THE QUEEN’S QUAIR OR THE SIX YEARS’ TRAGEDY

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THE QUEEN’S QUAIR OR The Six Years’ Tragedy

BY MAURICE HEWLETT

‘Improbus ille puer, crudelis tu quoque Mater’

New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1904

All rights reserved

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Copyright, 1903, By MAURICE HEWLETT.

Copyright, 1903, 1904, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up, electrotyped, and published May, 1904.

Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

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BY HIS PERMISSION AND WITH GOOD REASON THIS TRAGIC ESSAY IS INSCRIBED TO ANDREW LANG

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AUTHOR’S PROLOGUE

If one were in the vein for the colours and haunted mists of Romance; if the thing, perhaps, were not so serious, there might be composed, and by me, a Romance of Queens out of my acquaintance with four ladies of that degree; among whom—to adopt the terms proper—were the Queen of Gall, the Queen of Ferment, and the Queen of Wine and Honey. You see that one would employ, for the occasion, the language of poets to designate the Queen-Mother of France, the Queen-Maid of England, and the too-fair Queen of Scots: to omit the fourth queen from such a tale would be for superstition’s sake, and not for lack of matter—I mean Queen Venus, who (God be witness) played her part in the affairs of her mortal sisters, and proclaimed her prerogatives by curtailing theirs. But either the matter is too serious, or I am. I see flesh and spirit involved in all this, truth and lies, God and the Devil—dreadful concernments of our own, with which Romance has no profitable traffic. La Bele Isoud, the divine Oriana, Aude the Fair (whom Roland loved)—tender ghosts, one and

all of them, whose heartaches were so melodious that they have filled four-and-twenty pleasant volumes, and yet so unsubstantial that no one feels one penny the worse, or the better, for them afterwards. But here! Ah, here we have real players in a game tremendously real; and the hearts they seem to play with were once bright with lively blood; and the lies they told should have made streaks on lips once vividly incarnate—and sometimes did it. Real! Why, not long ago you could have seen a little pair of black satin slippers, sadly down at heel, which may have paced with Riccio’s in the gallery at Wemyss, or tapped the floor of[2] Holyroodhouse while King Henry Darnley was blustering there, trying to show his manhood. A book about Queen Mary—if it be honest—has no business to be a genteel exercise in the romantic: if the truth is to be told, let it be there.

A quair is a cahier, a quire, a little book. In one such a certain king wrote fairly the tale of his love-business; and here, in this other, I pretend to show you all the tragic error, all the pain, known only to her that moved in it, of that child of his children’s children, Mary of Scotland. What others have guessed at, building surmise upon surmise, she knew; for what they did, she suffered. Some who were closest about her—women, boys—may have known some: Claude Nau got some from her; my Master Des-Essars got much. But the whole of it lay in her heart, and to know her is to hold the key of that. Suppose her hand had been at this pen; suppose mine had turned that key: there might have resulted ‘The Queen’s Quair.’ Well! Suppose one or the other until the book is done—and then judge me.

Questions for King Œdipus, Riddle of the Sphinx, Mystery of Queen Mary! She herself is the Mystery; the rest is simple enough. There had been men in Scotland from old time, and Stuarts for six generations to break themselves upon them. Great in thought, frail in deed, adventurous, chivalrous, hardy, short of hold, doomed to fail at the touch—so ventured, so failed the Stuarts from the first James to the fifth. There had been men in Scotland, but no women. Forth from the Lady of Lorraine came the lass, born in an unhappy hour, tossing high her young head, saying, ‘Let me alone to rule wild Scotland.’ They had but to give her house-room: no mystery there. The mystery is that any mystery has been found. Maids’ Adventure—with that we begin. A bevy of maids to rule wild Scotland! What mystery is there in that? Or—since Mystery is double-edged, engaging what we dare not, as well as what we cannot, tell—what mystery but that?

A hundred books have been written, a hundred songs sung; men enough of these latter days have broken their[3] hearts for Queen Mary’s. What is more to the matter is that no heart but hers was broken in time. All the world can love her now; but who loved her then? Not a man among them. A few girls went weeping; a few boys laid down their necks that she might walk free of the mire. Alas! the mire swallowed them up, and she must soil her pretty feet. This is the nut of the tragedy; pity is involved rather than terror. But no song ever pierced the fold of her secret, no book ever found out the truth, because none ever sought her heart. Here, then, is a book which has sought nothing else, and a song which springs from that only: called, on that same account, ‘The Queen’s Quair.’

