Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

Walsingham was suspicious of her at first, but she disarmed him with a combination of flirtatiousness and intellect that he found irresistible.

In the autumn, the ghost of Sylvie told me to marry Margery. ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I had your love while I was alive. Margery can have it now. I just want to look down from heaven and see you happy.’

We were married in Kingsbridge Cathedral at Christmas, almost a year after Sylvie died. It was a subdued ceremony. Weddings are usually about young people starting out in life, but ours seemed more like an ending. Walsingham and I had saved Queen Elizabeth and fought for her ideal of religious freedom; Barney and I and the English sailors had defeated the Spanish armada; and Margery and I were together at last. It seemed to me that all the threads of our lives had drawn together.

But I was wrong. It was not over yet; not quite.

Rollo Fitzgerald lived through the last decade of the sixteenth century in a fury of disappointment and frustration. Everything he had tried to do had come to nothing. England was more resolutely Protestant than ever. His life was a failure.

And then, with the turn of the century, he perceived that there was one last hope.

Queen Elizabeth was sixty-six when the new century began. It was a great age, and she was becoming haggard, pale and melancholy. She refused to look to the future, and made it an act of treason to even discuss the question of who would succeed to her throne. ‘Men always worship the rising rather than the setting sun,’ she said, and she was not wrong. Despite her prohibition, everyone was talking about what would happen when she died.

Late in the summer of 1602, a visitor from Rome came to see Rollo at Tyne Castle. It was Lenny Price, who had been a student with Rollo at the English College back in the seventies. The lively pink-faced youth of those days was now a grey-haired man of fifty-five. ‘The church has a mission for you,’ said Lenny. ‘We want you to go to Edinburgh.’

They were standing on the roof of one of the castle towers, looking across farmland to the North Sea. Rollo’s pulse quickened at Lenny’s words. Scotland was ruled by King James VI, the son of Mary Stuart. ‘Mission?’ he said.

‘Queen Elizabeth has no heir,’ Lenny said. ‘None of the three children of Henry VIII ever had a child. So King James is the likeliest candidate to succeed Elizabeth on the throne of England.’

Rollo nodded. ‘He’s had a book published explaining his right to the throne.’ James believed in the power of the written word, a useful philosophy for the king of a small, poor country such as Scotland.

‘He’s clearly manoeuvring for it. He’s seeking support — so Rome thinks this is the moment to extract promises from him.’

Rollo felt a warm surge of hope, but forced himself to be realistic. ‘Despite his mother, James is no Catholic. He was taken from Mary Stuart when he was a year old, and from then on, the poison of Protestantism was dripped daily into his childish ear.’

‘But there’s something you don’t know,’ said Lenny. ‘Almost nobody knows, and you mustn’t tell anyone.’ He lowered his voice, even though they were alone. ‘James’s wife is a Catholic.’

Rollo was astounded. ‘Anne of Denmark, the queen of Scotland, is a Catholic? But she was raised Protestant!’

‘God sent a devout man to speak to her, and she saw the light.’

‘You mean someone converted her?’

In a near-whisper, Lenny said: ‘She has been received into the Church.’

‘God be praised! But this changes everything.’

Lenny raised a cautionary hand. ‘We don’t think she’ll be able to convert her husband.’

‘Does he not love her?’

‘Hard to say. Our informants in Scotland say they’re fond of one another. And they have three children. But they also say that James is a pervert.’

Rollo raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘With young men,’ Lenny explained.

Men who loved men committed a cardinal sin, but many of them were priests, and Rollo was not shocked.

Lenny went on: ‘James knows his wife has become a Catholic, and he’s accepted the fact. If we can’t expect that he’ll restore England to exclusive Catholicism, perhaps we can hope for tolerance.’

Rollo winced at the word tolerance . For him it was immorality, a mark of backsliding, error and decadence. How could the Catholic Church now be demanding tolerance ?

Lenny did not notice. ‘We must move to exploit this situation, and that’s where you come in. You must take a message to Edinburgh from the Catholic Church in England. If James will promise us freedom of worship, we will not oppose his bid for the English throne.’

Rollo saw immediately that this was the right thing to do, and his heart lifted in optimism. But there was a snag. ‘I’m not senior enough,’ he said. ‘The king of Scotland won’t see me.’

‘But the queen will,’ said Lenny. ‘She’s one of us, now, so we can arrange it.’

‘Is she so far committed?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ said Rollo. ‘I’ll go, of course.’

‘Good man,’ said Lenny.

Six weeks later Rollo was at the palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh. The house stood at the foot of a hill called Arthur’s Seat. To the west, the road ran for a mile to another hill on which stood Edinburgh Castle, a much less comfortable home. King James and Queen Anne preferred to live at Holyrood.

Rollo dressed in priest’s robes and hung a crucifix around his neck. He went to the west range of the palace and gave the name Jean Langlais to an assistant, together with an appropriate bribe. He was shown to a pleasant small room with tall windows and a big fire. Scotland was not so bad, he thought, if you were rich. It would have been quite another matter, in these cold winds, to be one of the barefoot children he had seen in the town.

An hour went by. Everyone knew that all royal servants pretended to be influential in order to solicit bribes, whether they had any real power or not. But Rollo was not relying only on his bribe. The priest who had converted Queen Anne to Catholicism was supposed also to tell her she should see Rollo. Nevertheless, she must first be told that Jean Langlais was here.

The woman who came in was not the twenty-seven-year-old queen but a gracious woman past sixty who looked familiar. ‘Welcome to Scotland, Father Langlais,’ she said. ‘Do you remember me? It’s been almost twenty years.’

When she spoke he recognized her as Mary Stuart’s long-time companion Alison. Her hair was grey now, but she had the same alert blue eyes. He stood up and shook her hand. ‘Lady Ross!’ he said.

‘I’m Lady Thurston now.’

‘I didn’t expect to see you.’

‘Queen Anne has been very good to me.’

Rollo got the picture. After the execution of Mary Stuart, Alison had returned to Scotland and married again. She had made herself useful to Queen Anne and become a lady-in-waiting. No doubt it was Alison who had introduced Anne to the Catholic priest who had converted her. ‘I imagine it was you who suggested my mission today,’ Rollo said.

‘Perhaps it was,’ Alison said.

This was good news. It improved Rollo’s chance of success. ‘Thank you for your help.’

‘I owe you a great deal,’ Alison said warmly, and the thought crossed Rollo’s mind that she might have a soft spot for him. But he had never been very interested in romance. Love was a passion that seemed to have passed him by. He was wondering how to respond to Alison when Queen Anne came in.

She had a long oval face with a high forehead and curly light-brown hair. Her figure was good, and she wore a dress with a low neckline to show off her generous bust. ‘I’m very glad to see you, Father Langlais,’ she said pleasantly.