Spy for the Queen of Scots

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘The Douglas family hold the palace. No one can help us.’ Darnley slumped down in a chair, leaving her standing. His self-concern knew no bounds.

  ‘Then, my lord, we must help ourselves. You will send the guards away, saying there is no need of them as I am too ill to even rise from my bed and, in any case, you are in constant attendance.’

  That was all Mary told him. She didn’t trust Darnley with the rest of the plan she’d outlined in the note inside the jug. But she’d told me to which tavern to send Rhanza with the message, and I knew what else to prepare and when to be ready.

  I thought we’d lost any chance of escape, when, within a day, Lord James Stuart appeared. He claimed to have ridden from England as soon as he’d heard about the murder of Rizzio and the attack upon his half-sister. With cool effrontery he proceeded to tell Mary how to repair the situation. The queen excelled herself in subtlety, listening to him attentively and appearing to agree with his advice to pardon the murderers.

  Then she asked for a midwife to be sent for, saying that the baby was coming and already she was suffering the pangs of labour.

  In the night she and Darnley came creeping along the corridor to me, and using the route that Rhanza had shown us when we’d gone in disguise into Edinburgh, we slipped out of Holyrood Palace.

  There we met Mary’s faithful page Anthony Standen, the captain of the guard and a few others. It was not a complete surprise to find that the person who was waiting for us on the other side of the wall with swift horses was Duncan Alexander.

  ‘You are safe,’ I said, my heart lifting at the sight of him.

  ‘We have a way to go yet before we can say that,’ he replied. His answer forestalled my rising emotions but as I looked into his eyes, I saw that he was struggling to hold his own feelings in check. His jaw was tight and his hands shook as he adjusted his horse’s girth. He went to assist the queen mount pillion behind Captain Erskine, but before he did so, he put his hand upon my shoulder. ‘I am glad to see you, Jenny.’

  Then he offered me his arm to help me up to ride with him. And on our mad dash for freedom that night, I clung onto him, leaning my face against his back and crying wild tears of relief.

  It was to Dunbar Castle we rode where James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, greeted the queen by bowing to kiss her extended fingers, saying, ‘Majesty, it is good to see you. They say you planned the escape, and I admire you for riding furiously through the night being seven months gone with child.’

  ‘My Lord of Bothwell,’ said Mary, ‘they tell me that you and Huntly got away by climbing out of a rear window and leaping over the lion pit.’

  ‘Pity the lion had I slipped and fallen in,’ he replied.

  Mary laughed and sat down to eat breakfast with him. Then, without resting, she dictated letters to summon her supporters. Before the week was up Bothwell had raised two thousand of his Borderers men. Lord Seton and Lord Fleming arrived and soon many more flocked to her standard.

  Ten days after Rizzio’s assassination Mary was ready. With her at our head we rode back into Edinburgh in front of an army of eight thousand men. Duncan Alexander went to confer with the governor of the castle while I went to the Palace of Holyrood with Mary – to find Lord James Stuart awaiting us there.

  ‘The conspirators are gone into England,’ he informed Mary.

  ‘I know this.’ She drew off her gloves and handed them to her page. ‘As I also know that England, most likely, is where this plot was hatched.’

  This was a direct challenge, for Lord James had been sheltering just across the Border since Mary had defeated his insurrection. They faced each other. Mary, with renewed confidence in her own ability radiating from her, appeared so much taller than her half-brother. I wished and willed with all my strength that she would cast off this duplicitous man who ultimately worked to serve his own ends.

  ‘Then you will also be aware that I did not arrive in Scotland until after the deed had taken place.’

  ‘Are you telling me, James, that the death of Rizzio in no way pleases you?’

  ‘I would lie if I said that,’ he replied, ‘for I felt he influenced you overmuch, and a monarch needs the advice of wise Scots-born councillors.’

  ‘And you consider yourself such a man?’ Mary’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘Not just myself,’ said Lord James, ‘but all those you banished when we asked you to reconsider your marriage to Lord Darnley.’

  ‘When you made your request for me to reconsider my wedding plans you were accompanied by armed men!’ Mary laughed.

