Chapter X Extracts From the Diurnall of the Master of Sempill
That sandy-haired, fresh-coloured, tall gentleman, John Sempill, Master of Sempill, received his Mary Livingstone on her return from the Court with more demonstration than was held seemly in Scotland; but they were his own servants who saw him, and he was sincerely glad to have her back. Not only the pattern housewife, but the ornament of his hearth, the most buxom of the Maries, the highest-headed, greatest-hearted, the ruddiest and the ripest—well might he say, as he fondled her, ‘My lammie, thou art a salve for my sair een,’ and even more to the same effect.
‘By your favour, Master,’ quoth she, ‘you shall give over your pawing. I am travel-weary and heart-weary, and you trouble me.’
‘Heart-weary, dear love!’ cried the Master. ‘And you so new back to your bairn and your man!’
‘I am full fain of you, Master, and fine you know it. And our bairn is the pride of my eyes. But I grieve over what I’ve left behind me; my heart is woe for her. And indeed, if you must have it, I am near famishing for want of bite and sup.’
‘Come away, woman, come away,’ said the Master, justly shocked. ‘There’s the best pasty on the board that ever you set your bonny teeth to, and a brew of malt unmatched in Renfrew. Or would you have the Canary? Or happen the French wine is to your liking? Give a name to it, wife, for it’s a’ your ain, ye ken.’ He hovered about her, anxious to serve, while she pulled at her gauntlets.
‘The fiend is in the gloves, I think. There then, they’re off. Master, I’ll take a cup of the red French wine. Maybe it will put heart into me.’
‘Take your victual, take your victual, my lady,’ says the Master, ‘I’ll be back just now.’ He was his own cellarer, prudent man, and was apt to excuse himself by saying that one lock was better than two.
The wine brought back the colour to her cheeks and loosened the joints of her tongue. All he had now to do was to listen to her troubles: and he did listen. It is likely that, had she been less charged with them, she had been warier; but she was indeed surcharged. He soon understood that it was the coming of the Earl of Bothwell that had caused her return.
‘Not that I would not have braved him out, you must know, Master—bristling boar though he be, dangerous, boastful, glorious man. It would take a dozen of Hepburns to scare me from my duty. But oh,’tis herself that scares me now! So changed, so sore changed. You might lay it to witchcraft and be no fool.’
‘’Twill be the lying-in, I doubt,’ says the sage Master. ‘You mind how hardly my sister Menzies took her first. Ay, ’twill be that.’
Mary Livingstone would not have it. ‘There are many that say so, but I am not one. No, no. I know very well where to look for it. Witchcraft it is, night-spells. I mind the beginning o’t. Why, when I first saw her, all dim as I was with my tears, her heart went out to me—held out to me in her stretched hands. She took me to her sweet warm bosom, and I could have swooned for joy of her, to be there again. “Oh, Livingstone, my dear, my dear! Come back to me at last!” And so we weep and cling together, and all’s as it had ever been. For you know very well we were never long divided.’
‘Never long enough for me, Mary, in my courting time.’
‘She was expecting her wean from day to day, and I tell you she longed for the hour. She was aye sewing his little clothes—embroidering them—ciphers and crowns and the like. She worked him his guiding-strings with her own hands, every stitch—gold knot-work, you never saw better. And all her talk was of him.’
‘Likely, likely,’ murmured the Master.
‘She never wavered but it was to be a prince, for all that we teased her—spoke of the Princess Mary that was coming—or should it not be Princess Margaret? She smiled in her steady way, as she uses when she feels wise, knowing what others cannot know. “No other Mary in Scotland,” she said. “There are five of us now, and Scotland can hold no more. My Prince Jamie must wed with a Margaret if he needs one.” No, she never doubted, and you see she was right. Oh, she was right and well before the magic got to work!
‘To me she used to talk, more nearly than to the others. Poor Fleming! You’ll have heard of her sore disgrace—for favouring that lank Lethington of hers. She is suspect, you must know, of seeking his recall, so hath no privacy with our mistress. Beaton and Seton were never of such account; so ’twas to me she spoke her secrets—over and over in the long still forenoons, wondering and doubting and hoping, poor lamb. “Do you think he’ll lippen to me, Livingstone?” she would say. “Did your own child laugh to see his mother? I think ’twould break my heart,” she said, “if he greeted in my arms.” She intended to be nurse to him herself: that I will hold by before the Thronéd Three on Doomsday. Not a night went by but, when I came to her in the morn, she bade me look, and try, and be sure. I told her true, she could do it. And what hindered her, pray? What drove away her milk? Eh, sir, I doubt I know too well.
