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The new year found the household re-established there. While Mary, in poor health, acted as though she had no inkling of conspiracy, while the Duke of Norfolk and the Bishop of Ross, her adviser, were in the Tower, miniature plots again disturbed the tenor of existence, and for once the Earl was permitted to choose his own road, and to remove his captive with bag and baggage to Chatsworth.

This was a pleasanter place than Tutbury for the inditing of love letters, as Mary found. But her Duke was a broken reed. He wanted to leave the Tower, and to Elizabeth he vowed he would not marry her rival. The summer passed on and the conditions of imprisonment at Chatsworth fluctuated from “straitness” to indulgence according to the suspicions of Elizabeth and the reports of those who were jealous spies of the Earl’s slightest actions. Things assumed a more hopeful aspect in spite of the discovery of another minor plot to free Mary by letting her down from one of the windows of the Countess’s spacious and elegant house—still unfinished. Elizabeth about this time actually contemplated Mary’s freedom and her re-establishment as a sovereign; whereupon a treaty to this end was carefully discussed!