Tag Archives: queen of scots

Mary Queen of Scots, CW’s “Reign”, historical accuracy and why I’ll watch anyway

Reign

Cast of Reign, premiering on the CW Network 17 October 2013

Pity the poor writers and producers of CW’s “Reign.” It has not yet hit TV screens in the US, yet the network is already defending the dramatic license they have taken with the series. (“Reign’ boss defends show’s relaxed approach to historical accuracy“).  The CW team, defending the series, keeps saying that they are “not the History Channel.”No really?   They need to come up with a response that has a bit more credibility. “We’re not the History Channel, so we can make up whatever we like” is not a real defense.  “We’re meeting a market need for a teenage, historical fiction drama and we chose to create a series about Mary Queen of Scots because  a) b) c) …”  might get them less flak and enable them to take their tin hats off.

I’ve already posted a couple of times my surprise that the CW would take huge license with the story of Mary, Queen of Scots.  Her life is replete with all the drama and scandal a series could wish for when told with detailed accuracy.  From the day she  escaped from the approaching English army and hid at Inchmahome Priory on Lake Menteith, Mary’s life was a rollercoaster of dazzling highs (crowned Queen of France) and humiliating lows (abdicating her throne; eventually being beheaded by her cousin Elizabeth I).  Who needs to make s*** up?  I could have given the CW years of great storylines on Mary and her posse (I’m still available for the asking, btw).  Skillfully handled, her story is amazing and heartbreaking.

I love the true life story of Mary Stuart.  I still have a copy of from the early 1970s of Lady Antonia Fraser‘s wonderful non-fiction biography of her, which I read when I was just eleven years old (and very precocious with it!) and captivated me.  I hate that her life is being brought to the small screen with less than great attention to detail and the real drama that was her life.  It is my hope that the creators of Reign have color just a little outside the historical lines, and not disregarded them completely.

But I get it,  I watch the CW from time to time.  OK.  Week to week.  I confess I have a wee addiction to the CW’s ‘Vampire Diaries‘ and have always thought that Ian Somerhalder would make the perfect Pierre de Bocosel de Chastelard (here’s my blog post on that sensational story).   I know, I’m probably the oldest CW viewer (it’s sad really).   There is absolutely nothing real about the Vampire Diaries, nothing at all and yet I love it.  Similarly, I watched Starz’s ‘DaVinci’s Demons‘ which, I’m guessing, bears not much more than a passing nod to reality, but I enjoyed it anyway.  Ditto both  The Tudors and The Borgias TV series.  In the CW’s defense,  its target market is probably the 18-24 year-old crowd who want fast-paced, slightly steamy entertainment (I’m guessing here, but I was in that age bracket once) and that target audience are not too worried about what is true and what is not.  The CW is great at marketing to its target audience, and I have to believe they know what it wants.

So if writers and producers make free with historical fact, but create really entertaining drama, should we complain?  Is the CW getting an undeserved kicking before the show even airs?  Perhaps.  For me, I have to see how far they’ve taken their creative license.  I mean, if teenage Mary Stuart starts having it away with, say Nostradamus (who I understand is cast as a young big of al’right played by Rossif Sutherland) I might complain.  But if they are making more of the relationship between Mary and the Dauphin Francis, her betrothed, then I could be OK with it.

One way or another I’ll be watching the series end-to-end when it premiers in October.   For one thing, I can’t imagine Megan Fellows as Henry II’s wife, Catherine de Medici.  It will take some great acting to make me see her as anyone other than Anne of Green Gables!  (Megan, I’m rooting for you.)

Here’s a link to a preview.  (Someone tell me why Mary, Queen of Scots, has an English accent? — People! The actress is Australian, surely they could’ve coached her?)

Related articles

The Beginning of the End – Rizzio’s Murder at Holyrood

English: The Murder of David Rizzio, oil on pa...

English: The Murder of David Rizzio, oil on panel, Depicts the killing of David Rizzio, secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, by a group of nobles including Lord Darnley (the Queen’s husband), Lord Ruthven and the Earl of Morton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today marks the 447th anniversary of David Rizzio’s murder in Mary Queen of Scots’ chamber at Holyrood Palace.  Rizzio’s gruesome murder on March 9, 1566 marked a watershed in Mary Stuart’s reign in Scotland.  One could call it the beginning of the end.  Rizzio himself was not all that important except as a focal point for the Protestant Scottish nobles, led by Patrick, Lord Ruthven and aided and abetted by Mary’s husband Henry, Lord Darnley.   The pact that sealed Rizzio’s death also sealed Darnley’s, though he could not have known it at the time.  Rizzio’s death was the first in a series of incidents that destabilized Mary’s reign.  Eighteen months later Mary was forced to abdicate in favor of her son James.

