In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

She must not do now what she had done before; this time she must make certain he understood that their union was an impossible dream. For well she knew what she had always known, despite his flowery words and charming manner. It was not herself that Alençon loved; it was a crown he craved, and the run of England’s treasury. And that must never be.

  What had truly given him away was his willingness, his eagerness, to marry her, despite the suspicion that she was past childbearing. All men wanted an heir of their body; all men. Even if it were only to pass on one’s old donkey and plow. Ah, well; a crown from her Alençon would never get. So she had given him money instead. With that, and the promise of more, he would have to content himself. She would not repeat her sister’s mistake of marrying a foreign prince and a Catholic. The Parliament, her Council and the people of England had all made their feelings quite clear; there would be no surer way to lose their love than by going through with this marriage. Now that all the excitement of the balls and feasts, the masques and pageants, was over, she knew what she must do. For no good could come of it.

  The cheers as they approached the palace were deafening. That, and the soothing sound of Alençon’s voice, distracted her from her reverie.

  “The people love you, Madam,” said Alençon, almost wistfully. The French did not love him; his own people! And the Dutch did not appreciate him. Even his own mother cared not a fig whether he lived or died, except as it might affect her desire to rule France.

  Elizabeth smiled and waved at the adoring crowd. What would there be for her without the love of her people? A new determination arose in her. She must be firm with Alençon. He must go.

  Once inside the palace, she shed her furs and sat by the fireside in the magnificent chambers reserved for visiting royalty. She recalled past winters when her sister Mary had mulled wine for them in this very room. She must be getting old. Never had she felt exhausted after travel; she had always experienced a thrilling exhilaration from it.

  “Blanche,” she said wearily. “Send for the duc, if you please.”

  ###

  When he arrived, she was standing at the window. The landscape was beautiful, but barren; the scattered patches of white snow made the whole seem like an unfinished painting. “What says Captain Edwards?” she asked, without turning from the window at the sound of his footsteps.

  “I must be gone on the morning tide,” he replied. “But dear lady, I promise you, I will not tarry long in Flanders.”

  She turned and faced him. “I fear me,” she said, “that that is exactly what you must do.”

  He tilted his head. “I do not take your meaning, Your Grace,” he replied uncertainly.

  “I cannot marry you,” she said. “You shall never return to England.”

  She watched dispassionately as a series of expressions traveled across his features. Incredulity; confusion; sadness; and, just as she had expected, anger. But before he spoke, a certain wistfulness had taken its place.

  “But we are promised,” he cried pathetically. “You said...at Whitehall…in front of all…”

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I have reconsidered. You have seen how the people love me. But they hate the idea of England allied with France …and under the yoke of Rome.”

  “But that would not be,” he pleaded. “Our marriage seals a mutual treaty of arms only. And I ask only to be allowed to hear Mass privately.”

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I cannot.”

  He strode up to her and made to take her hand, but she shrank away. The madness only seized her, she had learned, when they touched.

  “No,” he said quietly. “No, I will not leave, then.” He turned towards the door and shouted, “Guard!”

  A halberdier opened the door and peered uncertainly into the room.

  “Fetch a priest!” he cried.

  “Are you mad?” She waved the guard away. “The only Catholic priests in England, sir, are art and part of those who seek to murder me and place Mary of Scotland on the throne!”

  “I know naught of that!” said Alençon.

  That was more than likely true; Walsingham was well aware of Mary’s feeble attempts at plotting, as well as those who, more dangerously, plotted on her behalf. No whisper of Alençon’s name had ever been heard in that regard.

  “There are many reasons, of which you are well aware, why our marriage cannot be,” she said. “Peer you into yon looking glass! There are twenty-two years between us, my lord.”

  Suddenly Alençon’s face crumpled and tears sprang into his eyes. “I do not,” he said shakily, “make a habit of gazing into mirrors, Your Grace!”

