CHAPTER XII

EPITHALAMIUM: END OF ALL MAIDS’ ADVENTURE

He fell ill of measles, the young prince, before they could leave

Wemyss—measles followed by much weakness, sweating, and ague; and though

all her whispering world—but the few—might wonder, nothing could keep her

from the proud uses of wifehood. She took her place by his bed early—pale

with care, yet composed—and kept it till past midnight. It was beautiful

to see her, with rank and kingship cast aside, more dignified by her

little private fortune, more a queen for her enclosed realm. For now she

swayed a sick-room, and was absolute there: let seditious murmurings and

alarms toss their pikes beyond the border.

And indeed they did. Her secret marriage had been so well kept, the

Court fairly hummed with scandal; and the simple truth was given a dog’s

death that romantic tales might thrive. It was commonly said that if she

married him now it would only be because shame would drive her. The Earl

of Morton went about with this clacking on his tongue; plain men like

Atholl and Herries looked all ways for a pardon upon the doting Queen. In

their company the Earl of Moray lifted up deprecating hands; he agreed

with the Earl of Morton, advised Atholl and Herries to pray without

ceasing. The winds were blowing as he required them; but this sickness

was vexatious, with the delays it brought. Time is of the essence of the

contract, even if that be only between a vainglorious youth and a rope.

Mr. Secretary wrote from England that the Queen of that country was

implacably against the marriage; it was possible even now that it might

be stopped. But it must on no account be stopped.

This was, in early May, the plain view of the Earl of Moray: that the

thing must be publicly done, and soon done, in order that his schemes

should bear fruit. It is an odd, almost inexplicable fact that he was to

change his whole mind in the course of a few weeks, and for no deeper

reason than a word lightly let fall by the Queen, his half-sister. But

what a word that was to the bastard of a king! It was the word _King_.

There came to Wemyss, in the midst of these measles and scandalous

whisperings, a certain Murray of Tullibardine, a friend of Bothwell’s—him

and one Pringle. They came together, and yet separately: Pringle with

griefs to be healed—that he, being a servant of my Lord Bothwell’s, had

been summarily dismissed with kicks on a sensitive part; Tullibardine as

a friend, frankly to sue his friend’s pardon. My Lord Moray refused to

help him, having neither love nor use for a Bothwell, but he got to the

Queen by the back stairs and put his client’s case. However, she scarcely

listened to him. Busy as she was, it was strange to see how far away from

her ken the dread Hepburn had drifted.

‘From the Earl of Bothwell—you? What has he to report of himself—and by

you?’

Tullibardine spoke of duty, forgiveness, the clemency of the prince,

while the Queen stirred the broth in her hand.

‘I never sent him to France,’ she said, ‘but to the Castle of Edinburgh

rather. He set me at nought when he fled this country. Let him return to

the place I put him in, and we will think about duty, forgiveness, and

the prince’s clemency. I bear him no more ill-will than he has put in me,

and he can take it out when he pleases.’

‘I thank your Majesty,’ said Tullibardine, ‘and my noble friend will

thank you.’

‘He has only himself to thank, so far as I see,’ she replied, and

dismissed him before the broth could get cold.

Meantime the Earl of Moray had held a godly conversation with afflicted

Pringle. Pringle had much to say: as that, of all men living, the Lord

Bothwell hated two—his good lordship of Moray and Mr. Secretary. He had

sworn to be the death of each when he returned.

The Earl of Moray compressed his lips, straightened himself, and cleared

his throat.

‘I fear for him, Pringle,’ he said, ‘the wild, misgoverned, glorious

young man. I cannot charge myself with any offence against him, and yet I

remember that when I was in France he girded at me more than once. But I

am accustomed in such variancy to hold my plain course. Pringle, that was

a desperate gentleman. He had to be forbid the Court.’

‘True, my lord,’ says Pringle, ‘and your lordship knows to what

abominable usages he hath——’

‘Pray, Pringle, pray, no more!’

Pringle was now in the painful position of having staked out a short road

and finding it denied him. ‘I must whisper in your lordship’s ear. I must

make so bold.’

‘Man, I refuse you. Heinous living be far from me!’

‘My lord, I have heard the Lord Bothwell speak of the Queen’s grace in a

manner——’

‘Ay, it is like enough, poor Pringle. The wicked man seeth wickedness all

over.’

‘He spake of the Queen, my lord—in your ear——’

He breathed it low, a vile accusation concerning the Cardinal of Lorraine

and the Queen—his niece, and then a girl of eighteen.

The Earl cowed him with a look. ‘Go, Pringle, go! This talk should never

have been held between us. You have misused my charity. Go, I say.’

Pringle shivered out.

In his time the Earl of Moray saw the Queen, and, after due preparation,

chose to tarnish her ears with the tale.

But she was not at all tarnished. From her safe seat, with but a

party-wall between her husband and her, she received it brightly.

‘Why, what a ragged tongue he hath! The poor, proud Cardinal! Did he not

love me? I believe he always did.’

‘Madam,’ said her brother, ‘you interpret gently. This makes the

slanderer’s damnation the deeper.’

She laughed. ‘It is plain, brother, that you know little of France. In

France the truth goes for nothing, but the jest is all. My Lord Bothwell

has been much in France.’

‘A jest, madam? This a jest?’

‘It is quite in their manner. I remember the old King——’ She broke off

suddenly. ‘Oh, brother, my King is more at ease! This morning his fever

left him, and there broke a great sweat.’

‘I rejoice,’ said he—‘I rejoice. But touching this horrible railer—if he

should crave leave to return——’

‘He has craved it already,’ replied the Queen. ‘I answered that if he

choose to come back to his prison he may do it. But not otherwise.

Brother, I must go to the King.’

* * * * *

The King! We were there, then; and it galled him like a rowel. Although

she used it warily, and only with the nine persons who were privy, he

could not bear the word; for every time he heard it he was stung into

remembering that he ought to have foreseen it and had not. It is to be

admitted that it had never once crossed his mind—neither the word nor the

thing; astute, large-minded, wide-ranging as he was, he was also that

unimaginative, prim-thinking man who has pigeon-holes for the categories,

knows nothing of passion that breaks all rules, nor can conceive how

loyalty is like meat to women in love, and humility like wine. Lethington

could have told him these things, the Italian could have told him, any of

the maids; and he never to have guessed at them! Dangerously mortified at

the discovery, his disgust with himself and the fact worked together into

one great distemper. This it was which threw him out of his balance, and

led him presently to the greatest length he ever went; but at present it

was only gathering in him. It made him doubtful, distrustful of himself

and all; and when he looked about for supports he could find none to his

taste. One folly after another! How he had cut away his friends! There

was Lethington in England. There was the Italian, who knew so much. He

sickened at the thought of that capable ruffian who had helped him hasten

the crowning of ‘the King.’ Very possibly—very certainly, it seemed

to him now, brooding over it in stillness and the dark—very possibly

the ruin of his life had been laid that night when he had sought out

the creature in his den and bought him with a diamond. Argyll was here,

Rothes, Glencairn, and their like, and Morton the Chancellor, whom he

only half trusted. Besides, Morton was cousin of this flagrant ‘King,’

and would rise as he rose. On the whole, and for want of better, he

consorted with Argyll and his friends, and dared go so far as this, to

tell them that he had fears of the marriage.

‘I could have wished,’ he said to Argyll, ‘a livelier sense of favours

done in so young a man; also that my sister might have judged more

soberly how far to meet him. If men of age and known probity had been

consulted!’

Glencairn, a passably honest man, and undoubtedly a pious man, said

tentatively here, that no lord of the Council could be found to support

the Prince. As for the Queen’s grace——

‘She has been unhappily rash,’ says Moray; ‘I cannot think more. Maidenly

lengths would have become her, a queenly regard, but surely no more.’ He

turned to Argyll. ‘Frankly, brother-in-law, Mr. Knox should not hear of

these late doings—of these bedside ministrations, these transports, these

fits of self-communing, this paltering with the tempter, this doffing of

regalities. I pray, I pray for Scotland!’

‘The gowk’s a papist,’ says Argyll, a plain man.

‘He is young, brother-in-law; that we remember always.’

‘He stinks of pride,’ says Argyll,—‘sinful, lusty pride of blood. If this

marriage be made we shall all rue it.’

The Earl of Moray clapped a hand to each of his shoulders.

‘Brother-in-law, pray for Scotland!’

‘Oh, ay,’ says Argyll, ‘and put an edge to my Andrew Ferrara.’

* * * * *

How she lingered over him, prayed over him, watched every petulant

twitching of his limbs, no one could know altogether save Mary Sempill,

and she had affairs of her own to consider—a wife who knew she was going

to be a mother. But for this proud preoccupation, she might have seen

how touchingly the Queen made the most of her treasure, and how all the

ardour which had hurried her into wedlock was now whipped up again to

prove it bliss. Was he fretful—and was he not? It was the fever in his

dear bones. Was he gross-mannered? Nay, but one must be tender of young

blood. Did he choose to have his Englishmen about him, his Archie Douglas

to tell him salt tales, while she sat with her maids and waited? Well,

well, a man must have men with him now and again, and is never the better

husband for cosseting. When they urged her to be a queen, she lowered her

eyes and said she was a wife. This raised an outcry.

‘He is, he can only be, your consort, madam.’

‘I am his, you mean,’ said she. ‘The man chooses the woman. There are no

crowns in the bridal bed, and none in heaven. Naked go we to both.’

Mary Sempill wrung her hands over talk of the sort. ‘Out, alas! My

foolish, fond, sweet lass!’

But Mary Fleming considered, nursing her cheek in the way she had. ‘The

strength of a man overrides all your politics, my dear,’ she said gently.

‘The Salic Law is the law of nature, I have heard men say.’

‘God smite this youth if he try it!’ said Sempill fiercely. ‘He’ll set

the heather afire and burn us all in our beds. And you, Fleming, will

have need of mercy in your turn, if you hearken to your grey-faced

Lethington.’

‘Mr. Secretary has a very noble heart, Mary. I hope I may say the same of

your Master.’

Mary Sempill sniffed. ‘My Master, as you call him, has a head for

figures. He can cipher you two and two. And he says of your Lethington

that he is working mischief in England.’

Mary Fleming rose with spirit to this challenge. ‘I cannot believe it.

You are angry with me because you are vexed with the King.’

Then it was Mary Sempill to bounce away. ‘The King! Never use that word

to me, woman. There shall be no King in Scotland till my mistress bears

him.’

But she was talking without her book.

They moved to Stirling as soon as the young lord was mended; and thither

came the Earl of Lennox, in a high taking—foxy, close-eyed, crop-bearded,

fussy and foolish—to pay his respects to the Prince his son. Never was a

more disastrous combination made: they cut the Court in half, as shears

a length of cloth. The garrulity of the old man set everybody on edge;

then came the insolent son, to prove the truth even worse than they had

feared. His father egged him on to preposterous lengths, intolerable

behaviour; so the ‘pretty cockerel,’ as they called him in France, made

wild work in the hill-town. He quarrelled so fiercely with my Lord Rothes

that Davy had to pull him off by main force, and then he drew his dagger

on the Lord Justice Clerk, who came to his lodging with a message from

the Queen.

‘Tell your mistress,’ he had cried out to that astonished officer, ‘that

I pay honour to none but the honourable. You have come here with lies in

your throat. She sent me no such message. You are a very dirty fellow.’

Archie Douglas put in his oar. ‘No, no, sir. You jest with the Lord

Justice Clerk—but your jest is too broad.’

‘By God, man,’ says the Prince, ‘this jest of mine is narrow at the

point. Let him come on and taste the forky tongue of it.’

The Lord Justice Clerk was too flustered to be offended at the moment;

but when he had gained the calm of the street he shuddered to recall

the scene. Her Majesty must be informed of every circumstance: flesh

and blood could not endure such affronts. It needed all her Majesty’s

cajolery to salve the wounded man, and more than she had over to comfort

herself when he had gone away mollified.

Lord Ruthven was one of the Prince’s intimates at this time, a malign

influence; and the everlasting Italian was another. Signior Davy, at home

in all the chambers of the house, used to sit on the edge of the young

man’s bed and pare his nails while he talked philosophy and statecraft.

It was he who tempered the storm which had nearly maddened the Lord

Justice Clerk.

‘Your lordship is in a fair way to the haven,’ he said. ‘I tell you

honestly you will get on no quicker for this choler. You must needs be

aware that her Majesty will have no rest until you and she are publicly

wedded. She is fretting herself to strings under that desire. What then

is my advice to your lordship? Why, to sit very still, and to insist with

your respectable father that he hold his tongue. I speak plainly; but it

is to my friend and patron.’