David Riccio di Pancalieri was born about 1533 to a well-known Piedmontese family somewhere near Turin, Italy.  He was employed by the Duke of Savoy as a valet and musician and traveled with the Duke’s ambassador, Signor di Moretta to Scotland in 1561.  He left the Duke’s employ to become one of Mary’s musicians – she needed a bass singer!  This was not a particular sign of favor, according to John Guy in The True Life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots Mary “always” had musicians and minstrels on her payroll including five viol players, three lute players, several pipers and a shawm (early oboe) player.  Most contemporary sources agree that David “Davy” Rizzio was ugly.  Lady Fraser, author of Mary, Queen of Scots reports he “extremely ugly by the standards of the time, his face being considered ill-favored and his stature small and hunched.

How did Rizzio go from a singer in a “band” to Mary’s private secretary?   Prior to 1564 Mary’s French secretary was Raulett, a cipherer who was also a retainer of the Guise family, her relations on her mother’s side.  He was the only person beside Mary who had the key to the black box that contained her secret papers.  In the run up to Mary’s marriage to Darnley, something must have happened to precipitate Raulett’s dismissal.  She replaced him with David Rizzio – a move that seems odd in that he does not, on the face of it, appear to have been qualified.

Not long after Rizzio took over Mary’s French correspondence, she took a shine to her cousin Henry, Lord Darnley—the great-grandson of Henry VII through his daughter Margaret.  By April 1565 she was crazy in love with Darnley, so much that the English Ambassador Randolph said she “whom ever before I esteemed so worthy, so wise, so honorable in all her doings” was now altered “to the utter contempt of her best subjects.”   But as Darnley rose in Mary’s opinion he was falling out of favor with the Scots nobles who thought him arrogant and unpleasant.

Rizzio was riding high in favor of both Mary and Darnley in 1565.  John Guy flat out says the two men were found in bed together.  Clearly no one mentioned this to Mary, but Lady Fraser suggests the Four Maries and the majority of Scots nobles were against the match. Fraser notes that Rizzio was the only person who really supported her marriage to Darnley.

Mary’s marriage to Darnley was a disaster.  It provoked the Scots nobles, notably Mary’s brother James Stewart, Earl of Moray into a rebellion, ostensibly because they feared the return of Catholicism to Scotland.  Darnley was a member of the Lennox Stewart clan and there was a not unreasonable fear that clan’s power would overwhelm the others—in particular Moray and others who were de facto ousted from their closeness to Mary.  Moray fled to England where he continued to stir the nobles.

Darnley expected to become King Henry by receiving the crown matrimonial.  Even before the bloom was off their marriage, which didn’t take long, Mary shied from granting him that power.  When Darnley took out his frustrations on Rizzio, who he began to feel had undue influence on Mary.   It was not difficult for dissatisfied Protestant Lords to convince Darnley they could kill Rizzio and put him on the throne.   They convinced Darnley that Mary was committing adultery with Rizzio and further suggested he was a spy for the Pope. (No evidence exists to suggest he was anything on than a singer who gained the trust of a sovereign.)

More than a dozen Scottish nobles conspired to kill Rizzio in the Queen’s presence.  They ambushed Rizzio’s in Mary’s supper chamber – a small narrow room (I’ve seen it, amazingly tiny)—at Holyrood and demanded Mary hand him over.  She refused and in response had a gun pointed at her — Mary was seven month’s pregnant at the time.  They stabbed Rizzio more than 50 times before throwing him down the staircase, stripped of his jewels and clothes.  He was buried within a few hours of his death somewhere in the grounds at Holyrood.

It is not clear to me how much real power and influence Rizzio had with Mary.  He certainly died with a large sum of money (over £2,000, which is a lot for a man who made just £80/year), so perhaps he was taking bribes and peddling influence.  It is clear he rose high, had few friends and far too many enemies.

Related articles

Mary Queen of Scots executed Chastelard 450 years ago today. Why?

Mary Stuart and Chastelard by Linton, Sir James Dromgole (1840-1916); Private Collection; (add.info.: Mary Stuart and Chastelard. Illustration for Mary Queen of Scots edited by W Shaw Sparrow (Hodder & Stoughton, c 1910).); © Look and Learn; English, out of copyright

Mary Stuart and Chastelard by Linton, Sir James Dromgole (1840-1916); Private Collection http://www.bridemanart.com #460699

Pierre de Bocosel de Chastelard (1529-1563) was famous for nothing until he surprised Mary, Queen of Scots in her bedchamber (twice) and she had him hanged.  It is a fascinating story to tell on this, the 450th anniversary of his execution (reported as either 20 or 22 February, 1563) at the Mercat Cross in St. Andrews.

