Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (32 page)

"Come, let us go on," said Bothwell. But Lord James had turned back in
time to hear the exchange. He was glowering.

"Your Majesty," he said sourly, "even the Queen must obey the laws of
the land."

"What laws?" she said. "How can binding laws have been passed without
my consent?"

"Parliament," said Lord James, in that clipped tone.

"All parliamentary laws need the royal signature to be adopted as law,"
she said. "You sent nothing to me in France to sign although I
understand you passed a multitude of laws recently."

"They await your signature at Holyrood," said Lord James. "Naturally
we did not send them to France, knowing you would soon be here."

The men had now started shouting and throwing flowers.

"Oh, the bonny Queen!" they cried. "Will you be our Maid Marian?"

"Aye!" she said.

"Sister!" said Lord James, catching his breath. "The royal dignity!"
He urged his horse forward and the party set out again, with the freed
youths dancing behind them.

Now the ground began to climb more steeply, as they approached
Edinburgh. The city lay on a long, bony spine of land, with a dark,
ancient castle at its head and Holyrood Palace at its feet. Part of
the city had a stout wall around it to keep out the English, but
Holyrood lay in the part that was unprotected.

More people now lined the road, and Mary could see points of light
where small bonfires had been lit to welcome her. They glowed through
the mist like lanterns.

The road widened as it approached the crest of a hill, and suddenly
there was a wall before the royal party. They entered through the
fortified gate, and emerged onto a broad street paved with square
boulder stones, bordered on both sides by narrow, many-storeyed houses.
Lord James reined in his horse and pointed to the bottom of the hill.
Mary could see nothing but mist.

"Down there is Holyrood, Your Majesty," he said.

Mary strained her eyes but could see nothing more than the smoke like
fog. Sometimes a shape seemed to shimmer within it, but she could not
be sure.

"You are upon the High Street, the fair road leading down the hill
toward -the palace," he said. He turned in the saddle and swept his
arm back in the opposite direction. "Up the hill it's a slow, steady
climb the street continues all the way to Edinburgh Castle upon its
great high rock."

She wished she could see it, it was so maddening to be able to see only
some ten feet in any direction. "I long to see it all," she said.

"You will see it soon enough," he assured her.

Now there were larger crowds, and next they passed through the
Neth-erbow gate in the city wall and continued down the same street,
now called Canongate, where the houses were less crowded together and
more gracious.

"The noblemen have their houses here, near Holyrood and outside the
city walls. There is more room, so they can have their gardens and
orchards," said Maitland, who had ridden up alongside her.

The sight of so many people welcoming her, and being near Holyrood at
last, excited her. Gone were the exhaustion and debilitation that had
clung to her for months, and the nagging sense of having made a wrong
decision, of having left something more important behind.

"I have never seen Holyrood!" she said. "It was never safe for me to
be there, when I was a child."

"Peace has come to Scotland at last," Maitland replied. His eyes swept
up and down the street, but in the dense fog did not discern any of
Knox's loudmouthed followers. That they were evidently indoors, he
gave thanks. He felt sorry for the Queen and wished he could spare her
what he knew was inevitably coming. Peace? As long as you were of Mr.
Knox and the Congregation, yes.

TWO

John Knox hitched up his breeches as he settled himself at his work
desk. Although it was only Tuesday, he was inspired to begin his
Sunday sermon. He was now pastor of St. Giles, the High Kirk of
Edinburgh, the foremost church of Scotland, and his two-hour-long
sermons were heard by hundreds of people and repeated to hundreds more
within just a few hours. He did not see it as a reflection on his own
oratory, but rather on the power of the Holy Spirit, which gave him the
words. He but spoke what he was directed to speak.

The Queen of Scots had set sail, or was about to, any day; he did not
know whether she had left France or not. But all his prayers to keep
her away had evidently been refused by God. It was His purpose to let
her come and ascend the throne in Scotland. Knox must bow to His
wishes.

The theme of the sermon that the Holy Spirit had shown him this week
was to be upon the Elect of God, His chosen ones, using Ephesians 1:4-5
as his text:

According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love:

Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.

As sometimes happened, Knox had not responded immediately to the nudge
of the Holy Spirit when first directed to this text, but waited to see
if the call was genuine. Alas, it was, and Knox was constrained to
labour on that difficult text and doctrine, which Calvin was always
refining.

He sighed and looked out the window, which afforded a view up and down
the High Street of Edinburgh from its overhanging vantage point. His
desk was positioned so that when he was working, he could see the crown
like spire of St. Giles, farther up the hill. Today he could not see
it, even though it was only a short distance away, because a strange,
thick mist had descended and was swirling around all the buildings,
wrapping them in a blanket of cold, minute drops.

