Ormiston, now in Edinburgh, to his brother the Black Laird. Both worthies
had been, as we know, with Bothwell on the night of Kirk o’ Field. Hob
wrote that Kirkcaldy of Grange had met him after sermon in a company of
people, taxed him with the King’s murder and threatened him with arrest
‘in the Queen’s name and for her honour.’ He went in fear, did Hob;
his life was in it. Now, might he not clear himself? Let his lordship
of Bothwell be sounded upon that, who knew that he was as guiltless of
that blood as his lordship’s self. It would be black injustice that an
innocent Hob should suffer while a blood-guttered Archie went scot-free,
and a crowning indignity that he should perish under the actual guilty
hands. For well he knew that my L—d of M——n stood behind Grange.
Ormiston, with this crying letter in hand, sought out his master, and
found him on the terrace overlooking the sea, walking up and down with
the Queen and Lord Huntly. As he approached he saw her Majesty cover her
mouth and strangle a yawn at birth.
Bothwell read the letter through, and handed it to the Queen. She also
read it hastily. ‘Innocent!’ she mocked, with a curling, sulky lip, ‘the
innocent Hob—a good word! But this letter concerns you, Huntly, more than
me.’
In turn the dark young lord read it. He was much longer at it,
slower-witted; and before he was half-way through for the second time the
Queen was out of patience.
‘Well! well! What do you make of it, you who know the very truth and do
not choose to declare it? Are our friends to be cleared, or will you see
them all butchered for the Douglases’ sake?’
He did not answer for a while, but looked far oversea with those
hawk-eyes of his, which seemed able to rend the garniture of Heaven and
descry the veiled secrets of God. When he turned his face towards her it
was a far nobler than the soured face he looked upon.
‘But to clear them, madam—Hob and the like of Hob—am I to betray them
that trusted me?’
She gave a thring of the shoulder, a fierce flash of her eye, and turned
shortly, and went away by herself. There was a hot wrangle between the
three men afterwards—in which Bothwell did not scruple to curse his
brother-in-law for ‘meddling in what concerned him not,’ or (if he must
meddle) for not meddling well[9]; but Huntly could not be moved.
Things like these drove Bothwell into action—to go through with his
business, possess himself of Edinburgh and the Prince, and marry the
Queen? Why not? He was free, he had her in the crook of his arm; he had
but to go up to blow away the fog of dissidence: _afflavit ventus_, etc.!
He urged her Majesty, lectured Lethington, conferred with Huntly, and got
agreement, more or less. Well then, advance banners, and let the wind
blow!
At the first tidings of the Queen’s approach, the Earl of Morton and his
belongings—his Archie Douglas, his Captain Cullen, his Grange—departed
the city and repaired to Stirling. This gave fair promise; and even the
greeting she got when, pacing matronly by Bothwell’s side, surrounded by
a live hedge of Bothwell’s spears, she entered the gates and went down
to Holyrood, was so far good that it was orderly. No salutations, no
waving of bonnets; but close observation, a great concourse in a great
quiet. She did not like that, though Bothwell took no notice. He had not
expected to be welcome; and besides, he had other things to think of.
I extract the following from Des-Essars:—
‘The Queen had a way of touching what she was pleased with. She was like
a child in that, had eyes in her fingers, could not keep her hands away,
never had been able. To stroke, fondle, kiss, was as natural to her as
to laugh aloud when she was pleased, or to speak urgently through tears
when she was eager. I remember that, as we rode that day into the suburb
of Edinburgh, she, being tired (for the way had been hot and long), put
her hand on my shoulder; and that my lord looked furiously; and that she
either could not, or would not see him. I had had reason only lately to
suspect him of jealousy, though she as yet had never had any. But for
this very innocent act of hers he rated her without stint or decorum when
we were at Holyroodhouse; and as for me, I may say candidly that I walked
with death as my shadow, and never lay down in my bed expecting to get
out of it on the morrow.
‘The effect of his unreason upon her, when she could be brought to
believe in it, was of the unhappiest. It lay not in her nobility to
subserve ignoble suspicions. Our intercourse, far from ceasing out of
deference to him, was therefore made secret, and what was wholly innocent
stood vested in the garb of a dear-bought sin—an added zest which she
had been much better without. I was removed from all direct service of
her—for he saw to that; but she found means of communicating with me
every day; waited for me at windows, followed me with her eyes, had
little speedy, foolish signals of her own—a finger in her mouth, a hand
to her side, her bosom touched, her head held askew, her head hung, a
smile let to flutter—all of which were to be so much intelligence between
us. She excelled in work of the kind, was boundlessly fertile, though I
was a sad bungler. But, God forgive me! I soon learned in that blissful
school, and became, I believe, something of a master.
‘I was not the only man of whom he was jealous, by any means. There was
my Lord Livingstone, a free-living, easy man of advanced age, who had
been accustomed to fondle her Majesty as his own daughter, and saw no
reason to desist, being given none by herself. But one day my lord came
in and found him with his hand on her shoulder. Out he flung again,
with an oath; and there was a high quarrel, with daggers drawn. The
Queen, who could never be curbed in this kind of way by any one, lover
or beloved, dared his lordship to lay a finger on Livingstone; and he
did not. There was also my lord of Arbroath, who had pretensions and a
mind of his own; to whom she gave a horse, and induced more high words.
There was my Lord Lindsay, who admired her hugely and said so: but to
follow all the wandering of unreason in a gentleman once his own master,
were unprofitable. All that I need add (for the sake of what ensued
upon it) is that one day Mr. Secretary Lethington came into the Cabinet
all grey-faced and shaking as with a palsy, and laid his hands upon the
Queen’s chair, saying fearfully: “Sanctuary, madam, sanctuary! I stand
in peril of my life.” It appeared that my lord, who abhorred him, had
drawn on him in full hall. So then once more she grew angry and forbade
his lordship to touch a hair of Lethington’s head: “For so sure as you
do it,” she said, “I banish you the realm.” For the moment he was quite
unnerved, and began to babble of obedience and his duty; and I say, let
God record of our lady in that time of her disgrace that she had not
forgotten how to stand as His vicegerent in Scotland.
‘Affairs went from bad to worse with her. We learned every day by
our informers how the lords were gaining strength in the west, and
stood almost in a state of war against us. They were close about the
Prince—the chiefs of their faction being the Earls of Mar, Atholl,
Argyll, Glencairn, and Morton. With them was Grange, the best soldier in
the kingdom; and Lord Lindsay would have gone over, but that he grossly
loved the Queen and could not keep his eyes off her. Letters intercepted
from and to England made it certain that the Queen of that country was
supporting our enemies and preparing for our ruin—nor was it without
reason, as I am bound to confess, for the safety of our young prince
imported the welfare of her country as well as ours; and it may well
have been distasteful to her English Majesty to have the fingers of the
Earl of Bothwell so near to dipping in her dish. As if these troubles
were not enough, we were presently to hear of flat rebellion under the
Queen’s very eyes, when we were told that Mr. Cragg, the preacher, would
not read out the banns of marriage. That same was a stout man, after Mr.
Knox’s pattern. It is true they forced him by a writ to publish them, but
neither summons before the council nor imminent peril of worse would keep
his tongue quiet. He daily railed against those he was about to join in
wedlock, and had to be banished the realm.
‘Hard-faced was the Queen through these disastrous days, and all stony
within; bearing alike, with weary, proud looks, the indifference of
her trusted friends, the insolent suspicions of my lord of Bothwell,
the constant rumours, even the shameful reports, put about concerning
herself, as if she was ignorant of them. She was not, she could not
be ignorant, but she was utterly negligent. To her but one thing was
of concern—his love; and until she was sure of that all else might go
as it would. True, he was jealous: at one time she had thought that a
hopeful sign. But when she found out that in spite of her kindness he
remained indifferent; when he abstained from her company and bed, when
he absented himself for two days together—and was still jealous—she
was bound to doubt the symptom. It wanted but one thing, in truth, to
break down her pride and trail her lovely honour in the dust: and she
had it sharp and stinging. O unutterable Secret of Secrets, never to
be divulged but in this dying hour when she must ask for _pity_, since
honest dealing is denied to her! She was stung—down fell she—and I saw
her fall—heart-broken, and was never more the high Huntress, the Queen
“delighting in arrows.” My pen falters, my tears blind me; but write it
I must: her fame, her birthright, nay, her gracious head, are in dire
peril.[10]
‘It was commonly suspected that Lethington was desirous of escaping to
the lords at Stirling, among whom he could count upon one firm friend in
the Earl of Atholl. To say nothing that he went hourly in fear of my lord
of Bothwell, and believed that the Queen distrusted him, he had been too
long in the Earl of Moray’s pocket—kept there as a man keeps a ferret—to
be happy out of it. Nominally at large, a pretty shrewd watch was kept
upon him, since it would not have been at all convenient to have him at
large among her Majesty’s enemies. He knew too much, and his wife, that
had been Mistress Fleming, more than he. Therefore it was not intended
that he should leave us. Yet I am certain that no day passed in which he
did not make some plan of escape.
‘It was for a step in one of such schemes, I suppose, though I cannot see
how it should have helped him, that on the day before my lord of Bothwell
was created Duke of Orkney, and three days before the marriage, he gave
the Queen a thought which very soon possessed her altogether.
‘My lord was away, but expected back that night; Lethington, being with
some others in the Queen’s Cabinet when the talk fell upon the Countess
of Bothwell, told her Majesty that the lady was dwelling at Crichton. He
said it very skilfully—_quasi_ negligently and by the way—but instantly
she caught at it, and took it amiss. “She has cast him off—let him cast
her off. Crichton! Crichton! Why, he holds it of me! How then should
Jean Gordon be there? _Or do we share, she and I?_” She spoke in her
petulant, random way of hit or miss, meaning (it is likely) no more than
that she was weary of Lethington. But he coughed behind his hand, and
rising up suddenly, went to the window. The Queen marked the action, and
called him back.
‘“Come hither, Mr. Secretary,” said she quietly; and he returned at once
to her side.
‘“You will please to explain yourself,” she said. Very quiet she was, and
so were we all.
‘He began vast excuses, floundering and gasping like a man in deep water.
The more he prevaricated the more steadfast she became in pursuit; and so
remained until she had dragged out of him what he knew or had intended
to imply. The sum and substance was that Paris (a valet of my lord’s)
had of late taken letters to and from Crichton: common knowledge, said
Lethington. And then, after a good deal, not to the purpose, he declared
that my lord had spent two several nights there since the Court had
returned to Edinburgh from Dunbar.
‘The Queen, being white even to the lips, said faintly at the end that
she did not believe him. Lethington replied that nothing but his duty
to her would have induced him to relate facts so curious; the which,
he added, must needs concern her Majesty, the Fountain of Honour, who,
unsullied herself, could not brook defilement in any of the tributaries
of her splendour. She dismissed us all with a wave of her hand—all but
Mistress Sempill (who had been Mistress Livingstone), who stayed behind,
and whose ringing voice I heard, as I shut the door, leap forward to be
at grips with the calumny.
‘She had recovered her gallantry by the evening. Incredible as it may
seem, it is true that she publicly taxed my lord with the facts charged
against him, when he returned. He did not start or change colour—looked
sharply at her for an instant, no more.
‘“Jealous, my Queen?” he asked her, laughing.
‘“And if I am, my lord, I have an example before me,” said she. “Have you
not been pleased to condemn me in regard to this poor boy?”
‘I bore that with what face I could: he regarded me with the look of a
wild hog that grates his tooth. Anon he said: “Master Baptist and I know
each other of old. I believe I can give as good account of the reckonings
between my staff and his back as——Well, this is unprofitable jesting.
Now, let me understand. Your Grace charges me with—what in particular?”
