Certain now that Seton slept and she would not disturb her, she crept
into the adjoining day-chamber, which was a few steps lower down, lit a
candle on her writing table, and took out the blank-paged journal that
the Curwen family had presented her with. She found it such a novelty
to be able to write whatever she wished, whenever she wished, that she
had gone a little mad with it. She had never been surrounded only by
friends before; everyone here was sharing her exile with her, at great
personal cost to themselves, and would never use anything she wrote
against her.
She had written poetry before, and had fancied herself to have a talent
for it so Brantome had told her. In the delirium of her love for
Bothwell, she had written poems to him, not very good ones, as she did
not take the time to think of metaphors and similes, nor even of
original wordings. But the essay, or the word-sketch, she had never
attempted. Her letters except for her love letters were all
political.
She opened the book. Its last entry was dated August first, 1568.
The countryside here they call it Wensleydale is soft and rolling, deep
deep green, very different from Scotland. We are in the middle of the
country, far from the sea, and there is no salt in the air. It is one
of those places where the inhabitants can pass their whole lives un
annoyed by any ruder intrusion. The cattle low, the milkmaids walk
along the paths swinging their buckets at sunrise and sunset
I am becoming more used to it now my new "host," Lord Scrope, makes
every effort to please me. Lady Scrope waits on me and whispers in my
ear about the charms of her brother, the Duke of Norfolk But he's been
married three times already! Of course they could say the same of me
Strange how it always sounds worse when applied to someone else. Hear
"three wives," and one's first thought is: I would not care to be the
fourth! She hints delicately, of course that the Duke is in dire need
of a wife, and that if I would consider it, Elizabeth would be
pleased
If Elizabeth would be so pleased, why must it be spoken of in
whispers?
Now she smoothed out the page and wrote:
August 20, 1568. So many changes in three weeks! We are becoming
settled. I write to Elizabeth and she responds. The Lords have agreed
to submit to the hearing! So soon I shall accuse Lord James to his
face, and Morton to his hideous red beard, and Maitland ... I shall
speak loud and clear and tell the world just what they are. I shall
tell about the Craigmillar conference, in which they suggested doing
away with Darnley. Oh, to be able to tell it at last! My breast is
bursting with what I have to disclose!
I believe it is Cecil who has restrained Elizabeth from taking my part
more openly. The French ambassador in London and the Spanish one as
well keep me informed. I know more here than ever I did in Scotland.
Here there is no Lord James to intercept. But it was better still in
Carlisle. This place is so secluded, no one ever passes through it. It
is kept like a secret in this lush valley.
The Scrope family has always been sympathetic to the Catholic cause.
They took the part of the rebels in the Pilgrimage of Grace against
Henry VIII thirty years ago, and paid for it. On my floor is an
exquisite chapel, which the first Lord Scrope built as a chantry where
the monks could pray for the soul of Richard II. Alas, no monks pray
there now, so the soul of Richard II must fend for itself in purgatory.
But I go in there myself to pray, and no one forbids me.
I am learning that so many of these families are partial to the old
religion, and after all, it is only ten years since all England was
Catholic. Memories are long. The great families of the North, the
earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, are almost openly Catholic.
Northumberland has declared himself to be sympathetic, and sent me
several devotional articles of the faith. And the Duke of Norfolk, for
all that he is nominally Protestant, had a Catholic wife and a son who
leans that way. Here I am among friends, though some dare declare it
more openly than others The Earl of Northumberland has secretly sent me
many messages to the effect that he is my partisan and will stand by me
regardless, and that he can bring others to my side if necessary.
I am not as well guarded as I am sure Lord James would wish. There is
a garrison here, stationed in the southeast tower. But my rooms, which
face west, give out onto open countryside. I am fifty feet up, but if
I could be let down by a rope, I could escape, if only I had horses.
But if I tried to escape, it would look as though I were trying to
avoid the hearing. No, I am more powerful here, though I seem to be
powerless without even a horse to my name. I must wait the thing that
is, above all, hardest for me and against my nature, as it was against
Bothwell's. We are both being sorely tested, punished.. ..
I have heard that Bothwell was granted a hearing before King Frederick
at New Year's, but was not released. He offered to cede the Orkneys
and Shetlands back to Norway in exchange for his freedom, but it had
the opposite effect: Frederick became more determined to keep him in
custody and bargain with the Lords about the islands. Lord James
declared that Bothwell was a convicted criminal in Scotland and should
be extradited. Frederick bewailed the fact that transporting such a
tricky and important state prisoner would require a squadron of ships
which he could, alas, not spare at the moment. Lord James offered to
send an executioner to Denmark, for Frederick's convenience. Frederick
who well must realize what a blackguard James is! refused his kind
offer. So Bothwell is safe, and from all reports quite comfortably
housed in the governor's fortress at Malmo. Why can he not escape? I
must get more particulars of his quarters. He must be closely guarded,
for I have not received a letter in many months since he came to Malmo,
in fact. He must be strictly guarded, then .. . has he received any of
my letters? The thought that he has not would be unbearable.
