This might have been possible had Margaret wished it so. Mary Queen of Scots was at that moment held prisoner at Chatsworth, in the custody of Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife, the famous Bess of Hardwick. Permitted a small amount of freedom, she had been allowed to make several visits to Buxton in Derbyshire to take the waters at the famous spa. However, there is no evidence that Margaret even contemplated meeting the queen, who until very recently she had been convinced was involved, if not the main culprit, in the murder of her son.
Whatever Queen Elizabeth suspected about the reasons for Margaret’s journey north, the French ambassador de Noailles certainly took it that she meant to rescue her grandson from the clutches of the Scottish nobles before bringing him to England by some means. Writing to his master, King Henry III, on 15 October 1574, he told him that while Margaret was going north to Stirling to visit her little grandson, James VI, he for one believed that she had ‘no other purpose than to transfer the little prince into England’.1
By the time this dispatch was written, Margaret and her son Charles (now since his father’s death the Earl of Lennox), drawn in a carriage by a string of mules, had been travelling for about a week. They had got as far as Huntington, where they stayed with the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk. Here they were met by the redoubtable Lady Shrewsbury, who, with her daughter Elizabeth Cavendish (Sir William Cavendish was the second of Bess’ four husbands), had come from her nearby house at Rufford. Nothing would do but they must visit them. All was ready, she assured them. They would be greatly entertained.
Bess had not exaggerated. The house, with all it comforts, so well heated by open fires, was a joy to Margaret whose own finances allowed only the minimum heating in her house. Together with Bess, she sat and gossiped of all the affairs of the court, while, unused to being idle, she stitched at the embroidery at which she had grown so deft.
Outside, in the parkland, Charles and Elizabeth rode together side by side; Charles, plainly attentive to the fair-haired girl with much of her mother’s fabled looks, had fallen instantly, and passionately, in love.
Within the house the two dowagers, noting what was taking place, exchanged smiles and knowing looks. From Margaret’s point of view it would be a good match. Elizabeth would have money: her mother had accumulated both wealth and property during her vicarious career. For Bess it was also desirable. Should Queen Elizabeth die and also the young king of Scotland, who they said was a frail lad, Charles would be king of both kingdoms through his parent’s descent.
There was only one impediment to the union of two young people, so obviously in love. The law of England dictated that Charles, through his royal blood, must have the permission of Queen Elizabeth before he could take a wife. Margaret and Bess, after hasty discussion with the young couple themselves, decided to waste no time. Once the marriage was done they would take the consequences. Queen Elizabeth herself, known to be infatuated with Lord Leicester, would surely look kindly on two young people in love.
There they were much mistaken. Queen Elizabeth did not.
Poor Lord Shrewsbury, overburdened with care and expense in acting as jailer to Mary Queen of Scots, was horrified to find, on coming home to Rufford, that the wedding had just taken place. ‘It was dealt with so suddenly, without my knowledge, as I dare insure to your Majesty,’ he wrote to Queen Elizabeth, adding in explanation, that ‘my wife finding her daughter disappointed in young Barte [Bertie] where she hoped, and as the other young gentleman was inclined to love with a few days acquaintance, she did her best to further her daughter to this match, without having therein other intent than with reverent duty to your Majesty.’2
Queen Elizabeth, only hearing of the marriage on 17 November, some three weeks after it had taken place, swore loudly in her rage. Feeling herself duped by two of her ladies-in-waiting, she voiced her anger at them both. On consideration, however, because the Shrewsburys, as guardians of Queen Mary, were useful to her, she decided to defer the punishment of Bess, making Margaret Lennox the scapegoat for all that had clandestinely taken place.
Royal messengers sent to Settringham, which Margaret and the newly married couple had now reached, had to struggle through mud on flooded roads. They bore orders to them all to return to London immediately, a command that Margaret, despite her foreknowledge of what awaited her, had no option but to obey.
