Mary said to the servant, in French, which was her preferred tongue, “Yes, I will receive them, but don’t bring them as quickly as they would like. Make them come slowly. I want all of them to approach me with great caution and apprehension. I want them to fear me.”
She knew that she was powerless, as a prisoner in Fotheringay Castle, but she did not want to appear without any power. She wanted to remind them that they were in the presence of Mary Stuart, the Queen of Scotland, even if she was not in Scotland, and she had lost her throne.
She gestured to her ladies-in-waiting, who quickly stopped embroidering with her. As one of her ladies primped her wig, Mary forced herself to sit up straight, and she had to pull at her dress, which had gotten very tight. It reminded her of all the weight she had gained while imprisoned, and because she was prevented from hunting, which usually kept her slim.
She was surprised at how much weight she had gained. She thought, Everything I eat tastes so bitter, and everything I drink tastes like it was mixed with the ashes of men I have loved.
She made sure that the dress covered her legs entirely, to conceal how swollen they were, from the watery humours in her legs. But the more she looked at her dress, the more she noticed how worn and unflattering it was. She looked away, and stared up at the room in which she was imprisoned. Mary detested the humdrum monotony of her confinement, and had never gotten used to it, after all of these years of being detained by Queen Elizabeth.
She had enjoyed many things, before she became a political prisoner. But when she lost her freedom, she lost almost all of her joy. She did not like the food, she did not like the furniture, and she did not care for the company she kept. Or should I say, the company that keeps me.
She had very little to say to the other people there, and they had even less to say to her. She knew her imprisonment was not without precedent. She often dwelled on the many times in history when monarchs showed such cruelty.
Mary thought about how King Henry II had become estranged from his wife, Eleanor, and put her in prison, for sixteen years. If Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the greatest queens in history was imprisoned, then I should not be surprised that I find myself held captive. It puts me in good company.
Mary thought of Arthur I, Duke of Brittany, their grandson. He was the designated heir to the throne of England. He was put in prison by his own uncle, King John, who likely then had Arthur murdered—when Arthur was only sixteen years old.
But Mary thought about how Arthur’s murder was merciful, compared to what happened to his beautiful sister, Eleanor, the Damsel of Brittany. King John imprisoned her when she was about twenty years old, and she was kept a prisoner for almost forty years, until she died.
Mary thought about how even though the Damsel Eleanor did not have any freedom in her life, she did become a nun, and must have faced her death without fear. Mary often hoped that she herself could find such peace of mind and spirit.
Mary often thought of Princess Gwenllian of Wales, whose father was the Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. During King Edward I of England’s conquest of Wales, Llywelyn was charged with treason and killed in battle. King Edward then sought to conquer Scotland, and fought Robert the Bruce, and William Wallace. King Edward was called the “Hammer of the Scots” for his ruthlessness.
She thought, King Edward, known as Longshanks, must have had long legs like a spider—because he ensnared so many of us. And he would have bound us all in his evil web, to eat every last one of us, if he had gotten his way. He was more creature than man, and was inhumanly cruel to Gwenllian—after murdering her father, on a false and fabricated charge of treason!
She scoffed, Llywelyn was no traitor—he wanted sovereignty for Wales, just as much as Scotland wanted its freedom. But the monarchs who sit on the throne of England are known for their treachery. Edward could not abide a strong Welsh ruler like Llywelyn—and he would have exterminated all of the Welsh and erased their language, just as much as he hoped to eradicate all of my Scots forefathers and our culture.
She thought of how Edward had Llywelyn’s head cut from his body, and carried on a spear throughout London. He also had the infant Gwenllian taken from Wales, and held prisoner in a nunnery her whole life.
Elizabeth has kept me prisoner for almost nineteen years, which has been like an eternity. I truly can not imagine being held captive for fifty-four years, as Gwenllian was—so far from home, not allowed to even speak the language of her homeland. She did not even know how to pronounce her own name in Welsh.
