Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  Even the flatter areas were fraught with danger, as bogs were concealed under the heather and sedge and looked safe. They followed the passes and paths of the Glenkens, the glen that surrounded the cold River Ken, which was rushing to empty itself into a ten-mile loch.

  Mary saw all this, but did not see it. She had done these things before, and done them separately; there had been so many mad rides to safety in her lifetime, usually at night or with pursuers just behind. She had travelled over dangerous moors and passes on the rides in the Borders, and had even fallen into a bog. But all that had been different. Always there had been Bothwell, present in some fashion. And never had there been this sense of finality, of a last, desperate headlong dash. Always before she had had a destination: Inchmahome, Dunbar, the Hermitage, Kinross. Now she had no idea where to go, and anyplace she went was not a destination, but a refuge—and she a supplicant.

  They rode along the west bank of the River Ken, riding slower now due to fatigue. Lord Herries said they were nearing the mouth of the big loch. The mist was turning to outright rain, and they plodded on. Suddenly Herries reined his horse to a stop and pointed across a smaller loch.

  She stopped and tried to see, through the gloom and rain, what he was indicating. She could just barely make out the outline of a castle on the banks of the loch.

  “Earlstoun Castle,” said Herries. “It belonged to Lord Bothwell.”

  Belonged! Belonged! Not belongs …

  “Perhaps we could ask for refuge there. I know not who keeps it now—perhaps it is still in the hands of his loyal servants.”

  Tears filled her eyes, but she angrily bade them begone. Bothwell had never mentioned this castle; it had not figured large in his affections. And perhaps, perhaps, it was his way of providing for her now, as he always had, in some magical way.

  “Yes,” she said. “Let us approach.”

  They skirted the shore of the loch and made their way to the old castle. There were no lights visible inside.

  “This was a Sinclair castle,” said Herries. “The mother of the Lord Bothwell.”

  But who inhabited it now? Bothwell’s mother lived in Morham. As they came closer, they saw the courtyard was mired in mud and there were no people about.

  They halted in the muddy courtyard and huddled together in the pelting rain. At length Lord Herries dismounted and, sloshing through the muck, made his way to the entrance steps. He shook the mud off his feet and climbed slowly up the steps. Before he had reached the door, Mary had dismounted and followed him, holding up her skirts. He awaited her at the door—a massive, pitted wooden one of old-fashioned workmanship. It must have dated from the time of Robert the Bruce.

  She drew back her hand and knocked on the door. It made very little noise; the wet wood muffled the noise. She beat on it again, harder. They could hear it echoing inside. But there was no answering barking of dogs or cries of servants. It was only then that she realized how deeply silent the castle was: no sound of horses, no crowing of roosters, no lowing of cows. And no human voices.

  The castle was deserted and locked fast.

  Frantically she beat on the door. There must be someone there! There had to be!

  This was Bothwell’s castle, Bothwell, her protector.…

  “Do not leave me at the mercy of my enemies!” she begged him.

  Lord Herries looked at her in wonder. Then he understood. “Come, Your Majesty,” he said, lifting her fallen hood up over her head. Her hair was drenched, and rivulets of water were running down her face.

  “You must be here!” Mary laid her face against the door and whispered the words. But the dead castle kept its dark and silence.

  Like a child, she began sobbing against the wet wood.

  He is gone, and it is all over. Nothing but death and nothingness is inside, and outside, and all around me, forever and ever hereafter.

  “Perhaps we can pitch a camp here, in the courtyard, if it would please you,” he said.

  She looked horrified. “No! Let us leave this place!” She rushed back down the steps and out across the courtyard, not caring that her skirts were trailing in the mud. She hurled herself back into the saddle. “Come, we ride!” she said.

  George tried to catch her distracted, red eyes, but she looked past him and, like a demented person, urged her horse on in the darkness.

  At the foot of the Ken Loch, after riding sixty miles from the scene of the battle, Mary at last slid off her horse and allowed the men to make a camp.

