The True Life of Mary Stuart: Queen of Scots

by John Guy

  Cecil’s fear when Maitland reappeared in London was that if Mary, frustrated by the setback she had received over the canceled interview, now looked for a European husband, her claim to the English throne would once again become her principal asset over and above her own country. It was likely to attract large numbers of potential suitors, even those who already wore a crown. The greatest danger would be if the pope or Philip II backed her claim, because a papal bull declaring Elizabeth to be illegitimate would be tantamount to inciting English Catholics to revolt. Since even Cecil acknowledged that the official Protestant Reformation had barely scratched the surface in the north of England or Wales, a papal or Spanish intervention was greatly to be feared. A majority of the English people were still Catholics. Moreover, the norms and values of nobles and landowners were tied to the rules of hereditary descent where property rights were concerned, and very few outside Cecil’s inner caucus would have agreed that religion should take priority over property rights when considering the succession to the throne.

  Mary reshuffled her inner circle of advisers in readiness for her search. It marked the end of Moray’s period of ascendancy. Mary was disillusioned with her half-brother. His policy of a middle way had failed, and she began to suspect that he had plotted Huntly’s destruction for his own ends. He was the sworn enemy of the Gordons, their rival for the earldom of Moray with its extensive territorial estates. While Elizabeth and Cecil had been delighted by Mary’s sudden and unexpected disabling of the leading Catholic family in Scotland, they did nothing to reward her. On the contrary, even as Maitland rode south, Cecil was experimenting with drafts of a parliamentary bill to exclude her from the succession.

  In January 1563, Mary took Maitland aside. She told him she was making him her leading councilor. She had almost completely forgiven him for his earlier intrigues with Cecil. Although a genuine Protestant, and thus a man with very different religious ideals from her own, he was so far proving himself to be a friend of the monarchy. His sense of duty made him willing to see himself as a royal servant, which in turn made him more valuable to Mary than was Moray, whose blunt but annoyingly regal manner she was fast coming to resent. She also judged her illegitimate brother to be too manipulative and ambitious to live up to his promises. Moreover, Maitland’s friendship over many years with Cecil might now be turned to her advantage.

  Mary allowed Moray to drift. She decided to promote the wily and conniving Morton to the chancellorship in place of Huntly. She had not yet plumbed the depths of his villainy. Although a Protestant, Morton was too venal and lascivious to be an ally of Knox and the Calvinists. She knew that he had rebelled against her mother, but his contribution had amounted to little. By advancing him, Mary hoped to be assured of the loyalty of the powerful Douglas clan and at the same time provide a counterweight to Moray, who was likely to resent his demotion.

  Mary was starting to assert herself as queen. She was attempting to control the noble factions by creating a broad coalition of advisers, which would enable her to take a tougher line with Elizabeth and Cecil, since she would have wider support throughout the country than before. To help create this coalition, she asked Maitland to recommend some new appointments to the court and Privy Council. They included Catholics like Atholl as well as Protestants like Lord Ruthven, which corresponded to Mary’s aim of nurturing ideals of royal service and loyalty to the crown that transcended sectarian divisions.

  Mary acted next to raise her stock in Europe. She wrote two letters, both at the end of January. One was to the Cardinal of Lorraine, the other to the pope. She asked her uncle to intercede with the pope on her behalf. Exactly what he was to say was not committed to paper, but the aim was clearly to make Mary more attractive as a prize for Catholic suitors. To the pope she accounted herself “your most devoted daughter,” whose uncle would explain “the stats: of our affairs” and “the need which we have of the assistance and favor of Your Holiness.”

  On February 13, Maitland set out for London and Paris, armed with parallel sets of instructions. The first related to a position Mary had adopted over the French Wars of Religion once English troops had landed in Normandy. She had offered to act as an independent arbitrator. This was clearly a nonstarter and may well have been a diplomatic blind. Elizabeth was too committed to the Huguenots to consider arbitration at this stage, and the war was going too well for Catherine de Medici to wish to settle.

