To fight for a cause you believed in was a glorious thing. Honour mattered more than life; and should you die most miserably, then there was nothing to fear, for, if you died for the right, you were received into Heaven, and there all was good, all was peace. So said the Admiral.

Charles longed to confide his hopes in this man as well as to tell of his fears, but he remembered his mother’s injunctions to speak to no one with regard to his beloved Mary.

The Spanish Envoy, watching this friendship between the King and Coligny, wrote home to his master in great anger. The Guises watched and waited while they prepared to put an end to this state of affairs.


* * *

Mary Stuart was in despair. To the French court had come men from Scotland, her native land, to claim their Queen. Scotland was a foreign land to her. She had known that she was the Queen of Scotland, but she accepted the Queen of Scots as her title as she accepted that other, Queen of England; she had never thought of it as anything but a title. And now from Scotland had come men to take her there.

They terrified her, these men from Scotland. They were strangers, foreigners – tall, fair-haired and dour. They were not delighted, as she was, with the court of France; they found it shocking. The beautiful clothes, the dainty manners, the charming gallantry between ladies and courtiers – they thought these things wicked, scandalous. They despised the lilting French tongue and they refused to speak it.

Why did not her uncles thwart the plans of these men? To whom could she turn? A little while ago she had only to express the smallest wish and there were many to hurry to gratify it, to count themselves honoured to serve her who, they all agreed, was the most enchanting of princesses.

And now there was no one to help her. She knew why. The Queen Mother had decided that there was no longer a place for her in France.

Mary had wept until she had no tears; she had shut herself in her apartments, declaring that she was too sick to appear. Someone must help her. She had not realised when Francis died – and that had been a great tragedy to her – that this greater tragedy must follow. She had thought that so many people at the French court loved her that they would never let her go.

There had been many noble gentlemen who had worshipped her with their eyes; the poet Ronsard had written his verses especially for her. They would have died for her, so she had believed; and now she was to be sent away from them, to a cold and miserable land where there was no gaiety, no balls, no gallants, no poets – only dour men such as these who had come to France, to disapprove of that gaiety and beauty of hers which the French had loved.

She could not believe that it could happen to her – the Queen of France, the pampered Princess. She thought of her arrival in France, of Francis’s father, King Henry, on whose knee she had sat and who had loved her, and whom she had loved; she thought of the attention which had been paid to her by Diane de Poitiers, and in those days Diane had been virtually Queen of France. She thought of the fun of playing with the royal Princes and Princesses, of having lessons with them and showing everyone how much more clever, how much more charming she was than they. For years she had thought of this land as her home, and that she would never leave it. How could anyone be so unkind as to let her go? She had loved Francis – oh, not as madly as he had loved her – but adequately. It had been so pleasant to be adored, and she had been truly sorry when he had died; but she had not thought that his death would mean her banishment from the gay land to which she felt she belonged.

There was, however, a ray of hope. Little Charles loved her. Naturally, one did not think of a little boy, not yet eleven years old, as a husband; yet betrothals – even marriages – were arranged between youthful kings and queens.

There were visitors to her apartments – those who came to condole – but she had a feeling that none of them really cared. Her brothers-in-law Henry and Hercule came; but they were too selfish to care what happened to her. Hercule was too young to appreciate her beauty, and Henry had never cared very much for the beauty of women. Margot made a show of crying with her, but Margot did not care and would be glad to see her go, for the selfish creature looked upon Mary as a rival. Margot knew what it meant to be admired, for although only eight she was a true coquette, and she wanted the admiration of the men who admired Mary to be directed to herself; so while she said that it was very sad and that she had heard that Scotland was not a very pleasant place, she was smoothing her dress and patting her lovely black hair, and thinking: When Mary has gone, I shall be the most beautiful Princess at court.

As for Charles, she was not allowed to see him.

Why did not her uncles arrange for her a marriage to the new King of France? They neglected her now, and she saw that the attentions which they had showered upon her such a short while ago had not been for herself, their little niece whom they loved, but for the Queen of France, whom they wished to use in order to rule her husband.

