“Your La. most humble and obedient son,

“Gilbert Talbot.

“To my Lady.

“I received a letter from my Lord since this letter was sealed, and then I had no time by this messenger to write again unto your La. which came in a comfortable season unto me.”

CHAPTER VIII
A CERTAIN JOURNEY

It was now the autumn of the year 1574. The Shrewsburys had for the time being come triumphantly out of official complications, and despite their grave responsibilities lived as comfortably as might be, though they were often separated, because the wife, at any rate, had other duties besides that of gaolership. What social life was permitted to them by the restraint entailed by this charge could obviously be enjoyed only by the Countess, and even she must have found it difficult to meet her cronies, get her children married and provided for, and keep a firm hand on domestic expenditure at the various houses she owned. The guarding of Mary of Scotland certainly had its interesting, romantic side, and this to some extent was a set-off against the greyer side of the business and its financial disadvantages. Just now the chances of Mary were at their lowest. Bothwell was dying in exile,[[25]] the Duke of Norfolk had shed his blood vainly for her, Charles Darnley, “The Young Fool,” as Mr. Lang most justly calls him, though dead, with all his vanity, treachery, and vice, could still harm her cause, more latterly perhaps through the popular stigma which attached to her than by the hatred of his relatives, the family of Lennox. His family, sorely chastened by Elizabeth for his marriage with Mary, was, since his death, held in less odium at the English Court, though it did not suit the Queen’s gracious meanness to raise it out of poverty. Elizabeth and Darnley’s mother, poor soul—Countess of Lennox, née the Lady Margaret Douglas—had buried the hatchet after the boy’s death. For the benefit of those who forget her story—or ignore it—a word as to this lady:—

From a contemporary picture
LADY MARGARET DOUGLAS, COUNTESS OF LENNOX
MOTHER OF LORD DARNLEY
Page [120]

