The Tudor Series - 07 - The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory

Author:Philippa Gregory
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781416549147
Published: 2009-07-13T23:00:00+00:00

1569, DECEMBER,

COVENTRY:

GEORGE

T he queen is housed in the best house in town and that is not good enough for her. Bess and I are quartered next door, goods piled up in the rooms, servants sleeping on benches. The grooms are sleeping in the stables with the horses, Hastings’ men pushed into the houses of poor people all around the town. The market has run out of food and the stink of the streets and the drains is unbearable. We will have to move on, whatever the danger, or illness will break out in these cramped quarters. Hastings has written to Cecil but the reply comes to me in our poor quarters, carried by yet another of his young nameless men. That I am now his chosen correspondent and Hastings is ignored tells me everything at once. Cecil must be in despair. Cecil has brought his queen to the brink of defeat and now he needs me to negotiate with the other queen.

Your friendship with the Queen of Scots must serve us now. I have certain information that the rebels have taken the port of Hartlepool to serve as a beachhead for a Spanish landing. The Spanish fleet will come from the Netherlands and land their army to support the army of the North. We have no force that can match them, nor can we raise one.

In this event, you are to protect the Queen of Scots at all costs and start negotiations with her to reach a settlement. Tell Bess, Devereux, and Hastings that they must keep her safe at all costs. Whatever plans we had before are now urgently changed—make sure that they understand this. Far from being our danger, she is now our only hope for a truce. She must be kept safe and if possible turned into a friend and future ally.

Find out what she will accept. We would support her return to the throne of Scotland and guarantee her as heir to the throne of England, if we have to. She would have to guarantee freedom of religion but she could practice her own faith as queen. She would have to choose any future husband on the advice of her Privy Council. She can have Norfolk if she still wants him.

You see from this that I judge our situation to be grave, extremely grave. I am anticipating our defeat by the army of the North and we have to persuade Queen Mary not to overthrow Queen Elizabeth. We are counting on you to come to an agreement with her that leaves Queen Elizabeth on her throne. When the Spanish armada sails into our port and lands their army, we are lost. We cannot muster a defense against such a force. We cannot even muster against the army of the North. Everything will depend on the agreement you can make with Queen Mary. Please use your best endeavors, Shrewsbury. We may have had our differences in the past but please put them out of your mind now.

This

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