by G Lawrence
Mary’s household was French, aside from her Maries, as they were called. Her Maries were four women who had been with her since she was a child, they were around the same age as her, and all called Mary; Mary Seaton, Beaton, Livingstone and Fleming. I often thought I had a problem with the amount of Catherines and Besses in my household, but at least I was not attended by four women bearing the same name as me. Mary called her women by their surnames, which is just as well; imagine the general daily confusion caused otherwise…
It was reported to us that Mary got straight to work, named her Privy Council, and gave her bastard brothers prominent places on it. Seven of the twelve men she picked were Protestant, making a majority, and giving lie to the idea that she would only honour and support those of her faith. Lord James, who had acted as regent, was her chief advisor; her Cecil, if you will.
Lord James wrote to Cecil. He knew Mary would never agree to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh in its present state. James asked for talks to open to amend the treaty, saying it was a mistake on the part of his Queen to have ever styled herself as Queen of England, and was only done because of the wicked influence of her Guise uncles. He opened with a compromise; if Mary Stewart was named heir to the English throne, she would renounce her immediate claim. Although we had already rejected this idea when Mary was in France, we knew her return to Scotland was going to open such matters again. It was agreed that she would send one of her Council, William Maitland, to try to find a “middle way” between us. Since the middle way had always been my preference, I agreed, but I was not about to name Mary my heir. I was hardly in a mood to coddle my cousins.
“If she wants to be my good sister, Cecil, she must make the first move,” I said. “I am not about to make concessions to this imp who so lately styled herself Queen of England.”
“Nor should you, Majesty,” Cecil agreed.
“But I will not reject her offers of friendship,” I went on. “She is, after all, my only cousin of true royal blood.”
“But was struck from the succession by your father’s will, and by the recognition of her foreign status,” Cecil interjected hastily. He did not like the notion that Mary might be recognised as my successor. As she was a Catholic, he suspected her of much.
“Even so, she is a worthier candidate than some whom others have supported.” I glared at him.
“In terms of blood, Majesty, certainly… but not in terms of sex or religion.”
“Do you find me wanting, for my sex, Cecil?” I asked, rounding on him. “Do you find my judgement impaired by the breasts upon my chest, or my mind decreased in intelligence for the lack of a shaft between my legs?”
Cecil coughed. “Of course not, Your Majesty. But not all women are created equal.”
“Neither are all men, Cecil. Would you wish instead of me, a fool such as Henry Darnley, my cousin of Lennox’s heir, on the throne? He is a man, and holds a trace of royal blood in his veins. Would you wish then for him, over me, simply because he is a man and I a woman?” Henry Darnley was a fop and a fool. After his return from France and house arrest, I had had him installed at court so I could keep an eye on him and his mother. Many were the times I regretted having to do so. The boy was arrogant, spoilt, often drunk, and brawled with other young men at court.
“Of course not, Majesty. Henry Darnley is a dalcop.”
“Then cease to talk about Mary of Scots’ sex as though it has anything to do with the matter,” I commanded. I disliked his stance on Katherine Grey, and this made me defiant in promoting my cousin of Scots over Katherine, even though I had no reason to trust Mary. “Let us see what there is inside Mary Stewart’s mind, Cecil, rather than concentrating on the contents of her skirts. Now she is separated from the Guise and that Medici snake, there may be more to her than previously thought. We will keep a close eye on my cousin, Cecil. I will not name an heir, but I will not discount the possibility that she may succeed me. She is the only one of all my cousins who is royal and has been chosen to rule Scotland by God Himself. Let us see how she does.”
I gazed from the window. “She has not, in truth, ever had the chance to prove herself as a queen,” I said. “In France she was manipulated by her relatives. Now, she stands alone, much as I do, so now, we will see what kind of a ruler she is.”
Cecil agreed with me, since he was a pragmatic man and did not want to further rile my fury, but I knew he did not believe Mary of Scots was suitable. I was starting to think differently, however. There was no denying Mary had caused me trouble; she had claimed my throne, she had insulted Robin and used the arms of England where she had no right… I had reasons aplenty to distrust her. But now, she was a Queen in her own right, it occurred to me we had much in common.
My fear and anger about Katherine Grey moved something within me. I began to consider Mary Stewart not as an upstart chit, but as my potential successor. We would have to see what unfolded in Scotland, of course, but perhaps Mary, unlike the polluted Grey line, would prove herself worthy. I ordered an envoy to go to her court and welcome her home, and started to take close interest in all dispatches from Scotland. I wanted an alternative to Katherine Grey. I wanted to know Mary better.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ipswich
Summer’s End 1561
News did not take long to arrive from Scotland, and the first wave was on the issue of religion. Mary had been promised freedom to worship as a Catholic as long as she did not try to impose her faith on her Protestant country, but at Mary’s first Mass in Scotland, Protestant protestors tried to break into her chapel and disrupt the Mass. Her brother, Lord James, kept the troublemakers at bay and the next day, Mary issued a proclamation stating that religious changes in Scotland were forbidden. I read this dispatch with cautious satisfaction. It seemed Mary was not about to interfere with her country’s faith, as many had feared she might. She had arrived home to an uncertain Scotland; uncertain in its trust in her and how she intended to rule. Mary was setting aside her personal beliefs and acting for her country. It was a pleasant surprise.
