‘Go, Mr. Secretary, and pray you find some phrases as you go. Tongues

ring sharply in the closet.’ She signed the Articles, and he was backing

himself out when she stopped him with a seemingly careless word. ‘Ah, I

had almost forgot. These Articles breathe peace.’ She took them from him

and read the words. ‘“Peace, mutual forbearance and goodwill”: very fair

words, upon which we must hope for fair performance. The guard at the

doors and gates is removed no doubt? See to that, Mr. Secretary, before

you can hope for pardon in the maids’ closet. Your lady will not love you

the more because you keep her in a cage.’

This was kittle work, as they say. Unless the guard were off she could

never get out. Lethington, however, took the hint, acted upon his

own responsibility, and found none to stop him. The lords—masters of

Holyrood—were otherwise employed: Lord Ruthven spoke of hanging himself;

the Earl of Morton was inclining to think that Articles might, for this

once, make all safe. Alone, the Earl of Moray admonished his servant, not

for removing the guard, but for not having done so earlier. What peace he

made afterwards in the maids’ closet hath never been revealed.

The Queen went to bed very early and slept like a child in arms.

Everything was in train.

* * * * *

At two o’clock in the morning the King was called, but answered the

summons himself, fully dressed, armed and cloaked.

‘I am ready,’ he said, before the messenger could speak. ‘Fetch Standen.

I go to the Queen.’

He crept along the passage to the dimly lighted cabinet, where he had of

late seen murder, and had to wait there as best he could. He spent the

time in walking up and down—an exercise whereby a man, in fear already,

gains terror with every pace: so agitated was he that when, after an

age of squittering misery, the Queen came in deeply hooded, he forgot

everything and burst out with ‘O God, madam, make haste!’

She gave him no answer, but poured herself some wine, added water, and

drank. It was terrible to him to see how much at her ease she was,

sipping her drink, looking about the cabinet, recalling critically (if

the truth is to be told) the stasimons of the late tragic scene.

Mary Seton came in, and Des-Essars, labouring with a portmantle and some

pistols.

‘Drink, my children,’ she bade them in French, and they obeyed, taking

stay and leisure from her.

The King bit his nails, fretted and fumed—had not had the nerve to drink,

even if he had had the invitation.

Standen stood by the wall, stolid as his habit was—the flaxen, solemn

English youth, with but one cherubic face for a rape, a funeral, a

battle, a christening, or the sacrament. The Queen drew Seton’s attention

to him in a whisper, and made the girl laugh.

Presently they heard a step, and then Stewart of Traquair was to be seen,

stalwart and watchful, in the doorway.

‘Ready, Traquair?’—the Queen’s voice.

‘All’s ready, ma’am.’

She fastened her hood, patting the bows flat. ‘Come, Seton, come,

Baptist,’ she said, and gave her hand into Traquair’s.

He kissed it before he led her away. Des-Essars went first with a shaded

lantern.

The great dark house was perfectly quiet as they went downstairs and

through the chapel by the tombs of the kings. Just here, however, the

Queen stopped and called back Des-Essars. ‘Where does he lie?’ she asked

him; and he pointed out the stone—she was standing almost upon it—and

for many a day remembered the curious regard she had for it: how she

hovered, as it were, over the place, looking at it, smiling quietly

towards it, as if it afforded her some quaint thought. Words have been

put into her mouth which, according to him, she never said—melodramatic

words they are, rough makeshifts of some kind of art embodying what was

to come. According to Des-Essars, she said nothing, neither resolved, nor

promised, nor predicted; nothing broke her smiling, considering silence

over this new grave.

‘To see her there,’ he says, ‘in the lantern-light, so easy, so absorbed,

so _amused_, was terrible to more witnesses than one. It opened to me

secret doors never yet suspected. Was murder only curious to her? Was

horror a kind of joy?’

But it frightened Mary Seton out of her courage. ‘Oh, what do you see in

there, madam?’ she whispered. ‘What moves your mirth in his grave?’

The Queen turned her head as if shaken out of a stare. She met Mary

Seton’s eyes in the lantern-light, and laughed.

‘Come away, madam, come away. Look no more. There’s a taint.’

‘Yes, yes,’ says the Queen; ‘I am ready. Where is the King?’

‘The King is gone, madam,’ said Stewart of Traquair; ‘and I think your

Majesty will do well to be after him.’

This was true. Arthur Erskine, holding the horses outside the town wall,

told her that the King had ridden forward at once, at a gallop, with his

man Standen. She was therefore left with but two—himself and Traquair—for

escort; but he assured her that every step had been taken, she would be

in no sort of danger.

‘Danger!’ she said, laughing lightly. ‘No, no, Erskine, I do not fear it.

Ruthven’s dagger seeks not my back.’

They lifted her up, the rest mounted after her; they walked their horses

clear of the suburb. After some half-mile or more of steady trotting the

Queen reined up and stopped the party. She listened; they all did. Far

away you could hear the regular galloping of a horse, pulsing in the dark

like some muffled pendulum. Now and again another’s broke into it and

confused the rhythm.

‘There rides in haste our sovereign lord,’ said the Queen. ‘Come, we must

follow him.’

* * * * *

By Niddry House—under the lee of the wall—she found the Earls of Huntly

and Bothwell, Lord Seton, and a company of twenty horsemen waiting. The

hour had gone five.

‘God save Scotland!’ had called Traquair, and Bothwell’s strident voice

had countercried, ‘God save the Queen of Scotland!’

‘That voice hath blithe assurance,’ said she when she heard it. She joyed

in adventure and adventurers.

She asked for news of the King. ‘Where is my consort, Lord Bothwell? Rode

he this way?’

‘Madam, he did, and had a most mischievous scare of us. We knew him by

the way he damned us all. But he’s well away by now. You may hear him

yet.’

She gloomed at that. ‘Ay,’ said she, ‘I have heard him. I shall always

hear him, I think.’ Then she shivered. ‘Let us ride on, sirs; the night

is chill.’

Nobody spoke much. Lord Bothwell kept close to her right hand, Lord

Huntly to her left. They would change horses at Gladsmuir.

* * * * *

The tide was breaking over wet rocks, one pale streak of light burnished

the rim of the sea, as Lord Bothwell lifted down his Queen. Astounding to

feel how fresh and feat she was! The dark hull of a castle could just be

seen, suspended as it seemed above a cloud-bank, with sea-birds looming

suddenly large or fading to be small as they swept in and out of the

fog. Little tired waves broke and recoiled near by upon the weedy stones.

‘Dunbar, madam,’ says Bothwell, his hands still holding her—‘and the good

grey guard of the water.’

The King, they told her, had been in bed those three hours.

CHAPTER VIII

KING’S EVIL

Sir James Melvill, wise and mature, travelled gentleman, made nothing of

a ride to Dunbar in the slush of snow. He was careful to take it before

the dawn, and arrived late, to find the Queen not visible. They told him

she had come in some hours after daybreak, exhausted, but not nearly so

exhausted as her horse. It was hardly likely she would rise the day.

‘You’ll let her Majesty know that I’m here, with my service to ye, Mr.

Erskine. And since ye’re so obliging I’ll take a mouthful just of your

spiced wine.’ Thus Sir James; who was sipping at this comfortable cup

when the Earl of Bothwell came in, stamping the winter from his boots,

and recalled him to his privileges. To see him make his bow to a lord

was to get a lesson in the niceties of precedence. He knew to the turn

of a hair how far to go, and unless the occasion were extraordinary,

never departed from the Decreet of Ranking. In the present case, however,

all things considered, he may have judged, ‘This Earl has merited the

salutation of a Prince-Bishop.’ That presupposed, the thing was well

done. Sir James’s heels went smartly together—but without a click, which

would have been too military for the day; the body was slightly bent,

with one hand across the breast. But his head fell far, and remained

down-hung in deepest reverence of the hero. It is exactly thus that a

devotional traveller in a foreign town might salute, but not adore, the

passing Host. ‘I will not bow the knee to Baal; no, but I will honour

this people’s God.’ And thus bowed Sir James.

‘Now, who graces me so highly?’ cried Bothwell when he saw him; and

immediately, ‘Eh, sirs, it is honest Sir James! So the wind hath veered

in town already! Man, you’re my weathercock in this realm. Your hand, Sir

James, your hand, your hand. Never stoop that venerable pow to me.’

‘Always the servant of your lordship,’ murmured Sir James, much gratified.

‘Havers, James!’ says Bothwell, and sat upon the table. He swung his leg

and looked at his sea boots as he talked, reflecting aloud, rather than

conversing.

‘The Queen is sound asleep,’ he said, ‘as well enough she may be. Good

sakes, my man, what a proud and gladsome lady have we there! I tell

you, I have seen young men ride into action more tardily than she into

the perilous dark. She flung herself to the arms of foul weather like a

lammock to his dam’s dug. You’d have said’—he lowered his voice—‘you’d

have said she was at the hunting of a hare, if you’d seen her gallop—with

Adonis fleeting before her.’

Sir James nodded, as if to say—‘A hint is more than enough for me.’

‘Well!’ cried Bothwell, ‘well! What scared the gowk, then?’

‘My lord,’ said Sir James, ‘you must observe, he had been by when Lord

Ruthven’s knife was at work, slicing Davy. He knew the way of it, d’ye

see?’

Bothwell flung up his head. ‘Ay! he was all in a flutter of fear. The

bitter fools that they are! Every traitor of them betraying the other,

and a scamper who shall do mischief and be first away. But this one

here—he’s none too safe, ye ken. He’s dug his own grave, I doubt. Before

long time you and I, Melvill, shall see him by Davy’s side.’

‘Ah, my lord of Bothwell——’ Sir James was scandalised.

‘Fear nothing, man—I must talk. Here, in this place, what is he? Who

heeds him, where he comes or whither he goes? Why, this skipjack of

Brabant is the better man!’

The skipjack of Brabant was Des-Essars, come down to call Lord Bothwell

to the Queen. She was about to hold a council, and Melvill was to abide

the upshot.

‘Is the King to be there, do you know, Baptist?’ says my lord, his hand

on the lad’s shoulder.

‘The King sleeps, my lord,’ he replied. ‘I heard her Majesty say that he

could not do better.’

‘Her Majesty has the rights of him by now,’ says Bothwell. ‘Well—we shall

work none the worse without him. Sir James, your servant. If I can help

you, you shall see her.’

‘So your lordship will bind me fast to your service,’ bowed Sir James,

and watched the pair depart. He observed that Des-Essars’ crown was level

with the Earl’s cheek-bone.

* * * * *

Let me deal with the fruit of this council while I may. Sir James took a

seed of it, as it were, back to Edinburgh, planted and watered it, and

saw an abundant harvest, of sweet and bitter mixed. As for instance,—to

the Earls of Moray and Argyll went full pardons of all offences; to

Glencairn and Rothes the hope of some such thing upon proof of good

disposition—just enough to separate men not quite dangerous from men

desperate. To them, those desperate men, came the last shock. Writs of

treason were out against the Earl of Morton, Lords Ruthven and Lindsay

and the Master of Lindsay, against Archibald Douglas of Whittingehame,

William Kirkcaldy of Grange, Ker of Fawdonsyde and their likes; also,

definitely and beyond doubt, against William Maitland, younger of

Lethington. The Secretary had to thank Lord Bothwell for that, for the

Queen would have spared him if she could for Mary Fleming’s sake. These

writs were served that very night and copies affixed to the Market-cross.

The smaller fry—men in Morton’s livery, jackals and foxes of the

doors—were to be taken as they fell in and hanged at conveniency. Many

were apprehended in their beds before Sir James could be snug in his own.

One may look, too, for a moment at the last conference of them that of

late had been masters of Holyrood. It was had in Lord Morton’s big

house—a desultory colloquy broken by long glooms.

‘If you are still for hanging yourself, Ruthven,’ said my Lord Morton, in

one of these pauses, ‘you’ve time.’

And Ruthven turned his eyes about with evident pain. Those thought, who

looked at him, that he had not so much time. He was horribly ill, with

fever in bones and blood. ‘I’m not for that now, my lord,’ he said, ‘I

have a better game than that in hand.’

‘I could name you one if you were needing it,’ said Morton again, with a

glance towards Archie Douglas. Listening and watching, the grey-headed

youth chuckled, and rubbed his dry hands together.

‘Ay,’ said Ruthven, observing the action, and sickening of actor and it,

‘slough your skin, snake, and bite the better.’

‘Man, Ruthven,’ said Morton impatiently, ‘you talk too much of what you

will do, and spend too much of your spleen on them that would serve ye if

ye would let them. Body of me, we have time before us to scheme a great

propyne for this good town that spews us out like so much garbage.’

