10

“AN UNWELCOME INTRUDER”

THE QUEEN’S LABOUR WAS PROTRACTED and exceptionally painful. As the contractions became more severe, “she began to wish that she had never been married.”¹ At one stage, her suffering was so great that Margaret Fleming, Countess of Atholl is said to have resorted to sorcery in an attempt to transfer the Queen’s pains to Mary Beaton’s aunt, Margaret, Lady Reres.²Predictably, Mary’s agony abated not one jot and, being warned by her ladies that she and her child were in great peril, she beseeched God to save her baby rather than herself.³ Melville later recalled that he “lay within the Castle of Edinburgh, praying night and day for Her Majesty’s good and happy delivery of a fair son.” His prayers were answered when, between nine and eleven⁴on the morning of Wednesday, 19 June 1566, after twenty hours of labour, Mary was delivered of a healthy boy, who was named James and bore the title Duke of Rothesay from birth. Years later, the Queen wrote to Lady Lennox, “I have borne him, and God knoweth with what danger to him and me both.”⁵

The birth boosted Mary’s popularity, ensured the future of her dynasty, put paid to Darnley’s pretensions to the Crown, and immeasurably strengthened the Queen’s claim to the English succession. From now on, however, her ambitions were not just for herself, but for her son, and Melville was dispatched within the hour to London to convey the happy news to Elizabeth.

After the Prince was born, “all the artillery of the Castle shot, and bonfires were set forth in all parts for joy of the same.”⁶ The nobles, rejoicing, gathered in the Queen’s state bedchamber to congratulate her and greet the new heir.

At about two in the afternoon, Darnley visited Mary, “and was desirous to see the child.” This was a crucial and somewhat humiliating moment for Mary, for her reputation and honour had so far been called into question that she had no choice but to force her husband publicly to recognise the child as his own.

“My Lord,” she said, “God has given you and me a son, begotten by none but you.” At her words, “the King blushed and kissed the child.” This was not sufficient acknowledgement, so Mary took the baby in her arms and, uncovering his face, said, “My Lord, here I protest to God, and as I shall answer to Him at the great Day of Judgement, this is your son, and no other man’s son. And I am desirous that all here bear witness, for he is so much your son that I fear it will be the worse for him hereafter.”

Mary then spoke to an English envoy, Sir William Stanley: “This is the son whom I hope shall first unite the two kingdoms of Scotland and England.”

“Why, Madam,” answered Stanley, “shall he succeed before Your Majesty and his father?”

Mary nodded, and said sadly, “It is because his father has broken to [with] me.” Darnley asked her, “Sweet Madam, is this your promise that you made, to forgive and forget all?” She answered, “I have forgiven all, but will never forget. What if Fawdonside’s pistol had fired? What would have become of the child and me? Or what estate would you have been in? God only knows, but we may suspect!”

“These things are all past,” Darnley said tersely.

“Then let them go,” retorted Mary.⁷Their bitter discourse struck a jarring note on what should have been a day of triumph. It was obvious that there was no longer any need for Mary to keep up a pretence of reconciliation. Darnley had played his dynastic part, and was no longer of political importance to her. Now she need not see him if she did not wish to.

It seems that Darnley had had no intention of refusing to acknowledge the Prince as his own, for earlier in the day he had written to the Cardinal of Lorraine proudly announcing “an event which, I am sure, will not cause you less joy than ourselves,”⁸and informing him that he and the Queen had both written asking Charles IX to stand godfather to their son.

Soon after the birth, a popular rumour arose that the Queen’s baby had been stillborn or had died at birth, and that a changeling had been substituted in order to block Darnley’s pretensions to the Crown. Some said they had seen a basket containing a baby being winched up over the castle rock to the Queen’s window; others that the Prince was in fact the son of the Earl of Mar, whom he much resembled in looks. However, no one seriously questioned his identity, although the rumours were given apparent credence in 1830, when it was alleged that some bones—not necessarily those of an infant or even a human being—wrapped in woollen cloth (not cloth of gold, as some versions state) had been discovered in a wall during building works at Edinburgh Castle. In 1944, however, this tale was proved to be a fabrication.⁹

On the day after the birth, St. Giles’s Kirk in Edinburgh was packed to overflowing with the nobility and the citizens, who had come “to thank God for the honour of having an heir to their kingdom.”¹⁰ Two days later, the Queen received the Pope’s letter informing her of the sending of a nuncio, and Sir Henry Killigrew, Elizabeth’s envoy, reached Edinburgh. Hearing of his coming, the Queen sent him word “that I was welcome and should have audience as soon as she might have any ease of the pain in her breasts”; despite this, he was told she was “in good state for a woman in her case.”¹¹