Perhaps the most difficult rock in her road ahead was the preacher, John Knox. He was a zealous Calvinist, and had no love for my cousin. After her first private Mass, he preached publicly against idolatry and superstition. All knew he was talking of the Queen and her faith. This may have troubled Mary for Knox was a formidable opponent, and was popular with her people, but Knox, however influential, did not represent all people in Scotland. Whilst many of the nobles were Protestant, many other Scots still clung to the Catholic faith. But, even so, Knox was a problem. He was opposed to Mary not only on the basis that she was Catholic, but also because she was a female ruler. To Knox, there was no greater evil. To him, having a woman in power, holding authority over men, over a whole country, was an abomination, an unnatural, abhorrent occurrence. He was also not overly fond of me, at that time, but I, at least, was Protestant, which made up for some of my failings in being born a woman.
When he preached his first sermon before Mary, blasting the evils of Catholicism, she invited him to a meeting. Our envoys reported that Mary asked him why he was apparently inciting her subjects to rebellion by speaking out so passionately against her. “Can we all not live in peace, together?” she asked him. “Can you not be content under my rule?”
“I shall be as well content to live under Your Grace as St Paul was to live under Nero,” Knox said, insultingly. Had such been said to me, it would have earned the man a sharp slap about his cheeks. They argued over the Scriptures, and Knox further made the case that if a ruler was unsuitable, tyrannical, or possessed with a fury then his people might rise against him in good conscience. It was a warning. Should Mary try to interfere with religion, Knox would provoke rebellion. I doubt whether my cousin had ever heard such blatant insubordination from a subject, and known he was going to get away with it. She could not start her reign by imprisoning the man many saw as the leader of Protestant faith in Scotland. It would have gone against her agreement not to in
terfere, and incited revolt. Their interview ended when Mary was called to dine. Her last words to Knox were, “I perceive that my subjects shall obey you, and not me, and shall do what they like and not what I command. And so must I be subject to them, and not they to me.”
It was a clever response, for as much as a prince is ruler over his people, so his people rule him as well. Knox left shaking his head. My ambassador reported that when she reached her private quarters, my royal cousin had burst into tears of frustration and anger. I could sympathise with Mary. There had often been times when I had felt the same. I, however, did not allow any but my ladies and intimates to see outbursts of weeping. My cousin needed to understand she was no longer a woman, nor was she a man. She was a prince, no matter her sex, and princes must be seen to be powerful, in control, and collected when before their people. True enough, I had not always controlled my anger, but to erupt with rage is often more respected by men than are outpourings of tears.
Knox wrote to Cecil, a figure of whom he approved, seeing he was a man and of the correct faith. “Her whole proceedings do declare that the Guise Cardinal’s lessons are so deeply imprinted in her heart that the substance and quality are likely to perish together!” Knox wrote.
“Or, in other words, Cecil, my cousin was Knox’s equal in this argument!” I crowed, daring him to contradict me.
“Perhaps so, Majesty,” Cecil agreed. “Knox values an argument, and it would seem he has found an ongoing one with his Queen.”
Mary could not afford to arrest Knox, although I am sure she would have loved the idea. She had to bide her time, play nicely with the man, and attempt to hide her disdain. But no matter her first troubles, my cousin rallied and took herself on a progress about Scotland It was a wise move, and I applauded it. Apparently taken aback by the obvious poverty of her people, Mary was found often in tears on her first progress. Her habit of showing her emotions so openly both drew people to her, and made them nervous. It was put down to her sex, but I began to wonder if it was a tactic, for it had advantages. It made men protective and engendered the sympathy of women. Perhaps there is a great deal more to my cousin than meets the eye, I thought as I read the dispatches detailing her progress.
I was growing more interested in Mary every day. When she was in France I had thought of her as but part of a larger annoyance; as though there was one great tick in France, and she was one of its twitchy black legs. Now, however, I needed to understand her better. We were neighbours and likely to be so for a long time. My father had battled Scotland on numerous occasions, and peace had never been easy between our nations, even though our royal houses carried shared blood. And there were similarities between me and my cousin which I could not deny. Even though she appeared immature in comparison, perhaps because she had not encountered the dangers that I had survived in my youth, there were yet elements binding us. We were both women. We both ruled as single, unwed sovereigns. We shared blood and we both had differences in religion in our kingdoms. Yes… I found myself curious about Mary, and only more so after Katherine Grey’s disgrace. I would not name an heir, believing it would cause trouble, but eventually there must be one if I had no children. Mary Stewart, for all that had passed between us, was royal and was the rightful heir to my throne, in my mind at least.