‘“Oh, my lord,” cried she, with a bold face, “I make no charges. I did
but put you a question: whether you had visited your Castle of Crichton
these late days—your Castle of Crichton which you hold of me in chief?”
‘He shrugged his shoulders; and “_Chi lo sa?_” quoth he, with a happy
laugh. “Let your Majesty and me confer upon these and other high matters
of state when my head is on better terms with my stomach. I am a fasting
man, no match for your Majesty. Your Majesty knows the Spanish saw, _When
the belly is full it saith to the head, Sing, you rascal_? I crave your
leave, then, to get my singing voice again.” He took it with bravery, as
you perceive; and, having his liberty, went away singing to supper.
‘He stayed below stairs for the rest of the night, drinking and talking
with Sir James Melvill and my lord of Livingstone—ribald and dangerous
talk, for he had a lewd mind, and neither discretion nor charm in the
uses to which he put his tongue. The Queen sat miserably in the dark far
into the night, and went to bed without prayers. I heard her cry out to
Mistress Sempill that she wished she lay where the King was, and Sempill
answered, “Damn him, damn him!” Next day, with what grace she could
muster, she created my lord Duke of Orkney. That was done before noon; by
five o’clock of the evening he was ridden away for Borthwick and Dunbar,
as he said, upon State business. In three days’ time she was to marry
him, O Heaven!
‘Early in the morning—the morrow after his going—she sent for me to come
up to her bedchamber; and so I did, and found her very worn in the face,
her hand hot and dry to the touch. Commanding herself with great effort,
speaking slowly, she told me that she could not continue to live unless
she could deny once and for all the truth of Lethington’s tale. My lord
would not help her. “You know his way of mockery,” says she. “He laughs
to tease me: but to me this is no laughing matter. Mary Sempill has been
at me ever since——” Here she fretted, muttering to herself, “I do not
believe it—I do not—I do not,” fidgeting her hands under the bedclothes;
then, breaking off short, she said that she wished me to ride to Crichton
with her that very day. She would take Mary Sempill—because she would not
remain behind—Erskine would bring an escort; there would be no danger. I
said that I was ready to live or die for her, and that all my care was
to save her from unhappiness. I asked her, Would she suffer Erskine and
myself to go?
‘She stared at me. “Are you mad?” she asked. “Have you found me so
patient, to sit at home in suspense? or so tame, to shirk my enemies?
Nay, my child, nay, but I will prove Lethington a liar with my own eyes.”
To be short, go she would and did; and we with her, as she had already
contrived it.
‘The weather was hot—as hot as summer—and very still; riding as fast as
we did, our bodily distresses saved our minds’. We had, as I reckon, some
fifteen miles to go, by intricate roads, woodland ways, by the side of
streams overhung with boughs, encumbered with boulders. The Queen was
always in front, riding with Mistress Sempill: she set the pace, said
nothing, and showed herself vexed by such little delays as were caused by
Erskine sounding the banks for good fording-ground, or losing the road,
as he once did, and trying a many before he could make up his mind. “Oh,
you weary me with your _Maybe yeas_ and _Maybe nays_!” she railed at him.
“Why, man, I could smell my way to Crichton.” I believe her; for now I am
sure that she had steeled herself for what she was to find there. I knew
it not then: she allowed nothing of her mind to be seen. Nobody could be
more secret than she when she saw fit.
‘That Castle of Crichton stands, as do most of them in these parts, on
a woody bluff over a deep glen, out of the which, when you are in it,
you can never see how near you may be to your journey’s end. Thus we
wound our way at a foot’s pace along the banks of a small stream, in
and out of the densest woodland—beautiful as a summer’s dream just then,
with birds making vocal all the thickets, wild flowers at our feet, and
blooming trees, wild cherry and hawthorn and the like, clouds come to
earth and caught in the branches—and found a steep path to our right
hand, and climbed it for half an hour: and lo! gaining the crest first,
I saw before me, quite close, the place we sought—a fair tower of grey
stone, with a battlemented house beside it, having an open gate in a
barbican. Before the barbican was a lawn snowed with daisies, and upon
that two white greyhounds, which sat up when they first saw us, and then
crouched, their muzzles between their paws. But as we advanced, jumping
up and barking together, they raced together over the turf, met us, and
leapt upwards to the Queen’s hand. All beasts loved her, and she loved
them.
‘There was neither guard nor porter at the gates. They stood open upon an
empty court, beyond which we could see the hall doors: open, they, also.
In the air all about us was the sound of bees, and of doves hidden in the
woody slopes; but no noises of humankind were to be heard: we all sat
there on our horses, and watched, and listened, like errant adventurers
of old time come upon an enchanted lodging, a castle and hermitage in a
forest glade.
‘Mistress Sempill broke silence. “’Tis not for us to enter—this still
place,” she said. “Come your ways, madam; you have seen what there is to
be seen.”
‘The Queen, as one suddenly awakened, called to me. “Baptist, dismount
and help me down. I am going in.”
‘I obeyed, and helped Mistress Sempill after. Erskine would stay with the
guard. We three went through the gateway, crossed the inner court, and
passed the doors into the hall—a long dusky chamber with windows full of
escutcheons and achievements, and between them broad sheets of ancient
arras which flapped gently in a little breeze. The sunlight, coming
aslant, broke the gloom with radiant blue bars—to every window a bar.
As we peered about us, presently Sempill gave a short little cry, then
called to me, “Baptist, Baptist, have a care for her.”
‘It was an old woman come out of a door in the panel to look at us—old,
grey and wrinkled. I asked her, Was any other within? She shook her head,
pointing at the same time to her mouth, within which, when she opened
it wide, I saw the seared stump of her tongue, and perceived that she
had been maimed of that organ. Sempill remarked it also, and was afraid.
“Oh, come away, for God’s love!” said she: “there is witchcraft here”;
and signed herself many times. But the Queen laughed, and went up to
the mutilated hag, and, patting her shoulder, went by her through the
door by which she had come in, and turned to beckon us after her. So we
climbed a narrow stair, built in the thickness of the wall round and
round a pillar. In the gallery above were doors to left and right, some
open upon empty, fragrant chambers, some shut and locked. I believe that
I tried them all the length of the gallery on one side; and so came at
the farther end to a short passage on my right hand: at the end of that
a low-pitched door ajar. Thither I went on tiptoe, with a strong sense
that that room was occupied. I know not what had certified me, save some
prescience which men have at times. So certain was I, at least, that when
I was at the door I knocked. I was answered, “Enter.”
‘I entered not. I dared not do it. I sped back to the Queen, who now
stood with Sempill at the head of this short passage. For the moment
my nerve was clean gone: “Some one there—let us go away!”—Who knows
what hissed foolishness I let fly?—“I urge you: let us go away.” But
the Queen, rose-bright, keen as fire in the wind, threw up her head and
flashed her eyes full upon me. “Stand aside, sir—I will go in.” She
pushed by me and went into the room without ceremony. We had followed her
with beating hearts.
‘She had not gone far—was not a yard from the door; nor do I marvel at
it, nor need you. For by the open window sat the Countess of Bothwell at
needlework, making, as I saw in a moment, a child’s shift. If God the
Father of all, who framed women nobly and urged them cast their hearts in
the dust to make soft the ways of men—if He, I say, pausing in His vast
survey, might have discerned this dear woman now, with the wound upon her
still raw and bleeding whence she had torn that generous heart—naked,
emptied, betrayed; ah, and face to face with that other woman also, not
less injured, not less the vessel of a man’s beastly convenience—I dare
swear He would repent Him of His high benevolence, and say, “Tush, I have
planned amiss. The waste is divine, the waster shall be crowned with the
glory of the Magdalene, that Mary whom I would no more condemn. But what
shall be done with him for whom these women spent so vainly?” Thus, it
might well be, would God reason with Himself. Yet who am I, poor bastard
of a dead mother (spending she, too, with little avail) to interpret the
reproaches of the Almighty?
‘For an age of suspense, as it seemed to me, the Queen stood where we
had found her—a yard from the door, perfectly still, but not rigid. No,
but she was like a panther, all lithe and rippling, prest for a pounce,
and had her eyes set fast upon the other. I was in a muck of fear, and
Sempill muttering fast to herself her “O Christ, keep us all! O Christ,
save her!” and the like, what time the Countess, affecting to be unaware,
crossed one knee over the other and bent diligently to her needlework.
The time seemed a slow hour, though I know not how long it may have been,
before the Queen began to move about the room.
‘I know what made her restless: it was curiosity. At first she had only
had eyes for the lady; now she had seen what she was at work upon. Yes,
and she had been at the same proud task herself not long since. I am
certain that she was just then more curious than enraged. At least,
instead of attacking as she was wont, with her arrows of speech leaping
forward as she went, she said nothing, and began to walk the room
restlessly, roaming about; never going near the window, but looking
sidelong towards it as she passed to and fro: bright spots in her cheeks,
her hands doubled, biting her lips, longing, but not yet resolved, to
know all. The storm, which was not far off, gathered strength as she
walked: I saw her shake her head, I saw a tear gleam and settle on her
shoulder. And so at last she clenched her teeth, and stood before Lady
Bothwell, grinning with misery.
‘“O woman,” she said, snarling, “what are you making there?”
‘The Countess looked up, then down: the far-searching eyes she had! “I am
making,” said she, “a shift for my fair son that is to be—my lord’s and
mine.”
‘“You make for a bastard, woman,” said the Queen; and the Countess smiled
wisely.
‘“Maybe I do, maybe. But this child of mine, look you, in my country we
call a love-child.”
‘The Queen reeled as if she were sick-faint, and had Sempill beside her
in a moment, flaring with indignation.
‘“Come you with me, madam,” cried she; “come you with me. Will you bandy
words with a——?”
‘She was not suffered to get out her word. The Queen put her away gently,
saying, “No, no, you shall not call her that, lest she may ask you some
home questions.”
‘But the Countess was not offended. “Why should she not? What harm in a
name? Call me as you will, ma’am, I shall never forbid you.”
‘“Have you no shame?” cried Sempill. “And you divorced on your own
motion?”
‘The Countess replied to the Queen, as if it had been she that spoke. “O,
madam, if divorce stands not in your way, shall it stand in mine? You
have given him your body, as I did mine; and the Church cannot gainsay me
that. But I’ll have you remember that when I got my child I was a wife;
and when you get yours you’ll be none, I doubt.”
‘At this spiteful speech the Queen, in her turn, smiled. She was far
from that sort of recrimination. Presently she began in a new and colder
tone—remembering her errand. “Why are you here?” she asked the Countess.
‘She was answered, “It is my lord’s pleasure.”
‘“He is very clement, I think,” said the Queen.
‘The Countess made no reply; and Sempill, who knew whether clemency had
moved my lord or not, did all she could to prevent the Queen from knowing
it also. Unfortunate lady! She gave her new suspicions.
‘“You do not answer me, mistress,” she said, in her high peremptory way.
“I said that my lord is clement, and you make no reply. You will tell me
these are your jointure-lands, I suppose? Let be for that. Tell me now
this—How are you here?”
‘The Countess hereupon, and for the first time, looked her in the face,
her own being venomous beyond a man’s belief.
‘“How am I here? Just as you may have been at Dunbar, madam—as his kept
woman, just.”
‘“You lie! You lie!” cried the Queen. “Dear God, she is a liar! Take back
your lies—they hurt me.”
‘She pressed her side with all her might. I thought that Sempill would
have struck the cruel devil. But she never flinched.
‘“No, no, I am no liar, madam,” she answered. “You are his woman, and so
am I. Eh, there’s been a many and a many of us—a brave company!”
‘The Queen was tussling with her breast, but could get no breath. I
thought she was frightened at the sudden revelation, or confirmation, of
how she stood: she faltered—she cast about—and then she said:
‘“I know that you lie, and I know why you lie. You hate me bitterly. This
is mere malice.”
