by Alison Weir
In Mary’s day, the royal apartments were housed in the massive rectangular fortified north-west tower built by James V, which was accessed by a stairway leading to an iron drawbridge on the first floor. The walls were thick and the windows small, so the rooms were quite dark. Mary occupied the second-floor chambers that had been assigned to the Queens of Scotland; the empty King’s apartments were on the floor below, and were of similar layout. A spiral stair in the north-east turret gave access to all floors, while a privy staircase (now blocked) in the north wall led up from the King’s bedchamber to the Queen’s.
Mary had a suite of four pine-panelled rooms, which still survive today, although they are not as lofty, since the ceilings on the floor below were raised in the seventeenth century. These rooms comprised a large outer, or presence, chamber, hung with black velvet, where the Queen received ambassadors and dignitaries, a bedchamber and, in the turrets that led off it, two small closets, each no more than 12 feet square. One, with crimson and green hangings, was used as a dining chamber, the other as a stool chamber or dressing room. These rooms were hung with tapestries and hangings brought from France, and lit with silver and gilt chandeliers, and there was a four-poster bed in the bedchamber. The floors were either tiled or covered with rush matting, and the shuttered windows had armorial glass and were protected by iron grilles painted red. The ribbed, oak-panelled ceiling in the presence chamber was decorated with shields bearing the arms of Mary, Francis II, James V and Marie de Guise. Some of the most dramatic events of Mary’s life were to take place within these rooms.
Adjoining the tower was a quadrangular range of buildings that housed the beautiful chapel royal, the damaged great hall, and Mary’s library. Around a series of lesser courts were ranged the new Council Chamber, where ceremonial events normally took place, the Governor’s Tower, the armoury, the mint, a forge, kitchens and other service quarters. The abbey and palace were surrounded by pleasant gardens, an orchard, a lion house, and a deer park in which Mary could exercise her passion for hunting. During her reign, the nave of the ruined abbey was converted into the parish church of the Canongate.8
Within the palace grounds still stands a small structure known as Queen Mary’s Bath House; this was the only building erected by Mary during her reign in Scotland. Legend has it that she bathed there in white wine in order to preserve her complexion, but the real history of the Bath House is obscure. We have no way of knowing what Mary thought of her kingdom as she beheld it anew after her long absence. Some historians have speculated that she compared Scotland with France and found it wanting. She did try to establish a French-style court at Holyrood, which was hardly surprising, as she had known nothing else and other precedents had been forgotten: it was nearly twenty years since a Stuart sovereign had held court in Scotland.
Under Mary, Holyrood became the scene of courtly entertainments and glittering ceremonials, and a magnet for the nobility. The Queen had grand tastes and, like most Renaissance monarchs, realised the importance of a display of magnificence, which she funded from her private income. She patronised poets and musicians, and her valets de chambre were all expected to display some musical ability on the lute, viola or trumpet. John Knox was horrified to learn that Mary and her ladies danced at royal balls and banquets, and warned that the palace would turn into a brothel if this devilish practice were allowed to continue; the Queen’s abominable way of life, he thundered, was “offensive in the sight of God.” The Protestant David Calderwood later wrote that, although Mary showed a grave demeanour in Council, “when she, her fiddlers and other dancing companions got into the house alone, there might be seen unseemly skipping, notwithstanding that she was wearing the deuil blanc. Her common speech in secret was that she saw nothing in Scotland but gravity, which she could not agree well with, for she was brought up in joyousity.” Yet Mary did have a more serious side, and set time aside regularly to read Latin with the respected humanist scholar, George Buchanan, who at this time was one of her most fervent admirers.
The Queen’s household numbered about 250 persons, mostly French with a few Italians. From 1563, the Master of the Household was George, 5th Lord Seton, the brother of Mary Seton and a leading Catholic noble. Educated in France, he had attended Mary’s wedding in 1558, was made a Privy Councillor in 1561, and would remain loyal to her for the rest of his life, often to his own disadvantage.
