15

“ALL WAS PREPARED FOR THE CRIME”

MARY AND DARNLEY LEFT GLASGOW for Edinburgh on Monday, 27 January 1567. Since Darnley, “as yet not whole of his disease,”¹ was travelling in a litter,²progress was slow, and they stopped for the night at Kilsyth, twelve miles from Glasgow.³The Book of Articles claims that, “as they were riding forth the way by Kilsyth, she passed afore, desiring him to follow her after in the litter. But he, even then suspecting his life, said he would return to Glasgow if she tarried not with him. And she, not willing to spoil the purpose that was so far brought to pass, returned to him [and] gave him meat forth from her own hands.” There is no contemporary evidence to corroborate this tale.

The King and Queen arrived at Callendar on the 28th.⁴Curiously and, some thought, ominously, “a raven continually accompanied them” all the way from Glasgow to Edinburgh.⁵Mary and Darnley spent one or two nights at Linlithgow Palace on 29, 30 or 31 January, before setting out on the final sixteen miles of their journey to Craigmillar.⁶

The Book of Articles alleges that, while they were at Linlithgow, Bothwell’s man, Robert “Hob” Ormiston, came to inform the Queen that Bothwell “was returned to Edinburgh and had prepared all things,” but this is a fabrication because Kirk o’Field had not yet been decided upon as a lodging for Darnley, and no preparations for the murder were made before then, as Ormiston later testified under interrogation. Moray’s Journal claims that Mary waited at Linlithgow until Ormiston brought her news that Bothwell was on his way to Edinburgh.⁷Mary and Bothwell did arrive back in Edinburgh around the same date, but this may have been by coincidence rather than collusion.

On 27 January, Bothwell had ridden out from Jedburgh into Liddesdale, where, to his “great peril,” he countered an attack by the vengeful Elliott clan and arrested twelve troublemakers.⁸The next day, he was either at Hermitage or Jedburgh, and on the 29th was on his way back to Edinburgh, which he reached probably on 30 January. Here, he installed himself in his lodgings in Holyrood Palace, which comprised chambers on two floors, connected by a turnpike stair and overlooking the garden.⁹Lord Ruthven had formerly occupied these rooms.¹⁰

Mary and Darnley approached the outskirts of Edinburgh either that day, 30 January, or on one of the next two days.¹¹Bothwell came to meet them and escort them to Craigmillar. But at the last minute, either through fear that he might be imprisoned or murdered behind the castle’s stout walls, or because Craigmillar was inconvenient to his own plans, Darnley declared he did not wish to complete his convalescence there,¹²and it was decided that he should go instead to the Old Provost’s Lodging at Kirk o’Field, “a country house near the city”¹³and “a place of good air where he might best recover his health.”¹⁴The hasty preparations made for Darnley’s reception confirm that this was a last-minute change of plan.¹⁵

The question of who chose Kirk o’Field is crucial. Darnley’s servant, Thomas Nelson, who survived the explosion, later recalled, “It was devised in Glasgow that the King should have lain at Craigmillar, but, because he had no will thereof, the purpose was altered, and conclusion taken that he should lie beside the Kirk o’Field.” Nelson expected Darnley to be lodged in the Duke of Chatelherault’s mansion at Kirk o’Field, and evidently Darnley did too, “but the contrary was shown him by the Queen, who conveyed him to the other house,”¹⁶the Old Provost’s Lodging, which Darnley “in no wise liked of.”¹⁷This suggests that it was Mary who chose Kirk o’Field, or at least the Old Provost’s Lodging. Nelson’s account has been questioned on the grounds that it is unlikely that Darnley would have wanted to stay in the house of his family’s greatest enemy, but it might have given him a sense of smug satisfaction to think that he could appropriate his adversary’s fine mansion: he was the King, and would expect to be lodged in the best house available.

Lennox claims that, when Darnley complained that he “misliked the other [house] that she prepared for him,” Mary “took him by the hand and said that, although that house was fairer in his sight, yet the rooms of the other were more easy and handsome for him, and also for her, that there passed a privy way between the palace and it, where she might always resort unto him till he was whole of his disease”; at which Darnley, “being bent to follow her will in all things, yielded to the same, and so entered the house.”¹⁸ The “privy way” that Mary referred to was a back route through the grounds of the nearby Blackfriars monastery, which gave access to a lane leading to Kirk o’Field.¹⁹

“In choosing this lodging,” wrote Buchanan, Mary “wished it to appear that her reason was the salubrity of it.” He made it appear, however, that she had a more underhand purpose. But there is evidence that Kirk o’Field was not the Queen’s choice.

Nau, who may well have got his information from Mary, states that Darnley himself chose Kirk o’Field “on the report of Sir James Balfour,” whose brother owned the Old Provost’s Lodging, “and some others. This was against the Queen’s wishes, who was anxious to take him to Craigmillar, for he could not stay in Holyrood Palace lest he should give the infection to the Prince. On his own account, too, he did not wish anyone to see him in his present condition, nor until he had gone through a course of baths in private.” If Balfour was Darnley’s accomplice in his treasonous schemes, then—it has been argued—his purpose in suggesting Kirk o’Field may indeed have been a sinister one. It has been seen as significant that Kirk o’Field was chosen after Moretta’s arrival; Balfour may have been working in tandem with Moretta, and it is also possible that the treacherous Balfour was conspiring with both Darnley and the Protestant Lords. The fact that Balfour advised the King to go to Kirk o’Field perhaps suggests that he was the driving force behind Darnley’s plotting.

In his confession, John Hepburn also claims that Balfour suggested Kirk o’Field.²⁰Bothwell states that Darnley’s sojourn there “was by common consent of the Queen and her Council, who were anxious to preserve the health of all concerned.” This implies that Mary and her Lords consented to a suggestion made by somebody else, probably Balfour. We know that Mary would have preferred Darnley to lodge at Craigmillar, which was not only in a healthy location but was also a fortress where he would be safe from his enemies, and isolated from anyone who was conspiring with him.

