Disgrace And Favour

by Jeremy Potter

  The King’s eyes were bloodshot, his beard tangled. ‘You have become a great hangsman, Sir Robert,’ he complained, and his speech was tetchy and slurred. ‘You have hanged Geordie Bourne, I am told.’

  ‘I do not beg your Majesty’s pardon for that.’ Carey spoke righteously, and more fiercely than he intended.

  ‘The knave is bold,’ the King exclaimed in fright, cowering back in his chair. ‘Have you searched him for hidden arms, Ludo?’

  ‘He was disarmed when taken,’ replied the swaggerer with a faint sneer. ‘You may trust me to protect your person, Jamie.’

  Ludo and Jamie. Carey could place the young stranger now. Ludovic, Duke of Lennox, son of the dissolute Seigneur of Aubigny, was a Stuart relation who had become the King’s boon companion since the death of Chancellor Maitland. Some reports named him as the royal catamite; others as the real father of the King’s son; others as the real ruler of Scotland. To judge from his bearing and behaviour, any of the reports could be true. Carey could have knocked him down with both hands still tied. Yet if James were to become king south of the border, this androgynous fop would take precedence over all the peers of England.

  ‘Bourne was a hero in these parts,’ declared the King, reassured when the Duke had moved to stand between Carey and himself. ‘The greatest hero of the Border since our unlamented Kinmont Willie. The common people are troubled by his hanging. When the English captured Willie, Buccleugh - my own keeper of Liddesdale - himself broke into the castle at Carlisle and rescued the rogue. The Kerrs were as hot for Bourne as Buccleugh for Willie. They might have gathered an army and marched on Berwick to free him and bring him home. Then we would have had war with England.’

  ‘It was to prevent his rescue that I hanged him within the day. Would your Majesty have wished him spared?’

  In answer to Carey’s question, the King put a hand to his backside and made a coarse gesture. ‘I give not a turd for Bourne,’ he announced, ‘nor for the whole clan of Kerr. If Sir Robert had crossed the border to Berwick he would now be in prison in St Andrews with Buccleugh. I must have peace on the Border in spite of you all. My royal cousin, your Queen, expects no less and she has my word on it that I shall put a stop to these raids, even if I have to ride down the rebels myself. How many cattle thieves have we hanged today, Ludo?’

  ‘Fifty or thereabouts.’

  ‘Tell your Queen that, Sir Robert. Inform Her Majesty that now we are ruling our own domains in person, we are in earnest. We shall tame every wolf and wild boar in Scotland, whether it has four legs or two.’

  Throwing off his torpor and timidity, the King sat upright and adopted the royal plural to bolster his dignity and emphasize his strength of purpose. At the age of thirty, he was famed for his learning but no more mature than a child. It was some years since Carey had heard the English Queen in one of her rages denounce him as ‘a false urchin’, but his shifting glances and twitching hands betrayed him for a changeable weakling still. Dignity lay beyond his reach, and the Duke of Lennox spoiled his brave attempt with an ill-suppressed snigger.

  The King at once picked a quarrel with him in retaliation. ‘Did my ears hear you aright, Ludo? Did you state that Sir Robert had been disarmed when taken? What can be the meaning of that? Did we give orders that an English officer should be made captive? God forbid! Our instructions were that Sir Robert Carey, our distinguished neighbour in the East March, be invited to visit us here. Has your Grace had the impertinence to disobey us?’

  Not to be out-argued, the Duke refused to answer. He assumed a sullen expression and turned his back. If his purpose was to madden his sovereign lord and make him incapable of reasoned discourse, it succeeded.

  ‘Did I bid thee show me thy bum in the presence of a guest?’ screamed the King, spattering the table with showers of spittle. ‘Answer me, piss-pot.’

  ‘Permit me to reply to your Majesty’s previous question.’ Carey interposed. ‘I have been brought hither trussed like a fowl.’

  The King uttered a groan, as though long wearied by acts of disobedience. ‘My orders have been disregarded,’ he said. ‘The culprits shall be punished.’

  ‘Punish yourself then.’ The Duke threw the words petulantly over his shoulder. ‘Use force if you must. Those were your own words.’

