An Accidental Tragedy (26 page)

By summoning Knox, Mary had exposed herself to insult and a lecture on the principles of democracy without achieving anything at all. It was a childish outburst, similar to her trial of strength with Mme de Parois – although in that case she won a petty victory – and an attempt to maintain her authority as a
queen, resulting in a total loss of face. Neither Diane de Poitiers nor Catherine de Medici would have behaved so childishly.

On 24 June 1563 ambassadors arrived from Eric XIV of Sweden, a Protestant, but he was peremptorily rejected. Eric was the son of Gustavus Vasa, who had unified Sweden while driving out their Danish oppressors. He had declared the entire wealth of Sweden to be his personal fortune and had married Katarina of Sachsen-Lauenburg, thus founding a powerful Scandinavian dynasty, although one in search of Western European ties. The ambassadors were also keen to strengthen trade ties in the Baltic, where Swedish trade was under threat from Russia, and such formal ties would have meant increasing prosperity for Scottish merchants, already looking across the North Sea for more profitable Scandinavian links. However, Elizabeth had already rejected Eric, and Mary regarded him as an unsuitable cast-off from a distant and barbaric country. She had not the slightest interest in trade and the plight of merchants was of no concern to her. The ambassadors returned empty-handed. Eric’s behaviour became erratic – he even attempted to murder a cabinet minister four years later – but he married a Swedish noblewoman, Karin Mansdotter, in 1568. The next year, he was deposed by his brother, Duke John of Finland, and Scotland’s opportunity to reinvigorate the commercial opportunities of the Hanseatic League was lost.

Almost immediately after the departure of the Swedish ambassadors, Mary set about using the last of the summer weather before the Scottish winter set in to confine the court indoors. The most enjoyable form of outdoor exercise was a royal progress, so the entire court, including a reluctant Randolph, visited the west and south-west dressed up as their idea of Highlanders. Their activities followed the usual pattern: Mary showed herself to the admiring population, visited the local gentry and, of course, hunted and danced enthusiastically, freed from the cares of politics. She was making contact with parts of the population unknown to her, many of whom had never seen a monarch before. The personal loyalty of the lairds to their queen was never in question in spite of the
religious differences between them, but this loyalty was no more than a formality and could be suspended at any time.

Lethington remained in London, where Elizabeth, with the help of her excellent intelligence service, watched the continuing marriage negotiations with close interest. Her own marriage plans were as vague as ever and so, without an heir to her throne, the question of the succession became paramount. If, as seemed likely, Elizabeth died childless, then the direct Tudor line would end. But, over a century earlier, after the death of James IV at Flodden, his widow, Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, had married the Earl of Angus and given birth to Margaret Douglas, who became the Countess of Lennox and mother of Henry, Lord Darnley. Darnley was, therefore, a Stewart descended from a Tudor. Margaret Douglas’s husband, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, was descended, albeit by a female line, from Mary, daughter of James II, whose bloodline also included the house of Hamilton in the persons of the Duc de Châtelherault and the now intermittently insane Arran. But Queen Mary, as a Stewart descended from a Tudor, was Elizabeth’s obvious heir, and her son, if she had one, would inherit the throne of England. If Mary married Don Carlos and had a son by him then Spain, Scotland and England would all be ruled from Madrid. Lethington was given a clear and forceful message from Elizabeth and Cecil that such a marriage would make an enemy of England, and instructions were sent to Randolph to tell Mary three things: first, that there should be love between husband and wife; second, that Mary’s choice should be liked by the people; and, last, that her husband would not interfere with the amity between England and Scotland. This was no more than a gentle warning. Lethington was also asked to ‘infer by consequence that no such mighty marriage [as Don Carlos] may be sought for’. Cecil and Elizabeth were now treating a sovereign monarch as a refractory child.

