24

“THIS TRAGEDY WILL END IN THE QUEEN’S PERSON”

MARY SPENT TWENTY-FOUR DESPERATE hours in the Black Turnpike, with the Darnley banner positioned across the street, level with her window, in silent reproach.¹The Lords had invited her to join them for supper, but she could eat nothing. Her room was sparsely furnished, and she was denied the services of her female attendants. Instead, there were guards outside the door and two more sitting in her room, who would not leave even when she wished to relieve herself. Exhausted though she was, she found it hard to sleep. Finally, she gave way to despair. On the morning of 16 June, she appeared at the window in an hysterical state, with her bodice undone, her breasts exposed and her tangled hair loose, and with “piteous lamentations” made a distraught appeal for help to the citizens who had gathered below. Some were shocked, some disapproving, some screamed insults, but many were “moved to pity and compassion.” Seeing this, the guards pulled Mary away from the window.²

Later, the Queen espied Maitland making his way through the crowds. According to one account, when she pleaded with him to come up and speak with her, he would not look at her and pulled his hat down over his eyes; Nau, however, recounts an interview between them, and Maitland himself later told du Croc that he had seen the Queen.

Nau says that, throughout the interview, Maitland was so full of shame that he did not once dare to raise his eyes and look her in the face. He told her that it was suspected and feared that she meant to thwart the execution of the justice demanded on the death of the late King, and that she was [to be] held in custody until everything had been done to authorise this investigation. He told her that the Council would never permit her to return to Bothwell, who, he said, ought to be hanged. Here he discoursed with something more than freedom on Bothwell’s habits, against whom he manifested an intensity of hatred.

Having had a whole night in which to think about the bond that Bothwell had given her, Mary now seized her opportunity to confront Maitland. Nau says she was aware of “the false pretexts which the Lords were employing [in] charging her with wishing to hinder justice done for the murder which they themselves had committed. She knew that nothing terrified them so much as the prospect of an investigation.” She therefore told Maitland that she was ready to refute these accusations by joining with the Lords in the inquiry which was about to be made into the murder. As to Bothwell, Maitland knew, none better, how everything had been arranged, he, more than any other person, having been the adviser. She told him that she feared that he, Morton and Balfour, more than any others, hindered the inquiry into the murder, to which they were the consenting and guilty parties. Bothwell had told her so, who swore, when he was leaving her, that he had acted entirely by their persuasion and advice, and showed her their signatures. If she, a queen, was treated merely as one suspected of wishing to prevent the punishment of the criminals, with how much greater certainty could they proceed against him, Morton, Balfour and others, who were the actual murderers? They were all miserable wretches if they made her bear the punishment for their crimes.

The Queen threatened Maitland that, if he continued to act in conjunction with these noblemen and plot along with them, she would publish in the end what Bothwell had told her about his doings. Seeing himself thus detected, Maitland became exceedingly angry. He went so far to say that, if she did so, she would drive him to greater lengths than he yet had gone in order to save his own life. On the other hand, if she let matters tone down little by little, the day would yet come when he might do her some good service. For the present, he begged she would not ask him to return to talk with her any more. It caused him to be suspected, and did herself no good. If his credit with the nobility were shaken, her life would be in great danger. It had already been frequently proposed that she should be put out of the way, and this he could prevent.³

Maitland may have said this partly to frighten Mary and partly to keep her quiet; it was the first intimation she had had that the Lords might not stop at merely imprisoning her. Her threat to use the Craigmillar Bond against him was probably the reason for its seizure by the Lords.

Maitland told du Croc that a weeping Mary had protested against being separated from Bothwell, but he had assured her that the Lords were thinking only of her honour and welfare. He added that she did not know what kind of man Bothwell was, and told her that he could show her a letter proving that the Earl regarded Jean as his true wife and Mary as no more than a mistress; a disbelieving Mary retorted that Bothwell’s “letters to her disputed that.” Maitland told du Croc, possibly with some exaggeration, that, although Mary had been miserable since her marriage, her passion for Bothwell was still as violent as ever, and that she had declared that she wished only to live and die with him, and that she would most willingly be put on a ship with him, to go where the winds might take them. Naturally, this was impossible, so instead, she proposed that Bothwell be allowed to go into exile, which Maitland agreed would perhaps be the best solution.⁴

Although she was constantly watched, the Lords later alleged that Mary had tried to smuggle out a letter to Bothwell, in which she addressed him as her “dear heart” and swore she would never forget or abandon him. The boy to whom this was entrusted promptly gave the letter to the Lords.⁵Of course, it is unlikely that such a letter ever existed, and almost certain that the Lords had invented it in order to give themselves a pretext for keeping Mary in custody, for their sole stated reason for doing so was to prevent her from communicating with Bothwell. If the letter had existed, it would have been logical for the Lords to keep it as justification for their actions. It would also surely have been mentioned in the Book of Articles, which was produced in 1568 on the Lords’ behalf, but this claims that Mary had sent Bothwell, not a letter, but a purse of gold.

Despite the Lords’ exhortations and promises of restoration to her throne, Mary consistently refused to abandon Bothwell. Drury wrote: “Though her body be restrained, yet her heart is not dismayed; she cannot be dissuaded from her affection to the Duke, but seems to offer sooner to receive harm herself than that he should.”⁶Given the unhappy state of her marriage, it is more likely that it was the desire to protect her unborn child’s rights, rather than affection for her husband, that dictated Mary’s decision. Even though she now knew of Bothwell’s complicity in Darnley’s murder, she would not denounce her child’s father. But, as will be seen, once her pregnancy was behind her, she was ready to renounce him. It suited the Lords, however, to portray their Queen as a woman who was in thrall to a murderer. Buchanan says she told them “that she would willingly endure the worst hardships of ill fortune with him, rather than pass her life in royal magnificence without him.”

Clearly, Mary could not remain where she was. The mood of the citizens was generally ugly, and her safety could not be guaranteed while she remained in Edinburgh.⁷Also, there was always the chance that Huntly and the Hamiltons would arrive with an armed force to rescue her, and Bothwell was still at large. Furthermore, she was in possession of very dangerous knowledge and, as her threats to Maitland had proved, she was prepared to use it to her advantage.

