Mary Queen of Scots (7 page)

The death of Francis
I
, and the accession of his son Henry
II
to the throne of France in the spring of 1547 had made the climate of opinion in France newly favourable to notions of French aid for Scotland: Henry
II
was anxious to conciliate his powerful Guise subjects, whose sister and niece were evidently in such a dangerous situation there. The death of Henry
VIII
, on the other hand, in January 1547, had no effect in reducing the savagery of the English attitude towards Scotland. In late August of that year, the former Hertford, now Protector Somerset, mounted an expedition towards Scotland which was to rival in ferocity anything the late king had commissioned. Throughout the summer, the Register of the Scottish Privy Council is full of enactments to do with the coming war: to impress the country with a sense of the emergency facing them, the fiery cross was sent to every district, as a result of which the divided Scots seem to have made some sort of genuinely national effort: 36,000 people hastened from all over the country towards Edinburgh. These also included members of the clergy, who had a special reason for wishing to fight off the heretical invader and provision was made that if any kirkman died in battle, his next-of-kin was to have his benefice. It was in this do-or-die spirit that on 10 September the battle of Pinkie Cleugh was engaged.
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Under the command of Arran, the Scots drew up in a strong position on Edmonstone Edge, behind the town of Musselburgh. Their ranks and spears were thick as the spikes of a hedgehog, as an English observer, William Patten, put it; the clergy were there, marked out by their shaven crowns, their black garments contrasting with the white banner which they bore before them; among the magnates Huntly was especially magnificent in gilt and enamelled armour. Unfortunately there was nothing in the situation now facing him to supply Arran with the backbone which he had so singularly lacked throughout his career. Certain of his leading nobles’ names had been discovered on a list of ‘assured Scots’, the contemptuous English phrase for those on their payroll, within St Andrews’ Castle. Not only was he doubtful of the loyalty of his lieutenants, including the flamboyant Huntly recently ransomed from England, but he had no greater confidence in the discipline of his troops. When the Scots hurled themselves upon their traditional foes, needlessly abandoning their strong position, Arran displayed none of the qualities of leadership necessary to hold them back. The result of the clash between these courageous but scarcely disciplined troops, and Somerset’s well-drilled army, was another horrifying rout for the Scots.
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William Patten described scornfully how the Governor Arran fled ‘skant with honour’, followed by Angus and the other chiefs, whereupon the whole army turned and cast down their weapons, preparatory to flight. Patten’s details of the English pursuit are revolting if vivid: some of the Scots tried to elude capture by crouching in the river, with their noses breathing through the roots of willow trees. The dead had their wounds mainly in the head, because the horsemen could not reach lower with their swords, although arms were sometimes sliced off, and necks cut half asunder. Patten noted that the dead bodies lying about gave the impression of a thick herd of cattle, grazing in a newly replenished pasture. While admitting the severity of the English reprisals, Patten takes the line that the English were playing the role of a schoolmaster chastising naughty children for their own good. But quite apart from the pillaging of the countryside which followed, the casualties suffered by the Scots at Pinkie Cleugh decimated their finest fighting men yet again, only five years after Solway Moss.

