RUTH AND JOYUSITIE
The dashing suitor of Mary of Scotland, Don John of Austria, was dead.
Her rival was on the edge of a marriage with a son of Mary’s stoutest
champion—France. It was a bad moment for the prisoner. It was not a
pleasant time for the Talbots. Life at Sheffield could be varied only by
letters from Gilbert, though his parents must to some extent have been
cheered by the prospect of his speedily having another heir. His wife
was attended by no less a person than the famous physician of my Lord of
Leicester, a certain Mr. Julio, who seems, on all accounts, to have
known a great deal too much about the unholy drugs which the Medici
found so useful, though his skill as a physician could not be gainsaid.
Gilbert Talbot at least seems flourishing. He is free to come and go; he
is quite a “citizen of the world.” He executes commissions for his
family, his purchases are practical, and he is thoughtful for his
stepmother’s needs. “There are two Friesland horses,” he writes, “of a
reasonable price for their goodness; I have promised the fellow for them
£33; I think them especial good for my Ladyship’s coach; I will send
them down.” He despatches constant reports of his wife’s health, and of
the repairs and decorations which he is superintending in “Shrewsbury
House,” otherwise the Earl’s house in “Broad Street” from which Gilbert
writes. A special ceiling was being designed for this, the building was
to be newly glazed, and the family coat-of-arms inserted in the windows
in stained glass. In a postscript he heralds a private letter from the
Queen to Lady Shrewsbury, which is not forthcoming. “My Lord, my
brother[59] tarrieth only for her Majesty’s letter to my Lady, which,
she saith, she will write in her own hand, so as nobody shall be
acquainted with a word therein till my Lady receive it. I have not seen
her look better a great while, neither better disposed; the living God
continue it.”
The composition of this young gentleman is always rather vague and his
punctuation hazy. He means, of course, that it is the Queen who is in
such good health and humour. She was very busy puzzling everyone over
her projected marriage, and sketching Court entertainments in connection
with it. Even while she felt the gravity of such a step she would dally
with it, thrust away apparently all but the lighter side of things. She
kept her Privy Council sitting “from eight o’clock in the morning until
dinner-time; and presently after dinner, and an hour’s conference with
her Majesty’s Council again, and so till supper-time.” All this strain
was induced, Gilbert assures the household at Sheffield, by “the matter
of Monsigneur coming here, his entertainment here, and what demands are
to be made unto him in the treaty of marriage ...; and I can assure your
Lordship it is verily thought this marriage will come to pass of a great
sort of wise men; yet nevertheless there are divers others like Sr.
Thomas of Jude who would not believe till he had both seen and felt. It
is said that Monseigneur will certainly be here in May next.... It is
said that he will be accompanied with three dukes, ten earls, and a
hundred other gentlemen.”
The suitor came—but more or less secretly—and departed. It was not till
nearly a year later that the cat-and-mouse game which Elizabeth played
with him approached a crisis in the shape of a splendid pageant at
Whitehall, which she organised to dazzle the French Ambassador, and to
give the impression that this affair was really to be accomplished. Gay
times those—with Sir Philip Sidney’s art and grace to lead the pomps and
ceremonies! Everyone of importance was invited. “Her talk,”[60] says a
contemporary of Elizabeth, “was of tournaments and balls; her one desire
was that the fairest ladies in England should grace her Court. The Lords
were bidden to bring their families to London that there might be the
bustle of constant gaiety. The merchants were ordered to sell their
silks, velvets, and cloth of gold at a reduction of a quarter of the
ordinary price that more should be induced to buy, and so enhance the
general splendour.”
Alack for the Shrewsburys! No gay invitation appears to have summoned
them from the wilds of their county to witness the famous pageant and
the battle of flowers and perfumes waged this year in the tiltyard at
Whitehall, or applaud the splendid chariot of “my Lady Desire” and her
four gallant sons, of whom Sir Philip Sidney personated one.
Such happiness and all that which Mary of Scotland, in a letter, termed
“joyusitie” was a thing apart from existence at Sheffield, and she, who
loved all such fantastical gaieties, who knew as much as any of them of
love practices and flowery games, who could play even with peasant folk
like a child, looked wistfully forth upon the world from the leads of
her castle-prison or from the meadows close to the Lodge, its neighbour.