‘We have that, cousin,’ says Archie, ‘if but we accord together.’

‘Ah, traitors all, traitors all!’ Ruthven was muttering to himself; then

(as he thought of the chief of traitors) burst out—‘When we have done his

butcher’s work—he heels us out of doors! Sublime, he washes his hands and

goes to bed. We are the night-men, look you. Foh, we smell of our trade!

what king could endure us? Oh, lying, sleek, milky traitor!’

Lord Morton, whose rage lay much deeper, thought all this just wind and

vapour. ‘To fret and cry treachery, Ruthven! Pooh, a French trick, never

like to save your face. Why, poor splutterer, nothing will save that but

to mar another’s face.’

‘Your talk against my talk,’ cried Ruthven; ‘and will you do it any

better?’

Lord Morton flushed to a heavy crimson colour, and his eyes were almost

hidden. ‘Ay, mark me, that I will. I will score him deep with this

infamy.’ He went to the window and stood there alone. Nobody could draw

him into talk again.

There was much bustle in Edinburgh during the week, and more suitors to

the Earl of Moray than he had time to see. Mr. Secretary got no joy out

of him; he was kind to the Earl of Morton and spoke him many hopeful

words; he shook his finger at Lord Ruthven. ‘Fie, my lord,’ he said,

‘you should wear a finer face. Turn you to your God, Lord Ruthven, and

store up grain against the lean years to come. Root up these darnels from

your garden-plot, lest they choke the good seed sowed in you. Let stout

Mr. Knox be your exemplar, then; behold how he can harden his brows.

Farewell, my lord: be sure of my friendship; take kindly to the soil of

England. There are stout hearts in Newcastle, a godly congregation, to

which I commend you.’

Ruthven turned away from him without a word to say, and never saw him

again. With Morton, Lindsay, and the rest, he took the English road. Mr.

Secretary Lethington went to my lord Atholl’s in the west; my lord of

Argyll became a Queen’s man. Within the bare week after the flight to

Dunbar the ragged corse of the Italian lay as untrodden by enemies as if

Jerusalem had been his sepulture. But we are out-running our matter: we

must be back at Dunbar with Queen Mary.

* * * * *

From that castle Lord Bothwell wrote to his wife, to this effect:—

Attend me not these many days. The alders may bud by Hermitage

Water before I kiss the neck of my dear. For such business as

here we have was never done in the Debatable Land since Solway

Moss was reddened; such a riding in and forth of messengers,

such a sealing of dooms, rewards and forfeitures—no, nor such

a flocking of lords anxious to prove their wisdoms in their

loves.... She is hearted like a man. She rises early every

day, and sets to her blessing and banning of men’s lives with

as sharp an edge as I to my beef at noon. She has a care for

all who have served or dis-served her, and is no more frugal

of her embracing than of her spurning heel. One man only she

hath clean out of mind; for him she hath neither inclination

nor disgust. She asketh not his company, neither seeketh to

have him away. He is as though he were not—still air in the

chamber, for which you ope not the window, as needing more of

it, nor shut-to the window, for fear of more. Doth he enter her

presence—why not? the room is wide. Doth he go out—why not? the

world is wider. How this came about it were too long to tell

you; this only will I say, that it came late, for at her first

alighting here she feared him mortally, as if she viewed in him

the ghost of her old self. That was a sickness of the mind, not

against nature; now gone, and he with it. Needs must I admire

her for the banishment....

But to return. Business ended—more sharply than you would

believe by any young head but your own—she wins to the open

weather. She walks abroad, she takes my arm. Yes, and indeed, I

am grown to be somewhat in this realm. She rides o’er the brae;

your servant at her stirrup; she sails the sea, your lover

at the helm. You belie your own courage when you doubt this

princess’s, my dear heart. For, to say nothing of her trust in

me, which you will own to be bold in any lady (and most bold in

herself), she has the mettle of a blood-horse, whom to stroke

is to sting. She is far gone with child, and you may guess with

what zest, seeing her regard for her partner in it. In truth,

she hath a horror; because her aim is to forget what she can

never forgive, and so every drag upon her leaping spirit seems

to remind her of him and his deeds. Oh, but she suffers and is

strong!... I hear you say to me, ‘Fie, you are bewitched. A

spell! A spell!’—but I laugh at you. There is a still-faced,

raven-haired witch-wife in Liddesdale working upon me under the

moon. Aha, Mistress Sanctity, watch for me o’ nights.

Yestreen the Q. spake of your Serenity. ‘She hates me,’ quoth

she, ‘for her father’s sake, in whose cruel disgrace I vow I

had no part; but I shall make her love me yet.’ And when I

laughed somewhat, she gave a thring of the shoulder. ‘I’ld have

you know, Lord Bothwell,’ saith she, ‘that there’s no wife nor

bairn in this land can refuse the kisses of my mouth.’ Thinks

I, ‘You are bold to say it. You may come to crave them.’ _Quant

à moy, ma doulce amye, je te bayse les mains._

You can see that he had been laughing at her in the old way, not

boisterously this time, but under the beard, in his little twinkling

eyes; and that, in the old way, she had been braced by his bravery. He

had guessed—you can see that too—that she had some need of him, and how

necessary it was that her loathing for her husband should pass into mere

indifference. But he had no notion at that time how pressing that need

was. Not she herself had realised the horror she had until the night

after reaching Dunbar, when the King, by Standen, had renewed certain

proposals, frustrate before by his laches. It may have been sudden panic,

it may have been a trick of memory—God knows what it was; but she had

flooded with scarlet, then turned dead white, had murmured some excuse,

and with bowed head and feeble, expostulating hands, had left the room.

She did not come back that night. She had called Des-Essars, fled with

him into the turret, found an empty chamber under the leads, had the door

locked, a great coffer jammed against it—and had stayed there so till

morning. The young man, writing a word or two upon it, says that she

was almost rigid at first, in a waking trance; and that she sat ‘pinned

to his side’ while the maids and valets hunted her high and low. ‘I did

what I could,’ he writes; ‘talked nonsense, told old tales, sang saucy

songs, which by that time of my life I had been glad to have forgotten,

and, affecting a nonchalance which I was far from feeling, recovered her

a little. She began to be curious whether they would find her, judged by

the ear how the scent lay, laughed to hear Mistress Seton panting on the

stair, and Carwood screaming—“There’s a great rat in my road!” Presently

she slept, with her head on my knees and my jacket over her shoulders. I

took her down to bed before morning, and in the daylight she had partly

recovered herself. She transacted business, ate a meal; but I remarked

that she trembled whenever the King entered the room, and faltered when

she was obliged to reply to him—faltered and turned up her eyes, as fowls

do when they are sleepy. Fortunately for her, he was sulky, and did not

renew his advances.’

I suspect that she found out—for she was rigid in self-probing—that

if she allowed herself to abhor him for an unspeakable affront, she

would have to scorn herself even more for having given him the means

of affronting her. Right punishment: she would admit that she had

deserved it. She had been the basest of women (she would say) when she

offered that which was to her a sacrament, in barter for mere political

advantage. Why, yes! she had prepared to sell herself to this wallowing

swine in order to escape her prison; and if he snored the bargain out of

his head it was because he was a hog,—but then, O God! what was she? So,

from not daring to think of that night of shame, she passed to fearing

to think of the shameful recreants in it; and as we ever peer at what we

dread, it came about that she could think of nothing else, and was in

torment. Des-Essars gives none of this; it was not in his power to get

at it; but he saw, what we can never see, that she suffered atrociously,

that her case grew desperate. Hear him. ‘One day I came with a message

to her chamber door, early; the door was half-open. I had a shocking

vision of her abed, lying there in a bed of torture, like one stung;

on her face, writhing and moaning, tossing her hands—short breath,

tearless sobbing, sharp cries to God; while Mary Seton read aloud out

of Saint-Augustin by the fog-bound cresset light. She read on through

everything—pausing only to put our Mistress back into the middle of the

bed, for fear lest she might fall out and hurt herself.’

If this is true—and we know that it is—why, then, out of such waking

delirium, out of anguish so dry, Queen Mary must have been delivered if

she were not to die of it.

* * * * *

The Earl of Bothwell was not a man of imagination, though he had a quick

fancy. He read his Queen in this state of hers with interest at first,

and some amusement, not then knowing how dire it was. He saw that she

would turn white and leave any room into which King Darnley entered; he

knew that she would ride far to avoid him, and sometimes, indeed, under

sudden stress, would use whip and spur and fly from him like a hunted

thief. When he found out something—not very much, for Des-Essars would

not speak—of the events of the night in the turret, moved by good-nature,

he put himself in the way to help her. He got more maids fetched from

Edinburgh—Fleming and Mary Sempill—and himself stayed with her as long

as he dared, and longer than he cared. And then, one day by chance, he

got a full view of her haunted mind—a field of broken lights indeed! and

saw how far he might travel there if he chose, and with what profit to

himself.

He was with her afoot on the links behind the town—sandy hillocks of

dry bents, and a grey waste at such a season, abode of the wind and the

plovers; he with her, almost alone. Des-Essars, who walked behind them,

had strayed with the dogs after a hare; the wind, blowing in from the

sea, brought up wisps and patches of fog in which the boy was hidden.

Talking as she went, carelessly, of the things of France, he listening

more or less, she stopped of a sudden, choked a cry in the throat, and

caught at his arm. ‘Look, look, look!’ she said: ‘what comes this way?’

He followed the direction of her fixed eyes, and saw a riderless horse

loom out of the vapour, come on doubtingly at a free trot, shaking his

head and snuffing about him as if he partly believed in his freedom. It

shaped as a great grey Flemish horse, assuredly one of the King’s.

The Queen began to tremble, to mutter and moan. ‘Oh, oh, the great horse!

Free—it’s free! Oh, if it could be so! Oh, my lord, oh——I’m afraid!’

‘It is indeed the King’s horse, madam,’ he said. ‘I fear—some misfortune.’

But she stared at him. ‘Misfortune!’ she cried out. ‘Oh, are you blind?

Go and see—go and make sure. I must be assured—nothing is certain yet.

Run, my lord, run fast!’

He made to obey, and instantly she clung to his arm to stop him. She was

in wild fear.

‘No—no—no—you must not leave me here! There are voices in the

sea-wind—too many voices. A clamour, a clamour! Those that cry at me

through the door, those that are out on the sea—a many, a many! I tell

you I am afraid.’ Her fear irritated her; she stamped her foot. ‘Do you

hear me? I am afraid. You shall not leave me.’

There was no doubt. She was beside herself—looking all about, her teeth

chattering, fingers griping his arm.

‘Why, then, I will send the lad, ma’am,’ says Bothwell. ‘You need have

no fear with me. I hear no voices in the wind.’

She looked at him wonderfully. ‘Do you never hear them at night?’ Then

her eyes paled, and the pupils dwindled to little specks of black. ‘Come

with me,’ she said in whisper, ‘a-tiptoe; come softly with me. We must

find him—we can never be sure till we see him lying. There is one way:

you lift the eyelids. Better than a mirror to the nose. Come, come: I

must look at him, to be very sure.’ She stared into the white sky, and

gave a sudden gasp, pointing outwards while her eyes searched his face.

‘Look!’ she said: ‘the birds over there. They are about him already.

Come, we shall be too late.’ She led him away in a feverish hurry,

through bush and briar, talking all the time. ‘Blood on his face—on his

mouth and shut hands. He gripped his dagger by the blade, and it bit to

the bone. He comes and cries at my door—all foul from his work—and asks

me let him in. But I hold it—I am very strong. He always comes—but now!’

She laughed insanely, and gave a skip in the air. ‘O come, my lord—hurry,

hurry!’

The loose horse had trotted gaily by them as the astonished Lord Bothwell

followed where he was haled. Presently, however, he heard another sound,

and pulled back to listen to it. ‘Hearken a moment,’ says he. ‘Yes, yes!

I thought as much. Here comes another horse—galloping like a fiend—a

ridden horse.’

She started, forced herself to listen, knew the truth. ‘He is hunting!

Take me—hide me—keep me safe! Bothwell, keep him off me!’

She knew not what she said or did; but he, full of pity now, drew her

behind a clump of whims and held her with his arm.

‘There, there, madam, comfort yourself,’ he said. ‘None shall harm you

that harm not me first. How shall you be hurt if you are not to be seen?

Trust yourself to me.’

