The Captive Queen of Scots

by Виктория Холт

  But they had no pity. How much could a man endure?

  He did not know. There was only one thing that mattered. He must stop the pain.

  A man was shouting: “Norfolk . . . Lesley . . . .” And he could not believe that was his voice betraying secrets he had sworn to preserve. Water was placed at his lips. It was cool and soothing.

  “There,” said a voice, “you are wiser now. It was foolish of you to suffer so much. Now . . . tell us what the letters contained . . . and there shall be no more pain.”

  But there was pain. He felt he would never be free of it. Someone touched his disjointed limbs and he screamed in agony.

  “We must know more, you understand.” The voice was gentle yet full of meaning. “The letters were for Norfolk and the Bishop of Ross . . . and others. You shall tell us all. But first, what were their contents?”

  He did not answer.

  “There’ll have to be another turn of the screw,” said a voice.

  Then he was screaming: “No . . . No . . . I will tell all. It is Ridolfi. The Pope . . . the King of Spain . . . . Alva will come . . . .”

  He was moaning, but they were bending over him soothingly.

  THE EARL AND COUNTESS of Shrewsbury came to the Queen’s apartment and, as soon as Mary looked into their faces, she knew that they had grave news.

  She asked all her attendants to leave her, and when they had gone she cried: “I pray you tell me without delay.”

  “The conspiracy with Ridolfi, of which Your Majesty will be well aware, has been discovered.”

  “Ridolfi?” repeated Mary.

  “Norfolk is in the Tower. Lesley is there also. There have been many arrests. You have not heard the end of this matter, Madam.”

  “But . . . ” cried Mary, looking appealingly at Bess, “this is disastrous.”

  “It would indeed have been, Your Majesty,” retorted the Countess, “if this plot had succeeded. It is difficult to know what will come out of it. But we have new orders from Her Majesty.”

  Mary was trying to concentrate on what they were saying. Norfolk in the Tower! Ridolfi! This meant that Elizabeth had discovered that the King of Spain and the Pope were endeavoring to interfere in English politics.

  But I never wished for this, she was telling herself. I never wanted to harm Elizabeth. All I asked for were my rights . . . my own throne . . . to have my son with me . . . to bring him up as my heir. I never wanted to interfere with the English.

  Norfolk! For her sake he had been trapped into treason against his Queen. And the penalty for treason . . .

  She dared not contemplate what the future might hold.

  “The Queen’s immediate orders,” went on Bess, “are that you shall remain in these rooms and not on any pretext whatsoever leave them. Certain of your servants are to be sent away from you. You are to have no more than ten men and six women.”

  “I will never send my friends away,” cried Mary.

  Bess shrugged her shoulders. She was shaken, angry with herself and with Shrewsbury. Here was a pretty state of affairs with a conspiracy of this magnitude going on under their noses, and they knowing nothing of it.

  This would be the end of Norfolk—of that much she was certain. Would it also be the end of Mary Queen of Scots? That might well be, for if it could be proved that she was involved in a plot against Elizabeth she had indeed earned the death penalty.

  It was imperative that the Shrewsburys should be able to prove their innocence.

  Bess had rarely been so shaken. They lived in dangerous times and Shrewsbury could be a fool on occasions—particularly over his beautiful Queen—so that Bess had to think for them both.

  “Your Majesty would do well to select the sixteen you wish to keep with you,” she said tartly. “If you do not, it will be for us to select them for you.”

  Shrewsbury said almost gently: “Your Majesty will understand that you are in grave danger.”

  Mary said impatiently: “I have been in grave danger ever since I sought refuge with your mistress.”

  “But never,” warned Shrewsbury, “in such danger as you find yourself at this time.”

  “Come, come,” said Bess, “it is useless to commiserate with Her Majesty. If she is involved in plots against our Queen, she knows full well the risks she runs. It would be well if Your Majesty made your own selection . . . and that with speed; for I must warn you again that if you do not, it will be made for you.”

