Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Read online

Later that night, as the true night came on and most people slept, Wishart sat up, waiting. Cockburn sat with him; it would have been derelict of him to go to bed and leave his guest alone.

  Cockburn was solicitous in adding more logs to the fire and in bringing the preacher heated ale. But Wishart kept staring at the fire, as if in a trance. Finally he spoke.

  “Poor Scotland,” he finally said. “It will be a difficult birth, bringing the Reformed Faith out in the open. But only the Faith can save her.”

  “They have had faith of some sort for a thousand years.”

  “But obviously it cannot sustain them. Look at Scotland! She is about to lose her independence! The English batter her from the outside, and the French run her from the inside. The Queen Mother and her ally the Cardinal have set up Frenchmen everywhere in positions of authority. And the little Queen is only four years old, just a puppet.”

  Cockburn drew his blanket round his shoulders. “I fail to see how the Reformed Faith will change any of that.”

  “Oh, it gives people hope—hope that they have been chosen by God. And once someone feels that, he’s no one’s slave—not the English, nor the French, nor the Queen’s. Then the Scotsmen will rise up and drive their own destiny.”

  There was a loud knock on the door. Cockburn jumped, but Wishart did not. Cockburn shuffled over to answer it, and found himself staring into the face of the “Fair Earl” of Bothwell himself.

  “Ah, there’s Wishart!” said the Earl, nodding toward him. “Well met, sir!”

  Outside, behind the Earl, Cockburn could hear and see a large company of men. There was also a youth, somewhere in age between childhood and manhood.

  “You must surrender to me,” said the Earl. “Come along.” When Wishart rose but did not come toward him, the Earl said, “There is no escape. The house is surrounded, and Cardinal Beaton himself is only a mile away at Elphinstone Tower with a company of soldiers. But I promise I will keep you safely myself and never surrender you to the Cardinal.” He looked to one side, where the youth had pushed in to stare into the room. “My son, James. He’s just eleven and wanted a glimpse of the renowned Wishart. Well, sir. Are you prepared to come peacefully?”

  Wishart looked at him long and sorrowfully. Then he turned his eyes on the boy, who was staring at him with rapt attention. “I am honoured that you came to see me,” he said. Then he looked back at the Earl. “Have I your word of honour that you will not deliver me to the Cardinal?”

  “Word of honour,” said the Earl.

  * * *

  The Earl took Wishart back to Hailes Castle, and the next day he turned him over to Cardinal Beaton.

  The gentle preacher was duly tried and condemned to death. He was strangled and then burnt before the Cardinal, who looked on from a cushioned seat on the ramparts of St. Andrews Castle.

  The strangler asked for the traditional forgiveness from his victim; Wishart leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Knox, hidden in the crowd, watched as the Cardinal sat, unmoved, a small smile playing on his lips.

  At a signal from the elegant Cardinal, the officers of the execution lit the faggots under the slumped body of Wishart, bound upright by ropes to his post. As the flames caught and crackled, the executioners scrambled to jump free of the platform. Knox could see the rising column of flames engulf the body of Wishart; the image seemed to waver and shimmer in the fumes and heat. The skin blackened and peeled; the eyes burst open and dribbled fluid. The hair and beard caught in an aureole of fire, like a halo, so it seemed to his disciple. Then a pungent and inherently repulsive acrid smell wafted on the breeze. It was the stench of scorched and roasting raw human flesh.

  Knox saw the Cardinal bring a lace handkerchief up to his nose. But he, Knox, breathed in the ashes of his friend, taking deep lungfuls of the smoky air, as if he honoured and incorporated his spirit in so doing. He had now received the call from God.

  V

  The Cardinal rolled over and stretched on his silken sheets. It was a glorious May morning, and in the dancing reflections of the ocean playing on his bedroom ceiling, he could read the mood of the sea. It was mischievous and inviting. Rather like his mistress, Marion Ogilvy, sleeping beside him, her thick dark hair like clouds of oblivion. Oblivion: that was what he had found with her last night. But this morning, ah, he was restored to the world of men and had no need of oblivion.

  A knock on the door startled him. How late was it? By the sun he had assumed it was yet early. Could he have overslept?

