by G Lawrence
“If your Majesty could do this for me, I would be so happy.” She stared up with those large brown eyes, making my heart feel like butter left out on a warm day. “You are so generous, so warm… so loving, Majesty. No one has ever understood me as you do. And none have ever offered me so much.”
I chuckled. “Keep this quiet for now, Mistress Snakenborg,” I commanded. “Tell Parr, and write to your father to ask his opinion, but say nothing to the Princess. She will not be pleased to hear I am plotting to steal her ladies. I would prefer to have your father’s permission before we inform Cecilia.”
“I will tell none but William and my parents,” Helena promised.
“Good,” I said, suddenly pleased with myself. “And tell your father I will pay you a salary, and give you your own apartments. I will be your chaperone when my uncle comes to call, so your father may rest assured no scandal will attach itself to your name.” The girl was a little overcome. Thanking me, she walked from my chambers in a daze.
“It is good to see love prevail for once,” Blanche said as we climbed into bed together that night.
“Kat once said to me that the best way to thwart death is to live, Blanche,” I murmured as we pulled the covers close. “And to love is to live in the best way there is. If I can restore Parr’s happiness, then I have won at least one victory over Death.”
Chapter Seventy-One
Richmond Palace
February 1603
The attack came late on the night of March 9th, 1566.
Mary did not expect it.
Sure in his festering mind that his wife carried not his child but that of her Secretary, David Rizzio, and unhappier still that this child would remove all chance of his gaining the throne of Scotland should Mary die, Darnley made a pact with rebellious nobles. Disturbed by Mary’s new resolution to alter the religion of her country, and some even more uneasy with her marriage, the rebel lords sought Darnley out. The fact that many of them despised him did not matter. What mattered was removing David Rizzio, who the rebels saw as responsible for many of Mary’s late actions. They would remove his influence, and gain control of power in Scotland by capturing their Queen. They would decide how Scotland would be ruled. The Queen would become their puppet. Playing on Darnley’s paranoia, his suspicions and fears, lords such as Ruthven and the Earl of Morton took Darnley up and used him as a weapon against his wife.
For better or for worse…
The hour was late. Mary and her intimates were dining at Holyrood Palace. Lady Argyll and David Rizzio kept the pregnant Queen enthralled with their talk as they supped on venison, roast pheasant and quail. Later, as Mary and Lady Argyll sat talking, Rizzio played for them. The soft light of tallow candles danced over the faces of Mary’s ancestors whose portraits lined the walls. My portrait hung there too, watching her, and through my painted eyes will you see what unfolded.
The fire leapt and pranced in the hearth. With her belly filled with fine food, and spirits warmed by good company, Mary was content. One hand on her swelling belly, she stroked its contours lovingly. She was six months into her pregnancy. In three months her child would be born and her influence and power would be assured. Even if her child was a girl, she would still be in a stronger position than her cousin over the border. And if it was a boy? Then she would have all the power she required to bargain for her rightful place on the throne of England once her cousin died, and perhaps even the influence to rally Scotland to rise and fight for England’s crown here and now.
Mary had become confident. This child had already brought her great benefit, no matter if she and the father were not happy. But the political power of the child was secondary to her love for it. She had hardly expected such powerful emotions. Long had she yearned for a child. She had wanted to bear François’s child, but God had not allowed it. Now, God had heard her. She loved the child already. She was eager to become a mother, to have another to lavish care upon, and to know the love of her child in return.
Mary listened to Rizzio play. The late hour and the weight of her babe made Mary drowsy. She rubbed her eyes; they were gritty and sore. She had faced much of late. She had forced rebel leaders from her country, she had proved herself a strong and capable Queen, but she was still human, and soon to be a mother. She was weary, ready for her bed, but she had no wish to insult her gentle friend, Davey, by leaving before his last piece was finished. She would wait until the end of the song.
Good Davey… In a country where she ever seemed to find problems, strife and rebellion, she still had her friend. Her husband, as she now understood, was not the man she had believed him to be. His charms ran as shallow as his intelligence. But even if they were not fated for a happy marriage, as she had so desperately hoped, he had done the one task she required of him for her political survival. No matter that he was a fool, his child would become heir to Scotland, and very possibly, to England, too.
Davey was strumming his last notes, and Mary roused herself from her happy, half-slumberous state, making ready to applaud him. He gazed up at her as he sang of love and hope; virtues she wanted so much to believe in. She knew people whispered about their relationship, but there was nothing more to it than friendship. She loved Davey, but she did not desire him. He felt the same for her. His admiration and respect, his constant desire to put her needs first, these were qualities she valued and was grateful to possess. He smiled at her, as he held the last note of the song, well and true; sweet and beautiful.
She would hear that sound echoing in her mind, in her dreams, for the rest of her life.
Just as Mary made to applaud, in through the doors burst a shouting gaggle of armed men. Their swords were drawn; daggers flashed in the candlelight. Their faces were hard, desperate. Rising from her chair, thinking there must have been an attack on the palace, and these men had come to defend her, Mary stood up, swift but ungainly, with one hand on her swollen belly.
“What…” she went to ask. Mary got no further.