The Lords met on 16 June and discussed what was to be done with the Queen. Some of them would have supported her restoration, had she agreed to give up Bothwell, but she had refused to co-operate, so all pretence of restoring her to liberty was abandoned. Du Croc told the nobles that, if they sent her to France, where her guilt had been made manifest, Charles IX would obligingly shut her up in a convent; but if, however, they called on Queen Elizabeth for assistance, the French would take Mary’s side. Otherwise, the Lords might do as they pleased with her.⁸This left them with little choice. They dared not put the Queen on trial, in case she incriminated them, nor could they attaint her in her absence because Parliament could be summoned only by the monarch or a legally appointed Regent. Without a conviction, they could not execute her. The alternative was to imprison her in a place where she could do no harm. Grange was against this on the grounds that it contravened his assurances to Mary at Carberry Hill, but he was overruled, and it was at this point that Morton allegedly produced Mary’s letter to Bothwell as proof that she was not prepared to keep her word either.⁹At length, the Council issued a warrant for her indefinite detention that was signed by Morton, Glencairn, Home, Mar, Atholl, Lindsay, Ruthven and others. It accused the Queen of “fortifying” Bothwell in his crimes instead of bringing Darnley’s murderers to justice, and following “her own inordinate passion, to the final confusion and extermination of the whole realm”: this was to be the official line from now on. She was therefore to be isolated to prevent her from communicating with Bothwell,¹⁰and, of course, to allow the Lords time to establish their own rule. According to Nau, “their one object was the usurpation of the crown, by means of the disastrous and abominable proceedings which had been planned before the departure of the Earl of Moray out of the kingdom.” Their decision to imprison the Queen, however, was indisputably high treason.

During the evening of 16 June, Mary was escorted on foot by Morton and Atholl to Holyrood Palace,¹¹preceded by the Darnley banner and 200 men, and followed by the other Confederate Lords and 1,000 of their soldiers. The people yelled insults, but Mary shouted back that she was innocent and that they had been deceived by false and cruel traitors. At the palace, much to her relief, she was reunited with Mary Livingston and Mary Seton, with whom she was allowed to relax for an hour or so. As she had hardly eaten for the best part of two days, supper was served to her, but before she could finish it, Morton, who was standing behind her chair, abruptly told her to make ready to leave at once with him. There was no time to pack anything, so all Mary took with her were the clothes she stood up in, a silk nightgown and a coarse brown cloak.¹²Outside, Lindsay and Ruthven were waiting for them, with horses ready saddled. Two chamberwomen and an escort of soldiers accompanied them.

Mary had no idea where they were going, and “Morton gave her to understand indirectly that she was going to visit the Prince.”¹³But instead of riding west, they crossed the Forth at Leith, then rode like the wind for Kinross. At Loch Leven, the Queen was bundled into a boat and rowed across the lake to an island about one mile from the shore. On it stood Lochleven Castle; the Lords had decided that this isolated fortress should be the Queen’s prison for the foreseeable future.¹⁴

On her arrival, Mary was in a state of collapse. She was received by the Laird, Sir William Douglas, and conducted to a room on the ground floor. “The Queen’s bed was not there, nor was there any article proper for one of her rank.”¹⁵The next day, Morton left, leaving Mary in the custody of the brutal Lindsay and the hostile Ruthven.¹⁶

Lochleven Castle, which stands on one of four islands in the loch, lies thirty miles north of Edinburgh. In Mary’s day, the castle island was smaller: due to drainage, there was a considerable fall in the water level of the loch during the nineteenth century. Although there had been a fortress on the island since the thirteenth century or before, the square five-storeyed keep dated from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the round tower and other buildings from the sixteenth. It was in this round tower that Mary would soon be lodged. The castle was owned by the Douglas family, but it had enjoyed quasi-royal status since the fourteenth century, having been visited frequently by successive Scottish monarchs. Mary herself had stayed there with Darnley.¹⁷

The choice of Lochleven was an obvious one, considering the connections of its owner. Sir William Douglas was Mar’s nephew, Morton’s cousin and Moray’s half-brother. His mother, the formidable Margaret Erskine, Mar’s sister, had been mistress to James V before her marriage to Sir Robert Douglas, and was Moray’s mother. Euphemia, her daughter by Douglas, was Lindsay’s wife. The Dowager Lady Douglas was fond of claiming that she had been married to the King and that her son was legitimate, so she can hardly have felt much warmth towards Mary. However, there is no record of her being spiteful or unkind to her; in fact, Mary was treated with courtesy by all.

Given the family’s close connections with the absent Moray, the conclusion is inescapable that the Lords knew they could count on his approval of their imprisonment of the Queen. It is even possible that Lochleven had been chosen before his departure as a possible place of sequestration.

For two weeks after her arrival, Mary allegedly did not eat, drink or speak, “so that many thought she would have died.”¹⁸Then her health and disposition improved somewhat. On 17 July, Bedford reported she was “calmer and better quieted than of late, and takes both rest and meat, and also some dancing and play at the cards, and much better than she was wont to do; and it is said she is become fat.”¹⁹Despite himself, young Ruthven was smitten by her dangerous charm, and became a nuisance; he even promised to set her free if she would become his lover. Mary reacted with great indignation, and Ruthven was speedily removed.²⁰After a month, Mary was moved into her new quarters, two rooms on the third floor of the tower, and permitted to walk in the castle gardens. In September, Mary Seton was allowed to join her. However, there was little privacy, for the Dowager Lady Douglas insisted on sleeping in the Queen’s room. Fortunately, Mary did not know that Morton had ordered the Laird to kill her if Bothwell or anyone else attempted to rescue her, nor that the Lords had sent Sir James Melville to offer the office of Regent to Moray.