  * * *

  They rested a scant three hours before the sun was up, trying to shine through the continuing mist. They had no food with them, and the only drink they could take was the loch water, which was icy cold.

  “We will follow the River Dee,” said Herries, indicating the stream that flowed out of the Ken Loch, a meandering pathway of reeds and lilies.

  They set out, not rested, but at least able to go forward. The banks of the Dee were placid and spongy as the heights and crags of the wild country receded behind them and they reached the valley of the Tarff.

  At Tongland a small wooden bridge, built in the time of the Bruce, spanned the narrowest point of the river. They trotted across it, then Herries commanded them to stop.

  “Destroy it!” he ordered the men. “That will delay any followers—for without doubt, we have them.”

  “Can we not spare this ancient relic?” asked Mary wearily. Was everything to be broken up, wrecked?

  “No,” said Herries.

  George, Willie, and Livingston dismounted, and began hacking at it with their swords.

  Dizzy, Mary wandered away. She could hear the thudding and splintering of wood, but it seemed like a dream. I must get something to eat, she thought, ashamed that she needed it before the others did.

  Ahead of her in the fields was a small farmer’s cottage, put together with dry stones and lit only by the tiniest of windows. Smoke was rising from the hole in the thatched roof. She walked slowly and a bit unsteadily toward the door and, leaning on the doorframe, asked in a faint voice, “Is there anyone within?” She could smell the fire.

  An old woman, not unlike the one Bothwell had gone to see on the moors that long-ago day, shuffled to the doorway. She stared at Mary.

  “Please—have you any food?” she asked.

  “No,” said the woman. Her voice was so cracked it sounded as if her throat was injured. “No, that I do not.” She rubbed her own stomach, not unkindly.

  “Nothing?” How could it be that some of her subjects had no food? She remembered the thin broth of those other people.

  “Come in,” said the woman. “You look dreadful.” She motioned for Mary to follow her, and brought a stool to her. Mary sat down and looked around at the plain little room. The women opened a cupboard and began to mix something up, then dumped it into a kettle and stirred it over the smouldering fire for what seemed an eternity. Then at last she turned to Mary and handed her a bowl and spoon, and emptied the kettle into the bowl.

  “Here,” she said, bringing over a pitcher of milk.

  Oatmeal. It was oatmeal. Mary poured some milk into it and took a bite. The milk was sour.

  “It is all I have,” said the woman.

  Mary looked, and indeed there was nothing else in the cupboard but the little sack of oatmeal. She nodded gratefully and ate the entire bowl.

  “Do you wish more?” asked the woman gently, even though it would completely deplete her supply.

  Mary was stunned at her generosity. To this woman, she was only a stranger, and a sickly-looking one at that. “You have been good to share this much,” she said. “I am grateful.”

  Just then Herries came up and burst into the cottage. “Your Majesty!” he said. “Why did you not tell us—” He stopped as the woman looked at him in horror.

  “Yes,” said Mary to her, “I am the Queen.”

  The woman muttered and almost crossed herself in shock.

  “I am in the protection of these my good servants,” sai
d Mary. “But I can never have better servants than the ordinary people who live in my land, like you. You have done me a great service today, far greater than you can imagine. What would you like as a reward? Name it, it is yours.”

  “Nay—I seek no reward,” she said.

  “And that is precisely why you shall have it,” she answered. “Please, tell me. And quickly. I cannot linger here.”

  “Why, I—I wish I owned this cottage, and its land!” she said. “Our family have been tenants for generations.”

  “Good Lord Herries, you are overlord here. May she have it?”

  “Of course!” he said. “With all my heart I grant it.”

  When Mary rejoined her party by the site of the wrecked bridge, she suddenly was seized with a strange desire. “Give me your dagger,” she ordered George. With a puzzled look he handed it to her.

  She unbound her hair and spread it out over her shoulders. It came almost to her waist. “I pray you, cut it off,” she said. She handed the dagger back to him. “I cannot do it myself.”