Pierre was born about 1529 to Jeanne de Bayard and Francois Bocosel in Dauphiné, in southeastern France.  The family name had prestige, Pierre was the grandson of the famous Chevalier de Bayard known as “the knight without fear and beyond reproach” who symbolized the values of the French knighthood at the end of the Middle Ages.  He was the third of five children, at least two of whom eventually took Holy Orders and rose to run their respective religious houses.  As the middle son, he would have been expected to seek his fortune by carving out a career at court, or in the military.

Pierre chose a life at court, and became a page in the service of Constable Montmorency at the court of Henri II.   Lady Antonia Fraser recounts in Mary Queen of Scots that he was ” well-born, charming-looking, and gallant.”  He tapped into his chivalric ancestry by writing courtly love poems.  He had some talent and achieved recognition as a fringe member of the Pléaiade, a group of 16th-century French Renaissance poets whose principal members were Pierre de Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Jean-Antoine de Baïf.

His good looks and way with words may account for how a mere page fell into the orbit of Mary, Queen of Scots, and thus avoided obscurity.  Mary was in residence at the French Court from 1547 until 1561, during her betrothal and marriage to the son of Henri II, Francis and their reign as King and Queen of France.

Pierre fell in love with Mary, who is said to have encouraged his passion.  It is not clear during what time period this flirtation occurred, but most likely it was after the death of Mary’s husband in December 1560.  At any rate, Pierre was in the party escorting Mary back to Scotland in August 1561 with Montmorency’s son.

The story goes that he wrote poems to her–and she wrote back in kind. John Guy writes in his magnificent biography  The True Life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots that Mary responded to Chastelard’s poems in the spirit of courtly love, nothing more.

Mary may not have harbored any romantic feelings for Chastelard but her behavior gave rise to plenty of gossip.  Who says Mary’s friendship with Chastelard was anything but innocent?  Thomas Randolph, the English Ambassador to Scotland, Brantome, a notoriously unreliable French source and Mary’s nemesis, John Knox all suggest theirs was much more than a friendship.  Note that at this time Mary was busy looking for a new husband from powerful Catholic countries.  If true, why risk the stain on her honour?

In Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, author Alison Weir recounts Randolph’s claim “that she permitted too great a degree of familiarity with ‘so unworthy a creature and abject a varlet.'”  Weir reports that John Knox also had plenty to say about how “Chastelard was so familiar in the Queen’s cabinet that scarcely could any of the nobility have access to her.”  She “would lie upon Chastelard’s shoulder and sometimes she would privily kiss his neck.”  What? What was Mary thinking—by this time she had been back in Scotland long enough to know that what might pass without comment at the French Court would cause a stir at the Scottish Court.   But is it true? And if it is, does it mean anything than Mary was a bit foolish, a bit lonely?

Could Chastelard’s infatuation have cloaked more sinister intentions?  There is some suggestion that Chastelard was a spy for the English–in particular for Sir Francis Walsingham and Sir William Cecil–but history is inconclusive.  What we do know is that he left Scotland for some time between September 1561 and returned in the autumn of 1562 having traveled through London making noise about returning to his lady-love in Scotland.  He could have picked up an assignment.  Weir reports that after Chastelard’s death William Maitland, Mary’s Secretary of State, told the Spanish Ambassador De Quadra that Chastelard confessed to being sent by Huguenots in France to ruin Mary’s reputation and foil her marriage plans with the Spanish heir, Don Carlos.

On his return to Scotland, Mary was glad to see him.  She gave him the gift of a horse that her brother had given her (re-gifting…), and some money to buy new clothes and danced with him during New Year’s celebrations.  Still, none of these actions was out of keeping with her behavior to other favorites.

Rossend Castle, shades of former glory. Here in February 1563 Mary, Queen of Scots found Chastelard hiding under her bed.

Rossend Castle, shades of former glory. Here in February 1563 Mary, Queen of Scots found Chastelard hiding under her bed.

If he was just an obsessed, love-sick swain, he was also unlucky.  On his return, he displayed the poor judgment, or luck, to get caught in Mary’s bedchamber not once, but twice.  The first time, he hid under Mary’s bed at Holyrood Palace but discovered during a routine security search.  Mary banished him from Scotland.   Two days later in a move of epic stupidity, he followed Mary to Fife surprised her at Rossend Castle in Burntisland (which I visited last year) and caught her in the middle of disrobing. Chastelard had a dagger and/or sword with him.  Her shouts brought her brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray to her aid.  Mary was so rattled that her chief lady-in-waiting, Mary Fleming, slept at the foot of her bed thereafter.

Whatever Mary’s true feelings for Pierre, she did not have much choice but to hang him for the attempted assassination after refusing several pleas for a pardon. At worst, he threatened Queen Mary’s life; at best, he threatened her good name either through his stupidity or on purpose as a spy.  After a week in the dungeons at St. Andrews, Pierre was hanged at the Mercat Cross in St. Andrews on February 20, 1563.  Chastelard made a dramatic exit, reciting Ronsard’s poem “Hymn of Death” and reportedly saying “”Adieu, most lovely and cruel of princesses!” This cannot have helped Mary’s reputation with the Reformists like John Knox.

