The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots: A Novel

by Erickson, Carolly

  He looked up at the ceiling, shook his head, and went on. “I was wrong. The woman came to find me, and said she was my betrothed now, and that I would have to marry her. The nobleman had abandoned her, she said, and had gone away to Iceland. Her family had renounced her. She is the daughter of a Norwegian admiral, and as I am hereditary admiral of the Scottish fleet I must keep her father’s goodwill. We rely on the Norwegians to crew our few ships, as you may know.”

  “What a cruel dilemma! But you are unmarried. Why not just marry the woman, rather than become her victim?”

  “You have seen her. You know why.”

  “She is certainly plain, and graceless, but not hideous.”

  Jamie looked as if I had just handed him a plate of stinking rot from the refuse pile.

  “She is not only plain as a pikestaff, but a violent, vengeful scold. Even though she does have a dowry of seven thousand ecus. And I have half of it—at least I did have half of it until I lost it to a Dutchman who, I’m sure, was cheating.” The last words were mumbled, his voice dying away as he spoke. He did not meet my eyes.

  “No wonder she follows you. She wants her dowry back.”

  “Let her take it! I told her the Dutchman’s name. It’s Lukas Korthals. I wish to God she would follow him and not me. She says she prefers me. Besides, she claims she is carrying my child.”

  At that I began to feel wary. Had Jamie slept with the woman who called herself the Scottish wife? And if he denied it, could I be certain he was telling me the truth?

  “And is she?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

  He spat. “Of course not. If there is a bastard, it belongs to that drunken young lord who gambled her away. Or some blind man.”

  I thought for a moment. “She must be paid off.”

  “If only I could—”

  “Can you borrow from your friend Cristy?”

  “He only lends me gambling money. And he takes more interest than the Italian bankers.”

  We were both silent for a time. Jamie went back to polishing his bit of leather, and I began to ponder. Jamie had a dilemma to solve—but so did I. And mine, it seemed, was on a vaster scale.

  Leaving him in his room over the stables, I returned to my bedchamber, the bedchamber of an eighteen-year-old widow and dowager queen whose prospects were unclear and whose ability to choose her path was about to be tested.

  TWELVE

  It was not long after Francis died that I received a letter from my half-brother Lord James Stewart in Scotland. I had a dim memory of him, from the time when I was a young child, before I left for France. He was much older than I was, already a tall, good-looking, solemn young man. Now, as I knew from Jamie and from my mother’s letters, he was even more solemn, with an air of religiosity (“terribly full of himself,” in Jamie’s words) and a sense of mission.

  Lord James was writing to me, his queen, yet the tone of his letter was that of a ruler, not a subject. (Nor was it that of an affectionate brother writing to his younger sister.) He was graciously inviting me to return to my realm, the invitation extended on behalf of the Protestant lords.

  I reread the letter several times, reading the Scots with ease—for Scots is very like English, and my English is good—and looking for clues as to his purpose in writing. I found none.

  I did not send a response right away, for I had not yet decided what my best course of action was. It was clear to me that my troubled realm of Scotland needed a firm ruler. No doubt my presence there would help to shore up the waning power of the throne. That was a reason to accept my half-brother’s invitation and go to Scotland as soon as possible—which, I knew, would please my mother-in-law no end.

  Had Lord James written because he wanted me to give him the power to rule in my absence? Not as regent, perhaps, but as my delegate? And if I were to make him my delegate, what then? Might he seek to overthrow me, Scotland’s anointed queen, and establish himself and his heirs as rightful rulers?

  This possibility worried me, and led me to thoughts of England, where my cousin Elizabeth clung to power against much opposition and where, if I had the armed might, I could challenge her and take the throne as my own. Could I do such a bold and aggressive thing? Part of me thought I could. But I had no army, only what aid I could expect from the Scottish lords and from the French, whose military help to my mother had not been sufficient to keep the English out of my realm.