  “A moment, please,” he said, reaching for his satin gown. Marion murmured and stirred, opening her eyes. The Cardinal rose from his bed and went across to the door, where the knocking continued.

  “I hear you well enough!” he warned them. Whoever it was was rude and disrespectful.

  He opened the door to find a crowd of workmen facing him—workmen with daggers. Or rather, assassins in workmen’s costumes. They surged forward. He tried to shut the door on them, but they flung it back open on its hinges and rushed in. Marion screamed as one of the men grabbed the Cardinal by the neck and another raised his knife.

  “Repent of your former wicked life!” the man with the knife hissed. “We are sent from God to punish you! I hearby swear that neither hatred of your filthy person, nor desire for your riches, nor fear of persecution moves me to strike you. I do so only because you have been an obstinate enemy to Christ Jesus and his True Gospel!”

  “I am a priest!” he cried. “I am a priest! You will not slay a priest!”

  The knives thudded into him, with nothing between them and his soft white flesh but the thin layer of satin in the robe.

  “Repent of the murder of George Wishart!” were the last words he heard.

  * * *

  The sun was still only midway to its noon zenith when the people gathered outside St. Andrews Castle saw the sight: the naked Cardinal, his severed genitals stuffed into his mouth, was hanging by an arm and a leg from the very spot where he had watched Wishart’s burning two months earlier.

  * * *

  In the May sunshine, Mary and two of the other Marys—Livingston and Fleming—were waiting for their grooms to bring out the ponies. Today they were to ride the little animals all round the pleasure garden beneath the walls of Stirling Castle, called the King’s Knot. The Knot had raised geometric terraces, all planted with ornamental shrubs, with roses and fruit trees, like an artificial mountain. But at its base it made a fine riding-path, and the royal gardeners, fertilizing and pruning, did not mind, as they had not begun to work there yet.

  Mary had decided that they should have a race. She loved to ride, and to ride fast; clinging to the miniature horse from Shetland, she felt as though she were flying. All too seldom did she have the opportunity to ride as fast as she liked, especially on her favorite pony, Juno. Sometimes she was allowed to ride Juno out beyond the castle grounds; that was when her mother and the Cardinal took her hawking with her own falcon, Ruffles. She always loved these excursions to the woodlands.

  Waiting in the warm sun, she announced to Mary Livingston that they would race. Lusty, with a toss of her hair, said that was fine with her, but she did not intend to lose. It would have to be a true race, not a pretend one.

  The ponies were brought round the corner of the castle ramparts, and all three of the girls rushed to mount their own pets. They were cuddly animals, only about a yard high, their fur thick and coarse, with broad little faces. They had been captured in the northern isles and then sent down by ship. Taming them was a long process, lovingly undertaken by the stableboys. But by now they had all but forgotten they had ever been wild, and were gentle with their young riders.

  Mary was first in the saddle and the first to trot away, but Lusty came close behind her.

  “Hurry, hurry,” urged Mary in Juno’s ear, leaning forward over her neck. The pony went from a choppy trot to a gentle canter.

  Overhead the sky was bright blue and almost cloudless. A sharp, clean smell of spring permeated the air, bro
ught by winds down from the Highlands in the distance. It was a smell of melting snow and warming earth, and the faint perfume of a thousand wildflowers, just springing up on the carpet of new grass in the glens.

  “Move, make way!” cried Lusty, passing Mary on her black pony, Cinders.

  “Faster!” Mary ordered Juno. Juno was faster than Cinders, but not so easily persuaded to run. She obeyed now; and Mary saw herself gaining on Lusty.

  A horn sounded, its note oddly out of place where no hunters were. A groom, riding on a big horse, was coming toward them from the castle grounds. “Stop!” he said, and blew the horn again.

  “By the orders of Her Highness, the Queen Mother, you are to return to the palace,” he said, motioning to the girls.

  Mary was angry, and Lusty more so. Their race was being ruined. They looked at each other and thought of disobeying and running off. But they knew they could not outrun the groom on his large horse, and so they followed him back to the castle. Flamina had already dismounted and was waiting for them to walk back up the steep castle steps with her.

