The Queen's Mary: In the Shadows of Power...

by Sarah Gristwood

  Then her head snapped round as the door opened, and the clumsy bows of two Scottish gentlemen ushered in her Majesty.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, looking round at her four Marys as the door was well closed.

  As they all burst out laughing her brows rose slightly, and Beaton explained the joke, hastily. Close though they were to her, the queen would always be the queen – and then, there were those years growing up apart in France.

  And of course, if they four felt it risky to put everything into words, then the court habit of caution went doubly for her Majesty.

  She’d even more reason to face her homecoming with mixed feelings. It was not just that the queen regent, the mother she adored, had died here little more than a year ago. In that fourteen months., the Protestants had taken over her country.

  When Queen Mary’s young husband had died, and the Scots were shown there would be no more place for them in France, she had made the decision to move home on a wave of indignation and energy.

  But when the wave broke – her Marys had seen it before – her high mood could falter and send her crashing down into a slump as profound as the depths of the sea.

  ‘It will be easier when we get to Holyrood,’ was all Seton could say, consolingly, as the pageboy knocked at the door with a beaker of warm mead (no hippocras, he explained, blushfully. They’d find it in Edinburgh – maybe). And in the end they talked only of the day’s smallest trivialities, as they began to tend to her Majesty.

  *

  The servants came in to spread mattresses around the queen’s bed, and they all settled down to rest. The beaker of mead had been the size of a vat, and the queen passed it around for them all to take a sip, but sleep did not come easily.

  When Seton drifted off at last she found that she was dreaming – and of the gibbet in the street, absurdly. As though they hadn’t often seen worse in France… But as an unseen breeze twirled the dangling figure, Seton saw in its distorted face the features she met in the mirror every day. And woke up with a choke that made Livy stir protestingly.

  It was the hour when the future looms up like a monster in front of you. What lay ahead in Scotland, for the Marys?

  Marriage for Fleming and Livy, surely. A life at the queen’s side, for them, would always be a staging post, to a husband, home and babies. Beaton too would surely have to wed, of course, at the command of the queen if not her family.

  For herself, Seton found it harder to see.

  Her eyes hadn’t lingered on the young men of the court, she hadn’t giggled with the others over which one of them might whisk her away. She’d always thought the queen’s ladies were halfway to being harried wives already. You served your lady and mistress as a woman might serve her lord and master, if you were attendant on royalty.

  She must be just too tired. Off the ship, and off the horse, but it was as if the rocking motion had Seton still – ‘and I swear something was biting me,’ she hissed at the unconscious Livy.

  As she fell back to sleep at last, she wondered how long they would remain in Scotland, and whether this was really the end of their journey.

  Two

  There’s something dispiriting about unpacking. Or there is when you’ve been at it several days already. The homecoming to Holyrood hadn’t been the most cheering. The fog still hung around, so they were almost at the gates before the palace loomed before them. And then – ‘Do you suppose someone is playing a trick on us?’ laughed Fleming nervously.

  Indeed, with its four tall round towers, the building looked all too like the lovely Loire palaces they had known in France – Fontainebleau, Chenonceau – but as if redrawn by a child, and very badly.

  Rough grey stone instead of smooth white, the shocking purple of the heather-covered hills behind, instead of a moated green landscape and, looming over it all the great rocky cliff they call Arthur’s Seat. It made the palace look silly.

  It wasn’t as if it had been home to any of them – not even to her Majesty, really. While her mother had ruled as regent here, she had been raised far away, in safety.

  This had been her mother’s house, as even the ceiling rosettes on the privy rooms proclaimed. IR, for Iacobus Rex, and MR for Maria Regina, the queen’s mother, Marie of Guise. It had to be bringing her mother’s death home to her Majesty more sharply. So Holyrood didn’t look familiar and dear, just drab, and dour, and tiny.

  Lord James had led the way to the tower apartments where her Majesty would live. A room that in France would have done well enough for an everyday private dining chamber – but this was to be the place in which her Majesty was supposed to receive the nobility.

