Murder at Fontainebleau Read Online Free Page A

when King Francis died, as all French queens do, but her time in a convent now is surely not for weeping. My ambassador in France, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, says her Guise uncles are not content to lose their power at the Paris court now there is a ten-year-old king, the late king’s brother, under the control of hismother, Queen Catherine de Medici. Queen Catherine has allied with the Guise before because she had no choice, but she is no true friend of theirs.”
    â€œNor is she a true friend to her daughter-in-law Queen Mary?” Kate asked.
    Elizabeth shrugged. “Queen Catherine is a sly one indeed, a Florentine to her core, but she is no fool.” There was a note of grudging respect in the queen’s voice. Queen Catherine was a devout Catholic, one who, it was said, had made jokes at Elizabeth’s rumored betrothal to Dudley, her horse master, but Elizabeth knew a fine political mind when she heard one. “She has bowed to Queen Mary for a long time. She will no longer. Her day has come. Sir Nicholas says she immediately dismissed the idea that Mary might now wed the new king Charles and seized the regency for herself. I think Queen Catherine would like to see Mary gone from France—but not as the wife of Don Carlos of Spain, as they say the Guise are desperate to see happen.”
    â€œDon Carlos?” Rob had told her that was the gossip, but she hadn’t quite believed it, not if the sad state of Don Carlos’s health was true. “Would she really want that?”
    â€œExactly so. They say he is a cruel, hunchbacked idiot. Yet a Spanish crown could make so many unappealing qualities quite vanish to one as ambitious as my cousin. I have heard that King Philip is not enthusiastic, as he has just married Queen Catherine’s own daughter, Princess Elisabeth, and one connection toFrance is surely enough for him. But Mary will have plenty of other suitors. A queen with her own throne is always an attractive mate, as I have seen myself. And she may indeed return to Scotland and try to rule there herself.”
    What changes would a Catholic queen bring to England’s northern borders? Elizabeth and above all Cecil had worked so hard to further England’s own interests there, sending aid to the Protestant lords. “What of the Treaty of Edinburgh, Your Grace?”
    Elizabeth frowned. “She has still not ratified the terms, and Throckmorton writes that she says she will not until she can consult with her Scottish lords, since she is now sadly deprived of her husband’s counsel and she followed him in all things.” Her scoffing tone said what she thought of
that
excuse. “This displeases me greatly. She must be made to ratify the treaty before anything else can go forward.”
    Elizabeth suddenly slammed her hand down on the table, rattling the ink pots and sending books clattering to the floor. Her ladies went silent and glanced her way, wide-eyed at the fear of another Tudor temper storm.
    Kate knew to just sit and wait, for Elizabeth’s mood would change again in a moment. She thought of what little she knew of the Treaty of Edinburgh, which had been signed after Elizabeth’s forces defeated those of the Queen Regent, Queen Mary’s mother, Marie of Guise, many months before. It had been mostly Cecil’s work, a way to bring Queen Mary’s pretensions to theEnglish throne to an end, and Kate knew Sir William considered it of vital importance. France was forced to recognize Elizabeth as the rightful Queen of England; Mary and Francis’s claims were to be dropped immediately and the quartering of the arms to cease. French forces were to be removed from Scotland. A council of Protestant nobles under Lord James Stewart, Mary’s illegitimate half brother, was to rule Scotland in Mary’s absence. If Mary and Francis did not ratify the terms, England had the right to intervene in Scotland whenever it was thought necessary to