The unconscious cause of this holocaust, Mary Queen of Scots, now aged four years and nine months, was removed rapidly from the possible area of conflict, after the Scottish defeat. Stirling Castle was no longer considered safe enough, as Somerset raged about the lowlands of Scotland, like a beast of prey. The place of security chosen for her repose was a
romantic and secluded island, Inchmahone, off the north shore of the Lake of Menteith, a few hours’ ride from Stirling. Here, amid pleasant trees and luxurious vegetation, had been built in the thirteenth century an exquisite island priory for the monks of the Augustinian order. This priory was still in existence, but as it had been given
in commendam
to members of the Erskine family ever since 1528, it had become practically speaking their hereditary possession. Robert Erskine, commendator from 1529 onwards, was actually killed at the battle of Pinkie, but his family connections with the monarchy made Inchmahone a natural choice for a retreat. Lord Erskine was still numbered among the queen’s guardians and in 1545, together with Lord Livingstone, had been exempted from military service such as armies or raids against England, to look after the queen’s person.
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Inchmahone, seen from the shore low-lying on the horizon of the lake, with its religious buildings, its sedge, its views of mountains and water, makes an ideal focus for romance. It is therefore not surprising that a number of charming legends have grown up around Mary Stuart’s visit to it. Queen Mary’s Garden, Queen Mary’s Bower and Queen Mary’s Tree all honour the memory of the child, not yet five, who spent at the most three weeks on the island. Although there are records of letters being brought to the island on matters of state, after she had been committed to the safe keeping of the commendator, Leslie makes it clear that she was only sent to Inchmahone during the time the English were at Leith, i.e. between 11–18 September, and returned to Stirling as soon as the English left Scotland – the English re-crossed the Tweed on 29 September. So much for the legends which have grown up that Mary Stuart first learnt Latin and other languages there under the tutelage of a stern prior, as well as finding the time and strength to plant a garden and a number of trees. In the middle of the last century, Sir William Fraser suggested to the duke of Montrose, the then owner of the island, that he should restore the bower with new boxwood plants to please ‘tourists from America’, who would want a cutting from plants supposed to have been planted by Queen Mary herself.
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The best hope for the authenticity of such a bower, which cannot in honesty be attributed to Mary Stuart’s short infant stay on the island, would seem to be the fact that Mary often stayed at Stirling in later years, and might then have paid some unrecorded visit to the island, in the course of which the planting took place. But the real romance of Inchmahone lies more in its genuine and touching association with Mary Stuart as a child refugee from English oppression, rather than in any specific historical relic.

After her return from Inchmahone Mary spent the winter once again
at Stirling, before being transferred to Dumbarton Castle on the west coast of Scotland, in February 1548. The victory of the English at Pinkie Cleugh was making it increasingly clear to many of the Scots that a French alliance, at the price of a French marriage for their queen, was their best hope of extricating themselves from the morass of defeat and disunity in which they now found themselves. They could not even call all the country their own: ever since Pinkie, the English troops had occupied Haddington, uncomfortably near Edinburgh, from where they were able to exert a stranglehold on the south-east of Scotland. A council was held in November 1547 at which the queen’s removal to France was discussed, as well as the necessity of placing the Scottish strongholds in the hands of the French. By the end of December, fifty French captains had arrived in Scotland, and on 27 January a contract was signed between Arran and Henry
II
by which Arran bound himself to assemble the Scots Parliament, in order to give its consent to the marriage of the queen with Henry’s son, her deliverance to France, and the handing over of the crucial fortresses. In return Arran was to receive a French duchy.

By June 1548 the French were actually landed in Scotland, under the command of an experienced soldier, André de Montalembert, Seigneur d’Essé. D’Essé was to show admirable sang-froid as a general, the quality hitherto most lacking in the Scottish command. When messengers came to him crying:
‘Monsieur, voici les ennemis qui viennent à vous’
he replied without a flicker of astonishment:
‘Et nous à eux’.
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He also brought with him an extremely well-equipped body of 6,000 men, including German and Italian mercenaries, the latter probably engineers, as well as a quantity of light horsemen under two French captains. D’Essé’s friend, Jean de Beaugué, who accompanied him, and witnessed the campaign, formed the impression that the Scots’ troubles as fighters sprang not from their lack of courage, nor from the fact that they were less
‘belliqueux’
than the English, but simply from the
‘ligues’
and
‘partialités’
with which they were plagued. He concluded that they had been chastened by God deliberately during their recent misfortunes, to teach them the error of their ways, going on to observe with irritating superiority, typical of the French attitude to Scotland at this period, that luckily for them things took a better turn immediately the French came to their rescue.
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Whether or not the Scots themselves shared this view of their predicament, their Parliament finally gave its assent to the marriage of Mary and Francis in July 1548, on condition that the king of France should defend Scotland as he did his own realm, and at the same time respect Scotland’s independence. On these terms, the marriage was described as being ‘very reasonable’.

