THE Master of Gray's second embassage to Queen Elizabeth was a very different affair from his first. There was no pomp and ceremony, no splendid gifts, no ladies, no impressive escort; only the two principals, David Gray, and two or three armed servants. They made the four hundred miles to London, in consequence, in little more than half the time that it had taken the previous entourage.
Elizabeth made much play about not receiving them, keeping them hanging about for days in the ante-rooms of various palaces, while demonstrations of popular wrath against the imprisoned Mary were staged for the envoys' edification, undoubtedly on Elizabeth's own instructions, decapitating the Scots Queen in effigy with gruesome realism, with the help of buckets of ox-blood. Sir Robert Melville blustered and swore, David fretted, sick with anxiety, but Patrick was an example of all that such an envoy should be, imperturbable, courteous, amused even. Play-acting, he asserted, should be enjoyed, not taken seriously.
When, at last, at Greenwich, the Scots embassy was admitted to the royal presence, Elizabeth interviewed them, flanked by a glittering array of her nobles and ministers, including Leicester, Oxford, Essex, Burleigh, Walsingham and Hatton, and treated them, while they were still bowing their entry, to a full and stirring ten minutes of impassioned oratory, brilliant dialectic and vicious vituperation such as few of her hearers had ever experienced, and which left them all dumbfounded and almost as breathless as the Queen herself.
All, that is, except Patrick Gray – and perhaps old Burleigh, who had weathered so many storms in his Queen's service. The former bowed low again,, and into the gasping hush spoke pleasantly, admiringly.
'Such eloquence, Your Majesty – such brilliance, such lucidity of utterance, leaves all men abashed and wordless. None may hope to prevail against such a tide of logic, wisdom and wit -least of all this humble spokesman from the north, with but a few uncouth words to jingle together. Yet speak I must, on behalf of your royal cousin, James, King of Scots, and his Council, if all unworthily.'
If you do… you waste… your breath, sir!' the Queen panted, her own breath all but gone, her superstructure of blazing gems heaving alarmingly. 'You… come to plead… for mercy for… that self-confessed murderess… Mary Stuart! You waste your time… and mine, sirrah!'
'Fair lady, can it be that you misapprehend?' Patrick asked, wonderingly. That you have been misinformed in this vital matter?' He cast a comprehensively reproachful glance on the serried ranks of England's advisers. We had thought Your Highness better served than this! For such is not the burden of our mission. I plead for nothing – save Your Grace's patient hearing. It is not mercy that we seek. Only justice.'
'Justice, sir!' Elizabeth cried. 'Have you the effrontery to stand before me and say that my courts do not dispense justice? In the presence of my Lord Chief Justice, who himself presided over that woman's trial! You can be too bold, Master of Gray -as I have had occasion to warn you ere this!'
'I speak but what I am commanded, Your Grace. Is it not one of the very elements of justice that the court which holds trial on a cause shall have due authority and jurisdiction so to do? Can your Lord Chief Justice, or any other, show that he had jurisdiction to try the crowned and anointed monarch of another realm – or even of this realm, indeed!'
'God's Passion, man – have a care!' the Queen exclaimed, jumping up from her Chair of State. 'Watch your tongue, sirrah, or you yourself will taste the power and authority of my courts!' Imperiously she waved aside the Lord Chief Justice who had stepped forward to speak. I myself will answer your ill-judged question sir. Mary Stuart is no longer Queen of Scots, nor crowned monarch of any realm. She abdicated eighteen long years ago, and voluntarily entered my realm as a private citizen, thereby placing herself under my authority and the laws of England.'
'Does not Queen Mary deny such abdication, Madam? And if an anointed monarch denies abdication, who shall declare her abdicate? How may you prove otherwise?'
'But… good God, man, if Mary did not abdicate, then your James, in whose name you speak, is a usurper! You have no authority to be here, troubling us!'
'Would you deny Scotland a ruler, because you have shut up her Queen these eighteen years, Highness? James and his mother are both anointed sovereigns of Scotland.'
'Lord, this is but wordy dissembling! Words, words, words! Mary, in England, has conspired the violent death of the Queen of England. And plotted the invasion and overthrow of the realm. For that she must pay the penalty required in law. That is all there is to it, sir. Tell you your prince that same.'
'But, dear lady, that I fear is not all that there is to it. I fear…'
'By God, it is not!' Sir Robert Melville burst out, unable to contain himself longer. 'If we tell that to our Prince and Council, Ma'am, Scotland marches! Hamilton leads five thousand lances against Newcastle. Bothwell burns Carlisle. The Scots, the Kerrs, the Turnbulls ride. Your border flames from end to end, and the clans march south! Is that nothing to you, Ma'am?'
