Читать книгу Bess of Hardwick and Her Circle - Maud Stepney Rawson - Страница 12

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All the mighty fuss and preparation aforesaid sufficed only to make Tutbury barely habitable. The airy, pleasant impressions of the French Ambassador were literally castles in the air compared with the fastness itself to which Mary of Scotland travelled. To begin with, her retinue numbered sixty persons, and Heaven knows where they all slept that first night. Mary’s own rooms were small enough, and she complained bitterly of them and of the condition of the whole building. Here is her description in a subsequent letter:—

“I am in a walled enclosure, on the top of a hill, exposed to all the winds and inclemencies of heaven. Within the said enclosure, resembling that of the wood of Vincennes, there is a very old hunting lodge, built of timber and plaster, cracked in all parts, the plaster adhering nowhere to the woodwork and broken in numberless places; the said lodge distant three fathoms or thereabouts from the walls, and situated so low that the rampart of earth which is behind the wall is on a level with the highest point of the building, so that the sun can never shine upon it on that side, nor any fresh air come to it; for which reason it is so damp, that you cannot put any piece of furniture in that part without its being in four days completely covered with mould. I leave you to think how this must act upon the human body; and, in short, the greater part of it is rather a dungeon for base and abject criminals than the habitation fit for a person of my quality, or even of a much lower.... The only apartments that I have for my own person consist—and for the truth of this I can appeal to all those that have been here—of two little rooms, so excessively cold, especially at night, that, but for the ramparts and entrenchments of curtains and tapestry which I have had made, it would not be possible for me to stay in them in the daytime; and out of those who have sat up with me at night during my illnesses, scarcely one has escaped without fluxion, cold, or some disorder.”

As for the gay hunting parties which had been anticipated, the only exercise allowed her was in a palisaded vegetable patch called by courtesy a garden.

The first fortnight of that time must have placed a severe strain on the temper and endurance of the autocratic chatelaine. She was not to have access to the royal prisoner, she must obey the orders of her gaoler-husband, himself constantly on tenter-hooks lest his cranky abode should suffer sudden attack from Mary’s friends, lest sickness should attack her, or quarrels be brewed between her motley household and his own. My Lady Bess—for once—must keep herself well in the background and still contrive provision for that big household. Doubtless it was she who backed the Earl in his determination to secure at once an understanding with the English Queen as to the household expenditure of the prisoner. He put in a claim for £500 as a preliminary, and a weekly allowance of £52 was arranged. Whether he received it remains to be seen. Mary was not yet entirely a prisoner. That is to say she did not realise herself as one. Her sister-queen was too crafty to permit that. Shrewsbury, who found Mary calm and, at the outset, bearing household inconveniences cheerfully—hopeful that they were but temporary—gave her a little leash here and there. She evidently insisted on seeing Bess Shrewsbury. “The Queen continueth daily resort unto my wife’s chamber, where, with the Lady Leviston and Mrs. Seaton, she useth to sit working with the needle, in which she much delighteth, and in devising of works; and her talk is altogether of indifferent and trifling matters without ministering any sign of secret dealing and practice.” So wrote my Lord gaoler to reassure all at Court who might suspect him of insufficient strictness. The fact is, a long and detailed letter to Sir William Cecil from Nicholas White, the first visitor of importance who had spoken at length with Mary at Tutbury, had sounded the alarm. “If I,” says this gentleman, “might give advice there should be very few subjects in this land have access to or conference with this lady. For, beside that she is a goodly personage... she hath withal an alluring grace, a pretty Scottish accent, and a searching wit crowned with mildness. Fame might move some to relieve her, and glory joined to gain might stir others to adventure much for her sake. Then joy is a lively infective sense, and carrieth many persuasions to the heart which ruleth all the rest. Mine own affection by seeing the Queen’s majesty, our sovereign, is doubled, and thereby I guess what sight might work in others.” This was the impression she made on a young and gallant courtier loyal enough to Elizabeth. Here, again, she is in the form of a veritable problem as viewed by her first warder, Knollys, who delivered her into Shrewsbury’s charge. Knollys also pours out his impressions to Cecil:—