However long that I live, I will never forget this autumn. Every leaf that falls has stripped away my pride. As the trees have gone bare, I have seen the bones of my life revealed in darkness, in coldness, without the concealing shimmer of foliage. I have been mistaken. I have misunderstood everything. Cecil is more than a steward, far more. He is a landlord, he is a bailiff. He is bailiff of all England and I am nothing more than a poor copyholder who mistook his long life here, his family’s home, his love of the land, for freehold. I thought I was a landowner here, but I find I own nothing. I could lose everything tomorrow. I am as a peasant—less: I am as a squatter on someone else’s land.

I thought that if we lords of England saw a better way to rule this country than Cecil’s unending readiness for war, Cecil’s unending hatred of all Elizabeth’s heirs, Cecil’s unending terror of boggarts in shadows, Cecil’s mad fear of Papists, then we could topple Cecil and advise the queen. I thought we could show her how to deal justly with the Scots queen, befriend the French, and make alliances with Spain. I thought we could teach her how to live like a queen with pride, not like a usurper haunted with terror. I thought that we could give her such confidence in her right to the throne that she would marry and make an heir. But I was wrong. As Bess obligingly tells me, I was foolishly wrong.

Cecil is determined to throw all who disagree with him into the Tower. The queen listens only to him and fears treason where there was only dissent. She will not consult any one of the lords now; she mistrusts even Dudley. She would behead shadows if she could. Who knows what profit Cecil can make of this? Norfolk is driven from his own cousin’s court, driven into rebellion; the Northern lords are massing on their lands. For me, so far, he reserves only the shame of being mistrusted and replaced.

Only shame. Only this deep shame.

I am beyond distress at the turn events have taken. Bess, who is frosty and frightened, may well be right and I have been a fool. My wife’s opinion of me is another slur that I must learn to accept in this season of coldness and dark.