The observant Killigrew quickly summed up the political situation and, on the day after his arrival, reported to Cecil, “I find here an uncertain and disquiet sort of men.” The Scottish Lords were divided into factions, with Moray, Argyll, Mar and Atholl in one party, and Bothwell and Huntly in the other. Notwithstanding the birth of the Prince, small account was made of Darnley and his father. Bothwell was in the Borders, apparently dealing with a threat “to bring in Morton during [Mary’s] childbed,” but he had absented himself because he “would not gladly be in danger of the four above-named that lie in [Edinburgh] Castle. Yet it is thought and said that his credit with the Queen is more than all the rest together.”¹²Bothwell himself later explained that “it was as much through the faithful service I had rendered the Queen’s mother in her wars, as much as my service to the Queen herself, that I was in such favour. I had on several occasions risked my life and incurred considerable expense, which she had most generously made good to me, both by presents and by the appointments with which Her Majesty has honoured me.”¹³

Killigrew also noted that Henry Gwynn, servant to Francis Yaxley, who had drowned in January whilst bringing the subsidy from Philip II, had arrived in Edinburgh with “letters and tokens from Flanders,” including Philip’s long-delayed reply to Darnley’s letter of September 1565, which de Silva had held on to in London, ostensibly because he could not find a safe messenger, although he could of course have entrusted it to James Thornton; clearly, this letter was not meant for Mary’s eyes. Evidently Darnley found Philip’s words encouraging, even if he perhaps interpreted them to suit his own purposes.

Killigrew concluded his report with a mention of a spy, William Rogers, who had come in secret to Edinburgh. Without a doubt, something suspicious was going on.¹⁴

Rogers was an escaped felon, who hoped to evade justice and obtain Cecil’s favour by acting on his own initiative as a spy for the English government. He stayed only a few days in Scotland before going south, and when he reached Oxford, sent a report to Cecil.¹⁵In it, he revealed he had won the confidence of Sir Anthony Standen and, through him, gained the favour of Darnley, with whom he had gone hunting and hawking. Rogers had learned that Gwynn had brought Darnley 2,000 crowns from an English merchant, with more to come if he needed it, as well as letters from Lady Lennox and, more ominously, from two English traitors, Arthur and Edward Pole, who themselves had pretensions to the English throne—both were descendants of the Royal House of Plantagenet—and were at present imprisoned in the Tower for inciting an abortive rebellion. In his letter, Arthur Pole had offered to resign his claim to the English throne to Mary and Darnley, but it is unlikely that Mary was told anything of this, for Darnley was formulating grandiose plans of his own. It seems that he not only meant to become the champion of Catholicism in Scotland, but also King of Scots in Mary’s place, and then, after deposing Elizabeth, King of a united Britain, which would be achieved with the support of the Catholic powers in Europe and disaffected English Catholics.

It is impossible to assess to what degree this scheme existed only in Darnley’s fevered imagination, or to what extent his supposed allies were involved. At present, it appears he had secured at least the goodwill of Philip II and perhaps the Papacy, and the support of a number of Catholic malcontents in England.

In Scotland, Darnley’s chief ally at this time appears to have been Sir James Balfour. On 7 June, Randolph had noted that Balfour was out of favour, and Killigrew now reported, “Balfour’s credit [with the Queen] decays” and that Bishop Leslie “manages all her affairs of state.”¹⁶

According to Rogers, a friend of the Pole brothers, Martin Dare, was also in attendance on Darnley. He had been a sea captain in the Scilly Isles, and had nautical skills that would prove useful to the King in time to come. Sir Anthony Standen, however, was removed from the King’s orbit when Mary sent him to France to announce the Prince’s birth to Charles IX; Standen would not return for a year.¹⁷

After a lightning journey lasting just over four days, Sir James Melville arrived in London and informed Elizabeth of the safe delivery of Mary’s son. The Queen “seemed glad of the birth of the infant,” and told de Silva that the birth would prove “a spur to the lawyers” to resolve the matter of Mary’s right to the English succession, which would, she assured the ambassador, be decided in the next session of Parliament.¹⁸Melville had his doubts about this, but when Mary heard, she was jubilant, confidently anticipating that Elizabeth would at last acknowledge her as heir presumptive to the English throne.

Elizabeth told Melville that she would gladly stand godmother to Prince James, but would be unable to go to Scotland herself; in her place, she would send “honourable lords and ladies.” She also consented to receive a letter from Darnley pleading for his mother’s release from the Tower, an indication that she was thawing towards the Lennox Stuarts.

