1568, WINTER,
HAMPTON COURT:
GEORGE
But why does the queen want her taken to Tutbury Castle?” I ask William Cecil, who of all men in England always knows everything; he is a tradesman of secrets. He is the very monopolist of secrecy. “Chatsworth would be more fitting. Surely the queen wants us to house her at Chatsworth? To be honest, I have not been to Tutbury myself in years, but you know that Bess bought Chatsworth with her previous husband and brought it as her dowry to me, and she has made it very lovely.”
“The Scots queen won’t be with you for long,” Cecil says mildly. “And I would rather have her in a house with a single entrance by a guardhouse, which can be well guarded, than have her gazing out of fifty windows over beautiful parkland and slipping out of half a dozen doors into the gardens.”
“You don’t think we might be attacked?” I am shocked at the very thought of it. Only later do I realize that he seems to know the grounds of Tutbury Castle, which is odd, since he has never visited. He sounds as if he knows it better than I do myself, and how could that be?
“Who knows what might happen, or what a woman like her will take into her head to do, or what support she can attract? Who would have thought that a score of educated noblemen, clearly instructed and advised, with well-trained witnesses and perfect evidence, would sit down to inquire into her behavior, see the most scandalous material ever written, and then rise up, having decided nothing? Who would have thought that I would convene a tribunal three times over, and still be unable to get a conviction? Are you all so besotted with her?”
“A conviction?” I repeat. “You make it sound like a trial. I thought it was a conference. You told me it was an inquiry.”
“I fear our queen has been ill-served in this.”
“But how?” I ask. “I thought we did what she wanted. She stopped the inquiry herself, saying that it was unjust to the Queen of Scots. Surely she has cleared the Scots queen of any wrongdoing. Surely you should be glad. Surely our queen is glad that we held a thorough inquiry but could find nothing against her cousin. And that being so, why should our queen not invite Queen Mary to live with her at court? Why should she come to us at all? Why should they not live as cousins in harmony, queen and heir? Now that her name is cleared.”
Cecil chokes on a laugh that he cannot silence and claps me on the shoulder. “You know, you are the very man to keep her safe for us,” he says warmly. “I think you are the most honorable man in England, indeed. Your wife is right to caution me that you are a man of utter honor. And the queen will be indebted to you for your good guardianship of her dear cousin. I am sure that all of us are as glad as you are that the inquiry cleared the Scots queen’s name, and now we know that she is innocent. You have proved her innocent, thank God. And we will all have to live with the consequences.”
I am troubled, and I let him see it. “You did not want her cleared of blame?” I say slowly. “And you want her at Tutbury, and not held with honor at Chatsworth?” I have a sense of something amiss. “I have to warn you: I will only deal with her fairly, Master Secretary. I will have to beg an audience and ask our queen what she intends.”
“Nothing but good,” he says smoothly. “As I do. As you do. You know that the queen is going to invite you to become a member of the Privy Council?”
I gasp. “Privy Council?” This has been a long time coming. My family name commends me, but I have had to wait a long time for this moment; it is an honor that I have yearned for.
“Oh yes,” he says with a smile. “Her Majesty trusts you so well. Trusts you with this task, and others that will follow. Will you serve the queen without question?”
“I always do,” I say. “You know, I always do.”
Cecil smiles. “I know. So guard the other queen and keep her safe for us until we can return her safely to Scotland. And make sure you don’t fall in love with her, good Talbot. They say she’s quite irresistible.”
“Under my Bess’s nose? And us married less than a year?”
“Bess is your safeguard as you are ours,” he says. “Give her my warmest wishes and tell her that when she next comes to London she must break her journey at my house. She will want to see the progress I am making with it. And if I am not mistaken she will want to borrow some of my plans, but she may not steal my builders. Last time she came I found her in deep conversation with my plasterer. She was tempting him away to flower her hall. I swore I would never trust her with one of my artisans again; she poaches them, she truly does. And I suspect her of putting up wages.”
“She will give up her building projects while she is caring for the queen,” I tell him. “Anyway, I think she must have finished the work on Chatsworth by now. How much work does a house need? It is good enough now, surely? She will have to give up her business interests too; I shall have my stewards take over her work.”
“You’ll never get her to hand over her farms and her mines, and she’ll never finish building,” he predicts. “She is a great artificer, your new wife. She likes to build things, she likes property and trade. She is a rare woman, a venturer in her heart. She will build a chain of houses across the country, and run your estates like a kingdom, and launch a fleet of ships for you, and found a dynasty of your children. Bess will only be satisfied when they are all dukes. She is a woman whose only sense of safety is property.”
I never like it when Cecil talks like this. His own rise from clerk to lord has been so sudden, on the coattails of the queen, that he likes to think that everyone has made their fortunes from the fall of the church, and that every house is built with the stone of abbeys. He praises Bess and her mind for business, only to excuse himself. He admires her profits because he wants to think that such gains are admirable. But he forgets that some of us come from a great family that was rich long before the church lands were grabbed by greedy new men, and some of us have titles that go back generations. Some of us came over as Norman noblemen in 1066. This means something, if only for some of us. Some of us are wealthy enough, without stealing from priests.
