Just a Queen Read online

  When Darnley had recovered enough to be moved, Mary brought him to Edinburgh on a horse litter and lodged him for his convalescence in a provost’s house called Kirk o’ Field. This lodging for a royal consort was strange enough and many to this day remark upon it. Why so lowly a destination for the husband of the queen? Why did she not take him with her to Holyrood House? Worse – the peculiar accommodation was chosen by that infamous ruffian the Earl of Bothwell.

  James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, was not a man I had heard much of prior to these events. A relatively minor Scottish nobleman, by all accounts he was something of a reprobate, having racketed around the world as a young man and, along the way married and divorced not one but two wives! The last he had shed a mere seven days before he married his third. During her travails, our spies informed us, Bothwell had become close to Mary, offering her a sympathetic ear. No doubt he saw an opportunity in a queen who now hated her husband and regretted most fervently her hasty marriage.

  But I get ahead of my tale. It is at Kirk o’ Field that the story becomes even more peculiar and more damning. A chamber was arranged for the queen in the same lowly and unsuitable lodgings, directly beneath her husband’s. Good wife that she was, or was pretending to be, she came daily to see to a convalescent Darnley. Given how much she had appeared to hate him just a short time before, this sudden solicitous behavior is seen as evidence of her complicity in the plot against Henry Darnley’s life. She even stayed the night in her designated chamber once or twice, taking great (and strange) care over the placement of her bed. An attendant swore on a stack of Bibles that she had asked for it to be moved to the opposite side of the room so that it did not lie directly below her husband’s. This odd whim was remarked upon at the time in the servants’ quarters.

  According to the testimony of witnesses, at 10 o’clock on the Lord’s Day, Sunday 9th May, 1567 two sacks of gunpowder were placed in the queen’s bedchamber. At the time, Mary was in the room above with her husband. Attendants then testified that the queen suddenly remembered that she had promised to attend a masque at Holyrood. As she took leave of her husband, attendants heard her say to him, ‘It was just this time last year that Rizzio was slain.’

  Her husband, puzzled by this remark, turned to the same attendant after his wife had left the room and said, ‘Why did she speak of Davie’s slaughter?’ The likeliest answer to that, of course, is almost too horrible to contemplate. Was my cousin really a cold-blooded murderer? Was this gently nurtured French princess about to take revenge on her husband for the murder of the musician David Rizzio in such a brutal way? I do not know. I cannot tell. I never laid eyes upon my cousin. Hers is not a character I can judge firsthand, but – even as her killer in my turn – greedy for justification for what I have done, I find I cannot quite bring myself to believe it. I prefer to place the blame on brutal Bothwell and his desire to marry a queen. But is that right, or simply comforting? This is the question that has been plaguing me ever since I was first told the terrible tale of Darnley’s death. Who was to blame? I still do not know.

  At 2 o’clock in the morning (the details of this story have burned themselves into the very substance of my brain) all Edinburgh was woken by the sound of a great explosion and when the smoke cleared, they could see that the Kirk o’ Field lay in ruins, thanks to the gunpowder carefully placed in the queen’s chamber. But Darnley was not blown to kingdom come. His body and that of his page were found in the garden, intact and with no sign of fire upon them, as a witness later put it at the inquest. Nearby lay a chair, a rope, Darnley’s cloak and a dagger. To this day no one knows exactly how Mary’s husband died, except that there was nothing natural about it. He was murdered and, so all declared, by the Earl of Bothwell and perhaps, as many have argued in this very court, by his wife.

  Why did they assume that Bothwell was responsible for the deed? It seems he made no secret of his desire to see the queen’s husband dead and the queen herself free once more to marry. Mary and the earl were thick as thieves (or assassins) and Bothwell had set himself up as Mary’s champion. It was Bothwell who decided to house the ailing Darnley in Kirk o’ Field instead of Holyrood, and his men brought the gunpowder. I have never heard a soul dispute Bothwell’s guilt, although the debate about Mary’s role in the plot continues to this moment. Her response to her husband’s murder did not help her cause.