  ‘A misunderstanding,’ Lord James said smoothly. ‘We may have acted hastily out of concern for you, but we had only your best interests at heart. Is it not true’ – he cleared his throat – ‘that your husband has indeed become an . . . encumbrance?’

  Mary was silent.

  ‘Your majesty needs advisers.’ Lord James’s tone had altered to silken persuasion. ‘The lords who came to England with me have tried to advance the cause of you, and any child you may have, being recognized as heir to the English throne. Our cousin Elizabeth joins me in her concern for your welfare.’

  No! I thought. Please, no! I looked around. Where was Duncan Alexander? He would quickly see through the false words of this charlatan. Gavin of Strathtay stood to the side. He was listening to Lord James and nodding. Inwardly I groaned. He also was being taken in.

  ‘I have the Earl of Huntly, Lord Bothwell, William Maitland and some others to help me govern,’ Mary said.

  ‘Re-instate myself,’ Lord James purred, ‘and then add the Earl of Argyll to your council, and Scotland will have a wise, prudent and merciful ruler.’

  Mary paced the room. Then she inclined her head.

  I felt as though the world had fallen away at my feet.

  Chapter 36

  ‘WAS THERE NOTHING you could do?’

  The day the names of the new governing council became public, Duncan Alexander sent me a message to meet him privately that night in the cloister walk of Holyrood Abbey.

  ‘Do not chastise me,’ I said. ‘Lord James has the tongue of a flattering deceiver and there is no proof to link him to the murder of David Rizzio.’

  Duncan nodded. ‘It will never be clear who was part of the greater conspiracy against the queen. John Knox and William Maitland both claim to have been absent from Edinburgh at the time of Rizzio’s murder, but that might be a deliberate ruse on their part to avoid suspicion.’

  ‘Lord Darnley has begged Mary to believe his innocence,’ I said, ‘but I was there that night and saw how he behaved. He allowed Ruthven and the rest into his apartments below so that they could more easily enter her room by the private staircase.’

  ‘Did she not pay any heed to the document recently presented to her? It carries her husband’s signature agreeing to Rizzio’s murder in exchange for his promise to pardon the exiled Protestant lords, including Lord James Stuart.’

  ‘Darnley claims it to be a forgery,’ I said. ‘When she confronted him with it, he had a fit of temper and went off to sulk. After the baby is born Mary wants to find a means to separate from him.’

  ‘The Lennox Stuarts are aware of Mary’s feelings,’ said Duncan. ‘I fear for her safety.’ Then he added, ‘And the safety of those around her.’

  Did he mean me? In the darkness I could scarcely make out his face, far less his expression.

  ‘Can you persuade her that she should move to Edinburgh Castle in time for her confinement?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so. I’ll say it is for the child’s sake.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Duncan.

  A little thrill of joy went through me. Years ago I’d been jealous of Marie Livingston when he had praised her with those words.

  ‘What?’ He’d noticed a change in my manner.

  ‘Oh. I was just thinking of a time in France when we had to seek shelter in Amboise.’

  ‘Let’s hope for a different outcome,’ Duncan said grimly, saluted and left.
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  Within weeks the queen’s household was in the castle, and there, in the middle of June, Mary went into labour.

  To begin with we took turns to walk with her around the cramped birthing chamber, and then, as Mary’s labour continued, we sat or knelt beside her while Marie Seton plaited her hair and bathed her forehead with lavender water. I’d never attended a birth before. Fear and excitement swirled in my head. As the hours passed and Mary’s distress increased the midwife brought jasper and eagle stone, both reputed to hasten childbirth.

  ‘I put more faith in the relic of St Margaret,’ gasped Mary, squirming in her anguish.

  I glanced at the reliquary, which had been placed on the table beside the bed, and wondered what Duncan’s opinion of that would be. More than once we’d argued over the belief of the saints’ intervention in the happenings of this world. And I thought, I’d rather have him around to disagree with than not at all.

  ‘Here is Marie Fleming returned with her sister, who is supposed to have the skills of a spey-wife,’ I said to Mary. ‘Let’s hope she can fulfil her promise to make you more comfortable.’

  During a respite between her contractions Mary asked me. ‘Do you really think that my discomfort can be transferred to another person?’

