Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George
The royal party entered the quadrangle, with its old covered well in the centre, and the horses drawing Darnley’s litter came to a halt. Reaching out a thin white hand, he drew back the curtains and then stuck his feet out. Sir Anthony Standen was instantly beside him, helping him alight.
Darnley turned around, looking over the buildings. The large building, belonging to the Duke, was not for his use. The Balfour buildings—for there were three of them, all attached—directly across from the Duke’s, were the designated ones.
Sure enough, Robert Balfour emerged from the newest looking of the dwellings.
“Welcome, Your Highnesses,” he said, bowing. He had light eyes like his brother, but was much more fleshy. “All is prepared. It is a great honour, yea, great—”
Indeed, the entire adjoining house, with its connecting long chamber, was in readiness. In the old Provost’s house, the upper chamber had been aired and fresh rushes laid down. A dais had been constructed at the far end of the great chamber. Fires were blazing in all the fireplaces, and the chill had been thoroughly driven away.
Mary put out her hand and felt the stone walls. They were quite dry. It took several days, at this time of year, to dry them out. And building a dais fifteen feet wide took time and required carpenters.
They knew long beforehand to prepare for our coming, she thought. But it was only this morning that Darnley had suddenly announced that he wished to come here.
Announced it? Announced what had already been decided and arranged?
She felt a prickling and tingling in her scalp underneath her jewelled cap.
What is happening? Who knew we were coming? Why does Darnley really wish to stay here?
She glanced behind her at her husband, always tall and thin, but now almost wraithlike. Is he planning another murder? Who is it he wishes to kill now?
Me?
No, he loves me, like a love-slave.
Bothwell? He seems suspicious of him, but he must know that Bothwell is the only one of the lords never to have entered into an intrigue against us. Lord James? Maitland? Yes, he hates them, but he is alone in his hatred. Lord James and Maitland do not stand as helpless foreigners, like poor Riccio.…
A wave of contempt swept over her. Who was so poor in Scotland that he could not find allies and fellow conspirators? Only this weak, depraved, muddleheaded creature! Let him plan his plans—they would be as inept as he was!
“We must send for furniture,” Mary said, looking at Darnley. “I had already ordered many pieces to be transported to Craigmillar. Now from Holyrood we will bring your bed, the one with the violet-brown hangings and silver and gold embroidery which I gave you as a recent gift; tapestries for these walls, which are already so dry we need not worry about harming the needlework … the seven-piece set called The Hunting of Coneys. And, of course, for the garderobe, your chaise perchée, for when you need to…”
She could not see Darnley’s face behind the taffeta mask. Was he angry? Embarrassed?
“… relieve yourself of the flux which troubles you so,” she said loudly. She hoped he was embarrassed. Let everyone picture him perched on the rim of the velvet-covered privy, making foul smells and noises. Oh, that would confirm his royalty in everyone’s imagination!
He turned away, and she instantly felt bad. He was a fool, a whining, selfish child who was evidently planning more mischief. But to descend to the level of mocking his infirmity and making comments in public about his bowels was inexcusable.
“I will also send for all the medicines, and for the bathtub for your treatment,” she said quickly. “And if there be a suitable place for me, I shall sleep here as well.”
Still Darnley kept his arms crossed and looked down at the floor, sulkily.
“Naturally there is a place for you,” said Robert Balfour smoothly. “It is directly beneath His Majesty’s. May I show it to you?”
They turned and walked the forty feet back across the long chamber. In the connecting passage they had to ascend by two or three steps, as the two buildings were on slightly different ground levels.
Balfour led the way down from the stone-slab landing at the top of the spiral staircase, and around and out into a set of rooms identical to Darnley’s: an antechamber connected to a larger bedroom.
Even here a fire burned, and sweet rushes mixed with herbs made the room smell like a faded June meadow.
“It seems you are either very wealthy, heating and scenting empty rooms, or else very meticulous, in that you dislike leaving anything undone,” Mary said to Balfour. She watched him carefully.
“I confess to a certain extravagance,” he said. “It is a failing of mine.”
No it isn’t, Mary was tempted to say, but something held her back, an instinctive caution. The fur on his doublet was frayed and he wore no jewels or gold. Extravagance was not his natural vice.
He has been told to prepare all this, and ready a chamber for me, to make it as inviting as possible, she thought. On whose orders?
Suddenly the isolated location, the small quarters—which would permit few guards—seemed an ominous choice.
She saw Balfour looking at her.
If anyone seeks my life as they sought Riccio’s, they will surely fail, she thought. I have Bothwell to see I come to no harm.
“This chamber will be most suitable,” she finally said.
* * *
As soon as she reasonably could, she left Kirk O’Field and went to Holyrood, ostensibly to select the furniture and accoutrements to be sent to the convalescent house.
It should have felt welcoming, but the same atmosphere of wrongness hung over it as over Kirk O’Field. Her own apartments seemed filled with ghosts: Riccio’s, Ruthven’s, and nameless ones that nonetheless had a presence. It had never been purged of its evil.
Why, that is because Bothwell and I have never been together here, she realized.
