Ross – greetings to you and to the Northern lords and their army. Bid them hurry to me. Elizabeth has sent her dogs and they will take me from here if they can. Tell Norfolk I am in terrible danger. M
1569, October, Tutbury Castle: Bess
They can have her. They can take her and damn well have her. She has brought us nothing but trouble. Even if they take her now the queen will never pay us what she owes. To Wingfield and back, with a court of sixty people, perhaps forty more coming in for their meals. Her horses, her pet birds, her carpets and furniture, her gowns, her new lute player, her tapissier; I have kept her household better than I have kept my own. Dinner every night with thirty-two courses served, her own cooks, her own kitchens, her own cellar. White wine, of the best vintage, just to wash her face. She has to have her own taster in case someone wants to poison her. God knows, I would do it myself. Two hundred pounds a week she costs us against an allowance of fifty-two; but even that is never paid. Now it will never be paid. We will be thousands of pounds the poorer when this is finished and they will take her away but not pay for her.
Well, they can have her; and I shall manage the debt. I shall write it at the bottom of the page as if it were the lost account of a dead debtor. Better to be rid of her and us half-bankrupt, than she stays here and ruins me and mine. Better that I account of her as dead and there is no reckoning.
‘Bess.’ George is in the doorway of my accounting room, he is leaning against the door, his hand to his heart. He is white-faced and shaking.
‘What is it?’ I rise at once from the table, put down my pen, and take his hands. His fingers are icy. ‘What is it, my love? Tell me. Are you ill?’ Three husbands I have lost to sudden death. This, my greatest husband, the earl, is white as a corpse. At once I forget I have ever thought badly of him, at once dread of losing him clutches me like a pain of my own. ‘Are you ill? Do you have a pain? My love, what is it? What’s the matter?’
‘The queen has sent Hastings and Devereux to take her away,’ he says. ‘Bess, I cannot let her go with them. I cannot send her. It is to send her to her death.’
‘Hastings would not …’ I start.
‘You know he would,’ he interrupts me. ‘You know that is why the queen has chosen him. Hastings is the Protestant heir. He will put her in the Tower, or in his own house, and she will never come out. They will announce that she is in frail health, and then that she is worse, and then that she is dead.’
The bleakness in his voice is terrible to me.
‘Or they will kill her on the journey and say she fell from her horse,’ he predicts. His face is wet with sweat, his mouth twisted with pain.
‘But if the queen commands it?’
‘I cannot let her go out to her death.’
‘If it is the queen’s order …’
‘I cannot let her go.’
I take a breath. ‘Why not?’ I ask. I dare him to tell me. ‘Why can you not let her go?’
He turns away from me. ‘She is my guest,’ he mutters. ‘A matter of honour …’
I turn a hard face to him. ‘You learn to let her go,’ I say harshly. ‘Honour has nothing to do with it. You command yourself to let her go, even to her death. Bring yourself to it. We cannot stop them taking her, and if we protest we only look worse. They think you are disloyal already, if you try to save her from Hastings they will be certain that she has turned you to her side. They will know you for a traitor.’
‘This is to send her to her death!’ he repeats, his voice breaking. ‘Bess! You have been her friend, you have spent day after day with her. You cannot be so heartless as to hand her over to her murderer!’
I glance back to my desk to the figures in my book. I know to a penny what she has cost us so far. If we defend her against the queen we will lose everything. If the queen thinks we are overly fond of this other queen she will destroy us. If she charges us with treason we will lose our lands and every single thing we own. If we are found guilty of treason it is a hanging offence; we will both die for my husband’s tender heart. I cannot risk it. ‘Who cares?’
‘What?’
‘I said, who cares? Who cares if they take her and behead her in a field, and leave her body in a ditch? Who cares about her?’
There is a terrible silence in the room. My husband looks at me as if I am a monster. The Fool and the Monster face each other and I wonder at what we have become. Twenty-one months ago we were a newly married man and wife, well-pleased with the contract we had made, enjoying each other, the joint heads of one of the greatest families in the kingdom. Now we are ruined in our hearts and our fortunes. We have ruined ourselves.
