Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  Now there was the day to get through. Never had an ordinary day seemed so long. There were the morning prayers she and her household always recited, followed by breakfast, then sewing, then walking outside.

  Today there was bustling as the Great Hall was being readied for the feast, and decorations—coloured banners and sashes—were being hung on the walls and trees. Musicians practised out on the green in the sunshine, already drinking ale. Much ale had been provided, and the soldiers were helping themselves by noon. Mary prayed that it would last until the crucial time. How ironic if it ran out in time for the soldiers to sober up just as she tried to run away.

  “Now follow me!” Willie was parading out in a multicoloured coat of satin, with a high conical hat like a magician’s. He crawled on all fours, and the people following him had to do so as well. Then he jumped up and whirled, and they had to follow suit.

  “You there!” He pointed to one of the soldiers on the wall. “Stand on your head.”

  “What?” The soldier looked around. “From here?”

  “Indeed, if you dare!” said Willie. “’Tis only ten feet to the ground. It won’t crack your head open!”

  The soldier—actually a boy not much older than Willie—gingerly attempted to obey, but he toppled over and had to clutch at the stones to keep from falling all the way to the ground.

  “Ah, too bad! Now you must be punished!” said Willie, while everyone was laughing. “You shall carry Mistress Meggie about on your back until dinner time.”

  More people had joined the line behind Willie, following him about, laughing and shouting.

  * * *

  The game went on all afternoon, with Willie exhausting himself trying to think of tasks and rewards and punishments. Everyone got drunker, and miraculously, the ale did not run out. How had Willie paid for it all?

  Mary dropped out of the line. Her side was hurting. She stood for a few moments with her arms clasped around her sides, hoping the pain would subside. She could not be sick now, no, she could not!

  One of the castle servants, a young girl, came to Mary. She handed her the pearl earring. Mary just stared at it.

  “Your Majesty, George Douglas sends this to you. He says one of the other servants found it and tried to sell it to him, but he recognized it as being yours and ordered it returned to you. Is it indeed yours?”

  “Yes,” said Mary. “I had lost it some time ago. Thank you.”

  The girl curtseyed and said, “My honour is to return it, Madam.”

  The signal! All was in order, then! Mary felt dizzy with excitement, and the pain vanished from her side.

  “I am so tired from all this,” she said. “I must needs rest before dinner.” She made her way back to the tower apartment, which was—another miracle!—deserted. Quickly she put on her servant-skirt underneath her own, and changed her shoes. Then she lay down, trying to calm herself.

  In an hour she emerged. The revellers were nowhere to be seen, but she could hear them. They seemed to have retired to the great hall, where they could drink and sing.

  Lady Douglas was pacing in the courtyard. Mary’s heart sank, and she would have withdrawn quickly back into her room, but she had been seen. So she had to smile and make her way over to Lady Douglas, hoping that her shoes would not show beneath her skirt.

  “Happy May to you,” said Lady Douglas. “Have you ever seen such foolishness?” Her voice was not lighthearted.

  “For me, in this prison, any departure from routine is pleasant,” said Mary.

  “Prison. Yes. Arabella has been troubled by dreams about a great raven carrying you away, across the water. She dreamed that Willie had brought the raven.”

  Arabella! That foolish girl, who doted on her!

  “She was most upset. It seems she would hate to lose you,” said Lady Douglas.

  “I am most fond of her,” said Mary carefully. “And her dream is not like to come true. I am rather heavy for a raven to lift!” She gave what she hoped was a silly giggle.

  “Perhaps a company of ravens would be employed. But, Madam, I beg you, remember my family. We would be ruined if you escaped. The Lords would think—what’s that?” She pointed to a movement on the shore.

  A company of horsemen! Mary could see them plainly near Kinross.

  “Your family!” said Mary, answering her first statement and not her second. “You mean your darling the Lord James! Is he all you care about? You have ten other children! Why is it that only he occupies your heart? He is cruel, greedy, grasping—did you know that when I was on my deathbed, and he thought I could not see, he began to inventory my jewels? That is your favourite son! You see what you have given birth to!”