Mary had also asked Charles IX of France and Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, to be godparents; on 25 June, in a letter to Philip II, de Silva implied that there were reasons why she had not asked him to act as sponsor or send a representative to the baptism, such reasons being connected possibly with Philip’s coolness after Rizzio’s murder; however, she had asked the Duke of Savoy “as she considered him a person attached to Your Majesty.”¹⁹As Sir Walter Raleigh was later to proclaim, “Savoy from Spain is inseparable.” Mary had effectively enlisted the might of Catholic Europe to protect the interests of the infant Prince.

Back in Scotland, on 24 June, Mary received Sir Henry Killigrew in her bedchamber. He reported that she was too weak to extend to him more than a formal welcome, but he was allowed to see her child “sucking of his nurse, and afterward as good as naked,” and found James to be “well proportioned and like to prove a goodly prince.” The Queen, he added, “was so bold immediately after delivery that she has not yet recovered; the few words she spoke were faintly, with a hollow cough.”²⁰

Darnley’s behaviour during Mary’s lying-in period was appalling. Nau later wrote of this time, “The King led a very disorderly life.” Every night, he left the castle and went out “vagabondising” and drinking heavily with his young male friends in the streets of Edinburgh. He would return at all hours of the night, so that the castle gates had to be unlocked for him, which left Mary feeling “there was no safety, either for herself or her son.” Darnley also went off for long rides on his own to the coast, where he would strip and bathe in secluded places, thereby leaving himself vulnerable to attack and his wife “apprehensive of the danger which might follow, because of the ill will which the greater number of the Lords bore towards him.” She begged him to be careful “and not to put himself so indiscreetly into the power of his enemies,” but he paid very little attention to her.²¹Not surprisingly, Killigrew again reported on 28 June that Darnley was not in favour.²² In every way, he was a liability and a constant thorn in Mary’s side.

Catherine de’ Medici, learning of the birth of Prince James, expressed fears that Darnley was “so bad” that she could not be sure if he felt as he should towards his son. Fearful that he might plot with her enemies to seize her child and rule in his name, Mary decided to keep James with her for the present, rather than establish a separate household for him, as was customary for royal children in that era. James spent his first weeks being cared for in his mother’s chamber by his wet-nurse, Helena Little, and four rockers, and sleeping in his cradle beside Mary’s bed at night, so that she could watch over him herself.²³

Mary’s fears about Darnley’s intentions were almost certainly justified, and she was not the only person to entertain suspicions about his activities. On 29 June, de Silva reported that the English ambassador in Paris “was surprised at the friendship the King of Scotland had with Don Francis[co] de Alava,” the Spanish ambassador to the French court, and that he had learned “that they were intimate friends in Paris.”²⁴ It is possible that they had never even met, for de Alava did not arrive in Paris until February 1564; however, the short visits he had paid there before then may have coincided with one of Darnley’s trips to France. The term “intimate friends” may imply a homosexual connection, but could equally mean that they became confidants in the platonic sense. Regardless of this, the friendship must have been conducted mainly through correspondence, and it is possible, although there is no proof, that Darnley was using de Alava to gain Spanish support for his dynastic schemes.

That Darnley’s aims were not widely known in Spanish diplomatic circles is perhaps confirmed by a letter written by the Duke of Alva—soon to be the Spanish Governor of the Netherlands—to Philip II on 29 June, informing him that “Your Majesty, being in Flanders, could more easily encompass that which would further her [Mary’s] interests.”²⁵Alva was not specific, but was probably referring to the furtherance of Mary’s claim to the English crown, or to the restoration of the Catholic faith in Britain, and he is hardly likely to have mentioned such things if he had been aware that Philip was supporting Darnley in a plot to dethrone Mary, which is highly unlikely anyway, not least because Philip was counting on the support of the pro-Spanish Guises when he led his invading army along the French border. Nor is there any evidence in contemporary sources that Philip lent support to Darnley’s schemes.

Unable to trust those around her, Mary was turning again to Bothwell. On 30 June, she conferred upon him the priory of North Berwick, and by the end of the following month, Bedford was reporting that Bothwell “had a great hand in the management of affairs.” Buchanan goes further, of course, claiming that “Bothwell was everything: he alone managed all affairs, and so much did the Queen wish to display her partiality for him that no request was granted unless presented through him.” Further evidence of the trust Mary reposed in Bothwell can be found in her dealings with one Christopher Rokesby. Mary believed Rokesby to be a Catholic agent, but he was in fact one of Cecil’s spies. Around this time, she granted him a private audience in Edinburgh Castle, during which she rashly revealed to him her dynastic and religious ambitions, which had burgeoned with the birth of her son.

