Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George
Later in the evening, she sat looking at it. She was exhausted; the exhilaration of the arrival and the exploration was giving way to crushing weariness. The cross reminded her that religion might become her biggest problem here. Her very tiredness made thoughts swirl through her mind, blowing this way and that.
Perhaps if I assured them right at the outset that I mean no harm, that—Christ forgive me!—I come not to bring the sword, as He said, but peace.
Like the decision to come to Scotland at all, this one also rose up and seized her. It was less a thought than a feeling.
She reached over and picked up her little bell, and summoned her secretary.
“I am minded to issue a proclamation,” she said.
“What? Now?” He looked out the window into the dark.
“Yes. Now. It can be posed straightway. It is not very long. Write it down.”
The little man fetched his writing materials and then waited obediently for her to dictate.
“Say: ‘My good subjects, it is the command of the Queen that there shall be no alteration or innovation in the religion of the country as she found it upon her arrival in this land, nor any attempt against the form of public worship in use, upon pain of death.
‘At the same time, Her Majesty commands that the French people in her service who wish to practise their own faith in private may do so without molestation. Signed, Marie R.’”
Brantôme, who had overheard her, came and stood by her side. “Perhaps you should not be hasty,” he said. “This is noble, but it may cause your Catholic subjects to lose hope. They could take it amiss. And it will not win the Protestants to you. Only your own conversion can do that.”
“No, I wish it posted,” she said stubbornly.
“I pray you, wait until morning,” Brantôme said. “Never do anything on impulse.”
Mary yawned. “I will concede and wait an hour. But only an hour!” She looked at him fondly. “Old friend, ’tis true you have seen many courts and years, and have much wisdom.”
In an effort to stay awake, she took up her needlework and began stitching. But it seemed to lull her even more toward sleep.
Just as her eyes were closing, there was a knock on the door. Mary Seton answered it and was surprised to see one of the councillors standing there. His eyes were searching the chamber for the Queen. When he saw her, he smiled. “I have just received this from England,” he said.
Which one was he? He had been present at the dock, and today … those buttonlike eyes. Maitland. Yes, Maitland. She was pleased with herself for remembering. But what was his Christian name?
He was holding up a heavy envelope, which he handed to her. The seal on it was so massive it had partially torn the paper. It showed a woman seated on a throne: Elizabeth of England.
Mary ripped it open.
We hereby do permit and extend our protection to our most dear and loved cousin, Mary Queen of Scotland, should it chance that the Lord Almighty should cast her upon our shores, or necessitate her passing through our realms.
“It is the passport I sought before leaving France,” Mary said. “The passport that she refused. Now she issues it, after the fact. To what purpose?” She was thinking out loud, but Maitland replied.
“It seems”—he looked at the date—“she issued it just before your actual departure.”
“When she knew I could not possibly receive it in time,” said Mary, wonderingly. “Yet perhaps she wished to make a gesture of friendship, and this is what the belated passport means. My dear”—what was his name?—“William, I wish to send you on a mission, to go direct to my sister sovereign.”
“What? Tonight?”
“Nay! I am not that impulsive. But after the ceremonial entry to Edinburgh, I would dispatch you to the English Queen, on business of the utmost importance.” She looked at him. Her mother had chosen him and trusted him; he must be worthy.
“May I inquire of what this urgent business consists?”
“Certainly. I wish to end all misunderstandings with her, and for us to deal honestly with one another from henceforth. After all, we are nearest kin to one another, both queens, both in one isle—should we not be in loving closeness?”
He bowed, stifling a smile of joy, both at her ultimate mission and at being the one selected to carry it out.
“You will arrange it,” she said confidently. She wondered if she ought to show him the proclamation, but decided not to. It did not concern him.
* * *
Later that night she gave orders that it should be posted at the Mercat Cross on the High Street in Edinburgh, where all royal proclamations were read. By morning everyone was talking about it.
IV
The fog continued to blanket the city, where the people were busy readying the streets for the ceremony to follow on the morrow. The fountains had to be converted so that they would spout wine, and glasses provided so that the Queen could be saluted; the stages and decorated arches for the pageants and allegories had to be erected. But all the while the people were murmuring and wondering about the proclamation. What could it mean?
* * *
At last the fog lifted, on the very day that Mary was to make her ceremonial entrance into her capital city, as if it wished to humour the natural curiosity of both Queen and subjects alike. It fled away in shreds, leaving piercingly blue skies and a sun that made sharp shadows.
Mary, dressed still in grey-black mourning, but wearing the Great Harry on her breast and a diadem of gold and pearls on her head, set out with a splendid company to make the mile-long journey up the hill to Edinburgh Castle, where she would dine in state, and then return to Holyrood by nightfall.
As she approached the castle, it loomed larger and larger until it filled the whole sky with its sombre outline. It gave an overwhelming impression of darkness, of brutish melancholy. The greenish tint of moss on cracks and crevices reminded her of tombstone growths.
