by G Lawrence
“How dare you marry without my permission?” I screeched at the unfortunate girl. “You are a Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, and my second cousin. You require permission from me to wed on both counts!”
“Majesty, we fell in love…”
“And forgot your duty to me!” Wild with rage, not only at Mary Shelton, but Mary Sidney and Robin, I threw a hairbrush at the girl. She was standing near the mantelpiece, and the brush, usually used to comb medicines into my flagging hair rather than as cannon-shot, hit a heavy, ornate candlestick. It fell on her head. As Eleanor Brydges, another of my ladies, ducked and ran, Mary struck out a hand to prevent the candlestick bashing her brains out, and screamed as the heavy, gold ornament hit her finger, breaking it.
Kate and Blanche rushed in, taking the girl away from me, for whilst I was grieved to have hurt her, in the mood I was in I might have done her more harm.
“Send her from court,” I said to Helena Snakenborg that night. “But let her know I am sorry about her finger.”
“She is more concerned about you, Majesty,” said Helena. “She fears she has permanently damaged your trust in her.” Helena was a good person for Mary Shelton to send to me, for I thought of her as a daughter.
“I will send for her to return soon,” I said, my tone a touch more gentle. “But she needs a spell away from court to learn her lesson, and for her new husband to learn his.”
John Scudamore, one of my Gentlemen Pensioners, was heir to one of the great families of Herefordshire, and I had trusted him with many tasks. It was not a bad match, but I hated that they had gone behind my back. Mary Shelton, or Scudamore as she was now, was the granddaughter of John Shelton, who had watched over me as a child at Hatfield, and her uncle, Henry Parker, was my Chamberlain. Mary was family. I was sorrowed and angered that she had deceived me.
“If I cannot trust the blood of my blood,” I said to Blanche as we climbed into bed. “Whom can I trust?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Court Farm House
Autumn 1574
“I am made of flesh and blood, Majesty,” declared Margaret Lennox. “Never could I forget the murder of my child.”
We were at the house of William Paulet, and I had called my Lennox cousin to me before her journey north to see her grandson. I wanted reassurances that she was only thinking of visiting King James, not his mother. Many were saying the two once-enemies, Margaret Lennox and Mary of Scots, were secretly corresponding as friends.
There were other reasons for me to be wary of my royal cousin, besides her making friends with her mother-in-law. That year, the Guise had taken on a man named Claude Nau de la Boisseliere to be Mary’s secretary. He had been dispatched to England with the recommendation of the King, and I had accepted him, albeit with worry, as Mary’s new secretary. It would have been hard to send him away; the man came with a passport from King Henri, and therefore had diplomatic status. But I had reservations. Nau was clearly to be used as a link to France.
Walsingham had objected, naturally, but I told him there could be benefits. “Nau brings Mary a link to France,” I had said. “But it is one we can watch.”
Walsingham had turned thoughtful at that, no doubt thinking this might be a way to capture words of treason spilling from the quill of the Scots’ Queen.
I looked at Margaret, dressed in black, as always. Grief was upon her. She carried her husband in her soul. I could see him, just as I could see Kat in my eyes when I gazed into a mirror.
The dead do not leave, we carry them. That is the weight of grief; each person we lose is another body for our backs to bear.
“I am heartened to hear you say the rumours are false,” I said. “And with that in mind, I will sanction your journey. My Council have tried to tell me that you are plotting against me once more, planning to bring about love between yourself and our fellow cousin of Scots to further the ambitions of your family, but if you say this is false, I will believe you.”
“I swear, madam, I have no reason to make peace with my daughter-in-law. She was the chief cause of my son’s death. For the sake of my soul, and that of the husband and son I loved and have lost, there can be no peace between us.”
“Marry,” I said. “By my faith, I could not think you would forget that, for if you were to forget, you would be a devil.”
“A mother cannot forget nor forgive the murder of her child, Majesty.”
“Then prepare for your journey,” I said. “I would like to hear more of King James, my dear godson, and I entrust you to be my eyes in Scotland. I would know how he is, how he lives, and who watches over him.” I paused, running a hand over my gown of purple silk and cloth of gold. I had taken care to don imperial colours that morning, for in the past Margaret had needed reminding who was Queen. “The King of Scotland is as important to me as you, cousin. Therefore report back to me upon your return.”
The Countess went away to prepare for her trip. She was due to depart in the autumn. As it transpired, I would have cause to regret the slice of trust I had offered her.
*
Our return journey from the west of England to the east was unhurried. We had stayed with Sir John Thynne at Longleat and toured his building works, and had stopped a night at Wilton with the Earl of Pembroke. From there we went to Salisbury where I was taken to see the stones of the giants. We had to take care on the planes of Salisbury, as it was a notorious haunt for thieves. Along with Gad’s Hill at Rochester, Shooter’s Hill at Blackheath and the heath of Newmarket, Salisbury was one of the most famed places for men to lurk, waiting to rob travellers. My court were highly unlikely targets, since I had so many guards, but there were always those who tarried behind, and they might be attacked. All my men had taken out dags that morning, strapping these pistols to their saddles, in case of trouble.
