The other queen

1569, NOVEMBER, ON THE ROAD FROM TUTBURY CASTLE: BESS

When a woman thinks her husband is a fool, her marriage is over. They may part in one year or ten; they may live together until death. But if she thinks he is a fool, she will not love him again.

So think I, jogging down the road south, my head bowed against a freezing sleety drizzle, Tutbury abandoned behind me, a battle or, worse, a defeat before me. A murder commanded of me, and a treason trial hanging over me. This tragedy has happened to me. Me, who thought that I had chosen so well, that I would end my life a countess, with a husband I admired, in a house that is one of the best in England. Now I am riding behind a train of wagons carrying my most valuable goods, desperate to get them stowed somewhere safe before we are plundered, trapped between two advancing armies. And all this because my husband is a fool.

A woman has to change her nature if she is to be a wife. She has to learn to curb her tongue, to suppress her desires, to moderate her thoughts, and to spend her days putting another first. She has to put him first even when she longs to serve herself or her children. She has to put him first even when she longs to judge for herself. She has to put him first even when she knows best. To be a good wife is to be a woman with a will of iron that you yourself have forged into a bridle to curb your own abilities. To be a good wife is to enslave yourself to a lesser person. To be a good wife is to amputate your own power as surely as the parents of beggars hack off their children’s feet for the greater benefit of the family.

If a husband is unfaithful, a good wife will wink at it. Men being who they are, she is not missing much: the quick thrill of being put up against a wall or being squashed on wet grass. If he is a gambler she can forgive him and pay off his debts. If he has a temper she can keep out of the way, or soothe him, or fight him. Anything that gets her safely through the day, until he apologizes in tears—as violent husbands so often do. But if a husband jeopardizes his wife’s house, her fortune, her prosperity, if he puts at risk the very thing she has dedicated her life to amass, then I cannot see how she can ever forgive him. The only point in being a wife is to get a house and fortune and the children to inherit them. And the terrible danger in being a wife is that the husband owns all: everything that she brings to him on marriage, everything that she inherits or earns during that marriage. By the law of the land, a wife cannot own anything independently of her husband, not her house, not her children, not herself. On marriage she signs every single thing into his keeping. So if a husband destroys what she brings him—loses the house, spends the fortune, disinherits the children, abuses her—then she can do nothing but watch herself slide into poverty. He is a fool and I fear that she will never love him again. And she was a fool to choose him.

And yes. This is the case for me. I allow him to gamble without reproach, I avoid his occasional moments of bad temper, I even turn a blind eye to his adoration of the young queen, but I cannot forgive him for putting my house at risk. If he is found guilty of treason, they will behead him and take his possessions and I will lose Chatsworth and everything that my previous husbands and I gathered together. I cannot forgive him for taking this risk. I am more frightened by this than by the thought of his beheading. To lose Chatsworth would be to lose my life’s work. To lose Chatsworth would be to lose my very sense of myself. He is a fool, and I am Mrs. Fool, and he will make me Mrs. Fool without a house, which is worse.