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BOOK THE FIRST MAIDS’ ADVENTURE

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CHAPTER I HERE YOU ARE IN THE ANTECHAMBER

It is quite true that when they had buried the little wasted King Francis, and while the days of Black Dule still held, the Cardinal of Lorraine tried three times to see his niece, and was three times refused. Not being man enough to break a way in, he retired; but as he knew very well that the Queen-Mother, the King, the King of Navarre, and Madame Marguerite went in and out all day long, he had a suspicion that they, or the seasons, were more at fault than the hidden mourner. ‘A time, times, and half a time,’ he said, ‘have good scriptural warrant. I will try once more—at this hour of high mass.’ So he did, and saw Mary Livingstone, that strapping girl, who came into the antechamber, rather flushed, and devoutly kissed his ring.

‘How is it with the Queen my niece?’

‘Sadly, Eminence.’

‘I must know how sadly, my girl. I must see her. It is of great concern.’

The young woman looked scared. ‘Eminence, she sees only the Queen-Mother.’

‘The more reason,’ says he, ‘why she should see somebody else. She may be praying one of these fine days that she never see the Queen-Mother again.’

Livingstone coloured up to the eyes. ‘Oh, sir! Oh, Lord Cardinal, and so she doth, and so do we all! They are dealing wickedly with our mistress. It is true, what I told you, that she sees the Queen-Mother: that is because her Majesty will not be denied. She forces the doors—she[8] hath had a door taken down. She comes and goes as she will; rails at our lady before us all. She, poor lamb, what can she do? Oh, sir, if you could stop this traffic I would let you in of my own venture.’

‘Take me in, then,’ said the cardinal: ‘I will stop it.’

In the semi-dark he found his niece, throned upon the knee of Mary Beaton for comfort, in heavy black weeds, out of which the sharp oval of her face and the crescent white coif gleamed like two moons, the old within the new. Two other maids sat on the floor near by; each had a hand of her—pitiful sentinels of spoiled treasure. When the gentleman-usher at the curtain was forestalled by the great man’s quick entry, four girls rose at once, as a covey of partridges out of corn, and all but the Queen fell upon their knees. She, hugging herself as if suddenly chilled, came forward a little, not very far, and held out to the cardinal an unwilling hand. He took it, laid it on his own, kissed, and let it drop immediately. Then he stood upright, sniffed, and looked about him, being so near the blood royal himself that he could use familiarity with princes. It was clear that he disapproved.

‘Faith of a gentleman!’ he said: ‘one might see a little better, one might breathe a little better, here, my niece.’

‘The room is well enough,’ said the Queen.

It was dark and hot, heavy with some thick scent.

As she pronounced upon it the cardinal paused half-way to the shutter; but he paused too slightly. The Queen flushed all over and went quickly between him and the window—a vehement action. ‘Leave it, leave it alone! I choose my own way. You dare not touch it.’ She spoke furiously; he bowed his grey head and drew back. Then, in a minute, she herself flung back the shutters, and stood trembling in the sudden glory revealed. The broad flood of day showed him the waves of storm still surging over her; but even as he approved she commanded herself and became humble—he knew her difficult to resist in that mood.

‘I thought you would treat me as the Queen-Mother does. That put me in a rage. I beg your pardon, my[9] lord.’ As she held out her hand again, this time he took it, and drew her by it along with him to the open window. He made her stand in the sun. Far below the grey curtain-wall were the moat, the bridges, the trim gardens and steep red roofs of Orleans, the spired bulk of the great church; beyond all that the gay green countryside. A fresh wind was blowing out there. You saw the willows bend, the river cream and curd. The keen strength of day and the weather made her blink; but he braced her to meet it by his words.

‘Madam,’ said he, ‘needs must your heart uplift to see God’s good world still shining in its place, patient until your Majesty tires of sitting in the dark.’

She smiled awry, and drummed on the ledge with her long fingers, looking wilfully down, not choosing to agree. The maids, all clustered together, watched their beloved; but the cardinal had saner eyes than any of them. As he saw her, so may you and I.

