The days get shorter and my bedroom is dark as night from three in the afternoon, and then slowly, slowly the golden light starts to come back to the white walls and I can hear birdsong outside the window in the morning and the skies lighten earlier and earlier and I think that my husband, my beloved husband, would never advise me to give up. He loved me when I was a little girl on too big a horse. He loved my courage; he loved my unbeatable spirit. Perhaps I can find that courage and that spirit once again, for love of him.
And I think, if nothing else, I can deny Elizabeth the victory of the death of all her cousins. I think of Mary Queen of Scots, awaiting her return to Scotland, determined to get back to her country and her son. I think of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, preparing his own defense in the Tower of London. I think of my cousin Margaret Douglas, now widowed since her husband was killed in a brawl in Scotland, never stopping her demand for justice, never ceasing to claim the throne for her Scots grandson, and I think I am damned if I am going to spare Elizabeth the problem of dealing with three surviving heirs. I am damned if I am going to oblige Elizabeth by the silent exit of yet another rival. I am Jane Grey’s sister—they are calling her the first Protestant martyr—I am not going to slip away in silence; she did not. “Learn you to die!” does not mean lie down like Jo the pug, with your paw over your nose, and give up. “Learn you to die!” means consider how your death is meaningful, as your life is meaningful.
So, at the end of the long silent period of mourning I get up because I love my husband and I will live the rest of my life to prove it, and because I despise Elizabeth and I shall live the rest of my life to inconvenience her. When spring comes, I get up. It is as simple as that. I rise up and I do my hair, which is showing silver in the gold as befits a widow, and I order black cloth from Sir Thomas’s shops in London, and argue with Lady Gresham as to how much material I need to make a gown of mourning black. I want it richly folded, and beautifully made. Then I hear that her stupid stupid husband (for the man is a fool, for all that he knows about business) has gone to William Cecil to ask if I may indeed dress as a widow. As if it matters to him, as if it matters to them! As if it should matter to a queen that a widow should wear black for the love of her life. As if a queen should stoop so low as to worry about the black petticoats of the smallest of her subjects, as if anyone should deny me my black gown when I carry the greatest of loves in my heart.
I win my gown of black and I win my freedom. I am allowed to walk in the gardens at Osterley and even take a horse and ride through the parkland. Mr. Nozzle likes Thomas Gresham’s orchard and when the early fruits come into season is often to be found browsing on raspberries or early cherries. He takes his pick of the crop, and I have to suspect that he takes an especial pleasure in annoying our host. More than once when Sir Thomas has sent from London demanding his hothouse peaches, informing the household that he is giving an important dinner to significant guests, we find that Mr. Nozzle has been ahead of him. He knows how to unlock the door to the hothouse, and goes in first and eats the best of the fruit. Sometimes he takes only a little nibble from each. I would think Sir Thomas might admire Mr. Nozzle’s method of driving up value; but he does not.
I write to William Cecil and say that since it is now recognized that my marriage was valid, I should like to live where my husband lived, at Sandgate in Kent, and raise his children from his first marriage as my own. They are now orphans and I am a widow; it would be a service to the parish and a joy to me if I could be given their care.
He takes a long time to reply, but I know he has many other things to trouble him. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, has stood trial with a host of accusations against him but only one that rings true—and it is the most damning. He preferred Queen Mary to Queen Elizabeth, he planned to marry the beautiful younger woman, and the queen will see him die for that. He knew there was a plot to free the Scots queen and he may have forwarded some money. He did little else. He did not join the plot, he submitted himself to the queen and begged her pardon. She did not accept the excuse that he is promised to the Scots queen in marriage, that he owes her his support. That is the last defense in the world to proffer to a woman like Elizabeth, who cannot tolerate any attention being paid to another woman. So Thomas Howard has stood his trial and been found guilty, and the queen can choose to pardon him, or not. In the meantime he waits in the Tower of London, as my sister Jane waited, as Katherine waited, as I wait here at Osterley, to hear the queen’s pleasure.
And it is now, when Thomas Howard is found guilty of treason for proposing to marry her, when Bess’s husband is despised for falling in love with her, that suddenly, the reputation of Mary Queen of Scots is destroyed. The Privy Council allows the full release of her letters, the famous letters of the silver gilt casket—forged and fictitious. William Cecil has been busy and the papers, which were once so secret that they could not even be shown to royal advisors, are now published so cheaply that every spit boy and kitchen girl in London can buy a copy and read that Queen Mary is no rightful queen, for she whored with Bothwell and blew up her husband with a bombard.
Shocked by this, and frightened by Cecil’s many other warnings, the parliament calls for Mary to be accused and executed. Still the unwanted, ruinous guest of my aunt Bess, the Scots queen has to wait to see what Elizabeth will do. My guess is that Elizabeth will hold all her cousins—all of us—indefinitely, until Mary’s beauty is worn out, until Thomas’s loyal army forgets him, until they die of heartbreak. But she cannot diminish me: I am already small. She cannot break my heart: it is buried with my husband, Thomas Keyes.
When I finally hear from Cecil, he refuses my request. The queen does not wish for me to return to normal life yet. I am not allowed to care for my stepchildren; I am not allowed to raise Thomas’s children as he asked me to do. But she need not think that I will quietly die to oblige her. Not for this, not for anything.
ST. BOTOLPH’S-WITHOUT-ALDGATE,
LONDON, SPRING 1573
And finally . . . I have won. It is as simple and as beautiful as that. I have outlived Elizabeth’s malice, and survived her jealousy.
I saw her leave my beloved sister to die of the plague, and then leave her to die of despair. I saw her put my baby nephews in the way of disease and neglect. I saw her execute her cousin Thomas Howard and imprison her cousin a queen—and who would think that you could imprison a Queen of Scots and a royal kinswoman of France? But I have seen Elizabeth do all this. And finally, I have seen her ill will towards me wear out from overuse. It is not me who tires of it and gives up, it is Elizabeth. Finally, she releases me.
First, she allows me to stay with my stepfather, Adrian Stokes, at Beaumanor, so I return to my family home. Then, as if weary of her long years of persecution, she sets me free, and promises to restore my allowance. There is no more sense to freeing me than there was to arresting me. I am no danger to her now, I was no danger before. It is nothing but royal whim.