12

“UNNATURAL PROCEEDINGS”

CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE LAY IN THE parish of Liberton, and dated from the early thirteenth century but, by Mary’s day, thanks to considerable rebuilding, it was a spacious, luxurious residence, large enough to accommodate the entire court. It commanded an elevated position looking out across Edinburgh and the Forth, and its lands extended as far as the royal hunting park of Holyrood. It had been in the hands of the Preston family since c.1374, and its present owner was the elderly Sir Simon Preston, a wealthy merchant, member of Parliament, Privy Councillor and that same Provost of Edinburgh who had briefly fallen from favour for his failure to aid Mary on the night of Rizzio’s murder. Although Knox described him as “a man of very wicked life and no religion,” he had otherwise distinguished himself by his loyalty and service to the Queen, which is why she had forgiven him and come to stay with him. She was probably lodged in the recently built range of buildings surrounding the courtyard to the east of the fifteenthcentury central tower, which were ornamented with Renaissance features.

In Mary’s state of health, Craigmillar was a far more attractive residence in which to recuperate than Holyrood with its horrific memories. Yet her stay here was to be far from tranquil for, at the end of November, Darnley arrived unannounced and pleaded with her to resume conjugal relations.¹Mary could not bring herself to have anything to do with him; Buchanan claims that she even refused to give him money for his day to day expenses unless he returned to Stirling, and says that “this greatly increased people’s suspicion, already aroused by the Queen’s daily familiarity with Bothwell.” There is still no supporting evidence of this in contemporary sources; even Lennox merely claims that Mary used Darnley “but strangely.”

Nau says that, after leaving Jedburgh, Mary had “gradually recovered until she returned to Edinburgh, where she vomited a great quantity of corrupt blood, and then the cure was complete.” This probably took place on 2 December, for on that date, according to du Croc,²the Queen was “in the hands of the physicians, not at all well.” Such was her mental anguish at the time that du Croc was convinced that “the principal part of the disease consists of a deep grief and sorrow. Nor does it seem possible to make her forget the same. Still she repeats these words, ‘I could wish to be dead.’ The injury she received is exceeding great, and Her Majesty will not soon forget it.” The ambassador did not expect, “on several accounts, any good understanding between [the King and Queen], unless God especially put His hand in it. I shall name only two reasons against it: the first is, the King will never humble himself as he ought; the other, that the Queen cannot perceive him speaking with any noblemen but presently she suspects some plot among them.”

Since Rizzio’s murder, she had, with good reason, become paranoid. That she was aware of Darnley’s latest treasonable schemes is most unlikely, but she certainly knew him well enough to realise that, left to his own devices, he was dangerous.

On 3 December, a disappointed Darnley left Craigmillar for Dunbar. After his departure, his relieved wife, now physically restored to health, threw herself with energy into preparations for the christening. But her mental state undoubtedly remained fragile.

In Paris, Mondovi had received word from the Cardinal of Lorraine’s gentleman that Mary would not, after all, consent to his going to Scotland because “she could not stain her hands with the blood of her subjects” and dared not risk offending Elizabeth, who had “begun to show herself a friend”; on 3 December, the Nuncio informed the Vatican of this,³yet on that very day, Father Hay and the Bishop of Dunblane sailed from Dieppe for Scotland, not knowing that their mission was destined for failure before it had even begun.

Darnley had only been gone a matter of hours when he sent a message asking du Croc to meet with him “half a league” outside Edinburgh. The ambassador complied and the two men talked for a long while. Afterwards, du Croc reported to Beaton: “Things go still worse and worse. I think he intends going away tomorrow, but I am assured that he is not to be present at the baptism.” This was serious, and an outrageous public insult to his wife, because the King’s absence would undoubtedly cast doubts once more on James’s paternity and undermine the unity that Mary had worked so hard in recent months to achieve. Du Croc felt that Darnley hoped he would sort out his problems for him, but in the face of such obduracy, there was little the ambassador could do. In the event, Darnley did not go abroad, but rode to Dunbar and thence, after a few days, to Stirling.⁴Mary herself planned to go there for the baptism, which was set for 12 December.⁵

It seems likely that du Croc informed Mary and her Lords of Darnley’s intentions, and that it was this knowledge that precipitated what happened next. For soon after the King’s departure, and probably on 4, 5 or 6 December, a conference was held to discuss the problem of Darnley, who was becoming more than a liability, and an increasing embarrassment to everyone. We know about this mainly from a document entitled “The Protestation of Huntly and Argyll,”⁶which Mary and her advisers drew up in England on 5 January 1569 to be sent to those two Lords with a request that they sign and attest to it as a true record of what had taken place at Craigmillar. The information in it must have come from Huntly and Bothwell. This document never reached its intended recipients: it was intercepted by Cecil’s spies and taken to Westminster. Naturally Mary was eager to exonerate herself from all blame for Darnley’s murder, and conversely to emphasise Moray’s role, but she could hardly have expected Huntly and Argyll to put their signatures to a blatant distortion of the facts, as some of her detractors have suggested. Moreover, this document is supported by other evidence.

According to the Protestation, the chief Lords in attendance on Mary at Craigmillar were Moray, Bothwell, Maitland, Huntly and Argyll. One morning, as Huntly and Argyll lay in bed,⁷Moray and Maitland came into their chamber, where Maitland, lamenting the banishment of the Earl of Morton, Lords Lindsay and Ruthven, with the rest of their faction, said that the occasion of the murder of David was for to trouble and impeach the Parliament wherein Moray and others should have been forfeit and declared rebels; and, seeing that the same was chiefly for the welfare of Moray, it should be esteemed ingratitude if he and his friends, in reciprocal manner, did not enterprise all that were in their puissance for relief of the said banished. Wherefore they thought that we should have been as desirous thereto as they were.

