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

by Sarah Gristwood

  When the Marys had been allowed to join their mistress at the French court, the bonds they’d had as five-year-olds had reforged almost seamlessly. Of course they’d all known there were barriers that couldn’t be crossed.

  But it was only now Seton really understood that perhaps there were things the queen couldn’t tell, even to her Marys.

  Five

  ‘Lord James won’t do it, nor Kirkaldy. And I heard Morton say he wouldn’t buy a new suit of clothes for any papist Frenchy!’ Livy was wide-eyed, all scandalised glee.

  ‘Morton wouldn’t buy a new suit of clothes to honour the Virgin Mary. But how about Ambassador Randolph, Beaton?’ asked Fleming slyly. Seton wondered what made her ask. Beaton hardly smiled as she shook her head and quickly turned away.

  Seton gazed down in distaste at the white veil she was holding. It was less than a week after their night-time adventure, and the anniversary of the dauphin’s death had come upon them. It was just on the year now since the queen had first donned the deuil blanc, the white mourning of French royalty.

  Suddenly the room at Fontainebleau seemed very close at hand, with the brooding dark shape of Queen Catherine de Medici, the stuffiness of the tapers, and the smell of the drugs they’d tried in vain to dull the poor boy’s agony. The veil in her hands seemed to belong to another world, as if it had been shut away for more than months. You could almost imagine it yellowed with age. Seton shook her head – and the floating folds – impatient, ashamed of her idiocy, and dried husks of lavender fell skittering over the floor.

  *

  There had been a certain dismay when the queen announced she would mark the anniversary by putting the whole court into half mourning. As one amiable peer, his ruddy face puckering with distress, had said with the lack of tact they was beginning to recognise as typical of the country: ‘Just when we thought that ye were all settling down so nicely!’

  No one could accuse Maitland of a lack of tact, but even he had had something to say. He’d suggested to Fleming, in one of their snatched conversations in the corridors that, given the number of French staff the queen still kept about her, a reminder of her allegiance to another country was surely unnecessary.

  Fleming repeated his words without comment and, looking at the faint rose blush on her face, Seton found herself unable to voice her thoughts that these confidences from Maitland to Fleming seemed to be coming rather frequently.

  In truth, they were all beginning to find their allies around the Scottish court. To tap into the networks of friend, of foe, and above all of family that reached unseen under the surface of the court like the roots of a tree, spreading secretly.

  There were some strange connections there. Fleming’s good Catholic family (hadn’t her sister Margaret married the Earl of Atholl?) were yet tied into the Protestant Bothwell. Come to that, the Setons and Maitland met somewhere on the family tree. But that was the Scottish nobility for you.

  Only Beaton held a little aloof – unless they were to take Fleming’s teasing seriously!

  It was true, she’d sometimes talk alone with that English ambassador, and in one so reserved as Beaton, that was a rarity. Though no man could be more different than Thomas Randolph from her last fancy, Chastelard… He’d long departed back to France, and that was one good, anyway.

  But there could never be any disinterested friendship between an English ambassador and one of the Queen’s Marys. They were none of them that naive, surely? Seton hadn’t needed George’s warning to tell her that – though quick snatched words with George had now become a feature of her days.

  England was the word on everyone’s lips, and had been ever since they’d returned to Scotland. Lord James and his allies sought a closer alliance, tying Scotland to the Protestant cause ever more securely. George and his friends dreamed quite the other way – that one day the Scots Queen might lead England back to the true old faith, should the English arise against their queen’s bastardy…

  ‘It’s because she feels guilty.’ It was Beaton speaking, but Seton had lost the thread of the conversation, and scrambled after it, frantically. Just because Beaton spoke up so rarely, when she did, you tended to take it seriously.

  Yes – that’s right, they were talking about why Queen Mary had so suddenly flung the court into mourning for a man most of its inhabitants never even wanted to see.

