Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  O God!

  The shift was gone at last, and now there was no time for him to remove his own. He pulled it up and quickly positioned himself between her legs, nudging them far apart with his knees. Then, aligned properly, he thrust at her soft inner self. He felt himself go in and sink all the way, so their bodies were rubbing at the groin. It amazed him: he had felt as large as an oak tree and as long as a village Maypole.

  Delicious, agonizing pleasure was sweeping over him. She was squeezing in some miraculous way to increase that pleasure, moving as if she were seeking something of her own. His pole shuddered and spurted, but did not lose its hardness and shape, and she continued to move against it. Did she not know it was over?

  “Thank you, dear wife,” he whispered in her ear, beneath her sweat-soaked hair.

  “Ohhh,” she murmured, but she did not stop moving; indeed, she seemed driven, twisting this way and that, pulling and pushing. Like the stuck donkey.

  Then she gave a loud cry and began jerking spasmodically. He felt her insides contracting in waves, felt something caressing his member inside her, stroking like a piece of velvet. The waves came and went and felt infinitely tender, then they died away.

  “Oh, John,” she breathed, as if she had just run up a flight of stairs. Her hands fell away from his neck.

  What had happened? Knox felt frightened. He rolled off her and tried to put his arms around her, talk to her, but she was either asleep or unconscious.

  Pray God she is unharmed, he thought. This must never happen again. Oh, Margaret—I cannot bear to lose you. God will be jealous and snatch you away, too.

  * * *

  John Knox—his member now small and obedient beneath his breeches, so that it had ceased to exist for him except to perform its excretory function—made ready for his audience with the Queen. Margaret Knox, discreetly dressed in the dark clothes of a respectable wife and entirely subdued, helped him with the final adjustments to his wardrobe.

  “Your collar should lie flat,” she said, patting it down. “I put starch in it, and I pray I put enough.”

  “It is adequate.” He pulled away. He was nervous, although he knew he should not be. He had had many interviews before this; and the Holy Spirit would tell him what to speak, would direct his words.

  The Queen had summoned him to Holyrood. It was not the first time, and it would not be the last. It meant his ministry was effective, that his words were hitting home.

  No one kicks a dead dog, he repeated to himself with satisfaction. Close on its heels came, The dogs bark, but the caravan passes on. That was less satisfactory.

  “The hour is come,” he said, straightening his collar for the last time. Outside, a throng of his followers and well-wishers were waiting for him, and would escort him as far as the palace gates. He descended the stairs in grave dignity and was greeted first by Margaret’s father, Lord Ochiltree.

  “Come, brother, we will walk with you.” He gestured toward the large group. “For if God be with you, who can be against you?”

  They set out, moving down the Canongate, keeping company with their leader. When he reached the Holyrood Palace gates, he turned to them and bade them farewell.

  “Now must needs I face this pagan ruler alone, like Daniel in the lion’s den,” he said.

  “Aye, but you are the lion!” cried someone. “Show her your teeth!”

  * * *

  He strode across the forecourt and was soon being ushered into the broad entrance hall and from thence up the now-familiar wide staircase and then into the adjoining audience chamber. The Queen was already there, seated on her throne with the embroidered cloth of estate in gold and violet behind it.

  She was all bedecked in the red and yellow Scottish colours, as if she meant to appeal to his love for his country. Her hair was smoothed back and her face shiny; it had just had an anointing of almond oil—imported from France, he guessed. She was smiling and obviously happy.

  Why, she’s no prettier than my Margaret, he thought in genuine surprise. Suddenly she was diminished in his eyes.

  “Master Knox,” said John Erskine, “I have been chosen by Her Majesty to be present, to answer questions and witness what passes between you.”

  Erskine: a mild and kind man, and a staunch Protestant, recently named Earl of Mar by the Queen. The absence of Lord James was blatant and more to be felt than if he had been present, thought Knox.

  Knox bowed slightly and awaited the Queen’s words.

  “Dear Master Knox,” she said, her voice smooth and offensively pleasant, “I must congratulate you on your recent marriage and wish you happiness.” She smiled as if she had just offered him an estate.

