B009RYSCAU EBOK (25 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY

Ninth of October, 1557—London

M
Y LADY, THE
S
TAR
C
HAMBER HAS SENT BACK
S
IR
W
ILLIAM’S
books.” William’s secretary John Bestenay looked apologetic as he put his head in at the door of her withdrawing chamber.

“Have you told Sir William?”

“No, my lady. He is asleep.”

Bess went to their bedchamber but at the sight of William changed her mind about waking him. His breath was labored and he was gray with exhaustion. She would look at the correspondence herself and determine how to proceed.

Bestenay hovered nearby as Bess untied the ledgers from their bundle. In the weeks since Bess had arrived in London, William had labored to make the privy chamber accounts for the last decade tidy and clear, setting forth a list of the many allowances he was due and expenditures that had not been clearly recorded. Meanwhile, she had seen to the organizing of the household, laying in stocks of food and drink, candles and soap, all the things that were needed to make the rented house a comfortable haven. But despite her care, William was desperately ill. So much so that he had written to the Star Chamber that he would not be able to attend the hearing scheduled for the next day in person and begging them to take into consideration that he had been deceived by Thomas Knot, who had apparently taken more than a hundred pounds from William’s own purse as well as money from the privy chamber accounts.

A letter lay atop the stack of William’s ledgers, and Bess opened it with trembling fingers. Her eyes raced over the greeting and preamble, looking for the meat of the matter. Surely, she told herself, the Star Chamber would acknowledge that William was in the right and that his explanations were all that had been needed.

But at the bottom of the paper was set forth a number that made her heart stop: £5237, 5s, ¾d. And the instruction,
If it please you, acknowledge that this sum remains to be paid, entering it in the latest of the ledgers with your signature.
She let the paper drop from her hands.

“Oh, no,” she moaned. “Five thousand pounds and more.” She and William had an income of about five hundred pounds a year. To repay five thousand pounds would surely mean the loss of Chatsworth, of all they had worked so hard to possess.

“We can still fight it,” Bestenay said, reading over the letter. “They write,
‘If by reason of your sickness you cannot attend in person to answer the further particulars of the said account, you may send one or two of your clerks, or such other as you think good, by your letter of attorney, to do all such things for you as the case shall require.’
I will go tomorrow. But we must needs put our heads together and prepare an accounting of all the sums Sir William has expended on behalf of the crown for which he has not been recompensed.”

“He lost armor and equipment worth more than two hundred pounds that was sent on ahead of him to Boulogne and was never returned when King Henry stayed him from going.”

“Good. And surely there is more.”

Bess looked at Bestenay in gratitude. He had served William well and faithfully for twenty years, and now he stood with them when they needed him most. “I thank you,” she said. “What would we do without you?”

When William woke, Bess showed him the letter, glad to be able to soften it with the battle plan that Bestenay had suggested. The three of them worked into the night, and at length had drafted a letter setting forth expenditures of more than four thousand, five hundred pounds: Fifteen hundred pounds that William had personally paid to servants of King Henry, King Edward, and Queen Mary. More than a thousand pounds of unpaid wages and expenses during his service in Ireland. Three months of pay never received for inventorying the wardrobe of the robes. Money promised by King Henry and King Edward but never paid. And a thousand marks expended to raise men to ride to the aid of Queen Mary against John Dudley.

Bess’s stomach fluttered with anxiety at that entry. She recalled William’s words of three years earlier.
If any have reason to ask, I shall say that I was riding to the aid of Queen Mary. And none can prove that was not my aim.

But William’s mind was on their present difficulties, and he forged ahead with the letter. He would satisfy whatever amount the Star Chamber would decide he owed, he wrote, by selling properties and goods.

“But they shall know what case I am in,” he said, looking more determined than Bess had seen him in weeks. He took up the pen and she read over his shoulder as he wrote on a new sheet of paper:

I, Her Majesty’s right obedient servant, ready every hour to take my leave of this world, do in the name of my poor wife and my miserable and innocent children, appeal by your honorable lordships unto Her Majesty, heart in mouth, for her most gracious protection and deference, if my whole house and family are to be saved from submersion. Your right humble, meek, and poor sick man, William Cavendish.

The next day Bestenay returned from the hearing before the Star Chamber hopeful, but with no definite news.

“They will take under advisement all that we have submitted and render a judgment soon.”

“Then there is hope,” William said. He was overcome by a fit of coughing that shook his body, and Bess pulled the bedclothes higher and tucked them tight against his chest.

“While there is life, there is hope,” she told him firmly. “Sure your years of service to the crown will not be forgotten.”

* * *

T
HREE DAYS LATER
W
ILLIAM TOOK A TURN FOR THE WORSE AND
Bess almost forgot about the Star Chamber in the face of her overwhelming anxiety. She summoned Dr. Bartlett, who had attended her after Willie’s birth. He bled William and sent his assistant back with several medicinal compounds, but nothing seemed to help. William writhed in pain and could not keep food down, and first was cold and pallid and then consumed by fever.

On the evening of the twenty-fifth of October, Bess knelt by William’s bedside, holding his hand and praying that he would recover. He was unconscious, his face contorted with agitation as he muttered incoherently, as if he were having a nightmare. Terrified, Bess put her hand to his forehead and stroked his face, and was relieved that he became calmer. She could almost believe that he was only sleeping instead of hovering on the edge of death.

Dear God in Thy infinite mercy, give me the patience to submit to what Thou wouldst have be. But I know not how I will live without this man at my side. Help him, Heavenly Father. Restore his health and spirit, I beg Thee.

