The French sent a military force, and by the end of July 1547 the castle was forced to surrender. Knox, captured by the enemy, joined his fellow rebel-prisoners as a convict-rower in the galleys of the French fleet.
Stunned by the French action and hold on Scotland, the English now acted. The Protector himself led an invasion of Scotland, coming up through Northumberland and passing through on the Berwick side of the coast.
He had an army of about eighteen thousand men, of which a third were cavalry. The foot soldiers were armed with muskets; heavy artillery was present, there were a thousand wagons of supply, and the might of the English fleet hovered just offshore.
Scots from all over had flocked to defend their country, and the Earl of Arran had twice as many men as the enemy—some thirty-six thousand. But they had no guns, only Highland archers; they had no artillery, only spears; and they had no horses. They marched under a white banner proclaiming Afflicte sponse ne obliviscaris—“The Holy Church Supplicating Christ.”
At Pinkie Clough, beside the town of Musselburgh, some six miles east of Edinburgh, the Earl of Arran dug in to fight. He formed a battle line of four divisions on a piece of high ground, and their glittering spears were like four great fields of ripe barley. Or, as an English eyewitness described them, their ranks and spears were as thick as the spikes of a hedgehog. The black-robed clergy, standing together, were clearly visible, their tonsured heads looking like rows of helmets.
Both sides knew full well what they were fighting for. Somerset himself stepped forward and offered to withdraw if only the Scots would agree to let Mary choose her own husband when she was old enough, and not to make a marriage for her.
The Scots answered by hurling themselves on their foes, heedlessly abandoning their strong position. The English ships fired on them, scattering their archers; the cavalry cut them down. Most of the dead were wounded in the head, because the mounted soldiers could reach no lower with their swords, lopping off heads and hacking necks. Ten thousand Scots were slain, and the dead lay so thick that from a distance they looked like herds of grazing cattle in the green meadow. The white banner with its slogan was pulled out from under a mound of dead clergymen. The mud-stained trophy was sent south to be presented to King Edward VI in token of his victory.
* * *
Now even the thick walls of Stirling Castle could not protect its inmates from the horror outside. Amongst the dead, lying somewhere in the slippery mounds of rotting bodies, was Malcolm, Lord Fleming—Mary Fleming’s father, Lady Janet Fleming’s husband.
A swift messenger brought the news to Stirling, and the high-spirited Lady Fleming slumped and leaned against the wall in the courtyard. Over her, statues of the planetary gods in their niches—Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn—looked on benevolently. French sculptors had put them up, as though order and beauty could have taken root here, thought Marie de Guise, watching her attendant and friend fighting off tears and shock. They put them up on the order of my husband, also dead before his time, dead in a mysterious way.
“Courage,” was all Marie could murmur. “Courage.”
Lady Fleming stood up, bracing herself against the wall. “I must tell my daughter, I must tell my daughter,” she kept repeating, and stumbled toward the children’s quarters.
* * *
Mary Fleming wept bitterly that night in the bedchamber she shared with her namesakes. They attempted to comfort her, but only by reciting their own losses, losses all too Scottish in nature.
“My father died after Solway Moss,” said Mary. “And my grandfather was killed at Flodden Field.”
“Both my grandfathers were killed at Flodden,” sobbed Fleming. “All my family has now been killed in battle against the English.”
“My grandfather died at Flodden as well,” said Mary Seton, in her quiet, sad way.
“And mine, too,” said Mary Livingston, whose cheerful soul hated the thought of killing and blood.
“We are all sisters in sorrow,” said Mary, who until that moment had never considered the matter. She knew of her grandfather’s and father’s deaths, but not of the subsequent desecration of their tombs and bodies. Thus far her life had been confusing but happy, and her nature was to seek sunshine rather than shadows; to flee the shadows that seemed to pursue her so restlessly. But her friends’ sorrows—ah, that was something else. Then there could be no running away from it.
* * *
In the darkest part of the night a few days later, Mary was awakened when a candle was quietly lit in her room. Jean Sinclair, her personal attendant, was moving about, fully dressed. Mary could see her gathering clothes up in her arms, lifting the candle to look in shadowy corners. For what was she searching?
Jean came over to her, sat on the bed, and shook her gently. “You must dress, Your Highness, and warmly. You are going on a secret journey.”
Mary sat up. Truly, this was a dream. She knew not to ask where, when she had been told that it was secret.
“Are we going alone?” she whispered, starting to climb out of bed. Mistress Sinclair already had her clothes warming on a stand before the fireplace.
“No. Your mother is coming, and the four Marys, and master Scott, the schoolmaster, and your guardians, Lords Erskine and Livingston. But that is all.”
“Are we running away?” Mary began to pull on her heavy wool clothes, the ones she used when she rode or played on the ice.
“Yes. We are! No one shall ever be able to find us!”
“Will we stay there forever, and never come back?”
“Perhaps.”
“And we will never see this castle again?”
“Perhaps.”
Mary dashed about, getting ready, her heart racing.
