B009RYSCAU EBOK

by Gillian Bagwell

  God, help me, for if I cannot turn to Thee, then who can I turn to? And yet I have such rage in me for what Thou hast taken from me. This is a loss more than I can bear . . .

  “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .”

  God help me . . .

  “. . . he is able to subdue all things to himself . . .”

  If it is so, then make it so, Holy Father. Take my grief unto Thee and show me how to bear it, or take me into the black earth as well, for I cannot bear this pain.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Tenth of August, 1565—Chatsworth, Derbyshire

  BESS STOOD AT HER BEDCHAMBER WINDOW, LOOKING OUT OVER the countryside. It was good to be back at home—her whole body seemed to relax and her mind to become more serene once she was at Chatsworth, despite the depth of her grief.

  She had remained in London for some weeks after Will’s death, but the house was too full of echoes of him—alive and dead—to be comfortable, and being at court, where he had been such a fixture for so long, was even worse. Then poor Lizzie had died in April, and her death had sent Bess into an even deeper feeling of profound loss and awareness of her own mortality and the fragility of life.

  She was sure that Ned St. Loe had been responsible for Will’s death, and suspected that he had given him poisoned water, but there was no proof, only her suspicions, and no official action had been taken. Besides, Ned had been long gone from London by the time she arrived.

  Her rage and pain had only increased when, less than a fortnight after Will died, she received a letter from Ned’s lawyer claiming that on his deathbed Will had signed an indenture giving Ned and his wife Sutton Court. Forged, no doubt, but she had not seen the actual document. Then Ned had stopped sending her the tenants’ rents, and she in turn had stopped sending him the payment due under the settlement of their last suit. So back to court they had gone, in Somerset once again, with the same judge as before, and once more, a decision hung in abeyance. Bess had taken some satisfaction in the fact that through her connections at court she had managed to have Ned sent to a post in Ireland where he could cool his heels for a time.

  Ned was surely also behind Margaret St. Loe contesting the will that left all of her father’s property and income to Bess and her heirs. Will had considered that Margaret was well provided for, as her husband Thomas Norton was wealthy, and the will had been upheld, but it made Bess sad to think that Margaret resented her, and that many at court took Margaret’s side and thought she had been ill used.

  Bess wondered if she would ever be free of lawsuits, and reflected that it was particularly hard that every time she had lost a husband, her grief and pain had been compounded by the need to fight a battle in court. Especially as in each case, her husband had taken pains to make arrangements so that matters would go smoothly if she were left a widow.

  The sound of laughter below brought Bess’s mind back to the present. Bessie and May, the only children left at home now, were giggling and crying out in delight as they tried to get their two puppies to race. They were well on their way to grown up now; Bessie was ten and May eight and a half, and Bess thanked God for their blooming health, as she did every day.

  The thought of children reminded her of Frances Brooke, who was expecting another baby in December, and she took up the letter she had received from Frances the day before and read it over.

  The news that the Scottish queen has married Lord Darnley has sent Her Majesty into a rage, Frances wrote. For of course the fact that his grandmother was the sister of King Henry gives him a claim to the throne to match that of Mary’s own, as granddaughter of Henry’s other sister.

  Had Darnley learned nothing from the disastrous outcome of the marriage of Kate Grey and Edward Seymour? It seemed not, although the two marriages were in exactly the same case—matches of two heirs to the throne, sure to attract plotters who would rather see them and their heirs on the throne than a childless woman. The Papist rulers of France and Spain would be all too likely to back the Scottish queen’s claim to the English throne with their military might, and even Darnley himself might raise an army from the Papist northern counties of England.

  They have assured Her Majesty that they will take no action against her, and ask in return that she declare them to be her heirs. But as you may imagine, she will not be dictated to. She has thrown her support to the Earl of Moray, the half brother of the Scottish queen, in what looks like will soon be civil war in Scotland. And she has put Darnley’s mother in the Tower again—such is the satisfaction that Lady Lennox has got from her scheming so long to make her son a king! I hardly think Her Majesty will ever make Mary Stuart her heir now. And of course this is the end of her plan of marrying the Scottish queen to Robert Dudley, which seemed to me plain madness, and likely to please no one.

