Unknown to History: A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland by Yonge (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

I have thought or spoken of such a matter since we knew how it was with me.

"And you give me your word?"

"Yea, madam," said Cicely, who had really never entertained the idea of marrying Humfrey, implicit as was her trust in him as a brother and protector.

"That is well. And so soon as I am restored to my poor servants, if I ever am, I will take measures for sending the French remnant to their own land; nor shall my Courcelles quit thee till she hath seen thee safe in the keeping of Madame de Lorraine or of Queen Louise, who is herself a kinswoman of ours, and, they say, is piety and gentleness itself."

"As you will, madam," said Cicely, her heart sinking at the thought of the strange new world before her, but perceiving that she must not be the means of bringing Humfrey into trouble and danger.

Perhaps she felt this the more from seeing how acutely her mother suffered at times from sorrow for those involved in her disaster. She gave Babington and his companions, as well as Nau and Curll, up for lost, as the natural consequence of having befriended her; and she blamed herself remorsefully, after the long experience of the fatal consequences of meddling in her affairs, for having entered into correspondence with the bright enthusiastic boy whom she remembered, and having lured him without doubt to his death.

"Alack! alack!" she said, "and yet such is liberty, that I should forget all I have gone through, and do the like again, if the door seemed opened to me. At least there is this comfort, cruel child, thy little heart was not set on him, gracious and handsome though he were—and thy mother's most devoted knight! Ah! poor youth, it wrings my soul to think of him. But at least he is a Catholic, his soul will be safe, and I will have hundreds of masses sung for him. Oh that I knew how it goes with them! This torture of silent suspense is the most cruel of all."

Mary paced the room with impatient misery, and in such a round the weary hours dragged by, only mitigated by one welcome thunderstorm, for seventeen days, whose summer length made them seem the more endless. Cicely, who had never before in her life been shut up in the house so many hours, was pale, listless, and even fretful towards the Queen, who bore with her petulance so tenderly as more than once to make her weep bitterly for very shame. After one of these fits of tears, Mary pleaded earnestly with Sir Walter Ashton for permission for the maiden to take a turn in the garden every day, but though the good gentleman's complexion bore testimony that he lived in the fresh air, he did not believe in its efficacy; he said he had no orders, and could do nothing without warrant. But that evening at supper, the serving-maid brought up a large brew of herbs, dark and nauseous, which Dame Ashton had sent as good for the young lady's megrim.

"Will you taste it, sir?" asked the Queen of Sir Walter, with a revival of her lively humour.

"The foul fiend have me if a drop comes within my lips," muttered the knight. "I am not bound to taste for a tirewoman!" he added, leaving it in doubt whether his objection arose from distaste to his lady's messes, or from pride; and he presently said, perhaps half-ashamed of himself, and willing to cast the blame on the other side,

"It was kindly meant of my good dame, and if you choose to flout at, rather than benefit by it, that is no affair of mine."

He left the potion, and Cicely disposed of it by small instalments at the windows; and a laugh over the evident horror it excited in the master, did the captives at least as much good as the camomile, centaury, wormwood, and other ingredients of the bowl.

Happily it was only two days later that Sir Walter announced that his custody of the Queen was over, and Sir Amias Paulett was come for her. There was little preparation to make, for the two ladies had worn their riding-dresses all the time; but on reaching the great door, where Sir Amias, attended by Humfrey, was awaiting them, they were astonished to see a whole troop on horseback, all armed with head-pieces, swords and pistols, to the number of a hundred and forty.

"Wherefore is this little army raised?" she asked.

"It is by order of the Queen," replied Ashton, with his accustomed surly manner, "and need enough in the time of such treasons!"

The Queen turned to him with tears on her cheeks. "Good gentlemen," she said, "I am not witting of anything against the Queen. Am I to be taken to the Tower?"

"No, madam, back to Chartley," replied Sir Amias.

"I knew they would never let me see my cousin," sighed the Queen. "Sir," as Paulett placed her on her horse, "of your pity tell me whether I shall find all my poor servants there."

"Yea, madam, save Mr. Nau and Mr. Curll, who are answering for themselves and for you. Moreover, Curll's wife was delivered two days since."

This intelligence filled Mary with more anxiety than she chose to manifest to her unsympathising surroundings; Cis meanwhile had been assisted to mount by Humfrey, who told her that Mrs. Curll was thought to be doing well, but that there were fears for the babe. It was impossible to exchange many words, for they were immediately behind the Queen and her two warders, and Humfrey could only tell her that his father had been at Chartley, and had gone on to London; but there was inexpressible relief in hearing the sound of his voice, and knowing she had some one to think for her and protect her. The promise she had made to the Queen only seemed to make him more entirely her brother by putting that other love out of the question.

There was a sad sight at the gate,—a whole multitude of wretched-looking beggars, and poor of all ages and degrees of misery, who all held out their hands and raised one cry of "Alms, alms, gracious Lady, alms, for the love of heaven!"

Mary looked round on them with tearful eyes, and exclaimed, "Alack, good folk, I have nothing to give you! I am as much a beggar as yourselves!"