  “Lord James is a deeply devout man who has Scotland’s interests always at the forefront of his mind!” Lady Douglas’s face darkened and she stopped looking at the shore. The horsemen disappeared.

  “He has the Lord James at the forefront of his mind! And, Madam, think how it sits with your family’s honour to be his puppets and servants!” She dared not let Lady Douglas look back at the shore; only baiting her about James would distract her enough to make her forget what she had just seen.

  “How dare you speak that way?” Lady Douglas attacked like a mother tiger, listing all Mary’s sins and shortcomings.

  Mary listened and pretended to be shocked and hurt, all the while keeping her own face toward the shore to make sure that her antagonist could not look that way.

  * * *

  As was his custom, the Laird brought Mary’s dinner to her in the tower, where she took her meals. Tonight was no exception, and the shuffling master of the island, wearing a paper cap Willie had clapped on him, and belching from the ale, set before her a springtime meal: roast lamb, spinach tart, baked butter pudding, and an astringent drink called “spring tonic”: fresh green leaves of agrimony and the juice of wild cresses, blended in new ale.

  “I trust this will be pleasing,” he said.

  “Indeed, I am sure it will.” Mary smiled at him.

  I will not be sorry to leave, she thought. But the Laird has always been kindly and harmless. It is difficult to reconcile this self-effacing, ineffectual man with a gaoler. Is Willie his bastard? What story lies behind that?

  The Laird began to pace her room, as if he was loath to leave. He stood for a moment, contemplating the crucifix on the wall near her prayer-window with sad eyes. Suddenly he started as he saw something out the window.

  “Ehh!” he said. “What’s that stupid Willie doing?”

  Mary rose and went to the window. Willie was bent down between two boats beached on the shore. He must be disabling them, as he had said he would. There was a hiatus in the celebration before he was expected in the great hall.

  “That boy!” the Laird cried. “Always some foolishness!” He started to motion to a guard outside to investigate.

  “Oh!” Mary put her hand up to her forehead and groaned. She swayed and fell to her knees.

  Confused, the Laird bent down to her, abandoning the window. “What is it?”

  “I feel so dizzy. It comes upon me sometimes like this!” She slumped against him. “I pray you, help me to my couch.”

  The Laird sighed and put his arm under her shoulder, and helped her to walk feebly to the couch. “There,” he said, straightening up and looking back toward the window.

  “Would you please be so kind?” she said in a small voice. “Sweet wine from Sicily or Cyprus helps me when I have these attacks. Would you happen to have—could you bring me—ooh, I will try not to faint!” She rolled her head from side to side.

  Disgruntled, the Laird had to go fetch it himself, as there were no attendants. By the time he returned, Willie had gone from the boats.

  * * *

  At the May Day feast, the Laird insisted on being seated where he could have an unobstructed view out the window to the shore, just in case there was something amiss on the mainland. Willie was presiding over the table, pouring wine with abandon. Everyone was gettin
g befuddled.

  In front of the Laird, beside his plate, lay the keys to the gate and castle, as they did every night after the gates were locked. There were five of them, linked on a chain.

  Willie was at his shoulder, a huge bottle of wine braced on his arm.

  “Wine, sir?” he said.

  “No—no more.” Things were starting to fuzz. “Uh—what kind is that?”

  “This is the Rhenish, sir. Best we have. Better than the stuff you were drinking earlier.”

  “Umm. All right.” The Laird held up his goblet, and his hand swayed a bit.

  “Oh, this is heavy! Pardon me!” Willie groaned and threw his napkin down on the table while he shouldered the bottle in a different way, as he poured the liquid out. It gurgled like a happy spring toad in love.

  The Laird did not notice that when Willie picked up his discarded napkin, the keys disappeared.

  * * *

  Mary, watching anxiously at the window, saw Willie emerge from the hall and walk quickly across the green. He raised his hand and nodded.

