The Ballad of the Five Marys Read online

  ‘Don’t talk that way, Sister, I’ll deliver the writings, and come back to tell you what happened. And you can tell me again about the Queen and Earl Bothwell, over a warming supper.’

  ‘I’ll not tarnish my lips with his name. Say a rosary with me, and then I’ll put my head down to rest. There’s a good girl. I can sleep now at last.’

  John Knox

  An account of the prophet’s last days by his Secretary, Bannatyne

  WE RETURNED TO Edinburgh in August after a truce was signed between the King’s lords and the Queen’s party in the castle. As we were not able to go to our former house we were given the goldsmith’s mansion in the Netherbow. Its owner was in the castle and had been outlawed for coining. On the first Sunday I helped Master Knox up to St Giles and into the pulpit, but his voice was so feeble that none could hear, and many wept to see the great prophet so decayed and broken.

  Most of the time Master Knox remained in bed dictating his ‘History’ and sometimes writing, rising perhaps once or twice to meet with a visitor or take some nourishment. A small hall was fitted out in the aisles of the church so that he could address the congregation, and many crowded in to hear his words, expounding still the Word of God.

  When news came of the terrible massacre of Protestants in Paris his wonted fire and pronounced the judgment of God on the persecutors of His chosen servants. Then he called for Edinburgh Castle to be pulled down on the heads of the ungodly. He warned that if Mary was not silenced her siren voice would once again woo our nation from the path of righteousness, and worked to such a pitch of fury that those who heard him trembled for their lives. He called for the Queen to die that justice might finally be done for her apostasy, adultery, murder and deceit. Neither Scotland nor England could be secure while she remained alive. He swayed the minds and hearts of all the people against her cause, and even her life.

  That was his last Sunday sermon. He seemed to sense that time was short. He wrote to Secretary Cecil thanking him for his support, and saying that, while he would have liked to serve the Lord in England, his calling had lain here in Scotland where the labour, though hard, had been fruitful in this miserable wilderness.

  He wrote to James Lawson, his chosen successor, urging him to come quickly before it was too late. The day after he attended Lawson’s induction he was unable to rise. His breathing was troubled and terrible coughing racked his chest. Master Knox never left the house again.

  After the doctor prescribed cordials and some wine, the Master improved and was able to sit up in bed and listen to Mistress Margaret or myself reading from the scriptures. Many friends and public men came to pay their respects and wish him farewell. One evening he was able to get up for supper with some guests, and ordered a new barrel of wine to be broached. Jesting, he ordered everyone to drink their fill since he would not live to drain the cask.

  The next morning, however, his fever rose again and he tried to get up to preach thinking it was Sunday. I called the Mistress and she soothed him back to rest.

  That evening the Earl of Morton came and sat on the bed. I was at a distance but heard the Master ask if Morton had foreknowledge of Darnley’s death. He denied it, and then my Master looked earnestly at him saying that since he was Regent he must mend his ways and serve the Lord in righteousness all his days. Then he gave the Douglas a benediction. As he left the chamber there were tears in Morton’s eyes and he took brusque leave of our house.

  When James Lawson came the Master could barely speak, but he urged him to go with the Minister of Leith one last time to try and win back Kirkcaldy’s soul from the brink.

  ‘Tell him, my once dear William,’ he whispered, drawing painful breath, ‘that he will miserably perish, since neither the craggy rock in which he trusts, nor the carnal prudence of that godless Maitland he considers like a god, nor the aid of foreigners, will deliver him. Instead he will be disgracefully dragged from his nest and hung on the gallows in the face of the sun. How near his soul is to me, if only I could save him from the fires of punishment.’

  He fell back exhausted and did not speak again that night.

  The next morning, which was his last, he rose and after sitting awhile in his chair returned to bed, commending his young family to the care of friends. At midday the young Mistress read to him the fifteenth chapter of Corinthians, ‘O Death where is thy sting; O grave where is thy victory.’ In a voice barely audible he commended his own soul and body to the Lord.

