Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  At her feet the three puppies tumbled and played, happy to be outside. She had named them Soulagement, Douleur, and Souci: comfort, sorrow, and care. They were lively animals, with Douleur being the least sorrowful.

  “I named you Douleur because you were nearly all black,” said Mary, stroking his ears. “But you have a happy nature.” The puppy wagged his tail and began chewing on her sleeve.

  “Pray do not chew,” she said. “My clothes are not easily replaced.”

  She took out her pen, set the inkwell on a rock where she thought the puppies could not reach it, opened the leaves of her book, and began writing.

  May 8, the year of grace 1572. Month of Our Lady. All around me I see the tightly bound leaves ready to unfurl. They have been as tightly bound as I, and have endured the winter, the ice and dark. But I am still bound, and see no summer for me.

  It is five years now since my marriage to Bothwell, almost five years since we parted. I have not received any word from him in a great long while. I believe he is still being held in Malmö; I have written to his mother, old Lady Bothwell, in hopes she has had some word that I have not. I pray for him daily, nay, many times daily, and dream of him often. The dreams are of a faded image now, no longer the white-hot heat that used to come to me in the night. But still alive, still very much alive, no ghost. I try sending my thoughts to him, believing that they somehow pass over the seas and through the stone walls. I know he understands about my attempts to make an honourable escape by means of a promise of marriage.

  I reach out to my throat and touch the diamond that Norfolk gave me, I believed it was my passport to freedom. Now it seems nothing more than a reminder of despair. Pray God Elizabeth continues to spare him. Evidently she shrinks before spilling blood. That is such a novelty to me—has my experience in Scotland tainted me that much? There no blood was sacred, and everyone had a dagger ready to plunge into the man seated next to him at dinner. Even the men of God bay for blood there. Blood is all they understand.

  Without a doubt, I am safer here. They do not assassinate in this land. The only suspected murder is that of Amy Robsart, and that was to clear the way for a marriage. Of course I guard routinely, as all persons do, against poison. But it is more a precaution than anything else. I always plunge the unicorn horn, a powerful antidote against poison, into my food and drink before tasting them.

  I consider myself in mourning, and dress accordingly. I wear only black, relieved by white veils and lace. I am in mourning for my lost throne, my lost husband, my lost freedom. They try to have me dress in colours again, but I will not. Let them see me and be reminded of what they have done to me. Let them face themselves.

  I spend an hour a day in prayer, and have prayers in my household twice a day. Not everyone serving me is Catholic, and the prayers must be acceptable to the Protestants as well; I try to select ones that will speak to us all.

  As for my own private prayer—what a strange journey that has been! I try to keep my appointment with my Lord, so that He cannot reproach me with “Could ye not watch with Me one hour?” But as the months have passed, I found that it is a land of valleys and rifts. There have been four stages through which I have passed. The first was when, my heart so heavy, my mind stunned, my body exhausted, I would keep a formal appointment. Sitting before the crucifix, I would recite prayers, words. The rosary. The Pater Noster. Devotions from my book of hours. God was a distant, fearful personage I would limit to certain areas of my life. I kept my hand on the door and would only open it a little way.

  Each stage has had its crisis, and the crisis here was that after many months this became boring. The appointment with God was so routine and dull that I began to dread it. Gradually I dared to push the door open wider, to become more honest with Him, to tell Him my feelings, even my anger and hatred toward Him. I shared my heart, and my prayers became more simple. Sometimes I was even silent, and just felt His faint presence. For an instant I would actually enter the room.

  Then sinful thoughts, distractions would flash through my mind, and I would have to use words again to bring me back to the Presence. And the Presence, increasingly sweet, was something I desired.

