‘I knew already who her lover was, and could not but agree with her in what she had to admit of her women. One and all they were against my lord of Bothwell. Mistress Livingstone hated him so vehemently she could not trust herself near him; Mistress Fleming was at the discretion of Mr. Secretary Lethington, a declared enemy of his lordship’s; Mistress Beaton was wife to a man who did not deny that he was still the servant of Lady Bothwell; in Mistress Seton my mistress never had confided. So she had some reasons for what she was pleased to do—another being that I, of all her servants, had been most familiar with his lordship—and I was certain that she had others, not yet declared. Indeed, she hinted as much when she said that she had proved me upon a late occasion, that she loved me, and knew of my love for her. “In time to come,” said she—“I cannot tell how soon or in what sort, such matters being out of my hands—I may have to ask you other service than this of listening to my confidence; I may require of you to dare great deeds, and to do them. If you will be my sworn brother, I shall see in you my champion-at-need, and be the happier for the knowledge. What say you, then, Baptist?” she asked me.
‘Kneeling before her, I promised that I would keep her secret and do all her pleasure. I watched her throughout. She was quite composed, entirely serious, did not seem to imagine that she was playing a love-sick game—and was not, altogether. I am sure of that, watching her as I did. She made me lift my right hand up, and stooped forward and kissed the open palm before she went away. Here is the beginning of Mysteries, which I, unworthy servant, was privileged to share.’
I am not, myself, prepared to say that there is more mystery in this than the young man put into the telling of it. She trusted the youth, required an outlet, and made, in the circumstances, the wisest choice.
Two days after the performance, at any rate, she set out for Jedburgh, as you know, in a fine bold humour and with a fine company. She went in state and wore her state manners; rode for the most part between her brother Moray and the Earl of Huntly, seemed to avoid her women, and had little to say to them when of necessity they were with her. She did her bravest to be discreet, and there is no reason to suppose that anybody about her had more than an inkling of the true state of her heart. Lord Bothwell’s leave-taking had been done in public the day before, and gallantly done. He had been at the pains to tell her that he was going to his wife, she to smile as she commended him for his honest errand. She had given him her hand and wished him well, and had not even followed him with her looks to the door. The Earl of Moray, not an observant man by nature, suspected nothing; what Lord Huntly may have guessed he kept to himself. This poor speechless, enamoured nobleman! his trouble was that he kept everything to himself and congested his heart as well as his head-piece. So much so that the Queen once confessed to Adam Gordon, his brother, that she had ‘forgotten he was a lover of hers’! She spent the first night out at Borthwick, and next morning rode on to Jedburgh in madcap spirits—which were destined to be rudely checked by what she met there. A slap in the face, sharp enough to stop the breath, it was: news with which the town was humming. It seemed that the Earl of Bothwell had fought in the hills with Elliot of Park, had slain his man, and been slain of him.
My Lord Moray was the first to bear her this tale; and when he told it—just as nakedly as I have put it up there—she turned upon him a tense, malignant face, and said that he lied. ‘Madam, I grieve,’ says he—‘my lord of Bothwell lies dead in Liddesdale.’ ‘O liar, you lie!’ she said, ‘or God lives not and reigns.’ Many persons heard her, and saw the proud man flinch; and then Des-Essars, young Gordon, and Lethington all broke into the room together, each with his version gathered out of gossip. My lord was not killed, as had been feared at first, but sorely wounded, lying at Hermitage, three doctors about him, and despaired of. ‘One doctor! one doctor!’ cried Adam, correcting Lethington.
‘I waited by him,’ says Des-Essars, ‘and then, while she looked wildly from one face to another, I said that it was true there was but one doctor, and that the case was none so desperate. She flew at me. “How do you know this? How do you know it?” I replied that I had just got the tale from French Paris. I think she would have fallen if I had not put my hands out, which made her draw back in time. “French Paris!” cried she; “why, then, my lord has sent word. Fly, fly, fly, Baptist: bring him to me.” This I did, to the great discomfiture of one, at least, in her company.’
Thus Des-Essars turns his honours to account.
She saw the valet alone, and sent him away with his pockets lined: afterwards her spirits rose so high that had Moray noticed nothing he must have been the most careless of men. She made inordinately much of Des-Essars, fondling him in all men’s sight; she gave him a gold chain to hang round his neck, and said, in her brother’s presence, that she would belt him an earl when he was older; ‘for thus should the prince reward faithful service and the spoken truth.’ He affected not to have heard her—but it was idle to talk of secrets after that. Here was a rent in the bag big enough for the cat’s head.
And it would appear that she herself was aware of it, for after a couple of days, just enough time for the necessary ceremonial business of her coming, she gave out publicly her intention to ride into Liddesdale, and her pleasure that Moray, Huntly, and the Secretary should accompany her. Others would she none, save grooms and a few archers. My Lord Moray bowed his head in sign of obedience, but spoke his thoughts to no man. He kept himself aloof from the Court as much as he could, in a house of his own, received his suitors and friends there at all hours, maintained considerable state—more grooms at his doors than at the Queen’s. Some thought he was entrenching himself against the day when his place might be required of him; some thought that day not far off. All were baffled by the Queen’s choice of him and his acquiescence.