Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  How boring it was to lie still! she thought, when all the world was revelling in outdoor pleasures. François was out riding, and Catherine de Médicis was galloping along with him, exhibiting her famous shapely calves by exposing them over her saddlehorn.

  Mary smiled. Her mother-in-law was a strange woman, with her vanity about her legs—her best feature, and visible only when she rode—her fierce, smothering maternal possessiveness and her sinister reputation for poisoning. Since both she and Mary were united in their goal and devotion to François, there were no clashes between them. All was harmony, and François, after the first shock, had put on the mantle of kingship and worn it as well as he was able.

  Mary closed her eyes. The pain seemed to be abating somewhat. Now, if she could just sleep, when she awoke it would most likely be gone. She began reciting a poem by Ronsard backward, his “Epitaph to His Soul”:

  “dors je: repos mon trouble ne

  Fortune ta suis: dit j’ai passant

  Commune la par enviés tant…”

  And soon she was unable to put one word before another.

  When she awoke, a violet light filled the room, and there were whispers nearby.

  “We cannot—”

  “We dare not—not yet—”

  “We can wait no longer!”

  “But the attack … her illness…”

  “I tell you, we can wait no longer, it is negligence, possible treason, not to inform the Queen…”

  The buzzing was like the drowsy sound of bees on this summer evening of delicate twilight.

  “I will not be blamed!” It was the Cardinal’s voice.

  Mary saw his face backlit in the hazy light.

  “Uncle Cardinal,” she said, struggling to sit up. The pain had subsided, but she still felt a slight ache in her stomach. Then she saw there were several others grouped round him like a cluster of grapes, and every face was sour.

  “Why, what is this?” she said.

  “News, Your Majesty, from Scotland,” said the Cardinal.

  “Most sorrowful news,” said a familiar voice, and Mary saw her other uncle, the Duc de Guise. Then she suddenly knew.

  “No!” she said.

  “It is true,” said the Cardinal.

  “Our sister and your most beloved mother is—has died,” said the Duc.

  “No.” Mary kept repeating it, rattling the word like a charm. “No. No.”

  “She died of her dropsy,” said the Cardinal. “But she made a most godly end. She called together the warring factions and bade them all be at peace and forgive one another. And to you, she wrote—” He handed her a letter.

  Wordlessly she took it, and asked for a light that she might read it.

  The words, the handwriting … the same as her many other letters, but so chillingly, significantly different.…

  She let the letter drop. Then she picked it up again. The date on it was June 1, 1560. That was twenty-eight days ago.

  “When did this news arrive?” she asked. “How long have you known?”

  “Ten days, Your Majesty.”

  “And you kept it from me?” All those days of walking with me in the garden, smiling, while you knew? she thought. Of eating at my table, discussing poetry, and the increase in the Huguenots, and you knew, and I knew not?

  “I sought to spare you,” he said.

  “Spare me knowledge? Or spare me pain?” she asked. “For if pain can only be spared by ignorance, it avails nothing.”

  “Thought to make—thought to keep her alive, perhaps,” said the Duc suddenly. “For a person still lives if his death is unknown.”

  “Uncle, you know better than that,” she said wearily. “As a commander, you know a soldier is no less dead because his wife is unaware of his death.”

  “My dear,” said the Cardinal, “believe me—”

  But her face suddenly crumpled into a paroxysm of weeping, and she collapsed forward on the bed, burying herself in the bedclothes. The men with the Guises glided out of the room, leaving the two brothers alone with their niece. Then they, too, tactfully withdrew, leaving her to the transports of her private grief.

  She wept for hours, with the guilt added to her grief that it was the burden of holding Scotland for her that had driven her mother to her death at only forty-four. While I played and passed my days going from château to château, Mary thought, being praised by poets and floating lazily in flat-bottomed boats along the Loire, my mother was struggling in Scotland, even suspecting I would never return there.

  But I wanted to see her! And I meant to, I meant to, as soon as—

  The remembrance of their last parting, which now turned out to have been the final one, was so painful she screamed aloud.

