Royal Road to Fotheringhay

by Jean Plaidy

  The proclamation was delivered in Market Cross and then placed where all who wished to could read it.

  The citizens stood in groups, discussing the Queen and her Satan worship, or John Knox and his mission from God. To most men and women tolerance seemed a good thing, but not so to John Knox and the Lords of the Congregation. Mary was the “whore of Babylon” declared the preacher and “one Mass was more to be feared than ten thousand men-at-arms.” “My friends,” he shouted from his pulpit, “beware! Satan’s spawn is in our midst. Jezebel has come among us. Fight the Devil, friends. Tear him asunder.”

  After that sermon Maitland declared to the Lord James and the Queen that nothing but a meeting between her and Knox could satisfactorily bring them to an understanding.

  Mary was indignant. “Must I invite this man… this low, insolent creature … to wrangle with me?”

  “He is John Knox, Madam,” said Lord James. “Low of birth he may be, but he is a man of power in this country. He has turned many to his way of thinking. Who knows, he may influence Your Majesty.”

  Mary laughed shortly.

  “Or,” added the suave Maitland, “Your Majesty may influence him.”

  It was a strange state of affairs, Mary said, when men of low birth were received by their sovereign simply because they ranted against her.

  The two men joined together in persuading her.

  “Your Majesty must understand that, to the people of Scotland, John Knox’s birth matters little. He himself has assured them of that. With his fiery words he has won many to his side. Unless you receive the reformer, you will greatly displease your subjects. And you will weaken your own cause because they will think you fear to meet him.”

  So Mary consented to see the man at Holyrood, and John Knox was delighted to have a chance of talking to the Queen.

  “Why should I,” he asked his followers, “fear to be received in the presence of this young woman? They say she is the most beautiful princess in the world. My friends, if her soul is not beautiful, then she shall be as the veriest hag in my eyes, for thus she will be in the eyes of God. And shall I fear to go to her because, as you think, my friends, she is a lady of noble birth, and I of birth most humble? Nay, my friends, in the eyes of God we are stripped of bodily adornments. We stand naked of earthly adornment and clothed in truth. And who do you think, my friends, would be more beautiful in the eyes of God? His servant clothed in the dazzling robes of the righteous way of life, or this woman smeared with spiritual fornications of the harlot of Rome?”

  So Knox came boldly to Holyroodhouse, his flowing beard itself seeming to bristle with righteousness, his face bearing the outward scars of eighteen months’ service in the galleys, which into his soul had cut still deeper. He came through the vast rooms of the palace of Holyrood, already Frenchified with tapestry hangings and fine furniture, already perfumed, as he told himself, with the pagan scents of the Devil, and at length he faced her, the dainty creature in jewels and velvet, her lips, hideously—he considered—carmined and an outward token of her sin.

  She disturbed him. In public he railed against women, but privately he was not indifferent to them. In truth, he preferred their company to that of his own sex. There was Elizabeth Bowes, to whom he had been spiritual adviser, and with whom he had spent many happy hours talking of her sins; it had been a pleasure to act as father-confessor to such a virtuous matron. There had been Marjorie, Elizabeth’s young daughter, who at sixteen years of age had become his wife, and who had borne him three children. There was Mistress Anne Locke, yet another woman whose spiritual life was in his care. He railed against them because they disturbed him. These women and others in his flock were ready to accept the role of weaker vessels; it was pleasant to sit with them and discuss their sins, to speak gently to them, perhaps caress them in the manner of a father-confessor. Such women he could contemplate with pleasure as his dear flock. He and God—and at times he assumed they were one—had no qualms about such women.

  But the Queen and her kind were another matter. Every movement she made seemed an invitation to seduction; the perfume which came from her person, her rich garments, her glittering jewels, her carmined lips were outward signs of the blackness of her soul. They proclaimed her “Satan’s spawn, the Jezebel and whore of Babylon.”

