Mary Stuart (3 page)

The secrecy wherein the signing of these documents was shrouded was in itself a proof that the bargain was a dishonourable one. Mary Stuart had no right to change the course of succession in so arbitrary a manner, and to hand over her kingdom to a foreign power as if it were a cloak or other personal belonging. But her uncles brought pressure to bear, and the unsuspecting hand of an innocent girl duly signed the instrument. Tragical obedience! The first time Mary Stuart put her signature to a political document brought dishonour upon her fair head, and forced an otherwise straightforward, trustful and candid creature to acquiesce in a lie. If she was to become a queen and remain a queen in actual fact, she could never again follow the dictates of her own will, could never again be genuinely true to herself. One who has vowed himself to politics is no longer a free agent.

These secret machinations were, however, hidden away behind the magnificence of the wedding festivities. It was now more than two hundred years since a dauphin of France had been married within the frontiers of his homeland, and for that reason the Valois court was disposed to provide the French people (who were not, in general, cosseted) with a spectacle of unexampled splendour. Catherine de' Medici had witnessed festivals in Italy designed by the leading artists of the Renaissance, and it became a point of pride with her to excel these wonders when her eldest son was married. On 24th April 1558, Paris held high revel such as had not before been witnessed. In the large square before Notre Dame there had been erected an open pavilion in which there was a “
ciel royal
” of blue Cyprus silk bespangled with golden fleurs-de-lis; and a huge blue carpet, stamped likewise with golden lilies, covered the ground. Musicians led the way, clad in red and yellow, playing manifold instruments. Then came the royal procession, sumptuously attired and enthusiastically acclaimed. The rite was solemnised under the eyes of the populace, assembled in thousands to gloat over the bride and the sickly boy-bridegroom, who seemed overwhelmed by the pomp and circumstance. The court poets, on this occasion, again vied with one another in ecstatic descriptions of Mary's beauty. “She appeared,” wrote Brantôme (whose pen was better accustomed to the writing of salacious anecdotes), “a hundred times more beautiful than a goddess.” Indeed, in that momentous hour, a glow of happiness and a sense of good fortune may have equipped this ambitious girl with a peculiar aureole. As she smiled upon all and sundry, and acknowledged the acclamations, she had arrived in truth—though so early—at the climax of her life. Never again would Mary Stuart be the central figure in such a galaxy of wealth, approval and jubilation as now when, at the side of the most distinguished crown prince in Europe and at the head of a troop of gaily dressed cavaliers, she passed through the streets to the accompaniment of thunderous applause. In the evening there was a banquet at the Palais de Justice, and all Paris thronged to gape through the open windows at the royal family, gleaming with gold, silver and precious stones, paying honour to the young woman who was adding a new crown to the crown of France. The celebrations ended in a ball, for which artists who had studied the achievements of the Italian Renaissance had prepared marvellous surprises. Among these there was a pageant of six ships decked with gold, having masts of silver and sails of gauze, which were propelled into the hall by an unseen and cunning mechanism. They rolled and pitched as if on a stormy sea and made their mimic voyage round the hall. In each of these miniature ships was sitting, apparelled in gold and wearing a damask mask, a prince who, rising with a deferent gesture, led one of the ladies of the court to his vessel: Catherine de' Medici, Mary Queen of Scots and heiress to the throne of France, the Queen of Navarre, and the Princesses Elizabeth, Margaret and Claude. This was intended to symbolise a happy voyage through life, amid a flourish of pageantry. But fate is not subject to human wishes, and from this dazzling moment the life-ship of Mary Stuart was to be steered towards other and more perilous shores.

