Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (31 page)

BOOK TWO

Queen of Scotland

1561-1568

ONE

The great white galley ploughed through the seas, making its way , past
the English coast by the traditional, but hazardous, route across i the
North Sea toward Scotland's east coast. Unless a safe conduct were
granted which it had not been ships were subject to attack off the
straits of Dover, Yarmouth, and Holy Island all the way up to Scotland,
and would have no shelter if rough weather hit them anywhere along the
six-hundred-mile journey.

Up and down, sliding from wave-trough to wave-trough, the galley
slipped away from France and, encountering no difficulties, approached
Scotland after only five days at sea. The mist had never lifted
throughout the entire journey, and Mary, standing at the rail and
straining to glimpse the coast, saw nothing but white fog.

"Scotland!" said Bothwell, striding up to where the party of Frenchmen
accompanying Mary were standing by the rail staring out at nothing.

"On? Where is it?" asked Brant6me, who had insisted on coming to
Scotland to see it for himself.

"Behind the white curtain, waiting for you." He came to Mary and
whispered, "There it is."

She nodded.

"We will be landing at Leith, God willing."

Was it that problematical to find one's way? she wondered.

Seeing the puzzlement on her face, he said, "Your mother's vessels went
so far afield they landed in life instead of Leith. But never fear.
The French have learned their way better now." His grim voice was at
odds with his smile.

So thick was the fog that in spite of the voices and noises as the
galley approached the landing, Mary could not even see the wharf. There
were no trumpets, no gladsome shouts of welcome, nothing but the smell
of tar, the thump of ropes, and the raw voices of seamen crying,
"Landing! Tie her!"

For years Mary had imagined landing in Scotland as an adult queen
returning to her childhood home. She and Francois together, of course,
standing at the rail, seeing a great company of mounted councilmen
awaiting them, silken banners flying, caparisoned horses gleaming,
heralds sounding their trumpets, crowds cheering. And at the head of
them all, her mother .. . her mother, who now lay encased in a leaden
coffin en route to France.

A loud whop! as a rough-hewn gangplank was put down.

"Come," said Bothwell, gesturing toward it.

Mary gathered her skirts and, motioning to the Marys, said in a
determinedly gay voice, "Let us go ashore."

They descended the gangplank, five slender figures of black-and-white
on the slanting board. The blanket like fog made Mary feel as though
she were stepping out into a dream instead of landing in a real
country. She stood on the cold dock, drawing her cloak about her. How
drear, how chill and it only August! Was this the Scottish summer?

How can I survive here? was her first fleeting thought.

"Your Majesty!"

The mist swirled, and out stepped James Stewart in a grey cloak almost
the same colour as the surrounding mist. "Mary, have you come, then?"
he said.

"Yes, brother! I am here at last!"

She went forward to embrace him, but he stepped back and bowed, giving
obeisance.

Now two other figures emerged from the fog: a familiar-looking man with
a face so long and thin it looked like an icon, and a man whose
features were pleasingly nondescript.

"John Erskine, Your Majesty," said the long-faced man.

"From Inchmahome ... we were playmates there," she remembered. "And
for a little while in France .. . you came when your father was there
..." She was thinking out loud. "It is indeed a homecoming to find
you here."

He smiled, a smile that went all the way to the margins of his narrow
face. "I no longer go to Inchmahome," he said, sounding regretful.
"But you are welcome there, the same as always."

"He left the island behind, along with the rest of the Popish
superstitions," said James, his words clipped.

"I see," Mary said.

"William Maitland, Laird of Lethington, Your Majesty," said the third
man. He bowed elaborately, as if to cover an awkward moment.

"We are pleased to receive you," she said, acknowledging him. So this
was her mother's secretary of state, reputedly the most intelligent man
in Scotland.

Now the most intelligent man merely knelt and said, "Welcome, Your
Majesty."

"We were not expecting your arrival today," said Lord James. "But it
seems the winds favoured your voyage. Alas, there is a problem with
the horses" he paused "and also with Holyrood Palace." Shrugging, he
continued, "It seems that the English intercepted the galley bringing
Your Majesty's horses, and ... er ... impounded them in England. We
are endeavouring to have them returned forthwith. And Holyrood is not
quite prepared to receive you."

Not prepared? They had known she was coming for weeks! she thought.

"However, if you will bide a space here, while it is readied, a
merchant, a Mr. Andrew Lamb, has graciously consented to feed uh,
feast you in his home here in Leith. In the meanwhile I will procure
horses for your party of ... is it sixty?" His eyes fastened upon a
small man in a fur-lined robe in her party. "Who is that?" he asked
in a low voice. "Your confessor? A priest?"

Mary nodded, and Lord James looked put upon.