  She was instantly sorry; she had grown accustomed to his small pox scars, and barely noticed them now. But it was not she, by the grace of God, who had to live with them! “I am sorry, François.” She made to reach out her hand and then remembered; they must not touch, lest the madness seize her once again.

  Alençon stood motionless, his eyes brimming with tears. “I understand you perfectly, Madam,” he said coldly. “The return of Calais! Ending the Auld Alliance with Scotland! Impossible demands, as you well know! You have never wanted this marriage. All that is said, all the gossip, is true, I daresay!”

  There was not much she could say to that; best move on. “A marriage between us would incite the Catholics. They are more brazen now in their disobedience than ever before, now that they believe we shall wed.”

  “I should have thought that Campion’s execution would have allayed those fears,” he said haughtily.

  Elizabeth pounded her fist on the nearest table. “God’s eyeballs, sir, it did not even scratch the surface! Open your eyes, man! Or your ears! Heard you not the people’s cries of ‘Papist!’ as we rode from London?”

  Alençon shrugged. “There were not so many,” he replied. “Practically none in Canterbury…”

  Elizabeth said nothing. What was there left to say?

  “For three years I have waited for you to make up your mind,” he said quietly. “So much time wasted!”

  “And what else, pray tell me, sir, did you have to do?” In answer, the fire crackled in the hearth. It was as close to a row as they had ever been.

  Alençon eyed her coldly. “Many were the times these years, Madam, when Philip thought to woo me away from England with the promise of a separate peace and a Spanish princess to seal the bargain. But I put my faith in you to keep your promises!”

  “Hah!” she cried. “As the Bible warns us, put not your faith in princes!”

  “But I was counting on you!” he cried. “I put my fate in your hands!”

  “Yes! I believe you! To bestow upon you a crown, you mean!”

  Alençon’s eyes narrowed. “I am fighting your war for you in the Netherlands,” he said. “Does that count for nothing?”

  Elizabeth glared at him. “For nothing? For nothing, you say? Well you should fight Spain, for all the money I have given you to do so!”

  “And does England derive no benefit from that?” he asked truculently. “Should I prove successful, it will mean a friendly government for you with an important trading partner, and a dangerous enemy removed from your doorstep!”

  Elizabeth just stood looking at him with a haughty tilt to her chin, saying nothing.

  When the silence threatened to become oppressive, he spoke, very softly. “Why,” he asked plaintively, “did you not tell me years ago that you did not want me?”

  Still she remained silent.

  He sighed. “Well madam, I can see that there will be no changing your mind.”

  Could it really be that he did not know, did not fully understand, the politics of the situation? What sort of a king would he have made in that case? And standing there, looking at his pleading eyes, she realized that perhaps she did want him, just a little. Robert was lost to her; Hatton loved her, but she did not love him. But both men were, in any case, her subjects; and she had no intention of following in her father’s footsteps in that regard.

  She recalled lo
ng ago a notion that she had had…the idea that if she must be a virgin queen, she should be a good one. She eyed Alençon. Never had she been so convinced in herself that letting him go was the right, the only thing to do.

  There was nothing left to say. He bowed curtly and turned to leave. As she watched his departing back, she knew a momentary urge to reach out to him, to call him back. Alençon was her last chance...but now she knew for certain in herself that she must let him go.

  Chapter 26

  “I will invoke Him to deal with you as He will at His final judgment, according to our desserts towards each other. And remember, Madam, that to Him, nothing we have done can be disguised by the paint and policy of this world…nothing remains of me save my soul, which is not in your power to fetter.”

  -Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, in a letter to Elizabeth I

  Sheffield Castle, April 1582

  T he sound of rapid footsteps echoing down the hall momentarily distracted Mary’s attention. One set almost certainly belonged to the Lady Arabella; the other, a maidservant, perhaps. Or it could be Bessie; she was far too old to romp, but often indulged in such unseemly behavior anyway, much to the Countess of Shrewsbury’s despair. And then memory assailed her in an overwhelming tide; Bessie had died of an infectious fever in January. One must grieve, but she tried not to think of the girl for long stretches of time; the agony was still too great. But when she did allow the painful thing entry, the memory was all the more intense.