The four Maries had returned from France with their mistress and still attended her. Knox disapproved of them all, thinking them light of morals and frivolous. In 1562, Mary Livingston married Arthur Erskine of Blackgrange, brother to the future Earl of Mar, and left Mary’s service. The beautiful Mary Beaton followed suit in 1566 when she married Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne. Both remained close to the Queen. Mary Fleming, with her charm and sex appeal, was one of the most sought after ladies at court, while Mary Seton, the most pious and unworldly of the four, would never marry, and stayed with her mistress until 1583, when ill health forced her to retire to a convent in France.
Generally, the Scots were impressed with their Queen. She certainly cut a striking figure for, at about six feet tall, she was well above the normal height for a woman, slender, graceful, and dignified in her bearing. She had a pale complexion, frizzy auburn hair, grey or brown slanting, heavy-lidded eyes, an over-long nose inherited from her father and a “very sweet, very lovely”9voice; she later acquired “a pretty Scottish accent.”10Her neck was long, her bosom like marble and her hands delicate.
Ronsard, Brantôme and several other court poets lauded Mary’s beauty, and a Venetian ambassador called her “personally the most beautiful in Europe.”11This cannot have been mere flattery, for even her enemies praised her looks. George Buchanan wrote: “She was graced with surpassing loveliness of form, the vigour of maturing youth, and fine qualities of mind.” Lennox called her “a paragon,” and even Knox found her features “pleasing.” It is therefore disappointing to discover that Mary’s surviving portraits (none of which date from her reign in Scotland) do not convey to modern eyes the beauty described by enthusiastic contemporaries. What portraits cannot capture are those indefinable qualities known as charm and sex appeal, and it seems likely that Mary had her full measure of both.
As a widow, Mary normally wore black or white gowns with white veils, but abandoned her weeds for state occasions. In her wardrobe at Holyrood were sixty gowns of cloth of gold or silver, purple or crimson velvet or silk, many adorned with gems or fine embroidery; there were also fourteen cloaks and thirty-three masquing costumes, and her inventories record over 180 fine pieces of jewellery. In Scotland, Mary took to wearing Highland dress, notably long embroidered cloaks of plaid, which was then just a warm material, not tartan as we know it today. She enjoyed dressing up, especially in men’s clothes,12and going about incognito. Her hair was always beautifully dressed by Mary Seton, and she was fond of wearing wigs in different colours.
Mary was loved and respected by nearly all who served her. To her friends and servants, she was kind, generous and loyal. Ambassadors praised her virtue, her discretion, her modesty and her readiness to be ruled by good counsel.13She was spirited, vivacious and brave, majestic yet accessible. But she lacked prudence and common sense and was a notoriously bad judge of character, which resulted in many people taking advantage of her. Ever at the mercy of her emotions, she was highly suggestible, self-absorbed, and subject to storms of hysterical weeping, and periods of nervous prostration that obliged her to take to her bed. “She often weeps when there is little apparent occasion,” a contemporary observed.14Mary also made the mistake of allowing her heart to rule her head, which on more than one occasion led to tragedy. None of these were desirable qualities in a queen in an age that regarded female rulers as unnatural aberrations, yet in a crisis Mary could keep her wits about her and act decisively, resourcefully and courageously. She functioned best, however, when she had a strong man to lean upon, both politically and personally; unfortunately, most of the men on whom she came to depend used
her to further their own ambitions.
Some historians have described Mary as a foolish, passionate woman who was entirely without moral sense, and who was selfish, wilful, reckless, irresponsible and incapable of self-sacrifice. One even called her a nymphomaniac. Her enemies would later emphasise her moral depravity: Buchanan wrote of her “surface gloss of virtue” and Knox compared her to Jezebel. “We call her not a whore,” he wrote, “but she was brought up in the company of the vilest whoremongers.”