It is so unseasonable, he thought. Such a fog, and in August! He
reached for a wool blanket and pulled it about himself, thankful for
its thick comfort.

The Elect. The Predestined. It was such a thorny concept. If God had
predestined some to be saved, "before the foundation of the world,"
then of what use was preaching? God's own would presumably come
forward of their own accord. And what if someone not chosen was moved
to come forward as a result of preaching? What a cruel hoax on him!
And was God that cruel? Would He tease people with a hope of something
they could not have? Only little boys did that to their younger
brothers.

But I am called to explain this, he thought. And what of the even more
difficult allusion in Revelation 7:4 about only 144,000 people being
saved? Was Heaven that limited?

He moved on his cushions. It seems to get more and more difficult, he
thought. I am forty-seven years old and the Lord keeps veiling things
from me. I keep trying to part the veil, but there are always more
veils behind each one.. .. Will I never reach His heart?

Perhaps I should preach on "the veils." One of the things behind the
veils, hidden from my understanding, is the fact of the Elect, of
Predestination .. . yes, but I must trust and believe nonetheless,
until more is revealed to me.. ..

He picked up his pen in excitement, dipped it in the ink. I must
preach of my own ignorance, yet place it in trust, he thought. I trust
that I am one of the Chosen, but I cannot know it is all to do with
grace.. ..

Exhilarated, he began writing as fast as he could, while the day failed
to lighten outside as it should. The mist had stifled the sun.

Three hours later, the Spirit left him. He sagged at his writing desk
and felt his inspiration dying away. But he had trapped it on paper,
he thought exultantly, looking at the curling leaves of writing paper
covering his desk. He had trapped the Spirit as a fisherman trapped
fishes in his net. We both labour at our calling, he thought.

As he was gathering up the loose sheets of paper he would not read them
over until the next day, for he never corrected his work under the
power of the Spirit, only composed there was a quick series of raps on
his door.

"Pray enter," he said. He was ready for company, ready to descend to
the lower room, have a bowl of soup, and commune with other human
beings. Enough of the muse and the Spirit. His human instrument was
weary and longed to be with its own.

His secretary stepped in, and his cloak was shiny with droplets from
the fog. "She's here, sir," he said. "The Queen has landed at
Leith."

"What, already?" cried Knox. "I had not even received word that she
had left France."

"The winds were favourable. It took only five days," replied the
secretary. "They arrived early this morning, to a rather meagre
welcome, as they were not expected so soon. The Queen and her party
had to borrow horses, for their own were impounded in England. But
they are even now on their way to Edinburgh."

Knox stood up. It was come, then. The thing he had been dreading, and
had prayed to be spared.

"She .. . she is beautiful, sir," said the secretary. "I saw her as
she stopped and talked to the people en route. In Scots. She is very
tall, and has a perfect complexion, and moves with such grace, like a a
cat, all supple and with perfection "

"Enough! Are you bewitched with her?" cried Knox. "Your speech is
strange, disjointed!"

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said quietly. "I was only attempting to
describe her before you saw her. She will arrive in less than an hour.
I thought you would want to be notified."

Knox went to the window. Little beads of water covered all the panes,
making them opaque. "How many are there in her party?"

"She brings with her a number of Frenchmen "

"Naturally!"

"I believe there are three of her Guise uncles "

"Naturally!"

"A poet who elected to come to Scotland, one Chastelard, I believe "

"Just what we need! Is he the first of a swarm? Better a plague of
locusts than a plague of poets!" He turned and glared at the man.

"Sir, I merely bring the news; I did not select the party. Shall I go
on, or will you continue to argue and harass me?"

Knox sighed. "Go on. Forgive me."

"Her brother, the Lord James, went to meet her, along with Maitland of
Lethington and Lord Erskine."

Good Protestants all, thought Knox. Pray they be not bewitched or
deflected from their purpose which is to rule her, rather than permit
her to rule us.

"Ummm." Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flicker of colour. There
was something glimmering in the mist. The first of the bonfires.
Bonfires of joy, they called them. "The folly begins," he muttered.

O dear God, do not permit this nation to relapse into idolatry and
error, he prayed. Do not bring us this far in the way of truth to
abandon us now!

"This fog," he suddenly said. "I know now whereof it comes. The very
face of Heaven speaks what comfort she brings into this country with
her: to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness, and all impiety." He felt his
voice rising, as if he were speaking to hundreds, and not just in this
time, but to all time. "For never in the memory of man this day of the
year was seen a more dolorous face of Heaven! The surface wet, the
corruption of the air; the mist so thick and dark that scarce might any
man espy the length of two pair of butts.. .. That forewarning God
gives us ... heed it!"