the babe be well, all is well.”
* * *
John Erskine, the Earl of Mar, was appointed new Regent; once again, no one suggested restoring Mary to the throne. The King’s Men continued to rule the country in the name of James, and to batter away at Edinburgh Castle, where Maitland and Kirkcaldy were still ensconced. While deploring the violence and instability, the English government continued negotiations to have the Earl of Northumberland delivered to them for justice’s sake. The Earl’s wife, writing from the Netherlands, offered a bribe for his safety, but the English outbid her for two thousand pounds, and the Earl was delivered up from Lochleven and handed over to the English.
All the evidence about the Ridolfi Plot and Norfolk’s involvement was complete by late autumn of 1571. The Spanish ambassador, Don Gerau de Spes, the truculent crusader for Catholic insurrection, was expelled from England. The fussing Spaniard was escorted to Dover and forced to embark.
Norfolk’s trial opened in January 1572. He admitted knowledge of the conspiracy but denied involvement in it, and claimed that he had never attempted to harness his considerable resources for any domestic uprising. But he was unable to produce any proof of his innocence that could counterbalance the proofs of his plotting—the letters, the codes, the gold, the breaking of his solemn signed oath to have no dealings with Mary. He was found guilty of high treason and condemned to a traitor’s death.
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Page 101