In order to pave the way for her deposition, the Lords were doing everything in their power to incite public opinion against the Queen. Protestant ministers denounced her from their pulpits as a murderess, and broadsheets were circulated emphasising her immorality. In England, Sir Walter Mildmay expressed the opinion that the Queen’s fall was “a marvellous tragedy,” but it was only what could be expected to befall “such as live not in the fear of God.”²¹

The Lords were also systematically despoiling and redistributing Mary’s property.²²Glencairn and his men destroyed the altar and images in the chapel royal at Holyrood. The Queen’s jewels were seized and set aside for Moray, who later sold her famous black pearls to Queen Elizabeth and passed on other pieces to his wife. When Mary heard what the Lords were doing, she realised that their intention was not just to keep her in custody until she agreed to abandon Bothwell.

Bothwell, meanwhile, had fled with Seton to the Borders to raise troops, yet met with little success. By 19 June, he was in Dunbar,²³but left immediately to seek reinforcements, sailing with his followers for Linlithgow, whence he went west to Dumbarton.²⁴Soon afterwards, Bedford reported that the Earl was building up a volume of support, and Bothwell himself later claimed that fifty men of rank had rallied to him for the Queen’s sake. He claimed they all decided “that it would be advisable to wait for a little” before attacking Lochleven, for the Lords “would naturally be expecting us to mount a rescue attempt. Had we put this into effect, [the Queen’s] life would certainly have been in great danger.”²⁵However, if this support had ever existed, it soon melted away.

For the present, the Lords made no move to take Bothwell, but, true to their promise to pursue and punish Darnley’s murderers, they closed in on the lesser fish, Bothwell’s henchmen, whose role in the Kirk o’Field conspiracy must have been known to them. By 11 June, they had already arrested Captain Cullen and clapped him in irons,²⁶and on the 16th, Lord Scrope reported that, “after some strict dealing”—probably torture—Cullen “hath uttered and revealed the murder, with the whole manner and circumstance thereof.”²⁷This, however, is unlikely to have been true, as will be seen.

William Blackadder had also been arrested,²⁸along with John Blackadder (perhaps his brother), James Edmonstoun and Mynart Fraser, a Swedish sailor, in whose ship the other three had been trying to reach Bothwell at Dunbar. But the vessel was captured, and when the four men were brought ashore at Leith, a mob tried to stone them. All were imprisoned in the Tolbooth.²⁹

According to a statement made by Morton on 9 December 1568,³⁰on 19 June, while he and Maitland were dining in Edinburgh, they received secret information, probably from Balfour, that three of Bothwell’s servants— Thomas Hepburn, Parson of Oldhamstocks, John Cockburn (brother of Skirling) and George Dalgleish—had managed to gain entry to Edinburgh Castle. Buchanan later stated that Dalgleish had been sent by Bothwell to recover “a small silver casket bearing inscriptions which showed that it had once belonged to Francis, King of the French. In this, there were letters, nearly all of them written in the Queen’s hand, in which the murder of the King and practically all that followed was clearly revealed. Balfour gave this casket to Bothwell’s servant, but first he warned [the Lords].” Buchanan was writing propaganda for the Lords; as has been demonstrated, the authenticity of the letters to which he referred is by no means well founded, nor can there be any certainty that any of them were actually in the casket at this time. Furthermore, it is hardly likely that Bothwell would send his servants to ask Balfour for the casket after the latter had so treacherously betrayed him, especially if it contained anything compromising.³¹Bothwell must surely have heard by now that Balfour had gone over to the Lords, for it was common knowledge.³²

Morton sent Archibald Douglas, Douglas’s brother Robert, James Johnston of Westerrow and about thirteen of his own servants to the castle to search for and apprehend the three men, but when they got there, their quarry had already left, so Morton’s men split up into three groups. Archibald Douglas could only find Hepburn’s horse, for its master had fled; Cockburn was arrested by Johnston, but afterwards released, as he had no compromising evidence on him; and Robert Douglas tracked down George Dalgleish to a house in Potterrow, near Kirk o’Field itself. With him were found “divers evidences and letters in parchment, viz. the Earl of Bothwell’s investments of Liddesdale, of the Lordship of Dunbar, and of Orkney and Shetland, and divers copies,” which Robert Douglas brought to Morton with his prisoner.

When questioned, Dalgleish “alleged he was sent only to visit his master’s clothing, and that he had no other letters or evidences but those which were apprehended with him; but, his report being found suspicious, and his gesture and behaviour ministering cause of distrust,” he was kept under guard overnight and the next day taken to the Tolbooth to be tortured “for furthering of the truth.”³³

Terrified by the sight of the instruments of torment, “and moved of conscience,” Dalgleish led Archibald and Robert Douglas back to the house in Potterrow, where he took from “under the foot of a bed” the locked silver casket that had allegedly belonged to Bothwell, which he said he had taken from the castle the day before, and gave it to them. At 8 p.m., it was delivered to Morton, who, “because it was late, kept it all that night.” Dalgleish was returned to prison.³⁴

That day, 20 June, Drury reported Mary’s defeat and incarceration to Cecil, and wrote that the Confederate Lords were awaiting Elizabeth’s approval and would not attempt any other enterprise “till they hear how this that they have already done be liked by the Queen’s Majesty, at whose devotion it seems they desire to be, to be directed wholly by Her Majesty.” He added that Cullen, Blackadder “and others” (among them Powrie, who was arrested around this time) had not yet been arraigned because the authorities had been unable to track down as witnesses the tenants of the cottages at Kirk o’Field, in which they believed these men had been hiding.³⁵Meanwhile, the Lords and their acolytes had begun spreading rumours that the Hamiltons were heavily implicated in Darnley’s murder. In July, there was speculation that Archbishop Hamilton himself would be charged with it.³⁶

On 21 June, the silver casket was forced open in the presence of Morton, Maitland, Atholl, Glencairn, Tullibardine, Archibald Douglas and others, “and the letters within sighted.” The Scots word “sicht” then meant “inspect” or “peruse,”³⁷so, according to Morton, the letters were read, although many historians have misunderstood the meaning of the word “sichted” and disputed this. Immediately afterwards, the casket and its contents were delivered to Morton for safe keeping, “since which time [he stated in December 1568] I have observed and kept the same box, and all letters, missives, contracts, sonnets and other writings contained therein, surely, without alteration, changing, eking [adding] or diminishing of anything found or received in the said box. This I testify and declare to be the undoubted truth.”³⁸He was almost certainly lying.

