"Beelzebub! Marquis, art thou mad? 'Tis the house of Master John
Knox."
"A million of thunders!" grumbled the Frenchman, falling back abashed on
hearing that formidable name; "we should have the whole city about our
ears. But come--_allons_! I will show ye a place better suited for such
merry rogues as we than the house of that arch-heretic. There is Madame
Alisong Cragg--a notable lady of joy!"
"Bravo, Marquis! thou art right!" exclaimed Bothwell; "my rascal, French
Paris, tells me there is a famous foreign beauty concealed
there--brought, 'tis said, by Morton or Arran. And dost thou know that
the ambassador of Duke Philibert of Savoy--what is his name?"
"The Count di Mezezzo."
"Ah! the same--saw her yesterday as he rode past, and hath raved about
her ever since."
"Monsieur l'Ambassadeur has the eyes of Argus for a pretty woman; so
_allons, messieurs!_" said the gay Frenchman, and they all staggered
arm-in-arm down the wynd.
"Hark! listen!" said Bothwell.
They halted under the windows of Dame Craig's dwelling; some of these
were partly open, and emitted into the misty street the odour of a close
room and a luxurious supper--the fumes of wine and a night debauch.
Through the thick gratings that defended them, flakes of light streamed
into the dark and gloomy wynd, while a clear and manly voice was heard
to sing one of those blasphemous ballads which were so obnoxious to
Queen Mary--
"Ane cursed _fox_ hath lain in the rocks,
Hidden this many a day,
Devouring sheep; but a _hunter_ shall scare
This cursed fox away.
"The hunter is Christ, that spurs in haste,
His hounds are St. Peter and Paul;
The Pope is the fox, and _Rome_ is the rocks,
That rub us to the gall.
"Poor Pope! had to sell the Tantony bell,
And pardons for ilka thing;
Remission of sins in old sheep skins,
Our souls from hell to bring.
"With bulls of lead, white wax and red,
And other whiles of green;
This cursed fox, enclosed in a box,
Such devilry never was seen."
On hearing this doggerel ballad,[*] Bothwell and his friends drew their
swords in deliberate anger, intent, less on a brawl, than on punishing
the singer; for this ditty was one of those which, by the efforts of the
more zealous clergy, had been set to the ancient music of the Catholic
church, and were usually sung by the lowest rabble, "to ferment that
wild spirit of fanaticism, which in the following age involved the
nation in blood, and overturned the state of three kingdoms."
[*] For which see Andre Hart's _Godly Ballade Buik_.--NOTE by the
Magister Absalom.
Neither Bothwell nor d'Elboeuff were very rigid Catholics, yet they
burned to punish this irreligious ribaldry, coming as it did from a
place which, in their younger days, had been appropriated to purposes so
very different. Black Ormiston and John of Coldinghame cared not a
bodle about the matter; but, nevertheless, they muffled their mantles
about their left arms, adjusted their masks, and assailed the house with
drawn swords.
*CHAPTER XIV.*
*THE GLEEWOMEN.*
Fiorello.--Hallo! house here! Hey, good people!
Hallo! house here! Faith, you sleep ill!
Bartolo.--Who can this be? Ugly fellow!
Drunken rascal! thus to bellow!
_The Barber of Seville._
Furiously they knocked, and immediately the lights were extinguished,
the singing ceased, and the windows were closed. Again and again they
thundered on the planking of the nail-studded door, till the solid walls
of the house were shaken, but there was no attention paid.
"Ho, within there!" cried Bothwell; "Alison, devil take thee, art thou
deaf or drunk?"
"_Ventre St. Gris!_" grumbled the Marquis, skipping aside, as a stoup of
water was poured from the upper story upon his laced mantle. "I will
spit them all like larks. _Tonnere!_ but I will."
"Hallo! 'ware your costards, sirs!" exclaimed Ormiston, as a large
billet of wood came down next. "Cock and pie! the garrison shew
mettle."
"Who are without there?" asked a man, through one of those reconnoitring
holes with which all the doors in the city were then provided; but they
could perceive the voice to be a feigned one. "What ribald cullions are
ye?"
"The godly Earl of Arran, and his friend Master John Knox!" replied
Bothwell, in a snuffling voice, amid a shout of laughter.
"Lewd varlet, thou liest! for the Lord Arran is here a-bed."
"Oho! then, tell him there are four tall fellows here, each of whom is
better than he; so bid him take sword and cloak and come forth, lest we
burn the house and Dame Alison to boot, for we have vowed a vow to make
entrance."
"Help! help! Axes and staves! Armour! armour! Fie!" screamed the
shrill voices of Alison Craig and several of her gleewomen and
companions from the upper windows. "Thieves! stouthrief! and
hamesucken! Help! help!"
"_Sacre bleu!_ what a devil of a noise thou makest, Madame Alisong!"
cried d'Elboeuff. "_Ma belle coquette--ma chere madame_."
While Bothwell and Coldinghame were endeavouring to burst open the door
(using as much energy as if the whole salvation of men depended upon
their success), it was suddenly opened; a strong glare of light flashed
into the gloomy wynd, and a tall cavalier, masked and muffled in a
mantle of scarlet velvet, and wealing a very broad beaver flapped down
over his eyes, appeared in the passage, armed with a long glittering
sword and bowl-hilted dagger for parrying. He burst out, and commenced
hewing right and left; but, finding his escape barred in every
direction, he fell on desperately, bending all his energies to slay
Bothwell, who encountered him hand to hand.
Daringly they fought for some twenty passes, the fire flashing from
their swords, when the stranger suddenly broke away and escaped, leaving
behind his rich mantle, of which the Earl immediately possessed himself.
"Scarlet taffeta--lined with white satin--laeed with gold, too! Now,
whose ware may this be?"
"The King's!" said Ormiston and others.
"Darnley's--now, by Heaven!--"
"Send it to her Majesty," said Hob, "with Madame Craig's leal service."
"Nay, by St. Bothan! I will wear it under King Henry's nose at Court
to-morrow," replied the madcap noble, as they all burst into the house
with their drawn swords, and made a tremendous uproar by rushing from
room to room, up the narrow wooden stairs, and through the pannelled
corridors, pursuing the shrieking glee-girls with oaths and boisterous
laughter. In one apartment they found the remains of the feast, and
several flasks of good wine, which they immediately confiscated for
their own use, and then made more noise than ever.
Alison Craig was dragged from her hiding-place in an oak almrie by the
reformed Prior of Coldinghame, who placed his rapier at her throat, and
threatened instant death if she did not produce the fair Ribaude, whom
the Lord Morton had committed to her charge.
"Aroint thee, dame!" said Bothwell. "We will have thee ducked on the
cuckstule as a scold, and pilloried for dancing round the summer-pole,
which thou knowest to be alike contrary to the Bible and John Knox."
Pouring forth alternate threats of vengeance and entreaties to desist,
Alison, whose well-rouged cheeks and painted brow were by turns blanched
with terror and crimsoned with rage, led them reluctantly towards an
apartment which, in former days, had been a little private oratory for
the Lady Superior, or Reverend Mother. The pointed door was of oak,
carved with the emblems of religion--the crown of thorns, and the hands
and feet pierced by nails; the sacred heart and the cross were still
there, but they ornamented what the change of manners had made the abode
of a gleewoman.
Bothwell, whose whole spirit was now bent on mischief and frolic, with
one kick of his heavy buff boot split the old door in two, and, as the
falling fragments unfolded, to his consternation he beheld--Anna
Rosenkrantz!
Pale, terrified, and motionless as a statue, she was standing about six
paces from him, and near a little table, on which lay her crucifix and
missal, in evidence that she had been praying devoutly. Her cheeks were
blanched, her eyes were dilated, and her lip curled slightly with anger
at the insults she anticipated; but with a serene brow, and aspect of
modesty and dignity, she drew herself up to her full height, and with
her stately train sweeping behind, and her high ruff bristling with
starch and pride, confronted these violent intruders, the two principals
of whom she failed to recognise under the black velvet masks--an article
of wearing apparel which the residence of so many French, Spanish, and
Italian ambassadors, had now made common among the Scottish noblesse.
"Death and confusion!" muttered the Earl, falling back a pace.
"Cock and pie!" said Ormiston, under his bushy mustaches; "we have
started the wrong game."