The first danger arose unexpectedly in her path. Mary was Queen of Scotland in her own right, by birth and heritage, whereas the “
roi-dauphin
”, the crown prince of France, had raised her to a further high estate by marriage. But hardly had the marriage ceremony terminated when a third and more advantageous crown began to shimmer vaguely before the girl's eyes, and her young hands, inexperienced and ill advised, grasped at this treasure and its treacherous brilliance. In the year of the Scottish Queen's marriage to Francis, Mary Tudor, Queen of England, died. Elizabeth, her half-sister, succeeded to the crown. But had she any legal right to ascend the throne? Henry VIII, a veritable Bluebeard with his many wives, had left only three children behind him, Edward and two daughters. Mary, the eldest of the three, issued from his lawful union with Catherine of Aragon; Elizabeth, seventeen years younger than Mary, was the child of his marriage with Anne Boleyn. Edward, four years junior to Elizabeth, was the son of Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour, and as the only male heir, being then only ten years of age, immediately succeeded his father. On Edward's premature demise, there was no question as to the legality of Mary's accession. She left no children, and Elizabeth's right was of a dubious nature. The English crown lawyers contended that, since Henry's marriage with Anne had been sanctioned by an ecclesiastical court's pronouncement and the previous marriage to Catherine of Aragon had been annulled, Elizabeth was a legitimate child of the union. She was his direct descendant, and was a legal claimant to the throne. The French crown jurists, on the other hand, recalled the fact that Henry VIII had himself declared his marriage to Anne Boleyn a union with no legal foundation, and had insisted upon his parliament's proclaiming Elizabeth a bastard. The whole of the Catholic world held the opinion that Elizabeth was born out of lawful wedlock and was, therefore, cut off from the succession. If this view was a true one, then the next legitimate claimant could be no other than Mary Queen of Scots, the great-granddaughter of Henry VII.

Young Mary was faced with a decision of worldwide importance. Two alternatives presented themselves. She could be diplomatic and yielding, could maintain friendly relations by recognising her cousin as the rightful Queen of England, thus putting aside her own claim which in any case could not be pushed except by the use of arms. Or she could boldly and resolutely declare Elizabeth to be a usurper, and thereupon gather together an army of French and Scottish supporters to enforce her claim and deprive Elizabeth of a usurper's crown. Unfortunately, Mary and her counsellors chose a third way out of the dilemma, a way which is invariably beset with difficulties, especially in the realm of politics. They elected to take a middle course. Instead of marching forth in full strength and with determination against Elizabeth, the French royal house made an absurd and vainglorious gesture. Henry II commanded that the bridal pair should have the royal arms of England and Scotland surmounted by the crown of France painted and engraved on blason, shield and seal, and moreover that Mary Stuart, in all public announcements and proclamations, henceforward should style herself: “Regina Franciae, Scotiae, Angliae et Hiberniae”. The claim was thus maintained but was left undefended. War was not declared against Elizabeth; she was merely fretted and annoyed. Instead of enforcing a right at the point of the sword, the claim was asserted by a mere painting on a piece of wood and a style at the foot of a sheet of paper. Misunderstanding and ambiguity were thus created, for Mary Stuart's claim to the English throne remained a fact which at the same time was no tangible fact. According to the prevailing mood, the claim was trotted out into the light of day or kept hidden in the background. When, acting upon the clauses of a well-known treaty, Elizabeth demanded the return of Calais to the English crown, Henry II answered: “Calais ought to be surrendered to the Dauphin's consort, the Queen of Scotland, whom we take to be the Queen of England.” Nevertheless, Henry made no move to enforce his daughterin-law's claim, and continued to deal on equal terms with the English monarch as if there were no question of her being a usurper.

This foolish and vain gesture, this childish and idiotic painting of the coat of arms of England and Scotland upon a single escutcheon, brought absolutely no advantage to Mary Stuart. On the contrary it ruined her cause. In this instance Mary Stuart had to suffer throughout life for an act committed in her behalf when she was hardly more than a child, an act which was a gross political blunder performed as a salve to aggressiveness and vanity. This petty mortification of Elizabeth's pride converted the most powerful woman of Europe into Mary's irreconcilable foe. A genuine ruler, to the manner born, can tolerate and permit everything except that another should put his dominion in doubt and make a counterclaim to that same dominion. Elizabeth, therefore, in spite of apparently friendly and even tender letters, always looked upon Mary Stuart as a spectre casting a shadow over her throne, invariably held her young cousin to be an enemy, an opponent, a rival. Mary, on the other hand, was too proud to acknowledge herself in the wrong once the claim had publicly been made, and never could she consent unconditionally to recognise a “concubine's” bastard as the legitimate Queen of England. Relations between the two women could not be any other than a pretence and a subterfuge, beneath which the cleavage remained. Half-measures and dishonourable deeds, whether in the world of politics or in private life, invariably bring more damage in their train than energetic and freehanded decisions. The painting of the English coat of arms onto the Dauphin's and Mary's blason caused more blood to flow than a real war could have done, for open warfare in the end must decide the issue one way or another, whereas the ambiguous method adopted by Henry II proved to be a constant and ever-recurring pinprick which estranged the two women for a lifetime and played havoc with their rule as monarchs.