  But at five o’clock after sleeping through the afternoon, he suddenly spoke out in a strong voice. ‘Go read where I first cast my anchor.’ Margaret Stewart knew what he meant and turned to the seventeenth chapter of John.

  ‘I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world… O righteous Father the world has not known thee: but I have known thee, and they have known that you sent me.’

  From time to time he was able to take a sip of weak ale held to his lips, and at seven o’clock he fell asleep. At ten o’clock when he was accustomed to say evening prayers he stirred. The doctor lent over to ask if he could hear the prayers being said.

  ‘I would to God that you and all men could hear them as I have. I praise God for that heavenly sound.’

  An hour later he died with the Mistress at his bedside.

  The funeral was in St Giles, and Regent Morton gave the oration. ‘There lies one who neither feared nor flattered any flesh. He has gone to his reward.’

  Maitland of Lethington

  THIS ROOM IS my world. First I was reduced to a castle and now a prison chamber, while my limbs swell and sweat. So it was for the Queen’s mother before she yielded her life. Yet in death she eluded captive bands. The enemy has overrun my body but my spirit is untaken.

  My mind is still in my own keeping. Even while they fetch away the issue of my flesh.

  I refuse defeat because our cause is right. Only confinement such as this puts Her Majesty at the mercy of Catholic plots and English malice. This is her kingdom and I will die within it in earnest of my loyalty, my conviction of her just cause and unblemished name.

  But not at their hands. Maitland will not be handled by usurpers. By my couch I have a balm for all my woes. I can die like an ancient Roman.

  Will that give the godly satisfaction? To say I departed as a pagan stoic?

  I pull the stopper and pour out a little on the ground. Then place the phial back in my satchel. If death comes to me unsummoned, they can never tell the manner or the form of Maitland’s passing. I defy their shitting prophets and all the mean foolishness of men. I have ensured these words will outlast my mortal frame.

  Let the garments wither. Maitland will endure uncorrupted. My love is beyond any taint. God preserve you, Fleming. And may Kirkcaldy rest in peace.

  I am resolute and composed. I regard these strange sensations with disdain. I am, yet awhile, Maitland. Maître. Magus.

  Bothwell

  FUCKING WHORE. I’LL stake you here and now. And whip your skin to red ribbons.

  No, I don’t want to sniff your tail. Get out of here you foul lying bitch. And take your scales and stinking fish.

  I am the King. Everybody feeds on me. Gnaw. Gnaw. Bloody gnaw.

  If I catch just one of you fat little bastards I’ll crunch your bones and chew off your head. I am a mountain, a citadel, flesh. This is my body that cannot be broken. Tough, yet it can be chewed.

  Here is the last King of Scots. Eat me now, and let me rule the dark.

  One day I’ll run along the riverbed and feel the water flowing on my bones.

  Christ, how I long for my own land. In that other country.

  Final Reckonings

  England and France, 1586–1597

  James Maitland

  HOW VIVID THOSE last fatal months become across the gap of years. Only William Maitland
’s resolve to steer events, with Kirkcaldy’s determination to purge the stain on his honour, could have continued the hopeless defence of Edinburgh Castle. The St Bartholomew’s Day atrocity in France swung opinion in England and then Scotland away from Queen Mary. Events had moved far beyond the control of her last loyal allies.

  The vindictiveness of the Scottish lords after the castle’s ruin was beyond reason or measure. Morton was merciless. My mother, Mary Fleming, pleaded for the return of my father’s body. But Regent Morton commanded that the corpse be tried for treason and then brutally dissolved. Only a direct appeal to Queen Elizabeth averted this outrage. Nonetheless Morton kept the body in Leith until rats ran freely in and out beneath the door. Finally William Maitland was sealed in lead and laid to rest in Haddington.

  Lady Margaret Kirkcaldy was even less fortunate. One hundred gentlemen of Scotland, from all parties, pledged five thousand crowns for her husband’s security. This was an exceptional tribute in a time of civil war. But, unusually for Morton, he desired Kirkcaldy’s lasting silence at any price. Sir William was hung, drawn and quartered and months later his broken remnants were cast into an unmarked pit in Greyfriars. Only recently have his mortal remains been returned to the family vault in Fife.

