The Wisest Fool

by Nigel Tranter

  Even James could not keep the Council quiet now—and did not indeed try very hard. He sat back.

  "Sire!" Salisbury exclaimed. 'This one is as bad as the other. Have him in ward, likewise! All of them. They are rebel rogues all. A danger to Your Majesty's realms."

  "Yes—away with them!"

  "To the Tower with the scurrilous dogs !"

  "Hush you, my lords. It is for me to say how these shall be disposed," the monarch declared. "And six o' them have committed nae offence yet, have they? They havena opened their mouths. Be no' so thin-skinned, my lords. Mind, in Scotland we have a mair outspoken custom and usage—aye, mair debative and controvertible. So I'll send these gentry back hame—since I reckon we are now sufficiently informed as to their views. Unless any o' you lords o' my Privy Council are anxious further to question them? No? Then back they shall go. But no' Maister Jamie, I think. In case he felt moved to convene another General Assembly on his ain! He doesna want to be Bishop o' Dunkeld, and I dinna want him back Moderating the Assembly, nor yet ministering at Anster and Kilrenny. He'll do fine at yon Newcastle, aye Newcastle—until Igie him leave to go back to Scotland. Aye, Jamie Melville—you pleased yoursel' fine at Newcastle once before, did you no'? When you chose to act pastor there to yon arrogant lords I exiled there? Ooh, aye. So that's it, my lords. This Council is closed. We are a' the wiser, are we no' ? You have my permission to retire." Majesty waves them all away.

  When, after an interval, James, alone, came tip-toeing back into the gallery, closing the door carefully behind him, and coming to release Heriot from confinement, he was positively gleefuL

  "Man, Geordie—was that no' just prime!" he demanded. "Couldna have been better arranged, though I say it mysel'. Thae Melvilles cooked their ain goose, eh? I didna need you, in here. A' just went maist excellent welL Nae trouble at a'."

  'There seemed to be trouble in plenty, Sire."

  "Not so. Yon wisna trouble, Geordie—yon was the working out o' my purpose. In better fashion that I expected) mind. I'm right gratefu' to Andra Melville. I dinna need your testimony now, to help lock him up."

  "You mean, Sire, that you planned all this in order to get the Melvilles to trap themselves?"

  "To be sure, I did. I wanted them out o' Scotland. And to bide out. So's this business o' my bishops is settled decently. Och, without the Melvilles Vicky and Doddie Home will have little bother, at all. The Kirk's been a thorn in my flesh for lang. It'll no' be, now."

  "You intend to keep Andrew Melville here? As good as prisoner?"

  "Ooh, aye. For a year or so. The Privy Council will no doubt advise me strongly to put him in the Tower. Where there's better men than he is "

  "He's an old man for the Tower, Your Majesty..’

  "He's an auld man for ca'ing the lugs off archbishops o' my Privy Council! But, och—I'll see he's comfortable. He'll no' dee there, man—I'm no' for making martyrs for the Kirk, see you. And, whiles, I'll maybe go along and have a bit crack wi' him, anent sundry doctrines and dogmas. He'll be fine. And in a year or two I'll pack him off to France or Geneva, where he was before. But, mind this—I'll no' have Andra Melville back in Scotland again, and that's a fact!"

  Heriot inclined his head, silent.

  Before he took leave of the King, the goldsmith reverted to the subject of the projected Scottish dramatic production. "When does Your Majesty wish me to take Master Shakespeare to Scotland?" he asked.

  "Aye, you're keen, heh? Eager, Geordie man! To get your hands on yon lassie Primrose again! At your years you shouldna be so hot, I tell you. Forby, though she's ready enough, she'll be a' the better for waiting a wee. Ripening nicely, aye—nicely!"

  "Does that mean that Your Majesty is having second thoughts about sending us up ? "

  "Nothing o' the sort Touchy, eh? You'll go in my guid time, and no' before, Geordie Heriot So keep your manhood between your twa legs, meantime, and remember you're a decent London tradesman o' middle years!"

