by Alex Nye
“It was you,” I breathed, looking at my brother. “It was you, all the time.”
He said nothing.
“But you visited me in France. You encouraged me to return to Scotland. You said they were waiting for me.”
“And waiting they were!”
“Then why?”
“When I asked you to join me in Scotland, I expected you to be biddable, open to advice…”
“To do as I was told.”
“I did not expect a queen who would–”
“Make her own decisions?” I began to laugh and he thought then that I had descended into madness.
Perhaps I had.
I was mad enough still to entertain hope.
“But what of my son?” I cried, as Moray walked
away from me. “I need to know that he is safe. I want to see my son!”
My brother did not reply, but left me in my cell with the two guards looking on.
Holyrood
June 1567
Night fell.
Eventually I heard footsteps on the Black Turnpike stair and figures darkened the window. The door to my cell was thrust open.
I lifted my head in hope, but my visitors were not a welcome sight.
Lindsay entered, with Morton close on his heels. What he said next gave me cause for relief.
“We are taking you to the Palace,” Lindsay offered abruptly.
I stood up. I had nothing to take with me, other than the clothes I had worn when I left Dunbar for Carberry – the garb of a soldier. Gingerly, I walked up the Black Turnpike stairs in their company and out onto the street. I was weakened by my ordeal and relieved it was over.
I mounted the horse that was tethered there, waiting
for me, and we rode slowly towards the Palace. The streets were deserted, but behind closed shutters I could see chinks of candlelight glowing. I felt excluded, shut out.
A low night mist swirled about the Palace grounds when we passed through the gates. I rode into the inner courtyard and dismounted.
I was escorted through the corridors. Our footsteps echoed, hollow on the air. Very few candles were lit. Each room oppressed me with its silence and emptiness, no one to welcome me home, other than my few ladies – and what could they do against the brutish behaviour of men like Morton and Lindsay?
The Palace was filled with ghosts. Voices which had once clamoured here left their echoes: the soothing sound of musicians, laughter, warmth, celebration – all had faded away, leaving only the residue of happy memories behind. It haunted me to realise those days were over. During my glittering reign at the Scottish court there were troubles aplenty, but I had dealt with them. I had conquered, but in the end the sea of troubles overwhelmed me. The waves rose higher until they engulfed me.
I glanced at the portraits on the walls of my ancestors.
We walked on in silence until we reached the north-west tower, and in the familiar rooms with their bright tapestries draping the walls, my ladies-in-waiting stood gathered together nervously.
They ran towards me when they saw me and I held each one. It was a tearful reunion. Mary Seton and Mary Livingstone wept as they told me how much they had feared for my life.
I comforted them and assured them the danger was over, that no one would separate us again. There was not much opportunity to talk, as we were not left alone. Lindsay stood in the corner watching us, a great brute of a man. A handful of women were my only friends, and the only barrier against these violent men.
“Her Majesty is hungry and thirsty,” Mary Beaton spoke up forcefully. “She needs to change her clothes and wash, and will require privacy to do so.”
Lindsay sneered and shook his head. “She can do what needs to be done here.”
“But…” Beaton protested.
He turned his back and stood at the door.
I was permitted to change my clothes in the dressing-room and washed as best I could with the help of my ladies who expressed shock at the state of my body, the bruises and cuts from the several days’ journey I had endured through the wilderness. Supper was being prepared while I made myself ready. Soon I was dressed in a black velvet gown, its softness caressing my shoulders. A white veil floated about my face, and around my waist hung my familiar prayer book. Beaton and Livingstone found my jewels in their chest and dressed my ears and throat in pearls. It seemed a long time since I had worn the trappings of a queen.
I appeared in the doorway with my head held high. Lindsay turned to look at me and said nothing.
When supper was ready I sat at the foot of the carved oak table which I had eaten from so many times before, and the silver candelabra was lit so that a soft golden light flickered over the tapestries on the walls.
I felt uneasy.
As I lowered myself in the chair to eat Morton came and stood behind me like a pillar of stone. I could feel his presence, his hands placed firmly on the chair-back.
So – I was still a prisoner.
Being famished, I ate quickly, as fast as I could, trying to ignore his menacing presence and what it might mean. Lindsay stood to one side, watching me, his hands behind his back, his legs apart.
When I was still only halfway through my meal they told me that I must be ready to make a journey.
I lay down the fork I was holding. “To see my son at Stirling?”
Lindsay did not reply.
“Where am I to be taken?” I asked, growing fearful now.
“It is not your business to know.”
“I must have time to pack a few things, some personal belongings. Clothes and linen and…”
Lindsay stopped me. “You will be provided with everything you need at your destination.”
Then he came towards me. My ladies watched as he lifted the pearl necklace which Beaton had lately fastened, and ripped it from my throat.
“You’ll not have need of these,” he barked. “Or these.” And he wrenched the pearls from my earlobes, the rings from my fingers and the other few jewels I had donned only moments before.
