I can see that Herbert Gracie is a little taken aback to find Bess in her lair, surrounded with books written up in copperplate and with two clerks head down and scribbling to her dictation. So I take the moment of his discomfort to step towards her, take her hand and kiss her, and so whisper in her ear: ‘Beware.’
She has not the quick understanding of the Scots queen. ‘Why, what’s the matter?’ she asks, out loud like a fool.
‘This is Herbert Gracie, he comes from Cecil.’
At once, she is all smiles. ‘You are welcome,’ she says. ‘And how is the Master Secretary?’
‘He is well,’ he says. ‘But he asked me to speak with you in private.’
She nods to the clerks who pick up their pens, ready to go. ‘Here?’ she asks, as if a countess should do business at a clerk’s office.
‘We’ll go to the gallery,’ I interrupt and so I get a chance to lead the way with Bess, and try to warn her again: ‘He is inquiring after a plot to free the queen. He says you are in it. With a man called Thomas Gerard.’ Her little gasp tells me everything. ‘Wife,’ I almost groan. ‘What have you done?’
She doesn’t answer me, she ignores me, though I am risking my own neck by whispering to her. She spins around to young Mr Gracie, standing on the stair below her, and puts out her hand to him, with her frank honest smile.
‘My husband tells me that Cecil knows of the Gerard plot,’ she says quickly. ‘Is this why you are here?’
I stifle my horror at this plain dealing. If only she would take advice from me, if only she would not act as she does, always so independently.
He takes her hand as if she were sealing a bargain with him, and nods, watching her intently. ‘Yes, it is about the Gerard plot.’
‘You must think me very foolish,’ she says. ‘I was trying to do the right thing.’
‘Indeed?’
‘I was going to tell my husband today, he knows nothing of this.’
A quick glance from Mr Gracie’s brown eyes to my horror-struck face confirms this well enough, and then he is back to Bess.
‘My servant, John Hall, came to tell me that someone had tried to bribe him to lead the Scots queen riding on to the moor where she would be met by her friends and taken away.’
Cecil’s man nods again. It strikes me that all this is old news to him, he knows all about it already; what he is listening for is to hear Bess lie. This is not an inquiry, this is an entrapment.
‘Tell the truth, wife,’ I warn her. ‘Don’t try to protect your servants. This is important.’
She turns her pale face to me. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I will tell Mr Gracie the whole truth, and he will tell my good friend Mr Cecil that I am honest and loyal as I ever was.’
‘What did you do, when your servant John Hall came to you?’ Mr Gracie asks her.
‘I asked him who else was in the plot, and he named a Mr Rolleston, and Sir Thomas Gerard, and said that there might be another, greater man behind it all.’
‘And what did you do?’
Bess looks at him with her frank smile. ‘Now, I daresay that you will think me a scheming woman; but I thought that if I sent John Hall back to the men with word that the plot could go ahead, he could discover the names of the plotters and if there was a greater man behind them. And then I could tell Master Cecil the whole plot, and not a small worthless strand of it.’
‘And has he reported back to you?’
‘I have not seen him today,’ she says and then she looks at him in sudden understanding. ‘Oh, have you taken him up?’
Gracie nods. ‘And his confederates.’
‘He came straight to me though they had bribed him,’ she says. ‘He is loyal. I would vouch for him.’
‘He will be questioned but not tortured,’ Gracie says. He is matter-of-fact, I note that torture is now a routine part of Cecil’s questioning, and it can be mentioned in front of a lady in an earl’s own house without remark. We have come to this: that a man can be taken without warrant, without a word from a justice of the peace, without the permission of his master, and he can be tortured on the say-so of Cecil. This is not how it was. This is not English justice. This is not how it should be.
‘And your intention was only to discover the full plot before you alerted your husband or Secretary Cecil?’ he confirms.
Bess widens her eyes. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘What else? And John Hall will tell you, those were my exact instructions to him. To lead them on and report to me.’
Herbert Gracie is satisfied, and Bess is plausible. ‘Then I must ask you to forgive my intrusion and I shall leave.’ He smiles at me. ‘I promised it would only be a moment.’
‘But you must eat!’ Bess presses him.
‘No, I must go. My lord expects me back at once. I was only to ascertain what you have kindly told me, take the relevant men into custody, and bring them back to London. I do thank you for your hospitality.’ He bows to Bess, he bows to me, he turns on his heel and he has gone. We hear his riding boots clatter away down the stone steps before we realise that we are safe. We never even got as far as the gallery, this interrogation all took place on the stairs. It started and was completed in a moment.
Bess and I look at each other as if a storm has blown through our garden destroying every blossom, and we don’t know what to say.
‘Well,’ she says with pretended ease. ‘That’s all right then.’
She turns to leave me, to go back to her business, as if nothing has happened, as if she was not meeting with plotters in my house, conspiring with my own servants, and surviving an interrogation from Cecil’s agents.
‘Bess!’ I call her. It comes out too loudly and too harshly.
She stops and turns to me at once. ‘My lord?’
‘Bess, tell me. Tell me the truth.’
Her face is as yielding as stone.
