The meetings and state councils moved on with little reference to the king and queen. Francis was conscious of the opinion people had of him and sought outlet in hunting. Both he and Mary were fearless in the chase. Mary could hardly complain about his recklessness in trying to prove himself a man, when she rode with equal daring. I too sought release from my problems and frustrations by going out riding very early each day.
I was standing by my horse one morning when I saw Mary’s uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, flanked by his men at arms, come clattering into the stable yard, dismount hurriedly and make his way in the direction of the queen’s apartments. Had something happened? Should I forgo my ride out this morning?
As I hesitated, another figure came running across the yard. My breath faltered. It was Duncan Alexander.
‘Go to the palace immediately,’ he called out to me as he approached.
‘How are you here?’ I asked in amazement.
‘I got in late last night,’ he said impatiently. ‘Never mind that now. Listen to what I say.’
‘I’m not a servant,’ I answered him haughtily, ‘that you may order me around.’
He came nearer and spoke urgently. ‘This is something that you must do, Jenny. I insist upon it.’
‘And if I choose not to obey your command?’
Duncan took my wrists firmly in his grasp. He pulled me roughly towards him so that his face was close to mine. His eyes were of darkest green and flecked with anger, and he looked as though he wanted to strike me. But then he did something that both surprised and disarmed me.
‘I beg you . . .’ He went down on one knee before me. ‘The news that the Cardinal of Lorraine brings to our queen is tragic. Her mother died of heart failure in Edinburgh Castle some days ago. Mary will be distraught. She has need of a true friend by her side. I beg you, Jenny, go to her. At once.’
Chapter 18
‘MAMA! MAMA!’
I heard Mary’s cries from several hundred yards away as I came hurrying down the long corridor.
‘Aieeeeeee! Mama! Mama!’
I increased my pace as she began to howl like a madwoman.
Directly behind me came Duncan, barely keeping up with me as I raced on, still wearing my riding boots and with my skirts hitched above my knees.
Mary’s face, always pale, was white unto death. The cardinal, his red hat awry, was trying to restrain her as she hurled herself around the room in a hysterical fit.
‘Get these people out of here!’ It was my turn to give orders to Duncan Alexander, and to his credit he didn’t hesitate in emptying the room of the gawping servants and courtiers who’d run in at the sound of Mary’s screams.
The cardinal was no match for a demented woman and was losing his grip on her wrists as Mary flailed her arms about. With one hand now free, she tore off her headdress and grabbed a fistful of her own hair to wrench it from her head.
‘Mary!’ I shouted in her ear. ‘Mary!’ I grasped her shoulders and pulled her round, forcing her to meet my eyes. ‘I’m here!’ I said. ‘I am here.’
With the Maries’ help, I caught her arms and wrapped my own around her, holding her against me as securely as I could. I felt her frantic heart beating like the wings of a trapped wild bird. She fought me, but I rocked her as Duncan Alexander had done with me when I’d given way to grief at the death of my father.
‘There, there,’ I crooned in her ear. Reverting to Scots, I began to half chant a traditional children’s lullaby:
‘Bonnie bairn, dinna fret thee,
I’ll na let ony harm beset ye.’
Over and over I said it, along with any other lullaby I could remember from the nursery. Eventually Mary let her head drop on my shoulder, crying less wildly.
Weeks later, with Mary still closeted in her apartments in deep mourning, another Scots lord rode up to Fontainebleau. He stood in the queen’s outer chamber, gazing around, but not in the least overawed. I recognized him at once.
‘The Earl of Bothwell wishes to speak to her majesty.’
‘The queen is indisposed,’ I said. ‘Grief at her mother’s death has left her prostrate.’
But this Borders lord was not to be put off. ‘If the queen is to deal with what is happening at home in Scotland, then she has to be stronger than this.’
‘A woman is a weaker vessel,’ interposed the Cardinal of Lorraine, who was also waiting in the hope of seeing the queen. ‘The female of the species is not built to suffer the calamities of fate and reign over a country.’