* * *
Outside in the courtyard the travelling party met by torchlight. They wore hooded cloaks and sturdy boots and carried only the smallest travelling pouches. The adults talked together in low voices that did not carry over to the children, who were huddling together. Flamina and Lusty were excited about the midnight ride, Seton resigned to her fate, and Beaton placid and calm. But Mary felt her spirits take wing as the adventure began. There was danger in it, and rather than being afraid, she felt reborn, created in it.
Down the long castle steps the party descended in darkness—they dared not risk flaring torches, not with the English reported only six miles away that afternoon. At the base of the stairs, horses awaited them, and the girls were settled behind the adults; no Shetland pony could go as fast as this party intended to race through the night.
Then they were away, galloping into the darkness, with the head groom from the castle stable as a guide on this moonless night.
The air was chilly, and the ground was covered in mist, which swirled and made eddies as they passed through it. Mary clung tightly to the back of Lord John Erskine; Mary Livingston was riding behind her own father, Alexander.
In the night Mary could hear sounds of animals in the thickets: herds of wild cattle and deer and the beating wings of startled waterfowl. Weasels and stoats scrambled in the underbrush and once—her hair prickled as she heard it—a pack of wolves howled in the darkness.
It all seemed a dream, the darkness and the jouncing and the alien smells and sounds; and so it was not less a dream when they pulled up by the side of a lake and were met by a boatman. As the sky grew milky, and mists were rising from the lake with its reeds standing like yellow sentinels, they were rowed toward a green island with white buildings, glowing in the pearly radiance of the dawn. Mary stepped off the boat onto a carpet of spongy green grass and was met by a tall cowled figure.
“Welcome, my child,” he said, bending on one knee. “Welcome to Inchmahome.”
His outer robes were black and his cowl so deep she could not clarly see his face. But the voice, soothing and gentle, seemed as much a dream as everything else that magic night and dawn. Sighing, she collapsed in the Prior’s arms, carried away by peace.
* * *
She slept thre
e-quarters of the day, and when she finally awoke it was late afternoon. Long, honey-coloured beams of light were coming through a row of windows in what seemed to be a large but very plain room. The walls were plastered but not decorated or adorned in any way; the floor was bare stone. The bed she lay on was not soft, but firm, and the sheets were coarse. They had an astringent smell, like clean air and things bleached by the sun. And the faint, lingering odour of sweet woodruff clung to them.
From somewhere she heard the distant sound of chanting. She got up—she had slept fully dressed—and walked slowly over to the open window. Outside she could see trees, very green grass, water, and, next door, a small church. The chanting was rising from there. It was faint, and sounded like the far shore of Heaven. She leaned out over the windowsill and let the soft air stir her hair, and lay, drowsing, in the beauty of the sun and the floating voices. Never had she felt such peace.
It was thus that the Prior found her when he returned to his room after the service of None. The little girl was draped over the windowsill, sleeping with a smile on her fair oval face.
The puir wee bairn, he thought. I had never thought to see my own Queen here in my monastery. She’s a faerie-creature that we have all heard of but no one has ever seen, since they keep her locked up at Stirling.
The Prior, Brother Thomas, was doing penance for “rejoicing in iniquity” as forbidden in I Corinthians 13:5: Charity seeketh not her own, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity. For Brother Thomas had been, if not actually joyful at the death of Robert Erskine, the layman who had been handed the priorship of Inchmahome as a royal present, at least rejoicing at regaining temporary control of his monastery. Pinkie Clough had claimed young Robert; his father, the little Queen’s guardian, had arrived with the royal visitors and would doubtless appoint his second son, John, to take over in Robert’s place. But in the meantime, Brother Thomas ruled again—and quite rightly so, he thought. The ruler of a priory should be a monk, not a royal appointee who did not even know the names of the Divine Services! Oh, I must do more penance, he thought wearily, as he entertained these thoughts and even welcomed them.
He gently touched the little girl’s shoulder and she opened her eyes—delicately coloured amber ones with flecks of gold.
“Good afternoon, Your Majesty,” he said.
She stretched unself-consciously. “I fell asleep hearing the most wonderful music. It was like angels.”
“It was the monks who live here,” he said. “See them walking about, across the cloister?” He pointed down at the bright green lawn surrounded on all sides by an arcade with graceful arches. Indeed, black-and-white-robed figures were moving in all directions, their paths crisscrossing. There were only three colours to be seen anywhere: black, white, and green, making an exquisite pattern of stillness against movement. Even the stones of the monastery were the same hues—black, white, grey, with touches of green moss.
“They were praying to God,” Prior Thomas explained. “We all gather in that church to do so eight times a day.”
“Eight times!” she exclaimed.
“Indeed. The first time is in the middle of the night. That is our vigil service.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you get up in the middle of the night to pray?”
“Because we feel closer to God then, when all the world is asleep and we wait for the dawn.”
Mary yawned. “You must love God very much—more than sleep, anyway!”
“Not always. But there is obedience, which is a very high form of love. It just does not feel so pretty at the time as the other kinds.”
Like mystical union, and even suffering, he thought, feeling the welts from “the discipline” under his coarse wool habit. Obedience is a dry, dull sort of love; not a lover’s love. But God seems to prefer it—not the least of His peculiarities.
