HERE ARE FLIES AT THE HONEYPOT
‘The Comic Mask now appears,’ says _Le Secret des Secrets_ in a
reflective mood, ‘the Comic Mask, with a deprecatory grin, to show how it
was the misfortune of Scotland at this time that, being a poor country,
every funded man in it was forced to fatten his glebe at the cost of
his neighbour’s. So house was set against house, friendship made a vain
thing, and loyalty a marketable thing. More than that, every standard of
value set up to be a beacon or channel-post or point of rally (whichever
you chose to make it), became _ipso facto_ a tower of vantage, from
which, if you were to draw your dues, it was necessary to scare everybody
else. When Mr. Knox sourly called Queen Mary a Honeypot, he intended to
hold her out to scorn; but actually he decried his countrymen who saw
her so; and not saw her only, but every high estate beside. For them
the Church was a honeypot, the council, the command of the shore, the
wardenry of the marches. “Come,” they said, “let us eat and drink of
this store, but for God’s sake keep off the rest, or it will never hold
out.” Round about, round about, came the buzzing flies, at once eager and
querulous; and while they sipped they looked from the corners of their
eyes lest some other should get more than his share; and the murmurs of
the feasters were as often “Give him less” as “Give me more.” Yet it
would be wrong, I conceive, to call the Scots lords all greedy; safer to
remember that most of them must certainly have been hungry.’ So Monsieur
Des-Essars obtrudes his chorus—after the event.
Young Queen Mary, hard-up against the event, had no chorus but trusty
Livingstone of the red cheeks and warm heart; nor until her first
Christmas was kept and gone was she conscious of needing one. She
had maintained a high spirit through all the dark and windy autumn
days, finding Bothwell’s effrontery as easy to explain as the Duke’s
poltroonery, or the hasty veering of old Huntly. Bothwell, she would
extenuate, held her cheap because women were his pastime, the Duke
sought her protection because he was a coward, Huntly shied off because
his vanity was offended. If men indeed had ever been so simple to be
explained, this world were as easy to manage as a pasteboard theatre. The
simplicity was her own; but she shared the quality with another when she
sent for Mr. Knox because she thought him her rival, and when he came
prepared to play the part.
The time was November, with the floods out and rain that never ceased.
It was dark all day outside the palace; raw cold and showers of sleet
mastered the town; but within, great fires made the chambers snug where
the Queen sat with her maids and young men. The French lords had taken
their leave, the pageants and dancings were stayed for a time. In a
diminished Court, which held neither the superb Princes of Guise nor
the hardy-tongued Lord of Bothwell—in a domesticated, needleworking,
chattering, hearth-haunting Court—there was a great adventure for the
coy excellences of Monsieur de Châtelard. Discussing his prospects
freely with Des-Essars, he told him that he had two serious rivals only.
‘Monsieur de Boduel,’ he said, ‘forces my Princess to think of him by
insulting her. He appears to succeed; but so would the man who should
twist your arm, my little Jean-Marie, and make cuts with the hand at
the fleshy part. He would compel you to think of him, but with fear.
Now, fear, look you, is not the lady’s part in love, but the man’s, the
perfect lover’s part. For it may be doubted whether a woman can ever be a
perfect lover—if only for this reason, that she is designed for the love
of a man. The Lord Gordon, eldest son and heir of that savage greybeard,
Monsieur de Huntly, is my other adversary in the sweet warfare. She looks
at him as you must needs observe a church tower in your Brabant. It is
the tallest thing there; you cannot avoid it. But what fine long legs can
prevail against the silken tongue? Not his, at least. Therefore I sing my
best, I dance, I stand prayerful at corners of the corridor. And one day,
when I see her pensive, or hear her sigh as she goes past me, do you know
what I shall do? I shall run forward and clasp her knees, and cry aloud,
“We bleed, we bleed, Princess, we bleed! Come, my divine balm, let us
stanch mutually these wounds of ours. For I too have balsam for thee!” Do
you not think the plan admirable?’
‘It is very poetical,’ said Des-Essars, ‘and has this merit, usually
denied to poetry, that it is uncommonly explicit. I think I know better
than you what are the designs of Monsieur de Boduel, since he was once
my master. He does not seek to insult or to terrify my mistress, as you
seem to suppose—but to induce her to trust him. He would wish to appear
to her in the character of the one man in Scotland who does not seek
some advantage from her. My Lord Gordon’s designs—to use the word for
convenience, though, in fact, he has no designs—are as simple as yours.
He is infatuated; the Queen has turned his head; and it is no wonder,
seeing that she troubled herself to do it.’
