The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots
The BETRAYAL of
MARY, QUEEN of SCOTS
Elizbeth I and Her Greatest Rival
KATE WILLIAMS
PEGASUS BOOKS
NEW YORK LONDON
Contents
List of Illustrations
Prologue
Introduction
1‘Conducted by the Winds’
2‘It Will End with a Lass’
3‘Rough Wooing’
4‘A Princess on This Earth’
5‘Marvellous in Our Eyes’
6‘A Thousand Deaths’
7‘Excluded and Banned’
8‘A Calm Mind’
9‘Not of Ladies’ Capacity’
10Queen of All Realms
11‘A Rash and Hazardous Young Man’
12‘I Will Never See You Again’
13‘A Stone of Marble’
14‘Malicious Talk’
15‘To Use Me as Her Sister or Daughter’
16‘The Scots Proclaim Much But Their Threats Are Not Carried Out’
17‘I Would Have Taken My Husband’s Dagger and Stabbed Him with It!’
18Looking Through Their Fingers
19‘So Horrible and Strange’
20The Mermaid
21‘Whether She Would or Would Not’
22‘So Wearied and Broken’
23‘They Have Robbed Me of Everything I Have in This World’
24‘The Conspiracy for Her Husband’s Murder’
25‘Forced Out of My Kingdom’
26‘Pain and Peril Seem Pleasant to Her’
27‘With Her Own Hand’
28‘You Have Promised to Be Mine’
29‘Unnatural Sister’
30‘No One Can Cure This Malady as Well as the Queen of England’
31‘That Devilish Woman’
32‘Green Ribbons’
33‘I Am a True Queen’
34‘Shipwreck of My Soul’
35‘We Princes Are Set upon Stages’
36‘I Am Ready’
37‘An Abundance of Tears’
Notes
Bibliography
Illustrations Insert
Index
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
1. James V and Mary of Guise. Public domain.
2. Mary of Guise. GL Archive/Alamy Stock Photo.
3. Mary, Queen of Scot’s family tree. Public domain.
4. Henry VIII with his children. Art Collection 3/Alamy Stock Photo.
5. Elizabeth I as a young woman. Getty Fine Art/Contributor.
6. Mary, Queen of Scots in her teenage years. Public domain.
7. Francis, the Dauphin. Getty Heritage Images/Contributor.
8. Rosary and prayer book belonging to Mary, Queen of Scots. His Grace The Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle/Bridgeman Images.
9. Elizabeth I in her coronation robes. Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.
10. Locket ring. Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo.
11. Mary, Queen of Scots by François Clouet. Getty Fine Art/Contributor.
12. Commemorative medal. Science Museum, London.
13. Holyroodhouse. The Picture Art Collection/Alamy Stock Photo.
14. James Stewart, Earl of Moray. Public domain.
15. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Getty/Dea Picture Library/Contributor.
16. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. ART Collection/Alamy Stock Photo.
17. Lennox Jewel. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2018.
18. David Rizzio. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2018.
19. Mary’s chambers. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2018; photographer: Peter Smith.
20. ‘The Murder of David Rizzio’. National Galleries/Presented by the 3rd Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal, 1927.
21. Mary, Queen of Scots with her son, James VI. Granger, NYC/TopFoto.
22. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. Getty/Dea Picture Library/Contributor.
23. Kirk o’Field after the murder of Darnley. The National Archives.
24. ‘The Mermaid and the Hare’. The National Archives.
25. Elizabeth I, aged around forty-two. Getty/Dea Picture Library/Contributor.
26. Letter from Elizabeth to Mary, February 1567. British Library, London, UK/© British Library Board. All Rights Reserved/Bridgeman Image.
27. Dunbar Castle. Getty/Universal History Archive/Contributor.
28. Letter from Elizabeth to Mary, December 1568. British Library, London, UK/© British Library Board. All Rights Reserved/Bridgeman Image.
29. Letter from Mary to Elizabeth, October 1571. Heritage-Images/TopFoto.
30. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. Public domain.