It should be noted that there is no contemporary evidence, apart from Morton’s statement, for the discovery of the casket. Had it contained the compelling evidence against the Queen that it was later held to contain— Buchanan says “the whole wicked plot was exposed to view”—it is astonishing that the Lords did not immediately use it against her in order to justify her proposed deposition. Morton’s statement, however, merely says that the letters were sighted; it does not even say who wrote them. If letters in the Queen’s handwriting had been found in a locked casket belonging to Bothwell, surely the Lords, considering their precarious position, would have seized upon them as evidence to support their coup, and Morton would surely have given some description of them and the shock they engendered. But the fact that Morton made no comment about the Lords’ reactions to the letters on the day the casket was opened, and the fact that these letters were not at once made public and used against Mary, suggest that, if such a casket containing documents was found in the manner described, then the documents were of an innocuous nature, and deserving of little publicity.

It might not be stretching credulity too far to suggest that their discovery may have inspired the Lords to seek, or manufacture, letters that could be used to incriminate the Queen. Thus, when Buchanan came to compose the Book of Articles, which was made public at the same time as Morton’s declaration, he could state that, in the casket, “there was found such letters of the Queen’s own handwriting direct to [Bothwell] and other writings as clearly testified that, as he was the chief executor of the murder, so was she of the foreknowledge thereof, and that her ravishing was nothing else but a coloured mask.”

On the day the casket was allegedly opened, or the day before, Robert Melville was sent to London to explain the Lords’ actions to Elizabeth. There is no direct evidence that he took with him secret information about the Casket Letters, although Maitland did write to Cecil stating that the Lords’ messenger would explain the reasons why he had taken sides against the Queen. Maitland, however, had taken sides against Mary fifteen days before the alleged discovery of the casket; he also said in his letter that “the best part of the nobility [had] resolved to look narrowly into [Bothwell’s] doings, and being by them required, I would not refuse to join me to them in so just and reasonable a cause.” He also asked Cecil for English money to finance the Lords’ coup.³⁹

More than three years later, Randolph was to report that, around this time, another casket was found in Edinburgh Castle. This was said to have been a small coffer covered with green cloth, which contained a copy of the Craigmillar Bond, and it was discovered, probably in Bothwell’s apartments, by Balfour and Maitland.⁴⁰Needless to say, this copy of the bond was suppressed.

On 25 June, Drury referred to a casket: “There is [news] here that the Queen had a box, wherein are the practices between her and France, wherein is little good meant to England.”⁴¹Given the timing of this dispatch, it is certainly possible, even likely, that Drury was talking about the silver casket opened by the Lords, which was found to contain only diplomatic documents. If it had contained more contentious matter, the Lords would certainly have informed Drury of it, for they needed to justify their actions to Queen Elizabeth, whose reaction they feared. Drury again mentions this box in a report sent on 29 June, in which he says that the partly coded documents in it have been deciphered.⁴²Again, there is no mention of their supposedly dramatic content.

On 21 June, the day the casket was purportedly opened, the Lords sat in Council, but no mention was made in the minutes of the casket or its contents, which is astonishing, given the reputedly sensational nature of the latter. Instead, the Councillors denounced Bothwell for keeping the Queen under restraint, ignoring the fact that they themselves were doing just that, and far more straitly.

That day, in London, de Silva reported that Mary was “five months gone with child,”⁴³an obvious error that has nevertheless given rise to all kinds of speculation, since, if it had been true, then the child would have been conceived in the middle of January, when Darnley was ill with syphilis; the natural conclusion might be that Bothwell was the father, which lends credence to the allegations in the libels that Bothwell and Mary were lovers before Darnley’s death, and also to the long Glasgow letter. It is more likely that de Silva’s informant told him that Mary was five weeks gone with child. When she fell pregnant with James, reports of her condition circulated early, even before it was confirmed—ambassadors kept an eagle eye out for such things. With Mary and Darnley estranged, any hint of a pregnancy would have been scandalous, and thus would attract diplomatic attention, but there are no reports before May that Mary was expecting a child. If she had conceived in January, by late June her condition would have been difficult to conceal, and would soon have been detected by those in charge of her; moreover, her enemies would surely have made political capital out of it.

Mary still had some friends in Scotland. Huntly had remained loyal, and around 21 June, Argyll abandoned the Confederate Lords.⁴⁴Together, they joined the Hamiltons, Lord Crawford and other royalist supporters at Dumbarton, where plans were laid for rescuing the Queen.

From June onwards, in order to exculpate themselves, the Lords did what everyone had urged Mary to do, and ruthlessly pursued a policy of arresting and executing the minor participants in Darnley’s murder. There is no doubt that the evidence they obtained from these wretches, which may well have been extracted under torture, and was contained in a series of depositions, was censored, distorted and even invented in order to incriminate Bothwell, and later Mary—neither of whom was in a position to refute the allegations— and divert suspicion from the true culprits, the Confederate Lords themselves, who were now able to have the truth suppressed. Their efforts in this respect produced an official version of the murder that contains many inconsistencies and improbabilities, and can in many respects be proved false, as has been demonstrated. These arrests and executions may have gone some way towards satisfying the public’s desire for retribution, but they left many questions unanswered, notably the matter of the Queen’s guilt. Furthermore, the material in the depositions has only served to confuse historians, not a few of whom have accepted it as wholly factual, even though there is sufficient evidence to prove the contrary.

JAMES HEPBURN, EARL OF BOTHWELL “A glorious, rash and hazardous young man.”

JEAN GORDON, COUNTESS OF BOTHWELL She was a woman of strong character, “a proper and virtuous gentlewoman.”

HERMITAGE CASTLE Mary made a 60-mile round trip in a day to visit Bothwell here after he was wounded.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS HOUSE, JEDBURGH Mary stayed here in the autumn of 1566 whilst she was recovering from her nearly fatal illness.

