CHAPTER NINE

It was June, 1567, and a warm sun blazed down over the rough ground of Carberry Hill, splashed with the bright colours of yellow gorse and budding heather. Mary Stuart raised her hand and wiped her forehead which was damp with sweat. She had sat for almost an hour on her horse, watching the disposition of the rebels’ troops on the ground below, occasionally seeing Bothwell riding through the thinning ranks of their own men, cursing and threatening and exhorting, and she watched it all with the calm of someone who has lost all hope. Her wan, dull apathy had made Bothwell furious in the past weeks; he had told her bitterly that he had sooner spend his time with any hedge drab who could laugh and show a little animation than sit opposite to her looking as if she were walking in her sleep. The more Bothwell shouted at her, the less she responded. Her spirit had been broken, and broken by the man she had believed to be her only friend and with whom she had fallen in love when she rode away from Holyrood after poor David Rizzio’s death.

Darnley had been right when he believed she meant to marry Bothwell. She had suffered enough from weaklings, and the strength and determination of her new champion had deluded her into thinking him as safe as the others had been false. She had imagined that they were a match in spirit and courage; she was so grateful for the security he had given her before the birth of her son that she believed herself in love for the first time in her life. She knew he had murdered Darnley and she did not care. The force of her own feelings made her reckless; she repaid Bothwell’s loyalty with extravagant marks of favour and affection. When he came to his trial in Edinburgh and packed the hall with his clansmen, she ignored the protests of his enemies that he had secured his acquittal by force. In a few weeks she had forfeited the sympathy of her people and her nobles by her defence of Bothwell, but with some remnant of caution, she refused to marry him until the public clamour had subsided. If she trusted the Earl, he had not trusted her. On her way to visit her son at Stirling, he had met her with a troop of soldiers and escorted her to his own Castle at Dunbar with the excuse that he was protecting her from being kidnapped by their enemies. And at Dunbar, where she was helpless, Bothwell had come into her room the first night and locked the door and violated her.

The mental shock, more than the physical indignity, had broken her spirit; Bothwell’s assault succeeded where the murder of Rizzio and the whole miserable history of her marriage to Darnley had failed.

And she had failed Bothwell. The beautiful, imperious Queen, who had promised the fulfilment of all his ambitions, was finally committed to the marriage he demanded, but not because she loved him, for she hated him and he saw her hatred in her red-rimmed eyes, forever avoiding his; not because he had aroused her passion as he had hoped, though he had subjected her to alternate caresses and brutality in the attempt to do so; but only because she was pregnant as a result of his outrage. He hated her for that as he hated her for her shivering inexperience. Stripped of her Royal estate, Mary had grossly disappointed him. He had left her after a few days at Dunbar and consoled himself with the wife he intended to divorce. He did it to insult the Queen, whom he blamed for making promises she could not fulfil; the circumstances in which he had claimed that fulfilment and her previous experience with a drunken degenerate made no difference to him. He had proved himself a ferocious, merciless animal, exactly as his enemies had described him to her all along, but if he no longer wanted the woman, he was determined to have the Queen. He had ruined her, as he pointed out, swearing his foulest oaths to try and shake her into anger or retaliation or anything but the sick resignation which goaded him beyond bearing; she had to marry him or bear his bastard and thereby resign her throne and be committed to her half-brother’s mercies. And she knew what to expect from him.…

She gave her consent to that marriage in a voice that made him want to strike her; and he brought her back to Edinburgh in state, escorted by his clansmen, and married her on a brilliant spring morning.

They made a show of unity; she was so low in pride and so physically ill that the least sign of humanity might have driven her to Bothwell once again, but he showed none. He was coarse and vile tempered; he cared nothing for religion but forced her to marry him in the Protestant rite. The same morning she was heard to cry out for a knife to kill herself. But she was committed to him by the marriage which had condoned his abduction; they could not count upon one friend, and their natures prevented them, even at the last moment, from counting on each other. He could not forgive her for being a reproach; he was incapable of humbling himself by admitting that he had ruined her and himself; she could not go to him because her fear of his treatment was only equalled by her anxiety to hide it from their enemies. Moray and Morton and Lindsay and the rest saw Bothwell raised to the height of power through his marriage to her. They had killed Rizzio because they were jealous of him; they were ready to kill Darnley if Bothwell had not done it for them. Now they had exchanged a humble secretary and a drunken weakling for the one man who was strong enough to crush them all if he were given time.

And so, less than two months later, she waited at the head of a dwindling army to do battle with three-quarters of the nobility of Scotland. There was no hope of victory; there was no hope of anything. The rebels held her baby son; they demanded that Bothwell should be surrendered to them and the Queen place herself under their protection. Their courtiers assured her that she would not be harmed. Bothwell was insisting upon fighting; the French Ambassador had ridden out to try and mediate; he had urged her to submit, saying her cause was hopeless and that everyone knew she had been imprisoned and forced into marriage with the Earl. Her only hope was to surrender to her nobles and trust their affection for her when they heard in detail how she had been mistreated. And she knew that Bothwell would never agree to such terms and go unarmed to his enemies.

