The Captive Queen of Scots

by Jean Plaidy

  They passed a chapel and he led the way to the rooms which had been set aside for her use. They were large, and pictures graced the walls.

  As holding her little Skye terrier in her arms, she followed Paulet, she felt the little creature’s heart beating wildly.

  “Be still, little one,” she murmured. “At least they have not parted us . . . and never shall they . . . while I live.”

  IN THE GREAT HALL of Fotheringay the dais was emblazoned with the arms of England, and on this dais was a chair covered in red velvet.

  In this hall were gathered the lords of England, come to try Mary for her part in the plot to assassinate their Queen, and among them were Lord Burleigh and Sir Francis Walsingham. Elizabeth was represented by the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General and the Queen’s Sergeant. Mary was to defend herself.

  She was pleased to have with her at this perilous time Sir Andrew Melville who, as the Master of her Household, was entitled to accompany her; on his devotion and affection she placed great reliance; but she knew that it could avail her little, for all those men who had come from London to Fotheringay had determined to find her guilty.

  The Queen’s Sergeant, Sir Thomas Gawdy, colorful in his blue robe with the red hood falling on his shoulders, stood up to open the case. He spoke of the information obtained from Babington and his fellow conspirators; he explained that six of them had planned to murder Queen Elizabeth. There were letters, he said, which would prove Queen Mary guilty of partaking in this plot.

  Depositions had been taken from her secretaries, Jacques Nau and Gilbert Curle, which would prove the case against her.

  Mary stared blankly before her, wondering what torture those two had suffered before they had betrayed her. She did not know that they had refused to betray her, that they had been trapped into making certain admissions and that Jacques had written to Queen Elizabeth assuring her of Mary’s innocence in any plot to assassinate her. Jacques and Gilbert were still in prison because of their persistent loyalty to their mistress.

  But how could she learn that in this sad hall of doom?

  She was thinking back to that day when Babington’s letters had arrived, trying to remember exactly what he had written, exactly what he had said.

  She demanded to see the letters and triumphantly pointed out that they were in the handwriting of one who had deciphered them; and could not, she asked, the decipherer have written what he wished? How could they prove that they were letters written by her when they were not in her handwriting?

  In a moment of folly she denied knowing Babington; but she added: “It is true that I have heard of him.”

  She was reminded that Babington had confessed that correspondence had passed between them, and that the assassination of Elizabeth had been part of the Babington plot.

  “Gentlemen,” cried Mary, “you must understand that I am no longer ambitious. I wish for nothing but to pass my days in tranquillity. I am too old now, too infirm to wish to rule.”

  “You have continually asserted your pretensions to the throne of England,” Burleigh accused her.

  “I have never given up asserting my rights,” answered Mary cryptically, and Burleigh was somewhat nonplussed because there were many who doubted the legitimacy of Elizabeth, and it was impossible to know whether some of them were present.

  She attacked Walsingham, calling him an enemy who had deliberately set out to entrap her. “I never thought to harm the Queen of England,” she cried. “I would a hundred times rather have lost my life than see so many Catholics suffer for my sake.”

  “No true subject of the Queen was ever put to death on account of religion,” Walsingham retorted, “though some have died for treason and because they maintained the Bull of Excommunication against our Queen and accepted the authority of the Pope against her.”

  “I have heard the contrary to be so,” Mary replied.

  Walsingham was uneasy. “My soul is free from malice,” he told the court. “God as my witness I, as a private person, have done nothing unworthy of an honest man. I bear no ill will to any. I have attempted no one’s death, but I am a faithful servant to my mistress, and I confess to being ever vigilant in all that concerns the safety of my Queen and Country. Therefore I am watchful of all conspirators.”

  “Why do you not bring my secretaries, Nau and Curle, to give evidence in my presence?” demanded Mary. “If you believed that they would continue to condemn me you would not hesitate to have them brought face-to-face with me.”

  “This is unnecessary,” Burleigh told the court, and Walsingham nodded. They had had enough trouble with those loyal young men.

  So the trial continued throughout that day and the next; and when the hour came for judgment, Burleigh told the court that it was the wish of their Sovereign Lady Elizabeth that no sentence should be given until she herself had considered the evidence.

  The trial was over.

  Mary was helped from the hall by the faithful Melville, and Elizabeth’s men set out for London.

  ELIZABETH WAS UNEASY. All the evidence was laid before her, and still she hesitated.

  She must be absolutely blameless. Passing along the river from Greenwich to Hampton Court she looked at her city and wondered how many Catholics were lurking in those narrow streets, how many would have lifted their voices against her if they dared.

  Ever since Mary had, when Dauphine of France, allowed herself to be given the title Queen of England, she had been a menace to disturb the peace of Elizabeth. She must die. But only when she was proved, without any doubt whatsoever, to have deserved death.

  Elizabeth listened to Burleigh, Walsingham and Leicester. They were all urging her to agree to the execution; but her feminine perception made her hesitate again and again. As shrewd men they knew what was good for her and the country; but as a woman she was greatly concerned with the gossip which was whispered on street corners, and she knew that in street-corner whispers revolution often set its seeds.