"Aha, my _belle_ coquette!" said d'Elboeuff, advancing with his blandest
smile, and kissing his hands as he bowed to the rosettes at his knees;
"_ma jolie damoiselle--comment vous en va?_"
"Hold, Marquis! we are in error," said the Earl, in a deep and fierce
whisper, as he grasped the arm of the French noble, and drew him back.
Though Anna did not hear the words, there was something in their accent
and in the air of Bothwell that struck a chord in her memory; her colour
heightened, and her eyes lit up. He saw in a moment that he would be
recognised; and, pushing his friends before him by main strength down
the narrow stair, he drove them into the street--an unexpected
proceeding--which filled them with so much rage, that their swords would
infallibly have been turned against him had other work not been prepared
for them.
Now the blaze of torches filled the narrow wynd, glinting on its
fantastic architecture, its grated windows, and carved outshots, on the
steel caps, green doublets, and arrow-heads of a band of Mary's Archer
Guard, which hurried to the scene of the uproar, led by their captain on
horseback, in a handsome suit of light armour, to assist the two civic
commanders of that district--a baxter and a dagger-maker--who, with
twenty citizens in steel bonnets and jacks, and armed with partisan and
whinger, had also sallied forth to maintain the peace of the burgh.
Dreading that, if taken, he would be unmasked, discovered, and brought
before Mary, and, by being involved in an adventure so dishonourable,
lose perhaps her favour for ever, Bothwell fought desperately up the
street, and wounded several of the archers, shouting all the while, "A
Hamilton! a Hamilton!" to mislead the assailants as to his identity, and
make them suppose him to be the young Earl of Arran, who was known to be
slightly deranged by his love for the queen.
On hearing the war-cry of his house, the clang of the swords and axes,
and all the uproar excited by such a brawl, (where the parties engaged
were well protected by defensive armour), Gavin Hamilton, abbot of
Kilwinning, a younger son of the Duke of Chatelherault, with a few of
his retinue, sallied forth in armour to aid the Earl and his three
friends, who had gradually changed the scene of their conflict to the
broad central street of the city, up which they were pressing with great
vigour.
The arrival of the gallant abbot, caused a continuance of the brawl with
renewed energy and fury, and the dense masses pressing to the centre,
shouted on one side, "A Hamilton!" on the other, "A Darnley! a Darnley!"
and swayed too and fro, from the turreted platform of the city cross to
the Tron beam, where the merchandise was weighed; while the clangour of
bells, and the clamour of the arming citizens, uniting with the fury of
the fray, drowned the cries of the wounded, and the twanging of the
bows, as the royal archers shot at random into the mist and gloom.
The deacons of the crafts were crying "Armour! armour! Axes and
staves!" Craigmillar, the provost, was buckling on his harness in his
strong dwelling at Peebles Wynd, and the council were mustering in their
usual place of meeting, the Holy Blood Aisle in St. Giles' Church; but
the arrival of the Earls of Huntly and Moray with a fresh band of
archers, compelled the Abbot of Kilwinning to make a hasty retreat.
Black Hob escaped with him, and reached in safety his own dwelling in
the Netherbow, above Bassyndine the printer's establishment; but
Bothwell and his two remaining friends were made prisoners, disarmed,
deprived of their masks, and rather unceremoniously conducted to
Holyrood.
"I thought, good-brother of mine, thou hadst got rid of thy follies, and
become a very Carthusian," said the young Earl of Huntly, with some
little scorn, to Bothwell, as he returned him his magnificent rapier.
"Ah--indeed!" said the other with a polite smile.
"My sister--Jane--thy countess," continued Huntly gravely; "from being
quiet, silent, and dejected, since thou leftest Bothwell castle, hath
become delirious--yea, frantic; and canst thou tell me aught of this
Anna, of whom she raves incessantly?"
"By the holy Paul!" replied Bothwell, with admirable coolness, "I know
no more than thou. 'Tis some phantom of her brain, and this horrible
calamity hath so oppressed me, that"----
"Thou plungest into every mad extravagance and folly. Thou spendest thy
days among dicemen and drinkers, thy nights among wantons and gleewomen,
with such blockheads as Ormiston and d'Elboeuff, to bury all memory of
my sister--ha! is it?"
"Exactly; 'tis the wisest mode and the merriest, by the mass! So a fair
good-morning, my Lord--well-a-day, fair, noble Moray!" said the Earl,
bowing to the nobles of his escort as he raised his plumed bonnet, and
entered the little doorway of the Duke of Albany's tower. A dark frown
knit the broad brow of the young Highland noble, as he watched the
Earl's retreating figure, and he muttered in Gaelic between his teeth--
"Had not my sister vowed before the altar of God to love, obey, and
cherish thee, by all that is sacred on earth and blessed in heaven,
false Lord of Bothwell, this dagger had rung on thy breast-bone!"
Elboeuff and the Prior of Coldinghame were also conducted to separate
chambers, where, just as daylight began to glint on the city vanes, and
to lighten the gloomy courts and cloisters of the ancient palace, they
were securely locked up, and left to their own confused reflections, and
the occupation of nursing their bruises.
*CHAPTER XV.*
*A MOMENT LONG WISHED FOR.*
Bright queen! illustrious nymph, whose gentle sway
Fair Caledonia's hardy sons obey;
Whose sacred hand the royal sceptre bears---
The ancient sceptre of two thousand years.
Oh, great descendant of a noble line!
Thy rank superior, but thy worth divine;
Beyond thy sex with every virtue bless'd;
Beyond thy birth of dignity possess'd!
_Buchanan to Mary Stuart, 1659._
The red October sun was gleaming on the casements of Holyrood, and
filling the north and western sides of its courts (the palace then had
five) with light and warmth, while the southern remained in shadow. The
royal standard waved on the tower of James V., then the northern and
most lofty part of this palace, which was burned by the fanatics of
Cromwell, and was much more irregular in architectural design, and very
different in aspect from the present stately edifice, which the skill of
Sir William Bruce engrafted on the old remains.
The queen's archers were bustling about the gothic porch and outer
gates, with their bows strung and belts bristling with arrows; the tramp
of hoofs, the clatter of harness, the voices of pages, grooms, and
yeomen, rang in the royal stables, and all the usual stir and business
of the day were commencing, though somewhat earlier--for on that morning
the Privy Council were to meet, and already the Lord Chancellor, Morton,
Stewart the High Treasurer, the Secretary of the Kingdom, Macgill of
Rankeillor, the Lord Clerk Register, and many other nobles and officers
of state, were arriving, attended by their usual retinues of armed
horsemen, and quarrelsome swashbucklers on foot, clad in half armour,
with swords, targets, and pistolettes, and having the badges of their
feudal lords fixed to their basinets.
Elbowing his way through the mass of pages, valets, and men-at-arms,
that filled the outer court, and whistling merrily as he went, the
handsome young lieutenant of the royal archers, Sir John Hepburn of
Bolton, was seen clad in his gayest attire--a green velvet doublet
trimmed with scarlet, and laced with gold, a purple mantle, and blue
bonnet garnished with a white feather. He ascended the narrow and
winding staircase of the Albany tower, where Konrad was confined, and
into which he was admitted by an archer of his own band, who was posted
as sentinel in the corridor.
By Bothwell's directions, Konrad had been treated like a knight or
gentleman rather than an outlawed moss-trooper, or broken borderman,
under which name he was charged with an attempt to slay the queen's
lieutenant.
Calm and collected, but sad and thoughtful, he was leaning against the
grated window, and watching the October sunrise, the warm light of which
was rendering yet more red the faded foliage of the copsewood that lay
to the eastward of the palace, and the old red walls of the Abbey
church, where at that moment the queen was kneeling on St. David's
grave, and praying at the same altar before which her sires had prayed
four hundred years before.
Konrad's garments were now rather nondescript, and considerably worn;
his beard and mustaches had been long untrimmed; his eyes were hollow,
and his cheeks were becoming ghastly and wan.
"What manner of man art thou?" asked Bolton, who now saw Konrad for the
first time, and remarked, with surprise, the contrast of his address and
attire. "Thou lookest somewhat like a follower of the lord of little
Egypt--perchance thou art the great Johnnie Faa himself? Mass! man, but
thou art an odd specimen of the tatterdemalion!"
"Sir," replied Konrad, mildly, "I am a foreigner, and must be excused if
I cannot decern the politeness of your queries."
