Читать книгу The Duel of the Queens - Elizabeth Louisa Moresby - Страница 6

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A few months after the glories of the French marriage the withered Mary of England was at rest in Westminster Abbey and Elizabeth, with a lioness spring, on the throne. Not a stroke to strike, not a head to fall, she sat there secure. Choking with wrath through which struggled most unwilling admiration, Queen Catherine bemoaned herself to the French king, her husband.

“Could mortal believe it? She, bastardized by her father Henry VIII and his parliament, her reputation spotted, her purse none too full—no sorceress to win hearts. Jesus!—what a world! But she deserved it. The woman is a born actress, and there is nothing so vital for royal women. Hear what she said on entering the Tower where she had so long been prisoner. Magnificent!”

She picked up the despatch from the French ambassador and read aloud, and indeed what she read had splendour.

“Then entering the Tower of London she thus majestically addressed those who surrounded her. ‘Some have fallen from being princes of this land to be prisoners in this place. I am raised from being prisoner in this place to be prince of this land. That fall was a work of God’s justice. This advancement is a work of His mercy. As the one was to teach patience so I must bear myself thankfully to God and mercifully to men for the other.’ And fell on her knees and prayed, comparing herself to Daniel in the lions’ den.

And I would to our Lady they had ate her bones and flesh, for now we have a great woman to deal with!”

So spoke the Queen of France. The King, more accessible to other considerations, answered comfortably:

“Good, I own. But we have the beauty and the rightful heir. We shall match her yet!”

“We shall match her—never!” his queen answered in a fine flame of wrath and fear, furling her fan with a rattle like musketry. “And for why? Because a woman who is not repulsive to look at, who can say the right thing always, who is as fearless in affronting her conscience as she is in facing death and the devil, and who can play men like fish will win every game against a beauty like ours whose eyes and smiles seduce all men to madness and who has too many scruples to use them as she should when they are mad for her. Also, this Mary weeps when she should swear. I would change our beauty for the red-headed English witch to-morrow if I could, and with her we should conquer the world.”

“Pity, then, that you married our son Francis to Mary Stuart,” said Henry, edging toward the door. It was indeed his hour for riding with Madam Diane de Poitiers.

“A very great pity!” his Catherine answered grimly. “Had I had the wit to see what is in this Elizabeth I would have waited, childless as she will be! Our cream-faced beauty has a duel to face in which I for one will not stake our interests too far to second her.”

The King smiled indifferently.

“There is always the hope that Elizabeth will play the fool with men. Fire and tow make conflagration.”

“The cold water of self-interest will always be at hand to extinguish it,” retorted the Queen, and went off to send a formal compliment of condolence to Mary, her daughter-in-law, on the death of her cousin Mary of England.

Mary Stuart needed no instruction as to the loss she had sustained by this triumphant accession of Elizabeth to the English throne. She sat amazed. All the obstacles her own friends had reckoned over so eagerly were gloriously surmounted, and the new and radiant queen of England confronted her. Twenty-five years old, in the full blossom of such looks as would have been allowed handsome in a private woman and could be glorified in a queen, full of keen intellect and purpose, ready to march with whatever party was strongest and to conciliate the other with infinite tact, she was the very woman for the dangerous moment in England. A great achievement already. She had conquered in one blow her father’s policy and her sister’s, her illegitimacy, the hatred of the Catholics, and sat firmly on the throne, a queen to enlist the sympathy of all sensible men by her patriotic firm policy. The strong aggressive hand was felt at once in France. Mary Stuart and her advisers knew they faced a new and anxious crisis, for with England it was always a crisis for herself and Scotland.

“But let us begin with courtesy,” said the Scots queen earnestly to the council held to consider the new English sovereign. Girl of sixteen as she was, the air vibrated with intuition. It cried “Danger! Danger!”

