What the Queen’s motives may have been I know not, whether of desperate conviction that retreat was not possible, or of desperate effort to entice the man to her even at this last hour: let them go.[11] She held to her resolve next day; she faced the remnant of her friends, all she had left; lastly, she faced the strong man himself, and like a doll in his arms suffered his lying kisses upon her lips. And she never reproached him, being paralysed by the knowledge of what he would have done if she had. To see him throw up the head, expose the hairy throat, to see him laugh! She could not bear that.
On this day, the eve of her wedding, she found out that her courage had ebbed. Things frightened her now which before she would have scoffed at. A May marriage—hers was to be that: and they who feared ill-luck from such gave her fears. A Highland woman became possessed in the street, and prophesied to a crowd of people. She said that the Queen would be a famous wife, for she would have five husbands, and in the time of the fifth would be burned. ‘Name them, mother—name them!’ they cried; and the mad creature peered about with her sly eyes. ‘I dinna see him here, but the third is in this town, and the fourth likewise!’ ‘The fourth! Who is he?’ ‘He’s a Hamilton, I ken that fine, and dwells by Arbroath. I doubt his name will be Jock.’
Lord John! The Lord of Arbroath—why, yes, she had given him a great horse. They rehearse this tale at dinner, and see Bothwell grow red, and hear the Queen talk to herself: ‘Will they burn me? Yes, yes, that is the punishment of light women. Poor souls, they burn for ever!’
She carried the thought about with her all day, and at dusk was much agitated when they lit the candles. About supper-time Father Roche, asking to speak with her, was admitted. He told her that his conscience would not permit him to be any longer in her service. Bothwell had refused to be married with the mass: in Father Roche’s eyes this would be no marriage at all. She was angry for a second in her old royal way—her Tudor way; moved towards him swiftly as if she would have quelled him with a forked word; but stopped mid-road and let her hands unclench themselves. ‘Yes, yes, go your ways—you will find a well-trodden road. Why should you stop? I need you no more.’ He would have kissed her hands, but she put them behind her and stood still till he had gone. Then to bed, without prayers.
At ten o’clock of the morning she was married to him without state, without religion. There was no banquet: the city acted as if unaware of anything done; and after dinner she rode away with him to Borthwick. Melvill, Des-Essars, Lethington went with her, Mary Seton and Carwood. Bothwell had his own friends, the Ormistons and others of mean degree.
With tears they put her to bed; but she had none. ‘I would that I might die within the next hour,’ she said to Des-Essars; and he, grown older and drier suddenly—‘By my soul, ma’am, it should be within less time, to do you service.’
She shook her head. ‘No, you are wrong. He needs me not. You will see.’ She sent him away to his misery, and remained alone in hers.
It cannot be known when the Earl went up. He stayed on in the parlour below, drinking with his friends so long as they remained above-board, talking loudly, boasting of what he had done and of what he should do yet. He took her back to Edinburgh within a few days, moved thereto by the urgency of public affairs.
Those who had not seen her go, but now saw her return, did not like her looks—so leaden-coloured, so listless and dejected, so thin she seemed. The French Ambassador—Du Croc, an old friend and a sage—waiting for audience, heard a quarrel in her cabinet, heard Bothwell mock and gibe, depart with little ceremony; and then the Queen in hysterics, calling for friends who had gone—for Livingstone, for Fleming.
Carwood came in. ‘O madam, what do you lack?’