11

“NO OUTGAIT”

ACCORDING TO BUCHANAN, IN SEPTEMBER 1566, Mary began an adulterous affair with Bothwell. He alleges that the chief attraction of the Exchequer House for her was that its “pleasant, almost solitary” gardens gave access to the back door of the residence of David Chalmers, Bothwell’s man, who was shortly to be appointed, through Bothwell’s good offices, Common Clerk of Edinburgh. “By this door, Bothwell could come and go as he liked.” According to Buchanan’s scarcely believable and farcical tale, at Bothwell’s request, an accommodating Lady Reres, “a most dissolute woman who had been one of Bothwell’s whores,” smuggled him through the Exchequer House garden and up to the Queen’s room, where he “forced her against her will” to have sexual intercourse with him.

On reflection, Mary decided she had, after all, enjoyed the experience, and, “not many days after, desiring [Buchanan supposed] to repay force with force, sent Lady Reres to bring [Bothwell] captive unto her.” We are to believe that Mary and Margaret Carwood let the stout Lady Reres “down by a sash over the wall into the next garden. But behold! The sash suddenly broke! Down with a great noise tumbled Lady Reres. But the old warrior, nothing dismayed by the darkness, the height of the wall or her unexpected flight to earth, reached Bothwell’s chamber, opened the door, plucked him out of bed—out of his wife’s embrace—and led him, half-asleep, half-naked, to the arms of the Queen.”

Bothwell’s tailor, George Dalgleish, is said by Buchanan to have been a witness and to have given details of the episode in his confession of 1567, but the extant version of this document does not refer to it. Buchanan also claims that Mary “confessed the whole thing” to Moray and his mother at Lochleven in 1567, “as well as to many others,” but there is no proof of this. It is hardly likely that Lady Reres would have connived at the rape of her mistress, whose escape she had risked her life to facilitate after Rizzio’s murder, and she could not have done so anyway, for she was now lodging in the Prince’s household at Stirling as his wet-nurse. Moreover, it was her sister Janet, the Lady of Buccleuch, who had been Bothwell’s mistress. It will also be remembered that Lennox had dated the commencement of Mary’s alleged affair with Bothwell to before the birth of the Prince.

Some “Notes on David Chambers [sic],” which were later sent to Cecil alleged that Bothwell and his wife were indeed staying in David Chalmers’s house at that time, and that Chalmers got his preferments “because he had served Bothwell as a bawd. He was a great dealer betwixt the Queen and Bothwell, so Mr. David’s lodging was chosen as a place meet to exercise their filthiness, when the Queen lay in the Exchequer House in the Cowgate.”¹ This would appear to corroborate Buchanan, but it was written after 1568, at a time when it was vitally expedient to destroy Mary’s reputation and when Buchanan’s libel had been circulated in political circles, so it cannot be relied upon as independent evidence.

According to The Book of Articles, which Buchanan drew up against Mary in 1568, “from September 1566, [Bothwell] became so familiar with her, night and day, that at his pleasure he abused her body,” while Darnley “was never permitted to remain patiently the space of 48 hours together in her company.” If Mary and Bothwell were lovers at this time, then they must have been exceptionally discreet, because no contemporary source mentions such an affair.

Mary was back at Holyrood by 12 September. A week later, Sir John Forster reported that the Privy Council had voted the Queen £12,000 (now equivalent to at least £3.5 million) to cover the expenses of the Prince’s christening; this was to be raised by loans from wealthy Edinburgh merchants. Everyone recognised the necessity for putting on a lavish show of splendour and pageantry in order to impress foreign ambassadors who were used to the magnificent courts of Renaissance Europe.

With Scotland’s international reputation at stake, the Queen naturally desired a degree of unity amongst her nobles, and around this time she persuaded Maitland and Bothwell to make a public display of reconciliation and friendship in the presence of Moray and Argyll, after which, Maitland resumed his duties as Secretary of State.²Mary’s willingness to show favour to these leading Protestants may well have made Darnley all the more determined to expose her as a lukewarm supporter of Catholicism.

On 21 September, Mary, restored to good health and in better spirits,³ left Edinburgh to visit her son at Stirling. The next day, John Beaton arrived from Paris with the subsidy payment and the Nuncio’s letter,⁴and the day after, Mary returned to Edinburgh to attend to affairs of state. She had been “desirous that the King should have come along with her,”⁵but Darnley still insisted upon remaining at Stirling. He was in a foul, dejected mood, and revealed to du Croc that he was in such desperation that he was minded to go overseas. Du Croc “could not believe that he was in earnest.”⁶It has been conjectured that the discovery that Mary was Bothwell’s mistress was enough to make Darnley want to leave Scotland, but, if so, it is surprising that neither he nor Lennox ever referred to it during the days that followed, when they had ample opportunity to do so. It will be remembered that Darnley had not been reticent in his suspicions of Rizzio.

