Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George
Babington … he made that visit to disturb me. Why, then, does it? I refuse to let the game pass from my hands to his …
A knock on the door.
“Enter,” said Walsingham.
Phelippes poked his head around the door, grinning like a death’s head. He waved a piece of paper like a handkerchief, then sauntered in. Walsingham could not help thinking he looked like a poor imitation of a coquette. “Here,” he said, putting the paper on Walsingham’s desk. “Here it is.”
Walsingham took the letter and read it. As he did so, all weariness vanished and all nagging questions about the worth of his work evaporated. It was a long letter from Babington to the Queen of Scots, detailing the plans for the rescue of Mary and the assassination of Elizabeth. Babington! Walsingham drew in his breath and closed his eyes. “Yes. Here it is.”
“Here is the original.” Phelippes handed it reverently to Walsingham. “I myself will take it to Chartley; I will entrust it to no other messenger. The Honest Man is due to make his next beer delivery on Saturday, July ninth. That night she shall hold this in her very hands!”
“And, pray God, answer!”
“She will, never fear. Rashness is her leading personal trait. When has she ever hesitated to embrace a dangerous enterprise? Her earliest behaviour with Elizabeth was bold and insolent: sailing from France without a passport and daring her to capture her. She delivered a staged, emotional speech about it prior to boarding the ship. Do you remember those words? ‘I am determined to adventure the matter, whatsoever shall come of it; I trust the wind will be so favourable as I shall not need to come on the coast of England; and if I do, the Queen your mistress shall have me in her hands to do her will of me. If she be so hardhearted as to desire my end, she may then do her pleasure and make sacrifice of me; peradventure that casualty might be better for me than to live.’ Well, now—the winds did blow her to England, and what she said so flippantly twenty-five years ago is to happen. We should guard our words; they have a way of pursuing us.”
“She has never guarded her words,” said Walsingham. “It is the one constant we can count on.” He stared at the letter in awe. “For twenty-five years she has evaded her fate. Now it catches her. Deliver it, and quickly. And, Phelippes—” He started to tell him about the Babington visit, but something stopped him.
“What, sir?”
“Nothing.” He looked long and hard at the letter. “We await her very heart at the answer.”
XXIV
Mary had left out the miniature of James, as if by some magic the infant in the picture could plead with the grown man in the letter. Could they really be the same person? James had just had his twentieth birthday. Twenty years since she had borne him that June day in Edinburgh Castle. Darnley had been there; Bothwell; Maitland … the roll of names was a melancholy toll. All dead, and dead because … why?
Only I am left, she thought. Only I remain on the stage. I, and Elizabeth.
And James, grown now. Grown into a stranger. The presence that I told the Riccio murderers would avenge me has deserted and betrayed me, like all the rest.
Two days ago, on July sixth, James and Elizabeth had signed a treaty, called the Treaty of Berwick. They were now permanent allies, bound to assist and protect one another. James had been awarded—and rewarded—with an English pension. There was no mention of Mary in the treaty. As far as the two sovereigns were concerned, she did not exist. No need to take her into consideration in any of their negotiations or promises.
I am a dead woman to them, she thought. I have passed off the stage as surely as Darnley and Maitland. Once there would have been edgy accommodations with the French, guarantees of this and that. Now, nothing. Elizabeth can deal directly with James. James can deal directly with Elizabeth, with no fears of reprisals.
She took the miniature of the infant and kept staring at it, almost willing it to come to life. But the bland blue eyes looked back, unblinking.
My child, my child, she thought. Even my own child deserts my cause and sells himself to my enemy. He wants to reign as King; if I am Queen of Scotland, obviously he cannot be King. Like a true Stuart, he believes in his own absolute divine right to rule. I am an obstacle to that.
But above and beyond that was the aching feeling that the last of her family was gone, the very one who should have stayed when all the others had fled, deserted, or died. A son was supposed to be a mother’s right hand to avenge her cause, her caretaker in old age, her consolation for wrongs suffered and pains endured. He was her dearest possession and achievement.
This makes my catalogue of losses complete, she thought. Lost father, mother, three husbands, kingdom, health … now my only child.
She looked over at her prie-dieu, with the old crucifix hanging above it. Paulet had allowed her to keep it, on specific orders from Elizabeth.
I should kneel down and pray, she thought. I should just submit all these sorrows to God and let Him console me, as He has promised to do.
But I don’t want to! she thought. God cannot know how I feel! He may have created the universe, but He has never been a mother.
* * *
That afternoon, as she was walking stiffly toward the gardens, where she liked to sit and soak up the July sun—like an old failing cat, she thought—she caught sight of Paulet and a strange-looking companion. The man had greasy yellow hair and walked in a sidewise manner. Mary seated herself on a marble bench and drew out her sewing; she was working on a panel depicting turtledoves. The men were coming closer, and the stranger seemed to be staring at her. He refrained from actually pointing, but she could see that he was straining his eyes. Even from a distance, Mary could see that his complexion was horribly disfigured by pox scars, and she felt pity for him. There was no way to disguise such an affliction, and it was the most outstanding feature about his looks.
