Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  When they passed into the vicinity of Strathbogie, news was brought to Mary that Sir John and his father planned to fall on them as they slept in his castle, kill Maitland and Lord James, and abduct her. Then the father would force her to marry his son, who was known as the handsomest man in Scotland. The fact that Sir John already had a wife did not seem to matter to their wild plans.

  “Sir John purports himself to be in love with you,” said the young messenger.

  “Sir John is in love with himself and his power,” said Mary. “But he is not as powerful as he imagines.” She turned to Lord James. “We will not sleep there tonight!”

  James looked at the dreary, raining vista. Already it was growing dark. “There’s the castle of Balquhain ahead,” he said. “Let us try to reach it.”

  The darkness was just closing in as they reached the castle at the sloping foot of the dark mountain of Bennachie. They could feel the watching eyes of Sir John and his men, waiting and biding their time. As Mary settled herself in her hard bed, she could hear cries from the mountains that sounded like wolves.

  The next morning found them, still wary, picking their way through mossy groves, cankered old pines, and brambles. Overhead, in the brief respites between rains, Mary could see buzzards riding the air above them.

  Late in the day the royal party halted before the swollen waters of the River Spey, which foamed and rushed over its banks.

  “Can we ford here?” asked Maitland. It looked as though the water would come up over their saddles.

  “Aye!” Mary spurred her horse into the cold, turbulent water, which indeed rose almost to her saddle. But the swirling currents failed to suck them down, and her horse kept his footing on the weed-covered rocks. She splashed across, and soon the others followed, soaking their clothes and chilling themselves.

  They came at last to Inverness, a town in the shadow of the highlands overlooking the Firth of Moray, the northern body of water that cut Scotland almost in half. Mary’s weary party approached the royal castle there—a castle administered by Huntly as Sheriff of Inverness. To their shock, they were refused admittance.

  “Treason!” cried Maitland with genuine surprise. “To refuse to admit the Queen to her own castle!”

  They stood in the rain, looking up at the grey battlements running with water. The sky overhead was the same colour, looking as solid as a soldier’s mantle.

  Mary ordered her trumpeters to blow, and the sound brought out the curious in the countryside and the surrounding hills; to them she cried that she had been treacherously cast out. They rallied, with their swords, staves, scythes and clubs, and Huntly sent word to his deputy to admit the Queen’s party, since the Highlanders were coming to her aid. But it was too late to appease: the Queen’s forces, upon entering the castle, punished the castle’s captain; he was hanged. Huntly was now duly warned.

  While they waited for Huntly’s obedience, Mary and her party met at last a company of Highlanders, for they took it upon themselves to keep watch in the fields, sleeping out with no protection at all. They were curious creatures, these men wearing furs and carrying claymores, dirks, and leather-covered shields. And although she knew they could not understand her, she exclaimed, “I am sorry I am not a man! I should like to know what life it is to lie all night in the fields, or to walk upon the causeway with a jack, a helmet, a Glasgow buckler, and a broadsword!”

  Yes, to lie there all night, keeping alert for the enemy … she would revel in that!

  Five days passed; no Huntly. Mary announced that they would turn back toward Aberdeen, mayhap to meet with him there. On the way they would stay with the Bishop of Moray, Patrick Hepburn, Bothwell’s great-uncle—and a noted profligate.

  “With him?” Lord James had looked disdainful. “Better to sleep out in the fields!”

  Mary watched the sheeting rain outside the castle windows. “Better not,” she said. “I think you can manage to guard your honour well enough from the Bishop’s taint.”

  They set out from Inverness, escorted as far as the Spey by two thousand warriors of the Fraser clan, who had pledged loyalty to her. There had been word that she would be attacked there, but nothing happened, and she proceeded on to Spynie.

  There, in the Bishop’s palace, with its enormous defensive keep, old Patrick Hepburn welcomed them. He did not look like the lascivious gourmet he was supposed to be; he looked almost fatherly. But Mary had already heard the stories of his trysts with married women and his numerous bastards.

