Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  Mary unfolded it and reread it carefully. The men were most likely young, with their whole futures before them, like Anthony himself. “Who for the zeal they bear unto the Catholic cause…” How had young ones even maintained loyalty to the old religion?

  It is different with me, Mary thought. I was brought up Catholic, instructed in the faith when it was not only allowed but expected. I now must maintain the faith because I am a visible symbol of it. But for a young person to embrace it, at a time when it is outlawed! I blush to compare their faith with mine.

  And that they do this in fear and with misgivings … “undertake that tragic execution.” They see it as tragic, not good, not an adventure. And it would be tragic. Murder is always tragic, and those who maintain otherwise are lying to themselves. I am glad they would see it as tragic, otherwise they would be no better than the Lords in Scotland, who saw killing as a sport.

  Of course I will not agree to it. I cannot. But if I did—what justification would I have?

  She got up and began to walk about her chamber, nervously fingering her rosary.

  To begin with, she told herself, I have been detained here illegally. I have tried every means, over the years, to gain my liberty. I begged Elizabeth for a private hearing, I asked to be heard by Parliament. I laid aside my royal prerogative and submitted to the degrading “York Hearings” when first I arrived. I tried to marry my way out of prison, only to have my betrothed executed. I have watched my sympathizers and co-religionists hounded out of the country, likewise imprisoned, even executed. Only then did I turn to foreign help, begging for relief from France and Spain. The French discarded me and the Spanish merely toy with me. If this time they are in earnest, then…?

  She sighed. Of course she would not do it. Of course she would not lend herself to this plot. But what if Anthony went ahead with it anyway, assuming that once the deed was done, she would bless it? Youth will not wait, or it is not youth, she reminded herself.

  The list of Elizabeth’s perfidies, when enumerated like that, was stunning. I came into this country to begin with because she promised to help me! thought Mary. How could I forget? But Elizabeth has hardened her heart against me, like Pharaoh. What was it Scripture said about Pharaoh?

  Mary called for Father de Préau. He would know. Was there, perhaps, some spiritual principle here that she should follow? Perhaps assassinating Elizabeth would not even be a grave sin. What about the fact that the Pope’s secretary had said, “Since that guilty woman of England is the cause of so much injury to the Catholic faith, there is no doubt that whosoever sends her out of the world with pious intention of doing God service, not only does not sin but gains merit, especially having regard to the excommunication sentence passed on her by Pius V of holy memory.” What could he mean by that? Certainly Anthony’s friends would be acting in “pious intention.” He says it is for “the zeal they bear unto the Catholic cause.”

  Father de Préau had arrived. He looked curious to see what she had wanted, and surprised to see her pacing so rapidly.

  “Ah, my dear, you must have improved. I have not seen you walking so vigorously in many months.”

  She stopped, shocked. She had not even noticed how fast she was moving. He was right. Then she realized why: she was excited, and strength was flowing back into her. “Yes, our prayers have been answered,” was all she said. “Good Father, do you have the Scriptures that tell the story of Moses in Egypt?”

  “Why—yes. Shall I fetch them?”

  “Please.” When he went to get them, she continued her thinking. Would this be a sin? Or was it merely a clever test?

  “Here, Your Majesty,” said Father de Préau, a bundle under his arm. “It is most inspiring that you wish to pursue this. So many never venture beyond the Gospels and Epistles. Now, as to Moses and Pharaoh … let me see.…” He put the volume down on a table and searched. “Here, in the Book of Exodus … yes. The Lord says, ‘I have seen all that hath befallen you in Egypt. And I have said the word to bring you forth out of the affliction of Egypt.… But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go, but by a mighty hand. But I shall harden his heart, and he will not hear you: and I will lay my hand upon Egypt and will bring my people out of the land of Egypt, by very great judgements.’ Is that what you wished to know?”

  “Yes. Read me about Pharaoh’s heart being hardened.”

