The other queen

1570, JANUARY, TUTBURY CASTLE: GEORGE

News from London which changes everything. What a world we live in now! Everything is turned about again, without warning, almost without reason. My letter comes from Cecil, so there is every reason for me to mistrust it. But this is news that not even he could conceal or invent. It must be the case. The Scots queen’s luck has come good once more, and her star has shot into the ascendant. She is a queen whose fortune ebbs and flows like the tides, and suddenly she is in full flood. Her half brother, the usurper of her throne, her greatest enemy, Lord Moray, has been assassinated in Scotland and her country is once again without a leader. This leaves a gaping hole at the very head of the Scots government. They have no one who can take the throne. They must take her back. There is no other. Amazingly, just when she was thrust down lower than she has ever been in her life, her luck has turned again and she will be queen. They have to take her back. Indeed, they want her back as queen.

Instead of hurrying to Bess with the letter, as I would have done only months ago, I go straight across the courtyard to find the queen. She is better, thank God. I find her dressed in her beautiful black velvet, turning out the contents of some trunks, which have moved from house to house with her and never been unpacked. She is holding a red brocade against her face to look at herself in a looking glass, and laughing. I don’t think I have ever seen her more beautiful.

“My lord, will you look at this gown!” she starts, but then she sees my face and the letter in my hand, and she thrusts the gown at her friend Mary Seton and comes quickly towards me.

“George?”

“I am sorry to have to tell you that your half brother, Lord Moray, is dead,” I say.

“Dead?”

“Assassinated.”

I cannot mistake the joy that lights up her face. I know at once that she has been hoping for this, and I know also my familiar dread of dealing with people who love secrets. Perhaps it was her dark plan and her wicked assassin who struck the blow.

“And my son? My James? Do you have news of my son?”

This is a mother’s response. This is a true woman. I should not be so suspicious. “He is safe,” I assure her. “He is safe.”

“You are certain? He is safe for sure?”

“They say so.”

“How did you hear?”

“From Cecil. It must be true. He writes to tell me that shortly the queen will be writing to you. She will have some proposals to put before you that she hopes will resolve all. So he says.”

“Ah!” she breathes, taking my hands in her own and stepping close to me. She has grasped in an instant what this means. There is no woman in the world quicker than her. “Chowsbewwy,” she says, “this is the start of my new beginning. With Moray dead, the Scots will have to let me back to my throne. There is no one else who can take power. There is no other heir. Elizabeth will have to support me—now she has no choice; there is no one else. It is me, or no one. She will have to support me. I shall go back to Scotland and I shall be queen again.” She chokes on a little laugh. “After all!” she exults. “After all we have been through. They will have me back.”

“Please God,” I say.

“You will come with me?” she whispers. “Come as my advisor?”

“I don’t know if I can…”

“Come with me as my friend,” she suggests so quietly that I can only hear her by bending my head so that her lips are at my ear and I can feel her breath on my cheek. We are as close as lovers.

“I need a man at my side. One who can command an army, one who will use his fortune to pay my soldiers. A loyal Englishman to deal with Cecil and Elizabeth for me. I need an English nobleman who will keep the Scots lords’ confidence, who will reassure the English. I have lost my lord duke. I need you, Chowsbewwy.”

“I cannot leave England…I cannot leave the queen…or Bess…”

“Leave them for me,” she says simply, and the moment she speaks, it does all seem extraordinarily clear. Why not? Why should I not go with this most beautiful woman and keep her safe? Why should I not follow my heart? For a glorious moment I think that I could just go with her—as if Bess, and the queen, and England were of no importance. As if I had no children, no stepchildren, and no lands, as if I did not have a hundred kinsmen and-women, a thousand dependents, another thousand servants, and more tenants and workers than I can count. As if I could just run away like a boy might run to the girl he loves. For a moment I think that I should do this, that it is my duty to her, the woman I love. I think that a man of honor would go with her and not stay at home. An honorable man, a noble man, would go and defend her against her enemies.

“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.”