by G Lawrence
“So I am the means of his death.”
Cecil did not answer, but I knew it was true. I sent Mary’s physician, Doctor Smith, to Gresham House. I wanted her doctor present so if she collapsed or became ill, he could tend to her.
My Grey cousin, understandably, did not take the news well. She wept piteously, but the next day sent a letter to Cecil, asking permission to raise Keys’ orphaned children. She also wanted to wear mourning, but Gresham, unsure if this was permitted since I had never recognised her marriage, told her to wait.
“I will consider her requests,” I said. “But to allow her to wear mourning will make it seem she was his wife.”
“Does it matter now, Majesty?” Cecil asked. “The man is dead, and the chief means of her displeasing you is gone.”
“The husband is gone, God rest his soul, but the means of her displeasing me was in disobeying me.”
Mary became increasingly angry and sent a letter to Cecil, saying that she wished for nothing but my pardon and forgiveness. It was defiantly signed Mary Keys. She resented me. Her anger made trouble for her gaoler as well, and they embarked on several flaming rows. Gresham begged the Council to replace him. I sent word I would do my best, and ordered him to take Mary to Osterley, one of his country properties, so she might know peace amongst the wilds of England.
Trouble came, too, for Margaret Lennox. We had news that her husband had been assassinated. Lennox had been shot in the back during a skirmish with those who supported Mary of Scots. His last thoughts were of his grandson, King James. “As long as the babe is well, all is well,” he said.
The position of Scotland’s Regent clearly came with a death sentence.
Margaret was distraught. She had lost one son to Scotland’s roaming politics, and now a beloved husband. And she had loved Lennox, there was no question of that. She retired to her house in Hackney and lived quietly. Her efforts went into raising her sole remaining son, Charles, who was granted the title of Earl of Lennox, although this was later repealed when someone pointed out it should belong to King James himself, since he was the son of Lennox’s elder heir, Darnley. I upheld Charles’s title, and in England he was known as the Earl of Lennox.
Margaret came but little to court. All thought to claim my throne had gone, but I kept a wary eye on her, knowing ambition might one day come back in the guise of her son.
The last sadness fell upon one of my kin by marriage, Helena Snakenborg. In September, Parr had fallen ill with gout, and Helena had nursed him. In October he died.
My sweet Helena was crushed. They had been married but a few short months after waiting for each other for years, and now her husband was gone. Parr left her a rich woman, and had taken every care to ensure she was provided for. She could have retired to the country and lived a life of ease, but she said she would rather remain at court.
“You are my only comfort, Majesty,” she told me, her rich voice subdued. “My lord is gone, and with him my heart. But if I could remain with you, that would be some comfort.”
Helena’s brightness was stained by grief. Her eyes were hollow, skeletal, as though she wished to follow Parr to the grave.
“You will have whatever comfort I can grant,” I told her, taking her in my arms. “I know not what I can do, Helena, but if there is anything…”
“I will ask, Majesty,” she whispered into my gown.
As we prepared to lay Parr to rest, I found myself lost in thoughts of the past. I thought of his sister, her almond-shaped grey eyes which had rested upon me with the gentlest of love, and of the hard flint I had seen in them when she sent me from her house in disgrace. I thought of her letters, and mine, wherein we re-forged the love of a mother to her daughter, using distance as our ally.
“And now the same distance comes between me and your brother,” I whispered to Katherine Parr’s ghost. “And I am reminded of how I loved him, by thinking now of the space left between us.”
I paid for Parr’s funeral, and even provided cloth and clothing from the royal wardrobe for mourners. On the day of the funeral, as Helena watched the procession leave, I squeezed her hand.
“Whosoever adores God with delight will be received, and his prayer will ascend into the clouds. The prayer of one who humbles himself will pierce the clouds,” I quoted to her from Ecclesiasticus. “Parr was such a man, Helena. He is with God. Of that I have no doubt.”
That night, I stood at my window. “Another for you to keep safe, Kat,” I whispered to my pale reflection. “Another for you to guard, until the day I join you.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Windsor Castle
Autumn 1571
“I like it not, Cecil,” I said sadly. “Torture is no sure method of extracting truth.”
Cecil wanted permission to threaten Norfolk’s servants with the rack. Technically, torture was illegal in England, but the reigning monarch could permit it in certain, dire cases. Cecil did not have the evidence he required to move against Mary, but there were ways to obtain it.
“The mere threat may be enough, madam,” he said.
“But if I grant permission, it will be used. There are men who delight in pain.”
I looked out onto my gardens. October had dawned crimson and ochre. Golden leaves blazed, bright as the sun. Geese and ducks were hiding under the shade of trees, and a kitchen maid was singing an old song in the gardens. “Summer is a coming in, Summer is a coming in, sing good news, sing good news.” Her pretty voice swam through the heat-shimmering air, floating over late blooms basking under the sun. It was a stunning time. Perhaps that rendered our grisly discussion even uglier.
