Philippa Gregory - The other queen

“What’s the news? Why are you so angry?”

“He has pushed a bill through Parliament to disinherit the Queen of Scots,” I say. “Disinherit her. Now we see why he ordered us here where she could be so closely guarded. If ever the country would rise for her, you can see they might rise now. Declaring her invalid to inherit! As though Parliament can determine who is the heir to the throne. As though it does not go by blood. As though a bunch of commoners can say who is a king’s son! It makes no sense, apart from anything else.”

“Burghley has achieved this?”

“She must see this as false dealing to her. In the very month when she is due to go back to Scotland as queen, Cecil sends us here and pushes through a bill that says that no one of the Roman Catholic faith can ever be a monarch of England. Their faith is to disbar them as much as if they were…” For a moment I am speechless, I cannot think of an example. It has never been like this in England before. “A Jew…,” I manage. “If one can imagine such a thing as a Tudor Jew, a Stuart Jew. A Mussulman, a Hindoo pretender. They are treating her as if she were a Turk. She is a child of the Tudor line—Cecil is saying she is a foreigner to us.”

“It makes Elizabeth safe from a Papist assassin,” Bess says shrewdly. “There is no point in any hidden priest making a martyr of himself by killing her if it does not put a Papist on the throne.”

“Yes, but that’s not why he’s done it,” I exclaim. “If he cared so much to protect the queen, he would have rushed the bill through last year when the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth and commanded every Papist criminal in the country to murder her. No. This is just to attack the Queen of Scots at the very moment when we have a complete agreement. This is to drive her into rebellion. And I will have to be the one to tell her what he has done. It was to be an act of absolute faith between the two queens, and I am the one who has to tell her that she has been cheated of her inheritance.”

“You can tell her that her plotting has all been for nothing then.” There is a vindictive pleasure lilting in my wife’s voice. “Whatever she has written to Norfolk or to her foreign friends, if she is debarred from the throne she can promise what she likes but they will know her to be a liar without friends in England.”

“She is no liar. She is the heir,” I say stubbornly. “Whatever anyone says, whatever Cecil says in Parliament. She has Tudor blood, she is nearest to the throne, whether they like it or no. She is the next heir to England. What else do we say? That we pick and choose the next king or queen depending on our preference? Are monarchs not chosen by God? Are they not descended one from another? Besides, all the kings of England before this one have been Papist. Is the religion of the fathers of the kings of England now to be an obstacle to their being king? Has God changed? Has the king changed? Has the past changed too? Has Cecil—I beg your pardon, Baron Burghley—has he the power to disinherit Richard I? Henry V?”

“Why should you be so upset?” she asks unpleasantly. “Has she promised you a dukedom as reward when she is Queen of England?”

I gasp at the insult on my own castle wall from my own wife. But this is how things are now. A land steward is a baron, a queen is disinherited by the House of Commons, and a wife can speak to her husband as if he were a fool.

“I serve the Queen of England,” I say tightly. “As you know, Bess. To my cost.”

“My cost too.”

“I serve the Queen of England and none other,” I say. “Even when she is ill advised. Woefully ill advised by your friend.”

“Well, I am glad that your loyalty is unchanged and nothing is wrong,” she says sarcastically, since it must be clear to everyone that everything is all wrong in England today. She turns to go back down the stone stairs to the mean little herb garden in the castle yard. “And when you tell her, be sure she understands that this is the end of her ambition. She will be Queen of Scotland again as we have agreed, but she will never rule in England.”

“I serve the Queen of England,” I repeat.

“You would do better to serve England,” she says. “Cecil knows that England is more than the king or the queen. All you care about is who is on the throne. Cecil has a greater vision. Cecil knows it is the lords and the commons too. It is the people. And the people won’t have a burning, persecuting wicked Papist queen on the throne ever again. Even if she is the true heir ten times over. Make sure you tell her that.”

Iam like a fox in a trap in this poor castle, and like a fox I could chew off my own foot for rage and frustration. Elizabeth promises to return me to my throne in Scotland but at the same time she is doing everything she can to see that I will never inherit the greater prize of England.

