Mary Queen of Scots

by Antonia Fraser

  Je te salue, heureuse et profitable mort …

  … puisqu’il faut mourir

  Donne-moi que soudain je te puisse encourir

  Ou pour l’honneur de Dieu, ou pour servir mon Prince …*

  In fact it was far from clear for whose honour, or in whose service, Châtelard was dying. Just before he died, his last words echoed out, ‘Adieu, the most beautiful and the most cruel princess of the world’ – words which are given slightly differently by Knox: ‘In the end, he concluded looking unto the heavens, with these words “O cruel Dame”.’ The sense, however, is in both cases the same, despite Knox’s efforts to give the common French word dame a more sinister import: ‘That is,’ he wrote, ‘Cruel mistress. What that complaint imported, lovers may divine.’19 Châtelard’s general behaviour and these rhetorical last words all lead one to suppose that the young poet was a victim of one of those unbalanced passions for a royal personage, to which princesses have been subject all through history, royalty being notoriously a great aphrodisiac to an unstable mind. Châtelard had mistaken Mary’s gracious reception for something more humanly passionate, and died for his error. The queen’s outraged withdrawal from his advances makes it quite clear that she never reciprocated them in her own mind – as indeed does the method by which Châtelard chose to approach her, since if they had been lovers already or intending to become so, she would presumably have arranged a more convenient rendezvous and one which was less likely to be interrupted.

  But it is possible that there was a more sinister explanation for Châtelard’s advances. Publicity seems to have been one of the main features of his attempt on the queen’s virtue: if Châtelard’s wits were not actually wandering, he must have realized that he was all too likely to be discovered in her bedchamber by her attendants. The ugly speculation arises whether this was not in fact Châtelard’s intention, and whether his ultimate aim was to blacken Mary’s reputation rather than win her love. According to Maitland, Châtelard had confessed to Mary that he had been dispatched by persons in a high position in France expressly to compromise her honour, and the duchess of Guise hinted at the same thing to the Venetian ambassador. Mary mentioned the name of Coligny’s first wife, and told Maitland there were other names involved she could not trust to paper. The nuncio at the French court heard that the incident had been arranged to give Mary a bad name.20 In the circumstances, it is significant that Châtelard himself turned out to be a Huguenot. Even his casual remark in London about his lady love may have been intended to draw attention to his relationship with the queen. Whether Châtelard was an emissary of the French Huguenots or a lovesick fool, the one certain piece of evidence which emerges from the whole affair is that Mary’s reaction to the escapade was markedly severe. Death was after all a high price for Châtelard to pay for an amorous adventure. It is true that Mary may have justified his subsequent execution in her mind by the knowledge of the plot which had been woven around her, yet both Randolph and Knox confirm that her first reaction to his entry had been to demand for him to be killed by Moray. There was no hint here of the loose easygoing morals of the French court, which it has sometimes been suggested that she acquired along with her education.

  It was a sad spring for the young queen. Two or three days after Châtelard’s execution, her uncle Duke Francis of Guise was shot down by a Huguenot assassin, Poltrot, who knew him by the white plume in his hat, and attacked him from behind – thus fulfilling the prophecy of Luc Gauric that he would die from a wound in his back, which the duke had once angrily repudiated as being a slur on his courage. On 15th March came the news that he had died. Mary was overcome with grief and her ladies shed tears ‘like showers of rain’.21 Only a few weeks later another uncle, the Grand Prior Francis, also died. Mary, upset by these repeated sorrows in the only family she had really known, melancholy after the Châtelard episode, so distasteful to her nature, exhausted in health by the long Scottish winter and bouts of illness, burst out to Randolph that she was really almost destitute of friends; she outlined her many adventures and vicissitudes since her husband’s death, and confessed that the burden suddenly seemed too much for her to bear. In an access of feminine weakness, she read Queen Elizabeth’s letter of sympathy with tears in her eyes, and exclaimed to Randolph that neither of them could afford to turn down a possible support – how much better everything would be if the two queens were indeed friends! ‘For I see now that the world is not that that we do make of it, nor yet are they most happy that continue longest in it.’22 These were gloomy sentiments for a young girl just turned twenty-one. Mary Stuart had now been a widow for over two years. Since the Châtelard incident Mary Fleming had been taken to sleep in her room for company and protection. But it was high time that she made a serious attempt to share the load of her responsibilities with a proper partner, especially since her naturally dependent nature inevitably turned to a masculine adviser, as a sunflower turns to the sun. Neither James Stewart, earl of Moray, in her counsels, nor Mary Fleming in her bed-chamber were adequate substitutes for the wise, strong, loyal husband whom she now more than ever needed to support her.