‘“It is not malice,” says the Countess; “it is the bare truth. Why should
I spare you the truth—you of all women?”
‘“You hate too much, you hate too much! I have accorded with you—we have
kissed each other. I tried to serve you. It is not my fault if my lord—if
my lord——O Jeannie!” she said, with a pitiful gesture of stretched-out
arms—“O Jeannie, have mercy upon me—have a thought for my sorrow!”
‘She came nearer as she spoke, so near that the two could have touched;
and then the Countess, who had sat so still, turned her head a little
back, and (like a white cat) laid her ears flat and struck at last.
‘“Woman,” she said, “when you raked my father out of his grave, and spat
upon his dead corse, what thought had you for his flesh and blood? What
mercy upon their sorrow?”
‘The Queen, when she had understood her, wiped her eyes, and grew calmer.
“I had no thought for you then, nor durst I have any. Princes must do
justice without ruth; and he was a rebel, and so were you all. Your
brothers Huntly and Adam have read me better.”
‘“Ay,” said the Countess, “the greedy loons! They put your fingers in
their mouths and suck sweetness and solace—like enough they will read you
well. But I am not of their fashion, you must know.” Stiffening herself,
she spoke swiftly: “And if you could dishonour a dead old man whom you
vow you had once loved, what wonder if I dishonour you whom I have always
hated?”
‘The Queen smiled in a sweet, tired way, as if she was sorry for this
woman. “Do you so hate me, Jeannie?”
‘And the Countess answered her: “Ay, worse than hell-fire for my dead
father’s sake, and for my brother John’s, whom you slew. And so I am
well content to be here, that you should see me unashamed, owner without
asking of what you long for but can never have; and that I should see you
at my feet, deeply abased.”
‘If her tongue had been a blade and her will behind it as the hand of
one who lived for cruelty, she could not have got her dear desire more
utterly than by these slow-stabbing words. Content to be here! Yea,
lascivious devil that she was, I could see that she was rolling in her
filthy comfort. But, by heaven, she was redeemed by the fading breath of
the most unhappy lady that ever moaned about the world.
‘The Queen, I tell you, went directly to her—went close to her, without
thought of fear or sickening of disgust. And she took the wicked white
face between her hands and kissed the poisonous lips. And she said: “Hate
me no more, Jeannie Gordon, for now I know that we are sisters in great
sorrow, you and I. If we are not loved we must needs be unhappy; but in
that we have loved, and do still love, we are not without recompense. So
we must never rend each other; but you, poor lover, must kiss me, your
sister, as now I do you.”
‘I ask myself here—and others have asked me—was this sudden alteration
in her Majesty that old sweet guile of hers, inveterate still and at
work? Was it possible that, even now, she could stay and stoop to cajole
this indurate woman, to woo her with kisses, kill her with kindness? I
like not to consider: many there be, I know, who do believe it, Mistress
Sempill being one. Who am I to judge that deep, working heart more
narrowly than by what appears? Such questions are too nice; they are
not for my answering. Candour compels me to record them; but I can only
report what I saw and heard.
‘I heard the Countess give a throttled cry, as she struggled like one
caught in a fire; but the Queen kissed her again before she could free
herself. When at last she had flung away, with crying and a blenched
face—she who had been so hard before was now in a state of wild alarm,
warning off our lady with her fighting hands. “No, no, no! Touch me
not—defile not yourself. Oh, never that—I dare not suffer you!”
‘“What, am I so vile?” says the poor Queen, misunderstanding her in this
new mood. The Countess burst out into passionate weeping, which hurt her
so much (for she was no tearful woman by nature) that she writhed under
the affliction as if the grief within was tearing at her vitals. She
shrieked, “Ah, no! Not you—not you—but I. Oh, you torture me, brand me
with fire!” I could not guess what she meant, save that she was beaten,
and her wicked passion with her.
‘She sat up and stared at our Mistress, her face all writhen with grief.
“Listen, listen—this is the truth as God knows it. That man who stands
between us two and Heaven is your ruin and mine. For I love him not at
all, and have consented to him now, degrading myself for hatred’s sake.
And for you, who have loved him so well, he has no care at all—but only
for your crown and royal seat; for he loves me only—and so it has always
been.”
‘The Queen could only nod her head. Mary Sempill said sternly: “Woman,
you do well to lash yourself at last; for none can hurt you beside
yourself. Now, may God forgive you, for I never will.”
‘“Oh, Mary,” says the Queen, “what have you or I to do with forgiveness
of sins? Alas, we need it for ourselves. And she is in as bad a case as
I am.” Then, “Come to me now, Jeannie,” she said; and most humbly that
wicked, beaten woman crept up to her late enemy. The Queen embraced and
comforted her. “Farewell, Jeannie,” said she, “and think as well of me
as you can. For I go on to I know not what—only I do think it will be
unhappiness—and we shall never meet again.” With sublime calm she turned
to us, weeping behind her. “Come, my children, let us go our ways.”
‘This is the most terrible secret sorrow which broke her heart, and ends
my plea for pity upon her who loved so fondly. My breath and strength are
done; for I had them from her alone, and with her high heart’s death dies
my book.’
Honest, ingenuous, loyal Des-Essars! seeing, maybe, but in a glass
darkly; seeing, certainly, not more than half—thou wert right there. If
thy mistress beat the woman at last, it was with her fading breath. She
knew herself beaten to the dust by the man.
[9] Here I am bound to agree with Bothwell; for if Huntly wished to keep
him from blood-guiltiness and knew that he could, why not have kept him
and his kegs away altogether? One answer may be, of course, that Morton
and his friends would never have stood in had Bothwell and his been ruled
out.
[10] Des-Essars, plainly, was at work during the Queen’s captivity in
England; and, as I judge, while the inquiry was being held in Westminster
Hall in 1568.
CHAPTER IX
THE BRIDE’S TRAGEDY
The heart being an organ of which we have opinions more gallant than
practical, Des-Essars should perhaps have judged wiselier that his Secret
of Secrets was what broke the Queen’s _spirit_. There he had been right,
for from this day onwards to the end of her throned life the tragedy is
pure pity: she drifts, she suffers, but she scarcely acts—unless the
struggles of birds in nets can be called acts. After her spirit went
rapidly her animal courage; after that her womanly habit. She was like to
become a mere tortured beast. And as I have no taste for vivisection, nor
can credit you with any, I shall be as short as I can.
Silent all the long way home from wooded Crichton to the sea, it might
seem as if she had been hardening herself by silent meditation for what
she knew must take place. She saw nothing of Bothwell that night—she was
not yet ready for him; but she did what had to be done with Mary Sempill.
When that loyal soul came late into the bedchamber to bid her good-night,
she found her mistress in bed, calm and clear in mind. Forewarned in some
measure, as she stooped over to kiss her, the Queen did not as usual
put out her arms to draw her friend nearer, but lay waiting for the
kiss, which hovered, as it were, above her; and before it could come she
said, ‘Do you kiss me, Mary? Wait while I tell you something. I am to be
married to my lord come the day after to-morrow.’
Sempill, prepared or not, started back, on fire. ‘You’ll never do it.
You’ll never dare to do it.’
‘I shall dare to do it, if I dare avouch it.’
Sempill was trembling. ‘I cannot endure it, cannot face it—most wicked!
Oh, my dear love and my friend, you that have been all the world to me in
times bygone, never go so far from me that I cannot follow you!’
The Queen bit her lip, and wrinkled her eyes where the tears were
brimming, drowning her sight. ‘I must, I must—I cannot go back. Oh, have
mercy upon me! Oh, Mary——’
Sempill hid her face. ‘I cannot see it done. I cannot know of it. I am—I
do my best to be—an honest woman. These things be far from me—unholy
things. As Christ is my Saviour, I believe He will pardon you and me all
our sins of the hot blood. But not of the cold blood—not of the dry!’ She
changed suddenly, as if struck chill. ‘Why, you will be an harlot!’ she
said.
The Queen turned over in her bed and faced the wall.
Sempill went down on her knees. ‘I conjure you—I beseech you! Madam, I
implore you! By your mother’s bliss and your father’s crown imperial, by
the great calling of your birth! By Christ’s dear blood shed for you and
all, by the sorrows of Our Lady—the swords in her heart—the tears that
she shed; by her swooning at the Cross—I implore, I implore!—make not all
these woes to be in vain. By your young child I conjure you—by my own
upon earth and the other in my womb—by all calm and innocent things—oh,
put it from you: suffer all things—even death, even death!’
There was no response. She rose and stood over the bed. ‘We have loved
much, and had sweet commerce, you and I. Many have had sweetness of you
and left you: Beaton is gone, Fleming is alienate. You drive me to go
their way, you drive me from you. For if you do this, go I must. Honour
is above all—and yon man, by my soul, is as foul as hell. Turn to me, my
Mary, look at me once, and I shall never leave you till I die.’
She did not stir nor utter a sound; she lay like a log. Mary Sempill,
with a sob that shook her to pieces, and a gesture of drowning hands,
went out of the room, and at midnight left the palace. Those two, who had
been lovers once and friends always, never met again in this world.
What the Queen’s motives may have been I know not, whether of desperate
conviction that retreat was not possible, or of desperate effort to
entice the man to her even at this last hour: let them go.[11] She held
to her resolve next day; she faced the remnant of her friends, all she
had left; lastly, she faced the strong man himself, and like a doll
in his arms suffered his lying kisses upon her lips. And she never
reproached him, being paralysed by the knowledge of what he would have
done if she had. To see him throw up the head, expose the hairy throat,
to see him laugh! She could not bear that.
On this day, the eve of her wedding, she found out that her courage had
ebbed. Things frightened her now which before she would have scoffed at.
A May marriage—hers was to be that: and they who feared ill-luck from
such gave her fears. A Highland woman became possessed in the street,
and prophesied to a crowd of people. She said that the Queen would be a
famous wife, for she would have five husbands, and in the time of the
fifth would be burned. ‘Name them, mother—name them!’ they cried; and the
mad creature peered about with her sly eyes. ‘I dinna see him here, but
the third is in this town, and the fourth likewise!’ ‘The fourth! Who is
he?’ ‘He’s a Hamilton, I ken that fine, and dwells by Arbroath. I doubt
his name will be Jock.’
Lord John! The Lord of Arbroath—why, yes, she had given him a great
horse. They rehearse this tale at dinner, and see Bothwell grow red, and
hear the Queen talk to herself: ‘Will they burn me? Yes, yes, that is the
punishment of light women. Poor souls, they burn for ever!’
She carried the thought about with her all day, and at dusk was much
agitated when they lit the candles. About supper-time Father Roche,
asking to speak with her, was admitted. He told her that his conscience
would not permit him to be any longer in her service. Bothwell had
refused to be married with the mass: in Father Roche’s eyes this would be
no marriage at all. She was angry for a second in her old royal way—her
Tudor way; moved towards him swiftly as if she would have quelled him
with a forked word; but stopped mid-road and let her hands unclench
themselves. ‘Yes, yes, go your ways—you will find a well-trodden road.
Why should you stop? I need you no more.’ He would have kissed her hands,
but she put them behind her and stood still till he had gone. Then to
bed, without prayers.
At ten o’clock of the morning she was married to him without state,
without religion. There was no banquet: the city acted as if unaware of
anything done; and after dinner she rode away with him to Borthwick.
Melvill, Des-Essars, Lethington went with her, Mary Seton and Carwood.
Bothwell had his own friends, the Ormistons and others of mean degree.
With tears they put her to bed; but she had none. ‘I would that I might
die within the next hour,’ she said to Des-Essars; and he, grown older
and drier suddenly—‘By my soul, ma’am, it should be within less time, to
do you service.’
She shook her head. ‘No, you are wrong. He needs me not. You will see.’
She sent him away to his misery, and remained alone in hers.
