by John Guy
Cecil had already vetoed Maitland’s earlier attempt to break the deadlock over the treaty and its surveillance clause. When Mary returned to Edinburgh by sea and not by land through England, the lords hoped that the issue of the treaty would fall by default. It did not. Lord James and his allies began to panic when Randolph showed them a letter from Cecil demanding his original terms. They felt they had made every effort to bridge the incompatible aims of Mary and Cecil, but had failed. Now “they need look to themselves, for their hazard is great.”
But there was time for a final effort. In what looks like a concerted campaign, Lord James tried his luck with Elizabeth, and Maitland with Cecil. Both wrote carefully drafted letters designed to alter English policy and turn it around.
To Elizabeth, Lord James sent an obsequious if highly perceptive letter, regretting Mary had ever “taken in head to pretend interest or claim title” to the English throne. It had been a fatal mistake, caused by the bad advice of her Guise family, but events had moved on. If only a “middle way” could be found, “then it is like we could have a perpetual quietness.” He reopened the case for a compromise: in exchange for renouncing her immediate dynastic claim, Mary should be “allured” by recognition as Elizabeth’s heir. If the English queen would agree, he would attempt to bring Mary “to some conformity.”
Cecil had already rejected this line, but that was while Mary was in France. Now that she was already on her way home, the matter was urgent, and it fell to Maitland to explain why. It would, he argued, be possible for Mary to divide and rule. Her arrival would transform her relationship with her subjects, many of whom would rally to a young and vivacious queen whose merest smiles and frowns would be enough to captivate them. Her Catholicism was unlikely to stop her, since Protestantism had yet to put down roots. She had the unconditional support of the Catholics, and it would be easy to win over many of the Protestants. The lords were unprepared for a fight. Too many were either “inconstant” or “covetous”: they could be manipulated or bought off. Maitland’s greatest fear was that Mary would pursue a Catholic policy. She was an “enemy to the Religion”; her return “shall not fail to raise wonderful tragedies.”
These letters were carefully coordinated. While Maitland’s stated the problem, Lord James’s offered the solution. It is in this light that Mary’s policy must be judged, because on her arrival she chose the “middle way” proposed by Lord James. As soon as she had consulted him, she sent Maitland to London to renegotiate the treaty of Edinburgh in favor of a new accord that maintained the “amity” with England but on terms that were not humiliating to herself or the monarchy.
In seeking to renegotiate the treaty, Mary’s immediate dynastic claim was her bargaining chip. By renouncing it and recognizing Elizabeth as England’s rightful queen, she could obtain recognition as her heir in return. It would be an honorable exchange. A dynastic claim that was valid in Catholic eyes but almost meaningless without the support of the pope and Philip II would be bartered for something tangible. Who knew how long Elizabeth might live? The result, claimed a jubilant Maitland, who worked out the finer details, would be to bind Mary to a perpetual “amity” with England.
When Maitland reached London, he did not mince words. “I think,” he boldly confided to Elizabeth, “the treaty is so prejudicial to Her Majesty [of Scotland] that she will never confirm it.” It was “conceived in such form as Her Majesty is not in honor bound to do it.” He pointed out (somewhat hypocritically, since he had played a leading role in brokering the treaty) that it assumed Mary herself had authorized the negotiations when in fact she had not even been consulted. It was a point calculated to strike home with Elizabeth, who had never approved of Cecil’s clandestine operations over the treaty.
Elizabeth always made it her priority to defend the ideal of monarchy. She now relented, allowing that if Mary would appoint commissioners to review the treaty, she would do the same. A conference would then be convoked and its agenda prepared jointly by Maitland and Cecil, the two secretaries of state. At the time, the decision was a breakthrough. Elizabeth had offered to settle despite Cecil’s steadfast resolve that Mary should ratify the original treaty. It was a vindication of the policy of the “middle way” and of Mary’s choice of Lord James as her chief adviser.
