Philippa Gregory - The other queen

Bustling behind us, left far behind as usual, is the redoubtable countess Bess, organizing stores to follow us, no doubt sending messengers to London for news, desperate to end up on the right side, desperate to know what the right side will be. I shan’t have her in my household whatever side she decides to turn her coat. I don’t forget she would have handed me over to Hastings. I don’t forget she fears that I want her husband. I so despise a jealous wife and I have spent my life hounded by the fears of less beautiful women.

She was in the courtyard as we scrambled into the saddle; she was at my side as her husband lifted me up to my horse, trust her not to give us a moment together. She was there even before the page boy Babington. She took my hand and raised her strained face to me. “I swear you will be safe,” she promised quietly. “If you are in danger I will come to you and set you free. If Cecil sends word that you are to be taken to the Tower, I shall get you safely away. I am on your side. I have always been on your side.”

I did not let her see my leap of joy.Non, vraiment! Of course, I have no expectation of her saving me, she is such a liar! This promise is nothing but her desperate bid to hold both sides at once. But what this tells me is that she thinks the Northern army will win. Whatever news she has from London, it warns her that things are going badly for Elizabeth’s men, so badly that Bess wants me to know that she is my friend. She has the news from London in her pocket and now she wants to be my ally. I am watching Bess, Countess of Shrewsbury, turn her back on everything she believes in, desperate to be on the winning side. I don’t laugh out loud, I don’t even let her see my amusement. I press her hand gently in mine. “You have been a good friend to me, Countess,” I say sweetly. “I shall not forget you or your husband when I come to my own again.”

When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.

So think I, jogging down the road south, my head bowed against a freezing sleety drizzle, Tutbury abandoned behind me, a battle or, worse, a defeat before me. A murder commanded of me, and a treason trial hanging over me. This tragedy has happened to me. Me, who thought that I had chosen so well, that I would end my life a countess, with a husband I admired, in a house that is one of the best in England. Now I am riding behind a train of wagons carrying my most valuable goods, desperate to get them stowed somewhere safe before we are plundered, trapped between two advancing armies. And all this because my husband is a fool.

A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts, and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even when she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children’s feet for the greater benefit of the family.

If a husband is unfaithful, a good wife will wink at it. Men being who they are, she is not missing much: the quick thrill of being put up against a wall or being squashed on wet grass. If he is a gambler she can forgive him and pay off his debts. If he has a temper she can keep out of the way, or soothe him, or fight him. Anything that gets her safely through the day, until he apologizes in tears—as violent husbands so often do. But if a husband jeopardizes his wife’s house, her fortune, her prosperity, if he puts at risk the very thing she has dedicated her life to amass, then I cannot see how she can ever forgive him. The only point in being a wife is to get a house and fortune and the children to inherit them. And the terrible danger in being a wife is that the husband owns all: everything that she brings to him on marriage, everything that she inherits or earns during that marriage. By the law of the land, a wife cannot own anything independently of her husband, not her house, not her children, not herself. On marriage she signs every single thing into his keeping. So if a husband destroys what she brings him—loses the house, spends the fortune, disinherits the children, abuses her—then she can do nothing but watch herself slide into poverty. He is a fool and I fear that she will never love him again. And she was a fool to choose him.

And yes. This is the case for me. I allow him to gamble without reproach, I avoid his occasional moments of bad temper, I even turn a blind eye to his adoration of the young queen, but I cannot forgive him for putting my house at risk. If he is found guilty of treason, they will behead him and take his possessions and I will lose Chatsworth and everything that my previous husbands and I gathered together. I cannot forgive him for taking this risk. I am more frightened by this than by the thought of his beheading. To lose Chatsworth would be to lose my life’s work. To lose Chatsworth would be to lose my very sense of myself. He is a fool, and I am Mrs. Fool, and he will make me Mrs. Fool without a house, which is worse.

Bothwell,

Written in haste—they are taking me to Coventry. Our moment is now! I can promise you a fight to win. Come if you can, come whatever it costs you. Come now!

M

Westmorland has an army of more than a thousand at Brancepath Castle, and a note palmed to me when we stop for dinner tells me that they have already been joined by Northumberland’s men. This makes them now two thousand strong. Two thousand—this is an army that can take the North; this is an army large enough to take London.

They are on their way to free me, Norfolk marching north to join them from Kenninghall and the three holy armies, his, Northumberland’s and Westmorland’s, carrying the banner of the five wounds of Christ, will unite and ride down the road to Coventry for me.

I don’t even expect much of a battle. Shrewsbury has a couple of hundred men riding with us, and Hastings no more than forty. None of them has the stomach for a fight. Half of them are Catholic; many of them are sympathetic to my cause. I see it in their shy sideways grins when I ride among them, and in the way they duck their heads in a bow when I go by. When we march past a derelict wayside shrine, half of them cross themselves and their officers look the other way. These are men who were christened in the Papist church; why should they want anything changed? Why should they die to defend a change that has brought them nothing but disappointment?

Dusk is falling on our first day of travel as Shrewsbury comes back to ride beside me. “Not far now,” he says encouragingly. “Are you not too tired?”

“A little,” I say. “And very cold. Where are we to spend the night?”

“Ashby-de-la-Zouche,” he says. “Lord Hastings’ castle.”

I am seized with fear. “I thought…,” I begin, and then I bite off what I thought. “Do we stay here? I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to be in his house.”

He puts out his hand and touches my glove. He is as gentle as a girl. “No, no, we are here only for one night. Then we will go on.”

“He won’t keep me here? Lock me up when we arrive?”

“He cannot. You are still in my charge.”

“You won’t release me to him? Whatever he says?”

He shakes his head. “I am to take you to Coventry and keep you safe.” He checks himself. “I should not have told you where we are headed. You will not tell your ladies or your servants, please.”

I nod. We all know already. “I promise I will not. And you will keep by my side?”

“I will,” he says gently.

The road turns ahead of us and we clatter towards the looming house, dark against the darkness of the winter afternoon. I grit my teeth. I am not afraid of Hastings. I am not afraid of anyone.

Shrewsbury comes to my rooms after dinner to see that I am comfortable and well served. I half expect him to offer me my freedom, to propose some kind of escape. But I wrong him. He is a man of determined honor. Even when he is losing he will not cut his losses. He is doomed tonight, and yet he smiles at me with his usual courtesy, and I see the affection in his weary face.

“You are comfortable?” he asks me, looking around at the rich furniture which Bess has hastily unloaded and assembled in the bare rooms. “I am sorry for the poor accommodation.”

“I am well enough,” I say. “But I don’t understand why we have to ride so hard, nor where we are going.”

“There is some unrest in the northern counties and we want to ensure your safety,” he says. He shifts his feet; he cannot meet my eyes. I could love this man for his hopeless honesty; I think he is the first man I have ever known who is incapable of telling a lie.

“There is some trouble,” he says reluctantly. “The queen is troubled by the loyalty of the northern lands. Nothing for you to worry about. But I shall stay with you until we reach our destination and you are safe.”