‘I will think of this,’ she said. ‘Go now. Send me Carwood: I am mortally tired.’ Carwood was her bedchamber-woman.
There was a riot on the night following the proclamation of King Henry, begun by some foaming fool in the Luckenbooths. Men caught him with a candle in his hand, burning straw against a shop door. ‘What are ye for? What are ye for?’ they cried at him, and up he jumped with the fired wisp in his hand, and laughed, calling out, ‘I am the muckle devil! Come for the popish King!’ The words fired more than the brand, for people ran hither and thither carrying their fierce relish, feeding each other. The howling and tussling of men and women alike raged in and out of the wynds. It was noticed that nearly all the women took the Queen’s part, and fought against the men—a thing seldom seen in Edinburgh. In a desultory way, with one or two bad outbreaks, of which the worst was in the Grassmarket, where they stoned a man and a girl to death, it lasted all night. The Lord Lyon had his windows broken. Mr. Knox quelled the infuriates of the High Street.
This was on the night of July 28th, very hot weather. On the morning of the 30th she was married in her black weeds—for so she chose it, saying that she had been married already in colour, and as her lord was possessed of the living, so now he should own the dead part of her. She heard mass alone, for the Prince would not go to that again; but the Earl of Atholl stood by her, while Lennox waited in the antechapel with his son. Mass over, the words were spoken, rings put on. He had one and she three. They knelt side by side and heard the prayers; she bowed herself to the pavement, but he was very stiff. They rose; he gave her a kiss. When her women came about her he went away to her cabinet and waited for her there, quiet and self-possessed, not answering any of his father’s speeches.
Presently they bring him in the Queen, with coaxings and entreaties.
‘Now, madam, now! Do off your blacks. Come, never refuse us!’
She laughed and shook her head, looking sidelong at her husband.
‘Yes, yes,’ they cry, ‘we will ask the King, madam, since you are so perverse. Sir, give us leave.’
‘Ay, ay, ladies, unpin her,’ he says.
Mary Sempill cried, ‘Come, my ladies! Come, sirs! Help her shed her weeds.’ She took out a shoulder-pin, and the black shroud fell away from her bosom. Mary Fleming let loose her arms; Mary Seton, kneeling, was busy about her waist; Mary Beaton flacked off the great hood. Atholl, Livingstone, Lennox, all came about her, spoiling her of her old defences. When the black was all slipped off, she stood displayed in figured ivory damask, with a bashful, rosy, hopeful face. Atholl took a hand, Lennox the other.
‘By your leave, sweet madam.’ They led her to the young man.