She looked at the letter before her—the first following that announcing the accession of Elizabeth. A haughty demand for the restoration of Calais to the English! Calais—the long-lost jewel of the French crown! The discussion which followed took place before Elizabeth’s envoys, who had crossed the Channel to settle the matter, and Mary and her bridegroom sat in State as king and queen of Scotland to hear. The French bristled at the demand, and she saw it—the tiger looks, the clenching of hands on sword hilts! That the bastard of England should dare! Cold premonition ran through her. She, too, had her observers at the English court, and they had not failed to observe the consummate art with which Elizabeth had steered through all perils to the throne. Merciless, they called her, where her own interests were concerned—a most shrewd young woman with courage and resolution enough to conquer the world if her Englishmen backed her—as they would if they saw her successful. Romance would not fuddle their heads!

Mary, holding a morsel of embroidery in her hand at which she stitched with lowered eyelids, listening to the storm, suddenly flung it on the table and raised her head with a flush on her face. Silence. The young queen will speak! The English envoys in especial straightened to close attention. This was the girl who might, who must, be their queen if only to escape civil war in England when the breath was out of Elizabeth’s body. Instinctively they longed to hear her that they might compare the minds of the two, as they had already done their bodies. Elizabeth was a handsome enough, audacious, bold young woman, all energy, pride, and rule. This surely was a soft-eyed darling, a winner of hearts, one to gain her way as surely as Elizabeth, but by different methods. All sex, whether she would or no, whereas the other—they were not sure in England as yet whether she had any sex either of body or mind—unless for memories of her handsome Seymour!

The Scots queen spoke sitting, in a voice sweet as a dove’s note in the pause of a storm.

“Your Majesties, my lords and gentlemen, I beseech you to consider this matter calmly; not indeed as men who would yield an inch of France to another sovereign but with the courtesy that suits our dealings with a great queen. The Queen of England is my cousin and good sister. I and my husband the King desire peace with her of all things, and to preserve it is our prayer. I ask you, gentlemen [she turned to the English] to inform her Grace of England that such is our earnest desire. She has sent special envoys to us ourself and our husband, and by these we shall send our hearts as well as our understanding.”

As she ended there was silence. The Englishmen seeing her face and hearing her words smiled a little involuntarily—a smile Elizabeth would have grudged to her rival, for it was that of the profound interest of sexual appreciation of a young and lovely woman’s charm. She bent her head again over her work and made no sign when argument grew fierce and strong, and one fierce Frenchman, rising above the others and regardless of royalty, shouted aloud amidst applause which almost drowned his shout:

“Surrender Calais, yes! Willingly. But it must be to her who is rightful queen of England, Mary, queen of Scotland, wife of our dauphin and future queen of France. Let it be to her, and Calais will surrender to right royal and beauty beyond all words.”

The English stood at bay, hard and cold as their island rocks. They laughed with pride. Hands on sword hilts, they left the place, streaming out disorderly, and would hear no more. Mary, left alone with Francis, flushed like a red rose with anger. She shook her little fist in air.

“I own the demand for Calais was a maddening insult, my heart, but surely we should match cunning with cunning, and I must win the hearts of these Englishmen if ever I am to reign in England. When we are king and queen of France let us practise every art to win them. It is the only—the only way! Your people were fools this day. Surely one can refuse with smiles. Or temporize. The English can never be driven!”

“You will not fail there, my little queen,” the enamoured dauphin said, trembling with ague. “I saw how they looked at you. They were lovers for the moment. Why you are so beautiful only God and his Mother know if it is not that you shall rule the world!”

And indeed the Englishmen were taken aback. They huddled into a consultation in the courtyard of the Louvre, where they could be certain no eavesdropper could hear.

“Blood of God!” said Throckmorton, one of the envoys. “What a lady is that little queen! She can never set foot in England. The other would tear her to rags for jealousy. The face, the eyes, the delicate speech! Gentlemen, we have seen a world’s wonder! Her pale face and great eyes! The beauty of her!”

“Is it not possible she should win the liking of our queen?” hazarded another. “If those two were friends the peace of the world were assured. And God knows Europe is but a battlefield as it is. Women rulers should bring peace.”

Throckmorton laughed aloud.

“The liking of our queen for such a Venus! Lord help the innocent man that thinks it possible! We must write with much discretion and cold praise lest we find ourselves in the place where the fish settled in when he leaped from the frying pan.”

