Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  Today she was working on an elaborate set of genealogical bed hangings to be sent to her son, James. On a field of rich emerald green, they traced her ancestry in France and Lorraine, showing Charlemagne and Saint Louis. James must be reminded of that side of his family and his glorious inheritance.

  She picked up the gold thread that would be used to indicate shiny surfaces of shields, swords, helmets. James was almost ten now, and in the custody of the Earl of Morton. The poor child, she thought, he is as much a prisoner as I. With this difference: that every year that passes brings him closer to freedom, whereas my hope of it recedes. Some day he will be a grown man and can dismiss his warders and gaolers as he pleases.

  Mary had written him and sent him gifts over the years, but never received a reply. Still she continued, never knowing what became of her missives. She had already written the letter that was to accompany this gift, labouring over the wording. She called him to be faithful to God and to remember his mother, “she who has borne you in her sides.”

  She sighed and rubbed her eyes. They were bothering her of late. She spent so many hours focusing on close work, sewing, reading, and writing, that she was straining them. She could feel the muscles in her forehead relax when she looked up.

  I must stop squinting, she told herself.

  She motioned to her little spaniels to come over to her, and they trotted quickly, their nails clicking on the smooth floor, their tongues hanging out. She had come to rely on them as children to amuse her. They alone seemed happy in this place.

  “Yes, my dears,” she said. “I believe there will be chicken at dinner, and possibly mutton. I will bring you some.”

  The bell signalled dinnertime, as it did every day, day after day after day. The ladies rose and went into the hall, where white cloths were spread over long tables. They never ate with Shrewsbury’s retainers in the Great Hall; the two households must never mingle.

  As always, there were sixteen dishes to prepare—seven meat, three vegetable, three soups, three sweet desserts. It never varied. Like sleepwalkers, they partook of the meal they had already partaken of so many times. Yesterday, today, tomorrow—it was all one.

  Now I know what eternity is, Mary thought. Some wag once said, “Eternity is two people and a haunch of venison.” But he has never had his forty people and sixteen perpetual dishes.

  They rose. The men would attend to their tasks, stretching them out as long as possible to fill the hours. The coachmen would polish the coach wheels, still shiny from yesterday’s polishing, since they had travelled nowhere. The apothecary would rearrange his bottles, moving the powdered mandrake root to the place where the tinctures of Solomon’s seal and milkwort had stood. The femmes de chambre would air and brush the Queen’s dresses, still fresh from yesterday’s airing, and put them back in their proper places. They would refold all the clothes that were already perfectly folded. The grooms would take the Queen’s three horses out for exercise—exercise she was not allowed to give them. The secretaries would stack the writing paper and trim the sealing wax. There were still at least ten hours to get through before they could sleep, to begin all over again the next morning.

  As Mary walked slowly, painfully, back to her rooms, she wondered if she should sew this afternoon, or read a history. Or perhaps she could get permission to walk her little dogs in the inner courtyard. But her knees and ankles were bothering her so that even a short walk would be trying. And her head was aching.

  “Madam,” said Bourgoing, hobbling up beside her, “I notice your steps are especially slow today.”

  She looked at him with amusement. He had shrunk over the years, becoming stooped and gnomelike. His gout was far worse than hers.

  “Your pains are worse than mine, friend,” she said. “Yet I do admit, my legs ache today. Is it for this you preserved me from the scars of smallpox?” She made sure to laugh as she said it, so he would know she was teasing.

  “Have you received any word from the Queen as to when you may go to Buxton?” he asked.

  “Yes—when cherries ripen in January, and pigs dance the galliard,” she replied.

  “Surely she is not so cruel! Shrewsbury goes regularly!”

  “Yes, but she says I may escape, and that even his new quarters there are not secure enough. It must be a stout prison to hold a woman crippled with gout and rheumatism, you know.”

  “Write to her again!” he said.