The Prince was not offended—but he was obstinate.

‘Speak as plain as you please, Davy, and deal for me as warily as you

can. The patent should be sealed.’

That was the root of the quarrel—his patent of creation to be Duke of

Rothesay. The Queen had promised it to him, but there had been vexed

debate over it in the Council. It was a title for kings’ sons, and had

always been so. The Earl of Moray vehemently opposed; the Argylls,

Glencairns, and others of his friends followed him; they had hopes also

of the Chancellor. At the minute, therefore, although the Queen had

insisted even unto tears, she had not been able to get her way. So she

pretended to give over the effort, meaning, of course, to work round

about for it. She had seen the Chancellor’s wavering: if she could gain

him she would have much. All she wanted for herself was time, all from

the Prince was patience. But the furious fool had none to lend her.

When the Italian had done his work upon his nails—the rough with the

knife, the rounding-off with his teeth—he resumed his spoken thoughts.

‘Your patent,’ he said, ‘is as good as sealed. The Queen is at work

upon it in ways which are past your lordship’s finding out. For the

love of mercy, be patient: you little know what you are risking by this

intemperance. Why, with patience you will gain what no patent of her

Majesty’s can give you: that little matter of kingship, which, in such a

case as yours, goes only by proclamation and——’

My lord pricked up his ears to this royal word. ‘Ha! In a good hour,

Master David!’

‘Good enough, when it comes,’ says Davy; ‘but you did not allow me to

finish. Proclamation—and acclamation, I was about to add; for one is as

needed as the other.’

This was a fidgety addition.

‘Pooh!’ cried the Prince, ‘the pack follows the horn.’

He set the Italian’s shoulders to work. ‘I advise you not to count upon

it, my lord. In this country there is no pack of hounds, but a flock—many

flocks—of sheep. And they follow the shepherd, you must know. Therefore

you must be prudent; let me say, more prudent. The Queen comes to you too

much; you go to her too little. It is she that pays the court, where it

should be you. _Dio mio!_ It is not decent. It is madness.’

‘She is fond of me, Davy. The truth is, she is over-fond of me.’

Signior Davy stopped himself just in time. He buried his exclamation in a

prodigious shrug.

The doings of the Lennoxes, father and son, which scared the Court so

finely, were the Earl of Moray’s only hope. He, in truth, was very near

finding himself in the position of a man who should have lit a fire to

keep wolves from his door. The flames catch the eaves and burn his house

down: behold him without shelter, and the wolves coming on! This is

exactly his own case. Kingship for the young man, by whose entangling he

had hoped to entangle his sister, was a noose round his own neck—the mere

threat of it was a noose. If he furthered it he was ruined; if he opposed

it—at this hour of the day—he might equally be ruined. All his hope lay

in England. Let the Queen of England send for her runaway subjects, and

then—why, he could begin again. As day succeeded to day, and favour to

favour—the dukedom conferred, the match in every one’s mouth, the Court

at Edinburgh, the Chapel Royal in fair view—he worked incessantly. He

dared not try the Italian again, lest the impudent dog should grin in his

face; but he secured Argyll and his friends, the Duke of Châtelherault

and his; he wrote to Lethington, to Mr. Cecil, to the Earl of Leicester,

to Queen Elizabeth. And so it befel that, one certain morning, English

Mr. Randolph faced the Lennoxes with his mistress’s clear commands.

Father and son were to return to England, or——

_Quos ego_—in fact; much too late for the fair. They took the

uncompromising message each after his kind: Lennox, white-haired,

ape-faced and fussy, sitting in his deep leather chair, rolling his

palms over the knobs of it, swinging his feet free of the ground; the

Prince his son stiff as a rod, standing, with one hand to his padded

hip—blockish and surly as a rogue mule.

Lennox spoke first. ‘Hey, Master Randolph!’—his little naked eyes were

like pin-pricks—‘Hey, Master Randolph, I dare not do it. No, no. It’s not

in the power of man living to do the like of it.’

Randolph shifted his scrutiny. The Prince was angry, therefore bold;

assured, therefore haughty.

‘And I, Randolph,’ he said, ‘tell you fairly that go I will not.’

Randolph became dry. ‘I hope my lord, for a better answer to the Queen

your sovereign. Will and Shall are bad travelling companions for a

legate. I urge once more your duty upon you.’

‘Duty!’ cried the flushed youth: ‘I own to no duty but Queen Mary’s, and

I never will. As to the other Queen, your mistress, who grudges me my

fortune, it is no wonder that she needs me. You will understand wherefore

in a few days’ time. I do not intend to return: there is your answer. I

am very well where I am, and likely to be better yet anon. So I purpose

to remain. There is your answer, which seems to me a good one.’

Randolph turned his back and left them. When he saw the Earl of Moray

he said that he had done his best to serve him; and that, although he

had no hope of staying the marriage, his lordship might count upon the

friendship of England in all enterprises he might think well to engage in

‘for the welfare of both realms.’ This was cold comfort.

Shortly after this disappointment the careworn lord got into a wrangle

with the Prince in a public place—not a difficult thing to do. It began

with the young man’s loud rebuke of Mr. Knox, who (said he) had called

him ‘a covetous clawback,’ and whose ears he threatened to crop with a

pair of shears. Beginning in the vestibule of the Council-chamber, it was

continued on the open cawsey in everybody’s hearing. There was heat; the

younger may have raised his hand against the elder, or he may not. The

Earl, at any rate, declared that he went in fear of his life. Then came

the hour, most memorable, when he saw the Queen alone.

He was sent for, and he came, as he told her at once, ‘with his life in

his hand.’

She asked him who would touch his hand, except to take it and shake it?

‘One, madam,’ he replied darkly, ‘who is too near your Majesty for my

honour or——’ and there he stopped.

‘Or mine, would you say?’ she flashed back at him—one of her penetrative

flashes, following a quick turn of the head. Remember, she knew nothing

of his brawl with the Prince.

He disregarded her _riposte_, and pursued his suspicions. ‘Madam, madam,

I very well know—for I still have friends in Scotland—in what danger

I stand. I very well know who talked together against me behind the

back-gallery at Perth, and can guess at what was said, and how this late

discreditable scene was laid——’

‘Oh, you guess this, brother! you guess that!’ the Queen snapped at him;

‘I am weary of your guesses against my friends. There was the Earl of

Bothwell, whom you guessed your mortal enemy; now I suppose it is the

Prince, my husband. Do you think all Scotland finds you in the way? It is

easy for you to remove the suspicion.’

His looks reproached her. ‘Did you send for me, madam, to wound me?’

‘No, no. You have served me well. I am not unmindful.’ Her eyes grew

gentle as she remembered Wemyss and the hasty mysteries of the night—the

hurry, the whispered urgings, the wild-beating heart. She held out her

hand, shyly, as befitted recognition of a blushful service. ‘I can never

quarrel with you, brother, knowing what you know, remembering what you

have seen.’

Whither was fled the finer sense of the man? He misunderstood her

grossly, believing that she feared his knowledge. He did not take her

proffered hand—she drew it back after a while, slowly.

‘You say well, sister,’ he answered, with cold reserve. ‘There should be

no quarrel, nor need there be, while you remember me—and yourself.’

‘It was not at all in my mind, I assure you,’ she told him, with an air

of dismissing the foolish thing; and went on, in the same breath, to

speak of the vexatious news from England—as if he and she were of the

same opinion about that! Her ‘good sister,’ she said, was holding strange

language, requiring the return of ‘subjects in contumacy,’ showing

herself offended at unfriendly dealing, and what not—letters, said Queen

Mary, which required speedy answer, and could have but one answer. The

Contract of Matrimony, in short, had been prepared by my Lord Morton, was

ready to be signed; the high parties were more than ready. Should she

send for the treaty? She wished her brother to see it. That was why she

had summoned him.

He was seldom at a loss, for when direction failed him he had a store of

phrases ready to eke out the time. But now that he was plumply face to

face with what he had come both to hate and to fear, he stammered and

looked all about.

She rang her hand-bell, and bade the page call Signior Davy ‘and the

parchment-writing’; then, while she waited in matronly calm, sedately

seated, hands in lap, he wrestled with his alarms, suspicions,

grievances, disgusts; saw them flare before him like shapes—lewd, satyr

shapes with their tongues out; lost control of himself, and broke out.

‘The marriage-band, you speak of? Ah—ah—but there is much to say anent

such a thing—a tedious inquiry! Madam—madam—I should have exhibited to

you before—the fault is in me that I did not——There is a common sense

abroad—no man can fight a nation—it is thought that the case is altered.

Yes, yes! Monarchs—you that be set in authority over men—are to be

warned by them that stand about your thrones, monished and exhorted. ’Tis

your duty to listen, theirs to impart: duty to God and the conscience. I

am sore at a loss for words——’

Probably she had not been listening very closely, or heeding his

agitation. She stopped him with a little short laugh.

‘Nay, ’tis not words you lack. Find courage, brother.’

‘Why, madam,’ said he, ‘and so I must. “It is expedient,” saith the Book,

“that one man die——”! What a whole nation dreads, there must be some one

to declare—even though, in so doing, he should seem to stultify himself.

Oh, madam, is not the case altered from what it promised at first? Alas,

what hope can we now have—seeing what we have seen—that this young man

will prove a setter-forth of Christ’s religion? Or how can we suppose

that he will ensue what we most desire—I mean the peace of God upon

true believers? Do they know him in England and suppose that of him?

Then how can we suppose it? Why, what token hath he showed towards the

faithful but that of rancour? What professions hath he made, save them of

mass-mongering, false prophecy, idolatry, loving darkness, shunning the

light? Oh, madam, I am sore to say these things——’

The Italian entered with his parchments before he could hurry to a close

or she stop him with an outcry.

It needed not so quick an eye to sense the brewing of a storm. The Queen

sat back in her chair, cowering in the depths of it. Her eyes were

fastened upon a little glass bowl which stood on the table—in a broody

stare which saw nothing but midnight. The Earl, white to the edge of his

lips, was waving his hands in the air. Bright and confident, the Italian

stood at the door; but my lord, in his agitation, turned upon him. ‘Man,

you’re a trespasser. Off with you! The Queen is in council—off!’

‘_Scusì_,’ says Davy, ‘I am summoned. _Eccomi._’

He was dramatically quiet; he woke the Queen.

She started from her chair and ran to him. ‘Oh, David, David, he denies

me! Perjury! Perjury!’

‘Sovereign lady,’ said the Italian, ‘here is one who will never deny you

anything.’

As he knelt my lord recovered his dignity. ‘It is not convenient, madam——’

Ah, but she faced about. ‘Convenient! convenient! To end what you have

begun? You! that led me to him! You that drove us in with your breath

like a sheet of flame!’

He put up his hand, driven to defend himself. ‘Nay, madam, nay! It cannot

be said. My design was never adopted—it was misunderstood. I bowed to no

idols—that be far from me. I was outside the door. I neither know what

was done within your chapel, nor afterwards within any chambers of the

house. My only office was——’

She held herself by the throat—all gathered together, as if she would

spring at him.

Signior Davy looked mildly from one to the other. ‘_Scusì_,’ he said, his

voice soft as milk, ‘but your lordship was not outside _all_ doors. I

know to a point how much your lordship knows.’

The Earl gasped for breath.

At this point the Queen seemed to have got strength through the hands.

She let them down from her neck, as if the spasm had passed. Her heart

spoke—a lyric cry. ‘He brought me to the chamber door, and kissed my

cheek, and wished me joy!’ She spoke like one enrapt, a disembodied

sprite, as if the soul could have seen the body in act, and now rehearse

the tale. ‘He led me to the chamber door, and kissed my cheek! “Sweet

night,” says he, “sweet sister! See how your dreams come true.” And

“Burning cheek!” says he; and “Fie, fie, the wild blood of a lass!” I

think my cheek did prophesy, and burn for the shame to come.’ She turned

them a tragic shape—drawn mouth, great eyes, expository hands. ‘Why,

sirs, if a groom trick a poor wench and deny her her lines, you put her

up in a sheet, and freeze the vice out of her with your prying eyes! Get

you a white sheet for Queen Mary and stare the devil out of her! Go you:

why do you wait? Ah, pardon, I had forgot!’ She exhibited one to the

other. ‘This man has no time to spare that he may chastise the naughty.

The throned is made shameful that the throne may be emptied. Give him a

leg, David; he will stand your friend for it.’