But it is hard to say any of this without sounding pompous. “My wife does nothing that does not befit her position,” I say, and Cecil gives a little laugh as if he knows exactly what I am thinking.
“There is nothing about the countess and her abilities that does not befit her position,” he says smoothly. “And her position is very grand indeed. You are the greatest nobleman in England, Talbot, we all know that. And you do right to remind us, should we ever make the mistake of forgetting it. And all of us at court appreciate Bess’s good sense; she has been a favorite amongst us all for many years. I have watched her marry upwards and upwards with great pleasure. We are counting on her to make Tutbury Castle a pleasant home for the Queen of Scots. The countess is the only hostess we could consider. No one else could house the Queen of Scots. Any other house would be too mean. No one but Bess would know how to do it. No one but Bess could triumph.”
This flattery from Cecil should content me, but we seem to be back to Bess again, and Cecil should remember that before I married her she was a woman who had come up from nothing.
1568, WINTER,
BOLTON CASTLE:
MARY
It is to be tonight. I am going to escape from Bolton Castle, their so-called,soi-disant , “impregnable” Yorkshire castle, this very night. Part of me thinks: I dare not do this, but I am more terrified of being trapped in this country and unable to go either forward or back. Elizabeth is like a fat ginger cat on a cushion; she is content to sit and dream. But I must reclaim my throne, and in every day of my exile, the situation grows worse for me. I have castles holding out for me in Scotland and I must get relief to them at once. I have men ready to march under my standard, I cannot make them wait. I cannot let my supporters die for lack of my courage. I have Bothwell’s promise that he will escape from Denmark and return to command my armies. I have written to the King of Denmark, demanding Bothwell’s freedom. He is my husband, the con
sort of a queen, how dare they hold him on the word of a merchant’s daughter who complains that he promised marriage? It is nonsense, and the complaints of such a woman are of no importance. I have a French army mustering to support me, and promises of Spanish gold to pay them. Most of all, I have a son, a precious heir,mon bйbй ,mon chйri , my only love, and he is in the hands of my enemies. I cannot leave him in their care: he is only two years old! I have to act. I have to rescue him. The thought of him without proper care, not knowing where I am, not understanding that I was forced to leave him, burns me like an ulcer in my heart. I have to get back to him.
Elizabeth may dawdle, but I cannot. On the last day of her nonsensical inquiry I received a message from one of the Northern lords, Lord Westmorland, who promises me his help. He says he can get me out of Bolton Castle, he can get me to the coast. He has a train of horses waiting in Northallerton and a ship waiting off Whitby. He tells me that when I say the word he can get me to France—and as soon as I am safe at home, in the country of my late husband’s family, where I was raised to be queen, then my fortunes will change in an instant.
I don’t delay, as Elizabeth would delay. I don’t drag my feet and puzzle away and put myself to bed, pretending illness as she does whenever she is afraid. I see a chance when it comes to me and I take it like a woman of courage. “Yes,” I say to my rescuer. “Oui,”I say to the gods of fortune, to life itself.
And when he says to me, “When?” I say, “Tonight.”
I don’t fear, I am frightened of nothing. I escaped from my own palace at Holyrood when I was held by murderers; I escaped from Linlithgow Castle. They will see that they can take me but they cannot hold me. Bothwell himself said that to me once, he said, “A man can take you, but you cling to your belief that he can never own you.” And I replied, “I am always queen. No man can command me.”
The walls of Bolton Castle are rough-hewn gray stone, a place built to resist cannon, but I have a rope around my waist and thick gloves to protect my hands and stout boots so that I can kick myself away. The window is narrow, little more than a slit in the stone, but I am slim and lithe, and I can wriggle out and sit with my back to the very edge of the precipice, looking down. The porter takes the rope and hands it to Agnes Livingstone and watches her as she ties it around my waist. He makes a gesture to tell her to check that it is tight. He cannot touch me, my body is sacred, so she has to do everything under his instruction. I am watching his face. He is not an adherent of mine, but he has been paid well, and he looks determined to do his part in this. I think I can trust him. I give him a little smile and he sees my lip tremble with fear, for he says, in his rough northern accent, “Dinnae fret, pet.” And I smile as if I understand him and watch him wind the rope around his waist. He braces himself and I wriggle to the very brink and look down.
Dear God, I cannot see the ground. Below me is darkness and the howl of air. I cling to the post of the window as if I cannot let it go. Agnes is white with fear, the porter’s face steady. If I am going to go, I have to go now. I release the comfort of the stone arch of the window, I let myself stretch out onto the rope. I step out into air. I feel the rope go taut and terrifyingly thin, and I start to walk backwards, into the darkness, into nothingness, my feet pushing against the great stones of the walls, my skirt filling and flapping in the wind.