Huntly and Argyll agreed “to do all that was in us for their relief, providing that the Queen’s Majesty should not be offended thereat.” Maitland averred “that the best way to obtain Morton’s pardon was to promise to the Queen’s Majesty to find any means to make divorcement betwixt Her Grace and the King her husband, who had offended Her Highness so highly in many ways.” It is significant that this came from Maitland, to whom Mary had confided at Jedburgh her desperation to escape from her intolerable marriage.

Argyll said he “knew not how that might be done,” but Maitland, with Moray listening, answered, “My Lord, care you not thereof. We shall find the means well enough to make her quit of him, so that you and my Lord of Huntly will only behold the matter, and not be offended thereat.” Turning to Huntly, Maitland and Moray reiterated what had been said, “promising, if we would consent to the same, that they should find the means to restore us in our own lands and offices,⁸and they to stand good friends unto us, and cause Morton, Ruthven and the rest to do the like in time coming.” Huntly and Argyll assured them that they would not put any obstacles in the way of a divorce, which “might be profitable and honourable both for them and us, and especially where the pleasure, will and contentment of the Queen consisted.”

Thereupon, Moray, Maitland, Argyll and Huntly went to Bothwell’s chamber “to understand his advice on this thing proposed, wherein he gainsaid not more than we.”

It is clear from this that Bothwell was not the originator of this plot to rid Mary of Darnley. It was Moray and Maitland who devised it, and who may have intended, even at this early stage, to make Bothwell, whom they hated and resented, their scapegoat, and perhaps make an occasion for getting rid of him too. As a loyal subject, Bothwell must have shared the Lords’ revulsion against Darnley, and his Scottish pride, like theirs, would have been outraged at the public embarrassment that the King was causing. It has also been alleged that he readily chose to support his former enemies in their schemes because he already had ambitions to marry the Queen, but that must have come later, after he had had time to reflect on the implications of a royal divorce.

After Bothwell had agreed to the plan, the five Lords sought out Mary. Maitland reminded her “of a great number of grievous and intolerable offences the King, ungrateful of the honour received of Her Highness, had done to Her Grace, and continuing every day from evil to worse,” and proposed that, “if it pleased Her Majesty to pardon Morton, Ruthven and Lindsay with their company, they should find the means, with the rest of the nobility, to make divorcement betwixt Her Highness and the King her husband, which should not need Her Grace to meddle therewith.” He added, ominously, that Mary should “take heed to make resolution therein, as well for her own easement as well of the realm,” for Darnley had already troubled Her Grace and them all, and, “remaining with Her Majesty, would not cease till he did her some other evil turn.”

The other Lords all brought pressure to bear on Mary to make her agree to Maitland’s proposals. At length, she said she might consent on two conditions: “one, that the divorcement were made lawfully; the other, that it was not prejudicial to her son; otherwise Her Highness would rather endure all torments and abide the perils that might chance her. Bothwell answered that he doubted not but the divorcement might be made without prejudice in any way of my Lord Prince,” reminding Mary that he had succeeded to his earldom despite his parents having been divorced.

After further discussion, it was proposed—by whom is not known—that, after the divorce, Mary and Darnley should live in different parts of the country, or he should retire abroad. Mary said that, in case Darnley changed his mind about that arrangement, it might be better if she herself went to live in France until such time as he came to terms with the divorce. That she should suggest such an impractical and unrealistic solution suggests that she was now living in fear of Darnley.

Mary was still having doubts about the effect a divorce would have on James’s legitimacy, but Maitland smoothly reassured her, “Madame, fancy you not we are here of the principal of Your Grace’s nobility and Council, that shall find the means that Your Majesty shall be quit of him without prejudice of your son. And albeit that my Lord of Moray here present be little less scrupulous for a Protestant nor Your Grace is for a Catholic, I am assured he will look through his fingers thereto, and will behold our doings, saying nothing to the same.”

Mary could have interpreted this speech in more than one way. They had been talking about divorce, and she could have understood it to mean that Moray would not interfere if her Lords sanctioned her applying to the Pope for an annulment. Yet the only ground on which one could have been obtained was consanguinity, for which Mary had already obtained a dispensation; however, the fact that it had not been granted until after the wedding made the union technically invalid, and, since the marriage had not been made in ignorance of any impediment, the legitimacy of its issue would be brought seriously into doubt were an annulment to be sought, which was what Mary feared. Therefore Maitland and the other Lords could not have resorted to this means without prejudicing James’s title to the succession.

Maitland, however, had not specifically referred to divorce, but merely to finding a means of ridding Mary of Darnley without prejudice to James. There were only a few options open, since neither Mary nor Darnley would have acknowledged the validity of a Protestant divorce, and a separation sanctioned by the Catholic Church, for which the only possible ground could be Darnley’s adultery, would prevent either party from remarrying, since both would still be united in the eyes of God.

One option was to have Darnley arrested and charged with treason, which he had committed more than once and for which the penalty was death. Leslie was to claim that, even if Darnley was Mary’s “head in wedlock, yet was he otherwise subject to her, as to his principal and supreme governess, and to her laws, by the due and ordinary process and course whereof he might justly have been convicted, condemned and executed, as well for the murder committed upon her secretary, in whose body his dagger was found stabbed, as for the imprisoning of the Queen and attempting to move her from civil government, to intrude himself thereto, and for divers others the like pageants by him played.” But, as the law then stood in Scotland, a king could not technically be guilty of treason; secondly, even if this could be circumvented, the arrest of the father of the Prince just as the foreign ambassadors were arriving for the christening would create a humiliating and potentially explosive scandal: Darnley was, after all, of the blood royal of England. The only other option, therefore, was murder.

Mary must have understood that Maitland was not just referring to divorce, for she answered firmly, “I will that you do nothing by which any spot may be laid to my honour or conscience, and therefore I pray you rather let the matter be in the estate as it is, abiding till God of his goodness put remedy thereto, than you, believing to do me service, may possibly turn to my hurt and displeasure.” She was, it seems, prepared to wait until either she or Darnley died, rather than permit her Lords to remove her husband by underhand means, and the fact that she insisted that nothing be done that was detrimental to her honour proves that she feared that it might be.