‘Dear madam! sweet madam!’ murmured the Italian.

But she had left him now for the white skulker by the door. ‘Oh you, you,

you, in your hurry!’ she mocked him, ‘deny me not my shroud and candle.

For if you are to sit in my seat I will stand at the kirk gate and cry

into all hearts that go by, “See me here as I stand in my shroud. I am

the threshold he trod upon. He reached his degree o’er the spoils of

a girl.”’ She came closer to him, peering and whispering. ‘And I will

be nearer, my lord, whenas you are dead. I will flit over the graves

of the kings my ancestors till I find the greenest, and there shall I

sit o’ nights, chattering your tale to the men that be there with their

true-born about them. “Ho, you that were lawful kings of Scotland, listen

now to me!” I shall say. And they will lift their heads in their vaults

and lean upon their bony elbows at ease and hear of your shameful birth

and life of lies and treasons, and most miserable death. And you in your

cerements will lie close, I think, my brother, lest the very dead turn

their backs on you.’

She stopped, struggling for breath. The dangerous ecstasy held her still,

like a _rigor_; but he, who with shut eyes and fending arms had been

avoiding, now lifted his head.

‘You misjudge me—you are too hasty——’

As a woman remote from him and his affairs she answered him, ‘Not so. But

I have been too slow.’

‘Your Majesty should see——’

She sprang into vehemence, transfigured once more by fierce and terrible

beauty.

‘I do see. You are a liar. I see you through and through, and the lies,

like snakes, in your heart. I will never willingly see you again.’

Still he tried to reason with her. ‘If accommodation of joint griefs——’

‘None! There can be none. Where do we join, sir? Tell me, and I will burn

the part.’

‘Dear sir,’ said the Italian, as she paced the room, gathering more

eloquence—‘dear sir, I advise you to depart.’

The Earl was stung by the familiarity. ‘Be silent, fellow. Madam, suffer

me one more word.’

‘You drown in your words. Therefore, yes.’

He gathered his wits together for this poor opportunity. ‘I have been

misjudged,’ he said, ‘and know very well to whom I stand debtor for that.

Nevertheless, I would still serve your Grace in chamber and in hall, so

far as my conscience will suffer me. I say, that is my desire. But if you

drive me from you; if I am turned from my father’s birthright——I beseech

you to consider with what painful knowledge I depart. If I have witnessed

unprincely dealing in high places——’

She openly scorned him. ‘Drown, sir, drown! No, stay. I will throw you a

plank.’

She rang the bell. Des-Essars answered. ‘If my lord the Chancellor is in

hall, or in the precincts in any part, I desire his presence here. If he

is abroad, send Mr. Erskine—and with speed.’

The boy withdrew. She sat, staring at nothing. The two men stood.

Absolute silence.

* * * * *

The Chancellor happened to be by. He was found in the tennis-court,

calling the game. Much he pondered the summons, and scratched in his red

beard.

‘Who is with the Queen, laddie?’

He was told, the Italian and my Lord of Moray. Making nothing of it, he

whistled for his servant, who lounged with others at the door.

‘Hurry, Jock Scott! my cloak, sword, and bonnet. At what hour is the

Council?’

‘My lord, at noon.’

He went off, muttering, ‘What’s in the wind just now?’ and as he went

by the great entry saw the guard running, and heard a shout: ‘Room for

the Prince’s grace!’ He could see the plumes of the riders and the press

about them. ‘It’ll be a new cry before long, I’m thinking,’ he said to

himself, and went upstairs.

Entering that silent room, he bent his knee to the Queen. She did not

notice his reverence, but said at once: ‘My Lord Chancellor, I shall

not sit at the Council to-day. You will direct the clerk to add a

_postill_[3] to the name of my Lord of Moray here.’

‘Madam, with good will. What shall his _postill_ be?’

‘You shall write against his name, _Last time he sits_. I know that your

business is heavy. Farewell, my lords.’

Morton and Moray went out together. At the end of the corridor and head

of the stair, Morton stopped.

‘Man, my Lord of Moray, what is this?’

For answer, the Earl of Moray looked steadily at him for a moment: then,

‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘we must go to our work, you and I.’

They said no more; but went through the hall, and heard the Prince’s

ringing voice, high above all the others, calling for ‘that black thief

Ruthven.’ They saluted a few and received many salutations. Lord John

Stuart passed them, his arm round the neck of his Spanish page, and

stared at his brother without greeting. These two hated each other, as

all the world knew. That same night the Earl of Moray left Edinburgh, and

went into Argyll, where all his friends were. It was to be nine months

before he could lay his head down in his own house again.

* * * * *

Very little passed between the Queen and her Secretary. She sat quite

still, staring and glooming; he moved about, touching a thing here and

there, like a house-servant who, by habit, dusts the clean furniture.

This brought him by degrees close to her chair. Then he said quickly,

‘Madam, let me speak.’

‘Ay, speak, David.’

‘Madam,’ he said, ‘this is not likely to be work for fair ladies, though

they be brave as they are fair. I have seen it growing—this disturbance—a

many days. He is not alone by any means, my lord your brother. Madam,

send a messenger into France. Send your little Jean-Marie.’

She looked up. ‘Into France?’

‘Madam, yes. Send a messenger into France. Let him fetch home the Earl of

Bothwell.’

She started. ‘Him?’

Riccio nodded his head quickly.

Whereupon she said, ‘He is not in France.’

‘Send for him, madam,’ said Riccio, ‘wheresoever he may be—him and no

other. Remember also—but no hurry for that—that you have my Lord Gordon

under your hand. At need, remember him. A fine young man! But the other!

Oh, send quickly for him! Eh, eh, what a captain against rebels!’ He

could not see her face; her hand covered it.

‘I will think of this,’ she said. ‘Go now. Send me Carwood: I am mortally

tired.’ Carwood was her bedchamber-woman.

* * * * *

There was a riot on the night following the proclamation of King Henry,

begun by some foaming fool in the Luckenbooths. Men caught him with a

candle in his hand, burning straw against a shop door. ‘What are ye for?

What are ye for?’ they cried at him, and up he jumped with the fired

wisp in his hand, and laughed, calling out, ‘I am the muckle devil! Come

for the popish King!’ The words fired more than the brand, for people

ran hither and thither carrying their fierce relish, feeding each other.

The howling and tussling of men and women alike raged in and out of

the wynds. It was noticed that nearly all the women took the Queen’s

part, and fought against the men—a thing seldom seen in Edinburgh. In a

desultory way, with one or two bad outbreaks, of which the worst was in

the Grassmarket, where they stoned a man and a girl to death, it lasted

all night. The Lord Lyon had his windows broken. Mr. Knox quelled the

infuriates of the High Street.

This was on the night of July 28th, very hot weather. On the morning

of the 30th she was married in her black weeds—for so she chose it,

saying that she had been married already in colour, and as her lord was

possessed of the living, so now he should own the dead part of her. She

heard mass alone, for the Prince would not go to that again; but the

Earl of Atholl stood by her, while Lennox waited in the antechapel with

his son. Mass over, the words were spoken, rings put on. He had one and

she three. They knelt side by side and heard the prayers; she bowed

herself to the pavement, but he was very stiff. They rose; he gave her

a kiss. When her women came about her he went away to her cabinet and

waited for her there, quiet and self-possessed, not answering any of his

father’s speeches.

Presently they bring him in the Queen, with coaxings and entreaties.

‘Now, madam, now! Do off your blacks. Come, never refuse us!’

She laughed and shook her head, looking sidelong at her husband.

‘Yes, yes,’ they cry, ‘we will ask the King, madam, since you are so

perverse. Sir, give us leave.’

‘Ay, ay, ladies, unpin her,’ he says.

Mary Sempill cried, ‘Come, my ladies! Come, sirs! Help her shed her

weeds.’ She took out a shoulder-pin, and the black shroud fell away

from her bosom. Mary Fleming let loose her arms; Mary Seton, kneeling,

was busy about her waist; Mary Beaton flacked off the great hood.

Atholl, Livingstone, Lennox, all came about her, spoiling her of her old

defences. When the black was all slipped off, she stood displayed in

figured ivory damask, with a bashful, rosy, hopeful face. Atholl took a

hand, Lennox the other.

‘By your leave, sweet madam.’ They led her to the young man.

‘She is yours, sir, by her own free will. God bless the mating!’

Then, when they had all gone tumbling out of the room, and you could have

heard their laughter in the passages, she stood before him with her hands

clasped. ‘Yes, my lord, I am here. Use me well.’

He gave a toss of the head; laughed aloud as he took her.

‘Ay, my Mary, I have thee now!’

He held her close, looking keenly into her hazel eyes. He kissed her

mouth and neck, held up his head, and cheered like a hunter. ‘The mort o’

the deer! The mort o’ the deer! ‘Ware hounds, ‘ware! Let the chief take

assay.’

* * * * *

The head of the Hamiltons, the head of the Campbells, the head of the

Leslies, were all in Argyll with the Earl of Moray. Mr. Knox was with

his young wife; Mr. Randolph kept his lodging; the Earl of Bothwell was

at sea, beating up north; and my Lord Gordon, new released from prison,

was with his mother and handsome sister Jean. None of these were at the

marriage, nor bidden to the marriage supper. But there came a decent

man, Mr. George Buchanan, affording himself an epithalamy, and received

in recompense the Queen’s and King’s picture set in brilliants. This did

not prevent him from casting up his hands in private before Mr. Knox. The

great elder watched him grimly.

‘So the wilful lass has got her master! And a pranking rider for a bitter

jade! Man, George,’ he said, looking critically through him, ‘in my

opinion you are a thin, truckling body.’

[3] _Postill_, a marginal note.

END OF MAIDS’ ADVENTURE

BOOK THE SECOND

MEN’S BUSINESS

CHAPTER I

OPINIONS OF FRENCH PARIS UPON SOME LATE EVENTS

Nicholas the lacquey, whom they call ‘French Paris,’ can neither read

nor write, nor cipher save with notches in a wand; but he has travelled

much, and in shrewd company; and has seen things—whatever men may do—of

interest moral and otherwise. And whether he work his sum by aid of

his not over-orderly notches, or upon his not over-scrupulous fingers,

the dog can infer; he will get the quotient just, and present it you

in divers tongues, with divers analogies drawn from his knowledge of

affairs: France, England, the Low Countries, Upper Italy, the Debateable

Land—from one, any, or all, French Paris can pick his case in point.

Therefore, his thoughts upon events in Scotland, both those which led

to his coming thither in the train of my Lord Bothwell, his master, and

those which followed hard upon it, should be worth having, if by means of

a joke and a crown-piece one could get at them.

You may see the man, if you will, lounging any afternoon away with his

fellows on the cawsey—by the Market Cross, in the parvise of Saint

Giles’s, by the big house at the head of Peebles Wynd (‘late my Lord

of Moray’s,’ he will tell you with a wink), or, best of all, in the

forecourt of Holyrood—holding his master’s cloak upon his arm. He is

to be known at once by the clove carnation or sprig of rosemary in his

mouth, and by his way of looking Scotchwomen in their faces with that

mixture of impudence and _naïveté_ which his nation lends her sons.

Being whose son he is, he will be a smooth-chinned, lithe young man,

passably vicious, and pale with it; grey in the eye, dressed finely in

a good shirt, good jacket and breeches. But for certain these two last

will not meet; the snowy lawn will force itself between, and, like a

vow of continence, sunder two loves. Paris will be tender of his waist.

He will look at all women as they pass, not with reverence (as if they

were a holier kind of flesh), but rather, like his namesake, as if he

held the apple weighing in his hand. Seems to have no eye for men—will

tell you, if you ask him of them, that there are none in Scotland but

his master and Mr. Knox; and yet can judge them quicker than any one. It

was he who said of the King, having seen him but once, after supper, at

Stirling: ‘This young man fuddles himself to brave out his failure. He is

frigid—wants a sex.’ And of the Queen, on the same short acquaintance,

but helped by hearsay: ‘She had been so long the pet of women that she

thought herself safe with any man. But now she knows that it takes more

than a cod-piece to make a man. Trust Paris.’ Trust Paris! A crown will

purchase the rogue, and yet he has a kind of faithfulness. He will endure

enormously for his master’s sake, shun no fatigues, wince at no pain,

consider no shame—to be sure, he has none—blink at few perils. Talk to

him, having slipped in your crown, he will be frank. He will tell you of

his master.

