Philippa Gregory - The other queen

Another round of arrests of men named as traitors and Norfolk himself was thrown back in the Tower again. It is unbelievable, but it seems that after giving his complete submission to our queen Elizabeth, he went on writing and plotting with the other queen and was deep in the toils of the Spanish and the French, planning the overthrow of our peace.

I do believe we were within a day of a Spanish invasion that would have destroyed us, murdered Elizabeth, and put this most true heir to Bloody Mary Tudor—Bloody Mary Stuart—on the throne of England, and the fires in Smithfield would have been burning hot for Protestant martyrs once more.

Thank God Ridolfi was a braggart; thank God the King of Spain is a cautious man. Thank God the Duke of Norfolk is a fool who sent out a fortune in gold by an unreliable courier and the plotters betrayed themselves. And thank God Cecil was there, at the center of the web of his spies, knowing everything. For if the other queen had her way, she would be in Whitehall now, Elizabeth would be dead, and England, my England, would be lost.

My husband the earl has grown dark along with the colder nights and drawn in as they have done, into silence. He visits the queen in her rooms only once a week and asks her with bleak courtesy if she is well, if she has everything she needs, and if she has any letters that she would like dispatched by him, if she has any requests or complaints for him or for the court.

She replies with equal coldness that she is unwell, that she requires her freedom, that she demands Elizabeth honor the agreement to send her home to Scotland, and that she has no letters to send. They part as formally as enemies forced to dance together and joined for a moment by the movement of the dance and then released again.

I should be rejoicing that their friendship has ended so abruptly and so badly, I should be laughing in my sleeve that the faithless queen should have been faithless to him. But it is hard to take pleasure in this prison. My husband the earl has aged years in these last few days; his face is grooved with sorrow and he hardly speaks. She is lonely, now that she has lost his love, and once again she comes to sit with me in the afternoons. She comes quietly, like a maidservant in disgrace, and I must say I am surprised that his disapproval should hit her so hard. Anyone would think that she had cared for him. We have working candles lit by five o’clock, and she says that she is dreading the darker nights and gray mornings. The midsummer tide of her good fortune has quite drained away; her luck has run dry. She knows that she will spend another winter in captivity. There is no chance now that they will send her back to Scotland. She has destroyed her own hopes and I am afraid that my house will be cursed with this sad ghost forever.

“Bess, what is happening in London?” she asks me. “You can tell me. I can hardly make any use of the information. I should think everyone knows more than me already.”

“The Duke of Norfolk is arrested, again charged with plotting with the Spanish, and returned to the Tower of London,” I say to her.

She goes white. Aha, I think meanly, so for once you are not ahead of us all. Her spies and informants must be lying low. She did not know of this.

“Bess, no! Is this true?”

“He is accused of being part of a plot to release you,” I say. “You would know more of this than I.”

“I swear—”

“Don’t,” I say coldly. “Save your breath.”

She falls silent. “Ah Bess, if you were in my shoes you would have done the same thing. He and I—”

“Did you really persuade yourself that you loved him?”

“I thought he would save me.”

“Well, you have led him to his death,” I say. “And that’s a thing I wouldn’t have done. Not even in your shoes.”

“You don’t know what it is to be queen,” she says simply. “I am a queen. I am not like other women. I have to be free.”

“You have condemned yourself to a lifetime of imprisonment,” I predict. “And him to death. I would not have done that in your shoes, queen or not.”

“They can prove nothing against him,” she says. “And even if they forge evidence, or torture false testimony from servants, he is still the queen’s cousin. He is of royal blood. She will not condemn her own family to death. A royal person is sacred.”

“What else can she do?” I demand, driven to irritation. “All very well for you to say that she can’t do it, but what choice does she have? What choice does he leave her? If he will not stop plotting, after making a full submission and being forgiven, if you will not stop plotting, after giving your sworn word, what can she do but end it? She cannot spend the rest of her life waiting for your assassin to arrive and kill her.”

“She cannot kill him; he is her cousin and of royal blood. And she will never be able to kill me,” she declares. “She cannot kill a fellow queen. And I would never send an assassin. So she can never end this.”

“You have become each other’s nightmare,” I say. “And it is as if neither of you can ever wake.”

We sit in silence for a moment. I am working on a tapestry of my house at Chatsworth, as accurate as a builder’s drawing. Sometimes I think this will be all I have left of Chatsworth when I have to sell my pride and my joy to a buyer at a breakdown price. All I will have left of the years of my happiness is this tapestry of the house I loved.

“I have not heard from my ambassador for weeks,” the queen says quietly to me. “John Lesley, Bishop of Ross. Is he arrested? Do you know?”

“Was he part of the plot?” I ask.

“No,” she says wearily. “No. There was no plot that I know of. And certainly he was not part of it. And even if he had received a letter from someone, or met with someone, then he cannot be arrested, since he is an ambassador. He has rights, even in such a kingdom as this, where spies make proclamations and commoners pass laws.”

“Then he has nothing to fear,” I say unkindly. “And neither do you. And neither does the Duke of Norfolk. He is safe, and according to you, so are you and the ambassador: all of you untouchable in either the sanctity of your bodies or the innocence of your conscience. That being so, why are you so pale, Your Grace, and why does my husband not ride with you in the mornings anymore? Why does he never seek you out and why do you not send for him?”

“I think I’ll go back to my rooms now,” she says quietly. “I am tired.”

Ihave to wait for long months in silence, guarding my tongue, afraid even to write to my own ambassador for news, imprisoned in anxiety. In the end I hear from Paris, in a letter that has been opened and read by others, that Norfolk is arrested and will be charged with treason.

Last time he was in the Tower it was Cecil himself who argued that the duke was imprudent but not treasonous and had him released to his London house. But this time it is all different. Cecil is leading the duke’s accusers and has the duke and all his household under arrest. Undoubtedly the servants will be tortured and they will either confess the truth or make up lies to escape the pain. If Cecil is determined that the duke will face a charge of treason, then he will find the evidence to prove it, and the luck of the Howards will turn bad in this generation, as it has done so often before.

There is worse news on the second page. Bishop John Lesley, my faithful friend who chose exile in my service rather than his comfortable palace at home, is a broken man. He has turned up in Paris resolved to live the rest of his days as an exile in France. He will say nothing of what took place in England nor why he is now in France. He is dumb. The gossip is that he turned his coat and told Cecil everything. I cannot believe it: I have to read and reread the report but it assures me that John Lesley has abandoned my cause and gave the evidence which will condemn Norfolk. They say that Lesley told Cecil everything he knew, and of course, he knew everything. He knew all about Ridolfi—why, he was the joint author of the plot. The world now believes that the duke, the banker, the bishop, and I sent a mission around Europe begging the French, the Spanish, and the Pope to assassinate Elizabeth and to attack England. The world knows that I chose as my conspirators a braggart, a weakling, and a fool. That I am a fool myself.

Shrewsbury will never forgive me for dishonoring my parole with him, for lying to Cecil, to Morton, to him. He has hardly spoken to me since that day in the garden when he said I had broken my word and his heart. I have tried to speak to him but he turns away; I have put my hand on his but he quietly withdraws. He looks ill and tired but he says nothing to me of his health. He says nothing to me of anything anymore.

Bess is drained by worry about money and by fear of the future and by long bitter resentment of me. We are a remorseful household in this autumn season. I have to hope that the Scots will come to me once more and ask me to return; I have to believe that a fresh champion will write to me with a plan to release me; I have to believe that Philip of Spain will not be discouraged by this disastrous end to the plan that we swore could not fail. I cannot find in myself the courage to write once more, to start again, to stitch again the tapestry of conspiracy.