Royal Road to Fotheringhay

by Виктория Холт

  “My children, my children,” said the Queen softly, “it is not a time to weep. You should rather rejoice to see me on a fair road of deliverance from the many evils and afflictions which have so long been my portion.”

  They did not answer her; and her thoughts traveled back to that road along which she had come. So many years ago it had been since she had said good-bye to her lover. Twenty years! And she had not seen him since that day. He had become but a memory to her, a memory that was both sweet and bitter.

  Life had been little kinder to him than to her. He had escaped to Denmark, but not to freedom. Anna Throndsen had forgotten the love she had once had for him and had sued him in the courts for money she had given him in the past. Mary’s family, the Guises, would not allow a man who had ruined their niece to regain his freedom. They had arranged with Denmark that he should be imprisoned in the Castle of Malmoe, and there he had spent ten weary years. He had died at length, of melancholy, it was said; half mad with frustration, he, the strong man, confined within four walls would dash his head in very desperation against those walls; he too had been glad to die. And before he had died he had written a confession declaring her innocent of Darnley’s murder although he himself had played a large part in it. That confession had brought great comfort to Mary in Chatsworth—where she had been imprisoned at that time—for it brought with it a vivid reminder of that immense strength which was without fear. Poor Bothwell! Poor lover, who had once believed the world was his to conquer and subdue. Ambition had ruined him as certainly as passion had ruined her.

  But that was all long ago, and there was no need to dwell upon it, for soon she would be past all earthly pain.

  Memories of Lochleven came to her—of George and Willie Douglas who had loved her and sought to help her escape from her prison. It came back to her in clear brief pictures: Lochleven where she had been forced to sign her abdication and had known that her son had become the King of Scotland; Lochleven where she had given birth to twins—hers and Bothwell’s—stillborn and so tragically symbolic; Lochleven from where she had all but escaped dressed as a laundress, and had been betrayed because a boatman had seen her beautiful hands which could never have belonged to a laundress. But it was at Lochleven that George and Willie Douglas had loved her and had determined to give their lives if need be for her sake, so that eventually, with their aid she had escaped, but alas! only to Langside and utter defeat at the hands of her brother Moray’s troops.

  She had known then that her only hope was flight from Scotland, but where could she seek refuge? She must be a fugitive from her own land; her son was lost to her, brought up by her enemies to believe the worst of her; her own brother was determined on her defeat and offered her nothing but a prison or death.

  Could she go to France? she had asked herself. She thought of her family there. But France was ruled by an evil woman, a woman who had never shown herself to be Mary’s friend. How could she throw herself on the mercy of Catherine de Médicis?

  There was only one to whom she could appeal for mercy—the Queen of England; and so for more than eighteen years she remained the prisoner of Elizabeth. She had asked for hospitality and had been given captivity. And during those years there had been one subject which had always been raised when her name was mentioned: the subject of the Casket Letters.

  She often thought of those letters, which had been read by all the important people of England and Scotland; the whole world discussed them. There were some who declared they were the actual letters and poems Mary had written to her lover; others insisted that they were forgeries. If they were authentic, then Mary was exposed as an adulteress and murderess; if they were false, then Mary’s story remained a mystery which none could ever solve. The testament of tortured men could count for little. Such confessions gave satisfaction to none but those who extorted them, and were worthless.

  How clear it all became when she looked back on it. Moray, Maitland, Morton—they were the leaders and they were determined to destroy her. They would show her to her subjects as a murderess and adulteress, for only thus could they rouse the people against her.

  Those men, who had certainly been more deeply concerned in the murder of her husband than she had, now banded together and self-righteously sought to force her—with Bothwell—to take all the blame. It was necessary to their policy that she and Bothwell should do so; they had sought to write her epitaph for her own generation and all generations to come: Mary Stuart who was involved with her lover in her husband’s murder for the sake of an adulterous passion.

  Would they succeed? How could she know? She could only hope that after she was dead there would be those who sought to sift the truth from the lies and at least do her justice.

  “Oh God,” she prayed aloud, “have mercy on me. The thief on the cross was forgiven; but I am a greater sinner than he was. Have mercy on me in this hour of my death as You had on him.”

  Would her story have been different, she wondered, if Geordie Dalgleish had not produced the silver casket? Would it have been possible for her to return to her country and reign as its Queen, but for those incriminating letters?

  Geordie had been arrested when all Bothwell’s servants had been taken up and tortured with the object of making them confess that Bothwell and Mary—and they alone—had been responsible for Darnley’s murder.

  Geordie had been Bothwell’s tailor and, as a servant of the Earl, suspect. Perhaps to curry favor with his tormentors he had shown them the silver casket which he said had been found beneath his master’s bed.