Leslie says that Kirk o’Field was decided upon “by the advice of the doctors, as being the most healthy spot in the whole town.” This does not preclude Balfour’s suggesting it. Having agreed to the King lodging at Kirk o’Field, Mary herself selected the Old Provost’s Lodging as the most suitable residence. It had, after all, been used recently by Bedford when he visited Edinburgh for the Prince’s baptism. Moreover, it was lying empty, while the Duke’s house was at present occupied by Archbishop Hamilton,²¹Chatelherault himself being still in exile in France.

Paris, in his deposition, alleges that it was Maitland who suggested Kirk o’Field. Paris is less likely to be accurate than Nau, but it is not implausible that Mary chose the Old Provost’s Lodging on Maitland’s advice, perhaps little suspecting that Maitland may have had an ulterior motive in choosing it. Maitland, after all, had been one of the two prime movers in the plot to get rid of Darnley. The house was in a quiet location and could be approached by a back route, and its security would be easy to breach.

Soon after Darnley’s murder, Robert Melville went to England and there told de Silva, with regard to Kirk o’Field, that, because of its healthy position, “the King had chosen it.”²²Moretta was to say the same thing to Giovanni Correr, the Venetian ambassador.²³These reports corroborate Nau and other evidence, and we may therefore safely conclude that it was indeed Darnley who decided that he should stay at Kirk o’Field. We may also conclude that he did not select the Old Provost’s Lodging.

Buchanan states that “the place had been made ready for [Darnley’s] murder by Bothwell, who, in the Queen’s absence, had undertaken that task,” but the house at Kirk o’Field was prepared in a hurry after the last-minute decision had been made to change the King’s lodgings, so Bothwell could not have had a chance to make ready for the murder. On 20 May following, Servais de Condé, the Queen’s steward, stated that the furniture for Darnley was delivered to the house in February.²⁴As the King arrived on 1 February at the latest, there must have been a frantic flurry of activity to get the place ready for him.

At Darnley’s coming, “the chamber was hung and a new bed of black figured velvet standing therein,”²⁵which had been prepared for Bedford. But this was not good enough for a king, so tapestries, hangings, carpets, furnishings and supplies were quickly carted up from Holyrood.²⁶

Kirk o’Field lay to the south of Edinburgh, on a hill overlooking the Cowgate; it stood just inside the city wall and three-quarters of a mile from Holyrood Palace, in a semi-rural location, “environed with pleasant gardens, and removed from the noise of the people.”²⁷The mediaeval conventual church of St. Mary in the Fields had been refounded as a collegiate church in 1510, and stood on a high eminence. East of it, on a rising slope that dropped steeply to the north, there had been erected a range of collegiate buildings around a quadrangle. The church itself had been damaged by the English in 1544 and again by the reformers in 1558, and was now an abandoned ruin.²⁸

The main frontage and gate to the collegiate buildings were to the west; in the centre of this range was the New Provost’s Lodging, built around 1511–12, which was the residence of Robert Balfour. To the north of this was the Precentor’s House, to the south an enclosing wall, and behind it, at right angles to, and lower than, the New Provost’s Lodging, was a long hall known as the “Salle” or the Prebendaries’ Chamber, which had been built after 1511 and was linked to the Old Provost’s Lodging, which stood further down the slope. The latter must have been built before 1510 and parts of it may have dated from the thirteenth century, when the church was originally built by the Austin Friars. Behind the Old Provost’s Lodging was a little courtyard and the 21-foot high Flodden Wall, in which there was a postern gate “hard by the house”²⁹giving on to a lane called Thieves’ Row; beyond lay the walled south garden and orchard, surrounded by open fields known as “the Lands of Bristo,” and to the east of the building there were gardens. On the north and east sides of the quadrangle were small, gabled houses that, prior to the Reformation, had accommodated the resident canons, and in the centre was a well. The triple-storeyed Duke’s House, where Darnley had hoped to lodge, stood beyond the quadrangle to the north-west; it had been built by Chatelherault in 1554 on the site of the Friars’ hospital, or guest house.

Buchanan described the Old Provost’s Lodging as “a house not commodious for a sick man, nor comely for a king, for it was both ruined and ruinous, and has stood empty without any dweller in it for divers years before, in a place of small resort between the old falling walls of two kirks, near a few almshouses for poor beggars. And that no commodious means for committing that mischief might be wanting, there is a postern door in the town wall by the house, whereby [the assassins] might easily pass away into the fields.” The Old Provost’s Lodging had certainly not stood empty for years, and was in no way ruinous. In fact, it was a spacious and well-appointed residence, and Mary herself did not disdain to use it. Nor is there any evidence that Darnley was forced to stay there.

The house’s two storeys were connected by a 3-foot-wide turnpike stair in a turret. Darnley’s bedchamber was on the first floor, and measured about 16 feet by 12 feet; it had a timber gallery with a window that projected over the Flodden Wall. The wall had a width of 6 feet at the base but tapered to a foot-wide battlemented top; the ground rose steeply at this point, and the drop beyond the wall was no more than 16 feet. When Mary stayed at the house, she slept in a bedchamber directly below Darnley’s; her room was six steps up from the main entrance on the ground floor, and had a window overlooking the quadrangle. Each bedchamber had a small anteroom or garderobe, measuring about 7 feet by 12 feet. The single-storeyed Prebendaries’ Chamber, or Salle, which measured approximately 45 feet by 15 feet, served as a presence chamber, and was accessed through a passageway and steps from the upper floor. Mary’s courtiers would gather here when she visited Darnley.

The kitchen was in the cellar. The low groin-arched vaults below the Prebendaries’ Chamber, which were about 6 feet high at the east end and only about 2 feet high at the west end, were connected to the loftier cellars beneath the Old Provost’s Lodging, which had a height of between 6 feet and 7 feet. Darnley’s house had three outer doors: one, the Fore Entry, opened on to the quadrangle, one led to the garden, and one, in the kitchen, gave on to the little alleyway that led from the quadrangle under the passage between the Prebendaries’ Chamber and the Old Provost’s Lodging. There may also have been a door nearby giving entry to the vaults of the Prebendaries’ Chamber.