She shook in his arm like a man in an ague; uncontrollable fits of

shaking possessed her, under which, as they passed through her, she shut

her eyes, and with bent head endured them. So much she suffered that, if

he had not let his wits go to work, he would have hailed the King as he

went pounding by. He supposed that she had been shocked mad by that late

business of hasty blood. Of course he was wrong, but the guess was enough

to prevent him following his first purpose, and so killing her outright.

The King came rocking down the brae, red and furious, intent upon the

truant horse; and as he went, Bothwell made bold to glance at the Queen.

What he saw in her hag-ridden face was curious enough to set him thinking

hard; curious, but yet, as he saw it, unmistakable. There was vacancy

there, the inability to reason which troubles the mentally afflicted;

there were despair and misery, natural enough if the poor lady was going

mad—and knew it. But—oh, there was no doubt of it!—there was in the drawn

lines of her face blank, undisguised disappointment. He saw it all now.

She had believed him dead, her heart had leaped; and now she had just

seen him alive, galloping his horse. Clang goes the cage door again upon

my lady! Now, here was a state of things!

When the King was out of sight and hearing, swallowed in the growing

fog, and she a little recovered, and a little ashamed, he began to talk

with her; and in time she listened to what he had to say. He spoke well,

neither forgetting the respect due to her, which before he had been prone

to do, nor that due to himself as a man of the world. He did not disguise

from her that he thought very lightly of David’s killing.

‘Saucy servants, in my opinion,’ he said, ‘must take what they deserve

if they expect more than they are worth. They demand equality—well, and

when they meet gentlemen with daggers, they get it.’ But he hastened to

add that to have killed the fellow before her face must have been the act

of beasts or madmen—‘and, saving his respect, madam, your consort was one

and your Ruthven the other.’

To his great surprise she then said quietly that she was of the same

mind, and not greatly afflicted by the deed, or the manner of it either.

She had seen men killed in France; queens should be blooded as well as

hounds. She also considered that Davy had been presumptuous. He had

known his aptitudes too well. But useful he had certainly been, and

she intended to have another out of the same nest—Joseph, his brother.

Singular lady! she had found time to write into Piedmont for him.

‘Well then, madam,’ says Bothwell, with a shrug, ‘all this being your

true mind, I own myself at a loss how to take your extreme alarms.’

She bit her lip. ‘I am better. Maybe they were foolish. Who knows? I

cannot tell you any more than this. I had nearly forgot that wicked

deed. But there are other offences—women find—which cannot, can never be

forgotten.’ She grew impatient. ‘Ah, but it is not tolerable to discuss

such things.’

Even then he did not know what she meant. She had been mortally offended

by the King, and offended to the point of horror—but by something worse

than murder and strife in the chamber, by something which she could not

speak of! What under Heaven had that red-faced, stable-legged lad in him

which could terrify her?

‘Madam,’ he said, ‘if you cannot talk of it, you cannot tell it me, and

there is an end. My counsel to you is this: put the young lord and his

sottishness out of your royal head. Look at him stoutly and aver that he

is naught. You have shown that you can face a rebel kingdom; face now

your rebel heart. For I say that your heart is a rebel against your head,

swerving and backing like a jade that needs the spur. Ride your heart,

madam! Ply whip to the flanks, bring it up to the boggart in the corn.

Thus only your heart shall nose out the empty truth. Why, good lack!

what is there to credit all your alarm but silly fed flesh and seething

liquor? Look at him, judge him, flick your fingers at him, and forget

him. Madam, I speak freely.’

She said faintly that he was very right. She had suffered much of late

in all ways: she spoke of pains in the side, in the head, of fancies at

night, etc. She owned that she desired his good opinion of her courage,

and promised she would try to earn it. Looking tired and ill, smiling as

if she knew only too well there was no smiling matter, she held out her

hand to him at the entry of the town. He bowed over and kissed it. Mildly

she thanked him and went her ways with Des-Essars.

He wrote to the countess soon after:—

Very strange matters chance here daily, of the which I write

not exactly for fear of misreading. One thing I plainly

understand, the K. shall never more prosper here. While he was

beloved he was something, and when he was dreaded he was much;

but now that he comes and goes unnoticed he is nothing at all.

And so he will remain, I suppose, until the lying-in, which

will be in June coming they say. Ill betide him then if, when

she is reminded of him in his son, he play her any trick. I

would not give a snap of the finger and thumb for his life. We

are for Edinburgh on Monday morn, whence look infallibly for my

tidings.

The King, then, was nothing at all. Nerved by her brawny councillor, she

had faced her ‘boggart in the corn,’ and in two days’ time could curl

her fine lip to remember him. That is a proof that she was sane at the

root, needing no more than such bitter as his rough tongue could give to

restore her tone. And, having ridded her fears, she soon found that she

could rid her memory altogether. The King went out and in, as Bothwell

had written, unnoticed. He made no more attempts to come at her, spoke

to none but his own company, felt that he was in disgrace, and sulked.

Lord Bothwell scoffed at him by implication—by every keen shaft from

his eyes and every wag of his head; Lord Huntly kept at a distance; Sir

James altered his salutation. On the Sunday before they should move back

to town they were speaking of the rebel lords, whether they were now in

England or yet on the road; and Bothwell began to cry up Ruthven, his

madness, his knives, his friends’ knives. The King got up and left the

table. He told Standen afterwards that he should not go to Edinburgh.

Standen told Des-Essars, and he told the Queen.

‘Oh, but he shall,’ she said at once, consulted her friends, and sent him

a verbal message that she should need him there. He felt this badly—but

obeyed it.

For, much against her inclination, she had made up her mind that she

must drag the chain which had been forged upon her; she must keep the

King in her eye for fear he should work her a mischief. His father

Lennox was in Glasgow, an escaped enemy: it would never do for him to

go thither. Or suppose he were to return to England! No, no, she must

keep him in Edinburgh, keep him cowed, and yet not allow him to grow

desperate. Worse than that, the time was coming on when she must have him

by her side, in the house, perhaps nearer still. He was now ‘the Queen’s

dearest Consort,’ but soon he would be ‘the Prince’s dearest father’ and

a power in the land. The Earl of Bothwell, consulted, was precise about

that—awkwardly precise.

‘Folk will talk, madam, about you and him. He’ll not want for a faction

to cry, “The King keeps aloof! Well he may, knowing what he knows.” Oh,

have him with you, ma’am, as near as may be. For hawks dinna pick out

hawks’ een, as they say; and if he owns to the child—why, he should know

his own.’

She flushed. ‘You speak too plainly, my lord.’

‘Not if I mean honestly, ma’am.’

‘I hope you mean so,’ said she, ‘but the sound of your phrase is

otherwise.’

‘I was speaking in character, ma’am. Mark that.’

She was looking down at her lap when next she spoke, carelessly at her

careless fingers. ‘Whose child do they allege it?’

The directness of the question and indirectness of its manner puzzled

him. He could not tell whether to be blunt or fine.

‘Madam, I am no scandal-monger, I hope, and have little pleasure in the

grunting of hogs in a sty. But hogs will grunt, as your Majesty knows.’

She did not raise her eyes, but said: ‘It will be better that you answer

me in a few words. One will suffice.’

He tried—he began—but could not do it. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘you must answer

for yourself. All I will ask is this: what, think you, drew the King to

the deed he did?’

She lifted her head and gave him one long look. Rather, it seemed long.

He knelt down quickly and kissed her knee.

He rose and began to justify himself. ‘You forced me to say it—it may

have been my duty—make it not my offence. God knows I needed no such

royal answer as you have given me—not I! I think no evil of your Majesty,

nor have I ever.’

She flashed her eyes upon him—not angrily by any means. ‘Oh, my lord, may

I be sure of that? Come, I will tell you what I seem to remember. There

was a day when you enlarged yourself from my prison and rode, a free man,

to Haddington. What said you of me there among your friends?’

He puzzled over this. ‘I can charge myself with nothing. Your Grace knows

more of me than I do.’

‘Did you not speak in the hearing of one Pringle concerning me and my

uncle the Cardinal? Did you give me a name then? Come, come, my lord, be

plain. Did you not?’

He burst out laughing. ‘The voice is the voice of Queen Mary, but the

words are of Black James Stuart! Oho, madam, you will hear finer tales

than this concerning me, if you sound that thoughtful man.’

She pressed him, but he would neither deny nor affirm. ‘I shall not

defend myself, madam, before your Majesty. But I will meet the Earl of

Moray, and wager him in battle, if you give me leave: in battle of one

and one, or of a score, or of ten score. Let him repeat his charge in the

Grassmarket if he dare.’

Baffled here, she harped back upon the child. She said that she needed to

be sure of his good opinion of her. Then he made her heart beat fast, for

he came and put his hand upon the back of her chair and stood right over

her: she could feel the strength of his eyes, like beams from the sun,

driving down upon her.

‘Madam, and my sovereign lady, as God is my judge, this is the truth. I

loved you once, and, at love’s bidding, staked all on a great design. My

plot was unmannerly, but so is love; you were offended with me, as your

right was. I loved you no less, but honoured you the more, because of

that. If now I thought evil of you—such evil as you suspect in me—I would

tell you so for the sake of that love I gave you before.’

She bowed her head and thanked him humbly; did not look up, nor stir from

her place below him.

‘As meek as a mouse!’—he could not remember ever to have seen her so

before. What was in her heart? It sent him away thoughtful. Next day he

rode at her side to Edinburgh.

* * * * *

Established there more firmly than at any time since her reign began;

with a council packed with her friends, with Lord Huntly (her slave)

for Chancellor; with her open enemies ruined and in exile, her secret

enemies abject at her knees, her husband in disgrace, and her child near

its birth—in this comfortable state of her affairs, the Earl of Bothwell

suddenly asked leave to go into his own country. She was piqued, and

could not help showing it.

‘You desire to—you will consort with—one who loves me little? Well, my

lord, well! How should I hinder your going, since I cannot quench your

desire?’

Thinks he, ‘Now, now, what root of grievance is this, sprouting here?’

Aloud he said, ‘Madam, I am content—and more than content—to stay by your

Majesty so long as you find me of use. But the time is at hand, and you

have said it, when you will refuse me harbourage.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said quickly, her face aflame: ‘you cannot be with me in

the castle.’

She had agreed to lie-in there, and had forbidden quarters to Lords

Bothwell and Huntly alike. Do you ask why? Mary Seton might have answered

you in part—but scornfully, since women have no need to ask such things.

They know them. ‘Lord Huntly! Lord Huntly!’ I can hear her say—a

pretty, vehement little creature—‘Lord Huntly! And he a known lover of

our mistress? How should he be there?’ Pass Lord Huntly: what of Lord

Bothwell? She would shake her head. ‘No, no,’ she would say, ‘it could

not be. He is a faithful friend.’ Well, then, what of that? She would

rise quickly and walk to the window. ‘I cannot tell you, sir, why he is

not to be there. But I am very clear that she would not suffer it. Oh,

for example——impossible!’ You would get no more from her. And what more

could you want?

But the Queen was still frowning over his leave of absence, and pinching

her lip. Then she broke out, in the midst of her private thoughts: ‘But I

cannot refuse you! How can I? You having asked to go—what is the worth of

your staying, when your heart is——And yet—there is the King——’ She looked

slily up. ‘My lord, do you dare to trust your pupil alone?’

His face took a gay air. ‘If I am your tutor, madam——’

‘Why,’ said she, ‘what else can you be? My confessor? My cousin? My

brother? What else?’

He laughed, avoiding her inquiry. ‘To be your brother would be to own

kinship with my lord of Moray. A dangerous degree, ma’am, for one of the

pair.’

‘I would not have you for my brother,’ she said thoughtfully.

Responsive thought struck fire in his eyes. ‘I will ask you this. Will

your Grace receive me into the castle? There I could be of service—maybe.’

He watched her intently now—watched until he saw the flag come fluttering

down. She lowered her eyes; he could hardly hear her words.

‘No, no. You must not be there. Afterwards—come soon.’ She waited there,

hanging on the last word; then rose. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is better that

you should go. I will not——’ She spoke wildly. ‘Go, my lord, go.’

He knelt to her before he obeyed; at the door she called him back.

Quickly he returned, but she would not look at him.

‘I wish to tell you—as plainly as I can——’ So she began, speaking slowly,

feeling for her words. ‘The King shall be there with me—in the castle.

It is painful to me—I conceive that you must know it. But I shall do as

you advise—that scandal may be averted.’ She strained her arms down,

stiffening them, gave an impatient shake of the head. ‘Heaven watch over

me! And you, my lord, do you pray. Ah, but you use not prayer!’ She

seemed conscious that she was speaking double and he not understanding.

