“FACE TO FACE”
A free man, a free agent! But at what a price was Shrewsbury free!
His honour was undermined by his own family, his fortunes impaired by
his Queen’s penuriousness, his prime was past, his best given in return
for apparently naught. Even the gratitude of his captive—and she never
seems to have been regardless of such leniency as he was permitted to
show her—had it been emphatically expressed, would have been no real
reward to him, for it would only have placed him under suspicion. He had
but one testimonial to his credit—the fact that in the midst of Mary’s
dangers and terrors she felt that she was safer in his keeping “than in
that of any other.” His farewell to her cannot have been anything but a
strained and painful matter, with the hateful barrier of “scandilation”
to mar the dignity and courtesy of it on both sides. She wished him to
convey her letters to Elizabeth. He declined, and her new gaoler sent
them with his official correspondence. Thus parted, after the strange
intimacy of fifteen years, Mary of Scotland and George Talbot. When they
met again it was as principal actors in the “tragedy of Fotheringay” in
the autumn of 1586.
The Earl travelled to London with his retinue of gentlemen and grooms—a
business of four to five days. Face to face he and his sovereign stood
at last and the second formal step in the scandal affair was taken.
He was “very graciously used by her Majesty,” who showed herself “very
desirous to comprehend the controversies between him and the lady, his
wife.” Walsingham, commenting on this, writes that he feared this
reconciliation would “not be performed over easily.” Elizabeth kept her
promise and set to work at once. The Lords of the Council were summoned
to testify to his loyalty, uprightness, and honour, and he was called to
face them and receive their magnificent and pompous declaration, “a
memorable testimonial by Queen Elizabeth and the Lords of the Council as
to the discharge of his duty faithfully, and trust in the custody of the
Queen of Scots.” It is not necessary to quote the whole document here.
The actual domestic scandal is only touched very vaguely in it thus:—
“And if in some trifles, and private matters of small moment, not
appertaining to the Queen’s Majesty, his Lordship thought that his
honour and reputation had been touched by the evil reports of any, he
was required to think that the same was common to them and others as
well as to himself in this world, howbeit, if any person could be
particularly charged by his Lordship, it was reason that he should be
called to answer the same; and, therefore, his Lordship was desired to
assure himself of this their Lordships’ good and honourable opinion
concerning his Lordship, and so to sit down as a person that was very
meet for the company, then to serve her Majesty and the realm; and so,
therewith, he took his place in Council according to his degree and
office.”
Thus did their Lordships pour oil on the bruises of their battered
colleague. But he needed more than words. The pain was too deep to be
healed by that bland reminder of the general prevalence of false
witnesses in the world. The phrase “if any person could be particularly
charged ... it was reason that he should be called to answer the same”
is far more curative. Two such persons had been dealt with. But his lady
was not to escape. Beale, his good friend, took a serious view of the
situation. “I have dealt with the Earl,” he wrote to Walsingham,
“touching his son, and find him well affected towards him save that he
says he is ruled by his wife, who is directed by her mother. I think his
hatred for her will hardly be appeased, as he thinks the slanders and
other information made to her Majesty have proceeded from her.”
Both Mary and Shrewsbury were to have their full satisfaction. Mary was
from the first most explicit, and, not content with her excited
outpourings to the French Ambassador, herself wrote to Elizabeth at this
date from Wingfield Manor after Shrewsbury and she had parted. She
alludes in this letter to Elizabeth’s “honourable promise.” She declares
that she will never desist from her demands for satisfaction until her
reputation is formally cleared in regard to the Countess’s slanders. It
is a final challenge which Elizabeth could not in decency resist.
