Mary Queen of Scots Read online

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  Eric Linklater

  MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

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  Contents

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

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  To

  Stanley Cursiter

  Not to repay with these indifferent words some excellent paint, but simply in friendship, and as one Orkneyman to another.

  How blest are we in those islands!

  I

  The first Mrs. Knox died in December, 1560, but the Reformer’s grief was soon mitigated by the divine tact of circumstance, that so often makes neighbours of good tidings and bad. He heard from France that the young king was also dead, and grew happy to think his Catholic shadow no longer menaced the throne of Scotland. ‘Lo!’ he wrote, ‘the potent hand of God from above sent unto us a wonderful and most joyful deliverance. For unhappy Francis, husband to our sovereign, suddenly perisheth of a rotten ear—that deaf ear that never would hear the truth of God.’

  The picture of Knox rejoicing over a painful death-bed may be distasteful or even shocking to people whose amusements are more varied than his could be. It must, however, be remembered in his favour that his religion had banished so many forms of pleasure that the surviving occasions for it had acquired the exquisite value of rarity. To the Calvinist dancing was a sin, music an abomination; in Geneva it was a crime to put finery in one’s wardrobe or too many dishes on the table; while profligates must often have grown cold in their beds to remember that drowning was one of the penalties for discovered wantonness.

  The demise or defeat of one’s enemies and the enemies of Calvin’s Church was therefore among the few permitted opportunities for enjoyment still remaining to the Chosen People of Geneva and the Congregation of Christ in Scotland; and news that the young king of Catholic France, the Catholic husband of the Queen of Scots, had been punished for the iniquity of himself and his country by a septic inflammation of his ear, so painful and immoderate as to cause death, undoubtedly brought something like an April holiday into the wintry life of John Knox.

  By 1561 the curious insanity of Calvinism had seriously infected Scotland, and it was Knox who chiefly carried the infection. But even so ably violent a man as he could not have spread a disease to which the country was not already disposed to succumb. Politically and spiritually, Scotland was in a debilitated condition, for French armies and English armies had recently been using it for their battlefield, and for a long time the energy of the Catholic Church had been seriously impaired by the excessive burden of its wealth. The economic character of the country was being altered by the emergence of a commercial middle class, and to these people Calvinism appealed by its prison-like government that seemed likeliest to promise safety both for themselves and their newly acquired wealth, since between lawless nobles and predatory priests nothing less formidably strong than a prison could offer much security: while to the rabble of the lower orders a force so hostile as Calvinism to the wealthy Catholic Church, and so physically destructive in its teaching, made naturally a great appeal, and the demolition of the abbeys, which Knox encouraged, flattered their sense of power and justified their faith.

  But, apart from economic and social reasons, Calvinism evidently appealed to something that may or may not have been a deformity in the soul of Scotland. The spirit of fatalism derived from Norse ancestors, and somewhat warped and emaciated in its transmission through the ages, may have disposed the Scots to a belief in Genevan predestination. Because of their stubborn pride it cannot have seemed to them so unlikely as it might to some other races that they were truly God’s Elect; and a native savagery, fostered by climate and the historical insecurity of their lives, certainly condoned the ferocity with which they treated those who doubted the Calvinist tenets. And yet another reason for Knox’s success was the disputatious temper of Scotland, that found in these new doctrines, based though they were upon the most naïve of fallacies, a foundation that would support a multitude of metaphysical arguments and upon which disquisition could knock its tireless head with the good wooden sound of apparent logic.

  Knox and Calvinism, then, were mountainous features of the country whose fog-bound shores la reine blanche was now approaching.

  Prominent as they in the landscape were the Lords of the Congregation, nobles who had supported the Reformation mainly for political reasons, and retained beneath the common skin of their new faith the old selfish skeleton of sturdy individualism. The most important of these nobles was Lord James Stuart, a bastard half-brother of the Queen, who committed his crimes with a cold show of reason, repaid a benefit with discreetest treachery, and was subsequently known as the Good Regent; there was Maitland of Lethington, a brilliant politician, a man of such subtlety and frequent good sense that it is impossible not to admire him, and whose occasional treacheries may readily be excused on the ground that he regarded conduct as an intellectual experiment; there was Kirkcaldy of Grange, a roughish soldier of fortune; there were Arran and Argyll, the former precariously balanced on the extreme edge of sanity, the latter a good Protestant, but somewhat assiduous in asserting the inviolability of his Election by the enthusiasm of his profligacy; there was the Earl of Morton, rough as Kirkcaldy, more treacherous than Lord James, and earnest in greed; and there was Ruthven, who was supposed to be a sorcerer, who took such an interest in death that he rose from a sickbed to put armour over his night-gown and murder Riccio, and who in a Scotland not destitute of wickedness was said to be the wickedest of his generation.

  In the north there was the Earl of Huntly, a staunch Catholic whose ambition was as determined and self-seeking as that of any Protestant. And south of the Border there was Queen Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, illegitimate in the opinion of all Catholic Europe and according to the decree of Henry VIII and his parliament; seated on her throne by no right except the will of her Protestant people; desperately afraid of the French widow who was de jure Queen of England and had quartered on her own arms the arms of England; and wealthy enough in money and good servants to sow disaffection in Scotland and buy the occasional services of Queen Mary’s nobles.