At least I was a woman when I was taken by Elizabeth, at least I know my own Scots language and heritage.
Mary thought of the more recent past, and how Queen Elizabeth had suspected Mary of conspiring with the Percy family, the most powerful northern lords. She took some degree of delight in having her cousin, Elizabeth, the Queen of England, fear her so much.
She laughed even now, It must terrify her to think that the Percy family and I are united. How else to explain the extraordinary measures she took—when she banished the whole Percy family from living in the North?
The primary Percy residence was in Northumberland, at Alnwick Castle, near the border of Scotland. Queen Elizabeth had ordered the family to relocate to their other residence, in the south of England, at Petworth Castle. Mary knew that Elizabeth was playing with fire, If she thinks that she can order them about and expect them to behave her like household pets—with no ill consequences—she is sorely mistaken.
And she will be sorry for such an ignoble insult to such a noble family. The longer she banishes them to Petworth from Alnwick—where many of their family rest in tombs—the more rabid their hatred of her will become. Before long, she will turn even the most sedate lapdog Percy kinsman into a hot-blooded hound.
Mary could not help but smile, If Elizabeth is not careful, and continues to feed the Percy scraps from her table, she will spur them into action. They will not be satisfied with biting her hand. They will devour her whole!
Mary loathed the fact that Elizabeth had reduced the Percy family, and her, a queen in her own right, into something less than human. She treats us all like very old flatulent dogs—the kind you love enough not to put down, but don’t love enough to take up in your lap.
Who is she to say who has worth and who does not? What gives her the right to say who can be a human—and who is a pet? What right does she have to choose who matters—and who does not?
No matter how hard she tried, Mary compared her imprisonment at Fotheringay to being penned up like an animal. Perhaps there is something to these British Isles, and especially this house, which turns people into something less than human. After all—Fotheringay is the castle where that beastly abomination of a man was spawned, King Richard the Third. Perhaps it explains why his personal emblem was the White Boar, and why his three most trusted men were known as the Cat, the Rat, and the Dog.
She hated to think that Richard might have been born in that very chamber, in which she slept. It made her very agitated, It must be on purpose. Elizabeth must have chosen this chamber herself!
She thought of how Richard III’s father—Richard, 3rd Duke of York—was killed at the Battle of Wakefield. She thought about how he may have died while fighting, or he may have been captured alive and then beheaded. Why can’t history ever be recorded correctly and accurately? It was only just over a century ago that he died, but why don’t we know the full details of his death? Which was it—did he die fighting, or was he beheaded afterwards?
Such contradictions in history were a matter of great importance to Mary. If they can’t correctly record the circumstances surrounding Richard’s death then how can I know whether history is going to remember me accurately? I want people to know me for who I am rather than how my enemies would have me depicted!
Will historians remember me as a demon, as a witch perhaps—or as a strong and determined woman? Will they say that my imprisonment was an injustice or what I deserved? Will they depict me as a woman of courage and conviction, or as a scheming villain?
The problem infuriated her. When she thought of Richard, Duke of York, she preferred to think that he died while fighting. But the image of his being captured alive, and humiliated by the soldiers, was just as likely to her. I do not doubt that the Lancastrians were capable of insulting a Duke, and mocking his majesty, by forcing him to wear a crown of cattail leaves taken from the battlefield—to ridicule him before his final reckoning before God.
She often thought of how his enemies mounted Richard’s head in York, wearing a paper crown.
She thought of how much Elizabeth had shamed and disgraced her. I should not be surprised at how petty and wicked she is. Her entire Tudor dynasty is built on the dead bodies of Richard Duke of York and his son King Richard the Third. She does not even have the decency of providing me with a wardrobe fitting a Queen of Scotland.
She looked at the dress she wore, which she had worn a thousand times before—She only permits me to wear her shabby and soiled hand-me-downs! She wants me to wither away, and die a thousand deaths, in these tattered old clothes—which make me look far older than I am!