‘Yet the Scottish Royal Stuart line was founded by a woman,’ said Bothwell. ‘And if I was a betting man I’d wager on the queen dowager, Catherine de’ Medici, against your own family of Guise to gain supremacy in this country.’
‘We try to maintain good relations,’ Duncan Alexander said in exasperation after the cardinal had flounced away in a temper. ‘You’ve undone years of hard work here, James, and not yet wiped the dust of the road from your boots.’
Bothwell was unperturbed. ‘I would not be a lackey of the French. The Scots didn’t fight the English for three hundred years to trade that yoke for another.’
Marie Seton came to the door and beckoned us into Mary’s chamber.
‘I warn you to be careful,’ Duncan told Bothwell. ‘The Guises have many armed soldiers in their pay.’
‘If a man blocks my way then he must be prepared to step aside or fight for his right to remain there.’ Bothwell laughed. ‘Whereas a woman’ – he gestured to where Mary was sitting, ready to receive him – ‘would pay a rather different price.’
‘And, my Lord of Bothwell,’ said Mary, ‘what might that be?’
‘It would vary, depending on certain attributes.’ Bothwell studied Mary’s face and figure quite boldly, almost to the point of rudeness. He removed his plumed bonnet and bowed. ‘Obviously a queen as beautiful as yourself is free to go where she pleases.’
Mary affected a disdainful air but there was a sparkle of interest in her eyes. Here was evidence of Bothwell’s effect upon women. In this case I was grateful, for it was the most animated Mary had been since the news of her mother’s death.
However, she was not to be disarmed so easily. ‘What is the business you wished to discuss with me, Lord Bothwell?’ she enquired coolly.
‘With your mother gone, there should be no dispute now as to who may or may not be regent of Scotland,’ he said. ‘You are queen, and a grown woman. As such you should rule. You must stand up on your own, draw upon your courage and queenly dignity and govern your Scottish kingdom before the warring nobles tear themselves and it asunder. Already they are forming factions to carve up the kingdom between them, with the Catholic Earl of Huntly preparing an army in the north for battle. I tell you now that I declare for Protestantism but do not hold with the deeds of Protestant reformers who despoil churches and loot abbeys.’
‘What say the lords within the Governing Council convened after my mother died?’
‘The Hamilton Stuarts with their half-mad heir, Arran, think they’ll be head of it because they are your nearest legitimate kin. The Lennox Stuarts are contesting their claim, while the Earl of Argyll’ – Bothwell laughed – ‘sits facing backwards on his horse so that he can go in whatever direction he thinks is winning. But they will all be swept aside by the clique led by the Earl of Morton, that spawn of the villainous Douglas clan.’
‘May I remind you, sir,’ Mary said primly, ‘that my half-brother, Lord James Stuart, is also of the Douglas family.’
‘I have my suspicions of James Stuart the bast—’ Bothwell checked himself as Duncan Alexander made a noise in his throat. ‘Majesty,’ he modified his tone, ‘Lord James Stuart is close to the Protestant preacher, John Knox, whose oratory emboldens the people. Knox is violently against the Church of Rome. Already the Scottish Parliament has met to pass Acts outlawing Catholicism, rejecting the authority of the Pope, and making the saying of mass in a public place illegal.’
‘But Acts of Parliament ca
nnot become law until they have royal consent,’ Mary protested.
‘Nevertheless,’ said Bothwell, ‘this is what has happened.’
She put her hand to her heart. ‘No wonder my mother gave up and died,’ she said. ‘For years she tried to find a middle way. She allowed Knox into the country and gave appointments to Protestant lords. Yet within weeks of her death they repay her by doing this.’ She raised her face to him. ‘And you, my Lord of Bothwell . . .’ Mary asked him. ‘As a professed Protestant, whose side are you on?’
In answer Bothwell knelt before her. ‘Though you be Catholic, and remain Catholic, I declare for you as the true-born Queen of Scots.’
