The Wild Queen (28 page)

Startled, I looked up from my needlework. How dare he speak to me in such a manner! My ladies, who had been chatting amiably among themselves, fell silent and gaped at Henry.

“You forget yourself, my lord,” I retorted. I was trembling, but I tried to keep my voice steady. “You have no authority to forbid me to do anything.”

“I am your husband!” Henry shouted. “I am your superior!”

There was a gasp from my ladies as Henry and I glared at each other.

“You may believe yourself superior to the man who cleans your boots,” I said coldly, “but you are certainly not. superior to me.”

Bellowing incoherently, my husband turned and stormed out even more angrily than he had entered.

There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence. “We have our differences,” I said and picked up the tiny gown. But I was too upset to take another stitch and burst into tears.

The Maries rushed to comfort me. “How dare he speak to you in that manner!” they cried.

Most of them were not strangers to unhappy love affairs. Mary Fleming was still deeply involved with William Maitland, who had long enjoyed my confidence as my secretary of state. But I had come to rely more heavily on David Rizzio; Maitland resented Davy, and that had driven a painful wedge between La Flamin and me. Beaton had broken off her affair with Randolph, Elizabeth's ambassador to England and generally no friend to me, and was in love with a man named Alexander Ogilvie. But Ogilvie was possibly about to marry another woman, a situation that kept Beaton in a state of misery. Livingston, married for three years to John Sempill, did her share of complaining about men in general and her husband in particular. Only Seton, deeply pious and claiming to have no interest in marriage, had little to say on the subject but was always quietly sympathetic. None of them could bear Henry Stuart.

Henry received the symbols of kingship at a ceremony of investiture on the Feast of Candlemas, the second of February. I had informed him that he would be denied the right to use the royal arms of Scotland on his coat of arms. This infuriated him, as I had expected it would, but I was not done. He still signed his name
Henry R,
the
R
for
Rex,
or king, and he always succeeded in getting his signature on the document first, in the place of honor on the left, but I was determined he would not receive the Crown Matrimonial, which had to be approved by Parliament. Without that, he could never be crowned, would never rule as king, and had no right to succeed me if I should die before him. I would have him where I now wanted him: not in my bed, but under my control. Henry would have to wait until he was worthy of the responsibility and the honor.

So far he was not. I heard far too many tales of his drunken carousing and of his dalliances with low women and even, though I scarcely believed it, with men.

The investiture ceremony was followed by a banquet for the foreign ambassadors who had come from all over the Continent to attend. I took this occasion, with so many dignitaries present, to remind them that I, and none other, was the true queen of England as well as Scotland. Nothing more was said about it, but the look of shock on all those aristocratic faces was something to behold.

If I could not enjoy a happy marriage to a loving husband, then I was more determined than ever to have the English throne.

***

On the twenty-fourth of February in 1566, I attended the wedding of James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell, to Lady Jean Gordon, sister of the recently forgiven George Gordon, earl of Huntly. Lord Bothwell was a close friend of Lord Huntly, and I knew that he had demonstrated much interest in Lady Jean. But his suit had been rejected until a broken heart changed the picture dramatically.

Lady Jean was deeply in love with Alexander Ogilvie, but he had broken off with her and married Mary Beaton. This was the very same man Beaton had been weeping over just weeks earlier. Now it was Lady Jean who came to me weeping over the perfidy of her beloved Lord Ogilvie.

“Why has he done this to me?” she wailed, bursting into fresh tears.

“It is, I think, the way of men,” I said, remembering that Madame de Poitiers, for all her charms, had not been able to keep King Henri from Lady Fleming's bed. “Now it must be your way to make the best of your life,” I counseled. I comforted her and recommended Lord Bothwell to her.

Lady Jean seemed to take my advice to heart, and soon she came to tell me that plans were being made for the wedding, though she still wore black to show that she was like a widow in mourning for her lost love.

