It was Twelfth Night, 1563. The queen arrived for her coronation ball dressed in cloth-of-silver adorned by ruby gemstones and highlighted by her cousin’s magnificent pearls. Her entrance was so spellbinding that the English envoy Randolph later described her to his sovereign’s favorite Leicester as ‘Venus in Beauty, Minerva in Wisdom and Juno in Wealth,’ lamenting that she would only reign for a single day. She was not the tall, elegant and anointed Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots, but her petite blond cousin Marie Flemyng, who had won her day of glory in a lottery by finding a bean hidden in a piece of honey cake. She had attended the Queen of Scots since conscripted at the age of five as playmate, friend and companion to her cousin—to become one of the queen’s celebrated Four Maries. During thirteen years at the French court, the girl dubbed ‘La Flamina’ had been lauded by the poets of the Pléiade as the most beautiful blond woman in the world, an honor earlier bestowed upon her mother. She was ranked first of the Four Maries, not entirely because her mother was the queen’s aunt, but also because she was the only one of the four Maries with the courage to stand up to the queen when she was arrogant or rude-- the only one who refused to let the queen always win the games. In 1561 when the Queen of Scots returned to Scotland, to assume personal rule, her First Marie struggled to maintain her role as the queen’s companion, advisor and closest friend without sacrificing her own future to the impetuosity of the queen and the politics of the Reformation.. During the turbulent years that followed, Marie Flemyng discovered a life separate from that of the queen, founded on two great loves. One was for William Maitland. The other was for Scotland.
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