But the thought of making love in the chamber where Riccio had been slain was abhorrent.
She contrived to linger long enough that she might have an opportunity to speak, however briefly, with Bothwell. Her valets were busy laying a fire: even the royal apartments did not, as a rule, have fires blazing until their occupants arrived.
Those fires … the careful preparations … it was inordinately disturbing.
Bothwell appeared in the doorway, and her heart leapt.
’Tis true, what Diane de Poitiers once told me, she thought with surprise. To love someone is to catch your breath whenever he walks into a room.
His brow was furrowed and he looked distracted. She forgot her own troubling thoughts in her anxiety to soothe him. He was glancing around, annoyed, at the chamber attendants. Their presence prevented him from speaking, but to send them away would assure their suspicions.
So she said, “Is it not odd how the King took a sudden whim to lodge at Kirk O’Field? I cannot imagine why. It will make his treatment more difficult, but he insists.”
The attendants were fanning the fire, which was having trouble catching. Clouds of smoke poured out into the chamber; they had not made sure the chimney was clear. There was a scrambling and hissing as some animal nesting inside was smoked out. Bothwell looked at them in disdain.
“Will you be joining him?” he asked in a matter-of-fact voice.
“I will visit with him, but I do not wish to impede the doctors. His treatment, after all, is the most important thing. There is a large reception chamber there,” she added, “with a dais already fitted at one end. Perhaps, as he improves, some of the members of court can visit with him there. Yes, I must have his chair of estate sent down. He will need it to receive callers.”
Bothwell glanced at the attendants, still on their knees, nursing the fire. He rolled his eyes. “I wish him a speedy recovery,” he finally said. Bowing, he took his leave.
Wait! she wanted to say. Wait. I must talk to you about what is happening.
But it was hopeless. She would have to wait for a more private time.
For the next few days, Darnley was kept in strict seclusion while the physicians put him through a course of treatment that included hot baths with salt and goat-fat ointment, broth with dried red peppers and mulberries, and applications of dressings of oil of roses and camphor to fade his lesions and prevent scarring. Between the treatments, which were administered every four hours, he was supposed to lie in bed and sleep. But in truth, it required so long to fill the tub with the hot water that half the time Darnley was kept awake by the attendants dumping their buckets of water into the tub and replacing the door that served as a lid to keep the heat in.
Since he knew they were watching him the whole time, he made sure he was engaged in edifying activities. He sang various Psalms and studied the Bible, and kept a rosary conspicuously by his bedside. He wanted to make sure that his last week was remembered for its piety and goodness. He wrote letters to his father, who had been so concerned about his safety, reassuring him and extolling the Queen’s reconciliation with him.
My Lord, I have thought to write unto you by this bearer of my good health, I thank God. Which is the sooner come to, through the good treatment of such as hath this good while concealed her good will, I mean of my love, the Queen. Which I assure you hath all this while and yet doth, use herself like a natural and loving wife, I hope yet that God will lighten our hearts with joy that have so long been afflicted with trouble. As I in this letter do write unto your Lordship, so I trust this bearer can certify to you the like. Thus thanking Almighty God of our good hap, I commit your Lordship unto His Protection. From Edinburgh the i. of February, your loving and obedient son,
HENRY, REX
Yes. God would lighten their hearts with joy. Soon they would be together in His sight and transported from this vale of afflictions.
But when would these treatments be mitigated so that the Queen could spend the night? Otherwise it was not possible to carry out his plan. And if not here, then where?
After four days of this regimen, the doctors pronounced themselves astounded and gratified by his progress. The baths would be reduced to two: one upon arising and one upon retiring. The dressings would be discontinued, except only a light application of salve on the eruptions, and he could return to regular food.
“And Your Majesty may have visitors,” they said, “after the morning bath. Only”—the physicians looked at each other—“we recommend that, before granting audience to anyone, Your Majesty rub his teeth with these dried rosemary twigs, and then gargle with this lavender water.”
Darnley frowned. So his breath was that foul? It was due to his lack of eating real food, that was all. He snatched the twigs. “Very well.”
One of the doctors handed him a little mirror. “It is no longer necessary to wear the mask,” he said.
Darnley inspected his face. The livid purple had subsided, but his face was still blotched with pink round spots.
“This salve contains white clay. It will help to hide the marks.” The doctor dabbed a bit on Darnley’s face.
Darnley smiled. The result was astonishing. He could barely see the spot.
“And so for Your Majesty’s hair, you can wear hats until it has quite grown in again.”
The physicians were pleased with their expertise. The King could now be seen in public again—until his next attack, which was bound to come, and would prove fatal.
* * *
The reception chamber was thronged with courtiers, eager to pay their respects—or get a glimpse of the ailing King to satisfy their own curiosity and report their findings to their masters in France and England. The Lord James, Bothwell, Maitland, Huntly, Argyll, Mar, and Kirkcaldy of Grange all crowded round the double-seated chair of estate, covered with red and yellow taffeta, where Darnley and Mary sat together. The Balfour brothers came, as did John Stewart of Traquair. Philibert du Croc, the French ambassador, and Moretta, the slow-moving Savoyan who had arrived at last, were alert to every word.
