Nigel Tranter - The Courtesan

No mention was made of the Princess Catherine of Bourbon.

James, by the grace of God, King of Scots, Duke of Rothesay, Lord of the Isles, and Defender of Christ's Reformed Kirk, saw the light belatedly – in the warm glowing reflection of English gold pieces as well as in the saving of an innocent young Catholic brand from the burning. He capitulated, inditing a note in his own intricate hand, permitting his right worthy and truest friend and councillor Patrick, Master of Gray to re-enter his realm of Scotland forthwith. He personally appended the royal seal – omitting to inform the Lord Chancellor – and despatched it by close messenger to Berwick-upon-Tweed.

It was exactly two years, almost to the day, since the royal sentence of beheading for high treason had been reluctantly commuted to banishment for life.

The great banqueting-hall at Holyroodhouse presented a scene of which Mary Gray, at least, had never seen the like. In the hall at Castle Huntly she had witnessed many an exciting and colourful occasion, but never on such a scale and with the atmosphere of this one. It seemed to her, from her point of vantage in one of the raised window-embrasures which she shared with her father and mother and a life-size piece of statuary, that there must be hundreds of people present – not one hundred or two, but many. Every hue of the rainbow shone and revolved and eddied before her, jewellery flashed and glittered in the blaze of a thousand candles. The noise was deafening, everybody having to shout to make themselves heard, so that the music of the royal fiddlers and lutists in the ante-room was almost completely drowned. The smells caught the throat – of perfumes and perspiration, the fumes of liquor and the smoke of candles. The cream of Scotland was here tonight – the Protestant cream, that is – by royal command and in its most splendid apparel. Chancellor Maitland, in sombre black, who must pay for it all out of a chronically impoverished Treasury, frowned sourly on one and all from beside the high double-doors at the top end of the vast chamber. Few heeded him, however, for his frown was part of the man.

The small Gray party was very quiet and dully-clad compared with the rest of the gay and confident throng, in their best clothes as they were although none would call dull the flushed and ripe comeliness of Mariota Davidson, a mother for the fourth time, all tremulous wide-eyed unease; and Mary's lip-parted, utterly unselfconscious excitement, wedded to her quite startling elfin attractiveness, drew innumerable glances, admiring, intrigued, speculative and frankly lecherous. As for David, his frown almost matched that of the Chancellor as he partly hid himself behind the statue that had been one of Mary the Queen's importations from her beloved France – for too many of the faces that he saw here tonight he knew, and had no wish to be recognised in turn. All this had been his life once, all unwillingly – and he had hoped, indeed sworn, never to tread the shifting-sands of it again. They were in Edinburgh, at the Lady Marie's earnest request, for the christening on the morrow; and here tonight only to please the urgent Mary, who had engineered a royal summons for them through Ludovick, Duke of Lennox.

Abruptly the din of voices was shattered as, from the top of the hall, a couple of trumpeters in the royal livery blew a fanfare, high-pitched, resounding, challenging. Chancellor Maitland stepped aside, and footmen threw open the great double doors. From beyond strode in the Lord Lyon King of Arms, baton in hand, with two of his heralds, brilliantly bedecked in their red-and-gold tabards and plumed bonnets. This, it appeared, was to be a state occasion.

Behind paced, preternaturally solemn and looking extraordinarily youthful, the Duke of Lennox, newly appointed Lord High Chamberlain, a position once borne by his father, not quite sure whether to wield, carry or trail his staff of office. Dressed in plum-coloured velvet, padded and slashed, he took very long strides and appeared to be counting them out to himself. At evidently a given number of paces, he halted, turned, cleared his throat in some embarrassment, and then thumped his staff loudly on the floor.

Mary Gray gurgled her amusement.

In the succeeding hush they all heard the King sniffing, before they saw him. He appeared beyond the open doorway presently, shambling in a hurried knock-kneed gait, almost a trot, peering downwards and sideways as he came, fumbling at the stiffening of his exaggeratedly padded trunks. He was overdressed almost grotesquely, in royal purple doublet barred with orange, stuffed and distended about the chest and shoulders inordinately, pearl-buttoned and hung with chains and orders. His lolling head seemed to be supported, like a joint on a platter, by an enormous ruff, soiled already with dribbled spittle, whilst round and about all this he wore a short but necessarily wide cloak, embroidered with the royal monogram and insignia, edged with fur, and boasting a high upstanding collar encrusted with silver filigree. To top all, a fantastically high-crowned hat, fully a score of inches in height, ringed with golden chain-work and festooned with ostrich feathers, sat above his wispy hair. The effect of it all, above the thin and knobbly legs, was ludicrously like an over-blown and distinctly unsteady spider. It could now be seen that the reason for the regal preoccupation was the extraction of a handkerchief from a trunks pocket, less than clean.

A woman giggled, and somewhere from the back of the throng came a choked-off guffaw. Then, as the monarch came shuffling over the threshold, Lennox bowed deeply, if jerkily, and thereupon the entire concourse swept low in profound obeisance, the men bending from the waist, the women curtsying, remaining so until James spoke.

'Aye, aye,' he said thickly. 'I… we, we greet you warmly. Aye, warmly. All of you. On this, this right au – auspicious occasion.' His protruding tongue had difficulty with the phrase. 'You may stand upright. Och, aye – up wi' you.'

With a very audible exhalation of breath the noble company relaxed again, amidst an only moderately subdued murmur of comment and exclamation, not all of it as respectful as the occasion might have warranted.

'I do not like his hat,' Mary mentioned judicially. 'It is too high, by far.'

'Hush, you!' her father told her, glancing around uneasily.

'Yes. Is not Vicky ridiculous with all that padding?'

'Ssshhh!'

Servitors brought in a gilded Chair of State, on which the monarch sat himself down. The Chancellor moved up on one side of it, Lennox to the other, while the Lord Lyon stood behind. The music resumed, and so did the noise and chatter, while certain notables were brought forward by the heralds, and presented by either Lennox or the Chancellor. James, fidgeting, extended a perfunctory nail-bitten hand, eyed them all sideways, and muttered incoherences. He kept glancing from Lennox to the far end of the room, it was noted, impatiendy.

Presently, while still there was a queue of candidates for presentation, James leaned over and plucked at his cousin's sleeve, worrying it like a terrier with a rat. 'Enough, Vicky – enough o' this,' he whispered, but loud enough for all around to hear. 'On wi' our business, man.'

Lennox nodded, waved away the queueing lords, and thumped loudly on the floor again with his staff. The musicians in the ante-room were silenced.

'My lords,' he said. Clearing his throat again, and as an afterthought, 'And ladies. His Grace has asked… has commanded your presence here tonight for a purpose. An especial purpose. A notable undertaking. His Grace is concerned at idle talk that has been, er, talked. About his royal marriage.' Ludovick ran a finger round inside his ruff. 'Unsuitable talk and inconvenient… '

'Aye – blethers, just. Blethers,' the King interrupted, rolling his head.