It cannot be known when the Earl went up. He stayed on in the parlour
below, drinking with his friends so long as they remained above-board,
talking loudly, boasting of what he had done and of what he should do
yet. He took her back to Edinburgh within a few days, moved thereto by
the urgency of public affairs.
Those who had not seen her go, but now saw her return, did not like her
looks—so leaden-coloured, so listless and dejected, so thin she seemed.
The French Ambassador—Du Croc, an old friend and a sage—waiting for
audience, heard a quarrel in her cabinet, heard Bothwell mock and gibe,
depart with little ceremony; and then the Queen in hysterics, calling
for friends who had gone—for Livingstone, for Fleming.
Carwood came in. ‘O madam, what do you lack?’
‘My courage, my courage.’
Carwood, with a scream—‘God’s sake, ma’am, put down that knife!’
‘The knife is well enough,’ says she, ‘but the hand is numb. Feel me,
Carwood: I am dead in the hand.’
Du Croc heard Carwood grunt as she tussled. ‘Leave it—leave it—give it
me! But you shall. You are Queen, but my God to me. Leave it, I say——’
The Queen began to whimper and coax for the knife—called it her lover.
Carwood flung open the window and threw it on to the grass.
* * * * *
No doubt the worst was to be feared, no doubt Bothwell had reason to be
nervous. At the council-board, to which he ordered her to come, he told
her what was before her. The lords were in league, clustered about the
Prince: he was not ashamed to tell her in the hearing of all that she was
useless without the child. Dejected, almost abject as she was become, she
quailed—shrinking back, with wide eyes upon him—at this monstrous insult,
as if she herself had been a child struck to the soul by something
more brutish than your whips. Lord Herries rose in his place—‘By the
living God, my lord, I cannot hear such talk——’ Bothwell was driven to
extenuate. ‘My meaning, madam, is that your Majesty can have no force in
your arm, nor can your loyal friends have any force, without the Prince
your son be with you. You know very well how your late consort desired to
have him; and no man can say he was not wise. Believe me, madam—and these
lords will bear me out—he is every whit as necessary to your Majesty and
me.’
Huntly, on the Queen’s left, leaned behind her chair and spoke in a
fierce whisper: ‘You forget, I think, that you speak to the Queen, and of
the Queen. The Prince hath nothing but through her.’
‘By God, Geordie,’ he said, whispering back, but heard everywhere, ‘and
what have I but through her? I tell you fairly we have lost the main
unless we can put up that cockerel.’
The Queen tried to justify herself to her tyrant. ‘You know that I have
tried—you know that my brother worked against me——’
‘And he was wise. But now he is from home; we must try again.’
She let her head sink. ‘I am weary—I am weary. Whom have we to send? Do
you trust Lethington?’
This was not heard; but Lethington saw Bothwell’s eye gleam red upon him.
‘Him? I would as soon go myself. If he wormed in there, do you suppose we
could ever draw him out again?’
‘No,’ she said aloud, ‘I am of your mind. Send we Melvill, then.’
He would not have Melvill: he chose Herries.
They sent out Lord Herries on a fruitless errand; fruitless in the main
sense, but fruitful in another, since he brought back a waverer. This
was the Earl of Argyll, head of a great name, but with no head of his
own worth speaking about. He might have been welcome but for the news
that came with him. All access to the Prince had been refused to Herries
the moment it was known on whose behalf he asked it. The Countess of
Mar mounted guard over the door, and would not leave until the Queen’s
emissary was out of the house. There was more than statecraft here, as
Herries had to confess: witchcraft from the Queen was in question, from
the mother upon the child. The last time she had been to see him, they
said, she had given him an apple, which he played with and presently cast
down. A dog picked it up, ran under the table with it and began to mumble
it. The dog, foaming and snaping, jerked away its life. ‘Treason and
lies!’ roared Bothwell, who was present; ‘treason heaped on lies! Why,
when was your Majesty last at Stirling?’ He had forgotten, though she had
not.
‘It was the night before you took me at Almond Brig,’ she said; and, when
he chuckled, broke out with vehemence of pain, ‘You laugh at it! You
laugh still, O Christ! Will you laugh at my graveside, Bothwell?’ She hid
her head in her arm and wept miserably. It was grievous to see her and
not weep too. Yet these were no times in which to weep.
* * * * *
On the same day in which Lord Lindsay departed, to join the Lords at
Stirling, Huntly also, most unhappily, asked leave to go to his lands.
The Queen used him bitterly. She could be gentle with any other and move
their pity: with him she must always be girding. ‘Do you turn traitor
like your father? Have you too kept a dagger for my last hours?’ He did
not break into reproaches, nor seek to justify himself, as he might have
done—for no one had tried to serve her at more peril to himself. He said,
‘Madam, I have tried to repair my faults committed against you,’ and
turned away with a black look of despair. He went north, as she thought,
lost to her: it was Bothwell who afterwards told her that he had gone to
summon his kindred against the war which he saw could not be far off. So
scornful are women to those who love them in vain—that should surely have
touched her, but did not. Lord John Hamilton took Huntly’s empty place,
too powerful an ally to be despised.
The Earl of Argyll came and went between Stirling and Edinburgh, very
diligent to accommodate the two cities, if that might be. He dared—or was
fool enough—to tell the Queen that all would be well if she would give up
the King’s murderers. She replied: ‘Go back to Stirling, then, and take
them. I do give them up. It is there you shall find them.’ Whether he
knew this to be truth or not, for certain he did not report the message
to the Earl of Morton. It would have fared ill with him if he had.
Before he could come back, a baffled but honest intermediary, Lethington
had fled the Court and taken his wife with him. He went out, as he said,
to ride in the meadows; he did ride there, but did not return. His wife
slipt away separately, and joined her man at Callander; thence, when Lord
Livingstone sent them word that he could not harbour the Queen’s enemies,
they went on to Lord Fleming’s, Mary’s father’s house, and finally to
Stirling. It was a bad sign that the gentle girl, flying like a thief at
her husband’s bidding, should write no word, nor send any message to the
Queen; it was a worse to the last few faithful that the Queen took no
notice. All she was heard to say was that Fleming could not be blamed for
paying her merchet.
_Mercheta Mulicrum_, Market of Women—the money-fee exacted by the lord
of the soil before a girl could be wed, clean, to the man who chose her!
Livingstone had paid it, Beaton had paid it; she, Queen Mary, God knows!
had paid it deep. She shook her head—and was Fleming to escape? ‘No! but
Love—that exorbitant lord—will have it of all of us women. And now’s for
you, Seton!’
She looked strangely at the glowing, golden-haired girl before her; the
green-eyed, the sharp-tongued Mary Seton, last of her co-adventurers of
six years agone. Fair Seton made no promises; but all the world knows
that she alone stayed by her lady to the long and very end.
Returned from Stirling, my Lord of Argyll, with perturbed face,
disorderly dress, and entire absence of manners, broke in upon the
Queen’s privacy, claiming secret words. The lords were prepared for the
field. They intended an attack upon the lower town by land and water;
they would surround Holyroodhouse, seize her person.
She flamed. ‘You mean my husband’s. It is him they seek.’
He did not affect to deny it. She sent for Bothwell and told him all.
Bothwell said: ‘You are right. They want me. Well, they shall not have me
so easily. You and I will away this night to Borthwick. Arbroath will be
half way to us by now, and the Gordons not far behind. Let Adam go and
hasten his brother. Madam, we should be speedy.’
She took Seton with her—having no other left; she took Des-Essars. Arthur
Erskine was to captain Holyroodhouse. Bothwell had, perhaps, half a dozen
of his dependents. They went after dark, but in safety.
There, at Borthwick, they stayed quietly through the 8th and 9th of June:
close weather, with thunder brewing.
No news of Huntly, none of the Hamiltons. Bothwell was out each day for
long spells, spying and judging. He opened communication with Dunbar,
got in touch with his own country. At home sat the Queen with her two
friends, very silent.
What was there to say? Who could nurse her broken heart save this one
man, who had no thought to do it, nor any heart of his own, either, to
spare for her? Spited had he been by Fortune, without doubt. He had had
the Crown and Mantle of Scotland in his pair of hands; having schemed for
six years to get them, he had had them, and felt their goodly weight: and
here he was now in hiding, trusting for bare life to the help of men who
had no reason to love him. Where, then, were his friends? He had none,
nor ever had but one—this fair, frail woman, whom he had desired for her
store, and had emptied, and would now be rid of.
If his was a sorry case, what was hers? Alas, the heart sickens to think
of it. With how high a head came she in, she and her cohort of maids, to
win wild Scotland! Where were they? They had received their crowns, but
she had besoiled and bedrabbled hers. They had lovers, they had children,
they had troops of friends; but she, who had sought with panting mouth
for very love, had had husbands who made love stink, and a child denied
her, and no friend in Scotland but a girl and a poor boy. You say she had
sought wrongly. I say she had overmastering need to seek. Love she must;
and if she loved amiss it was that she loved too well. You say that she
misused her friends. I deny that a girl set up where she was could have
any friends at all. She was a well of sweet profit—the Honeypot; and they
swarmed about her for their meat like house-flies; and when that was got,
and she drained dry, they departed by the window in clouds, to settle
and fasten about the nearest provand they could meet with: carrion or
honeycomb, man’s flesh, dog’s flesh or maid’s flesh, what was it to them?
In those days of dreadful silent waiting at Borthwick, less than a month
after marriage, I tell you very plainly that she was beggared of all she
had in the world, and knew it. The glutted flies had gone by the window,
the gorged rats had scampered by the doors. So she remained alone with
the man she had risked all to get, who was scheming to be rid of her. Her
heart was broken, her love was murdered, her spirit was gone: what more
could she suffer? One more thing—bodily terror, bodily fear.
[11] I am unwilling to intrude myself and my opinions, but feel drawn to
suggest that the latter was her motive. If she had beaten the Countess at
the eleventh hour, could she not beat the Earl? Was she not Huntress to
the utterance? Let God (Who made her) pity her: I do believe it.
CHAPTER X
THE KNOCKING AT BORTHWICK
The 10th of June had been a thunderous day, and was followed by a
stifling night. In the lower parlour where the Queen lay the candles
seemed to be clogged, the air charged with steam. Mary Seton sat on the
floor by the couch, Des-Essars, bathed in sweat, leaned against the
window-sill. In the hall beyond could be heard Bothwell’s voice, grating
querulously to young Crookstone and Paris about his ruined chances. He
was not laughing any more—was not one, it was found, to bear misfortunes
gaily. His tongue had mastered him of late, and his hand too. He had
nearly killed Paris that morning with one smashing blow.
There came a puff of wind, with branches sweeping the window, the
pattering, swishing sound as of heavy rain. ‘Thank God for rain! Baptist,
the window, lest I suffocate. The rain will cool the air.’ He set it
wide open, and leaned out. There was no rain at all; but the sky was a
vaporous vault, through which, in every part, the veiled moon diffused
her light. He saw a man standing on the grass as plainly as you see this
paper, who presently, after considering him, went away towards the woods.
It might have been one of their own sentries, it might have been any one:
but why did it make his heart beat? He stayed where he was, watching
intently, considering with himself whether he should tell the Queen, or
by some ruse let my lord have warning without her knowledge. Then, while
he was hammering it out, she got up and came to the window, and leaned
over him, her hand on his shoulder.
‘Poor prisoners, you and I, my Baptist.’
He turned to her with burning eyes. ‘Madam, there can be no prison for me
where you are; but my heart walks with yours through all space.’
‘My heart,’ she said, ‘limps, and soon will be bedridden; and then yours
will stop. You are tied to me, and I to him. The world has gone awry with
us, my dear.’
Very nervous, on account of what he had seen, he had no answer ready.
