Chapter VIII: The Bride’s Prelude

French Paris took a letter to Lady Bothwell from Dunbar, as he thinks, on the day after the ravishing: he fixes his date from the fact that Sir James Melvill happened to tell him that it was his birthday, the 25th of April.

‘Not the first I have spent in durance, my good fellow,’ the genial gentleman had added, ‘although I tell you candidly that it is the first wedding-night—so to call it—at which I have assisted in such a place.’

Paris would have prolonged so interesting a conversation if his master had not been waiting to be dressed. As it was, he excused himself and hurried up to his duties; which done, my lord handed him a letter, saying, ‘Deliver this safely, at your peril; and remember also that whatsoever my lady shall ask you, she is to have a full answer.’

‘Your lordship may count upon me,’ says the valet, hoping with all his heart that she would not tax his countenance too far. Leaving the room, he was recalled.

‘One thing more, Paris. Your mistress will give you a coffer for me. Guard it well, as you value your neck; for, trust me, if you come not home with that intact, I will run you down though you were in the bury of Hell.’

‘Rest easy, my lord,’ said Paris superbly, ‘rest easy here, and disport yourself as seems good to your wisdom; for certainly I shall never fail you. Nor have I ever,’ added the poor complacent rogue, and took the thought with him up the gallows ladder.

It is a singular thing that Bothwell knew his wife so little as to provide against a line of conduct which she could never have taken. According to Paris, she asked him no awkward questions at all, but read her letter calmly, dipping a toast in white wine and whey as she read. At the end, after musing a while, looking extremely handsome, she said: ‘My lord, I see, makes no mention how long he remains at Dunbar. Knowest thou anything to the purpose?’

Nothing awkward here; but Paris blundered it. ‘Oh, my lady,’ he says, conscious of his red face, ‘I suppose his lordship will stay out the moon.’

‘What hath he to do with the moon, or the moon with him, fool?’ said the Countess; and soon afterwards sent him away, as without any value for her.

One can picture him then in the kitchen quarters—jaunty, abounding in winks and becks; or with the grooms in the stables—what conversations! The play, dragged by the weary, high players, must have quickened when the clowns tumbled through it.

Next day my lady had him up again to her chamber and gave him letters for Edinburgh: a large packet for a notary, one Balnaves or Balneaves, another for the Archbishop’s Grace of Saint Andrews at Hamilton House.

‘Deliver these with speed, Paris, and come back to me—but not here. I shall be at Crichton expecting you—and give you a packet for my lord.’

This is how Paris learned that process of divorce was begun. He dates it the 26th-27th April.

Demure, wide-eared scamp! he was not idle in town, I assure you; but ran from cawsey to cawsey, from tavern-parlour to still-room, into all churches, chapels, brothels, about the quays of Leith, up and down the tenement stairs, spying, watching, judging, and remembering. He was most amazed at the preachers, whose licence to talk exceeded all bounds of belief. There was one Cragg, well named for a rock-faced, square-hewn man, colleague of Mr. Knox’s: to listen only to this firebrand! This Cragg—Paris heard him—rocked screaming and sweating over the brink of his pulpit, and hailed his Queen a Jezebel, a Potiphar’s wife, a strumpet of the Apocalypse. ‘And I could have wrung his brazen neck for him,’ said Paris, ‘but that all the people stood packed about him murmuring their agreement. It would have been my death to have declared myself—and I was vowed to return to my lord.’

The city seemed to be in the governance of the Earl of Morton, unsuspected of any hand in the late crime, and of Lord Lindsay, whom all hot gospellers loved. Close in with them was Grange—Kirkcaldy of Grange—a very busy man, Marshal of the City, Captain of the Guard, who kept surveillance of Holyrood and the lower town. Paris perceived that he was lieutenant to Lord Morton, a cultivable person if willing to be cultivated. About his doors, every day and at all hours of the day, he saw messengers stand with horses ready. Now and again one would come out with his despatches bound upon him, mount and ride off—south, north, west. Similarly, others came in, white with dust, and delivered up their charges to the porter at the door. Paris, never without resource, inquired into the matter, and found out with whom Grange corresponded. With my Lord of Atholl at Perth! With my Lord of Moray in Paris! With Mr. Secretary Cecil in London! Why, this was treasonable stuff, hanging stuff, as he told his informant—Gavin Douglass, body-servant to Mr. Archie of the name—who knew it as well as he did.

‘Oh, ay, you make up your mind to the treason o’t, Paris,’ says Gavin; ‘but I recommend you let not my master catch you in this town. You have had six hundred gold crowns of his for the price of an old shoe—he has never ceased to talk of it, believe me. No later than yesterday he was at it, saying that pretty soon he could afford to give all his clothing to the world and stand up mother-naked as he was born, and be none the worse. “And to think,” says he, “to think I could be such a custard-faced loon as to buy back my slipper from a rogue I shall be hanging in a week.”’

Paris was indignant and hurt. ‘I can see,’ he said, ‘that the lords of Scotland are at their favourite game of beggar-my-neighbour. _Dieu de Dieu!_ what else could we have expected? Your Scotch way: roguery upon roguery, thieves on thieves’ backs, traitors who betray their co-traitors—hogs and rats, one and all!’