An outburst of growling wrath and consternation arose from the great company – an outburst that was speedily silenced, however, by Elizabeth's own high-pitched neighing fury.
'Christ's Holy Wounds!' she shouted. 'You… you threaten me! Threaten me with force, with swords, with bloody attack -here in my own house! Fiend seize you, fellow – how dare you!'
Blinking a little at the storm he had unleashed, the blunt soldier yet held his ground. 'I but warn you what the Council declared…'
'God's curse on your Council, then! Think you they can speak so to me – Elizabeth? Yapping curs! Penniless savages! Lord – what insufferable insolence…!'
'Madam – good lady,' Patrick intervened – and it took courage indeed to interrupt Elizabeth of England in towering rage. 'Sir Robert may have used injudicious words, but he only intended to indicate that passions in Scotland are much roused in this matter. It would be wrong, improper, for us not to have you know it The people here are roused, as you have rightly shown us. If the two realms and peoples are so equally roused, then, alas, blood may well flow, innocent as well as guilty. It becomes but the simple duty of all in whose hands are affairs of state, to act not only by law and rule, but with mutual care and compassion…'
'Shrive me – is that the Master of Gray preaching me a sermon, now!' the Queen broke in, impatiently. 'Are you seeking to teach me my business, sir? Have the pair of you come all this way but to insult and to preach? Have you nothing better than that to say? If not, 'fore God, you may go whence you came -and swiftly!'
Patrick, who indeed had but talked to gain time and a change of tune, nodded now. 'We have indeed, Your Grace. The compassion and care I spoke of, we do not seek only from yourself, noble as is your reputation. Our Prince suggests that his mother, if she were to resign her rights in the succession to your English crown to himself, would no longer endanger you, and so all might live in peace. He will vouch that she will so do.'
'What rights, man – what rights? Mary has no rights. She is a prisoner. She is declared "inhabil", and can resign nothing, convey nothing to her son.'
'If she have no rights, Your Majesty need not fear her. If she have, let her assign them to her son, in whom then will be placed the full title of succession to Your Highness…'
'What – by the Living God!' Elizabeth's voice actually broke, in her passion. 'Get rid of one, and have a worse in her place! Nay – never! That were but to cut my own throat, no less. For you – yes, you, Master of Gray – for a duchy or an earldom to yourself, you or such as you would cause some of your desperate knaves to murder me! And so secure your prince on my throne. No, by God, your master shall never be in this place!' And she banged her white fists on the wooden arms of her throne. 'The sentence stands!'
Patrick took a long breath. 'Even, Madam, if the League, the Protestant League which we so sorely wrought, were to be quite broken… through the passion of the Scots people?'
Tight-lipped Elizabeth nodded
Patrick looked away from her, then, all round the rows of watching, hostile faces, and from them to Melville, and back to David who stood half-a-pace behind them. And one shoulder faintly shrugged
David swallowed, noisily.
Sir Robert, at his colleague's gesture of failure, sank his grey head on wide old shoulders. 'Ma'am,' he mumbled, T beg of you… give us respite. Spare Her Grace… if only for a little. For fifteen days even. That we may have time to seek other instructions from our Prince.' The Melville brothers had always loved Mary.
'No,' the Queen declared
'Then… for a week, lady. Eight short days…'
'Christ-God – no! Not for an hour!' Starting up, Elizabeth stood trembling. 'This audience is at an end!' she cried, and turning about without another glance at envoys or hurriedly bowing lords, she stormed out of the presence-chamber in a swirl of skirts and a glitter of diamonds.
'The woman is a monster!' David declared. 'Crazed with her power, and without human feeling, without sympathy or even conscience. This realm is ruled by a mad-woman, puffed up with belief in her own greatness, her invincibility. Lord – and for her blind pride, our Mary must die…!'
'Not so, Davy,' his brother denied. 'On the contrary, this realm is ruled by a very frightened woman indeed! A woman driven near to distraction, I believe. There lies the danger of it – and the doom of our hopes, I think. For there is no goad like fear, no surer barrier to break down than mortal dread. With aught else, I might yet achieve much – in private. But with this fear…'
'You think…? You really believe that, Patrick? That it is fear that makes her thus? Not damnable pride? Hatred? Myself, I believe that Elizabeth hates Mary, envies her, and always has done. Envies her for her beauty, her grace, her motherhood, her way with all men – and her legitimate birthright to her own crown. All the attributes which she herself lacks. For that, I believe, she would send Mary to the block. Yet you say it is fear? Fear for her own life? Fear of assassination? Or of losing her throne?'
