Windsor Castle

The Palace of Whitehall

At the New Year’s celebrations that year, the offerings to Her Majesty were particularly thoughtful—and expensive. Lord Howard of Effingham, one of the queen’s many cousins, the lord admiral of her navy, and a quiet Catholic, gave her a beautiful amulet of a phoenix emerging from a bed of ashes. Inside were eleven jeweled letters: Semper Eadem. Always the Same. It was a particularly touching gift, as semper eadem was also her mother’s motto. She caught my eye and held it when she handed it off to me, then glanced down at the locket ring I’d given her and winked so only we two could see. I winked in return.

As I sorted through her gifts, deciding which would be passed along to others, which she would keep, and which she would soon wear, I said as I drew near, “This is a particularly beautiful prayer book, Majesty.” The book, bound in gold, was strung with gold chains that could be securely fastened upon Her Majesty’s waist girdle. “On one side is enameled a serpent, with a quote from the book of Numbers.” I turned it over. “And on the back is the Judgment of Solomon.” I read the passage from the book of 1 Kings quoted in enamel print: “ ‘Then the king answered and said, “Give her the living child, and slay not: for she is the mother thereof.’

“The first side rather puts me in mind of a story of Aesop I’ve told my young Elizabeth of late,” I said as I clipped it to her girdle with her nodded permission. “And reminds me of your cousin Mary of Scots.”

The queen, more sensitive than ever, said, “Indeed?” with the particular edge to her voice that alerted us to proceed with caution.

“Go on,” Mary Radcliffe urged me.

“There once was a strong, benevolent lady who was walking through a frozen rose garden in the grievous chill of winter when her slipper brushed against something on the cobbled path. She saw that it was a snake, stiff with cold and nigh on dead, having run the fool’s errand of leaving its own nest to seize a better one.” The room grew quiet but I continued. “Forswearing her initial hesitation, the lady placed the serpent close to her bosom, where it quickly warmed. When it revived, the serpent resumed its natural nature, bit its benefactress, and poisoned her with a wound unto death.

“ ‘Why have you done this?’ she cried. ‘I have only sought to assist you!’

“ ‘You knew full well what I was when you drew me close to your heart,’ replied the cunning viper.

“ ‘I am justly rewarded, then,’ the lady sorrowed, ‘for pitying a serpent.’ ”

There was no happy outburst at the end of my tale, as there had been when I’d shared of Idun. This was a much more serious matter and the queen knew I meant the lady in the garden to represent herself.

“And do you have a story at hand for the other side of this prayer book?” she asked with irritation as she flipped it over. “We have no doubt that you must, as you are rarely in want of something to share.”

I heard the edge to her voice; she did not like to be instructed by anyone, though, in fairness, she could be counseled by almost anyone she trusted.

“Of course! The other side, of course, represents you, Majesty. Always the good mother, always willing to sacrifice yourself for the well-being of your child, England.”

At that she smiled, because she knew that I had parried with a compliment to blunt the sting, but that I’d meant both.

The queen’s councilors came then, and we ladies were dismissed. Before I retired, I heard Walsingham say that they had found the husband of Eleanor Brydges, she who had tried to poison the queen and had poisoned herself instead, involved in treasonous Catholic activity. He had just crossed to the Continent before they were able to apprehend him.

I retired to my own chamber, troubled. Was there a snake in my own garden? Where had Thomas come upon that ring? Was he, like so many of his family, still secretly Catholic at heart?

I would have said, “No, no, never, this is my husband and I know him well.” But we had grown distant from one another. It had been two years since Bridget was born and we rarely slept together. We did not share a bed, we did not share dreams, and he did not often attend church with me, though he was bound by law to do so; and he did not tell me, any longer, to where he was riding or share details when he returned.

Perhaps he was a better player than I had ever imagined.

A person’s leanings did not make him a traitor, and as had been proved with Norfolk and Mary, there needed to be hard evidence of action. Walsingham had once told me, with Eleanor retching from poison down the gallery, that by sharing my concerns I could forestall anything terrible from happening.

