Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  It sent shivers through her. “It will be Kirkcaldy’s,” she said. Bothwell could not die.

  “Do you not want to hear what the Lords have pronounced about you?” he asked gently. “They say you must resign the crown in order to save your life and honour. If you do not, they plan to charge you with three crimes, using the captured Bothwell letters as proof of them. They are…” He opened his bag and poked around in it, finally extracting a paper. “They are these: tyranny, for breach and violation of the common laws of the realm; the murder of the King; and incontinency with Bothwell and others, as proved by your own handwriting and sufficient witnesses.”

  “So they now paint me as a tyrant like Nero and an orgy-mistress like Messalina? Their imaginations eclipse even Rabelais’s.”

  “You have friends,” he said. He handed her a turquoise ring. “This is from the earls of Argyll and Huntly, and Hamilton. Maitland is a hidden ally. They support you, but now beg you to save yourself. The Lords of the Secret Council—as the inner circle of your enemies now call themselves—have determined to take your life, either secretly or by a mock trial among themselves. You must do as they say. Anything you sign under duress or in prison is not binding. You may repudiate it as soon as you are free. But to be free, you must be alive.”

  “Yes. I must be alive.”

  “Knox has proclaimed a week of fasting, and daily tells the people that if you are not killed, God will send a plague on Scotland. He pushes the Lords, and makes it easy for them to do this. Do not compel them to it.”

  “I cannot sign. I will die Queen of Scotland.”

  “Your Majesty, that is just how you will die.”

  “Then so be it.” Her jaw was set.

  Melville took her hand and wrung it. “I beg you, consider carefully!”

  “I will not sign.”

  * * *

  She had barely lain back down after Melville’s departure when the door flew open. The crash of the wood against the wall startled her and she grabbed for her covers. Towering in the doorway was Lord Lindsay. He marched over to the bed.

  “So you won’t sign?” He was waving papers, the papers. “I say you’ll sign, and sign now, and we’ll have no more obstruction from you!” He flung the papers on the little table where the doctor had set out his medicines.

  “Shall I set my hand to a deliberate falsehood, and, to gratify the ambition of my nobles, relinquish the office that God has given me, to my son, who is only a year old and incapable of governing the realm? No!”

  “It is you who are incapable of governing the realm; even an infant would do better! Now, Madam, I can tell you this”—he grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her up in bed—“that if you do not sign, you will be smothered between the mattress and these pillows, and then hung up from your bedpost. It will look as if you have killed yourself, so you cannot even have a Christian burial. Pity.” Then he grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the bed. She fell heavily to the floor. He dragged her across it and heaved her up into the chair at the table.

  He took out his dagger and ran his finger along its blade. Then he licked it, and delicately put its point right up against her left breast. “If you do not sign these documents yourself, I will sign them in your name, using your heart’s blood. Yes, I’ll just plunge this in and twist a little, dip the point of the pen into the hot red blood that bubbles out, sign ‘Marie R.,’ and then, when you’re dead, cut you into pieces, and throw you in the loch to feed those famous Lochleven trout.” He grinned. “I would like to do this, so I hope you will make it necessary.”

  His eyes were glittering as if with lust.

  “No. I will not sign.”

  He let out a roar of anger and made a tiny X on her skin over her heart. “Come in here!” he yelled. “It is time!”

  Melville, Ruthven, and the young George Douglas emerged from the stairwell where they had been waiting, along with the official notaries. Lindsay flicked the knife up and down in front of Mary’s eyes.

  “The whore won’t sign!” he screamed. “But we’ll make her sign, won’t we?” He reached out and clutched Mary’s arm, as if he were trying to break the bones. He tore the skin with his rough fingernails. With his other hand he shoved a pen in her hand, and, covering it with his, formed the words and scratched out Marie R. on each of three separate pieces of paper, none of which she was allowed to read.

  “There!” He threw the pen down and picked up the papers and blew on them to dry the ink. “It is done!” Triumphantly he rolled them up.

