In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

  “This is all Elizabeth’s fault!” she cried.

  Margaret had always admired Bess for her independence and her accomplishments, but still, she had never really liked her. And now that she had married into royalty, the woman was insufferable; Margaret had quickly come to despise her. If only Charles had shown some restraint! There were serving wenches a-plenty at Rufford Abbey; why had he to seduce Elizabeth Cavendish? And now see what had happened! Summoned in disgrace to court!

  Of course, for her, it was not the first time; when she was young, twice she had dallied with Howard men without the royal permission of her august uncle and guardian, King Henry VIII. She knew what it was to love with passion and without regard for the proprieties. And she had paid for her folly! She had been put in the Tower; she had been placed under house arrest at Syon Abbey under the auspices of Dame Margery, the prioress there. She knew what it was to be in disgrace. And now, after all this time, she had been disgraced once again through none of her own doing. She loved her son, he was all she had left, but he was as bad as Darnley had ever been when it came to common sense. It was a very great pity indeed that he had not chosen to plant his seed in more exalted ground than the daughter of Bess of Hardwick!

  “You should not speak of the queen thus,” said Margaret primly.

  “Humph,” snorted Bess. “I do not fear the Queen of England!”

  Margaret placed her tongue firmly in her cheek and said, “You fear Her Grace well enough to answer her summons to court.”

  Bess shifted in her seat. It was true that she had railed against the royal summons at first, and had loudly refused to obey it. But her husband put his foot down at last where she was concerned; Lord George was aghast that his wife should even consider ignoring an order from the queen.

  She could handle George with a sour look; but her show of bluster to Margaret was nothing more than false bravado. In her heart of hearts, she did fear what Elizabeth might do. After all, she had been thrown into the Tower unceremoniously by the queen once before, when she was Lady St. Loe, because of the Katherine Grey affair. That she had been completely ignorant of the whole debacle, indeed, had only been doing her duty by informing the queen of it, mattered not.

  Elizabeth in a temper was truly frightening, even for one as stouthearted as Bess knew herself to be; she was liable to do anything, and none to stop her. At the very least it could mean life imprisonment, like the poor Grey girls. Never to see dear Chatsworth again! That thought was simply not to borne. Bess set her lips into a thin, stern line; she would brazen it out…she had never been defeated yet!

  The first tentative flakes began to fall as they crested the rise for Hampstead Heath; they would arrive ahead of the storm after all. But even Bess knew that the worst of the storm lay before her, when at last she would have to face the queen’s wrath.

  ###

  Sir William Cecil met the bedraggled party on the outskirts of the city at the Bishopsgate, resplendent in a burgundy velvet cloak trimmed with miniver. But the splendor of his attire was belied by the pinched aspect of his face; here was more evidence of Elizabeth’s callousness, that she would send her most trusted minster to see them into custody in such foul weather, without regard for his obviously failing health.

  “How now, Sir William,” said Bess. “This is a strange business!”

  Sir William shook his head. “Not so strange, my lady,” he replied, his expression stony.

  The implication was clear; would no one ever believe that she had not been complicit in the Katherine Grey affair? So unfair! It was true that she was a meddler; but what woman worth her salt was not? But this time, as with the Lady Katherine Grey, she was innocent. Well, innocent as far as it went; she had not schemed for the match with Charles Stuart; but what mother, from the lowest villein to the highest in the land, would not have seen to it that her disgraced daughter was married? It was not her fault that Lord Charles could not keep his…

  “My lady?” said Cecil.

  Bess grunted her response; but so lost in thought was she that she failed to observe the lack of guards and pikemen.

  But Margaret noticed, and was relieved for it. Perhaps it was not to be the Tower after all?

  Bess met Cecil’s gaze squarely and said, “Well, and where are we to abide, then, sir?” Her eyes searched the members of the escort for the Constable of the Tower; he was not amongst them.