  Beyond it was a bedchamber – octagonal, heavily panelled in dark wood – which could probably be made cosy. But it was hardly a dozen paces across, with two alcoves opening off it. One, for the usual offices, was obviously invisible to Lord James’s modesty. The other – ‘The supper room,’ he said. It was so small that seated knee to knee with their food on their laps, it could barely have held the queen and all four Marys. And – ‘That’s it?’ Livy had asked incredulously.

  Seton pulled herself together. ‘At least the rooms will be easy to heat. It will just be up to us to make them welcoming.’

  Beaton gave her an old-fashioned look, and tugged a cupboard open, sharply. There hadn’t been much they could do until the trunks arrived on the baggage galleys, but then they wished they hadn’t packed so many.

  Was there space here for a hundred tapestries? Or more than thirty carpets, for that matter?

  Fleming told the men to hang the great French battle scene in the public room. Best remind everyone what the queen had come from. The Judgement of Paris was for the bedchamber, obviously. Cushions of cloth of gold for the outer rooms – heaven forbid anyone should actually sit on them! – silver and satin for the inner, under the portrait of old Queen Marie, with the pair of globes she used to own.

  With colour and texture all around, at least the rooms began to seem less chill. Once the queen’s gilt throne was set out, with the four stools clustered around, they began, Seton thought, to feel more like themselves: I do like things orderly.

  *

  Finding space for the queen’s clothes was a whole other problem. A few days after their arrival, her Majesty had gone to a council meeting; the Marys were standing over a ransom’s worth of fabric – velvet, the fresh shouting green of grass in spring, veils fine as cobweb, brocade rich as a gold altar vessel, silk with the shifting lights of the sea – and squabbling over the shelves like urchins dividing a crust of bread, or brats in a nursery.

  The spots of colour in Livy’s cheeks were getting more hectic than ever, and Beaton’s mouth was drooping ever more sulkily.

  In silence Fleming shook out a damask dress to check that all its enamelled buttons were still in place. Seton was sorting through a box of gold-embroidered gloves, when a servant appeared at the bedroom door. ‘My Lord Seton,’ he announced and the familiar, unfamiliar name made them jump.

  Seton gazed at the stranger who stood there bowing – and rather clumsily, too, she thought guiltily. Clumsy by French standards, anyway.

  She had not seen her half-brother George since she set sail for France, nor since he’d succeeded to their father’s dignities. He had seemed so huge and handsome then, more than a decade older than she, and the grown woman she now was couldn’t make use of the five-year-old’s memories.

  We will each have our families to learn all over again, thought Seton dismally. Livy’s father, who’d gone to France with them, was long dead: Fleming’s mother, pregnant by the French king, had been sent home in disgrace while the Marys were still in the convent at Poissy.

  Would she have recognised George, had she met him in the street, Seton wondered? She realised she’d stood dumbstruck a little too long, and went over to curtsey. But George drew her to him and kissed her cheek, albeit a little stiltedly.

  He looked around in some consternation at the feminine clutter; afraid, perhaps, of too inform
al an encounter with her Majesty. ‘I thought, sister, if you were not too busy… I had hoped to show you the city. I know you can have had little time since your arrival…’

  It was hesitant, formal – a suggestion, rather than a demand – and that made Seton accept it more readily.

  She was tired of sorting scarves, and fitted woollen stockings, and velvet shoes; and after all, she made excuse to Fleming, her brother was now head of the family.

  *

  But as they rode up Edinburgh’s main street, almost in silence, Seton began to wish that she was back folding clothes in the closet, however stuffy.

  Of course there was plenty to look at as the road began to rise, though the men at arms kept the crowds away. ‘That’s Master Knox’s house. And there – you can just see St Giles’ Cathedral.’ He sounded like any man forced to entertain a visitor and doing his reluctant duty.

  But as Seton stole a glance at his profile, she felt perhaps she guessed why he was waiting to speak; until they could do so more privately.

