“And I will use it to help make him comfortable in his prison, but if I used it to attempt to engineer his escape, to finance another rebellion, I could cost Duin dearly. Moray is in power now. He hae crowned the queen’s bairn, and there, sweetheart, is an end to it. Bothwell knows that. He is nae a fool except in love.”
“I understand,” Annabella replied, “but it still breaks my heart to know that Bothwell will die in a foreign place, and be buried in a lonely, unmarked grave. And the queen? What will happen to the queen?”
“I think after he feels he has the reins of power firmly in his grasp, Moray will put his half sister in a more hospitable place than Lochleven Castle. He is a wily devil, but he was always treated like the prince he might have been but for the accident of his birth by Marie de Guise, who raised him with the rest of her husband, James the Fifth’s bastards. He grew up at Stirling with Mary before she went to France, and he has always had a fondness for her, even if her behavior has confounded him,” the earl said.
But Mary Stuart had had a year to ponder her situation. Her half brother, James Stewart, should have known better than to think he might force her to his will. Had he treated her with firm kindness, housed her as befitted her position, and allowed her small access to her little son, he might have avoided what happened next.
Mary had appealed to Parliament several times in the early days of her imprisonment. She wanted an opportunity to explain her actions. Parliament instead, under instruction from Moray and his cohorts, declared James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, guilty of the murder of Henry, Lord Darnley. That there was no real proof of this mattered not at all. They also declared their lawful queen his accomplice in the murder, using forged documents that they brought forth from a silver box that belonged to the queen as proof of her guilt. Even then, having gained their objective, they did not refrain from mistreating their prisoner. It was a serious miscalculation.
Mary was treated very badly. She was confined to two rooms on the third floor of Lochleven Castle. It was cold and dank. She had no privacy. Her movements were severely limited, and she was constantly watched. She had no spiritual comfort to sustain her. Angry and desperate, she reacted rashly.
Without James Hepburn by her side to temper her recklessness, Mary executed an audacious escape from her island prison. No sooner had she gained the shore of the mainland with her cohorts than her followers began flocking to her banner. She repudiated her abdication, which she said had been forced upon her. She was Scotland’s queen, and she would retake her throne from those who had stolen it from her while hiding behind her infant son to justify their actions.
Moray was furious, but he knew his sister was no tactician. Without Bothwell to plan her battles, she was certain to make an error. It was that error that would cost her not just her freedom, but Scotland for good. He watched and decided what to do as Mary Stuart crossed the Firth of Forth. She had, Moray knew, two choices open to her if she were to regain her throne. She could march to Edinburgh with her ever-increasing army, forcing Parliament into session, and plead her cause in order to regain her position by legal means. Or she could make a run for the impregnable Dunbarton Castle in the west, and wait while her armies were increased before taking Scotland back by force.
Moray knew his sister was no fool, but he also knew she was ruled by her emotions. Parliament’s obdurate refusal to allow her to come before them a year ago would still rankle her. She would have no faith in a Parliament that had scorned her. Mary Stuart would head for Dunbarton, and the Earl of Moray knew it, and planned for it.
He would meet her forces before she could even reach the security of that castle.
Moray had a smaller force than his half sister, but his soldiers were better trained.
Along the road to the village of Langside he positioned his men behind the tall, thick hedges lining the road. As Mary’s forces marched down the road, the musketeers hidden behind the greenery fired volley after volley. Within a short time Mary’s superior forces, bereft of any real commander, broke up in disarray and fled the battlefield. From her vantage point on a nearby hill, the queen could see everything. She was finally convinced to flee the scene, and did so.
Late on a mid-May afternoon, the watch atop Duin Castle saw a small party of riders coming their way. As they came closer it was noted that, while armed, they were few, and apparently not hostile. They galloped across the oaken drawbridge into the courtyard. The first man off his horse called to the servant who stood in an open door at the top of a flight of steps, “Tell yer master the queen begs shelter!”
The shocked servant turned and dashed back into the castle, running for the hall, where he delivered his message. They had been at the high board eating the main meal of the day. The Earl of Duin jumped to his feet, coming down from his place to hurry and greet the queen. She was still seated upon her horse when he reached his courtyard. He noted she looked worn and tired. He bowed.
“Madam, welcome to Duin Castle,” he said.
“Moray’s forces are certain to be behind me, my lord,” the queen said. “Are ye sure ye would welcome me?”
“Ye are my queen,” Angus Ferguson heard himself say.Jesu!Was he mad?
But then Annabella was there by his side. “Come into the hall, madam,” she said. “I suspect ye cannot remain long wi’ us, but ’tis an honor to hae ye here. There is hot food, and wine for ye in the hall.” She curtsied to the queen, then looked to one of the openmouthed stablemen. “See to the horses.”
“Come into the hall,” the earl echoed his wife’s invitation.
Once inside, the queen sank into a high-backed upholstered chair by one of the hearths. Wine was immediately brought to her. “It was a disaster,” Mary Stuart said without waiting for anyone to ask her what had happened. “Argyll was a poor leader. His troops fled the field in the face of a much smaller force. We needed my husband’s leadership, but Bothwell is gone. Gone.” Her voice faded away.
Annabella noticed that the queen’s beautiful fingers tightened about the stem of the wine goblet as she spoke. “We received a message from James late this winter. He is imprisoned in Denmark. Had he not been, madam, he would have been by yer side.”
“He tried to rally the isles for me, but Moray and his ilk hounded him. He barely escaped them last summer,” the queen said. “I have been told the tale by several, and each time something new is added to it. In Norway he was arrested by kinsmen of his former mistress, and jailed without charges.”
“The messenger who came to Duin was from a Danish ship,” the earl said.
The queen nodded. “He was taken from Norway to Dragsholm Castle in the north of Zealand. They say the conditions in which he is being kept are deplorable.” She began to weep softly.
“We sent a purse to ease his days,” Annabella said in an effort to comfort her guest, who was now struggling to regain mastery over herself.
“They will take yer gold and line their own pockets,” Lord Claud Hamilton, who stood by the queen’s side, said. “Our information is very accurate.”
“What does it serve Denmark to mistreat the husband of Scotland’s queen?” Angus Ferguson asked quietly.
“Perhaps ye dinna hear it, for ye are quite isolated at Duin,” Lord Claud noted, dropping his voice so his words did not distress the queen further, “but James Hepburn was outlawed last summer. He is considered nothing more than a common felon. His jailers might use yer gold to better his conditions, but the Danish king has forbidden it. Denmark has already given Scotland one queen. I suspect they look to give it another. They would keep the favor of wee James’s guardians for that day, for they are Protestants too. Dinna throw good coin after bad, my lord.”
“We canna remain long,” Geordie Douglas, another of the queen’s companions, said. “We would not bring Moray to yer door. He will be a bad enemy to have.”
“Ye must eat before ye go,” Annabella insisted, helping the queen up and to the high board, where the servants were quickly placing bowls and platters of food.
