A Love Beyond: A Scottish Historical Romance (The Reivers Book 2)

by Belle McInnes

  Bothwell shot Elliot from the saddle, and whilst carelessly inspecting the body, allowed Elliot to be all over him, stabbing him in the face, hand and chest with Elliot escaping. Bothwell being badly injured was carried on a litter to Hermitage castle, where on arrival they found that the prisoners had escaped and had taken possession of the Castle, and Bothwell's party was locked out until negotiations had taken place, and an agreement to all charges being dropped had been made.

  —

  the name 'Little Jock' is most likely an ironic nickname for John Elliot, he was almost certainly one of the 'strapping Elliots' referred to in a letter by Sir John Forster; the English Middle March warden who passed on a thousand English pounds from Queen Elizabeth I the year before to the Elliots, bribing them to break loose and cause mischief in the Borders.

  * * *

  Chapter Sixteen

  One of the more formidable of the Elliot clan at this time was Jock of the Park (Little Jock Elliot). Hailing from Copshawholme (modern day Newcastleton), he was renowned for his relentless strikes against the English and, indeed, any of the Scottish clans with whom the Elliots were at feud.

  By 1566 Liddesdale, which because of its notoriety had its own Warden, known as Keeper, had such a burgeoning reputation for lawlessness that a Lord Warden of the Marches was appointed. He had just one objective – subdue the unholy Reivers of Liddesdale!

  Accordingly, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, Lord High Admiral of Scotland and Duke of Orkney moved south from Edinburgh. He was a man reputed for his fierceness, was fearless in any confrontation, a skilled military man. He was also a particular confidante of the young Mary, Queen of Scots. Rumours of a liaison between the pair were rife.

  Bothwell was certain that he would rid the Borders of its worst offenders.

  He was, however, to soon find out that position and reputation counted for nothing against the hard, obdurate and wily Border Reivers. At first his success rate was good. He managed to capture the Lairds of Mangerton and Whithaugh and other Armstrongs. Soon these men were festering in the dank hole of the Hermitage castle awaiting summary justice from the illustrious Lord Bothwell.

  When Bothwell heard that Jock of the Park had been seen in the vicinity of Hermitage he pursued him with alacrity. Jock was a prize not to be missed.

  Somewhere near the Billhope burn Bothwell encountered Jock, and without any ceremony, shot him from the saddle of his horse. Jock lay motionless on the ground and Bothwell approached, sure he had severely wounded or killed the prostrate Reiver. As he leaned over to take a closer look, Jock sprang to his feet and knifed the astonished Lord. He even managed to cut to the bone the forehead of his foolish adversary before hobbling to his horse and making away.

  Bothwell's guard who had witnessed these events from a distance, conveyed the stricken Lord back to Hermitage intent on providing the shelter and succour that he needed for recovery. On the short journey back to the castle Bothwell appeared to be failing fast from loss of blood. He had stab wounds to his forehead, thigh and left hand.

  To the surprise of all, once there, they were refused entry. In the short time that they had been away, the Armstrongs had broken free of the hell-hole of a dungeon, and in true Reiver fashion, overpowered the garrison. Even though Bothwell appeared at death's door they would not let him enter without assurance that their crimes would be forgiven and that a general amnesty should ensue.

  Bothwell had no alternative but to agree; the Armstrongs and others walked free and he was to receive the aid he most certainly needed.

  Thus Jock of the Park lived to fight another day and the Armstrongs returned to their loved ones.

  Twenty-five miles north of the Hermitage, Mary, Queen of Scots was holding a justice court at Jedburgh. When she was told of the plight of Bothwell, she set off on a grey October day to travel the vast expanses of moor, bog and bent to comfort, console and help mend her favourite.

  After but a few hours at Hermitage she made the return journey to Jedburgh. Thus she completed a round trip of fifty miles within a day in most inclement weather. Above the Hermitage her horse stumbled at a place still called the Queensmire to this day and she lost a watch which was found over two hundred years later by a farm worker draining the bog.

  By the time she arrived back in Jedburgh Mary was so ill with fatigue and cold that it was thought, her being in a high fever and delirious state for day after day, that she would die. She was given the last rites of the Catholic Church.

