How Sir James Barrie Met Mary Queen of Scots

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 545, 24 December 1928, Page 7

How Sir James Barrie Met Mary Queen of Scots

Whimsical Story “SCOTIA'S STARRY MISTRESS” Sir James M. Barrie, in his most whimsical mood, told recently how he “saddled his steed and galloped into Jedburgh” to meet Mary Queen of Scots. “I went on one knee to her,” Sir James declared, “and she extended her pretty hand. I called her ‘My liege.’ ” Sir James (according to the “Daily Sketch” report) was making one of his rare public appearances to open a bazaar at Jedburgh, organised to raise funds for the acquisition of the house in which Mary Queen of Scots lived for a short period during her visit to Jedburgh. The house was used as a residence by Mary Queen of Scots in 1566, and for some weeks she lay there ill from fever contracted during a long ride to the bedside of the Earl of Bothwell, after he had been wounded in a Border foray. The house was recently purchased by Mr. P. S. Oliver, of Edgerston, and given to Jedburgh conditionally upon the town raising £1,500 for its preservation. Among the articles on the stalls at the bazaar was a china vase of unique design given by the Queen, while Princess Mary sent a bedspread of painted fabric, six matchbox cases, and two powder boxes of Canton lacquer. “No Government spies here,” Sir James began, demanding that all the doors should be locked. “Quite possibly to-morrow’s news-sheets may bear startling headlines: “Extraordinary Jacobite Gathering at Jedburgh. "J. M: Barrie Escapes to Prance.” “What is the vital difference between the Scot and his friendly brother, the Southerner?” asked Sir James. “Of course, it has to do with Mary Queen of Scots. A Scot, wherever he may be, has always at least one moment of the day when he leans against the nearest object and thinks about her. That is our romantic secret, at last divulged. “In England they had a contemporary Queen, a far greater than Mary, though I am not going to advertise her by mentioning her name. But do they think of her every day?” “A Call Irresistible”

Sir James said Scotsmen asked themselves whether, if they had lived in Mary’s day, they would have liked her. To find the answer he “saddled his steed.” “A call Irresistible was drawing me to Queen Mary’s house. I stood beneath the glamorous pile, and not one of its many windows showed a gleam.

And yet, I remembered . . . there was at all hours someone ready to place a lamp in a darkened eye of the castle in response to a light across the loch, a signal that friends were near ... I dared to flash my lantern, and almost immediately a lamp shone for a momeLt in a turret window ... I found myself in the presence of Mary Queen of Scots. “She was but a moving part of the night; but a mother will forget her child and rivers flow uphill before a Scotsman is unable to recognise that face and form. Casket Letters Not Genuine! “I said there was one question I craved to ask her. Were the Casket Letters genuine? You will be glad to know that the answer was in the negative. So after the lapse of centuries our greatest Scottish case is closed.” Sir James said Mar? told him she must see the bazaar. “You know how hasty she was—-and putting her hands in mine in that confiding way, wli is either the best or the worst thing in woman—she was dressed in black velvet with .a white ruff about her neck and a white veil flying—and s we came to the bazaar—by the longest route.” She promised, affirmed Sir James, that “whoever buys at my bazaar, I will always have a leaning to him.” “ ‘Him,’ she said,” exclaimed Sir James, “though 1 told her that most of the work was done by ladies. “I told her there would be Southerners here, and asked her if she would be~ vexed if —ey were purchasers, and she said no, she wanted them to have the same ights as the others, for old wounJs were healed and she touched her neck and smiled. Proof She was a Scot “Then I did a foolish thing. I asked her whether she would like to buy some little article herself, and at that she began to fade away—a sure proof that she was no Frenchwoman, but Scottish to the core. “Before she was quite obliterated—when there was no more of her than the veil—she placed in my hand a sprig of white heather.” Sir James drew a piece of white heather from his buttonhole and held it up. “Seeing is believing,” he exclaimed, without the vestige of a smile. “Ah, great Queen Bess, that famous chop at Fotheringay—the third hack — has not silenced Mary Stuart,” Sir James said in his concluding passage. “Rather has it decreed that she live on alluringly and find new servants. “In old Edinburgh there must be a moment of the night when, in the Royal Mile, they still near the beat of her vagrant heart. “We see the charming, dangerous creature even now, after more than 300 years, sailing away from us, not into the past, but into the future, • the bark of her royal sister’s contrivance—her white ruff concealing the rim of red, her hazel eyes sparkling, her form disdainfully melting, to our imagination, winged ~iough it may be the raven’s wing—mocking all our attempts to solve her —Scotia’s proudfated, starry mistress.”