Mary Stuart by Stefan Zweig Read Free Book Online

her position as ruler. She had to witness the execution of the rebels, and we may well suppose that the sight was deeply graven in her memory, forgotten then, maybe, for decades, to leap back again into vivid reality when the hour of her own doom struck. Now she watched the awesome sight of a human being, hands tied behind the back, kneeling with head on the block and awaiting the fall of the executioner’s axe. She heard for the first time the curiously muffled and dull tone of steel that severs living flesh, she saw the blood squirt, and the head rolling away from the body into the sand. A picture gruesome enough to blot out from the remembrance of a sensitive soul the splendid scenes so recently enacted at Rheims when her young head was crowned.
    Now evil tidings followed quickly one upon the other. Mary’s mother, Mary of Guise, who had been acting as regent in Scotland during her daughter’s minority, had reached her end and, surrounded by enemies, breathed her last in June 1560. She left the country embroiled in religious strife and in full rebellion, with war raging along the border and English armies occupying the Lowlands. Mary Stuart had to exchange her festal attire for mourning. For the time being she was to hear no more music; her feet were for a while no longer to tread the mazes of the dance. Then Death’s bony knuckle came knocking at the door of her hearth and home. Francis II grew weaker and weaker; the envenomed blood usually flowing so sluggishly through his veins now beat a tattoo in his temples and his ears. No more could he even walk or ride, but had to be carried in a litter from place to place. At length the gathering pus burst the eardrum; but it was too late, for the inflammation had already spread inwards to the brain, and the sufferer was beyond reach of medical aid. His heart ceased to beat on 6th December 1560.
    Once more a tragical scene between two women was played to the finish beside this second deathbed. Hardly was the breath out of Francis’ frail body when Mary Stuart, no longer Queen of France, had to yield precedence to Catherine de’ Medici; the younger of the royal widows had to draw back at the door in order to allow the elder one to go first. Mary was no longer the first lady in the realm, but again, as before, the second. One short year sufficed to bring Mary Stuart’s dream to an end. She would never again be reigning Queen of France, but must henceforth remain till the hour of her death what she had always been from birth: Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles.
    The rigours of regal etiquette in France decreed that a king’s widow should pass forty days in strict seclusion during which she might not for a moment leave her private apartments, or admit the daylight into her rooms. In the first two weeks of mourning she was forbidden to receive any visitors except the new King and his next of kin, and these she entertained in her retreat which, gloomy as it was and lit only by candles, resembled a living tomb. Nor might a royal widow wear the regulation black adopted almost universally by commoners as a sign of bereavement. The widow of a French monarch had to don the “ deuil blanc ” — white mourning — prescribed by the law of the land. A white coif framed the pale face, a white brocade dress covered body and limbs, the shoes and stockings were white. Ample folds of white fell from head to waist. This is how Janet depicts Mary Stuart in the days of her mourning; this is how Ronsard portrays her in words:
    Un crespe long, subtil et délié
    Ply contre ply, retors et replié
    Habit de deuil, vous sert de couvertuire,
    Depuis le chef jusques à la ceinture,
    Qui s’enfle ainsi qu’un voile quand le vent
    Soufle la barque et la cingle en avant.
    De tel habit vous étiez accoutrée
    Partant, hélas! de la belle contrée
    Dont aviez eu le sceptre dans la main,
    Lorsque, pensive et baignant votre sein
    Du beau