A quick word of thanks, whistled off into the air, will introduce him to

the broad piece. He will give it a flick in the air, catch it as it comes

down, rattle it in his hollowed palm, with a grin into your face. ‘This

is the upright servant, this pretty knave,’ he will say of his coin.

‘For, look you, sir, this white-faced, thin courtier is the one in all

the world whom you need not buy for more than his value. God of Gods, if

my master thought fully of it he would be just such another. Because it

is as plain as a monk’s lullaby that, if you need not give more for him

than he is worth, you cannot give less!’

His master, you have been told, is the great Earl of Bothwell, now Lord

Admiral of Scotland, Lieutenant-General of the East, West, and Middle

Marches, and right hand of the Queen’s Majesty. How is the story of so

high a man involved in your crown-piece? Why, thus.

French Paris displays the coin. ‘Do you see these two children’s faces,

these sharp and tender chins, these slim necks, these perching crowns?

What says the circumscription? MARIA ET HENRICUS D. G. SCOTORUM REGINA ET

REX. How! the mare before the sire? You have touched, sir!’ For observe,

Paris’ master came into Scotland, a pardoned rebel, because this legend

at first had run HENRICUS ET MARIA REX ET REGINA, and there was outcry

raised, flat rebellion. And so surely, says Paris, as he had come, and

been received, him with his friends, and had given that quick shake of

the head (which so well becomes him), and lifted his war-shout of ‘Hoo!

hoo! A Hepburn, hoo!’—so surely they struck a new coinage, at this very

Christmas past—and here we are over Candlemas—with MARIA ET HENRICUS, and

the mare before the sire. ‘That is how my master came back to Scotland,

sir, and here upon the face of your bounty you see the _prémices_. But

there will be a more abundant harvest, if I mistake not the husbandman.’

‘That is a droll reflection for me,’ he will add, ‘who have been with my

master as near beggary as a swan in the winter, and nearer to death than

the Devil can have understood. I have served him here and there for many

years—Flanders, Brabant, Gueldres, Picardy, Savoy, England. Do you happen

to know the port of Yarmouth? They can drink in Yarmouth. I have hidden

with him in the hills of this country: that was when he had broken out of

prison in this town, and before he hanged Pringle with his own hands. I

have skulked there, I say, until the fog rotted my bones. I have sailed

the seas in roaring weather, and upon my word, sir, have had experiences

enough to make the fortune of a preacher. There was a pirate of Brill

in our company, Oudekirk by name, who denied the existence of God in a

tempest, and perished by a thunderbolt. Pam! It clove him. “There is no

God!” cried he, and with the last word there was a blare of white light,

a crackling, hissing, tearing noise, a crash; and when we looked at

Oudekirk one side of him was coal-black from the hair to the midriff,

and his jaws clamped together! But I could not tell you all—some is not

very convenient, I must allow.

‘We were at Lille when the Queen’s messenger—the little smutty-eyed

Brabanter—found us. He brought two letters: the Queen’s very short, a

stiff letter of recall, promising pardon “as you behave yourself towards

us.” The other was from that large Italian, who sprawls where he ought

not, in his own tongue; as much as may be, like this:—

‘“Most serene, cultivable lord, it is very certain that if you come

to this country you will be well received; the more so, seeing that

certain of your unfriends (he meant Monsieur de Moray) have been treated

lately as they well deserve. The Queen weds Prince Henry Stuart, of whom

I will only write that I wish he were older and more resembled your

magnificence.”

‘All Italians lie, sir; yet so it is that their lies always please you.

You may be sure my master needed no more encouragement to make his

preparation of travel. It was soon after this that he showed me a glove

he had, and an old letter of the Queen’s. We were in his bedchamber, he

in his bed. He has many such pledges, many and many, but he was sure of

this glove because it was stiff in two fingers. When he told me that he

intended for Scotland and must take the glove with him, I said, “Master,

be careful what you are about. It is certain that the Queen will know her

own glove again, and should this prove the wrong one it will be worse for

you than not to show it at all.”

‘“Pooh, man,” says he, “the glove is right enough. There are no others

stiff from a wetting. But look and see. Let’s be sure.”

‘It was true there were no others quite so stiff in the fingers. Tears

had done it, the letter said: but who knows, with women?’ French Paris,

here, would give a hoist to his breeches.

‘In September last we made land, after a chase in furious weather. An

English ship sighted us off Holy Island: we ran near to be aground on

that pious territory, but our Lady or Saint Denis, or a holy partnership

between them, saved us. They sent out a long boat to head us into shoal

water; we slipped in between. My master had the helm and rammed it down

with his heel; we came about to the wind, we flew, with the water hissing

along the gunwale. We saw them in the breakers as we gained the deeps.

“There goes some beef into the pickle-tub!” cried he, and stood up and

hailed them with mockery. “Sooner you than me, ye drowning swine!” he

roars against the tempest. Such a man is my master.

‘We found anchorage at Eyemouth, and pricked up the coast-road to this

place. The war—if you can call it war, which was a chasing of rats in

a rickyard—was as good as over, but by no means the cause of war. The

Queen was home from the field, where they tell me she had shown the

most intrepid front of any of her company. Not much to say, perhaps.

Yet remember that she had Monsieur de Huntly with her, that had been

Gordon—a fine stark man, like a hawk, whom she had set free from prison

and restored to his Earldom before the rebellion broke out; and he is

passably courageous. But it was a valet of his, Forbes, “red Sandy

Forbes,” they call him, who told me that he had never in his life seen

anything like the Queen of Scots upon that hunting of outlaws. Think

of this, dear sir! The King in a gilt corslet, casque of feathers, red

cloak and all, greatly attended by his Englishmen—his pavilion, his bed,

his cooks and scullions; his pampered, prying boys, his little Forrest,

his little Ross, his Jack and his Dick; with that greyhead, bowing,

soft-handed cousin of his, Monsieur Archibald, for secretary—hey? Very

good: you picture the young man And she!’ French Paris threatens you with

one finger, presented like a pistol at your eyes. ‘She had one lady of

company, upon my soul, one only, the fair Seton; that one and no other

with her in a camp full of half-naked, cannibal men—for what else are

they, these Scots? She wore breastplate and gorget of leather, a leather

cap for her head, a short red petticoat, the boots of a man. As for her

hair, it streamed behind her like a pennon in the wind. It was hell’s

weather, said Sandy Forbes; rain and gusty wind, freshening now and

again to tempest; there were quags to be crossed, torrents to be forded;

the rain drove like sleet across the hills. Well, she throve upon it, her

eyes like stars. There was no tarrying because of her; she raced like a

coursing dog, and nearly caught the Bastard of Scotland. He was the root

of all mischance, as always in a kingdom; for a bastard, do you see?

means fire somewhere. Have you ever heard tell of my Lord Don John of

Austria? Ah, if we are to talk of fire, look out for him.

‘It was in the flats below Stirling that she felt the scent hot in her

face. The Bastard had had six hours’ start; but if spurring could have

brought horses to face that weather, she had had him in jail at this

hour, or in Purgatory. “Half my kingdom,” cries she, “sooner than lose

him now!” But he got clear away, he and Monsieur le Duc, and the old Earl

of Argyll, and Milord Rothes and the rest of them. They crossed the March

into England, and she dared not follow them against advice. My master,

when he came, confirmed it: he would not have her venture, knowing

England as well as he did; and I need not tell you, sir, that—for that

once—he had the support of the King. He was out of breath, that King!

But, of course! If you drink to get courage you must pay for it. Your

wind goes, and then where is your courage? In the bottle, in the bottle!

You drink again—and so you go the vicious round.’ French Paris flips his

finger and thumb, extinguishing the King of Scots. ‘The King, sir? Pouf!

Perished, gone out, snuffered out, finished, done with—adieu!’ He kisses

his hand to the sky. This is treason: let us shift our ground.

‘I did not see my master’s reception, down there in the palace: that was

not for a lacquey. Very fine, very curious, knowing what I know. They

met him in the hall, a number of the lords—none too friendly as yet, but

each waiting on the other to get a line: my Lord of Atholl, a grave,

honest man, my Lord of Ruthven, pallid, mad and struggling with his

madness, my Lord of Lindsay, who ought to be a hackbutter, or a drawer in

a tavern; there were many others, men of no account. My master entered

on the arm of the new Earl of Huntly, just restored, the fine young

man, to the honours of his late father. In this country, you must know,

a certain number of the lords are always in rebellion against the King.

He imprisons, not executes, them; for he knows very well that before long

another faction will be out against him; and then it is very convenient

to release the doers in the former. For by that act of grace you convert

them into friends, who will beat your new foes for you. They in their

turn go to prison. You know the fate of M. de Huntly’s father, for

instance—how he rebelled and died, and was dug out of the grave that they

might spit upon his old body? The Bastard’s doing, but the Queen allowed

it. And now, here is the Bastard hiding in the rocks, and old Huntly’s

son hunting him high and low. _Drôle de pays!_ But, I was about to tell

you, rebels though we have been, they received us well—crowded about

us—clapped our shoulders—cheered, laughed, talked all at once. My master

was nearly off his feet as they bore him down the hall towards the fire.

Now, there by the fire, warming himself, stood a nobleman, very broad in

the back, very pursy, with short-fingered, fat hands, and well-cushioned

little eyes in his face. So soon as he saw us coming he grew red and

walked away.

‘“Ho, ho, my Lord of Morton, whither away so fast?” cried out my master.

‘And my Lord of Livingstone said: “To sit on the Great Seal, lest Davy

get it from him”; and they all burst out laughing like a pack of boys.

I suppose he is still sitting close, for he has not been seen this long

time.

‘We sent up our names and waited—but we waited an hour! Then came my Lord

of Traquair and took up my master alone. He had his glove and letter with

him, I knew. He was determined to risk them.

‘The Queen had nobody with her; and he told me that the first thing she

said to him was this:—“My lord, you have things of mine which I need.

Will you not give them to me?”

‘He took them out of his bosom—if you know him you will see his twinkling

eyes, never off her—and held them up. “They have been well cared for,

madam. I trust that your Majesty will be as gentle with them.”

‘“They are safe with me,” says the Queen. So then, after a fine

reverence, he gave them up, and she thanked him, and put them in her

bosom; and I would give forty crowns to know where they are now. I know

where they will be before long.

‘Now what do you think of that? It shows you, first, that he was right

and I wrong; for she never looked at the thing, and any woman’s glove

would have done, with a little sea-water on the fingers. My master,

let me tell you, is a wise man, even at his wildest. He did more good

to himself by that little act than by any foolish play of the constant

lover. He showed her that she might trust him. True. But much more than

that, he showed her that he did not need her tokens; and that was the

master-stroke.

‘The same line he has followed ever since—he alone, like the singling

hound in a pack. He has held her at arm’s length. She has trusted him,

and shown it; he has served her well, but at arm’s length. That Italian

fiddler, rolling about in her chamber, too much aware of his value, takes

another way. Lord forgive him! he is beginning to play the patron. That

can only lead him to one place, in my opinion. Hated! that is a thin word

to use in his respect. He makes the lords sick with fear and loathing.

They see a toad in the Queen’s lap, as in the nursery tale, and no one

dare touch the warty thing, to dash it to the wall. My master would dare,

for sure; but he does not choose. For all that, he says that Monsieur

David is a fool.

‘It is when I am trussing him in the mornings, kneeling before him, that

he speaks his mind most freely. He is like that—you must be beneath his

notice to get his familiarity. Do you know the course he takes here in

this world of rats and women? To laugh, and laugh, and laugh again:

_voilà!_ He varies his derision, of course. He will not rally the King

or put him to shame, but listens, rather, and watches, and nods his head

at his prancings, and says, “Ha, a fine bold game, now!”; or, if he is

appealed to directly, will ask, “Sir, what am I to say to you? the same

as Brutus said to Cæsar?” “And what said Brutus?” cries the King. “Why,

sir,” replies my master, “he said, Sooner you than me, Cæsar.” That is

his favourite adage. And so he plays with the King, his eyes twinkling

and his mouth broad, but no teeth showing. He shows neither his teeth nor

his hand. He is a good card-player; and so he should be, who has been at

the table with the Queen-Mother Catherine, daughter of Mischief and the

Apothecary.