Unperturbed, Maitland replied, “Madame, let us guide the matter amongst us, and Your Grace shall see nothing but good and approved by Parliament.” This rather patronising conclusion to the conversation implied that such an issue would be better resolved by men than left to a woman’s limited understanding, but it must have been clear to Mary that there was no way of freeing herself from Darnley without endangering the succession or compromising her good name. Moreover, she cannot have come away from this meeting without some impression that the Lords intended to get rid of her husband by fair means or foul; unwittingly, she had already told them that she was prepared to wait until death solved the problem of Darnley.

There is ample corroboration of the Protestation in other sources. Although Huntly and Argyll never had a chance to sign that document, they were among the signatories to a paper drawn up by Mary’s Scottish supporters in 1568, which states that, at Craigmillar, the Lords “caused make offers to our Sovereign Lady, if Her Grace would give remission to them that were banished, to find causes of divorce, either for consanguinity, in respect they alleged the dispensation was not published, else for adultery; or to get [Darnley] convicted of treason because he consented to Her Grace’s retention in ward; or what other ways to dispatch him; which altogether Her Grace refused, as is manifestly known.”⁹The Protestation, however, is not so specific regarding Mary’s rejection of “other ways” to dispatch Darnley.

Leslie states that the Lords offered to procure a divorce if the Queen pardoned Morton, but that “she would not consent to it, though she were moved thereto by a great number of her nobility, and by such as [later became] her greatest adversaries.” Nau claims that the Lords “fomented discord between the King and Queen by underhand dealings, and then recommended a divorce in order to deprive them of all lawful succession.” This is the interpretation that Mary herself had chosen to place upon events by the 1570s.

Buchanan, in The Book of Articles of 1568, written before the Protestation was drawn up, states that, when Mary came to Craigmillar, “in the audience of Moray, Huntly, Argyll and the Secretary”—Bothwell is not mentioned—she referred again to her wish to be rid of the King. In this account, however, it is Mary, and not Maitland, who suggests a divorce on the grounds of consanguinity, and Buchanan says that someone else, not Mary, voiced the objection that, if such a divorce were granted, the Prince “should be declared bastard, since neither the King nor she contracted that marriage as ignorant of the degree of consanguinity wherein they stood.” Hearing this, the Queen “utterly left that opinion of divorce.” A similar account is in Buchanan’s Detectio of 1571.

Lennox, however, says nothing of this discussion, since his source for much of his Narrative was Darnley himself. What Lennox does say, which Buchanan omits, is that, at Craigmillar, the Council resolved to have Darnley imprisoned after the baptism. The fact that this never happened is perhaps proof enough that it was never an issue, but it may have been one of the proposed solutions to the problem of what to do about Darnley.

When, in 1569, Moray learned of the contents of the Protestation, he denied that anything was said in his presence at Craigmillar “tending to any unlawful or dishonourable end.” At that time, however, Moray had good reason for wishing to dissociate himself from what had taken place there.

It has been suggested that the Lords meant all along to embroil their Catholic Queen in a plot to do away with Darnley and thus bring about her downfall, leaving them free to rule in the name of her infant son, whom they would raise as a Protestant. There is no proof of this, but it is certainly possible, for not only was it the ultimate outcome of the Darnley plot, but it would not have been the first time that the Lords had attempted to overthrow or undermine Mary. Now that she had a son, there was more justification than ever for them to do so. Although the evidence suggests that, in December 1566, their chief aim was the restoration of the exiled Lords, there may well have been a wider aspect to their plan that was not discussed with Bothwell. What is likely is that the discussions that took place at Craigmillar were the beginnings of the plot that led to Darnley’s murder, and that the prime movers were Maitland and Moray.

It was later asserted by both Lennox and Leslie—writing on behalf of both sides—that the Lords plotted the assassination of the King at Craigmillar, and indeed, it is hard to believe that the matter was not touched upon in private by the five nobles who had brought up the matter of divorce with the Queen. Lennox claimed that the time and manner of Darnley’s murder were devised at Craigmillar, but this may be discounted because the evidence strongly suggests that these arrangements were made much nearer the time. Leslie states categorically that Moray, Bothwell and others, at Craigmillar, “consulted and devised this mischief.” Furthermore, the “Protestation of Huntly and Argyll” concludes: “We judge in our consciences, and hold for certain and truth, that Moray and [Maitland] were authors, inventors, devisers, counsellors and causers of the murder, in what manner and by whatsoever persons the same was executed.”

These Lords had little reason to love Darnley, and had bitterly resented him almost from the first. He was a Catholic, a troublemaker and an embarrassment, and the Queen’s desperation to be rid of him was welcome news to them, which is why they appeared so overtly sympathetic towards her. In fact, they were eager to exploit her marital problems to their own advantage. Neither they nor their fellow nobles would have wished to see a reconciliation between the royal couple, for this would inevitably have seen Darnley restored to ascendancy over them, which was an intolerable prospect. The Protestant Lords hated him for his betrayal of the fugitive Lords, and Moray and Maitland had long had personal scores to settle with him. They may well have considered that it was worth risking the penalties for high treason in order to do away with him.

There is good evidence that, whilst at Craigmillar, several Lords entered into a Bond for the murder of Darnley, much as they had done for the murder of Rizzio, who had also fallen foul of them. No such Bond has survived, but one of Bothwell’s followers, James Ormiston, confessed, just before his execution in 1573, that he had been shown and read the bond by Bothwell in April 1567. Bothwell had told him that the Bond was his security, and when Ormiston expressed doubts about this, the Earl replied, “Tush, Ormiston, ye need not take fear of this, for the whole Lords have concluded the same long since in Craigmillar, all that were there with the Queen, and none dare find fault with it.” Six years later, displaying a remarkable memory, Ormiston quoted the substance of the text of the Bond, which read:

It was thought expedient and most profitable for the Commonwealth, by the whole nobility and Lords underscribed, that such a young fool and proud tyrant should not reign or bear rule over them; and that, for divers causes therefore, that these all had concluded that he should be put off by one way or another; and whosoever should take the deed in hand, or do it, they should defend and fortify as themselves.

