Yesterday Her Majesty spake so fair of my horse—the new gelding that I wrote you thereof—that I gave it to her as a birthday gift, thinking it little enough cost to please her. Things continue much the same with Dudley as before. The queen hunts with him every day from morning until night, and yesternight Sir William Cecil told me that he purposed to retire to the country soon, for as he said, “It is a bad sailor who does not make for port when he sees a storm coming,” and he fears that when Dudley’s wife is dead, which it seems cannot be long, the queen will marry him, willy-nilly, throwing herself away on him, as he says, and forgetting what she owes unto herself and her subjects.
I have hopes that once the queen is bestowed in London she will grant me leave to come to you at Chatsworth soon, which I desire mightily. Thus wishing myself with thyself, thine who is wholly and only thine, yea and all thine while life lasts, your husband, William St. Loe.
Will was no sooner back in London, lodging once more in Red Cross Street, than he sent word of news that had rocked the court.
Amy Robsart, wife to Robert Dudley, is dead. Not from the malady that has long been spoken of, but by mischance, it seems, for her servants, having gone forth to a fair, returned to the house to find her dead at the bottom of a pair of stairs with her neck broke. The queen has ordered that there be an inquest, sent Lord Robert away to his house at Kew until the coroner shall come to a verdict, and mewed herself up in her rooms with her confusion.
“Sure she must have done away with herself,” Jenny surmised when Bess read the letter over to her. “Poor lady, what a grievous position she has been in so long, with all the world and his wife speaking of Robert Dudley’s love for the queen and the queen’s for him, and that it wanted only her death to make him free to marry.”
“Perhaps,” Bess said. “But I am positive that though Dudley was far from his wife, many will say that he had a hand in her death, and even that the queen did, too.”
A few days later Will wrote that the coroner had concluded that Lady Dudley’s death was accidental.
But this does nothing to still the wagging tongues, and though the queen has recalled Robert Dudley to her side, there are dangerous suspicions and mutterings that Dudley sent someone to do his wife to death. In truth I think the queen will never be able to marry him now. Lady Throckmorton tells me that her husband writ from Paris to say that all the talk there is that the queen and her lover have murdered his wife.
Bess felt a wrenching sorrow for Elizabeth, imagining only too well how she herself would feel if she had been prevented from marrying Will because of what people would think, because of a duty to put the needs of the country before her own happiness. And Elizabeth was twenty-seven. She could not wait forever to take a husband. Could she afford to delay making a choice, hoping that eventually the furor over Amy Robsart’s death would fade and she could marry the man she loved so well?
A month later Will wrote that the queen had finally given him permission to leave court but that something was finally happening with Bess’s case against the Exchequer.
I should have been with you this day but for that, he wrote. I will forbear answering your last letter, for that God willing I will this next week be the messenger myself . . . Farewell, my own sweet Bess, from him who dares not so near his coming home to term thee as thou art, yet thine, William St. Loe.
* * *
THE PREPARATIONS FOR HARRY’S AND WILLIE’S REMOVAL TO ETON had been going on so long that it had seemed inconceivable to Bess that the day of departure would ever come. But here it was, the nineteenth of October, and their trunks were loaded onto a cart, the footmen and guards were milling around the forecourt of the house, and any minute now she would have to kiss her boys farewell.
“How long will the journey be?” Willie asked, looking anxious.
“I’ve told you ten dozen times,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “A week.”
“Perhaps a week,” Bess said, straightening Willie’s cloak. “Perhaps less, if the roads are good. And you may chance to meet your father on the way, for he will be traveling here from London.”
“That would be a fine thing,” Willie said, perking up a bit.
Bess thought he must be a little afraid to go so far away, leaving behind everything he knew and venturing among strangers, but she knew he didn’t like to seem to be a baby compared with his older brother.
“Yes, it would be a fine thing,” she agreed. “And I shall be in London in a matter of weeks, and as soon as I’m there I’ll come to see you. You’ll be so busy with your studies you’ll hardly miss me, I’ll be bound.”
“But I will miss you, Mother,” Willie said, casting aside all pretensions of manhood and flinging himself into her arms. “And Gran and Aunt Marcella and Jenny and Big Meg and Little Meg, and the sheep, and the dogs, and everything.”
Bess struggled not to weep, for she thought that if she started now she would never stop.
“And we will miss you,” she said, stooping and tightening her arms around Willie. “All of us, most dreadfully. But you will write to everyone here, and to your father and me in London, and let us know how you get on.”
“I’m going to serve the queen when I have done at school,” Harry declared, setting his hat on his head at a rakish angle. “I will be a soldier like Father.”
“And I will be most proud of you,” Bess said. “Of both of you.”
The entire household was gathered to see them off, and when the boys and their companions had finally mounted, they looked like a small army.
At least they are well guarded, Bess thought. Please, God, keep my angels safe on the roads.
She ran forward to give her sons each one last kiss, and even Harry, considering himself grown up at almost ten years old, looked a little tearful as she pressed her lips to his cheek.
