Before returning to her native land, Mary Stuart could not but be aware that Elizabeth had no reason and still less any inclination to make things easy and smooth for a rival who was only awaiting her death to step into her shoes and mount the English throne. With cynical candour, Elizabeth’s minister, Cecil, supported every aggressive act on the part of his sovereign, saying: “The longer the Scottish Queen’s affairs remain in disorder, the better for Your Majesty’s cause.” The animus aroused by that painted claim to the throne of England was still fresh and vigorous. True, the Scottish estates and lords in Edinburgh had drawn up a treaty with England wherein it was clearly stated that Mary Stuart “for all times coming” undertook to recognise Elizabeth as the rightful tenant of the English throne. But when the document reached Paris and was placed before Mary for signature, she and young Francis refused to ratify it or to have anything to do with it. Renunciation was not in Mary’s blood, especially since her claim had officially been incorporated in her husband’s coat of arms. Never would she be able to lower the standard once it had been raised. For political reasons she might consent to not making a display of her pretensions, but in the innermost sanctum of her heart Mary Stuart had an iron determination never to yield in this matter.
Elizabeth could not tolerate such ambiguity; for her the question must be settled with an outright Yes or No. Acting on behalf of Mary, the Scottish Queen’s representatives in Edinburgh, said Elizabeth, had already signed the treaty, thus committing their sovereign to the undertaking, and compelling her to acquiesce. The English monarch would not be satisfied with a secret agreement; what she needed was a public and binding pronouncement, a document which should leave no door open for misinterpretation. Every refusal on Mary’s part suggested that she still laid claim to Elizabeth’s possessions; that, in addition to the Scottish throne, she felt herself entitled to ascend the English. Elizabeth, whose sympathies lay more in the direction of the Protestant cause, knew only too well that half her realm was still passionately Catholic in sentiment. A Catholic pretender to her throne meant, therefore, not merely a danger to her public office, but likewise a menace to her private life. For safety’s sake she must have Mary’s signature to the before-mentioned treaty, and it was sound policy on her part that she should not relax in open hostility to the Scottish Queen so long as the latter refused to sign. She felt her position insecure, felt that she was no true queen, until her rival had made public acknowledgment and had abdicated all immediate claims to the English crown.
None would venture to deny that right was on Elizabeth’s side in the quarrel. Unfortunately she put herself in the wrong by trying to settle a political conflict of such magnitude by adopting petty and unworthy methods. When women enter the field of politics, they are often tempted to wound opponents with pinpricks and to envenom rivalries by the use of personal invective. In this instance Elizabeth, despite the width of her political vision, fell into the fault peculiar to her sex when faced by such circumstances. Mary was proposing to travel home by sea, but asked for a “safe conduct” should sickness or rough weather make a landing on English soil desirable. Was not this demand a fairly plain proffer of a desire for a friendly personal talk with her cousin—a talk which might smooth away their differences? To grant the safe conduct would have been no more than a formal act of courtesy, since anyhow the sea route was open. Elizabeth’s response was to say that she would grant no safe conduct so long as Mary had not placed her signature at the foot of the Edinburgh treaty. In the hope of coercing the Queen she thus wounded the woman. Instead of making a magnanimous gesture or if necessary going to war, she had recourse to a personal affront.
So far the conflict between the two cousins had been more or less masked; now all veils were wrenched aside, and with hard, hot eyes one proud woman confronted the other. Mary Stuart summoned the English ambassador to audience, and addressed him with passionate disdain:
There is nothing that doth more grieve me than that I did so forget myself as to require of the Queen your mistress that favour which I had no need to ask. I needed no more to have made her privy to my journey than she doth me of hers. I may pass well enough home into my own realm, I think, without her passport or licence, for though the late King your master used all the impeachment he could both to stay me, and to catch me when I came hither, yet you know, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, I came hither safely—and I may have as good means to help me home again as I had to come hither, if I would employ my friends … You have, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, oftentimes told me that the amity between the Queen your mistress and me was very necessary and profitable for us both. I have some reason now to think that the Queen your mistress is not of that mind; for I am sure, if she were, she would not have refused me thus unkindly. It seemeth she maketh more account of the amity of my disobedient subjects than she doth of me their sovereign, who am her equal in degree, though inferior in wisdom and experience, her nighest kinswoman, and her next neighbour … I ask nothing but her friendship; I do not trouble her state, nor practise with her subjects—and yet I know there be in her realm those that be inclined enough to hear offers.
