Excited beyond measure, she rushed from the room, her long hair uncombed and flying, and ran out into the courtyard. Lord Seton, following, tried to stop her, but she outran him and made her way to the crowd. As soon as they saw her, a hushed reverence fell over the men. Then someone shouted, “God bless the Queen!” and a thousand voices shouted, “Aye!”
Tears made all the colours and faces blend for a moment in her eyes. Shaking her head to clear her vision, she held out her arms to them. “My good people! I am indeed blessed to be back among you!”
At the sight of her, long hair flowing, and not properly dressed, they were swept with emotion. She was surely the most beautiful queen in the world, and how fortunate they were that she was theirs. Future generations would envy them; their sons and daughters would ask them to recount exactly how she had looked on this morning. “We’ll die for you!” they cried.
“I would have no one die,” she answered. “Let my brother surrender and step down. And now that you have shown your loyalty, he will do so. He cannot ignore the will of the people.”
Oh, how easy it would have been, immured in Lochleven, to have believed that she was unloved and unwanted. Prison kept reality at bay—as her brother, Lord James, had counted on.
* * *
Mary sat, dressed—again in borrowed clothes—at a table in conference with her nobles. They had left Niddry Castle after that first night and headed west, toward Dumbarton. The mighty fortress on the coast was the only one still in loyal hands; Lord Fleming, Mary’s brother, held it. The other strongholds, and their arsenals—Stirling, Edinburgh, Dunbar—were at the disposal of Lord James. The west was still mainly Catholic and loyal, and it made sense, strategically, to head for that area. They hoped to pause and provide a rallying point for the other loyalists to join them. The Hamiltons, that vast clan with hereditary rights next to the Stewarts, had been angered by Lord James seizing the Regency and giving them no part in the spoils. They were now the center of the loyalists, and meant to turn the upstarts out of power. Their territory lay just south of Glasgow, and so it was to Castle Hamilton that Mary and her party repaired and made their headquarters. Here the royalists could gather, knowing that the safety of Dumbarton was only twelve miles away. From there in an emergency they could go anywhere, just as Mary had sailed for France when she was a child.
Now, seated at the very long, polished table were nine earls, nine bishops, eighteen lords, and many lairds of lesser rank. Mary stood up, a queen among her nobles once more.
“My Lords,” she said, “I wish to solemnly repudiate my forced abdication, and for you to witness it. Then we will publish it. I do swear on my immortal soul, as I shall answer on the dreadful Day of Judgement, that my signature on the writs and instruments procured at Lochleven was got by violence and threats to my life. And for this I have witnesses: George Douglas and Melville.” She nodded to those two, seated down near the end of the table.
“Indeed, it is true!” said George, his voice trembling. “Lord Lindsay threatened to kill her—to cut her up and feed her to the fish, he said!”
“I can attest to the fact that Her Majesty agreed to sign only after I assured her that the Queen of England advised her to do it to save her life, knowing that nothing obtained in those circumstances could be binding,” Melville added. He had come straightway from Edinburgh as soon as he was summoned, bringing with him two things Mary desperately wanted: the Elizabeth ring, and her horses from her own stable.
“My Lords, I constitute us to have the legal standing of a Parliament, and it is necessary that we attend to pressing business.” Mary nodded to the Archbishop of St. Andrews, clever John Hamilton. “The Archbishop and I have prepared a statement concerning the Regent which we wish you to ratify.”
The Archbishop stood up and read out in a booming voice, “‘We do hereby declare that our false abdication, extorted under threat of our life, is utterly null and void, and that we are Mary, by the Grace of God, undoubted and righteous hereditary Queen of Scotland, succeeding thereto of the immoveable just line, being lawfully elected, crowned, invested and inaugurated thereto.’”
All the men at the table nodded and murmured.