The Frenchmen, furious at the Calais insult, would hear no word of temporizing. On her coach doors, on her seals, on the silver she ate from, and the dauphin’s also, they stamped the arms of England. They flaunted them like insults in the face of Elizabeth’s envoys. They played Elizabeth’s game as if they had been paid to do it. But their most violent display of misplaced homage was reserved for the great tournament to be held in honour of the marriage in the mighty square in front of the Palace of the Tournelles. There the bride must glitter in her English arms and French and Scots splendours.

Never was such a gathering! The King of France himself would tilt in honour of his new daughter, but wearing the colours of Madam Diane de Poitiers. Not a great historic name of France but was represented among the knights who would tilt and the bright ladies who crowded the galleries with a sunlight dazzle of jewels. The jealous English owned among themselves that such splendour could not be found north of the Channel as they watched for the coach carrying the queen of the tournament to arrive. She drew their thoughts from all others, she who might one day be their queen.

Hark, what was that? A roar of welcoming applause indistinguishable as the roaring of a great gale. She was coming through the adoring French, the huge multitude opening to make way for their darling, their romance and pride.

“A dangerous rival for our queen!” Throckmorton said drily. “Hark—hark! What’s that?”

For words were shaping as she drew nearer.

“Vive la Reine d’Angleterre! Long live the Queen of England!”

Redoubled, shouted, yelled, tossed on like spray from a great ocean, it came higher and higher. Throckmorton flushed and whitened. Did it forebode personal danger? Not it! But it foreboded reckless resolution and assumption. The clear sound of swords was in it for those who knew. He turned to his colleagues.

“Gentlemen, if this gets to England as it must, this queen’s chance of heirship to the crown is not worth a toss with our queen. I had hoped she might name her for her heir and peace come that way. But if they will have it——” His look said the rest.

They stood grim and silent while the cries surged round them, and she ascended to the place of honour in the gallery with the French queen beside her, lifted a little by the public homage, but knowing in all her wise young heart that thus to dare Elizabeth was fool’s folly. And there was English enough in her blood to bring admiration of English defiance. She would do her best—she would soften Throckmorton. She would woo them to peace and courtesy. She would—— But silver trumpets sounded the charge and the soft thunder of horses’ hoofs. She bent herself to look and listen. The other must wait. After all, she must not be all conciliation. The power of France was mighty enough to trouble Elizabeth and the Reformed faith in England if they, too, did not mind their manners.

Yet her mind, in spite of her, was more on the Queen of England than on the King of France as he drew up fair and florid, a man strong and sensuous, to his place in the charging line. She saw his amorous eye seek Madam Diane, Duchesse de Valentinois, as she leaned forward to flutter her silk handkerchief to her royal knight, and the Scots bride wondered how the French queen could bear her husband’s open infidelity with so calm a face. Probably the thought of her own private infidelities supported her with the knowledge that she gave as good as she got!

Hush! Now he was charging gallantly, lance at the drive, upon his old friend the Comte de Montgomeri. Splendid sight—white plumes flying, vizor down, a swoop like an eagle’s—horse and man one. Victory to the King! All held their breath to applaud the shattering downfall of his friendly foe.

Again, hush! What was that! A yell of mortal agony. The King drops his lance. His gauntleted hands fly to his face, he sways aside—the horse falters, stumbles. The lance of his foe driven up by the shock of his own has wounded him in the head, in the eye—the brain. God of heaven, the King is down!

Mary started up in her seat, clasping shuddering hands over a shuddering heart. Had it come and so soon? She had looked to quiet years as the queen-dauphiness, but this——! She could not think. Madam Diane was sobbing wildly beside her. The French queen’s speechless face was a mask of yellow ivory. The two queens made their way to where he lay, surrounded by knights shouting for air, for doctors, distraught, unconscious that the queens were nearing.

The English, pale and grim, craned over the shoulders of others to see. God, what a fate! What a change of policy! The rival on the French throne! So soon! Could it be possible?

A heavy rain began to fall. The people melted away, some weeping, for they had loved the gallant amorous king well enough, and the dauphin was but a boy. The English hastened through crowded darkened streets to send the great news home. What would Elizabeth say?

