In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

  Beale struggled to control his features. These were astounding concessions. Her Grace had always argued most vehemently that Elizabeth was a bastard with no claim to the English throne. This would be a diplomatic triumph for him at court; and he had not even had to bargain for it. Her Grace of Scotland could have made him fight for it, but she had not; she had simply laid it all gently in his lap, asking nothing in return except her God-given right to her own personal freedom. In that defeated sigh, in those dull, troubled eyes, he could feel her despair. His heart ached for her. How to repay such selfless generosity?

  “I shall ask Her Grace to send her physicians,” he said, “who without doubt will prescribe fresh air and exercise as remedies for recovery from a fever.”

  Mary turned her head and stared listlessly out of the window at the colorful spring landscape. The comforting sound of bleating sheep mingled pleasantly with melodious birdsong and cooing doves. One could even, if one listened carefully, hear the bees buzzing in the climbing roses that framed the open window. “I can no longer ride,” she said with a shrug.

  Her seeming indifference caused his heart to twist. No, he decided, it was not indifference; it was a melancholy wistfulness that he wished he could alleviate somehow. Suddenly he brightened. There was something he could do. He would speak on her behalf to Elizabeth; surely Her Grace did not wish the Queen of Scotland to die in her custody? Regarding Mary’s dull eyes, her sunken cheeks, her pallor, he could not help but feel that without exercise, without some fresh air and sunshine, she would not be long for the world. He seemed to recall that the King of France had sent his sister-in-law a fine coach. But it sat gathering dust in London. He would ask Elizabeth to consider sending it on for Her Grace of Scotland’s use. Somehow she must be roused and got out of doors; if she could no longer ride a horse, perhaps the magnificent coach might move her to leave the sick room. For nothing else, he knew, would come of this meeting between them. He had been sent to spy upon her; he had express orders to discover anything the Scots queen might know about James’s plans and policies. But it was evident from everything she said…and much that she did not say…that Mary knew nothing that would be of any use to Walsingham and the queen.

  At that moment a child came running into the room, straight into Mary’s arms. She buried her head in Mary’s soft bosom, sobbing and clutching a doll that was dressed much like the girl herself.

  “There, child,” soothed Mary. “What is amiss?”

  Lady Arabella Stuart raised a tear-stained face to Mary’s. “Mama says I must not hold Lady Penelope when my portrait is painted. And I am to go to Hatfield to meet Lord and Lady Burghley,” she sobbed.

  Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, was to be the child’s new warder; for the same infectious fever that had carried away little Bessie had also claimed the life of Arabella’s mother, Elizabeth Cavendish, Lady Lennox, the Countess of Shrewsbury’s daughter. It was a signal honor; as the daughter of Darnley’s brother Charles, the Lady Arabella was next in line to the throne of England, after herself and James.

  Mary lifted the child’s chin with her finger and kissed her brow, while wiping a tear away from the flushed, red little face with her thumb. “There, there,” she said softly. “I am acquainted with Lord Burghley. He is a kind gentleman, and his lady is a gentle mistress.”

  Bess appeared in the doorway, a grim expression on her face. Before she could utter a word, Mary said, “Could not Lady Penelope also have her portrait painted?”

  Bess said nothing for a moment; indulgence of whims and fancies was not in her nature, but her patience was wearing thin. “I suppose so, if it will bring peace to the house!” With an impatient nod she reached out her hand for Arabella’s.

  “There, you see?” said Mary sweetly to the child. “All is well.”

  On his way back to London, Beale contemplated the vast difference between the two queens. Why had things gone so wrong for the Queen of Scots, and yet so well for the formidable Elizabeth? In that room, soothing the Lady Arabella’s tears, he had caught a brief glimpse of Mary’s heart. Such a one, so gentle, so true, was simply no match for Elizabeth’s cold reasonableness. And therein, he thought, lay the answer to the mystery.

