19

“GREAT SUSPICIONS AND NO PROOF”

BY DAWN ON 11 FEBRUARY, news of Darnley’s murder had reached Berwick,¹and Drury passed it on immediately to Cecil.²Soon, the scandalous tidings would spread throughout Scotland and across Europe, giving rise to universal horror, wild rumours and fevered speculation. Suspicion attached initially to Moray and Maitland,³and then, within a short time, to Bothwell. “All Scotland cried out upon the foul murder of the King.”⁴

Clernault left for Paris on 11 February, bearing the Council’s letter to Catherine de’ Medici and Mary’s to Archbishop Beaton, the Council having authorised him to answer any questions that the Queen Mother might ask about the murder. That same day, or the next, Moretta left Edinburgh, apparently travelling with Father Hay. With Darnley dead, there was nothing to keep him in Scotland, and Hay’s mission had been an abject failure.

On the morning of 11 February, Mary emerged briefly from her black-hung apartments to attend the wedding of her favoured servant, Margaret Carwood, to John Stewart of Tullipowreis in the chapel royal at Holyrood. Two days before Darnley’s murder, Mary had paid for black satin and velvet for the bride’s wedding gown, and she also paid for the nuptial banquet,⁵although she did not attend it. Her presence at the wedding drew scathing comments from Buchanan, who professed shock that she had emerged from her mourning chamber so soon, and on such a frivolous pretext. Mary may well have been honouring a promise to attend Margaret’s wedding, but in doing so, she displayed poor political judgement.

Later that day, on the advice of her Council, who shared her view that the plot had been directed at her, and were concerned for her security, Mary took the Prince to Edinburgh Castle, and retired into seclusion.⁶In her absence, Bothwell took control of the government and acted as the virtual ruler of Scotland. It was Mary’s misfortune that she misguidedly placed her trust in a man who had conspired to kill her husband, for, as suspicion attached to him, many people would come to deem her guilty by association. In her conviction that she had been the intended victim, Mary would not have credited that the ever-loyal Bothwell could have been involved in Darnley’s murder, but the fact that he and Maitland had broached the matter with her earlier must have given her pause for thought. It is more likely, however, that she suspected Morton, who had had good reason to seek revenge on Darnley. But proving it was another matter.

Nau asserts that “diligent inquiries were made about the murder on all sides, especially by those who were its authors,” but, since the latter were in control, evidence was bound to be suppressed. In his memoir, Bothwell innocently claimed that “some Lords of the Council, fearing lest the Queen and myself should make inquiries respecting them, united themselves and manoeuvred against the Queen and the rest of us, in order to prevent our arriving at any certainty.” It appears to have been Bothwell, however, who was guilty of this. On the afternoon of 11 February, the Council met again, and questioned several more people, including the only independent witnesses, Barbara Merton, Mary Stirling and the surgeon, John Pitcairn,⁷whose evidence was discounted as mere scandal-mongering. Buchanan refers to Mrs. Merton and Mrs. Stirling as “poor silly women, who, when they had blabbed out something more than the judges looked for, were dismissed again as fools that had indiscreetly spoken.” According to Thomas Wilson, “a few poor folks, the next dwelling neighbours to the King’s lodging,” were so intimidated by their august interrogators that they “neither dared tell what they had seen or heard.” The inquiry was then adjourned until the following day.

Atholl, who was a friend of Lennox, had been deeply distressed by Darnley’s murder, for, “among other reasons, he had been the chief worker in the marriage.”⁸But Atholl had other grounds for distress. On the night after the murder, he and his family had been awakened in their Holyrood apartment by a strange noise, which sounded “as if the foundation of the wall were being quietly undermined.” In terror, “they passed the night without sleep,” and the next day, “the Earl moved into the town, and shortly afterwards went home, in fear of his life.”⁹Tullibardine went with him.¹⁰Both men’s loyalties were with the Lennoxes, and Buchanan says that Bothwell and the other Councillors sitting on the commission of inquiry felt that they were probing too deeply for comfort, and, “perceiving the peril, grudged at Atholl and the Comptroller in such sort that it behoved them, for fear of their lives, to leave the court.”

It was probably on 11 February that Lennox, at Linlithgow, received the appalling news of his son’s murder. Later on, he would be in no doubt that the person responsible for it was his daughter-in-law the Queen, “this tyrant, who brought her faithful and most loving husband, that innocent lamb, from his careful and most loving father to the place of execution, where he was a sure sacrifice unto Almighty God.”¹¹We have no record of Lennox’s initial suspicions, however.

Mary wrote to Lennox on the day after the murder, promising him justice, and inviting him to Edinburgh to take part in the inquiry.¹²Her letter is lost, as is his reply. The Book of Articles alleges that she illegally appropriated the earldom of Lennox for her son, as Darnley’s heir, and granted a portion of the lands to Lord Boyd. There is no other evidence for the former, but a gift of the ward of some of the Lennox lands to Boyd appears in the Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland. This can only have increased Lennox’s undoubted animosity towards the Queen.

On 12 February, Darnley’s embalmed body was laid in state before the altar of the chapel royal at Holyrood,¹³and the Councillors resumed their inquiry. Mary later informed her European allies that she “could not but marvel at the little diligence they used, and that they looked at one another as men who wist not what to say or do.”¹⁴She expected them to take a more vigorous approach to tracking down the murderers, but since they already knew who had killed Darnley, there was little point in prolonging the inquiry. Buchanan says “there was in the days following [the murder] more travail for the inquisition of certain money stolen from Margaret [Carwood] nor [than] for the King’s murder recently committed.” He added that “further examination was postponed, or rather the affair was dropped altogether, for they feared that if they proceeded further, secrets of the court would be revealed to the people.”¹⁵

However, the Council did, on that same day, issue a proclamation in the Queen’s name, and perhaps at her behest, offering a handsome reward of £2,000 Scots, “an honest yearly rent” and even a free pardon to anyone identifying Darnley’s murderers. “The Queen’s Majesty,” it read, “unto whom of all others the case was most grievous, would rather lose life and all that it should remain unpunished.” The proclamation was signed by Argyll, and fixed to the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh by a herald.¹⁶

