The Fugitive Queen (2 page)

Letter from Mistress Ursula Stannard to Mistress Ann Mason. Dated April 1568

My respected friend Mistress Mason: I write from the court at Greenwich, whither I lately brought your daughter, Penelope. She is now established as a Maid of Honor to Queen Elizabeth. She was very welcome in my household where her many excellent qualities won all hearts and I am sure that at court, it will be no different. My husband has most generously provided her with new gowns and some jewelry for her entrance into royal circles. She will be second to none in her style of dress and ornamentation and I trust it will not be difficult to find a husband for her.

I will take every care to see that she is guided toward the kind of match which will please you.

What strange times we live in! Three years ago, I briefly visited the court of Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland. Her marriage to Henry Lord Darnley had not yet taken place although its likelihood was becoming plain. But no one could have envisaged then, that by now, Darnley would have been mysteriously slain and Mary accused of complicity and cast from her throne accordingly. I think she is no threat to England now and that her supporters are no longer a threat, either. But I promise I will see to it that Pen is introduced only to families who, whatever their private observances, are steady and loyal to our queen . . . .

Letter to Mistress Ursula Stannard at Withysham, Sussex, by private messenger, from Sir William Cecil, Secretary of State, at Richmond Palace. Dated June 1568

My very dear Ursula, I write this reluctantly, but with the queen's knowledge—indeed at her behest. It is not usual for me to concern myself with the antics of her Maids of Honor, but one of them is your protégée and you, Ursula, are most highly valued by the queen and by me and my wife. Also, a member of my own household is involved.

We are anxious on account of your ward, Mistress Penelope Mason, who, while at court, has formed an unsuitable attachment to one of my gentlemen—a Master Rowan, who is a linguist and accompanies me to court to help me in conversing with French and Italian visitors, since I myself speak no tongue but English.

Master Rowan has a wife of great charm, and they have four children. He has, I assure you, no interest in Mistress Mason, but she is evidently smitten by his good looks and pleasant mien and I am sorry to say is making herself a nuisance to him, as well as appearing foolish in the eyes of others. It would be well if you could come to Richmond and speak with her, or perhaps take her away for a while.

You will have heard, of course, the latest news regarding Mary Stuart of Scotland. In May, much to our surprise and horror, she escaped from her imprisonment in Scotland with a tiny suite of sixteen people, landed at Workington on the Cumberland coast, and threw herself on the mercy of Elizabeth. She is at present in Carlisle, but plans are in hand to send her to Bolton Castle in Yorkshire, which is more secure. Sir Francis Knollys has gone north on the orders of Queen Elizabeth, to take charge of her and guard against any machinations on her part.

He also hopes to convert her to the Protestant faith although I suspect that he will find this a difficult task.

Master Rowan has just come to me with a sonnet in Penelope Mason's handwriting. He found it pinned into a cloak which he had left upon a bench. I enclose it for you to see. I hope that you and Master Stannard will not delay in coming to court to deal with this most embarrassing situation . . . .

I married Hugh Stannard in 1565, the seventh year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. I was thirty-one, a little younger than the queen herself, and Hugh was more than twenty years my senior, but this suited me very well. I had had enough of passion. I had felt passion for both of my previous husbands and it had brought me more suffering than joy.

Well, it was true that my dear first husband, Gerald Blanchard, had given me my daughter, Meg, who was a blessing to me. But I had nearly lost my life in bearing her, and I had lost Gerald himself to smallpox while Meg was still small. Now my second husband, Matthew de la Roche, was dead of the plague and although I had been deep in love with him, we had never had any peace or lasting happiness together. I bore him a stillborn son whose birth brought me even nearer to the grave than Meg had, so that I learned to fear childbearing. And also, I was loyal to Queen Elizabeth of England while he had continually plotted against her on behalf of Mary Stuart, who was Queen of Scotland and in the eyes of ardent Catholics such as Matthew should have been Queen of England, too.