“You have my permission,” I said quietly.
“It requires your signature, my lady.”
There were few documents I signed with as much reluctance. As I put my elaborate signature to the creamy parchment I felt God watching me. He did not like what He saw.
I went to my writing desk that night. What came was a poem about Mary.
The doubt of future foes
Exiles my present joy
And wit me warns to shun such snares
As threatens mine annoy.
For falsehoods now doth flow
And subjects’ faith doth ebb,
Which should not be if reason ruled
Or wisdom weaved the webb.
But clouds of joy untried
Do cloak aspiring minds
Which turns to rage of late repent
By changed course of winds.
The top of hope supposed
The root of rue shall be
And fruitless all their grafted guile,
As shortly you shall see.
Their dazzled eyes with pride,
Whish great ambition blinds,
Shall be unseated by worthy wights
Whose foresight falsehood finds.
The daughter of debate
That hath aye discord sow
Shall reap no gain where former rule
Still peace hath taught to know.
No foreign banished wight
Shall anchor in this port:
Our realm brooks no seditious sects
Let them elsewhere resort.
My rusty sword through rest
Shall first his edge employ
To pull their tops who seek such change
Or gape for future joy.
Vivant Regina
*
A few days later, hearing of my order to allow torture, Norfolk confessed.
He admitted his part in the plot, but maintained he had never intended to do me harm. He also implicated others: Arundel had planned to steal Mary from her prison, and to my deep disappointment Sir Henry Percy, the new Earl of Northumberland, had set out a separate plot to depose me. The plot, it seemed, was wider and more complicated than we had imagined.
Norfolk tried to deny any dealings with Ridolfi, but could not explain how else he had come by the money to send to Mary’s supporters. Many at court sorrowed for Norfolk a
nd thought him completely in the thrall of Mary of Scots. They blamed her for his treason. Men, as you see, are blameless even when guilty. Women are accountable not only for their sins, but anyone else’s.
Norfolk wrote, pleading for mercy. I sighed to read his letter. It was full of hyperbole and exaggeration, and whilst that was not uncommon in letters between nobility, Norfolk took it so far I felt faintly nauseous. “O noble queen, it is in your gracious power to make of my wretched mould what it pleaseth you. My faith and religion reserved to my Saviour, my body being already Your Highness’ subject and prisoner by my desert, I dedicate my mind and heart to you forever...”
“If you could have realised all this before this moment, cousin,” I murmured, “we would not be in this mess.”
I set it on the table, feeling sorrowful. Norfolk’s letter touched me. He was desperate. How am I to show mercy, Norfolk? I thought. The man had sworn before he was my subject, yet had worked with Phillip and Mary. I had shown mercy over his foiled plot to marry the Queen of Scots, and he had failed me again. How many chances? I wondered. Was I a fool to offer even one?
Later that month, despite a desperate plea for diplomatic immunity, the Bishop of Ross joined Norfolk in the Tower. The mere threat of the rack was enough to unbind Ross’ tongue, and the Bishop told all. What he had to say was enough to incriminate Mary and Norfolk, and make the axe a genuine possibility for the plotting pair. Ross named Lord Stanley and Sir Henry Percy, amongst others, as loyal to Mary. Then, apparently in a fever of fear, Ross claimed Mary had poisoned her first husband, had been party to the murder of her second, and had married Bothwell in the hope he would die in battle.
Not many thought highly of Mary’s ambassador after that. He had all but condemned her to death.
Arrests were made. The Earls of Southampton and Arundel, along with Lord Cobham, Henry Percy and Lord Lumley were taken into custody. De Spes was put under house arrest again, with a well-armed guard marching outside his door.
“It is time to get Ridolfi out,” Cecil said one morning as we read over the reports.
I nodded. “He did his part. Although I remain unconvinced about him, I would prefer to keep him as an agent.”
Ridolfi was smuggled out of England late that night. He spent the rest of his life in Florence and Rome, sometimes sending information to Cecil. I raged about his ‘escape’ at court, so none would suspect.
Ridolfi escaped, with no one knowing what part he had truly played, and on which side.
I wonder, at times, if he knew himself.
*
My cousin was in utter disgrace, and was abandoned by her former, foreign allies. Charles of France declared Mary was a “poor fool,” who “would never cease until she loses her head,” and added if she did, it would be her fault.
It was impossible for Spain and France to maintain diplomatic links with her. She was incriminated so deep and far into treason that it seemed she would never escape with her life. Besides, in being unmasked, Mary had shown herself as utterly foolish. No one wants a dullard for an ally.
