In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

  It had taken Queen Elizabeth’s forces some time to coalesce, but once they did, they marched under the Earl of Sussex, Elizabeth’s Lord of the North. Overwhelmed and outnumbered, the rebel army scattered and fled. The two earls and their wives and a small party of their loyal retainers made for the west, and the coast there.

  If only they could have reached Carlisle! From there they could have gotten help from Sir Richard, reached the west coast, and there taken ship for the Continent. But they had been headed off by Elizabeth’s troops, and forced to head north to the border instead. Over barren heath and moor they had fled, through the dark and forbidding forest, and finally, up into the cold, rocky hills of the Cheviots, through which they must pass to gain the border and safety in Scotland. But even in Scotland they must not tarry; once across the border they would leave pursuit from England behind, but then Moray would soon be stalking them.

  It was indeed ironic that just before their crusade failed, word had reached the earls of the promises of both France and Spain of men, money and arms to be sent in the spring. But it had all fallen apart and come to naught. For the Catholic rising of the north, there would be no spring.

  Lord Thomas had dreamt of the rewards of success without ever considering the consequences of failure. And now there would be no shining moment when, as he had always pictured it, he would hand the beautiful Mary Stuart onto her new throne of a combined Scotland and England. Instead, he was faced with the grim reality of seeing his wife and comrades-in-arms sleeping on the ground in the dark, the wind howling around them like a hundred banshees, hungry, and with no fire to warm them, shivering and huddled in their wet, dirty cloaks. Once again the shining vision of Mary, clad in her royal robes, a jewel-studded crown glittering atop her chestnut hair, danced before his eyes like a mirage. It now would never be; he had risked all for her and he had lost everything. His home, his wealth, his title, all would soon be stripped from him. Only his life could be preserved, and that only if their escape was successful.

  He had once listened to a tearful Mary tell her tale, in her prettily accented speech, of her escape from Langside and how she and her loyal men had slept in caves and hungered greatly in their flight from defeat in battle. He was now living that tale, only he was fleeing in the opposite direction. But of all the things he had lost or was about to lose, his only thought at that moment was that he might never see her again.

  Coventry, Warwickshire, January 1570

  “We could have stayed at Tutbury!” cried Bess, in her favorite pose, hands on hips, slightly leant over, eyes flashing, and lips pressed into a thin line, when she was not railing at him. “Just think of what this inn is costing us! Two rooms, meals, and stabling on top of that!” She was almost in tears with the vexation.

  The only thing that George Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury, could think of at that moment was how magnificent his wife was. People, jealous people, called her shrew, termagant, nag, and it was all true, really. But he would not have given her up for anything or anyone. He understood fully the reason why she went on about the money that confining the Queen of Scots was costing them; it was a sentiment that he shared. He was rich, and Bess was wealthy in her own right, but neither of them was spendthrift. It was one of the reasons why they often shunned the court. Why spend money when one does not have to? He had estates to see to, and a legacy to leave behind to his heirs. And that, if it should please Almighty God, he intended to do.

  Lord George was Elizabeth Hardwicke Barlow Cavendish St. Loe Talbot’s fourth husband; she had become progressively rich with each widowhood. She dabbled in the buying and selling of land; her rents alone would have supported a small kingdom. But his shrewd, clever Bess was also good at wringing money out the land itself; her numerous properties yielded an iron works, profitable smithies that served the estates surrounding her own, a glass works, unheard of in Tudor England; she owned coal pits and transported her own coal for sale; she harvested timber and raised sheep for wool. She even stocked her decorative ponds with pike, carp, tench, bream and perch, which graced not only her own tables, but which she sold for the tables of the surrounding gentry. He was certain that there was no one else like her in the world.

  “Do not fret,” he said. “Queen Elizabeth will reimburse our expenses.”

  Bess’s lips went from a thin line of discontent to the rosebud it formed when she pursed them. “She has not done so yet, nor will she. Why think you she chose us for this damnable burden?”

  He shrugged. There was really no need to answer her questions when she was off on a tear.

