Indeed it had been the sign, beautifully painted, that had caught Melville’s eye: The Jolly Tortoise. A finely rendered tortoise with black and yellow markings danced in a field of strawberries. It promised an inn with clean linens and a good table.
“So did I,” he said. “But I must then leave early tomorrow.”
He was just as happy to rest, eat, and drink before the next stage of his journey. Once he arrived in London he would find scant rest; indeed, he would have to guard every word he spoke, his mission was so double-sided.
His sovereign mistress Queen Mary had sent him publicly to pursue the Dudley offer while evaluating Elizabeth’s sincerity, and at the same time secretly to approach the Lady Lennox and ascertain exactly what sort of man Lord Darnley had grown into. The Earl of Lennox was anxious that his son follow him to Scotland to inspect his estates, but Darnley needed Elizabeth’s permission and a passport to do so.
Ordinarily, Melville would have looked forward to a lengthy visit at the English court—a visit long enough to permit him to have another pair of boots made at his favorite cobbler’s, to pass civilized evenings of conversation and entertainment with Cecil and the Duke of Norfolk, to meet with the Imperial and French ambassadors. He had been honoured to be selected and elevated to the rank of trusted envoy. (Or was it merely that Maitland was ill? he wondered.) But being charged with a mission that involved deceiving Elizabeth was not a palatable thing. She, the great deceiver, did not take kindly to others playing her own game; worse yet, she could quickly spot it in others.
“I cannot eat but little meat
My stomach is not good.…”
The company began singing, and the loud voices and flushed faces generated a happy heat of their own. Melville enjoyed it, and his own anonymity.
* * *
Queen Elizabeth looked at him sharply as he approached her in the garden at Westminster, where she was taking her customary early-morning walk.
“Mr. Melville,” she said, “are you come to me about the succession or about my Lord Robert Dudley?” No hint of surprise to see him, no opening pleasantries.
“Both, Your Majesty,” he replied directly.
She laughed. “Welcome, then.” She gestured round at her garden behind its walls. The dampness of the river nearby made everything green. She touched a branch of a thick, gnarled pear tree and then plucked off a fruit for him.
“This is a butter pear tree. My father told me his fruiterer had brought it over from Germany. Certainly it is very old. The pears from it are as sweet as honey.”
Melville nodded gravely. What was he supposed to do with the pear? It was a soft, juicy one and would make a mess in his hand if he tried to eat it now out of politeness. In fact it was so soft it was beginning to ooze on his hand.
Elizabeth laughed. “Henry VII used to feed overripe fruit to his pet monkey. You may throw yours down for the birds and squirrels.”
Melville felt foolish as he wiped off his hands with his stiff lace hand-kerchief. “I bring heartfelt greetings from the Queen my mistress, your good sister and cousin,” he said.
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “And what answer does she make of the proposition of marriage offered by Mr. Randolph? That is, to Lord Robert Dudley?”
She would give him no grace period, then, but would go straight for it. Melville replied, “She awaits a conference between her ministers and yours, great Queen; I mean most like between the Lord James and Maitland on her side and my Lord of Bedford and Lord Dudley on yours.”
“Oh!” Elizabeth stopped walking and planted her feet firmly. Her nostrils flared. “So you make small account of my Lord Dudley—you name him last! Well, sir, before you return to Scotland you shall see him made a far greater earl than that of Bedford. Yes!”
Melville merely nodded. “How fortunate.”
The morning light, still gentle and golden, lit up Elizabeth’s face. Melville saw her, for a brief moment, as the girl in the tavern, as a lady of a modest house, as a merchant’s daughter. Her golden red hair, her fine white skin, above all the intelligence and person in the dark eyes, made her a woman a man would be drawn to, were she placed in ordinary life.
“I esteem Lord Robert as a brother,” she was saying in her pleasing voice, “and as my dearest friend. We have a bond between us, stronger than that of husband and wife … and I would be happy to be his wife, were I minded to marry. But I am determined to end my life in virginity.”