The truth of all this is hard to determine; none was more professedly jealous of her honour than Mary, yet there were undoubtedly occasions when she was constrained by circumstances or the behaviour of others to act in a way that left her open to censure. It is hard to believe that there was no alternative open to her: she was the Queen, and she almost always had powerful supporters willing to help her. Her intrigues show her to have been duplicitous and even ruthless, especially in her later machinations for the English throne; in 1561, Thomas Randolph, the English agent in Edinburgh, warned his superiors never to underestimate Mary, since he had found in her the fruit of the “best practised cunning of France combined with the subtle brains of Scotland.”15Although she suffered much ill luck, it was often the result of the flaws in her character and her own poor judgement.
All her life, Mary inspired in the imaginations of the male sex a fatal fascination. Knox himself was not immune, but put it down to “some enchantment whereby men are bewitched.” A few would be driven to take outrageous liberties, not, it seems, without imagining that they had been given some encouragement, for Mary allowed a certain familiarity in her relationships with her intimates that could easily have been misconstrued as romantic encouragement. It is unlikely that Mary was a nymphomaniac, but she may have inherited her father’s promiscuous nature, whether or not she indulged it, and she was no shrinking violet. In 1562, Thomas Randolph was shocked to see one Captain Hepburn casually pass Mary a paper on which were written “ribald verses, and under them drawn the secret members of both men and women in as monstrous a sort as nothing could be more shamefully devised.” Randolph was appalled, not only at the Queen’s lack of reaction, but at Hepburn’s disrespect in showing such an insulting thing to his mistress and the implied slur on her reputation.16
It has also been suggested that Mary was sexually frigid, but it is more probable that any reluctance in this sphere was a response to the behaviour of the men with whom she became involved. Yet there is evidence that she did enjoy male attention, but her bad judgement in choosing a husband would ultimately lead to her downfall, for she lacked the perception to spot the defects in a man’s character. During her time in Scotland, all her entanglements with men brought disaster.
Although she loved energetic outdoor pursuits, Mary’s health was never robust. In 1561, Randolph described her as “a sick, crazed woman.”17In youth, she had developed anaemia, which was probably the cause of her occasional fainting fits, and at sixteen she was rumoured to be consumptive. From adolescence onwards, until she was forty, she suffered episodes of pain in her side, which may have been of hysterical origin, but are more likely to have been caused by a gastric ulcer. She also suffered from intermittent depression; Randolph attributed this, and her outbursts of weeping, to sexual frustration resulting from her inability to find a suitable husband.18It has been suggested that Mary suffered from porphyria, a disease that later affected George III and other members of the Houses of Hanover and Windsor, and which she may have inherited from her father; this would explain many of her symptoms, such as episodic abdominal pain, vomiting, paralysis and mental disturbance, but there is not enough evidence for this diagnosis to be conclusive.
Although dignified, Mary was a most accessible and affable monarch. Like her cousin Elizabeth, she was not above exerting her feminine charm on her male advisers but, unlike Elizabeth, she lacked political experience and mature judgement. Nevertheless, her moderate and conciliatory approach soon found favour with her relieved Protestant Lords. As long as she was willing to heed the counsel of Lord James, they were happy to serve her as their mistress. In return for Mary’s compliance, and the honours and rewards she heaped upon him, James ensured her security, kept the turbulent nobility in check and took her part against the disapproving Knox. His relationship with Mary was one of mutual co-operation and fraternal affection.