Around 24/26 September, Lennox briefly visited Darnley at Stirling before returning to his estates in Glasgow.⁷The outcome of their meeting was a letter written by Lennox to Mary, informing her that Darnley was so humiliated by the loss of status consequent upon her denying him the Crown Matrimonial that he intended to go abroad, and had a ship lying ready. According to Buchanan, it was anchored in the Firth of Clyde. Buchanan claims that Darnley meant to go to France or Spain, but Nau says that, “by the persuasion of some dissipated youths, who were his chief companions, he had resolved to go secretly to France, and there to support himself upon the Queen’s dowry.” Lennox told Mary he had tried to dissuade Darnley from going, but had been unable to “make him alter his mind.”⁸

When Mary read this letter on 29 September, she resolved to have the matter out immediately with Darnley. His threat to go abroad was not only a public affront to her but also a threat to her security and that of her realm and her heir, and may have been a form of blackmail; in any case, it had to be dealt with. Some writers have speculated that Mary’s alarm arose chiefly from fear of the scandal that would ensue if her husband went abroad and she then became pregnant by Bothwell, but of course there is little reliable evidence that she and Bothwell were lovers at this time.

Mary showed Lennox’s letter to the Council, who expressed astonishment that the King should “entertain any thought of departing after so strange a manner” from Scotland and his wife, but they had probably not taken into account the humiliation he felt and his mortal fear that Morton and his other deadly enemies would be repatriated. Nor did they know of his dealings with influential Catholics abroad. “Their Lordships therefore took a resolution to talk with the King, that they might learn from himself the occasion of this hasty deliberation of his, that they might thereby be enabled to advise Her Majesty after what manner she should comfort herself in this conjecture.”⁹

That evening, to everyone’s “amazement,” Darnley turned up at the gates of Holyrood, but refused to enter the palace until the Privy Councillors had been dismissed, a stipulation that greatly offended those Lords. At 10 p.m., the Queen had to go out and persuade him that he was insulting her by his behaviour and should come inside. Because of the state he was in, she “conducted him to her own apartment, where he remained all night, abed together,” but he resisted her attempts to make him state his grievances. However, he did agree to attend a meeting of the Privy Council in the morning.¹⁰

Yet they fared little better. Having told the King that he should thank God for such a wise and virtuous wife, the Councillors asked him to account for his behaviour, and inform them how they had offended him. Mary herself took him by the hand and made him “a pretty strong harangue,” begging him to tell her if she had given him any cause to leave the kingdom, and declaring that she had “a clear conscience, [and] that all her life she had done no action which could anywise prejudice either his or her honour.” But Darnley refused to admit either that he intended to go abroad or that he had any cause for complaint. Du Croc, who was present, bluntly told him that his leaving the country “must affect either his own or the Queen’s honour.” At this, Darnley “at last declared that he had no ground at all for leaving the country” and that Mary had given him no occasion for discontent. “Thereupon he went out of the chamber of presence, saying to the Queen, ‘Adieu, Madame. You shall not see my face for a long space.’ After which, he likewise bade [du Croc] farewell, and, turning to the Lords, said, ‘Gentlemen, adieu.’ ”

After his departure, Mary was visibly distressed, but du Croc and the Lords comforted her, saying they were “all of opinion that this was but a false alarm the Earl of Lennox was willing to give Her Majesty.” The best advice they could give her was to continue on her present course of wise and virtuous behaviour, for the truth about her marriage would soon be public knowledge.¹¹The Lords would hardly have said this to her had she been carrying on with Bothwell, whom they hated.

Against Mary’s wishes,¹²Darnley immediately left Holyrood for Glasgow, accompanied by Lennox. From Corstorphine, he wrote to her revealing that he was still in a mind to leave the country since she did not trust him with any regal authority, “nor is at such pains to advance him and make him to be honoured in the nation as she at first did”; furthermore, he complained, the nobility shunned him. On hearing this, the Council declared that they would never consent to his having the disposal of public affairs. Mary herself sent Darnley a letter in which she pointed out that, if his status was diminished, he ought to blame himself, not her, for that, in the beginning, she had conferred so much honour upon him as came afterwards to render herself very uneasy, the credit and reputation wherein she had placed him having served as a shadow to those who have most heinously offended Her Majesty; but she has, notwithstanding this, continued to show him such respect that, although they who did perpetrate the murder of her faithful servant had entered her chamber with his knowledge, and had named him the chief of their enterprise, yet would she never accuse him thereof.

Furthermore, “if the nobility abandon him, his own deportment towards them is the cause thereof; for if he desire to be followed and attended by them, he must first make them love him.”¹³Mary also wrote to Lennox, assuring him that Darnley had no cause for complaint.

