It is quite true that when they had buried the little wasted
King Francis, and while the days of Black Dule still held,
the Cardinal of Lorraine tried three times to see his niece,
and was three times refused. Not being man enough to
break a way in, he retired; but as he knew very well that
the Queen-Mother, the King, the King of Navarre, and
Madame Marguerite went in and out all day long, he had
a suspicion that they, or the seasons, were more at fault
than the hidden mourner. ‘A time, times, and half a
time,’ he said, ‘have good scriptural warrant. I will try
once more—at this hour of high mass.’ So he did, and
saw Mary Livingstone, that strapping girl, who came into
the antechamber, rather flushed, and devoutly kissed his ring.
‘How is it with the Queen my niece?’
‘Sadly, Eminence.’
‘I must know how sadly, my girl. I must see her. It
is of great concern.’
The young woman looked scared. ‘Eminence, she sees
only the Queen-Mother.’
‘The more reason,’ says he, ‘why she should see somebody
else. She may be praying one of these fine days
that she never see the Queen-Mother again.’
Livingstone coloured up to the eyes. ‘Oh, sir! Oh,
Lord Cardinal, and so she doth, and so do we all! They
are dealing wickedly with our mistress. It is true, what
I told you, that she sees the Queen-Mother: that is because
her Majesty will not be denied. She forces the doors—she
hath had a door taken down. She comes and goes as she
will; rails at our lady before us all. She, poor lamb, what
can she do? Oh, sir, if you could stop this traffic I would
let you in of my own venture.’
‘Take me in, then,’ said the cardinal: ‘I will stop it.’
In the semi-dark he found his niece, throned upon the
knee of Mary Beaton for comfort, in heavy black weeds,
out of which the sharp oval of her face and the crescent
white coif gleamed like two moons, the old within the
new. Two other maids sat on the floor near by; each had
a hand of her—pitiful sentinels of spoiled treasure. When
the gentleman-usher at the curtain was forestalled by the
great man’s quick entry, four girls rose at once, as a covey
of partridges out of corn, and all but the Queen fell upon
their knees. She, hugging herself as if suddenly chilled,
came forward a little, not very far, and held out to the
cardinal an unwilling hand. He took it, laid it on his
own, kissed, and let it drop immediately. Then he stood
upright, sniffed, and looked about him, being so near the
blood royal himself that he could use familiarity with
princes. It was clear that he disapproved.
‘Faith of a gentleman!’ he said: ‘one might see a
little better, one might breathe a little better, here, my
niece.’
‘The room is well enough,’ said the Queen.
It was dark and hot, heavy with some thick scent.
As she pronounced upon it the cardinal paused half-way
to the shutter; but he paused too slightly. The Queen
flushed all over and went quickly between him and the
window—a vehement action. ‘Leave it, leave it alone!
I choose my own way. You dare not touch it.’ She
spoke furiously; he bowed his grey head and drew back.
Then, in a minute, she herself flung back the shutters, and
stood trembling in the sudden glory revealed. The broad
flood of day showed him the waves of storm still surging
over her; but even as he approved she commanded herself
and became humble—he knew her difficult to resist in that
mood.
‘I thought you would treat me as the Queen-Mother
does. That put me in a rage. I beg your pardon, my
lord.’ As she held out her hand again, this time he took
it, and drew her by it along with him to the open window.
He made her stand in the sun. Far below the grey
curtain-wall were the moat, the bridges, the trim gardens
and steep red roofs of Orleans, the spired bulk of the great
church; beyond all that the gay green countryside. A
fresh wind was blowing out there. You saw the willows
bend, the river cream and curd. The keen strength of
day and the weather made her blink; but he braced her
to meet it by his words.
‘Madam,’ said he, ‘needs must your heart uplift to see
God’s good world still shining in its place, patient until
your Majesty tires of sitting in the dark.’
She smiled awry, and drummed on the ledge with her
long fingers, looking wilfully down, not choosing to agree.
The maids, all clustered together, watched their beloved;
but the cardinal had saner eyes than any of them. As he
saw her, so may you and I.
A tall, slim girl, petted and pettish, pale (yet not
unwholesome), chestnut-haired, she looked like a flower of
the heat, lax and delicate. Her skin—but more, the very
flesh of her—seemed transparent, with colour that warmed
it from within, faintly, with a glow of fine rose. They
said that when she drank you could see the red wine run
like a fire down her throat; and it may partly be believed.
Others have reported that her heart could be discerned
beating within her body, and raying out a ruddy light,
now fierce, now languid, through every crystal member.
The cardinal, who was no rhapsodist of the sort, admitted
her clear skin, admitted her patent royalty, but denied
that she was a beautiful girl—even for a queen. Her
nose, he judged, was too long, her lips were too thin, her
eyes too narrow. He detested her trick of the sidelong
look. Her lower lids were nearly straight, her upper
rather heavy: between them they gave her a sleepy
appearance, sometimes a sly appearance, when, slowly
lifting, they revealed the glimmering hazel of the eyes
themselves. Hazel, I say, if hazel they were, which
sometimes seemed to be yellow, and sometimes showed
all black: the light acted upon hers as upon a cat’s eyes.
Beautiful she may not have been, though Monsieur de
Brantôme would never allow it; but fine, fine she was all
over—sharply, exquisitely cut and modelled: her sweet
smooth chin, her amorous lips, bright red where all else
was pale as a tinged rose; her sensitive nose; her broad,
high brows; her neck which two hands could hold, her
small shoulders and bosom of a child. And then her
hands, her waist no bigger than a stalk, her little feet!
She had sometimes an intent, considering, wise look—the
look of the Queen of Desire, who knew not where to set
the bounds of her need, but revealed to no one what that
was. And belying that look askance of hers—sly, or wise,
or sleepy, as you choose—her voice was bold and very
clear, her manners were those of a lively, graceful boy, her
gestures quick, her spirit impatient and entirely without
fear. Her changes of mood were dangerous: she could
wheedle the soul out of a saint, and then fling it back to
him as worthless because it had been so easily got. She
wrote a beautiful bold hand, loved learning, and petting,
and a choice phrase. She used perfumes, and dipped her
body every day in a bath of wine. At this hour she was
nineteen years old, and not two months a widow.
All this the cardinal knew by heart, and had no need
to observe while she stood strumming at the window-sill.
His opinion—if he had chosen to give it—would have
been: these qualities and perfections, ah, and these
imperfections, are all very proper to a prince who has a
principality; for my niece, I count greatly upon a wise
marriage—wise for our family, wise for herself. He
would have been the last to deny that the Guises had
been hampered by King Francis’ decease. All was to do
again—but all could be done. This fretful, fair girl was
still Queen of Scotland, allons! Dowager of France, but
Queen of Scotland, worth a knight’s venture. Advance
pawns, therefore! He was a chess-player, passionate for
the game.
He surveyed the maids of honour, bouncing Livingstone
and the rest of them, too zealous after their mistress’s ease,
and too jealous lest the world should edge them out; and
found that he had more zest for the world and the spring
weather. ‘Ah, madam,’ he said, ‘ah, my niece, this
cloister-life of stroking, and kindly knees, is not one for
your Majesty. There are high roads out yonder to be
traversed, armies to set upon them, cities and towns and
hill-crests to be taken. But you sit at home in the dark,
nursed by your maids!’
She raised her eyebrows, not her eyes. ‘Why,’ says she,
‘the King, my husband, is dead, and most of his people
glad of it, I believe. If my kingdom lies within these four
walls, and my government is but over these poor girls, they
are my own. What else should I do? Walk abroad to
mass? Ride abroad to the meadows? And be mocked by
the people for a barren wife, who never was wife at all?
And be browbeat openly by the Apothecary’s Daughter?
Is this what you set before me, Lord Cardinal?’
The cardinal put up his chin and cupped his beard.
‘The rich may call themselves poor, the poor dare not.
You have a realm, my niece, and a fair realm. You stand
at the door of a second. You may yet have a third, it
seems to me.’
Queen Mary looked at him then, with a gleam in her
eyes which answered for a smile. But she hid her mind
almost at once, and resumed her drumming.
‘King Charles is hot for me,’ she said. ‘He is a brave
lad. I should be Queen of France again—of France and
England and Scotland.’ She laughed softly to herself, as
if snug in the remembrance that she was still sought.
The cardinal became exceedingly serious. ‘I have
thought of that. To my mind there is a beautiful
justice——! What our family can do shall be done—but,
alas——!’
She broke in upon him here. ‘Our family, my lord!
Your family! Ah, that was a good marriage for me, for
example, which you made! That ailing child! Death
was in his bed before ever I was put there. My marriage!
My husband! He used to cry all night of the pain in his
head. He clung to the coverlet, and to me, lest they should
pull him out to prayers. Marriage! He was cankered from
his birth. What king was Francis, to make me a queen?’
The cardinal lifted his fine head. ‘It was my sister
Marie who made you a queen, madam, by the grace of
God and King James. Through your parentage you are
Queen of Scotland, and should be Queen of England—and
you shall be. God of gods, you may be queen of whatso
realm you please. What do I learn? The whole world’s
mind runs upon the marrying of you. The Archduke
Ferdinand hath here his ambassadors, attendant on the
Queen-Mother’s pleasure—which you allow to be yours
also. Don Carlos, his own hand at the pen, writes for a
hope of your Majesty’s. The Earl of Huntly, a great and
religious prince in Scotland, urges the pretensions of his
son, the Lord of Gordon. Are these to be laid before
the Queen-Mother? To the duchess, your grandmother,
writeth daily the Duke of Châtelherault concerning his son,
the Earl of Arran. On his side is my brother the Constable.
More! They bring me word from England that the Earl
of Lennox, next in blood to your Majesty, next indeed to
both your thrones, is hopeful to come to France—he, too,
with a son in his pocket, young, apt, and lovely as a love-apple.
All these hopeful princes, madam——’
Queen Mary coloured. With difficulty she said: ‘I
hear of every one of them for the first time.’
‘Oh, madam,’ cried the cardinal, ‘so long as you sit on
your maids’ knees and give the keys of your chamber to
the Queen-Mother, you will only hear what she please to
tell you. And more’—he raised his voice, and gave it
severity—‘I take leave to add that so long as your Majesty
hath Mistress Livingstone here for your husband, your
Majesty can look for no other.’
‘I am never likely to look on a better,’ says Queen
Mary, and put her hand behind her. Mary Livingstone
stooped quickly and snatched a kiss from the palm, while
the cardinal gazed steadily out of doors. But he felt more
at ease, being sure that he had leavened his lump.
And so he had. The sweet fact of great marriages
beyond her doors, and the sour fact of the Queen-Mother
within them, worked a ferment in her brain and set her at
her darling joy of busy scheming. What turned the scale
over was the mortifying discovery that Catherine de’
Medici was in reality dying to get rid of her. She flew
into a great rage, changed her black mourning for white,
announced her departure, paid her farewells, and went to
her grandmother’s court at Rheims. Queen Catherine
watched her, darkling, from a turret as she rode gaily out in
her troop of Guises. ‘There,’ she is reported to have said,
I know not whether truly or not, ‘there goes Madam
Venus a-hunting the apple. Alas for Shepherd Paris!’
The reflection is a shrewd one at least; but it was not then
so certain that Orleans had seen the last of Queen Mary.
It was no way to get her out of France to tell her there
was nothing you desired so much.
The old duchess, her grandam, talked marriages and the
throne of Scotland, therefore, into ears only half willing.
The little Queen was by no means averse to either, but
could not bring herself to lose hold upon France. ‘Better
to be Dowager of France than an Empress in the north,’
she said; and then ‘Fiddle-de-dee, my child,’ the old lady
retorted; ‘give me a live dog before a dead lion. Your
desire here is to vex La Medicis. You would make eyes
at King Charles, and we should all lose our heads. Do
you wish to end your days at Loches? The Duke of
Milan found cold quarters there, they tell me. No, no.
Marry a king’s son and recover England from the Bastard.’
Thus all France spake of our great Elizabeth.
Queen Mary, though she loved her grandmother, pinched
her lip, looked meek, and hardened her heart. She had
obstinacy by the father’s mother’s side—a Tudor virtue.
It was just after she had gone to Nancy, to the court of
her cousin of Lorraine, that she veered across to the side
of the Guises and determined to adventure in Scotland.
Two Scots lords came overseas to visit her there: one
was the Lord James Stuart, her base-brother, the other a
certain Father Lesley, an old friend of her mother’s. The
priest was a timid man, but by good hap and slenderness
of equipage gained her first. She might have been sure
he was a faithful friend, though doubtful if a very wise one.
Faithful enough he proved in days to come: at this present
she found him a simple, fatherly man, of wandering mind,
familiar, benevolent, soon scared. He was enchanted with
her, and said so. He praised her person, the scarlet of her
lips, the bright hue of her hair. ‘A bonny brown, my
child,’ he said, touching it, ‘to my partial eyes.’ She
laughed as she told him that in Paris also they had liked
the colour. ‘They will call it foxy in Scotland,’ he said,
with a sniff; and she found out afterwards that they did.
At first she was ‘madam’ here, and ‘your Majesty’ there;
but as the talk warmed him he forgot her queenship in her
extreme youth, had her hand in his own and patted it with
the other. Then it came to ‘Child, this you should do,’ or
‘Child, I hope that is not your usage’; and once he went
so far as to hold her by the hands at arms’ length and peer
at her through his kind, weak eyes, up and down, as he
said to himself, ‘Eh, sirs, a tall bit lassie to stand by
Bruce’s chair! But her mother was just such another one—just
such another.’
She thought this too far to go, even for a churchman,
and drew off with a smile and shake of the head—not
enough to humiliate him.
He cautioned her with fearful winks and nods against
the Lord James Stuart, her half-brother, hinting more than
he dared to tell. ‘That man hath narrow eyes,’ he said;
then, recollecting himself, ‘and so hath your Majesty by
right of blood. All the Stuarts have them—the base and
the true. But his, remark, are most guarded eyes, so that
you shall not easily discover in what direction he casts his
looks. But I say, madam,’—and he raised his wiry voice,—‘I
say that the throne is ever at his right hand; and I
do think that he looks ever to the right.’
The Queen’s eyes were plain enough at this—squirrel-colour,
straight as arrows. Being free-spoken herself, she
disliked periphrasis. ‘Does my brother desire my throne?
Is this your meaning?’
He jumped back as if she had whipped him, and crossed
himself vehemently, saying, ‘God forbid it! God forbid it!’
‘I shall forbid it, whether or no,’ said the Queen. ‘But
I suppose you had some such meaning behind your speech.’
And she pressed him until she learned that such indeed
was the belief in Scotland.
‘Your misborn brother, madam,’ he said, whispering,
‘will tell you nothing that he believeth, and ask you
nothing that he desireth; nor will he any man. He will
urge you to the contrary of what he truly requires. He
will take his profit of another man’s sin and rejoice to see
his own hands clean. My heart,’ he said, forgetting himself,—and
‘Ah, Jesu!’ she records, ‘I was called that
again, and by another mouth,’—‘My heart, if you tender
the peace of Holy Church in your land, keep your brother
James in France under lock and key.’
She laughed at his alarms. ‘I wish liberty to all men
and their consciences sir. I am sure I shall find friends
in Scotland.’
He named the great Earl of Huntly and his four sons;
but by now she was tired of him and sent him away. All
the effect of the poor man’s speeches had been to make her
anxious to measure wits with her base-brother. He came
in two or three days later with a great train, and she had
her opportunity.
What she made of it you may judge by this, that it was
he and no other who spurred her into Scotland. He did it,
in a manner very much his own, by first urging it and then
discovering impossible fatigues in the road. This shows
him to have been, what he was careful to conceal, a student
of human kind.
A certain French valet of the Earl of Bothwell’s—Nicolas
Hubart, from whose Confessions I shall have to
draw liberally by-and-by, and of whom, himself, there will
be plenty to say—made once an acute observation of the
great Lord James, when he said that he was that sort of
man who, if he had not a black cloak for Sunday, would
be an atheist or even an epicurean. There was no one,
certainly, who had a more intense regard for decent
observance than he. It was his very vesture: he would
have starved or frozen without it. It clothed him completely
from head to foot, and from the heart outwards.
Much more than that. There are many in this world who
go about it swathed up to the eyes, imposing upon those
they meet. But this man imposed first of all upon himself.
So complete was his robing, he could not see himself out of it.
So white were his hands, so flawless of grit, he could never
see them otherwise. Supposing Father Lesley to have been
right, supposing that James Stuart did—and throughout—plot
for a throne, he would have been the first to cry out
upon the vice of Brutus. It may well be doubted whether
he once, in all his life, stood alone—so to speak—naked
before his own soul. Perhaps such a man can hardly be
deemed a sinner, whatever he do. There are those at this
hour who say that the Lord James was no sinner. How
should he be? they cry. His own soul never knew it.
This tall, pale, inordinately prim nobleman, with his
black beard, black clothes, and (to the Queen’s mind) black
beliefs, seemed to walk for ever in a mask of sour passivity.
He never spoke when to bow the head could be an answer,
he never affirmed without qualification, he never denied or
refused anything as of his own opinion. He was allowed
to have extraordinarily fine manners, even in France, where
alacrity of service counted for more than the service itself;
and yet Queen Mary declared that she had never seen a
man enter a doorway so long after he had opened the door.
He seldom looked at you. His voice was low and measured.
He cleared his throat before he spoke, and swallowed the
moment he had finished, as if he were anxious to engulf
any possible effect of his words. Of all the ties upon a
man he dreaded most those of the heart-strings: she never
moved him to natural emotion but once. But, at this first
coming of his, he paid her great court, and bent his stiff
knees to her many times a day: this notwithstanding that,
as Mary Seton affirmed, he had water on one of them.
She said that she had that from his chaplain, but her love
of mischief had betrayed her love of truth. The Lord
James always stood to his prayers.
When the Queen saw him first it was in the presence of
her women, of Lord Eglinton, of the Marquis D’Elbœuf,
and others—persons who either hated him with reason or
despised him with none. He moved her then, almost with
passion, to go ‘home’ to Scotland, saying that it behoved
princes to dwell among their own people. But at a privy
audience a few days later, he held to another tune altogether,
pursing his lips, twiddling his two thumbs, looking up and
down and about. Now he said that he was not sure; that
there were dangers attending a Popish Queen, and those
not only within the kingdom but without it. She begged
him to explain himself.
‘Better bide, madam,’ said he, ‘until the wind change in
England.’
Any word of England always excited her. The colour
flew to her face. ‘What hath my sister in England to do
with my kingdom, good brother?’
‘Why, madam,’ he said, ‘it has come to my sure knowledge
that you shall get no safe-conduct from the English
Queen, to go smoothly to Scotland.’
He never watched any one, or was never observed to be
watching; but his guarded eyes, glancing at her as they
shifted, showed him that, being angry now, she was beautiful—like
a spirit of the fire.
‘I should be offended at what you report if I believed it
possible,’ she said after a while. ‘And yet England is not
the only road, nor is it the best road, to my kingdom.’
‘No indeed, madam,’ he agreed; ‘but it is the only
easy road for a young and delicate lady.’
‘Let my youth, brother, be as God made it,’ she
answered him; ‘but as for my delicacy, I am thankfully
able to bear fatigue and to thrive upon it. If my good
sister, or you, my lord’—she spoke very clearly—‘think
to keep me from my own by threats of force or warnings
of danger, I would have you understand that the like of
those is a spur to me.’
This was a thing which, in fact, he had understood
perfectly.
‘I am not a shying horse,’ she continued, ‘to swerve at
a heap of sand. I believe I shall find loyalty in my
country, and cheerful courage there to meet my own
courage. There be those that laugh at danger there, as
well as those who weep.’
He said suavely here that she misjudged him, that only
his tenderness for her person was at fault. ‘We grow
timid where we love much, madam.’
At this she looked at him so unequivocally that he
changed the subject.
‘If your Majesty,’ he pursued, ‘knows not the mind of
the English Queen, or misdoubts my reading of it, let
application be made to Master Throckmorton. I am content
to be judged out of his mouth.’
Master Throckmorton was English Ambassador to the
Queen of Scots, a friend of the Lord James’s. His lordship,
indeed, had the greater confidence in giving this
advice in that he had already convinced Master Throckmorton
of what he must do, and what say, if he wished
to get Queen Mary into Scotland—as, namely, decline to
help her thither; decline, for instance, a letter of safe-conduct
through English soil.
‘Let application be made presently, brother,’ said
the incensed young lady, and gladly turned to her
pleasures.
She had been finding these of late in a society not at all
to the mind of the Lord James. Three days before this
conversation the Earl of Bothwell, no less, had come to
court, making for the North from Piedmont.
In years to come she could remember every flash and
eddy of that shifting garden scene when first he came to
her. A waft of scented blossom, the throb of a lute, and
she could see the peacock on the wall, the gay June
borders, the grass plats and bright paths in between,
quivering with the heat they gave out. There was a
fountain in the midst of the quincunx, on the marble brim
of which she sat with her maids and cousin D’Elbœuf,
dipping her hand, and now and then flicking water into
their faces. A page in scarlet and white had come running
up to say that the Duke was nearing with his gentlemen;
and presently down the long alley she saw them moving
slowly—crimson cloaks and bared heads, the Duke in the
midst, wearing his jewelled bonnet. He was talking, and
laughing immoderately with some one she knew not at all,
who swung his hat in his hand, and to whom, as she remembered
vividly, the struck poppies bowed their heads.
For he hit them as he went with his hat, and looked round
to see them fall. The Duke’s tale continued to the very
verge of the privy garden; indeed he halted there, in the
face of her usher, to finish it. She saw the stranger throw
back his head to laugh. ‘What a great jowl he hath,’ she
said to Mary Fleming; and she, in a hush, said, ‘Madam,
it is the Earl Bothwell.’ A few moments later the man
was kneeling before her, presented by the Duke himself.
She had time to notice the page to whom he had thrown
his hat and gloves—a pale-faced, wise-looking French boy,
who knelt also, and watched her from a pair of grey eyes
‘rimmed with smut-colour.’ His name, she found out
afterwards, was Jean-Marie-Baptiste Des-Essars. She liked
his manly looks from the first—little knowing who and
what he was to be to her. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Des-Essars!
Keeper of the Secret des Secrets—where should I
be without him?
The Earl of Bothwell—whom she judged (in spite of
the stricken poppies) to be good-humoured—was a galliard
of the type esteemed in France by those—and they were
many—who pronounced vice to be their virtue. A galliard,
as they say, if ever there was one, flushed with rich blood,
broad-shouldered, square-jawed, with a laugh so happy and
so prompt that the world, rejoicing to hear it, thought all
must be well wherever he might be. He wore brave clothes,
sat a brave horse, kept brave company bravely. His high
colour, while it betokened high feeding, got him the credit
of good health. His little eyes twinkled so merrily that
you did not see they were like a pig’s, sly and greedy at
once, and bloodshot. His tawny beard concealed a jaw
underhung, a chin jutting and dangerous. His mouth had
a cruel twist; but his laughing hid that too. The bridge
of his nose had been broken; few observed it, or guessed
at the brawl which must have given it him. Frankness
was his great charm, careless ease in high places, an air of
‘take me or leave me, I go my way’; but some mockery
latent in him, and the suspicion that whatever you said or
did he would have you in derision—this was what first
drew Queen Mary to consider him. And she grew to look
for it—in those twinkling eyes, in that quick mouth; and
to wonder about it, whether it was with him always—asleep,
at prayers, fighting, furious, in love. In fine, he
made her think.
Mary Livingstone liked not the looks of him from the
first, and held him off as much as she could. She slept
with her mistress in these days of widowhood, but refused
to discuss him in bed. She said that he had a saucy eye—which
was not denied—and was too masterful.
‘You can tell it by the hateful growth of hair he hath,’
she cried. ‘When he lifts up his head to laugh—and he
would laugh, mind you, at the crucified Saviour!—you can
see the climbing of his red beard, like rooted ivy on an old
wall.’
It is true that his beard was reddish, and gross-growing;
his hair, however, was dark brown, thick and curling.
Mary Livingstone sniffed at his hair. He stayed ten days
at Nancy, saw the Queen upon each of them, and on each
held converse with her. She liked him very well, studied
him, thought him more important than he really was. He
laughed at her for this, and taxed her with it; but so
pleasantly that she was not at all offended. The Lord
James would not speak of him, nor he of the Lord James:
he shrugged at any reference to him.
‘Let it be enough, madam, to own that we do not love
each other,’ he said when she pressed him. ‘We view the
world differently, that lord and I; for I look on the evil
and the good with open face and what cheer I can muster,
and he looks through his fingers and sadly. We speak
little one with the other: what he thinks of me I know not.
I think him a——’
‘Well, my lord? You think my brother a——?’
‘A king’s son, madam,’ he said, demurely; but she saw
the gleam in his eye.
He spoke fluent French, and was very ready with his
Italian. He was a latinist, a student of warfare, had read
Machiavelli. He scared away a good many poetasters by
a real or an affected truculence; threatened to duck one of
them in the fountain, and proved that he could do it by
ducking another. The effect of this was, as he had
intended, that Queen Mary for a day laughed with him at
the art of poetry, which was no art of his. That day he
had a private half-hour, and spoke freely of himself and his
ventures.
‘A man rich in desires,’ he confessed himself, ‘and
therefore of great wealth. Put the peach on the wall above
me, madam, and I shall surely grow to handle it. And
this other possession is mine, that while I strive and stretch
after my prize I can laugh at my own pains, and yet not
abate them.’
She considered every word he said, and dubbed him
Democritus, her laughing philosopher.
‘You will have need of my sect in Scotland, madam,’
he replied with a bow. ‘Despise it not; for in that grey
country the very skies invite us to mingle tears. You have
a weeper beside you even now—the Lord Heraclitus, a
king’s son.’
She had no difficulty in discovering her stiff brother
James under this thin veil.
All was going on thus well with my Lord of Bothwell
when Mary Livingstone heard him rate his page in the
forecourt one morning as she came back from the mass.
She caught sight also of ‘his inflamed and wicked face,’
and saw the little French boy flinch and turn his shoulder
to a flood of words, of which she understood not half. She
guessed at them from the rest. ‘They must needs be worse;
and yet how can they be? And oh! the poor little Stoic
with his white face!’ The good girl snapped her lips
together as she hurried on. ‘He shall see as little of my
bonny Queen as I can provide for,’ she promised herself.
‘I have heard sculduddery enough to befoul all Burgundy.’
Being a wise virgin, she said little to her mistress save to
urge her to beg the French boy from his master.
‘Why do you want him, child?’ the Queen asked.
‘He hath a steadfast look, and loves you. I think he
will serve your needs. Get him if you care,’ was all the
reply she could win.
The thing was easily done, lightly asked and lightly
accorded.
‘Baptist, come hither,’ had cried my lord; and the boy
knelt before the lady. ‘I have sold thee, Baptist.’
‘Very good, monseigneur.’
The Queen sparkled and smiled upon him. ‘Wilt thou
come with me, Jean-Marie?’
‘Yes, willingly, madam.’
‘And do me good service?’
‘Nobody in the world shall do better, madam.’
‘But you are positive, my boy!’
‘I do well to be positive, madam, in such a cause as your
Majesty’s.’
She turned to the Earl. ‘What is his history?’
He shrugged. ‘The Sieur Des-Essars—a gentleman
of Brabant—disporting in La Beauce, accosts a pretty
Disaster (to call her so) with a speaking eye——’
Jean-Marie-Baptiste held up his hand. ‘Monseigneur,
ah——!’
‘How now, cockerel?’
‘You speak of my mother, sir,’ he said, his lip quivering.
‘By the Mass, and so I do!’ said the Earl.
The Queen patted the lad’s shoulder before she sent
him away. ‘You shall tell me all about your mother, Jean-Marie,
when we are in Scotland.’
Jean-Marie-Baptiste Des-Essars quickly kissed her sleeve,
and became her man. More of him in due time, and of
what he saw out of his ‘smut-rimmed’ eyes.
When English Mr. Throckmorton was reported as
within a day’s ride of Nancy, my Lord Bothwell thought
it wise to take leave. His odour in England was not good,
and he knew very well that the Lord James would not
sprinkle him with anything which would make it better.
So he presented himself betimes in the morning, said his
adieux and kissed hands.
‘Farewell, my lord,’ says Queen Mary. ‘Lorraine will
be the sadder for your going.’
‘And ever fare your Majesty well,’ he answered her
gaily, ‘as in Scotland you shall, despite the weepers.’
‘Do you go to Scotland, my lord?’
‘Does your Majesty?’ says he, his little eyes all of a
twinkle.
‘My question was first, my lord.’
‘And the answer to mine is the answer to your
Majesty’s.’
‘My Lord Democritus, am I to laugh when you leave
me?’
‘Why, yes, madam, rather than to lament that I outstay
my welcome.’
She showed her pleasure; at least, he saw it under the
skin. So he left her; and Mary Livingstone, as she said,
could ‘fetch her breath.’
Now, as to Mr. Throckmorton—if the Lord James had
desired, as assuredly he did, to get his sister to Scotland,
unwedded and in a hurry; if the Queen of England desired
it—which is certain,—neither could have used a better
means than this excellent man. The Queen was in a royal
rage when he, with great troubles and many shakings of
his obsequious head, was obliged to own the safe-conduct
through England refused. She shut herself up with her
maids, and endlessly paced the floors, avoiding their entreating
arms. They besought her to rest, to have patience,
to sit on their knees, consult her uncles of Lorraine. ‘I
shall sit in no chair, nor lie in any bed, until I am at sea,’
she promised them, and then cried: ‘What! am I a kennel-dog
to the Bastard in England?’
Nothing in the world should stop her. She would go to
her country by sea, and as soon as they could fit out the
galleys. And she had her way—with suspicious ease, if
she had had patience to observe it; for it happened to be
the way of three other persons vitally interested in her: the
Queen-Mother of France, who wished to get rid of her;
the Queen of England, who hoped she would get rid of
herself; and the Lord James Stuart, uncomfortably illegitimate,
who hid his designs from his own soul, and looked
at affairs without seeming to look.
Two galleys and four great ships took her and her
adventurous company from Calais, on a day in August of
high sun and breeze, with a misty brown bank on the horizon
where England should lie. Guns shot from the forts were
answered from the ships; to the Oriflamme of France the
Scots Queen answered with her tressured Lion, and the
English Leopards and Lilies. Of all the gallant company
embarked there was none who looked more ardently to the
north than she who was to sit in the high seat at Stirling.
Let Mary Fleming look down, and Mary Beaton raise her
eyebrows; let Mary Seton shrug and Mary Livingstone toss
her young head; they are greatly mistaken who suppose
that Mary Stuart went unwillingly to Scotland, or wetted
her pillow with tears. She cried when she bade adieu to
her grandmother—tears of kindness those. But her heart
was high to be Queen, and her head full of affairs. How
she judged men! What measures she devised! Ask Mary
Livingstone whether they two slept of nights, or whether
they talked of the deeds of Queen Mary—what she should
do, what avoid, how walk, how safeguard herself. She lay
in a pavilion on the upper deck, and turned her face to
where she thought Scotland should be. But Mary Livingstone
showed Scotland her back, and sheltered her Queen
in her arms.
Now, when they had been three days at sea, standing off
Flamborough in England, the wind veered to the southeast,
and dropped very soon. They had to row the ships
for lack of meat for the sails to fill themselves; the face of
the world was changed, the sun blotted out. It became
chilly, with a thin rain; there drew over the sea a curtain
of soft fog which wrapped them up as in a winding-sheet,
and seemed to clog the muscles of men’s backs, so that
scarcely way could be made. In this white darkness—for
such it literally was—the English took the Earl of Eglinton
in his ship, silently, without a cry to be heard; but in it
also they lost the Queen’s and all the rest of her convoy.
Rowing all night and all next day, sounding as they went
in a sea like oil, the Scots company drew past St. Abb’s,
guessed at Dunbar, found and crept under the ghost of the
Bass, came at length with dripping sheets into Leith Road
by night, and so stayed to await the morn. They fired
guns every hour; nobody slept on board.
That night which they began with music, some dancing
and playing forfeits, was one of deathly stillness. The
guns made riot by the clock; but the sea-fog drugged all
men’s spirits. The Queen was pensive, and broke up the
circle early. She went to bed, and lay listening, as she
said, to Scotland. As it wore towards dawn she could
have heard, if yet wakeful, great horns blown afar off on
the shore, answering her guns, the voices of men and
women, howling, quarrelling, or making merry after their
fashion; steeple bells; sometimes the knocking of oars as
unseen boats rowed about her. Once the sentry on the
upper deck challenged: ‘Qui va là?’ in a shrill voice.
There was smothered laughter, but no other reply. He
fired his piece, and there came a great scurry in the water,
which woke the Queen with a start.
‘Was that the English guns? Are we engaged?’
‘No, no, madam; you forget. We are in our own land
by now, safe between the high hills of Scotland. ’Twas
some folly of the guard.’
She was told it had gone six o’clock, and insisted on
rising. Father Roche, her confessor, said mass; and after
that Mary Seton had a good tale for her private ear.
Monsieur de Bourdeilles, it seems, the merry gentleman,
had held Monsieur de Châtelard embraced against his will
under one blanket all night, to warm himself. This
Monsieur de Châtelard, a poet of some hopefulness, owned
himself Queen Mary’s lover, and played the part with an
ardour and disregard of consequence which are denied to
all but his nation. A lover is a lover, whether you admit
him or not; his position, though it be self-chosen, is
respectable: but no one could refuse the merits of this
story. Monsieur de Bourdeilles was sent for—a wise-looking,
elderly man.
‘Sieur de Brantôme,’ says the Queen—that was his
degree in the world—‘how did you find the warmth of
Monsieur de Châtelard?’
‘Upon my faith, madam,’ says he, ‘your Majesty should
know better than I did whether he is alight or not.’
‘I think that is true,’ said Queen Mary; ‘but now
also you will have learned, as I have, to leave him
alone.’
The Grand Prior—a Guise, the Queen’s uncle and a
portly man—came in to see his niece. He reported a wan
light spread abroad: one might almost suppose the sun to
be somewhere. If her Majesty extinguished the candles
her Majesty would still be able to see. It was curious.
He considered that a landing might be made, for news
of the ships was plainly come ashore. Numberless small
boats, he said, were all about, full of people spying up at
the decks. Curious again: he had been much entertained.
‘You shall show yourself to them, madam, if you will
be guided by me,’ says Mary Livingstone. The Grand
Prior was not against it.
‘Well,’ says the Queen, ‘let us go, then, to see and be
seen.’
One of the maids—Seton, I gather—made an outcry:
‘Oh, ma’am, you will never go to them in your white
weed!’
‘How else, child?’
Seton caught at her hand. ‘Like the bonny Queen
Mab—like the Fairy Vivien that charmed Tamlane out of
his five wits. Thus you should go!’
The Queen turned blushing to the Grand Prior.
‘How shall I show myself, good uncle?’
‘My niece, you are fair enough now.’
‘Is it true?’ she said. ‘Then I will be fairer yet. Get
me what you will; make a queen of me. Fleming, you
shall choose.’
Mary Fleming, a gentle beauty, considered the case. ‘I
shall dress your Majesty in the white and green,’ she
declared, and was gone to get it.
So they dressed her in white and green, with a crown of
stars for her hair, and covered her in a carnation hood
against the cold. Then she was brought out among the
four of them to lean on the poop and see the people. A
half-circle of stately, cloaked gentlemen—all French, and
mainly Guises—stood behind; but Monsieur de Châtelard,
shaking like a leaf, sought the prop of a neighbouring
shoulder for his arm. It was modestly low, and belonged
to Des-Essars, the new page.
‘My gentle youth,’ said the poet, after thanking him for
his services, ‘I am sick because I love. Do you see that
smothered goddess? Learn then that I adore her, and so
was able to do even in the abominable arms of Monsieur
de Brantôme.’
‘I also consider her Majesty adorable,’ replied the page
with gravity; ‘but I do not care to say so openly.’
‘If your wound be not kept green,’ Monsieur de Châtelard
reproved him, ‘if it is covered up, it mortifies, you
bleed internally, and you die.’
Des-Essars bowed. ‘Why, yes, sir. There is no
difficulty in that.’
‘Far from it, boy—far from it! Exquisite ease, rather.’
‘It is true, sir,’ said Des-Essars. ‘Well! I am ready.’
‘And I, boy, must get ready. Soothsayers have assured
me that I shall die in that lady’s service.’
‘I intend to live in it,’ said Des-Essars; ‘for she chose
me to it herself.’
Monsieur de Châtelard considered this alternative.
‘Your intention is fine,’ he allowed; ‘but my fate is the
more piteous.’
Whether the people knew their Queen or not, they gave
little sign of it. They seemed to her a grudging race, unwilling
to allow you even recognition. She had been highly
pleased at first: watched them curiously, nodded, laughed,
kissed her hand to some children—who hid their faces, as
if she had put them to shame. Some pointed at her, some
shook their heads; none saluted her. Most of them looked
at the foreign servants: a great brown Gascon sailor, who
leaned half-naked against the gunwale; a black in a yellow
turban; a saucy Savoyard girl with a bare bosom; and
some, nudging others, said, ‘A priest! a priest!’—and
one, a big, wild, red-capped man, stood up in his boat,
and pointed, and cried out loud, ‘To hell with the priest!’
The cold curiosity, the uncouth drab of the scene, the raw
damp—and then this savage burst—did their work on
her. She was sensitive to weather, and quick to read
hearts. Being chilled, her own heart grew heavy. ‘I wish
to go away. They stare; there is no love here,’ she said,
and went down the companion, and sat in her pavilion
without speaking. She let Mary Livingstone take her
hand. At that hour, I know, her thought was piercingly
of France, and the sun, and the peasant girls laughing to
each other half across the breezy fields.
Barges came to board the Queen’s galley; strong-faced
gentlemen, muffled in cloaks, sat in the stern; all others
stood up—even the rowers, who faced forward like Venetians
and pushed rather than pulled the slow vessels.
Running messengers kept her informed of arrivals: the
Provost of Edinburgh was come, the Captain of the Castle,
the Lord of Lethington, Maitland by name, secretary to
her mother the late Queen; her half-brothers, the Lords
James and Robert Stuart, and more—all civil, all with
stiff excuses that preparations were so backward. She
would see none but her brothers, and, at the Lord James’
desire, Mr. Secretary Maitland of Lethington. Him she
discerned to be a taut, nervous, greyish man, with a tired
face. She was prepared to like him for her mother’s sake;
but he was on his guard, unaccountably, and she too dispirited
to pursue. Des-Essars, in his Secret Memoirs, says
that he remembers to have noticed, young as he was, how
this Lethington’s eyes always sought those of the Lord
James before he spoke. ‘Sought,’ he says, ‘but never
found them.’ Sharply observed for a boy of fourteen.
Well, here was a dreary beginning, which must nevertheless
be pushed to some kind of ending. Before noon
she was landed—upon a muddy shore, the sea being at the
ebb—without cloth of estate, or tribune, or litter, with a
few halberdiers to make a way for her through a great
crowd. She looked at the ooze and slimy litter. ‘Are we
amphibians in Scotland?’ she asked her cousin D’Elbœuf.
His answer was to splash down heroically into the mess
and throw his cloak upon it. ‘Gentlemen,’ he cried out in
his own tongue, ‘make a Queen’s way!’ He had not long
to wait. A tragic cry from Monsieur de Châtelard informed
all Leith that he was wading ashore. Fine, but retarding
action! His cloak was added late to a long line of them—all
French: the Marquis’s, the Grand Prior’s, Monsieur
D’Amville’s, Monsieur de Brantôme’s, Monsieur de La
Noue’s, many more. There were competitions, encouraging
cries, great enthusiasm. The people jostled each other to
get a view; the Scots lords looked staidly on, but none
offered their cloaks.