‘The King hates my master without understanding; the Queen leans on him

to gain understanding; but she has not gained it yet. You may trust my

lord for that. Did you hear of the mass on Candlemas Day, a week past

to-day? How she thought this a fine occasion to restore the ancient use:

her enemies beaten over the border, all her friends should carry tapers,

so that the Queen of Heaven might be purified again of her spotless

act? She required it personally of all the lords, one by one, herself

beseeching them with soft eyes and motions of the hands hard to be

denied. Moreover, she is to have need of purification herself if all goes

well. For she is ... but you can judge for yourself. Many promised her

on whom she had not counted; my master, on whom she did count, refused

her point-blank. The strangest part of the business is, however, that his

credit is higher now than it was before. So much so that she has made

him a fine marriage. Monsieur de Huntly’s sister is the lady; I have

seen her, but reserve my judgment. I think that she will not like me—I

feel it in the ridges of my ears, a very sensitive part with me. She was

in the Queen’s circle one day—the day on which I saw her—a statue of a

woman, upon whom the Queen cast the eyes of that lover who goes to church

to view his mistress afar off, and has no regard for any but her, and

waits and hopes, and counts every little turn of her head—as patient as

a watching dog. Curious! curious government of women! Hey—pardon! The

Council is up. I must be forward. Sir, I thank you, and humbly salute

you.’

French Paris pushes through the huddle of servants, the rosemary sprig in

his mouth.

My Lord Admiral the Earl of Bothwell comes out one of the first, between

the Lords Seton and Caithness. He talks fast, you notice, with a good

deal of wrist and finger-work, acknowledges no salutations though he is

offered many. My Lord Seton takes them all upon himself, misses not one.

The Earl of Caithness is an oldish man, rather hard of hearing. Heeding

nobody, speaking as he feels, laughing at his own jokes, capping one with

another, the burly admiral stands barehead in the raw drizzle, swinging

his feathered hat in his hand. There seems much to say, if he could only

remember it, and no hurry. Horses are brought up, gentlemen mount by the

post and spur away. Three ushers come running, waving their wands. ‘Sirs,

the King!’ The crowd gathers; the Lord Admiral continues his conversation.

The King comes out, taller by a head than most, exceedingly magnificent,

light-haired, hot in the face. Hats and bonnets are doffed, but in

silence. The great grey stallion with red trappings is his; and he can

hold it though two grooms cannot well. He stands for a while, pulling

on his gauntlet, scowling and screwing his mouth as he tussles with it.

But the scowls, you gather, are less for the glove than for a calm-eyed,

fleshy, pink man with a light red beard, who has emerged but just now;

whose furred cloak is over-fringed, whose bonnet sags too much over one

eye, the jewel in it too broad. This is Signior Davy, too cool and too

much master to please one who is hot and not master of himself. You can

see the King’s mood grow furious to the point of unreason, while my Lord

Bothwell continues his tales, and the Italian, secure in a crowd, seems

to be daring an attack.

The King is mounted, the King is away. The crowd drives back to right and

left. He goes swinging down the steep street, his gentlemen after him.

The Earl of Bothwell calls out, ‘Paris, my cloak.’

Paris turns the rosemary sprig. ‘Le voici, monseigneur.’

He walks away to his lodging like any plain burgess of the town, and

Paris trips jauntily after him, looking Scotchwomen in the face.

CHAPTER II

GRIEFS AND CONSOLATIONS OF ADONIS

In these dark February days the King was prone to regard his troubles

as the consequence, and not the verification, of certain words spoken

by Archie Douglas on the braeside by Falkirk—that being a trick of the

unreasonable, to date their misfortunes from the time when they first

find them out. And yet it was an odd thing that Archie should have spoken

in his private ear shortly after Michaelmas, and that here was Candlemas

come and gone, with everything turning to prove Archie right. Now, which

of the three was the grey-polled youth—prophet, philosopher, or bird of

boding?

Consider his Majesty’s affairs in order. The Queen, before marriage and

at the time of it, had been as meek as a girl newly parted from her

mother, newly launched from that familiar shore to be seethed in the

deep, secret waters of matrimony. Something of that exquisite docility

he had discerned when he experienced, for instance, the prerogatives of

a man. One name before another is a very small matter; but it had given

him a magnanimous thrill to read HENRICUS ET MARIA upon the white money,

and to feel the confidence that HENRICUS ET MARIA, in very fact, it was

now and was to be. Little things of the sort swelled his comfort up: the

style royal, the chief seat, the gravity of the Council (attendant upon

his), the awe of the mob, the Italian’s punctilio, his father’s unfeigned

reverence. Even Mr. Randolph’s remarked abstention was flattering, for

it must have cost the ambassador more to ignore the King than the King

could ever have to pay for the slight. Now, a man needs time to get the

flavours of such toothsome tribute; he must roll it on his tongue, dally

over it with his intimates. Little Forrest, the chamber-child, could

have told a thing or two: how the King used to wear his gold circlet in

private, and walk the room in his crimson mantle. Antony Standen knew

something. Yes, yes, a man needs time; and such time was denied him—and

(by Heaven!) denied him by the Queen herself.

By the Queen! From the hour when she heard the news from Argyll, that

the rebels, her brother at their head, had called out the clans of the

west—Campbells, Leslies, Hamiltons—against her authority, she was a

creature whom her King had never conceived of. He was told by Archie

Douglas then, and partly believed, that she was slighting him; but the

plain truth is, of course, that all her keen love for him was running now

in a narrow channel—that of strenuous loyalty to the young man she had

chosen to set beside her. These hounds to deny his kingly right! Let them

learn then what a King he was, for what a King she held him! She strained

every nerve, put edge to every wit in his vindication. While he lay abed,

stretching, dreaming—sometimes of her, more often of her love for him,

most often of what he should do when he was fairly roused: ‘Let them not

try me too far, little Forrest! I say, they had best not!’ etc.—at these

times she was in her cabinet with the Italian, writing to her brother

of France, her father of Rome, her uncles and cousins of Lorraine,

promising, wheedling, threatening, imploring. Or she was in audience,

say, with George Gordon, winning back his devotion with smiles and tender

looks, with a hand to the chin, or two clasping her knee—with all the

girlish wiles she knew so well and so divinely used. For his sake—that

slug-abed—she dared see Bothwell again; and greater pride hath no woman

than this, to brave the old love for the sake of the new. Finally, when

cajolery and bravado had done their best for her, she sprang starry-eyed

into battle, headed her ragged musters in a short petticoat, and dragged

him after her in gilded armour. That is what a man—by the mass, a

King!—may fairly call being docked of his time to get the flavours.

He went out unwillingly to war, with sulky English eyes for all the petty

detriments. He sniffed at her array, her redshanks armed with bills, her

Jeddart bowmen, haggard hillmen from Badenoch and Gowrie. Where were

the broad pavilions, the camp-furniture, the pennons and pensels, the

siege-train, the led horses, the Prince’s cloth of estate? Was he to

huddle with reivers under a pent of green boughs, and with packed cowdung

keep the wind from his anointed person? King of kings, Ruler of princes!

was _she_ to do the like? How she laughed, tossed back her hair, to hear

him!

‘Hey, dear heart, you are in wild Scotland, where all fare alike. O King

of Scots, forget your smug England, and teach me, the Queen, to laugh at

stately France! Battle, my prince, battle! The great game!’

She galloped down the line, looking back for him to follow. Line! it was

no line, but a jostling horde of market-drovers clumped upon a knowe.

There were no formation, no livery, no standard—unless that scarecrow

scarf were one. Why should he follow her to review a pack of thieves?

Hark, hark, how the rascals cheered her! They ran all about her, tossing

up their bonnets on pikes. They were insulting her.

‘By God!’ he cried out, ‘who was to teach them behaviour? Was this the

King’s office?’

‘It is the Queen’s, my good lord; she will teach them,’ said the Italian

at his elbow. ‘And what her Majesty omits the enemy will teach them, at

his own charges. I know your countrymen by now. Manners? Out of place in

the field. Courage? They have never wanted for that.’

The King grew red, as he tried in vain to stare down this confident

knave; then turned to his Archie Douglas. ‘A company of my Lord Essex’s

horse,’ he said, ‘would drill these rabble like a maggoty cheese.’

Archie excused his nation. ‘They will trot the haggs all day, sir, on a

crust of rye-bread, and engage at the close for a skirl of the pipes.

Hearken! they are at it now. ’Tis the Gordons coming in.’ The thin youth

drew himself up. ‘Eh, sirs, my heart warms to it!’ he said, honestly

moved by an honest pride.

But the King sulked. ‘Filthy work! Where are my people? Ho, you! my

cloak!’

‘Ay, there comes a spit o’ rain,’ said Archie Douglas, nosing the

weather. This was no way for a man to get the flavours of kingship.

In the chase that followed—forced marches on Glasgow after old

Châtelherault, the scouring of the Forth valley, the view-halloo at

Falkirk, and much more—the Queen had to leave him alone, for so he chose

it; and there was no time to humour him, had there been inclination.

But truly there was none. She had the sting of weather and the scurry

in her blood; she was in perfect health, great spirits, loving the

work. Hunter’s work! the happy oblivion of the short night’s rest,

the privations, the relish of simple fare, the spying and hoping, the

searching of hillsides and descents into sombre valleys, your heart in

your mouth; all the trick and veer of mountain warfare, the freedoms, the

easy talk, the laughing, the horseplay; she found nothing amiss, kept no

state, and never felt the lack of it. The Italian and his letter-case,

Lethington and his dockets, were behind. Atholl watched Edinburgh Castle

for her, Bothwell was coming home; she had none with her but Mary Seton

for countenance, Carwood for use, one page (Adam Gordon), one esquire

(Erskine), and Father Roche. For the rest, her cousin and councillor and

open-air comrade was George Gordon, late in bonds. So sometimes a whole

day would pass without word to the King; later, as at Falkirk, where the

scent had been so hot, three or four days; and she never missed him!

This was the occasion when Archie Douglas, riding with his kinsman, had

pointed to the head of the valley, saying, ‘There goes a man in good

company, who lately was glad of any.’ The King scowled, which encouraged

him. ‘Ay,’ he went on—‘ay, the favour of the prince can lift up and cast

down. Who’d ha’ thought, sirs, that yon Geordie Gordon should be son of a

disgraced old body, that must be dug free from the worms before he could

be punished enough? And now Geordie’s in a fair way for favours, and hath

his bonny earldom almost under his hand. Eh, sirs, that put your trust in

princes, go warily your ways!’

Ruthven, by his side, nudged him to be done with it.

‘No, no, my lord,’ cries Archie, ‘I’ll not be silenced when I see my

kinsman slighted; him and his high rights passed over for an outlaw!’

These words were used, ‘slighted,’ ‘passed over.’ The words rankled, the

things signified came to pass, as surprisingly they will when once you

begin to look for them.

First sign:—Early in the winter, so soon as the war was over and Scotland

ridded for a time of declared enemies, the Earl of Bothwell came home

whilst the King was at Linlithgow, was received by her Majesty, and (it

seems) made welcome. No doubt but he made use of her kindness to line his

own nest; at any rate, one of the first things asked of the returning

monarch was to appoint this Bothwell Lieutenant-General of the South

and Lord Admiral of Scotland. The parchments came before him for the

sign-manual. O prophet Archibald! he found the Queen’s name already upon

them.

He raised an outcry. ‘The Earl of Bothwell! The Earl of Bothwell! How

much more grace for this outlaw? Is it not enough that he return with his

head on his shoulders?’

She replied that he had deserved well of both of them. He had scared her

shameful brother out of Scotland, who would have gone for no other body.

He had a stout heart, had promised her that Moray should die an alien or

a felon, and would keep his word.

‘But this office is a promise to my father, madam,’ says the King. ‘I

promised him that Lieutenancy six months since, and may no more go back

upon my word than my Lord Bothwell upon his.’

Rather red in the face, she urged her reasons. ‘That is not convenient,

dear friend. They do not love my Lord of Lennox in the West. There are

other reasons—good reasons. Had you been here you would have heard them

all. You must not vex me in this, now—of all times in my life.’

He looked her up and down curiously, without manners, without enthusiasm.

Perhaps he did not understand her—he had a thick head. Then he signed the

dockets and went out, not having seen that she had shut her eyes and was

blushing.

Dreadfully jealous of his ‘prerogatives,’ he interposed in everything

after this, had all state correspondence before him and saw all the

replies, whether they were of home or abroad. Here the Italian angered

him, whose habit had always been to converse with her Majesty in French:

no frowns nor furious pacing of the closet could break him off it. The

Queen, very gentle towards him, insisted that the secretary should

paraphrase his letters into a kind of Scots; but the King, who was stupid

at business, boggled over the halting translation, did not understand

any more than at first, and suspected the Italian of deliberate

mystification. He told the Queen that she should speak the vernacular

with this hireling. She said, and truly, that she thought in French and

spoke it better; when, nevertheless, she tried to gratify him, even he

saw that it was absurd. Absurd or not, he loved David none the better for

that.