"Foreigner--eh!" rejoined the young laird of Bolton, who, though far
from being ill-natured, had a blunt manner; "a fiddler, I warrant! as if
we had not enow and to spare, before David Rizzio was dirked in the next
room. Mass! we have Jehan d'Amiot, the French conjurer, who foretold
Davy's death; we have Sebastian, the violer; Francisco Rizzio; French
Paris; and the devil knoweth how many more about us. Dost thou play the
guitar, or the viol-de-gambo?"
"I play neither," replied Konrad, haughtily.
"Then in what dost thou excel? for all these foreign knaves excel us
poor Scottish barbarians in some slight of hand."
"I can handle the bow, the arblast, the backsword and dagger, the
morglay and ghisarma, with all of which, Sir Archer, I am very much at
your service."
"Now, God be with thee!" replied Bolton, frankly clapping him on the
shoulder; "thou art a right cock o' the game. I love thy mood; and, if
I can see thee well through this ugly business--by St. Bothan of Hepburn
I will! But thou hast a powerful foe in the Earl of Bothwell, with whom
thou art about to be confronted, though he (madcap that he is!) has
fallen into a small escapado with a certain gay damsel of the city, whom
I have sent twelve of my archers to bring before the council, by Lord
Morton's order; but come with me, sir, for the queen requires your
presence."
"The queen!" reiterated Konrad, but thinking only of Anna. "Oh, the
long-wished moment must be come at last! 'Tis well--I hasten to implore
her clemency, and to trust to her justice."
The apartment in which the council met was in that part of the monastery
of Holyrood which had been decorated by the late king, James V.; it was
wainscoted, and had been painted with various devices by Sir Thomas
Galbraith, the royal limner; but part was hung with that ancient
tapestry which is still preserved in the newer palace, and represents
the battles of Constantine. The ceiling was blue, studded with
_fleur-de-lys_, in compliment to the late queen mother, Mary of
Lorraine; but the floor had been fashioned by the early monks of the
Holy Rood, in the old Scottish manner, before the invention of
saw-mills, and when trees were simply split by wedges, and the boards
roughly dressed by the adze or axe, and then secured with nails having
heads of polished iron as broad as penny pieces.
This primitive style is still to be seen at Castle Grant, in Strathspey.
The deep-mouthed fireplace was a gothic arch, rich with cabbage leaves
and sculptured roses; it contained one of those massive old grates,
surmounted by an enormous thistle, which we may still see in James V.'s
tower; and above it hung a portrait of the late Cardinal Beatoun, with
his grave dark eyes and red baretta.
The table was covered with green cloth; the _Regiam Majestatem_,
_Quoniam Attachiamenta_, and other ancient tomes; the silver mace and
seal of Council lay upon it, together with a mass of parchments and
papers, before which sat he of the keen eye and thoughtful brow,
Secretary Lethington, with two servitors or clerks beside him. Morton,
with his high ruff and long beard; Moray, with his smart mustache and
close shorn hair; Glencairn, stern of eye, ferocious in aspect, and
sheathed in steel; Lindesay, his aged compeer, armed in the fashion of a
by-gone age, having the globular corselet, the angled tuilles, and long
sollerets of James III., with other peers--took their places at the
board, but remained standing and uncovered; for the door by which the
queen was to approach the throne was now thrown open, and the scarlet
liveries and gilt partisans of the yeoman of the guard were visible
below the festooned arras of the entrance.
A party of the archer guard occupied the lower end of this long chamber,
which was lighted by a range of well-barred windows that faced the lofty
crags of Salisbury. In one of these lounged Hepburn of Bolton, leaning
on his long sword, and with his soldierlike frankness conversing freely
with Konrad, notwithstanding that the latter was there that day to
answer for stouthrief and border felony--two charges which poor Konrad
(the victim of circumstances) would find it very difficult to answer.
But now a thrill shot through his heart; for, amid much bustle and some
noise, the Earl of Bothwell, the Marquis d'Elboeuff, and John of
Coldinghame, were ushered in, and, bowing to the lords, retired a
little; for they were there rather as culprits than privy councillors,
and looked about them with haughty and supercilious smiles.
"Dost thou know, Marquis," whispered the irritated Earl, loudly enough
to be heard by all; "that to me there seemeth something intensely
despicable in such a baron as I, who can muster five thousand horse,
being arraigned before a _woman_, like a rascally page or a chamber
wench?"
"_Certainement_--and I before my little niece! _Milles tonneres!_"
replied the Marquis, pulling up his ruff, which was all bristling with
whalebone.
"I feel at this moment a profound veneration for thy musty old Salique
law, which"----
"_Peste!_ here comes her majesty the Queen!" interrupted the Frenchman,
bowing till the point of the long toledo tilted up his mantle at an
angle of forty-five degrees.
Dressed in plain black velvet, slashed at the bosom and shoulders with
white satin, having her long train borne by the ladies Mary Fleming and
Mary Beatoun, with a long lace veil floating from her stately head, a
little close ruff under her chin, and the order of the Thistle sparkling
on her neck, Mary entered, and with a graceful inclination of her head
and a bright smile to all--looking more like the queen of some fair
clime of love and song than of fierce and fanatical Scotland--swept up
to the throne and took her seat under its purple canopy, while her
ladies and their pages retired a little behind it.
Then only in her twenty-fourth year, Mary seemed fresh and blooming as
the _Venus Celestis_ of the ancients; for she had just come from her
morning bathing, in the little turreted bath that still remains at the
western corner of the royal garden; and where tradition asserts that she
bathed in white wine; but a pure and limpid spring yet wells up beneath
the floor, to contradict the legend.
She was accompanied by Darnley, whose magnificent doublet of cloth of
gold was gleaming with jewels and seed pearls; but his face was pale,
and his eyes were languid, bloodshot, and restless: his scarf was torn;
his plumes were broken; something very like a female coif was hanging
from a slash in his trunk breeches; and it was evident that he had been
rambling with other debauchees the livelong night. Several gentlemen of
the Lennox accompanied him, and as they entered somewhat
unceremoniously, brushed past Bothwell and d'Elboeuff; but the former
grasped one by the mantle, saying--
"Mahoud! fellow, dost thou take us for Lennox lairds? Back, sir! we
hold our fiefs by knights' service, not by pimp tenure."
Between the hostile and intriguing spirits who crowded that gloomy
chamber, many a deep, dark scowl was furtively exchanged.
Darnley, who was perfumed to excess, and carried a pouncet-box, bestowed
all his attention, as usual, on Mariette Hubert, a maid of honour, and
darkly and fixedly the lieutenant of the archers watched his insidious
attentions. Darnley bent malignant eyes on Bothwell, who, in bravado,
wore the well-known scarlet mantle; and Bothwell and Konrad were
scowling at each other in turns; for the former felt no small dread of a
_denouement_, by which he might lose for ever that which was only
dawning upon him, and under the sunshine of which he had begun to
cherish, in secret, such daring and alluring hopes--the favour of the
queen.
"Well-a-day, fair, my Lords of Bothwell and d'Elboeuff," said the
petulant young King; "you made a notable brawl in our good burgh last
night. Beat off the watch, and wounded six of the royal archers, and
yet to be made captives--Ha! ha! came it of lack of skill, or lack of
will?"
"Of neither!" replied the Earl, with a smiling lip; "as I believe your
majesty very well knoweth--Ha! ha! I picked up this mantle in the fray.
I hope you know the owner, and admire its fashion?"
"Is it dagger-proof?" asked the King, with affected ease.
"No, but my doublet is," replied the Earl, with the same quiet air, and
a volume of courtly hatred and duplicity was exchanged with these
significant remarks; but Darnley resumed his cold smile, and once more
turned to the pretty Mariette, the sister of French Paris.
Konrad, whose handsome figure and pale features, with untrimmed beard
and short curly hair, Mary had been regarding from time to time with
true feminine interest, was now led forward by Maitland of Lethington,
who charged him with "treason, in rising in effeir of war against the
royal authority, fire-raising, stouthrief, and felony in Liddesdale,
under the umquhile John of Park, and for assailing openly in arms, with
that deceased traitor, the Lord Warden of the Three Marches, her grace's
lieutenant, James Earl of Bothwell, within the bounds of his own barony
of Hermitage, where he was wounded deadly in peril of his life by the
blow of a jeddard staff."
"_Ma foi!_" said Mary, to her sister Argyle, "is he not a fair young
man, and a winsome, to die the death of an outlaw? Approach, sir, and
reply to this terrible charge."