She was sick with fright. There was not only the wretchedness of leaving a land which she had come to regard as her home; there was not only the nostalgia which she would feel, she knew, for the rest of her life if she were sent away; there was the perilous sea voyage to be faced, and her terrifying relative who sat on the throne of England had not guaranteed her a safe passage. She was afraid of the red-headed virgin of England, and well she might be, for some said that she, Mary, had more right to the English crown than the bastard daughter of Anne Boleyn.

While she was occupied with these gloomy thoughts, the door of her apartment opened so silently that she did not hear it, and her mother-in-law must have stood watching her for some seconds before she was aware of her presence.

‘Madame!’ Mary sprang off her bed and bowed.

Catherine was smiling, and the very way in which she stood there, the very way in which she smiled, told Mary that she herself, so recently the petted Queen of France, was of no importance now in the eyes of the Queen Mother.

‘My child, you have spoilt your beauty. So much weeping is not good for you.’

Mary cast down her eyes; she could not meet those under the peaked headdress.

‘You must not grieve so for poor Francis,’ said Catherine maliciously.

‘Madame, I have suffered sadly. First I lost my husband, and now … they are threatening to send me away from here.’

‘Poor Mary! Poor little Queen! But in your great grief for your dear husband, leaving France will not seem so very important to you. I think that God gives us these blows, one following another, in order that we may become hardened to bear them. To leave France – which I know you love – when Francis was alive would have been a tragedy for you. But now, in the shadow of a greater tragedy, it will seem as nothing, for how much more you must have loved Francis than your adopted country! That is so, is it not, my daughter?’

‘I loved Francis dearly, yes. And, Madame, I think that, if I were allowed to stay here, I could still, in time, find some happiness in France.’

‘Ah,’ said Catherine lightly. ‘Then what a pity it is that you must leave us!’

Mary went on her knees and took Catherine’s hand. ‘Madame, you could let me stay.’

Now that Mary could not see her face, Catherine let her expression change. This was the girl who had called Catherine de’ Medici ‘Daughter of Merchants’, had dared to slight her because she had seen others do it. She had taken her cue from Madame de Poitiers. Well, it had not been possible to take revenge on that woman, but on Mary it would be. Not that Catherine cared greatly for revenge for its own sake. If it had been politic for Mary to have stayed in France, she would have forgotten past slights and humiliations. But now she could settle old scores and help her schemes of power politics at the same time. She could allow herself to get full enjoyment from this little by-play. This girl had dared to spy on her!

‘I let you stay?’ said Catherine. ‘You over-estimate my power.’

‘No, Madame. You are the Regent of France. All power is yours.’

‘My dear, I share it with the King of Navarre; and then there is the Council; and the King, though a boy, has his say in affairs.’

‘Then I must speak to the King. He will understand. He will help me.’

‘The King is indisposed. I could not have him disturbed. As you know, his health is not of the best.’

‘Oh, Madame, have you no pity? You would send me from France … from my native land?’

‘Nay, child. It is the land of your adoption, as it is mine. I doubt not that when you, a little girl of six, heard that you were to leave your home and sail across the seas to France, there to be brought up among strangers, I doubt not that you shed many tears. Well, this is such another upheaval in your life. In a year’s time you will be laughing at these tears. You will be loving the mists of your native wilderness as you love our snows and sunshine.’

‘Madame, I shall never love any land but France.’

‘And you a Queen of Scotland!’

‘And a Queen of France, Madame.’

‘And a Queen of England!’ said Catherine with a malicious laugh. ‘Your cousin in England is not going to be very pleased with you for using that title!’

‘You know it was at the wish of your husband, the King, and of my husband. I did not wish it.’

‘Yet you seemed very proud, nevertheless – very proud of it. Poor Mary! They are no longer here to answer to the virago of England for their sins. But I am sure she will forgive you and love you.’