While the rabid Scots preachers declare that no woman can hold power, Elizabeth is driven to support her cousin. But she cannot do it wholeheartedly. She publishes advice to the Scots queen pointing out the contrast between herself—the celibate queen—and the scandalous newly widowed, twice-married queen. A copy of this letter even reaches me at Chequers, and I read it, amazed that the queen calls herself a faithful cousin and friend, says that she is more sorry for the danger to Mary than for the death of Darnley, and that Mary must preserve her honor rather than look through her fingers at those who have done her the favor of murdering her husband, “as most people say.”
I don’t know whether or not “most people” ever said that Mary was the murderer of Darnley before Elizabeth’s damning defense, but I am very sure that everyone will say it now. I see the hand of William Cecil all through this: the murder in the nighttime garden, the smearing of the reputation of the papist queen, the sudden leap of Elizabeth into confidence and pretend pity. The death of Darnley has ruined Mary, just as her marriage to him ruined her. It has ruined the agreement that she was making with Elizabeth, just as William Cecil planned.
This was not a quiet murder done on an out-of-the-way shallow flight of stairs with a packed jury to return a verdict of accidental death. This was a huge explosion in the heart of Edinburgh in the middle of the night, with the queen having refused to sleep with her husband in the doomed house that very evening. As if she knew, people say. As if the gunpowder was packed by someone she knew.
Even locked in my room, even confined to the garden, the rumors reach me. The kitchen at Chequers is sizzling with gossip, the stable yard lads are great supporters of the Scots lord: James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who has always fought for the Protestant cause, whose ways are simple and direct and violent. The laundry maids are filled with pity for poor Lord Darnley, blown up in his bed, or strangled by the barbarian Scots lords at the behest of his wicked wife. All spring the scandal gets more and more outrageous and elaborate until in April we hear that Mary Queen of Scots has run away from her capital city, and in May that she has married the man who killed her husband: James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell.
CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
SUMMER 1567
Compared with this new disastrous marriage of the Queen of Scots, my love match with Thomas Keyes and even Katherine’s with Ned Seymour fade into minor indiscretion. We fell in love with honorable men who were free to marry. Nobody even knows if Bothwell has a wife. But Queen Mary marries him without any sign of shame, dressed in fanciful mourning wear: a black patterned velvet gown embroidered all over with gold and silver thread. I ask Lady Hawtrey to be sure to find out about the gown and it is indeed gloriously expensive black velvet with real gold embroidery and a scarlet undergown! She is a bride and a widow at once. She may be a murderer; certainly, she is marrying a murderer. She is ruined in the eyes of the world: French, Spanish, and English; papist and Protestant. She has destroyed herself. Clearly, she cannot be heir to England.
I wait for Sir William to come to me and tell me that I am to go free. William Cecil’s long secret campaign against the Scots queen, his secret plan for our succession, is finally fulfilled. There can be no reason for my sister and me to be held any longer. Sir William Hawtrey tells me that Robert Dudley’s brother Ambrose visited Ned Seymour, defying the order that says that my brother-in-law is to have no visitors; and assured him that my sister Katherine will be named as heir, and the Dudleys will support her.
I am restless in my stuffy room. I open both the windows and look out. When I go out for my walk I pace up and down in the pretty midsummer garden, going round and round the outer path like a ferret circling its cage. Every time I hear hoofbeats I think it must be the queen’s messenger coming to set me free. It cannot be long now.
Lady Hawtrey tells me the gossip from London. Lady Margaret Douglas’s husband, the frightened father of Lord Darnley, has run away from Scotland, and been allowed into England. He is invited to court, and Lady Margaret is free to join him. He tells of a Scotland which has turned to rebellion. The Scots lords are against Bothwell and against their queen. Queen Mary—Bothwell’s victim, Bothwell’s wife—cannot keep the authority of a queen. Just as Elizabeth always feared, a married queen is reduced to the level of her husband. Mary came to Scotland a royal French widow in a dress of the brightest white. She cannot hold the country as Bothwell’s wife in seductive black with red petticoats. They treat her with outward respect, but they imprison her in the island castle of Lochleven. My sister’s rival, who was so free and powerful, is now a prisoner just like us.
And, just like us, our imprisoned cousin is now dependent on the goodwill of Elizabeth. Nobody else can order the Scots lords to respect their monarch. No one else has an army on the border, spies in place, and most of the lords as paid retainers. But instead of commanding the restoration of a fellow queen, Elizabeth listens to our other cousin, Margaret Douglas, who demands justice for the death of her son: the execution of her daughter-in-law, and the possession of her grandson, the little heir. All these righteous claims to humiliate the Scots queen have great appeal for Elizabeth, but she cannot pursue them.
More than any other belief, Elizabeth believes that the law of the land does not apply to queens. She wants everyone to think that a queen might make mistakes—might make fatal mistakes in her personal life—and still be fit to rule. If people say that a queen cannot be in love with a married man, where would that leave Elizabeth and Robert Dudley? If people say that an unwanted husband or wife cannot be mercilessly killed, then what adjustment should be made to the coroner’s verdict of the accidental death of Amy Dudley? Elizabeth would like the baby Stuart in her keeping, would like to see his father’s death avenged; but the safety of his mother as a queen is sacrosanct. Nothing matters more to Elizabeth, the daughter of a beheaded queen, than everyone understanding that queens cannot be beheaded. No queen can be beheaded in England ever again.
CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,
SUMMER 1567
It is the Scots lords who end the stalemate; they don’t understand the English queen and they ruin their own cause by accident. They announce that their queen, Mary, her royal will broken by miscarrying twin boys in her island prison, has agreed to surrender her rights to the throne. They have made her abdicate in favor of her son, and she has agreed to be as nothing, a prisoner with no title. They think this is their triumph, but it turns Elizabeth against them in a moment. Now she refuses to recognize the little Prince James as King James VI of Scotland. She says he cannot be used to displace his mother, the little boy may not usurp his mother’s throne, a queen cannot be thrown down by her lords. Never, never, never can an heir be put in the place of a monarch—it is the greatest fear of her life. She rails at Cecil, she swears that Queen Mary’s dethronement shall not be allowed. Queens shall be treated with respect, they cannot be judged and found wanting. She will take England to war to defend her fellow queen, Mary.
Now Elizabeth turns on her loudly demanding newly restored cousin Margaret Douglas. Lady Margaret insists that her daughter-in-law Mary Queen of Scots be imprisoned forever, or brought to trial and executed for the abominable crime of husband killing. It hardly matters to her, as long as the baby is brought to England and Lady Margaret can call herself the grandmother of a king and see him inherit the thrones of Scotland and England.