by Jeane Westin
Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start,
But only Stella’s eyes and Stella’s heart.”
—Astrophel and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney
October
ON THE ROAD TO FOTHERINGHAY CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
As the carriage bumped through the rolling countryside, the window curtains pulled aside so that Frances could catch the unseasonably warm sun, she stared out of her window to where the Earl of Essex was riding beside her on his great black mount. He was lean and tan, very much the soldier, returning from the battles in Holland with dispatches from the Earl of Leicester for the queen. He had brought Frances private word that Philip insisted he was recovering, and desired she not come to him. Bravely, he had lost much blood, having demanded that others be removed from the field first. Now he was mending and would soon return to her.
Why Essex thought he needed to accompany her to the Scots queen’s trial, she could only guess. He had no part in Mary’s trial, except, as he insisted, as an Englishman who longed for justice and for his sovereign’s safety, and this particular Englishman’s need to be at the center of the main events of his day. Her father had not refused him.
Despite Philip’s desire to recover alone, Frances’s father was determined that she soon leave for Holland. There was too much speculation in the palace; even the queen had suggested she should tend to her marriage.
Yet before Frances could leave for Holland, her father had insisted that she accompany him on his trip north to witness Queen Mary’s trial…the fruit of her intelligencer labor. She knew that in her father’s mind he was not cruel, but acting as any stern parent with an unruly child. He would never expose her, but in one way or another he would make certain that his family name was protected from any further strange behavior by a disobedient daughter.
Frances leaned from the carriage to smell the autumn air made of cottage smoke and falling leaves, to watch farm animals grazing midst rolling green pastures, and goldfinches darting to and from their nests, now empty of chicks.
In the carriage, Walsingham sat across from Frances, next to Robert Pauley.
“Master Pauley, I had news from the last rider from London that Archibald Douglas, the king of Scotland’s ambassador, sends word that King James in no way minds that rigor be used against his mother.”
Satisfaction lit her father’s face, and Frances knew that her own son’s disavowal was another nail in Mary’s coffin.
“Daughter, I know it was not your wish to attend upon this trial, but since it was your wish to be an intelligencer, I believe you should see the results of your great efforts.”
They were oft-repeated words, as if he thought she needed to hear them again and again.
Robert looked a warning to her, but her father felt he must win this battle with his obstinate daughter. And perhaps he had the right of it. This was the natural end of her part in the greatest intelligencer work of the age.
She was aware that Essex spent much time staring at her from atop his mount. Could the earl have any thought of keeping his eye on Robert? And on her? He was clever, if not of great intellect, but he seemed to sense something, as a hound on the trail of prey.
While Frances waited outside the great hall at Fotheringhay, she thought of Philip, wounded and alone, being attended by strange doctors. Why had he not called her to tend him? Even with a wound, he preferred to be nursed by his memories and not by his wife. Even more, she felt in the wrong for being secretly glad that she could stay near Robert for their last too few hours. Sitting across from him in the carriage all that way from London while not daring to meet his gaze had been a torture.
She longed to see Robert Pauley now, to hear his voice, to know that he was still her love no matter what the future held for them.
She took a deep, shuddering breath when she thought of the next days. Not only did Mary Stuart face an ending, but so did Frances and Robert. That she could not give all her loving thought to Philip made her head ache. She was now as poor a wife as he a husband. At least she had a letter from Lord Leicester via her father’s diplomatic pouch assuring her that Philip had the best doctors in all Holland and would soon be ahorse and back to England. But the Earl of Leicester was known to paint roses on every calamity, and much of her anxiety remained.
Their carriage had crossed the moat and passed through the ancient gates with the sky darkening and rain clouds hanging across the half-moon. They rattled into the lower bailey at Fotheringhay, where Frances was quickly taken up the ancient high motte to the castle and now stood in the corridor outside the great hall. Meanwhile, her father conferred with the multitude of lawyers that he and Lord Burghley had gathered. There was great grumbling, because the Scots queen refused to attend her own trial, insisting she was a Scots sovereign and not subject to an English court. But Walsingham and Baron Burghley were intent upon her facing and answering publicly to the charges of treason against Queen Elizabeth. Without such a trial they would always be open to accusations of having falsely accused Mary.
Robert came from the hall and stood beside Frances.
She acknowledged his presence as any mistress to an attendant, speaking low, as if delivering her wishes of the day. “There is a madness here, Robert.”
“This day I am among the mad, my lady, for you have bewitched me. Or should I not speak to you thus?” he said with a half smile and bow.
“Why would you not?”
“Your husband lies wounded in another country, a hero to all England.”
“Yes,” she said, “think you that I do not know and worry for his recovery?”
“Frances, I know not what to think of you, of him, of…myself.”
“Think you this: I love you and will always. I have not changed.”
“But you feel guilty about us.”
“Never that. Remorse, perhaps, that I could not love Philip though he loved not me, but never guilt for loving you, never guilt for knowing that which I will cherish forever.”
As streams of lawyers, scriveners, and lords passed them going and coming, Robert studied his hands, his lips scarce moving. “There will be no time to meet or talk together at Fotheringhay, my sweet.”
