Christmas was celebrated at court with much weighty ceremony but no joy, just as Elizabeth had predicted. Everyone remembered that last year Queen Mary had swirled around the court with her stomacher unlaced and her big belly carried proudly before her. Last year we had been waiting for our prince. This year we knew that there could not be one, for the king had left the queen’s bed and her red eyes and thin body attested to the fact that she was sterile and alone. All autumn there had been rumors of plots and counterplots, it was said that the English people could not tolerate to be ruled by a Spanish king. Philip’s father was going to hand over the empire to his son and then most of Christendom would be under his command. People muttered that England was an outlying island to him, that he would rule it through the barren queen who did not cease to adore him though everyone knew he had taken a mistress and would never come home to her again.
The queen must have heard at least half of this gossip, the council kept her informed of the threats that were made against her husband, against herself, against her throne. She grew very quiet and withdrawn and determined. She held to her vision of a peaceful religious country where men and women would be safe in the church of their fathers, and she tried to believe that she could bring this about if she did not waver from her duty, however much it might cost her. The queen’s council passed a new law which said that a heretic who repented on the stake had changed his mind too late — he should still be burned to death. Also, anyone who sympathized with his fate would be burned too.