In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

  Such thoughts naturally brought her cousin to mind; Elizabeth was to hand and had stood up to her brother on her behalf more than once. She had continually cheered her on in her exploits, and had never failed to assure her of England’s assistance should she need it. Well, she needed it now, and she needed it soon. Elizabeth might even keep her promise to make her heir to the throne of England; or barring that, her son, Prince James. She would meet her queenly cousin at last. She had infinite faith in her ability to charm, and in Elizabeth’s apparent cousinly affection. They were both anointed queens and had much, she believed, in common, not the least of which was that their kingdoms shared an island. She had no doubt that Elizabeth would right all her wrongs. Yes, it was to England that she must go.

  And if Elizabeth should fail her? Well, the north of England swarmed with Catholics, far from London in the south, who would flock to her banner to restore the true faith to England. And if she were successful, if she could prove her ability to raise England, might she not then be able to count on the help of her allies of France and Spain, and even Rome?

  Either way, she could not lose.

  But still, even as her foot left Scottish soil and she boarded the unprepossessing fishing boat that would take her across the Solway Firth to the shores of England, her men still sought to dissuade her. Lord Herries, one of the few Protestants who supported her because he believed her to be the rightful queen, went down on his knees and begged her to reconsider. A Scottish king, he pleaded, had once been imprisoned by a King of England for eighteen years; and even her own father had been reluctant to meet Henry VIII at York. Stay in Scotland, they begged; or better yet, go to France.

  But the lure of Elizabeth’s closeness and the friendship she offered was too strong to resist.

  The weather had turned suddenly, as it would in the west of Scotland, and all of a sudden the sun was gone behind roiling gray clouds and the wind rose. It would take a full four hours to cross the Firth. Halfway across, in the gray, choppy water, a sudden wave of apprehension flowed over her. No, not over her, exactly; it seemed to come from within her and flow out of her. Suddenly she was so afraid that she could almost smell her own fear, taste it; her hands trembled and her blood seemed to turn cold in her veins.

  She turned to Lord Herries, the wind billowing her cloak, her hair flying wildly. “You are right,” she cried over the crash of the waves. “Tell the captain to make for France.”

  Better late than never, thought Lord Herries. He turned on his heel and made for the platform where the captain stood at the ship’s wheel. He grabbed at anything that was handy to pull him along as the boat reeled and pitched, and the spray pricked his face like little needles. Finally he gained the bridge, where the stalwart captain stood at the wheel, fighting to keep the vessel on course.

  Mary turned and watched as the two exchanged a few words. She saw the captain shake his head; Lord Herries threw his arms in the air and shouted, but she could not hear his words, or the captain’s, above the howling wind. Finally, Lord Herries made his slow way back to where Mary stood at the ship’s rail.

  The wind whipped Lord Herries’ hood off of his head just as a wave crashed across the deck. “We must go forward to England,” he shouted. “The tide is against us. We cannot make for France.”

  Mary laid a comforting hand on his arm. “Do not worry,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “Perhaps it is for the best. A sign.” Whether it was a sign or not, she was now committed to flinging herself upon the mercy of unknown England.

  ###

  The horse stopped with a jerk and Mary, who had been half asleep in the saddle, opened her eyes. Before her stood Bolton Castle, dark and forbidding. Here she must pretend to be a guest. But she knew that, once again, she was a prisoner.

  Chapter 13

  “Fate…chooses [our] path. Somewhere lies the thing that one really is, impotent, borne along. Sometimes it longs to cry out, not that way; [but] nobody hears it… [One] cannot avoid even a certain disaster.”

  -Norah Lofts

  Bolton Castle, September 1568

  M ary had once believed when she was a prisoner on Loch Leven that if only she could get to England and Elizabeth, that all would be well, that there would be hope for her. And thanks to George and Willie, she had escaped from her brother, and here she was. She was in England. But not in London; not at court, being made much of, and given all she needed to defeat her brother and be restored to her throne. She was once again a prisoner, this time at Elizabeth’s hand, at dreary Bolton Castle. Faithless Cousin! False queen! Now she was able to see her dazzling optimism for the illusion that it was…a vain hope, a fantasy.