  Seton pulled herself together to ask after his wife, Isobel. She’d never met her sister-in-law, nor either of their children, the baby in the nursery or the son and heir, little Willie. He said he’d be bringing Isobel to court – ‘but I hope you’ll come to Seton to stay with us soon.’ The sort of thing you say to a stranger, for all he meant it kindly.

  Seton let her horse lapse a little behind, and watched him covertly. Nineteen when she left home, he’d be… what, early thirties? The prime of manhood, anyway.

  His beard was cut bluntly, and any French courtier would have had his barber horsewhipped, but his back was as broad as when he used to toss her in the air and leave her shrieking with laughter. He’d been a glossy boy, and he no longer had that gaiety. But suddenly he turned around, and Seton recognised the mischievous gleam in his eye as he jerked his head towards the mouth of an alley.

  Tall mean houses, one dwelling piled upon another, and a channel down the street where the filth ran away. Seton gazed at it uncomprehending but – suddenly, yes, she thought, it’s coming back to me. George running down there with me riding his shoulders, and our parents laughing as the servants pretended to chase us.

  She smiled back at him, wondering that the memory had come back so quickly. As he reined in to ride alongside, her horse stumbled, and suddenly his hand was on the bridle, though it wasn’t really necessary.

  They were climbing more steeply upwards now, through the broad street called the Lawnmarket. Somewhere in the streets down the hill below to the left must be a butcher’s shop, for the smell of blood washed out like a stale greeting.

  Gazing away to the right, through the arches that framed each close, she found she was looking straight across the Firth and towards the northern hills. There used to be an old woman here selling sweetmeats… slices of apples baked in honey and dried, nothing like the French subtleties she’d tasted since, but none the worse for that, maybe. For a moment she could swear her horse, and George’s too, turned their heads.

  As they approached the castle, the views and the street traders dwindled away. Every gate swung open at George’s appearance, and Seton remembered he was, apart from anything else, provost of the city.

  They dismounted as they rode through the gatehouse, tossing the reins to a waiting servant. Seton’s brother took her arm in a steadying clasp as he urged her up the steep stone steps that made the only entrance into the stronghold.

  They were higher than the birds here. Leaning over the wall, Seton could see them wheeling below. She snatched at her headdress in alarm as the wind almost whipped it away – bordered with pearls, it was one of her best. George grabbed for it at just the same moment, and they laughed together more easily.

  From this high vantage you could see to every point of the compass and George led the way from one side to another. To the north, across the Firth, the hills rose blue and mauve. To the west and south, behind Holyrood, the sharp stone crags seemed almost to peer into the city itself, dwarfing the tiny palace.

  Seton shivered, and her brother touched her arm again, moving away.

  In the lee of the great siege gun, Mons Meg, they found a refuge from the gusty air. Seton had expected him to speak now of their family, more privately, so his abrupt assault was a surprise.

  ‘What sort of a woman is she? I mean her Majesty.’

  Seton jerked round to face him, surprised not just at the lack of preliminaries, but that he had spoken so freely.

  How to sum up, even if she wanted to, the woman and girl she’d known for thirteen years? Her kindness and her unconscious carelessness, her beliefs and her blindness. Her sudden lapses into despair and her brave wild bursts of energy.

  Perhaps George realised he had gone too far for he went on, without waiting for an answer, ‘She’ll need to be someone extraordinary.’

  Seton’s heart sank within her. It was not what she needed right now – confirmation the path would not be easy.

  ‘Just tell me this—’ and Seton understood his pent-up feelings were too strong for discretion or even for courtesy, ‘—when her sainted mother died a more than a year ago, or at least when her husband died six months after, why in God’s name didn’t she act immediately?

  ‘What did she think, that Scotland would lie there waiting till she was ready to pick it up, like a half-finished piece of embroidery? The Lord knows, when the queen regent died, things were bad enough already.’

  ‘The Protestants…’ Seton began, thinking of the reports they had heard in France, of the turmoil of Queen Marie’s final days. He interrupted.