The men surrounded her and the others, herding them into a corner. The table was overturned, sending plates and candlesticks crashing to the floor. Amongst the men who surrounded her, Mary could see faces she knew only too well. Lord Ruthven… and her husband.
“What are you doing?” Mary cried, her eyes wide with terror. She looked at Darnley who sneered at her. Making straight for Rizzio, the men tried to pull him from the group. Rizzio knew at once what Mary was still struggling to understand; these men were here to kill him.
Screaming, “justice! Save me, sweet lady!” Rizzio tried to resist. They grasped hold of him, yanking and pulling him away from Mary. Rizzio fell to the floor, grasped hold of Mary’s skirts, and screeched for mercy. Mary, realising the murderous intent of her lords, tried to hold on to her friend, but the others were too strong. They tore Mary’s hands from her friend. As the men pulled Rizzio out, his hands clawed at the floor. They dragged him, screaming, into the next room. Mary tried to stop them, but her lords shoved her roughly back against the wall. Mary cried out, calling Davey’s name and shouting at the men to stop. Lady Argyll tried to keep the men away from their Queen, batting at them with her hands and shouting at them.
It did not stop them.
Mary could only listen in helpless horror as, in the adjoining room, Rizzio was stabbed, over and over. Every lord present drove their daggers into his flesh. Mary could hear his choking screams, the burbling blood rising in his throat and mouth. He screamed for her as he died. She stood helpless, her hands pinned behind her back, the large lump of her child sticking out before her. What could she do against so many? Did they think to murder her and her baby, too? In those dreadful moments, Mary believed them capable of anything. As Rizzio spluttered, slipping to the floor upon matted rushes thick and sticky with his own blood, Mary let out a sob of terror and sorrow. But Mary was not lost in her fear. She was made furious by it.
“Why have you done this wicked deed?” Mary screamed at her husband. His face was curious. Where many of the men
looked hard, their faces set with determination, Darnley looked as though he had lost his nerve. As was ever the way with him, his fantasy, his imaginings, of this moment had brought him more pleasure than the reality. Now that he was actually here, embroiled deep in treason, he was unsure and afraid. But as Mary yelled at him, poison floating in his mind rose to the surface. His fear made him defiant, for a moment.
“Rizzio has had more company of your body than I have for the past two months!” he squealed. Mary stared at her husband with unbelieving eyes.
“I have ever been true to my vows,” she said. “The man you have murdered, my lord, was my friend and once yours. There was nothing more between us.” Darnley was about to fire back an answer when Ruthven stepped from the other room. Mary stared at his bloody hands. That was Davey’s blood. Her friend’s blood.
“Your time has come, my lord.” Ruthven thrust a dagger into Darnley’s hands. For a moment, Mary drew back, terrified, thinking they meant to kill her and her baby. But Ruthven wanted Darnley to strike Rizzio. That way, Darnley would not be able to wriggle out of his part in this treason. Darnley hesitated. Mary had given him reason to doubt the lies he had been told. He swallowed. Perhaps the child was his. Perhaps Rizzio had not been his wife’s lover. Perhaps he had been tricked into treason.
He did not want to take part. “The man is already dead, is he not?” Darnley lamely protested. “What need is there to desecrate a corpse?” Ruthven would not hear him. Darnley was all but dragged into the next room. Rizzio was not dead, but Death was close. His body was riddled with wounds and the floor was awash with blood. As Darnley approached the body, pushed forward by the men behind him, he slipped. His hand landed in a pool of Rizzio’s blood. It trickled down his arm as he tried to right himself, staining his fine shirt.
Shaking, afraid, unsure of what was true anymore, Darnley stabbed his sharp dagger into Rizzio’s gut. A small whimper emerged from Rizzio’s lips. Darnley walked back to the other chamber in a daze. Mary stood, staring at him with eyes filled with hate. She was led off to her chambers. Her women were allowed to accompany her, but she was under no illusions; she was a prisoner. Her life and that of her child were in danger. Although she was sure that, for now, the conspirators would simply hold her, and take control of Scotland, she was in no good position. She had to escape. She had to get word to her allies… to Bothwell.
Mary was in a desperate situation. She was a captive, and her survival and that of her child had to come first. She began to hatch a plan of escape. Playing on her pregnant state, her women told their jailors that Mary was taken sick. The day after the attack, they told her captors that Mary was suffering a miscarriage. The Queen’s sudden frail health gave the plotters cause for concern. They had no intention of killing their Queen for they needed her alive to exercise control over Scotland. Should Mary die, and her child with her, the next best blood claimant was Elizabeth of England. Whilst they had taken the English Queen’s support before, they were not about to allow Scotland to become annexed by England. Mary asked that her husband be allowed to visit her, for in her weakened state, she protested, she was unsure how long she had to live. Darnley was brought in, and Mary embarked on the first part of her plan to escape.