  Those revealing sonnets were exposed to the world. She had written to her lover of her innermost feelings; and now the whole world was reading what she had written for his eyes alone. She had written letters to her lover, and those letters must have conveyed her great passion for him; but she surely had never written those cruel words, those brutal words, which were said to have been penned while she sat by Darnley’s bedside!

  How angry she had been, how shocked, how humiliated! She had wept tears of rage when she had heard that the poems and letters were being publicly read; but now even that seemed of little moment.

  In those early days of captivity her hopes had been high. She had been taken from prison to prison—from Carlisle to Bolton, Tutbury, Coventry, Chatsworth, Sheffield, Buxton, Chartley and finally to Fotheringhay.

  Buxton held a bittersweet memory for it was at Buxton that the last of her Marys to be with her—Seton—had come near to marriage with Andrew Beaton.

  A sad little story theirs had been. Mary Seton had had one great love in her life and that was for her mistress and namesake. Of the four Marys Seton was the one who had loved the Queen best. Andrew Beaton had fallen in love with the quiet and gentle Seton and had spent seven years trying to persuade her to leave her mistress. Mary had watched them and had longed to see her faithful Seton happily married, as she knew she would have been with such a man as Andrew. Why should Seton spend her life in captivity because her mistress must?

  Seton made excuses. She would not marry. She had solemnly vowed herself to celibacy. She would never leave her mistress.

  But the Queen wished to see the love story brought to a happy conclusion against the grim background of her prison. It had been a pleasant occupation, during the long evenings, to plan for those two.

  It was her idea that Andrew should go to Rome to have Seton’s vow nullified. Andrew had left, and what a sad day it had been for her as well as for Seton when the news had come of Andrew’s sickness and death.

  So Seton’s vow was not broken and Seton remained with her mistress seven years after the death of Andrew; but by that time Seton herself was in danger of dying, for the cold and damp of the prisons she shared with the Queen had affected her health so severely that Mary had to command her to go away and save her life.

  “I must bear these hardships,” Mary had said. “But there is no need for you to. I would rather have you living away from me, dearest Seton, than staying here a little longer t
o die.”

  So Seton had at last been persuaded, but only when she was too sick for argument, to go to Mary’s aunt Renée at the Rheims convent. How overjoyed Mary would have been could she have accompanied her! But not for Mary was the seclusion of the nunnery; she must endure her damp prisons. She had come near to death through rheumatic fever and, after a miraculous recovery, was often attacked by such pains that she could not walk for days at a time.

  And at last she had come to Fotheringhay. There were only a few more hours left to her in this last of her prisons before she passed on to another life.

  The long weary years had gone; but many of them had been filled with hopes. There had been suitors for her hand. Norfolk was one, and he had lost his head because he had become involved with her. Did she bring bad luck to those who loved her? Don John of Austria was another. He was dead now—some said he died by poison.

  There had been many plots which had filled her with temporary hopes; plots with Norfolk, the Ridolfi plot, and, last of all, the Babington plot.

  IT WAS six o’clock on the morning of February 8, 1587.

  Turning to her women, Mary said: “I have but two hours to live. Dry your eyes and dress me as for a festival, for at last I go to that for which I have longed.”

  But she had to dress herself—her women’s fingers faltered so. They could not see her clearly for the tears which filled their eyes.

  She put on her crimson velvet petticoat, her green silk garters and shoes of Spanish leather. She picked up her camisole of finest Scotch plaid which reached from her throat to her waist.

  “For, my friends,” she said, “I shall have to remove my dress, and I would not appear naked before so many people who will come to see me die.”

  She put on her dress of black velvet, spangled with gold, and her black satin pourpoint and kirtle; her pomander chain was about her neck, and at her girdle were her beads and cross. Over her head she wore white lawn trimmed with bone lace.

  “Watch over this poor body in my last hour,” she said to her weeping women, “for I shall be incapable of bestowing any care upon it.”

  Jane Kennedy flung herself on her knees and declared that she would be there to cover her dearest mistress’s body as it fell.

  “Thank you, Jane,” said Mary. “Now I shall pray awhile.”

  She knelt before the altar in her oratory and prayed for the forgiveness of her sins. “So many sins,” she murmured. “So many foolish sins….”

  She prayed for poor Anthony Babington who had given his name to the plot which had finally brought her to this … a young man in her service who had loved her as so many had done. Poor Anthony! He had paid the price of his devotion. He had suffered horrible torment at Tyburn, that crudest of deaths which was accorded to traitors.

  And now she herself faced death.

  She took the consecrated wafer which the Pope had sent her, and administered the Eucharist herself—a special concession from the Pope which had never before been allowed a member of the laity.

  Then she prayed again for courage to face her ordeal, and remained on her knees until morning dawned.

  TOO SOON they came to take her to the hall of execution.

  She rose from her knees but she found it difficult to walk without aid, so crippled with rheumatism were her limbs.

