Nigel Tranter - Past Master

'Aye – what folly is this…?'

'Folly indeed, Vicky – but dangerous folly.' The Master seated himself on a bench at the side of the fixe, and gestured to the other to do likewise. 'There is notable violence afoot-and you, I fear, are intended to be part of it. You and the King, both.'

'Restalrig said something of this. That is why I am here. He swore that the King was endangered. So I came. In duty. To James. As no doubt you intended.'

'As I hoped, yes.' Gravely the other nodded. 'For if the King is to be saved, and you with him, I need your help.'

'A plot? A conspiracy?'

'You could name it so, indeed. Though it is more than that. A strategy, rather – part of a great strategy. To turn Scotland Catholic again, to isolate England, and to bring Bothwell to power and rule.'

'That mad-cap! You believe it serious?'

'When Bothwell makes common cause with Huntly, all Scotland must need think it serious!'

'Huntly! But… they have always been enemies.

'Ambition can make strange bedfellows.'

Lennox did not require the other to elaborate on the menace, if these tidings were true. The Earl of Huntly was his own brother-in-law, even though there was little love lost between them, and Ludovick well knew both the arrogant savagery of the man, and his military strength. Chief of the great northern clan of Gordon and hereditary Lieutenant of the North, he was probably the most powerful nobleman in Scotland, and a militant Catholic. He boasted that he could field five thousand men in a week, and, with his allies, double that in a month – and he had proved this true on many an occasion. Only two other men in all the kingdom could produce fighting-men on this scale. One was the Earl of Angus, head of the house of Douglas – and his religious allegiance was to say the least doubtful, though he had leanings towards Catholicism; but he was a hesitant man of no strength of character. The third was Francis Hepburn Stewart, Earl of Bothwell, who controlled, after a fashion, a vast number of wild Border moss-troopers as well as his mother's free-booting Lothian clan of Hepburn; moreover, he was married to Angus's sister. An alliance between these three could have fifteen thousand men in arms within days, without even calling upon friends and supporters for aid.

The young man moistened his lips. 'If this is true..'

'It is true, Vicky. I have seen a letter from Bothwell to Huntly. All is in train.'

'They would rise in arms? These two? Against the Protestants? Against the King?'

'Aye. And more than that. They will discredit the King first, and so weaken the Protestant cause. And that is not the worst of it. James, unhappily, has played into their hands. You recollect the bad business of the Spanish Blanks?'

The Duke's eyebrows rose. He had hardly expected the Master of Gray to mention that wretched and treacherous affair, since he was believed to have had a controlling hand in it. 'Who could forget it? But that spoiled the Catholic cause, not the King's.'

'Wait, you. Those were blank letters, sheets of paper already signed by Huntly, Erroll and other Catholic leaders. Angus too. With their seals attached. Sent to the King of Spain, for him to fill in his own terms for the invasion of Scotland in the Catholic interest – a stupid folly if ever there was one. Their courier, George Ker, was captured, and the blanks with him. Put to the torture, he revealed all. Or, at any rate, much! That was a year and more ago. All Scotland knows this. But what Scotland does not know is that more than the blank letters were found on George Ker. There was also a letter from James himself to Philip of Spain. Asking on what terms Philip would send men to Scotland to help put the Kirk in its place!'

'God be good! no! That I do not believe!' Ludovick cried.

'It is fact, nevertheless. George Ker himself told me. He who was carrying the letter. I saw him in Paris. James was most foolish. But he is much browbeaten and bullied by the Kirk, as you know. He has to play one side against the 6ther, to keep his throne. He should not have committed himself in writing that was a major blunder. But then, His Grace has been but ill-advised, of late.' The Master smiled slightly. 'Since I left Scotland and his side.' That was gendy said.

Lennox answered nothing, as his mind sought to cope with the duplicity, the bad faith, which all this implied, amongst those in the highest positions in the land.

Gray went on. 'It was the Kirk authorities who captured Ker and his letters. They have not revealed that they hold this letter from James to King Philip. Not to the world. But they have, I assure you, to James himself! Melville and his other reverend friends hold this letter over our hapless young monarch's head like a poised sword! In order that he may do as they say. And it has served them well, of late – as you must agree. The King has truckled to them in all things. Hence the Catholics' fury. The Kirk goes from strength to strength, in the affairs of state. All goes down before the ministers and their friends. They threaten James with the letter read from every Protestant pulpit in the land! And worse – excommunication! If he does not play their game.'

'Excommunication! By the Kirk! The King?'

'Aye. And that dread word has poor Jamie trembling at his already wobbly knees!'

'I knew naught of this…'

'My dear Vicky – I think that you have been further exiled from Holyroodhouse at your Methven in Stratheam, than I have been in London, Paris and Rome!'

'And gladly so! I hate and abominate all this evil scheming and deceit and trickery, that goes by the name of statecraft! Give me Methven…'

'Ah-ha. lad – but it is not Methven that you are to be given! But something less pleasant. The Duke of Lennox, unfortunately, must pay heed to all this, whether he would or no. Both-well and Huntly have planned shrewdly – indeed so shrewdly that I needs must think that there is some shrewder wit behind all this than the furious, half-crazed Francis Stewart of Bothwell, or that turkey-cock, George Gordon of Huntly! Through Ker, the courier – who of course is in their pay – they know the contents of the King's letter to Philip of Spain. They intend to have it shouted abroad from one end of Scotland to the other.

The Kirk will have to deny it – or lose its hold over James. Either way, the King's credit will suffer gready. So the Protestant cause will be divided – King's men against Kirk's men. And Bothwell and Huntly, with Angus and the other Catholics, will strike.' 'With their thousands of men? War?'

'That too. But first, rather more subtly, I fear. James, discredited and isolated, will be struck down. Assassinated. Whether by dirk, poison, or strangling like his father Darnley, I have not yet discovered.'

'Precious soul of God!' Ludovick was on his feet, staring. 'Assassinated! Murdered! You… you are not serious, Patrick? Not that! Not the King! They would never dare…'

'You think not, Vicky? James would have had Bothwell burned for witchcraft had he dared. Huntly slew James's cousin, the Earl of Moray, with his own hand.'

'But not the King!'

'Why not? His father, King Henry Darnley, your uncle, murdered at Kirk o' Field. His mother, Mary the Queen, harried, imprisoned, executed. James Third murdered at Sauchieburn. James First murdered at Perth. What is so sacred about our shauchling Jamie?'

'But how would the King's death aid them? Bothwell and Huntly? Neither of them can aspire to the throne. Bothwell is a Stewart, yes – but his line is illegitimate.'

'Aye. And here we come to it, my friend. Here is the beauty of it all. Our youthful Queen Anne at last, after so many alarms and make-believe, is with child. As all know. She is due to be delivered very shortly. In a month. Less. Hence my haste to come here, to have you brought here – for the time is short indeed. All the plans are laid. Within days of its birth, the child will be seized, captured. Held by the Catholics. And proclaimed King. Or Queen, if it is a girl. For James will be dead – having been murdered the same night. And Bothwell will rule in his. name, as Regent. And in the King's name, the Catholic armies will march.'