Chapter 19
THERE WAS NO time for Mary to consider Bothwell’s proposal that she should actively rule Scotland. And no way that she and Catherine de’ Medici could continue to avoid each other’s company.
As winter approached, the king’s health began to disintegrate entirely. They nursed him together, his mother and his wife, consulted every possible doctor and tried the most bizarre remedies, but were unable to halt Francis’s decline. By November both women were desolate as they were forced to come to terms with the truth. An infection that had first taken hold within the king’s ear had spread into his brain.
It was heart-rending to watch the suffering of the boy who had never quite become a man, who had never wanted to be king and, if he hadn’t, might have lived a happier and longer life. Francis clung to Mary’s hand and she held fast to him with one of hers, while in the other she grasped a crucifix. I watched and prayed with them through the final wretched night at the beginning of December, when the royal doctor advised that the king should make his last confession. As we left the cardinal to prepare the holy oils, I heard the doctor say, ‘Majesties, I am truly sorry, but there is nothing can stop the rise of the poison.’
Catherine de’ Medici made a croaking sound. ‘The rise of the poison!’ she repeated.
I was possibly the only one present who knew that she was quoting the prophecy of Nostradamus.
King Francis died that night.
The very next day Catherine de’ Medici sent word that Mary must immediately return the crown jewels.
‘She cannot mean this!’ Marie Livingston, who looked after the queen’s adornments and jewellery, was disgusted at the unfeeling speed of the request.
‘It is unthinking,’ I said as she unlocked the jewel cabinet.
‘Kindness was never one of her attributes,’ Marie Seton pointed out.
Marie Fleming was more vociferous, declaring Catherine to be ‘cruel and heartless’.
Duncan Alexander was with us as Mary had charged him to take the items to Catherine de’ Medici.
‘Catherine de’ Medici has coveted these for many years,’ I said, putting the black pearls to one side, ‘but she cannot have them. They are Mary’s own.’
We debated over whether to include the sapphire necklace given to Mary by her mother-in-law on her wedding day.
‘It was a gift of state,’ I said, reluctantly putting it into the bag.
‘Keep only what belongs personally to our queen,’ Duncan advised, ‘and I’ll dispatch the rest at once. Don’t forget how Catherine de’ Medici deals with those who thwart her. It may take her years but she always exacts revenge.’
Marie Fleming nodded. ‘Remember how swiftly she acted against Diane de Poitiers. Hardly was King Henri laid in his tomb before she confiscated the beautiful Château of Chenonceau and banished her from court for ever.’
‘They say she has agents following Captain Montgomery of the Scots Guard,’ Marie Beaton added, ‘watching his every move in England, where he sought refuge after the accident that cost the king his life.’
‘And Duke Fernand,’ I broke in. ‘I believe he was poisoned at Fontainebleau.’
Duncan looked at me curiously but waited until the others had left the room before saying anything more.
‘Jenny,’ he began, and my heart contracted at the way he spoke my name, ‘I know that you wish to protect our queen, but be mindful of yourself over these next few months.’
‘Why especially over the next months?’ I asked him.
‘Because I will not be in the vicinity of this court. After Christmastide I must go away for a while.’
‘Why?’ I asked in annoyance. ‘Why do you come and go so often without any obvious reason? And leave before at times when we have need of you?’
‘There are matters to be seen to . . . politics—’
‘Oh, fie!’ I interrupted him. ‘Don’t patronize me by thinking that you may say the word “politics” and there’s an end to any explanation. Do you think, as the preacher Knox does, that a female cannot understand such matters?’
‘Not at all. Catherine de’ Medici and Elizabeth of England are mistresses of that science.’
‘So is it just me then?’ I demanded. ‘Poor simple-minded Jenny whom you can fob off because of her limited intellect.’
‘No!’ Colour had risen in his cheeks, indicating that his indignation was genuine. ‘That is not so. It’s my concern for you that makes me share less with you than I might, believe me.’
He had picked up the bag containing the jewel cases and was already walking towards the door.