But to openly voice such an opinion would not be popular with many of my people, my Privy Council, or Cecil. Protestants saw her religion as a barrier. They did not see, as I did, that a crown was a right passed on through a royal bloodline by God. It was God who had chosen my grandfather to win at Bosworth. It was God who decided the crown should pass to Edward and then to Mary, no matter their differences in religion, and God had picked me for the role I performed now. The Greys, the Lennoxes, and all other noble contenders for the throne were not royalty, and therefore they were not of God’s chosen line. But my cousin was. If I were to die, which someday I must, I wanted my England in safe hands, in royal hands, but I also wanted England to have a wise and just ruler. I did not know yet if this ruler I envisioned was Mary, but I was willing to believe there was a chance she could be.
There was, however, still much about her to make me nervous. The question of her marriage was of pressing concern. Unlike me, Mary had no objection to the wedded state, and there had already been talks of Mary marrying the unhinged Spanish prince, Don Carlos. Many of her own lords were opposed to this on the basis of religion, but I was opposed to it on the grounds it would give Spain a foothold in Scotland, which was far too close to England for comfort. I did not want my cousin to wed a foreign, Catholic power who might threaten England. There were many who might seek to use religion as an excuse to invade England. Fortunately, thus far, the Pope had been more of a mind to attempt to persuade me to rejoin the Catholic fold, rather than sanction invasion, but I still had no wish to allow a Catholic power to enter Scotland.
I was determined to have a say in who Mary would marry. She had no wish to irritate me, being now so close to my borders. In fact, since she wished to be named my heir, she had many reasons to be polite and deferential. My cousin of Scots was eager to play nicely with her “good sister” of England, so I believed there was a true chance I could dictate her choice in her husband.
I was to be proved perhaps half-right…
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hertford Castle
Autumn 1561
As I was still simmering with fury over the illicit marriage of my kinswoman, and thinking on the matter of my newly returned cousin to Scotland, another event came to try my strained emotions. A scandalous text had been printed in France and was circulating not only at the French Court, but in the streets of Paris and beyond. It was not unusual for salacious texts to become popular in France, but this one was different, for me at least.
It was about my mother.
Written by a man named Gabriel de Sacconay, this defamatory book condemned my mother as a heretical whore. It said she had led England’s King, my father, astray and “stolen the light” of the Catholic faith from the people of England. Denounced as a “Jezebel” and compared to the wives of Solomon for heretically persuading my father to turn his back on the ‘true’ Church, it said “their foul matrimony” was a result only of lust. The text ended by rejoicing that, in her fall and bloody death, my mother had met a just reward from God. I can hardly describe how I felt when I heard about this book. Some emotions are hard to put into words for they are myriads and mazes of different thoughts and emotions bound together. Old wounds tore. I became nauseous, and heated as though I had a fever, but more than anything else, I felt sorrow and anger.
Had her fall, her disgrace, the ending of her life in such a brutal public display of ignominy and humiliation not been enough? Why must they continue to attack her? Why must they use her as a weapon against me? Slander upon myself I could handle with practised ease, but to attack my mother, who could not defend herself, was unforgivable.
My poor mother… Would she never be allowed to rest in peace?
As it transpired, Cecil had known of the text for some time before I was informed of its existence by Throckmorton. Cecil had been afraid to tell me about it, not least because I had spent most of the summer enraged at my cousin Katherine. Although I talked little of my mother with any but my closest friends, Cecil was aware I loved her, much like I did all my close kin. Like the box I kept hidden with all the keepsakes I had gathered of them over the years, my love for my family was deeply personal. It was not a simple love. My feelings for them were crowded with many emotions, yet my love was strong. Cecil understood this news would hurt me, and had been waiting for the right time to tell me, so he said when he admitted knowledge of the book. I realised he had been attempting to protect me, but his dithering had allowed hundreds of copies of this work to be published and circulated. I could not allow this to continue.
“You will tell Throckmorton to go directly to the Dowager Queen, or the Mother of the King… or whatever that Medici snake is calling herself, and demand
the books be seized and the printer and author imprisoned!” I shouted at Cecil. I had thought when I heard of Katherine Grey that I could know no greater anger. I was wrong.
Throckmorton duly went to the Dowager, but although Catherine de Medici expressed disgust, she did not order an immediate seizure of the book, nor its author, or printer. In fact, she brought further copies into the French Court, and read them with her eleven-year-old son. What a nurturing mother! I had no doubt that the sly Medici had already read the text, and was simply looking for a way to elongate the time it had in circulation to further humiliate me. Catherine de Medici had never liked me.
I grew weak and ill. All that had happened of late was too much. Although sometimes sustained by the power of my anger, I was eating little, and sleeping less. Demons chased me in my dreams and my ghostly mother whispered pleas to me to save her from this shame. I started to dread sleep, for there my fear and guilt found me. At night I lay awake listening to the sounds of the creaking castle. I thought on my troubles with Robin, with Katherine, with France, and I became despondent, listless. Each day, I used more cosmetics to cover the exhaustion plain upon my skin. Each morning, as I sat with my ladies plastering paint and powder on my face, I tried not to think of how similar I looked to my sister Mary when she had been Queen. Was this my fate? To turn into my sister? Perhaps it was just a delusion born of stress and weariness, but at times I thought I saw Mary in my mirror. Her haunted face stared back at me with a kind of knowing sympathy, mingled with spiteful triumph, which seemed to say “see? Being Queen is not as easy as it looks, is it, little sister?”