  While I was mulling over these questions my practical grandmother put a quite different set of thoughts into my head.

  “You must marry, and soon, my dear,” she advised. “The Spanish prince Don Carlos is unmarried. He is Catholic, and rich—at least his father King Philip is rich—and one day he will rule over much of the known world. Of course,” she added, “I have heard there are disadvantages.”

  “And what are those?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “They say he is hunchbacked and crippled and disturbed in mind and that he has a fondness for roasting small animals alive.”

  “Oh. I think I will look elsewhere than Spain for a husband, thank you.”

  “Just as well. His father Philip is a terrible man, from all that I hear. Not at all amusing company. And then there is his great-grandmother Joan the Mad, who carried her husband’s corpse around with her wherever she went—”

  “Please, grandmamma, I have heard more than enough about that family—”

  “You have a great many Guise cousins, you know. You could do worse than choose from among them.”

  “But they have no royal blood.”

  She could think of no answer to that, and so we spoke no more of marriage, though the subject was much on my mind.

  Meanwhile I decided to do what I could to eliminate the more immediate problem of the so-called Scottish wife, who continued to pester and threaten Jamie. It ought to be easy enough to convince her to leave him alone, I thought, if only I could offer her enough money. Unfortunately I had no money of my own, and as a rule I needed none. In the past whenever I had wanted a few coins I had always gone to Francis’s treasurer, who had supplied me with funds. But now Francis’s household was disbanded. There was no treasurer any longer, and no treasury.

  So I went to find King Charles.

  It took me quite a while to discover where the young king had gone. His bedchamber was full of people as usual, but he was not among them, and when I inquired where I might find him I was given only evasive answers or blank stares. I knew that he liked his dogs and horses, and so I set off for the kennels. But the kennel master had not seen him, and none of the grooms could tell me where to find him either.

  I was just about to give up when I heard my name called in a childish voice.

  I looked around. There was a low storage shed nearby, its interior too dim for me to tell whether there might be anyone inside. I went up to the door. The hasp was open.

  “Mary!”

  I peered inside. There, sitting on a sack of oats, was the twelve-year-old king. He was wearing his long thick hawking glove and perched on the glove was a sleek bird that turned its head toward me when I entered the shed.

  “Your Majesty,” I said, with a bow. A gleeful smile lit up his small face.

  “Don’t tell them where I am,” he whispered loudly. “Come in and close the door.” I did as he asked.

  “I won’t say anything,” I said. “Why are you hiding?”

  He sighed. “They are always after me. Especially my mother. I have to get away. I come and visit Esme, and feed her mice.” He stroked the falcon’s head gently. I saw then that a rodent tail dangled from her sharp beak.

  “Your Majesty, I must ask a favor.”

  “Ask whatever you like, Mary.”

  “When your brother was alive, I would go to him when I needed money. Now that he is in heaven, I must turn to you.”

  “My mother keeps all the money. In a big chest under her bed.”

  “Do you have no treasurer of your own?”

  He shook his
head.

  “Well then, I suppose I shall just have to ask your mother.”

  The king frowned. “No, don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It would not be safe. You are not safe.”

  “Is your mother’s astrologer casting spells on me?”

  “Perhaps. But I know that she asked her chef to feed you something that would make you sick.”

  The suggestion alone was enough to make my stomach start to churn, there in the dark little shed.

  “I hope you are not sick, Mary.”

  “No,” I managed to say, holding my stomach. “Now that you have warned me, I will be fine. Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “Would you like to watch Esme fly?”

  “Very much, but it will have to be another day. Thank you, I’ll be going now. I hope no one finds you.”

  “Goodbye Mary.”

  His tone was plangent. I made certain to close the door of the shed as I left.

  With the young king’s revelation all became clear to me: I had to get away from Queen Catherine before she poisoned me. I had to get as far away as I could, as quickly as I could. I would go to Scotland. I would be safe there, among my relations. Until I left I would eat nothing that had been prepared in the royal kitchens.