‘Make me believe you . . .’ I whispered the words so softly that he could not possibly have heard me, and yet he stopped. I waited and so, I felt, did time itself.
Duncan turned and came back across the room to stand in front of me. Very gently he put his mouth close to mine. His breath was warm and intimate on my face. And then he brushed my lips with his.
I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I was alone.
The eighth of December heralded Mary’s eighteenth birthday. We made paper decorations and Marie Seton dressed her hair with flowers, but Mary did not respond to our attempts to cheer her spirit.
‘Has there been such a woeful queen?’ she lamented. ‘Within the space of two years I’ve lost the only papa I ever knew, my own sweet true mother whom I loved dearly, and now my husband, and a kingdom.’ In anguish she asked us, ‘What is to become of me?’
It wasn’t long before we found out how Catherine de’ Medici had decided to deal with her widowed daughter-in-law. Having failed to produce an heir, Mary was now an encumbrance and a possible focus for dissenters, and from January of the following year she was excluded from official court business and state affairs.
Mary sat within her black-draped room and stared out of the window, clutching a sodden handkerchief. ‘I have sent word to Scotland to let them know what is happening with me,’ she said.
It was I who greeted the messenger who returned with the letter still in his hand. ‘My lady . . .’ He glanced around nervously.
‘Come inside,’ I said, closing the door behind him.
‘There are guards at the end of each corridor and at every exit and entry. No one is permitted to leave,’ he told me.
‘This letter bears the seal of the Queen of France!’ I said. ‘Who dares prevent you from carrying out your mission?’
‘It is the orders of the queen dowager, Catherine de’ Medici. She has set up guards on all roads. Every note must go through her offices.’
I put my hand to my mouth. Were we prisoners? I didn’t want to worry Mary with this, but I needed to speak to someone. As I was prevented from communicating with Louise d’Albret, there was only one other person who might have information. I was embarrassed to seek out Duncan Alexander for I’d not seen him since he’d been in our apartments to collect the French crown jewels. He’d excused himself, saying that he was packing for a long journey.
We were polite with each other, but when I told him that Mary’s messages were being openly intercepted, his face showed concern. ‘I will try to find out what is happening.’
He returned that evening to tell me, ‘Catherine de’ Medici has called a meeting of the premier council of France, the Estates-General.’
‘She has no authority to do t
his. Mary is Queen of France. It is for her to command what will happen.’
‘I am not sure that it is now within Mary’s right to do that,’ Duncan said slowly, ‘but, even if it were, would it be within her capability?’
His voice ended with a question and I thought of Mary, like me, merely a girl, sitting by her window staring out into nothingness.
‘This is a dangerous time,’ Duncan continued. ‘There are other contenders for the throne of France who could sweep this court away and dispose of everyone in it.’
I shuddered as I remembered the massacre at Amboise.
‘Cunning is needed, and we might all benefit from the wily ways of the Medici woman.’
Duncan was correct. Catherine de’ Medici acted adeptly to fill the vacuum of authority and power created by the death of Francis. She proclaimed her next son, Charles, the King of France.
‘Charles is scarcely ten years old!’ Mary said when we told her.
‘Yes indeed,’ said Duncan, ‘but no one can deny the legitimacy of his claim. And Catherine has declared that she will rule through him as governor of the kingdom. Both the Guises and the leader of the French reformers, the Huguenots as they are now called, have promised their obedience. The Duke of Guise remains as commander-in-chief of the army, but others have been given positions of prominence. And France’s new Queen Governor has issued a pardon to those not captured during the rebellion at Amboise in what seems to be an attempt to keep a balance within the kingdom.’
‘She would change the religion of France?’ Mary asked.
‘No. But she says she believes that brutality does not dislodge belief and gentleness might work where harsh punishment has failed.’
‘Perhaps she is only doing what is necessary so that the various powerful nobles will support her and her son until he is old enough to rule as king,’ I said. ‘Her overriding concern is that her children inherit the throne.’
‘Is this compromise not a denial of one’s beliefs?’ Mary wondered.
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