  Outside her door, the Cardinal turned to the Duc. “I told you it would be cruelly received.”

  * * *

  Mary remained in bed, grieving, for ten days—unable to eat, talk, or sleep. She swung between abject misery, laced with black hopelessness, and numb nothingness. Her four Marys hovered just in the next room, but she did not seem to recognize them.

  Then on the eleventh day she seemed to rally, to gather strength and return to the world of others, as a drunkard will gradually find his altered sense of time correcting itself.

  She felt dirty and in need of a refreshing bath, and hungry as well. She asked Mary Livingston, whom she greeted almost penitentially, to order her a bath of asses’ milk and to request a bread porridge for her, laced with cinnamon and sugar. By late that afternoon she felt herself again, although still stunned and shaky.

  The Cardinal came to her and clapped his hands in approval and joy. “Thanks be to God! You are with us once more!”

  “Part of me is, but part of me has died along with my mother,” she said quietly. “Now tell me the rest. For with my mother’s death much has changed, outside my heart as well as inside it.”

  The Cardinal looked hesitant. He reached up and rubbed the spot where his beard had recently been—he had shaved it off in a mood of abandon—to gain time to think.

  “I am strong enough to hear it, whatever it may prove to be.” Her voice was calm and steady.

  Still he hesitated, smiling weakly.

  “In fact, I command you to tell me.”

  She was his sovereign, and he could not disobey her. “Very well, then. The news is simple: It is over. The rebels have triumphed, and even now Cecil, as the English representative, is in Edinburgh to negotiate a treaty with the French, on behalf of the rebels. A withdrawal treaty.” He saw the shock on her face. “The Auld Alliance is no more. There will be no more French in Scotland, and no Catholics. We are finished there.”

  “We?”

  “The French. You are still Queen there, but in name only. In reality your bastard brother James Stewart rules on behalf of the Protestants—and behind him, the English Queen pulls the strings and controls her new vassal Protestant kingdom.”

  Mary’s mouth formed a perfect oval of speechlessness.

  Well, she demanded to be told, he thought, with a fierce feeling of vindication.

  “A committee of Parliament ratified these changes. And Master Knox was called upon to write a confession of faith for the newly devout Scots. He hammered it out in four days.”

  XVIII

  Mary Stuart sat on a small bench in the newly fashioned garden at Chenonceau, watching the gardeners at work. The tawny autumn day seemed to bathe everything in a golden light and grace that made her heart rise in spite of herself.

  She had hardly noticed the past summer—the heavy bouquets of gillyflowers, cornflowers, and daisies, the dancing patterned butterflies, the languorous white twilights that stretched on until ten o’clock. Who could be lifted or touched by them, when all they did was adorn the rocks of existence without altering them? Her mother was dead, her kingdom taken over by heretics. Even her mother’s body was not allowed to leave Scotland and return to France for burial, but was being kept like a hostage by the Lords of the Congregation. A host
age for what? Had they no compassion, even on the dead? She shivered in the friendly warm sunshine of France.

  I will bring you home, Mother, she promised. You will rest in France.

  “Bonjour, Your Most Exalted Majesty,” said a gardener coming to join his fellows.

  She smiled at him and nodded. It was just now beginning to feel natural to her to be hailed as Queen of France. During the first year she had felt awkward in the title, as if she were merely awaiting the arrival of Queen Catherine. And when they called François “Your Majesty” and “King of France,” that was even odder. She could not banish the image of Henri II from her mind, and expected him to step forth from behind a pillar when the title was called, laughing at what a joke he had played on them all.

  But he would be shocked to ride up to Chenonceau today and find his beloved Diane gone, sent to another château, and to see what Queen Catherine had done here: laid out her own rival gardens on another side of the château. It was these the gardeners were working so hard upon. Although the Catherine gardens did not—could not—have the tall trees or the sculpted shrubs of the older garden, they boasted the latest fashion from Italy: statues and fountains and canals. In time, there would be trees as well; and Catherine, who knew so well how to wait, whose motto was Odiate et aspetate—“hate and wait”—did not mind.