She told him that she was cultivating the support of those English nobles whom she believed “to be of the old religion, which she meant to restore with all expedition. After she had friended herself in every shire in England, she meant to cause wars to be stirred in Ireland, whereby England might be kept occupied; then she would have an army in readiness, and herself with her army to enter England, and she proclaimed Queen.” She had asked Spain, France and the Vatican for aid—on 17 July, she would write to the Pope to say she was looking forward to the arrival of the Bishop of Mondovi “with no little longing”—and added that soothsayers had told her “that the Queen of England shall not live this year.”²⁶

Randolph had earlier reported that Mary had agents in England inciting Catholic support, one of whom had informed her “that the papists are ready to rise in England when she will have them.” Given the fact that Alva expected Philip II to support Mary in such an enterprise, and that Philip’s arrival in the Netherlands was imminent, the English would have had every cause for alarm. By early August, de Silva was aware that Elizabeth was more suspicious than ever of Mary.²⁷

Rokesby advised the Queen to consult her Privy Council, but she told him she preferred to deal with Bothwell, Mar, Melville and himself, and “willed” him “to confer further of these causes with Bothwell, whom I might well perceive was in more secret favour with her than any other.” Probably as a result of Rokesby’s meeting with Bothwell, Mary became suspicious of the former and ordered his arrest. After letters from Cecil were found in his possession, he was imprisoned in Spynie Palace, the Highland stronghold of Bothwell’s uncle, where he remained for nearly two years.²⁸

According to Bedford, writing on 4 July, Morton and the other exiles were busy with plans for their repatriation, and soon afterwards Killigrew observed that “many are like to venture all for their relief.”²⁹ Darnley, however, was fiercely opposed to them being pardoned for he feared their return more than anything else; Leicester wrote on 11 June that Darnley and Bothwell were making further efforts to procure a pardon for “the shameless butcher” George Douglas, who, in return, was willing to incriminate Moray and Maitland in the Rizzio plot, which would at a stroke rid them of two of their greatest enemies.³⁰ But the Queen refused to pardon any of the fugitives, and was instead concentrating her efforts on reconciling her feuding nobles. Hence, she was deaf to the persuasions of Darnley and Bothwell and unwilling to listen to any allegations against her half-brother. On 13 July, Sir John Forster expressed the opinion that she was reluctant to inquire too closely into Moray’s guilt. Elizabeth, reading these reports, was also loath to have Moray’s role in the Rizzio affair subjected to scrutiny, and had George Douglas put under guard in order to prevent him from returning to Scotland.

On 5 July, William Rogers wrote a second report to Cecil, having been informed by the Standens how Darnley had “said before twenty gentlemen that he was not so ill-loved in England but that forty gentlemen there would serve him, and more soon after conveyance of my Lady’s [his mother’s] letters”; one Master Poule (or Pole, which perhaps makes him a relative of Arthur Pole) “and divers gentlemen in his company are looked for shortly in Scotland, offering to serve the King at their own charges.” Darnley was also in possession of a chart of the Scilly Isles, doubtless given him or drawn up by Martin Dare, and was plotting with some men in the north of England to seize Scarborough Castle “and have all the North at his command.” Both the Scillies and Scarborough were strategically placed as bridgeheads for a Spanish invasion of England. Furthermore, Arthur Pole had written claiming that he could raise the west of England in Darnley’s cause, and a man surnamed Moon, who was later in Lennox’s employ, was regularly bringing the King letters from his friends in that region.³¹ Cecil read all this with mounting dismay.

Moray was still apparently stirring up trouble in the Borders and, as rumour had it, covering the conspirators’ traces. On 17 July, Bedford reported that William Ker, Abbot of Kelso, had spoken “infamy and words of dishonour” of Glencairn, and hinted at the latter’s involvement in Rizzio’s murder. As a result, two of the Abbot’s kinsmen savagely murdered him, chopping off his head and arms. The chief suspect was his nephew and godson, the young Laird of Cessford, whom Bothwell was sent to apprehend.³² But it was Moray whom many suspected of being the real culprit.