  Her servants helped her but, when she reached the door of the gallery, they were stopped by the Earls of Shrewsbury and Kent and told that the Queen must proceed alone.

  There was great lamentation among her servants, who declared they would not leave their mistress. Mary implored the Earls to grant her this last request.

  “It is unmeet,” said the Earl of Kent, “troublesome to Your Grace and unpleasing to us. They would put into practice some superstitious trumpery, such as dipping their handkerchiefs into Your Graces blood.”

  “My lord, you shall have my word that no such thing shall be done.”

  Finally the two Earls gave her permission to take with her as escort, two of her women and four of her men. She took sir Andrew Melville, Master of her Household; Bourgoigne, her physician; Gourion, her surgeon; and Gervais, her apothecary for the four men; and the two women were her beloved Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie.

  As she was assisted slowly and painfully down the staircase to the hall, she saw that Andrew Melville was overcome by his grief.

  “Weep not, Melville,” she said. “This world is full of vanities and full of sorrows. And fortunate I am to leave it. I am a Catholic, dear Melville, and you a Protestant; but remember this, there is one Christ. I die, firm in my religion, a true Scotswoman and true to France. Commend me to my sweet son. Tell him to appeal to God and not to human aid. Let him learn from his mothers sorrows. May God forgive all those who have long thirsted for my blood as the hart doth for the brooks of water. Farewell, good Melville. Pray for your Queen.”

  Melville could not answer her. He could only turn away while the uncontrollable sobs shook his body.

  Into the hall of death she went. Melville bore her train, and Jane and Elizabeth, who had put on mourning weeds, covered their faces with their hands so that only their shaking bodies betrayed their grief.

  Mary saw that a platform had been set up at the end of the hall. A fire was burning in the grate. She saw the platform, covered with black cloth; she saw the ax and the block.

  She reached the chair—also black-covered—which had been provided for her, but she could not, without aid, mount the two steps to reach it.

  As she was helped to this, she said in a clear voice: “I thank you. This is the last trouble I shall ever give you.”

  The death warrant was read to her. The Dean of Peterborough pleaded with her to turn from the Catholic Faith while there was yet time. To both she preserved a dignified indifference.

  The moment of death was drawing near. The executioner was, in the traditional manner, asking her forgiveness.

  “I forgive you with all my heart,” she cried.

  Looking about her she prayed silently for courage. It was not her enemies who unnerved her. It was Jane Kennedy’s quivering body, Elizabeth Curie’s suppressed sobbing, Andrew Melville’s tears and the sad looks of the others which made her want to weep.

  Her uncle, the great Balafré, had once told her that when her time came she would know well how to die, for she possessed the courage of the Guises.

  She was in urgent need of that courage now. Her two women had come forward to help her prepare herself. She kissed them and blessed them, but they could do little to help her remove her gown; their fingers trembled, but the Queens were steady. She stood calm and brave in her camisole and red velvet petticoat, while Jane Kennedy fumbled with the gold-edged handkerchief which she tied over her mistress’s eyes.

  Now Mary was shut away from the hall of tragedy; she could no longer see the faces of those who loved her, distorted with grief; she was shut in with her own courage.

  Jane had flung herself at her mistress’s feet and was kissing her petticoat. Mary felt the soft face and knew it was Jane.

  “Weep not, dear Jane,” she said, “but pray for me.”

  She knelt there on the cushion provided for her, murmuring: “In thee, Lord, have I hoped. Let me never be put to confusion.”

  Groping, she felt for the block; the executioner guided her to it. She laid her head upon it saying: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

  Bulle, the executioner, hesitated. This was his trade; his victim had forgiven him, knowing this; yet never before had he been called upon to wield the ax for one who affected him so deeply with her grace and dignity.

  Every eye in the hall was upon him. He faltered. He dealt a blow. There was a gasp from the watchers, for the ax had slipped and though the blood of Mary Stuart gushed forth, she was merely wounded.

  Trembling, Bulle again raised his ax; but his nerve was affected. Again he struck, and again he failed to complete his work.

  It was with the third stroke that he severed the Queen’s h
ead from her body.

  Then he grasped the beautiful chestnut hair, crying: “God save Queen Elizabeth! So perish all her enemies.”

  But the head had rolled on to the bloodstained cloth which covered the scaffold, and it was a wig which the executioner held up before him.

  There was silence in the hall as all eyes turned to the head with the cropped grey hair—the head of a woman grown old in captivity.

  And as they watched, they saw a movement beneath the red velvet petticoat, and Mary little Skye terrier, who unnoticed had followed his mistress into the hall, ran to the head and crouched beside it, whimpering.

  The silence was only broken by the sounds of sobbing.

  The Queen of Scotland and the Isles had come to the end of her journey—from triumph and glory to captivity, from joy to sorrow, from the thrones of France and Scotland to the ax in the hall of Fotheringhay Castle—and to peace.

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