The Captive Queen of Scots - Plaidy Jean (читать книги онлайн бесплатно без сокращение бесплатно txt) 📗

“Sometimes I think that the serene life is not for me.”

“It would be,” Margaret assured her, “if you married the man who could give you it.”

The seed was sown. Mary’s interest in Thomas Howard was growing, and when they sat together, or walked about the castle, Margaret Scrope talked so often of her brother that Mary felt she knew him, and was growing fond of him.

She missed George Douglas. The passionate days and nights spent with Bothwell were so far away that they seemed like dreams.

She was a woman who needed love.

NEWS WAS SMUGGLED to her from France. It was easier now to receive such letters, for she had a strong ally in the castle—the mistress of the house herself.

George Douglas wrote that he had not been negligent in her service. He had been received by the Cardinal of Lorraine and the King of France, who assured her of their love. He had raised a thousand men who were armed and in training, waiting for the day when she should send for them.

Mary kissed the letter. “Dear George,” she murmured, “but I sent you to France to make your fortune, to marry your heiress and live happily there!”

There was also news from Scotland. Huntley and Argyle had ten thousand men assembled, waiting for orders to make an attack on Moray. Fleming was working zealously on her behalf. The Hamiltons were gathering in strength.

Moray must sleep very uneasily these nights.

Hope was high in Bolton Castle during those lovely summer days, and Mary’s health and spirits were at their peak. She was gracious and friendly to familiarity with all who served her. Her guards were susceptible to her charm, and Bolton Castle during those weeks could not have been less like a prison.

Then to crown her pleasure Lord Herries arrived back from London.

Mary embraced him when he came to her apartments. He was decidedly pleased and she guessed that he brought good news.

“You have seen the Queen?” she asked eagerly.

“Yes, Your Majesty, and talked long with her.”

“And what news do you bring?”

“That if Your Majesty will commit your cause to be heard by her order, not as your judge, but as your dear cousin and friend, and to commit yourself to her advice and counsel, she will see that you are once more set upon your regal seat.”

Mary clasped her hands with pleasure.

“It seems that she is aware of our relationship, and is indeed my friend. What plans does she set forth in this matter?”

“She will send for certain of your enemies and, before noblemen of England—who shall be chosen with your approval—they shall explain why they have deposed you. If they can give some reason for this, she will reinstate you, but there will be a condition that they are not deprived of their estates. If on the other hand they should not be able to give a reason, she promises to restore you by force of arms if they should resist.”

“But this is the best news I have heard since I left Scotland.”

“There is one other condition. If she helps you to regain the throne of Scotland, you must renounce any claim to the throne of England during her lifetime or that of any issue she may have.”

“I never wished to claim the throne of England,” said Mary. “It is true the title ‘Queen of England’ was bestowed on me in France, but that was not my wish.”

“There is something else. You must break your league with France and enter into league with England; you must abandon the Mass in Scotland and receive the Common Prayer after the manner of England.”

Mary was silent. “I am not anxious to interfere with the religion of my people.”

Herries said: “It seems that at last the Queen of England is ready to help you. It would be possible to receive the Common Prayer and allow those who wished to celebrate Mass privately to do so.”

Mary still hesitated.

“She could put Your Majesty on your throne more easily than any other. She could doubtless do it without bloodshed. Moray would never dare stand against the English. The French have to come from overseas and it is not easy to make a landing in a foreign country. But the English are on our Border. Moray would never dare risk a war with England and a civil war at the same time. He would be crushed between two strong forces and could do nothing to help himself.”

“I have always believed in negotiation around the council table rather than battle. But . . . George Douglas is raising men for me in France. He already has a force of a thousand armed men in training. That is but a beginning, I am assured. And you say the Queen of England declares that I must not accept help from France.”

Herries assured her that this was so. He had been deceived by the Queen of England who was one of the wiliest rulers of her day. She had made it her business to know a great deal about Herries. He was one of the most loyal of Mary’s adherents. Elizabeth knew that, because Leicester had sought to win him to Moray’s cause, while he was in London, with promises of great honors to come, and Herries had not even treated Leicester’s overtures seriously. A sentimental man, thought the Queen of England; she admired him for his loyalty and wished that he were a subject of hers. At the same time she knew how best to deal with such a man. So, when he had been brought to her, he had met a woman, completely feminine, deeply sympathetic to her dear cousin of Scotland, a little emotional and anxious to do what was right. She fervently hoped, she had told him, that the Queen of Scotland’s innocence would be established; she wished more than anything to receive her dear sister and cousin, to comfort her, to talk with her in private. But her ministers were in some way her masters. They were jealous of her reputation. They insisted that Mary’s innocence must be proved before she was received by their Queen.

Herries was as completely duped as she had intended him to be, so now he told Mary: “The Queen of England sincerely hopes to prove your innocence. She has assured me that she is on your side.”

“Yet,” said Mary, “I am a Queen even as she is, and it is not for her to sit in judgment over me.”

“She does not wish to. She only wishes to show her ministers that these evil rumors which have been circulating about you are without foundation.”

“Tell me how you were received by her. I would hear everything.”

So Herries told of how he had waited for an audience—waited and waited—and later realized that it was her ministers who had made it impossible for him to see her. But when he did so, she had convinced him of her love for the Queen of Scots. “She is my kinswoman, my lord,” she had said. “And do you think that I, a Queen, wish to see another Queen treated so disrespectfully by her subjects? Nay, I wish to restore to her all that he has lost; and I swear that once her innocence is proved, no matter what any man say, she will find me her firm friend.”

Mary smiled. She was picturing that meeting. Her cousin whom she had never seen, but who she knew was red haired, occasionally arrogant, sometimes gay, at times frivolous, loving to dance and be flattered, holding her little court of favorites to whom she liked to give the impression that they could become her lovers, seemed a very human person.

Mary endowed Elizabeth with the more pleasing characteristics which were her own—generosity, impetuosity, eagerness to help those in distress.

Thus she made one of the most ruinous mistakes of her life when she said: “I will write to George and tell him to disband his men; I will tell Argyle, Huntley and Fleming the same. I will put my trust in Elizabeth and do as she suggests.”

NO SOONER HAD MARY agreed to fall in with Elizabeth’s wishes than misgivings beset her.

She heard of George Douglas’s bitter disappointment whet he was forced to disperse his little army. Argyle, Huntley and Fleming were shocked beyond expression, but there was nothing they could do since the Queen ordered them to disband their forces. In the decision of a moment Mary had destroyed all that her friends had been carefully building up since the defeat at Langside. She was no match for her wily enemies.