‘What if she gains her throne, and marries an enemy? Shall we ever have peace on the northern borders, d’you think, Talbot? Would you trust such a woman as her?’
‘You need have no fear,’ I say. ‘No Scots army would ever get past your Northern lords. You can trust your old lords, the men who have been there forever. Percy, Neville, Dacre, Westmorland, Northumberland, all of us old lords. We keep your border safe, Your Grace. You can trust us. We keep armed and we keep the men levied and drilled. We have kept the Northern lands safe for hundreds of years. The Scots have never defeated us.’
She smiles at my assurance. ‘I know it. You and yours have been good friends to me and mine. But do you think I can trust the Queen of Scots to rule Scotland to our advantage?’
‘Surely, when she goes back she will have enough to do to reestablish her rule? We need not fear her enmity. She will want our friendship. She cannot be restored without it. If you help her back on her throne with your army, she will be eternally grateful. You can bind her with an agreement.’
‘I think so,’ she nods. ‘I think so indeed. And anyway, we cannot keep her here in England; there is no possible argument for keeping her here. We cannot imprison an innocent fellow queen. And better for us if she goes back to Edinburgh, than runs off to Paris to cause more trouble.’
‘She is queen,’ I say simply. ‘It cannot be denied. Queen born and ordained. It must be God’s will that she sits on her throne. And surely, it is safer for us if she can bring the Scots to peace than if they are fighting against each other. The border raids in the North have been worse since she was thrown down. The border raiders fear no-one, now that Bothwell is far away in prison. Any rule is better than none. Better the queen should rule than no rule at all. And surely, the French or the Spanish will restore her if we do not? And if they put her back on the throne we will have a foreign army on our doorstep, and she will be grateful to them, and that must be far worse for us.’
‘Aye,’ she says firmly, as if she has made a decision. ‘So think I.’
‘Perhaps you can swear an alliance with her,’ I suggest. ‘Better to deal with a queen, you two queens together, than be forced to haggle with a usurper, a new false power in Scotland. And her half-brother is clearly guilty of murder and worse.’
I could not have said anything that pleased her more. She nods and puts her hand up to caress her pearls. She has a magnificent triple rope of black pearls, thick as a ruff, around her throat.
‘He laid hands on her,’ I prompt her. ‘She is an ordained queen and he seized her against her will and imprisoned her. That’s a sin against the law and against heaven. You cannot want to deal with such an impious man as that. How should he prosper if he can attack his own queen?’
‘I will not deal with traitors,’ she declares. Elizabeth has a horror of anyone who would challenge a monarch. Her own hold on her own throne was unsteady in the early years, and even now her claim is actually not as good as that of the Queen of Scots. Elizabeth was registered as Henry’s bastard and she never revoked the act of parliament. But Mary Queen of Scots is the granddaughter of Henry’s sister. Her line is true, legitimate and strong.
‘I will never deal with traitors,’ she repeats. She smiles, and at once I see again the pretty young woman who came to the throne with no objection at all to dealing with traitors. She had been the centre of all the rebellions against her sister, Mary Tudor, but was always too clever to be caught. ‘I want to be a just kinswoman to the Scots queen,’ she says. ‘She may be young and foolish and she has made mistakes that are shocking beyond words – but she is my kinswoman and she is a queen. She must be well treated, and she must be restored. I am ready to love her as a good kinswoman and see her rule her country as she should.’
‘There speaks a great queen and a generous woman,’ I say. It never hurts with Elizabeth to slather on a bit of praise. Besides, it is earned. It will not be easy for Elizabeth to resist the terrors that Cecil frightens her with. It will not be easy for her to be generous to a younger and more beautiful kinswoman. Elizabeth won her throne after a lifetime of plotting. She cannot help but fear an heir with a claim to the throne, and every reason to conspire. She knows what it is like to be the heir excluded from court. She knows that when she was the heir excluded from court she spun one plot after another, murderous rebellions that nearly succeeded in destroying her half-sister and bringing down the throne. She knows what a false friend she was to her sister – it will be impossible for her to trust her cousin who is, just as she was, a young princess impatient of waiting.
She beams at me. ‘So, Talbot. This brings me to your task.’
I wait.
‘I want you to house the Scots queen for me, and then take her back to her kingdom when the time is right,’ she says.
‘House her?’ I repeat.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Cecil will prepare for her return to Scotland; in the meantime, you shall house her and entertain her, treat her as a queen, and when Cecil sends you word, escort her back to Edinburgh, and return her to her throne.’
It is an honour so great that I can hardly catch my breath at the thought of it. To be host to the Queen of Scotland and to return her to her kingdom in triumph! Cecil must be sick with envy; he has no house half as grand as Bess’s at Chatsworth, though he is building like a madman. But not fast enough, so she will have to come to us. I am the only nobleman who could do the task. Cecil has no house and Norfolk, as a widower, has no wife. No-one has a grand house and a well-loved loyal reliable wife like Bess.
‘I am honoured,’ I say calmly. ‘You can trust me.’ Of course, I think of Bess, and how thrilled she will be that Chatsworth will house a queen at last. We will be the envy of every family in England, they will all want to visit us. We shall have open house all the summer, we shall be a royal court. I shall hire musicians and masquers, dancers and players. We will be one of the royal courts of Europe – and it will all be under my roof.
She nods. ‘Cecil will make the arrangements with you.’
I step backwards. She smiles at me, the dazzling smile that she gives to the crowds when they call out her name: the Tudor charm at full meridian. ‘I am grateful to you, Talbot,’ she says. ‘I know you will keep her safe in these troubled times, and see her safely home again. It will only be for the summer and you will be richly rewarded.’
‘It will be my honour to serve you,’ I say. ‘As always.’ I bow again and walk backwards and then out of the presence chamber. Only when the door is closed and the guards before it cross their halberds once more do I allow myself to whistle at my luck.
1568, Winter, Bolton Castle: Mary
My faithful friend, Bishop John Lesley of Ross, who has followed me into exile, saying that he cannot stay at home in comfort beside an empty throne, writes to me in our secret code from London. He says that although Elizabeth’s third and final inquiry in Westminster Palace could find nothing against me, yet the French ambassador has not yet been told to prepare for my journey to Paris. He is afraid that Elizabeth will find an excuse to keep me in England for another week, another month, God only knows how long; she has the patience of a tormentor. But I have to trust to her friendship, I have to rely on her good sense as a cousin and a fellow queen. Whatever my doubts about her – a bastard and a heretic though she is – I have to remember that she has written to me with love and promised her support, she has sent me
