Pens
Pens were made of a feather, with the quill hardened in the fire then split at the bottom to help the ink soak in. You could only write one or two words before you had to dip your feather or ‘quill’ pen in the ink again.
Table Manners and Lapdogs
The idea that people in Mary’s time threw their bones over their shoulders to the dogs isn’t accurate. It was incredibly bad manners—or ‘poor courtesy’—to have dogs in the room when you were eating. Lapdogs were the very rare exception—wealthy or high-born people sometimes had dogs that literally kept their laps (and fingers) warm, and these dogs might stay on their laps while they ate.
I assumed that Mary—who had been brought up at the French court, where courtesy was prized—would have insisted her dogs were kept out of the room while she was eating. But as her arthritis began to hurt her more, she might have chosen to keep Folly with her to help warm her hands.
Heroine, Victim or Fool?
Mary was charming and beautiful (and over six feet—nearly 183 centimetres—tall). She was brave, riding at the head of her army to try to win back her throne. She entranced almost everyone she met, apart from those who hated her for her religion, or those like John Knox who thought it was monstrous that a woman might rule a country.
But she made some silly choices.
Mary was used to having people flatter her and doing just what she wanted. Unlike Queen Elizabeth, who was both brilliant and had learnt very early to walk a political tightrope if she wanted to survive, Mary never learnt to listen to good advice.
She married Darnley, even though she had been warned what sort of a man he was. She married Bothwell, either for love or to help her get control over the Protestant lords, even though he was violent and widely hated, had probably plotted to kill her husband—and was already married.
How could she have believed that Elizabeth would really help her get her throne back? Or that her son, who couldn’t remember her, would give up his throne for her? Or that the King of France or her French uncles would waste their money or soldiers to give her back her crown?
She played games with invisible ink and hidden letters, never realising that all along Elizabeth’s spies were reading them.
In a different time—or another country—Mary Stuart might have been a successful and much-loved queen. But she didn’t have the political wisdom needed to rule in the mid to late 1500s. (And to do her justice, the Scottish lords, including her half-brother, may have been too powerful for anyone to rule without English soldiers to back them up.)
Mary’s Women
Queens like Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor were looked after by high-born women. It was the highest honour in the land to act as a servant to a queen. I have called the men and women who served Queen Mary her ‘people’, as the word ‘servant’ has a different meaning now.
Mary Stuart was served by lots of people (many of whom were related to her). Usually fifty or more people might gather for morning prayers, and there might be a dozen or more helping to serve at her table. I have only mentioned a few in this book, to try to make it less confusing. But there were many others, like Willie Douglas, loyal and dutiful, who deserve to be remembered.
Mistress Curle
The ‘Mistress Curle’ in this book is Elizabeth Curle. She and Jane Kennedy were two of Mary’s favourite women, and were with her when she died. I have called Elizabeth Curle ‘Mistress Curle’ to avoid confusion with Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth Curle (possibly with Jane Kennedy) either painted the last portrait of Mary after she died, or paid for an artist to paint it, with herself and Jane Kennedy in the background. Master Gilbert Curle, Elizabeth’s brother and one of Mary’s secretaries, married Barbara Mowbray, another of Mary’s ladies. I’ve referred to her as ‘Barbara’.
After Mary’s death, Gilbert Curle and Claude Nau stayed in prison for about a year. Nau then went to France, and wrote a book about Mary’s life and death. The three Curles left England and finally moved to Antwerp. Barbara Curle died in 1616, aged fifty-seven. Her two sons became Jesuit priests. Elizabeth Curle never married, and devoted herself to the Church. She died in 1620, aged sixty. Both Barbara and Elizabeth Curle were buried in the church of Saint Andrew at Antwerp.
Jane Kennedy
I haven’t been able to find out what happened to Jane Kennedy. She was probably the daughter of Gilbert, fourth Earl of Cassilis, one of Mary’s Scottish advisors. The Earl became a Protestant on his second marriage, and is supposed to have roasted an abbot on a spit to get him to sign over the abbey lands. (The abbot was rescued before he was cooked.) But most sources only give Gilbert two children, both sons, or four children, all sons. (A Jane Kennedy married Robert Stewart, Duke of Orkney, in 1561, but her name would have been Stewart then, not Kennedy.)