Thus it was that she touched Scottish soil, as Mr.
Secretary remarked to himself, through a foreign web. A
little stone house, indescribably mean and close, was open
to her to rest in while the horses were made ready. Thither
came certain lords—Earls of Argyll and Atholl, Lords
Erskine, Herries, and others—to kiss hands. She allowed
it listlessly, not distinguishing friend from unfriend. All
faces seemed alike to her: wooden, overbold, weathered
faces, clumsy carvings of an earlier day, with watchful,
suspicious eyes put in them to make them alive. Her ladies
were with her, and her uncles. The little room was filled
to overflowing, and in and out of the passage-ways elbowed
the French gallants shouting for their grooms. No one
was allowed to have any speech with the Queen, who sat
absorbed and unobservant in the packed assembly, a French
guard all about her, with Mary Livingstone kneeling beside
her, whispering French comfort in her ear.
Above the surging and the hum of the shore could be
heard the beginnings of clamour. The press at the doors
was so great they could scarcely bring up the horses;
and when the hackbutters beat them back the people
murmured. Monsieur D’Amville’s charger grew restive
and backed into the crowd: they howled at him for a
Frenchman, and were not appeased to discover by the
looks of him that he was proud of the fact. There was
much sniffing and spying for priests,—well was it for
Father Roche and his mates that, having been warned,
they lay still among the ships, intending not to land till
dusk. How was her Majesty to be got out? It seemed
that she was a prisoner. The Master of the Horse could
do nothing for his horses; the Master of the Household
was penned in the doorway. If it had not been for the
Lord James, Queen Mary must have spent the night on
the sea-shore. But the people fell back this way and that
when, bareheaded, he came out of the house. ‘Give way
there—make a place,’ he said, in a voice hardly above the
speaking tone; and way and place were made.
Two or three of the French lords observed him. ‘He
has the gestures of a king, look you.’
‘You are right; and, they tell me, a king’s desires. Do
you see that he measures them with his eye before he
speaks, as if to judge what strength he should use?’
They brought up the horses; the Queen came out. Up
a steep, straggling street, finally, they rode in some kind of
broken order, in a lane cut, as it were, between dumb walls
of men and women. Monsieur de Brantôme remarked to
his neighbour that it was for all the world as if travelling
mountebanks were come to town. Very few greeted her,
none seemed to satisfy any feeling but curiosity. They
pointed her out to one another. ‘Yonder she goes. See,
yonder, in the braw, cramoisy hood!’ ‘See, man, the
bonny long lass!’ ‘I mind,’ said one, ‘to have seen her
mother brought in. Just such another one.’ Some cried,
‘See you, how she arches her fine neck.’ Others, ‘She
hath the eyes of all her folk.’ ‘A dangerous smiler: a
Frenchwoman just.’
She did not hear these things, or did not notice them,
being slow to catch at the Scots tongue. But one wife
cried shrilly, ‘God bless that sweet face!’ and that she
recognised, and laughed her glad thanks to the kindly
soul.
Most eyes were drawn to the French princes, and missed
her in following them and their servants. The Grand Prior
made them wonder: his stateliness excused him the abhorred
red cross; but chief of them all seemed Monsieur de Châtelard,
very splendid in white satin and high crimson boots,
and a tall feather in his cap. Some thought he was the
Pope’s son, some the Prince of Spain come to marry the
Queen; but, ‘Havers, woman, ’tis just her mammet,’ said
one in Mary Beaton’s hearing. The Queen laughed when
this was explained to her, and remembered it for Monsieur
de Brantôme. But she only laughed those two times
between Leith shore and Holyroodhouse.
Her spirits mended after dinner. She held an informal
court, and set herself diligently to please and be pleased.
She desired the Lord of Lethington, in the absence of a
Lord Chamberlain, to make the presentations; he was to
stand by her side and answer all questions. He spoke her
language with a formal ease which she found agreeable,
betrayed a caustic humour now and again, was far more to
her taste than at first. She saw the old Duke of Châtelherault
and his scared son, my Lord of Arran.
‘Hamiltons, madam,’ said Lethington tersely, and
thought he had said all; but she had to be told that
they claimed to stand next in blood to herself and the
throne of Scotland.
‘The blood has been watered, it seems to me,’ she said.
‘One can see through that old lord.’
‘Madam, that is his greatest grief. He cannot, if he
would, conceal his pretensions.’
‘Explain yourself, sir.’
‘Madam, you can see that he is empty. But he pretends
to fulness.’
‘And that white son of his, my Lord of Arran? Does
he too pretend to be full—in the head, for example?’
She embarrassed Mr. Secretary.
Mary Livingstone, at this point, came to her flushed
and urgent: ‘Madam, madam, my good father!’ A jolly
gentleman was before her, who, in the effusion of his loyalty,
forgot to kneel. ‘Your knees, my lord, your knees!’
his daughter whispered; but the fine man replied, ‘No, no,
my bairn. I stand up to fight for the Queen, and she shall
e’en see all my gear.’
Queen Mary, not ceremonious by nature, smiled and
was gracious: they conversed by these signs of the head
and mouth, for he had no French.
To go over names would be tedious, and so might have
proved to her Majesty had not Lethington fitted each
sharply with a quality. Such a man was of her Majesty’s
religion—my Lord Herries, now; such of Mr. Knox’s—see
that square-browed, frowning Lord of Lindsay. Mr.
Knox had reconciled this honourable man and his wife.
It was whispered—this for her Majesty’s ear!—that all
was not well between my Lord of Argyll and his lady,
her Majesty’s half-sister. Would Mr. Knox intervene?
At her Majesty’s desire beyond doubt he would do it.
The Duke of Châtelherault held all the west as appanage
of the Hamiltons, except a small territory round about
Glasgow, to which her Majesty’s kinsman Lennox laid
claim. The claim was faint, since the Lennox was in
England. It was supposed that fear of the Hamiltons
kept him there; but if her Majesty would be pleased she
could reconcile the two houses.
The Queen blinked her eyes. ‘Reconciliation seems to
be your Mr. Knox’s prerogative. I have not yet learned
from you what mine may be.’
‘Yours, madam,’ said Lethington, ‘is the greater, because
gentler, hand—to put it no higher than that! Moreover,
the Stuarts of Lennox share your Majesty’s faith; and
Mr. Knox——’
‘Ah,’ cried the Queen, ‘I conceive your Mr. Knox is
Antipope!’
Mr. Secretary confessed that some had called him so.
‘And what does my cousin Châtelherault call him?’ she
asked.
He explained that the Duke paid him great respect.
‘Let me understand you,’ said Queen Mary. ‘The
Duke is master of the west, and Mr. Knox of the Duke.
Who is master of Mr. Knox?’
‘Oh, madam, he will serve your Majesty. I am sure of
him.’
She was not so sure: she wondered. Then she found
that she was frowning and pinching her lip, so broke into
a new line.
‘Let us take the south, Monsieur de Lethington. Who
prevails in those parts?’
He told her that there were many great men to be considered
there: my Lord Herries, my Lord Hume, the
Earl of Bothwell. This name interested her, but she was
careful not to single it out.
‘And is Mr. Knox the master of these?’
‘Not so, madam. My Lord Herries is of the old
religion; and my Lord of Bothwell——’
‘Does he laugh?’
‘I fear, madam, it is a mocking spirit.’
‘Why,’ says she, ‘does he laugh at Mr. Knox?’
Mr. Secretary detected the malice. ‘Alas! your Majesty
is pleased to laugh at her servant.’
‘Well, let us leave M. de Boduel to his laughter. Who
rules the north?’
‘The Earl of Huntly is powerful there, madam.’
‘I have had intelligence of him. He is a Catholic.
Well, well! And now you shall tell me, Mr. Secretary,
where my own kingdom is.’
‘Oh, madam, it is in the hearts of your people. You
have all Scotland at your feet.’
‘Let us take a case. Have I, for example, your Mr.
Knox at my feet?’
‘Surely, madam.’
‘We shall see. I tell you fairly that I do not choose to
be at his. He has written against women, I hear. Is he
wed?’
‘Madam, he is twice a widower.’
‘He is severe. But he should be instructed in his
theme. He may have reason. Where is my brother?’
‘The Lord James is at his prayers, madam.’
‘I hope he will remember me there. I see that I shall
need advocacy.’
Her head ached, her eyes were stiff with watching.
She said her good-night and retired. At that hour there
was a great shouting and crying in the courtyard, and out
of the midst there spired a wild music of rebecks, fiddles,
scrannel-pipes, and a monstrous drum out of tune. The
French lords said, ‘Tenez, on s’amuse!’ and raised their
eyebrows. The Queen shivered over a sea-coal fire. Now
at last she remembered all fair France, saw it in one
poignant, long look inwards, and began to cry. ‘I am a
fool, a fool—but, oh me! I am wretched,’ she said, and
rocked herself about. The comfort of women—kisses,
strokings, mothering arms—was applied; they put her to
bed, and Mary Livingstone sat by her. This young
woman was in high feather, surveyed the prospect with
calmness, not at all afraid. Her father, she said, had put
before her the desires of all those gentry: he had never
had such court paid him in his long life. This it was to
be father to a maid of honour. The Duke had taken him
apart before dinner, urging the suit of his son Arran for
the Queen’s hand. The Lord James had spoken of an
earldom; Lethington could not see enough of him. ‘Hey,
my lamb,’ she ended, stroking the Queen’s hot face, ‘we
will have them all at your feet ere this time seven
days; and a lass in her teens shall sway wild Scotland!’
The Queen sighed, and snuggled her cheek into the open
hand.
Just as she was dozing off there was to be heard a
scurry of feet along the corridor, the crash of a door
admitting a burst of sound—in that, the shiver of steel on
steel, a roar of voices, a loud cry above all, ‘He hath it!
He hath it!’ The Queen started up and held her heart.
‘What do they want of me? Is it Mr. Knox?’ Livingstone
ran into the antechamber among the huddling women
there. Des-Essars came to them bright-eyed to say it was
nothing. It was Monsieur D’Elbœuf fighting young
Erskine about a lady. The duel had been arranged at
supper. They had cleared the tables for the fray.
When they told her what was the name Mr. Knox had
for her, and how it had been caught up by all the winds
in town, Queen Mary pinched her lip. ‘Does he call
me Honeypot? Well, he shall find there is wine in my
honey—and perchance vinegar too, if he mishandle me.
Or I may approve myself to him honey of Hymettus,
which has thyme in it, and other sane herbs to make it
sharp.’
A honey-queen she looked as she spoke, all golden and
rose in her white weeds, her face aflower in the close coif,
finger and thumb pinching her lip. She seemed at once
wise, wholesome, sweet, and tinged with mischief; even the
red Earl of Morton, the ‘bloat Douglas,’ as they called
him, who should have been cunning in women, when he
saw her preside at her first Council, said to his neighbour,
‘There is wine in the lass, and strong wine, to make men
drunken. What was Black James Stuart about to let her
in among us?’ It was a sign also of her suspected store
of strength that Mr. Knox was careful not to see her.
He had called her ‘Honeypot’ on hearsay.
No doubt she approved herself: those who loved her,
and, trembling, marked her goings, owned it to each other
by secret signs. And yet, in these early days, she stood
alone, a growing girl in a synod of elders, watching,
judging, wondering about them, praying to gods whom
they had abjured in a tongue which they had come to
detest. For they were all for England now, while she
clung the more passionately to France. If she used
deceit, is it wonderful? The arts of women against those
half-hundred pairs of grudging, reticent eyes; a little
armoury of smiles, blushes, demure, down-drooping lids!
Was it the instinct to defend, or the relish for cajolery?
She had the art of unconscious art. She looked askance,
she let her lips quiver at a harsh decree, she kissed and
took kisses where she could. She laughed for fear she
should cry, she was witty when most at a loss. She
refused to see disapproval in any, pretended to an open
mind, and kept the inner door close-barred. Never unwatched,
she was never found out; never off the watch,
she never let her anxiety be seen. Alone she did it. Not
Mary Livingstone herself knew the half of her effort, or
shared her moments of dismay; for that whole-hearted
girl saw Scotland with Scots eyes.
But she succeeded—she pleased. The lords filled
Holyroodhouse, their companies the precincts; every man
was Queen Mary’s man. The city wrought at its propynes
and pageants against her entry in state. Mr. Knox, grimly
surveying the company at his board, called her Honeypot.
There were those of her own religion who might have
had another name for her. One morning there was a
fray after her mass, when the Lord Lindsay and a few like
him hustled and beat a priest. They waited for him
behind the screen and gave him, in their phrase, ‘a
bloody comb.’ Now, here was a case for something more
tart than honey—at least, the clerk thought so. He had
come running to her full of his griefs: the holy vessels
had been tumbled on the floor, the holy vestments were in
shreds; he (the poor ministrant) was black and blue;
martyrdom beckoned him, and so on.
‘Nay, good father, you shall not take it amiss,’ she
had said to him. ‘A greater than you or I said in a like
case, “They know not what they do.”’
‘Madam,’ says the priest, ‘there spake the Son of God,
all-discerning, not to be discerned of the Jews. But I
judge from the feel of my head what they do, and I think
they themselves know very well—and their master also
that sent them, their Master Knox.’
‘I will give you another Scripture, then,’ replied she.
‘It is written, “By our stripes we are healed.”’
‘Your pardon, madam, your pardon!’ cried the priest:
‘I read it otherwise. St. Peter saith, “By His stripes we
are healed”—a very different matter.’
She grew red. ‘Come, come, sir, we are bandying
words. You will not tell me that you have no need of
heavenly physic, I suppose?’
‘I pray,’ said he, ‘that your Majesty have none.
Madam, if it please you, but for your Majesty’s kindred,
the Lord James and his brethren, I had been a dead man.’
‘You tell me the best news of my brothers I have had
yet,’ said she, and sent him away.
She used a gentler method with Lord Lindsay when he
next showed her his rugged, shameless face. He told her
bluntly that he would never bend the knee to Baal.
‘Well,’ she said, with a smile, ‘you shall bend it to me
instead.’ And she looked so winning and so young, and
withal so timid lest he should refuse, that (on a sudden
impulse) down he went before her and kissed her hand.
‘I knew that I could make him ashamed,’ she said afterwards
to Mary Livingstone.
‘I would have had him whipped!’ cried the flaming
maid.
‘You are out, my dear,’ said Queen Mary. ‘’Twas
better he should whip himself.’
Although she took enormous pains, she succeeded not
nearly so well with her bastard brothers and their sister,
Lady Argyll, the handsome, black-browed woman. James,
Robert, and John, sons of the king her father, and Margaret
Erskine, all alike tall, sable, stiff and sullen, were alike in
this too, that they were eager for what they could get
without asking. The old needy Hamilton—Duke of
Châtelherault as he was—let no day go by without
begging for his son. These men let be seen what they
wanted, but they would not ask. The vexatious thing
with their sort is, that you may give a man too much or
too little, and never be sure which of you is the robber.
Now, the Lord James greatly coveted the earldom of
Moray. Would he tell her so, think you? Not he, since
he would not admit it to his very self. She received more
than a hint that it would be wise to reward him, and
told him that she desired it. He bowed his acceptance
as if he were obedient unto death.
‘Madam, if it please your Majesty to make me of your
highest estate, it is not for me to gainsay you.’
‘Why, no,’ says the Queen, ‘I trow it is not. You
shall be girt Earl of Mar at the Council, for such I understand
to be your present desire.’
It was not his desire by any means, yet he could not
bring himself to say so. Her very knowledge that he had
desires at all tied his tongue.
‘Madam,’ he said, sickly-white, ‘the grace is inordinate
to my merits: and, indeed, how should duty be rewarded,
being in its own performance a grateful thing? True it
is that my lands lie farther to the north than those of
Mar; true it is that in Moray—to name a case—there are
forces which, maybe, would not be the worse of a watchful
eye. But the earldom of Moray! Tush, what am I
saying?’
‘We spake of the earldom of Mar,’ she said drily.
‘That other, I understand, is claimed by my Lord of
Huntly, as a right of his, under my favour.’
He added nothing, but bit his lip sideways, and looked
at his white hands. She had done more wisely to give
him Moray at once; and so she might had he but asked
for it. But when she opened her hands he shut his up,
and where she spoke her mind he never did. She ought
to have been afraid of him, for two excellent reasons:
first, she never knew what he thought, and next, everybody
about her asked that first. Instead, he irritated her,
like a prickly shift.
‘Am I to knock for ever at the shutters of the house of
him?’ she asked of her friends. ‘Not so, but I shall
conclude there is nobody at home.’
Healthy herself, and high-spirited, and as open as the
day when she was in earnest, she laughed at his secret
ways in private and made light of them in public. It was
on the tip of her saucy tongue more than once or twice to
strike him to earth with the thunderbolt: ‘Did you hasten
me to Scotland to work my ruin, brother? Do you reckon
to climb to the throne over me?’ She thought better of
it, but only because it seemed not worth her while. There
was no give-and-take with the Lord James, and it is dull
work whipping a dead dog.
Meantime the prediction of Mary Livingstone seemed
on the edge of fulfilment. Queen Mary ruled Scotland;
and her spirits rose to meet success. She was full of
courage and good cheer, holding her kingdom in the hollow
of her palms. Honeypot? Did Mr. Knox call her so?
It was odd how the name struck her.
‘Well,’ she said, with a shrug, ‘if they find me sweet
and hive about me, shall I not do well?’
She made Lethington Secretary of State without
reserve, and remarked that he was every day in the antechamber.
The word flew busily up and down the Canongate,
round about the Cross: ‘Master Knox hath fitted her
with a name, do you mind? “She is Honeypot,” quoth
he. Heard you ever the like o’ that?’ Some favoured it
and her, some winked at it, some misfavoured; and these
were the grey beards and white mutches. But one and
all came out to see her make her entry on the Tuesday.
One hour before she left Holyrood, Mr. Knox preached
from his window in the High Street to a packed assembly
of blue bonnets and shrouded heads, upon the text, Be
wise now therefore, O ye Kings—a ring of scornful despair
in his accents making the admonition vain. ‘I shall not
ask ye now what it is ye are come out for to see, lest
I tempt ye to lie; for I know better than yourselves.
Meat! “Give us meat,” ye cry and clamour; “give us
meat for the gapes, meat for greedy eyes!” Ay, and ye
shall have your meat, fear not for that. Jags and slashes
and feathered heads, ye shall have; targeted tails, and
bosoms decked in shame, but else as bare as my hand.
Fill yourselves with the like of these—but oh, sirs, when
ye lie drunken, blame not the kennel that holds ye. If
that ye crave to see prancing Frenchmen before ye, minions
and jugglers, leaping sinners, damsels with timbrels, and
such-like sick ministers to sick women’s desires, I say, let
it be so, o’ God’s holy name; for the day cometh when ye
shall have grace given ye to look within, and see who
pulls the wires that sets them all heeling and reeling,
jigging up and down—whether Christ or Antichrist,
whether the Lord God of Israel or the Lord Mammon
of the Phœnicians. Look ye well in that day, judge ye
and see.’
He stopped, as if he saw in their midst what he cried
against; and some man called up, ‘What more will you
say, sir?’
Mr. Knox gathered himself together. ‘Why, this, my
man, that the harlotry of old Babylon is not dead yet, but
like a snake lifteth a dry head from the dust wherein you
think to have crushed her. Bite, snake, bite, I say; for
the rather thou bitest, the rather shall thy latter end come.
Heard ye not, sirs, how they trounced a bare-polled priest
in the house of Rimmon, before the idol of abomination
herself, these two days by past? I praise not, I blame not;
I say, him that is drunken let him be drunken still. More
becomes me not as yet, for all is yet to do. I fear to prejudge,
I fear to offend; let us walk warily, brethren, until
the day break. But I remember David, ruler in Israel,
when he hoped against hope and knew not certainly that
his cry should go up as far as God. For no more than
that chosen minister can I look to see the number of the
elect made up from a froward and stiff-necked generation.
Nay, but I can cry aloud in the desert, I can fast, I can
watch for the cloud of the gathering wrath of God. And
this shall be my prayer for you and for yours, Be wise, etc.’
He did pray as he spoke, with his strong eyes lifted up
above the housetops—a bidding prayer, you may call it, to
which the people’s answer rumbled and grew in strength.
One or two in the street struck into a savage song, and
soon the roar of it filled the long street:
The hunter is Christ, that hunts in haste,
The hounds are Peter and Paul;
The Pope is the fox, Rome is the rocks,
That rubs us on the gall.
A gun in the valley told them that the Queen was away.
It was well that she was guarded.
Des-Essars, the Queen’s French page, in that curious
work of his, half reminiscence and half confession, which he
dubs Le Secret des Secrets, has a note upon this day, and
the aspect of the crowd, which he says was dangerous.
‘Looking up the hill,’ he writes, ‘towards the Netherbow
Port, where we were to stop for the ceremony of the keys,
I could see that the line of sightseers was uneven, ever
surging and ebbing like an incoming sea. Also I had no
relish for the faces I saw—I speak not of them at the
windows. Certainly, all were highly curious to see my
mistress and their own; and yet—or so I judged—they
found in her and her company food for the eyes and none
for the heart. They appeared to consider her their property;
would have had her go slow, that they might fill
themselves with her sight; or fast, that they might judge
of her horsemanship. We were a show, forsooth; not come
in to take possession of our own; rather admitted, that
these close-lipped people might possess us if they found us
worthy—ah, or dispossess us if they did not. Here and
there men among them hailed their favourites: the Lord
James Stuart was received with bonnets in the air; and at
least once I heard it said, “There rides the true King of
Scots.” My Lord Chancellor Morton, riding immediately
before the Queen’s Grace, did not disdain to bandy words
with them that cried out upon him, “The Douglas! The
Douglas!” He, looking round about, “Ay, ye rascals,” I
heard him say, “ye know your masters fine when they
carry the sword.” He was a very portly, hearty gentleman
in those days, high-coloured, with a full round beard. But
above all things in the world the Scots lack fineness of
manners. It was not that this Earl of Morton desired to
grieve the Queen by any freedom of his; but worse than
that, to my thinking, he did not know that he did it. As
for my lords her Majesty’s uncles, their reception was
exceedingly unhappy; but they cared little for that.
Foolish Monsieur de Châtelard made matters worse by
singing like a boy in quire as he rode behind his master,
Monsieur d’Amville. This he did, as he said, to show his
contempt for the rabble; but all the result was that he
earned theirs. I saw a tall, gaunt, bearded man at a
window, in a black cloak and bonnet. They told me that
was Master Knox, the strongest man in Scotland.’
It is true that Master Knox watched the Queen go up,
with sharp eyes which missed nothing. He saw her eager
head turn this way and that at any chance of a welcome.
He saw her meet gladness with gladness, deprecate doubt,
plead for affection. ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness:
but she is too keen after sweet food.’ She smiled all
the while, but with differences which he was jealous to note.
‘She deals carefully; she is no so sure of her ground. Eh,
man, she goes warily to work.’
A child at a window leaped in arms and called out
clearly: ‘Oh, mother, mother, the braw leddy!’ The
Queen laughed outright, looked up, nodded, and kissed
her hand.
‘Hoots, woman,’ grumbled Mr. Knox, ‘how ye lick your
fingers! Fie, what a sweet tooth ye have!’
She was very happy, had no doubts but that, as she won
the Keys of the Port, she should win the hearts of all these
people. Stooping down, she let the Provost kiss her hand.
‘The sun comes in with me, tell the Provost,’ she said to
Mr. Secretary, not trusting her Scots.
‘Madam, so please you,’ the good man replied, clearing
his throat, ‘we shall make a braver show for your Grace’s
contentation upon the coming out from dinner. Rehearse
that to her Majesty, Lethington, I’ll trouble ye.’
‘Ah, Mr. Provost, we shall all make a better show then,
trust me,’ she said, laughing; and rode quickly through
the gate.
She was very bold: everybody said that. She had the
manners of a boy—his quick rush of words, his impulse,
and his dashing assurance—with that same backwash of
timidity, the sudden wonder of ‘Have I gone too far—betrayed
myself’ which flushes a boy hot in a minute.
All could see how bold she was; but not all knew how the
heart beat. It made for her harm that her merits were shy
things. I find that she was dressed for the day in ‘a stiff
white satin gown sewn all over with pearls.’ Her neck
was bare to the cleft of the bosom; and her tawny brown
hair, curled and towered upon her head, was crowned with
diamonds. Des-Essars says that her eyes were like stars;
but he is partial. There were many girls in Scotland fairer
than she. Mary Fleming was one, a very gentle, modest
lady; Mary Seton was another, sharp and pure as a profile
on a coin of Sicily. Mary Livingstone bore herself like a
goddess; Mary Beaton had a riper lip. But this Mary
Stuart stung the eyes, and provoked by flashing contrasts.
Queen of Scots and Dryad of the wood; all honey and
wine; bold as a boy and as lightly abashed, clinging as a
girl and as slow to leave hold, full of courage, very wise.
‘Sirs, a dangerous sweet woman. Here we have the
Honeypot,’ says Mr. Knox to himself, and thought of
her at night.
After dinner, as she came down the hill, they gave her
pageants. Virgins in white dropped out of machines with
crowns for her; blackamoors, Turks, savage men came
about her with songs about the Scriptures and the fate of
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. She understood some, and
laughed pleasantly at all. Even she took not amiss the
unmannerly hint of the Lawn Market, where they would
have burned a mass-priest in effigy—had him swinging
over the faggots, chalice and vestment, crucifix and all.
‘Fie, sirs, fie! What harm has he done, poor soul?’ was
all she said.
The Grand Prior was furiously angry; seeing which,
the Earl of Morton cut the figure down, and then struck
out savagely with the flat of his blade, spurring his horse
into the sniggering mob. ‘Damn you, have done with
your beastliness—down, dogs, down!’ The Lord James
looked away.
At the Salt Tron they had built up a door, with a glory
as of heaven upon it. Here she dismounted and sat for a
while. Clouds above drew apart; a pretty boy in a gilt
tunic was let down by ropes before her. He said a piece
in gasps, then offered her the Psalter in rhymed Scots.
She thought it was the Geneva Bible, and took it with a
queer lift of the eyebrows, which all saw. Arthur Erskine,
to whom she handed it, held it between finger and thumb
as if it had been red hot; and men marked that, and
nudged each other. The boy stood rigid, not knowing
what else to do; quickly she turned, looked at him shyly
for a moment, then leaned forward and took him up in her
arms, put her cheek to his, cuddled and kissed him. ‘You
spake up bravely, my lamb,’ she said. ‘And what may
your name be?’ She had to look up to Lethington for
his reply, but did not let go of the child. His name was
Ninian Ross. ‘I would I had one like you, Ninian Ross!’
she cried in his own tongue, kissed him again, and let him
go.
People said to each other, ‘She loves too much, she is
too free of her loving—to kiss and dandle a bairn in the
street.’
‘Honeypot, Honeypot!’ said grudging Mr. Knox,
looking on rapt at all this.
Des-Essars writes: ‘She believed she had won the entry
of the heart; she read in the castle guns, bells of steeples,
and hoarse outcry of the crowd, assurance of what she
hoped for. I was glad, for my part, and disposed to thank
God heartily, that we reached Holyroodhouse without
injury to her person or insult to cut her to the soul.’
I think Des-Essars too sensitive: she was fully as
shrewd an observer as he could have been. At least, she
returned in good spirits. If any were tired, she was not;
but danced all night with her Frenchmen. Monsieur de
Châtelard was a happy man when he had her in his arms.
‘Miséricorde—O Queen of Love! Thus I would go
through the world, though I burned in hell for it after.’
‘Thus would not I,’ quoth she. ‘You are hurting me.
Take care.’
They brought her news in the midst that the Earl of
Bothwell was in town with a great company, and would
kiss her hands in the morning if he might.
‘Let him come to me now while I am happy,’ she said.
‘Who knows what to-morrow may do for me?’
She sent away Châtelard, and waited. Soon enough
she saw the Earl’s broad shoulders making a way, the
daring eyes, the hardy mouth. ‘You are welcome, my
lord, to Scotland.’
‘But am I welcome to your Majesty?’
‘You have been slow to seek my welcome, sir.’
‘Madam, I have been slow to believe it.’
‘You need faith, Monsieur de Boduel.’
‘I wish that your Majesty did!’
‘Why so?’
‘That your Majesty might partake of mine.’
They chopped words for half an hour or more. But she
had her match in him.
She was friends with all the world that night, or tried
to think so. Yet, at the going to bed, when the lights
were out, the guards posted, and state-rooms empty save
for the mice, she came up to Mary Livingstone and stroked
her face without a word, coaxing for assurance of her
triumph. Wanting it still—for the maid was glum—she
supplied it for herself. ‘We rule all Scotland, my dear,
we rule all Scotland!’
But Mary Livingstone held up her chin, to be out of
reach of that wheedling hand. Coldly, or as coldly as
she might, she looked at the eager face, and braved the
glimmering eyes.
‘Ay,’ she said, ‘ay, you do. You and John Knox
betwixt you.’
The Queen laughed. ‘Shall I marry Mr. Knox? He
is twice a widower.’
‘He would wed you the morn’s morn if you would have
him,’ says Livingstone. ‘’Tis a fed horse, that Knox.’
‘He feeds on wind, I think,’ the Queen said; and the
maid snorted, implacable.
‘’Tis a better food than your Earl of Bothwell takes, to
my mind.’
‘And what is his food?’
‘The blood of women and their tears,’ said Mary
Livingstone.
The Earl of Huntly came to town, with three tall sons,
three hundred Gordons, and his pipers at quickstep before
him, playing, ‘Cock o’ the North.’ He came to seek the
earldom of Moray, a Queen’s hand for his son George, and
to set the realm’s affairs on a proper footing; let Mr. Knox
and his men, therefore, look to themselves. His three sons
were George, John, and Adam. George, his eldest, was
Lord Gordon, with undoubted birthrights; but John of Findlater,
so called, was his dearest, and should have married
the Queen if he had not been burdened with a stolen
wife in a tower, whom he would not put out of his head
while her husband was alive. So George must have the
Queen, said Huntly. That once decided, his line was clear.
‘Madam, my cousin,’ he intended to say, ‘I give you all
Scotland above the Highland line in exchange for your
light hand upon the South. Straighter lad or cleanlier
built will no maid have in the country, nor appanage so
broad. Is it a match?’ Should it not be a match, indeed?
Both Catholics, both sovereign rulers, both young, both
fine imps. If she traced her descent from Malcolm Canmore,
he got his from Gadiffer, who, as every one knows,
was the brother of Perceforest, whose right name was Betis,
whose ancestor was Brutus’ self, whose root was fast in
Laomedon, King of Troy. ‘The boy and girl were born
for each other,’ said Huntly. So he crossed the Forth at
Stirling Brig, and marched down through the green lowland
country like a king, with colours to the wind and the
pipes screaming his hopes and degree in the world. But
he came slowly because of his unwieldy size. He was
exceedingly fat, white-haired and white-bearded, and had
a high-coloured, windy, passionate face, flaming blue eyes,
and a husky voice, worn by shrieking at his Gordons.
Such was the old Earl of Huntly, the star of whose house
was destined to make fatal conjunctions with Queen Mary’s.
His entry into Edinburgh began at the same rate of
pomp, but ended in the screaming of men whose pipes
were slit. There were Hamiltons in the city, Hepburns,
Murrays, Keiths, Douglases, red-haired Campbells. The
close wynds vomited armed men at every interchange of
civilities on the cawsey; a match to the death could be
seen at any hour in the tilt-yard; the chiefs stalked grandly
up and down before their enemies’ houses, daring one
another do their worst. It seemed that only Huntly and
his Gordons had been wanting to set half Scotland by the
ears. The very night of their incoming young John of
Findlater spied his enemy Ogilvy—the husband of the
stolen wife—walking down the Luckenbooths arm-in-arm
with his kinsman Boyne. He stepped up in front of him,
lithe as an otter, and says he, ‘Have I timed my coming
well, Mr. Ogilvy?’ Ogilvy, desperate of his wife, may be
excused for drawing upon him; and (the fray once begun)
you cannot blame John Gordon of Findlater for killing him
clean, or Ogilvy of Boyne for wounding John of Findlater.
Hurt as he was, the young man was saved by his friends.
Little he cared for the summons of slaughter sued out
against him in the morning, with his enemy dead and three
hundred Gordons to keep his doors.
The Earl his father treated the affair as so much thistledown
thickening the wind; but his own performances were
as exorbitant as his proposals. He quarrelled with the
high Lord James Stuart about precedence. Flicking his
glove in the sour face, ‘Hoots, my lord, you are too new
an Earl to take the gate of me,’ he said. He assumed the
title of Moray—which was what he had come to beg for—in
addition to his own. ‘She dare not refuse me, man. It
is well known I have the lands.’ The Lord James turned
stately away at this hearing, and Huntly ruffled past him
into the presence, muttering as he went, ‘A king’s mischance,
my sakes!’ He had a fine command of scornful
nicknames; that was one of them. He called Mr. Secretary
Lethington the Grey Goose—no bad name for a
tried gentleman whose tone was always symptomatic of
his anxieties. The Earl of Bothwell was a ‘Jack-Earl,’ he
said; but Bothwell laughed at him. The Duke and his
Hamiltons were ‘Glasgow tinklers’; the Earl of Morton,
‘Flesher Morton.’ His pride, indeed, seemed to be of
that inordinate sort which will not allow a man to hate his
equals. He hated whole races of less-descended men; he
hated burgesses, Forbeses, Frenchmen, Englishmen; but
his peers he despised. Catholic as he was, he went to the
preaching at Saint Giles’ in a great red cloak, wearing his
hat, and stood apart, clacking with his tongue, while Mr.
Knox thundered out prophecies. ‘Let yon bubbly-jock
bide,’ he told his son, who was with him. ‘’Tis a congested
rogue, full of bad wind. What! Give him vent, man, and
see him poison the whole assembly.’ Mr. Knox denounced
him to his face as a Prophet of the Grove, and bid him cry
upon his painted goddess. The great Huntly tapped his
nose, then the basket of his sword, and presently strode
out of church by a way which his people made for him.
Queen Mary was amused with the large, boisterous,
florid man, and very much admired his sons. They were
taller than the generality of Scots, sanguine, black-haired,
small-headed, with the intent far gaze in their grey eyes
which hawks have, and all dwellers in the open. She saw
but two of them, the eldest and the youngest—for John of
Findlater, having slain his man, lay at home—and set herself
to work to break down their shy respect. For their
sakes she humoured their preposterous father; allowed,
what all her court was at swords drawn against, that his
pipers should play him into her presence; listened to what
he had to say about Gadiffer, brother of Perceforest, about
Knox and his ravings, about the loyal North. He expanded
like a warmed bladder, exhibited his sons’ graces as if he
were a horsedealer, openly hinted at his proposals in her
regard. She needed none of his nods and winks, being
perfectly well able to read him, and of judgment perfectly
clear upon the inflated text. In private she laughed it
away. ‘I think my Lord of Gordon a very proper gentleman,’
she said to Livingstone; ‘but am I to marry the first
long pair of legs I meet with? Moreover, I should have to
woo him, for he fears me more than the devil. Yet it is a
comely young man. I believe him honest.’
‘The only Gordon to be so, then,’ said Livingstone
tersely. This was the prevailing belief: ‘False as Gordon.’
Then came Ogilvy of Boyne and his friends before
the council, demanding the forfeiture of John Gordon of
Findlater for slaughter. Old Huntly pished and fumed.
‘What! For pecking the feathers out of a daw! My fine
little man, you and your Ogilvys should keep within your
own march. You meet with men on the highways.’ The
young Queen, isolated on her throne above these angry
men, looked from one to another faltering. Suddenly she
found that she could count certainly upon nobody. Her
brother James had kept away; the Earl of Bothwell was
not present; my Lord Morton the Chancellor blinked a pair
of sleepy eyes upon the scene at large. ‘Let the law take
its course,’ she faintly said; and old Huntly left the chamber,
sweeping the Ogilvys out of his road. That was no
way to get the Earldom of Moray and a royal daughter-in-law
into one’s family. He himself confessed that the
time had come for serious talk with the Queen.
Even this she bore, knowing him Catholic and believing
him honest. When, after some purparley, at a privy
audience, he came to what he called ‘close quarters,’
and spoke his piece about holy church, sovereign rulers,
and fine imps, she laughed still, it is true, but more
shrewdly than before. ‘Not too fast, my good lord, not
too fast. I approve of my Lord Gordon, and should come
thankfully to his wedding. Yet I should be content with
a lowlier office there than you seem to propose me. And
if he come to my wedding, I hope he will bring his lady.’
She turned to the Secretary. ‘Tell my lord, Mr. Secretary,
what other work is afoot.’
Hereupon Lethington enlarged upon royal marriages,
their nature and scope, and flourished styles and titles
before the mortified old man. He spoke of the Archduke
Ferdinand, that son of Cæsar; of Charles the Most
Christian King, a boy in years, but a very forward boy.
He dwelt freely and at length upon King Philip’s son of
Spain, Don Carlos, a magnificent young man. Mostly he
spoke of the advantage there would be if his royal mistress
should please to walk hand in hand with her sister of
England in this affair. Surely that were a lovely vision!
The hearts of two realms would be pricked to tears by the
spectacle—two great and ancient thrones, each stained
with the blood of the other, flowering now with two roses,
the red and the white! The blood-stains all washed out
by happy tears—ah, my good lord, and by the kisses of
innocent lips! It were a perilous thing, it were an unwarrantable
thing, for one to move without the other.
‘I speak thus freely, my Lord of Huntly,’ says Lethington,
warming to the work, ‘that ye may see the whole mind of
my mistress, her carefulness, and how large a field her new-scaled
eyes must take in. This is not a business of knitting
North to South. She may trust always to the affection of
her subjects to tie so natural a bond. Nay, but the comforting
of kingdoms is at issue here. Ponder this well, my
lord, and you will see.’
The Earl of Huntly was crimson in the face. ‘I do see,
madam, how it is, that my house shall have little tenderness
from your Majesty’s’—he was very angry. ‘I see
that community of honour, community of religion count
for nothing. Foh! My life and death upon it!’ He
puffed and blew, glaring about him; then burst out again.
‘I will pay my thanks for this where they are most due.
I know the doer—I spit upon his deed. Who is that man
that cometh creeping after my earldom? Who looketh
aslant at all my designs? Base blood stirreth base work.
Who seeketh the life of my fine son?’
The Queen flushed. ‘Stay, sir,’ she said, ‘I cannot
hear you. You waste words and honour alike.’
He shook his head at her, as if she were a naughty
child; raised his forefinger, almost threatened. ‘Madam,
madam, your brother James——’
She got up, the fire throbbing in her. ‘Be silent, my
lord!’
‘Madam——’
‘Be silent.’
‘But, madam——’
Lethington, much agitated, whispered in her ear; she
shook him away, stamped, clenched her hands.
‘You are dismissed, sir. The audience is finished. Do
you hear me?’
‘How finished? How finished?’
‘Go, go, my lord, for God’s sake!’ urged the Secretary.
‘A pest!’ cried he, and fumed out of the Castle.
She rode down the Canongate to dinner that day at
a hand-gallop, the people scouring to right and left to be
clear of heels. Her colour was bright and hot, her hair
streamed to the wind. ‘Fly, fly, fly!’ she cried, and
whipped her horse. ‘A hateful fool, to dare me so!’
Lethington, Argyll, James her brother, came clattering
and pounding behind. ‘She is fey! She is fey! She
rides like a witch!’ women said to one another; but Mr.
Knox, who saw her go, said to himself, ‘She is nimble as
a boy.’ Publicly—since this wild bout made a great commotion
in men’s thoughts—he declared, ‘If there be not
in her a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an indurate heart
against God and His truth, my judgment faileth me.’