Darnley’s bedchamber was hung with six tapestries that had been confiscated from the Gordon family after the Battle of Corrichie. It was furnished with a small Turkey carpet, a “high chair” upholstered in purple velvet with three red velvet cushions, a little table covered in green velvet and a chamberpot. A bath was placed by the bed, ready for the King’s treatment; when not in use, it was covered by a door that had been removed from the upper entrance to the turnpike stair on the Queen’s orders;³⁰it was later implied that she had done this to facilitate the easy access of Darnley’s murderers. Darnley did not like the black bed that had been provided for Bedford, so his own violet velvet bed, the one that Mary had given him the previous August, which had previously been owned by Marie de Guise, was brought up from Holyrood.³¹

The Queen’s bedchamber had a bed with yellow and green damask hangings. In the Prebendaries’ Chamber, a leather chair of estate covered with watered silk of red and yellow, the royal Scottish heraldic colours, was set on a dais beneath a black velvet cloth of estate fringed with silk, and on the walls hung five more Gordon tapestries. In Darnley’s garderobe, there was a set of seven tapestries entitled “The Hunting of the Coneys”; the royal close stool had two basins, and a canopy and curtains of yellow taffeta.

During his stay at Kirk o’Field, Darnley was attended by his valet, William Taylor, Thomas Nelson and two grooms, Andrew McCaig and Master Glen. All were lodged in the house, as well as one Edward Symonds and “Taylor’s boy,” probably the valet’s body servant.³²There was also a cook, Bonkil, who went home when his duties were done. Surprisingly, no mention is made in any source of guards for the King, which seems unusual. Both he and Mary knew that his enemies had been conspiring to take his life, and it is curious that he did not demand guards, nor Mary provide them. The lack of such protection left him dangerously exposed to attack.

After seeing Darnley comfortably installed at Kirk o’Field with his servants, Mary returned to Holyrood. The raven that had accompanied them on their journey from Glasgow remained behind, and was seen on several occasions, perching on the roof of the Old Provost’s Lodging.³³

It seemed that good relations had now been restored between the King and Queen. Mary visited her husband daily,³⁴“and used him in every sort as well as he himself could wish.”³⁵She spent two nights at Kirk o’Field, sleeping in the bedroom below his. They sat up late, sometimes until midnight,³⁶talking, playing cards or listening to music, and “many nobles” came with the Queen to divert the convalescent.³⁷According to Buchanan, Mary reconciled Darnley and Bothwell, “whom she wished to be free from suspicion.” There were no rows or recriminations. According to Nau, and perhaps Mary, the royal couple were “perfectly reconciled.”

“Every man marvelled at this reconciliation or sudden change,” wrote Knox, while Buchanan averred that “this pretence of kindness was much suspected by all.”³⁸It has been regarded by many, then and since, as a deception on Mary’s part, calculated to divert suspicion from herself when Bothwell’s murder plot came to fruition, and constitutes further circumstantial evidence against her. It is indeed hard to believe that Mary’s love for Darnley had flowered anew, but there may be an innocent explanation for her renewed warmth to him. She could have reached the conclusion that she had to make the best of her marriage as there was no honourable way out of it. She may also have been doing her best to gain Darnley’s confidence in order to either draw from him details of his conspiracy or persuade him to abandon it; after all, his explanation of the revelations of Hiegait and Walker had been less than satisfactory.

Buchanan claims that, throughout this period, Mary “did not cease to think up every method possible of turning the blame of the crime on her brother James and the Earl of Morton. For when these two, whom she feared and hated, had been eliminated, everything else, she assured herself, would rearrange itself.” Since the Craigmillar conference, Mary had been aware that Moray might “look through his fingers” at an attempt to remove Darnley by unlawful means, and she had grounds for believing that Morton would have supported such a move if she had given her consent to it. Buchanan’s claim was therefore plausible, even if it might not have been true.

At some point in early February, Mary tried to make peace between Darnley and the Lords, but the latter, already suspicious of what her reconciliation with her husband might portend, refused to co-operate, and warned her that the King would put a knife to her throat and theirs.³⁹

Mary spent her first night at Kirk o’Field on Wednesday, 5 February.⁴⁰ Darnley had expressed fears for his safety—perhaps on hearing what the Lords had said—and, to reassure him, she had agreed to stay, and sent one of her women to Holyrood to fetch a fur coverlet for her bed. Buchanan later claimed she slept there that night in order to allay the suspicions of those who might later claim that she had plotted to murder her husband.

Two days later, on Friday, 7 February, Darnley had a medicinal bath. Mary had shown herself so caring towards him that, “being in his bath, [he] would suffer none to handle him but herself.”⁴¹That same day, according to Nelson, the Queen had the King’s rich bed removed from the Old Provost’s Lodging to avoid it being soiled with dirty water from the bath. The Book of Articles also states that the bed and some tapestries were removed on the Friday, and that the bed was replaced by “another worse,” because Mary did not want these valuable items destroyed in the explosion. Lennox states that Darnley’s bed was moved on Sunday the 9th, the day before the King was due to return to Holyrood, and replaced with a meaner sort of bed hung with purple velvet, Mary telling him that “they should both lie in that rich bed the next night at the palace.” Lennox, of course, invested her action with a sinister significance.⁴²We know, however, from the list of items lost in the explosion that was drawn up by Servais de Condé, that Darnley’s rich bed and all the tapestries were destroyed when the Old Provost’s Lodging was blown up. Hence Nelson, Buchanan and Lennox must have been lying.

On 7 February, obviously still suspicious of Darnley’s activities, Mary wrote again to Sir William Drury at Berwick, repeating her demand for the arrest of Lutini. Drury sent again to Cecil for instructions, having been told by Lutini that “he doubteth much danger, and so affirmeth unto me that, if he return, he utterly despaireth of any better than a prepared death.”⁴³

Darnley, whose health was rapidly improving and who was obviously unaware that Mary was still investigating his underhand pursuits, wrote that same day to Lennox of the kindness of the Queen:⁴⁴

My Lord,

I have thought good to write unto you by this bearer of my good health, I thank God, which is the sooner come to through the good treatment of such as hath this good while concealed their good will. I mean my love, the Queen, which I assure you hath all this while and yet doth use herself like a natural and loving wife. I hope yet that God will lighten our hearts with joy that have so long been afflicted with trouble. As I in this letter do write unto Your Lordship, so I trust this bearer can certify the like. Thus, thanking Almighty God of our good hap, I commit Your Lordship to His protection.