  She survived though as did Bothwell and the next year they were married not long after the murder of her second husband, Henry Lord Darnley, in which Bothwell was implicated.

  The pair was to incur the wrath of the protestant Lords, including Mary's half-brother, Moray, and two battles ensued for control of the country of Scotland.

  After the Battle of Carberry Hill, at which not a sword was raised in anger, Bothwell fled north to Orkney purportedly to raise troops for Mary's cause whilst she was warded in Lochleven castle. They were never to see each other again.

  Bothwell was pursued and took ship for Norway to evade his would-be captors.

  The ship floundered in a storm and when it eventually reached safe harbour it was soon recognised that one of its crew was special. It took little searching of the cabins to prove that it was Bothwell who sought sanctuary in a foreign land. The king of Norway and Denmark offered him to the Scots in exchange for the Orkney Isles which had been given to Scotland as part of a marriage dowry some one hundred years before. When the Scots refused the bargain Bothwell was incarcerated in Dragsholm castle in Denmark, tied to a post in the dungeons for ten years, it is said. He died of insanity in one version of his pathetic end.

  His embalmed body could be seen for centuries in an open top coffin in the village church of Farjeville a few miles from the castle of Dragsholm. In the late 1970′s the lid to the coffin was secured on the order of the Danish monarchy.

  Mary escaped from Lochleven and confronted the Protestant Lords yet again at the Battle of Langside where her forces were convincingly beaten.

  She fled to England, determined to seek the aid of her cousin, Elizabeth l, in an effort to regain her throne. It was not to be and, after spending nineteen years in ward in various English castles and secure country houses, she was beheaded after conspiring to break free and overthrow the English monarchy.

  She was to often remark during her time in captivity that she wished she had died at Jedburgh.

  Given the obscene ordeal that was to end Bothwell's life it is probably true that he reflected on his confrontation with Jock of the Park and wished that he had died listening to the burble of the Billhope burn.

  Little Jock Elliot of the Park had a lot to answer for.

  * * *

  Chapter Seventeen

  As Lord High Admiral of Scotland, Lord Bothwell sailed around Europe. During a visit to Copenhagen around 1559, he fell in love with Anna Tronds, known in English as Anna Throndsen and posthumously as Anna Rustung. She was a Norwegian noblewoman whose father, Kristoffer Trondson (Rustung), a famous Norwegian admiral, was serving as Danish Royal Consul. After their engagement, or more likely marriage under Norwegian law, Anna left with Bothwell. In Flanders, he said he was out of money and asked Anna to sell all her possessions. She complied and visited her family in Denmark to ask for more money. Anna was unhappy and apparently given to complaining about Bothwell. Bothwell's treatment of Anna played a part in his eventual downfall.

  On 22 February 1566 Bothwell married Lady Jean Gordon, sister of Sir John Gordon and of George, Earl of Huntly. They were divorced on 7 May 1567, citing his adultery with her servant as cause. He married Mary, Queen of Scots, eight days later.

  When Bothwell married Lady Jean Gordon, daughter of The 4th Earl of Huntly, in February 1566, the Queen attended the wedding

  * * *

  Chapter Eighteen

  The four Marys went everywhere with the queen, even accompanying her to parliament in 1563. They had stools in he
r chamber, when to sit in the presence of the monarch was an extraordinary honour; they waited on her at table; and they took leading roles in the lavish court entertainments so important to 16th-century monarchy. They danced at masques, played music for visiting ambassadors, rode, hunted and hawked with the queen and her nobles.

  More informally, they joined Mary in dressing up as burgesses' wives to walk around Edinburgh and St Andrew's, shopping in the market and cooking, in a faint foreshadowing of another doomed queen, Marie Antoinette. They even donned male costume – on one occasion at a banquet for the French ambassador, as well as for practical reasons when hunting – outraging the sensibilities of the increasingly dominant religious radicals.

  Livingston was full of spirits and Beaton was the prettiest, but Fleming apparently carried the palm for overall attractiveness.

  Mary Beaton (1543-1598 d aged 55; married April 1566) about eighteen months older than Mary. Pretty and plump, with fair hair and dark eyes; inclined to daydreaming. She was called Beaton because it rhymed with Seton. was considered the most classically beautiful of the four. Attracted the attentions of an older man, Thomas Randolph. At the time of the courtship, in 1564, Randolph was 45 and Mary was 21. Randolph was Queen Elizabeth's English Ambassador to the Scottish court, and wanted Mary Beaton to spy on her mistress for him, which she refused to do.