* * *
TWO DAYS AFTER THE BOYS LEFT FOR ETON, BESS SAW FROM AN upstairs window that a party of riders was approaching Chatsworth. Surely that was Will at the front of the pack, his cape flying out behind him as he came at a run? She gave a shriek of joy and dashed to the stairs.
“My own darling!” she cried as Will alighted and swept her into his arms. “How have I missed thee!”
“Ah, by God, heaven is nowhere but in your arms, sweet Bess.” He kissed her deeply, heedless of the tumble of children, servants, and his companions around them. “I met with Harry and Willie on the road near Northampton. We dined before we parted company, and they were fine and in good spirits.”
“Ah, the most comforting words to a mother’s soul,” Bess said, pressing her head to his chest. “They’re like to be at Eton by now, I hope.”
Will’s brother Clement was with him, along with four friends and half a dozen servants, and besides what they carried there were three more horses laden with gifts for Bess and the children and luxuries for the household: oranges and lemons, olives, pepper and spices, and two dozen packets from an apothecary’s shop, containing ingredients for remedies and simples.
It was like Christmas, Bess thought, as after dinner the family sat surrounded by opened bundles, their contents strewn across the carpet. Velvet shoes, silk points for tying sleeves to bodices, perfumed gloves, lace and ribbons, furs and lengths of fine fabrics, toys for the children, gifts for the servants.
“And look at this!” Will crowed, unwinding a heavy object from its swaddling of wool. “A knocker for the great gate!”
“You are a marvel!” Bess exclaimed, running a finger over the gleaming brass stag’s head. She threw herself into his lap, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. “Empty-handed you would have been a sight for sore eyes, but you come bearing such a quantity of fine things that I wonder the carrying of them didn’t cripple the horses.”
“And yet there is more,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Her Majesty has given me some land near Tormarton—I must take occasion to see it before I return to London—and she has granted my request to commission a suit of armor from Erasmus Kerkener.”
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“Oh, Will!”
Kerkener was the royal armorer at Greenwich, who created masterpieces of armor for field and tiltyard, costly in the extreme and prized not only for their craftsmanship but for their proclamation of the wearer as a gentleman of wealth and high standing. But thanks to Will’s salary from the queen and the income from his properties, he could afford to equip himself so handsomely.
“When I return to London I will call upon him and look at his patterns to see what will be most fitting.”
“I hope Her Majesty will have another tourney,” Bess said, “just so I may see you in your armor and on horseback, conquering all that come before you.”
* * *
“TELL ME OF THE EXCHEQUER MATTER,” BESS URGED WILL AS THEY lay close in bed that night.
“Our suit was not granted out of hand,” Will said, “nor was it ruled against. It will come to hearing sometime in the next months, I think.”
“What if it does not go our way?” Bess fretted.
“We’ll skin that bear when we’ve caught it. No use distressing yourself until the time comes, and when the moment is right I’ll put in a word with the queen.”
“Ah, my love, my savior. What would I ever do without you?” she murmured, inhaling his scent and sighing in contentment.
“Alas, I also bring news that is not so comfortable,” he said. “Ned is up to no good again.”
The mention of his brother seemed to bring a chill into the room.
“He has not been sending me the rents,” Will said. “I wrote to him to know the cause of it, and he boldly claimed that the rents were his, and if I didn’t like it I could come to collect them myself.”
“The villain.”
“Yes. And he’s been holding court and meting out judgment, as though he were lord of the manor there and justice of the peace. I will have to go to Sutton Court to set things straight, and then on to visit my mother before I return to London.”
Sorrow seized Bess. “Oh, my love, I cannot let you go from me just yet.”
“I’ll not be gone for at least a fortnight,” Will said. “But as things stand at court I dare not be gone too long.”
“Why, what’s the news?” Bess asked in alarm.
“More of the same,” Will sighed. “The queen’s marriage, and Robert Dudley.”
“Still?”
“Still, and hotter debated in the last few days now, for the court is out of mourning for Lady Dudley and Robin Dudley is back at the queen’s side. He makes no secret that he is courting her. It is all that is talked of. Throckmorton writes from Paris that the courts of Europe take it as fact that Dudley murdered his wife, and think it likely that Elizabeth was complicit.”
“But they can’t believe it!”
“Many do. It is brazenly claimed that the queen has married Dudley in secret or that she has borne his child. The French are joyous at the prospect that England will not tolerate a whore and murderess on the throne, but will cast her out in favor of the Scottish queen. If these slanderous rumors be not slaked, England’s reputation is gone forever. War will follow, and utter subversion of the queen and country.”
“War abroad?”
“Aye, with France, or Spain, or Scotland, or all of them together who would do much to put a Papist on the throne.”
“And will she not still the rumors one way or the other? What says she?”
“She keeps her own counsel. There is still talk of a foreign marriage, though it seems to me that she has no liking for the prospect but it suits her to keep people guessing. And I must confess I cannot see how any prince will marry her, thinking her to be Dudley’s strumpet.”
“And if she marries him? Would not that still the poisonous tongues and put the matter to rest?”