  “I will tell you,” she railed. “Because we are prudent and have, between us, amassed a fortune. Why spend her own money when she can spend ours? We shall never a see a groat, I tell you!”

  At this the earl arose and went to her, caught her by the shoulders, and tried to hold her close. “Be still,” he said soothingly. He nodded towards the wall that separated them from the room in which the Scots queen and her companion were housed. “She will hear you.”

  Bess shrugged him off. “I care not,” she said. “Let her hear! Why we should be called upon to be gaolers for Elizabeth Tudor, I fail to see!”

  Lord George lowered his own voice almost to a whisper; perhaps that would serve as an example to Bess. “If she were a royal prisoner, she should be in the Tower.”

  “Hah!” exclaimed Bess. “That’s as much as you know. Elizabeth would not dare to put her in the Tower!”

  “No,” he said. “I suppose not.” But what they were to do with Mary Stuart defied his imagination.

  Bess paced the room, an elbow in each hand. “It is as I said, we could have stayed at Tutbury! The rising is over almost as quickly as it began, and our journey here has been wasted.” It was all so very infuriating; when Elizabeth heard of the rising up of the Catholics in the north, she had demanded in a panic that the Shrewsburys remove their royal prisoner…Bess, at least, was under no disillusion where that matter was concerned…to a more steadfast stronghold. They were ordered to remove her at once to Coventry Castle, for the city of Coventry still boasted a stout wall all around it, in good repair. But the castle proved to be a dilapidated ruin in worse case even than Tutbury. It was, in fact, uninhabitable, and so they had been forced, after a hasty journey south of over forty miles through harsh winter weather, to lodge at the town’s largest inn, the Bull and Rooster. For which they must pay coined money! “You must send word to Elizabeth immediately,” she said. “We must beg leave to go back to Tutbury before we are ruined!”

  Lord George smiled fondly at his wife. “I will do so this very day, my sweet,” he said. He did spare a thought, though, for the Queen of Scots, who was a gentle soul, and who had probably heard every cruel word his wife said. He felt sorry for Mary Stuart in her plight, but he was Queen Elizabeth’s man…and Bess’s.

  Coventry, Warwickshire, February 1570

  It was unfortunate that the only window in Mary’s bedchamber faced north. What little daylight the short days vouchsafed served to lighten her rooms, but she never actually saw the sun. And here there was virtually no view, except for the rooftops of other dwellings.

  She was ill; she had never recovered from the arduous journey south. But this time, she was also sick at heart. For the first time, she knew what it was to despair. God had deserted her; there was nothing to do now except turn her face to the wall and die.

  Hope had burned fiercely in her breast even as she was unceremoniously hustled south from Tutbury. The rising of the northern earls and her fellow Catholics had at last begun, and Elizabeth feared, rightly, that one of its goals was to free her and set her back upon her Scottish throne. And England’s! But travel in winter was uncomfortable at best; and soon it became treacherous. It was freezing cold and wet; then the dismal rain turned first to sleet and then to snow. The wind howled, blowing such a gale that the horses, and anyone forced to ride out in the open, were snow-blinded. Inside the cold, cramped litter it was little better. She would gratefully h
ave gotten out and walked in the teeth of the blizzard if only to stretch her aching limbs.

  When at last they arrived in Coventry, Mary found that she could not stand. What she had taken for stiffness brought on by the cold, the damp and the close quarters of the litter turned out to be something much more ominous…the joint evil. And who could wonder! Tutbury Castle was a virtual ruin; it was set high on a hill in a plain that left it exposed to all the vagaries of the weather. It was damp, drafty and set perilously close to a dank marshland that emanated foul vapors. Tutbury’s walls oozed damp and the damp had finally entered her bones. That, and lack of the exercise she craved, had caused her joints to inflame so that now, any movement at all was agony.

