Queen of This Realm - Plaidy Jean. Страница 71

Who could have doubted that it was unjust, but who would have the courage to come out and say so?

You are in mortal danger now, Mary, I thought. Did she ever think of me and wonder what my feelings had been when Robert's wife was found dead at the bottom of a staircase? If she did not, she was a fool. She should remember how I had acted and see that her only chance was to be as aloof, calm and wise as I, now very forcibly, realized I had been. But when had Mary ever been calm or wise or strong?

She threw away her hopes, her life, her crown most likely when she married James Bothwell.

It was not even as though he had been free. He was married to a virtuous lady and it was necessary for him to obtain a divorce before he could marry Mary.

How could Mary have been so foolish! But then her life had been so comfortable during her youth she had never faced death as I had… many times. She had never had to learn how to dissimulate, to act with the utmost caution, to cajole, to pretend, to survive. She had had none of those lessons for which I now thanked God, much as I had suffered when I was learning them.

But Bothwell naturally had his divorce and she married him; and the whole world—the world of adulterers, poisoners and ruthless schemers— held up its hands in horror at the actions of this poor, simple and too loving woman.

Her family, the Guises, were horrified and scarcely owned her; Catherine de' Medici declared in public that she was too shocked to give expression to her thoughts although, of course, had she done so truthfully she would have told of her delight in the fall of the girl whom she had hated and driven from France; Philip of Spain was contemptuously silent. I alone felt pity, perhaps because something not dissimilar could have happened to me.

And this was the woman, this poor weak foolish woman, who would be Queen of England!

Little James was taken from her and given into the care of the Earl and Countess of Marr; and the Queen must ride beside Bothwell to stand against those who came to depose her.

There was the disaster of Carberry Hill, and I wondered how much she grieved to fight against her own subjects.

I could picture her, though nothing so humiliating had ever happened to me. Whatever I had suffered, I had always had the sympathy of the people. I do believe that if I had lost that I should have lost heart. But Mary deserved their scorn. Had she regretted her submission to Bothwell, her abandoning of her self-respect: her placing herself under the domination of such a man, as she rode into Edinburgh with the mob screaming abuse at her? “Burn the whore!” they had shouted. “Death to the murderess!”

I could imagine her dirty and disheveled. Was that beauty, of which the poets had sung, apparent then?

So they had kept her in the Provost's House while through the night the mob screamed outside. I could see their cruel faces in the red glow of the torches and Mary there cringing, mourning the glory she had lost.

And so she became their prisoner. Lochleven first, where she charmed the suceptible young Douglas sufficiently for him to help her escape.

She had some loyal subjects—enough to enable her to go into battle at Langside against her enemies, to be followed by what seemed inevitable defeat. Mary was put to flight once more and knowing that at that time Scotland was no place for her unless she wanted to go back into captivity, she made her decision which, characteristically, was an unwise one … though I had no reason to complain of this!

I wondered how she reasoned as she waited there with the few friends left to her, to gaze no doubt across the Solway Firth to England and out to France.

Her family were now displeased with her; she knew that the Queen Mother of France was her enemy. Should she go to France? There was another choice. England! Foolish woman, did she think I would forget that she had emblazoned the arms of England on her shield? Did she think I would ever forget that she had called herself Queen of England?

She knew nothing of the world, nothing of people. Certainly she did not understand such as I was. She had listened too long to the poets, and she believed that her beauty had given her a right to act in a manner which would not be acceptable from others. She had never learned the art of survival as I had.

I was in a state of great excitement when I received word from the Earl of Northumberland that Mary had arrived in England. She had landed at the little village of Workington where Sir Henry Curwen had given her shelter at Workington Hall until the Earl decided that she would be more comfortable at Cockermouth in the home of a certain Henry Fletcher, a rich merchant of the district. Northumberland was not in residence in his own castle. He thought Mary could stay with the Fletchers until he received instructions from me as to what should be done with her.

There was a letter from Mary for me in which she referred to me as her dear sister and begged for my help.

“I entreat you to send for me as soon as possible,” she wrote, “for I am in a pitiable condition, not only for a queen but for a gentlewoman, having nothing in the world but what I had on my person when I escaped…”

That must have been very distressing for the fastidious lady who had enchanted everyone with her exquisite gowns.

“…I hope to be able to declare my misfortunes to you if it pleases you to have compassion and permit me to come to you…”

Oh, I thought, it is compassion you want now! Very different from a crown.

“…I will pray to God to give you a long and happy life and to myself patience and that consolation I await from you.

“Your faithful and affectionate good sister and cousin and escaped prisoner, Mary.”

I showed the letter to Cecil. He was noncommittal but as excited as I was.

I said: “The Ladies Grey are under restraint; the Countess of Lennox is in the Tower; and now Mary of Scotland is in England.”

“God has delivered her into Your Majesty's hands,” said Cecil slowly.

“Nay,” I replied, “not God, but Mary herself. What now?”

“She is no longer the prisoner of the Scots.”

“No,” I said slowly. “She is mine.”

He nodded slowly. Then he said: “She begs to see you.”

I shook my head. “I shall not see her… yet. I will let it be known that while she is treated with the honor due to a queen, I cannot receive her until she is cleared of murder. Her actions, if we heard truthfully—and we know of her marriage to Bothwell when Darnley was scarcely cold—have been such that no virtuous lady can receive her, least of all a queen…and a virgin. I have my reputation to consider.”

He smiled at me sardonically. Was he thinking, as I was, and as so many people would be thinking, of the mysterious death of Amy Robsart in which some rumors had it I had been involved? She must be comparing the similarity of the cases.

I did not want to see her, to listen to her pleas. I did not want a beautiful and fascinating rival at my Court.

Cecil agreed with me that a message should be sent to the North and for the time being she should be lodged in Carlisle Castle where she must be treated with the dignity due her rank.

This was a miracle. The greatest of my enemies had been delivered into my hands.

THERE ARE PEOPLE who must always be at the center of dramatic events. Mary of Scotland was one of them. It was unfortunate for her that a casket containing letters had been left behind in Edinburgh by Bothwell when he escaped to Borthwick. These were said to be the correspondence between Mary and Bothwell. I believed that some of them were forgeries, but like most good forgeries they could not be entirely false. It seemed certain that some of the letters had been written by Mary and if they were all true she was condemned, not only as being Bothwell's mistress before her marriage to him, but an accomplice in the murder of Darnley.