  ‘Your Majesty’s wisdom is a byword,’ said Carey, deciding to act as peacemaker, ‘and I have seen it at work this day. If I had not been brought in such an unceremonious fashion, it would not have been possible for me to come at all. Your Majesty knows this as well as I, and will no doubt recall the precaution I felt bound to take on the occasion of my second mission. Even as matters stand, if news of this audience were to come to the ears of my Queen, it might well cost me my head.’

  ‘Then she shall not hear of it. Shall she, Ludo?’

  The storm over, the young Duke deigned to show his face again. ‘The choice is Sir Robert’s,’ he declared. ‘If he were to make the matter public and complain of his treatment, you would be forced to deny that he was carried here against his will. The English Queen would either have to brand you a liar or regard his conduct as treasonable. No one would doubt your royal word, and you have witnesses, while he has none.’

  ‘Ludo is a naughty boy.’ The King tutted like a doting uncle and smiled weakly at Carey. ‘Whatever he may say now, he acted contrary to our wishes. Pray accept our apologies, Sir Robert, and be seated. We have matters of importance to discuss.’ He clapped his hands for more chairs and wine.

  The first bottle was soon emptied. The Duke seemed intent on drowning his fit of sulks and Carey was thirsty after the discomfort of his journey, but the King, gulping and belching contentedly, outdrank them both. Gossip had it that James’s wet nurse had been a drunkard and his taste for wine acquired at her breast.

  Before long, the bloodshot eyes grew bleary and a royal hand strayed towards the Duke, ruffling his hair affectionately and hugging his shoulders in overtures of reconciliation. The Duke favoured Carey with a wink.

  By the bottom of the fourth bottle they had all become merry, and the Duke, by gracious permission, was wearing the King’s hat. Drink filled the King with bravado and his speech grew statelier and more deliberate.

  ‘The piteous state of the Border,’ he announced: ‘advise us how to heal it, Sir Robert. Speak without fear. Let us deal with these brutes together. Now that Maitland is no more, all England must learn that Scotland has a strong and just government.’

  ‘Your Majesty should be aware how ill-served he is by Sir Robert Kerr,’ Carey replied. ‘Your warden is himself a night rider, a freebooter, an accomplice of outlaws. He grows fat on other men’s goods and spoils. There will be lawlessness on the marches so long as he bears the authority of the Crown. Demonstrate your rule of strength and justice by imprisoning him with Buccleugh.’

  ‘First let me see your evidence, for it is curious how your complaint about Kerr has a twin.’ The King wagged a finger at Carey. ‘Kerr accuses you of consorting with thieves and of criminally assaulting him on Scottish soil.’

  Carey flushed with anger. ‘Judge then between us,’ he demanded, jumping to his feet.

  ‘Be calm, Sir Robert,’ the King begged, jumping up too, in fright. ‘I recognize thee for a man of honour and him for a rogue, but where are your witnesses? If I know the Kerrs, he will have a hundred, all swearing in the name of our Lord and every one of them a follower of Geordie Bourne. We must have patience.’

  ‘They are too strong for you, Jamie,’ jeered the Duke. ‘An army will do you more good than patience.’

  ‘Enough of these Border rascals.’ The King dismissed them with a fart. ‘Send us a messenger at any time, Sir Robert, and by God I will move against them. We have need of friends in England and you, who have thrice acted so honourably as an intermediary between the two realms, we count among the dearest of our allies. The Kerrs are mettlesome and we would not seek to offend them, but if they quarrel with you, by Jesu, they quarrel with us. There!’

 
‘Your Majesty is too kind.’ Carey bowed and resumed his seat.

  ‘What news from England?’ asked the Duke, while the King retired to relieve himself in a corner.

  ‘The Queen has been pleased to confirm me in my post. I am warden of the East March in my own right.’

  ‘We are glad to learn of it,’ said the King over his shoulder. ‘We had heard of your father’s death and the Queen’s sorrow at it. Was our royal cousin in good spirits, despite her years?’

  ‘In excellent health, by the grace of God.’

  ‘And, if her physicians are to be believed, likely to remain so for many years,’ added Lennox maliciously.

  The King returned, fumbling with his breeches. ‘Reports of a different nature reach my ears,’ he said.

