The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots: A Novel

by Erickson, Carolly

  THIRTY-TWO

  I trusted the rebels—but they lied. Jamie had been right to warn me.

  As soon as I reached their camp they swarmed around me, nobles and commoners alike, snatching at the bridle of my horse and hooting and jeering at me as if I were a woman of the streets and not an anointed queen.

  “Whore! Husband-killer! Foul slut! Bitch!”

  Every ugly word was thrown at me, and ugly looks as well. The men kicked dust over me until my dress was brown with it, and my face and hair too. My clothes were torn and stained. I looked like a filthy streetwalker, and in my low-spirited state I slumped, my head hanging down and all my pride gone.

  I could not help but weep—in sorrow and in anger, anger at the rebels but also at myself for imagining that I could trust them. My only consolation was that Jamie was by now far away, riding his swift horse, and surrounded by his loyal men. I reminded myself that if I had made a bad bargain, I had made it for his sake.

  I was taken to a small room in a house near the Tollbooth and left there, with two guards to watch my every movement. I had no tirewoman, I had to do everything for myself. I could not wash, as I had no privacy. To relieve myself in the cracked chamberpot, in the presence of the two mocking guards, was an agony. I was unable to sleep and the food that was brought to me did not tempt me at all. I ate nothing.

  Mostly I missed Jamie. I had no defender any more, no loving husband to hold me in his arms. I could not go to sleep knowing that I would wake secure in our bed. Nothing was as it had been. I was still Queen of Scots but was treated as if I were lower than the meanest kitchen maid.

  After several days of this misery Kirkcaldy informed me that I was leaving Edinburgh and that I would be allowed to take one tirewoman with me and a few of my oldest and most trusted servants, and a small number of guardsmen. I asked that Margaret be summoned from Holyrood to attend me, and that she be allowed to bring some clothing for me and some of my most precious things.

  “What of my son?” I asked. “Will he be with me?”

  My captor shook his head.

  “When will I see him again?”

  “That I cannot say.”

  That was the worst blow of all.

  We left the capital at night, in secret, to avoid being seen and accosted by my wrathful subjects. We rode north to Kinross shire, to Lochleven with its four wooded islands, the waters of the lake gleaming in the moonlight. Boatmen were waiting to row us out to Castle Island, where Sir William Douglas had his semi-ruinous donjon. I was given a small tower for myself and my servants, a dirty, reeking place without so much as a stick of furniture inside.

  I stamped my foot and demanded that a bed, at least, be provided for me but the louts who had rowed us across from the shore ignored me and slammed the thick oaken door of the tower in my face.

  I slept wrapped in a blanket on the cold, dirty stone floor.

  Sir William Douglas owed allegiance to my brother James, now regent for my son and effective ruler of my kingdom while I remained in rebel hands. I could hardly expect mercy or kindness from Sir William or any other Douglas. Indeed I knew I had to be on my guard to prevent him from worsening my reputation further.

  As I lay shivering on the sharp stones, I began to understand just how dire my situation was. My brother James ruled all (though he had no right to) and had no intention of restoring me to my throne. I was the captive of his allies. My son was under his governance. An accident could happen, I could drown in the lake, or die from catching a chill, or even fall from the top of the tower and break my neck. I was reminded of the conversations I had had with my advisers about what to do about Henry. They all agreed that he had to be eliminated, and Jamie had recited all the various ways his life could end by accident. Now I was the one who was unwanted. Would I die, just as Henry had? In the dark, cold room my imagination took flight. What if Sir William Douglas were to fill the basement of my small tower with gunpowder, and blow it up?

  If that happened, not only would I die but my unborn child would die too, and that, I knew, must not happen. I loved her already (I always thought of her as a girl), and I knew only too well that she might prove to be the savior of the Stuart line. For I imagined that my scheming brother James might well eliminate my son as well as me. It would be only too easy to do: my brother would simply say that little Jamie was ill, that the physicians could not cure him, and that he wasted away (as so many babies did) and died. Then the throne would be entirely and solely his. He would be James VI of Scotland, and it would be as if I had never survived my own babyhood—as Michel de Notredame had once said was my true fate.

  And indeed I had not been living in my tower prison long before my brother and his allies began to carry out their plans to destroy me and my blood line.

  On a sad day toward the end of July I was informed by my captor and half a dozen dour nobles (I shall not do them the honor of listing their names) that I had to renounce my throne. Documents were presented to me and I was told, in the harshest and most blunt terms, that I had to sign them. If I refused, my life would be forfeit.

  So, after praying for forgiveness, I clenched my teeth, and wept, and signed.

  But I told myself afterwards that my signature meant nothing, because it was obtained by force. It was wrong. The men who forced me to sign had no authority. And in any case no earthly power could cancel the supreme sacred authority conferred on me at my coronation. I was Queen of Scots, now and forever.

  Who could I rely on now? My cousin Queen Elizabeth, I felt sure. She would not let me languish in rebel hands, treated with such a humiliating lack of courtesy. (I did not let myself imagine that she might have encouraged or supported my traitorous brother and his confederates. That was too disconcerting a thought. But I did remember what Jamie told me, that the gunpowder Henry had placed in the cellar at Holyrood had been supplied by the English.)