This was a threat in good earnest, strong rather than wise, for before ever setting foot in Scotland Mary Stuart already allowed it to be known that, if constrained to fight Elizabeth, she would carry the war over the border and onto English soil. In courtly words the ambassador drew Mary’s attention to the fact that these many difficulties and misunderstandings had arisen because she bore the arms of England diversely quartered with her own and used notoriously the style and tide of the Queen his mistress. To which Mary answered in spirited protest:
Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, I was then under the command of King Henry my father, and of the King my lord and husband; and whatsoever was done then by their order and commandments, the same was in like manner continued until both their deaths; since which time, you know I have neither borne the arms, nor used the title of England. Methinks these my doings might ascertain the Queen your mistress that that which was done before, was done by commandment of them that had the power over me; and also in reason she ought to be satisfied, seeing I order my doings as I tell you. It were no great dishonour to the Queen my cousin … though I, as Queen also, did bear the Arms of England; for I am sure some inferior to me, and that be not on every side so well apparented as I am, do bear the Arms of England. You cannot deny but that my grandmother was the King her father’s sister, and, I trow, the eldest sister he had …
Though the method of expression was quite friendly, beneath the outer semblance of amiability the ambassador detected another threat. When, wishing to smooth matters over, he urged Mary to clear unpleasantness out of the way by fulfilling her representatives’ pledge and signing the Edinburgh protocol, Mary was evasive, as always when this thorny point came up for discussion. She did not actually decline to sign the treaty, but promised to consult her estates after her arrival in Scotland. The English ambassador, however, paid her back in her own coin, and remained as evasive as she, refusing to commit himself or his mistress in the matter of the succession. Whenever negotiations took a critical turn, and it became evident that one queen or the other would have to cede a particle of her rights, both women became insincere. Each hung on to her trump card, grimly and resolutely. Thus the game was protracted indefinitely, and must inevitably lead to a tragical issue. Of a sudden Mary broke off the discussion concerning her safe conduct; it was as if a cloth had been torn across, producing a harsh and rasping hiss.
If my preparations were not so much advanced as they are, peradventure the Queen your mistress’ unkindness might stay my voyage; but now I am determined to adventure the matter, whatsoever come of it; I trust the wind will be so favourable that I shall not need to come on the coast of England; for if I do then, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, the Queen your mistress shall have me in her hands to do her will of me; and if she be so hardhearted as to desire my end, she may then do her pleasure and make sacrifice of me. Peradventure that casualty might be
better for me than to live. In this matter, God’s will be fulfilled.
For the first time in her life Mary Stuart put force, self-determination, and resoluteness into the words she spoke. As a rule she had proved herself to be of an affable, easy-going, frivolous and laughter-loving nature, more enthralled with enjoyment and the beauty of life than with a fight; but now she showed herself to be hard as iron, defiant, daring, for she was faced by an issue involving her personal pride, while her rights as Queen were likewise being questioned. Better by far to die than bend to another’s will. Better royal folly than pitiful weakness. One who challenged her queenly dignity touched the very nerve of her life. In moments like this she became truly great and, woman though she was, she showed a man’s knightly strength. The ambassador sent an express to London, reporting that his mission had not met with success. Elizabeth thereupon, with her usual suppleness and shrewdness where politics were concerned, yielded the point, and dispatched a passport to Calais forthwith. It arrived two days behind time, for Mary had meanwhile decided to undertake the voyage even though this might mean an encounter with English privateers in the Channel. She infinitely preferred running a risk and experiencing grave discomfort to accepting a favour at the price of humiliation. Elizabeth had missed a splendid opportunity. Had she, on this occasion, acted with magnanimity, had she welcomed as an honoured guest the young woman whom she had reason to fear as a rival, she might have swept the whole of this dangerous conflict out of her path. Alas that reason and politics so seldom can step hand in hand along the same road! May it not be that the dramatic events in the history of mankind arise solely from a failure to seize possibilities?
