Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  They will see. They will see their mistake. I will marry him and make him king consort; and they will still see that I shall have my own way, and I will still bring Bothwell down on them for my revenge.

  I write faithfully to Thomas Howard, and my letters are as inviting and alluring as I can make them. Thank God, I know one thing: how to entice a man. I was not a French princess for nothing, I do know how to make a man fall in love, even at hundreds of miles’ distance. I know how to lead him on, and draw back, come forward, make promises, renege, enchant, puzzle, confuse, seduce. I am irresistible in person, and I can be enchanting on paper. I write to him daily and I bring him onward and onward to ensure that he is mine.

  As part of this campaign of seduction and compromise, I have embroidered for him a special cushion, which I think will amuse him. It shows a barren vine being pruned with a bill hook and he will know that I mean that the barren line of the Tudors can be cut down to let the new growth of our children take the throne. No-one can blame me for the design – though it is such a sharp slap at the spinster Elizabeth! – since it is a quotation from the Bible. What could be more tasteful and innocent? ‘Virtue flourishes by wounding,’ is the quotation that I have embroidered around the picture. Norfolk will see the slyest hint of treason in it, and if he has anything of a man about him he will be stirred by that provocative word ‘wounding’.

  Bess understood it at once, and was deliciously scandalised, and swore that I would not dare to stitch it when she first saw the design.

  I dare! I dare anything! Let the barren vine be cut down. Let Elizabeth, the bastard, be struck down. I am a fertile woman of twenty-six, I have conceived nothing but boys. Howard is a man who has already fathered sons. Who can doubt that either my young son James, or our future sons – Stuart-Howards – will take Elizabeth’s empty throne?

  1569, August, Wingfield Manor: Bess

  A note from Cecil delivered in secret reads:

  No, you are not mistaken in my intentions, dear Bess. I am as like to install her on the throne of Scotland as I am to point a pistol at the heart of England and destroy everything I love.

  Every secret letter between her and our terrible enemies that comes to my hand convinces me of the greatness of the danger that she poses. How many letters elude me, only she will know, only the devil himself who directs her will know. Wait for news of her arrest for treason. C

  1569, August, Wingfield Manor: Mary

  Oh God, I am a fool, a fool, and now a heartbroken fool. I am damned by my stars, and betrayed by my friends, and abandoned by my God.

  This new blow is almost too much for me to bear. The pain in my side is so great that I can hardly bear to put my foot to the ground, it is like a knife in my side. It is Rizzio’s wound bleeding from my own side. It is my stigmata.

  Hamilton, my friend and spy in Scotland, writes to tell me that my half-brother Lord Moray has suddenly reneged on his agreement, and is now unwilling to let me return. He gives no reason, and indeed, there can be none except cowardice, greed and faithlessness. The English are on the brink of signing our treaty with him, I have already given my word. But he has suddenly broken off, at the very last minute. He has taken fright and says he will not have me back in the country. Saints forgive him! He is a false-hearted wicked man; but this last cruelty surprises me.

  I should have known. I should have been prepared for his dishonesty. He is a usurper who drove me from my own throne, a bastard of my father’s mistaken begetting, I should have guessed he would not want his true queen returned. What can I do but supplant and replace him and, as soon as I can, behead him?

  The shock throws me into illness. I cannot stop myself from crying. I take to my bed, and in rage and distress I write to Elizabeth that my brother is false through and through, a child conceived by mistake in lust, bad breeding coming out as dishonour. Then I remember that she too is a bastard of mistaken begetting, also occupying my throne, and I tear up the letter and painfully, slowly, forge something more dutiful and loving, and ask her, please, please, of her kindness, of her honour, to defend my rights as a fellow queen and as a sister, as the only woman in the world who can understand and sympathise with my plight.

  Dear God, let her hear me and understand that she must, by the light of heaven, in all honour, help me. She cannot let me be thrown from my throne, thrown down to nothing. I am a queen three times over! I am her own cousin! Am I to end my life under house arrest, crippled with pain and weak with crying?

  I take a sip of small ale from the cup by my bedside, I steady myself, it cannot be – it cannot be. God has chosen me and called me to be a queen; I cannot be defeated. I ring the bell for Mary Seton.

  ‘Sit with me,’ I say when she comes. ‘This is a long night for me. My enemies are working against me and my friends do nothing. I have to write a letter.’

  She takes a stool at the fireside and tucks a shawl around her shoulders. She will wait with me for as long as I need. Sitting up in my bed, despite the pain in my side, I write again, using our special cipher to urge my betrothed, the duke, to tell Elizabeth that we are agreed to marry, and that every lord in her own court supports this betrothal. I write sweetly and tenderly, urging him to be brave in this reversal of our fortunes. I never speak of my own well-being; I always speak of ‘us’.

  If he will only hold fast we will get our way. If he can only persuade Elizabeth to support this marriage and to support us, then the treaty will still go ahead. Moray may not like my return, especially with a strong husband at my side – but he cannot refuse if Elizabeth will only stand my friend. Dear God, if only she will do her duty and be a good cousin to Thomas Howard, a good cousin to me, then I shall be restored and our troubles will be over. Dear God, how can she not do the right thing by me? Any monarch in Europe would put out a hand to save me. Why not her?

  Then I write to the only man in the world that I trust:

  Bothwell,

  Come, please please come.

  Marie

  1569, September, Wingfield Manor: George

  Just when I have enough to worry about – the Scots queen ill with unhappiness and no explanation from court; my letters go unanswered because the court is on progress and my messenger has to chase around half of England to find them, and then is told that the queen is not doing business today, but he can wait – in the middle of all of this my steward comes to me with a grave face and says that a debt that I have carried for years has now fallen due and I have to pay two thousand pounds this Michaelmas Day.

  ‘Well, pay it!’ I say impatiently. He has caught me on my way to the stable and I am not in the mood for delay.

  ‘That is why I have come to you, my lord,’ he says uncomfortably. ‘There are insufficient funds in the treasure house here at Wingfield.’

  ‘Well, send to one of the other houses,’ I say. ‘They must have coin.’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘They don’t?’

  ‘It has been an expensive year,’ he says tactfully. He says nothing more but this is the same old song that Bess sings to me – the expenditure on the queen and the fact that the court never reimburses us.

  ‘Can we extend the debt for another year? Just to tide us over?’ I ask. ‘Till we get back to normal again?’

  He hesitates. ‘I have tried. The terms are worse, we would pay more interest, but it can be done. They want the woods on the south side of the river as security.’

  ‘Do it then,’ I decide quickly. I cannot be troubled with business, and this is a temporary difficulty until the queen repays us what she owes. ‘Extend the debt for another year.’

  1569, September, Wingfield Manor: Bess

  I have a letter from my son Henry, an astute observer who reports to me. The court is on summer progress, which seems to have become a nightmare journey of suspicion and entrapment. The summers used to be the high point of the court year when we were all young and happy and in love and went hunting every day and dancing every night. Our fears have spoiled