The family to which Mary Beton, or, as she herself signed her name,
Marie Bethune, belonged, seems to have been peculiarly devoted to the
service of the house of Stuart. Her father, Robert Beton, of Creich, is
mentioned amongst the noblemen and gentlemen who sailed from Dumbarton
with the infant Queen, in 1548, and who accompanied her in 1561, when
she returned to take possession of the Scottish throne. His office was
that of one of the Masters of the Household, and, as such, he was in
attendance at Holyrood when the murderers of Rizzio burst into the
Queen's chamber and stabbed him before her eyes. He also appears under
the style of Keeper of the Royal Palace of Falkland, and Steward of the
Queen's Rents in Fife. At his death, which occurred in 1567, he
recommends his wife and children to the care of the Queen, "that scho be
haill mantenare of my hous as my houpe is in hir Maiestie under God".
His grandfather, the founder of the house, was comptroller and treasurer
to King James IV. His aunt was one of the ladies of the court of King
James V, by whom she was the mother of the Countess of Argyll. One of
his sisters, the wife of Arthur Forbes of Reres, stood high in favour
with Queen Mary, and was wet-nurse to James VI. His French wife,
Jehanne de la Runuelle, and two of his daughters, were ladies of honour.
Of the four Marys, Mary Beton has left least trace in the history of the
time. It seems to have been her good fortune to be wholly unconnected
with the political events which, in one way or another, dragged her fair
colleagues into their vortex, and it may be looked upon as a proof of
the happiness of her life, as compared with their eventful careers, that
she has but little history.
Though but few materials remain to enable us to reconstruct the story of
Mary Beton's life, a fortunate chance gives us the means of judging of
the truth of the high-flown compliments paid to her beauty by both
Randolph and Buchanan. A portrait of her is still shown at Balfour
House, in Fife. It represents, we are told, "a very fair beauty, with
dark eyes and yellow hair", and is said to justify all that has been
written in praise of her personal charms.[91] The first to fall a victim
to these was the English envoy, Randolph. A letter of his to the Earl of
Bedford, written in April, 1565, mentions, as an important fact, that
Mistress Beton and he had lately played a game at biles against the
Queen and Darnley, that they had been successful against their royal
opponents, and that Darnley had paid the stakes.[92] In another letter,
written to Leicester, he thinks it worthy of special record that for
four days he had sat next her at the Queen's table, at St. Andrews. "I
was willed to be at my ordinary table, and being placed the next person,
saving worthy Beton, to the Queen herself." Writing to the same nobleman
he makes a comparison between her and Mary Fleming, of whom, as we have
seen, he had drawn so glowing a description, and declares that, "if
Beton had lyked so short a time, so worthie a rowme, Flemyng to her by
good right should have given place".[93] Knowing, as we do, from the
testimony of other letters, how prone Randolph was to overrate his
personal influence, and with what amusing self-conceit he claimed for
himself the special favours of the ladies of the Scottish Court, there
is every reason to suspect the veracity of the statement contained in
the following extract from a letter to Sir Henry Sidney: "I doubt myself
whether I be the self-same man that now will be content with the name of
your countryman, that have the whole guiding, the giving, and bestowing,
not only of the Queen, and her kingdom, but of the most worthy Beton, to
be ordered and ruled at mine own will".
Like her colleague, Mary Fleming, "the most worthy Beton" had her hour
of mock royalty, as we learn from three sets of verses in which Buchanan
extols her beauty, worth, and accomplishments, and which are inscribed:
"Ad Mariam Betonam pridie Regalium Reginam sorte ductam". In the first
of these, which bears some resemblance to that addressed to Mary Fleming
on a similar occasion, he asserts, with poetical enthusiasm, the mimic
sovereign's real claims to the high dignity which Fortune has tardily
conferred upon her:--
Princely in mind and virtue, and so fair,
You've long seemed fit a diadem to wear;
And Fortune, blushing to have stood aloof,
Now lavishes her gifts to your behoof;
Deeming atonement for her tardiness
Demands in justice she should do no less,
She brings the Queen whom all the rest obey
A willing subject to your sovereign sway.
In his next effusion the poet rises to a more passionate height in his
admiration. It is such as we might imagine Randolph to have penned in
his enthusiasm, could we, by any flight of fancy, suppose him capable of
such scholarly verses as those of Buchanan:--
Should I rejoice, or should my heart despair,
That Beton's yoke the Fates have made me bear?
O, Comeliness, what need have I of thee,
When hope of mutual love is dead for me?
For favours such as these, in life's young day,
E'en life had seemed no heavy price to pay;
And though my earthly bliss had been but brief,
Its fulness would have soothed my dying grief;
Now, ling'ring fires consume; I lack life's joy,
And death would bring me comfort, not annoy;
In life, in death, be this my comfort still,
That life and death are at my Lady's will.
