Mary Queen of Scots

by Antonia Fraser

  Under the command of Arran, the Scots drew up in a strong position on Edmonstone Edge, behind the town of Musselburgh. Their ranks and spears were thick as the spikes of a hedgehog, as an English observer, William Patten, put it: the clergy were there, marked out by their shaven crowns, their black garments contrasting with the white banner which they bore before them; among the magnates Huntly was especially magnificent in gilt and enamelled armour. Unfortunately there was nothing in the situation now facing him to supply Arran with the backbone which he had so singularly lacked throughout his career. Certain of his leading nobles’ names had been discovered on a list of ‘assured Scots’, the contemptuous English phrase for those on their payroll, within St Andrew’s Castle. Not only was he doubtful of the loyalty of his lieutenants, including the flamboyant Huntly recently ransomed from England, but he had no greater confidence in the discipline of his troops. When the Scots hurled themselves upon their traditional foes, needlessly abandoning their strong position, Arran displayed none of the qualities of leadership necessary to hold them back. The result of the clash between these courageous but scarcely disciplined troops, and Somerset’s well-drilled army, was another horrifying rout for the Scots.10

  William Patten described scornfully how the Governor Arran fled ‘skant with honour’, followed by Angus and the other chiefs, whereupon the whole army turned and cast down their weapons, preparatory to flight. Patten’s details of the English pursuit are revolting if vivid: some of the Scots tried to elude capture by crouching in the river, with their noses breathing through the roots of willow trees. The dead had their wounds mainly in the head, because the horsemen could not reach lower with their swords, although arms were sometimes sliced off, and necks cut half asunder. Patten noted that the dead bodies lying about gave the impression of a thick herd of cattle, grazing in a newly replenished pasture. Patten takes the line that the English were playing the role of a schoolmaster chastising naughty children for their own good. But quite apart from the pillaging of the countryside which followed, the casualties suffered by the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh decimated their finest fighting men yet again, only five years after Solway Moss.

  The unconscious cause of this holocaust, Mary Queen of Scots, now aged four years and nine months, was removed rapidly from the possible area of conflict, after the Scottish defeat. Stirling Castle was no longer considered safe enough, as Somerset raged about the lowlands of Scotland, like a beast of prey. The place of security chosen for her repose was a romantic and secluded island, Inchmahome, off the north shore of the Lake of Menteith, a few hours’ ride from Stirling. Here, amid pleasant trees and luxurious vegetation, had been built in the thirteenth century an exquisite island priory for the monks of the Augustinian order. This priory was still in existence, but as it had been given in commendam to members of the Erskine family ever since 1528, it had become practically speaking their hereditary possession. Robert Erskine, commendator from 1529 onwards, was actually killed at the battle of Pinkie, but his family connections with the monarchy made Inchmahome a natural choice for a retreat. Lord Erskine was still numbered among the queen’s guardians and in 1545, together with Lord Livingston, had been exempted from military service such as armies or raids against England, to look after the queen’s person.11

  Inchmahome, seen from the shore low-lying on the horizon of the lake, with its religious buildings, its sedge, its views of mountains and water, makes an ideal focus for romance. It is therefore not surprising that a number of charming legends have grown up around Mary Stuart’s visit to it. Queen Mary’s Garden, Queen Mary’s Bower and Queen Mary’s Tree all honour the memory of the child, not yet five, who spent at the most three weeks on the island. Although there are records of letters being brought to the island on matters of state, after she had been committed to the safe keeping of the commendator, Leslie makes it clear that she was only sent to Inchmahome during the time the English were at Leith, i.e. between 11 and 18th September, and returned to Stirling as soon as the English left Scotland – the English re-crossed the Tweed on 29th September. So much for the legends which have grown up that Mary Stuart first learnt Latin and other languages there under the tutelage of a stern prior, as well as finding the time and strength to plant a garden and a number of trees. In the middle of the last century, Sir William Fraser suggested to the duke of Montrose, the then owner of the island, that he should restore the bower with new boxwood plants to please ‘tourists from America’, who would want a cutting from plants supposed to have been planted by Queen Mary herself.12 The best hope for the authenticity of such a bower, which cannot in honesty be attributed to Mary Stuart’s short infant stay on the island, would seem to be the fact that Mary often stayed at Stirling in later years, and might then have paid some unrecorded visit to the island, in the course of which the planting took place. But the real romance of Inchmahome lies more in its genuine and touching association with Mary Stuart as a child refugee from English oppression, rather than in any specific historical relic.