When Mary returned to Scotland, she was still only eighteen and faced the consequences of decisions made in her absence by others. She needed advisers she could trust, men of proven ability who were able to keep noble factionalism in check. By her concordat with Lord James she could subordinate the lords to her authority, and by preserving the status quo in religion she could secure an enviable degree of stability. In short, she could catch her breath while she learned more about the land she was born to rule. She had refused to ratify the treaty because it was in flagrant derogation of her honor. With the amendments proposed by Lord James and Maitland, a line could be drawn under the episode.
Mary entered a labyrinth on her arrival in Scotland, but so far she had successfully found her way. On his return to Edinburgh, Maitland delivered what previously would have been thought unthinkable: a eulogy of Mary. “The queen my mistress,” he informed a mistrustful Cecil, “behaves herself so gently in every behalf as reasonably we can require. If anything be amiss, the fault is rather in ourselves.” He even swiped at Knox. “You know the vehemency of Mr. Knox’s spirit, which cannot be bridled, and yet doth sometimes utter such sentences as cannot easily be digested by a weak stomach. I would wish he should deal with her more gently, being a young princess unpersuaded.”
Before her arrival, Maitland had imagined Mary to be an ideological Catholic whose return “shall not fail to raise wonderful tragedies.” He now believed she “doth declare a wisdom far exceeding her age.” After Francis II’s death, the politics of the British Isles had been dictated by Cecil’s agenda. But when Elizabeth conceded that the treaty of Edinburgh was renegotiable, the spotlight fell on Mary. Her proposal of a “fresh start” made shortly before she left France no longer looked naive. Her charisma could yet become her winning card. The benefits were potentially huge. “Surely,” concluded Maitland’s accolade, “I see in her a good towardness, and think the queen your sovereign shall be able to do much with her in religion, if they once enter in a good familiarity.”
By the end of 1561, a solution to Scotland’s problems seemed closer than at any point since Henry VIII’s death. A young, beautiful and intelligent queen had returned to take up her throne, and within months was well on the road to success. The questions were: Would her charisma be enough, given the inequality between Scotland and England? And would Cecil still get in the way?
10
A Meeting Between Sisters
ON DECEMBER 5, 1561, the first anniversary of Francis II’s death, Mary showed her respect for her late husband by putting the court at Holyrood into half mourning for two days. Black velvet was given to her chaplains for use in special Masses to be sung in her private chapel. She herself wore her deuil blanc, and at the solemn climax of the Requiem, she lit a great wax candle trimmed with black. The services were thinly attended except by the most loyal of her servants. Even Paul de Foix, the visiting French ambassador, found it prudent to stay away. Many of Mary’s household were afraid they would be beaten up by gangs of Edinburgh Calvinists if they were there. None of the Scottish lords would attend, and when Mary asked those who were at court or starting to arrive in Edinburgh for the festive season to wear mourning clothes for a day, they all refused. Despite this, she was undeterred and no detail of the liturgy was omitted.
Then, as Christmas approached, the mood changed. Mary was once more behaving as her Scottish subjects expected her to behave, which meant presiding over a court renowned for its “joyousity.” The hospitality and entertainments may have been on a smaller scale than those to which she had grown accustomed in France, but they were almost as glittering. As Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador, reported, “The ladies here be merry, leaping and dancing, lusty and fai
r.” Soon he was almost overcome by it all: “My pen staggereth, my hand faileth farther to write . . . I never found myself so happy, nor never so well treated.”
As soon as Mary’s transport ships had arrived with her goods and furniture, she restored her palaces to a state of splendor and magnificence unseen in Scotland since her mother was sole regent. Ten cloths of state were for use as indoor canopies over Mary’s throne. Five other canopies were for outdoor use: one of crimson satin was effectively a parasol to “make shadow before the queen” on hot sunny days. More than one hundred tapestries were unpacked and used to decorate the walls of the royal apartments and state rooms. Thirty-six Turkish carpets were rolled out on the floors. No fewer than forty-five beds were reassembled, fifteen of them trimmed with gold or silver lace or adorned with richly embroidered valances and bed curtains for the use of Mary and her guests.
