Читать книгу Bess of Hardwick and Her Circle - Maud Stepney Rawson - Страница 15

Photo by Valentine and Sons, Dundee THE RUINS OF WINGFIELD MANOR Page 70

Already by this time the Shrewsburys could enter into the feelings of Sir Francis Knollys when he longed to shake off his irksome duties. Had the Earl foreseen the extent of the burden thrust upon him he would have followed the example of his comrade-in-arms and begged for instant release. All he could and did do, however, was to endure, while protesting his loyalty.

There was excitement enough in store for everyone when Mary’s adviser, the Bishop of Ross, was actually permitted to join the Wingfield household. This was the signal for the crowding of Scottish folk to the vicinity. These came constantly to pay their court to Mary, thereby increasing all the domestic complications of Earl and lady, to say nothing of the added cost in catering and stabling entailed by such “traffic.” Nor did it help them that Mary should fall ill. After delays two physicians were sent from Court, and besides insisting upon a thorough ventilation and cleaning of her apartments they advised her removal to yet another of the family mansions.

This time it was to Chatsworth that the cavalcade travelled. The busy Countess had not yet completed her great scheme of building. Yet a part of the then “new house” was sufficiently completed for use, and though there was as yet no stately presence chamber here, nor ballroom, nor great dining-hall, as at Wingfield, the surroundings were sylvan and reassuring, and the little raised and moated garden where Mary would take the air was far more agreeable than the tangled garden patch at Tutbury. In May the change to the meadows by the Derwent must have been delicious. By June 1st the visit was ended and away went the cortège again, my Lady Bess included, back to Wingfield. The Earl, for the first time since Mary’s arrival, took a few days’ leave of absence and again went to Chatsworth. This brief absence immediately gave rise to trouble and suspicious reports. While struggling with indisposition he hurried back, and had just time to report that all was well at Wingfield when ague and fever laid him low. His wife took command of the situation. His condition was so critical that she wrote to Cecil asking that some arrangement “for this charge” should be made in case he should grow worse. Cecil took action at once, but before any change in the command at Wingfield could be made the Earl was recovering, and his wife wrote to reassure the Queen, through Cecil, and put in a word for her own loyalty:—