The sun in its setting often illuminates the countryside with a red and golden glory, giving to the landscape a false aspect of life and vitality. Such a deceptive aureole surrounded Mary Stuart as she took her final leave of France, for the French made a point of carrying out in her honour a full ceremonial in all its magnificent ostentation. She, who had been a French king’s bride, who had fallen from her high estate through no fault of her own, and who had been deprived of her position as France’s ruler by a mishap, could not be allowed to leave the land of her adoption unaccompanied and unsung. It must be made abundantly clear to everyone that Mary was not sailing forth under a cloud, as the unhappy widow of a French monarch or as a weak and helpless woman whom her friends had left in the lurch. No, the Queen of Scotland was going home, backed by French honour and French arms. Setting out from Saint-Germain, she made her way to Calais in the company of a vast procession, a cavalcade whose horses were caparisoned with the most elaborate and beautiful harness, trappings inlaid with gold and other precious metals, and whose riders were dressed in the full splendour of which the French Renaissance was capable. The highway leading to the little port was made gay with colour, bright with the polished steel of weapons, loud with the voices of the flower of the French nobility. At the head of the brilliant retinue was a state carriage conveying the Queen’s uncles, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinals of Lorraine and Guise. Mary herself was surrounded by the four girls who had never left her, by noblewomen, pages, poets and musicians. The days of romance and chivalry seemed to be living a second springtime. The train was followed by a succession of chariots bearing costly furniture and other objects that had gone to the making of her homes in France. The crown jewels were transported in a closed shrine. As she had come a queen, welcomed with a pageantry and honour worthy of her rank, so too did she leave the country of her adoption, the country which had won the love of her heart. But on this occasion joy was lacking, that innocent joy which had lit up the eyes of an astonished child; this was the fading afterglow of sunset and not the radiance of dawn.
The main body of the princely cortège stayed ashore in Calais. Then the cavalcade dispersed, each rider seeking his own home. Away in Paris, sheltered behind the walls of the Louvre, another monarch was awaiting the return of these nobles who were henceforth to serve him, for courtiers may not live in the pomp of yesterday, it being their business to think only of the present and the future. Dignities and position, not the human being who has to shoulder them, are the only things that count so far as a courtier is concerned. These fine fellows will forget Mary Stuart as soon as the wind has filled the sails of her galleon; they will expunge her image from their hearts. The parting was no more to them than a pathetic ritual, belonging to the same category of public pageantry as a coronation or a funeral. Genuine sorrow at Mary Stuart’s melancholy pilgrimage was felt only by the poets, for poets are endowed with keener perceptions and with the twofold gifts of prophecy and remembrance. Those who wept over Mary’s going knew only too acutely that with this young woman, who had wished to create a court of cheerfulness and beauty, the Muses would disappear likewise from French territory; they foresaw days filled with vicissitude and uncertainty for themselves and the French people; they sensed the advent of political and religious disputes and contentions, the struggle with the Huguenots, the disastrous St Bartholomew’s night, squabbles with zealots and quibblers. Gone were the days of chivalry, gone romance, as the maidenly figure disappeared over the waters. The star of poesy, the star of the “Pléiade”, was about to set in a murky sky rendered the gloomier by the prospect of war. Spiritual happiness, pure and unsullied, sailed away with Mary Stuart. As Ronsard put it, in his elegy Au Départ:
Le jour que votre voile aux vents se recourba,
Et de nos yeux pleurants les vostres déroba,
Ce jour la même voile emporta loin de France
Les Muses, qui songeoient y faire demourance.