Four days later it was news indeed. Henry, King of France, died at the Palace of Les Tournelles and his last word was to the dauphin and his bride. The French queen’s face was still a mask of yellow ivory, the black eyes shining in it like onyx as she turned to leave the death chamber. She had not hoped for this so soon and yet—it might be for the best. Francis and Mary Stuart were king and queen, and now only one life between her and her goal!

When they reached the great coach waiting to take them to the Louvre that the dead man might be left to the tools of the embalmers, Mary drew back courteously that her mother-in-law might precede her, but the French queen took her hand with downward lids and humility.

“Madam, you are now queen of France, and I—I go behind you. It is for you to walk first.”

Queen of France, queen of Scotland. And this, too, had happened by the same romance that watched over all her fortunes. The King of France could not die in his bed to provide her with another crown. No, he must fall like King Arthur at the head of his Round Table that the Stuart queen might reign. Was it wonderful if a sense of destiny grew upon her? So it would always be. Victory and not victory alone but fair with flying banners and the music of harps and lutes, and the worship of men’s eyes.

But the shock was a shock for all that.

“We are too young to reign. Too young! And your mother will hate me!” she said, sighing to her young king when they had a minute alone. “The weight is too great for us! Oh, I am tired of diplomacy and fighting. I would like to be a girl for one short month and ride and read and play and forget I am a queen.”

“They will never forget or let us forget!” Francis, King of France, answered gloomily. “You are pale as death, Marie. For the sake of the Lord Omnipotent, do not fail me now! What strength have I?”

What, indeed? That night she herself sat for a while strengthless, knowing that she must act for him, think for him, be his brain and heart and conscience. And not only for France—there was Scotland, and things going terribly there in spite of her mother’s frantic efforts. English money and plotting at the back of every prayer of John Knox and the Reformers, every aggression of the band of knights and barons who fed from Elizabeth’s hands and did her base work in so rotting Scotland that she should fall from her bough like a wasp-eaten pear into English hands.

“She is more queen of Scotland than I!” thought Mary, and indeed there were others who thought the same and among them the Iscariot, her base-born brother, Lord James Stuart, who, ferret eyed, was watching to see how the cat would jump there and in England.

But queens have little time for brooding. Two months later preparations for the French coronation were in full swing, and Elizabeth had sent a most distinguished embassage with her congratulations on the accession, and her desire that they should discuss the affairs of Scotland. The young king waved that aside. Scotland was his wife’s. With her they must speak in her separate presence chamber, and though Throckmorton winked at his colleague Mewtas no more could be done. They were not to ignore the young queen as Elizabeth had instructed them to do. France declined that insult.

Indeed, a very high lady! And they realized it during the coronation at Rheims, where she sat among her ladies in the great gallery on the right side of the altar. Not for her, crowned and anointed queen in her own right, to be crowned by any husband. How could she promise him obedience as a subject, any more than he could promise it to her? She became queen of France by right royal as his wife and needed no crown but her own.

Throckmorton watched her sitting pensive among her ladies and saw, however, the smile of joy, the bright flush like wine through alabaster, when the crown was set on her king’s head. She felt, she knew, her power. She gladdened in it. Her head was held high and proudly. She leaned forward as if to launch her hopes and pride through the air to the King. A sight to rejoice men’s eyes.

Throckmorton, watching, bethought him of a rhyme he had heard in Scotland when visiting Lord James Stuart and greasing his greedy palm with English money. The people sang it here and there:

“The bonniest rose that in Scotland blows

Hangs high on the topmost bough.”

High, indeed. None higher. Could any wind of fate blow it in the dust? At all events, Elizabeth and England would think the feat worth trying. He did not see her except at a distance then or for a long time to come, though his duties kept him in France. But he watched her, lynx eyed, and had her watched, and that day would have been a glad one for him or for Elizabeth when in that court of foul living he could have found a hint, a spot as little as the mote in a sunbeam, upon her reputation, for that would have been meat and drink to the Queen of England. He hoped in vain—circling like flies over the dung pit.