He suspected everybody about her person, but chiefly this fat Italian; to

whose score he laid his next rebuff, the very palpable hit that it was.

The old Duke of Châtelherault, exiled for the late rebellion, was pining

in England, it seems, and beginning to ail. Shallow old trickster as he

might be, he loved his country and his kindred, and was (as the Queen

could never forget) head of the Hamiltons, of the blood royal. He crept

back in December over the Solway, and from one of his coast-castles sent

humble messengers forward to her for pardon and remission of forfeiture.

To these she inclined, on more grounds than one. She had some pity for

the old hag-ridden man, haunted ever with the shadow of madness as he

was; she remembered his white hair and flushing, delicate face. Then her

new Earl of Huntly had married into that family; and she wished to keep

a hold on the Gordons. And then, again, the blood royal! She forgot

that if she could comfortably admit Châtelherault his share in that, her

husband could never admit it without impeaching his own rights. So she

inclined to the piteous letters, and allowed herself to be pitiful.

The King, on the first hint of this clemency, was moved beyond her

experience. No sulking, brooding, knitting of brows; he fairly stormed at

her before her circle. ‘What am I, madam? What silly tavern-sign do you

make of me? You exalt my chief enemy, my hereditary enemy, enemy of my

title to be here—and ask me to record it! King Henry is to declare his

esteem for the Hamiltons, who desire to unking him! This is paltry work,

the design too gross. I see foreign fingers at work in this. But I will

never consent, never! Ask me no more.’

The Italian surveyed his august company at large, lifted his eyebrows,

and blandly, patently, deliberately shrugged. My Lord of Bothwell himself

had little stomach for this; but the King strangled a cry and turned upon

his insolent critic. ‘White-blooded, creeping, fingering dog!’ He drew

his dagger on the man, and for the moment scared the life out of him.

Lord Bothwell stepped in between, a broad-shouldered easy gentleman; the

next step was the Queen’s, flame-hued now, and at her fiercest. ‘Put up

your weapon, my lord, and learn to be the companion of your prince. Until

this may be, the Council is dissolved. Farewell, sirs. David, stay you

here. I have need of you.’

Bothwell and Huntly, they say, fairly led him out of the presence. Good

lack, here was Proof the Second! The companion of his prince! He would

certainly have killed the Italian had not the Queen taken care that he

should not.

Once more he went away, and stayed away. He would wait until she felt

the need of him, he said to his friends Archie Douglas and Ruthven, who

never left him now. On this occasion the Master of Lindsay was of the

party, which rode into the Carse of Gowrie, hunting the fox. Hacked son

of a fighting father, worse companion he could not have had—saving the

presence of the other two—than Lindsay of the burnt face and bloodshot

eye. ‘The King with many friends!’ said Bothwell when he heard how

they set out. ‘Smarthering Archie to stroke him tender, Ruthven to

scrape him raw, and now Lindsay with his fire-hot breath to inflame the

part! Geordie, we must fend for the Queen.’ Huntly, sublimely in love,

conscious of his growth in grace, said that he was ready.

With the aid of these two advancing noblemen her Majesty’s government

went on. She gave the Hamiltons hard terms, which they took abjectly

enough; she pardoned Argyll, because he must be separated from his former

friends; the rest of the rebels were summoned to surrender to her mercy

at the Market Cross; failing that, forfeiture of lands and goods for my

Lord of Moray. The day fixed for him was the 12th March. Huntly was sure

he would not come, but Bothwell shook his head. ‘Keep your eye on Mr.

Secretary’s letter-bag, madam, and let him know that you do it. I shall

feel more restful o’ nights when we are over the 12th March. Another

thing you may do: throw him into the company of your brown-eyed Fleming.

Does your Majesty know that property of a dish of clear water—to take up

the smell of the room you set it in? Your Lethington has that property,

therefore let him absorb your little Fleming; you will have him as

dovelike as herself.’ The advice was taken, and Mr. Secretary rendered

harmless for the present.

Then came news of the King’s return; but not the King. He was certainly

at Inchkeith, said gossip—Inchkeith, an island in the Firth; but when she

asked what he did there, she got confused replies. Bothwell said that he

was learning to govern. ‘He has been told, madam, do you see? that if

he can rule Lindsay and Ruthven in three roods of land he will have no

trouble with Scotland afterwards.’

The Queen, although she suffered this light-hearted kind of criticism

without rebuke, did not reply to it, nor did she let Bothwell see that

she was anxious. The Italian saw it, however, whether she would or no,

and took care to give her every scrap of news. She learned from him that

the King was drinking there, fuddling himself. He was holding a Court,

where (as Bothwell had guessed) he was easily King, throned on a table,

with a ‘lovely Joy’ on either hand. She had the names of his intimates,

with exact particulars of their comings and goings. The Earl of Morton

was not above suspicion; he went there by night always, cloaked and in

a mask. The Queen, more conscious of her power since the rebellion,

conscious now of her matronly estate, grew sick to have such nasty news

about her—it was as if the air was stuck with flies. Presently she fell

sick in good truth, with faintings, pains in her side, back-soreness,

breast-soreness, heart-soreness. It did not help her to remember that she

must be at Linlithgow at Christmas, and meet the King there.

Lying in her bed, smothered in furs, shivering, tossing herself about—for

she never could bear the least physical discomfort—she chewed a bitter

cud in these dark days, and her thoughts took a morbid habit. She

fretted over the Court at Inchkeith, imagined treasons festering there

and spreading out like fungus to meet the rebels in England; distrusted

Bothwell because he did not choose to come to her, Huntly because he did

not dare; she distrusted, in fact, every Scot in Scotland, and found

herself thereby clinging solely to the Italian; and of him—since she

must speak to somebody—she consequently saw too much. The man was very

dextrous, very cheerful, very willing; but he had a gross mind, and she

had spoiled him. To be kind to a servant, nine times in ten, means that

you make him rich at your own charges, and then he holds cheap what his

own welfare has diminished. So it was here: Davy was not the tenth case.

She had been bountiful in friendship, confidence, familiarity—of the sort

which friends may use and get no harm of. He had always amused her, and

now he soothed and strengthened her at once by sousing her hot fancies in

the cold water of his common-sense. She had learned to fear the workings

of her own mind, informed as it was by a passionate heart; she would

lean upon this honest fellow, who never looked for noonday at eleven

o’clock, and considered that a purge or a cupping was the infallible

remedy for all ailments, including broken hearts. It is not for you or

me, perhaps, to complain where she did not. Queen Mary was no precisian,

to expect more than she asked. If she loved she must be loved back; if

she commanded she must be obeyed; if she was hipped she must be amused.

I believe Signior Davy gave himself airs and made himself comfortable.

She found the first ridiculous and the second racial. She knew that

chivalry was not a virtue of that land where bargaining is at its best,

and that where her Italian saw a gate open he would reasonably go in.

The odds are that he presumed insufferably; certain it is that, though

she never saw it, others saw nothing else, and, gross-minded themselves,

misread it grossly. The tale was all about the town that Signior Davy

was the Queen’s favourite, and where he was always to be found, and what

one might look for, and who was to be pitied, etc. etc. The revellers at

Inchkeith advised each other to mark the end, and some were for telling

the King. But Archie Douglas was against that. ‘Tell him now,’ he said,

‘and see your salmon slip through the net. Wait till Davy’s in the boat,

man, and club him then.’

Nevertheless, the deft Italian, by his cold douches, his playing the

fool, his graceless reminiscences and unending novels, cured the

Queen. Late in December she astonished the Court by holding a council

in person—in a person, moreover, as sharp and salient as a snow-peak

glittering through the haze of frost, and as incisive to the touch. There

were proclamations to be approved: ‘The King’s and Queen’s Majesties

considering,’ etc., the common form. These must be altered, she said.

‘The Queen’s Majesty by the advice of her dearest husband’: she would

have it thus for the future. Tonic wit of the Italian! for to whom else,

pray, could you ascribe it? The word went flying about that the style was

changed, and was not long in coming to Inchkeith. ‘The Queen’s husband!’

Ill news for Inchkeith here.

Yet, the night he had it, he gloomed over it—being in his cups—with a

kind of slumberous gaiety stirring under his rage.

‘The Queen’s husband! By the Lord, and I am the Queen’s husband. Who

denies it is a liar. Archie Douglas, Archie Douglas, if you say I am not

the Queen’s husband you lie, man.’

‘I, sir?’ says Archie, very brisk. ‘No, sir, I am very sure of it. By my

head, sir, and her Majesty knows it.’

‘She ought to know it. She shall know it. I’m a rider, my lords; I ride

with the spur.’

‘’Tis the curb you lack,’ says Ruthven, with a harsh laugh.

The blinking youth pondered him and his words. ‘I’m for the spur and a

loose rein, Ruthven. I get the paces out of my nags. I have the seat.’

‘Half of it, say, my lord!’

Everybody heard that except the King, who went grumbling on. ‘You shall

not teach me how to sit a horse. I say you shall not, man.’

‘My lord,’ cried Lindsay, who never would call him ‘sir,’ ‘the talk

is not of horse-riding. If we use that similitude for the Queen’s

government, I tell your lordship it is unhappy. For on that horse of

government there be two riders, I think; and of what advantage is the

loose rein of your lordship when your fellow uses the curb?’

‘Ay my good lord, you hit the mark. Two riders, two riders, by God’s fay!’

The same voice as before—heard this time by the King. No one knew who

had spoken, nor were the words more explicitly offensive than Lindsay’s;

but the pothouse tone of them caught the muzzy ear, hit some quick spot

in the cloudy brain, and stung like fire. The King lifted up his head to

listen; he opened his mouth and stared, as if he saw something revealed

beyond the window, some warning or leering face. Then he rose and held

by his chair. ‘Two riders? Two riders? Two! Who said that? By heaven and

hell, bring me that man!’

The pain, the horror he had, the helpless rage, made a dead hush all

over; nobody stirred. Ridiculous he may have been, as he raised his voice

yet higher and mouthed his words—worthless he was known to be—and yet he

was tragic for the moment. ‘I say it is damnable lying,’ he said, swaying

about. ‘I say that man shall go to deep hell.’ He stared round the hall,

at his wits’ end. His wits made a pounce. ‘Archie, thou black thief,

’twas thou!’

‘No, sir; no, upon my soul.’

‘Ruthven, if you have dared—Lindsay—Fleming! Oh, mercy and truth!’

The rest was hideous.

They got him to bed between them, while little Forrest cried and made a

fuss, praying them to kill him sooner than leave him with his master in

the raving dark. No one took any notice of the anguish of a boy.

* * * * *

With time came counsel, and friends very free with it. Even prudence made

herself heard in that brawling house. The King should meet his consort at

Linlithgow, do his duty by her, observe the Christmas feast.

‘You will do well, sir—though I am sore to say it—to hear the popish

mass,’ he was advised: ‘with reservation of conscience, the stroke would

be politic.’

He agreed with all such advice; he intended to be wise. But the grand

stroke of all was the Earl of Morton’s, to devise a way by which the

injured husband could point the King’s demands with that undoubted

right of his. The Crown-Matrimonial, resounding phrase! let him ask

her to give him that. Nobody was prepared to say what was or was not

this Crown-Matrimonial, or whether there was such a crown. The term was

unknown to the law, that must be owned; and yet it had a flavour of law.

It was double-armed, yet it was hyphenated; you could not deny part of it

in any event. Why, no, indeed! cried Inchkeith at large, highly approving.

Archie Douglas cheered his noble kinsman: ‘Hail, King-Matrimonial of

Scotland!’

Ruthven grinned, it was thought, approvingly; but Lord Morton,

remembering that he was still the Queen’s Chancellor and should not go

too far, made haste to advise the utmost delicacy. Above all things, let

no breath of _his_ dealings be heard.

‘I need not affirm my earnest hope,’ he said, ‘that peace and good accord

may come out of this. The wish must find acceptance in every Christian

heart. As such I utter it. I am not in place to do more. I cannot

admonish; I serve the State.’

The King nodded sagely.

‘Good, cousin, good. I take your meaning. It is a fair intent, for which

I am much beholden to you.’ Adonis, the proud rider, was chastened just

now.