  “They lack the seals,” she said in a faint voice.

  “Those are easy enough to procure. But thank you for reminding me,” he said, bowing mockingly. “Your Majesty. But no, it’s no longer that. What are you now? Lady Bothwell?”

  “I am your anointed Queen, and nothing can change that, nothing, nothing!”

  “Soon there will be two anointed rulers in Scotland,” he said. “If you can find suitable attire, perhaps we’ll let you attend the coronation. Would you like that? You always enjoy fêtes, celebrations, don’t you? You’ve wasted enough money on them. The ceremony will be Protestant, of course. So you see, you really did waste those thousands of pounds you spent on the Catholic baptism.”

  “There cannot be two anointed rulers, and you know it.”

  “Can’t there? What about Saul and David? Saul did as bad a job as you, and so God himself directed that he be replaced, even while he still lived. You still live, but for how long?” Humming, he descended the stairs, the rolled papers tucked under his arm.

  Melville followed with a downcast look, Ruthven could not meet her eyes, and George Douglas looked ashamed. The two notaries trailed after them.

  * * *

  Nicholas Throckmorton had little to do in his quarters in Edinburgh. He had arrived almost a month ago, hastening north in the belief that the Lords would be swayed by Elizabeth’s threats and promises, and eager to placate her. He had expected to be able to confer with Mary and to negotiate her release. Instead he had been forbidden to see her or even send her letters. The Lords were in no mood to be conciliatory, and they seemed indifferent to Elizabeth’s wishes. When he had, in a moment of daring, told them that Elizabeth would punish them if they harmed even a hair of Mary’s head, they had shrugged and said that would be regrettable, but that Scotland would survive any English pillaging, as it always had before.

  He leaned his head on his hand. What could he do when there was nothing the Scots either feared or wanted from England? They seemed confidently self-sufficient, and politely but firmly rejected his meddling.

  He took pen and ink and began another letter to Queen Elizabeth. Writing gave him the feeling that he was doing something, that he was not entirely useless to her. He wanted to capture the dangerous mood here, the almost reckless defiance of fate and custom.

  The people were ridding themselves of a monarch on moral grounds. The common people did not ascribe to Elizabeth’s neat theory that it was “not in God’s ordinance the Prince and Sovereign to be in subjugation to them that by nature and law are subjected to her.” They had come to the shocking conclusion that “the Queen hath no more liberty nor privilege to commit murder or adultery than any other private person, neither by God’s law, nor by the laws of the realm.” The sovereign was no longer above the law—not in Scotland.

  The Lords were in complete control—they and the shrieking Knox. They had outlawed Bothwell, put a price on his head, and sent soldiers north to capture him. The Queen’s adherents had no leader and were hopelessly disorganized and demoralized. They said they had succeeded in obtaining the Queen’s abdication, that she had granted permission for the Prince’s coronation and for a regency. They also said she had lost any hope of an heir by Bothwell.

  It is to be feared that this tragedy will end in the Queen’s person, after the coronation, as it did begin in the person of David the Italian, and the Queen’s husband. I believe I have preserved her life for this time, but for what continuance is uncerta
in …

  he was writing, when he heard the heavy tread of footsteps on the stairs. He rose and flung open the door. Lord Lindsay and Maitland were standing there, about to knock. Others were behind them.

  “You spare us the trouble, sir,” said Lindsay, with a disarming smile. He waited, smugly, to be invited in.

  “Pray enter,” said Throckmorton, glad he had covered up the letter as a precaution.

  “We have the honour to invite you to attend the coronation of the new King,” said Glencairn. “It will be held at Stirling two days from now.”

  “So you have seen the Queen?” Throckmorton asked, deferring an answer.

  “The late King’s daughter, you mean, and the mother of the King?” asked Lindsay.

  “Just as the Pope is also the Bishop of Rome, I suppose?” said Throckmorton. “I mean the fair lady imprisoned at Lochleven. What you style her does not affect what she is.”