‘If he has no designs, boy,’ cried Monsieur de Châtelard, ‘how can you
compare him with me, who have many?’
Des-Essars clasped his hands behind his head. ‘I suppose you are the same
in this, at least,’ he said, ‘that both of you seek to get pleasure out
of my mistress. Let me tell you that your most serious rival of all is
one of whom you know nothing—one who seeks neither pleasure nor profit
from her; to whom, therefore, she will almost certainly offer the utmost
of her store.’
‘Who is this remarkable man, pray?’
‘It is Master Knox, the Genevan preacher,’ said Des-Essars. ‘I think
there is more danger to the Queen’s heart in this man’s keeping than in
that of the whole Privy Council of this kingdom.’
Monsieur de Châtelard was profoundly surprised. ‘I had never considered
him at all,’ he admitted. ‘In my country, Jean-Marie, and I suppose in
yours also, we do not consider the gentry of religion until our case is
become extreme. Of what kindred is this man?’
‘He is of the sons of Adam, I suppose, and a tall one. I have seen him.’
‘You mistake me, my boy. Hath he blood, for example?’
‘Sir, I will warrant it very red. In fine, sir, this man is King of
Scotland; and, though it may surprise you to hear me say so, I will be so
bold as to add in your private ear, that no true lover of the Queen my
mistress could wish her to give up her heart into any other keeping which
this country can furnish.’
Monsieur de Châtelard, after a short, quick turn about the room, came
back to Des-Essars vivacious and angry. ‘You speak absurdly, like the
pert valet you are likely to become. What can you know of love—you, who
dare to dispose of your mistress’s heart in this fashion?’
Des-Essars looked grave. ‘It is open to me, young as I am, to love the
Queen my mistress, and to desire her welfare. I love her devotedly; but
I swear that I desire nothing else. Nor does my partner and sworn ally,
Monsieur Adam de Gordon.’
‘Love,’ said Monsieur de Châtelard, tapping his bosom, ‘severs
brotherhoods and dissolves every oath. It is a perfectly selfish passion:
even the beloved must suffer for the lover’s need. Do you and your
partner suppose that you can stay my advance? The thought is laughable.’
‘We neither suppose it nor propose it,’ replied the youth. ‘We are
considering the case of Mr. Knox, and are agreed that, detestable as his
opinions may be, there is great force in them because of the great force
in himself. We think he may draw the Queen’s favour by the very neglect
he hath of it; and although our natures would lead us to advance the suit
of my Lord Gordon, who is my colleague’s blood-brother, as you know—for
all that, it is our deliberate intention to throw no obstacle in the way
of any pretensions this Master Knox may chance to exhibit.’
‘And, pray,’ cried Monsieur de Châtelard, drawing himself up, ‘and, pray,
how do you look upon my pretensions, which, I need not tell you, do not
embrace marriage?’
‘To tell you the truth, sir,’ Des-Essars replied, ‘we do not look upon
them at all.’
Monsieur de Châtelard was satisfied. ‘I think you are very wise,’ he
said. ‘No eye should look upon the deed which I meditate. Fare you well,
Jean-Marie. I speak as a man forewarned.’
Jean-Marie returned to his problems.
Standing at the Queen’s door, he had his plan cut and dried. When the
preacher should be brought in by the usher, he would require a word with
him before he pulled back the curtain. He does not confess to it in his
memoirs; but I have no doubt what that word was to have been. Remember
that there was this much sound sense on the boy’s side: he knew very well
that the Queen had thought more of Mr. Knox than she had cared to allow.
His inferences may have been ridiculous; it is one thing to read into
the hearts of kings, another to dispose them. However that may be, the
Captain of the Guard had received his orders. He himself introduced the
great man into the antechamber, and led him directly to the entry of the
Queen’s closet. Mr. Erskine, who held this office, was also Master of the
Pages, and no mere gentleman-usher. He brushed aside his subaltern with
no more ceremony than consists in a flack of the ear, and, ‘Back, thou
French pullet—the Queen’s command.’ Immediately afterwards he announced
at the door, ‘Madam, Mr. Knox, to serve your Majesty.’
‘Enter boldly, Mr. Knox,’ he bade his convoy then, and departed, leaving
him in the doorway face to face with the Queen of Scots.
She sat in a low chair, tapestry on her knees, her needle flying fast;
in her white mourning, as always when she had her own way, she looked a
sweet and wholesome young woman. Mary Livingstone, self-possessed and
busy, was on a higher chair behind her, watching the work; Mary Fleming
in the bay of the window, Lord Lindsay near by her, leaning against the
wall. Mary Beaton and Mary Seton were on cushions on the floor, each
holding an end of the long frame. Mr. Secretary regardful by the door,
and a lady who sat at a little table reading out of _Perceforest_ or
_Amadis_, or some such, completed as quiet an interior as you could wish
to see. While Mr. Knox stood primed for his duty, scrutinised by half a
dozen pair of eyes, the Queen alone did not lift hers up, but picked at a
knot with her needle.