They met, therefore, at Linlithgow, heard mass together, made their

offerings, and to all the world were friends again. The Crown-Matrimonial

lay hidden until the spring of the year. Not even the new coinage—MARIA

ET HENRICUS, ‘the dam before the sire’—tempted it out; but there were

reasons for that. A week after the Epiphany, as they were in the Queen’s

closet with a small company, she took his hand and said: ‘My lord,

you shall hereafter give me what worship you can; for now I know of a

certainty that I have deserved well of you and Scotland.’ Her pride in

the fact and something of pity for herself made her voice quiver.

He started and flushed quickly. ‘Is it true, madam? Is that the case? Oh,

I thank God for it!’

He would not let go of her hand, but waited impatiently until those

present took the hint and retired; then took her, kissed her, and called

her his Mary again.

She cried contentedly enough, her cheek against his heart; and he, at

once triumphant and generous, father and lover, stayed by her for a whole

day and night.

There was much talk, as you may suppose. The maids went about with their

heads in the air, as if they had achieved something. But apart from

them, all the talk was not of this complacent kind. Mr. Randolph, for

instance, wrote to his patron, Mr. Cecil, of England: ‘The Queen is with

child beyond a doubt. She informed the King in my hearing. Now, woe is

me for you when David’s son shall be King in England!’ And there is no

doubt that what Mr. Randolph took leave to report was no news to the late

revellers of Inchkeith.

CHAPTER III

DIVERS USES OF A HARDY MAN

In all her late perplexities of disordered mind, unsteady hand, chagrin,

disenchantment, and what not, it is strange to observe with what tenacity

the Queen kept a daily glance of her eyes for one private affair. It was

an affair of the heart, however.

Those who know her best explain that she suffered from a malady of the

affections. ‘The Queen my mistress,’ says Des-Essars in _Le Secret des

Secrets_, ‘when she had once seen—even for a few moments only—man,

woman, or child in whom lay, somewhere, some little attractive quality

or action, could never rest until she had him subject utterly to her

will. Subject, do I say? The word is weak. The devotion which she must

have was so absolute that she never got it, could hardly ever deceive

herself that she had got it; and would have spurned it at once if she

had, as a grovelling thing not worth a thought. But, just because she

never could get it, she never tired of the pursuit of it. To get it she

would humble herself, lower herself, make herself ridiculous, cheapen

herself; to hold what she had (or thought she had) she would play any

part, tell most fibs, do much injustice to herself and the unfortunate

capture; to lose after all was to suffer torments of baffled hope and

endeavour; and then—to begin again upon some similar panting quest.

Sometimes she sickened, but of possession, never of pursuit; and if

she did, it was an infallible sign that the thing she had had been too

easily caught. Thus she sickened of “Adonis,” not because he had been

restive at first, but because he had not been restive until after he was

won. She had longed for him, wooed him, wed him in secret. All was going

well. If ever her cup of joy had brimmed over, it had been on that night

of sudden consummation at Wemyss. That golden, beaded cup! there had

seemed a well-spring in it, a feast to be enjoyed for ever in secret, by

delicious, hasty snatches. But when they ordered the affair in public, it

was stale after the event; and when he—the fool—cried over her the mort

o’ the deer (as I know he did, for Sir Adam Gordon heard him), it had

been his own death, not hers, that he proclaimed. Sated too soon, she had

time to see herself and to shudder at the wry image she made.

‘I know very well,’ he adds, in an afterthought, ‘that, in saying this,

I may be taken as an example to point my own thesis; but even if I were,

the reflections are just. And the fact is that, although she knew that I

loved her, and might, indeed, have loved me, she learned of my manhood

too late. I can add also, with a hand on my heart, that she would never

have had to pursue me. For I was always at her feet.’

But to return to my matter—this affair of the heart. It most curiously

bears out Des-Essars’ analysis to remember that when she released George

Gordon from his bonds, and had him once more spilling love at her feet,

she was by no means touched. The sanguine young man loved her, she knew

it well; but she always felt a little leap of scorn for a man who could

own to loving her. It made him seem womanish in her eyes, like Châtelard.

And in the very act—when he was below her footstool, ready to kiss her

foot—she remembered that there was one Gordon whom she had not yet won.

She remembered Jean Gordon, who, on that day of Gordon’s Bane, had looked

at her fixedly, with grave dislike—had had the nerve to survey her Queen

and judge and pick out what parts to despise. She had rarely seen her

since, but had never forgotten her. Deep in her burning heart she had

cherished the hope of winning that frozen heart; and here—with George

Gordon kissing her foot—sat she, curiously pondering how far she could

use the brother to lure the sister into the net.

There was nothing unholy about this desire of hers to subdue a girl’s

heart. It was coloured by impulses which were warm and rich and

chivalrous. Had it been that of a youth there would not be a word to

say; there was much of the quality of a youth about Queen Mary. She

certainly had his chivalry—for chivalry is really pity, with a relish—a

noble emotion which reacts by exalting the percipient. She saw herself

protector of this friendless girl, felt kindly the very kindly kiss which

she would bestow: it should fall like dew upon the upturned, stony face.

At its fall the cold and dread would thaw, tears would well in those

judging eyes, the hardened lips would quiver, the congealed bosom would

surge; sobbing, grieving, murmuring her thankful love, Jeannie Gordon

would hasten into forgiving arms. O mercy of the forgiven! O grace of

the forgiving! The picture was pure, the desire (I repeat) honest—but

there was glory to be gained too, a vision to be made good of the Queen

playing the lover’s part, worth every shift of the quick head, and all

the cajolery of the sidelong eyes. Ah me! Here was a chase-royal.

Giving George Gordon kind words, and hope of kinder, she had his mother

and sister to Court, and to them was sincerity, princely magnanimity

itself. The old Countess was soon won over: there came a day when she

would not hear a word against her Majesty, and would judge her dead

husband’s actions sooner than allow her patroness to be condemned in

their defence. Her two sons stood by her—both lovers of this divine

huntress; so that the house of Huntly was in ascension, and Des-Essars,

feeling that his nose was (as they say) out of joint, showed that he felt

it by patronising his comrade Adam.

But Adam disarmed him. ‘My brother is to be Earl again, Baptist, and

therefore I am Sir Adam. You do wrong to refuse me the salute. But let

be. To you I shall always be plain Adam Gordon, because we share the

same adventure. Now let me tell you. She kissed me yestere’en—here.’

He touched his forehead. ‘I owe you nothing for civility, yet I’ll not

go back upon my bond. You shall take your joy of the place: it is your

right.’ Then they made it up; Adam pursued his family up the hill of

fame. ‘It is all in a fair way; look now, I’ll tell you a secret. The

Bastard is out in arms; but if we win he will lose his head, and then

Moray shall be ours again! Who knows what may come of that? Be sure,

however, that I shall not forget you, Baptist. No, no. What I win of _you

know what_ shall be yours to the full half.’ He owned that he was vexed

with his sister. ‘What! she sulks in the presence—she holds back—like a

child fighting a blown fire! ’Tis unmaidenly of Jeannie; I doubt her a

true Gordon. And talks of the Béguines of Bruges, doth she? Let her go,

say I.’ All this judgment of Jeannie’s case, as the reader perceives, was

before the chasing of the Earl of Moray, and before the Earl of Bothwell

came home with French Paris, his candid valet. A word now of him.

He arrived in Scotland, you will remember, when her war with rebels was

as good as over. She was keen; flushed with one triumph, and sanguine

of another. Scotland at her feet, and all the Gordons hers but one: how

was stubborn Jeannie to hold out against her? She was wedded, she was

safe, she was victorious, she was happy: everything combined to make the

redoubtable Bothwell welcome to her. It was possible, she found, to meet

him without quickening of the breath; it was possible to look coolly

at him, and (O marvel!) to ask herself what under heaven she had once

dreaded in him. His eyes? Had they seemed audacious? They were small and

twinkling. His throat, jaw, and snarling mouth—had they seemed purposeful

and cruel? The one was forward and the other curved, just ready to laugh.

Well, is a laughing man dangerous to women? When she considered that,

less than a year ago, she had written secretly to the man, sent him a

glove, and with that a fib, she could contemplate herself in the act, as

one may a pale old picture of oneself (in curls and a pinafore) at some

childish game—with humorous self-pity, and with some anxious regrets too.

The thing was well done with—over and done with; but heigho! the world

had been more ventureful then. He gave her back her faded tokens; they

came from his bosom and went into hers—no thrills! They were quite cold

when she laid them by.

He joined the field with her, or what was left of it, and brought

with him the Border clans—Elliots, Armstrongs, Turnbulls, and his own

Hepburns—ragged and shoeless, less breeched than the Highlanders, if

that were possible; but men of dignity and worth, as she saw them,

square-bearded, broad-headed men, tawny as foxes, blunt, unmannerly,

inspecting her and her two women without awe or curiosity. They were

like their chief, she thought, and, with him to lead them, never lagged

in the chase. Huntly had his Gordons; and there were Forbeses, Grants,

Ogilvies. Breechless were they—some at least—but of great manners; they

had poets among them, and her beauty was the theme of harp-strings as

well as eye-strings. The pipes swelled and screamed in her daily praise;

fine music, great air! But those glum, ruminating Borderers, to whom

she was just a ‘long bit lassock’! She turned to them again directly

the piping was stopped—to them and their chief, who was of them, blood

and bone. Twice she traversed Scotland in their midst, watching them by

day, dreaming of them by night. Just as little could she do without this

bracing, railing Bothwell as without proud Jeannie Gordon, whom she loved

in vain.

And thus the combination came, as in a flash, the old beloved scheme of

unity—north and south to awe the middle parts of Scotland. Old Huntly had

proposed it and failed—it had been the death of him; but now she would

try it and succeed. Into the north she would put a new Huntly; out of

the south she would call a new Bothwell. A match, a match! The thought

came to her with a ringing sound of hopeful music, ‘Now I have thee mine,

proud Jeannie Gordon!’ Strange, ardent, wilful creature—half perverse,

half unsexed! Because a man did not love her she would trust him, because

a girl would have nothing to say to her she could never let her alone!

But Master Des-Essars was right. She was a born huntress.

The preliminaries of the hopeful match were easily made: Huntly was

grateful, the dowager profuse; Bothwell chuckled when he was sounded

about it, but declined to discuss so simple a matter.

‘You’ll never find me backward, my friend,’ he told Huntly (as

George Gordon now was called); ‘many indeed have complained that I am

not backward enough. I’m a bull in a pasture—I’m an invading host—I

devastate, I come burning. But there! have it as you will.’

Nobody else was consulted, for nobody else was worth it in the Queen’s

eyes. When time had been given for all to sink in, she sent for Jean

Gordon; who was brought by her mother to the door of the cabinet, put

through it, and left there face to face with her careful Majesty. The

time of year was mid-January.

* * * * *

The Queen sat upon a heap of cushions by the fire, leaning back a

little to ease herself. Her chin was in her hand—a sign that she was

considering. She wore a rich gown of murrey-coloured satin, showed her

red stockings and long, narrow slippers. Her condition was not hid, and

her face would have told it in any case—pinched, peaked, and pettish. Her

eyes were like a cat’s, shifty and ranging, now golden-red, now a mask

of green, now all black, according as she glanced them to the light; her

thin, amorous lips looked like a scarlet wound in her pale face. By her

side stood Mary Fleming, a gentle creature in pale rose, as if set there

that by her very humanity she might enhance the elfin spell of the other.

This Queen was like a young witch, rather new to the dangerous delight,

but much in earnest.

She looked up sideways at the girl by the door—a girl to the full as tall

as she, and much more sumptuous: deep-breasted, beautiful, composed, a

figure of a nun in her black and ivory. For her hair was perfect black

and her face without a tinge; and all her gown was black, with a crucifix

of silver hung from her waist. She clasped her hands over it as she stood

waiting.

‘Come, my girl,’ said the Queen.

Jean took a few steps forward and knelt down. It seems that she might

have pleased if she had done it sooner.

‘Very well: it’s very well,’ the Queen began; and then, ‘No! it is not at

all well! You seek my hand to kiss it. You shall not have it!’

She put one hand below the other, and watched for the effect. There was

none. Provoking!

‘Why should I give my hand to a little rebel,’ she went on again, ‘who

says in her heart, “My mother is beguiled, my brothers are beguiled, but

I will never be”? who says again, “If she gives me her hand, and I kiss

it, ’twill be because I dare not bite it”? Why then should I give my hand

to you?’

‘You should not, madam,’ says Jean.

The Queen bit her lip.

‘Oh, the guarded, darkened heart of you, Jean! Why, if I bore a grudge as

hardly as you, whom should I not drive out of Scotland?’

