The Other Queen

1568, Winter, Chatsworth: Bess

I have news from my husband the earl, of the inquiry at Westminster. (I am still newly wed, I love to say ‘my-husband-the-earl’.) He writes to me almost daily to tell me of his discomfort, and in return I send him news of his children and mine, home-baked pies and the best Chatsworth cider. He says he has been secretly shown letters of the most damning evidence, love letters from the married queen to the married Earl of Bothwell urging him to kill her husband, poor young Lord Darnley, telling him that she is on fire with lust for him. Wanton poems, promises of nights of pleasure, French pleasures are especially mentioned.

I think of the judges – my husband, young Thomas Howard, his friend the Earl of Sussex and old Sir Ralph Sadler, Robert Dudley and my good friend William Cecil, Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Henry Hastings, and all the others – reading this nonsense with shocked faces, trying to believe that a woman planning to murder her husband by packing his cellars with gunpowder would spend the very night before the explosion, at her husband’s sickbed, writing love poetry to her accomplice. It is so ridiculous that I wonder they are not laughed out of court.

But these are honest thoughtful highly respected men. They do not ask: what would a real woman do in such circumstances? They are not in the habit of considering the nature of any real woman. They look only at the evidence that is laid before them. And bless me – what a lot of evidence has been produced! What a lot of effort has been put into blackening her name! Someone, somewhere, has gone to a good deal of time and trouble: stealing her letters, copying her hand, writing them in French and then translating them into Scots and English, putting them into a special casket monogrammed with her initials (in case we thought that they had been written by some other Mary Stuart), and then having them discovered, amazingly badly hidden, in her private rooms. This Someone’s work is thorough and extremely convincing. Everyone who has seen the letters now believes that the young queen is an adulterous whore who murdered her young English husband for lust and revenge.

Now I might have an idea who this clever Someone would be. Actually, everyone in England would have a pretty good idea who this Someone might be. And it is rare that he does not have his way. This poor queen will find herself hopelessly outmatched by this Someone, who plans for the long term and plays a long game. She may find that if he does not catch her in his net this time, he will make another with a finer mesh, and again and then again, until she cannot escape.

This time though, it cannot be done; she has wriggled free. The greatest witness against her is her own bastard half-brother, but since he has seized the regency in her absence and holds her baby son as a hostage, not even a courtroom of highly respected men can bring themselves to believe a word that he says. His hatred of her is so obvious and his faithlessness so offensive that not even the judges appointed by Cecil can stomach him. The judges, including my husband, the earl, are all men who pride themselves on their loyalty. They look askance at a subject who is grossly treacherous. They do not like the behaviour of the Scots queen but they like the behaviour of her Scots lords even less. My bet is that they will rule that she has been ill-treated by her people and must be restored to her throne. Then the Scots can deal with their queen as they wish, and we cannot be blamed.

1568, Winter, Hampton Court: George

My queen, Elizabeth, is more generous and more just than anyone can imagine. With so much suspicion now raised and expressed against her cousin, she has ordered that the slanderous letters shall be kept secret forever, and she will restore her cousin to her kingdom. Elizabeth will not hear another word against her cousin, she will not have her name dragged through the mud. She is generous and just in this; we could never have reached a fair judgement without listening to the most terrible scandal, so Elizabeth has silenced both scandal and defence.

But even though she is a monarch of such justice and wisdom I find I am a little perturbed that I am summoned to see her.

She is not on her brown velvet throne embroidered with pearls and diamonds in the Paradise room, though there are, as ever, dozens of men waiting about, hoping to catch her attention when she comes out for company before dinner. The strangers to Hampton Court Palace examine the exquisite musical instruments that are scattered on tables around the room, or play draughts on the ebony boards. Those who are old hands at court idle in the window bays, concealing their boredom at the delay. I see Cecil, watchful as ever. Cecil, dressed in black like some poor clerk, is talking quietly with his brother-in-law Nicholas Bacon. Behind them hovers a man I don’t know, but who is now admitted into their councils, a man who wears his hat pulled down over his eyes as if he does not want to be recognised. And behind him, another new man, Francis Walsingham. I don’t know who these men are, nor where they belong, to which great families they are allied. To tell truth, most of them don’t have family – not as I understand such a thing. They are men without background. They have come from nowhere, they belong nowhere, they can be recruited by anyone.

I turn away as the queen’s lady-in-waiting Lady Clinton comes out through the grand double doors from the queen’s inner chamber, and when she sees me, speaks to the guard, who stands aside and lets me in.

There are more guards than usual, at every doorway and every gate to the castle. I have never seen the royal palace so heavily manned. These are bitterly troubled times, we have never needed such protection before. But these days there are many men – even Englishmen – who would carry a knife and strike down their own queen if they could. There are more of them than anyone could have dreamed. Now that the other queen, the one that they call the true heir, is actually in England, the choice between the Protestant princess and the Catholic rival is set before every man, and for every Protestant in the land today there are two secret Papists, probably more. How are we to live, when we are divided among ourselves, is a question I leave to Cecil, whose unending enmity to Catholics has done so much to bring this about, and to make a bad situation so much worse.