The King’s behaviour carried serious implications. On 8 October, on Mary’s instructions, the Council sent a full account of her confrontation with him and the correspondence that followed to Catherine de’ Medici, just in case Darnley should appeal to the French for support. It was stressed that the Lords would have been joyfully disposed “to pass over in silence the huge injury he does to himself and the Queen’s Majesty but, seeing that he himself is the very first person who, by his deportment, will lead discovery to the world, we can do no less than to testify the things that we have both seen and heard [to] all those who are allied to Her Majesty, that by these you may have opportunity to perceive the great trouble and vexation the Queen labours under at present, and the occasion of it.”¹⁴

Soon after his departure, Darnley had sent a message to du Croc, summoning him to meet him halfway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. He had decided to make public his grievances in the hope that the ambassador would use his influence to put matters right. But du Croc “remonstrated to him every thing that I could think of” to dissuade him from leaving Scotland, and came away with the impression that he had succeeded. Darnley, however, arrived in Glasgow more resentful than ever. Nor did he stay there long, for in October he was in Fife, hunting at Burleigh Castle and Kinross, and fishing at Loch Leven.

Late in September, as Mary had anticipated, the Council, with Moray at his most vociferous, refused permission for the Papal Nuncio to come to Scotland.¹⁵Even the militant Pius V was having doubts as to the wisdom of Mondovi’s mission, for he felt that its success was largely dependent upon Philip II being in Flanders, and on 30 September he wrote to the Nuncio to say that, if Philip’s arrival was further delayed, he should return to his See.¹⁶Unknown to him as yet, Mary was still making concessions to the reformed Church: in Council, on 3 October, she agreed that all benefices under 300 marks should go to ministers of the Kirk.¹⁷

Mary was more preoccupied with the need to establish good order in the Borders¹⁸, and decided to go ahead with the assizes that had been postponed, initially because of her pregnancy and then because of the harvest. On 1 October, she summoned all her Border Lords and freeholders to meet her at Melrose on 8 October, prior to travelling to Jedburgh for a justice eyre, or circuit court, over which she intended to preside on the 9th.¹⁹Darnley, invited to accompany her, had refused; Lennox claims that Mary’s progress to the Borders was a ploy to get away from her husband,²⁰but of course he had absented himself from her.

It was essential, in the circumstances, that there was at least a show of unity between the leading nobles and, early in October, according to Moray,²¹ the Queen forced him, Argyll, Bothwell and Huntly to “subscribe a bond, which was devised in sign of our reconciliation in respect of the former grudges and displeasures that had been amongst us.” Moray claims he “was constrained to make promise before I could be admitted to the Queen’s presence or have any show of her favour”: evidently Mary had been obliged to use her royal prerogative to bend him to her will. The Bond bound these Lords to fortify and support each other in all their undertakings against their enemies and in refusing to obey the King “when his orders conflicted with the Queen’s wishes.”²²This put an end to Bothwell’s support of Darnley, and left the latter politically isolated, which is probably what Mary intended.

On 6 October, Bothwell, as Lieutenant of the Borders, left Edinburgh with 300 horse for Liddesdale, one of the most lawless regions in the Borders, to begin rounding up the worst troublemakers, who were to receive judgement at the Queen’s justice eyre. Buchanan alleges that the Earl “conducted himself neither according to the place which he held, nor the dignity of his family,” yet, as a result of his efforts, members of the violent Armstrong and Johnstone clans were imprisoned in Hermitage Castle. However, the notorious Elliotts, a family of Border reivers, remained at large, so Bothwell now turned his attention to tracking them down.

On 7 October,²³Mary, accompanied by Moray, Huntly, Atholl, Livingston, Seton, Caithness, Rothes, Maitland, Bishop Leslie and other Lords, as well as a host of household officers, judges, lawyers, clerks, waiting women, servants and men-at-arms, left Edinburgh for Borthwick Castle, the first stop on her progress. As the cavalcade wended its slow way south, Bothwell was engaging in an affray with the Elliotts, in the course of which he was severely wounded by one of them, the vicious outlaw, Jock Elliott of the Park.²⁴Having received stab wounds to the forehead, thigh and left hand, “Bothwell was carried to his castle of Hermitage in a condition such as to make his recovery uncertain.”²⁵But, in his absence, the fortress had been taken over by the thieves and malefactors whom he had imprisoned there, and they would not surrender it until they had been granted their freedom. Bothwell’s officers had no choice: “if he had not gotten in at that time, all his company had been slain.”²⁶So the Earl was carried in, unconscious and bleeding, and “everyone thought he would die.” When he regained consciousness, “he thought so himself.”²⁷

The news spread fast, but became garbled in the telling. On the following day, Henry, Lord Scrope, informed Cecil, from Carlisle, that Bothwell had been slain in the attack.²⁸Soon afterwards, it was being reported in Europe that the Queen of Scots had “lost a man she could trust, of whom she had but few.”²⁹