MARY AND DARNLEY AT JEDBURGH Contrary to what this picture suggests, Mary accorded Darnley such a chilly reception that he left the next day.

CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE It was here that the fateful chain of events that led to Darnley’s murder were set in motion.

THE MURDER SCENE AT KIRK O’FIELD The bodies of Darnley and his valet may be seen in the orchard (top right). The ruins of the Old Provost’s Lodging are shown to the left of the centre. At the bottom (left), Darnley’s body is carried away, while (right) his valet is buried. At the top left, Prince James cries, “Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord.”

THE DARNLEY MEMORIAL PAINTING This vendetta picture was commissioned by Darnley’s parents, the Earl and Countess of Lennox, who kneel behind James VI beside their son’s tomb. To the right is Darnley’s younger brother, Charles Stuart. Inset is a depiction of Mary’s defeat at Carberry Hill. The painting is littered with inscriptions demanding divine vengeance on the murderers.

THE INFAMOUS MERMAID PLACARD It depicts Mary as a prostitute, with Bothwell’s hare crest below, and bears the legend, “Destruction awaits the wicked on every side.”

DUNBAR CASTLE Bothwell’s power base served as a refuge for Mary after Rizzio’s murder, but was later the scene of her rape.

BORTHWICK CASTLE After being besieged here by her enemies, Mary made a dramatic escape dressed in male attire.

MARY IS LED AWAY FROM THE FIELD AT CARBERRY HILL The Queen surrendered to the Lords, “thinking that she could go to them in perfect safety, without fear of treachery.”

LOCHLEVEN CASTLE Mary was a prisoner here for ten months before she escaped and fled to England.

GEORGE BUCHANAN “The author of slanderous and untrue calumnies.”

WILLIAM CECIL “The Queen of Scots is, and always shall be, a dangerous person to Your Majesty’s estate.”

ELIZABETH I She told Mary: “Your case is not so clear but that much remains to be explained.”

THE CASKET LETTERS MAY HAVE BEEN KEPT IN THIS SILVER BOX The letters contained “many matters unmeet to be repeated before honest ears.” But were they genuine?

From the time they seized power, the Lords were in control of all sources of official information, and there is no doubt that they manipulated such information to their own advantage, for it was essential to justify their conduct towards their anointed sovereign. The chief victim of this policy would, of course, be the Queen.

On 23 June, William Powrie made a deposition describing the conveying of the gunpowder to Kirk o’Field, the details of which were sent by Drury to Cecil four days later; clearly, the Lords were anxious to prove their case to the English. However, on 3 July, Powrie made a second deposition, which contradicted many of the details in the first.⁴⁵Whatever the truth of the matter, something underhand was certainly going on.

Bedford reported on 23 June that the Lords did not wish to imprison their Queen any longer than necessary, but would do as Elizabeth appointed,⁴⁶which suggests that Cecil had all along been aware of their plans. On the 25th, the General Assembly of the Kirk met, and appointed George Buchanan as Moderator. Once Mary’s tutor and admirer, Buchanan, a staunch Lennox man, had aligned firmly with the Protestant Lords, and would soon become the Queen’s most effectively virulent enemy, spitting out his venom in tract after tract of highly readable propaganda so convincing that much of it is still believed today, flawed though it can be proved to be.

On 26 June, George Dalgleish was brought before the Council and made a deposition about Darnley’s murder, in which it was made clear that he had played no active part. Strangely, he did not refer in it to the casket or its discovery, which, together with the fact that his name was not mentioned in connection with them until after he was dead, lends credence to the theory that its original contents were of little import.⁴⁷Had incriminating letters been found, Dalgleish would have been a useful witness to their having been in Bothwell’s possession. But it was only after his death, when the Lords had decided to put forward the Casket Letters as evidence against Mary, that the silenced Dalgleish became useful to them as the man who had allegedly led them to the letters.

As Dalgleish was making his confession, Bothwell was back in the Borders, assessing support, and that night he returned to Dunbar, where he no doubt learned of the arrest of his servants. The Lords may have been aware of his return, and, taking no chances, for it was certain that he would try to rescue the Queen and stir up trouble for them, they proclaimed a reward of 1,000 crowns for anyone apprehending Bothwell, and ordered the surrender of Dunbar Castle. Those who helped the Earl would be adjudged “plain par-takers with him in the horrible murder.”⁴⁸That same day, in an Act of the Privy Council, the Lords announced that they had sufficient proof—“as well of witnesses as of writings”—of Bothwell’s guilt, which some writers have understood to refer to the Casket Letters. This is possible, although the reference may be to the depositions. However, it seems likely that, by this time, the Lords had discovered, or forged, some letters that were suitable for their purpose.

Around the 26th, Robert Melville arrived in London with Maitland’s letter to Cecil.⁴⁹Certainly, on that day Cecil sent some packets to Moray in France, expressing the hope that he would return at once. Historians have speculated that these packets contained copies of the Casket Letters, but this is unlikely, because in August, Moray revealed to de Silva that he had not actually seen the letters, and seemed to know the contents of only one of them, of which he had heard from a man who had read it.⁵⁰

On 27 June, William and John Blackadder, James Edmonstoun and the Swedish sailor, Mynart Fraser, were summarily tried by a new committee called the Lords of the Secret Council. William Blackadder insisted he was innocent, but he was tortured, found guilty of being “art and part” of Darnley’s murder, then hanged and quartered at the Mercat Cross.⁵¹There is no record of the evidence on which he was convicted. Edmonstoun and John Blackadder were executed the following September, while Fraser was released and allowed to return to his ship.⁵²

Around this time, according to Powrie, his friend William Geddes, of whom nothing more is known, made a deposition, but it was afterwards destroyed and he was set free.⁵³Mary’s servants, Sebastien Pagez and Francisco de Busso, were imprisoned in the Tolbooth, but they too were quickly released, as was “Black” John Spens, after he had delivered Bothwell’s treasure chest to the Lords. It may be inferred from this that not all these interrogations had to do with Darnley’s murder. Possibly through Balfour’s good offices, Captain Cullen was also freed, without having made any deposition, which is very strange, considering he had earlier “uttered the whole manner of the murder,” and had probably been present at Kirk o’Field. Presumably what he had uttered was in reality of little importance, although it had suited the Lords to declare otherwise.