That day, Clernault passed through Berwick. Soon afterwards, Drury sent Joseph Lutini back to Edinburgh. Mary had no further interest in pursuing inquiries into his conduct, so Bothwell gave him thirty pieces of silver and sent him away rejoicing. Three days later, Sandy Durham was awarded a post at court and a pension, payment no doubt for services rendered to Bothwell on the night of Darnley’s murder.¹⁷

In Paris, Mondovi was fretting about the delay in Father Hay’s arrival. The Nuncio had not yet abandoned hope of a Catholic revival in Scotland, but the Pope was now insisting that he return to his See, and he wanted to see Hay before he left France. He was also expecting to receive Hay’s written account of his visit to Scotland—he could not yet have heard about Darnley’s murder—but it had not so far arrived, and may never have done so, for no record of it exists. Mondovi hoped to receive an encouraging report from Hay that would pave the way for he himself to go to Scotland, and it was for this reason that he was reluctant to leave Paris. But on 17 February, Pope Pius, having given up hope that Mondovi’s mission would succeed, recalled him.¹⁸

Robert Melville, having left for London a day or so before Darnley’s murder for the purpose of entering into the all-important negotiations concerning the English succession, heard about Kirk o’Field on his way south and immediately returned to Edinburgh to obtain further news and fresh instructions. When he arrived on 13 or 14 February, Mary was “too much distressed” to receive him, “but had ordered him to continue his journey as he had been previously instructed,”¹⁹so, armed with an official account of the murder furnished him by the Council, he set off again for London at once.

But the news had already reached the English court by means of Cecil’s spies, for on 14 February, Mr. Secretary informed de Silva that Queen Elizabeth was aware of Darnley’s assassination. De Silva reported, “The Queen expresses sorrow at the death of the King, and she thinks that, although he married against her wish, yet, as he was a royal personage and her cousin, the case is a very grave one, and she signifies her intention to punish the offenders.” Soon afterwards, de Silva noticed that Elizabeth, realising that she herself was vulnerable to a similar fate, had ordered the keys to all the doors of her apartments to be removed from the locks and the men guarding her to be vetted.²⁰

Moretta, and perhaps Hay, passed through Berwick on 14 February,²¹and it was on this day that Drury reported that Mary had to hand letters and ciphers from the Cardinal of Lorraine and de Alava warning her to take heed of whom she trusted with her secrets and that her husband would shortly be slain. These warnings are similar to that in Archbishop Beaton’s letter urging Mary to be on her guard, but Drury was probably reporting garbled rumours, for he could not have had access to Mary’s private correspondence, and nor could Moretta.

Late in the evening of 15 February, Darnley was buried in the royal vault of James V in the chapel royal at Holyrood.²²This was a beautiful sanctuary, with stained glass windows, rich hangings, oak furnishings and a carved, gilded and ribbed ceiling with pendants. But the Book of Articlesclaims that the body was, “without any decent order, cast in the earth without any ceremony or company of honest men,” while the Historie of James the Sext says that the funeral was conducted “quietly, without any kind of solemnity or mourning.” Buchanan also alleges that Mary had Darnley buried beside Rizzio, as she had promised after the latter’s murder, but he was in fact buried next to her father. The vitriol in these accounts probably stems from the fact that Darnley was buried according to Catholic rites; Leslie states that his interment was ill-attended because so many of the nobles were Protestants. The Diurnal of Occurrents and Birrel both confirm that the funeral was quiet. Custom precluded the monarch attending the obsequies of a consort, so the Queen’s absence was not remarked upon.

Lennox and Buchanan claimed that Darnley’s “armour, horse and household stuff were bestowed upon the murderers” by the Queen, and Buchanan adds that “a certain tailor [Dalgleish?], when he was to re-form the King’s apparel to Bothwell, said jestingly he acknowledged here the custom of the country, by which the clothes of the dead fall to the hangman.” Had Mary been guilty of Darnley’s murder, she would surely not have been so stupid as to openly reward her partner in guilt in this way, and it seems likelier that she felt that Bothwell was more deserving of these rich perquisites than anyone else.

On 15 February, du Croc reached Dover, where he was overtaken by “an express messenger sent him by the French ambassador with the Queen of England” who informed him of the deaths of Darnley and Lennox and delivered “an urgent commission to use all speed” to return to the French court and be the first to communicate the news.²³That day or the next, du Croc sailed for France.

Robert Melville, en route to London, received word from his brother James that Lennox had left Linlithgow by 16 February and returned to Glasgow. It seems strange that Lennox did not go to Edinburgh to pay his respects to his dead son, but he probably felt he would have been putting himself in danger by doing so. Nor had he any idea how much the Queen or others knew about his involvement in Darnley’s plots.

Mary was apparently in no fit state to receive anyone. By 16 February, there was serious concern for her health, and it may be that the reality and horror of Darnley’s death and its implications had finally come home to her. Her dreadful illness of October and November was still fresh in everyone’s minds, and it was understood that being shut up in black-shrouded rooms was not conducive to her well-being. She herself would have “a longer time in this lamentable wise continued had she not been most earnestly dehorted by the vehement exhortations and persuasions of her Council, who were moved thereto by her physicians’ informations, declaring to them the great and imminent dangers of her health and life if she did not, in all speed, break up and leave that kind of close and solitary life, and repair to some good, open and wholesome air, which she did, being thus advised and earnestly thereto solicited by her said Council.”²⁴Mary’s emergence from mourning so soon after her husband’s death was later to attract scathing criticism from Buchanan, who asserted that she had “brazenly resisted the comments of the people” in doing so. But this is not borne out by the contemporary evidence.

