The other queen

1569, DECEMBER, COVENTRY: BESS

So, it is over. Good God, I cannot believe that it is over, and I have my goods safe in my wagons and I can go home again. I have a home to go to. I cannot believe it, but it is true. It is over. It is over, and we have won.

I should have predicted this; I would have predicted it if I had kept my wits about me. But I am a vulgar farmer’s daughter in very truth, and all I could think about was burying the silver and not about the will and the wit of the rival armies. Elizabeth’s army finally arrived on their sluggish march at Durham and sought an enemy to engage and found they had gone, blown away like mist in the morning. The great army of the North marched to meet the Spanish armada at Hartlepool and found nothing. At once they doubted every plan. They had sworn to restore the old church, so they held their Mass and thought that was done. They were for freeing the Scots queen but they were none of them sure where she had gone and they were counting on the Spanish pikemen and Spanish gold. They did not fancy facing Elizabeth’s army without either, and to tell truth they wanted to slip off to their homes and enjoy the peace and prosperity that has come with Elizabeth. They did not want to be the ones to start another war between kin.

Alas for them. The Spanish doubted them and did not want to risk their army and their ships until they were certain of victory. They delayed, and while they hesitated, the Northern army waited at Hartlepool, straining their eyes to see over the white wave tops for the whiter sails, and seeing nothing but the gray skyline and wheeling gulls with the cold spray of the North Sea blowing in their disappointed faces. Then they heard that the Duke of Norfolk had submitted to Elizabeth and written to Westmorland and Northumberland, begging them not to march against their queen. He dropped his head and rode to London though his own tenants hung on his horse’s tail and stirrup leathers and begged him to fight. So there was no Spanish fleet, there was no great army led by the Duke of Norfolk; the Northern army had victory at their very fingertips but they did not know it, and they did not grasp it.

Cecil writes to Hastings to be warned that the country is not at peace, to trust no one, but Westmorland is fled to the Netherlands and Northumberland has gone over the border to Scotland. Most of the men have gone back to their villages with a great story to tell and memories for the rest of their lives and nothing, in the end, achieved. Let a woman, even a vulgar farmer’s daughter, know this: half the time the greater the noise the less the deeds. And grand announcements do not mean great doings.

Let me remember also, in my own defense, that the vulgar farmer’s daughter who buries the silver and understands nothing at least has her silver safe when the great campaigns are over. The army is dispersed. The leaders are fled. And I and my fortune are safe. It is over. Praise God, it is over.

We are to take the queen back to Tutbury for safekeeping before she goes with Hastings to the Tower of London, or wherever he is commanded to take her, and the carters have broken some good Venetian glasses of mine and lost one wagon altogether, which held some hangings and some carpets, but worse than all of this, there is no note from Cecil addressed to us. We are still left in silence, and no word of thanks from our queen for our triumph in snatching the Scots queen from danger. If we had not rushed her away—what then? If she had been captured by the rebels, would not the whole of the North have turned out for her? We saved Elizabeth as surely as if we had met and defeated the army of the North, fifty against six thousand. We kidnapped the rebels’ figurehead and without her they were nothing.

So why does Elizabeth not write to thank my husband the earl? Why does she not pay the money she owes for the queen’s keep? Why does she not promise us Westmorland’s estates? Day after day I tally up her debt to us in my accounts book, and this pell-mell rush across the country did not come cheaply either. Why does not Cecil write one of his warm short notes to send me his good will?

And when we are back in Tutbury with only a few broken glasses, one lost soup tureen, and a wagon full of hangings gone missing, to show for our terror-struck flight—why can I still not feel safe?