The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots Read online

  No one backed down. Mary of Guise refused to change her mind and betroth her daughter to the English Crown. Conflict was inevitable – although there would be a break until the weather turned sufficiently fine for Henry to send troops into Scotland. The Guise party was also strengthened by the news in January that Catherine de’ Medici, long thought barren, had produced a son who would be the future King of France. He was surely a much better option as a husband for the young Mary.

  In March 1544, Henry VIII demanded the nobles he had released from the Battle of Solway Moss be sent back to him. In May, under the command of the Earl of Hertford, the English landed at Granton on the coast, occupied Leith and headed to Edinburgh, entering at Canongate. The provost offered to give up the keys of the city in return for mercy – but Hertford said he had no mandate to bargain and the troops continued. Scottish soldiers fired the cannons to defend Edinburgh Castle and in response the English set the city alight, sacking and burning the royal palace and chapel. Edinburgh was almost destroyed, apart from the castle. What remained was looted and the ships at Leith loaded up – and Leith razed as the boats left. The army set off back to England, ransacking, attacking and burning down the Scottish towns and villages they passed, including Craigmillar Castle, Newbattle Abbey, Haddington and its friary and nunnery, and Dunbar. Other raids took place back over the border – Sir William Eure, the governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed and his sons led men to burn down houses and farms – with the aim of crushing those living there to obedience. In one particularly horrific incident Eure and his men set fire to Brumehous Tower, with the lady of the house, servants and children trapped inside. All this devastation over the hand of a tiny girl who might not even live to adulthood.

  Henry VIII’s spies were everywhere in the country, some spreading sedition, some promoting Protestantism. There were already many pro-Reformation and anti-Catholic pamphlets coming from England – and plenty being produced in Edinburgh itself. Henry ensured that many more were printed and disseminated. He set his spies to encourage unrest, putting it about that Cardinal Beaton was to blame for the invasion, with the aim of collapsing the pro-French alliance.

  In 1544, Mary was moved to Dunkeld Castle, thought to be even more secure than Stirling. The nobles were worn down by English attacks – and everyone thought Arran was weak. The papal envoy said Scotland was a ‘poor Kingdom’, so ‘divided and disturbed that if God does not show his hand and inspire those nobles to unite together, public and private ruin is clearly to be foreseen’.1 The court was on fire with plots and Mary of Guise was stuck in a labyrinth of conflicting loyalties. She dreaded betrothing her daughter to Arran’s son. The French royal family – and her own Guise relations – had been making overtures, and it seemed to her the best option. Although Mary of Guise knew that the Scottish nobles and people would prefer their little queen to be independent, she hoped they would accept the necessity. The only country that could scare off Henry VIII was his great rival, France. And so Mary of Guise plumped for encouraging an allegiance.

  In 1545, the Scots fought back against the English aggression. The crushing attacks of Henry VIII were having the opposite effect to that intended, and nobles previously at loggerheads were coming together to oppose him. The earls of Angus and Arran had once fought in the street in Edinburgh, but Henry’s attacks meant their old divisions were forgotten and they joined together for what would become known as the Battle of Ancrum Moor. A small group attacked the English force while they camped – and when they pursued in retaliation, they found a large Scots army hidden over the hill. The Scots pikemen charged and the English fell, disorientated by the wind that sent the gunpowder smoke their way. The English army was compelled to flee, many men dying as they ran, or later killed by the locals who caught them. Eight hundred of Henry’s men were killed, including Sir Ralph Eure, son of Sir William. The devastating victory had its desired effect: Henry withdrew and paused the war.

