The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots (16 page)

It was while we were sailing back to the capital aboard the
Black Messenger
that we made our plan. We had agreed to marry—how could we not?—but knowing that there would be much opposition to our marriage, and that Edinburgh was in a state of turmoil, we had to proceed with care. I was in disgrace, in my subjects’ eyes; now I was going to marry the man with whom I had conspired—so many of my subjects were convinced—to murder my husband.

Jamie was determined to spare me as much scandalous talk and condemnation as possible. So we agreed to act in such a way that it would seem as though he was forcing himself on me, taking advantage of me in my widowhood. We would make it look as though he was thirsty for the crown, eager to be king in my late husband’s place. As though I were nothing more than an incidental element in his scheme. That way I might arouse my subjects’ sympathy instead of their scorn.

“Let me and my borderers storm the palace and seize it,” Jamie said, already eager for the action. “Then I can seize you, and insist that you marry me.”

“No. There would be bloodshed and I don’t want any of my guardsmen killed—or your men either. No bloodshed. Better that
you should come upon me while I am on the road, with an escort but not a large one. Suppose I ride to—to Stirling, to visit my son. Suppose I stay with him for a few days, and then take him back with me to Holyrood, and on the way, you and your men can encircle my party and force me to go with you to one of your castles. Then we can be married.”

“Yes. Better that it happen while you are out riding—only you must not have young James with you. He has lived at Stirling for most of his life. To move him now would be a sure indicator that we planned the entire escapade beforehand.”

“There is one other thing,” I added. “What about your wife?”

Jamie cleared his throat. He was uncomfortable, he did not look at me. “I have never spoken of this before, but in fact my marriage is flawed, just as yours to Lord Darnley was.”

“You never told me this.”

“I didn’t realize it until a few months ago. When I knew you were unhappy, and hoped to free yourself from your husband, I went to see a man of law and also took counsel with the church commissioners who rule on marriage. I told them that when I was seventeen, I promised myself to a girl, Janet Beatoun. We swore to love forever, our wrists were tied together in the old way. We were handfasted. We lived together for nearly a year before her father came and took her from me.

“I was advised that my marriage to Jean Gordon was not valid, because of my prior contract with Janet. So I am not a married man after all.”

“But even if you are free of Jean Gordon, you are still married by handfasting to Janet.”

He sighed. “No, I am a widower. Janet died last spring bringing her fifth child into the world.”

“I confess I am confused.”

He put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t be. All will be well. The law will rule in my favor—in our favor. I will soon be declared a widower and free to marry any woman I choose,
even the queen.” He kissed me on the forehead, and I decided not to worry about the entire subject any more. Instead I decided to soar like the eagles, all worries laid aside. I was in love, unlike any love I had ever known. I would trust that love, and let the rest go.

Three months later I was riding along the little stream near the Bridges of Almond, almost within sight of the capital, on my way back to Holyrood from a stay in Stirling. The time had come to put our plan into effect, and I knew that Jamie and his men would be coming for me. But when we heard the horsemen approaching, I was overwhelmed by the sound. There had to be hundreds of mounted men, their horses’ hooves resounding like gathering thunder.

I turned my horse and spurred him and began to go back the way we had come, but then Jamie and his men came into sight, and I dropped the reins and gave up, feigning terror and submission.

He had an entire army with him, far outnumbering my small band of guardsmen. He had told me he would be bringing a hundred men, but it looked to me as though there were nearer a thousand, coming on in force, armed as if for battle, and my few men scattered before they could be swept aside and trampled by the oncoming horde.

My horse reared in fear and Jamie rode up at once and calmed her, shouting as he did so.

“Your Highness! You must not enter the capital or you will be seized and imprisoned by the citizens! They have denounced you and will take your throne!”

He took hold of my horse’s bridle and led me away, and throughout the long ride to Dunbar Castle we maintained the illusion that he was kidnapping me—in the interests of my safety—and that I had no choice but to do as he said. We continued to maintain it after we arrived at the castle. Jamie held me captive, and I submitted to him as my captor. To all outward appearances I had no choice but to submit, and I gave in to his superior force.

But in truth I was no captive, rather an eager, willing lover. Glad to be with him, rejoicing in his love. And looking forward with the greatest happiness to our wedding day.