In Paris, Sir Anthony Standen heard of the fate of the Queen and Bothwell, and of the subsequent arrests, and decided it was safer to spend his life in exile. In the event, “this banishment endured thirty years or more.” The younger Standen remained in Scotland, but was imprisoned for a year in Berwick for remaining loyal to the Queen.⁵⁴Black Ormiston and his uncle went into hiding in the Borders; the fate of Robert Ormiston is unknown, but his nephew survived to play a role in the Northern Rising of 1569–70 against Queen Elizabeth.

Du Croc left Edinburgh on 29 June, bearing a communication from the Lords to Charles IX and, it has been suggested, copies of the Casket Letters. The Lords wrote to King Charles that, “of further circumstances and of the whole affair, your ambassador can more fully advise Your Majesty, as we have fully informed him of the justice of our cause.” They made no mention of the Casket Letters,⁵⁵but in July, Throckmorton told Elizabeth that “du Croc carries with him matter little to the Queen’s advantage, and the King may therefore rather satisfy the Lords than pleasure her,”⁵⁶which has again been interpreted as a reference to the Casket Letters. It is certainly possible that the Lords had furnished du Croc with copies of at least one of the so-called Casket Letters in order to deter the French government from supporting Mary.

On 29 June, Mary’s supporters at Dumbarton, notably Huntly, Argyll, Bishop Leslie, Seton, Fleming and the Hamiltons, signed a bond to liberate her.⁵⁷ Such a coalition posed a threat to the Lords, so this would have been the optimum moment to produce the Casket Letters in order to inflame public feeling against the Queen. But the Lords did no such thing.

Queen Elizabeth had been outraged and incensed to hear of Mary’s imprisonment. Of the Scottish Lords, she fulminated, “They have no warrant nor authority, by the law of God or man, to be as superiors, judges or vindicators over their prince and sovereign, howsoever they do gather or conceive matter of disorder against her. We are determined that we will take plain part with them to revenge their sovereign, for an example to all posterity. Though she were guilty of all they charge her with, I cannot assist them while their Queen is imprisoned.”⁵⁸

In her anger, Elizabeth’s first impulse was to declare war, but a horrified Cecil dissuaded her. He and his fellow Councillors were in no way dismayed by what had happened north of the border, and realised that it was to England’s benefit to have in Scotland a Protestant government desperate to build friendly relations with its neighbour. Yet Elizabeth had a different agenda. At the end of June, she decided to send that experienced diplomat, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, to Scotland to bring about Mary’s immediate restoration—by persuasion, treaty or force—and a reconciliation between her and her Lords. Once that had been achieved, Throckmorton was to demand that Darnley’s murderers be hunted down and tried. At the same time, he was to persuade the Scots to agree to Prince James being brought up in England as Elizabeth’s ward. Finally, he was to see Mary and deliver to her an encouraging message from Elizabeth. It was Elizabeth’s hope that, in return for her restoration, Mary would ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh.

Not surprisingly, a gloomy and reluctant Throckmorton told Leicester that this was “the most dangerous legation in my life.” He knew, all too well, that the Scots would not take kindly to English interference in their affairs.

It is often claimed that, by her intervention, Elizabeth probably saved Mary’s life, for, had she given the Lords her support, they might well have executed their Queen. However, as has been noted, they had no legal basis on which they could do so, short of putting her on trial, which carried the risk of her publicly exposing their own guilt. There were, however, other ways of disposing of inconvenient sovereigns, and these Lords had not hesitated when it came to getting rid of Darnley. Throckmorton would soon reach the opinion that they meant to do away with Mary as well. It was the covert assassination of her cousin that Elizabeth almost certainly prevented. Alone of all the monarchs of Europe, the Queen of England, Mary’s dynastic rival, was her champion at this time.

Nonetheless, she was shocked to hear reports that Mary was pregnant, for it was obvious that the child must have been conceived out of wedlock. If the reports were confirmed, she declared pessimistically, “It will be thought all was not well before.”⁵⁹It is unlikely that Elizabeth had much sympathy with Mary on a personal level. She told Throckmorton she had almost decided “to deal no more with her by way of advice, but look on her as a person desperate to recover her honour.”⁶⁰Elizabeth was more concerned to protect the institution of monarchy, and in particular female monarchy, which Mary, by her apparently rash behaviour, had undermined.

Before he left London, Throckmorton saw the Lennoxes. “My Lady wept bitterly, my Lord sighed deeply,” he wrote. Lennox was already working in secret for Mary’s abdication, and in July, he returned to Scotland. On 1 July, Throckmorton left London in a pessimistic mood, and travelled north with a heavy heart, only to be overtaken by a royal courier, who urged him to make haste.

Meanwhile, on 30 June, the Confederate Lords had issued a summons in Mary’s name ordering Bothwell and his accomplices to appear in the Tolbooth on 22 August to answer charges in connection with the King’s murder and the abduction of the Queen, or otherwise be “put to the horn,” the Scottish term for outlawed.⁶¹

The next day, Melville informed Cecil that Balfour was now “in daily counsel” with the Council of Confederate Lords, along with James MacGill, the former Clerk Register.⁶²Robert Melville had just returned to Scotland, and was sent immediately by the Lords to the Queen at Lochleven, to persuade her to abdicate or divorce Bothwell, but she refused to contemplate either. However, she said she was willing for the Lords to continue pursuing Darnley’s murderers.

On 2 July, the Pope, having learned of the Bothwell marriage, broke off relations with Mary. He did not know, he said, which of the two Queens in Britain was the worse, and announced “that it was not his intention to have any further communications” with the Queen of Scots, “unless in times to come he shall see some better sign of her life and religion than he has witnessed in the past.”⁶³

Five days later, on receipt of Melville’s invitation to return to Scotland to assume the office of Regent, Moray promptly left France for England on the first stage of his journey home,⁶⁴having already sent ahead his secretary, Nicholas Elphinstone, to remonstrate with the Lords over their harsh treatment of his sister. Elphinstone passed through London on 8 July.⁶⁵On the 9th, the Lords sent someone, possibly a man called John Wood, with letters from Maitland and Robert Melville for Moray in France.

