Two years had passed since Isabelle Allgrave had fled with Peter Barnes and during those years there was an unspoken agreement between the members of the household. Isabelle’s name was never spoken although her mother prayed daily for her safety and clung to the belief that one day she would return home.
In the months that had followed his conversation with the Queen, Richard had employed men to search for the couple but no trace had been found of them and he had at length abandoned hope of finding his daughter and was almost certain that she was no longer in England.
Edward had become betrothed to Jane and now at nearly nineteen was due to be married. He had grown to resemble his father closely although in nature he was totally different. Richard had found him a place at Court hoping that in time he would quell his wandering, restless spirit—but Edward's heroes were men like Drake and Hawkins.
Margaret was preoccupied at this time with the preparations for the forthcoming wedding. Although the ceremony was to be held at Rendcombe Hall, the home of Jane’s parents, there were innumerable things she must attend to and she would be quite thankful when the ceremony was finally over, she confided to Kate. Christmas festivities (such as they were since Isabelle’s flight) presented enough work without the fuss of the wedding.
The young couple were married in December and shortly afterwards made their home with Edward’s parents. Margaret was fond of Jane. She would make Edward an excellent wife and would be a good mother to the children that would surely follow.
She was sitting with Jane one dull afternoon in January. They were working together on a tapestry for, to her delight, Jane had proved to be an expert needlewoman.
“Do you miss your parents, Jane?” Margaret asked.
The girl raised her gentle, grey eyes and smiled. “It would be untrue to say I did not, but I love Edward and I am happy here.”
“Do you never wish that you could have stayed with them?” Margaret continued, thinking of that day long ago when Isabelle had declared that she never wished to leave her home.
“Yes, but I know that it is not possible. Besides, I have always loved Edward and knew that one day I would marry him and come to live here,” she said shyly.
Jane was a quiet girl but she had a deep insight into the feelings of those about her and she perceived the grief that bound her mother-in-law's heart. Putting down her needle she took Margarets hand and said gently. “Do not grieve. I, too, believe that one day she will come home.”
“The worst part is the uncertainty of not knowing whether she is…”
“You must never, never think it; not even for a minute,” Jane said firmly. “You would have heard ere now had anything… happened,” she finished awkwardly.
“Oh, Jane. I do not know what to think! I lie awake at night tormented by doubts and worry. The days pass so slowly.”
“I will try to help you to bear it, ” Jane promised.
Margaret smiled at her. She could not have wished for a better partner for her son than this gentle, sweet-natured child.
Three nights later Jane was woken from sleep by the sound of voices. She sat up in bed and pulled aside the curtains.
“Edward,” she whispered, shaking her husband. There was no reply. “Edward!” She shook him harder.
“What is the matter?” he asked sleepily.
“There is someone on the stairs.”
“‘Tis your imagination,” he replied, turning over.
“No, listen,” she insisted, pulling urgently at his hand.
Impatiently Edward sat up and listened. The sound of a girl’s voice came to his ears and then the voices of Kate and his mother and to his astonishment the sound of a young child crying.
Jane had already thrown a robe around her and had reached the door as he hastily got out of bed. By the time he had found his own robe and followed her, Jane was at the top of the staircase. As Edward came up behind her he stopped dead and the colour drained from his face as he gazed at the group at the foot of the staircase.
Jane clutched at his arm. “Edward, who is it?”
He did not answer her for shock had left him bereft of speech. At the bottom of the stairs his mother supported his half-collapsed and almost unrecognisable sister whilst in Kate’s arms a child of about two whimpered.
Margaret suddenly became aware of him. “Edward, help me! It is Isabelle!”
At the sound of his name he was immediately galvanised into action. He ran down the stairs and took his sister in his arms. He hardly recognised her. Her clothes were filthy and in rags. Her once golden hair was dull and matted and her blue eyes were sunken and circled with dark shadows of pain. “Dear God! Isabelle. What has happened to you?” he asked but she was too weak to answer.
“Kate found her,” his mother said. “She has walked from Dover where the ship carrying her from France berthed. She has carried the child most of the way.”
Edward’s gaze moved to the child in Kate’s arms and his eyes met those of his mother.
Margaret nodded. “Her name is Anne,” she said simply.
“The child is ill, she has a fever,” Kate informed him.
Jane ran lightly down the stairs. “Kate, let me help you with her.”
Edward carried his sister upstairs to her own room which Margaret had insisted be kept in readiness for the day she should return. He placed her gently upon the bed.
