It takes us nearly a week to get there. One of the horses goes lame and we cannot hire another; some of the roads are impassable with snowdrifts and we have to go round on the high ground, where the winter winds cut like a knife. The snow flurries drive into my face and I am so miserable and so sick of my failure to be faithful and failure to be unfaithful that I would rather be on the long cold journey forever than arrive at Windsor in the early winter dark to a chilly welcome and poor rooms.

The court is in somber mood, the cannon still primed and pointing towards London. They are still recovering from their fear that the army of the North would come against them, they are ashamed of their panic. I have to kick my heels for three days while Cecil decides if the queen has time to be bothered by me. I wait in the royal presence chamber, ever alert for a summons, dawdling around with the other men she cannot be troubled to greet. For the first time I am not admitted as soon as my name is mentioned. My stock is low with my fellows too, even with those that I thought were my friends. I eat in the great hall, not in the privy chamber, and I ride out alone; no one asks for my company. Nobody even stops to chat with me; no one greets me with pleasure. I feel as if I carry with me a shadow, a stink. I smell of treason. Everyone is afraid and nobody wants to be seen with someone who is shady, who smells of suspicion.

Cecil greets me with his usual equanimity, as if he never in all his life suspected me of plotting against him, as if he never begged me to befriend the Scots queen and save us all, as if he is not now engineering my downfall. He tells me that the queen is much absorbed with the damage of the uprising, and she will see me as soon as she can do so. He tells me that Norfolk, the Scots queen’s ambassador Bishop Lesley of Ross, and the Spanish ambassador were hand in glove in planning and financing the uprising and that their guilt must be a guarantee of the complicity of the Scots queen.

I say, stiffly, that I think it most unlikely that Norfolk, Queen Elizabeth’s own cousin and a man who has benefited from her rise to power, would do anything to bring his kinswoman down. He may have hoped to release his betrothed, but that is a long step from rebelling against his queen and cousin. Cecil asks me do I have any evidence? He would be most glad to see any letters or documents that I have so far failed to divulge. I can’t even bring myself to answer him.