Ormiston added that the bond had been drawn up “a quarter of a year before the deed was done”¹⁰and signed by Huntly, Argyll, Bothwell, Maitland and Sir James Balfour.¹¹It should be said that, by 1573, all of these men had fallen foul of the government in one way or other, and that it is highly likely that this was an edited list of signatories.

Ormiston stated that Bothwell had told him that the subtle, devious lawyer, Sir James Balfour, was enlisted to draw up the Bond, which seems likely; according to Nau, who must have got his information from Mary, who had seen the Bond and doubtless recognised the handwriting, it was written out by Alexander Hay, one of the Clerks of the Council. In the original text, Balfour is unlikely to have used the word murder, as seems clear from Ormiston’s statement.

The fact that, between 5 and 10 December 1566, Balfour’s brother Robert was granted by the Queen the provostry of Kirk o’Field,¹²the house where Darnley was to be murdered, has been seen by some historians as sinister, yet it is almost certain that it was not until several weeks later that this house was chosen as a lodging for the King, after others had been rejected.

In December 1567, another of Bothwell’s men, John Hepburn of Bolton, stated in his confession that Bothwell had shown him a Bond that listed “some light causes against the King, such as his behaviour contrar the Queen.” This document was signed by Huntly, Argyll, Maitland and Bothwell: when asked if he had seen Balfour’s name, Hepburn denied it, but declared he would warrant that Balfour was the principal deviser of the deed; this part of his confession was suppressed by the government, and does not appear in the official record.¹³It would have been strange for Balfour to have instigated the plot against Darnley, his fellow Catholic and friend, unless of course he wished to dissociate himself from the disgraced King, or unless he was playing a double game, which is possible. There have been several theories that Balfour was in fact acting in concert with Darnley to destroy the Protestant establishment in Scotland, and that he was luring them into a trap. It is important to bear this in mind when charting Balfour’s movements over the next weeks.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS “The most beautiful in Europe.”

FRANCIS II & MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS Francis was Mary’s “sweetheart and friend.”

JAMES STEWART, EARL OF MORAY “At deeds of treachery and blood, Moray looked through his fingers.”

SIR WILLIAM MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON His contemporaries called him “the Scottish Machiavelli.”

JOHN KNOX “He neither feared nor flattered any flesh.”

JAMES DOUGLAS, EARL OF MORTON “The most accomplished and perfidious scoundrel.”

HENRY STUART, LORD DARNLEY “He was so weak in mind as to be a prey to all that came about him.”

MEDAL STRUCK TO COMMEMORATE THE MARRIAGE OF MARY AND DARNLEY “She has given over unto him her whole will to be ruled and guided as himself best likes.”

DOUBLE PORTRAIT OF MARY AND DARNLEY Marital harmony “lasted not above three months.

DAVID RIZZIO He was often with the Queen “privately and alone.”

HOLYROOD PALACE In this tower, in Mary’s apartments, was enacted one of the bloodiest deeds of her reign.

MARY’S BEDCHAMBER IN HOLYROOD PALACE The open door leads to the supper room. The entrance to the secret stairway from Darnley’s room below is concealed in the wall behind the bed-curtains.

THE MURDER OF RIZZIO “Justice! Justice! Save me, my Lady, I am a dying man!”

THE OLD PALACE IN EDINBURGH CASTLE Mary retreated here after Rizzio’s murder.

THE BIRTH CHAMBER OF JAMES VI, EDINBURGH CASTLE Here was born Mary’s son. The frieze and panelling are of later dates.

Hepburn added that, on the night of Darnley’s murder, “he thought that no man durst say it was evil done, seeing the handwriting and acknowledging the Queen’s mind thereto.” He seems to have inferred from what he had seen—or been told by Bothwell—that Mary had given her consent to the murder, but, had there been any evidence of this in the original document, the Lords, and later Buchanan, would certainly have made use of it to destroy her.

A third adherent of Bothwell, John Hay of Talla, stated on the scaffold in January 1568 that Huntly, Argyll, Maitland and Balfour had all entered into a Bond to murder Darnley.

Nau says that the murder of Darnley was the result of the bond, and that Moray, Huntly, Bothwell, Maitland and Balfour “protested that they were acting for the public good of the realm, pretending that they were freeing the Queen from the bondage and misery into which she had been reduced by the King’s behaviour. They promised to support each other and to avouch that the act was done justly and lawfully by the leading men of the Council. They had done it in defence of their lives, which would be in danger, they said, if the King should get the upper hand and secure the government of the realm, at which he was aiming.”

According to Nau, Bothwell gave the Craigmillar Bond to Mary in June 1567, just prior to her capture by the Lords. In 1580, Balfour claimed that it was in his possession, but was unable to produce it as evidence at Morton’s trial the following year. He had probably been bluffing in order to gain favour with Morton’s accusers, for the Lords had almost certainly taken the incriminating document from Mary years before and destroyed it.

In his answer to the Protestation, Moray wrote, “In case any man will say and affirm that ever I was present when any purposes were holden at Craigmillar in my audience, tending to any unlawful or dishonourable end, or that ever I had subscribed any bond there, or that any purpose was holden anent the subscribing of any bond by me to my knowledge, I avow they speak wickedly and untruly, which I will maintain against them, as becomes an honest man, to the end of my life.”¹⁴He was not saying that a Bond had not been drawn up at Craigmillar, merely that he had not subscribed to it. But Bishop Leslie and Nau were both certain that he had signed it. Neither Ormiston nor Hepburn listed Moray among the signatories, but their confessions had been edited by a government that had its own interests and reputation to preserve.

Maitland had said that Moray would “look through his fingers,” and although Moray was afterwards to protest that he had never done nor approved of anything that was unlawful, he must have known about the plot against Darnley, and may even have initiated it, but he remained detached from it. Yet, of all those involved, he was to be the chief beneficiary.