31. Mary’s ciphers and codes. The National Archives.
32. Babington postscript and cipher, July 1586. The National Archives.
33. Tutbury Castle. NorthScape/Alamy Stock Photo.
34. Trial at Fotheringhay Castle. Granger, NYC/TopFoto.
35. Execution warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots, 1587. Lambeth Palace Library, London, UK/Bridgeman Images.
36. ‘Armada Portrait’ by George Gower. Getty/ Universal History Archive/Contributor.
The BETRAYAL of MARY, QUEEN of SCOTS
Prologue
The axe lay in a wooden box, cushioned, locked up in Mr Bull’s modest home. He had been long expecting to use it for this, the biggest job of his life – for he kept up with the news and the pamphlets and he knew what was afoot, as anyone would, no matter what the queen and Cecil said officially. He had polished the axe, tended it, ensured the blade was shining. Finally, Walsingham’s messenger came on his fine horse and Mr Bull saddled up his own, packed up his mask and cape, and tied the box containing the axe to his saddle. He sent a messenger to call for his assistants to accompany him. The three men rode quickly north. They stopped at taverns on the way but spoke to nobody, keeping away from the crowds and stowing the box in their rooms. Bull and his men had not been told for whom they and their axe were destined, but they could guess. They were nervous. They knew they would be expected to perform the job with speed and skill. No one forgot tales of executions that had taken ten or more blows. Nearly fifty years before, a fellow executioner had missed the neck of Margaret Pole when she knelt over the block and caught only her shoulder – it took eleven blows to kill her, during which she attempted to escape and was hauled back, screaming, to the block. Mr Bull knew he must kill in one blow. Particularly as it was a woman.
There was no room at the castle where the captive was held, too full of dignitaries who had come to observe. Bull and his men had been due to stay at the nearby home of Sir Walter Mildmay, but on arrival, they had been turned away, the man in charge of the household declaring it impossible. Mr Bull presumed Sir Walter had changed his mind about hosting an executioner and his axe; this was not uncommon. They took up at a local inn under extreme secrecy. No word could get out as to why they were there – in case she tried to escape or, worse, the queen heard of the matter and tried to put a stop to it. Already, it was risky that they had had to ride first to Sir Walter’s and then on to the inn – the place was crawling with spies and they had made themselves conspicuous. They tried to hide, keep close. Mr Bull and his assistants dined together and received a message from the castle that all was ready to proceed. The innkeeper had become used to strange people coming to stay, foreigners who looked like spies, wild-eyed young men, priests in disguise, men whispering in corners. The captive at the castle was good business for him and he did not ask questions.
The scaffold was erected overnigh
t. On the early morning of 8 February 1587, Mr Bull and his assistants picked up the axe and put it upon his horse. Before the inhabitants of the town were even awake, they rode out to the castle, leaving the inn and the lives of ordinary Englishmen behind.
In her rooms, at the castle, Mary, Queen of Scots had been awake all night. Waiting.
Introduction
‘Iam no longer who I once was’, wrote Mary, Queen of Scots towards the end of her life. Elizabeth and Mary were two queens, ruling one island. One has always been seen as a success, the other often as a failure, at best a tragic queen. But Mary’s very act of fighting for her rule should be looked at anew. She tried to rule as a king and she died for her decisions.
Mary set out on life with every possible glory and ended with nothing, her heart taken from her body and secretly buried. And in signing the final act which condemned her cousin to execution, Elizabeth I lost some of herself. Mary’s end meant the death of a small part of all monarchs. For if a queen can be executed, what makes her royal at all?
The life of Mary, Queen of Scots throws up vital questions about how we think of women and their right to rule. Kings can be autocratic, usually are. But queens give up some power to survive. They must work more closely with ministers, accept the views of others. They are hailed as skilled in compromise and bringing people together, whereas kings are congratulated for deciding, commanding. I have dedicated much study to queens and it is clear that the progress of the state, the machinery of government and the power of parliament moves forward in the reigns of women.