“Some say they were placed here by the magician, Merlin,” Robin told me as we stood before the stones. I had to crane my neck to see the top of the iron-grey rocks. “Others claim the Devil found men playing ball games on the Sabbath and turned them to stone.”
“I wonder why the Devil would be averse to men breaking the Sabbath?” I asked, a smile on my lips.
“Some say Old Snatch is actually an instrument of God, sent out by the Almighty to test His people.”
“That certainly would make more sense,” I said. “For if God made the world, and is infallible as well as omnipotent, why would He suffer a creature of evil, with powers almost equal to His, to live?”
As I walked about the stones, I felt a curious sense of peace. Here, on the planes of Salisbury there was an air of something I could not place… a sense of energy, of peace, yet at the same time an undercurrent of paradoxical restlessness, which spoke to my soul. As our horses ate grass and courtiers took a cup of ale whilst sitting on some of the fallen stones, Robin and I walked to mounds nearby, said to be gateways to the domain of fairies, or Good Folk, as they were called in this part of England.
We spoke no more of Douglas and his child. We pretended nothing had changed, and in pretence it became as though this lie was truly so. Perhaps it was only to be expected. Much of court life was a pageant. People bowed to me as they plotted against me and my friends. We wore masks that concealed our true intentions, but sometimes what we pretended came true. In silence, much can be forgotten.
From Salisbury we went on, staying at Oatlands and Nonsuch. We had been away from London almost four months, and I was pleased to come home.
Whilst I was away, the Council often came with me, but when they did not they sat in the Star Chamber of the old Palace of Westminster. The chamber overlooked the Thames, and had a ceiling decorated with stars of gold leaf on a sky of azure blue, hence its name. They met to discuss affairs of the realm, and reports from magistrates, bishops, and ambassadors were read and debated. With threats from Spain, Rome or France a constant worry, they often discussed the royal fleet and coastal defences, as well as monitoring trade, taxes and other issues.
I often did
not sit with them, trusting my men by this time to conduct business as I would wish it to be, but nothing passed by without my attention. Bulls, bills, proclamations and laws all came to me, and were often returned with my notes written in the corner of documents, either in my hand or transcribed by one of my ladies. As I came to Windsor that September, riding through the first of many autumn squalls, I came to my chambers damp of body, and sighed to see the many documents awaiting my attention. Progress was my time for rest and relaxation, but it came with a price. Work piled up when I was absent.
But it seemed God had sent bad weather on purpose to enable me to catch up. That September was wet and wild. I spent a great deal of time indoors, trawling through documents, and occasionally looking up with a despondent heart at the diamond-paned windows as water lashed them. Leaves splattered against the panes, seeking shelter from the storm, and in the parks, where I had hoped to be hunting or riding, trees heaved against the power of the wind. At night, the wind screamed about the palace, waking even my deep-sleeping ladies from slumber. Fires were lit early in hearths, as dampness crept into chambers, and into our bones.
Rain fell in never-ending rivers from the sky, cascading down gutters, transforming my parks into muddy mires. I watched poor maids, sent out into tempests to gather herbs, race along water-washed paths, with oiled cloaks on their heads. In London a young man was swept away down a street when he tried to leap a gushing channel. Many tried to save him, but he drowned long before his body hit a cartwheel at the water gate, which stopped him falling into the Thames.
As September attempted to drown England, Mendoza proved his worth to Spain by causing trouble. Perhaps thinking to revenge himself upon me for ignoring reports about my men plundering Spanish ships, and picking up snippets of gossip about Douglas and her child, the ambassador altered the story slightly, changing the identity of the mother.
“So I have a babe by Robin?” I asked Cecil, weariness evident in my tone. How many times will such rumours dog my heels? I wondered. When a youth, I had apparently borne Thomas Seymour’s child, and there had been rumours about men like Hatton, Oxford, Heneage and Robin siring babes in my belly. If all these reports were true, there would be an army of red-haired bastards wandering England.
“Indeed, Majesty, although the ambassador appears to have mistaken both the true mother and sex of the child.”
“So I have a daughter, despite having never allowed a man to touch me.” I rubbed a finger against my temple, appeasing a headache lurking in my brain. “Perhaps I am blessed, Spirit, as the Virgin was.”
I looked to one side of my chambers where Blanche was repairing a pair of white silk sleeves studded with pearls. It was common practice for my gowns and accessories to be mended, keeping my wardrobe stunning whilst incurring little further expense. But this sight made me sad. Those sleeves had been a gift from my cousin, Katherine Carey.
Grief struck me. No one recovers from loss. We bear it, as a man may learn to walk on crutches after the loss of a leg. Like him, we struggle on, but are always unstable.
“Spain’s ambassador appears as willing as the last to make trouble,” Cecil said.
