Chapter IX: The Bride’s Tragedy

The heart being an organ of which we have opinions more gallant than practical, Des-Essars should perhaps have judged wiselier that his Secret of Secrets was what broke the Queen’s _spirit_. There he had been right, for from this day onwards to the end of her throned life the tragedy is pure pity: she drifts, she suffers, but she scarcely acts—unless the struggles of birds in nets can be called acts. After her spirit went rapidly her animal courage; after that her womanly habit. She was like to become a mere tortured beast. And as I have no taste for vivisection, nor can credit you with any, I shall be as short as I can.

Silent all the long way home from wooded Crichton to the sea, it might seem as if she had been hardening herself by silent meditation for what she knew must take place. She saw nothing of Bothwell that night—she was not yet ready for him; but she did what had to be done with Mary Sempill.

When that loyal soul came late into the bedchamber to bid her good-night, she found her mistress in bed, calm and clear in mind. Forewarned in some measure, as she stooped over to kiss her, the Queen did not as usual put out her arms to draw her friend nearer, but lay waiting for the kiss, which hovered, as it were, above her; and before it could come she said, ‘Do you kiss me, Mary? Wait while I tell you something. I am to be married to my lord come the day after to-morrow.’

Sempill, prepared or not, started back, on fire. ‘You’ll never do it. You’ll never dare to do it.’

‘I shall dare to do it, if I dare avouch it.’

Sempill was trembling. ‘I cannot endure it, cannot face it—most wicked! Oh, my dear love and my friend, you that have been all the world to me in times bygone, never go so far from me that I cannot follow you!’

The Queen bit her lip, and wrinkled her eyes where the tears were brimming, drowning her sight. ‘I must, I must—I cannot go back. Oh, have mercy upon me! Oh, Mary——’

Sempill hid her face. ‘I cannot see it done. I cannot know of it. I am—I do my best to be—an honest woman. These things be far from me—unholy things. As Christ is my Saviour, I believe He will pardon you and me all our sins of the hot blood. But not of the cold blood—not of the dry!’ She changed suddenly, as if struck chill. ‘Why, you will be an harlot!’ she said.

The Queen turned over in her bed and faced the wall.

Sempill went down on her knees. ‘I conjure you—I beseech you! Madam, I implore you! By your mother’s bliss and your father’s crown imperial, by the great calling of your birth! By Christ’s dear blood shed for you and all, by the sorrows of Our Lady—the swords in her heart—the tears that she shed; by her swooning at the Cross—I implore, I implore!—make not all these woes to be in vain. By your young child I conjure you—by my own upon earth and the other in my womb—by all calm and innocent things—oh, put it from you: suffer all things—even death, even death!’

There was no response. She rose and stood over the bed. ‘We have loved much, and had sweet commerce, you and I. Many have had sweetness of you and left you: Beaton is gone, Fleming is alienate. You drive me to go their way, you drive me from you. For if you do this, go I must. Honour is above all—and yon man, by my soul, is as foul as hell. Turn to me, my Mary, look at me once, and I shall never leave you till I die.’

She did not stir nor utter a sound; she lay like a log. Mary Sempill, with a sob that shook her to pieces, and a gesture of drowning hands, went out of the room, and at midnight left the palace. Those two, who had been lovers once and friends always, never met again in this world.

What the Queen’s motives may have been I know not, whether of desperate conviction that retreat was not possible, or of desperate effort to entice the man to her even at this last hour: let them go.[11] She held to her resolve next day; she faced the remnant of her friends, all she had left; lastly, she faced the strong man himself, and like a doll in his arms suffered his lying kisses upon her lips. And she never reproached him, being paralysed by the knowledge of what he would have done if she had. To see him throw up the head, expose the hairy throat, to see him laugh! She could not bear that.