He left Edinburgh much alarmed at the state of its affairs, determined to be done with the Countess at Crichton and back again in Dunbar as soon as might be; but, greatly to his annoyance, her ladyship, being busy with her law business, kept him four or five days kicking his heels: it was the 4th of May before she delivered him her packet. That was a coffer, strongly bound and clamped with iron, locked and sealed.

At the moment of his going Lady Bothwell said to him, ‘Tell my lord, Paris, that this day he and I are free of each other; tell him that here I am and here remain.’

Paris, always the servant of a fine woman, knelt upon one knee. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘your ladyship has never loved me, but I take God to witness that I have ever honoured your ladyship. Albeit I am a poor devil of a lacquey, madam, I have wit enough to know a great lady when I see her.’

Said the Countess: ‘If you think that I have a disliking for you, Paris, you are mistaken. I neither love nor hate you. I have never thought about you.’

‘Madam,’ said he, ‘why should your ladyship? I shall venture, none the less, to pray God give you all health, fame, and happiness.’

Lady Bothwell sat bolt upright, one firm hand on the table. ‘Health I have from God already. Fame, if you mean good fame, I have kept for myself. Happiness, if that lies in the satisfaction of abiding desire, I intend to have before long. Now begone with your charge.’

He went out shaking his head, muttering to himself: ‘Terrible lady! fine, carven, deep-eyed lady! What is her abiding desire?’

He found out afterwards.

The coffer and he came safe to Dunbar and into the presence of their master. The Queen was in the room: red eyes, hot patches in her cheeks, a swinging foot, fingers a-tap on the table——‘Ho! a tiff,’ thinks Paris.

My Lord Bothwell hands over the coffer, or rather puts it on the table by the Queen’s elbow. ‘Here is your testimony, _ma mie_. By my advice you burn every scrap of it.’

‘Shall I burn what has cost me so much, and you, it seems, so little?’ she asked bitterly. ‘Is it nothing to you that I have written with my blood and sealed with my tears?’

‘I had not analysed the ink,’ said my lord; ‘and if I had I should value your honour more. However, you must do what you will.’ She left him without answer; and by and by Des-Essars presented himself, saying that he had her Majesty’s command to take charge of the coffer for her. Something in message or messenger seemed to anger the Earl. ‘Damn you, French monkey, you take too much in charge. Must her Majesty always have an ear to pull or a cheek to pinch? Man, Baptist, for two pence I’d have both your lugs off and a hot iron at your cheeks: with a broad C branded there, my man: ay, by God, and a double C! Chamberer Convict, man, Baptist!’

He worked himself crimson in the face, his eyes savage and red. ‘Mind your ways, young sir, mind your ways’—he threatened with his fist,—‘I warn ye mind your ways just now—lest you come into the deep mire, man, where no ground is.’

Des-Essars drilled his slim body to attention, and fixed his eyes on the opposite wall. The Earl glared at him open-mouthed, and fingered his dagger as though he itched to be at it. But presently he scoffed at himself—‘A white-faced boy to stand by side o’ me!’ He turned: ‘Take your coffer, master, and be out of this. A little more and I might colour you finely.’

Des-Essars removed both coffer and himself. Paris was trembling: he knew that what he had to report of Edinburgh’s doings would not make matters any better. Nor did they—though it may be doubted whether they could have made matters any worse.

* * * * *

The joys of love—love’s moment of victory, love’s rest, and possession of the spoils—are gossamer things: an adverse breath may shred them away. As for Love himself, you may call him a Lord or a Beast, give him his roseate wings or his cloven hoofs and tail: certainly there never was in the world so refined a glutton. Perfection is what he claims, no less; perfection of leisure to obtain, perfection of content, and all according to that standard of mind which, in a field without limit, grudges the stirring of a filament as a hindrance to the enormous calm he covets, and sees in a speck of sand a blemish upon his prize. ‘Alas! no man, no kingdom of this world, no ordering attainable by mortal minister could have appeased Queen Mary. She was made to hunt for happiness and never to find it. She had risked all upon this cast of hers, had made it, at her last gasp had fallen upon the quarry. And now, clutching it, eyeing the coverts fearfully to right and left, starting at a whisper, cowering at the lightest shadow—like a beast of prey, she had no time to taste what she had so hardly won. O miserably stung by the rankling arrow! Poor Io, spurred by the gad-fly, what rest for thee? Come, ye calm-browed beneficent goddesses of the night! Handmaids of Death, come in! and with cool finger-tips close down these aching lids, and on these burning cheeks lay the balm of the last kiss; so the mutinous, famishing heart shall contend with Heaven no more!’ The dithyrambic cry of Des-Essars does not indicate a comfortable state of things at Dunbar.