  I went to my mother-in-law’s moneylender and made over to him one of my estates in Poitou. He gave me ten thousand gold ecus. Then I went to Jamie and spilled out some of the flashing, glittering coins across the floor of his dingy room.

  “Here,” I said. “Here is enough money to pay the dowry of your tormentor, the one you call the Encumbrance. Your troubles with her are at an end. As for me, I am bound for Scotland, if you will take me, aboard the Black Messenger.”

  THIRTEEN

  I had to wrap two warm woolen blankets around my shoulders when we entered the fog-shrouded roads of Leith harbor and Jamie took the pilot aboard. It was still summertime, in that August of 1561, but it felt like winter to me, accustomed as I had been for so many years to the sunny summers of France. A cold wind whipped through the shrouds of the Black Messenger, and before long a cold rain began to beat down, forcing me to go below and drink a goblet of heated wine with cinnamon and sugar to try to warm myself.

  Our welcome to Scotland was only slightly less chilly than the weather. My half-brother Lord James Stewart did manage, after several hours, to come to the harbor bringing half a dozen others with him and a ragtag cordon of mounted soldiers. But there were no crowds to greet me, no pageantry, no choirs singing or musicians playing or fountains overflowing with wine. There was not even a coach waiting to take me to Edinburgh.

  “My dearest sister,” brother James said in his deep, grave voice, bending low in a bow, “we did not expect you for several more days. I know the French think of us Scots as barbarians, and I am afraid this poor greeting will only make you think less of us.”

  “I am one of you, am I not?” I responded, taking Lord James’s hand and raising him up. The men with him were looking at me appraisingly.

  “Our brothers Robert and John,” Lord James said, indicating a grinning, supercilious-looking young man and a shorter, darker companion. I barely recognized Robert, and John was a stranger to me. Our father King James had had many children, most of them bastards; I knew I was going to need to become acquainted with them.

  “The Earl of Arran, whom you know by his French title as the Duke of Châtelherault.” I felt my hands close into fists at the sound of the name. So this was the infamous Arran, the man who had put a spell on my mother and made her so terribly sick, the man who had led the rebellious Lords of the Congregation in fighting her and her French soldiers. The man who had burned Jamie’s castle and torched his fields. The traitor to Scotland—and to me.

  He was stout, round-faced, aging. When he bowed to me, his legs were a little unsteady under him. His face wore a bland smile of welcome. I stared at him stonily.

  “And this, Your Highness, is our famed man of God, the reverend John Knox.”

  Now there stepped forward a tough-looking, black-clad man whose eyes burned with a furious energy. He was not young, yet he had the feral force of youth, and I sensed no reverence from him, no acknowledgment of my authority, in fact. He did not bow, or even remove his hat.

  I smiled courteously and extended my hand. I expected my smile to melt the sharp disapproving frown chiseled on his features, but there was no change.

  “Jezebel!” he cried, ignoring my outstretched hand. “Puppet of the Roman Antichrist! Repent or face eternal torment!”

  Jamie, who was standing to my right and slightly behind me, let out a bellow of rage and lunged toward the preacher, but my half-brother James intervened.

  “Can we not restrain ourselves in the presence of the queen?” he said blandly, placing himself between Jamie and Knox.

  “I am not accustomed to being insulted by clergymen,” I said, standing my ground, “though I understand Protestants have few scruples in that regard.”

  “Judgment is mine, saith the Lord,” roared Knox.

  “I believe the verse reads, ‘Vengeance is mine,’ not judgment.”

  “Vengeance follows judgment, as night follows day,” Knox shouted. He stood squarely before me, as threatening a presence as I had ever encountered. He was not armed, he did not point a pistol at me or raise a sword. Yet there was a terrifying strength in him, or running through him, and I felt the menace of that strength. I felt my heart beating rapidly, my breath coming quickly. There was a low rumbling sound in my ears with every beat.

