The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots (12 page)

By the time the first frosts came, I was feeling ill in the mornings and Margaret Carwood called Dr. Bourgoing to come and examine me.

He came, along with the midwife Mistress Asteane, the midwife who, many years earlier, had brought me into the world in those sad days following my father’s death.

“There is no question about it,” the doctor said after he had examined me and after Mistress Asteane had put her hand briefly on my belly and looked into my puffy face. “You will soon be a mother.” The midwife nodded.

I had suspected this, but on hearing the doctor say the words I felt weak and began to weep.

“There now,” Mistress Asteane said, bringing out of her bag a leather pouch of some stinking herb. “Women who are with child tend to weep a lot, and rage a lot, and just generally feel miserable and unlike themselves.” She looked at my broken, bitten nails. “You are nervous,” she said. “Nervous mothers have weak babies. You need to be calm. Make a tea from these herbs and drink it three times a day. It will help you. And I will help you too, if you need it.” She
patted my hand, just as if I had been a woman from the town or a girl working in the fields, and not a queen.

Everyone was smiling at me encouragingly, sympathetically. I was carrying the heir to Scotland’s throne. I had to be joyful.

“Be glad you are not barren,” Dr. Bourgoing was saying. “Everyone in France assumed you were.”

But what none of them knew, for I had told no one, was that the child I was carrying had been conceived in hatred, not love, and (I can hardly bear to write this) by a man who required the presence of naked boys to stimulate his desire.

It was all too painful, too shameful, to reveal to anyone. I resolved to keep my terrible secret to myself.

For the next several months I brooded, drinking my stinking tea three times a day, sleeping far too much, eating a lot and gaining weight, and still biting my nails.

I had a great deal on my mind. I would soon have a child to care for and worry over. A child! An heir to my throne. A strong boy, I hoped, who would in time be able to bear the rule of Scotland on his broad shoulders. Would I survive the ordeal of his birth? Many women died in the travail of giving birth. Even strong, young women. Would I be able to govern my quarrelsome subjects until he was born? I could not very well ride at the head of my army while I was pregnant, though I had heard that other women had performed this feat, Queen Isabella for one, the courageous mother of Queen Catherine of Aragon. Would my subjects rebel while I was in my unwieldy, semi-invalid state, and unable to control them? Who would serve as my deputy while I was ill?

Henry spent his days hunting, staying away from court, avoiding me. I had sent Dr. Bourgoing to give him the news that we were to be parents but had heard no word from him, not even by messenger. I knew from my equerry Arthur Erskine that Henry had quarreled with his former boon companion David Riccio, and that he was seen more often than ever in the company of the outlaw Red Ormiston,
that brigand who had been with Jamie on the night he disrupted my banquet; Henry had often brought Ormiston to Holyrood since our wedding.

What was Henry up to? I drank my tea, and it dulled my mind a little, but my worries remained.

The Christmas season was approaching, my twenty-third birthday came and went early in December of that year of 1565 (the celebration soured for me because I knew that it was also Henry’s birthday) and the palace was decorated for the nativity feast. David Riccio offered to take charge of the Christmas festivities, and I did not demur. For weeks David and his many relatives were to be seen throughout the palace rehearsing masques, practicing their songs, putting green boughs around the windows and removing the old rushes from the floor and bringing in fresh ones.

Spiced wine and new pomanders were prepared in the palace kitchens, and the smells of pine and holly, cloves and cinnamon filled the rooms, lifting my spirits and making me long for the Christmases I had known in France, when my grandmother had given me lavish gifts and the entire court had banqueted for weeks on roast swans and peacocks, capons and jellies and pies and glazed fruits hung on miniature silver trees.

My child, I feared, would not know any of these delights. Not for him the abundance of France—only the sparse pleasures of chilly Scotland. But he would have my love, of that I felt certain. Whether he would have any affection from his heartless father I couldn’t imagine.