Thought, feeling, passion, desire, were all boiling and stirring together
in his brain. The blood drummed at his ears, like a call to arms.
Suddenly—it all came with a leap—there was hasty knocking at the hall
doors, and at the same instant a bench was overturned out there, and
Bothwell went trampling towards the sound. Des-Essars, tensely moved,
shut the windows and barred the shutters over them. The Queen watched
him—her hands held her bosom. ‘What is it? Oh, what is it?’
‘Hush, for God’s sake! Let me listen.’
Mary Seton opened the parlour door, as calm as she had ever been. They
listened all.
They heard a clamour of voices outside. ‘Bothwell! Bothwell! Let us in.’
‘Who are ye?’
‘We are hunted men—friends. We are here for our lives.’
Bothwell put his ear close to the door; his mouth worked fearfully, all
his features were distorted. Heavens! how he listened.
‘Who are ye? Tell me that.’
‘Friends—friends—friends!’
He laughed horribly—with a hollow, barking noise, like a leopard’s cough.
‘By my God, Lindsay, I know ye now for a fine false friend. You shall
never take me here.’
For answer, the knocking was doubled; men rained blows upon the door;
and some ran round to the windows and jumped up at them, crying, ‘Let us
in—let us in!’ Some glass was broken; but the shutter held. Mary Seton
held the Queen close in her arms, Des-Essars stood in the doorway with a
drawn sword. Bothwell came up to him for a moment. ‘By God, man, we’re
rats in a drain—damned rats, by my soul! Ha!’ he turned as Paris came
down from the turret, where he had been sent to spy.
The house, Paris said, was certainly surrounded. The torches made it
plain that these were enemies. He had seen my lord of Morton on a white
horse, my Lords Hume and Sempill and some more.
They all looked at each other, a poor ten that they were.
‘Hark to them now, master,’ says Paris. ‘They have a new cry.’
Bothwell listened, biting his tongue.
‘Murderer, murderer, come out! Come out, adulterous thief!’ This was
Lindsay again. There was no sound of Morton’s voice, the thick, the rich
and mellow note he had. But who was Morton, to call for the murderer?
Paris, after spying again, said that they were going to fire the doors;
and added, ‘Master, it is hot enough without a fire. We had best be off.’
Bothwell looked at the Queen. ‘My dear, I must go.’
She barely turned her eyes upon him; but she said, ‘Do you leave me
here?’ Scathing question from a bride, had a man been able to observe
such things.
He said, ‘Ay, I do. It is me they want, these dogs. You will be safe if
they know that I am away—and I will take care they do know it. I go to
Dunbar, whence you shall hear from me by some means. Crookstone, come you
with me, and come you, Hobbie. Paris, you stay here.’
‘Pardon, master,’ says Paris, ‘I go with your lordship.’
Pale Paris was measured with his eye. ‘I’ll kill you if you do, my fine
man.’
‘That is your lordship’s affair,’ says Paris with deference; ‘but first I
will show you the way out. There are horses in the undercroft.’
Bothwell lifted up his wife, held her in his arms and kissed her twice.
‘Fie, you are cold!’ he said, and put her down. She had lain listless
against him, without kissing.
He turned at once and followed Paris; young Crookstone followed him.
It seems that he got clear off in the way he intended, for the noises
outside the house ceased; and in the grey of the morning, before three
o’clock, all was quiet about the policies. They must have been within an
ace of capturing him: in fact, Paris admitted afterwards that they were
but a bowshot away at one time.
* * * * *
The Queen sent Seton for Des-Essars at about four o’clock in the morning.
Neither mistress nor maid had been to bed.
He found her in a high fever; her eyes glowing like jet, her face white
and pinched; the stroke of her certain fate drawing down her mouth. She
said, ‘I have been a false woman, a coward, and a shame to my race.’
‘God knows your Majesty is none of these.’
‘Baptist, I am going to my lord.’
‘Oh, madam, God forbid you!’
‘God will forbid me presently if I do not. It should have been last
night—I may be too late. But make haste.’
They procured a guide of a sort, a wretched poltroon of a fellow, who
twice tried to run for it and leave them in Yester woods. Des-Essars,
after the second attempt, rode beside him with a cocked pistol in
his hand. From Yester they went north by Haddington, for fear of
Whittingehame and the Douglases. As it was, they had to skirt Lethington,
and the Secretary’s fine grey house there in the park; but the place
was close-barred—nothing hindered them. They passed unknown through
Haddington, the Queen desperately tired. Sixteen hours in the saddle, a
cold welcome at the end.
Bothwell received them without cheer. ‘You would have been wiser to have
stayed. Here you are in the midst of war.’
‘My place was by your side.’
The mockery of the thing struck him all at once. This schemed-for life of
his—a vast, empty shell of a house!
‘Oh, God, I sicken of this folly!’ He turned from her.
She had nothing to say, could hardly stand on her feet. Seton took her to
bed.
A message next day from Huntly in Edinburgh. Balfour held the castle;
all the rest of the town was Grange’s. Morton, Atholl, and Lethington
were rulers. Atholl had Holyroodhouse; Lethington and his wife were with
Morton. He himself, said Huntly, would move out in a day or two and join
the Hamiltons at Dalkeith. Let Bothwell raise the Merse and meet them. He
named Gladsmuir for rendezvous, on the straight road from Haddington to
the city, five miles by west of Haddington.
Bothwell read all this to the Queen, who said nothing. She was thinking
of a business of her own, as appeared when she was alone. She beckoned up
Baptist.
‘There’s not a moment to be lost. Find me a messenger, a trusty one, who
will get speech with Mary Fleming.’
‘Madam,’ says Baptist, ‘let me go.’
‘No, no: I need you. Try Paris—no! my lord would never spare him. And he
would deny me again. Do you choose somebody.’
‘What is he to say to her, ma’am?’
‘He shall speak to her in private. She knows where my coffer is—my
casket.’
Ah! this was a grave affair. Des-Essars made up his mind at once.
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘let me advise your Majesty. Either send me, or send no
one. If you send me I will bring the casket back. That I promise. If you
send no one—if you do not remind her—it will slip her memory.’
The Queen’s eyes showed her fears. ‘Remember you, Baptist, of my casket.
If Fleming were to betray me to Lethington——’ No need to end.
‘Again I say, madam, send me.’
She thought; but even so her eyes filled with tears, which began to fall
fast.
‘Dearest madam, do you weep?’
‘I cannot let you go. Do not ask me—I need you here.’
He leaned to her. ‘Alas, what can I do to help your Majesty?’
She took his hand. ‘Stay. You are my only friend. The end is not far.
Have a little patience—stay.’
‘But your casket——’
She shook her head. ‘Let all go now. Stay you with me.’
‘Certainly I will stay with you,’ he said. ‘It will be to see you triumph
over your enemies.’
And again she shook her head. ‘Not with a broken heart!’ Then in a
frightened whisper she began to tell him her fears. ‘Do you know what
they make ready for me? The stake, and the faggot, and the fire! Fire for
the wife that slew her husband. Baptist, you will never forsake me now!
This is my secret knowledge. Never forsake me!’ She hid her face on his
shoulder and cried there, as one lost.
Bothwell burst into the room: they sprang apart. He was eager, flush with
news. ‘We march to-morrow with the light. My men are coming in—in good
order. Be of good cheer, madam, for with God’s help we shall pound these
knaves properly.’
‘How shall God help us, my lord,’ said she, ‘who have helped not Him?’
‘Why, then, my dear,’ cries he with a laugh, ‘why, then, we will help
ourselves.’
CHAPTER XI
APPASSIONATA
Grange, that fine commander, got his back to the sun and gave the lords
the morning advantage. ‘We shall want no more than that,’ he told Morton;
‘by ten o’clock they will be here, and by noon we shall be through with
it.’
‘Shall we out banner, think you?’ says Morton.
‘Nay, my lord, nay. Keep her back the now.’ Grange was fighting with his
head, disposing his host according to the lie of the ground, and his
reserves also. He took the field before dawn, and had every man at his
post by seven o’clock. There was a ground mist, and the sea all blotted
out: everything promised great heat.
They were to be seen, a waiting host, when the Queen crested Carbery
Hill and watched her men creep round about; with Erskine beside her she
could make them out—arquebusiers, pikemen, and Murrays from Atholl on
the lowest ground (Tillibardine leading them), on either wing horsemen
with spears. They had a couple of brass field-pieces in front. One could
see the chiefs walking their horses up and down the lines, or pricking
forward to confer, or clustering together, looking to where one pointed
with his staff. There was Morton on his white horse, himself, portly
man, in black with a steel breastplate—white sash across it—in his steel
bonnet a favour of white. White was their badge, then; for, looking at
them in the mass, the host was seen to be spattered with it, as if in
a neglected field of poppies and corncockles there grew white daisies
interspersed. The stout square man in leather jerkin and buff boots
was Grange—on a chestnut horse; with him to their right rode Atholl on
a black—Atholl in a red surtout, and the end of his fine beard lost in
the white sash which he too had. Who is the slim rider in black—haunting
Atholl like a shadow? Who but careful Mr. Secretary Lethington could have
those obsequious shoulders, that attentive cock of the head? Lethington
was there, then! Ah! and there, by one’s soul, was Archie Douglas’s grey
young head, and his white minister’s ruff, where a red thread of blood
ought to be. Glencairn was there, Lindsay, Sempill, Rothes—all those
strong tradesmen, who had lied for their profit, and were now come to
claim wages: all of them but the trader of traders, the white-handed
prayerful man, the good Earl of Moray, safe in France, waiting his turn.
So prompt as they stood down there in the grey haze, all rippling in the
heat; without sound of trumpet or any noise but the whinnying of a horse;
without any motion save now and then, when some trooper plunged out of
line and must pull back—that thing of all significant things about them
was marked by the Queen, who stood shading her eyes from the sun atop
of Carbery Hill. ‘Oh, Erskine!’ she said, ‘oh, Bothwell! they have no
standard. Against whom, then, do we fight?’
Bothwell, exasperated by anxiety, made short answer: ‘It is plain enough
to see what and who they are. They are men—desperate men. They are men
for whom loss means infamous death. For, mark you well, madam, if Morton
lose this day he loses his head.’
‘Ay,’ she gloomed, ‘and many more shall lose theirs. I will have
Lindsay’s and Archie’s—and you shall have Lethington’s.’
‘I would have had that long ago, if you had listened to me. And now you
see whether I was right or wrong. But when women take to ruling men——’
She touched his arm. ‘Dear friend, for whom I have suffered many things,
do not reproach me at this hour.’ The tears were in her eyes—she was
always quick at self-pity.
But he had turned his head. ‘Ha! they need me, I see. Forgive me, madam,
I must have a word with Ormiston.’ He saluted and rode down to meet his
allies. Monsieur Du Croc, the French Ambassador, approached her, hat in
hand. He was full of sympathy; but, with his own theories of how to end
this business, could not give advice.
Sir James Melvill, watching the men come up, shook his head at the look
of them. ‘No heart in their chance—no heart at all,’ he was heard to say.
The Queen’s forces deployed across the eastern face of Carbery Hill in a
long line which, it was clear, was not of equal strength with the lords’.
It became less so as the day wore; for had you looked to its right you
would have seen a continual trickle of stooping, running men crossing
over to the enemy. These were deserters at the eleventh hour; Bothwell
rode one of them down, chased him, and when he fell drove his horse over
him and over in a blind fury of rage, trampling him out of semblance to
his kind. It stayed the leak for a while; but it began again, and he
had neither heart nor time to deal with it. Where were the Hamiltons
who should have been with her? Where, alas, were the Gordons? In place
of them the Borderers and Foresters looked shaggy thieves—gypsies,
hill-robbers, savage men, red-haired, glum-faced, many without shoes
and some without breeches. The tressured Lion of Scotland was in Arthur
Erskine’s hold: at near ten o’clock Bothwell bade him display it. It
unfurled itself lazily its full length; but there was no breath of air.