  IN THE STAR CHAMBER at Westminster the Commissioners opened the case against Mary.

  To this were brought Jacques Nau and Gilbert Curle.

  Jacques had solved the problem which had tormented him for many days and nights. He had been tempted and had turned away from temptation. Not for freedom, not for Bessie and their life together would he bear false witness. In his deposition, they had twisted his words; they had questioned him until he was exhausted; and afterward he had been fearful of what he might have said against the Queen. But to remedy that he had written to Elizabeth, though he fully believed that the letter would have no effect on her or her ministers.

  He had heard of the terrible deaths of Babington, Ballard and those others who had died with them. Sometimes he awoke sweating in the night dreaming that the executioner’s knife was poised above his quivering body. Torture and degrading death on one side . . . Bessie and all that he longed for on the other. Yet what joy could there be for him if he must always live with the knowledge that to gain it he had helped to send his mistress to her death?

  He was standing before the Commissioners, and Walsingham was questioning him.

  He would not say what they wished him to. Letters from Babington there had been, but the principal accusation against Mary—that she had conspired to assassinate Elizabeth—was false.

  He threw back his head and cried: “You, my lords, will have to answer to Almighty God if you should, on false charges, condemn a sovereign Queen.”

  The fury in the faces of the Commissioners did not dismay him.

  “I ask,” he continued, “that my protestation be made public.”

  Curle was smiling at him, for they stood together in this; and it occurred to them both that the evidence they had to give was the most important in the trial.

  The Commissioners were not deterred. Such words should not be heard outside the doors of the Star Chamber.

  They had come here to pronounce Mary Queen of Scots, guilty and deserving of death.

  This they were dete
rmined to do.

  WALSINGHAM AND BURLEIGH presented themselves to their royal mistress.

  “And the verdict?” she asked.

  “Guilty, Your Majesty. We cannot find that there is any possible means to provide for Your Majesty’s safety but by the just and speedy execution of the Queen of Scots, the neglecting whereof may procure the heavy displeasure and punishment of Almighty God.”

  “I am unwilling,” answered the Queen, “to procure the displeasure and punishment of God, yet in my heart I remember this is a Queen and my cousin. Tell me, were all in agreement as to this verdict?”

  Walsingham and Burleigh exchanged glances. “There was one, Your Majesty, who declared himself unsure that the Queen of Scots had compassed, practiced or imagined the death of Your Majesty.”

  “And his name?”

  “Lord Zouche.”

  “One in the Star Chamber,” mused the Queen. “How many in the country?”

  “Your Majesty,” said Burleigh, “this is no time for weakness. While the Queen of Scots lives you are in danger. The time is ripe.”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Then go to Fotheringay and warn her of the verdict which my Star Chamber and Houses of Parliament have pronounced against her.”

  Jubilantly her ministers left her.

  HOW DREARY WAS THE WINTER at Fotheringay, how irksome in London.

  The two Queens were constantly in each other’s thoughts. Will she relent? wondered Mary. How can I accomplish her death without seeming to have done so? Elizabeth asked herself.

  Her ministers were anxiously awaiting her decision.

  Young James had written to her, imploring clemency for his mother. How that would have comforted Mary if she had known!

  But she shall not know! thought Elizabeth angrily. Let her wait in her prison, apprehensive and fearful—for she has cast a shadow over my life since the day I took the crown.

  Walsingham was fretful in his impatience. Mary was proved guilty. Why did Elizabeth hesitate?

  He called on her Secretary, William Davison, and told him of his impatience. They must devise some means of bringing Elizabeth to the point of signing the death warrant.

  Davison shook his head. “She grows angry when the matter is brought to her notice. Yet she is as impatient as you or I for the deed to be done.”

  “We must find some means of ending Mary’s life. Let the warrant be made out . . . and slipped among some unimportant documents for the Queen’s signature.”

  The two men were looking at each other speculatively. It might work. Elizabeth wanted very much to sign that death warrant, but she wanted it to appear that she had not done so. If she could sign it, pretending not to realize what it was, and the sentence could be carried out—as she would like it to be known, without her being able to prevent it—she would be happy.

  This sly method was characteristic of the way in which she had so successfully carried her country from one danger to another.

  They could try it.

  DAVISON LAID THE DOCUMENTS before the Queen. She noticed he was trembling, and she knew that there was something of importance among those documents. Moreover she guessed what it was, because she knew what matter was at this time uppermost in the minds of all her ministers.

  She chatted with him as she took up the documents. “You are looking pale, William. You do not take enough exercise. You should take more for your health’s sake.”

  Calmly her pen sped over the papers. Davison held his breath. She did not appear to be looking. And there was the warrant. He saw the firm strokes of her pen. It was done.

  She looked up and saw Davison staring at the paper before her. An idea had come to her as she looked down at it.

  “Why,” she said, “I see now what this is.”

  Davison bowed his head as though preparing for her abuse. But it did not come.

  “So,” she murmured, “it is done at last. I have long delayed it because it grieves me so. All my friends know how it grieves me. It is an astonishing thing to me that those who guard her should have so little regard for me to make me suffer so. How easy it would be for them to do this for me.”