  ‘Guilty about what?’ asked Livy innocently, but Fleming was quicker. She did see things, Fleming, for all her gaiety. Now she silenced Livy with no more than a raised eyebrow. They all knew, really, why the queen might feel the need to demonstrate her loyalty to her late husband; and Seton had the feeling Beaton might be right.

  They’d stumbled home half-laughing, after that night in the Grassmarket and they hadn’t spoken of it since. As if the queen’s own chosen silence on the subject had been a ban even on her Marys. But two days after they unpacked those white mourning robes, they stood in Holyrood chapel and watched, silently.

  Watched as, with all solemnity, the queen took a black-draped candle from Beaton’s hand, and affirmed her ties to a dead boy who could never have aroused her sensuality.

  *

  Christmas helped. Lord James frowned as they passed on their way to the masses of the season, but even he managed a reasonable simulacrum of pleasure when the yule log was lit, and the queen declared how agreeable it was to be en famille.

  As the new year wore in, there came a different kind of party, and envoys from the rest of Europe as guests. The queen needed those about her to help bridge the gap between the rough ways of Scotland, and what they might expect in the way of ceremony.

  She’d brought her own confectioner over from France, and installed him in a fine house on the high street. But the smart and timely serving of a banquet was an art in which the Holyrood servants needed coaching carefully. The Marys relished the new responsibilities, but sometimes they weighed heavy.

  ‘Where are they with that castle?’ Fleming had come up, and was casting an anxious eye at the door. The queen had charged her with seeing that tonight, in front of the Swedish ambassador, everything ran smoothly.

  ‘Don’t worry yet – everything else is perfect.’

  Even without the miniature Holyrood, modelled in stiff sugar paste, the table looked agreeably laden. Gilded gingerbread, and green walnuts preserved in thick sugar syrup, Naples biscuits, great amber chunks of quince marmelato, and small helpings of flavoured butter each on its own spoon.

  Before long the lutes and the violas would cease to play. But no, not just yet – the music books for part-singing were being passed around again, and Seton could hear Davy Rizzio clamouring, with all that engaging eagerness, for some particular air.

  ‘My congratulations, ladies. A very agreeable evening. I’m sure our guests are impressed.’ Maitland had come to join Seton and Fleming by the fireplace.

  ‘I am sure they will be, if her Majesty herself begins to play.’ Fleming was glad enough to see him, no doubt, but she looked as if she hardly knew in what tone to speak to him, at such a moment and in such company.

  ‘Excuse me – I really must see…’ The colour heightened in her normally pale cheeks, she moved away.

  Maitland turned to Seton, with all a diplomat’s courtesy. Not for him to let the whole world see which woman he wished to speak to – or, for the matter of that, to risk upsetting any one of the Queen’s Marys.

  ‘You don’t sing, sir? Or—’ she looked behind her, ‘—dance?’

  ‘I’m no dancer – and sadly, I have no great voice. But at least I can appreciate the words.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course – it’s your father, isn’t it, who writes such beautiful poetry?’

  He smiled back but did not answer, and Seton cast around for something else to say.

  Maitland was a not a man to make a woman self-conscious – to feel that her bodice was laced a little too low, or her sleeves not quite slashed enough to catch his fancy. But all the same – and though she usually thought of herself as
reserved, not shy – there was something a little disconcerting in a tête-à-tête with a man called (as Fleming, half shocked, half impressed, had told her) ‘the Scottish Machiavelli’.

  She found a suitably musical pun at last. ‘I am glad, at least, that our guests can see our court makes perfect harmony!’

  ‘Do you think so, Mistress Seton? Really? And I was beginning to consider you as one who sees clearly.’

  Seton gave a quick glance round, but they were not overheard. All the same, she had the sense of standing on high river bank, afraid to take the plunge. Swallowing sharply, she pressed on. Faced with Scotland’s cleverest diplomat, she thought, and I’m the one trying to speak in riddles?

  ‘I wonder how the music we have here in Holyrood compares to that of… the Spanish court?’ She got a tiny, satisfied, nod in return.