In December of this year Bess Shrewsbury with William and Charles were
called to their account before the Lords of the Council. Full
satisfaction was received—of a kind. There could be nothing very
triumphant about it from Mary’s point of view. There was really none of
that magnificent abasement of her trio of enemies which she painted
subsequently to a correspondent in one of her letters after her removal
to Chartly. This is her version:—
“The Countess of Shrewsbury (I thank God) hath been tried and found to
her shame, in her attempt against me, the same woman indeed that many
have had opinion that she was, and at the request of my secretary Nau,
he being at the Queen of England’s Court in the month of December, ’84,
the said lady upon her knees, in presence of the Queen of England and
some principals of her Council, denied to her the shameful bruits by
herself spread abroad against me.”[75]
As a matter of fact, the accused three unanimously asserted total
ignorance of the entire scandal and its possible sources alike, and
their declaration made before the Privy Council was solemnly recorded,
and is included in the mass of State documents, while an exact copy of
it is among the Talbot papers. It is not a very interesting or savoury
little document, but highly important to George Talbot and his heirs as
a second certificate of merit. It covers exactly the same ground as the
extract quoted from Fletewood’s “dyarium.” At its conclusion, after
testifying boldly to the dignity and honour of Mary, the mother and sons
offer to uphold the truth of their wholesale disclaimer against any
person whomsoever, whenever the occasion should arise. Thus, though
posterity is afforded that vision of their abject position “on their
knees in the royal presence” as stated by Mary, the attitude, contrasted
with their denial, is rather that of reverent dignity than of sheer
abasement.
Thus was the honour of the Talbots saved, but at such cost and after
such a pitiful process of the public washing of family linen that it
does very little real credit to the parties concerned. The poor Earl
could only point to his Queen’s testimonial and console himself by
thinking on his family doggerel:—
The Talbot true that is,
And still hath so remaynde,
Lost never noblenesse
By princke of spot distaynde:
On such a fixed fayth
This trustie Talbot stayth.
For there is no real honour left to a house divided against itself. The
quarrel of man and wife had become the property of the world. Matters
must be patched up somehow with the aid of friends and Court officials.
Everything, to the eye, was now put on a highly respectable basis. The
bland disclaimer by the Cavendishes paved the way at any rate for a more
decent family relationship.
For the fourth time in her life Bess Hardwick had faced and surmounted a
great danger. As Lady St. Loe she had laid herself in some way open to
back-biters, had triumphantly quashed them, and had escaped being deeply
involved in the affair of Lady Catherine Grey; as Lady Shrewsbury she
had braved the wrath of Elizabeth over the Lennox marriage, and now
triumphed over Mary and the Earl. Upon this last occasion she emerged
with a slate at least superficially clean.
Superficially. The thing extorts your admiration after the reading of
Mary’s detailed accusations. But there is yet one more letter which Mary
planned to send hurtling towards the Court. It is a bomb more deadly
than any of the rest, and had it found its mark even the indomitable
Lady Shrewsbury might have been annihilated—would certainly have been
hopelessly discountenanced. It is the production known to all students
of this historical period as “The Scandal Letter,” here translated with
the exception of passages which are best in the original French. Again,
full allowance must be made here for the overwrought condition of the
writer. This letter tallies with the spirit of the letters on the same
subject already seen. Moreover, it is on all sides adjudged by experts
to be a genuine document in Mary’s own hand. This epistle, which in
itself formed a safety-valve for the tumult of the writer’s brain,
either was not despatched and was afterwards found among her papers, or
may have been intercepted in full flight—possibly by Burghley, for it
rests to this day among the Hatfield MSS. Events show that it can never
have reached Elizabeth. The publication of such pernicious matter could
not have done any good or have diverted in any way Elizabeth’s
disapproval from her prisoner. Nor could it have altered Mary’s fate. If
there be, as one cannot but think, a certain basis of truth in it—the
Countess had a lively tongue, as the world knows—the road by which this
lady travelled between 1578 and 1584 must have literally overhung a
ghastly social precipice.
“Madame,[76]
“In accordance with what I promised you and have ever since desired, I
must—though with regret that such matters should be called in question,
still without passion and from motives of true sincerity, as I call God
to witness—declare to you that what the Countess of Shrewsbury has said
of you to me is as nearly as possible as follows. I assure you I treated
the greater part of her statements, while rebuking the said lady for
thinking and speaking so licentiously of you, as matters in which I had
no belief, either then or now, knowing the nature of the Countess and
the spirit which animated her against you.