In the late afternoon, Lord James reappeared with enough horses for
all, although most of them were sorry nags their coats dull, their
bones protruding, and many of them unshod.

So this was how she was to make her first appearance in her native land
so different from her imaginary entrance on her white horse. At least
she did not have to walk the two miles in the mud, or ride a donkey.
They set out on the wide, potholed, muddy road leading from Leith up to
Edinburgh. The fog had not lifted, and so there was nothing to be seen
on either side, much to Mary's disappointment she was longing to see
her half-remembered country that now seemed disinclined to show itself
to her. The smoke-thick droplets also veiled the damage from the
recent siege of Leith by the English.

"I sent word ahead to Edinburgh," said Lord James. "So there soon
should be people gathering." He sounded harassed and resigned his
voice was so impersonal, and there was little left of the brother she
had gone sledding with at Stirling.

"Thank you, dear brother." She looked around at her party, all mounted
now. "Come, my friends!" she said cheerfully. "It is time to go to
our new home!" Resolutely she turned her head in the direction she
imagined Edinburgh to lie. But in truth, she was completely dependent
on James to lead the way.

They moved out in a painfully slow cavalcade through the dreary streets
of the town, made all the more dreary by the ruined buildings on either
side of the road, burnt by the English just before the recent fighting
ended. There seemed to be no colours at all but this pewter-shaded
sky, this bluish grey mist, and the black of charred wood. And the
chill! It penetrated quickly down to the very skin. Mary felt herself
about to start shivering, and willed herself not to.

A few faces peeked out of doorways; they were colourless, too, and had
the resigned, dull look of hungry people who were weary of fighting.
She saw how different they looked from French townsfolk. Their
garments were rougher and seemingly all of that brown-dun-tan shade of
undyed wool.

Their faces, too, were different the look in the light eyes, the paler
skin. Here and there she saw a child with fiery red hair.

"The Queen!" she heard one say in a shrill voice. "It has to be, it
has to be, look at her fine cloak "

She turned to wave and smile, but she saw no one in the mist.

The road began to climb upward; she could feel it. More people now
began to gather on the road; word had gone out that the Queen had
come.

"Welcome! Oh, welcome!" they cried.

"Bless that sweet face!"

"A bonny Stewart is come tae us!"

They ran alongside her horse, calling out, offering her branches of
flowers, little cakes, ribbons.

"Thank you fer comin'," said one old man, who came so close he could
have grabbed her horse's bridle. "We need ye we need ye here."

There were heavy middle-aged women, their bodies worn out with
child-bearing, their cheeks flushed and lined; thin boys with lank hair
and confused smiles; burly men with the bushiest beards she had ever
seen, often streaked with that reddish tint. Their faces were
friendly, welcoming.

She reined in her horse, which seemed glad to stop. "Thank you, my
good people. It is with great joy that I have returned here, to
Scotland, to my own land!"

In front of her Lord James and Maitland had plodded on, unheeding. Just
at that moment a swarm of men appeared out the mist and began crying,
"Justice! Justice!" They rushed right at Mary's horse, and Bothwell
quickly rode up beside her and unsheathed his sword so quickly Mary did
not even see the movement; it just seemed to appear, by magic, in his
hand.

"Stay back!" he barked. "Do not approach so heedlessly!"

The men stopped, but cried out, "Now the Queen is here, she can hear
our grievance!"

"Not now!" said Bothwell. "You can present your petitions at the
proper time. Her Majesty has not even been formally received. After
that ceremony "

"No," Mary said quickly. "Let me hear them now, as they have sought me
out."

Bothwell looked at her as if she were either stupid or ill-informed. He
kept his sword poised, holding it up like a great stave.

"We are poor clerks, who have just saved some companions who were being
unjustly jailed! Here they are, Your Majesty!" They pushed forward
some young men as their exhibit.

They looked perfectly ordinary, like any village youths anywhere;
certainly they did not look criminal. "Why, what had you done?" Mary
asked.

"We played "Robin Hood' on Sunday," said one of them. "We put on a
show, for the village. And for that we were arrested, and thrown into
jail by the Reformers!" They indicated one of their number, and said,
"And he, as our leader, was condemned to death."

"By what right " Mary began.

"By every right," said Bothwell, close by her. "The Reformed Kirk now
rules the land. Did you not understand that? Did the Lords not spell
it all out in their letter? The Kirk makes the laws, and it is now
against the law to sport on Sunday. The Lord's Day must not be
profaned."

The way he said it was he in earnest? He had said he was Protestant.
Did that mean he believed in these prohibitions? And no, the Lords had
not spelled it out in their letter. It would have been too ugly to put
in writing.

"I pardon you," she said. "I forbid this sentence to be carried out.
You are all free."

The men let out wild whoops of relief, and began dancing in the road.