He was like a wild animal, defiant and snarling at bay. He had no fear of death in battle; but he had told her plainly that he would kill her and himself before he fell into the hands of Lord James and his supporters. Her brother was in France; it was typical of him to leave the rebellion to be fought by others. When it was successful, he would return, protesting his innocence. He was responsible for the revolt, he was the organizer, the brain behind the ruffians she could see below her. And he had promised that she would not be harmed. Perhaps he meant to keep that promise. It was her only hope; she felt so sick that she swayed in the saddle. If they fought they died—she and Bothwell and the child she carried—fought and died for nothing, without even the memory of love between them. And suddenly Mary did not want to die. She was sick of blood and pain and futility, and she was only twenty-five.

She turned to one of the clansmen standing by her and sent him to find Bothwell. He came after some delay, scowling and sweating in his heavy steel breastplate.

“Their troops are round the back of us,” he said shortly. “All this parleying was just a feint to strengthen their position while we talked. I told you to send that damned Frenchman away!”

“We cannot win,” Mary said slowly. “The men are deserting; there are less and less left to us every hour.”

He began to swear and pull out his sword and she touched his arm suddenly.

“If they give you a safe conduct, will you abandon this battle?”

“What?” he stared at her, his dark eyes narrowing against the sun. “Don’t talk such madness; they want my head and they’ll have to come and get it. I’ll kill that cur Morton if it’s the last blow I strike on earth.”

“If they let you go,” she insisted, her voice strained and trembling, “I will surrender to them. I am the one they want most. Du Croc says I shan’t be harmed. I beg of you, James, I beseech you, listen to me.”

“Listen to you!” he laughed bitterly. “I listened to you long enough, Madam, and now see where it has brought me!”

“I don’t want it to bring you to your death. Blame me if you wish; God knows I blame myself, but what is done cannot be altered now. We were friends once, before all this; I truly loved you once, and I am carrying your child. For that child’s sake, I want you to escape.”

He looked at her and for a moment he caught her arm, not unkindly but to give her support. He couldn’t believe that she meant what she said; she would surrender if he could go free. Even at that moment his insane pride rejoiced at the idea that he had conquered her in spite of everything, that, even if he despised her, she cared for him.… Women had always cared for him, no matter how he treated them, they came whining back, asking for more. All women except the Queen whose attentions had driven him to disaster, and then proved that when it came to a trial of power and strength, her title was only an empty echo against the men and money of her brother and her nobles.

“Let me send down to them,” she pleaded. “And if they grant your life, we will lay down our arms.”

“How do I know you will be safe?” he asked, and suddenly ashamed of his relief, he looked away from her.

“They have given their word for that already. James could not break it publicly. No harm will come to me.”

It was late afternoon when the rebel Lords gave their assurance. As Lord Lindsay said, once they had the Queen safe, Bothwell would not get very far.

The sun was sinking when Mary said goodbye to him for the last time; her face was very white under the red light as he stood awkwardly in front of her, anxious to get away and torn by a feeling of shame and anger and regret that could not find expression. In his own way he loved her, in a way that was ruthless and ambitious and predominantly lustful. He could not come nearer to telling her so than by saying he wished it had been different and hoped that she had forgiven him for what had happened at Dunbar.

“I wanted to marry you,” he mumbled. “And I thought you might be persuaded against it if we delayed. I did what seemed the only thing to make up your mind for you. It’s an old Border method.”

“It was the wrong one, but I believe you thought it right,” she said wearily. “There’s nothing left for us but forgiveness now. I do forgive you from my heart.”

“We can still fight,” he said, but she was not deceived. He wanted to go, and she longed to be free of him now that she knew he was ready to abandon her, free even to depend upon her brother James. It was not possible to sink lower than she had done in courage or in hope.

“Farewell,” he said abruptly. “I will be back, and I swear I’ll help you if you need it.”

She watched him mount and spur his horse into a gallop back over the ridge of the hill; then she began to ride slowly forward towards the rebel forces.

It was so unusual for Elizabeth to attend a Council meeting, that when Cecil told the other members to expect the Queen, they knew it would be a difficult session. They were all standing by their places round the long polished table, with the canopied chair at the top; the Duke of Norfolk, the Lords Leicester, Hunsdon, Sussex, Bedford, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton and Sir William Cecil, and Cecil had a pile of papers stacked with his characteristic neatness just in front of him, placed edge to edge, with a sheaf of clean parchment; a stand of freshly cut quill pens, and ink and sanding paper were laid out before each Councillor. It was his duty to write down the Queen’s comments and keep the minutes of the meeting. He had been hoping that Elizabeth would leave the guidance of the Council to him as she normally did; in that way he felt there might be a chance of altering her attitude to the fate of Mary, Queen of Scots, at that time held as her brother Moray’s prisoner in the island castle of Lochleven. She was under the guardianship of her deadly enemies, the Douglas, and lucky to have lived through the ordeal of her parade through the streets of Edinburgh after her surrender at Carberry Hill, where the crowds had yelled for her blood, and besieged the house where the Lords had lodged her, screaming that she should be burnt alive as a witch and a whore.…

Elizabeth had reacted with volcanic fury to the reports of the brutality, indignity and ill-usage to which her sister Queen had been subjected, after receiving promises of humane and honourable treatment from those who held her captive. And it was this obstinate defence of Mary’s Royal immunity which had so far prevented Moray and the others from putting their prisoner to death. The Council which was waiting for her had been called to point out the folly of her attitude.