"Madame," said Konrad, kneeling on one knee, and again drawing himself
up to his full height, with an air that was not lost on the bright eyes
that regarded him with melancholy interest; "may it please your majesty
to hear my story? it is a short, but a sad one."
"Say forth!" replied the Queen, and Bothwell felt himself growing pale;
for he almost deplored his clemency, that had spared Konrad in
Liddesdale.
"Sweet madam! I am a stranger here in the land of the Scots; I know not
their laws nor their fashions; I barely know enough of their language to
make myself understood; and if, in the tale I am about to tell, I seem
to become confused, or to forget myself, I pray your gentleness to
remember the great presence in which I stand, and excuse me. A strange
combination of untoward circumstances, have brought me into the position
in which I this day find myself before you; but think not, gracious
madam, that I mean to draw upon your gentle pity, for life hath long
lost every charm to me; and, if it were spared, I have but one thought
now, and that is, after having accomplished the mission on which I
sought these shores, to return to my native Norway, and die a monk in
the cloisters of St Olaf at Upslo."
Konrad paused; his eyes moistened, and he sighed deeply. The queen and
her ladies became intensely interested by this sad exordium; but the
Lords Lindesay and Glencairn, who were anxious to have Bothwell's affair
brought under notice, could not repress signs of disgust and disdain, at
all this preamble and delay about hanging a pitiful border outlaw.
"Madam! I am the last of the old house of Saltzberg, in the province of
Aggerhuis. I was born where"----
"Thou art not likely to die!" interrupted Glencairn, striking the table
with his gauntleted hand. "God's murrain! no. Under favour of the
queen's grace, I would submit to your lordships, if we are to sit here
listening to the tale of a cunning romaunt teller, when there are more
important matters anent quhilk we are this day convened in council.
Besides, I would remind your grace and lordships that this caitiff, in
defiance of our laws anent the abomination of the mass and the vile
idols of paganrie, hath avowit to our beards his intention of becoming
ane masse-priest, quhilk is a fact so bold, so sinful, and so malapert,
that I marvel sorely at your patience in hearing it silently; and
further, as I think the affirmit word of the Lord Bothwell and the Laird
of Ormiston, that the panel was taken in armour, in ane attempt to slay
that noble lord on the marches of his own barony of Hermitage, quhilk
includeth forcible hamesucken as well as homicide and outlawrie, are
all, I deem, more than enow to deserve sentence of death. Let him be
beheaded and quartered!"
Mary was about to speak, when the Lord Lindesay bluntly interrupted her.
"The Lord Earl of Glencairn hath (as he always doth) spoken well; and I
move that, incontinent, this knave be removit furth from this chamber,
and straight conveyit to the place of doom, as ane daredevil
moss-trooper, ane false and idolatrous mass-monger, and as a sign of
judgment to his compeers in all time coming. What sayest thou, my Lord
of Morton?"
"With thee. Better hang now than die a mass-priest, and be damned
incontinently!"
With a crimsoned cheek and a heaving breast, Mary turned from peer to
peer on hearing those successive insults levelled at her religion; but
she read the most stolid and iron bigotry in every face, save her
brother's, who contrived to veil every emotion under a bland serenity of
visage that no eye could fathom.
"My lords, hold!" she exclaimed. "Am I the daughter of James V.?--am I
your sovereign or your slave? Will you dare to condemn or forgive in my
presence, without consulting me? I say, this man _shall not die!_ even
though he had bent a spear against my own breast, as well as that of my
lieutenant, who, I know, can be as generous and forgiving as he is brave
and noble. And well may he be forgiving, if I, the administrator of the
laws (St. Mary help me!) can afford to be so."
"Your majesty is right," said the Earl of Bothwell, who was anxious for
Konrad's removal on any terms. "I crave that he may be re-delivered to
me, to be treated as he deserves; and I hope your majesty knows me well
enough to believe that his usage will be generous."
"Then be it so. Sir John Hepburn, deliver this prisoner to your lord
the Earl, who must bring him to me again, for I am dying with curiosity
to learn his story."
"Away with him, Bolton!" said the Earl, in a hasty whisper; "and see a'
God's name thou keepest him close, permitting none to hold converse with
him, till I have him despatched to sure ward, at Bothwell or Hermitage."
And thus, the object of the long wished-for interview was frustrated,
and Konrad was hurried away by the archers; but at the moment he
retired, Bothwell turned about, and beheld what made him change colour
so perceptibly, that Darnley and others, whose eyes were seldom turned
from him, perceived it immediately.
The Earl of Morton, with an assumed air of the deepest respect, led in
Anna Rosenkrantz, who had just been conducted to the palace by a party
of Sir Arthur Erskine's archers.
*CHAPTER XVI.*
*ANNA AND THE QUEEN.*
_Ruggiero._--Say what you please, and unsay what you will,
Silisco loved your daughter; she loved him
And pledged her faith--Oh, sad chance!
Disastrous error! was it this destroyed
The maiden's faith! Why then shall pity plead
Against all anger.
_The Virgin Widow._
"Under favour of your majesty, and these noble lords," said the Earl of
Morton, with a most studiedly stolid aspect, "I have the pleasure to
present a lady of Norway, a subject of our warlike ally, Frederick of
Denmark, who claims the great honour of being _first_ Countess of
Bothwell."
It is impossible to describe the astonishment these words and the
appearance of Anna occasioned in all present. Every eye was bent
inquiringly upon her, and the charge against Bothwell, d'Elboeuff, and
Coldinghame, was forgotten in this new aspect of affairs.
Shame and rage, but from very different motives, filled the breasts of
Bothwell and of Huntly. The former was pale, though his dark eyes were
full of fire; but the brow of the latter was crimsoned by the generous
wrath of a fierce brother, jealous of his sister's honour. They both
started to their feet and grasped their swords, while their more
immediate friends began to draw near them with darkening faces.
"_Sacre nom de!_--Belzebub!"--muttered the perplexed d'Elboeuff,
twirling his mustaches; while Darnley's face, and the faces of
Bothwell's enemies, beamed with delight; and his mortal foe, the Earl of
Moray, though almost trembling with exultation, betrayed it not by one
glance or alteration of his grave and handsome face. The queen seemed
also disturbed, and, under the stern and indignant flash of her keen
dark eyes, even Bothwell quailed, as calm, and cold, and statue-like she
drew herself up to her full height, and gazed upon the sinking and
trembling Anna, who, advancing to within one pace of the dais, sunk upon
her knees, and, clasping her hands, raised her bright eyes to Mary's
gentle face, and, as she did so, all her glittering tresses rolled in a
volume over her neck and shoulders. Remembering the undisguised
admiration which the Earl had ever professed for herself, Mary felt
something of a woman's pique at this new and beautiful claimant on his
heart, and, for a moment, she almost gazed coldly upon her.
"Yea, madam," repeated Morton, striking his cane on the floor, "a lady
who accuseth James Earl of Bothwell of wedding, and ignobly deserting
her."
"'Tis false, Lord Earl!" exclaimed Bothwell, choking with passion, and
endeavouring to pull off his glove. "By the joys of heaven, and the
pains of hell--'tis false! I swear, 'tis false!"
"False!" reiterated Anna, in a piercing voice. "Oh, Bothwell, Bothwell!
darest thou to say so--thou who didst lure me from my home, my happy
home! and a heart that loved me well? Oh, do me justice, madam, ere I
die! I am indeed his wife--his wife whom he swore, before the blessed
sign of our redemption, to love, to cherish, and to protect!"
"I vow, madam, she raves!" said the Earl, quietly, collecting all his
thoughts in secret desperation; for he found himself standing on the
edge of a precipice.
"Oh, madam! hear my mournful story; and condemn me not unheard."
"Do not listen to a word of it, madam," said the Earl; "I beg you will
not. 'Tis all some rascally plot of my enemies to ruin me for ever in
the favour of your majesty, and my very good lord and kinsman, the Earl
of Huntly."
A smile, both dubious and scornful, lit the face of the Highland Earl,
who played ominously with his long dagger, while Bothwell reflected
bitterly on--
"What a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to _deceive_."
"I conjure your majesty not to hear her!" he urged; "and yet, why should
I fear? The honour of the house of Hepburn has been sustained
untarnished since old Adam of Hailes and Trapraine first unfurled his
pennon by the side of Bruce! and assuredly it cannot suffer now by the
artful story of a despicable gleewoman--Ha! ha!--a minion of the gallant
Lord of Morton."