From Edinburgh, the VII of February, your loving and obedient son, Henry Rex.

The messenger told Lennox that, when he was summoned to take the letter, he saw the Queen reading it over Darnley’s shoulder; visibly touched by it, she put her arm around her husband and kissed him “as Judas did the Lord his Master,”⁴⁵as Lennox put it later.

Had Darnley undergone a genuine change of heart and abandoned his plotting? It would seem so from this letter, which was a private one to his father, who probably knew all about his treasonous plans. It appears his serious illness had made Darnley think again. However, the reference to thanking God for “our good hap” suggests that Darnley believed that his reconciliation with Mary was advantageous in some way to himself and his father, and it may be inferred that he saw it as a stepping stone to gaining the Crown Matrimonial. An alternative explanation is that Darnley did not write this letter at all, but that it was made up by Lennox in an attempt to portray Mary as trying “to remove all suspicion from herself,” so that “no shadow of suspicion remained in [Darnley’s] mind.”⁴⁶

That evening, as Darnley and Mary sat talking, “he promised to give her much information of the utmost importance to the life and quiet of both of them,” and reminded her “of the necessity of cultivating a good understanding with each other, and of guarding against those persons who meddled between them (whose names he said he would reveal), and who had advised him to make an attempt upon her life. The designs of these persons tended to the ruin of both of them. He warned her more particularly to be on her guard against Lethington [Maitland], who, he said, was planning the ruin of the one by the means of the other, and meant in the end to ruin both of them, as he could perceive more clearly than ever by their conduct and counsel.”⁴⁷ As had been made clear to Mary in Glasgow, Darnley was surprisingly well informed, and there can be little doubt that he had heard rumours or talk that Maitland and others were planning to destroy both the Queen and himself, which was partially true. Of course, it took breathtaking audacity for Darnley to occupy the high moral ground in this respect, since he too had been plotting against Mary, and his conspiracies had evolved long before the Craigmillar conference. As had happened after Rizzio’s murder, Darnley was trying to shift the burden of suspicion on to others, but in this case he seems to have had good reason for doing so.

Mary spent that Friday night at Kirk o’Field.⁴⁸By now, rumours of a conspiracy against Darnley were spreading. Melville recalled that “many suspected that the Earl of Bothwell had some enterprise against him,” but shrank from warning him because he was notoriously indiscreet and would tell all to his servants, “who were not all honest.” There was one man, however, who felt compelled to speak out. An English spy in Edinburgh reported to Cecil that, on Saturday, 8 February, a highly agitated Darnley told the Queen that, the previous evening,⁴⁹her half-brother, Lord Robert Stewart, had come to warn him that, “if he retired not hastily out of that place, it would cost him his life.”⁵⁰Buchanan claims that Lord Robert told Darnley “of his wife’s treachery,” on condition “that he kept the knowledge to himself and looked to his own safety.”

Mary summoned her brother that Saturday⁵¹and questioned him about what he had said, in the presence of Darnley, Moray and Bothwell, but he “denied that he ever spoke it.”⁵²According to Buchanan, this precipitated a violent quarrel between Darnley and Lord Robert, with both drawing their swords, and Mary begging Moray to intervene. There is, however, no evidence before this date that Lord Robert had been conspiring with Darnley, and it is quite possible that he had heard rumours—similar to those that Darnley had heard himself—of the plot to kill the King. His reluctance to say any more may reflect his fear that the conspirators might guess who had warned the King and Queen and take revenge on him accordingly; or he may indeed have heard that Mary herself had approved of the plot, and been reluctant to confront her. Buchanan and Paris later alleged that Mary incited the quarrel in the hope that Darnley would be killed in a duel by Lord Robert, but if this was her intention, why did she ask Moray to intervene?

It has been said that this quarrel could not have taken place because Darnley was a convalescent invalid and too weak to fight. In fact, he was due to complete his treatment the next day with a final medicinal bath, and, as will be seen, was to summon his horses for Monday morning, intending perhaps to ride ten miles to Seton. The likelihood is that he was already up and about by this date.

A letter in Mary’s “own hand” was produced in 1568 at the inquiry into her guilt at York; it was said to prove “that there was another mean of a more cleanly conveyance devised to kill the King, for there was a quarrel made betwixt him and the Lord Robert by carrying of false tales betwixt, the Queen being the instrument to bring it to pass; which purpose, if it had taken effect, for they were at daggers drawing, it had eased them of the prosecution of this devilish fact, which, this taking none effect, was afterwards most tyrannously executed.”⁵³However, this letter was later withdrawn from the documentary evidence, and has never been seen since, which argues that it was almost certainly a bad forgery. Had it been genuine, it is hardly likely that Mary’s enemies would have failed to offer such compelling evidence in support of their case.

Casket Letter IV is supposed to have been written by Mary to Bothwell on Friday night, after Darnley had told her of Lord Robert’s warning.⁵⁴Buchanan entitled it, “Another letter to Bothwell, of her love to him,” and it reads:

I have watched later there above than I would have done, if it had not been to draw out that that this bearer shall tell you, that I find the fairest commodity to excuse your business that might be offered: I have promised him to bring him tomorrow, if you think it give order thereunto.

Now, Sir, I have not yet broken my promise with you, for you had not commanded me to send you any thing or to write, and I do it not for offending of you. And if you knew the fear that I am in thereof, you would not have so many contrary suspicions, which nevertheless I cherish as proceeding from the thing of this world that I desire and seek the most, that is, your favour or goodwill, of which my behaviour shall assure me. And I will never despair thereof as long as, according to your promise, you shall discharge your heart to me. Otherwise I would think that my ill luck, and the fair behaviour of those that have not the third part of the faithfulness and voluntary obedience that I bear unto you, shall have won the advantage over me of the second lover of Jason. Not that I do compare you so wicked, or myself to so unpitiful a person.