The coat of arms incorporating the English heraldic emblems was, in July 1559, publicly displayed by the “
roi-dauphin
” and the “
reine-dauphine
” when they were on their way to a tournament which was to take place in Paris. On that occasion they were borne to the arena in a triumphal car emblazoned with the fatal escutcheon. The car was preceded by two Scottish heralds, apparelled with the arms of England and Scotland, and crying for all men to hear: “Make place! Make place, for the Queen of England!” This festivity had been arranged to celebrate the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (April 1559). King Henry II, ever the chivalrous knight, did not feel it beneath his dignity to splinter a lance or two “
pour l'amour des dames
”, and everyone knew which lady was in his mind. Diane de Poitiers, proud and beautiful as ever, sat in her box and looked down leniently upon her royal lover. On a sudden, however, what had been a joyous sport became deadly earnest. The tourney proved to be a pivot of world history. The Comte de Montgomery, a French knight and officer in the Scottish lifeguard of the King, entered the lists at the latter's command as the opponent of his royal master. Having broken his lance, he galloped to the attack once more with the stump of his weapon. The onslaught was so energetic that a splinter of Montgomery's lance penetrated the King's eye through the visor. The monarch fell from his horse in a faint. At first the wound was considered trifling, but the King never regained consciousness. Around his bed the family gathered, appalled and horrified. Valois's sturdy frame fought valiantly for a few days, but on 10th July he gave up the ghost.

Even when plunged into the deepest grief, the French never forgot the dictates of etiquette. As the royal family was leaving the palace, Catherine de' Medici, Henry II's wife, held back at the door. From the hour when she became a widow she had no longer any right to take precedence at court. This right now fell to a girl who had automatically become Queen of France as the last breath went out of the erstwhile King's body. Mary Stuart, the spouse of France's new King, a chit of sixteen, had to go before, and in this moment Mary rose to the highest peak life had reserved for her.

N
OTHING CONTRIBUTED SO GREATLY
to render Mary Stuart's fate tragic as that at the outset of her career earthly honours fell deceptively to her lot without her lifting a finger to attain them. Her rise to power was like a rocket for swiftness—six days after birth she was already Queen of Scotland; at six years of age she became the betrothed of one of the most powerful princes in Europe; at fifteen she was his wife; at sixteen, Queen of France. She reached the zenith of her public career before she had had time to develop her inner life. Things dropped into her lap as if out of a horn of plenty; never did she fight in her own behalf for a desired object, or reap any advantage through the exercise of personal endeavour. Not through trial and merit did this princess attain a goal; everything flowed towards her by inheritance, or grace, or gift. As in a dream, wherein happenings fly past in ephemeral and multicoloured precipitancy, she lived through the wedding ceremony and the coronation. Before her senses could begin to grasp the significance of this precocious springtime, the blossoms were already withered and dead, the season of flowering was over and Mary awoke disappointed, disillusioned, plundered of her hopes, fleeced as it were, bewildered to distraction. At an age when other maids are beginning to form wishes, are beginning to hope for and to hanker after they hardly know what, Mary experienced in profusion the possibilities of a triumphant progress without being granted time or leisure to grasp their spiritual significance. This premature coming to grips with destiny explains her subsequent restlessness and voracity. One who has so early been the outstanding figure in a country, indeed in the world, will never again be content with a less exalted position. It was in the stubborn fight to maintain herself at the centre of the stage that her real greatness was developed. Renunciation and forgetfulness are permissible to the weak; strong natures, on the other hand, are not in the habit of resigning themselves, but challenge even the mightiest destiny to a trial at arms.

In truth this brief period of royalty in France passed for Mary like a dream—a poignant, uneasy and anxious dream. The ceremony at the cathedral at Rheims—where the archbishop crowned the sickly youth, and where the lovely girl-Queen, bedecked with the jewels appropriate to her position, shone forth from among the nobles like a slender white lily not yet in full bloom—was an isolated occasion of splendour. Except for this the chronicles have nothing to tell of festivals or merry-making. Fate left Mary Stuart no time to found the troubadour's court of the arts and poesy for which she yearned; left the painters no time to finish portraits of the monarch and his lovely wife in the panoply of royal robes; no time for historians to describe their respective characters; no time for the populace to make close acquaintance with its new rulers or learn to love them. In the long procession of kings and queens of France, the figures of these two children are driven onward like mist wreaths before the wind.

