Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (21 page)

The answer, thought Knox, was my sermon the next day, the sermon that
started the rioting here in Perth. Now let her face our army, if she
can wade through the rubble of her late Popish ruins! He laughed
loudly, not caring that it strained his throat.

And God has spared us the prospect of her daughter ever returning to
Scotland and the throne, he thought. She will be tied up for her
lifetime in France, in that land of satin and foppery, whilst we go
about our business unhindered.

Thank You, Lord, he thought. Thank You. Now lead us on to final
victory!

FIFTEEN

Early summer in Paris, when the city was tender and in its first
spreading ripeness, should have been a pleasurable time for the French
court. Indeed, high festivities were in hand: King Philip of Spain,
that well-rehearsed bridegroom, had been accepted in matrimony by
Elisabeth Valois, after abandoning his hopeless pursuit of the new
English Queen. The wedding would take place at the end of June, along
with the nuptials of her spinster aunt, Marguerite Valois, to the Duke
of Savoy another hapless suitor of Queen Elizabeth, who was discarding
them left and right like a housewife sorting rags.

But in spite of the expensive preparations the commotion in the
kitchens, the armour-fitting, the tournament practices within the Hotel
des Toumelles there was an anxiety, a high hum in the air, although no
one acknowledged it. Catherine de Medicis was in a perpetual frown and
heaviness, her dark eyes looking to something within herself;
Elisabeth, only fourteen, was apprehensive about leaving France and
becoming the third wife of a man whose other wives had been so
short-lived. And Mary was unhappy: unhappy to be losing her
almost-sister Elisabeth, unhappy that Francois was once again ill, and
most of all unhappy with the news from Scotland. Her mother was ill
and beleaguered by John Knox's rabid Reformers. Actual war had broken
out, with killings on both sides. Led by the Lords of the
Congregation, and whipped up by John Knox's preaching, the Scottish
people had gone on a rampage of destruction, while their army had
attacked the government's forces.

And in back of it was English help. Queen Elizabeth must be secretly
sending money to help the rebels. Without English support, the rebels
would have been beaten by now.

O my mother! thought Mary to herself as she dressed for the tournament
that was to be part of the festivities that afternoon. My mother, my
mother if only I could see you, be with you ... it has been so long
since I have seen you, eight years since your wonderful visit here in
France, eight long years ... I must find a way for us to see each other
again, there must be a way .. . perhaps I can come to you.. .. The
longing was so acute it was like a physical pain, a yearning that tore
at her in hidden places.

Riding in her carriage with its gilded wheels to the adjoining
tournament grounds on the rue St.-Antoine, being preceded by heralds
running ahead, crying, "Make way, make way, for Her Majesty the Queen
of Scotland and England," seemed something she was doing for her
mother's sake, striking a blow against her mother's enemy, Elizabeth.
Her earlier admiration of Elizabeth's cleverness had soured now that it
was directed against her own mother. She smiled and waved as the
people acknowledged her, and Nicholas Throckmorton, the English
ambassador, noted everything and would report it back to London.

She took her place in the viewing balcony on the rue St.-Antoine, next
to her uncle the Cardinal, who looked bored already.

"I wish I had a livre for every official joust I have had to attend,"
said the Cardinal, twitching at his robes. "I should have amassed more
than Luther claimed the Church made on indulgences. Ah, well. One
cannot have a marriage or a birth or a coronation without them.
Spectacle is an investment. If wisely used, that is. Now, this ..."
He gave a dismissive gesture. "Waste. Who sees it? Who is impressed
by it? Not Philip. He is not here. He does not reckon this important
enough to leave Spain for!"

The thought had been in Mary's mind as well. It was hurtful that
Philip did not care enough for his new bride to claim her in person.

"That is a great pity," said Mary. "For Elisabeth's heart is not his
yet. He will have to win her, and this is no way to begin."

The Cardinal sighed expansively. "Love and arranged marriages they are
seldom found together." He seemed not to care if Elisabeth was happy
or not; it was her lot as a princess to endure. "Your cousin Elizabeth
declines the hand of the Spanish bridegroom," he said. "Of course,
there is some feeling that perhaps she is not the true Queen. Philip
is well out of it. Especially since the Pope has issued his statement
recognizing you as rightful Queen." He had not exactly "issued" the
statement, but the Cardinal's spies had found out about it anyway.

Mary looked out beyond the tournament grounds, which lay between the
Bastille and the river, to the buildings of Paris, shimmering in the
June sun, and beyond them to the bright green fields. She had seen the
same vista in a Book of Hours: brilliant and jewellike.

She sighed. "My heart is too heavy with my mother's troubles in
Scotland to concern myself with the romances of my cousin in England,
who causes them." She refused to discuss the formal "claim" Henri II
had forced her to make.

"She does not exactly cause them," corrected the Cardinal. "The
English Queen causes nothing, she merely takes advantage of what
naturally occurs."

"How clever of her." Mary was still looking at the perfect June
landscape, so like a miniature. She wished she could enter into it,
walk along the winding country road that, from here, looked like a
brown thread.. ..