Mary, it appeared, would also benefit from the removal of her husband, and there is no doubt that she had compelling reasons for wanting to be rid of him. Many, then and now, have seen her despair at being chained to Darnley and her bitter resentment against him as strong enough motives for having him killed or approving a plot to kill him. In 1568, Lennox, anxious to bring Mary to justice for the unlawful killing of his son, claimed that, although Mary had pardoned and forgiven many of those involved in Rizzio’s murder, she “yet continued still in her deadly hatred towards her husband, till she had his life. Shortly after her coming to Craigmillar, she with her accomplices invented and resolved the time and manner of the most horrible murder of her most innocent and loving husband.” The flaws in this latter statement are only too apparent, as we have seen.

Hepburn thought that the Queen had given her consent to the murder, but his confession was extorted by a government whose business it was to demonstrate that Mary was guilty. He may well have spoken in good faith, having been reassured by Bothwell that the Queen had given her approval, but this is not sufficient evidence to prove that she had. Mary must have guessed that the Lords were plotting something criminal, or at least sinister, or she would not have warned them not to compromise her honour or her conscience; yet her concern did not extend to warning Darnley that he might be in danger. She must therefore have been truly desperate to be rid of him, and so bitter towards him that she did not care what befell him.

It has often been alleged that Mary’s chief motive for wishing to be rid of Darnley was her wish to marry her lover, Bothwell. According to Buchanan, after the birth of her son, “her secret criminal intentions began to show themselves. Having by one way or another got rid of the King, she would marry Bothwell. And lest she herself be suspected of the crime, she began gradually to sow the seeds of discord between the King and the Lords, to drive them into a deadly feud.” After the Craigmillar conference, “she never left her intention of destroying the King, as may well be perceived from what followed.” There is no reliable evidence to support this statement, and, since Darnley himself was doing a pretty good job of alienating the Lords, there was little need for Mary to whip up a feud between them. Furthermore, there is no credible testimony that she was involved in an affair with Bothwell at this time, and not one of the Lords, nor any other contemporary observer, saw Mary’s growing distaste for Darnley as a consequence of her supposed passion for Bothwell. However, there can be little doubt that Bothwell now played a very important role in Mary’s life, and that she relied on him heavily. It would not be surprising, given the events that were to take place after Darnley’s death, if there was already some sexual or emotional chemistry between them.

Buchanan also alleges that Mary “was incited to this [murder] by letters from the Pope and the Cardinal of Lorraine.” Certainly these men were inciting her to do murder, yet not to eliminate her husband, whose much-publicised devotion to Catholicism would have precluded their urging such a course, but to do away with most of the Protestant establishment in Scotland.

With the christening approaching, the problem of Darnley had to be shelved for the moment, although the Lords did not cease to work for the return of the exiles.¹⁵On 7 December, Mary left Craigmillar for Edinburgh, where she intended to finalise the arrangements for the baptism,¹⁶which was to be delayed because the Savoyard ambassador, Moretta, had still not arrived in Scotland. After three nights at Holyrood, the Queen travelled on to Stirling. On the way, she bruised her breast whilst riding¹⁷and was in some discomfort when she arrived at the castle on 12 December.

Darnley was already at Stirling when Mary arrived, but she had preempted any refusal of his to become involved in the baptismal preparations by appointing Bothwell to take charge of them and to receive the ambassadors, which was “scarcely liked with the rest of the nobility.”¹⁸It was later alleged, in The Book of Articles, that Mary had a secret passage between her chamber and the great hall at Stirling constructed at this time, “thinking to have had access at all times by that mean to Bothwell, whom purposely she caused to be lodged at the north end of the great hall, as the unperfected work this day testifies, for they departed forth of Stirling before it could be perfect.” There are no building accounts to confirm this statement, and it is unlikely that a great noble such as Bothwell would have been lodged at the service end of the hall without some contemporary commenting on the fact; furthermore, it should be noted that the bridge giving access to the royal palace was at the south end of the 38.5-metre-long hall, and that the construction of a secret passage between one end and the other would have been a considerable undertaking that would have attracted much attention.

Melville says that, at this time, Mary was “still sad and pensive” and brooding on Rizzio’s murder, which was quite understandable, since she was being urged to pardon those who had committed it. “So many sighs would she give that it was pity to hear her, and few there were to endeavour to comfort her.” At length, after a supper at which she had sat sighing and refusing to eat, despite the pleas of Moray and Mar, she walked with Melville in the park at Stirling and unburdened herself of her grief. Melville comforted her by saying that her friends in England would soon help her to forget her enemies in Scotland, who were “unworthy of her wrath” anyway. He praised her “excellent qualities in clemency, temperance and fortitude,” and told her she “should not suffer her mind to be possessed with the remembrance of offences, but should rather bend her spirit by a princely and womanly behaviour, whereby she might best gain the hearts of the whole people, both here and in England.” He warned her to desist from the pursuit of further revenge, “whereupon may ensue more desperate enterprises,” and reminded her that she had repented of not heeding his warnings before the murder of Rizzio. “I pray God the like repentance fall not out again too late,” he concluded.¹⁹

Mary was also fearful of another conspiracy against her, and her Privy Council issued an edict forbidding anyone to bring firearms into the court.²⁰ The Queen could not forget how Ker of Fawdonside had pressed his pistol against her belly on the night of Rizzio’s murder. Now, it seems, her fears were centred upon Darnley. Both Lennox and Buchanan refer to her dismissing the majority of his servants, but if this is true, she may have deemed it necessary to do so, in case they were plotting with him.

Lennox says that, in the absence of those servants, he appointed a number of his own dependants and followers to wait on Darnley at the baptism. Their arrival disconcerted and worried Mary, who expressed her disapproval and told Darnley that “there were too many Lennox men there, and if they were without the castle, they should not come in again. He answered they should go where he went, and if they were without the castle, and he with them, they should either enter with him, or he would make an entry for them.”²¹Melville also mentions this quarrel. Afterwards, Mary spoke sharply to Robert Cunningham, leader of the Lennox men,²²presumably to warn him of what would happen to him and his followers if there was any trouble, but she did not go as far as to send them away, probably for fear of provoking further trouble.