  There were other women in the room, and he believed these to be almost as sinful as the Queen. They watched him as he approached the dais on which the Queen sat.

  Lord James rose as he approached.

  “Her Majesty the Queen would have speech with you.”

  Mary looked up into the fierce face, the burning eyes, the belligerent beard.

  “Madam—” he began.

  But Mary silenced him with a wave of her hand.

  “I have commanded you to come here, Master Knox, to answer my questions. I wish to know why you attempt to raise my subjects against me as you did against my mother. You have attacked, in a book which you have written, not only the authority of the Queen of England, but of mine, your own Queen and ruler.” He was about to speak, but yet again she would not allow him to do so. “Some say, Master Knox, that your preservation—when others of your friends have perished—and your success with your followers are brought about through witchcraft.”

  A sudden fear touched the reformer’s heart. He was not a brave man. He believed himself safe in Scotland at this time, but witchcraft was a serious charge. He had thought he had been brought here to reason with a frivolous young woman, not to answer a charge. If such a charge was to be brought against him, it would have been better for him to have taken a trip abroad before the new Queen came home.

  “Madam,” he said hastily, “let it please Your Majesty to listen to my simple words. I am guilty of one thing. If that be a fault you must punish me for it. If to teach God’s Holy word in all sincerity, to rebuke idolatry and to will the people to worship God according to his Holy Word is to raise subjects against their princes, then I am guilty. For God has called me to this work, and he has given me the task of showing the people of Scotland the folly of papistry, and the pride, tyranny and deceit of the Roman Anti-Christ.”

  Mary was astounded. She had expected the man either to defend himself or to be so overcome by her charm that he would wish to please rather than defy her.

  He went on to talk of his book. If any learned person found aught wrong with it, he was ready to defend his opinions, and should he be at fault he was ready to admit it.

  “Learned men of all ages have spoken their judgments freely,” he said; “and it has been found that they were often in disagreement with the judgment of the world. If Scotland finds no inconvenience under the regiment of a woman, then I shall be content to live under your rule as was St. Paul under Nero.”

  His comparisons were decidedly discomfiting. Not for a moment would he allow any doubt to be cast on his role of saint and God’s right-hand man, and hers as tyrant and sinner.

  “It is my hope, Madam, that if you do not defile your hands with the blood of saints, neither I nor what I have written may do harm to you.”

  “The blood of saints!” she cried. “You mean Protestants, Master Knox. Your followers stained their hands with the blood of my priest only last Sunday. He did not die, but blood was shed.”

  “I thank God he did not die in the act of sin. There may yet be time to snatch his soul for God.”

  Thereupon the preacher, seeming to forget that he was in the Queens Council Chamber, began to deliver a sermon as though he were in a pulpit at the Kirk. The fiercely spoken words rolled easily from his tongue. He pointed out how often in history princes had been ignorant of the true religion. What if the seed of Abraham had followed the religion of the Pharaohs—and was not Pharaoh a great king? What if the Apostles had followed the religion of the Roman emperors? And were not the Roman emperors great kings? Think of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius….”

  “None of these men raised forces against his prince,” said Mary.

  “God, Madam, had
not given them the power to do so.”

  “So,” cried Mary aghast, “you believe that if subjects have the power, it is right and proper for them to resist the crown?”

  “If princes exceed their bounds and do that which God demands should be resisted, then I do, Madam.”

  She was furious with him for daring to speak to her as he had; she felt the tears of anger rising to her eyes; she covered her face with her hands to hide those tears.

  Knox went on to talk of the communion with God which he enjoyed, of his certainty that he was right and all who differed from him were wrong.

  James was at the Queen’s side. “Has aught offended you, Madam?” he asked.

  She tried to blink away her tears, and with a wry smile said: “I see that my subjects must obey this man and not me. It seems that I am a subject to them, not they to me.”