De Silva made the first direct reference to the Casket Letters on 12 July; in a coded report, he wrote that he had heard from M. de la Forrest, the French ambassador in London, that “the Queen’s adversaries assert positively that they know she had been concerned in the murder of her husband, which was proved by letters under her own hand, copies of which were in his [i.e., the ambassador’s] possession.”⁶⁶The word “letters,” in its sixteenth-century context, meant any document with letters in it, so de la Forrest could have been referring to one letter only. He had almost certainly obtained these letters from du Croc, who had arrived in London around 4 July. No further reference is made to these copies, but it is probable that they accounted for the French government’s unwillingness to intercede on Mary’s behalf. It is unlikely that the French would have publicised the immorality and guilt of one who so recently had been their Queen.

By 13 July, Throckmorton had arrived in Edinburgh to find “the most part of Scotland incensed against the Queen.” The next day, he had an interview with Maitland, in which he aired Queen Elizabeth’s indignation with the Lords, declaring that she would not endure to have their sovereign imprisoned, deprived of her estate or put in peril; indeed, Mary’s offences were as nothing compared with the outrage committed upon her person “by those that are by nature and law subject to her.”⁶⁷

Throckmorton found Maitland wise and reasonable, but it soon became clear that the Lords had no intention of allowing him to see Mary, who, he was told, was being “guarded very straitly because she had refused to lend herself to any plans to seek out the murderers of her husband”—which was patently untrue—“or to abandon Bothwell.” According to Maitland, she “avoweth constantly” that, if she had to choose between her kingdom and her husband, “she would rather live and die with him a simple damsel; she could never consent that he should fare worse or have more harm than herself.” This may also have been a fabrication, but it conformed to the official line that the Lords were taking. “The principal cause of her detention is [that] the Lords, seeing her fervent of affection to him, fear, if put at liberty, she would so maintain him that they should be compelled to be in continual arms against him.”

Maitland divulged that Argyll wanted Mary freed from her marriage so that he could marry her to his brother. He confided to Throckmorton that the Lords had no wish “to touch her in surety or honour, for they speak of her with reverence and affection and affirm that, the conditions aforesaid accomplished, they will restore her to her estate.” However, she was in great peril of her life by reason of the common people, who were saying that their Queen had no more liberty nor privilege to commit murder or adultery than any private person. Thus the Lords dared not show lenity to the Queen because they feared “the rage of the people.” Throckmorton had seen this hostility for himself, and formed the opinion that Mary’s life really was in danger. Maitland, however, warned him against meddling, for “a stranger over-busy may soon be made a sacrifice among the people. It were better for us you would let us alone, than neither do us or yourselves good, as I fear in the end it will prove.”⁶⁸

That day, or soon afterwards, Nicholas Elphinstone arrived in Scotland, just as John Wood was entering London. As Elphinstone did not return to Moray, he may have had a watching brief in Scotland, and it could have been he, rather than Wood, who communicated details of one of the Casket Letters to Moray.

By 16 July, Bothwell had left Dunbar and sailed north in a further attempt to rally support. He had turned up at Huntly’s castle of Strathbogie in Aberdeenshire,⁶⁹but Huntly wanted nothing more to do with Bothwell, so the Earl was forced to withdraw to nearby Spynie Palace, the residence of the licentious Bishop of Moray, his great-uncle. On 17 July, having failed to respond to the Council’s summons (when, in fact, he still had until 22 August to appear), Bothwell was declared an outlaw and stripped of all his titles, lands and offices.⁷⁰From then on, his few supporters began to fall away, and royalist resistance to the Lords crumbled. Huntly withdrew to his northern fief, Seton and Fleming abandoned the Queen, and Jean Gordon left Crichton, telling the Countess of Moray she wanted nothing more to do with Bothwell.

Despite the Lords’ injunctions, Throckmorton had already managed to make contact with Mary. On the 18th, he reported that he had found means to smuggle to her, in Robert Melville’s scabbard, a note letting her know that he had been sent by Queen Elizabeth to help her; in it, he also warned her of “the great rage and fury of the people against her,” and urged her, for her own sake, to give up Bothwell. Mary sent back a message that she was in daily fear of her life and in utter despair. Nevertheless, for all her desperate situation, she declared she would rather die than divorce Bothwell for, “taking herself seven weeks gone with child, she should acknowledge herself to be with child of a bastard and to have forfeited her honour” if she had the marriage dissolved. There were no dramatic protestations of love for Bothwell, such as the Lords had described. Throckmorton sighed, “I would to God that she were in case [a position] to be negotiated with.”⁷¹

Throckmorton was in despair, convinced that the Lords would do away with Mary, despite Elizabeth’s threats. By 20 July, he had heard that they intended to demand her abdication. Again, he smuggled a message via Robert Melville, urging her to agree to this to save her own life and her unborn child’s, since an abdication under duress was illegal and could be rescinded and set aside once she was free. The Lords, however, were growing increasingly resentful of Throckmorton’s interference, and on 20 July, Maitland again warned Sir Nicholas not to interfere in Mary’s cause. “This is not the time to do her good,” he said.⁷²

Some time between 20 and 23 July, Mary miscarried of twins and suffered a severe haemorrhage, which left her in a greatly weakened state and bedridden for a time.⁷³Throckmorton was told merely that she had had “two fits of an ague.”⁷⁴

