Philippa Gregory: The other queen

Her dark eyes are piercing. “There are those who say she does not deserve justice.”

“But I was appointed judge, by you.” It is a feeble response, but what else can I say? “I have to be just if I am representing you, Your Majesty. If I am representing the queen’s justice, I cannot listen to gossip.”

Her face is as hard as a mask and then her smile breaks through. “You are an honorable man indeed,” she says. “And I would be glad to see her name cleared of any shadow of suspicion. She is my cousin; she is a fellow queen; she should be my friend, not my prisoner.”

I nod. Elizabeth is a woman whose own innocent mother was beheaded for wantonness. Surely, she must naturally side with a woman unjustly accused? “Your Grace, we should have cleared her name on the evidence that was submitted. But you stopped the inquiry before it reached its conclusions. Her name should be free of any slur. We should publish our opinions and say that she is innocent of any charge. She can be your friend now. She can be released.”

“We will make no announcement of her innocence,” she rules. “Where would be the advantage to me in that? But she should be returned to her country and her throne.”

I bow. “Well, so I think, Your Grace. Your cousin Howard says she will need a good advisor and a small army at first to secure her safety.”

“Oh, really? Does he? What good advisor?” she asks sharply. “Who do you and my good cousin nominate to rule Scotland for Mary Stuart?”

I stumble. It is always like this with the queen: you never know when you have walked into a trap. “Whoever you think best, Your Grace. Sir Francis Knollys? Sir Nicholas Throckmorton? Hastings? Any reliable nobleman?”

“But I am advised that the lords of Scotland and the regent make better rulers and better neighbors than she did,” she says restlessly. “I am advised that she is certain to marry again, and what if she chooses a Frenchman or a Spaniard and makes him King of Scotland? What if she puts our worst enemies on our very borders? God knows her choice of husbands is always disastrous.”

It is not hard for a man who has been around the court for as long as I have to recognize the suspicious tone of William Cecil through every word of this. He has filled the queen’s head with such a terror of France and Spain that from the moment she came to the throne she has done nothing but fear plots and prepare for war. By doing so, he has made us enemies where we could have had allies. Philip of Spain has many true friends in England and his country is our greatest partner for trade, while France is our nearest neighbor. To hear Cecil’s advice you would think one was Sodom and the other Gomorrah. However, I am a courtier, I say nothing as yet. I stay silent till I know where this woman’s indecisive mind will flutter to rest.

“What if she gains her throne and marries an enemy? Shall we ever have peace on the northern borders, d’you think, Talbot? Would you trust such a woman as her?”

“You need have no fear,” I say. “No Scots army would ever get past your Northern lords. You can trust your old lords, the men who have been there forever. Percy, Neville, Dacre, Westmorland, Northumberland, all of us old lords. We keep your border safe, Your Grace. You can trust us. We keep armed and we keep the men levied and drilled. We have kept the Northern lands safe for hundreds of years. The Scots have never defeated us.”

She smiles at my assurance. “I know it. You and yours have been good friends to me and mine. But do you think I can trust the Queen of Scots to rule Scotland to our advantage?”

“Surely, when she goes back she will have enough to do to reestablish her rule? We need not fear her enmity. She will want our friendship. She cannot be restored without it. If you help her back on her throne with your army, she will be eternally grateful. You can bind her with an agreement.”

“I think so,” she nods. “I think so indeed. And anyway, we cannot keep her here in England; there is no possible argument for keeping her here. We cannot imprison an innocent fellow queen. And better for us if she goes back to Edinburgh than runs off to Paris to cause more trouble.”

“She is queen,” I say simply. “It cannot be denied. Queen born and ordained. It must be God’s will that she sits on her throne. And surely, it is safer for us if she can bring the Scots to peace than if they are fighting against each other. The border raids in the North have been worse since she was thrown down. The border raiders fear no one, now that Bothwell is far away in prison. Any rule is better than none. Better the queen should rule than no rule at all. And surely, the French or the Spanish will restore her if we do not? And if they put her back on the throne we will have a foreign army on our doorstep, and she will be grateful to them, and that must be far worse for us.”

“Aye,” she says firmly, as if she has made a decision. “So think I.”

“Perhaps you can swear an alliance with her,” I suggest. “Better to deal with a queen, you two queens together, than be forced to haggle with a usurper, a new false power in Scotland. And her half brother is clearly guilty of murder and worse.”

I could not have said anything that pleased her more. She nods and puts her hand up to caress her pearls. She has a magnificent triple rope of black pearls, thick as a ruff, around her throat.

“He laid hands on her,” I prompt her. “She is an ordained queen and he seized her against her will and imprisoned her. That’s a sin against the law and against heaven. You cannot want to deal with such an impious man as that. How should he prosper if he can attack his own queen?”

“I will not deal with traitors,” she declares. Elizabeth has a horror of anyone who would challenge a monarch. Her own hold on her own throne was unsteady in the early years, and even now her claim is actually not as good as that of the Queen of Scots. Elizabeth was registered as Henry’s bastard and she never revoked the act of parliament. But Mary Queen of Scots is the granddaughter of Henry’s sister. Her line is true, legitimate, and strong.

“I will never deal with traitors,” she repeats. She smiles, and at once I see again the pretty young woman who came to the throne with no objection at all to dealing with traitors. She had been the center of all the rebellions against her sister, Mary Tudor, but was always too clever to be caught. “I want to be a just kinswoman to the Scots queen,” she says. “She may be young and foolish and she has made mistakes that are shocking beyond words—but she is my kinswoman and she is a queen. She must be well treated, and she must be restored. I am ready to love her as a good kinswoman and see her rule her country as she should.”

“There speaks a great queen and a generous woman,” I say. It never hurts with Elizabeth to slather on a bit of praise. Besides, it is earned. It will not be easy for Elizabeth to resist the terrors that Cecil frightens her with. It will not be easy for her to be generous to a younger and more beautiful kinswoman. Elizabeth won her throne after a lifetime of plotting. She cannot help but fear an heir with a claim to the throne and every reason to conspire. She knows what it is like to be the heir excluded from court. She knows that when she was the heir excluded from court she spun one plot after another, murderous rebellions that nearly succeeded in destroying her half sister and bringing down the throne. She knows what a false friend she was to her sister; it will be impossible for her to trust her cousin who is, just as she was, a young princess impatient of waiting.

She beams at me. “So, Talbot. This brings me to your task.”

I wait.

“I want you to house the Scots queen for me, and then take her back to her kingdom when the time is right,” she says.