The daughter of Queen Margaret of Scotland (a Tudor, and sister of Henry VIII) and of the Earl of Angus, a mere boy, she was born in a wild moment of flight over the border into England. The very castle into which her mother crept after the long journey on horseback was immediately besieged. Thereafter the child Margaret became a bone of contention between her divorced parents—as history tells. After three years of babyhood in the shelter of her royal uncle’s English Court she spent her youth in France and Scotland, often latterly a wanderer from castle to castle, abhorred by her mother the Scots Queen because of her devotion to her outlawed father. For years she had neither house nor pin-money, but was dependent always upon such hospitality and shelter as her father’s friends would yield her in their Northern fortresses. Though her mother never forgave her for her defection, the fortunes of the girl—beautiful and of imposing personality—mended and brought her at last into the sunshine of Tudor favours. Henry VIII had compassion on his niece and made her playmate of Princess Mary, at which time she so won his affections that he settled an annuity upon her and her father. Subsequently she was first lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, and was installed as one of the household of the baby Princess Elizabeth. While Katherine of Aragon was being divorced and the star of Anne Boleyn waxed and waned she witnessed strange moments, and watched the violent changes by which her uncle declared now this one and now that one of his daughters illegitimate. Her own fortunes, even as a princess of the blood royal, were—in spite of her uncle’s genial expressions—nothing too secure, and marriage and a dowry were still dreams of the future. Possibly the King’s erotic irregularities allowed him no time for the love affairs of others, but at any rate he manifestly did not, like some of his successors, intend to doom his lady wards to perpetual virginity. When Lady Margaret showed favour to Lord Thomas Howard, kinsman of the Queen (Boleyn), Henry seemed to have winked at the courtship. So soon, however, as he killed his second consort and degraded her baby girl to the ranks of the illegitimate, matters assumed a very different colour. For the Lady Margaret Douglas was now the nearest heir to the throne. He married immediately, but no heir was speedily born. Meanwhile the Lady Margaret’s love affair grew and culminated in a formal if secret contract—that is to say a solemn betrothal, in every respect binding. Henry regarded this as a double offence. His blood niece, his heir apparent, had contracted herself without his permission; moreover she had pledged herself to a near relative of the abhorred Boleyn. He behaved in his proper, kingly, melodramatic way, sent man and maid to the Tower, speedily convicted them of high treason, and sentence of death followed. The execution of this, as usual, was delayed. The State document condemning both is, as all the world knows, one of the most disgracefully illegal concoctions ever produced by the blundering rage of a ruler and the hypocrisy of his ministers. In addition it furnished the precedent for the gross interference of that ruler’s daughter, Elizabeth, in like cases. In addition to proving the Lady Margaret guilty of treason, it professed to prove her illegitimacy also, and so cleared the way for Henry’s future whims. The unhappy Lord Thomas, after a year or two, succumbed to close confinement and sorrow and died in the Tower. His lady was removed to Sion House Court, near London, one of the few religious houses upon which her uncle found it convenient to smile because it could play a most useful part in his affairs as a polite place of detention for ladies of quality who drooped under his displeasure. The birth of his prince—Edward VI—made him relent towards his niece, and she came about the Court once more, though her old penchant for the house of Howard, of which a second member—nephew of her betrothed—now wooed her, thrust her into shadow again. This was probably a harder blow than the first, though she was not this time shivering under the fear of the axe. For she had been fully restored to her old place; she had once more taken part in that melodramatic domestic merry-go-round of Henry’s consorts. She was first lady to the new royal Anne of Cleves, she had apartments assigned to her at Hampton Court, and she was “first lady” again to Anne’s successor, Katherine Howard. A weary period of detention at Sion House followed—sharply ended because the King now wished to shut up Katherine Howard there. So Lady Margaret was moved on to the care of the Duke of Norfolk on the East coast. The third Katherine whom Henry wooed—the widowed Parr—put an end to this banishment, and by her tact and kindness reconciliations took place all round in the royal house. Lady Margaret played bridesmaid and lady-in-waiting once more, and her uncle began to bestir himself about her marriage. The man she wedded at the age of thirty-two after so much tossing and chasing, imprisonment and poverty, was the very Matthew, Earl of Lennox, whose claim to the Scots Crown had by James V of Scotland, on the death of his two sons, been preferred against those of the Earl of Arran. Both earls were kinsmen of James, and because of their high ambitions were engaged in undying feud. The birth of a royal Scots heir, in Mary, reduced both lords to the same level, but did not diminish the pertinacity of Lennox, who returned from France to England with the design of wedding Mary’s mother, Mary of Lorraine, as soon as her widowhood pointed her out as eligible. He was a handsome fellow and perfected in the graces of courts after his long apprenticeship in France, but he did not have his way, and emissaries from England schemed to throw Lady Margaret Douglas in his path. England was eager that he should serve her purposes. As consort of Mary of Lorraine and financed by France he would be the worst enemy of England. With Lady Margaret England dangled before him a good dowry. The marriage, adorned by the blessing of Henry VIII, took place with great éclat in 1544, and the King flourished his sanction in a speech including the important declaration, “in case his own issue failed he should be right glad if heirs of her body succeeded to the crown.” Nevertheless, though her husband was promised the regency of Scotland, and she was awarded residence in a royal palace (Stepney), she did not retain the King’s favour. Quarrels ensued; whether brewed by the spies in her own household in London or in Yorkshire (where she established herself in order to be nearer her husband, engaged in Border invasions), or by her act does not appear. Just before Henry died the breach was complete, and in spite of her having given birth to three legitimate Tudor heirs, of whom Henry Darnley was the second, her rights and those of her offspring from the regal succession in England were wiped out.

With a strength, as of Antæus, the much-buffeted lady overrode trouble and travelled to London with her child Henry, now the eldest (her first-born died in infancy), to pay her respects to her cousin, the new King, Edward VI. How she faced the situation is a marvel. Her husband’s Border cruelties had made him unpopular, and she was coldly looked upon. Her position for some years was most equivocal, since, in spite of her close relationship to the queen dowager of Scotland, she could not present to this lady, her sister-in-law, her husband Earl Lennox, traitor to Scotland, or her sons, in whom the Tudor blood was tainted by that of Lennox. She lived, however, in stately fashion in Yorkshire, followed eagerly the ritual of the Romish Church, and educated her children in it. Quarrels with her father Angus, discussions as to the disposal of his property, the birth of her eighth child, and the impaired health of her lord engrossed her now sufficiently. Then came another subtle and sudden change of fortunes with the death of Edward VI, the abortive scheme on behalf of Lady Jane Grey, and the sudden triumph of the claims of Princess Mary over those of her younger sister Elizabeth.