He almost believed her when she said it.
“But I offer him to my sister Queen in all sincerity, as he is the person next to myself I may trust—and would trust—with the succession.”
“Does this mean, then, that should my lady the Queen of Scots marry him, you would declare her—or rather, them—your successor?”
“Have I not said?” She jerked her head and began walking again, leaving the row of fruit trees and pacing the bricked paths of the open garden, where sweet williams and periwinkles formed a border.
“Have we your word on this? The solemn word of a prince?”
“Have I not said?” she repeated. “And now I ask you—for I cannot command you, being not your sovereign—to keep company with Lord Robert. I shall command him.” She gave a wicked smile. “You shall come to know him, and thereby can persuade your mistress the Queen as to his virtues.”
* * *
Queen Elizabeth later sent word that she would have Mr. Melville attend her at dinner at Whitehall Palace, and stay for an entertainment in the banqueting hall, and she would have him conveyed in the royal barge, with its twenty oarsmen.
He was barely settled on a cloth-of-gold bolster inside the cabin and expecting a pleasant journey on the river—something one could not experience in Scotland, which had neither navigable rivers nor a royal barge—when someone appeared in the doorway and then, ducking his head, descended the steps into the cabin.
Dudley.
He was so fashionably dressed, with his full, stiff sleeves and shoulder wings of yellow brocade, he looked like a fashion apparition, a ghost from a Parisian tailor’s den.
“Good day,” he said to Melville, looking around at the otherwise empty cabin. “I see she means us to be alone.” He laughed. “Sometimes my Queen is complex, sometimes simple.” He turned around so that Melville could view his costume. “Does this pass muster? I understand the Queen of Scots is very fashionable and sends regularly to Paris for patterns and material.”
Melville laughed, too. Then he looked carefully at Dudley and concluded a woman could look far without doing better. And evidently he had humour and humility.
“Very smart, my Lord.”
“And what will you tell your mistress?” Dudley seated himself nearby on a cushioned bench. He looked directly at Melville, but smiled.
“That you are pretty on the eyes,” he replied.
Dudley made a disparaging sound. “Good sir, we are alone. My Queen arranged it and I thank her for it, for such an opportunity is rare. Let me use it to assure you I have no pretensions of marrying so far above myself. It would be an insult to the Queen of Scots, as well I know. I am not worthy to wipe her shoes!”
Melville felt the boat moving as the rowers took her out into the mainstream of the river. But the lurching was within himself, not the boat. What was this all about? Was nothing certain or honest here?
“That is a strange utterance, coming from you,” he finally said.
“It is all Cecil’s doing! My secret enemy. He means me to offend both Queens and be utterly out of favour, leaving all power at court to him. For if I seem to desire the marriage, I offend my Queen by unfaithfulness and yours by presumption; and if I seem not obedient to it then I likewise offend mine by disobedience and yours by insult. So either way, I am discredited and dispossessed of my Queen’s favour.” He slumped miserably on his seat.
Melville almost felt sorry for this proud man, reduced to a woman’s pawn by circumstance. He was like a sacrificial bull to their ambitions.
“I
think neither Queen will require anything of you,” was all he could say.
“Pray beg your Queen’s pardon for my seeming presumption,” insisted Dudley.
* * *
Several days later the sacrificial bull was led to kneel at Westminster before his Queen, and the peers in their Parliament robes, and to be made Earl of Leicester—a title last borne by Henry V and hitherto reserved for princes alone. It was all very solemn, until Elizabeth leaned forward and, in fastening his robes of estate, let her hand caress and tickle his neck.
De Seurre, the French ambassador, looked at Melville and made a cynical face.
As the party turned to process out, Elizabeth stopped to speak to Melville and the ambassador.
“How like you the new Earl of Leicester?” she asked eagerly, brightly.
Ahead of her, Lord Robert was walking straight and proud in his new embroidered cape with its fur trimmings, and before him Henry Lord Darnley was bearing the sword of honour.