On 16 February, Mary went to Seton,²⁵which had proved a refuge before. She took with her Maitland, Livingston, Archbishop Hamilton and an entourage of one hundred persons, having left the Prince in Edinburgh Castle in the care of Bothwell and Huntly.²⁶Captain Cullen is said to have been one of those guarding the Queen at Seton.²⁷

Drury, whose source is unknown, reported that Mary led a gay and care-free life at Seton, but his information was probably inaccurate, for he also claimed that the Queen and Bothwell visited Dunbar on 17 February, which is untrue.²⁸However, Mary’s enemies were later to make up all kinds of scurrilous tales about her visit to Seton. Buchanan and Knox alleged that Bothwell was with her there and “never absent from her side,” and that the Queen spent her time “plainly abusing her body with Bothwell” or in going out “to the fields to behold games and pastimes,” shoot at the butts and play golf or pell-mell. Buchanan claimed, with vicious irony, that Bothwell was “given a chamber next to the kitchen, yet this was not entirely unsuitable for assuaging their sorrow, for it was directly beneath the Queen’s chamber, and if any sudden wave of grief overcame her, there was a stair which was wide enough for Bothwell to get up to console her.”²⁹Bothwell, of course, was in Edinburgh at the time.

Clernault arrived in London on 16 February, and there wrote his report of Darnley’s murder, which concluded, “It has not been discovered, still less is it known, who is the author of it.” A copy of the report was left with Cecil, whose clerk endorsed it.³⁰

That night, the first of a number of accusatory and defamatory placards was pinned to the door of the Tolbooth in Edinburgh; its anonymous author claimed to have “made inquisition by them that were the doers thereof” and affirmed that “the committers” of Darnley’s murder were Bothwell, Balfour, David Chalmers and one Black John Spens, “who was the principal deviser of the murder, the Queen assenting thereto, through the persuasion of the Earl of Bothwell and the withchcraft” of Bothwell’s former mistress, Janet Beaton, the Lady of Buccleuch. “And if this be not true, [ask] Gilbert Balfour,” brother of James.³¹Drury reported the appearance of this placard to Cecil on 19 February, saying that it was written as if by the Queen and stated, “I and the Earl of Bothwell were doers of the [murder].”³²

John Spens was the Queen’s Advocate;³³he was later arrested for Darnley’s murder, but his role in the conspiracy is unknown. In the “Notes concerning David Chambers” [sic] preserved amongst Cecil’s papers at Hatfield, and probably collated by one of his agents during Mary’s captivity in England, it is claimed that Chalmers “was a great dealer betwixt the Queen and Bothwell”—it will be remembered that Buchanan claimed they had used his lodging as a trysting place—which “gave cause to my Lord Lennox in his letters to the Queen to accuse David as culpable and participant in the murder of the King his son.” On 17 March, Lennox did name Chalmers as a party to Darnley’s murder, but there is no other evidence of his involvement.

On 17 February, de Silva informed Philip II of that same murder. He had waited three days since being told the news by Cecil in case word came that the murderers had been apprehended, “but no news has come as to who had been the author of the crime.” “The case is a very strange one,” he wrote, “and has greatly grieved the Catholics. I think that more must be known than Cecil tells me, because when I sent to ask him if he had any further particulars, he told me he had not but we should soon know more because the Earl of Moray was coming hither, and two gentlemen also whom the Queen of Scotland was sending respectively to France and England, who would no doubt bring further details.” That night, Cecil received his spy’s drawing of the murder scene at Kirk o’Field.

The two gentlemen whom Mary was sending respectively to London and Paris were Robert Melville and Sebastien Pagez. Pagez left Edinburgh, in the company of M. Dolu, Mary’s Treasurer for her French dowry, on 18 February,³⁴bearing letters from the Queen to Archbishop Beaton, Mondovi and Queen Elizabeth, although there is no trace of the latter letter or any reply.³⁵

Mary was still at Seton when, on 18 February, a letter in Scots was sent in her name to Archbishop Beaton thanking him “heartily” for his letter of warning and touching on various other matters. It was either dictated by Mary or sent by Maitland or her Council. It explained that, when she wrote to the Archbishop immediately after Darnley’s death, she had been so grievous and tormented, we could not make you answer [to] the particular heads of your letter . . . Alas, your message came too late, and there was over-good cause to have given us such warning. Even the very morning before your servant’s arrival was the horrible and treasonable act against the King’s person, that may well appear to have been conspired against ourselves, the circumstances of the matter being considered; whereupon, at this present, we will be no more tedious, abiding until God manifest the authors to the world. For knowledge thereof, neither we nor our Council shall spare the travail that possibly may be made, wherethrough truth may come to light, and therein is our chief care and study at this present.³⁶

On that night, or the next, a second placard appeared in Edinburgh, denouncing three of Mary’s foreign servants—Sebastien Pagez, Joseph Rizzio and Francisco de Busso—as Darnley’s murderers. Clearly, Mary’s presence was needed in the capital, and on the 19th she returned from Seton to Holyrood.³⁷

That day, Queen Elizabeth sent Lady William Howard and Mildred Cooke, Lady Cecil to the Tower of London to gently break the news of Darnley’s death to his mother,³⁸who was still a prisoner. They also, in good faith, told her that Lennox had been murdered with him. Lady Lennox was so overcome with grief that the ladies feared for her sanity, and, within the hour, after hearing their report, the Queen sent her own physician, Dr. Robert Huick, and the Dean of Westminster, to calm the stricken Countess. Later that day, Cecil learned that Lennox was not dead, and sent a messenger to the Tower to convey this news to Lady Lennox, but she remained inconsolable. Cecil told de Silva she “could not be kept by any means from such passion of mind as the horribleness of the fact did require.”³⁹

Robert Melville arrived in London that night,⁴⁰and was immediately admitted to the Queen’s presence so that he could give her the official account of Darnley’s murder, which was that the conspirators had planned to kill Mary but that she had, by a lucky chance, avoided death. De Silva sought out Melville and “asked him certain questions to try and get at the bottom of the suspicions as to who had been the author of the crime, but could get nothing definite. Even if the Queen clears herself from it, the matter is still obscure.” Clearly there was already speculation in London that Mary had had a hand in Darnley’s death, for de Silva added, “The heretics here publish the Queen’s complicity as a fact, but they are helped in their belief by their suspicion and dislike for her. The Catholics are divided, the friends of the King holding with the Queen’s guilt, and her adherents to the contrary. However it may be, this event will give birth to others, and it is quite possible that this Queen [Elizabeth] may take the opportunity of disturbing the Scots, more for her own ends than for any love she bore the King.”⁴¹In his speculations, de Silva displayed an acute grasp of the situation.