The writer is here referring to a tale from Greek mythology, immortalised by Euripides and Seneca. Glauce, the second wife of the hero Jason, was poisoned by his first wife, the famous sorceress Medea, whom he had repudiated. The vengeful Medea also murdered her own two sons by Jason. The inference is supposed to be that Mary feels the same jealousy towards the Countess Jean as Medea did for Glauce, but is not so pitiless as to contemplate poisoning her. If this letter were written to Darnley, however, Mary could be referring to her jealousy of his mistresses. It continues:

Although you make me feel some grief in a matter that toucheth you, and to preserve and keep you to her whom alone you belong, if a body may claim to himself that which is won by [word illegible, deleted] well, faithfully, yea, entirely loving, as I do and will do all my life, for pain or hurt, whatsoever may happen to me thereby.

In recompense whereof, and of all the evils that you [have] been cause of to me, remember the place hereby. I desire not that you keep promise with me tomorrow, but that we may be together, and that you give no credit to the suspicions that you shall have without being assured thereof. And I ask no more of God but that you might know all that I have in my heart, which is yours, and that He preserve you from all evil, at the least during my life, which shall not be dear unto me but as long as it and I shall please you. I go to bed, and give you good night.

Send me word tomorrow early in the morning how you have done, for I shall think long.

The next sentence has long intrigued historians:

And watch well if the bird shall fly out of his cage or without his father [deleted by Cecil, who substituted the word “mate”] make as the turtle shall remain alone for absence, how short soever it be.

This was originally meant to imply that Darnley, mourning the absence of his father, might flee from Kirk o’Field.

In the Scots version, this passage is given as:

Make good watch if the bird escape out of the cage, or without her mate. As the turtle, I shall remain alone for to lament the absence, how short that so ever it be.

Here, the sense and sex of the bird are different; when the bird has flown, the writer will mourn his absence. This is closer to the original French version, which translates as:

Beware lest the bird fly out of its cage, or without its mate, like the turtle dove lives alone to lament the absence, however short it may be.

This implies that it is the writer who will fly away, if driven to do so by her mate, and who will live alone to mourn his absence.⁵⁵This passage may well be based on lines of a sonnet written by Ronsard, a poet favoured by Mary, which read:

Que dis-tu, que fais-tu, pensive tourterelle Dessus cet arbre sec?—Viateur, je lamente.

The letter ends:

That that I could not do, my letter should do it with a good will, if it were not that I fear to wake you, for I durst not write before Joseph and Bastien and Joachim, who were but new gone from I began.

The abrupt opening, which suggests that this letter is only part of a longer one, and the discrepancies between the various translations are perhaps evidence that the original text of the letter has been manipulated to incriminate Mary. In fact, there is very little in it to suggest that she incited the quarrel between Lord Robert and Darnley in order to bring about Darnley’s death. Apart from the last two sentences, which may have been added by a forger, this letter could have been written by Mary to Darnley during the first months of their marriage, while they were wrangling about the Crown Matrimonial; this theory is supported by the threat that the writer might fly the cage if provoked too far. Furthermore, the style is reminiscent of that used by Mary in her later letters to the Duke of Norfolk.

Casket Letter III is also said to have been written by Mary to Bothwell at this time, but its opening paragraph shows that this theory cannot be correct:

Monsieur, if the displeasure of your absence, your forgetfulness, the fear of danger so promised by everyone to your so-loved person may give me consolation, can console me, I leave it to you to judge, seeing the unhap [misfortune] that my cruel lot and continual misadventure has hitherto promised me, following the misfortunes and fears, as well of late as of a long time by-past, the which ye do know.

It would have been ludicrous for Mary to write in this vein to Bothwell, since he was in almost daily attendance on her; if this was a genuine letter, then it must have been written at another time.

It continues:

But for all that, I will in no wise accuse you, neither of your little remembrance, neither of your little care, and least of all your promise broken, or of the coldness of your writing, since I am always so far made yours that that which pleases you is acceptable to me, and my thoughts are so willingly subdued unto yours that I suppose that all that comes of your proceeds not be any of the causes foresaid, but rather for such as be just and reasonable, and such as I desire myself. Which is the final order that ye promised to take for the surety and honourable service of the only uphold of my life. For which alone I will preserve the same, and without the which I desire not but sudden death. And to testify to you how lowly I submit me under your commandments, I have sent you, in sign of homage, by Paris, the ornament of the head, which is the chief good of the other members, inferring thereby that, by the seizing of you in the possession of the spoil of that which is principle, the remnant cannot be but subject unto you, and with consenting of the heart. In place whereof, since I have always left it unto you, I send unto you a sepulchre of hard stone, coloured with black, strewn with tears and bones. The stone I compare to my heart, that, as it is carved in one sure sepulchre or harbour of your commandments, and above all of your name and memory that are therein enclosed, as is my heart in this ring, never to come forth, while death grant unto you to a trophy of victory of my bones, as the ring is filled, in sign that you have made a full conquest of me, of my heart, and unto that bones my bones be left unto you in remembrance of your victory and my acceptable love and willing for to be better bestowed than I merit. The enamelling that is about is black, which signifies the steadfastness of her that sends the same. The tears are without number, so are the dreaders to displease you, the tears of your absence, the disdain that I cannot be in outward effect yours, as I am without feignedness of heart and spirit, and of good reason, though my merits were much greater than of the most profit that ever was, and such as I desire to be, and shall take pain in conditions to imitate, for to be bestowed worthily under your regimen. My only wealth receive therefore in all good part the same, as I have received your marriage with extreme joy, the which shall not part forth of my bosom till that marriage of our bodies be made in public, as sign of all that I either hope or desire of bliss in this world. Yet my heart fearing to displease you as much in the reading hereof as I delight me in the writing, I will make end, after that I have kissed your hands with all great affection, as I pray God (O, ye only upholder of my life!) to give you long and blessed life, and to me your good favour, as the only good that I desire, and to ye which I pretend.