  She signed to Shrewsbury and together they left the Queen. Mary immediately called for Seton who from the ante-room had overheard what had been said.

  Seton said nothing. There was no need for words.

  Never in all her life had Seton felt such fear for her mistress.

  THERE WAS DEEP MELANCHOLY in the Queen’s apartments.

  “How can I choose from all those I love so well?” asked Mary again and again. “How can I spare one of them!”

  Bess came in. She treated Mary with disapproval in the presence of others, but when they were alone she allowed a little sympathy to show. Secretly she thought Mary a fool . . . surrounded by fools. So many attempts and not one successful! Bess was thankful that they were not. She was anxious that none should be able to say that she had given any help to the Queen of Scots. Small wonder that Shrewsbury’s health suffered through this task of his. There could be none more dangerous in the kingdom than guarding the Queen of Scots.

  “Your Majesty,” she said coolly, “if you will not decide who of your servants are to go and who to stay, the Earl and I will have no alternative but to decide for you.”

  With tears of wretchedness in her eyes Mary turned away; but still she could not bring herself to make the choice.

  WILLIE DOUGLAS stood before her, all his jauntiness departed. He was one of those who were to leave her.

  Willie looked bewildered; he could not believe that he was to go. Mary took him in her arms and kissed him.

  “Oh Willie, never will I forget . . . .”

  “Your Majesty,” said Willie, “we must get you out of that wicked woman’s hand. We must get you back to Scotland where you belong.”

  “You will go to Scotland, Willie?”

  A shadow of the old grin crossed Willie’s face. “They’ll be remembering Lochleven up there, Your Majesty. They’ll cut me into collops if they catch me.”

  “That must never happen. Go to France with George, Willie.”

  “I’ll not let them get me, Your Majesty. I’m going to bring you back to your throne, remember.”

  “Oh, Willie, how can I bear this! How can I! You and so many whom I love to be torn from me! Be assured though that the life you hazarded for mine will never be neglected while I have a friend living . . . .”

  When Willie had left her, Seton led her to her bed and there they lay together, weeping silently—Mary thinking of all those who had risked their lives to be with her; Seton wondering what the future held for them.

  UNABLE TO LEAVE her rooms in the castle, left to the care of only one or two of her ladies—for those servants who remained were not allowed to come and go as they once had—Mary’s melancholy turned to sickness, and once again those who loved her despaired of her life.

  Her French physician, who had obtained special permission before he was allowed to visit her, was in despair because he had no medicines with which to treat her. In desperation he implored Cecil, recently created Lord Burleigh, to lift the ban which prevented him from treating the royal invalid. Burleigh—shocked by the Ridolfi plot which was being slowly revealed through the torturing of Norfolk’s servants and others involved—did not answer the physician’s request; and when Mary wrote to the French ambassador asking for his help, the letter was intercepted by Burleigh’s spies and this too brought no relief.

  “If they would but send a little of the ointment which relieves Your Majesty’s spasmodic pains, that would be something,” mourned Seton. “I would I could acquire a little cinnamon water and confiture of black grapes.”

&nb
sp; “What is the use?” answered Mary wearily. “They have determined to kill me, and if I die what they will call a natural death, so much the better from their point of view. There is one request I will make though, and perhaps Elizabeth will answer this: I shall ask her to send me a priest, for I believe I shall soon be in dire need of his services.”

  She was so weak that she could scarcely write, and she hoped this would be apparent to Elizabeth when she received the letter, and that her heart would be touched.

  It was some days later when she believed that this had come about, for a priest came from the Court of England to visit her.

  When she heard that he was in the castle she begged that he be brought to her at once; and when he arrived she held out her hand and prepared to greet him warmly.

  The priest bowed coldly, and there was no pity in his pale ascetic face as he looked at her, so wan, so helpless in her sickbed.

  “It pleases me that you have come,” she said. “I have need of your services.”

