by Alex Nye
I was reliant now on my own people for their support.
If they did not rally then I was lost.
I attempted to rest and also to appease my errant husband Darnley, to soothe his unpredictable moods. He was jittery with nerves.
He voiced his fears in my private chamber. “What will happen to me when they find out I helped you?”
“Have no fear, Darnley, you have done the right thing.”
“And will you stand by me always, Mary?” he asked. “Can I trust your word on that?”
A flame of anger leapt like fire in my belly. “You have no right to ask that of me, after what you did.”
“I did not think you were the sort of person to bear grudges,” he whined. “I thought you were bigger in spirit than that.”
I choked back my anger; I knew it would do no good. Was this husband of mine always to be a burden, a problem I needed to contain?
“Do not reproach me, husband,” I said in a low voice. “I thought we were reconciled. Let us leave it at that.”
“I have seen the looks you give another,” he said in a quiet undertone. I glanced across at him. At last, he had voiced the unspoken thought between us. But I did not deign to reply.
“None of this would have happened,” he murmured “if you had simply granted me what was rightfully mine.”
“Rightfully yours?”
“I am your husband. As such, it was your duty to grant me the Crown Matrimonial, and make it absolutely clear – in front of all your courtiers – where I stood in the matter.”
“Next in line to the throne of Scotland?”
“Exactly. It is, after all, only what I am due. I have an impeccable birthright. Is that not one of the reasons you married me, Mary? For my claim to the English throne?”
I gave a small dismissive shake of my head. “I married you, Henry, because I thought I loved you…”
Even he was shamed into silence for a moment. “Past tense, I see?”
“I need time, Darnley. And at this moment, I have other more pressing matters to consider.”
I pushed open the heavy oak door and ran straight into Bothwell in the corridor outside. He bowed his head slightly.
I struggled to regain my composure and brushed past him.
He said not a word, but I could feel him watching me. When I glanced back over my shoulder, I could see him hesitating at the door to my chamber. When the door was flung open again and Darnley emerged, they regarded each other in silence. I was too far away to hear what was said, and besides, I did not wish to hear it.
Down below there was a rising commotion. One or two of the messengers had returned.
Rather than returning to the fray so soon, I wanted time to calm my jangled nerves, to subdue my anger with Darnley. I resented him more bitterly than I cared to admit – even to myself.
A narrow winding staircase opened up to the left of me and instead of joining the others below, I mounted the stairs. They twisted up into darkness until the last curve where light poured through from the top.
Here I emerged suddenly onto the castle ramparts. I took a dizzying step backwards and caught my breath. The view was dazzling, the ocean stretching away to one side, the land and the cliffs to the other. The wind buffeted me. Exhilaration caught me unawares.
I looked below and for the first time felt a lightening of my troubles, for there across the plain, I could make out a long line of raggedy troops making their way to Dunbar and pouring in through the portcullis.
They had come. They had answered my call for assistance.
A sense of indomitable determination lit me from within. This kingdom was mine, and no one would displace me or take it from me. I would serve my people and they knew it.
A footstep on the parapet behind me made me turn and gasp.
A familiar soft voice spoke. “Ma’am?”
“Are you checking up on me, Lord Bothwell?”
“I needed to reassure myself that you were not in any danger.”
“Danger of what? Throwing myself from a great height?”
He hesitated.
“I sensed your husband was…displeased.”
I sighed. “My husband is always displeased. I know what would please him, however.”
Bothwell waited patiently.
“It would please him if I were to fall from this parapet and die, leaving him as sole heir, next in line to the throne. Taking our unborn child with me.”
My palm drifted instinctively to the mound of my belly.
“I know what I know, Bothwell. He sees our unborn child as a threat to his position.”
I stopped, wondering suddenly about the wisdom of having said so much.
I sighed heavily. “I have come to love this country, Bothwell, but find I need to watch my back at every turn.”
“I will be watching it for you, Madam.”
“As faithfully as you did my mother’s?”
For answer he stepped towards the edge of the parapet.
“You see that, Mary?”
He pointed to the courtyard below where nameless men were mustering by the hundred. The castle rang with the noise and clamour of them.
“They are rallying to your call. They will not let their queen be usurped by anyone, least of all traitors.”
His words sounded so confident; the sight of those many men filing in great columns into the stronghold below filled me with courage.
At the same time, I became suddenly aware of our proximity, of my isolation away from the rest of my court circle, and the intimacy of our position. I stepped back uneasily and smiled at him.
“How is your wife, James?” I asked then, to change the subject.
He looked taken aback. “She is very well,” he replied.
It was I who had arranged the union of James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, with his young wife Lady Jean Gordon a few weeks previously. I had persuaded the icily serene Lady Jean that it was in her best interests to marry Bothwell instead of Alexander of Ogilvie to whom she had been betrothed. She had reluctantly agreed, but rumour had it that she was not in Bothwell’s thrall.