Mary greeted him with warmth and sympathy. She despised her husband, but it was important he should not know that now. She played on his pride, his fears, on his vanity and shallow nature. She told Darnley he was not to blame for what had happened to Rizzio for others had duped him. Rizzio had only been her good friend, she said, and the babe inside her was indeed Darnley’s. She told him that the child was still safe, but she feared she would lose their baby if she stayed here… And even if it were born safe and hale, what then? These traitors would take their child captive. With the heir to Scotland in their hands, they could murder her and Darnley, and rule through their child.
Mary was clever and she was convincing. Persuading Darnley that the true intent of these rebels was to kill her and Darnley as well, she unnerved him. She told him he had been made so jealous by their evil lies that he had not known what he was doing. She told him she loved him. She wept, she cajoled… And she won the feeble, easily changeable, trust of her husband.
Just as word reached England of this fell deed, and the Privy Council met to talk over what was to be done, Mary escaped.
At midnight on the 11th of March, Mary, her Maries, and Darnley sped on swift and quiet feet down the back stairs of the palace. Darnley knew the rotation of the guards on her door, and managed to produce a gap by pretending he would take that hour’s watch. They did not have long, but Mary was determined. They quickly made their way through the servants’ quarters, where many were loyal still to their Queen, and happy to help her in her hour of need. The attack on their Queen had shocked them, and even those who wavered were pushed into action by wives and sisters who were horrified a pregnant woman had been so abused. Mary did not need a great deal from them, in any case. She just needed them to pretend they had not seen her, as she sped through their halls.
Horses were waiting. Her Maries had been busy. Thought unimportant by the conspirators, and therefore allowed to leave Mary’s chambers on small errands during her days of capture, they had used their time well. They had roused the sympathy of the stable lads, who had agreed to prepare fast horses. Mary and her party climbed into the saddles of their mounts and rode out. They tore through the night, covering twenty-five miles, and reaching Dunbar by dawn. Mary wasted no time. She raised an army and marched back to Edinburgh to take her revenge on Rizzio’s killers. A week later, she had control of the city. The conspirators fled, cursing Darnley.
Darnley soon discovered that his wife’s feelings were not as she had protested to him during her capture. She made it clear now how much she despised him. He had betrayed her, sold her to her enemies and endangered the life of their child. He had helped others to murder her friend. Darnley was a traitor, and had proved he was dangerous. He had helped her to escape, and that alone prevented her from having him arrested, but she would never trust him again. The vestiges of any love she had known for him were gone. There was a snake in her bed. She had to find ways to keep him under guard, and neutralize the threat he posed to her. Mary kept him at her side, wanting Darnley where she could keep a close watch on him for he had shown how easily influenced he was. For the first time, she understood what peril she had put herself in, put her country in, by taking him as her husband, but even with this complication, even with a foolish, hazardous husband to watch, she had prevailed.
Standing before her armies, her country once more her own, her foes fleeing Scotland, Mary was victorious. She spoke of her great fear, of the danger she had been placed in, and the peril posed to her child.
Her people went wild for her; their brave, warrior queen. This astounding woman, who had engineered escape from almost certain death, and stood with the future of Scotland still safe inside her.
It would not be long before her people would cease to cheer her. Not long before all that was offered to my cousin was censure and abuse. She knew that not, then. Then, she stood proud, tall and powerful. She had risen from horror, into grace.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Greenwich Palace
Spring 1566
“Had I been in Queen Mary’s place, I would have taken my husband’s dagger and stabbed him with it!” I exclaimed to de Silva, enraged. Then, remembering to whom I was speaking, I added, “of course, I would never do such a thing to the Archduke, but he would not do such to me either, would he, ambassador?”
De Silva replied with all assurances that his master would certainly never act in such a barbaric fashion. “It is the way of the Scots, so I hear, Majesty,” he replied smoothly. “To behave little better than beasts recently removed from their caves.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Much as I would love to agree with you, my lord ambassador, and save my countrymen the dishonour of being associated with such vile treason, Lord Darnley is an Englishman. It seems to
me the dark heart of the barbarian is sometimes covered by only the slimmest film of a gentleman’s veneer.”
I was horrified by this attack. Not only because it was treason, not only because Mary’s lords and her husband had murdered her favourite, but because they had treated their Queen with such disdain. It was a frightening event, which rattled many in power; to come so close to such danger and death, and at the hands of one’s own lords… It was enough to strike terror into any royal heart. Hearing of Mary’s valiant escape, her bravery and her courage, affection for her grew anew in my heart.
Mary, however, appeared to suspect me of involvement, or that I would aid the rebels who had assaulted her, and who had fled to England. I had no intention of aiding such men, but they could not be found. I ordered they were to leave England when discovered, but Cecil persuaded me that if we made little effort to find them, and kept them in England, they might be of better use to us in the future, if they could be used to bargain with Mary. I did not want Mary to hear of this, and even though I could see Cecil’s point, was uncomfortable about it, for I had no wish to reward rebels, or make more enemies, but there was trouble brewing in Ireland. The Earl of Tyrone, Shane O’Neill, was inciting rebellion, and our intervention in France had not made us any friends. I did not need Mary turning from me as well. Besides, I admired her; she had faced danger, treason and death, and survived. But as was ever the way, I had to think of England first. Cecil was right when he said these rebels, if found, could be valuable to us.