CHAPTER XIII

THE DIVIDED WAY

Seeing that my Lady of Shrewsbury had triumphantly surmounted one of the greatest dangers she had ever drawn upon herself and hers, one can safely assume that after the foregoing letter she was in a tolerably prancing and jovial temper. Socially she really was for the moment a much more important item to be reckoned with than Mary Queen of Scots herself. All the difficulties of the past two years had only served to bring her into closer touch with both queens. Meantime she was a rich and honoured lady with a great many irons in the fire, and her wants and requirements were legion. She still wanted ale and wood and stone, she could not spend all her valuable time dancing attendance upon Mary, or sharing the dull semi-military routine of Sheffield Castle and Sheffield Lodge. She went to her beloved Chatsworth, and husband and wife exchanged letters. Here is a wistful appreciation from him:—

“My Sweetheart,—Your true and faithful zeal you bear me is more comfortable to me than anything I can think upon, and I give God thanks daily for his benefits he hath bestowed on me, and greatest cause I have to give him thanks that he hath sent me you in my old years to comfort me withal. Your coming I shall think long for, and shall send on Friday your litter horses and on Saturday morning I will send my folks, because Friday they will be desirous to be at Rotherham Fair.

“It appears by my sister Wingfield’s letter there is bruit of this Queen’s going from me. I thank you for sending it me, which I return again, and will not show it till you may speak it yourself what you hear; and I have sent you John Knifton’s letter, that Lord brought me, that you may perceive what is [? bruited] of the young King. I thank you for your fat capon and it shall be baked, and kept cold and untouched until my sweetheart come; guess you who it is. I have sent you a cock that was given to me, which is all the dainties I have here.

“I have written to Sellars to send every week a quarter of rye for this ten weeks, which will be as much as I know will be had there, and ten quarters of barley, which will be all that I can spare you. Farewell, my sweet true none and faithful wife.

“All yours, “SHREWSBURY.”[47]

Here is a letter from her to him, brisk, tart, affectionate all at once:—

“My dear heart,

“I have sent your letters again and thank you for them; they require no answer; but when you write remember to thank him for them. If you cannot get my timber carried I must be without it though I greatly want it; but if it would please you to command Hebert or any other, to move your tenants to bring it, I ken they will not deny to do it. I pray you let me know if I shall have the ton of iron. If you cannot spare it I must make shift to get it elsewhere, for I may not now want it. You promised to send me money afore this time to buy oxen, but I see, out of sight out of mind with you.

“My son Gilbert has been very ill in his bed ever since he came from Sheffield: I think it is his old disease; he is now, I thank God, somewhat better and she very well. I will send you the bill of my wood stuff: I pray you let it be sent to Joseph, that he may be sure to receive all. I thank you for taking order for the carriage of it in Hardwick; if you would command, your waggoner might bring it thither: I think it would be safest carried. Here is neither malt nor hops. The malt come last is so very ill and stinking, as Hawkes thinks none of my workmen will drink it. Show this letter to my friend and then return it. I think you will take no discharge at Zouch’s hands nor the rest. You may work still in despite of them; the law is on your side.[48] It cannot be but that you shall have the Queen’s consent to remove hither; therefore if you would have things in readiness for your provision, you might the sooner come. Come either before Midsummer or not this year; for any provision you have yet you might have come as well as at Easter as at this day. Here is yet no manner of provision more than a little drink, which makes me to think you mind not to come. God send my jewel health.

“Your faithful wife “E. SHREWSBURY.”

“Saturday morn.

“I have sent you lettuce for that you love them; and every second day some is sent to your charge and you. I have nothing else to send. Let me hear how you, your charge and love do, and commend me I pray you. It were well you sent four or five pieces of the great hangings that they might be put up; and some carpets. I wish you would have things in that readiness that you might come either three or four days after you hear from Court. Write to Baldwin to call on my Lord Treasurer for answer of your letters.”

The expression in the postscript “your charge and love” has been variously interpreted by historians. It is utterly inconceivable that, as suggested, Lady Shrewsbury should have indicated Mary Queen of Scots by the last word. Had she wished to bring an accusation of this kind against her husband she would not immediately add her desire that he should join her as soon as possible. It is not unlikely that this perplexing sentence should run, “Let me hear how you, your charge, and (our) love do,” the “love” probably signifying a child or grandchild then with the Earl. Similarly the words “God send my jewel health” may apply to the same child, for in after years she uses this term of endearment almost exclusively in speaking of her precious grandchild, Arabella Stuart. Her peremptory request for “great hangings and carpets” is rather interesting, because a previous family letter, not yet included, gives a picture of the Earl’s parsimony in these details. This occurs as early as two years before the date of the above letters; and two long epistles from Gilbert to his stepmother show, first, how the long strain of his duties was telling upon the Earl, and, secondly, the unfavourable contrast produced on the minds of their children by the manner in which they were treated respectively by father and mother.