  “I am sure you did not call me here for that,” he replied.

  “I wish no unkindness to pass between us,” she said, still smiling, as if she had not heard his rebuff. “Whatever there has been in the past, I know that we are different now, that we have learned much since our early days.” Still she smiled that inane smile.

  “Every day I learn in the Lord. It is not the same thing as general learning, by which even a child, and a dull one, increases in knowledge day by day, with little effort on his part. I can detect no changes in you, Madam, not since you first landed here in the ugly fog that surrounded you four years ago.”

  “You have not seen me in person,” she persisted. “Now, perchance, when we talk, you will see changes, willingness to accommodate.”

  Was that clumsy hint supposed to tantalize him? “Of what do you wish to speak, Madam?”

  “Of the future of Scotland, in that I am sure you share my anxiety that an heir be provided.”

  “God will provide,” Knox said stiffly. So that was it.

  “God cannot provide by himself without provoking scandal,” she replied sweetly. “I cannot bring forth a child without a husband. It would not be seemly.”

  “An unseemly husband is even worse,” he said. “And the man—nay, I cannot even call him a man, he is a debauched child—you propose to take to yourself is an insult even to you! You must not even think of it!” He raised his voice so that it could be heard through the windows and doors. He had trained his voice to carry great distances.

  “So it is true!” she said, still infuriatingly, falsely, pretending a sweet mood. “You have been preaching against my intended marriage to the Lord Darnley.”

  “I do not deny it. Is that what you expected me to do?”

  “You must desist in this obstruction.” She kept her voice even and reasonable.

  “Never.” He glared at her.

  “Master Knox!” she cried out suddenly, her voice shrill and not at all the soft, pleasing tone she had adopted until then. “Never has a ruler been treated as you have seen fit to treat me! I have borne with your rude words, both against myself and my family, and my faith. I have even sought your counsel and advice, only to be spurned. But this preaching against my marriage—I cannot permit it to continue! You must stop at once. I command you to do so!” She burst into tears, and an attendant rushed over with a handkerchief.

  Knox shifted back and forth from foot to foot as he patiently waited for her to regain control of herself. Stupid, vapourish girl!

  “Outside of my preaching, there is nothing in me to offend others. And when I preach, I am not master of myself, but must obey Him who commands me to speak plain, and to flatter no flesh upon this earth,” he finally said.

  “But what have you to do with my marriage?” she cried. “The Lords have given their permission.”

  “If the Lords consent that you take a pagan husband, they in effect renounce Christ, banish His truth from them, betray the freedom of this realm. And”—he felt these words come from somewhere outside himself—“perchance in the end this choice will do small comfort to yourself.” He had suddenly felt a weight of sin, suffering, and ugliness pressing upon him.

  “What have you to do with my marriage?” she repeated. “And what are you within this commonwealth?”

  “A s
ubject born within the same, Madam,” he said dryly. “And albeit I be neither earl, lord, nor baron within it, yet has God made me—however abject I may be in your eyes—a profitable member of the same.” He drew himself up to stand as thin and tall as possible, as though an invisible wire were attached to the top of his head, suspending him. “I am as bound as any member of the nobility to speak out, if I see something harmful approaching.”

  Mary began to weep again. Erskine mounted the platform of her throne and said, “Do not be distressed, lovely Queen—you who are so beautiful, and merciful, and held in such esteem by all the princes of Europe—”

  But she continued crying, until Knox’s acerbic voice cut in. “Madam, I never delighted in the weeping of any of God’s creatures; yea, I can scarcely well abide the tears of my own boys whom my own hand corrects; much less can I rejoice in Your Majesty’s weeping. But seeing that in truth I have offered you no just occasion to be offended, but have spoken the truth, as my calling craves of me, I must sustain Your Majesty’s tears rather than I dare hurt my conscience, or betray my country through my silence.”

  It was hopeless. Sorrow at the realization made her cry out, “Master Knox, leave this chamber!”