  All Europe waited to hear that she had ordered the arrest and trial of Bothwell, but they waited in vain – and rumour grew. Unable to stand by and watch my cousin’s ignominy any longer, I did the only thing I could to try and influence the direction of events. I sent her a letter. I told her that she must not look through her fingers at the avenging of her husband’s death. I went further, as close as I could to hinting at the rumoured relationship between her and the odious Bothwell. I wrote that she must see justice done even if it touched the one who was closest to her. I could not have put it more bluntly. I did not give such advice idly, because I had been in a similar situation myself only a few years previously. The man I wanted to marry was suspected of killing his wife. Perhaps the unspoken difference between my situation and hers is that I knew Robin was innocent, whereas it seems Mary knew Bothwell was guilty.

  The Queen of Scots, once the adored idol of so many, then confirmed all the suspicions of those who believe women are not suited to rule. She let her heart rule her head. I was ashamed of her, because she was my closest living relative and because she was a queen. When she could no longer resist pressure for a trial, she set up a tribunal to try Bothwell for the crime, but made sure the judges were all beholden to the man. He was duly acquitted, but no one was convinced by the verdict, not the great nor the mean. Not satisfied with the shadow of an inquest, Mary then compounded her error with her public behaviour.

  She went to a wedding feast in fine silken trappings the day after her husband had been so hideously killed. She gave her husband’s horses and fine clothing to the man all believed was his killer. Her people began to speak openly of her as a harlot.

  Just when we believed events could not possibly get worse, the Earl of Bothwell ‘abducted’ the Scottish queen while she was out riding. So low had her reputation fallen and so quickly there were many who claimed that it was a planned assignation. They said Bothwell then ravished her against her will and that was why she had to marry him to save her honour. What honour? She had none, and yet she seemed blind to it all.

  I know what it is to love a man you cannot marry, but God sends such temptations to forge our characters so we can lead. When she married Bothwell, the man accused of her husband’s murder, she failed the test, lost her right to lead and shamed all of womankind. She also started her journey towards the scaffold.

  I remember coming into the council chamber soon after we had received the news that Mary – blind to all wise counsel – had married that man. I found the great lords of my kingdom in a tight cluster. They were handing a paper from one to the other and laughing.

  ‘What causes such amusement, my lords?’ I said. My presence made them uncomfortable and Francis Knollys tried to hide the paper behind his back.

  ‘It is nothing, Your Grace.’

  ‘I have often said that you laugh easily over very little, Francis, but even I have never accused you of laughing over nothing. It is something, and you hold it in your hand, good my lord.’ I held my own out and gestured for him to give the paper to me. Like a schoolboy caught with a lewd drawing, he complied.

  The cover included a crude sketch of a mermaid wearing a crown. And, although I am not supposed to know the meaning of such symbols, I know very well that the mermaid is a metaphor for a prostitute. ‘What crown wears this sea maiden?’

  ‘The crown of Scotland!’ Knollys reassured me hastily.

  ‘She’s no maiden,’ murmured Robin.

  ‘Indeed, my lord, so it is a married mermaid, is it?’

  ‘A widow, Your Grace.’ Knollys sniggered.<
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  ‘No longer, my lord. Now she is a bride.’ It was Norfolk this time.

  I ignored these supposed witticisms and opened the pamphlet. Inside was a couplet. I read it aloud.

  ‘“As the common people say, only harlots marry in May.”’ Then I looked at the men around me. ‘I presume this charming verse is aimed at my cousin, the Queen of Scots?’

  ‘Aye, Your Grace. They say it was nailed to the gates of Holyrood the day she wed her paramour.’

  The men could not help themselves: as one, they laughed aloud.

  ‘I do not see this as a laughing matter, my lords. My cousin has made such decisions that she no longer deserves to be called a queen, yet it gives me no pleasure to hear her called a harlot.’

  ‘She is not fit to lick your boots, Your Majesty.’ Robin threw himself to his knees.

  ‘Amen to that!’ And all knelt at my feet.

