Mary Stuart (11 page)
Was Elizabeth deceived by this feigned contempt? Did Melville's adroit parry lull her suspicions to sleep? Or was she, throughout, playing a double game which to this day remains impenetrable? However this may be, the improbable happened. First the Earl of Lennox was granted leave to go to Scotland, and then, in January 1565, his son Henry Darnley. Strangely enough the go-between in securing these permits was none other than the Earl of Leicester, who had his own ends to serve, wishing to escape from the conjugal noose his royal mistress had spun for him. Now the fourth act of the farce could proceed merrily in Scotland, where, however, chance took a leading hand in the sport. The threads of the tangle were abruptly snapped, so that the comedy of the suitors was ended in a remarkable fashion which none of those concerned had expected.
For politics, a mortal and artificial power, was overridden on this January day of 1565, by an eternal and elemental force. The suitor who had come to woo a queen to his surprise found, in Mary Stuartâa woman. After years of patient waiting, she at length became aware of her own self. Hitherto she had been no more than a king's daughter, a king's wife, a queen and a queen-dowagerâthe sport of alien wills, a pawn in the game of diplomacy. At length, passion surged up from within. Ambition was discarded like a constricting garment. The awakened woman found herself confronted by a man. Therewith opened the history of her inner life.
N
OW THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENED
, and yet, though unexpected, it was one of the most ordinary things on earth—a young woman fell in love with a young man. In the long run Nature cannot be repressed. Mary, a woman with warm blood and healthy senses, was at this momentous period in her destiny on the threshold of her twenty-third year, the most appropriate age for an ardent passion. She had now been four years a widow, and fully abstinent, for her conduct in sexual matters was irreproachable. The time had come when feeling was to have its way with her, when the woman in the Queen was to demand her most sacred right, the right to love and to be loved.
The object of her first passion was, strangely enough, no other than the man who was a suitor for political reasons; no other than Darnley, whom his mother had sent to Scotland in this month of January 1565. Mary had already made the young man’s acquaintance. Four years earlier, when he was a lad of fifteen, he had come to France in order to bring his mother’s condolences to the widow of Francis II. At that time, however, Mary had been in a mournful mood; and in any case she would have been unlikely to regard this hobbledehoy as a possible future wooer. Since then, Darnley had grown into a tall and vigorous young fellow. He was (as Melville has told us) fair-haired, beardless, with a pretty, womanish face, from which two large, round eyes looked forth somewhat uncertainly into the world. “
Il n’est possible de voir un plus beau prince
”
—
It is not possible to see a more handsome prince—was the description given of him by the French ambassador Mauvissière; and the young Queen herself speaks of him as “the handsomest and best-proportioned long man” she has ever seen. Proneness to illusion was part of the fiery and impatient temperament of Mary Stuart. As with all who are romantically inclined, she had little knowledge either of the world or of men. Daydreamers such as she rarely see things in their true light; facile enthusiasms making them discern, rather, what they want to discern. Sobriety is foreign to such unteachables, who vacillate between the extremes of delight and disappointment; and, on awakening from one illusion, they do so only to become victims of a new one—since illusion, not reality, is for them the real world! Thus it came to pass that Mary, in her quickly kindled liking for the tall, smooth-chinned young Darnley, failed to perceive that beneath the comely surface there was no depth, that there was no moral strength in this man of powerful muscles, no intellectual culture to back up his courtly manners. Unaffected by her puritan environment, she could see no more than that the young prince had a good seat on horseback, danced gracefully, was fond of music and of cheerful conversation, and could, on occasion, write pretty verses. Such artistic accomplishments always made a strong appeal to her. She was delighted to find in Darnley an agreeable comrade in the ballroom, at the chase and in her other amusements. His coming was a refreshment, since he brought an aroma of youth into this tedious court. Others besides the Queen took a liking to Darnley who, acting on his mother’s shrewd advice, behaved modestly. Soon he had become a welcome guest throughout Edinburgh, “well liked for his personage”, as Randolph, Elizabeth’s spy, reported to the latter. He played his part of wooer adroitly, courting the favour not only of Mary Stuart, but of all and sundry. He struck up a close friendship with David Rizzio, the Queen’s new private secretary and an initiate of the Counter-Reformation. Day after day Darnley and Rizzio played tennis together; at night they slept in the same bed. But while Darnley thus got into close contact with the Catholic party, at the same time he wanted to stand well with the Protestants. On Sundays he accompanied Prime Minister James Stuart to kirk, where he listened with well-simulated attention to the sermons of John Knox. To avert suspicion, he often took his midday meals with the English ambassador, and was careful to say soft things of Queen Elizabeth. In the evening he danced by turns with the five Marys. In a word, his obedience to his mother’s instructions making up for his lack of intelligence, he got on well at the Scottish court and, for the very reason that he was personally insignificant, it was easy for him to avoid suspicion.