‘Is it how you said, or did you think that the plot might go ahead? Did you think that the queen might be tempted to consent to the escape, and you would have sent her out with these men into certain danger and perhaps death? Though you knew she has only to wait here to be restored to her throne and to happiness? Bess, did you think to entrap her and destroy her in these last days while she is in your power?’
She looks at me as if she does not love me at all, as if she never has done. ‘Now why would I seek her ruin?’ she asks coldly. ‘Why would I seek her death? What harm has she ever done me? How has she ever robbed me?’
‘Nothing, I swear, she has not harmed you, she has taken nothing from you.’
Bess gives a disbelieving laugh.
‘I am faithful to you!’ I exclaim.
Her eyes are like arrow slits in the stone wall of her face. ‘You and she, together, have ruined me,’ she says bitterly. ‘She has stolen my reputation as a good wife, everyone knows that you prefer her to me. Everyone thinks the less of me for not keeping your love. I am shamed by your folly. And you have stolen my money to spend on her. The two of you will be my ruin. She has taken your heart from me and she has made me see you with new, less loving eyes. When she came to us, I was a happy wealthy wife. Now I am a heartbroken pauper.’
‘You shall not blame her! I cannot let the blame fall on her. She is innocent of everything you say. She shall not be falsely accused by you. You shall not lay it at her door. It is not her doing …’
‘No,’ she says. ‘It is yours. It is all yours.’
1570, August, Wingfield Manor: Mary
My darling Norfolk, for we are still betrothed to marry, copies to me the playscript of the charade he must act. He has to make a complete submission to his cousin the queen, beg her pardon, assure her that he was entrapped into a betrothal with me under duress, and as a fault of his own vanity. The copy that he sends me of his submission, for my approval, is so weepingly guilty, such a bathetic confession of a man unmanned, that I write in the margin that I cannot believe even Elizabeth will swallow it. But, as so often, I misjudge her vanity. She so longs to hear that he ne
ver loved me, that he is hers, all hers, that they are all of them, all her men, all of them in love with her, all of them besotted with her poor old painted face, her bewigged head, her wrinkled body, she will believe almost anything – even this mummery.
His grovelling makes its own magic. She releases him, not to return to his great house in Norfolk, where they tell me that his tenants would rise up for him in a moment, but to his London palace. He writes to me that he loves this house, that he will improve and embellish it. He will build a new terrace and a tennis court, and I shall walk with him in the gardens when we pay our state visits as king consort and Queen of Scotland. I know he thinks also of when we will inherit England. He will improve this great house so that it will be our London palace, we will rule England from it.
He writes to me that Roberto Ridolfi is thankfully spared and is to be found in the best houses in London again, knowing everyone, arranging loans, speaking in whispers of my cause. Ridolfi must have nine lives, like a cat. He crosses borders and carries gold and services plots and always escapes scot free. He is a lucky man, and I like to have a lucky man in my service. He seems to have strolled through the recent troubles, though everyone else ended up in the Tower or exile. He went into hiding during the arrests of the Northern lords and now, protected by his importance as a banker and his friendship with half the nobles of England, he is at liberty once more. Norfolk writes to me that he cannot like the man, however clever and eager. He fears Ridolfi is boastful and promises more than he can achieve, and that he is the very last visitor my betrothed wants at Howard House, which is almost certainly watched day and night by Cecil’s men.
I reply that we have to use the instruments that come to hand. John Lesley is faithful but not a man of action, and Ridolfi is the one who will travel the courts of Europe seeking allies and drawing the plots together. He may not be likeable – personally, I have never even laid eyes on him – but he writes a persuasive letter and he has been tireless in my cause. He meets with all the greatest men of Christendom and goes from one to another and brings them into play.
Now, he brings a new plan from Philip of Spain. If these present negotiations to return me to my throne break down again, then there is to be an uprising by all of the English lords – not just those of the North. Ridolfi calculates that more than thirty peers are secret Papists – and who should know better than he who has the ear of the Pope? The Pope must have told him how many of Elizabeth’s court are secretly loyal to the old faith. Her situation is worse than I realised if more than thirty of her lords have secret priests hiding in their houses, and take Mass! Ridolfi says they only need the word to rise, and King Philip has promised to provide an army and the money to pay them. We could take England within days. This is ‘the Great Enterprise of England’ re-made afresh, and though my betrothed does not like the man, he cannot help but be tempted by the plan.
‘The Great Enterprise of England’, it makes me want to dance, just to hear it. What could be greater as an enterprise? What could be a more likely target than England? With the Pope and Philip of Spain, with the lords already on my side, we cannot fail. ‘The Great Enterprise’, ‘the Great Enterprise’, it has a ring to it which will peal down the centuries. In years to come men will know that it was this that set them free from the heresy of Lutheranism and the rule of a bastard usurper.
But we must move quickly. The same letter from Norfolk tells me the mortifying news that my family, my own family in France, have offered Elizabeth an alliance and a new suitor for her hand. They do not even insist on my release before her wedding. This is to betray me, I am betrayed by my own kin who should protect me. They have offered her Henri d’Anjou, which should be a joke, given that he is a malformed schoolboy and she an old lady; but for some reason, nobody is laughing and everyone is taking it seriously.