  Mary removed her own skirt, revealing the maid’s skirt underneath, put on her servant’s cloak, and descended. Her hood was raised.

  “I have the keys,” said Willie. “Hurry! But do not run.”

  They walked together briskly. Mary was sure that her dark, billowing cloak, so out of place on this May evening, was going to attract attention. Her heart was beating so hard she now felt truly faint.

  Willie pulled the keys out of his sleeve and stuck one into the gate lock. It did not fit. He tried another. It seemed to fit, but then did not turn. Mary did not dare even look behind them to see if anyone was following, lest someone see her face.

  Willie tried another, trying to keep his nervous hands steady. It slid in and then she heard the sound of the bolt releasing. Willie extracted the keys, then pulled the door open, only wide enough for them to slide through. Then he closed the gate as quietly as possible and locked it from the outside.

  “There! Now they are prisoners!”

  For a moment they hid in the shadow of the wall, to see if anyone was following. But all was silent. They stole over to one of the boats. Mary lay down on the bottom.

  “The rest are disabled?” she whispered.

  “Yes. I pegged them.”

  “I think the Laird may have seen you. But I tried to distract him.”

  Willie pushed the boat off, wading into the water up to his waist, then climbed in. He grabbed the oars and began rowing. The boat cleared the weeds near the shore, and floated out into open water.

  Willie’s arm flashed as he flung the keys into the water. They hit some reeds and then sank with very little sound. “Let them dive for them!” he said.

  Mary cautiously sat up. The shore was already being left behind. But she had been farther than this when the men had discovered her that other time. Impulsively she took the second set of oars and began rowing. Anything to get them farther away!

  Willie laughed. “That is not necessary,” he said.

  “Oh, but it is!” she said. “I must participate in my own escape! I am not old, sick, or helpless—I have never felt stronger!” As she said it, she realized that the food and rest on Lochleven, forcibly imposed though they were, had restored her to her old level of energy and well-being. Once again she was the athletic, active Queen of the Chaseabout Raid. She pulled on the oars, straining against them.

  Darkness was falling. There seemed to be a movement on the shore. Who was waiting? Was it George? She could hardly see in the blue-grey mist rising from the loch. She fumbled for the veil she had brought, the prearranged signal: she was to wave her white veil.

  It fluttered in the air, its red tassels snapping. Up and down, up and down. George and his men saw it; and so did the Laird and the company in the castle, watching helplessly from behind the imprisoning walls. Suddenly she could hear angry shouting from the island.

  They reached the landing at Kinross, and there was George, looking pale and intense. He held out his arms to her and she alighted. She draped the veil around his shoulders and said softly, “Thank you.”

  “Your servant, sir,” said Willie, bowing mockingly.

  “Who else is here?” Mary asked.

  Crowding toward her was John Beaton, from the faithful Beaton family. He headed a company of about twenty horsemen. “Borrowed from the Laird’s stables here on shore,” he said. Everyone laughed. Young John Sempill, Mary Livingston’s husband, was beside him.

  “Lord Seton is waiting, hidden in the glen, with fifty men,” said George. “And the Laird Hepburn of Riccarton with him.”

  Laird Riccarton! Bothwell’s friend and kinsman!

  “Let us leave, and quickly. Can you ride?”

  “Of course!” Mary mounted a muscular horse brought over to her.

  The party galloped off.

  The night was balmy. Somehow it felt different on land than out on the island. The air, the scents, were different.

  Free. I am free. The feeling was so odd she could barely understand it.

  They met up with Lord Seton and his men, and Laird Riccarton, at a clearing just outside of town.

  “Dear Lord Seton!” She was delirious to see all these people, friends instead of enemies. She had not been among friends in so long! They embraced.

  Then the Laird of Riccarton. “Dear friend,” she said. Just seeing him made Bothwell real again. “Please—get word to my husband that I am free! He must join me!”

  “I will ride for the coast,” he said, “and be there by morning. There are many ships to carry letters swiftly across the seas.”

