The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots Read Free Page A

bed.”
    From the letters, and the visits of mother’s couriers and ambassadors to the French court, I was able to follow what was going on, after a fashion. Mother’s illness was getting worse, the hostile Scots (she called them wolves) were pursuing her from one castle to another, and despite the aid of “Young Jamie” and others who were faithful to her, it was taking all her courage and the last of her strength to resist them.
    Meanwhile here in France a sudden, unexpected event changed the direction of our lives.
    The king was once again taking on all challengers at a joust—and Francis, as before, was watching from the spectators’ pavilion instead of joining in. The afternoon sun blazed hot on the horses and riders in the tiltyard, and the king, performing with athletic grace as he invariably did, and triumphing over each challenger that came forward, drank deeply and frequently from the goblets that were handed up to him by the grooms.
    It seemed to me, by the time he spurred his mount against the fifth challenger, that he rode unsteadily, and appeared to falter, but I quickly dismissed the thought. I had to be mistaken. He was a great champion, I had to be wrong.
    Yet his opponent’s lance struck him heavily in the chest and he nearly fell from his horse. A gasp went up from the onlookers, many stood, some cried out, “Lord King! Lord King!” in anguish. Francis looked down at his lap, unable to watch.
    But within a moment King Henry managed to right himself, and waved to the crowd, and there was applause, and loud cries of relief.
    Still, I watched with apprehension as the next challenger took hisposition and the king, swaying slightly, drank again from a proffered goblet.
    This time, having finished off the liquid, he flung the goblet into the crowd—a gesture I had never before seen him make—and I thought to myself, he has drunk too much wine. How will he judge his blows accurately, or evade those of his challenger? I held my breath as he spurred his mount and closed the distance between himself and the other rider, the dust rising under his horse’s hooves.
    There was a clash—and suddenly both men were on the ground, their mounts shying and snorting in protest.
    Grooms rushed to the aid of the fallen jousters, but while the challenger was helped to his feet, and staggered off the course, the king lay where he was, unmoving.
    As quickly as I could, I helped the trembling Francis to make his way down from the pavilion and back to the palace, where we went at once to the royal apartments, through corridors crowded with weeping servants and officials.
    The hubbub in the king’s bedchamber was loud, the courtiers and retainers frantic with worry. Queen Catherine rushed in with three of her ladies, all of them in great distress.
    “He’s injured!” she shouted to the cluster of physicians who were conferring nervously. “He’s covered in blood! Why aren’t you treating him? Why are you just standing there, doing nothing?”
    The king lay unmoving under the linen sheet, one eye bandaged, the other closed but covered in bruises. Another bandage that covered his throat and ear was red with what looked to me like fresh blood.
    Francis trembled and knelt by the bed, grasping his father’s hand.
    “I warned him not to go,” the queen was saying. “I had a bad dream last night. I saw the accident. I saw the horse veer. My husband ran right into the oncoming lance.”
    It was well known at the court that Queen Catherine had propheticdreams, and that she kept in her household a physician who was also an astrologer, Michel de Notredame, who foretold the future.
    “What shall I do?” Francis murmured to me, shaking his head. “How shall I manage?” The look on his face was piteous.
    King Henry lived for ten days after his accident, on the eleventh day he died, and my husband Francis became King of France.



THREE
    He dressed in cloth of gold, he wore immense rubies in his caps and even his shoes had