"Let her speak for herself," said Mary; "I will not be cheated of this
story. Rise, woman! and fearlessly and truly afford us proof of the
grave charge thou preferrest against this great and potent lord."
Thus encouraged, Anna, in moving accents, which her broken language made
yet more touching and simple, related her early love for Konrad, and
Konrad's single-hearted devotion; and how the artful Earl had weaned all
her affections to himself; how he had so solemnly espoused her before
the altar of the Hermit of Bergen; had borne her far away from her home
to that strong castle in the solitary isle of Westeray, and had there
abandoned her for the arms of another.
"Jesu Maria!" said the Queen, with sadness and astonishment; "thy story
is like a chapter of the Hundred Tales. 'Tis a melancholy one, in
sooth! But, _ma bonne_, what proof canst thou afford us of all this?"
"My word, madam!" sobbed Anna; "my word only!--I am the daughter of a
belted knight, who died in battle."
"But this great lord will also give us his word that thou art false, and
can back his assertion by five thousand lances. Now, in this bad world,
where every body is so false, who am I to believe?"
The Earl, who, during Anna's pathetic address (every word of which stung
him to the soul), had been intently polishing his waist-buckle with his
leathern glove, now replied boldly--
"I trust that your majesty will believe me--whose word no man now living
hath ever dared to doubt--and believe me, when I declare the whole of
this fabrication to be the invention of some unknown enemy, to deprive
me of the little favour with which you have honoured me, as a return for
my dutiful devoir and loyal service in our raid into Liddesdale. And I
think when _the place_ wherein this wretched woman was found, is taken
into consideration, that I need not trouble myself much in denying the
whole accusation."
"_Mon Dieu!_ my lord, thou sayest true!" replied Mary, struck with the
remark. "I own that it throws suspicion on the whole; and I have lived
long enow among you to see the lengths courtiers will resort to, for
undermining each other."
"And this woman," continued the Earl, whose indignation increased with
his success; "this accursed harridan--this Alison Craig--why comes she
not to back the charge of her gleewoman? I well know that the Lord
Arran will vouch for her truth and honesty--yea, and greater men than
he!"
Arran grasped his Parmese dagger; but Darnley, to whom all this had
given intense delight, stayed his hand, and they exchanged glances
expressive of the sentiments that animated them; for both were
vindictive and malignant, and both had great command of feature and of
temper.
Poor Anna knew not until now the truth of what she had long ago
suspected--the vile nature of the dwelling to which Morton had so
infamously consigned her. Now it all burst on her like a flash of
lightning, and she alternately became crimson with shame and anger, or
pale as death with a mortal sickness of heart; for she saw in the sudden
change of Mary's demeanour, and the half quizzical, half pitying eyes of
the nobles, and the disdain of the maids of honour, how lightly her
story was valued.
A perfect paralysis seemed to possess her; near the steps of the throne
she sank upon her knees, with her hands clasped, her hair falling in
clusters over her face, and her heart full of agony, as she thought of
her father's pride, her mother's worth--of Konrad's slighted love, and
old Sir Erick's kindness.
Bothwell, anxious for her immediate removal, animated alike by pity and
anger, now approached the throne, and said--
"May it please your majesty, as Lord High Admiral, I was last night made
acquainted by the Water Bailie of Leith, that there is now at anchor
within a bowshot of the Mussel-cape, a certain ship of Denmark, the
Biornen, commanded by Christian Alborg, who will sail with this
evening's tide; and I move that this poor frantic damsel, who declares
herself to be a subject of his Danish majesty, be sent on board, and
transmitted to her home; and, if a hundred merks of silver will smooth
the way to her, my purse shall not be lacking."
"Well, so be it! The presence of this vessel is indeed opportune,"
replied the too facile queen. "_De tout mon coeur!_ let her be removed,
and this weary council be adjourned for to-day, that we may ramble into
the garden, and see the bright sunshine and the autumnal flowers."
Obedient to a glance from his friend and chief, Sir John Hepburn, with a
few archers, approached to raise Anna, but she started to her full
height, shook back her heavy locks, and full, with flashing eyes and
nostrils curled with scorn, she gazed upon Bothwell.
Pale and rigid as a statue, all save the curving lip and dilating eye,
with an aspect serenely savage, she gazed upon her betrayer. Oh! at that
moment, wildly as she loved him, Anna could have stabbed him to the
heart.
"Farewell, Bothwell!" she said, with an icy smile; "in that dark time
which is coming, when sorrow and remorse shall harrow up thy coward
soul, thou wilt recall the passage of this hour--the wrongs I have
endured--the shame and the contumely I have suffered. Hah! and in that
dark time of ruin and regret, (and she shook her clenched hand like an
enraged Pythoness,) remember Anna!"
And, as Bolton led her hurriedly away, the memory of that keen bright
glance from her wild dark eyes haunted Bothwell, when the hour she
foretold came upon him.
"Jesu!" said Mary, crossing herself; "what an eye! what a glance! she
must be an ill woman and a vile, to look thus. Argyle! _ma belle
Soeur!_--let us to the garden!" She here turned round, as usual,
expecting Darnley's proffered band to lead her forth. He was again
whispering to Mariette Hubert, from whose blushing cheeks and downcast
eyes there was no mistaking the purport of his addresses. Mary thought
how different were the days,
"When love was young, and Darnley kind!"
A shade crossed her snowy brow, a haughty smile curled her beautiful
lip, and she said somewhat peremptorily--
"Lord Bothwell--your hand!"
The Earl instantly drew off his perfumed gloves, and led the Queen from
the chair of state. The whole of the nobles rose, the archers of the
guard drew back the heavy arras, the yeomen unfolded a strong glass door
that opened towards the palace garden and ancient cloisters of the Abbey
church--and from thence the Earl led Mary to her favourite seat, near
the venerable and elaborate dial-stone, while Darnley, her ladies, and
several courtiers, followed in groups.
*CHAPTER XVII.*
*THE BOUQUET.*
How near I am to happiness
That Earth exceeds not! not another like it:
The treasures of the deep are not so precious
As the concealed comforts of a man,
Lock'd up in woman's love.
_Women beware Women, 1567._
It was now, as we have said, October.
The falling leaves were brown and crisped; the air was cool and balmy;
but in lieu of the whistling of birds that marks the merry summer, there
was heard at times the harsh screaming of aquatic fowls, as they passed
landward. The royal garden, which lies to the northward of the palace,
was then (as now) overlooked on the south by the embattled tower of
James V., the carved buttresses and aisle windows of the chapel royal;
and on the east by the old turreted chateau of Mary of Lorraine. The
walks were then sheltered by thick and lofty hedges of privet, thorn,
and holly, according to the ancient fashion of landscape gardening; but
the latter alone retained their dark-green hue, and were studded by
scarlet berries. There were balustraded terraces, a wilderness of walks
and hedges, treillages, and little canals; but the chief ornaments were
the mossy old fruit-trees, which had been planted and reared by the
industrious monks of Abbot Ballantyne's days.
The sun shone joyously in the wide blue sky, and the old towers of the
palace, and the square campanile of the church of _SANCTAE CRUCIS_
gleamed in the warm light. The few flowers of the season, which the
care and skill of the royal gardener reared under glasses in a sheltered
place, expanded their little cups and scentless petals in the warmth;
and inspired with joy by the bright sunshine and the fragrant perfume
that a slight shower had drawn from the greensward, and the box-edged
parterres, Mary's heart expanded like that of a beautiful bird; and
forgetful of the cares of state, and the bearded conclave she had just
left, she clapped her white hands, and with a girlish playfulness, (that
would have horrified John Knox, and petrified the General Assembly into
stone,) half hummed and half sang one of Ronsard's sonnets.
Then, seating herself by the beautifully-carved horologue which bears
her name, and is still situated in the centre of the garden, fixed upon
a pedestal that rises from three octagon steps, she continued her
sonnet, while playing alternately with a bouquet presented to her by the
keeper of the gardens, and with Fidele, her little Italian
greyhound--the gift of the Conte di Mezezzo, the Savoyard ambassador.
"Of all the poems of Pierre, le gentilhomme Vendomois," began the Earl,
as he leant against the pedestal, over which there drooped a venerable
weeping ash, and commenced a conversation, because he saw that Darnley
and the ladies of the court were promenading at a distance, and that
none observed him save his friend the Knight of Bolton. "Yes, madam; of
all Ronsard's poems, none has pleased me so much as that addressed to
your majesty, in which he portrays three nations--Scotland, France, and
England--contending around your cradle for which should possess you."
