The Wild Queen

by Carolyn Meyer

  THE QUEST FOR A HUSBAND would not be a simple matter. As a queen, I desired to marry a king; failing that, a prince who was next in line to be king. I understood that it did not have to be a love match—my marriage to François was not, though we shared a deep affection that began in childhood. Love was a luxury I could not allow myself, but of course I hoped for a marriage that would be mutually gratifying.

  The list of such candidates was short.

  My Guise uncles, who had begun searching for a suitable match within weeks of my husband’s death, now pressed me to consider the twelve-year-old King Charles IX of France, my brother-in-law. I had expected this. But I had finally recognized my uncles’ aim for what it was: an entirely selfish attempt to restore themselves to power through me. No doubt they would again try to persuade me to sign away Scotland to France! But I was no longer so naive or so easily manipulated, as they must have realized. Queen Catherine rejected their proposal. For my part, I was nearly twenty and not interested in marrying someone eight years younger, no matter how high his rank.

  Since I would not marry King Charles, my uncles again proposed Don Carlos, prince of Asturias and son of King Philip II of Spain. He had been recognized as heir to the Castilian throne and would soon be made heir to the crown of Aragon as well. My uncles ignored the unpleasant reports that Don Carlos was arrogant and spiteful, behaved strangely, and was furiously jealous that Élisabeth had married his father.

  Queen Catherine opposed the match, and so did King Philip II, an ally of Queen Elizabeth. I suspected they believed it would give Scotland too much power. Then a dark secret was revealed: in the vague language favored by diplomats, the Spanish ambassador informed me that a recent fall down a stone staircase had damaged the prince’s brain. He did not say precisely that Don Carlos had descended into madness, but I drew that conclusion myself and wrote to my uncles that they must put away any idea they entertained of such a match.

  Then, to my utter astonishment, Queen Elizabeth decided that she would choose the appropriate husband for me! It fell to Elizabeth’s ambassador to Scotland, Thomas Randolph, to inform me of her decision. “It is the belief of Her Majesty the queen that the interests of Her Majesty and Your Majesty”—here he made a graceful bow—“would best be served if you were to marry a man of her choosing, and an Englishman.”

  I liked Sir Thomas. He had accompanied my retinue on my progress to the Highlands, and though he was a man of nearly forty years, he had joined eagerly in the fighting against Lord Huntly’s forces. I knew him well enough at this point, early in the new year of 1563, to judge that he was not happy that he had to deliver this message from his queen.

  The ambassador explained that no Spaniard or Frenchman, or indeed any king or prince or earl or duke from the Continent whom I might consider marrying, would please her. I did not need to untangle his diplomatic sentences to understand that since my marriage to a foreign nobleman would strengthen my hand, Elizabeth would not allow it.

  I offered a careful answer. “Most of the time I, like any other monarch, have not to follow my own will but must do the will of others. But my heart is my own, and cannot be controlled by another.”

  “Shall I carry this message to Her Majesty?” Randolph asked.

  “I beg you, Sir Thomas, tell Her Majesty that Queen Mary of Scotland wishes for nothing more than her sister-queen’s enduring affection and goodwill,” I said, mustering a pleasant tone. I was frankly infuriated, but I was also curious to learn whom she wanted me to marry, limiting my authority while still dangling the promise of making me her heir. I could not resist asking, “Does Her Majesty the queen have a particular Englishman in mind?”

  “She has not so informed me,” said the ambassador.

  “When she does, I pray that you will then so inform me.”

  Sometime later Randolph returned to Scotland and gathered the courage to deliver his queen’s decision. Her candidate was Lord Robert Dudley, with whom Elizabeth had allegedly been carrying on an affair for several years. Queen Elizabeth of England wished me to marry her lover! Furthermore, she expected me and my new husband to live at her court. How cozy that would be! The suggestion was outrageous, scarcely deserving a reply.

  “Does your queen truly wish me to marry Lord Dudley?” I asked, managing to keep my temper. It was not a private conversation. Many others were present, including the Four Maries and my brother James. They listened, openmouthed.

  “She does.”

