Free The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots by Carolly Erickson Page A

spectator. Here were the people of Leith, my subjects, speaking in tones of eerie awe about a distant Highland laird. Far from being horrified at the sight of the mangled legs they were struck solemn, revering the Great MacNeil and the evidence of his power to take vengeance on an enemy.
    Vengeance. I had thought, coming to Scotland, that I would be the one seeking vengeance, against those who had hounded and betrayed and cursed my dear mother. But I found myself surrounded by others far more vengeful than I, first the unholy reverend Knox and the offending Lords of the Congregation (whose faint welcome had insulted my majesty) and now, by the brutal MacNeil and the townspeople who venerated him.
    The boy with the legs had passed, and the women in the crowdbegan an uncanny wailing, an unearthly sound that I recognized from my childhood as a lament for the dead. I signaled for my escort to hurry on past and we made our way toward Edinburgh and Holyrood.
    That night, settled in my bed in the palace, I dropped off to sleep almost at once. The events of the day had tired me, and left me wrung out with many concerns. My faithful Margaret Carwood had seen to it that the fire in my room was piled high with wood, and had warmed my bedlinens and put out a thick nightgown for me to wear, and with it a pair of knitted short stockings to keep my feet from freezing.
    I was dreaming—and then I was awakened. I was awakened by singing. But it was not the lament for the dead, it was a psalm tune. A Protestant church tune.
    I got out of bed and went to the window. The courtyard below was full of people, carrying torches and Bibles. All appeared to be in somber garb, long dark plain robes with no adornment. They stood there, a solid phalanx of worshippers, as if in church, intoning the dirgelike notes of the psalm. It was a mournful scene, all the more mournful in that it was being staged for my benefit.
    For these people of Edinburgh were, like the reverend Knox, giving me a very pointed message. That I, a Catholic and a sinner, must repent. That I must become one of them, no longer a queen in her colorful bejeweled finery, living her life of vice, but a robe-wearing, humble penitent, carrying a Bible and singing a dirge to the Lord.
    I threw up the window sash and looked down on my people. My congregation, as I thought of them at that moment.
    “I am your queen!” I shouted over the strong roar of voices. “I am your Catholic queen, Mary, daughter of King James and rightful ruler of this realm! And I command you to go to your homes and leave me in peace!”
    I sent the guards down into the courtyard to break up the demonstration, and as I watched from my window the sober penitents, still singing, began to make their way out of the courtyard and back alongthe road that led toward Edinburgh Castle on its crag. They did not hurry their departure, nor did they take any notice of me, there at the window, so absorbed were they in their song.
    I went back to bed, and tried to get to sleep, but for a long time I continued to hear, in the distance, the doleful melody of the psalm.



FOURTEEN
    From the start, there was never any question of my trying to please the Lords of the Congregation or any of the great clan chiefs—who held the highlands in thrall—or the frightening John Knox.
    I went my own way, ignoring what those who opposed me said and thought. For was I not Queen of the Scots, of the blood royal, anointed and sanctioned by God and the church? The true church, I mean, the Roman church, not the rebel church of the Protestants.
    I did what I liked, boldly and—as I see it now—rashly and blindly, confident that as queen I could do anything I wanted to do, confusing majesty and authority with real power. It was not that I forgot everything my mother had told me about the wolves, the savage predators that invaded the court (and were often to be found within it). It was more that I was young and arrogant, full of myself and my own