Gilbert, at Sheffield in 1575, describes the atmosphere of the house as utterly uncongenial. He is longing to be away and to have his own home. Lady Shrewsbury was away, probably at Chatsworth.[49]

“My L. is continually pestered with his wonted business, and is very often in exceeding choler of slight occasion; a great grief to them that loves him to see him hurt himself so much. He now speaketh nothing of my going to house, and I fear would be contented with silence to pass it over; but I have great hope in your La. at your coming, and in all my life I never longed for anything so much as to be from hence; truly, Madame, I rather wish myself a ploughman than here to continue.”

Her Ladyship came and went, but does not seem to have had much effect in softening her lord. Soon afterwards Gilbert writes again, oppressed by his father’s lack of lavishness in regard to the fitting out of his son’s home—an attitude which he compares unfavourably with the generous methods of the stepmother.[50]

“Madame, where it hath pleased your La. to bestow on us a great deal of furniture towards house we can but by our prayers for your La. show ourselves dutiful as well for this as all other your La. continual benefits towards us, whereof we can never fail so long as it shall please God to continue His grace towards us. Presently after your La., departure from hence my Lord appointed him of the wardrobe to deliver us the tester and curtains of the old green and red bed of velvet and satin that your La. did see; and the cloth bed tester and curtains we now lie in, and two very old counterpanes of tapestry; and forbad him to deliver the bed of cloth of gold and tawny velvet that your La. saw. That which your La. hath given us is more worth than all that is at Goodrich,[51] or here of my Lord’s bestowing. On Wednesday my Lord went hence. Cooks brought in a piece of housewife’s cloth nothing dearer than twelve pence the yard, and so was holden; which Cooks told my Lord would very well serve my wife to make sheets, bore cloths and such like: which my L. at the very first yielded unto, and bade him carry it to Stele to measure, into the outer chamber, and he said he thought it very dear of that price, and thereupon my L. refused to buy it.... Thus I beseech your La. most humbly of your blessing to your little fellow[52] and myself who is very well, thanks be to God....

“Sheffield, this Friday, 13th of October, 1575.”

Here for the first time is the beginning of real dissension in the family. The Earl’s own son murmurs against him, and the wife, being the daughter of her husband’s stepmother, would naturally share his resentment towards the soldierly official towards whom she stood in such a very delicate double relationship. The young couple are placed in a very difficult position henceforth between Earl and Countess, and their letters show the growing jealousy of her absence and her independence in the Earl’s mind. The postscript strikes a tenderer note in the allusion to the childish days of the “lyttell fellow”—George, son and heir of Gilbert and Mary Talbot—and his awe of his “Lady Danmode” (Grandmother).

“My duty, most humble rem. R. Ho., my most singular good La. This day my Lo. intendeth to go to Worsopp; to-morrow to Rufford; and on Saturday hither again. He was not so inquisitive of me touching your La. since my last being at Chatsworth, as he was the time before; only he hath asked me many times when I thought your La. would be here: whereto I have answered sometimes that your La. was so ill at ease with the rheumatism as you knew not when God would make you able; other times, that I thought when your La. were well, you would desire to stay for some months if he would give you leave; for you assuredly thought my Lo. was better pleased with your absence than presence. Whereunto he replied very earnestly the contrary in such manner as he hath done heretofore when I have told him the like. I found occasion to tell him that your La. meant not to hold Owen as your groom any longer, since it was his pleasure to be so offended with him: howbeit (I said) your La. told me that you knew not what offence he had committed, nor other by him at all than that he was a simple, true man, and that you would be glad to understand something to lay to his charge when you should turn him out of your service. But he answered no other than that it was his will for divers causes which he would not utter. Further, I said your La. told me you meant to take some wise fellow as your groom that should not be so simple as Owen was, but one who had been in service heretofore and knew what were fit and belonged to him to do in that service. Quoth he: ‘I believe she will take none of my putting to her.’ Since that time he gave no occasion of speech of your La., and indeed I have not been very much with him these four or five days, for he had much business with others. He is nothing so merry in my judgment as he was the last week; but I assure your La. I know not any cause at all. No other thing I know worthy of your La. knowledge at this present. Therefore, with most humble desire of your La. blessings to me and mine, and our prayer for your La. continuance in all honour, most perfect health and felicity, I cease.