I’ll admit there was a stirring of excitement being near to James Hepburn at that time. I trusted him; we worked together towards one end, one goal.
At the end of ten days I marched back into Edinburgh at the head of an army, and when I neared Holyrood, the scene of Rizzio’s grisly murder, my enemies were nowhere to be seen. They had fled across the border like the dogs they were, their tails between their legs.
Edinburgh welcomed me back and I was reinstated at Holyrood. The people lined the streets to cheer as we processed into our capital at the head of an assembled army, ready to begin a new chapter.
At my side were two men, the one skulking, by turns reproachful and remorseful; the other confident, sure of himself.
Darnley and Bothwell, vying for position.
And so it began…
Edinburgh
April 1566
I stood looking out of an upstairs window in the middle of the night. Arthur’s Seat rose like some kind of mythical monster on the skyline. The Palace felt overshadowed by its presence – as did I.
All was unusually quiet. The rest of the court were in their beds. I glanced down at the evidence of my belly. It was growing larger, a small hump beneath my kirtle. The traitors had fled the Palace and fled Edinburgh, humiliated and defeated while I declared them outlawed. If they dared to return, their lands were immediately forfeit.
However, Knox remained in situ: the horned beast who governed Scottish minds from his monstrous black pulpit. St. Giles’ Cathedral dominated the centre of Edinburgh and he flung his poison from its rafters, its great grey buttresses reaching across the city like the legs of a giant spider.
I was sorely troubled in my mind. Knox still held a powerf
ul sway over people, or tried to. The rebellious lords were delighted to stir up civil unrest; it served their purposes. So Knox was a godsend to them.
My bedchamber at Holyrood was not a place where I felt safe anymore. The echoes and cries of that terrible night haunted my dreams. I would wake with a start, thinking I heard the steel of clashing weapons. I would relive again those terrifying moments when the first blow was struck over my shoulder, and blood spattered the tapestry. The stains remain there still. I would hold the cloth between my fingers and rub the weave. Mary Seton claimed it was my imagination, that the hangings and boards had been scrubbed clean. But I did not believe her.
The stain was in my mind now.
I felt suspicious of those around me.
I was relieved when Darnley began to make himself scarce, as his company was irksome to me.
“Keep him close,” Bothwell advised me. “Keep him where you can see him.”
“He is not an easy man to live with.”
“If he is by your side, you know what he is about.”
“I don’t feel safe in the Palace. I wake at night thinking it is happening again, but this time it will be my unborn child they murder.”
“Not on my watch!” Bothwell said quietly, a thunderous look in his dark eye.
It was not long before worry and anxiety made me ill.
Darnley stayed away.
“I think he even desires my death,” I told Mary Seton, “for then his only barrier to my throne is removed. That is what he wants.”
For days I languished, unable to sleep or eat, my mind at war with itself, until eventually I made it known that I would not remain at Holyrood for my confinement. It was too easy to storm Holyrood, as had been shown. I would retreat to Edinburgh Castle where I could await the birth of my child with peace of mind, knowing that we would be heavily guarded. No one could kidnap my child on that fortified rock.
Courtiers and servants were sent ahead to prepare the rooms for me and make the castle ready. I waited, eager to flee Holyrood and its nightmarish memories.
Edinburgh Castle
April 1566
We trooped in a long line up the cobbles of the High Street towards the gloomy Castle on its formidable black rock, where I planned to await the birth of my child. We were happy to occupy the south-eastern corner overlooking the rambling sandstone town beneath. An elaborately carved oaken cradle had already been crafted for the occasion and was set in place, with ten ells of Holland cloth draped over its crown. It was waiting for me in our chamber, along with a vast bed hung with blue velvet and taffeta. Would that soft velvet could dull my pain in child-birth, or still my fear of death!
Although it was spring, the winds howled across the castle ramparts and whipped up the sombre waters of the Firth into white-tipped crests. The sky was blackened by storm clouds. It was a bitter wind that blew.
I was glad to hasten inside to my apartments in the south-eastern tower where a fire was roaring in the hearth.
On arrival I sat down to pen a note to Darnley to inform him of my move to the Castle and to let him know that I had been ill and wished now to see him. The messenger was sent on his way and I then prepared to settle in. I was turning my back on the world for now. I was in retreat, but the world could still come to me. Lady Huntly soothed my fears and assured me that I had no cause for anxiety; all would be well.
“My son and Lord Bothwell have the castle heavily guarded, so there is no fear on that score.”
I smiled.
“If only their protection could extend as far as saving me from the dangers of child-birth.”
Her face softened and she patted my hand.
“We women know how to outwit death in the birthing chamber. We have the best midwives to hand. Have no fear, Mary.”
She spoke my name with such warmth and affection it soothed me, and I felt for a moment the loss of my mother, Marie of Guise. Her spirit was ever near me. I had grown used to her absence in childhood, so it was a small feat now to imagine that she was with me still. I felt comforted and tried to push all thoughts of death aside.