  I shrugged, unwilling either to tell an outright lie or to make Mary lose hope of her pain easing. Perhaps if she thought that Marie Fleming’s sister could cause this to happen, then it would indeed give her some relief. Lady Reres, another lady-in-waiting, had already volunteered to bear the queen’s labour for her. Marie Fleming and her sister muttered incantations, threw seed pods in the air and, after elaborate preparations, tied a string dipped in the urine of both women to the pinkie of each to form a ‘nervous current’, as they termed it, between them.

  ‘Ah! Ah! Ah!’ Mary clutched herself and shrieked.

  ‘Ah! Ah! Ah!’ Lady Reres did the same.

  ‘This has the element of farce,’ Countess Jean said in an aside to me.

  ‘We appear to be doubling the pain, not lessening it,’ I observed.

  ‘Lady Reres is at least distracting me,’ Mary panted, sweat streaming from her body.

  All the women were red-faced, foreheads damp with perspiration, for even though it was summer, a fire burned in the grate. My own limbs ached, not because of any magic wrought by the Fleming sisters, but due to my empathy with my friend and boon companion.

  After another hour of torment, the midwife announced that we should help the queen to her bed. Each taking an arm to support her, Jean and I assisted Mary into a squatting position, as directed by the midwife.

  ‘This may be my first child, but by my faith it will be my last!’ Mary cried out as the pangs increased in intensity. ‘I will never lie with a man again.’

  ‘In the throes of childbirth,’ said Jean, ‘all women say that.’

  Mary bellowed and gripped the countess’s hands with all her strength. ‘I do mean it,’ she said. ‘Verily I do mean it.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ Jean replied wryly. ‘We all say that too.’ With difficulty she loosened Mary’s fingers from her hands. ‘Majesty,’ she said, looking at the blood oozing from the places where Mary’s nails had dug into her, ‘I know not what is taking place under your shift, but judging by the marks on my hands, this baby is due to be born very soon.’

  The whole length of the queen’s body writhed in her efforts to expel the child. Jean and I held her secure as, with grunts and sighs, the women supporting her back bore down upon her shoulders as if they too were in labour. Mary shrieked, then let forth a shuddering groan of what might have been agony or possibly ecstasy. A great moan of utter relief followed as the future King of Scotland slithered out into the world.

  ‘He has arrived!’ the midwife shouted.

  ‘Majesty,’ Jean declared formally. ‘You have a son.’

  ‘A boy?’ Mary cried out. ‘You tell me it is a boy!’

  ‘I tell ye it is a boy. And a good healthy one at that.’ The midwife gave the child to his mother. ‘With a fine caul about him.’

  ‘Is it an ill omen?’ Mary asked fearfully.

  ‘Luck and long life,’ the midwife said firmly. ‘That’s what a caul over a bairn’s head means.’

  ‘I’ll name him James for my father.’ Mary smiled as she lay upon her pillows and cradled her son in her arms. ‘Jamie, my bonny boy,’ she whispered. She touched the membrane that covered the child’s head. ‘He comes with good luck attached.’

  ‘It is well that he does,’ said Jean, ‘for he’ll need it to rule the kingdom he inherits.’

  The birth of the prince was greeted with frenzied celebration and an outpouring of joy from the country. Hundreds of bonfires were lit and people danced in the streets. A small separate court was created for Prince James as favours and exquisite presents poured in from all over Europe to welcome him to the world.

  Lord Darnley, however, was vexed at the prospect of his son receiving gifts and titles that would outrank his own, and he began to make vague threats against the crown. The queen, overcome with anxiety, moved the baby inland for more security, to Stirling Castle. In the autumn, although not fully recovered, Mary took up the reins of government once again. To enforce her royal presence she decided to make a royal tour of the lands south of Edinburgh, holding courts of justice and dealing with lawbreaking. We said farewell to baby James, who was thriving, and set off south. While in Jedburgh a messenger came to tell us that the Earl of Bothwell lay dying in his Border stronghold.

  Escorted by an armed guard and a group of nobles, including Lord James Stuart, Sir Duncan Alexander and Sir Gavin of Strathtay, we made the five-hour journey across craggy terrain to Hermitage Castle.