  “Welcome, oh, most hearty welcome!” he was saying. His sandy-coloured hair—with flecks of white in it—was in disarray. From his bedsport? “I have been most distressed to hear of the rebellion of the Earl of Huntly. Have you encountered him yet?”

  “No, he hides himself from us,” said Mary. “It seems he does not dare look us in the face.”

  “Ah! Then he must be the one man in ten thousand who does not wish to do so!” said the Bishop. His eyes still had their kindly look, but now it was more intense.

  Now I see what there is about him, thought Mary. Unhappy wives find understanding with the good Bishop, and compliments when they have had none for years.…

  I myself have had a round dozen women, and seven of them were other men’s wives. So the uncle was supposed to have said in a “married woman as a mistress” bragging contest. But what a pity that so many wives were neglected by their men that they were forced to seek the lovemaking of a priest! The shame was on the husbands, thought Mary.

  “It is less my face I wish him to see than my foot. He should kneel before me,” said Mary.

  “As I do!” said the Bishop, kneeling with a flourish.

  She could not help smiling at him. The old reprobate was indeed charming.

  What was it like for Bothwell to have spent part of his childhood with such a man? Was that why Bothwell was reputed to have so many women? Had he learned it from his great-uncle, the way other boys learned a trade like carpentry? There had been Arran’s mistress, numerous lowborn women from kitchens and households of Edinburgh, and a Norwegian mistress from whom he had borrowed money and then abandoned on the Continent—so she had been told by Lord James. But then, Lord James did not like him. But Mary Beaton herself had said that Bothwell and her aunt Janet had been lovers when Bothwell was little more than a boy, and Janet twenty years older.

  What did the uncle do—take women and pass them on to his protege? Or did Bothwell simply stand and watch, and learn…?

  The Bishop was making noises of discomfort. She had forgotten him, still kneeling on his elderly knees!

  “Oh, please rise!” she said.

  With a grunt, he stood up. His backbone crackled. He attempted to smile. “Come, consider this your home.…”

  * * *

  He presented them a banquet worthy of Tiberius in all respects. It was toward the drowsy end of the evening that the Bishop sought her out. No one was listening; for once, Maitland and Lord James seemed to be less than alert.

  “You know young Arran is insane,” said the Bishop. “His testimony should not be used to keep my nephew in prison any longer. He has been loyal to you. That one of Your Majesty’s most devoted knights should be so dishonoured! Why should Huntly then be obedient, if this is to be his reward?”

  Mary could not help wondering herself. The episode had disturbed her greatly, and she had not yet had the opportunity to question Bothwell. “Bothwell,” she finally said, “should do what he is able to do.”

  “He already has,” said his uncle. “Grown tired of waiting for royal justice, he has acted as a true Hepburn. Bothwell has escaped from Edinburgh Castle.” The Bishop said this as proudly as a father whose son has won honours at the university.

  Escape? From Edinburgh Castle? “That is impossible!” she said.

  “Not so, not so.” Again the pride in his voice. “He broke one of the stanchions in his window, squeezed himself out, and climbed down the very face of the castle rock.”

  “Where is he now?”


  “He’s at the Hermitage in the Borders. An old friend, Janet Beaton, has brought him provisions.”

  Janet Beaton! The witch-mistress!

  “And—this may interest Your Majesty—Lord Gordon, Huntly’s oldest son, has sought him out to beg his help for his father’s rebellion. He assumes Bothwell will have reason enough to turn against you now.”

  Oh, God! Mary felt her heart rising up into her throat. “And?”

  The Bishop paused, his merry eyes searching hers. He knew how to tease, too—the tormentor! “Bothwell said no. He plans to leave Scotland entirely. He has no use for what he sees here.”

  “And go where?”

  The Bishop shrugged. “I know not. Wherever the first ship is sailing, I assume.”

  “The Lord High Admiral of Scotland, stealing away on a foreign ship?”

  “You must needs find another for the post, for it is now vacant.”