From 1579 to 1581 her affairs and those of the Talbots are full of small
events, things which kept them alert, yet brought but little result. The
Earl was watched closely by Elizabeth. He could not even leave home for
two days without sharp reprimand, although he never absented himself for
an hour without knowing that his prisoner was absolutely secure, while
his servants kept him carefully informed of her condition. One of them,
for example, by name George Skargelle, a constant eye-witness of the
Shrewsbury tragi-comedy, not only reports upon the prisoner, but scours
the immediate neighbourhood to see what is going on: “May yt plese your
honner to understand that your L’ house is quyet and well, God be
pressed; and the Quene is sarvet wth. her vetteles and wille plesed for
thes II dayes.” He goes to the Castle gardens “to see what stir there
was of your Lordship’s follkes” and found certain fellows playing at
dice, while in the town of Sheffield he discovered other gamblers at
cards. After this he breaks a lance in speech with his master’s
truculent “bad tenants of Glossopdale,” whom he so mistrusted that he
gave information of their presence to the men at the bridges and the
watches, and to the owners of the houses where the travellers lodged.
The Queen heard of the Earl’s absence (for there were always people
ready to report the least movement of so notable a county resident), and
belaboured him in a letter. He begged her to allow him to come to Court
and justify himself. For many reasons he longed to do this. He was weary
of writing endless letters to her and to the Treasury. His personal
debts weighed on his conscience, and his enemies were always trying to
make out that he could not be in any need of supplies because of his
large estates. Big houses are big thieves, and what with his large
double family and the costs entailed by his position, even his trade
projects—he was among other things an owner of lead and exporter of
it—did not keep him in sufficient ready money to maintain all his houses
and fulfil his landlord’s liabilities as he would have wished. He was
not personally an extravagant man, and displays none of the magnificent
tastes of his wife in regard to his house and person. He declared that
his creditors should be satisfied rather than he should use expensive
household articles. “I would have you buy me glasses to drink in,” he
wrote in 1580 to his servant Baldwin. “Send me word what old plate
yields the ounce, for I will not leave me a cup to drink in, but I will
see the next term my creditors paid.” He may have made a special point
of this in order that Baldwin should use the statement as a pathetic
plea when making application to the Treasury for payments due to his
master, the main reason the Earl had for keeping his representative in
London. He had felt deeply the false reports of his income spread about
by local detractors, who were probably also responsible for the
statement that he was now keeping his prisoner on short commons. His
sensations and those of the Countess on hearing of this from Lord
Leicester can well be imagined. The statement had been handed on to him
by the French Ambassador in London, and Leicester told him it would
“much mislike her Majesty.”
The accusation runs: “That your Lordship doth of late keep the Scotch
Queen very barely of her diet, insomuch as on Easter day last she had
both so few dishes and so bad meat in them as it was too bad to see it;
and that she finding fault thereat your Lordship should answer that you
were cut off your allowance, and therefore could yield her no better.”
And yet Shrewsbury could forgive the Queen’s suspicions and, tolerably
happy in the birth of a granddaughter, despite the fact that a male heir
to Gilbert would have rejoiced him far more, instructed his son Francis
to present for him a New Year’s present to Elizabeth.
Simultaneously no time was lost, no trouble grudged in worrying
Burghley, “her Majesty’s housewife” as the Earl rather ironically terms
him in one letter, with regard to a settlement of the everlasting claim
for “this Queen’s diet.” Indeed, one can only imagine that this word
“diet,” by which the cost of the board of the Scottish Mary is always
signified in succeeding correspondence, must have held in the Earl’s
mind and heart the same place as the name of Calais in the mind of Mary
of England. Robert Beale, a clerk of the Privy Council and personal
friend of the Shrewsburys, did his best for them, but despite his kindly
despatches—one of which has a pretty allusion to “my little Lady
Favour,” evidently Lady Arabella Stuart—payment was tardy. Even the
scanty allowance originally decided upon had been deliberately reduced
by royal order. For the hundredth time he tackled anew the official
“housewife” with the words: “I have made suit to her Highness for some
recompense, in which I do find so cold comfort that I am near driven to
despair to obtain anything.” Elsewhere he speaks pathetically of “the
cark and care” which is his portion. “My riches they talk of are in
other men’s purses,” he complains bitterly; “God knows I make many
shifts to keep me out of debt and to help my children, which are heavy
burdens though comfortable, so long as they do well. I can say no more,
but I have spies near about me and know them well.”
