“You have afforded me peculiar satisfaction by sending copies of my letters ... into France and Scotland, by which the truth of these rumours may be known, rumours which I am certain only proceed from the said countess and her son Charles; but since the witnesses by whom I can prove my case are afraid to incur the displeasure of the Queen, I am constrained to bide until I can find others to assist at a public explanation and reparation.
This letter flies like a thunderbolt across the Shrewsbury heaven. The lady’s ambition, according to her enemy, acknowledges no bounds, is no respecter of persons. Mary she not only casts aside like an old glove, but she assumes a triumphant, hostile attitude towards her. Through Lord Leicester’s heir, Arabella will ensure the favour of the English throne, while other means will be used to secure the Scottish throne itself for the child. Portraits and “divers tokens” have passed between the children. Bess is as sure of her power now as she was in the days when she boasted that she could both assist Mary to escape and herself elude retribution. Robust, rich, prosperous, swelled with her dreams, she counts herself unassailable. Her mood of excitement tempts her, however, further than her caution. Mary has spoken to Mauvissière of “rumours,” reports so serious that they have reached even to Scotland and France. She is sure that the Countess and her son Charles, once her sworn servants, are the source of these. A letter, which must be quoted in full here, written six months later to Mauvissière, makes the substance of these rumours perfectly clear.
If the correspondence already quoted come like a thunderbolt, this next letter conveys a shock even greater. There is one really extraordinary passage in the first letter which, though it concerns the Earl, does not prepare the onlooker for the scandalous matter of the second epistle. This passage is the one in which his wife has the audacity, according to Mary, to warn the latter against the Earl. What is the psychological process which forces such a statement from the shrewd, worldly-wise woman whose fortunes, socially, are entirely bound to those of her husband? What can it be but blind jealousy arising from consciousness of their opposite natures and from the hostility of sex? The intrigues with Mary, the opportunism, the blatant ambition—these are comprehensible. Was it all true? In the light of later letters from Mary all such statements must be regarded very sceptically. Division there certainly was in the great household: scolding and bitterness, a great weariness of heart, a series of sordid misunderstandings. If in a wild reckless mood the emotional, powerful spirit of Bess Shrewsbury had escaped control, and she had uttered the ghost of such a warning as that quoted, it must have sprung from nothing but the blind hatred of Mary and jealousy of her husband, the last having its source in her fierce consciousness of an utter clash of temperaments. Her opportunism, her immense ambitions are conceivable; even, to a certain degree, the longing to intrigue with Mary. They are comprehensible if one estimates the Countess’s nature as one in which the love of domination, the quick sense of advantage, and the keen perception of the melodrama of life were combined. The Earl’s nature was the very opposite. To him she must have acted latterly like a goad, while his obstinacy maddened her. His dogged patience under unwilling service, his bitter and almost stupid resignation under the meanness and suspicion of his Queen, his caution and method, his intense sensitiveness to any unjust criticism, his horror of plots, his dread of any unauthorised move, be it ever so trifling, formed a granite barrier to his wife’s independent, self-concentrated, restless spirit. Her pugnacity tussled with his resolution, and discord ensued.