Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (36 page)

Then came the leading nobles and officers of the realm, and the royal
archers.

"Are you ready, Your Majesty?" Lord James reined up beside her.

"With all my heart!"

With a resounding crack, the cannons of the castle were fired in
salute, sounding like thunder.

They set out, riding slowly down through the castle gates and then into
the town proper, where it seemed that all thirty thousand inhabitants
of Edinburgh were waiting for her, for they burst into cheers as she
emerged onto the upper reaches of the Royal Mile.

Sixteen members of the Town Council, dressed in black velvet, came
forward to welcome her officially, and then the cavalcade moved slowly
past the cheering crowds and beneath the triumphal arch. Along the
way, on stages constructed for the purpose, costumed children sang and
various allegorical plays were enacted, some more blatantly Protestant
than others.

In one, idolatry was condemned, in the form of Old Testament
transgressors, like the little-known Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, being
burnt.

"They meant it to be a priest at the altar, did you know that?" said a
harsh voice.

She turned to see the glaring eyes of the Earl of Huntly.

"But I stopped them!" he said triumphantly. "Can you imagine the
insult they intended?" His face was turning red in anger.

"I thank you," she merely said, hoping to damp down his fury.

They reached the Tolbooth the city prison where the criminals, still
fettered in the stocks for lechery, blasphemy, and vagrancy, cheered
the Queen with all the rest. The bankrupts, wearing their yellow hats,
called teasingly, "Largesse! Largesse!" until their guards silenced
them.

Passing St. Giles Cathedral, they reached the Mercat Cross, where Mary
was greeted by three virgins representing Justice, Policy, and Fortune,
who welcomed her to the fountain spouting wine. A vast party of people
stood, their glasses already filled, and when the Queen took hers and
drank, they all lifted theirs simultaneously, drank, and then broke all
the glasses at once to signify their loyalty.

"Lest the glasses ever be used for a lesser toast," whispered one of
the virgins.

Mary was startled by this spontaneous display of generosity in such a
poor country.

They continued down the gently sloping street, with its houses made of
dressed field stone hedging the Royal Mile like a tall fence. Many of
the houses had outside staircases and most had wooden upper storeys
that jutted out and abutted their neighbours'. One, a particularly
handsome house on the left with a large second storey, actually
protruded out into the street like a knuckle.

"John Knox's house, Your Majesty," said Bothwell, who had been riding
close behind her.

She looked at it, sticking out into the street, completely out of line
with the other houses, making an obstruction and a nuisance of itself.
It attracted attention, like a stone in running water.

So the house was like its master. Was he in there? For she was sure
he would not be outside to welcome her. Was there a face in one of the
windows?

It was impossible to tell. Reflections made dancing images in the
glass, and they seemed to move as she moved. She dared not be seen
gazing up at the Reformer's window like a disciple, while all around
her people were clamouring for a glance or a smile from her. Leaving
the house behind, she continued down the High Street toward Holyrood,
waving and smiling.

Knox, seated at his djpsk as he would have been on any ordinary
workday, was well able to spy what was going on in the street below.
Without even moving his chair, he had easily seen the approach of the
cavalcade as it moved slowly down the High Street. There had been
tableaux all along the route plain enough for anyone to understand
anyone who was witting to understand! demonstrating the truth of the
Protestant religion. Effigies of the sons of Israel who had offered
false sacrifices had been burned. The Queen had even been presented
with a Bible and Psalter in Scots, and a costumed child had made a
speech suggesting outright that she should abandon the mass. But had
she heeded it? No, she had merely smiled in that inane way and tucked
the Holy Word under her arm, and kept waving and turning her head.

The fountain near the Mercat Cross had spouted wine, to make the people
drunk and pacify them. Everything had been arranged, no expense spared
in the masques and farces to lull the people and buy their fickle
loyalty.

Knox stared at Mary as she passed, her grey mantle open and spread out
across her white horse's flanks. The rubies on her breast caught the
sunlight upon her grey bodice; her face seemed the very workmanship of
all Satan's cunning to make vice alluring.

He dipped his pen in ink and wrote, "In farces, in masquing, and in
other prodigalities, fain would the fools have counterfeited France."

On the street below, the people were singing, "Welcome, O Sovereign!
Welcome, O native Queen!"

Three days later, on Sunday, Knox took his accustomed place in the
pulpit of St. Giles and looked out at the packed congregation. He had
had no difficulty with the selection of his topic this Lord's Day: it
had been thrust upon him.

"One mass to be said upon this soil is more to be feared than the
landing of ten thousand foreign soldiers!" he cried. "Shall we allow
it?"

