"You are sure there will be a next time?"
"As of my life." Cecil sighed and stretched out his swollen, gouty
leg. "You heard what Charles IX said: the poor fool will never stop
plotting until she loses her head. It bespeaks a lack of intelligence
to continue, but prisoners must sometimes do insane things in order to
stay sane and give order to their days, which are otherwise
meaningless. What has she to do from morning to night? Sew? Pray?
Read?"
"What else had the monks to do?" snapped Elizabeth.
"The monks chose their station, and felt they had a vocation for it.
Mary has no vocation for being a prisoner all her actions in trying to
escape show that."
"She had no vocation for being a monarch, either. That was evident
from the moment she returned to Scotland to rule. Poor thing does she
have a vocation at all?"
"Many talents, many gifts, but perhaps no vocation," agreed Cecil. "But
the omens this year the comet that appeared everyone agrees that some
catastrophe may occur in England. It is, most like, some treason to
overthrow you! It is only May "
"A comet!"
"Remember the comet in 1066, that foretold the Norman invasion. Do not
scoff!"
"You sound like an old country woman, Cecil. For shame! Nay, I have
decided what to do to stop the Scottish Queen. I will allow the casket
letters to be published. All that trash she wrote to her lover,
Bothwell let the whole world see it and judge her! Along with it,
Buchanan's A Detection of the Doings of the Queen of Scotland. Then no
one will want to elevate her. Until now the letters have been
privately circulated, and only in England and Scotland. But now let
French and Latin translations be published, too, so the common people
in every land can know what she is! The common people: Knox's
new-found weapon. Well, others can use it as well!"
"Your Majesty! That is brilliant!" Cecil smiled for the first time
since coming into the chamber. "But are you sure? It is still a
gamble. In your own way, you are more daring than even she is. She
has nothing to lose, having already lost all. You have much to lose,
if by ignoring the sound advice and warnings of your people and
Council, you let the Bosom Serpent live and she strikes!"
Elizabeth laughed. "The Bosom Serpent! Walsingham is clever with
words." She opened her windows wide and looked out. "I see no
comet."
"Then you are firm? Your mind is quite made up?"
"Yes. I dare fate. Jacta est alia the die is cast."
After Cecil had gone, and she had made ready for bed, she sat, dressed
in her tawny silken robe, at her desk. She kept reaching her slender
fingers into the little basket and eating strawberries. They were
delicious, with a tang behind their sweetness.
Elizabeth was writing a poem. But it was no love poem, no paean to
flowery May or Roman gods.
The Daughter of Debate
The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy.
For falsehood now doth flow and subject faith doth ebb,
Which would not be, if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.
But clouds of toys untried do cloak aspiring minds,
Which turn to rain of late repent by course of changed winds.
The top of hope supposed the root of ruth will be,
And fruitless all their graffed guiles, as shortly ye shall see.
The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds,
Shall be unsealed by worthy wights, whose foresight falsehood finds.
The daughter of debate, that eke discord doth sow,
Shall reap no gain where former rule hath taught still peace to grow.
No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port;
Our realm it brooks no stranger's force, let them elsewhere resort.
Our rusty sword with rest shall first his edge employ
To poll their tops that seek such change and gape for joy.
Mary writes of love, of passion, in her poems, Elizabeth thought. I
write of England.
She put the paper aside.
I feel the need to write, but I fear my poetry is as stiff as Cecil's
leg. We are much alike, she thought. The soul of a poet is not always
given the wings to fly.
On June second, the Duke of Norfolk was led up the steps of the
scaffold on Tower Hill. This time the people were not disappointed.
After giving the requisite speech, mingling Christian resignation with
farewells, he laid his head on the block. The headsman was in good
form that morning, and got it off with only one chop.
On August twenty-second, the Earl of Northumberland was likewise
executed at York, after having been extradited from Scotland.
The same day, Catherine de M dicis's assassins attempted to kill the
Huguenot leader, Admiral Coligny, in Paris, where large numbers of
Huguenots had come for the wedding of Marguerite Valois and Henri of
Navarre. The assassin missed, as the Admiral stooped to adjust his
shoe, and only succeeded in shooting his arm. His fellow Huguenots
cried, "The Admiral's arm will cost thirty thousand Catholic arms!"
Two days later, on St. Bartholomew's Day the feast of the apostle who
had been martyred by being skinned alive the Catholics of Paris, under
the leadership of the Guises, claiming fear of the Huguenot vow,
martyred four thousand Huguenot men, women, and children in the
streets. The Duc de Guise himself killed Admiral Coligny. The blood
in the streets spread out in a red web between cobblestones.