Algernon Charles Swinburne, a 19th century intellectual and author, wrote Chastelard: A Tragedy  about his relationship with Mary Stuart and one of her ladies-in-waiting, Mary Beaton.  In the story, the three are caught in a tragic triangle that ends with his execution.  I do not believe there is any historical accuracy behind the concept of the love triangle, but it is a compelling idea.

Chastelard’s relationship with Mary intrigues me.  Was he obsessed but unrequited in love?  Or was he an infatuation of Mary’s, the inappropriate predecessor to the inappropriate Darnley and Bothwell?  As a writer, the what-if’s in this story fascinate me.  I wonder what the CW’s Reign will make of this?  (I know what I’m doing with this plot line!)

Related articles

Teen drama “Reigns” about Mary, Queen of Scotland in development by US CW network

Portrait Mary Stuart at the age of 13.

Portrait Mary Stuart at the age of 13. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Media reports, including the Digital Spy, suggest the US CW network is developing “Reigns” a teen drama about Mary, Queen of Scots.

Of course, I think this could be fantastic and think about some of the frothy period series like “Camelot,” “Robin Hood” … and think it could be well done.  Could it be as deep as “Game of Thrones” — not without a lot of stretching of the truth.

The teenage Mary, Queen of Scots was a bit of a yes girl.  She lived in France with the French royal family (Henri II, Catherine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers) and was engaged to Francois, the heir to the throne.  Her life revolved around standard court activities, even after her marriage.  There is not a lot of historical fodder for a “warrior queen” series until she is a bit older.

Her marriage lasted just a year.  Widowed at 19, Mary returned to Scotland where – yes- there is plenty of skullduggery, intrigue, death, battles and betrayal.  But not really in the teen sphere.

I like the idea, but I fear the CW will go further than even the “Tudors” in their creative use of historical fact to create drama.  And of all the famous Queens, Mary Stuart life does not need fictional drama!

Of course, the casting could be a lot of fun… I’ll defer judgment but will post more as I hear it. And I’ll be watching.

Related articles

Was My Field Research on the Queen and the Four Marys Just a Boondoggle?

Just a “few” guidebooks I picked up (which added 5 lbs to my suitcase weight)!

I’m back home, after an excruciatingly long flight from Scotland that involved at least eight hours of flight delays.  I was sorry we picked the day I returned to bring home our new puppy, because I was a weary mess.

The purpose of my trip was to see as many of the historical sites important to Mary, Queen of Scots and her Four Maries and kick off a fierce summer of writing with the goal of completing the first draft of my novel by the end of the year.  So how did I do?  What did I really accomplish?   And, was it even necessary in the era of Google Earth/Google Images?  Was I just on a big fat boondoggle? (What’s a boondoggle? It is when you go somewhere under the guise of doing work or business and in fact it is more party than anything else. Favorite American expression.)

Yes! I admit there was an element of boondoggle about my journey.  My parents are from Scotland (Fife) and I spent a lot of time there growing up.  Returning to see my cousins and old friends was fantastic, and I could have spent the two weeks roaming around seeing them.  As it was, I did not get to visit every relative and friend I had hoped to see.  Next time…

Could Google Earth have been a solid substitute?  I have a friend who writes romance novels and has written one set it Germany and England without ever having set foot in either country.  I thought she did a good job capturing England in the 1980s—and I was there at the time.  I’m writing about the 16th Century, which I can’t visit either.  So did being on the ground, viewing ruined castles help me write more detailed scenes?

I did a fair bit of research on Google Earth and Google Images and while it was helpful, there was nothing like being on site, or en route to a site.  I’d seen plenty of photographs of Hermitage Castle but nothing I saw prepared me for the sheer size of it tucked away in the lonely Borders.  No photograph can capture the pure joy I felt traveling through the Scottish countryside on a sunny day, or the miserable feeling I got when on a rainy day the relentless damp chilled my bones. My characters will feel that too.

As I went from place to place, photographing the ruins and researching what happened at each site, I was a little surprised at how being on the ground in castles like Loch Leven, Hermitage, Stirling gave me a greater appreciation for the chaos and strife of Queen Mary’s short, 7-year residence in Scotland during her reign.  I have known Queen Mary’s story since I was 12 and read Lady Antonia Fraser‘s biography Mary Queen of Scots (yes, I was a precocious child).  But knowing a story and feeling it are quite different.