  “Lady Shrewsbury,” said Cecil. “You are to go to Shrewsbury House, at Her Grace’s pleasure. The Lady Elizabeth shall abide with you.” Turning to Margaret he said, “Lady Lennox, Your Grace shall repair to your house in Hackney and Lord Charles is to go with you.”

  At these words, Lady Elizabeth let forth a pathetic whimper; such a plan would render her back under the thumb of her domineering mother, and leave her separated from Charles! It was not to be borne! She began to weep, and Charles, who was sitting his horse, said, “What God hath joined together, sir, let no man, nor woman! …put asunder! The Lady Elizabeth is my wife.” He was in no position to argue; but he would have his say.

  Cecil turned in his saddle to face Lord Charles. “Aye,” he said. “For which folly you have been summoned forth!” He eyed the sky; white flakes were swirling down; not the large flakes that harbingered the end of a storm, but the tiny crystals that presage a substantial snowfall. At a nod from him, the escort formed two phalanxes, each of which encircled a litter; Bess and Lady Elizabeth would continue on in her own litter, and Margaret and Charles, who had been made to dismount his horse, would be escorted in a litter provided by the queen.

  “Charles!” cried Lady Elizabeth. Charles approached the litter; no one heard what he said to his wife, but she became calm. Then he turned and walked to the queen’s litter and entered it. The door closed with a smart bang and the two cavalcades pulled away, in opposite directions.

  Westminster Palace, January 1575

  The four stood before the dais on which was placed the elaborate throne upon which many kings and queens of England had sat in their day. But none had ever been more formidable than Queen Elizabeth. The silence was becoming uncomfortable, but none dared to speak; it was for the queen to address them first. Bess stood tall and defiant, Margaret seemed oddly indifferent, Charles glared silently, and the Lady Elizabeth seemed as if she would at any moment succumb to an attack of the vapors.

  “Well,” said Elizabeth finally. “And what have all of you to say for yourselves?”

  “Begging your gracious pardon, Your Grace,” said Bess, “but what is there to say, after all? What is done is done, and cannot now be undone. The marriage between my daughter and Lord Charles was performed by clergy and properly witnessed. The couple are in love, they are married, and the Lady Elizabeth with child.”

  “All true,” said Elizabeth blandly, almost thoughtfully. In love! Was everyone to experience fully its delights save herself? The thought saddened her at first, and then inexplicably, a great anger seized her. “But in blatant defiance of the laws of this land, Madam!” she cried, as the flat of her hand came down with a smart slap upon the arm of the gilded throne. Her cry echoed to the very rafters of the Great Hall. “There are laws as to marriages of state for a reason! All of you are guilty of defiance of those laws and must pay the price.”

  A strangled cry issued forth from Lady Elizabeth’s throat at this pronouncement; she had not until this very moment, standing before the formidable queen, fully realized the extent of her folly. All she had known in those halcyon days at Rufford Abbey, when the house was laid low and she and Charles were as free as gypsies in a deserted palace, was the exquisite thrill of being sought after by a handsome boy who adored her, who thought her beautiful, and who had opened her eyes to the delights of love fulfilled. And now she carried the fruit of those delightful days, as delicate as a flower, in her womb. How could such a thing be a crime? Her limited mind and experience of the world simply could not reconcile the two things. She began to weep softly and Charles, who stood by her side, holding her hand,
intensified the silent glare he had been evincing towards the queen since they entered the room.

  Elizabeth’s eyes rested upon him. The puppy, she thought. But still, there was something very touching, very disarming, about the tenderness that her cousin displayed towards his young bride. For a fleeting moment, her heart went out to them, but she quickly stifled her pity; sympathy was a luxury in which a reigning queen could rarely afford to indulge.

  “And you, Cousin,” said Elizabeth, turning her cold gaze onto Margaret. “Where were you, might one enquire, whilst all this was going on?”