  Bowing, he submitted to her request and backed out. The high doors of the chamber were opened for him and he found himself standing in the stair landing that served as antechamber just beyond. A bank of pretty young court girls were sitting on a window seat, each wearing a different coloured bright dress. The summer light made them glow, and their healthy complexions were ruddy.

  “O fair ladies!” he found himself compelled to say, calling them to attention. His voice was light and merry, as if he would banter and dally with them.

  “How pleasing this life of yours would be if it could abide, and in the end you could pass to Heaven with all this gay gear!” He shook a finger at them. They reminded him of flowers in a garden border: beautiful and simple and perishable.

  “But fie upon that knave Death, who will come whether you will or not! And when he has arrested you, the foul worms shall be busy with this flesh, be it ever so fair and so tender!” He flicked a finger underneath one girl’s chin, felt the soft melting flesh surrounding the eternal jawbone underneath. “And the weak soul, I fear, will be too feeble to carry anything with it—gold, ornaments, tassels, pearls, or gems.”

  Abruptly he turned and left them to their common doom, the doom no one ever thinks is real.

  Not me, they all secretly think. Not me. And all the while they sit secure, perched on their tree branches, Death is sawing at the base of the tree, he thought, satisfied that he had disturbed them.

  They will think about it at least three minutes, he thought sourly, clumping down the steps.

  Human frailty. What could one man do against it, its self-serving lies, pleasure-blindness, and powerful desires?

  XXII

  Two weeks later, on July twenty-ninth, Knox rode through the main street of St. Andrews, making for the old Abbey, where the Lord James was Commendator. Earlier in the day Knox had preached the Sunday sermon in the parish church, fulfilling the vow to do so that he had made in the galleys.

  How long ago that was—almost twenty years! The sea sparkled in the bright midsummer sun, the surface glittering like a million tiny fish scales. Out on the promontory the ruined church of St. Andrews had stood like a broken sand castle. O those days, those days, the first fruits of the rising against the Cardinal and the corrupt church of Satan! That was when we first struck terror in their hearts, showed them we were the marching army of the Lord!

  The memory of the men storming the castle and surprising the Cardinal in his bed with his whore warmed him. And after he had been stabbed in retaliation for his cruel burning of Wishart, his body was hung from the very ramparts where he had smiled as Wishart burned.

  The Cardinal and his whore … why was it that those who practised the religion of Rome seemed either to keep whores—if male—or be ones themselves if female?

  But we purged St. Andrews, and today it is the foremost seat of the Reformed Kirk: our showpiece.

  It was a pleasant town on its rocky cliffs overlooking the North Sea, with its broad streets, gracious town houses, and colleges. The town was filled with scholars and their students at St. Mary’s College, St. Salvator’s College, or St. Leonard’s College. Ironically, St. Leonard’s, founded in 1512 to train recruits for the Church of Rome, had become a hotbed of reformers.

  This is our little Geneva, Knox thought, with pride. And I myself came of age here—I myself first stepped forward upon that long road I am still treading.

  He urged his horse to break into a trot. He had been glad enough to leave Edinburgh, leave behind the mess and turmoil. The Queen had had the banns called for her marriage to Lord Darnley the Sunday before, and his palace informants told him she meant it to take place soon. There would not be three weeks of banns, as her own—supposedly cherished—Church required.

  Perhaps she is with child, Knox thought. That would explain the haste.

  He came upon the Abbey, with its high grey stone walls and gatehouse. There were no guards, as the Abbey no longer guarded secret treasures inaccessible to the public. He rode freely into the enclosure, seeking the Lord James’s house. It was formerly the Prior’s dwelling, a well-appointed stone house, somewhat apart from the grouping of other ecclesiastical buildings.

  The Lord James had sent him an urgent and uncharacteristically beseeching message to come to him in this crisis of the Queen’s impending marriage. Knox was pleased to acquiesce, and also pleased that the Lord James was not yet so haughty as he had been depicted by his enemies. He still had need of him, Knox.

  Knox approached the Prior’s quarters, and even as he did so a servant appeared to take his horse.

  “The Lord James?” Knox asked.

  “Within, good Master Knox,” the boy replied, indicating the main entrance.