Mary was now recovering from her confinement, and it was felt that a change of air would greatly benefit her, so around 27/28 July,³³ she left Edinburgh Castle and travelled to Newhaven, where she boarded a boat for Alloa, further up the Forth, having been invited by the Earl of Mar to be his guest at his fourteenth-century family seat, Alloa Tower. According to Bedford³⁴ and Buchanan, the Queen left Edinburgh early in the morning without telling anyone where she was going. Darnley was “so far out of her books” that he knew nothing of her plans.³⁵

Buchanan claims that her boat was manned by notorious pirates, William and Edmund Blackadder, Leonard Robertson and Thomas Dickson, who were all “avowed men and dependants of the Earl Bothwell,” who accompanied Mary on her journey; he adds that “honest persons” were astonished that “she should hazard her person among a sort of such ruffians.” The tale is suspect, however, because, although, as Lord High Admiral, Bothwell was in charge of the preparations for the trip, he did not travel with Mary, but remained in Edinburgh as Captain of the Prince’s Bodyguard; it was Moray, Mar and other leading nobles who made up the Queen’s escort.³⁶As for William Blackadder, although he and his brother Edmund had received pardons for the crime of murder, on 2 September following, he was appointed “general and universal Searcher to the Crown” with authority to “search, seek, apprehend and take all and sundry pirates, thieves, robbers, rebels and malefactors upon the seas”;³⁷such a commission would hardly have been granted to a notorious pirate.

As soon as Darnley discovered where Mary had gone, he followed her on horseback via Stirling “as fast as he could, with the hope and purpose of being alone with her, that he might enjoy his conjugal rights.”³⁸ But he was clearly “an unwelcome intruder,”³⁹and Buchanan says that Mary ordered him to “depart or do worse. So great was her disdain that she could not suffer him to remain in her company, nor yet would she declare any good cheer in his presence.” This may well have been true, because Darnley departed after only a few hours⁴⁰ and went to Dunfermline.⁴¹Buchanan alleges he was “hardly allowed time to refresh his servants.” Nau, however, says that Darnley had merely made, “as it were, a passing call,” yet reveals that the original arrangement had been “that they should go back to Edinburgh Castle together.” Melville and others were of the opinion that Mary, in going to Alloa, “had fled from the King’s company.” Obviously, the relationship between the royal couple was now fraught with suspicion and resentment, at the very least, and had all but broken down.

At Alloa Tower,⁴² Mar laid on dancing, masques and sports for his royal guest. According to Buchanan, Mary “passed several days there, if not in princely magnificence, yet in rather unprincely licentiousness. How she behaved herself I had rather every man should imagine it than hear me declare it,” for she “demeaned herself as if she had forgot not only the majesty of a queen but even the modesty of a matron.” Buchanan was writing on the erroneous premise that Bothwell was with her, although elsewhere he claims that their alleged affair did not commence until the following month. Lennox, writing independently, incorrectly states that Mary visited Stirling, not Alloa, and that she took her pleasure “in most uncomely manner, abandoning herself to all riotousness, forgetting her princely state and honour.”⁴³ Nau, however, says that Mary remained at Alloa for several days, but “in the company of the ladies of the court” and the Earl of Mar.

Given her recent confinement, and the fact that Buchanan at least was in the business of character assassination, it is unlikely that Mary’s stay at Alloa was one long round of hedonistic indulgence. Moreover, official records show that she did not neglect affairs of state whilst there, and Bedford reported that one purpose of her visit had been to meet and make her peace with Maitland, who was certainly in the district on 28 July.⁴⁴She also held a reception for the newly arrived ambassador from France, Philippe (or Philibert) du Croc, whom de Silva heard was “a good Catholic” but “restless or unreliable,”⁴⁵and whom Nau later derided as a “creature” of Catherine de’ Medici. Mary was aware of this, and, in order to keep an eye on him, appointed him a temporary gentleman-in-waiting, so that he would be in daily attendance on her.⁴⁶The Scottish Lords, however, seeing this and knowing that du Croc had been “advanced by the House of Guise,”⁴⁷ came to regard him as the Queen’s man. Melville calls du Croc “a grave, aged, discreet gentleman”; he was certainly a diplomat of many years’ experience, and had already served on an embassy to Scotland, back in 1563. Now he had returned, ostensibly to convey Charles IX’s official congratulations on the birth of the Prince.

On 31 July, Mary returned to Edinburgh, where, according to Buchanan, “she stayed not in her palace but in the nearby home of a private citizen.” But her stay in the capital was not to be tranquil. The bitter feud between Moray and Bothwell had been aggravated by Bothwell’s increasing credit with the Queen. Early in August, Bedford informed Cecil that, thanks to Moray’s efforts, Morton’s friends, notably Lord Home, the Scotts of Buccleuch, the Kers of Cessford and other Border malcontents, had formed a confederacy against Bothwell, which Bedford meant to support as far as he dared without prejudicing peaceful relations with England.