I invited Jamie to my court for Christmas and he came, along with his sister Jean and a much weakened Cristy Ricarton, who walked slowly and uncertainly with the aid of two sticks and looked as though he had aged ten years since I last saw him.

Jamie seemed subdued, and I asked him why.

“In six weeks I will cease to be a free man,” he said. “I cannot put off my marriage any longer.”

“Don’t assume the worst, Jamie,” I said. “In time you may come to love and value your wife-to-be. Jean Gordon is said to be a fine strong woman.”

He shrugged. “But she is not the woman I would have chosen. We both know that.”

I let this pass. There was no point in calling to mind what could not be.

“She cannot possibly be worse than my spouse.” And though I had sworn to myself that I would never reveal what had happened on the night my child was conceived, I confided the entire awful episode to Jamie—and only Jamie.

He jumped up from where we had been sitting and reached for his sword.

“That whoreson bastard! How dare he treat you so knavishly, so cruelly! I’ll kill him!”

“Keep quiet, or he may do worse!” I said through clenched teeth. “He has ignored me and stayed away from court for months. I don’t want him to return. Don’t give him a reason to.”

After much swearing and pacing Jamie managed to calm himself, though I could tell how angry he was—not only because of what Henry had done to me, and to his friend Cristy, but because of an even more urgent matter he proceeded to tell me about.

“Are you aware that your husband is conspiring against you? That he has persuaded the Protestant lords—including your brother James, and the reverend Knox, and many others—to join him in seizing the throne from you?”

“No. I did not know he had gone that far.”

“They even approached me to join them. Can you imagine? Me? The last person in all Scotland who would ever desert you, no matter what anyone may say.”

“Yes, Jamie. I know that.”

“At first, when they came to me, I wanted to laugh in their faces and denounce them. But then I thought, I can serve you better by
pretending to be part of their plan. That way I can warn you in advance when they mean to strike.”

“Perhaps I should strike first.”

“How?”

“Your sister casts spells. I could ask her to put a spell on Henry.”

“You could, but if anything were to happen to him, his allies would then have even more reason to dethrone you. You would be accused of causing his death. No, it is better that you wait for Henry to reveal his treachery. Then your guards can take him and deal with him.”

Christmas came and went. A month passed, and then another, and still the conspiracy Jamie had warned me about had not led to any action. My belly was becoming uncomfortably large, the baby had begun kicking me and I often had an upset stomach after I ate. Mistress Asteane watched over me, assuring me that all was well, and Dr. Bourgoing too came to examine me once a week. Meanwhile Jamie’s wedding plans went forward and he was married in February, but almost as soon as the ceremony was ended he was back at my court, with his sister—and, I could not help but notice, without his new wife.

“You must take the greatest care now,” Jamie told me soon after he arrived. “Do not leave the palace, for any reason. Keep your guards around you. I will stay nearby, and Jean as well.”

I assured him that I would do as he said.

“Your husband’s diabolical plan is worse than I had thought. He has paid Red Ormiston ten thousand English crowns to attack you, along with his gang of felons. When and where I don’t yet know. You need to be ready.”

“What if I offer him fifteen thousand not to do it?”

“Ah, but he has given his word. Mere money will not convince him to break it.”

I remembered how Jamie and the outlaw had once joined forces. Surely there must be some tie of allegiance between them, even in the murky world of everchanging Scots loyalties.

“You know him well. Could you persuade him not to go through
with this murderous attack, for the sake of his loyalty to you, and yours to me?”

“I have already tried. I am still trying. I will add your promise of fifteen thousand crowns to my persuasions.”

Day after day passed, Adrien and my guardsmen remained in attendance on me, and my other servants, sensing danger, were visibly wary and seemed to draw physically nearer to me when they were in my presence.

One morning my baby gave such a lusty kick that I cried out, and fell to my knees. At once the guardsmen were all around me, my servants came rushing in to my small dressing room and in the corridor outside there was such a loud hue and cry that I thought the very walls would shake.

