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  ‘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.’

  1571, August, Tutbury Castle: Mary

  I am 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 realises 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 honour 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 inheriting 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 counselling 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.

  Norfolk says that this sounds less like a visit, more like capture, and he fears the bishop has been arrested by Cecil’s spy ring. Thank God at least they cannot torture him, he is a bishop and an accredited ambassador, they dare not threaten him or hurt him; but they can keep him from writing to me or to Norfolk, they can keep him from the network of information that we need. At this most important moment we are without him, and – worse than that – if Cecil has arrested him it must be that he suspects that something is being planned, even if he does not know what it is.

  Cecil never does anything without good reason. If he has picked up Bishop Lesley now, when he could have arrested him at any time, then he must know we are planning something of importance. But then I comfort myself by thinking that we have driven him from the shadows where he works. Bothwell always used to say: get your enemies out in the open where you can see their numbers. Cecil must be afraid of us now, to act so openly.

  As if this were not trouble enough, Norfolk writes to me that he has sent out the three thousand crowns of French gold by means of a draper from Shrewsbury who has served one of his servants by running errands in the past. They have not told the man what he is carrying. Norfolk decided it was safer to tell him it was only some sealed papers and a little money, and to ask him to deliver them on his way, at his own convenience. This is a risk, it is a terrible risk. The messenger, not knowing the value of what he is carrying, might well not take enough care. If he is curious, he can simply open the bag. I suppose my lord’s thinking is that if he did know the value of the package, he might simply steal the gold – and there would be no way we could complain of him or arrest him for theft. We are in danger whichever way we turn but I have to wish that Norfolk could have chosen someone – anyone – from all his thousands of servants who could have been trusted with this great, this crucial secret. These are the wages to pay my army for the uprising and Norfolk has sent them out by a Shrewsbury draper!

  I have to bite my ton