  After her return from Inchmahome Mary spent the winter once again at Stirling, before being transferred to Dumbarton Castle on the west coast of Scotland, in February 1548. The victory of the English at Pinkie Cleugh was making it increasingly clear to many of the Scots that a French alliance, at the price of a French marriage for their queen, was their best hope of extricating themselves from the morass of defeat and disunity in which they now found themselves. They could not even call all the country their own: ever since Pinkie, the English troops had occupied Haddington, uncomfortably near Edinburgh, from where they were able to exert a stranglehold on the south-east of Scotland. A council was held in November 1547 at which the queen’s removal to France was discussed, as well as the necessity of placing the Scottish strongholds in the hands of the French. By the end of December, fifty French captains had arrived in Scotland, and on 27th January a contract was signed between Arran and Henry 11 by which Arran bound himself to assemble the Scots Parliament, in order to give its consent to the marriage of the queen with Henry’s son, her deliverance to France, and the handing over of the crucial fortresses. In return Arran was to receive a French duchy.

  By June 1548 the French were actually landed in Scotland, under the command of an experienced soldier, André de Montalembert, Seigneur d’Essé. D’Essé was to show admirable sangfroid as a general, the quality hitherto most lacking in the Scottish command. When messengers came to him crying: ‘Monsieur, voici les ennemis qui viennent a vous’, he replied without a flicker of astonishment: ‘Et nous a eux’.13 He also brought with him an extremely well-equipped body of 6000 men, including German and Italian mercenaries, the latter probably engineers, as well as a quantity of light horsemen under two French captains. D’Essé’s friend, Jean de Beaugué, who accompanied him, and witnessed the campaign, formed the impression that the Scots’ troubles as fighters sprang not from their lack of courage, nor from the fact that they were less ‘belliqueux’ than the English, but simply from the ‘ligues’ and ‘partialités’ with which they were plagued. He concluded that they had been chastened by God deliberately during their recent misfortunes, to teach them the error of their ways, going on to observe with irritating superiority, typical of the French attitude to Scotland at this period, that luckily for them things took a better turn immediately the French came to their rescue.14 Whether or not the Scots themselves shared this view of their predicament, their Parliament finally gave its assent to the marriage of Mary and Francis in July 1548, on condition that the king of France should defend Scotland as he did his own realm, and at the same time respect Scotland’s independence. On these terms, the marriage was described as being ‘very reasonable’.

  In March of the same year, the cornerstone of the Scottish–-French alliance nearly fell from its arch when Mary became suddenly and dangerously ill. The disease, whatever its nature, was violent enough for there to be rumours that she was actually dead. Huntly told Somerset that she had smallpox, but as Mary was to suffer a much better a
ttested attack of smallpox later in her childhood, it seems to have been measles, the explanation given to La Chapelle in Edinburgh, which was responsible for her collapse on this occasion.15 The whole incident illustrates the perils in the sixteenth century of founding foreign policy on the lives of children. However, by the time the informative Frenchman de Beaugué saw Mary at Dumbarton, when she was being prepared for her journey to France, he was able to wax lyrical in her praises. Even allowing for Gallic gallantry, the unanimity of all the early reports on Mary as a child, both now and on her arrival in France, concerning her physical perfection and conspicuous health, make it clear that she was an exceptionally attractive and above all energetic little girl. De Beaugué called her one of the most perfect creatures he had ever seen, and felt that with such splendid beginnings anything could be expected of her. ‘It is not possible to hope for more from a Princess on this earth,’ he wrote. Looking beneath the natural hyperbole of a courtier faced with a queen, it is obvious that observers confronted with the child Mary Stuart for once did not have to work out guardedly enthusiastic phrases for some delicate and sickly prince: able to be genuine in their appreciation, they were further spurred on by poignant thoughts of her destiny.