“Sheffield, this present Thursday, 1st August, 1577.

“Your La. most humble and obedient loving children, “GILBERT TALBOT, M. TALBOT.

“George is very well, I thank God: he drinketh every day to La. Grandmother, rideth to her often, but yet within the Court; and if he have any spice, I tell him La. Grandmother is come and will see him; which he then will either quickly hide or quickly eat, and then asks where La. Danmode is.”

Here it is very distinctly set forth, the growing distrust, the little suspicions nursed by husband and wife: “He was not so inquisitive of me touching your Ladyship.” “He asked me divers times when I thought your Ladyship would be here.” “You assuredly thought that my Lord was better pleased with your absence than presence.” And in expressing his mother’s willingness to send away one of her grooms, since her lord was so offended with him, though she would gladly know of some offence to allege in giving the man his dismissal, he shows that my Lord still is mistrustful. “She’ll take no groom that I recommend to her” is his morose comment.

Another long letter from Gilbert the go-between gives the quarrel a more serious colour. Apparently it is the absurd old matter of household tapestries which is the immediate bone of contention. In vulgar phrase, there seems to have been a regular “row” over some embroiderers—upholsterer’s men as they would now be called—at Sheffield Lodge, who had been turned adrift instead of being carefully housed while at their work. The Earl’s steward, one Dickenson, evidently acted against express orders in his zeal to keep at a distance all persons who were not actually of the household and who might convey letters or messages to the captive. The Earl had expressed himself forcibly and the Countess could not forget his words. But she had not restrained her tongue either, and he had retorted that she scolded “like one that came from the Bank.” He does not like the groom, Owen (alluded to in the letter just quoted), and couples him with the embroiderer’s men. But the thing which most hurts him is that his wife should have left Sheffield, whither he is bound from Bolsover, the very day he arrives. He cannot forgive it, in spite of her suggestion that he should combine some business he has to transact in the Peak district with a visit to her at Chatsworth. He is, moreover, morbidly sensitive about the whole position, and thinks that his wife’s departure will make a very bad impression upon his household. Gilbert pleads her love and devotion, and draws a vivid picture of her distress. The Earl melts; he concedes her love; he reiterates all he has done for her, all he has “bestowed.” And lastly he curses her building projects which take her so constantly away from him.

“My duty most humbly remembered. I trust your La. will pardon me in writing plainly and truly, although it be both bluntly and tediously. I met my L. at Bolsover yesterday about one of the clock, who at the very first was rather desirous to hear from hence than to enquire of Killingworth. Quoth he, ‘Gilbert, what talk had my wife with you?’ ‘Marry, my L.,’ quoth I, ‘it hath pleased her to talk with me once or twice since my coming, but the matter she most spoke of is no small discomfort for me to understand.’ Then he was very desirous and bade me tell him what. I began: ‘Truly, Sir, with as grieved a mind as ever I saw woman in my life, she told me your L. was vehemently offended with her, in such sort, and with so many words and shows in your anger of evil will towards her, as thereby your L. said you could not but seem doubtful that all his wonted love and affection is clean turned to the contrary; for your L. further said, you had given him no cause at all to be offended.’ You hearing that your embroiderers were kept out of the Lodge from their beds by John Dickenson’s command said to my L. these words in the morning, ‘Now did you give command that the embroiderers should be kept out of the Lodge?’ and my L. answered ‘No.’ ‘Then,’ quoth your La., ‘they were kept from their beds there yesternight; and he that did so said John Dickenson had given that express command.’ Which my L. said was a lie. And he said it was utterly untrue. And so I would have gone on to have told the rest; how your La. willed him to enquire whether they were not in this manner kept out or no: but his proceeding into vehement choler and hard speeches he cut me off, saying it was to no purposs to hear any recital of this matter, for if he listed he said he could remember cruel speeches your La. used to him, ‘which were such as,’ quoth he, ‘I was forced to tell her, she scolded like one that came from the Bank.[53] Then, Gilbert,’ said he, ‘judge whether I had cause or not. Well,’ quoth he, ‘I will speak no more of this matter: but she hath such a sort of varlets about her as never ceaseth carrying tales’; and then uttered cruel words against Owen chiefly and the embroiderers, over long to trouble your La. with. So being alighted from his horse all this while, said, ‘Let us get up and be gone; and I shall have enough to do when I come home.’ Then quoth I, ‘I think my La. be at Chatsworth by this time.’ ‘What!’ quoth he, ‘is she gone from Sheffield?’ I answered, ‘By nine of the clock.’ Whereupon he seemed to marvel greatly, and said, ‘Is her malice such that she would not tarry one night for my coming?’ I answered that your La. told me that he was contented at your first coming you should go as yesterday: which he swore he never heard of. ‘Then,’ quoth I, ‘my La. further told me that when your L. was contented for her departure that day, he said that he had business in the Peake and would shortly come thither, and lie at Chatsworth.’ Quoth he, ‘Her going away thus giveth me small cause to come to Chatsworth,’ but answered not whether he said so or not. But I assure your La. before God, he was and is greatly offended with your going hence yesterday.