In March of the same year, the cornerstone of the Scottish–French alliance nearly fell from its arch when Mary became suddenly and dangerously ill. The disease, whatever its nature, was violent enough for there to be rumours that she was actually dead. Huntly told Somerset that she had smallpox, but as Mary was to suffer a much better attested attack of smallpox later in her childhood, it seems to have been measles, the explanation given to La Chapelle in Edinburgh, which was responsible for her collapse on this occasion.
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The whole incident illustrates the perils in the sixteenth century of founding foreign policy on the lives of children. However, by the time the informative Frenchman de Beaugué saw Mary at Dumbarton, when she was being prepared for her journey to France, he was able to wax lyrical in her praises. Even allowing for Gallic gallantry, the unanimity of all the early reports on Mary as a child, both now and on her arrival in France, concerning her physical perfection and conspicuous health, make it clear that she was an exceptionally attractive and above all energetic little girl. De Beaugué called her one of the most perfect creatures he had ever seen, and felt that with such splendid beginnings anything could be expected of her. ‘It is not possible to hope for more from a Princess on this earth,’ he wrote. Looking beneath the natural hyperbole of a courtier faced with a queen, it is obvious that observers confronted with the child Mary Stuart for once did not have to work out guardedly enthusiastic phrases for some delicate and sickly prince: able to be genuine in their appreciation, they were further spurred on by poignant thoughts of her destiny.

In July the French galleys arrived at Dumbarton, on the west coast of Scotland, King Henry having sent his own royal galley for Mary’s use, to demonstrate the honour which he intended to pay to her in France. On 29 July Mary embarked on her ship, after a tearful farewell to her mother, and with her went the suite which was considered suitable for her new estate in France. Two of her royal half-brothers – Robert and John Stewart – went with her, demonstrating the closeness felt by the monarchy to its own kin, and it seems virtually certain that her eldest half-brother, James Stewart, later earl of Moray, went for a short visit, although he was back in Scotland by November of the next year. Also included in Mary’s suite were her guardian, Lord Erskine, and her governess, Janet Stewart, Lady Fleming, an illegitimate daughter of James
IV
by the countess of Bothwell, and widow of the Lord Fleming who had fallen at Pinkie. Her natural royal blood once again was considered to fit her for a post in the queen’s immediate entourage. In France the nubile charms of the volatile Lady Fleming – to the Venetian ambassador’s admiring gaze ‘a very pretty
little woman’ – were to be the source of controversy; she showed her metal even at the outset of the journey, when she became thoroughly discontented with the long delay between embarkment in the Clyde at the end of July, and sailing on the desired west wind on 7 August; growing bored with life on board ship Lady Fleming demanded to be put ashore ‘to repose her’. The captain of the ship answered smartly that Lady Fleming, so far from being able to go on land, could go to France and like it, or drown on the way.
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Mary’s departure to France also marks the first appearance in her story of those romantic concomitants of her adventures, the four Maries. A train of noblemen’s sons and daughters, about Mary’s age, were taken with her to France, it having been long traditional for young men of good family to be sent to France for a sort of chivalrous education. The Maries, in Leslie’s words, were considered ‘special’, not only because they all bore the queen’s christian name, but because they came from four notably honourable houses. Thus Mary Fleming, Mary Seton, Mary Beaton and Mary Livingstone are introduced into Mary Stuart’s history. In point of fact Maries, or maids, had been known before in the train of a Scottish queen. The word Marie has its etymological derivation in the Icelandic word
maer
, the official designation given to a virgin or maid; from there it had come to be used in Scots especially for the maids-of-honour attendant on the queen. Pitscottie describes how Queen Madeleine, the first wife of James v, was called on by her father the king of France to pass to his wardrobe and take his rolls of cloth of gold, velvet and satins as he pleased, ‘to clothe her and her Maries’.
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