Du Croc arrived in Paris on 19 February,⁴²and was the first to convey a report of the murders of Darnley and Lennox to Charles IX, Catherine de’ Medici and Mondovi. The next day, Cecil informed Sir Henry Norris, the English ambassador in Paris, that Lennox had not after all been killed.

Buchanan says that the regicides were already disturbed by the accusations that were beginning to be levelled at them, “but the numerous complaints of the Earl of Lennox disturbed them more. He dared not come to court on account of the overweening power and licence of Bothwell, but he bombarded the Queen with letters.” The second was sent on 20 February from Houston Castle, Renfrewshire, and read:

Notwithstanding the travail and labour which I perceive Your Majesty takes for the just trial of this last cruel act, and yet the offenders not being known, to my great grief I am therefore forced, by nature and duty, to be so bold as to give Your Majesty my poor and simple advice for bringing the matter to light: which is, to beseech Your Majesty most humbly, for God’s cause and the honour of Your Majesty and this your realm, that Your Highness would, with convenient diligence, assemble the whole nobility and estates of Your Majesty’s realm, and they, by your advice, to take such good order for the perfect trial of the matter, as I doubt not, with the grace of Almighty God, His Holy Spirit shall so work upon the hearts of Your Majesty and all your faithful subjects, as the bloody and cruel actors of this deed shall be manifestly known. And although I need not to put Your Majesty in remembrance thereof, the matter touching Your Majesty so near as it does, yet I shall humbly desire Your Highness to bear with me in troubling Your Highness therein, being the father to him that is gone.⁴³

It might be inferred from this letter that Lennox felt that Mary was not doing enough to seek out and punish the murderers. The reference to her honour is quite pointed.

The distraught Lady Lennox was released from the Tower on compassionate grounds on 21 February, and placed in the house and care of Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, Sir Richard Sackville; her surviving son Charles, a boy of about twelve, was allowed to join her there. De Silva heard from Robert Melville that the Countess “used words against his Queen [Mary], whereat I am not surprised, as I told him, because grief like this distracts the most prudent people, much more one so sorely beset. She is not the only person that suspects the Queen to have had some hand in the business, and they think they see in it revenge for her Italian secretary; and the long estrangement which this caused between her and her husband gave a greater opportunity for evil persons to increase the trouble.”⁴⁴In the weeks to come, Lady Lennox would not cease to bombard Queen Elizabeth and de Silva with demands for vengeance on the killers of her adored son.

Cecil noted that the news of Darnley’s private burial caused great indignation in London: it was felt that, as King of Scots, he had deserved all the pageantry of a state funeral, and the fact that Mary had not accorded him one fuelled people’s suspicions.

Not everyone suspected Mary. On 21 February, after speaking with du Croc, Giovanni Correr, the Venetian ambassador in Paris, concluded with great perspicacity that, “until further advices are received, this assassination is considered to be the work of the heretics, who desire to do the same to the Queen, in order to bring up the Prince in their doctrines, and thus more firmly establish their own religion to the exclusion of ours.”⁴⁵

By 21 February, Mary was back at Seton,⁴⁶and this time Bothwell was in attendance on her. Buchanan later asserted that “Seton had so many conveniences that they had to go back there, to the detriment of their reputations.” When Queen Elizabeth heard an unfounded rumour that Mary was exercising herself in shooting, golf and pell-mell with Bothwell, Huntly and Lord Seton, she refused to believe it, which was probably wise of her, for, according to Robert Melville, who had had the news from his brother James, Mary had gone “to Seton to repose there and take some purgations,”⁴⁷which is evidence enough that she was unwell. Mental stress often had an adverse effect on her physical health.

From Seton, on the 21st, Mary wrote a warm letter in reply to Lennox: We have received your letter giving us thanks for the accepting of your goodwill and counsel in so good part, in that we did only that which was right. And in showing you all the pleasure and goodwill that we can, we do but our duty and that which natural affection may compel us unto. Always of that ye may assure yourself.

And for the assembly of the estates, it is indeed convenient that such should be, and even shortly before the receipt of your letter, we had caused proclaim a Parliament, at the which we doubt not but you all for the most part shall be present, where first of all this matter, being most dear to us, shall be handled, and nothing left undone which may further the clear trial of the same. And we, for our own part, as we ought, and all noble men likewise, we doubt not, shall most willingly direct all our wits and judgements to this end.⁴⁸

On 22 February, de Silva had an audience with Queen Elizabeth, “principally to speak about Scottish affairs and find out her opinion with regard to them. She spoke of the matter with much apparent sorrow, and said she thought it very extraordinary, but cannot believe the Queen of Scotland can be to blame for so dreadful a thing, notwithstanding the murmurs of the people. I told her I thought the rumours were set afoot by people who desire to injure her and make her odious in this country in respect to this succession, but I agreed with her that the thing was incredible. She tells me she had already taken precautions, by certain signs and words she had used, to exculpate the Queen of Scots.”⁴⁹

Two days later, Moretta arrived in London and de Silva took the opportunity of sounding him out about Darnley’s death. “His account of the matter is almost the same as that published, although he makes certain additions, which point to suspicion that the Queen knew of, or consented to, the plot. When I asked him what he thought, or had been able to gather as to the Queen’s share in it, he did not condemn her in words, but did not exonerate her at all. He thinks, however, that all will soon be known, and even gives signs that he knows more than he likes to say.”⁵⁰Had Moretta been hoodwinked by Balfour into believing that Mary knew about the conspiracy? If so, such sensational allegations would certainly have deflected public attention from the real murderers.