That Lord James was the power behind the throne during the first four years of Mary’s personal rule there can be no doubt. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, an English diplomat who was familiar with Scottish affairs, stated that the Queen was content “to be ruled by good counsel and wise men.” In 1561, William Cecil, Elizabeth’s formidably able Secretary of State wrote, “The Queen of Scotland is, I hear, most governed by the Lord James.” Soon afterwards, Thomas Randolph echoed, “The Lord James is commander of the Queen.” The following year, a Jesuit reported: “The leading men in the government acknowledge the Queen’s title, but do not let her use her rights. They have many ways of acting in opposition to her. She is alone, and has not a single protector and good councillor. The men in power are taking advantage of her gentleness. She is well nigh destitute of human aid.” In 1562, Cecil informed a colleague that “the whole government rests with the Lord James,” and in 1563 another Jesuit noted, “The Lord James rules all. The Queen’s authority is nominal only.” Mary’s partisan, the Bishop of Ross, later recalled that “she had the name and calling, he [James] had the very sway and regiment.” In 1568, her supporters accused him of causing the Queen’s Majesty to “become subject to him as [if] Her Grace had been a pupil.”19
Mary relied heavily not only on Lord James, but also on the man whom she retained as her Secretary of State, William Maitland of Lethington.20 Now aged about thirty-three, he was the son of Sir Richard Maitland, Laird of Lethington in Lauderdale, Keeper of the Privy Seal and a writer and poet of note. The family seat was the fifteenth-century Lethington Castle near Haddington, East Lothian; later it was extensively remodelled and in 1704 renamed Lennoxlove in honour of Frances Stewart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox, who had once been courted by Charles II. It is now owned by the Duke of Hamilton.
William Maitland, a clever lawyer who had received a Renaissance education at St. Andrews University and later at the French court, was appointed Secretary of State in 1558 by Marie de Guise, who recognised his expertise as a politician and diplomat; in 1559, he had deserted her and joined the Lords of the Congregation. Thereafter, he won over several Lords to their cause, although his motivation was political rather than religious. His ultimate aim was a peaceful union with Protestant England through Elizabeth’s recognition of Mary as her heir, and his policies were all directed to that end. Consequently he collaborated closely with his opposite number in England, William Cecil, and, like Lord James, became a pensioner of the English Queen.
Astute, subtle, cunning and cultivated, Maitland was an arch-intriguer and double dealer. Elizabeth I called him “the flower of all the wits in Scotland,” but the Scots, seeing in him the pattern of a Machiavellian politician, nicknamed him “Michael Wylie”; Buchanan referred to him as a chameleon, and even Lord James, with whom he was closely associated in the government, disliked and distrusted him. His motives were often obscure: because he covered his traces so well, he was, and remains, something of an enigma, and it is uncertain whether in his dealings with Mary he acted out of loyalty or self-interest; he “held the threads of all the plots”21and knew more than he cared to reveal about the great dramas that would unfold during her reign.
Maitland became “the whole guider of [the Queen’s] affairs. His advice is followed more than any other.”22In his opinion, she behaved herself “as reasonably as we can require. If anything be amiss, the fault is rather in ourselves.”
Others were more fulsome in their praise. The courtier and diplomat, Sir James Melville, wrote: “The Queen’s Majesty, after returning to Scotland, behaved herself so princely, so honourably and discreetly that her reputation spread in all countrie
s.” She desired “to hold none in her company but such as were the best quality and conversation, abhorring all vices and vicious persons; and requested me to assist her in case she, being yet young, might forget herself in any unseemly gesture or misbehaviour, that I would warn her thereof. She made me familiar to all her most urgent affairs.”
Yet although Sir Thomas Craig claimed that he had often heard Mary “discourse so appositely and rationally in all affairs which were brought before the Privy Council that she was admired by all,”23her attendance record at such meetings was poor, and when she was present she sometimes sat there sewing while listening to debates. Most of her time was spent in the company of her largely foreign household. The evidence suggests that her role was mainly formal and ceremonial: she opened and attended Parliament, and went on many progresses throughout her realm, meeting her subjects, exerting her Stuart charm, and administering justice. Knox gained the impression that, rather than attend to state business, Mary preferred archery and hawking. In 1562, the Earl of Bothwell claimed that she “virtually wielded no authority at all.”24
Had Mary been less obsessed with the English succession, she might have been more successful at restoring royal authority in Scotland. Inevitably, as she gained confidence, she came to resent the tutelage of those formidable allies, Lord James and Maitland, and the other constraints that bound her. It would only be a matter of time before she asserted her independent authority and put her own interests before those of her kingdom, and when that time came, she would reveal herself as dangerously irresponsible and entirely out of tune with the concerns and aspirations of the majority of her subjects. The result would be disaster.