Then the Archbishop went on to detail the crimes of the Lord James, branding him “that beastly traitor, a bastard begotten in shameful adultery,” and describing all his party as “shameless butchers, hell-hounds, bloody tyrants, common murderers, and cutthroats, whom no prince, yea, not the barbarous Turk, for their perpetrated murders could pardon or spare.”
The men laughed uneasily. The Queen, then, could never make peace with her brother. She had turned utterly against him; he had betrayed her once too often.
“Now my good Lords,” she said, “I pray you give heed to what intelligence we have of our adversaries.”
Lord Seton stood. “The Regent was in Glasgow, holding an assize, when the news reached him that Her Majesty had escaped a few days ago, and he was sore amazed!”
The company laughed.
“He was alone except for a bodyguard, and thought perhaps he should retreat back to Stirling, as this area is so partial to the Queen. But he has evidently decided that it is better to stand his ground rather than be seen to retreat. Consequently he has set up camp there and sent out summons for men. He calls for”—he unfolded a paper—“for the preservation of the King’s person, and the establishing of quietness.”
Mary laughed scornfully. “And how has his summons been answered?”
“Kirkcaldy is bringing harquebusiers from Edinburgh, and Erskine is bringing cannon from Stirling. And there’s Morton and his pikemen, hurrying to fight.”
“How many?”
“Thus far, about two thousand. When Lindsay and Ruthven and Glencairn come, there may be as many as three thousand.”
“Ha!” The Earl of Argyll gave a scornful snort. “Why, my Highlanders alone are nearly two thousand. Add the Hamiltons, and—we’ll have over five thousand!”
Suddenly she was gripped with a cold hand of fear. Her army was larger. But it had no leader. There was no Bothwell, no one comparable. Without Bothwell to counter them, Kirkcaldy and Lord James and Morton became formidable enemies. What was only good became, in the absence of excellence, excellence itself.
“And who will lead my army? Who will be my general?” Mary asked.
“I,” said Argyll. “I have brought the largest number of men.”
Hamilton glowered.
“My dearest Queen,” said Lord Herries suddenly, “you should know that there are only two ways to restore you to your throne so that you are in power: either by a decree of Parliament, or by battle. It is your choice to make.”
Mary looked up and down the table at the faces of her supporters: George Douglas’s handsome features and tight-lipped commitment; the plain, honest face of Lord Seton; the calm bravery of Lord Livingston.
Bothwell’s face was missing, and always would be. But the others had already sacrificed much of themselves, and would not fail her.
“By battle let us try it!” she said, and purpose and resolve flooded her, washing aside any lingering hesitation.
* * *
In the next few days, more men flocked to her standard; more than one hundred lesser lords brought their vassals, tenants, and domestic servants for her army. Huntly had surprisingly thrown in his lot with hers, and was bringing his troops down from the Highlands. But torrential rains had swollen the streams and made them impassable.
“I’ve no doubt the Lord James plans to strike before Huntly can arrive,” said Mary to George. “But even without him, we are stronger.”
“My father has joined them,” said George. “Yesterday he brought his men.”
“My, how efficient spies are,” said Mary lightly, but in her heart she was disturbed. How was information passing so freely between the armies? Yet she knew George was to be trusted. “But I am grateful he is able to fight, if that makes sense.”
“Yes,” George muttered. The Laird had tried to s
tab himself to death after he had discovered the Queen’s escape; he had felt the dishonour keenly. Yet his servants had prevented him, and now the impulse had passed. “I am spared that guilt … a part in my father’s murder.”
“There has been enough murder in Scotland,” said Mary, twisting the Elizabeth ring. Just having it on her finger gave her security. I have the means of escaping to France by sea, should it come to that, or to England by land if all else fails, she thought. She wondered if Elizabeth had received her last letter, followed by the news of her escape. So far there had been no word from England.
“There is the problem of pay,” George was saying. “The Lord James has all the coin and plate and jewels of the crown at his disposal, and we have nothing. How will we pay these troops?”
“With promises,” she said. “For once I regain my throne—”
“They cannot eat on promises,” said George.