  James broke in. “Why do you not persuade your own queen to marry and not try to marry off our queen? She has no more need to marry than she does to call for supper when she is hungry!”

  I laughed, breaking the tension, Randolph turned quite red in the face, and I sent everyone except my Four Maries away. It was not a laughing matter, but we could not help ourselves.

  My pleasure was often to spend an hour or two or three amusing myself at intimate meals in my pretty little supper room with my ladies. Now, with the English ambassador gone, I invited my friends to sup with me and turned my problem over to them.

  “Ladies,” I began, “we are all at an age when our thoughts turn naturally to the appealing subject of love, or to the more practical matter of marriage.” With their full attention, I continued, “The time has come for me to think seriously of marrying again. It is your duty as my oldest and best friends to propose a candidate. Only the figures in the tapestries on these walls are to know of our discussion.”

  La Flamin was first to put forth a name. “I propose James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell,” she said with a wicked smile. “I seem to remember that he turned your head once after he visited you, long before we even contemplated leaving France. Observing his behavior when he is in your presence, most recently at Crichton Castle for the marriage of his sister, I would say that he is strongly drawn to you.”

  I felt the blood rushing to my face. “Bothwell is a knave!” I said, laughing.

  “A most attractive knave, I should say,” put in Beaton, straight-faced.

  “Then perhaps you should set your cap for him, Beaton!” I suggested, though I suspected her heart already belonged to none other than Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador.

  “Did you not know,” Beaton asked, “that my aunt was Bothwell’s mistress for some years?”

  I did not know, and neither did the other Maries. “Tell, tell!” cried Livingston, and we leaned closer to hear her story.

  “James Hepburn was just twenty-four when they became lovers,” Beaton explained, “and my father’s sister, Janet, was nineteen years older. She had already married three times and borne seven children, but she was still quite beautiful. Men were always falling in love with her. Her affair with Lord Bothwell lasted for some time, and even after it ended they remained friends, and other men were already eager to succeed him.”

  “I have heard that she practiced witchcraft,” Mary Fleming said. “To preserve her beauty and to attract men.”

  Beaton turned to La Flamin. “Much as your mother does,” she said flippantly.

  “My mother does not practice witchcraft!” La Flamin protested.

  “I meant she does attract men with her charm and beauty—just as you do, Mary Even men much older than yourself, I hear.”

  The gossip had spread through my court like wildfire that my secretary of state, William Maitland, had fallen madly in love with Mary Fleming. Maitland was about thirty-seven and a widower; La Flamin was just a year older than I, twenty-one, and as I now recalled quite vividly, had enjoyed a young lover in France, the faithless Jean-Luc. After little more than a year in Scotland, she was being assiduously courted by one of the most influential men in the kingdom.

  La Flamin blushed furiously. “I have no idea what you heard, Beaton,” she said. “But speaking of older men, I believe your friend the English ambassador is nearly forty, is he not?”

  The conversation was not taking the direction I wanted. I tapped on my wine goblet with a silver spoon. “Ladies!” I called out. “We are gat
hered here this evening to talk about a very particular kind of husband—mine! Be good enough to put aside your own private desires for the moment, interesting as they are, and give me your best advice. Your list must preclude our immensely appealing Lord Bothwell, who—as you are surely aware—seems to have a talent for finding trouble when it does not find him. He has been imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, escaped from the dungeon there, made his way to England by chance or by design, and is now shut up in the Tower of London on the orders of my cousin Queen Elizabeth.”

  Livingston—Lusty—removed a pair of jeweled combs from her hair and laid them on the table. “I shall wager this set of combs and the diamonds on them that the knavish Bothwell will somehow get himself out of the Tower and set himself to wed the richest and most beautiful lady in all of Scotland.”

  “And who might that be?” Beaton asked, not innocently.

  “But will she have him? That is the even greater question,” La Flamin exclaimed.

  “In answer to your first question, our lady mistress, Mary, queen of Scots.” Livingston glanced at me. “In answer to the second, my reply is aye, many times over.”