(The day whereon the breeze did fill the sails of the galleon which snatched you from our streaming eyes, carried, likewise, far away from France the Muses, who had thought to make that land their dwelling place.) In this same poem the writer, with a heart ever responsive to all that was young and charming, wished to celebrate in the written word that which his ardent eyes would never again behold in the quick, warm flesh. The genuine grief which pulled at his heart strings inspired him to pen a dirge which alone would make him rank high among the poets of his day.
Comment pourroient chanter les bouches des poètes,
Quand par vostre départ les Muses sont muettes?
Tout ce qu’il est de beau ne se garde longtemps,
Les roses et les lys ne règnent qu’un printemps.
Ainsi votre beauté, seulement apparu
Quinze ans en notre France, est soudain disparue,
Comme on voit d’un éclair s’évanouir le trait,
Et d’elle n’a laissé sinon le regret,
Sinon le déplaisir qui me remet sans cesse
Au cœur le souvenir d’une telle princesse.
(How can the mouths of poets pour forth song since your departure has struck the Muses dumb? Beauty lives no longer than a day, roses and lilies die when spring is dead. Thus has your flowerlike loveliness passed away after gracing our France for fifteen years, passed with the speed of a lightning flash, leaving behind it nothing but regret, and a grief which continually calls to mind the memory of so radiant a princess.) Whereas by the court and nobles and gentry of France the absent Queen was soon to be forgotten, the poets of that fair realm were to remain for long her faithful servitors; for to the poetic imagination misfortune invests the sufferer with fresh nobility, and she whom the poets had sung on account of her beauty would henceforward be doubly loved because of the evils which befell her. To the end of her days Mary Stuart kept their faithful homage, and their tuneful lyrics accompanied her even as she mounted the scaffold. When a person of intrinsic worth lives a life that is a genuine poem, a true drama, a beautiful saga and ballad, poets will never be lacking to clothe it anew and to breathe into it the fresh and vibrant imagery of inspiration.
A splendid white galleon was riding at anchor in Calais roads. She was a French flagship, flying the Scottish colours as well. Here, on 14th August 1561, Mary Stuart went aboard, accompanied by three of her uncles, a few of the most distin
guished noblemen and the four Marys, her inseparable companions. Two other vessels formed an escort. But the ship had not left the inner harbour, her sails had not been fully unfurled, when a portent cast a shadow on this voyage into the unknown. A vessel entering the port the Queen had barely left struck the bar, foundered and sank. Mary, greatly agitated, called upon her captain to save the drowning mariners. But the accident had occurred too suddenly for human aid to be of any avail. This catastrophe was, indeed, a bad omen for the young and inexperienced woman who was leaving the protection of a land she loved to take up her duties as Queen and ruler in a country that was strange and foreign to her.
Was it a secret dread of what fate held in store for her, was it a keen sense of loss as she left what had hitherto been her homeland, was it a feeling that she would not return to these shores, which brought the tears to eyes whose gaze never for a moment left the retreating landscape, the country where she had spent her carefree girlhood, where she had been so happy because no worries had been allowed to approach her? Her passionate grief on bidding farewell to France has been touchingly described for us by Brantôme:
So soon as the ship had steered clear of the harbour and the wind rose a little, the crew began to hoist the sails. Standing in the stern, close to the rudder, and leaning with both arms on the taffrail, Queen Mary wept as she looked at the harbour and the country from which she was departing. There she remained, again and again mournfully repeating: “Farewell, France,” until night fell. Her companions urged her to retire to her cabin and rest, but she refused, so a couch was improvised for her on the poop. Before lying down she told the pilot to awaken her at dawn if the coast of France were still visible. He was not to be afraid, even if he had to shout at her. Fortune favoured her wishes. Since the wind had dropped, it was necessary to have recourse to the oars, and the galleon made little progress. At daybreak France was still in the offing. Directly the pilot spoke to her, she rose and continued to gaze at the coasts so long as they were in sight, again and again repeating plaintively: “Farewell, France! Farewell, France! I fear I shall never see you more.”