The Wild Queen

by Carolyn Meyer

  Gifts poured in, including a solid gold baptismal font, enameled and bejeweled, sent by Queen Elizabeth. The queen wrote that she hoped to meet with me soon to confer about my claim to the succession. She had apparently reconsidered, and it seemed we were approaching some sort of agreement. I was overjoyed to receive this message. My world would have been nearly perfect were it not for my detestable husband, whose behavior threatened to spoil everything.

  On December 17, 1566, the little prince was christened in the royal chapel at Stirling with all the pomp and ceremony and majesty that a prince deserved and the Catholic Church could offer. The countess of Argyll stood as Queen Elizabeth’s proxy. My son was named Charles, in honor of the king of France, his godfather, and James, in honor of my father and grandfather.

  I spared no expense for three days of celebration. My chief nobles wore splendid new suits of clothes that I paid for. There were banquets, dances, masques, and fireworks. Though it had required raising taxes and borrowing money to finance the festivities, everyone agreed it was worth it; Scotland had never seen the like.

  But my husband, the father of the smiling and gurgling little prince, chose not to appear.

  Chapter 41

  Another Murder

  CHRISTMAS EVE is a time for forgiveness and reconciliation. Believing this, I decided to pardon all those who had been involved in the plot to murder David Rizzio—even the assassin who had held a gun to my belly and threatened to shoot my unborn child. Henry now feared that his life was in danger, that the men I had pardoned would return from exile and seek their revenge for his refusal to take responsibility for his part in the murder. He went skulking off to Glasgow to his father, dropping hints that he would sail shortly for the Continent. I did not know if he was telling me the truth or plotting something else.

  I put aside my worries and determined to enjoy one of the most rewarding hours of my life. The wedding of the chief of my Four Maries, Mary Fleming, to Sir William Maitland took place in the royal chapel of Stirling on Twelfth Night. The other Maries were present; Mary was radiant in a gown of my own that I had given her—there was no time to have a new one made—and all of us tearfully shared in their happiness. We recalled many previous Twelfth Night celebrations in which La Flamin had contrived to find the bean in her slice of cake, entitling her to rule the festivities as queen and to choose the king to rule with her. On this occasion she found the bean and pretended to debate her choice, at last throwing her arms around the neck of my blushing secretary of state.

  Several days into the new year of 1567, I heard fresh rumors of Henry’s plot to kidnap Prince James, make himself regent, and imprison me. I was deeply worried. I decided to return to Edinburgh and take little Prince James with me. Stirling Castle was too close to Glasgow for my peace of mind. I knew that Henry’s spies watched me at all times and everywhere, but I had no spies to supply me with information about his whereabouts and doings. I felt that my son would be safer at Holyrood.

  Then word reached me that on his way to Glasgow Henry had fallen dangerously ill. At first his illness was thought to be from poison. I sent my own physician to see to him, then prepared to journey to Glasgow myself to convince Henry to return with me to Edinburgh, where he would be better cared for.

  Lord Bothwell and Lord Huntly tried to dissuade me. “What you have in mind is foolhardy and dangerous, madam,” Bothwell argued.

  “What can you gain by going to Glasgow and bringing King Henry to Edinburgh?” asked Huntly.

  “To have him close at hand where I can keep him under my watch and be prepared if he puts in motion a plot to overthrow me. And if he plans to sail off to the Continent and engage in who-knows-what mischief against me, then to thwart those plans as well.”

  I did not tell them that I also wanted to prevent him from causing any scandal that would interfere with my negotiations with Queen Elizabeth for my succession to the English throne.

  “If you insist on doing this, we shall accompany you,” said Bothwell.

  “Along with a large party of musketeers on horseback,” added Huntly.

  I gratefully accepted their offer and we set out, but once in Glasgow, I felt myself in the midst of so much danger that even my musketeers were not enough protection. I took refuge at the nearby home of Lord Livingston, father of Mary, the same Lord Livingston who had made the journey with me to France almost twenty years earlier. He welcomed me like a daughter.