I could bring the ring to Thomas himself, but if he were truly given to the Catholic faith, and freeing Mary, I would only be warning him to be more cautious in his planning. And if Thomas had already acted and been branded a traitor, he would be executed. If I were in some way implicated by not bringing forth evidence when I knew of it, and I clearly now did, the law declared that I could be executed as an accomplice. My children would be orphaned, their parents attainted. Francis Throckmorton, a good man caught up in sudden religious zeal and the charm of Mary of Scots, had neglected to consider what would come of his wife and ten-year-old son were he caught, and caught he was.

At the moment, I loathed England and its steady storms of treachery. My faith felt far and foreign to me, used by this side and that for nothing that resembled Christ at all. I had no idea if I could trust my husband, but I could not leave my children unsheltered. And perhaps, perhaps if suspicions were raised by Walsingham, whom Thomas respected and feared, there was time to warn him off from any foolery.

Some hours later, after wrestling with my conscience, I sent one of my lady maids to Sir Francis Walsingham with a note. An hour later, I heard a knock upon the door.

“My good lady marquess?” he said as he took a bow. I flinched, not only at the man, but at his appropriation of Her Majesty’s nickname for me.

“Come in, Sir Francis,” I said. “Please, have a seat.”

I had dismissed my servants, so I served him a goblet of wine myself. “I have some . . . concerns,” I said. “About my husband’s family. And perhaps about my husband himself.”

He nodded thoughtfully, stroking his long beard. “You can rest assured in my confidence and concern, my lady,” he said. “What you share with me will go no further.”

I explained to him the many heated discussions that had taken place over the matters of faith, loathing myself as the words flew from my mouth. Loyal, are you? I scolded myself in my head. In truth? Traitor. Liar.

“Do you have any other concerns?” he asked.

“Well, after Thomas had left for the Netherlands, I found this in his drawer,” I said. I handed over the recusant’s ring.

“Yes, I’d heard you’d found one,” he said.

At that I displayed my shock and he held back a smile. Who had told him? Surely not Mary Radcliffe, who trusted me implicitly after the Eleanor Brydges situation. But I had told none other.

Then I recalled, Sofia had seen me with it. Had it been her? Or had she told someone who told someone?

I said nothing, but as I handed it over to him I wondered what would have become of me if I hadn’t called for him, since he knew I was cherishing this ring at my bosom.

“You have always proved most loyal to the queen,” Walsingham said as he stood to leave. “That shall not go unrewarded, no matter the cost, and I shall keep the concerns of your family, and children, uppermost in my mind.”

“I bring this to your attention, Sir Francis, so that you can defuse a wick that is likely not yet lit, if it even exists at all. You told me, during the Eleanor Brydges affair, that if I let you know what I knew, you could arrest ill will before it kindled at my door. I expect you to keep your word.” I opened the door for him and drew myself up, head held high, and said with a trace of sarcasm, “You are like a master hawker, Sir Francis: breaking us all to hand, keeping a blind hood on us till you decide where you want us to hunt, and fly, and kill.”

He laughed. “Well said, Lady Northampton. I, like you, hunt only and ever for one mistress: the queen.”

“That’s true, Sir Francis,” I said. “I’ve been serving the queen for more than twenty years. And you?”

“Seventeen,” he said, bowing stiffly before he took his leave.

After I let him out I sat upon my bed and cried, and then I was filled with cold dread; it sank in my belly and would not be dislodged even after I spent nearly an hour sobbing. How had it come to this? Had I just condemned my husband to death, or had I rescued him from folly? Had I protected my children from being orphaned and living with the curse of an attainted father and mother, or had I broken their home?

I sensed we had many deceptions between us now. Each was like an inch, or a foot, or a mile that parted us. I considered for a moment the idea of telling Thomas of all this. But I could not. In my heart, I knew he would never forgive me for putting the queen’s interests above his own.

I could only hope and pray that naught should come to pass.

•   •   •

If some had chanced upon me exactly ten summers earlier—when I was drunk with love for Thomas and he with me, we two, so ready to bear the wrath of the queen or anything else to be together—and told me that ten years hence our love would have grown cold, I should have laughed. I did not laugh now. Like a river that had been blocked of its natural course, our affections had taken a sharp turn, and though I stood in the middle and tried to redirect the flow, time and circumstance overflowed me.