Suddenly, however, a spark kindled in the Queen’s heart. Mary Stuart, who had famous kings and princes as wooers, herself began to woo this foolish stripling of nineteen. Passion flamed up in her, as it is apt to do in those who have not prematurely frittered away their feelings in petty love adventures. For Mary, Darnley was the object of her first great passion. Her child marriage to Francis II had made of her little more than the young King’s playmate. Since Francis’ death, the woman in her had remained in abeyance. Now she had come into contact with a man upon whom her affection could discharge itself like a torrent. Unreflectingly, in the happy intoxication of self-forgetfulness, she gave herself up to the rush of feeling, in the belief that Darnley was all she could have dreamt of, was to be the one and only love of her life.
To expect reasonableness from a young woman in love is to look for the sun at midnight. It is of the essence of the love passion to be unanalysable and irrational. Always it is outside the range of mathematical calculations. Beyond question Mary Stuart’s choice of Darnley conflicted sharply with the general excellence of her understanding. The young man was crude, vain, with nothing to commend him but good looks. Like countless other men who have been passionately loved by women of outstanding intelligence, Darney’s only merit, his only magic, was that he chanced to be the man who, at the decisive hour, presented himself to a young woman whose willto-love had long been pent up.
Long, too long, had been the pause before the amatory passions of this proud daughter of the Stuarts were aroused. Now, after this time of waiting, she was impatient, was twitching with eagerness. When Mary Stuart wanted anything, she was not inclined to wait and to consider; as soon as she had made up her mind, her impulses urged her to action. The woman forgot the Queen; political considerations did not weigh with her for a moment. What mattered England or France or Spain, what mattered the future, as compared with the entrancing present? She would no longer trifle with Elizabeth’s proposal of Leicester as husband, nor would she await the slothful wooer from Madrid even though he was to bring her the crown of two worlds. Here, ready to her hand, was the bright-visaged, gentle and voluptuous youth, with his full, red lips, his childlike eyes, his cautious advances! A speedy alliance, that she might give herself to him unrestrainedly—such was the unquestioning impulse of her happily awakened senses. At first, however, she confided her intention to only one person at court, David Rizzio, who did his utmost, like a skilful smuggler, to guide the lovers’ ship past all rocks into the harbour of Cythera. A confidant of the Pope, Rizzio believed that Mary’s marriage to the Catholic Darnley would ensure the re-establishment of the old Church in Scotland. His zeal for the union was the outcome, not so much of a desire for Mary’s happiness or for Henry’s, as of the political scheming of a champion of the Counter-Reformation. Before James Stuart or Maitland of Lethington, the effective rulers of Scotland, had any notion of Mary’s intentions, the young Italian had written to the Pope for the dispensation requisite to the marriage, since Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was Mary’s cousin. Foreseeing every possible difficulty, Rizzio likewise wrote to Philip II to ask whether Mary could count upon the King of Spain’s help should Elizabeth make trouble about the marriage. Both by day and by night this confidential agent was hard at work, for Rizzio believed that the rising of the two stars would promote his own ascent in the courtly heaven as well as the triumph of Catholicism. But for all that he drove his mines so busily, he worked too slowly and too cautiously for Mary’s impatience. She would not be stayed for weeks and weeks while the letters took their tedious course across seas and lands. There would not be any hitch in the negotiations for the Holy Father’s dispensation. Why should she wait for a piece of parchment before having her desires gratified? As if to cut off the possibility of retreat (had she an inkling that her passion would be inconstant?), she wanted to give herself wholly to her lover without delay. Always in her resolves Mary showed this same blind disregard of consequences, this charming and foolish exaggeration. The faithful and adroit Rizzio soon found a way of gratifying the wishes of his royal mistress. He arranged for a Catholic priest to come to his room. Even though irrefutable evidence of a premature wedding be undiscoverable (as for all the details of Mary’s life, there is a conflict of testimony here), some sort of formal betrothal must have taken place. Why, otherwise, should the trusty henchman have exclaimed: “
Laudate sia Dio
”—Praised be God? Why should he have declared that no one could now “
disturbare le nozze
”—disturb the wedding? Long before any at court except Rizzio had taken Darnley’s wooing seriously, Mary’s cousin had become lord of her life and perhaps also of her body.