Elizabeth could not have had more devoted ministers than William Cecil or Francis Walsingham, but they went behind her back. Victoria is seen as the first post-Reform Act Queen, castigated for showing favour to her prime ministers when her predecessors had done worse. And Elizabeth II is hailed as the ultimate constitutional monarch. Perhaps women are uniquely suited for the constitutional role. Or perhaps they are simply not given the same latitude as a king.
Mary is seen as misguided. But if we view her in terms of queenship, we can judge her anew based on her attempt to create a successful model for female rule, tolerant, open to incorporating the views of her counsellors while staking her own claim to ultimate authority. Unfortunately, Mary’s lords and ministers tried to turn her into a figurehead, stage coups against her, and her attempts at tolerance collapsed into score settling and murder. But in England, Elizabeth pushed toleration and made it clear she would listen to advisors, and achieved great success. Perhaps Mary could have survived the tempests that troubled her reign but unlike Elizabeth, who played the dance of courtship, Mary married. And she chose the two worst consorts in royal history, men whose failings would inflict lasting damage on her rule.
For Mary, Elizabeth was a blood relative, a cousin, a fellow queen with whom she dreamed of a lasting friendship, swapping intimacies about a life surrounded by men who wanted to take their power. For Elizabeth, Mary was the woman who had tried to seize her throne, and would always be a danger.
Elizabeth’s reign has been promoted to us as one of great glory, the wonder of the Virgin Queen. But at its heart there was a long struggle between queen and parliament for dominance. And although she won the battles over marriage, religion and foreign policy, she did not win the fight over Mary.
It is incredible now to read Mary’s letters, bundled up into archives, the paper she touched almost as pristine as it was five hundred years ago, her neat script begging for mercy, power, recognition. It seems surprising that there is still material by her to be rediscovered – but there is, because she wrote so much, to everyone, endlessly.
‘I am their queen and so they call me, but they use me not so,’ said Mary. She was betrayed over the murder of her first husband – a new analysis of which is part of this book. But she was also betrayed by the body of a queen, a body which, to those around her, made her vulnerable to being exploited, seized. If she was a woman and they could take her body, then they could, it followed, take her power. She attempted to push back, control her own life and realm. She tried to rule – and hers was one of the hardest fights in royal history.
Chapter One
‘Conducted by the Winds’
‘All I can tell you is that I account myself one of the happiest women in the world.’1 For Mary, Queen of Scots, the year 1558 was to be when she finally came into her own as a great and glorious queen-in-waiting, the wife of the heir to an empire. After nearly ten years of living at the French court, she was at last married to Francis, the Dauphin of France – and therefore beginning her new life as queen of both France and Scotland. She hoped and believed she would soon add Queen of England and Ireland to her titles.
This was the year that changed everything for Mary and her rival queen-in-waiting, Elizabeth, for it was in 1558 that the fight for England began.
Mary had become Queen of Scotland at only six days old when her father James V collapsed after defeat by the English at the Battle of Solway Moss. He died on 14 December 1542, reputed to have said in his final hours that ‘It came wi’ a lass, it’ll gang [end] wi’ a lass’ – a dual reference to the story that the Scots were descended from the great Egyptian Princess Scota, and to the Stuart dynasty gaining the throne through Marjorie Bruce, the daughter of Robert the Bruce. His doom-laden view of female leadership – that the Stuarts would ‘gang’ with Mary – was shared by his people. Mary was never allowed to forget her father’s words and the implication that her birth had hastened his death. But in 1558, all that seemed behind her. Mary, a queen in her own right, was the greatest prize on the marriage market. When she became Queen of France, she could esteem herself the most powerful woman in the world.