My ladies leapt forward to protest, but it was no use. No one would listen to them.
An armed guard entered and without acknowledging my presence announced to Morton and Lindsay that the horses were ready for the journey.
I was gruffly told to get to my feet, and when I refused, Morton hoisted me up by the elbow.
“Her Majesty has not finished eating,” Livie cried.
“Too bad,” came the reply.
My supper lay half-finished on the plate.
“You must let us go with you,” Beaton and Livie pleaded, but they were torn from my side. When they wept in protest, Lindsay shouted at them to desist. In the scuffle that followed I felt my mind become blank with fear and shock.
“Her Majesty will take no servants of her own on this journey!” he bellowed, and I was led away, listening to the cries of Beaton and Livingstone fading along the corridor behind me.
Wherever my journey’s end might be, I wondered for a moment if I was intended to arrive there alive.
As fresh horses were being saddled in the courtyard I looked about nervously. It was becoming clear to me that no one else would appear, there would be no other familiar faces on this journey. Morton and Lindsay would be my only companions, with a small guard of armed soldiers.
My brother Moray was notably absent. In his favour I can only conclude that perhaps he had no stomach for this, and did not wish to see his sister in this state.
As we rode in silence through the quiet streets of Edinburgh I longed to cry out and rouse the citizens, to tell them of my plight, but what could I do?
Two men I feared more than anyone were to be my only escorts.
The darkness of the night pressed down on my shoulders and I felt the weight of it, particularly as we left the town behind and ventured o
ut into open countryside. An eerie silence descended, punctuated only by the sound of our horses.
I looked at the backs of these men – Morton and Lindsay. They had murdered Rizzio and then they had
murdered Darnley. My brother Moray did not like to get his own hands dirty. He organized others to do his killing for him. They were ruthless killers.
We rode on through the night and no one spoke. We seemed to be heading north and this gave me cause for hope. Perhaps we were making for Stirling after all, where I would be reunited with my son.
But as the hours passed I began to doubt. I slowed my horse down, complaining of fatigue, glancing the while from left to right.
My eyes swept the darkness, hoping against hope there would be a rescue attempt. Perhaps my ladies had been able to warn others. And then there was Bothwell; he was out there somewhere, a free agent.
I listened hopefully for the pounding of hooves.
Lochleven
June 1567
As our dark journey continued I soon realised that I was not being taken to Stirling.
I would never see my little son again.
We rode fifty miles north that night, past Stirling and up into the heart of Kinross-shire. We came so close to my son’s nursery that it broke my heart. I could make out the dark crags on which the castle sat, looming in the near distance as we crossed the flat carse.
The sight pierced me. So close, and yet so far.
When I realised we were not going to stop here, I pleaded fatigue and hoped for a rescue.
None came.
I have often said that Scotland is a country that inspires me with its bold landscape and majestic mountains, but that night it was a cold and unforgiving place, filled with terrors. I reminded my captors that I was with child,
but they allowed us no pause. We kept going until the sky began to show signs of lightening at the edges.
At the first peep of dawn we arrived beside the still waters of Lochleven. It was vast and lay like a sheet of grey steel before me. I remember the utter stillness. Far out on the loch was a small island covered in trees, and among those trees was the dour castle of William Douglas louring over its miniscule kingdom.
I knew the Douglases. They had threatened my life on the night of Rizzio’s murder. Morton was a Douglas. My husband Darnley had been their kinsman.
This then was my destination. A bleak inescapable fortress in the centre of these black waters – a loch that stretched twelve miles across – with the dark Lomond hills surrounding us on every side. It was isolated, remote, far from any help.
I was helped down from my horse. With the grey morning mist swirling and eddying about us, we stood on the edge of the water and I felt the unbearable stillness pressing down on me.
It was just before sunrise. The black, faceless castle on its island was partially obscured by trees, but I could feel the innate desolation of the place.
My heart failed me.
They meant to keep me a prisoner. They did not mean me to leave. How would I ever engineer an escape from the banks of that tiny island where my every movement would be observed?
We crossed the loch by boat, the waters glimmering as the dawn came on. The mist hung in scarves and ribbons – six miles of granite-grey water, as still as glass, before the solitary inaccessible fortress of the Douglases loomed up large above me, its towers ready to receive me and purge me. This was where I was to begin my long years of imprisonment.
The tall iron gates shut behind me with a resounding clang that has reverberated down the years. It was a sound that shattered the silence.
I have spent the rest of my life as a prisoner, locked up in the rooms of one drab castle or another. To begin with it was Lochleven, then I spent the remainder of my days in exile in England. One castle is much the same as any other.
They forced me to abdicate; they threatened to drown me in the loch if I did not sign. Then they made my brother Moray Regent over my son.