In the provinces, another six thousand Huguenots were killed.
Elizabeth received the French ambassador at Woodstock on September
eighth, the day after her thirty-ninth birthday. She was dressed in
mourning and had ordered her attendants to dress likewise. She had
kept the ambassador waiting three days before granting him an audience
all to impress on him the gravity of the situation. Protestant
subjects had been slaughtered, and she, a Protestant queen, was
outraged.
Yet when she met with him, drawing him aside to speak privately with
him, she was by no means as stern as her garments. She seemed willing
to accept the official version of events and the King's pledge of
continuing friendship with England. The Anglo-French Treaty of Blois
would stand.
Anti-Catholic feeling now swelled to hysteria in England. The cries
for Mary's execution rose. Her family house, the Guises, had led the
massacre.
NINE
The October skies were brilliant over Scotland; in only two days it
would be Hallowe'en, usually a dreary time, but this year it would be
golden. Morton had always enjoyed All Hallows' Eve for all that he was
supposed to be a faithful member of the Kirk. He motioned to Erskine
to seat himself where he could have a view of the trees outside the
window of Morton's mansion at Dalkeith.
Morton looked dispassionately at the Regent seated across from him. The
long-faced Erskine could expect another twelve years of control in
Scotland, until the Prince obtained his eighteenth birthday. There
seemed to be no danger of Mary being restored to her throne; the
Ridolfi Plot had turned Elizabeth against her. Now she sought to be
delivered from her. Well, it would cost her even more than the Earl of
Northumberland had in gold.
"My dear Erskine, you are looking weak and sickly. Are you quite sure
you have recovered from the ague?" asked Morton solicitously, pouring
him some wine.
Erskine coughed. "Not entirely. And with winter coming Stirling is so
drafty." He hacked again.
"I should think you would be used to it by now. I thought it was well
insulated."
"Nay, nothing can keep out that wind." He shuddered. "The only remedy
is to keep to one's bed, under mounds of covers. However, our envoy to
Denmark has sent some remarkable undergarments guaranteed to keep one
warm and they do, although they itch."
"Denmark. I am glad something has come out of it. I am disgusted with
King Frederick! Why does he not surrender Bothwell to us?"
"We should stop the 'trial' business and just go straight to bribery,"
said Erskine. He was looking at the dish of pigeon breast with juniper
and roast saddle of hare before him. He helped himself. They were
dining alone.
Morton smiled. That was his opening. "Yes. But for that we need
money. How desperate are you for it? Would you be willing to
undertake an execution for it?"
"An assassination, you mean?" He was chewing slowly.
"No, a proper execution." Morton took a big drink of the French wine
from Gascony. "The King's mother."
"Mary?" Erskine put down his fork and stared.
"The English are willing to deliver her up to our justice. It seems
the clamour and turmoil of keeping her is wearing on their nerves. They
or rather Cecil would pay us to take her back."
"How much?" Erskine's voice was reedy. "Perhaps it is a trick for her
restoration."
He does not mean to do it, thought Morton. He has lost his nerve and
become a worn-out creature.
"I do not know yet. The question is, would you agree?"
"I cannot answer." He shook his head. "Knox is sinking fast. He can
no longer walk unsupported. What will we do when he leaves us?"
"Then make his last days happy. He has long urged us to it." Morton
tried to keep the edge of distrust out of his voice. "We should
proceed while the English are in the mood. Elizabeth has been hurt by
her cousin's plotting. But, womanlike, she will change her mind soon
enough."
"I cannot do it," said Erskine at length. "It is a monstrous crime, to
slay one's anointed sovereign. I will not have it on my soul."
"Nor, so it seems, will Elizabeth. My, what cowards we have about
us!"
He cannot stay Regent another twelve years, thought Morton. He will
turn us all into timid girls and skirted eunuchs. Scotland needs
strength at its helm, not quivering.
"You may call it what you will," insisted Erskine. "I could call some
of our doings tyranny and sin."
This was alarming. "Are you planning to retire back to your family
monastery of Inchmahome, Erskine? What is this turnabout?" asked
Morton in a taunting tone.
"Just reflection. There has been too little of it amongst us."
"Very well, then. Forget the English suggestion. How fares the little
King?" Morton was noticing how clear and unclouded the French wine was
as the light shone through it from the window. A thought had come to
him.
"A true scholar. Very quiet, diligent, and obedient. Nothing like
either of his parents, unless he is keeping his true nature hidden. He
has a pet monkey," he suddenly remembered. "He calls it his 'little
infidel' and lets it cling to him. A sailor brought it to him as a
pet. It is the only thing he ever shows affection for."