  “I have written at least fifteen times on the subject. I have no new approach for the sixteenth time, I fear.” Mary smiled. “I must content myself with your hot wax treatments. Truly, they do help.”

  Together they traversed the gallery where she had hung portraits of her Scottish ancestors, and were just on the verge of entering her private apartments when Anthony came running up.

  “A messenger from Scotland!” he cried. He pointed down at the courtyard, where a dusty man, carrying a large covered basket, was talking to the guards. There was much gesturing. Finally the rider took out a letter and let the guard read it. Only after he and two others had read it was the man allowed to dismount and enter the building, escorted by yet another guard.

  Mary stood and waited; the man and his companion made their way down the gallery toward her.

  “Most gracious sovereign,” the messenger said, kneeling and removing his hat. “I come from Lady Bothwell, your husband’s mother. His—late mother.”

  Lady Bothwell! Mary had never met her, but she knew Bothwell had taken his stubborn courage from his mother, who had stood her ground after his father had so cravenly discarded her. As the Lady of Morham, she had held her head high and watched as her erstwhile spouse met an ignominious end, never gloating, but never shrinking, either. Bothwell had spoken often of her, and she knew he visited her.

  The late Lady Bothwell, had he said?

  “She has died?” asked Mary. “It grieves me to know.” She gestured for him to follow her into her privy chamber.

  Once inside, she asked him for the letter. He put down the basket and gave her the letter, apologizing for its having been opened.

  “I saw the reason,” Mary said. “All mail that comes openly to me is treated thus. That is why I—we”—she nodded at Anthony and Monsieur Nau, who had been waiting in the room—“maintain another line of communication … one that is, alas, often shut down.”

  She opened the letter herself and read.

  My most esteemed sovereign and daughter,

  My time on earth drawing to its close, it is meet that I set my worldly affairs in order. Thus it is that I am drawing up my will, and mean to bequeath my belongings to William Hepburn, my natural grandson, who has lived near me during his lifetime. My land I leave to my widowed daughter Janet. I tell you this so that, should you be able to communicate with my son James your husband, he will know.

  Having lived so many years as I have, seeing much sorrow yet much of joy, I am ready to take my leave of it all in peace. I regret only a very few things, one of them being that I never saw you as my son’s wife, you being spirited away so soon, and he following not long after.

  It grieves my heart as a mother to know her son lies in prison across the seas, and separated from his wife. I wish to give you something of his, in a manner of speaking. As a boy he had an especial affinity for dogs, which I am proud to say he took from me. Some years ago he sent me two Skye terriers. They thrived, and these pups are their great-grand-pups. I am told that you are fond of little dogs and already have several pets, so I hope these will find a welcome home with you as a remembrance of him.

  The Skye terrier, as you may suppose, I was told came originally from Skye. They will not grow very big, only some eight inches or so. As they grow up, their hair will get longer and longer until some say “you canna see the dog for the hair.” But let not that fool you. They are no dandies like the curly-haired fops at French courts, but are strong, fearless trackers of game, can burrow, and swim in treacherous waters. They are one-person dogs and fiercely loyal. But o
ne warning: if they are unsure of their master’s love, they can fall into a melancholy.

  I now take my leave of you and of this world, begging it to treat you well, and in lieu of my James, to take unto you these his “relicts.”

  Agnes Sinclair, Lady Bothwell of Morham

  Mary felt her eyes clouding over with tears. The courage of the old lady, the sanguine acceptance of all … it was poignant. She quickly folded the letter and turned to the basket. These were the descendants of the dogs from the cottage on the moor!

  “So you have carried pups all the way from Scotland,” she said to the messenger. “It must have seemed a long journey!”

  “Nay, they were no trouble,” he said, unlatching the lid of the hinged basket and revealing three pups inside, all of different colours: black, cream, and grey. They began whining and squirming as soon as they saw the light.

  “They are just lately weaned,” he said. “Lady Bothwell died before she had meant them to be sent, but I took them anyway, before they could be lost in the confusion.”

