UNABLE TO LEAVE her rooms in the castle, left to the care of only one or two of her ladies—for those servants who remained were not allowed to come and go as they once had—Mary’s melancholy turned to sickness, and once again those who loved her despaired of her life.
Her French physician, who had obtained special permission before he was allowed to visit her, was in despair because he had no medicines with which to treat her. In desperation he implored Cecil, recently created Lord Burleigh, to lift the ban which prevented him from treating the royal invalid. Burleigh—shocked by the Ridolfi plot which was being slowly revealed through the torturing of Norfolk’s servants and others involved—did not answer the physician’s request; and when Mary wrote to the French ambassador asking for his help, the letter was intercepted by Burleigh’s spies and this too brought no relief.
“If they would but send a little of the ointment which relieves Your Majesty’s spasmodic pains, that would be something,” mourned Seton. “I would I could acquire a little cinnamon water and confiture of black grapes.”
“What is the use?” answered Mary wearily. “They have determined to kill me, and if I die what they will call a natural death, so much the better from their point of view. There is one request I will make though, and perhaps Elizabeth will answer this: I shall ask her to send me a priest, for I believe I shall soon be in dire need of his services.”
She was so weak that she could scarcely write, and she hoped this would be apparent to Elizabeth when she received the letter, and that her heart would be touched.
It was some days later when she believed that this had come about, for a priest came from the Court of England to visit her.
When she heard that he was in the castle she begged that he be brought to her at once; and when he arrived she held out her hand and prepared to greet him warmly.
The priest bowed coldly, and there was no pity in his pale ascetic face as he looked at her, so wan, so helpless in her sickbed.
“It pleases me that you have come,” she said. “I have need of your services.”
“I came from my Sovereign Lady Elizabeth,” he told her, “not to act as your priest and confessor but to bring you this.”
He held out a book which she eagerly grasped.
The priest retired from her bedside and took his stand by the window; and she believed afterward that he had been commanded by his mistress to watch her reactions and to report on them.
She stared in dismay at the book, for it was one written by her old enemy, George Buchanan, and in it, set down in the coarsest terms, was the fictitious account of her life since she had come from France to Scotland. In this book she was said to be a murderess and adulteress.
And this was what Elizabeth sent to her when she was asking for a priest!
Then she remembered. This was the man who had been appointed her son’s tutor.
She knew that her life was in danger, but she could only think of young James in the hands of the foul-minded Buchanan. Already he would be teaching James that his mother was an adulteress and a murderess.
Never had she been so miserable as he was now, lying in bed at Sheffield Castle holding Buchanan’s coarsely written libel in her hands.
BESS CAME to Mary’s chamber.
“How fares Your Majesty?” she asked.
Mary shook her head. “You find me low in health and spirits,” she answered.
Bess approached the bed and picked up Buchanan’s book. She snorted with disgust. “I will burn this without delay. I do not care to have such filth under my roof.”
Mary smiled. There were times when Bess’s presence was a great comfort to her.
“I come to tell you that the Earl has left for London,” she said. “We have Sir Ralph Sadler here in his place.”
“But why so?” asked Mary alarmed.
Bess ignored the question for the moment. “You need have no fear. I shall not allow him to trouble you if you do not wish to see him.”
“I have little wish to see him. He is no friend of mine.”
“I myself will come to you whenever you wish it,” said Bess.
“Thank you. I trust I shall welcome you often. But tell me why the Earl has left for London.”
Bess had wandered to the window and, as she spoke, looked out and not at the Queen.
“That he may preside in his duty as Lord High Steward at the trial of the Duke of Norfolk.”
There was silence in the chamber. Then Bess turned and came to stand at the Queen’s bedside.
“I pray,” she said—gently for her, “that Your Majesty is not too deeply involved. They took Lesley, as you know, and I heard that when faced with torture he confessed all.”
“All!”
“You,” replied the Countess shrewdly, “will know better than I how much that was.”
Mary suddenly began to shiver. She said quietly: “It may be that they will send for me. It may be that my next prison will be the Tower of London. You should not grieve for me, for one prison is very like another.”
“I should not care to see Your Majesty conveyed to the Tower. That could have terrible implications.”
“I know that you think it is one short step from the prison to eternity. Perhaps that is so. But if that is my fate, so be it.”
Bess felt impatient with such an attitude, yet even she was touched with pity. If there was anything she could have done to comfort the Queen, gladly would she have done it. But the only thing she could think of was to keep Sir Ralph Sadler from her apartments until the return of the Earl. This she would do by her own constant attendance on Mary.
She had no wish, of course, for Mary to think she approved of plots against the Queen of England; but during that period of dread and fear, Mary and Bess were closer in friendship than they had ever been.
IT WAS A BLEAK JANUARY DAY when Seton came into the Queen’s apartment, her eyes red with weeping.
“Well?” asked Mary. “But I have no need to ask you. He has been found guilty.”
Seton bowed her head.
“It is what we have been fearing these last weeks,” said the Queen. “I suffer torments, because it is for my sake that he is brought so low.”
Seton shook her head; she wanted to cry: Nay, it was his own ambition which has brought him where he is. Instead she said: “You must not reproach yourself. All he did was of his own free will.”
“Oh Seton, if only I could go back to the days when I first came to England. I would act differently. I should never have allowed him to jeopardize his life for my sake.”
Seton did not reply. When would Mary learn that men were born ambitious, that others were not unselfish as she was herself. This was not the time to tell her. All she could do now was endeavor to comfort her in her grief.
Bess came into the apartment; she took one look at Mary’s stricken face and said: “What ails Your Majesty?”
“I know your ladyship cannot be ignorant of the cause of my sorrow,” answered Mary. “I am in great fear for the Duke of Norfolk.”
“Then the news I bring Your Majesty has already reached you. You know that Norfolk has been found guilty of high treason.”
Mary covered her face with her hands and Bess, watching her, thought: Poor foolish woman!
THE SPRING HAD COME but Mary was too melancholy to notice it. Norfolk still lived, a prisoner in the Tower, the axe hanging over his head; he would not escape it this time, she knew. And what of herself? What fate was being prepared for her?
She had no means of knowing. She was not allowed to move from her own apartments. She guessed that in London Elizabeth was conferring with her ministers as to what should be done with the Queen of Scots.
It was not until June that the news was brought to her. She was prostrate when she heard it. On the second day of that month Norfolk had been taken to Tower Hill and there beheaded.