He and Paulet seemed to be deep in conversation, glancing repeatedly toward her. She hoped they would not come over; she could not bear to engage in one of Paulet’s mocking exchanges today. She kept her head down in hopes they would go away.
When she looked up again, they were gone.
* * *
The shadows began to creep out from under the bushes, like shy animals that had to be coaxed forth. A breeze came up, fresh and hot. The warm weather had been beneficial to her rheumatic limbs; her physician, Bourgoing, had prescribed taking as much sunshine as possible, and was pleased with the results. Her knees and elbows now bent easily, and only her fingers still gave her pain.
“Soon you will be able to ride again,” he had said.
“If I were permitted to,” she had answered. “But as it is, it makes little difference to me.”
“That could change at any moment,” he had said, raising one eyebrow.
She was touched by his enthusiasm, misguided though it was. “Ah, my friend,” she had answered, with a smile, “thank God for unfailing hope!”
* * *
In the twilight, she opened the little window in the alcove that served as her oratory and let the summer air in. She leaned on the windowsill and inhaled deeply. The sounds of the night were just beginning in the countryside spreading out all around the manor house. From the meadow pond, frogs were singing, one old bullfrog’s bass thumping insistently underneath the chorus of higher voices. She had been told that lilies grew in the pond, wide waxy white ones, but she had never been allowed to walk there—even had she been able to.
Perhaps if I had been allowed to, I would have been able to, she thought. Which came first—the imprisonment or the crippling? I believe I could walk there tonight, even now. If I had someone to walk with me besides ghosts.
Ghost of Bothwell in the fields … If I thought you would be there, dearest love, she whispered, I would meet you, even as I am.
She did not know what she believed about ghosts. There were times when she felt Bothwell’s presence with her as surely as if he were there in the flesh; there were other times when she told herself she was glad he co
More and more of late, she yearned for the moment when they would be reunited; in that state, she would not be crippled, nor broken-spirited, but quick and radiant, and bathed in joy. This vision had grown steadily until it had a reality at least as firm as the fields rustling now before her, stretching out all around her prison.
Lanterns were being lit and hung on the walls, and amid the great trees Mary could see the quick darting shadows of bats stabbing the air. Their flight was so different from any bird’s, so fast and jerky. She had heard them rustling in the fat round towers of the old castle, where they slept away the days undisturbed, their odd odour permeating the air.
Outside, later, the moon would rise, reflecting in the pond; the nightingales would start singing. She promised herself to come back to the window and watch.
* * *
Sometime, in the stillness of the absolute centre of the night, she awakened and kept her vigil at the window. The waning half moon had risen laggardly and was just beginning to appear above the treetops.
Even the moon grows old, she thought. Even the moon.
* * *
“My sweet mistress,” whispered a voice in Mary’s ear. She awakened to see Jane Kennedy bending over her, where she had fallen asleep, one arm trailing out the window. Where the moon had been, the burgeoning robust sun was already peeking above the horizon, its rays hazy golden. “You pray overmuch,” she said, glancing accusingly at the little altar with its crucifix.
“Nay, not enough,” said Mary.
“After breakfast, will you walk with me through the gardens?” asked Jane.
“Gladly,” said Mary.
* * *
Attired in light gowns, the two went to the gardens by midmorning. There was no sign of Paulet or the ugly pockmarked man this time. Jane took her pens and inks and paper; of late she had amused herself by sketching flowers and birds. Mary took her own bound book, where she had continued intermittently to write her thoughts and compose verses over the years. Sometimes she would forget about it for months at a time, only to have a sudden need to write in it as she did today. A bond of silence was honoured between them: Jane would never ask her what she was writing, nor interrupt her.
The gardens at Chartley were laid out in the new fashion: long, straight reflecting canals, pagan gods and goddesses presiding over avenues of evergreens, marble fountains and trickling waterworks. At one end was a two-storeyed pleasure pavilion; in the centre was an artificial “mount” with stairs and a statue of Zeus on its summit, an imitation Mount Olympus. The young Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, had designed them, and the young Earl, from all reports, was the very mirror and incarnation of fashion.
It was odd, thought Mary, living in an unknown man’s house when he was not there; rather like Psyche dwelling in the mysterious house of her unseen husband. Young Essex was just twenty-five; everyone whispered about him and predicted great things for him, saying, “He is young, he shows great promise…”
But when I was twenty-five, my reign was over; there were to be no more chances for me, and no one said, “She is young yet.…” No, I was judged and found wanting; having taken the throne before I was twenty, I was pulled off it at an age younger than the “wise virgin” Elizabeth was when she mounted it. If only I had been permitted to begin ruling at twenty-five, instead of ending then!
She looked up and down the dusty, drowsing clipped hedges of the garden, wearing their borders like the trim of a uniform. Essex’s costume. Well, my lad, may you fare well, she thought. Delay your entrance into the world of court as long as possible. But youth will never wait, or it is not youth.
A faint breeze was blowing, bringing the sweet scent of fresh-scythed grass in the fields. Two white-winged butterflies played round and round each other, tumbling in the air. High above, bleached in the sky, was the remnant of the moon, so pale it was difficult to see now.
