Margaret George - Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George

Also by Margaret George

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HENRY V11I

MARY

QUEEN OF SCOTLAND AND THE ISLES

A Novel

MARGARET GEORGE

MACMILLAN LONDON

1 IS

With thanks to: my daughter, Alison Kaufman, and my husband, Paul Kaufman, for living with Mary for four years; my sister, Rosemary George, for historical tidbits and oddities; my mother, Dean George, for humour; my grandparents Charles and Lois Grain for being my Mme. Rallay; my medievalist friend, Lynn Courtenay, for source material; my writer friend Dick Huff for creative inspiration. And finally to my editor, Hope Dellon, who was "present at the creation" of both Henry VIII and Mary, and has helped mightily at every stage; and my agent, Jacques de Spoelberch, who believed in me from the beginning.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Poem, "Nature and art..." by Joachim du Bellay, on page 63, translated from the French, as it appears in The Queen of Scots by Stefan Zweig, translated from the German by Cedar and Eden Paul.

London'Cassell, 1935. Poem, "The Tongue of Hercules..." by Joachim du Bellay, on page 63, translated from the French and quoted in The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots: A Political History, by Martin Hume. London:

Eveleigh Nash & Grayson Limited. Poem attributed to Mary Queen of Scots, on page 105, translated from the French and quoted in Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, by Agnes Strickland, Vol. III. Edinburgh and London:

William Blackwood and Sons, 1861. Elegie o Marie Stuart by Pierre de Ronsard, on page 112, translated from the French by Helen Smailes in

The Queen's Image, by Helen Smailes and Duncan Thomson, for the Scottish National Portrait

Gallery, Copyright 1987 by The Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland. "Four stages of prayer" on pages 702-704, by Father Albert Haase, Madison, Wisconsin, 1989. Poem on page 801 and prayer on page 842, both attributed to Mary Queen of Scots; translations from the

French and Latin respectively copyright 1974 and 1976 by Caroline Bingham, as quoted in Royal

Swan Papers X: The Poems of Mary Queen of Scots, by Caroline Bingham, the Royal Stuart Society,

1976.

"Meditation on the Two Thieves" on pages 856-857, by Scott George, Oslo, Norway 1963. Scottish ballads, from the collection of Francis James Child.

First published 1992 by St. Martin's Press, New York, USA

First published in Great Britain 1992 by Macmillan London a division of Pan Macmillan Publishers Limited

Cavaye Place London SW10 9PG

and Basingstoke

Associated companies throughout the world

ISBN 0333 58477 5

Copyright C Margaret George 1992 The right of Margaret George to be identified as the author of this

work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,

copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956

(as amended). Any person who does any un authorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

135798642 A C1P catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham plc, Chatham, Kent

To SCOTT GEORGE 1920-1989

Beloved father, friend, and teacher

To see the eclipses of Sun and Moon; to see the capture of wild elephants and snakes; and to see the poverty of the wise, is to see that the power of fate is always supreme.

Hindu proverb

In My End Is My Beginning England, 1587

In the deepest part of the night, when all the candles save one had been put out and everyone lay quiet, the woman crossed silently to her desk and sat down. She put that one candle at her right hand, and spread out a piece of paper as slowly as possible across the desktop, so as to make no noise. She held its left side down with her hand a white hand with long, slender fingers, which the French poet Ronsard had once described as "a tree with uneven branches." The hand looked young, as if it belonged to a virgin of fifteen. From across the room, with only one candle for illumination, the woman's face looked as young as the hand. But up closer, although the outlines of the beauty were still there, within the frame of the old loveliness there were lines and bumps and sags. The skin no longer stretched taut against the high cheekbones, the long, imperious nose, the almond-shaped eyes. It lay softly against them, tracing and revealing every hollow.

She rubbed her eyes, which were heavy-lidded and had traces of exhaustion under them, with that incongruously slender-fingered, elegantly ringed hand. Sighing, she dipped her pen in ink and began to write.

To Henri III, the Most Christian King of France.

8 February 1587.

Monsieur m o n beau frere, est ant par la permission de Dieu

Royal brother, having by God's will, for my sins I think, thrown myself into the power of the Queen my cousin, at whose hands I have suffered much for almost twenty years, I have finally been condemned to death by her and her Estates. I have asked for my papers, which they have taken away, in order that I might make my will, but I have been unable to recover anything of use to me, or even get leave either to make my will freely or to have my body conveyed after my death, as I would wish, to your kingdom where I had the honour to be queen, your sister and old ally.

Tonight, after dinner, I have been advised of my sentence: I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the morning. I have not had time to give you a full account of everything that has happened, but if you will listen to my doctor and my other unfortunate servants, you will learn the truth, and how, thanks be to God, I scorn death and vow that I meet it innocent of any crime, even if I were their subject. The Catholic faith and the assertion of my God-given right to the English throne are the two issues on which I am condemned.

She stopped and stared ahead, as if her mind had suddenly ceased to form words, or she had run out of them. The French language was soothing, lulling. Even terrible things did not sound so heinous in French. Her mind could not, dared not, form them in Scots.

"Ce parteur & sa compaignie la plus part de vos subjectz ..."

The bearer of this letter and his companions, most of them your subjects, will testify to my conduct at my last hour. It remains for me to beg Your Most Christian Majesty, my brother-in-law and old ally, who have always protested your love for me, to give proof now of your goodness on all these points: firstly by charity, in paying my unfortunate servants the wages due them this is a burden on my conscience that only you can relieve: further, by having prayers offered to God for a queen who has borne the title Most Christian Queen of France, and who dies a Catholic, stripped of all her possessions.

I have taken the liberty of sending you two precious stones, talismans against illness, trusting you will enjoy good health and a long and happy life. Accept them from your loving sister-in-law, who, as she dies, bears witness of her warm feelings for you. Give instructions, if it please you, that for my soul's sake part of what you owe me should be paid, and that for the sake of Jesus Christ, to whom I shall pray for you tomorrow as I die, I be left enough to found a memorial mass and give the customary alms.

Wednesday, at two in the morning.

Your most loving and most true sister,

Queen of Scotland

She put down the pen, blinked once. Then she carefully put two small books on the paper to hold it down. Each movement was delicate, but weary. The fine, slender fingers stretched out once, then rested. She blew out the candle.