The True Life of Mary Stuart: Queen of Scots
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Genealogies
Maps
Prologue
The First Year
The Rough Wooings
Arrival in France
Adolescence
Education
A Dynastic Marriage
Betrayed Queen
Return to Scotland
Into the Labyrinth
A Meeting Between Sisters
A Search for a Husband
“My Heart Is My Own”
A Marriage of Convenience
Enter Bothwell
A Marriage in Trouble
Assassination One
Reconciliation
Plot and Counterplot
Assassination Two
A Love Match?
Denouement in Scotland
Mary’s Story
Bothwell’s Story
The Lords’ Story
Casket Letters I
Casket Letters II
Captive Queen
An Ax or an Act?
Nemesis
The Final Hours
Epilogue
Chronology
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Footnotes
First Mariner Books edition 2005
Copyright © 2004 by John Guy
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
www.hmhco.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Guy, J. A. (John Alexander)
Queen of Scots : the true life of Mary Stuart / John Guy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-618-25411-8 ISBN-10: 0-618-25411-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-618-61917-7 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 0-618-61917-8 (pbk.)
1. Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542–1587. 2. Scotland—History—Mary Stuart, 1542–1567. 3. Great Britain—History—Elizabeth, 1558–1603. 4. Queens—Scotland—Biography. I. Title.
DA787-A1G89 2004
941.105'092—dc22 [B] 2003067592
Title-page calligraphy by Bernard Maisner
Maps by Jacques Chazaud and Richard Guy
eISBN 978-0-547-52696-6
v1.0614
In memory of my mother
Princes at all times have not their wills, but my heart being my own is immutable.
—Mary to Thomas Randolph, English ambassador to Scotland, March 8, 1564
Acknowledgments
WRITING THIS BOOK has been an exciting, invigorating experience, one of the most thrilling of my life, an adventure even for someone who had already worked on the historical records for a quarter of a century. I had no idea when I began that so much fresh material could be found in the archives about a woman who has been the daughter of debate for four centuries. Then, when I steadily began to uncover this material, I felt a sense of elation. I simply could not stop working on the book until I got to the bottom and the end of the story.
I’m deeply grateful for all the help and support I’ve received from the archivists and curators whose repositories and libraries I’ve ransacked for so many weeks and months. Monique Cohen and her staff at the Département des Manuscrits, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, showed me how to find what I needed in a library I’d never used before. In more familiar haunts, Dr. Sarah Tyacke and her team at the National Archives (Public Record Office), London, and the staff of the University Library at Cambridge were as helpful and courteous as ever. Dr. Andrea Clarke and her colleagues in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library were always willing to assist me, supplying microfilms of key volumes of the Cottonian and Additional Manuscripts so that I could read them at home. I also thank the staff of the Rare Books Department for producing every copy in the collection of certain titles, including multiple copies of the same edition. Dr. Richard Palmer and his staff at Lambeth Palace Library offered me the opportunity to read newly acquired documents concerning Mary’s trial and execution, some of which had been out of the public domain for decades. I’m most grateful to the Trustees for access to this material.
In Edinburgh, my path was greatly eased by the reading room staff of the National Archives of Scotland, HM General Register House, and of the Department of Special Collections, National Library of Scotland. At St. Andrews University Library, Christine Gascoigne and her colleagues in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department repeatedly came to my aid. For access to and permission to quote from the manuscripts of the old Advocates Library and other documents held at the George IV Bridge repository of the National Library of Scotland, I wish to thank the Trustees.
For access to the Cecil Papers at Hatfield House and for permission to cite them, I am most grateful to The Marquess of Salisbury, and to Robin Harcourt Williams, librarian and archivist. For access to and permission to quote from the manuscripts and rare books at the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California, I gladly thank Dr. Mary Robertson, chief curator of manuscripts, whom by a happy coincidence I first met in Sir Geoffrey Elton’s Tudor seminar in Cambridge some thirty years ago. For permission to read the manuscripts and rare books at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., I acknowledge the generosity of Dr. Gail Kern Paster, director, and the Trustees.
Preliminary drafts of the maps and genealogical tables were drawn and digitized by Richard Guy of Orang-Utan Productions. For undertaking the picture research and obtaining loans of transparencies, I thank Sheila Geraghty, whose expertise was invaluable. My colleague Stephen Alford at Cambridge University read the entire manuscript in draft and I relished all of our lengthy conversations. Professor Michael Lynch, Department of Scottish History, University of Edinburgh, read and most generously commented on the uncorrected proofs. I’m grateful for his suggestions and list of corrections on the Scottish side, and for corrections supplied by Rachel Guy, who also read the page proofs. I accept full responsibility for such errors as may still remain.