  * In all Queen Mary made two expeditions to the Highlands: it was on the second occasion, in the summer of 1564, that she made her way north to Ross-shire once more through Inverness. En route to Dingwall, the chief town of the earldom of Ross, Mary stopped at the priory of Beauly, founded in the thirteenth century by monks of the Valliscaulian order, and taking its name from the beauty of the place, commemorated in its Latin charter – Monasterium de Bello Loco. The name seemed apt also to the queen three hundred years later, and inspired her to a royal play upon the words: ‘Oui, c’est un beau lieu’ she is said to have exclaimed, with gracious good humour.9

  * As Lord James will be referred to in the future to distinguish him from Mary’s son James.

  * This ghoulish procedure has been traced back to the days when Parliament was a ceremonial sitting of the court of the lists for trial by battle, and the importance of the presence of the corpse was a reminder of the personal element in trial by combat.14

  * I salute you, happy and profitable Death…

  … since I must die

  Grant that I may suddenly encounter you

  Either for the honour of God, or in the service of my Prince.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A Husband for a Girl

  ‘… The case was different for an heiress to a kingdom, who by the same act took a husband to herself and gave a King to the people. Many were of the opinion that it was more equitable that the people should choose a husband for a girl, than that a girl should choose a King for a whole people.’

  Buchanan on the marriage of queens

  Mary Stuart was young, beautiful and attractive: she was also a queen, and she could offer an independent kingdom as a dowry to any husband. On the surface, it would seem that it should not have been too difficult for her to find a suitable candidate, since she had none of the psychological problems of an Elizabeth Tudor, and was sufficiently conventionally feminine to long for a male partner on whom to depend. In theory therefore she had a wide choice of possible husbands: but, in practice, so many considerations had to be taken into account, that while the field was not exactly reduced – since many candidates met one or other of the requirements – it was impossible to declare a clear winner, since none of them met them all. This was true if only because many of the requirements were actually contradictory. The only point on which everyone agreed was that the choice was an important one, not in terms of Mary Stuart’s happiness, but because whomever she married would inevitably expect to become king of Scotland – not merely a titular consort in the more modern sense. Francis had always been known as king of Scotland, and had also been granted the crown matrimonial: any future consort might expect to enjoy the former privilege and hope to enjoy the latter. Under the circumstances, Buchanan’s views on the subject of an heiress to a kingdom may be appreciated: by the same act she ‘took a husband to herself and gave a King
to the people. Many were of the opinion that it was more equitable that the people should choose a husband for a girl, than that a girl should choose a King for a whole people.’1 However, Mary had no intention of consulting her people on this subject, which she considered to be essentially a matter of royal prerogative: it was now the subject of anxious consultation between herself and Moray and Maitland, in Scotland, while her French relations the Guises held and acted on views of their own in France.

  The first problem was that of religion: was Mary to marry a Catholic like herself, as was generally assumed to be her intention, an Archduke Charles of Austria for example, or even her cousin Henry of Guise? Or would she perhaps attempt the more daring policy of binding together her subjects by wedding someone of their own religion – even the name of the prince of Condé was put forward at one point. Both courses had obvious dangers: a Catholic marriage would inevitably upset the balance she was so carefully maintaining between her private religion and the public religion of her country, by emphasizing that she was very much a Catholic at heart whatever her outward tolerance to the Protestants; a Protestant marriage on the other hand would be difficult to explain to her Catholic relations and allies on the Continent, on whom she still depended.