It made her angry enough to look at him. ‘Well, well, why are you here

still? Go quickly, I say—go.’

Go he did, a puzzling, excited man.

Before he left the city he saw his brother-in-law, Lord Huntly, for a

moment. ‘Geordie,’ he said, ‘I’m for the Border. I’m going to my wife.

Are you for yours or do you stay here?’

‘I stay.’

‘You may be wise. I am going to my wife—and I may be wise. God knows that

I know not. I have not seen her for five months.’

Lord Huntly had no answer. He had not seen his for over a year. Presently

Bothwell makes another cast.

‘I took leave of the Queen of late. She was greatly wrought

upon—distempered. Sent me off—called me back—sent me off again, after

some wild words. I know not what to make of it.’

‘Help her through it, God!’ said Huntly.

‘I think it is a matter for Lucina,’ said Bothwell, and went his road.

He travelled musingly by the hill-ways into Liddesdale, French Paris

behind him. At the top of the pass—Note o’ the Gate, they call it—whence

first you see the brown valley of the Liddel, and all the hills, quiet

guardians about the silver water, he reined up, and stood looking over

his lands.

‘Yonder awaits me the fairest dark lady in Scotland, and (to my mind) the

fairest demesne: the open country and the good red deer. Oh, the bonny

holms, the green knowes, and the ledged rocks! Houp, man! We are free of

the scented chambers and all their whisperings here.’

‘It is most certain, my lord,’ said French Paris, ‘that we have left the

direction of those whisperings to Monsieur de Moray.’

Lord Bothwell was stung. ‘Monsieur de Moray! Monsieur de Moray! Pooh,

rascal, she has her husband with her now. And that may be even worse for

me.’

French Paris looked demurely at the reins sliding in his fingers. ‘True,

my lord, she has his Majesty. I have remarked that women in the Queen’s

condition have extraordinary inclination for their husbands. It is

reasonable.’

‘You are a fool, Paris,’ said the Earl.

But when he was at Hermitage, his proud wife upon his knee, my lord swore

to himself over and over again that he was the happiest rogue not yet

hanged. And yet he could not but hear, beneath all his protestations,

that slow, wounded voice,—‘Afterwards—come soon.’ Good lord! what was the

meaning of the like of that?

CHAPTER IX

THE WASHING OF HANDS

To a woman’s affair flocked matron and maid, till the castle seemed

a hive of rock-bees. Afar off, it was said, you could hear them

humming within; on sudden alarms out they came in a swarm, and ill

fared physician or priest, or discreet, wide-eared gentleman sent by

his wife to get a piece of news. June was in and well in, skies were

clean, the twilight long in coming and loth to go. Queen Mary lay idle

by her window, and watched the red roofs turn purple, the hills grow

black, the paling of the light from yellow to green, the night’s solemn

gathering-in, the star shine clear in a dark-blue bed out there over

Arthur’s Seat. Her time was short—but one could scarcely tell. She often

felt that she scarcely cared to tell when this crowning hour was to come.

Quick-spirited, sanguine young woman, she bade fair to be weary of matron

and maid alike, with their everlasting talk of ‘the promise of Scotland,’

their midwifery stories, their nods and winks, their portentous cares

over what she had supposed a pretty ordinary business. It was to be seen

that she was fretting, and the truth was that she was in much too good

health: bodily ease had never been pleasant to her, and never been safe.

Her mind grew arrogant and luxurious at once, felt itself free to range

in regions unlawful; and so did range, the lax flesh playing courier. So

while the humming and swarming of the household bees went on over and

about her listless head, while she snapped twice at the maids for every

once the matrons chafed her, in her mind she walked where she fain

would have had her body to be: and then, sick of this futility, she grew

peevish and wished she had never been born. Upon such a crisis, intending

for the best, Mary Beaton superinduced a stout, easily-flushed, gamesome

lady, her aunt Lady Forbes of Reres.

Mary Beaton was now the wife of Mr. Ogilvy of Boyne; but this aunt of

hers was of the father’s side. A Beaton, she, niece of the great murdered

cardinal, sister of the witch-wife of Buccleuch, and in these, no less

than in her own respects, a lady to be aware of. She was in her days of

silver and russet now, who before may have been of dangerous beauty—of

that quickly-ripe, drowsy, blowsy, Venetian sort, disastrous to mankind.

Of it, indeed, the clear ravages remained, though cushioned deep in

comfortable flesh; traceable there, as in the velvety bosses of a green

hill you mark the contours of what was once a citadel of war. Her grey

hair she now wore over her ears, to conceal (as the Queen averred)

members which were so well stuffed with gallant lore as to be independent

for the rest of their lives. She had a pretty mouth—a little overhung—and

dimpled chin, light green eyes, fat, pleasurable hands, a merry voice

and a railing tongue. Thanks to the combination, she could be malicious

without ceasing to amuse. To those who know—and by this time I hope they

are many—it is good evidence of her abilities and merits alike that Mary

Livingstone could not abide the woman.

It was not required that she should. The Queen, too languid to judge her,

listened to the savoury tales of this Reres by the hour together, neither

laughing nor chuckling, but for all that fully content. So one might

watch audacious archery, and admire the barbed flights, even when some

pricked oneself. Lady Reres was of that kind of woman who can never speak

of men without marking the gender of them. All the persons on her scene

wore transparent draperies; to hear her you would have supposed that the

one business of man were to pursue his helpmate, and of woman to stroke

her own beauties. She spared neither age nor sex from her categories:

all must be stuffed in somewhere; nor did the very throne exempt the

sitter from service. The throne of Scotland, for instance! She made

it sufficiently appear to Queen Mary that her royal father had been a

mighty hunter. She knew the romantic origin of all the by-blows—‘Cupid’s

trophies,’ as she called them (O my Lord of Moray!)—and did not scruple

to reveal them to the ears of Lady Argyll, herself the daughter of

Margaret Erskine, and quite aware of it. Then she must adventure Queen

Marie of Lorraine—the one saint whose lamp had never grown dim upon her

daughter’s altar—and hint that she had been consciously fair and not

unconsciously pursued. ‘And I speak as one who should know, sweet madam,’

said this old Reres; ‘for the Cardinal, fine man, was of my own kindred,

and differed noways from the rest of the men. I mind very well—’twas at

Linlithgow, where you were born, my Queen—Queen Marie sat by the window

on a day, her hand at her side, at her foot a dropped rose. But oh! that

flower was wan beside the roses in her face. Your Majesty hath not her

hues—no, but you favour the Stuarts. “Dear sakes, madam,” say I, “you

have dropped your rose.” So faintly as she smiled, I heard her sigh,

and knew she could not answer me then. “Some one will pick up what I

have let fall,” saith she at last—and then, behind the curtain, I see a

red shoe. I touched my lips—they were as red as your own in those days,

madam—and slipped away, knowing my book. Hey! but red was the hue of the

Court at that tide—with the tall Cardinal, and the tall rosy Queen, and

the dropping, dropping roses.’ The Queen let her talk. She had a soft,

wheedling voice—a murmurous accompaniment to luxurious thought.

No doubt, when the body is unstrung you pet your thought, and indulge it

in its wanton ways. There is no harm in dreaming. The Queen lay waiting

there, thrilled faintly with the sense of what was to come upon her,

softly served and softly lapped. And in soft guise came into ministry the

figures of her dreams, inviting, craving, imploring, grieving, clinging

about her. She communed again with all her lovers, the highest and the

lowest—from Charles of France, Most Christian King, a stormy boy, who

frowned his black brows upon her and kissed so hotly on that day she saw

him last, down to slim, grey-eyed Jean-Marie-Baptiste, whom by kindness

she had made man. Others there were, stored in her mind, a many and a

many—and any one of them would have died for her once. What of Mr. Knox,

of the great hands? What of John Gordon, fiercest of old Huntly’s sons?

What of George Gordon, romantic, speechless lover at this hour? To each

his own sweetness, to each the secret of his own desire: she savoured

each by each as she lay, turning and snuggling and dreaming among her

pillows. And when the cooing old Reres by the bed spoke of Lord Bothwell,

she listened, sharply intent; and wondered if there were light enough

left to betray her, and hoped not. Dangerous, desperate, hardy man! He

was a theme upon which Lady Reres descanted at large. Let his draperies

be as they would, his gender was never in doubt.

Reres had known James Bothwell—so she always called him—for many

years; for although his only numbered thirty yet, and she confessed to

five-and-forty, he had come into blossom as quick as a pear-tree in a

mild Lent: at fifteen and a half James Bothwell——! She lifted up her

hands to end the sentence.

‘They say—under the breath I speak it—that of late he hath cast his

eyes above him. Ah, and how high above him, and how saucily, let others

tell your Majesty.’ Queen Mary’s hot ears needed no telling. ‘They say

it drove my lord of Arran into raving fits. Fie then, and out upon you,

Bothwell, if Majesty cannot be a hedge about a lovely woman! But so it

hath ever been with all that disordered blood of Hepburn: thieves all,

all thieving greatly. I need not go back far—and yet they tell the tale

of the first Hepburn of them, and of Queen Joan, widow of our first

James. What did those two at Dunbar together?’ At Dunbar—a Hepburn and a

dead Queen of Scots—alack! and what had done this living Queen with her

Hepburn there?

‘A pest upon them all!’ cries Reres; ‘for what did the son of that

Hepburn with a Queen? And the father of our James Bothwell, what did

he? For if James Bothwell’s father loved not your Majesty’s own mother,

and loved her not in vain—why should our man find himself a straitened

earl at this day? But so it is, they say, and so is like to be, that

every Hepburn of Bothwell dieth for love of a Queen of Scots. Foh, then!

and is our man to vary the tide of his race? Oh, madam, I could tell

your Majesty some deal of his prowess! Listen now: he loved my sister

Buccleuch, and me he loved. Greedy, greedy! Oh, there’s a many and many a

woman hath greeted sore for him to come back. But he never came, my Queen

of Honey, he never came! And let not her,’ she darkly said, ‘that hath

him now, think to keep him. No, no, the turtle hath mated too high. He is

like the king-eagle that sits lonely on his rock, and fears not look at

the sun: for why? he bideth the time when he may choose to fly upward.

Did he mate with my sister—a Hob to her Jill? Mated he with me? God knows

whom he will mate with or mate not. He has but to ask and have, I think.’

‘Pull the curtain, pull the curtain,’ says Queen Mary; ‘the light vexes

my eyes.’

‘And stings your fair cheek, my Honey-Queen,’ says wise Lady Reres, and

gives her a happy kiss.

So it is that a woman of experience, who carries her outlay gallantly,

approves herself to her junior, who wishes to carry her own as gallantly

as may be. But Mary Livingstone—Mistress Sempill, as they called her

now—mother already and hoping to be mother again, used to bounce out of

the bedchamber whenever Lady Reres entered it with her James Bothwell on

the tip of her quick tongue.

* * * * *

In the drowsy days of mid-June the Queen suffered and bare a son. First

to know it outside the castle-hive was brisk Sir James Melvill, who had

it from Mary Beaton before they fired the guns on the platform; and that

same night, by the soaring lights of the bonfires, rode out of Lothian

to carry the great news into England. No man saw Queen Mary for four

days, though the castle was filled to overflowing and the Earl of Huntly

walked all night about the courtyards, telling himself that for the sake

of mother and child the vile father must be kept alive. The King was

lodged in the castle by now; and one good reason for Huntly’s vigil may

have been that his Majesty and his people had swamped the house-room.

The Earls of Moray, Argyll and Mar were there; Atholl also and Crawfurd

(to name no more)—the two last linked with Huntly against two of the

first, and all alike watching Lord Moray for a sign. It seemed, now this

child was come, no man knew just what line he should take. So each looked

doubtfully at his neighbour, and an eye of each was linked to Moray’s

eyes of mystery. At the end of her four days’ grace the Queen sent for

her brothers first among men—the three black Stuarts, James, John, and

Robert; and two of them obeyed her.

In the dark, faint-smelling chamber, as they knelt about her bed, she

put her thin hand over the edge that they might kiss it, and seemed

touched that they should do it with such reverence. They could see her

fixed eyes—large now, and all black—upon them, seeking, wondering,

considering if their homage might be real. As if no answer was to be read

out of them, she sighed and turned away her head. She spoke faintly, in

the voice of a woman too tired to be disheartened. ‘You shall see your

Prince, my lords. Fetch me in the Prince.’