Surprisingly, Mary had not yet heard of the attack on Bothwell. She left Borthwick on 8 April and travelled via Peebles and Selkirk to Melrose, where she was met by her assembled lieges. On the following day, she arrived in Jedburgh and took up residence in what is now the Spread Eagle Hotel, and it was here that she learned that Bothwell was lying seriously wounded at Hermitage.³⁰She did not “fly like a madwoman” immediately to visit him, being unable to restrain her “inordinate affection” and “shameless lust,” as Buchanan later alleged, but set up her court in the Tolbooth and, for the next six days, dispensed justice. However, thanks to the escape of the Armstrongs and Johnstones from Hermitage, there were very few cases to be heard, and Moray complained that Mary was far too merciful to those who did come before her, none of whom was sentenced to death as he felt they deserved, but merely fined.³¹

Melville claims that Bothwell and Huntly had planned to murder Moray at Jedburgh, but that Lord Home arrived there with a force of men “and prevented that enterprise.” It is more likely, however, that this plot was foiled by Bothwell’s incapacity.

On 9 October, Mary summoned one Stephen Wilson, whom she had chosen to act as her messenger to the Papal Nuncio, and instructed him to tell Mondovi that the nobility had agreed to his coming. It is less likely that they had changed their minds than that Mary was playing for time, which was to be granted her, for Wilson, due to unforeseen and near-tragic circumstances, was not to depart for a month.

Du Croc had formed the opinion that Darnley wanted to be and command all, and suffered mainly from wounded pride. Wishing to inform Mary’s friends abroad of the truth, the ambassador wrote letters to Archbishop Beaton on 13 October,³²and to Catherine de’ Medici on 16/17 October,³³recounting the events of late September. Referring to Darnley’s threats to go abroad, he wrote, “He has not embarked, but we receive advertisements from day to day that he still holds on to his resolution and keeps a ship in readiness. It is in vain to imagine that he should be able to raise any disturbance, for there is not one person in all the kingdom, from the highest to the lowest, that regards him any further than is agreeable to the Queen. And I never saw Her Majesty so much beloved, esteemed and honoured.”

Du Croc also described preparations for the coming baptism, saying that both Protestants and Catholics were enthusiastic about it, but that the fuss being made probably accounted for Darnley’s bad behaviour; apparently, he was bitterly jealous of Mary’s good relations with the Protestant Lords, and fearful that his reduced status would be apparent to all the foreign dignitaries who attended the christening, which would be intolerable for one of his “lofty and vainglorious” temperament.³⁴

In Paris, on 15 October, Mondovi, concerned that Mary had not responded to his letter, sent by John Beaton over a month before, and correctly concluding that she was stalling, met with the Cardinal of Lorraine, but had “great difficulty in persuading him that there ought not to be further delay in doing something signal for the service of God in Scotland.” At length, the Cardinal reluctantly agreed to send a gentleman to persuade Mary to admit the Nuncio and “decide on restoring Holy Religion in her kingdom.” A week later, Mondovi had a second meeting with the Cardinal, to tell him that the Pope had recalled him to his See; the Cardinal begged him to await the return of his gentleman from Mary’s court.³⁵There is, however, no trace of any such gentleman being sent to Scotland at this time; circumstances will reveal, however, that the Cardinal probably dispatched someone in late October.³⁶

The assizes were completed by 15 October. According to Nau, because it was thought that Bothwell was dying, Mary “was both solicited and advised to pay him a visit at his house, in order that she might learn from him the state of affairs in these districts of which the said Lord was hereditary governor.” This is corroborated by a contemporary French narrative,³⁷which states that Mary was advised to consult with Bothwell on the state of the Borders.

This made good political sense, because Bothwell bore heavy responsibilities in the Borders and had a unique knowledge of the region, and while he was out of action, others might have to deputise for him. Of course, the Queen could have sent someone else to liaise with Bothwell, but she clearly felt that the unrest in the Borders needed to be quelled urgently, and must have been very concerned that so few had been brought to justice. Furthermore, Bothwell had been dangerously wounded in her service, and she doubtless wished to express personally to him her debt of gratitude. No one at the time suggested that her visit was made for amorous reasons.

Early in the morning of 15 October,³⁸the Queen left Jedburgh for Hermitage Castle. There was no suitable accommodation for her and her entourage at this massive, spartan fortress, and in any case her host was very ill, so she made the sixty-mile round trip in a day, despite wet weather, rough roads and reports of robbers in the region. Buchanan, who was eager to prove that Mary’s visit was made only in consequence of her lust for Bothwell, and who falsely claims that she flew off to Hermitage as soon as she heard he was wounded, alleges that she took with her “such an escort as no one slightly more honourable would have dared to trust with life and fortune.” In fact, it included Moray, Buchanan’s patron, Huntly, Maitland and a strong force of soldiers. Moreover, Lennox, who also accused Mary of impropriety with Bothwell, does not refer to any scandal attaching to her trip to Hermitage; had there been, he would certainly have done so.