  Knox strode in, past the ancient carvings of saints and entwined fruits framing the entranceway, and into the darkened antechamber. He announced himself to the guard—little more than a lad—and waited.

  The heavy oak door at the far end of the antechamber creaked and swayed. It was warped, and the upper part would not let go of the door frame. At last it flew open. Lord James emerged.

  “My dear brother in Christ,” he said, moving forward and embracing Knox. “I thank you that you have come.” He drew him after himself through the warped door, then through a series of rooms until at last they were in a spacious gathering hall, with windows overlooking a garden now exuberantly blooming. The hollyhocks swayed in the slight breeze, and their stalks were as big as a girl’s wrist.

  The Lord James looked agitated; his brow was furrowed and his eyes seemed to be looking not at what was in front of him but at something he could not see. He kept snorting as if to clear his nostrils, but he did not have an ague or a cold. His nose must be raw, Knox thought.

  “What passes in Edinburgh?” he finally asked. Then he gave an almost inaudible snort.

  Knox tried to remember how long ago the Lord James had left the city. “The Queen is to marry Lord Darnley. The banns were called last Sunday. All goes forward. She will proclaim him Duke of Albany and—this is certain—King before long.”

  “She cannot do that on her own authority!” cried James. “Parliament must approve and bestow the Crown Matrimonial, as they did with that miserable François.”

  “True. But she can still ‘name’ him King, whatever that means.”

  “It means nothing. It is a title that is granted as a courtesy, and will expire at her death. If she dies, he cannot remain King, but will revert to just plain Lord Darnley.”

  Knox was uninterested in the eventualities. Why was Lord James so concerned with them? He studied his face as he continued talking.

  “Has my absence caused stir or comment?” he asked. “I withdrew from her Council and refused to sanction the marriage. Then I left Edinburgh.”

  “Your
absence has indeed been noted, but what it betokens I know not. That depends on what it means. What exactly does it mean? If you are at liberty to reveal?”

  James pulled out a heavy carved wooden chair, a legacy from the last Prior, who had been despoiled of all this by the Reformers. He sat down in it as if he were under oath.

  “I mean to fight.”

  “In what way? And to what purpose?”

  James looked surprised. “This marriage means a Catholic child; a Catholic child means a Catholic King. We cannot permit this. The Reformation will be utterly undone. I am surprised—nay, shocked—that you would ask.”

  “And who will fight with you?” Knox wanted particulars, not vague statements.

  “The Hamiltons. They hate Darnley, ever since he insulted their leader. Kirkcaldy of Grange. Lord Ochiltree, your wife’s father, and their kin.”

  “Not enough,” Knox said.

  “Others may join; there are many fence-sitters who may see their way clear to us.”

  “Fence-sitters by definition go either way. So you’ve only the Hamiltons?”

  “The Douglases are kin to Darnley’s mother, and hence cannot lend themselves to the enterprise. Argyll is a possibility, for all that his wife is the Queen’s bastard sister. He would bring many with him.”

  “The Erskines?”

  “Hard to say. They’ve a personal attachment to the Queen, but they are committed to the Reformed Kirk. Lord Ruthven, the Lindsays … we can count on them, I believe. Possibly Glencairn.”

  “And on the other side?”

  James opened a silver reliquary that had once housed Saint Medard’s teeth—the patron saint of those with toothache—and drew out a paper.

  “The son of George Gordon, the late Earl of Huntly, himself George, remains locked up and can do nothing for either side. The Setons, the Beatons, the Livingstons, the Flemings, the Maxwells, the Earl of Atholl—all will support the Queen. But they are lesser figures. Only Atholl is an earl.”

  “But added to the entire Douglas and Stewart families, they make quite a weight. And then there’s the Earl of Bothwell, traditionally loyal to the crown. He has sneaked back into Scotland and may be looking to win favour with the Queen.” Knox shifted in his chair. These massive carved seats were works of art, but decidedly uncomfortable. “Now, God forgive me, but I must ask: there is one name that can assure our success, and you have not mentioned it. Where stands the Queen of England on this?”