  Lennox laughed. ‘Time-servers and place-seekers will report what they believe you wish to hear, Jamie. Some in England may have misjudged your concern for your cousin’s health, but in Scotland we know you too well. Have you not told me yourself how your concern rivals that which the Queen felt for your mother?’

  The King frowned, swallowed another draught of wine and smacked his lips. ‘Speak plainly, Sir Robert. In the matter of the succession, are you for us or against us?’

  ‘When my sovereign has no further claim on my loyalty, I shall bend my knee to Your Majesty.’

  ‘Will you serve me now?’

  Carey hesitated on the brink of treason. ‘No man can serve two masters,’ he said, ‘and I will do nothing against the interests of mine.’

  ‘Fairly spoken,’ the King acknowledged, ‘but where there is no conflict, will you be true to my cause?’

  Carey lowered his head in assent. The King placed an unsteady hand on it as a sign of allegiance accepted.

  ‘Many Englishmen write in secret acknowledging us as the heir to their country and offering us their fealty. But what are their promises worth? With whom else are they conspiring? Do they write at the Queen’s command, to test and trap us? We cannot tell. You alone we trust, Sir Robert. The Queen is your cousin too, but she has honoured you below your deserts. We shall not make the same mistake. The earldom which your father would not accept - why should it not be yours?’

  Carey thought of half a dozen reasons, all of them elder brothers. For him to secure the title over all their heads would be a prize indeed. His eyes flashed and the King saw it.

  ‘What do you require of me?’ Carey asked.

  ‘Intelligence. True and swift. When the old Queen dies, what will mine enemies in London do? They will attempt to suppress the news while they invite spurious claimants to usurp the throne which is mine by right. When the day comes I must be told of it, at once and for sure. If I move on a false report, I am lost. If a true report fails to reach me in time, then I am lost again.’

  At the prospect of such perils the King began snivelling and ruefully shaking his head, until he laid it on the Duke’s shoulder for comfort. Carey was taken aback at the request. He had been expecting a demand for proclamations along the Border, perhaps even in the northern capital at York.

  ‘But I shall be almost as far from London as Your Majesty himself,’ he protested.

  ‘You may be recalled to court. If not, you have kinsmen there. One of your brothers is Lord Chamberlain, is he not?’

  ‘My brothers are mine enemies,’ said Carey. ‘I would confide in them as I would in a nest of adders.’

  ‘So you refuse the assignment?’ It was the Duke who spoke and his voice had an edge to it.

  ‘No; I accept it. But on one condition.’

  The King had become sulky at Carey’s objection and now turned suspicious. ‘State it,’ he demanded.

  ‘That we do not meet again or hold any further communication so long as the Queen lives.’

  ‘That would be prudent.’ The King’s suspicion faded. He smiled and nodded approval. ‘But when the time comes there must be a password.’

  ‘If I am able, I shall come to Your Majesty myself, to Edinburgh or wherever your court lies. Otherwise I shall send a messenger who will bear a token. That will be surer than words.’

  ‘What token?’ asked the King.

  ‘Here,’ said the Duke, ‘let Sir Robert take this.’ He pulled from his finger a sapphire ring. The blue stone smouldered ominously in the dull light.

  ‘Ludo!’ exclaimed the King. ‘Would you part with my most precious gift to you? That is the symbol of our love.’

  ‘It is a small price to pay for England, Jamie. When you see it again, you will be King of Great Britain.’

  He threw the ring carelessly across the room and it fell on the floor. Carey picked it up, thought better of putting it on his finger, and stowed it in his pocket instead. Then he kissed the King’s hand and sought leave to depart. He felt worn and dizzy with wine, and mention of love had reminded him of Elizabeth asleep at Norham.

  James left his Ludo and accompanied Carey into the night outside. Now that the bargain was struck, he pawed the new possessor of his ring affectionately, breathing wine into his face. He insisted on making a present of his own horse to replace the one which had been shot. When it was saddled, he even pushed the groom aside and helped Carey mount with his own hands.

  ‘Remember,’ he whispered, ‘if you fail me not, you may ask anything of me.’