  A second set of instructions concerned the debates in the English Parliament. Should the succession be discussed to Mary’s detriment, Maitland was to insist on a right of audience to register a protest in which her claim was set on record. This, although far from a blind, was unrealistic, because Parliament was in no mood for it. Cecil had taken care to ensure that as many Protestants as possible were elected, then lined up his friends to speak. Sir Ralph Sadler, who as Henry VIII’s former ambassador had admired Mary as an infant even as he was duped by her mother, delivered what was; tantamount to a racial attack: “Now if these proud, beggarly Scots,” he said, “did so much disdain to yield to the superiority of England . . . why should we for any respect yield to their Scottish superiority, or consent to establish a Scot in succession to the crown of this realm?”

  Maitland’s final instructions, delivered to him in March by courier, required him to negotiate first with Alvarez de Quadra, Bishop of Aquila, the Spanish ambassador in London, and then with Mary’s relatives in France, to propose a marriage to Don Carlos, Philip II’s son and heir. This was what Mary was after. It had been the match so keenly sought by the Guise family after Francis II’s death, frustrated by Catherine de Medici’s secret diplomacy. Then Mary’s interest had been negligible as she made her own plans to return 1:o Scotland. Now she had decided to revive the negotiations, winning support from Maitland, who could see that without exerting pressure on England, there was little hope that Elizabeth would reopen Mary’s case. He was also under the illusion that Philip II was a religious pragmatist, taking as his cue Philip’s well-known reluctance to support Man? Tudor’s burning of the Protestants while he had been married to her. Whether for manipulative reasons or because of a misunderstanding over Philip’s stance, Maitland glossed over the problems of religion, arguing that the Calvinists would not resist Don Carlos. He chose to believe that Philip, although a Catholic, was not a Catholic ideologue. He and his son would be willing to accept the religious status quo, because he was a “wise politic prince” who governed the many territories under his control “according to their own humor.”

  Maitland visited de Quadra, who wrote enthusiastically to Philip. “If Your Majesty listened to it,” he explained, “not only would you give your son a wife of such excellent qualities . . . but you also give him a power which approached very nearly to [universal] monarchy.” To his existing dominions, Philip would add through his son the entire British Isles and Ireland. From the outset, the bait was Mary’s dynastic claim, exactly as Cecil feared.

  Maitland put his queen’s position in a nutshell. Her rebuff over the postponed interview required her to restore her honor and reputation by seeking “such a marriage as would enable her to assert her rights.”

  De Quadra was flattered and delighted. He had assumed that Mary would try to marry her brother-in-law Charles IX. He was unaware of Catherine de Medici’s outright opposition to that idea, and Maitland did nothing to disabuse him. On the contrary, Mary’s new chief councilor actively hinted at the prospect of a second Valois marriage to create the illusion of a competition.

  Maitland’s first report to Mary, sent from London, recounted de Quadra’s belief that Don Carlos, who was now almost eighteen, was “very far in love” with her. His second report, written a month later from Chenonceaux, where he was following the French court, was more gloomy. He had heard from the cardinal, who had sent a strongly worded letter meant for Mary. The signs were not good. Her Guise relatives, noted Maitland, had little regard for her declared wishes or feelings. They paid attention to her only because of her “
grandeur” as a reigning queen, from which they derived their own “advancement and surety.” Or, to put it simply, they would help their niece only to the extent that they first helped themselves.

  As to Catherine de Medici and the nobles, they “care not greatly of your marriage or with whom it be, provided it bring with it no peril to this crown.” It was a reaction as cold as it was cutting, reflecting Catherine’s unrelenting concern after Francis II’s death to keep Mary at a distance. A marriage to Don Carlos, said Maitland, was opposed as vigorously as before by the Queen Mother. Her own daughter Elizabeth was still childless as queen of Spain, and however much she longed for Philip II’s support against the Huguenots, Catherine did not intend to hand him a claim to the English throne on a plate.