  She sighed and handed Davison the warrant.

  Stumbling from the room he went with all speed to Walsingham and told him what had happened.

  “Write to Paulet,” commanded Walsingham.

  So together they compiled the letter which complained that the Queen was not satisfied with Paulet’s service to her, since he had not discovered some means of shortening the life of the Queen of Scots, a task which was imperative for the preservation of their religion and the peace and prosperity of the country. Elizabeth thought ill of those who sought to throw the burden of her cousin’s execution on her shoulders, knowing her natural reluctance to shed the blood of a kinswoman and a Queen.

  “Let that be dispatched to him with all speed,” said Walsingham.

  WHEN SIR AMYAS received that letter he was deeply shocked. He looked upon Mary as an enemy, but he was a Puritan and a stern Protestant.

  He immediately sat down to reply.

  “It grieves me that I am required, by direction of my most gracious Sovereign, to do an act which God and the law forbiddeth. God forbid that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity as to shed blood without law or warrant.”

  He called to Sir Drue Drury, whom the Queen had sent as joint guardian to the Queen of Scots since her coming to Fotheringay, and Sir Drue added a postscript to this letter, saying that he subscribed in heart to the opinion of his fellow jailor.

  When Davison and Walsingham received this letter they were alarmed, and wrote with all speed asking Paulet to burn their previous letter.

  The fate of Mary had been decided.

  The warrant was signed. It only remained to perform the last act.

  ON THE 7TH FEBRUARY, the Earl of Shrewsbury arrived at Fotheringay with the Earl of Kent. It was their unpleasant duty to read the warrant to Mary, and it was a task which was particularly repugnant to Shrewsbury.

  They asked to be taken to Mary’s apartment without delay, where she received them, guessing why they had come. Shrewsbury met her eyes apologetically, but Kent was arrogant and truculent. With them came Robert Beale, the Clerk of the Council, Paulet and Drury.

  She noticed that all the men—with the exception of Shrewsbury—kept on their hats, and she felt grateful to the man who had been her jailor for so long, not only because of this gesture but because she read sympathy in his eyes and it was pleasant to find one who could feel a mild friendship for her, among so many enemies.

  Shrewsbury began: “Madam, I would have desired greatly that another than I should announce to you such sad intelligence which I now bring on the part of the Queen of England. But my lord of Kent and I, being both faithful servants, could not but obey the commandment she gave us. It is to admonish you to prepare yourself to undergo the sentence of death pronounced against you.”

  He signed to Robert Beale, who then began to read the death warrant.

  Mary listened quietly and then said: “I am thankful for such welcome news. You do me great good in withdrawing me from this world out of which I am glad to go, on account of the miseries I see in it and of being myself in continual affliction. I have expected this for eighteen years. I am a Queen born and a Queen anointed, the near relation of the Queen of England and great granddaughter to King Henry VII; and I have had the honor to be Queen of France. Yet throughout my life I have experienced great misfortune and now I am glad that it has pleased God by means of you to take me away from so many troubles. I am ready and willing to shed my blood in the cause of God my Savior and Creator and the Catholic Church, for the maintenance of which I have always done everything within my power.”

  She took up her Bible and swore on it. “I have never desired the death of the Queen of England, nor endeavored to bring it about, nor that of any other person.”

  Kent looked scornfully at the Bible and
said: “As that is a Popish Testament, an oath taken on it is worthless.”

  “It is the true Testament in my opinion,” retorted Mary. “Would you prefer me to swear on your version in which I do not believe?”

  The fanatical Kent warned her that as her death was imminent she should think of the preservation of her soul by turning to the true faith.

  “I have long lived in the true faith, my lord,” she answered. “I shall not change now.” She turned to Shrewsbury: “When am I to die?”

  “Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.” Shrewsbury lowered his eyes and his voice trembled as he spoke.

  “There is little time left to me,” answered Mary.

  IN FOTHERINGAY the clocks were striking six.

  Mary called to Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curle.

  “I have but two hours to live,” she said. “Come, dress me as for a festival.”

  So they dressed her in her kirtle of black satin and her petticoats of crimson velvet; her stockings were pale blue, clocked with silver; her shoes were of fine Spanish leather. The previous night they had made for her a camisole of fine Scotch plaid which would cover her from her waist to her throat. When they helped her into this she said: “My friends, do not desert me when I am dead. When I am no longer able to, see that my body is decently covered.”

  Jane Kennedy could not answer her, but turned her head away.

  Mary touched her shoulder. “Do not be distressed, Jane. This has been coming for a long time. Try to welcome it as I do. But I would not wish this poor body to be degraded in death. So cover it decently.”

  Jane could only nod.

  “Now my gown.”

  They helped her into her widow’s gown of embroidered black satin and put the pomander chain and Agnus Dei about her neck, and the girdle with the cross about her waist.

  Her little Skye terrier had leaped onto the table and stood looking at her with bewildered eyes. She turned to lay her hand on his head.

  “You must care for him when I am gone. Poor little dog, he does not know yet that this is goodbye between us.”