There was still a lot she needed to write down for future time travellers to understand and appreciate. For she knew there would be more time travellers. She had met them on her occasional jumps. The next one, the one closest to her in kin, was already making his jumps through time, both to the future and into the past. She had met him in her time and in his. He was her great grandson, King Henry II of Scotland. She had promised him the journals, the three already written and the one she would try to finish writing before she left this world. She had told him where to find them. There was a secret compartment behind a loose stone in the fireplace of her private chambers. She would place them all in that tiny space and there they would remain until he found them in another hundred years.
She picked up her quill, dipped it in the ink well and started to write with care. It had taken some time to master writing with a quill, but she quickly developed an artistic style to writing and was almost always pleased with her results. It was a slow process, but, then again, just about everything she did these days was slow.
March 1st, Year of Our Lord 1649 - Dead. They are all dead. Grandmother and her lady’s maids, Jamie, my brother King James I of England, and even my husband, Thomas. All dead. And now my nephew, King Charles I of England, has been executed. The world has definitely gone mad. But I have kept my purpose right to the end and now it is my turn to pass on the torch, to allow my son, Prince James, to become King James VII of Scotland. I know I have raised him well, as my grandmother raised me well. He will be a good king, a great king. Scotland will prosper greatly under his rule.
Over the years, I have made a few jumps to the future to see if my purpose has played out its course. It has. Scotland has maintained its independence and its monarchy right up into the twenty-first century. I didn’t venture any further than that. My concern, my purpose, had always been to maintain Scottish independence for now and forever; to avoid the demands and battles that ensued during my growing-up years in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to re-establish and regain Scotland’s right to be free and independent of the rest of Great Britain. I can rest assured that I have done that. The European Union never materialised in the new time line. And because it never materialised, Great Britain never sought to leave the union, the Brexit that had haunted my future timeline. In fact, Great Britain never materialised as a large, amalgamated country, but rather it remained England, and a much smaller country than the one I had studied during my school years in the future.
My days of time travel have come to an end. My days have definitely been numbered for some time and I will not see any more fine mornings like the one I can see now just outside the window of my private chambers at Holyrood. This had been my mother’s favorite royal home and it is mine as well. My job is just about complete. Once I finish writing my story in this journal, I will be done for this timeline.
My life no longer matters, as it now sits in the pages of history. What matters now is that my son and my grandson, and all the Scottish royals who will follow, keep their focus clear. The purpose is to maintain Scotland’s independence as a strong and free country, for now and forever. So far, the future looks good. And when the wars of the future threaten to land on the coastline of this vibrant nation, the enemy will certainly have a force they never expected, one that will defend this realm with strong certainty.
She sighed deeply as she sat back, allowing her hand to rest briefly. She still had a few expressions from her future past, or her past future, whichever way it was viewed. She used them, from time to time, but only in private rantings. And, if truth be told, she still missed some of the conveniences of the twenty-first century. But she had adjusted well, and this was her time and her place and her purpose: for now and forever.
She dipped the quill again in the ink and continued her story. She wrote about her growing up in Toronto, her first big jump through time at Kinross in 2016, the one that allowed her to witness her own birth. She recounted her loves past and present, all lost now, and the battles she had fought and won. So many memories; a whole lifetime of memories.
As the sun fought to shine through the paned glass windows and let her know that morning was well under way, she wrote on, forgoing the offer of food from her current lady’s maid. Lady Jane had passed away the previous year and Lady Elizabeth Grace, now married with a family of her own, was seldom at court anymore. Things had changed over the years, but her life’s purpose had remained the same.
She wrote of the final battle at Hadrian’s Wall, the one that secured her right to the throne of Scotland and Scotland’s right to remain independent. She wrote about allowing her brother to return to his throne in London. He had not been happy about it, but then again, he never had been happy about much. She wrote about young Prince Charles and how he remained in her care for several years, but once he was old enough to manage his own plots, he had rallied some loyal followers and made a hasty escape to his father’s court in London. Although she had established a loving bond with the young prince when she first took the throne, he quickly started to develop his own ideas about leadership and his role in the royal court. He matured into a stubborn lad, fervently believing in the Divine Right of Kings and that they should have all the powers available to them just because they were born to be king. As King Charles I of England, he ruled with that kind of tyranny. Unfortunately, it became part of his downfall and led to his execution.
And she wrote about Thomas, the man she finally married, the man who fathered her children, and the man who stayed at her side until his death. He had remained loyal and supportive till his dying breath, and he never once questioned her decision not to crown him king. He was always recognised in court as the Prince Consort, but he earned the Scottish people’s love and respect, and he was able to make a great contribution to his adopted country. He hadn’t been born Scottish, being the first-born son of the Earl of Northumberland and heir to the earldom, but, when Hadrian’s Wall became Scotland’s new border with England, Northumberlanders embraced Scotland as their own.
The queen was reflective as she recalled one conversation, early in their married life. Thomas had asked her if she had loved anyone before either himself or Jamie, and she had relayed a story from her childhood.