  Oatlands, August 1582

  The queen’s huntsmen stood looking neither to left nor right. All eyes were upon Elizabeth. Her posture was perfect; elegant even. The queen quietly nocked her arrow. Her head straight, her dominant eye trained on her mark, she raised her arms until they were level with the ground, and then she stood as still as if she had been Artemis in a sylvan wood. Her grip on the riser was easy and relaxed. Ever so slowly, the long fingers, surprisingly strong for all they seemed so fragile, began pulling firmly but smoothly upon the bowstring. Without hesitation she completed the draw and let fly the arrow. With a singing of the bowstring and as quick as a flash of lightning, the missile arced gracefully and then found its mark.

  All then looked to the Master Huntsman. With a curt nod, he sent the men to prepare the carcass and truss up the body of the stag. This time, there would be no bloody, tedious march tracking a wounded and frightened animal. The queen excelled at the hunt; Her Grace felled most animals where they stood, with an arrow straight through the heart.

  As such may we all expect to be treated by this formidable English queen, thought Lord Lindsay. He had been sent by a faction of Scottish lords to entreat Her Grace to support…and fund! …their grand scheme to abduct the King of Scotland and place His Grace under their control. And was not the anticipated result of their plan of benefit to England as well as to Scotland? Their aim was true, their motives pure; they desired no less than the defense of God’s religion and the liberty of their kingdom. For without God and country, where would Scotland be?

  “My lord,” said Elizabeth. She approached the Scot, who had been invited to join her pastime that morning. “A fine day for the hunt, is it not?”

  “Indeed, it is,” replied Lord Lindsay, with a bow. The sun was high and pleasantly warm; the harebell blue of the sky was a welcome sight after weeks of rain. A gentle breeze blew, mercifully carrying the coppery smell of blood away from them to dissipate in the air.

  The queen took Lord Lindsay’s measure in a steady, level gaze as she expertly removed her leather wrist guard. A sudden gust of wind caused the sunlight dappling through the trees to dance upon her gown. For the hunt, the queen wore velvet of a deep forest green; it was this which accounted somewhat for her success at the hunt. She blended in. The only gems on the gown had been sewn as a border of diamonds at the hem. These now blazed fire and all the colors of the rainbow as the wind whistled through the trees.

  “The day grows hot,” she said. “Let us repair to the palace.” She wondered if the metaphor of the arrow through the stag’s heart had been lost on Lord Lindsay; but she thought not.

  Later, gowned and bejeweled, she sat in her privy closet sipping a tankard of ale. Lord Lindsay entered with Walsingham. They sat in silence for several moments. Once again the queen assessed Lord Lindsay with her golden eyes and piercing falcon’s gaze. But still he did not flinch; so he must believe in the importance and urgency of his errand, and would not be discomfited. Very well, then.

  Elizabeth raised her tankard and said, “Have you a taste for good English ale, my lord?”

  Lord Lindsay allowed himself a slight smile and replied, “No, Your Grace, I fear me that it is not so.”

  So far the Scot had passed every test; he had not avoided her eyes, nor had he agreed to drink a potion that she had yet to see a Scot accept without some evidence of distaste. No sycophancy here! And that was just as well. Such deceptions only wasted valuable time.

  Lord Lindsay had been prepared well by those Scottish lords who had been to the Queen of England’s court. One must wait for the queen to speak; then one may also speak. “With respect, Your Grace, it should save us all a great deal of time if I were to come straight to the point.”

  Elizabeth cocked an eyebrow. A man after her own heart. �
��What a refreshing idea,” she said dryly.

  Much to her surprise, Lord Lindsay laughed. “Forgive me, Your Grace,” he said, running a sheepish hand through a thick mane of silver hair. “I am a blunt man, and I serve a poor country. I must have a yea or nay as quickly as possible, Your Grace, and no mistake.”

  “And why such urgency, my lord?”

  “Because, Your Grace, we are begging your leave as well as your ducats to seize the King of Scots and place him into the custody of the Earl of Mar…before someone else does.”