On this day, the eve of her wedding, she found out that her courage had ebbed. Things frightened her now which before she would have scoffed at. A May marriage—hers was to be that: and they who feared ill-luck from such gave her fears. A Highland woman became possessed in the street, and prophesied to a crowd of people. She said that the Queen would be a famous wife, for she would have five husbands, and in the time of the fifth would be burned. ‘Name them, mother—name them!’ they cried; and the mad creature peered about with her sly eyes. ‘I dinna see him here, but the third is in this town, and the fourth likewise!’ ‘The fourth! Who is he?’ ‘He’s a Hamilton, I ken that fine, and dwells by Arbroath. I doubt his name will be Jock.’

Lord John! The Lord of Arbroath—why, yes, she had given him a great horse. They rehearse this tale at dinner, and see Bothwell grow red, and hear the Queen talk to herself: ‘Will they burn me? Yes, yes, that is the punishment of light women. Poor souls, they burn for ever!’

She carried the thought about with her all day, and at dusk was much agitated when they lit the candles. About supper-time Father Roche, asking to speak with her, was admitted. He told her that his conscience would not permit him to be any longer in her service. Bothwell had refused to be married with the mass: in Father Roche’s eyes this would be no marriage at all. She was angry for a second in her old royal way—her Tudor way; moved towards him swiftly as if she would have quelled him with a forked word; but stopped mid-road and let her hands unclench themselves. ‘Yes, yes, go your ways—you will find a well-trodden road. Why should you stop? I need you no more.’ He would have kissed her hands, but she put them behind her and stood still till he had gone. Then to bed, without prayers.

At ten o’clock of the morning she was married to him without state, without religion. There was no banquet: the city acted as if unaware of anything done; and after dinner she rode away with him to Borthwick. Melvill, Des-Essars, Lethington went with her, Mary Seton and Carwood. Bothwell had his own friends, the Ormistons and others of mean degree.

With tears they put her to bed; but she had none. ‘I would that I might die within the next hour,’ she said to Des-Essars; and he, grown older and drier suddenly—‘By my soul, ma’am, it should be within less time, to do you service.’

She shook her head. ‘No, you are wrong. He needs me not. You will see.’ She sent him away to his misery, and remained alone in hers.

It cannot be known when the Earl went up. He stayed on in the parlour below, drinking with his friends so long as they remained above-board, talking loudly, boasting of what he had done and of what he should do yet. He took her back to Edinburgh within a few days, moved thereto by the urgency of public affairs.

Those who had not seen her go, but now saw her return, did not like her looks—so leaden-coloured, so listless and dejected, so thin she seemed. The French Ambassador—Du Croc, an old friend and a sage—waiting for audience, heard a quarrel in her cabinet, heard Bothwell mock and gibe, depart with little ceremony; and then the Queen in hysterics, calling for friends who had gone—for Livingstone, for Fleming.

Carwood came in. ‘O madam, what do you lack?’

‘My courage, my courage.’

Carwood, with a scream—‘God’s sake, ma’am, put down that knife!’

‘The knife is well enough,’ says she, ‘but the hand is numb. Feel me, Carwood: I am dead in the hand.’

Du Croc heard Carwood grunt as she tussled. ‘Leave it—leave it—give it me! But you shall. You are Queen, but my God to me. Leave it, I say——’ The Queen began to whimper and coax for the knife—called it her lover. Carwood flung open the window and threw it on to the grass.

* * * * *

No doubt the worst was to be feared, no doubt Bothwell had reason to be nervous. At the council-board, to which he ordered her to come, he told her what was before her. The lords were in league, clustered about the Prince: he was not ashamed to tell her in the hearing of all that she was useless without the child. Dejected, almost abject as she was become, she quailed—shrinking back, with wide eyes upon him—at this monstrous insult, as if she herself had been a child struck to the soul by something more brutish than your whips. Lord Herries rose in his place—‘By the living God, my lord, I cannot hear such talk——’ Bothwell was driven to extenuate. ‘My meaning, madam, is that your Majesty can have no force in your arm, nor can your loyal friends have any force, without the Prince your son be with you. You know very well how your late consort desired to have him; and no man can say he was not wise. Believe me, madam—and these lords will bear me out—he is every whit as necessary to your Majesty and me.’

