Collection Connections: Flora Carr’s 'Tower' and the Real Wives (and Maids) of Lochleven

The Tower by Flora Carr tells an emotionally intense story about women’s suffering. Set in 1567 and 1568, the novel begins after Scottish Protestants have rebelled against their Catholic monarch, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Mary has surrendered and been taken to Lochleven Castle as a prisoner. She is pregnant with twins and miscarries early in the novel.

As The Tower evokes sympathy for Mary, it presents the condition of women in 1560s Scotland as bleak. The fictional Mary and her ladies experience multiple atrocities related to sex and reproduction. Their society strongly values chastity, but men are always lurking nearby and trying to force them into sexual acts. Mary has experienced sexual assault and harassment. The spoken abuse she encounters during her brief disguise as a laundress suggests that women of lower social ranks have it even worse.

I have spent the past two decades researching women’s contributions to early modern literature and politics. I wish I could say that the novel exaggerates the situation, but I don’t think it does. Mary, Queen of Scots, lived at a time when writers debated whether women had souls, were inferior to men, or could govern. Elite women’s marriages mattered deeply to their families’ political standings. They faced immense pressure to guard their chastity. Their society also made them feel responsible for their reproductive success. When Mary in The Tower believes that her miscarriage is a punishment or sign of God’s displeasure, she repeats a common idea. Nearly a century later, author Anne Halkett would write about her two miscarriages as evidence of “Sin” and a “Curse” as she tried to make sense of her painful experience.¹ Another popular belief was that women’s sexual pleasure was necessary for conception, which might sound like a nice idea. But if a rape led to pregnancy, it was difficult to argue that the woman did not choose or enjoy the act.

The Folger Shakespeare Library’s digital collections help us envision the real Mary, Queen of Scots—or at least the way artists portrayed her. In one engraving, the teenaged Mary holds her hands over her body protectively. Her pursed lips, high collar, and glance to one side all represent her as a modest young woman. A second image, probably from 1560, shows Mary turned further to the side, with her head and neck covered. Draped across her chest and shoulders is a string of pearls, a symbol of purity. To me, her expression is fierce and determined, and her posture reveals confidence.

In the novel, Mary is a resilient character. She finds comfort in two places: her female friendships and her memories of court festivities. When the chambermaid Jane first sleeps in Mary’s bed, she thinks, “These chosen bedfellows keep her company and guard her secrets.” At the courts of Mary and her cousin, Elizabeth I, the ladies who occupied the queens’ private chambers were powerful by proximity. They controlled access to the monarch and could influence her decisions. Female alliances allowed women to share medical knowledge and life, perhaps like Catherine Bacon’s recipe for a plaster “salve for the back.” This salve is made of such ingredients as turpentine, nutmeg, and cloves and is thought to be “good to keep from miscarriage.” Hannah Woolley’s A Guide to Ladies, Gentlewomen, and Maids (1668) explains that chambermaids like Jane should be “thrifty,” “humble,” and “accomplished.” Most importantly, Woolley notes, “you must take off what care you can from your Mistress.” This line reminds me of Jane’s attempt to physically take Mary’s pain early in the novel.

Some of the most positive experiences in the book revolve around court masques and holiday festivals. When Mary remembers such events in The Tower, she enjoys thinking about “The delicious pleasure of it: the attention, the admiration. The love.” These events also offered temporary freedom through disguises and loosened restrictions. In The Tower, Mary insists on celebrating the Feast of the Bean during the winter holidays. When Jane finds a bean in her cake, she gets to play-act the role of queen. As the novel explains, “This is why the Feast of the Bean is held on Twelfth Night, to make a game of that disorder: it is no longer something for kings and queens to fear, but to celebrate; any misrule contained within one day of merriment.” The idea here is to pacify the lower-class people who need an outlet for their frustrations. If they can create short-lived unrest, they will be less likely to create permanent disorder. But the novel suggests that this temporary mischief can have lasting effects; think of Cuckoo’s tryst with a lute player and Mary’s escape from the tower.

I think there’s another reason why Mary keeps thinking about masques and festivities: they were opportunities for women to assert control. An excellent example is a 1602 entertainment, performed during Elizabeth I’s last summer progress. One of the homes she visited—Harefield House in Middlesex—belonged to Thomas and Alice Egerton. Alice was eager to impress the queen and represent herself as a well-connected patron who governed her household like the queen ruled England. Part of her lavish entertainment for Elizabeth was an interactive game called a lottery. In it, women tried their luck at choosing verses meant to tell their fortunes. It began with the woman most in charge, the queen. Next came hostess Alice, also known as the Countess of Derby Dowager. The remaining women belonged either to Alice’s network or the queen’s entourage. Personal relationships were always political for high-ranking women.

In sum, life could be bleak for women in early modern Scotland and England. At the same time, early modern women used the privileges and opportunities they had and grabbed power and pleasure when they could. That is exactly what the women in The Tower do.