Spy for the Queen of Scots

by Theresa Breslin

  In the forest Bothwell himself awaited us, and we went by a circuitous route to Dunbar Castle on the coast. We rode in to see Duncan Alexander standing in the courtyard, sending off envoys to muster men, money and arms. He broke off from his work for long enough to inspect us and comment, ‘I’d not trust those two rough lads with a dagger, far less a sword or a musket.’

  Mary laughed, and I did too. I knew that he’d done it to release the tension, for we were in a sorry state, but I didn’t know whether to slap him or kiss him. There was no time for anything other than to eat, change into whatever women’s clothing was available, then ride out from Dunbar to join up with the rest of Mary’s supporters before we were cut off from them again.

  On the fifteenth of June, when we’d assembled all the forces we could, we met with the opposing army south of Edinburgh at Carberry Hill. Morton united with Lindsay, Argyll and Kircaldy of Grange, a man of formidable military experience. Lord Fleming’s men were away in the west, holding Dumbarton Castle, and neither Huntly’s troops nor the main body of the Hamilton Stuarts had arrived to help us.

  We waited under the banner of the lion rampant while the hot June day passed with delegations going to and fro between both sides.

  The rebel lords promised safe conduct and their renewed obedience if the queen abandoned the Earl of Bothwell and gave herself over to them. Mary stated that if they put down their arms and returned to their homes she would convene a special parliament to investigate the death of Lord Darnley and abide by its findings.

  Hour upon hour the parley went on. At one point Mary had to dissuade Bothwell from responding to an insulting challenge for single combat made by Lord Lindsay. And all the time the unregulated Border men, frustrated by the lack of action, thirsty and hungry, drifted away in groups to forage and skirmish. Many did not return. By evening Mary saw her forces in disarray and was increasingly fearful that Bothwell would gallop forward to do something rash and vainglorious and be killed. So when Kirkcaldy of Grange, a man she held to be honourable, came and gave her his word that she would be well treated if she went with him, she believed him. But Mary, who prized loyalty above all other virtues, would not betray her husband. She refused to surrender the Earl of Bothwell. She commanded her husband to leave, and with tearful farewells and promises to be soon reunited, he departed and she prepared to meet with the rebel lords.

  As soon as he was aware of Mary’s intention, Duncan put his hand on the bridle of my horse and pulled it beside his own.

  ‘Leave me be!’ I cried.

  ‘We can best help the queen by staying free,’ he said, and ignoring my wishes, he tried to make off, taking me with him.

  I struck out at him with my whip and, spurring my horse, rode after Mary.

  She was already within the enemy camp, where the common men had begun to shout vile words at her. Her face registered shock. Kirkcaldy of Grange was outraged, and unsheathing his sword, he beat at their shoulders with the flat of the blade. We came to where the rebel lords were gathered, and Kirkcaldy of Grange shouted to them, ‘Call your men to order. This was not the agreed terms of surrender!’

  The Earl of Morton, standing with the odious Lindsay and the new Lord Ruthven, whose father had led the assassination of Rizzio, shook his head and laughed. ‘The woman, Mary Stuart, is our prisoner now, and we will conduct her to the city jail.’

  I felt sick to my stomach. I realized that they had tricked us and we could expect no mercy.

  By the time we got to Edinburgh Mary’s hair was unpinned, her clothes spattered with mud, and her face streaked with tears. At the city gate she was greeted with howls of derision from bands of vagrants organized by the rebels.

  ‘Drown the witch!’

  ‘Flog her!’

  Mary stretched out her hand to me for aid, but as I reached for her I was struck on the arm. The soldiers closed in on her and we were separated. Rough hands seized my reins. My horse reared, and I was tumbling down to meet the hard cobblestones.

  A cool cloth on my head. A blurred shape near me. I tried to sit up.

  ‘Wheesht, wheesht. Ye maun rest.’

  It was Rhanza.

  Seeing a familiar friendly face, I began to cry.

  ‘Dinna greet,’ she said. ‘Dinna greet.’

  ‘The queen?’ I said. ‘Where is she?’

  Rhanza’s own eyes filled with tears as she told me they’d locked Mary in a room in the provost’s house and no one was permitted to see her.