  Asked to name the single thing that troubled her most about Bolton Castle, she would have struggled to narrow down the list; but if pressed for an answer, she would have named the all-pervading quiet. She was used to the never-ending ebb and flow of court life, first in France and then in less sophisticated Edinburgh. At lively Carlisle Castle there had been a constant coming and going, a hustle and bustle that she took for granted. But at Bolton all was solitude and stillness; a profound silence reigned.

  She sat at the window of her room, looking out over the expanse of rolling hills, fields of corn and hay, undulating in the errant breeze. Here and there a field left fallow boasted a crop of yellow buttercups. Sheep dotted the hillsides; the only sound to be heard was their distant, plaintive bleating. Strange that she should now think it a mournful sound; she had once found it comforting.

  At Bolton there were no sumptuous meals as there had been in Carlisle’s noisy Great Hall. Here she dined mostly in her privy chamber on simple, plain fare. Mutton stew; coarse, dark bread; and the English ale that she loathed in place of the delicate French wines she loved.

  And she was lonely. She missed Sir Richard, and his attentiveness to her needs, and even to her whims and fancies. Here no one indulged her. She was no longer permitted to ride, but thanks be to God, she was not denied all exercise; she was allowed to walk in the gardens, such as they were. Bolton was more fortress than castle.

  Archery butts had been set up for her pleasure, but she was forbidden the hunt. She knew why; they were afraid that she would escape. But Christ on the Cross, where would she go? As far as she could remember from the maps at Carlisle, there was nothing for miles around, and Bolton was not on the beaten track. And in any pastime she indulged, be it indoors or out, she was attended closely by Lady Scrope, her hostess.

  But most of all she missed the Mass. Sir Francis Knollys was still with her, but since his return from the south he had taken on a somewhat curious role. It seemed that her cousin had charged him with the impossible task of persuading her from her Catholic faith. This was a cause of supreme discomfort for both of them. One day she confronted Sir Francis with her suspicions and he had sighed and confessed that this was so. She had smiled and apologized to him; honest and forthcoming, she assured Sir Francis that no one and nothing should ever turn her from what she believed to be the true religion. Rather, it was for her, as a good Catholic, to attempt to convert him!

  He had likewise been honest, and told her of the hardships he had endured during Queen Mary Tudor’s reign. He and his wife and all their children had fled into exile on the Continent rather than take the dangerous path that so many others had chosen; conform outwardly and risk discovery and the stake. She had to recognize that there would be no turning such a one as he. She respected such steadfastness. In the end they agreed that she would hear Sir Francis out, but only upon the understanding that she did so solely as an intellectual exercise. After all, Protestantism was the official religion of her country (for now!) and of some two-thirds of her subjects. There was no harm, and perhaps might be a great deal of good, in understanding its tenets. And anyway, there was little else to do at isolated Bolton.

  Sir Francis seemed cheered by the prospect of their daily discourses; she was glad of anything that might serve to lighten his depressed spirits. She was aware of the sorrow that
hung over him like a pall; he missed his wife, who had been ailing of late, his children, and his life in London. And when all was said and done, they both prayed to the same God; mayhap He would understand that they both needed something to distract them from their cares.

  For when her mind was not so occupied, her thoughts would return again and again to that fateful moment halfway across the Solway Firth when that black, icy fear had seized her and she had changed her mind about going to England. But she had been defeated by the tide as surely as she had been defeated at Carberry and Langside.

