The Queen's Mary: In the Shadows of Power...

by Sarah Gristwood

  *

  I wouldn’t have believed it, was Seton’s first thought. Wouldn’t have believed that could be Queen Mary. A red skirt like the working women of Edinburgh wear – it must have been made for a shorter one, too, for it hardly covered the queen’s knees. An odd collection of garments – a velvet hat, a muffler – and a strange new trick of bringing her face close to yours and peering at you for answers to questions you couldn’t see.

  ‘I told them,’ she exclaimed, without even a greeting, ‘did you hear, Seton? I told them off properly. I told them Morton needn’t even bother to get his boots cleaned, he’ll be needing them again soon enough, when I pack him back down the highway.’

  The queen’s breath came hot as she grasped Seton’s arm, and it was as if she’d taken on the voice of the fishwife she looked to be. As if she’d been possessed. In Seton’s ear she whispered something that sent her eyes flying down to the queen’s belly, shock fighting with horrified sympathy.

  Without so much as a glance, Bothwell had stomped away. It was Isobel who came to the rescue, as Seton stood dismayed.

  ‘Come and rest, your Majesty. Your usual rooms are all ready for you, and I’ll have water brought up immediately. Come and rest.’ Coaxed, the queen allowed herself to be led away. Instinctively, Seton moved towards her brother. But George was looking past her, as he made towards the armoury.

  *

  The queen was better in the morning. More herself, thought Seton, who’d been in the royal apartments since first light. And, within sight of the longest day, first light came early.

  No more lounging in linen sheets for anyone but her Majesty; but at least the sleep had restored the queen so that she spoke in her own pretty voice when she said to George, ‘Thank God you’re still with me,’ holding her hand out to a loyal supporter in her old, graceful manner.

  No such words for George’s sister – perhaps it didn’t occur to her that the last of the Queen’s Marys had anywhere else to go. She was right, of course. When the queen, restored, came down to mount her horse, Seton found they’d already saddled a pony for her too.

  It was still only five a.m. as they clattered out of the courtyard, the sun just cracking into the pallid bowl of the sky. It was going to be a hot day.

  *

  Two armies camped out in the heat while between them travelled a small anxious figure, a ball batted between two shuttles. Here he comes again, thought Seton unsympathetically. My God, France must want a peaceful Scotland badly!

  Du Croc, the French ambassador, had ridden out in the lords’ train, and offered his services as go-between, trying to reconcile the warring parties. Urged the lords that it was one thing to attack Bothwell, but another to take up arms against an anointed queen. Choked, no doubt, when he heard the response they wanted him to carry, but brought it over anyway.

  That her lords would never have dreamt of taking arms against Queen Mary. That they sought only to punish the murderers of Lord Darnley. That they would lay down arms if only – only! – the queen would agree to leave Bothwell forever.

  If only, thought Seton savagely.

  She was perched on a rock behind the queen, who was beating her hands as she paced back and forth, and keeping up a broken pretence of chatter. She was still wearing that damned red dress, though Seton had managed to arrange it more decently.

  Queen Mary flushed dark when she heard the lords’ message, but she managed to hold onto her dignity. It looked very ill of the lords, to accuse Bothwell, she said – ‘when they themselves married me to him!’ – and when he had been acquitted of the murder.

  It was left to Bothwell to lower the tone, and answer the message as ruffian to ruffian, instead of leaving it a reproof from majesty.

  Did they forget the bond they had signed, he shouted. Didn’t they attack him only from envy? ‘Fortune’s free to those who can profit by it! And there isn’t a single one among them who wouldn’t gladly be in my place!’

  As if the queen were just a prize he’d snatched while running at the ring. As if he’d seized her only for the power he’d snatched with her. True or not, those words should never have been spoken in public, and Du Croc looked shaken as he rode away.

  *

  I am not here, said Seton fiercely to herself, this is not happening to me. I won’t ask whether the queen has led the men to the wrong place, because I hardly know who’s leading who, or how we all came to be on this baking hillside, with the sweat running down my neck and my petticoats sticking to me. Whoever thought Scotland was a cold country? I don’t know anything about it, of course I don’t – they never taught us the arts of war at Poissy.