  Their chivalrous gesture made me cry, but I also knew full well, that if ever I had behaved so foolishly – when Amy Dudley died, perhaps – they would have derided me just the same.

  Eleven

  ‘How dare subjects rise up against their sovereign? Whatever mistakes she has made, Cecil, and I grant you they have been many, she is their queen, anointed by God, and should be treated as such.’

  Traitors, the Scots were, every one. By deposing their rightful queen, it was they who put the axe in my hands: the common people, the burghers and the noblemen of Scotland. (Aye, the very same who burn my likeness in effigy now that I have executed the queen they so reviled.) I would rather have severed every one of their heads than be forced to do what I have now done. I have spent the last twenty years desperately twisting this way and that to avoid landing the blow, but, God forgive me, I could not avoid it, no matter how hard I tried. They say monarchs have power. They lie. So often we end up having to do evil because of events that are not of our making.

  I remember I had no idea how to react as the crisis around the Queen of Scots intensified. Messengers arrived almost hourly with tales of the latest outrage, either by queen or by subjects. After Mary had defiantly and fatally married the murderer of her husband – that devil the Earl of Bothwell – the noblemen of Scotland rose as one against their queen. They had been discontented for a long time. They disliked her sex and her French ways and they loathed her stubborn Catholicism. Now they had the excuse they needed to be rid of their troublesome monarch and take power back for themselves. They also had that greatest prize of all, a male heir, and they had made sure that the infant prince was in their possession and not his mother’s.

  It all seems much clearer, as I think back on the events that rushed upon me, one hurrying on the heels of another. Now I can see that the actions of the Queen of Scots began the chain of events that led me to do what I have done. My gorge rises again in renewed fury at my foolhardy cousin’s impetuous and unchaste behaviour. Perhaps she has been justly punished after all. Yet still tears fall unbidden from my sore and exhausted eyes. Where do they come from, so many unshed tears? I have not cried for as long as I can remember and now they come and will not cease.

  Cecil and I listened to each new revelation differently. For him, there was mostly pleasure in the demise of a woman he had feared and distrusted. His concern about events was all about statecraft: how what happened in Scotland might affect our policy and security in England.

  I suspect that with the arrival of every dusty messenger from the north, Cecil hoped that one would bring the tidings that my cousin had not just been deposed, but dispatched. I cannot blame him for that bloodthirsty desire. Had events played out that way so much misery would have been avoided. But, and here is a new thought, if the Scots had murdered their queen, would I have been forced to go to war with them to avenge her fate? Certainly my French allies would have brought considerable pressure to bear and control of the infant prince would have been a prize indeed. Ach! It does me no good to puzzle over what might have been. I must think my way through what actually occurred.

  For myself the news of my cousin’s travails gave rise to feelings that were more complicated. I hated hearing any queen spoken of with such disrespect. It is hard enough to be a woman and a ruler of men without having to witness the pleasure and, yes, salaciousness, with which some men greeted her downfall. ‘She was wearing male dress, Your Majesty, with a musket tucked into her waistband, and, begging your pardon, Your Grace, but she was riding astride her horse – bold as brass! She is a woman that modesty and decorum have forgotten.’ This particular messenger took unseemly pleasure in regaling us with all the gory details of Mary’s humiliating defeat at the battle of Carberry Hill.

  ‘She is a captive now?’ Cecil had little interest in gossip and he could tell by my face that I did not enjoy what I was hearing, and did not approve of the disrespect with which this man spoke about a queen.

  ‘Aye, my lord. First in Edinburgh, but now she is marooned in the island prison on Loch Leven. When they moved her and she rode out of Edinburgh Castle past the soldiers, some of whom had once been in her own army-well, my lord, the men called out, “Burn the Whore”. I watched her go white at their insults, but worse was to come. Even though they thought it wise to move her at night, a crowd of citizens bearing torches had waited outside the castle gates. When they saw her, they also flung insults and worse. “Burn her, burn her,” they shouted. “She is not worthy to live. Kill her, drown her!” I saw the queen weep at their words, with my own eyes, but none showed her any pity. If anything, it seemed to drive them on to further excess. I watched a woman stoop and pick up a fistful of fresh stinking horse dung and fling it at the queen, and when she ducked to avoid it her cloak parted and—’ Drunk on the drama of his story, the messenger lowered his voice theatrically, so both Cecil and I had to lean forward to catch his words. ‘By the look of her belly swelling beneath her bodice, she was pregnant, Your Grace, with, no doubt, the spawn of that mur—’

  ‘Speak no more! I will hear no more!’ I leapt up from my chair and began to pace the room, wringing my hands at the shame of what I was being told.

