The other queen

1572, MARCH, CHATSWORTH: BESS

Iam bidden to meet my lord, his lawyer, and his steward in his privy chamber, a formal meeting. His lawyer and clerks have come from London, and I have my chief steward to advise me. I pretend to ignorance, but I know what this is all about. I have been waiting for this all the weeks after the verdict of guilty on Howard and my lord’s silent return home.

My lord has served his queen as loyally as any man could do but even after the verdict she wanted, she has not rewarded him. He may be Lord High Steward of England but he is a great lord only in reputation. In reality he is a pauper. He has no money left at all, and not a field that is not mortgaged. He has returned from London as a man broken by his own times. Howard is sentenced to death and it will be Cecil’s England now, and my lord cannot live in peace and prosperity in Cecil’s England.

Under the terms of our marriage contract my lord has to give me great sums of money at my son’s coming of age. Henry is now twenty-one years old and Charles will soon be twenty, and my lord will owe me their inheritance and the money for my other children on the first day of April, as well as other obligations to me. I know he cannot pay it. He cannot get anywhere near to paying it.

In addition to this I have been lending him money to pay for the queen’s keep for the past year, and I have known for the past six months that he won’t be able to repay me this either. The expense of housing and guarding the Queen of Scots has cost him all the rents and revenues of his land, and there is never enough money coming in. To settle his debt to me, to fulfil his marriage contract, he will have to sell land or offer me land instead of the money he should pay me.

He finally realized what a crisis he was in when he could not hold his usual open house at Christmas. He finally realized that he could not go on pouring his fortune at the feet of the Scots queen. When I told him that there was nothing left in the treasure room, no credit available for us in the whole of Derbyshire, he finally saw the disaster that has been building every day for the past three years, and of which I have warned him, every time that we sent out our bill to the queen and received no payment. I have been thinking every day for three years about what we should do about this unbearable expense, every day for the past three years it has nagged at me like a pain, and so I know what I want. His poverty has come as a surprise to him; to me it is an old enemy.

I have not been idle. Indeed, I have deliberately shifted his debt from the moneylenders to myself, securing his borrowings with my own funds, knowing that he would not be able to repay. Knowing what I want. I know what I will settle for, and I know what I will absolutely reject.

I sit on a straight-backed chair, hands in my lap, attentive, as the lawyer stands before me and explains that the earl’s financial position is straitened through no fault of his own. He has had expenses beyond what any lord could bear, in his service to the queen. I bow my head like an obedient wife and listen. My husband looks out the window as if he can hardly bear to hear his folly described.

The lawyer tells me that in view of the earl’s obligations in terms of our marriage contract, and his later obligations from his borrowing from me, he is prepared to make a proposal. My chief steward glances at me. He has been frightened by my loans; I can feel his hopeful look on my face, but I keep my eyes down.

The lawyer proposes that all the lands that I brought to my lord on marriage shall be restored to me. All the lands that were gifted to me by my dearest husband William St. Loe and my careful husband before him William Cavendish will be returned to me. In return I must forgive my husband his debt to me for the cash loans I have made him, and I must forgive him the support of my children, which he promised on marriage. The agreement we made on marriage is, in effect, to be dissolved. I shall have my own again and he will be responsible neither for me nor for my children.

I could cry with relief, but I say nothing and keep my face still. This is to regain my inheritance; this is to restore to me the fortune I made with husbands who knew the value of money and knew the value of land and kept them safe. This restores to me myself. This makes me once more a woman of property, and a woman of property is a woman in charge of her own destiny. I will own my house. I will own my land. I will manage my fortune. I will be an independent woman. At last I shall be safe again. My husband may be a fool, may be a spendthrift, but his ruin will not drag me down.

“This is a most generous offer,” his lawyer says, when I say nothing.

Actually, no; it is not a generous offer. It is a tempting one. It is designed to tempt me, but if I were to hold out for the cash I am owed, my husband would be forced to sell most of these lands to clear his debts, and I could buy them at rock-bottom prices and show a profit. But, I imagine, this is not the way of an earl and his countess.

“I accept,” I say simply.

“You do?”

They were expecting more haggling. They were expecting a great repining about the loss of money. They expected me to demand coin. Everyone wants money; nobody wants land. Everyone in England but me.

“I accept,” I repeat. I manage a wan smile at my lord, who sits in a sulk, realizing at last how much his infatuation with the Scots queen has cost him. “I would wish to help my husband the earl in this difficult time. I am certain that when the queen is returned to Scotland she will favor him with the repayment of all debts.” This is to rub salt in a raw wound. The queen will never return to Scotland in triumph now, and we all know it.

He smiles thinly at my optimism.

“Do you have a document for me to sign?” I ask.

“I have one prepared,” the lawyer says.

He passes it over to me. It is headed “Deed of Gift” as if my husband the earl had not been forced into repaying me my own again. I will not quibble at this, or at the value of the lands that are overpriced, or at the value of the woodland which has not been properly maintained. There are many items I would argue if I were not eager to finish this, desperate to call my own lands my own again.

“You understand that if you sign this you must provide for your own children?” The lawyer hands me the quill, and I am hard put not to laugh aloud.

Provide for my children! All my husband the earl has ever done is provide for the Queen of Scots. His own children’s inheritance has been squandered on her luxuries. Thank God he will no longer be responsible for me and mine.

“I understand,” I say. “I will provide for myself and for my family, and I will never look to the earl for help again.”

He hears the ring of farewell in this, and his head comes up and he looks at me. “You are wrong if you blame me,” he says with quiet dignity.

“Fool,” I think, but I do not say it. This is the last time I shall call him fool in my thoughts. I promise myself this, as I sign. From this day if he is wise or if he is a fool, he cannot cost me my lands. He can be a fool or not as he pleases, he will never hurt me again. I have my lands back in my own hands and I will keep them safe. He can do what he wants with his own. He can lose all his own lands for love of her, if he so chooses, but he cannot touch mine.

But he is right to hear dismissal in my voice. This was my husband. I gave him my heart, as a good wife should, and I trusted him with the inheritance of my children and all my fortune, as a good wife must. Now I have my heart and my fortune back safely. This is goodbye.