According to The Book of Articles, Bothwell was so afraid of the Lennox men that he caused a dozen of his armed servants to watch in his bedchamber while he slept, and Mary, responding to his terror, summoned fifteen arquebusiers to the castle to act as Bothwell’s bodyguard; Mar, however, refused to let them in. However, this account presupposes that Bothwell was Mary’s lover at this time and that his fear arose from guilt.

Given Darnley’s defiance, it is hardly surprising that Mary should thereafter have tried to isolate him from the rest of the court. Both Lennox and Buchanan claim she did her best to prevent the nobles from having anything to do with him, but, according to Lennox, this only “inflamed their hearts the more against her,” so that the King’s “lamentable” case “won thereby the whole hearts of the nobility,” which is patently untrue, since several of them were plotting his removal. Lennox also alleges that Mary would have laid murderous hands on Darnley but for the imminent arrival of the foreign ambassadors, which obliged her to dissemble and defer the matter. On one occasion, though, she allegedly dropped her husband a hint of her intentions: during one of their quarrels, when Darnley grew red in the face at her “sharp words,” she told him that, “if he were a little daggered and had bled as much as my Lord Bothwell had lately done, it would make him look the fairer.”²³

Buchanan says that Mary deprived Darnley of “any kind of expenses” and ordered him to be confined to “an obscure, narrow room,” but, although there is some evidence in de Silva’s dispatches that Darnley was short of money at this time,²⁴it is clear that he came and went as he pleased, and it is unthinkable that Mary would have so shabbily treated the father of her child at a time when she was worried that he would not attend the baptism and would thereby disgrace her before the foreign ambassadors. Buchanan also claims that, much to Darnley’s distress, Mary had his silver plate taken away and replaced with pewter vessels, but elsewhere he contradicts himself, saying that the plate was removed after Darnley left Stirling.

More credibly, Buchanan states that the Queen forbade her husband to communicate with the ambassadors, “under pretext that his garments were not prepared.” Lennox says that he was not permitted to speak to them unless Mary was present, and claims that this was to prevent him from informing them of “her unnatural proceedings towards him,” but in fact it suggests that Mary was apprehensive that Darnley might either attempt to spread word of his grievances abroad, to her great embarrassment, or, worse still, would try to intrigue with foreign powers. Altogether, it appears that Mary was very afraid of Darnley and what he might do.

On 13 December, perhaps—it has been argued—with a view to enlisting the support of the Protestant establishment for the dissolution of her marriage to Darnley and the means by which she was to secure this, Mary approved further measures to aid the Kirk. A week later, she granted lavish gifts to the reformed Church.²⁵

It was by a stroke of irony that Father Hay and the Bishop of Dunblane arrived in Edinburgh on 13 December. Learning that the Queen was at Stirling, they proceeded there immediately, but she was too busy with preparations for the christening to see them. Nor is it likely that she would have wanted to, for she must have known that they would do their utmost to persuade her to agree to Mondovi’s proposals. There is, indeed, no reliable evidence that Mary did speak with either Hay or the Bishop during their stay in Scotland; they, in turn, were under orders to report back to the Nuncio within a few days. On 23 December, Father Hay wrote to Mondovi, promising that he would soon be with him.²⁶

On 14 December, the ambassadors gathered for the christening. Moretta had still not arrived, and the Queen had decided that the ceremony should go ahead without him.

Darnley had threatened to leave Stirling two days before the baptism, but showed no sign of departing. However, he kept to his own apartments,²⁷sulking because he had not been consulted over the choice of godparents. He was not present when, on 16 December, Mary received the Earl of Bedford in audience and was presented with Queen Elizabeth’s christening gift of a richly enamelled, gem-encrusted gold font weighing 28 pounds.²⁸During this audience, Bedford, to Mary’s great joy, informed her that his mistress wished to arrange a conference to discuss Mary’s claim to the English succession. At last, it seemed that her title was to be acknowledged, and she agreed to send some of her Councillors to “treat, confer and accord” with her royal cousin. Elizabeth’s friendship was also apparent in a letter she wrote to Darnley at this time, exhorting him to obey the Queen of Scots in all things.

The Prince was christened, with full Catholic rites and appropriate splendour, on 17 December in the chapel royal at Stirling, and given the names Charles James, the former in honour of the King of France.²⁹The Catholic ceremony, conducted by Archbishop Hamilton, drew adverse comment from alarmed Protestants, and several Lords, including Bedford, Moray, Argyll, Huntly and Bothwell, waited at the door of the chapel until it was over. Mary had provided new suits of clothing for her chief nobles: Moray’s was green, Argyll’s red and Bothwell’s blue.³⁰The King of France’s ambassador carried the baby, attended by Atholl, Seton and other Scottish Catholic nobles, as well as by du Croc, who was standing in for the ambassador of Savoy.³¹The only part of the traditional rite that was omitted was that in which the priest customarily spat saliva into the infant’s mouth: Mary had expressly forbidden the syphilitic Archbishop Hamilton, whom she referred to as “a pocky priest,” to do this. At the end of the ceremony, the Countess of Argyll, acting as proxy for Bedford and Queen Elizabeth, took the baby, earning herself the severe censure of the Kirk.³²

“The Queen behaved herself admirably well all the time of the baptism, and showed so much earnestness to entertain all the goodly company in the best manner that this made her forget in a good measure all her former ailments.”³³For three days, Mary presided over the lavish festivities that had been devised to enhance Scotland’s prestige in the eyes of the world: there were banquets, masques, pageants, dancing, a bull hunt and a spectacular firework display. George Buchanan wrote a Latin masque, in which he extolled Mary’s virtues, while many of the other entertainments were devised or mounted by Mary’s favoured, able and witty valet, Sebastien Pagez, a native of Auvergne and an accomplished musician, singer and cook.³⁴A ballet of his contriving gave great offence to some of the English visitors, for it depicted them as satyrs with tails, and Mary and Bedford had to employ all their diplomatic skills to defuse the situation.