The tangle out, ‘Let Mr. Knox take heart,’ she said, with the needle’s
eye to the light and the wool made sharp by her tongue: ‘here he shall
find a few busy girls putting to shame some idle men.’ Seeing that Mr.
Knox made no sign—as how should he, who needed not take what he had never
lost?—she presently turned her head and looked cheerfully at him, her
first sight of a redoubtable critic. Singly her thoughts came, one on
the heels of the other: her first, This man is very tall; the second, He
looks kind; the third, He loves a jest; the fourth, which stayed long by
her, The deep wise eyes he hath! In a long head of great bones and little
flesh those far-set, far-seeing, large, considering eyes shone like lamps
in the daylight—full of power at command, kept in control, content to
wait. They told her nothing, yet she saw that they had a store behind.
No doubt but the flame was there. If the day made it mild, in the dark
it would beacon men. She saw that he had a strong nose, like a raven’s
beak, a fleshy mouth, the beard of a prophet, the shoulders and height
of a mountaineer. In one large hand he held his black bonnet, the other
was across his breast, hidden in the folds of his cloak. There was no man
present of his height, save Lethington, and he looked a weed. There was
no man (within her knowledge) of his patience, save the Lord James; and
she knew him at heart a coward. Peering through her narrowed eyes for
those few seconds, she had the fancy that this Knox was like a ragged
granite cross, full of runes, wounded, weather-fretted, twisted awry. Yet
her four thoughts persisted: He is very tall, he looks kind, he loves
a jest—and oh! the deep wise eyes he hath! Nothing that he did or spoke
against her afterwards moved the roots of those opinions. She may have
feared, but she never shrank from the man.
Now she took up her words where she had left them. ‘You, who love not
idleness, Mr. Knox, are here to help me, I hope?’
He blinked before he answered. ‘Madam,’ then said he, ‘I am here upon
your summons, since subjects are bound to obey, that I may know your
pleasure of me.’ ‘A sweet, dangerous woman,’ he thought her still; but
he added now, ‘And of all these dainty ladies the daintiest, and the
shrewdest reader of men.’
‘Come then, Mr. Knox, and be idle or busy as likes you best,’ she said,
and resumed her needle. ‘I am glad to know,’ she added, ‘that you
consider yourself bound anyways to me.’
He, not moving from his doorway—making it serve him rather for a
pulpit—when he had thought for awhile, with quickly blinking eyes, began:
‘I think that you seek to put me to some question, madam, but without
naming it. I think that you would have me justify myself without cause
cited. But this I shall not do, lest afterwards come in your Clerk of
Arraigns and I find myself prejudged upon my plea before I am accused at
all. Why, in this matter of service of subjects, we are all in a manner
bound upon it. Many masters must we obey: as God and His stewards, who
are girded angels; and Death and his officers, who are famines, diseases,
fires, and the swords of violent men, suffered by God for primordial
reasons; and next the prince and his ministers, among whom I reckon——’
‘Oh, sir; oh, sir,’ she cried out, ‘you go too fast for me!’
‘Madam,’ said he, ‘I speak with respect, but I do think you go as fast as
I.’
She laughed. ‘I am young, Mr. Knox, and go as fast as I can. Do you blame
me for that?’
‘I may not, madam,’ said he steadily, ‘unless to remember that you sit in
an old seat be to blame you.’
‘I sit at my needlework now, sir.’
He saw her fine head bent over the web, a gesture beautifully meek, but
said he: ‘I suspect the seat is beneath your Majesty. It is hard to win,
yet harder to leave when the time comes.’
‘But,’ said she, ‘if I put aside my seat, if I waive my authority, how
would you consider me then?’
He turned his head from one to another, and then gazed calmly at the
Queen. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘if you waive your authority and put aside your
seat, the which (you say) you have from God, why then should I consider
you at all?’
When the room stirred, she laughed, but it was to conceal her vexation.
She pricked her lip with her needle.
‘I see how it is with you and your friends, sir,’ she said drily. ‘You
love not poor women in any wise. When we are upon thrones you call us
monsters, and when we come off them you think us nothing at all. It is
hard to please you. And yet—you have known women.’
‘A many,’ said he.
‘And of these some were good women?’
‘There was one, madam, the best of women.’