“He is a happy servant who has a mistress who can discern and reward good service and worthiness,” Melville replied. To leap from simple “Sir Dudley” to a royal earlship was a head-spinning elevation.
“Yet you like better yonder long lad,” said Elizabeth, pointing toward Darnley.
She knew! She had found out his secret mission! What spy—how—? Or was she simply so devious herself it was impossible to fool her?
“No woman of any spirit would make choice of such a man, who resembles a woman, not a man! He is lady-faced, and has no beard,” said Melville stoutly.
“Indeed,” Elizabeth said, smiling sweetly. “Yet he carries the sword well, being as supple and strong as a blade himself.”
XVI
“And then what did she do?” Mary asked. She and Melville were closeted in the tiny chamber off her bedroom in Holyrood.
“She made no further reference to ‘yonder long lad’—and he is long,’ Your Majesty. So I cannot know what she knows, or has surmised. I believe I was unobserved when I visited the Countess of Lennox, but I am not certain. I am relatively sure that my conversation there could not have been overheard.” He sighed. The entire time in England had been strained, and even the boots were not made to his satisfaction.
Mary took a blackberry tartlet from a platter and offered Melville one. He declined. She took her time chewing before asking, “Is he taller than I?”
She stood up, her loose gown falling in thick columns from her waist.
“I believe so. And I must say he is handsome. Of course I twisted that when she asked what I thought of him, so that it seemed to be a flaw rather than a gift. As first prince of the blood at court, he led the ceremonies, and made a pretty showing.”
“Hmmm.” She smiled. “And spoke well, you say?” She returned to her seat and leaned back in the chair. Could it be possible … just possible … that this cousin of hers, who looked so right on paper, could also be personally attractive to her?
“More than well. Exquisitely. I had occasion to speak to him at length several times.”
“And what did you speak of?” She had begun twirling a thick strand of hair around her finger.
“Nothing, really.” He could not remember. It had been insubstantial—the weather, popular tunes, court gossip. “Lord Dudley was also well spoken,” he added as an afterthought. “He is an interesting man.”
“Could you see what captured Elizabeth’s fancy in him?”
Yes. Yes, he could. “It is difficult to understand any woman’s fancy, let alone a queen’s. A queen’s heart is unfathomable,” replied the diplomat. “And particularly this Queen’s. Let me tell you what she did: she tried to make me disloyal to you!”
“No! How?” Mary’s eyes sparkled with excitement. She left off playing with her hair and stared at Melville.
At that moment he coolly analyzed her features, the ones Elizabeth had interrogated him about. Her hair was undoubtedly one of her best attributes, shiny, thick, curly, and of a luxuriant red-brown. But her pink and white colouring and her slanting, luminous, amber-coloured eyes were so striking they created an impression of fragile vitality—if such a paradox made sense, he thought. The life was there, the high spirits, the joie de vivre, but the physical body delicate. She suggested fleeting joys and elegiac pleasures; she made a man want to hold her right now, today, in this moment.
He tried to shut out such disrespectful thoughts toward the woman who was his earthly sovereign.
“She flirted with me,” he said.
“How?”
“She put on different gowns and asked me to judge which of them was most flattering.”
Mary burst out laughing. “And which did you choose?”
“The Italian. She has a wardrobe of gowns from every country, and she wore one day the English, the next the French, and so on. But the Italian flattered her most, as it allowed her to show her hair wearing a caul and bonnet.”
“And what is her hair like?”
“Ah, now you sound like her! Her hair is more reddish than yellow, and curls naturally. But she asked about yours, and which colour of hair is preferable, and who had the fairest?”
“No!” Mary cried. “Surely she must have toyed with you?”
“Indeed, she was in complete earnest. She demanded me to declare which was the fairest.”
“And?”