“Make way for the Queen’s Grace! The Queen’s Grace to the Council!”

They could hear the shout of her gentleman usher; they were all turned towards the door when at last it opened and Elizabeth walked quickly through into the room. Every back bowed. The Queen wore a stiff skirted gown of pale cream satin, lined with gold tissue; the soft, shimmering colour blended with her hair and was repeated in the little yellow cap, the edges sewn with pearls and topaz.

“Greetings, my Lords.” She spoke briskly, and inwardly Cecil’s spirits drooped. He knew that clipped, businesslike tone and the mood it indicated.

She sat down in her chair of state and began to pick sweets out of the gold bowl.

Cecil cleared his throat and began to ask the Queen’s consideration of a proposed amendment to the local judiciary system in country parishes. It was a futile trick because she interrupted him in the middle of the second sentence.

“You don’t need my opinion for such stuff. Get to the real business. The Earl of Moray has asked for another assurance that he has nothing to fear from me if he executes Queen Mary.”

Her dark eyes swept round the line of faces.

“That is the question, Gentlemen. And here is my answer, which it will be your pleasure to convey on my behalf. The day any rebellious subject takes the life of their lawful Prince, on any pretext whatsoever, an English army marches into Scotland.”

“Madam.” Throckmorton leant towards her. “We all know your merciful nature, but there’s surely a point where mercy and policy cease to meet. The Queen of Scots is your mortal enemy. She has claimed your throne from the day your sister Mary died and has continued to claim it ever since she arrived in Scotland. Nothing has changed her attitude. If she regains her throne in Scotland and, knowing the country as I do, it’s not as impossible as it seems in spite of her conduct, she will be as dangerous to you as ever, perhaps more if she finds another man fool enough to marry her and engage in her ambitions. I beg you, Madam, on behalf of your Council and all your people, to allow Lord Moray and the other Lords to do what they want. Let them try the Queen for Darnley’s murder and execute her. We shan’t have peace as long as she lives.”

There was a moment’s silence before Elizabeth answered him. She knew that he spoke sincerely and without personal malice towards the Queen of Scots. It was a natural and just solution to Throckmorton who was not as bloodthirsty as her cousin Hunsdon or the Earl of Bedford, or as basically unchivalrous as Leicester. They all thought she was being obstinate and sensitive to world opinion; Cecil thought she was being sentimental and was positively sad in his disappointment in her. They saw nothing wrong with killing a sovereign, because they were all commoners.

“It’s not my habit to give explanations,” she said at last, “but I know the affection you all have towards me, and I don’t wish you to think it is taken lightly. My Lords, this once I will open my heart to you. I want no record of this written, Cecil; let it stay in your memories. Before my grandfather, Henry VII, came to the throne, it was the custom of English Kings to take the crown by force. Civil war, tyranny and terrible crimes were the result of that precedent; in fact our country was no better than Scotland. The Tudors have changed that; with our dynasty kingship has gained a sacred place in the hearts of subjects of all degree. I can come and go amongst you all because I know there is not a man among you who would put his poignard into my heart, because I am your Queen and as your Queen my blood is sacred. It was this ideal, this truth, which prevented my sister from putting me to death when so many advised her to do so, using all those arguments you have employed against the Queen of Scots. I was her heir and of the Blood Royal. So, God help us, is Mary Stuart to me. If I stand by while those ruffians send her to the scaffold, I have stretched out my own neck and bared my own bosom. If I, as Queen of England, admit the right of a Prince’s subjects to judge and try and condemn their Prince, then my own precedent might well rebound upon me. I do not admit Moray’s right. I have spoken to you as a Queen and now I tell you that as a woman I abhor the treachery and brutality with which he and the other scoundrels have treated a defenceless woman who is carrying a child.”

“She connived at Darnley’s murder,” Sussex pointed out.

“If she did, she is only guilty of poor timing and worse planning—I will not allow you to sit there and pretend that such a cur deserved anything other than death for his conduct towards her. Conduct towards his Queen, more than his wife, I would remind you. Besides, it is not proved, and I fear it troubles my conscience very little. I will not set an example to the world by abandoning the Queen of Scots to a judicial murder. Nor will I close my eyes to poison—tell Moray that too. And if the time comes when she can regain her throne, she may only regain it with my help and on such terms that she will never perplex us again. That, surely, is a better alternative and if we are patient it may come about.”

She held out her hands palms downward across the table. Her coronation ring shone in the light.

“I have been Queen of England for ten years, my Lords, and my hands are not stained with any man’s blood. I will never sully them with the blood of a fellow Prince who comes of the same stock as myself.”