At last, in the August of 1582, in sheer despair of obtaining
satisfaction, and sick of employing intermediaries, he wrote to the
Queen:—
“May it please your most excellent Majesty,
“Having then ten years been secluded from your most gracious sight and
happy presence, which more grieveth me than any travel or discommodity
that I have suffered in this charge that it hath pleased your Majesty to
put me in trust withal, I have taken the boldness most humbly to beseech
your Majesty that it may please the same to license me for a fortnight’s
journey towards your Majesty’s royal person; to the end you may by
myself receive a true account of my said charge, and thereby know what
my deservings are. Wherein, if I may (as I desire most earnestly)
satisfy your Majesty, it shall be unto me a great encouragement to
continue the most faithful duty and careful service that I owe unto your
Majesty, and shall yield to my life’s end.”
This permission was in a fair way to be granted as far as letters could
show, and the good, timid, dogged Earl made all arrangements, settled
the stages of his journey, ordered bedding and lodging, and planned his
retinue: “I think my company will be twenty gentlemen and twenty yeomen,
besides their men and my horsekeepers.” He only waited for his journey
till Chesterfield Fair was over and the crowds of suspicious loafers
dispersed. But he waited far too long. The plague had seized London and
had increased apace; he dreaded the cold journey south in the autumn
storms; he dreaded an aggravated attack from “the enemy”—gout.
Simultaneously with this disappointment came sharper sorrow—the death of
Francis Talbot. The event presented itself to Lord Leicester as worthy
of one of those flowery, humbugging, sententious, idiotic letters of
which he wrote so many in his crowded life. This unscrupulous idler,
living on the fat of the land and overheaped with gifts and favours,
presents a very odd picture as he conjures an afflicted, upright, and
overburdened contemporary to count up his blessings: “The Lord hath
blessed you many ways in this world, and not least with the blessing of
children for your posterity.” This from a fellow who could disown his
legitimate son by denying a lawful marriage with the mother! And again:
“He that hath sent you many might have given you fewer, and He that took
away this might also take away the rest. Be thankful to Him for all His
doings, my good Lord, and take all in that good part which you ought; be
you wholly His, and seek His kingdom, for it far surpasses all worldly
kingdoms.” This from the shrewd sycophant who was waiting day after day
to be announced as consort of the Queen of England!
To return on our paces a little. The health of Queen Mary was extremely
unsatisfactory. From 1579 right on through the eighties she addressed
letter after letter of piteous entreaties for freedom to Elizabeth, and
to the ambassador Mauvissière. Sometimes, for weeks at a time, she could
not leave her bed owing to the pain in her side. Sometimes the hardly
won permission to go to Buxton would revive her spirits. On one occasion
she fell backwards from her horse just as she was mounting, and injured
herself severely. Sometimes she was kept closely guarded at Buxton, and
on others she would be allowed to see something of the country close to
it. In 1577 she was so ailing that she made her will. But she would
revive to write endless spirited letters, to plead incessantly and
indignantly against the way in which her French dowry, the only income
she now had, was being dissipated and misappropriated in France, and to
make eager preparations for hunting expeditions, to few of which, as she
confessed, she expected Lord Shrewsbury would give his consent. At the
end of 1581 she was so worn out by secret suspense in regard to her
fate, by constraint, and by lack of air and exercise—the simple remedies
which in years past had helped her to conquer all bodily ills—that for
once her courage left her. She begged for special doctors other than
those who ordinarily attended her. She worked herself into an agony over
the position of her son, and finally begged that the Queen would send
assistance to her “as that she might not be cast away for want of such
help of physicians and things as she needed.”
Robert Beale, already mentioned in his connection with the Privy
Council, who was really sent down at this juncture to Sheffield to
investigate the political relationship between Mary and her son, found
the household in a depressing condition. Lord Shrewsbury had a bad
attack of gout, and though the Countess was not described as ill, her
frame of mind cannot have been very cheerful. Everyone seems to have
poured out his woes in Beale’s ears, while he stuck to his purpose, and
tried to secure a definite answer as to whether or no Mary would
formally yield the Scottish crown to her son. A clear answer from her he
never had. She was ill, hysterical, and, to his thinking and that of the
Earl, full of trickery. They believed that she asked for a special
physician from London because it might give her a chance of carrying out
some scheme to her advantage in connection with the Duke of Alençon, who
was expected in England. One night when she sent specially for Beale he
arrived to find the room in sudden darkness, and Mary in bed, with the
dim shadowy figures of her chamberwomen hovering about her. Among those
shadowy ladies in the bedchamber was still the devoted Mary Seton, to
whom had come some years previously ruth which her mistress also shared.