Darnley was conspicuous by his absence. He kept to his apartments throughout the celebrations.³⁵Buchanan claims he had been forbidden to attend, and Lennox that Mary asked him not to, but du Croc’s evidence makes it clear that this was Darnley’s own decision. On the day of the baptism, the King sent several times to du Croc, desiring me to come and see him, or to appoint him an hour that he might come to me in my lodgings; so that I found myself at last obliged to signify to him that, seeing he was in no good correspondence with the Queen, I had it in charge from the Most Christian King [Charles IX] to have no conference with him, and I caused tell him likewise that, as it would not be very proper for him to come to my lodgings, because there was such a crowd of company there, so he might know that there were two passages to it, and if he should enter by the one, I should be constrained to go out by the other. His bad deportment is incurable, nor can there ever be any good expected of him, for several reasons which I might tell you, were I present with you.

Du Croc may have been referring to Darnley’s possible homosexual activities, or he may even have suspected, without much concrete evidence to go on, that the King was again plotting against the Queen. Charles IX and Catherine de’ Medici may well have heard something of this in Paris, hence the orders to du Croc to have no dealings with Darnley. Certainly it seems as if Darnley was hoping to air his grievances and enlist at least du Croc’s sympathy, if not his support for his nefarious schemes; it is hardly likely, as Lennox implies, that he wanted du Croc to obtain Mary’s favour for him, for he had done his best to irrevocably alienate her by not attending the baptism.

Whatever du Croc had in mind when he wrote this letter, it was certainly too sensitive to be committed to paper. He concluded: “I cannot pretend to foretell how all may turn, but I will say that matters cannot subsist long as they are without being accompanied by sundry bad consequences.”³⁶

Historians have long speculated about Darnley’s reasons for not attending the baptism. Du Croc believed that he stayed away because he did not want his obviously diminished status and others’ contempt for him to be apparent to the foreign ambassadors. According to Nau, Darnley feared that Bedford, as Queen Elizabeth’s representative, would refuse to acknowledge him as King of Scots, a fear that was probably well founded:³⁷on the day of the baptism, the King had gone out by a back door “to take the air” and encountered a member of Bedford’s suite who “did him reverence”; this was reported to Bedford, who later reprimanded the man for disobeying Elizabeth’s order not to recognise Darnley as King of Scots.³⁸More sinisterly, Darnley may have wished to cast doubts on the paternity of the Prince by his non-attendance, thereby emphasising his own right to the Crown Matrimonial. It has been pointed out that kings did not always attend their sons’ christenings—Henry VIII did not attend Edward VI’s—but the fact that Darnley’s absence drew adverse comment is proof that it was considered strange. Moreover, it was an unforgivable insult to his wife, whose honour he had publicly demeaned in the most humiliating manner.

Mary managed to retain her composure for as long as was necessary, but in private she was “pensive and melancholy,” and on 20 December, the day after the baptismal festivities came to an end, du Croc, responding to her summons, found her “weeping sore” on her bed, complaining of “a grievous pain in her side” and the enduring discomfort from her swollen breast. The ambassador came away with the worrying conviction that “she will give us some anxiety yet”—he could not think otherwise while she continued so depressed. “I am much grieved for the many troubles and vexations that she meets with,” he added.³⁹There can be little doubt that Darnley was the chief cause of her distress, nor that it was exacerbated by the prospect of the exiles’ return. But worse was yet to come.

William Hiegait was the Town Clerk of Glasgow, a city at the heart of the Lennox landed interests. Some time in December, he thought fit to warn one William Walker, a servant of Archbishop Beaton who, by virtue of this connection, had access to the Queen, that he had heard that “the King, by the assistance of some of our nobility, should take the Prince and crown him; and, being crowned, as his father, should take upon him[self] the government.”⁴⁰In order to accomplish this, Darnley would have needed foreign aid, since he and Lennox did not have sufficient men or resources to effect such a coup, nor would any of the chief nobles of Scotland have supported them. Of course, such a grandiose scheme could have existed only in Darnley’s imagination, but he had definitely been in contact with the Catholic powers in Europe in order to destroy Mary’s reputation as an advocate of her faith, and his dealings with them may have gone further than that. There has been speculation that Hiegait had been involved in Darnley’s plotting, but had thought better of it and decided that it was in his interests to warn the Queen what was afoot, although he was later to warn Darnley of a plot against him; at the very least, he appears to have been two-faced and duplicitous. Darnley’s plans had perhaps reached the point where maintaining discretion was no longer possible, which is how Hiegait had heard such detailed rumours of what Darnley was intending.

Hiegait also told Walker that “the King could not content and bear with some of the noblemen that were attending in our court, but either he or they behoved to leave the same.”⁴¹This must refer to those Lords who were working for the return of the exiles, Darnley’s mortal enemies. The fact that Darnley did leave court soon afterwards gives credence to Hiegait’s words. Neither Lennox nor Buchanan, however, says anything about Darnley’s ambitions, but it is inconceivable that they did not know of them: Buchanan was a Lennox man, and Lennox must have been heavily involved in his son’s schemes. Their silence argues Lennox’s complicity.

Unaware as yet of the full extent of her husband’s treachery, but goaded by his appalling behaviour, Mary had, it seems, decided after all to seek an annulment. On 23 December, in defiance of the Kirk, she restored Archbishop Hamilton to his consistorial jurisdiction,⁴²which had been abolished in 1560 and which gave him the power to adjudicate in matrimonial cases. The fact that she took this extraordinary—and unlawful—step indicates just how desperate she was to be free of Darnley; it was almost certainly to pre-empt censure for this that she had bestowed bounteous gifts on the Church of Scotland just three days earlier. Furthermore, the Archbishop, being a Hamilton, would be only too delighted to dissolve the marriage between the Queen and the son of his family’s long-standing enemy, Lennox, and he would certainly be more sympathetic and accommodating than the far more scrupulous Pope over the matter of James’s legitimacy. Canon law, however, decreed that marriages of royal persons could be dissolved only by the Pontiff himself,⁴³but if Mary was not aware of this, Archbishop Hamilton should have been. In all, this was a highly injudicious and unwise step on Mary’s part.

