Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Read online

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Maps

  Epigraph

  In My End Is My Beginning

  England, 1587

  Book One: Queen of Scotland, Queen of France

  1524–1560

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Book Two: Queen of Scotland

  1561–1568

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Chapter XXXIX

  Chapter XL

  Chapter XLI

  Chapter XLII

  Chapter XLIII

  Chapter XLIV

  Chapter XLV

  Chapter XLVI

  Chapter XLVII

  Chapter XLVIII

  Chapter XLIX

  Chapter L

  Chapter LI

  Chapter LII

  Chapter LIII

  Chapter LIV

  Chapter LV

  Chapter LVI

  Chapter LVII

  Chapter LVIII

  Chapter LIX

  Chapter LX

  Chapter LXI

  Chapter LXII

  Chapter LXIII

  Book Three: Queen of Exile

  1568–1587

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  A Reading Group Guide

  Author’s Afterword

  Copyright Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  With thanks to: my daughter, Alison Kaufman, and my husband, Paul Kaufman, for living with Mary for four years; my sister, Rosemary George, for historical tidbits and oddities; my mother, Dean George, for humour; my grandparents Charles and Lois Crain for being my Mme. Rallay; my medievalist friend, Lynn Courtenay, for source material; my writer friend Dick Huff for creative inspiration. And finally, to my editor, Hope Dellon, who was “present at the creation” of both Henry VIII and Mary, and has helped mightily at every stage; and my agent, Jacques de Spoelberch, who believed in me from the beginning.

  TO SCOTT GEORGE

  1920–1989

  Beloved father, friend, and teacher

  To see the eclipses of Sun and Moon; to see the capture of wild elephants and snakes; and to see the poverty of the wise, is to see that the power of fate is always supreme.

  —Hindu proverb

  In My End Is My Beginning

  England, 1587

  In the deepest part of the night, when all the candles save one had been put out and everyone lay quiet, the woman crossed silently to her desk and sat down. She put that one candle at her right hand, and spread out a piece of paper as slowly as possible across the desktop, so as to make no noise. She held its left side down with her hand—a white hand with long, slender fingers, which the French poet Ronsard had once described as “a tree with uneven branches.” The hand looked young, as if it belonged to a virgin of fifteen. From across the room, with only one candle for illumination, the woman’s face looked as young as the hand. But up closer, although the outlines of the beauty were still there, within the frame of the old loveliness there were lines and bumps and sags. The skin no longer stretched taut against the high cheekbones, the long, imperious nose, the almond-shaped eyes. It lay softly against them, tracing and revealing every hollow.

  She rubbed her eyes, which were heavy-lidded and had traces of exhaustion under them, with that incongruously slender-fingered, elegantly ringed hand. Sighing, she dipped her pen in ink and began to write.

  To Henri III, the Most Christian King of France.

  8 February 1587.

  Monsieur mon beau frère, estant par la permission de Dieu—

  Royal brother, having by God’s will, for my sins I think, thrown myself into the power of the Queen my cousin, at whose hands I have suffered much for almost twenty years, I have finally been condemned to death by her and her Estates. I have asked for my papers, which they have taken away, in order that I might make my will, but I have been unable to recover anything of use to me, or even get leave either to make my will freely or to have my body conveyed after my death, as I would wish, to your kingdom where I had the honour to be queen, your sister and old ally.

  Tonight, after dinner, I have been advised of my sentence: I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the morning. I have not had time to give you a full account of everything that has happened, but if you will listen to my doctor and my other unfortunate servants, you will learn the truth, and how, thanks be to God, I scorn death and vow that I meet it innocent of any crime, even if I were their subject. The Catholic faith and the assertion of my God-given right to the English throne are the two issues on which I am condemned.

  She stopped and stared ahead, as if her mind had suddenly ceased to form words, or she had run out of them. The French language was soothing, lulling. Even terrible things did not sound so heinous in French. Her mind could not, dared not, form them in Scots.

  “Ce porteur & sa compaignie la
pluspart de vos subiectz…”

  The bearer of this letter and his companions, most of them your subjects, will testify to my conduct at my last hour. It remains for me to beg Your Most Christian Majesty, my brother-in-law and old ally, who have always protested your love for me, to give proof now of your goodness on all these points: firstly by charity, in paying my unfortunate servants the wages due them—this is a burden on my conscience that only you can relieve: further, by having prayers offered to God for a queen who has borne the title Most Christian Queen of France, and who dies a Catholic, stripped of all her possessions.