  17

  IT WAS, in fact, late the following Spring before George Heriot got away on his jaunt to the North. His position as Court Jeweller, with all its additional banking and financial ramifications, was one of considerable advantage and influence; but it had its drawbacks, one of which undoubtedly was that, like all other Court appointments, no major travel or absence beyond the King's ready call was allowed without express royal permission.

  And James kept a notably close grip on his entire entourage— extraordinarily so for so apparently haphazard and casual an individual—and especially on his banker.

  There was another aspect of the position. Heriot was still in the Queen's black books over Alison Primrose and Margaret Hartside, the more so, it seemed, in that he had discovered the blackmail by Orkney. Whether that particular situation was improved, or no, he was given no indication; but he was no longer summoned to Somerset (or Denmark) House, and Anne had bestowed her custom and favour on Sir William Herrick. This was a veritable financial relief to Heriot—but the man regretted his estrangement from the Queen, with whom he had had great sympathy in the past and whom he had served for long. Whether Anne positively intrigued to keep him from going to Scotland was not to be known; but he suspected it. How much influence she had, in fact, on the King these days was a doubtful quantity, for the Courts were almost entirely separate, and there were many days when James did not see his wife.

  Will Shakespeare got up to Scotland before Heriot did, he and his King's Players company travelling North to present a series of plays at Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen. Whether this would result in the financial profit James fondly hoped for remained to be seen; for the Presbyterian climate in the northern kingdom was less than favourable towards play-acting, except against a good religious background. The King's Players ransacked their repertoire for suitable themes, but departed doubtful.

  Heriot's permission to depart, as he had expected, coincided with his involvement in another errand for James Stewart The Master of Gray's case had been heard before a secret commission of judges, and he had been awarded nineteen thousand, nine hundred and three pounds against the King. Admittedly this was within the suggested sum for settlement—but the fact of having to pay at all rankled with James. The judges had been much too open-handed with other folk's money, he contended—especially as one of them was James Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino, Lord President of the Court of Session as well as Chief Secretary for Scotland. The same Balmerino was holding back eighteen thousand merks, or twelve thousand pounds Scots, of the price of Robert

  Logan's estates he had bought, was he not? Patrick Gray was one of Logan's heirs general, as a first cousin, and the King strongly suspected that his Chief Secretary and Gray had done a deal—and at the royal expense. This would by no means do. Gray was a proven scoundrel, of course; but it looked as though Balmerino might well be one also. Moreover, there was another matter. There was a complaint to the King, personally, from the old Lord Gray, the Master's father—a donnert auld fool by all accounts, but one who had served the Crown in his time. He declared that his eldest son had violently entered his house of Castle Huntly and cruelly driven him out, dismissed his servants and consumed all his victuals and fodder, with the intent shamefully to bring his grey hairs to the grave that he might inherit the sooner. He had appealed to the Scots Privy Council, but to no avail. Now as a last resort, he sought the royal intervention.

  When Heriot demurred that this did not sound in the least like Patrick Gray's style of behaviour, a man of infinite subtlety, James overbore him. The old lord would not be likely to write so if he had not been evicted from his castle. And if the Scots Privy Council were refusing to do anything about it, might it not be because they were looking after the Master's interests in more than the nineteen thousand, nine hundred and eighty-three pounds! Indeed, might not Patrick Gray be getting a grip on more than Balmerino? What about Sandy Seton himself, Chancellor Dunfermline? They had ever been friends. He had asked Vicky Stewart about that—but his ducal cousin could see no
further than a mole in sunlight. So Geordie Heriot was to go to Scotland, and make quiet enquiries. Find out what he could about Balmerino, and Dunfermline too. Search out what was at the back of the eviction of the old Lord Gray. Discover whether the nine-teen thousand, nine hundred and eight-three pounds need in fact be paid—to a possible felon who might conveniently be outlawed. And while he was at it, see if he could learn whether those fell Casket Letters were indeed now in the Master’s hands.

  No protests on the part of the reluctant enquirer that this was turning him into little better than a spy and secret agent, had any effect on the monarch, who did not fail to invoke the sacred ties of friendship, as well as the simple duty of a loyal subject, throwing in the royal command when the other looked unconvinced.