Historians have long speculated as to the date these twins were conceived. Around 16 July, Mary had said she was seven weeks pregnant, which placed her conception around 28 May, during her month of marriage to Bothwell. Yet less than three weeks later, on 15 June, Bedford had reported, “The Queen is with child.” If his report was accurate, then the conception must have taken place before the marriage. On 21 June, de Silva had claimed, probably incorrectly, that Mary was five months pregnant; he perhaps meant five weeks, although that would have been too early, given the limited medical knowledge of the sixteenth century, for a firm diagnosis of pregnancy. If Mary’s estimate is followed, then she was eight weeks pregnant at the most when she miscarried. However, twin foetuses could not then have been identified at eight weeks: at 9–10 weeks, a foetus is only 1 inch long. If, however, the babies had been conceived at Dunbar, then the pregnancy would have lasted twelve weeks, and they would have been easily identifiable, for a foetus is 3.5 inches long at three months. Therefore, it seems that Mary either miscalculated, which was common in those days, or, for the sake of her reputation, made out that she had conceived during her marriage, when in fact she had done so soon after her abduction. Bedford’s report was therefore accurate, for the pregnancy would have advanced seven weeks by the time he wrote, long enough to be a certainty. Women carrying twins often appear further advanced in pregnancy than those with a single baby, and this probably accounts for the report that Mary had become fat, which Bedford mentioned on 17 July.

De Silva, meanwhile, had spoken with Queen Elizabeth on the subject of the Casket Letters. “I mentioned that I had been told that the Lords had certain letters proving that the Queen had been cognisant of the murder of her husband.” Elizabeth replied that “it was not true, although Lethington had acted badly in the matter,” from which it may perhaps be inferred that she believed that Maitland had made up the letters. If she saw him, she added menacingly, “she would say something that would not be at all to his taste.” It sounds as if Elizabeth knew more than she revealed to de Silva and that her comments were made in the light of intelligence from Scotland that the letters had been fabricated on Maitland’s orders.⁷⁵

On 21 July, Throckmorton reported that John Knox had returned in triumph to Edinburgh and was continually thundering from the pulpit against Mary and Bothwell, using his vigorous style of invective to demand that the Queen, that whore of Babylon, that scarlet adventuress, be put to death as a murderess. His violent preaching further inflamed the people’s wrath against the Queen, especially when he threatened that God would send a great plague on the whole nation if Mary was spared from punishment. Nothing but the blood of the Queen would satisfy him, wrote Throckmorton.⁷⁶However, even Knox could not persuade Argyll to rejoin the Confederate Lords, although he tried.

Also on 21 July, the Lords gave Throckmorton a document dated 11 July—two days before his arrival in Scotland—which they said was their reply to Elizabeth’s demand for better treatment of Mary. In it, they blamed everything on Bothwell, that “notorious tyrant,” and insisted they took “no pleasure to deal with our sovereign after this sort, as we are presently forced to do.” But they had been forced to imprison her because, flat contrary to our expectations, we find her passion so prevail in maintenance of him and his cause that she would not with patience hear anything to his reproach, or suffer his doings to be called in question; but, by the contrary, offered to give over realm and all so she might be suffered to enjoy him, with many threatenings to be revenged on every man who had dealt in the matter. The sharpness of her words were good witnesses of the vehemence of her passion. She would not fail, enduring that passion, so long as any man in Scotland would take up arms at her command for maintenance of the murderer.

The Lords had therefore shut her up to sequestrate her person from having intelligence with him, to the end we might have a breathing time and leisure to go forward in the prosecution of the murder.⁷⁷

No mention was made of the Casket Letters, which suggests that the Lords knew they were already on shaky ground where Elizabeth was concerned, and interestingly, the letter stated that Bothwell had imprisoned the Queen “by force”: this is at variance with what the Lords were later to allege when they produced Casket Letters VI, VII and VIII, which were all intended to show that Mary had connived at her abduction, and which, if Morton is to be believed, were already in the Lords’ possession at this date. It should also be noted that, although Knox and the people were demanding Mary’s execution for Darnley’s murder, the Lords had hitherto been careful so far not to charge her publicly with it, imputing all the guilt to Bothwell. This may have been because they did not wish to further alienate Queen Elizabeth. But it would not stop them from making threats, as will be seen.

Hearing that Mary was laid low by her miscarriage, the Lords seized their opportunity. On 24 July, Lindsay, Ruthven, Robert Melville and two notaries went to Lochleven with an instrument of abdication for the Queen to sign. Mary was in bed, weak from loss of blood and able to move “only with great difficulty,”⁷⁸but spirited enough to refuse their demands and insist that she put her case before Parliament. At length, when Lindsay manhandled her and brutally threatened to cut her throat if she continued to resist,⁷⁹she took Throckmorton’s advice and capitulated, signing away her throne to her thirteen-month-old son on the grounds that she was “so vexed, broken and unquieted” by the responsibilities of her position that she was unable to continue carrying out her duties as Queen. She also signed letters appointing Moray Regent during James’s minority, and authorising Morton and the Confederate Lords to govern Scotland until his return.⁸⁰Repeatedly, she protested that she was signing under duress and would not be bound by these documents.⁸¹

The next day, not having been informed of Mary’s abdication, Throckmorton informed Cecil that, according to Maitland, if she did not consent to the Lords crowning James, “they mean to charge her with these three crimes”: tyranny, for breach and violation of the laws; incontinency with Bothwell and others, “having, as they say, sufficient proof against her for this crime”; and the murder of her husband, “whereof (they say) they have as apparent proof against her as may be, as well by the testimony of her own handwriting, which they have recovered, as also by sufficient witnesses,”⁸² who were probably Bothwell’s unfortunate henchmen. Some historians state that Mary was warned of this, and that her capitulation was evidence of her guilt, but it is clear that it was only a contingency plan in case she refused to abdicate. Had they threatened to try her on these charges and thus secured her submission, Lindsay would not have needed to threaten her with death. Throckmorton was pessimistic about the Lords’ real intentions towards Mary, and warned, “It is to be feared, when they have gone so far, these Lords will think themselves unsafe while she lives, and take her life.”⁸³

On 26 July, Throckmorton pressed for his recall. “I see no likelihood to win anything at these men’s hands,” he told Cecil, and in another letter, confided to Leicester: “It is to be feared that this tragedy will end in the Queen’s person as it did begin in the person of David the Italian and the Queen’s husband.”⁸⁴