Mary Queen of Scots (25 page)

Elizabeth’s refusal gave Mary Stuart her first public opportunity of rising magnificently to a crisis. She now displayed for the first time that quality of cool courage, when in the public eye, which was to be a feature of her later career. It was courage which owed nothing to physical well-being. At the beginning of July Mary had a renewed attack of the tertian fever, and when Throckmorton saw her on 9 July he noted that it had ‘somewhat appaired her cheer’, although she herself dismissed it lightly and said that the worst was over. Now, when she received Throckmorton on 20 July at Saint-Germain, having heard the news of the denied passport, she was infinitely composed; in a series of speeches to the English ambassador of fine histrionic power, she showed herself to be not only brave, but also reasonable and even charitable towards the woman who had thus rejected her – as well as incidentally having an eloquent command of
language.
²⁶
Like an actress before an audience, the eighteen-year-old queen seemed to derive strength from the fact that the eyes of Europe were upon her. Her interviews with Throckmorton lead one to the conclusion that Mary, far from being daunted by the drama of the situation, was positively inspired by it.

She began by expressing in polite terms her regrets that she should have bothered Throckmorton by demanding a passport which she did not in fact require. She had reached France in safety, she pointed out proudly, in spite of the efforts of the king of England to intercept her. Thirteen years later, she would surely once more reach her own country with her own people to help her. Mary also told Throckmorton that she had no intention of ratifying the treaty until she reached her own land, where she would have the benefit of the advice of the Estates, since she was bound neither in honour nor in conscience to perform what her late husband had commanded. But as a proof that she wished to live in amity with the English queen, Mary also pointed out on the vexed point of the English arms, that since the death of both her father-in-law and husband she had borne neither arms nor title.

The next day Throckmorton came to see her again, and Mary spoke to him with renewed oratorical fervour: ‘Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, if my preparations were not so much advanced as they are, peradventure the Queen, your Mistress’ unkindness might stay my voyage; but now I am determined to adventure the matter, whatsoever come of it; I trust the wind will be so favourable as I shall not need to come on the coast of England; and if I do, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, the Queen your Mistress shall have me in her hands to do her will of me; and if she be so hard-hearted as to desire my end, she may then do her pleasure, and make sacrifice of me; peradventure that casualty might be better for me than to live,’ added Mary dramatically, although one suspects her real expectations were somewhat less pessimistic. ‘In this matter, God’s will be fulfilled,’ she concluded and, in a final superb gesture, embraced the attendant Throckmorton.
²⁷

Mary followed up the interview with a friendly letter to Elizabeth to see if the safe-conduct could still be obtained: but without awaiting the answer, she forthwith made her preparations to leave France, passport or no passport. On 25 July, she departed from the court of Saint-Germain, here bidding adieu to King Charles, Queen Catherine and the majority of the nobility who had known her throughout childhood, youth and marriage. According to Leslie, the ancient Franco–Scottish alliance was not forgotten at this final moment and confirmation was made of ‘a perpetual
friendship to stand among them, as it had been between their predecessors, by most ancient band and league, inviolably in all times past’.
²⁸
When the grand farewell
fête
, which was held in her honour at Saint-Germain, and lasted for four days, was over, the young queen set out for Calais, accompanied by her six uncles and other members of the court. The train stopped at Merly, the constable’s house, on their way, where both the cardinal and duke of Guise fell ill overnight – although in this case the proverbial rumours of poison which greeted the incident were made less realistic by the fact that the king of Navarre was also stricken. On 3 August, Mary was still at Beauvais, and Throckmorton then followed her on to Abbeville. Where on 7 August, he had a final interview with the queen, at which both reiterated their former arguments, Mary laying special emphasis on the fact that since she was acting without the advice of her uncles, she genuinely needed to obtain the advice of the Scots before she proceeded further – ‘I do so much know mine own infirmity that I will do nothing … without counsel.’
²⁹

On 8 August Throckmorton bid the queen a last good-bye. The admiration which the ambassador felt for the queen seems to have been reciprocated. Always generous to those who served her, Mary wrote to Lady Throckmorton the day before she sailed from Calais, saying that she had charged her
maître d’hôtel
to visit her and give her a present as a remembrance of her affection, and a token of the regard which she felt for her husband. Lady Throckmorton subsequently received two basins, two ewers, two salts and a standing cup, all of gilt. A zealous Protestant, whose career in England had been under a cloud during the reign of the Catholic Mary Tudor, when he was tried for complicity in the Wyatt rebellion, in France Throckmorton openly hated the Catholic Guises and admired the Huguenots. Yet he was clearly fascinated by the Catholic queen of Scots, as were so many of Queen Elizabeth’s servitors who were to come into personal contact with her. As Mary was beginning to expand in her mind the possibilities of meeting the queen of England face to face, perhaps Elizabeth at the same moment was already digesting the fact that personal contact with the queen of Scots was apt to have an alarmingly seductive effect on the listener.