Her eyes sparkled. ‘Ah! You speak kindly at last! You loved my mother!
Then you will love me. Is it not so?’
He was silent. This was perilous work.
‘I have sent for you, Mr. Knox,’ she continued, ‘not for dialectic, in
which I can see I am no match for you; but to ask counsel of you, and
require a benevolence, if you are ready to bestow it. We will talk alone
of these things, if you will. Adieu, mes enfants; gentlemen, adieu. I
must speak privately with Mr. Knox.’
What had she to say to him? Not he alone wondered; there was Master
Des-Essars at the door—Master Des-Essars, who, with the generosity of
calf-love, was prepared to surrender his rights for the good of the
State. Mary Livingstone, to whom one man, lover of the Queen, was as
pitiable as another, swept through the anteroom without a word for
anybody. The others clustered in the bay, whispering and wondering.
But as to Mr. Knox, when those two were alone, she baffled him altogether
by asking him to intervene in the quarrel between the Lords Bothwell and
Arran: baffled him, that is, because he had braced himself for tears,
reproaches, and what he called ‘yowling’ against his ‘Stinking Pride’
sermon, which of late had made some stir. In that matter he was ready
to take his stand upon the holy hill of Sion; he had his countermines
laid against her mines. Yea, if she had cried out upon the book of the
_Monstrous Regiment_ itself, he had his pithy retorts, his citations
from Scripture, his Aristotle, his Saint Paul, and Aquinas—for he did
not disdain that serviceable papist—his heavy cavalry from Geneva and
his light horsemen from Ayrshire greens. But she took no notice of
this entrenched position of his: she drew him into open country, then
swept out and caught him in the flank. Choosing to assume, against all
evidence, that he had loved her mother, assuming that he loved her too,
she pleaded with him to serve her well, and used the subtlest flattery of
all, which was to take for granted that he would refuse what she begged.
This was an incense so heady that the flinty-edged brain was drugged by
it, declined ratiocination. As she pleaded, in low urgent tones, which
cried sometimes as if she was hurt, and thrilled sometimes as though she
exulted in her pure desire, he listened, sitting motionless above her,
more moved than he cared afterwards to own. ‘For peace’s sake I came
hither, young as I am, and because I desire to dwell among my own folk.
I hoped for peace, and do think that I ensued it. Have I vexed any of
you in anything? Have I oppressed any?’ At such a time, against such
pleading, he had it not in his heart to cry out, ‘Ay, daily, hourly, you
vex, thwart, and offend the Lord’s people.’
Seeing him silent, pondering above her, she stretched out her arms for a
minute, and bewitched him utterly with her slow, sad smile. ‘If a girl of
my years can be tyrant over grave councillors, if that be possible, and
I have done it, I shall not be too stiff to ask pardon for my fault, or
to come to you and your friends, Mr. Knox, to learn a wiser way. But you
cannot accuse me. I see you answer nothing.’ Whether he could or not, he
did not at that time.
She came back to her first proposition. ‘Of my Lord of Bothwell I know
only this,’—she seemed to weigh her words,—‘that in France he approved
himself the very honest gentleman whom I looked to find him here. He is
not of my faith; he favours England more than I am as yet prepared to
do; he is stern upon the border. What his quarrel may be with my Lord
of Arran I do not care to inquire. I pray it may be soon ended, for the
peace’s sake which I promised myself. Why should I be unhappy? You cannot
wish it.’
‘Madam,’ he said, in his deep slow voice, ‘God knoweth I do not.’
She looked down; she whispered, ‘You are kind to me. You will help me?’
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘God being with me, I will.’ She looked up at him like
a child, held out her hand. He took it in his own; and there it lay for a
while contented.
Upon this fluttering moment the Lord James, walking familiarly in king’s
houses, entered with a grave inclination of the head. The Queen was
vexed, but she was ready, and resumed her hand. Mr. Knox was not ready.
He stiffened himself, and opened his mouth to speak: no words came. The
Lord James went solemnly to his side and put a hand on his shoulder. The
Queen’s eyes flashed.
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘I am glad that my friend Mr. Knox should be here.’
‘Upon my word, my lord,’ cried the Queen in a rage, ‘why should you
be glad, or what has your gladness to do with the matter?’ Mr. Knox,
before she spoke, had gently disengaged himself; now he made her a deep
obeisance and took his leave—not walking backwards. ‘That is a true man,’
was her judgment of him, and never substantially altered. What he may
have thought of her, if he afterwards discovered how she had used him
here, is another question. He set about doing her behests, at any rate.
There was a probability that my Lord Bothwell would show himself at Court
again before many days, and without direct invitation of hers.