  The idea of a marriage with Don Carlos, the King of Spain’s heir, had first been mooted a year ago, back in the stuffy black-draped room at Fontainebleau when they sat with the queen in mourning… Queen Mary had protested, but only faintly. To pretend a broken heart will stay cracked forever is one of the few luxuries denied to royalty.

  The King of Spain’s heir was the grandest match in Europe; and which other princess of Europe could bring a nation for their dowry? Apart from Elizabeth of England, of course, but there was her Protestantism to consider, not to mention her bastardy.

  There had been other candidates for Queen Mary’s hand, Eric of Sweden among them. But in the privacy of the bedchamber the queen had begun to speak of marriage, and of Don Carlos, ever more frequently.

  It was being borne in upon Seton that this was a conversation Master Secretary Maitland had been determined to have with somebody, and somebody very close to the Queen’s Majesty. But she’d have thought Fleming would be his first choice, and ventured to say as much, hardily.

  ‘I have spoken with Mallie.’ Even in the midst of larger concerns, it gave Seton a tiny shock to hear him use Fleming’s old nickname. He saw it, of course, and continued smoothly.

  ‘At first, if you will forgive me, I found it hard to tell the four of you apart. But that’s not a mistake one would make now. And this matters too much to try and send a message by just one Mary.’ He glanced around them, more sharply than Seton had done.

  ‘A Spanish match would be a disaster for this country.’ This was open speaking with a vengeance. It took Seton’s breath away. Looking around for relief, she saw that from the other side of the room, her brother George was watching intently. He began to move towards them as Maitland continued, ‘You know I support a different policy.’

  ‘As you well know, mistress, I follow the new faith, but it’s no secret that, in her Majesty’s mother’s day, I managed to keep my private beliefs, and yet serve a Catholic queen.

  ‘It’s not just faith of which I speak – it’s what happens to the rest of us, left behind, if her Majesty sails off again to hang Scottish sovereignty like a bauble round the neck of some other distant monarchy.

  ‘England has been our greatest foe – England should be our best ally. If the queen would consent to marry a candidate of whom Elizabeth approves – if we could but secure her rights in the English succession…’

  ‘That’s something for which her Majesty herself has always fought,’ Seton interjected hastily. Never mind out of her depth, she was beginning to feel as though she’d been plunged into the icy mountain pool that was home, her nurse had told her, to the Kelpie.

  Maitland shook his head impatiently.

  ‘You mean when she and Francois had the heralds proclaim them Queen and King of England, as they processed in to dinner at the French court?’

  ‘As they had every right to do,’ – it was George, who had come up beside her, and she moved closer to him, gratefully.

  ‘I doubt it actually helped much,’ returned Maitland dryly. If he minded the interruption, he didn’t show it. ‘But if we could secure a future union of the two realms, properly, diplomatically, it would be another story. God knows, her Majesty needs present help – and who else but England’s? – if she is to control this country.’

  Seton heard George cut in as if to protest, but the words passed over her. Now they were arguing over the latest scandal – something about Lord Bothwell? Who else would it be? Neither paused to explain it, and Seton didn’t want them to.

  She’d had enough. Wasn’t this supposed to be a party? And wasn’t there a single man in Edinburgh who didn’t have either a hole in his coffers to fill, or else a theory about the country?

  *

  A ripple of laughter and applause broke out, and she greeted it thankfully. It was that Holyrood confection at last and Seton hurried over to the table, talking loudly of trivialities. Whatever colouring had Jacques used? Parsley to turn the sweet paste green, and map the gardens, but the one shade no one had ever wanted for sugar paste must surely be stone grey! Cinnamon mixed with ginger to give a pale brown wash, and then a touch of tincture of violets? How clever!

  No one seemed to notice that her prattle was a fake. Or perhaps, in court circles, they were all too used to speaking falsely. And then, when the diversion of the sweetmeats was over and the music was to begin again, no one need do anything but stand attentive and admire. her Majesty herself had indeed consented to play.

