Philippa Gregory - The other queen

If it were the common people alone I would take their praise and their gifts and smile my thanks and know that they can do nothing, but it is so much more than them. At every stop on the road, when the wine comes in for dinner, a server drops a message into my lap or palms me a note. Shrewsbury is a hopeless guardian, bless him. He watches the door but forgets all about the windows. Half a dozen lords of England have sent me assurances that they will never let me be held captive, that they will never let me be sent back to Scotland as a prisoner, that they have vowed to set me free. They will make Elizabeth honor her word to restore me to my throne, or they will challenge her in my name. There is a conspiracy against Elizabeth smoldering, like a fire in heather, spreading, hidden at the very roots. In hesitating to restore me to my throne she has gone too far for her court to support. They all know that I am her only legitimate heir, and they all want me to be secure of my kingdom in Scotland and assured of my inheritance in England. This is nothing more than simple justice, this is my right, and the English nobility as well as the commoners want to defend my right. Any English queen of any sense would make this clear for me, clear for her lords, clear for her country. Any queen of any sense would name me as her heir and put me back on the throne of Scotland and order me to bide my time until her death. If she would treat me fairly like this, I would honor her.

For many of them Elizabeth is a pretender to the throne, a Protestant bastard who has played on her Tudor-red hair and my absence to put herself where I should be. All of Europe and half of England accept that I am the true heir, descended in a straight and legitimate line from King Henry VII, whereas she is an acknowledged bastard, and worse: a known traitor to the queen who went before her, the sacred Mary Tudor.

It is a tricky path I have to tread. No one would blame me if I escaped from this compulsory hospitality. But everyone, even my own family, even Elizabeth’s enemies, would condemn me if I raised a riot in her kingdom. She too would be within her rights to accuse me of troublemaking, even treason, if I made a rebellion against her, and I dare not risk that. These lords must be led on to free me, for I must be free. But they must do it of their own choice. I cannot encourage them to rebel against their crowned sovereign. In truth: nor would I. Who believes more strongly than I that an anointed queen should reign? A legitimate sovereign cannot be questioned.

“But isshe a legitimate sovereign?” Mary Seton, my companion, asks me slyly, knowing that she is only repeating my old words back to me, as we rest one evening in a poor inn on the road to Tutbury.

“She is,” I say firmly. At any rate, when we are in her lands and with no power of our own, we will treat her as such.

“The child of Anne Boleyn, conceived outside wedlock when the king was married to a Catholic princess,” she reminds me. “Declared a bastard by her own father, and that law never revoked. Not even by her…as if she is afraid to ask the question. Heir to the throne only because the king named her on his deathbed, after his son, after his legitimate daughter, the desperate last words of a frightened man.”

I turn away from her to the fire and push the most recent note, a promise of help from Mary’s faithful brother, Lord Seton, to the back of the logs and watch it burn. “Whatever she is, whatever her mother was, even whatever her father—even if he was Mark Smeaton, a singer—nonetheless she is an anointed queen now,” I say firmly. “She found a bishop who could bring himself to crown her, and as such she is sacred.”

“All but one of her bishops refused. The whole church but one Judas denied her. Some of them went to prison rather than crown her. Some of them died for their faith, and died denying her. They called her a usurper, a usurper on your throne.”

“Peut-кtre.But she is on it now, and I will never, never be a party to overthrow an ordained queen. God has allowed her to be queen, for whatever reason. She has been anointed with sacred oil, she has the crown on her head and the orb and scepter in her hand. She is untouchable. I shall not be the one to throw her down.”

“God has made her queen but not authorized her to be a tyrant,” Mary observes quietly.

“Exactly,” I say. “So she may rule her kingdom but she may not tyrannize over me. I will be free.”

“Amen to that,” Mary says devoutly. I look at the scrap of paper falling to ash in the red heart of the embers.

“I will be free,” I repeat. “Because, in the end, no one has the power to imprison me. I was born, bred, crowned, anointed, and wed to a king. No one in Christendom is more a queen than I. No one in the world is more of a queen than I. Only God Himself is above me. Only He can command me, and His command is that I must be free and take my throne.”

We do it. I do it. By using the men I have brought from Chatsworth—good men who have served me well, who know how I like things done—by using the hardworking women that I recruit from Tutbury and train into doing things my way, by scattering around the handsome things I have brought from Chatsworth, by patching and nailing and cleaning and thatching as best we can. By hanging tapestries over damp plaster, by lighting fires in blocked chimneys and burning out vermin, by glazing some windows and blocking up others, by curtaining doorways and hammering down loose floorboards; in the end we make a place that, if not fit for a queen, cannot be—of itself—grounds for complaint. The queen herself, Queen Elizabeth, sends me goods from the Tower for the extra comfort of her cousin. Second-rate I have to say, but anything which makes these dark, empty rooms look a little less like a dungeon and more like a house must be regarded as a vast improvement.

It is a great job of work that I and my workmen have done. I don’t expect thanks for it: a nobleman like my husband the earl thinks that houses build themselves, sweep their own floors, and furniture strolls in and arranges itself. But I take a pleasure and a pride in my work. Others in this kingdom build ships and plan ventures far away, raid like pirates, discover new countries, and bring back wealth. My work is closer to home. I build, I establish, I run at a profit. But whether it is Sir Francis Drake’s work or mine, it is alike; it is all in the service of the Protestant God, and my clean floor and the gold in my purse both honor His Holy Name.

The waiting, the feverish preparation, the arrival of the queen’s own goods all build to a sense of such anxiety that when the lad I have posted at the top of the tower yells out, “I see them! They are coming!” the whole household takes to their heels as if they feared a Spanish invasion instead of one young queen. I can feel my stomach lurch as if I had the flux, and I take off the sacking I have tied at my waist to protect my gown, and I go down to the courtyard to greet this unwanted guest.

It is snowing again, just a flurry, but she has her hood pulled forward over her head to shield herself from the bitter weather, so all I see at first is a big horse and a woman huddled in cloaks in the saddle. My husband is riding at her side and I have an odd, actually, a very odd feeling, when I see him lean towards her as the horses halt. He inclines towards her, as if he would save her the least discomfort or trouble; he looks as if he would spare her the cold wind if he could, and I have a moment when I think that in our businesslike courtship, our well-advised marriage, and our cheerful consummation in the big marital bed, he has never yearned towards me as if he thinks I am fragile, as if he desires to protect me, as if I need protection.