I sent immediately to my wardrobe mistress and ordered suitable lengths of cloth of silver and white taffeta, and then called upon my seamstresses to make Lady Jean a wedding gown. The banns were read out for their wedding; I was present at the signing of their marriage contract, and after the ceremony at St. Giles I entertained the bridal couple at a banquet at Holyrood. Bothwell seemed content—he had acquired a large dowry from his bride—but the new Lady Jean Hepburn looked glum.

After a few days with her husband at Seton Palace, the bride was wearing black again and had gone alone to Bothwell's Crichton Castle while Bothwell returned to Edinburgh on his own. In fact, he asked my permission to stay at Holyrood Palace. I granted it, promising that we would sup together soon.

I sighed and wondered aloud to Seton when he had gone, “Do you not think it possible for two people to be happy together?”

“Our sole happiness is in God,” she assured me, and I wondered if she was right.

F
ROM THE END
of February and into early March, much was going on without my knowledge. William Maitland, La Flamin's lover, had dropped broad hints to Henry that I was having an affair with David Rizzio, my private secretary, whom Maitland despised. This was a complete fabrication and Sir William knew it, but he was not above making mischief. Henry, jealous of many people for many things, swallowed this lie. It had been easy to convince my dissolute husband that he had been betrayed by a man who had once been his close friend.

On a winter night in 1566, when I was six months' pregnant with child, I was witness to an unspeakable event. I was in the small tower room hung with crimson and green just off my bedchamber, enjoying a late meal with several friends. Among them was David Rizzio. Henry appeared unexpectedly. We seldom dined together, he having no interest in my supper parties and card games and much preferringbn to go drinking in the town with his disreputable friends.

While we spoke briefly, in a not unfriendly way, a half dozen of Henry's so-called gentlemen burst into the tower room from a secret circular stairway that connected my bedchamber to Henry's directly below. The men, all heavily armed, boldly ordered David Rizzio to accompany them to answer to some unspecified charge.

“What is this about, my lord?” I asked Henry sharply. “Why are these men here? Who let them in?”

“I know not, my lady,” he said, laying his hand on my shoulder in a way meant to soothe me. I did not believe him. Henry surely knew what it was about and had a role in it.

When the intruders continued to insist, more rudely now, I rose, angrily demanding, “What is Signor Rizzio's offense?”

“A grievous one,” growled one of the men.

I shook off Henry's hand and ordered the men to leave. “Under pain of death for treason!” I shouted.

But one of the men drew a dagger and lunged at David Rizzio. Davy tried to evade the knife, crying out to me to save him. My guests moved to defend him, and in the melee that followed, the table and stools were overturned. Silver plate, goblets, and platters of food crashed to the floor. Ewers of wine spilled everywhere. Candles were extinguished, save for one, by whose flickering light the horrific scene unfolded.

The main stairway to my outer chamber had been locked; I was certain of that, for I had locked it myself, but someone—possibly even Henry—had unlocked it. That door now burst open and a much larger crowd of men surged through the outer chamber and into my bedchamber. They were armed with swords and daggers; one carried a pistol. My guests were quickly overpowered and watched helplessly as the assassins seized the terrified David Rizzio and dragged him into my bedchamber.

When I cried out and tried to protect my secretary with my own body—surely they would not kill their pregnant queen!—the one with the pistol held it to my belly and my unborn child. They stabbed Davy over and over until he stopped screaming. Finally, I did too.

Henry held a dagger but could not bring himself to use it. Someone snatched it away from him and thrust it into Davy's throat, the final savage blow, leaving the king's dagger in the victim's body like the signature on a royal decree:
Henry R.

“It was your wish that he die,” the murderer growled at Henry. “This proves that you were a part of it, and you cannot deny it and lay the fault on others.”

“You?” I cried. “You ordered this?” I stared at my husband, unable to say anything more. As I grasped that this was all his doing, that he was behind the plot to assassinate my secretary and friend, I seethed with hatred.

The assassins left, and Henry opened his mouth and closed it again, shaking his head, as though he could not believe it himself. He was plainly not accustomed to such violence and bloodshed.