Notes
1 Dispatch of La Mothe Fénelon to King Henry III of France, 15 October 1574
2 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, pp.390–1
46
ONCE MORE IMPRISONED FOR LOVE
The rain continued, the roads were almost impassable and the mules pulling her carriage, bred as they were to a dry climate, were wretched in the extreme.
Margaret stopped at Huntingdon to rest her exhausted animals, ‘both crooked and lame’, as she put it, with their ‘extreme labour on the way’. She took the opportunity to write to Leicester, enclosing a copy in another to Burghley, written on 3 December, the same day.
To Leicester she described the dangers of the journey which the queen had forced her to make:
The great unquietness and trouble that I have had with passing these dangerous waters, which hath many times forced me to leave my way, which hath been some hindrance unto me … And being forced to stay this present Friday in Huntingdon, somewhat to refresh myself, and my overlaboured moyles, that are both crooked and lame with their extreme labour by the way, I thought good to lay open to your lordship, in these few lines, what I have to [say] for me, touching my going to Rufforth to my lady of Shrewsbury, both being thereunto very earnestly requested, and the place not one mile out of my way. Yea, and as much fairer way, as is well to be proved; and my lady meeting me herself upon the way, I could not refuse it, being near xxx miles from Sheffield.1
By this she imputed that rumours of her supposed assignation with Mary Queen of Scots, then imprisoned in Sheffield Castle, one of Shrewsbury’s other properties, were untrue. She then told Leicester that while everyone knew she was going to stay with ‘my Lady Suffolk’, who had been kind enough to escort her as far as Grantham, she was aware that Queen Elizabeth did not approve of the Duchess of Suffolk being at Chatsworth.
I asked her Majesty, if I were bidden thither, for that had been my wonted way before, if I might go? She prayed me not, lest it should be thought I should agree with the Queen of Scots. And I asked her Majesty, ‘if she could think so, for I was made of flesh and blood, and could never forget the murther of my child.’ And she said ‘Nay, by her faith, she did not think so that ever I should forget it, for if I would I were a devil.’
Now, my Lord, for the hasty marriage of my son after he had entangled himself so that he could have none other, I refer the same to your lordship’s good consideration, whether it was not most fitly for me to marry them, he being mine only son and comfort that is left to me. And your lordship can bear me witness how desirous I have been to have had a match for him, other than this. And the Queen’s Majesty, much to my comfort, to that end gave me good words at my departure.2
From this it can be gathered that Elizabeth herself had a chosen candidate for Charles Lennox to marry. The fact that he had refused to comply with her wishes plainly deepened her resentment against both him and his mother, whom she blamed for encouraging the match. Margaret, pulled by her pathetic mules, eventually reached London and her house in Hackney on 10 December 1574.
The coach was much the worse for the long journey from Yorkshire. The cushions were worn and the family coat of arms painted on the doors almost faded away. Nonetheless, it was hauled out, and the mules, ears laid back in anger, harnessed to it once more. Thus Margaret set off from Hackney, together with Charles and his bride, to Westminster to face Queen Elizabeth’s wrath.
On 12 December, in another despatch to Henry III, de Noailles told him that: ‘Lady Lennox came this day to Court. She fears greatly the indignation of Queen Elizabeth, her mistress, and that she will send her to the Tower on accou
nt of the marriage of her son. Still she relies on friends, who she hopes will save her from this blow.’3
The friends, of whom Burghley was the one on whom she most relied, could do nothing to help her. Elizabeth, in her anger, would listen to no appeals. At first the Lennoxes were put under house arrest with orders to speak to no one except those whom the Privy Council permitted.4
Christmas, once again, as in that fateful winter of 1561, was to prove an unlucky time for Margaret. On Christmas day, or very shortly afterwards, she was sent once again to the Tower. Resigned to her inevitable imprisonment, she is reported to have said that:
Thrice have I been cast into prison, not for matters of treason but for matters of love. First when Thomas Howard, son to Thomas, first Duke of Norfolk, was in love with myself; then for the love of `Henry Darnley my son, to Queen Mary of Scotland; and lastly, for the love of Charles, my younger son, to Elizabeth Cavendish.5
Queen Elizabeth, despite the fact that she had initially decided to overlook Lady Shrewsbury’s, or Bess of Hardwick’s as she is most commonly known, involvement in the clandestine marriage on account of her usefulness as a guardian of Mary Queen of Scots, now, to emphasise her authority, decided that she too must go to the Tower. The two dowagers, if not allowed to meet each other, could certainly converse through their servants; Bess in particular would have had a large retinue, which must have taken up most of the rooms in the building. One of Margaret’s servants, a man named John Philips, remained at Hackney to look after Charles, Elizabeth and their baby daughter, Arbella, born as her grandmother remained in prison.