“Premièrement, qu-un, auquel elle disoit que vous aviez faict promesse
de mariage devant une dame de votre chambre, avait couché infinies foys
avvesques vous, avecque toute la licence et privaulté qui se peut user
entre mari et femme; mais qu’indubitablement vous n’estiez pas comme les
aultres femmes, et pour ce respect c’estoit follie a tous ceulz
qu-affectoient vostre mariage avec M. le duc d’Anjou, d’aultant qu’il ne
se pourrait accomplir, et que vous ne vouldriez jamais perdre la liberté
de vous fayre fayre l’amour et avoir vostre plésir tousjours avecques
nouveaulx amoureulx, regrettant, ce disoit elle, que vous ne vous
contentiez de maister Haton et un aultre de ce royaulme: mays que, pour
l’honneur du pays, il lui fashoit le plus que vous aviez non seulement
engagé vostre honneur avecques un étranger nommé Simier, l’alant trouver
la nuit dans la chambre d’une dame, que la dicte comtesse blamoit fort a
ceste occasion là, où vous le baisiez et usiez avec lui de diverses
privautez deshonestes; mays aussi lui revelliez les segrets du royaulme,
trahisant vos propres conseillers avex luy. Que vous vous esties
desportée de la mesme dissolution avvec le Duc son maystre, qui vous
avoit esté trouver une nuit à la porte de vostre chambre, où vous
l’aviez rencontré avvec vostre seulle chemise et manteau de nuit, et que
par après vous l’aviez laissé entrer, et qu’il demeura avecques vous
près de troys heures.
“As for the aforenamed Hatton [it was said] that you literally pursued
him, displaying your love for him so publicly that he was obliged to
withdraw, that you gave Killigrew[77] a box on the ear because he did
not bring back Hatton when sent in pursuit, the latter having left your
presence in anger because of insulting remarks you had made about some
gold buttons on his coat. [The Countess said] that she had worked to
achieve the marriage of the said Hatton with the late Countess of
Lennox, her daughter, but that he would not listen to the proposal for
fear of you. Again, that even the Earl of Oxford durst not live with his
wife lest he should lose the advantages which he hoped to receive for
making love to you, that you were lavish towards all such persons and to
all who were engaged in similar intrigues; for example, that you gave a
person of the Bedchamber, named George, a pension of £300 for bringing
you the news of the return of Hatton; that towards all other persons you
were very thankless and stingy, and that there were but three or four in
your kingdom whom you had ever benefited. The Countess, in fits of
laughter, advised me to place my son among the ranks of your lovers as a
thing which would do me good service and would entirely disable the
Duke, whose affair, if allowed to continue, would be very prejudicial to
me. And when I replied that such an act would be interpreted as sheer
mockery, she answered that you were so vain, and had such a good opinion
of your beauty—as if you were a sort of goddess from heaven—that she
wagered she could easily make you take the matter seriously and would
put my son in the way of carrying it through.
“[She said] that you were so fond of exaggerated adulation, such as the
assurance that no one dared to look full into your face, since it shone
like the sun, that she and other ladies at Court were obliged to employ
similar forms of flattery; that on her last appearance before you she
and the late Countess of Lennox scarcely ventured to interchange glances
for fear of bursting into laughter over the way in which they were
openly mocking you. She begged me on her return to scold her daughter
because she could not persuade her to do likewise; and as for your
daughter Talbot she was assured that she would never fail to sneer at
you. The said Lady Talbot, immediately upon her return, after she had
made her obeisance to you and taken the oath as one of your servants,
related it to me as a mere empty pretence, and begged me to receive a
similar act of homage, one which she felt, however, more deeply and
rendered absolutely to me. This for a long time I refused, but in the
end, disarmed by her tears, I let her yield it to me, she declaring that
she would not for worlds be in personal attendance upon you, for fear
lest if you were angry you would treat her as you did her Cousin Skedmur
(whose finger you broke, pretending to those at Court that it was caused
by the fall of a chandelier), or as you did another, who while waiting
on you at table received a great cut on the hand from a knife from you.
In a word, from these latter details and the rumours of common gossip
you can see that you are made game of and mimicked by your ladies as if
they were at a play, and even by my women also, though, when I perceived
it, I swear to you that I forbade my women to have anything to do with
the matter.
“In addition the said Countess once informed me that you wanted to
induce Rolson[78] to make love to me and attempt to dishonour me, either
literally or by scandalous rumours, and that he had instructions to this
effect from your own lips; that Ruxby came here about eight years ago to
make an attempt on my life after being received by you personally, and
that you told him to do all that Walsingham should command and direct.