Some academic historians may regret my spelling of “Stuart” in preference to “Stewart” for the dynasty. But Mary called herself “Stuart”; her motto, “Sa virtu m’atire,” works as a near-perfect anagram only if the family name is spelled “Stuart”; and it seemed likely to irritate readers if both “Stuart” and “Stewart” were used. I also prefer “Ker of Fawdonside” to the alternative “Kerr,” adopting the orthography of the manuscripts. And I’ve followed the example of Elizabeth I and William Cecil in styling James Hamilton, Third Earl of Arran, as “Arran,” after his father, the second earl, was made Duke of Châtelherault, even though he was not strictly Earl of Arran until his father died.
I’ve nothing but thanks and admiration for Peter Robinson and Emma Parry, my agents in London and New York, for their constant encouragement and for persuading me that I could write this book and make it work. Both read the manuscript and gave helpful advice. In preparing a book in which the interpretation counts for just as much as the archival research, I’ve also realized how much I’ve learned from the BBC producers with whom I’ve been privileged to work during the past four years, in particular Catrine Clay, Dick Taylor and Jane McWilliams.
I owe an immense debt to Eamon Dolan, my editor at Houghton Mifflin. His comments on my drafts were pitched exactly right, always helpful and to the point. I
feel privileged to be published by Houghton Mifflin, whose magnanimity in allowing me to get on with my work uninterrupted for almost three years created the closest thing to ideal conditions. For assistance in the editorial and publicity stages, I also wish to thank Larry Cooper, Bridget Marmion, Lori Glazer, Whitney Peeling and Carla Gray.
I express heartfelt gratitude to my former students at the University of St. Andrews, and those I currently teach at Cambridge, for their contributions to seminars and supervisions where Mary made her appearance more often than she should have. Other debts are to Fiona Alexander, who saw instantly that the mysterious “object” Mary holds in her left hand in the placard of the mermaid and the hare, previously defying explanation, is a rolled-up net. Frances and David Waters offered constant encouragement, uncannily predicting the date on which I’d deliver the final manuscript, and making sure we had tickets for Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro for the very next night.
Most importantly, Julia accepted Mary’s presence in what must increasingly have seemed like a ménage à trois, showing infinite patience. She pored over innumerable drafts, reading some chapters as many as a dozen times and discussing Mary at all hours. I can never adequately thank her or repay her love. Emma was just as tolerant, never complaining that she hardly saw her father, and merely teasing him about when he’d finish “the book.” Lucy, Susie and Gemma sometimes got their paws into Mary’s affairs more than I might have liked, but in doing so kept me in touch with normality.
London
October 24, 2003
Prologue
AROUND EIGHT O’CLOCK in the morning on Wednesday, February 8, 1587, when it was light enough to see without candles, Sir Thomas Andrews, sheriff of the county of Northamptonshire, knocked on a door. The place was Fotheringhay Castle, about seventy-five miles from London. All that remains there now beneath the weeds is the raised earthen rampart of the inner bailey and a truncated mound, or “motte,” on the site of the keep, a few hundred yards from the village beside a sluggish stretch of the River Nene.
But in the sixteenth century the place was bustling with life. Fotheringhay was a royal manor. Richard III had been born at the castle in 1452. Henry VII, the first of the Tudor kings, who had slain Richard at the battle of Bosworth, gave the estate as a dowry to his wife, Elizabeth of York, and Henry VIII granted it to his first bride, Catherine of Aragon, who extensively refurbished the castle. In 1558, Elizabeth I inherited the property when she succeeded to the throne on the death of her elder sister, Mary Tudor.
Despite its royal associations, nothing had prepared Fotheringhay, or indeed the British Isles, for what was about to happen there. Andrews was in attendance on two of England’s highest-ranking noblemen, George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and Henry Grey, Earl of Kent. The door on which he knocked was the entrance to the privy chamber of Mary Queen of Scots, dowager queen of France and for almost nineteen years Elizabeth’s prisoner in England.
The door opened to reveal Mary on her knees, praying with her bedchamber servants. Andrews informed her that the time was at hand, and she looked up and said she was ready. She rose, and her gentlewomen stood aside.
She was only forty-four. Born and brought up to be a queen, she walked confidently through the doorway as if she were once more processing to a court festival. Almost six feet tall, she had always looked the part. She had been fêted since her childhood in France for her beauty and allure. “Charmante” and “la plus parfaite” were the adjectives most commonly applied to her singular blend of celebrity. Not just physically mesmerizing with her well-proportioned face, neck, arms and waist, she had an unusual warmth of character with the ability to strike up an instant rapport. Always high-spirited and vivacious, she could be unreservedly generous and amiable. She had a razor-sharp wit and was a natural conversationalist. Gregarious as well as glamorous, she could be genial to the point of informality as long as her “grandeur” was respected. Many contemporaries remarked on her almost magical ability to create the impression that the person she was talking to was the only one whose opinion really mattered to her.
As a result of premature aging caused by the inertia and lack of exercise of which she had so bitterly complained during her long captivity, her beauty was on the wane. Her features had thickened and she had rounded shoulders and a slight stoop. Her face, once legendary for its soft white skin and immaculate, marble-like complexion, had filled out and become double-chinned. But captivity did not alter all things. Her small, deep-set hazel eyes darted as restlessly as ever, and her ringlets of auburn hair seemed as lustrous.
