The Queen's Caprice by Bowen Marjorie

Author:Bowen, Marjorie [Bowen, Marjorie]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

Part 3

THE ROSE TREE AT LOCH LEVEN

“It is too frequent with noblemen to be dishonest; piety, chastity, and such-like virtues are for private men, not much to be looked for in great Courts.”

Democritus Junior.

3: The Rose Tree at Loch Leven

THE Earl of Moray waited in France. Outwardly he seemed ruined — a statesman without a government, a warrior without an army, a prince without a kingdom. But he was not worried. He knew that he had only to wait, and he did not think it was likely that he would wait long. News from Scotland arrived regularly from Sir William Maitland, who remained with the Queen.

Everything had gone as he had arranged it; just as Henry Stewart had been used to destroy Rizzio, so Earl Bothwell had been used to destroy Henry Stewart, and now he in his turn must go.

Bothwell’s ascendancy after the removal of the King had been brilliant and sudden, and Moray, without a farewell to his sister, had gone to France, leaving the conduct of Scottish affairs to other men. He was glad that he had such an able instrument as Maitland, who continued to move among these dangerous intrigues, and to keep close to the Queen’s side. Morton, too, and his influence with Knox was invaluable to Moray.

Moray watched how all Europe recoiled from the murder of King Henry, and how warnings and advice from England, France, and from her own Ambassador in Paris, had been sent to the Queen that she should at once search out the assassins and show no favour to the man who was judged the chief of them — Earl Bothwell. He gathered up all the gossip and tried to sift truth from lies.

What of the Queen throughout this? Moray had sought an exact knowledge of her behaviour. But it was not easy, for she lived sometimes in the castle, sometimes in Holyrood, sometimes away in the hills, and the reports as to her conduct differed. Maitland, who kept close to her and whose delicate curiosity could probe the minds of most people, wrote in his cautious cipher to Moray that even he did not quite know what to say of the Queen. It was believed that she would marry Bothwell, yet that seemed hard to credit. All Europe deplored her choice.

Moray, watching from afar, saw her light as a bubble on a wave riding to annihilation. She no longer concerned him, nor his politics, aims, and ideals. These now concentrated on the child, the Protestant Prince who should rule Scotland and perhaps England.

He had all his schemes prepared. He would be Regent. Quite soon, when Bothwell had run his lunatic course, the Lords would send for him, and he and Maitland would rule Scotland, wise, justly, cautiously, not binding the country over-much to either France or England but building it up to independence.

For what had passed he had no regret. He knew that the crime in Kirk o’ Field could be turned to considerable account, first to destroy Bothwell, then to keep Huntly, Morton, even Maitland, in their places.

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