“Your loving father,
“G. Shrewsbury.”
The whole tone of the letter is one of domestic security, and one has a vivid glimpse of the New Year celebrations and the flow of gifts. These étrennes were important affairs. A good courtier always paid this dole to his queen under the guise of a handsome gift, while the nobles and country gentry in their turn were the recipients from their tenants and friends of heterogeneous articles varying from capons, wine, and foodstuffs to gloves, clothes, or furniture.
No one in that great and rich family group, so full of promise, had any notion of the events which would call down upon the Countess the wrath of the Queen, or the fresh accusations which would be hurled against the Earl.
Life just now was as easy as Shrewsbury could ever hope to find it. He had managed to satisfy his prisoner and give her plenty of change. She was in the autumn of 1573 transferred to Chatsworth, en route for Buxton. Ultimately, by dint of scouring the place of strangers and preventing access to the springs of any save specified persons—a thing the more easy of accomplishment since the waters were the property of Shrewsbury’s family—it was made possible to give her five weeks here. After this came a stay at Chatsworth and then the return to Sheffield.
Freedom from outside attacks did not last very long. Before the spring had fairly set in Elizabeth and Burghley were once more on the warpath against the Shrewsburys. Never was George Talbot sure of his Queen’s trust. It must be remembered here that at the close of 1572 she had deliberately written thus by Burghley: “The Queen’s Majesty has in very good part accepted your last letter to herself, and has willed me to ascertain your Lordship that she doth no wise alter her former good opinion of your approved fidelity and of the care you have of such service as is committed to you, the same being such as none can in her land compare with the trust committed to your Lordship, and yet she would have your Lordship, as she says, not to mislike that when she hath occasion to doubt or fear foreign practices reaching hither into her realm, even to the charge which your Lordship hath, she do warn you thereof; and, in so doing, not to imagine that she findeth such informations to proceed from any mistrust that she hath of your Lordship, no more than she would have if you were her son or brother. This she wills me to write effectually to your Lordship ... with my most hearty commendations to your Lordship and my good Lady.”
In spite of this the least thing afforded Elizabeth an excuse for a nagging letter to Sheffield Castle. On this occasion the matter was innocent enough. Gilbert’s young wife expected her first child, and it was not surprising that my Lord and Lady should prefer that the event should take place under their roof. Yet the Queen thought it necessary to worry them with mistrust, forcibly expressed. Shrewsbury replies to Burghley: “The mislike her Majesty ... of my son Gilbert’s wife brought to bed in my house, as cause of women and strangers repair hither, makes me heartily sorry; nevertheless, the midwife excepted, none such have, or do at any time, come within her sight; and at the first, to avoid such resort, I myself with two of my children christened the child. What intelligence passeth for this Queen to and from my house I do not know; but trust her Majesty shall find my service while I live both true and faithful. Yet be you assured, my Lord, this lady will not stay to put in practice, or make enquiry by all means she can devise, and ask me no leave, so long as such access of her people is permitted unto her.... My Lord, where there hath been often bruits of this Lady’s escape from me, the 26th of February last there came an earthquake, which so sunk chiefly her chamber as I doubted more her falling than her going, she was so afraid. But God be thanked she is forthcoming, and grant it may be a forewarning unto her. It hath been at the same time in sundry places. No hurt was done and the same continued a very small time. God grant us all grace to fear Him.”
That the very Derbyshire ground which bore him should fail his feet while his Queen’s faith in him fell away seems adding insult to injury. For some time past he appears to have been torn between the longing to rid himself of a now intolerable responsibility and the fear of misconstruction to which his retirement from his post would expose him. “The truth is, my good Lord,” as he is driven at last to say to Burghley, “if it so stand with the Queen Majesty’s pleasure I could be right well contented to be discharged ... and think myself therewith most happy, if I could see how the same might be without any blemish to my honour and estimation.” He begs that Burghley “will have respect that such consideration may be had of my service as shall make it manifest to the world how well her Majesty accepteth the same. My Lord Scroop, and others, were not unconsidered of for their short time of service.” And so in this condition of mind he waits for Burghley’s advice. He would have done better to risk the Queen’s displeasure and to lay down his gaoler’s warrant on the plea of illness, even if in those days medical certificates were not so easy to procure and might not have been so potent. As for disfavour at Court, he could, as a strong and powerful private gentleman, take up his stand and keep up his vast property, though Elizabeth might wreak her annoyance on the young Cavendishes and Talbots. Had he summed up the courage to decide the matter after his own heart he would have lost nothing in the world’s esteem, been far better off in pocket, and possibly the barque of the Shrewsburys would have escaped the shoals and rocks of domestic bickerings, which in later middle-life led to such woeful wreckage of the vessel and the magnificent family crew.
George Talbot did not foresee all this. He was not an imaginative man. He was a typical Government official, precise, sententious, cautious, faithful, anxious, hypersensitive. One imagines that his countess—who was not in the least au fond the typical discreet wife of a high official—spent a good deal of time goading him to revolt. He has admitted in a previous letter that she was not at all anxious for him to continue with his present duties. Of course, it was the business of Burghley to keep him at them. Shrewsbury was the most useful of all English nobles in this respect. All the conditions about him suited the Queen’s purposes in every way. The way in which she and Burghley put him off with fair promises and bamboozled him with vague promises of reward makes one gasp. As to current outlay—the £52 per week allowed him for this by the Council was far too little—one of the most ingenious suggestions Elizabeth ever made was that Mary should “defray her own charges with her dowry of France.” Shrewsbury adds: “She seemed not to dislike thereof at all, but rather desirous ... so she asked me in what sort and with what manner of liberty she should be permitted to same.” He urges that these details should be settled at once. “Assure yourself if the liberty and manner thereof content her as well as the motion, she will easily assent to it; and so I wish it, as may be without peril otherwise; and for the charges in safe-keeping her, I have found them greater many ways than some have accounted for, and than I have made show of, or grieved at; for in service of her Majesty I can think my whole patrimony well bestowed.”
How the wary official, loyal and somewhat crushed, speaks in that last sentence! How irritating to his Bess with her superabundant business instinct and her ambitions for her family! He was ever on the watch, his conscience agog. She was continually “on the make,” seeking the quickest road to family aggrandisement which was compatible with decency.