  But along with the sweetness was purity, and in the presence of that purity I began to feel stained. I longed for the love of God—it had become increasingly necessary, increasingly sustaining—but the more I longed for it, the less I felt I deserved it. I became mired in a recital of my own sins and guilts. I remembered not only the actual deeds I had done, but all the things left undone or half done: the things I had failed to value, the people I had failed to comfort or help, the opportunities passed by, the waste I had strewn about me, the gifts I had trampled underfoot. Every good thought or intention I had ever had and failed to act on came back to haunt me. The letter I meant to write to a soldier’s widow, and forgot until too late; the flowers I had meant to have cut and sent to the chamber where the cook lay ill; the time I had promised to pray for someone and had not. Even the blue skies I had failed to pause for a moment and appreciate.

  I was human, but I believed that God expected more than that of me. I compounded my sin by assuming that God wished me to be perfect, and that I had failed. During that time, I had to catalogue all my shortcomings and accept each one of them, hating myself in the process. But one day, miraculously, it stopped. I could stand before God as a human being. I crept all the way into the room and sat silently, immersed in the Presence. It was God who had opened the door and beckoned me closer.

  I sat silently, day after day. It was like sitting in a rainbow. I was drenched in His love, awestruck by it. I scarcely dared to breathe, or even move, because I was so afraid it would disappear—this feeling. I was like a lover, hurrying into the mystical Presence, just as I used to run to Bothwell. And waiting for me, always, was the heart of God, and a seat for me in it.

  And then, one day, He was not there. I crept to my accustomed place and waited, but He did not come. I was abandoned. The door was closed and locked.

  Had it all been a hoax? Was it only my intense longing, my loneliness, my imagination, that had created it? That was the cruellest feeling of all, the greatest betrayal I had ever faced.

  Everyone noticed my sadness. But I could tell no one. They assumed it was because of bad news from Scotland, no news from Scotland, the onset of my rheumatism, the perfidy of Elizabeth. But those things could all be borne if I had my Lover; without Him, all was dark. I had come to depend on Him, and in such a short time. At length I told my confessor, thinking he would be scandalized or puzzled. But no; he was familar with it. He told me that I must put aside my guilt at feeling perhaps I had driven Him away, and simply wait. Wait for the return.

  The weeks were long. But at length He did return, but in a different form. He was no longer a lover whom I met secretly, but diffused all about me, like the deep spring air. For a time everything seemed bathed in the Presence, like the fiery rays of a sunset. Then gradually they faded, and I found myself—back to formal prayers.

  Once again I must ascend the ladder, hoping for that glorious vision at the top.

  Will I ever be free? Is God keeping me here, a prisoner in this world, to purge me for the next? It is true I have had many sins, although the ones that seemed largest now seem smaller, while the smaller loom larger. I can no longer tell which ones require the most penance, which are the most offensive to God.

  She closed her eyes, and breathed deeply. She felt herself to be at the bottom of a long shaft, with the eye of God focused on her.

  VIII

  The Parliamentarians assembled in London; the elected commoners went to their accustomed meeting place of St. Stephens Chapel at Westminster Palace, and the Lords to a hall at the south end of the palace. This Parliament was very Protestant, containing a number of members who belonged to that wing of the Anglican Church now called Puritan. They came, eager to settle the question of the Queen of Scots, the plotting Papist spider in their midst.

  The Speaker of the House, M
r. Bell, addressed the problem in his opening speech. “There is an error which we have noted: that there is a person in the land whom no law can touch.” Member after member rose and spoke his mind about this default.

  “A general impunity to commit treason was never permitted to any,” cried Thomas Norton.

  “Shall we say our law is not able to provide for this mischief? We might then say it is defective in the highest degree!”

  Mr. Peter Wentworth, a fiery Puritan, called Mary “the most notorious whore in all the world.” Mr. St. Leger chimed in with “the monstrous and huge dragon and mass of the earth, the Queen of Scots.”

  Another old Puritan, his voice trembling, stood and let loose. “If I should term her the daughter of sedition, the mother of rebellion, the nurse of impiety, the handmaid of iniquity, the sister of unshamefastness; or if I should tell you that which you know already—that she is Scottish of nation, French of education, Papist of profession, a Guisan of blood, a Spaniard in practice, a libertine in life: so yet this were nothing near to describe her, whose villainy hath stained the earth and infected the air. To destroy her would be one of the fairest riddances that ever church of God had.” He waved his arms wildly.