  ‘What will they do to her?’ I asked.

  ‘Naebody kens,’ Rhanza replied. ‘But they’ll nae let her gang free again.’

  I went upstairs and met Marie Seton and Jean. They’d heard that the queen had demanded that parliament hold an official enquiry into the death of Lord Darnley; if Bothwell was found guilty, she would divorce and imprison him.

  ‘Morton will not grant her that, nor any of the rest,’ I said, ‘for their own guilt would be revealed. Bothwell claims to have proof, a bond he can produce signed by them.’

  We sat there throughout the night and all the next day, sending Rhanza out into Edinburgh at intervals to garner any news. Her trips were bringing us nothing, but then she returned at nine in the evening saying that the queen was coming to Holyrood!

  We ran to the palace windows. A hostile group, armed with sticks and cudgels, was milling around the Canongate.

  A great unease took hold of me. ‘How will they get the queen here safely?’

  And then, in the distance, the sound of a banging drum. The crowd yelled in anticipation. More people ran to join in. Some paused to rip up cobblestones from the street and hold them high above their heads.

  ‘They’ll tear her apart as soon as she appears, for the soldiers will not fire upon the townsfolk,’ whispered Jean.

  The drumbeat sounded louder. The mob began to stamp their feet and bay for blood.

  ‘Blessed Mother in Heaven protect her,’ Marie Seton prayed as we held onto each other in fright.

  Suddenly a silence descended and, amid mutterings of discontent, an avenue cleared among the people.

  ‘Look!’ I cried. ‘They have brought out the Blue Blanket!’

  Spread below us was the huge Scottish Crafts banner of Edinburgh, gifted to the city by the crown nearly a hundred years ago for loyalty in defending the Scottish king. The rebel lords were using this, with its emblems of crown, thistle and saltire, as a canopy to hold over the queen. Under its traditional protection Mary was bravely trying to walk upright towards the royal palace.

  It was the Earl of Morton, scion of the Douglas clan, and a man I considered even more callous and brutal than Lord James Stuart, who escorted Mary to the royal apartments.

  The servants rushed to prepare food and fresh clothing, and we cried out in joy when we saw the queen. Marie Seton brushed her hair while Jean and I helped her change her clothes. Mary was weeping and trembling and laughing and crying – and, although she tried not to display it to her captors, very, very afraid.

  ‘I saw William Maitland in the High Street,’ she told us. ‘I called to him but he looked the other way. He was always the steadying influence among my fractious advisers, and he agreed, as some of the others did, that I should marry Bothwell. I don’t understand. Why has he turned against me?’

  I signalled Marie Seton with a tiny shake of my head. At the moment everybody who was close to Mary feared for their lives. There were no armed men here to protect us if the Douglas family decided to kill us all this very night. But we dare not voice these fears to Mary. We had to keep her strong.

  ‘Come and eat,’ Marie Seton said gently.

  We led her to the table. ‘I must have some food,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve eaten nothing from fear of being poisoned and I’ll need my strength to travel, for they’ve said they’ll take me to be with Prince James tonight.’

  But she had only swallowed a few spoonfuls when Morton suddenly announced that the queen must leave.

  ‘I am going to visit my son?’ Mary qu
estioned him. ‘You did give me to believe that you would allow me that.’

  ‘Stand up!’ he ordered.

  We all got ready to go with her, but he pointed at me and said, ‘You!’

  And so we set off in the half-darkness of the Scottish midsummer. But we were not riding to Stirling to see the baby prince. The Earl of Morton had lied about that, as he had done about many other things. We were bound for Kinross, for Loch Leven Castle, and captivity.

  Chapter 42

  WE ARRIVED AT the castle on the island late in the night, to be greeted by Sir William Douglas, with his wife and mother in close attendance. It was obvious they had been expecting us.

  Mary clung to me. ‘Morton and the rest never intended to keep their promise to reinstate me if I abandoned Bothwell,’ she said.

  ‘Liars and traitors,’ I agreed. I held my head high and stared at the people who were to become our jailors. ‘Liars and traitors,’ I repeated, ‘as are all the Douglas family.’

