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This time it was to Chatsworth that the cavalcade travelled. The busy Countess had not yet completed her great scheme of building. Yet a part of the then “new house” was sufficiently completed for use, and though there was as yet no stately presence chamber here, nor ballroom, nor great dining-hall, as at Wingfield, the surroundings were sylvan and reassuring, and the little raised and moated garden where Mary would take the air was far more agreeable than the tangled garden patch at Tutbury. In May the change to the meadows by the Derwent must have been delicious. By June 1st the visit was ended and away went the cortège again, my Lady Bess included, back to Wingfield. The Earl, for the first time since Mary’s arrival, took a few days’ leave of absence and again went to Chatsworth. This brief absence immediately gave rise to trouble and suspicious reports. While struggling with indisposition he hurried back, and had just time to report that all was well at Wingfield when ague and fever laid him low. His wife took command of the situation. His condition was so critical that she wrote to Cecil asking that some arrangement “for this charge” should be made in case he should grow worse. Cecil took action at once, but before any change in the command at Wingfield could be made the Earl was recovering, and his wife wrote to reassure the Queen, through Cecil, and put in a word for her own loyalty:—