There had been someone else. I told him about it. I told him about the one love I had growing up, even though I had never told anyone else. But Thomas was my husband and I owed him that much. Douglas was his name. I remember it even now that everyone else is gone and Douglas, a person of the future in my past, may not exist now anyway, not now that I have changed the timeline. Be that as it may, in my past, the future, Douglas was my first love.
Gran had sent me to a private girl’s school. I couldn’t explain that part to Thomas as he didn’t know about my life in the future. He didn’t know about my ability to travel through time, past and future. The school hosted dances for the older girls, the ones about to graduate and go on to university or college. They invited the local boy’s school, choice boys from good family backgrounds. It was all neat and civilised, at least on the surface.
I met Douglas at one of these dances, and afterwards we started meeting in secret, through the spring and into the summer. By summer’s end, Douglas was getting a little pushy. He wanted more than just the occasional chaste kiss. He wanted my virginity, something to brag about to the other boys. He tried often enough, but I always managed to gently push him away. Until that one night, in late August. He had borrowed his father’s car and we drove out into the country, to a secluded spot overlooking a quiet beach on Lake Ontario.
“Come on, Mary Elizabeth,” he coaxed. “There’s no one here. Just you and me. Let’s go skinny dipping. It’s warm. It’s safe.”
I never had been much of a swimmer. I had this fear of water, not that I would let anyone know. I could swim, but only just. I shook my head and plopped myself down on the sand. The sun was starting to set. It was late summer and the days were getting shorter. “No!” I crossed my arms around my knees and
hugged them close. “No!” I repeated when he came over and tried to drag me toward the water.
“I’ll throw you in clothes and all,” he threatened. I didn’t like the tone he was using. I held back and swatted his hands away.
“Hey!” he snapped. “No girl swats me away.” Surprised, he lifted his hand and smacked it hard across my cheek.
With a kick, I managed to push him into the sand, where he rolled around, swearing like a drunk. Perhaps he was. His breath did wreak of something vile.
“Smart chick.” He stood up, brushing the sand from his shirt and legs, spitting out a mouthful of sand and foul language. “You think you’re so much better than me, living in that fine house with your Gran, but you’re not. And I’ll make sure that you understand fully what I mean by that.”
He took a step toward me. I raised my hands defensively, but I didn’t cry out. I knew what to do. Besides, there was no one else on the beach, not that I could see, anyway. He snorted a laugh. “You think you can fight me?” he challenged. “I’ll have you know, I was the champion of the school wrestling team all the years I attended that school.”
It was my turn to laugh. “And you think that just because you can beat a bunch of weak-kneed boys, you can beat a tiny little speck of a girl like me? Boy, have you ever figured me wrong.”
“Boy!” he snarled. “No one dare calls me boy!”
“I do.” And before he had time to react, I was on him, punching, kicking, doing all the things I had learned over the years. Before the wrestling champ had time to throw in a punch, I had him huddled over in a ball, groaning in agony. I gave him one last punch, reached into his knapsack that had been dumped in the sand, retrieved the car keys, and threw them far out into the water. On an impulse, I decided to do the same to his entire knapsack. Then I grabbed my own bag and made a dash up the stony cliff and off the beach. I wasn’t sticking around waiting for him to drive me home. I was done with him, done with boys. It was time to get on with my life.
I made a point to roll up his car windows, release the parking brake, and lock the doors before giving it a push toward the steep cliff that led down to the beach. With any luck, it would run over Douglas on its way down. Then I hightailed it to the nearest road and flagged down a ride. It was not safe, but the alternative was not much better. Once back at Gran’s house, I confessed everything to my grandmother. Just as well, since the police were on our doorstep later that evening, ready to make an arrest. For what, I still do not know, but Gran handled everything.
I could not tell Thomas the entire story, as he would not understand the concept of cars and police, but I gave him a summary of what happened. He just sat there watching me, spellbound. When I finished, he said, “You never were one to miss out on a battle, were you? My queen, always a warrior, always victorious.” We shared a chuckle over that.
Mary Elizabeth carefully placed the quill beside the book and closed it. Leaning back, she allowed her eyelids to droop. She had been writing for several hours and her eyes were sore, her back was stiff, and her fingers ached terribly. Time for a breather. She didn’t know how long she sat there, perhaps she dozed off. She was nudged gently by her lady’s maid, wanting to make sure she had something to eat. The lady’s maid started to remove her writing things, but Mary Elizabeth brushed her away.
“Just build up the fire so it will continue to burn and keep my old bones warm,” she told her. “Then off you go. I am fine for awhile. I just need to be alone for a bit.”
Left along again, Mary Elizabeth must have dozed off. The improved heat from the new logs on the fire made her drowsy. Memories cascaded through her mind as she realised with a start that she had forgotten to write everything down. She decided to make a list of dates when she had jumped, into the past and into the future, and to document each event, each visit as close to chronological order as she could. Even so, once she picked up the quill again and dipped it in the ink, her words, as she etched them on the paper in her journal, were a jumble of memories, scattered over such a long period of time. It was understandable. She was eighty-two years old in this timeline, or she would have been on her birthday this summer. However, she was probably a good deal older than that if she factored in all of her jumps through time, and she was feeling her age and then some.