The Queen was madly in love, aching to be possessed, but knowing herself insecurely possessed. Her tyrant, master, beloved—whatever Bothwell may have desired to be—was harassed by events, and could not play the great lover even if he would. Rebellion gathered outside his stronghold, and he knew every surge of it; he was not safe from disaffection within doors, and had to watch for it like a cat at a mousehole. If the Queen had sinned to get a lover, he had risked his head to wive a queen. Well, and he had not got her yet, though she asked for nothing better all day and night. Queens and what they carry are not got by highway robbery: it’s not only a question of kissing. You may steal a Queen for the bedchamber—but there’s the Antechamber to be quieted, there’s the Presence Chamber to be awed, there’s the Throne Room to be shocked into obsequiousness: ah, and the Citadel to be taught to fly your banner. Brooding on these things—all to do except one—his lordship had no time for transports, and no temper neither. When the Queen wept he swore, when she pleaded he refused her, when she sulked he showed his satisfaction at being let alone, and when she stormed he stormed loudlier. He was not a man of fine perceptions: that was his strength, he knew. By the Lord, said he, let others, let her, know it too! And the sooner the better.

She would not discuss politics. Dunbar, which was to have been her bride-bower, should be so still, in defiance of beastly fact. She refused to hear what Paris had to say of Edinburgh pulpits, of Morton’s men-at-arms, Grange’s flying messengers. When Bothwell spoke of the Prince at Stirling she promised him a new prince at Dunbar; when he cried out threats against Archie Douglas she stopped his mouth with kisses; when he summoned Liddesdale to arms she pouted because her arms were not enough for him. It was mad, it was unreasonable, it fretted him to feverish rages. He gnashed his teeth. Lethington kept rigidly out of his way: he was really in danger, and knew it; not a day passed but he made some plan of escape. Melvill spoke in whispers, could not have stood on more ceremony with his Maker. Huntly was always on the verge of a quarrel; and as for poor little Des-Essars, you know how he stood.

There came anon swift confirmation of Paris’ fears: a letter from Hob Ormiston, now in Edinburgh, to his brother the Black Laird. Both worthies had been, as we know, with Bothwell on the night of Kirk o’ Field. Hob wrote that Kirkcaldy of Grange had met him after sermon in a company of people, taxed him with the King’s murder and threatened him with arrest ‘in the Queen’s name and for her honour.’ He went in fear, did Hob; his life was in it. Now, might he not clear himself? Let his lordship of Bothwell be sounded upon that, who knew that he was as guiltless of that blood as his lordship’s self. It would be black injustice that an innocent Hob should suffer while a blood-guttered Archie went scot-free, and a crowning indignity that he should perish under the actual guilty hands. For well he knew that my L—d of M——n stood behind Grange. Ormiston, with this crying letter in hand, sought out his master, and found him on the terrace overlooking the sea, walking up and down with the Queen and Lord Huntly. As he approached he saw her Majesty cover her mouth and strangle a yawn at birth.

Bothwell read the letter through, and handed it to the Queen. She also read it hastily. ‘Innocent!’ she mocked, with a curling, sulky lip, ‘the innocent Hob—a good word! But this letter concerns you, Huntly, more than me.’

In turn the dark young lord read it. He was much longer at it, slower-witted; and before he was half-way through for the second time the Queen was out of patience.

‘Well! well! What do you make of it, you who know the very truth and do not choose to declare it? Are our friends to be cleared, or will you see them all butchered for the Douglases’ sake?’

He did not answer for a while, but looked far oversea with those hawk-eyes of his, which seemed able to rend the garniture of Heaven and descry the veiled secrets of God. When he turned his face towards her it was a far nobler than the soured face he looked upon.

‘But to clear them, madam—Hob and the like of Hob—am I to betray them that trusted me?’

She gave a thring of the shoulder, a fierce flash of her eye, and turned shortly, and went away by herself. There was a hot wrangle between the three men afterwards—in which Bothwell did not scruple to curse his brother-in-law for ‘meddling in what concerned him not,’ or (if he must meddle) for not meddling well[9]; but Huntly could not be moved.

Things like these drove Bothwell into action—to go through with his business, possess himself of Edinburgh and the Prince, and marry the Queen? Why not? He was free, he had her in the crook of his arm; he had but to go up to blow away the fog of dissidence: _afflavit ventus_, etc.! He urged her Majesty, lectured Lethington, conferred with Huntly, and got agreement, more or less. Well then, advance banners, and let the wind blow!

At the first tidings of the Queen’s approach, the Earl of Morton and his belongings—his Archie Douglas, his Captain Cullen, his Grange—departed the city and repaired to Stirling. This gave fair promise; and even the greeting she got when, pacing matronly by Bothwell’s side, surrounded by a live hedge of Bothwell’s spears, she entered the gates and went down to Holyrood, was so far good that it was orderly. No salutations, no waving of bonnets; but close observation, a great concourse in a great quiet. She did not like that, though Bothwell took no notice. He had not expected to be welcome; and besides, he had other things to think of.