  “Hmmm. ‘And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, so that neither this time would he let the people go.’ ‘And his heart was hardened, and the heart of his servants, and it was made exceeding hard.’ ‘And the Lord said to Moses: Pharaoh will not hear you.’”

  “Yes!” said Mary. “It is all true! ‘His heart was hardened, and the heart of his servants’—Cecil, Paulet, Shrewsbury!—‘and it was made exceeding hard.’ ‘Pharaoh will not hear you.’ I wrote her once, saying, ‘Be not like the serpent that stoppeth his ears,’ and begged her to hear me. But no!”

  Father de Préau closed the Scriptures. “Please do not excite yourself. It is merely the old, old story of Moses—”

  “It is more than that!” cried Mary. “More than that!”

  And I will bring my people out, by a very great judgement. Great judgement indeed! she thought. But of course I will never agree to it. Never.

  * * *

  She was alone, before the crucifix. It was very late and the household was sleeping. Mary had insisted to her ladies that she wished to be completely alone for her devotions. Now she knelt in front of the crucifix that had seen her through so many decisions, and spoke softly to it.

  “I offer You what has been offered to me,” she whispered. “Young Anthony Babington wishes to free me from this prison, and he has found friends who are willing to risk their lives to achieve it. Just think—what bonds of kinship and blood have failed to call forth, this person is willing to undertake. Did You—is it possible that You sent him to begin with, to my very household? I know that You have the ordering of all things under Your mighty hand. He appeared in Shrewsbury’s house as if he were sent. Yet I cannot believe it would be right for me to agree to such a scheme. You have said, in the very commandments, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

  She bent her head down and rested her forehead on her arms. “Help me,” she prayed. But she no longer expected a direct answer, as she had long ago. She knew the crucifix, and God, and herself, so much better than that now.

  * * *

  Lying in bed, she tried to sleep. Idly she turned her wedding ring on her hand, the ring that Bothwell had put on her finger so very long ago. Bothwell … Would he let scruples stand between himself and freedom, when those holding him had sinned in doing so? She did not even have to answer the question. Bothwell would be ashamed of her for lying here so still, for meekly turning aside the offer, for obediently following Elizabeth’s stingy dictates. Once I was as brave as he, she thought. What did he call me? “Heart of my heart, bone of my bone, spirit of my spirit, we cannot be held.” Yes, he died in prison, but only because he had made a daring escape from another prison. Only the harshest dungeon could hold him, whereas I sit here in a chamber saying, “I dare not, I dare not!” Prison has robbed me of my courage.

  She turned over, her heart heavy. Thinking of Bothwell and how she was betraying his memory of her was painful.

  Perhaps I owe it to him, and to my loyal supporters, she thought wearily. James has abandoned me, but there are others who have not.

  Suddenly she did not feel so old and outworn. She had not been entirely forgotten. Perhaps she was more than just a scarecrow wearing a crucifix, standing guard in a barren field.

  She closed her eyes. She would not have to answer the letter for days. In the meantime …

  * * *

  The letter was waiting for her in the morning; indeed, it had not even waited until morning, but had invaded her consciousness even as she slept. She had dreamed of it, of its tantalizing words, of Anthony, grown now to manhood. Flashing images of England’s proud young men like the Earl of Essex and Sir Ph
ilip Sidney, fighting in the Netherlands, were superimposed on another secret band of equally daring young men. Not everyone had answered Elizabeth’s call to take up the Protestant banner; other battlefields still beckoned, commanding loyalty.

  She found that the interval of sleep had given her a fierce longing for action—the first action that had been possible in years. Swept away were the hours and days of patient praying and resignation that had enveloped her so comfortably and felt so natural; resurrected was the old self that she had thought long dead.

  Yet she knew the letter for what it was, a mirage and a temptation. Desperately she threw herself on her knees before the little altar and begged to be prevented from yielding to it. Never had she felt more acutely the two sides of her own nature: the spiritual, which sought to transcend the limitations of the earthly, and the natural, strong and vital and unable to die except when the heart actually stopped beating.