The contenders were milling at either end of the field, banners
fluttering.

The Cardinal suddenly took off his hat and began fanning himself with
it. "When will they start? This is torture!"

"Soon," she assured him.

He heaved a sigh of resignation, and turned to talk to the Queen,
seated on his other side. Catherine de Medicis, dressed in a rich
green silk dress, looked sour; her brows were drawn up in a straight
line, and she kept twisting a handkerchief in her stubby fingers. Mary
heard the Cardinal attempting to entertain her. But she grew ever more
agitated.

Tournaments were such pretty things, thought Mary. All the colours,
and the ritual rather like high mass. Perhaps it was a mass, a secular
one, of strength and worldliness.. ..

The trumpets sounded. The jousts in honour of the marriage of the
King's sister, Princess Marguerite, and his daughter, Princess
Elisabeth, to the Duke of Savoy and the King of Spain, respectively,
would now commence. Glittering contenders including the King, wearing
the black and white colours of Diane came onto the field. The first
contest began.

For an hour or so everyone watched avidly, but then the too-familiar
spectacle wore thin and thoughts began to wander and tongues to chatter
amongst the onlookers.

Mary smoothed her blue gown and thought of Francois. He sat close to
his mother, his face pinched with pain from his ever-present ear
infection. How did he bear it, never feeling well? Yet he persisted
with his lessons, and kept hunting.

Farther down on the balcony sat the Duc de Guise, back from the wars
for good. An agreement had ended the wars: the Treaty of Cateau-Cam-br
sis, which stopped all the fighting. France had had to return all her
conquests from the last eighty years in Italy. How futile war was, she
thought. All the banners and horses and ordnance, but in the end it
was as insubstantial as a joust.

"How is marriage treating you, my dear?" The Cardinal's voice was warm
and close to her ear.

"I enjoy being married," she answered.

"In what sense do you enjoy it?" he persisted.

"As a wife should." She would not betray Francois's capabilities or
lack of them to him.

"Then we can expect a prince soon?" He was relentless.

"That is in the hands of God."

"God helps those who help themselves."

Should she listen to this? "In what way?" She yielded to the
temptation.

"For the good of France, it may be necessary to make personal
sacrifices. To set aside certain commandments."

"Such as the sixth?" She paused. "The one commanding fidelity?"

"How perceptive you are. Naturally, the Lord would reward such a
sacrifice with minor compensations such as pleasure." Surely she
wanted to taste pleasure! She was fashioned for it.

"My pleasure is in being faithful to the one ordained to me by God."

Oh, dear. What a problem for the succession, he thought.

"But of course," he said smoothly. "I was merely testing you, my
dear."

"I know." She pretended to believe him. "That is your job, as
Cardinal of the Church and as my "

A cry rose from the spectators on the balcony. Mary looked out onto
the field, and saw the King pitching forward, a splintered lance
sticking out of his open visor. Blood spurted out between the golden
bars of the cage like visor, drenching the horse's neck.

Catherine screamed. Diane sat as if cast in stone.

"Christ on His throne!" breathed the Cardinal, rising and clutching
the balustrade.

The King was being taken down from his horse, as stiff as a scarecrow,
except for a convulsive twitch every few seconds. They laid him on a
stretcher and bore him away, before the Queen or any of the royal
family could move from the stands or go to him.

"No!" screamed Catherine. "I warned him! I told him! I begged him!"
She rushed down to the field and threw herself, weeping, on the horse's
bloody neck.

"Come," said the Cardinal. He held Mary's elbow and raised her up. "To
your carriage. They will have taken him back to the Hotel des
Tour-nelles. Go to him."

Mary obeyed and entered her ceremonial car, emblazoned with all her
titles. Her coachman started up the horses, and the heralds ran ahead,
announcing loudly, "Make way, make way, for Her Majesty the Queen of
Scotland and England." Their voices were swallowed up in the yells of
the crowd, jostling and excited.

In the Hotel des Tournelles the Cardinal had guessed correctly the King
lay on a narrow bed, attended by his physicians. The lance had entered
his right eye, and blinded it. Splinters of the wood, it was feared,
had penetrated his brain.

For ten days the King lingered, as the splinters from the lance
festered in his brain and infection spread. Sometimes he was lucid,
sometimes not. But the puzzling thing to Mary was that she sensed he
was neither surprised nor reluctant to go to his death at only
forty-one. It was as if he were greeting death as a not unwelcome, or
unexpected, caller.

Catherine had evidently been warned, both by her astrologer Ruggieri
and by Nostradamus, by whom she set great store, of a disaster. In
addition, she had had a disturbing dream the night before. All these
things she had told her husband, and he had ignored them. Or had he?
Had he actually welcomed them and embraced them? His actions seemed to
belie a wish to live. He had insisted on running the final course,
even in the face of Catherine's pleas, and the wish of his opponent to
stop. The King had commanded the reluctant opponent to face him, or be
punished.