  I have taken the liberty of sending you two precious stones, talismans against illness, trusting you will enjoy good health and a long and happy life. Accept them from your loving sister-in-law, who, as she dies, bears witness of her warm feelings for you. Give instructions, if it please you, that for my soul’s sake part of what you owe me should be paid, and that for the sake of Jesus Christ, to whom I shall pray for you tomorrow as I die, I be left enough to found a memorial mass and give the customary alms.

  Wednesday, at two in the morning.

  Your most loving and most true sister,

  She put down the pen, blinked once. Then she carefully put two small books on the paper to hold it down. Each movement was delicate, but weary. The fine, slender fingers stretched out once, then rested. She blew out the candle.

  Walking slowly toward the bed on the other side of the room, she reached it and then lay down upon it, full length, in her clothes. She closed her eyes.

  It is done, she thought. The life that began at the lowest point in Scotland’s fortunes has followed that fortune, and now is finished.

  A small curve of a smile played about her lips. No. I am finished. Or, rather, I would be finished. O Jesu, let me not fail now!

  BOOK ONE

  Queen of Scotland, Queen of France

  1542–1560

  I

  In the smoky blue mist it was impossible to see anything except more mist. The sun, shrouded and muffled, wore a fuzzy circle of light around itself and was the one thing the men could sight on as they attempted to fight. If they could not see the enemy, how could they defend themselves?

  The mist blew and swirled, passing low over the green bogs and mushy ground, hugging the soaked terrain, teasing the men as they tried to extricate themselves from the treacherous mire. It was cold and clammy, as unsympathetic as the hand of death, with which it kept close company.

  Above the bog there were a few lone trees, their branches already stripped bare in the autumn gales, standing naked and forlorn above the battlefield. Men struggled toward their grey and wrinkled trunks, hoping to climb to safety. Thousands of feet had trampled the ground around the trees into an oozing field. The fog blanketed it all.

  * * *

  When the fog cleared the next day, sweeping out to sea and carrying the last vestige of confusion with it, the whole of Solway Moss revealed itself to be a sorry site for a battle. The mud, reeds, and slippery grass surrounding the meandering River Esk showed the Moss to be aptly named. There, in the southwest corner where England and Scotland met, the two ancient enemies had grappled like stags, floundering in the muck. But the English stag had triumphed over its adversary, and the swamp was dotted with leather shields, dropped there by the trapped Scots. There they would rot, as the sun would never dry them there.

  One of the English soldiers, herding away his captives, turned to look back at the site, greenly tranquil in the slanting autumn light. “God have mercy on Scotland,” he said quietly. “No one else will.”

  * * *

  Outside it began to snow—gently at first, like little sighs, and then harder and harder, as if someone had ripped open a huge pillow. The sky was perfectly white, and soon the ground was, too; the wind blew the snow almost horizontal, and it coated the sides of trees and buildings, so that the whole world turned pale in less than an hour. At Falkland Palace, the big round towers reared up like giant snowmen guarding the entrance.

  Inside, the King looked, unseeing, out the window.

  “Your Majesty?” asked an anxious servant. “Pray, what is your wish?”

  “Heat. Heat. Too cold here,” he mumbled, shaking his head from side to side, closing his eyes.

  The servant put more logs on the fire, and fanned it to tease the flames up around the fresh new logs. It was indeed cold, the coldest weather so early in the season that anyone could remember. Ships were already frozen in harbours, and the barren fields were as hard as metal.

  Just then some of the King’s field soldiers appeared, peering cautiously into the room. He seemed to see them even through his closed eyes.

  “The battle?” he said. “Have you news of the battle?”

  They came in, tattered, and knelt before him. Finally the highest-ranking one said, “Aye. We were attacked and soundly beaten. Many were drowned in the Esk in the retreat. Many more have been taken as prisoners—twelve thousand prisoners in the custody of the English commander.”

  “Ransom?” The King’s voice was a whisper.

  “No word of that. They say … they may all be sent to England as captives.”

  Suddenly the King lurched from his seat and stood up, rigid. He clasped and unclasped his fists, and a low sound of utter pain escaped him. He looked around wildly at the soldiers. “We are defeated?” he asked again. When they nodded, he cried, “All is lost!”