  ‘No! We are not!’

  The outburst had come from someone standing in the background. By the light of the torches I saw that the speaker was a young lad.

  ‘Be quiet, Willie!’ snapped Sir William Douglas.

  I took this boy to be Sir William and Lady Douglas’s son, but it transpired that Willie was an orphaned cousin who lived with them as a servant and boat keeper.

  First we were searched by old Lady Douglas, who was both Sir William’s mother and also the mother of Lord James Stuart, and therefore did us no favours. She took away my dagger, but failed to find the rings and jewelled hairclips that I’d hidden in the toes of my stockings in the hope that they might prove useful as bribes. Then we were hustled to a dank tower room and left there without food or water or a candle for the dark. We sat huddled together with our backs against the door until daybreak, too afraid to close our eyes lest an assassin creep in to murder us as we slept. In the early dawn, a scratching sounded outside. Cautiously I opened the door a crack. There stood the young lad who, the evening before, had shouted out that he was not a traitor.

  ‘I brought you some bread.’ He thrust a warm loaf into my hands. ‘Do not tell anyone I gave it to you.’

  ‘Who is it, Jenny?’ the queen asked, her voice quavering in fear.

  ‘The boy who spoke up last night, to deny he was a traitor,’ I answered.

  ‘The one called Willie?’ the queen said. ‘Willie Douglas?’

  ‘She remembers my name!’ The boy’s face beamed in amazement and delight. ‘The Queen of Scots knows who I am!’

  Eating little food for fear of being poisoned, and debilitated by her ordeal, Mary miscarried her pregnancy within weeks of her imprisonment.

  It was brutal and bloody. One night she woke, crying and holding her stomach. When I went to her, the bedsheets were soaked red. I’d no idea what to do, and in panic ran for old Lady Douglas, who came at once. Between us we birthed not one but two dead babies. Mary had been carrying twins.

  ‘Boys.’ With her thumb Lady Douglas made a small sign of the cross on each of their foreheads.

  I raised my eyebrows at this but said nothing.

  ‘Best not to look upon them,’ she advised Mary. She sighed. ‘That’s what they told me when I lost my own.’

  Mary nodded, and Lady Douglas put the two scraps of humanity in an empty pillowcase and took them away. Only then did Mary give vent to her feelings and weep uncontrollably. And I did too, holding her and rocking her in my arms.

  Lady Douglas, returning with a basin of beef tea, gave us harsh comfort by saying, ‘Better they are gone now with their eyes shut. Accept what has come to pass. As brood of Bothwell, they would have been taken from you and murdered within a twelvemonth.’

  ‘There is truth in what Lady Douglas says,’ I told Mary when the older woman departed. ‘Take strength from her example. She’s gone through your experience and remains a formidable woman.’

  Mary curled in upon herself and I cuddled her until finally she fell asleep.

  She never again spoke of that pain-filled night – except once, many weeks later, when she commented wryly, ‘Allow Lord Bothwell that he would seed not one but two babes in me with single effort.’

  Loss of blood and our living conditions caused Mary’s health to decline. In empathy, old Lady Douglas, who’d also suffered child loss, provided better food and an increase in our supply of candles. She sometimes stopped by to chat, and was with us one day when the Earl of Morton and Lord Lindsay arrived to see the queen. Mary was very low in body and spirit and so I refused them entry to her bedchamber.

  Morton stood back and nodded at Lindsay, who came forward, put his two hands around my throat, lifted me bodily from the doorway and flung me into the room. Mary scarcely had the strength to scream as I crashed to the floor.

  ‘There is something here that requires the signature of Mary Stuart.’ Morton produced a document as he approached the queen’s bed.

  ‘This is outrageous!’ For once the severe Lady Douglas spoke in sympathy for Mary. ‘You must leave and return later.’

  ‘Hear me well, madam,’ Morton snarled. ‘If I leave with this unsigned, I will return later with an execution warrant for all within this castle. Though you be a Douglas, you will still be damned.’

  Lady Douglas knocked over her stool as she fled.

  ‘Bring the girl here,’ Morton told Lindsay, ‘to help her mistress sit up in her bed.’