  In the meantime, there were these elegant parterres to enjoy, the elaborate flat geometrical designs combining coloured pebbles and flowers; the reflection of the sky and clouds in the still waters of the canals; and all of it seen against the tranquil whiteness of the gracious château lying athwart the River Cher. Catherine did not need to share it with anyone, save King François. She had given a fête to welcome him and his bride here, with fireworks lacing the sky and reflecting in the Cher.

  Mary saw her mother-in-law approaching, her blocky body making its way purposefully along one of the canal paths. She rose to meet her, and they walked together, their shadows falling before them in the midafternoon as they turned their backs to the sun. Mary’s was long and thin and Catherine’s short and square; her head barely came up to Mary’s shoulder. Mary bent slightly, the better to hear her mother-in-law’s low monotone as they strolled. All along the path the royal gardeners nodded and stopped their work as the two queens passed. In the geometrical beds, flowers of enamel hues made carefully laid-out patterns: indigo irises, white alyssum, crimson carnations, deep yellow marigolds.

  Catherine made innocuous comments about the flower beds and the heraldry before murmuring, “So you and His Majesty”—she liked using the title—“will refuse to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh?”

  “We shall not refuse, but merely not sign,” Mary said. Her uncles had advised her, but there had been no need of that. She could not, would not, put her signature to a document abjuring her right to the throne of England. It was impossible. How could a signature render null what was true? She was descended from Henry VII, and her legitimacy was unimpugned. She was prepared to recognize Elizabeth as de facto queen, but her uncles had pointed out that the treaty did not differentiate between de facto and de jure. And the provision “now and in all times to come” meant that she could not succeed, even if Elizabeth died childless.

  The Treaty of Edinburgh had been a sickening defeat in Scotland, and she had literally been made sick over it. John Knox and his rebels had hounded her mother to death, until she had died of a broken heart and left them in complete control. The Treaty of Edinburgh, rejecting France and Catholicism, was the result. No, she would not ratify it!

  They were approaching the fontaine de roche, a masterpiece of Palissy’s, the great garden designer. Catherine smiled as she came within earshot of its gurgling waters.

  “The English will press you,” she said.

  “Let them!” replied Mary, with a toss of her head. “They do not own Scotland, however much they like to think they do.”

  “They supported the rebels,” Catherine said quietly. “They owned them.”

  “They may think they own them. But rebels are by definition traitors. And if they will not keep faith where it is due—to their own regent—they are not like to keep it where it is not due. To them, Elizabeth is just a money-bag, to be used as it suits them.”

  “Perhaps soon they will recognize her as Queen of Scotland. I know there has been a secret proposal to marry the Earl of Arran—the young heir of the House of Hamilton—to Elizabeth. The Lords of the Congregation have sent an offer in his name. What could suit them better? A Protestant pair of sovereigns, to rule over their freshly whitewashed country.” Her voice, always low, now sounded almost guttural.

  Mary had heard this also; her uncles had reported it. “Elizabeth will not marry him,” she heard herself saying. Somehow she knew that. “And then they will turn back to us, to me and François. But until then…” Until then, there would be chaos in Scotland—the chaos that came from having no captain at the helm.

  “I just pray they are not ready to proclaim a—what have they called it in Geneva?—a ‘city of God,’” said Catherine. “Perhaps you and the King must needs journey to Scotland to secure their loyalty.” I can manage things here well enough, she thought.

  “You know François cannot travel,” said his wife reproachfully.

  “The journey might strengthen him.”

  “It killed his aunt Madeleine. No, I shall never permit him to endanger his life!”

  The sound of the hydraulic fountain engineered by Palissy forced them to raise their voices. A great artificial mountain reared up in the middle of the crossing of two water canals, and from its sides gushed streams of water, which tumbled, foaming, into a collecting basin at its foot.