  Mary was eighteen when she came home to Scotland. In the courts of France—her own and that of her gallant father-in-law—her beauty had been celebrated by poets, her poetry praised by scholars, her wit extolled by courtiers, and the grace of her dancing acclaimed by all. The court of Henri II had combined profligacy with a cultivated enthusiasm for art, and, however zealous in its pursuit of love, had still found time for hot debate on the theories of the Pléiade. Marot had written:

  ‘Amour, tu as esté mon maistre:

  Je t’ai servi sur tous les dieux,

  O si je pouvois deux fois naistre,

  Comme je te servirois mieux!’

  —but Ronsard, with a more divided eye, bade his mistress

  ‘Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle,

  Assise auprès du feu, devidant et filant,

  Direz chantant mes vers, en vous esmerveillant:

  Ronsard me celebroit du temps que j’estois belle.’

  It was this dichotomy that allowed Mary to be the chaste ornament of a wanton court. In so charming a society love might enter the service of poetry, if poetry did not care to be the pander of love, and beauty could be recognised, wit be applauded, even though they did not lead to a display of their charms and ingenuity in
a bedroom. Mary was courted and hymned by voices that Knox would have found evil enough, but she did not forfeit admiration because she declined admiration more intimate than that of the voice and the eye. In a court where slander was the staple of conversation no slander touched her, and though intrigue dwelt in every corridor and whispered among the roses she was unsullied even by suspicion. For this purity there seem to be three sufficient reasons: she was naturally chaste; she had been educated by her grandmother, Antoinette de Bourbon, a devout and austere old lady; and her political ambition was so strong and so deeply rooted as to occupy most of her thoughts. She believed in the rightness of her claim to the English throne, and she wanted to occupy that throne. Maitland said of her: ‘The Queen my mistress is descended of the blood of England, and so of the race of the Lion on both sides. I fear she would rather be content to hazard all than forgo her right.’ Therefore she abstained from taking lovers, because lovers might impair her political resolution and stain the reputation of one who was to be a great queen, and because lovers were not to her liking: since, despite a rich endowment of the external qualities of a sexual nature, her nature was not, in essence, strongly sexual.

  In view of the later circumstances of her life, and of the misinterpretations that have been so commonly placed upon her conduct, it is important to realise the unblemished reputation with which she came to Scotland; and to recognise the seriousness of her political ambition will obviate many difficulties in understanding her subsequent career.

  To Elizabeth the gravity of Mary’s challenge was obvious, and she had been well advised of her rival’s character. Throckmorton, the English ambassador in France, had written: ‘Since her husband’s death she hath showed (and so continueth) that she is both of great wisdom for her years, modesty, and also of great judgment in the wise handling herself and her matters, which, increasing with her years, cannot but turn greatly to her commendation, reputation, honour and great benefit of her and her country.’ Throckmorton suspected her ambition. ‘The Queen of Scots,’ he wrote, ‘doth carry herself so honourably, advisedly, and discreetly, as I cannot but fear her progress.’ So Elizabeth declared her hostility and refused to grant Mary a safe-conduct for her voyage to England; and Mary, forgetting her discretion, as she often did when anger moved her, was unwise enough to utter a half-threat against Elizabeth: ‘Let the Queen, your mistress, think that it will be thought very strange amongst all princes and countries, that she should first animate my subjects against me, and now being widow, to impeach my going into my own country. I ask her nothing but friendship. I do not trouble her State, nor practise with her subjects; and yet I know there be in her realm that be inclined enough to hear offers: I know also they be not of the mind she is of, neither in religion or other things.’

  Daring the anger of her kinswoman, and the fleet which her kinswoman sent to intercept her, Mary set sail from Calais on August 14th, 1561, and five days later, in the early morning, came safely to Leith. She carried something of France with her. Her uncles, the Duc d’Aumale, the Marquis d’Elbeuf, and the Grand Prior, accompanied her, and in her train were the Abbé de Brantôme, M. d’Amville, who for long had wooed her with a persistence unshaken by all denials, and the poet Chastelard, a servant of d’Amville. The port of Leith lay darkly under a thick fog when she landed. The haar had been of some use in shaking off the pursuing ships of England, but Knox, with his happy knack of perceiving everywhere symbols of destruction, discovered in it a mighty omen of disaster: ‘The very face of heaven,’ he wrote, ‘did manifestly speak what comfort was brought into this country with her; to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness and all impiety; for in the memory of man, that day of the year, was never seen a more dolorous face of the heaven, than was at her arrival, which two days after did so continue: For besides the surface wet, and corruption of the air, the mist was so thick and dark that scarce might any man espy another the length of two pair of butts; the sun was not seen to shine two days before nor two days after. That forewarning God gave unto us: but alas! the most part were blind!’

