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Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ APARTMENTS AND DUNGEONS AT TUTBURY Page ssss1

It did not take Shrewsbury and his lady long to realise what they had undertaken to nourish in their bosom. The great thing was to distract her with light and little things. Of these she had sufficient at first to prevent her from much brooding in the intervals of writing her vivid and endless letters to France, to Scotland, to Burghley, and to the English Queen. Gentleman visitors being practically taboo, there remained only the Countess of Shrewsbury as a set-off from Mary’s own ladies. These were few—Mrs. Bruce and Lady Livingston, who was ailing, while of the “four Maries,” whose beauty and grace helped to weave the romantic legend of the vanished Court at Holyrood, there remained in the royal service but one, Mary Seton. Her Queen took a special interest in her, and was very dependent on her. Mary Seton surely knew her mistress through and through. Her post must at times have been one of great risk and mental torture. She was constantly in personal attendance, dealing with the Queen’s wardrobe and dressing her hair—for in this, history says, she was as clever as any skilled perruquier. Mary at first scarcely had a rag to cover her. Two bits of black velvet and some darned underclothing had been doled out to her, by Elizabeth, on her arrival in England. Much scorn and merriment they surely caused in the Scotch Queen’s closet! Clothing to wrap her, hangings—that veritable “rampart” of tapestries of which Mary spoke in the letter quoted—were necessary for her existence, and she would have her environment gracious and artistic even if the tapestries were of sacking. With the aid, no doubt, of Bess the chatelaine, some appearance of regality was contrived and maintained—so the letters of the day show—as best might be. The Shrewsburys had no objection to that. Everyone entered apparently on the surface into the little game of make-believe which “this Queen here” (as she is constantly described in letters from the houses in which she was immured) played throughout the fifteen years of her life under the Earl’s roof. For Mary was ever an arch-romanticist. This sense of romance constituted two-thirds of her attraction. Both Queens were playing waiting games, but Mary was determined to play hers effectively in spite of all conditions. And thus we have that vivid picture of her pretence court carried on under the eye of Bess Shrewsbury. The Scots Queen, seated on her dais under her canopy bearing the elusive legend “En ma fin est mon commencement,” issued her orders touching her household, received eagerly all scraps of news which filtered through to her and any visitors that were permitted. But the more interesting part was that of the Earl’s lady, who stood as the social barrier between the outer world, so full of stirring incident, and the mock court indoors. How much to tell her Scottish majesty and how little, what gossip to retail and what to suppress, was no light task for a talkative, energetic lady, who knew the ins and outs not only of the English Court but the character of its mistress. Mary was always good company. Elizabeth gave her subjects plenty to talk about. One wonders, in the light of a certain letter which Mary afterwards wrote to the Queen, how far^[15] Bess Shrewsbury allowed her tongue at this juncture to trip out of sheer vivacity and desire to please her prisoner-guest. Just now, however, it is too early to imagine intrigue in this direction. The women could safely discuss clothes and the new fashion of doing the hair. Mary Seton was acknowledged to be the best “busker of hair in any country,” “and every other day she had a new device of head-dressing, without any cost, and yet setteth forth a woman gaily well.” Mary loved her wigs, her headdresses, embroidery, her little pets, and the contriving of presents of needlework. With these Bess could sympathise. On occasion she wanted French silks, and when Mary wrote to France a list of goods which she desired, she would send for a length of silk for my Lady, and a friendly transaction took place between the two. Truly a charming relationship! And all the time Mary was not too bored, for she was writing love letters to her new suitor—the Duke of Norfolk.