She might as well ask a cuckoo to protect the eggs that are alongside it in the nest. She might as well ask an owl to protect a mouse. But I see the skill in it; even on her deathbed Mary is outwitting Elizabeth, trapping her with the bait of a royal boy. If Elizabeth agrees to be the Protector of the heir of Scotland, she is recognizing kinship. Elizabeth, greedy for influence in Scotland, still torn between love and hate for her more beautiful younger rival queen, cannot resist. I receive a short unsigned note in a hand that I don’t recognize and conclude it is from William Cecil.
The queen is to stand as godmother to Prince James of Scotland.
That’s all; but it is the end of my hope. Elizabeth has broken her sworn promise to parliament and to her lords. She has chosen Mary over Katherine, papist over Protestant. She thinks she has seen a chance, dangled before her by Mary, who may be on her deathbed but still has more wit in her cold little finger than Elizabeth has in all her endless cunning. Queen Mary has offered her baby as bait and Elizabeth has jumped into the trap. In the hopes that Mary is dying she will claim the motherless boy as her own. He will be her adopted son and the next King of England.
I send Katherine a Christmas letter, but I have nothing to give her. In reply she writes to me and encloses a chain of gold links.
I have this, as I have so many little gifts, from my husband, who sends me his love in letters and treats. Our little boy Thomas is well and growing. Our oldest son Teddy is with his grandmother at Hanworth and she tells Ned that he is well and strong and a happy carefree child. We all pray for our freedom and for yours. I am lodged with good people who do what they can to comfort me as I enter another year, my sixth, in captivity. I am weary of it, and sad, but I believe that next year, perhaps in the new year, we will be forgiven and released. I hear the Queen of Scotland and our good queen are to come to an agreement, which will make you and I their subjects and loyal cousins. I long to see you, my sister. Farewell.
I reread the letter over and over until I have it in my memory, and then I burn it in the little fireplace in my room. I wear her chain of gold around my neck and think that this little thing comes from a woman who has the rights to the treasure house of England.
It is not my only Christmas gift. My hosts give me some ribbons and my maid trims one of my shifts with some pretty lace. I give Lady Hawtrey a sketch of the garden from my window. If I could see more, I would draw more, but even my sight is confined.
CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
SPRING 1567
Lord Darnley, that wildly vicious son of my cousin Margaret Douglas, is dead. The boy that no one ever thought would make good has made a terrible end, naked and strangled in the garden, his house in ruins behind him. Someone—and everyone is saying that it is the Protestant lords—blew up his house, Kirk o’ Field, with gunpowder and caught him as he fled. He was not a youth who was ever going to die in his bed—a murderer who threatened his own unborn son and wife, a twisted child spoiled by his mother’s ambition—but everyone is shocked that he should die such a death, and horrified by what this means for the Queen of Scots, only just recovered from her illness and now widely suspected of murdering her husband.
Elizabeth, hardly concealing her delight at the disaster that has blown up the agreement between her and the Scots queen, just as the house Kirk o’ Field has been blown apart, is now ostentatiously filled with pity for the vicious boy’s heartbroken mother. Our cousin Lady Margaret Douglas is released from the Tower and allowed to stay with Thomas Sackville at Sackville Place. Her little boy Charles joins her, to comfort her in her terrible loss. The death of her syphilitic murderer son somehow excuses her own treason. Lady Margaret is set free; Katherine and I, innocent of anything, are kept imprisoned. Elizabeth can think of nothing but how she should respond to our cousin Queen Mary.
While the rabid Scots preachers declare that no woman can hold power, Elizabeth is driven to support her cousin. But she cannot do it wholeheartedly. She publishes advice to the Scots queen pointing out the contrast between herself—the celibate queen—and the scandalous newly widowed, twice-married queen. A copy of this letter even reaches me at Chequers, and I read it, amazed that the queen calls herself a faithful cousin and friend, says that she is more sorry for the danger to Mary than for the death of Darnley, and that Mary must preserve her honor rather than look through her fingers at those who have done her the favor of murdering her husband, “as most people say.”