For as I confided to Jamie, we had more than one reason to rejoice. Not only were we to be wed, and join our lives together forever, but we were to be parents. My monthly flow had ceased, my face had the roundness and glow of motherhood. I was certain, as certain as I could be without a midwife’s accord, that I was pregnant with Jamie’s child.

There was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet and murmuring of voices in the great hall at Holyrood on the morning of my marriage to Jamie.

It was the fifteenth of May, in the year 1567, and as everyone knows, May marriages are unlucky. Ours, I hoped, would be an exception. I could not help thinking back to my first wedding day so many years earlier, when I was only fifteen and marrying the dauphin of France, and my greatest worry was that I was so much taller than my groom! Now, as I looked around me at the scowling faces of my nobles and courtiers and the prominent men of Edinburgh, I had to admit to a far greater concern: my very kingdom was at stake.

On my first wedding day I had worn a beautiful ivory silk gown with yards and yards of intricate lacework. Now I was wearing mourning black (as I had when I married Henry), and so was everyone in the hall, for by my order the entire court was in mourning for my late husband. On that long ago day when I was married for the first time, my uncle the Cardinal de Guise had performed our nuptial mass; on this day there was a Protestant service, and because no pastor in the capital had been willing to marry me to Jamie (both of us being considered in a state of sin for having committed murder), the service was conducted
by none other than Archibald Skerriton, Jamie’s former tutor and our host on the island of Mull. He had once been of the Roman faith but now, Jamie told me, he made no particular profession of faith at all. But he was still a clergyman, of sorts, and so was able to marry us.

I wore my mother’s portrait miniature around my neck for luck, and as Jamie and I joined hands and he slipped the gold wedding band onto my finger, I wished that mother could be there to see us wed. She had been so very fond of Jamie, I was sure that had she been there to see our wedding, she would bless us and understand all.

Yet no sooner were we pronounced man and wife than we began to be reviled. Hisses of scorn and muffled jeers greeted us as we left the hall. Stones and clods of earth were thrown at the windows of my apartments from the courtyard below. The torture (I came to see it as such) of the nightly hymn-singing outside our bedroom windows was revived, and my nemesis John Knox, who had recently become my distant kinsman by marriage, took it upon himself to chastise me loudly and publicly as Jezebel incarnate and the most wicked of all the queens ever to rule on the earth.

It was intolerable, especially in my delicate state. Apart from Jamie, no one but Margaret Carwood (now Margaret Hargatt, since her marriage to Ned Hargatt of the night watch) knew that I was pregnant—she was about to become a mother herself—and I wanted to keep my secret for as long as possible. My baby was small, I had only the most modest swelling of my belly, which made me think that she must be a girl. I hoped so. The thought warmed me. I tried not to dwell on what the future would bring for my children.

For within days of my marriage to Jamie the storm of rebellion broke over our heads. The Lords of the Congregation rose up against us and put themselves under arms, joining with those nobles who declared themselves united in opposition to the throne. We had some supporters, to be sure, but the majority of those able to fight and in command of followers were against us, especially against Jamie, who was now their despised king.

It was clear we would have to take the field against the rebels, and Jamie, who was an energetic commander, gathered our fighting men to a hastily prepared camp at Carberry Hill east of the capital. The enemy gathered on a hill opposite us.

What I remember most about that memorable day the two armies met, June 15—exactly a month after our wedding—is that we were so very, very thirsty. The sun glared down on us mercilessly, we were exposed on our hilltop and there was no shade anywhere.

The other, much more important thing is that there were so few of us, and so many of the enemy! They grew in force even as I sat on our hilltop, mounted and battle-ready, watching the activity on the opposite hill. More and more men kept coming to join our enemies, men on foot and horseback, men driving carts with supplies, men carrying those accusing white banners that bore the images of Henry’s corpse with baby Jamie kneeling beside it, and the single accusatory word: JUSTICE.

As I watched their numbers grow, I heard the disconcerting sound of our own men galloping away. My army was deserting me. Jamie did his best to rally them, but there was no denying what was happening. Our army was shrinking before our eyes.

Then Jamie boldly rode down the hill and out onto the field between the two hills.