It clung about the staff like so much water-weed; and they never saw the
Lion. No matter; it would be a sign to that watchful host in the plain:
now let us see what flag they dare to fly. They waited tensely for it, a
group of them together—the Queen with her wild tawny hair fallen loose,
her bare thin neck, her short red petticoat and blue scarf; Bothwell
biting his tongue; Ormiston, Des-Essars, sage Monsieur Du Croc.
They saw two men come out of the line bearing two spears close together.
At a word they separated, backing from each other: a great white sheet
was displayed, having some picture upon it—green, a blot like blood,
a wavy legend above. One could make out a tree; but what was the red
stain? They talked—the Queen very fast and excitedly. She must know
what this was—she would go down and find out—it was some insult, she
expected. Was that red a fire? Who would go? Des-Essars offered, but she
refused him. She chose Lord Livingstone for the service, and he went,
gallantly enough—and returned, a scared old optimist indeed. However, she
would have it, so she learned that they had the King lying dead under
a tree, and the Prince his son praying at his feet—with the legend,
‘Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord!’ The red was not a fire, but the
Prince’s robe. The Queen cried out: ‘Infamy! Infamy! They carry their own
condemnation—do you not see it?’ If anybody did, he did not say so.
* * * * *
Monsieur Du Croc had his way at last, and was allowed to carry messages
between the hosts. The burden of all that he brought back was that the
lords would obey the Queen if she would give up the murderers, whom they
named. The offer was ludicrous, coming from Morton—but when she ordered
Du Croc back to expose it, he fairly told her to read below the words.
They had come for Lord Bothwell. ‘I will die sooner than let him be
touched,’ said she. ‘Let some one—Hob Ormiston, go you—fetch Grange to
speak with me.’ Hob went off, with a white scarf in his held-up hand; and
the Queen rode half-way down the hill for the parley. The great banner
dazzled her: it was noticed that she bent her head down, as one rides
against the sun.
Grange came leisurely up towards her—a rusty man of war, shrewd, terse,
and weathered. He could only report what his masters bade him: they
called for the surrender of the murderers. She flamed and faced him with
her royal anger. ‘And I, your sovereign lady, bid you, Grange, go over
there and bring the murderers to me. Look, there goes one on his white
horse! And there shirk two after him, hiding behind him—the one with a
grey head, and the other with a grey face. Fetch you me those.’
‘Bah!’ snarled Bothwell, ‘we talk for ever. Let me shoot down this dog.’
A Hepburn—quiet and sinewy—stepped out of the ranks with a horse-pistol.
Grange watched him without moving a muscle; but ‘Oh!’ cried the Queen,
‘what villainy are you about?’ She struck down the pistol-arm,—as once
before she had struck down Fawdonsyde’s.
Bothwell, red in the face, said, ‘Let us end this folly. Let him who
calls for me come and fetch me. I will fight with him here and now. Go
you, Grange, and bring my Lord Morton hither.’
‘No need for his lordship, if I will serve your turn, Earl of Bothwell,’
says Grange.
But Bothwell said, ‘Damn your soul, I fight with my equals. None knows
it better than you.’ He would have no one below an Earl’s rank—himself
being now, you must recollect, Duke of Orkney and Zetland—and it should
be Morton for choice.
Grange, instructed by the Queen, rode back. They saw Morton accost
him, listen, look over the valley. He called a conference—they talked
vehemently: then Morton and Lindsay pricked forward up the hill, and
stopped within hailing distance.
‘You, Bothwell,’ cried Morton, ‘come you down, then; and have at you
here.’
The Queen’s high voice called clearly back. ‘He shall never fight with
you, murderer.’
Lindsay bared his head. ‘Then let him take me, madam; for I am nothing of
that sort.’
‘No, no, Lindsay,’ said Bothwell; ‘I have no quarrel with you.’
The Earl of Morton had been looking at Bothwell in his heavy, ruminating
way, as if making up his mind. While the others were bandying their
cries, the Queen’s voice flashing and shrieking above the rest, he still
looked and turned his thoughts over. Presently—in his time—he gave
Lindsay his sword and walked his horse up the hill to the Queen’s party.
He saluted her gravely. ‘With your gracious leave, madam, I seek to put
two words into my Lord Bothwell’s ear. You see I have no sword.’
The Queen looked at once to her husband. He nodded, gave his sword to
Huntly, and said, ‘I am ready for you.’ They moved ten yards apart;
Morton talked and the other listened.
‘Bothwell, my man,’ he said, ‘there’s no a muckle to pick between us, I
doubt—I played one card and you another; but I have the advantage of ye
just now, and am no that minded to take it up. Man!’ he chuckled, ‘ye
stumbled sorely when ye let them find for the powder!’
‘Get on, get on,’ says Bothwell, drawing a great breath.
‘I will,’ Morton said. ‘I am here to advise ye to make off while you
can. Go your ways to Dunbar, and avoid the country for a while. I’ll
warrant you you’ll not be followed oversea. All my people will serve the
Queen—have no fear for her. Now, take my advice; ’tis fairly given. I’ve
no wish to work you a mischief—though, mind you, I have the power—for
you and I have been open dealers with each other this long time. And you
brought me home—I’m not one to forget it. But—Lord of Hosts! what chance
have you against Grange?’ He waited. ‘Come now, come! what say you?’
Lord Bothwell considered it, working his strong jaw from side to side:
a fair proffer, an honourable proffer. He looked at the forces against
him—though he had no need; he knew them better men than his, because
Grange was a better man than he. That banner of murder—the cry behind
it—the Prince behind the cry, up on the rock of Stirling: in his heart he
knew that he had lost the game. No way to Stirling—no way! But the other
way was the sea-way—the old free life, the chances of the open water. Eh,
damn them, he was not to be King of Scots, then! But he had known that
for a week. He turned his head and saw the sea like molten gold, and far
off, dipped in it, a little ship with still sails—Ho! the sea-way!
‘By God, Morton,’ he said, ‘you may be serving me. I’ll do it.’
‘Go and tell her,’ says Morton; and they both went back to the Queen.
Both took off their bonnets. Bothwell said: ‘Madam, we must avoid
blood-shedding if we may, and I have talked with my lord of Morton. He
makes an offer of fair dealing, which I have taken. I have a clear road
to Dunbar, thence where I will. All these hosts will follow you if I am
not there. They pay me the compliment of high distrust, you perceive.
After a little, I doubt not but you shall see me back again where I would
always be. Madam, get the Prince in your own hands: all depends upon him.
And now, kiss me, sweetheart, for I must be away.’
She heard him—she understood him—she believed him. She was curious to
observe that she felt so little. Her voice when she answered him had no
spring in it—it was worn and thin, with a little grating rasp in it—an
older voice.
‘It may be better so. I hate to shed good blood. Whither shall I write
to you? At Dunbar? In England? Flanders?’ There had been a woman in
Dunkirk—she remembered that.
He was looking away, answering at random, searching whom he should take
with him, or on whom he could reckon to follow him if he asked. ‘I will
send you word. Yes, yes, you will write to me. You shall know full soon.
But now I cannot stay.’
Morton had returned to his friends.
‘Paris, come you with me. Ormiston, are you for the sea? No? Stay and be
hanged, then. Hob? What, man, afraid? Where is Michael Elliott? Where
is Crookstone? What Hepburn have I?’ He collected six or eight—both the
Ormistons decided for him—Powrie and Wilson, Dalgleish, one or two more.
He took the Queen’s hand gaily. ‘Farewell, fair Queen!’ he said; and
she, ‘Adieu, my lord.’ He leaned towards her: ‘One kiss, my wife!’ but
she drew back. ‘Your lips are foul—you have kissed too many—no, no.’ ‘I
must have it—you must kiss me’—he pressed against her. For a while she
was agitated, defending herself; but then, with a sob, ‘Ay, take what you
will of me,’ she said—‘it is little worth.’ He got his cold kiss, and
rode fast through his scattering host. This going of his was the Parthian
shot. He had beaten her. Desire was dead.
The Queen sat still—with a face like a rock. ‘Has he gone?’ she asked
Des-Essars in a whisper.
‘Yes, thank God,’ said he.
She shook herself into action, gathered up the reins, and turned to
Erskine. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘we will go down to them now.’
She surrendered to the Earl of Atholl, who, with Sempill and Lindsay,
came up to fetch her. Followed by one or two of her friends—Des-Essars,
Melvill, Du Croc, and Livingstone—she rode down the hill from her host
and joined the other. Grange cantered up, bareheaded, to meet her, reined
up short, took her hand and kissed it. Many followed him—Glencairn,
Glamis, young Ruthven. Each had his kiss; but then came Archie Douglas
smelling and smiling for his—and got nothing. She drew back from him
shuddering: he might have been a snake, he said. Lethington was not to
be seen. The host stood at ease awaiting her; the white banner wagged
and dipped, as if mocking her presence. ‘Take that down,’ she said,
with a crack in her dry throat; but no one answered her. She had to go
close by the hateful thing—a daub of red and green and yellow—crowned
Darnley crudely lying under a tree, a crowned child kneeling at his feet,
spewing the legend out of his mouth. She averted her eyes and blinked as
she passed it: an ominous silence greeted her, sullen looks; one or two
steady starers showed scornful familiarity with ‘a woman in trouble’; one
said ‘Losh!’ and spat as she passed.
She was led through the Murrays, Humes, and Lindsays; murmurs gathered
about her; all eyes were on her now, some passionate, some vindictive,
some fanatic. On a sudden a pikeman ran out of his ranks and pointed at
her—his face was burnt almost black, his eyes showed white upon it. ‘Burn
the hure!’ he raved, and when she caught her breath and gazed at him, he
was answered, ‘Ay, ay, man. Let her burn herself clean. To the fire with
her!’
Her fine heart stood still. ‘Oh!’ she said, shocked into childish
utterance, ‘oh, Baptist, they speak of me. They will burn me—did you hear
them?’ Her head was thrown back, her arm across her face. She broke into
wild sobbing—‘Not the fire! Not the fire! Oh, pity me! Oh, keep me from
them!’
‘Quick, man,’ said Atholl, ‘let us get her in.’ Orders were shortly
given, lieutenants galloped left and right to carry the words. The
companies formed; the monstrous banner turned about. Morton bade sound
the advance; between him and Atholl she was led towards Edinburgh. ‘If
Erskine is a man he will try a rescue,’ thought Des-Essars, and looked
over his shoulder to Carbery Hill—now a bare brae. The Queen’s army had
vanished like the smoke.
So towards evening they came to town, heralded by scampering messengers,
and met by the creatures of the suburb, horrible women and the men who
lived upon them—dancing about her, mocking obscenely, hailing her as
a spectacle. She bowed her head, swaying about in the saddle. Way was
driven through; they passed under the gates, and began to climb the long
street, packed from wall to wall with raving, cursing people. They shook
their fists at her, threw their bonnets; stones flew about—she might have
been killed outright. The cries were terrible—‘Burn her, burn her! Nay,
let her drown, the witch!’ Dust, heat, turmoil, a brown fetid air, hatred
and clamour—the houses seemed to whirl and dizzy about her. The earth
rocked; the people, glued in masses of black and white, surged stiffly,
like great sea waves. Pale as death, with shut eyes and moving, dumb
lips, she wavered on her seat, held up on either side by a man’s arm.
Des-Essars prayed aloud that a stone might strike her dead.
They took her to a house by the Tron Church, a house in the High Street,
and shut her in an upper room, setting a guard about the door. The white
banner was planted before the windows, and the crowd swarmed all about
it, shrieking her name, calling her to come out and dance before them.