I don’t know whether or not “most people” ever said that Mary was the murderer of Darnley before Elizabeth’s damning defense, but I am very sure that everyone will say it now. I see the hand of William Cecil all through this: the murder in the nighttime garden, the smearing of the reputation of the papist queen, the sudden leap of Elizabeth into confidence and pretend pity. The death of Darnley has ruined Mary, just as her marriage to him ruined her. It has ruined the agreement that she was making with Elizabeth, just as William Cecil planned.
This was not a quiet murder done on an out-of-the-way shallow flight of stairs with a packed jury to return a verdict of accidental death. This was a huge explosion in the heart of Edinburgh in the middle of the night, with the queen having refused to sleep with her husband in the doomed house that very evening. As if she knew, people say. As if the gunpowder was packed by someone she knew.
Even locked in my room, even confined to the garden, the rumors reach me. The kitchen at Chequers is sizzling with gossip, the stable yard lads are great supporters of the Scots lord: James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who has always fought for the Protestant cause, whose ways are simple and direct and violent. The laundry maids are filled with pity for poor Lord Darnley, blown up in his bed, or strangled by the barbarian Scots lords at the behest of his wicked wife. All spring the scandal gets more and more outrageous and elaborate until in April we hear that Mary Queen of Scots has run away from her capital city, and in May that she has married the man who killed her husband: James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell.
CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
SUMMER 1567
Compared with this new disastrous marriage of the Queen of Scots, my love match with Thomas Keyes and even Katherine’s with Ned Seymour fade into minor indiscretion. We fell in love with honorable men who were free to marry. Nobody even knows if Bothwell has a wife. But Queen Mary marries him without any sign of shame, dressed in fanciful mourning wear: a black patterned velvet gown embroidered all over with gold and silver thread. I ask Lady Hawtrey to be sure to find out about the gown and it is indeed gloriously expensive black velvet with real gold embroidery and a scarlet undergown! She is a bride and a widow at once. She may be a murderer; certainly, she is marrying a murderer. She is ruined in the eyes of the world: French, Spanish, and English; papist and Protestant. She has destroyed herself. Clearly, she cannot be heir to England.
I wait for Sir William to come to me and tell me that I am to go free. William Cecil’s long secret campaign against the Scots queen, his secret plan for our succession, is finally fulfilled. There can be no reason for my sister and me to be held any longer. Sir William Hawtrey tells me that Robert Dudley’s brother Ambrose visited Ned Seymour, defying the order that says that my brother-in-law is to have no visitors; and assured him that my sister Katherine will be named as heir, and the Dudleys will support her.
I am restless in my stuffy room. I open both the windows and look out. When I go out for my walk I pace up and down in the pretty midsummer garden, going round and round the outer path like a ferret circling its cage. Every time I hear hoofbeats I think it must be the queen’s messenger coming to set me free. It cannot be long now.
Lady Hawtrey tells me the gossip from London. Lady Margaret Douglas’s husband, the frightened father of Lord Darnley, has run away from Scotland, and been allowed into England. He is invited to court, and Lady Margaret is free to join him. He tells of a Scotland which has turned to rebellion. The Scots lords are against Bothwell and against their queen. Queen Mary—Bothwell’s victim, Bothwell’s wife??
?cannot keep the authority of a queen. Just as Elizabeth always feared, a married queen is reduced to the level of her husband. Mary came to Scotland a royal French widow in a dress of the brightest white. She cannot hold the country as Bothwell’s wife in seductive black with red petticoats. They treat her with outward respect, but they imprison her in the island castle of Lochleven. My sister’s rival, who was so free and powerful, is now a prisoner just like us.