William Douglas and his wife were harsh gaolers, but there was worse to come. Bothwell’s child did not live to see the light of day. I miscarried twins while incarcerated on that island.
My talent for escape continued.
I managed to evade my captors and left Lochleven disguised as a washerwoman – but the boatman recognized my hands and took me back. A few months later I escaped again. But when no one – not even Bothwell – came to my aid, my courage failed me. So I crossed the Solway Firth and threw myself on Elizabeth’s mercy, hoping she would take pity on my plight.
A fellow sister sovereign, like herself, opposed and in danger.
But this is where my story ends.
I have nothing more to tell.
As I languish in my lonely cell, I entertain the ghosts of my past and stitch for them my tapestries. It is a narrative in gold and silken thread, telling the many stories of my life.
I doubt that I shall ever return to Scotland and this makes me sad.
It was a deadly inheritance, after all, the Scottish crown…nothing but a circle of deadly barbs, threaded, looped and woven together, one sharp thorn above another.
Ghosts never haunt the innocent.
I have not ceased hoping, I have not ceased wanting what my Guise uncles taught me to want. As my needle flies swiftly and patiently through the bare canvas, ornamenting plain linen with glittering designs, I sit with my gaze fixed on Elizabeth’s throne. I have my hopes and ambitions yet. I have supporters to champion my cause. I am a Catholic monarch in a world that cries out for order and redemption. I have my little jewelled prayer book at my waist, my rosary beads and yellowing crucifix. I have my knights in shining armour waiting in the wings to rescue me still.
I long for freedom.
Every day I long for it.
She has kept me incarcerated here for nigh on twenty years, and I am sick with longing.
I shall sweep her off that eminence on which she now sits. It is mine by divine right. I shall avenge myself on my dear sister and cousin Elizabeth.
Fotheringhay Castle
October 1586
My little Skye Terrier Geddon begins to bark. I lean down and pat his wiry head.
Who is this now? What intrusion do we have here?
He steps forward in sky-blue satin, vain and impudent as usual, although softened slightly with experience.
The experience of being dead?
“So that is it?” he asks. “The truth and nothing but the truth?”
I stab the needle through my tapestry and meet Darnley’s gaze.
“I swear!”
“And the famous Casket letters they produced at the trial?”
“You mean that charade that Lord Burleigh rigged up to try and establish my guilt?”
“The same!”
“Forgeries, for I did not write them.”
“But they were in Bothwell’s hand!”
“They took letters we had each written, cut pieces out and replaced them with others to make a convincing argument. Many of those endearments were addressed to another woman – not I! I liked Bothwell , indeed – before he forced me against my will – but I did not commit adultery.”
Darnley says quietly, “It makes for such an interesting story – the queen who had her own husband murdered in order to marry her lover. They will be telling it for years.”
“Lies, distortions and half-truths” I murmur. “They have slandered me so effectively even my own son believes them.”
“Our son!” Darnley corrects me. “They will not forget you, Mary. You will become legend. Myth!”
Darnley leans forward. “How many times did you escape from captivity, against all the odds?”
“Not this time…”
“Why do you think they are so nervous and set such a ferocious guard upon you? They are terrified you will escape. Loose in the kingdom
you pose an enormous threat to Elizabeth.”
I try to hide a small smile, but Darnley has seen it.
“You are plotting still. Be careful, Mary.”
“I have had so long to think on vengeance. Someone has been scheming against me from the very beginning, engineering things.”
“Have you never understood?” Darnley tells me.
“Understood what?”
“Moray was behind it all.”
“I know that…”
“And behind him, was England. The whole thing stinks of England. Lord Burleigh was funding Moray in an attempt to undermine you. Think about Kirk o’ Field. A massive explosion to draw the attention of the world and to put suspicion onto the Queen of Scots. Why else would they blow up a building? A touch dramatic, was it not?”
I stare at Darnley’s white spectral face.
“Cecil,” I whisper. They funded Moray and encouraged the Protestant lords to cause trouble for me, promising them rewards.
“It was coming from England all along,” Darnley says. “Elizabeth knew about the Rizzio plot before you did. She knew also about Kirk o’ Field before it happened.”
“But why?” I whisper, thinking of the terms of endearment, the little gifts I had exchanged with my sister queen in the early years.
Darnley shrugs. “To neutralize the threat from the Stuart monarchy.”
“And why Moray?”
“He turned against you as soon as you married me. That was enough to make him an enemy, even when he pretended to be your closest adviser.”
My brother deliberately engineered a state of affairs which would leave me friendless in my own realm, despite the affection he did once bear me and which I bore towards him. But Elizabeth…?
My plans for vengeance seem more than ever justified.
“You need to watch Lord Burleigh. And Walsingham. They have spies everywhere.”
Suddenly the door to my chamber opens and Darnley whips round, alarmed.
Jane Kennedy enters.
“Good Morning, Ma’am.”
“Good Morning, Jane.”