‘I’ll go and tell her to pack,’ I say harshly. ‘We can do nothing else.’
Still he won’t leave it. He catches my hand. ‘You cannot let her go with Hastings,’ he says. ‘Bess, she is our guest, she has sewed with you and eaten with us and hunted with me. She is innocent of any wrongdoing, you know that. She is our friend. We cannot betray her. If she rides out with him, I am certain that she will never get to his house alive.’
I think of my Chatsworth, and my fortune, and that steadies me. ‘God’s will be done,’ I say. ‘And the queen has to be obeyed.’
‘Bess! Have pity on her as a young woman! Have pity on her as a beautiful friendless young woman.’
‘God’s will be done,’ I repeat, holding tight to the thought of my new front door and the portico with the plasterwork flowers, and the marble entrance hall; thinking of the new stable block that I want to live to build. I think of my children, well-married, and well-placed at court in good positions already, of the dynasties I will found, of the grandchildren I will have and the marriages I will make for them. I think of how far I have come and how far I hope to go. I would go to hell itself, rather than lose my house. ‘Long live the queen.’
1569, October, Tutbury Castle: Mary
The countess comes into my rooms, her face as kindly as flint. ‘Your Grace, you are going on a journey again. You will be glad to be away from here, I know.’
‘Going where?’ I ask. I can hear the fear in my voice, she will hear it too.
‘Ashby-de-la-Zouche, Leicestershire,’ she says shortly. ‘With the Earl of Huntingdon.’
‘I prefer to stay here, I will stay here.’
‘It must be as the queen commands.’
‘Bess …’
‘Your Grace, I can do nothing. I cannot deny my sovereign’s commands for you. You should not ask it of me. Nobody should ask it of me.’
‘What will Huntingdon do with me?’
‘Why, he will house you better than we can do here,’ she says reassuringly, as if she is telling a fairy story to a child.
‘Bess, write to Cecil for me, ask him if I can stay here. I ask you – no, I command you – to write to him.’
She keeps the smile on her face but it is strained. ‘Now, you don’t even like it here! You must have complained of the smell from the midden a dozen times. And the damp! Leicestershire will suit you far better. It is wonderful hunting country. Perhaps the queen will invite you to court.’
‘Bess, I am afraid of Henry Hastings. He can wish me nothing but harm. Let me stay with you. I demand it. I command you. Write to Cecil and tell him I demand to stay with Lord Shrewsbury.’
But the way I say her husband’s name, ‘Chowsbewwy’, suddenly triggers her rage.
‘You have spent half my husband’s fortune, my own fortune,’ she spits out. ‘The fortune I brought to him on my marriage. You have cost him his reputation with his queen; she doubts our loyalty because of you. She has ordered him to London for questioning. What do you think they will do to him? They think we favour you.’ She pauses, and I see the evil flash of her jealousy, the envy of an older woman for my youth, for my looks. I had not thought that she felt this. I had not known that she saw how her husband is with me. ‘They think that my husband favours you. It will not be hard to find witnesses to say that he favours you. Exceptionally.’
&n
bsp; ‘Alors, Bess, you know very well …’
‘No, I don’t know,’ she says icily. ‘I don’t know anything about his feelings for you, or yours for him, or your so-called magic, your so-called charm, your famous beauty. I don’t know why he cannot say “no” to you, why he squanders his wealth on you, even my own fortune on you. I don’t know why he has risked everything to try to set you free. Why he has not guarded you more closely, kept you to your rooms, cut down your court. But he cannot do it any more. You will have to resign yourself. You can try your charms on the Earl of Huntingdon and see how they work on him.’
‘Huntingdon is Queen Elizabeth’s man,’ I say desperately. ‘You know this. He is her kin. He courted her for marriage. He is the next heir to her throne after me and my boy. Do you think I can charm him?’
‘God knows, you are welcome to try,’ she says sourly, curtseys and walks backwards to the door.
‘Or what?’ I ask as she goes. ‘Or what? What will become of me in his keeping? You are sending me to my death and you know it. Bess! Bess!’