“I challenge you!” he shouted. “Who will answer my challenge?”

When none of the enemy rode out to meet him he continued to taunt them, shouting “Come out, cowards! Come and fight me! Who among you is man enough to fight!”

But the enemy soldiers remained where they were, their leaders silently watching Jamie waving his sword, wheeling his horse back and forth in a futile effort to rouse a response.

I watched also, licking my lips, trying to moisten my dry mouth. I watched in pity.

What was I to do? What could I do? In the end I sent a messenger to tell Jamie to return to our hilltop. His challenge was being denied.
What purpose did it serve for him to continue to make it? He only looked vain, and foolish. Somewhat to my surprise, he obeyed.

What could we do now, I thought to myself. What was our best course? I could not send my loyal men into slaughter. That might have preserved their honor, tragically, but it would not have preserved my throne.

We were beaten. I knew it, as certainly as I knew that my throat was parched and I had to get a long, cool drink.

Then I saw that one of Jamie’s most vociferous enemies, Sir William Kirkcaldy, was coming down from the opposite hilltop, riding alone, and in our direction.

“Hold!” I called out to my men. “Let him come in safety.”

I spurred my horse and rode down the hillside to meet Kirkcaldy.

At first I feared that he might produce a pistol and shoot me, or that a lance or an arrow might fly through the air and strike my breastplate. Instead Kirkcaldy was respectful. Even, as I thought then, magnanimous.

He proposed terms: he promised that if Jamie would leave, with his own men, and I would agree to disband the remainder of the royal army, then I would be taken under the protection of the rebel lords and would not be harmed. I had to give my word that the lords would be restored to full favor and not punished for their threat to my throne, and that I would not see Jamie again.

Not see Jamie again! I could never agree to that, I thought. No, not in a thousand years. But if it would bring a temporary truce, just until I could rally enough force behind me to strengthen my throne—our throne—then I would be willing to agree to anything.

“And my son?” I asked. “What of my son?”

“He is quite safe in Stirling Castle. Naturally he will be protected as well. We mean him no harm.”

“He will remain my heir.”

Kirkcaldy nodded.

“And the Earl of Bothwell will not be harmed.”

“He will be allowed to return to Dunbar. From there he may leave the country in safety. Unless, of course, Your Highness wishes to hang him as a traitor. He has dishonored you greatly.”

I did not argue with that, even though I knew the opposite to be true. Far from dishonoring me, Jamie had given me the precious gift of his love—and his child.

“And if I should choose not to agree to these terms?”

“Then we shall assuredly prevail over you in battle today.”

“And cut off my thumbs?” I could not resist asking.

“It would be difficult to restrain our men from cutting off your head,” was the chilling reply.

At this, despite the intense heat of the sun and my great thirst, I actually felt as if a clammy hand had grasped my heart.

“If we were to join battle,” I said, trying to keep my voice firm, “and the royal troops were to lose, then I imagine you would execute Lord Bothwell.”

“Most assuredly.”

I saw, then, that I had no choice but to agree to whatever the rebels asked of me. It was the only way to preserve what mattered to me most, after my own life and that of my son: the life of the man I loved.

I squared my shoulders and held my head high.

“Very well then. As your anointed queen I command you to disperse your troops. I will do the same, after I speak to the earl. Then I give you my word that I will return and place myself under your protection.”

I turned my horse and cantered back to the sweltering hilltop, where Jamie was waiting for me within a circle of his trusted men. We dismounted and embraced, without embarrassment, in front of the soldiers.

“They are going to let you go, Jamie. You must go now. Don’t let them find you.”

“But what about you?”

“I will be safe.”

“Don’t trust them. Especially not that villain Kirkcaldy.”

“I must. Now go!”

“My love!” he cried and embraced me again, then swiftly mounted his horse and rode away.

I watched him go, I saw that he did not turn to look back, not even once. I knew why. It was because he could not bear to. Then I mounted my own horse and made my way back down the hill toward where Sir William waited, escorted now by at least fifty men. None of them bowed or reverenced me in any way as I approached. But Sir William had something in his hand. As I came closer he held it out to me. It was a flagon of water. I drank it off at a single draught, the cool, sweet liquid a balm to my throat, my great thirst for the moment assuaged.