  Mary lifted out the black one. “What peculiar ears! They are beginning to stick up like a sail!”

  “Yes, in the mother they were spread out like two high sails atop her head, just perched there. Of course the hair will get longer.”

  “Is it really as long as she said?”

  “It drags the ground, Your Majesty.”

  She remembered the ones in the house on the moor. Yes, they had had hair that looked like the caparisons of horses. She laughed. “They are welcome in our household. But they will have to make their peace with the French spaniels.”

  “French and Scots have ever had a strange marriage,” said the messenger.

  “Tell me—when and how did she die?”

  “Of extreme old age, is the only ailment I know. She was always healthy, and then just slowly began to—fade. Like the colours of a gown left out to dry in the hot sun; everything grows fainter. Her skin got paler, her grip looser, her eyesight weaker … and her hearing became very bad. Even the barking of the dogs she couldn’t hear! It took her longer to walk across a room, longer to wake up, and then, one day, she didn’t wake up. It was very simple, like a ripe apple falling from a tree—or rather, an overripe apple giving up the ghost at last.”

  Mary crossed herself. “May God grant us such a comfortable death! An easy death—such a great gift! And did she know this was coming?”

  “It would seem so, in the orderly way she took her leave of everything, even down to providing for the puppies.”

  An easy death … an orderly death … God must have loved her, thought Mary.

  * * *

  The afternoon passed slowly as Mary Seton, Jane, and Marie did their embroidery, sitting on their already embroidered stools around their mistress. In this series of panels—where, oh, where would they put them?—they were depicting animals, exotic ones. There was a toucan from America, a unicorn, a monkey, and a phoenix. Mary herself was working on a scarlet petticoat embroidered with silver flowers, which she planned to send to Elizabeth. It was a very ambitious work, involving an entire border of intricate flowers, stems, and leaves. Perhaps it would soften Elizabeth’s heart.

  How could she actually wear something made with my own hands and still not see me as a real, breathing person? Mary thought as she pulled the hard silver threads in and out.

  The sun warmed the chamber, and even with the casement windows wide open, the women grew drowsy. Mary put aside her sewing and decided to read instead. She had marked her place in Lancilot de Laik just where Lancelot and Guinevere had become lovers. She was determined to get through it for the first time since Bothwell had entered her life. She had hated knowing that after the falling in love came the reckoning with King Arthur and then the sentence of burning.…

  Burn the whore!

  But they didn’t burn me, she told herself, and Darnley was no kindly, noble King Arthur.…

  * * *

  She found herself fighting sleep by the late afternoon and lay down to rest. She knew she would fall asleep and hated to give in to it, for it meant she would be up late again. The cycle must somehow be broken, but there was no incentive to do so. The hours of captivity somehow seemed friendlier and softer late at night, playing cards and talking in low voices in the candlelight. It was easier to imagine she was up late at Fontainebleau or Holyrood, surrounded by her intimates after everyone else had gone to bed.… She slept, one arm across her eyes, and dreamed of Lancelot and his lake, and the Lady of the Lake and Arthur’s sword, dripping with water, then with blood. She awoke with a gasp.

  Just then she heard the drumroll again from the outer courtyard. The sound of evening; another day had dragged itself through and now was to be locked away. Another day to be recorded and its good and bad totted up, blemishes and brightnesses of souls to beam out for eternity. Some people had died today and were even now having to face a roll call of all their days—this day that seemed so very ordinary to her. Be with us now and in the hour of our death.

  She forced herself to stand up, shake her head, clear it. It would soon be time for supper, with its reduced number of dishes and lessened ceremony. She had no appetite for it, but she must take her place at the table.

  * * *

  After dinner, the ladies retired back to their chamber. Mary took up Lancelot again until the household gathered for evening prayers.

  Again they arranged themselves in the largest chamber and listened while the priest intoned Psalms.

  “‘My God, my God, look upon me; why hast Thou forsaken me, and art so far from my health, and from the words of my complaint?’”