  ‘I will receive the rough edge of Jean’s tongue when she hears of this,’ I said to Mary. ‘You are not yet fully recovered from the birth of your baby.’

  But I could not dissuade her – even though she herself knew how poor her health was.

  ‘Would you have me let the Earl of Bothwell die alone when he has done so much for me, Jenny?’

  But far from being dangerously ill, we found Bothwell propped up in bed drinking red wine and playing dice.

  ‘I heard that you were seriously indisposed,’ Mary told him in some annoyance. ‘That you were suffering from an affliction that made you unable to walk.’

  ‘Indeed I am,’ he replied. ‘It was an affliction of a sword across my legs.’ And, to the consternation of those present, he drew aside the bedsheet to reveal his naked limbs wrapped in bloodstained bandages.

  ‘You shock me, sir,’ the queen reprimanded him. ‘Please cover yourself.’

  Bothwell looked up at her and muttered indistinctly, ‘I’ve a mind to shock you more.’ But he pulled over his covers and lay back upon his pillows. ‘I fear I have taken too much wine,’ he said by way of apology, ‘and am fatigued with battling to keep order here among the reivers.’

  ‘Your attacker should be properly charged and brought before the queen’s court for judgement,’ Lord James Stuart said pompously. ‘Where is the man who gave you these injuries?’

  Bothwell laughed at him. ‘In various places,’ he replied. ‘His head is impaled upon a pikestaff at the nearest crossroads. His hands and feet I put in a sack and delivered to his wife.’

  ‘James, you are incorrigible.’ The queen waved for a chair to be brought and sat down by the bedside.

  James.

  Mary was unaware of the reaction she’d caused by her use of Bothwell’s first name. Gavin made a sardonic moue, but I saw stunned disbelief on the face of Lord James Stuart. It was gone in an instant, but his manner altered. From then on he watched Mary and Bothwell with the heightened awareness of a cat on a mouse hunt.

  We stayed barely an hour, for Duncan was impatient to be on the road to Jedburgh. On the return journey our pace flagged as the queen was weary. In the gloaming of the early evening she discovered she’d lost her timepiece. She reined in her horse.

  ‘It was a gift,’ she said.
‘I would go back to look for it.’

  But Duncan shook his head. ‘Majesty, we must go on.’

  Seeing the queen’s distress, Gavin volunteered to turn round to search for it.

  ‘No,’ Duncan said sharply before Mary could reply.

  I stared at him. He was fidgeting and peering into the fronds of mist settling over the bog land. We were now separated from the main party. Behind us, faintly, we heard the jingle of a bridle, and what might have been the snort of a horse.

  ‘Ride on,’ said Duncan. There was an urgency in his voice. ‘Ride on at once.’

  We reached Jedburgh very late. The queen, content now in her mind that her most loyal Scots lord would live, was herself exhausted in body. She took some soup before retiring and we both fell into a deep sleep.

  I was awoken in the early hours by Mary coughing and crying out for help.

  Chapter 37

  AT FIRST I thought she had caught cold, but after several days it was obvious that it was something more serious.

  Lord James Stuart sent for his own physician, who recommended a diet of barley soup. But Mary’s condition worsened, her breathing was laboured and her body racked with coughs. The coughing fits led to bouts of vomiting then to convulsions. Away from Holyrood we had fewer attendants with us and the accommodation was cramped but I hardly left her room. When I went to the kitchen to oversee the making of barley soup I enquired as to the whereabouts of Sir Duncan Alexander. He had ridden off somewhere, I was told. By the end of October, hardly able to lift her head from the pillow and thinking she had not long to live, Mary called for her half-brother.

  Lord James appeared deeply moved at the sight of the queen so ravaged by illness, her face gaunt and her once lustrous hair spread out, dull and limp, on her pillow. ‘My sister,’ he said, ‘I would not see you like this under any circumstances.’

  ‘See me as I am, my brother,’ said Mary, ‘for if you wait any longer I fear you will not see me at all.’

  I watched as he approached the bed but noted that he did not come close to her. His manner was strange. It was clear that Mary harboured no infection that he might catch, yet he held back from her. I thought that perhaps he felt guilty, knowing how badly he’d treated her in the past.