So he was no more, this man who she had believed would be her husband. She had seen little of him but there had been many letters exchanged between them and she had built up in her mind an image. Norfolk was to have been that ideal husband for whom she had always been seeking; and it was that ideal she mourned.
So deep was her grief that she scarcely paused to wonder or to care . . . whether she herself would soon meet a like fate.
All through the long summer days there was mourning in her apartments at Sheffield Castle.
RARELY WAS HER beautiful rival out of Elizabeth’s thoughts. Her ministers had told her that she had excuse enough now to bring Mary to London, to lodge her in the Tower, to have her tried for treason and found guilty. Once and for all, let this be an end to the troublesome Mary Queen of Scots.
Elizabeth hesitated. Much as she desired the death of Mary she had no wish to be connected with it. She wanted someone to rid her of the woman, but in such a manner that no blame could possibly attach itself to her.
The simplest solution was what she had planned before and would have carried out but for Moray’s untimely death. Send her back to Scotland, let them try her there; let them answer to the world for her death.
She tried out Morton but he was cautious. There were too many people in Scotland, anxious for the Queen’s return, for his peace of mind.
He answered Elizabeth: He would take the Queen of Scots back into Scotland, where she might be tried and found worthy of death; but he would not be responsible for her execution unless Elizabeth sanctioned it.
“Sanction it!” cried Elizabeth. “The fool! If I did that I might as well have the deed done here in England.”
This she could do, her minister reminded her. Mary’s complicity in the Ridolfi plot gave her ample reason.
But Elizabeth hesitated. Those Catholic risings had worried her. There were many Catholics in England and the nightmare of her life was that her subjects would turn against her. She cared nothing for the antagonism of the greatest foreign power; she had always known that her strength lay in the approval of her own people.
So Mary was allowed to live on—although in the strictest confinement at Sheffield Castle.
LIFE HAD BECOME STRANGE; Mary did not notice the passing weeks. She lived in a daze, sleeping a great deal of the time, going over the past when she was awake, constantly expecting a summons to death.
She could not go on in that state, thought Bess; but perhaps it was as well that she seemed so indifferent at this time. Shrewsbury was panic-stricken. He was wondering how much blame would be attached to him over this Ridolfi matter. He had become as he had been before his attack; Bess was a little anxious, particularly as of recent months he had seemed to be more serene.
He would grow out of this new phase, she promised herself. Each day carried them—if not Mary—farther from trouble. If Elizabeth had meant to reprimand them, she would have done so by now.
Mary’s spirits were raised a little when he heard from Lesley who had now been released from the Tower and, though still a prisoner of state, had been removed to Farnham Castle in Surrey where the Bishop of Winchester was his host and jailor. He sent her a book of meditations in Latin which he himself had written.
Mary roused herself from her lethargy to write to him and tell him that the knowledge that he was no longer in the Tower and had sent her his book brought her great comfort.
AUGUST CAME and it was stiflingly hot in the Queen’s apartments.
She lay listlessly dreaming of the past, and Seton came to sit beside her bed.
“Would Your Majesty not like to work at your tapestry?”
“No, Seton. I have no interest in it.”
“You know how it soothes you.”
“I do not think I could be easily soothed now, Seton.”
“Your Majesty should rouse yourself. This sorrow will pass like all others.”
“That may be, Seton. But what is at the end of it? How long have I been in England? What is the day?”
“It is the 24th day of August, Your Majesty, in the year 1572.”
“The 24th day of August, Seton. Is that not St. Bartholomew’s Eve?”
“It is indeed.”
“It was in June that they killed him . . . early June. It is nearly three months since he died.”
“Too long to mourn. Tears will not bring him back.”
“You are right, Seton, as you so often are. I believe now that in time I may begin to forget. Oh, Seton, if only some good would come to me! If only my French relations would do something to help me. Do you remember our days in France?”
“It is not easy to forget the happiest days of one’s life.”
“Those were the happy days, Seton. I will write to the King . . . reminding him.”
“Try to sleep now.”
“I will, Seton, and in the morning I will write to dear friends in France . . . to my uncles, to my grandmother, to the King my brother-in-law . . . even to the Queen-Mother.”
“I shall remember,” replied Seton, and there was a note of happiness in her voice, “that you began to throw off your grief on the Eve of St. Bartholomew.”
THE NEWS CAME to Sheffield Castle and Mary listened to it aghast. Terrible tragedy had struck the city of Paris, and it seemed that this tragedy was being repeated in the main cities of France. On the Eve of St. Bartholomew the Catholics had risen against the Huguenots and there had been slaughter in the streets such as had never been known before. The Admiral de Coligny had been brutally murdered and vile sport had been made with his body; he was but one of thousands of brave men who were dying in the streets of France on account of their Faith.
The Queen of England and her Protestant minister expressed their horror of such butchery; all over England there were cries of “Down with the Papists!” And it was said that one of the leaders and instigators of this most terrible massacre was the Duke of Guise, kinsman of the Queen of Scots.
In the streets of London and many cities in England men and women gathered to talk of what was happening across the Channel.
“It must never happen here,” they cried. “This is a good Protestant country. We’ll have no popery here.”
Then they remembered the revolt of the Northern Catholics, and many recalled the days of the Queen’s half-sister who was known as Bloody Mary because of the fires of Smithfield which, in her day, had consumed the bodies of good Protestant men and women.
There was another Catholic Queen in their midst. She was a prisoner in Sheffield Castle, but since she had been in England she had caused trouble enough.
“Down with popery!” shouted the people. “Down with the fair devil of Scotland!”
IT WOULD BE WELL, said Elizabeth, to keep a strict watch on the Queen of Scotland, for her own safety, because when the people of England had heard of the conduct of her Catholic friends and relations in France they were ready to tear her apart.
Now was the time, thought Elizabeth, to sever Mary’s head from her body, for never would she be as unpopular as she was now.
But Elizabeth remembered the Catholics in the land who were perhaps at this moment waiting to rise, as their fellow Catholics had risen in Paris.
No, she would restrain herself. The Queen of Scots should remain her prisoner. It should not be said that she had agreed to her execution because she feared her greater right to the throne.
Let her rest in prison strictly guarded. That was the best place for her.
The right moment will come, Elizabeth told herself. Then the deed can be performed with a good conscience and none will be able to say that Elizabeth of England slew her rival because she went in fear of her. Nay, at a time when it would have been so easy to bring her to the block, she, Elizabeth, had cherished her, protected her from the infuriated Protestants of England, remembering the respect due to royalty, desiring to show the world that she feared no one and would not consent to Mary’s execution merely because she could enjoy greater peace of mind in a world where Mary was not.