  “Another regency,” she said thoughtfully. Well, why not? James had truly frightened her with the ease with which he had had Morton executed. Such precocity and ruthlessness were to be reckoned with, and should not be taken lightly.

  And who was at the root of all the trouble? Esme Stuart, the Duke of Lennox. Frenchman! Catholic! But any doubt of what a formidable foe her cousin should be was removed, and in its place lay the seed of a deadly fear. James was the indisputably, unquestionably legitimate, great-grandson of Henry VII. Also, he was male. Her own right to the throne of England would forever be in question in Catholic Europe, and nothing to be done. So James was to be feared on two counts; not merely for what he was capable of doing, but for who he was. And there was something else; the succession. She would never name her successor while she had breath in her body. She must be careful, then, she thought cynically, to pay close attention to her breathing when the time came! But she knew, and James knew, all knew, that there was no one else. Neither of them ever had any doubt of that, nor had they any intention of allowing the hapless Mary either her freedom or even the appearance of the assumption of power.

  And the Earl of Morton had been her man. His loss was greatly to be regretted. Many of the Scottish nobles accepted English pensions; Morton had been one of them, and Mar was another. Henceforth, Mar should be her man in Scotland.

  And best let the Scots appear to settle their own affairs! A Scots king seized by his own people was infinitely better than a foreign power doing so. Such a situation would be fraught with danger and difficulty.

  Best enable the Scots to execute their plan; on the face of it, she would have no involvement, indeed, it would not have been unreasonable for her to be expected to come to her kinsman’s (and fellow monarch’s) aid. She would bargain, then reach an accord, all to England’s benefit. And as Lord Lindsay had just hinted, it was best to get the job done before Philip did! Oh yes, she knew of Mary’s attempts to persuade Philip of Spain to kidnap James and hold him at the Spanish court. But the threat of Philip of Spain finally heeding her cousin’s feeble mewling for help in regaining her liberty and her crown seemed remote. The only potential value James could possibly hold for Philip was his position as putative heir to the throne of England. A useful hostage indeed!

  Elizabeth appeared to consider. “Very well, then,” she said. “Proceed with your plan, Lord Lindsay. Sir Francis will see to the details with you.”

  Lord Lindsay remained still, in the stance of a soldier ever on the alert for danger. “Your Grace, what of the Duke of Lennox?” he asked.

  “He is none of mine,” she replied. “Do with him as you will.”

  With that, Lord Lindsay bowed and took his leave.

  “A man of few words,” remarked Walsingham dryly, to the sight of Lord Lindsay’s rapidly retreating back.

  “Amen to that,” she said. “Would that there were more like him!”

  Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, August 1582

  Mary stared with dull eyes at the cadre of royal physicians, leeches and apothecaries who stood about the bed. So it was to be death. Very well then; every man born of woman must die. There was nothing more certain in life than death. She had lived with the threat of it all her life; it did not frighten her now. She was dying of the fever that had struck her in the spring; she must prepare herself for God’s judgment. She was sad, despondent even; but for some inexplicable reason, she was also very, very angry.

  Perhaps it was the injustice of it all. She had been born to be a queen, but not to rule. It was expected that there would always be others to rule on her behalf. First her mother; then her dear husband and king, François. But it was not to be. Her sweet mother had died at forty-four, worn out with the burden of rule of turbulent Scotland; François had died in her arms at sixteen barely six months later, screaming with pain. To lose the two people one loved best in the world within such a short period of time would have been bad enough; but along with their deaths came the collapse of her entire world. She had never expected to have to rule Scotland, indeed, had not been properly prepared to do so. And she had never dreamed that she should live anywhere else than in France, where she was queen consort. She waved the group of men away.

  Silently, they filed out of the sick room. What was there left to say, after all? The Queen of Scotland had never fully recovered from the illness that had struck her earlier in the year. And did not Almighty God know what he was about? Mary Stuart’s death would solve a number of problems. Who could doubt that it was for the best?