Later that selfsame Sunday, as Mary's priest and his assistants made
ready to celebrate mass in the Chapel Royal, a crowd began to gather in
the forecourt of Holyrood Palace. The chapel, completely bare in
accordance with Calvinistic doctrine, had to be furnished with candles
and an altar for a mass to be celebrated in any fashion at all. The
assistant, carrying the candlesticks and candles from one side of the
courtyard to the main entrance, ran afoul of the crowd.

"Shall that idol the mass be suffered again to take place in this
kingdom? We were purged of it! Shall the dog return to its vomit? It
shall not!" cried Patrick, Lord Lindsay of the Byres, one of the
recently converted nobles.

The deacon halted. The crowd was large. But would not the Lord
protect him? He enfolded his candles and candlesticks in his arms and
tried to go around them, reciting slowly, "O Lord my God, in Thee do I
put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:
Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces ..."

A burly butcher still smelling of his trade, although he did not wear
his apron grabbed the deacon by the shoulder. "The idolater priest
shall die the death, according to God's law!" he yelled.

"I am no priest!" the deacon cried, twisting free of his hands and
running to the door. The crowd pursued him, pushing past the
sympathetic guards and rushing up the main staircase and onto the
landing leading to the chapel. The terrified deacon ran ahead of them
and bolted the door of the chapel, where Mary and her French relatives
and members of her household were kneeling in prayer, rosaries clasped
between their fingers.

"Die! Die! The idolaters must die!"

Mary heard the words being shouted right outside the chapel, and then
saw the stout wooden doors straining as the crowd pushed against
them.

She rose, her heart pounding. What was this? Had her own palace been
invaded? In spite of her conciliation to their religion?

"Stand back!" Lord James was speaking. "Do not touch this door!" From
the sound of his voice, her brother was standing with his back pressed
against the door. "I say, do not trespass! For within here is
wickedness and evil: the mass! No good Scotsman should take it upon
himself to expose himself to it, lest he fall once more into the
devil's trap!"

There were murmurs, then compliance.

James! she thought. That is not what you promised! You have not
defended my right to practise my religion in privacy, you have insulted
it and tricked the people .. . Why do you not admit to our agreement?

The priest, shaking in his robes, could hardly perform the ancient and
necessary ritual.

But James achieved his purpose, thought Mary, as the mass ended. The
crowd has left. My brother is very clever.

FIVE

Mary looked down the long table at the faces turned toward her. ) They
all wore smiles, as if they were the most affable of men, ready i to
pass a morning of pleasant conversation about trivialities. But it
will not be trivial, Mary vowed, however much they may try to keep it
so.

"Good lords and gentlemen, I welcome you to court." Let them know who
was doing the welcoming now! "I am pleased to call this first meeting
of my Privy Council and officers, whom I have selected according to
what

I believe each man can bring to his appointment. Among you there are
both Catholics and Protestants, as you can see."

They were still smiling, waiting for her to venture further into the
matters at hand.

"I wish to appoint George Gordon, the Earl of Huntly, my chancellor for
the realm."

The rooster stirred his rather substantial body in his seat and tried
not to grin. "I thank you, Your Majesty," he said.

"For my chief minister, I choose Lord James Stewart." She nodded
toward him curtly. She was still angry at him for his behaviour at the
riot over the mass.

"As secretary of state, I wish William Maitland of Lethington to
continue in that office, which he has discharged so well in the past."
Mary saw his genuine pleasure at being named. "For the Privy Seal, Sir
William Kirkcaldy of Grange, a man I hear is a most distinguished young
soldier." He was a handsome, thin man with muscles that bulged through
the arms of his fine velvet doublet.

"And for the rest of you, you are all invested with the responsibility
of helping me. I have chosen you because I know you have talent and
strength. I wish you to use it in my service, rather than against
me."

The men now began to look more alert.

"I thank you for the ceremonial entrance to Edinburgh," she said. "It
was carefully and lovingly arranged. But" she looked carefully from
face to face "the attack on my household for holding the mass is not to
be tolerated."

"Your Majesty, I prevented it!" Lord James protested.

"Not until the mob had been allowed to enter the palace. The guards
were either disarmed or never attempted to stop the intruders. Why?"

"Perhaps they sided with the mob," said Morton. "They are most likely
good Protestants all!"

" "Good' is not a word that can be applied to mobs," said Mary. "You
have promised me the use of my religion in private. And in my
proclamation "

"Issued without our knowledge!" said Lord James indignantly.

"Why, did its contents displease you?" Mary asked.

"No. But it is not right "

"That I issue a proclamation without informing you? Surely that cannot
be so." She glared at them. "But I only did so knowing I was
confirming what had already been decided by Parliament." She smiled
and her voice grew gentle. "We must not work at cross purposes. You
see, I respected your decision to become a Protestant country. Can you
not trust me?"