by Alex Nye
For My Sins
Alex Nye
© Alex Nye 2017
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Cover illustration: Graeme Clarke
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For Martha and Micah,
With much love
“Royal brother, having by God’s will, for my sins I think, thrown myself into the power of the Queen my cousin, at whose hands I have suffered much for almost twenty years, I have finally been condemned to death by her and her Estates…
Today, after dining I was advised of my sentence: I am to be executed like a common criminal at eight in the morning… The Catholic faith and the assertion of my God-given right to the English throne are the two issues on which I am condemned…”
From the last letter of Mary Queen of Scots,
Fotheringhay Castle,
8 February 1587
Fotheringhay Castle
September 1586
Fragments and Memories
The Crown of Scotland was placed upon my brow when I was six days old. It bit into my baby flesh like a crown of thorns. No other crown in Europe is as thorny as that of Scotland.
I have seen men murder, scheme, even forfeit their lives for the sake of a crown, but only I know that it is nothing in the end but a heavy circlet of precious metal marking the forehead with a raw and bloody scar.
From the barred windows of this fortress where my dear sister and cousin Elizabeth so kindly allows me to remain as her ‘guest’, I can see the dreary countryside of England stretching away, endlessly flat, dull and grey. I am a captive here, with nothing but a dark past of memories to keep me company. As a royal sovereign I am provided with little luxuries, gifts to relieve the monotony – boxes of sweetmeats, lengths of Holland material to make clothes with, soap, Spanish silk. Only yesterday I received a small blue box of taffeta full of ‘poudre de santeur’. Such a kind thought. But the one gift which I constantly crave is never forthcoming. I am provided with satin clothes, perukes of false hair, gold and silver thread for my embroidery, but as I ply my needle through the stiff linen it is my freedom I dream of – my freedom and my return to absolute sovereignty.
The facts are these.
I was born with the burden of sovereignty thrust upon me – and I will die the same. As I languish in this lonely cell, quietly stitching my tapestries, I am haunted by the ghosts of my past. They visit me here while the rain beats a painful tattoo against the bars at my window. Shadows and firelight surround me; hangings and draperies soften and obscure the turret walls, small compensations to calm an unquiet soul. I have had twenty long years in which to reflect on the way Destiny has treated me. Jane Kennedy, my faithful servant, has urged me to write my memories down, commit them to paper.
“Tell the truth, at last,” she says.
The truth?
I think of Pilate’s question: “What is Truth?”
John Knox thinks he knows the answer – but I do not believe he does.
I am not alone in my captivity. As well as my faithful servants, Elizabeth Curle and Jane Kennedy, there are others here: shadows, phantoms, fragments of memory. No one else sees them. Only I…
Some are less welcome than others. They parade before me, whether I will them to or not.
I have no control over their exits and entrances. It is as if I occupy an empty stage, and I wait for them to appear from the wings.
Here they come now, a motley crowd. They appear before me with all their vices and idiosyncrasies. My half-brother, Moray; Maitland; Morton; Lindsay; John Knox; Rizzio; Father Mamaret. And Darnley, of course. Quite a cast of characters.
They are my guests, and I am their reluctant hostess.
They stand before me, icy-clear at times, their clothes glimmering with bright colours and jewels, rings on their fingers, eyes direct into mine, lips parted. They fill the darkened chamber with their ghostly clamour. Still voicing their many grievances, still filled with pride, they boast chains of office, fur and gowns, costumes of state. Even now they still crave what they cannot have. They are greedy for power. Ambition marks the destiny of each and every one of them – especially the pious and sanctimonious Knox. He was not immune to the same mortal cravings as the rest of them. Never was there a more judgemental or hypocritical man – other than Paulet, my present gaoler.
A single candle burns low at my side. Jane lit the fire some hours ago. There have been many times when they have denied me even that small request – to have a fire in my room.
Paulet is the worst. A bitter Puritan, he guards me with the ferocity of a wolf. He is like a reincarnation of Knox himself – angry, vicious, keen to judge. He has been my gaoler now for several months. When I am forced to move to a different castle, Paulet moves with me now. They know I hate him. And he hates me. He is not happy about any of the gifts I receive from my cousin Elizabeth, and he threatens to remove them.
Let him try…
I have seen better castles than this. I am kept in a small turret chamber. A narrow aperture in the wall allows me to glimpse the damp fields. They are flattened by mist and rain. I think of other windows onto other worlds: leafy glens in Scotland, or high fortresses with a view of the mountains. Then I stop thinking…because the regrets tumble in and that way madness lies.
Elizabeth and Jane have been allowed to remain with me and they are a great comfort to me. Geddon, my Skye terrier, sits close to my skirts, sheltering. I feel his warmth close by.