“Then the food and munitions must be given as gifts,” she answered. “Those who support me will have to extend charity, for now.”
“You ask a high price,” he said. “Not everyone will pay it.”
“Not everyone, no. There are very few like you, George—willing to be at enmity with what they perceive as their own best interests, or with their own flesh and blood. Poor George—you are going against both your father and your older brother.”
“I have no other choice,” he said. “But others may.”
“No other choice?” she asked.
“You know all too well what I mean. Pray do not ask me to say the words.”
* * *
Mary sent a proclamation to James, encamped only a few miles away, announcing that she was repudiating her abdication and reclaiming her throne, and that she desired, in the name of mercy, to receive his acceptance of this and to reconcile him to obedience to her. His reply was to tear it up and put her messenger in chains.
* * *
On May thirteenth, only eleven days after Mary had fled from Lochleven, the battle was joined. Mary’s forces had swelled to six thousand men, even without Huntly, whereas James’s were only three thousand. Early in the morning her commander, Argyll, gave the orders to march westward, skirting Glasgow, and engage James at his stronghold at Burgh Muir.
Mary, accompanied by Willie Douglas and Mary Seton—whom the distraught Laird had allowed to follow her mistress—took up a position on a nearby hill that gave her a view of the surrounding countryside. She saw her army, with Lord Claud Hamilton and his clansmen forming the vanguard, marching toward the little town of Langside; Argyll, with the bulk of the troops, followed a distance behind.
Suddenly there was colour and movement; Lord James was approaching! She could not follow all the motions, but later it was revealed that James had mounted two men to a horse and transferred his entire army quickly to an ideal position just outside Langside rather than face her army on the flat plain. In a daring maneuver, Kirkcaldy stationed harquebusiers in the orchards and alleys around the main street of Langside, while Morton and James kept control of the main body of troops, stationed on Langside Hill.
The vanguard of Hamiltons now filed into Langside, their progress slowed by the problem of processing through the narrow main thoroughfare. Shots rang out; they were fired upon by hidden gunmen on all sides, and they fell in confusion, bodies heaping up on each other as they tried to escape. The harquebusiers picked them off as if they were target-shooting, and the men panicked.
Behind them the Highland troops of Argyll stopped in bewilderment, unable to enter the bottleneck of the town. They heard the gunfire and the screams, and turned to their commander for direction. Just then piercing yells rang out; Lord Herries was leading a charge up the hill after Lord James.
Then a wailing and lamenting rose and swelled. The Highlanders were turning, breaking ranks, running the other way!
Mary looked across at Langside Hill, where, to her horror, she saw a cradle resting under a spreading hedge, with the now-familiar banner of the kneeling Prince fluttering above it. The Lords had brought the baby James to this battlefield!
Anger and hatred filled her. How could they have risked his life so?
Perhaps they did not care if he perished; perhaps that was even their purpose. “We lost him in battle,” they could sadly say, when placing the crown on the head of the bastard Lord James.
With a cry of vengeance, she spurred her own horse and galloped down the hill, waving her pistols.
“Fight them, fight the evil usurpers!” she cried, entering the melee. She was almost run down by fleeing Highlanders.
“Where is your chief?” she yelled, seeing Argyll’s horse without a rider. But no one answered, they only rushed away. Then she saw a bundle lying at the horse’s feet; the loyal horse was standing over him and preventing him from being trampled.
His attendant was kneeling down beside him, rubbing his master’s face. “A fit of apoplexy,” he said, his face stained with tears. “He was struck just as we began the attack.”
Apoplexy! How could he have been struck now? Could not God have waited another hour, another two hours?
“Do You hate me?” she screamed at the heavens. Around her the dust was rising as the men fled. She turned to them and yelled, “Stand! Stand and fight! The day will be yours!”
A shower of arrows rained down on them, and the next in command echoed her cry. “Fight! Regroup!”
“Shut up, you’ve no authority!” cried one of the other men, one of his cousins.