‘Is Her Grace in good spirits today?’ I ask in an undertone to her ladyship. ‘Happy?’

She understands me well enough to give me a quick sideways smile. ‘She is,’ she says. She means that the famous Tudor temper is not unleashed. I have to admit I am relieved. The moment that she sent for me I was afraid I would be scolded for letting the inquiry reach no damning conclusion. But what could I do? The terrible murder of Darnley and her suspicious marriage to Bothwell, his probable killer, which appeared as such a vile crime, may not have been her fault at all. She may have been victim rather than criminal. But unless Bothwell confesses everything from his cell, or unless she testifies to his wickedness, no-one can know what took place between the two of them. Her ambassador will not even discuss it. Sometimes I feel that I am too frightened even to speculate. I am not a man for great sins of the flesh, for great drama. I love Bess with a quiet affection, there is nothing dark and doomed about either of us. I don’t know what the queen and Bothwell were to each other; and I would rather not imagine.

Queen Elizabeth is seated in her chair by the fireside in her private chamber, under the golden cloth of estate, and I go towards her and sweep off my hat and bow low.

‘Ah, George Talbot, my dear old man,’ she says warmly, calling me by the nickname she has for me, and I know by this that she is in a sunny mood, and she gives me her hand to kiss.

She is still a beautiful woman. Whether in a temper, whether scowling in a mood or white-faced in fear, she is still a beautiful woman, though thirty-five years of age. When she first came to the throne she was a young woman in her twenties and then she was a beauty, pale-skinned and red-haired with the colour flushing in her cheeks and lips at the sight of Robert Dudley, at the sight of gifts, at the sight of the crowd outside her window. Now her colour is steady, she has seen everything there is to see, nothing delights her very much any more. She paints on her blushes in the morning, and refreshes them at night. Her russet hair has faded with age. Her dark eyes, which have seen so much and learned to trust so little, have become hard. She is a woman who has known some passion but no kindness; and it shows in her face.

The queen waves her hand and her women rise obediently and scatter out of earshot. ‘I have a task for you and for Bess, if you will serve me,’ she says.

‘Anything, Your Grace.’ My mind races. Can she want to come to stay with us this summer? Bess has been working on Chatsworth House ever since her former husband bought it, for this very purpose – to house the queen on her travels to the North. What an honour it will be, if she plans to come. What a triumph for me, and for Bess’s long-laid plan.

‘They tell me that your inquiry against the Scots queen, my cousin, failed to find anything to her discredit. I followed Cecil’s advice in pursuing the evidence till half my court was turning over the midden for letters, and hanging on the words of maids spying at bedroom doors. But there was nothing, I believe?’ She pauses for my confirmation.

‘Nothing but gossip, and some evidence that the Scots lords would not publicly show,’ I say tactfully. ‘I refused to see any secret slanders as evidence.’

She nods. ‘You would not, eh? Why not? Do you think I want a dainty man in my service? Are you too nice to serve your queen? Do you think this is a pretty world we live in and you can tiptoe through dry-shod?’

I swallow on a dry mouth. Pray God she is in a mood for justice and not for conspiracy. Sometimes her fears drive her to the wildest of beliefs. ‘Your Grace, they would not submit the letters as evidence for full scrutiny, they would not show them to the Queen Mary’s advisors. I would not see them secretly. It did not seem to be … just.’

Her dark eyes are piercing. ‘There are those who say she does not deserve justice.’

‘But I was appointed judge, by you.’ It is a feeble response, but what else can I say? ‘I have to be just if I am representing you, Your Majesty. If I am representing the queen’s justice, I cannot listen to gossip.’

Her face is as hard as a mask and then her smile breaks through. ‘You are an honourable man indeed,’ she says. ‘And I would be glad to see her name cleared of any shadow of suspicion. She is my cousin, she is a fellow queen, she should be my friend, not my prisoner.’

I nod. Elizabeth is a woman whose own innocent mother was beheaded for wantonness. Surely, she must naturally side with a woman unjustly accused? ‘Your Grace, we should have cleared her name on the evidence that was submitted. But you stopped the inquiry before it reached its conclusions. Her name should be free of any slur. We should publish our opinions and say that she is innocent of any charge. She can be your friend now. She can be released.’

‘We will make no announcement of her innocence,’ she rules. ‘Where would be the advantage to me in that? But she should be returned to her country and her throne.’

I bow. ‘Well, so I think, Your Grace. Your cousin Howard says she will need a good advisor and a small army at first to secure her safety.’

‘Oh, really? Does he? What good advisor?’ she asks sharply. ‘Who do you and my good cousin nominate to rule Scotland for Mary Stuart?’

I stumble. It is always like this with the queen, you never know when you have walked into a trap. ‘Whoever you think best, Your Grace. Sir Francis Knollys? Sir Nicholas Throckmorton? Hastings? Any reliable nobleman?’