'Not for herself, no – not directly, that is. For she is a courageous woman. They both are that, these two queens. No, it is fear for her realm, Davy. Elizabeth believes that she alone can save England – and England is in grave danger, God knows. Indeed, she believes that she is England. Blame her if you will, for that – call it outrageous pride – but there is truth in it too. And she loves this England, I think, that is another form of herself, with all the passion that a woman has to give – and that our Mary has squandered on worthless men! She is the Virgin Queen – and England is her true lover. She sees that lover in dire danger, threatened within and without – and will do anything, everything, to save her love. Mary she sees as the heart of the danger. So long as Mary lives her crown is unsure. Therefore Mary must die.'
'I' faith, man, you sound as though you do believe that your own self!'
Patrick frowned. 'I believe that is what governs Elizabeth. I do not say that it need be so. I shall indeed seek to convince her otherwise. But…'
'She will never see you, Patrick. It is crazy to imagine that she will.'
'I think that she will, Davy. I have besought Raleigh to approach her. He has her ear these days, I am told. Philip Sidney would have assured it-but Raleigh may serve…'
'But to what end, man? She is set in her wicked course. You say yourself that you do not think to move her. Better surely that we should spur back to Scotland with all haste, and set forward a march over the Border! Before it is too late. Perhaps she will pay heed to that, if not to your words.'
'Would you be for war, Davy? Bloodshed? Houses, towns, aflame? Rapine? The innocent dying? For one woman's life?'
Heavily his brother answered him. 'For right, truth, justice, the sword must be drawn, at the last When all else fails. Scotland has drawn it oft in the past for less worthy cause.'
'Thus, sober Davy Gray! Thus, no doubt, noble Philip Sidney, at Zutphen! And so men die – and women and bairns -the many for the few. Myself, in this matter of dying, I'd liefer it was the few for the many, Davy! The rulers for the people – not the people for the rulers. But I may be mistaken. It seems an unpopular creed!'
Patrick was not mistaken in one instance. Late the same night, Sir Walter Raleigh rapped on the door of the Scot's lodging. The Queen's Grace would see the Master of Gray forthwith, secretly and alone, he announced. A brief private audience. Only the Master of Gray…
Elizabeth, crouched over a great fire, received him in a dark-panelled sitting-room, clad in a bed-robe, and looking older than her fifty-four years. She huddled there in silence, while Raleigh closed the door behind him, and Patrick straightened up.
'Well?' she said. That was question, challenge, reproof, all in one – and something else as well, something warmer, something that might even have been the glimmerings of hope. But she sounded weary, nevertheless – and looked it.
'Very well, dearest lady,' Patrick agreed, smiling. First of all, in that you have graciously consented to this meeting. Then, in the felicity of your warm and womanly presence. Also in the anticipation of your understanding. Aye, very well indeed!'
'God, Patrick, do you never tire of it?' she interrupted. 'Tire of such talk, such empty flattery and fulsome praise? I swear it oozes out of you like wind from a bladder!'
'Your Grace jests – for here is no.flattery. Is gratitude flattery? Or a man's appreciation of a woman? Or recognition of intellectual worth? If these be empty things, then Patrick Gray is but a bladder indeed.'
"Very well, man-let it be. Let it be. I confess I am too weary to debate it with you! I am glad that I give you so much satisfaction, for it is more than I give myself, I promise you!'
He stepped forward to take her unresisting hand and press it to his hps. He had never seen Elizabeth like this. 'My satisfaction is beyond poor words' he said. 'Would that I might translate it into deeds! And the more so that, tonight, neither of us need act apart… unlike this afternoon!'
Swiftly now she looked up at him. 'You think then that I acted a part, this day?' And, before he could answer, 'Was it so evident, Patrick?'
He schooled his features to calm understanding, and no hint of surprise. 'We both had our roles to fill, Your Grace, before the eyes of men. But now, please God, we may be done with dissembling, and speak plain.'
'Do you ever speak plain, Patrick? And to what end?'
'I do, Highness. As now. To the end that folly and weakness and confusion shall not always triumph, even in affairs of state!'
'Plain speaking indeed, sirrah!' Elizabeth's eyes flashed momentarily. 'Folly, weakness and confusion, forsooth! So that is what you think of my policies?' Even as his hand rose in protest, the Queen's turbanned head sank again. 'But it is true – God knows it is true, man. I knew this afternoon that you saw it – aye, and your precious bastard brother tool I watched you, you devil, even as I stormed and raved, I saw it in your eyes. You knew that I could not, dare not, sign Mary's death-warrant The Master of Gray would know that, if none other did! And so you mocked me – and I hated you, man. I do not know that I do not hate you now – only, tonight, I fear that I am too tired for hate. I knew that you would seek this private audience, to tell me what no others are bold enough to do. And I… I granted it, lest I dare not face myself in a mirror again!'