“After he had seen all his grounds about Bolsover, and was coming into the way homewards, he began with me again saying that all the house might discern your Ladyship’s stomach against him by your departure before his coming. I answered beside what I said before, that your La. said you had very great and earnest business as well at Chatsworth for your things there, as to deal with certain freeholders for Sir Thomas Stanhope, but he allowed not any reason or cause, but was exceeding angry for the same. Whereupon I spake at large which I beseech your La. to pardon my tediousness in repeating thereof, or at least the most thereof. Quoth I, ‘I pray your L. give leave to tell you plainly what I gathered by my Lady. I see she is so grieved and vexed in mind as I protest to God I never saw any woman more in my life; and after she told me how without any cause at all your L. uttered most cruel and bitter speeches against her, when she all the while never uttered any undutiful word, and had particularly imparted the whole matter, she plainly declared unto me that she thought your L. heart was withdrawn from her, and all your affection and love to hate and evil will’: saying that you took it as your cross that so contrary to your deservings he adjudged of you, applinge[54] the manifold shows which you so indefinitely have made proof; and so forgot no earnest protestations that your La. pleased to utter to me of your dear affection and love to him both in health and sickness, taking it upon your soul that you wished his griefs were on yourself to disburden and quit him of [them].

“And quoth I, ‘My L., when she told me of this her dear love towards you, and now how your L. hath requited her, she was in such perplexity as I never saw woman’: and concluded, that your La. speech was that now you know he thought himself most happy when you were absent from, and most unhappy when you were with him. And this, I assure your La., he heeded; and although I cannot say his very word was that he had injured and wronged you, yet both by his countenance and words it plainly showed the same, and [he] answered, ‘I know,’ quoth he, ‘her love hath been great to me: and mine hath been and is as great to her: for what can a man do more for his wife than I have done and daily do for her?’ And so reckoned at large, your La. may think with the most, what he hath given and bestowed. Whereunto I could not otherwise reply than thus. Quoth I, ‘My L., she were to blame if she considered not these things: but I gather plainly by her speech to me that she thinketh notwithstanding that your heart is hardened against her, as I have once or twice already told your Lordship, and that you love them that love not her, and believe those about you which hateth her.’ And at your departure I said that your La. told me that you verily thought my L. was gladder of your absence than presence. Wherein, I assure your La., he deeply protested the contrary: and said, ‘Gilbert, you know the contrary; and how often I have cursed the buildings at Chatsworth for want of her company: but [quoth he] you see she careth not for my company by going away. I would not have done so to her....’ But after this he talked not much; but I know it pinched him, and on my conscience I think so; but what effects will follow God knoweth.

“I will write again to your La. what I find by him this day; for yesternight having not talked with any but myself, I know that his heart desireth reconciliation if he wist which way to bring it to pass. Living God grant it, and make his heart turn to your comfort in all things.

“To-morrow he will send me to Derby about Sir Thomas Stanhope’s matter. I most humbly beseech your La. blessing to me and mine. George rejoiced so greatly yesternight at my L. coming home, as I could not have believed if I had not seen it. Sunday at nine of the clock. For God’s sake, Madame, pardon my very tedious and evil favoured scribbling.

“Your La. most humble and obedient loving son,

“GILBERT TALBOT.”

“The hasty letter from Sir John Constable was to advertise that there are two Scots that travel with linen cloths to sell, that gave letters of importance to this Queen: one of them is brother to Curle. My L. Huntington’s letter was refusal of land that my L. offered him to sell.”