When I am restored to my throne yes, then Frederick will set him free,
and bring him home in a gilded warship, with reparations and apologies
for such mistreatment! And it will all seem a bad dream, and we'll
laugh together, late at night, about our prisons and how we endured
them .. . Lochleven and Bergen and Carlisle and Copenhagen and Bolton
and Malmo. Of course he's known my gaolers he knows the Laird of
Lochleven and Lady Douglas. But he doesn't know Sir Francis Knollys,
Elizabeth's vice-chamberlain. That sweet, long-suffering gentleman. He
dearly loves his Queen and, I sense, not only because his wife is of
Anne Boleyn's family and thus related to her. He lows the Queen in a
way I have never seen before, not in France, not in Scotland. He
reveres her, which is strange, since he is so much the older. I have
attempted to make him joke about her, but although he tells many
humorous stories about her, he never jokes about her oh, it is very
difficult to explain .. . exasperated humour without jokes.
And Lord Scrope: so proper. Rather stuffed, like a dish of capon
stuffed with dates and oysters. His neck is peculiarly thick and
round, so that when he turns his head he has to move his shoulders as
well. Yet he's gentle, too. I have gentle keepers in a gentle
country, compared to the beasts that call themselves men, hiding in
their castles on the windy crags of Scotland.
Too many adjectives, she told herself, upon rereading the last
sentence. But Scotland seemed to call for many, many adjectives. So
she let it stay as it was.
September 8, 1568. The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. I arose early
and spent time in prayer in the chapel. I am not allowed a priest.
When I asked for one, I was told, "There are no priests in England
now." What a judgement they bring on themselves with that statement!
Instead, Knollys has brought a Reformed clergyman to try to convert me
He "instructs" me daily in the Anglican religion, this pleases Knollys.
1 wish to please them, in whatever ways I can. Then I go and say my
rosary and pray to Our Lady to forgive me.
There is more talk of Norfolk as a husband for me. I have been assured
that many powerful people at court are in favour of this match men like
Robert Dudley, for example, and the earls of Arundel and Pembroke and
Nicholas Throckmorton, my old friend the ambassador. They seem to feel
that perhaps he can act as my permanent "keeper," an approved
Englishman to keep me on a chain. (It is not unlike the earlier
proposal of Elizabeth that I wed her darling Dudley. He is still
unmarried, but evidently she does not wish to repeat the offer ) This
way, they reason, I can be kept in reserve for the succession.
Why does no one remember that I am already married? And they call me
disloyal and of shockingly short memory! Already there has been talk
of marrying me to a Hamilton, to the newly widowed (for the third time
oh, how old we are becoming!) Philip of Spain, to George Douglas, to
Norfolk, and then, today oh, I almost burst into laughter old Sir
Francis Knollys offered his nephew, George Carey! If they truly think
I am a murderess, then their own ambition and cynicism is shameful.
Even Machiavelli would blush at such opportunism!
September 29, 1568 The Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels.
Ol I can hardly hold this pen, and it was all I could do to wait until
nightfall to be alone. During the dinner I wanted to scream at
Knollys: You knew all along.
I am not to be allowed to appear at the hearing! I must speak only
through representatives! And how can they truly speak my own words?
They are not me. I had thought at long last to face my betrayers. But
no! They will be allowed to come in person and what persons! Lord
James, Morton, Maitland, and the upstanding model of righteousness,
Lord Lindsay! Yet I am to be detained here, forty miles away from
York, where the hearings will be.
Elizabeth herself will not be there. She sends instead the Duke of
Norfolk, Sir Ralph Sadler (my enemy from the cradle!), and the Earl of
Sussex, Elizabeth's grand chamberlain, a Scots-hater if ever there was
one. I have been told that be told Elizabeth that he had been taught
by his grandfather never to trust any Scot or Frenchman. Of the three,
only Norfolk does not see me as a villain.
And so I must find commissioners to act for me as if anyone truly
can!
But worse than that is the shocking news that Elizabeth is going to
permit the Lords to submit the "casket letters" as evidence in the
hearings. And yet they will not even allow me an opportunity to see
them! I will have no idea exactly what they contain. Are they the
letters and poems I wrote to Bothwell? Are they the letters, but
copied over and tampered with? Or are they complete forgeries? How
can I respond to them if I do not even know what their contents are?
I would recognize my own words, even if copied out in another hand and
translated. Certainly the words, when taken out of context (or worse
yet, put in a new context), might paint me as guilty. Yet I did not
kill Darnley. There were many others who were involved, and who tried
to incriminate Bothwell after the fact the placards, the clue of the
barrel, the impersonation of him in the streets of Edinburgh that
night. It was the Lords themselves who did this the very ones who now
bring forward these letters.
O God, I am betrayed!