  ‘The Protestants – aye, and those lords who just find the doctrine handy – have had a year of ruling the land themselves. They won’t hand power back easily, not to the French crew who came with you, nor yet to the old Catholic families like us.’

  ‘Lord James is the queen’s brother, and of course she thought—’

  ‘Lord James! If there’s an hour goes by Lord James doesn’t remember how a single wedding ring might have made him King James VI, then I’ll abandon the faith myself, and preach Calvinism gladly. The queen gave him a twelvemonth taste of what he might have had, and do you think he’ll be eager to abandon it? She could hardly have done anything more dangerous.’

  He hesitated at last, and shot a sidelong glance. ‘Not that he’s the only one she’ll need to watch – not by a long way.’

  Seton turned to face him. She was beginning to feel she had been trapped into this conversation, baffled and almost angry.

  When her brother came to seek her out, she’d thought it was because they were family. Now she felt stupid, and a little lonely, her heart as chilled as the metal of the cannon under her hands as they gripped on it, intently.

  ‘I’m sure there are others eager to seduce the queen into heresy,’ she said. ‘But you know she is a true daughter of the church, even if she won’t rush into reforming the country.’

  The frown on George’s face deepened, and Seton saw she still had not taken his meaning.

  ‘It’s not that simple – and I think you know it.’ He gazed at her, directly. ‘It’s not just the Protestants that have an axe to grind. You’ve got men like Morton – you’ve met him?’ – and Seton grimaced, remembering the red-bearded thug who made the rest of the Scotsmen she’d met seem courtly.

  ‘Then up there,’ he jerked his head towards the distant hills, ‘there are families, the Gordons for one, whose clansmen are still more heathen than Christian of any hue, and whose power goes back for centuries. God help the queen, if she tries to take any of that away from them. Which she’ll have to, if she plans to rule, and not just sit and starve in her castle, surrounded by her French finery.’

  Seton picked up his last words. ‘Starve?’ she echoed, uncomprehendingly.

  ‘Does it never occur to you that government needs money? And that the crown of Scotland hasn’t any?

  ‘Oh, yes, I’m exaggerating, I grant you. Her revenues as dowager queen of France will
serve to keep her in gloves, and pay someone to produce her French pastries. But beyond that… ask Maitland, if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘But isn’t Maitland one of the Protestants?’

  ‘Maitland is a politique. It’s not any creed that he cares for, really. And yet I can believe the man does keep a conscience somewhere – just not in any chapel or presbytery.’

  He paused again. ‘Come to that, I wonder how many of the other Protestant lords would really follow a heretic like Calvin all the way. No authority save God’s and no king but your own conscience? You don’t get to broaden your own acres that way.

  ‘I don’t want to frighten you,’ – he paused – ‘any more than necessary. But you’ll see, before the year is out, the only thing you can trust in Scotland is your own family.’

  Perhaps he did care, in his way, but Seton looked at him bleakly. Her eyes were damp – it must be the wind – and hastily she blinked salt away.

  Then, as she turned away and peered downwards, towards the stink of Nor’ Loch, he disarmed her suddenly. Standing behind, leaning over her, with his hand close on the balustrade, he used a name she’d hardly heard since first she joined her Majesty’s service.

  ‘Just take care of yourself, Mary.’

  *

  They rode back to Holyrood speaking little, but the silence was warmer than it had been before. George talked of the great house at Seton and his children. He spoke of his wife Isobel a little – not with any ardour, but decently, though his had been a match their father had made for him, not a love story. As he left her in the palace courtyard they embraced, and the hard bulk of his doublet pressed against her chest brought another rush of memories.

  Seton made her way slowly to the queen’s private chambers, hardly noticing the bustle of the household.

  Fleming had vanished and only Beaton was there, her smooth face tranquil as she watched her own maid, Morag, scatter scented herbs around the floor.

  ‘That’ll do, Morag. Get back to the stitchery.’ Beaton glanced across at Seton with a wry smile.