The third epigram is more particularly interesting, as bearing
reference, we think, to Mary Beton's literary tastes:--
Beneath cold Winter's blast the fields are bare,
Nor yield a posy for my Lady fair;
E'en so my Muse, luxuriant in her prime,
Has felt the chill and numbing grip of time;
Could lovely Beton's spirit but inspire,
'Twere Spring again, with all its life and fire.
The will drawn up by Mary Stuart, in 1556, which, it is true, never took
effect, seems to point to Mary Beton as the most scholarly amongst the
maids of honour. It is to her that the French, English, and Italian
books in the royal collection are bequeathed; the classical authors
being reserved for the University of St. Andrews, where they were
intended to form the nucleus of a library: "Je laysse mes liuures qui y
sont en Grec ou Latin à l'université de Sintandre, pour y commencer une
bible. Les aultres ie les laysse à Beton."[94]
This is further borne out by the fact that, many years later, William
Fowler, secretary to Queen Anne of Denmark, wife of James VI, dedicated
his "Lamentatioun of the desolat Olympia, furth of the tenth cantt of
Ariosto" "to the right honourable ladye Marye Betoun, Ladye Boine". Of
the literary accomplishments which may fairly be inferred from these
circumstances, we have, however, no further proof. Nothing of Mary
Beton's has come down to us, except a letter, addressed by her in June,
1563, to the wife of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, whose acquaintance she
may have made either in France or in Scotland, Sir Nicholas having been
English Ambassador in both countries. In this short document the writer
acknowledges the receipt of a ring, assures the giver that she will
endeavour to return her love by making her commendations to the Queen,
and begs her acceptance in return, and as a token of their good love and
amity, of a little ring which she has been accustomed to wear daily.[95]
In the month of May, 1566, Mary Beton married Alexander Ogilvie, of
Boyne. But little is known of this marriage beyond the fact that the
Queen named the day, and beyond such circumstances of a purely legal and
technical nature as may be gathered from the marriage contract, which is
still extant, and has been published in the Miscellany of the Maitland
Club. It sets forth that the bride was to have a dowry from her father
of 3000 merks, and a jointure from her husband of lands yielding 150
merks and 30 chalders of grain yearly. This legal document derives its
chief interest from bringing together in a friendly transaction persons
who played important and hostile parts in the most interesting period of
Scottish history. It bears the signatures of the Queen and Henry
Darnley, together with those of the Earls of Huntly, Argyll, Bothwell,
Murray, and Atholl, as cautioners for the bridegroom, that of Alexander
Ogilvie himself, who subscribes his territorial style of "Boyne" and
that of "Marie Bethune". The signature of the bride's father, and that
of Michael Balfour, of Burleigh, his cautioner for payment of his
daughter's tocher, are wanting.
It would appear that Mary Beton, or, as she was usually called after her
marriage, "the Lady Boyn", or "Madame de Boyn", did not immediately
retire from the Court. In what capacity, however, she kept up her
connection with it, cannot be ascertained. All that we have been able to
discover is that after her marriage she received several gifts of
ornaments and robes from the Queen. Amongst the latter we notice a dress
which was scarcely calculated to suit the fair beauty: "Une robbe de
satin jeaulne dore toute goffree faicte a manches longues toute chamaree
de bisette d'argent bordee dung passement geaulne goffre d'argent!"[96]
Both Mary Beton and Alexander Ogilvie are said to have been living as
late as 1606. All that is known as to the date of her death is that it
occurred before that of her husband, who, in his old age, married the
divorced wife of Bothwell, the Countess Dowager of Sutherland.
It is interesting to note the contrast between the comparatively
uneventful reality of Mary Beton's life and the romantic career assigned
to her in one of the best-known works of fiction that introduces her in
connection with her royal and ill-fated mistress. In Mr. Swinburne's
_Mary Stuart_, the catastrophe is brought about by Mary Beton. For some
score of years, from that day forth when she beheld the execution of him
on whom she is supposed to have bestowed her unrequited love, of the
chivalrous, impetuous Chastelard, when her eyes "beheld fall the most
faithful head in all the world", Mary Beton, "dumb as death", has been
waiting for the expiation, waiting
Even with long suffering eagerness of heart
And a most hungry patience.
It is by her action in forwarding to Elizabeth the letter in which Mary
Stuart summed up all the charges brought against her rival, that the
royal captive's doom is hastened, that Chastelard's death is avenged. It
would be the height of hypercritical absurdity to find fault with the
poet for the use which he has made of a character which can scarcely be
called historical. Nevertheless, as it is often from fiction alone that
we gather our knowledge of the minor characters of history--of those
upon which more serious records, engrossed with the jealousies of
crowned heads, with the intrigues of diplomatists and the wrangles of
theologians, have no attention to bestow--it does not seem altogether
useless at least to point out how little resemblance there is between
the Mary Beton of real life and the Nemesis of the drama.