  I wrote to the queen and told her all that had happened, and entreated her, for the sake of our common blood, to arrange my release and my restoration.

  Then I wrote to my grandmother Antoinette in France. We had written to each other throughout my years in Scotland and she knew of my hardships and my fleeting joys. We had developed a sort of code to convey the most private information, the messages we did not want anyone else to read. I wanted her to know that I needed her now, and that I was carrying a child—a child I hoped would be a girl.

  But how was I to convey this letter to France?

  Late one afternoon shortly after my arrival at Castle Island there was a loud knocking on the main door of my tower.

  “Don’t let them in!” I said to Margaret.

  She shrugged. “They will surely break down the door if I don’t.”

  But it was not my jailer Sir William Douglas or any of the rebel nobles or commissioners knocking on my door. It was a blond, pink-cheeked young man holding a reel in one hand and a string of freshly caught trout in the other.

  “For your dinner,” he said, smiling and holding out the trout toward me.

  “Thank you, but I have no place for my cook to prepare these. We have been eating nothing but the bread we brought here with us and the fruit we are allowed to pick.”

  While I said this the young man was looking around the bare room.

  “And we have no furnishings,” I added, “as you can see.”

  He frowned. “No doubt my brother has his orders, and is following them.” Then his face lightened. “But I have no orders. I will do my best to bring you what you need. In the meantime, we can build a fire and cook the fish. It is going to be a lovely warm evening. We can have a picnic.” He smiled and bowed. “Geordie, at your service.”

  I extended my hand and he took it and kissed it.

  “It isn’t often we have a guest as lovely to look at as you, milady,” he said. “We must do what we can to make her stay a pleasant one.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  It was becoming harder to hide my growing belly. Margaret and I did our best to alter my scan
t few clothes, making the skirts fuller and wider and lengthening my cape so that it covered me nearly to my knees. But my condition was becoming evident to anyone with a sharp eye, and so I decided to seclude myself in my tower room, complaining of pains in my head and side and saying that I feared I was suffering from dropsy, as my mother had. I was determined to stay in my seclusion until my baby was born.

  Fortunately I was able to benefit from the fact that both Margaret and I were well along in our pregnancies, so that when the midwife from Lochleven village on the lake shore came to examine Margaret she was also able to examine me—and was well paid to keep silence about what she knew. For though I was in want of possessions I was not penniless: Margaret had brought one of my jewel boxes from Holyrood when she joined me in my captivity, and it was full of precious gems. In appreciation of her silence I gave the midwife a large pendant ruby that had belonged to my great-grandmother.

  My growing daughter was small, but kicked lustily inside me. I imagined her dancing in my womb, and the thought delighted me, loving to dance as I do. Some day, little girl, we will dance together in our own palace, I told her, and your father will be there too to dance with us.

  I clung fiercely to such comforting daydreams, for the reality of my situation continued to be dismal. To be sure, the handsome Geordie, who was Sir William Douglas’s young brother, brightened it considerably, bringing food to me and my household by boat from the village, providing me with a bed and one for Margaret as well, supplying us with cushions and straw pallets, tables and even a threadbare carpet to cover the sharp stones under my feet.

  That he did this out of calf-love I was well aware, and I am somewhat ashamed to say that I allowed him to flirt with me and attempt to woo me, knowing that as long as I appeared to favor his wooing he would continue to give us things we badly needed. He knew, as everyone did, that I was married to Jamie, but Jamie (so I was informed) had been outlawed, and my marriage to him was considered to be illegal. To me it was perfectly legal, and in any case Jamie had my heart and I felt quite certain that no one else ever would. But I allowed Geordie to imagine that I was eligible to remarry, and that I might consider his suit.

  Geordie was of the greatest use to us, as he went across the lake from Castle Island to the village on the lake shore daily, sometimes twice a day, and brought us back news and such useful things as soap and sweet-smelling Hungary water from France and clean laundry in wide baskets, washed for us by the village washerwomen.

  He also took our letters and brought us letters in return, hiding them in the hollow scabbard of an old sword he strapped to his waist. In this way I was able to correspond with my grandmother, for there was a community (no longer a convent, but a large mansion) of former Poor Clares just outside Lochleven village, and they were in frequent touch with their religious sisters in France. Grandmamma Antoinette had been a benefactor to the nuns of the Poor Clare convent near her estate for as long as I could remember, and my mother had favored them too as among the most dedicated and least self-regarding of the religious orders.

  Wet weather and strong winds ushered in the fall, and still I stayed in my tower room, seeing no one but Margaret and the midwife and, of necessity, the persistent Geordie, who would not be turned away.

  “I have news for you,” he came to tell me on a stormy morning in October as I lay in bed. “There is a message from Lord Ricarton,” he said, handing me a folded paper with a wax seal. “And there is a French lady staying at the Clares house. A very grand lady, with silken gowns and jewels at her throat and a cane with a golden tip. Everyone is wondering about her.”

  I could not conceal my joy at this news. I was strongly tempted to get out of bed and cavort a little, but managed to restrain myself.