‘It was Beaton brought in that old quean, that liggar-lady of Bothwell’s, that lickorish, ramping Reres. Mother’s sister of Beaton’s she is, own sister to the wise wife of Buccleuch, with witchcraft in the marrow of her. What made Beaton do it? Let God tell you if He care. I think the Lord God may well have covered His face to hear her tales. Such a tainted history I never listened to—pourriture de France! Oh, Master, I’ve heard the Count of Anjou and his minions, and Madame Marguerite and all hers at their wicked talk. I’ve heard Bothwell blaspheme high Heaven in three tongues, and had the bloat Italian scald my ears with a single word. But the Reres beats all. Good guide us, where hath she not made herself snug? Whose purchase hath she not been? Man, I cannot tell you the tales she told, nor one-quarter the shamefulness she dared to report. And the soft lingering tongue of the woman! And how she lets her scabrous words drop from her like butter from a hot spoon! My poor lamb was weary of bed and body, I’ll allow. I’ll own the old limmer made her laugh; she never could refuse a jest, as you know, however salted it might be. No: she must listen and must laugh, while I could have stabbed the old speckled wife. But my Queen Mary kept her at the bedside; and there they were, she and this Reres, for ever kuttering and whispering together. ’Twas then, in my belief, the cast was made, and the wax moulded and the spells set working.
‘For mark you this. The pains came on o’ the Wednesday morn, in the small grey hours; and by nine o’clock the child was born alive. It wailed from the first—never was such a fretful bairn; and she could hear him, and grieved over it, and could not find rest when most she needed it. And then—when they put it to her—she could not nurse it. Oh, Master, I could have maimed my own breast to help her! She tried—sore, sore she tried; she schooled herself to smile, though the sweat fairly bathed her; she crooned to it, sang her French, her pretty stammering Scots; but all to no purpose—no purpose at all. The child just labbered itself and her—my bonny lamb—and got no meat.
‘Master, it fairly broke her spirit. She did not fret, she did not lament, but lay just, and stared at the wall; and not a maid nor woman among us could rouse her. The old Reres tried her sculduddery and night-house talk, but did no better than we with our coaxing and prayers. She had no heart, no care, no pride in the world; but just let all go, and thrung herself face to the wall.
‘The lords came about her, and she showed them their prince: you could see she scorned them on their knees, and herself to whom they knelt. The craven King came in behind them, and she bade him kiss his own son. She looked him over, with all the dry rage withering her face—you’ld have said she had chalked herself!—and spoke him terrible words. “I may forgive, but I shall never forget,” she said: and to an Englishman who was with him—“He has broken my heart.” A King! He’s a spoiled toy in her hands; and the like is all the glory of Scotland—a thing of no worth to her. What hath changed her so but witchcraft? Ah, what else hath such a wicked virtue? Soon after this she sent for Bothwell; and when he came she was up and about—mad, mad, mad for her pastime; drinking of pleasure, you may say, like a thirsty dog, that fairly bites the water. Oh, Master, I am sick at the heart with all I’ve seen and heard!’
‘Let me comfort my Heart and Joy!’ said the really loving Master, and applied himself to the marital privilege. Extracts from his Diurnall, with which I have been favoured by a learned Pen, shall follow here—not without their illustrative value in this narrative. I omit all reference to the redding of the hay, the wool sales of each week, statistical comparisons of the lands of Beltrees with other sheep-ground, Sandy Graeme’s hen, the draining of Kelpie’s Moss, a famous hunting of rats on Lammas Day, and other matters of a domestic or fleeting interest.
It is not without pain, be it added, that I allow the Master to display himself naked, as it were, and far from ashamed. It will be seen—I regret to say it—that he was not above trafficking his good wife’s heart, or sending her to grass—in pastoral figure!—when the milk ran dry. Commerce and the Affections! Well, he was not alone in Scotland; there were belted Earls in the trade with him—canny chafferers in the market-place, or (in Knox’s phrase) Flies at the Honeypot. He was no better than his neighbours; and you will hear the conclusion of their whole matter, from a shrewd observer, at the end of this book.
The first date in the Diurnall of any moment to us is—
July the 22.—Yester-een my dear wife Mary Livingstone, blessed be God, returned to her home. Being comforted and stayed, she had much to rehearse of Court doings. Great tales: Forbes of Reres’ lady, a very gamester; the Earl of Both., and others. Harsh entreaty of the K—— before many witnesses. Mem. Not to forget own advantage in such news, nor the Earl of Bedf(ord) and Mr. C(ecil).4
July the 24.—I wrote out my proffer fair for the Earl of Bed(ford). John Leng rode with it, a sad [discreet] person. Wool sales this week... Sandy Graeme: havers anent his hen.... M(ary) L(ivingstone) easier in mind, haler in body. Spake freely of the Court. The Q—— sent a French youth for the Earl of Both., and when he came saw him alone in her chamber. This would be great news for Engl(and), but and if they would pay my price. Mem. To be stiff, not to abate. Æquam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem.
