The other queen

1570, MAY, TUTBURY CASTLE: MARY

Itry to stay courageous but some days I am exhausted by sadness. I miss my child and I am so fearful as to who is caring for him, and educating him, and watching over him. I trust the Earl of Mar, his guardian, to guide him and educate him, and his grandfather the Earl of Lennox should keep him safe if only for the sake of Darnley, his dead son, my boy’s father. But Lennox is a careless man, dirty and rough, with no affection for me, and he blames me for the death of his son. What would he know about caring for a little boy? What would he know about the tenderness of a little boy’s heart?

The warmer weather is coming and it is light at six o’clock in the morning and I am woken every dawn by birdsong. This is my third spring in England, my third spring! I can hardly believe I have been here for so long. Elizabeth promises I shall be returned to Scotland by the summer, and she has ordered Shrewsbury to let me ride out freely and receive visitors. I am to be treated as a queen and not as a common criminal. My spirits always used to lift at this time of the year; I was raised so long in France that I am accustomed to the warmth of those long beautiful summers. But this year I do not smile to see the primroses in the hedge, the birds flying, carrying straw and twigs for their nests. This year I have lost my optimism. I have lost my joy. The coldness and the hardness that my cousin Elizabeth embodies in her spinster rule seem to have drained my world of light and warmth. I cannot believe that a woman could be so cruel to me, and that I have to endure it. I cannot believe that she could be so unloving, so unmoved by my appeals to her. I have been the beloved of everyone who knows me; I cannot accept that she should remain so indifferent. I cannot understand unkindness. I am a fool, I know. But I cannot understand her hardness of heart.

I am writing at my desk when there is a tap at the door and Mary Seton comes flying into the room, her hood half-pushed off her head. “Your Grace, you will never believe—”

“What?”

“Elizabeth has been excommunicated! The Holy Father himself has published a papal bull against her. He says she is a usurper with no right to the throne and that no Christian need obey her. He says it is a holy duty to pull her down from her borrowed power. He is calling upon every Christian in the world to defy her. He is calling on every Roman Catholic to rebel! He is calling on every Roman Catholic power to invade! He is calling all Christians to destroy her. This is like a crusade!”

I can hardly breathe. “At last,” I say. “I was promised this. The Northern lords told me that Roberto Ridolfi had the Holy Father’s word that this would be done. But when I heard nothing, I thought it had all gone wrong. I even doubted Ridolfi.”

“No! He was true to you. The bull was published last year,” Mary whispers, out of breath. “In time for the uprising. But the bull has only just arrived. Oh! If only it had come before! If it had come during the uprising! All of England would have turned against Elizabeth.”

“It’s not too late now,” I say rapidly. “Everyone of the true faith will know it is their duty to throw her down and that the Holy Father has named me as Queen of England. And besides, it will force my family in France, and Philip of Spain, to act. It is not only justice but now it is their holy duty to put me on my throne of Scotland, and England too.”

Mary’s eyes are shining. “I will see you wear your crown again,” she declares.

“You will see me wear the crown of England,” I promise her. “This does not just mean my freedom, it means that the Pope recognizes me as the true heir of England. If the Holy Father says that I am Queen of England, who can stand against me? And all the Papists in the world are bound by their faith to support me. Mary, I shall be Queen of England and Scotland. And I shall crown my son as Prince of Wales.”

“Thank God that the Holy Father has ruled in your favor!”

“Thank God for Ridolfi, who put my case to him,” I say quietly. “He is a great friend to me. God keep him, wherever he is. And when I come to my own again he shall be among the men who can claim their reward for serving me.”