Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 2 (of 2)

Second, That Mary may have written love-letters to Francis II., and to Darnley, before and after she was married to them, is not unlikely; that she wrote sonnets and letters of affection to many of her friends, both male and female, is beyond a doubt; but that she would ever have written such letters and sonnets to the Earl of Bothwell, whom she never loved, whom she at one time threw into prison, and at another sent into banishment, whom she knew to be a married man, and whose marriage she had herself countenanced and encouraged, is against all probability. If Bothwell had never become Mary’s husband, history does not record one circumstance, which would at all lead to the belief, that she was attached to him. Her very marriage, when fairly and fully considered, only makes the fact more certain, that she had no regard for Bothwell, else there would have been no forcible abduction on his part, or pretended reluctance on hers. Even though she had consented to marry Bothwell, which the clearest evidence proves her not to have done, it would afford no presumption against her, that he was afterwards discovered to have been the murderer of Darnley. He had not only been legally acquitted, but all her chief nobility had recommended him to her as a husband, stating the grounds of their recommendation to be the high opinion they entertained of his worth and loyalty. Robertson, Laing, and others, it is true, copying Buchanan, have laboured to show, that Mary discovered in various ways her extreme partiality for Bothwell. Most of their arguments have been already considered elsewhere; but it will be worth while attending for a moment to such of the circumstances collected by Robertson, and drawn up in formidable array, in the “Critical Dissertation” subjoined to his History of Scotland, as have not yet been noticed. The answers and explanations which immediately suggest themselves are so entirely satisfactory, that we can only wonder the historian did not himself perceive them.

Robertson states, that on the 15th of February 1567, five days after the murder, Mary bestowed on Bothwell the reversion of the superiority of the town of Leith, and that this grant was of much importance, as it gave him both the command of the principal port in the kingdom, and a great ascendancy over the citizens of Edinburgh. But this assignation, as is expressly stated in the charter, was made to Bothwell as a reward for his faithful services, both to Mary’s mother and to herself, especially on the occasion of Rizzio’s death, and must have been in contemplation for some time; nor can it be supposed to have occupied the Queen’s thoughts, at a moment when she was refusing to see any one, and was shut up by herself in a dark room, a prey to the bitterest regrets. It ought to be recollected, besides, that she had not yet conferred on Bothwell any adequate recompense for his fidelity and exertions after her escape from Morton; and that the grant of the superiority of the town of Leith, was only a very tardy acknowledgment of her obligations. She made presents of a similar description to others of her nobility about the same time: if any of them had afterwards forced her into a marriage, these gifts might have been raked up with equal plausibility, to prove that she was then in love with Morton, Huntly, Secretary Maitland, or any body else. At the Parliament which assembled on the 14th of April 1567, ratifications of grants were passed to many of the principal persons in the realm; and among others to the Earl of Mar, Morton, Crawford, Caithness, and Lord Robert Stuart.212 It will not be asserted, that Mary was attached to any of these persons; and is there any thing wonderful that she included in the list of those to whom she made donations, her Lord High Admiral? The case, no doubt, would have been worse, had she known that Bothwell was the murderer of Darnley, but throughout the whole of this discussion, it must be remembered, that if Mary was really innocent, she could not believe Bothwell guilty till he had been actually proved so.