Neither he nor his judgments were anything to her in
those days; she heard little of his music, rough or not.
And yet, just at that time, had she sent for him she could
have won him for ever. ‘Happy for her,’ says Des-Essars,
writing after the event, ‘thrice happy for her if she had!
For I know very well—and she knew it also afterwards—that
the man was in love with her.’
At night, having recovered herself, she was able to
laugh with the maids at old Huntly, and to look with kind
eyes upon the graces of his son Gordon.
‘If I cared to do it,’ she said, ‘I could have that young
man at my feet. But I fear he is a fool like his father.’
She tried him: he danced stiffly, talked no French, and
did not know what to do with her hand when he had it,
or with his own either. She sparkled, she glittered before
him, smiled at his confusion, encouraged him by softness,
befooled him. It was plain that he was elated; but she
held her own powers so lightly, and thought so little of
his, that she had no notion of what she was doing—to
what soaring heights she was sending him. When she
had done with him, a strange tremor took the young lord—a
fixed, hard look, as if he saw something through the
wall.
‘What you see? What you fear, my lord?’ she stammered
in her pretty Scots.
‘I see misfortune, and shame, and loss. I see women at
the loom—a shroud for a man—hey, a shroud, a shroud!’
He stared about at all the company, and at her, knowing
nobody. Slowly recovering himself, he seemed to scrape
cobwebs from his face. ‘I have drunk knowledge this
night, I think.’
She plumbed the depth of his case. ‘Go now, my lord;
leave me, now.’
‘One last word to you, madam, with my face to your
face.’
‘What would you say to me?’
He took her by the hand, with more strength than she
had believed in him. ‘Trust Gordon,’ he said, and left
her.
‘I shall believe your word,’ she called softly after him,
‘and remember it.’
He lifted his hand, but made no other sign; he carried
a high head through the full hall, striding like a man
through heather, not to be stopped by any.
She thought that she had never seen a prouder action.
He went, carrying his devotion, like a flag into battle.
Beside him the Earl of Bothwell looked a pirate, and
Châtelherault a pantaloon.
‘He deserves a fair wife, for he would pleasure her well,’
she considered; then laughed softly to herself, and shook
her head. ‘No, no, not for me—such a dreamer as that.
I should direct his dreams—I, who need a man.’
That pirate Earl of Bothwell used a different way. He
bowed before her the same night, straightened his back
immediately, and looked her full in the face. No fear
that this man would peer through walls for ghosts!
She was still tender from the thoughts of her young Highlander;
but you know that she trusted this bluff ally, and
was not easily offended by honest freedoms. She had
seen gallants of his stamp in France.
‘Pleasure and good answers to your Grace’s good desires,’
he laughed.
She looked wisely up at him, keeping her mouth
demure.
‘Monsieur de Boduel, you shall lead me to dance if you
will.’
‘Madam, I shall.’ He took her out with no more ceremony,
and acquitted himself gaily: a good dancer, and
very strong, as she had already discovered. What arms
to uphold authority! What nerve to drive our rebels into
church! Ah, if one need a man!...
She asked him questions boldly. ‘What think you, my
lord, of the Earl of Huntly?’
‘Madam, a bladder, holding a few pease. Eh, and he
rattles when you do shake him! Prick him, he is gone;
but the birds will flock about for the seeds you scatter.
They are safer where they lie covered, I consider.’
She followed this. ‘I would ask you further. There
is here a remarkable Mr. Knox: what am I to think of
him?’
He stayed awhile, stroking his beard, before he shrugged
in the French manner, that is, with the head and eyebrow.
‘In Rome, madam, we doff caps to the Pope. I am
friendly with Mr. Knox. He is a strong man.’
‘As Samson was of old?’
He laughed freely. ‘Oh, my faith, madam, Delilah is
not awanting. There’s a many and many.’
She changed the subject. ‘They tell me that you are
of the religion, Monsieur de Boduel, but I am slow to
believe that. In France I remember——’
‘Madam,’ says he, ‘my religion is one thing, my philosophy
another. Let us talk of the latter. There is one
God in a great cloud; but the world, observe, is many-sided.
Sometimes, therefore, the cloud is rent towards the
south; and the men of the south say, “Behold! our God
is hued like a fire.” Or if, looking up, they see the sun
pale in a fog, with high faith they say one to another,
“Yonder white disc, do you mark, that is the Son of God.”
Sometimes also your cloud is parted towards the north.
Then cry the men of those parts, “Lo! our God, like a
snow-mountain!” Now, when I am in the south I see
with the men of the south, for I cannot doubt all the
dwellers in the land; but when I am in the north, likewise
I say, There is something in what you report. So much
for philosophy—to which Religion, with a rod in hand, cries
out: “You fool, you fool! God is neither there nor here;
but He is in the heart.” There you have it, madam.’
She bowed gravely. ‘I have heard the late king, my
father-in-law, say the same to Madame de Valentinois;
and she agreed with him, as she always did in such matters.
It is a good thought. But in whose heart do you place
God? Not in all?’
‘In a good heart, madam. In a crowned heart.’
‘The crowned heart,’ said she, ‘is the Douglas badge.
Do you place Him then in the heart of Monsieur de
Morton?’
This tickled him, but he felt it also monstrous. ‘God
forbid me! No, no, madam. Douglas wears it abroad—not
always with credit. But the crowned heart was the
heart of the Bruce.’
She was pleased; the sudden turn warmed her. ‘You
spoke that well, and like a courtier, my lord.’
‘Madam,’ he cried, covering his own heart, ‘that is what
I would always do if I had the wit. For I am a courtier
at this hour.’
Pondering this in silence, she suffered him to lead her
where he would; and took snugly to bed with her the
thought that, in her growing perplexities, she had a sure
hand upon hers when she chose to call for it.
As for him, Bothwell, he must have gone directly from
this adventure in the tender to play his bass in some of
the roughest music of those days. That very night—and
for the third time—he, with D’Elbœuf and Lord John
Stuart, went in arms, with men and torches, to Cuthbert
Ramsay’s house, hard by the Market Cross; and, being
refused as before, this time made forceful entry.
To the gudeman’s ‘What would ye with me, sirs, good
lack?’ they demanded sight of Alison, his handsome
daughter, now quaking in her bed by her man’s side; and
not sight only, but a kiss apiece for the sake of my Lord
Arran. She was, by common report, that lord’s mistress—but
the fact is immaterial.
‘Come down with me, man—stand by me in this hour,’
quoth she.
But her husband plainly refused to come. ‘Na, na, my
woman, thou must thole the assize by thysel’,’ said the
honest fellow.
She donned her bedgown, tied up her hair, and was
brought down shamefast by her father.
‘Do me no harm, sirs, do me no harm!’
‘Less than your braw Lord of Arran,’ says Bothwell,
and took the firstfruits.
The low-roofed parlour full of the smoke of torches,
flaring lights, wild, unsteady gentlemen in short cloaks,
flushed Alison in the midst—one can picture the scene.
The ceremony was prolonged; there were two nights’ vigil
to be made up. On a sudden, half-way to the girl’s cold
lips, Lord Bothwell stops, looks sidelong, listens.
‘The burgh is awake. Hark to that! Gentlemen, we
must draw off.’
They hear cries in the street, men racing along the
flags. From the door below one calls, ‘The Hamiltons!
Look to yourselves! The Hamiltons!’
Almost immediately follows a scuffle, a broken oath,
the ‘Oh, Christ!’ and fall of a man. Lord Bothwell
regards his friends—posterior parts of three or four craning
out of window, D’Elbœuf tying up his points, John
Stuart dancing about the floor. ‘Gentlemen, come
down.’
He wrapped his cloak round his left arm, whipped out
his blade, and went clattering down the stair. The others
came behind him. From the passage they heard the fighting;
from the door, as they stood spying there, the whole
town seemed a roaring cave of men. Through and above
the din they could catch the screaming of Lord Arran,
choked with rage, tears, and impotence.
‘Who is the doxy, I shall ask ye: Arran or the lass?’
says Bothwell, making ready to rush the entry.
Just as he cleared the door he was stabbed by a dirk in
the upper arm, and felt the blood go from him. All Edinburgh
seemed awake—a light in every window and a
woman to hold it. Hamiltons and their friends packed
the street: some twenty Hepburns about Ramsay’s door
kept their backs to the wall. For a time there was great
work.
In the midst of the hubbub they heard the pipes skirling
in the Cowgate.
‘Here comes old Huntly from his lodging,’ says Lord
John to his neighbour. This was Bothwell, engaged with
three men at the moment, and in a gay humour.
‘Ay, hark to him!’ he called over his shoulder; and
then, purring like some fierce cat, ‘Softly now—aha, I
have thee, friend!’ and ran one of his men through the
body.
The pipes blew shrilly, close at hand, the Gordons
plunged into the street. Led by their chief, by John of
Findlater and Adam (a mere boy), they came rioting into
battle.
‘Aboyne! Aboyne! Watch for the Gordon!’—they
held together and clove through the massed men like a bolt.
‘Hold your ground! I’ll gar them give back!’ cried
old Huntly; and Bothwell, rallying his friends, pushed out
to meet him: if he had succeeded the Hamiltons had been
cut in two. As it was, the fighting was more scattered,
the mêlée broken up; and this was the state of affairs
when the Lord James chose to appear with a company of
the Queen’s men from the Castle.
For the Lord James, in his great house at the head of
Peebles Wynd—awake over his papers when all the world
was asleep or at wickedness—had heard the rumours of
the fight; and then, even while he considered it, heard the
Gordons go by. He heard old Huntly encouraging his
men, heard John of Findlater: if he had needed just
advantage over his scornful enemy he might have it now.
He got up from his chair and stood gazing at his papers,
rubbing together his soft white hands. Anon he went to
the closet, awoke his servant, and bade him make ready
for the street. Cloaked, armed and bonneted, followed by
the man, he went by silent ways to the Castle.
When he came upon the scene of the fray, he found
John Gordon of Findlater at grapple with a Hamilton
amid a litter of fallen men. He found Adam Gordon pale
by the wall, wounded, smiling at his first wound. He
could not find old Huntly, for he was far afield, chasing
men down the wynds. D’Elbœuf had slipped away on
other mischief, Bothwell (with a troublesome gash) had
gone home to bed. He saw Arran battering at Ramsay’s
door, calling on his Alison to open to him—and left the
fool to his folly. It was Huntly he wanted, and, failing
him, took what hostages he could get. He had John of
Findlater pinioned from behind, young Adam from before,
and the pair sent off guarded to the Castle.
To Arran, then, who ceased not his lamentations, he
sternly said, ‘Fie, my lord, trouble not for such a jade at
such an hour; but help me rather to punish the Queen’s
enemies.’
Arran turned upon him, pouring out his injuries in a
stream.
The Lord James listened closely: so many great names
involved! Ah, the Earl of Bothwell! Alas, my lord,
rashness and vainglory are hand-in-hand, I fear. The
Marquis D’Elbœuf! Deplorable cousin of her Majesty.
The Lord John! Tush—my own unhappy brother!
One must go deeply, make free with the knife, to cut out
of our commonwealth the knot of so much disease.
‘My Lord of Arran,’ he concluded solemnly, ‘your
offence is deep, but the Queen’s deeper than you suppose.
I cannot stay your resentment against the Earl of Bothwell;
it is in the course of nature and of man that you should
be moved. But the Earl of Huntly is the more dangerous
person.’
My Lord James it was who led the now sobbing Arran
to his lodging, and sought his own afterwards, well content
with the night’s work. It is not always that you find two
of your enemies united in wrong-doing, and the service of
the state the service of private grudges.
When the archers had cleared the streets of the quick,
afterwards came down silently the women and carried
off the hurt and the dead. The women’s office, this, in
Edinburgh.
The Queen was yet in her bed when Huntly came
swelling into Holyroodhouse, demanding audience as his
right. But the Lord James had been beforehand with
him, and was in the bedchamber with the Secretary, able to
stay, with a look, the usher at the door. ‘It is proper
that your Majesty should be informed of certain grave
occurrents,’ he began to explain; and told her the story
of the night so far as was convenient. According to him,
the Earl of Bothwell mixed the brew and the Earl of
Huntly stirred it. D’Elbœuf was not named, John Stuart
not named—when the Queen asked, what was the broil
about? Ah, her Majesty must hold him excused: it was
an unsavoury tale for a lady’s ear. ‘I should need to be a
deaf lady in order to have comfortable ears, upon your
showing,’ she said sharply. How well he had the secret of
egging her on! ‘Rehearse the tale from the beginning,
my lord; and consider my ears as hardened as your own.’
He let her drag it out of him by degrees: Arran’s mistress,
Bothwell’s night work, so hard following upon night talk
with her; Huntly’s furious pride: rough music indeed for
young ears. But she had no time to shrink from the
sound or to nurse any wound to her own pride. At the
mere mention of Bothwell’s name Mary Livingstone was
up in a red fury, and drove her mistress to her wiles.
‘And this is the brave gentleman,’ cried the maid, ‘this
is the gallant who holds my Queen in his arms, and goes
warm from them to a trollop’s of the town! Fit and right
for the courtier who blasphemes with grooms in the court—but
for you, madam, for you! Well—I hope you will
know your friends in time.’
The Queen looked innocently at her, with the pure
inquiry of a child. ‘What did he want with the girl?
Some folly to gall my Lord Arran, belike.’ Incredible
questions to Livingstone!
Just then they could hear old Lord Huntly storming in
the antechamber. ‘There hurtles the true offender, in my
judgment,’ said the Lord James.
‘He uses an unmannerly way of excuse,’ says the
Queen, listening to his rhetoric.
‘Madam,’ said Mr. Secretary here, ‘I think he rather
accuses. For his sort are so, that they regard every wrong
they do as a wrong done to themselves. And so, perchance,
it is to be regarded in the ethic part of philosophy.’
‘Why does he rail at my pages? Why does he not
come in?’ the Queen asked. Whereupon the Lord
James nodded to the usher at the door.
Delay had been troublesome to the furious old man,
fretting his nerves and exhausting his indignation before
the time. He was out of breath as well as patience; so
the Queen had the first word, which he had by no means
intended. She held up her finger at him.
‘Ah, my Lord of Huntly, you angered me the other
day, and I overlooked it for the love I bear to your family.
And now, when you have angered me again, you storm in
my house as if it was your own. What am I to think?’
He looked at her with stormy, wet eyes, and spoke
brokenly, being full of his injuries. ‘I am hurt, madam, I
am sore affronted, traduced, stabbed in the back. My son,
madam——!’
She showed anger. ‘Your son! Your son! You have
presumed too far. You offer me marriage with your son,
and he leaves me for a fray in the street!’
Startled, he puffed out his cheeks. ‘I take God to
witness, liars have been behind me. Madam, my son
Gordon had no hand in the night’s work. He was not in
my house; he was not with me; I know not where he was.
A fine young man of his years, look you, madam, may not
be penned up like a sucking calf. No, no. But gallant
sons of mine there were—who have suffered—whose
injuries cry aloud for redress. And, madam, I am here to
claim it at your hands.’
‘Speak your desires of me: I shall listen,’ said she.
The old man looked fixedly at his enemy across the bed.
‘Ay, madam, and so I will.’ He folded his arms, and the
action, and the weight of his wrongs, stemmed his vehemence
for a while. Dignity also he gained by his restraint, a
quality of which he stood in need; and truly he was
dignified. To hear his account, loyalty to the throne and
to his friends was all the source of his troubles. He had
come down with proffers of alliance to the Queen, and they
laughed him to scorn. He with his two sons rose out of
their beds to quell a riot, to succour their friends——
‘And whom do you call your friends?’ cried the Queen,
interrupting him quickly.
He told her the Hamiltons—but there certainly he lied—good
friends of his and hopeful to be better. The Queen
calmed herself. ‘I had understood that you went to the
rescue of my Lord Bothwell,’ she began; and true it was,
he had. But now he laughed at the thought, and maybe
found it laughable.
‘No, no, madam,’ he said: ‘there are no dealings
betwixt me and the border-thieves. But the Duke hath
made a treaty with me; and it was to help my Lord Arran,
his son, that I and mine went out.’ Well! he had stayed
the riot, he had carved out peace at the sword’s edge.
‘Anon’—and he pointed out the man—‘Anon comes that
creeper by darksome ways, and rewards my sons with
prison-bars—he, that has sought my fair earldom and all!
Ay, madam, ay!’—his voice rose—‘so it is. Of all the
souls in peril last night, some for villainy’s sake, some to
serve their wicked lusts, some for love of the game, and some
for honesty and truth—these last are rewarded by the jail.
Madam, madam, I tell your Majesty, honest men are not to
be bought and sold. You may stretch heart-strings till they
crack; you may tempt the North, and rue the spoiling of
the North. I know whose work this is, what black infernal
stain of blood is in turmoil here. I know, madam, I say,
and you know not. Some are begotten by night, and some
in stealth by day—when the great world is at its affairs, and
the house left empty, and nought rife in it but wicked
humours. Beware this kind, madam—beware it. What
they have lost by the bed they may retrieve by the head.
Unlawful, unlawful—a black strain.’
The Lord James was stung out of himself. ‘By heaven,
madam, this should be stopped!’
The Queen put up her hand. ‘Enough said. My Lord
Huntly, what is your pleasure of me?’
Old Huntly folded up his wrath in his arms once more.
‘I ask, madam, the release of my two sons—of my son
Findlater, and of Adam, my young son, wounded in your
service, sorely wounded, and in bonds.’
‘You frame your petition unhappily,’ said the Queen with
spirit. ‘This is not the way for subjects to handle the
prince.’
He extended his arms, and gaped about him. ‘Subjects,
she saith! Handling, she saith! Oh, now, look you,
madam, how they handle your subject and my boy. He
hath fifteen years to his head, madam, and a chin as smooth
as your own. I fear he is hurt to the death—I fear it sadly;
and it turns me sick to face his mother with the news.
Three sons take I out, and all the hopes I have nursed since
your Majesty lay a babe in your mother’s arm. With one
only I must return, with one only—and no hopes, no hopes
at a’—madam, an old and broken man.’ He was greatly
moved; tears pricked his eyelids and made him fretful.
‘Folly, folly of an old fool! To greet before a bairn!’
He brought tears into the Queen’s eyes.
‘I am sorry for your son Adam,’ she said gently; ‘but
do not you grieve for him. He is too young to suffer for
what he did under duress. You shall not weep before me.
I hate it. It makes me weep with you, and that is forbidden
to queens, they say.’
A man had appeared at the curtain of the door, and
stood hidden in it. The Lord James went to him while the
Queen was turned to the Secretary.
‘Mr. Secretary,’ said she, ‘you shall send up presently to
the Castle. I desire to know how doth Sir Adam of Gordon.
Bring me word as soon as may be.’ She had returned
kindly to the old Earl when her brother was back by
the bed.
‘Madam,’ he said to her, but looked directly at his foe,
‘the injuries of my Lord Huntly’s family are not ended, it
appears. They bring me news——’
That was a slip; the Queen’s cheeks burned. ‘Ah, they
bring you news, my lord!’
He hastened to add: ‘And I, as my duty is, report to
your Majesty, that Sir John Gordon of Findlater hath,
within this hour, broken ward. He is away, madam, leaving
an honest man dead in his room.’ He had made a false
step in the beginning, but the news redeemed him.
The Queen looked very grave. ‘What have you to say
to this, Lord of Huntly?’
‘I say that he is my very son, madam,’ cried the stout
old chief, ‘and readier with his wits than that encroacher
over there.’
Mr. Secretary Lethington covered a smile; the Queen
did not. But she replied: ‘And I say that he is too ready
with his wits; and to you, my lord, I say that you must
fetch him back. I will not be defied.’
She saw his dogged look, and admired it in him. Well
she knew how to soften him now!
‘There shall be no bargain between you and me,’ she
continued, looking keenly at him; ‘but as I have passed
my word, now pass you yours. I will take care of the boy.
He shall be here, and I will teach him to love his Queen
better than his father can do it, I believe. That is my
part. Now for yours: go you out and bring me back Sir
John.’
Old Huntly ran forward to the bed, fell on his knees
beside it, and took the girl’s hand. The tears he now felt
were kindlier, and he let them come. ‘Oh, if you and I
could deal, my Queen,’ he said, ‘all Scotland should go
laughing. If we could deal, as now we have, with the
hearts’ doors open, and none between! Why, I see the
brave days yet! I shall bring back Findlater, fear not for
it; and there shall be Gordons about you like a green
forest—and yourself the bonny, bonny rose bowered in
the midst! God give your Majesty comfort, who have
given back comfort and pride unto me!’
The Queen’s eyes shone with wet as she laughed her
pleasure. ‘Go then, my lord; deal fairly by me.’
He left her there and then, swelling with pride, emotion,
and vanity inflamed, meaning to do well if any man ever
did. He brushed aside Lethington with a sweep of the
arm—‘Clear a way there—clear a way!’
In this Gordon conflict the iniquities of Lord Bothwell
were forgotten, for the Queen’s mind was now set upon
kind offices. She took young Adam into her house and
visited him every day. As you might have expected,
where the lad was handsome and the lady predisposed to
be generous, she looked more than she said, and said more
than she need. Young Adam fell in love with this glimmering,
murmuring, golden princess. Fell, do I say? He
slipped, rather, as in summer one lets oneself slip into the
warm still water. Even so slipped he, and was over the
ears before he was aware. Whatever she may have said,
he made mighty little reply: the Gordons were always
modest before women, and this one but a boy. He hardly
dared look at her when she came, though for a matter of
three hours before he had never taken his eyes from the
door through which she was to glide in upon him like a
Queen of Fays. And the fragrance she carried about her,
the wonder of her which filled the little chamber where he
lay, the sense of a goddess unveiling, of daily miracle, of
her stooping (glorious condescension!), and of his lifting-up—ah,
let him who has deified a lady tell the glory if he
dare! The work was done: she was amused, the miracle
wrought. She had found him a sulky boy, she left him a
budded knight. Here was one of the conquests she made
every day without the drawing of a sword. Most women
loved her, and all boys and girls. But although these are,
after all, the pick of the world—to whom she was the Rose
of roses—we must consider, unhappily, the refuse. They
were the flies at the Honeypot.
Mary Livingstone, not seriously, chid her mistress. ‘Oh,
fie! oh, fie!’ she would say. ‘Do you waste your sweet
store on a bairn? They call you too fond already. Do
you wish to have none but fools about you?’
‘If it is foolish to love me, child,’ said the Queen, pretending
to pout, ‘you condemn yourself. And if it is foolish
of me to love you, or to love Love—again you condemn
yourself, who teach me day by day. Are you jealous
of the little Gordon, or of the little Jean-Marie? Or is it
Monsieur de Châtelard whom you fear?’
‘Châtelard, forsooth! A parrokeet!’
The Queen laughed. ‘If you are jealous, Mary Livingstone,
you must cut off my hands and seal my mouth; for
should you take away all my lovers, I should stroke the
pillars of the house till they were warm, and kiss the maids
in the kitchen until they were clean. I must love, my dear,
and be loved: that I devoutly believe.’
‘Lord Jesus, and so do I!’ groaned the good girl, and
thanked Him on whom she called that Bothwell’s day was
over. For although she said not a word of the late scandal,
she watched every day and lay awake o’ nights for any
sign that he was in the Queen’s thoughts. All she could
discover for certain was that he came no more to Court.
And yet he was in or near Edinburgh. The old Duke of
Châtelherault had himself announced one day in a great
taking, with a pitiful story of his son Arran. Lord Bothwell’s
name rang loud in it. His son Arran, cousin (he was
careful to say) of her Majesty’s, being highly incensed at
the affront he had suffered, had challenged the Earl of
Bothwell to a battle of three on a side. The weapons had
been named, the men chosen. My Lord Bothwell had
kept tryst, Arran (on his father’s counsel) had not. Thereupon
my Lord Bothwell cries aloud, in the hearing of a
score persons, ‘We’ll drag him out by the lugs, gentlemen!’
and set about to do it. ‘My son Arran, madam,
goes in deadly fear; for so ruthless a man, a man so
arrogant upon the laws as this Lord of Bothwell vexeth not
your Majesty’s once prosperous realm. Alas, that such
things should be! Madam, I gravely doubt for my son’s
safety.’
‘Why, what would you have of me, cousin?’ says the
Queen. ‘I cannot fight your son’s battle. Courage I
cannot give him. Am I to protect him in my house?’
‘It is protection, indeed, madam, that I crave. But
your Majesty knows very well in what guise I would have
him enter your house.’
This was too open dealing to be dextrous in such a
delicate market.
‘Upon my word, cousin,’ says the Queen, ‘I think that
you carry your plans of protection too far if you propose
that I should shelter him in my bed.’
The old Duke looked so confounded at this blunt
commentary that she repented later, and promised that she
would try a reconciliation. ‘But I cannot move in it
myself,’ she told him. ‘There are many reasons against
that. Do you say that my Lord Bothwell threatens the
life of your son?’
‘Indeed, madam, I do fear it.’
‘Well, I will see that he does not get it. Leave me to
deal as I can.’
The Queen sent for Mr. Knox.
‘The Comic Mask now appears,’ says Le Secret des Secrets
in a reflective mood, ‘the Comic Mask, with a deprecatory
grin, to show how it was the misfortune of Scotland at this
time that, being a poor country, every funded man in it
was forced to fatten his glebe at the cost of his neighbour’s.
So house was set against house, friendship made a vain
thing, and loyalty a marketable thing. More than that,
every standard of value set up to be a beacon or channel-post
or point of rally (whichever you chose to make it),
became ipso facto a tower of vantage, from which, if you
were to draw your dues, it was necessary to scare everybody
else. When Mr. Knox sourly called Queen Mary a
Honeypot, he intended to hold her out to scorn; but
actually he decried his countrymen who saw her so; and
not saw her only, but every high estate beside. For them
the Church was a honeypot, the council, the command of
the shore, the wardenry of the marches. “Come,” they
said, “let us eat and drink of this store, but for God’s sake
keep off the rest, or it will never hold out.” Round about,
round about, came the buzzing flies, at once eager and
querulous; and while they sipped they looked from the
corners of their eyes lest some other should get more than
his share; and the murmurs of the feasters were as often
“Give him less” as “Give me more.” Yet it would be
wrong, I conceive, to call the Scots lords all greedy; safer
to remember that most of them must certainly have been
hungry.’ So Monsieur Des-Essars obtrudes his chorus—after
the event.
Young Queen Mary, hard-up against the event, had no
chorus but trusty Livingstone of the red cheeks and warm
heart; nor until her first Christmas was kept and gone was
she conscious of needing one. She had maintained a high
spirit through all the dark and windy autumn days, finding
Bothwell’s effrontery as easy to explain as the Duke’s
poltroonery, or the hasty veering of old Huntly. Bothwell,
she would extenuate, held her cheap because women were
his pastime, the Duke sought her protection because he
was a coward, Huntly shied off because his vanity was
offended. If men indeed had ever been so simple to be
explained, this world were as easy to manage as a pasteboard
theatre. The simplicity was her own; but she
shared the quality with another when she sent for Mr.
Knox because she thought him her rival, and when he
came prepared to play the part.
The time was November, with the floods out and rain
that never ceased. It was dark all day outside the palace;
raw cold and showers of sleet mastered the town; but
within, great fires made the chambers snug where the
Queen sat with her maids and young men. The French
lords had taken their leave, the pageants and dancings
were stayed for a time. In a diminished Court, which held
neither the superb Princes of Guise nor the hardy-tongued
Lord of Bothwell—in a domesticated, needleworking,
chattering, hearth-haunting Court—there was a great
adventure for the coy excellences of Monsieur de Châtelard.
Discussing his prospects freely with Des-Essars, he told
him that he had two serious rivals only. ‘Monsieur de
Boduel,’ he said, ‘forces my Princess to think of him by
insulting her. He appears to succeed; but so would the
man who should twist your arm, my little Jean-Marie, and
make cuts with the hand at the fleshy part. He would
compel you to think of him, but with fear. Now, fear,
look you, is not the lady’s part in love, but the man’s, the
perfect lover’s part. For it may be doubted whether a
woman can ever be a perfect lover—if only for this reason,
that she is designed for the love of a man. The Lord
Gordon, eldest son and heir of that savage greybeard,
Monsieur de Huntly, is my other adversary in the sweet
warfare. She looks at him as you must needs observe a
church tower in your Brabant. It is the tallest thing there;
you cannot avoid it. But what fine long legs can prevail
against the silken tongue? Not his, at least. Therefore I
sing my best, I dance, I stand prayerful at corners of the
corridor. And one day, when I see her pensive, or hear
her sigh as she goes past me, do you know what I shall
do? I shall run forward and clasp her knees, and cry
aloud, “We bleed, we bleed, Princess, we bleed! Come,
my divine balm, let us stanch mutually these wounds of
ours. For I too have balsam for thee!” Do you not
think the plan admirable?’
‘It is very poetical,’ said Des-Essars, ‘and has this
merit, usually denied to poetry, that it is uncommonly
explicit. I think I know better than you what are the
designs of Monsieur de Boduel, since he was once my
master. He does not seek to insult or to terrify my
mistress, as you seem to suppose—but to induce her to
trust him. He would wish to appear to her in the character
of the one man in Scotland who does not seek some
advantage from her. My Lord Gordon’s designs—to use
the word for convenience, though, in fact, he has no
designs—are as simple as yours. He is infatuated; the
Queen has turned his head; and it is no wonder, seeing
that she troubled herself to do it.’
‘If he has no designs, boy,’ cried Monsieur de Châtelard,
‘how can you compare him with me, who have
many?’
Des-Essars clasped his hands behind his head. ‘I
suppose you are the same in this, at least,’ he said, ‘that
both of you seek to get pleasure out of my mistress. Let
me tell you that your most serious rival of all is one of
whom you know nothing—one who seeks neither pleasure
nor profit from her; to whom, therefore, she will almost
certainly offer the utmost of her store.’
‘Who is this remarkable man, pray?’
‘It is Master Knox, the Genevan preacher,’ said Des-Essars.
‘I think there is more danger to the Queen’s
heart in this man’s keeping than in that of the whole Privy
Council of this kingdom.’
Monsieur de Châtelard was profoundly surprised. ‘I
had never considered him at all,’ he admitted. ‘In my
country, Jean-Marie, and I suppose in yours also, we do
not consider the gentry of religion until our case is become
extreme. Of what kindred is this man?’
‘He is of the sons of Adam, I suppose, and a tall one.
I have seen him.’
‘You mistake me, my boy. Hath he blood, for
example?’
‘Sir, I will warrant it very red. In fine, sir, this man is
King of Scotland; and, though it may surprise you to
hear me say so, I will be so bold as to add in your private
ear, that no true lover of the Queen my mistress could
wish her to give up her heart into any other keeping
which this country can furnish.’
Monsieur de Châtelard, after a short, quick turn about
the room, came back to Des-Essars vivacious and angry.
‘You speak absurdly, like the pert valet you are likely to
become. What can you know of love—you, who dare to
dispose of your mistress’s heart in this fashion?’
Des-Essars looked grave. ‘It is open to me, young as
I am, to love the Queen my mistress, and to desire her
welfare. I love her devotedly; but I swear that I desire
nothing else. Nor does my partner and sworn ally,
Monsieur Adam de Gordon.’
‘Love,’ said Monsieur de Châtelard, tapping his bosom,
‘severs brotherhoods and dissolves every oath. It is a
perfectly selfish passion: even the beloved must suffer for
the lover’s need. Do you and your partner suppose that
you can stay my advance? The thought is laughable.’
‘We neither suppose it nor propose it,’ replied the youth.
‘We are considering the case of Mr. Knox, and are agreed
that, detestable as his opinions may be, there is great force
in them because of the great force in himself. We think
he may draw the Queen’s favour by the very neglect he
hath of it; and although our natures would lead us to
advance the suit of my Lord Gordon, who is my colleague’s
blood-brother, as you know—for all that, it is our
deliberate intention to throw no obstacle in the way of any
pretensions this Master Knox may chance to exhibit.’
‘And, pray,’ cried Monsieur de Châtelard, drawing
himself up, ‘and, pray, how do you look upon my pretensions,
which, I need not tell you, do not embrace
marriage?’
‘To tell you the truth, sir,’ Des-Essars replied, ‘we do
not look upon them at all.’
Monsieur de Châtelard was satisfied. ‘I think you are
very wise,’ he said. ‘No eye should look upon the deed
which I meditate. Fare you well, Jean-Marie. I speak as
a man forewarned.’
Jean-Marie returned to his problems.
Standing at the Queen’s door, he had his plan cut and
dried. When the preacher should be brought in by the
usher, he would require a word with him before he pulled
back the curtain. He does not confess to it in his
memoirs; but I have no doubt what that word was to
have been. Remember that there was this much sound
sense on the boy’s side: he knew very well that the Queen
had thought more of Mr. Knox than she had cared to
allow. His inferences may have been ridiculous; it is one
thing to read into the hearts of kings, another to dispose
them. However that may be, the Captain of the Guard
had received his orders. He himself introduced the great
man into the antechamber, and led him directly to the
entry of the Queen’s closet. Mr. Erskine, who held this
office, was also Master of the Pages, and no mere gentleman-usher.
He brushed aside his subaltern with no more
ceremony than consists in a flack of the ear, and, ‘Back,
thou French pullet—the Queen’s command.’ Immediately
afterwards he announced at the door, ‘Madam, Mr. Knox,
to serve your Majesty.’
‘Enter boldly, Mr. Knox,’ he bade his convoy then, and
departed, leaving him in the doorway face to face with the
Queen of Scots.
She sat in a low chair, tapestry on her knees, her needle
flying fast; in her white mourning, as always when she
had her own way, she looked a sweet and wholesome
young woman. Mary Livingstone, self-possessed and busy,
was on a higher chair behind her, watching the work;
Mary Fleming in the bay of the window, Lord Lindsay
near by her, leaning against the wall. Mary Beaton and
Mary Seton were on cushions on the floor, each holding an
end of the long frame. Mr. Secretary regardful by the
door, and a lady who sat at a little table reading out of
Perceforest or Amadis, or some such, completed as quiet
an interior as you could wish to see. While Mr. Knox
stood primed for his duty, scrutinised by half a dozen pair
of eyes, the Queen alone did not lift hers up, but picked
at a knot with her needle.
The tangle out, ‘Let Mr. Knox take heart,’ she said,
with the needle’s eye to the light and the wool made sharp
by her tongue: ‘here he shall find a few busy girls putting
to shame some idle men.’ Seeing that Mr. Knox made no
sign—as how should he, who needed not take what he had
never lost?—she presently turned her head and looked
cheerfully at him, her first sight of a redoubtable critic.
Singly her thoughts came, one on the heels of the other:
her first, This man is very tall; the second, He looks
kind; the third, He loves a jest; the fourth, which stayed
long by her, The deep wise eyes he hath! In a long head
of great bones and little flesh those far-set, far-seeing, large,
considering eyes shone like lamps in the daylight—full of
power at command, kept in control, content to wait. They
told her nothing, yet she saw that they had a store behind.
No doubt but the flame was there. If the day made it
mild, in the dark it would beacon men. She saw that he
had a strong nose, like a raven’s beak, a fleshy mouth,
the beard of a prophet, the shoulders and height of a
mountaineer. In one large hand he held his black bonnet,
the other was across his breast, hidden in the folds of his
cloak. There was no man present of his height, save
Lethington, and he looked a weed. There was no man
(within her knowledge) of his patience, save the Lord
James; and she knew him at heart a coward. Peering
through her narrowed eyes for those few seconds, she had
the fancy that this Knox was like a ragged granite cross,
full of runes, wounded, weather-fretted, twisted awry. Yet
her four thoughts persisted: He is very tall, he looks kind,
he loves a jest—and oh! the deep wise eyes he hath!
Nothing that he did or spoke against her afterwards
moved the roots of those opinions. She may have feared,
but she never shrank from the man.
Now she took up her words where she had left them.
‘You, who love not idleness, Mr. Knox, are here to help
me, I hope?’
He blinked before he answered. ‘Madam,’ then said
he, ‘I am here upon your summons, since subjects are
bound to obey, that I may know your pleasure of me.’
‘A sweet, dangerous woman,’ he thought her still; but he
added now, ‘And of all these dainty ladies the daintiest,
and the shrewdest reader of men.’
‘Come then, Mr. Knox, and be idle or busy as likes
you best,’ she said, and resumed her needle. ‘I am glad
to know,’ she added, ‘that you consider yourself bound
anyways to me.’
He, not moving from his doorway—making it serve
him rather for a pulpit—when he had thought for awhile,
with quickly blinking eyes, began: ‘I think that you seek
to put me to some question, madam, but without naming
it. I think that you would have me justify myself without
cause cited. But this I shall not do, lest afterwards come
in your Clerk of Arraigns and I find myself prejudged
upon my plea before I am accused at all. Why, in this
matter of service of subjects, we are all in a manner bound
upon it. Many masters must we obey: as God and His
stewards, who are girded angels; and Death and his
officers, who are famines, diseases, fires, and the swords
of violent men, suffered by God for primordial reasons;
and next the prince and his ministers, among whom I
reckon——’
‘Oh, sir; oh, sir,’ she cried out, ‘you go too fast for me!’
‘Madam,’ said he, ‘I speak with respect, but I do think
you go as fast as I.’
She laughed. ‘I am young, Mr. Knox, and go as fast
as I can. Do you blame me for that?’
‘I may not, madam,’ said he steadily, ‘unless to
remember that you sit in an old seat be to blame you.’
‘I sit at my needlework now, sir.’
He saw her fine head bent over the web, a gesture
beautifully meek, but said he: ‘I suspect the seat is
beneath your Majesty. It is hard to win, yet harder to
leave when the time comes.’
‘But,’ said she, ‘if I put aside my seat, if I waive my
authority, how would you consider me then?’
He turned his head from one to another, and then
gazed calmly at the Queen. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘if you
waive your authority and put aside your seat, the which
(you say) you have from God, why then should I consider
you at all?’
When the room stirred, she laughed, but it was to
conceal her vexation. She pricked her lip with her
needle.
‘I see how it is with you and your friends, sir,’ she said
drily. ‘You love not poor women in any wise. When we
are upon thrones you call us monsters, and when we come
off them you think us nothing at all. It is hard to please
you. And yet—you have known women.’
‘A many,’ said he.
‘And of these some were good women?’
‘There was one, madam, the best of women.’
Her eyes sparkled. ‘Ah! You speak kindly at last!
You loved my mother! Then you will love me. Is it
not so?’
He was silent. This was perilous work.
‘I have sent for you, Mr. Knox,’ she continued, ‘not for
dialectic, in which I can see I am no match for you; but
to ask counsel of you, and require a benevolence, if you are
ready to bestow it. We will talk alone of these things,
if you will. Adieu, mes enfants; gentlemen, adieu. I
must speak privately with Mr. Knox.’
What had she to say to him? Not he alone wondered;
there was Master Des-Essars at the door—Master Des-Essars,
who, with the generosity of calf-love, was prepared
to surrender his rights for the good of the State. Mary
Livingstone, to whom one man, lover of the Queen, was
as pitiable as another, swept through the anteroom
without a word for anybody. The others clustered in
the bay, whispering and wondering.
But as to Mr. Knox, when those two were alone, she
baffled him altogether by asking him to intervene in the
quarrel between the Lords Bothwell and Arran: baffled
him, that is, because he had braced himself for tears,
reproaches, and what he called ‘yowling’ against his
‘Stinking Pride’ sermon, which of late had made some stir.