My time is running short and there is so much more I should write about. I have stayed the course and kept my purpose clear through all these years as Queen of Scotland. I fostered and developed some revolutionary ideas during my time. Missing the conveniences of indoor plumbing, I took a page from Roman history and had my castles modernised, somewhat based on what I had read all those years ago in the future about latrines and aqueducts. The Roman Fort at Bardon Mill in Northumberland, one of the many forts that once lined Hadrian’s Wall, was a pretty good example of Roman ingenuity in issues of sanitation. I adopted Roman ideas without altering the timeline that led to indoor plumbing in the future.
I was quite particular, too, about cleanliness and proper preparation for both food and water. Anything that was to be consumed had to meet my specifications on its proper preparation. The Scottish clans took note of all that I did, particularly here at Holyrood, and made similar changes to their homes and their way of preparing food. We became a healthier group of people because of my diligence in this regard.
I had always shown a fondness for the arts. I continued with what my brother had started before he left to claim the throne of England. I made Edinburgh into an arts-minded, cultural centre. I invited some of the great creative minds from across Europe to stay at my court. For a time, Lady Margaret Cunningham, a lovely Scottish lady and memoirist, joined my group of ladies at court. Scientists, like Isaac Newton, the English mathematician, astronomer, and physicist, joined the Scottish court and helped further develop the University of Edinburgh, which had been founded in 1582 during my brother’s rule.
All of these things did cost money, and lots of it. I did not raise taxes, although some tax was required to maintain and improve the roads and to instigate what I deemed important to all the Scottish people: public education for both boys and girls from all backgrounds. It was a controversial move, but, in the end, my plan to educate everyone made Scotland into a more enlightened country, one to which people flocked for further learning and to develop their skills and talents.
How did I pay for it? Well, I did find my father’s stash. And it was quite a big stash. Plus, there were frequent trips to the future to play the markets and bring back the gold I had acquired during my visits, so I had the money. I did not need much myself. I was not an extravagant queen in terms of lavish gowns, priceless jewels, and pompous demonstrations of power. I lived simply and worked for the betterment of my people, the Scottish people. That had been my plan and purpose from the beginning, from the time I first learned that I was Queen Mary’s daughter.
“Grandmother.”
The voice startled the queen, causing her to drop the quill, which splattered remnants of ink into the rushes at her feet.
Chapter Forty-Six
She had totally lost all track of time. The sun outside had decided to hide behind some clouds and the dull grey light filtered indoors, making everything seem gloomy. How many days had she worked feverishly on her journals? She knew her time was almost up. Her loved ones were starting to appear to see her off.
“Henry,” she gasped. It was her great grandson, not as the baby she held at the christening just a few weeks ago when she had jumped to the future, the beginning of his time. No, this was Henry as a young man, Henry as King of Scotland. He was her legacy in the time travel adventure. She had known he would come, that he would be with her in her final hours.
“Grandmother,” he scolded her as he bent over to pick up the quill at her feet. He always called her Grandmother, as his own grandmother had died before he was born and he found the name Great Grandmother a bit too cumbersome. “You are wearing yourself out.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled at the young man. He was such a h
andsome fellow, so much like the Stuarts through the generations. He was also sure of himself, but not too boastful to be a threat to what she had spent a lifetime building. He would carry her torch well and make his own improvements to benefit the Scottish people. His rule would see Scotland becoming the great nation it was meant to be, broadening its borders to include an empire that rivalled England and the rest of Europe. But that was Henry’s story to tell, not hers.
“You know our days are numbered.” She nodded her head as she took the quill from him and dipped it one last time in the ink. “I am just about finished, and I will place all of these journals in the secret compartment behind the stone over there.” She pointed just beyond the hearth. She wrote in silence for a few more minutes; it was one of her mother’s prayers. She had to include her mother at the end, as she had included her here and there throughout the journal, and this poem was quite fitting for a closing reflection.
A Prayer, written by Mary, Queen of Scots, my mother. Keep us, Oh God, from pettiness. Let us be large in thought, in word, in deed. Let us be done with fault-finding and leave off self-seeking. May we put away all pretense and meet each other, face to face, without self-pity and without prejudice. May we never be hasty in judgement and be always generous. Let us take time for all things. Make us to grow calm, serene, gentle. Teach us to put in action our better impulses – straight forward and unafraid. Grant that we may realise it is the little things of life that create difficulties; that in the big things of life we are as one. Oh Lord, let us not forget to be kind.
Mary Elizabeth sat back and took a minute to reflect on what her mother had written as a prayer all those years ago. Her sentiments had found their mark in Mary Elizabeth and in how she led her life as a person and as a queen. She was pensive. It wouldn’t be long and she would be with her for eternity. She dipped her quill in the ink one last time and wrote her own final words:
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