“Perhaps it is in the remit Phillip gives them upon the offer of the role.”
The phantom child I was supposed to have borne was talked of about England, we could do nothing to stop it, but Robin was having problems of his own. He appeared to be stepping back from formally appointing the boy as his heir. Douglas was unhappy, understandably, but she could not force Robin to leave his property to her child.
Children were on many a mind that autumn. Since Katherine Grey’s sons had been proclaimed bastards and formally excluded from the succession, my Council increased their pleas to the Scots, asking them to dispatch their King to England so James might be raised in accordance with his new position. The Scots refused. There was hope that Margaret Lennox, who had departed London early in October, might persuade them her grandson would be safe with her. My Council harboured hope she would succeed and were pleased by her journey, but I became less so when I heard rumours she may have disobeyed my commands to stay away from Mary of Scots and the Countess of Shrewsbury.
“I wonder at the ambition of a mother,” I said to Hatton. “That in hope of gaining control of her grandson, she would make peace with one she has sworn is an enemy.” I believed the reason Margaret might have disobeyed me was because she thought if she gained the support of James’ mother, Mary, it might sway the Scottish Council.
“The Countess forgets the murder of her son in the hope of gaining her grandson,” Hatton said.
There were rumours that the Countess had stayed at Rufford Abbey, a property owned by Shrewsbury and Bess. Although this had not been one of the houses I had told Margaret to stay away from, and therefore she was not, strictly speaking, defying me, there was quite enough for me to grow concerned about.
In the meantime, another reckless lady had returned to court. That October, having served her time of banishment for marrying without permission, Mary Scudamore, née Shelton, returned.
“I am sorry for your finger,” I said when our customary greetings had been made.
“It has healed, Your Majesty,” said Mary. “And I perfectly understand why you were so enraged. I betrayed your trust, but I never will again.”
“See you do not,” I said sternly. “What upset me the most was the deception, cousin.”
“I hurt you, Majesty, and for that I am a woman of sorrow.”
I presented her with a gift of costly cloth and had Mary made a Lady of the Privy Chamber. It was a step up from her previous position, and, nudged by guilt, I went further. Mary was granted new chambers at court, for her and her husband. She had inherited five stepchildren from John’s first marriage, and I told her, whilst I was happy she now knew the joys of motherhood, I did not want her new family impeding her work for me at court.
“I will manage as Lady Cobham does,” she said, speaking of my friend, recently released from house arrest, but whom everyone knew had only been arrested to conceal our dealings with Ridolfi in the past. If any thought the Cobhams were truly traitors, it should have been clear by now they were not, as when the Cobhams had returned to court that summer I had restored their former positions and granted back-pay for time in exile. “My good Lady Frances juggles all that life throws to her with calmness and deportment. I shall emulate her.”
“A fine example,” I approved.
*
As rain sloughed down the panes on the windows, making the world dark, I turned, glancing at Cecil as he entered my chamber with Paul holding the door. “All is not well in Ireland,” I said, nodding to a roll of parchment on the table.
Cecil took up the document. As he read, the darkness outside the window crept upon him.
Essex’s campaign was going poorly. He had achieved little, lost much, and his forces and confidence were depleted. We had sent reinforcements, but many had deserted, recognising a broken cause when they saw one. Those left to him were suffering from lack of food, as famine had erupted in Ireland due to loss of the end of summer crops, and disease, Death’s old friend, was sweeping through his ranks. Some men had bartered armour, horses and swords for food from Irish peasants and lords.
Attempting to bring Turlough O’Neill to heel, Essex had led men into Munster, where he had offered O’Neill safe conduct to his camp to discuss terms for peace. O’Neill refused. Essex, declaring he would invade Ulster if Turlough did not comply with his demands, made preparations, but that very night Turlough led two hundred of his own men, and six hundred gallowglasses to Essex’s camp. It was only due to the keen eyes of one scout that Essex and his men were not massacred. Turlough’s forces departed, seeing the element of surprise had been lost, and Essex had pressed into Omagh, burning and looting as he went. This led to Irish people refusing to trade with his men, hampering Essex’s cause all the more.
“A rather hopeless report,” Cecil said, setting the scroll on the table.
“Like all we have received from Essex. Although this time it would appear he has just cause to be miserable.” I walked to a chair and set myself into it with a weariness born from the weather and despondency about Ireland. “When first Essex came to me, afire with ambition and enthusiasm, I thought him the perfect man for Ireland. But now I think all this a mess, becoming more confused each day.”
“Will you recall him?”
“It is certainly in my mind. No matter what, there is trouble and he cannot handle it. Irish chiefs deceive him time and time again, and time and time again he falls for their lies. He is ineffectual, and his complaints drag on my nerves. He cannot command loyalty, either from his men or the Irish, and FitzWilliam still refuses to work with him.”
“Perhaps another would be better suited.”
“Perhaps so. But I will give him until the end of the year to redeem himself. He is, after all, family.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Whitehall Palace
Autumn 1574