  This was greeted with amusement by everyone but me. “I do not deign to reply to such a ridiculous assertion, Mistress Livingston. Let me guide you back to my original question. The aforementioned candidate being unavailable due to his present incarceration in our neighboring country, kindly nominate someone else.”

  I turned to Seton, who had sat quietly through all of this raillery. “Mistress Seton, have you something to contribute to the conversation?”

  “I do,” she said. “I hereby nominate Henry Stuart, master of Lennox.”

  “I remember him!” Livingston exclaimed. “He was just a young lad of thirteen when he came to France to the coronation, but he made a fine impression.”

  Seton continued in her usual thoughtful manner. “He is old enough—seventeen, I believe—he was well made and fine-looking when we last saw him, he is of good family and noble background, he is Catholic, and—of great importance, I think—he is tall. He was tall even at thirteen, and if he continued to grow may now be even taller than you, and that is a rare thing.”

  All of this was true. And that is how Henry Stuart came into my thoughts and consideration. As it turned out, Seton was not the only one with this notion. Henry’s mother, Lady Lennox, had been promoting the idea since the earliest days of my widowhood. And she had not given up.

  VI. I Could Not Afford a Foolish Mistake

  HE WAS THE HANDSOMEST MAN I had ever met, an Englishman, though not the Englishman Queen Elizabeth would have had me marry. I defied her; I would marry whomever I chose. But I knew that I had to choose carefully; if my judgment was wrong, I likely would not recognize it until it was too late. Nevertheless, I missed the warning signs and confidently pressed ahead, not guessing that my decision would bring me misery and deliver me into the hands of my enemies.

  Chapter 33

  Henry Stuart

  I UNDERSTOOD THAT Elizabeth’s offer to find me a husband was a clever trap, but I pretended to consider it. She held the advantage. She would promise to name me her successor only if I married her favorite, Lord Robert Dudley, and was living in her court, but there was nothing to prevent her changing her mind once I had done so. Since Dudley did not hold a rank anywhere equal to mine, she raised him to earl of Leicester to make her offer less insulting to me. Dudley himself did not bother to pretend he was interested in marrying me.

  I had never met Robert Dudley, but I knew that his reputation was tainted by scandal. A few years earlier his wife, Amy Robsart, had fallen down a flight of stairs and died of a broken neck. Some said it was not an accident, that it was murder, arranged with the queen’s complicity so that Dudley would be free to marry her. Still she did not marry him—or anyone else—though nearly everyone believed she and Dudley were lovers. I could only assume that their very close relationship would continue, even if I married him.

  Queen Catherine, too, engaged in matchmaking for me in an attempt to cement relations with her neighbors. She proposed that Queen Elizabeth, who was thirty, should marry my former brother-in-law King Charles IX, age thirteen. I could well imagine Elizabeth’s reaction to that! Then, said the queen mother, I had her permission to marry the duke of Anjou, Charles’s younger brother.

  The Four Maries scoffed at the notion. “You will soon be twenty-two! Anjou is twelve!” La Flamin said.

  “You can do better,” the others agreed. “Much better!”

  “Henry Stuart,” Seton reminded me quietly. “The master of Lennox.”

  In fact, all the while, without speaking of it, I had been thinking of that very tall, beautiful young man I had met twice before. There was much to recommend him besides his height; our blood ties would greatly strengthen my claim to the English throne. The Lennoxes were obviously pleased at the prospect, and they plied me with gifts, including the magnificent Lennox Jewel, which was not actually a single jewel but a locket set with rubies and emeralds and a huge sapphire. They lavished all sorts of pretty trifles on the Four Maries for good measure. Henry’s father, the earl of Lennox, was my guest at Holyrood and made a favorable impression. But it was Henry I was most eager to see again.

  In February of 1565 Henry Stuart left England to join his father in Scotland. He arrived in Edinburgh in midmonth and stayed with the English ambassador, Thomas Randolph. A Catholic, though not a devout one, he ingratiated himself with John Knox by attending Protestant services at St. Giles on his first Sunday in Edinburgh. A few days later, I formally received the master of Lennox—he was styled Lord Darnley in England, but the Scots did not recognize his English title. I was on a progress in Fife, on the northern coast of the Firth of Forth. Henry joined my retinue as we returned by ferry to Edinburgh. From then on he was constantly with my court.

