Never was the contrast between the two principal ladies in Sheffield Castle so marked as at this moment. Mary mourns for Norfolk, for the ruin of her hopes, for the treaty of freedom which now can never be carried through. Bess sails about the castle aware of everything at Court and at home; the posts bring her affectionate letters from the Earl, while her children and his flourish under their respective tutors. Chatsworth is still a-building, and she signs orders for stone and wood and coal and fodder. She was a good hostess to Sadler, and when he relinquished his duties gladly enough in February, upon the Earl’s return, he was positive that Lady Shrewsbury was deserving of great commendation and “condign thanks” for the manner in which she filled her important position. She was very much of a personage, and her correspondence exhibits very few of the traits usually described as “feminine,” while her friends fully estimated her influence and her interest in the larger events. The following lengthy letter gives the complexity of the political situation, and though of course it belongs to a date previous to the execution of Norfolk, is placed here as an illustration of the stirring times in which the great lady lived and the events which had happened during the first year or two of her fourth marriage. It is unsigned, and is evidently from some connection or possibly a gentleman of the Shrewsbury household, who is keeping his ears and eyes wide open at Court:—

“My most humble duty remembered unto your honourable good lord. May it please the same to understand that I have sent you herein enclosed the articles of peace concluded and proclaimed through all France, in French, because they are not at this hour to be had in English (which are translated and in printing), and if the peace be kept, the Protestants be indifferently well. The great sitting is done at Norwich; and, as I do hear credibly, that Appleyard, Throgmorton, Redman, and another are condemned to be hung, drawn, and quartered; and Hobart and two more are condemned to perpetual imprisonment, with the loss of all their goods and lands during their lives. The four condemned for high treason, and the other for reconcilement. They were charged of these four points: the destruction of the Queen’s person; the imprisonment of my Lord Keeper, my Lord of Leicester, Secretary Cecil; the setting at liberty out of the Tower the Duke of Norfolk; and the banishment of all strangers; and it fell out in their examination that they would have imprisoned Sir Christopher Haydon and Sir William Butts, the Queen’s Lieutenants. None of them could excuse themselves of any of the four points, saving Appleyard said he meant nothing towards the Queen’s person; for that he meant to have had them to a banquet, and to have betrayed them all, and to have won credit thereby with the Queen. Throgmorton was mute, and would say nothing till he was condemned, who then said, ‘They are full merry now that will be as sorry within these few days.’ Mr. Bell was attorney for Mr. Gerrard, he being one of the Judges, and Mr. Bell alleged against Appleyard that he was consenting to the treason before; alleging one Parker’s words, that was brought prisoner with Dr. Storey out of Flanders, that Parker heard of the treason before Nallard came over to the Duke of Alva. And there stood one Bacon by that heard Parker say so: my Lord offered a book to Bacon for to swear: ‘O, my Lord,’ said Appleyard, ‘will you condemn me of his oath that is registered for a knave in the Book of Martyrs?’

“They had set out a proclamation, and had four prophecies; one was touching the wantonness of the Court, and the other touching this land to be conquered by the Scots; and two more that I cannot remember. There were many in trouble for speaking of seditious words. Thomas Cecil said that the Duke of Norfolk was not of that religion as he was accounted to be: and that his cousin Cecil was the Queen’s darling, who was the cause of the Duke of Norfolk’s imprisonment, with such like; who is put off to the next assize. Anthony Middleton said, ‘My Lord Morley is gone to set the Duke of Alva into Yarmouth, and if William Keat had not accused me, Throgmorton, and the rest we had had a hot harvest; but if the Duke of Norfolk be alive, they all dare not put them to death.’ Metcalf said that he would help the Duke of Alva into Yarmouth, and to wash his hands in the Protestants’ blood. Marsham said that my Lord of Leicester had two children by the Queen: and for that he is condemned to lose both his ears, or else pay £100 presently. Chiplain said he hoped to see the Duke of Norfolk to be King before Michaelmas next, who doth interpret that he meant, not to be King of England, but to be King of Scotland.

“Mr. Bell and Mr. Solicitor said both to this effect to the prisoners—‘What mad fellows were ye, being all rank Papists, to make the Duke of Norfolk your patron that is as good a Protestant as any is in England: and, being wicked traitors, to hope of his help to your wicked intents and purposes, that is as true and as faithful a subject as any that is in this land, saving only that the Queen is minded to imprison him for his contempt.’ Doctor Storey is at Mr. Archdeacon Watts’ house, in custody, besides Powels. Thurlby, late Bishop of Ely, died this last week at Lambeth.

“The Spanish Queen is arrived in the Low Countries, and will embark as soon as may be. The Emperor is setting forward his other daughter towards Metz to be married to the French King. It is written, by letters of the 28th of the last, from Venice, that the Turk has landed in Cyprus 100,000 men, or more, and has besieged two great cities within that kingdom, Nicocia and Famagosta. At one assault at Famagosta they lost 12,000 men; upon the which repulse the Begler Bey of Natolia, the General of the Turk’s army, wrote to the great Turk, his master, that he thought it was invincible. He answered that, if they did not win it before they came, they should be put to the sword at their return home. The Turk has sent another army by land against the Venetians, into Dalmatia, and are besieging Zara with 20,000 footmen and 20,000 horsemen, and divers towns they have taken, as Spalator, Elisa, Eleba, and Nona, with great spoil and bloodshed: and it is written that the Turk’s several armies are above 200,000 men against the Venetians. The men first sent by the Venetians fell so into diseases by the way as they were fain to prepare new men, which is thought will hardly come to do any good in Cyprus. A man may see what account is to be made of these worldly things, as to see in a small time the third state of Christendom, in security, power, and wealth, to be in danger of utter overthrow in one year.

