The Queen's Maries: A Romance of Holyrood

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

In honest truth, like Sinbad the Sailor, he was oppressed by a metaphorical Old Man of the Sea, that he could not get rid of, although in his case the unwelcome equestrian had assumed the form of a prevailing idea, connected with a young woman instead of an old man, and resembling Sinbad’s encumbrance in no particular except the tenacity with which it clung.

Reader, it is worth while to go to the Pampas to see a Gaucho lasso and mount a hitherto unbroken horse. How the animal, conscious of his degradation, fights and rears and plunges, wincing from the cruel spurs to rise at the maddening bit! How his eye dilates and his nostril reddens, and his whole form contracts with mingled fear and rage! Shaking his head wildly, he dashes ere long into a headlong gallop, and becomes stupefied to discover that, even at his fiercest speed, he bears his tormentor along with him. Subdued at last, he bends his neck to the hand that has tamed him, and experiences a new sensation of increased power and confidence in submitting to the master-will. So is it with a manly, resolute nature, when it first feels the influence of another’s existence on its own. There is a certain charm, indeed, in the novelty of the sentiment, but there is also surprise, apprehension, and a strong disposition to oppose and crush the unaccustomed usurpation. After many an unavailing struggle, the conquered must, however, submit to the conqueror; and, like other slaves, he loses the desire for liberty with the consciousness of incapacity to be free. Use in time renders him perfectly docile and broken-in; at last he is perfect in all the paces of the manége, and carries one rider nearly as pleasantly as another. He is a useful hack now, but the mettle of the wild-horse has left him for evermore.

Our archer was in the first stages of his tuition. He was, so to speak, only lately caught and mounted. We can but wish him a merciful rider with a kind heart and a light hand!

Walter Maxwell, for such was the name in which he stood enrolled on the list of the Archer-guard, was the younger son of an old Scottish family, possessed of an unblemished pedigree, considerable territorial possessions, and a sad lack of broad pieces. Then, as now, the upper classes in Scotland, with many noble qualities, were cursed with a morbid desire for the shadow rather than the substance of wealth. In Queen Mary’s days, the pound Scots represented in value the shilling English. In Queen Victoria’s, the laird on one side the Tweed, with his few hundreds a year, would fain make believe that his possessions equal those of the squire on the other, who owns as many thousands. His difficulties, his shortcomings, his meannesses originate in this, the paltriest of all ambition, that would make his shilling look like half-a-crown. Frugal and industrious as are her peasantry, prosperous and enterprising as are her yeomen and traders, probably the gentry of Scotland are at this moment more oppressed with difficulties than the parallel class in any other country under the sun.

In the time of which we write, the Scottish nobility were afflicted with the same unfortunate tendencies. There was then even more of display abroad and less of ease at home; whilst the unsettled state of the country, compelling every baron to entertain as many feudal retainers as he could arm and feed, helped to drain their resources to the very dregs. Violence and intrigue, political as well as private, were naturally resorted to by those who had no other means of replenishing their empty purses; and what with old feuds strictly entailed, and new differences perpetually arising, Scotland could only be likened to some huge cauldron, in which a thousand different ingredients were boiling, and the scum perpetually rising to the surface.

In such a state of things there was not much provision for younger brothers; and as the somewhat heathenish doctrine, not yet eradicated, then prevailed of considering individuals simply as links in a line, and postponing all personal claims to those of that great myth—the family—it may easily be imagined that the younger sons of a noble Scotch house had small cause to congratulate themselves on their aristocratic lineage.

Walter Maxwell might consider himself fortunate that he had the shelter of the old tower at home until he had arrived at the strength and stature of a man—that he was permitted to feed at the same board, and enjoy the same pastimes as his elder brother, the heir—that he might follow to her grave with a son’s decorous grief the mother who had doted on her youngest—and that his share of the family possessions was not limited to its name, but included a right to breathe the moorland air round the old place till he had attained his fifteenth year. Perhaps, after all, he inherited his share of the patrimony. He gained health and strength, and good manhood, on its broad acres. He learned to back a horse in its meadows, and fly a hawk on its hills, to swim in its dark loch, and to wield a blade within its walls. Perhaps, in bequeathing him an iron constitution, a vigorous frame, and a courageous heart, the old lord had done enough for the golden-haired child who used to come running to him after supper, and pull his gray moustaches, and climb merrily upon one knee, whilst the heir occupied the other.

At fifteen Walter Maxwell went out upon the world. A year after, he was the youngest gentleman private in the French king’s Archer-guard. Many a dame in Paris would turn round to look again on the blooming youthful face—almost a child’s still—so pleasing in its contrast with that manly form, clad in the showy armour of the guard. The Duchess of Valentinois herself had desired to have the young boy-archer presented to her; and it is to be presumed that Diane de Poitiers, a lady of mature experience, was no mean judge of masculine attractions. A word from the woman he so adored was sufficient to interest Henry II. in the Scottish recruit, and Walter Maxwell was more than once selected for duties demanding discretion as well as fidelity and courage. All these qualities were, indeed, in constant request at such a court as that of the French king. At a more advanced age, the young soldier had also distinguished himself in the disastrous affairs of St Quentin and Gravelines, where the French suffered serious defeats; and it was but the consistency with which he remained steadfast to the Protestant religion that stood in the way of his rapid promotion. He was a favourite, too, with his comrades for his courage and soldier-like bearing beyond his years, as well as for the indefinable attraction of those buoyant spirits which, like the bloom of youth on the cheek, seldom outlast maturity.

During the reign of Henry II., that chivalrous monarch, notwithstanding his severity to the Protestants, and the prevalence of their religion amongst his Scottish Archers, placed the most implicit confidence in his body-guard, riveting their unshaken loyalty with many favours and immunities, till they walked the streets of the capital objects of admiration and envy to the very grandees themselves. Perhaps the warlike Henry was of opinion that a soldier’s religion need not interfere with his obedience; and, indeed, too many of the Archers might have made the same answer, that some two centuries and a half later the old grenadier of the Empire gave on a question of doctrine to the Pope,—‘Et de quelle religion es tu, mon fils?’ asked his Holiness of the grim sentry who kept the door that led into the awful presence of Napoleon I. ‘Je suis de la religion de la Vieille Garde,’ replied the veteran, with an astounding clatter of his musket, as he ‘carried arms’ to the Pontiff. We take leave to doubt if the Protestantism of the Scotch Guard often stood in the way of Henry’s commands to his favourites.