  In July the French galleys arrived at Dumbarton, on the west coast of Scotland, King Henry having sent his own royal galley for Mary’s use, to demonstrate the honour which he intended to pay to her in France. On 29th July Mary embarked on her ship, after a tearful farewell to her mother, and with her went the suite which was considered suitable for her new estate in France. Two of her royal half-brothers – Robert and John Stewart – went with her, demonstrating the closeness felt by the monarchy to its own kin, and it seems virtually certain that her eldest half-brother, James Stewart, later earl of Moray, went for a short visit, although he was back in Scotland by November of the next year. Also included in Mary’s suite were her guardian, Lord Erskine, and her governess, Janet Stewart, Lady Fleming, an illegitimate daughter of James IV by the countess of Bothwell, and widow of the Lord Fleming who had fallen at Pinkie. Her natural royal blood once again was considered to fit her for a post in the queen’s immediate entourage. In France the nubile charms of the volatile Lady Fleming – to the Venetian ambassador’s admiring gaze ‘a very pretty little woman’ – were to be the source of controversy; she showed her mettle even at the outset of the journey, when she became thoroughly discontented with the long delay between embarkment in the Clyde at the end of July, and sailing on the desired west wind on 7th August; growing bored with life on board ship Lady Fleming demanded to be put ashore ‘to repose her’. The captain of the ship answered smartly that Lady Fleming, so far from being able to go on land, could go to France and like it, or drown on the way.16

  Mary’s departure to France also marks the first appearance in her story of those romantic concomitants of her adventures, the four Maries. A train of noblemen’s sons and daughters, about Mary’s age, were taken with her to France, it having been long traditional for young men of good family to be sent to France for a sort of chivalrous education. The Maries, in Leslie’s words, were considered ‘special’, not only because they all bore the queen’s Christian name, but because they came from four notably honourable houses. Thus Mary Fleming, Mary Seton, Mary Beaton and Mary Livingston are introduced into Mary Stuart’s history. In point of fact Maries, or maids, had been known before in the train of a Scottish queen. The word Marie has its etymological derivation in the Icelandic word maer, the official designation given to a virgin or maid; from there it had come to be used in Scots especially for the maids-of-honour attendant on the queen. Pitscottie describes how Queen Madeleine, the first wife of James V, was called on by her father the king of France to pass to his wardrobe and take his rolls of cloth of gold, velvet and satins as he pleased, ‘to clothe her and her Maries’.17

  All four little Maries were of noble birth, but Mary Fleming was considered chief among them by reason of the royal blood which flowed in her veins, through her mother Lady Fleming. Mary Seton came from one of the grandest Scottish families, being the daughter of George, 6th Lord Seton, by his second marriage to a French woman, Marie Pieris, who had come to Scotland as one of Mary of Guise’s maids-of-honour. Mary Beaton was the daughter of Robert Beaton of Creich, and granddaughter of Sir John Beaton, the hereditary keeper of the royal palace of Falkland; the Beatons of Creich were a younger branch of that family whose senior line had given to Scotland Cardinal David Beaton, and were to provide Queen Mary with her faithful ambassador, Archbishop James Beaton; Mary Beaton’s mother like that of Mary Seton had been a French lady-in-waiting. Mary Livingston was the daughter of Mary’s guardian, Lord Livingston, and thus also lay within the magic inner circle of families who could expect to attend on the queen. Mary Stuart’s Maries were very far from being four ciphers, who could be dismissed by one generic name; of widely different characters, they were able to enjoy widely different adventures. Although their public lives all began at the same point on a galley sailing to France in 1548, they ended at points far from each other, and in all but one case, far from the queen they were appointed to serve.

