Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (163 page)

The word is that the north is stirring, and my hopes of rescue are not
without foundation. Now, ye spirits of war, infuse them to action!

Norfolk and I have at last found a safe channel of communication. I
have sent him the pillow, which proclaims my message. He has sent me a
diamond, which I wear around my neck, hidden under my clothes, as I
promised him. I write him letters and even sign them, "Your own,
faithful unto death."

God forgive me.

FOUR

The horses halted in front of the huge studded doors of Durham
Cathedral. Westmoreland turned and shouted, "Dismount! We will not
ride into the house of God like barbarians!" Behind him three hundred
men climbed down, their saddles creaking. Northumberland clasped his
arm and said, "This is the day we have long awaited, brother!" His
eyes were shining.

Together they each took hold of one bronze door pull each as large as a
serving platter and hauled the doors open. Before them the long nave
stretched, beckoning. Morning light was streaming in through the
window over the altar. Like a mighty and silent forest, the massive
stone pillars made a tunnel to that light. They were thick sentinels,
standing guard as they had for hundreds of years.

"Reverently, my friends!" called Westmoreland. He turned his face
toward that light and marched toward it, his army behind him. He and
Northumberland walked down the aisle, over three hundred feet long.

Where the high altar had been, now was only a bare communion table.
Rising high behind it was the delicate, cream-coloured, wrought stone
altar screen, its niches empty, like blind eye sockets.

"Dry your tears, my Blessed Lady," cried Northumberland. "We will
restore your sight!" He stood at one side of the communion table, and
Westmoreland took the other. "Heave!" he ordered, and together they
tipped the table over. It fell heavily, its wide feet sticking up like
a tumbled child's. "Now!" he directed the men. "Chop it!"

With wild cries, the north-country men dashed toward it, swords raised,
and began hacking at it. The thuds of their swords and hatchets
resounded dully in the stone emptiness of the cathedral.

"And here's this abomination, the Protestant Bible, and the Book of
Common Prayer! Gather them up, my lads, wherever you find them, take
them outside, and burn them!" cried Northumberland. "Let us cleanse
this place!"

"And when you're done, we'll rededicate it, and have a mass!" said
Westmoreland. "Father Wright here will gladly officiate!" He twisted
his fingers into the shoulder of a captive priest. "But not just for
us! Let us bring in the townspeople! Yea, round them up!"

In front of a makeshift altar, Father Wright raised the host and
celebrated the first mass there in ten years, to a packed cathedral.
People fell to their knees, asking to be absolved of their sin of
tolerating heresy, and local Anglican priests joined them, praying for
forgiveness in going against their consciences. Incense rose, banned
rosary beads clicked, and the sound of sung Latin carried sweetly in
the air.

"And let us pray for our Holy Father, the Pope, and for all his Church,
and for our Sovereign Lady, Mary Stuart of Scotland, France, and
England," concluded Northumberland. "God bless her and bring her to
reign over us!"

"Amen!" cried the people.

Elizabeth grabbed Robert Dudley's shoulders the second he stepped into
her privy chamber at Windsor. Her sudden attack almost caused him to
lose his balance.

"What news? Where are they now?" she barked.

"Madam, the last news I received, they had celebrated mass in Durham
Cathedral, after turning out the Protestant fittings. They built a big
bonfire in front of the cathedral and threw the offending things into
it. Northumberland and Westmoreland whipped the townsmen into a fury
by telling them that the bishop's wife there had taken the ancient
baptismal font and used it for a sink in her kitchen, and used monks'
tombstones to pave the floor of her town house." He brushed off his
shoulders where she had injured the velvet.

"How many are they?"

"In Durham, about three hundred."

"Pish!" she said. "Three hundred!"

"But altogether, perhaps a thousand on foot, poorly armed you know,
with pitchforks and shovels and then another fifteen hundred, mounted,
armed and dangerous. There is another group in Hartlepool, you
know."