There was nothing to be said after that. The Council agreed that her warning should be sent to Moray, and the subject of Mary Stuart was superseded by the Queen’s pressing need of finance. For the last ten years Elizabeth’s exchequer had been unsteady; national bankruptcy was her nightmare, and the fear of it drove her to drastic economies which were always aimed at those extravagances sacred to her male advisers, to wit, the fleet and the army. The intervention in France had squandered millions of her carefully hoarded Treasury gains; now the great financial houses in the Netherlands were unwilling to hazard more money for England, who might well be overrun by Spain once the Netherland rebels had been finally defeated. And final defeat was something Elizabeth would not consider. It was all very well, she broke in angrily during the meeting, to talk about Mary Stuart who was shut up in a Scottish castle without men or money or hope, when their real danger lay in a huge Spanish army of veterans across the Channel, who might well be launched against England at any moment.

If Philip put down the revolt in the Netherlands, he would be the first power in Europe. If they had forgotten Philip of Spain in all this blabbering about a woman, she had not. She had never forgotten Philip, even when she was most anxious about Mary Stuart. He had a long memory and a slowly mounting score to settle. He had been held back, forced into pretending friendship for her by factors which were known to them all: the fear of her possible marriage to a French Prince; the equal fear of a French-inspired attack upon her to put Mary Stuart upon the throne; the necessity to keep English trade flourishing in his Netherland kingdom. He had only to be sure she would not marry a Frenchman, that Mary was no longer eligible as a French cat’s-paw, and that the best way of keeping trade intact with the Netherlands was to swallow the other half of the business, and then they would all be lost.

They needed money. They needed it primarily to send to the rebels and keep that costly, terrible war going as a distraction and a drain upon the resources of Spain. When Sussex suggested sending troops the Queen sprang out of her chair with a string of oaths, and asked him whether he wanted a war with Spain at this moment, or was he so old that he was tired of the rigours of living?

There would be no troops; no open offence; only lies and procrastinations and more lies, and as much damage to the power of her dear brother-in-law as they could do him without being actually found out. That was what she wanted, not an old man’s blustering. When they could think of a solution, Cecil could come and tell her.

She swept past them down the room and the door banged behind her. The Council gathered their papers and reseated themselves with a sigh of relief. As the Queen had balked their wishes over Mary Stuart, Bedford and Hunsdon and even Sussex, still very red after her rebuke, returned to the old problem of her unmarried state and insisted that both the danger from Mary and the greater danger of activity from the Spanish enemy were the consequences of her obstinate refusal to marry and safeguard her throne with an heir. She was demanding money to finance the Netherlands rebellion, but as soon as they approached Parliament for the grant, Parliament would reopen the issue of her marriage. The time would come, Bedford said angrily, when the Queen would fail to placate them with excuses. Leicester remarked dryly that no doubt the Queen was prepared to intimidate them instead, and the meeting ended in general agreement that there was no way of circumventing her wishes. Mary Stuart would have to be protected and Parliament would have to be persuaded or squeezed into granting more money. As they left, Cecil heard the Duke of Norfolk mutter under his breath that he wondered why the devil they bothered to hold a Council meeting at all.

By the winter of 1568 the position was static; the men surrounding the Queen of England were nervous and discontented, convinced that their policy of inaction would have fatal results and the money granted by Parliament, after an angry encounter with the Queen over her professed virginity, would not be sufficient to meet the national need and leave anything with which to put heart into the rebels in the Netherlands. The King of France was hinting that he might place troops at the disposal of Mary’s few supporters in Scotland, free her and restore her to her throne, with the obvious sequel of invading England while they had the opportunity. Moray’s answer was a threat to execute Mary the instant a French fleet was sighted off the coast of Scotland. But no troops sailed for Scotland and Mary lived on in her prison at Lochleven Castle, where she had miscarried of twin sons. And if her cousin Elizabeth exasperated her advisers without losing their loyalty, Mary repeated her feat of winning some men to her by personal attraction while she turned the rest into mortal enemies.

The sickly boy who had been her first husband had loved her as deeply as his capacity would allow, and even the blackguard and rapist Bothwell had felt some stirring in his soul which drove him to the course of violence which had ruined them both. Now another boy fell under the enchantment of the young Queen who was a prisoner in his family’s castle. Willie Douglas was only fourteen and he had been brought up to regard his sovereign as an adulteress, a Papist and a witch. It was an alarming picture which immediately showed false when the Queen came under his roof and he saw the supposed wanton conducting herself with gentleness and piety under the most unchivalrous conditions. When she miscarried the boy heard his relations rejoicing, expressing the wish that she might die. He undertook duties in her quarters and saw the Queen nursing a right arm which was black with bruises after a visit from Morton and Lindsay, who departed with the act of abdication they had obtained only by holding her down and forcing her hand to guide the pen. He saw a great deal, and Mary knew he was watching. She was in the same mood of reckless desperation which had given her the courage to escape from Holyrood with Darnley; extreme danger sharpened her wits to a high pitch of cunning which unfortunately flagged under less tense conditions. She had at last recovered from the betrayal of Bothwell and the horror of her experiences immediately after surrendering. She was free of the burden of his children, and her health had returned. She was prepared to use any means of escape that offered, and the means was the young cousin of her captor who was obviously in a romantic daze and besotted enough to do anything. She laid siege to Willie Douglas’ loyalty as carefully as a general undermining a fortress. Men had used Mary, and now she used the young Douglas, and to such purpose that before the trees were in bud round the moat at Lochleven, she had crossed it in a small boat and was on her way to raise her Standard and rally her supporters against Moray for a final battle.