  He turned his back on them and stumbled across the room to the door; when he reached the door frame he sagged against it, as if a spear had pinioned him. Then, clutching his side, he reeled away into his private quarters where they could not follow. His valet followed, running after him.

  The King sought his bed; he dived into it and lay moaning and clutching his side. “All is lost!” he kept muttering.

  One of the chamber servants sent for the physician; another went out to speak to the field soldiers.

  “Is it truly as bad as you reported?” asked the chamber servant.

  “Aye—worse,” said one of the soldiers. “We are not only beaten, as at Flodden, but disgraced as well. Our King was not with us; our King had left us to mope and droop by himself far from the battlefield—like a maiden filled with vapours!”

  “Sssh!” The servant looked around to see if anyone might hear. When he was assured that was impossible, he said, “The King is ill. He was ill before the news; the sorrow of the loss of his heirs, the little princes, has devastated him.”

  “It is the duty of a king to shoulder such losses.”

  “The loss of both his heirs within a few days of each other has convinced him that luck has turned against him. Once a man is convinced of that, it is hard for him to lead with authority.”

  “Like a fainting priest, or a boy with the falling sickness!” cried one of the soldiers. “We need a warrior, not a woman, leading us!”

  “Aye, aye. He’ll recover. He’ll come to himself. After the shock wears off.” The servant shrugged. “The King most like by now has another heir. His Queen was expecting to be brought to childbed at any moment.”

  The soldier shook his head. “’Tis a pity he has so many bastards, and none of them of any use to him as a successor.”

  * * *

  The King refused to rise from his bed, but lay there limply, as if in a trance. Some of his nobles came to him, and stood round his bed. The Earl of Arran, the burly head of the House of Hamilton and hereditary heir to the throne after any of the King’s own children, looked on solicitously. Cardinal Beaton, the secretary of state, hovered as if he wished to hear a last confession. The Stewart cousins, all powerful clans in their own right, stood discreetly about the chamber. All wore heavy wool under their ceremonially bright garments; the weather remained bitter cold. In other chambers the King’s mistresses, past and present, lingered, concerned about their children. Would the King see fit to remember them?

  The King looked at them, shimmering and reappearing, sometimes seeming to dissolve, under his gaze. The
se faces … but none of them dear to him, no, not one.

  Scotland had been beaten, he would remember, with stabs of pain.

  “The Queen,” someone was whispering. “Remember your Queen. Her hour is near. Think of your prince.”

  But the princes were dead, the sweet little boys, dead within a few hours of each other, one of them at Stirling, one at St. Andrews. Places of death. No hope. All gone. No hope. No point to another; it was doomed, too.

  Then, a new face near his. Someone was staring intently into his eyes, trying to read them. A new person, someone brisk and detached.

  “Sire, your Queen has been safely delivered.”

  The King struggled to get the words out. Strange, how difficult it was to speak. Where earlier he had been reticent, now it was his body holding back, even when his mind wished to communicate. The throat would not work. “Is it a man-child or woman?” he finally managed to command his tongue and lips to say.

  “A fair daughter, Sire.”

  Daughter! The last battle lost, then.

  “Is it even so? The devil take it! Adieu, farewell! The Stewarts came with a lass, and they shall pass with a lass,” he murmured.

  Those were the last words he spoke, although, as the physician saw that he was sinking, he exhorted him, “Give her your blessing! Give your daughter your blessing, for God’s own sweet sake! Do not pass away without that charity and safeguard to your heir!”

  But the King just gave a little laugh and smile, kissed his hand and offered it to all his lords round about him; soon thereafter he turned his head away from his attendants, toward the wall, and died.

  “What meant he by his words?” one of the attendant lords whispered.

  “The crown of Scotland,” replied another. “It came to the Stewarts through Marjorie Bruce, and he fears it will pass away through—what is the Princess’s name?”

  “Princess Mary.”

  “No,” said his companion, as he watched the physicians slowly turning the dead King, and folding his hands preparatory to having the priest anoint him. “Queen Mary. Mary Queen of Scots.”

  * * *

  His widow, the Queen Dowager, struggled to regain her strength after childbirth as quickly as possible. Not for her the lingering recovery of days abed, receiving visitors and gifts and, as her reward for their well-wishes, presenting the infant for their inspection, all swathed in white lace and taffeta and wrapped in yards of softest velvet in the gilded royal crib.