On such a fixed fayth
This trustie Talbot stayth.
For there is no real honour left to a house divided against itself. The quarrel of man and wife had become the property of the world. Matters must be patched up somehow with the aid of friends and Court officials. Everything, to the eye, was now put on a highly respectable basis. The bland disclaimer by the Cavendishes paved the way at any rate for a more decent family relationship.
For the fourth time in her life Bess Hardwick had faced and surmounted a great danger. As Lady St. Loe she had laid herself in some way open to back-biters, had triumphantly quashed them, and had escaped being deeply involved in the affair of Lady Catherine Grey; as Lady Shrewsbury she had braved the wrath of Elizabeth over the Lennox marriage, and now triumphed over Mary and the Earl. Upon this last occasion she emerged with a slate at least superficially clean.
Superficially. The thing extorts your admiration after the reading of Mary’s detailed accusations. But there is yet one more letter which Mary planned to send hurtling towards the Court. It is a bomb more deadly than any of the rest, and had it found its mark even the indomitable Lady Shrewsbury might have been annihilated—would certainly have been hopelessly discountenanced. It is the production known to all students of this historical period as “The Scandal Letter,” here translated with the exception of passages which are best in the original French. Again, full allowance must be made here for the overwrought condition of the writer. This letter tallies with the spirit of the letters on the same subject already seen. Moreover, it is on all sides adjudged by experts to be a genuine document in Mary’s own hand. This epistle, which in itself formed a safety-valve for the tumult of the writer’s brain, either was not despatched and was afterwards found among her papers, or may have been intercepted in full flight—possibly by Burghley, for it rests to this day among the Hatfield MSS. Events show that it can never have reached Elizabeth. The publication of such pernicious matter could not have done any good or have diverted in any way Elizabeth’s disapproval from her prisoner. Nor could it have altered Mary’s fate. If there be, as one cannot but think, a certain basis of truth in it—the Countess had a lively tongue, as the world knows—the road by which this lady travelled between 1578 and 1584 must have literally overhung a ghastly social precipice.
“Madame,[[76]]
“In accordance with what I promised you and have ever since desired, I must—though with regret that such matters should be called in question, still without passion and from motives of true sincerity, as I call God to witness—declare to you that what the Countess of Shrewsbury has said of you to me is as nearly as possible as follows. I assure you I treated the greater part of her statements, while rebuking the said lady for thinking and speaking so licentiously of you, as matters in which I had no belief, either then or now, knowing the nature of the Countess and the spirit which animated her against you.
“Premièrement, qu-un, auquel elle disoit que vous aviez faict promesse de mariage devant une dame de votre chambre, avait couché infinies foys avvesques vous, avecque toute la licence et privaulté qui se peut user entre mari et femme; mais qu’indubitablement vous n’estiez pas comme les aultres femmes, et pour ce respect c’estoit follie a tous ceulz qu-affectoient vostre mariage avec M. le duc d’Anjou, d’aultant qu’il ne se pourrait accomplir, et que vous ne vouldriez jamais perdre la liberté de vous fayre fayre l’amour et avoir vostre plésir tousjours avecques nouveaulx amoureulx, regrettant, ce disoit elle, que vous ne vous contentiez de maister Haton et un aultre de ce royaulme: mays que, pour l’honneur du pays, il lui fashoit le plus que vous aviez non seulement engagé vostre honneur avecques un étranger nommé Simier, l’alant trouver la nuit dans la chambre d’une dame, que la dicte comtesse blamoit fort a ceste occasion là, où vous le baisiez et usiez avec lui de diverses privautez deshonestes; mays aussi lui revelliez les segrets du royaulme, trahisant vos propres conseillers avex luy. Que vous vous esties desportée de la mesme dissolution avvec le Duc son maystre, qui vous avoit esté trouver une nuit à la porte de vostre chambre, où vous l’aviez rencontré avvec vostre seulle chemise et manteau de nuit, et que par après vous l’aviez laissé entrer, et qu’il demeura avecques vous près de troys heures.
“As for the aforenamed Hatton [it was said] that you literally pursued him, displaying your love for him so publicly that he was obliged to withdraw, that you gave Killigrew[[77]] a box on the ear because he did not bring back Hatton when sent in pursuit, the latter having left your presence in anger because of insulting remarks you had made about some gold buttons on his coat. [The Countess said] that she had worked to achieve the marriage of the said Hatton with the late Countess of Lennox, her daughter, but that he would not listen to the proposal for fear of you. Again, that even the Earl of Oxford durst not live with his wife lest he should lose the advantages which he hoped to receive for making love to you, that you were lavish towards all such persons and to all who were engaged in similar intrigues; for example, that you gave a person of the Bedchamber, named George, a pension of £300 for bringing you the news of the return of Hatton; that towards all other persons you were very thankless and stingy, and that there were but three or four in your kingdom whom you had ever benefited. The Countess, in fits of laughter, advised me to place my son among the ranks of your lovers as a thing which would do me good service and would entirely disable the Duke, whose affair, if allowed to continue, would be very prejudicial to me. And when I replied that such an act would be interpreted as sheer mockery, she answered that you were so vain, and had such a good opinion of your beauty—as if you were a sort of goddess from heaven—that she wagered she could easily make you take the matter seriously and would put my son in the way of carrying it through.
“[She said] that you were so fond of exaggerated adulation, such as the assurance that no one dared to look full into your face, since it shone like the sun, that she and other ladies at Court were obliged to employ similar forms of flattery; that on her last appearance before you she and the late Countess of Lennox scarcely ventured to interchange glances for fear of bursting into laughter over the way in which they were openly mocking you. She begged me on her return to scold her daughter because she could not persuade her to do likewise; and as for your daughter Talbot she was assured that she would never fail to sneer at you. The said Lady Talbot, immediately upon her return, after she had made her obeisance to you and taken the oath as one of your servants, related it to me as a mere empty pretence, and begged me to receive a similar act of homage, one which she felt, however, more deeply and rendered absolutely to me. This for a long time I refused, but in the end, disarmed by her tears, I let her yield it to me, she declaring that she would not for worlds be in personal attendance upon you, for fear lest if you were angry you would treat her as you did her Cousin Skedmur (whose finger you broke, pretending to those at Court that it was caused by the fall of a chandelier), or as you did another, who while waiting on you at table received a great cut on the hand from a knife from you. In a word, from these latter details and the rumours of common gossip you can see that you are made game of and mimicked by your ladies as if they were at a play, and even by my women also, though, when I perceived it, I swear to you that I forbade my women to have anything to do with the matter.