There was no spot in her. Poets praised her, musicians sang her, painters set what they could of her beauty on canvas, but no man came near enough even to be discouraged by her modesty. That was all he could learn. She met him with gracious courtesy when at last they did meet.

“Sir Nicholas,” she said in her pretty Scots English, “I am much beholden to you for your patience. But I will write to your queen, and, if I send her my picture, may I hope for hers?”

“Madam, your Grace may hope,” he responded with some want of tact, “yet not with certainty as yet, for at the moment we have no painter worthy to set my queen’s living beauty on canvas, it consisting as much in majesty and nobility as in loveliness of feature and all womanly charms. Therefore, as I say, the thing must wait discreetly.”

If Mary felt somewhat astonished she hid it. She had many pen pictures of Elizabeth and more than one hasty coloured drawing and could very well gauge that vaunted beauty. It had not overwhelmed her, but she thought the Queen well looking and of high presence, and that appeared to be all that was necessary. She could little guess the rage, the hunger, in the heart of Elizabeth for beauty. All but power she would have given to possess it, and power itself she would risk for that look in a man’s eyes which proclaims him slave and master in a breath. Indeed, fresh scandals as to her indecent intimacy with Lord Robert Dudley were thronging the French court and causing great shame and inconvenience to Throckmorton.

“And as to the same picture,” he said pompously, “there is another matter to consider. Can your Grace sue for it while you assume the arms of England to my sovereign’s great pain and indignity? She would be more than queen and woman if she passes such an insult over. I saw those arms in the coronation pageants. I see them everywhere and duly report it to my queen.”

The colour flushed into Mary’s face in a moment. She might be courteous, but there was nothing tame or fearful in her manner.

“And I would have you know, and the Queen also,” she said, stiffening in her great chair, “that I am an English princess, great-granddaughter to your King Henry VII—and why should I not bear the arms of my family?”

Throckmorton countered neatly, as he thought:

“Because, madam, the arms of sovereigns do not descend as in noble families to a daughter’s children and they must not be quartered thus.”

But Mary was ready for him and laughed aloud, but sweetly.

“Then, Sir Nicholas, I must trouble you to tell me why your queen quarters the arms of France which she inherits through a female ancestor. And why does she style herself queen of France—a thing too ridiculous for words, since no woman can reign in France—it being against French laws that any woman reigns?”

Throckmorton was silenced. Why, indeed? That was the weak spot in the English argument. He had himself said as much to Elizabeth before coming to France, foreseeing the bogs in which it would land him. And with what result? Merciful powers! he had shaken in his shoes. She was her father all over at the moment. Her furious face!

“God’s death, Sir Nicholas, and you counsel me to be humble and yield to the French what no king my predecessor has yielded? What? Is England to lessen in my hands? I would sooner die. The French arms are mine, and I will call myself queen of France to their noses. Let them lump it if they do not like it. But the whey-faced Scots child shall give in, or I will know the reason why!”

Women—women! And toys of arms and the like! There were times when Throckmorton wished they had two kings on the two thrones who could fight it out and there an end. He foresaw endless coils of diplomacy, successful for the Scots queen as likely as not. But if ever she came to rule in England he would wish to be well with her, and this was not the way to it. She was too powerful here in France, too popular. He said to his colleague, Mewtas, that day that the best thing for England would be the death of Francis and her return to Scotland.

“We should have her then in the hollow of our hand. Her base-born brother, James Stuart, would sell her like Judas to England if he could get his price.”

“And that may come,” said Mewtas philosophically. “They say this French lad cannot last above two years. She nurses him like the apple of her eye, but what then? A man needs only to look at his long thin throat and hollow cheek to see death in the brightness of his eye.”

Throckmorton grunted a kind of assent. He wished he had the gift of prophecy. It would help him with Elizabeth and more.

Mary also foresaw and feared. They were nearly two years married now and no sign of children. No sign of returning health. He began to speak of the future to her frankly.