I extract the following from Des-Essars:—

‘The Queen had a way of touching what she was pleased with. She was like a child in that, had eyes in her fingers, could not keep her hands away, never had been able. To stroke, fondle, kiss, was as natural to her as to laugh aloud when she was pleased, or to speak urgently through tears when she was eager. I remember that, as we rode that day into the suburb of Edinburgh, she, being tired (for the way had been hot and long), put her hand on my shoulder; and that my lord looked furiously; and that she either could not, or would not see him. I had had reason only lately to suspect him of jealousy, though she as yet had never had any. But for this very innocent act of hers he rated her without stint or decorum when we were at Holyroodhouse; and as for me, I may say candidly that I walked with death as my shadow, and never lay down in my bed expecting to get out of it on the morrow.

‘The effect of his unreason upon her, when she could be brought to believe in it, was of the unhappiest. It lay not in her nobility to subserve ignoble suspicions. Our intercourse, far from ceasing out of deference to him, was therefore made secret, and what was wholly innocent stood vested in the garb of a dear-bought sin—an added zest which she had been much better without. I was removed from all direct service of her—for he saw to that; but she found means of communicating with me every day; waited for me at windows, followed me with her eyes, had little speedy, foolish signals of her own—a finger in her mouth, a hand to her side, her bosom touched, her head held askew, her head hung, a smile let to flutter—all of which were to be so much intelligence between us. She excelled in work of the kind, was boundlessly fertile, though I was a sad bungler. But, God forgive me! I soon learned in that blissful school, and became, I believe, something of a master.

‘I was not the only man of whom he was jealous, by any means. There was my Lord Livingstone, a free-living, easy man of advanced age, who had been accustomed to fondle her Majesty as his own daughter, and saw no reason to desist, being given none by herself. But one day my lord came in and found him with his hand on her shoulder. Out he flung again, with an oath; and there was a high quarrel, with daggers drawn. The Queen, who could never be curbed in this kind of way by any one, lover or beloved, dared his lordship to lay a finger on Livingstone; and he did not. There was also my lord of Arbroath, who had pretensions and a mind of his own; to whom she gave a horse, and induced more high words. There was my Lord Lindsay, who admired her hugely and said so: but to follow all the wandering of unreason in a gentleman once his own master, were unprofitable. All that I need add (for the sake of what ensued upon it) is that one day Mr. Secretary Lethington came into the Cabinet all grey-faced and shaking as with a palsy, and laid his hands upon the Queen’s chair, saying fearfully: “Sanctuary, madam, sanctuary! I stand in peril of my life.” It appeared that my lord, who abhorred him, had drawn on him in full hall. So then once more she grew angry and forbade his lordship to touch a hair of Lethington’s head: “For so sure as you do it,” she said, “I banish you the realm.” For the moment he was quite unnerved, and began to babble of obedience and his duty; and I say, let God record of our lady in that time of her disgrace that she had not forgotten how to stand as His vicegerent in Scotland.

‘Affairs went from bad to worse with her. We learned every day by our informers how the lords were gaining strength in the west, and stood almost in a state of war against us. They were close about the Prince—the chiefs of their faction being the Earls of Mar, Atholl, Argyll, Glencairn, and Morton. With them was Grange, the best soldier in the kingdom; and Lord Lindsay would have gone over, but that he grossly loved the Queen and could not keep his eyes off her. Letters intercepted from and to England made it certain that the Queen of that country was supporting our enemies and preparing for our ruin—nor was it without reason, as I am bound to confess, for the safety of our young prince imported the welfare of her country as well as ours; and it may well have been distasteful to her English Majesty to have the fingers of the Earl of Bothwell so near to dipping in her dish. As if these troubles were not enough, we were presently to hear of flat rebellion under the Queen’s very eyes, when we were told that Mr. Cragg, the preacher, would not read out the banns of marriage. That same was a stout man, after Mr. Knox’s pattern. It is true they forced him by a writ to publish them, but neither summons before the council nor imminent peril of worse would keep his tongue quiet. He daily railed against those he was about to join in wedlock, and had to be banished the realm.

‘Hard-faced was the Queen through these disastrous days, and all stony within; bearing alike, with weary, proud looks, the indifference of her trusted friends, the insolent suspicions of my lord of Bothwell, the constant rumours, even the shameful reports, put about concerning herself, as if she was ignorant of them. She was not, she could not be ignorant, but she was utterly negligent. To her but one thing was of concern—his love; and until she was sure of that all else might go as it would. True, he was jealous: at one time she had thought that a hopeful sign. But when she found out that in spite of her kindness he remained indifferent; when he abstained from her company and bed, when he absented himself for two days together—and was still jealous—she was bound to doubt the symptom. It wanted but one thing, in truth, to break down her pride and trail her lovely honour in the dust: and she had it sharp and stinging. O unutterable Secret of Secrets, never to be divulged but in this dying hour when she must ask for _pity_, since honest dealing is denied to her! She was stung—down fell she—and I saw her fall—heart-broken, and was never more the high Huntress, the Queen “delighting in arrows.” My pen falters, my tears blind me; but write it I must: her fame, her birthright, nay, her gracious head, are in dire peril.[10]

‘It was commonly suspected that Lethington was desirous of escaping to the lords at Stirling, among whom he could count upon one firm friend in the Earl of Atholl. To say nothing that he went hourly in fear of my lord of Bothwell, and believed that the Queen distrusted him, he had been too long in the Earl of Moray’s pocket—kept there as a man keeps a ferret—to be happy out of it. Nominally at large, a pretty shrewd watch was kept upon him, since it would not have been at all convenient to have him at large among her Majesty’s enemies. He knew too much, and his wife, that had been Mistress Fleming, more than he. Therefore it was not intended that he should leave us. Yet I am certain that no day passed in which he did not make some plan of escape.