  * * *

  Leaving Spynie, Mary’s party made its way back toward Aberdeen. As they passed beyond Findlater Castle on the sea, Sir John Gordon at last came out in the open and attacked some of Mary’s men after the main body of the party had moved on. Thus, when they reached Aberdeen, Lord James said, “We need reinforcements. Let us send to Edinburgh for a hundred or so harquebusiers, and additional commanders like Kirkcaldy and Lord Lindsay with a thousand men apiece.”

  So it had come to this! Mary reluctantly wrote out the orders, and summoned Huntly to come and meet with her. He sent messengers back that he dared not come without his soldiers; she replied that he dared not come with them. He therefore declined to come at all.

  “He hides in his house at Strathbogie by day, and sleeps elsewhere at night,” Mary’s scouts told her. “In that way he thinks he can avoid capture.”

  “Then we must surprise him by day. A small force, under the command of Kirkcaldy, should be able to sneak up on him.”

  Kirkcaldy set out at dawn with a dozen men in order to reach Strathbogie by noon, but the sentries saw him and gave alarm. Huntly rushed out the back, barefoot and without his sword, jumped over a wall and seized a horse, and rode away, still free.

  “So he goes to join his son,” said Lord James. “He proclaims himself at last.”

  “We do not know that he has gone to join Sir John,” Mary argued.

  “His flight is evidence of his guilt,” James insisted. “The time for holding back is past.”

  At the market cross, Huntly and his son were proclaimed traitors by three blasts of the hunting horn. “They are to be hunted down like wolves, thieves, and foreigners, for any citizen to capture or expel!” cried the herald.

  Huntly took to the wild mountains of Badenoch, hiding from the royal forces. No one could have followed him there, where ancient, drooping trees and slippery, moss-covered stones provided a secret sanctuary. But his wife—who consulted with “tame” witches—persuaded him that he should leave his mountain fastness and meet the Queen’s troops in open battle. The witches had assured her, she told him, that by nightfall he would be in Tolbooth at Aberdeen without any wound in his body. He boldly marched toward Aberdeen, proclaiming that he would capture Mary and marry her to whomsoever he chose.

  Then he took up his position on a hill above the field of Corrichie, some fifteen miles west of the city. The Queen’s troops faced him across the field, blooming now in full purple heather.

  Lord James, Lord Lindsay, and Kirkcaldy of Grange led the royal troops. They looked stern and completely unafraid as they sat listening to Maitland exhorting the soldiers, “Remember your duty to your sovereign lady, and have no fear of the multitudes before you!”

  Mary would not ride with them herself, but she felt her heart pounding. Oh, to be a man today! Her commanders had fought before, and Kirkcaldy was already an experienced soldier, but how would Lord James fare?

  Across the field, Mary could see the glint of Huntly’s gaudy pink-and-gilt armour. Completely certain of victory, he advertised his presence insolently. The Cock o’ the North, portly rooster that he was, already strutted like a victor.

  The horn sounded, and Mary watched the men gallop away. She had almost twenty-five hundred men in her service—how many did Huntly have?

  Maitland looked grim as he watched, and Mary saw the look on Flamina’s face as she watched him. Not until then did Mary realize how deeply she must care for him. And Lord James, newly married … what of his wife?

  Thank God I have no husband or sweetheart out there upon the field, Mary thought. But then … I also have no one to welcome back and rejoice with.

  A strange loneliness swept over her as she watched the forces charging. She felt utterly and completely alone, with a deep, personal solitariness.

  There was a sound of firearms. Kirkcaldy’s harquebusiers were firing into the Earl’s men on the hill, killing them in numbers, forcing the rest of them down from the heights and into a bog at the foot of the hill.

  Mary felt herself scarcely able to breathe. The sound of the guns, and the wailing shrieks of the dying men, were hideous and sickening.

  The noise of the fighting rose, and clouds of dust hung over the opposing armies. Mary could see that Huntly’s men were trapped in the bog, falling and unable to escape from Lord James and Lindsay, who were closing in.

  James, like an avenging angel, fell on the Gordons, hacking his way through the ranks to the Earl and two of his sons, seventeen-year-old Adam as well as Sir John.

  Where had James learned to fight like that? Mary was astonished.

  “Lord James is a fine commander,” she said to Maitland. “And Kirkcaldy—he is a genius of a soldier.”