Huntly, on the Queen’s left, leaned behind her chair and spoke in a fierce whisper: ‘You forget, I think, that you speak to the Queen, and of the Queen. The Prince hath nothing but through her.’

‘By God, Geordie,’ he said, whispering back, but heard everywhere, ‘and what have I but through her? I tell you fairly we have lost the main unless we can put up that cockerel.’

The Queen tried to justify herself to her tyrant. ‘You know that I have tried—you know that my brother worked against me——’

‘And he was wise. But now he is from home; we must try again.’

She let her head sink. ‘I am weary—I am weary. Whom have we to send? Do you trust Lethington?’

This was not heard; but Lethington saw Bothwell’s eye gleam red upon him.

‘Him? I would as soon go myself. If he wormed in there, do you suppose we could ever draw him out again?’

‘No,’ she said aloud, ‘I am of your mind. Send we Melvill, then.’

He would not have Melvill: he chose Herries.

They sent out Lord Herries on a fruitless errand; fruitless in the main sense, but fruitful in another, since he brought back a waverer. This was the Earl of Argyll, head of a great name, but with no head of his own worth speaking about. He might have been welcome but for the news that came with him. All access to the Prince had been refused to Herries the moment it was known on whose behalf he asked it. The Countess of Mar mounted guard over the door, and would not leave until the Queen’s emissary was out of the house. There was more than statecraft here, as Herries had to confess: witchcraft from the Queen was in question, from the mother upon the child. The last time she had been to see him, they said, she had given him an apple, which he played with and presently cast down. A dog picked it up, ran under the table with it and began to mumble it. The dog, foaming and snaping, jerked away its life. ‘Treason and lies!’ roared Bothwell, who was present; ‘treason heaped on lies! Why, when was your Majesty last at Stirling?’ He had forgotten, though she had not.

‘It was the night before you took me at Almond Brig,’ she said; and, when he chuckled, broke out with vehemence of pain, ‘You laugh at it! You laugh still, O Christ! Will you laugh at my graveside, Bothwell?’ She hid her head in her arm and wept miserably. It was grievous to see her and not weep too. Yet these were no times in which to weep.

* * * * *

On the same day in which Lord Lindsay departed, to join the Lords at Stirling, Huntly also, most unhappily, asked leave to go to his lands. The Queen used him bitterly. She could be gentle with any other and move their pity: with him she must always be girding. ‘Do you turn traitor like your father? Have you too kept a dagger for my last hours?’ He did not break into reproaches, nor seek to justify himself, as he might have done—for no one had tried to serve her at more peril to himself. He said, ‘Madam, I have tried to repair my faults committed against you,’ and turned away with a black look of despair. He went north, as she thought, lost to her: it was Bothwell who afterwards told her that he had gone to summon his kindred against the war which he saw could not be far off. So scornful are women to those who love them in vain—that should surely have touched her, but did not. Lord John Hamilton took Huntly’s empty place, too powerful an ally to be despised.

The Earl of Argyll came and went between Stirling and Edinburgh, very diligent to accommodate the two cities, if that might be. He dared—or was fool enough—to tell the Queen that all would be well if she would give up the King’s murderers. She replied: ‘Go back to Stirling, then, and take them. I do give them up. It is there you shall find them.’ Whether he knew this to be truth or not, for certain he did not report the message to the Earl of Morton. It would have fared ill with him if he had.

Before he could come back, a baffled but honest intermediary, Lethington had fled the Court and taken his wife with him. He went out, as he said, to ride in the meadows; he did ride there, but did not return. His wife slipt away separately, and joined her man at Callander; thence, when Lord Livingstone sent them word that he could not harbour the Queen’s enemies, they went on to Lord Fleming’s, Mary’s father’s house, and finally to Stirling. It was a bad sign that the gentle girl, flying like a thief at her husband’s bidding, should write no word, nor send any message to the Queen; it was a worse to the last few faithful that the Queen took no notice. All she was heard to say was that Fleming could not be blamed for paying her merchet.