  All they seemed to have taught Queen Mary was that higher ground brings an advantage. That’s what she’d said when she halted us here, triumphantly. But then it had been cool and early, and any fool could see that when the heat came on we’d be mewed up here thirsty, while the enemy had the stream below, and trees where they could move out of the sun’s blaze.

  Bothwell had been all for settling the thing himself by single combat, of course, the moment one of the lords suggested it. Why wouldn’t he be? Eat any other lord for breakfast, as he boasted frequently. Just so long as the challenger were his equal in rank… But Queen Mary had cried out against it, and Du Croc had nodded in agreement, too civilised a man to be able to believe they’d settle the fate of a country that way.

  *

  Then as the heat pressed down more heavily – as throats grew drier – the queen’s men began to slip away. When Kirkaldy of Grange appeared with a fresh offer of single combat, it wasn’t put aside so easily. Two in the afternoon; they’d been here a full seven hours already.

  Kirkaldy, Maitland’s friend. Was Maitland himself waiting over there, Seton wondered – with the other army? Kirkaldy had approached under a white flag, but Bothwell yelled an order to shoot him anyway, before the queen cried out not to do her that dishonour.

  Kirkaldy himself was the champion the lords first chose, but Bothwell said a mere laird was no match for him in degree. He said the same about Sir William Murray, and then it was plain on whom he had his eye. He wanted to fight Morton. And to be fair, Seton thought reluctantly, it wouldn’t be because Morton was out of practice on the battlefield, and fifteen years older than he. It was because Morton had betrayed him. Just as he’d betrayed Queen Mary.

  But they agreed Morton might have a more appropriate surrogate – Lord Lindsay, a cousin to Lord Darnley. As Lindsay advanced onto the ground between the armies, and knelt down praying God to protect the innocent and punish the assassin, Seton found that she’d edged closer to the queen, as if his great double-handed sword might menace Queen Mary.

  Bothwell was all business now, testing the buckles on his armour as if this were no more than the kind of fight he might meet any working day. But just as the two men advanced towards each other, there came a cry from Queen Mary.

  ‘Stop!’

  Seton hadn’t realised she’d been holding her breath, but it came out in a soft sigh.

  Eyes fixed on her mistress, she found she had no idea what the queen was thinking. Whether she couldn’t bear to lose a man she still saw as protector, if a fight to the death went badly. Whether she knew that, even if Bothwell won this challenge, the lords would never really let it end this way.

  They weren’t going to get out of this so easily.

  *

  It was Kirkaldy who finally came back to act as intermediary, but thrashing out the details of the deal took the rest of that endless day. Bothwell was to be allowed to ride away, with just a handful of supporters but, for the moment, free. The queen would then surrender herself, if the lords guaranteed to treat her honourably.

  She was the composed one now – as if she’d withdrawn into her royalty, and it was Bothwell who turned edgy. Perhaps having her protect him made him uneasy.

  Was the safe conduct for real, he demanded now? Was she sure of the deal she’d agreed, would he not be killed as soon as they were out of sight?
The queen reassured him, calmly.

  It was with just a clasp of the hand that they parted, before Bothwell galloped away. Struck by the drama of the moment Kirkaldy knelt and kissed the queen’s hand – but he was a decent man, as Maitland’s friend would be.

  As the queen mounted on her horse, Seton had to scrabble to fall in behind, mounted on her weary pony.

  *

  They were riding back to Edinburgh again, unsure of their welcome and with companions so close to foes, Seton shivered, though the heat still had its sticky claws in a death grip on the day.

  But this was different to the ride back from Dunbar. That had been like something out of a nightmare – horrors unfolded, but somehow you seem to grow an extra layer of skin, so that the fear was kept at bay.

  This – was as if one layer of your skin had been flayed away.