  Bess shook her head with grim amusement. No, Mary Stuart had not wanted to wed the queen’s own beloved, though he had been made Earl of Leicester to make him a suitable match. Dudley had not wanted the marriage—or to be sent to live in Scotland. And Bess doubted that when it came down to it, Elizabeth would have been willing to part with her dear Robin. She thought of Will and wondered how the queen could even have contemplated marrying Dudley off to someone else.

  This marriage of the Scottish queen only serves to make our queen’s advisors more frantic in their determination that Her Majesty must be married, Frances’s letter continued. I saw her reduced to tears—a sight I never thought to see and that amazed me much, I promise you—at the combined haranguing of Dudley, Cecil, and Throckmorton that she must have a husband.

  Bess recalled that in the wake of Cat Howard’s death, the eight-year-old Elizabeth had declared she would never marry. An understandable sentiment, and one Bess had shared at the time. But would the queen finally evade all plans to have her husbanded? It seemed inconceivable that she could hope to rule on her own and keep her throne with no husband or the prospect of children, but so far she was proving most expert in promising much and doing only what she wanted. She had inherited her father’s strength, that was certain.

  But it would take more than strength to face the prospect of a life alone, Bess thought. Especially a life fraught with the challenges that a ruler faced. It would take a shutting down, a walling off, of some deep-set need for love and emotional sustenance, would it not? She tried to imagine committing herself to a life of such isolation and could not. Of course a marriage did not promise love, either, especially if it were a marriage of state such as the queen was pressed to make. And if she could not marry Robin Dudley, would it not be an unbearable torment to wed someone else, knowing that she cut the thread of possibility that bound them, casting him adrift to be taken up by someone else?

  Bess looked out the window again and saw that Aunt Marcella was with the girls now and had got them back in their bonnets against the sun. It wouldn’t be long before she would need to start thinking about getting them married. And with the money and property she had inherited from Will, she was in a better position than ever to find husbands from wealthy and powerful families, and to weigh carefully what would make her daughters happy. Soon she would have to consider wives for Harry and Willie, too. Yes, with God’s help her children would all be raised as high as she could manage, and never have to worry about money as she had done.

  Bess realized that she was pacing rapidly. Thinking of Lord Darnley’s marriage to the Scottish queen, and her own children’s prospective marriages, seemed to have lit some fire within her, for she suddenly felt more animated than she had since Will died.

  What eminent young men were of an age to make suitable husbands for Bessie and May? There was Philip Sidney, the son of Sir Henry Sidney and Mary Dudley—though being entwined with the Dudleys could have its drawbacks. The Earl of Shrewsbury’s second son was yet unmarried; she must inquire of Lady Shrewsbury when she saw her next. And Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, had been born only a few months before her own Harry and was of a suitable age for Bessie. Dare she hope for
such a match? The young man lived in the household of William Cecil, who was certainly favorably disposed to her.

  Perhaps George Carey, the eldest boy of Baron Hunsdon, Mary Boleyn’s son, who some believed to be the child of King Henry? He was in the full sunshine of the queen’s favor. And he had three or four younger brothers—she would have to look into the possibilities. Yes, there were plenty of young men, now she thought of it. Lord Rutland, Lord Sussex, Lord Wharton . . . Peregrine Bertie! He was the son of the Duchess of Suffolk, and the same age as Bessie.

  Or could she aspire even higher for her girls? she wondered. There were young men of the royal blood who were not likely ever to sit on the throne, and so perhaps almost within reach. It was a pity, Bess thought, that the Countess of Lennox had earned the queen’s enmity, for her younger son Charles Stewart could have made a good husband for Bessie.