1569, November, Tutbury Castle: George
I cannot sleep. I cannot eat either as it happens. I cannot sit quietly in my chair nor take any pleasure in riding out. I have bought four days of safety for her by arguing that they have not a strong-enough guard, that with the Northern army on the march – who knows where? – they dare not ride out with her. They could take her straight into an ambush. No-one knows how many men have joined the Northern lords. No-one knows where they are now. Hastings, grumbling, has sent for more of his men.
‘Why bother?’ Bess asks me, her brown eyes cold. ‘Since she has to go anyway? Why see that Hastings has a strong guard? I should have thought you would have wanted her to be rescued.’
I want to tell her: ‘Because I would say anything to keep her under the same roof as me for another day.’ But that would make no sense at all. So I remark, ‘The news from all around is that Westmorland and Northumberland are on the move and their army is more than two thousand strong. I don’t want to send them out into trouble. It does us no good at all if they go from here into an ambush.’
Bess nods, but she does not look convinced. ‘We don’t want her trapped here,’ she says. ‘The army will swarm to her like wasps to a jam pot. Better she goes than they set siege to us here. Better that she goes sooner rather than later. We don’t want her here. We don’t want her army coming here for her.’
I nod. The newly wed husband and wife that we were only months ago did not want her here, interrupting our happiness. But us? Now we are divided in our wishes. Bess thinks only of how to get herself and her fortune safe through this dangerous time. And for some reason, I cannot think at all. I cannot plan at all. I think I must have a touch of the gout that I had before. I have never felt so light-headed and so weary and so sick. I seem to spend hours looking out of the window across the courtyard to where her shutters are closed. I must be ill. I can think of nothing but that I have only four days left with her under my roof, and I can’t even devise a reason to go across the courtyard and speak to her. Four days and I may spend them like a dog sitting outside a shut door, not knowing how to get in. I am howling inside my head.
1569, November, Tutbury Castle: Bess
It is dawn when I hear the hammering on the great house gate. I am awake at once, certain that it is the Northern army come for her. George does not move, he lies like a stone, though I know he is wide awake; he never seems to sleep these days. He lies and listens with his eyes shut, he will not talk to me nor give me any chance to talk to him. Even now, with the hammering at the door, he does not move – he is a man who has had someone else to open his door for all his life. I get crossly out of bed, pull a robe around my nakedness, tie the strings, and run to the door and down the stairs to where the gatekeeper is swinging open the gate and a mud-stained rider clatters into the courtyard, his face white in the dawn light. Thank God it is a messenger from London and not a force from the North. Thank God they have not come for her and no-one here to face them but me in my nightgown and my husband left abed, lying like a gravestone.
‘Name?’ I demand.
‘From Cecil.’
‘What is it?’
‘War,’ he says shortly. ‘Finally it is war. The North is up, the Lords Westmorland and Northumberland have declared against the queen, their men out, their banners unfurled. They are riding under the banner of the five wounds of Christ, every Papist in the country is flocking to join them. They have sworn to restore the true religion, to pay proper rates to working men, and –’ he nods to the royal lodgings ‘– free her and put her back on her throne.’
I clutch the robe to my throat; the chill air is as icy as dread. The mist coming off the water meadows is as wet as rain. ‘They are coming here? You are sure?’
‘For certainty. Here. Your orders,’ he says, digging into his satchel and thrusting a crumpled letter at me. With a breath of relief, as if paper alone can save me, I recognise Cecil’s writing.
‘How far are they? How strong the army?’ I demand, as he swings down from the saddle.
‘I didn’t see them, thank God, on my way here; but who knows?’ he says tersely. ‘Some say they will take York first, others Durham. They could take York and restore the kingdom of the North. It will be the great wars all over again, but worse. Two queens, two faiths on crusade, two armies, and a fight to the death. If the Spanish land their army for her, which they can do within days from the Spanish Netherlands, it will be all over, and we will be dead.’
‘Get what you want from the kitchen, but say nothing to them,’ I tell him and go back to my bedroom at a run. George is sitting up in bed, his face grim.
