The Other Queen Read online

  No peace in my heart, since Hastings is only waiting for the countryside to be declared safe before he takes the other queen from me, and I can neither speak to her nor plead for her.

  No peace in the country, where I can trust the loyalty of no one; the tenants are surly and are clearly planning yet more mischief, and some of them are still missing from their homes, still roaming with ragtag armies, still promising trouble.

  Leonard Dacre, one of the greatest lords of the North, who has been in London all this while, is now returned home. Instead of seeing that the battle is over, and lost, even with Elizabeth’s great army quartered on his doorstep, he summons his tenants, saying that he needs them to defend the queen’s peace. At once, as always, guided by the twin lights of his fear and his genius at making enemies, Cecil advises the queen to arrest Dacre on suspicion of treason, and forced into his own defense, the lord raises his standard and marches against the queen.

  Hastings bangs open the door into my private room as if I am traitor myself. “Did you know this of Dacre?” he demands.

  I shake my head. “How should I? I thought he was in London.”

  “He has attacked Lord Hunsdon’s army and got clean away. He swears he will raise the North.”

  I feel a sinking fear for her. “Not again! Is he coming here?”

  “God knows what he is doing.”

  “Dacre is a loyal man. He would not fight the queen’s army.”

  “He has just done so and is now an outlaw running for his life like the other Northern earls.”

  “He is as loyal as—”

  “As you?” Hastings insinuates.

  I find that my fists are clenched. “You are a guest in my house,” I remind him, my voice trembling with rage.

  He nods. “Excuse me. These are troubling times. I wish to God I could just take her and leave.”

  “It’s not safe yet,” I say swiftly. “Who knows where Dacre’s men might be? You can’t take her away from this castle until the countryside is safe. You will raise the North again if they kidnap her from you.”

  “I know. I’ll have to wait for my orders from Cecil.”

  “Yes, he will command everything now,” I say, unable to hide my bitterness. “Thanks to you, he will be without rival. You have made our steward our master.”

  Hastings nods, pleased with himself. “He is without equal,” he says. “No man has a better vision of what England can be. He alone saw that we had to become a Protestant country, we had to separate ourselves from the others. He saw that we have to impose order on Ireland, we have to subordinate Scotland, and we have to go outward, to the other countries of the world, and make them our own.”

  “A bad man to have as an enemy,” I remark.

  Hastings cracks a brutal laugh. “I’ll say so. And your friend the other queen will learn it. D’you know how many deaths Elizabeth has ordered?”

  “Deaths?”

  “Executions. As punishment for the uprising.”

  I feel myself grow cold. “I did not know she had ordered any. Surely there will be trials for treason for the leaders only, and…”

  He shakes his head. “No trials. Those who are known to have ridden out against her are to be hanged. Without trial. Without plea. Without question. She says she wants seven hundred men hanged.”

  I am stunned into silence. “That will be a man from every village, from every hamlet,” I say weakly.

  “Aye,” he says. “They won’t turn out again, for sure.”

  “Seven hundred?”

  “Every ward is to have a quota. The queen has ruled that they are to be hanged at the crossroads of each village and the bodies are not to be cut down. They are to stay till they rot.”

  “More will die by this punishment than ever died in this uprising. There was no battle, there was no blood shed. They fought with no one, they dispersed without a shot being fired or a sword drawn. They submitted.”

  He laughs once more. “Then perhaps they will learn not to rise again.”

  “All they will learn is that the new rulers of England do not care for them as the old lords did. All they will learn is that if they ask for their faith to be restored, or the common lands left free to be grazed, or their wages not driven down, that they can expect to be treated as an enemy by their own countrymen and faced with death.”

  “They are the enemy,” Hastings says bluntly. “Or had you forgotten? They are the enemy. They are my enemy and Cecil’s enemy and the queen’s enemy. Are they not yours?”

  “Yes,” I say unwillingly. “I follow the queen, wherever she leads.” And I think to myself, Yes, they have become my enemies now. Cecil has made them my enemies now, though once they were my friends and my countrymen.

  1570, JANUARY,

  TUTBURY CASTLE:

  MARY

  My husband, Bothwell,

  I am returned to Tutbury, I am imprisoned without hope of release. My army has dispersed. I wish I could see you.

  Marie

  I have not summoned my lord Shrewsbury since our return to this miserable place from miserable Coventry, when he comes to me without announcement, and asks me if he may sit with me for a moment. His face is so weary and so sad that for a second I am filled with hope that he has heard of a reverse for his queen.

  “Is anything wrong, my lord?”

  “No,” he says. “No. Not for me and for my cause. But I have grave news for you.”

  “Norfolk?” I whisper. “Is he coming for me at last?”

  He shakes his head. “He did not rise with the Northern earls. He went to court. In the end he decided to obey his queen. He has submitted to her will. He is her liege man and he has thrown himself on her mercy.”

  “Oh,” I say. I bite my lip so that I say nothing more. Dear God, what a fool, what a coward, what a turncoat. Damn Norfolk for his stupidity that will be my ruin. Bothwell would never have threatened an uprising and then submitted early. Bothwell would have ridden out to battle. Bothwell never evaded a fight in his life. An apology would have choked him.

  “And I am sorry to tell you that Lord Dacre has fled over the border to Scotland.”

  “His rising is over?”

  “It is all over. The queen’s army controls the North, and her executioners are hanging men in every village.”

  I nod. “I am sorry for them.”

  “I too,” he says shortly. “Many of them will have been ordered to follow their liege lord and done nothing more than their duty. Many of them will have thought they were doing the will of God. They are simple men who didn’t understand the changes that have come to this country. They will have to die for not understanding Cecil’s policies.”

  “And I?” I whisper.

  “Hastings will take you as soon as the roads are fit to travel,” he says, his voice very low. “I cannot prevent him. Only the bad weather is holding him now; as soon as the snow clears he will take you away. I am under suspicion myself. Pray God I am not ordered to London to the Tower on a charge of treason as you are taken from me to Leicester.”

  I find I am shaking at the thought of being parted from him. “Will you not travel with us?”

  “I won’t be allowed.”

  “Who will protect me when I am taken from your care?”

  “Hastings will be responsible for your safety.”

  I don’t even mock this. I just give him a long, fearful look.

  “He will not harm you.”

  “But, my lord, when shall I see you again?”

  He gets up from his chair and leans his forehead against the high stone mantelpiece. “I don’t know, Your Grace, my dearest queen. I don’t know when we shall meet again.”

  “How will I manage?” I can hear how small and weak my voice is. “Without you…and Lady Bess, of course. How shall I manage without you?”

  “Hastings will protect you.”

  “He will incarcerate me in his house, or worse.”

  “Only if they accuse you of treason. You cannot be charged