There is no more magnificent gift from the Queen than my parure, given to me this afternoon. She has been a prisoner now for some seven years, first at Carlisle Castle then at Bolton Castle, Wingfield Manor and now here at Sheffield Castle, but most often at dank, dingy Tutbury Castle. There, the Queen and I spent many days, weeks, months and indeed years, huddling to try to keep warm as we bent over our embroidery, often with Bess of Hardwick, wife of the Queen’s keeper, the Earl of Shrewsbury.
Today will be etched in my memory forever. The Queen had one of her maids call me from my chamber to visit her and she bade me sit beside her. After my customary deep curtsy, I looked up at her and saw her broad smile. She had a glint in her eye, one I have come to know well.
“Seton,” she said, “of all my Maries, you have been the most dedicated, the most faithful and the most loyal. You have worn in my dresses and my shoes and warmed up my pearls and gold necklaces. You have tended my hair, so that, even though it’s now thinning and dull, you manage to make it shiny and lustrous. And most of all, you, out of all my Maries, have remained devoted.”
She took the velvet case from her lap and handed it to me. “This is a small token of my appreciation, dear friend.” She beamed then leant towards me as I opened the case.
I could not help myself gasp as I lifted the necklace, earrings and brooch up towards the candlelight where the gems twinkled and shone. The gold was fashioned into exquisite scrolls and snake 23 links, with large and smaller pearls, rubies and delicate circles of tiny emeralds surrounding the pearls in both the necklace and the earrings. I do not think I have ever seen such intricate work, even in the Queen’s own jewels. I could not speak, I was so overcome by the beauty of them.
“The gold came from Crawford Muir in the south-west of my realm. During my father’s reign, the gold mined there was used to start producing the pieces in the Scottish regalia. The gold is the finest in the world.”
She took the necklace from me and held it up to the candlelight where it twinkled and gleamed, then laid it on my open palm.
“You shall wear the parure to remember me, Marie, when I am gone.”
“Madam, I shall wear it now to remember your kindness.”
And I gestured over to a maid to help clasp the necklace round my neck.
“And so perhaps all thoughts of your going to Aunt Renee’s convent might be banished for a while.” She smiled and I realised only then that this was more than a gift of friendship, this was affirmation that I should stay with her, if necessary, to the end. I took up the brooch and held it up once more to the light where it shone and sparkled.
I slipped off the seat and knelt before her, offering my hand, which she kissed. I am bound to her forever now, I thought as I touched the bejewelled gold chain around my neck.
I remember thinking that though this was not exactly a manifestation of serfdom or slavery, there was no doubt that she had always been and would always be my Mistress. Even as I look round the austerity of my small cell here in Reims, devoid of luxury or indeed of any embellishment at all, I feel proud to have served a Queen for most of my long, blessed life. 24
October 1584
After what seems like an interminably long sixteen years serving the Queen in captivity and in various levels of damp discomfort and cold confinement, when my bones have ached from morning till night and my heart is tight with sorrow, I know I have to start thinking of myself, of my own well-being. And the only way ahead therefore is for me to retire from her service, something that would have been unthinkable ten years ago, but now is becoming an imperative.
George has written to say he is to travel to France next spring on a mission for the Queen and has suggested I travel with him to ensure my health, which has been failing, does not suffer any longer.
In the Seton family, it is a tradition that the unmarried middle-aged women retire to a convent for their last years. I know I will never marry, so surely now is the time to devote myself to God rather than to my Queen? After many discussions with the Queen, she has eventually agreed it would be better for my health that I leave her, and I have accepted the invitation that I received so many years ago, when I was still a young woman. At last, I will join the Abbey of Saint Pierre in Reims, whose Abbess is the Queen’s aunt, Renee de Guise.
During those years of indecision when she came to rely more and more on me, her only Marie, I often could not sleep for worrying. But then early one morning as I lay in the dark before the hope of light that the dawn brings, I asked myself a question: if she were me, would she continue in service, to the detriment of her health? Or would she grasp this opportunity and for once think of herself? I knew immediately the answer. Once my decision had been taken, I felt neither fear nor trepidation, and of course she acquiesced, with 25 tears and sighs, but also with fortitude; this is, after all, her battle with her cousin, Elizabeth, not mine.
But first, before I exchange one form of incarceration for another, I need to live, for just a short period, in freedom. Since George is not leaving for France till the month of March in 1585, I agreed that I would first recuperate with my family. It’s been decided that I would travel, after a short stay at Seton Palace with George, to Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire, which his son Alexander has just bought from Andrew Meldrum of Drumoak. My nephew wants to show it to me before I leave for France, and I too am excited to see what is soon to become another Seton family home.
I shut my eyes tight as I remember writing these words and the excitement I felt in my new venture, including a visit to my nephew’s new property. I believed it could be the last time I would set foot in Scotland. As it turned out, of course, it was not, and I had to return another sixteen years later to attempt to put right the wrongs my brother’s son had visited upon his own dear wife.
It was during those few months of freedom residing up at Fyvie that I first met Lilias Drummond. She was not even fifteen, yet already betrothed to my shrewd, ambitious nephew, Alexander Seton. There was such an immediate connection between Lilias and me, even with the age difference; I was already forty-three years old. And by the end of my stay there in the wilds of Aberdeenshire, I had decided without any doubt that it was she who would be the recipient of my beautiful parure once I had gone. Those sparkling rubies, emeralds and pearls would be so beautiful around her fair neck.
Such spontaneity was not in my nature, but I felt somehow that God had guided me to this decision. Alexander may have been the Queen’s godson, but to me, Lilias was more than a goddaughter could ever have been; she was the daughter I never had.