Read The Fugitive Queen for Free Online Page A

been happy as Queen of France and much less trouble to us. I’m surprised she didn’t go to France in the first place, and the probable reason why she didn’t makes my skin prickle. She really does believe that Elizabeth wasn’t born of a legal marriage and that she herself is the rightful Queen of England. She may have had fantasies about coming here to claim her own. However, since she is here, we’re not going to let her change her mind and slip off to France. We don’t want her reinstated with the help of a French Catholic army, which would then be sitting on the other side of a land border instead of a nice width of English Channel and beautifully poised”—here Cecil waxed sarcastic—“to invade on behalf of poor dear Mary, cheated out of her right to the English crown by a heretic usurper! Need I write it on the wall in letters of fire? We don’t want Mary back on the Scottish throne. Which leaves us the only other option: to keep her in England as—well, you put your finger on it, Master Stannard. As a cross between a guest and a captive. We can’t set her free within England in case she escapes to France. I wouldn’t put it past her to try. That’s why we’ve shifted her to Bolton Castle. It’s well away from the sea and I’ve ordered her to be kept close. Just in case.”
    Another silence fell.
    Then Cecil said: “Mary is said to have a beguiling nature, as well as a superb head of red-gold hair. I understand that she cut her hair when she escaped from Scotland and that when Herries first brought her to England, he tried to hide her identity, but her hair gave her away, even though it was short: that and her height.”
    â€œThey’re both striking,” I agreed. It was a long time since I had seen Mary, but I could remember well enough what she looked like.
    â€œHerries took her to a friend’s home,” Cecil said. “Curwen, that was the friend’s name. Herries put it about that she was an heiress that he had kidnapped from Scotland and brought south to be married to Curwen’s son. But there was a man in Curwen’s household who had been to Scotland and seen her. He recognized her at once. She’s obviously a memorable woman. Which isanother reason why I am determined that she mustn’t be allowed to come here to work her wiles. I doubt if she would beguile Elizabeth, but this court is full of men who are quite as susceptible to the charms of the opposite sex as your ward Penelope is, Ursula. It isn’t only the fact that she is suspected of husband-murder that convinces me she should be kept at a distance!”
    He paused and then added: “As I mentioned just now, when we were with the queen, I have even worried about Sir Francis Knollys. I would have said that he was as impervious to the likes of Mary Stuart as a man can well be. He’s no callow stripling. He’s in his fifties! But in reports he has made to us, he expresses rather too much admiration for her. He calls her a notable woman, bold and pleasant. I’d replace him except that I can’t think of anyone less susceptible or more loyal than Knollys has always been! Elizabeth took the warning to heart. God! Why couldn’t the Scots keep hold of their prisoner? But all the same . . .”
    Again he paused, with the anxious furrow between his eyes deepening to a fold. “I have to say,” he told us, “that I am myself not easy in my mind about the rightness of keeping Mary captive when it may well be that the inquiry either clears her or is inconclusive. The last is most likely. Moray has sent me some letters said to be love letters from Mary to Bothwell, but even if they are, they don’t actually order Bothwell to blow Lord Darnley up. They contain some suggestive phrases— very suggestive—but not an outright command to kill. I wish they did! I wish I knew the truth. It would clear my