The child was brought in upon a cushion, a mouthing, pushing, red epitome

of our pretensions, with a blind pitiful face. Lady Mar and Lady Reres

held it between them, passed it elaborately under the review of the

lords; and as these looked upon it in the way men use, as if timid to

admit relationship with a thing so absurd—here is a James Stuart to be

taken, and that other left!—the Queen watched them with bitter relish,

turned to be a cynic now, for the emptiness of disenchantment was upon

her. To win this mock-reverence of theirs she had laboured and spent!

With this, O God, she had paid a price! Now let all go: for they looked

at her prize as at so much puling flesh, and had kissed her hand on the

same valuation. Pish! they would scheme and plot and lie over the son as

they had over the mother—and the only honest fellow in all Scotland was

Death, who had just made a fool of her! The child began to wail for its

nurse, and pricked her into a dry heat. For it is to be known that she

could not nurse her baby. ‘Take him, take him, good Reres. I cannot bear

the noise he makes, nor can ease him any. And you, my lords, shall come

again if you will. Come when the King is by.’ Here, as if suddenly urged

by some anxiety, she raised herself in the bed. They saw how white she

was, and how fearfully in earnest. ‘Fail me not, brothers, in this. I

desire you to be with me when the King is here.’

When they had both promised, they left her to sleep; but she could get

none for fretting and tossing about.

Mary Livingstone said, How could she sleep? She was ‘woeful that she

could not nurse her baby.’

Hereat the Queen took her by the arm and hurt her by her vehemence. ‘What

honesty is left in this world but Death?’ she croaked in her misery.

‘When your blood-brothers compass your downfall, and your husband is a

liar declared, and your own breasts play churl to your new-born child—oh,

oh, oh, I would open my arms to bonny leman Death!’

Mary Livingstone, blind with tears, hung over her, but could not speak.

The Queen drove her away, and had in the reminiscent, the caustic, the

fertile Reres.

At two in the afternoon of a later day a great company was admitted; and

the King, coming in last with an Englishman of his friends, stood for

the first time these long weeks by the Queen’s bed. She was prepared for

him, gave him her hand, but flinched evidently when he saluted it. The

Countess of Mar brought in the Prince, having settled this function of

honour with Reres as best she knew, and handed it about in the throng.

‘Give it to me, my Lady Mar,’ says the Queen in that dry, whispering

voice of hers. All the spring seemed gone out of her, so much she dragged

her words. The moment she had it in bed with her it began its feeble

wailing.

‘There, sir, there then! ’Tis your royal Mother has you!’ says Lady Mar;

and the Queen, bothered and sick of the business before she had begun

with it, grew deadly hot as she held it, rocking it about. The King

gazed solemnly at his offspring: he blinked, but no more foolishly than

any other man. The courtiers admired, happily not called upon to speak;

in fact, nobody spoke except the infant, and Lady Mar, who pleaded in

whispers. Nor did she whisper in vain, for presently the crying stopped,

the Queen held up the child in her arms and searched vaguely the King’s

face. I say, vaguely, because those who knew and loved her best could

not in the least understand that questioning look, nor connect it with

the words she spoke. She used no form of ceremony, neither sir’d nor

my-lorded him; but poring blankly in his face, ‘God hath given you and me

a son,’ she said.

The King was observed to blush. ‘And I thank God for him, madam,’ was

his answer, as he stooped to kiss the child. He achieved his honourable

purpose, though the Queen drew back as his face came near. Who did not

see that?

Again she said, ‘You have kissed your very son.’ There was a silence upon

all, and then she added in a voice aside—‘So much your son that I fear it

will be the worse for him hereafter.’ Coming at such a time, from such

a mouth, the words dropped upon that hushed assembly like an Oracle. No

Scot of them all durst say anything, nor could the French Ambassador find

phrases convenient. The King may or may not have heard her—he was slow.

But plain Sir William Stanley in his Lancashire voice cried out, ‘God

save your Majesties, and the Prince your son!’ She looked about to find

who spoke so heartily, and they told her the name and station of the man.

She observed him with interest, held up the child for him to see.

‘Look upon him, sir, for whom you pray so stoutly. This is the prince I

hope shall first unite two realms.’

‘Why, madam,’ says Sir William, ‘shall he succeed before your Majesty and

his father?’

He meant well, but did unhappily. The Queen gave back the child to Lady

Mar before she replied.

Then, ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think he shall, and for this reason. Because

his father has broken my heart.’

Not a soul dared to move. The King started—as one jerks in first

sleep—grew violently red, looked from face to face, found no friendliness

in any, and broke out desperately: ‘Is this your promise? Is this your

promise? To forget and forgive?’

She was as hard as flint. ‘I have forgiven,’ she said, ‘but I shall never

forget. Would that I could! But what if I had died that snowy night? Or

what if Fawdonsyde’s pistol had shot my babe in me?’

‘Madam,’ said the King, ‘these things are past.’

She threw herself back, face to the wall. ‘Ay, they are past. Well, let

them go.’ She shut her eyes resolutely until they were all gone out; and

when that, which seemed the only thing to be done, was well done, she

opened them again, with a new and sharp outlook upon affairs. She sent

one of the women for Des-Essars, another for the physician.

To this latter, who found her sitting up in bed with very bright

eyes, she said, ‘Master Physician, I feel stronger, having done all

the disagreeable duties which seemed expected of me. I wish for your

consideration of this matter: when can I rise from this bed?’

He gravely pondered. ‘Madam, in these heats I dare not advise you to be

moved. Nourishment and repose should work wonders for your Majesty, as

indeed you tell me that they have.’

‘At least, they would if I could get them,’ she replied.

‘All Scotland would give herself to provide them, madam, for your solace.’

‘They are the last things I should look for from Scotland,’ said the

Queen. ‘Nourishment and repose! I shall leave my bed to-morrow.’

‘Madam,’ said the doctor, ‘I have but done my duty.’

‘Ah, duty!’ she said. ‘And have I not done mine? Now, good sir, I intend

my pleasure.’

Dismissing him, she turned to Des-Essars, who stood erect by the door. ‘I

desire to wash my hands, Jean-Marie. Bring basin and towel.’

As he served her at the bed’s edge, she dipped and rinsed her

hands—carefully, formally, smiling to herself as at the good performance

of some secret rite. This might have been lustral water, Jordan’s, or

that sluggish flow of Lethe’s. She held up her wet hands before the lad’s

face. ‘Do you see any speck?’

‘Oh no, madam.’

‘Be very sure,’ she said; ‘look well again. These hands, mark you, have

been in Scotland four years.’ She rinsed again and wrung them of drops;

smelt them, and seemed pleased. ‘Roses they smell of now—not Scotland,’

she said. ‘So I am free of Scotland.’ She dried her hands and sent him

away with the service—‘But come back soon,’ she said; ‘I have more for

you to do.’

Des-Essars returned. ‘Wait you there,’ said she, ‘while I write a

letter.’ She wrote, pausing here and there, looking wisely for a word

or two—sometimes at the prim-faced youth, as if she could find one

there—scoring out, underlining, smiling, biting the pen. She ended—did

not re-read.

‘Bring taper and wax.’ She sealed her letter with her signet ring, and

held it out. ‘Take this incontinent to my lord of Bothwell. At Hermitage

in Liddesdale you shall find him. Be secret and sure. You have never

failed me yet, and I trust you more than most. I trusted you four years

ago, when you were a boy: now you are nearly a man, and shall prove to be

fully one if you do this errand faithfully. Ask for French Paris at your

first coming in—thus you will get at my lord privily. Now go, remembering

how much I entrust you with—my happiness, and hope, and honour.’ He

made to leave her, but she cried, ‘Stay. You love me, I think. Come

nearer—come very near. Nearer, nearer, foolish boy. What, are you so

timid? Now—stoop down and kiss me here.’ She touched her cheek, then

offered it.

He flushed up to the roots of his hair and had nothing to say; but he was

never one to refuse chances. She said, ‘You have kissed a Queen. Now go,

and earn your wages.’ He marched from the room, grown man, and took the

way in half an hour.

At his castle of Hermitage, deep in the hills, the Earl of Bothwell

frowned over his letter, and having read it many times, went on frowning

as he fingered it. ‘Now, if any faith might be given to a princess,’

he thought to himself, ‘those two should never be together again man

and wife. The pledge is here, the written word.’ He chuckled low in his

throat, then shrugged like an Italian. ‘The word of a prince, the bond

of a weathercock! Let the words go for words—but the heart that devised,

the head that spun, the hand that set them here—ah, a man may count on

them!’ He sprang to his feet, went to the window and looked out far into

the sunny brown hills. He shook his fist at the blue sky. ‘Oh, Bastard

of Scotland, James misbegotten of James! Oh, my man, if these words are

true, there shall come a grapple between you and me such as the men of

the dales know not—and a backthrow for one of us, man James, which shall

not be for me.’ Leaning out of the window, he roared into the court for

his men. ‘Ho, Hob Elliott! Ho, Jock Scott! Armstrong, Willy Pringle,

Paris, you French thief! Boot and saddle, you dogs of war—I take the

North road this night.’ He strode a turn or more about the room, shaking

his letter in his hand. ‘Better than a charter, better than a sasine,

bond above bonds!’

But he went to his wife’s bower. ‘My heart,’ saith he, ‘I must leave thee

this night—I am called to town. God knoweth the end of the adventure.

Read, my soul, read, and then advise.’

She read the French slowly, he behind her, his face almost touching her

cheek, prompting her with a word or two; but so eager as he was, he was

always in front, and had to come back for her, mastering his impatience.

At the end she sat quietly, looking at her hands. His excitement was not

to be borne.

‘Well, my girl, well?’

‘Go to her, my lord.’

‘You say that!’

She replied calmly, ‘No, it is she that says it—it is veiled in these

lines.’

He took her face between his hands. ‘But it is thou that sendest me—hey?

Be very sure now what thou art about. If I go, I go to the end. I stay

never when I ride out o’ nights until I have the cattle in byre.’

Her deep eyes met his without faltering. ‘Let her have of you what she

will. I have what I have.’

Now she had made him wary. He could not be sure what she was at—unless it

were one thing.

‘Dost thou send me,’ he asked her, ‘to be her bane? art thou so still and

steadfast a hater?’

‘I send you not at all,’ she answered. ‘It is she that calls. Remember

that against the time when you have need to remember it.’

He caught her up and kissed her repeatedly. ‘Sit thou still, Jeannie, and

watch,’ says he; ‘keep my house and stuff, and have a prayer on thy lips

for me. Never doubt me, my dear. Doubt all the world to come, but doubt

not me.’

She said, ‘I am very sure of you—both of what you will do, and what you

will not do.’

He kissed her again, and left her. She did not come out to see him ride

away.

* * * * *

Cantering on grass through the hot starry night, he called Des-Essars to

his side and questioned him closely about the letter. How did she write

it? What did she say? Who was by?

‘My lord,’ said Baptist, ‘I myself was by. No other at all. She bade me

take it straight to your lordship, surely and secretly. She wrote it

herself and sealed it with the ring on her forefinger. But she wrote

nothing until she had washed her hands.’

‘Why, my lad,’ says he, ‘were her hands so foul?’

‘My lord, they were the fairest, whitest hands in the world. But she

washed them many times, until, as she said, they smelt of roses, and not

of Scotland.’

‘The plot thickens, God strike me! What else, boy?’

‘Nothing more, my lord, save that she gave me the letter, as I have told

your lordship, and sent me directly away.’

CHAPTER X

EXTRACTS FROM THE DIURNALL OF THE MASTER OF SEMPILL

That sandy-haired, fresh-coloured, tall gentleman, John Sempill, Master

of Sempill, received his Mary Livingstone on her return from the Court

with more demonstration than was held seemly in Scotland; but they were

his own servants who saw him, and he was sincerely glad to have her back.

Not only the pattern housewife, but the ornament of his hearth, the most

buxom of the Maries, the highest-headed, greatest-hearted, the ruddiest

and the ripest—well might he say, as he fondled her, ‘My lammie, thou art

a salve for my sair een,’ and even more to the same effect.

‘By your favour, Master,’ quoth she, ‘you shall give over your pawing. I

am travel-weary and heart-weary, and you trouble me.’

‘Heart-weary, dear love!’ cried the Master. ‘And you so new back to your

bairn and your man!’

‘I am full fain of you, Master, and fine you know it. And our bairn

is the pride of my eyes. But I grieve over what I’ve left behind me;

my heart is woe for her. And indeed, if you must have it, I am near

famishing for want of bite and sup.’