A tall, slim girl, petted and pettish, pale (yet not unwholesome), chestnut-haired, she looked like a flower of the heat, lax and delicate. Her skin—but more, the very flesh of her—seemed transparent, with colour that warmed it from within, faintly, with a glow of fine rose. They said that when she drank you could see the red wine run like a fire down her throat; and it may partly be believed. Others have reported that her heart could be discerned beating within her body, and raying out a ruddy light, now fierce, now languid, through every crystal member. The cardinal, who was no rhapsodist of the sort, admitted her clear skin, admitted her patent royalty, but denied that she was a beautiful girl—even for a queen. Her nose, he judged, was too long, her lips were too thin, her eyes too narrow. He detested her trick of the sidelong look. Her lower lids were nearly straight, her upper rather heavy: between them they gave her a sleepy appearance, sometimes a sly appearance, when, slowly lifting, they revealed the glimmering hazel of the eyes

themselves. Hazel, I say, if hazel they were, which sometimes seemed to be yellow, and sometimes showed all black: the light acted upon hers as upon a cat’s eyes.[10] Beautiful she may not have been, though Monsieur de Brantôme would never allow it; but fine, fine she was all over—sharply, exquisitely cut and modelled: her sweet smooth chin, her amorous lips, bright red where all else was pale as a tinged rose; her sensitive nose; her broad, high brows; her neck which two hands could hold, her small shoulders and bosom of a child. And then her hands, her waist no bigger than a stalk, her little feet! She had sometimes an intent, considering, wise look—the look of the Queen of Desire, who knew not where to set the bounds of her need, but revealed to no one what that was. And belying that look askance of hers—sly, or wise, or sleepy, as you choose—her voice was bold and very clear, her manners were those of a lively, graceful boy, her gestures quick, her spirit impatient and entirely without fear. Her changes of mood were dangerous: she could

wheedle the soul out of a saint, and then fling it back to him as worthless because it had been so easily got. She wrote a beautiful bold hand, loved learning, and petting, and a choice phrase. She used perfumes, and dipped her body every day in a bath of wine. At this hour she was nineteen years old, and not two months a widow.

All this the cardinal knew by heart, and had no need to observe while she stood strumming at the window-sill. His opinion—if he had chosen to give it—would have been: these qualities and perfections, ah, and these imperfections, are all very proper to a prince who has a principality; for my niece, I count greatly upon a wise marriage—wise for our family, wise for herself. He would have been the last to deny that the Guises had been hampered by King Francis’ decease. All was to do again—but all could be done. This fretful, fair girl was still Queen of Scotland, allons! Dowager of France, but Queen of Scotland, worth a knight’s venture. Advance pawns, therefore! He was a chess-player, passionate for the game.

He surveyed the maids of honour, bouncing Livingstone and the rest of them, too zealous after their mistress’s ease, and too jealous lest the world should edge them out; and found that he had more zest for the world and the spring[11] weather. ‘Ah, madam,’ he said, ‘ah, my niece, this cloister-life of stroking, and kindly knees, is not one for your Majesty. There are high roads out yonder to be traversed, armies to set upon them, cities and towns and hill-crests to be taken. But you sit at home in the dark, nursed by your maids!’

She raised her eyebrows, not her eyes. ‘Why,’ says she, ‘the King, my husband, is dead, and most of his people glad of it, I believe. If my kingdom lies within these four walls, and my government is but over these poor girls, they are my own. What else should I do? Walk abroad to mass? Ride abroad to the meadows? And be mocked by the people for a barren wife, who never was wife at all? And be browbeat openly by the Apothecary’s Daughter? Is this what you set before me, Lord Cardinal?’

The cardinal put up his chin and cupped his beard. ‘The rich may call themselves poor, the poor dare not. You have a realm, my niece, and a fair realm. You stand at the door of a second. You may yet have a third, it seems to me.’

Queen Mary looked at him then, with a gleam in her eyes which answered for a smile. But she hid her mind almost at once, and resumed her drumming.

‘King Charles is hot for me,’ she said. ‘He is a brave lad. I should be Queen of France again—of France and England and Scotland.’ She laughed softly to herself, as if snug in the remembrance that she was still sought.

The cardinal became exceedingly serious. ‘I have thought of that. To my mind there is a beautiful justice——! What our family can do shall be done—but, alas——!’

She broke in upon him here. ‘Our family, my lord! Your family! Ah, that was a good marriage for me, for example, which you made! That ailing child! Death was in his bed before ever I was put there. My marriage! My husband! He used to cry all night of the pain in his head. He clung to the coverlet, and to me, lest they should pull him out to prayers. Marriage! He was cankered from his birth. What king was Francis, to make me a queen?’