  It was a dismal arrival in her kingdom—though possibly not so dark as it appeared to Knox—but the citizens of Edinburgh did what they could to adorn the occasion, and for that and several succeeding nights serenaded her window at Holyrood with the subdued gaiety of psalm-tunes, and for her official entry into Edinburgh prepared a series of pageants which, though doubtless expressing loyalty, contained an element of didacticism that could not have been very pleasing to the Queen. There was no harm in presenting her with a Bible and a Psalter covered in fine purple velvet, but it was tactless, at such a time, to accompany the gift with a song instructing her that in them

  ‘your Grace may read to understand

  The perfect way unto the heavens hie,

  And how to rule your subjects and your land,

  And how your kingdom ’stablished shall be . . .

  A gift more precious could we none present,

  Nor yet more needful to your Excellence.’

  And though at one part of the Queen’s progress she saw fountains running wine, at another she encountered a device representing the burning of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram for their sin of idolatry. Some of the more ingenuous citizens had intended to present the effigy of a priest and burn it in the act of elevating the Host; but the Catholic Earl of Huntly dissuaded them from that. It was clear, then, that Mary’s first task was to deal in some way or another with the tenacity and suspicion of the self-styled Congregation of Christ. Her French courtiers did her no good in their sight, but her own charm and beauty soon made converts—to her, not to her faith—among the Pro-testant nobles. Even Knox struggled to be fair, and was as fair as he could be. ‘We call her not a hoor,’ he wrote, ‘but she was brought up in the company of the wildest hoor-mongers, yea, of such as no more regarded incest than honest men regard the company of their lawful wives.’

  It is interesting to think that in his constant preoccu-pation with sexual activity Knox might have found common ground with the Abbé de Brantôme.

  II

  The struggle between Mary and the Congregation had a political significance at least as immediate as its spiritual implications. The Congregation was well aware of Elizabeth’s religion, and not uninterested in her policy. They suspected that Mary’s faith was a bond between her and France. They had a childish horror of the Mass, an earnest desire to humiliate their enemies, and a knowledge of the Old Testament that told them how often princes had been overthrown when their behaviour was unpopular with the chosen tribes of God. Mary’s conduct in this first crisis of her reign was wholly admirable. She showed the Reformers that tolerance which good sense and proper feeling and diplomacy all made desirable, she was patient under the burden of their stupidity, and long-suffering with their misrepresentation; she defended the right of a sovereign to rule, and her individual right to worship as she chose, with fortitude and a heart constant and devout. It is well to remember that she was only nineteen when, so wisely and bravely, she confronted Knox and the inflamed abbey-wreckers.

  Her first interview with the Reformer took place at Holyrood, with none other present in the room but Lord James, and two gentlewomen standing at the far end. After some talk about The Monstrous Regiment of Women, and Knox’s war against her mother, the conversation turned to general discussion of a sovereign’s rights, and Knox mentioned, as a justification for intransigence, the stubborn opposition to their rulers of Israel in Egypt, Daniel under Nebuchadnezzar, and the Early Christians under Rome.

  Mary said, ‘Yea, but none of these men raised the sword against their princes.’

  ‘God, Madam, had not given unto them the power and the means,’ said Knox.

  ‘Think ye that subjects having power may resist their princes?’

  ‘If their princes exceed their bounds, Madam, no doubt they should be resisted, even by power. For there is neither greater honour nor greater obedience to be given to kings or princes
than God has commanded to be given to father and mother. But, Madam, the father may be stricken with a frenzy, in which he would slay his own children. Now, Madam, if the children arise, join themselves together, apprehend the father, take the sword or other weapons from him, and finally bind his hands, and keep him in prison, until his frenzy be overpast; think ye, Madam, that the children do any wrong? Or think ye, Madam, that God will be offended with them that have stayed their father from committing wickedness? It is even so, Madam, with princes that would murder the children of God that are subject unto them. Their blind zeal is nothing but a very mad frenzy: and therefore, to take the sword from them, to bind their hands, and to cast them into prison until they be brought to a more sober mind, is no disobedience against princes, but just obedience, because it agreeth with the will of God.’

  After this remarkable speech the Queen was silent for a long time, standing ‘as it were amazed,’ as Knox himself ingenuously records. At last she said, ‘Well, then, I perceive that my subjects shall obey you, and not me; and shall do what they like, and not what I command; and so must I be subject to them and not they to me.’

  Knox, with comparative humility, replied that his task on earth was to persuade both princes and people to obey God; and God, he said, would like kings to be, as it were, foster-fathers to His Church, and queens to be nurses to His people.

  ‘Yea,’ said Mary, ‘but ye are not the Kirk that I will nurse. I will defend the Kirk of Rome, for I think it is the true Kirk of God.’

  No bull ever roused more swiftly at a red cloak than Knox at the Scarlet Woman. The word Rome stung him to sudden wrath.

  ‘Your will, Madam, is no reason!’ he shouted. ‘Neither doth your thought make of that Roman harlot the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ. Wonder not, Madam, that I call Rome a harlot; for that Church is altogether polluted with all kind of spiritual fornication, as well in doctrine as in manners.’