Being on the ground here, I saw my characters a little differently, more deeply.  From the minute I hit the runway at Edinburgh airport I was more aware of the what it was like for five young women under 20 to return to their native lands and their families as almost foreigners.  They were, for all intents and purposes, French women but now expected to pick up a culture and life they had left behind 13 years earlier.  I could even liken their experiences to my own.

As I traveled to the sites and focused on what happened in the lives of Queen Mary or the Maries at each, it hit home how crisis-driven their lives became once they returned to Scotland.  I think of Queen Mary and her Maries as the “it” girls–the celebrities–of their day at the cutting edge of Renaissance culture and fashion. They caused comment wherever they went, whatever they did–and tabloid talk followed.  John Knox was like our on TMZ or News of the World. Queen Mary was a lightning rod for scandal—men fell deeply in love with her (John Gordon, Chastelard, Willie Douglas), never mind the men who wanted her crown (Darnley, Bothwell just for starters).

In that environment, I start to wonder what kept Queen Mary going?  Even after her low point, imprisoned at Loch Leven, she pulled herself together and escaped, rallied troops and went into battle.  She was no coward, no shrinking violet and neither were her Maries.  Seton was bold enough to join her at the Battle of Carberry, then body-double for Mary in her escape from Loch Leven, run with her to England, sharing her imprisonment.   Livingston likewise was at Carberry and she held onto Mary’s jewels and money even under duress from the Regent Morton as late at 1573.  Fleming and her husband held Edinburgh Castle in what can only have been diabolical conditions.

Queen Mary lurched from one crisis to the next, doing her best to manage each.  But with each crisis the stakes were raised higher and she finally lost everything.  Once Queen of France and Scotland, she spent half her life imprisoned.  And yet Queen Mary’s cause was not lost the day she fled to England–there were many, many in Scotland who remained loyal to her.  Not just Edinburgh Castle, but also Doune Castle and Dunbar held for her up until early 1570s, after she was under Elizabeth I’s eye.  Her Maries, their husbands and families all worked for her release and did not give up on it for a long time.  Queen Mary had been escaping from one sort of danger or another since her mother removed her from Linlithgow to Stirling in case she was abducted and taken to England at seven months old.  There was no reason to think once in England she would never see Scotland again.

For me, I can’t imagine writing this book without spending time in Scotland in the footsteps of my characters, seeing the worn stone steps in an ancient castle and knowing my characters helped with the wear and tear, or the fireplace where they would have sat and warmed themselves on a cold day, or following the route they took from one location to the next.

I admit I did not achieve everything I hoped to.  I could easily have spent another two weeks, or three, to really cover the ground.  And I might yet before it’s all done.  Remember, Queen Mary spent a lot of time in France…and England…Just sayin’.

In the meantime, I have journals and drafts and ideas floating in my head and a summer to get them all cohesively on paper. Carpe Diem!

Related articles

Dunfermline Abbey-Beginning of the End of Queen Mary’s Happiness?

Somehow, I feel every blog post should start with a commentary about the weather, because in some ways it does drive the sight-seeing experience.  So today, I am happy to report it was a bit cold, but it did not rain!

The old Gibbons house in Bowhill

I spent the morning with my great-aunt Lena, who is in a care home in Glenrothes–and then met my cousin Ian for lunch in a very fine pub, the FettykilFox.  Chatting over lunch put us in the mood to go to Bowhill, a subdivision of Cardenden where our dads grew up and find the old house that our grandparents had.  Ian was too young to have stayed at 11 Daisyfield Terrace, but I remembered it.  The neighborhood has definitely suffered from years of economic downturn and unemployment — it was primarily a mining community.

Site of Granddad Gibbons’ Favorite Pub

We took a photograph, and then another of the old Bowhill Social Club where my Granddad used to spend a bit more time than my grandmother would have liked.  (I actually remember him taking my brother and I there to show us off to his mates when we were little, and swearing us to secrecy–but we ratted him out the minute we got home, so amazed were we by the pub!)

“The Bruce” Carved Atop Dunfermline Abbey, resting place of King Robert the Bruce

But to the purpose of the day, which was to visit Dunfermline Abbey, an 11th Century church that was the burial place of many Scottish Kings and Queens, including Robert the Bruce (think Braveheart).  I understand his tomb is very beautiful, but guess what?  There was a _______!  Yes, a wedding.  I am sure Historic Scotland gets well-deserved supplementary income from these events, but they don’t half put a cramp in your sight-seeing style.  The tomb will have to wait for another day…

Mary, Queen of Scots stayed here on several occasions while travelling through her kingdom; from 7 to 9 and again from 17 to 18 September 1565 with her new husband, Lord Darnley.  They were married in July 1565–you wonder if the honeymoon phase was already over and she figured out he was not love’s young dream?  Their son, James VI, was born in June 1566, so it is possible he was conceived in Dunfermline.