On the evening of 8 August, Mary rode to the abbey of Forest Monstrier, where she decided to send the lord of St Colme Inch and Alexander Erskine to England, accompanied by Throckmorton’s servant Tremaine, for a final appeal for the passport. Before the effects of this letter could be felt – once again its tone was extremely friendly – the preparations for Mary’s journey had been completed. The queen and her party were to
travel in two galleys, accompanied by two ships. The preparations were not left entirely in the hands of the French. The hereditary Lord High Admiral of Scotland was also involved – this was none other than James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell. This spirited border lord had already swum into the ken of the Scottish queen during the previous autumn, when he had arrived at the French court for the first time. He did so characteristically, out of financial necessity, abandoning his Norwegian mistress, Anna Thronsden, in Flanders, while he made the expedition to seek further funds. Bothwell had been kindly received by Mary and Francis, and as he put it himself: ‘The Queen recompensed me more liberally and honourably than I had deserved’
³⁰
– these particular benefits being a present of 600 crowns as well as the post and salary of gentleman of the king’s chamber. On this occasion Throckmorton had suspected some political
coup
and warned his correspondents in London that Bothwell needed watching, for he was a ‘glorious [i.e. vainglorious], rash and hazardous young man’.
³¹
He paid a further visit to France in the spring, and by 5 July was back in Paris for the third time;
§
this time he was accompanied by the bishop of Orkney, himself a seaman of distinction and Lord Eglinton, no stranger to nautical enterprise in the sense that he was generally suspected of piracy. As for Elizabeth, too late she relaxed her fury; by the time she wrote back to Mary denying any intention of ‘impeaching’ her passage, and saying that she had no ships at sea except two or three small barks to apprehend pirates who were attacking the North Sea fishermen, Mary was no longer in France to receive the letter.

Mary’s departure was not without its tragi-comic elements. The cardinal, for example, suggested that she should for prudence sake leave her jewels behind in France, to which Mary, with a flash of wry humour, observed that if she herself were safe to go to sea, why then so were her jewels. She atoned for this, however, by giving her aunt the duchess of Guise with characteristic generosity the day before she finally sailed, a magnificent necklace of rubies, emeralds and diamonds, from her own collection, as a token of regard. The company of her own galley was planned to provide a galaxy of glamour and entertainment to beguile the young queen on her journey; it included three of her uncles, René of Elboeuf, the duke of Aumale and the Grand Prior Francis, as well as the four Maries, Mary Seton, Mary Beaton, Mary Livingstone and Mary Fleming, whose French education was completed, and were now to accompany their mistress back to Scotland, as they had accompanied her to France so many years ago. On Mary’s own galley were also to travel the young poet Châtelard and her admiring chronicler Brantôme.
³³

The day of embarkation dawned dull and misty, despite the fact that it was high August. Mary’s wavering spirits were not lifted by the fact that a fishing boat in the harbour foundered and went down before the eyes of her watching party, with all its hands drowned. ‘What a sad augury for a journey!’ she exclaimed aloud. On Wednesday 14 August about noon, the servant of ambassador Throckmorton, passing by Calais, saw a stirring spectacle ‘haling’ out of the haven: two great galleys and two ships. He hastened to give the news to his master. It was news which Throckmorton had been expecting to hear and it cannot have been unwelcome to him. It was a brave sight which the English servant glimpsed at Calais: for it was the queen of Scotland setting forth across the North Sea on the 600–mile journey to her kingdom, unblessed by any passport or safe-conduct from the English queen, whose ships patrolled these seas. As the ambassador faithfully commenced the despatch which would break this piece of news to England,
³⁴
he imagined only the bravado of the gesture which he must have applauded. Even if his watchful eyes had been able to spy into the great white galley and discern the tragic weeping figure on its poop, he might scarcely have recognized this tormented being for his modest self-controlled young queen.

Up till this moment Mary had shown admirable courage and resolution, both in her dealings with Throckmorton, and more profoundly in her decision to ‘to hazard all she had’ by returning to Scotland. But now that the die was cast, now that the ships were actually lying in the harbour of Calais, ready to take her away from all she had known and loved and held dear for that last thirteen years of what seemed to her like her whole life, Mary Stuart’s steadfast spirit temporarily deserted her. There was now no great challenge to call forth the resources of her nature, only the prospect of bidding farewell as it might be forever, to her family, her friends and above all France, France the beloved land of her adoption.

As the galleys surged forward towards the unknown coast of Scotland, Mary herself gazed again and again on the fast receding coast of France; clinging pathetically to that part of the ship which was still nearest to the French shores she murmured over and over again in a voice broken with tears:
‘Adieu France! Adieu France!’
; again and again she repeated the words, and as the shoreline gradually faded from her sight, her laments only
increased in fervour. Still mingling with the sound of the wind and the oars of the sea, her tragic young voice could be heard, eternally uttering its farewell, melancholy and prophetic.
‘Adieu France! Adieu France! Adieu donc, ma chère France…. Je pense ne vous revoir jamais plus.’

PART TWO
The Personal Rule