_Mercheta Mulicrum_, Market of Women—the money-fee exacted by the lord of the soil before a girl could be wed, clean, to the man who chose her! Livingstone had paid it, Beaton had paid it; she, Queen Mary, God knows! had paid it deep. She shook her head—and was Fleming to escape? ‘No! but Love—that exorbitant lord—will have it of all of us women. And now’s for you, Seton!’

She looked strangely at the glowing, golden-haired girl before her; the green-eyed, the sharp-tongued Mary Seton, last of her co-adventurers of six years agone. Fair Seton made no promises; but all the world knows that she alone stayed by her lady to the long and very end.

Returned from Stirling, my Lord of Argyll, with perturbed face, disorderly dress, and entire absence of manners, broke in upon the Queen’s privacy, claiming secret words. The lords were prepared for the field. They intended an attack upon the lower town by land and water; they would surround Holyroodhouse, seize her person.

She flamed. ‘You mean my husband’s. It is him they seek.’

He did not affect to deny it. She sent for Bothwell and told him all.

Bothwell said: ‘You are right. They want me. Well, they shall not have me so easily. You and I will away this night to Borthwick. Arbroath will be half way to us by now, and the Gordons not far behind. Let Adam go and hasten his brother. Madam, we should be speedy.’

She took Seton with her—having no other left; she took Des-Essars. Arthur Erskine was to captain Holyroodhouse. Bothwell had, perhaps, half a dozen of his dependents. They went after dark, but in safety.

There, at Borthwick, they stayed quietly through the 8th and 9th of June: close weather, with thunder brewing.

No news of Huntly, none of the Hamiltons. Bothwell was out each day for long spells, spying and judging. He opened communication with Dunbar, got in touch with his own country. At home sat the Queen with her two friends, very silent.

What was there to say? Who could nurse her broken heart save this one man, who had no thought to do it, nor any heart of his own, either, to spare for her? Spited had he been by Fortune, without doubt. He had had the Crown and Mantle of Scotland in his pair of hands; having schemed for six years to get them, he had had them, and felt their goodly weight: and here he was now in hiding, trusting for bare life to the help of men who had no reason to love him. Where, then, were his friends? He had none, nor ever had but one—this fair, frail woman, whom he had desired for her store, and had emptied, and would now be rid of.

If his was a sorry case, what was hers? Alas, the heart sickens to think of it. With how high a head came she in, she and her cohort of maids, to win wild Scotland! Where were they? They had received their crowns, but she had besoiled and bedrabbled hers. They had lovers, they had children, they had troops of friends; but she, who had sought with panting mouth for very love, had had husbands who made love stink, and a child denied her, and no friend in Scotland but a girl and a poor boy. You say she had sought wrongly. I say she had overmastering need to seek. Love she must; and if she loved amiss it was that she loved too well. You say that she misused her friends. I deny that a girl set up where she was could have any friends at all. She was a well of sweet profit—the Honeypot; and they swarmed about her for their meat like house-flies; and when that was got, and she drained dry, they departed by the window in clouds, to settle and fasten about the nearest provand they could meet with: carrion or honeycomb, man’s flesh, dog’s flesh or maid’s flesh, what was it to them? In those days of dreadful silent waiting at Borthwick, less than a month after marriage, I tell you very plainly that she was beggared of all she had in the world, and knew it. The glutted flies had gone by the window, the gorged rats had scampered by the doors. So she remained alone with the man she had risked all to get, who was scheming to be rid of her. Her heart was broken, her love was murdered, her spirit was gone: what more could she suffer? One more thing—bodily terror, bodily fear.

[11] I am unwilling to intrude myself and my opinions, but feel drawn to suggest that the latter was her motive. If she had beaten the Countess at the eleventh hour, could she not beat the Earl? Was she not Huntress to the utterance? Let God (Who made her) pity her: I do believe it.