‘Wife?’ he asks.
‘Read this,’ I say, thrusting it at him and climbing on the bed.
He takes the letter and breaks the seal. ‘What’s happening?’
‘The messenger says that the lords of the North have their army and are on the march,’ I say briefly. ‘They have declared war. They are coming here for her.’
He shoots a quick look at me and spreads the letter. ‘This is from Cecil. He says we are to get away south immediately. We have to take her to the castle at Coventry at once for safe-keeping. He will command us from there. We have to get south before they rescue her. We must go at once.’ He jumps from the bed. ‘Sound the alarm,’ he says. ‘I shall have to rouse the guard and take her at once. And you go to her and tell her she has to make ready to leave at once.’
I pause at the doorway, struck by a bitter thought. ‘I wager she knows all about it,’ I say suddenly. ‘They will have told her when they visited. When you let her talk with them in private. She will be in their confidence. She will have had secret letters. She has probably been waiting for them all this last week.’
‘Just get her ready to leave.’
‘What if she won’t go?’
‘Then I will have to tie her to her horse,’ he says. ‘An army of fifty could take this place in an hour. And half of our servants would free her for love, and open the gates for her. If they set a siege we are lost.’
I am so glad to hear of his planned brutality to her that I am halfway out of the door before the thought strikes me. ‘But wait, my lord. Wait! What if they win?’
He checks in his rapid dressing, the laces for his riding trousers in his hands. ‘If they win?’
‘What if the army of the North takes and holds the North? What if Westmorland and Northumberland are victorious and march on London? What if the Spanish arrive to support them? What if Howard brings in the east of the country and the Cornish get up for the old religion, the Welsh too? What if they defeat Elizabeth, and we are imprisoning the future queen? What if you are tying the next Queen of England to her horse? Then we are traitors and will die in the Tower.’
My husband shakes his head, baffled. ‘I serve the queen,’ he says flatly. ‘I have given my word as a Talbot. I have to do as my king commands. I don’t serve the side that I guess might win.
I serve the king. Whatever it costs me. If Mary Queen of Scots is victorious and becomes Mary Queen of England, then I will serve her. But till then, I serve the crowned queen, Elizabeth.’
He understands nothing but loyalty and honour. ‘Yes, yes, once she is crowned queen you change sides and then it is the honourable thing to do. But how will we and our children and our fortunes be secure? Now? In these dangerous days? While everything hangs in the balance? When we cannot tell which queen will be crowned in London?’
He shakes his head. ‘There is no safety,’ he says. ‘There is no safety for anyone in England now. I just have to follow the crown.’
I go then, and order them to wake the castle and turn out the guard. The great bell starts tolling like a heart booming with fear. I send them running to the kitchen to get all the stores loaded on wagons, I shout for my steward of the household to pack the most valuable goods as we will have to take them with us, and then I go to her quarters, to the other queen’s rooms, shaking with anger that she should bring such dire trouble upon us this day, and so much more trouble to come in the days that will follow.
And as I run I open the little piece of paper that came for me, scribbled with my name, in the package from London. It is from Cecil.
If you are in danger of being captured by the army of the North, she must be killed. Hastings will do it, or if he is dead you must command your husband in the queen’s name. Or anyone whose loyalty you trust, whose silence you can guarantee. If there is no-one left alive but you women, you will have to do it yourself. Carry a knife. Burn this.
1569, November, Tutbury Castle: Mary
At last! I think, Good God! At last! as I hear the bell tolling, and know at once that the war has started. At last they have come for me, and only a day to spare before I would have been kidnapped by that brute Hastings. I wake and dress, as fast as I can, my hands trembling with laces, and start to pack the things I must take with me, burning the letters from my ambassador, from my betrothed, from the Spanish ambassador, from his agent Ridolfi, from Bothwell. I wait for the countess or for Shrewsbury to come and beg me to hurry, hurry to run away from this castle that they cannot defend. I shall travel with them. I shall obey their orders. I dare not defy them and risk Hastings snatching me from them. My only safety is to stay with Shrewsbury until my army catches us.
Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Page 120