‘It was for a step in one of such schemes, I suppose, though I cannot see how it should have helped him, that on the day before my lord of Bothwell was created Duke of Orkney, and three days before the marriage, he gave the Queen a thought which very soon possessed her altogether.

‘My lord was away, but expected back that night; Lethington, being with some others in the Queen’s Cabinet when the talk fell upon the Countess of Bothwell, told her Majesty that the lady was dwelling at Crichton. He said it very skilfully—_quasi_ negligently and by the way—but instantly she caught at it, and took it amiss. “She has cast him off—let him cast her off. Crichton! Crichton! Why, he holds it of me! How then should Jean Gordon be there? _Or do we share, she and I?_” She spoke in her petulant, random way of hit or miss, meaning (it is likely) no more than that she was weary of Lethington. But he coughed behind his hand, and rising up suddenly, went to the window. The Queen marked the action, and called him back.

‘“Come hither, Mr. Secretary,” said she quietly; and he returned at once to her side.

‘“You will please to explain yourself,” she said. Very quiet she was, and so were we all.

‘He began vast excuses, floundering and gasping like a man in deep water. The more he prevaricated the more steadfast she became in pursuit; and so remained until she had dragged out of him what he knew or had intended to imply. The sum and substance was that Paris (a valet of my lord’s) had of late taken letters to and from Crichton: common knowledge, said Lethington. And then, after a good deal, not to the purpose, he declared that my lord had spent two several nights there since the Court had returned to Edinburgh from Dunbar.

‘The Queen, being white even to the lips, said faintly at the end that she did not believe him. Lethington replied that nothing but his duty to her would have induced him to relate facts so curious; the which, he added, must needs concern her Majesty, the Fountain of Honour, who, unsullied herself, could not brook defilement in any of the tributaries of her splendour. She dismissed us all with a wave of her hand—all but Mistress Sempill (who had been Mistress Livingstone), who stayed behind, and whose ringing voice I heard, as I shut the door, leap forward to be at grips with the calumny.

‘She had recovered her gallantry by the evening. Incredible as it may seem, it is true that she publicly taxed my lord with the facts charged against him, when he returned. He did not start or change colour—looked sharply at her for an instant, no more.

‘“Jealous, my Queen?” he asked her, laughing.

‘“And if I am, my lord, I have an example before me,” said she. “Have you not been pleased to condemn me in regard to this poor boy?”

‘I bore that with what face I could: he regarded me with the look of a wild hog that grates his tooth. Anon he said: “Master Baptist and I know each other of old. I believe I can give as good account of the reckonings between my staff and his back as——Well, this is unprofitable jesting. Now, let me understand. Your Grace charges me with—what in particular?”

‘“Oh, my lord,” cried she, with a bold face, “I make no charges. I did but put you a question: whether you had visited your Castle of Crichton these late days—your Castle of Crichton which you hold of me in chief?”

‘He shrugged his shoulders; and “_Chi lo sa?_” quoth he, with a happy laugh. “Let your Majesty and me confer upon these and other high matters of state when my head is on better terms with my stomach. I am a fasting man, no match for your Majesty. Your Majesty knows the Spanish saw, _When the belly is full it saith to the head, Sing, you rascal_? I crave your leave, then, to get my singing voice again.” He took it with bravery, as you perceive; and, having his liberty, went away singing to supper.

‘He stayed below stairs for the rest of the night, drinking and talking with Sir James Melvill and my lord of Livingstone—ribald and dangerous talk, for he had a lewd mind, and neither discretion nor charm in the uses to which he put his tongue. The Queen sat miserably in the dark far into the night, and went to bed without prayers. I heard her cry out to Mistress Sempill that she wished she lay where the King was, and Sempill answered, “Damn him, damn him!” Next day, with what grace she could muster, she created my lord Duke of Orkney. That was done before noon; by five o’clock of the evening he was ridden away for Borthwick and Dunbar, as he said, upon State business. In three days’ time she was to marry him, O Heaven!

‘Early in the morning—the morrow after his going—she sent for me to come up to her bedchamber; and so I did, and found her very worn in the face, her hand hot and dry to the touch. Commanding herself with great effort, speaking slowly, she told me that she could not continue to live unless she could deny once and for all the truth of Lethington’s tale. My lord would not help her. “You know his way of mockery,” says she. “He laughs to tease me: but to me this is no laughing matter. Mary Sempill has been at me ever since——” Here she fretted, muttering to herself, “I do not believe it—I do not—I do not,” fidgeting her hands under the bedclothes; then, breaking off short, she said that she wished me to ride to Crichton with her that very day. She would take Mary Sempill—because she would not remain behind—Erskine would bring an escort; there would be no danger. I said that I was ready to live or die for her, and that all my care was to save her from unhappiness. I asked her, Would she suffer Erskine and myself to go?