Will sighed and shook his head. “I fear that could lead to war within England. Marrying a subject would be beneath the queen’s dignity. And to marry a Dudley, and Robert Dudley, of all men! He is not well liked—the court is riven by factions. And though the inquiry cleared him of guilt in his wife’s death, there are many who will always believe he killed her. No. Faced with the prospect of King Robert, there might be risings, and she could be swept from the throne.”
“And who would they put in her place? Not the Scottish queen?” Bess guessed the answer even as she asked the question and her stomach went cold with fear. “Kate Grey.”
“Aye, that’s likely.”
And would Kate Grey resist such a tide? She who had been raised with the thought that she was near to the throne, and who was next in line according to the terms of old King Henry’s will? Surely the example of her sister Jane must warn her to steer clear of plots and intrigues?
“So you see why I must return to London soon,” Will said. His words brought Bess back to the present, and she stroked his cheek and kissed him.
“I cannot live without you near me, my love.”
He pulled Bess close to him. “And I cannot bear the thought of having you so far from me, either. Come back to London when I return there. The children will be well here with your mother and aunt.”
“Yes,” she said, though the thought of parting from her children and leaving the peace of Chatsworth made her sad.
“From London you can easily visit Harry and Willie at Eton,” Will urged, one hand caressing her breast and the other lifting her nightdress. “Oh, Bess.” His voice was husky in her ear, and her loins stirred to feel him hardening against her. “I must have you, now and later, and ever and anon.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Twenty-seventh of December, 1560—London
BESS AND WILL’S LONDON HOUSE RANG WITH THE LAUGHTER AND chatter of their guests rising above the music. A dozen couples danced the galliard, points and ribbons flying and bouncing as they leapt and skipped. The table at one end of the hall was laden with delicacies—pies and tarts, gingerbread, candied fruits, roasted nuts, sweetmeats in jewel-like colors—and the air was heavy with the scent of spiced wassail.
“A most glorious evening,” Frances Newton complimented Bess. “Wonderful food and drink; the house looks so festive; and I don’t know how, but you have managed to get everyone worth knowing here.”
She tilted her head to indicate Sir William Cecil in deep conversation with George Talbot, who had recently succeeded his father as Earl of Shrewsbury.
“The most powerful man in the country—Cecil, who has the queen’s ear—and George Talbot, the wealthiest man in the land and a very prince.”
“Ah,” Bess laughed. “Well, Cecil is an old friend—he was secretary to Edward Seymour when my husband William Cavendish was his treasurer—and the Shrewsburys have long known my family. The previous earl was somewhat of a patron to my father.”
“Well done, nevertheless.”
“Do you know what gives me the greatest joy of all?” Bess asked. “Look.”
William Parr was leading Lizzie down the middle of a clapping set of dancers, both of their faces glowing with happiness. Their long-enforced separation under Queen Mary had come to an end when Queen Elizabeth had declared their marriage valid, and Lizzie was now accepted everywhere as William’s wife and the Marchioness of Northampton.
“They look like newlyweds,” Frances said.
“Which you will soon be yourself! Only another few weeks now.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Frances cried. “My William wants to have a wedding portrait painted. Yours are spectacular, who did them?”
Bess’s eyes went to the twin portraits of her and Will, completed only a few days earlier. She was eminently pleased with them. Will, wearing a black velvet doublet beneath the breastplate of his armor, looked like a warrior king, she thought.
“You look like the queen herself,” Frances commented.
Bess had been painted in a black velvet robe with a collar of downlike white fur over her gown of white satin intricately embroidered with gold, the fur lining of the coat perfectly setting off the heavy gold toggles down the front of the robe and at the slashes
of its short puffed sleeves. Her hands, stacked with rings, clasped a pair of fine doeskin gloves. And the French hood she wore was set with pearls and jewels. The portraits had cost a fortune, but they had been worth it.
“I’ll give you the name of the painter and how you may find him,” she said. “I must say I am satisfied with the pictures.”
Frances’s cousin Anne Poyntz joined them, breathless after the dance.
“What do you think I’ve just heard!” she exclaimed, fanning herself. “The Countess of Lennox has sent her son Lord Darnley to France to woo the Scots queen!”
Three weeks earlier, young King Francis of France had died after a serious ear infection, leaving the beautiful eighteen-year-old Mary Stuart a most desirable widow.
“Dear God, does the queen know?” Bess whispered.
“She can’t,” Frances said. “She’d never have allowed it. For of course Darnley has his own claim to the throne. And a match with the Scottish queen—”
“Who’s already calling herself queen of England—” Anne Poyntz broke in.
“Would be far too threatening a match for Her Majesty to contemplate,” Bess finished.
“What can have possessed Lady Lennox?” Frances breathed.
“We know well what possessed her,” Bess said. “She hopes to put her son on some throne or another. But let us hope she does not pay for her ambition with her head and that of her son.”
* * *
WILL’S VISIT TO SUTTON COURT IN NOVEMBER HAD NOT GONE WELL. His brother Ned was not only keeping for himself the rents paid by tenants and holding courts as lord of the manor, he was claiming that in fact he was the rightful owner of the property, using old title documents stolen from his father and new forged documents to support his lies.
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