Interior of Dunfermline Abbey

Their real purpose for being in Dunfermline was part of the Chaseabout Raid, a failed rebellion by  Queen Mary’s half-brother, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray on 26 August 1565, over her marriage to Darnley.  Much as Henry VIII may have supported Protestant reformers in the murder of Cardinal Beaton, Elizabeth I supported Moray and others against Mary, because she was  angry about the marriage.

Ruin of Guest House next to Dunfermline Abbey, where Queen Mary and Darnley stayed

Mary and Darnley may have been united on the raid, but any happiness they did have was short-lived and though her life was never without controversy in Scotland,  the political heat definitely turned up from the Chaseabout Raid, and did not abate during her short reign.  Poor Mary!

Related articles

One of the Four Maries at the Lang Siege of Edinburgh Castle

Yesterday I took a break from driving and caught the train to Edinburgh, a familiar routine from my childhood days when we’d head to Princes Street for “proper” school clothes before flying back to the US. (I swear if my mother could have had me in a school uniform, she’d have been in heaven.)  Love the train, wish we had more of them in the US.

It was another dreichy day to be out and about, but I was determined to see the Castle and Holyrood Palace, both of which I’ve visited before, though like my visit to St. Andrews the memory has dimmed with time!  For example, I’d forgotten just what a hike it is up to Edinburgh Castle!  But once there, you can pretty much ignore throngs of tourists and with an audio guide to wander at your leisure.  Confess these photos do not do it the Castle justice, and I’m missing my Sony DSLR, broken since day 4.

Edinburgh Castle

Portcullis Gate at Edinburgh Castle

I was particularly interested in the early castle, of which not a lot remains.  Mary, Queen of Scots did not spend a lot of time at Edinburgh Castle.  Apart from giving birth to her son, James VI, she was only at the Castle on two other occasions during her reign.  But, one of her Maries — Mary Fleming – was here with her husband, the Queen’s Secretary of State William Maitland of Lethington, during the “Lang Siege” between May 1571 and May 1573.  Note – this was long after the Queen fled to England and was imprisoned by Elizabeth I.

Edinburgh Castle

Fleming was Mary’s cousin as well as her chief Lady in Waiting and one of her Maries.  Like the others, she was loyal to the bone to the Queen.  It is hard to imagine what life within the Castle would have been like during a siege — shortages of food and fuel, limited mobility…and it is damp and cold!  Yesterday was just a cold spring day–I can’t imagine what it would have been like in the dead of winter.  When I finally got into St. Margaret’s Chapel after a 90 minute wait (another wedding) I could easily picture Mary Fleming kneeling in prayer for comfort, endurance, hope…

St. Margaret’s Chapel 12th C

But Scots forces under the Earl of Morton, aided by the English, broke the siege and hanged the key rebels, notably Kirkcaldy of Grange.  Fleming’s husband William Maitland was to hang as well, but he died–say some-“the Roman way” and escaped the noose.

A lot of Queen Mary’s biographers talk about Mary Seton as the most loyal Marie, because she accompanied her into England and stayed with her for most of her captivity.  The remaining three Maries–Beaton, Livingston and Fleming–continued to support Queen Mary’s cause after she went to England.  Certainly Fleming lost her husband to the Queen’s cause and after the Lang Siege Fleming tried, but was denied permission by Elizabeth I, to go to Queen Mary in England.

I left Edinburgh Castle and walked down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace, only to find that it was closed while the Scottish Assembly meets through 28 May.  Drat and double drat. Drenched and cold, I made for Marks & Spencer’s Food Halls on Princes Street, and Lush for some bath salts and headed back across the Firth.

Tabloid Scandal of 1566–Queen Mary’s Jaunt to Hermitage from Jedburgh

There is a scene in the 1971 film Mary, Queen of Scots (starring Vanessa Redgrave as Mary and Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth I) where she is at Hermitage Castle (if memory serves) with Bothwell, and yells defiantly down to her brother and other rebels while Bothwell escapes through the back door.  Yesterday, I got to see Bothwell’s home for myself.  It was a long, long drive – a good 2.5 hours from Kinghorn on some verrry tiny roads that take two-way traffic but are really built for one.  This would have been a challenge but the road to Hermitage Castle from Hawick(pronounced HOYCK) is about 12 miles long and pretty deserted with it, so we had the road to ourselves.  My cousin Karen and I really thought the Garmin SatNav lady was taking us to the middle of nowhere.

Hermitage Castle–Massive, forbidding and gorgeous

And indeed, in the middle of nowhere lies Hermitage Castle.  It is a massive place, suitably forbidding for its location on the Scottish-English Border where for hundreds of years raids and battles were fought for possession of the area.  Once you were inside Hermitage, I have to believe you’d be really safe.