On 1 September 1563, Mary and her retinue arrived at the imposing castle of Craigmillar, just outside Edinburgh, where she could have had no idea that Elizabeth’s instructions were waiting
for her. The royal party dismounted inside the courtyard and walked up the steps to the great hall, Mary’s servants turning left to prepare her accommodation, while she herself went to dine. After dinner Mary met Moray, Lethington and Randolph, who delivered his mistress’s ultimatum. Mary at first appeared not to understand, but asked for a written memorandum clearly setting out Elizabeth’s intentions. The marriage question now became a protracted game of who would blink first. In November Elizabeth showed a little more of her hand and recommended a further three things: Mary should marry ‘some fit nobleman within the island’, and declared that ‘no child of France, Spain or Austria will be acceptable’. Finally, she now openly threatened that ‘her [Mary’s] right and title to the English Crown will depend much on her marriage’. In case Mary was veering towards him, Elizabeth let it be known that she would not reject a suit from Archduke Charles on her own behalf. She had no scruples over making promises that she had no intention of keeping.

Most of these machinations were of little or no interest to Mary, who hunted, hawked and rode through the beauties of her kingdom. She expected nothing from a marriage but a dynastic alliance sealed by her giving birth to a prince, and her first marriage had demonstrated that, had she been able to produce a dauphin, her usefulness would have been over. She was in no hurry to carry out what she knew all too well was her expected function as a broodmare. However, when she returned to Edinburgh, she found that Knox had been busy in her absence. He had composed a private prayer to be said after grace with his own family: ‘Deliver us, O Lord, from the bondage of idolatry. Preserve and keep us from the tyranny of strangers.’ There is no doubt that those of Mary’s household remaining at Holyrood had breached the agreement made with Lord James when they celebrated Mass in her absence, not in Mary’s private chapel but more openly in the abbey. A mob, led by Patrick Cranston and Andrew Armstrong, burst in and broke up the proceedings on 15 August. On receipt of this news Mary impetuously ordered
their arrest for ‘forethought, felony, hamesucken [showing violence to a householder in his own home], violent invasion of the palace and spoliation of the same’. Knox, equally impetuously, wrote to his principal supporters to ‘make convocation’ in Edinburgh and oppose Mary’s continued celebration of the Mass. The trial of Cranston and Armstrong was adjourned and eventually forgotten, but Mary judged Knox’s letter to be treasonous and he was again summoned to Holyrood on 21 December 1563 where he and Mary met for the last time.

On this occasion, Knox had arrived with so many supporters that they spilled out of the audience chamber, down two flights of stairs and filled the inner court of the palace, while the entire Privy Council took their seats across the table from the bareheaded Knox. They then rose and applauded as Mary came in with ‘no little worldly pomp’, flanked by Lethington and the Master of Maxwell, who sat on either side of her and offered advice into alternate royal ears. To everyone’s astonishment she took one look at Knox and burst into laughter saying, ‘That man made me weep and wept never [a] tear himself. I will see if I can make him weep.’ Knox was shown one of his letters, confirmed his authorship and was asked to read it aloud. Mary then asked her council if they did not think it treasonous. To her horror, Ruthven pointed out that, since as minister of St Giles, Knox regularly summoned convocations to pray and hear his sermons, such a letter could not be held to be treason. Mary briskly overruled Ruthven and demanded that Knox answer the charge of accusing his sovereign of cruelty. Knox denied this but told her that the cruelty was done, not by her, by rather by the ‘pestilent papist’ who had inflamed her against pure men. Mary warned him that he was not now in the pulpit, but he replied that he was now in a place where he was obliged to speak the truth, thus placing Mary in the invidious position of having brought the forthcoming tirade on her own head. As Knox continued, citing lengthy Biblical examples of preachers being persecuted although God-inspired, Lethington shook his head and smiled in admiration of this virtuoso display of Knox’s training in argument by
medieval Schoolmen. He then whispered in Mary’s ear that she had lost the argument. Mary blustered but Lethington told Knox, ‘You may return to your house for this night.’ A vote of the council was taken and, overwhelmingly, Knox was exonerated. Mary swept out of the room in a violent temper.

It had been foolish of Mary to attempt the trial, probably against the advice of Lethington, who was probably delighted for Mary to see the results of ignoring his counsel. There had never been any reason for Mary to instigate the confrontations, and had she carried out her policy of non-intervention in the affairs of Scotland more rigorously, she would not have caused the resultant hardening of reforming attitudes.

