Marvellous indeed was her energy, the vigour she continued to show though in chains; but it was tragical, likewise, through its futility. For Mary never had any luck in her undertakings. The conspiracies she was continually instigating were foredoomed to failure. The game was too unequal. The individual is always weak in face of an effective organisation. Mary Stuart was alone, whereas Elizabeth was the head of a great state, was in command of ministers, police, soldiers and spies; and besides, one can fight better from a government office than from a prison. Cecil had ample resources at his disposal; he could spend freely and, watching with a thousand eyes, could easily checkmate the attempts of this lonely and inexperienced woman. At that time the population of England was about three million. A large number, no doubt; but the authorities kept close watch on suspects; every foreigner who landed on the English coast was under strict observation; there were spies in the taverns, in the prisons, upon the ships that crossed the Channel. When these means failed to elicit the desired information, there was no hesitation in employing a stronger instrument—the rack.
The superiority of collective force over individual force was soon manifest. One after another of Mary’s self-sacrificing friends was, in the course of her years of imprisonment, dragged into the vaults of the Tower and tortured into avowing the schemes and the names of his confederates. One plot after another was crushed by this brutal method. Even when, now and again, Mary Stuart was able, by way of the embassies, to smuggle her correspondence abroad, it took weeks before her letters could reach Rome or Madrid; and many weeks more before her correspondents in the foreign capitals made up their minds to answer these dangerous dispatches; and many weeks more before the answer could get back to her. How supine then was the help which was offered; how intolerably lukewarm did it seem to the impatient woman who was always waiting for armies and armadas to be sent to set her free. The prisoner, the solitary, thinking day and night of his own sad fate, is always inclined to believe that those who live in the free and active world must be thinking as much about him as he thinks about himself. Of course, it is not so.
Vainly, therefore, did Mary Stuart continue to represent her liberation as the most important step towards the Counter-Reformation, as the first and most noteworthy thing the Catholic Church could do to safeguard its position. Those to whom she addressed these instigations were calculators and procrastinators, and were not agreed among themselves. The armada was not equipped; its main promoter, Philip II of Spain, prayed much, but ventured little. He was not inclined, on behalf of the imprisoned Scottish Queen, to declare a war whose outcome no one could foresee. Now and again he or the Pope would send money, to help her to bribe conspirators. But the plots were poor things, badly planned and promptly ferreted out by Walsingham’s spies! Only a few mutilated corpses on Tower Hill served, from time to time, to remind the populace that at some castle in the north there lived a royal prisoner who obstinately persisted in her claim to be the rightful Queen of England; to show the multitude that there were still fools and heroes ready to throw away their lives on behalf of this woman’s alleged rights.
It was plain to all intelligent persons that Mary’s incessant plotting would in the end drag her down to destruction; that she was leading a forlorn hope when, from her prison, she declared war against one of the mightiest monarchs of that day. As early as 1572, after the failure of the Ridolfi conspiracy, her brotherin-law Charles IX angrily declared: “The poor foolish woman will not desist until she loses her head. She will certainly bring about her own execution. If she does so, it will be her own fault, for I can do nothing to hinder her.” These were harsh words from a man whose own heroism sufficed only to make him, during the Massacre of St Bartholomew, fire upon unarmed fugitives from a safe window in the Louvre.
From the outlook of chill reason, Mary behaved foolishly in preferring the hopeless part of conspiracy to making a convenient but cowardly capitulation. It is probable that a timely renunciation of her royal pretensions would have unlocked the doors of her prison house, and if so, during all these years she had the key in her own hands. She need merely humble herself, solemnly abandon her claim alike to the Scottish and to the English throne, and England would have set her at liberty. England would have been glad to do so. Several times Elizabeth—not from magnanimity but from fear, because the accusing presence of this dangerous prisoner was a nightmare to her—endeavoured to build a golden bridge for Mary; again and again she was ready to negotiate with her “dear sister”, and offer an easy compromise. But Mary would rather remain a crowned prisoner than be a queen without a throne; and Knollys had rightly judged her when, during the first days of her imprisonment, he said of her that she had courage to hold out so long as there was left no more than a span of hope. She was keen-witted enough to understand that, if set free as a queen who had abdicated, she could enjoy nothing more than a pitiful freedom; that all that could then await her would be a shameful existence in some out-of-the-way corner; and that it was her present abasement which would give her a great position in history. Stronger than the bars of her prison house were the barriers imposed by her formal declaration that she would never abdicate, and that the last words she uttered on earth would be those of a Queen of Scotland.