I have shown unto this bearer that which I have learned, to whom I remit me, knowing the credit that you give him, as sure does that will be for ever unto your humble, obedient, lawful wife, that forever dedicates unto you her heart, her body, without any change, as unto him that I have made possessor of heart, of which so may hold you assured, yet unto the death shall no ways be changed, for evil nor good shall never make me go from it.⁵⁶

The original French copy of this letter is endorsed “To prove the affections.” Mary’s enemies offered it as evidence that she was involved in an adulterous relationship with Bothwell. The reference to Paris, which could be an interpolation, indicates that it was sent by Mary to Bothwell, but there are no other clues as to the writer’s identity. It was certainly written by a woman to her lover. The couple are engaged in an illicit affair, perhaps a secret marriage since she refers to herself as his lawful wife, and the writer is longing for the time when the “marriage of our bodies” can be made public; in the meantime, she is lamenting her lover’s absence and forgetfulness. The tone of the letter is self-abasing and wholly submissive. If not entirely forged, it could have been written by Mary to Darnley, before their marriage, or even by another woman, possibly Anna Throndssen, to Bothwell. It could not refer to Mary’s marriage to Bothwell since, from this time onwards, far from being absent, he was constantly in attendance on her. Much of this letter refers to the symbolism in a jewel that the writer has sent to her lover, which represents a tomb, and was probably amemento mori, a type of jewel that reminded the wearer of his or her mortality; such jewels were fashionable in the sixteenth century. This jewel has been identified as the black ring set with a diamond that Mary had promised Bothwell in her Will of 1566⁵⁷but, since the writer was also sending “the ornament of the head,” which was almost certainly a lock of hair, the jewel is more likely to have been a locket in which her lover could enclose it. The word used in the original French is “bague,” which now means a ring or collar, but was used in Mary’s Will to describe various jewels.

On Saturday, 8 February, Lennox left Glasgow for Linlithgow. It has been conjectured that he was making his way to Holyrood to greet Darnley on the successful conclusion of the latter’s coup against Mary, but Lennox might have been travelling simply with the object of visiting his son, who was now restored to health and favour. He might also have hoped that Darnley would effect a reconciliation between himself and the Queen. According to the Seigneur de Clernault, Lennox was attacked in Glasgow on Sunday evening and was saved from death only by the intervention of Lord Sempill.⁵⁸However, as Lennox was then in Linlithgow, this incident must have happened before he left Glasgow on the 8th, if it happened at all, for Lennox makes no mention of it. There has been conjecture that Clernault was attempting to establish an alibi for Lennox in case Darnley’s plans went wrong.

According to de Silva, Darnley had asked to see Moretta, but Mary was still apparently suspicious of Darnley’s motives; she had no intention of giving him any chance to liaise with his friends abroad, and had told him that he could not receive Moretta because the latter’s master, the Duke of Savoy, still bore resentment towards him, Darnley, because of the murder of his former servant David Rizzio. Moretta, too, had asked to see Darnley, ostensibly to discuss horses, but Mary would not let him.⁵⁹

Mary’s chief reason for preventing their meeting may have been to avoid giving any offence to the English that might prejudice her chances of the succession. Darnley had proved himself untrustworthy and had already publicly proclaimed her a bad Catholic to her allies, and she was not entirely sure that he was not still working against her. Her chief preoccupation at this time was the new concord with England, and on 8 February, she announced that she was at last willing to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh and would be sending Robert Melville to London to open the negotiations; he left the next day.⁶⁰It is hardly likely that, at such a crucial time, Mary would have been contemplating murdering her husband. That night, she dined with Darnley, Bothwell and others at Kirk o’Field.

By 9 February, Sir James Balfour seems also to have left Edinburgh. His departure was perhaps significant. Having seen Darnley installed at Kirk o’Field, at his own suggestion, and Moretta in his Edinburgh house, and having perhaps laid plans with both of them, he may have felt that it was wise to absent himself while those plans came to fruition. Or he was playing a double game with both Darnley and the Lords, and did not wish to stay around to risk betrayal.

Sunday, 9 February was the last Sunday in Lent and therefore a day of carnival and feasting; Mary had a full programme of engagements planned. Darnley began this last day of his convalescence by hearing Mass.⁶¹Later that morning, Moray came to Mary at Holyrood and told her he had received news that his wife was very ill after a miscarriage⁶²and that he must go to her without delay; with the Queen’s permission, he left Edinburgh immediately for St. Andrews. In view of what was to happen the next night, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Moray was deliberately absenting himself so as to avoid being implicated, especially since he did not return as soon as his wife had recovered. Nau says that he left “after having matured all his plans necessary for his success in seizing the crown and ruining the Queen.” Leslie claims that, on the journey to St. Andrews, Moray told his servant, “This night, ere morning, the Lord Darnley shall lose his life,” but it seems that Leslie was trying to fabricate a case against Moray in the absence of other evidence, for this remark is entirely out of character. Moray was normally cautious and highly secretive and it is beyond credibility that he would have let slip such an indiscreet and incriminating remark to a servant.

Meanwhile, Darnley was having his last medicinal bath, and doubtless looking forward to returning to Holyrood the following morning⁶³and there resuming full marital relations with Mary.

If Mary’s enemies are to be believed, she took time out on this busy day to write Casket Letter V to Bothwell; this is surprising, as he was in almost constant attendance on her that day. The French version⁶⁴is endorsed “Anent the dispatch [dismissal] of Margaret Carwood, which was before her marriage; proves her [Mary’s] affection”; Buchanan, in his Detectio, entitles the Scots version, “Another letter to Bothwell concerning the departure of Margaret Carwood, who was privy and a helper of all their love.” Some writers have identified Margaret Carwood with a maid-of-honour who is known to have incurred the Queen’s displeasure at this time by becoming pregnant out of wedlock; this was an embarrassment to Mary because of the severe view that the Kirk took of such matters. However, the letter may not refer to Margaret Carwood at all, for on 8 February Mary granted her a handsome pension, and two days later, on the eve of Carwood’s wedding, paid out a lavish sum for a wedding dress for her. She would not have acted thus towards a servant who had incurred her displeasure. Casket Letter V reads:

My heart, alas! Must the folly of one woman whose unthankfulness toward me ye do sufficiently know, be occasion of displeasure unto you, considering that I could not have remedied thereunto without knowing it? And since that I perceived it, I could not tell it you, for that I knew not how to govern myself therein. For neither in that, nor in any other thing, will I take upon me to do anything without knowledge of your will, which I beseech you let me understand; for I will follow it all my life, more willingly than you shall declare it to me. And if ye do not send me word this night what ye will that I shall do, I will rid myself of it, and hazard to cause it to be enterprised and taken in hand, which might be hurtful to that whereunto both we do tend. And when she shall be married, I beseech you give me one, or else I will take such as shall content you for their conditions; but, as for their tongues, or faithfulness towards you, I will not answer. I beseech you that are opinion of other person, be not hurtful in your mind to my constancy. Mistrust me, but when I will put you out of doubt and clear myself, refuse it not, my dear love, and suffer me to make you some proof by my obedience, my faithfulness, constancy and voluntary subjection, which I take for the pleasantest good that I might receive, if ye will accept it, and make no ceremony at it, for ye could do me no greater outrage, nor give more mortal grief.