The escort dispersed them roughly, Paulett assuring her that they were nothing but "a sort of idle folk," who were only encouraged in laziness by her bounty, which was very possibly true of a certain proportion of them, but it had been a sore grief to her that since Cuthbert Langston's last approach in disguise she had been prevented from giving alms.

In due time Chartley was reached, and the first thing the Queen did on dismounting was to hurry to visit poor Barbara Curll, who had—on her increasing illness—been removed to one of the guest-chambers, where the Queen now found her, still in much distress about her husband, who was in close imprisonment in Walsingham's house, and had not been allowed to send her any kind of message; and in still more immediate anxiety about her new-born infant, who did not look at all as if its little life would last many hours.

She lifted up her languid eyelids, and scarcely smiled when the Queen declared, "See, Barbara, I am come back again to you, to nurse you and my god-daughter into health to receive your husband again. Nay, have no fears for him. They cannot hurt him. He has done nothing, and is a Scottish subject beside. My son shall write to claim him," she declared with such an assumed air of confidence that a shade of hope crossed the pale face, and the fear for her child became the more pressing of the two griefs.

"We will christen her at once," said Mary, turning to the nearest attendant. "Bear a request from me to Sir Amias that his chaplain may come at once and baptize my god-child."

Sir Amias was waiting in the gallery in very ill-humour at the Queen's delay, which kept his supper waiting. Moreover, his party had a strong dislike to private baptism, holding that the important point was the public covenant made by responsible persons, and the notion of the sponsorship of a Roman Catholic likewise shocked him. So he made ungracious answer that he would have no baptism save in church before the congregation, with true Protestant gossips.

"So saith he?" exclaimed Mary, when the reply was reported to her. "Nay, my poor little one, thou shalt not be shut out of the Kingdom of Heaven for his churlishness." And taking the infant on her knee, she dipped her hand in the bowl of water that had been prepared for the chaplain, and baptized it by her own name of Mary.

The existing Prayer-book had been made expressly to forbid lay baptism and baptism by women, at the special desire of the reformers, and Sir Amias was proportionately horrified, and told her it was an offence for the Archbishop's court.

"Very like," said Mary. "Your Protestant courts love to slay both body and soul. Will it please you to open my own chambers to me, sir?"

Sir Amias handed the key to one of her servants but she motioned him aside.

"Those who put me forth must admit me," she said.

The door was opened by one of the gentlemen of the household, and they entered. Every repository had been ransacked, every cabinet stood open and empty, every drawer had been pulled out. Wearing apparel and the like remained, but even this showed signs of having been tossed over and roughly rearranged by masculine fingers.

Mary stood in the midst of the room, which had a strange air of desolation, an angry light in her eyes, and her hands clasped tightly one into the other. Paulett attempted some expression of regret for the disarray, pleading his orders.

"It needs not excuse, sir," said Mary, "I understand to whom I owe this insult. There are two things that your Queen can never take from me—royal blood and the Catholic faith. One day some of you will be sorry for what you have now put upon me! I would be alone, sir," and she proudly motioned him to the door, with a haughty gesture, showing her still fully Queen in her own apartments. Paulett obeyed, and when he was gone, the Queen seemed to abandon the command over herself she had preserved all this time. She threw herself into Jean Kennedy's arms, and wept freely and piteously, while the good lady, rejoicing at heart to have recovered "her bairn," fondled and soothed her with soft Scottish epithets, as though the worn woman had been a child again. "Yea, nurse, mine own nurse, I am come back to thee; for a little while—only a little while, nurse, for they will have my blood, and oh! I would it were ended, for I am aweary of it all."

Jean and Elizabeth Curll tried to cheer and console her, alarmed at this unwonted depression, but she only said, "Get me to bed, nurse, I am sair forfaughten."

She was altogether broken down by the long suspense, the hardships and the imprisonment she had undergone, and she kept her bed for several days, hardly speaking, but apparently reposing in the relief afforded by the recovered care and companionship of her much-loved attendants.

There she was when Paulett came to demand the keys of the caskets where her treasure was kept. Melville had refused to yield them, and all the Queen said was, "Robbery is to be added to the rest," a sentence which greatly stung the knight, but he actually seized all the coin that he found, including what belonged to Nau and Curll, and, only retaining enough for present expenses, sent the rest off to London.

CHAPTER XXXI. EVIDENCE.

In the meantime the two Richard Talbots, father and son, had safely arrived in London, and had been made welcome at the house of their noble kinsman.

Nau and Curll, they heard, were in Walsingham's house, subjected to close examination; Babington and all his comrades were in the Tower. The Council was continually sitting to deliberate over the fate of the latter unhappy men, of whose guilt there was no doubt; and neither Lord Talbot nor Will Cavendish thought there was any possibility of Master Richard gaining permission to plead how the unfortunate Babington had been worked on and deceived. After the sentence should be pronounced, Cavendish thought that the request of the Earl of Shrewsbury might prevail to obtain permission for an interview between the prisoner and one commissioned by his former guardian. Will was daily attending