Everything points to Elizabeth saving our cousin and restoring her to her throne. There are compelling reasons that she must do so. There is no good argument for any other course of action. As a kinswoman, as a fellow queen, as one who has given her sacred word, Elizabeth must help Mary. She cannot refuse.
But still we hear nothing. I write to my aunt Bess on my own account, asking if, at a convenient moment, she will ask the queen if I might be set free to live in one of her houses. I ask it for the love I know that she bore my mother and that she promised to my sister. And I ask her also for news. Does she know what is happening about my cousin Mary Queen of Scots, and is she to be rescued? Does she know any news at all?
Before I have any reply to my letter my stepgrandmother comes into my private room, where I am reading Latin with a lady-in-waiting, and says: “You’ll never ever guess what has happened now.”
I jump down from my chair, frightened at once. I have not lived a life where good news is expected. “What is it?”
“Mary Queen of Scots has crossed the Solway Firth, left Scotland, landed in England, and written a public letter to Elizabeth saying that she expects to be returned to Scotland at once, with an English army in her support.”
I think that I should be excited. It is another bold brilliant move. Mary is forcing Elizabeth’s hand. Elizabeth cannot prevaricate, as she always does, when our cousin is so bravely decisive. But I don’t feel excitement; I feel dread. “Has the queen replied?”
My lady grandmother is bright. “My husband, Richard, is with the court at Greenwich, and he says that Elizabeth and Cecil are hammering out the terms. Elizabeth says that Mary must be restored to Scotland with a strong army. The Scots must know (everyone must know) that they cannot throw down a queen. William Cecil agrees, so the Privy Council will agree. Nobody will argue that a queen can be destroyed by such as John Knox, on our very doorstep. Parliament will have to vote funds, an army will have to be raised. Queen Mary will be sent home to Edinburgh and Elizabeth will have to send an army to fight for her.”
“She will do that?”
“She’s done it before. She sent an army to Scotland against the Catholic regent. She won that battle. She knows it can be done.” My lady stepgrandmother reflects. “And besides, it won’t come to that. The Scots lords don’t want a battle with England. Half of them are in our pay already. If Elizabeth and Cecil muster an army, the Scots will know that they have to take their queen back and make peace with her. It was Bothwell they couldn’t stomach; many of them truly love Queen Mary.”
“I like to think of her as free,” I say. “I know that she is a papist and perhaps a sinner, but I am glad she is out of Lochleven Castle and free, whatever happens next. I think of her often: as beautiful as Katherine, near to her in age, and I like to think that she, of all of us cousins, is free.”
There is one Tudor cousin who does not celebrate the freedom of Queen Mary. Our cousin Margaret Douglas, vengeful as a harpy, dashes with her husband, the Earl of Lennox, to court, both of them draped in deep perpetual mourning for their son the wastrel Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, to fling themselves at Elizabeth’s feet in tears: they must have justice for their son. Queen Mary is his killer, she must be sent back to Scotland in irons, she must be tried for murder. Elizabeth must arrest her, she must be burned as a husband killer.
The queen is impatient with her cousin. Darnley went to Scotland at his mother’s bidding and refused to come home to England when he was commanded by Elizabeth; she will never forget that. He took up arms against his wife; we have all heard that he held a primed pistol to her pregnant belly. He was certainly a victim of the Scots lords, who hated him; but there is no certain evidence that Queen Mary was involved in the plot. And anyway, Margaret my cousin should know by now that Elizabeth has a resilient conscience. How does she think Amy Dudley died?
Elizabeth explains, gently enough, that the Scots cannot try their queen, no people can put their ordained monarch on trial. Equally, Elizabeth has no authority over Mary. They are both queens and Elizabeth cannot arrest Mary or imprison her. Queens make the law, so they are above the law. She is certain that Mary will have a full explanation when she meets her mother-in-law. It is a private matter between them. In short, nobody cares very much what Margaret Douglas thinks. To be honest, nobody ever has.
But it makes me uneasy, as the days get warmer and I have no reply from Aunt Bess, Countess of Shrewsbury, as she is now, and no news from court that I am to be moved anywhere else. It makes me uneasy that I am still a prisoner, held by my stepgrandmother, and at the same time, my cousin Mary Queen of Scots is in the safekeeping of Sir Francis Knollys at Carlisle Castle. It seems that Elizabeth has no accusation to bring against either of us, her cousins; but both of us are still imprisoned. Does she think she can hold us both till we die of despair like Katherine?
Elizabeth sends Mary some clothes; she has nothing but the riding dress she escaped in. But when they come to unpack the parcel it is little more than rags: two torn shifts, two pieces of black velvet, two pairs of shoes, nothing else.
“Why would she insult her cousin the Queen of Scots?” my stepgrandmother asks me. “Why would she treat her with such contempt?”
Both of us look at the tattered footstool and the two ragged tapestries that have been my household goods for so long, at the battered cup that Elizabeth sent from the servery for my use.
“To warn her,” I say slowly. “Like she warned Katherine, like she warns me. That we are poor without her favor, that we are prisoners without her favor. She may say that she cannot arrest another queen, but if Queen Mary is the guest of Francis Knollys and cannot leave, then what is she if not Elizabeth’s prisoner? Do you think Cousin Mary understands the message? That she is a prisoner like me?”
GRIMSTHORPE CASTLE,
LINCOLNSHIRE, SUMMER 1568
The Privy Council meets at Greenwich Palace and announces that Mary Queen of Scots will have to face a trial. She cannot be returned to Scotland by an English army without her innocence proved. She must be accused of killing her husband and the penalty for killing a husband—a crime of petty treason since it is a rebellion against the natural order as well as a murder—is death by burning. Amazingly, Elizabeth does not reprimand the council for disagreeing with her—which tells us all that they are her mouthpiece—saying what she does not dare. But Elizabeth does rule that Mary may not come to court to explain her actions, as one queen to another. She says that she and Mary cannot meet, that the Scots queen’s reputation is sullied by the rumors. The idea that a woman guilty of adultery cannot attend Elizabeth’s court would be funny if it were not so terrible when applied to our kinswoman Mary. How will she ever get a fair hearing if she is not allowed to speak? And if the Privy Council, that chorus inspired by Elizabeth and Cecil, are saying that she must be tried for murder without being able to speak in her own defense, then those two have surely decided that she is guilty and must die.
But Mary is too clever for them. She rejects the scraps of velvets and the old shoes, she calls it “a cold calling,” and Sir Francis, embarrassed with rags in his hands, says there has been some stupid mistake from the groom of the wardrobe. Mary says that she is a queen: she wears ermine, she is royal. Nobody should send her clothes for any rank less than royalty. And—equally—no one can try her, she is an ordained monarch: only God can judge her.
Elizabeth backs down, swiftly and speedily, as only Elizabeth can. She writes to her cousin that it is not to be a trial, for—of course!—a queen cannot be put on trial. It is an inquiry into the behavior of the Scots queen’s half brother Lord Moray. She is not accused: he is. They will inquire if he has been treasonous, and then restore her. They will clear her name and return her to her throne. She will be freed of scandal and able to take her son into her keeping again.