“You have missed our main meal,” he said. “You must be very hungry. I can have some food sent up straightway. Bread, soup, eggs—”
“Can I not eat with the monks?”
“Yes, but—that is later, and I fear the last meal is sparse—scarcely more than a bite or two.”
“I should like to eat with the monks,” she insisted.
At her age such things are a game, a novelty, he thought. Monks, and a “fasting supper”—only after years does it become both natural and a sacrifice.
“As you wish,” he said.
* * *
That night, at the long refectory table, Mary took her place, along with her mother and the other Marys. She watched the robed figures of the monks as they silently broke their bread and spooned their soup in slow, rhythmic motions. Beside them, the outsiders’ movements seemed jerky and awkward as they brought the food to their mouths and drank from their wooden cups.
Mary found herself embarrassed by her fellow guests, and longed to eat as the monks did instead. She looked over at her mother, who was chewing a piece of bread with gusto. What was she thinking of? Mary tried to catch her eye, but the Queen Mother was completely absorbed in her own thoughts.
We are safe here on this island, thought Marie de Guise. The English will never find us in this place. But now I know Scotland cannot stand alone any longer. The Battle of Pinkie Clough has proved it. This was the end for Scotland as a true independent fighting force. The English will devour her. We must offer ourselves to France, throw ourselves on her mercy.
The thought of such abject crawling was a bitter one. But if she wished to hold Scotland for her daughter …
She looked over at Mary, seated with the other Marys. The little girl was watching the monks intently, and hardly eating anything. Her eyes followed every movement the monks made as they broke their bread and bowed their heads over their soup.
To her this is all an adventure, thought her mother. The gallop in the night, coming to an island, hiding here with monks … but it is no game for me. It is deadly serious; what I decide today will determine whether my daughter has a future as Queen of Scotland, and whether Scotland itself has a future.
But I have decided: We will sell ourselves to France. Pity the Cardinal is not here to catch me saying “we” and “ourselves”—am I become Scots at last? He would find that amusing. But if I must choose between England and France as our master, I will choose France; it is my native land; it is Catholic; it is congenial in all the ways that matter. My daughter is half French herself.… All will be well.
She picked up her wooden cup and drank deeply from it. The wine therein was French. All good things came from France, so it seemed.
France … Her face grew dreamy in remembering: the sweet autumn days in the family estate at Joinville; the mellow colour of the leaves still on the trees, with the low-hanging sun slanting through them; the spicy crackle when she stepped on the leaves which had already fallen; the fresh cider from the apple orchards; the mists in the early morning, rising in the woods during the wild boar hunts.…
The decision felt right, right all the way through. Odd how when a decision was absolutely right it presented itself so easily, and slipped through all the sluice-gates of the mind without impediment, whereas when it was not right, it was such a struggle to force it through, and then there were the nagging points where it caught, clung, and irritated, she thought.
The Queen Mother was suddenly debilitatingly tired. It is over, she thought. It is over, it is done. I have decided.
There remained only notifying France. But that would be simple.
I am ready for rest, she thought. I have earned it.
* * *
Mother and daughter were sharing the Prior’s room in the upper floor of the west range of the cloister. Brother Thomas had brought out the finest bedding for his royal guests and laid down carpets during the afternoon; the Augustine Canons, less austere than some orders, had such items on hand for honourable visitors.
In the deepest part of the night, Mary came suddenly to a full waking that was preternatural. She lay stiff
and still, holding her breath, and it seemed her mother was holding her breath, too, and that the whole room was a stone creature that had sense and feeling and was awake, but silent. Outside she could hear the trees on the island, their leaves rustling and sighing in the wind, not in a lonely way, but in a deeply comforting companionship.
Then she heard a stirring from somewhere, a soft swish: the sound of padded footsteps and the brushing of robes. It was the monks, going to their prayers.
Outside it was completely dark. She crept out of bed and went to the window. There was no moon, but the stars were bright. Against the dark, shiny surface of the lake she could see the moving leaves of the giant trees; and from within the church there glowed a faint light.
The monks were gathering for their prayers in the secret time of the night. She longed with all her heart to join them, and suddenly she knew this was why she had been called awake. Groping for her shoes, she pulled them on, and felt for her wool mantle. Taking care not to stumble, and feeling her way painfully slowly toward the door, she managed to edge past her mother’s bed without awakening her. She lifted the wooden latch of the door very carefully, and pulled the door open. It did not creak; the monks kept everything in the most perfect working order, as part of their service to God.
It was cold on the stairway leading down to the ground, and Mary pulled her cloak tightly against her chest. She descended the steps and then ran across the wet grass to the side entrance of the church. Again, there was a perfect latch on the door and she was able to let herself into the church soundlessly. She crept into the recess of a side altar and hid there in the shadows. The monks were already gathered; they must not see her!
They were seated all along the stone benches on each side of the glittering high altar, flanked by two tall candles. Their cowled heads were bowed, and the mumble of rosaries being recited surrounded them like the buzz of bees around a hive.
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Page 5