The battle took place in May at Langside, but it was less of a battle than an ambush; her old friends the Hamiltons and the Gordons came forward, and laid down their lives in a terrible defeat which turned into a massacre. There was no time to try and reach the coast and escape to France; there was no time to do anything but avoid the capture which would certainly end in her death, and Mary turned her horse from the scene of carnage and disaster and rode across the border into England to take refuge with Elizabeth.

“Now that we have her,” Elizabeth said, “we must keep her. She cannot return to Scotland; Moray would kill her and I cannot let him do that.”

“She is asking,” Cecil pointed out, “to be sent to France. What answer can we give to that request?”

The Queen looked at him and shrugged. “Any answer we choose, my dear friend. We have sheltered the fugitive. I saved her life and my conscience is not going to prick me if I compel her to lead it here where I can see that she does me no harm. She will not be allowed to go to France and stir up trouble there, or to do anything but stay in England. As my guest—or my prisoner; if she decides to be difficult.”

It was impossible to foresee Elizabeth’s reactions; Cecil was only too grateful she had not thrown her arms round her cousin’s neck and welcomed her like a sister when she first arrived in the country. Mary had come into the North of England with nothing but the clothes she wore, and sent a request to her Royal relative for a few necessities while she made her way to London. And suddenly Elizabeth had changed, almost before the eyes of the men who had heard her defending, even sympathizing with Mary a few weeks before. The pale, rather peaked face had grown thinner and whiter, and the black eyes were very narrow, like the mouth. Elizabeth stood in front of them like a fox taking scent, as taut and pitiless as a vixen finding a wounded terrier bitch in its lair. She answered Mary’s plea for clothes by a bundle of dirty petticoats and a length of torn velvet, and forbade her to proceed any closer to London without her personal permission.

She was never allowed to forget the presence of the Scots Queen, even though Mary was many miles away in the North, for Cecil brought her reports of demonstrations in Mary’s favour among the people and described how the Catholic nobility and gentry were busy making the fugitive’s lodgings a place of pilgrimage. He did not comment; there was no need to stress the personal affront to Elizabeth which was the result of Mary’s presence. He knew his mistress, and he knew that her jealousy of her people’s love was even greater than her jealousy in personal relationships. She had used the affection of her subjects as a weapon against her Council and her Parliament; when she overrode the wishes of both bodies, she could appear in the streets on her way through the country and point to the cheering crowds who surrounded her as the answer to her critics.

Now they were cheering someone else, a younger, lovelier woman who was already invested with an aura of romantic tragedy. Elizabeth’s contact with her people was confined to that portion of her country which was staunchly Protestant. She knew within weeks that she could not rely upon the same loyalty from the population in the North where the old religion still survived in spite of the legal repressions which had been in force against it for the last ten years. Religion was no excuse to her; it was pointless for Leicester to tell her that men were more influenced by a Queen they could see than by the decrees of a sovereign known only by name. She was too angry to be reasonable and too realistic to be lulled by logical explanations. He had an alternative suggestion which was in the minds of Cecil and her other Councillors but which they dared not propose: why not agree to the pleas of Lord Moray’s emissaries and return Mary to the vengeance of her Scottish subjects? And there were moments when Elizabeth swore that if Mary were dead, by whatever means, it would be worth the censure of the world to be rid of her, and rid of the internal cleavage her presence had already revealed. But if the Scots were clamouring for the surrender of their enemy, the ambassadors of France and Spain were always at Elizabeth’s elbow, seeking her assurance that she would not betray the trust her cousin had placed in her. France offered her asylum and Philip of Spain promised to be responsible for the Queen of Scotland if she were surrendered to him. When the French were informed of his interest in the heiress to the English throne, they made it clear that they would prefer Mary dead at the hands of her own rebel Lords, if Elizabeth could not keep her out of mischief.

And that was Elizabeth’s answer. It reminded her of the chess simile she had used to Cecil once, some years ago, when the board was just set out and the pieces seemed evenly matched in the game between them. With the White Queen in their hands, it was checkmate. Threats from France or Spain could be quietened by the simple means of holding Mary to ransom. Elizabeth refused the request of Moray and countered it by promising not to let Mary go to France or Spain, and she dispensed with the pretence that her cousin was a guest by ordering her forcible removal to Bolton Castle where she was taken from the shelter of the Catholic North and placed under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury. And in December of that year Elizabeth solved her monetary troubles by seizing ships sailing through the Channel with cargoes of bullion destined for Spain.