  The reformer turned pale; he read into that speech an accusation which could carry him to the Tolbooth. He was off again, explaining that God asked kings and queens to be as foster parents to the Church. He himself did not ask that men should obey him… but God.

  “You forget,” said Mary, “that I do not accept your Church. I find the Church of Rome to be the true Church of God.”

  “Your thoughts, Madam, do not make the harlot of Rome the immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ.”

  “Do yours set the Reformed Church in that position?”

  “The Church of Rome, Madam, is polluted.”

  “I do not find it so. My conscience tells me it is the true Church.”

  “Conscience must be supported by knowledge, Madam. You are without the right knowledge.”

  “You forget that, though I am as yet young in years, I have read much and studied.”

  “So had the Jews who crucified Christ.”

  “Is it not a matter of interpretation? Who shall be judge who is right or wrong?”

  Knox’s answer was: “God!” And by God he meant himself.

  Mary’s eyes appealed to her brother: Oh, take this man away. He wearies me.

  John Knox would not be silenced. There he stood in the center of the chamber, his voice ringing to the rafters; and everything he said was a condemnation, not only of the Church of Rome, but of Mary herself.

  For he had seen her weakness. She was tolerant. Had she been as vehement as he was, he would have spoken more mildly, and he would have seized an early opportunity to leave Scotland. But she was a lass, a frivolous lass, who liked better to laugh and play than to force her opinions on others.

  Knox would have nothing to fear from the Queen. He would rant against her; he would set spies to watch her; he would put his own interpretation on her every action, and he would do his utmost to drive her from the throne unless she adopted the Protestant Faith.

  Mary had risen abruptly. She had glanced toward Flem and Livy, who had been sitting in the window seat listening earnestly and anxiously to all that had been said. The two girls recognized the signal. They came to the Queen.

  “Come,” said Mary, “it is time that we left.”

  She inclined her head slightly toward Knox and, with Flem and Livy, passed out of the room.

  BY THE LIGHT of flickering candles the Queen’s apartment might well have been set in Chenonceaux or Fontainebleau. She was surrounded by her ladies and gentlemen, and all were dressed in the French manner. Only French was spoken. From Paris had come her Gobelins tapestry, and it now adorned the walls. On the floor were rich carpets, on the walls gilt-framed mirrors. D’Amville and Montmorency were beside her; they had been singing madrigals, and Flem and Beaton were in an excited group who were discussing a new masque they intended to produce.

  About the Court the Scottish noblemen quarreled and jostled for honors. The Catholic lords sparred continually with the Protestant lords. On the Border the towns were being ravished both by the English and rival Scottish clans.

  In the palace were the spies of John Knox, of Catherine de Médicis and of Elizabeth of England. These three powerful people had one object: to bring disaster to the Queen of Scots.

  Yet, shut in by velvet hangings and Gobelins tapestry, by French laughter, French conversation, French flattery and charm, Mary determined to ignore what was unpleasant. She believed her stay there would be short; soon she would make a grand marriage—perhaps with Spain. But in the meantime she would make it pass as merrily and in as lively a fashion as was possible; and so during those weeks life was lived gaily within those precincts of Holy rood which had become known as “Little France.”

  TWO

  IN THE SMALL ROOM ADORNED WITH THE FINEST OF HER French tapestries, Mary was playing chess with Beaton. Flem was at her embroidery and Livy and Seton sat reading quietly.

  Mary’s thoughts were not really on the game. She was troubled, as she was so often since she had come to Scotland. There were times when she could shut herself away in Little France, but she could not long succeed in shutting out her responsibilities. These Scots subjects of hers—rough and lusty—did not seem to wish to live in peace with one another. There were continual feuds and she found herself spending much time in trying to reconcile one with another.

  Beaton said that Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador, told her that affairs were managed very differently in the English Court, and that the Tudor Queens frown was enough to strike terror into her most powerful lords. Mary was too kindly, too tolerant.