  Although the English had been pushed back, Henry’s whispering campaign against Cardinal Beaton had been successful. He was more hated than ever. Anti-clerical feeling was growing among both nobles and commoners, fuelled by the ideas in reforming pamphlets that pointed out clerical abuses and the huge wealth of the Church. Itinerant preachers and speakers toured the country, promoting Calvinist and Lutheran ideas and talking of abuses. In 1544, George Wishart, a young priest of around thirty, was travelling and speaking forcefully of what needed to change. Beaton ordered his arrest and Bothwell seized him and sent him to Edinburgh Castle, where he was put on trial. He was hanged and burned at St Andrews in early 1546, with Beaton and his friends watching as he died. Wishart was immediately judged a Protestant martyr. Three months later, on 29 May, a band of Protestant lords broke into St Andrews, where the cardinal had been spending the night with his mistress, and murdered him. They strung his mutilated, naked body in front of the castle.

  Beaton’s killers had been hoping Henry VIII would send an army to begin a coup, but he sent nothing. The king had other things on his mind than Scotland: he was dying. The once hale and handsome king was terribly obese and increasingly infirm, manoeuvred about by mechanical contraptions, roaring in pain, tormented by boils, gout and infection. He died on 28 January 1547, aged only fifty-five, and was buried at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, next to his beloved Jane Seymour. Unfortunately, Jane’s brother, Lord Hertford, who had attacked Edinburgh with such savagery, then became Lord Protector for the nine-year-old Edward VI and the uneasy peace that had followed the Battle of Ancrum Moor was at an end. For Hertford, Scotland was unfinished business. Scottish men began moving towards Edinburgh, keen to defend their capital and castle.

  But events in France changed everything. Francis I had died in France on the day of his son Henry’s twenty-eighth birthday, 31 March 1547. Henry was not – as his father had been – bombastic, confident. He had too long been the second son, second best to his brother and the heir, Francis, who had died after a tennis game, seven years previously. When Henry had been a small boy, his father had been taken prisoner after the Battle of Pavia, and in March 1526, the king’s two young sons were taken to the Bidassoa River, rowed from the French side to the Spanish and formally exchanged for their father. The children were to be held hostage until Francis gave the Holy Roman Emperor everything he demanded – including large swathes of Burgundy, as well as relinquishing his rights to Milan, Genoa and Naples, and providing the emperor with a naval fleet for his coronation. The minute Francis I was free, he refused to keep any of the terms. The boys were locked up, initially with reasonable treatment, but as Francis would not relent, their conditions became more miserable, and they were surrounded by guards, given poor food, reminded every day that their father had deserted them and was doing nothing to hasten their return. They had one tiny, dark and airless room, with iron bars across the windows, and nothing but two stools and a hard pallet as furniture. There were no toys or books and they were not given any education. They had no French attendants and had to learn Spanish to speak to the guards, forgetting their own native language in the meantime.

  Finally, thanks to the diplomatic manoeuvres of their grandmother, Louise of Savoy, who had been negotiating with the emperor’s aunt, Margaret of Austria, a new treaty was negotiated, with less onerous terms for Francis. But the emperor wanted money for his captives – over one million gold crowns. Louise of Savoy raised the money by asking the whole country to contribute and finally, in the spring of 1530, the boys and Eleanor of Austria, sister of the emperor, and their future stepmother, set out for France, accompanied by noble ladies as attendants. One of them was Diane de Poitiers, then thirty. The children had suffered greatly in captivity, without affection, education or even hope. Of course, it touched their characters: Francis’ sombre attitude and habit of wearing black was blamed on the experience. Henry was strongly affected by Diane de Poitiers, pretty much the first woman he saw out of captivity, and relied on her on the journey – and he began an affair with her when he was around sixtee
n and she was thirty-five. His marriage to Catherine de’ Medici had little impact on his ador­ation of Diane. And with this new king now in place, who was younger and more susceptible to Guise influence, the family began demanding he help their kinswoman in Scotland. They worked hard to win Diane to their cause, knowing the influence she held.