The two men sat on their horses arguing while arrows fell on all sides of them.
“Coward and poltroon!” screamed one. “Leave him and follow me!”
“He’s no training, just a student, a soft book-lover—”
“Shut up!”
A scramble, and Mary saw Lord Herries leading a second charge up Langside Hill. But with no strength or reinforcements behind him, he could not sustain it. Lord James drove him back.
Mary reined in her horse, and keeping her pistols at the ready, she fled through the side streets of Langside, almost hoping she would find a harquebusier hiding in the trees. By God, I’ll shoot him! she thought. The main street was filled with bodies.
As she galloped back to her hill, she was met by Lord Livingston, George and Willie, and Lord Herries’s son. “Come,” they said. She realized they were escorting her off the field of battle. “It is not meet—”
“Not meet that I see firsthand what has happened? They will not fight!” she shrieked. “Argyll has fallen, and his Highlanders flee—”
As she reached the summit of the hill, she saw Morton’s pikemen advancing on the few remaining Hamiltons emerging at the other end of the main street. Hand-to-hand combat ensued, and screams of terror, sounding all but inhuman, filled the air.
Lord Herries galloped up, his horse sweat-streaked. “The day is lost,” he said. “We must flee!”
“Lost?”
“Aye. Quickly, lest you be taken again!” He jerked her bridle.
Taken again. Then it was all in vain. It was all over—and in less than an hour. A lifetime in an hour.
“Where can I, in honour, go?”
“Let us make for Dumbarton. There we can gather strength, send to France for help!” He motioned to her, and she followed him down the hill. Below were the flashing staves and daggers of Morton’s men, finishing off their victims. “Do not look!”
But she did. She watched as the helpless men writhed and twitched and then died, crying out.
They were past the battlefield in only a few moments, and then they headed toward the water, and Dumbarton. They would have to gallop across the fields now being prepared for planting. But the army was not in pursuit. Far behind them were coming George and Willie.
Unexpectedly, two men rose up in the field, brandishing scythes and hoes.
“You’ll not pass this way, whore!” they yelled, and started running toward Mary’s horse, trying to swipe it with their blades. Her horse reared and flinched.
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sp; Their eyes were full of hatred, and they aimed and swooped like boys trying to make a goal in a schoolyard game. “Get her!” sneered one.
The Earl of Lennox’s lands! Of course!
She wheeled her horse around and fled in the opposite direction. Dumbarton was cut off; they had no hopes of reaching it. They could not go through Glasgow, which was solidly for Lord James, nor get across the wide Firth of Clyde, nor pass over the waters where they were narrower, for they lay in Lennox’s territory. Her enemies made a living fence around her only fortress.
She and Lord Herries, in doubling back, came abreast of Willie and George. “We cannot pass to Dumbarton,” Mary said, panting.
“We must try to go south,” said Herries. “It will be through the wild districts of the Galloway mountains and moors. But I know the passes, and our pursuers will not. You must be a native to know them, and thanks be to God, all our people in these parts are still loyal. Come. Can you undertake this journey?” He looked not only at Mary but at George, Willie, Lord Livingston, and his own son, who had now caught up with them.
“With God’s help!” said Mary, and all the others nodded.
“Then let us go!” Herries touched spurs to his horse and led them away, across the fields and south.
* * *
He had spoken true: once the softness of the valley of the River Doon—in full flower now, white starry violets dotting the banks of the water, wild plum trees in full scented bloom—with its shepherds and flocks of sheep and newborn lambs fell away, they found themselves in untamed tracts of mountains, with rushing, foamy streams and rocky waterfalls. The landscape changed from the lush green of the watered flat valley to the brown-and-moss-and-heathery crags of the high country. The sky was enormous, and brooded over them with moody racing clouds that threw shadows in the dips and rises. By midafternoon the clouds had coalesced and turned black on their undersides, and a fine mist descended, settling around them, dampening them without actually raining. It made the footing all the more dangerous.
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Page 92