The year 1563 was one Mary probably wanted to forget, and immediately after her twenty-first birthday she took to her bed with a pain in her right side, remaining incommunicado over the Christmas and New Year celebrations. She claimed she had caught a cold ‘being so long at divine service’ but Randolph, supported inevitably by Knox, believed it came from over exertions in late-night dancing.

On the marriage question, Randolph reported the following private conversation on 21 February: ‘Sometimes she likes to hear of marriage. Many times the widow’s life is best; sometimes she may marry where she will, sometimes she is sought of nobody.’ Randolph asked that ‘at least she will have compassion on her four Maries, who for her sake have vowed never to marry if she be not the first’. In fact, Mary Livingston was already married and two other Maries would marry before their mistress.

Mary’s comments here are revealing for a queen who had, so far, avoided any of the responsibilities of power. Mary lived in a time when women were largely defined by their condition as wives. There were, certainly, three outstanding exceptions in Catherine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers and Elizabeth I, but, by and large, unmarried women were only of interest as possible wives, and the relative importance of wives was directly related to the importance of their husbands. Widows, on the other hand, were presumed to have performed their duties to society and
could be left to lead their own lives. The fact that they were often financially independent and vigorously set about interfering in the lives of their younger relatives marks them out as being outside the normal strictures of society. Mary felt that she had no need to make any further effort to establish her own personality, but could simply enjoy the rest of her life dancing, eating and hawking.

In addition, Mary’s wish to ‘marry where she will’ was strictly proscribed by her position and religion, but since she had from childhood accepted the advice of others she now had no real sense of her own will, except in a petty and wayward manner.

Mary’s regret that she was ‘sought of nobody’ is no more than childish self-pity. At least three European rulers had offered themselves and she could have accepted any one of them. But Mary had seen many of her household marry for love. They had been wooed, courted and adored and their stolen kisses had led them to love and marriage. Mary had been scrupulous in attending their weddings and the christenings of their children, always enjoying these low-key domestic celebrations. Clearly she envied them their freedom to behave as private people; there have been very few monarchs who have not envied the lack of responsibility enjoyed by their subjects. It is always easy to envy the poor from the comfort of a velvet chair in a palace.

It is true that Mary did not choose to be a queen – few queens ever do – but she enjoyed the privileges that accompanied her position. There have been many queens who have acceded to the throne unexpectedly – both the Queen Elizabeths who came to rule in England and Great Britain are good examples – and have made brilliant monarchs, but they accepted the necessary sacrifices uncomplainingly. Mary avoided royal responsibilities but continued to enjoy her state and fondly attend the weddings of her ladies-in-waiting. She was still waiting for her Amadis, her knight errant, to spirit her away on his pure-white charger.

One marriage that did take place did not please her at all. Knox had been a widower since 1560, and on 1 March 1564 the banns of marriage between him and Margaret Stewart, the
daughter of Lord Ochiltree, were read out. She was seventeen and Knox was fifty, and there was something of a scandal. More importantly, however, the young bride was distantly related to Mary – ‘of the blood and name’. The queen ‘stormed wonderfully’.

However, matters of her own marriage lay quiet until, later in March that year, Lethington told Randolph that a further offer for Mary’s hand had been received from the emperor, who was prepared to finance his son, the archduke, to the tune of 2 million francs during his lifetime and 5 million after his death, to ‘live with her in Scotland [bringing as personal retainers] as few in number as shall seem good to her council’. Lethington added that the emperor expected an answer by the end of May. This was confided to Randolph as ‘a great secret’, and Randolph suspected that this increased offer was no more than a gambit to force Elizabeth to make a decision.

It was a sufficient stimulus for Randolph to ‘declare at good length what [he] had received in writing from her majesty’. It does seem possible that Randolph had been given his instructions some time before and had been told to judge when the time was right to deliver them. He carried them out on 30 March 1564, when Mary was at Perth, a town which she loathed because it was thought to have been Knox’s sermon in St John’s Church that had actively launched the Scottish Reformation. Here Mary broke off a Privy Council meeting to receive Elizabeth’s ambassador. Elizabeth now openly recommended that Mary should marry Lord Robert Dudley.