In that matter he was ready to take his stand upon the
holy hill of Sion; he had his countermines laid against her
mines. Yea, if she had cried out upon the book of the
Monstrous Regiment itself, he had his pithy retorts, his
citations from Scripture, his Aristotle, his Saint Paul, and
Aquinas—for he did not disdain that serviceable papist—his
heavy cavalry from Geneva and his light horsemen from
Ayrshire greens. But she took no notice of this entrenched
position of his: she drew him into open country, then
swept out and caught him in the flank. Choosing to
assume, against all evidence, that he had loved her mother,
assuming that he loved her too, she pleaded with him to
serve her well, and used the subtlest flattery of all, which
was to take for granted that he would refuse what she
begged. This was an incense so heady that the flinty-edged
brain was drugged by it, declined ratiocination. As
she pleaded, in low urgent tones, which cried sometimes as
if she was hurt, and thrilled sometimes as though she
exulted in her pure desire, he listened, sitting motionless
above her, more moved than he cared afterwards to own.
‘For peace’s sake I came hither, young as I am, and
because I desire to dwell among my own folk. I hoped
for peace, and do think that I ensued it. Have I vexed
any of you in anything? Have I oppressed any?’ At
such a time, against such pleading, he had it not in his
heart to cry out, ‘Ay, daily, hourly, you vex, thwart,
and offend the Lord’s people.’
Seeing him silent, pondering above her, she stretched
out her arms for a minute, and bewitched him utterly with
her slow, sad smile. ‘If a girl of my years can be tyrant
over grave councillors, if that be possible, and I have done
it, I shall not be too stiff to ask pardon for my fault, or to
come to you and your friends, Mr. Knox, to learn a wiser
way. But you cannot accuse me. I see you answer
nothing.’ Whether he could or not, he did not at that
time.
She came back to her first proposition. ‘Of my Lord
of Bothwell I know only this,’—she seemed to weigh her
words,—‘that in France he approved himself the very
honest gentleman whom I looked to find him here. He is
not of my faith; he favours England more than I am as
yet prepared to do; he is stern upon the border. What
his quarrel may be with my Lord of Arran I do not care
to inquire. I pray it may be soon ended, for the peace’s
sake which I promised myself. Why should I be unhappy?
You cannot wish it.’
‘Madam,’ he said, in his deep slow voice, ‘God knoweth
I do not.’
She looked down; she whispered, ‘You are kind to me.
You will help me?’
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘God being with me, I will.’ She
looked up at him like a child, held out her hand. He took
it in his own; and there it lay for a while contented.
Upon this fluttering moment the Lord James, walking
familiarly in king’s houses, entered with a grave inclination
of the head. The Queen was vexed, but she was ready,
and resumed her hand. Mr. Knox was not ready. He
stiffened himself, and opened his mouth to speak: no words
came. The Lord James went solemnly to his side and put
a hand on his shoulder. The Queen’s eyes flashed.
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I am glad that my friend Mr. Knox
should be here.’
‘Upon my word, my lord,’ cried the Queen in a rage,
‘why should you be glad, or what has your gladness to do
with the matter?’ Mr. Knox, before she spoke, had gently
disengaged himself; now he made her a deep obeisance and
took his leave—not walking backwards. ‘That is a true
man,’ was her judgment of him, and never substantially
altered. What he may have thought of her, if he afterwards
discovered how she had used him here, is another
question. He set about doing her behests, at any rate.
There was a probability that my Lord Bothwell would show
himself at Court again before many days, and without
direct invitation of hers.
After a progress about the kingdom, which she thought
it well to make for many reasons—room for the pacifying
arm of Mr. Knox being one—it befell as she had hoped.
Speedily and well had the preacher gone to work: the Earl
of Arran walked abroad without a bodyguard, the Earl of
Bothwell showed himself at Court and was received upon
his former footing. The Queen had looked sharply at him,
on his first appearance, for any sign of a shameful face;
there was not to be seen the shadow of a shade. It is not
too much to say that she would have been greatly disappointed
if there had been any; for to take away hardihood
from this man would be to make his raillery a ridiculous
offence, his gay humour a mere symptom of the tavern.
No, but he laughed at her as slyly as ever before; he
reassumed his old pretensions, he gave back no inch of
ground—and, remember, in an affair of the sort, if the man
holds his place the maid must yield something of hers. It
is bound to be a case of give or take. She felt herself in
the act to give, was glad of it, and concealed it from Mary
Livingstone. When this girl, her bosom friend and bedfellow,
made the outcry you might expect of her, the
Queen pretended extreme surprise.
‘Do you suppose this country the Garden of Eden, my
dear? Are all the Scots lords wise virgins, careful over
lamp-wicks? Am I Queen of a Court of Love by chance,
and is my Lord of Bothwell a postulant? You tell me
news. I assure you he is nothing to me.’
Now these words were spoken on a day when he had
declared himself something as plainly as was convenient.
Exactly what had happened was this:—
On the anniversary-day of the death of little King
Francis of France, the Queen kept the house with her
maids, and professed to see nobody. A requiem had been
sung, the faithful few attending in black mourning. She,
upon a faldstool, solitary before the altar at the pall, looked
a very emblem of pure sorrow—exquisitely dressed in long
nun-like weeds; no relief of white; her face very pale,
hands thin and fragile, only one ring to the whole eight
fingers. Motionless, not observed to open her lips, wink
her eyes, scarcely seen to breathe, there she stayed when
mass was done and the chapel empty, save for women and
a page or two.
At noon, just before dinner, she walked in the garden,
kept empty by her directions—a few turns with Beaton
and Fleming, and Des-Essars for escort—then, bidding
them leave her, sat alone in a yew-tree bower in full sun.
It was warm dry weather for the season.
Presently, as she sat pensive, toying perhaps with grief,
trying to recall it or maintain it—who knows?—she heard
footsteps not far off, voices in debate; and looked sidelong
up to see who could be coming. It was the Earl of
Bothwell who showed himself first round the angle of
the terrace, arm-in-arm of that Lord Arran whom she
had procured to be his friend; behind these two were
Ormiston, some Hamilton or another, and Paris, Lord
Bothwell’s valet. They were in high spirits and free talk,
those two lords, unconscious or careless of her privacy;
Bothwell was gesticulating in that French way he had;
the other, with his head inclined, listened closely, and
sniggered in spite of himself. Both were in cheerful
colours; notably, Bothwell wore crimson cloth with a
cloak of the same, a purpoint of lace, a white feather in
his cap. Arran first saw the Queen, stopped instantly,
uncovered, and said something hasty to his companion;
he stared with his light fish-eyes and kept his mouth
open. Bothwell looked up in his good time and bared
his head as he did so. It seems that he muttered some
order or advice, for when Lord Arran slipped by on the
tips of his toes, all the rest followed him; but Lord
Bothwell walked leisurely over the grass towards the
Queen, as who should say, ‘I am in the wrong—in truth
I am a careless devil. Well, give me my due; admit I
am not a timorous devil.’
As he stood before her, attentive and respectful in his
easy way, she watched him nearly, and he waited for her
words. It is a sign of how they stood to one another at
this time that she began her speech in the middle—as if
her thoughts, in spite of herself, became at a point
articulate.
‘You also, my lord!’
‘Plaît-il?’
‘Oh, you understand me very well.’
‘Madam, upon my honour! I am a dull dog that can
see but one thing at a time.’
She forced herself to speak. ‘I ask you, then, if this
is the day of all days when you choose to pass by me in
your festival gear? I ask if you also are with the rest
of them?’
He made as if he would spread his hands out—the
motion was enough. It said—though he was silent—‘Madam,
I am no better than other men.’
‘Oh, I believe it, I believe it! You are no better
indeed; but I had thought you wiser.’
He caught at the word, and rubbed his chin over it.
‘Hey, my faith, madam—wiser!’
The Queen tapped her foot. ‘If I had said kinder, I
might have betrayed myself for a fool. Kindness, wisdom,
generosity, pity! In all these things I must believe you
to be as other men. Is it not so?’
Seeing her clouded eyes, he did not affect to laugh any
more. He was either a bad courtier or one supremely
expert; for he spoke as irritably as he felt.
‘Madam, I know few men save men of spirit, therefore
I cannot advise you. But you know the saw, Come asino
sape così minuzza rape: “The donkey bites his carrot as
well as he knows.” Wisdom is becoming to a servant;
kindness, generosity, and the rest of these high virtues are
the ornament of a master, or mistress. Why, madam, if
I desire the warmth of the sun, shall I ever get it by
shivering? Is that a wise reflection?’
She clasped her hands over her knee, and looked at her
foot as she swung it slowly; but if the action was idle the
words were not. ‘If I asked you, my lord, to wear the
dule with me upon this one day of the year, should you
refuse me? If I grieve, will you not grieve with me?’
He never faltered, but spoke as gaily as a sailor to his
lass. ‘Faith of a gentleman, madam, why should I grieve—except
for that you should grieve still? For your
grieving there may be a remedy; and as for me, far from
grieving with you, I thank the kindly gods.’
She bit her lip as she shivered. ‘You are cruel,’ she
said: ‘you are cruel. I knew it before. Your heart is
cruel. This is the very subtlety of the vice.’
‘Not so, madam,’ he answered quietly; ‘but it is
dangerous simplicity. Do you not know why I give
thanks?—I think you do, indeed.’
Very certainly she thought so too.
She sat on after he was gone, twisting her fingers about
as she spun her busy fancies; and was so found by her
maids. Little King Francis and the purple pall which
signified him were buried for that day; and after dinner
she changed her black gown for a white. It was at going
to bed that night that she had rallied Mary Livingstone
about Scots lords and wise virgins, and declared that Lord
Bothwell was nothing to her. And the maid believed her
just as far as you or I may do.
Not that the thing was grown serious by any means:
the maid of honour made too much of one possible lover,
and the Queen, very likely, too little. The difference
between these two was this: Mary Livingstone looked
upon her Majesty’s lovers with a match-maker’s eye, but
Queen Mary with a shepherding eye. The flock was
everything to her. Just now, for example, she was
anxious about certain other strays; and, as time wore on
to the dark of the year, she began to be impatient. The
Gordons, said her brother James, were playing her false;
but it was incredible to her—not that they should be at
fault, but that her instinct should be so. She could have
sworn to the truth of that fine Lord Gordon, and been
certain that she had won over old Huntly at the last.
The mistake—if she was mistaken—is common to queens
and pretty children, who, finding themselves in the centre
of their world, give that a circumference beyond the line
of sight. Because all eyes are upon them they think that
there is nothing else to be seen. She was to learn that
Huntly at Court and Huntly in Badenoch were two
separate persons; so said the Lord James.
‘Sister, alas! I fear a treacherous and stiff-necked
generation’; and he had more to go upon than he chose
her to guess as yet.
So far, at least, she had to admit that old Huntly was
a liar: John of Findlater was never brought back. Her
messengers returned again and again, saying, ‘The Earl
was in the hills,’ or ‘The Earl was hunting the deer,’ or
‘The Earl was punishing the Forbeses.’ And where was
her fine Lord Gordon, with his sea-blue, hawk’s eyes?
She was driven at last to send after him—a peremptory
summons to meet her at Dundee; but he never came—could
not be found or served with the letter—was believed
to be with the Earl, his father, but had been heard of in
the west with the Hamiltons, etc. etc. The face of Lord
James—his eyes ever upon the Earldom of Moray—was
sufficient answer to her doubts; and when she turned to
Lord Bothwell for comfort, he laughed and said, reminding
her of a former conversation, ‘Prick the old bladder,
madam, scatter the pease; then watch warily who come to
the feast.’
Then a certain Lord Ruthven entered her field, sent for
out of Gowrie—a dour, pallid man, with fatality pressing
heavily on his forehead. It seemed to weigh his brows
over his eyes, and to goad him at certain stressful times
to outbursts of savagery—snarling, tooth-baring—terrible
to behold. He hated Huntly as one Scots lord could hate
another, for no known reason.
‘You ask me what you shall do with Huntly, madam?
I say, hang him on a tree, and poison crows with him.
It will be the best service he can ever do you.’
He said this at the council board, and dismayed her
sorely. It seemed to her that he churned his spleen
between his teeth till it foamed at his loose lips.
She flew to the comfort of her maids: here was her
cabinet of last resource! They throned her among them,
put their heads near together, and considered the case of
Scotland. Mary Livingstone could see but one remedy
for the one deep-set disease. Bothwell’s broad chest
shadowed all the realm as with a cloud: chase that away,
you might get a glimpse of poor Scotland; but while the
dreadful gloom endured the Gordons seemed to her a
swarm of gnats, harmless at a distance. ‘Let them starve
in their own quags, my dear heart,’ she said; ‘you will
have them humble when they are hungry. Theirs is the
sin of pride—but, O Mother of Heaven, keep us clean
from the sin that laughs at sinning!’
Mary Fleming put in a word for the advice of Mr.
Secretary Lethington, but blushed when the others nudged
each other. The Secretary was known to be her servant.
Mary Beaton said, ‘I thought we were to speak of
Huntly? Ma belle dame, touch his heart with your finger-tips.’
‘So I would if I knew the way,’ said the Queen, frowning.
‘Send him back his bonny boy Adam,’ says Beaton;
‘I undertake that he will plead your cause. You have
given him good reason.’
The Queen thought well of this; so presently Adam
Gordon was sent north as legate a latere.
Christmas went out, Lent drew on, the months passed.
The Ark of State tossed in unrestful waters, but young
Adam of Gordon came not again with a slip of olive.
‘If that child should prove untrue,’ said the Queen,
‘then his father is the lying traitor you report him.’ This
to Mr. Secretary Lethington, very much with her just now,
at work for Mr. Secretary Cecil of England, trying his
hardest to bring about a meeting between his mistress and
the mistress of his friend. Lethington, knowing what he
did know, had little consolation for her; but he bore word
to his master, the Lord James, that the Queen was
angering fast with the Gordons; a very little more and
the fire would leap.
‘In my poor judgment,’ he said, ‘the kindling-spark
will be struck when she sees the scribbling of her love-image.
She hath fashioned a very Eros out of George
Gordon.’
‘I conceive, Mr. Secretary,’ said the Lord James,
making no sign that he had heard him, ‘that the times
are ripe for our budget of news.’
‘I think with your lordship,’ the Secretary replied,
‘but will you be your own post-boy?’
‘Ah! I am a dullard, Mr. Secretary,’ said my lord.
‘Your mind forges in front of mine.’
He was fond of penning his agents in close corners.
Let them be explicit since he would never be. Lethington
gulped his chagrin.
‘My meaning was, my lord, that it will advantage you
more to confirm than to spread your news concerning the
Lord Gordon. Whoso tells her Majesty a thing to anger
her, I have observed that he will surely receive some part
of her wrath. Not so the man who is forced to admit the
truth of a report. He, on the contrary, gains trust; for
delicacy in a courtier outweighs integrity with our mistress.
Therefore let the Duke bring the news, and do you wait
until you can bow your head over it. Perhaps I speak
more plainly than I ought.’
‘I think you do, sir, indeed,’ says the Lord James, and
lacerates his Lethington.
There was a masque upon Shrove Tuesday, the last day
of Carnival, and much folly done, which ended, like a
child’s romp, in a sobbing fit. Amid the lights, music,
laughter of the throng, the Queen and her maids braved it
as saucy young men, trunked, puffed, pointed, trussed and
doubleted; short French cloaks over one shoulder, flat
French caps over one ear. Mary Livingstone was the
properest, being so tall, Mary Fleming the least at ease,
Mary Beaton the pertest, and Mary Seton the prettiest
boy. But Mary the Queen was the most provoking, the
trimmest, most assured little gallant that ever you saw;
and yet, by that art she had, that extraordinary tact, never
more a queen than when now so much a youth. Her
trunks were green and her doublet white velvet; her cloak
was violet threaded with gold. Her cap was as scarlet as
her lips; but there was no jewel in her ear or her girdle to
match her glancing eyes. By a perverse French courtesy,
which became them very ill, such men as dared to do it,
or had chins to show, were habited like women. Queen
Mary led out Monsieur de Châtelard in a ruff and hooped
gown; Des-Essars made a nun of himself, most demure and
most uncomfortable; Mary Fleming chose the Earl of
Arran—the only Scot in the mummery—a shepherdess
with a crook. Mary Livingstone would not dance. ‘Never,
never, never!’ cried she. ‘Let women ape men, as I am
doing: the thing is natural; we would all be men if we
could. But a man in a petticoat, a man that can blush—ah,
bah! pourriture de France!’
That night, rotten or not, Monsieur de Châtelard played
the French game. Queen Mary held him, led him about,
bowed where he curtsied, stood while he sat. He grew
bolder as the din grew wilder; he said he was the Queen’s
wife. She thought him a fool, but owned to a kind of sneaking
tenderness for folly of the sort. He called her his dear
lord, his sweet lord, said he was faint and must lean upon
her arm. He promised to make her jealous—went very
far in his part. He swore that it was all a lie—he loved
his husband only: ‘Kiss me, dear hub, I am sick of love!’
he languished, and she did kiss his cheek. More she
would not; indeed, when she saw the old Duke of Châtelherault
struggling through the crowd about the doors, she
felt that here was a chance of getting out of a tangle. She
flung the sick monkey off and went directly towards the
Duke. He had come to town that day, she knew, directly
from his lands in the west: perhaps he would know something
of the Gordons. He was a frail, pink-cheeked old
man, with a pointed white beard and delicate hands; so
simple as to be nearly a fool, and yet not so nearly but
that he had been able to beget Lord Arran, a real fool.
When he understood that this swaggering young prince
was indeed his queen, he gave up bowing and waving his
hands, and dropped upon his knee, having very courtly
old ways with him.
‘Dear madam, dear my cousin, the Lothians show the
greener for your abiding. ’Tis shrewish weather yet in
the hills; but you make a summer here.’
‘Rise up, my cousin,’ says the Queen, ‘and come talk
with me.’ She drew him to a settle by the wall. ‘What
news of your house and country have you for me?’
‘I hope I shall content your Majesty,’ he said, rubbing
his fine hands. ‘We of the west have been junketing.
We have killed fatlings for a marriage.’
She was interested, suspecting nothing. ‘Ah, you have
made a marriage! and I was not told! You used me
ill, cousin.’
‘Madam,’ he pleaded somewhat confusedly, ‘it was
done in haste: there were many reasons for that. Take
one—my poor health and hastening years. Nor did time
serve to make Hamilton a house. It was a fortalice,
and must remain a fortalice for my lifetime. But for
your Grace——’ He stopped, seeing that she did not
listen.
She made haste to turn him on again. ‘Whom did
you marry? Not my Lord of Arran, for he is pranking
here. And you design him for me, if I remember.’
‘Oh, madam!’ He was greatly upset by such plain
talk. ‘No, no. It was my daughter Margaret. My
son Arran! Ah, that’s a greater thing. My daughter
Margaret, madam——’
‘Yes, yes. But the man—the man!’
‘Madam, the Lord of Gordon took her.’ He beamed
with pride and contentment. ‘Yes, yes, the Lord of
Gordon—a pact of amity between two houses not always
too happily engaged.’
There is no doubt she blenched at the name—momentarily,
as one may at a sudden flash of lightning. She got
up at once. ‘I think you have mistook his name, cousin.
His name is Beelzebub. He is called after his father.’
She left him holding his head, and went swiftly towards
the door.
The dreary Châtelard crept after her. ‘My prince—my
lord!’
‘No, no; I cannot hear you now.’ She waved him off.
Bowing, he shivered at his plight; but ‘Courage, my
child,’ he bade himself: ‘“Not now,” she saith.’
All dancing stopped, all secret talk, all laughing, teasing,
and love-making. They opened her a broad way.
The Earl of Bothwell swept the floor with his thyrsus: he
was disguised as the Theban god. But she cried out the
more vehemently, ‘No, no! I am pressed; I cannot hear
you now. You cannot avail me any more,’ and flashed
through the doorway. ‘Send me Livingstone to my
closet,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘and send me Lethington.’
She ran up her privy stair, and waited for her
servants, tapping her foot, irresolute, in the middle of the
floor.
Mary Livingstone flew in breathless. ‘What is it?
What is it, my lamb?’
‘Get me a great cloak, child, and hide up all this
foolery; and let Mr. Secretary wait until I call him.’
Mary Livingstone covered her from neck to foot, took
off the scarlet cap, coifed her head seemly, brought a stool
for her feet: hid the boy in the lady, you see, and all done
without a word, admirable girl!
The Queen had been in a hard stare the while. ‘Now
let me see M. de Lethington. But stay you with me.’
‘Ay, till they cut me down,’ says Livingstone, and
fetched in the Secretary.
She began at once. ‘I find, Mr. Secretary, that there
is room for more knaves yet in Scotland.’
‘Alack, madam,’ says he, ‘yes, truly. They can lie
close, do you see, like mushrooms, and thrive the richlier.
Knaves breed knavishly, and Scotland is a kindly nurse.’
‘There are likely to be more. Here hath the Duke
married his daughter, and the Lord of Huntly that brave
son of his whom of late he offered to me. Is this knavery
or the ecstasy of a fool? What! Do they think to win
from me by insult what they have not won by open
dealing?’
Mr. Secretary, who had known this piece of news for a
month or more, did not think it well to overact surprise.
He contented himself with, ‘Upon my word!’ but added,
after a pause, ‘This seems to me rash folly rather than a
reasoned affront.’
The Queen fumed, and in so doing betrayed what had
really angered her. ‘Knave or fool, what is it to me? A
false fine rogue! All rogues together. Ah, he professed
my good service, declared himself worthy of trust—declared
himself my lover! Heavens and earth, are lovers here of
this sort?’
Mary Livingstone stooped towards her. ‘Think no
more of him—ah me, think of none of them! They seek
not your honour, nor love, nor service, but just the sweet
profit they can suck from you.’
The Queen put her chin upon her two clasped hands.
‘I have heard my aunt, Madame de Ferrara, declare,’ she
said, with a metallic ring in her voice which was new to it,
‘that in the marshes about that town the peasant women,
and girls also, do trade their legs by standing in the lagoon
and gathering the leeches that fasten upon them to suck
blood. These they sell for a few pence and give their
lovers food. But my lovers in Scotland are the leeches;
so here stand I, trading myself, with all men draining me
of profit to fatten themselves.’
‘Madam——’ said Lethington quickly, then stopped.
‘Well?’ says the Queen.
‘I would say, madam, the fable is a good one. Gather
your leeches and sell them for pence. Afterwards, if it
please you, trade no more in the swamps, but royally, in a
royal territory. Ah, trade you with princes, madam! I
hope to set up a booth for your Majesty’s commerce, and
to find a chafferer of your own degree.’
She understood very well that he spoke of an English
alliance for her, and that this was not to be had without a
husband of English providing. ‘I think you are right,’
she replied. ‘If the Queen of England, my good sister,
come half-way towards me, I will go the other half. This
you may tell to Mr. Randolph if you choose.’
‘Be sure that I tell him, madam.’
‘Good dreams to you, Mr. Secretary.’
‘And no dreams at all to your Majesty—but sweet,
careless sleep!’
The Queen, turning for consolation to her Livingstone,
won the relief of tears. They talked in low tones to each
other for a little while, the mistress’s head on the maid’s
shoulder, and her two hands held. The Queen was out
of heart with Scotland, with love, with all this skirting of
perils. She was for prudence just now—prudence and
the English road. Then came in the tirewoman for the
unrobing, and then a final argument for England.
Monsieur de Châtelard, who truly (as he had told Des-Essars)
was a foredoomed man, lay hidden at this moment
where no man should have lain unsanctified. I shall not
deal with him and his whereabouts further than to say that,
just as Frenchmen are slow to see a joke, so they are loath
to let it go. He had proposed on this, of all nights of the
year, to push his joke of the ballroom into chamber-practice.
Some further silly babble about ‘wifely duty’
was to extenuate his great essay. If jokes had been his
common food, I suppose he would have known the smell
of a musty one. As it was, he had to suffer in the fire
which old Huntly and his Hamilton-marriage had lit: his
joke was burnt up as it left his lips. For the Queen’s
words, when she found him, clung about him like flames
about an oil-cask, scorched him, blistered him, shrivelled
him up. He fell before them, literally, and lay, dry with
fear, at her discretion. She spurned him with her heel.
‘Oh, you weed,’ she said, ‘not worthy to be burned, go, or
I send for the maids with besoms to wash you into the
kennel.’ He crept away to the shipping next day, pressing
only the hand of Des-Essars, who could hardly refuse him.
‘His only success on this miserable occasion,’ the young
man wrote afterwards, ‘was to divert the Queen’s rage from
Monsieur de Gordon, and to turn her thoughts, by ever so
little more, in the direction of the English marriage. He
was one of those fools whose follies serve to show every
man more or less ridiculous, just as a false sonnet makes
sonneteering jejune.’
Lent opened, therefore, with omens; and with more
came Lady Day and the new year. The Gordons, being
summoned, did not answer; the Gordons, then, were put
to the horn. The Queen was bitter as winter against
them, with no desire but to have them at her knees. As
for lovers and their loves, after George Gordon, after the
crowning shame of Monsieur de Châtelard, ice-girdled
Artemis was not chaster than she. My Lord of Bothwell,
after an essay or two, shrugged and sought the border;
the Queen was all for high alliances just now, and Mr.
Secretary, their apostle, was in favour. He was hopeful,
as he told Mary Fleming, to see two Queens at York; and
who could say what might not come of that? And while
fair Fleming wondered he was most hopeful, for like a
delicate tree he needed genial air to make him bud. You
saw him at such seasons at his best—a shrewd, nervous
man, with a dash of poetry in him. The Queen of England
always inspired him; he was frequently eloquent upon the
theme. His own Queen talked freely about her ‘good
sister,’ wrote her many civil letters, and treasured a few
stately replies. One wonders, reading them now, that
they should have found warmer quarters than a pigeon-hole,
that they could ever have lain upon Queen Mary’s
bosom and been beat upon by her ardent heart. Yet so
it was. They know nothing of Queen Mary who know
her not as the Huntress, never to be thrown out by a cold
scent. Mr. Secretary, knowing her well, harped as long as
she would dance. ‘Ah, madam, there is a golden trader!
Thence you may win an argosy indeed. What a bargain
to be struck there! Sister kingdoms, sister queens—oh,
if the Majesty of England were but lodged in a man’s
heart! But so in essence it is. Her royal heart is like a
strong fire, leaping within a frame of steel. And your
Grace’s should be the jewel which that fire would guard,
the Cor Cordis, the Secret of the Rose, the Sweetness in
the Strong!’
Mary Fleming, glowing to hear such periods, saw her
mistress catch light from them.
‘You speak well and truly,’ said Queen Mary. ‘I would
I had the Queen of England for my husband; I would
love her well.’ She spoke softly, blushing like a maiden.
‘Sister and spouse!’ cries Lethington with ardour.
‘Sister and spouse!’
For the sake of some such miraculous consummation
she gave up all thoughts of Don Carlos, put away the
Archduke, King Charles, the Swedish prince. Her sister
of England should marry her how she would. Lethington,
on the day it was decided that Sir James Melvill should go
to London upon the business, knelt before his sovereign in
a really honest transport, transfigured in the glory of his
own fancy. ‘I salute on my knees the Empress of the
Isles! I touch the sacred stem of the Tree of the New
World!’
Very serious, very subdued, very modest, the Queen
cast virginal eyes to her lap.
‘God willing, Mr. Secretary, I will do His pleasure in
all things,’ she said.
The Lord James, observing her melting mood, made a
stroke for the Earldom of Moray. Were the Gordons to
defy the Majesty of Scotland? With these great hopes
new born, with old shames dead and buried—never, never!
The Queen said she would go to the North and hound the
Gordons out.
On the morning of Lammas Day the Queen heard mass in
the Chapel Royal with a special intention, known only to
herself. Red mass it should have been, since she felt sore
need of the Holy Ghost; but she had given up the solemn
ornament of music for the sake of peace. So Father Lesley
read the office before the very few faithful: her maids,
Erskine, Herries, the esquires, the pages, the French Ambassador,
the Ambassador of Savoy—with him a certain
large, full-blooded Italian, of whom there will be something
to say anon. Mr. Knox had been scaring off the waverers
of late: the Catholic religion was languid in the realm.
She knelt before the altar on her faldstool very stiffly,
and looked more solitary than she felt. Her high mood
and high endeavour still holding, there was but one man in
Scotland who could make her feel her isolation, make her
pity herself so nearly that the tears filled her eyes. Her
brother James and his party, ostentatiously aloof, she could
reckon with. All was said of them long ago by that old
friend of hers now facing God in the mass: ‘Your brother
stands on the left of your throne; but he looks for ever to
the right.’ With this key to the cipher of my Lord James,
what mystery in his sayings or doings? Then the grim
Mr. Knox, who had worked her secret desires, and since
then railed at her, scolded her, made her cry—she had his
measure too. He liked her through all, and she trusted
him in spite of all: at a pinch she could win him over.
Whom, then, need she consider? The Earl of Bothwell—ah,
the Earl of Bothwell, who laughed at everything, and
had looked drolly on at her efforts to be a queen, and
chosen to do nothing to help or hinder: there was a man
to be feared indeed! She never knew herself less a queen
or more a girl than when he was before her. Laughed
he or frowned, was he eloquent or dumb as a fish, he
intimidated her, diminished her, drove her cowering into
herself to queen it alone. Christ was not so near, God not
so far off, as this confident, free-living, shameless lord.
Therefore now, because she dared not falter in what she
was about to do, or see herself less than she desired to be,
she had sent him into Liddesdale to hold the Justice-Court,
and had not cared even to receive him when he came to
take his leave. Lady Argyll, who had stood in her place,
reported that he had gone out gaily, humming a French
air. With him safely away, she had faced her duty—duty
of a Prince, as she conceived it. And here she knelt in
prayer, prone before the Holy Ghost—solitary (but that is
the safeguard of the King!)—and searched the altar for a
sign of assurance.
Over that altar hung Christ, enigmatic upon His cross.
The red priest bent his head down to his book, and made
God apace.
The Queen’s lips moved. ‘My Saviour Christ, I offer
Thee the intention of my heart, a clean oblation. If I do
amiss in error, O Bread of Heaven, visit it not upon me.
I have been offended, I have been disobeyed; they call
upon me to claim my just requital. But be not Thou
offended with me, my Lord, and pardon Thou my disobedience.
As for my punishment, I suffer it in seeking
to punish.’
It is not often that women pray in words: an urgency,
a subjection, a passionate reception is the most they do—and
the best. But she prayed so now, because she felt the
need of justifying herself before Heaven, and the ability to
do it. For Bothwell was in far Liddesdale, and she on her
throne.
In three days’ time she was to go to the North; and,
though the country knew it not, she would go in force to
punish the Gordons. You may judge by her prayers
whether she was satisfied with the work. Plainly she
was not. Her anger had had time to cool; she might
have forgotten the very name of the clan, except that their
men had had honest faces, and that two of them had certainly
loved her once. But she had not been allowed to
forget: the record remained, held up ever before her eyes
in the white hand of Lord James. Contumacy! Contumacy!
Old Huntly had been traitor before, when he
trafficked with the enemies of her mother, and tried to
sell herself to the English king. The Gordons would not
surrender; they had mated with the Hamiltons, a stock
next to hers for the throne. Was there not a shameful plot
here? Would she not be stifled between these two houses?
Yes, yes, she knew all that. But they were Catholics, they
had shown her honest faces, two of them had loved her.
She was not satisfied; she must have a sign from heaven.
God was made, the bell proclaimed Him enthroned,
Queen Mary bowed her head. Now, now, if the Gordons
were true men, let God make a sign! The tale was told
that once, when a priest lifted up the Host above his head,
the thin film dissolved, and took flesh in the shape of a
naked child, who stood, burning white, upon the man’s
two hands. Let some such marvel fall now! Intimacies
between God and the Prince had been known. She hid
her face, laid down her soul; the vague swam over her, the
dark—a swooning, drowning sense. In that, for a moment,
as vivid clouds chased each other across her field, she saw
a face, a shape—mocking red mouth, vivacious, satirical
hands, the gleam of two twinkling eyes: Bothwell, hued
like a fiend, shadowing the world. She shuddered; God
passed over, as the bell called up the people. With them
she lifted her head, stiffened herself. The spell was broken.
Without being more superstitious than her brethren, she
may be pardoned for finding in this experience an ominous
beginning of adventure.
Nevertheless, she so faced the heights of her task that,
on the day appointed, she set out as bravely as to a hunting
of stags. Jeddart pikes, bowmen from the Forest, her
Lothian bodyguard—she had some five hundred men
about her; too many for a progress, too few to make
war. She herself rode in hunting trim, with two maids,
two pages, two esquires; her brother, of course, in command;
with him, of course, the Secretary. At fixed points
along the road certain lords joined her: Atholl at Stirling,
Glencairn and Ruthven at Perth, these with their companies.
Lying at Coupar-Angus, at Glamis, at Edzell, her
spirits rose as she breasted the rising country, saw the cloud-shadowed
hills, the swollen rivers, the wind-swept trees, the
sullen moors, the rocks. She grew happy even, for motion,
newness, and physical exertion always excited her, and she
was never happy unless she was excited. No fatigue
daunted her. She sat out the driving days of rain, bent
neither to the heat nor to the cold fog. She was always
in front, always looking forward, seemed like the keen
breath of war, driven before it as the wind by a rain-storm.
Lethington likened her to Diana on Taygetus
shrilling havoc; but the Lord James said: ‘Such similitudes
are distasteful. We are serious men upon a serious
business.’ She rode astraddle like a young man, longed
for a breastplate and steel bonnet. She made Ruthven
exercise her with the broadsword, teach her to stamp her
foot and cry, ‘Ha! a touch!’ and cajoled her brother into
letting her sleep one night afield. Folded in a military
plaid, so indeed she did; and watched with thrills the stars
shoot their autumn flights, and listened to the owls calling
each other as they coursed the shrew-mice over the moor.
She pillowed her head on Mary Livingstone’s knee at last,
and fell asleep at about three o’clock in the morning.
In the grey mirk—sharply cold, and a fine mist drizzling—Lethington
and his master came to rouse her. Mary
Livingstone lifted a finger of warning. The Queen was
soundly asleep, smiling a little, with parted lips and the
hasty breathing of a child. Mary Seton, too, was deep,
her face buried in her arm. The two men looked down at
the group.
‘Come away, my lord: give them time,’ said the
Secretary.
But my Lord James did not hear him. He stood
broodingly, muttering to himself: ‘A girl’s frolic—this
romping, fond girl! And Scotland’s neck for her footstool—and
earnest men for her pastime. O King eternal, is it
just? Man!’ he said aloud, ‘there’s no reason in this.’
Mr. Secretary misunderstood him, not observing his
wild looks. ‘Give them a short half-hour, my lord. There
are two of them sleeping; and this poor watcher hath the
need of it.’
The Lord James turned upon him. ‘Who sought to
have women sleeping here? Are men to wait for the like
of this? Are men to wait for ever? She should have
counted the cost. I shall waken her. Ay! let her have
the truth.’
‘She will wake soon enough,’ says Lethington, ‘and
have the truth soon enough.’
The Lord James gave him one keen glance. ‘I command
here, Mr. Secretary, under the Queen’s authority.
Bid them sound.’
The trumpet rang; the Queen stretched herself, moved
her head, yawned, and sat up. She was wide awake
directly, laughed at Livingstone for looking so glum, at
Seton’s tumbled hair. She kissed them both, said her
prayers with Father Roche, and was ready when the order
to march was given.
When she came to Aberdeen she was told that a messenger
from the Earl of Huntly was waiting for her with
his chief’s humble duty, and a prayer that she would lodge
in his castle of Strathbogie. This was very insolent or
very foolish: she declined to receive the man. Let the
Earl and his son Findlater render themselves up at Stirling
Castle forthwith, she would receive them there. No more
tidings came directly; but she learned from her brother
news of the country which made her cheeks tingle. It
was the confident belief of all the Gordon kindred, she was
given to know, that her Majesty had come into the North
to marry Sir John Gordon of Findlater. He was to be
created Earl of Moray and Duke of Rothesay to that end.
True news or false, she was in the mood to believe it, and
cried out, with hot tears in her eyes, that she could have no
peace until that rogue’s head was off. Needing no prompter
at her side, she took instant action, marched on Inverness
and summoned the keys of the castle. They told her that
the Lord of Findlater was keeper; none could come in but
by his leave. Findlater! But the man was out of his
mind! She grew very quiet when, after many repetitions
of it, she could bring herself to believe this report; then
she sent for Lethington and bade him raise the country.
The counsel was her brother’s, and meant that the clans—Forbeses,
Grants, MacIntoshes—were to be supported and
turned against the Gordons. The Lord James considered
that his work was as good as done. So did the captain of
the castle of Inverness; and rightly, for when his charge
was surrendered he was hanged. The town did its best to
appease the Queen with humble addresses and crocks full
of gold pieces; but she concealed from nobody now that
she had come up with war in her hands. Captains and their
levies were sent for from the south; roads marked out for
Kirkcaldy of Grange, Lord John Stuart, Hay of Ormiston;
rendezvous given at Aberdeen. And presently she went
down to meet them, full of the purpose she had.
Old Huntly came out to watch. They saw his men,
some hundred or more, in loose order at the ford of Spey.
Queen Mary’s heart leapt for battle, real crossing of swords
to crown all this feigning and waiting; but the enemy drew
off to the woods, and nobody barred her road to Aberdeen.
Uncomfortably for herself, she lodged at Spynie on the
way, where Bishop Patrick of Moray made her very welcome.
He was Lord Bothwell’s uncle, true Hepburn, a
scapegrace old Catholic, anathema to the good Lord James,
and proud of it. Something of Bothwell’s gleam was in his
cushioned eyes, something of Bothwell’s infectious gaiety
in his rich laugh. Like Bothwell, too, he was a mocker,
who saw things sacred and profane a uniform, ridiculous
drab, shrugged at the ruin of the faith in Scotland, and
supposed Huntly had been paid to be a traitor. The
Queen’s fine temper made her sensitive to depreciation of
the things she strove at; under such rough fingers she was
bruised. She felt cheapened by her intercourse with this
bishop; and not only so, but her business sickened her.
The old pagan made light of it.
‘’Tis but a day in the hedgerows for ye, madam. Send
your terriers—Lethington and siclike—into the bury, you
shall see the Gordons bolt to your nets like rabbits, and
old Huntly squealing loudest of all.’
Now, the Gordons had been fair in her sight, noble
friends and hardy foes. But if George Gordon was to
squeal like a rabbit, then war was playing at soldiers, and
she a tomboy out for a romp. She left Spynie feeling
that she hated the Gordons, hated their fault, hated their
chastisement, and hated above all men under the tent-roof
of heaven the whole race of Hepburn.
‘Vile, vile scoffers at God and His vicars! They make
a toy of me, these Hepburns. Uncle and nephew—I am a
plaything for them.’
‘Just a Honeypot, madam,’ said Livingstone, and was
snapped at for her respect.
‘Am I “Madam” to you now? What have I done to
make you so petulant?’
‘I wish you would be more “Madam” to the Hepburns,’
replied the maid. ‘I could curse the whole brood of
them.’
John Gordon defended two good castles, Findlater and
Auchindoune. He expected, and was prepared for, a siege;
but when the reinforcements came up from the Lowlands,
somewhat to his consternation the Queen joined them at
Aberdeen and hung about that region indefinitely, as if
the autumn were but begun. Perhaps the suspense, the
menace, told on old Huntly’s nerves; at any rate, something
brought him to his knees. He sent petition after
petition, promise upon promise; was reported by Ormiston
to be very much aged, tremulous, given to sobbing, and
when not so engaged, incoherent. This worthy went to
Strathbogie, hoping to surprise him; failed to find him at
home, but saw the Countess and a young girl, strangely
beautiful, the Lady Jean, sole unmarried daughter of the
house. The Countess took him into the chapel.
‘Do you see that, Captain Hay?’ says she.