Patrick Gray stood very still, but his mind was furiously active. For a long moment there was silence. 'You say… that you cannot sign? Dare not sign the death-warrant?' he got out, at last
'Not without cutting my very throne from under me – as well you know! Not without executing my own queenship as well as hers! Think you that I do not recognise that to execute an anointed monarch is to destroy my own authority – the divine authority vested in all Christian princes? Christ-God – was ever a woman so trammelled, so enmeshed! Mary will have my life and my throne if I let her live – and I endanger my throne, all thrones, if I take her life! You did not need to come to tell me this,Patrick!,
'I did not come to tell you this,' he said, even-voiced.
'I have thought of it and thought of it – beaten my wits!' Elizabeth went on, tensely. 'Some way out of this toil there must be. Do not mock me with your talk of sending Mary to France, or of her resigning her rights to her son! You know that to be utter folly, as well as I do. Mary, while she lives, will resign nothing of her claims. And even if she would, or could, others would not, on her behalf. Every Catholic in Christendom would continue to plot to put her on my throne. You know that, man.'
'I know it,' he said.
'Why do I talk thus to you' she demanded, heatedly. 'Admit my fears, my impotence – to you, of all men? A devil -and my enemy!'
'I am not your enemy, but your frend. I have been your friend since the first day that I saw you, in yon barge. Have we not acted friends, since then? Have you not supported me, in Scotland? And have I not done there what I said I would do?'
Eyes narrowed, suddenly she interrupted him, not listening to what he was saying, but recollecting. 'Patrick, you said… a little ago, you said that you did not come to tell me this. That I could not sign the warrant What did you mean? Why then did you come?'
He spoke slowly. 'I came because I am indeed your friend. I came to bring you… this.' And drawing a folded parchment from his doublet, he handed it to the Queen.
Taking it, her eyes widened as she saw the scrawled signature at the foot, the cracked Great Seal of Scotland. As she glanced at the heading, the brief wording, already fading with the years, she gasped.
'But… man, this is… this is beyond belief!'
'It is true, nevertheless, Your Grace. You will know what to do with it!'
'But why, Patrick? Why? This is the key to all. Why give me this? You? I had heard that there had been such a document – a deed of abdication. But I never thought to see it I was assured that Mary would have destroyed it, long since. Yet it is her signature -I know it only too well! Or… is it a forgery, man?t
'It is no forgery. Mary was… careless in such matters, shall we say?'
This is the true deed of abdication, then? Signed by her own hand at Lochleven. In July 1567. Twenty years ago. And all these years this has existed – the proof that I needed! That she had indeed abdicated – signed with her own hand!'
'Under unlawful pressure, as she ever claimed,' Patrick observed dryly. 'Not that I think that need concern you now!'
'No. No – not with this in my hands! I have her now!' Elizabeth rose to her feet 'I can prove that she abdicated her crown twenty long years ago. None may claim that she is any longer a crowned monarch. She has not been for twenty years, whatever she has claimed. God – what a notable writing is this! That signature is her own death-warrant!'
'I thought that you would perceive its value!'
'Where has it lain all these years? Where did you find it, man?5
'Amongst the ordinary state papers. Amongst her bills for silks, and appointments of sheriffs!'
'Lord! And to think…!' Elizabeth paused, parchment in hand, to search Patrick's handsome features. 'But why, man -why? You have not answered that.Why have you given this to me? Delivered your Mary into my hand, thus? After what you declared before all, this afternoon? What is the meaning of it, Master of Gray?'
He shrugged one shoulder. 'This afternoon, I said what I was commanded to say – played my part as you played yours. Scotland's envoy. Tonight I am Patrick Gray and my own man. And yours. I give you this, now, for good and sufficient reason – in addition to my love for Your Highness. You have declared that reason with your own lips. Whilst Mary lives, your life is in danger, your throne also. England is threatened, within and without, and all Europe stands on the brink of war – bloody war. It is too high a price to pay for one woman's life. There is no other issue from the tangle. Mary must die.'
For seconds on end Elizabeth stared at him in silence, at all the grace and beauty of him. Then her eyes fell before his calm, even compassionate, regard 'Lord…!' she muttered.
'I told you,' he went on. 'Folly, weakness and confusion. It was not your policy that I condemned thus, but our own. Scotland's policy. Stupid maudlin sentiment instead of clear thinking. Scotland needs peace – not Mary Stuart, strife and war!'
