There is Katherine, imprisoned at Gosfield Hall, innocent of any crime, beloved by half of England, her boy being raised as a royal Seymour in hiding. There is Mary, imprisoned at Lochleven, probably a murderer, certainly an adulterer, hated by half of England and a horror to her own coreligionists, her boy held by her half brother, her husband on the run. Who is the better choice of heir? Which is the better choice for England? Of course Elizabeth in her monstrous perversity supports Mary and calls for her release.

The Scots take her money but make no progress, Cecil smoothly blocks any hopes of an English invasion of Scotland. Elizabeth’s resolve falters. Cecil suggests that she goes on progress, Robert Dudley promises her an idyllic summer—why should she not be happy? Elizabeth sets the disaster of her cousin to one side and rides out beside her lover, running away from trouble again.

CHEQUERS, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE,

SUMMER 1567

The swallows arrive in the gardens of Chequers and fly low in the evening. I can hear the nightingale singing in the wood at twilight. Summer is the hardest time to be imprisoned. I feel as if everything is free and living its life, singing at dusk, but me. I feel as if every living thing is seeking its mate and finding joy—everything, everyone—but me and my sister.

I am very low this evening. I usually try to read, or decorate my cramped room with drawings on the walls, or study my Bible or my sister Jane’s writings, but this evening I stand on a chair at the open window and rest my chin on my hands and look out over the darkening horizon to where the solitary star comes out like a pinhead of silver against a dark blue silk gown, and I know that I am far from my family and far from my friends, and I will never see the man that I love again. Never in this life.

I can feel my face is wet with my tears and I know that this is no way for me to spend the evening. I will feel no better for this in the morning, I will have learned nothing by diving to the depth of my sorrow. I am not the sort of woman who says that she always feels better for a good cry. I rather despise that sort of woman. I usually keep myself busy and occupied, and avoid moments of grief for my loss of liberty and the loss of my sisters and the terrible blight that has been laid on our family because we were born Tudor. I pat my face with my sleeve and I search in myself for Jane’s holy certainty, or even my mother’s flinty determination. I cannot be tenderhearted and vulnerable like Katherine or I will simply despair like her.