‘What in particular, ma’am?’
There were lighted candles on the altar, a cross, the
priest’s vestments of cloth of gold laid ready. She pointed
to these adornments.
‘There is why they hunt us down, Captain Hay, because
my lord is a faithful Christian gentleman. And woe,’ cried
she, ‘woe upon her who, following wicked counsels, persecutes
her own holy religion! It had been better for her
that she had never been born. Tell your mistress that.
Tell her that Gordon’s bane is her own bane. Ah, tell
her that.’
He repeated the piece to the Queen in council, and she
received it in a cold silence, looking furtively round about
her at the lords present, for all the world (says Hay of
Ormiston) as if she would see whether they believed the
words or not. Her brother sat on her left, Morton the
Chancellor on her right; Argyll was there, Ruthven, Atholl,
Cassilis, Eglinton. Not one of them looked up from the
table, or saw her anxious peering. Atholl whispered
Cassilis without moving his head, and Cassilis nodded and
stared on. What did she think during that constrained
silence? Gordon’s bane her own bane! Could it be true?
Perhaps the gibe of old Bishop Hepburn came to her timely
help: ‘Rabbits in a bury, and old Huntly squealing first
and loudest.’
She threw up her head, like a fretful horse. ‘My lords,’
she said in her ringing, boyish voice, ‘you have heard the
message sent me by the Countess of Huntly. I am not of
her mind. Gordon has tried to be my bane, but is not so
now. I think Gordon’s bane is Gordon’s self, and fear not
what he can do against me. And if not I, why need you
fear? Take order now, how best to make an end of it all.’
Order was taken.
Huntly was summoned before the council, and sent his
wife. The Queen would not see her. The royal forces
moved out of Aberdeen; John Gordon cut to pieces an
outlying party; then the Earl joined hands with his son,
and the pair marched on Aberdeen. The fight was on the
rolling hills of Corrichie, down in the swampy valley
between, over and up a burn. Their cry of ‘Aboyne!
Aboyne!’ bore the Gordons into battle; their pride made
them heroic; their pride caused them to fall. It was a
case, one of the first, of the ordnance against the pipes.
No gallantry—and they were gallant; no screaming of
music, no slogan nor sword-work, nor locking of arms,
could hold out against Kirkcaldy’s cannon or Lord James’s
horse. They huddled about their standard and so died;
some few fled into the lonely hills; but Huntly was taken,
and two of his tall sons, and all three brought to the Queen.
John of Findlater and Adam were in chains; the old man
needed none, for he was dead. They say that when he
was taken he was frantic, struggled with his captors to the
last, induced so an apoplexy, stiffened and died in their
arms. They guessed by the weight of him that he was
dead. All this they told her. She neither looked at the
body nor chose to see the two prisoners; received the news
in dull silence. ‘Where is the Lord Gordon?’ She did
ask that; and was told that he had not been engaged.
‘Coward as well as traitor,’ she gloomed; ‘what else is
left him to adorn?’
‘Madam, tumbril and gallows,’ croaked Ruthven, like a
hoody crow.
Next morning she awoke utterly disenchanted of the
whole affair. Nothing would content her but to be quit of
it. ‘I seem to smell of blood and filthy reek,’ she said to
her brother James. ‘Take what measures you choose.
Ruin the ruins to your heart’s content. The house was
Catholic, and I suppose the stones and mortar are abominable
in your eyes. Pull them down; do as you choose—but
let me go.’
He asked her desire concerning the prisoners. This
caught villain Findlater, for instance.
‘You seek more blood?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Take his,
then. He has had his fill of it in his day; now let him
afford you a share.’
Adam Gordon? She took fire at his name. ‘You shall
not touch a hair of his head. I do not choose—I will not
suffer it. He is for me to deal with.’
He swore that she should be obeyed; but she called in
Lethington, and put the lad in his personal charge, to be
brought after her to Stirling. At this time Lethington was
the only man she could trust.
Lastly, her brother hinted at the reward of his humble
services to her realm.
‘Oh, yes, yes, brother, you shall have your bonny earldom.
God knows how you have wrought for it. But if
you keep me here one more hour, I declare I shall bestow
it on Mr. Secretary.’
He thanked her, saying that he hoped to deserve such
condescension by ever closer attention to her business.
She chafed and fidgeted till he was gone, then set about
her escape. With a very small escort, she pushed them to
the last extreme in her anxiety to be south.
There should have been something of the pathetic in
this struggle of a girl to get out of throne-room and council-chamber;
one might almost hear the shrilling of wings;
but Scots gentlemen fearful of their treadings must be
excused for disregarding it. They told her at Dundee
that the Duke of Châtelherault lay there, awaiting her
censures. Hateful reminder!
‘What can he want with me at such an hour, in such a
place as this?’
‘Madam, it is for his son-in-law’s sake he hath come
so far.’
She flamed forth in her royalest rage. ‘Is the Lord
Gordon so poor in heart? Can he not beg for himself?
Can he not lie? Can he not run? He can hide himself,
I know, while his kinsmen take the field. Let him learn to
whine also, and then he will be armed cap-à-pie.’ The old
Duke was refused: let the Lord Gordon surrender himself
at Stirling Castle.
Thither went she, shivering in the cold which followed
her late fires; and sat in the kingly seat to make an end of
the Gordons. Thither then came the young lord whom
she had once chosen to bewitch, walking upright, without
his sword. He could not take his eyes from her face when
he stood before her; nor could she restrain her fury, though
many were present; no, but she leaned forward, holding
by the balls of the chair, and drove in her hateful words
fiercely and quick.
‘Ah, false heart, you dare to meet me at last!’
He said, ‘I have offended you, and am here at your
mercy.’
‘What mercy for a liar?’
‘There should be none.’
‘For a disobedient servant?’
‘None, madam, none.’
‘For a craven that hides when war is adoing?’
He answered her steadily. ‘Whether is that man the
greater coward who fears such taunts as these, and for fear
of them does hardily; or he that refuses to draw sword
upon his sovereign, though she throw in his face his refusal?
If I was able to dare your enmity, it is a small thing to me
that now I must have your scorn. There is no man in this
place shall call me craven; but from your Majesty I care not
to receive the name, because I am proud to have deserved it.’
This was well spoken, had she not been too fretful to
know it.
‘Do you think, sir,’ cried she, ‘to scold me? Do you
think me so light as to forget? I am of longer memory
than you. Trust Gordon, said you! Trust Gordon? I
would as lief trust Judas that sold his master, or Zimri that
slew his.’
Young Gordon held his peace, not knowing how to
wrangle with a woman. At the door there was some commotion—hackbutters
looking about for orders, the captain
of the guard forbidding the entry, his hand uplifted to shut
men out. They told her that Lady Huntly was there.
‘Let her in,’ says the Queen. ‘I will show her this son
of hers.’
The widow came, feeling her way down the hall; distracted
with grief, using her hands like a blind man.
Beside her, really leading her, was a tall girl, exceedingly
handsome, dark-haired, pale, with proud, shut lips. She
looked before her, at nothing in particular—neither at the
young Queen stormy on her throne, nor at the circle of
watchful men about her, nor at her brother’s bowed head,
nor at the full doorways. She saw nothing, seemed to
take no part, to feel no shame. Except the Queen only,
she seemed the youngest there; with the Queen, whose
eyes she held from the beginning, she was the only girl
among these grim-regarding men.
‘Who is that? Who is that girl?’ the Queen asked
Lethington, without ceasing to look.
‘Madam, it is the Lady Jean Gordon.’
‘She has a frozen look, then. Why does she not see
me? Is she blind?’
‘They say she is proud, madam.’
‘Proud? What, to be a Gordon?’
She watched her the whole time of the process, finding
her a cold copy of her brother, admitting freely her great
beauty, admiring (while she grudged) her impassivity.
She herself was all on edge, quivering and intense as a
blown flame, her face hued like the dawn, her eyes frosty
bright. The other was so still! But the Queen was never
quiet. Her eyelids fluttered, the wings of her nose; her
foot tapped the stool; she saw everything, heard every
breath. Jean Gordon had no colour, and might have been
carved in stone—a sightless, patient and dumb goddess,
staring forward out of a temple porch. Huddling in her
great chair, resting her chin on her hand, her elbow on her
knee, Queen Mary watched her closely, sensing an enemy;
and all this while Lady Huntly called upon God and man
to testify to Gordon’s bane.
‘Malice,’—thus she ended her wailing,—‘Malice hath
wrought this woe; far-reaching, insatiable malice! There
was one that craved a fair earldom, and another the fair
trappings of a house: there was one must have the land,
and another the good blood. Foul fare they all—they
have their desires in this world! Where is Huntly? He
is dead. Where is my fine son John? Dead! dead!
Where is Adam, my pretty boy? Fetters on his ankles,
madam, the rats at his young knees. Come, come, come:
you shall have all the Gordons. There you have the heir,
and here the widow, and here the fatherless lass. Let
them plead for your mercy if they care. I have no voice
left but a cry, and no tears but bloody tears. What should
I weep but blood?’
The Queen still looked at Jean Gordon. ‘Do you
plead, mistress?’ she asked her.
‘I do not, madam.’
She turned unwillingly to Gordon. ‘What do you
plead, sir?’
‘Nothing, madam.’
She flew out at them all. ‘Insolence! This is not to
be borne. You think to save your faces by this latter
pride. You should have been proud before—proud enough
not to promise and to lie. You expect me to be humble,
to sue you to plead! If my mercy is not worth your
asking, it is not worth your receiving. My Lord Gordon,
surrender yourself to the law’s discretion. Madam, you
gain nothing by your reproaches; and you, young mistress,
nothing by your silence. The council is dissolved.’
Lord Gordon walked into ward. The Queen told Lethington
that all the forms of law must be observed; by
which Lord Gordon’s execution was to be understood.
When she reached Holyrood she sent for Adam Gordon:
this shows you that a thaw had set in. She received him
in private, alone. This proves that she wanted something
yet from the Gordons.
The lad stood shamefully by the door, red with shame,
and by shame made sullen. But the Queen had melted
before he came; the tears stood waiting in her eyes. ‘Oh,
Adam, Adam Gordon, they have hurt you! And you
have hurt me!’ She held out her arms.
He looked at her askance, he fired up, he gulped a sob;
and then he jumped forward into the shelter of her and
cried his heart out upon her bosom. After a time of
mothering and such-like, he sat by her knee and told her
everything.
His father’s exorbitant pride, Findlater’s ambitions,
the clamours of the clan and want of ready pence, had
undone the house of Huntly. Findlater was restless. He
knew that the country would have him chief; he knew that
he was a better man than his father or the heir; and old
Huntly knew it too, and would never lag behind. His
brother Gordon, said Adam, was an honest man. For
why? He had refused to bear arms against her Majesty,
when it came to that or ruin. That hurt him so much with
the kindred that he had gone away. If he was a coward,
Adam held, such cowardice was very noble courage. ‘And
be you sure, madam, from what I am telling you, that he
loves you over-well.’
‘He should love his wife, my child.’
‘His wife, indeed! Not he!’ cried Adam. ‘Why, he
loved your Majesty from the very first, and begged you to
trust him. And should he go back upon his word?’
‘Well,’ said the Queen, smiling, ‘maybe I will try him
again.’
‘So please your Majesty, think of this,’ Adam said.
‘A man, they say, weds with his hand. But he loves not
with the hand.’
‘Would you wed with the hand, boy?’
He blushed. ‘I would, madam, if I must. But I would
cut it off first.’
The Queen was delighted with him. She asked about
his sister—was very curious. How old was his sister Jean?
She was told. Nineteen years! Younger than herself,
then—and looking so much older. Was she affianced?
Not yet? What made the men such laggards in the North?
She looked proud and cold: was she so indeed?
‘She is cold,’ says Adam, ‘until you warm her.’
‘A still girl,’ says the Queen.
And Adam, ‘Ay, deep and still.’
The Queen became pensive.
‘I think I might be pleased with her in time.’
Adam knew better. ‘No, no, madam. She is not one
for your Majesty.’
‘How so?’
‘Madam, so please your Majesty, when you love it is
easy seen, and when you hate also. All your heart beats
in your face. But Jean hides her heart. If she loves, you
will never see it. If she hates, you will never know it,
until the time comes.’
‘And when should that be, Adam?’
‘Eh,’ says he, ‘when she has you fast and sure.’
This singular character attracted the Queen. She
thought much of Lady Jean Gordon, and for many days.
Hateful ceremonies were enacted over the ruins of the
house of Huntly. The old Earl in his coffin was set up
in the Parliament-house and indicted of his life’s offence:
a brawling indeed in the quiet garden of death. They
flung shame upon the witless old head; they stripped the
heedless old body of the insignia it wore. The Queen
made a wry face when she heard of it.
‘Whose is the vulture-mind in this?’ she asked, but
received no reply from her stony brother. She bade them
stop their nasty play and deliver up the corpse to Lady
Huntly to be buried. Then she learned that the widow
and her daughter and the condemned lord had been
present. She turned pale: ‘I had no hand in this—I had
no hand!’ she cried out breathlessly, and was for telling
the mourners. Adam Gordon told her that they would be
very sure of it.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I will trust them to be as true-minded
as thou.’
She shortly refused to allow Gordon’s execution, and
told her brother so.
‘You and your friends,’ said she, ‘have paddled your
hands long enough. Go you to your homes and wash. The
Lord Gordon shall go to Dunbar to await my pleasure.’
‘Tell him,’ she said to Adam, ‘that because he asked
not his life I give it him; and say also that I trust him
to make no escape from Dunbar. Remind him of his
words to me aforetime. If I trust him again he must not
prove me a fool.’
They say that, at this pungent instance of royal
clemency, Lady Huntly broke down, fell before her, and
would have kissed her feet. The Queen whipped them
under her gown.
‘Get up, madam. But get up! That is no place for
the afflicted. You do not see your daughter there.’
It was very true. Lady Jean stood, composed and
serious.
‘How shall I find the way into that fenced heart?’
thinks the Queen.
But now she turned her face eagerly towards England,
whither, Mr. Secretary Lethington assured her, ran an
open, smiling road.
The ranging eye of the Muse, sweeping up the little with
the big, rediscerns Monsieur de Châtelard, like a derelict
ladybird, tide-swept into Scotland once more. It is true,
unfortunately, that you have not yet done with this poet,
though the time is at hand.
He came warily pricking back in October; and, nosing
here and there, found a friend in a certain portly Italian
gentleman, by name Signior David, who professed to be
deeply attached to him on very short notice, and whose
further employment was, discoverably, that of foreign
secretary to her Majesty. Needing alliances—for his
venture was most perilous—Monsieur de Châtelard had
sought him out; and found him writing in a garret,
wrapped in ample fur. A cup of spiced wine stood by
him, a sword and toothpick lay to hand: no Italian needs
more. He was a fine, pink, fleshy man, with a red beard,
fluff of red hair in his ears, light eyelashes, blue eyes.
His hair, darker than his beard, was strenuous and tossed.
He was not very clean, but his teeth were admirable.
Monsieur de Châtelard, coming in with great ceremony,
credentials in hand, hoped that he might have the satisfaction
of making Signior David a present.
The Italian was franchise itself. ‘Per la Madonna, my
lord, you may make me many presents. I will tire you
out at that pastime.’ He ran his eye over the Marquis
D’Elbœuf’s letter. ‘Aha, we have here Monsieur de
Châtelard, poet, and companion of princes! Sir,’ said he,
‘let two adventurous explorers salute each other. If I
were not a brave man I should not be here; still less
would your honour. A salute seems little testimony
between two such champions. You are Amadis, I am
Splandian. We should embrace, Monsieur de Châtelard.’
They did; the poet was much affected. ‘I come with
my life in my hands, Signior David.’
‘Say, rather, on the tips of your fingers, dear sir!’
‘You see in me,’ continued the Frenchman, ‘a brave
man. You said as much, and I thank you. But you see
more. You see a poet.’
‘Aha!’ cries the other, tapping his chest with one finger;
‘and here is the little fellow who will sing your verses as
merrily as you make them.’
‘Allow me to perorate,’ says Monsieur de Châtelard.
‘You see also, signore, a disgraced lover of the Queen,
who nevertheless returns to kiss the hand that smote him.’
‘Sanguinaccio! my good friend,’ Signior David replied:
‘I hope I don’t see a fool.’
Monsieur de Châtelard considered this aspiration with
that gravity it deserved. He hesitated before he made
answer. ‘I hope not, Signior David,’ he said wistfully;
‘but, as a lover, I am in some doubt. For a lover, as you
very well know, is not (by the nature of his case) many
removes from a fool. He may be—he is—a divine fool.
Fire has touched his lips, to make him mad. He speaks—but
what? Noble folly! He does—but what? Glorious
rashness!’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said the Italian. ‘But does he not
know—when a Queen is in the case—that he has a neck
to be wrung?’
‘He knows nothing of such things. This is the sum of
his knowledge—I love! I love! I love!’
The Italian looked at him with calmness. ‘I speak
for my nation,’ he said, ‘when I assure you that an Italian
lover knows more than that. He considers means, and
ends too. Hungry he may be; but how shall he be filled
if you slit open his belly? He may be thirsty; but if you
cut his throat? However, I am speaking into the air.
Let us be reasonable. How can I serve you, dear sir?’
‘Signior David,’ says the poet, ‘I shall speak openly
to you. Howsoever brave a man may be, howsoever
dedicated to impossible adventure, there is one wind which,
blowing through the forest, must chill him to the heart.
It is the wind of Indifference. By heaven, sir, can you
sing before mutes, or men maimed of their hands? And
how are you and I to do admirable things, if no one
admires, or cares whether we do them or not? The
thought is absurd. Here, in this grey Scotland, which is
Broceliande, the enchanted forest hiding my princess, I
suffer acutely from my solitude. Formerly I had friends;
now I have none. Sir, I offer you my friendship, and ask
yours again. Be my friend. Thus you may serve me, if
you will.’
The Italian took up the fringe of his beard and brushed
his nose with it. ‘I must know one little thing first.
What do you want with your enchanted princess in the
middle of your forest? Everything?’
Monsieur de Châtelard opened wide his arms, strained
them forward, clasped them over his bosom, and hugged
himself with them.
‘Everything,’ he said; and the Italian nodded, and sank
into thought.
‘If I assist you to that, good sir,’ says he presently,
looking at his client, ‘it will be a very friendly act on my
part.’
‘Sir,’ replied the Frenchman, ‘I require a friendly act.’
Signior David looked down, ever so lightly, at the
jewel in his hand, which the poet had put there. ‘But!’
and he raised his eyebrows over it, ‘it will be impossible
for future rhapsodists to devise an act more friendly than
this! It might be—I do not say that it will be, for I
am a simple scribe, as you see—it might be a partaking
which Achilles would never have allowed to Patroclus.’
‘But you, signore, are not Achilles,’ urged Monsieur de
Châtelard.
The Italian shrugged. ‘I have not yet found Achilles
in this country; but many have offered themselves to be
Patroclus. ‘Come,’ he added, with a pleasant grin, ‘Come,
I will serve you. We will be friends. For the moment I
recommend discretion. Her Majesty returned but two days
ago, and is already in the midst of affairs. This annoys
her extremely. She thought she had done with business
and might begin her dancing. But I cannot think that
she will dance very long, the way matters are tending.’
Monsieur de Châtelard went away, to brace himself for
the opening scene of a new act. He came often back
again to see his friend, to submit to his judgment such
and such a theory. How should the lover encounter his
mistress, against whose person he had dared, but not dared
enough, the storming of the sweet citadel? Here was the
gist of all his inquiry.
‘Show yourself, dear sir, show yourself!’ was his friend’s
advice, whose own tactics consisted in never showing
himself and in making his absence felt.
The Frenchman, finally, did show himself, with very
little result one way or the other. The Queen, occupied as
she had been with Huntly’s ruin, and now with the patching
up of a comfortable fragment out of it, hardly knew that
he was there. This was the way of it. A lightly-built
young man with a bush of crimped hair sprang out of the
press in hall at the hour of the coucher, and fell upon his
knees. ‘Ha, Monsieur de Châtelard, you return?’ If she
smiled upon him, it was because she smiled on all the
world when the world allowed it.
‘Sovereign, the poor minstrel returns!’
‘I hope he will sing more tunefully. I hope he will
follow the notes.’
‘All the notes of the gamut, Princess; faithfully and to
the utterance.’
She nods and goes her way, to think no more about
him.
From this unsubstantial colloquy, the infatuated gentleman
drew the highest significance. Why, what are the
notes of the chant which a lover must follow? There is
but one note; the air is a wailing monotone: Hardiesse,
Hardiesse, Hardiesse! O Queen, potent in Cyprus, give
your vassal effrontery!
Amantium iræ! She had hopes that the piping times
were come, with an air cleaner for the late storms. She
had won back young Adam Gordon, as you know, and
sealed him to her by kisses and tears. She had hopes
of his elder brother, now a faithful prisoner at Dunbar.
James Earl of Moray proved a kinder brother than Lord
James Stuart had ever been; Ruthven was gorged, somnolent
now, like a sated eagle, above the picked bones of
Huntly. Morton was at Dalkeith, out of sight, out of
mind; Mr. Secretary wrote daily to England, where Sir
James Melvill haggled with bridegrooms; Mr. Knox reported
his commission faithfully done. He had laboured,
he said, and not in vain. Her Majesty knew that the two
lords, Bothwell and Arran, had been reconciled. He took
leave to say that, since her expedition to the North, he had
rarely seen a closer band of friendship between two men,
seeming dissimilar, than had been declared to every eye
between the Earls Arran and Bothwell.
The news was good, as far as it went; it made for the
peace which every sovereign lady must desire. So much
she could tell Mr. Knox, with truth and without trouble.
But—but—the Earl of Bothwell came not to the Court.
He had been seen in town, in September, when she was
fast in the hills; he was now supposed to be at Hailes;
had been at Hamilton, at Dumbarton, at Bothwell in
Clydesdale. Why should he absent himself? If by staying
away he hoped to be the more present, he had his
desire. The Queen grew very restless, and complained of
pains in the back. What he could have had to do with
these is not clear; but the day came very soon when she
had a pain in the side—his work.
That was a day when there was clamour in the quadrangle,
sudden rumour: the raving of a man, confused
comment, starting of horses, grounding of arms; the guard
turned out. The Queen was at prayers—which is more
than can be said for the priest who should have lifted up
her suffrages; for if she prayed the mass through, he did
not. The poor wretch thought the Genevans were after
him, and his last office a-saying. Whatever she thought,
Queen Mary never moved, even though (as the fact was)
she heard quick voices at the chapel doors, and the shout,
‘Hold back those men!’
She found Lethington waiting in the antechapel when
she entered it. He was perturbed.
‘Well, Mr. Secretary, what have my loving subjects
now on hand?’
He laughed his dismay. ‘Madam, here is come, with
foam on his lips, my Lord of Arran, the Duke’s son.’
‘Doth he foam so early?’ says she. ‘Give him a
napkin, and I will see him clean.’
Presently they admitted the disordered man, frowning
and muttering, much out of breath, and his hair all over
his face. Kirkcaldy of Grange held his arm; the Secretary
and Lord Lindsay hovered about him; through the
half-open door there spied the anxious face of Des-Essars.
‘Speak, my Lord Arran,’ says the Queen.
‘God save us all, I must, I must!’ spluttered Arran,
and plunged afresh upon his nightmare.
If that can be called speech which comes in gouts of
words, like tin gobbling of water from a neck too narrow,
then Lord Arran spoke. He wept also and slapped his
head, he raved, he adjured high God—all this from his
two knees. Mystery! He had wicked lips to unlock.
He must reveal horrid fact, devilish machination, misprision
of treason! God knew the secret of his heart; God knew
he would meet that bloody man half-way. In that he
was a sinner, let him die the death. Oh, robber, curious
robber! To dare that sacred person, to encompass it with
greedy hands—robbery! God is not to be robbed—and
who shall dare rob the King, anointed of God? Such a
man would steal the Host from the altar. Sorcery!
sorcery! sorcery!
When he stopped to gasp and roll his eyeballs in their
sockets, the Queen had her opportunity. She was already
fatigued, and hated noises at any time. ‘Hold your words,
my lord, I beg of you. Who is your bloody man? Who
steals from a king, and from what king steals he? Who is
your sorcerer, and whom has he bewitched? Yourself, by
chance?’
Arran turned her the whites of his eyes—a dreadful
apparition. ‘The Earl of Bothwell’—he spoke it in a
whisper—‘the Earl of Bothwell did beguile me.’
‘Then I think he did very idly,’ said the Queen. ‘He
has been profuse of his sorcery. Tell your tale to the Lord
of Lethington, and spare me.’
And away she went in a pet. Let the Earl of Bothwell
come to her or not, she did not choose to get news of him
through a fool.
Yet the fool had had seed for his folly. He was
examined, produced witnesses; and his story bore so black
a look that the council confined him on their own discretion
until the Queen’s pleasure could be known. Then her
brother, Mr. Secretary and others came stately into her
cabinet with their facts. Mr. Knox, said they, had waited
upon the Earl of Bothwell to urge a reconciliation with Lord
Arran. The Hepburn had been very willing, had laughed
a good deal over the cause of enmity—a kiss to a pretty
woman, etc.—in a friendly manner. The two lords had
met, certain overtures were made and accepted. Very well;
her Majesty had observed with what success Mr. Knox had
done his part. But wait a little! Friendship grew apace,
until at last it seemed that the one Earl cared not to lose sight
of the other. Incongruous partnership! but there were
reasons. A few weeks later my Lord of Bothwell invites
his friend to supper, and then and there proposes the
ravishment of the Queen’s person—no less a thing!
At this point of the recital her hand, which had been very
fidgety, went up to her lip, pinched and held it.
‘Continue, my lord,’ she said, ‘but—continue!’
‘I am slow to name what I have been slow to believe,’
says my lord of Moray, conscious of his new earldom, ‘and
yet I can show your Majesty the witness.’
The plan had been to surprise her on her way from Perth
to the South, take her to Hamilton, and marry her there by
force to the Earl of Arran. Bothwell was to have been
made Chancellor for his share. He had asked no greater
reward. The Queen looked down to her lap when she
heard this. What more? My lord of Arran concealed his
alarms for the moment, and told no one; but the secrecy,
the weight of the burden, worked upon him until he could
not bear himself. Before the plot was ripe he had confessed
it to half-a-dozen persons. Bothwell threatened him ravenously;
his mind gave way—hence his frantic penance.
Here was a budget of treason for the Queen to take in her
hands, and ponder, wildly and alone. Alone she pondered
it, in spite of all the shocked elders about her.
If he had done it! If he had—if he had! Ah, the
adventure of it, the rush of air, the pounding horse, and the
safe, fierce arms! Marry her to Arran, forsooth, and
possess her at his magnificent leisure: for of course that
was the meaning of it. Arran and his Hamiltons were dust
in the eyes of Scotland, but necessary dust. He could not
have moved without them. Thus, then, it was planned—and
oh! if he had done it! So well had she learned to
school her face that not a man of them, watching for it,
expecting it, could be sure for what it was that her heart
beat the tattoo, and that the royal colours ran up the staff
on the citadel, and flew there, straining to the gale. Was
it maiden alarm, was it queenly rage, that made her cheeks
so flamy-hot? It was neither: she knew perfectly well
what it was. And what was she going to do in requital of
this scandalous scheme? None of them knew that either;
but she again knew perfectly well what she was about. She
was about to give herself the most exquisite pleasure in life—to
deal freely, openly, and as of right, with her secret joy;
to handle in the face of all men the forbidden thing, and to
read into every stroke she dealt her darling desire. None
would understand her pleasure, none could forbid it her;
for none could under-read her masked words. And her
face, as glacial-keen as Athena’s, like Antigone’s rapt for
sacrifice; her thoughtful, reluctant eyes, her patient smile,
clasped hands, considered words—a mask, a mask! Hear
the sentences as they fell, like slow, soft rain, and listen
beneath for the exulting burthen: ‘If he had! Oh, if
he had!’
‘My lords, this is a fond and foolish adventure, proceeding
from a glorious heart to a distempered head. My
dignity may suffer by too serious care for it. But as I may
not permit any subject of mine to handle my person, to deal
familiarly with my person, even in thought, I must take
as much notice of it as the fact deserves. Let the Lords
Arran and Bothwell be committed to ward during pleasure.
Prepare such writs as are needful. They shall see my sign-manual
upon them.’
She rose, they with her, and went across to the curtain
of the private rooms; she held the curtain as she stayed
to look back.
‘Be secret, Mr. Secretary, and swift.’
‘I shall obey your Majesty in all things.’
Sitting alone and very still, she wrought her hardest to
be offended at this tale, as became a sovereign lady. She
bit her red lip over it, frowned, covered her eyes—acting
a horror which she could not feel. Resolutely then she
uncovered them again, to look it in the face and see it at
its worst. But what she saw, and exulted to see, was a
Man. And the face of the man was broad-jowled, flushed,
and had a jutting under-jaw; its mouth snarled as it
laughed, its eyes were bloodshot and hardily wicked, it
was bearded from the throat. Wicked, daring, laughing
Bothwell—hey, yes, but a Man!
His plot—how could she but admire it as a plot? It
was a chain of fine links. Arran was heir-presumptive,
and would hold the South; Arran’s sister married to
Huntly’s son—there’s for the North. In the midst, Bothwell
with the wittold’s wife—herself. Now, if that were
the plan, then Bothwell was her lover. Observe the plain
word: her lover, not her adoring slave. Also, if that
were the plan, and Arran a catspaw, then Bothwell would
be her master. Another plain word for a plain proposal,
with which no woman, be she chaste or frail, is altogether
offended.
Certainly this young woman was not offended, as she
dallied with each thought in turn—weighing, affecting to
choose. Lover! Master! This saucy, merry robber.
How should she be offended? It was only a thought.
Lancelot had loved his queen, and Tristram his. Let the
plot be put before these two to judge, Lancelot would
have laughed and Tristram grieved. Arran had been like
Tristram, and she curled her lip to think of him, and
laughed aloud as she chose for Lancelot. Ah, how can
you be offended with Love and his masterful ways? Or
with the blithe lover, who laughs while he spoils you? It
is son naturel; and must we not follow our nature? Love,
which made George Gordon glum, made Bothwell merry.
He would go, humming the same southern air, to battle or
to bride-bed, to midnight robbery or the strife of love.
He was a man, do you see? They had such in France,
a plenty; but in Scotland what had they but pedlars,
hagglers, cattle-drovers, field-preachers? What other in
Scotland would have shaped such a plan as this, and
gaily opened it to a fool? The Earl of Morton, do you
suppose—that thick schemer? Her brother Moray, the
new Earl, sour, careful merchant of his store? Dead old
Huntly, John of Findlater, wordy, bickering hillmen? Or
George Gordon, chastened and contrite at Dunbar? Not
one of them, not one. Gordon was her lover—accorded.
But Gordon made eyes,—and this other, plans to carry
her off. Oh, here is the difference between a boy’s kisses
and a man’s. The one sort implies itself, the other all the
furious empery of love.
The slim, pale, wise young witch that she looked—sitting
here alone, spelling out her schemes, glancing sidelong
from her hazel eyes! Tenez, she was playing with
thoughts, like a girl hot upon a girl’s affair. Not thus
meditates a prince upon his policy! She began to walk
about, looked out of window, fingered the arras; and all
the while was urging herself to princely courses. As a
prince, she would certainly make a high alliance; as a
prince, she must show disorderly subjects that she was not
to be touched too familiarly. The man must be reminded;
prison walls would cool his fevers. Let him think of her
in confinement. When he came out she would be affianced,
perhaps wedded—safe in either case. Then it would be
lawful to see him again, and—and—oh, what a laughing
Lancelot went there!
She kept her own counsel, having made up her own
mind, and contrived to seem severe without being so.
The Earl of Arran was sent to Dumbarton, a nominal
confinement; but Bothwell was warded in Edinburgh
Castle, the length of a street away. ‘He is more dangerous,
it seems, the farther off he is lodged,’ she gave as her
reason. It was easy to learn that he made good cheer,
kept a generous table, saw his friends and had all the
Court news; not quite so easy to pretend not to learn it.
Yet, I suppose, she knew by the next day everything that
he had said or done overnight. Des-Essars was go-between,
not officially, of course, but as by accident.
Few beside Mary Livingstone remarked that this discreet
and demure youth was off duty for half the day at a time.
Then Bishop Hepburn, my lord’s reprobate, chuckling
uncle, came to Edinburgh, and sauntered up and down
the hill as he chose; an old hand at a game as old as
Troy town. Playing a round at cards with the Queen, he
treated the late escapade as a family failing. But this was
a false step of his: the Queen was not to be caught.
‘When you say that the thing was folly, you are more
cruel than I have been. I have punished your nephew for
presumption and crime, but have never accused him of
being a fool. However, since you are in a position to
judge, I am willing to take it from you.’
He stood corrected, but did not cease to observe. The
Queen’s circumspection filled him with wonder, and at the
same time taught him, by its accuracy, all he wanted to
know. His lesson pat, he went up to the Castle again.
‘Nephew,’ he said, ‘the cage-door is not set open, but
I believe you have only to turn the handle when you
please.’
‘I shall not turn it just yet awhile, my good lord bishop,’
said the Earl, playing a tune upon his knee; ‘I find this a
fine post of observation.’
It was Mary Livingstone who first found out the truth
of matters, and by plunging into the fire to save her
mistress succeeded in nothing but burning herself. When,
after a sharp examination, she learned where Des-Essars
had spent his free days, she could not contain herself.
‘Fine use for pages! Fine use!’
This provoked a quarrel. The Queen stamped her foot,
flung up and down, shed tears. ‘You are too masterful,
my girl, too much the husband. You mistake a game and
play for a bout-at-issue. I do not choose to be mistressed
by a maid of honour. There must be an end of this.’
Livingstone listened gravely. ‘Do with me as you
will, madam. Put me in my place. What is your
pleasure?’
‘To rule my people, child.’
‘Rule, madam, rule. Command me in anything. Forbid
me everything, but one thing.’
‘I shall forbid you what is unwholesome for you, and for
me also.’
‘You shall not forbid me to love you,’ said the maid,
very white.
‘Nay, that I cannot do!’ cried the Queen, laughing and
weeping at once. So they kissed.
But, for all that, she removed Livingstone from her side,
and chose Fleming. Mr. Secretary, acceptable widower in
that lady’s sight, rubbed his hands over the choice; and
Fleming herself was so sweetly gratified that nobody could
grudge her her promotion. She was a gentle-natured, low-voiced,
modest girl, with the meek beauty of an angel in a
Milanese picture. Older than the Queen, she looked
younger; whereas Livingstone was younger and looked
older. No doubt this one felt her fall; but, being as good
as gold and as proud as iron, she held her head the higher
for her lower degree, and smiled benevolently at the
raptures of the new favourite.
‘My dear,’ she said to Fleming, ‘do not think that I
grudge thee. In truth, I do not. What I said was done
advisedly. I knew what must come of it; I sought it, and
shall put up with it. I have a deal to think on, these days,
and my thoughts will be my night-company.’
‘She will never love me as she loves thee,’ says Fleming;
and was answered:
‘I care not greatly if she do or no; nor will I measure
loves with any one. Our affair the now is to get her fast
wedded.’
‘So saith Mr. Secretary at all hours,’ said Fleming.
But Livingstone tossed her head. ‘Fine he knows the
heart of a lass, your Lethington body!’
Fleming looked serious. ‘He hath spoken to me of my
Lord of Lennox,’ she said, in a lower tone. ‘This lord is
near akin to our mistress; nearer, if the truth were known,
than the Duke. He hath a likely son in England, a noble
young man—my Lord of Darnley. The Queen of
England holds him dear, and (they say) looketh to him to
be her heir.’
Livingstone made an outcry. ‘Then she looketh askew!
It is well known to her and hers who the heir of England
is. Who should it be but our own lady?’
But Fleming persisted in her quiet way. ‘Mr. Secretary
speaks of him as a hopeful prince—having seen and had
speech with him. I do but use his own words. Sir James
Melvill writes of him. Mr. Randolph owns him to be
something, though unwillingly. And, says Mr. Secretary,
we may depend upon it that when Mr. Randolph admits
some grace in a Scots lord, there is much grace.’
Livingstone’s open eyes showed that the thing had to be
considered. ‘There may be some promise in all of this,’
says she. ‘What you tell me of Mr. Randolph gives me
thoughts. Had he nothing more to own? Has Mary
Beaton got nothing from him?’ English Mr. Randolph,
you must know, was apt to open his heart to Mary Beaton
when that brown siren called for it.
‘He told Mary Beaton,’ Fleming replied, ‘that the
Queen of England valued one lord no more than other,
until—until—I know not how to put it. In fine, he said,
that if any lord of her court was sought after by another,
then his Queen would need that lord more than any other.
Do you follow?’
‘Ay,’ says Livingstone, ‘I follow thee now. My lord of
Darnley, he is called? Why, let him come up then: we
can but look at him.’
‘Oh, my dear chuck,’ Fleming protested, ‘princes are
not wed by the eyes’ favour.’
‘They have the right to be,’ said her mate; ‘and it is
only thus, let me tell you, that our Queen will be well
wedded.’ She grew exceedingly serious. ‘Look you,
Fleming, she is in danger, she is dangerous. I know very
well what is passing up and down between this and the
Castle rock. Ask me not—seek not to learn. It is not
enough for her that she contract with this man or that.
I tell you, she must want him.’
Fleming blushed painfully, but there was no gainsaying
the truth. ‘It is true, she hath a great spirit.’
‘Ay,’ muttered Livingstone grimly, ‘and needeth a
greater.’
‘They say,’ Fleming continued, ‘that the Lord Darnley’s
is a royal soul.’
And Livingstone ended the council. ‘Let the young
man come up. We can but look at him.’
Mary Livingstone, the divorced, had a secret of her own,
but made very light of it. The Master of Sempill demanded
her person; said he could not be denied. Her father was
willing, and his father more than willing; yet she laughed
it all away. ‘I am husband of the Queen of Scots,’ she
said, ‘or was so yesterday. What should I do with the
Master?’
The old lord, her father, tapped his teeth. ‘You speak
pleasantly, daughter, of a pleasant privilege of yours.
But the Master is a proper man, who must have a better
answer.’
‘Let him bide till I am ready,’ says the good Livingstone.
‘I doubt he will do it, my lass. He may spoil.’
‘Then he is not worth the having, my lord,’ replied the
maid. ‘What use have I for perishable goods?’
The Master chose to wait; and when the Court moved
to Saint Andrews he waited in Fife.
The Court went thither with various great affairs in
train, whose conduct throve in that shrill air. The Queen
would work all the forenoon with Lethington and her useful
Italian, play all the rest of the day, and to bed early. She
played at housewifery: bib and tucker, gown pinned back,
all her hair close in a clean coif. The life was simple, the
air of homely keenness, the weather wintry; but the great
fire was kind. All about her made for healthy tastes;
inspired the hale beauty of a life within the allotted fence,
a taskwork smoothly done, and God well pleased in His
heaven. Lethington, a pliant man, lent himself to the
Queen’s humour; Signior David was never known to be
moody; there were Adam Gordon and Des-Essars to give
their tinge of harmless romance—a thin wash, as it were,
of water-colour over the grey walls. Sir James Melvill,
too, who had been to England upon the high marriage
question, and returned, and was now to go again, arrived,
full of importance, for last words. It had come to this,
that the Queen was now to choose a husband.
Sir James was struck by her modest air, that of a
tutored maid who knows that she is called to matronhood.
‘Ecce ancilla Domini!’ In truth she was listening to
those very words.
‘I shall strive in all things, Sir James Melvill, to please
my good sister. Whether it be my Lord Robert[1] or my
cousin Darnley, I trust I shall satisfy my well-wishers.’