If I were tired of passion, I was even more tired of conspiracy. For many years I had served Elizabeth as a Lady of the Presence Chamber but I had been more than that. I had also worked for her as a spy, seeking out plots against her. For a while, I found the
excitement exhilarating. It had called to me in a voice like the cry of the wild geese, winging across the sky. When I heard the geese something in me always longed to bound up into the air and follow them. In the same way, I had responded to the summons of adventure.

But my work divided me from Matthew and willy-nilly, it caused me to send men to their deaths. It put me in mortal danger too, once or twice. I continually worried and frightened my two good servants, Fran Dale, my tirewoman, and Roger Brockley, my steward; I more than once risked leaving Meg alone without either mother or father, and when my adventuring finally brought me perilously close to being forced into a disastrous third marriage, I knew I had had enough.

In Hugh Stannard, I found a refuge from conflict combined with freedom from the perils of childbirth. He was a widower and hadn't spent his widowhood like a monk, which meant that he had had every chance of siring children yet he had never succeeded in doing so. With him, I could be fairly sure that I would not have to face pregnancy again. He was also a decent, honest man, interested in chess and gardens, an uncomplicated Protestant, and a trustworthy subject of the queen. Life as Hugh's wife might be dull, I thought, but it would be quiet. I was glad to settle for that. I could do without excitement. I could even do without happiness, as long as I could have some peace.

I hoped that we would make a good partnership. I would retire from court and conspiracy alike. Hugh and I would live together in amity, dividing our time between our two homes, my Withysham in Sussex and his Hawkswood in Surrey. I would educate my daughter, cultivate my herb garden, enjoy the society of my recently acquired woman companion Sybil Jester; let Fran and Roger enjoy each other's society, too. They were married, though Fran was still usually known as Dale, out of habit.

And so, in businesslike fashion, I ceased to be Ursula Blanchard, and became instead Mistress Hugh Stannard and if, for a while, I secretly grieved for Matthew, and cried in private because I had not been with him to comfort him at the end as once I had comforted Gerald, I only did so when I was alone.

And time erodes sorrow. Presently, my private fits of weeping ceased. Then I found that I had entered into more happiness than I would ever have believed possible. Hugh's lovemaking, if not frequent, was perfectly satisfactory, and his temperament was a pleasing mixture of the competent and the generous. He took a kindly interest in Meg and it was Hugh who achieved what I had not, and found a tutor, Dr. Lambert, who could teach her Greek as well as Latin. I was especially pleased, as I wished to study Greek and to improve my own Latin. Then, in the third year of our marriage, he was perfectly ready to welcome Penelope Mason, the daughter of my former acquaintance Ann Mason, into our home.

This pleased me, too. Years ago, I had uncovered a conspiracy that was brewing in the Mason household although the Masons themselves were not involved. It was an unpleasant business, though, and keeping up any kind of friendship with the family seemed impossible afterward. Ann Mason's letter delighted me.

I was less delighted however when, after Pen had been with us for a month and I was exchanging messages with the court, prior to taking her there, Hugh observed that romantically speaking, she was susceptible. “You should urge the matter of her court appointment on,” he said to me, “and get her away from here. I think she's falling for the tutor.”

“For
Lambert
?” I said in astonishment. Dr. Henry Lambert was about Hugh's own age and his hair was already completely silver. “He's too old to interest a young girl, surely!” I said.

“Don't you believe it,” said Hugh. “He's a fine-looking man, and since Pen is studying Greek with you and Meg, she sees him every day. It won't do. Even if he were younger, it wouldn't do. He has no property beyond a cottage in the town of Guildford. And he's Protestant. Her mother wouldn't like that.” Hugh had Catholic relatives and was tolerant of their creed. “Get her to court and under the eye of the queen,
fast.
”

I did as he said. My happiness with Hugh was based as much as anything on his reliability. He was a clearheaded man and I trusted his judgment. It wasn't Hugh's fault that Pen's sojourn at court was less than successful. I certainly didn't blame him for that.

In all our life together, Hugh and I only quarreled once and that was for the most improbable of reasons.