‘She stared at me. “Are you mad?” she asked. “Have you found me so patient, to sit at home in suspense? or so tame, to shirk my enemies? Nay, my child, nay, but I will prove Lethington a liar with my own eyes.” To be short, go she would and did; and we with her, as she had already contrived it.

‘The weather was hot—as hot as summer—and very still; riding as fast as we did, our bodily distresses saved our minds’. We had, as I reckon, some fifteen miles to go, by intricate roads, woodland ways, by the side of streams overhung with boughs, encumbered with boulders. The Queen was always in front, riding with Mistress Sempill: she set the pace, said nothing, and showed herself vexed by such little delays as were caused by Erskine sounding the banks for good fording-ground, or losing the road, as he once did, and trying a many before he could make up his mind. “Oh, you weary me with your _Maybe yeas_ and _Maybe nays_!” she railed at him. “Why, man, I could smell my way to Crichton.” I believe her; for now I am sure that she had steeled herself for what she was to find there. I knew it not then: she allowed nothing of her mind to be seen. Nobody could be more secret than she when she saw fit.

‘That Castle of Crichton stands, as do most of them in these parts, on a woody bluff over a deep glen, out of the which, when you are in it, you can never see how near you may be to your journey’s end. Thus we wound our way at a foot’s pace along the banks of a small stream, in and out of the densest woodland—beautiful as a summer’s dream just then, with birds making vocal all the thickets, wild flowers at our feet, and blooming trees, wild cherry and hawthorn and the like, clouds come to earth and caught in the branches—and found a steep path to our right hand, and climbed it for half an hour: and lo! gaining the crest first, I saw before me, quite close, the place we sought—a fair tower of grey stone, with a battlemented house beside it, having an open gate in a barbican. Before the barbican was a lawn snowed with daisies, and upon that two white greyhounds, which sat up when they first saw us, and then crouched, their muzzles between their paws. But as we advanced, jumping up and barking together, they raced together over the turf, met us, and leapt upwards to the Queen’s hand. All beasts loved her, and she loved them.

‘There was neither guard nor porter at the gates. They stood open upon an empty court, beyond which we could see the hall doors: open, they, also. In the air all about us was the sound of bees, and of doves hidden in the woody slopes; but no noises of humankind were to be heard: we all sat there on our horses, and watched, and listened, like errant adventurers of old time come upon an enchanted lodging, a castle and hermitage in a forest glade.

‘Mistress Sempill broke silence. “’Tis not for us to enter—this still place,” she said. “Come your ways, madam; you have seen what there is to be seen.”

‘The Queen, as one suddenly awakened, called to me. “Baptist, dismount and help me down. I am going in.”

‘I obeyed, and helped Mistress Sempill after. Erskine would stay with the guard. We three went through the gateway, crossed the inner court, and passed the doors into the hall—a long dusky chamber with windows full of escutcheons and achievements, and between them broad sheets of ancient arras which flapped gently in a little breeze. The sunlight, coming aslant, broke the gloom with radiant blue bars—to every window a bar. As we peered about us, presently Sempill gave a short little cry, then called to me, “Baptist, Baptist, have a care for her.”

‘It was an old woman come out of a door in the panel to look at us—old, grey and wrinkled. I asked her, Was any other within? She shook her head, pointing at the same time to her mouth, within which, when she opened it wide, I saw the seared stump of her tongue, and perceived that she had been maimed of that organ. Sempill remarked it also, and was afraid. “Oh, come away, for God’s love!” said she: “there is witchcraft here”; and signed herself many times. But the Queen laughed, and went up to the mutilated hag, and, patting her shoulder, went by her through the door by which she had come in, and turned to beckon us after her. So we climbed a narrow stair, built in the thickness of the wall round and round a pillar. In the gallery above were doors to left and right, some open upon empty, fragrant chambers, some shut and locked. I believe that I tried them all the length of the gallery on one side; and so came at the farther end to a short passage on my right hand: at the end of that a low-pitched door ajar. Thither I went on tiptoe, with a strong sense that that room was occupied. I know not what had certified me, save some prescience which men have at times. So certain was I, at least, that when I was at the door I knocked. I was answered, “Enter.”

‘I entered not. I dared not do it. I sped back to the Queen, who now stood with Sempill at the head of this short passage. For the moment my nerve was clean gone: “Some one there—let us go away!”—Who knows what hissed foolishness I let fly?—“I urge you: let us go away.” But the Queen, rose-bright, keen as fire in the wind, threw up her head and flashed her eyes full upon me. “Stand aside, sir—I will go in.” She pushed by me and went into the room without ceremony. We had followed her with beating hearts.

