Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  Shrewsbury sighed. He did not know whether to hope she came, or hope she did not.

  * * *

  The warm springs of Buxton were held to cure an array of illnesses, from rickets to weak sinews, from ringworm to “hypochondriac winds,” but were most known for the soothing of aching limbs. The waters here were not scalding hot, as were the ones at Bath, and so were more attractive to the infirm. They gushed from deep springs into a covered bath house with marble seats built all around the pool, so that the patients could sit and soak in the waters for two or three hours, while their clothes were being aired. In addition to this the cure-seekers were to drink the waters obtained from St. Anne’s well, starting out with three pints a day and working their way up to eight pints; the various prescribed courses were fourteen days, twenty days, and forty days.

  After leaving the waters, and dressing in his freshly aired clothes, the patient was expected to exercise. The stronger men could hawk, shoot, and bowl; sicklier men and all women must confine themselves to a gentle version of bowling that involved a board with slots.

  Men at court like Cecil, who were unable to attend at that time, drank from barrels of Buxton water specially sent down for medicinal purposes. Dudley, too, was a devotee of the waters.

  * * *

  They arrived, and Mary was helped from the carriage into her quarters in the new four-storey hostelry that could accommodate thirty people, owned by Shrewsbury. In truth, Bess owned Buxton itself, and had established a schedule of fees to be collected from the patients; half was to be given to the poor, and the other half paid to the resident physician on duty there. There was a buzz of voices; the lodge was a busy place and a centre of activity. The buzz turned into silence as the Queen of Scots made her way through the common rooms and up to her apartments.

  She was relieved to get to her rooms. She had hated the staring; for the first time she was hideously aware of how she must appear to others now: stooped, infirm, older than her years. It was a novel, unwelcome feeling. She had always taken her grace and allure for granted, until now, when it had abruptly vanished. Perhaps it would be better if she had not come.

  First my reputation is ruined by the printing of the casket letters, then my faith is besmirched by the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, next my cause is wrecked by the final fall of Edinburgh, and now even my last possession, my beauty, has been snatched away in the common mind, she thought. I do not mind losing it so much for myself, but as a spur to action. People are more likely to help a beautiful poor prisoner than an ugly poor prisoner. And … if ever I see Bothwell again, I do not want him to see me ugly.

  She looked at her reflection in the glass of the windowpanes. From a distance, and in the wavering glass, she still looked fetching. But she knew that in the light of day, and close up, she was no such thing, at least not in the eyes of strangers.

  * * *

  Mary put on her white bathing robe and gingerly made her way to the edge of the pool. She stuck her foot in it, and found it to be pleasantly warm and caressing, so she eased herself down and took her place on the underwater bench. The waters lapped up around her shoulders; gentle steam rose and settled in a mist on her face. Her ankles and knees, so swollen in the mornings that sometimes she could hardly bend them to arise, now began to tingle and loosen in the warm, circulating streams. She extended her legs to flex the muscles, which often had spasms and became stiff. She sighed and put her head back.

  There were only a few other bathers there that morning—an old woman with a skin affliction of some sort, a man who looked swollen with dropsy, and a thin boy who kept wheezing with asthma. They looked at her with eyes dulled with pain and did not seem to recognize in her anything but a fellow sufferer.

  After her bathing, and her slow walk within her own quarters, and a light supper—for the regimen imposed a semi-fast—she was put to bed with two pigs’ bladders filled with hot water, so that she might sweat. The heat had already proved therapeutic; her limbs had relaxed their tightness. And her headaches had ebbed away.

  Shrewsbury stopped in to see her, but she begged him to excuse her for not leaving her bed.

  “God forbid I should interrupt Your Majesty’s treatment, for which we have journeyed here!” he said. “I see that you are smiling; are you in less pain?”

  “Indeed I am. I do believe I may be cured here.”

  “Here is some news to lighten you further. I have just received word that Her Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth is nearby at Kenilworth, only some sixty miles away.”

  “Sixty miles!” Mary said. “The closest we have ever come!”