She had to keep her face straight, indeed sad, since many had heard of her husband’s wound. She was in truth full of sorrow for Philip, who had proven himself brave and not merely the impoverished poet of love sonnets, but this proof had come at the high cost of a leg wound. Still…
“We must meet to say farewell,” she said, the words torn from her reluctant heart. “Our time together is near its end. Ro-bert.” She said his name haltingly, as if it were loath to leave her lips. “I know my father plans to send me to Barn Elms on our return, and Philip will be home as soon as he is healed.”
Robert stared ahead out the oriel windows that opened the corridor to what light there was on this rainy day. “Perhaps all will be as you say.”
“What other way could it be?”
“I cannot read our stars to foretell the future,” Robert murmured, “but I will never feel parted from you as long as I breathe life, no matter how true our parting. You are a branch of me, Frances…forever.”
“A branch of you,” she murmured. Her eyes did not match her hesitant smile. “As the ones we had for shade on the road to Chartley?”
“Yea, those very ones.”
Her father came then to escort her to her single chamber, Robert bowing and following a few steps behind them.
The spymaster was in a fury. “That devilish woman refuses to admit Queen Elizabeth’s authority, even to confess she has ever heard of Babington, whose head now sits impaled with the other traitors’ high over London Bridge.”
Robert followed, with a lighter heart remembering that he had helped the priest Henry Garnet to escape Babington’s and Ballard’s fate and take ship for France at Dover.
Walsingham marched ahead, his face tight. “Mary even insists she will not submit to the laws of England; nor will she answer any question
unless she stands before Parliament.”
Frances bent her head, thinking of the handsome young face of the oh, so foolish Sir Anthony, and how those fine features were now food for crows. “Father,” she told him, her hand on his, since he needed calming, “you have done your work well. The Scots queen does not know what proofs are arrayed against her.”
He lifted his head and came near to a smile. “Aye, daughter, thanks to my good Phelippes,” he said, unable to grant her any credit as he closed her door, leaving her alone to light a candle, disrobe, and find her bed. She was happy that she had had no part in the forged evidence against Mary. Yet, as an intelligencer, Frances could not blame Phelippes for adding the lines that would condemn her. Nor could she blame Elizabeth for demanding the word assassinate before she could bring herself to denounce Mary Stuart. Elizabeth knew she would face the wrath and armies of all the Catholic kings of Europe and the pope, who had put a huge price on her head.
Frances’s breathing echoed in the chamber, and she missed Meg, who was, no doubt, having a merry time with Will, now that her mistress was gone again. At last, Frances slept, wondering whether the Scots Mary might use her well-known charms to thwart her accusers, though they would not move Walsingham or Lord Burghley. Perhaps, when one was facing the executioner’s sword, imprisonment became a sweeter fate.
The sun rose soon enough, and Frances dressed to go to the dining hall, able to dispense with the hot, itchy wig now that she was away from court, and coil her dark, now longer hair under her hood. The dining hall, though not near as large as the one at Whitehall, was full of lawyers breaking their fast. The scent of never-washed lawyers’ gowns o’erwhelmed the food, though the smell was no worse than that of the overperfumed courtiers at Whitehall. A servant showed Frances to a small table where the Earl of Essex sat in lone blue velvet splendor, smiling up at her with his bright blue eyes. He rose and bowed while the servant pulled the bench aside so that she could sit.
“You slept well, I trust,” Essex said politely.
“Very well, thank you, my lord.”
“Your father tells me you are soon for Barn Elms.”
When had Essex talked about her in such a way, and why? “That is his wish.”
“Though not yours?”
“No, not mine.”
“Perhaps, my lady, one day you could be at court for much of your year.”
“I do not envision that happening, my lord.”
He smiled as if he were the master of all secrets. “None of us can know the future, Lady Frances.”
Bantering with the man, whose purpose she could not guess, near took her appetite.
“I thought to see my father here.”
“Alas, no, Lady Frances. The Scots queen has agreed to appear after reading a letter your father brought from Her Majesty, in which the queen demands that Mary answer all questions as if it were to Elizabeth herself.” He smiled on one side of his mouth. “I suspect that the Scots queen believes that she should not anger her cousin if she hopes for pardon, which she most certainly does.”
Frances nodded, thinking he had the right of it. She sipped at the ale put before her. Why was she in conversation with a man who seemed to know more than she did? He could have no knowledge of her intelligencer work. She smiled at him. Ah, he meant to show how close he was to the center of things, although he was not. To this earl, what he thought was undeniable truth. He could allow for no other notion. Essex spoke on, perhaps had been speaking while she had not been listening. “I have heard—and I am truly sorry to report it—from my stepfather, Leicester…” He spoke tentatively, swallowed, and began again. “The Earl of Leicester tells me Sir Philip is not recovering as quickly as the doctors desire.”
She gripped the table. “What is the delay?” She could not keep the worry from her face. “It matters not what the delay. I will go to him as soon as I can take ship.”
“First you must eat, my lady. You will need all your strength,” Essex said, cutting some still-warm manchet bread. He placed it on her pewter plate with a bit of cheese. She thanked him, though she preferred the steaming pottage.