  The three girls trudged up the seemingly endless flight of steps to reach the castle gateway.

  * * *

  The Queen Mother was pacing anxiously, and she could barely keep her hands from trembling.

  Do not show them your fear, she told herself. If they are safe in here, do not alarm them. Are they coming? Oh, thank God! she sighed as she saw them enter into the gateway.

  “My treasure, my sweet!” She fell on Mary and embraced her hysterically, weeping on her hair.

  Mary, caught fast in her grip, could hardly breathe. Her mother continued, and her words were puzzling to the little girl. “They stop at nothing … worse than beasts … against God and the True Church … evil men…”

  Lady Fleming, who was Flamina’s mother and the children’s governess, came over to soothe the Queen and take charge of the little girls. “There are some gowns from the time of James IV in a trunk I have just opened,” she said. “Headdresses, too, with gold braid. They are in the little chamber off the Queen’s bedchamber. Try them on and see who can look most like her own grandmother.” She waved cheerfully, and the girls scampered off.

  “Now,” she said, taking the Queen’s hand, “at least we know they are safe.”

  Marie de Guise stood shivering in the warm sunshine. “Poor little Beaton—it is her own relative, the Cardinal, that they have killed! Oh, how can I ever tell her? Yet if I do not, others will. Oh, Janet!” She turned back to Lady Fleming. “They killed him, hung him up like an animal—I am afraid!” The words came tumbling out. “Next they will come for us!”

  “Nay, nay,” said Lady Fleming. “They will not, they cannot. Stirling is the safest fortress in all Scotland. That is why you chose it!”

  “But St. Andrews was supposed to be safe. The Cardinal was fortifying it; day and night the workmen were building it up. And yet—and yet—they got through!” She shuddered.

  Lady Fleming raised her head proudly. “Yes, but it was the English he was fortifying it against. He did not suspect his own countrymen. They came disguised as workmen. Who were they?”

  “The Protestants—radical heretics, revenging the burning of their leader, George Wishart.”

  “Oh, him!” Fleming waved her hand.

  “I am frightened, Janet, frightened. Who would have thought they could exact such revenge?”

  “Then call in outside help. Call on your mighty kinsmen in France. Your brother Duc François is a mighty soldier and can persuade the King to send ships and arms.”

  Marie smiled nervously. “Not so, not so. The King in France is very ill; all he cares about is fleeing from his disease. It is not easy to get his ear.”

  Together they walked over to the ramparts and stared down at the valley below. They could see the beckoning hills leading up into the Highlands, a place where cool breezes swept down all summer. The river lay in its bed like a silver chain in a velvet box. There was no movement of troops, nothing threatening. But then these fanatics did not come in the guise of troops.

  Standing on the windy ramparts, Marie realized, suddenly and profoundly, how completely alone she was. Her ally and adviser was gone. There was no one to guide her in her policy, to protect her. She tried not to see in her mind’s eye the Cardinal, swinging on the castle wall, hanging by his bedsheets. Or to picture him the way they said he was now, salted like a side of beef and lying in a barrel in the castle’s dungeon.

  They had let Marion Ogilvy go, after forcing her to witness his murder and mutilation. They did not sport with her themselves; they were much too holy for that, these reforming lairds from Fife, who had come into the castle in the early morning on a cart, diguised as workmen.

  “Who are these lairds?” Janet wondered out loud.

  “The report is that the assassins themselves numbered some sixteen or so,” said Marie, who had questioned the messenger more closely than had the shocked governess. “But others are preparing to join them. They mean to hold the castle for themselves.”

  “What? For themselves? What for?”

  “They are calling themselves the Castilians and sending to England for help.”

  “Ah.” Now it was clearer than ever. “This is all part of the attack on Scotland that never ceases from England. They are determined to swallow us up! Ever since the Scots repudiated the marriage contract, the English have been trying to force a new one upon us by military means,” Lady Fleming said.

  At the same time, Marie realized with a sickening feeling, that meant they would never stop. And Scotland had no power to withstand them for much longer, if they were that determined.

  * * *

  That night, as Marie de Guise made ready for sleep—a sleep she knew would not come—she allowed her attendant of the bedchamber to brush her hair, which had grown long.