After several days I asked Lord Seaton, “Was my note to Lord Darnley delivered?”
“It was certainly received, Ma’am.”
“And yet he does not appear?”
My comment was met with silence.
The bitter winds continued to blow, but I did not set foot on the castle ramparts. I remained cloistered within, surrounded by my women, awaiting the first pang.
One dismal afternoon, as hail smattered the window-panes like bullets, I began to make my will. I ordered them to bring my coffers and opened each one to inspect the jewels within.
This was a little of what I would leave behind.
Was I nothing more than a heap of cold gems? Well yes, in truth, this is often what royalty amounts to. They clamour for my blood and my crown, but in the end my spirit will ever escape them; that part of me they will never have, nor tie me down.
I took out my jewels, ran their cold, cut gems over my hands and itemized each one, entering them in my clear flowing hand on a fresh piece of parchment. This was my inventory; my will. I took a sort of morbid pleasure in the task.
With diligent care I listed my cross of gold set with diamonds and rubies, my Scottish pearls, the rings and necklaces of enamel and turquoise and cornelian, the red rubies I wore against crimson velvet, and my great black Spanish pearls, strung together like a rope of ripe olives. Each cameo and fibula and pendant was accounted for.
I dipped my hands into their richness and let their gold chains run through my fingers like silk. The irony is that those costly stones are now scattered to the four corners of the earth. Most were taken from me by rebels and distributed where they pleased, to my enemies. Catherine de Medici is now in possession of my black pearls, I believe, a gift from her son Francois that she ever did covet. Now they lie against her wrinkled throat, tarnished by her sweat. My written word as queen has been disregarded
I derived some comfort in the calming scratch of the quill against the parchment as I wrote out my inventory. Such work has always quieted my soul. I scribe poetry and songs that speak from the heart, and I stitch my stories into a clear bright tapestry of words. All of this makes sense to me. They are my only remaining pleasures as my hours grow darker and shorter.
The weeks continued in this fashion and still no word came from Darnley. I feared what he might be plotting. Bothwell and Huntly promised to send out men to keep an eye on him and my brother Moray did too – although how far I could trust his word was beyond me.
I waited.
And then, in the middle of the night it started. Nothing but a twinge or two at first, with gaps in between, growing steadily sharper. If this is the worst of it, I thought, then I can bear this.
My midwives were there by my side and this time Lady Huntly’s services were required for the real thing, not a performed charade.
The chamber was lit with flickering candles and firelight, and I bore the first pains with dignity. My ladies comforted me with words of encouragement and I gave myself up to their know-how and experience, trusting completely in their skill.
As the pains worsened my mind flew out of my body in a panic. What had begun as minor twinges now intensified to a ripple of sheer pain until at last it was coming in waves that bore me away on their backs, one after the other. Voices broke through the wall of pain and I detected a note of alarm and hysteria in them.
“Make her lie flat on her back. It is not dignified for a queen to do otherwise.”
“No! Believe me, I have seen this done in the country and it is best for all concerned!”
Strong arms manoeuvred me into a crouch upon my bedcovers, as my body urged me into a crawl, as if I could crawl away from the pain itself.
“But she cannot birth like a common animal in the field. She is a queen,
not a peasant.”
“Queen or no, this is the way she and the child will survive.” A younger midwife had taken over; one I did not know. She seemed no more than a child herself. “I have seen my mother do it this way, when she did birth my brothers and sisters.”
As the older midwives protested Lady Huntly stepped forward and bid them be quiet.
“Do as the child commands,” Lady Huntly ordered.
The women exchanged looks and I was encouraged to heave onto all fours where I crouched like a pig in the fields, my posterior upended to the world, and in that way, gravity did the work for me.
After sixteen hours of intense labour – during which I truly thought I might die, and came as close to it as I have ever been – a last immense wave of pain tore me in two, and my body was split like a melon. I felt carved open, halved where I lay in the sweat and blood of my own toil. Nothing dignified about that, nothing that velvet and taffeta could alleviate. The child flopped from my womb, still attached by a tangled red cord.
One of the midwives lifted him up and showed him to me.
“It is a boy,” she told me proudly, evidently delighted.
The young midwife who had saved me earlier now whipped the child from us and slapped it hard upon its bare little rump. Immediately the tiny mite sparked into life and began to cry in rage, its limbs taut and trembling.
I watched in astonishment, as if all of these strange proceedings were happening to someone else. He looked small and strong, wiry and frantic, dangling there. He looked exactly like his father …
I opened my arms and they laid him there, then I
gazed down at him while the world withdrew into the distance. As voices and instructions clamoured
around me, I heard nothing. My soiled bed was an island on which my son and I drifted, gazing at each other with familiarity.
“So, here you are my little man,” I murmured. “It is you!”
He gazed back at me.