Her advisors are all so afraid of Elizabeth dying, and me inheriting, that they would rather marry her to a child and have her die in childbirth, old as she is, old enough to be a grandmother – as long as she leaves them with a Protestant son and heir.
I have to think that this is a cruel joke from my family on Elizabeth’s vanity and lust; but if they are sincere, and if she will go through with it, then they will have a French king on the throne of England, and I will be disinherited by their child. They will have left me in prison to rot and put a rival to me and mine on the English throne.
I am outraged, of course, but I recognise at once the thinking behind this strategy. This stinks of William Cecil. This will be Cecil’s plan: to split my family’s interests from mine, and to make Philip of Spain an enemy of England forever. It is a wicked way to carve up Christendom. Only a heretic like Cecil could have devised it; but only faithless kin like my own husband’s family are so wicked that they should fall in with him.
All of this makes me determined that I must be freed before Elizabeth’s misbegotten marriage goes ahead, or, if she does not free me, then Philip of Spain’s armada must sail before the betrothal and put me in my rightful place. Also, my own promised husband, Norfolk, must marry me and be crowned King of Scotland before his cousin Elizabeth, eager to clear the way for the French courtiers, throws him back in the Tower. Suddenly, we are all endangered by this new start of Elizabeth, by this new conspiracy of that arch plotter Cecil. Altogether, this summer, which seemed so languid and easy, is suddenly filled with threat and urgency.
1570, September, Chatsworth: Bess
A brief visit for the two of them to Wingfield – the cost of the carters alone would be more than her allowance if they ever paid it – and then they are ordered back to Chatsworth for a meeting which will seal her freedom. I let them go to Wingfield without me; perhaps I should attend on her, perhaps I should follow him about like a nervous dog frightened of being left behind; but I am sick to my soul at having to watch my husband with another woman, and worrying over what should be mine by right.
At Chatsworth at least I can be myself, with my sister and two of my daughters who are home for a visit. With them I am among people who love me, who laugh at silly familiar jokes, who like my pictures in the gallery, who admire my abbey silver. My daughters love me and hope to become women like me, they don’t despise me for not holding my fork in the French style. At Chatsworth I can walk around my garden and know that I own the land beneath my boots, and no-one can take it from me. I can look out of my bedroom window at my green horizon and feel myself rooted in the country like a common daisy in a meadow.
Our peace is short-lived. The queen is to return and my family will have to move out to accommodate her court and the guests from London. As always, her comfort and convenience must come first, and I have to send my own daughters away. William Cecil himself is coming on a visit with Sir Walter Mildmay, and the Queen of Scots’ ambassador, the Bishop of Ross.
If I had any credit with the merchants or any money in the treasure room I would be bursting with pride at the chance to entertain the greatest men of the court, and especially to show Cecil the work I have done on the house. But I have neither, and in order to provide the food for the banquets, the fine wines, the musicians and the entertainment I have to mortgage two hundred acres of land and sell some woodland. My steward comes to my business room and we look at each parcel of land, consider its value and if we can spare it. I feel as if I am robbing myself. I have never parted with land before but to make a profit. I feel as if every day the fortune that my dear husband Cavendish and I built up so carefully, with such determination, is squandered on the vanity of one queen who will not stop spending and will repay nothing, and the cruelty of another who now delights in punishing my husband for his disloyalty by letting his debts rise up like a mountain.
When William Cecil arrives with a great entourage, riding a fine horse, I am dressed in my best and at the front of the house to greet him, no shadow of anxiety on my face or in my bearing. But as I show him around and he compliments me on everything I have done to the house, I tell him frankly that I have had to cease all t
he work, lay off the tradesmen, dismiss the artists, and indeed I have been forced to sell and mortgage land, to pay for the cost of the queen.
‘I know it,’ he says. ‘Bess, I promise you, I have been your honest advocate at court. I have spoken to Her Grace as often and as boldly as I dare for you. But she will not pay. All of us, all her servants, are impoverished in her service. Walsingham has to pay his spies with his own coin and she never repays him.’
‘But this is a fortune,’ I say. ‘It is not a matter of some bribes for traitors and wages for spies. This is the full cost of running a royal court. Only a country paying taxes and tithes could afford her. If my lord were a lesser man she would have ruined him already. As it is he cannot meet his other debts. He does not even realise how grave is his situation. I have had to mortgage farms to cover his debts, I have had to sell land and enclose common fields, soon he will have to sell his own land, perhaps even one of his family houses. We will lose his family home for this.’
Cecil nods. ‘Her Grace resents the cost of housing the Scots queen,’ he says. ‘Especially when we decode a letter and find that she has received a huge purse of Spanish gold, or that her family have paid her widow’s allowance and she has paid it out to her own secret people. It is Queen Mary who should be paying you for her keep. She is living scot free on us while our enemies send her money.’
‘You know she never will pay me,’ I protest bitterly. ‘She pleads poverty to my lord; and to me she swears she will never pay for her own prison.’
Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Page 132