  “I came from my Sovereign Lady Elizabeth,” he told her, “not to act as your priest and confessor but to bring you this.”

  He held out a book which she eagerly grasped.

  The priest retired from her bedside and took his stand by the window; and she believed afterward that he had been commanded by his mistress to watch her reactions and to report on them.

  She stared in dismay at the book, for it was one written by her old enemy, George Buchanan, and in it, set down in the coarsest terms, was the fictitious account of her life since she had come from France to Scotland. In this book she was said to be a murderess and adulteress.

  And this was what Elizabeth sent to her when she was asking for a priest!

  Then she remembered. This was the man who had been appointed her son’s tutor.

  She knew that her life was in danger, but she could only think of young James in the hands of the foul-minded Buchanan. Already he would be teaching James that his mother was an adulteress and a murderess.

  Never had she been so miserable as he was now, lying in bed at Sheffield Castle holding Buchanan’s coarsely written libel in her hands.

  BESS CAME to Mary’s chamber.

  “How fares Your Majesty?” she asked.

  Mary shook her head. “You find me low in health and spirits,” she answered.

  Bess approached the bed and picked up Buchanan’s book. She snorted with disgust. “I will burn this without delay. I do not care to have such filth under my roof.”

  Mary smiled. There were times when Bess’s presence was a great comfort to her.

  “I come to tell you that the Earl has left for London,” she said. “We have Sir Ralph Sadler here in his place.”

  “But why so?” asked Mary alarmed.

  Bess ignored the question for the moment. “You need have no fear. I shall not allow him to trouble you if you do not wish to see him.”

  “I have little wish to see him. He is no friend of mine.”

  “I myself will come to you whenever you wish it,” said Bess.

  “Thank you. I trust I shall welcome you often. But tell me why the Earl has left for London.”

  Bess had wandered to the window and, as she spoke, looked out and not at the Queen.

  “That he may preside in his duty as Lord High Steward at the trial of the Duke of Norfolk.”

  There was silence in the chamber. Then Bess turned and came to stand at the Queen’s bedside.

  “I pray,” she said—gently for her, “that Your Majesty is not too deeply involved. They took Lesley, as you know, and I heard that when faced with torture he confessed all.”

  “All!”

  “You,” replied the Countess shrewdly, “will know better than I how much that was.”

  Mary suddenly began to shiver. She said quietly: “It may be that they will send for me. It may be that my next prison will be the Tower of London. You should not grieve for me, for one prison is very like another.”

  “I should not care to see Your Majesty conveyed to the Tower. That could have terrible implications.”

  “I know that you think it is one short step from the prison to eternity. Perhaps that is so. But if that is my fate, so be it.”

  Bess felt impatient with such an attitude, yet even she was touched with pity. If there was anything she could have done to comfort the Queen, gladly would she have done it. But the only thing she could think of was to keep Sir Ralph Sadler from her apartments until the return of the Earl. This she would do by her own constant attendance on Mary.

  She had no wish, of course, for Mary to think she approved of plots against the Queen of England; but during that period of dread and fear, Mary and Bess were closer in friendship than they had ever been.

  * * *

  IT WAS A BLEAK JANUARY DAY when Seton came into the Queen’s apartment, her eyes red with weeping.

  “Well?” asked Mary. “But I have no need to ask you. He has been found guilty.”

  Seton bowed her head.

  “It is what we have been fearing these last weeks,” said the Queen. “I suffer torments, because it is for my sake that he is brought so low.”

  Seton shook her head; she wanted to cry: Nay, it was his own ambition which has brought him where he is. Instead she said: “You must not reproach yourself. All he did was of his own free will.”

  “Oh Seton, if only I could go back to the days when I first came to England. I would act differently. I should never have allowed him to jeopardize his life for my sake.”

  Seton did not reply. When would Mary learn that men were born ambitious, that others were not unselfish as she was herself. This was not the time to tell her. All she could do now was endeavor to comfort her in her grief.