  They died brave and unyielding. Yet I can see their cause was lost long before these days of desperate courage. It died at Kirk o’ Field.

  Who killed Henry Darnley, and why? Many have ceased to ask the question, which was then on every lip, because they believe that Mary caused his death. And that is why she was overthrown. So history is read in reverse.

  Like a puzzle master I must lay out all the pieces and order them afresh. When assembled I believe that they will reveal a picture very different from the one that has become so popular. For what can compete with the allure of an adulteress and seducer who incites her lover to murder her own husband and then marries him? Especially when the principal actors are kings and queens.

  Who killed Henry Darnley? The main instruments were James Balfour and Morton’s cousin, Archibald Douglas. It was Douglas, along with Kerr of Fawdonside and other ruffians, who strangled Darnley in the orchard. So Morton was avenged for the Rizzio betrayal and his exile.

  But it was Balfour who devised a double plot with Bothwell as its seeming instrument; Morton and Moray were behind him in the shadows. Weak minded Darnley was convinced by Balfour that the Queen’s assassination was the only way to preserve his own life and moreover gain the crown. So Darnley agreed to come to Balfour’s house at Kirk o’ Field where a large quantity of gunpowder would be stored in the cellars.

  When the torchlit escort from Holyrood signalled Mary’s return from Holyrood, the fuse would be fired and Darnley make his escape. Bothwell would delay the Queen’s arrival to prevent any danger. On the night this plan nearly unravelled when Mary changed her mind about staying at Kirk o’ Field. However Bothwell set out regardless, torches ablaze, knowing Mary to be completely out of harm’s way. Taken by surprise Darnley gave the hurried order and had himself lowered in a chair from the window as intended, but in his nightshirt.

  The supposed purpose was to expose Darnley as a traitor so that he could be imprisoned and divorced, not slain. Bothwell was party to this design as was my father. But Morton and Moray, in league with Cecil, had decided to go further and kill the King. Unlike Maitland, Bothwell was content to see Darnley dead and his path to Mary cleared. But the others had a longer, deeper aim. They wanted Darnley silenced and Bothwell blamed. They knew that his involvement would taint Mary by association and rock the throne. So Bothwell was duped and for a moment my father’s attention had fatally strayed.

  That was dark diplomacy, but Cecil’s hand reached far into our affairs. He constantly primed Moray to believe that he should reign in Scotland, by right of religion, in his sister’s place. When Moray’s rebellion against the Darnley marriage failed and Elizabeth disowned him, Cecil covertly encouraged Rizzio’s slaughter, which threatened Mary’s own life. And conveniently restored Moray.

  But the master stroke was the return of Morton from exile, engineered by Cecil in exchange for Elizabeth’s agreement to become Prince James’ guardian. Rather than see two Queens united against him, he prompted Morton’s hand. There was no accident in that sequence, no chaos of events, but cunning design. Even Knox was used as a channel to the zealots, so that the campaign of placards denouncing Bothwell, and then Mary, was begun before Darnley’s corpse was in its grave.

  The escape from Lochleven upset his calculations. Even Morton had baulked at judicial murder of the Queen, allowing a reverse. Only Kirkcaldy’s generalship at Langside saved the day and drove the butterfly back into Cecil’s sticky web. Elizabeth’s own reluctance to condone judicial murder dragged out the drama, but its final act had always been foreseen.

  What did my father know of this? Cecil’s remorseless enmity he understood. He was party to the plot to remove Darnley from the scene but did he guess at worse and avert his gaze? If there was one man that Maitland wholeheartedly despised it was Bothwell. Did his mind divide into two compartments, each denying knowledge of the other? In one he saw the consequences for Mary of Darnley’s assassination. But in the other, with a gambler’s calculation, he allowed things to proceed to the chance of Bothwell’s fall. In Scotland old enmities are like rocks beneath the heather.