Mary’s tapestries were the glory of her collection. She had some twenty complete sets, often comprising between seven and a dozen individual pieces, enabling many rooms to be hung. One set depicted the History of Aeneas, another the Judgment of Paris, another the French triumph over the Spanish and papal forces at the battle of Ravenna in 1512. This third set was one of Mary’s favorites. It followed her everywhere she went for the rest of her life, and her rooms at Fotheringhay Castle were decorated with it before her execution. A single tapestry was marked in the inventory as “not yet complete.” It must have been taken from the factory in a hurry, and as it was impossible to finish it in Scotland, it was cannibalized to make an extra cloth of state.
The queen’s gilded throne was high-backed and upholstered with crimson velvet and cloth of gold. The table in her presence chamber was painted and gilded. Low stools were set out for the four Maries and folding stools for important visitors, all of them covered in velvet. As many as eighty-one embroidered cushions were scattered around the rooms, which included thirty-three of cloth of gold, fifteen of cloth of silver and thirteen of satin or brocade. Cupboards or buffets were used to display gold or silver plate, glasses and decorative objects. Side tables had covers of the finest velvet, damask or cloth of gold, one embroidered with the lilies of France in gold thread. For banquets held in the great hall, Mary had two white linen tablecloths, each more than forty feet long.
Lastly, although Mary always preferred to ride on horseback rather than be carried in a litter or a coach, her luggage included a horse-drawn litter covered with velvet and fringed with gold and silk, as well as a coach that looked like a four-poster bed on wheels. Such an equipage was the height of luxury. (Mary of Guise had owned one, as she received a bill for 13 shillings for repairs to it at St. Andrews, but hers was the first seen in Scotland.) Coaches were still rare even in Paris: the only women important enough to have them in Henry II’s reign were Catherine de Medici and Diane de Poitiers.
Sumptuousness of this kind was unknown in Scotland. James V’s belongings had been more modest. And while Mary of Guise had owned tapestries and personal effects of a similar style and quality, they were fewer in number. There was a separate inventory of her mother’s possessions, which Mary inherited and added to her display. Their strength was in the visual and decorative arts. Her mother had amassed twelve sets of tapestries, one on the theme of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, and ten paintings on wood. She had six maps of the world and a pair of globes, one astronomical and the other terrestrial. Ten clocks in jeweled or silk cases took pride of place on her side tables. One of her mother’s most treasured items was a panel portrait of herself. It had been secreted away by her executors, and Mary insisted that it be returned to her. This together with her mother’s globes were among Mary’s own most cherished objects. They too were to be rediscovered in her bedroom at Fotheringhay.
Mary always loved clothes, and her wardrobe was vast. She had dozens of gowns, petticoats, chemises, Spanish farthingales (undergarments of wooden hoops designed to support wide skirts), skirts, bodices, detachable sleeves (often stuffed or on wire supports), jackets, cloaks and mantles. She had drawers crammed with black silk stockings, white crepe stockings, woolen and silk stockings embroidered with gold and silver thread, stockings of the finest Guernsey worsted, and special fine-knitted stockings that showed off the shape of the leg, which she would have worn while dancing. She had silk garters, buttons of pearl, gold buttons, silver buttons and more than fifty embroidered handkerchiefs.
She had wired headpieces, soft linen caps, veils, mufflers, scarves, hats and hatbands. One of her many inventories recorded thirty-six pairs of velvet shoes laced with gold and silver. She had soft leather shoes, leather and buckram shoes, as well as innumerable pairs of gloves, some leather, some of Guernsey worsted and some that were specially perfumed.
Her indoor dresses were made from cloth of gold or silver, silk, satin, velvet or damask, and lined with taffeta or sarcenet. The strapwork and decorations were of gold and silver embroidery or of jeweled embroidery, the buttons of solid gold or silver or else of black or green enamel, the tassels of woven lace. Her outdoor clothes were generally of velvet, damask or Florentine serge, and her riding clothes were of a specially stiffened serge that was decorated with lace and ribbons.