  “If I have sinned, sir, it is because all men are cursed with a sinful nature. ‘For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,’ as the Bible says. As a good Catholic it is my custom to confess my sins often, and humbly. I do not need you to point them out.”

  “Aye, all men sin—and all women sin twice as often, and twice as wickedly. It is an abomination for such wicked sinners to rule over men!”

  “I am well aware of your vitriolic book on that subject. In it I believe you vilify my late mother, who was as good a woman as God ever made.”

  “That’s not saying much,” I heard the preacher mutter.

  “I caution you, Mr. Knox. Do not speak ill of my mother in my presence, or you will regret it.”

  My mother had written to me about the book preacher Knox had written, a book in which he denounced what he called “the monstrous rule of women,” and criticized several queens and regents, including my cousin Queen Elizabeth and my mother-in-law Queen Catherine.

  The sky had darkened, a dense black storm cloud was approaching the harbor. Once again my brother James intervened, suggesting that we make our way to the royal palace of Holyrood before it began to rain.

  Horses were brought and we started off, though we hadn’t gone far before our progress was halted by a commotion in the street.

  Hundreds of people were gathering to watch what appeared to be a procession making its way down a dirty road whose gutters stank with sewage. I am tall, I can see over the heads of others—even other mounted horsemen. What I saw, moving along that street at a marching pace, was a boy—he could not have been older than my brother-in-law King Charles in France—dressed in the highland blanket they call a plaid, and carrying a ghoulish trophy.

  It was a pair of legs.

  Bloody, severed legs.

  “Hear all people!” the boy was shouting, holding the legs high so that everyone could see them. “And hark all ye nations! These be the limbs of Red Colquhoun, who lay with the wife of the Great MacNeil! Let all men take warning!”

  “The MacNeil, the MacNeil.” The words were repeated, passed from spectator to spectator. Here were the people of Leith, my subjects, speaking in tones of eerie awe about a distant Highland laird. Far from being horrified at the sight of the mangled legs they were struck solemn, revering the Great MacNeil and the evidence of his power to take vengeance on an enemy.

  Vengeance. I had thought, coming to Scotland, that I would be
the one seeking vengeance, against those who had hounded and betrayed and cursed my dear mother. But I found myself surrounded by others far more vengeful than I, first the unholy reverend Knox and the offending Lords of the Congregation (whose faint welcome had insulted my majesty) and now, by the brutal MacNeil and the townspeople who venerated him.

  The boy with the legs had passed, and the women in the crowd began an uncanny wailing, an unearthly sound that I recognized from my childhood as a lament for the dead. I signaled for my escort to hurry on past and we made our way toward Edinburgh and Holyrood.

  That night, settled in my bed in the palace, I dropped off to sleep almost at once. The events of the day had tired me, and left me wrung out with many concerns. My faithful Margaret Carwood had seen to it that the fire in my room was piled high with wood, and had warmed my bedlinens and put out a thick nightgown for me to wear, and with it a pair of knitted short stockings to keep my feet from freezing.

  I was dreaming—and then I was awakened. I was awakened by singing. But it was not the lament for the dead, it was a psalm tune. A Protestant church tune.

  I got out of bed and went to the window. The courtyard below was full of people, carrying torches and Bibles. All appeared to be in somber garb, long dark plain robes with no adornment. They stood there, a solid phalanx of worshippers, as if in church, intoning the dirgelike notes of the psalm. It was a mournful scene, all the more mournful in that it was being staged for my benefit.

  For these people of Edinburgh were, like the reverend Knox, giving me a very pointed message. That I, a Catholic and a sinner, must repent. That I must become one of them, no longer a queen in her colorful bejeweled finery, living her life of vice, but a robe-wearing, humble penitent, carrying a Bible and singing a dirge to the Lord.

  I threw up the window sash and looked down on my people. My congregation, as I thought of them at that moment.