William stirred and his eyelids fluttered open.

“My own one,” Bess whispered.

“Bess.” His voice was weak. “I am so tired. Stay with me while I sleep again.”

“Gladly, my love.” She kissed his hand, and he sighed and closed his eyes. She watched the moon rise outside the window, a golden crescent hanging in the black autumn sky. His breathing was ragged and Bess recalled that poor Robbie had sounded even so just before the end. Fear rose within her, and she tried to tamp it down.

Memories of her life with William flooded her mind. Their first conversation, when he had offered to help her fight for her widow’s dower. His counsel as they had prepared for court. The pride and affection in his eyes when she had triumphed. His tenderness when she had given herself to him on their wedding night. His tears of joy when first he held baby Frankie. How they had first stood together at Chatsworth, looking over the land, imagining the house that they would build, a fitting inheritance for Henry, their son and heir. His unceasing work and planning and care on her behalf and that of their children. Step by step, connection by connection, laying the stones of their future just as the laborers had built Chatsworth.

How could she carry on without him?

William’s breathing slowed and then stopped. Bess’s heart lurched. She rose to her feet and peered at his face. He took another laborious breath but his eyes were closed and she sensed that he was drifting beyond her reach now. She took his hand in hers and pressed it to her cheek as she bent her head in prayer.

Dear Lord, if Thou must take him from me, let him suffer no more but go to Thy bosom in peace.

He exhaled, and she raised her head to look at the beloved face, still of this world, but barely. She kissed his hand, wet with her tears. Another breath, and then he lay motionless. She counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Five . . . Another breath came, but shallower than the last. Once more she counted, longer this time. Another breath, almost no more than a catch in his throat, and then a sigh. And then his chest was still and he breathed no more.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Tenth of April, 1558, Easter Sunday—Chatsworth, Derbyshire

T
HE
E
ASTER SERVICE WAS OVER BUT
B
ESS HAD WANTED TO
remain in the church by herself and had asked her mother, Jenny, and Aunt Marcella to take the children home so that she could think and pray. Now, on her knees on the prie-dieu, with the chill rising from the stone floor of the church, she realized that she was utterly exhausted in body and spirit. She wondered if she would be able to find the energy to rise to her feet. Perhaps she would just stay there until someone came to find her or she died where she knelt.

The nearly six months since William’s death had been the most difficult time of her life. He had not yet been laid in the earth of the churchyard at St. Botolph-without-Aldersgate, near his first wife and dead babies, when she had learned that all his labors to straighten out the privy chamber accounts and his appeals to the queen and Star Chamber had been in vain. On his behalf, she now owed the crown more than five thousand pounds. The only way that she could pay it would be to sell Chatsworth, but that would mean the loss of her children’s inheritance, the loss of all that she and William had worked so hard to build. She had tried to think what he would advise her to do.

“Wait. And see what may change.” Those were the words she could hear him speaking, and so she waited.

When she was still reeling from the news of the enormous debt, baby Lucres had fallen ill, and after a week that had seemed like an eternity, she had followed her father to the grave. The illness sweeping London had also claimed Bess’s old friend Doll Fitzherbert and her husband Sir John Port. And soon after, William’s daughter Polly had died. The loss of husband, children, and friends compounded into more than the sum of the individual griefs, Bess had felt. She had lain in her bed and wept wretchedly for days, longing to be home in the comfort of Chatsworth, but unable to face the prospect of the weeklong journey and all its hardships.

And then had come the next blow. Parliament was at work on legislation that would allow it to confiscate property to satisfy a debt to the state. Her case would fall squarely within the law and she stood to lose Chatsworth, after all the care that William had taken to ensure that she would be secure after his death. The only comfort was that their son Harry would not fall under the jurisdiction of the Court of Wards, as her brother Jem and poor Robbie Barlow’s brother had.

Bess raised her eyes to the image of the Virgin Mary depicted in the stained glass window above the altar, her white hand raised in benediction, the vivid blue of her gown flowing like water about her. Somehow it had survived the destruction wrought on so many churches throughout the land, and she felt less lonely gazing upon the sad but serene face of Mary, another wife and mother who had survived wrenching losses. Sunlight shone through the glass, falling in brightly colored shards on the gray flagstones.

Mother, help me,
she prayed.
And Christ our Lord,
I thank Thee for the care of so many friends in my time of trouble, and I am grateful that the rest of my children and family are in health.

Huddled in the London house, and driven by desperation, she had written to every friend, every colleague of William’s she thought could aid her—Frances Grey, William Cecil, John Thynne. She would not let the crown reduce her and her children to poverty. Her friends had rallied to her side, and the bill had not passed. Part of the reason for that, she felt sure, was that it would harm so many others in a like case to hers.
There be few in the house that they or their friends should not smart if the Act should pass,
she had written to John Thynne.

Bess raised her eyes once more to the grave countenance of the Virgin. A draft gusted through the church and she pulled her fur-lined robe tighter about her. Her feet were numb with the cold even under her heavy skirts, and she wiggled her toes in an effort to regain some feeling. It was time she went back to the house. Easter Sunday or no, she wanted to look over her accounts and see if she could find some sources of money she was overlooking, some unnecessary costs she could eliminate.

She bent her head once more and closed her eyes.

You raised Your beloved son, O Lord, from the tomb. I humbly beg You to take pity on me and my poor children and raise me from this pit of black despair that I may live to honor You and show You my duty through all the days of my life.