It is unlikely that Moretta had a chance to speak with Elizabeth, but she had read Drury’s reports, and public opinion in England was becoming so vociferous against Mary that, on 24 February, the English Queen felt she had to offer urgent advice to her sister monarch; she wrote her an unusually frank letter, couched in far more forthright terms than she normally used. Even her customary greeting, “Ma chère soeur,” was omitted.

Madam,

My ears have been so astounded, my mind so disturbed and my heart so frightened to hear of the horrible and abominable murder of your late husband and my slaughtered cousin, that I have scarcely spirit to write; and however I would express my sympathy in your sorrow for his loss, so, to tell you plainly, I cannot conceal that I grieve more for you than for him.

O, Madam, I should ill fulfill the office of a faithful cousin or an affectionate friend if I did not urge you to preserve your honour. I cannot but tell you what all the world is thinking. Men say that, instead of seizing the murderers, you are looking through your fingers while they escape; that you will not seek revenge on those who have done you so much pleasure, as though the deed would never have taken place had not the doers of it been assured of impunity.

For myself, I beg you to believe that I would not harbour such a thought for all the wealth of the world, nor would I entertain in my heart so ill a guest, or think so badly of any prince that breathes. Far less could I so think of you, to whom I desire all imaginable good and all blessings which you yourself could wish for. For this very reason, I exhort, I counsel, I beg you deeply to consider of the matter—at once, if it be the nearest friend you have, to lay your hands upon the man who has been guilty of the crime; to let no interest, no persuasion, keep you from proving to everyone that you are a noble princess and a loyal wife. I write thus vehemently not that I doubt, but for affection. You may have wiser counsellors than I am, but even Our Lord, as I remember, had a Judas among the twelve; while I am sure that you have no friend more true than I, and my affection may stand you in as good stead as the subtle wits of others.⁵¹

The references to Mary not fearing to proceed even against her nearest friend and a Judas among the twelve almost certainly point to Bothwell. Elizabeth was to a degree sincere in her advice to her fellow sovereign, for she was quick to perceive the damage that scurrilous rumours could do to her cousin’s reputation. In Elizabeth’s opinion, Mary was not taking vigorous enough action to track down the murderers, which was the only way to counteract the gossip. However, Elizabeth’s greatest concern was that, if Mary’s honour was impugned because of her apparent passivity, the prestige of queens regnant in general would be tarnished, justifying the prejudices of many who believed women unfit to rule. And if Mary’s subjects took it upon themselves to depose her, an even more alarming precedent would be set.

Catherine de’ Medici took the same view as Elizabeth, and wrote to Mary in a similar vein. Her private opinion was that the Queen of Scots was well rid of her young fool of a husband, but she warned her that she must find and prosecute his killers expeditiously and ruthlessly in order to proclaim her own innocence in the eyes of her subjects. Catherine had never liked Mary, and, unlike Elizabeth, pointedly sent no envoy to express the condolences of the French government on her sad loss.

It is often said that Mary did not heed the wise advice of these two seasoned stateswomen, but it is difficult to see what else she could have done to pursue the murderers, in the absence of any substantial evidence or willing informers. She had entrusted the investigation of the matter to her Councillors (little realising that many of them had a vested interest in preventing the crime being solved), issued a proclamation offering a handsome reward to anyone identifying the murderers, and summoned Parliament to debate the next steps in the inquiry—Melville reported on 26 February that it had been proclaimed for 14 April.⁵²It was in the interests of her enemies, however, for people to believe the worst of her.

Reports of Mary’s conduct, false though they may have been, did not help matters. On 26 February, according to Drury,⁵³she dined at Lord Seton’s house at Tranent in East Lothian, “where he and the Earl of Huntly paid for the dinner, the Queen and the Earl Bothwell having, at a match of shooting, won the same of them.” Drury may yet again have got his facts wrong, for on the day that Mary was supposed to have been at Tranent she was in fact unwell,⁵⁴but the damage had been done. This was not, people felt, the behaviour expected of a woman who was supposed to be in mourning.

On 26 February, Robert Melville reported to Cecil that Pagez and Dolu had arrived in London with Mary’s lost letter to Elizabeth, and said he had had no word himself from the Queen. He had heard that Prince James had been moved to Holyrood, and that Atholl and Tullibardine had departed to the country but had immediately been recalled to Edinburgh under pain of the penalty for rebellion.⁵⁵Clearly, Bothwell and Maitland were taking steps to prevent them joining forces with Lennox.

That same day, Lennox, who was too agitated to wait for Parliament to meet, fearing that by then any trails would have gone cold, wrote again to Mary with what seemed a very reasonable request:

I render most humble thanks unto Your Majesty for your gracious and comfortable letter. I hear of certain tickets [placards] that have been put on the Tolbooth door of Edinburgh, answering Your Majesty’s first and second proclamations, which name in special certain devisers of the cruel murder. I therefore most humbly beseech Your Majesty, for the love of God [and] the honour of Your Majesty and your realm, that it may please Your Majesty not only to apprehend and put in sure keeping the persons named in the said tickets, but also with diligence to assemble Your Majesty’s nobility, and then, by open proclamation, to admonish and require the writers of the said tickets to compare [i.e., come forward and confront those named], according to the effect thereof. At which time, if they do not, Your Majesty may, by the advice of your nobility and Council, relieve and put to liberty the persons in the tickets aforesaid. So shall Your Majesty do an honourable and godly act in bringing the matter to such a narrow point, as either the matter shall appear plainly before Your Majesty, to the punishment of those who have been the actors of this cruel deed, or else the said tickets to be found vain of themselves, and the persons who are slandered to be exonerated and put to liberty.⁵⁶

In effect, however, Lennox was asking Mary to arrest people—among them members of her Council and her personal servants—on the highly dubious evidence of persons unknown. His request placed her in an impossible dilemma, for if she did as he wished, she would be violating the law, but if she refused to do so, she would be accused of failing in her duty to pursue her husband’s killers.