“That when the Countess was promoting the marriage of her son Charles
with one of Lord Paget’s nieces, while you on the other hand wanted to
secure her by the exercise of your unlimited and absolute prerogative
for a member of the Knollys family, she had raised an outcry against you
and declared it was pure tyranny that you should want to carry off all
the heiresses of the country according to your own fancy, and that you
had disgracefully abused the said Paget, but that in the end the
nobility of the kingdom would not stand it, even if you appealed to
other than those whom she knew well.
“Il y a environ quatre ou sinq ans que, vous estant malade et moy aussy
au mesme temps, elle me dit que vostre mal provenoit de la closture une
fistulle que vous aviez dans une jambe: et que son doubte, venant à
perdre vos moys, vous mourriez bientost.
“In this she rejoiced on the strength of a vain notion she has long
cherished, based on the predictions of one named John Lenton, and upon
an old book which foretold your death by violence and the accession of
another queen, whom she interpreted to be me. She merely regretted that
according to this book it was predicted that the queen who was to
succeed you would only reign three years and would die, like you, a
violent death. All this was actually represented in a picture in the
book, the contents of the last page of which she would never disclose to
me.
“She knows that I always looked upon all this as pure nonsense, but she
did her utmost to ingratiate herself with me and even to ensure the
marriage of my son with my niece Arbella.
“In conclusion I once more swear to you on my faith and honour that all
this is perfectly true, and that where your honour is concerned it was
never my intention to wrong you by revealing it, and that it should
never be known through me, who hold it all to be very false. If I may
have an hour’s speech with you I will give more particulars of the
names, times, places, and other circumstances to prove to you the truth
of this and other things, which I reserve until fully assured of your
friendship. This I desire more than ever. Further, if I can this time
secure it you will find no relative, friend, nor even subject more loyal
and affectionate than myself. For God’s sake, believe the assurance of
one who will and can serve you.
“From my bed, forcing my arm and my sufferings to satisfy and obey you.
“MARIE R.”
This letter, of course, is concentrated venom. Mary could embroider with
her pen as well as with her clever needle. She could entwine and order
her imaginings with magnificent effect. She had heaps of fantasy and
romance and could employ them more than puckishly. The document is a
_tour de force_ of craft and power. Its double aim is unerring. With
this one poisoned shaft the writer seeks to destroy the security of the
two Elizabeths—so similar in their autocratic natures, their vitality
and joy in intrigue. A fiendish delight lurks behind every suggestion
aimed at the person and amours of Elizabeth. Even these, taking into
account the ghastly suspense of her imprisonment and the wreckage of her
mental balance, might be forgiven to Mary. But the statement suggesting
Elizabeth’s betrayal of her State secrets to a mere envoy like the
Frenchman Simier, while admitting him to the grossest intimacy, is too
wickedly sane in its vindictiveness to be forgivable. In her most
impulsive, most overwrought moments Lady Shrewsbury would never have
dared to suggest a thing so base or so impossible. The letter condemns
itself throughout, and undermines the truth of many of the previous wild
complaints by Mary of the Countess’s words and deeds. Naturally, every
breath of scandal attaching to the Queen’s intercourse with the
innumerable persons of the opposite sex with whom her position brought
her into contact was treasured and retailed in all directions, and
exaggerated versions of every incident would, of course, be transmitted
to Mary. To achieve such a letter she had only to collect the titbits,
put them into the mouth of one she hated, profess to expose all the
rottenness of Elizabeth’s so-called friends, and serve up the whole
gallimaufry with a crowning _bonne bouche_ in the assertion of her own
innocence, truth, and loyalty. The Arch-Tempter guided her pen in this
hour, and that last plea of weakness and despair, “de mon lit, forçant
mon bras et mes douleurs pour vous satis fayre et obéir,” is scarcely
convincing. The devil was assuredly in it, and she must have saved up
all her energy for such a production. Don Bernardino de Mendoza, when
alluding in a letter of 1585 to the release of Shrewsbury from his task
and his retirement to his estates, declared that he thanked the Queen
for delivering him from two devils, the Scottish Queen and his wife:—
“El conde de Shreubury ha partido para ir en Darbissier siendo
lugartheniente de dos condados de Darbi y Stafford. Besso los manos a la
Regna de Inglaterra, diziendole, hazello por havelle librado de dos
diablos, que heran la Regna de Scozia y su muger.”
This is probably a partial exaggeration. Of course Elizabeth could not
free him from his wife. It was her pleasurable business to bring them
together again. A lengthy matter and badly begun!