  “Yea, hear ye her crimes: assuming the arms and title of Queen of England. Arranging a marriage with the Duke of Norfolk without the Queen’s knowledge. Raising a rebellion in the north. Seeking foreign aid from the Pope, the Spaniards, and others, by Ridolfi, in order to invade England. Procuring the Pope’s bull to depose Queen Elizabeth,” another added.

  “Let us cut off her head and make no more ado about it!” said Richard Gallys, a member from New Windsor.

  “Yes!”

  * * *

  A joint committee of the two houses of Parliament visited Elizabeth with their suggestion: that Mary be executed or, at the very least, excluded from the succession, and a bill passed to try her for treason if any other plots were formulated in her name.

  But Elizabeth refused utterly. “Shall I put to death the bird that, to escape the hawk, has fled to my feet for protection? Honour and conscience forbid!”

  The Parliamentarians then presented her with a third demand: that she proceed with the execution of the Duke of Norfolk.

  * * *

  Elizabeth was spending the mid-May afternoon walking through the gardens at Hampton Court, seeing the new-blooming primroses, columbine, and roses, and examining the strawberry beds where her favourite berries came from. Christopher Hatton had mentioned that he would like to lease the estate of the Bishop of Ely at Holborn because—one reason, at least—of the delectable strawberries there.

  “Then I could smother you with baskets of them,” he said.

  “Please! The juice stains,” said Elizabeth. “The Bishop is most reluctant to agree, so I hear. But perhaps I shall speak with him myself.” She smiled at Hatton and he all but swooned.

  Elizabeth had transferred to Hampton Court a few days earlier; now more members of court arrived by twilight, coming up in lighted boats, making stars on the water, laughing and singing. The night air was soft and they strolled toward the courtyards, in no particular hurry to arrive in their quarters. Moths, drawn to their lanterns, flitted with silent wings about them.

  Only Cecil limped up the pathway with urgency, thumping along with his stick. There was something he must show his Queen, something that might induce her to act at last.

  * * *

  “We have recovered this from the correspondence of the Queen of Scots,” he said, extending a piece of paper to her in privacy. “It is a letter to the Duke of Alva—Philip’s general! Oh, it was in cipher, but we have broken the cipher.”

  Elizabeth took it, feeling a terrible dread. She held her magnifying glass over it, and read:

  … and to my most beloved brother Philip, I adjure him to send ships to Scotland to take possession of the prince my son, and bring him to safety. I am closely guarded here in England, and yet I still number many as my friends and allies. There is yet a strong party in my favour, and lords who favour my cause, of whom, although certain ones are prisoners, the Queen of England would not dare touch their lives.

  “So!” she said. “Mary thinks I ‘dare’ not touch Norfolk!” She threw down the letter and kicked it. “Does she not realize it is only through my mercy that he lives, that I fear no one? Am I not the daughter of a king, and have a king’s courage? And have I not spared her out of my own courage?” she screamed.

  Cecil put up his finger to his mouth. “Quiet, Your Majesty. Her spies may be about. Yes, she is bold, and overconfident. The people scream for her execution, and who protects her? You! Yet she does not appreciate it, evidently. Now let me remind you that the Duke of Norfolk has been duly tried and condemned. If you do not allow the sentence to be carried out, the rest of the realm will think as she does: that you dare not. Then they will see you as weak, vacillating, helpless, like Richard II. And then what? Rebellion, sedition, all the things you hope to avoid! For the love of peace, dear sovereign, you must carry through the sentence.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I will not be pushed into anything my conscience mislikes so.”

  “If you hope to save her, then you must yield on Norfolk. It is as simple as that.” His gout was paining him, and he longed to sit and rest his leg. “It is one or the other. Which do you choose?”