  Before heading northwards, Heriot went to see the Duke of Lennox, not long returned from his quite prolonged vice-regal stay in Scotland settling the new bishops into their places in the state, if not in the Church. Lennox was full of the oddity of this situation, and very doubtful as to the wisdom of it all—for James was antagonising much of the nobility, by taking back from them the bishopric lands they had gained at the Reformation land-grab to bestow again on the restored prelates. Moreover, the Kirk would have none of them. Nor did the strong Catholic influence, which still remained a force, consider these bishops as anything but frauds. So, according to the Duke, James was uniting the three warring factions of nobles, Kirk and Catholics against himself, by this episcopal imposition, and gaining nothing save a superficial appearance of unified church polity as with England—a concordat, James called it—and of course the important matter of the bishops' votes in the Scots parliament.

  "And, do not forget, a totally reliable, educated and continuing corps of leadership in Scottish affairs," his friend pointed out. "From whom the King may choose ministers of government, high officials, secretaries of state, to carry out his policies, nominated by himself, wholly dependent on his goodwill. The bishops are only an instrument in that policy. However unpopular and ineffective as churchmen, they will be an enduring tool in the King's hands."

  "You may be right," Lennox admitted. "James has no interest in popularity. Or indeed in doctrine, I think—although he likes to argue and debate dogma. Efficacy is all he is concerned with, I swear! Divide to rule has always been his policy. Religion, I think, does not come into the matter, so far as James is concerned. Myself, I have little use for doctrine—but I mislike being so unpopular as I am now, in Scotland. I have spent months settling and imposing these bishops—and ended up being hooted at in the streets! George Home does not appear to care—but I mislike it, Geordie."

  "At least you are an open agent of the Crown—not a spy, as I am to be. I had rather be hooted at than considered an underhand informer"

  "We are all spies for James. It is his method of government. He does not go to war, slay men by the thousand. He is the first king to use wits, intelligence and the weaknesses of men, instead of the sword and the axe. Mountebank Royal—with, I am coming to believe, the keenest wits in his two realms!"

  They contemplated that proposition for a little, in silence. Then Heriot mentioned the King's suspicions of Secretary Elphinstone, Lord Balmerino, and, to a lesser extent, Dunfermline the Chanceller, and the charge to himself to discover what he could.

  "I have never trusted Elphinstone," Lennox conceded. "He is cunning and able, but I think crooked. And, of course, a Catholic but thinly disguised. He pays only the barest lip-service to the Kirk. Duiifermline is Catholic also, of course—all the Setons are —though he makes a show of conforming. But he is otherwise fairly honest, I believe. Indeed, Patrick Gray too is a Catholic at heart—if he is anything 1 Perhaps James fears those three, and others, overturning Reformed Scotland and his throne!"

  "Some call you Catholic!" his friend reminded.

  The other smiled "I say a man's religion is his own business ! I do not, and will never, make mine a matter of the state's."

  "Would all were so wise." Heriot changed the subject. "What of Margaret Hartside ?"

  "There has still been no trial. The Queen is playing cat-and-mouse with her. She is living quietly in Stirlingshire, as ordered. But they say that her husband visits her secretly from Orkney— and makes no attempt to take her back with him, as he might, where she could be beyond Anne's clutches. And so saves you your surety money I"

  "Which means, then, that the Earl of Orkney still believes that he can make use of her?"

  "So I would think."

  "And the Casket Letters ?"

  "Of those I learned nothing. Or whether Orkney is still being paid mail."

  "The King wishes to know if Gray has them. So he is still concerned, on that score. Moreover, he is seeking to avoid payment of the moneys awarded by the judges."

  "That is folly. He should not make more of an enemy of Patrick Gray than he must."

  "My own opinion." Heriot sighed. "Well—have you the letter for me to carry to your Mary ?"