There would be no war, she maintained, when some of her Council came clamouring to her, accusing Cecil of responsibility. Spain was now paralysed for lack of money; Philip could protest and bluster as much as he liked. There was nothing he could do but add the seizure to his list of grievances and wait for his revenge. When the reckoning came, if it came, she would be strong enough to meet it in the open. The men who were most afraid of war with Spain were those who had most to fear from a Catholic revival, the men who pressed for the death of Mary Stuart, for marriage with a foreign Prince, for any measure which they thought would safeguard their own interests against the risks inherent in a woman’s political juggling; and since they dared not criticize the Queen, they found a scapegoat in her Secretary and principal adviser, William Cecil. He was already too powerful for Norfolk’s peace of mind, while Bedford and Hunsdon and Sussex were all jealous of his wealth and his growing power.

None of them believed that Elizabeth meant to marry anyone. Nor would she allow the Scots to dispose of Mary Stuart who was royally lodged at Bolton Castle and busy winning the confidence of Lord and Lady Shrewsbury. And at twenty-six, in excellent health and openly determined to escape and secure her rights, Mary Stuart was obviously destined to survive Elizabeth. Her bitterest enemies decided to insure against the future by secretly negotiating with her.

If Mary were married to an Englishman, then their position would be secured. The candidate chosen, by birth and by his own willingness, was the Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk had seen Mary at Carlisle and was sufficiently stupid and vain to be completely captivated by her and to forget the formidable character of the other Queen he had sworn to serve. He had always been influenced by nobility of birth, and there was no Princess in the world whose blood was more illustrious than that of the young woman confined at Bolton. He belonged to the old order of English aristocracy where women had always been the pawns of men, and he had never relished the autocracy of Elizabeth. In his heart he regarded her as a parvenue and a bastard with a lashing tongue and an unseemly disregard for the superior breed of men. The winning, dignified, yet feminine Mary was infinitely more appealing, and the prospect of uniting himself with such a woman and sharing her dazzling birthright, drove all fear of Elizabeth out of his mind. He was so confident and so limited in his vision that he tolerated the presence of his hated enemy the Earl of Leicester among those implicated in the plot.

Leicester had joined because he was afraid, and for the moment the fear of others infected him and swayed his judgment. Panic is the most contagious of all human emotions, and the fears of Sussex and Arundel, neither of them weaklings, brought him to the point where he believed that Elizabeth was about to be overthrown by a Spanish invasion, or else succumb to a sudden illness and be replaced by a Catholic Queen who had a grudge against them all. Throckmorton was among the conspirators and he reminded Leicester of his own tenuous position, of the constant humiliation which his pursuit of Elizabeth had brought him, and then asked bluntly whether he were prepared to lose his head for her after she was dead, or have the courage to make a provision for himself. Leicester balked at Norfolk, but they told him roughly that there was no choice. He could buy Norfolk’s tolerance by complicity, and Norfolk’s scruples were waived by the assurance that the plot could not succeed without Leicester who must be persuaded into it to stop him betraying it to the Queen. The Spanish Ambassador was informed of their intentions, and through him the King of Spain gave the project his blessing.

In her quasi-confinement at Bolton Castle, Mary declared that she was deeply in love with the Duke and ready to marry him as soon as her escape could be arranged. She made the declaration in cold blood, and she was prepared to carry out the promise and give herself to any man who could help her. Passion and feeling were dead in Mary; they had died the night James Bothwell came into her room and robbed her of her womanly dignity, and her natural sentimentality had withered like the gorse on Carberry Hill the day her ravisher and husband, whose unborn child she carried, rode away to freedom and left her to the cruelties of her enemies. She could give her heart because she no longer had one; but she did not let Norfolk or Shrewsbury or any of the other Englishmen involved with her see that, for purely political ends, she was more bloodless than Elizabeth had ever been. Her pleas to meet Elizabeth had been refused on the pretext of the charge of murdering Darnley which her subjects had brought against her and substantiated with copies of impassioned love-letters she was supposed to have written to Bothwell, proving her an adulteress and a party to the crime. These letters were not only forgeries but copies of forgeries; to anyone who knew Mary the letters were palpably false, but they served the dual purpose of blackening Mary’s reputation and excusing the English Queen from accepting her and hearing her side of the story.

They had been shown to the Council and to certain privileged peers, including Norfolk, all of whom affected to believe them and expressed their horror. Elizabeth was publicly shocked and privately cynical.

The early days of 1569 were a time of acute strain for Leicester. He felt uncomfortable with his fellow intriguers; he could not quite trust the men with whom he was involved or believe that they could succeed in the second part of their design which was to impeach Cecil for treason. He still hated Cecil but he was so close to Elizabeth and knew her mind so well that he often lay awake and thought that the whole scheme would end in disaster foundering on her invincible will and her uncanny aptitude for turning everything to her own advantage. She would fight hard for Cecil; she was ruthless and exacting, but she had never yet abandoned anyone who served her faithfully.