'But, you said yourself that there would be war if Mary was executed. That Scotland would march. Carlisle would be burned…'
'That was Melville. Tut – a few Border caterans may cross your March, yes, burn a few thatches, steal a few cattle. Nothing more. I know them – wind-bags, slogan-shouters all! In a month all will be forgotten.'
'But… but not by me!' The Queen sank down again. As though all of a sudden she seemed to realise what the paper in her hands meant for her, meant in personal decision. Her way was cleared, but she still had to travel that way. 'Not by me,' she repeated, her voice uneven – so unlike the voice of Elizabeth Tudor. 'If I sign that death-warrant, I shall see it before me for the rest of my life!' she whispered.
Brows puckered he looked down at her. 'At least Your Grace will be alive!' he said.
'Mary will haunt me,' she insisted.
'You have signed other death-warrants, Madam, in plenty!'
'Aye.' She raised her head. 'God pity me, I have! I perceive that you are a harder man than you seem. You see only a weak woman before you now, but perchance tomorrow I shall be Queen of England again – and hard as my name and reputation!'
'Just, say, dear lady-never hard.'
'It will require hardness to sign that warrant'
He fingered his chin. 'It might just be possible, Madam, that fate might overtake Mary other than by the headman's axe?' he suggested. 'With no need of a warrant signed.'
'Think you that I have not considered that, man? But, with my court's sentence of death hanging over her, would the world acquit me of her death by other means?'
'Still, with proof of her abdication in your hands, the world's censure would be tempered. If you are so averse to signing the warrant'
'I… I shall think of it But, oh – if it did not have to be… death!'
. 'The dead do not bite, Highness. That is worth remembering, also.'
'Aye. I thank you for reminding me, sir!' The great Elizabeth, this strange night, was like a weathercock, blowing this way and that. 'And what of James?' she demanded. 'What of your master? How will he take this? He, who sent you to speak so otherwise!'. Patrick smiled faintly. 'I think that you need not fear for my Prince's fury, Madam! James is an indifferent warrior, but an excellent huckster. He would have his amends. A fair sum, he said, for the insult done to his realm by the trial and sentence on his mother – no doubt a slightly larger sum for her actual death! A small matter of adjustment between himself and your good Lord Treasurer!'
'Fiend seize me – money! Is this the truth, man?', 'Aye. He commanded me to seek a secret audience, especially to impress this upon Your Grace. May I assure him that his pension will be increased?'
'God be good! And this is the creature who would follow me upon England's throne!'
'No doubt he will nurture England's trade to unheard-of heights, Majesty!'
She stared at him. 'Does he know of this paper, then?'
'No. No one knows of that paper, save only ourselves. I pray you that you do not reveal whence and when you obtained it.'
The Queen smiled thinly, for the first time in that interview. I can understand your concern on that matter, Master Patrick,' she said. 'I can keep a secret better than most women, I believe.'
'So I judged – since it puts my life into your hands!'
'So it does, Patrick! So it does. And that you judged also, I have no doubt, Knowing something of weak women. Indeed, you know women too well, I think.' With a somewhat laboured return to her favourite coquettish pose, Elizabeth blinked weary eyes and simpered. 'Some day I shall perhaps consider how suitably to handle that life you have put within these hands of mine. Eh, Patrick? But…not tonight Ah, no – tonight I am tired. Tonight I would sleep, not dally – if I may. Go now, Master of Gray – your mission well accomplished. Poor Walter will be asleep out there, I do declare – if he is not already bedded down with one of my Sluts of Honour!' She yawned elaborately. 'Off with you, man. I do not know whether to thank you, or no!'
He kissed her thin hand. 'Thanks I do not seek. Only and always, your esteem, lady.'
'M'mmm.' At the door, she touched his arm. 'Tell me, Patrick, what says your honest and beloved brother to this matter?
Her visitor's whole visage, even carriage, seemed to change before her, his handsome features hardening strangely as though into stone, his fine eyes going almost blank, flintlike. 'A good evening to you, Madam,' he said, gratingly, and turning, without so much as a bow, he stalked out
For long the Queen looked after his striding upright figure.
It was almost morning before Patrick Gray arrived back at his lodgings. David, who had lain more or less awake and waiting all the night, heard him come in, reeling drunk. Never before had he seen his brother thus. It was, he adjudged, the final proof and evidence of the failure of the mission. Sick at heart, he got him to his bed, with difficulty but with a great sympathy.
The very next day, the Scots ambassadors, silent, depressed, rode north again for their native land. It was the first of February.