  And then the news reached them that it had all been for nothing. The uprising had failed. Northumberland had been captured by the Scots, and irony of ironies, the Earl was now a prisoner on Loch Leven. Poor Jane had been captured and sent back to England, where Elizabeth was threatening to have her burnt for her treason. Westmoreland and all the rest of those who had escaped Elizabeth’s wrath had been forced to flee to the Continent. All had been attainted and had lost everything. But hundreds less fortunate men had been hanged, upwards of eight hundred of them; the very air in some towns was putrid with the smell of rotting corpses in their fearful gibbets. And all her fault!

  Norfolk, who had been at court, was sent to the Tower; at Elizabeth’s orders her rooms at Tutbury, and all her baggage, had been roughly searched just as they were departing for the south. She knew what they sought; letters that would prove Norfolk guilty of treason. But she had wisely burnt all of the duke’s letters…she was particularly skittish about letters just at this time! And Norfolk’s letters were no great loss; he had little talent for letter writing, and less for intrigue and romance. In any case, they had committed nothing substantive to writing.

  Even more bitterly disappointing was the knowledge that George, good, faithful George, had raised thousands of French troops on her behalf, but the rising had failed before they could even sail. She must find a way to do something for George. Such loyal, devoted service ought never to be forgotten and must be rewarded. She would sign over some of her French dower lands to him and beg Queen Catherine to find him a rich heiress to marry.

  Upon their arrival in Coventry it was discovered that the castle, a crown property, was ruined and had been derelict for some time. This was bitter proof of how little Elizabeth and her Council knew of the state of affairs outside of London! And so she had been housed in an inn at the very center of town.

  Coventry was walled, which was one reason, she was sure, why it had been chosen as the place where she must abide whilst the rebellion in the north played out. As the frozen, bedraggled party limped towards the city gates from the north, Mary pulled the curtain of the litter aside. The city wall was high and sturdy. Her heart sank. That Northumberland and Westmoreland would come for her she had no doubt; but would this wall defeat them? It was late in the afternoon when they reached Coventry. The sky cleared and the last golden rays of the sun struck the walls. They were made of local stone, as most towns and cities were; this stone had a reddish cast that was most unsettling to behold. Red was the color of blood.

  She liked the inn, the Bull and Rooster; the ale-wife was disposed to be friendly, and her rooms looked out over the village green. From there she was able to watch the life of the town. Families used the Common to graze their animals, and children played amongst the trees and shrubs. From her window she had made friends with the passersby, who had all been enchanted with the beautiful captive queen.

  But the Countess of Shrewsbury was proving to be her nemesis; no sooner had she settled in than Bess decided that the inn was inappropriate lodgings for a queen, especially one who was being detained on the orders of the Queen of England. A reassessment of Coventry Castle had yielded the unwelcome information that one tower could be made habitable, and it was there, in its topmost rooms, where Mary was now lodged. There was only one window, no view, and no people to watch. This was a prison indeed. She sighed.

  Seton, who sat stitching by the window, stayed silent. There were no longer any words of hope or encouragement to offer, and she was resolved to provide no false ones.

  Mary, who lay upon the bed, her joints throbbing, closed her eyes. Nothing ever goes right for me, she thought. Nothing I do ever prospers. Every plot, every project, every scheme on which I lay my hand, no matter how carefully planned, always fails. She was too stiff and sore to turn over, but at that thought, she did turn her face to the wall, lest Seton see her tears and be upset by them.

  Mary heard voices at her outer door, but she had long since ceased to have any interest in what went on outside her dreary rooms. What difference did it make?

  Seton arose and went to see what was afoot. She returned smiling, hopeful that the cheerful company of the ale-wife might serve to lift Mary out of her torpor.

  “See who has come, Your Grace!” cried Seton. “Here is Bessie!”

  Bessie Bigsby shared a name with Bess of Hardwick, but Mary tried not to hold that against the woman. Bessie had treated her wonderfully well since her arrival. She knew that the queen’s keepers begrudged the poor Scots queen every mouthful, so she had taken to bringing Mary little things to tempt her flagging appetite that did not go on any list of items owing. After all, what was the use of owning an inn if one did not dispense hospitality? And there might be a wide social gulf between haughty Lady Shrewsbury and plain Bessie of the Bull and Rooster, but both women ruled their roosts with an iron hand, and both were amazingly successful at making their varied interests pay.