  The light was fading in the chamber, and they all kept silent and then filed away back to their rooms.

  There the women would read a bit, once again tidy their things, and then, yawning with the intense debilitation of having done nothing all day, take to their beds and try to sleep. Nau and Andrew Beaton would go over their books, making neat entries in the proper columns, then close them and put them away. Willie Douglas, Bastian Pages, Anthony, the coachmen, the grooms, and the ushers would gather in a corner of the gallery and play cards until late at night. Sometimes Mary and her women would join them.

  But not tonight.

  My heart is so strangely heavy tonight, she thought, as she prepared for bed. I do not wish to have any company.

  She could hear sounds of the armed guards at their posts, keeping watch over the entrance to the royal apartments, as they did every night when the great outer gates were closed. Some of them were laughing and talking. Why shouldn’t they? she thought. They were young and the night was warm and starry.

  She lay down on the bed and lighted the single candle that was affixed to her headboard. She closed her eyes and prayed to be able to sleep, to let the hours pass unnoticed and uncounted.

  In eight hours the morning drumroll sounded, and another day began.

  * * *

  One day in high summer, the tedium was broken after dinner when the Earl of Shrewsbury paid a formal visit to Mary, being duly announced by her page.

  “Ah! My dear Shrewsbury!” Mary greeted him with uplifted hands.

  She and Shrewsbury had a unique relationship. On the one hand, it had all the cosiness of those living in close proximity, the camaraderie that springs up in spite of itself in enforced companionship. On the other, it had all the distrust of warden and prisoner, made more complex by yet another factor: in acting as her gaoler, Shrewsbury had doomed himself to a sort of house arrest himself, as he could never leave and go to court. So she, in a sense, was also his gaoler. Beyond that, there was always the unspoken knowledge that, in the twinkling of an eye, in the sudden onset of fever, in a dry cough that turned into something else, Elizabeth could die and Mary be Queen of England. It might be his sovereign that Shrewsbury was now facing.

  “Madam, I bring good news.” He held out a letter.

  Mary saw the green wax of the official English seal. She ripped it open.

&nbs
p; “She gives me permission to go to Buxton!” In her excitement, she almost hugged Shrewsbury.

  “I know.” He held up his letter. “I am pleased.”

  Mary said, “I am so grateful.”

  “We can leave next week,” he said. “I will make sure that your quarters are in order. I—look forward to it, Your Majesty.” With a shy smile, he bowed.

  * * *

  In her coach, bumping its way along the rutted excuse for roads, Mary looked eagerly out at the countryside as she was transported the twenty miles between Sheffield and Buxton. She was alone, except of course for Mary Seton and Shrewsbury, who was riding along ahead, greeting all the people who lined the road to glimpse their overlord.

  He had ordered Mary to keep the shades drawn in the coach, not to stare out, and above all, not to make any gestures to the people. But she had rolled up one corner of the shades and peeked out. The closed coach was drawing almost as much attention as if she had been leaning out and waving.

  “The Scots Queen!” they whispered, pointing. They stood on tiptoe and tried to catch a glimpse inside. “Has anyone seen her?” they asked. Little boys ran after the coach and tried to jump up on it, and had to be shoved off by the guards. Shrewsbury was met with cries of “Show her! Show your captive Queen!” He rode on, ignoring the calls, but dreading the stir that was going to be caused in Buxton.

  Queen Elizabeth had given lengthy and detailed instructions, but what they amounted to was that Mary must be kept in strictest isolation. It could not be helped that she would have an opportunity to see others during her bathing times at the warm spring itself, but as for all the rest of the socializing—the walks, the games of bowling, the hawking—she was not to participate. There were to be no strangers coming and going from Buxton, Mary must give an hour’s notice preparatory to leaving her rooms, and she was to have no visitors after nine at night.

  Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth herself would be on progress in the Midlands, and might—just might—come to Buxton herself. If she did, she would expect to find her instructions being followed to the letter.