She was only forty-four years old, and she tried very hard to keep her figure—but the dresses she received made her look like an ancient spinster, a poor prisoner in rags. Mary did not think that this was just a matter of her personal vanity. I am vain, it is true. But there is a greater principle at stake. My imprisonment by the Queen of England is a foul mistreatment of the Queen of Scotland. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth is tarnishing my own majesty! She sullies my splendor, which was once as pure and as glittering as gold.
She was sincerely afraid for Elizabeth and for monarchy itself—I fear that if she continues on this sinful and unjust path, she won’t just inflict damage on herself as a queen. She will play havoc with all monarchs, everywhere. She might destroy the foundation on which the whole legitimacy of the monarchy rests. She might reduce all monarchs in the eyes of their people. She might knock all monarchs down, curtail their powers, and transform them into nothing but fools with grass crowns on their heads!
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The worst offense to Mary was that, as the Queen of Scotland, she was anointed by Almighty God. How dare Elizabeth claim to be a righteous and a godly queen—when she has imprisoned and disgraced a divinely anointed monarch! If I know Almighty God at all, I know that He will never forget such wickedness. He will punish such iniquity! Nothing could incur His wrath more, or make Him more majestically wroth, than for a monarch to make the majesty they receive from Him turn so rotten.
Mary dwelled on this extraordinary spiritual crisis so often, she found herself exhausted.
It reminded her of another offense, regarding Richard. His corpse was interred at Pontefract, but later it was moved to the nearby Church of St Mary and All Saints, in Fotheringay. Such a desecration horrified her. There are people in this world who value the traditions and institutions that are sacred and true. They know, as I do, that the dead should rest in peace. There are some people, like Queen Elizabeth’s father, for whom nothing is sacred. God help us all. God save us from such disbelievers.
Mary crossed herself. She then checked herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized herself. But she was not only losing her sense of self. She had recently stopped dreaming. She had not even had a nightmare, in as long as she could remember. If I have stopped dreaming, does that mean my life is coming to an end?
Without dreams, she thought she was going spiritually blind. Without her powers of foresight, she was left vulnerable and unarmed. She feared that Morpheus and the other gods of dreams had abandoned her. She had often seen them in her dreams. They appeared to her as pitch-black winged bat-like daimones. She was desperately worried that they would not fly into her sleeping visions ever again.
She also lamented, And why have I stopped seeing my beloved Agnes in my dreams?
Ever since Mary was a girl, Agnes had been the most recurring figure in her dreams and visions.
Agnes was a wealthy nobleman’s daughter, in ancient Rome, in the time of Emperor Diocletian. By the time Agnes was thirteen, she was a great beauty. She began to attract many suitors, who were some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in Rome. She was born to a family of early Christians, in a Rome that was pagan. She and her family had to practice their faith in secret, for fear of being put to death.
Agnes secretly devoted herself to God, and only to Him. She vowed never to give herself in marriage to any Roman man, even if he was rich and powerful. She spurned the advances of her many powerful suitors. These men accused her and her family of being Christians. To force her to renounce her faith, Roman authorities ordered her to be dragged naked in public to a brothel, where she would be violently violated, and even raped.
Even now, Mary’s skin crawled. She could feel the horror that Agnes must have suffered. It reminded Mary of her own suffering as a young girl, when she knew that she would likely be forced into a loveless marriage, and given away as a bride for solely political purposes.
There were times when Mary’s skin grew so hot, it made her believe that she was burning. Even now, her skin grew hot to the touch.
Mary tried to calm herself. She smiled, as she remembered how Agnes had a surprise for the men who came to abuse her—As they watched her, with evil in their hearts—suddenly and miraculously and gloriously—some of those cruel men lost their sight! And some of those men even dropped dead on the spot!