  “No, Your Majesty! You must not!” said Willie.

  “I wish it done,” she said. “Do as I say.”

  “But—why?” George’s voice trembled with pain.

  “We are pursued. I now know that I can possibly hide myself among the people, but only if I do not look like the Queen. I can do nothing about my height, but this hair—”

  “Your hair is beautiful! You must not destroy it!” insisted George.

  “Why is this hair any better than this bridge? The bridge cannot grow again, and the hair can. I command you—cut it!”

  Sadly George obeyed, hacking off the thick waving mantle that was one of her greatest attributes of beauty. She took the shorn hair and placed it underneath the broken boards and wood of the bridge, covering it carefully. With an oddly resigned look, she climbed back into the saddle.

  See all our offerings, she thought. See our most precious things sacrificed.

  “We will ride for Terregles, my home,” said Herries. “But we must, I fear, take a roundabout way, to avoid the Morton strongholds of Castle Douglas and Threave Castle.”

  “That is of no matter,” said Mary, and she meant it. Without looking back, she turned eastward.

  * * *

  They slept in the fields that night, and then resumed their travel by daylight. However, they were arousing too much curiosity among the farmers and villagers in this more settled area. They decided to rest by day and travel only by night.

  * * *

  Terregles House, near Dumfries, proved hospitable, and at last they were within doors in the Herries stronghold and able to eat. Herries ascertained that the countryside was indeed filled with pursuers, and also received the intelligence that the Archbishop of St. Andrews and other survivors of the royal forces had made their way to Dundrennan Abbey, farther south, on the Solway Firth.

  “It will be safe to go there,” he said. “My son is Commendator of the Abbey. Let us rest here, and then join the others.”

  “Yes,” said Mary. “And whatever their news, I must bear it.”

  * * *

  They approached Dundrennan on the misty morning of May fifteenth—a year to the day from Mary’s marriage to Bothwell. The ancient Cistercian monastery, unlike its brother abbeys in the eastern Borders, was intact. No marauding English armies had come this way, and the arched cloisters and beautiful sanctuary slumbered undisturbed in the lush green valley.

  Mary felt safe here in the embrace of the past. But unlike her aunt Renée’s convent, where she had sought solace in another troubled time, this was but a religious relic. There were no monks here now: the monastery had been secularized, and was in the possession of Lord Herries. Upon bestowing it upon him, the Lords had ordered Herries to demolish the cloisters and church, but he had refused, for reasons of his own. Whatever they were, Mary was grateful for them.

  They were welcomed by Lord Herries’s son Edward, and soon were sitting at a substantial dinner. The fugitives ate quickly, leaving not a single morsel untouched. Simple lamb stew and bread pudding seemed miraculous to them.

  Afterwards, the others who had gathered sought them out. Lord Claud Hamilton related the bitter news: there were more than one hundred dead, mainly Hamiltons, who had taken the worst of the assault in the ambush in the streets of Langside. More than three hundred of the Queen’s men had been taken prisoner, including Lord Seton, who was dangerously wounded as well.

  George Seton! Mary could hardly believe that the brave Seton had been taken. “Oh, my fortunes have run with blood,” she finally said.

  The Laird of Lochinvar had come, and it was from him that she was forced, once again, to borrow clothes. Lord Boyd, who had escaped the carnage, had found his way to Dundrennan, as had Lord Fleming, leaving Dumbarton Castle securely in the hands of his next in command. She fell, weeping quietly, into Fleming’s arms. It was a sorrowful gathering of exiles and broken spirits.

  “This afternoon we will hold a council,” said Mary. “In the old chapter house. Everyone must attend, not just the lords.”

  * * *

  The light was slanting in through the windows, with their delicately wrought stone mouldings, oramented with fleurs-de-lys and leaves, illuminating a chamber of exceptional beauty. It was here, in the chapter house, that the monks had been required to assemble every day for a reading of a portion of their rules, and the Abbot’s seat was just under the central window, with carved wall-seats for the rest of the monks. Sitting in those wall-seats were now about twenty-five of Mary’s people. Mary sat in the Abbot’s seat.