Very narrow are the limits between folly and foolhardiness, for the most heroic actions can always be regarded as foolish. In concrete affairs Sancho Panza is shrewder than Don Quixote, and from the standpoint of a “reasonable” man Thersites is more reasonable than Achilles; but Hamlet’s words, “Rightly to be great is not to stir without great argument, but greatly to find quarrel in a straw when honour’s at the stake,” will remain the acid test of a heroic nature. Beyond question Mary Stuart’s resistance was almost hopeless against such overwhelming superiority of force; yet we should do wrong to call it absurd because it was in the end unsuccessful. Throughout these years, and more effectively as year followed year, this seemingly powerless and lonely woman, by her defiance, incorporated an immense power; and, for the very reason that she shook her chains, again and again she made England quake and Elizabeth’s heart tremble. We regard historical happenings in a false perspective when we look upon them only from the convenient standpoint of posterity, which sees effects as well as causes. When the hurly-burly’s done, when the battle’s lost or won, it is easy to stigmatise him who has been vanquished as a fool because he ventured a dangerous combat.
For nigh on twenty years the decision of the struggle between these two women hung in the balance. Many of the conspiracies instigated to restore Mary Stuart to the throne of Scotland or to establish her on that of England might, with better luck and more adroitness, have proved fatal to Elizabeth. Twice or thrice, the Tudor Queen escaped only by a hair’s breadth. First of all the Duke of Northumberland rebelled at the head of the Catholic nobles. The whole of the north was in an uproar, and Elizabeth found it hard work to remain mistress of the situation. Then, yet more dangerous, came the Duke of Norfolk’s intrigue. The flower of the English nobility, and among them some of Elizabeth’s closest friends, such as the Earl of Leicester, supported his scheme for marrying the Scottish Queen, who, lest he should be a laggard in love (what would she not do to promote her triumph?), wrote him the most affectionate letters. Through the intermediation of Ridolfi, the Florentine, Spanish and French troops were ready to land on English soil. Had not Norfolk (as shown by his before-mentioned repudiation of his marital scheme) been a weakling and a coward, had not chance, wind and storm, the sea and betrayal, wrought against the enterprise, the page would have been turned, roles exchanged. Mary Stuart would have gone to live at Westminster while Elizabeth Tudor would have languished in the Tower or have been in her coffin.
The execution of Norfolk, the fate of Northumberland and of all the others who, during these years, had laid down their lives for Mary’s sake, did not deter her last suitor. Another wooer appeared upon the scene, Don John of Austria, illegitimate son of Charles V and half-brother of Philip II, the victor of Lepanto, exempl
ar of chivalry, the first warrior of Christendom. Excluded from the Spanish succession by his bastardy, he had attempted to found a kingdom for himself in Tunis. Then there offered a chance of mounting the Scottish throne by a marriage to the imprisoned Queen. His army was being equipped in the Netherlands, and a plan had been made for the deliverance of Mary when Don John was struck down by the fate that awaited all her helpers. He died prematurely …
It was luck that failed, rather than cunning. If we look clearly into the matter of this prolonged struggle between Elizabeth and Mary, luck always favoured the former, whereas disaster invariably dogged the latter’s courses. Force against force, personality against personality, the women were fairly matched. Not so their respective stars. Once luck had definitely turned against Mary, once she had been dethroned and imprisoned, all her attempts miscarried. The fleets sent against England were scattered by storms; her messengers lost their way; her suitors died or were slain; her friends lacked vigour in the decisive hour; and whoever tried to help her was working for his own destruction.
Profoundly moving, therefore, was what Norfolk said upon the scaffold: “Nothing that was begun by her or for her has ever turned out well.” Evil had pursued her from the time when Bothwell had become her lover. It was equally fatal to love her or to be loved by her. Whoever wished her well did her harm; whoever served her invited death to tap him on the shoulder. As the loadstone mountain in the Arabian tale attracted ships to their wreck because of the iron they had on board, so did she tend to involve all who came near her in her own unhappy fate. That is why her name has become invested with the sinister magic of death. The more hopeless her cause, the more fiercely did she fight. Her long and melancholy imprisonment, instead of breaking her pride, stiffened her to renewed defiance. Of her own free will, though aware that what she did was futile, she challenged the final award of destiny.
Chapter Twenty
War to the Knife
(1584–5)
THE YEARS SPED BY. Days, weeks, months, passed like tenuous clouds over the skies of Mary’s solitude, and were barely noticed in the monotonous course of her life. Nevertheless, time was laying its mark upon her and her contemporaries, and was transforming the world about her. She had reached her fifth decade, an ominous period in a woman’s vital span; and still Mary Stuart remained a captive, still was she deprived of her freedom. Gently, age began to touch her; the hair at her temples was turning grey; her body began to thicken, her general appearance slowly assumed a more matronly aspect, and a quiet melancholy took possession of her soul, a sadness which she sublimated into religious fervour. Deep in her heart, the woman within must have come to realise that the days of love were gone for ever. What could not be fulfilled now must remain unfulfilled to all eternity. Evening had drawn in, and the dark nighttime was at hand. It was long since a wooer had sued for her; perhaps no man would again present himself as a possible lover. In a brief space, maybe, life would be irreclaimably closed. Was there any sense in waiting, and again waiting, for a miracle to happen, for the miracle of liberation, for the miracle of aid coming to her from an indifferent world? During recent years a feeling had been growing stronger with every passing day, that this long-suffering woman was weary of the struggle, and that slowly she was making up her mind to renounce all and accept a compromise. Ever more frequently did she ask herself whether it was not mad and useless to allow herself to wilt away like a flower in the shade, unloved, unremembered; whether she would not be better advised to buy her freedom, and of her own free will to renounce the crown. Mary Stuart, for all her courage, was finding that captivity pressed too heavily upon her tired spirit; life had become so empty that her craving for power was slowly changing into a mystical longing for death. This explains her mood on the morning of her execution, when she wrote the heart-rending lines:
O Domine Deus! speravi in te.