  “Quite so.” Lindsay laughed at some private joke. “She signed the papers, and we affixed the Privy Seal afterwards. Oh, the poor lady was so burdened with her cares she simply could not carry on. The loss of her dear Bothwell—” He exploded with laughter, making a noise like the hind end of a cow.

  Maitland glared at him. “The exact wording of her statement is—” Maitland began, and pulled out a paper and read smoothly:

  “As after long and intolerable pains and labour taken by us since our arrival within our realm for government thereof, and keeping of the lieges of the same in quietness, we have not only been vexed in our spirit, body, and senses thereby, but also at length are altogether so vexed thereof, that our ability and strength of body is not able longer to endure the same. Therefore, and because nothing earthly can be more comfortable and happy to us in this earth than in our lifetime to see our dear son, the native Prince of this our realm, placed in the kingdom thereof, and the crown royal set on his head, we, of our own free will and special motion, have remitted and renounced the government, guiding, and governing of this our realm of Scotland, lieges, and subjects thereof, in favour of our said son.”

  Now Throckmorton would have laughed if it had not been unseemly. “The language does not sound like Her Majesty’s,” he finally said.

  “You mean ‘Her Grace,’” said Lindsay. “What better proof that she is no longer herself? However, she may be well enough to attend, as we assume you will.”

  “Who else will attend?” Throckmorton asked.

  “Oh, all the lords of Scotland.”

  “Name them.”

  “We have not finished notifying everyone,” said Maitland.

  “Well, of the ones you have notified?”

  “Morton, Atholl, Erskine, Glencairn, Lord Home, Ruthven, Sanquhar.”

  “Hardly the majority of the leading lords. What of Huntly, Argyll, Hamilton?”

  Maitland coughed. “I have had trouble tendering the invitation to them, as they are not in this part of the country.”

  “Come, sir, your answer!” said Lindsay.

  “My answer must be no. I represent the Queen of England, who is greatly displeased by these proceedings and will refuse to recognize James as King. My attending the ceremony would seem to condone it.”

  “You knew you would refuse; you just wanted us to read the names and the statements so you could report them back to your paymasters! Spy!” snarled Lindsay.

  “What a charming manner. Is this how you persuaded the Queen to sign? If you treat the envoy of a neighbouring country thus, I can imagine how you treat someone at your mercy,” said Throckmorton in his slow voice. He looked at Lindsay’s half-lidded eyes. What an ugly man he was.

  “Come. We have other men to speak to,” said Maitland, tugging on Lindsay’s sleeve. He gave Throckmorton an apologetic smile. “Good day, sir.”

  Throckmorton closed the door quietly, then returned to his letter.

  All here await the return of the Lord James, the designated Regent. The Lords of the Secret Council are of the mind that once he arrives, he will take the burden from their shoulders. The Queen’s friends hope that her brother will be kind and free her once he is firmly in power. But no one truly knows his mind, nor how he will wear the diadem of the Regency. And I fear he may find it fits him so well that he will never willingly lay it down for his nephew.

  * * *

  On July twenty-ninth, 1567—exactly two years since the marriage of his parents—little James Stuart was carried in procession from his nursery at Stirling to be crowned King of Scots and Lord of the Isles. The scanty line of men—only four earls, seven barons, and one clergyman—made their way past the Chapel Royal at Stirling, where the Papist baptism had been performed, carrying the regalia into the Protestant kirk at the gates of the castle. A force of armed men guarded all approaches to the castle grounds.

  John Knox was waiting inside. He had been hastily called to preach the sermon at this hasty ceremony, and he had hastened to accept. This was a wondrous moment, one he had often dreamed of, but had left in the Almighty’s hands as to timing. The Catholic whore was gone, and never more would there be a coronation ceremony in the old rite. This was a glorious new beginning, and all because many years ago they had stepped out in faith.

  Here they came, his Lords of the Congregation: the flaming-haired Earl of Morton, the long-faced Erskine, the handsome Ruthven. They bore the baby up to the altar, where his throne awaited, then gathered on the altar steps.