Once inside, she was ushered into the Great Hall, where the tables were set as fair as any in France, much to her surprise. There were places for at least sixty people: the leading men of her realm. Each, before taking his place, knelt before her and murmured his name, title, and promise of allegiance. Some she recognized, others she tried to commit to memory. She studied each face diligently, trying to assign something to link the face and name together.
There was James Douglas, the Earl of Morton, with his bright red hair—the colour Judas’ was supposed to be—and his tiny dark eyes. He had inherited the sword of his ancestor Archibald “Bell-the-Cat” Douglas, and was wearing it this day. It was richly ornamented and heavy, bespeaking its history.
There was George Gordon, the Earl of Huntly, a square-jawed man with florid colouring. Mary knew he was the leading Catholic magnate in Scotland, with vast tracts of land in the north. He looked vaguely familiar, and then she remembered: when he had come to France years ago, she and the Marys had thought he looked like a rooster. He still did.
She was having difficulty suppressing a laugh when the rooster said, “That proclamation! How could you have done it?” His voice was rough.
Before she could answer, the next man was kneeling, saying, “Archibald Douglas, Your Majesty.”
There are so many Douglases, thought Mary. The Red Douglases and the Black Douglases, and they all marry into the other families, so that the Earl of Morton’s wife is sister-in-law to the Hamiltons. I shall never, never remember it all! Yet they know these things so perfectly they conduct their lives according to the exact degree of kinship. I fear I shall always be an outsider in understanding these webs of loyalty—although I myself am kin to half of them!
“James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, Your Majesty.” He looked up at her and she took his hand, bidding him rise. “I know this castle must seem hateful to you,” he said. “Have you seen it yet?”
She did not understand, and he looked embarrassed.
“I meant the room in which your mother passed her last days,” he said. “If yo
Yes. She had known her mother had died here. And she would have to force herself to enter the very room and say farewell.
“I would appreciate that.”
His place was taken by Erskine, then by Archibald Campbell, the Earl of Argyll, then another Stewart, the Earl of Atholl.…
* * *
After the dinner, they waited, mounted, in the great courtyard that wound around the castle like a snail shell, spiraling down toward the castle gates. As Mary sat her white palfrey, which had finally been returned by the English, she could look out on the countryside in all directions, even as far as the glitter of the waters of the Firth of Forth. Directly below the castle on the north side was a loch, oval-shaped and motionless this windless morning.
“’Tis a fair city, is it not?” said a voice behind her. She turned to see Lord Bothwell, mounted on a huge charger. “And I see the English have seen fit to return what’s rightly yours.” He nodded to the pure white horse upon which she sat. His eye appreciated the fine breeding and good configuration of the horse. Surprising that the English had surrendered it. He imagined that Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s Master of the Horse, had seen to it his mistress had had a ride or two on it first.
“Yes. It spreads out before me like a perfect model. So beautifully situated, so neat.”
“They say ’tis like an ivory comb, the Royal Mile of High Street, with the center clean, but the teeth on either side stinking and foul. The wynds—the side streets—are beyond description, I fear. At least to a Queen. But the High Street—it’s the fairest in the world!” He could not keep the pride from his voice.
Today she would not have wished to be anywhere else; even Paris seemed sprawling and unimaginative compared to this dramatic wedding of hard, dark, natural rock and smooth, polished building-stones, of steep cliffs and equally steep-pitched roofs and gables surmounting them atop tall, thin town houses, all framed by the bright blue sky with its racing clouds.
Behind her were her household, her Marys accompanied by their distinguished fathers and brothers; her French and Scots servants; her household guard. The French servants wore black livery and the Scots, red and yellow.
Then came the leading nobles and officers of the realm, and the royal archers.
“Are you ready, Your Majesty?” Lord James reined up beside her.
“With all my heart!”
With a resounding crack, the cannons of the castle were fired in salute, sounding like thunder.
They set out, riding slowly down through the castle gates and then into the town proper, where it seemed that all thirty thousand inhabitants of Edinburgh were waiting for her, for they burst into cheers as she emerged onto the upper reaches of the Royal Mile.
Sixteen members of the Town Council, dressed in black velvet, came forward to welcome her officially, and then the cavalcade moved slowly past the cheering crowds and beneath the triumphal arch. Along the way, on stages constructed for the purpose, costumed children sang and various allegorical plays were enacted, some more blatantly Protestant than others. In one, idolatry was condemned, in the form of Old Testament transgressors, like the little-known Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, being burnt.
“They meant it to be a priest at the altar, did you know that?” said a harsh voice.
She turned to see the glaring eyes of the Earl of Huntly.
“But I stopped them!” he said triumphantly. “Can you imagine the insult they intended?” His face was turning red in anger.
“I thank you,” she merely said, hoping to damp down his fury.
They reached the Tolbooth—the city prison—where the criminals, still fettered in the stocks for lechery, blasphemy, and vagrancy, cheered the Queen with all the rest. The bankrupts, wearing their yellow hats, called teasingly, “Largesse! Largesse!” until their guards silenced them.