She has taken to courtship like a woman who knows that her last chance has finally come. They all say that the old fool has fallen in love with Anjou and is determined to have him. They say she knows that this is her final chance to wed and bed and breed. At last, with me on her doorstep and her lords all for my cause, she realizes that she has to give them a son and heir to keep me from the throne. At last she decides to do the thing that everyone said must be done: take a man as her husband and lord and pray that he gives her a son.

That my family in France could so far forget themselves and their honor as to betray me and my cause shows me how great an enemy Catherine de Medici has always been to me. At this very moment, when they should be ensuring my safe return to Scotland, they are spending all their time and trouble trying to marry little Henri d’Anjou to the old spinster of England. They will side with her against me and my cause. They will agree with her that my needs can be forgotten. Elizabeth will leave me here in miserable Tutbury, or bundle me into some other faraway fortress; she will stick me in Kimbolton House, like poor Katherine of Aragon, and I will die of neglect. She will have a son and he will disinherit me. She will be married to a French prince and my kin, the Valois, will forget I was ever one of theirs. This marriage will be the last time anyone thinks of me and my claims. I must be free before this wedding.

Cecil has forced a bill through Parliament which says that no Roman Catholic can inherit the English throne. This is obviously directed at me, designed to disinherit me, even before the birth of the Protestant heir. It is an act of such double-dealing falsehood that it leaves me breathless. My friends write to me that he has even worse to come: plans to disinherit all Papists from their fathers’ lands. This is an open attack on all of my faith. He plans to make us all paupers on our own lands. It cannot be borne. We have to move now. Every day my enemies become more determined against me; every day Cecil becomes more vindictive to us Papists.

This is our time, it must be our time. We dare not delay. The Great Enterprise of England must be launched this month. I dare not delay. Cecil has disinherited me in law and Elizabeth will divide me from my family. I am promised a journey to Scotland and yet I am in Tutbury again. We have to launch the enterprise now. We are ready, our allies are sworn to our service, the time is set.

Besides, I long to act. Even if this was going to fail, I would relish the joy of trying. Sometimes I think that even if I knew it would fail for a certainty I would still do it. I write to Bothwell of this sense of wild desperation and he writes back:

Only a fool rides out to fail. Only a fool volunteers for a forlorn hope. You have seen me take desperate risks but never for something I thought was doomed. Don’t be a fool, Marie. Only ride out if you can win. Riding out for death or glory benefits only your enemy. Don’t be a fool, Marie, you have only once been a fool before.

B

I laugh as I read his letter. Bothwell counseling caution is a new Bothwell. Besides, it is not going to fail. At last we have the allies we need.

A message from the French ambassador tells me that he has delivered to my beloved Norfolk three thousand crowns in gold coin—enough to finance my army. Norfolk will send it on to me by a secret courier in his own service. Ridolfi reports that he has seen the Spanish commander in the Netherlands, the Duke of Alva, who has promised to lead an assault by the Spanish troops from the Low Countries on the English channel ports; he has been blessed by the Pope, who has even promised his financial backing too. As soon as Spanish troops set foot on English soil, the power and wealth of the Vatican will be behind them. Now Ridolfi is on his way to Madrid to confirm that Spain will back the scheme with all its power. With the Pope’s support and with the Duke of Alva’s advice, Philip of Spain is certain to give the order to go ahead.

I write to John Lesley, the Bishop of Ross, for his latest news and to my old servant now in his service, Charles Bailly. Neither has replied yet, and this is troubling. Bailly could well be on a secret mission for the bishop and away from his lodgings, but my ambassador should have answered me at once. I know he is in London awaiting news of the “Great Enterprise.” When I hear nothing from him I write to Norfolk to ask him for news.

Norfolk replies in code, and his letter comes to me hidden in a pair of hollow heels to a pair of new shoes. He says that he has sent a letter to Lesley and also sent a trusted servant to his house, but the house was closed and he was not at home. His servants say that he is visiting a friend but they don’t know where he is, nor did he take any clothes with him, nor his personal servant.