Her dancing was notorious, poor soul; many a mad bout had she had in
her careless days. ‘Show your legs, my bonnie wife!’ cried some hoarse
shoemaker. ‘You had no shame to do it syne.’ This lasted till near
midnight—for when it grew dark torches were kindled from end to end of
the street, drums and pipes were set going, and many a couple danced.
The Queen during this hellish night was crouched upon the floor, hiding
her face upon Mary Seton’s bosom. Des-Essars knelt by her, screening her
from the windows. She neither spoke nor wept—seemed in a stupor. Food was
brought her, but she would not move to take it; nor would she open her
mouth when the cup was held at her lips.
Next morning, having had a few hours’ peace, the tumult began betimes—by
six o’clock the din was deafening. She had had a sop in wine, and
was calmer; talked a little, even peeped through the curtain at the
gathering crowd. She watched it for, perhaps, an hour, until they brought
the mermaid picture into action—herself naked to the waist, with a
fish-tail—confronted it with the murder flag, and jigged it up against
it. This angered her; colour burned in her white cheeks. ‘Infamous! Swine
that they are! I will brave them all.’
Before they could stop her she had thrown open the window, and stood
outside on the balcony, proudly surveying and surveyed.
At first there was a hush—‘Whisht! She will likely speak till us,’ they
told each other. But she said nothing, and gave them time to mark her
tumbled bodice and short kirtle, her wild hair and stained face. They
howled at her, mocking and gibing at her—the two banners flacked like
tailless kites. Presently a horseman came at a foot’s pace through the
press. The rider when he saw her pulled his hat down over his eyes—but
it was too late. She had seen Lethington. ‘Ha, traitor, whose rat-life I
saved once,’ she called out, in a voice desperately clear and cold, ‘are
you come to join your friends against me? Stay, Mr. Secretary, and greet
your Queen in the way they will teach you. Or go, fetch your wife, that
she may thank her benefactress with you. Do you go, Mr. Secretary?’
He was, in fact, going; for the crowd had turned against him and was
bidding him fetch his wife. ‘Give us the Popish Maries together, sir, and
we’ll redd Scotland of them a’.’
‘Rid Scotland of this fellow, good people,’ cried the Queen, ‘and there
will be room for one honest man.’
They jeered at her for her pains. ‘Who shall be honest where ye are,
woman? Hide yourself—pray to your idols—that they keep ye from the fire.’
‘Oh, men, you do me wrong,’ she began to moan. ‘Oh, sirs, be pitiful to a
woman. Have I ever harmed any?’
They shrieked her down, cursing her for a witch and a husband-killer. The
flags were jigged together again—a stone broke the window over her head.
Des-Essars then got her back by force.
It is amazing that she could have a thought in such a riot of fiends—yet
the sight of Lethington had given her one. She feared his grey, rat’s
face. She whispered it to Des-Essars. ‘Baptist, you can save me. Quick,
for the love of Christ! The coffer! the coffer!’
He knew what she meant. That coffer contained her letters to Bothwell,
her sonnets—therefore, her life. He understood her, and went away without
a word. He took his sword, put a hood over his head, got out of the
backside of the house, over a wall, into the wynd. Hence, being perfectly
unknown, he entered the crowd in the High Street and worked his way down
the Canongate. He intended to get into Holyroodhouse by the wall and the
kitchen window, as he had done many a time, and notably on the night of
David’s slaughter.[12]
* * * * *
Des-Essars had gone to save her life; but whether he did it or no, he
did not come back. She wore herself to thread, padding up and down the
room, wondering and fretting about him. This new anxiety made her forget
the street; but towards evening, when her nerves were frayed and raw,
it began to infuriate her—as an incessant cry always will. She suddenly
began panting, and stood holding her breasts, staring, moving her lips,
her bosom heaving in spite of her hands. ‘God! Mother of God! Aid me:
I go mad,’ she cried, strangling, and ‘Air! I suffocate!’ and once more
threw open the windows and let in the hubbub.
She was really tormented for air and breath. She tore at her bodice,
split it open and showed herself naked to the middle.
‘Yes—yes—you shall look upon me as I was made. You shall see that I am a
woman—loved once—loved much. See, see, my flesh!’ Horrible scandal!—but
the poor soul was mad.
Soon after this some of the lords came to her—Lindsay, Morton, and
Atholl. The windows, they said, must be closed at once; they feared a
riot. They would take her back to Holyroodhouse if she would be patient.
But she must be rendered decent: Atholl gave her his cloak. She had
quieted immediately they came, and thanked them meekly.
They took her away at once. Mary Seton followed close, but was gently
pushed back by Lord Morton. ‘No, no: she must come alone. You shall see
her after a little. You cannot come now.’ For the first time in her life,
as I believe, Mary Seton shed tears.
A very strong guard, with pikes presented, hedged her in. She reached
Holyrood on foot, and was shut into her own cabinet. It was empty and
dark but for the candle they had left with her. She snatched it up, and
began a mad, fruitless hunt for her casket. It was not in its place—it
was nowhere. She hunted until she dropped. She began to tear at herself
and to shriek. Doom! Doom! She must be burned. They had taken her coffer.
She was alone—condemned and alone.
Then Des-Essars crawled out of the dark on his hands and one knee,
dragging a broken leg after him, and fell close beside her, and kissed
the hem of her petticoat.
[12] The casket, which was not at Holyrood, is supposed to have been
secured by Bothwell in the Castle, where it was to be found in due time.
But Des-Essars did not know that. Nor is it clear to me how Bothwell had
found opportunity to get it there.
CHAPTER XII
ADDOLORATA
She sat on the floor, and had his head at rest on her lap. Her hands were
upon him, and so he rested. The great tears fell fast and wetted his hair.
Her grief was silent and altogether gentle. Still as she sat there,
looking before her with wide unwinking eyes and lips a little parted,
she was unconscious of what she was suffering or had suffered: all about
her was the blankness of dark, and without her knowledge the night fell;
the dusk like a vast cloak gathered round about her, fold over fold; and
still she sat and looked at nothing with her wide unwinking eyes. Slowly
they filled and brimmed, and slowly the great tears, as they ripened,
fell. There were no other forms of grief, none of grief’s high acts: only
their bitter symbol—lamentation embodied in tears, and nakedly there.
‘Nay, move not your hands—nay, touch my brows: my head aches—I am blind.’
The lad supine in her lap pleaded in whispers.
Gentle-voiced she answered him. ‘There is no work left for my hands to do
but to tend thee, my dear.’
He lay dumb for a while; then said he: ‘You shall not blame me. It is not
here—not in the house. I know not where it is. They are seeking it now.
He came here with two archers. He snarled like a fox to find me.’
‘Who was this, Baptist? Was it Lethington?’
‘Lethington. He believed it was here. He forced that knowledge from his
wife——’
She said, ‘Fleming too?’
‘——I fought. They tried to make me tell them where I had hid it. They
lifted and threw me. I am hurt—cannot move. Oh, they will have it now.’
‘Rest, my dear, rest. Think no more of it. They have all but me.’ Out of
the heart of this poor nameless youth she was to learn good love; but to
learn it only to know its impossibility. Not for her now, not for her!
Not so could she ever have loved; no! but she could be kind. She stooped
her head over him and breathed softly through the dark—‘and I, Baptist,
am yours if you will.’
He sighed. ‘Oh, that it were possible! That night when you looked
back—that night——you let me take——remember you of that?’
She knew his thought and all his heart. Her own were at leagues of
distance: but she could not now refuse him kindness. She stooped her head
lower towards his, and whispered, ‘Baptist, can you hear me?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘My last gift—all I have left: yours by right. Do you hear me?
Listen—understand. I am yours now—I am forsaken by all but you.’
He moved uneasily, sighed again. ‘Too late, too late: I lie dying here.’
She leaned down yet nearer; he felt her warm breath beat upon him—quick
and short and eager. ‘If I die this night, and if thou die, I will love
thee first.’
‘Ah!’ said he, ‘I know very well that you desire to love me now.’
‘How knowest thou, my love?’
‘By the way you lean to me, and by other things.’
She said, ‘You are well schooled in love.’
‘Not so well,’ he answered; ‘but I am well schooled in you, my Queen.’
‘Prove me, then—desire of me—ask—take. I shall never deny thee anything.’
Again he said, ‘Too late, too late. You cannot—and I lie dying. Yet,
since the dead can do you no wrong, let me lie here at rest, that I may
die loving you.’
She stooped to kiss him. She anointed him with her hot tears. ‘Rest,
rest, my only true lover!’
‘Peace,’ said he: ‘let me sleep. I am tired to death.’
She kissed his eyelids. He slept.
* * * * *
Men came about the door—more than one. She sprang from her mate and
kneeled to face that way, screening him where he lay short-breathing.
They knocked, then opened. The torchlight beat upon her, and showed her
dishevelled and undone. She covered her bosom with her crossed arms.
‘What is it? Who comes?’
‘Madam’—this was Lord Lindsay—‘it is I. I have horses beyond the wall. It
is time to be going. You and I must take the road.’
‘Whither, sir? Whither will you take me so late?’
‘To Lochleven, ma’am.’
‘You order me? By whose warrant?’
‘By the Council’s. In the name of the Prince.’
‘It is infamy that you do. I cannot go. I am alone here.’
‘Women, clothing, all, shall follow with good speed, madam. But we must
be speedier.’
‘If I refuse you—if I command——?’
‘I cannot consider with your Majesty the effect of that.’
‘Do you take me, Lindsay—you alone? No, but I will die here sooner.’
Lord Sempill spoke. ‘I offer myself to your Majesty, with the consent of
the Lords.’
She rose up then. ‘I thank you, Lord Sempill: I will go with you.’
She gave him her hand, which, having kissed, he held. He would have taken
her away then and there, but that she pulled against him. ‘I leave my
servant dead here. He loved me well, and I him. Let me pray a while; then
I will go.’
Des-Essars turned and rose to his arm’s length from the ground. He could
not move his legs. ‘I am a prisoner also—take me.’
‘You, my man?’ says Lindsay: ‘unlikely.’
She withdrew her hand from Sempill’s by leave, stooped over the fading
lad and kissed his eyes. ‘Adieu, my truest love and last friend—adieu,
adieu! I have been death to all who have had to do with me.’ She kissed
him once more.
‘Sweet death,’ said Des-Essars.
‘Come,’ she said to Lord Sempill, and gave him her hand again. He led her
away.
Des-Essars fell his length upon the floor. She would have turned back to
him; they hurried her forward between them.
The door shut upon Queen Mary.
EPILOGUE
WHEREIN WE HAVE A GREAT MAN GREATLY MOVED
It is said that when the Earl of Moray, in France, received from the
messengers sent out to him the news that he was chosen Regent of
Scotland, he bowed his head in a very stately manner and said little more
than ‘Sirs, I shall strive in this as in all things to do the Lord’s
will.’ He added not one word which might enhance or impair so proper a
declaration; he remained invisible to his friends for the three or four
days he needed to be abroad; and when he set out for the north, travelled
in secret and mostly by night—and still chose to keep apart. As secret
in his hour of success as he had been in those of defeat, admirable as
his sobriety may be, we must make allowances for the mortification of
a learned man, Mr. George Buchanan, who, having laboured to be of the
heralding party, found himself and his baggage of odes of no more account
than any other body. Was the chilly piety of such a reception as my lord
had vouchsafed them all the acknowledgment he cared to admit of ancient
alliances, of sufferings shared, of hopes kept alive by mutual fostering?