And, just like us, our imprisoned cousin is now dependent on the goodwill of Elizabeth. Nobody else can order the Scots lords to respect their monarch. No one else has an army on the border, spies in place, and most of the lords as paid retainers. But instead of commanding the restoration of a fellow queen, Elizabeth listens to our other cousin, Margaret Douglas, who demands justice for the death of her son: the execution of her daughter-in-law, and the possession of her grandson, the little heir. All these righteous claims to humiliate the Scots queen have great appeal for Elizabeth, but she cannot pursue them.
More than any other belief, Elizabeth believes that the law of the land does not apply to queens. She wants everyone to think that a queen might make mistakes—might make fatal mistakes in her personal life—and still be fit to rule. If people say that a queen cannot be in love with a married man, where would that leave Elizabeth and Robert Dudley? If people say that an unwanted husband or wife cannot be mercilessly killed, then what adjustment should be made to the coroner’s verdict of the accidental death of Amy Dudley? Elizabeth would like the baby Stuart in her keeping, would like to see his father’s death avenged; but the safety of his mother as a queen is sacrosanct. Nothing matters more to Elizabeth, the daughter of a beheaded queen, than everyone understanding that queens cannot be beheaded. No queen can be beheaded in England ever again.
CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
SUMMER 1567
It is the Scots lords who end the stalemate; they don’t understand the English queen and they ruin their own cause by accident. They announce that their queen, Mary, her royal will broken by miscarrying twin boys in her island prison, has agreed to surrender her rights to the throne. They have made her abdicate in favor of her son, and she has agreed to be as nothing, a prisoner with no title. They think this is their triumph, but it turns Elizabeth against them in a moment. Now she refuses to recognize the little Prince James as King James VI of Scotland. She says he cannot be used to displace his mother, the little boy may not usurp his mother’s throne, a queen cannot be thrown down by her lords. Never, never, never can an heir be put in the place of a monarch—it is the greatest fear of her life. She rails at Cecil, she swears that Queen Mary’s dethronement shall not be allowed. Queens shall be treated with respect, they cannot be judged and found wanting. She will take England to war to defend her fellow queen, Mary.
Now Elizabeth turns on her loudly demanding newly restored cousin Margaret Douglas. Lady Margaret insists that her daughter-in-law Mary Queen of Scots be imprisoned forever, or brought to trial and executed for the abominable crime of husband killing. It hardly matters to her, as long as the baby is brought to England and Lady Margaret can call herself the grandmother of a king and see him inherit the thrones of Scotland and England.
William Cecil plays his long game; he keeps quiet. Outwardly he agrees with the queen that an attack on a fellow royal cannot be borne, but he points out that any invasion of Scotland would probably lead to the Scots lords assassinating the queen at once. They would panic, he says smoothly, looking into Elizabeth’s panic-stricken face. Far better for England to register a temperate protest, negotiate with the self-proclaimed regent, Lord Moray, Mary’s faithless half brother, and try to get the baby sent south when it is convenient.
Of course, the Protestant lords of Scotland are never going to hand their prince over to a dyed-in-the-wool papist such as Margaret Douglas. Of course, Lady Margaret, having ruined one son, should never be entrusted with another. Elizabeth is so frustrated by events that she will not speak to her great advisor or her beloved cousin; and I have more grounds than ever to predict that she will turn towards us. She has to turn to us. What other family is left to her?
CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
SUMMER 1567
There is Katherine, imprisoned at Gosfield Hall, innocent of any crime, beloved by half of England, her boy being raised as a royal Seymour in hiding. There is Mary, imprisoned at Lochleven, probably a murderer, certainly an adulterer, hated by half of England and a horror to her own coreligionists, her boy held by her half brother, her husband on the run. Who is the better choice of heir? Which is the better choice for England? Of course Elizabeth in her monstrous perversity supports Mary and calls for her release.
The Scots take her money but make no progress, Cecil smoothly blocks any hopes of an English invasion of Scotland. Elizabeth’s resolve falters. Cecil suggests that she goes on progress, Robert Dudley promises her an idyllic summer—why should she not be happy? Elizabeth sets the disaster of her cousin to one side and rides out beside her lover, running away from trouble again.
CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
SUMMER 1567
The swallows arrive in the gardens of Chequers and fly low in the evening. I can hear the nightingale singing in the wood at twilight. Summer is the hardest time to be imprisoned. I feel as if everything is free and living its life, singing at dusk, but me. I feel as if every living thing is seeking its mate and finding joy—everything, everyone—but me and my sister.
I am very low this evening. I usually try to read, or decorate my cramped room with drawings on the walls, or study my Bible or my sister Jane’s writings, but this evening I stand on a chair at the open window and rest my chin on my hands and look out over the darkening horizon to where the solitary star comes out like a pinhead of silver against a dark blue silk gown, and I know that I am far from my family and far from my friends, and I will never see the man that I love again. Never in this life.
I can feel my face is wet with my tears and I know that this is no way for me to spend the evening. I will feel no better for this in the morning, I will have learned nothing by diving to the depth of my sorrow. I am not the sort of woman who says that she always feels better for a good cry. I rather despise that sort of woman. I usually keep myself busy and occupied, and avoid moments of grief for my loss of liberty and the loss of my sisters and the terrible blight that has been laid on our family because we were born Tudor. I pat my face with my sleeve and I search in myself for Jane’s holy certainty, or even my mother’s flinty determination. I cannot be tenderhearted and vulnerable like Katherine or I will simply despair like her.
I am about to swing the window shut and put myself to bed to try to sleep through to another day, so that these lingering lonely hours of the night are escaped. I reach out and put my hand on the latch of the window and then I hear horses coming down the road, several horses, perhaps six, a troop of men riding down the London road to Chequers. These are the hoofbeats that I have waited for. I strain my ears to listen. Yes, definitely, they have not gone past. They turn in towards the house and now I am leaning out of the window, staring into the half-light to see if there is a standard going before them, and whose colors are coming at a brisk trot at this time of the evening.
If someone has come for me, out of the summer dusk, someone determined to see us free, someone taking a chance with Elizabeth on progress and Cecil snatching a week at his new home, then I will go with him, whoever he is. If he takes me to poverty in France or Spain, if he involves me in danger and rebellion, then I will go. I will not spend another summer here, caged like one of Katherine’s linnets. I will not stay. I don’t care if we die as we ride to the coast, or if our ship is captured and sunk at sea. I would rather drown than spend another night in this little bed looking at the white ceiling and my scratched drawings on the walls. I would rather die tonight than live another day in prison.
The riders come around the bend in the track, and now I can see them. The Tudor standard goes before them. It is no outlaw,
but a message from Elizabeth. It is brought by a lord riding among his guard on the queen’s business. At last, at last, this must be my freedom. It can only be that she is setting me free. Any other command and it would be a single messenger at a leisurely pace. At last, God be praised, God be praised for it, she is setting me free and I am going to ride out from this damned house and I will never set foot in it again.
I slam the window shut and jump down from the stool. I shake my maid, who is dozing in a chair. “Do my hair,” I command her. “Give me my best hood. Sir William will knock on the door at any moment. Open it to him. He is coming to tell me that we are to be set free.”
She flings open the chest and brings out my hood and I stand with my heart pounding as she pins up my blond hair, and then straightens my hood on top. I take my wedding ring off my finger, kiss it, put it on a chain, and tell her to fasten it round my neck. She tightens the laces of my gown at the sleeves and on the kirtle, and I hold my arms wide like a little doll, so she can settle the bodice into place, and just as she says, “Perfect, your ladyship,” there is a knock on the door and I meet her eyes and smile and say: “At last. God be praised. At last.”
I take my seat on my chair and she opens my door, curtseys to Sir William and steps back to present him to me. He comes into the room and bows low. Behind him I see the captain who led his men to the front door, his bonnet in his hand; he bows as he sees me and I incline my head.
“Lady Mary.” Sir William bows. “Here’s a sudden change.”
I cannot stop myself smiling. “I heard the horses,” I say.