  I sent word to Henry that I had come to visit him. Surrounded by my bodyguard, I arrived at the Lennox family castle. My physician, who had been attending Henry for the past weeks, came out to meet me.

  “How does my lord the king?” I asked.

  “Not well, madam.” The physician grimaced. “He suffers from the pox.”

  “The pox!” I exclaimed, though I should not have been surprised. It was a terrible illness common among the low women with whom he consorted.

  “His appearance is shocking. You must not touch him. It can be passed from person to person by way of the pustules that cover his body.”

  There is no danger of my getting close enough for that, I thought as I climbed the stair to his bedchamber.

  A taffeta mask covered Henry’s face. I greeted him and inquired about his sickness. It was not easy to keep a civil tongue when he replied, “It is you who are the cause of it.”

  I did not argue but used my most persuasive powers to convince him that I truly wished him well. At times he seemed genuinely sorry for his failings, though I did not believe his repentance would last. He finally agreed to travel back to Edinburgh to receive the treatments he hoped would cure him.

  “You are too sick to ride a horse,” I explained, “so we will provide you with a horse litter to ease your travel.”

  He first protested, and then yielded, insisting upon certain conditions. “You must promise me, Mary, that when I am cured, you and I will lie together again as husband and wife, and that you will not leave me.”

  I felt nothing but revulsion for him, but I promised that I would do as he asked. “First you must be purged and cleansed of your sickness so that you are not a danger to me.”

  Toward the end of January, when we were fairly certain the winter weather would not endanger him further, we began the slow journey to Edinburgh. Ominously, a raven accompanied us every mile of the way, circling overhead, stopping when we stopped, flying on as we moved forward. I noticed it but chose not to comment, though others did, and I brooded upon its meaning. When we reached Holyrood, the raven was still hovering.

  My original plan had been to lodge Henry at Craigmillar Castle, where the owner could be counted on to keep him under control. Certainly he could not stay at Holyrood, for I believed there was grave danger he might infect the infant prince. But at the last minute Henry refused apartments at Craigmillar, eventually agreeing to lodgings near an old church known as Kirk o’Field, a quiet, pleasant house surrounded by orchards and gardens just inside the city walls.

  “It is a place of good air where King Henry can best recover his health,” promised Lord Bothwell, who had procured the house. Henry’s physician concurred. There Henry would receive the curative baths he hoped would erase the pockmarks from his face and body.

  Everything possible was done to ensure his comfort. Furniture was hastily hauled the short distance from Holyrood, and within a day there were hangings on the walls, carpets on the floor, a velvet-draped bed that had once belonged to my mother, and other luxurious furnishings to satisfy a man who was never easily satisfied. On Saturday, the first of February, my husband took up his temporary residence in the dwelling known as the Old Provost’s Lodge.

  Relieved to have him settled, I returned to my apartments at Holyrood, though I promised Henry I would come often to visit and even to sleep there in a bedroom on the ground floor. He spoke of his love for me and assured everyone we were about to be reconciled, boasting that he would soon be enjoying the pleasures of the marriage bed.

  That unnerved me, but I re
alized that perhaps the only solution to my disastrous marriage was no solution at all: If I had any hope of Elizabeth’s naming me as her successor, I would simply have to endure it as best I could. Divorce or annulment would create a scandal and put an end to all my hopes; I would never rule England and, more important, neither would Prince James. Securing my son’s future was worth everything I would have to bear.

  The next few days passed quietly. A welcome calm settled over us. Perhaps, I thought, Henry really is trying to be conciliatory. There may be no plot to overthrow me, imprison me, crown our son, and make himself the regent of Scotland until James is of age.

  Henry began planning his return to Holyrood. “I shall spend Sunday here, and on Monday I shall move to my apartments at the palace to be with you again, my Mary,” he said fondly.

  I forced a smile, for though the past days had been completely amicable, I dreaded having him again in the apartments connected to mine by the secret stair.