  Bess came into the apartment; she took one look at Mary’s stricken face and said: “What ails Your Majesty?”

  “I know your ladyship cannot be ignorant of the cause of my sorrow,” answered Mary. “I am in great fear for the Duke of Norfolk.”

  “Then the news I bring Your Majesty has already reached you. You know that Norfolk has been found guilty of high treason.”

  Mary covered her face with her hands and Bess, watching her, thought: Poor foolish woman!

  THE SPRING HAD COME but Mary was too melancholy to notice it. Norfolk still lived, a prisoner in the Tower, the axe hanging over his head; he would not escape it this time, she knew. And what of herself? What fate was being prepared for her?

  She had no means of knowing. She was not allowed to move from her own apartments. She guessed that in London Elizabeth was conferring with her ministers as to what should be done with the Queen of Scots.

  It was not until June that the news was brought to her. She was prostrate when she heard it. On the second day of that month Norfolk had been taken to Tower Hill and there beheaded.

  So he was no more, this man who she had believed would be her husband. She had seen little of him but there had been many letters exchanged between them and she had built up in her mind an image. Norfolk was to have been that ideal husband for whom she had always been seeking; and it was that ideal she mourned.

  So deep was her grief that she scarcely paused to wonder or to care . . . whether she herself would soon meet a like fate.

  All through the long summer days there was mourning in her apartments at Sheffield Castle.

  RARELY WAS HER beautiful rival out of Elizabeth’s thoughts. Her ministers had told her that she had excuse enough now to bring Mary to London, to lodge her in the Tower, to have her tried for treason and found guilty. Once and for all, let this be an end to the troublesome Mary Queen of Scots.

  Elizabeth hesitated. Much as she desired the death of Mary she had no wish to be connected with it. She wanted someone to rid her of the woman, but in such a manner that no blame could possibly attach itself to her.

  The simplest solution was what she had planned before and would have carried out but for Moray’s untimely death. Send her back to Scotland, let them try her there; let them ans
wer to the world for her death.

  She tried out Morton but he was cautious. There were too many people in Scotland, anxious for the Queen’s return, for his peace of mind.

  He answered Elizabeth: He would take the Queen of Scots back into Scotland, where she might be tried and found worthy of death; but he would not be responsible for her execution unless Elizabeth sanctioned it.

  “Sanction it!” cried Elizabeth. “The fool! If I did that I might as well have the deed done here in England.”

  This she could do, her minister reminded her. Mary’s complicity in the Ridolfi plot gave her ample reason.

  But Elizabeth hesitated. Those Catholic risings had worried her. There were many Catholics in England and the nightmare of her life was that her subjects would turn against her. She cared nothing for the antagonism of the greatest foreign power; she had always known that her strength lay in the approval of her own people.

  So Mary was allowed to live on—although in the strictest confinement at Sheffield Castle.

  LIFE HAD BECOME STRANGE; Mary did not notice the passing weeks. She lived in a daze, sleeping a great deal of the time, going over the past when she was awake, constantly expecting a summons to death.

  She could not go on in that state, thought Bess; but perhaps it was as well that she seemed so indifferent at this time. Shrewsbury was panic-stricken. He was wondering how much blame would be attached to him over this Ridolfi matter. He had become as he had been before his attack; Bess was a little anxious, particularly as of recent months he had seemed to be more serene.

  He would grow out of this new phase, she promised herself. Each day carried them—if not Mary—farther from trouble. If Elizabeth had meant to reprimand them, she would have done so by now.

  Mary’s spirits were raised a little when he heard from Lesley who had now been released from the Tower and, though still a prisoner of state, had been removed to Farnham Castle in Surrey where the Bishop of Winchester was his host and jailor. He sent her a book of meditations in Latin which he himself had written.

  Mary roused herself from her lethargy to write to him and tell him that the knowledge that he was no longer in the Tower and had sent her his book brought her great comfort.