As Jean made no answer, Fleming was brought into play.

‘Answer for her, Fleming. Tell her I should drive them all out. Should my

brother have stayed? He is too happy in England, I think. Shall I keep

your Lethington at home?’

Poor Fleming coloured with pain.

‘Nay, child, nay—I am teasing thee. I know that if he will not kiss my

hand ’tis because he hopes for thine. And belike he can have it for

the asking! Alack, this Lethington with his two wicked hands! One he

will hold out to England, and my false brother Moray will take it; one

to Scotland, and pretty Fleming hath it. A chain, a chain! to pen the

naughty Queen, who will not let traitors kiss her hands, and must be

taught better respect for liars, lick-spittles, and time-servers!’

She was working herself to be dangerous. Good Fleming’s whisper in her

ear, ‘Dear, sweet madam, deal not too harshly!’ might have been heard,

had not Jean Gordon been kneeling there, stinging her to worse.

‘Harshly, harshly, my girl?’ the Queen snapped at Fleming. ‘I am water

heaving against that rock—torn ragged by its fret, and scattered to the

wind—to drop down as tears—as salt tears, Mary Fleming! Ah, the sea will

drink up my tears, and the sea have me at last, and lap me to soft sleep,

and soothe me that I forget!’ She changed her mood, looked proudly at the

kneeling girl. ‘You, that will not kiss my hand—nor shall not—you are

to forget what you choose and remember what you choose; but of me you

expect—what, O heaven! My memory is to lie in your lap and obey you. Oh,

it is very well! I am to forget that your father was a traitor——’

The girl’s eyes met hers directly.

‘He was none, madam.’

‘I say I am to forget that, and remember that I dealt sternly with an old

man.’

Jean grew fiercely white. ‘Barbarously, madam!’ she said; ‘when you

dragged a dead old man from the grave and spat upon his winding-sheet.’

‘Hush, hush!’ said Mary Fleming; and Jean looked at her, but said no

more. The Queen was very pale, lying on her side, crouched among the

cushions.

‘He defied me,’ she said, ‘but I forgave him that. He tampered with

my enemies, he boasted and lied and cheated. He died in arms against

his prince, and I shed tears in pity of myself. For then I was new in

Scotland, and thought that the love of a man was something worth, and

shivered when I lost it, as one left bare to the gales. Now I know

wiselier concerning mannish love; and I know how to draw it since I hold

it cheap. I would as soon draw that of dogs and apes, I think.’ She

looked over her shoulder, then quickly pillowed her cheek again, but held

up her hand. Mary Fleming took it. ‘Dogs, and apes, and tigers are men,

Mary Fleming!’ the complaining voice resumed; ‘and I Dame Circe at her

spells! And here before me, look you, poor faithful, chaste Penelope,

that will not touch my hand!’

She gave a little moan, and sat up, shaking her head. ‘No, no, no, my

girl, you have the wrong of me. I weave no spells, I want no dogs and

apes—no man’s desire. Love!’ she clasped her hands at the stretch of

her arms, ‘Love! I want love—and have it from all women but you. I am

the queen of women’s hearts, and you are my only rebel. Love me, Jean!

Forgiveness, _ma mie_!’

There was no answer. The Queen started forward, almost frenzied, and

threw herself upon the girl—encircled her, clung, and began to kiss her.

She kissed her lips, cheeks, eyes, and hair; she stroked her face, she

begged and prayed. ‘Love me, Jeannie: I have done you no wrong. I had

no hand in it—I could not move alone. I cried, but could not move. They

would have it so. Oh, love me, my dear, for the sake of what I have

bought and paid for!’

A flint-stone would have thawed under such a lava-stream. Jean Gordon

took a softer tinge, but tried to free herself.

‘I thank your Majesty—I would not seem too hard. Maybe I have been stiff,

maybe I have brooded. There has been too much thinking time, sitting at

work for ever in our dark house. I thank your Majesty—I thank your Grace.’

The Queen lay back again, smiling through her tears. Mary Fleming, deeply

moved, took her hand and lifted it, holding it out—by look and gesture

commanding the other to do it reverence. So it was done at last.

The Queen said softly: ‘I thank you, child; I thank you, Jeannie. You

make me happier. Trust me now, and sit beside me. I have a matter for

your ears, and for your heart too, as I hope.’

So Jean sat staidly by her on the cushions and heard the marriage-plan.

All she could find to say was that she hoped it would give satisfaction

to her Majesty.

* * * * *

The Earl of Bothwell, then, was married upon the Lady Jean Gordon on 24th

February, at Holyrood, by the Protestant rite. The Queen and Court were

there, she very scornful and full of mockery of what was done. She said,

and loudly, ‘If the bride is content with this munchance, why should I be

discontent?’ meaning, of course, that there was every reason in the world

why she should be. But the truth was that the bride, who professed the

old religion, had no choice; for the Earl had insisted upon the minister

and his sermon at the price of marriage whatsoever, and the lady’s

brother Huntly shared his opinion. Whereupon the bride had shrugged her

shoulders.

‘I am bought and sold already,’ she said; ‘therefore what matter to me

whether the market is out of the statute?’

The Queen laughed. ‘Tu as rayson, ma belle,’ she said. ‘Le vray mariage

s’est faict ailleurs.’

And Lady Jeannie replied in a low voice, ‘Nous verrons, madame.’

All things accomplished, and the Queen gone out by her private door,

the Earl handed his Countess through the press to the great entry. Many

people came surging about them; the courtyard seemed chockablock, with

vexed cries tossed here and there, both ‘God bless the Queen!’ and ‘God

damn the Paip!’ In the midst of all the Countess makes as if to falter,

cries out, ‘Oh, my foot hurts me!’ gets free her hand and stoops. What

was she about?

The Earl, who was quickly put out when he was playing a part (as he

surely was just now), stood by for a little, twitching his cheek-bones.

Anything would have vexed him at such a time, and at any time he scorned

a mob. So he pushed forward to clear more space, crying roughly, with

his arms abroad, ‘Out, out, ye tups!’ He made himself an open way to the

doors, and stood on the threshold of the chapel, very fierce, plucking at

his beard, his hat over his brows. There was room behind and before him:

in front were the grooms and servants with their masters’ swords. ‘I dare

ye to move, ye babbling thieves,’ he seemed to be threatening them, and

kept them mute by the power of the eye.

Meantime the Countess rises from her foot, puts her hand on a young man’s

shoulder near by, and says, ‘Take you me.’ This young man, grave and

personable, is Mr. Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne, whom I hope you remember

to have seen last fighting with her brother, John of Findlater, in the

Luckenbooths, that day when the Gordons came swelling into Edinburgh to

see the new Queen. He was an old sweetheart of hers, and might have had

her but for that unlucky encounter. And since he was here—was it for his

sake that the Countess Jeannie had hurt her foot? It is uncertain.

However—‘Fear not, lady, but I’ll take you where you please,’ he assures

her; and walks out of church, her hand upon his shoulder.

Thus they come level with the Earl, and pass him.

‘How now, wife?’ he cries: ‘so soon!’

‘Even so, my lord, since you are so tardy,’ says she, without a look his

way.

This Mr. Ogilvy walks directly into the crowd, which makes a way for him,

hugely tickled by his spirit, and closes in upon him after. The Earl lets

fly a sounding oath, and starts after them. ‘By——and——, but I’m for you!’

They let him through; they cry, ‘Earl Bothwell is after his lady! The

hunt is up—toho!’ There was much laughter, driving, flacking of hands;

and the women were the worst.

* * * * *

After dinner, dancing: the Queen in wild spirits, handed about from man

to man, and (not content with that) dancing with the women when men

flagged. Her zest carried her far out of politics; wary in the chamber,

she was like one drunk at a feast. So she saw nothing of the comedy

enacting under her very eyelids: how, while she was led out by my lord,

Mr. Ogilvy made play with my lady; and my lord, very much aware of it,

fumed. The minute he was dismissed, down he strode through the thick of

the frolic, maddening at the courtiers bowing about him, and quarrelled

and talked loud, and drank and talked louder; but yet could not get near

his handsome new wife. He roundly told his brother-in-law at last that if

her ladyship would not come, he should go alone.

‘Whither, my lord?’ asks Huntly.

‘Why, to bed,’ says he.

‘It is yet early,’ says Huntly.

‘It is none so early for the bed I intend for,’ he was told. ‘My bed is

at Hermitage. I am master there, I’d let you know, and shall be here some

day, God damn me.’ He was in a high rage at the way things were going,

and always impatient of the least restraint. One or two bystanders,

however, shrewd men, suspected that he had met his match.

Lord Huntly did not believe him—could not believe that he would ride,

and ask his young Countess to ride, fifty miles through the marriage

night. Nevertheless, towards six o’clock, the Earl came into the lower

hall with his great boots on and riding-cloak over his shoulder, and

confronted his lady standing with Mr. Ogilvy, my Lord Livingstone, Mary

Sempill, her Master, and some more.

‘My lady,’ he said with a reverence, ‘I am a bird of the bough. ’Tis

after my hour—I’m for my bed.’

Lady Bothwell gave him a short look. ‘If that is your night-gear, my

lord, you sleep alone.’

Harshly he laughed. ‘It seems I am to do that. But, mistress, when you

want me you will find me at Hermitage, whither I now go. And the same

direction I give to you, Mr. Ogilvy,’ says he with meaning. ‘If you come

into my country, or any country but this cursed town, you shall find me

ready for you, Mr. Ogilvy of Boyne.’

Ogilvy wagged his head. ‘La la la! We shall meet again, never fear, my

Lord Bothwell,’ says he.

The Countess gave him her hand to kiss. ‘I wish you good-night, Boyne,’

she said: ‘I am going to my bed’: then, looking her Earl in the face,

‘Pray you send your page for my women, my lord. I lack my riding-gear.’

Lord Huntly, who was up with them by now, cries out: ‘What wild folly is

this? Do you rave? You will never go to Liddesdale this hell-black night!

Are you mad, Lord Bothwell, or a villain?’

‘I’m a bird of the bough, brother-in-law, a bird of the bough.’

The Countess turned to her brother. ‘Should I be afraid of the dark,

Huntly, with this nobleman by my side?’

‘God’s death, my child,’ says Bothwell, admiring her cool blood, ‘I would

be more at your side if you suffered me.’

Lord Huntly turned on his heel.

She went to take leave of the Queen, and found her on an unworthy arm.

‘My leave, madam. I crave liberty to follow my lord.’

‘It should be the other way, child,’ said the Queen, ‘for a little while,

at least. But we will come and put you to bed—and he shall come after.’

‘Your Majesty’s pardon, but this may hardly be. My lord chooses for

Hermitage, and I must follow him—as my duty is.’

It made the Queen grow red; but she did not let go the arm she had. ‘As

you will, mistress,’ she said stiffly, and added something in Italian to

her companion, who raised his eyebrows and gave a little jerk of the head.

‘You ride a long way for your joy,’ she resumed, with a hard ring in

her voice. ‘It’s to be hoped you are well accompanied. Yonder is a wild

country: Turnbulls in the Lammermuirs, Elliots in Liddesdale. But you

have a wild mate.’

The Countess then looked her full in the face. ‘Your Majesty forgets,’

she said. ‘It is not men that I and mine have reason to fear.’

After a short and quick recoil the Queen went straight up to her and took

her face in her two hands. Speaking between clenched teeth, she said:

‘You shall not quarrel with me, Jeannie Bothwell. Or I will not quarrel

with you. I wish you well wherever you go. Remember that: and now give me

a kiss.’

She had to take it, for it was not offered her; and then she pushed the

girl away with a little angry sob. ‘Ah, how you hate me! You are the only

woman in Scotland that hates me.’ She felt the prick of tears, and shook

her head to be so fretted. ‘If I were to tell you of your Earl—as I could

if I cared——’ The Italian touched her arm, and brought her sharply round.

‘Well? Why should I not? Am I such a happy wife that my wedding-ring is a

gag? Shall she have of me the bravest man in Scotland, and not know the

price?’ Gulping down her anger, she put her hand on her bosom to keep it

quiet. ‘No, no, I am not so base. Let her have what comfort she can. All

wives need that. God be with you, Jeannie Bothwell.’

‘And with your Majesty, at all times.’

The Countess curtsied, kissed hands, and went away backwards. She had not

taken the smallest notice of the Italian.

‘If I could hate like that, David,’ said the Mistress, ‘I should be Queen

of France at this hour.’

‘Oh, oh! And so you can, madam, and so you shall,’ replied the man.