  James had been taken from her when he was just an infant, and so she had lavished upon Bess’s grandchild the love and affection that had lain dormant all these years, for the child she had lost. Ah well, she reasoned; one must turn a hard heart to a hard sorrow. It was no wonder she felt these days as if her heart were made of stone.

  She had been about to ink her quill when the commotion distracted her. Now she studied the white feather for a long moment, and then set the quill aside. Everything now was precious; the quill, the ink, the parchment. Not easily come by, and so one must be certain… But even more important was the fact that what she was about to write was treason, and no mistake. But was it? She was no subject of Elizabeth’s; far from it. She was a sovereign queen in her own right, and she was being illegally detained without trial in a foreign realm.

  And with that thought, she was beset with the myriad problems that she faced each day, and which, along with her imprisonment, had made an old woman of her. Bessie’s untimely death…she was little more than a child…was a telling blow. The intense pain of it was in balance with the great joy with which she had loved Bessie as her own. From that harsh grief her thoughts would race unchecked from one evil thing to another until she was exhausted with the effort.

  The fever that had swept Bessie away had visited its scourge upon almost the entire household; in the end those who could stand up helped those who could not, be they servant or master. She herself was only just beginning to recover from it.

  There was nothing for it, then; another, more urgent and explicit appeal must be made to Philip. It was a pity he was a king so many times over, she thought, somewhat cynically; His Grace of Spain was one of the few men who could not be lured by a crown to help her. See how her little brother-in-law, Alençon, had fluttered like a moth about Elizabeth’s cold flame, hoping for marriage and to be King of England!

  “Your Grace,” said a soft voice.

  Mary looked up to see Seton standing before her. In Seton’s lined face and graying hair she saw a sad reflection of herself. We are old women now, she thought wistfully. “Yes, my dear, what is it?” she asked gently. Seton was older than she and they were both very tired. Not just physically tired; tired of life. Blasphemous thought! She quickly crossed herself. And yet it was true; what was there left to live for?

  “My Lord Beale is here, Your Grace,” said Seton. At Mary’s puzzled expression she said, “One of Walsingham’s men, I believe.”

  “Hark thee,” said Mary. “Please, Dearest, take this shawl away and bring my purple cape.” It was her duty as a queen to receive visitors properly. It was true that the ermine had yellowed and was worn thin and bare in places, but it was all she had left of her royal garb.

  It was a long walk to the Great Hall, where her canopy of state sat idle most of the time. It was the one concession that had been made to her early on; Elizabeth had no qualms about imprisoning a fellow monarch unjustly, but she did not intend to insult that monarch’s royalty. But in her present state, it was much too far for her to walk. She must receive Beale in her bed or not at all.

  Once Seton had freshened the bed and arranged the purple cloak about her shoulders, she led Beale into the room.

  Beale tried manfully not to let the shock evidence itself in his features. He was a seasoned diplomat; one must never betray one’s thoughts to anyone. And that meant mastering the ability to remain impassive and expressionless, even in the face of great emotion, such as anger, impatience …or surprise.

  And so now Beale was able to bow reverently over the proffered hand, brush it with his lips, give the slight smile that was just permissible to a foreign envoy, and not betray himself. But his heart ached for the lines now scored about that lovely mouth, the haunted, hunted expression in the changeable eyes, the deep crease that divided the still-elegant brow. Yet none of it marred her beauty. How could that be? he marveled. And yet it was true. He remembered seeing her as a young queen at the French court. Never had he seen such exquisite beauty. For Mary’s loveliness, in his eyes, was that of shape and bone, not of flesh. No matter what happened to her, she would always be beautiful.

  Suddenly he realized that the room had gone silent. She had been telling him something and he had not been listening to her. He had been taking in the sound of her voice, to be sure, but enthralled with that, he had not heeded her words.