  “But what can I do?” Mary had demanded. “I am powerless. Would to God I were treated like Elizabeth of England!” She was sure, she said, that Thomas Randolph exaggerated his mistress’s power.

  “He spoke with great sincerity,” Beaton had ventured.

  But Beaton was inclined to blush when the Englishman’s name was mentioned. Beaton was ready to believe all that man said.

  Mary began to worry about Beaton and the Englishman. Did the man—who was a spy as all ambassadors were—seek out Beaton, flatter her, perhaps make love to her, in order to discover the Queens secrets?

  Dearest Beaton! She must be mad to think of Beaton as a spy! But Beaton could unwittingly betray, and it might well be that Randolph was clever enough to make her do so.

  In France, the Cardinal of Lorraine had been ever beside Mary, keeping from her that which he did not wish her to know. Now she was becoming aware of so much of which she would prefer to remain in ignorance. Her brother James and Maitland stood together, but they hated Bothwell. The Earl of Atholl and the Earl of Errol, though Catholics, hated the Catholic leader Huntley, the Cock o’ the North. There was Morton whose reputation for immorality almost equaled that of Bothwell; and there was Erskine who seemed to care for little but the pleasures of the table. There was the quarrel between the Hamilton Arran and Bothwell which flared up now and then and had resulted in her banishing Bothwell from the Court, on Lord James’s advice, within a few weeks of her arrival, in spite of all his good service during the voyage.

  She was disturbed and uncertain; she was sure she would never understand these warlike nobles whose shadows so darkened her throne.

  She recalled now that warm September day when she had made her progress through the capital. She had been happy then, riding on the white palfrey which had with difficulty been procured for her, listening to the shouts of the people and their enthusiastic comments on her beauty. She had thought all would be well and that her subjects would come to love her.

  But riding on one side of her had been the Protestant Lord James, and on the other the Catholic Cock o’ the North; and the first allegorical tableau she had witnessed on that progress through the streets had ended with a child, dressed as an angel, handing her, with the keys of the city, the Protestant Bible and Psalter—and she had known even then that this was a warning. She, who was known to be a Catholic, was being firmly told that only a Protestant sovereign could hold the key to Scotland.

  Moreover it had been a great shock, on arriving at Market Cross, to find a carved wooden effigy of a priest in the robes of the Mass fixed on a stake. She had blanch
ed at the sight, seeing at once that preparations had been made to burn the figure before her eyes. She had been glad then of the prompt action of the Cock o’ the North—an old man, but a fierce one—who had ridden ahead of her and ordered the figure to be immediately removed. To her relief this had been done. But it had spoiled her day. It had given her a glimpse of the difficulties which lay ahead of her.

  She had returned from the entry weary, not stimulated as she used to be when she and François rode through the villages and towns of France. But she had determined to make a bid for peace and, to show her desire for tolerance, had appointed several of the Reformers to her government. Huntley, the Catholic leader, was among them with Argyle, Atholl and Morton as well as Châtelherault. Her brother, Lord James Stuart, and Lord Maitland were the leaders; and in view of the service he had rendered her, she could not exclude Bothwell, though that wild young man had succeeded in getting himself dismissed from Court—temporarily, of course. She had no wish to be severe with anyone.

  Beaton looked up from the board and cried: “Checkmate, I think, Your Majesty. I think Your Majesty’s thoughts were elsewhere, or I should never have had so easy a victory.”

  “Put away the pieces,” said the Queen. “I wish to talk. Now that we have our rooms pleasantly furnished, let us have a grand ball. Let us show these people that we wish to make life at Court brighter than it has hitherto been. Perhaps, if we can interest them in the pleasant things of life, they will cease to quarrel so much about rights and wrongs and each others opinions.”

  “Let us have a masque!” cried Flem, her eyes sparkling. She was seeing herself dressed in some delightful costume, mumming before the Court, which would include the fascinating Maitland—surely, thought Flem, the most attractive man on earth—no longer young, but no less exciting for that.