Mary scarcely had occasion enough to wear all these clothes; and this at a time when a reasonably well-off woman might boast of three dresses. A rich noblewoman might have at most two dozen. A poor woman would be lucky to have more than one, perhaps of linen made from home-grown flax, but more usually knitted out of wool that the wearer had carded and spun herself on a spinning wheel.
As a woman ruler exercising a role normally occupied by men, Mary soon showed that she had a passion for frolics and high jinks that inverted sexual or social stereotypes. Almost six feet tall, she could pretend to be a man and liked to roam incognito with her Maries through the streets of Edinburgh wearing men’s clothes. Or else she and her four beloved companions would forget their positions and dress up as burgesses’ wives. In St. Andrews they amused themselves by playing house, banishing the symbols of royalty and doing their own shopping. At Stirling, they walked in disguise through the streets begging for money, to see who would give and who refuse. At a masque after a banquet in honor of the French ambassador, they appeared dressed as men again, causing shock and consternation. To indulge her wicked sense of humor, Mary employed her own fool or court jester, a woman named Nichola, or “La Jardinière,” whom she brought back from France and with whom she loved to banter.
She liked to take regular exercise. She rode one of her horses every day, sometimes alone and for up to three hours. Her favorite sports were hunting, hawking, archery and equestrian events. She even played golf on the links close to the Firth of Forth. When it rained or was too cold to exercise outdoors, she stayed in and played chess, cards or billiards.
Not everyone wanted “joyousity.” John Knox complained that Mary “kept herself very grave” in the presence of her advisers, but the moment “her French fillocks”—wanton young women—“fiddlers and others of that band got the house alone, there might be seen skipping not very comely for honest women.” He saw himself as a voice crying in the wilderness, because Mary was a gregarious queen who enjoyed the constant cycle of banquets, dancing, masques and dramatic entertainments she had become used to in France.
Her first masque was staged at a banquet in honor of her Guise relations, who were shortly to return to France. The queen, her Maries and the leading nobles played the main characters. At other times when they were spectators, the principal roles were taken by professional actors or servants. Sometimes the performance was a dumb show, but usually there were recitations followed by music and dancing, and on special occasions mechanical or clockwork effects. George Buchanan often scripted these masques. In one, he made Apollo and the Muses march in procession before Mary while explaining how, being driven from their homes by war, they flocked to her court. In another, the four Maries played the parts of nymphs who came to offer their oblations to Mary, herself depicted as Hygieia, the goddess
of health, whose animal was a serpent drinking from a saucer held in her hand.
Mary employed Buchanan to read to her. Shortly after her arrival, they were studying Livy’s history of Rome for an hour or so each afternoon. How interested Mary really was in Livy is unknown. She had never much enjoyed history or classical literature, and the true reason for her afternoons with Buchanan was more likely her love of French vernacular poetry, because although a native Scot, he was one of the finest poets writing in Latin and French. Even Ronsard and the Pléiade had eulogized his work.
Buchanan was soon recognized to be Mary’s official court poet. He scripted most of her masques for the next five years and also spoke the impromptu verses in honor of Mary Fleming when she was chosen as “Queen of the Bean” in the revels on Twelfth Night. In accordance with tradition, a bean was baked in a great “Twelfth cake.” Whoever found the bean in her slice of cake was queen for the day. When Mary Fleming paraded it in triumph, she was given a crown and seated in state on her throne. Mary would have delighted in this play, which appealed to the same love of social inversion that had her enjoying the part of a bourgeois housewife at St. Andrews.
Music was indispensable to the masque, and as Mary adored dancing, she always kept minstrels and musicians on her payroll. She had a consort of five viol players and three lute players. Some of her valets sang and played the lute. She also liked wind instruments. At first she had several pipers and a shawm player—a shawm was an early type of oboe. Later she kept a small orchestra of trumpets, oboes, fifes, drums and tabors. Her domestic staff formed a choir, which sang at her evening functions. When three valets who sang three parts needed a bass to sing the fourth part, David Rizzio, a young Piedmontese valet and musician who had traveled to Edinburgh in the suite of Signor di Moretta, the Duke of Savoy’s ambassador, left his post to enter her service.