This “
matrimonio segreto
”—secret marriage—remained secret for a time because the pair chiefly concerned and also Rizzio and the priest knew how to hold their tongues. Still, the lovers’ manner betrayed them, as the heat of a hidden fire can be felt. It was not long before the court began to watch Mary Stuart and Darnley more closely. At this juncture the poor young fellow fell sick of measles—a distressingly childish ailment for a bridegroom. The anxious Mary watched day after day at his bedside and, when he was convalescent, continued to spend her time with him. The first among Mary’s statesmen and advisers to become seriously uneasy was James Stuart, Earl of Moray. Doubtless with a keen eye to his own advantage, he had honestly done his best to promote a good marriage for his sister and, although he was a strict Protestant, he had urged her to wed Don Carlos, scion of the Spanish Habsburgs, and therefore one of the leading figures in Catholic Christendom. But a wedding with Darnley ran athwart his plans and interests. Moray was clear-sighted enough to know that, should the conceited, soft-headed Darnley become prince consort, he would at once wish to wrest the royal authority into his own hands, and would never be content to let James Stuart rule. Besides, Moray had sufficient political flair to guess whither the intrigues of Rizzio, Italian secretary and papal agent, were tending—namely, towards the re-establishment of Catholicism and the downfall of the Reformation in Scotland. In his resolute mind personal ambition joined forces with religious conviction, the will-to-power with patriotic anxiety. He therefore urgently warned his sister against a marriage which would lead to disastrous conflict in a land that was just beginning to quiet down. When he saw that his warnings were unheeded, he abruptly left the court.
Lethington, the other trustworthy adviser, likewise offered resistance. He too saw that his position and the religious peace of Scotland were endangered. By degrees there assembled round the two Protestant statesmen the whole body of Scottish nobles that supported the Reformed Church. At length even Randolph, the English ambassador, began to notice what was going on at court. Afraid lest he should have been nodding at the decisive hour, in his report to Elizabeth he described handsome young Darnley’s influence with the Queen as the outcome of “witchcraft”, and began to drum lustily for aid. But the discontent and murmurings of these lesser folks were as nothing in comparison with the fury of Elizabeth when she learnt of Mary’s choice of husband. Now, indeed, she was distressingly repaid for the dubious game she had been playing; she had actually been made a fool of. While Mary was pretending to negotiate with her for her favourite Leicester, the real wooer had been smuggled out of her hands and across the border into Scotland; she was left stranded in London to reap the fruit of excess of diplomatic craft. In the first outburst of her anger, regarding Lady Lennox, Darnley’s mother, as at the bottom of the whole business, she caused the countess to be arrested and confined in the Tower. Threateningly she commanded Darnley, as one of her “subjects”, to return instantly to England; she alarmed his father with the threat of confiscating his estates; she summoned the Privy Council which, acting on her instructions, declared the marriage of Mary to Darnley “unmeet, unprofitable and perilous to the sincere amity between the queens and their realms”; she uttered veiled menaces of war. Substantially, however, she was so greatly alarmed and perplexed that simultaneously she tried chaffering. To save her own face, she played her last trump, the card which she had hitherto been careful to keep out of sight.
Now, when Elizabeth (though she does not yet know it) is too late in the field, for the first time she makes Mary an open and firm offer of succession to the English crown. Being in a great hurry, she sends a special envoy to convey the following declaration: “If the Queen of Scots would accept Leicester, she would be accounted and allowed next heir to the crown as though she were her own born daughter.” Here we have a signal instance of the futility of diplomacy. What Mary Stuart has for years been striving to attain with skill, urgency and cunning, that her rival should grant this right of succession to the English crown, is now put almost within her reach—would have been within her reach, had she not gone too far—by the most foolish action of her life.
It is part of the nature of political concessions that they come too late. Yesterday Mary Queen of Scots was still playing the political game; today she is only a woman, only a woman in love. Her leading ambition was, until a few weeks ago, to become acknowledged heiress to the throne of England. Now this desire for an enhanced royal state has been forgotten because of the woman’s impulsive longing to surrender her body to the embrace of a handsome young man. Even if she wanted to draw back, to secure the coveted prize in England, the secret marriage has made withdrawal out of the question. She and Darnley are man and wife, or at least formally betrothed. Too late come Elizabeth’s menaces; too late her offer of the English succession; too late, likewise, are the warnings of sincere friends, such as the Duke of Lorraine, her uncle, who urges Mary to have nothing more to do with that “
joli hutaudeau
”—that popinjay. Intelligence and reasons of state no longer weigh with the impetuous young woman.