‘She had not gone far—was not a yard from the door; nor do I marvel at it, nor need you. For by the open window sat the Countess of Bothwell at needlework, making, as I saw in a moment, a child’s shift. If God the Father of all, who framed women nobly and urged them cast their hearts in the dust to make soft the ways of men—if He, I say, pausing in His vast survey, might have discerned this dear woman now, with the wound upon her still raw and bleeding whence she had torn that generous heart—naked, emptied, betrayed; ah, and face to face with that other woman also, not less injured, not less the vessel of a man’s beastly convenience—I dare swear He would repent Him of His high benevolence, and say, “Tush, I have planned amiss. The waste is divine, the waster shall be crowned with the glory of the Magdalene, that Mary whom I would no more condemn. But what shall be done with him for whom these women spent so vainly?” Thus, it might well be, would God reason with Himself. Yet who am I, poor bastard of a dead mother (spending she, too, with little avail) to interpret the reproaches of the Almighty?

‘For an age of suspense, as it seemed to me, the Queen stood where we had found her—a yard from the door, perfectly still, but not rigid. No, but she was like a panther, all lithe and rippling, prest for a pounce, and had her eyes set fast upon the other. I was in a muck of fear, and Sempill muttering fast to herself her “O Christ, keep us all! O Christ, save her!” and the like, what time the Countess, affecting to be unaware, crossed one knee over the other and bent diligently to her needlework. The time seemed a slow hour, though I know not how long it may have been, before the Queen began to move about the room.

‘I know what made her restless: it was curiosity. At first she had only had eyes for the lady; now she had seen what she was at work upon. Yes, and she had been at the same proud task herself not long since. I am certain that she was just then more curious than enraged. At least, instead of attacking as she was wont, with her arrows of speech leaping forward as she went, she said nothing, and began to walk the room restlessly, roaming about; never going near the window, but looking sidelong towards it as she passed to and fro: bright spots in her cheeks, her hands doubled, biting her lips, longing, but not yet resolved, to know all. The storm, which was not far off, gathered strength as she walked: I saw her shake her head, I saw a tear gleam and settle on her shoulder. And so at last she clenched her teeth, and stood before Lady Bothwell, grinning with misery.

‘“O woman,” she said, snarling, “what are you making there?”

‘The Countess looked up, then down: the far-searching eyes she had! “I am making,” said she, “a shift for my fair son that is to be—my lord’s and mine.”

‘“You make for a bastard, woman,” said the Queen; and the Countess smiled wisely.

‘“Maybe I do, maybe. But this child of mine, look you, in my country we call a love-child.”

‘The Queen reeled as if she were sick-faint, and had Sempill beside her in a moment, flaring with indignation.

‘“Come you with me, madam,” cried she; “come you with me. Will you bandy words with a——?”

‘She was not suffered to get out her word. The Queen put her away gently, saying, “No, no, you shall not call her that, lest she may ask you some home questions.”

‘But the Countess was not offended. “Why should she not? What harm in a name? Call me as you will, ma’am, I shall never forbid you.”

‘“Have you no shame?” cried Sempill. “And you divorced on your own motion?”

‘The Countess replied to the Queen, as if it had been she that spoke. “O, madam, if divorce stands not in your way, shall it stand in mine? You have given him your body, as I did mine; and the Church cannot gainsay me that. But I’ll have you remember that when I got my child I was a wife; and when you get yours you’ll be none, I doubt.”

‘At this spiteful speech the Queen, in her turn, smiled. She was far from that sort of recrimination. Presently she began in a new and colder tone—remembering her errand. “Why are you here?” she asked the Countess.

‘She was answered, “It is my lord’s pleasure.”

‘“He is very clement, I think,” said the Queen.

‘The Countess made no reply; and Sempill, who knew whether clemency had moved my lord or not, did all she could to prevent the Queen from knowing it also. Unfortunate lady! She gave her new suspicions.

‘“You do not answer me, mistress,” she said, in her high peremptory way. “I said that my lord is clement, and you make no reply. You will tell me these are your jointure-lands, I suppose? Let be for that. Tell me now this—How are you here?”

‘The Countess hereupon, and for the first time, looked her in the face, her own being venomous beyond a man’s belief.

‘“How am I here? Just as you may have been at Dunbar, madam—as his kept woman, just.”

‘“You lie! You lie!” cried the Queen. “Dear God, she is a liar! Take back your lies—they hurt me.”

‘She pressed her side with all her might. I thought that Sempill would have struck the cruel devil. But she never flinched.

‘“No, no, I am no liar, madam,” she answered. “You are his woman, and so am I. Eh, there’s been a many and a many of us—a brave company!”

‘The Queen was tussling with her breast, but could get no breath. I thought she was frightened at the sudden revelation, or confirmation, of how she stood: she faltered—she cast about—and then she said:

‘“I know that you lie, and I know why you lie. You hate me bitterly. This is mere malice.”

‘“It is not malice,” says the Countess; “it is the bare truth. Why should I spare you the truth—you of all women?”

‘“You hate too much, you hate too much! I have accorded with you—we have kissed each other. I tried to serve you. It is not my fault if my lord—if my lord——O Jeannie!” she said, with a pitiful gesture of stretched-out arms—“O Jeannie, have mercy upon me—have a thought for my sorrow!”

‘She came nearer as she spoke, so near that the two could have touched; and then the Countess, who had sat so still, turned her head a little back, and (like a white cat) laid her ears flat and struck at last.