He lay one day on a couch in the great window at Chenonceaux and looked out over the shining water. The Marys and their gallants were galloping in the crisp November sunshine through the rustle of russet leaves. It was a day that spoke of life and energy and health, but he lay propped on pillows, languid and sick at heart. He loved her tender unwearying care for his health and her dutifulness to king and husband. She, too, should have been flying through keen air on her white Arab, but nothing would move her from his side. His thin hot hand felt for hers and grasped it. She could feel the sick quick pulse beating swiftly to the end and trembled.

“Marie, ma mie, how good you are to me. You have borne so patiently with my sickness and dulness. Is it for love’s sake?”

His dying eyes implored for assurance.

“For what else, my heart? We were children together. Who should love each other if not we? I have never had a thought but of you. Not one.”

It satisfied him, and her tenderness satisfied him yet more deeply. He had not lived long enough to understand a man’s passion and a woman’s response. He could not ask for what he did not know, nor she grant it.

“When I die, my beloved——”

A cold shudder ran through her blood. He had never said this before. Now he took it simply for granted. She put a fair hand across his lips, but he drew it aside smiling faintly.

“When I die, my beloved, do not go to Scotland. I think it safer here. The English are too strong in Scotland and the red-haired virago dances your men to her music. Stay here and pray for my soul. My mother and all will love you and you will have peace. Stay here.”

“Hush, my heart, my heart!” the girl said, putting her arm about his neck and raising his head to her bosom. “You shall live. The new doctor is all skill. Yes, you shall live, and I will do your work for you until you have strength. I love you. Stay with me.”

She would not say a word of what had escaped him—his mother’s hatred, her own insecurity at the French court. Why grieve him with what he could not alter? He had pangs enough. She put young lips to his wasted cheek as if to breathe her own life into him. Indeed she was mother as well as wife to the lad and he knew it.

“Heart of my heart, of course they would be kind to me, but I want no kindness but yours. None other will I have. Oh, we will be happy! This is winter, but see!—at Fontainebleau soon the windflowers will be coming. No, the snowdrops first, and then the golden daffodils and the warm spring dancing in the woods where none can see. And strength will come with her pure airs, and every day you will grow stronger, my young knight and king whom I love. And some day I shall come to you and stand proudly before you, a queen indeed, and I shall say, ‘Your Majesty, I, a king also, have news for you. That of our love a son shall be born who shall rule the world,’ and you will spring to your feet and fling your arms in air and cry aloud, ‘Thanks to the Mother of God and her Son,’ and then——”

She raised her cheek. He was too quiet. Had he fallen asleep in her embrace? Had he not heard? He was cold and pale as death. He had swooned away into a deathlike faint, and crying aloud she laid him down and rushed to the anteroom for help—for any help in heaven or earth.

Two days later they administered the last rites, and the viaticum of departure was laid upon the lips of the most Christian king, the eldest son of the Church. She did her utmost for him, and that was little in her eyes, for all his heart clung with dying fidelity to her; he thought of her and not of heaven. She knelt, still supporting him, weary, pale as ashes, her eyes upon him, her ears strained for the low murmur which only she could understand, keeping her vigil in the garden of Gethsemane with him. None could separate them. All stood aside to watch the ebbing of the tide which was to leave her alone in the world, and so young.

What thoughts she had in that moment, who could tell? There were no tears in her eyes, nothing but the fixed look of motherhood which sees its beloved drawn slowly and irresistibly from its embrace by a power irresistible.

Once she spoke.

“Could I have done more, Francis? Have I failed in anything?”

And though he was past speech his eyes answered her question fully, passionately.

A day later Throckmorton wrote to Elizabeth, anxiously awaiting the news.

On the 5th December at eleven o’clock in the night he departed to God, leaving as sad and sorrowful a wife as she had reason to be, who, by long watching with him during his sickness and by painful diligence about him, is ill in her own body.

Elizabeth smiled in reading that letter—the first smile she had accorded to her rival, no longer queen of France.

But the French king, Charles, who succeeded his brother, Francis, would look at her portrait when she was far away in cruel Scotland and say, sighing:

“Ah, Francis! short were your life and reign, and yet you are to be envied because you possessed that loveliest of all ladies, and her heart was yours.”