  Huntly was forced to surrender, then was trussed up and set upon a horse to be brought before the Queen. But he suddenly pitched off the horse and fell to the ground—dead of apoplexy.

  His heavy corpse was conveyed from the battlefield on a makeshift litter of fishing baskets, and taken to Aberdeen. That night his body indeed lay on the cold stones at the Tolbooth, clad in a cammoise doublet and grey Highland hose, without a single mark on it.

  * * *

  After being paraded like a criminal through the streets of Aberdeen, Sir John was to be executed in the marketplace. It was deemed necessary that Mary attend and witness it.

  “Else it will be said you encouraged his affections,” said Lord James sternly.

  From the scaffold errected in front of Mary’s lodging, Sir John looked up at Mary, seated in a chair of state at an open window.

  “Your presence, fair Queen, solaces me, as I am about to suffer for love of you!” he cried.

  Mary gripped the chair arms and tried to keep her eyes open, but without seeing, as the handsome youth was forced to open his collar and lay his head upon the block. Just before doing so, he knelt and raised his eyes toward hers in a silent plea. The headsman’s assistant pushed his head down roughly and the headsman raised the axe.

  He struck, and wounded Sir John, missing the neck. The indignant spectators groaned aloud, and Mary screamed with the horror of it. Outside, the headsman finished his grisly business, and Sir John’s head rolled lopsidedly on the scaffold boards.

  * * *

  Before returning to Edinburgh, Mary pardoned both Lord Gordon, who had been in the south, and seventeen-year-old Adam Gordon, taken with his father and brother. There was to be no more killing.

  XIV

  The box placed before her was ornamented with a ruff of finest lace, secured with a Spanish comb. Mary took it up and shook it gently.

  Flamina had given it to her, and was having trouble keeping from laughing.

  “Shall I open it now?” asked Mary.

  “No! We have others!” Lusty handed her a basket tied with violet ribbons, and Riccio stepped forward with a paper package shaped like a crown.

  “And this.” Seton gave her a box secured with a lock, bound all round with brass fittings.

  “Enough!” said Mary, as one of them slid off her lap and onto the floor. “This is enough for an
yone’s birthday.”

  “But a twentieth birthday is special,” said Madame Rallay. “And you cannot refuse to accept them.” She placed a small bundle wrapped in silk in her mistress’s hands.

  Already piled on a small table were the gifts from her household staff, Lord Seton, Bastian Pages, Bourgoing, and Balthazzar.

  “Now, Riccio, sing as she opens them,” said Beaton. “Sing something appropriate.”

  They all laughed.

  “Why, what is this? Such mirth, and I ignorant of its cause? Or am I the cause of it?” asked Mary.

  “In a manner of speaking,” said Riccio. “Or, rather, your situation is the cause.”

  “What situation?” Mary was puzzled.

  “Open them! Open them, and you will not need to ask!”

  Mary took the first box, the one with the ruff and the comb, and began unwrapping it. As she did so, Riccio strummed his ebony-and-ivory-inlaid lute and began playing a Spanish melody. He got down on his knees, singing, “Oh, most noble Queen, accept my suit! I, lonely Don Carlos, only need you to set me free from the lowering brow of my father, King Philip, and the snorts of the bulls!”

  Mary took out a bar of fatted-oil soap with a tag that read, “When you add me to your bath, let thoughts of me waft into your nostrils.” Mary lifted it and smelled it; the heavy scent of jasmine and gardenia leapt out as if they had been contained too long.

  “It truly is from Spain,” said Flamina.

  Riccio’s music reached a crescendo.

  “Spanish music is so … insistent,” said Mary. “Unlike the Spanish in their courting. Alas, Don Carlos does not seem as eager as you portray him.” She laughed; she was not at all eager for Don Carlos either. She undid the silk bundle from Madame Rallay; inside was a slender bottle with a carved glass stopper. She removed it and sniffed, and felt herself transported back to France. It was the blend of flowers from Provence that Catherine de Médicis’s perfumiers had made; Mary had first been allowed to wear it when she was twelve.