  The ninth of February was the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. In the morning I attended the wedding of my valet Bastian to one of my gentlewomen, Christina, in the royal chapel at Holyrood. The bridal gown was my gift, a lovely creation of silver tissue and rich embroidery. I left in midafternoon after the wedding dinner, promising to return later for the masque and dancing. The celebration could be expected to go on past midnight.

  I changed one gown for another to attend the formal dinner given by a bishop for a departing ambassador. Lord Huntly and Lord Bothwell accompanied me, but when I looked for my brother, he was not to be found.

  “Where is Lord Moray?” I asked.

  “At home in Fife. He went this morning to tend to his wife’s illness,” Bothwell said. “She has suffered a miscarriage.”

  I thought it odd that Lord Bothwell knew of the loss she had suffered but I did not.

  And where were Sir William Maitland and his new wife, Mary Fleming? No one had seen them.

  Once my official duties were done, I made another change of dress into carnival costume, and with the ladies and gentlemen of my court I rode to Henry’s lodgings at Kirk o’ Field to visit him on his last night there. He no longer wore a taffeta mask, and he looked completely recovered, his face smooth and unscarred. The gentlemen congratulated him on his return to health, and Henry himself had a compliment for our carnival dress, particularly Lord Bothwell’s elegant black velvet and satin with trimmings of silver, even down to his hose.

  The evening passed pleasantly enough until Henry, who had been drinking heavily, began to pet and fondle me and to make suggestive remarks that some thought amusing and others, including me, found embarrassing.

  “Tomorrow I shall be mounting our stairs once more!” he roared. “But we do not need to wait for tomorrow, do we, my Mary? You intend to stay here tonight, do you not, good wife? And I shall come down the stair to find you!” He clutched at my bodice, making as if to unlace it or rip it from me, but I contrived to slip away.

  On and on he ranted and made boisterous jokes while I tried to think how I might quiet him and put him off for tonight and then deal with him tomorrow. Many eyes were upon us, Lord Bothwell’s in particular; he was observing the scene with his usual keenness.

  I pulled a ring from my finger and presented it to Henry “A token!” I cried gaily. “Tomorrow, my lord! But now I must leave you, for I have given my word to my valet Bastian and my lady of the bedchamber Christina to attend their wedding masque. Bastian wrote it himself, and you know how clever he is.”

  “You promised to stay here tonight!” Henry whined, as he did when he did not get his way.

  “That was before Lord Bothwell reminded me of my previous promise to Bastian!” I explained. Henry continued to pout. He slid my ring onto his little finger and lunged for me again.

  Laughingly eluding him, I called for my furred cloak. “Good night, dear Henry!” I trilled, wrapping the cloak tightly around me. “Until tomorrow!”

  I hated the position in which Henry had put me. I was not naturally flirtatious, nor had I ever needed to be, though I had seen plenty of such games played regularly at the French court. Diane de Poitiers had known every ploy to keep King Henri close to her, and now I needed a ploy of my own to keep my husband at bay.

  Down the stair I ran and out into the black night. A sliver of new moon hung low in the sky, and a light sprinkling of fresh snow lay on the ground. My horse was waiting, nostrils steaming, and as my groom prepared to help me mount, I recognized my servant Paris standing off to the side. By the light of a torch I noticed that his face was very dirty.

  “How begrimed you are, Paris!” I exclaimed.

  He nodded and murmured a reply I could not make out. I rode away with my train of courtiers. The horses’ hooves rang loudly on the cobblestones, and my thoughts were no longer on my servant’s blackened face but on the festive event I was about to attend.

  It was not yet midnight when I entered the great hall where Bastian’s wedding masque waited for the queen’s arrival in order to begin. I regretted having missed the dancing, but when the masque ended I joined the merry custom of escorting the couple to their marriage bed before retiring to my own apartments.

  The day had been long and, on the whole, pleasant. In the morning I would have to deal with the return of my newly amorous husband, for whom I had neither passion nor even affection. I was certain I could find a way to live in some sort of accord with him. There was a chance that he could be taught the refinement he sadly lacked.

