Page 71 of The Changeling

She said, ‘He will suffer for it, lassie. He will suffer in hell.’

Twelve days after Bothwell had seized the queen, he opened the gate of Dunbar Castle and led her back to Edinburgh, his hand on the bridle of her horse.

She sat quietly, her body slumped, her spirit broken.

Two weeks later, eight days after his divorce had been hurried through and three months after the death of her husband, the queen married her ravisher in the great hall at Holyrood Palace. She wore an old mourning gown. When the French ambassador hoped she would be happy, she looked at him distantly and said, ‘I just want to die.’

‘Only harlots marry in May,’ said a placard tied to the gates of the palace.

Bothwell was a cruel and jealous husband. He seemed to take pleasure in hurting and demeaning the queen. He refused entry to her ministers, set guards outside her door so that she could not even walk in the garden, and took over the ruling of the country as if he was the anointed king. She had new chamberers, hired by Bothwell. We carried trays of food to her room. They took them, stone-faced, and shut the door. In those brief moments, we could hear Mary weeping and retching. Basins of bile were handed out to us.

‘I fear her Grace is with child,’ Mistress Gowland said to me in a low voice.

I nodded. I had believed so ever since Bothwell had opened the gate of Dunbar Castle and let her out.

‘The little prince is in danger,’ Mistress Gowland whispered. ‘Lord Bothwell will want his own child to inherit.’

I was so afraid for my brother I could scarcely breathe.

On the eleventh of June, a proclamation was read at the Mercat Cross on behalf of the lords. Scotland was urged to rise up and rescue the queen, avenge the murder of the king, and preserve the prince’s person. Many thousands marched to join the rebel army. Bothwell ordered Mary to pack a few things and go with him. She only had time to grab the silver casket in which she kept her letters and papers, and a few small items, before she was hurried out the door. Mistress Gowland and I were permitted to ride with her, but not any of her ladies-in-waiting.

On a blazing hot day, the queen faced the rebel lords at Carberry Hill, just outside Edinburgh. The rippling banners of the Scottish royal standard flew over the queen’s troops, a red lion with blue tongue and claws rampant upon a field as yellow as marigolds. The rebel lords had devised their own banner. It showed the body of Lord Darnley, lying dead in a field under a tree, half-naked, one hand covering his genitals. The little prince knelt in prayer beside him, a banner rising from his folded hands that said: Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord.

Once again, Lord Bothwell offered to fight in single combat against one of the lords, but no-one dared. Messengers galloped back and forth between the two armies. The lords promised the queen that they would reunite her with her son if she left Bothwell. Mary hated and feared her new husband and desperately wanted to hold little Jamie in her arms, but she could not risk Bothwell being arrested and charged with regicide for the sake of the babe she carried in her womb. She had to pretend that Bothwell was innocent of any crime, and that her child had been conceived after their marriage. The lords were adamant, though, that they would never accept Bothwell as king. Eventually, Mary came to an agreement with the lords. She would surrender to them if they let Bothwell go into exile. To her relief, the lords accepted.

‘Go,’ she told Bothwell, her hazel eyes ablaze with hatred, ‘and never come back.’

He thrust his hand inside his doublet and withdrew a rolled parchment, saying, ‘You want to know who killed your foolish braggart of a husband? I have here the agreement of many of those noble lords who seek now to pin it on me! Guard it well, my queen, if you truly want justice for the act.’

He passed it to her, gave her a mocking bow, then leapt up on his horse and galloped away. Mary unrolled the paper, and read it swiftly. Then she stood motionless, her face blanched of all colour.

‘They were all a part of it,’ she said wonderingly. ‘All of the lords. They plotted to murder Henry together. My God. I married my husband’s murderer! He swore to me he was innocent, but he lied!’

I did not know what to say to her. How could she have believed Bothwell to be innocent? The queen had been lying to herself.

‘Come, your Grace,’ one of the rebel lords said, bowing before her. ‘It is time to go.’

She swung around. ‘It was you! All of you! You murdered Henry! You told me you gathered an army and rode against me because you sought justice for his murder. Now I discover you were all part of the plot.’

The lord’s face hardened. He reached out and plucked the scroll from her hands. ‘You are mistaken, madam. Your new husband was the king’s murderer, no-one else.’ He tucked the scroll within his doublet. ‘Take her away,’ he ordered and two brawny young men stepped forward, their hands on their weapons.

It took the queen a stunned moment to realise she had spoken rashly, and that the proof of the lords’ complicity in her husband’s murder had been taken from her. I think she only truly realised the danger she was in when – at the muttered orders of the lords – the soldiers began to shout, ‘Kill her, kill the harlot! Cut off her head!’ Mary was dragged to a horse and lifted onto its back with rough irreverent hands, and her rein seized by a guard. When she resisted and protested, she was told to shut up and ride.

The soldiers raised the banner with its grisly picture of her husband’s corpse over Mary’s head, and began to march towards the capital, chanting, ‘Burn the witch! Burn the whore!’

I hurried after, terribly afraid. My horse had been taken, so I had to follow on foot, running as long as I could, then trudging, a stitch in my side, Carlin keeping close.

By the time we reached Edinburgh, the queen wept piteously. Her face was smeared with dirt, her hair and clothes dishevelled. She called imploringly to the crowd that gathered close to the road, but everywhere were men who shook their fists and catcalled and shouted, ‘Burn her!’

She was taken to the Black Turnpike on Edinburgh’s High Street. Armed guards stood outside. They would not let me in. I waited across the road, in a fret of anxiety. The crowd swelled and grew rowdy, the shouting and hissing growing in volume. I wondered what was happening inside. Mary had looked so young and fragile between her phalanx of guards.

Would they dare touch her? Hurt her?

Light faded from the sky. By midnight, the sky was dark but the square was lit by flaming torches carried by the crowd. The chant went on, ‘Burn the whore! Burn the witch!’

I sat on a doorstep, out of the way, my arm about Carlin’s neck. If anyone came too close to us, she growled. I was very tired, but I did not know where to go, what to do. I was the queen’s faithful servant, and I could not leave her.

I must have dozed a little. A sudden roar from the throats of the crowd roused me. I lifted my head and looked around blearily. A window had been flung open above. The queen leaned out, her hands stretched in entreaty. Her hair was in wild disarray, her bodice undone.