Balfour returned to Edinburgh on the night of the 26th, accompanied by thirty horsemen. He came furtively and, according to Drury, “when he was near unto the town, he alighted and came in a secret way. He is hateful to the people.”⁵⁷Evidently rumours about Balfour’s involvement in Darnley’s murder were spreading as a result of the first placard, and Balfour must have heard about them. The next day, however, Drury heard that another placard had appeared during the night, “where were these letters written in Roman hand, very great, M.R., with a sword in hand near the same letters; then an L.B. [for Lord Bothwell?] with a mallet near them.”⁵⁸Increasingly, Mary’s subjects were linking her with Bothwell and Darnley’s death. In Scotland, “Bothwell was much suspected of this villainous and detestable murder, and the impression was strengthened by the many evil reports circulated about him.”⁵⁹The same thing, to a lesser degree, was happening with Mary, and the favour she had hitherto shown to Bothwell was subject to the most unfavourable interpretations.

On the morning after the placard had appeared, a furious Bothwell appeared in Edinburgh “and openly affirmed, by his oath, that if he knew who were the setters up of the bills and writings, he would wash his hands in their blood. His followers, who are to the number of fifty, follow him very near. Their gesture, as his, is of the people much noted. They seem to go near and about him, as though there were [those] who would harm him; and his hand, as he talks with any that is not assured unto him, upon his dagger, with a strange countenance.”⁶⁰

Clernault arrived in Paris on 27 February and delivered his detailed account of Darnley’s murder. He also spoke with Mondovi and, that same day, the Nuncio sent to Rome a more accurate account of what had occurred at Kirk o’Field. On the 27th or 28th, Elizabeth dispatched Sir Henry Killigrew once more to Scotland to convey her letter to Mary with letters to the Scottish Council. Ostensibly he had come to express Elizabeth’s sympathy on her cousin’s loss, but the real purpose of his mission was to gain an insight into the true state of affairs in Scotland. Leslie later referred to him as “a spy, or rather, a traitor, under the guise of an ambassador,” and Mahon even suggests that he had come to incite the Scots Lords to rebel against and depose their ineffectual but dynastically dangerous Queen, who was showing such favour to Bothwell, a known enemy to England. It may be significant that little is known of Killigrew’s activities in Scotland, and nothing of what he reported to the English government on his return.

Three more placards appeared on church doors, one posted to the door of the Tron House, on the 28th; this referred to a smith who had agreed to testify that he had made the counterfeit keys to Darnley’s lodging. Drury, reporting this to Cecil, also mentioned he had been informed “by divers means” that the Countess of Bothwell was “extremely sick and not likely to live. They will say there she is marvellously swollen.” The innuendo was clear: Cecil was to infer that the Countess Jean had been poisoned by her husband. Drury added, incorrectly, that Balfour had left Edinburgh after the first placard appeared, but of course he had gone just before Darnley’s murder.

According to Drury, Mary had sent twice to Moray, asking him to return to court, for she greatly needed his advice and support at this time, but he, along with Morton and Lindsay, had been meeting secretly with Atholl and Caithness at Dunkeld.⁶¹This fledgling coalition of Protestants and Catholics is a measure of how strongly opinion was polarising against Bothwell. Mondovi heard later that “the Earl of Moray, having been called by Her Majesty, would not go.”⁶²Instead, he sent to tell her that “he stayeth himself by my Lady in her sickness.”⁶³The fact that he had left his wife to go to Dunkeld indicates how sick she actually was.

From late February onwards, the placard and smear campaign gained momentum. Bills were posted to St. Giles’s Kirk, the Tolbooth, the Mercat Cross, “the courthouse, on church doors, in the streets, at the crossroads”⁶⁴ and even on the gates of Holyrood itself. Some bore crude portraits of Bothwell and the legends, “Who is the King’s murderer?” or “Here is the murderer of the King.”⁶⁵Another doggerel rehearsed the crimes of “Bloody Bothwell.”

Naturally, wild rumours began circulating. One had it that, on the night of the murder, a mysterious figure had flitted through the streets of Edinburgh and aroused four of Atholl’s men, supposedly to warn them of the foul deed about to be committed. It was said that a dying man had seen a vision of Darnley being slain, and that one of Bothwell’s servants had been secretly murdered after hysterically denouncing his master as the King’s killer.⁶⁶ “Everybody suspected the Earl of Bothwell, and those who durst speak freely to others said plainly that it was he,” wrote Melville, while, according to Buchanan, “no one now doubted who had planned the crime and who had carried it out.” But, wrote de Silva, although grave suspicion attached to Bothwell, no one dared accuse him openly because of his influence and strength.⁶⁷

The gathering intensity of the campaign suggests that it was carefully coordinated by a group of people committed to bringing down Bothwell and, ultimately, the Queen herself. The success of this propaganda is evident from the rising groundswell of public opinion against Bothwell and Mary, and the feeling that Darnley’s murder had brought “shame to the whole nation.” As the people clamoured for justice and retribution, ministers of the Kirk “prayed openly to God that it will please Him both to reveal and revenge, exhorting all men to prayer and repentance.”⁶⁸The Queen was alarmed by the libels and rumours, but powerless to stop them, for no one knew for certain who was responsible for them. The placards appeared mysteriously overnight, and their impact on an ignorant populace was immense. “The more they were suppressed, the more the people burst forth in their wrath.”⁶⁹

Bothwell himself believed, but could not prove, that “several members of the Council, afraid that the Queen and I might catch up with them, banded together in an effort to obstruct us. They used all manner of trickery, posting up bills and placards at night, casting suspicion on me and my friends.”⁷⁰ Bothwell may well have been correct in his suspicions, for who else knew for certain of his involvement in the murder? As we have seen, he had probably been earmarked from the start as the scapegoat for it. The fact that Drury received prompt information about each placard as it appeared perhaps suggests that there were those in high places who wanted to keep the English government informed about public opinion in Scotland, and it has even been conjectured that the propaganda campaign was orchestrated from England. The Book of Articles claims that “the common people” were responsible for the placards, which is almost certainly an attempt to deflect suspicion from the Lords; some of the placards were undoubtedly written by educated men of letters.