  The lords themselves had received the queen decently – decently enough if you forgot she was these rebels’ monarch, and just saw her as they did, a woman who had strayed. There was no sign of Maitland, and Seton didn’t know if she were glad or sorry.

  When the calls began, they came from an anonymous voice in the crowd of soldiers, and Seton thought she couldn’t have heard them properly.

  ‘Burn the whore!’ No, it couldn’t be. Bewildered, she checked her pony until the rider behind nudged her on, not ungently.

  ‘Burn the murderess!’ This time there was no mistake. Furious Seton looked to the nearest lord to check the noise, but he turned his head away.

  The queen had heard now, too, and from a few yards behind Seton could hear her, muttering at first, and then speaking more loudly. Shouting, almost; and Seton’s first thought was, not now. Not now this other, wild, woman who seemed almost to take possession of Queen Mary.

  She was letting loose a stream of words – Seton could hear them all too clearly. Of how she would hang and crucify them all, for exposing her to insult this way. Seton could see even the more kindly among the lords stiffen in their saddles, see resentment settling round them like a cloak. Well, if that was what she planned to do, they’d see she never had the chance, wouldn’t they? If that was the way the woman thought, they’d been right to take her down from her high office, hadn’t they?

  *

  They entered Edinburgh as the long light was cooling, and the streets were packed with citizens, waiting sullenly. Was this the women they’d welcomed just six years before, with yellow taffeta and their best pageantry? The lords must have sent word ahead to have them thronging the streets like this. It was as if they wanted the queen to know she was hated now, but didn’t dare do it directly.

  As the shouts began again – ‘Whore! Murderess!’ – Seton edged her pony up beside the queen, shouldering a guard out of the way. It was as if she could hear Maitland’s voice in her head, telling her how the game had to be played.

  ‘They’re going to be the lords’ own men, the shouters,’ she urged. ‘Pay no attention, your Majesty. That’s not what the people really think. Pay no attention.’

  But the queen gave no sign of having heard. She’d fallen silent, this last part of the journey. She didn’t even protest when the horses turned up the hill, not down; into the city, not down to Holyrood.

  No palaces for us now, I suppose, thought Seton grimly.

  *

  They were taken to the provost’s house, just opposite the Merkat Cross. Just across from St Giles, where John Knox had so often preached against her Majesty. This was Simon Preston’s house, but the time he had played host at Craigmillar seemed a world away.

  As the queen was led up the stairs and into the bedchamber at the front, she roused from her stupor and grew agitated again, tearing herself away from Seton’s hands, and those of the maids who’d come to help her, and running to the open window as if she’d throw herself out and onto the mercies of the crowd below. Her hair tumbled down, her bodice open half down to her waist, she fought all their efforts to get her tidy.

  ‘The mood of a crowd is a fickle thing.’ It must have been Maitland who told Seton that. ‘It’s a weapon with two edges, to be wielded carefully.’ And indeed, as people began to gather under the window, they seemed to be starting to pity her. No shouts now, but a constant murmur. Once even a ‘God save the queen!’

  That must have been what brought the lords in after just a few hours, to announce that the queen would be returned to Holyrood and to liberty. Seton blinked: could it really end so happily?

  The crowd began to drift away, with many a backward glance. ‘Poor soul,’ Seton heard one woman say.

  Seton still had Maitland’s voice in her head. Remember, when no other course of action offers, it’s always better to give in gracefully. No of course they couldn’t trust the lords’ promise. But join in the pretence – the queen’s situation could always get worse, if you push them to extremity.

  She took one last glance out of the window, before she turned away to make the queen decent, or near as might be, for the brief journey. A hatted figure made her start as it hastened past – Maitland himself, surely? The queen had seen him too, and cried out sharply, as if for help. But the man who couldn’t have been Maitland pulled his hat over his ears and hastened away.

  *

  They rode to Holyrood behind a force of musketeers, who carried a banner of the murdered Darnley lying dead under a tree, just as he’d been found, with a child crying for God’s justice beside him. It was the last cruelty, to co-opt the image of the queen’s own baby son to shame her, but luckily the queen seemed hardly to see.