  Bessie was first and foremost a brewer of no mean talent; but anyone who dealt in spirits of any sort had connections that, if one were willing and had the nerve, one could make pay handsomely. And so Bessie could afford to indulge her whims. She had loved the beautiful, tragic Scottish queen from the first moment she clapped eyes on the poor creature; and that attachment had grown steadily over the weeks of Mary’s stay in Coventry.

  Bessie had been sorely disappointed when Mary was moved from the Bull and Rooster and sent to lodge in the cold, uncomfortable tower of the dilapidated castle. Could they not see that the queen was ill and needed care? But Bessie had not become the force of nature that she was in her limited sphere by shouting her intentions to the rooftops. Every day she brought the queen’s meals to her at the top of the tower, the plate set into a clay trough filled with hot water, so that the food should arrive toothsome and hot.

  The queen’s ale was billed regularly to the Shrewsbury’s tab, but no ale was ever delivered to the queen. Bessie brought wine for Mary instead. Bessie brewed the best ale in five counties, perhaps in the whole of England, but the Scots queen was Frenchified, and everyone knew that the French drank wine. She did not take it personally.

  When she discovered that Mary suffered cruelly with her joints, a condition exacerbated by the move to the cold, drafty castle tower, she had begun to supply other items to Mary, free of charge.

  Bessie dabbled in a secret trade; most brewers did. And so she was well-placed to provide the queen not only with French wines, but with brandy, an excellent medicament for those who suffered as Mary did. And when the pain in her side flared up, excruciating enough to cause the poor woman to faint, Bessie brought a wooden bottle filled with a black, sticky liquid that had no fellow for pain…poppy syrup. She would not take from Mary even a promise of payment, and she bit her thumb…a charming gesture! …at the idea of billing the high-and-mighty earl and his obnoxious wife for it.

  “Your Grace,” said Bessie. “Here is your noon-piece. Eat it while it is hot. Help me, Good Mistress Seton…take an arm.” She gestured towards the bed. Mary had long since learned the futility of argument where Bessie was concerned. She winced with pain, but allowed herself to be gently swung around until she was in a sitting position on the bed. Bessie pulled a table over, whisked a white cloth from somewhere in her voluminous apron, she was a very large w
oman, and deftly set the food out.

  Mary regarded the repast, complete with wine, with tears in her eyes. Not since she had been at Carlisle with Sir Richard had anyone been so solicitous of her needs and desires. She dutifully lifted her fork, ate a few mouthfuls, and then sipped her wine. Where did the woman get such fine wine in the heart of England?

  But Bessie knew that Mary craved more than food. News was being withheld from her; she was allowed no correspondence and no visitors, except Bessie, who brought her meals. But Bessie had rules, too; no news until every morsel of food disappeared from the plate! How else was the poor queen ever to get well?

  Mary finished her food, dabbed her mouth with her napkin, always stiff and white, and then sipped her wine.

  “Now then,” said Bessie, eyeing the empty plate. “A courier arrived this morning, from the north. Willie is minding the pub whilst I see to Your Grace. I bade him ply the man with ale until he talks. If that fails, I shall listen at doors until I…”

  The ancient steps of the spiral staircase leading up to the top of the tower were made of stone, and so Willie’s soft leather boots made little sound on them. The guard at the door to Mary’s rooms knew that Willie had free access, and so had not stopped him entering the outer chamber. Without ceremony, he burst into the room, ran to where Mary was sitting and went down on his knees. Tears streamed from his eyes, his chest heaving with the exertion of his climb to the top of the tower.

  Mary’s eyes went wide and she reached out a white hand; Willie clasped it.

  “Your Grace,” he panted. “The Earl of Moray has been killed!”

  ###

  The acrid odor of burnt feathers filled the room; it was the first thing that Mary became aware of when she recovered from her swoon.