The big story about Mary, Queen of Scots and Hermitage is that she was holding court in Jedburgh, about 25 miles away, when she heard Bothwell was injured in a Border raid.  Concerned, she went to be by his side, creating the modern-day equivalent of a tabloid scandal.

Just like today, the tabloid rumor-mongering got it only partially right. Mary didn’t exactly gallop full-tilt boogie across the Borders to be with him.  She waited a week, finished her business at Jedburgh and only then went to pay him a visit.  He was a Privy Councillor, it was not inappropriate.  And, Mary brought the Court with her, including her half-brother (and nemesis) the Earl of Moray.   I’m never convinced Mary was as taken with Bothwell in a grand romance.  He was capable, loyal–but a handful.

Lambing season in the Borders near Hawich

We made our way back from Hermitage via Jedburgh through some beautiful scenery, including a long narrow road with signposts “Speed kills lambs” — sure enough, hundreds of wee lambs leaping around the fields and in the middle of the road.  This little guy was very bold.

At Jedburgh we stopped for lunch in view of Jedburgh Abbey–magnificent even in ruins.

The real ‘find’ came when the server at lunch suggested we go see the “Mary, Queen of Scots House,” which was where Mary stayed for a month in 1566.  It was from here that she held her Justice Ayres, road out to visit Bothwell and returned–and promptly fell sick.

Of the curious artifacts on display two caught my attention — one, a lock of Mary’s hair, still red-gold and a high heel, possibly Mary’s, that looks remarkably like a Donald Pliner shoe I owned in 1995.  Just sayin’

Related articles

Historic St. Andrews; Queen Mary’s Great Escape from Loch Leven

St. Andrews Castle

It was a beautiful day for a drive, so I took the Fife Coast Road up through Dysart, East Wemyss up to historic St. Andrews.  Bit ashamed to admit this was my fourth visit to St. Andrews—I am even photographed at the St. Andrews Cathedral ruins with my grandmother when I was 18—but I felt today like it was my first visit.  Maybe because I have some context for the history there and so the ruins are now, well, more than ruins.  And no, my golfing friends, I did not—this trip—go to the Old Course, there just was not enough time.

Mary, Queen of Scots visited St. Andrews on her first progress through Scotland after her return on 17 August 1561.  According to John Guy in Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart (must read for Queen Mary fans), by the third week of September, Mary and the Maries amused themselves by “playing house, banishing the symbols of royalty and doing their own shopping.”  It is a cute story.

More interesting is the history of the Scottish Reformation at St. Andrews, in particular the uprising participated in by, among others, Kirkcaldy of Grange in retaliation for the death of religious reformer, George Wishart.

Wishart traveled Scotland denouncing the errors of the Papacy and abuses in the Roman Catholic Church, until he was seized on the orders of Mary Beaton’s cousin, Cardinal David Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews and burned at the stake on 1 March 1546.

Two months later, on 29 May 1546, the conspirators, including William Kirkcaldy of Grange, murdered the cardinal in his own castle of St Andrews, mutilating the corpse and hanging it from a window (nice).  The suggestion is that Henry VIII egged on the conspirators, because Cardinal Beaton was an obstacle to his Scottish policy—which was to marry Mary, Queen of Scots to his son, Prince Edward.

The murderers holed up in the castle at St. Andrews for nearly a year—until French troops sailed into the Forth and bombarded the castle.  John Knox, who had joined the defenders as a preacher, was among those arrested and sentenced to work on galleys.   As I stood on the wall facing the sea, I could imagine the French ships arriving and the sinking feeling of those inside the castle.

Cathedral of St Andrew, Fife

I spent more time today at the ruins of the Cathedral of St. Andrew, which in the day of Cardinal Beaton and Mary, Queen of Scots must have been magnificent.  Even in ruins, the sheer size is impressive.  I could understand how pilgrims looking to worship at the shrine of St. Andrews (supposedly holding relics/bones of St. Andrew) would be in awe.

Loch Leven Castle: Mary, Queen of Scots escaped in 1568 using Mary Seton as a body-double.

On to Loch Leven Castle in Kinross, down the North Fife Road through some spectacular scenery – the Lomond Hills and Bennarty Hill in the distance to the East.   I love driving through the countryside, which is so green and lush (from all that rain).  Every so often a field of bright yellow rapeseed or some deep golden gorse bushes break up the landscape.  Yes, it really is as picturesque as you see in the postcards.

Loch Leven Castle is the scene of a fantastic Mary, Queen of Scots story.  In June 1567, Mary was imprisoned there and forced to abdicate in favor of her son by several Protestant Lords, including her brother James, Earl of Moray.  The Castle was her prison, and pretty hard to escape from, being in the middle of a lake.   It is small castle, but then, they brought the big stones over the water so the building might have been slim for that reason.   Much of it is in ruin, but I did get the general sense of it.