  * * *

  George Heriot arrived in Edinburgh, to discover that Will Shakespeare and his company were meantime playing in the city of Perth. Before proceeding thither, however, he had other fish to fry. He sought out James Primrose, in his town house at the top of a high tenement of the Lawnmarket, but was part disappointed, part pleased, to learn that Alison was not with him there, but was staying with Mary Gray at Methven—which, he knew from her letters, she often did. Primrose, although his visitor pumped him gently, discreetly, revealed nothing of interest regarding Balmerino, Dunfermline or other members of the Scots Privy Council, nor why nothing had been done about the old Lord Gray's complaint—save to mention that the Master of Gray was still Sheriff of Forfar, the county in which Castle Huntly was situated, and so, in theory and possibly practise also, was the law there. Heriot could get little more out of him; perhaps he recognised that he had been somewhat indiscreet previously. He was, however, prepared to talk about his daughter's wedding. He proposed that the ceremony might be held at the very least a year hence when, he considered, Alison would be of a fit age—and before which he could by no means spare her. Nor would he be in a position to produce her dowry before then. The bridegroom-to-be could not have been less interested in the proposed five thousand merks dowry, but recognised that the decencies had to be observed. Moreover, although his heart, like his whole body, wanted Alison now, his head told him that he would have had to have made his peace with the Queen before he could bring the young woman back to London—or, at least, to Court circles; and he was not going to put her in any position where she was likely to be slighted or snubbed. If this Scottish mission of his' was in any degree successful, he ought to be able to make overtures to Anne from a position of some strength. Next summer, then, let it be.

  His brother James was not of much use to Heriot regarding hints and rumours of what went on below the surface in Scottish affairs; but the lawyer, Adam Lawtie, his Edinburgh 'doer, was a shrewd and busy little man with an ear very close to the ground, and from him the enquirer gained some relevant information, or at least the avenues to explore. For instance, that the Earl of Dunbar, still in Scotland as Lord Treasurer and commissioner, and Lord Balmerino the Secretary, had reputedly fallen out, and that the Chancellor Dunfermline, was taking part with Balmerino. That these two crypto-Catholics were, strangely enough, in ever closer touch with the Calvinist leaders of the Kirk That Balmerino was said to have arrested the Eyemouth lawyer George Sprott, 'doer' for the late Logan of Restalrig, and was holding him hidden away secret somewhere. That the Master of Gray was very active visiting and being visited by a great many of the nobility. And that the King's proposed Act of Union between Scotland and England, together with the bishops who were thought to be the main instruments for bringing it about, were likely to be resisted by a for once almost united Scotland.

  Thoughtfully, Heriot went seeking his cousin, the Lord Advocate.

  He found Sir Thomas Hamilton in better health, entirely affable, but less forthcoming as to c
onfidences even than previously. It seemed obvious to Heriot that he was being more than habitually close and careful—and therefore presumably had something to hide. This was reasonable enough for a man in his high office; but he knew that his cousin came straight from the King, however unofficially. Even Heriot's suggestion that James might possibly be considering making a peer of him did not open the King's Advocate's thick lips to any extent.

  Disappointed in this, the discreet enquirer sought out Master Thomas Hope, the advocate not of the King but, men said, of the King's enemies. He found him more difficult of access than the other, for he had become the busiest practitioner in the Scottish High Court, with everywhere his ability, independence of mind and fearlessness recognised. The caller had to wait almost two hours at the Court of Session, and took the opportunity to sit-in on a couple of cases in which the advocate was involved—being left with an enhanced respect for Hope and a recognition that this was a man whom he could much prefer to have for than against him. He gained the impression that the judges in the cases felt the same way.

  When eventually Hope had time to see him, it was to find the tables turned rather, and Heriot himself in the role of examinee and witness.

  "I played my part, Master Heriot, and convinced my client, the Master of Gray, to agree to a private commission of judges, and to accept their award. Within the twenty thousand pounds limitation. That award has not yet been paid. That would be a serious defraudment, besides being extremely dangerous, I think. Moreover, a failure in confidence and good faith towards myself, sir."

  "But... I think that you go too fast, Master Hope," the other answered, carefully. 'The payment of large sums is ever apt to be slow—as I know to my cost. Would it were only nineteen thousand pounds Scots wherein I was outlaid, on the royal account! There is no reason, is there, to believe that it will not be paid in due course?"