  It startled her how clear her mind had become now that she was to die. So many things that had assailed her thoughts these past few days had come all in a muddle, but now, suddenly, all was sorted in her mind. As she sat in silence and the minutes went slowly by, she was beset with a mountain of regrets. There were so many that, if she were to think about them all and give them their just due, she would likely expire long before she reached the last of them in her thoughts.

  The one thing she did not regret, that she had no cause to regret, was providing both Scotland and England with an heir. It had not always been so; at least, James was the indisputable heir to Scotland, but his ascension to the throne of England had always been in question whilst Elizabeth toyed with thoughts of marriage. But this latest farce with Alençon had been just that…so much mummery and nothing more. For even if such an unlikely union had come to pass, there would have been no issue. Elizabeth swore that she was still capable of child-bearing, and her henchmen bore this out. But her cousin was facing her fiftieth year. That spoke for itself, no matter how loudly the brazen queen tried to shout it down. James would be king of England, too, and she would be vindicated at last, even if she did not live to see it.

  But, oh, her poor son! The physicians might shake their heads and cluck their tongues, but she knew the exact moment when she had relapsed into her former illness. It was the day a royal courier had brought the astounding news that James had been abducted while on the hunt. He was visiting the Earl of Ruthven, who, along with the Earl of Mar, had conspired to seize his person. They had imprisoned him in Stirling Castle. She could not help but wonder, and fret over, the possibility that her dear son should share her own fate as a prisoner. At least James had no reason to fear John Erskine; he had been under Mar’s direct guardianship during the Earl of Morton’s tenure as regent, and knew him well.

  But well did she remember the fear, the uncertainty, suffered not by herself, who had been far too young to appreciate anything save the adventure of being moved from castle to convent, manor to monastery, always one step ahead of her would-be English captors. No, all the anxiety, all the dread, had been borne by her sweet mother, and had finally driven Marie de Guise to give up her daughter to her family in France. The separation had deprived them of each other’s physical presence, which proved a shattering blow, and had been acutely distressing to them both.

  What was it all for, she wondered? Only God knew; and God’s will would be done. Not even a queen should question that. But what of her own mistakes? And that she had made many was beyond question.

  But it was more than that. She was ashamed. If she was to die, then she must own the truth at last. She desperately wanted her freedom, yes, but at the heart of everything she did now, everything she planned, was the desire for revenge. Her perfidious cousin should pay for her impolitic, unfair and illegal curtailment of the freedom of a kinsman and fellow monarch. Elizabeth should pay for stealing her ver
y life from her. Along with the black anger that she experienced every time she thought about the injustices heaped upon her by her cousin, her mind filled with rage and thoughts of vengeance. Freedom, yes; her throne, yes; she greatly desired these things. But above all else, what she lived for now was to see Elizabeth deposed, dead and buried. But would God condone such a desire? Would God aid one who prayed for such a thing? Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord…I shall repay.

  And now she was to die and all was for naught. She had abased herself to no purpose; all those concessions! She knew now that Beale had been sent only to find out what she knew about James and his situation in Scotland. As if she knew anything! She had no communication with her son, who would not have listened to her even if she had been able to correspond with him. Any idea of joint rule between them would have been a fantasy anyway; James was in Scotland and she was not. And she would be bound by her promise never to return.

  Perhaps Beale had been duped as surely as had she been; yes, she was certain of it. Else why would he have made such an effort to keep his promises to her? And after all, the attendance of the royal physicians had been granted her, even if the use of her coach had not been.

  And it was not just Elizabeth; she knew now that James despised her for her religion and would never agree to give up his kingship for joint rule with herself. Despite his loving words in some of the few letters they had managed to exchange over the years, other sources had assured her that he refused to recognize her as the rightful Queen of Scotland because she was…hateful word! …a papist. He had only pretended to listen to her counsel all these years while in reality scorning it.