Buchanan was probably correct when he wrote that, “although the conspirators tried to seem contemptuous of these things, they could not hide their uneasiness, so they dropped the investigation of the King’s death and, with much more bitterness, set about pursuing the authors of the libels. They prosecuted the search with great severity, sparing neither expense nor labour. All painters and scriveners were summoned to see if they could possibly detect the authors from the pictures and libels.”

The smear campaign unnerved Hay, who was then with Bothwell at Seton. According to his dying confession, he sensed that he was being shunned for his association with the Earl, and began to suffer agonising qualms of conscience. One day, when they were in private and discussing Darnley’s death, Bothwell asked Hay what he thought “when you saw him blown up.”

“Alas, my Lord,” Hay replied, “Why do you say that? Whenever I hear such a thing, the words wound me to the death, as they should you.”⁷¹It is interesting to note that Bothwell was still under the impression that the explosion had caused Darnley’s death; for obvious reasons, no one had thought to disabuse him of the idea, which strongly suggests that the unlikely coalition of nobles that had formed to bring about Darnley’s murder had already disintegrated. Bothwell may not have realised it, but he was on his own now, and politically isolated.

The Queen, however, seemed determined to stand by Bothwell and defy public opinion. Rashly, on 1 March, she bestowed on him further benefits attached to the sheriffdom of Edinburgh and the bailery of Lauderdale.⁷²But, contrary to what people thought, Bothwell had not grown rich in her service: the fact that he had just had to dispose of some land to raise funds shows that his financial position was as precarious as ever, and this latest gift was no doubt given in order to avoid him suffering further embarrassment. But the timing of it was disastrous.

On 1 March, in the midst of this clamour, Mary, still at Seton, replied in the most reasonable and accommodating manner to Lennox:

We have received your letter, and by the same perceive that you have partly mistaken our late letter sent you the 23rd of February, in that point that we should remit the trial of the odious act committed to the time of a Parliament. We meant not that, but rather would wish to God that it might be suddenly and without delay tried, for the sooner the better, and the greater comfort to us. And where you desire that we should cause the names contained in some tickets affixed on the Tolbooth to be apprehended and put in sure keeping, there is so many of the said tickets, and therewithal so different and contrary to others in counting of the names, that we wot not upon what ticket to proceed. But if there be any names mentioned in them that you think worthy to suffer a trial, upon your advertisement we shall so proceed to the cognition taking, as may stand with the laws of this realm; and, being found culpable, shall see the punishment as rigorously executed as the wickedness of the crime deserves. What other thing you think meet to be done to that purpose we pray you let us understand, and we shall not omit any occasion which may clear the matter.⁷³

Mary was assuring Lennox that she had no intention of deferring the trial of anyone arrested for Darnley’s murder until Parliament met. As to his suggestion, there were far too many people named in the placards for it to be realistic for her to apprehend them all, but if he wished to name those whom he believed guilty, and “if he will stand to the accusation of any of them,” she would authorise a private prosecution,⁷⁴and if this resulted in a conviction, she would ensure that those convicted would be punished. In no sense can she be said to have been protecting Bothwell, for she must have realised that Lennox would name him. In the absence of any evidence, she herself was powerless to summon any suspect to answer before Parliament.

On the night after Mary wrote this letter, the most notorious and damning of all the placards appeared in Edinburgh. It depicted a bare-breasted and crowned mermaid—a mermaid then being a symbol for a siren or prostitute—holding a whip above a hare surrounded by swords; the mermaid was undoubtedly meant to be the Queen, while the hare was Bothwell’s heraldic device. The mermaid was protecting the hare with a whip, but none dared approach it anyway because of the threatening swords. There were two versions of this placard: one is coloured, the other uncoloured with a Latin motto that translates as, “Destruction awaits the wicked on every side.” This motto was taken from a book that may well have been given to Darnley by his uncle, John Stuart, Lord d’Aubigny,⁷⁵and its use suggests that adherents of the Lennoxes were involved in the smear campaign.

The contents of the earlier placards were by now notorious in London, and on 1 March de Silva wrote to King Philip: “Every day it becomes clearer that the Queen must take steps to prove that she had no hand in the death of her husband, if she is to prosper in her claims to the succession here.”⁷⁶ Soon, rumours of Bothwell’s guilt had spread to Paris, Madrid and Venice.

Given the mounting crisis, Moray could no longer delay his return to Edinburgh, and he arrived back in early March—certainly before the 8th,⁷⁷and perhaps by the 3rd, when Forster reported to Cecil that Moray had had Balfour imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. This cannot be correct, as Balfour attended a meeting of the Privy Council on 11 March.⁷⁸

There had still been no reaction from Philip II to Darnley’s death. The French ambassador to Spain wrote to the Queen Mother on 3 and 5 March, but said nothing of how the King had received the news, which may indicate that Philip had his own opinions on the matter but did not wish to criticise a Catholic monarch or prejudice Mary’s succession in England.

Pagez arrived in Paris early in March and presented Mary’s letters to Archbishop Beaton and Mondovi.⁷⁹Soon after his arrival, de Alava reported to King Philip that it was the opinion of many that it was the Queen of Scots who had got rid of Darnley, who would otherwise have killed her. However, de Alava seems not to have believed this, for he had heard from Archbishop Beaton that the murder was controlled from England, where the intention had been to kill the Queen as well.⁸⁰

On 5 March, Killigrew reached Edinburgh with Elizabeth’s letter for Mary,⁸¹who was still at Seton; although she was far from well, she returned to Edinburgh before the 7th in order to welcome him. Buchanan implies that she would not see him immediately because “he arrived too unseasonably ere the stage had been set: the windows open, the candles not yet lit, and all the other apparatus for the play unprepared.” Yet it would not have taken too long for Mary’s mourning chamber to be prepared in this way, for it had been done very quickly on the morning after Darnley’s death, so Buchanan’s allegation seems purely malicious, and it is far more likely that Mary was too exhausted by the ten-mile ride from Seton to make the effort to receive an ambassador with the proper ceremony.