The cardinal lifted his fine head. ‘It was my sister[12] Marie who made you a queen, madam, by the grace of God and King James. Through your parentage you are Queen of Scotland, and should be Queen of England—and you shall be. God of gods, you may be queen of whatso realm you please. What do I learn? The whole world’s mind runs upon the marrying of you. The Archduke Ferdinand hath here his ambassadors, attendant on the Queen-Mother’s pleasure—which you allow to be yours also. Don Carlos, his own hand at the pen, writes for a hope of your Majesty’s. The Earl of Huntly, a great and religious prince in Scotland, urges the pretensions of his son, the Lord of Gordon. Are these to be laid before the Queen-Mother? To the duchess, your grandmother, writeth daily the Duke of Châtelherault concerning his son, the Earl of Arran. On his side is my brother the Constable. More! They bring me word from England that the Earl of Lennox, next in blood to your Majesty, next indeed to both your thrones, is hopeful to come to France—he, too,

with a son in his pocket, young, apt, and lovely as a love-apple. All these hopeful princes, madam——’

Queen Mary coloured. With difficulty she said: ‘I hear of every one of them for the first time.’

‘Oh, madam,’ cried the cardinal, ‘so long as you sit on your maids’ knees and give the keys of your chamber to the Queen-Mother, you will only hear what she please to tell you. And more’—he raised his voice, and gave it severity—‘I take leave to add that so long as your Majesty hath Mistress Livingstone here for your husband, your Majesty can look for no other.’

‘I am never likely to look on a better,’ says Queen Mary, and put her hand behind her. Mary Livingstone stooped quickly and snatched a kiss from the palm, while the cardinal gazed steadily out of doors. But he felt more at ease, being sure that he had leavened his lump.

And so he had. The sweet fact of great marriages beyond her doors, and the sour fact of the Queen-Mother within them, worked a ferment in her brain and set her at her darling joy of busy scheming. What turned the scale over was the mortifying discovery that Catherine de’ Medici was in reality dying to get rid of her. She flew[13] into a great rage, changed her black mourning for white, announced her departure, paid her farewells, and went to her grandmother’s court at Rheims. Queen Catherine watched her, darkling, from a turret as she rode gaily out in her troop of Guises. ‘There,’ she is reported to have said, I know not whether truly or not, ‘there goes Madam Venus a-hunting the apple. Alas for Shepherd Paris!’ The reflection is a shrewd one at least; but it was not then so certain that Orleans had seen the last of Queen Mary. It was no way to get her out of France to tell her there was nothing you desired so much.

The old duchess, her grandam, talked marriages and the throne of Scotland, therefore, into ears only half willing. The little Queen was by no means averse to either, but could not bring herself to lose hold upon France. ‘Better to be Dowager of France than an Empress in the north,’ she said; and then ‘Fiddle-de-dee, my child,’ the old lady retorted; ‘give me a live dog before a dead lion. Your desire here is to vex La Medicis. You would make eyes at King Charles, and we should all lose our heads. Do you wish to end your days at Loches? The Duke of Milan found cold quarters there, they tell me. No, no. Marry a king’s son and recover England from the Bastard.’ Thus all France spake of our great Elizabeth.

Queen Mary, though she loved her grandmother, pinched her lip, looked meek, and hardened her heart. She had obstinacy by the father’s mother’s side—a Tudor virtue.

It was just after she had gone to Nancy, to the court of her cousin of Lorraine, that she veered across to the side of the Guises and determined to adventure in Scotland. Two Scots lords came overseas to visit her there: one was the Lord James Stuart, her base-brother, the other a certain Father Lesley, an old friend of her mother’s. The priest was a timid man, but by good hap and slenderness of equipage gained her first. She might have been sure he was a faithful friend, though doubtful if a very wise one. Faithful enough he proved in days to come: at this present she found him a simple, fatherly man, of wandering mind, familiar, benevolent, soon scared. He was enchanted with her, and said so. He praised her person, the scarlet of her[14] lips, the bright hue of her hair. ‘A bonny brown, my child,’ he said, touching it, ‘to my partial eyes.’ She laughed as she told him that in Paris also they had liked the colour. ‘They will call it foxy in Scotland,’ he said, with a sniff; and she found out afterwards that they did.