“What effects will follow God knoweth!” Certainly 1577 was an unhappy year for the house of Shrewsbury. “This world,” as Lord Leicester says in one of his letters to the great Earl, “is wholly given to reports and bruits of all sorts.” And these conjugal bickerings, as the Earl foresaw, would beget reports which, added to the “bruits” he had to face almost daily anent his prisoner, would certainly crush him and his wife. For the present the latter rumours were reviving in such force that he could not stop to think of his private affairs. In his letter to his wife—the first letter quoted in this chapter—he had alluded to one of these “bruits,” and his apprehensions naturally made him greatly desire the companionship of his Bess.

These rumours were no laughing matter. Affairs in the Netherlands were now complicating England’s foreign policy, and the rumour of the wooing of Mary of Scotland by the gallant Don John of Austria caused all sorts of suspicions of her release. For this audacious and foolhardy soldier had projected a programme of exploits which included the subjugation of the Low Countries, the conquest of England, and, through Mary, the sovereignty over it and the restoration of the Romish faith. My Lord Treasurer promptly indited the following to Mary’s gaoler:—

“My very good Lord,

“I cannot but continue my thanks for all your liberal courtesies, praying your Lordship to assure yourself of my poor but yet assured friendship while I live. At my coming to the Court I found such alarm by news directly written from France, and from the Low Countries, of the Queen of Scots’ escape, either already made or very shortly to be attempted, as (surely knowing, as I did, your circumspection in keeping of her, and hearing all things in that country about you very quiet, and free from such dangers) I was bold to make small account of the news, although her Majesty, and the Council here, were therewith perplexed. And though time doth try these news for anything already done false, yet the noise thereof, and the doubt that her Majesty halts for secret hidden practices, to be wrought rather by corruption of some of yours whom you shall trust than by open force, moveth her Majesty to warn your Lordship, as she said she would write to your Lordship that you continue, or rather increase, your vigilancy ...; and as I think your Lordship hath carried your charge to Chatsworth, so I think that house a very meet bourn for good preservation thereof; having no town of resort where any ambushes ... may lie.”

Shrewsbury had removed Mary to Chatsworth during the late summer of 1577, and his motive in applying for leave to do so was apparently not unmixed with an earnest desire for that “reconciliation” at which Gilbert hinted. There was, besides, a very potent reason for the _rapprochement_ of husband and wife. On Gilbert and Mary Talbot great sorrow had fallen. The adored baby son George, the “lytell fellow,” died suddenly. The Earl tells it to Burghley. He writes from Sheffield briefly, incoherently. The loss hits him very hard, and he acknowledges that this child is his best beloved, the Queen’s Majesty only excepted. In fear of the effect of the blow upon his excitable wife he suggests that Burghley’s reply and condolences should be addressed to her, and so help to “rule” and control her.

“My very good Lord,—When it pleased God of His goodness yesternight a little before supper to visit suddenly my dearest jewel under God next to my Sovereign, with mortality of sickness, and that it hath pleased God of his goodness to take that sweet babe from me, he surely was a toward child. I thought it rather by myself than by common report you should understand it from me, that though it nips me near, yet the fear I have of God and the dutiful care to discharge my duty and trust my mistress puts me in, makes me now that he is gone to put away needless care and to look about me that I am put in trust withal—and, my Lord, because I doubt my wife will show more folly than need requires, I pray your Lordship write your letter to her, which I hope will greatly rule her. So wishing to your Lordship perfect health, I take my leave. Sheffield, 12th of August, 1577.

“Your Lordship’s assured friend, “G. SHREWSBURY.”[55]

To Walsingham the Earl also announces this news, adding, “Howbeit, I do not willingly obey unto His will who took him, who only lent him me, without grudging thereat; but my wife (although she acknowledge no less) is not so well able to rule her passions, and hath driven herself into such case by her continual weeping, as it likes to breed in her further inconvenience.” Wherefore he is particularly anxious to join her at Chatsworth, and begs that the Queen shall be “moved” for the requisite permission.

This visit was ended by the beginning of November, when Queen Mary was once more bundled back to Sheffield. At this time she seems to have been on the best of terms with Earl and Countess, and ready to do them every kindness in her power. For instance, she sent to France for a bed for them. But as this was not at the moment acceptable she mentions in a letter her intention to “fulfil my promise by another bed of finer stuff.” It came to her knowledge that they required half a dozen great hall candlesticks such as those “made at Crotelles,” whereupon she sent for “the largest, richest, and best made.” These were to be sent among articles ordered by her servants, “so that they may create no suspicion.”

It is sometimes hard to distinguish from her bribes the presents Mary made out of sheer generosity.