  When Mary's Guise uncle, The Grand Prior Francis, died Beaton was delegated to bring the sad news to Mary as 'the hardiest of the Maries'.

  When Queen Mary arranged for the Earl of Bothwell to marry Jean Gordon, the Earl of Huntly's sister, she linked together the families of two of her most powerful supporters. Yet Jean had enjoyed a long running attachment to Sir Alexander Ogilvy 4th of Boyne, and she only reluctantly married Bothwell and was slow to consummate the marriage. Mary stepped in and arranged for Sir Alexander to marry Beaton two months later, in April 1566. There were three children of the marriage, James (born in 1568), Andrew and Robert. James, who inherited from his father as 5th of Boyne married Elizabeth Irvine of Drum.

  Beaton died in about 1599, when Sir Alexander was at last able to remarry Jean Gordon, who was now the widow of the Earl of Sutherland. Sir Alexander died before 1606.

  After the execution of Queen Mary, it was claimed that Mary Beaton's handwriting was similar to the Queen's and so some of her private letters might have formed the basis for the casket letters produced to incriminate Queen Mary.

  Mary Fleming (1542-fl. 1581 married January 6th 1567) was the daughter of Malcolm 3rd Lord Fleming, who had been killed at Pinkie Cleugh in 1547 and Janet Stewart, the illegitimate daughter of James IV. Although Fleming was the youngest of the Maries, being only marginally older than Mary, she was considered the senior of them because of her her Royal blood.

  Nicknamed La Flamina, she was the only one of the four who would take Mary's dares and could outdo her in mischief. And she was the only one of the four who was pure Scots. The other three Marys had Scottish fathers, but French mothers. Fleming shared her mother's nubile good looks and was considered by John Leslie to be 'the flower of the flock'. George Buchanan wrote verses in her honour…The 'Fair Fleming'… 'Venus in beauty, Minerva in wit and Juno in worldly wealth.

  She enjoyed a two year flirtatious courtship with William Maitland of Lethington, and by all accounts had him wound round her little finger. He was fifteen years older than her, and Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange reported her to be as suitable for Maitland 'as I am to be Pope'. Yet they were married in 1566.

  They had two children James born in 1568 and Margaret, who married Sir Robert Ker, 1st Earl of Roxburghe in 1587.

  When Edinburgh Castle fell in 1573, Maitland took poison to avoid facing a trial for treason. Mary Fleming soon remarried George Meldrum of Fyvie. Yet she was able to arrange the reversal of Maitland's attainder in 1583, and her son James later wrote a defence of his father's honour.

  following Mary Seton's announcement to seek retiral through ill-health in 1581. Mary Queen of Scots once again sought Mary's services, but either Elizabeth prevented it or there was reluctance on Mary Fleming's part to leave her second husband, George Meldrum of Fyvie.

  It was on the 8th of February 1587 that Mary Queen of Scots was executed at Fotheringhay Castle, after almost nineteen years as a prisoner in England. None of the Four Maries or sisters of Mary Fleming were present. Mary Fleming lived until about 1600.

  Mary Livingston (c. 1541–1579 m March 1565) Robust and athletic

  Whatever the Marys' earlier matrimonial intentions, the first of them, Livingston, was married in March 1565 to John Sempill, son of Robert, Lord Sempill. Knox, who had referred to Livingston as "lusty", suggested the match was rushed – Livingston and Sempill, who was a noted dancer, had been tripping the light fantastic with gusto and from this, Knox inferred that she was pregnant. It seems unlikely, as the betrothal took place a year before the wedding and the first of their several children was not born until a year after it.

  The queen attended the elaborate ceremony, and gave them a gift of a bed hung with scarlet and black velvet, with embroidered taffeta curtains and silk fringes, as well as land, drawing Knox's fire again for granting lands to courtiers. Livingston remained at court as keeper of the queen's jewels. When Mary made a will in 1566, Livingston drew up a minute inventory of her jewels – specimens of which were bequeathed to the Marys, should the queen die in childbed.