‘But I am advised that the lords of Scotland and the regent make better rulers and better neighbours than she did,’ she says restlessly. ‘I am advised that she is certain to marry again, and what if she chooses a Frenchman or a Spaniard and makes him King of Scotland? What if she puts our worst enemies on our very borders? God knows her choice of husbands is always disastrous.’

It is not hard for a man who has been around the court for as long as I have to recognise the suspicious tone of William Cecil through every word of this. He has filled the queen’s head with such a terror of France and Spain that from the moment she came to the throne she has done nothing but fear plots and prepare for war. By doing so, he has made us enemies where we could have had allies. Philip of Spain has many true friends in England and his country is our greatest partner for trade, while France is our nearest neighbour. To hear Cecil’s advice you would think one was Sodom and the other Gomorrah. However, I am a courtier, I say nothing as yet. I stay silent till I know where this woman’s indecisive mind will flutter to rest.

‘What if she gains her throne, and marries an enemy? Shall we ever have peace on the northern borders, d’you think, Talbot? Would you trust such a woman as her?’

‘You need have no fear,’ I say. ‘No Scots army would ever get past your Northern lords. You can trust your old lords, the men who have been there forever. Percy, Neville, Dacre, Westmorland, Northumberland, all of us old lords. We keep your border safe, Your Grace. You can trust us. We keep armed and we keep the men levied and drilled. We have kept the Northern lands safe for hundreds of years. The Scots have never defeated us.’

She smiles at my assurance. ‘I know it. You and yours have been good friends to me and mine. But do you think I can trust the Queen of Scots to rule Scotland to our advantage?’

‘Surely, when she goes back she will have enough to do to reestablish her rule? We need not fear her enmity. She will want our friendship. She cannot be restored without it. If you help her back on her throne with your army, she will be eternally grateful. You can bind her with an agreement.’

‘I think so,’ she nods. ‘I think so indeed. And anyway, we cannot keep her here in England; there is no possible argument for keeping her here. We cannot imprison an innocent fellow queen. And better for us if she goes back to Edinburgh, than runs off to Paris to cause more trouble.’

‘She is queen,’ I say simply. ‘It cannot be denied. Queen born and ordained. It must be God’s will that she sits on her throne. And surely, it is safer for us if she can bring the Scots to peace than if they are fighting against each other. The border raids in the North have been worse since she was thrown down. The border raiders fear no-one, now that Bothwell is far away in prison. Any rule is better than none. Better the queen should rule than no rule at all. And surely, the French or the Spanish will restore her if we do not? And if they put her back on the throne we will have a foreign army on our doorstep, and she will be grateful to them, and that must be far worse for us.’

‘Aye,’ she says firmly, as if she has made a decision. ‘So think I.’

‘Perhaps you can swear an alliance with her,’ I suggest. ‘Better to deal with a queen, you two queens together, than be forced to haggle with a usurper, a new false power in Scotland. And her half-brother is clearly guilty of murder and worse.’

I could not have said anything that pleased her more. She nods and puts her hand up to caress her pearls. She has a magnificent triple rope of black pearls, thick as a ruff, around her throat.

‘He laid hands on her,’ I prompt her. ‘She is an ordained queen and he seized her against her will and imprisoned her. That’s a sin against the law and against heaven. You cannot want to deal with such an impious man as that. How should he prosper if he can attack his own queen?’

‘I will not deal with traitors,’ she declares. Elizabeth has a horror of anyone who would challenge a monarch. Her own hold on her own throne was unsteady in the early years, and even now her claim is actually not as good as that of the Queen of Scots. Elizabeth was registered as Henry’s bastard and she never revoked the act of parliament. But Mary Queen of Scots is the granddaughter of Henry’s sister. Her line is true, legitimate and strong.

‘I will never deal with traitors,’ she repeats. She smiles, and at once I see again the pretty young woman who came to the throne with no objection at all to dealing with traitors. She had been the centre of all the rebellions against her sister, Mary Tudor, but was always too clever to be caught. ‘I want to be a just kinswoman to the Scots queen,’ she says. ‘She may be young and foolish and she has made mistakes that are shocking beyond words – but she is my kinswoman and she is a queen. She must be well treated, and she must be restored. I am ready to love her as a good kinswoman and see her rule her country as she should.’

‘There speaks a great queen and a generous woman,’ I say. It never hurts with Elizabeth to slather on a bit of praise. Besides, it is earned. It will not be easy for Elizabeth to resist the terrors that Cecil frightens her with. It will not be easy for her to be generous to a younger and more beautiful kinswoman. Elizabeth won her throne after a lifetime of plotting. She cannot help but fear an heir with a claim to the throne, and every reason to conspire. She knows what it is like to be the heir excluded from court. She knows that when she was the heir excluded from court she spun one plot after another, murderous rebellions that nearly succeeded in destroying her half-sister and bringing down the throne. She knows what a false friend she was to her sister – it will be impossible for her to trust her cousin who is, just as she was, a young princess impatient of waiting.