The timing of the Archbishop’s restoration also argues that Mary’s purpose was the dissolution of her marriage, because, on the very next day, in order to secure the promised support of the Lords, she pardoned and recalled Morton and seventy-six other exiles. This was conditional upon them agreeing not to venture within seven miles of the court for two years. Two men were excluded from this general pardon: George Douglas and Ker of Fawdonside,⁴⁴whom Mary considered had committed the worst kind of treason in threatening the lives of herself and her unborn child. Moray, Maitland, Bothwell, Atholl, du Croc and Morton’s kinsman, Archibald Douglas, had all been active in procuring the pardon,⁴⁵although, according to a letter written by Bedford to Cecil on 9 January 1567,⁴⁶it was also granted at the request of the English government. Clearly, Mary was paving the way for an amicable settlement of the English succession, but, given the fact that she needed the support of her Lords at this time of crisis, and the pressure that had been applied on her both in England and Scotland, she had really had little choice but to allow the exiles to return.

The timing of the pardon, after the baptism, is significant. Mary must have known that Morton and his fellows had a score to settle with Darnley, the man who had betrayed them after Rizzio’s murder. Once they were back in Scotland, Darnley would be in a highly vulnerable position as the target for their vengeance, and he knew it. In allowing them to return to Scotland, Mary was in effect sealing his death warrant. It is hard to believe that she was not aware of this. She also knew that Maitland and Moray had been considering means of ridding her of Darnley, and that Morton and his friends— who had not stopped short of violence when Rizzio became a threat to them—were their allies; they had, moreover, at the very least, agreed to subscribe to the Bond in which the other Lords had resolved to render obedience to Mary but not to her husband. The outcome of such an alliance was almost a foregone conclusion, given that Darnley’s offences were much graver, and had had more far-reaching and ruinous consequences than had Rizzio’s, and also that, amongst the Scottish nobility, feuds were customarily settled—or prolonged—by the shedding of blood.

But Darnley had behaved in a far worse fashion towards Mary, and had reduced her to such a state of misery, distress and bitterness by his conduct that, as has been noted, she probably no longer cared what became of him, as long as he ceased to trouble her. Mary may have assuaged her conscience with the knowledge that, by insisting that the returning exiles keep well away from court for two years, she had limited the danger they posed to Darnley. The fact that she imposed this condition on them suggests that she was indeed aware of the danger. If, after she had taken such precautions, the Lords managed to take matters into their own hands, she could not be said to be responsible for it, and it could not touch her honour.

The news that his enemies were about to return to Scotland struck terror into Darnley. He was in an isolated position at court, having alienated most of the nobles, and had few supporters. It appears he took desperate measures to redeem himself with the exiled Lords. On 24 December, the same day on which Fawdonside had been expressly excluded from the general remission, a pardon for him passed separately under the Signet,⁴⁷which suggests that it was granted by Darnley without Mary’s knowledge and after she had departed from Stirling to spend Christmas at Drummond Castle. That she could not bring herself to forgive Fawdonside for holding a pistol to her pregnant stomach is evident from the fact that she still regarded him as her enemy in 1568. Therefore it is virtually certain that she did not issue this pardon on Christmas Eve 1566. Darnley, moreover, had issued documents under the Signet on other occasions.

The gathering at Stirling broke up on Christmas Eve. Bedford went with Moray to St. Andrews, where he was honourably entertained as his guest for several days.⁴⁸The Queen went without her husband to Drummond Castle near Crieff in Perthshire at the invitation of Lord Drummond. Buchanan later alleged that she there “sought solitude practically alone with Bothwell” and indulged in “filthy wickedness.” “They spent about a week in such close accommodation and intimate contact that everyone was bitterly offended by their contempt of reputation . . . In what order they were chambered during their stay, many found fault with, but dared not reprove. How lascivious also their behaviour was, it was very strange to behold.” Considering that “everyone” was shocked by their conduct, it is surprising that no other source refers to it. Furthermore, there is evidence that this was not just a private visit, since Mary attended to state business during her stay, and it is likely that she was attended by other Privy Councillors as well as Bothwell.

Meanwhile, William Hiegait had heard from one Cauldwell, a servant of the Earl of Eglinton, that Mary intended to have Darnley “apprehended and put in ward.” Hiegait confided this intelligence to the Laird of Minto, Provost of Glasgow, who alerted Lennox to the fact that, “at Craigmillar, the Queen and certain of her Council had concluded an enterprise to the great peril and danger” of his son, “which rested but only on the finishing of the christening and the departure of the ambassadors.” Lennox, in turn, warned Darnley, who instructed Hiegait to obtain more information from Cauldwell. According to Casket Letter II, “Minto sent him word that it was said that some of the Council had brought [Mary] a letter to sign to put him in prison and kill him if he did resist.” However, she had refused to sanction it.

It will be remembered that, at the time of the Craigmillar conference, there was talk of arresting Darnley for treason, although nothing had come of it. Had Mary really intended to have Darnley put in ward, she would surely have set about it before departing for Drummond Castle, rather than leaving her husband to his own dubious devices. But Darnley was taking no chances. Nor did he remain at Stirling to see if rumour spoke truth. According to Lennox, having received his father’s warning, and probably spurred on by his fear of the vengeful exiles, he stole away on Christmas Eve, without taking leave of anyone,⁴⁹and made immediately for the safety of the Lennox heart-lands in Glasgow, “being fully resolved to have taken ship shortly after and to have passed beyond the sea.”⁵⁰