  How, Bess mused, could she improve her daughters’ prospects? Now she would be able to provide very generous dowries for the girls, and everything about Chatsworth bespoke wealth and status. But what could make it even more grand—a place that would show her girls to be worthy matches for young men of the oldest and most exalted noble families of England?

  What was needed was a suite of rooms worthy of the queen herself—and why could they not be used by the queen herself? Elizabeth went on progress every summer; why should she not visit Chatsworth?

  The thought of the queen in residence at Chatsworth took Bess’s breath away. Yes, that was what she would do—she would make alterations to the house. Just thinking about it gave her a sense of purpose such as she had not had since the building of the house had been completed the previous year. And now she had ample money to do it.

  Bess rang for her steward.

  “I wish to see Robert Smythson,” she told Crompe. “As soon as he may be got.”

  * * *

  “COULD WE ADD A THIRD STORY TO THE HOUSE?” BESS ASKED.

  Smythson, a mason who had supervised the recent work on the house and had also worked on Longleat, Sir John Thynne’s grand house, nodded thoughtfully.

  “Certainly, my lady, it could be done. It would not be quick nor yet inexpensive, but it could be done.”

  “What I want,” Bess said, “is a bedchamber and withdrawing chamber fit for a queen. Fit for the queen, in fact.”

  Smythson’s brows rose and he grinned. “That would be something, indeed, my lady, to have Her Majesty lay herself down in rooms that I built.”

  “Indeed it would.” Bess smiled back at him. “Come, sit. Let us think about this together.”

  “Have you any paper, my lady? That I might sketch to catch the ideas as they fly.”

  “Yes, at my desk here. Draw up a chair.”

  Two hours later Smythson gathered up the heap of papers upon which, to Bess’s amazement, he had made corporeal the fancies that had lived only in her mind, sketching windows, walls, staircases, overmantels, ceiling medallions, and friezes.

  “I will have some better drawings for your ladyship in a few days.”

  “Excellent. How soon can we begin work?”

  “Soon, my lady, as soon as you like. We’ll need to get the quarry operating again, and recruit laborers, but ready money works wonders.”

  When Smythson had left, Bess laughed out loud in pleasure at the prospect of resuming work on the house.

  “We’ll need to do an inventory,” she murmured. “So I truly know what is here and what will be needful to furnish the new rooms. Oh, that the building could begin today.”

  Twenty-sixth August, 1565—Chatsworth, Derbyshire

  Bess stared at the letter in numb disbelief and read Cecil’s words over again.

  Here is an unhappy chance and monstrous. The Sergeant Porter, being the biggest gentleman of this court, has married secretly the Lady Mary Grey: the least of all the court.

  “Oh, no!” Bess cried aloud.

  The offense is very great and the queen in a rage. The Lady Mary is locked up at Windsor with only a groom and a waiting woman and forbidden to see anyone. Her husband, Thomas Keyes, is in a noisome and narrow cell at the Fleet.

  What self-destructive madness was it that seized the Greys? Bess wondered. Could Mary, after witnessing Kate’s ruin, truly have thought the queen would turn a blind eye to her marriage? And the timing could not have been worse, for it had finally seemed that perhaps the queen was beginning to soften toward Kate and might let her return to court. Now Mary’s actions would likely doom them both.

  Jane Grey’s face rose to Bess’s mind and she wept, grieving once more the senseless loss of that sweet and courageous soul, who had died for her parents’ ambitions.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  AS SOON AS THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES ENDED WITH TWELFTH Night, Bess embarked on her inventory of Chatsworth.

  “We will deal principally with the furniture, hangings, bedclothes, and so forth,” she told Crompe. “The best will go into the new rooms, and when I am in London I can buy what is needed to furnish the rest of the house.” She glanced around her bedchamber—how many articles it held! And all the ninety-seven rooms of the house were the same, containing acres of carpets and tapestries and untold numbers of objects. “What a job it will be. But the sooner begun, the sooner we will be done.”