  So we are gathered here, she thought, the last vestiges of my power and position—driven right to the very shores of Scotland, and dressed in rags.

  Yet she had never been prouder of any people, nor felt as beloved as she did in this little company, this last faithful band of followers.

  “My dear people,” she said, “I am aggrieved at what happened at Langside, I mourn those who have fallen, and I am grateful that God in His mercy has spared you and brought you here. But now I must consult with you. What shall now be done? What advice would you give me? Speak frankly.”

  Lord Herries was the first to stand and speak. “Dearest sovereign, this battle is not decisive. You must bide your time and gather strength to fight again. I myself can promise you that you will be safe under my protection here in this district for at least another forty days. That should allow us time to regroup and add the Gordons to our forces.”

  Lord Claud Hamilton now stood. “I must only add that you should retire to a stronger fortress. One that could possibly withstand a siege. Otherwise, I agree with Lord Herries.”

  Mary was aware of eyes fastened on her from all around the wall. They were staring at her short hair. She ran her hand through it, disliking the feel of the bristles. She was probably very ugly. She had not even looked in a mirror. “How can I remain in this countryside, when it is so hard to know who is loyal?” she asked.

  Lord Livingston spoke up. “Your Majesty, it would be better to go to France. There you could gather your forces in peace. You have estates and the income of queen dowager in France, you have relatives there, you are still the sister-in-law of the King, who has always been fond of you.”

  “Never!” cried Mary. “I cannot return as a landless fugitive to the land where I once reigned as Queen! The shame is too great!”

  “But, Your Majesty,” said George, “you love the French countryside, the language, the people. You would recover your spirits quickly, and—”

  “Say no more! I will not hear of it!”

  The faces staring at her were truly shocked. France had been a constant in any scheme, an ultimate safeguard and refuge taken for granted. A few of the men had already looked ahead to make arrangements for going there with the Queen, just in case.

  “Then—what else can there be?” asked George in a soft voice. “You will not stay, nor will you go. Yet you must do one.”

  “I shall go to Englan
d,” she said. “That is the answer.”

  “Your Majesty, no!” cried Herries. “No, on no account! Why would you even think of such a thing?”

  “I am astounded that none of you has ever thought of it. It is so obvious. England is the only country that has supported me during my imprisonment. Elizabeth threatened the Lords, and it was only that, I believe, that spared my life. She has refused to recognize the government of the Regent, or to call James King. She is my true kinswoman by blood, and bound to me with ties of honour.”

  “It is not safe to go to England!” said Livingston. “Have you forgotten that James I was held a prisoner there for twenty-five years? Have you forgotten that your own father did not deem it safe to go? The English cannot be trusted!”

  “Elizabeth is not Edward I or Henry VIII. She is a woman, like myself, once wrongly imprisoned herself. She has shown herself to be my friend in my season of woe. I must trust to the deep conviction I have, which assures me this is the right course of action.”

  “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but you once said the same words about choosing to marry the Lord Darnley! Feelings are not facts!” blurted out Lord Fleming.

  “I am touched by your concern, but I must decide, ultimately, for myself.”

  “Then we must beg you to sign a paper absolving us of responsibility for this decision, and stating that we advised against it!” cried George.

  “Why, if you wish it,” she said, surprised. “There is another thing that perhaps is hard to explain. England and Scotland—the truth is, one day they will be joined under the rule of my son James. I know it, and Elizabeth knows it. It is not as if we were such different countries anymore.”

  * * *

  Mary was watching the sunset on the waters of the Solway Firth, which divided Scotland from England in a broad wedge that narrowed and narrowed and finally came together about forty miles to the east, right near the place where her father’s army had met such demoralizing defeat at Solway Moss.