  Apart from the religious question there was the question of status: was she to marry an independent prince with a kingdom of his own, a king of Denmark or Sweden, or even her ex-brother-in-law the twelve-year-old King Charles of France, whose name was mentioned in this connection despite his youth and their previous relationship? Don Carlos, as sole heir to the mighty Spanish dominions of Philip II, also came into this category. Or was she to marry a subject within a kingdom: an Englishman such as her cousin, Henry, Lord Darnley, or even the duke of Norfolk, a Scot – a Hamilton, a Gordon or some other scion of a powerful clan – or a Frenchman such as the duke of Nemours? Once again there were obvious disadvantages to both courses: an independent ruler with a kingdom of his own could not fail to treat Scotland as a satellite, and could scarcely be expected to put Scottish interests above those of his own country; the raising-up of a mere subject to royal rank, on the other hand, would certainly arouse jealousy and dissension among the Scottish nobles, who scarcely allowed their actual sovereign the prerogatives of monarchy, and would certainly view the elevation of one of their own rank most unfavourably. As Archibald Douglas had noted long ago, when the queen was a baby, the ideal thing might seem to be a second son of ‘France, Denmark, or England if such a thing existed … that one of the second sons might thereby be King of Scots, and dwell among them keeping the Estate of Scotland which evermore hath been a realm of itself’.2 The trouble with this solution, quite apart from the comparative shortage of second sons among the European royal families at this date – none in England or Spain, and those in France still mere children in 1563 – was that such a candidate might easily combine the disadvantages of both the foreign prince and an inferior subject: his foreign nationality would inevitably involve Scotland in certain alliances and commitments in which her own interests might not be paramount, and his own status might not be sufficiently impressive to cow the Scots.

  Among all these imponderables, there was the matter of the views of Queen Elizabeth on the subject. So far, while Mary’s domestic policy had been towards the maintenance of peace and order, and the religious status quo, her foreign policy had been directed towards getting herself recognized as Queen Elizabeth’s successor on the throne of England. In this endeavour, in which so far no real progress had been made, Mary’s putative husband was obviously a trump card: yet once more how was this card to be played? Was Elizabeth to be asked to nominate a husband of her own choice, which Mary would meekly accept in order to show herself satisfactorily pliant to Elizabeth’s wishes, and thus worthy of the recognition which she desired? Or was the prospect of a foreign Catholic husband hostile to England to be held over Elizabeth’s head, to blackmail her into granting the recognition, lest her own problems with her English Catholics should be thus increased? Again there were drawbacks to both courses: if Elizabeth nominated the husband, but still refused to give formal recognition until after the marriage, Mary would have surrendered her advantage, with no certainty of gain; if Mary carried through her threat and married a strong Catholic, then Elizabeth might understandably announce that Mary by her actions had excluded herself forever. Still on the tack of the English royal succession, might it not be more to the point if Mary attempted to bolster up her English claim (still strongly rebutted at this date by the English Parliament, and with the shadow of Henry VIII’s will lying across it) by marrying someone else in whose veins also ran the vital blood which brought them within the English royal family tree. It could be argued that marriage to a Darnley, for example, or even one of Geoffrey Pole’s sons, would reinforce Mary’s own claim by a sort of royal osmosis. But here again, Elizabeth’s attitude to the subject would clearly be vital, for although such a marriage might impress the English Parliament, Elizabeth herself might feel that her actual throne, rather than the succession to it, was being threatened.