“I said that the fairest of both was not your worst faults. Then,” he lamented, “she asked me to declare outright which of you was the fairest. That was simple. I said you were the fairest Queen in Scotland and she in England. But she was not satisfied with that. She pressed me further. At length I said that each of you was the fairest ladies in your countries, but that her complexion was paler, although your colouring was lovely.”
“And did that satisfy her?”
“Indeed no. For next she asked who was taller, and when I proclaimed you to be of greater height, she replied, ‘Then she is too tall, for I myself am exactly the right height.’”
Mary burst out laughing.
“And she went on from there. She began to inquire about how you passed your time, your interests. I replied that you had just returned from Highland hunting, and that you often read histories, and sometimes amused yourself in playing the lute and the virginals. Then she turned on me—Madam, she has a riveting eye, like a bird of prey—and asked if you played well. ‘Reasonably well, for a queen,’ I replied.”
Mary made a face. “Traitor!”
“I thought it would disabuse her of the notion that she must excel in all she does. But no! For she next arranged for me to ‘accidentally’ overhear her playing. She affected to be embarrassed to be heard, but it was no such thing. Then she inquired, once again, who played better, yourself or her? I must confess, Your Majesty, I gave her the praise, just out of weariness with this game.”
“Ah! Double traitor then!”
“But it did not end, no. It went on, as she detained me two extra days so that I might see her dance, and compare your skills. She queried me as to who danced better, my Queen or herself? I answered that Your Majesty danced not so high or disposedly as she did—and ’twas true, for she forgets all modesty in dancing and leaps about like a man. But, God be thanked, she took it as a compliment and let me depart at long last.”
“How peculiar! She seems to have the same curiosity about me that I do about Lord Darnley or Lord Robert,” Mary said.
“She did and said other odd things. She took me up to her private chamber and showed me portraits of you and Lord Robert. She kissed your portrait and then said she would send either Lord Robert or a great ruby as a token to you.”
“But as to Darnley—do you think she will grant him the necessary passport?” Suddenly she knew she would be immensely disappointed if she could not see Darnley in person.
“There is an even chance of it. Particularly if you seem warm to the match with the new Earl of Leicester.”
“Then, good Melville, write my tender cousin the Queen that I am deeply dis
appointed that you have returned without the portrait of Lord Robert, and disappointed that Leicester himself sent no token to me. Tell her I await it. Then tell her how pleased I was to grant her request about the Earl of Lennox, and mention that the father would like the son to be able to see the estates—just to see them, which he never has. In the meantime I will send a handsome present.”
Melville sighed. This seemed like a tennis match that would go on and on. Serve, volley, serve … “Yes, Your Majesty.”
* * *
After Melville had left, Mary sat looking out the window for a long time. On paper, as she had said, this cousin looked so promising. He was not a foreigner, he was of royal blood and also had a claim to the English throne, and had spent time in France. He was even tall! He sounded too good to be true.
If I had made him up, I would have included all these features, Mary thought. Even to his being Catholic …
* * *
In the cold December days just before her twenty-second birthday, Mary opened Parliament at the Tolbooth. She had convened it expressly for the purpose of restoring the Earl of Lennox to his honours and estates, and she marched slowly up the Canongate from Holyrood in procession, with Lord James bearing the crown, as the Hamiltons—who should have done so—refused to participate in the restoration rites for their political enemy. The Earl of Atholl bore the sceptre and the Earl of Crawford the sword of state.
Once inside the dark building, Mary stood and addressed the Three Estates of the Realm as to her purpose in forgiving the Earl of Lennox. Then Maitland rose and gave a second address.
“Dear countrymen,” he said, “you know full well the noble descent of Matthew Stuart, and his further affinity with the Queen by way of his marriage to her aunt. Our Queen, with her tender heart, does not wish to see any noble house come to ruin; she wishes the ancient blood to continue to be revered. In the three years that Her Majesty has governed us, we have had proof of her frank and magnanimous dealings, and many notable examples of her clemency. We have been most fortunate.…”
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Page 33