“They say my Lord of Leicester hath many workmen at Kenilworth to make his house strong, and doth furnish it with armour, ammunition, and all necessaries for defence. And thus Jesus have my Lord, and your Ladyship, and my friends in his tuition, to God’s pleasure.—Scribbled at London, the last of August, 1570.

“Your good Ladyship’s ever to command during life.

Life fell once more into its old groove. No large conspiracy could be feared yet, in spite of Elizabeth’s postponement of Norfolk’s execution. But there remained always the undercurrent of lesser “practices.” Earl and Lady had their hands always full with detective work of this kind. Priests and conjurers, pedlars, porters, and even schoolmasters formed the roll of suspects. Scouts were always at work following their movements, hanging about taverns to hear gossip which might betray their doings, and searchers were employed to pounce upon any scrap of written stuff which might prove valuable “copy.” Some of the most emphatic witnesses against Mary—her own letters of conspiracy—were actually found hidden under a stone on a bit of waste ground. The messenger charged with them durst not carry them further at that moment and before he could remove them they were discovered. It was about this time that she was given permission to take her airing further than the leads and to walk out in the open. The snow lay on the ground and soaked her to the ankles, but she bore it cheerfully, and one wonders if she had knowledge of those hidden letters and whether she nourished a wild hope of finding them in their niche and setting them safely on their way. Secret and sinister were the warnings which Earl and Lady shared in that long cold spring at Sheffield. All travellers from across the Border were duly catalogued by the northern authorities and word passed from mouth to mouth of their appearance and activities. This was the sort of despatch which reached the castle: “A certain boy should come lately out of England with letters to the castle of Edinburgh and is to return back again within three or four days.... It were not amiss that my Lord of Shrewsbury had warning of him. His letters be secured in the buttons and seams of his coat. His coat is of black English frieze, he hath a cut on his left cheek, from his eye down, by the which he may be well known.”

All the dodges of such envoys—from the stitching of letters into linings and the hiding of a written message under the setting of a jewel to the use of bags with double bottoms where despatches could be kept “safe from wet and fretting” and sight—were known to the Shrewsburys. An evening spent in the kitchens and guardroom, an hour or so of conference with my Lady would open to reader and writer alike a world of sensational gossip “palpitating with actuality.” The captive Queen’s precarious health was a constant subject of discussion. Shrewsbury’s letters were bound to be full of it. Mary, who once more began to bombard Elizabeth with letters, suggested a trial of Buxton waters. She also busied herself anew with embroidery, contrived gifts for the Queen, and sent her a large consignment of French stuffs and silks. When packages of this kind arrived from France the Earl was always on the look-out. So careful was he in regard to his wife’s share in such parcels that he would not let her receive and pay for such goods until he had first communicated the exact details of the transaction to his royal mistress.

Neither French taffetas nor little embroidered caps could alter the decision of the Privy Council and reverse the position of the axe in regard to the Duke of Norfolk. His death took place in the glory of the early summer of 1572. Mary mourned and her health grew worse and worse. Yet, just when change was planned for her, and the castle had reached a condition almost too insanitary to endure, the news came of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. “These French tragedies and ending of unlucky marriage with blood and vile murders cannot be expressed with tongue to declare the cruelties.... These fires may be doubted that their flames may come both hither and into Scotland, for such cruelties have large scopes.... All men now cry out of your prisoner,” wrote Burghley to the Earl under supreme agitation. To which the latter replies later, “These are to advertise you that the Queen remains still within these four walls, in safe keeping.” The woods and wolds, he explains, are being scoured by his spies, and the number of the guard is increased by thirty. Clang of gate, clash of steel, roll of drum—the household music of the Shrewsburys knew nothing more harmonious than these noises. At stated intervals we hear the old burthen of sturdy self-vindication in such letters as the following to Burghley:—

“I heartily thank your good Lordship for seeking to satisfy her Majesty in some doubts she might conceive of me and my wife, upon information given to her Majesty; your Lordship therein doeth the part of a faithful friend; so I have always trusted, and you shall receive no dishonour thereby. My services and fidelity to her Majesty are such as I am persuaded with assured hope that her Majesty, having proofs enough thereof, condemneth those who so untruly surmise, against my wife first, and now myself, either of us undutiful dealing with this Queen or myself of any carelessness in regard my charge. As before I crave trial of whosoever is here noted of any indirect dealing with this Queen, so do I again require at your Lordship’s hands to be amenable to her Majesty for due proof and punishment, as they merit, that her Majesty might be fully satisfied and quiet. And for my riding abroad sometimes (not far from my charge) in respect of my health only; it has been well known to your Lordship from the first beginning of my charge, and it is true I always gave order first for safe keeping of her with a sure and stronger guard, both within my house and further off, than when myself was with her. I trusted none in my absence but those I had tried; true and faithful servants unto me, and like subjects to her Majesty. I thank God my account of this weighty charge is ready, to her Majesty’s contentation. No information nor surmise can make me shrink. Nevertheless, henceforth her Majesty’s commandment for my continual attendance upon this lady shall be obeyed, as her Majesty shall not mislike thereof; and even so, my Lord, I say to that part of your letters wherein a motion is made to me; that (as in all my services hitherto) I had, nor seek, written contentment nor will, than shall stand her Majesty’s pleasure or her best service. And so, wishing to your Lordship as well as to myself, I take my leave.

“At Sheffield this 9th of December, 1572.

“I have presumed to write to the Queen’s Majesty to the same effect as to your Lordship.”