“Why have you done this, Henry?” I asked in a low voice, stifling the revulsion I felt for him. “What has David Rizzio done to you to deserve this fate? What have
I
done, that you use me so ill?” When still he said nothing, I raised my voice. “Answer me!”

Henry was pale, trembling with a mixture of fear and rage. “I am your husband, and on the day of our marriage you promised to obey me. But you betrayed me with him,” he said, his voice breaking. “Everyone takes me for a cuckold, and they laugh at me and hold me up to ridicule.”

“I have not betrayed you, you fool!” I cried. But I realized that my life was still in danger. One shout from Henry, and the assassins would return for me. I must use some other approach with him, and I repeated my words in a placating tone. “Henry, I have never betrayed you. I am a loyal wife. What is it you want of me?”

“You pay me no attention,” he complained, pouting like a petulant child. “You preferred to play cards and make music with that foreigner rather than come to my bed.”

“It is not for me to come to your bed, my lord, but for you to come to mine,” I reminded him, for that was the way of husband and wife, no matter what their ranks. “Now I beg you, leave me in peace.”

***

I sat in my bedchamber, weak and speechless from shock. Blood was everywhere. In the outer chamber David Rizzio lay dead, his furred damask gown and blue satin doublet slashed to shreds. There were, I learned later, fifty-six stab wounds in his poor body Shortly, several of the assassins returned. I nearly fainted, for I thought they had come for me. Instead, they dragged the body away and flung it down the staircase.

I did not yet realize that guards had been posted all around; I could not leave, nor could any of my friends come to help me or offer comfort. I was a prisoner.

No more tears now,
I decided.
I must think upon revenge. But first—escape!

The assassins allowed only Lady Huntly, George Gordon's elderly mother, into my apartment, along with two servants. I was surprised to see her there, for we had once been adversaries. Lady Huntly was the widow of old George Gordon, who had denied me entrance to Inverness Castle, and in the confrontation that followed I had ordered the execution of two of her sons. In an odd twist of fate, Lady Huntly and her son George had later become my supporters. But now, unnerved by what had just happened, I wondered if she might have changed her allegiance once again, and I was on guard.

When the servants cautiously entered the supper room to clean up the disarray caused when the table was overturned, Lady Huntly quietly delivered a message sent by her son and Lord Bothwell.

“Earlier this evening in another part of the palace, they heard the shouts and screams coming from the tower,” she whispered. “They had no idea of what was happening, but they believed they too might be in danger and made their escape by a rope let down from a window. They are on their way to Dunbar Castle, but they asked me to assure you that they have vowed to rescue you. We must speak no more of this now.” In a voice intended for the ears of any eavesdroppers, Lady Huntly announced, “Time for you to rest, madam, for the sake of the child as well as yourself!”

Sleep was surely out of the question. While Lady Huntly dozed, I passed the long night pacing through my chambers, sometimes weeping in sorrow, sometimes barely suppressing my fury.

In the small hours just before dawn, I heard a timid knock at the door to the secret stair. “Mary, unlock the door.” It was Henry!
How dare he come here now!
“I have something to say regarding your safety—yours and mine,” he said softly “We must talk. Let me in.”

I considered for a moment. I despised this man for his cowardice, his arrogance, his treachery He had used me. Now, I thought, I had best use him. I needed to win him over, at least until he publicly recognized the child I carried to be his own. If he insisted it was David Rizzio's, and he was certainly cruel enough to do so, then my child would be born a bastard.

I swallowed my loathing, pushed aside the tapestry that concealed the door, and opened it for my husband.

I had never seen a man appear so frightened and so sorry for what he had done. I believed the fear—his eyes were filled with it. But I was less convinced that he was truly contrite, no matter how much regret he professed. I vented my anger at him without mincing words.

“Do you have any idea of the wrong you have done me?” I demanded. “Do you really think I can ever forgive you, let alone forget? I find it difficult to believe that you are sincere in your apologies or in the affection you claim to feel.”