A few days later, Bedford, whose informant was Kirkcaldy of Grange, reported that Bothwell “hath now, of all men, greatest access and familiarity with the Queen, so that nothing of importance is done without him.” Consequently, he was “the most hated man among the noblemen of this realm, and it is said that his insolence is such as David was never more abhorred than he is now.” If Bedford was implying that Mary and Bothwell had become involved in an illicit affair, then, given the widespread bad feeling about Bothwell’s closeness to the Queen, Darnley would certainly have known about it; but although Bedford states that relations between the Queen and her husband were “rather worse,” and that Darnley was jealous of Mary’s familiarity with men and women, especially “the ladies of Argyll, Moray and Mar, who keep most company with her,” he makes no mention of any jealousy on Darnley’s part specifically towards Bothwell. In fact, he states, in the same letter, that Darnley was jealous of Mary’s reliance on Moray, and had threatened to kill him, “finding fault that she bears him so much company.” Nau says that Darnley, being “naturally of a very insolent disposition,” had begun to “threaten all the Lords, especially Moray, whom he told that the Laird of Balfour had promised him [Darnley] that he would kill him [Moray].”

Bedford’s use of the word “familiarity” with regard to both men and women indicates that he is not trying to imply a clandestine relationship between Mary and Bothwell. If that had been the case, he would have been more specific about any rumours he had heard. As for Darnley, Bedford added that Mary “eateth but very seldom with him, but lieth not nor keepeth company with him, nor loveth any such as love him,” and concluded, “It cannot for modesty, nor with the honour of a queen, be reported what she said of him.” Mary “fell marvellously out” with Melville for giving Darnley an Irish water spaniel, and called him a dissembler and flatterer, saying “she could not trust him who would give any thing to such one as she loved not.”⁴⁸

Mary warned Moray that Darnley bore him ill will and had told her that he was determined to kill him. Then, before the whole court, she took her husband to task, saying “she would not be content that either he or any other should be unfriendly to Moray,” and constraining him to confess to Moray that his enmity had arisen from reports made to him “that Moray was not his friend, which made him speak that of which he repented.”⁴⁹After this humiliating interview, Darnley sped off to grumble about his wife to Lennox, complaining that she refused to sleep with him. He told his father that he was contemplating leaving his troubles in Scotland and going abroad.⁵⁰ Mary was not deceived by Darnley’s apology; she had seen “the great danger” in his antipathy towards Moray, “which was calculated to lead to serious troubles within the kingdom. She contrived, therefore, to be always busy near the King, so as to thwart his project. But in private he did not abandon the idea.”⁵¹Mary was now in the unenviable position of having to spend time in the company of a husband for whom she felt little but contempt and revulsion, and who had outlived his usefulness to her. It is to her credit that, as will be seen, she tried to make the best of it.

Mary has often been blamed for a fatal lack of judgement in placing such reliance upon Bothwell, a man who was hated by Catholics and Protestants alike, and feared by the English, but bitter experience and his own record of loyalty to the Crown had convinced her that he was more worthy of her trust than her own husband and most of her Lords. He had saved her from Rizzio’s murderers, and she was full of gratitude towards him. It has been noted that allegations that Mary was having an affair with Bothwell at this time belong to a later period, when her enemies had good political reasons for maligning her character. There is no evidence for such an affair in contemporary sources; sixteenth-century monarchs lived their lives in the public gaze and were surrounded by attendants, some of whom could be bribed for inside information. Foreign ambassadors were avid for the slightest morsel of gossip or scandal, and often made extensive and secret inquiries about the intimate lives of princes: the English in particular would have been grateful for the chance to defame Mary. There had been scurrilous gossip about Mary and Rizzio, pounced on by Randolph, but no one, in the summer and autumn of 1566, claimed that she was on intimate terms with Bothwell.