“Edward, fetch Doctor Bidham she is ill and rouse the servants. I will need fresh clothes and hot water,” his mother directed as she cut the rags which bound Isabelle’s feet. The girl moaned with pain. Margaret gave an exclamation of pity when she saw her daughter's torn and bleeding feet. She raised Isabelle and held her' in her arms, tears of relief and happiness pouring down her cheeks.
“Isabelle, Isabelle,” she whispered, “it is all over now, my love, you are home.”
Edward closed the door softly as he went in search of the servants.
By the time the doctor had arrived, Margaret had bathed and dressed her daughter in clean clothes. The tangles had been brushed from her hair and she lay sleeping fitfully. The doctor pronounced her exhausted and with a slight fever but he assured Margaret that with rest, good food and constant care she should recover. He was not so sure about the child.
“She has a high fever and is weak from lack of nourishment,” he told Margaret.
“But now that we can give her proper care and nourishment, will she not improve?”
He shook his head doubtfully. “We can only wait and see. I will call again later.”
Upon his return that afternoon his expression became grave for the child was delirious and lay shivering beneath blankets. He left Margaret a potion but this seemed to have little effect.
Throughout that night Jane sat nursing the little girl. Soothing her as she cried out fretfully for her “Maman”. At last she seemed to be sleeping peacefully so Jane, not wishing to disturb her, held her tightly in her arms. When Jane woke she was stiff and the first rays of the cold January dawn were filtering through the windows. She looked closely at the child still in her arms. She gently touched the pale, little cheek. It was as cold as ice for during the night the soul of little Anne Barnes had been carried by the angels into the safe keeping of the Almighty.
Jane placed the pathetic, little bundle in the cradle and weeping softly went in search of Margaret to tell her that her grand-daughter was dead.
From the moment her mother told her of the death of her child Isabelle Barnes lost the will to live. In vain her mother pleaded with her. Margaret had heard from Isabelle the tragic story of those missing years. How they had been happy in France where Anne had been born. They had lived simply but comfortably until Peter had been accidentally killed in one of the many clashes between Catholic and Huguenots. Heart broken, Isabelle had decided to return home and had sold everything to raise the fare for herself and her child. Things had not been too bad until she had disembarked at Dover but by then she had no money with which to buy or hire a horse for the journey and had had to walk, begging food for herself and the child until she had at last reached home.
Her father had returned and had been informed of the circumstances of his daughter’s return by Edward. Richard was thankful only that she had returned, his anger was forgotten. He, too, joined his distracted wife in her pleas, but to all their pleading Isabelle just turned away, not hearing, not caring.
Doctor Bidham was called as her fever rose while Kate and Margaret did what little they could to ease her suffering. Margaret refused to let Jane help for fear of infection and Jane sat in her own chamber listening to the demented ravings of her sister-in-law’s delirium.
Edward found her frightened and bewildered.
She clung to him. “Edward, Edward, I can bear no more,” she covered her ears with her hands. “She calls incessantly for him and for the child!”
Edward could find no words with which to comfort her but held her tightly against him. She remained with her head against his chest, sobbing, until at last Isabelle’s cries ceased.
Jane lifted her head and looked fearfully up at Edward as the silence was shattered by the desolate cry of anguish that came from his mother. They heard the sound of Richard’s feet as he ran along the gallery to his daughter’s chamber and they reached the door in time to see him carrying his unconscious wife in his arms. His face was haggard and in a voice broken with grief he requested the family chaplain, the Reverend Wilkes, to offer up his prayers for the soul of his daughter, Isabelle Barnes.
As the Allgrave family suffered the bitter pains of grief almost at the same hour Scotland reeled beneath the shock of the murder of its King.
Henry Darnley had been found dead—his servant beside him—in the garden of a house in Kirk-o-Field, just outside the walls of Edinburgh. A house which had been blown sky-high only hours after Mary Stuart had left to attend the wedding of one of her servants.
Henry Darnley and his servant had been strangled!
Elizabeth heard the news and the attendant rumours that Mary and the Earl of Bothwell, upon whom Mary was showering her affections, had planned the foul deed together but could not credit the malicious rumours with truth.
How, she reasoned, could a Queen stoop to such depths? It was impossible, unthinkable!
“Madam,” she wrote to Mary, “my ears have been so astounded, my mind so disturbed, my heart so shocked at the news of the abominable murder of your late husband.”
Her pen sped across the parchment as she implored her good sister to spare no effort in bringing the perpetrators of the crime to justice.
News travelled slowly across the wild border country but when at last Elizabeth heard that Bothwell, after ensuring his acquittal by bringing with him to his trial his hordes of ruffian Borderers and Mosstroopers, had hastily divorced his wife—abducted Mary (who was not an unwilling captive) and married her, she was appalled!