  In the face of so many unknown or unknowable elements, so many possible avenues of action, each one barred by some sort of obstacle, so many diplomatic negotiations, both secret and open, some merely the reported rumours of ambassadors, others the declared (but not necessarily sincere) intentions of monarchs, the marriage of Mary Stuart took on a very different appearance from the simple matching of a nubile and beautiful young girl with an excellent worldly position to offer her husband. In face of the chaos and tragedy in which these negotiations ended, it is legitimate to question whether there was indeed any happy solution to the marriage problems of Mary Queen of Scots: one may perhaps return to the ‘merry’ wish of Mary and the devout wish of Throckmorton – how much simpler if one of the queens had been a man, so that they could have married each other.* The consort was indeed the perennial problem of the female ruler in this century: it is significant that the one queen who emerged in the eyes of the people as having never made a mistaken match was Queen Elizabeth – who made no match at all, despite negotiations which lasted for three-quarters of her reign.

  The first negotiations on the subject which Maitland undertook in the spring of 1563 revealed that Mary’s personal attitude to marriage had not changed since the early days of her widowhood as queen of France: Don Carlos was still the object of her desire, and as it was Spanish prestige – backed up by troops and Spanish money – which made him so desirable, it is evident that Mary saw marriage at this point very much in terms of power politics. Just after the Châtelard incident, Maitland was sent again to London, on the ostensible excuse of offering Mary’s meditation between Queen Elizabeth and the warring French; his instructions also bade him pursue the subject of Mary’s claim to the English throne after Elizabeth, but secretly he was commissioned to reopen the negotiations for a Spanish marriage with de Quadra, Philip II’s ambassador in London, by hinting that the alternative might be a match with the young French king. The mere mention of this prospect was enough to terrify Philip sufficiently to start up discussions of the subject once more – although he did stipulate that the utmost secrecy should be preserved if the negotiations were to have any chance of success. The true attitude of Moray and Maitland towards this Spanish marriage can only be guessed at: it is impossible to be certain whether they actually approved of a Catholic bridegroom for the queen, hoping to be able to rule an independent Protestant Scotland for themselves once more, with Mary safely installed on the throne of Spain as she had once been installed on the throne of France; or whether they were merely attempting to bluff Queen Elizabeth into showing her own hand over Mary’s projected marriage. In any case the Spanish negotiations now went forward once more.

  Despite Philip’s plea for secrecy, the news of these discussions began to leak out in France: here they naturally caused the same apprehension in the breast of Catherine de Médicis as the prospect of a French marriage had caused in that of Philip of Spain. The Guisa
rds themselves with the traditional French jealousy of Spain would have infinitely preferred the prospect of the Archduke Charles, brother of the emperor, and Mary’s uncle the cardinal took it upon himself to enter negotiations for his hand, of his own accord, parallel with the Spanish negotiations. But there is no reason to suppose that Mary herself ever seriously considered the archduke – at one point the queen grew quite angry with her uncle for thus embroiling her with definite authority. Archduke Charles had one important defect, in that he was generally thought in Scotland to be too poor to maintain the state of consort, especially for a queen who was hard put to it to manage her own finances; even if his brother gave him a large allowance, as was suggested, he still would not have the army behind him, which his cousin Don Carlos could command as heir to the Spanish throne.

  Naturally the news of these negotiations also came to the ears of Queen Elizabeth herself – Maitland was after all conducting them under her nose in London, and Throckmorton took care to repeat all the gossip from France. Before Maitland returned to Scotland, Elizabeth took the opportunity to inform him that if Mary married either Don Carlos or the Archduke Charles, or indeed any other imperial candidate, she could not avoid becoming her enemy; if on the other hand Mary married to her satisfaction, Elizabeth sweetly added, she would surely be a good friend and sister to her, and in the course of time, make her her heir. This was the crux of the problem: how was Mary to marry to Elizabeth’s satisfaction, if Elizabeth did not express any definite choice? Now, from the autumn of 1563 onwards, Elizabeth began to drop broad hints as to who her personal choice might be. The only trouble was that Elizabeth’s choice of candidate was sufficiently eccentric to arouse serious doubts as to whether it was a genuine suggestion, or whether on the contrary she was merely trying to prevent Mary in the end making any marriage at all.