Mary laughed, as she thought about how the Christian God, to whom Agnes prayed, had punished those wicked pagan men of Rome with blindness and instant death. Mary laughed, almost cackling, when she thought about how the pagan Romans then tried to burn Agnes at a stake—and how the flames would not touch her.
Mary often drew strength and inspiration from Agnes, and she believed that Agnes had a power to keep her immune from danger. She believed that Agnes received that power when she died. Sadly, that little girl, that pure lamb of a girl—who was too young to understand the world, and who was far too good to embrace the world’s evil—she was beheaded.
Mary often put Agnes in her prayers, and spoke to her, like she was a guardian angel. She thought, Bless you Agnes, I love you, Agnes. For what you gave then, and what you give me now.
Mary thought about how Agnes was later venerated as the patron saint of young girls. When Mary herself was a girl, she was very moved by the story of Saint Agnes. As the years went by, she found the story of Agnes’s death crucial to her own survival. Agnes helped remind her of the evil in the world, and the wickedness of men. She thought, The world is full of beastly men. In binding myself to Agnes, I protect her memory, as she protects me—and I vow never to be a lamb butchered by such monsters.
Through Agnes, Mary became strong-willed and self-reliant. She knew how most men didn’t like such independence of mind and spirit, but she didn’t care. As she grew older, she saw how the men who outwardly appeared to be refined and noble were the same men who concealed the dirtiest desires. It often seemed to Mary that every single man was wicked, and a threat. She almost gave up believing that any man could be anything but a selfish swine or a violent ogre.
Then she met the Earl of Bothwell.
Ah Bothwell… he was such a savage of a man, so delightfully and deliciously untamed. I am so grateful that he did not lie, and pretend to be good or decent or humble. He was the most honest devil of a man I have ever known.
She could see him in her memory right now. She knew that she would never forget the sight of him. Even now she became short of breath, as she remembered how it was hard to breathe in his presence, as if his hands were around her throat, to choke her pleasurably. She sighed, missing him terribly, craving the sight of him, the smell of him, the coarseness of his manner, the strength of his arms, and the vitality from within him.
Suddenly, her visitors filed into her chamber.
She quickly picked up her rosary, to appear as if she was in a deep prayerful state. She scrutinized the smaller beads and the larger gauds, which were made of gold. The heaviness of it in her hand gave her comfort. Yet the rosary still seemed alien to her, since she had only begun carrying one after the devotion to the Rosary was established in 1569, by Pope Pius V, less than twenty years ago.
While she had never liked Pius, she did like the words he chose for the Rosary. She did not always remember them, so she had her ladies recite it aloud with her.
As the visitors entered, she could not help but count them. She expected only a handful of people, maybe two or three. She was overwhelmed to see forty-four men in all. She scanned their faces. She had become quite expert at telling the difference between animals and men. She knew that whatever business they had with her, it was not going to be good. They did not come all this way bearing glad tidings. These men are a tiding of magpies—or maggoty-pies. All of these old men, they are nothing but maggots—puny flies feeding on the carcass of England.
She did not like their arrival. Despite the righteous looks on their faces, she did not think there was a single righteous man among them. I know well enough that, despite their holy demeanor now before me, these are not holy men. Hoods make not monks. These are beasts—all of them beasts, every last one of them.
In that moment, she knew that she did not have long to live. The signal they are sending, with their silence, is clear. The message they are delivering, even before they speak a word it is evident—I am meant to die. Sooner rather than later. They didn’t come to rape me, like Agnes—but they do intend to dishonor me, and deprive me of my life.
One brave and righteous man should have been enough to visit me, and serve me notice of my execution. Sending forty-four men speaks of weakness and vacillation on the part of my cousin. But why did my cousin Elizabeth send forty-four men?
Why so many? Why that number?
One for each of my years, perhaps?
She steeled her nerve and put on a brave face as the men filed into her chambers, their faces cold and grim. All of the men stood away from her, as if she were diseased and contagious. Many of the men looked afraid, as if she might curse them.