Following their marriage, the young Lennoxes lived with Margaret, having no home of their own. Elizabeth, as the daughter of a rich woman, as Bess of Hardwick had become, should have had money. She was due a dowry of £3,000 from her stepfather, Lord Shrewsbury, but, seizing on the excuse that the marriage had been arranged so secretly, behind his back, he refused to give her anything at all.
The young couple, with their servants, to whom, on the birth of their baby was added a nurse, in addition to Margaret’s own household, had to be fed and the latter to some extent paid. The house in winter needed to be heated with a large quantity of coal, and inevitably, as with all old buildings, there were always repairs to be made.
Then to increase Margaret’s worries, Charles became extremely ill, coughing continuously from the tuberculosis from which several of his unnamed sisters are believed to have died. This gives a viable reason for why, in the spring of 1577, Margaret was released from the Tower. Queen Elizabeth, for all her known dislike of Margaret, whom she still blamed for her own incarceration so many years before, had felt pity for her when Henry’s murder had sent her almost out of her mind. Therefore, it seems probable that told of Charles’ fatal illness, she allowed Margaret to be set free before her younger son died.
Charles was still alive in 1577 as is proved by a will made by Mary Queen of Scots, in which she gave the County of Lennox to the Earl of Lennox, held by his late father. In endorsement, she ordered her son, James VI, to facilitate her command as specifically directed.
In her own hand, Queen Mary then added instructions that in the event of the death of her son, she wished the Crown to go to either to Charles, Earl of Lennox, or to Lord Claud Hamilton, ‘whichever shall have shown himself most faithful towards herself, and most constantly in his religion’. From this she was implying that Charles could only become King of Scotland if, unlike his father who had become Protestant, he remained true to the Catholic faith.
Queen Mary made her will at Sheffield Manor, a house close to Sheffield Castle, on an unknown date in 1577. Margaret, known to have corresponded with her, sent her a piece of embroidery, some of it stitched with her own hair, now with age and worry turned to grey. Mary, touched by the gift which implied that her mother-in-law was at last convinced that she was innocent of involvement in Darnley’s murder, confirmed the longed for confirmation of her birthright.
And I restore to my aunt of Lennox, all the rights that she can pretend to the earldom of Angus, previously to the grant or accord made by my commandment between my said aunt of Lennox and the Earl of Morton, seeing it was then made by the late king my husband and me, on the promise of his faithful assistance if he [Henry Darnley] and me were in danger and required his aid, which promise he broke by his secret understanding with our enemies and rebels that made enterprise against his life, and also took up arms and bore banners against us.6
Notes
1 State Papers MS. Margaret Lennox to the Earl of Leicester.
2 Ibid.
3 La Mothe Fénélon to Henry III, 12 December 1574
4 Ibid.
5 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, pp. 394–5
6 Document in Cotton. Library, British Museum.
47
MY JEWEL ARBELLA
The death of Charles, after all her misfortunes, proved to be almost more than Margaret could stand. She had lost so much, husband, sons and daughters, now all that was left of her once large family were two grandchildren, the young King James of Scotland, whom she was never to see, and the baby girl Arbella, result of that precipitous marriage for which she paid such a price.
With typical determination, she once more faced up to the future. Once again responsibility fell on those shoulders, now hunched with age and rheumatism brought on by long imprisonment within the damp walls of the Tower. She wished only to live quietly, avoiding as much as was possible, all contact with the outside world. But this was not to be.