Fear had brought Leicester into the intrigue and fear kept him in it, long after his confidence in its success had begun to fade.

It was Lettice Essex who persuaded him to betray the conspiracy and the conspirators to the Queen before it was too late.

They were dining together at his new house on the Strand; it was a magnificent mansion surrounded by a park and gardens which had just been completed, and staffed by his personal retinue of several hundred servants. Lettice often stayed there with him when the Queen allowed him leave of absence from the Court. She was his accepted mistress; they lived an almost domestic life when they could arrange to be together, and he had begun to tell her more than most men told their wives.

“For the last ten minutes you’ve been playing with your food,” she said suddenly. “And if you lose your appetite, my love, then I know something serious is wrong; what is it?”

He pushed back his plate and made a sign for his steward to remove it. When the servant had gone and they were alone, he leant his head in his hands, staring moodily in front of him.

“What is it?” Lettice asked him. “Tell me.”

“You were right,” he said suddenly. “You told me not to join this intrigue with Norfolk and I wouldn’t listen to you; now I only wish to God I had. Every day I feel more certain it will fail; every time the Queen looks at me I wonder if she knows, and if she doesn’t, what will she do to me when she finds out!”

“She’s fond of you,” Lettice said. “She may forgive you. But you were so confident when you began—why have you changed?”

He moved irritably. “I don’t know; it sounded clever enough. Make an insurance against the Queen’s death, get rid of Cecil who’s eating up lands and power for himself.… I think that was what really trapped me. I’d give anything to see him humbled. But the Queen is in better health than she’s ever been lately; there’s no move from Spain, there’s no move from anyone. And I feel certain now that the whole damned scheme will founder. She will find it out, or Cecil will. And even if she doesn’t and we succeed, there’s something else I don’t like.” He paused, groping for the right words, knowing how jealous Lettice was of his feelings for Elizabeth. “I don’t trust Norfolk,” he went on. “If he marries the Queen of Scots he may aim for the throne with her.”

“And that would mean overthrowing the Queen,” Lettice said slowly. “They would have to put her to death, wouldn’t they, Robert?”

“Yes,” Leicester muttered. “And I want no part of that.”

Lettice Essex watched him for a moment. She knew him very well, as well as that other woman from whom she had stolen him; she knew that he was unscrupulous and ambitious and primarily in love with himself. He had many faults and few compensating virtues, but she loved him enough not to wish him any different. And because she loved him and understood him, she knew what it meant when he shrank from harming Elizabeth.

“You still love her, don’t you?” she said at last. “No, Robert, don’t deny it! It’s not like our love, but it is there.”

“It won’t save me if she finds this out,” he interrupted. “I am the one man above all the others that she’ll rend to pieces when she discovers what I’ve done. Why didn’t I listen to you, Lettice? Why did I ever get involved with these fools?”

“What’s done is done,” she answered quickly. “If you think she’ll punish you, you’re probably right. There’s only one way to make sure that she doesn’t.”

She left her chair and came and knelt beside him. He put his hand over hers, and she felt that it was shaking slightly.

“How?” he asked her.

“By betraying the whole business before it is too late. Go back to Whitehall and tell her everything. It is your only hope.”

For a moment he hesitated; for a moment he weighed the chances, imagined the consequences to the other men who had trusted him, and how many enemies he would make once it was known what he had done. And then he imagined Elizabeth if the intrigue miscarried and he had said nothing.

“Go,” Lettice whispered. “Go now, and don’t hesitate. Who will come forward to save you if things go wrong? No one, I tell you. I love you, and I’m not blinded by false loyalties to anything or anyone but you. Confess everything to the Queen and you’ll be safe. If you don’t tell her, someone else will.”

He stood up and they embraced; he realized at that moment that he was very much in love with her. He kissed her with real tenderness.

“I won’t wait,” he, said. “I’ll ride to Whitehall now. God keep you, Lettice, and pray that all goes well.”

Elizabeth had been very quiet while he told her. She had sat in her chair, embroidering, occasionally looking up from her needlework frame into his flushed and anxious face while he talked of his fear and his doubts and the influence which had been brought to bear on him by the other conspirators. The recital did not do him credit. When he had finished she still said nothing; the silence in the room became unbearable. He went on his knees beside her chair.

“Madam, I beg you to forgive me.”

“So first you betray me, and now you betray your fellow traitors. Tell me, Robert, what made you confess?”

“I was afraid for you,” he stammered. “I kept wondering whether you would be safe if the marriage took place and Cecil was forced out of office. It seemed a wise plan at first … a sort of safeguard … then I thought Norfolk might try to go further still …”

“And make an attempt to remove me along with Cecil,” she finished for him. “A reasonable conclusion; I’m surprised it took so long to occur to you.”

“Believe me,” he begged, “believe me the moment it did, I made up my mind to warn you.”

“Would Bedford have agreed to that?” she asked him, “and Arundel and Throckmorton, who’s such a stout Protestant? Were they prepared to dethrone me in favour of Mary Stuart and Norfolk?”

