That my family in France could so far forget themselves and their honor as to betray me and my cause shows me how great an enemy Catherine de Medici has always been to me. At this very moment, when they should be ensuring my safe return to Scotland, they are spending all their time and trouble trying to marry little Henri d’Anjou to the old spinster of England. They will side with her against me and my cause. They will agree with her that my needs can be forgotten. Elizabeth will leave me here in miserable Tutbury, or bundle me into some other faraway fortress; she will stick me in Kimbolton House, like poor Katherine of Aragon, and I will die of neglect. She will have a son and he will disinherit me. She will be married to a French prince and my kin, the Valois, will forget I was ever one of theirs. This marriage will be the last time anyone thinks of me and my claims. I must be free before this wedding.

Cecil has forced a bill through Parliament which says that no Roman Catholic can inherit the English throne. This is obviously directed at me, designed to disinherit me, even before the birth of the Protestant heir. It is an act of such double-dealing falsehood that it leaves me breathless. My friends write to me that he has even worse to come: plans to disinherit all Papists from their fathers’ lands. This is an open attack on all of my faith. He plans to make us all paupers on our own lands. It cannot be borne. We have to move now. Every day my enemies become more determined against me; every day Cecil becomes more vindictive to us Papists.

This is our time, it must be our time. We dare not delay. The Great Enterprise of England must be launched this month. I dare not delay. Cecil has disinherited me in law and Elizabeth will divide me from my family. I am promised a journey to Scotland and yet I am in Tutbury again. We have to launch the enterprise now. We are ready, our allies are sworn to our service, the time is set.

Besides, I long to act. Even if this was going to fail, I would relish the joy of trying. Sometimes I think that even if I knew it would fail for a certainty I would still do it. I write to Bothwell of this sense of wild desperation and he writes back:

Only a fool rides out to fail. Only a fool volunteers for a forlorn hope. You have seen me take desperate risks but never for something I thought was doomed. Don’t be a fool, Marie. Only ride out if you can win. Riding out for death or glory benefits only your enemy. Don’t be a fool, Marie, you have only once been a fool before.

B