  Mary Seton ( 1542 -1616 aged 74). Never married. a tall, reserved, plain, fine-featured young woman, very tall and stately and was always called by the others by her surname of Seton

  Mary Seton was the daughter of George 4th Lord Seton by his second wife Mary Pyerres, another Lady in Waiting to Marie of Guise, and half-sister to George Seton V, 7th Lord Seton (1531–1586) who was a Lord of the Parliament of Scotland, Master of the Household of Mary, Queen of Scots and Provost of Edinburgh.

  Mary Seton was accompanied to France by a her young brother, James, who tragically died after drinking contaminated water at Ancenis on the Loire, before they reached the French Court at Orleans. After her father's death in 1549, her mother returned to France to be with her and to seek a new husband, becoming Madame de Briante in 1554. Mary Seton was at least six months older than, but was probably the least glamorous of the four Maries, and was a similar height to Mary (5ft. 11 ins.) She never married, but was not without admirers although she seems to have been reluctant to break her vow of chastity.

  Mary Seton remained in Mary's service and was able to join her at Lochleven and during her period of house arrest in England, where she remained unpaid, with her own lady's maid and groom for fifteen years. She was a noted hairdresser, a skill which she had learned in France, and Mary was dependent on her to maintain her rapidly thinning hair with wigs and hair pieces.

  One of Seton's admirers was Christopher, the second son of Sir Richard Norton, but he was executed for his part in the Northern Rising. When Andrew Bethune of Creich, a kinsman (probably uncle) of Mary Bethune, joined Mary's household in England, he too courted Seton, but she was reluctant to marry someone below her distinguished rank in the Scottish nobility. Eventually in 1577, he travelled to France to release Seton from her vow of chastity but tragically died of smallpox as he was returning. The master of Mary's household in England, Andrew Beaton, wished to marry Mary Seton, but as she had made a vow of celibacy, Andrew travelled to Paris to obtain a dispensation. He died during his return journey.

  By 1583, Seton was broken in health, and she retired to France where she joined Mary's aunt at the convent of St. Pierre des Dames in Reims. Sometime around 1585 she retired from the Scottish Queen's household in England to the convent.

  Mary wrote a letter to Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury on 22 February 1608, mentioning that her right arm was paralysed, and the letter was in French because she had forgotten the little English she knew after twenty years, as a 'poor recluse in a monastery.'

  She lived on there in increasing penury and ill-health until her death in 1616, but the bequests
in her will show that she was wealthy.

  Margaret Fleming Mary Fleming's other sister, Margaret, must have been as devastated at the turn of events as any of her family. She had been by the queen's bedside at the time of the birth of Prince James in June 1566, when the queen was in labour for 20 hours; at one stage Margaret, who was thought to have the powers of casting spells, attempted to transfer Mary's labour pains to another lady-in-waiting at the birth, Lady Reres. While there is no record to tell us if Margaret was successful in this, we do know that she was a lady-in-waiting at court and received the second highest remuneration.[10]

  Margaret was married at this time to her third husband, John Stewart, the powerful Earl of Atholl, a staunch Roman Catholic who had voted against Scotland becoming Protestant in 1560. He provided loyal support to Mary in the challenging circumstances of being a Catholic queen in a Protestant country, and was one of the four earls to regularly attend her court. But his support ended in the aftermath of Darnley's murder. He expected the queen to actively hunt down the perpetrators of the crime and bring them to justice; he did not expect her to marry Bothwell only three months later, the person popularly believed to have been behind the crime. These actions persuaded Atholl to abandon Mary and become part of an unlikely alliance of Catholic and Protestant lords at Carberry: he then signed the warrant for the queen's indefinite imprisonment at Loch Leven Castle.

  Despite this, we have evidence that Margaret did not abandon her imprisoned cousin and in 1570 sent her an expensive piece of jewellery. The jewel was intercepted by the English, and sent Queen Elizabeth into a frenzy because it included an inflammatory inscription: 'Fall what may fall, the Lion (of Scotland) shall be lord of all'.[11] It would appear that even fifteen years later Elizabeth had neither forgotten nor forgiven this when Margaret offered to come with her daughter and stay with Mary at Tutbury Castle. Mary was thrilled at the prospect, but Margaret and her small retinue were refused permission by Elizabeth.