“No,” he said desperately; he was so frightened by her calm almost casual reaction to the plot that he began to tell the truth. “No, it was Cecil they aimed at, not you. But once these things begin, when you have a claimant like her married to the first noble in the country, anything can happen.”

“How true.” Elizabeth leant back and looked at him. “But what would have become of you when I was gone, Robert … I expect you thought of that too, in your anxiety for my safety?”

He only shook his head. “I warned you,” he said unsteadily. “I beg you to remember that.”

Elizabeth stood up.

“I shall remember, Robert, and I am flattered that you were more afraid of me than of Norfolk and the rest.”

“That’s not the only reason.” Leicester came towards her. He caught her hand; but it was cold and lifeless.

“God knows, and so do you, I’m not an admirable character; but if I have one feature that redeems me from your absolute contempt, it is my love for you. Whatever I am, that has never changed and never will. I couldn’t stand by and risk anything happening to you. I risked your anger instead, and that’s no small hazard.”

He faltered. Her face was white, as expressionless as a mask; it told him nothing of her thoughts as she looked down at him.

So Robert had intrigued against her. He had lied to her for months, and most of his explanation was a lie in the attempt to excuse himself and minimize his responsibility. But he had told the truth when he said that the plot might go further than he supposed. He was untrustworthy, but she had always known that. He was vain and ambitious, but his vanity and his greed stopped short of agreeing to her death. He had confessed to her from several motives, but at that moment she believed that concern for her safety was the main one. When she was desperately ill with smallpox, the same inconsistent loyalty had kept him beside her, now at a moment of equal danger he had shown in his own way that he loved her still.

“You can arrest me now,” he said at last. “It’s no more than I deserve. But say that you forgive me first.”

“Arrest you?” To his astonishment she laughed.

“I’m not going to punish you, Robert. If you want forgiveness you can have it. I don’t feel inclined to play our little comedy of rift and reconciliation yet again; this matter is too serious. I’ll pardon you now, but on one condition.”

“Name it, Madam! Anything, anything in the world.” He had begun to kiss her hand; there were tears of relief in his eyes.

“Promise me that you’ll join every plot against me in the future, then I can watch its course from the beginning. Nobody shall know you told me about this one, except Cecil. He may trust you more after this. I could get it out of Throckmorton in ten minutes if I sent for him, but I think I’ll squeeze the truth out of the eager bridegroom. Norfolk shall tell me. And when he does, he’ll go to the Tower.”

“The best place for him,” Leicester said quickly. “And the Queen of Scots?”

Elizabeth’s face hardened. “Something must be done to dissuade her from making trouble; I must think, Robert. I know what Cecil will advise—return her to Scotland and let her brother execute her.”

“It’s good advice, take it,” he urged. “She has repaid your shelter by intriguing against you, she deserves to die.”

“For that matter, so do you and all the others.” Elizabeth sat down and pulled the embroidery frame towards her. “That isn’t the answer, Robert; I’m not going to salve your conscience by putting a sovereign to death, even indirectly. Leave me now, I want a little time to think.”

“And you have really forgiven me?” he insisted.

She glanced at him; if her smile was cynical it was also strangely sad.

“I have forgiven you, Robert. I’m afraid it has become a habit.”

She sewed for some time when he had left her. She was an exquisite needlewoman; as a young girl she used to work for hours, straining her eyes to make presents for her sister Mary and her brother Edward when she had no money to buy something suitable. Like music it soothed her nerves and cleared her brain, and she was thinking fast and clearly as she sewed. She was not surprised by Robert; old habits died hard, and he was born with a passionate care for his own skin. They had all begun this intrigue to protect themselves, thinking she might die, or Spain would invade, doubting the wisdom of her policy even though she had never been proved wrong through the last ten years. Frightened men would stoop to anything; even those like Robert, who loved her in his own worthless way. They were all jealous of Cecil, who was braver and shrewder than any of them, and they made him the scapegoat for their own lack of confidence. She had spent those ten years in building confidence, steadying her throne and stabilizing her country, and there had been no whisper of discontent until Mary Stuart crossed into England. She had plunged Scotland into civil war, her crown was stained with the blood of her husband, the Hamiltons and Gordons had perished in thousands defending her; the villainous Bothwell was now a prisoner of the King of Denmark where he had sought shelter, because his association with Mary had made him worth holding to ransom. Everyone connected with her had suffered, and the same sinister pattern had begun to form in Elizabeth’s kingdom now that she was in it. Plots and betrayal and fear. And finally bloodshed would follow, as Cecil had prophesied from the beginning. She would not kill Norfolk or imprison the others. She would send him to the Tower and hope that he had learnt the lesson without having to lose his head as well. She would try and avert the violence which her instincts warned her to expect, and she would continue to hold Mary in spite of Cecil, because she dared not let her go. But she too must be taught that intrigue would be followed by consequences.

Elizabeth went to her writing-table and wrote out an order for Mary’s removal to Tutbury Castle. It was a damp and gloomy mediaeval building, buried in a desolate part of Staffordshire, and uninhabited for many years. It was also one of the strongest fortresses in England.