Hermitage Castle, which lies on remote moorland five miles north of Newcastleton, had been built in 1242; its stout keep dated from the fourteenth century. The castle took its name from a nearby hermit’s dwelling on Hermitage Water in Nithsdale, but had a grim history of violence and feuds. The Hepburns had bought this forbidding edifice in 1492, essentially as a military base for controlling the Borders.³⁹

According to Lord Scrope, Mary sat by Bothwell’s bed for about two hours, with Moray and the others in attendance;⁴⁰Scrope told Cecil that they discussed Border affairs and the justice eyre, and that it was decided that Bothwell would bring other offenders to justice when he had recovered. Mary also conferred an official post on Bothwell’s kinsman, George Sinclair. Then the royal party returned to Jedburgh through Liddesdale. Between Hermitage and Priesthaugh, according to tradition, Mary’s horse slipped in a bog that is today known as the Queen’s Mire, and she was thrown to the muddy ground. She also lost her watch. The party were forced to stop at a farmhouse near Hawick so that her clothes could be repaired and dried.⁴¹Mary’s servants marvelled at her stamina on the long ride, but she told them she “could find it in her heart to do anything that a man dare do, if her strength would serve her.”⁴²

Scrope informed Cecil that, on the day after her return, Mary sent “a mass of writing” to Bothwell from Jedburgh.⁴³This would appear to confirm that the object of their meeting had been to discuss business. But the arduous journey took its toll on Mary and, on 17 October,⁴⁴she fell seriously ill, suffering initially from the old pain in her side, “which confined her to bed”;⁴⁵ she then developed a transient fever, which was rapidly followed, on the first day alone, by more than sixty episodes of violent, prolonged vomiting of blood,⁴⁶which intermittently reduced her to unconsciousness.

It is difficult now to determine the nature of Mary’s illness, which has been diagnosed by some as a nervous or psychosomatic collapse as a reaction to the stress of the past months. The Venetian ambassador in Paris reported that “the illness was caused by her dissatisfaction at a decision made by the King to go to a place 25 or 30 miles distant without assigning any cause for it; which departure so afflicted this unfortunate Princess, not so much for the love she bears him, as from the consequences of his absence, reducing her to this extremity.”⁴⁷Other possible diagnoses are a haemorrhage from a stomach ulcer, haematemesis (i.e., the vomiting of blood as a result of changes in the stomach wall due to an ulcer or acute dyspepsia), or to porphyria, which can give rise to such symptoms. Buchanan maliciously and ludicrously attributes Mary’s illness to her “having gratified her unlawful passions” with Bothwell. Whatever it was, its effects were so alarming that Maitland and many others believed the Queen’s life to be in danger.

Inevitably, there was talk of poison. A Venetian envoy voiced this suspicion to the Doge in November, adding, “By whom, and with what design this great wickedness has been perpetrated, Your Serenity, who remembers past affairs, may form your own judgement.”⁴⁸Nau, perhaps reiterating Mary’s own suspicions, states that, “from the frequency and the violence of the vomiting within the period of a single day, it was suspected that she had been poisoned, particularly as among the matter ejected from the stomach was found a lump of green substance, very thick and hard.”

As Mary lay sick, “news came that the Prince was so ill that his life was despaired of, but, after having been made to vomit, he recovered.”⁴⁹Not so his mother, for on the third day she lost both her sight and her power of speech “and had a very severe fit of convulsions.”⁵⁰

Around 21 October, four days after Mary had fallen ill, Bothwell had himself carried to Jedburgh on a horse litter.⁵¹On the 26th, de Silva reported from London that the Earl was “still in danger from his wounds,”⁵²but however ill Bothwell felt, every day that he was absent gave Moray a chance to usurp his influence; moreover, should the Queen die, Bothwell meant to ensure that he was there to hear her final wishes. Buchanan states that Mary had Bothwell brought to Jedburgh and lodged in a chamber below hers. “When he arrived, their meetings and behaviour were beyond all propriety.” But Buchanan incorrectly places Bothwell’s arrival before Mary’s illness, which he attributes to “her exertions by day and night.”⁵³

At Jedburgh, Bothwell improved steadily, and on 25 October Leslie was able to write that he “convalesces well of his wounds”; by that date, he was able to attend a meeting of the Privy Council.⁵⁴However, he would be scarred on the forehead for life, and his wounds would continue to trouble him for some time.