  “You may come closer yet,” he said. “She plans to journey afterward to Chartley Castle, only thirty-four miles from here. And then, perhaps—to Buxton itself.”

  “Here? Then I may, at last, meet her face to face?”

  “It is possible, Your Majesty. Entirely possible.”

  Elizabeth! To meet her now—and in this condition!

  “I pray it may be so,” said Mary.

  “It is in the hands of the gods—specifically the pagan ones Robert Dudley has summoned to meet him and his Queen at Kenilworth.”

  XII

  The Faerie Queen was passing through the outer courtyard of Kenilworth, beneath the azure-painted astronomical clock in Caesar’s Tower, when delicate, angelic voices began to sing of her divine beauty. Elizabeth—attired in such stiff and shining brocade that she could not turn in the saddle, encased in an armour of cloth-of-gold, pearls, and precious stones, her head framed by a starched ruff that stuck up like a lacy sail—looked up to see a young boy, dressed as Cupid, suspended by a gold-painted rope over the clock’s face. He was touching the hands, stopping the clock.

  “For you, O Gloriana, fairest Virgin Queen, time shall stand by and cease to run, whilst you are here amongst us!” chorused the voices.

  “You see, my beloved?” said Robert, riding beside her. “Even Time is your obedient and adoring subject.”

  She smiled and continued on her way in to her quarters. It was twilight, a drowsy summer twilight, and she had come at last to Kenilworth, dear Robert’s monumental estate in Warwickshire, “the navel of England.” She had given it to him, as was her prerogative to present it to her favourite, ten years earlier. But although she knew that he had enlarged it and made many alterations, she had never journeyed to see it. Now she was to be his guest—she and three hundred of her courtiers on progress with her—for the lengthy period of seventeen days. He had promised that she would leave the ordinary world behind and enter one that he had created especially for her.

  “You will not be disappointed, my heart,” he had said. “Only come and do me the honour of setting foot in my world!”

  He had met her when she was still seven miles away, feasting her and her company in a golden tent so large it took seven carts to haul it away after it was dismantled. They had hunted, using bow and arrow, all the way to Kenilworth. Then, as Elizabeth had approached the artificial ornamental lake, a lighted “island” had floated up, and riding on it was a Nereid, who called, “I am the lady of this pleasant lake. Come, refresh yourself!”

  A sibyl beside her, dressed in a floating white gown, prophesied, “Health, prosperity, and felicity to Your Majesty!”

  And suddenly trumpeters of superhuman size, dressed in Arthurian costumes, blared out a fanfare from the ramparts.

  “The legend is that this was one of King Arthur’s castles,” said Robert. “And so our lake must have a lady, too.”

  Guns blasted out a salute, and then Elizabeth passed over a temporary bridge, guarded by Hercules and other gods and goddesses stationed at each of the seven pillars: Jupiter, who promised due season and fair weather; Luna, who promised to shine nightly; Ceres, who promised the malt for beer; Bacchus, full cups everywhere; Aeolus, to hold up winds and keep back tempests; Mercury, the entertainment of poets and players, and Diana, good hunting. From the huge windows on the new addition, light flooded out and illuminated the outdoors, l
ike a gigantic lantern.

  Elizabeth turned to Robert as the clock hands were being stopped. “If only we could command it so!” she said.

  “Believe it!” he urged.

  But she could look over at him and see that he himself was touched by time. His youthful suppleness was being replaced by a certain hardening of his form; his face was often red, and his gorgeous red-brown hair was thinning and fading. My Robert, she thought. If it were truly in my power, I would keep time’s hands from holding you.

  They passed indoors, and Elizabeth was astounded at the gleaming wooden floors, the high ceilings, the huge gallery, a Turkey carpet at least fifty feet long with delicate blue background. Everywhere the eye could see, there was light; crystal candlesticks glittered by the hundreds.

  “This is … truly enchanting,” she finally said. She had never built any palaces herself, and so none of her royal dwellings were this modern, with the huge windows, wide staircases, and galleries the size of a London street.