In a strange, whole flash of insight, Mary saw that the moon was herself, and the sun Elizabeth. So my moonlit ghost fades out in the blaze of Elizabeth’s daylight. I vanish in the brillance of her sky.
“Shall we sit here?” Jane was saying, motioning to a bench in the shade of a cypress.
As if in a daze, Mary nodded and followed her. The daytime moon was blotted out by the branches of the overhanging tree.
Humming, Jane got out her pens and began earnestly sketching one of the magpies cackling on a hedge. Mary also drew out her book and sat staring blankly at its page. Then, slowly, she began to write.
What am I, alas, what purpose has my life?
I nothing am, a corpse without a heart,
A useless shade, a victim of sad strife,
One who lives yet, and wishes to depart.
My enemies, no envy hold for me:
My spirit has no taste for greatness now.
Sorrow consumes me in extreme degree,
Your hatred shall be satisfied, I vow.
And you, my friends, you who have held me dear,
Reflect that I, lacking both health and fortune,
Cannot aspire to any great deed here.
Welcome, therefore, my ultimate misfortune;
And pray that when affliction ends my story,
Then I may have some share in Heaven’s glory.
She waited to see if any more words came, but there were none. Then she glanced over to see Jane gazing at her with a stricken look.
“Dear Queen, you look like a goddess of sorrow,” she said. “It is wrong to be so sad on such a glorious, sunny day.”
Glorious, sunny day … But that is why I am sad, my friend.
Mary smiled wanly.
“It is nearly time for the noon meal,” said Jane. “Come, we must return.” She spoke to the magpies. “You will have to wait for your portrait to be finished.”
* * *
The courtyard of Chartley was bustling. It took Mary a moment to remember that it was Saturday, the day the brewer came.
Ordinarily she felt excited about it, but today she did not care. What difference, what letters he brought? What difference, what went on in France, or Spain, or Scotland? She would sleep away the rest of her life here, sealed away, like the bats slumbering in their tower. It did not matter. None of it mattered.
She did not even talk to Nau about going down to the cellar. In a way she was tired of the teasing letters, the post, the secret messages. Children’s games that were swept away each night by the adults, that is all they were. Something to keep the prisoner occupied.
After the dinner, in the hot part of the day, the ladies lay down. Mary was tired already, and the heat made her drowsy. She was sound asleep when Nau touched her gently. She awoke with a start.
“Sssh.” He gestured round them. All the women were sleeping, lying still. “Your Majesty, it has come. Your summons to freedom,” he whispered. “Arise, and read it.”
Too late. It was too late. She closed her eyes and shook her head.
“I have just finished deciphering it. Please, read it quickly! Else it must wait until next week for an answer.”
His voice was excited and trembling. As quietly as possible, she rose from the bed and tiptoed through the bedchamber and out into the audience chamber. Only then did she sit down on a window seat and read the letter, freshly written out in plain language by Nau.
It was from Anthony Babington. Dear Anthony. It was good of him to write.
But her eyes widened as she read.
A Spanish invasion. A small English army to rescue Mary, with Babington at its head. A smaller band of six unsuspected courtiers to assassinate Elizabeth at the same time.
… who for the zeal they bear unto the Catholic cause and Your Majesty’s service will undertake that tragic execution. It rests that according to their good deserts and Your Majesty’s bounty their heroic attempt may be honourably rewarded in them if they escape alive, or given to their heirs. I ask that I ma
She felt a rush of fear and cold dread come upon her. What did he want from her? She reread the letter, this time seeing the words:
We await your approbation; when we have received it, immediately we will engage to succeed or die. I humbly beg your authorization to act in your royal name, and ask that you direct our proceedings.
They wanted her to act as their general! But how could that be? She turned and looked at Nau, with bewilderment.
“Is it not what we have been waiting for?” he was whispering.
“Yes—no—I know not!” Mary felt close to tears.
“What answer shall I return to him?”
“I—that a longer answer will follow, that for now I merely acknowledge having received the plans.” She held her head between her hands, as if she could squeeze wisdom and an answer out of it.
Nau bowed and went to his writing room to complete the task before the brewer left for the day. Even a paragraph took an hour or so, because it all had to be translated into code.
Mary was no longer sleepy, but shiveringly wide awake. What should she do? Always before, she had made it a policy never to entangle herself with any of these plots, purposely never to authorize anyone to act in her name. It was that which had saved her. In the Northern Uprising, the Ridolfi Plot, the Throckmorton Plot, she had communicated with the plotters but never acted as their commanding officer. Elizabeth knew that and appreciated it, if no one else did. But this one was different.
Anthony Babington was organizing it. Anthony, whom she had seen grow up, who had been her companion for years, and who was, evidently, more devoted to her than her own natural son! For her, Anthony was willing to risk his life. The appeal was personal, from a personal friend who wished to deliver her—after seeing firsthand what her conditions of captivity were. She was deeply touched.
And that he had been able to find Englishmen brave enough to “undertake that tragic execution” was extraordinary. Supposedly everyone was in love with their Faerie Queen. But these were not foreigners who had volunteered for the duty. “Six noble gentlemen, all my private friends”—what had the letter said?