Soft voice, lowly eyes, timid fingers! ‘Who has been
pouring oil upon this beading wine?’ asked himself Sir
James. Who indeed, but Saint Andrew, with his frosty
sea-salt breath?
It was just at this time, as things fell out, that the Earl
of Lennox, father to that ‘hopeful prince’ of Mary Fleming’s
report, came to Scotland, as he said, upon a lawsuit concerning
his western lands. But some suspected another
kind of suit altogether; among whom, for the best of
reasons, were the Queen’s brother James, and the Lord of
Lethington the Secretary. Another was Signior David,
dæmonic familiar of Monsieur de Châtelard.
At Saint Andrews the Queen lodged in a plain house,
where simplicity was the rule, and she kept no state. The
ladies wore short kirtles and hoods for their heads; gossiped
with fishwives on the shore, shot at butts, rode out with
hawks over the dunes, coursed hares, walked the sands of
the bay when the sea was down. The long evenings were
spent in needlework and books; or one sang, or told a tale
of France—of Garin de Montglane or the Enfances Vivien.
Looking back each upon his life in after years, Adam
Gordon was sure that he had loved her best in her bodice
of snow and grey petticoat; Des-Essars when, with hair
blown back and eyes alight, she had led the chase over the
marsh and looked behind her, laughing, to call him nearer.
She was never mistress of herself on horseback, but stung
always by some divine tenant to be—or to seem—the most
beautiful, most baleful, most merciless of women. And
although her hues varied in the house, so did not her
powers. She was tender there to a fault, sensitive to
change as a filmy wing, with quick little touches, little
sighs, lowering of eyelids, smiles half-seen, provoking cool
lips, long searching looks. She meant no harm—but
consider Monsieur de Châtelard, drawn in as a pigeon to
the lure!—she must always bewitch something, girl or boy,
poet or little dog; and indeed, there was not one of these
youths now about her who was not crazy with love. She
chose at this time to be more with them than with the
maids; a boy at heart herself, she was just now as blowsed
as a boy. She used to sit whispering with them; told
them much, and promised more than she told.
Monsieur de Châtelard—having ventured to present
himself—expanded in the sun of that Peace of Saint
Andrew until he resembled some gay prismatic bubble,
which may be puffed up to the ceiling and bob there until
it bursts. The Queen had forgiven him his trespass and
forgotten it. She resumed him on the old footing, sang
with him, let him whisper in her ear, dared greatly, and
supposed all danger averted by laughter. Having high
spirits and high health, she was in the mood to romp. So
they played country games by the light of the fire: blind
man’s buff, hot codlings, Queen o’ the Bean. You come
to close quarters at such times. You venture: it’s in the
bargain. If a Queen runs to hide she shall not blame a
poet who runs to seek—or she should not. When, in the
early spring, Mr. Secretary was gone to Edinburgh to see
the Earl of Lennox about that suit of his—lawsuit or other—the
Queen went further in her frolics. In the garden
one day she found a dry peascod intact, nine peas in it.
There is a country augury in this. Nothing would content
her but she must put it on the lintel like a dairymaid, and
sit conscious in the dusk until her fate crossed the threshold.
Anon there stepped in Monsieur de Châtelard with a song.
When the joke was made clear to him he took it gravely.
An omen, an omen!
The sense of freedom which you have when you have
made your election took her fancies a-romping as well as
her humours. They strayed with Lord Bothwell on the
Castle rock, they visited Lord Gordon at Dunbar. Allez,
all’s safe now! Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we
die; let us take pity on our lovers, since to-morrow we are
to wed. And—so we juggle with ourselves!—she wrote
an unnecessary letter to the one in order that she might
write an imprudent letter to the other.
‘Monsieur de Gordon,’ ran the first—and Adam carried
it to Dunbar in his bosom—‘I am content to believe that
your constancy in affliction proceedeth from a heart well-affected
towards me at this last. You will find me always
mindful of my friends, among whom I look to reckon
yourself in time to come. Attachment to the prince
floweth only from good faith towards God. Holding to
the one, needs must it follow that you find the other.
Your brother Adam will tell you the same.—Your good
mistress, Marie R.’
Then she wrote this—for Des-Essars to deliver or
perish; and you may catch the throb of the pulse in the
lines of the pen:—
‘Monsieur de Bothwell, they tell me you deal more temperately
in these days, having more space for a little
thought the less your person is enlarged. They report
you to me as well in body, the which I must not grieve
for; but repining in mind. Can I be sorry, or wonder at
it, seeing to what gusty airs your phrenzy drove you?
This glove, which I send, is for one plain purpose. You
see, my lord, that the fingers are stiff where water hath
wetted them of late. You offended your Queen, who had
always wished you very well: the tears were for sorrow
that a heart so bold should prompt a deed so outrageous.’
Lord Bothwell, when he had this letter, sat looking at
it and its guest for a long while, in a stare. His mouth
smiled, but his eyes did not; and he sang softly to himself,
La-la-la, and a la-la-laido! A night or two later, by means
of the seal upon it and his uncle’s influence, he walked out
of the Castle, and was presently in the Hermitage with
Des-Essars. Hence he wrote to the Queen: ‘O Lady, O
Sovereign! I shall carry a token upon my helm, and
break lances under its whisper until I die,’—but neither
signed nor dated the letter.
‘Say to your mistress, boy, that I gave you this; but
breathe not a word of whence I wrote it. Disobey me,
you who know me of old, and when I come again I will
make of your skin but a leaky bottle of blood.’
Des-Essars gave his pledge, and kept it for some time.
If the Queen said nothing about all this to her maids, it
is no wonder. She had done foolishly, and knew it in part,
and took secret glory in it. At certain still hours of the
day, when she could afford herself the luxury of lonely
thought, she would go over what she had done, phrase
after phrase of her letter; recover the trembling with which
she had put in the glove; picture its receipt, read and re-read
his words. And then, as she thought, the heat of her
cheeks burnt up all thought; and, as she stayed to feel her
heart beat, it drummed in her ears like nuptial music.
But they frightened her, these signs and wonders; she ran
away from herself—into the maids’ closet, into the hall
among the lounging men, into the windy weather—and
cooled her cheeks with the salt sea-spray, and drowned the
clamour of her heart in the rude welcome of March.
Monsieur de Châtelard, with the lover’s keen eye, saw
that she was fluttered, watched her everywhere. About
this time also he consulted his friend.
‘Monsieur de Riccio,’ he said, ‘there are signs of the
rising of sap. The birds pair, the festival of Saint Valentine
the Bishop is come and gone. Why do I linger?’
‘Peste!’ said the Italian, who had other things to think
of: ‘how should I know?’
‘By sympathy,’ his friend reproached him: ‘by the
stricken heart. For you also have loved.’
‘Dear sir,’ replied the other, stretching his long legs to
the full, ‘I have love and to spare at this time. Or put it,
I am beloved. Monsieur de Moray, her Majesty’s brother,
loves me dearly, or so he says; Monsieur de Lennox is his
rival for my favours. Ha, they kiss my hands! I am
touched; I have to decide—like a girl. To you, then, I
must briefly say, The times are ripe. Go you and anoint
for the bridal. I tell you that this very night—if you so
choose it—you may be the happiest of men.’
Monsieur de Châtelard lifted high his head. ‘Be sure
of my friendship for ever, Signior David.’
He threw his cloak over one shoulder and went out.
‘Pig and pig’s son!’ said Signior David, returning to his
love-letters.
He had two letters under his hand. One told him that
he might consider himself fortunate to have been chosen
an instrument to further the designs of Providence in this
kingdom. The Lord of Lethington (it said) was possessed
of the writer’s full mind upon a momentous step taken of
late towards the highest seat, under God, of any in the
land. ‘I cannot answer,’ it continued, ‘for what Mr.
Secretary may discover to you upon your approaching him
with the words “Kirk and Realm” upon your lips, saving
that, whatever it be, it will be coloured with my friendship,
which hopes for yours again.’ There was no name at the
foot.
‘Aut Moray aut diabolus!’ however, said the Italian to
himself; ‘and why the devil my Lord of Moray desires his
sister to wed the heir of Lennox, I have no particle of
understanding. Maybe that he hopes to ruin her with the
English; maybe with the Scots. Certainly he hopes to
ruin her somewhere.’
The other letter was signed ‘freely by its author—‘Matho
Levenaxe’—and besought Signior David’s furtherance
of his son’s, the Lord Darnley’s, interests; who had
come post into Scotland upon affairs connected with his
lands, and was prompted by duty and conscience ‘to lay
homage at the feet of her who is, and ever must be, the
Cynosure of his obedient eyes.’ There was much about
merit, the Phœnix, the surcharged heart of a father, ties
of blood—common properties of such letters; and the
unequivocal suggestion that favour would meet favour
half-way.
These documents were vastly agreeable to the Italian.
They invited him to be benevolent and lose nothing by it.
One of these honourable persons desired to ruin the
bride, the other to prosper the bridegroom. Well and good.
And he, Signior David? What was his desire? To prosper
alike with bride, bridegroom, and the exalted pair, his
correspondents. Va bene, va bene. His business was therefore
simple. He must engage the bride to contract herself—but
with enthusiasm; for without that she would never
budge. And how should that be done? Plainly, by the
way of disgust. She must be disgusted with amours before
she could be enamoured of marriage. And how? And
how? Ha! there was Monsieur de Châtelard.
In some such chop-logic fashion his mind went to work:
I do not pretend to report his words.
He lost no time in accosting Mr. Secretary, on an early
day after his return to Saint Andrews, with his master-word
of ‘Kirk and Realm.’ The Secretary had not much
taste for Signior David. ‘I see that you have a key to my
lips,’ he said. ‘You may rifle by leave, if you will let the
householder know just what you are taking out of his
cupboard.’
‘Eh, dear sir,’ cried the other, ‘how you reprove me
beforehand! Your cupboard is safe for me. I wish to
know how I can serve Milord of Moray; no more.’
The Secretary narrowed his eyes and whistled a little
tune. ‘You can serve him very simply. You write our
mistress’s letters? Now, the pen is in touch with the
heart. There flows a tide through the pen; but after a
flowing tide comes the ebb. The ebb, the ebb, Signior
Davy!’
‘True, dear sir——’
‘Why, then, consider the wonders of the pen! It forms
loving words, maybe, to the Queen our good sister, to the
Most Christian King our brother-in-law, to our uncle the
Cardinal, to our cousin Guise, to our loving cousin Henry
Darnley; and by the very love it imparts, by tender stroke
upon stroke, the ebb, Signior Davy, carries tenderness
back; in smaller waves,’tis true, but oh, Signior Davy,
they reach the heart! And how widely they spread out!
To suffuse the great sea! Is it not so?’
‘The image is ingenious and poetical,’ said the Italian.
‘I confess that I have a feeling for poetry. I am a
musician.’
The Secretary put a hand upon his shoulder. ‘Set my
words to music, my man. You shall hear them sung at a
marriage door. All Scotland shall sing them.’
‘Do you think Monsieur de Moray will sing them?’
The Secretary touched his mouth. ‘Our present
music,’ he said, ‘should be chamber-music, not brayed
from the housetops out of brass. But I am no musician.
Let us talk of other things. I have May in my mood, do
you know. This day, Signior David, May hath shone
upon December. Do you see a chaplet on my silver
pow?’
‘Ah! La Fiamminga has been kind?’ asked the Italian,
knowing with whom he had to deal.
‘You are pleased to say so,’ said the Secretary. ‘Know
then, my dear sir, since there are to be no secrets to keep
us apart, that I am a happy man. For, sitting with our
mistress upon that great needlework of theirs, I found a
certain fair lady very busy over a skewered heart. “Come
hither, Mr. Secretary,” saith our mistress, with that look
aslant which you know as well as I do, “Come hither,”
saith she, “and judge whether Fleming hath well tinct this
heart.” I overlooked the piece. “Oh, madam,” say I, “the
organ should be more gules: this tincture is false heraldry.
And the wound goes deeper.” My fair one, in a flutter,
curtsied and left the presence. Then saith our Queen,
with one pretty finger admonishing, “Fie, Mr. Secretary,
if you read so well now, before the letter is in your hand,
what will you do when you have it in your bosom to con
at your leisure?” I had no answer for her but the true
one, which was and shall ever be, “Why, then, madam, I
shall have it by heart, and your Majesty two lovers in the
room of one.” I put it fairly, I think; at least, she thanked
me. Now, am I a happy man, Master David, think you?
With the kindness of my prince and the heart of my
dear! Sir, sir, serve the Queen in this matter of the
young Lord of Darnley. He is in Scotland now; I believe
at Glasgow. But we expect him here, and——Oh, sir,
serve the Queen!’
The Italian, who was fatigued by a rhapsody which
did not at all interest him, wagged his hands about, up
and down, like a rope-dancer that paddles the air for his
balance.
‘Va bene, va bene, va bene!’ he cried fretfully.
‘Understood, my good sir. But will this serve the
Queen?’
‘If I did not think so,’ returned the Secretary—and
really believed this was the answer—‘if I did not think
so, would my Lord of Moray, should I, press it upon
you?’
Signior David shrugged—but you could not have seen
it. ‘What is this young man?’ he asked.
‘It is impossible that you know so little. He is of the
blood royal by the mother’s side. He is next in title to
this throne, and to the other after my mistress.’
The Italian waved all this away. ‘Understood!
Understood already! Do you think I am a dunce?
Why am I here, or why are you here, if I am dunce? I
ask you again, What is he? Is he a man? or is he a
minion—a half, a quarter man? Do you know, Mr.
Secretary, that he has got to serve Dame Venus? Do
you know that he may drown in the Honeypot? Pooh,
sir! I ask you, can he swim? He will need the faculty.
I could tell you, for example, of one lord——But no!
I will not.’ He hushed his voice to an awed whisper,
seeming to reason with himself: ‘Here, upon my conscience,
is a woman all clear flame, who has never yet—never yet—met
with a man. Here is a Cup of the spirit of honey
and wine. Who is going to set the match to kindle this
quick essence! Who is about to dare? Why, why, why,—all
your drabbled Scotland may go roaring out in such
a blaze! Corpo di sangue e sanguinaccio!’ His excitement
carried him far; but soon he was beaming upon
Lethington, reasonable again. ‘Let us change the figure,
and come down. Dame Venus is asleep as yet, but
uneasy in her sleep, stirring to the dawn. She dreams—ha!
And maids belated can dream, I assure you. Is
this young man a Man? Lo, now! There is my question
of you.’
Mr. Secretary was alarmed. His teeth showed, and his
eyes did not.
‘You go too near, you go too near.’
But the Italian was now calm.
‘My friend,’ he said, ‘I am not of your race—sniffing
about, nosing for ever, wondering if you dare venture. I
am at least a man in this, that I dare anything with my
mind.’
Mr. Secretary agreed with him. ‘I assure you, Signior
Davy,’ he said, ‘that my Lord of Darnley is a fine young
man.’
The Italian threw up his hands. ‘Eh—allora! All is
said, and I go to work. Sir, I salute you. Addio.’
And to work he went, in the manner already indicated:—‘To
draw the Queen into the net of this fine young
man but one thing is needful: she must run there for
shelter. She is a quail at this hour, grouting at ease in
the dusty furrow. If we are to help this favoured fowler
we must send over her a kite.’
Alas for friendship! His kite of election was Monsieur
de Châtelard. It will not be denied that the poet did his
share; but there were two kites sent up. Sir James
Melvill came back from England.
Meantime it should be said that there was truth in the
report. The young Lord Darnley was actually in Scotland.
Some held that he was in Lord Seton’s house in
the Canongate, others that Glasgow had him. There was
some doubt; but all the Court knew of his presence, and
talked of little else. The Queen maintained her air of
tutored virgin, while Mary Livingstone openly thanked
God that Scotland owned a man in it at last. This
honest girl had worked herself into a fevered suspicion of
everything breeched at Court.
Sir James Melvill, when he sent up his name for an
audience, had to run the cross-fire of the maids’ anteroom
first. Few could bear the brunt better than he.
‘H’m, h’m, fair ladies, what am I to tell you? He’s a
likely lad enough for a valentine; for a kiss-and-blush,
jog-o’-my-knee, nobody’s-coming, pert jessamy. Oh, ay!
He can lead a dance more than a little—Pavane, Galliard,
what you will of the kind: advance a leg, turn a maid
about, require a little favour, and ken what to do wi’t.
He hath a seat for a horse, and a rough tongue for a
groom. Ay, ay! young Adonis ardent for the chase, he is;
and as smooth on the chin as a mistress.’
They laughed at him, while Master Adam of Gordon,
page at the door, rubbed his own sharp chin, and could
have sworn there was a hair. The usher came for Sir
James, and cut pretty Seton short in her clamour for more.
He found his mistress and the Italian in the cabinet,
their heads together over a chapter of Machiavel. He
knew the book well, and could have sworn to the look
of the close page. They sprang apart; at least Riccio
sprang; the Queen looked up at the wall and did not
face about for a while, but sat pondering the book, over
which she had clasped her two hands. She was turning
a ring about and about, round and round; and it seemed
to Sir James, who saw most things, that this had been
upon the book while the two heads were bent over it.
They had been trying the Sortes, then!—the Sors
Machiavelliana, eh?
When, after a time of suspense, she turned, to lift him
a careless hand, limp to the touch and cold to kiss, he
knew that she had been schooling herself. She was
extremely composed—too much so, he judged; he had
no belief in her languid manner. She asked him a few
questions about her ‘good sister’; nothing of anybody
else. What did her sister think of the marriage? Sir
James lurked in the fastnesses of platitude. Her English
Majesty had deeply at heart this Queen’s welfare; he
turned it many ways, but always came back to that. As
he had been sure she would, after a little of it, Queen
Mary grew irritable, and drew out into the open. ‘Peace
to your empty professions, Master Melvill. They are little
to my liking. Did my sister send the Lord Darnley into
Scotland?’
Here he had it. ‘Madam,’ quoth Sir James, ‘I will
not affirm it. And yet I believe that she was glad for him
to go.’
‘Why so? why so?’
‘I nail my judgment, madam, to this solid beam of truth,
that my lord got his congé after but two refusals of it.’
‘Why should he be refused?’
‘Madam, for your Grace’s sake; because her English
Majesty thinks meanly of him beside yourself.’
‘He is of royal blood—but let that be as it may. If
he was first refused upon that account, why then was he
afterwards allowed?’
Sir James twinkled. I have said that he, as well as the
Italian, had a kite to send up, to drive this quail into the
net of marriage. He now had his opportunity to fly it.
‘Oh, madam,’ he replied, ‘this young Lord of Darnley was
not the only courtier anxious to travel the North road:
there was another, as your Majesty knows. And if the
English Queen let one go at the last it was in regard for
the other. It was for fear lest you should win my Lord
Robert Dudley.’
The Queen grew red. ‘Win? Win? This is a strange
word to use, Mr. Legate. Am I hunting husbands, then?’
‘It is not my word, madam. I can assure your Majesty
that both the word and the suspicion are the English
Queen’s. It is thus she herself thinks of my Lord Robert—as
of a prize to be sought. But my Lord Darnley she
calls “that long lad.”’
‘He is my cousin, and her own. He shall be welcome
here when he comes—if he comes. But it mislikes me
greatly to suppose him sent out from England, a scapegoat
into the wilderness.’ She frowned, and bit her lip; she
looked haggard, rather cruel. ‘A scapegoat into the
wilderness! Robert Dudley’s scapegoat!’
You may cheapen a man by a phrase; but sometimes
the same phrase will cheapen you. Hateful thought to
her, that she was casting a net for Robert Dudley! And
not she only; there were two panting Queens after him;
and this high-descended Harry Stuart—a decoy to call one
off! Sir James, greatly tickled, was about to speak again;
his mouth was open already when he caught the Italian’s
wary eye. That said, ‘For Jesu’s sake no more, or you
spoil a fine shot.’ So Sir James held his peace. She sent
away the pair of them, and sat alone.
Something bitter had been stirred, which staled all her
hopes and made sour all her dreams. To ‘win’ Robert
Dudley! Oh, abhorred hunt, abhorred huntress! Quick
as thought came the counter query: Was it worse to hunt
one man than seek to be hunted by another—to seek it,
do you mind? to love the pursuit, ah, and to entreat it?
There came up a vision to flood her with shame—the old
vision of the laughing red mouth, the jutting beard, the
two ribald eyes. These were not a hunter’s, O God;
these cared not to move unless they were enticed! These
belonged to a man who waited, sure of himself and sure of
his comforts, while she (like a hen-sparrow) trailed her
wing to call him on. Panic seized her—her heart stood
still. What had she done, wanton decoy that she was?
And what had he done—with her glove? Where had he
put it? Anywhere! Let it lie! Oh, but she must have
it again at all costs. She must send for it. Oh, unworthy
huntress, abhorred hunt!
She must have a new messenger. Adam Gordon must
ride into Edinburgh, show a ring to the Earl of Bothwell,
and ask for a packet of hers. He was not to speak of his
journey to a soul about the Court—on his life, not a word
to Des-Essars: he was not to return without the packet.
‘Go now, Adam, and haste, haste, haste!’ She lashed
herself ill over this melancholy business, and went to bed
early.
This was the night—when she had congealed herself
by remorse into the semblance of a nun—this was the night
of all in the year chosen by Monsieur de Châtelard for his
great second essay. Rather, the Italian sought him out and
urged him to it. ‘Hail, sublime adventurer!’ the kite-flyer
had cried, the moment he met with him.
‘I accept the title,’ replied Monsieur de Châtelard, ‘but
deprecate it as prematurely bestowed.’
‘Not so, my friend,’ says the Italian; ‘but if I know
anything of women, there may be this night a very pretty
mating—as of turtles in March. A word in your ear.
Her Majesty has retired. So early! cry you? Even so.
And why? Ah, but you shall ask me nothing more.
To-morrow I shall not even inquire how you do. Your
face will proclaim you.’
Monsieur de Châtelard embraced his friend. ‘Be sure
of my remembrance, immortal Italian.’
‘I am perfectly sure of it,’ answered Signior Davy; and
the moment after shrugged him out of his mind. This is
what your politician should always do: remember a friend
just so long as he is like to be useful.
He never had speech with him again. The miserable
young man, detected in a moment in filthy intention,
perhaps washed out the stain by a certain dignity of
carriage, whose difficulty alone may have made it noble.
This fool’s Queen—his peascod, melting beauty of a few
weeks since—was certainly a splendour to behold, though
the eyes that looked on her were dying eyes. A white
splendour of chastity, moon-chilled, sharp as a sleet-storm
on a frozen moor,—she had burned him before—now she
struck ice into his very marrow. The caught thief,
knowing his fate, admired while he dared this Queen of
Snow and the North. For dare her he did.
‘What have you to say, twice a dog?’
‘Nothing, madam.’
‘Judge yourself. Lay your soiled hands upon yourself.’
‘Kill me, madam.’
‘Never! But you shall die.’
He died at the Market Cross after a fortnight’s preparation,
as he had not lived, a gentleman at last. For, by
some late access of grace which is hard to understand, she
accorded him the axe instead of the rope. He sent many
times for his friend the Italian, and at his latest hour, when
he knew he would not come, asked the headsman to present
him with his rosary. The headsman would not touch the
accursed idol.
‘If you touch me, you touch a thing far more accursed,’
said the condemned man, ‘to whom a death resembling
that of his Saviour’s companions in torment would be
infinite honour.’ He made his preparations, and said his
prayers. There were people at every window.
It had happened that my Lord of Darnley, with a fine
train of horsemen, having sent in his humble suit to the
Queen and received an answer, witnessed the ceremony:
or so they say. He divided attention with the departing
guest. All observed him, that he sat his horse well—easily,
with a light hand ever ready at the rein to get back the
fretful head. He watched every detail of the execution,
looking on as at a match of football among sweating
apprentices, with half-shut, sulky eyes. He spoke a few
words to his attendants.
‘Who is our man?’
‘They say a Frenchman, my lord. Chatler by name.’
‘To whom is he speaking, then? Watch his hand at
his heart. Now ’tis at his lips! He makes a bow,—will
they never finish with him? How are we to break through!
They should truss him.’
A young man behind him laughed; but my lord continued:
‘But—now look, look! Will he never have done?
There are women at all the windows. See that French
hood up there.’
‘’Tis a woman’s business, my lord. They say that this
fellow——’ The young man whispered in his ear.
My lord made no sign, except to say, ‘My cousin is hard
upon a forward lover.’
‘Nay, sir. Say, rather, on a lover too backward.’
He got no answer from his prince. All looked, as there
fell on all a dead hush. The crowd thrilled and surged:
utter silence—then a heavy stroke—all the voices began
again together, swelling to one shrill cry. Châtelard, poor
kite, flew a loftier course.
The cavalcade began to drive through the maze of
people, pikemen going before with pikes not idle. ‘Room
for the prince! Room, rogues, room!’
He was rather stiff in the garden; rather too tall for the
raftered rooms of the burgess’ house. He did not lend
himself readily to the snug cheer which was the rule at
Saint Andrews. Des-Essars has recorded the fancy that
he was like that boy who comes home from school, and
straightens himself in his mother’s embrace; ‘not because
he loves her the less, but that he knows himself to be more
than when, six months ago, he parted from her with tears.’
This lordly youth cropped his English words, and stammered
and blushed when he tried the French. He laughed gaily
to hear the Italian staccato run its flight—like a finch that
dips and rises as he wings across the meadow. ‘Monkey-speech,’
my young lord called it.
In all respects he was on the threshold. None of the
deeper, inner speech of their daily commerce came near
him; he ignored, because he did not see, the little tricks
and chances, the colour, significance, allusiveness of it.
What was the poor youth to do? He had never journeyed
with the stored gallants of the Heptameron, nor whispered
to the ladies of Boccaccio’s glades. He thought Bradamante
a good name for a horse, and Margutte something
to eat. The Queen rallied him, the maids looked out of
window; Mr. Secretary exchanged glances with his Fleming,
Signior David bowed and bowed. But this Italian
was comfortable, seeing his ships homeward bound. In
rapid vernacular, as he lay late in his bed, he told himself
that the French poet could not have chosen a better night
for his extinguishing.
‘That was a night, one sees, when she suddenly sickened
of low company, having suddenly viewed it and been
shocked: of me, and the fat Bothwell, and all these cuddling
nymphs and boys. Our Châtelard was the last loathly
morsel, the surfeit after the Ambassador’s bolus. Certainly,
certainly! I saw her go white at his “winning” of the English
favourite: how a word may stick in a gizzard! Then comes
my late friend, hiding for favours under the bed. “Dio
mio,” she cries, “do I live in a lupanar? O Santo Padre,
let me henceforward mate only with eagles!”’
He expressed himself coarsely, being what he was; but
no doubt he was perfectly right.
My Lord of Darnley, then—this eagle—was a very handsome
youth, clean, buxom, and vividly prosperous. He
had the most beautiful slim body you ever saw on a young
man; and long legs, in whose shape he evidently—and
reasonably—took delight. He had that trick of standing
with his feet apart—grooms induce their horses to it with
the tickling of a whip—and arms akimbo, which, with its
blended savour of the Colossus of Rhodes and a French
dancer, gives a man the air of jaunty readiness for all
comers, and always a hint of gallantry. His head was
small and well set-on, his colour fresh; his eyes were bright
and roving. Yet no one could look more profoundly stupid
than he when he chose to be displeased with what was
saying. His lips were red, and like a woman’s; he had a
strong, straight nose, and strong hair, short and curling, in
colour a hot yellow. Good-natured he looked, and vain,
and courageous. Mary Seton considered him a dunce, but
Mary Beaton denied it. She said he was English.
The day of his coming, the Queen received him in the
Long Parlour, dressed mostly in white, with a little black
here and there. She stood about mid-floor, with her
women, pages, and gentlemen of the household, and tried
in vain to control her excitement. Those who knew her
best, either by opportunity or keen study, considered that
she had made up her mind already. This was a marriage,
this meeting of cousins: here in her white and faint rose,
shivering like the dawn on the brink of new day, with fixed
eyes and quick breath—here among her maidens stood the
bride. Appearances favoured the guess—which yet remained
a guess. She had travelled far and awfully; but
had told no one, spoken no whispers of her journeyings
since that day of shame and a burning face, when she had
sent Adam Gordon to Edinburgh Castle, heard Melvill’s
message, and scared away Châtelard to his dog’s death.
Not a soul knew where her soul had been, or whither it had
now flown for refuge: but two guessed, and one other had
an inkling—the judging Italian.
They used very little ceremony at Saint Andrews.
The Queen hated it. An usher at the stair’s foot called
up the Prince’s style, and could be heard plainly in the
parlour; yet Mr. Erskine, Captain of the Guard, repeated
it at the door. There followed the clatter of a few men-at-arms,
a trampling, one or two hasty voices—Lethington’s
whisper among them (he always shrilled his s‘s);
then the anxious face of the Secretary showed itself. The
young lord, dressed in white satin, with a white velvet
cloak on one shoulder, and the collar of SS round his neck,
stooped his head at the door, and went down stiffly on one
knee. Behind him, in the entry, you could count heads and
shoulders, see the hues of red, crimson, claret—feathers,
a beam of light on a steel breastplate. He had come well
squired. ‘Welcome, cousin,’ said the Queen shyly, in a
low and calling tone. My young lord rose; two steps
brought him before her. He knelt again, and would have
received her hand upon his own; but she looked down
brightly at his bent and golden head—looked down like
a considering bird; and then (it was a pretty act)—‘Welcome,
cousin Henry,’ she said again, and gave him both
her hands. He was afoot in a moment, and above her.
To meet his look downwards she must lift hers up. ‘Welcome,
cousin,’ once more; and then she offered him her
cheek. He kissed her, grew hot as fire, looked very
foolish, and dropped her hands as if they burnt him.
But he led her—she not unwilling—to her chair, and
sat beside her the moment she invited him. She was
bashful at first, blushed freely and talked fast; he was
stiff, soldierly, blunt: when she was beyond him he made
no attempt to catch her up. Those bold eyes of his were
as blank as the windows of an empty house. They did
not at all disconcert her: on the contrary, she seemed to
see in his inertia the princely phlegm, and to take delight
in lowering the key of her speech to the droning formalities
of an audience. The difficulty of it, to her quick, well-charged
mind, was a spur to her whole being. You could
see her activities at drill; the more stupid she strove to be,
the more spiritual she showed. She took enormous pains
to set him at his ease, and so far succeeded that (though she
could not clarify his brains) she loosened his tongue and
eye-strings. He was soon at his favourite trick of looking
about him; passed all the maids in review, and preferred
Livingstone to any: next to her Seton—‘a pretty, soft
rogue.’ He saw and knew, but did not choose to recognise,
Lady Argyll.
Certain presentations followed. Englishmen were
brought up to kiss hands—tall, well-set-up, flaxen young
men: a Standen, a Curzon of Derbyshire, a Throckmorton,
nephew of an old acquaintance in France, a Gresham, etc.,
etc. After these came one Scot. ‘Madam, my kinsman
Douglas.’
There came stooping before her a certain Archie
Douglas of Whittinghame, remotely of the prince’s blood,
but more nearly of the red Chancellor Morton’s. He was
a young man, exceedingly thin, with a burnt red face,
shifty eyes, a smile, and grey hair which did not make
him look old. Black was his wear, with a plain white ruff.
‘I have heard of you, Master Douglas,’ says the Queen,
measuring her words. ‘You are a priest in Israel after the
order of Mr. Knox.’
‘An humble minister, madam, so please your Majesty.’
‘Ah, my pleasure, sir!’ She would not look at him
any more, either then or ever after. She used to call him
the Little Grey Wolf. Now, whether is it better for a man
to be spoken by his sovereign in discomfortable riddles,
than not at all? This was the question which Archie
Douglas put to himself many times the day.
The Queen would have honours nearly royal paid to
the young prince. The officers of the household, the
ladies, were all presented; and all must kiss his hand.
But all did not. Lord Lindsay did not; Mr. Erskine did
not, but saluted him stiffly and withdrew behind the
throne. Mr. Secretary did it; Lord Ruthven did it
elaborately; Lady Argyll changed her mind midway, and
did it. The Italian secretary, last of all, went down on
both his knees, and, looking him straight in the face, cried
out, ‘Salut, O mon prince!’ which, under the circumstances,
was too much. But the Queen was to be pleased
with everything that day, it seemed, for it delighted her.
As he went home to his lodging Signior David talked
to himself. ‘As well expect to weld butter and a knife,
or Madonna and a fish-headed god of Egypt as the Queen
with this absorbed self-lover. If she wed him not in a
month she will kill him sooner than take him.’
And Des-Essars records in his Memoirs: ‘The prince
pleased on horseback, whence he should never have
descended. I suspect that he knew that himself; for he
straddled his legs in the house as if to keep up the illusion
and strengthen himself by it. He was a fine rider. But
women are not mares.’
Nevertheless, Mary Livingstone had guessed, Des-Essars
had guessed, the truth or near it. This ceremony of meeting
was as good as a betrothal; though why it was so, was
not for them to understand. The explanation is to be
sought in the chasing, flying, starting life of the soul,
hunting (or being hunted) apart in its secret, shadowy
world. There come moments in that wild life when the
ardours of the chase slacken and tire; when, falling down
to rest, the soul catches sight of itself, as mirrored in still
water. That is the time when enchantment may go to
work to disenchant, and show the horrible reality. ‘What!’
might cry this girl’s soul: ‘this rumpled baggage a maid
royal! This highway-huntress, panting after one man or
the other, thrilling like a cook-wench because that man or
this has cast an eye on you! Oh, whither are fled the ensigns
of the great blood? Where hides the Right Divine?
Where are the emblems of Scotland, England, and France?
Not in these scratched hands, not behind these filmy eyes:
these are the signs of Myrrha and Pasiphaë, and sick
Phædra.’ Melvill had held up the glass, and she had seen
herself toiling after Robert Dudley; Châtelard had wiped
it, and behold her, trapped and netted, the game of any
saucy master. So, in a passion of amendment, she lent to
Harry Darnley all that she feared to have lost. He shared
the blood she had made common: let him re-endow her.
He was the prince she ought to have been. He came
a-courting with the rest; but as royal suitors come—solemnly,
with embassies, with treaties to be signed, and
trumpets to proclaim the high alliance. To think of Bothwell’s
beside this courtly wooing was an impossibility.
Hardy mercenary, to what had she dared stoop? To a
man—God forgive her!—who would hug a burgess-wife
one day, and her—‘the French widow,’ as he would call
her—the next. Ah, horrible! So horrible, so nearly her
fate, she could speak to no one of it. Simply, she dared
not think of it. She must hide it, bury it, and go about
her business by day. But at night, when Fleming was
asleep, she would lie staring into the dusk, her two hands
at grip in her bosom, and see shadows grow monstrous on
the wall: Bothwell and the wife of the High Street, and
herself—Dowager of France, Queen of Scots, heiress of England—at
play. She could have shrieked aloud, and whined
for mercy: she seemed to be padding, like a fox in a cage,
up and down, up and down, to find an issue. Harry Darnley
was the issue—O Ark of Salvation! Why, she had
known that the very night that Melvill came back. Afterwards,
as night succeeded night, and her eyes ached with
staring at the wall—she knew it was all the hope she had.
Then from her window, watching the shivering-out of
Châtelard, she had seen the prince, before his credentials
were presented—his beauty and strength and calm manège
of his horse. Had he been pock-marked, like Francis of
Alençon, his lineage would have enamelled him for her
eyes. But he was a most proper man, tall and slim, high-coloured,
disdainful of his company. He seemed not to
know that there was a world about him to be seen. Securus
judicat: Jesu-Maria! here was a tower of defence to a
smitten princess who saw all the world like a fever-dream!
Her own blood, her own name, age for age with her.
You see that she had her own vein of romantic poetry,
that she could make heroic scenes in her head, and play in
them, too, wonderful parts. She sat up in her bed one
night, and shook her loose hair back, and lifted up her
bare arms to the rafters. ‘My lord, I am not worthy.
Yet come, brother and spouse! We two upon the throne—Scotland
at our feet!’ Then, in the scene, he came to
her, stooping his stiff golden head. Jove himself came not
more royally into the Tower. She lay all Danaë to the
gold. Trickery here. Thus body lords it over soul, and
soul—the wretch—takes his hire. She knew pure ecstasy
that night; for this was a mating of eagles, you must
recollect. She bathed in fire, but it was clean flame.
Bothwell, at any rate, seemed burnt out—him and his
fierce arm, only one to spare for ‘the little French widow.’
So much explanation seems necessary of how she stood,
in virginal tremor and flying cloudy blushes, white and red
among her maids—to be chosen by her prince. She
intended him to choose: for she had chosen already.
The prince sat at supper, late in the evening of his
reception, with his light-haired Englishmen and grey-haired
Archie Douglas. Forrest, his chamber-boy, with burning
cheeks and eyes glassy with sleep, leaned at the door.
His little round head kept nodding even as he stood.
The young lord laughed and fed his greyhounds, which sat
up high on their lean haunches and intently watched his
fingers.
‘I shall take those horses of the Earl’s,’ he said. ‘I
shall need them now. I shall have a stud, and breed
great horses for my sons. See to it, Archie.’
‘By God, sir,’ said an Englishman, with hiccoughs,
‘your word may be the law and the prophets in this
country, and yet no bond in England. They will ask you
for sureties. Well! I say, Get your sureties first.’
My lord was not listening. He pulled a hound’s ear,
screwed it, and smiled as he screwed. Presently he
resumed. ‘Did you mark the greeting of Argyll’s wife,
Archie Douglas? How she tried “Sir and my cousin,”
and thought better of it? I made her dip, hey? A black-browed,
saucy quean! What kindred to me are her
father’s misfortunes?’
Archie Douglas drained his glass. ‘You hold them,
Harry Darnley—the women. Yet remember you of what
I told you concerning the men. Steer wide of this’—he
caressed the jug—‘and fee the Italian.’
But my Lord Darnley got on to his feet, and remained
there by the aid of his fists on the board. Very red in the
face, and scowling, he talked with his eyes shut. ‘I shall
fee the Italian with the flat blade, you’ll see. Greasy
cushion of lard! A capon, a capon! And there’s your
red cousin Morton for you!’
‘He is your cousin too, sir,’ says Archie, blinking.
‘What of that, man, what of that? Let him beware
how he cozens me, I say. Boy, I go to bed. Good-night
to you, gentlemen.’
They all rose as he went solemnly away with the boy;
then looked at one another to see who had marked him
reach out for the door-jamb and pull himself through by it.
Archie Douglas crowed like a cock and flapped his arms;
but when the rest began to laugh he slammed the table.
‘Pass the jug, you fools. There shall be japes in Scotland
before long—but, by God, we’ll not laugh until we’re
through the wood!’
News of the Court for the rest of the month was this.
The Master of Sempill pled his own cause with the Queen,
and was to have Mary Livingstone. He had chosen his
time well; her Majesty was not for refusals just now.
‘My dear, my dear, I shall need women soon, not
maids,’ she had said, stroking the honest face. ‘You shall
come back to me when you are a wife, and as like as not
find me one too. Your Master is a brave gentleman. He
spoke up for you finely.’
‘Ay, madam, he hath a tongue of his own,’ says
Livingstone.
The Queen threw herself into her friend’s arms. ‘No
Madams to me, child, while we are in the pretty bonds
together, fellow cage-birds, you and I. Come now, shall I
tell you a secret? Shall I?’
Livingstone, caught in those dear arms, would not look
into the witching eyes. ‘Your secret, my dear? What
can you tell me? Finely I know your secret.’
The Queen sat, and drew the great girl down to her
lap. ‘Listen—but listen! Last night the prince ...’:
and then some wonderful tale of ‘he’ and ‘him.’
