“Now I understand, my lord. It is enough to make any man gay. She is a beautiful creature and was most chaste, it would seem, when married to our King François. Even Brantôme—who can usually find some delicious tidbit of scandal concerning the seemingly most virtuous—has had nothing but praise to sing of the Queen of Scots.”
“She is charming,” said D’Amville. “And it is true that she is chaste. What is it about her… tell me that. You are something of a connoisseur, my friend. She is innocent and yet… and yet…”
“And yet… and yet…,” cried Chastelard. “My lady fair is innocent and yet… and yet… and yet…”
The two young men laughed together.
“May all good luck attend you,” said Chastelard. “I envy you from the bottom of my heart.”
“My hopes soar. She will be desolate. She will be ready to love anyone who is French while she is in that dreary land. You shall accompany me, my dear Chastelard; you shall share in my triumph … at secondhand, of course!”
When the two young men went out to follow the hunt they were still talking of the charms of Mary Stuart.
MARY HAD MANY causes for anxiety as she contemplated the journey ahead of her. The Queen of England declared she would deny her a safe passage until she signed the treaty of Edinburgh. Mary was on her mettle then. She was determined not to let the Tudor see that she feared her ships and sailors. She said so boldly.
“I may pass well enough home into my realm,” she said to Nicholas Throgmorton, “without your mistress’s passport. I remember your late King tried to prevent my arrival in France; but you see, Monsieur, I came safely without his permission. So I shall journey to my kingdom without that of your mistress.”
It was folly, but she felt stronger for committing it. From now on she would act in accordance with her own wishes. She had gathered some notion of the unhappy state of her country when on her way from Rheims to Lorraine she was met by one of the Catholic lords—John Lesley—who had come to tell her that he brought with him the fealty of the Catholics in Scotland. Caithness, Crawford, Huntley and Atholl were firmly behind her, he assured her. Their plan was that she should land secretly in Scotland, enter Edinburgh with a good force behind her and drive the heretic Lord James from his position as the head of the country in her absence.
She was alarmed. James was her brother—her dear Jamie. She had loved James. She knew he was a Protestant and that it would be his wish to make Scotland Protestant as hers was to make the country Catholic; but she was determined not to be a bigot, dearly as she loved her own faith and sure as she was that the Catholic Church was the true one. She could not feel happy, she said, contemplating that, on her arrival in her country, she would have to fight her own brother.
Fortunately she was able to speak with the Sieur d’Oysel, that French officer who had, in Scotland, worked so faithfully for her mother.
He shook his head over the project. “Your Majesty,” he said, “if you will deign to hear the advice of one who has campaigned long in your country and knows the temper of the people, he would say this: No doubt you wish to bring the Catholic Faith back to Scotland, but there are many in your land who are faithful to the Protestant cause, and to take arms against it at this time would plunge the whole of Scotland into a civil war. Your brother, Lord James, is a Protestant and you are a Catholic, but you need him. He will be loyal to you for expediency’s sake, if for no other reason. If you lost your crown where would he be? As a Stuart he must support a Stuart. His rivals—as yours are—would always be the Hamiltons or the Gordons. Do not be tempted to rash action. Your brother and Lord Maitland of Lethington are the cleverest statesmen in Scotland. They are both Protestants, but Your Majesty needs them. Therefore be discreet. Shelve the problem of religion until you have tested your people, and your brother with them. He could raise an army, so make sure—and this is what he would prefer to do—that he raises it for you and not against you.”
It was advice which she gladly took, for the prospect of civil war horrified her.
It was only a day or so later when Lord James himself arrived. When she saw him she was glad she had not allowed herself to be caught up in any intrigue against him. He was friendly and courteous; he was also very affectionate. He was very much the big brother whom she remembered. He was nearly thirty now and that seemed, to her, a very wise and experienced age.
He told her how happy he was that she was coming home.
“I am glad you will be there, Jamie.”
He smiled at the use of the childhood name.
“Though you hardly seem like Jamie now,” she went on. “Why, you are looking so wise, so full of knowledge. A deal must have happened to you since we last met.”
“All my experience I place at your service.”
He talked a little of affairs in Scotland, warning her to beware of certain lords. She listened half-heartedly. She was tired of the stories of continual strife.
“Jamie,” she said, “I wish you had not gone so far along the road to Protestantism.”
“My dear little sister, you have been brought up with Papists. Wait until you return home. Wait till you hear the sermons John Knox delivers in the Kirk at Edinburgh. Mayhap then you’ll come along with me on that road to Protestantism.”
“I shall try to make you turn back, Jamie. I shall try to make you come with me”
He smiled indulgently. He still looked upon her as the little sister. She was very charming, with such airs and graces that could be so delightful in a ballroom. She had all the necessary gifts to make her a great lady; none, he believed, to make her a great ruler. She was as different from the redheaded Queen below the Border as any woman could be. It was not surprising. Elizabeth had faced a hundred dangers when she was a child; Mary had been petted from babyhood.
“I am sure,” he said, “that you can discourse most learnedly and charmingly on all subjects. It is one of the accomplishments they have taught you so well in France.”
“Jamie, Rome would be ready to offer you great honors if you would change your mind.”
“My mind is made up, dear sister; and it is firmly turned away from the Church of Rome.”
“Then there is nothing I can say to turn you back to it?”
“Nothing. And there are other and urgent matters to discuss.”
“It will be a comfort to know that you are at my side to help me.”
He took her hand and let his lips rest lightly on it. “I shall serve you faithfully while you serve Scotland,” he said.
She believed him; there was that about James which made her believe him. She felt a little happier for her interview with him. But when he had left she still made excuses to stay in France.
OFTEN MARY lay sleepless through the night thinking of the perilous journey across the seas. She would dream that the ships of the Queen of England captured hers; she dreamed that she stood before the redheaded virago, who swore she would have vengeance because Mary had denied her right to the crown of England.
Back in Scotland were the quarrelsome nobles. Her brother and Maitland had not been good friends to her mother, she remembered. The Catholic nobles, led by Huntley, the Cock o’ the North, were untrustworthy. Yet she must go amongst them; and to reach them she must brave the perils of the English seas.
Suddenly there came to her memory a man—an insolent man, yet a bold one. He was no friend of the Catholic nobles, and no friend of her brother and Maitland; rather, he had stood alone, a chieftain of the Border country, ruthless and despotic; yet her mother had said she would rely on his loyalty more readily than on that of any other man in Scotland.