“Perhaps I should not have spoken so plainly, my lady. If you would like, I will call a maid with lavender to ease your anxiety.”
“You should not,” she said, worried now that worse news was being kept from her. “I will speak to my father. Surely his couriers travel as fast as yours.”
She rose and curtsied, already looking into a much changed future. She walked toward the door, her gaze darting everywhere without seeming to until she was assured that the dining hall did not hold Robert. Where was he? Was her father, suspecting their intimacy, deliberately keeping him away from her? No, her father was not coy about his suspicions. She must keep her mind from such wild thoughts.
Frances walked swiftly toward the great hall, knowing that her father would be there. She must hear the truth about Philip and see to her transport back to London and a ship to Holland. She must be a wife again. Her idyll of freedom, of being herself, of being truly loved, was over.
She entered the great hall, full now to bursting. The walls were lined with the nobility of the shire, the sheriff, lawyers in their dozens, Sir Amyas Paulet, Sir Christopher Hatton, and many others from court, all looking grimly important.
And Robert…he was there on a settle against the wall. It was natural for her to go to him. A man of her household would make a place for her. And she would tell him that she must leave at once.
When he turned his face to hers, she realized that he already knew. The knowledge was in his eyes, which lacked their usual bright greeting.
She was quickly seated, but others were too close for her to talk personally. “How did they convince Mary to attend the trial?”
“They argued for hours,” Robert answered. “She is very clever and had answer for all urgings, but finally she agreed early this morning, after your father told her that if she dared not defend herself Elizabeth would think her guilty.”
Robert looked away and spoke softly. “How did you find the Earl of Essex as you broke your fast?”
“You are yet an intelligencer, Robert.” She smiled, though her lips trembled at the edges. “He had information that Philip’s wound has worsened. I must leave for London and take ship from Deptford for Holland.”
Robert looked shamefaced for his taunt, and his hands clenched against his breeches. “I am sorry, Frances.” His face set in polite concern, he asked, “Will you be wanting me to accompany you to Holland?”
Frances looked down at her own trembling hands buried in the folds of her gown. “I would want it, but doubt my father would, or could spare you. My maid and groom will go.”
“Of course, my lady.” He nodded, not looking at her, and she saw his face was set into the servant’s lines of obedience yet again, a pulse pounding behind his burn scar. It would always give away his true emotions to one who knew him well.
There was a hubbub in the room, people shifting, turning, looking up, and nudging one another. Frances followed their gaze to the doorway, where Mary Stuart stood. Her steward and physician, one on either side, assisted her with the stairs, and a maid of honor carried her train. She was dressed in black velvet with a gauzy white veil over her widow’s cap, though she lifted it from her face before stepping down. A file of halberdiers walked beside the procession. As Mary descended, she winced with pain, her rheumatic joints obviously impairing her, not to be eased in this drafty, ancient castle.
Many in the room, peers of England, high magistrates of the land, and courtiers, all gasped. Mary’s storied beauty had been part of her legend, but little of it remained. Instead, a very tall, fleshy, bewigged woman of forty-two with only a small vestige of her youthful attractions entered haltingly.
As Mary passed down the lines of onlookers, standing in respect though accusers all, Frances curtsied, bowing her head. Mary hesitated, and Frances looked up to see a small, sad smile of recognition and concerned lines form beside her eyes befor
e she moved on to the center of the chamber.
Forgive me, Frances thought, watching Mary’s retreating back.
Her head bowed, Frances knew that if she could live again these last months, she would change nothing. Duty and loyalty to one’s own sovereign were a part of her, though she would always feel regret that this moment had to be. Intelligencers did not choose the punishment of those they exposed. And, thinking of Babington’s end and possibly Mary’s, she thanked the blessed Lord that this was so.
Queen Mary was escorted toward the center of the great hall, where a high-backed chair had been placed below a dais holding a throne covered by a gold cloth of estate, as if Elizabeth meant to sit there. Frances knew Her Majesty never would be a part of this, would keep her hands as clean as she could.
The Scots queen paused and looked up at the royal throne. “My place should be there,” she said. “I am myself a queen, the daughter of a king, and the true kinswoman of the queen of England. As an absolute queen, I cannot submit to orders; nor can I submit to the laws of the land without injury to all other sovereign princes. For myself, I do not recognize the laws of England. I am alone without counsel or anyone to speak on my behalf. My papers and notes have been taken from me, so that I am destitute of all aid.” Yet, after these words, she composed herself and sat in the smaller chair, looking about her. “All these councilors,” she said, “and none for me.” It was not a question, for the answer was plain to see.
Frances knew that Mary’s protests would do her no good. Her complaints, her very regal presence were about to be erased by a mountain of evidence.
The sergeant-at-law laid out the details of the Babington plot, including the ciphers that had gone between the plotters and Mary.
Painfully, Mary rose to her feet and objected in her French-accented English. “I do not deny that I have earnestly wished for liberty and done my utmost to procure it for myself, but I knew not Babington. I never received letters from him, nor wrote any to him. If you have such proof, produce them signed with my own hand.”