‘Ruthven says that his ring of runes hath magic in it.
Some old wife, that hides at Duddingstone, and can only
be seen under the three-quarter moon by the Crags, she
hath charmed it. With that ring, rightly worn, she saith,
a man would swim the Solway at the flood after the boat
that held you. Ruthven knows the truth of it, and swears
that no man can resist the power it hath. There was a
case, which I will tell you some day. There is one stronger
yet—most infallible: a spell which you weave at dawn.
But for that there are certain things to be done—strange,
strange.’
‘No more of them,’ says Livingstone; ‘you have too
much charm of your own. What need of old bedeswomen
have you and your likes? Ah, yes, too much charm!
Tell me now, Marie; tell me the truth. Have you your
glove back?’
The Queen started violently, winced as if whipped in the
face and turned flame-red. Livingstone was off her lap:
both stood.
‘What do you speak of? How do you dare. Who has
betrayed——?’
‘Nobody. I saw that it was gone. And lately you
sent Adam to the Castle.’
The Queen walked away to the window, but presently
came back. ‘I think it right that you should understand
the very truth. That lord has angered me. Monstrous
presumption! for which, most rightly, he suffered. Believe
me, I saw to it. But—but—he has a conscience, I think.
Something was told me—made me suppose it. I considered—I
gave long thought to the case. A queen, in my
judgment, should not be harsh, for she needs friends. I
took a temperate method, therefore; considering that, if he
knew of my pain, perchance he would repent. So I sent
Adam Gordon to Edinburgh, and believe that I did well.’
She paused there, but getting no answer, asked impatiently,
‘Am I clear to you, Livingstone?’
‘You will never clear yourself that way,’ says Livingstone.
‘You could as well expect the Rock to thaw into
tears as get Bothwell to repent. That is a vile thief, that
man.’
The Queen ran forward and fell upon her bosom. ‘Oh,
I have been ashamed—ashamed—ashamed! The devil
was within me—touching, moving, stirring me. I thought
of him night and day. Wicked! I am very wicked. But
I have paid the price. It is all done with long ago. I told
Father Roche everything—everything, I promise you. He
absolved me the day before my prince came, or I should
never have received him as I did. And can you, Mary,
withhold from me what the Church allows?’
Livingstone was crying freely. ‘God knows, God knows,
I am none to deny thee, sweetheart!’ she murmured as she
kissed her.
Second absolution for Queen Mary.
The Court was to go to Callander House for the wedding
of this fond Livingstone; but before that there was a bad
moment to be endured—when Adam Gordon came back,
without the glove. They had told him in Edinburgh that
the Earl of Bothwell had broken bars and was away. He
had gone to his country, they said, and had been heard of
there, hunting with the Black Laird and others of his
friends—hunting men mostly, and Englishmen too, over
the border. He had sent word to George Gordon that, if
he was willing, he would ‘raise his lambs, and pull him out
of Dunbar for a bout with Hell’; but, said the boy,
‘Madam, my brother refused him.’
Adam had ridden into Liddesdale to find Bothwell, into
the Lammermuirs, into Clydesdale: but the Earl was in
none of his castles. Then he went the English road
towards Berwick: got news at Eyemouth. The Earl was
away. Two yawls had shipped him and his servants; had
stood for the south—for France, it was thought. The
glove was in his bosom, no doubt.
The Queen sent Adam away rewarded, and had in
Des-Essars. ‘Jean-Marie,’ she said, ‘my Lord Bothwell
hath gone oversea. Do you suppose, to France?’
‘No, madam; I suppose to Flanders.’
He seemed troubled to reply—evaded her looks.
‘Why there?’
‘Madam, there was a woman at Dunkirk——’
‘Enough, enough! Go, boy.’
She had appointed to ride that day to the hawking.
The prince was to be there, with new peregrines from
Zealand. Now—she would not go. Instead, she crept
into her oratory alone, and, having locked the doors, went
through secret rites. She stripped herself to the shift,
unbound her hair, took off shoes and stockings. With two
lit candles, one in either hand, she stood stock-still before
the crucifix for an hour. Chilled to the bones, with teeth
chattering and fingers too stiff to find the hooks for the
eyes, she dressed herself then in some fashion, and slipped
quietly out. This was her third absolution. Thus she
froze out of her heart the last filament of tainted flesh; and
then, bright-eyed and wholesome, set her face towards
the future.
Mr. Thomas Randolph, Ambassador of England to the
Scottish Queen, told himself more than once that in seeking
the lady of his heart he did not swerve the breadth of a
hair from loyalty to the sovereign of his destinies. Yet he
found it necessary to protest his wisdom in the letters he
wrote to his patron, the Earl of Leicester. Mary Beaton
was the Nut-brown Maid of his ballatry. ‘I do assure
your lordship, better friend hath no man than this worthy
Mistress Beaton, who vows herself to me, by what sweet
rites you shall not ask me, the humble servant of your
lordship.’
All this as it might be: Mary Beaton used to smile
when twitted by her mates about the Englishman’s
formalised passion, and ask to be let alone.
‘He’s not for ever at the sonnets,’ she said; ‘we discourse
of England between bouts; and it may be I shall learn
something worth a rhyme or two.’
They played piquet, the new game, together, and each
used it as a vantage-ground. He could not keep his
desires, nor she her curiosity, out of the hands.
‘Is four cards good?’ he would ask her; and when she
looked (or he thought she looked) quizzingly at his frosted
hair: ‘Is one-and-forty good?’
Then she must laugh and shake her head: ‘One-and-forty’s
too many for me, sir.’
‘I’ve a terce to my Queen, mistress.’
But she crowed over that. ‘And I’ve a quint to a
knave, Mr. Randolph; and three kings I have in my
hand!’
She found out that they were not best pleased in England
at the turn of affairs in Fife.
‘My Queen, Mistress Beaton,’ said the enamoured
Randolph, ‘cannot view with comfort the unqueening of
a sister. Nay, but it is so. Your mistress courts the
young lord with too open a face. To sit like one forsworn
when he is away; or when he is present, to crouch at his
feet! To beg his gauntlet for a plaything—to fondle his
hunter’s whip! To be meek, to cast down the eyes; to
falter and breathe low, “At your will, my lord”! Thus
does not my Queen go to work.’
Mary Beaton looked wise. ‘Sir James Melvill hath
reported her manner of working, sir. We are well
advertised how she disports.’
‘I take your leave to say,’ replied the ambassador, ‘her
plan is at once more queenly and more satisfying. For
why? She charges men upon their obedience to love her.
And they do—and they do! No, no, I am troubled: I own
to it. If you find me backward, sweet Beaton, you shall
not be harsh. How or whence I am to get temper to bear
much longer with this toss-pot boy, I know not. He is
the subject of my Queen; he is—I say it stoutly—my own
subject in this realm. But what does he? How comports
himself? “Ha, Randolph, you are here yet?” This, as he
parades my Lord Ruthven before me, with a hand on his
shoulder, my faith! I tell you, a dangerous friend for the
young man. And one day it was thus, when we passed in
the tennis-court. “Stay, Randolph, my man”—his man!
“I had something for your ear; but it’s gone.” It’s gone,
saith he! Oh, mistress, this is unhappy work. He doth
not use the like at Greenwich, I promise you.’
‘He is not now at Greenwich,’ says Beaton. ‘He is
come back to his own.’
Mr. Randolph jumped about. ‘His own? Have at
you on that! How if his own receive him not? He may
prove a very fish-bone in some fine throats here. Well,
we shall see, we shall see. To-day or to-morrow comes
my Lord of Moray into the lists. The Black Knight, we
may call him. Then let the Green Knight look to himself—ho,
ho! We shall see some jousting then.’
Mary Beaton shuffled the cards.
These joustings occurred, not at Callander, where Livingstone
had been wedded to her Sempill and the Queen had
danced all the night after, but at Wemyss, in the midst of
a full court, kept and made splendid in the prince’s honour.
The place pleased its mistress in its young spring dress,
attuned itself with her thoughts and desires. Blue, white,
and green was all this world: a gentle, April sky; not
far off, the sea; white lambs in the pastures, and the trees
in the forest studded with golden buds. Wemyss had for
her an air of France, with its great winged house of stone,
its tourelles, balustrades, ordered avenues raying out from
the terrace, each tapering to a sunny point; its marble
nymphs and sea-gods with shells; its bowers, and the
music of lutes in hidden grass-walks, not too loud to quell
the music in her heart. It was a pity that the prince knew
so little of the tongue, or it had been pleasant to read with
him—
Filz de Venus, voz deux yeux despendez,
Et mes ecrits lisez et entendez,
Pour voir comment
D’un desloyal service me rendez:
Las, punissez-le, ou bien luy commandez
Vivre autrement—
and see his fine blushes over the words. But although
he had never heard of Maître Clément, he was in love
without him, and could take an Englishman’s reasonable
pleasure in hearing himself called ‘Venus’ boy,’ or Rose-cheekt
Adonis.’
Certainly he must have been in love. He told Antony
Standen so every night over their cups; and little Forrest,
a pert child who slept (like a little dog) at the foot of his
great bed—he knew it too; for it had thrust a new duty
upon him and many stripes. All the Court knew that
when Forrest had red eyes the prince had overslept
himself.
It was the Queen’s romantic device: she was full of
them at this time. From her wing of the house you could
see the prince’s; her bedchamber windows gave right
across the grass-plat to his. Now, at an early hour, she—who
woke still earlier, and lay long, thinking—stirred
Mary Fleming from her side by biting her shoulder, not
hard. Sleepy Fleming, when she had learned the rules,
slipped out of bed and pulled aside the curtains to let in
the day; then robed the Queen in a bedgown of blue,
with white fur, her furred slippers, and a hood. Armed
thus for the amorous fray, as Mr. Randolph put it—at any
rate, with shining eyes and auroral hues, Queen Mary went
to watch at the window; and so intent did she stand there,
looking out over the wet grass, that she heeded neither the
rooks drifting in the high wind, nor the guards of the door
who were spying at her, nor the guard by the privy-postern,
who beckoned to his fellow to come out of the
guard-house and witness what he saw. Not only was
she heedless, but she would have been indifferent had she
heeded.
After a time of motionless attention, this always occurred.
She raised her hand with a handkerchief in it, and signalled
once—then twice—then three times—then four times.
Then she dropped her hand and stood stone-still again;
and then Fleming came to take her away, if she would go.
The guards, greatly diverted, were some time before they
found out that the appearance of the prince at his window
was the thing signalised, and that he duly answered every
dip of the handkerchief. It was, in fact, a flag-language,
planned by the Queen soon after she came to Wemyss.
One meant, ‘Oh, happy day!’ two, ‘I am well.—And
you?’ three, ‘I love you’; four, ‘I would kiss you if I
were near’; and five, which was a later addition, and not
always given, ‘I am kissing you in my heart.’ To this
one was generally added a gesture of the knuckles to the
lips. Now, it was the business of young Forrest to
awaken his lord in time for this ceremony: obviously, her
Majesty could not be left to a solitary vigil for long. The
prince was a heavy sleeper, to bed late, and lamentably
unsober. Forrest, then, must needs suffer; for my lord
was furious when disturbed in his morning sleep. But the
lad found that he suffered more when, by a dire mischance,
one day he did not wake him at all. For that he was
beaten with a great stick; nor is it wonderful. There
had been wild work in the corridors the morn: maids half-dressed
with messages for men half-tipsy; and the Queen
in her chamber, sobbing in Mary Fleming’s arms.
I think that the young man is to be excused for believing
himself overweeningly loved. I think he was at first
flattered by the attention, and believed that he returned
ardour for ardour. But either he was cold by nature, or (as
the Italian held) assotted of himself: there is little doubt but
he soon tired of the lovers’ food. Clearer facts are these:
that he was not touched by the Queen’s generous surrender,
and did not see that it was generous. ‘You may say, if you
choose,’ writes he of Le Secret des Secrets, ‘that a vain man
is a gross feeder, to whom flattery is but a snack; but the
old half-truth takes me nearer, which says that every man
is dog or cat. If you stroke your dog, he adores the stooping
godhead in you. The cat sees you a fool for your
pains. So for every testimony of the submiss heart given
him by my lady, my lord added one cubit to his stature. I
myself, Jean-Marie Des-Essars, heard him speak of her to
my Lord Ruthven, and other friends of his, as “the fond
Queen.” Encouraged by their applause, he was tardy to
respond. He danced with her at her desire, and might not,
of course, ask her in return: that is, by strict custom. But
my mistress was no stickler for Court rules; and if he had
asked her I know she would have been moved. However,
he never did. He danced with Mary Seton when he
could; and as for Madame de Sempill, when she returned
after her marriage, if ever a young lord was at the mercy
of a young woman, that was his case. Handsome, black-eyed
lady! his knees were running water before her; but
she chose not to look at him. Failing her, therefore, he
sought lower for his pleasures; how much lower, it is not
convenient to declare.’
Mary Sempill resumed her duties in mid-April, having
been wedded at the end of March, and came to Wemyss
but a few days in advance of two great men—my Lord of
Moray, to wit, the Queen’s base-brother, and my Lord of
Morton, Chancellor and cousin of the prince. Before she
saw her mistress, she was put into the state of affairs by
Mary Seton.
‘Ma mye,’ said that shrewd little beauty to her comrade,
‘in a good hour you come back, but a week syne had been
a better. She is fond, fond, fond! She is all melted with
love—just a phial of sweet liquor for his broth. I blame
Fleming; I’ve been at her night and morning—but a fine
work! The lass is as bad as the Queen, being handmaid
to her withered Lethington, so much clay for that dry-fingered
potter. But our mistress—oh, she goes too fast!
She is eating love up: there’ll be satiety, you shall see.
Our young princekin is so set up that he’ll lie back in his
chair and whistle for her before long—you’ll see, you’ll
see! If he were to whistle to-day she’d come running like
a spaniel dog, holding out her hands to him, saying, “Dear
my heart, pity me, not blame, that I am so slow!” Oh,
Livingstone, I am sore to see it! So high a head, lowered
to this flushing loon! Presumptuous, glorious boy! Now,
do you hear this. He raised his hand against Ruthven the
other Tuesday, a loose glove in it, to flack him on the
mouth. And so he handles all alike. ’Twas at the butts
they had words: there was our lady and Lindsay shot
against Beaton and him. Lindsay scored the main—every
man knew it; but the other makes an outcry, red in the
face, puffed like a cock-sparrow. Ruthven stands by scowling,
chattering to himself, “The Queen’s main, the Queen’s
main.” “You lie, Ruthven,” says the Young Fool (so we
all call him); and Ruthven, “That’s an ill word, my Lord
Darnley.” “You make it a worse when you say it in my
face,” cries he; “and I have a mind——” He has his glove
in his hand, swinging. “Have you a mind indeed?” says
black Ruthven; “’tis the first time I have heard it.”
Lindsay was listening, but not caring to look. I was by
Beaton—you never saw Lethington so scared: his eyebrows
in his hair! But we were all affrighted, save one: ’twas
the Queen stepped lightly between them. “Dear cousin,”
she says, “we two will shoot a main, and win it.” And to
Ruthven, “My Lord Ruthven,” says she, “you have done
too much for me to call down a cloud on this my spring-time.”
He melted, the bitten man, he melted, and bent
over her hand. My young gentleman shot with her and
lost her the match—in such a rage that he had not a word
to say. Now I must tell you ...’; and then she gave
the history of the love-signals at the window.
Mary Sempill listened with sombre cheer. ‘I see that
it’s done. The bird’s in the net. Jesu Christ, why was I
not here—or Thyself?’
She did what she could that very night: divorced the
Master of Sempill and shared her mistress’s chamber. In
the morning there was a great to-do—a love-sick lady
coaxing her Livingstone, stroking her cheeks; but no flagwork
could be allowed.
‘No, no, my bonny queen, that is no sport for thee.
That is a wench’s trick.’
The truth was not to be denied; yet not Dido on her
pyre anguished more sharply than this burning queen.
And little good was done, more’s the pity: measures had
been taken too late. For she made humble access to her
prince afterwards and sued out a forgiveness, which to
have got easily would have distressed her. You may
compare wenches and queens as much as you will—it’s
not a surface affair: but the fact is, the heavier a crown
weighs upon a girl in love, the more thankfully will she
cast it to ground. Are you to be reminded that Queen
Mary was not the first generous lover in history? There
was Queen Venus before her.
My Lord of Moray, most respectable of men, rode
orderly from Edinburgh to Wemyss, with a train of some
thirty persons, six of whom were ministers of the Word.
He had not asked Mr. Knox to come along with him, for
the reason that the uncompromising prophet had lately
married a cousin of the Queen’s, a Stuart and very young
girl—fifteen years old, they say. Whether this was done,
as the light-minded averred, out of pique that her Majesty
would not be kind to him, or on some motion even less
agreeable to imagine—my Lord of Moray was hurt at the
levity of the deed, and suspected that the Queen would be
more than hurt. But I believe that she knew Mr. Knox
better than her base-brother did. However, failing Mr.
Knox, he had six divines behind him, men of great
acceptance. The Earl of Morton was waiting for him at
Burntisland: side by side the two weighty lords traversed
the woods of Fife. It might have been astonishing how
little they had to say to each other.
‘Likely we shall have wet before morn.’
‘Ay, belike,’ said the Earl of Moray.
‘These lands will be none the worse of it.’
‘So I believe.’
‘There was a French pink in the basin. Did your
lordship see her?’
‘Ay, I saw her.’
‘Ha! And they say there shall come a new ambassador
from the Pope.’
‘Is that so?’
‘By way of France, he must travel.’
‘Ay?’
‘Bothwell will be in France the now, I doubt.’
‘I’m thinking so, my lord, indeed,’ says the Earl of
Moray.
There was more, but not much more. A man tires of
picking at granite with a needle.
They reached Wemyss before nightfall; but already
torches were flaming here and there, and men running
made smoky comets of them, low-flying over the park.
The Queen was at supper in her closet; there would be
no dancing to-night, because her Majesty was tired with
hunting. ‘No doubt,’ said Lethington, ‘my Lord of
Moray would be received.’ Chambers were prepared for
both their lordships. Mr. Archibald Douglas would have
charge of his noble kinsman’s comfort, while by the
Queen’s desire he, Lethington, would wait upon my lord.
Bowing, and quickly turning about, the Secretary bent his
learned head as he announced these news.
Something, one knows not what, had invited urbanity
into the dark Earl of Moray. He was all for abnegation
in favour of the Chancellor.
‘See, Mr. Secretar,’ he said, ‘see to the Chancellor’s
bestowing, I beg of you. Lead my lord the Chancellor to
his lodging; trust me to myself the while. My lord will
be weary from his journey—nay, my good lord, but I know
what a long road must bring upon a charged statesman:
grievous burden indeed! Pray, Mr. Secretar, my lord
the Chancellor!’ and the like.
‘Now, the devil fly away with black Jamie if I can
bottom him,’ muttered the Chancellor to himself as—burly
man—he stamped up the house. Mr. Archie Douglas, his
kinsman, at the top of the staircase, bowed his grey head
till his nose was pointing between his knees.
‘Man, Archie, ye’ll split yoursel’,’ says the Chancellor.
‘You may leave me, Mr. Secretar, to my wicked cousin,’
says he.
Lethington sped back to his master, and found him
still obstinately gracious.
‘Hurry not, Mr. Secretar, hurry not for me!’
‘Nay, my good lord, but my devotion is a jealous god.’
The Earl waved his hand about. ‘Ill work to pervert
the Scriptures and serve a quip,’ he said ruefully,—‘but
in this house!’
Mr. Secretary, knowing his Earl of Moray, said no
more, but led him in silence to the chambers, and silently
served him—that is, he stood by, alert and watchful, while
his people served him. The Earl’s condescension increased;
he was determined to please and be pleased. He talked
freely of Edinburgh, of the Assembly, of Mr. Knox’s
unhappy backsliding and of Mr. Wood’s stirring reminders.
Incidents of travel, too: he was concerned for some poor
foreign-looking thief whom he had seen on the gibbet at
Aberdour.
‘Justice, Mr. Secretar, Justice wears a woful face on a
blithe spring morning. And you may well think, as I did,
that upon yonder twisting wretch had once dropped the
waters of baptism. Man, there had been a hoping soul in
him once! Sad work on the bonny braeside; woful work
in the realm of a glad young queen!’
‘Woful indeed, my lord,’ said Mr. Secretary, ‘and woe
would she be to hear of it. But in these days—in these
days especially—we keep such miserable knowledge from
her. She strays, my lord, at this present, in a garden of
enchantment.’
‘And you do well, Mr. Secretar, you do well—if the
Queen my sister does well. There is the hinge of the
argument. What says my young friend Mr. Bonnar
to that?’
Mr. Bonnar, my lord’s chaplain, a lean, solemn young
man, was not immediately ready. The Earl replied for
him.
‘Mr. Bonnar will allow for the season, and Mr. Bonnar
will be wise. What saith the old poet?—
Ac neque jam stabulis gaudet pecus, aut aratror igni:
Nec prata canis albicant pruinis——
Eh, man, how does he pursue? Eh, Mr. Bonnar, what
saith he next?
Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente luna!’
‘The moon is overhead, indeed, my lord,’ says the
Secretary, ‘and her glamour all about us.’
But his master jumped away, and was soon sighing.
‘There is always a grain of sadness in the cup for us
elders, Mr. Secretar; amari aliquid, alas! But I am
served.’ He was supping in his room. ‘Master Bonnar
will call down a blessing from on high.’ Master Bonnar
was now ready.
The game went on through the meal. Lethington
seemed to be standing on razors, the Earl not disapproving.
The great man ate sparingly, and drank cold water; but
his talk was incessant—of nothing at all—ever skirting
realities, leading his hearers on, then skipping away. Not
until the table was cleared and young Mr. Bonnar released
from his blinking duties was the Secretary also delivered
from torments. The scene shifted, the Earl suddenly
chilled, and Lethington knew his ground. They got to
work over letters from England, a new tone in which had
troubled the Secretary’s dreams. He expounded them—some
being in cypher—then summed up his difficulties.
‘It stands thus, my lord, as I take it. Here came over
to us this young prince from England, with a free hand.
We took what seemed fairly proffered; and why indeed
should we be backward? We were as free to take him
as her English Majesty was free to send him. Oh, there
have been freedoms! I will not say we could have done
no better, in all ways. No matter! We opened our arms
to what came, as we thought, sped lovingly towards us.
Mr. Randolph himself could not deny that we had reason;
and I shall make bold to say that never did lady show
such kindness to a match, not of her own providing, as
our mistress showed to this. But now, my lord, now,
when the sun hath swelled the buds, there is a change in
the wind from England—a nip, a hint of malice. These
letters exhibit it, to my sense. I think Mr. Randolph
may be recalled: I am not sure, but I do think it. I know
that he desires it; I know that he suffers discomfort, that
he does not see his way. “Is this young man our subject
or yours?” he asketh. “Is he subject at all, or Regent
rather? And if Regent, whom is he to rule?” No, my
lord, Mr. Randolph, whether instructed or not, is itching
to be off. And that is pity, because he is bond-slave
of the Beaton, and would lavish all his counsel at her
feet if she desired him. Briefly, my lord, I jalouse the
despatch of Throckmorton to our Court, not upon a
friendly mission.’
The Earl listened, but moved not a muscle. He looked
like an image of old wax, when the pigment is all faded
out, and the wan smooth stuff presents no lines to be read.
‘You are right,’ he said presently: ‘Mr. Throckmorton
comes, but Mr. Randolph remains. The Queen
of England——’ He stopped.
‘She is against us, my lord? She grudges us the heir
of both crowns!’
‘I say not. She thinks him unworthy: but I must not
believe it, nor must you. Mr. Secretar, you shall go to
England. Presently—presently—we must be very patient.
Now of my sister, how doth she?’
‘The Queen dotes, my lord,’ said Lethington, and
angered the Earl, it seemed.
‘Shame, sir! Shame, Mr. Secretar! Fie! Queens must
not dote.’
It was characteristic of the relation between this pair
that the master was always leading the man into admissions
and professing to be cut to the soul by them. But Mr.
Secretary had the habit of allowing for it. ‘I withdraw
the word, my lord. Maybe I know nothing. Who am I,
when all’s said, to judge?’
The Earl lowered his eyelids until they fluttered over
his eyes like two white moths. ‘How stand you with the
Fleming, Lethington? How stand you there? Can she
make no judge of you?’
It was the stroke too much. The stricken creature
flinched; and then something real came out of him. ‘Ah,
my good lord,’ he said, with dignity in arms for his secret
honour, ‘you shall please to consider me there as the suitor
of an honest lady, and very sensible of the privilege.’
Lord Moray opened his eyes, stood up and held out his
hands. ‘I ask your pardon, Mr. Secretar—freely I ask
it of you. Come—enough of weary business. Crave an
audience for me. I will go to the Queen.’
Mr. Secretary kissed his patron’s hand. ‘My prince
shall forgive his servant——’
‘Oh, man, say no more!’
‘——and accept his humble duty. I will carry your
lordship to the Queen. Will you first see the Italian?’
Quickly his lordship changed his face. ‘Why should
I see the Italian? What have I to do with him? Mr.
Secretar, Mr. Secretar, let every man do cheerfully his
own office, so shall the state thrive.’
He had the air of quoting Scripture.
The Queen saw her brother for a few moments, and he
in her what he desired to be sure of: eyes like dancing
water, and about her a glow such as the sun casts early on
a dewy glade. He had never known her so gentle, or so
without wit; nor had she ever before kissed him of her
own accord. Lady Argyll, his own sister, was with her,
the swarthy, handsome, large woman.
‘You are welcome, brother James,’ Queen Mary said;
‘and now we’ll all be happy together.’
‘I shall believe it, having it from your Majesty’s lips,’
said he.
She touched her lips, as if she were caressing what had
been blessed to her. ‘I think my lips will never dare be
false.’
He said warmly, ‘There speaketh a queen in her own
right!’ What need had he to see the Italian?
Now, for the sake of contrast, look for one moment
upon that other great man, the Chancellor Morton, in his
privacy. Booted and spurred, he plumped himself down
in a chair, clapped his big hands to his thighs and stuck
out his elbows. He stared up open-mouthed at his kinsman
Archie, twinkling his eyes, all prepared to guffaw.
Humour was working through the heavy face. ‘Well,
man? Well, man? How is it with Cousin Adonis?’
Archie Douglas, scared at first, peered about him into
all corners of the room before he could meet the naughty
eyes. Catching them at last expectant, he made a grimace
and flipped finger and thumb in the air. ‘Adonis! Hoots!
a prancing pie!’
The Earl of Morton rubbed his hands together. ‘Plenty
of rope, man, Archie! Plenty of rope for the likes of
him!’
Des-Essars has a long piece concerning the official presentation
of the two earls to the prince, which seems to
have been done with as much state as the Scottish Court
could achieve.
‘My Lord of Darnley’s mistake,’ he says, ‘was to be
stiff with the wrong man. He was civil to the Chancellor,
his cousin—where a certain insolence would have been
salutary; he made him a French bow, and gave him his
hand afterwards, English fashion. But to my Lord of
Moray, a cruelly proud man, he chose to show the true
blood’s consciousness of the base; and in so doing, the hurt
he may have inflicted at the moment was as nothing to
what he laid up for himself. It was late in the day to
insist upon the Lord James’s bastardy. Yet——“Ah, my
Lord of Moray! Servant of your lordship, I protest.”
And then: “Standen, my gloves. I have the headache.”
He used scented gloves as a febrifuge. “A prancing pie!”
said Monsieur de Douglas in my hearing. Nevertheless,
my Lord of Moray spoke his oration; very fine, but marred
by a too level, monotonous delivery—a blank wall of sound—to
which, for all that, one must needs listen. He was
not a personable man; for his jaw was too spare and his
mouth too tight. His flat brows, also, had that air of strain
which makes intercourse uncomfortable. But he was a
great man, and a deliberate man, and the most patient man
I ever knew or heard of, except Job the Patriarch. So he
spoke his oration, and left everybody as wise as they were
before.’
I myself suspect that the good Lord James was gaining
time to look round and consider what he should do. And
although he had scouted the notion that he could have
anything to say to the Italian, the fact is noteworthy that
to seek him out privately was one of the first things he did
with his time. Signior David told him frankly two things:
first, that if the Queen did not marry her prince soon she
would come to loathing the sight of him; secondly, he said
that if she did marry him the lords would get him murdered.
‘These two considerations,’ said Davy in effect, ‘really hang
together. The lords, your lordship’s colleagues, are not in
love with the young man, and so are quite ready to be at
him. But she at present is so, and in full cry. When she
slackens, and has time to open her eyes and see him as he
is——Hoo! let him then say his Confiteor!’
It is not to be supposed that such perilous topics were
discussed with this brevity and point—certainly not where
the Earl of Moray was one of the discutants; this, however,
is the sum, confirmed to the Earl by what he observed
of the Court. There was no doubt but that the two things
did indeed hang together.
The Queen, his sister, as he saw very soon, did not go
half-heartedly to work in this marriage project. And the
louder grew the murmurs of Mr. Randolph, handing on
English threats, the more loyally she clung—not to her
prince, perhaps, but to what she had convinced herself her
prince was. He studied that young man minutely upon
every occasion, spent smiles and civilities upon him, received
rebuffs in return, and (with an air of saying ‘I like your
spirit’) came next day for more. He saw him hector
Signior Davy, tempt Lord Ruthven to rabies, run after
Mary Sempill, allow the Queen to run after him, get drunk.
He saw him ride with his hounds, break in a colt, thrash a
gentleman, kiss two women, lose money at a tennis match,
and draw his dagger on the Master of Lindsay who had
won it. A very little conversation with the Court circle,
and two words with his sister of Argyll, sufficed him.
‘Ill blood,’ said that stern lady. ‘The little bloat frog
will swell till he burst unless we prick him beforehand.
Not all Scots lords have your fortitude, brother James.’
‘Hush, sister, hush! I think better of poor Scotland
than you do. Who are we—unhappy pensioners—to
judge her Majesty’s choice?’
He walked away, being a most respectable man, lest his
fierce sister should lead him farther than it was convenient
to go; and after a week’s reflection sent Mr. Secretary
Lethington into England, with sealed letters for Mr. Cecil
and open letters for the Queen. In these he echoed English
sentiments, that the marriage was deplorable from every
view, to be opposed by every lover of peace and true religion.
He should do what could be done to serve her
English Majesty, being convinced that no better way of
serving his own Queen was open to him. The bearer was
in possession of his full mind; the Lord of Lethington
would convince his friends by lively testimonies, etc. etc.
This done, even then (so slow-dealing was he) he took
another week to deliberate before he selected his plan of
action and his hour. He could afford so much time, but
not much more.
It was an hour of a night when there was dancing and
mumchance: torches, musicians in the gallery, a mask of
satyrs, an ode of Mr. Buchanan’s declaimed, and some
French singing, in which Des-Essars eclipsed his former
self and won the spleen of Adam Gordon. For if her
Majesty had sent Adam into the Lothians and rewarded
him for it with a pat of the cheek, now she called the other
up to the daïs, publicly kissed him, and gave him a little
purse worked in roses by herself. There were broad pieces
in it too.
‘I shall pay you for that, Baptist my man; see you to
it,’ says Adam.
But Jean-Marie flourished his purse before he put it into
his bosom and hooked his doublet upon it. ‘Draw upon
me, Monsieur de Gordon, and let it be for blood if you
choose. I can well afford it.’
For the first time since her entry into Scotland the Queen
wore colours. She appeared in a broad-skirted, much-quilted,
tagged and spangled gown of yellow satin; netted
over with lace-work done in pearls. The bodice was long
and pointed, low in the neck; but a ruff edged with pearls
ran up from either shoulder, like two great petals, within
which her neck and feathered head were as the stamen of
the flower. It did not suit her to be so sumptuous, because
that involved stiffness; and she was too slim to carry the
gear, and too active, too supple and humoursome to be
anything but miserable in it. But she chose to shine that
night, so that she might honour her prince in her brother’s
cold eyes.
After supper, when there was general dancing, the Earl
of Moray surprised everybody by walking across the hall
to where Lord Darnley stood. A dozen or more heard his
exact words: ‘Come, my lord,’ he said, ‘I am spokesman
for us all; and here is my humble suit, that you will lead
the Queen in a measure. It would be her own choice, so
you cannot deny me. Come, I will lead you to her Majesty.’
He spoke more loudly but no less deliberately than
usual; there was quite a little commotion. Even the
young prince himself knew that this was an extraordinary
civility. One may add, perhaps, that even he received it
graciously. Bowing, blushing a little, he said: ‘My lord,
I shall always serve the Queen’s grace, and, I hope, content
her. I take it thankfully from your lordship that in this
yours is the common voice.’
The Earl took him by the hand up the hall. The Queen
had starry eyes when she saw them coming.
‘Madam,’ said her half-brother, ‘here I bring a partner
for your Majesty whom I am persuaded you will not refuse.
If you think him more backward than he should be and
myself more forward, you shall reflect, madam, that by
these means my zeal is enabled to join hands with his
modesty.’
‘We thank you, brother,’ replied the Queen, in a voice
scarcely audible. She was certainly touched, as she looked
up at her prince with quivering lips. But he laughed a
brave answer back, and held out his hand to take hers.
The musicians in the gallery, who had been primed beforehand,
struck into a galliard.
This dance is really a formal comedy, what we call a
ballet, with grave, high-handed turns to left and right,
curtseyings, bowings, retreats and pursuits. It quickens
or dies according to the air. You make your first stately
steps, you bow and separate; you dance apart, upon signal
you return. The theme of every galliard is Difference and
Reconciliation. It is a Roman thing, and has five airs to
it. The air chosen here was, ‘Baisons-nous, ma belle.’
The prince was a stilted dancer, Queen Mary the best
of her day—the exercise was a passion of hers. As for
him, he could never be any better, for, doubting his own
dignity, he was extremely jealous of it. It seemed to him
that to be limber would be to exhibit weakness. The
result of this disparity between the partners was, to the
spectators, that the Queen had the air of drawing him on,
of enticing him, of inspiring all this parade of tiffs and
sweet accord. It was she who, at the curtsey, showed
herself saucy and maline—she who, like a rustic beauty,
glanced and shook her head, hunched her white shoulder
and tossed his presence away. So it was she who came
tripping back, held off, invited pursuit, suffered capture,
melted suddenly to kindness. He regained her hand, as it
appeared, by right and without effort; she let it rest, they
thought, in thankful duty. It was make-believe, of course;
but she lived her part, and he did not. So blockish was
he that, Mary Seton said, the Queen seemed like a girl
hanging garlands round a garden god. All watched and
all passed judgment, but were prejudiced by the knowledge
that, as she danced, so she would choose to be. In the
midst, and unperceived, the Earl of Moray went out of the
hall, and sought the Italian in his writing cabinet.
Signior Davy was at work there by the light of a tallow
candle. His hair was disordered, his bonnet awry; he
had unfastened his doublet, and his shirt had overflowed
his breeches. He wrote fast, but like an artist, with his
head well away from his hand. It went now to one side,
now to another, as he estimated the shapes of his thin
lettering. ‘Eh! probiamo! Ma sì, ma sì—così va
meglio.’ So he chattered to himself at his happy
craft.
The Earl of Moray stepped quietly into the room and
closed the door behind him. The scribe lifted up his head
without ceasing to write. ‘Ah, Monsieur de Moray!
Qu’il soit le bienvenu!’ He finished the foliation of a
word, jumped up, snatched at his patron’s hand, briskly
kissed it, and said, ‘Commandi!’
They talked in French, in which the Earl was an exact,
if formal, practitioner. There was no fencing between
them. My lord did not affect to be shocked at hearing
what he desired to know, nor the Italian to mean what he
did not say.
‘I have been witness of great doings this night, Signior
David.’
‘The night is the time for doings, I consider,’ replied
the Italian.
This general reflection the Earl passed over for the
moment. ‘They dance the galliard in hall—the Queen
and the Prince. You can hear the rebecks from here.’
‘I know the tune, sir!’ cried Davy. ‘I set it. I scored
it for her long ago. It is Baisons-nous, ma belle. But
they murder it by clinging to the fall. It needs passion
if it is to breed passion. That music should hurt you.’
‘Passion is not wanting, Signior David,’ said my lord,
with narrowed, ever narrowing eyes. ‘And passion is
much. But opportunity is more.’
The Italian started. ‘You think it is a good hour?’
‘Judge you of the hour,’ said the Earl of Moray.
The Italian frowned, as he drummed with his fingers on
the table. He sang a little air: Belle, qui tiens ma vie!
My lord took a ring from his finger and laid it down: a
thin ring with a flat-cut single diamond in it, of great size
and water. Singing still, the Italian picked it up, looked
lazily at it. He embodied his criticism in his song—‘Non
c’è male, Signore! No-o-o-o-on c’è-è male!’ All at once
he clapped it down upon the desk and jumped round—fire-fraught,
quivering, a changed man.
‘You wish your opportunity—you think the hour is
struck! You observe—you judge—you make your plans—you
wait—you watch—and—ah! You come to me—you
say, Passion is not wanting, but opportunity is all.
And my music lends it: Baisons-nous, ma belle, hey?
Good, sir! good, sir! I thank you, and I meet you half-way.
In a little moment—ha! here is the moment.
Listen.’ A bell in the tower began to toll.
‘Midnight, sir!’ cried the Italian, leaping about and
waving his arms. ‘That is the midnight bell!’ He
struck a great pose—head thrown back, one hand in his
breast. ‘Era già l’ ora che volge il disio! Come, come,
my lord, we will put the point to the pyramid. Wait
for me.’
He ran out, cloaking head and shoulders as he went;
the Earl awaited him massively. In a little while he was
back again, cheerful, almost riotously cheerful, accompanied
by a blue-chinned young man, a priest of the old
religion, whose eyes looked beady with fright to see the
grim Protestant lord.
‘No, no, my reverend, have no fears at all,’ said the
Italian; ‘see nobody, hear nothing; but go to the chapel
and vest yourself for midnight mass. Quick, my dear,
quick!—off with you!’
My lord had contrived to freeze himself out of sight or
conscience of this part of the business. It was droll to see
how abstractedly he looked at the wall. The priest had
disappeared before the Italian touched his arm, beckoning
him to follow.
They descended from the turret upon the long corridor
which connected the two wings of the house; they went
down a little stair, and came to the Queen’s door, which
led from the hall to her own side. This door was closed,
but not locked. Pushing it gently open, Signior Davy
saw young Gordon looking at the crowd in the dusty hall,
his elbows on his knees. The hum and buzz of talk came
eddying up the stair—little cries, manly assurance, protestations,
and so on. ‘Hist, Monsieur de Gordon, hist!’
Adam looked up, Des-Essars peeped round the corner:
those two were never far apart.
The Italian whispered, ‘I must have a word with the
Queen as she comes up. It is serious. Warn her of it.’
Adam coloured up; he was flustered. It was Des-Essars
who, looking sharply at the incisive man, nodded his head.
Signior David drew back, and drew his companion back.
They waited at the head of the stair in the shadow, listening
to the rumours of the hall.
There came presently a lull in the talk, a hushing-down;
some sort of preparation, expectancy; they heard
the Queen say, quite clearly, ‘To-morrow, to-morrow I will
consider it. I cannot hear you now.’ A voice pleaded,
‘Ah, madam, in pity——!’ and hers again: ‘No, no, no!
Come, ladies.’
‘Room there, sirs! Give room there, my ladies!’ cried
the usher. Good-nights followed, laughing and confused
speech, shuffling of feet, and some rustling—kissing of
hands, no doubt. Then, as one knows what one cannot
see, they felt her coming.
