The following letter belongs to this period, and shows Gilbert Talbot back in London. He had been previously there in communication with Court officials apropos of the accusations brought originally against his father and subsequently against himself by an ex-chaplain of the Earl, named Corker, in combination with another priest called Haworth. The letter roused the whole family. The Earl literally lashes out. It remains as the chief evidence of the first published imputations against the Earl’s honour. It evidently embodies the attitude of wife as well as husband. This is a very important point because of the dissension which arose later on this very question.
“To the right honourable my very good Lord, my Lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer of England.
“Your Lordship’s friendly letters I accept in as friendly ways as I know to be meant to me. For Corker’s proceedings against my son Gilbert, I partly understand of his false accusation; which, in my conscience, is utterly untrue and thereupon I dare gage my life. The reprobate’s beginning was against me and now turned to Gilbert. His wicked speeches of me cannot be hid; I have them of his own hand, cast abroad in London, and bruited throughout this realm, and known to her Majesty’s Council. Her Majesty hath not heard of him ill of me, so it pleaseth her Majesty to signify unto me by her own gracious letters, which I must believe, notwithstanding his dealing against me is otherwise so notoriously known that if he escape sharp and open punishment dishonour will redound to me. This practice hath a further meaning than the varlets know of.... For mine own part I have never thought to allow any title, nor will, otherwise than as shall please her Majesty to appoint.... How can it be supposed that I should be disposed to favour this Queen for her claim to succeed the Queen’s Majesty? My dealing towards her hath shown the contrary. I know her to be a Stranger, a Papist, and my enemy; what hope can I have of good of her, either for me or my country? I see I am by my own friends brought in jealousy, wherefore I wish with all my heart that I were honourably read, without note or blemish, to the world of any want in me.”
Though the Earl’s enemy was satisfactorily condemned to the pillory and the Fleet, the scandal proved many-headed, and again the poor official (accused, among other things, of being as much of a credulous fool as a knave in regard to Mary of Scotland) thunders protest.
“Wherefore as touching that lewd fellow, who hath not only sought by unlawful libels extant, so much as in him lay, to deface my dutiful heart and loyalty, but also the rooting up of my house, utter overthrow and destruction of my lineal posterity, I neither hold him a subject nor yet account him worthy the name of a man, which with a watery submission can appease so rigorous a storm;[[23]] no, if loss of my life, which he hath pretended would have fully contented him, I could better have been satisfied than with these, his unspeakable vilenesses.... I might be thought hard-hearted if, for Christianity’s sake, I should not freely forgive as cause shall require, and desire God to make him a better member, being so perilous a caterpillar in the Commonwealth. For I have not the man anywise in contempt, it is his iniquity and Judas dealing that I only hate.”
In other words, “Reptile! But I forgive thee.” It is almost a parallel to the anecdote of a certain little girl with an over-stern nurse of gloomy religious tendencies, to whom the child, waking alone in the dark, called, “Nurse, nurse, come, come! I dreamed that the devil was here tempting me to call you a duffer—but I resisted the temptation!”
The Corker affair, of course, provided fresh food for the imaginings and reports of Mary’s adversaries. People thought that it would necessarily mean the removal of Mary into fresh custody. Mary herself dreaded this. She did not love Shrewsbury, but she believed her life to be safe with him, though she may not have entirely trusted his wife. She heard that poison was to be used against her, and that there was a suggestion at Court “to make overtures to the Countess of Shrewsbury.” She was assured that if anyone poisoned her without Elizabeth’s knowledge, the latter “would be very much obliged to them for relieving her of so great a trouble.”
There is nothing on the Countess’s side to corroborate this wild statement. This horrible fear, however, was so implanted in Mary’s mind that she sent to France for “some genuine terra sigillata, as antidote.” But she did not apply to her sinister mother-in-law Catherine De Medici. “Ask M. the Cardinal my uncle,” she writes, “or if he has none, rather than have recourse to the Queen my mother-in-law, or to the King, send a bit of fine unicorn’s horn, as I am in great want of it.”
The year 1574 travelled onward without realisation of her fears. The “caterpillar,” Corker, had not prevailed in the overthrow of the Earl’s house or of his “lineal posterity,” and Gilbert Talbot in this little note writes affectionately enough to his stepmother:—[[24]]
“My most humble duty remembered unto your good Ladyship, to fulfil your La. commandment, and in discharge of my duty by writing, rather than for any matter of importance that I can learn, I herewith trouble your La. Her Majesty stirreth little abroad, and since the stay of the navy to sea here hath been all things very quiet.... I have written to my Lord of the bruit which is here of his being sick again, which I nothing doubt but it is utterly untrue: howbeit, because I never heard from my L. nor your La. since I came up, I cannot choose but be somewhat troubled, and yet I consider the like hath been often reported most falsely and without cause, as I beseech God this be. My Lady Cobbam asketh daily how your La. doth, and yesterday prayed me, the next time I wrote, to do her very hearty commendation unto your La., saying openly she remaineth unto your La. as she was wont, as unto her dearest friend. My La. Lenox hath not been at the Court since I came. On Wednesday next I trust (God willing) to go hence towards Goodrich; and shortly after to be at Sheffield. And so most humbly craving your La. blessing with my wonted prayer, for your honour and most perfect health long to continue. From the Court at Greenwich this 27th June, 1573.