“Has Mary gone completely insane?” she thought. Surely after this outrage Mary could expect no mercy from her subjects for she had fallen into the chasm that she herself had once found yawning beneath her feet. Had she been foolish enough to have married Robin after the suspicious death of Amy, the thunderheads now gathering in Scotland would have loomed over herself.
She had never held a high opinion of her cousin of Scotland and was now proved right in her judgement. Mary was a fool. A fool who thought a woman’s beauty and charm could move mountains and cover innumerable sins. “Well, she is about to find out that beauty and charm alone do not make a Queen!” Elizabeth thought grimly.
In spite of this she was appalled by the treatment meted out to the Queen of Scots by her subjects for it set a dangerous precedent. She had heard how the women of the Grassmarket had impudently jeered at their Queen as she passed.
“God Save Your Grace, if ye be sackless of the King’s death!”
Mary gathered her forces and with Bothwell fought the battle of Carberry Hill. She was defeated and Bothwell fled—leaving his new bride to be taken prisoner.
Elizabeth felt deeply the humiliation and horror that Mary endured as she was led a captive through the howling mob who screamed, “Burn the whore! Burn the murderess!” for those words could have once been directed at herself had she not had the foresight to ignore the dictates of her heart.
When the news finally reached London that Mary had been taken to Loch Leven, a grim fortress set in the middle of the Loch from which there was little chance of escape, and had been forced to sign a document agreeing to abdicate in favour of her baby son, Elizabeth wrote scathingly to the Scottish Lords.
“I neither would nor could endure for any respect, to have your Queen and Sovereign to be by you imprisoned, deprived of her State or put in peril of her person!”
The following May, Mary managed to escape and after once more rallying her loyal supporters made a desperate bid to regain her Crown. She joined battle with the forces of her captors at Langside but the hand of fate was firmly against her and she was forced to flee, leaving many of her faithful servants dead and wounded upon the field.
She rode through the night to Terregles the home of lord Herries, then to Kenmure and on to Dundrennan Abbey on the banks of the Solway Firth. Across the narrow strip of water ahead of her lay England. She could not turn back for there lay certain death and in desperation she made up her mind to cross to England and throw herself upon the mercy of her cousin.
Elizabeth did not welcome her with open arms for Mary was a problem she could well do without.
“'God's Wounds! What am I to do with her?” she cried sharply after reading Mary’s letter written from Dundrennan. “I cannot send her back to Scotland for it would be sending her to her death.”
“Madam, neither can you let her have free access to travel this realm,” Cecil warned.
“My dear Spirit, I have no intention of doing so,” Elizabeth replied using the nickname she had bestowed upon him.
Walsingham spoke. A swarthy man whom Elizabeth called her “Moor”. A man devoted to his Queen, his family, and his Puritan religion. “Then madam, it must not appear that she is a captive.”
“I cannot trust my subjects in the North. The Queen of Scots is an avowed Catholic and I cannot let her wander the Northern counties at will.” She looked at both her Ministers and remained silent, thinking uneasily of her cousin. Mary had put her in a very awkward position but she had to agree with them. At least those two she could trust.
She nodded. “I will send Sir Francis Knollys and Baron Scrope of Bolton to Carlisle to inform Her Majesty of Scotland that she will be welcome to visit me here.” She paused, seeing the looks of incredulity upon the faces of the two men. “After she has cleared her name,” she finished.
The expressions of doubt turned to admiration. Elizabeth never ceased to astonish them.
Almost immediately the trouble which followed Mary Stuart like a second shadow began to make its presence felt. Upon finding that Mary had received letters from Huntley and Argyle, Baron Scrope decided she would be safer at Bolton. Letters from Mary’s half-brother, Moray, to Elizabeth’s ministers somehow fell into Mary’s hands and after reading their contents Mary wrote to Elizabeth threatening to send copies to the Kings of France and Spain and requesting permission to leave for Scotland.
It began to dawn upon Elizabeth that Mary was a born troublemaker and with the realisation that perhaps years of intrigue faced her she wrote to her cousin:
My Lord Herries has told me two things which seem to me very strange. One, that you would not answer before anyone but myself: the other, that without force you would not stir from the place where you are, unless you had licence to come to me. Your innocence being such as I hope it is, you have no need to refuse to answer to some noble personage, whom I shall send to you, not to answer judicially, but only to assure me upon it by your answers; not making them to your subjects which would not be considered proper but sending to lay before me your defence, that I might publish it to the world after having satisfied myself, which is my principal desire.
Then as to the place I have ordained for your honour and safe keeping, I beg you not to give me cause to think all the promises you have made were but as wind, when you sent word to me that you would do whatsoever might seem best to me.
Elizabeth R.