Loch Leven Castle

Mary would have been imprisoned on the top floor.  It must have been the lowest point in her life—she lost her crown, her son James, had a miscarriage and was shut away from the world.  One of the few people with her in her prison was Mary Seton—and I love this story about Seton.  It is not clear who formed the escape plan, but at some stage Queen Mary formed a bond with Willie Douglas, one of the young men on the island.  Willie helped her escape by rowing her across Loch Leven, meanwhile Seton dressed up as Mary and walked around the upstairs window so people would think she was the Queen.   Mary escaped and met Seton’s brother on the other side…but no one says much about the hell Seton must have caught when they discovered she was not the Queen.

It was a great, great sightseeing day, though not without mishaps.  The Garmin GPS/SatNav Lady and I got on just fine, but my DSLR camera took it into its head to stop working (it is new, and really? now?) and I’m faced with finding a repair centre over in Edinburgh—or making do.  These photos were taken by my Lumix, which is a great camera—just not a DSLR.

I did buy some souvenirs — a contemporary thistle necklace by Aldona Juska in Artery Gallery, and a 16th Century map of Scotland at Loch Leven.

Rossend, Scene of Mary, Queen of Scots Scandal with Chastelard and Falkland Palace, Her Favorite Hunting Lodge

Today I took up my itinerary with a vengeance—planning to visit Burntisland, Falkland and St. Andrews in a day and spend a couple of hours with my dad’s Aunt Lena.  It did not work out that way… But two out of three ain’t bad!

I drove to Burntisland this morning to visit Rossend Castle, where Mary, Queen of Scots stayed February 1563.  It was at Rossend where Pierre de Bocosel de Chastelard, a French messenger (some say spy) and poet, hid under Mary’s bed and surprised her.  Supposedly he was dying of love for her, but he had a knife and this was the second time he’d comprised Mary’s reputation—Mary’s detractors, especially John Knox, made mileage out of the scandal.  Mary took a hard-line and executed Chastelard at the Mercat Cross in St. Andrews.  His last words fueled the scandal:  “Adieu, most beautiful and cruel princess in the world.” Chastelard is the subject of a play by Charles Algernon Swinburne, in which he is a warrior-poet who is also Mary Stuart’s courtier and lover.   The twist? Mary Beaton also loves him.   This is all fiction of course, but it gives a writer some ideas…

Rossend Castle, shades of former glory. Here in February 1563 Mary, Queen of Scots found Chastelard hiding under her bed.

The castle was a disappointment.  The stone walls are now covered in pebble whitewash (horrors), which is more period 20thCentury than anything else.   The grounds were a mess, but then I understand it was—or is–up for sale. A postal worker happened by and I asked him about the area, and he pointed the Keeper’s house out to me (or what he believed had been), the exterior of which was a bit more of what I was expecting.

Keepers House, Rossend Castle, stone facade intact

The only other place of note personal – the castle overlooked the Burntisland Shipyard where my grandfather Donnelly worked as a plumber’s mate from about 1941-1970.

I made my way up the A921 through Kirkcaldy to Falkland, which is not all that far – about 15 miles.  But the roads are very windy here and I nearly came to blows with the Garmin SatNav!  It sent me back and forth through Kirkcaldy to the point where I was sure there was a real person behind the Garmin just messing with me.   Finally I stopped listening to the Garmin woman and made my own way to Falkland without any trouble.

Falkland Palace, East wing. The King’s and Queen’s Rooms would have been here

Falkland is a beautiful town set at the foot of the Lomond Hills–exactly where you’d expect to find a royal hunting lodge.  Falkland Palace was a favorite hunting long of the Stewart monarchs, especially James IV, James V and Queen Mary.

Keeper’s House, Falkland Palace–Mary Beaton’s Grandfather and Father would have lived here.

It was also the home of Mary Beaton’s grandfather and father, who were Keepers of the palace so it was exciting to see where young Beaton would have been born and where she would have visited her family when she was not with Queen Mary. I entered through the Keeper’s residence, long renovated by the Bute family but there was enough effort made to give several rooms at 16th Century feel, and plenty of portraits around of the Stewarts.   I could very much picture Queen Mary galloping across the fields with the Four Maries, playing tennis in the court (the oldest tennis court in the world, I’m told).   Unfortunately, I could not take any photographs inside.

Lomond Hills behind Falkland Palace, where Mary, Queen of Scots and her predecessor Stewart monarchs hunted

Headed off to St. Andrews with a quick stopover to see my dad’s aunt who was in Glenrothes at a nursing home.  But as I got in the car to leave, I noticed the right front tire was flat as a pancake, which scuppered my plans for St. Andrews and I spent the afternoon dealing with car matters—very frustrating.

Oldest tennis court in the world at Falkland