  “It was all built just in hopes that you might glorify it for one instant,” he said.

  And she knew that, in one sense, this was true.

  * * *

  It was the height of summer, July, with heat simmering on the horizon, and each leaf on the trees still and covered with dust. All of time did seem suspended, even the seasons themselves: summer trembling on its very apex, pausing just to breathe in and out before descending into autumn. Ripeness pervaded the air, the feeling of vegetation being at its prime, its greenest, its fattest, its heaviest.

  Every day there were diversions and entertainments in the beguiling Country of Nowhere that Robert Dudley had created. There was dancing in the enclosed garden, an acre of fragrant flower beds, with obelisks, spheres, and a marble fountain with figures of Neptune and Thetis that squirted people roguishly. A classic temple abutted the garden, its pillars painted to look like precious stones, and a net enclosing it turned it into an aviary where exotic birds from Europe and Africa sang and preened.

  There was hunting in the chase, of the hart and red deer. As they returned, they were met by Wodwose, a wild man of the forest, covered all over with leaves and moss, who uttered praises to the Queen.

  There was a special play reenacting the raids of the Danes on East England hundreds of years earlier. There was one day devoted to “country pleasures,” with a mock “bridal party,” a morris dance, running at the quintain. There was a ferocious bear-baiting with thirteen bears and packs of mastiffs. One day was set aside for “queenly ceremony,” in which five men were knighted and the Queen touched nine sufferers of the “king’s evil” to cure them of their scrofula.

  In the evenings there were banquets, including one that featured more than three hundred different dishes, followed by fireworks displays that not only lit up the skies but hit the waters of the lake without being extinguished, so that the waters glowed. There was a masque by Gascoigne, and an Italian contortionist who seemed to have no human backbone at all, but to be made only of cords.

  The most stunning and elaborate event was a water pageant depicting “The Delivery of the Lady of the Lake,” and involving a mermaid with a twelve-foot tail, and Triton and Arion, who rode to the rescue on an unusual dolphin: one that had a choir and orchestra inside. As Arion approached the Queen, mounted on horseback, he climbed to the very top of the dolphin’s back and began to recite his piece.

  “O fairest, O rarest,” he cried. “O Goddess Divine!” Then there was a long pause. The mermaid made signals to him. But Arion just stood there, until at last he growled and ripped off his mask. “I am no Arion, not I, but just honest Harry Goldingham!” he said.

  The Queen roared with laughter, and pronounced it her favourite entertainment.

  * * *

  The seventeen days were over, and the royal party was making preparations for leaving. Even the weather had obeyed their desires, and nothing rough or unpleasant had intruded, as Jupiter had promised.

  Elizabeth’s master of the household had already been sent ahead to Chartley, the home of the Earl and Countess of Essex.

  “It will be the farthest north I have ever gone,” said Elizabeth, “although it is still only a hundred and twenty miles from London.”

  “And where after Chartley?” asked Hatton. “Will you proceed even farther north?”

  “Perhaps.” There was Buxton, about thirty-five miles north of that. Buxton—where the thermal waters were. And Mary, the Queen of Scots.

  I could go there, see her at last. It would not be the same as receiving her in London, at court. It could be impromptu, unrehearsed, just an afterthought in a packed itinerary.… If I saw her, perhaps at last the spell would be broken, and she would be just a woman to me, not a symbol.

  I will sleep on it, she thought. And I will decide as I ride out tomorrow.

  The next morning, as the party passed out across the bridge with its sad gods and goddesses bidding farewell, and as Cupid released the clock hands to start them moving again, Elizabeth looked out at the high towers of Kenilworth, and felt as if she were leaving Camelot.

  Sylvanus, god of the woods, emerged from the rows of trees, and began reciting verse to express his unhappiness at losing them, promising to double the number of deer and make a continual spring in the gardens if only she would never leave. From an arbour of holly at the end of the avenue, a character proclaiming himself Deep Desire, a messenger from the Council Chamber of Heaven, begged them to stay.