  Years of the practice of diplomacy came to his aid.

  “Your Grace,” he said softly. “What I believe is of little importance; I pray you to tell me, what would Your Grace prefer to do? Let us begin with that…” And so Mary patiently described her position for a second time, and she none the wiser to his lapse.

  As she described her proposal to him, Beale perceived a momentary spark in her eyes, but it disappeared and was gone as quickly as it came, like a shooting star. There was little hope of anything good coming of a discussion with Elizabeth’s…and Walsingham’s… man, and she knew it. But, gracious lady that she was, she made an effort. Had she refused to speak with him, it might have gone ill for him. He was Walsingham’s brother-in-law; she was astute enough to know that he was likely Walsingham’s creature as well, sent to spy upon her. Surely she must know that Walsingham posed a threat and that he was very clever. She would have to be diligent if she were to successfully navigate the times ahead. He feared for her.

  Her store of energy was limited and must be carefully husbanded; she handed Beale a parchment. “Here is the proposal for the tripartite agreement for the joint rule of Scotland between myself, my son, and Her Grace,” said Mary. “I have recommended such an arrangement to my cousin upon other occasions in the past, sir, to no avail. You may tell Her Grace that I admonish her to think again on these matters of her interference in Scottish affairs, and the English succession. What I am proposing will ensure peace in both our kingdoms.” The sound of her voice died upon the air; she formed the thought that for Scotland, she doubted it, but it was best to let it go. The blame, she now knew, must be laid at the door of the Scottish clan system. No country would unite behind a leader whilst her own people were constantly at each other’s throats. Scotland had never known peace and likely never would.

  She eyed her royal seal dangling from the bottom of the parchment as Beale read her letter to Elizabeth. She had bargained for her liberty many times over the past thirteen years, but never to any avail; perhaps God was trying to tell her something. But still, she must try… And who knew what the future held? Despite her cousin’s pathetic attempts to glean prognostications fro
m Dr. Dee, for herself, she believed the old said saw that ‘Man proposes, God disposes.’ God’s will would be done and no man could know the future before it happened. She would take her chances as they presented themselves.

  Beale shifted in his seat. “And in return for England’s support of this agreement? For recognizing yourself and…your son, as joint sovereigns of Scotland?” He could not give James the title of king without offending Mary, and ‘prince’ would ring very false on an English tongue.

  Mary regarded him with wide, innocent-seeming eyes. They reminded him of the trusting eyes of a monkey he had once seen climbing the rigging of a ship at the London docks. The monkey’s eyes seemed to have a look of desperation and sad resignation at the same time, as if the creature needed badly to say something, but could not.

  “Should my son and my cousin accept this proposal, I agree that I shall remain in England, and that I shall never return to Scotland,” said Mary, smoothly and evenly. But he could sense the tension in her; she was as tightly wound as a spring. “But not under house arrest,” she reminded him, her haunted eyes slowly traveling the walls of the room in which they sat. Her liberty, after all, was the point of it all. No mention had been made by either party as to France; she remained silent on the subject. If she could not escape Elizabeth, if her proposal was not accepted, perhaps she could persuade her cousin to allow her to renounce her queenship altogether; she would go to back to her beloved France once more, to bide with her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Guise. Antoinette de Bourbon had been as a second mother to her during her years at the French court. It was the measure of her despair that she could even contemplate such an action as denouncing her royal rights. It would mean the end of everything she had fought for; all her hopes and dreams. She would never see her son again in any case, unless he came to her; and that was unlikely for so many reasons. But all that was food for thought for another day. Perhaps there was still some hope…

  She breathed a ragged sigh and lifted her eyes to his. “And,” she whispered, “I shall recognize my cousin as the rightful Queen of England. I shall write to the pope in mine own hand, to denounce the Bull of Excommunication. And I shall agree to safeguard the Protestant religion in Scotland.” Not just tolerate it, mind you; but uphold. Could she have debased herself any further in the name of her liberty?