  Cecil stood and ushered the now startled messenger from the room. ‘You may leave us, sir.’

  ‘I meant no harm, your honour. I am only telling you what I saw.’

  Cecil closed the door firmly behind him.

  ‘How dare he speak of a queen so? How dare he?’

  ‘Calm yourself, Your Grace. He is but a foolish man, caught up in his own importance at being a witness to history.’

  ‘I would have him arrested. I would have him thrown into my darkest dungeon. Send him to Master Topcliffe. Let him do his worst!’

  ‘On what charge, Your Grace? He is only saying what everyone is saying from Scotland to the Russian steppes.’

  ‘It is treason to speak so. Whatever she has done, she is a queen. She is their sovereign, placed on her throne by God himself.’

  ‘But people will talk, good madam. It was ever thus. Unlike you, your foolish and headstrong cousin has given them much to speak of and there is little we can do to stop it.’

  At Cecil’s wise and unanswerable words, I wept. Tears always made my good and faithful councillor uneasy. I think he could mostly forget I was a woman when we went about our daily business together, but when I cried or expressed my emotions freely, he could not help but realise that I was not as other rulers. He patted my arm awkwardly to offer comfort, but the expression on his face was one of such bewilderment that I was forced to smile through my tears. He answered with a small but relieved smile of his own. ‘Ah, that is more like it, Your Grace. You should not waste tears over your cousin. In many ways, her fall can be of great advantage to us. Not least because of how wise and temperate you appear by comparison. As her stakes go down, Your Grace, your reputation gains the advantage. The Queen of Scots is behaving as people fear a queen will behave. The Queen of England, on the other hand, is behaving the way all great monarchs
do. With caution, dignity and wisdom. The contrast is all to your favour, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Nevertheless, good my lord, I must do all I can to save my cousin from her own folly. I will write to her again and offer her my help.’

  ‘Help, Your Grace?’

  ‘I will do all that lies within my power to see that she is not harmed in body, soul or dignity. If my prestige is such as you tell me, Master Spirit, then the least I can do is to use it to insist that a fellow queen be treated with courtesy and respect.’

  ‘Let us hope we have heard the last of her and that she remains incarcerated on her island.’

  ‘But what of the child she is expecting, my lord? What will come of that?’

  ‘If it is Bothwell’s bastard then it will affect nothing. James Stuart, Darnley’s son, if he lives will claim his crown when he comes of age.’

  ‘Even if his mother still lives?’

  ‘I do not know, Your Grace, and I have learnt it is better to let matters unfold as they will. Sometimes it is wiser not to anticipate events. Childbirth is a dangerous time, who knows what may yet occur.’

  ‘And yet she has proved herself well able to deliver children with little ill-effect.’

  ‘Aye, madam, that she has. Scotland is fortunate that it has an obvious successor to the woman who is clearly unfit to rule.’

  ‘Scotland may be fortunate, but I wonder if the birth of her son has given rise to at least some of these events.’

  He opened his mouth to protest, but I held up my hand. ‘I do not minimise what she has done. Her behaviour shocks me to the core as a woman, as a virgin and as a queen, but if she had not given birth to a male heir, would she now find herself in quite this plight?’

  For all his wisdom and forbearance, he could not grasp my meaning. ‘A male heir is an asset devoutly to be wished for and it is the duty of all kings and queens to do what they can to produce such a child. It is also the natural fulfilment of a woman’s life, to bear and raise a new generation. Which leads me, Your Grace, to the next matter of business.’