  When Crompe had gone, she seated herself near the fire and looked around the room. Over the years she had made her bedchamber into a comfortable and elegant nest for herself, filled with her favorite items. The bed curtains were of rich red and trimmed with silver lace, a red silk quilt overlay the underquilts and down feather bed, and three velvet bolsters and a pile of pillows made it easy for her to sit up in bed and read or write.

  Gathered near the fireplace around the large chair in green checked silk in which she sat were a smaller chair upholstered in black velvet and two of leather. Will’s portrait stood on a table near the bed, and the portrait of Jane Grey and another of her first William decorated other tables. All the tables were draped in green silk that matched the window curtains. Six large coffers held her clothes and bed linens. This room contained everything she needed; she could have stayed within it for months, lacking nothing from outside but her meals.

  No, not quite nothing. Companionship was something she very much needed, and for that, she must sometimes venture out. True, her daughters and Jenny spent much time with her, as did her mother and Aunt Marcella. And other attendants and servants were always within the sound of a bell.

  But still something was missing. A man’s presence.

  Could it be? Bess wondered. When Will had died she had thought she would never again look on a man with love, that no man could compare to he whom she had lost. But now, almost a year since he had departed this earth, she was not so sure. She missed the company of someone—not just anyone, but someone who understood her without her having to explain herself, someone with whom she walked in comfortable yoke, like oxen harnessed for plowing. A husband. She was used to being married, and missed it.

  The next day Bess received a letter from Frances, full of the news at court.

  I am sure you will not be surprised, Frances wrote, to hear that all the talk is still of Her Majesty’s marriage. On Twelfth Night, Robert Dudley told me that at Christmas he had asked the queen to marry him and that she had promised she would answer him by Candlemas. But the day passed with nothing said, and now I hear he has urged the queen to marry the Archduke Charles, as Cecil and others of her privy council have so long desired.

  But think you she will? I do not. The archduke is most stubbornly Papist and the queen declares that for her to marry one who does not share her faith would cause a thousand inconveniences. Moreover, she reminds the privy council of the disastrous consequences of the Spanish marriage of Queen Mary. She argues—with truth, I must say—that changing laws on the succession and the uncertainty and turmoil over royal marriages have been responsible for many rebellions from the time of her father’s reign until that of her sister’s. She says that no matter who
she marries, many will be displeased, and that any marriage will be likely to incite further revolts.

  As to Dudley, I think Her Majesty liked not that he seemed to give her up at last, for she flirted much with her cousin, my lord of Ormonde. She hit the mark she intended, it seemed, for Leicester was in a rage to see the attentions she paid to Black Tom, as they call Ormonde, and he has gone from court.

  You will likely have heard that the Scottish queen is with child. God knows how that development will affect what Her Majesty does, but I have heard her say that naming any heir would be an inducement to some to hasten her out of this life, and I do not think her mind is changed. I heard Cecil treat with her on the matter of the succession and she cried, “God’s blood, would you have me in my own life set my winding sheet before my eye?”

  Bess smiled; she could only too easily imagine the queen’s enraged roar when provoked too far by the insistence of her ministers.

  But now, Bess, let me talk of you, Frances’s letter continued. I wish you would be as great a stranger to Derbyshire as you now are to London. You have been too long away, both from my company and from attendance on the queen. And I must confess to you that of late my mind has been preoccupied with the question of a husband for you. I know how much you loved Will, but you are still a beauty, besides the much else that you have to offer as a wife, and must not waste that precious commodity.

  What odd chance, Bess thought, that the matter of her marrying again had been in Frances’s thoughts just when it was in her own.

  My husband’s brother Henry Brooke would make you an admirable husband, and nothing would make me happier than to have you as my sister. But there are many other possibilities. You know that John Thynne’s wife died, I am sure. He is a most handsome man and you are old friends, I know. Would he not be a fine match?

  Perhaps it was a portent, Bess thought, that Frances wanted to play matchmaker. And whether or not she got a husband there, she did miss London and the excitement of being at court.