 • • • 

Pen had only been at court for two months, when the letter came from Sir William Cecil to tell us that, having been removed from Dr. Lambert the tutor, she had now fallen in love with Master Rowan the interpreter and was causing embarrassment and would we come to court—now at Richmond—to deal with her.

“Oh, really!” grumbled Hugh. “And riding makes all my joints ache. I don't
want
to travel to Richmond. It's all of twenty-five miles. Why can't this Master Rowan fend her off without our help?”

I wondered, too. Among them—Master Rowan, Queen Elizabeth, Sir William Cecil, and the mistress in charge of the Maids of Honor—they really should have been able to call Pen to order. However, a summons from Cecil could not be ignored. Dutifully, we set out for Richmond Palace.

I had always liked Richmond. Of all Elizabeth's homes, it seemed to me the most charming, with its gardens and wind chimes, its delicately designed towers and its gracious rooms, so many of which looked out on the Thames. On days like this, when the sun was out and the gardens were full of scent and color, and the Thames sparkled under a mild breeze, it was at its most beguiling. I would have enjoyed this visit, my first in years, if only we hadn't had to cope with Pen.

Cecil had arranged lodgings in the palace for us and Pen was sent to us there. She stood miserably in front of us, and Hugh and I, enthroned side by side on a broad window seat, probably looked and sounded like a pair of judges as we took her to task over her behavior.

Penelope obviously felt both frightened and embarrassed. First of all she turned very red and indignantly denied the charge. Confronted by the evidence in the form of Cecil's letter to me and also the sonnet in her handwriting (it was technically rather good, as a matter of fact; Pen was a clever girl), she did the only thing left for her to do and burst into tears. Hugh, without speaking
and with a most unsympathetic expression on his face, took a napkin from his sleeve and handed it to her.

Gazing at her as she snuffled into the napkin, I sighed. It is no light responsibility, taking charge of someone else's daughter.

As her mother had said, Pen was not a beauty. To be truthful, she was almost plain. Her forehead bulged too much and her chin was too square. Her hair, demurely folded into waves under a white cap with silver embroidery, was no more than mousey. Her best features were her dark gray eyes, which were beautifully set, and her complexion, which when not swollen with tears, was clear and pale. She held herself well, too, had good taste in dress, and she was intelligent, as that confounded sonnet demonstrated. I was sorry for her now but I hardened my heart. Pen was not going to spoil her reputation through girlish inexperience, or waste herself on the wrong man if I could save her, and I meant to do that for her sake as well as to please her mother.

“Dry your eyes,” I said firmly. “And listen. You have fallen in love—well, it happens. Few of us, though, marry our first loves and most of us realize later what a good thing that is . . .”

“
You
married your first love,” said Pen mutinously.

“And what would you know about that?” Hugh inquired. Soberly clad in a dark formal gown, his blue eyes icy with annoyance, my husband looked particularly judgmental. He also looked tired, I thought. We had taken two days over the ride from Hawkswood and his mare was an ambler, thus providing a very smooth and easy pace, but the rheumatic pains in his joints had troubled him badly. It gave me an extra reason to be angry with Pen.

“I heard about it when I was with you at Hawkswood,” she said in a resentful voice. “Dale told me. You ran off with your cousin Mary's betrothed.
You
pleased yourself. Why can't I?”

“That is enough. You will not address either of us in this pert fashion,” said Hugh.

“I should say,” I observed, thinking that Dale had talked too much and that I would have to raise the matter with her, “that my circumstances and yours, Pen, are not the same. I was not living as a welcome guest with my aunt and uncle, as you were at
Hawkswood with us, but was there on sufferance—a poor relation with questionable origins. No one was going to arrange a marriage for me. I had to make a future for myself.”

“There's no need to justify yourself, my dear,” said Hugh.

“One moment,” I said. “I've a reason for talking like this. Pen, I ran away with Gerald Blanchard, but he was a suitable choice for me and he cared for me as I did for him. It was mutual. Master Rowan, on the other hand, is married already, with a family of children. He has no interest in you. You have been annoying him.” I rapped the last two sentences out with deliberate brutality and Hugh, on the point of intervening again, raised his eyebrows and didn't.