In his letter of 3 August, Bedford had mentioned that Mary was now reconciled with Maitland. Maitland had not yet been received back at court but was privately assisting Moray and Argyll in their efforts to bring about the restoration of Morton and the other exiles. Castelnau and du Croc were also working “very earnestly and effectually” towards the same end.⁵² Mary paid another visit to Alloa on 3 August, returning to Edinburgh five days later. On 10 August, the Papal Nuncio, the Bishop of Mondovi, arrived in Paris on his way to Scotland, only to find letters from Mary awaiting him, in which she begged him to defer his departure for her kingdom, as seditious people would prevent her from receiving him with the honour he deserved. Her messenger, John Beaton, “a man of high character in every respect,”⁵³arrived soon afterwards to offer her apologies. The truth was that Mary had so far failed to “induce the nobles to give free entrance into the kingdom to the Papal Legate; no argument could move [them], especially Moray, to assent.”⁵⁴ Mary also knew that, if Mondovi came secretly, “great tumults” would result, which would inevitably upset the status quo she was working so hard to maintain. Mondovi sent Beaton back with a portion of the promised subsidy⁵⁵ and a stern letter exhorting the Queen to do everything in her power to bring about the restoration of the faith in her realm.⁵⁶

Meanwhile, Bedford had received intelligence of a plot, or “device,” against Bothwell, who “hath grown of late so hated that he cannot long continue.” Bedford claimed he “might have heard” the “particularities” of the plot, “but, because such dealings like me not, I desire to hear no further thereof”⁵⁷It would have suited the English very well for someone to assassinate Bothwell, therefore Bedford did not intend to intervene. It has been suggested that Moray was behind this plot, which is possible, given his other activities at this time, but if he was, he took care—as he may have done on other occasions—to cover his traces. Rumour also credited Maitland with an attempt to poison Bothwell: Maitland had regained possession of Haddington Abbey, which had been granted to Bothwell after Maitland’s disgrace, and the two men were now locked in a bitter dispute about ownership. Some believed that murder was Maitland’s way of resolving it, but there is no proof of this.

Mary was making the best of the situation with Darnley. There was no acceptable way out of her marriage, so the sensible course was to re-establish a good rapport with her husband. This meant resuming sexual relations. On 13 August, Darnley received a large payment of money from her treasury,⁵⁸ as well as cloth of gold for caparisons for his horse, and a magnificent bed that had belonged to Marie de Guise. This was upholstered in “violet-brown velvet, enriched with cloth of gold and silver, with ciphers and flowers sewn with cloth of gold and silk, furnished with roof and headpiece”; its curtains were of purple damask, its pillows of violet velvet, and its quilt of blue taffeta. The sheets were of the finest Holland linen.⁵⁹The gift of the bed probably marked what was intended to be, on the Queen’s part at any rate, a reconciliation. Randolph, in England, heard that “the King and Queen are bedded together, whereby ’tis thought some better agreement may ensue.”

On the day after the bed was delivered, Mary and Darnley went on a stag-hunting expedition to the wild moors of Meggetland, which lay south of Peebles, and the nearby Ettrick Forest. They were accompanied by Bothwell, Moray, Huntly, Atholl and Mar:⁶⁰given the ill feeling between some of these nobles, the atmosphere must have been tense.

In Meggetland, Mary and Darnley stayed at Cramalt, in a tower house whose remains now lie beneath a reservoir. Their sport was disappointing, and they were obliged to issue a proclamation prohibiting anyone from shooting the royal deer, which were proving elusive. Nor was the reconciliation working. Buchanan claims that Mary behaved “capriciously, arrogantly and disdainfully” towards Darnley, “openly, in the face of all”; if this is true, his insulting behaviour certainly gave her sufficient provocation. On 19 August, the party stayed at Traquair House, near Innerleithen, as the guests of the Laird, Sir John Stewart, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, who had helped the royal couple escape from Holyrood after Rizzio’s murder. Traquair was a fortified three-storey tower house that had been a hunting lodge of the Kings of Scots since c.1100 before passing to a junior branch of the Stewart line. Mary and Darnley occupied chambers on the first floor, now the King’s Room and a dressing room.⁶¹

At supper, Darnley asked Mary to accompany him on another stag hunt on the morrow. “Knowing that, if she did so, she would be required to gallop her horse at a great pace, she whispered in his ear that she suspected she was pregnant.”⁶²This is confirmation in itself that she had resumed sexual relations with Darnley. However, it was far too soon to tell if she had conceived: it was exactly two months since the birth of James, and she had been unwell and estranged from Darnley for much of that time. It may be that, in the interests of happy marital relations, she wished people to think that she and the King had been reconciled for longer than they had. Darnley’s reaction shows that she had every cause to think she might be pregnant, but it was unpardonably brutal.

“Never mind,” he told her, “if we lose this one, we will make another.” It was the same thing he had said to her on that terrible night ride to Dunbar in March, and, seeing the Queen’s distress, the Laird rounded on his King and “rebuked him sharply,” telling him “he did not speak like a Christian.” But Darnley was unrepentant.