  And then her thoughts would always take the same course, time after time; had she been wrong? Had all of her men been right? Should she never have come to England? Lord Fleming had gone to London to plead her case directly with Elizabeth, since her cousin refused to meet with her. As a point of honor, he had gone to ask the queen’s leave to depart for France, to plead her case with Queen Catherine and her Guise relatives there. He had been kept waiting for weeks for an audience with the queen. And then far from being granted a passport, he had been forbidden to leave England. All the while Elizabeth had been refusing his requests, she had been fondling Mary’s pearls with those white, long-fingered hands; Lord Fleming had almost gasped aloud at the sight of them, which he had seen many a time gracing Mary’s own neck. When he told her of this, she had been almost as grieved at the fate of her pearls as she was about Elizabeth’s refusal to allow Lord Fleming safe passage to France. It was not the pearls themselves that mattered so much as what the incident represented; nothing was as symbolic of Elizabeth’s betrayal as the despicable manner in which she had filched Mary’s jewels.

  Upon hearing of the queen’s refusal to allow Lord Fleming to depart England, George Douglas had been incensed; he insisted upon going to France himself, on the sly, and Elizabeth be damned. There was no persuading him not to go; but unless she was successful in regaining her throne, he might never be able to return to either Scotland or England; there would henceforth be a price on his head in both countries. The thought of George, a permanent exile, and all her fault, often brought tears of regret and frustration to her eyes as no other of her misfortunes could do, even though they might be greater than the loss of a friend.

  Thanks be to God, she still had Willie; and Mary Seton had finally caught her up just before she left Carlisle. But she would miss George. Her staff had been much reduced when she was forced to leave Carlisle, so there were also many others whom she now missed.

  She had wagered all on one throw of the dice, and unless she missed her guess, she was about to lose everything. Where had hope gone? The hateful tribunal was to begin shortly, in October. What would be the outcome? Knowing what she now knew about Elizabeth’s perfidy, did the outcome even matter? And then, after all of these thoughts, her natural courage and optimism would return and spring lively. All her hopes now lay with Norfolk, Northumberland, and Westmoreland, and their promises of redemption; and with George, whom she prayed had made it to France and did not languish, unbeknownst to her, in an English dungeon. She would cling to her faith in God, and her loyal men; for she had little else.

  Bolton Castle, November 1568

  October melted into November in the windswept north, with no substantive news forthcoming. Or, and this thought brought that black fear back into her heart once again, perhaps news was purposely being kept from her? How would she even know? This thought always made the tears well up in her eyes so that the colors of the silks in her sewing basket melded into a watery rainbow.

  Now when Mary looked out of her window, it was a bleak sight that met her eyes. Gone were the green fields, replaced now with expanses of depressing brown stubble. Even the sheep had disappeared, driven to some more sheltered pasture for the winter. There was nothing to do except ply her needle. At least that offered some pastime and occupation; and she was reckoned a good needlewoman. And there were decisions to be made, even so; gold or silver thread for the border? Where to put the tiny seed pearls? Blue forget-me-nots or purple violets? Mary sighed and rethreaded her needle.

  One day, as Mary sat at her embroidery, the door to her outer chamber opened and she heard voices. A moment later there was a tentative knock on the door of her privy chamber.

  “Enter,” Mary said, without looking up from the cushion cover on which she was working; altar cloths were frowned upon by her Protestant keepers.

  Margaret, Lady Scrope, who had hitherto been nothing but respectful and polite to her, had nevertheless always seemed somewhat aloof. Mary often wondered about this, for even though Lady Margaret was the wife of her gaoler, she was the Duke of Norfolk’s own sister.

  Mary looked up from her sewing to see two women, both so obviously Norfolk’s sisters.

  “Your Grace,” said Lady Margaret, with a deep curtsey, “here is my sister, Jane, Lady Westmoreland, come to visit.”

  Lady Jane cast a wary eye back through the door, which was still open a crack. “It is all right, Meg,” she said. “All have gone. Seton keeps vigil by the door.”