Arthur Erskine, Captain of the Guard, marched up first,
solemnly, with two great torches; Bastien the valet, some
more servants. Margaret Carwood, bedchamber-woman,
appeared at the stair-head. Some of the maids of honour
passed up—Mary Beaton and a young French girl, hand-in-hand,
Mary Sempill, and others. Des-Essars stepped
from his place at the foot of the stairs and was no more
seen.
He was the next to reach the upper floor: Des-Essars
himself, white and tense. ‘She will speak to you here,’ he
told the Italian. ‘Show yourself to her.’
‘Altro!’ said Davy. Immediately after, they heard the
Queen coming.
She paused on the landing and looked about her. Then
she saw the Italian. ‘You wait for me, David? Go in,
mes belles,’ she said to Fleming and Seton, who were with
her; ‘and you too, Carwood. I am coming.’
They left her, and she stood alone, waiting, but not
beckoning. She looked very tired.
The Italian approached her on tiptoe, and began to
talk. He talked in whispers, with his hasty voice, with
his darting, inspired hands, with every nerve of his body.
She was startled at first—but he flooded her with words:
she had turned her face quickly towards him, with an
‘Oh! Oh!’ and then had looked as if she would run. But
he held out his imploring hands; he talked faster and
faster; he pointed to heaven, extended his arms, patted
his breast, jerked his head, sobbed, dashed away real tears.
She was trembling; he saw her trembling. He folded
arms over breast, flung them desperately apart, clasped his
hands, seemed to be praying. Godlike clemency seemed
to sit in him as he talked on; he looked at her with calm,
pitying, far-searching eyes. His words came more slowly,
as if he was now announcing the inevitable sum of his
frenzy. She considered, hanging her head; but when he
named her brother she started violently, could not control
her shaking-fit, nor bring herself to look into the shadow.
The Italian beckoned to his patron, who then came softly
forward out of the dark.
‘Dear madam, dear sister——’ he began; but she
stopped him by a look.
‘Brother, are you leading me?’
He denied it with an oath.
‘Brother,’ she said again, ‘I do think it.’
Then he changed, saying: ‘Why, then, sister, if I am, it
is whither your heart has cried to go.’
‘I believe that is the very truth,’ she owned, and looked
wistfully into his face. Signior Davy went downstairs.
She pleaded for a little time. She had not confessed for
five days—she was not ready—there should be more form
observed in the mating of princes—what was the English
use? In France—but this was not France.
He admitted everything. And yet, he said, the heart
was an instant lover, happiest in simplicity. A prince was
a prince from birth, before the solemn anointing. So a
bride might be a wife before the Queen had a Consort.
‘True,’ she said, ‘but a sovereign should consult his
subjects.’
‘Ah, sister,’ says he, ‘what woman could be denied her
heart’s choice?’
She hid her face. ‘God knoweth, God knoweth I do
well!’
‘Why, then, courage!’ said he. ‘Content your God,
madam, and follow conscience. It lies not in woman born
to do better.’
At this point the Italian came back, leading my lord.
The prince was flushed, as always at night, but sober, and
undoubtedly moved. He knelt before her Majesty unaffectedly,
bowing his head. ‘Oh, madam, my sovereign——’
he began to say; but then she gave a little
sharp cry, and took him up. Tenderly she looked at him,
searching his face.
‘Oh, I am here, my lord. Do you seek me?’
In return, after a moment’s regard of her beauty, he
choked a sob in his breath, shook his head and lifted it.
‘Now God judge me, if I seek thee not, my Mary!’
‘Come then,’ said the Queen—yet stood timorously still.
The Earl of Moray stepped forward with his arms uplifted.
His face was deadly white, but his eyes were fires.
‘Go in—go in——!’ he said with fierce breath, and
seemed to beat them before him into the open doorway.
When he had his royal pair safe in the chapel, the
candles lit and the priest at his secret prayers before the
altar[2]—then, and not before, did Signior Davy call in
the maids, Arthur Erskine, and Des-Essars. They came
trooping in together—nine, of them, all told—saw the lit
altar, the priest in yellow and white, the server, and those
two who knelt at the rail in their tumbled finery. Mary
Sempill gasped and would have cried out, Mary Seton
blinked her eyes, as if to give herself courage; but Davy
pointed awfully to the priest, who had made his introit and
opened the missal, and now stood rapt, with his hands
stuck out. If Arthur Erskine had moved, if Des-Essars
had started for the door, these fluttered women might
have——But Erskine stood like a stone Crusader, and
little Jean-Marie was saying his prayers. The Earl of
Moray was without the door, having refused to come in.
Thus the deed was done. The Italian himself shut the
chamber door upon them and warned off the scared maids.
Outside that door, Adam Gordon and Des-Essars whispered
their quarrel out.
‘She gave me a ring when I came back from Liddesdale
and hunting Bothwell,’ says Adam.
‘Pooh, man: that she would have thrown to a groom.
Bastien has had the like. And what matters it now
whether she gave thee anything, or me anything? Ah!’
‘Let me hold that purse, Baptist, or I’ll scrag ye. ’Tis
my right.’
‘How your right, my fine sir?’
‘You swore that we should share her. The plan was
yours. You swore it on the cross. And you’ve held my
ring twice in your hands, and had it on your finger the
length of the Sentinel’s Walk. You disgrace yourself by
this avarice.’
‘You shall not hold my purse, Adam; but you may
feel it.’
‘Let me feel it, then. For how long?’
‘Till the bell goes the hour.’
‘That is only a minute or two.’
‘It will be ten minutes, I tell you. Now then, if you
care.’
Master Gordon put his hand into the bosom of Master
Des-Essars and solemnly pinched the purse.
‘She’ll be sleeping now,’ said Adam.
‘I doubt it,’ said Jean-Marie.
He fell ill of measles, the young prince, before they
could leave Wemyss—measles followed by much weakness,
sweating, and ague; and though all her whispering
world—but the few—might wonder, nothing could keep
her from the proud uses of wifehood. She took her place
by his bed early—pale with care, yet composed—and kept
it till past midnight. It was beautiful to see her, with rank
and kingship cast aside, more dignified by her little private
fortune, more a queen for her enclosed realm. For now she
swayed a sick-room, and was absolute there: let seditious
murmurings and alarms toss their pikes beyond the border.
And indeed they did. Her secret marriage had been so
well kept, the Court fairly hummed with scandal; and the
simple truth was given a dog’s death that romantic tales
might thrive. It was commonly said that if she married
him now it would only be because shame would drive her.
The Earl of Morton went about with this clacking on his
tongue; plain men like Atholl and Herries looked all ways
for a pardon upon the doting Queen. In their company the
Earl of Moray lifted up deprecating hands; he agreed with
the Earl of Morton, advised Atholl and Herries to pray
without ceasing. The winds were blowing as he required
them; but this sickness was vexatious, with the delays it
brought. Time is of the essence of the contract, even if
that be only between a vainglorious youth and a rope.
Mr. Secretary wrote from England that the Queen of that
country was implacably against the marriage; it was
possible even now that it might be stopped. But it must
on no account be stopped.
This was, in early May, the plain view of the Earl of
Moray: that the thing must be publicly done, and soon
done, in order that his schemes should bear fruit. It is an
odd, almost inexplicable fact that he was to change his
whole mind in the course of a few weeks, and for no deeper
reason than a word lightly let fall by the Queen, his half-sister.
But what a word that was to the bastard of a king!
It was the word King.
There came to Wemyss, in the midst of these measles
and scandalous whisperings, a certain Murray of Tullibardine,
a friend of Bothwell’s—him and one Pringle.
They came together, and yet separately: Pringle with
griefs to be healed—that he, being a servant of my Lord
Bothwell’s, had been summarily dismissed with kicks on a
sensitive part; Tullibardine as a friend, frankly to sue his
friend’s pardon. My Lord Moray refused to help him,
having neither love nor use for a Bothwell, but he got to
the Queen by the back stairs and put his client’s case.
However, she scarcely listened to him. Busy as she was,
it was strange to see how far away from her ken the dread
Hepburn had drifted.
‘From the Earl of Bothwell—you? What has he to
report of himself—and by you?’
Tullibardine spoke of duty, forgiveness, the clemency of
the prince, while the Queen stirred the broth in her hand.
‘I never sent him to France,’ she said, ‘but to the Castle
of Edinburgh rather. He set me at nought when he fled
this country. Let him return to the place I put him in,
and we will think about duty, forgiveness, and the prince’s
clemency. I bear him no more ill-will than he has put in
me, and he can take it out when he pleases.’
‘I thank your Majesty,’ said Tullibardine, ‘and my
noble friend will thank you.’
‘He has only himself to thank, so far as I see,’ she
replied, and dismissed him before the broth could get cold.
Meantime the Earl of Moray had held a godly conversation
with afflicted Pringle. Pringle had much to say:
as that, of all men living, the Lord Bothwell hated two—his
good lordship of Moray and Mr. Secretary. He had
sworn to be the death of each when he returned.
The Earl of Moray compressed his lips, straightened
himself, and cleared his throat.
‘I fear for him, Pringle,’ he said, ‘the wild, misgoverned,
glorious young man. I cannot charge myself with any
offence against him, and yet I remember that when I was
in France he girded at me more than once. But I am
accustomed in such variancy to hold my plain course.
Pringle, that was a desperate gentleman. He had to be
forbid the Court.’
‘True, my lord,’ says Pringle, ‘and your lordship knows
to what abominable usages he hath——’
‘Pray, Pringle, pray, no more!’
Pringle was now in the painful position of having staked
out a short road and finding it denied him. ‘I must
whisper in your lordship’s ear. I must make so bold.’
‘Man, I refuse you. Heinous living be far from me!’
‘My lord, I have heard the Lord Bothwell speak of the
Queen’s grace in a manner——’
‘Ay, it is like enough, poor Pringle. The wicked man
seeth wickedness all over.’
‘He spake of the Queen, my lord—in your ear——’
He breathed it low, a vile accusation concerning the
Cardinal of Lorraine and the Queen—his niece, and then
a girl of eighteen.
The Earl cowed him with a look. ‘Go, Pringle, go!
This talk should never have been held between us. You
have misused my charity. Go, I say.’
Pringle shivered out.
In his time the Earl of Moray saw the Queen, and, after
due preparation, chose to tarnish her ears with the tale.
But she was not at all tarnished. From her safe seat,
with but a party-wall between her husband and her, she
received it brightly.
‘Why, what a ragged tongue he hath! The poor, proud
Cardinal! Did he not love me? I believe he always
did.’
‘Madam,’ said her brother, ‘you interpret gently. This
makes the slanderer’s damnation the deeper.’
She laughed. ‘It is plain, brother, that you know little
of France. In France the truth goes for nothing, but the
jest is all. My Lord Bothwell has been much in France.’
‘A jest, madam? This a jest?’
‘It is quite in their manner. I remember the old
King——’ She broke off suddenly. ‘Oh, brother, my
King is more at ease! This morning his fever left him,
and there broke a great sweat.’
‘I rejoice,’ said he—‘I rejoice. But touching this
horrible railer—if he should crave leave to return——’
‘He has craved it already,’ replied the Queen. ‘I
answered that if he choose to come back to his prison
he may do it. But not otherwise. Brother, I must go
to the King.’
The King! We were there, then; and it galled him
like a rowel. Although she used it warily, and only with
the nine persons who were privy, he could not bear the
word; for every time he heard it he was stung into remembering
that he ought to have foreseen it and had not.
It is to be admitted that it had never once crossed his
mind—neither the word nor the thing; astute, large-minded,
wide-ranging as he was, he was also that unimaginative,
prim-thinking man who has pigeon-holes for
the categories, knows nothing of passion that breaks all
rules, nor can conceive how loyalty is like meat to women
in love, and humility like wine. Lethington could have
told him these things, the Italian could have told him, any
of the maids; and he never to have guessed at them!
Dangerously mortified at the discovery, his disgust with
himself and the fact worked together into one great distemper.
This it was which threw him out of his balance,
and led him presently to the greatest length he ever went;
but at present it was only gathering in him. It made him
doubtful, distrustful of himself and all; and when he looked
about for supports he could find none to his taste. One
folly after another! How he had cut away his friends!
There was Lethington in England. There was the Italian,
who knew so much. He sickened at the thought of that
capable ruffian who had helped him hasten the crowning
of ‘the King.’ Very possibly—very certainly, it seemed
to him now, brooding over it in stillness and the dark—very
possibly the ruin of his life had been laid that night
when he had sought out the creature in his den and
bought him with a diamond. Argyll was here, Rothes,
Glencairn, and their like, and Morton the Chancellor,
whom he only half trusted. Besides, Morton was cousin
of this flagrant ‘King,’ and would rise as he rose. On the
whole, and for want of better, he consorted with Argyll
and his friends, and dared go so far as this, to tell them
that he had fears of the marriage.
‘I could have wished,’ he said to Argyll, ‘a livelier
sense of favours done in so young a man; also that my
sister might have judged more soberly how far to meet
him. If men of age and known probity had been
consulted!’
Glencairn, a passably honest man, and undoubtedly a
pious man, said tentatively here, that no lord of the
Council could be found to support the Prince. As for
the Queen’s grace——
‘She has been unhappily rash,’ says Moray; ‘I cannot
think more. Maidenly lengths would have become her, a
queenly regard, but surely no more.’ He turned to Argyll.
‘Frankly, brother-in-law, Mr. Knox should not hear of
these late doings—of these bedside ministrations, these
transports, these fits of self-communing, this paltering
with the tempter, this doffing of regalities. I pray, I
pray for Scotland!’
‘The gowk’s a papist,’ says Argyll, a plain man.
‘He is young, brother-in-law; that we remember
always.’
‘He stinks of pride,’ says Argyll,—‘sinful, lusty pride
of blood. If this marriage be made we shall all rue it.’
The Earl of Moray clapped a hand to each of his
shoulders.
‘Brother-in-law, pray for Scotland!’
‘Oh, ay,’ says Argyll, ‘and put an edge to my Andrew
Ferrara.’
How she lingered over him, prayed over him, watched
every petulant twitching of his limbs, no one could know
altogether save Mary Sempill, and she had affairs of her
own to consider—a wife who knew she was going to be a
mother. But for this proud preoccupation, she might have
seen how touchingly the Queen made the most of her
treasure, and how all the ardour which had hurried her
into wedlock was now whipped up again to prove it bliss.
Was he fretful—and was he not? It was the fever in his
dear bones. Was he gross-mannered? Nay, but one must
be tender of young blood. Did he choose to have his Englishmen
about him, his Archie Douglas to tell him salt
tales, while she sat with her maids and waited? Well,
well, a man must have men with him now and again, and
is never the better husband for cosseting. When they
urged her to be a queen, she lowered her eyes and said
she was a wife. This raised an outcry.
‘He is, he can only be, your consort, madam.’
‘I am his, you mean,’ said she. ‘The man chooses the
woman. There are no crowns in the bridal bed, and none
in heaven. Naked go we to both.’
Mary Sempill wrung her hands over talk of the sort.
‘Out, alas! My foolish, fond, sweet lass!’
But Mary Fleming considered, nursing her cheek in the
way she had. ‘The strength of a man overrides all your
politics, my dear,’ she said gently. ‘The Salic Law is the
law of nature, I have heard men say.’
‘God smite this youth if he try it!’ said Sempill fiercely.
‘He’ll set the heather afire and burn us all in our beds.
And you, Fleming, will have need of mercy in your turn,
if you hearken to your grey-faced Lethington.’
‘Mr. Secretary has a very noble heart, Mary. I hope
I may say the same of your Master.’
Mary Sempill sniffed. ‘My Master, as you call him,
has a head for figures. He can cipher you two and two.
And he says of your Lethington that he is working mischief
in England.’
Mary Fleming rose with spirit to this challenge. ‘I
cannot believe it. You are angry with me because you
are vexed with the King.’
Then it was Mary Sempill to bounce away. ‘The King!
Never use that word to me, woman. There shall be no
King in Scotland till my mistress bears him.’
But she was talking without her book.
They moved to Stirling as soon as the young lord was
mended; and thither came the Earl of Lennox, in a high
taking—foxy, close-eyed, crop-bearded, fussy and foolish—to
pay his respects to the Prince his son. Never was a
more disastrous combination made: they cut the Court in
half, as shears a length of cloth. The garrulity of the old
man set everybody on edge; then came the insolent son,
to prove the truth even worse than they had feared. His
father egged him on to preposterous lengths, intolerable
behaviour; so the ‘pretty cockerel,’ as they called him in
France, made wild work in the hill-town. He quarrelled so
fiercely with my Lord Rothes that Davy had to pull him
off by main force, and then he drew his dagger on the Lord
Justice Clerk, who came to his lodging with a message from
the Queen.
‘Tell your mistress,’ he had cried out to that astonished
officer, ‘that I pay honour to none but the honourable.
You have come here with lies in your throat. She sent me
no such message. You are a very dirty fellow.’
Archie Douglas put in his oar. ‘No, no, sir. You
jest with the Lord Justice Clerk—but your jest is too
broad.’
‘By God, man,’ says the Prince, ‘this jest of mine is
narrow at the point. Let him come on and taste the forky
tongue of it.’
The Lord Justice Clerk was too flustered to be offended
at the moment; but when he had gained the calm of the
street he shuddered to recall the scene. Her Majesty must
be informed of every circumstance: flesh and blood could
not endure such affronts. It needed all her Majesty’s
cajolery to salve the wounded man, and more than she
had over to comfort herself when he had gone away
mollified.
Lord Ruthven was one of the Prince’s intimates at this
time, a malign influence; and the everlasting Italian was
another. Signior Davy, at home in all the chambers of
the house, used to sit on the edge of the young man’s bed
and pare his nails while he talked philosophy and statecraft.
It was he who tempered the storm which had nearly
maddened the Lord Justice Clerk.
‘Your lordship is in a fair way to the haven,’ he said.
‘I tell you honestly you will get on no quicker for this
choler. You must needs be aware that her Majesty will
have no rest until you and she are publicly wedded. She
is fretting herself to strings under that desire. What then
is my advice to your lordship? Why, to sit very still, and
to insist with your respectable father that he hold his
tongue. I speak plainly; but it is to my friend and
patron.’
The Prince was not offended—but he was obstinate.
‘Speak as plain as you please, Davy, and deal for me as
warily as you can. The patent should be sealed.’
That was the root of the quarrel—his patent of creation
to be Duke of Rothesay. The Queen had promised it to
him, but there had been vexed debate over it in the
Council. It was a title for kings’ sons, and had always
been so. The Earl of Moray vehemently opposed; the
Argylls, Glencairns, and others of his friends followed him;
they had hopes also of the Chancellor. At the minute,
therefore, although the Queen had insisted even unto tears,
she had not been able to get her way. So she pretended
to give over the effort, meaning, of course, to work round
about for it. She had seen the Chancellor’s wavering: if
she could gain him she would have much. All she wanted
for herself was time, all from the Prince was patience. But
the furious fool had none to lend her.
When the Italian had done his work upon his nails—the
rough with the knife, the rounding-off with his teeth—he
resumed his spoken thoughts.
‘Your patent,’ he said, ‘is as good as sealed. The
Queen is at work upon it in ways which are past your lordship’s
finding out. For the love of mercy, be patient: you
little know what you are risking by this intemperance.
Why, with patience you will gain what no patent of her
Majesty’s can give you: that little matter of kingship,
which, in such a case as yours, goes only by proclamation
and——’
My lord pricked up his ears to this royal word. ‘Ha!
In a good hour, Master David!’
‘Good enough, when it comes,’ says Davy; ‘but you
did not allow me to finish. Proclamation—and acclamation,
I was about to add; for one is as needed as the
other.’
This was a fidgety addition.
‘Pooh!’ cried the Prince, ‘the pack follows the horn.’
He set the Italian’s shoulders to work. ‘I advise you
not to count upon it, my lord. In this country there is no
pack of hounds, but a flock—many flocks—of sheep.
And they follow the shepherd, you must know. Therefore
you must be prudent; let me say, more prudent. The
Queen comes to you too much; you go to her too little.
It is she that pays the court, where it should be you. Dio
mio! It is not decent. It is madness.’
‘She is fond of me, Davy. The truth is, she is over-fond
of me.’
Signior Davy stopped himself just in time. He buried
his exclamation in a prodigious shrug.
The doings of the Lennoxes, father and son, which
scared the Court so finely, were the Earl of Moray’s only
hope. He, in truth, was very near finding himself in the
position of a man who should have lit a fire to keep wolves
from his door. The flames catch the eaves and burn his
house down: behold him without shelter, and the wolves
coming on! This is exactly his own case. Kingship for
the young man, by whose entangling he had hoped to
entangle his sister, was a noose round his own neck—the
mere threat of it was a noose. If he furthered it he was
ruined; if he opposed it—at this hour of the day—he
might equally be ruined. All his hope lay in England.
Let the Queen of England send for her runaway subjects,
and then—why, he could begin again. As day succeeded
to day, and favour to favour—the dukedom conferred, the
match in every one’s mouth, the Court at Edinburgh, the
Chapel Royal in fair view—he worked incessantly. He
dared not try the Italian again, lest the impudent dog
should grin in his face; but he secured Argyll and his
friends, the Duke of Châtelherault and his; he wrote to
Lethington, to Mr. Cecil, to the Earl of Leicester, to
Queen Elizabeth. And so it befel that, one certain morning,
English Mr. Randolph faced the Lennoxes with his
mistress’s clear commands. Father and son were to return
to England, or——
Quos ego—in fact; much too late for the fair. They
took the uncompromising message each after his kind:
Lennox, white-haired, ape-faced and fussy, sitting in his
deep leather chair, rolling his palms over the knobs of it,
swinging his feet free of the ground; the Prince his son
stiff as a rod, standing, with one hand to his padded hip—blockish
and surly as a rogue mule.
Lennox spoke first. ‘Hey, Master Randolph!’—his
little naked eyes were like pin-pricks—‘Hey, Master
Randolph, I dare not do it. No, no. It’s not in the power
of man living to do the like of it.’
Randolph shifted his scrutiny. The Prince was angry,
therefore bold; assured, therefore haughty.
‘And I, Randolph,’ he said, ‘tell you fairly that go I
will not.’
Randolph became dry. ‘I hope my lord, for a better
answer to the Queen your sovereign. Will and Shall are
bad travelling companions for a legate. I urge once more
your duty upon you.’
‘Duty!’ cried the flushed youth: ‘I own to no duty but
Queen Mary’s, and I never will. As to the other Queen,
your mistress, who grudges me my fortune, it is no wonder
that she needs me. You will understand wherefore in a
few days’ time. I do not intend to return: there is your
answer. I am very well where I am, and likely to be
better yet anon. So I purpose to remain. There is your
answer, which seems to me a good one.’
Randolph turned his back and left them. When he saw
the Earl of Moray he said that he had done his best to
serve him; and that, although he had no hope of staying
the marriage, his lordship might count upon the friendship
of England in all enterprises he might think well to engage
in ‘for the welfare of both realms.’ This was cold comfort.
Shortly after this disappointment the careworn lord got
into a wrangle with the Prince in a public place—not a
difficult thing to do. It began with the young man’s loud
rebuke of Mr. Knox, who (said he) had called him ‘a
covetous clawback,’ and whose ears he threatened to crop
with a pair of shears. Beginning in the vestibule of the
Council-chamber, it was continued on the open cawsey in
everybody’s hearing. There was heat; the younger may
have raised his hand against the elder, or he may not. The
Earl, at any rate, declared that he went in fear of his life.
Then came the hour, most memorable, when he saw the
Queen alone.
He was sent for, and he came, as he told her at once,
‘with his life in his hand.’
She asked him who would touch his hand, except to
take it and shake it?
‘One, madam,’ he replied darkly, ‘who is too near your
Majesty for my honour or——’ and there he stopped.
‘Or mine, would you say?’ she flashed back at him—one
of her penetrative flashes, following a quick turn of the
head. Remember, she knew nothing of his brawl with the
Prince.
He disregarded her riposte, and pursued his suspicions.
‘Madam, madam, I very well know—for I still have friends
in Scotland—in what danger I stand. I very well know
who talked together against me behind the back-gallery at
Perth, and can guess at what was said, and how this late
discreditable scene was laid——’
‘Oh, you guess this, brother! you guess that!’ the
Queen snapped at him; ‘I am weary of your guesses
against my friends. There was the Earl of Bothwell,
whom you guessed your mortal enemy; now I suppose it
is the Prince, my husband. Do you think all Scotland
finds you in the way? It is easy for you to remove the
suspicion.’
His looks reproached her. ‘Did you send for me,
madam, to wound me?’
‘No, no. You have served me well. I am not unmindful.’
Her eyes grew gentle as she remembered
Wemyss and the hasty mysteries of the night—the hurry,
the whispered urgings, the wild-beating heart. She held
out her hand, shyly, as befitted recognition of a blushful
service. ‘I can never quarrel with you, brother, knowing
what you know, remembering what you have seen.’
Whither was fled the finer sense of the man? He misunderstood
her grossly, believing that she feared his
knowledge. He did not take her proffered hand—she
drew it back after a while, slowly.
‘You say well, sister,’ he answered, with cold reserve.
‘There should be no quarrel, nor need there be, while you
remember me—and yourself.’
‘It was not at all in my mind, I assure you,’ she told
him, with an air of dismissing the foolish thing; and went
on, in the same breath, to speak of the vexatious news
from England—as if he and she were of the same opinion
about that! Her ‘good sister,’ she said, was holding
strange language, requiring the return of ‘subjects in
contumacy,’ showing herself offended at unfriendly dealing,
and what not—letters, said Queen Mary, which required
speedy answer, and could have but one answer. The
Contract of Matrimony, in short, had been prepared by my
Lord Morton, was ready to be signed; the high parties
were more than ready. Should she send for the treaty?
She wished her brother to see it. That was why she had
summoned him.
He was seldom at a loss, for when direction failed him
he had a store of phrases ready to eke out the time. But
now that he was plumply face to face with what he had
come both to hate and to fear, he stammered and looked
all about.
She rang her hand-bell, and bade the page call Signior
Davy ‘and the parchment-writing’; then, while she waited
in matronly calm, sedately seated, hands in lap, he wrestled
with his alarms, suspicions, grievances, disgusts; saw them
flare before him like shapes—lewd, satyr shapes with their
tongues out; lost control of himself, and broke out.
‘The marriage-band, you speak of? Ah—ah—but
there is much to say anent such a thing—a tedious
inquiry! Madam—madam—I should have exhibited to
you before—the fault is in me that I did not——There
is a common sense abroad—no man can fight a nation—it
is thought that the case is altered. Yes, yes! Monarchs—you
that be set in authority over men—are to be warned
by them that stand about your thrones, monished and
exhorted. ’Tis your duty to listen, theirs to impart:
duty to God and the conscience. I am sore at a loss for
words——’
Probably she had not been listening very closely, or
heeding his agitation. She stopped him with a little
short laugh.
‘Nay, ’tis not words you lack. Find courage, brother.’
‘Why, madam,’ said he, ‘and so I must. “It is expedient,”
saith the Book, “that one man die——”! What
a whole nation dreads, there must be some one to declare—even
though, in so doing, he should seem to stultify
himself. Oh, madam, is not the case altered from what
it promised at first? Alas, what hope can we now have—seeing
what we have seen—that this young man will
prove a setter-forth of Christ’s religion? Or how can we
suppose that he will ensue what we most desire—I mean
the peace of God upon true believers? Do they know
him in England and suppose that of him? Then how
can we suppose it? Why, what token hath he showed
towards the faithful but that of rancour? What professions
hath he made, save them of mass-mongering,
false prophecy, idolatry, loving darkness, shunning the
light? Oh, madam, I am sore to say these things——’
The Italian entered with his parchments before he could
hurry to a close or she stop him with an outcry.
It needed not so quick an eye to sense the brewing of
a storm. The Queen sat back in her chair, cowering in
the depths of it. Her eyes were fastened upon a little
glass bowl which stood on the table—in a broody stare
which saw nothing but midnight. The Earl, white to the
edge of his lips, was waving his hands in the air. Bright
and confident, the Italian stood at the door; but my
lord, in his agitation, turned upon him. ‘Man, you’re a
trespasser. Off with you! The Queen is in council—off!’
‘Scusì,’ says Davy, ‘I am summoned. Eccomi.’
He was dramatically quiet; he woke the Queen.
She started from her chair and ran to him. ‘Oh,
David, David, he denies me! Perjury! Perjury!’
‘Sovereign lady,’ said the Italian, ‘here is one who will
never deny you anything.’
As he knelt my lord recovered his dignity. ‘It is not
convenient, madam——’
Ah, but she faced about. ‘Convenient! convenient!
To end what you have begun? You! that led me to
him! You that drove us in with your breath like a sheet
of flame!’
He put up his hand, driven to defend himself. ‘Nay,
madam, nay! It cannot be said. My design was never
adopted—it was misunderstood. I bowed to no idols—that
be far from me. I was outside the door. I neither
know what was done within your chapel, nor afterwards
within any chambers of the house. My only office
was——’
She held herself by the throat—all gathered together,
as if she would spring at him.
Signior Davy looked mildly from one to the other.
‘Scusì,’ he said, his voice soft as milk, ‘but your lordship
was not outside all doors. I know to a point how much
your lordship knows.’
The Earl gasped for breath.
At this point the Queen seemed to have got strength
through the hands. She let them down from her neck, as
if the spasm had passed. Her heart spoke—a lyric cry.
‘He brought me to the chamber door, and kissed my
cheek, and wished me joy!’ She spoke like one enrapt,
a disembodied sprite, as if the soul could have seen the
body in act, and now rehearse the tale. ‘He led me to
the chamber door, and kissed my cheek! “Sweet night,”
says he, “sweet sister! See how your dreams come true.”
And “Burning cheek!” says he; and “Fie, fie, the wild
blood of a lass!” I think my cheek did prophesy, and
burn for the shame to come.’ She turned them a tragic
shape—drawn mouth, great eyes, expository hands.
‘Why, sirs, if a groom trick a poor wench and deny her
her lines, you put her up in a sheet, and freeze the vice
out of her with your prying eyes! Get you a white sheet
for Queen Mary and stare the devil out of her! Go you:
why do you wait? Ah, pardon, I had forgot!’ She
exhibited one to the other. ‘This man has no time to
spare that he may chastise the naughty. The throned is
made shameful that the throne may be emptied. Give
him a leg, David; he will stand your friend for it.’
‘Dear madam! sweet madam!’ murmured the Italian.
But she had left him now for the white skulker by the door.
‘Oh you, you, you, in your hurry!’ she mocked him, ‘deny
me not my shroud and candle. For if you are to sit in my
seat I will stand at the kirk gate and cry into all hearts that
go by, “See me here as I stand in my shroud. I am the
threshold he trod upon. He reached his degree o’er the
spoils of a girl.”’ She came closer to him, peering and
whispering. ‘And I will be nearer, my lord, whenas you
are dead. I will flit over the graves of the kings my
ancestors till I find the greenest, and there shall I sit o’
nights, chattering your tale to the men that be there with
their true-born about them. “Ho, you that were lawful
kings of Scotland, listen now to me!” I shall say. And
they will lift their heads in their vaults and lean upon
their bony elbows at ease and hear of your shameful birth
and life of lies and treasons, and most miserable death. And
you in your cerements will lie close, I think, my brother,
lest the very dead turn their backs on you.’
She stopped, struggling for breath. The dangerous
ecstasy held her still, like a rigor; but he, who with shut
eyes and fending arms had been avoiding, now lifted his
head.
‘You misjudge me—you are too hasty——’
As a woman remote from him and his affairs she
answered him, ‘Not so. But I have been too slow.’
‘Your Majesty should see——’
She sprang into vehemence, transfigured once more by
fierce and terrible beauty.
‘I do see. You are a liar. I see you through and
through, and the lies, like snakes, in your heart. I will
never willingly see you again.’
Still he tried to reason with her. ‘If accommodation
of joint griefs——’
‘None! There can be none. Where do we join, sir?
Tell me, and I will burn the part.’
‘Dear sir,’ said the Italian, as she paced the room,
gathering more eloquence—‘dear sir, I advise you to
depart.’
The Earl was stung by the familiarity. ‘Be silent,
fellow. Madam, suffer me one more word.’
‘You drown in your words. Therefore, yes.’
He gathered his wits together for this poor opportunity.
‘I have been misjudged,’ he said, ‘and know very well to
whom I stand debtor for that. Nevertheless, I would still
serve your Grace in chamber and in hall, so far as my
conscience will suffer me. I say, that is my desire. But
if you drive me from you; if I am turned from my father’s
birthright——I beseech you to consider with what painful
knowledge I depart. If I have witnessed unprincely
dealing in high places——’
She openly scorned him. ‘Drown, sir, drown! No,
stay. I will throw you a plank.’
She rang the bell. Des-Essars answered. ‘If my lord
the Chancellor is in hall, or in the precincts in any part,
I desire his presence here. If he is abroad, send Mr.
Erskine—and with speed.’
The boy withdrew. She sat, staring at nothing. The
two men stood. Absolute silence.
The Chancellor happened to be by. He was found in
the tennis-court, calling the game. Much he pondered the
summons, and scratched in his red beard.
‘Who is with the Queen, laddie?’
He was told, the Italian and my Lord of Moray.
Making nothing of it, he whistled for his servant, who
lounged with others at the door.
‘Hurry, Jock Scott! my cloak, sword, and bonnet. At
what hour is the Council?’
‘My lord, at noon.’
He went off, muttering, ‘What’s in the wind just now?’
and as he went by the great entry saw the guard running,
and heard a shout: ‘Room for the Prince’s grace!’ He
could see the plumes of the riders and the press about
them. ‘It’ll be a new cry before long, I’m thinking,’ he
said to himself, and went upstairs.
Entering that silent room, he bent his knee to the Queen.
She did not notice his reverence, but said at once: ‘My
Lord Chancellor, I shall not sit at the Council to-day.
You will direct the clerk to add a postill[3] to the name of
my Lord of Moray here.’
‘Madam, with good will. What shall his postill be?’
‘You shall write against his name, Last time he sits. I
know that your business is heavy. Farewell, my lords.’
Morton and Moray went out together. At the end of
the corridor and head of the stair, Morton stopped.
‘Man, my Lord of Moray, what is this?’
For answer, the Earl of Moray looked steadily at him
for a moment: then, ‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘we must go
to our work, you and I.’
They said no more; but went through the hall, and
heard the Prince’s ringing voice, high above all the others,
calling for ‘that black thief Ruthven.’ They saluted a
few and received many salutations. Lord John Stuart
passed them, his arm round the neck of his Spanish page,
and stared at his brother without greeting. These two
hated each other, as all the world knew. That same night
the Earl of Moray left Edinburgh, and went into Argyll,
where all his friends were. It was to be nine months
before he could lay his head down in his own house
again.
Very little passed between the Queen and her Secretary.
She sat quite still, staring and glooming; he moved about,
touching a thing here and there, like a house-servant who,
by habit, dusts the clean furniture. This brought him by
degrees close to her chair. Then he said quickly, ‘Madam,
let me speak.’
‘Ay, speak, David.’
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘this is not likely to be work for fair
ladies, though they be brave as they are fair. I have seen
it growing—this disturbance—a many days. He is not
alone by any means, my lord your brother. Madam, send
a messenger into France. Send your little Jean-Marie.’
She looked up. ‘Into France?’
‘Madam, yes. Send a messenger into France. Let
him fetch home the Earl of Bothwell.’
She started. ‘Him?’
Riccio nodded his head quickly.
Whereupon she said, ‘He is not in France.’
‘Send for him, madam,’ said Riccio, ‘wheresoever he
may be—him and no other. Remember also—but no
hurry for that—that you have my Lord Gordon under
your hand. At need, remember him. A fine young man!
But the other! Oh, send quickly for him! Eh, eh, what
a captain against rebels!’ He could not see her face; her
hand covered it.
‘I will think of this,’ she said. ‘Go now. Send me
Carwood: I am mortally tired.’ Carwood was her bedchamber-woman.
There was a riot on the night following the proclamation
of King Henry, begun by some foaming fool in the
Luckenbooths. Men caught him with a candle in his
hand, burning straw against a shop door. ‘What are ye
for? What are ye for?’ they cried at him, and up he
jumped with the fired wisp in his hand, and laughed,
calling out, ‘I am the muckle devil! Come for the popish
King!’ The words fired more than the brand, for people
ran hither and thither carrying their fierce relish, feeding
each other. The howling and tussling of men and women
alike raged in and out of the wynds. It was noticed that
nearly all the women took the Queen’s part, and fought
against the men—a thing seldom seen in Edinburgh. In
a desultory way, with one or two bad outbreaks, of which
the worst was in the Grassmarket, where they stoned a
man and a girl to death, it lasted all night. The Lord
Lyon had his windows broken. Mr. Knox quelled the
infuriates of the High Street.
This was on the night of July 28th, very hot weather.
On the morning of the 30th she was married in her black
weeds—for so she chose it, saying that she had been married
already in colour, and as her lord was possessed of the
living, so now he should own the dead part of her. She
heard mass alone, for the Prince would not go to that
again; but the Earl of Atholl stood by her, while Lennox
waited in the antechapel with his son. Mass over, the
words were spoken, rings put on. He had one and she
three. They knelt side by side and heard the prayers;
she bowed herself to the pavement, but he was very stiff.
They rose; he gave her a kiss. When her women came
about her he went away to her cabinet and waited for her
there, quiet and self-possessed, not answering any of his
father’s speeches.
Presently they bring him in the Queen, with coaxings
and entreaties.
‘Now, madam, now! Do off your blacks. Come, never
refuse us!’
She laughed and shook her head, looking sidelong at
her husband.
‘Yes, yes,’ they cry, ‘we will ask the King, madam,
since you are so perverse. Sir, give us leave.’
‘Ay, ay, ladies, unpin her,’ he says.
Mary Sempill cried, ‘Come, my ladies! Come, sirs!
Help her shed her weeds.’ She took out a shoulder-pin,
and the black shroud fell away from her bosom. Mary
Fleming let loose her arms; Mary Seton, kneeling, was
busy about her waist; Mary Beaton flacked off the great
hood. Atholl, Livingstone, Lennox, all came about her,
spoiling her of her old defences. When the black was all
slipped off, she stood displayed in figured ivory damask,
with a bashful, rosy, hopeful face. Atholl took a hand,
Lennox the other.
‘By your leave, sweet madam.’ They led her to the
young man.
‘She is yours, sir, by her own free will. God bless the
mating!’
Then, when they had all gone tumbling out of the
room, and you could have heard their laughter in the
passages, she stood before him with her hands clasped.
‘Yes, my lord, I am here. Use me well.’
He gave a toss of the head; laughed aloud as he took
her.
‘Ay, my Mary, I have thee now!’
He held her close, looking keenly into her hazel eyes.
He kissed her mouth and neck, held up his head, and
cheered like a hunter. ‘The mort o’ the deer! The mort
o’ the deer! ‘Ware hounds, ‘ware! Let the chief take
assay.’
The head of the Hamiltons, the head of the Campbells,
the head of the Leslies, were all in Argyll with the Earl of
Moray. Mr. Knox was with his young wife; Mr. Randolph
kept his lodging; the Earl of Bothwell was at sea, beating
up north; and my Lord Gordon, new released from prison,
was with his mother and handsome sister Jean. None of
these were at the marriage, nor bidden to the marriage
supper. But there came a decent man, Mr. George
Buchanan, affording himself an epithalamy, and received
in recompense the Queen’s and King’s picture set in
brilliants. This did not prevent him from casting up his
hands in private before Mr. Knox. The great elder
watched him grimly.
‘So the wilful lass has got her master! And a pranking
rider for a bitter jade! Man, George,’ he said, looking
critically through him, ‘in my opinion you are a thin,
truckling body.’
END OF MAIDS’ ADVENTURE