  Six

  Nothing in France had prepared them for the sheer damnable length of the Scottish winter. Seton didn’t know whether it was the cold or the dark that would kill her first. Mornings when the wind blew straight at your face as you bent to run to mass, or those when that sea mist they call the haar crept in through the palace windows. Every smell from the streets above was carried down to Holyrood on the cold air, trapped there by a leaden sky that seemed to press down too close on the city.

  Their lack of rooms had been a constant grumble since they arrived, but now they were all glad to have the servants set up the truckle beds hard by her Majesty. The privy chamber was the only place where there was always a decent fire.

  One day Fleming came in to find Seton almost sobbing with vexation as she tried to mend a rent in an embroidered veil by the light of inadequate candles. The fabric was limp in her hands – no one could keep linen crisp in this climate – and she’d got so close to the hearth her face was scorching, but her back and feet were still icy.

  ‘Leave that to Beaton. She sews better, anyway. Or to Morag, that’s what she’s here for,’ – Fleming nodded impatiently at the silent maid, hanging her head behind her curtain of hair.

  ‘You need a break. We all do.’

  It was true. Not just a break from the cold and dark, but from the sniping of the courtiers, the constant watchfulness, the lack of privacy. Perhaps, with cousin’s licence, Fleming had said something to her Majesty, because soon the queen announced they might all in turn take leave of absence from their duties at court, to spend time with their families after the long years in France.

  *

  It seemed forever before Seton’s time came round, but at last, with her own maid and groom behind her, and the early promise of spring in the air, she rode out of Edinburgh on a damp March day.

  But it was almost with trepidation that she approached the palace of Seton. Their old family home was only a dozen miles to the east, but it felt strange – the first time, since she was five years old, she’d been in the bosom of a family. Her family.

  Seton had met her sister-in-law Isobel when her brother brought her to court and she’d seemed pleasant enough, if a little unsophisticated. There’d be old servants there still who remembered the five-year-old who went away, but her own memories were of the haziest. And yet, as Seton clattered into the courtyard with her escort around her she felt… she hardly knew what. A sense of, maybe… safety?

  They had the servants lined up in livery, as they might to greet some grandee. There was Isobel, smiling, a little diffident, and young Willie, proud in his best clothes, pushed forward to make his bow and kiss her. George seemed proud, too, as he pre
sented the officers of his household, and some curious neighbours who, Seton realised, had assembled to see her.

  ‘My sister Mary, fresh from the court…

  ‘My sister Mary, back from France with her Majesty…

  ‘My sister – she’ll be able to tell you what gift the queen would prefer…’

  It had irked Seton sometimes when they’d talked, this sense of being valued as a conduit to her Majesty. But now, oddly, her brother’s pride warmed her. Every daughter, after all, was something of a commodity to her kin, to be placed advantageously. And it was pleasant, in the end, to feel of value to your family.

  The house – the palace, they called it – had been built in the manner of Holyrood, and better built too. It was certainly better sited. While Holyrood squatted in a hollow, Seton stood proud above the Firth, light bouncing off the water and glinting in through the windows. It was odd – almost embarrassing – to remember that a few months ago, on the way into Leith, she’d sailed past without even realising it was there.

  Inside, it was certainly more comfortable than Holyrood – her mother would have seen to that, originally, but Isobel didn’t stint on wax candles, or on sea-coal for the braziers.

  It was Isobel who had prepared her a room whose windows, as the days lengthened, looked out over the water, where Seton could lie on a wide bed among pillows scented with lady’s bedstraw, as if Isobel guessed how the courtier would long for space and rest and privacy.

  Seton rode a little, walked in the gardens, went to the nursery and taught a few words of French to Willie. She read in her room, luxuriating in the space and solitude. She did not, she thought with pleasure, stand around in antechambers, waiting for someone else to finish their conversation, nor sort clothes, nor finish anybody else’s embroidery. Nothing to remind her of her tasks for her Majesty.

  At court she had learnt, as anyone who stands behind a monarch must, to put her own wishes aside. To make herself a nullity.