  The letter was visible, folded neatly on her desk nearby. She could see it out of the corner of her eye. She focused more intently on the crucifix.

  “So, as Saint Paul said, I find this law at work,” she whispered, “when I want to do good, evil is right here with me. What a wretched woman I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

  She buried her face in the soft velvet of the prie-dieu.

  Rescue me from this body of death.

  That is what this letter is about. One way or another, it will rescue me from this body of death. My summons has come at last.

  * * *

  She found Nau’s mood to have changed from enthusiasm to caution overnight.

  “My friend,” she said, strangely calm, possessed of an otherworldly resolution, “this is a timely offer. I am minded to give myself to it.”

  The little Frenchman, his pointed beard neatly combed, shook his head. His beard did not quiver, so oiled was it. “No, Madam, I have misgivings.”

  “Yesterday you were enthusiastic.”

  “But in the night, other thoughts came to me. All these plots have failed. This one is no different from the others.”

  “With this one exception: this one specifies the death of Elizabeth.”

  “Yes, and that is what gives me pause.”

  “In truth, all the others would have had to come to that,” said Mary. “For Elizabeth would not be contented to retire to the country. Queens do not; I myself am all the example one needs of that. I do not wish her death, but I do wish my freedom. Pray take my answer, and take it now.”

  “Very well.” Nau seated himself to take the dictation she would give in French, the language she always used best for expressing herself.

  Mary stood beside him, and began reciting in a mechanical voice, “‘Dear Friend, with all my heart I give you leave to act in my name, and will endeavour to direct your proceedings. As to my rescue, there could be three means of it: the first, as I am taking the air on horseback on a plain between this place and Stafford, where few people are ordinarily met, some fifty or sixty men, well armed and mounted, might come and seize me.… The second is to come at midnight and set fire to the barns, stables, and outbuildings.… The third is that when the carts, which generally come very early in the morning, arrive here, you could join them in disguise.…’”

  Her detailed plans tumbled forth without rehearsal, making her realize that she had been forming them, hidden from her vigilant conscience, for some time already. She was startled, almost frightened, by their completeness.

  Nau was writing furiously. At length he said, “Perhaps, Madam, it were best not to be specific. Do not reply to their plans; ignore them, as you have similar ones in times past. What if it is a trap?”

  “This may be my last chance; sooner or later Paulet will discover the secret post, or the brewer will decide to stop helping us,” she said.

  “But it is unwise to commit yourself in writing this way!” he protested.

  “Pray continue,” she said firmly. “‘When the troops have landed from Spain, affairs being thus prepared, and forces in readiness, both outside and inside the realm, then shall it be time to set the six gentlemen to work, taking order, upon the accomplishment of the said design, I may be suddenly transported out of this place.’”

  She stopped and caught her breath. Set the six gentlemen to work. It sounded so businesslike, like carrying a litter. Or a coffin. Were there not always six pallbearers to a coffin?

  Nau was clutching his sleeve. “My hand trembles to write it,” he said.

  “My heart trembles to think it,” she answered. “But to continue. ‘Now since there can be no certain day appointed for the accomplishment of the said gentlemen’s design, so that others may be in readiness to take me from hence, I would that the said gentlemen had always about them, or at least at court, four stout men furnished with good and speedy horses, to come with all diligence as soon as the said design shall be accomplished, to inform all who have been appointed for my rescue, before my keeper can have knowledge of the execution of the said design, or time to fortify this house.’”

  “Why do you keep saying ‘said design’?” asked Nau, his voice trembling. “Do you think that will fool anyone? Or save yourself if our enemies read it?”