"And Monsieur Jupiter, to whom the three fair sisters referred their
claims, was most favourable to my dear and beautiful France. Ah!
Jupiter was very sensible which I should love most," said the Queen;
then, after a pause, she added--"O what a glorious lover Pierre Ronsard
must be!"
"Oh, yes! think how tender are these lines;" and the Earl sang with a
good voice--
"Bon jour, mon coeur; bon jour, ma douce vie;
Bon jour, mon oeil; bon jour, ma chere amie;
He! bon jour, ma touts belle.
Ma mignardise, bon jour,
Mes delices, mon coeur.
Mon doux printempe, ma douce fleur nouvelle."
"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Mary, with sudden animation; "I last heard those
lines"--
"At the Palace de la Tournelles."
"One night"----
"Under your window?"
"Then, Mother Mary! thou knowest the singer!"
"'Twas I!" said the Earl, with a low voice.
Mary coloured deeply.
"'Twas I!" he added; "on the night before your marriage with the
Dauphin, and my departure to Italy."
"Lord Earl, thou hast really a voice," said Mary, unwilling to perceive
the implication of his words.
"Love will achieve any thing, when it desires to please."
"Love!" laughed the joyous Queen, in her tone of raillery. "I do not
think thou very well knowest what love ought to be."
"Ah! say not so. When once kindled in a true heart," said the Earl,
laying his hand upon his breast, "it can only be extinguished by death."
"_Ma foi!_ but when a heart is so flexible that a sudden flame expands
within it to-day for one, and to-morrow for another," replied Mary,
(thinking of her gay husband, whose white feather was visible at times
above the holly hedges), "and can never love as--as one would wish to be
loved. 'Tis oddly said, that few are wedded to those they first loved."
"True, madam," said the Earl, with a lower voice; "my own poor heart
hath known that too bitterly."
"Indeed!" laughed the Queen, "since when?"
"Since I first beheld thee, adorable Mary! a young and smiling maiden of
seventeen, standing by the side of the puny Dauphin at the Tournelles,
as his affianced bride," replied the Earl, as half kneeling he lightly
kissed her hand, while all the warm passion he had first cherished for
her, in the days of his heedless youth, swelled up in his bosom.
"This is too much, presumptuous lord!" said the Queen, suddenly becoming
grave, as she rose from her seat, and moved slowly away. "I did but
begin in jest, and thou dost end in earnest."
"So it is ever with love, adorable madam!" replied the Earl, clasping
his hands.
"Silence!" said the Queen trembling; "thy words are full of sin. One
whisper of this to Darnley, and thou art a lost man;" and she glided
away like a haughty Juno, with her long train and veil floating behind
her. At this threat Bothwell's heart glowed alike with love and anger;
but he remained irresolute, and confounded by her sudden transition from
gaiety to gravity, and watched her approach the postern of James V.'s
tower. As she was about to enter, two aged, lean, and shrivelled hands,
were extended from the narrow-grated loophole of a strong and vaulted
chamber in the basement story, and these immediately arrested Mary's
attention. Folding her arms meekly upon her bosom, she bowed her head,
and on her pure and snowy brow the forbidden sign of the cross was
traced, and the hands were immediately withdrawn within the grating.
There, in that damp vault, lay Sir James Tarbet, a poor old priest, who
had been discovered saying mass at midnight in the ruined chapel of St.
Anthony on the Craig; and for this heinous crime had been consigned to a
dungeon by those champions of toleration, who enforced the iron laws of
the new _regime_.
Softened by the old man's blessing, and the sentiments it called up
within her, Mary, as she entered the tower, bowed to the Earl in token
of forgiveness, and dropped (but whether by chance or design, the
usually acute Magister Absalom sayeth not) her bouquet, of which the
enamoured lord immediately possessed himself, and placed in his bosom,
bowing almost to the earth as she disappeared. His heart beat like
lightning; a new and triumphant glow expanded like a flame within it,
and he seemed to tread on air.
"_Parbleu!_" said the Marquis d'Elboeuff, who had observed this scene,
and came pirouetting along the walk, looking like a great grasshopper,
with his long rapier and short mantle; "ha! ha! art thou still for the
Salique law?"
"Blockhead!" muttered the Earl impatiently.
"Remember that clause of it which saith, 'He who squeezes the hand of a
free woman shall pay a fine of fifteen golden sols.'"
"Ah! but callest thou the queen a free woman, when she is a slave to the
ten thousand caprices of yonder great baboon, her husband?" said the
Earl, as, with a bitterness he could not conceal, he abruptly left the
Marquis, and retired from the garden.
*CHAPTER XVIII.*
*JEALOUSY WITHOUT LOVE.*
_Eud._--No! we must part. 'Twill ask whole years of sorrow
To purge away this guilt. Then do not think
Thy loss in me, is worth one dropping tear;
But if thou wouldst be reconciled to Heaven,
First sacrifice to Heaven that fatal passion
Which caused thy fall.--Farewell, forget the lost!
_Siege of Damascus._
In the Earl's bosom every spark of affection for Anna had long since
died away, and his anger at her sudden appearance, in such a presence,
and with such a charge against him, now robbed her almost of his pity.
After a day and night spent in revelling, in the city, next evening he
returned to his own apartments that overlooked the southern court of the
palace, rejoicing alike at his narrow escape from disgrace, which was
entirely owing to Morton's mismanagement, in consigning Anna to the
guardianship of Alison Craig, and at his sudden fortune in finding
himself so favoured by Mary; and, with a rapture almost childish, he
kissed the flower she had dropped so opportunely at the postern door,
and which, like a treasure, he still preserved.
But the Earl knew not that in avoiding Scylla he had fallen into
Charybdis; for on ascending to his apartments, up the stair to which he
was formally preceded by French Paris and little Calder, he found
himself confronted by one, of whom he now thought very little, but whose
dark eyes--so soft, so pleading, and so imploring--he was confounded and
abashed to meet;--the Countess!
She looked paler and thinner than when they had last met, and a pang of
remorse wrung the Earl's heart as he surveyed her beautiful and slender
form, so evidently wasted by sorrow and suffering; but the momentary
sentiment passed away; ambition resumed its wonted power in his heart;
and, though he kissed his wife's brow, it was done with an air so cold
and conventional that she withdrew from his embrace, and at that time he
cordially wished her ten thousand leagues away.
A moment the peer gazed upon her fair and sinless brow, and the steady
gaze of her full dark eye, and he felt himself immensely her inferior in
nobility of spirit, in truth, and love, and honour; and to his
overweening pride that momentary sense of humiliation was bitter in the
extreme.
"Welcome to Holyrood, Jane!" said he, assuming his usual gaiety of
manner. "I warrant thou art come to upbraid me for playing the truant
so long from thee and the bonny banks of Bothwell."
"Nay, my lord, I am on the way to my father's castle of Strathbolgie in
the Garioch, and I seek but one night's shelter in these apartments.
To-morrow I will continue my journey."
"Heaven be praised!" thought the Earl, who found it necessary to affect
that proper regard which his cold expression showed plainly to have
evaporated. "Seat thyself beside me, bonnibel--thou lookest sickly and
ill. How comes this?"
"Canst thou ask?" she replied, with a mournful glance, and quietly
withdrawing from the arm with which he had endeavoured to encircle her.
"Thou hast been absent from me very long."
"And thou art tremendously angry with me, ladybird--is it not so?"
"Oh, no!" she replied gently; "but sorrowful--exceeding sorrowful."
"And so thou lovest me still, Jane?"
"More than thou dost me," she replied, with her eyes full of tears; and
Bothwell felt one small ray of his old love kindle in his heart.
"I would a thousand times rather that thou didst reproach me bitterly
than weep thus, Jane," said the Earl. "Thy scorn I might repel; thine
anger I might meet; but thy tears--now, now, for Heaven's sake and thine
own, be pacified; for I do love thee fondly still."
"Love me!" reiterated the Countess, half suffocated by tears.
"Do not doubt me, dear one," replied the Earl, in whose bosom at that
moment there was indeed something of a struggle; "be pacified, bonnibel!
See--here is a charming bouquet for thee; its perfume is alike reviving
and delicious. I had it from the queen."