  Margaret heaved a sigh; she now harbored no illusions as to what their fate was to be. Tell the truth, lie; it would make no difference. To hold out the possibility of a benign house arrest at Hackney had been little more than a royal taunt. And what did it all matter now, anyway? Matthew was dead, Darnley was dead; Charles was in disgrace and married now to that insipid girl. Bess of Hardwick’s blood to flow in the veins of her grandson, mingled with her own. A bleak prospect!

  Margaret raised her head and her eyes met Elizabeth’s. “All were laid low with the ague,” she said. “Only the Queen of Scotland and a handful of servants escaped the scourge.”

  The implication was not lost on Elizabeth; had she Mary to thank for this unfortunate scandal? The thought made her angrier than she had been yet about the whole debacle.

  She stood abruptly and pointed an accusatory finger at Margaret. “That is no excuse!” she cried. “The girl is an ignorant fool, but Lord Charles should have known better!”

  Margaret merely shrugged and made no reply. For now, the fight seemed to have gone out of her. Her seeming indifference angered Elizabeth still more; Margaret clearly would be just as apathetic to whatever punishment was meted out to her.

  Elizabeth seated herself once more and turned to Bess. “I sense your meddlesome ways in this, Madam,” she said quietly. “This is not the first time you have connived at an unholy match, and sought to interfere with matters that are of no concern to you.”

  “Begging Your Grace’s leave, but that is a vile accusation,” replied Bess. “The succession is the concern of every loyal Englishman.”

  Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. If Bess was indeed spoiling for a fight, by all that was holy, she should have one! “How dare you,” she cried, “speak to me of the succession? Do you honestly believe that I would allow any spawn of yours to ascend the throne of my fathers? Nay, Madam. It will never be. I shall have the marriage annulled and the child declared bastard first!”

  At this, Bess was visibly shaken. The triumphant feeling she had been enjoying suddenly turned into a fiery lead ball in her stomach. This was what the queen had done so callously to the Lady Katherine Grey. “You cannot do that!” she cried. From the pinnacle of exultant victory, she was suddenly plunged into the depths of despair.

  Elizabeth sat back on her throne, satisfied that her dart had gone home. “And whom, I pray you to tell me, is to stop me?” But the satisfaction of frightening the redoubtable Bess was muted by the sight of the weeping Lady Elizabeth. The girl was an ignorant fool, as she had said, but she was not culpable. She had enough self-knowledge to understand that her spleen was bent towards Bess and Margaret, and not towards the two erring children. She watched fascinated as Charles awkwardly used Lady Elizabeth’s embroidered linen square to dry her tears; her heart twisted with exquisite agony at the sight of his arm supporting her, and the gentle kiss he laid upon her pale brow.

  She laid a hand to her chest; under her bodice was a letter that she had found under her pillow a few nights before. She knew that it was dangerous to indulge in such fancies as a clandestine letter; the parchment might very well have been infused with poison. But after reading the letter, she was glad that she had been the one to find it and read it herself. It was from the Duc de’ Alencon. Monsieur wished to woo her in private, and had made arrangements for an exchange of letters away from the prying eyes of king and council. Could she love him, he asked? For nothing mattered so much to him as that. There was a prophecy that said all of his mother’s sons would be kings, but he cared nothing for that; he had heard of her wisdom and beauty, and wished for nothing more than to be permitted to worship at her feet as if she were a goddess instead of merely a queen. She had carried the letter with her for days now, slipping it out of her bodice at odd moments and reading it over and over again. This was no cold, reluctant courting such as she had received from Alençon’s brother. Its very secrecy told her that it was real. But she had not yet been able to bring herself to respond. What if such a letter fell into the wrong hands? It was a risk that she was not willing to take…yet.

  Charles still comforted his wife; Bess still glared; Margaret still stared apathetically down at the floor.

  “I am the Queen of England, Madam,” she said coldly to Bess. “And I can do as I will.”