  “I know not what else to call it. I will not say … the word,” she said. “But I do not wish it to take place! Perhaps I can be rescued without it, and I must lay out those plans as well. Continue: ‘Do not allow any English uprising to take place without the support of foreign help, neither stir without having first made sure I am safe, either taken from my prison, or safeguarded there by a good army. Otherwise the Queen would simply capture me again, incarcerating me in some hole from whence I should never come forth again. And she would persecute with the utmost extremity all who had assisted me in my escape, which I should regret much more than any ill that might befall me myself.’”

  “Now you are confusing them,” said Nau. “First you say Elizabeth must be killed first, then you say you must be rescued first. Which way will you have it?”

  “The way fate will have it!” she said, about to scream with the torture of it. “Whatever way fate will go—I know not—her death or mine, or neither, or both—”

  “Then, Madam, you are better off not replying at all, or returning a vague answer. This tells them nothing, but tells your enemies everything,” he said sternly.

  “I care not!” she burst out. “I care not! Let my enemies take me, I give them leave, only this must be ended, I cannot go on like this, a living death, my punishment is too great! Welcome, therefore, my ultimate misfortune!”

  Nau rose. “I will send for Father de Préau. You are speaking now of suicide; it is a mortal sin to bring about your own death in despair.”

  Mary grabbed his arm. “I forbid you to go. I am not contemplating suicide, nor am I in despair. This is my last decision, the decision that ends all others for me, and thereby I embrace my fate. I embrace Fate like a lover. All my life, Fate has wished to be my lover, and tried to govern me. Now I turn to submit to his embraces.”

  “To reply to this letter is the utmost folly,” he said.

  “My friend, it is not folly, but a gamble. But it is a gamble I am willing to take, for, no matter what happens, I shall be the victor. If I am freed, then I shall rejoice. And if I am caught, tried, and executed, then I shall also be free, and shall rejoice. I will be no more a prisoner!”

  “But, good Madam, your loyal supporters—”

  “I owe this to my loyal supporters. They are willing to die for me; they are brave indeed. Shall I not be equally willing to die for them, and witness to the truth—the truth that I have been held here not because of what befell Darnley twenty years ago in Scotland, but because of my faith and my royal blood?”

  “Do not give in to this temptation!” said Nau. “I beg you!”

  She felt calm, delivered from fear. She knew this was what she must do, and she knew it in the part of herself that was beyond words or thinking. “Give the letter to Curie and have it cipher
ed. Make it ready to go out with the brewer next time.” She burst into tears of relief.

  XXV

  The letter was taken by Nau to the page; the page took it down to the cellar and inserted it into the secret box on July sixteenth, the day the brewer was due to return. That afternoon the empty barrel was rolled out and put on the wagon, and driven out of sight of the castle. Then the brewer dismounted and retrieved the letter. Paulet and Phelippes were waiting nearby, and took it.

  By nightfall Phelippes had deciphered it. He sat grinning. It was all over. He drew a gallows mark on the outside of his translation. Walsingham would appreciate the humour.

  Suddenly he had an idea. It would be convenient to have the names of all the conspirators spelled out by the unfortunate Babington. An expert forger, he had no difficulty in adding a postscript to the original letter:

  I would be glad to know the names and qualities of the six gentlemen to accomplish the design, for it may be that, upon knowledge of the parties, I shall be able to give you some further advice necessary to be followed therein; as also, from time to time particularly how you proceed; and as soon as you may, for the same purpose, who be ready, and how far every one privy hereunto.

  He handed it over to Arthur Gregory, his accomplice; Gregory was a genius at breaking open sealed letters and resealing them without trace.

  Phelippes leaned back in his chair. Time to start rounding up the conspirators; they had served their purpose. They only had to wait for Babington to reply, and even that was not really necessary, just an extra touch.

  * * *

  Walsingham had known it would be difficult, but not this difficult. He had presented his evidence to the Queen, deferentially. He had expected her to be sad; he himself was depressed by his own success. Just once he wished that when he thought the worst of someone, he would be proved wrong. But it never worked that way.