I am still allowed my chaplain, De Preau, for the time being, although Paulet has threatened to deny him access. Sir James Melville, my secretary, visits me often as does my physician, Burgoing. Didier, my porter, came with us to this desolate god-forsaken fenland, but he seems nervous and afraid. A sombre mood infects us all.
As my needle flies in and out, my eye is drawn to a parchment letter lying on the table beside me.
Jane gives me a warning glance.
She shakes her head slowly from side to side. “It is not wise, Madam.”
Her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper.
“What is not?” I say, catching at the parchment.
She offers no reply.
“I know not what you speak of.”
I pick up the letter and slide it quickly between the pages of my breviary, out of sight.
She says nothing, but a knowing look passes between us.
My stitches may be quiet and the room I live in may be wrapped in silence, but a tumult exists inside my head. Voices clamour. Memories taunt me. Injustices still burn where I cannot put them to rest.
Over the years I have learned the art of patience – or the semblance of patience. I have learned to sit and wait.
As a nightly silence falls upon the many gloomy corridors of this castle, I quietly lay aside my embroidery silks. Jane has left me in peace. The servants are all abed, where I should be. The fire is dying down in the hearth. By its feeble light I slip out the letter from between the pages of my prayer book and read the French script with a curl of delight on my lips.
For a long time I still waited for the ring of horse’s hooves clattering on the cobbles below, a speedy rescue of some kind. They would not leave me to languish here alone, I thought.
It is many years now since I stopped waiting for Bothwell. I realised my error quickly enough. He tried to exonerate my name in the immediate aftermath of our disaster, writing to the King of Denmark from Dragsholm Castle where they kept him: for ours was a very public scandal that lapped around the shores of Europe. The gossip winged its way across borders, as the rumour-mongers spread their poison far and wide. He wrote the truth.
But it was too late by then. The damage was already done.
His is the only ghost who refuses to haunt me here. How I wish sometimes to hear his tread on the stair. Wherever his spirit roams, it is not to my dank castle chamber that he flits.
Perhaps I never owned his soul at all.
I never speak of him to my servants here.
A secret code enters my French correspondence, slipped between the lines and the hastily expressed sentiments.
Jane warns me against it.
“They will set a trap for you, Madam.”
“I know you worry for me, Jane, but there are many people out there – Catholics – who would be willing to further our cause.”
The shadows flutter with unknown presences.
“Walsingham will be watching,” she whispers.
“Walsingham,” I hiss, “is always watching. He has nothing better to do.”
“There are rumours that he has double-agents working for him, people who will ensnare you.”
I think of Charles Paget. Then there is Thomas Morgan, my chief cipher clerk, who deals with all of my French correspondence. I have heard the whispers, the rumours, that he is a friend of Francis Walsingham, that they grew up together. I know of Walsingham’s plots, his underhand scheming, but this time I am sure.
“I have Anthony Babington on my side.”
“He is just a young man. They will entrap him and execute him.”
I shudder.
“My Guise uncles are still fighting my cause. I have proof of it.”
I touch the parchment at my side.
Letters have reached me from France. They appear to be full of polite platitudes, urbane details enquiring after my health, discussing my predicament, offering sympathy in a distant, formal tone. But underneath the polite French is another message – the language of conspiracy.
These letters reliably inform me that the French will be on my side in the event of a Catholic uprising against the Protestants.
But Jane’s expression fills me with doubt.
“We live in dangerous times, Madam,” she murmurs.
I am a pawn in the power struggle between Catholics and Protestants. Yet I have a cause of my own.
Is it wrong to hope?
Perhaps my servant Jane is right.
I feel the net tightening around me.
Night after night, I am entertained by the ghosts of my past.
When John Knox appears before me, clamouring for attention, I laugh in his face and share with him the secret of my plotting. It drives him insane.
Sometimes I think my loyal servants, Jane and Elizabeth, fear for my sanity – so I have stopped telling them about these nightly visitations. I wait until everyone else is asleep before I dare to look into the shadows and see my ghostly companions come.
I must be patient. There are still people out there willing to help me. I am not forgotten. I will always be a thorn in Elizabeth’s side. She may wish me gone, but she hesitates to rid herself of a sister Queen. We female monarchs must stand together, shoulder to shoulder, facing down the great army of hypocrites. However, Jane oft reminds me that she may not want to put my head on the block, but others will execute her will for her.
Can I out-fox my enemies one last time?
