of Scotland. He is perfect.
No wonder I feel an affinity with him, I thought as I let my eyes linger on him. It is an affinity of blood. Yes, he is as slender and handsome as the statues of Adonis in the gardens of Chambord, yes, he has inviting red lips. But he is also my kin, naturally I am drawn to him.
I thought these things—and then I ceased to think. I only felt as though I wanted to go on looking at him, and listening to him play his lute, forever.
It was a very cold winter, as I have said, when Henry came to my court, sent there by our cousin Queen Elizabeth. He was not used to the dank chill of Scotland. He suffered from the cold and, being very young (he was a mere nineteen, I was three years older), he caught an ague. He shivered and sweated, coughed and sneezed, but he would not stay in bed. Instead he went out night after night, with David Riccio and my drunken half-brother Robert and other young roisterers of the court, and I was told he often did not come back until nearly sunrise.
I always was courteous to him and made him welcome, and he seemed to take my welcome as no more than his due. He spent time with me, conversing, playing his lute for me, even reading Latin books with me (for which I truly admired him, Latin being difficult for me to read though I had been taught it since childhood). We laughed together over my small dogs, and he helped me teach them tricks. He brought his more genteel companions into my apartments and I assembled my ladies and we all danced—he was a fine and agile dancer—and afterwards we ate dainty cakes and drank wine from a set of small pink fluted glasses he gave me as a present.
I had not enjoyed such refined companionship since I left France, and it was very welcome. Henry behaved like the highborn lord he was, demanding that others accord him the dignity due to his royal breeding and at times becoming quite ferocious when they did not. He slapped his servants until they bled when they disobeyed him andshouted vile names at the members of his household. But I told myself, this is how princes behave, this is how they maintain their authority over their inferiors.
The one person Henry spared was David Riccio, who seemed always to be in his presence or nearby. Like the rest of us, David watched and admired Henry, I could see the admiration in his eyes. He too is worshipping at the shrine of beauty, I thought—and why not? He is a fine musician, he appreciates fine art. And Henry was nothing if not a masterpiece.
If Henry was the most beautiful man at my court, David Riccio was surely among the ugliest. Was it this contrast that led David to stay near Henry?
I was finding, day by day, that I too wanted to be near him, as often as possible. I invented excuses to invite him to my apartments, ordering more new gowns, jewels and headdresses to enhance my own attractions and even trying—in vain—not to bite my nails so that my slender white hands would appear at their best when I prepared myself to encounter him.
Those were giddy days. I was so enraptured that I neglected meeting with my councilors and my brother James chastised me for that. I not only neglected the everyday business of ruling, I neglected to listen to the voices around me telling me of Henry’s sins and shortcomings.
One of the loudest of the voices was that of John Knox, who thundered on in his usual overblown fashion about how Henry was a vice-ridden drunkard who went out every night searching for girls to seduce and during the day, played catamite to David Riccio. (I had to ask my brother James what a catamite was, for it was not a word I knew, and he frowned and told me that such things were not fit for ladies to know.) But I refused to listen to anything the preacher said, and reminded him that he had recently disgraced himself and caused much gossip by marrying my sixteen-year-old relative Margaret Stewartwithout asking my permission (I would naturally have denied it) when he was fifty years
No wonder I feel an affinity with him, I thought as I let my eyes linger on him. It is an affinity of blood. Yes, he is as slender and handsome as the statues of Adonis in the gardens of Chambord, yes, he has inviting red lips. But he is also my kin, naturally I am drawn to him.
I thought these things—and then I ceased to think. I only felt as though I wanted to go on looking at him, and listening to him play his lute, forever.
It was a very cold winter, as I have said, when Henry came to my court, sent there by our cousin Queen Elizabeth. He was not used to the dank chill of Scotland. He suffered from the cold and, being very young (he was a mere nineteen, I was three years older), he caught an ague. He shivered and sweated, coughed and sneezed, but he would not stay in bed. Instead he went out night after night, with David Riccio and my drunken half-brother Robert and other young roisterers of the court, and I was told he often did not come back until nearly sunrise.
I always was courteous to him and made him welcome, and he seemed to take my welcome as no more than his due. He spent time with me, conversing, playing his lute for me, even reading Latin books with me (for which I truly admired him, Latin being difficult for me to read though I had been taught it since childhood). We laughed together over my small dogs, and he helped me teach them tricks. He brought his more genteel companions into my apartments and I assembled my ladies and we all danced—he was a fine and agile dancer—and afterwards we ate dainty cakes and drank wine from a set of small pink fluted glasses he gave me as a present.
I had not enjoyed such refined companionship since I left France, and it was very welcome. Henry behaved like the highborn lord he was, demanding that others accord him the dignity due to his royal breeding and at times becoming quite ferocious when they did not. He slapped his servants until they bled when they disobeyed him andshouted vile names at the members of his household. But I told myself, this is how princes behave, this is how they maintain their authority over their inferiors.
The one person Henry spared was David Riccio, who seemed always to be in his presence or nearby. Like the rest of us, David watched and admired Henry, I could see the admiration in his eyes. He too is worshipping at the shrine of beauty, I thought—and why not? He is a fine musician, he appreciates fine art. And Henry was nothing if not a masterpiece.
If Henry was the most beautiful man at my court, David Riccio was surely among the ugliest. Was it this contrast that led David to stay near Henry?
I was finding, day by day, that I too wanted to be near him, as often as possible. I invented excuses to invite him to my apartments, ordering more new gowns, jewels and headdresses to enhance my own attractions and even trying—in vain—not to bite my nails so that my slender white hands would appear at their best when I prepared myself to encounter him.
Those were giddy days. I was so enraptured that I neglected meeting with my councilors and my brother James chastised me for that. I not only neglected the everyday business of ruling, I neglected to listen to the voices around me telling me of Henry’s sins and shortcomings.
One of the loudest of the voices was that of John Knox, who thundered on in his usual overblown fashion about how Henry was a vice-ridden drunkard who went out every night searching for girls to seduce and during the day, played catamite to David Riccio. (I had to ask my brother James what a catamite was, for it was not a word I knew, and he frowned and told me that such things were not fit for ladies to know.) But I refused to listen to anything the preacher said, and reminded him that he had recently disgraced himself and caused much gossip by marrying my sixteen-year-old relative Margaret Stewartwithout asking my permission (I would naturally have denied it) when he was fifty years
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