But I was fine, I assured everyone that I was in no danger and Jamie’s sister Jean sat beside me until all was normal again.

“I’ve been meaning to give you this,” Jean said as we sat together. She drew out a large round stone from her pocket and handed it to me. To my surprise, it felt warm. It was a piece of rock crystal, set in silver and meant to be worn on a chain around the neck.

“This is a charm stone, a gem of power,” she told me. “It carries the blessings of many generations of healers. It will protect you, and ease your pains, when your time comes.”

I thanked her and hung the stone from a silver chain, and wore it along with the portrait of my mother which I nearly always had with me.

Perhaps, I thought, these worries that prey on me will come to nothing. Mistress Asteane kept telling me that pregnant women are always worried, and often for no reason. I did my best to believe her. I drank my tea, and said my prayers for the best outcome of all the anxieties that assailed me. And all the while I fingered the charm stone that hung around my neck, doing my best to take comfort from its rough warmth, hoping that my child and I would be protected, no matter what dangers we might face.

What I have to tell now is only a jumble of memories, all of them ghastly. I remember being in a familiar room, surrounded by friends, feeling safe there because Adrien was nearby and Jamie’s sister Jean was sitting right next to me and my equerry Arthur Erskine, who always carried his dagger, was sitting right across the table.

We were dining. I remember the rich smell of the food, and the taste of chicken in my mouth, and feeling my baby kick, and hearing David laugh.

But then Henry came into the room—he was not a welcome guest at my table, and I did not want him there, but he sat down anyway and then Jean said “oh no, not now” and then before I knew it there were more men coming into the room, the tall, fearsome-looking Red Ormiston among them. And then Adrien stood up and reached for his sword and one of the men hit him and he fell and my heart started to beat too fast and I thought I was going to faint.

Instead I tried to stand up and that was when Henry pushed me back against the wall and held me there so that I could not move. I thought, dear God, is he going to violate me again? But he just continued to hold me, there against the wall, and I felt the cold metal
of a pistol against my temple and then I was aware that someone was clutching at my skirt. Pulling on it, tearing it, and at the same time crying out, “Save me! O madam, save me!”

Henry’s sour breath was in my face and someone was screaming and then I felt a strong tug on my clothes and at the same moment there was a cry—hardly more than a breath—and a sort of sighing, and then I felt something warm and wet on my shoes and I managed to look down and saw, first, David’s face, and then blood. Red blood, and lots of it, staining my carpet and David being dragged away from me but reaching out with his hands toward me.

“Justice, justice, justice” he kept calling out, his voice more and more faint. Someone was dragging him by the heels across the floor, away from me, and the fur on his coat was red with his blood.

“Call the guard” I kept saying but my voice was no more than a whisper. Then I wanted to shut my ears because there were loud, agonizing screams—a man’s screams—coming from just outside the room.

And then, in the midst of all the confusion, in my horror, in my bewilderment, with my heart racing so fast that I could barely think at all, something very strange happened. Red Ormiston, who is a big, wide, hulking man, taller than any of my guards and probably much stronger, and who was wearing a yellow and red plaid with a sprig of heather in his cap, came up to Henry and me and with one hand swept Henry aside. Just swept him out of the way, as if he were nothing more than a dog eating scraps under the table.

I thought, he’s going to kill me. I know he is. And I began repeating the words of the Lord’s Prayer and shut my eyes.

There was a great commotion in the room all around me. I heard the clink of metal on metal, shouts and curses, women screaming, running feet—and then, all of a sudden, the alarm bells began ringing to arouse the whole city and I thought, my people will come and save me.

Yet it was not my subjects who saved me, but the immense man standing before me, towering over me. The outlaw Ormiston, who
fixed me with his dark eyes and held one immense hand in front of my face.

He put his mouth to my ear and muttered “You owe me fifteen thousand crowns.”

And then, still thinking that I was going to die, I gave in to the fear and the roaring in my ears and my knees buckled under me and I sank down, down, into oblivion.