“Leave them all for me,” she says again. “Come to Scotland with me and be my friend and advisor.” She pauses. She says the words I want to hear more than any other words in the world. “Oh, George. Love me.”
1570, FEBRUARY, TUTBURY CASTLE: BESS
This young woman, who it seems I must now endure as a rival for my husband as well as a constant drain on my accounts, has the cursed nine lives of a cat and the luck of the devil. She has survived the guardianship of Hastings, who rode off and left her to us, though he swore to me he would see her dead rather than alive to destroy the peace of England, she has survived the rising of the North, though better men and women than her will die on a scaffold for lesser crimes than she has joyfully committed, and she has survived the disgrace of a secret betrothal, though her betrothed is locked up in the Tower and his servants are on the rack. She sits in my great chamber, sewing with the finest silks, as well as I do myself, before a fire blazing with expensive timber, and all the while messages are going from her to her ambassador, from him to William Cecil, from him to the queen, from Scotland to each of them, all to forge an agreement that she will be returned in glory to her throne. After all she has done, all these great powers are determined that she shall regain her throne. Even Cecil says that, in the absence of any other royal Scot, she must be restored.
The logic of this escapes me, as it must do everyone whose handshake is their bond and who drives a straight bargain. Either she is not fit to be queen—as certainly the Scots once thought, and we agreed—or she is as fit now as she was when we held three inquiries into her conduct. The justice of this escapes me too. There is the Duke of Norfolk waiting in the Tower for a trial for treason; there is the Earl of Northumberland executed for his part in the Northern rising; there is the Earl of Westmorland in exile forever, never to see his wife or lands again, all for seeking the restoration of this queen, who is now to be restored. Hundreds died under the charge of treason in January. But now in February, this same treason is policy.
She is a woman accursed, I swear it. No man has ever prospered in marriage to her; no champion has survived the doubtful honor of carrying her colors; no country has been the better for her queenship. She brings unhappiness to every house she enters, and I, for one, can attest to that. Why should a woman like this be forgiven? Why should she get off scotfree? Why should such a Jezebel be so damned lucky?
I have worked all my life to earn my place in the world. I have friends who love me and I have acquaintances who trust me. I live my life to a code which I learned as a young woman: my word is my bond, my faith is close to my heart, my queen has my loyalty, my house is everything to me, my children are my future, and I am trustworthy in all these things. In business I am honorable but sharp. If I see an advantage I take it, but I never steal and I never deceive. I will take money from a fool but not from an orphan. These are not the manners of the nobility, but they are the way that I live. How shall I ever respect a woman who lies, defrauds, conspires, seduces, and manipulates? How shall I see her as anything other than despicable?
Oh, I cannot resist her charm; I am as foolish as any of these men when she promises to invite me to Holyroodhouse or to Paris, but even when she enchants me I know that she is a bad woman. She is a bad woman through and through.
“My cousin has treated me with great cruelty and injustice,” she remarks after one of my ladies (my own ladies!) has the stupidity to say that we will miss her when she returns to Scotland. “Great cruelty, but at last she sees what everyone in the world saw two years ago: a queen cannot be thrown down. I must be restored. She