“What? Ought we not to work a mare when she is in foal?” he retorted.⁶³ After this, all hopes of reconciliation faded, and on the way back to Edinburgh, which they reached on 20 August, Mary decided that it might be wiser to place her son in the stronghold of Stirling, in the care of a governor. There was every chance that Darnley might try to force the issue of the Crown Matrimonial, and if he succeeded, James’s security, even his life, would be under threat.

From Paris, on 21 August, having no doubt conferred with statesmen and foreign ambassadors, including Francisco de Alava, Mondovi expressed, in a confidential letter to the Cardinal of Alessandria in Rome, his opinion that Mary’s difficulties “might be obviated if the King of Spain should come, as it is hoped, with a strong force to Flanders, or, as certain persons of weight believe, if justice were executed against six rebels, who were leaders and originators of the late treason against the Queen, and whose deaths would effectually restore peace and obedience in that kingdom.” He then listed their names: Moray, Argyll, Morton, Maitland, Justice Clerk Bellenden and former Clerk Register MacGill, “a man of no family and contriver of all evil.” They comprised effectively the core of the Protestant establishment in Scotland. Moray’s inclusion on the list shows how widespread was the belief that he was behind the Rizzio plot, and Mondovi’s willingness to have him executed for it suggests that he had access to diplomatic intelligence confirming Moray’s role in the affair.

With regard to Darnley, Mondovi had learned that he was “an ambitious and inconstant youth, [who] would like to rule the realm, which was the subject of the plot he hatched a few months back, with the purpose of getting himself crowned King. He continues to go to Mass, but maintains strict friendship and intercourse with the heretical rebels, in order to preserve and increase his credit and authority.” By all reports, and possibly on the recommendation of de Alava, Darnley was the man to engineer the arrests of the Lords concerned “without any disturbance arising, and with the assured hope that afterwards the holy Catholic religion would soon be restored with ease throughout that kingdom, as no leader of faction would remain. The danger is that the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Queen, in their excessive clemency, would not consent to such an act.” The implication was clear: it was Darnley, not Mary, who would act as the champion of Catholicism. The Pope was said to be “delighted” with Mondovi’s suggestions.⁶⁴

That August, the French ambassador to Spain reported that Philip’s visit to the Netherlands was certain. Men and ships were being assembled for the invasion. On 23 August, de Silva warned that some disturbance or rising was expected before the English Parliament met in the autumn.⁶⁵A week earlier, Darnley’s man, Anthony Standen the Elder, had left Scotland;⁶⁶he remained abroad, plotting on behalf of the Catholic cause, until 1605, and may well have initially acted in secret as Darnley’s agent. At the end of August, Darnley received another sum of money from the treasury.⁶⁷There has been speculation that he used this and the earlier payment to fund his treasonable schemes, but there is no evidence of this, and Mary herself must have authorised the grants, which were probably made to finance Darnley’s household and pleasures and keep him sweet.

On 31 August, Mary and Darnley, attended by an escort of 500 arquebusiers, took Prince James to Stirling Castle, where Mary entrusted him to the keeping of her good friend, the Earl of Mar, who was to be the Prince’s Governor. By tradition, the Erskines were guardians of royal heirs—Mar’s father had been given charge of Mary as a child—and Stirling was by custom the nursery palace of future kings. James was now assigned his own household, with a luxuriously furnished nursery; for the next four years, he would be “nursed and upbrought” by the Countess of Mar, the Catholic Annabella Murray. Lady Reres now replaced Helena Little as his wet-nurse,⁶⁸and Bothwell was made one of two Captains of his Bodyguard.

Soon afterwards, thanks to the efforts of his friend Atholl and Moray, Maitland arrived at Stirling and was formally welcomed back to court by the Queen. Mary had agreed to his return “as there was no proof of the charge against [him], trusting more than he deserved to his good qualities and his loyalty to herself.”⁶⁹On 4 September, Maitland dined with Mary, who behaved as if she “liked him very well.”⁷⁰She knew that Maitland would be far more effective than the Anglophobic Bothwell when it came to negotiating with Elizabeth for recognition of James’s rights to the English succession. Naturally, Bothwell was not pleased by this turn of events.

By 6 September, Mary was back in Edinburgh, where she stayed at the Exchequer House in the Cowgate, below St. Giles’s Kirk. Here, she attended an audit of the royal finances, “to understand her revenues and arrange for the maintenance of the Prince.”⁷¹She also wished to ascertain her financial position with a view to paying for a lavish christening for her son. Darnley remained at Stirling, having refused to accompany her. The rift between them now seemed irreparable.