The fires blazed, the musicians played, and there was superficial talk about the weather and the season. Lent was to start next week, and in other countries carnival was under way, but here in Scotland it was to be confined to just one Catholic celebration: the wedding of two of the Queen’s household, the Frenchman Bastian Pages and his Scottish sweetheart, Margaret Carwood. After the ceremony on Sunday, a wedding masque at Holyrood would require costumes and games and disguises. Knox, after all, was in England and could not interfere.
Mary, as always, watched Bothwell as he moved easily in and out of the crowd, his broad shoulders creating their own space. She could pick his voice out from the babble of all the others.
God knows how I am punished for making my god of you and for having no other thought but of you.
How stupid it had sounded when Darnley said it to her; how different it was to feel it herself.
Was this idolatry?
Thou shalt have no other gods before me, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.
The thought of God taking vengeance and destroying her idol, Bothwell, as He had the Baals of Israel, terrified her. Suddenly he looked very vulnerable standing there, in spite of the strength of his body.
It is wrong to love him so, she thought. But how can I stop?
She glanced over at Darnley, who was laughing in a high-pitched, feeble voice. He seemed to sense her attention, and slid his glance toward her. Hesitantly he reached for her hand.
“Pray stay with me tonight. It would comfort me to know you are under the same roof.” He squeezed her hand, but there was no strength in the grip.
* * *
Mary made ready to sleep. She had found the little bedroom—it was only about twelve by sixteen feet—strangely appealing. It reminded her of the room she had had at St.-Pierre, when she had visited her aunt Renée, the night the letter had come from Lord James and the others, bidding her to return.
She stood looking out the window at the enclosed yard of the quadrangle. A light snow had fallen, covering the ground in white. Across the way, about a hundred feet, was the imposing house of the Duke of Châtelherault, with many candles burning in the night.
The Hamiltons keep late hours, she thought. She blew out her own candle and settled herself under the covers. Purposely, she had dismissed her ladies. Tonight she would have no attendants, no witnesses. She and her lawful husband, King Henry, Lord Darnley, were alone under the same roof, except for his servants sleeping in the antechamber. If she later claimed he had visited her in her bed that night, there would be no one to contradict her. No one could prove it untrue.
She sighed. She was safe. She had delivered herself from the shame of bearing a bastard.
And as for delivery from the yoke of marriage to Darnley … she did not need the machinations of the courtiers and the help of Parliament after all. Darnley would not live long; the marks of death were on him for all to see, in spite of all the physicians had done. It was so horribly apparent that he was doomed, and it made the hearty well-wishing and compliments given him that day seem brutal and obscene. Everyone knew that syphilis disappeared for a time before its final attack.
Directly below her, she heard the noise of the cooks closing up the kitchen for the night, heard their tired voices trail off. Then the house was quiet.
She slept, then heard someone moving on the spiral stair outside her room. Not Darnley! Surely he would not really come? She sat upright, cold waves of fear running through her. She held her breath.
But no—they were ascending, not descending. Someone was going up to Darnley’s quarters. Someone had to see him in the middle of the night. The physicians?
Yes. That must be it. The physicians.
She let out a breath of relief and lay back down. Now she heard the footsteps above her, heard a slight bump, but could hear no voices. They were speaking in whispers, lest the attendants be disturbed. She closed her eyes. Her only responsibility was to obtain the best physicians for her husband, not to monitor the treatment or the convers
* * *
Darnley was sitting up in bed, his eyes shining unnaturally bright in the light of the single tall candle by his bedside, as the Balfours approached.
“We waited until three o’clock,” James Balfour whispered. “Even the candles at Hamilton House are out. The Queen sleeps, and she has no ladies in her antechamber. We are completely unobserved.” He took his place beside Darnley, and his brother stood on the other side of the bed.
“I am now determined to proceed with my plan,” said Darnley in his lowest speaking voice. “As of tonight, I know that the Queen will pass the night here if I beg her. Before, I was not sure. And when I was undergoing extensive treatment—”
“For which we are so thankful you have responded so well,” said Robert unctuously.
“We thank you,” said Darnley. “Now as to the plan…?”
“I would suggest that, if Your Highness is indeed resolved to carry it out, I obtain the requisite amount of gunpowder and store it in the cellar of your house, Robert.” James glanced at his brother. “Then, when it is all collected, we can transfer it directly to the vaults beneath the long chamber. We can dig a small tunnel for the purpose and be assured of complete secrecy.”
“The long chamber!” cried Robert. “You wish to destroy the long chamber?”
“Sssh. You will be recompensed by His Majesty,” James hissed. “We do not ‘wish’ to destroy the chamber; we would, in fact, prefer to destroy the old house, where we are now. But two things prevent it. The kitchens occupy the ground floor, and the cooks and servants there might detect our activity just beneath them. And the ground slopes steeply here, so that the vaults are much higher beneath the old house than beneath the long reception hall. It would take twice or even three times the amount of gunpowder, for the powder must be tightly packed to achieve any force when it explodes. So you see, don’t you, why we must sacrifice the long chamber? I know you are fond of it, but—”