  “If I tell you a great secret, can I trust you to guard it?” I asked Geordie, who looked quite shamefaced.

  “Have you ever known me to betray your trust? You know I would do anything for you, Your Highness—I mean milady.”

  I smiled at this. “Well then,” I whispered, “the French lady is my dear grandmother, and she has come here to help me.”

  Geordie nodded. “Yes. Family. That is what you need now.”

  “I want you to take a note to her.” I wrote a few lines in haste, then handed the note to the young man.

  “I’ll take it to her right away.”

  “Good. Bless you Geordie.” And I held out my hand for him to kiss.

  As soon as he had gone I broke the seal and unfolded the message from Cristy Ricarton. I knew that he had lands in Kinross shire, though I had heard nothing more about him since his serious injury at the hands of my late husband Henry. I knew that he was an invalid, and that his injuries had kept him from taking any part in the warring between my supporters and those of the rebel lords. I had not expected to hear from him.

  “Your Royal Highness Lady Bothwell,” he began, which I thought was an odd but amusing way to address me—a reminder of Cristy’s humor—“I have the honor to inform you that a gentleman of your acquaintance has recently come to stay with me, a gentleman known for his forthright manner and his liking for jeweled codpieces. He sends his regards and assures you of his undying loyalty and his hope that you may find your way to the top of a certain tower at dusk so that he may salute you in person.”

  Overcome with joy, I read and reread the message, marveling that after so many months of wretchedness I had at last, on a single day, learned that my beloved husband and my dear grandmother were both near by, and that I was no longer so alone. They were near by, they were safe. I swore that with luck I would soon see them both—or die trying.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I made my way up the rickety, half-ruined stairway that led to the top of the tower just as the sun was dipping below the horizon of Lochleven. Clinging to the railing with one hand I clutched a small lantern in the other, its feeble light gleaming dully against the old stones of the tower, stones that had been put there, so Geordie had told me, by builders two hundred years earlier.

  Dusk came early at that time of the year, the soldiers of the watch changed at six o’clock each evening and I hoped that they would be busy settling into their evening routine and would not scrutinize the top of my tower too closely, knowing that the light was failing and that before long it would be difficult for anyone to send or receive signals.

  Not that I was under suspicion. Up to that time I had not been a difficult captive, rather the opposite. When I had first come to the island Sir William had inspected my quarters every few days to see what I did there, and to uncover any escape attempts I might try to make, but in recent months he had come much less often, and he did not interfere with Geordie’s goings and comings from the lake shore, even though he knew very well that his brother was doing errands for me.

  I suspected, though I did not know it for certain, that Sir William hoped that I might marry Geordie; the regent was known to approve the match and the Douglas family would surely benefit. For though my Scottish throne had been taken from me, I had strong (albeit disputed) rights as heir to the English throne and if Queen Elizabeth did not marry and have children, I might well succeed her. If Geordie married me he might one day become King of England—something Sir William would be very glad to see happen.

  I grasped the loose handrail and pulled myself up the final step. My body had become unwieldy now that the time of my delivery was near, I moved much more slowly than usual and going up and down stairs was a challenge. However, I managed to heave my bulk up onto the leaden roof of the tower and took my first eager look out across the lake, its color faded to a dull gray in the crepuscular light.

  There was a small rowboat, painted black so as to be difficult to see, hovering near the shore of the island, partly screened by a line of trees. A tiny flame flickered in the bow, then disappeared.

  Jamie! It had to be Jamie! I squinted in an effort to see who it was, to assure myself that it was indeed Jamie and not some spy hoping to entrap me. I could not make out the face
of the person in the boat, but his body had the strong, compact shape of Jamie’s body and I trusted that I was indeed looking at my husband. I grinned and held up my lantern for the briefest of moments.

  As I watched, the boat began to move away, back toward the shore. I stayed where I was until I could no longer make out its contours in the dimness. Then I made my way back down the stairs.

  My little Marie-Elizabeth came into the world just before dawn on a cold November morning. I had been in labor all night, and for such a small baby she certainly gave me a lot of pain and trouble! The midwife helped me through it all, dosing me with opiates to ease my pain and prevent my crying out. Mine was the second baby she had delivered, for Margaret had just given birth to her son a few days earlier and the midwife was still in attendance on her, making sure she was healing and that the boy was thriving.

  I had been certain my little one would be a girl, just as I had been sure of the names I wanted her to have: Marie for my mother and Elizabeth for the English queen, who I hoped would be a benefactor to us both in the future. She was perfect in every way, slim and long-limbed like me, with a small tuft of soft light hair and blue eyes and a tiny red mouth.

  Because her birth had to be kept secret, I had no wetnurse. I nursed her myself, and did my best to keep her from crying by rocking her in my arms and singing to her. She slept beside Margaret’s boy Edward—named for his father—in a cradle Geordie brought from the village, a beautiful hand-wrought cradle woven out of reeds from the lake. There they were, two tiny infants together. I watched over their cradle by the hour, often with Margaret beside me. We said our rosaries over them and prayed for their good health and happiness.