Passing St. Giles Cathedral, they reached the Mercat Cross, where Mary was greeted by three virgins representing Justice, Policy, and Fortune, who welcomed her to the fountain spouting wine. A vast party of people stood, their glasses already filled, and when the Queen took hers and drank, they all lifted theirs simultaneously, drank, and then broke all the glasses at once to signify their loyalty.
“Lest the glasses ever be used for a lesser toast,” whispered one of the virgins.
Mary was startled by this spontaneous display of generosity in such a poor country.
They continued down the gently sloping street, with its houses made of dressed fieldstone hedging the Royal Mile like a tall fence. Many of the houses had outside staircases and most had wooden upper storeys that jutted out and abutted their neighbours’. One, a particularly handsome house on the left with a large second storey, actually protruded out into the street like a knuckle.
“John Knox’s house, Your Majesty,” said Bothwell, who had been riding close behind her.
She looked at it, sticking out into the street, completely out of line with the other houses, making an obstruction and a nuisance of itself. It attracted attention, like a stone in running water.
So the house was like its master. Was he in there? For she was sure he would not be outside to welcome her. Was there a face in one of the windows?
It was impossible to tell. Reflections made dancing images in the glass, and they seemed to move as she moved. She dared not be seen gazing up at the Reformer’s window like a disciple, while all around her people were clamouring for a glance or a smile from her. Leaving the house behind, she continued down the High Street toward Holyrood, waving and smiling.
* * *
Knox, seated at his desk as he would have been on any ordinary workday, was well able to spy what was going on in the street below. Without even moving his chair, he had easily seen the approach of the cavalcade as it moved slowly down the High Street. There had been tableaux all along the route plain enough for anyone to understand—anyone who was willing to understand!—demonstrating the truth of the Protestant religion. Effigies of the sons of Israel who had offered false sacrifices had been burned. The Queen had even been presented with a Bible and Psalter in Scots, and a costumed child had made a speech suggesting outright that she should abandon the mass. But had she heeded it? No, she had merely smiled in that inane way and tucked the Holy Word under her arm, and kept waving and turning her head.
The fountain near the Mercat Cross had spouted wine, to make the people drunk and pacify them. Everything had been arranged, no expense spared in the masques and farces to lull the people and buy their fickle loyalty.
Knox stared at Mary as she passed, her grey mantle open and spread out across her white horse’s flanks. The rubies on her breast caught the sunlight upon her grey bodice; her face seemed the very workmanship of all Satan’s cunning to make vice alluring.
He dipped his pen in ink and wrote, “In farces, in masquing, and in other prodigalities, fain would the fools have counterfeited France.”
On the street below, the people were singing, “Welcome, O Sovereign! Welcome, O native Queen!”
* * *
Three days later, on Sunday, Knox took his accustomed place in the pulpit of St. Giles and looked out at the packed congregation. He had had no difficulty with the selection of his topic this Lord’s Day: it had been thrust upon him.
“One mass to be said upon this soil is more to be feared than the landing of ten thousand foreign soldiers!” he cried. “Shall we allow it?”
* * *
Later that selfsame Sunday, as Mary’s priest and his assistants made ready to celebrate mass in the Chapel Royal, a crowd began to gather in the forecourt of Holyrood Palace. The chapel, completely bare in accordance with Calvinistic doctrine, had to be furnished with candles and an altar for a mass to be celebrated in any fashion at all. The assistant, carrying the candlesticks and candles from one side of the courtyard to the main entrance, ran afoul of the crowd.
“Shall that idol the mass be suffered again to take place in this kingdom? We were p
The deacon halted. The crowd was large. But would not the Lord protect him? He enfolded his candles and candlesticks in his arms and tried to go around them, reciting slowly, “O Lord my God, in Thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me: Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces…”
A burly butcher—still smelling of his trade, although he did not wear his apron—grabbed the deacon by the shoulder. “The idolator priest shall die the death, according to God’s law!” he yelled.
“I am no priest!” the deacon cried, twisting free of his hands and running to the door. The crowd pursued him, pushing past the sympathetic guards and rushing up the main staircase and onto the landing leading to the chapel. The terrified deacon ran ahead of them and bolted the door of the chapel, where Mary and her French relatives and members of her household were kneeling in prayer, rosaries clasped between their fingers.
“Die! Die! The idolators must die!”
Mary heard the words being shouted right outside the chapel, and then saw the stout wooden doors straining as the crowd pushed against them.
She rose, her heart pounding. What was this? Had her own palace been invaded? In spite of her conciliation to their religion?
“Stand back!” Lord James was speaking. “Do not touch this door!” From the sound of his voice, her brother was standing with his back pressed against the door. “I say, do not trespass! For within here is wickedness and evil: the mass! No good Scotsman should take it upon himself to expose himself to it, lest he fall once more into the devil’s trap!”
There were murmurs, then compliance.
James! she thought. That is not what you promised! You have not defended my right to practise my religion in privacy, you have insulted it and tricked the people … Why do you not admit to our agreement?
The priest, shaking in his robes, could hardly perform the ancient and necessary ritual.