The Countess made no reply, but her tears fell faster.
"And she, having heard of thy arrival, desired me to give it to thee,"
said the lying Earl, glad to say any thing that would please her.
"Hah!" exclaimed the Countess, sharply, setting her teeth and growing
deadly pale; "is it so? To me? thou shalt see me inhale its perfume,
_poisoned though it be_--for, oh, my husband! even death at thy hands is
welcome." And tremblingly she pressed her beautiful face into the
bouquet, and then turned pale and placidly to the Earl.
"Poisoned!" he exclaimed, with astonishment. "Thou art mad, Jane!
Pshaw! dost thou think that Mary of Scotland, (that being, pure as the
new fallen snow,) is like her fiendish gudemother, Catherine of Medici,
a vendor of poisoned flowers, and gloves, and ribbons? _Benedicite_!
Jane of Huntly, shame on thy vile suspicions!"
"Well, I thank Heaven it is all as thou sayest!" replied the Countess,
mildly; "but after all I have heard of the love passages between Mary
and thee at Hermitage, I expected somewhat worse."
"Love passages? Woman, what hast thou dared to say?" asked the Earl,
gravely.
"Only a hint of what I have heard."
"From whom?"
"The Earl of Sutherland."
"Babbler that he is!" exclaimed Bothwell, with a dark frown. "He hath
foully lied, and so become guilty of lese-majesty."
"Oh! do not look on me thus, my dear lord--I can bear any thing but your
frown. Thou wilt bring war, and death, and shame on the houses of
Bothwell and Aboyne; but I mean not to upbraid thee. As thou sowest, so
shalt thou reap; but for thy own sake, for the sake of thine ancestors,
their name and fame and honour, the honour of me, whose peace thou hast
destroyed, whose love thou hast scorned, whose ties thou hast forgotten,
whose prospects thou hast blighted; I implore thee, by each and all of
these, to pause, lest thou art crushed by the fall of the castle thine
ambition is building."
"I thank thee, Lady Bothwell," replied the Earl, rising and putting on
his bonnet, the lofty plumes of which he shook with ineffable hauteur;
"I thank thee for these good intentions and kind regards, though, by the
mass! I know not thine aim. And so thou art bound for Strathbolgie on
the morrow, my gay Gordon? Who of my people accompany thee? Is it long
Cockburn of Langton, with his lances of the Merse?"
"Nay; 'tis the Earl of Sutherland."
A cloud gathered on Bothwell's brow. The Earl of Sutherland had been a
lover of the Countess from her girlhood, and had only given up his
faithful suit on her accepting Bothwell; so there was a very unpleasant
association of ideas in the mind of the latter, who was generally apt to
view incidents through an evil medium.
"I trust the Lord Sutherland is well," he said scornfully; "and that his
bare-legged gillies, in brogues and breacan, will escort thee through
Strathbolgie, as safely as Bothwell's knights in their Milan mail would
have done."
"His sister, the Lady Elinora, accompanies us," said the Countess
colouring deeply, even at the suspicions of this husband, who loved her
now no more.
"Then, my bonnibel, when thou goest hence to-morrow, fail not to make my
very particular commendations to the Lady Elinora Sutherland, and the
noble lord her brother, and so the benison of God be with thee, and him,
and her;" and making a profound bow, he swaggered from the apartment,
and hurried down-stairs, glad to escape from the presence of the unhappy
Countess.
His heart was moved when he saw her sink despairingly down on a
cushioned window-seat; but her having mentioned the Earl of Sutherland,
had armed his better spirit against her; and, not ill pleased that she
had given a legitimate cause for anger and jealousy, affording him an
apology to himself, he hurriedly crossed the palace yard, and without
any defined purpose, entered the Artillery Park, a large common that lay
to the eastward, and there he gave vent to his exciting reflections.
Mary was uppermost in his thoughts. The _flower_ had sealed his fate,
and that of Darnley too! There had now opened before him a new vista of
the most alluring kind--a vista which he determined to pursue. The love
of the most beautiful of her sex--one occupying the summit of earthly
rank, with his own indomitable pride, ambition, and obstinacy, led him
on. Were Darnley, the sickly boy-king, to die of the premature disease
that so evidently preyed upon him, or were he luckily to be slain in one
of the innumerable brawls and feuds in which his life of debauchery and
intrigue involved him, then Bothwell might hope to hold Mary, the
bright, the beautiful, and the winning, in his arms. He already felt
the sceptre of Scotland in his grasp; he saw the house of Hepburn seated
on its throne; and Moray, Morton, Mar, and all who had ever hated;
feared, and wronged, or triumphed over him, in the days of his exile and
poverty, grovelling at his feet.
If Mary (as he was bold enough to believe) loved him in secret, as a man
of courage and gallantry it was _his_ part to progress, as she could not
make advances towards him. But Darnley must be removed; and how? for,
though weak and ailing, he might live long enough; and now was the time
to strike some vigorous political stroke, which might raise him
(Bothwell) to the giddy summit of his hopes, or hurl him for ever to
destruction and infamy.
"The die is cast!" he exclaimed. "To this will I devote my life, my
soul, my existence; and my very energy will raise me even as a demigod
above my compeers. Yes, she loves me! Curse on my blinded folly, that
saw it not before; and thrice cursed be this lordling of the Lennox,
that bars my path to rapture and to power!"
"Pho! hast thou not thy dagger?" said a voice.
The Earl turned, and beheld the lairds of Ormiston and Bolton; the
latter looking pale, and fierce, and agitated.
"How now, stout Bolton," said the Earl, "what hath ruffled thy easy
temper, and clouded that merry face of thine?"
"By the Rood of Broomholme! I will slay him, even as Fynart slew his
ancestor at Lithgow Bridge, by one thrust of a sharp rapier--yea, in the
face of men!" exclaimed Bolton.
"Whom meanest thou?"
"The Lord Darnley!"
"Soh! a rare speech, and a bold one too, for the lieutenant of the
guard!" said the Earl. "This is treason."
"But even-handed justice though," began Ormiston; "and by"----
"Now, peace with thy 'cock and pie.'"
"Bear with me a moment, my lord and friend, and I will tell thee how and
whence this anger sprung."
But the cause thereof is of so much importance to this history, that it
deserves a chapter to itself.
*CHAPTER XIX.*
*MARIETTE AND DARNLEY.*
Lightly from fair to fair he flew.
And loved to plead, lament, and sue;
Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain!
For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.
_Scott._
Mariette Hubert, the sister of Nicholas Hubert or French Paris, one of
Mary's favourite maids of honour, was the belle-ideal of a lively
Parisian girl of eighteen; her eyes were large, and dark, and laughing;
her features regular, piquant, and beautiful; her teeth like a row of
orient pearls. She was always like a laughing Hebe: fresh, blooming,
and smiling. Her black, glossy hair, was drawn upwards, from temples
whose snowy whiteness contrasted well with the sable wreaths. She was
ever good humoured, and gay to a fault, with a strong dash of wilfulness
and coquetry.
In drollery, her lover, Sir John Hepburn, who had admired her long, was
her very counterpart; though, by the influence of circumstances and the
manners of the time, he was impetuous, obstinate, and quarrelsome; but
there were few gallants who were otherwise at that factious and
intriguing court. Mariette, however, could smile him out of his anger,
laugh him out of his obstinacies, coquette with him to please him, and
with others to please herself. She could prattle, too, and caress him
with a playfulness that were quite enchanting; and many a fierce feud
and desperate brawl were prevented by her tact, and by the power she
could exert over her lover, who, in virtue of his command in Mary's
archer guard, was hourly brought in angry contact with the armed nobles
and their poor but proud followers; but never was he more enchanted than
when he discovered that his pretty and provoking Mariette, was a better
shot with the long bow at the butts, than the best archer in the royal
guard.
Though young Hepburn loved Mariette deeply and enthusiastically, he had
failed in inspiring the volatile and fanciful French girl with a passion
equal to his own.
She was gratified to find herself the object of attention, from one who
stood so high in the favour of Mary and the great Earl of Bothwell, and
who was esteemed one of the handsomest gallants at a court, which,
though shorn of the splendour that had characterised it under the late
King James, nevertheless retained within its circle all that was
splendid in Scotland. With all her coquetry, she dreaded to trifle with
the jealousy of her assiduous lover; for there was in his bosom a latent
spark, that a little ruffling fanned into a flame; and in the use of his
sword, he possessed that cavalier-like prompitude, which was the leading
characteristic of the Scottish gentleman before he lost caste.