  When events spun out of control, Maitland was feverishly driven to action. Perhaps on this wider stage he could devise a solution. His diplomatic and legal mind perceived an opportunity where others saw only disaster. He relished the chance to show his paces in this crisis. The fatal error might yet be retrieved.

  Her Majesty of Scotland was now to be accused in England but not tried, since one Queen cannot sit in judgment on another. So a joint Commission was established between England and Scotland to consider the circumstances of Darnley’s murder and Mary’s supposed abdication.

  George Buchanan compiled the evidence against the Queen, for whom he had played both poet and playwright. But Buchanan was Protestant and republican, while his family owed allegiance to the Earls of Lennox. None could have been more vindictive or inventive in his lurid inventions of adultery, begun with Bothwell mere weeks after Prince James’ birth, and followed by deceit and entrapment of poor Darnley, rightful King of Scots. His ‘Detection’ is notorious, but remains the contagious source of Mary’s blackened name.

  But Mary had strong support amongst English lords, not least the Catholic sympathisers, and Elizabeth rigidly upheld her royal prerogatives. Buchanan’s fiction needed proofs. Now Moray and Morton had to produce evidence against her for examination. The private letters, so far unshown to any but themselves, must justify the overthrow of one rightful Queen to another. So work began sifting the papers seized at Holyrood and Dunbar.

  These papers are separately bound and wrapped. They are not in my father’s hand but copies of other letters, or at least extracts from them. The letters are annotated but the identity writer is unclear. The letters purport to be written by Queen Mary and implicate her in the murder. Either my father was party to the falsehoods, in form at least, or he discovered the mechanism of the plot from an inside source, Scottish or English.

  As for myself, if I hear nothing from you to the contrary, I will bring the man to Craigmillar on Monday. And I will go to Edinburgh to be bled.

  He is the merriest that you ever saw, and shows me by every means he can that he loves me. You would think he is making love to me, which gives me so much joy that the pain in my side starts up. It is sore today but when Paris brings me his commission it will make amends.

  Please send me your news in general, and what I should do if you have not returned when I arrive. For if you are not wise, I can see the whole burden falling on my shoulders. Provide for all and consider well.

  Beneath this letter is subscribed, ‘A short letter from Glasgow to the Earl Bothwell. Proves her disdain against her husband.’ This is crossed out and replaced with ‘written by Her Majesty to her husb
and Lord Darnley concerning her ‘man’, the infant Prince James. And a commission for medicines.’ A longer letter follows.

  He prayed me to come again, which I did, and told me his grief, and that I was the cause of his sickness because I was estranged from him, in these words.

  ‘You ask what I meant in my letters by your cruelty. I mean your refusal to accept my repentance. I have done amiss, but so have many of your subjects and you pardoned them. I am young. You’ll say you have forgiven me many times but I return to my faults. But may someone of my age for lack of counsel fail sometimes and miss the mark, yet in the end repent and rebuke himself from his own experience? If I get your pardon I will never fall short again, and plead nothing except we be at bed and table again as husband and wife. And if I don’t I will never rise from this bed. Tell me your resolution, for God knows I am punished for making you my God and having no other mind but of you. When we are separated anything I hear about you stays in my brain and incites my troubled wits to anger.’

  He wanted me to stay with him in his lodging, but I refused saying he had to be purged and that could not be done here. I told him I would take him myself to Craigmillar so that the physicians and I could cure him away from my son. He said he was ready to go with me as soon as I decided to leave.

  He would not let me go, but wanted me to watch with him. I made out as if I believed it all, though I had heard it so many times before, and that I would think upon it. I excused myself from sitting with him due to his lack of sleep. You never heard someone speak so humbly and contritely, and were it not I know his heart to be of wax and mine of diamond, no stroke except one from your pen, could prevent me pitying him. But fear not, this fortress will endure till death.

  I am weary and asleep, yet I cannot stop scribbling as long as there is paper. Cursed be this pocky fellow that gives me so much grief, for I have much pleasanter things to write were it not for him. He is not much deformed in face but socially repulsive. I was nearly killed with his breath, though I sat no closer than the bolster and he was on the far side of his bed.