O care mi Jesu! nunc libera me.
In dura catena, in misera poena, desidero te;
Languendo, gemendo et genu flectendo,
Adoro, imploro, ut liberes me.
(O Lord my God, I have hoped in Thee. O dear Lord Jesu, set me free. Though hard the chains that fasten me, and sore my lot, yet I long for Thee; I languish, and groaning bend my knee, adoring, imploring—set me free.) Since none came to deliver her, Mary turned more and more to her Redeemer. Far better to commit her soul into His hands than to continue to live so empty an existence, to continue waiting and uncertain, expectant and full of hope, only at last to be frustrated once more. Let an end be made—whether good or bad, whether through victory or complete relinquishment of her claim, she no longer cared. And since Mary Stuart herself desired this end with every energy of her nature, accomplishment could not fail to ensue.
The longer the struggle continued, the more tenacious had the two antagonists become. Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor confronted one another defiantly. In the political arena the English Queen secured one success after another. She had composed her differences with France; Spain dared not declare war; her hand lay heavy upon malcontents at home and abroad. But one enemy remained to deal satisfactorily with—a woman within her own borders, a woman conquered and yet unconquerable. Only when this last foe had been set aside could Elizabeth look upon herself as a genuine victress. For Mary Stuart, too, Elizabeth Tudor remained the only survivor upon whom to concentrate the full fury of her hatred.
In a fit of despairing moodiness she made a last appeal to the humane feelings of her sister in destiny, writing an epistle whose plaintiveness is most affecting.
I cannot, madam, suffer it any longer; and, dying, I must discover the authors of my death. The vilest criminals in your gaols and born under your authority are admitted to be tried for their own justification, and their accusers and the accusation against them are made known to them. Why should not the same privilege be accorded to me, a sovereign queen, your nearest relative and your legitimate heir? I think that this last quality has been hitherto the principal cause of exciting my enemies against me, and of all their calumnies for creating division between us two, in order to advance their own unjust pretensions. But, alas! they have now little reason and still less need to torment me longer on this account; for I protest to you on mine honour that I now look for no other kingdom than that of my God, whom I see preparing me for the best end of all my sorrows and adversities.
Then she added a final plea:
I entreat you, for the honour and grievous passion of our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesu Christ; once more I beseech you to permit me to withdraw from this kingdom to some place of rest, there to seek solace for my poor body, so worn and wearied with unceasing grief and, with liberty of my conscience, to prepare my soul for God who daily summons me … Give me this contentment before I die that, seeing all things set at rest between us, my soul, delivered from my body, may not be constrained to pour out its complaints before God for the wrong you have suffered to be done me here below …
Elizabeth turned a deaf ear to this moving appeal, and no compassionate word dropped from her lips. But Mary Stuart, too, henceforward kept silent and clenched her fists. Hatred now possessed her, a cold and fierce and enduring hatred, all the more ardent because it was concentrated upon one individual, the last of her enemies to remain alive, since the others had either died a natural death or had been put away by their foes and adversaries. It was as if a demon of death emanated from the person of Mary Stuart, a demon that assailed as indiscriminately those she loved as it assailed those she hated, slaying or maiming her supporters and her antagonists alike. The accusers at the York Commission of Inquiry, Moray, Morton and Lethington, died violent deaths; those who at York sat in judgement upon her, Northumberland and Norfolk, lost their heads on the block; those who conspired against Darnley and those who did the same by Bothwell, the traitors of Kirk o’ Field, of Carberry Hill, and of Langside, betrayed themselves, as in the case of Lindsay and Kirkcaldy; those she abhorred, the whole band of wild, ruthless and dangerous men who loved life so greedi
ly, the lords and earls of Scotland, slew one another, thus settling age-long disputes with the point of a dirk. The arena had been well-nigh emptied of combatants. One alone remained for Mary to wrestle with and to hate—Elizabeth Tudor. Thus the combat had degenerated into a duel. One would have to remain victorious; the other needs must be vanquished. The hour for trafficking and compromise had gone by; now it was a struggle for life or for death.