I was now at liberty to say honestly I had no thought of attempting to restore Mary. I had proof she had been plotting with my enemies, and although certain proof was lacking, there was enough from the confessions of Norfolk’s servants and the Bishop of Ross to condemn her in the minds of many.
I was not about to send my cousin to the block, but in revenge for her plotting, I formally recognised James as King of Scotland, and allowed the casket letters, along with Moray’s version of Darnley’s death to be published. Mary needed a lesson in humility.
Mary was horrified, knowing what damage this would do to her reputation, but I stood firm. My reasons for publishing were not solely spiteful. I needed Mary vilified in the eyes of my people.
It worked.
The casket letters and Moray’s account defamed Mary. Her former supporters shied from associating with a known murderess, adulteress and conspirator. There were still a few who supported her, thinking she, a Catholic, no matter how fallen, was preferable to me, the heretic Queen… but their numbers tumbled after the letters were published, as was intended.
Abuse my trust and I will retaliate, my mind said to Mary.
Mary howled in her comfortable prison, but there was nothing she could do. If she had had any idea how many wanted her executed, she might have remained quiet, hoping, as the mouse does when he sees the shadow of a hawk, that Death might pass on by.
Mary wrote to me. I did not answer. I was bitterly disappointed in her. There had been a time I had thought of her as my equal, a time I had hoped she might become my heir. Those days of hope were dead. I had dealt with her as honourably as I could under the circumstances and she had repaid me by plotting my death.
I had faced Death many times. But just because I was accustomed to His visage did not mean I welcomed the sight.
And now Death had turned His attention from me, to Mary. I had to decide her fate.
I found myself silent and introspective. I was the only one to become so. The rest of court was on fire, recounting tales of plots and plotters, of the means of their discovery and what would happen now. Only I was silent. I walked the halls with my women, spent time in my gardens. I thought about the past, and tried not to think about the near future.
Mary was placed under harder confinement. She was not allowed to ride or hunt, and had few servants left. Books were taken from her, and Bess did not sit with her as often as she had. Mary was aggrieved.
Another letter from her broke my silence. It bordered on rude, something unheard of in the usually gushing letters stuffed with platitudes exchanged between nobles. I dispatched a fiery response, telling her she ought to be grateful she had not been handled worse, and let slip many hints about what might happen to her.
But could I do it? I knew not.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Greenwich Palace
Autumn 1571
The plot made it clear to everyone, besides me, that I must marry. England was not safe, but would be as soon as I had a husband.
Quite why some foreign prince, pampered and spoilt his whole life, would have been more capable than me during this testing time, I knew not. We had succeeded, had we not? The plot was unmasked, laid bare, and the plotters were all in danger of losing their lives. What more could have been done, I knew not, but I have found people are not subject to reason and logic. We are creatures of emotion and feeling, all else that is claimed of us is but a feint to make it appear as though we are better, less animalistic beings than we truly are.
I did need men, but not a husband. I needed Cecil, Robin, Walsingham, Sussex, Hatton and my other loyal knights. I needed friends, not masters, companions, not consorts.
A king would have been able to marry and not surrender his power, but not me, not a woman. Should I have moulded myself to the clay my cousin of Scots was formed from, and married time and time again to men who professed love, only to offer misery, heartbreak, abuse and danger once the ring was safe, stuck upon my finger? No… that was not my fate.
Nevertheless, I sent word to France that I was willing to bend on some of my demands. Happily, it was far too late. Monsieur, now hearing three Masses a day in Paris, was refusing to marry the old heretic of England.
Walsingham wrote that Anjou would not be persuaded, and the league with France and the Low Countries should be sought instead. Anjou had apparently set his sights on a crown of his own, and had been put forth as a candidate for the throne of Poland, whose King was dying and had no heirs. Anjou was deeply enamoured of his mistress, Mademoiselle de Chateauneuf, and there was talk of him marrying a Polish princess, so perhaps he had enough women in his life. Walsingham warned that I might be rejected and it would be better to call off negotiations, or risk harming my pride and that of England.
I had no wish to be humiliated, and agreed to pursue the league instead. Given that Spain had offered some support to Mary, even if they had failed to deliver the final force that migh
t have stolen my throne, it was about time they learned to cease to meddle in my affairs.
*
In mid-October we had word that a battle had been fought between the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire. The Holy League was a coalition of Catholic states, funded mainly by the Venetian Empire and the Spanish. In the Gulf of Patras, their fleets had met the Ottomans and inflicted serious damage upon them. The League credited their triumph to the Virgin Mary, and said her intercession had come about from their prayers. Involving nearly four hundred warships, it was one of the largest sea battles ever fought and effectively blocked the Ottomans from advancing into the Mediterranean.
“I think the Ottomans have not suffered such a defeat since the dawn of their Empire,” Robin said.
“They have not lost a battle at sea for more than one hundred years,” I said. “I wonder if they will flee, or regroup.”