In my younger years, I had many adventures escaping from the snares they laid for me. It began in my infancy, right from the days when my mother kept whisking me out of the reach of the greedy King Henry – Elizabeth’s father. He wanted me for a bride for his son. But Edward did not last long, weakling that he was, and he was replaced by his Catholic sister Mary. When she died there were many who believed I was next in line to the English throne. After all, Henry had no right to put aside his lawful wife, Catherine of Aragon, in order to marry his mistress, Ann Boleyn. There were many who considered Elizabeth to be illegitimate, and therefore not entitled to be his heir – and many still do. Henry’s oldest sister, Margaret, was my grandmother. She was sent up to Scotland to marry James IV. According to the laws of inheritance therefore, she was next in line to the throne and so were her offspring, but King Henry was a law unto himself and decided to rule her out of the line of succession for reasons best known to himself. Nevertheless, the fact remains that my own grandmother should have been next in line to the throne of England, and there are those who have not forgotten this.
As a result my early years were marked by anxiety and the fear of being kidnapped by King Henry. Strange to think that he was actually my own great uncle – I saw him only as some distant monster who wanted to destroy my childhood idyll. He loomed large on my horizon for many years, a terrifying ogre.
My mother, Marie of Guise, was having none of it.
I often think of the high turrets and lofty castle walls of Stirling, how they enfolded me like an encircling womb. My mother kept me there until I was five years of age, fearing for my life. My earliest memories are of those darkened corridors, frightened faces looming up at me out of the darkness, lit by flame, as they hustled me away into secret places.
I can remember the Great Hall, the vast fireplaces, the courtyard, the Chapel, and my mother’s anxious, saddened face.
It must have been so hard for her. She wanted to keep me close, but she feared to lose me. In the end she had to think of my safety.
Then one evening the guards came to say that they had spotted movement on the horizon. Stirling Castle commands a panoramic view in all directions. A garrison of English soldiers were rumoured to be heading our way.
My mother wrapped me in a cloak, and a small party of us hurried down a flagged corridor away from the main entrance. We fled from a postern gate at the rear of the castle grounds, a secret tunnel leading below the crags. Horses were waiting for us and we galloped through the night.
I remember the speed and the tension, the dark air whipping the cloak from my face, someone’s arms encircling me tight.
It was a strange sensation. A mixture of fear and delight. Exhilaration at the movement of the horse beneath me, the wind in my hair, and yet apprehension.
We transferred to a small boat and I was rowed across to a tiny tree-covered island. By daylight Inchmahone Priory was revealed to me in all its glory. We sheltered there for a few weeks, days spent exploring the little island, nights of torchlight and tension. But it could not last. The threat of danger appeared to increase. My mother could not hope to keep me safe on a tiny island forever, so we left this little sanctuary and rode out towards the coast again.
I did not want that journey ever to end.
Because the end of it meant this: a tearful farewell from my mother.
She put me on a boat bound for France, the only place where she knew I would be safe. She entrusted me to the care of her French relatives. Little did she know…
I saw my mother only once more after that – when she came to stay with us in France for a year. Much later, she tried to attend my wedding in Notre Dame, but the Protestant nobles were stirring up trouble and rebellion and it was too dangerous for her to leave. She suffered much in trying to keep my kingdom free for me. But I have never forgotten the efforts she made, or the tearful sorrow with which she bade me farewell. I had to be torn, crying, from her arms.
Versailles
1551
The sea was rough, I remember that, and we were thrown about on the deck of the ship like skittles. I did not mind. I had already been drowned by my mother’s tears when we parted, but I felt certain that I would see her again. I did not think our parting would be forever. Maybe she knew differently.
A lot of the passengers were sick from the roughness of the journey, but I was too young to suffer much. I watched the rise and fall of the waves with fascination. I had never been on the sea before and it was a new experience, an exciting one despite the ever-present threat of shipwreck or an attack by English ships. We rode a crest then
plummeted down as if we were diving to the bottom of the ocean, ploughing our way to the depths. At times there was a wall of water in front of my face which I could have punctured with a fingertip, had I reached out.
But the storms held no terrors for me. I had little knowledge of how easily ships could be tossed asunder in seas like this.
By the time the shoreline of France came into view we were all eager to reach land. My mother had taken great delight in talking to me about her own country, its people and customs and the world she had left behind, so I was excited to see what I would make of it.
That was before I met Catherine de Medici, my future mother-in-law.
The grand Parisian palaces, sculpted from blocks of white tufa, were very different to Scotland’s dark castles. The weather was warmer, no need for roaring fires in every room. There were huge mirrors on the walls, long shining corridors instead of tunnelling passages lit by flaming torches.
Catherine de Medici greeted me with these words.
“Ah, the little half-caste!”
Did she mean me? I glanced over my shoulder, but there was no one else to whom she could be referring.