‘Come away, woman, come away,’ said the Master, justly shocked. ‘There’s

the best pasty on the board that ever you set your bonny teeth to, and

a brew of malt unmatched in Renfrew. Or would you have the Canary? Or

happen the French wine is to your liking? Give a name to it, wife, for

it’s a’ your ain, ye ken.’ He hovered about her, anxious to serve, while

she pulled at her gauntlets.

‘The fiend is in the gloves, I think. There then, they’re off. Master,

I’ll take a cup of the red French wine. Maybe it will put heart into me.’

‘Take your victual, take your victual, my lady,’ says the Master, ‘I’ll

be back just now.’ He was his own cellarer, prudent man, and was apt to

excuse himself by saying that one lock was better than two.

The wine brought back the colour to her cheeks and loosened the joints of

her tongue. All he had now to do was to listen to her troubles: and he

did listen. It is likely that, had she been less charged with them, she

had been warier; but she was indeed surcharged. He soon understood that

it was the coming of the Earl of Bothwell that had caused her return.

‘Not that I would not have braved him out, you must know,

Master—bristling boar though he be, dangerous, boastful, glorious man.

It would take a dozen of Hepburns to scare me from my duty. But oh,’tis

herself that scares me now! So changed, so sore changed. You might lay it

to witchcraft and be no fool.’

‘’Twill be the lying-in, I doubt,’ says the sage Master. ‘You mind how

hardly my sister Menzies took her first. Ay, ’twill be that.’

Mary Livingstone would not have it. ‘There are many that say so, but I

am not one. No, no. I know very well where to look for it. Witchcraft it

is, night-spells. I mind the beginning o’t. Why, when I first saw her,

all dim as I was with my tears, her heart went out to me—held out to

me in her stretched hands. She took me to her sweet warm bosom, and I

could have swooned for joy of her, to be there again. “Oh, Livingstone,

my dear, my dear! Come back to me at last!” And so we weep and cling

together, and all’s as it had ever been. For you know very well we were

never long divided.’

‘Never long enough for me, Mary, in my courting time.’

‘She was expecting her wean from day to day, and I tell you she longed

for the hour. She was aye sewing his little clothes—embroidering

them—ciphers and crowns and the like. She worked him his guiding-strings

with her own hands, every stitch—gold knot-work, you never saw better.

And all her talk was of him.’

‘Likely, likely,’ murmured the Master.

‘She never wavered but it was to be a prince, for all that we teased

her—spoke of the Princess Mary that was coming—or should it not be

Princess Margaret? She smiled in her steady way, as she uses when she

feels wise, knowing what others cannot know. “No other Mary in Scotland,”

she said. “There are five of us now, and Scotland can hold no more. My

Prince Jamie must wed with a Margaret if he needs one.” No, she never

doubted, and you see she was right. Oh, she was right and well before the

magic got to work!

‘To me she used to talk, more nearly than to the others. Poor Fleming!

You’ll have heard of her sore disgrace—for favouring that lank Lethington

of hers. She is suspect, you must know, of seeking his recall, so hath no

privacy with our mistress. Beaton and Seton were never of such account;

so ’twas to me she spoke her secrets—over and over in the long still

forenoons, wondering and doubting and hoping, poor lamb. “Do you think

he’ll lippen to me, Livingstone?” she would say. “Did your own child

laugh to see his mother? I think ’twould break my heart,” she said, “if

he greeted in my arms.” She intended to be nurse to him herself: that I

will hold by before the Thronéd Three on Doomsday. Not a night went by

but, when I came to her in the morn, she bade me look, and try, and be

sure. I told her true, she could do it. And what hindered her, pray? What

drove away her milk? Eh, sir, I doubt I know too well.

‘It was Beaton brought in that old quean, that liggar-lady of Bothwell’s,

that lickorish, ramping Reres. Mother’s sister of Beaton’s she is, own

sister to the wise wife of Buccleuch, with witchcraft in the marrow of

her. What made Beaton do it? Let God tell you if He care. I think the

Lord God may well have covered His face to hear her tales. Such a tainted

history I never listened to—_pourriture de France!_ Oh, Master, I’ve

heard the Count of Anjou and his minions, and Madame Marguerite and all

hers at their wicked talk. I’ve heard Bothwell blaspheme high Heaven in

three tongues, and had the bloat Italian scald my ears with a single

word. But the Reres beats all. Good guide us, where hath she not made

herself snug? Whose purchase hath she not been? Man, I cannot tell you

the tales she told, nor one-quarter the shamefulness she dared to report.

And the soft lingering tongue of the woman! And how she lets her scabrous

words drop from her like butter from a hot spoon! My poor lamb was weary

of bed and body, I’ll allow. I’ll own the old limmer made her laugh;

she never could refuse a jest, as you know, however salted it might be.

No: she must listen and must laugh, while I could have stabbed the old

speckled wife. But my Queen Mary kept her at the bedside; and there they

were, she and this Reres, for ever kuttering and whispering together.

’Twas then, in my belief, the cast was made, and the wax moulded and the

spells set working.

‘For mark you this. The pains came on o’ the Wednesday morn, in the small

grey hours; and by nine o’clock the child was born alive. It wailed from

the first—never was such a fretful bairn; and she could hear him, and

grieved over it, and could not find rest when most she needed it. And

then—when they put it to her—she could not nurse it. Oh, Master, I could

have maimed my own breast to help her! She tried—sore, sore she tried;

she schooled herself to smile, though the sweat fairly bathed her; she

crooned to it, sang her French, her pretty stammering Scots; but all to

no purpose—no purpose at all. The child just labbered itself and her—my

bonny lamb—and got no meat.

‘Master, it fairly broke her spirit. She did not fret, she did not

lament, but lay just, and stared at the wall; and not a maid nor woman

among us could rouse her. The old Reres tried her sculduddery and

night-house talk, but did no better than we with our coaxing and prayers.

She had no heart, no care, no pride in the world; but just let all go,

and thrung herself face to the wall.

‘The lords came about her, and she showed them their prince: you could

see she scorned them on their knees, and herself to whom they knelt.

The craven King came in behind them, and she bade him kiss his own son.

She looked him over, with all the dry rage withering her face—you’ld

have said she had chalked herself!—and spoke him terrible words. “I may

forgive, but I shall never forget,” she said: and to an Englishman who

was with him—“He has broken my heart.” A King! He’s a spoiled toy in her

hands; and the like is all the glory of Scotland—a thing of no worth to

her. What hath changed her so but witchcraft? Ah, what else hath such a

wicked virtue? Soon after this she sent for Bothwell; and when he came

she was up and about—mad, mad, mad for her pastime; drinking of pleasure,

you may say, like a thirsty dog, that fairly bites the water. Oh, Master,

I am sick at the heart with all I’ve seen and heard!’

‘Let me comfort my Heart and Joy!’ said the really loving Master, and

applied himself to the marital privilege. Extracts from his _Diurnall_,

with which I have been favoured by a learned Pen, shall follow here—not

without their illustrative value in this narrative. I omit all reference

to the redding of the hay, the wool sales of each week, statistical

comparisons of the lands of Beltrees with other sheep-ground, Sandy

Graeme’s hen, the draining of Kelpie’s Moss, a famous hunting of rats on

Lammas Day, and other matters of a domestic or fleeting interest.

It is not without pain, be it added, that I allow the Master to display

himself naked, as it were, and far from ashamed. It will be seen—I regret

to say it—that he was not above trafficking his good wife’s heart, or

sending her to grass—in pastoral figure!—when the milk ran dry. Commerce

and the Affections! Well, he was not alone in Scotland; there were

belted Earls in the trade with him—canny chafferers in the market-place,

or (in Knox’s phrase) Flies at the Honeypot. He was no better than his

neighbours; and you will hear the conclusion of their whole matter, from

a shrewd observer, at the end of this book.

The first date in the _Diurnall_ of any moment to us is—

_July the 22._—Yester-een my dear wife Mary Livingstone,

blessed be God, returned to her home. Being comforted and

stayed, she had much to rehearse of Court doings. Great tales:

Forbes of Reres’ lady, a very gamester; the Earl of Both., and

others. Harsh entreaty of the K—— before many witnesses. _Mem.

Not to forget own advantage in such news_, nor the Earl of

Bedf(ord) and Mr. C(ecil).[4]

* * * * *

_July the 24._—I wrote out my proffer fair for the Earl of

Bed(ford). John Leng rode with it, a sad [discreet] person.

Wool sales this week ... Sandy Graeme: havers anent his hen....

M(ary) L(ivingstone) easier in mind, haler in body. Spake

freely of the Court. The Q—— sent a French youth for the Earl

of Both., and when he came saw him alone in her chamber. This

would be great news for Engl(and), but and if they would pay my

price. _Mem. To be stiff, not to abate. Æquam memento rebus in

arduis servare mentem._

* * * * *

_July the 27._— ... M. L(ivingstone) saith that her mate

Fl(eming) would give _all lawful things_ to have back the

Sec(retary), _even to her allegiance as a subject_; so

intemperate is the passion of love in women. Saith that the

Earl of Both. desires the K—— to recall Mr. A(rchibald)

D(ouglas) in order that he may betray my Lo. of M(oray) to

the Q——. Maybe the K—— would do it, if he had enough credit

with her. The K—— hates my lord of Both. as mortally as ever

he did the late Italian, _but not with any more reason_; at

least M. L(ivingstone) will not admit any. Pressed her, but as

yet fruitlessly. She is clear that there will be open strife

between the Earls of Both. and Mo(ray): but the darker man hath

a sure hold on himself and his friends. _Mem. To write all this

fairly to-morrow in the new Spanish cipher. Mem. 2. She saith

that the Earl of H(untly) is now Chanc(ellor) and a declared

lover of the Q——. Harmless, because the Q—— hath little to give

but scorn to them that openly love her._

* * * * *

_August the 3._—Letter from my lord of Bed(ford). His gross

English manners. He asks roundly what price is demanded. This

is shameful dealing—greatly offended. John Leng saw my lord

personally in Berw(ick), and was asked to devise secret means

to speak with me. Most certain that he hath writ to the Q——

of Eng(land). I shall tell him _nothing_ as yet, and _write

but round about_.... News this day that the Q—— hath gone to

Alloa; _but mark in what manner_. The K—— was invited; and

offered himself to ride with her. _Refused._ Whereupon he set

out alone, only his English with him; and the Q—— embarked with

the lord of Both. in a little ship from Newhaven. Our informant

saith not who accompanied them, save that they were famous

_robbers and pirates_. Suspect Ormiston and Hay of Tala, known

to me for desperate men. M(ary) S(eton) went along with her.

Lady Re(res) took the Pr(ince). _Mem. M. L(ivingstone) should

go to Alloa, but it likes her not to leave her child. Her

shape too.... Mem. 2. To write, very shortly and finally, into

Eng(land)._

* * * * *

_August the 7._—News this day from M. Fl(eming). Sir James

Mel(vill) gave the K—— a cocker spaniel of his own rearing, and

the K—— boasting of this (for they are rare who show him any

kindness in these days), it came to the Q——’s ears. Fl(eming)

writeth that she rated Sir James sharply for this in the

gallery at Alloa, saying, ‘I cannot trust one that loves them

that I love not.’ Sir James all pothered to reply; rare for

him. She flung away before the words were ready, and took my

lord of Both(well’s) arm....

The Earl of Mor(ton) writeth me from Northumberland with a fat

buck from Chillingham. Hopeth I will stand his friend for the

sake of my father, whom (saith he) he entirely loves. His heart

is woe for Scotland, and any news which may help him thither

he will be thankful of. _Mem. To write him civilly my thanks,

and tell him something, but not near all. Enough to let him see

that I know more...._

Sandy Graeme very resolute upon the hen; spake insolently to me

this day. He threatens to pursue....

* * * * *

_August the 15._—The K——, we hear, flew into a great passion

of late, and threatened to have the life out of my Lord of

Mor(ay)—but not in my lord’s hearing. He is vexed to death that

the Q—— consorts with those two earls, his chief enemies (as he

thinks): I mean Both. and Mor(ay). The Q—— reported his threat

to her brother; and now the K—— is gone away, supposed to

Dunfermline; but he kept it very secret. The Q—— is to hunt the

deer in Meggatdale, we learn. I have at last prevailed upon M.

L(ivingstone) to seek the Court. She goes, but not willingly.

In my letter of this day to Eng(land) I plainly said that the

intelligence I had was worthy the Q—— of Eng(land’s) study.