Mary had been awake for most of the night and had carefully prepared herself. This was to be her grandest performance, her greatest triumph; she had considered every detail.
Her clothes set the tone. She appeared to be dressed entirely in black apart from a white linen veil. Lace-edged and as delicate as gauze, it flowed down from her hair over her shoulders to her feet in the French style. Fastened to the top of the veil was a small white cambric cap. It just touched the tip of her forehead and was also edged with lace, leaving room for her curls to peek out at the sides. Her gown of thick black satin reached almost to the ground, where it was attached to her train. Trimmed with gold embroidery and sable, it was peppered with acorn buttons of jet, set with pearl.
A closer look revealed an outer bodice of crimson velvet and an underskirt of embroidered black satin, both visible where the gown was fashionably cut away. To bedeck it, Mary wore long, richly embroidered slashed sleeves in the Italian style, under which could be seen uncut inner sleeves of purple velvet. Her shoes were of the finest Spanish suede. Later someone observed that she wore sky-blue stockings embroidered with silver thread and held up by green silk garters, these on top of soft white stockings that she used to protect her skin from chafing.
She carried a crucifix of ivory in one hand and a Latin prayer book in the other. A string of rosary beads with a golden cross hung from a girdle at her waist. Around her neck lay a silver or gold chain on which hung a pendant, a medallion bearing the image of Christ as the Lamb of God.
Led by Andrews and followed by the two earls, Mary walked along the corridor and into a larger room where her household was waiting to greet her and bid her farewell. An eyewitness (perhaps the Earl of Kent himself) wrote that she exhorted her servants to fear God and live in obedience. She kissed her women servants and gave her hand to her menservants to kiss. She asked them not to grieve for her, but “to rejoice and pray for her.” One of them afterward reported that she showed no fear and even smiled.
Mary then descended the stairs toward the great hall on the ground floor. Her legs were so swollen and inflamed by rheumatism, she leaned for support on the arms of two soldiers. When the procession reached the anteroom of the hall, they encountered Andrew Melville, her steward, who knelt and fighting back tears cried out, “Madam, it will be the sorrowfullest message that I ever carried, when I shall report that my queen and dear mistress is dead.”
Mary answered, also weeping, “You ought to rejoice rather than weep for that the end of Mary Stuart’s troubles is now come.” “Carry this message,” she continued, “and tell my friends that I die a true woman to my religion, and like a true Scottish woman and a true French woman.”
As Mary recovered her composure, her mood abruptly changed. She glanced back up the stairs and exclaimed that she was “evil attended.” She demanded “for womanhood’s sake” that her own servants should escort her. She harangued the earls, who became fearful that she would cause an even bigger scene and have to be dragged violently into the great hall.
Shrewsbury feebly claimed that he and Kent were simply following orders. Hearing this, Mary bridled: “Far meaner persons than myself have not been denied so small a favor.” “Madam,” replied Kent, “it cannot well be granted, for that it is feared lest some of them would with speeches both trouble and grieve Your Grace and disquiet the company . . . or seek to wipe their napkins in some of your blood, which were not convenient.”
“My lord,” said Mary, “I will give my word and promise for them that they shall not do any such thing.” She could not stop herself adding, “You know that I am cousin to your queen, and descended from the blood of Henry VII, a married queen of France and the anointed queen of Scotland.”
The earls huddled together, whispering inaudibly, then gave in to Mary, who was used to getting her own way. Her two favorite gentlewomen, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie, and four of her gentlemen, including Melville, were allowed to join the procession. “Allons donc,” said Mary, smiling again—“Now let us go.” She spoke in French because this and Lowland Scots were her native tongues; English she had learned only with difficulty in her captivity.
Her retinue now made ready, she strode purposefully into the great hall with Melville carrying her train. It was self-consciously a royal entry; Mary walked before the hundred or so spectators straight toward the focal point, a wooden stage that had been hastily constructed over the previous two days beside an open fireplace in which a great pile of logs blazed. She mounted the two steps that led up to the platform and sat down on a low stool that was offered to her, after which the earls seated themselves on her right while the sheriff stood on her left.
There was of course no throne. The stage was a scaffold two feet high and twelve feet square, shrouded with black cotton sheets that hung low over the sides to camouflage the rough joinery, with a rail eighteen inches high around three sides and the unenclosed fourth side in full view of the spectators in the lower end of the hall. There was a cushion for Mary to kneel on, this beside an execution block also swathed in black.
Two masked men stood in readiness on the platform, one “Bull,” the headsman of the Tower of London, and his assistant. They were dressed in long black gowns with white aprons, their ax laid casually against the rail. In the lower end of the space, the knights and gentlemen of Northamptonshire and its neighboring counties looked toward the stage flanked by a troop of soldiers, their view unrestricted because the platform had been set at the right height. Outside in the courtyard, beyond the passageway at the main entrance to the great hall, a large crowd of another thousand or so waited for news.