  In England, Maitland continued to Mary, there were “three factions”: the Catholics, the Protestants, and the queen. Elizabeth, while remaining single, wanted Mary subordinated to a man in such a way that she herself “had least cause to stand in fear.” The Catholics, for whom Lady Margaret Douglas, the Countess of Lennox, was fast becoming a mouthpiece, insisted on a Catholic marriage, one that would put Elizabeth under maximum pressure. The Protestants also wanted Mary to marry for religion, but to someone who would defend the Protestant cause.

  Anticipating the reaction of the lords in Scotland, Maitland believed that “albeit the best part” would support Mary, there would be “divers malaperts,” notably Knox’s allies, who would vehemently speak out against Don Carlos.

  The Cardinal of Lorraine had demanded an answer to his letter within six weeks, which Maitland thought unrealistic. As he had discovered, the Guise family were in no position to antagonize Catherine de Medici while both were engaged in a bitter war against the Huguenots. The Guises had performed a turnabout and decided that Mary should not marry Don Carlos. They proposed instead an alliance with Archduke Charles of Austria, with whom Mary’s uncle was already negotiating behind her back.

  It was an unwelcome twist. The archduke was the third son of Ferdinand I, the Holy Roman Emperor. In principle highly suitable for Scotland—he had a reputation for being a moderate rather than an extreme Catholic—his main disadvantage was that he was already a candidate for Elizabeth’s hand, for which reason Mary rejected him, as she did all other suitors except Don Carlos.

  The cardinal decided that Mary was doing too much thinking for herself. He was apprehensive about his niece’s growing independence, so sent Philibert du Croc to Edinburgh as his special envoy in May. Du Croc had arrived by the 15th, and Mary was closeted with him for days. Their talks were private and were accompanied by a flurry of dispatches to Maitland and the Guises. Randolph saw du Croc as a threat: “She useth no man’s counsel but only this man’s . . . and assuredly until Maitland’s return, she will do what she can to keep it secret.”

  Du Croc, however, left empty-handed. Mary would decide nothing until Maitland returned, and despite the envoy’s best endeavors, he merely obtained her thanks and a request for further information about the archduke’s personality, income and the dowry he would offer.

  This was largely diplomatic froth, and when Maitland reached Edinburgh on June 24, he found more urgent matters in his in box. Some reports of Mary’s marriage plans had leaked, and Knox was on the prowl. As Maitland had predicted, the influential preacher would do all he could to stir up resistance to Mary’s betrothal to a Catholic.

  Knox’s imagination was in full flight, leading to a spectacular showdown. Preaching as the representative of the Kirk before the same session of Parliament that declared Huntly’s embalmed corpse guilty of treason, Knox attacked Mary’s proposed marriage.

  She summoned him to Holyrood the same afternoon. “I have,” she exclaimed, “borne with you in all your rigorous manner of speaking, both against myself and against my uncles; yea, I have sought your favors by all possible means. I offered unto you presence and audience whensoever it pleased you to admonish me; and yet I cannot be quit of you.” Her voice quivering with rage, she threatened, “I shall be once revenged,” and burst into tears of self-pity. Knox began to justify himself, but Mary jumped straight to the point: “What have ye to do with my marriage?”

  He replied that since so many of her nobles were flatterers, neither God nor the commonwealth were “rightly regarded.” At this, she once more demanded: “What have ye to do with my marriage?” And “what are ye within this commonwealth?”

  Knox’s bile was up. “A subject born within the same, madam. And albeit I neither be earl, lord nor baron within it, yet has God made me (how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the same.”

  He then proceeded to repeat everything he had said in his sermon, prophesying that if Mary married a Catholic, the realm would be “betrayed” and she would end her days in sorrow. One doubts whether any other ruler in the sixteenth century was so roundly rebuked.

  Mary was speechless. No longer was she able to measure up to Knox in a quarrel. He had broken every convention of political speech, every rule of courtesy, because although she was an anointed queen, he addressed her as an equal and even a moral inferior. She always found it hard to suppress her emotions. This time she was overwhelmed and simply “howled.”

  Knox waited while she dried her eyes, then compounded his offense. He declared he had never much liked weeping and “can scarcely well abide the tears of my own boys” when he beat them. Since, however, he had spoken the truth and Mary had “no just occasion to be offended,” he must endure her tears rather than offend his conscience or “betray my commonwealth through my silence.”