  LXIII

  Mary and her party galloped around Kinross and then took the road leading south. She was retracing the miserable route she had followed when she was taken, a prisoner, to Lochleven with Lindsay and Ruthven. Every turning of the path brought back a particular memory of that time of terror for her: the overhanging branch that she had hoped would knock Lindsay off his horse, the sharp turn where she had almost been thrown herself. Now they just seemed like perfectly ordinary features of any riding path, nothing she would even notice.

  Ahead of her, Lord George Seton was keeping a good, steady pace. What a friend he was! Always he had been there at her most precarious moments, and had helped her in her escape from Holyrood as well. Back at Lochleven, they were probably questioning his sister. With a brother and sister so loyal to her, what a contrast to her own brother, Lord James!

  “Are we to stop at Seton House?” she asked him, when they stopped on the road to refresh themselves with a little wine and bread.

  “No,” he said. “I think we should get farther than that. Lord Claud Hamilton is to meet us at Queensferry after we cross the Forth. From there we will rest at Niddry, my other castle.” It was dark enough that he could not see her face, but he could guess at her puzzled look. “Your escape has been planned, and looked for. Many who had joined your brother’s cause have had time to rethink themselves. The Regency has not pleased the nobles nearly as well as they’d hoped; now a number of them have decided to come back to you. The Hamiltons are out in force for you; the Earl of Argyll, unstable man, has come over to us. So have Eglinton and Cassillis. You always had the west of Scotland’s loyalty, and the lords from there, Herries and Maxwell, are waiting in their territories.”

  So people were turning against Lord James! Now he had seen how easy it was to please people before you came to power, and how difficult afterwards. Even the best ruler was never more beloved than before he ascended the throne.

  They continued their journey, and made the crossing of the Forth in several ferries provided for the purpose. At South Queensferry, Lord Hamilton and fifty of his kinsmen, armed and mounted, greeted them.

  “Your Majesty!” said Lord Hamilton. “It is with great joy that I see you!” His men lifted their weapons in salute.

  As they passed through little villages on their way to Niddry, the people came out and cheered her. There was nothing but sweet we
lcome; no spitting, no name-calling, no calls for her to be burnt. Had the people forgiven her? She had not heard such acclaim since before Darnley’s death. Perhaps they had forgiven, perhaps even forgotten. If only their hatred of her had been forgotten!

  It was midnight when they reached Niddry, Seton’s castle that lay several miles south of the Forth. There they halted.

  “Come, Your Majesty,” said Lord Seton. They swept into the courtyard and then into the prepared apartments. “All is ready,” he said, and Mary walked into a tidy, well-furnished room. It was no bigger than the one at Lochleven, but the freedom made it seem ten times larger.

  “With all my heart I thank you,” said Mary, touching his shoulder.

  * * *

  Inside her room, alone at last, she looked around, dazed. It had been a very long time since she had arisen in that tower chamber at Lochleven. And her prayer had been answered; she did not ever have to go to sleep in it again.

  Too tired to do anything but remove her shabby shirt and bodice, and grateful that she was completely alone, she climbed into the bed and fell at once into a profound, deep sleep—the best she had had in ten months.

  * * *

  She awakened to a feeling that told her there had been a momentous happening, but for an instant she could not remember exactly what it was. This bed—it was unfamiliar. The room’s dark corners failed to disclose its size. She got out of the high, carved bed and groped her way over to a window that showed the east light. She was overlooking land, land—no water. No island. Nothing but this gentle green surrounding her. Then it all rushed back upon her—she was free! This was Lord Seton’s castle.

  What hour was it? She had no clock, and by the faint light she surmised that dawn was not far away. It must be before five o’clock. No one would be up yet. She returned to bed and forced herself to wait.

  Later, getting dressed—still alone, blessedly alone!—she heard sounds outside her window. Looking out, where earlier there had been only green, rolling landscape, she saw a huge company of men milling around. They were armed with pikes and staves, and just as she appeared, one of the leaders was sounding a bugle, another a bagpipe.