“My dear sister,” said Robert, “I beg of you, do not hope for much leniency. I will choose a propitious moment to speak with the Queen. I will ask her not to be too harsh with your husband.”
“Robert, my dear brother, I have been so frightened. I have dreamed of late … about Jane. Poor Jane! She did not wish to make trouble. Did Guildford, I wonder? My sister and your brother. They were so young, were they not? Perhaps they only wanted to be happy, as we do. Is it our fault that we were born near to the throne?”
Robert comforted her and as soon as possible took his leave. He dared not stay long. As he went away he thought how ironical life was. The Greys had been born royal, and two of them at least wished this had not been the case. Yet he, who had been born far from royalty, longed to share it.
He did speak to Elizabeth about the Lady Catharine who, by that time, had become a prisoner in the Tower.
Kat was present at their interview, but he was accustomed to her being there and he spoke frankly before her.
“What will you do with that poor girl?” he asked.
“I am enraged,” said the Queen. “She … my own kinswoman … so to behave!”
He said boldly: “Your Majesty is envious of the child she will bear.”
“I … envious of a bastard!”
“Not a bastard. The marriage was lawful.”
“Without the Queen’s consent!”
“The marriage is lawful enough, Your Majesty. You would not be envious now if you were to bear a child.”
“How can you say such things to me!”
“Because from one who loves you as no other loves you, you must expect the truth. Elizabeth, we are wasting our time. Let us marry. Let us have children, as surely we were meant to.”
She put her hand in his and exultation leaped within him. “Would that it could be so,” she said.
“But why not?”
She shook her head but her eyes were brilliant.
“Dearest Elizabeth, do we not always see matters in the same light? We are one. We were meant for each other.”
“We see the world in the same light,” she said. “You are my eyes, dear Robin. Yes, you are right. I long for a child.”
“It is your duty. These perfections should not be allowed to pass away. They must be perpetuated.”
“I know of none who speaks to me so elegantly. What arts you have, Robert!”
“Nay! ’Tis love, not art, that puts these words into my mouth, the love inspired by the greatest lady in the world.”
She smiled and leaned against him.
Kat, watching, sighed. Why does she refuse him? wondered Kat. How can she refuse such a man? He does not lose his graces. He has murdered his wife for her. Dearest and most perverse, most strong and most frail Mistress, what more do you ask of a man?
But Elizabeth drew away from her lover. “Why should you plead for that girl? Is it because she has a fair face?”
“Is it fair? I had not noticed. I remember I have rarely seen her but in your presence.”
“She is pretty enough.”
“A pale moon compared with the blazing sun. When I plead for her, I think of you. That is why I say deal leniently with her. It is what the people would expect.”
“Robert, there are some who would make her Queen. My father would have chosen this moment to send her to the block.”
“But you have wisdom as well as beauty.”
“Was my father not a wise man, then?”
“Not always.”
“I think that could be called treason.”
“Nay, call it love … love for you, my dearest Queen. The people would not like to see you murder your rivals as your father did his. It is unworthy of you. You are stronger than that. A lioness does not slay mice.”
“What! Should I pardon her! Should I leave her and her husband to raise a brood of children to menace the throne!”
“Not so. Keep her prisoner and keep Hertford prisoner, but do not take their lives.”
She tapped his cheek in her affectionate way. “Did you think I should take their lives? Nay! I would not have her blood upon my hands. I shall keep her prisoner in the Tower, and Hertford shall be my prisoner. There I shall know that she is harmless. I would not hurt her silly head. Let her live … my prisoner.”
He kissed her hand fervently. “You are the wisest as well as the most beautiful of women.”
“Enough of Madam Catharine. Let us talk of more interesting matters.”
“Of Madam Elizabeth perhaps?”
“And Master Robert.”
“Then let us talk of the days when they met in the Tower, and of how he in his lonely cell dreamed of the future.”
“Well, that will make pleasant talk, I doubt not. I’ll send for a musician to charm us with his lute while we talk.”
He looked reproachful; but she felt too soft toward him to trust herself alone with him.
The Queen was pleased that the Lady Catharine Grey should be her prisoner. Lord Hertford was now in the Tower on a charge of treason. They should spend the rest of their lives there, decided the Queen. None should accuse her of having their blood on her hands.
She thought continually of that other and greater menace to her peace of mind. The very mention of Mary Queen of Scots could send her into a black mood.
If she had the Queen of Scots—and the Lady Mary Grey—in prison, she would be a happier woman. But there was another who had come to her notice; this was Margaret, Countess of Lennox. This lady was not very far removed from the throne, since she was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, Henry the Eighth’s sister. The Countess needed careful watching, for she had a son, Lord Henry Darnley; and women with sons could be very ambitious.
Prying into the affairs of the Countess of Lennox, the Queen’s spies soon discovered that she had been corresponding with Mary Queen of Scots.
Elizabeth laughed when the news was brought to her. “’Tis clear to me what she would wish. She would marry that boy of hers to the Queen of Scotland, and then plot to give him England as well.”
Robert agreed with her that this was doubtless in the lady’s mind.
“I wonder if Mary would take him,” mused Elizabeth. “But I doubt it. Madam Lennox sees him with a mother’s eyes. I see a beardless boy—more like a girl than a man.”
“Your Majesty’s Eyes sees him in the same way.”
She laughed at her “Eyes”—her new pet name for him. “What else do my Eyes see?” she asked tenderly.
“That the woman may well be a danger to my beloved one.”
“We’ll put her into the Tower. That’s where she should be.”
It was not difficult to find an excuse. The Countess’s apartments were searched, and some charts of the stars were found. Her servants, under torture, confessed that she had employed astrologers to discover how long Elizabeth would live, and they had foretold that she would die during the next year.
Here, beyond dispute, was high treason.
The Countess of Lennox became the Queen’s prisoner in the Tower.
Now she had two dangerous women behind bars; but her thoughts were still of Scotland.
That autumn Elizabeth fell ill of the smallpox.
All the country believed that she would die and that the prophecy of the Countess’s astrologers was to be fulfilled.
There was tension throughout the country. Two brothers of the Pole family, who had Plantagenet blood in their veins, tried with their followers to march on London. The plot was discovered and the brothers taken prisoner. They insisted that they had not meant to depose the Queen but merely to demand that the succession should be fixed on Queen Mary. Cecil and his ministers forcefully declared that there would be trouble until the Queen married and produced an heir.
Meanwhile the Queen had become so ill that she believed death was near. She opened her eyes and seeing Robert at her bedside she smiled feebly and held out her hand to him. “Robert,” she said, “so you are here with me. That is where you should be. You … of all others. Had I not been a Queen I should have been your wife.”