  “Neither!”

  “Then read this letter from Knox. It will most like decide your mind. He urges the execution of all, but particularly her. He says”—Cecil extracted the paper and read it slowly—“‘if you chop not at the root, the branches that appear to be broken will bud again.’ She is like a very hardy tree, that can spring up again and again, no matter how it is trimmed back. No matter how closely you have her guarded, no matter how you seek to frighten her, she will always be blooming with fresh treasons and mischiefs in this land. Or rather, inciting others to do so.”

  “There must be a way to stop her, short of killing her!”

  “Nay, Madam. Hear again what Knox has written: ‘Apply the axe to the root of the evil. Until the Scottish Queen is dead, neither the English Queen’s crown nor her life can be in security.’”

  “Knox is redundant.” She shivered. “I thought he was mortally ill.”

  “He, too, is resilient.”

  Just then there was a knock on the chamber door. A basket was delivered, with a note to Gloriana, fair Goddess. Elizabeth opened it, saying, “I trow this is not from Knox!”

  It was from Hatton.

  Dearest, fairest goddess, I send you these to put upon your palate. You yourself are sweeter, richer, and they shall draw from your essence to themselves. Ah! I faint with the thought!

  She handed the note to Cecil, who read it with raised brows. He did not dare laugh at it. The Queen had noticeably brightened.

  It was a basket of strawberries, both the red and white varieties, including some of the tiny woodland type. Hatton must have ventured out in the late afternoon to find them. Elizabeth tasted one and smiled. “These are excellent,” she said, offering them to Cecil.

  They sat silently eating them. Then Elizabeth said, “I will recognize James VI as King. And I will allow the execution to proceed.”

  “Of both?”

  “The Scottish Queen has not been tried and found guilty,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  “Which is precisely why Parliament wants a provision that she be brought to trial if any other plots come about. She must be made to account for her actions! If not this time, then the next.”

  “You are sure there will be a next time?”

  “As of my life.” Cecil sighed and stretched out his swollen, gouty leg. “You heard what Charles IX said: the poor fool will never stop plotting until she loses her head. It bespeaks a lack of intelligence to continue, but prisoners must sometimes do insane things in order to stay sane and give order to their days, which are otherwise meaningless. What has she to do from morning to night? Sew? Pray? Read?”

  “What else had
the monks to do?” snapped Elizabeth.

  “The monks chose their station, and felt they had a vocation for it. Mary has no vocation for being a prisoner—all her actions in trying to escape show that.”

  “She had no vocation for being a monarch, either. That was evident from the moment she returned to Scotland to rule. Poor thing—does she have a vocation at all?”

  “Many talents, many gifts, but perhaps no vocation,” agreed Cecil. “But the omens this year—the comet that appeared—everyone agrees that some catastrophe may occur in England. It is, most like, some treason to overthrow you! It is only May—”

  “A comet!”

  “Remember the comet in 1066, that foretold the Norman invasion. Do not scoff!”

  “You sound like an old country woman, Cecil. For shame! Nay, I have decided what to do to stop the Scottish Queen. I will allow the casket letters to be published. All that trash she wrote to her lover, Bothwell—let the whole world see it and judge her! Along with it, Buchanan’s A Detection of the Doings of the Queen of Scotland. Then no one will want to elevate her. Until now the letters have been privately circulated, and only in England and Scotland. But now—let French and Latin translations be published, too, so the common people in every land can know what she is! The common people: Knox’s new-found weapon. Well, others can use it as well!”

  “Your Majesty! That is brilliant!” Cecil smiled for the first time since coming into the chamber. “But are you sure? It is still a gamble. In your own way, you are more daring than even she is. She has nothing to lose, having already lost all. You have much to lose, if by ignoring the sound advice and warnings of your people and Council, you let the Bosom Serpent live—and she strikes!”

  Elizabeth laughed. “The Bosom Serpent! Walsingham is clever with words.” She opened her windows wide and looked out. “I see no comet.”