  This time the lords’ paid hecklers had a new line. ‘Drown her – she doesn’t deserve to live!’ Well, thought Seton behind gritted teeth, at least it’s variety.

  *

  When they got to Holyrood and the royal apartments she looked around her as if at an unfamiliar world, though they’d been hardly more than a week away.

  Seton didn’t argue when the other maids tried to get their mistress into a nightgown. But the queen refused to go to bed. She knows, too, thought Seton, with a flash of kinship. She knows we’re not home and dry.

  When the maids managed to tug off her stained red dress, when they urged her to lie down, the queen broke off in her frantic pacing just long enough to bat their helping hands away. For as long as she paced, of course, her ladies couldn’t sit. And I swear, Seton thought afterwards, that as the night wore on, I could have grabbed the sword from the guard on the door and slashed her legs away.

  As the hours passed, Seton even began to hope. Hope they might be allowed to stay here in the palace, in some pretence at normality. But at five in the morning the call came. The queen was being moved, said the hard-faced officer at the door. Best make her ready quickly.

  In the end all they had time for was to drape a cloak round the queen’s nightdress, so the men couldn’t see the breasts already swelling with her new pregnancy. She left without a backward glance, the maids twittering out after her, dispersing like snowflakes in May.

  Thirty-four

  For a moment Seton stood uncertain in the empty room, and watched them lead their prisoner away. It wasn’t fear or pity swelling her heart against her ribs – it was something angrier, and more bitter. Hatred, maybe.

  Hatred of the lords, for what they were doing to the queen. Of the queen herself, that she could not prevent them. Of her own self, for having sworn over her life to bolster what proved to be a travesty. Deep down, she was almost glad to be rid of Queen Mary.

  But after a moment, Seton did run after the men, and seize the sergeant’s arm to ask where they were taking her.

  ‘Lochleven,’ he answered curtly, shaking her off. All right. A holding place, to be reached safe under cover of darkness. Not the executioner’s block or the show trial. Not yet, anyway. So they were gone, and Seton trudged back up the stairs to the deserted royal apartments with legs of lead and bile roiling in her belly.

  All she could think of was of lying down, on the queen’s own bed if necessary. It was almost two days
since she had slept at all, and God knows when she last slept easy. Not in four months since before Darnley died, anyway, and who’d have believed anyone could ever look back and think of that as tranquillity? Just a month now since the queen married Bothwell; not two since he seized her bridle, there by the river, and spirited her away. Seton almost laughed, through the sickness in her stomach and the tightness in her chest. They’d been right, whoever said that happy hours pass quickly. The last hundred-odd days had lasted an eternity.

  *

  Looters, or searchers, had been through the rooms. Six years since the four Marys had first decked them with gold cushions and tapestries. There was a shout of alarm from one of the palace servants, and Seton dragged herself to her feet again, like an old soldier answering yet a final battle cry.

  She’d made for these rooms as for a haven but perhaps she’d been a fool – the lords controlled the palace, and this was now enemy territory. But she didn’t know where else to go – like a coney when the keepers stop every hole in the warren and the dogs are coming near.

  To her family at Seton? Would any servant bring her a horse? Was she a prisoner, like Queen Mary? Did no one even care that much?

  That was the most depressing thought of all, really.

  Dizzy, she even wondered if she could walk to Seton, stumbling along like a beggar on the track. But who knew what she’d find if she got there? Was George, were the queen’s loyal lords, still free?

  Someone scuttled through – the girl Morag. What was she doing here, with Beaton far away? But Seton couldn’t think. She needed food. There was an end of bread and some herring lying stale on a plate, but a stone jar stood on a sideboard and as she lifted the lid the smell of cloves came up from the sweet darkness – preserved cherries sent back with them by Isobel, as a small gift to her Majesty.

  The scent of summer, there, was just too much. She thrust the jar away. But she snatched up the bread and fish and crammed it into her mouth like a starving vagrant as she began to turn over the litter on the floor.