  In September 1547, the forces of England and Scotland met at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. Somerset entered at the head of an army, demanding Mary. Arran was a poor commander and told his troops to charge when they would have fared better holding their position. The English army, practised, savage, routed them and the Scots fled; the fields filled with dead bodies. The English set up a garrison at Haddington, not too far from Edinburgh, from where they threatened further violence. Young Mary was sent to the greater security of the Priory on the nearby island of Inchmahome. She was moved back to Stirling for winter and then on to Dumbarton in early spring. If Hertford’s forces had managed to seize the infant queen, it would have been a horrific blow – and probably the end of Scottish independence – and so the constant movement continued. Mary must have known, sensed some of the constant panic and fear over her safety.2

  Scotland was a war zone and little Mary was the cause. Her mother’s relations were encouraging her to send the child to France for marriage to the dauphin, only a few months her junior. Yet Henry II, influenced by Diane de Poitiers, had his own ambitions. Mary would be yet another child, royal or otherwise, made to suffer for their family’s lust for power. Arran’s failings, the frequent inability of the lords to come to a consensus, Henry VIII’s and Hertford’s brutal attitude to Scotland, the Guise family’s desire for power in France, Mary of Guise’s wish for French assistance, and Henry II’s ambition to crush England – all these led to negotiations that would see Mary treated more like a toy than a queen. On 8 February 1548, the Scottish lords met at Stirling and agreed that Mary should be sent to France. Arran and Mary of Guise were enthusiastic about the plan. The English had not won themselves any support with their cruel looting and burning, and the lords themselves were weary of fighting, unwilling to lose yet more sons. Plenty of them thought that with the queen gone, Mary of Guise’s position would be weakened, and they might better pursue their ambitions. Arran was richly rewarded for his enthusiasm for the marriage – the King of France created him Duke of Chatelherault on the same day.

  There were risks. Little Mary could be lost at sea or catch a disease and die (like the unfortunate Maid of Norway). English ships might try to kidnap her, a prize to be paraded back to London and kept at the English court. But the greatest danger was to Mary’s future standing as queen. By sending Mary out of the country to be married to a future King of France, they gave her up to the subservience this entailed, both as woman and as representative of her country. In her absence, the country would be governed by regents and ministers. She would lose all her power. The deal was that she would always live in France, never to return – an impossible queen. A woman needed a man to rule, and who better than the King of France to do it for her?

  A prince would not be sent away thus. Putting Mary on a ship to France so young kept her safe and, it was hoped, would secure the French alliance and frighten off England. But, unlike Elizabeth I and her standing in the country she would rule, it meant that Mary would never be seen as truly of her nation and, just as importantly, she would not have direct experience of the warring groups that controlled her country. Elizabeth I, like Mary I her sister (and Victoria, much later), grew up watching and listening, largely excluded from court but understanding it through reports. All of them were treated as outsiders, all three learned in childhood how the public’s affection could wax and wane. As such, all three were acutely aware of the factions controlling power and of how the public had to be courted. Mary was regarded as a great queen from the beginning in France – but it would make her an alien when she returned.

  The most calculating of the lot was the King of France. He had plans for the tiny queen. A good marriage alliance was part of it, but the bigger prize Henry II had in mind was a claim for the throne of England, then occupied by a sickly boy.

  Mary was a pawn. The adults around her did not protect her, others were using her to win what they most desired. Already, at five, she was being failed.

  Chapter Four

  ‘A Princess on This Earth’

  In March, the great plan for Mary was held in the balance. She was seriously ill with a sickness that appears to have been measles. It looked as though all the dynastic dreams were at an end and that, with Mary dead, the Earl of Hertford would invade Scotland and demand that Edward VI, rather than Arran, should be king. After all of Arran’s ­failings, and given the division between the lords, he would have found it difficult, near impossible, to hold on to his position. Yet with careful nursing Mary recovered and, having moved to Dumbarton, preparations began for travelling to the continent. In June, the King of France sent an early wedding present – five thousand soldiers who besieged Haddington, rattling their sabres at English aggression. The message to England was clear: attack Scotland again and the full force of the French military would respond.

  In July, the Scots Parliament agreed the marriage, with the proviso that Henry II should protect Scotland as he protected France and that he would guarantee Scots independence. There was little suggestion of what could be done if the King of France failed in his promise to defend Scotland. It appears that few of the lords saw Henry’s true ambition: to gain England through Mary, or at least infuriate and harry England by using her to make a claim to the throne.