July the 27.—... M. L(ivingstone) saith that her mate Fl(eming) would give all lawful things to have back the Sec(retary), even to her allegiance as a subject; so intemperate is the passion of love in women. Saith that the Earl of Both. desires the K—— to recall Mr. A(rchibald) D(ouglas) in order that he may betray my Lo. of M(oray) to the Q——. Maybe the K—— would do it, if he had enough credit with her. The K—— hates my lord of Both. as mortally as ever he did the late Italian, but not with any more reason; at least M. L(ivingstone) will not admit any. Pressed her, but as yet fruitlessly. She is clear that there will be open strife between the Earls of Both. and Mo(ray): but the darker man hath a sure hold on himself and his friends. Mem. To write all this fairly to-morrow in the new Spanish cipher. Mem. 2. She saith that the Earl of H(untly) is now Chanc(ellor) and a declared lover of the Q——. Harmless, because the Q—— hath little to give but scorn to them that openly love her.
August the 3.—Letter from my lord of Bed(ford). His gross English manners. He asks roundly what price is demanded. This is shameful dealing—greatly offended. John Leng saw my lord personally in Berw(ick), and was asked to devise secret means to speak with me. Most certain that he hath writ to the Q—— of Eng(land). I shall tell him nothing as yet, and write but round about.... News this day that the Q—— hath gone to Alloa; but mark in what manner. The K—— was invited; and offered himself to ride with her. Refused. Whereupon he set out alone, only his English with him; and the Q—— embarked with the lord of Both. in a little ship from Newhaven. Our informant saith not who accompanied them, save that they were famous robbers and pirates. Suspect Ormiston and Hay of Tala, known to me for desperate men. M(ary) S(eton) went along with her. Lady Re(res) took the Pr(ince). Mem. M. L(ivingstone) should go to Alloa, but it likes her not to leave her child. Her shape too.... Mem. 2. To write, very shortly and finally, into Eng(land).
August the 7.—News this day from M. Fl(eming). Sir James Mel(vill) gave the K—— a cocker spaniel of his own rearing, and the K—— boasting of this (for they are rare who show him any kindness in these days), it came to the Q——’s ears. Fl(eming) writeth that she rated Sir James sharply for this in the gallery at Alloa, saying, ‘I cannot trust one that loves them that I love not.’ Sir James all pothered to reply; rare for him. She flung away before the words were ready, and took my lord of Both(well’s) arm....
The Earl of Mor(ton) writeth me from Northumberland with a fat buck from Chillingham. Hopeth I will stand his friend for the sake of my father, whom (saith he) he entirely loves. His heart is woe for Scotland, and any news which may help him thither he will be thankful of. Mem. To write him civilly my thanks, and tell him something, but not near all. Enough to let him see that I know more....
Sandy Graeme very resolute upon the hen; spake insolently to me this day. He threatens to pursue....
August the 15.—The K——, we hear, flew into a great passion of late, and threatened to have the life out of my Lord of Mor(ay)—but not in my lord’s hearing. He is vexed to death that the Q—— consorts with those two earls, his chief enemies (as he thinks): I mean Both. and Mor(ay). The Q—— reported his threat to her brother; and now the K—— is gone away, supposed to Dunfermline; but he kept it very secret. The Q—— is to hunt the deer in Meggatdale, we learn. I have at last prevailed upon M. L(ivingstone) to seek the Court. She goes, but not willingly. In my letter of this day to Eng(land) I plainly said that the intelligence I had was worthy the Q—— of Eng(land’s) study. ‘Let her write soon,’I said, ‘or——’ and so left it. Quos ego...! a powerful construction, aposiopesis hight. Mem. To see that John Leng renders just accounts of his spending on my business.
August the 17.—My dear wife set out this day for the Court at Stirling. Grievous charges of travel cheerfully borne by me. She hath promised to write fully. Recommended her to have circumspect dealing with my lord of Bothw., to be complaisant without laxity of principle. ’Tis plain courtesy to salute the Rising Sun, though savouring of idolatry if carried to wicked lengths. She high-headed as ever....