  “Aye!” cried Bess. “Your Grace is queen, but only by the grace of a loving and forgiving God! That gives Your Grace the power, but not the right, to do your worst! Was it not Jesus who said that those who are without sin shall cast the first stone?”

  Elizabeth stared at Bess in shocked silence; the woman was usually like a charging bull, and was anything but subtle. “How dare you!” she hissed. The allusion to her own follies with Thomas Seymour and Robert Dudley was unmistakable.

  “Guard!” she cried. Immediately the Yeoman of the Guard appeared with a cadre of men. “Escort the Lady Shrewsbury and the Lady Lennox to the Tower.” It was what she had intended from the beginning, anyway. Defiance of royal laws must be seen to be punished. But again her heart contracted at the sight of the young couple. Charles’s words to Cecil at the Bishopsgate had been relayed to her; she had not been able to banish from her thoughts his plaintive cry that what God had joined together should not be put asunder. Well, mayhap someone deserved to emerge happy from the whole sorry affair.

  “And you,” she said, addressing Charles. “You my take your wife back to Hackney and abide with her there.”

  Suddenly the defiant glare melted away and in its place was a look of radiant happiness. The Lady Elizabeth, too, still hiccoughing and snuffling, turned her pale, tear-streaked face up to the queen, a look of incredulous rapture suffusing her cheeks with a delicate rose.

  It was at that moment that Elizabeth knew that tonight, she would answer Alencon’s letter. It was perhaps her last opportunity to experience the euphoria of a love affair such as Charles and Lady Elizabeth’s; and one that might end in an acceptable and respectable royal marriage.

  On Royal Progress, Essex, August 1575

  The day was very still; the oppressive heat and the buzzing of insects combined to lull some of the members of the royal party into a somnolent state, even as they rode. Thanks be to God, her troublesome leg had finally healed; no unsightly, oozing sores had plagued her now for many a day.

  Elizabeth sat her palfrey as the Royal Progress approached Chartley, the principal estate of the Earl of Essex. Even with her leg healed, it would have been unseemly to make her regal entrance on her restive stallion; the palfrey was too tame for her taste, but was more appropriate. The steady clip-clop of hooves on the dry road, the nickering of horses and the incessant jingling of the little bells that many riders attached to their harness added to the soporific effect; Elizabeth noticed more than one head nodding, only to be snapped back up as chin neared chest. Only she was wide awake and nervous as a cat.

  For although everyone believed Chartley to be last stopping place on the royal itinerary, it was not so. It was a very great secret that Elizabeth hugged to her breast, alongside Alençon’s latest letter. Love letter, she should say; the duc had evinced a decided talent for wooing her. He had proven himself an adept lover, even if only in words. His letters made her laugh and cry with joy, in turn. She pounced eagerly upon each one, and now carried in her baggage a special jeweled casket that was entrusted to Blanche Parry and no other, in which to house them all.

  What was he like, she wond
ered? He was now twenty years of age to her forty-two; the anniversary of her birth was less than a month away. She had long since ceased to concern herself with what she knew were his likely physical shortcomings; the writer of such extraordinary letters transcended such mundane considerations. Here was a man who had poetry in his soul; and even Robert could not touch him for clever turn of phrase.

  As she rode along she cast her mind back to the time when her father had contracted marriage with Anne of Cleves. Merry Anne! Such a sweet, gentle soul she had been. And yet her father had taken an instant and irreovable dislike to her from the very first moment of their meeting. If Anne had not been so shrewd, she should have been the shorter by a head for it, just like…she shuddered. She tried never to think of her poor mother in that way. She tried not to think of her mother at all. But one could not control one’s thoughts. The warning of the Cleves match had never left her; she would marry no man whom she had not seen with her own eyes. And so when the court departed and went back to London, all thought that she was to stay behind for a time for a private visit with her cousin, Lettice, the lady of the manor of Chartley. It was most unfortunate that she needed a plausible excuse for her delay in returning to court; an intimate family visit was just the thing, but with Lettice! The very last person she would have chosen.