  Underneath his costume Elizabeth could see that he was a husky local man, probably a farmer or a smith. She remembered Harry Goldingham, and his red-faced embarrassment at playing Arion and forgetting his lines. Perhaps it was best not to gaze too closely on legends.

  “I will not be going farther north,” she suddenly said to Hatton.

  She would not go to Buxton, no; Mary was better left ungazed upon.

  XIII

  Sten hated helping his grandfather make his rounds of chores in the courtyard of Dragsholm. They were all unpleasant: shovelling manure, feeding the mastiffs and mules, checking underneath the gallows for weasels and snakes. But his family had always been in charge of maintaining the courtyard, and someday he, too, would take over this task.

  The smell of the nearby sea was especially strong this morning, with a brisk wind coming off the water. It was April, and the skies were piercingly blue. The land was awakening from its winter sleep, and the already plowed furrows gave off the characteristic odour of fresh-turned earth that promised so much. As he tramped around the courtyard, Sten was glad, at least, that he worked outdoors. How dreadful it would be never to go outside, to have to do all your work in a room, at a desk, like a schoolmaster or an engraver or a moneylender. Or not to do anything, but just be there …

  “Grandfather, is this the morning we feed the prisoners?” he suddenly asked. That was the worst task of all. He hated shoving the wooden plates in under the doors and hearing the scuffling as someone reached for it.

  “Yes, shortly we will do it. Tell the cook to ready the portions, cut the bread in chunks.”

  The prisoners got bread, ale, and the leftovers from the garrison mess.

  * * *

  An hour later Sten trudged along behind his grandfather, holding a stack of filled plates. Before each door—thick and heavily locked and bolted—there was a tiny slot just wide enough to allow a plate to pass through. “Food!” his grandfather would yell, and the old plate would be passed out and the new one shoved through. Sometimes they would hear muttering, and see the bony fingers on the rim of the plate, but they never saw any faces. There was a very small peephole in each door, so that they could check the whereabouts of the prisoner and never be taken by surprise should it become necessary to open the door, but they did not look in otherwise.

  There was one prisoner, though, whom they had to behold. This one lived in the dungeon, and his plate had to be lowered by rope and then pushed with a pole over to where he could reach it. It was utterly dark down there, and the kee
pers also had to lower a lantern in order to see. The man, chained to a thick post, had gradually turned into an animal in the five years he had been there. Sten thought he remembered a time when the man was dressed in regular clothes and spoke normal words; but then, Sten had been only four or five years old himself then, and perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps they were not real memories at all, but only portions of a story he had been told.

  But now the man was stark raving mad, his grandfather said, and had long been so. He was all overgrown with hair, like an ape, and slobbered and growled and ground his teeth. Sometimes he howled, throwing back his head, but usually he was silent, restlessly walking to and fro in an endless half-circle around his post, the extent of the length of his chain. The base of it was steeped in his own filth, but he had worn a track in it with his feet. Back and forth, back and forth … Whenever the lid was lifted in the ceiling of his cell, and light came in, he would flinch and cover his eyes from the brightness. His eyes seemed to have become filmed and all but useless, but still he would stop and look upward at the light. He was naked; his original clothes had long since rotted and dropped off, and he had not seemed to understand how to put on the replacements that Sten’s grandfather had brought. The clothes had lain in a heap near the man and eventually the rats made nests in them, before shredding them and carrying them off. His nakedness was not so obvious beneath all the hair and filth, but Sten always stared at his private parts, which were visible and still looked like a human’s.

  Now, this morning, Sten’s grandfather tugged at the stone covering of the opening and got it up, while Sten lit the lantern and prepared to lower it. He let it down slowly, expecting a howl to come in response, as it usually did. But there was silence. Then he attached the rope to the plate and lowered it. He stuck his head through the opening to aim the pole at the plate, and saw the man slumped by the side of the post, unmoving. He rattled the pole against the plate to try to get his attention.