  With the groom as a guide and the night wind to revive him, Carey rode hard under the stars and reached Norham before dawn lit the sky and his men could see him approaching from across the river. He hammered on the gate, sought his sleeping wife and had taken her like a brute before she became fully conscious.

  In the morning he despatched the blue ring to his sister Scrope in London, ordering her to wear it day and night until such time as the Queen might die. Then she must return it to him with all speed.

  The Succession

  I

  Seven years passed before Carey saw either of his monarchs again. A new century was born and still no summons to the south reached him.

  Nor did one reach the King of Scotland. In his bleak, barren realm, James waited impatiently, his mouth watering for the fleshpots of England. He convinced himself that the Queen clung grimly to life out of sheer spite. Impervious to advice, she refused to the end to name him as her successor.

  The empty years he spent in drinking and plotting, in religious controversy and exploration of the pleasures of the flesh. Sometimes he did his duty to his Danish wife; more often he indulged in vice with Ludo and his other favourites. He escaped what he claimed to be a plot to assassinate him when the young Earl of Gowrie and his handsome brother were killed mysteriously while entertaining him at Perth. Uncertainty and hope deferred aged him. He became petulant. Scotland remained ungovernable and the dream of England was forever receding.

  Every day brought fresh doubt. As a Scotsman, how could he expect to succeed to the throne of an enemy country? He was an alien in England, and under English law no alien could inherit English lands. Must it not be fatal to his chances that his claim came through descent from Margaret Tudor, not Mary, the sister named in Henry VIII’s will? Rumours reached him of rising support for his cousin, Arabella, who lived in England. The Jesuits, infuriated by his championship of the Protestant cause, still argued persuasively for Philip of Spain. Most ominous of all, an Act of Parliament barred from the succession anyone plotting against the life of the Queen. When Essex made his rash bid for power against Cecil and the Howards, and demanded recognition of James as heir, James did nothing except tremble in his shoes. He received the news of Essex’s death on the scaffold, under Ralegh’s gloating eye, not as a disaster, but a relief. Yet it brought the southern crown no nearer.

  For Carey these years opened with the loss of his hard won wardenship in the East March. After his intercession with the Queen, his enemies at court were not slow to move against him. Brother John failed to secure Berwick, and the new governor demanded the March as of right. In this Carey recognized the hand of Cecil. His impassioned protests and threats of defiance were ignored.
Without support in London he could not but be outmanoeuvred.

  Even so, he would have flung himself at the Queen’s feet again if, providentially, Cecil had not found him another post, in the Middle March, where Sir John Foster had grown old in office, and an incompetent successor had quickly turned mis-government into chaos. Faced with an emergency, the Council was forced out of desperation to offer the wardenship to Carey. Feigning unwillingness, he drove a hard bargain, but he gave them their money’s worth by restoring order as firmly as he had in the east. The change exhilarated him. Alnwick was more comfortable than Norham, the night riders bolder and more easily captured. Instead of hanging Bournes at Berwick, he hanged Armstrongs at Newcastle. Across the Border, Sir Robert Kerr was in disgrace and sulked at home.

  If it had not been for the happy chance of the Middle March, Carey would have joined his old captain, Essex, adventuring in Ireland. Then, surely, he would have been with him in London for the final disaster. Will Killigrew had had to flee abroad and live on charity. At least Carey’s exile in the north had spared him that indignity.

  Afterwards his sister Scrope wrote to him bitterly that the Earl need never have died. From prison he had sent her a token - a ring like Carey’s blue one - with a message. She was to give it to the Queen, whose present to him it had been, and who had promised him mercy whenever he chose to remind her of their love by returning it. But the messenger had mistaken the Carey sisters at court and handed it to the Lord Admiral’s wife who, wedded to the Howard faction, kept it hidden. The Queen had allowed her favourite to die, thinking him too proud to send the token, and he had died believing her faithless. ‘God forgive her,’ cried the Queen when she learned what had happened. ‘I never can.’

  Two years later, early one brisk March morning, the messenger whom Carey had expected so long arrived at the gatehouse of the warden’s lodgings at Alnwick Abbey. This time his sister Scrope wrote briefly. The Queen was ill and like to die: his sister advised him to hurry south to the palace at Richmond. ‘The vultures are gathering,’ she wrote, ‘you had best come too.’