Du Croc was with the court at Jedburgh, and on 23 October he sent a messenger, Alexander Bog, to inform Catherine de’ Medici that Mary’s life was in danger. Bog also carried a letter for Archbishop Beaton from the Council, instructing him to tell the King and Queen Mother of France that, the previous night, Mary had had “some fits of swooning, which put men in some fear; nevertheless, we see no tokens of death.” On 24 October, Mary “got some relief,”⁵⁵and du Croc wrote to Beaton: “We begin to have more hope of the Queen, and for the present the doctors have no fears. I assure you Her Majesty is well looked after. God knows how all the Lords who are here occupy themselves. You may imagine the trouble they are in and the distress of this poor kingdom. The King is at Glasgow, and has never come here. If he has been informed by someone and has had time enough to come if he wished, it is a fault which I cannot excuse.”⁵⁶

Maitland informed Beaton that Bog’s message was more desperate than it should have been, as, although she had been “sorely handled, and looked herself for nothing but death,” Mary was “well relieved of the extremity of her sickness” and now, “praised be God, we think her out of all danger.” He added that the occasion of the Queen’s sickness, so far as I understand, is thought and displeasure, and I trow, by what I could wring further of her own declaration to me, the root of it is the King. For she has done him so great honour, contrary to the advice of her subjects, and he, on the other part, has recompensed her with such ingratitude and misuses himself so far towards her that it is a heartbreak for her to think he should be her husband, and how to be free of him she sees no outgait. I see betwixt them no agreement, nor no appearance that they shall well agree thereafter. I am assured that it has been her mind this good while.⁵⁷

In her extremity, Mary had lowered her guard and revealed her desperation at the prospect of being tied to Darnley for life. There had been unsubstantiated rumours that she had sent to Rome for an annulment after Rizzio’s death, but this is the first evidence that she had seriously considered ways of freeing herself from her husband.

The optimism expressed by Beaton and Maitland about Mary’s health was premature. At 10 p.m. that evening, “Her Majesty swooned again and failed in her sight; her feet and knees were cold, which were handled by extreme rubbing, drawing and other cures, by the space of four hours, that no creature could endure greater pain, and through the vehemence of this cure, Her Majesty got some relief.”⁵⁸

Believing she was dying, Mary summoned the Lords and du Croc, and made her final dispositions, declaring that the crown must pass to her son, not to Darnley, “not doubting that the King his father would wrong him as to the succession of the crown,” and entrusting Moray with charge of the Prince and “the principal part of the government.” Moray was also to ensure that James was “nourished in the fear of God and all virtues” and that “no evil company be near him during his youth.” In an obvious reference to Darnley, she beseeched God to mend one “whom I have advanced to a great degree of honour and pre-eminence among others; who, notwithstanding, has used ingratitude towards me, which has engendered the displeasure that presently most grieves me, and is also the cause of my sickness.” She remitted to God the exiled traitors, but urged that, if they returned to Scotland, the Lords would not suffer them to come near her son. She asked Moray to be as tolerant of Catholics as she had been of Protestants, then asked pardon for sins that had arisen from “the fragility of my nature” and, finally, protested that she died in the Catholic religion. As she “disposed herself as one at the point of death,” Bishop Leslie offered up prayers for her.⁵⁹

That night, Mary slipped into a coma and became so stiff and cold that everyone thought she had died. Her servants threw open the windows “to let her spirit go free,” her ladies ordered mourning clothes, her Privy Councillors, including Bothwell,⁶⁰prepared for her funeral and issued an edict to safeguard public order, while Moray, with unseemly haste, “started to lay hands on her silver plate and jewels.”⁶¹But Arnault, the Queen’s French surgeon and “a perfect man of his craft,” noticed that one of Mary’s arms had not completely stiffened, and worked frantically to revive her. He tightly bandaged her limbs and extremities, massaged her body vigorously for three hours, forced wine down her throat, and gave her some medicine and an enema of wine and herbs, “the evacuations produced by which were considered by the physicians to be very suspicious.”⁶²Gradually, Mary’s sight and speech were restored, then she began to sweat, and “from that time, she gradually recovered.”⁶³

Up to 27 October, Darnley was “hawking and hunting” in Glasgow and the west of Scotland,⁶⁴perhaps unaware of Mary’s illness; there is no record of any messenger being sent to inform him. On the 22nd, Robert Melville had reported that the King was still threatening to leave the country because the Queen had not agreed to his demand that she dismiss Maitland, Bellenden and MacGill.⁶⁵

It appears that Darnley finally learned that Mary was sick on 27 October because, on that day, he suddenly set off for Edinburgh and the Borders; both Knox and Buchanan claim he travelled with the utmost haste to his wife’s bedside.

He arrived at Jedburgh on the 28th, but did not stay long. In the Diurnal of Occurrents, Buchanan and Lennox all state that he was offended by a hostile reception from Mary and her nobles, which is hardly surprising, given that most of them, including Mary herself, believed him to have been the cause of her illness. Certainly, his visit did nothing to improve relations between him, Mary and the Lords. After spending only one night in Jedburgh— in one account, Buchanan claims he stayed in the lodgings of Lord Home, in another he states he slept in the bed of the Bishop of Orkney—Darnley rode north to Edinburgh, and thence to Stirling.⁶⁶Buchanan says “his departure seemed the more shameful because, at the same time, Bothwell was openly transferred from the house where he had been lodging to the Queen’s apartments”—which contradicts his earlier account.