"Twenty-five hundred, then." Her voice was sharp. "And Sussex is
awaiting reinforcements. He dare not rely on local people; we are
unsure of their loyalty. Hunsdon must march north with his troops."

"I am ready to march!" he said.

"Yes, I know, Robin. But I want you here with me, in this this
prison!" She gestured round the room. "I hate being forced to retreat
here to Windsor, like a coward! Hiding behind stone walls!"

"You are no coward, but have the heart of a lion."

"Yes, Robin. I know that, and you know that, but do they know that?
Does she know that?" She looked around, her eyes narrowing. "How
close have they come to Tutbury?"

"The farthest south they managed to get was Tadcaster. They did not
cross the River Ouse. That was still seventy miles north of Tutbury.
Now they are back up at Durham, a hundred and thirty miles north. They
have retreated."

"I want her moved farther south!" she snapped. "They mustn't lay
hands on her!"

"My dearest lady, there is no chance of that! You needn't be so
concerned." He tried to catch her eyes and make her smile.

"They mean to rescue her! It was part of their plan!" Her mouth was
so tightly clamped, no smile could be coaxed out of it. "Do not
attempt to tell me what to do!"

"No, Madam. Never." He inclined his head in acquiescence.

"They issued a proclamation from Durham as they marched through the
first time, saying they meant to determine 'to whom of mere right the
true succession of the crown appertaineth." Do not belittle it! Of
course they mean to free her!"

"Their support is melting away. They did not find large numbers
joining them as they tried to march south; it seems the Catholics are
better Englishmen than they are Catholics, at least south of the Ouse.
You need have no worry on that account."

"And what about the Spanish? Walsingham has discovered that they tried
to arrange with Philip's general in the Netherlands, that brute Alva,
to bring his troops over." She gave him a nervous, triumphant look.

"Yes, and the rebels even captured Hartlepool to give him a landing
place. But he has done nothing. And will not. He is an intelligent,
crafty man who does not conjure up support and sympathy where none
exists." He tried to take her hands once more. "The Spanish are a
phantom threat."

She snorted. "With ten thousand men sitting in the Netherlands, just
on our doorstep?"

"There is water between us."

"Ah, yes. Water. The English Channel." She sighed and tried to
smile. "Perhaps you are right, Robert. I tremble over nothing. After
all, Norfolk is safe in the Tower."

Robert laughed. "Mary's plighted knight. Some showing he cowered in
his house on his estates. May all your enemies have such bold
champions!"

Elizabeth shook her head. "To think my enemies are my cousins!"

The rebels waited in vain for their ranks to swell with perturbed
Catholics. But the English Catholics were curiously inert; they stood
and watched, but did nothing. Lord Dacre, Norfolk's son-in-law, led an
attack on Elizabeth's troops under Lord Hunsdon, but was soundly
defeated. As winter closed in, the rebels fled northward, beyond the
old Roman wall and then up into Scotland to the wilds of Liddesdale.

The Lord James, eager to have an opportunity to impress Elizabeth,
hunted them down and tried to round them up. But the old Border
tradition of harbouring fugitives made it difficult to find them, and
he succeeded only in capturing the Earl of Northumberland. The Earl of
Westmoreland and Northumberland's wife, who was more warlike than the
men, escaped abroad to the Netherlands. Left behind to face
Elizabeth's wrath were the citizens of Northumbria and Yorkshire, who
had nowhere to flee.

They were executed by the hundreds in their towns and villages to the
cry of "Thus perish all the Queen's enemies!" and left hanging from
gibbets as a warning. A thousand corpses swung in the icy winds of
January, creaking in their chains, seeming to whisper, "Betrayed .. .
we were betrayed," from their fleshless mouths.

March 15, 1570. It is all over. Northumberland and Westmoreland rose
and attempted to raise the people to proclaim the old religion, but
they were cruelly put down. I had foolish hopes of being rescued, and
waited every day to see if this was my day of deliverance. But no.
There is no deliverance.