A letter from the Earl of Mor(ton), which she desired to read with me before she departed, wondering that he should honour me. Lucky that the bay horse would not stand.... He writeth plainly that he desires my service to win him home from his exile: asketh me guiding lights, how the land lies, etc. Promises much, but more to be regarded is his power to do harm. Of all lords in this realm he hath the longest and deepest memory. But whom can he hate of mine? Whom of any other body’s but of One, and that one hated sorest of all men? Very rich also is he, and covetous to have more. Mem. To sleep upon the letter I shall write him before returning his messenger. He saith that A. D(ouglas) is full of business of all sorts. I fear, a shameful dealer.
August the 23.—Letter from my wife, the first she hath writ; full of juicy meat. The Q—— took the K—— into favour again and suffered his company in Meggatdale. She fears what he may do against her if he is alone, or with his father. The lords of Bothw., Mor(ay), and Ma(r) present there; and M. S(eton) and a few more. Cramalt would not hold near so many. Some lay at Henderland, some with Scott of Tushielaw. Scott of Harden offered and was refused—supposed for fear of the Douglas house by-north of him. Afterwards they went to Traq(uair). The K——, being disguised in drink, held monstrous open talk of the Q—— there, calling her a brood mare of his, and other such filthy boasting. Sharply rebuked by my lord Both., he had no reply to make. Thus it is with him, I see. The least favour shown, it flieth to his head. At heart he is a very craven. He is a rogue in grain....
News that Ker of Cessford hath slain the Abbot of Kelso. Met on the bridge, each with a company, and had words; from words fell to blows. Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. True: but how if life be threatened? Is it not wiser to bend to the gale? And where doth this Evil One lie, and how to be discerned by simple man? Alas! the times are lawless! Mem. John Leng not home from Ber(wick). He may have with him that which would make him worth the robbery. To enquire for him at the post.
... Sandy Graeme: his hen a rankling thorn, whereof, it seems, I must die daily....
August the 28.—I learn that M. Fl(eming) hath won her suit. The Earl of Ath(oll) wrought for her, and my lord of Mor(ay) did not gainsay. Therefore Mr. S(ecretary) cometh back. The Q——, it is said, pleaded with my lord of Bothw. to do the man no harm—very meekly, as a wife with her husband. So it was done, and he received at Sir W. Betts’ house in Stirling, after dinner. Present, the Q——, Lady Ma(r), Earls of Ath(oll), Mor(ay), and Bothw. Leth(ington) went down on his two knees, they say, wept, kissed hands. Then, when he was on his feet again, the Q—— took him by the one hand and gave her other to the lords in turn. My lord of Bothw. could not refuse her. Leth(ington) as proud as a cock, saith my dear wife, who saw him afterwards at the coucher by Fl(eming’s) side. I suppose she will have him now. He is restored to all his offices and is sent away to Edinburgh, whither the Q—— must go soon to oversee her revenues. She will lodge in the Chequer House, I hear. Now, why doth she so? They establish the Pr(ince) at Stirling: Lady Re(res) to be Mistress of his household, an evil choice. My wife hateth her so sore she will not write her name, lest, as she saith, the pen should stink. Scandalous doings at Stirling abound. The Q—— in a short kirtle, loose hair, dancing about the Cross with young men and maids: not possible to be restrained in anything she is conceited of. Mem. To consider closely about the Chequer House. I mind that one Master Chalmers, a philosophic doubter of mysteries, is neighbour unto it. A friend of my lord of Bothw. in old times. They say, his pædagogue. Sed quære....
John Leng returned Monday last. I fear little to be done with Engl(and). Mr. C(ecil), most indurate, crafty man, must needs ‘see the goods before he can appraise them.’ A likely profit! Mem. To consider of the Earl of Mor(ton), if he knoweth of Leth(ington) in new favour? A good stroke for him, well worth some outlay. But the charge of a messenger for such a thing?...
September the 24.—Strong matter from my wife—the strongest—writ from Edinburgh. There came in a letter from the K——’s father, my lord of Len(nox), long a stranger to the Court (and with good reason of his own), which put the Q—— in a flutter. She was taken ill and kept her bed. My wife saw her. This lord, it seems, wrote to her Majesty that he could no longer answer for the mind of the K—— his son; that it was not in his power to stay the K—— from a voyage abroad. Much more; but this the first. The Q—— wept and tossed herself about. Note this well: the Earl of Bothw. was at Hermitage in Liddesdale.
But of this, and its wild results, I prefer my own relation. No more as yet of the Master.
Notes
4 The Earl of Bedford was English Commissioner at Berwick, a ready purchaser from scandal-mongers. Mr. C. is, of course, the famous English Secretary.