By 30 October, Mary was well enough to order material for a new dress. Buchanan alleges that, around this time, she and Bothwell, “though not yet fully recovered, returned to their former pastime, and that blatantly”—so blatantly, in fact, that no one else noticed it. Buchanan also states that “the world in the same days began to speak of it,” but there were many people present at Jedburgh, and no other contemporary source, not even Lennox, mentions such flagrant behaviour.

On 30 October, Mary’s convalescence was disrupted by a fire that destroyed part of her lodgings, and she and her entourage were obliged to move to a “bastel” (fortified) tower owned by the Kers of Ferniehurst, which was perhaps that which survives today and is known as Mary, Queen of Scots’ House. This was one of six fortified houses built in the fifteenth century after Jedburgh Castle was demolished. In Mary’s day, it had four storeys, a thatched roof, gables, turrets, tiny windows and a garden.⁶⁷The service quarters were on the ground floor, but the upper floors could be accessed only by an outside stair. There was a banqueting room, forechamber and garderobe on the first floor, and bedchambers and a guard room above. The Queen paid Lady Ferniehurst £40 for the use of the house.

Queen Elizabeth, fearing the intervention of Philip II in Flanders, was now finding the prospect of an alliance with Scotland attractive, and had instructed Cecil to draw up instructions for an embassy in which it was to be intimated that Elizabeth was prepared to acknowledge Mary as her heir. On 31 October, Elizabeth asked the Countess of Argyll, a Protestant, to stand proxy for her at James’s christening.⁶⁸At the beginning of November, the Comte de Brienne arrived in Scotland to represent Charles IX at the ceremony.⁶⁹In his train was the son of du Croc, who may have acted as the Cardinal of Lorraine’s messenger to Mary,⁷⁰for he already held a post in her household and could therefore easily gain access to her. It was probably one of these men who informed Mary that Papal support would be dependent upon her agreeing to execute Moray and the other leading Protestants listed by Mondovi.

Meanwhile, on 29 October, King Philip had ordered the Duke of Alva to make ready for war on the Netherlands, which was probably what Darnley was waiting for. Darnley’s grievances had already reached the ears of the Nuncio in Paris, who reported on 4 November: “He cannot obtain from the Queen the authority he had before the late tumults, that is, to sit by the side of his wife in Council and in public places [and] set his name with hers in treaties and public affairs.”⁷¹But Darnley was about to have his revenge in full measure.

Mary was making slow progress, but on or just before 1 November,⁷²she received a letter from, or about, Darnley⁷³that, according to Buchanan, caused her “miserably to torment herself, wailing wretchedly as if she would have fallen again into her former sickness.” She told Moray, Maitland and Huntly that, “unless she might by some means or other be despatched of the King, she would never have any good day, and if by no other way, she would attain it, rather than she would abide to live in such sorrow she would slay herself.” Buchanan put these words into Mary’s mouth with the aim of demonstrating that she was in a frame of mind in which she could contemplate murdering Darnley, but there is independent corroboration of her reaction to the letter, for by 13 November, de Silva in London had been given details of it by Mary’s messenger, Stephen Wilson, who left Scotland around 8 November and arrived in London on the 13th. De Silva informed his master that Mary “had heard that her husband had written to Your Majesty, the Pope, the King of France and the Cardinal of Lorraine that she was dubious in the faith.”⁷⁴ Knox confirms this, and states that Darnley had also complained “of the state of the country, which was all out of order, all because that Mass and Papacy were not again erected, giving the whole blame thereof to the Queen as not managing the Catholic cause aright.”

This was the first concrete evidence of Darnley’s dealings abroad, and the first intimation that Mary had received of the extent of his duplicity, and it is hardly surprising that she was devastated by his embarrassing betrayal. She had certainly not done as much for the Catholic faith in Scotland as she could have done, and in some respects she had actively undermined it, but she was in an impossible political situation and had made a virtue of necessity in order to ensure her own survival. Of the two of them, she was personally by far the more genuinely devout, while Darnley bent with the wind, but, by his condemnation of her lack of zeal, he meant to show himself in the best possible light as the champion of Catholicism in Britain. Mary was ignorant of the wider implications of his calumnies, but she was all too aware that they had the power to ruin her credit with the Catholic rulers of Europe; in the case of Philip II and Catherine de’ Medici, they seem to have succeeded, for hereafter neither offered much support to Mary, even though Philip later denied that he had ever received from Darnley any letter detrimental to her.⁷⁵

Mary was desperate to repair the damage her husband had caused. De Silva told Philip that she had asked him to assure Your Majesty that, as regards religion, she will never, with God’s help, fail to uphold it. Although she has entrusted this man [Wilson] to assure me verbally in the matter, she has in addition written to me as regards her steadfastness in the Faith, and I believe, from all that has ever been heard of the Queen, she is as faithful in religion as she professes to be. It seems to me, however, difficult to believe that her husband should have taken such a course, and it must be some French device to sow discord.⁷⁶