  My maidservant blew out the candle, and I fell asleep at once.

  A violent noise, an explosion as loud as twenty or thirty cannon being fired, startled me awake. I leaped up, calling “Guards! Guards!” and dispatched several into the streets to find out what had happened. Surrounded by my frightened maidservants, I waited impatiently for the guards to return. They rushed back, stunned nearly speechless by what they had to report. The Old Provost’s Lodge at Kirk o’Field had been blown up.

  “The entire dwelling, walls and all else, is destroyed, nothing remains, not a single s-stone,” stammered their lieutenant. “Not one person was found alive.”

  Kirk o’Fieldl “No one?” I cried. “You say that all are dead?”

  “Aye, my lady, all. Not a single soul lives to explain it.”

  So there it was: My husband was dead. And I knew without a doubt that whoever murdered King Henry had intended to murder me as well.

  Chapter 42

  Aftermath

  FEELING FAINT, I lay down. The room whirled and would not stop. I could not think clearly The same thoughts raced through my mind: Henry is dead. My husband. Murdered. Who is the murderer? Am I next?

  The one thing of which I was certain was that Divine Providence had me change my mind about staying the night at Kirk o’Field. I was put off by Henry’s behavior and used Bastian’s wedding masque as an excuse to leave. Had I slept at Kirk o’Field, as I had planned and as Henry had tried to insist on, I would have been blown up as well. I had been delivered from certain death, an assassin’s plot, by an act of God.

  I fell on my knees and prayed, thanking God for His mercy, praying for the soul of my dead husband, and asking for guidance in the difficult days that lay ahead.

  I would withdraw into mourning for forty days, as I had after the death of François. Certain things must be done. I called in my mistress of the wardrobe and ordered black mourning gowns, the deuil blanc—the white veil, worn for the death of a king—and several ells of black taffeta with which to drape a mourning chamber at Edinburgh Castle.

  I felt safer at the castle than I did at Holyrood, but still I was terrified. I could only think of the plot that had been formulated against David Rizzio; I believed that the same devious planning had gone into a plot against Henry and me. The villains had succeeded in destroying my husband, and I felt sure they would not stop until they killed me.

  Naturally, I called upon those I believed were closest to me for support at this time of crisi
s. Foremost among them was Lord Bothwell. He arrived, offering his most profound condolences, and told me something I did not know: “Your husband, the king, did not die in the explosion,” he said. “King Henry’s body and his valet’s were found in the south garden, at some distance from the lodging.”

  “God save us!” I cried, shocked at this revelation. “How then did he die?”

  “Suffocation, according to a physician who has seen the bodies. Henry must have become suspicious, some alarming noise perhaps, and lowered himself from the window before the explosion. He would have gotten away, but the murderous villains seized him and the valet and killed them in such a way as to leave no visible marks.”

  “Those responsible must be found and punished,” I said, my voice unsteady. “There must be a thorough investigation into the murder.”

  “I will assist you in every way possible, my lady queen,” Bothwell promised.

  I thanked him. “And there must be a funeral too.”

  “The simpler the better, I believe,” Lord Bothwell suggested. “A large state funeral may not be appropriate, under the circumstances.”

  “See to it,” I said, trusting that he would.

  ***

  I passed Monday as though I were in a dream. I retired that night but slept little, an hour here, a few minutes there, my rest troubled by frightening images. My thinking remained clouded. My head pounded, and my stomach gave me no peace.

  Tuesday morning I sat in my bed trying to recall what it was I was supposed to do that day. Then I remembered: a wedding. I was expected at the wedding feast of Margaret Carwood, a favorite lady of the bedchamber. I had bought her dress and arranged for the banquet. Perhaps I should order it canceled? Put the court into mourning immediately? I tried to think. But the day was Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent began and the last day Lady Margaret could be married until after Easter. Seeing nothing to be gained by a delay, I would allow the wedding to go forward.