The next day, Killigrew was entertained to dinner by Moray, with Huntly, Argyll, Maitland and Bothwell—who had all been involved in Darnley’s murder—among the guests, and was afterwards conducted to his audience with the Queen. She received him in a chamber so dark that he could not see her face, “but by her words she seemed very doleful, and accepted my sovereign’s letters and message in very thankful manner. I hope for her answer in two days, which I think will gratify the Queen’s Majesty.”⁸²In the event, Elizabeth had to wait rather longer for her answer.

Mahon speculated that someone impersonated Mary on this occasion, but there is no reason to think that, and anyway Killigrew had met her before and would have known her voice. He himself did not question the identity of the woman who received him. The fact that Mary was in a darkened chamber and, according to Buchanan, in bed, is proof that she was still in low spirits and observing her forty days of mourning, and suggests that she had kept the convention whilst at Seton.

In Edinburgh, Killigrew found “great suspicions and no proof, nor appearance of apprehension yet, although I am made believe I shall before I depart hence”; he also detected “a general misliking among the commons and others, which abhor the detestable murder of their King.” He met three of Darnley’s servants, Anthony Standen, Thomas Nelson and Henry Gwynn, who were hoping to return to England as soon as they could obtain passports. Killigrew also noted that Lennox was still in Glasgow, “where he thinks himself safe, as a man of his told me,” among his friends.⁸³

Mary’s failure, or inability, to deal with the problems confronting her was becoming increasingly manifest. On 8 March, de Silva, who had apparently sent Mary a note warning her of a plot against her—probably the same one that had prompted de Alava to warn Beaton—wrote to Philip II expressing surprise that she had not acknowledged it.⁸⁴Around the same time, Lennox wrote to Cecil asking him to urge Elizabeth to avenge “the shedding of Her Highness’s own innocent blood”;⁸⁵it was obvious that he had no faith in Mary doing so. By now, having suffered Elizabeth’s outrage and Lady Lennox’s importunings, Cecil had had enough of the Scottish crisis, and on 11 March he told Drury he desired nothing more than to resign.⁸⁶

Mondovi, however, was still optimistic about Mary. After talking with Pagez, he reported to Rome that the Queen of Scots would now execute the purpose urged on her, which was the deaths of the six leading Scottish Protestant Lords.⁸⁷This was a strange about-turn, and perhaps Pagez was taking rather much upon himself, or Mary had her suspicions as to who was responsible for Darnley’s murder. But there is no evidence that she was intending at this time to proceed against anyone for any cause, and it may be that Mondovi had drawn the wrong conclusion from his talk with Pagez.

Certainly Archbishop Beaton was deeply concerned about the rumours linking Mary to Darnley’s death, and was moved to unusual frankness and forcefulness in his reply to Mary’s letters of 20 January and 10 and 18 February, which displays remarkable prescience. After insisting that he had known nothing of the questionable activities of his servants Hiegait and Walker, he referred to “the horrible, mischievous and strange enterprise and execution of the King’s Majesty, who, by craft of men has so violently been shortened of his days,” and came straight to the point:

Of this deed, if I would write all that is spoken here and also in England by [of] the dishonour of the nobility, mistrust and treason of your whole subjects, yea, that yourself is greatly and wrongfully calumniated to be the motive principal of the whole of all, and all done by your command, I can conclude nothing [except] that Your Majesty writes to me yourself, that, since it has pleased God to preserve you to take a vigorous vengeance thereof, that, rather than that it be not actually taken, it appears to me better in this world that you had lost life and all.

As Elizabeth I and Catherine de’ Medici had done, Beaton exhorted Mary to forth-show, now, rather than ever of before, the great virtue, magnanimity and constancy that God has granted you, by Whose grace I hope you shall overcome this most heavy envy and displeasure of the committing thereof, and preserve that reputation in all godliness you have gained of long, which can appear no ways more clearly than that you do such justice as the whole world may declare your innocence, and give testimony for ever of their treason that has committed, without fear of God or man, so cruel and ungodly a murder, whereof there is so much evil spoken that I am constrained to ask you mercy that neither can I nor will I make the rehearsal thereof, which is ever odious. But alas, Madam, this day, all over Europe, there is no subject in head so frequent as of Your Majesty and of the present estate of your realm, which is for the most part interpreted sinisterly.

Beaton’s warning could not have been more candid, and when she got this letter, Mary would know that he had told her the truth and spoken out in her interests. Other letters of his show that he thought her innocent.⁸⁸

The Archbishop added:

I did thank the ambassador of Spain on your behalf of the advertisement he had made you, suppose it came too late, who yet has desired you to remember Your Majesty that yet he is informed and advertised by the same means as he was of before, that there is yet some notable enterprise against you, wherewith he wishes you to beware in time. I write this far with great regret, by reason I can come in no ways to the knowledge of any particular from his master.⁸⁹

De Alava’s source was well informed, yet the question must be asked: did the Lords intend any harm to Mary, and how far had they proceeded in their plotting?

It is highly unlikely that Mary had been their intended victim at Kirk o’Field, but almost certain that they had meant to pin the whole responsibility for the crime on Bothwell and thus destroy him. Mary’s trust in Bothwell, and her elevation of him to the position of her chief adviser, was anathema to the Lords, especially Moray. The major crises of Mary’s reign—the Chaseabout Raid and the murders of Rizzio and Darnley—had arisen as a result of threats to Moray’s political dominance, and now here was Bothwell, posing yet another threat. It should not be forgotten that, as well as plotting Rizzio’s murder, the Protestant Lords had planned to imprison their Catholic Queen and rule in the name of her child. Mary’s continuing refusal or inability to proceed against Bothwell for Darnley’s murder, which is what the Lords had probably intended all along, must have gone some way towards sealing her fate, and the mounting public opprobrium against her would have given grounds for a growing conviction that she was not fit to reign.