  From the very first Henry charmed me. He was surely the handsomest man I had ever met, with fair curly hair, finely chiseled features, a winning smile, and shapely long legs shown off by his black hose. But his best attribute was his height; for the first time in my life, my dancing partner was taller than I, and by at least a hand span. He was skillful and graceful, and I was quite aware of the elegant picture we made as we danced a galliard.

  Mary Fleming did not hesitate to announce boldly what others apparently thought: “You make an outstandingly handsome couple, madam. This is the man you must marry!”

  It was not just his dancing and his height. Henry Stuart was intelligent, witty, and a talented lute player with a sweet tenor voice. I was quite enchanted by him. But did I want to marry him? I did not know. It seemed the prize eluded me. As it stood, only if I married Dudley, now the earl of Leicester, would Elizabeth name me as her successor. But if I chose the master of Lennox instead, might she eventually change her mind? I needed some final word from her so that I could know how to proceed, and I asked her ambassador to bring me her reply with all possible haste.

  ***

  The most severe winter in memory brought Scotland to a standstill. Icicles hung from the battlements in glittering curtains, and snow fell day after day. Travel through the Lowlands came to a halt. No messengers could get through from the south. On Shrove Tuesday we celebrated the marriage of Mary Livingston—our Lusty—to John Sempill in a ceremony performed by John Knox. I paid for the bride’s wedding gown and gave her a handsome dowry, and when the ice and snow prevented the guests from going home, I ordered the festivities continued for several days afterward, with banquets and masques suitable to the Lenten season.

  Lusty was the first of my Maries to marry, and that gave me a pang. Surely more would soon follow—La Flamin was still being courted by Thomas Maitland, though I thought the pair ill suited; Beaton was being avidly pursued by Randolph, Elizabeth’s ambassador, though they tried to keep it secret. Only Seton remained unattached. How I wished myself a part of that happy band!

  And there was still no word from England’s queen.

  ***

&n
bsp; In mid-March when the roads were again passable, Randolph reluctantly delivered Elizabeth’s reply. Eagerly I broke the seal and read the spidery writing. We cannot grant our cousin’s wish to be named our heir until we ourselves choose to marry or, on the other hand, definitely decide NOT to marry. We cannot say when we shall make that decision.

  I read the message twice more, each time hoping vainly to find some glimmer of hope, but there was none. I dismissed Sir Thomas before venting my rage and ripping the parchment to pieces. The queen would not deal with me fairly. Her behavior angered me, and the impossibility of the situation saddened me. I wept with disappointment and frustration.

  I continued to see a great deal of the beautiful young Englishman. My emotions were in turmoil. My heart was my own, but I knew that I had to make the right decision for my subjects as well as myself. My mother had invested her whole life in preserving the kingdom of the Scots that I would one day rule as queen. I could not afford a foolish mistake.

  Not everyone approved of Henry Stuart. They would not have approved of any foreigner. My brother James was cool to him and always referred to him as Lord Darnley to remind me that Henry was an Englishman and not a Scot.

  But Henry had won the favor of David Rizzio, the Italian who had joined my court as a musician. Rizzio was an excellent singer and a fine lute player. I found nothing attractive about his physical person—he was short and swarthy and ill formed—but he was an educated and intelligent man, amusing and clever. As our friendship grew, I came to rely upon him for advice and assistance. When my private secretary was sent away for taking bribes, I asked Rizzio to replace him. Rizzio championed Henry, dismissing those few who disapproved of Henry and called him foppish and lacking in substance.

  But not everyone approved of David Rizzio, either.

  Admittedly, there were problems with him. He was not as skillful a secretary as he was a musician; he wrote French poorly; and I sometimes found his advice wanting. His presence soon caused jealousy in members of my inner circle—particularly my brother James, as well as William Maitland, my secretary of state. Both men distrusted David, but I had come to depend on him and his loyalty, and I accepted his favorable judgment of Henry.