Elizabeth our cousin bears her grief for the loss of my sister Katherine so well that the court comes out of mourning in a month, and the May Day revels are among the merriest that have ever been. She recovers so well from her anxiety for her cousin Mary Queen of Scots, still held in prison, that she exchanges letters with Mary’s captor and the guardian of her little boy, Lord Moray—the Queen of Scots’ treacherous half brother. When Elizabeth hears that he has opened the royal treasury and is selling off Mary’s famous jewels to the highest bidder, she overcomes her much-praised anxiety for her cousin and makes an offer. His shocking betrayal and theft from his own half sister and ordained queen ceases to trouble Elizabeth, who outbids everyone to win the auction for a six-string necklace of pearls beyond price. I think of Mary held in Lochleven Castle as I am held at my stepgrandmother’s house at Grimsthorpe, and think how bitter it must be to her to learn that the cousin that she thought would rescue her has struck a deal with her captor and is wearing her pearls.

But my cousin Mary wastes no time counting her losses and mourning for her miscarried babies. Later in the month of May we learn that she has broken out from captivity, broken out like a woman of desperate courage, and I think—I wish I had the bravery and the money and the friends to do the same. Mary rows herself over the lake, disguised as a page, raises an army, and challenges her false half brother to meet her on the field of battle. Elizabeth should send an army in support—she has loudly promised one—but instead she sends her best wishes, and they are of little effect. The Queen of Scots is defeated. This was her last throw, and now she is on the run and nobody knows where she is.

She must be somewhere in the wild country of Scotland. The battle was outside Glasgow, in the west, not a country that she knows, nor one where she is likely to have friends. Her husband and greatest ally, Bothwell, is missing. Her cousin Elizabeth does nothing to help her. Mary is quite alone. We hear nothing for days, and then we hear that she rode thirty miles after defeat in battle, thirty miles by night over rough ground in darkness. She has found a safe hiding place, an abbey where they love their queen and her faith. If the English were to come to her aid now, it could still be all changed about in a moment. Mary could regain her throne; Elizabeth could have a beautiful cousin as a neighboring queen once again.