  Brush, brush … the rhythm was soothing, as it began at her scalp and drew itself all the way to the ends, making her scalp tingle. The fire and the candles cast long, jumping shadows on the wall, shadows that obliterated the pretty coloured pictures of gods and goddesses, knights and ladies, on the tapestries imported from a safe, ordered place like Flanders.

  Just as the darkness and shadows of Scotland obliterate all that’s sustaining, she thought, her mind set free and drifting by the brush … brush … brush caresses. It is a land at the end of the earth, where men turn into something else. All of Scotland is like this castle of Stirling—ancient and stained with blood, with just a light cover of diverting statues, decorations, and distractions like the white peacocks walking the palace grounds around the artificial fishponds. They don’t mean anything, they just take one’s eyes off those misty mountains in the distance, or the enemies creeping up the Forth valley.

  Half the nobility seem to dabble in withcraft, she mused. They say Lord James’s mother, Lady Douglas, is a witch, and used her spells to bind the King to her, and Patrick, third Lord Ruthven, one of Mary’s own guardians appointed by Parliament, is said to be a warlock himself. The dark powers seem so close here.

  “That is enough, Meg,” said Marie. Her scalp was beginning to hurt from the brushing. “I will take my rest now.”

  “As you wish, Madam.” Meg brought out the lace bed-cap the Queen Mother always wore. She fastened it on her head and then pulled back the bed curtains.

  But there is witchcraft in France, too, Marie thought, as she lay in bed. The Italian Woman, Catherine de Médicis—my brothers tell me she consults with wizards and necromancers, with anyone who can cure her barrenness. She would even deal with Satan himself—perhaps even has, for at long last, after ten years, she and Henri Valois have a son, François. He was born a year after my own Mary, most inauspiciously, during an eclipse of the sun. Any fool knows this is a bad omen, the worst possible—for what does an eclipse portend but just that, an eclipse of the person?—but they attempted to cover it up by designing an heraldic badge for the child, showing a sun and moon and the bold motto: “Between these
I issued.” Since then the Italian Woman has had a daughter, Elisabeth, and is pregnant again. The devil keeps his bargain. In his own way he is a being of integrity, so those who deal with him say.

  Marie turned over and settled herself more comfortably. She was warmer now; she removed the heavy top cover.

  They said little François was sickly, but he seemed to be growing stronger. Perhaps he was “eclipsed” most at his birth—perhaps that is all the omen meant, she thought. Perhaps he will live to be an answer to my Mary.… Oh, if only the Cardinal could help me! Oh, David!

  With no one to hear, she wept for her only friend, her only adviser.

  VI

  Scarcely half a year later, Henry VIII died, and was succeeded on the throne of England by nine-year-old Edward, but in reality by the boy’s uncle and Protector, the Duke of Somerset. The death of Henry VIII did nothing to lessen the ferocious “rough wooing,” as the Scots sarcastically called the English military attempts to force the marriage of little Mary to now-King Edward by burning, killing, and looting all over the Scottish countryside.

  As winter turned to spring, the French King François I followed Henry VIII to the grave. His son, the weak, ineffectual Henri II, now ruled France and was much more anxious to please the powerful Guise family than old François I had ever been; pleasing them meant, of course, championing the Scots against the English.

  The rebels and assassins of Cardinal Beaton had held out in St. Andrews Castle for months, vainly hoping for English succour. Inside the stout castle walls, with the salted body of the dead Cardinal stored in his own dungeon, the murderers alternated between riotous living and deep penitence. Hungry for entertainment and company, certain fathers ordered the tutor of their children to bring the boys to the castle. John Knox, the tutor, obeyed, and came in at Easter.

  After some initial hesitation, he took on the mantle of his vocation: he began to preach, minister, and debate with his “congregation,” a congregation in exile. The thirty-three-year-old schoolmaster took to the pulpit like a John the Baptist, thundering of the great punishment to come if they did not reject the Synagogue of Satan, the Whore of Babylon, the Roman Church with its Pope, the Man of Sin. He whipped them into a frenzy of religious ecstasy.