It is impossible to get reliable news; the countryside is alive with gossip and terror, the villages empty of men who have run off to join the army of the North. The women left behind, their stupid faces bright with hope, swear that the good days will come again. These imaginary good days will be the end of me and the destruction of my fortune. If this other queen, Mary Stuart, conquers and becomes the only queen, then she will not look kindly on me. And the first thing she will do is restore the old church. They will want their buildings back; they will want their wealth restored. They will want their gold candlesticks returned from my table, their Venetian glassware, their forks, their gold ewer and ladle. They will want my lands, my mines, my quarries, and my sheep runs. When the Scots queen is on the throne she will remember me well enough as the woman who pretended friendship but spat out jealousy one fatal night. My promises to be her savior will make little impression when the whole of England is her best friend. If this Northern army conquers England and puts their queen on the throne, I will lose my houses and my fortune, my place in the world and everything I have ever striven for.

My husband cannot help me; he will fall too. My friends will not protect me; we are all Protestants, we are all newly arrived at wealth, we are all building on abbey lands, dining off church silver; we will all be forced to return our goods and thrown down together. My poor children will be paupers and inherit nothing but debts. The old church and their new queen will take everything from me and I will be poorer than my mother, and I swore never to be brought so low.

I drive along the wagons with the goods and the provisions as fast as I can, feeling more like a poor peasant fleeing before an army than a countess moving from one beautiful castle to another.