Several books on Queen Mary say that her women all married, except for Mary Seton, who lived till 1615 in France at the convent of Mary Stuart’s aunt, praying for her and giving alms to the poor in her memory. But they may only mean the ‘four Marys’, the childhood companions of the Queen who were also called Mary, as at least one of her closest women friends and attendants, Elizabeth, stayed single.
Jane Kennedy was brave (she helped Mary escape from Scotland, jumping from a castle window and helping to row the rescue boat) and loyal, and I’ll keep trying to find out what happened to her.
Bothwell
The Earl of Bothwell, Mary’s third husband, fled to Denmark and tried to rally support to regain power in Scotland. He even promised Scottish territory in return for money and an army. Instead he was imprisoned in the Danish fortress of Dragsholm, and chained to a pillar in the dark for ten years. He died insane, his body covered in hair and filth. His mummified body is displayed in the crypt of a church near Dragsholm.
Skye Terriers
There may have been no Skye terriers in Folly’s day, but as a small Scottish dog he probably was a terrier. Terriers like Folly, and the Skye terriers of today, were first bred on the Isle of Skye in the Hebrides, to hunt foxes, weasels, otters and badgers. Big dogs were kept outside, but these small dogs often lived indoors with their owners. Cairn terriers, Scottish terriers, West Highland White terriers, Dandie Dinmont terriers and Australian terriers are also descended from these small hunting dogs.
(My first dog was an Australian terrier called Milly. She was a dog of incredible politeness and loyalty, who wouldn’t snap even when my baby brother chewed her tail. She lay by my bed when I had my tonsils out or had chicken pox—if any of us was sick or unhappy Milly was there. In return she demanded very little, except, maybe, to be loved.)
Skye terriers became popular in the 1840s when Queen Victoria started to breed them. They are twice as long as they are tall, with stocky bodies and very short legs. They can have either pricked or drop ears. They can be black, fawn or ‘blue’ (a deep grey) and have long fur parted down the middle from their noses to their feathered tails. (There is a story that short-haired Scottish terriers bred with long-haired dogs that swam ashore after the Spanish Armada was wrecked, and that’s how Scottish terriers came to have long hair.) They are ‘double coated’—they have a soft undercoat and a longer straight overcoat.
Skye terriers are loyal, intelligent dogs, but if they don’t respect their master or mistress they can become bad-tempered and snappish. They can be snap at strangers, too, and prefer to be loyal just to one person or family.
Skyes need a walk every day, like all dogs, but don’t need as much exercise as many larger dogs. When you have short legs, a walk that may be just a doddle for a German shepherd can be a long one for you! They need to be brushed once a week and given lots of love. They live for about twelve to fifteen years.
History is the Best Adventure
We think of war, political intrigue and terrorism modern, but when you look at the past you realise that most countries have very similar periods somewhere in their histories.
And one thing history can teach us is that things change.
A l
ittle more than a century ago (when my great- great-grandmother was a girl) children pulled carts in mines because they were cheaper than ponies, and they were kept away from daylight because they could work better in the dark.
Things change. So do people, and the way we think and act. And knowing history—how people once thought and acted—may give us, too, the confidence to believe that we can create a future that is good and fair.
About the Author
Jackie French is a full-time writer who lives in Braidwood in the Araluen Valley, via Canberra, New South Wales. Her book Hitler’s Daughter was awarded the CBCA Younger Readers’ Award in 2000 and the WOW! Award in the UK in 2001. Recently, her book The Night They Stormed Eureka was awarded the 2010 NSW Premier’s History Award for Young Readers.
Visit Jackie at www.jackiefrench.com
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published as The Goat who Sailed the World in 2006; The Dog who Loved a Queen in 2007; The Camel who Crossed Australia in 2008; and The Donkey who Carried the Wounded in 2009 by HarperCollinsPublishers
This combined edition published in 2011
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Copyright © Jackie French 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011
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The Animal Stars Collection Page 59