  Lady Margaret bobbed a curtsey and said, “Your Grace, I beg you to forgive me for always being so strange with you. I would like to have been more forthcoming all this while, but I thought it best to be circumspect lest my behavior arouse suspicion. And I cannot not defy my lord; but my heart is still Catholic…as is Jane’s.”

  Lady Jane knelt at Mary’s feet and took both Mary’s hands into her own. “My brother sends his warmest regards, Your Grace, as does my husband. We have news for Your Grace, but we must not tarry long. Seton will warn us if anyone comes nigh.”

  So this was the Earl of Westmoreland’s wife, Norfolk’s other sister. Mary studied the plump, heart-shaped face, so different from Lord Thomas’s thin, angular one; but the brown eyes were the same, and there was some indescribable thing that both sisters and brother possessed; self-assurance, perhaps. She suspected that Westmoreland had fallen in love with her at Carlisle, as had Thomas Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. But that was not unusual; men often became enamored of her. The erstwhile chivalrous diversion of Courtly Love had not completely faded as a pastime; and left unfulfilled in the true sense, it was harmless enough. And it was Westmoreland, Northumberland and Norfolk in whom she now placed all her hopes. They had promised to redeem her; and now here were Norfolk’s sisters with news that seemed as if it must be good.

  Lady Jane, still holding her hands, looked at her intently with her brother’s eyes. “If my brother were able to,” said Lady Jane softly, “he would tender this proposal to Your Grace himself; but as things are, he has charged me with doing so. My brother desires me to say, Your Grace, that he wants you for his wife.” Before Mary could answer, exclaim or reply in any manner, Lady Westmoreland continued. “The duke regrets that it is not possible for Your Grace to receive his offer of matrimony from his own lips; but he is in hopes that you will consider it as if it had.”

  Mary was, in fact, dumbstruck. That the Duke of Norfolk was in love with her she was in no doubt; but dynastic marriages were matters of state. There was, there must be, something more to it than that. As indeed there was; if she stood to be the next Queen of England, whether Elizabeth would name her as heir or not, her husband would be the king. She thought quickly; who better than Norfolk? It was not the first time that the idea of an Englishman had been mooted as a solution to the problem of a husband for her. She had always suspected that Darnley had been sent north for that very purpose. Had Elizabeth known that he was such a fool? And that she would be fool enough herself to fall in love with him? That notion bore more thinking about!

  But now she must think of Norfolk; he was the premier peer of the realm and the queen’s cousin. He was not in the line of succession himself because he was Elizabeth’s cousin on the Boleyn side; but there was no one nobler than Norfolk for the simple reason that the Howards were an ancient family. That a daughter of that ancient and revered family had condescended to marry a Boleyn was the reason that Anne Boleyn had been decried as a commoner.


  And what of Bothwell? She was, after all, still married to the earl. But surely the pope would grant her a dispensation, annul that unholy match? Bothwell’s previous marriages were shady and suspect, and the accusation that he had forced her could be useful. Surely, when there were such issues at stake, the pope would not hesitate…?

  “Does Her Grace know of this proposal?” asked Mary.

  Lady Margaret and Lady Jane exchanged wary glances.

  “We believe not, Your Grace,” said Lady Jane. “But I have it from Norfolk’s own lips that the suggestion was first put to him by the Earl of Leicester himself.”

  “I see,” said Mary. She had known that Robert Dudley had been frightened out of his wits at the prospect of having to marry her himself; but what mischief was afoot that Elizabeth’s paramour would connive with his own worst enemy behind the queen’s back? There was something here that did not quite meet the eye; but she was desperate. She had been doing her very best to keep up the pretense that she was nothing more than a royal guest at Bolton, but she suspected that no one viewed her as such but herself and the pretense was beginning to wear thin. And what loyalty did she owe to Elizabeth, after all? None! Should she be expected to remain faithful to the person who had deceived her, imprisoned her, and stolen her pearls? Still, to plot behind Elizabeth’s back was little short of treason. She could not be accused of such herself, not being an English subject; but Norfolk certainly could.