The likelihood is that this note was sent by Mary to Darnley during his sojourn at Kirk o’Field, and that it concerns the maid who had got pregnant. The letter is written in the spirit of the reconciliation that had taken place between the royal couple. Mary would have had no cause to write to Bothwell on such a matter, for her maid’s pregnancy would have been of little interest to him, but Darnley would have been concerned lest it cast a stain upon his wife’s honour. Mary is worried because, if he does not tell her what she should do about it, he might not approve if she insists on the maid marrying her lover; if Darnley does not approve of that, however, it might prejudice the good relations between him and Mary, yet he must bear in mind that she is willing to be ruled by him in all things. The letter has an abrupt ending and appears to have been cut in the interests of making it look as if the recipient of such loving sentiments was Bothwell.

Late that Sunday morning, Mary attended the marriage of two of her favourite servants, Sebastien Pagez and Christina Hogg, at Holyrood, and was the guest of honour at the wedding breakfast that began at noon. Before leaving, the Queen promised to attend a masque that Pagez had devised in celebration of his nuptials, which was to be staged late that evening.

By 4 p.m., Mary had arrived at a house in the Canongate⁶⁵where the Bishop of the Isles was hosting a farewell banquet for Moretta, who was returning to Savoy the next day. Bothwell, Argyll and Huntly were among those who accompanied the Queen, and all were attired in the magnificent costumes that they were to wear at the masque that evening; Bothwell’s was of black satin fringed with silver.⁶⁶

At around 7 p.m., Mary, “masked”⁶⁷and “accompanied with the most part of the Lords that are in this town,”⁶⁸left the banquet and rode to Kirk o’Field to spend the evening with Darnley. While the Queen chatted to her husband, Bothwell, Argyll and Huntly played at dice with a Catholic Privy Councillor, Gilbert Kennedy, Earl of Cassilis, a brutal young thug who once held a man’s legs in the fire to make him give way in a property dispute. Maitland appears also to have been present. Buchanan claims that Mary spoke with Darnley “more cheerfully than usual for a few hours” and “often kissed him.” She was doubtless in a convivial mood after the day’s festivities. Given the large number of people present, it is likely that they all gathered in the Prebendaries’ Chamber, which Darnley was using as a presence chamber: his bedchamber would probably not have been big enough to accommodate them all. There is no reason to believe that he was still confined to bed at this time.

It is not certain how long Mary and her courtiers remained at Kirk o’Field that evening because the sources are conflicting. Both Mary and her Councillors stated, in letters written only a day later, that she left around midnight. Lennox states they stayed until 11 p.m., the Seigneur de Clernault says they left after two or three hours, at either 9 p.m. or 10 p.m.,⁶⁹while de Silva heard that they stayed for three hours.⁷⁰Mary and the Lords were probably correct.

Thomas Nelson, Buchanan and Lennox all claimed that Mary intended to stay the night at Kirk o’Field, and the Lords of the Council, in a letter to Catherine de’ Medici, written after Darnley’s murder, stated that “it was a mere chance that Her Majesty did not remain there all night.” Moretta also told the Venetian ambassador in Paris that Mary intended to stay the night.⁷¹ But Buchanan alleges that, “in the middle of the evening’s proceedings, the Frenchman Paris, one of her rascally attendants, entered the King’s chamber and placed himself silently, so that he could be seen by the Queen. His arrival was the sign that all was prepared for the crime. As soon as she saw Paris, the Queen pretended that she had just remembered Bastien’s wedding, and blamed herself for her negligence, because she had not gone to the masked ball that evening, as she had promised, and had not seen the bride in her bed. With this remark, she rose and went home.” Yet Mary had come masked, in costume,⁷²ready to attend the masque, so it is highly improbable that she forgot her promise, although she may have left Kirk o’Field later than planned. Lennox does not mention this episode, but offers a different explanation for Mary sleeping at Holyrood, as will be seen.

Darnley certainly expected her to return after the masque and stay the night. He expressed chagrin when, as she made ready to leave for the masque, she apparently changed her mind, possibly in view of the lateness of the hour, and said she would sleep at Holyrood. Bothwell, who had reasons of his own for wanting to keep Mary away from Kirk o’Field, reminded her that she had arranged to ride to Seton in the morning, and added that, in view of the early start she wished to make, it would be more convenient for her to stay at Holyrood.⁷³Mary later wrote to Archbishop Beaton that it was “of very chance” that she “tarried not all night, by reason of some masque in the Abbey,”⁷⁴while Leslie recorded, “She returned thanks to God for her preservation from so great a peril, for it looked as though the contrivers of the plot had expected that she would pass the night there with the King, and they planned the destruction of them both.” Cecil was informed by one Captain Cockburn that, “were it not for Secretary Lethington and Bastien, Her Grace would not fail to have lain in that same house, and been utterly destroyed.”⁷⁵ Maitland’s role in all this is not clear, but some writers have regarded it as strange that he should have tried to save Mary’s life when he had perhaps been plotting her ruin. Yet there is no evidence that Maitland or Moray ever conspired to bring about Mary’s death; had that been so, they would have had her executed when they had the power to do so. But there is plenty of evidence that Moray at least wanted the Catholic Queen removed from her throne.

Mary attempted to mollify Darnley by reminding him that, on the morrow, they would be together again on a permanent basis, and promised him that the next night she would sleep with him.⁷⁶As a token of this pledge, she gave him a ring.⁷⁷According to Lennox, she also “called the King to remembrance that David, her servant, was murdered about that same time twelve months.”⁷⁸If Mary was conspiring to murder Darnley that night, this seems an indiscreet remark to make.

