Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles

B
OOK ONE

Queen of Scotland, Queen of France

ONE

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. These 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.

No, Marie de Guise, the relict quaint phrase, that, she thought of His
Majesty James V of Scotland must right herself and be poised to defend
her infant, like any wolf-mother in a harsh winter. And it was a very
harsh winter, not only in terms of the flying snow and icy roads, but
for Scotland itself.

She could almost fancy that, in the ruddy flames of the fires she kept
continually burning, the teeth of the nobles looked more like animal
fangs than human dog-teeth. One by one they made their way to
Linlithgow Palace, the golden palace lying on a long, thin loch just
west of Edinburgh, to offer their respects to the infant their new
Queen. They came clad in heavy furs, their feet booted and wrapped
round with animal skins, and it was hard to tell their ice-streaked
beards from the furs surrounding their faces. They would kneel and
murmur something about their loyalty, but their eyes were
preternaturally bright.

There were all the clans who came to make sure that they would not be
barred from power by any other clan. For this was the greatest of all
opportunities, the equivalent of a stag-kill that attracted all the
carrion-eaters of the forest. An infant was their monarch, a helpless
infant, with no one but a foreign mother to protect her: a Frenchwoman
who was ignorant of their ways here and far from home.

The Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, was there; had not this baby been
born, he would now be king. He smiled benevolently at the infant. "I
wish her a long life," he said.

The Earl of Lennox, Matthew Stuart, who claimed to be the true heir
rather than Arran, came shortly and stood looking longingly down at the
baby. "May she have all the gifts of grace and beauty," he said.

Patrick Hepbum, the "Fair Earl" of Bothwell, stepped forward and kissed
the Queen Mother's hand lingeringly. "May she have power to make all
who gaze upon her love her," he said, raising his eyes to Marie's.

The red-faced, stout northern Earl of Huntly strutted past the cradle
and bowed. "May she always rest among friends and never fall into the
hands of her enemies," he said.

"My lord!" Marie de Guise objected. "Why mention enemies? Why even
think of them now? You tie your well-wishes to something sinister. I
pray you, amend your words."

"I can amend them, but never erase them. Once spoken, they have flown
into another realm. Very well: let her enemies be confounded and come
to confusion."