The wedding between fifteen-year-old Mary and the fourteen-year-old dauphin was a dazzling spectacle. King Henry II had turned the great Parisian cathedral of Notre-Dame into a fantasia of regal glory, with a stage outside the church and a walkway to the palace that was twelve feet high, hung over with a canopy of azure silk embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lys. The members of the wedding party assembled at the palace and then walked through in their finery, showing off their glitter to the gathering crowds. The entire city had devoted itself to celebrating the wedding, the buildings decorated with flowers and banners strewn with fleurs-de-lys and the marigold, Mary’s symbol. Temporary theatres were put up to entertain; food sellers wove between the people, selling cakes, wine, meat.
The crowds longed to see the bride, the Scottish queen. They had some time to wait. Just before eleven o’clock came the Swiss Guards, resplendent in their uniforms, playing tambourines and fifes. Then Mary’s uncle, Francis, Duke of Guise, the official master of ceremonies – and then a marvellous throng: musicians dressed in red and yellow playing every instrument from the trumpet and oboe to the violin; a hundred gentlemen of the king; the princes of the blood; abbots and bishops, archbishops, cardinals and the papal legate. Then came Francis the bridegroom with his brother Charles, and Anthony, the Duke of Vendôme. Catherine de’ Medici, escorted by Anthony’s brother and a dozen princesses, duchesses and ladies, including the young princesses (and the king’s mistress, Diane de Poitiers), formed the final part of the procession, all sumptuously attired. Right at the end came Mary, escorted by her cousin, the Duke of Lorraine, and the King of France himself.
The Queen of Scots was a vision. ‘A hundred times more beautiful than a goddess of heaven,’ declared a courtier, Pierre de Brantôme, ‘her person alone was as valuable as a kingdom.’2 Tall even at fifteen and stately, she had chosen her own gown and asked that she be allowed to wear white, for she knew it would set off her pale skin and auburn hair – which she planned to wear loose down her back. Her request had initially been refused, for white was the official colour of mourning of the French royal family, but she had insisted – and she dazzled the crowds in white and gold. She was, as one said, ‘dressed in clothing as white as lilies, made so gloriously and richly, it would be impossible to describe’.3 Her sweeping gown was heavy with embel
lished embroidery and she wore a huge jewelled pendant around her neck. She stood perfectly erect and on her head was a superb crown of gold, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and pearls. Two young girls bore her train of velvet and silk, which was twelve yards long and decorated with gems. Mary had received more jewels than she thought possible, including a giant diamond from her father-in-law, called ‘the great H’, big like the king.
Mary was a vision of beauty, of regal dignity and she was the symbol of a new and powerful alliance between Scotland and France. The aim was to capture England – a country riven with division and insecurities, ruled by a mere woman.
As the royal party moved towards the church for the nuptial Mass, the heralds threw gold and silver coins into the crowds. There was a terrible crush and some fainted – others shouting up to the heralds not to throw any more because of the panic.
Mary was married to the dauphin with a ring taken from the king’s finger. She was now the queen-dauphine – and her husband the king-dauphin. As the tribute poets declared at the wedding, Mary’s marriage would see England subjugated and France in power, the beginning of a brilliant dynastic line that would rule Europe. ‘So shall one house the world’s vast empire share,’ vaunted one. ‘Through you, France and England will change the ancient war into a lengthy peace that will be handed down from father to son.’4 Mary acknowledged her husband as the King of Scotland.
Mary was a queen, but now, as the poets made clear, she was the conduit for male power; ‘through her’ peace transmitted from father to son. Mary was the pledge of alliance, her womb the source of the future, the consort and mother of the future king.
At the banquet and ball following the wedding, Mary danced with her father-in-law, admired by all the guests at the archbishop’s palace. At about five, the party set off in procession to the Palais du Louvre for a second banquet, this time a grand state affair, cheered by the waiting crowds. The princes rode horses decked in gold and silver, the princesses sat in litters festooned with gold. Mary sat beside Catherine de’ Medici, her new mother-in-law, only thirty-nine and not her greatest admirer. Her new husband followed her, accompanied by the Duke of Lorraine and various attendants, all on beautiful horses covered in crimson velvet and gold. The crowds were so great that the party moved slowly.