At first, I feel nothing but terror, but my confidence grows as I take step after step and feel the porter letting out the rope. I look up and see how far I have come down, though I don’t dare to look below. I think I am going to make it. I can feel the joy at being free growing inside me until my very feet tremble against the wall. I feel sheer joy at the breath of the wind on my face, and even joy at the vast space beneath me as I go down: joy at being outside the castle when they think I am captive, cooped up in my stuffy rooms, joy at being in charge of my own life again, even though I am dangling at the end of a rope like a hooked trout, joy at being me—a woman in charge of her own life—once more.
The ground comes up underneath me in a dark hidden rush and I stagger to my feet, untie the rope, and give it three hard tugs and they pull it back up. Beside me is my page, and Mary Seton, my lifelong companion. My maid-in-waiting will come down next; my second lady-in-waiting, Agnes Livingstone, after her.
The sentries at the main gate are careless: I can see them against the pale road, but they cannot see us against the dark of the castle walls. In a moment there is to be a diversion—a barn is to be fired, and when they hurry to put out the fire, we will run down to the gate where horses will come galloping up the road, each rider leading a spare, the fastest for me, and we will be up and away, before they have even realized we are gone.
I stand quite still, not fidgeting. I am excited and I feel strong and filled with the desire to run. I feel as if I could sprint to Northallerton, even to the sea at Whitby. I can feel my power flowing through me, my strong young desire for life, speeding faster for fear and excitement. It beats in my heart and it tingles in my fingers. Dear God, I have to be free. I am a woman who has to be free. I would rather die than not be free. It is true: I would rather die than not be free.
I can hear the soft scuffle as Ruth, my maid, climbs out of the window and then the rustle of her skirts as the porter starts to lower her. I can see the dark outline of her quietly coming down the castle wall, then suddenly the rope jerks and she gives a little whimper of fear.
“Sshh! Sssh!” I hiss up at her, but she is sixty feet above me, she cannot hear. Mary’s cold hand slips into mine. Ruth isn’t moving, the porter is not letting her down, something has gone terribly wrong, then she falls like a bag of dusters, the rope snaking down from above her as he drops it, and we hear her terrified scream.
The thud when she hits the ground is an awful sound. She has broken her back, for sure. I run to her side at once, and she is moaning in pain, her hand clamped over her mouth, trying, even at this moment, not to betray me.
“Your Grace!” Mary Seton is tugging at my arm. “Run! They are coming.”
I hesitate for a moment; Ruth’s pale face is twisted with agony; now she has her fist thrust in her mouth, trying not to cry out. I look towards the main gate. The sentries, having heard her scream, are turned questingly towards the castle; a man runs forward, shouts to another; someone brings a torch from the sconce at the gateway. They are like hounds spreading out to scent the quarry.
I pull my hood up over my head to hide my face and start to duck backwards into the shadows. Perhaps we can get around the castle and out of a back gate. Perhaps there is a sallyport or somewhere we can hide. Then there is a shout from inside the castle: they have raised the alarm in my chambers. At once the night is ablaze with the bobbing flames of torches and “Hi! Hi! Hi!” they bellow like hunters, like beaters driving the game before them.
I turn to one side and then the other, my heart thudding, ready to run. But now they have seen us silhouetted by their torches against the dark walls of the castle, and there is a great bellow of “View halloa! Here she is! Cut her off! Run round! Here she is! Bring her to bay!”
I can feel my courage drain from me as if I am bleeding to death, and I am icy. The taste of defeat is like cold iron in my mouth, like the bit for an unbroken filly. I could spit the bitter taste. I want to run and I want to throw myself face down on the ground and weep for my freedom. But this is not the way of a queen. I have to find the courage to push back my hood and stand straight and tall as the men come running up and thrust their torches in my face so they can see what they have caught. I have to stand still and proud; I have to be seen to be a queen, even dressed like a serving woman in a black traveling cape. I have to enact being a queen so they do not treat me as a serving woman. There is nothing more important now, at this moment of my humiliation, than preserving the power of majesty. I am a queen. No mortal man may touch me. I have to make the magic of majesty all alone, in the darkness.
“Je suis la reine,”I say, but my voice is too quiet. I can hear it tremble
with my distress. I stand taller and lift up my chin; I speak louder. “I am the Queen of Scotland.”
Thank God they don’t grab me nor put so much as one hand on me. I think I would die of shame if a common man were to abuse me again. The thought of Bothwell’s hand on my breast, his mouth on my neck, makes me burn even now.
“I warn you! You may not touch me!”
They form a circle around me with their bowed-down torches, as if I am a witch that can be held only by a ring of fire. Someone says that Lord Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury, is coming. He was at his dinner with Sir Francis Knollys and Lord Scrope, and they have told him that the Scots queen was running away like a thief in the night, but she is caught now.
And so that’s how he first sees me, when he comes at a stumbling run, his tired face scowling with worry. He sees me standing alone, in a black cape with my hood pushed back from my face so that everyone can recognize me and know that they may not put a hand on me. A white-faced anointed queen of the blood. A queen in every way, showing the power of defiance, a queen in the authority of her stance, a queen in everything but the ownership of her thrones.
The Other Queen Page 4