‘“Woman,” she said, “when you raked my father out of his grave, and spat upon his dead corse, what thought had you for his flesh and blood? What mercy upon their sorrow?”

‘The Queen, when she had understood her, wiped her eyes, and grew calmer. “I had no thought for you then, nor durst I have any. Princes must do justice without ruth; and he was a rebel, and so were you all. Your brothers Huntly and Adam have read me better.”

‘“Ay,” said the Countess, “the greedy loons! They put your fingers in their mouths and suck sweetness and solace—like enough they will read you well. But I am not of their fashion, you must know.” Stiffening herself, she spoke swiftly: “And if you could dishonour a dead old man whom you vow you had once loved, what wonder if I dishonour you whom I have always hated?”

‘The Queen smiled in a sweet, tired way, as if she was sorry for this woman. “Do you so hate me, Jeannie?”

‘And the Countess answered her: “Ay, worse than hell-fire for my dead father’s sake, and for my brother John’s, whom you slew. And so I am well content to be here, that you should see me unashamed, owner without asking of what you long for but can never have; and that I should see you at my feet, deeply abased.”

‘If her tongue had been a blade and her will behind it as the hand of one who lived for cruelty, she could not have got her dear desire more utterly than by these slow-stabbing words. Content to be here! Yea, lascivious devil that she was, I could see that she was rolling in her filthy comfort. But, by heaven, she was redeemed by the fading breath of the most unhappy lady that ever moaned about the world.

‘The Queen, I tell you, went directly to her—went close to her, without thought of fear or sickening of disgust. And she took the wicked white face between her hands and kissed the poisonous lips. And she said: “Hate me no more, Jeannie Gordon, for now I know that we are sisters in great sorrow, you and I. If we are not loved we must needs be unhappy; but in that we have loved, and do still love, we are not without recompense. So we must never rend each other; but you, poor lover, must kiss me, your sister, as now I do you.”

‘I ask myself here—and others have asked me—was this sudden alteration in her Majesty that old sweet guile of hers, inveterate still and at work? Was it possible that, even now, she could stay and stoop to cajole this indurate woman, to woo her with kisses, kill her with kindness? I like not to consider: many there be, I know, who do believe it, Mistress Sempill being one. Who am I to judge that deep, working heart more narrowly than by what appears? Such questions are too nice; they are not for my answering. Candour compels me to record them; but I can only report what I saw and heard.

‘I heard the Countess give a throttled cry, as she struggled like one caught in a fire; but the Queen kissed her again before she could free herself. When at last she had flung away, with crying and a blenched face—she who had been so hard before was now in a state of wild alarm, warning off our lady with her fighting hands. “No, no, no! Touch me not—defile not yourself. Oh, never that—I dare not suffer you!”

‘“What, am I so vile?” says the poor Queen, misunderstanding her in this new mood. The Countess burst out into passionate weeping, which hurt her so much (for she was no tearful woman by nature) that she writhed under the affliction as if the grief within was tearing at her vitals. She shrieked, “Ah, no! Not you—not you—but I. Oh, you torture me, brand me with fire!” I could not guess what she meant, save that she was beaten, and her wicked passion with her.

‘She sat up and stared at our Mistress, her face all writhen with grief. “Listen, listen—this is the truth as God knows it. That man who stands between us two and Heaven is your ruin and mine. For I love him not at all, and have consented to him now, degrading myself for hatred’s sake. And for you, who have loved him so well, he has no care at all—but only for your crown and royal seat; for he loves me only—and so it has always been.”

‘The Queen could only nod her head. Mary Sempill said sternly: “Woman, you do well to lash yourself at last; for none can hurt you beside yourself. Now, may God forgive you, for I never will.”

‘“Oh, Mary,” says the Queen, “what have you or I to do with forgiveness of sins? Alas, we need it for ourselves. And she is in as bad a case as I am.” Then, “Come to me now, Jeannie,” she said; and most humbly that wicked, beaten woman crept up to her late enemy. The Queen embraced and comforted her. “Farewell, Jeannie,” said she, “and think as well of me as you can. For I go on to I know not what—only I do think it will be unhappiness—and we shall never meet again.” With sublime calm she turned to us, weeping behind her. “Come, my children, let us go our ways.”

‘This is the most terrible secret sorrow which broke her heart, and ends my plea for pity upon her who loved so fondly. My breath and strength are done; for I had them from her alone, and with her high heart’s death dies my book.’

Honest, ingenuous, loyal Des-Essars! seeing, maybe, but in a glass darkly; seeing, certainly, not more than half—thou wert right there. If thy mistress beat the woman at last, it was with her fading breath. She knew herself beaten to the dust by the man.

[9] Here I am bound to agree with Bothwell; for if Huntly wished to keep him from blood-guiltiness and knew that he could, why not have kept him and his kegs away altogether? One answer may be, of course, that Morton and his friends would never have stood in had Bothwell and his been ruled out.

[10] Des-Essars, plainly, was at work during the Queen’s captivity in England; and, as I judge, while the inquiry was being held in Westminster Hall in 1568.