Margaret had lost the income of the estates in Yorkshire, granted to Matthew by her uncle Henry VIII, which had reverted to male heirs. Her dower lands in the Lennox had been seized by the Scottish Government, headed by her nephew Lord Morton, now regent during the young king’s minority. So greatly was she impoverished that she was forced to swallow her pride and borrow from Bess of Hardwick, who, nonetheless, made her pay interest on the loan. Also she had to make repayments on money borrowed from the Crown. Reduced as she was to penury, Margaret somehow struggled on.
Her life was only made happier by the presence of her little granddaughter, Arbella, or Arbell, as she was known. The little fair-haired girl, toddling precariously up and down the stone stairs of the house as she learned to walk, embodied the hopes of her grandmother, for whom she was now all the world. It seems fair to surmise that it was for Arbella, rather than for any personal good will, that Margaret persisted in her correspondence with her erstwhile daughter-in-law, the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots.
The Lennox title and lands in Scotland now belonged to Arbella, so her grandmother firmly believed. Not so the Scottish government. The Lords of the Congregation, in the name of the young King James, who was still a minor, claimed that Arbella through her English birth had forfeited her right to her inheritance, which was promptly repossessed by the Crown.
Margaret begged Queen Elizabeth to intervene. Putting forward her reasons for doing so, she demanded to know how it was that Scottish law could disregard the legitimate claim. Also, on what grounds could the Scottish regent disinherit the legitimate daughter of Charles Stuart?
Elizabeth, for once, was sympathetic. It cost her nothing to be so. Eager to score one off the Scottish Government, she despatched a courier with a message that ‘The Queen finds it very strange that any disposition should be intended of the earldom to the prejudice of the only daughter of the late Earl of Lennox.’1
Likewise Mary Queen of Scots, most probably on the supplication of Margaret, and for once in agreement with Elizabeth, added a draft to her will. ‘I give to my niece Arbella the Earldom of Lennox, held by her late father; and enjoin my son, as my heir and successor, to obey my will in this particular.’2
James, however, disobeyed her. On reaching his majority at the age of 12, he officially bestowed the earldom on his great uncle, Robert Stuart, Bishop of Caithness, who shortly afterwards handed it on to James’ cousin, Esmé Stuart, the man of charismatic charm who s
oon had James in his thrall.
Notes
1 Gristwood, S., Arbella, England’s Lost Queen, pp.26–7
2 Ibid., p.27
48
POISON?
Arbella was only 4, and still the light of her grandmother’s eyes, when on 7 March 1578 no less a person than the queen’s favourite, Lord Leicester, came to Hackney to pay them a visit.
Robert Dudley, at the age of 36, thanks to the queen’s favour, was now one of the largest landowners in both England and Wales. Dismounting in the courtyard, where weeds sprouted through the stones, he must have been shocked and perhaps saddened to see the state which this great lady, who might have been queen of both England and Scotland, had been reduced. The walls of the house needed pointing, slates were missing and likewise some panes of glass from the windows. The whole building appeared to be in need of repair.
The door creaked open eventually, looking as if it might fall from its hinges as an aged retainer held it wide enough for Leicester to enter into an unlit hall. The house was barely heated, the banister under his hand green with mould.
Following the aged servant, he saw that he still wore the grey uniform of the house of Lennox, now nearly threadbare, the lining having fallen from the coat tails which flapped against his thin shanks. The man looked be nearly starving, judging by the gauntness of his frame.
The stairway ended on a landing from which the servant, standing aside to allow him to enter, opened a door into a long low room. ‘Thank you Fowler’, he heard a woman’s voice say. The voice was strong but Leicester saw her struggle as she rose from her chair before a fire so small that it gave out hardly any heat. Recognising him, she came slowly forward, the skirts of her long black gown brushing across the floor. She was frail but almost as tall as himself, and her eyes, still blue and piercing, met his unafraid.
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