  At this final affront, Mary ordered him out of the room. She had reached a crossroads. For the moment, she had no choice but to bide her time. She saw clearly what was at stake. She had read the First Blast of the Trumpet in which Knox had explained that a Catholic “idolatress” was by simple definition a woman guided by hot and uncontrolled outpourings of passion instead of cool reason.

  Knox was a fanatic, a misogynist and a prude. He had devised his own rudimentary theory of the psychology of female Catholic rulers. Because they were idolatresses like Jezebel or Athalia, they ruled from the heart and not the head. Their idolatry was inflamed by their sex. They had set reason aside, since if they had been governed by reason, they would have long ago converted to Protestantism. It followed that Knox equated Catholicism in a woman with unbridl ed sexual lust. It would not be long before he would be accusing Mary of the crimes to which she must automatically be prone merely because she was a Catholic and not a Protestant.

  This was the foundation of the stereotype that Mary ruled from her heart, unlike her cousin Elizabeth, who always ruled from the head. Since Elizabeth was a Protestant, Knox exempted her from his vicious attacks on female rulers. Unlike Mary, she was a queen “by a miraculous dispensation of God.” It is clear where some of these ideas came from, since on this point Knox followed Calvin’s opinion that female monarchy deviated from the “proper order of nature,” with the exception of those special women who would be “raised up by divine authority” to be the “nursing mothers” of the Protestants.

  No impartial witness of Elizabeth’s cavorting late at night in her bedroom with Lord Robert Dudley while his wife was still alive could have compared her favorably to Mary at that stage. Knox had embarked on a strange sectarian fantasy. Starting from his belief that Mary was an idolatress who attended her Mass in secret, he came to malign her as a femme fatale: a manipulative siren whose moral defects and unfitness to rule were evident from her dancing, banquets and flaunted sexuality.

  Soon he was convinced he had unearthed a scandal. It was centered on Pierre de Bocosel, Seigneur de Chastelard, a poet on the fringes of the Pléiade. Mary had admitted Chastelard to her service, and he had written some poems for her to which she had unwisely responded in the tradition of courtly love. It was an innocent gesture, but the poet fell madly in love with her. The night before Maitland left for London, Chastelard hid under her bed, where he was discovered with a s
word and dagger. He was banished, but followed Mary to Fife, entering her bedroom again, only two days later, while she was undressing. This time he was tried for treason. On the scaffold, he delivered a fine rendition of Ronsard’s “Hymn to Death,” after which he cried out, “Adieu, the most beautiful and the most cruel princess in the world.”

  Chastelard had an obsession, but Knox blamed Mary for leading him on. The charge was leveled by the time of Maitland’s return and linked to Mary’s love of dancing late into the night. “In dancing,” he claimed, “the queen chose Chastelard, and Chastelard took the queen.” She would rest her head on his shoulder, “and sometimes privily she would steal a kiss of his neck.”

  Knox’s charge of sexual transgression was a travesty. In reality, Mary had been so terrified by the poet’s appearance in her bedroom, she refused for months to sleep alone and would not retire for the night unless Mary Fleming, the chief of her four Maries, slept in the same room.

  Once Maitland was back home, he sought to neutralize Knox by denying plans for Mary’s marriage. This was strictly true: there were negotiations but no wedding plans. It was a splitting of hairs worthy of Knox himself, but the preacher continued to subvert Mary, exploiting the jealousy that had arisen between Moray and Maitland, and attempting to bind himself to Moray, who was out to court as much popular support as he could.

  The events of 1563 put a considerable strain on Mary. She was already becoming estranged from her uncles when suddenly she was hit by a report of the Duke of Guise’s assassination. The duke, returning from a routine inspection of his army near Orléans on February 18, was shot three times in the shoulder and died a few days later. His assassin was a Huguenot, who under torture implicated the Protestants in his crime. Mary was devastated. Although the Cardinal of Lorraine had been her mentor, the duke was her favorite uncle.