  I was still struggling to get my breath, but I staggered to my feet as Lindsay approached. I’d no wish to have his hands upon me again. The pair remained in the room and did not turn their backs in deference as I gently put my arms around Mary’s shoulders and bolstered the pillows behind her back. For that lack of respect alone I hated them.

  ‘I must know what you want me to sign,’ Mary asked in a querulous voice.

  ‘Your abdication in favour of your son.’

  ‘I cannot give up my throne until I attend a meeting of my privy council.’

  ‘You will, else Lindsay here will cut your throat.’ Morton thrust a pen into Mary’s hand.

  ‘I need to think on this. I should consult with my privy councillors.’

  Oh, how I loved my queen in that moment! Desperately ill and faced with two murderous ruffians, yet still she tried to resist.

  Snatching a dirk from his belt, Lord Lindsay pushed Morton aside and placed the blade along the queen’s neck. ‘You are one second from death.’

  Mary signed the papers. Then she slid down the bed and turned her face to the wall.

  At the end of July Mary’s son was crowned King James VI at Stirling, where John Knox, having returned from England, preached the sermon.

  ‘It is almost amusing, is it not, Jenny,’ Mary said when she heard this, ‘that this self-acclaimed man of virtue absents himself while others do evil deeds on his behalf.’

  We were in the gardens, where we were now allowed free access and sat for an hour on the summer afternoons. Since the signing of the abdication papers, when our jailors had been threatened with death, our conditions within Loch Leven Castle had improved. I reckoned that old Lady Douglas was genuinely shocked by Morton and Lindsay’s behaviour, but also saw that it was in the interests of the Douglas clan to placate Mary in case these rebel lords went too far and were brought down in some way.

  ‘Lord James Stuart is also expected to return to Scotland soon,’ I said. This piece of news was conveyed to me in a whisper by Willie Douglas.

  ‘Ah, my brother, James,’ Mary sighed, ‘so desperate to be king and prevented by an accident of birth.’

  Her mood was generally low, but she received some solace from an unexpected source in a letter that was smuggled to her.

  ‘It’s from Throckmorton, the former English ambassador to France!’ she exclaimed.

  Mary was not overly pleased with the advice her old friend offered – which was to divorce Bothwell at once and save herself – but she was heartened to learn that Queen Elizabeth was horrified that the S
cots lords should treat a reigning monarch in such a way.

  ‘That’s what Elizabeth says in public,’ I commented. ‘In private she may say something else.’

  ‘You are jaded in your opinions,’ Mary reprimanded me. ‘I believe it is because you are missing the company of Sir Gavin – or could it be Sir Duncan Alexander?’

  I was missing Gavin and his light-hearted manner, and also Duncan’s company, erratic though it had always been. I was also concerned for Duncan’s safety, but reckoned had he been captured after our surrender at Carberry I would have heard. But that wasn’t the reason for my comment about Queen Elizabeth. I too was receiving smuggled notes, mainly from the loyal Marie Seton, who was collecting every piece of information on our behalf. Thus I knew that Lord James Stuart had taken possession of Mary’s personal jewels, and even now both Elizabeth of England and Catherine de’ Medici were vying with each other as to who could bid highest to possess Mary’s famous black pearls. If something cheerful was communicated to me, then I shared it with Mary; the news of the fate of her beloved jewels I kept to myself.

  Having the abdication papers signed and Prince James crowned, there was need of a regent to be appointed to rule until Mary’s son came to his majority. In August our jailor, Lord Douglas, tapped on the door to announce a visitor.

  ‘His grace, Lord James Stuart.’

  With a sharp intake of breath Mary broke off our conversation. I stood up. This mode of address denoted a person of the highest rank. Mary’s half-brother entered her presence as if he were indeed of equal standing to the queen.

  Mary regarded him through narrowed eyes.

  ‘You’ – Lord James addressed me – ‘may leave us.’

  ‘The Lady Ginette will remain,’ Mary said deliberately. As he began to protest, she went on, ‘There are such wicked lies and ill rumour circulating that it would serve us both well if there were someone present to testify to our conversation.’