‘Let her write soon,’I said, ‘or——’ and so left it. _Quos ego

...!_ a powerful construction, _aposiopesis_ hight. _Mem. To

see that John Leng renders just accounts of his spending on my

business._

* * * * *

_August the 17._—My dear wife set out this day for the Court

at Stirling. Grievous charges of travel cheerfully borne by

me. She hath promised to write fully. Recommended her to have

circumspect dealing with my lord of Bothw., to be complaisant

_without laxity of principle_. ’Tis plain courtesy to salute

the Rising Sun, though savouring of idolatry _if carried to

wicked lengths_. She high-headed as ever....

A letter from the Earl of Mor(ton), which she desired to read

with me before she departed, wondering that he should honour

me. Lucky that the bay horse would not stand.... He writeth

plainly that he desires my service to win him home from his

exile: asketh me guiding lights, _how the land lies_, etc.

Promises much, but more to be regarded is his power to do harm.

Of all lords in this realm he hath the longest and deepest

memory. But whom can he hate of mine? Whom of any other body’s

but of _One_, and that one hated sorest of all men? Very rich

also is he, and covetous to have more. _Mem. To sleep upon the

letter I shall write him before returning his messenger._ He

saith that A. D(ouglas) is full of business of all sorts. I

fear, a shameful dealer.

* * * * *

_August the 23._—Letter from my wife, the first she hath writ;

full of juicy meat. The Q—— took the K—— into favour again

and suffered his company in Meggatdale. She fears what he may

do against her if he is alone, or with his father. The lords

of Bothw., Mor(ay), and Ma(r) present there; and M. S(eton)

and a few more. Cramalt would not hold near so many. Some lay

at Henderland, some with Scott of Tushielaw. Scott of Harden

offered and was refused—supposed for fear of the Douglas house

by-north of him. Afterwards they went to Traq(uair). The K——,

being disguised in drink, held monstrous open talk of the Q——

there, calling her a brood mare of his, and other such filthy

boasting. Sharply rebuked by my lord Both., he had no reply

to make. Thus it is with him, I see. The least favour shown,

it flieth to his head. At heart he is a very craven. _He is a

rogue in grain...._

News that Ker of Cessford hath slain the Abbot of Kelso. Met

on the bridge, each with a company, and had words; from words

fell to blows. _Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito._

True: but how if life be threatened? Is it not wiser _to bend

to the gale_? And where doth this Evil One lie, and how to be

discerned by simple man? Alas! the times are lawless! _Mem.

John Leng not home from Ber(wick). He may have with him that

which would make him worth the robbery. To enquire for him at

the post._

... Sandy Graeme: his hen a rankling thorn, whereof, it seems,

I must die daily....

* * * * *

_August the 28._—I learn that M. Fl(eming) hath won her suit.

The Earl of Ath(oll) wrought for her, and my lord of Mor(ay)

did not gainsay. Therefore Mr. S(ecretary) cometh back. The

Q——, it is said, pleaded with my lord of Bothw. to do the man

no harm—_very meekly, as a wife with her husband_. So it was

done, and he received at Sir W. Betts’ house in Stirling,

after dinner. Present, the Q——, Lady Ma(r), Earls of Ath(oll),

Mor(ay), and Bothw. Leth(ington) went down on his two knees,

they say, wept, kissed hands. Then, when he was on his feet

again, the Q—— took him by the one hand and gave her other to

the lords in turn. My lord of Bothw. could not refuse her.

Leth(ington) as proud as a cock, saith my dear wife, who saw

him afterwards at the _coucher_ by Fl(eming’s) side. I suppose

she will have him now. He is restored to all his offices and

is sent away to Edinburgh, whither the Q—— must go soon to

oversee her revenues. She will lodge in the Chequer House, I

hear. _Now, why doth she so?_ They establish the Pr(ince) at

Stirling: Lady Re(res) to be Mistress of his household, an evil

choice. My wife hateth her so sore she will not write her name,

lest, as she saith, the pen should stink. Scandalous doings at

Stirling abound. The Q—— in a short kirtle, loose hair, dancing

about the Cross with young men and maids: not possible to be

restrained in anything she is conceited of. _Mem. To consider

closely about the Chequer House._ I mind that one Master

Chalmers, a philosophic doubter of mysteries, is neighbour unto

it. A friend of my lord of Bothw. in old times. They say, his

pædagogue. _Sed quære...._

John Leng returned Monday last. I fear little to be done with

Engl(and). Mr. C(ecil), most indurate, crafty man, must needs

‘see the goods before he can appraise them.’ A likely profit!

_Mem. To consider of the Earl of Mor(ton), if he knoweth of

Leth(ington) in new favour?_ A good stroke for him, well

worth some outlay. _But the charge of a messenger for such a

thing?..._

* * * * *

_September the 24._—Strong matter from my wife—the

strongest—writ from Edinburgh. There came in a letter from

the K——’s father, my lord of Len(nox), long a stranger to the

Court (and with good reason of his own), which put the Q—— in

a flutter. She was taken ill and kept her bed. My wife saw

her. This lord, it seems, wrote to her Majesty that he could

no longer answer for the mind of the K—— his son; that _it

was not in his power_ to stay the K—— _from a voyage abroad_.

Much more; but this the first. The Q—— wept and tossed herself

about. _Note this well_: the Earl of Bothw. was at Hermitage in

Liddesdale.

But of this, and its wild results, I prefer my own relation. No more as

yet of the Master.

[4] The Earl of Bedford was English Commissioner at Berwick, a ready

purchaser from scandal-mongers. Mr. C. is, of course, the famous English

Secretary.

CHAPTER XI

ARMIDA DOUBTFUL IN THE GARDEN

To the Chequer House at Edinburgh belonged a pleasant garden of yew

alleys, grass walks, nut-trees, and bowers cut out of box. You could pace

the round of it by the limiting wall, keeping on turf all the way, and

see the sky-line broken by the red gables and spires of the little clean

city, being nevertheless within boskage so generous that no man’s window

could spy upon you. Thus it was that orderly Mr. David Chalmers, in his

decent furred robe and skull-cap, was able to tread his own plot, his

hands coupled behind his back, and to meditate upon Philosophy, Gnomic

Poetry, and Moral Emblems, undisturbed by the wafts of song, rustling of

maids’ farthingales, flying feet of pages, or sound of kisses refused

or snatched, which those neighbour green recesses witnessed and kept to

themselves. In the Chequer Garden, this mellow end of September, the

Court took solace while the state revenues were under review, the Queen’s

custom being to work in the garden-room, a long covered loggia edging the

slopes of grass, from nine to eleven in the forenoon, then to walk for an

hour, and then to dine. Holyrood was wide, Holyrood was near, Holyrood

stood empty: this was a whim of hers—no more.

Great days were these for Mr. Secretary Lethington: to feel the sun of

royal favour genially warm upon his back once more; to seek (and surely

find) assurance of good fortune in the brown eyes of the sweetest, most

modest, gentlest-hearted lady in Scotland. Did he not owe everything

to Mary Fleming? And was she not a sweet creditor? And next to her he

stood indebted to the weather. The man was sensitive to climate, and,

like all sensitive men, loved autumn best. ‘This slope sun, which will

neither scorch nor refuse his clemency, dearest lady,’ he said; ‘these

milky skies, which never seem to lose the freshness of dawn; the very

gentle death—most merciful!—which each Day suffers; the balm of Night’s

dipped fingers shed upon our brows: are not these things an augury (O my

true love!) of even life for you and me? Even life, a peaceful ending of

our days, with the angry solstice turned, the dry heat, the bared wrath

of the sun far from us! Indeed, indeed, I do believe it.’ Mary Fleming,

looking steadfastly into the pale sky, would be too sure of herself to

feel abashed by his fervour. ‘And I, sir,’ she would answer, ‘pray for it

daily.’

Mr. Secretary, at such times as these, felt purified, ennobled, a clean

man. Working with the Queen through mornings of golden mist and veiled

heat, he did his very best in her service, and laboured to respond to

all her moods with that alacrity, clear sight, and good-humour which he

saw very well his present state required. He was one of those men who,

like beasts of chase, take colour from their surroundings. If you stroke

your dormouse his coat will answer; he will burnish to a foxy brightness

under the hand. And so with Mr. Secretary. His lady-love was kind, his

sovereign trusted him again: he shone under such favour, dared to be in

charity with all men, and was most worthy of trust. He thought little

of bygone stresses, of the late months when he had lurked, gnawing his

cheek, in the hills of the west; it was impossible for the like of him

to believe that he had ever been otherwise than now he was. He fancied

himself a book opened at a clean page, and never turned back to regard

earlier chapters, blotted and ugly. Forward, rather, looked he—upon many

fair folios of untouched vellum. ‘Upon these we will print in golden

types, my heart, the _gestes_ of the twin-flight to the stars of William

Maitland of Lethington and Mary Fleming, his spouse: _deux cors, ung

coer!_’ And she, loving soul, believed the man.

The Queen, since that summer’s day when, with ritual, she had washed

her hands in rose-water, had known many moods. Some were of dangerous

sweetness, as of treading a brink hand in hand; some of full joy in air

and weather, as when Lord Bothwell and his men steered her across the

dancing sea, and the little ship, plunging in blue waters, tossed up the

spray to kiss her cheeks, or sting unmannerly her happy eyes. There had

been days also of high revelry at Stirling—dancings, hawkings, romping

games, disguises; days of bravado, where Memory was dared to do her

worst. All of these, as Mary Livingstone told her husband, with Lord

Bothwell at her side and the King out of mind. Some days she had had of

doubtful questioning, of heart-probing, drawing-back; a sense (to be

nursed) of nothing yet lost, of all being yet well; and others—but then

she had been quite alone—when, upon her knees, with bent-down head and

hands crossed over the breast, she had whispered to herself the words of

fate: ‘Behold one stronger than I, who, coming, shall overshadow me. Take

me, lord, take me, take me, such as I am.’ After such times as these she

would walk among her women with a rapt, pure face, her soul sitting in

her eyes, or half-risen, quivering there, trembling in strength, sensing

the air, beating, ready to fly. Then, as they looked at her wondering,

she would sit with them and talk gently, in a low kind voice, about their

affairs; and Mary Livingstone, who knew her at her best when she was

quick and masterful, feared most for her then; and Mary Fleming, who had

but one thought in her heart, took courage—and at some such time pleaded

for, and won back, her banished lover.

So it was with her during all that summer and early autumn, while the

Master of Sempill (healthy-faced man) was filling his _Diurnall_, and

doing his best to fill his pocket, by emptying his wife of confidences

and betraying her afterwards. But when she came back from Stirling,

enriched in divers ways, she had to find that the graceless King had not

lost his power of the spur. By degrees and degrees dark rumours gathered

about her, of which he was the nucleus. She heard of his quarrelling at

Dunfermline, of a night-fray at Cameron Brig in which he was suspected

of a share; of his man Standen with a wounded head, and the King swearing

he would burn the doer of it out of house and jacket. Now, who had

wounded Standen’s head? Nobody could tell her.

Then there were threats sent about town and country by craped messengers:

‘The Earl of Moray should beware how he rides abroad’; or ‘Let the Lord

of Bothwell look to the inmates of his house’—and so forth. Worse than

these were the hints thrown out to Du Croc, the French Ambassador—hints

which pointed at the safety of the prince her son, and at the King as the

author of them. Flying words had been caught in galleries and corridors;

somebody saw the white face of Forrest, his chamber-child, frozen by

terror into silence. They had him in among them, and twisted his arm: he

would not deny, he would not affirm, but wept copiously and moaned for

his mother in Winchester. Mysteries and mischiefs were all about her; and

everything she could gather insisted on one fact—that the King intended

action of his own oversea or in England—she could not tell which.

Loathing the task as much as the taskmaster, she looked her affairs in

the face. For one thing, they gave her back a distorted image of her

own face. She had washed her hands, she had been happy, thought herself

free,—why, why, what a purblind fool! She had been playing the May Day

queen, like any chimney-sweeper’s wench, in a torn petticoat. A rent

panoply to cover her, a mantle-royal full of old clouts! The discovery

threw her into despair: ‘Here am I, Mary of France and Scotland, a

crowned woman—bankrupt, at the mercy of a sot to whom I lent my honour

twice!’ Under the bite and rankle of this thought, grown fearfully

eager, she looked about all ways for escape. Divorce! No, no, that

would bastardise her son. The strong hand, then! Let her lay hands upon

the traitor to her throne and bed. There was ample proof against him;

the Riccio plot had been enough by itself—but what stayed her was the

question, whose hands should she set at him? Why, who was there in all

Scotland at this hour who would show him any mercy, once he had him?

She could not answer that; there was nobody. No. She stood—she was sure

of it—between the King and his murder. ‘But for me,’ she said bitterly,

‘but for me, whom he has dipped in shame, he is a dead man.’ For a long

time she stood pondering this, a bleak smile on her lips, and one finger

touching her breast.

