The almoner spoke. “It was little, Your Majesty. They wrenched the candlesticks from us and laid about them. But Your Majesty’s brothers were at hand, and Lord James is speaking to the people now.”
She hurried on. Lord James was addressing the crowd which had gathered about the door of the chapel.
The crowd would stand back, he ordered. None should come a step nearer to the chapel on pain of death. He himself, Lord James Stuart, would have any man answer with his life who dared lay hands on the Queen or her servants.
There was a hush as Mary approached.
James said to her: “Say nothing. Go straight into the chapel as though nothing has happened. There must be no trouble now.”
There was something in James’s manner which made her obey him. Trembling with indignation, longing to turn and try to explain to these people why she followed the Church of Rome, yet she obeyed her brother. He seemed so old and wise, standing there, his sword drawn.
He sent Chastelard back to bring the priest and almoner, that they might celebrate Mass in the chapel according to the Queens wishes; and after a while Mary was joined by the priest and the almoner, their bandaged heads still bleeding from their wounds.
Mass was celebrated; but Mary was aware of the mob outside. She knew that, but for the fact that her brother stood there to protect her, the crowd would have burst into the chapel.
SHE SAT WITH her brother in her apartments. Lord Maitland was with them.
She was perusing the proclamation, addressed to the citizens of Edinburgh, which was to be read in Market Cross.
“There,” she said, handing the scroll to James, “now they will understand my meaning. They will see that I do not like this continual strife. I am sure that with care and tolerance I, with my people, shall find a middle way through this fog of heresies and schisms.”
Maitland and Lord James agreed with the wording of the document. It was imperative to Lord James’s ambition that his sister should continue as nominal Queen of Scotland, for the downfall of Mary would mean the downfall of the Stuarts. It was necessary to Maitland that Mary should remain on the throne, for his destiny was interwoven with that of Lord James. They wished for peace, and they knew that the father and mother of war were religious controversy and religious fanaticism.
The proclamation was delivered in Market Cross and then placed where all who wished to could read it.
The citizens stood in groups, discussing the Queen and her Satan worship, or John Knox and his mission from God. To most men and women tolerance seemed a good thing, but not so to John Knox and the Lords of the Congregation. Mary was the “whore of Babylon” declared the preacher and “one Mass was more to be feared than ten thousand men-at-arms.” “My friends,” he shouted from his pulpit, “beware! Satan’s spawn is in our midst. Jezebel has come among us. Fight the Devil, friends. Tear him asunder.”
After that sermon Maitland declared to the Lord James and the Queen that nothing but a meeting between her and Knox could satisfactorily bring them to an understanding.
Mary was indignant. “Must I invite this man… this low, insolent creature … to wrangle with me?”
“He is John Knox, Madam,” said Lord James. “Low of birth he may be, but he is a man of power in this country. He has turned many to his way of thinking. Who knows, he may influence Your Majesty.”
Mary laughed shortly.
“Or,” added the suave Maitland, “Your Majesty may influence him.”
It was a strange state of affairs, Mary said, when men of low birth were received by their sovereign simply because they ranted against her.
The two men joined together in persuading her.
“Your Majesty must understand that, to the people of Scotland, John Knox’s birth matters little. He himself has assured them of that. With his fiery words he has won many to his side. Unless you receive the reformer, you will greatly displease your subjects. And you will weaken your own cause because they will think you fear to meet him.”
So Mary consented to see the man at Holyrood, and John Knox was delighted to have a chance of talking to the Queen.
“Why should I,” he asked his followers, “fear to be received in the presence of this young woman? They say she is the most beautiful princess in the world. My friends, if her soul is not beautiful, then she shall be as the veriest hag in my eyes, for thus she will be in the eyes of God. And shall I fear to go to her because, as you think, my friends, she is a lady of noble birth, and I of birth most humble? Nay, my friends, in the eyes of God we are stripped of bodily adornments. We stand naked of earthly adornment and clothed in truth. And who do you think, my friends, would be more beautiful in the eyes of God? His servant clothed in the dazzling robes of the righteous way of life, or this woman smeared with spiritual fornications of the harlot of Rome?”
So Knox came boldly to Holyroodhouse, his flowing beard itself seeming to bristle with righteousness, his face bearing the outward scars of eighteen months’ service in the galleys, which into his soul had cut still deeper. He came through the vast rooms of the palace of Holyrood, already Frenchified with tapestry hangings and fine furniture, already perfumed, as he told himself, with the pagan scents of the Devil, and at length he faced her, the dainty creature in jewels and velvet, her lips, hideously—he considered—carmined and an outward token of her sin.
She disturbed him. In public he railed against women, but privately he was not indifferent to them. In truth, he preferred their company to that of his own sex. There was Elizabeth Bowes, to whom he had been spiritual adviser, and with whom he had spent many happy hours talking of her sins; it had been a pleasure to act as father-confessor to such a virtuous matron. There had been Marjorie, Elizabeth’s young daughter, who at sixteen years of age had become his wife, and who had borne him three children. There was Mistress Anne Locke, yet another woman whose spiritual life was in his care. He railed against them because they disturbed him. These women and others in his flock were ready to accept the role of weaker vessels; it was pleasant to sit with them and discuss their sins, to speak gently to them, perhaps caress them in the manner of a father-confessor. Such women he could contemplate with pleasure as his dear flock. He and God—and at times he assumed they were one—had no qualms about such women.
But the Queen and her kind were another matter. Every movement she made seemed an invitation to seduction; the perfume which came from her person, her rich garments, her glittering jewels, her carmined lips were outward signs of the blackness of her soul. They proclaimed her “Satan’s spawn, the Jezebel and whore of Babylon.”
There were other women in the room, and he believed these to be almost as sinful as the Queen. They watched him as he approached the dais on which the Queen sat.
Lord James rose as he approached.
“Her Majesty the Queen would have speech with you.”
Mary looked up into the fierce face, the burning eyes, the belligerent beard.
“Madam—” he began.
But Mary silenced him with a wave of her hand.
“I have commanded you to come here, Master Knox, to answer my questions. I wish to know why you attempt to raise my subjects against me as you did against my mother. You have attacked, in a book which you have written, not only the authority of the Queen of England, but of mine, your own Queen and ruler.” He was about to speak, but yet again she would not allow him to do so. “Some say, Master Knox, that your preservation—when others of your friends have perished—and your success with your followers are brought about through witchcraft.”
A sudden fear touched the reformer’s heart. He was not a brave man. He believed himself safe in Scotland at this time, but witchcraft was a serious charge. He had thought he had been brought here to reason with a frivolous young woman, not to answer a charge. If such a charge was to be brought against him, it would have been better for him to have taken a trip abroad before the new Queen came home.