Francis II, a tainted tree in the forest, was doomed to premature death. In a round and bloated face, timid eyes, weary and reminding us of those of one who has been startled out of sleep, give the dominant expression to his countenance. His strength was further undermined by a sudden and extensive growth in stature such as often occurs at his age. Physicians watched over him sedulously and urgently advised him to take care of himself. But the boy was animated by a foolish dread lest he should be outdone by his willowy, untiring wife, who was passionately devoted to outdoor sports. That he might seem hale and manly he rode hell-for-leather and engaged in other exhausting bodily exercises. But nature could not be cheated. His blood was incurably sluggish, was poisoned by an evil heritage from his grandfather Francis I. Again and again he was laid low by paroxysms of fever. When the weather was inclement, he had to keep indoors, restive and bored, a pitiful shade, surrounded by his train of doctors. So weakly a king aroused more pity than respect among his courtiers; among the common people, on the other hand, it was soon bruited abroad that he was smitten with leprosy and that he bathed in the blood of freshly killed children in the hope of regaining health. The peasants regarded the stricken lad menacingly when he went out riding. At court, those with an eye to the future were beginning to throng round Catherine de' Medici and Charles, the next heir to the throne. Hands so weak as Francis' could not long nor firmly grip the reins of power. Now and again, in stiff, awkward writing, the boy would pen his “François” at the foot of decrees, but the real rulers were the Guises, the kin of Mary Stuart, in place of one whose energies must be devoted to keeping his vital spark aglow as long as possible. Such a sick-room companionship, with its perpetual watchfulness over failing health, can scarcely be spoken of as a happy marriage, even if we suppose it to have been a marriage in any true sense of the term. Yet there is nothing to justify the supposition that the union of these youngsters was an unhappy one, for even at this malicious court where gossip was rife, at this court where every
amourette
was recorded by Brantôme in his
Vie des dames galantes,
no suspicion seems to have been aroused by Mary Stuart's behaviour. Long before they were dragged to the altar, Francis of Valois and Mary Stuart had been playmates, and it seems unlikely that the erotic element can have had much part in their companionship after the wedding. Years were still to pass before there was to develop in Mary Queen of Scots the capacity for passionate self-surrender to a lover, and Francis, an ailing boy, was not the type of male to arouse the passion hidden so deep in the enigmatic nature of his wife. Tenderness and clemency of character prompted Mary to care for her husband to the best of her ability. Even if she had not been moved to this by feeling, her reason would have informed her that power and position depended upon the breathing and the heartbeats of this poor, sick body, to safeguard which would be to defend her own happiness. But for real happiness, during her brief span of queenship in France, there was no scope. The storms aroused by the Huguenot movement were causing widespread agitation. After the conspiracy of Amboise, in which the royal pair were personally endangered, Mary had to pay one of the painful tributes called for by her position as ruler. She had to witness the execution of the rebels, and we may well suppose that the sight was deeply graven in her memory, forgotten then, maybe, for decades, to leap back again into vivid reality when the hour of her own doom struck. Now she watched the awesome sight of a human being, hands tied behind the back, kneeling with head on the block and awaiting the fall of the executioner's axe. She heard for the first time the curiously muffled and dull tone of steel that severs living flesh, she saw the blood squirt, and the head rolling away from the body into the sand. A picture gruesome enough to blot out from the remembrance of a sensitive soul the splendid scenes so recently enacted at Rheims when her young head was crowned.

Now evil tidings followed quickly one upon the other. Mary's mother, Mary of Guise, who had been acting as regent in Scotland during her daughter's minority, had reached her end and, surrounded by enemies, breathed her last in June 1560. She left the country embroiled in religious strife and in full rebellion, with war raging along the border and English armies occupying the Lowlands. Mary Stuart had to exchange her festal attire for mourning. For the time being she was to hear no more music; her feet were for a while no longer to tread the mazes of the dance. Then Death's bony knuckle came knocking at the door of her hearth and home. Francis II grew weaker and weaker; the envenomed blood usually flowing so sluggishly through his veins now beat a tattoo in his temples and his ears. No more could he even walk or ride, but had to be carried in a litter from place to place. At length the gathering pus burst the eardrum; but it was too late, for the inflammation had already spread inwards to the brain, and the sufferer was beyond reach of medical aid. His heart ceased to beat on 6th December 1560.