Stephen Wilson left Jedburgh around 8 November. He was to go not only to London to reassure de Silva of his Queen’s zeal for the faith, but also to Paris and Rome in order to restore Mary’s credit with Charles IX, Catherine de’ Medici and the Pope, and to inform Pius that the Nuncio wouldbe received in Scotland with all honour. Mondovi was to be told, however, that he could only be received under some colour other than that of religion. Wilson arrived in Paris around 20 November.⁷⁷

Because the Nuncio had been “compelled to linger in France, for the Queen cannot devise any way of receiving him with the respect which is due to himself, to the Papal See and to her own dignity without occasioning very great tumults,” the Pope had decided to send secretly to Scotland a fanatical Jesuit priest, Father Edmund Hay, a Scot who was Rector of the Jesuit College in Paris, to assess the situation and persuade Mary to agree to Mondovi’s conditions. Mary had almost certainly been apprised of these by now, and the knowledge that she was expected to put to death her half-brother and many of her foremost advisers in return for papal help must have plunged her into even greater turmoil.

Father Hay knew all about the Queen’s illness, and had no doubts about her “heroic constancy in her adherence to the Catholic religion,” but he was well aware of “the dangers which hang over my head” and the political constraints that bound the Queen, which it was his mission to make her surmount. “May God grant that she may lay to heart this fatherly correction, and that it may lead her to carry out with greater diligence the work which hitherto she has only begun.”⁷⁸

On 7 November, Elizabeth instructed Bedford to propose a new treaty by which Mary’s rights to the English succession might be secured.⁷⁹This, however, was at variance with what she had told her Parliament two days earlier, when she warned them that any limitation of the succession would mean “some peril unto you and certain danger unto me.”⁸⁰However, on the 9th, she snapped that Parliament must cease urging her to marry and be content with her promise to acknowledge Mary as her successor. Mary, too trusting as ever, was joyfully to believe that Elizabeth was sincere.

Mary left Jedburgh for Kelso on 9 November, travelling by litter and accompanied by Moray, Bothwell and other Lords, and a train of 1,000 horse. Maitland informed Cecil that she was perfectly restored to health,⁸¹but later reports contradict this. Nevertheless, she was determined to complete her progress through the Borders.

Mary spent the nights of 9 and 10 November at Kelso,⁸²and held another justice eyre there. The time for the Prince’s baptism was approaching, and Elizabeth’s ambassador, the Earl of Bedford, was already on his way, but on 11 November, de Silva wrote that there was no news of the envoy from Savoy.⁸³The Duke had in fact written to Mary a day earlier announcing that he would be sending Robertino Solaro, Count Moretta, to stand proxy for him.⁸⁴Moretta, a staunch Catholic, was a seasoned diplomat who had visited Scotland in 1561 and knew Mary; he may also have met Mondovi during the latter’s two visits to Savoy. His movements during the next weeks have led some historians to speculate that he had a secret mission that was perhaps connected with Darnley’s schemes, and it has also been suggested that he was a Spanish spy. Certainly, some suspicion attaches to his behaviour.

Mary left Kelso for Hume Castle, the seat of Lord Home, on 11 November.⁸⁵Her reluctance to consent to the Nuncio’s demands had already been communicated to him, for, on the 12th, he reported that, while the Queen was anxious to receive the balance of the subsidy, she was not prepared to agree to the attached conditions. He added that Father Hay was to be accompanied to Scotland by the Bishop of Dunblane, and that both were determined to discover whether Mary really would be able to keep her promise to receive the Nuncio, whilst giving “courage to the Queen to prosecute the holy cause.”⁸⁶

Between 12 and 15 November, Mary visited Langton Castle, home of the Cockburns, and Wedderburn, another of Lord Home’s properties. On the 15th, as she passed Berwick, Sir John Forster, its Deputy Governor, crossed the border to pay his respects, and the English guns fired a salute in her honour. The occasion was sadly marred when Forster’s horse suddenly reared and kicked Mary in the thigh.⁸⁷Mary made light of the incident, but Forster was deeply embarrassed and begged her forgiveness, which she readily gave, although she was in pain for the next two days.

Forster and his men escorted Mary part of the way to Eyemouth, where she stayed on 16 November. On the next night, she was at Coldingham Priory. Buchanan hints at some further scandal while the Queen was there, alleging that “Lady Reres passed through the guard, was recognised and was allowed to pass. Whom she was with, and where she went at that time of night, was not unknown to the Queen.”⁸⁸Buchanan seems to be hinting that Lady Reres was once more acting as procuress, but, again, there is no corroboration of his tale.

Mary reached Dunbar on 18 November, and Tantallon Castle, a Douglas stronghold, the following day. On the 20th, she arrived at Craigmillar Castle, three miles south of Edinburgh;⁸⁹here, according to Maitland, she intended “to stay until her passing next to Stirling to the baptism, which is deferred to December 12 because of the long tarrying of the ambassador of Savoy.”⁹⁰It was here also that the fateful train of events that led to Darnley’s murder would be set in motion.