  Lord Lindsay unrolled a declaration, and began to read it in loud, ringing tones.

  “‘I swear in the presence of God and the Congregation here present that the Queen our Sovereign did resign, willingly and without compulsion, her royal estate and dignity to the Prince her son, and the government of the realm to the several persons named in her commission of regency.’”

  The justice clerk, Sir John Bellenden, brought out a gigantic Bible and opened its pages. The Earl of Morton laid his pudgy left hand on it and, holding up his other hand, took the Coronation Oath in Prince James’s name. The all-purpose Bishop of Orkney—the same who had married Mary and Bothwell when no one else would—anointed the Prince with the sacred oil. The Earl of Atholl stepped forward and put the crown on the baby’s head.

  Now it was time, time for his message. Knox mounted the pulpit slowly. His knees were quite stiff now, even in midsummer. He hoped he had been guided to choose the correct text.

  “This day, as we welcome our first Protestant sovereign, is the day we have all prayed for. Surely God has preserved him for us, sheltering him amid all the havoc and turmoil in our land. Just so did he for his chosen people of Israel, keeping a king from David’s line for them. For the story, as told in Second Chronicles, chapter twenty-two, is this:

  “But when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah.

  “But the daughter of the King took Joash the King’s son, and stole him from among the King’s sons that were slain, and put him and his nurse in a bedchamber. So Joash was hidden from Athaliah, so that she slew him not.

  “And he was hidden in the house of God six years, and Athaliah reigned over the land.

  “And in the seventh year all the congregation made a covenant with the King in the house of God. And he said unto them, Behold the King’s son shall reign, as the Lord hath said of the sons of David.

  “Moreover, Jehoiada the priest delivered to the captains hundreds of spears, and bucklers, and shields, that had been King David’s, and were in the house of God.

  “And he set all the people, every man having his weapon in his hand, from the right side of the temple to the left side of the temple, along the altar and the temple, by the King round about. Then they brought out the King’s son, and put upon him the crown, and gave him the testimony, and made him King. And Jehoiada and his sons anointed him, and said, God save the King. Now when Athaliah heard the noise of the people running and praising the King, she came to the people into the house of the Lord.

  �
�And she looked, and behold, the King stood at his pillar at the entering in, and the princes and the trumpets by the King; and all the people of the land rejoiced, and sounded with trumpets, also the singers with instruments of music, and such as taught to sing praise. Then Athaliah rent her clothes, and said, Treason, treason!

  “Then Jehoiada the priest brought out the captains of hundreds that were set over the host, and said to them, Have her forth of the ranges: and whoso followeth her, let him be slain with the sword. For the priest said, Slay her not in the house of the Lord. So they laid hands on her, and when she was come to the entering of the horse gate by the King’s house, they slew her there.

  “Then all the people went to the house of Baal, and broke it down, and broke his altars and his images in pieces, and slew the priest of Baal before the altars.

  “And all the people of the land rejoiced: and the city was quiet, after they had slain Athaliah with the sword.”

  Knox took a deep breath. He hoped they had followed the lengthy reading, so apropos of the present events. They were all staring at him. The little King had fallen asleep on the throne.

  “Now you, my good friends, are like the true priests of the temple, and the congregation that cleansed the land of the priests of Baal and of the wicked Queen. Here before you is your King, miraculously preserved, as was Joash. And as Joash, who, Scripture tells us, restored the temple, which had been defiled by Baal-worshipers, so this young King James will restore true worship here in our land.” Knox paused and cleared his throat. “Athaliah—who was she?” Of course everyone should know. “She was the daughter of Jezebel! Yes, the wicked, wicked Jezebel. We, too, have a Jezebel in our land. And surely she should also be slain, so that we may also have quiet in the land! I say, let the dogs drink her blood!”

  The members of the congregation were twitching in their seats. “Having come so far, we should not flinch before the last requirement. She should be slain, but not in the house of the Lord! And so I leave it to you to carry it out.”