Once more a tragical scene between two women was played to the finish beside this second deathbed. Hardly was the breath out of Francis' frail body when Mary Stuart, no longer Queen of France, had to yield precedence to Catherine de' Medici; the younger of the royal widows had to draw back at the door in order to allow the elder one to go first. Mary was no longer the first lady in the realm, but again, as before, the second. One short year sufficed to bring Mary Stuart's dream to an end. She would never again be reigning Queen of France, but must henceforth remain till the hour of her death what she had always been from birth: Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles.

The rigours of regal etiquette in France decreed that a king's widow should pass forty days in strict seclusion during which she might not for a moment leave her private apartments, or admit the daylight into her rooms. In the first two weeks of mourning she was forbidden to receive any visitors except the new King and his next of kin, and these she entertained in her retreat which, gloomy as it was and lit only by candles, resembled a living tomb. Nor might a royal widow wear the regulation black adopted almost universally by commoners as a sign of bereavement. The widow of a French monarch had to don the “
deuil blanc
”
—
white mourning
—
prescribed by the law of the land. A white coif framed the pale face, a white brocade dress covered body and limbs, the shoes and stockings were white. Ample folds of white fell from head to waist. This is how Janet depicts Mary Stuart in the days of her mourning; this is how Ronsard portrays her in words:

(A long veil, soft and clinging, fold upon fold, a mourning garb, swathes your body from head to waist. It bellies and fills like a sail before the wind, urging the barque along. Thus were you clad when, alas, you left the beautiful land whose sceptre you had held in your hand, when, pensive and weeping as you were, tears, like crystals, coursed down your cheeks while you paced the long alleyways in the gardens of that royal castle whose name derives from the beauty of its waters.) Never before had this young and sympathetic and gentle creature been more successfully painted than at this time of her first grief and her first disappointment. Her roving and restless eyes had become steadfast and earnest in expression; the dignity of her bearing is more obvious in the modest and simple garb of mourning than in the portraits which show her bedecked with gems and the insignia of power.

The same dignified melancholy speaks to us from the lines she herself composed as a lament for her dead husband. These verses are not unworthy of the young Queen's master, Ronsard. Even if it had not been penned by a queen, the tender elegy would appeal to any heart through the simplicity of its tone and its touching candour. Here we find no passionate regret for the young dead King, since Mary Stuart was always truthful and candid where poetry was concerned, though not invariably so in the world of politics. But we are given a picture of her utter loneliness, and the feeling that she was lost and forsaken.

(Unceasingly my heart bemoans the absence of my dear. If to the distant skies I lift my mournful gaze, I see his gentle eyes gaze down from the misty heights; and the waters all around seem to me like a grave. When, resting on my couch, I close my eyes and drowse, his hand softly strokes me. In labour and repose his presence never quits my side.) Mary Stuart's sorrow at the loss of her husband, Francis II, was undeniably genuine, and not merely a poetical fiction. For in losing Francis, Mary not only lost a pleasant and docile companion and an affectionate friend, but at the same time her position among European potentates, her power and her security. This woman, who was still half a child, soon felt how much it signified to her stability and gratification to be the first lady in a great kingdom, and how paltry it was to have to be content with playing second fiddle. Indeed, for proud natures, this is even more galling than to be nobody at all. Mary's situation was rendered if anything bitterer by Catherine de' Medici's open hostility now that that haughtiest member of a haughty house had resumed her old place at Court. It would appear that Mary, in an unwitting moment, goaded by the inconsiderate rashness of youth, had incurred the elder lady's undying displeasure by hazarding an observation on the commercial origins of the wealthy family of Medici, and referring to the upstart ancestors of this merchant's daughter, thus making a derogatory comparison with her own long line of kingly forefathers. Such scatterbrained utterances—heedless and ill-advised, she was at a future date to let her tongue run away with her in regard to Elizabeth of England as well—when spoken by one woman to the detriment of another, are more devastating in their consequences than open invectives. Catherine's ambitions had already been thwarted during two long decades through the power wielded by Diane de Poitiers; then came Mary Stuart's rise. Hardly, therefore, had she at length entered into her own and taken her place in the political arena when she allowed her detestation of these two rivals to find challenging and dictatorial vent.