As Mary mounted her horse in the quadrangle, she espied Paris and, “noticing that his face was all blackened with gunpowder,” exclaimed, “Jesu, Paris, how begrimed you are!” He said nothing, and after she had stared at him for a moment, she rode away, having noticed that “he turned very red.”⁷⁹ As she was observing him by torchlight, this was not surprising, and was probably fanciful thinking on her part, in the light of what she afterwards discovered. Had she been aware that Paris had been helping to shift gunpowder, she would hardly have drawn attention to the fact, so her remark must have been made in genuine innocence. Only later would she have realised the significance of Paris’s dirty appearance.

Probably around midnight, Mary and her train of nobles, with Bothwell among them, returned to Holyrood via the Cowgate, Blackfriars Wynd and the Canongate. Lennox claims that Mary had a sackbut, an early form of trombone, sounded as a signal to the waiting assassins, but no other account mentions this. The weather was very cold, with a light frosting of snow, and the night very dark; the new moon would not appear until 6 a.m.

Back at Kirk o’Field, some of Darnley’s servants were preparing to leave for the night. One was Alexander, or “Sandy,” Durham, Master of the Prince’s Wardrobe and the son of Alexander Durham the Elder, silversmith and Argenter⁸⁰of the Royal Household. Sandy Durham features largely in the Oration, a treatise by one of Mary’s English detractors, Dr. Thomas Wilson.⁸¹ Wilson alleges that Durham made several attempts to obtain leave of absence from Kirk o’Field that night, implying that he knew what was planned and was even a party to the plot; he is said to have been so desperate that he set his bedding alight, a rash thing to do if he was aware that there was gunpowder nearby. In the end, he was given permission to go home. Both Wilson and Buchanan claim that Durham was a spy, planted in Darnley’s household by his enemies.

Darnley was by no means alone in the house that night. His valet, William Taylor, was in attendance, as were Nelson, McCaig, Glen, Symonds and Taylor’s boy.⁸²This gives the lie to Buchanan, who claims that “most” of the King’s servants “were gone out of the way, as foreknowing the danger at hand.” If this were the case, they might fear reprisals if they warned the King, but why did they not, at the very least, warn their colleagues?

Meanwhile, the Queen had arrived at Holyrood, where she put in a brief appearance at the wedding masque and attended the ceremony of putting the bride and groom to bed.⁸³At around midnight, she retired to her apartments. There, she held a private conference with Bothwell and John Stewart of Traquair, the Captain of her Guard. After fifteen minutes, Traquair left, leaving Bothwell and Mary talking alone “for a considerable time.” After a while, Bothwell was dismissed and the Queen went to bed.⁸⁴

There is no record of what was discussed on this occasion, and Buchanan no doubt wished to imply that it was Darnley’s murder, but there was never any suggestion that Traquair was involved in the Kirk o’Field plot. It has been conjectured that Bothwell and Traquair came to Mary with intelligence that Darnley was plotting to murder her.⁸⁵In his memorial, Bothwell says nothing of this, but merely states that he was in the building, “in that part normally allotted to the guard, on this occasion, fifty strong.”⁸⁶In 1568, Bothwell was busily accusing the Protestant Lords of murdering Darnley, and it would not have helped his case to brand Darnley himself a would-be regicide. Of course, there is no proof that Darnley’s conspiracy was the subject of this private conversation, but the presence of the Captain of the Guard, the fact that Bothwell was in the part of the palace occupied by the guards, and the late hour of the meeting, all suggest that the matter was urgent and that it was crucial to Mary’s security.

Buchanan states that, “after the Queen had gone away, the King talked over the events of the day with the few servants who remained” and recalled “a few words which somewhat spoiled his enjoyment,” namely Mary’s reminder “that it was about that time last year that David Rizzio had been murdered.” Buchanan is here embroidering the almost certainly apocryphal story in Lennox’s Narrative.

Darnley was planning an early start and did not sit up for more than an hour.⁸⁷An account of his last hours appears in Lennox’s Narrative, and is apparently based on information supplied by Thomas Nelson, who survived the explosion and was later taken into Lennox’s service. Darnley summoned an unnamed servant—who was probably Sandy Durham, as Darnley bade him farewell afterwards—and called for wine. He then “commanded that his great horses should be in readiness by five of the clock in the morning,” when he planned to depart for either Holyrood or, more probably, Seton, to join Mary.

Darnley then said to his servant, “Let us go merrily to bed in singing a song before,” but declined to accompany them on the lute, saying, “My hand is not inclined to the lute this night.” The servant had a book of psalms to hand, and Darnley decided they would all sing the 5th Psalm: “Give ear to my words, O Lord. Hearken unto the voice of my cry: . . . for unto Thee will I pray . . . The Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man. But as for me, I will come into Thy house in the multitude of Thy mercy.” The rest is a prayer to God to destroy the Psalmist’s enemies. It was a highly appropriate text for Lennox’s “innocent lamb” to recite in the circumstances, and some writers have wondered if the grieving father deliberately inserted it into his account for good effect, and if Darnley and his servant in fact did sing their “merry song.” Drury incorrectly reported to Cecil that Darnley had recited the 55th Psalm,⁸⁸which was even more apposite, and read: “Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and an horrible dread hath overwhelmed me . . . It is not an open enemy that has done me this dishonour, for then I could have borne it. It was even thou, my companion, my guide, and my own familiar friend.”

Once the singing was done, the King “drank to his servant, bidding him farewell for that night, and so went to bed.”⁸⁹After snuffing out the candles, Taylor lay down to rest on a “pallet” bed in Darnley’s room. Nelson, Symonds and “Taylor’s boy” retired to the gallery that led off the bedchamber, while the two grooms, McCaig and Glen, were to spend the night downstairs.⁹⁰

All was quiet. In a window of the Duke’s House, where Archbishop Hamilton was residing, a single light burned, which could be seen “from the highest parts of the town.”⁹¹The raven was still perched on the roof of Darnley’s lodging; during the day, portentously, it had “croaked for a very long time upon the house.”⁹²