  Mary’s servants began readying her for her journey, packing piles of dresses of silk and velvet, adorned with gold and silver thread, furniture, tapestries, books, toys. The French courtiers arrived to discuss matters. One declared her a perfect little being. ‘It is not possible to hope for more from a Princess on this earth,’1 he said. They would wait for fine summer weather for good sailing and then send her off. Families jostled to send attendants and female companions with Mary. Not only was she the future Queen of France, but she would have a great position in the French court in the meantime: the king had agreed that she would rank before both of his daughters.

  As a mark of respect, Henry sent his own royal ship to collect the little queen. The Scots hoped it would dissuade the English from intercepting and boarding the ship, kidnapping Mary for their own – France would see taking the king’s ship as an act of war. It was also decided that Mary would embark at Dumbarton, and then take the longer route from the west as a way of dodging the English navy.

  Little Mary’s train of attendants was assembled. With her was her long-term guardian, Lord Erskine, who was responsible for Stirling Castle and thus knew the child well, and Lord Livingston, another guardian. At their side were a governess, the widow Janet Stewart, Lady Fleming, natural daughter of James IV, forty-six and the mother of eight children (seven of whom remained behind); the Countess of Bothwell; various nurses, including one Jean Sinclair; religious ad­­­­visors, including the prior of Inchmahome who had become devoted to her; and a collection of aristocratic children as honourable companions. Among them was James Stewart, the future Earl of Moray, then seventeen and twelve years Mary’s senior – who would have a great effect on her life. James was also the grandson of Lord Erskine, through his mother, Margaret Erskine, favourite mistress of James V – so he already had a position of some dominance in the group. Also in the train were Mary’s half-brothers, Robert Stewart, fifteen, son of James V and Euphemia Elphinstone, and John Stewart, also fifteen, son of James V and Elizabeth Carmichael. Mary of Guise had become fond of her husband’s early illegitimate children – James, Robert and John had been fathered long before she arrived. She was already beginning to wonder if James Stewart, once a few more years had passed, might be a better regent than Arran. In this, she demonstrated her essential Guise nature: the idea that family and family loyalty would always trump that of the individual.

  Mary was also accompan
ied by four small girls, all called Mary – Mary Fleming, Mary Livingston, Mary Beaton and Mary Seton. Mary Fleming was the daughter of Janet Stewart, Mary’s governess, and Lord Fleming, who had died at Pinkie Cleugh. Mary Livingston was the daughter of the guardian who was travelling with them, and Mary Beaton was part of the family of the still-feared Cardinal David Beaton. The Marys Beaton and Seton were the daughters of French ladies-in-waiting to Mary of Guise who had come over with her for her marriage, and thus had learned some French from their mothers.

  Mary of Guise was heartbroken to see her daughter go. There was no way she could go with her, as it would leave a power vacuum and royal brides, however young, travelled without their parents. They had their court and that should be sufficient. The Scots waved her off, hoping that this meant security from England’s aggression. Little Mary set off for France on 7 August 1548, after waiting on board for some time for the correct wind. The journey was rough, and the rudder was smashed passing Cornwall. Everyone was seasick, apart from the young queen.

  The ship landed on 13 August, at Brest in northern France. Mary and her party set off, first to Morlaix, where they lodged in a convent, and then to the Seine, where they boarded another ship. The journey was ill-starred: the drawbridge broke on their way into Morlaix and the Scots suspected treachery, Lords Livingston and Erskine were very ill and one of Mary Seton’s relatives died.

  On the way to the palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, twelve miles to the west of Paris, Mary was given over to her grandmother, Antoinette of Guise, for the final stages of the journey. Antoinette was deputised to ready the girl for the elegance of the French court. She did so – but she also ensured that the Guise influence was strong over the child. The king had already decided that Mary should be separated from her Scots attendants and given companions and maids from the French aristocracy – and Antoinette was quite in accord. She wanted the child surrounded with her relations, not James V’s illegitimate sons and men such as Erskine and Livingston, who would always put Scotland first.