So might she remain standing; but she could not have him slain. Not

though he had sought to betray her, spurned her worth, made her a mock;

not though he would steal her child, tamper with her enemies, sell her

for a price. All this was true, and more. She grew scarlet to admit to

herself that more was true. She was his wedded wife, at his beck and

call: and now she loved a Man; and love (as always) made her pure virgin.

The shame of the truth flooded her with colour.—But no! She stood between

the King and his murderers. If he persisted in his misdeeds, she had

but to stand aside and they would kill him. Well, _she could not stand

aside_; therefore she must coax him back to decency—by the arts of women.

Hateful necessity! And yet if you had seen her at her window as she

faced it, looking askance at the green sky, you would have thought her

just a love-sick girl spying for her lover: for that was her wont, to

smile, and peer, and turn her pretty head; pick with her fingers at the

pleats of her gown, and be most winning when at the verge of loss. And

even when she had decided upon bargaining with the man she abhorred, she

did not abhor the act. It would be a delicate exercise of the wits—most

delicate. For observe this well, you who desire to know her: although she

stood between the man and his murder, _while she stood there_ she was

absolutely at his mercy. He could do what he chose with her. Bargaining!

He could drive the most terrible bargain. If she decided that he must not

be killed, she must needs deal tenderly with him, and fib and cheat to

save him. For she knew very well that whatever compunction she had, he

would have none. In a word, she must prepare to save him alive, and pay

him dearly for the hateful privilege.

Very well. These conclusions worked out, she deliberately sent word that

she would see him, and he came to her (as she had foreseen) in his worst

mood—the hectoring mood which knew her extremity and built upon it.

* * * * *

He had grown blotched, fatter in the face. His lower lip hung down;

there were creases underneath his angry eyes. Excess of all sorts, but

mostly of liquor, was responsible for the thickening of what had never

been fine, and made him his own parody. He still held up his head, still

straddled his legs and stuck out his elbows; he still had the arrogant

way with him, and still appeared a fool when he was most in danger of

becoming a man. He knew that his mere neighbourhood made her sick, and

what reason she had—cheapened by him as she had been, held for a thing

of nought, driven to feel herself vile. Knowing all this, and resenting

in her her knowledge of his degradation, he was blusterously sulky; but

knowing further that she had sent for him because she was afraid of what

he might do against her, he was ready to bully her. If there is one baser

than he who takes heart to do wrong from his wife’s tenderness, it is,

I suppose, the man who grows rich upon her dishonour. There is mighty

little to choose.

After a constrained greeting and uncomfortable pause, she began the

struggle. Directly she touched upon the rumours, whose flying ends she

had caught, he flamed out, wagging his finger at her as if she had been

taken red-handed in some misdeed. Ah, if she considered that he could be

taken up and cast aside, lifted, carried about like a girl’s plaything,

it was a thing his honour could not brook. Let her reflect upon that. He

knew very well what his own position was—how near he stood to the two

thrones, how his child’s birth made his title stronger. He had had to

think for himself what he should do—with his friends, since those who

should naturally be about him chose to keep away, or could not dare be

near him. He had plans, thoughts, projects; had not made up his mind: but

let her take notice that he was about it. It was not to be thought that a

prince of any spirit could suffer as he suffered now.

‘Ah, sir,’ she said here, putting up a hand, ‘and think you not whether

I have suffered, or whether I suffer now?’

He glared at her.

‘You have friends, madam, a sufficiency—ah, a redundancy, in whose

commerce I cannot see you engage without suffering. You keep them from

me—perhaps wisely. There is my lord of Moray: with him I might have a

reckoning. But no! You hide him in your gown.’

‘How availed my gown to David?’ She was stung into this.

He squared his shoulders. ‘The man paid dearly for what he had. He should

have counted the cost. So should others count. Let my lord of Bothwell

figure out his bill.’

‘No more of that, my lord,’ she cried in a rage. ‘You little know what my

gown hides, if not that it shelters yourself. Do you know, sir, from what

I am screening you?’

‘You screen me, madam! You! But I cannot suffer it. It is to abase me.

I cannot suffer it. But it’s all of a piece—I am shortened every way.

My friends are warned off me—my father a suspect—my means of living

straitened—I have no money, no credit. I, the King-Consort, the father

of the Prince! Oh, fie, madam, this is a scandal and crying shame. Where

are my rights—where is one of them? Where is my right to be by your side?

Where are my rights of a husband?’

‘They are where you put them—and as you have made them.’

He began to storm; but as she met every blast with the same words, he

took another course. ‘A truce,’ he said, ‘madam, to your taunts. These

may be my last words to you, or the first of many happier speeches. The

past is past and over. I have admitted the excesses of my youth and

temper; you have condoned them, or so professed. Now, madam, I say this:

You have sent for me—here I am. If you suffer me, I stay, and use you as

a loving man his wife. But if you will not, I go; and maybe you see me

not again.’

She fairly cowered at the choice. She covered her ears. ‘Ah, no, no! Ah,

but that is not possible!’ Why, was she to break her written promise,

make foul again her washen hands? She sat astare, beaten down and dumb;

and the words of her vow came up, as it were, fiery out of the floor, and

smote her in the face like a hot breath.

But his courage rose at the glimpse of so much power in his hands. Not

possible, said she. Ah, but he said it was essential. He looked at her,

white and extended there; he felt and exulted in his strength. And then

it came surging into his mind that she must be his price to stay, and

that either to get her again or to lose her he would drown Scotland in

blood.

There was a wild-beating pause, in the which she sat, catching at the

edge of the coffer, her face turned to the window. He could see her

strained throat, her short-rising breast, and knew that he could prevail.

For once in his foolish life he took the straight road to what he craved;

for he shook his hair back, strode directly to her, took her up and

caught her round the arms. So she was all a prisoner. ‘Aha, my wood-bird,

aha! Now, now I have you in a net. Not again do you escape.’ He began

to kiss her face; there was no escape indeed. Abashed, overwhelmed,

half-swooning, she gave up; and so made her bargain. To save him from

murder she murdered her own honour. So she would put it to herself. But

let us, for our part, record it in her honour.

* * * * *

If you will reason out his nature—which is that of the fed mule—you will

find his behaviour next day in the Council of a piece with all the rest.

Having been made master by her nobility, he supposed himself master by

the grace of God given to man. When he marched into the Council Chamber

and took her proffered hand, his pride swelled up into his eyes, and

made him see thickly. Ho! now for the manly part. Here, in the midst of

his enemies—before this black Moray, this dark-smiling Huntly, this lean

thief Lethington—here, too, he would play the man.

Knowing him pledged to her, the Queen was gentle. ‘I beseech you, my

lord,’ she said, ‘if you have any grief against me—as now I think you

have not—or any cause which moves you to quit this realm (which I cannot

suppose), declare it before these lords. If I have denied you any right,

either of access to the prince our son, or any other right, pray you

rehearse it now.’

He would not speak out. He pursed his lips, frowned, raised his eyebrows,

tapped his heel on the floor. He said that he must be advised. He did

not see any of his friends here, with whom he must consult. There were

many things to consider, many calls upon him—from here, from there, from

elsewhere. He could not speak hastily, he said, or give pledges.

Blankly dismayed, she began: ‘But, my good lord, your promise to me——’

really forgetting for that moment what his promises were worth. There,

however, she stopped—the words seemed to choke her.

Lethington rose and addressed him, speaking in French, and good French.

This was a courtesy to the Queen, one of those trifling, terrible things

which cost all Scotland dear. For the King blushed to the roots of his

hair, and there was no hiding blushes upon that blond face. He tried to

answer in English; but a look of comical dismay in Lethington warned him

that he had blundered the sense. He broke off short—furious, hot all

over, blind with mortification, and mad.

‘You speak too much French for me, Mr. Secretary. My Scots, I doubt,

would not be to your liking, either of phrase or deed.’ His lip shook—he

was nearly sobbing. ‘Madam,’ he cried out, ‘madam, adieu. You will not

see my face for many days.’ He lifted that hot, passionate, boy’s face.

‘Gentlemen, adieu.’

Turning on his heel he walked directly from the room and pulled-to

the door after him. The Queen turned faint and had to be helped. They

fetched in women to see to her; and the Council broke up, with a common

intelligence passed silently from man to man.

Mary Livingstone, half the night through, heard her miserable wail.

‘Thrice a traitor, who has taught treachery to me! Thrice a traitor—and

myself a lying woman!’ She heard her talking to herself—pattering the

words like a mad-woman. ‘I must do it—I must do it—no sleep for me until

I do it. All, all, all—nothing hid. Things shall go as they must. But he

will never believe in me again—and oh! he will be right.’

The very next day she sent for the Earl of Bothwell, who was at

Hermitage; and, when it was time, awaited him in that shady garden of

the Chequer House—she alone in the mirk of evening. Whenas she heard

his quick tread upon the grass she shivered a little and drew her hood

close about her face; so that all he could see—and that darkly—was her

tall figure, the thin white wrist and the hand holding the hood about

her chin. Prepared for any flight of her mind, grown so much the less

ceremonious as he was the more familiar, he saluted her with exaggerated

courtliness; the plumes of his hat brushed the grass as he swept them

round him. She did not move or speak. He looked for her eyes, but could

not see them.

‘Madam, I am here. Always, in all places, at the service of my Sovereign.’

‘Hush!’ she said: ‘not so loud. I have to speak with you upon an urgent

affair. I can hardly bring myself to do it—and yet—I must.’

‘Madam, I fear that you suffer. Why should you speak?’

‘Because I must. You called me your Sovereign.’

‘And so, madam, you are, and shall be.’

‘That is why I choose to speak.’ She took a long deep breath. ‘The King

has been here,’ she said; ‘has been here and is gone.’

He replied nothing, but watched her swaying outline. There would be more

to come.

‘I had reason to fear what he might contrive against my peace—against my

crown, and my son. Many things I feared. He came here because I sent for

him. And I saw him.’

No help came from the watcher. Still he could not see her face, hard as

he might look for it. She drove herself to her work.

‘He required of me certain assurances, otherwise, he said, he would leave

the kingdom. I dared not allow him to depart, for I knew that he would

work against me in England or oversea. Moreover, leaving me, his life

would be in instant danger. He did not know that; therefore what he

proposed was dangerous to himself and to me. Do you understand? I feared

that he would steal my son and take him to England.’

Bothwell said, ‘I understand your fears.’

‘Therefore,’ said she, ‘I urged him to remain. This he promised to do’—it

was fine to see how her voice grew clear to the attack—‘if I would yield

him that which I had purposed never to give him again. Do you understand

me now?’ She almost wailed the question.

He hastened to help her. ‘Yes, yes, madam. I beg you to say no more.’

But she threw back her hood, and showed him her tense white face. ‘I

shall say all. No man shall hinder me. He had once betrayed me and held

me up to the scorn of all women, and I promised you it should never be

again. Yet it was—the realm, my son, were in danger—and—oh, sir, he has

betrayed me now beyond repair! He has had all of me, and now is gone

I know not where—proud of his lies, laughing at my folly.’ A terrible

shuddering beset her—terrible to hear.

‘Oh, madam,’ said Lord Bothwell, ‘let him laugh while he can. What else

hath a fool but his laughter?’

She stretched out her hands wide, and he drew nearer.

‘And for me, Bothwell? What is left for me?’

‘Madam,’ he said earnestly, ‘all is left. All which that blasphemer was

not fit to give, since he was not fit to receive. Worship is left you,

service of true men.’

She grew very serious. He could see her eyes now; all black.

‘Not from you, Bothwell. Never more from you, since I have lied.’

He took a step forward. ‘More from me, madam (if you care to have it),

than perhaps is fitting from a subject; and yet less than perhaps may be

reasonable from a man.’

‘No, no,’—she shook her head,—‘I have lied. Not from you now.’

He laughed aloud. ‘Madam, beseech you see what I see. A noble lady,

justly enraged, who yet can stoop to comfort her subject—who can humble

herself to prove her kindness. Is that not worshipful? Is not that

serviceworthy? Oh, most glorious humility! Oh, proudest pride of all!

That Queen Mary should make confession to James Hepburn! Why, Heaven

above us, madam, for what do you take me: a block of stone—a wooden stub?

Madam, Mistress, Queen—I am beaten to your feet—I am water——’ He heard

her sob, saw that she had covered her face with her hands: he ran towards

her. God of Gods, what was this? ‘Have I offended your Majesty? Am I so

unhappy?’