She knew what they thought of her. It was what every powerful man had thought of me, when he could not tame me, and make me submit. They think that I am as sinful as a whore, and as dangerous as a Mermaid, whose siren song might lure them to wreck their ships on my rocky coast.
She recognized some of the men. She singled out Lord Burghley immediately, due to his immense size. He also couldn’t be mistaken for any other man, what with the three warts on his right cheek. With a face like his, he looks more like a witch than I do! Ha!
The Earl of Leicester was never shy—he stood front and center. He had a dark complexion, and he was quite stout, but she could never figure out if it was because he was so muscular, or just plain fat. He sticks out like a sore thumb, that arrogant and swarthy devil.
Francis Walsingham was lean, austere, and brooding. She hated him perhaps the most, He is the man least afraid of me. I have never known any man to be so indifferent to me.
Walsingham worried her. She did not like men she could not figure out. Walsingham pushed his way forward, to see her clearly. Some of the men were more than happy to stay back.
She laughed, pleased that she could still cause some of them to fear her. She spoke first, and quickly, to upstage them, “Look to your consciences! Heaven is above all yet. There is such a Judge that no king, or queen, can corrupt.”
She spoke in French. She had only recently learned some English, and did not want to give them the satisfaction of speaking in their tongue.
Some of the men now looked even more apprehensive. But she could see that some of them, like Leicester and especially Walsingham, had only murder on their minds.
She thought, Oh well, if they are going to treat me like a witch, I might as well play the part. Since she could not move without great pain and effort, due to her severe rheumatism, and other diseases, she stiffened her spine, and summoned a posture that would strike fear in them. She tried to find the right words, to utter some sort of curse at them. She said, in French, “Remember, the theatre of the whole world is wider than the kingdom of England.”
She laughed defiantly, and enjoyed seeing the stupid looks on their faces—hoping that some of them would burst into flames and drop dead on the spot.
Her Skye terrier, old and gassy, moved around her feet. The dog wanted to sit on her lap. She lifted the dog up, and stroked it, as if she had not a care in the world.
But it still irritated her that she could not figure out why forty-four men were sent. Perhaps that is how many men my cousin Elizabeth thinks it will take to break my back, and crush me to death.
She was irritated, and perplexed. But she had been perplexed since the day she was taken captive, and kept prisoner by Elizabeth. Why did she not just throw me back to Scotland? Why did she not allow me to go to France? Instead of showing me such abominable inhospitality, she could have just let me go.
Mary sadly thought about how much Elizabeth had taken from her. She took away many of my servants, she disarmed them, and she has left me here to rot away slowly.
Mary always suspected that Elizabeth had a very specific reason to detain her in England, and restrain her under house arrest—and she was now certain that Elizabeth was about to reveal it to her.
There were many years when Mary thought that Elizabeth had in fact all but forgotten her, and would forget her forever. But in the last year or so, with the rise in executions of Catholics, Mary knew that Elizabeth had never forgotten her, and would not miss the opportunity to do something to her.
Ever since that woman in York was crushed, I knew that I could be next. I have come to expect that I am to be crushed by Queen Elizabeth Tudor. She must think that for England to survive—I must be smashed to death. I must be milled and ground and utterly reduced to dust.
Mary looked at a small arrangement of flowers, on a nearby table, and the marigolds, with petals as bright as the sun. She thought of how they obediently opened and closed with the rising and setting of the sun. Mary sighed. She was saddened by the thought that her time was almost at an end, that the sun was setting on her, and that her petals would be closed forever.
She did not want to think any more about the world, and the people in it—she knew she must pray, immediately. She wanted to clear her mind, and turn to God, and dwell on the promise of eternity with Him.
Later that evening, as was customary, Mary had one of her servants read aloud to her about the life of a saint.
She wanted to hear about Agnes again. She needed to be reminded that if Agnes could continue to live on, in the pages of a book, and in her heart, that she herself would live on, in the pages of some book, yet to be written.