Could a man look forward to any community of mind in the future between
a prince who would not recognise his old friends and those same tried
friends frozen by such a blank reply to their embassage? Mr. Buchanan
urged these questions upon his fellow-legate, Sir James Melvill of
Halhill—a traveller and fine philosopher, who, with less latinity than
the learned historian, had, I think, more phlegm. When Mr. Buchanan,
fretfully exclaiming upon the isolation of his new master, went on to
concern himself with poor Scotland’s case, and to muse aloud upon Kings
Log and Stork, Sir James twiddled his thumbs; when the humanist paused
for a reply, he got it. ‘Geordie, my man,’ said Sir James, ‘my counsel
to you is to bide your good time, and when that time comes to ca’ canny,
as we have it familiarly. Remember you, that when you sang your bit
epithalamy at the marriage-door of Log, our late King, although he never
stinted his largess (but rewarded you, in my opinion, abundantly), he had
no notion in the world what you were about, and (as I believe) paid you
the more that you might end the sooner. Late or soon you will be heard by
our new gracious lord, and late or soon recompensed. He too will desire
you to stop, my man: not because he does not understand you, but because
he understands you too well. Mark my words now.’ This was a curious
prophecy of Sir James’s, in one sense curiously fulfilled. In the very
middle of his oration the orator was desired to stop by the subject of it.
Not until the Regent was in Edinburgh did a chance present itself to Mr.
Buchanan of declaiming any of his Latin. This, be it said, was no fault
of Mr. Buchanan’s, who, if abhorrence of the old order and acceptance of
the new, expressed with passion at all times of the day, can entitle a
man to notice, should certainly have had it before. Some, indeed, think
that he got it by insisting upon having it; others that he proved his
title by exhibiting the heads of a remarkable work which afterwards made
some stir in the world: he was, at any rate, summoned to the Castle, and
in the presence of the Lord Regent of Scotland, of the Lords Morton,
Crawfurd, Atholl, Argyll, and Lindsay, of the Lairds of Grange and
Lethington, and of others too numerous to mention, was allowed to deliver
himself of an oration, long meditated, in the Ciceronian manner.
The occasion was weighty, the theme worthy, the orator equal. _Tantæ
molis erat_ was the burden of his discourse, wherein the late miseries
of God’s people were shown clearly to be, as it were, the travail-pangs
of the august mother of new-born Scotland. From these, by a series of
circuits which it would be long to follow, he passed to consider the
Hero of the hour; and you may be sure that the extraordinary dignity
and reserve which this personage had recently shown were not forgotten.
They were, said the orator, _reasonable_, not only as coming from a man
who had never failed of humility before God, but as crowning a life-long
trial of such qualities. The child is father of the man. Who that had
ever known this magnanimous prince had seen him otherwise than remote,
alone in contemplation, _unspotted from the world_? In a peroration which
was so finely eloquent that enthusiasm broke in upon it and prevented it
from ever being finished, he spoke to this effect:—
‘It is furthermore,’ he said, ‘a singular merit of your lordship’s, in
these days of brawl and advertisement, that you have always approved,
and still do approve yourself one who, like the nightingale (that choice
bird), avoids the multitude, but enriches it, _quasi_ out of the dark.
For as the little songster in his plain suit of brown, hardly to be seen
in the twiggy brake, pours forth his notes upon the wayfarer; so has your
lordship, hiding from the painful dusty mart, ravished the traffickers
therein to better things by your most melodious, half-hidden deeds. O
coy benefactor of Scotland! O reluctantly a king! O hermit Hercules! O
thou doer-of-good-by-stealth!’ Here he turned to the Lords of the Privy
Council. ‘Conscript Fathers, we have prevailed upon our Cincinnatus to
quit his plough lest haply the State had perished; but with him have come
to succour us those virtues which are his peculiar—to which, no less than
to those which he hath in community with all saviours of Commonwealths,
our extreme tribute is due. Let us respect Austerity whenas we find it,
respect True Religion, respect Abnegation, respect, above all, the tender
feelings of Blood and Family, lacerated (alas!) of late in a princely
bosom. Great and altogether lovely are these things in any man: in a
statesman how much the more dear in that they are rare! But a greater
thing than austerity and the crown of true religion is this, Conscript
Fathers, that a man should live through blood-shedding, and _not see it_;
that he should converse with bloody men, and _keep clean hands_! For
King David said, “I will wash my hands in innocency,” and said well,
having some need of the ablution. Conscript Fathers! this man hath the
rather said, “But I will keep my hands innocently clean, lest at any time
lustral water fail me and I perish.” O wise and honourable resolve——’
Irrepressible applause broke in upon this peroration, and just here. The
Regent was observed to be deeply moved. He had covered his face with
his hand; he could not bear (it was thought) to hear himself so openly
praised. When silence was restored, in obedience to his lifted hand,
speaking with difficulty, he said, ‘I thank you, Mr. Buchanan, for your
honourable and earnest words; none the less honourable in yourself in
that the subject of your praise is unworthy of them. Alas! what can a
man do, set in the midst of so many and great dangers, but keep his eyes
fixed upon the hope of his calling? He may suffer grievous wounds in
the heart and affections, grievous bruises to the conscience, grievous
languors of the will and mind: but his hopes are fixed, his eyes are
set to look forward; he cannot altogether perish. Yourself, sir, whose
godly office it is to direct the motions of princes and governors that
way which is indeed the way, the truth, and the life, can but add to the
obligations which this young (as new-born) nation must feel towards you,
by continuing me steadfast in those things for which you praise me. I
am touched by many compunctious thorns—I cannot say all that I would. I
have suffered long and in private—I feel myself strangely—I am not strong
enough as yet. So do you, Mr. Buchanan, so do you to me-ward, that I may
run, sir; and that, running—please the Lord and Father of us all—that,
running, I may obtain.’
* * * * *
It was felt on all hands that more would have been a superfluity. Mr.
Buchanan was very ready to have continued; but my Lord Regent had need of
repose; and my Lord of Morton moved the rest of their lordships that they
go to supper: which was agreed to, and so done.
THE END
New Canterbury Tales
BY MAURICE HEWLETT
AUTHOR OF “THE FOREST LOVERS,” ETC., ETC.
Cloth. 12mo. $1.50
“His style is always rich and sometimes of a texture of almost dazzling
beauty.... In the ‘New Canterbury Tales’ there are rare elements of
beauty. The stories are mediæval to the very core, and show extraordinary
power of imaginative perception of the inner life of a distant and alien
age.”—_The Outlook._
“Each strikes a different note, but each is faithful to the taste of his
time, which means a stout belief in the Saints, and perhaps as genuine
a fear of ‘Old Legion,’ a delight in chivalrous deeds, in mundane pomp
and might. And behind them is the author’s genius for the creation of
character and drama, so that these Old World fancies, full of the glamour
of ancient legend, in some cases all compact of a curious, mediæval
quaintness, seem somehow extraordinarily human and true.”—_New York
Tribune._
“With each successive volume there is added proof, if such proof were
needed, that for real fineness of touch and true artistic instinct Mr.
Hewlett stands quite by himself in his country and generation.”—_The
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“In the key and style of the author’s ‘Little Novels of Italy,’ it shows
again the brilliant qualities of that remarkable book, ... daring but
successful.”—_New York Tribune._
“The whole is an intense and delightful surprise.”—_Chicago Tribune._
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD YEA AND NAY
By MAURICE HEWLETT
_Author of “The Forest Lovers,” “Little Novels of Italy,” etc._
12mo. Cloth. $1.50
“The hero of Mr. Hewlett’s latest novel is Richard Cœur de Lion, whose
character is peculiarly suited to the author’s style. It is on a much
wider plan than ‘The Forest Lovers,’ and while not historical in the
sense of attempting to follow events with utmost exactness, it will be
found to give an accurate portrayal of the life of the day, such as might
well be expected from the author’s previous work. There is a varied and
brilliant background, the scene shifting from France to England, and also
to Palestine. In a picturesque way, and a way that compels the sympathies
of his readers, Mr. Hewlett reads into the heart of King Richard Cœur de
Lion, showing how he was torn by two natures and how the title ‘Yea and
Nay’ was peculiarly significant of his character.”—_Boston Herald._
“The tale by itself is marvellously told; full of luminous poetry;
intensely human in its passion; its style, forceful and picturesque;
its background, a picture of beauty and mysterious loveliness; the
whole, radiant with the very spirit of romanticism as lofty in tone
and as serious in purpose as an epic poem. It is a book that stands
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creation.”—_The Interior._
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THE FOREST LOVERS
BY MAURICE HEWLETT
12mo. Cloth. $1.50
“A series of adventures as original as they are romantic.... ‘The Forest
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book that is real, and, at the same time, radiant with poetry and art.
‘The Forest Lovers’ will be read with admiration, and preserved with
something more than respect.”—_The Tribune_, New York.
“A story compounded of many kinds of beauty. It has, to begin with,
enchanting beauty of background; or rather, it moves through a beautiful
world, the play of whose life upon it is subtle, beguiling, and
magical.... The story has a beautiful quality both of spirit and of
form.”—_The Outlook._
“The book is a joy to read and to remember, a source of clean and pure
delight to the spiritual sense, a triumph of romance reduced to the
essentials, and interpreted with a mastery of expression that is well
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“There is a freshness, a vivacity about the narrative itself, as well
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the jaded reader who cannot find amusement in ‘The Forest Lovers.’”—_The
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JAMES LANE ALLEN says:
“This work, for any one of several solid reasons, must be regarded
as of very unusual interest. In the matter of style alone, it is
an achievement, an extraordinary achievement ... in the matter of
interpreting nature there are passages in this book that I have never
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HAMILTON W. MABIE says:
“The plot is boldly conceived and strongly sustained; the characters
are vigorously drawn and are thrown into striking contrast.... It
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penetrating power of the imagination; it has human interest and idyllic
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LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY
BY MAURICE HEWLETT
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“Among the younger writers of fiction there are two men whose works
are of inspiration all compact. They are Rudyard Kipling and Maurice
Hewlett.... Both these writers are faithful to human nature, which is
at the bottom of all great art and literature. In Kipling the dominant
ideal seems to be that of truth, in Hewlett it is beauty (‘truth seen
from another side’).... In the writings of the former, truth emerges in
naked force; with the author of ‘Little Novels of Italy,’ it comes forth
adorned with the flowers of art and poetry, clad in the shimmering cloth
of gold of the Italian Renaissance.”—_The Tribune_, New York.
“There is imagination luminous with poetry and art in this singularly
romantic collection of short stories. In the matter of style alone,
Mr. Hewlett accomplishes much that is wonderful in its delicacy and
loveliness; yet he deals with intensely human passions—passions that with
a less delicate perceptive touch or sensitiveness to the divine in human
suffering would be base and sordid.”—_Boston Herald._
“Mr. Hewlett is one of those rare and happy authors who can make niches
for themselves quite apart from the ordinary trend of literature, where
invidious comparisons cannot reach them. The quaint, mediæval quality
of his ‘Forest Lovers’ has cast its spell over countless readers, even
while they questioned wherein that spell could lie; and so it is with his
latest volume.”—_Commercial Advertiser._
“The style is forceful and picturesque, and the stories are so true to
their locality that they read almost like translations.”—_New York Times._
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY
Being Impressions and Translations of Maurice Hewlett, with Illustrations
by James Kerr Lawson
Cloth. 12mo. $2.00
Also bound uniform with the Eversley Series, price $1.50
CONTENTS
Proem—Apologia pro libello.
I. Eye of Italy.
II. Little Flowers.
III. A Sacrifice at Prato.
IV. Of Poets and Needlework.
V. Of Boils and the Ideal.
VI. The Soul of a Fact.
VII. Quattrocentisteria.
VIII. The Burden of New Tyre.
IX. Haria, Mariota, Bettina.
X. Cats.
XI. The Soul of a City.
XII. With the Brown Bear.
XIII. Dead Churches in Foligno.
Envoy: To all you ladies.
PAN AND THE YOUNG SHEPHERD
A PASTORAL IN TWO ACTS
Cloth. 12mo. $1.25
SONGS AND MEDITATIONS
Cloth. 12mo. $1.25
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