The love he bore Mariette had become so much a part of himself, that
Hepburn was no longer like other men, or what he had formerly been. He
never had an idea in his head, of which Mariette did not form a part.
This passion affected his very manner, and interfered with his duties
and occupations, imparting a newness and peculiarity to his bearing and
manner, which drew upon him the raillery of Mary and her ladies, and the
wicked waggery of the fair object herself.
Though never perfectly certain of possessing her whole and undivided
heart, Hepburn received all the encouragement a lover could desire; for
Mariette loved to keep him in leading-strings, and attracted or repelled
him just as she was in the mood to dally or be petulant; and so between
hope and fear, and love and joy, a year had stolen away; and though
Hepburn fully considered Mariette as his ultimate wife, he knew not when
the volatile girl, who wore his bracelets and rings, and gave him
ribbons and ringlets in exchange, would yield her consent.
But a change came over the spirit of his dream, and suddenly he
discovered (he knew not why) a change in Mariette.
He had frequently observed the profligate young king by her side, and
then he began to experience a new and hitherto unknown agony gnawing at
his heart, and from thence it seemed to spread through every nerve and
fibre. When they were together, he followed with painful interest every
movement and expression of Darnley, and could easily perceive that his
eyes were full of ardour when he gazed on Mariette, and that her
downcast face, so interesting by its waving locks and long dark lashes,
wore a soft smile whenever he whispered in her ear.
The lover's impetuous heart became torn by wrath and jealousy, and
terrible ideas of revenge began to float before him; for, daring and
profligate as he knew Darnley to be, he was more than ever astonished at
his cool presumption in addressing Mariette Hubert as a lover under his
very eyes.
On the day succeeding that we have mentioned, when the famous scene took
place at the dial-stone in the royal garden, the lieutenant of the
archers, watching a time when the indefatigable royal _roue_ left
Mariette alone, approached her. She was seated on a stone sofa; and she
who was wont to have eyes only for him, neither saw nor heard him, till
he lightly touched her soft shoulder, and then she raised her blushing
face, which immediately became ashy pale.
"Thou seemest absent, dear Mariette," said he.
"I wish that thou wert absent, too," she replied, pettishly, plucking
leaf by leaf a flower the king had given her.
"Mariette, look at me. What hath come over thee? Art thou bewitched?"
asked the young man, in a voice of anger and tenderness curiously
blended; for he could not stoop to acknowledge the suspicions which
filled his heart with bitterness and rage. "Wherefore art thou now so
strange, so altered, so reserved, to one who loves thee so well, whose
every thought is of thee, and whose whole heart is full of thee? Oh,
unkind Mariette!"
She changed colour and trembled; but, without raising her dark eyes,
continued in confusion and abstraction to pluck the leaves of the
flower.
"Grant me patience, Heaven!" muttered her impetuous lover, whose sorrow
still overpowered his rising wrath; "dearest Mariette, the gossips of
our court (God's malison on them!) say that thy heart is changed towards
me; is--is this true?"
"No."
"By St. Bothan! that no sounds too like yes to mean anything else,"
exclaimed Bolton, giving way to his passion and jealousy; "but if thou
forgettest my faithful love, and preferrest the passing admiration of
this silken squire o' dames--this carpet-king and holiday moth--whose
proffered love is alike insulting and dishonourable, marry, come up! I
say, Mademoiselle Mariette--I wish thee joy!" and, with a profound bow
and glance of irony, he turned away.
Stung by his words and manner, which were partly assumed, Mariette
Hubert, who had been repenting the too serious encouragement given, and
still more a fatal promise made to the young king, now bent all her
thoughts upon him, and endeavoured to banish Hepburn from her memory;
while he, with all a lover's indecision, walked slowly away, deploring
in his heart the outburst, which he was too proud and still too
indignant to repair. Mariette gazed after him with her cheek flushing,
and her dark eyes full of fire, and so they parted--for the last time.
"Fool that I was to love a Frenchwoman!" thought the lover.
That night, as was his wont and duty, Hepburn, as lieutenant of the
guard, made his round of the archer sentinels posted at the various
gates of the palace, which was then, as we have said, a very irregular
but spacious edifice, containing five courts, with various offices,
stables, falconries, and kennels attached.
The night was dark and still, and a few large drops of rain plashed on
the pavement as he passed through the palace yard; while the red
sheet-lightning, flashing in the north, revealed at times the black
outline of the Calton hill. Hepburn, in half armour, with his visor up,
entered the gardens by that ancient doorway which faces the south, and
is ornamented by the Scottish arms and order of the Thistle. The clock
of the chapel tolled ten, and on passing the corner of James V.'s tower,
he looked up to the tall casements of the Queen's apartments, to
discover the usual light in that of Mariette, though he knew she would
not be visible to him to-night. Every window was dark as that of the
deserted chamber in which Rizzio was murdered, and the floor of which
was yet stained with his blood.
As Hepburn stood among the shrubbery, he perceived two figures approach
with all the caution of conspirators; and at once discovered one of
them, from his stature and bearing, to be the king. He was muffled in a
mantle, and wore a mask and coat-of-mail. The other was his favourite
page, Master Andrew Macaige, and they carried between them a long light
ladder, which they had purloined from the stable yard.
Darnley clapped his hands, and then, from amid the square colossal mass
of James V.'s tower, which was all buried in darkness and obscurity, a
single ray of light shot forth into the garden, a female appeared, and,
while thoughts of grief, and wrath, and horror, poured like a deluge
upon the mind of Hepburn, he recognised his long-loved Mariette Hubert!
He remained in a stupor, and heard the ladder jar as the adventurous
prince placed it against the wall, and saw him, after wrapping his
mantle round his left arm, and belting his sword higher up, ascend with
considerable agility into the apartment, after which the window was
immediately closed, and the light extinguished. The page carried off
the ladder to a secret place, not three yards from where Hepburn stood,
and, rolling himself up in his mantle, lay composedly down upon it to
sleep until he was summoned by the king.
The spell that had weighed like an incubus upon the faculties of the
lover, now passed away. His first impulse prompted him to put his foot
upon the page's neck and strangle him; his second, to wait the
reappearance of the king, and slay him without mercy. But these fierce
promptings were left unacted, and he turned away to seek Bothwell, of
whose secret hopes and long-cherished rivalry and hatred to Darnley he
had seen so many proofs. He raised his visor higher, for he felt almost
suffocated as he hurried through the cloisters. There he met Hob of
Ormiston, also searching for the Earl, who, an archer informed them, had
just entered the Artillery Park.
With a manner that was marked by the deepest excitement, the young
knight related, not very coherently, the substance of the preceding
affair; and, unseen in the dark, a quiet laugh spread over Hob's
malicious visage at the wrath and disappointment of his friend; but it
was otherwise with the Earl, who foresaw in all this something to
further his own ambitious schemes.
"I sought thee, Bothwell," said Hob, "to say, that an especial gentleman
of the Lord Morton's train (no other than the knight of Spott), hath
come with the Earl's best commendations to your lordship, and to say
that he and the Lord Moray, and one or two others thou wottest of, are
even now assembled at the castle of Craigmillar, where the queen went
about sunset, and where they crave your lordship's suit, service, and
attendance. I have ordered our horses!"--
"Thou ravest, Ormiston. Morton and Moray are my mortal foes; and truly
no fault is it of mine that they breathe the breath of this life
to-nigh! Anent what is this meeting?"
"The Lord Darnley," replied Ormiston, lowering his gruff voice.
"Ha!"
"And the best mode to rid Scotland and the queen too of his foolish
misgovernment, and the tyranny of Earl Matthew and the house of Lennox,
who, thou knowest, would gladly cut off thee and them, and every body
but themselves, if an opportunity occurred."
"By Jove, Hob! thou art a rash knave, and a bold one, to speak thus; but
thou knowest that the queen declined peremptorily the divorce offered
her by several Lords of the Parliament."
"True; hence this meeting, at which thou art expected to be leader and
chief, to obtain"----
"What?"
"A divorce from Darnley! that Mary may marry again, for her own
happiness and the commonweal of Scotland. Thou well knowest how
miserable this popinjay squire maketh her. And are we--bearded men who
rebelled against James V.--to submit to this new caterpillar? I trow
not!"