  Accompanied by her train of lords, and her miniature train of children, Mary Stuart embarked for France. Her mother’s sorrow was extreme, as the Englishman Henry Jones noted when he wrote to Somerset, on 9th August. ‘The Old Queen do lament the young Queen’s departure, and marvelleth she heareth nothing from her.’18 Mary of Guise’s feelings can be readily understood. For the second time in her life she had to endure the keen pain of being parted from her child, to be brought up in a distant land, by other hands than hers. Furthermore, her daughter’s journey was believed to be hazardous, and there was no certainty that she would arrive safely in France, since it was thought that the English intended to intercept the galleys. It is true that this danger proved in the end to be illusory: the English, who must have known that the Scottish queen would shortly be dispatched to France, once Parliament had given its assent to the marriage, made no serious efforts at interception. But this was not appreciated at the time of Mary Stuart’s departure, and elaborate precautions were taken to send her on the longer western route from Dumbarton, rather than the natural short route from the east coast, in order to elude the English. Mary of Guise had to suffer the natural pangs of a mother’s loss coupled with fears for her daughter’s safety, at the same time as the political situation in Scotland, even with French aid, was scarcely such as to promote peace of mind. The combination of anxieties called forth all the resources of this stoical lady, who returned for a short while to the pleasant palace of Falkland to ease her sorrow.

  For the alleviation of her unhappiness, the French commander sent by Henry II, the Seigneur de Brezé, wrote a series of letters to Mary of Guise, for which we are indebted for an account of her daughter’s behaviour on the journey.19 On 31st July de Brezé reports that Mary is ‘as cheerful as you have seen her for a long time’. Whether out of diplomacy or genuine feeling, de Brezé announced that in the ten days in which the queen and her retinue remained at sea without sailing, it was only Mary who did not fall sea-sick. On 3rd August, de Brezé reports that Mary is still in good health and has still not been sea-sick, in spite of the storms, which makes him think she will do well on the open sea. Finally, on 7th August, they departed, although the weather was still far from settled, and de Brezé wrote to the queen dowager that on two or three occasions he even thought they would have to go back to Dumbarton again. The route taken led them westwards, right round the coast to the Isle of Man, Wales, the point of Cornwall, and so to the English Channel and the coast of France. The stormy weather chased them all the way, and one night, when they were about ten leagues off the Cornish point, the sea was so remarkably wild, and the waves so high and vast, that the rudder of the ship was smashed. Dismay was universal. According to de Brezé, it was only due to divine intervention that they were able to replace the rudder almost at once, and so proceed in safety, in spite of the heavy seas which were running.
In all this drama, Mary Stuart alone seems to have remained unmoved, unknowing of the dangers ahead, uncaring of the dangers around her. In high spirits, untroubled by the maladies which laid low her attendants, she was even able to poke fun at them for their sea-sickness.

  The company finally landed on the coast of France on 13th August. The poet Joachim du Bellay mentions that general relief of the French at reaching dry land in his Epithalamion on the marriage of Mary and Francis ten years later.

  Estant au bout d’un voyage si long

  Sans craindre plus ny les vents ny l’orage

  Chacun joyeux saute au front du rivage

  he wrote, with a vividness which suggests some member of the court had provided him with a personal description of the incident. On balance of probabilities it is to Roscoff, a little fishing village near Brest which sits out into the sea like a ship riding at anchor, that the honour of receiving Mary’s first footsteps on French soil must be given.* But there is no contemporary evidence to support the story that this famous footstep was actually traced on the rock on her arrival, nor the tradition that the chapel of St Ninian, now standing to mark the spot, was founded by Mary later in the year. As Mary did not return to Brittany in 1548, the chapel’s origins seem to lie among the many pleasant cobwebs of fantasy which surround her story.21