Not only had the loyal prægustator, John Beton, died in the earlier days
of the long imprisonment, but his brother and successor in the post,
Andrew, had passed away. With Andrew, who courted her passionately, the
Seton had at last fallen in love. The only barrier to their union was a
most inexplicable vow of celibacy which the girl had taken. With the
approval of his brother, Archbishop Beton, and the encouragement of his
royal mistress, the gallant Andrew overcame his lady’s dread of the
married estate, and undertook to secure papal dispensation from her vow.
It was on his journey back from Rome to Sheffield that he died.
Beale, as aforesaid, found himself nonplussed by the gloom of the
Queen’s apartments; and as for talking business it was impossible, for
she received him with sobs.
Because of “her weeping and her women in the dark I brake off,” he wrote
to Walsingham. He went away and reported this uncanny interview to the
Earl, who sent his lady to her. Mary was asleep or shamming, and all
Lady Shrewsbury could do was to chat vaguely with Mary Seton about “the
suddenness of her sickness.” Later on the same careful enquiries were
made by the Countess, whose shrewd deduction was, “I have known her
worse and recover again.” Her Ladyship was, if not head nurse on these
occasions, certainly official inspectress, and Beale reported that
whether Mary was dangerously ill or not she was obliged to use medicine
and poultices, at which he had himself sniffed inquisitively, and which
Lady Shrewsbury had seen applied.
Presently there was a decided improvement in the condition of the
invalid, and Elizabeth allowed Mary’s carriage to be sent to her so that
she might drive within the limits of the Sheffield manor estate, whose
circumference in those days, as Leader assures us, was eight miles, and
covered an expanse of 2461 acres. Mary could not yet avail herself of
this distraction, so sore and feeble was her weakened body. Yet at all
times and seasons she was extraordinarily sensitive to the joys and
sorrows of persons in her environment. The birth of Gilbert’s daughter
already mentioned was just such an occasion for her goodness and
generosity. She stood godmother to the child and sent to France for
presents. These family occurrences complicated the Earl’s business
considerably, and he took great precautions on this occasion that the
event should not come to pass under the same roof as that which held his
captive. At the end of the letter, in which he instructs Baldwin to make
certain payments to his daughter-in-law’s nurse, he says: “I am removed
to the castle, and most quiet when I have the fewest women here, and am
best able to discharge the trust reposed in me.”
He had still further occasion for this attitude, for another blow fell
upon his family. Young Lady Lennox died. As usual it was the Earl who
made the formal announcement of the loss at Court, for his wife was, as
on a previous occasion, too distraught to collect her wits.
“My very good Lords,
“It hath pleased God to call to His mercy out of this transitory world
my daughter Lennox, this present Sunday, being the 21st of January,
about three of the clock in the morning. Both towards God and the world
she made a most godly and good end, and was in most perfect memory all
the time of her sickness even to the last hour. Sundry times did she
make her most earnest and humble prayer to the Almighty for her
Majesty’s most happy estate and the long and prosperous continuance
thereof, and as one most infinitely bound to her Highness, humbly and
lowly beseeched Her Majesty to have pity upon her poor orphan Arabella
Stewart, and as at all times heretofore both the mother and poor
daughter were most infinitely bound to her Highness, so her assured
trust was that Her Majesty would continue the same accustomed goodness
and bounty to the poor child she left, and of this her suit and humble
petition my said daughter Lennox, by her last will and testament,
requireth both your Lordships, to whom she found and acknowledged
herself always most bound in her name, most lowly to make this humble
petition to Her Majesty and to present with all humility unto Her
Majesty a poor remembrance (delivered by my daughter’s own hands) which
very shortly will be sent, with my daughter’s most humble prayer for her
Highness’ most happy estate, and most lowly beseeching her Highness in
such sort to accept thereof as it pleased the Almighty to receive the
poor widow’s mite.
“My wife taketh my daughter Lennox’s death so grievously that she
neither doth nor can think of anything but of lamenting and weeping. I
thought it my part to signify to both your Lordships in what sort God
hath called her to his mercy, which I beseech you make known to Her
Majesty and thus with my very hearty commendations to both your good
Lordships I cease.
“Sheffield Manor this 21st January, 1581–2.
“Your Lordships’ assured
“G. SHREWSBURY.
“To Lord Burghley and Lord Leicester.”[61]