  Catherine never tired of admiring it, and Mary loved the faience reptiles crawling about the basin—shiny green frogs, glistening crocodiles, and striped vipers coiled on dry rocks, waiting to strike.

  The sound of the rushing water drowned out François’s voice as he called to them. Only the movement of his waving arms finally caught their eyes. He ran in awkward, loping steps down the manicured gravel path, the buckles on his shoes catching the sun. He was an etiolated version of himself a year ago on his accession, for he had shot up like a plant searching for the sun; and like such a plant, he was pale and spindly.

  “Maman!” he cried. “Marie!” They stopped and waited for him.

  “The Huguenots,” he gasped. “I have here a report that—that—”

  Catherine snatched away the paper. “They are making trouble again. There’s only one way to deal with them—stamp them out, like the venomous serpents they are! Pretend to kindness, to conciliation, then destroy them!”

  François stood looking forlornly from his mother to his wife. “But if I gave my royal word, how could I betray it?”

  “Yes,” said Mary. “That would be unspeakable.” She looked boldly back at Catherine. “Just what are you suggesting?”

  The older woman shrugged. “Nothing in particular,” she finally said. “But you must not be so dainty and honourable, if you hope to reign well.”

  But I always believed that a good heart is the best quality for a ruler, Mary thought. Mercy, and honesty—the core that cannot betray or shrink from the truth. To be to all your subjects as you are to yourself.

  She reached down and fingered her long rope of black pearls—a wedding gift from Catherine. She saw Catherine looking at her critically. Catherine was slowly becoming more and more bold; she, too, was emerging from the shadow of the late King. And it was no secret that she and the Guises were diametrically opposed to one another in policy.

  They all wish to rule France, thought Mary with a cold, nasty jolt of realization. They think François and I are still children, obedient little children, who will follow directions—their directions. Just as the Lords of the Congregation in Scotland think they can issue orders to the child sovereigns.…

  “There has been too much deceit and blind following of Machiavelli’s advice,” Mary finally said. “I will not go in t
hat way; and by and by, the people will come to trust me and know that the word of a prince is to be honoured, on both sides.”

  “Dreamer!” said Catherine.

  Mary saw the look of distaste on her face, and suddenly she longed to be away, where the eyes of her mother-in-law and her uncles were not continually fastened on her, studying her, judging her.… She longed to be away already on the autumn hunting trip with François, François who was entirely her friend and never, never judged, nor wanted her to be anything other than she was.

  XIX

  In the late autumn the French court had moved to Orleans, where the surrounding Forêt des Loges, of oak, hornbeam, and pinewoods, broken up by heather moors, gave good game and bird hunting. François adored hunting: he had inherited this love directly from his namesake, François I. As with his grandfather, at times the desire for hunting bordered on obsession for him. He would rather hunt than study, than eat, than take any other sort of exercise; more ominously, would rather hunt than attend to business, even though there was pressing business in the kingdom.

  Or perhaps because there was. The disciples of Calvin had indeed become strong in France; the Huguenots, in their tightly disciplined “cells,” provided almost an alternative government to the royal one moving restlessly from château to château in search of game. The Guises—the Duc, who had been appointed Minister of War, and the Cardinal, who was Minister of Finances—encouraged the King to hunt and leave the governing of the realm to them. They knew how to deal with the Huguenots: exterminate them. Blow them up. Massacre them.

  The King did not agree, and although Mary became upset and tried to interfere with the plans of her elders, they merely had to wait for François to have yet another attack of his many recurrent illnesses, and she would be diverted into what was becoming her main role: nursemaid to her husband. With the King either on horseback or in sickbed, the Guises did as they pleased.

  Now François had tired of the hunting near Orleans and decided he wanted to remove to the dense forest near Chambord. The weather was cold for November, but although François was clearly unwell—red blotches had broken out all over his cheeks, and the rest of his skin was lead-powder white—he was feverishly eager to keep hunting. Just so had François I been, as he had pursued the game with glittering eyes and dying body in the last stages of syphilis.