Robertson states further, that two days after the trial, Mary allowed Bothwell to carry the sceptre before her when she went to open the Parliament; that she there granted him a ratification of all the vast possessions and honours which she had conferred upon him; and that, when Sir James Melville warned her of the danger which would attend a marriage with that nobleman, she not only disregarded his admonition, but discovered to Bothwell what had passed. But, as to the carrying of the sceptre, it was surely not to be expected, that after a full acquittal, without even the shadow of evidence being advanced against him, Mary could have ventured to refuse his accustomed honours to the most powerful noble in the realm. As to the Parliamentary ratification of “all the vast possessions and honours which she had conferred upon him,” the misrepresentation is glaring in the extreme; for she never conferred on Bothwell any vast possessions and honours, and the ratification alluded only to certain lands which were given him, to defray his charges in keeping the Castle of Dunbar.213 Bothwell no doubt enjoyed “vast possessions and honours;” but they were mostly hereditary, or had been obtained by him before Mary came into the kingdom. And as to the manner in which Mary took Sir James Melville’s warning, – the facts were these: – Sir James received a letter out of England, from a person of the name of Bishop, telling him that it had been rumoured (and there is no wonder, considering the bond which had been previously obtained from the nobility) that Bothwell was to be married to her Majesty, and assuring him, that if she consented to such an alliance, it would be much against her own reputation and interest. When Sir James showed this letter to Mary, she immediately sent, not for Bothwell, but for Secretary Maitland, to whom she handed it, expressing her surprise at its contents, and her suspicion that it was only a device on the part of some of Bothwell’s enemies, who wished to ruin him in her estimation. She afterwards took an opportunity to speak of it to Bothwell himself, who affected to be highly indignant, and was so enraged against Melville, that, had not Mary interfered, he would have forced him to fly from the Court to save his life. Bothwell’s rage is easily accounted for, considering the designs he then had in view, and the necessity for concealing them. But had he known that Mary was disposed to favour them, he would of course have taken the whole matter much more coolly. When Melville came upon the subject with Mary, she assured him that she did not contemplate any such alliance, and she had in like manner previously told Lord Herries, that “there was no such thing in her mind.”214 If deductions like those of Robertson, so contrary to the premises on which they are founded, be allowed, it is impossible to say to what belief they may not be made to lead.

Robertson states, lastly, that even after Mary had been separated from Bothwell, and confined in Loch-Leven, her affection for him did not abate; and that the fair conclusion from all these circumstances is, that had Mary really been accessory to the murder of her husband, “she could scarcely have taken any other steps than those she took, nor could her conduct have been more repugnant to all the maxims of prudence or of decency.” But that Mary’s affection for a man she had never loved, continued after she had left him to his fate, at Carberry Hill, and gone publicly over in the face of the whole world to his bitterest enemies, (on whose authority alone Robertson’s assertion is made, though expressly contradicted by their own previous declarations, as well as by Mary’s statements whenever she regained her liberty), is not to be believed; and had she been really innocent, “she could scarcely have taken any other steps than those she took,” nor could her conduct have been more accordant with all the maxims of prudence and propriety.

Third, Supposing Mary to have actually written the letters to Bothwell, it may very fairly be asked, – Why he was so imprudent as preserve them? – why he chose to keep only eight? – why he put them all into the same box? – and why he should ever have intrusted that box to the custody of Sir James Balfour? It is extremely difficult to answer satisfactorily any of these questions. The only explanation which the first admits of, is, that Bothwell was afraid lest Mary should afterwards quarrel with him, and resolved therefore not to destroy the evidence of her participation in the murder. But if he acted upon this principle, why did he limit himself to a collection of eight letters? If Mary ever corresponded with him at all, he must have had in his possession many more of her epistles; for the first of the series which has been preserved, is evidently not the letter of one commencing a correspondence, but of one who writes as a matter of course, to a person whom she has often written to before. It may be said, perhaps, that none of her previous letters bore upon the subject of Darnley’s murder; but they must at all events have contained expressions of affection, which would have served as an indirect proof of her guilt. If, by preserving these documents, and running the risk of their falling into the hands of his enemies, who would so eagerly use them to his disadvantage, Bothwell thought he was choosing the least of two dangers, he would certainly have been anxious to make his evidence of Mary’s connexion with him as full and complete as possible. Accordingly, some love-sonnets, and a contract of marriage, were said to have been put into the same box, but only eight letters; as if, during the whole course of his amour with the Queen, and all its anxious days and nights, she had limited herself to eight epistolary testimonials of her love. But having preserved them, and having limited their number to eight, and having chosen to put them, not into a strong iron box locked and pad-locked, of which he alone kept the key, but into a “small gilt coffer” which never belonged to him at all, but had been a gift to Mary from her first husband Francis, – why was he so very absurd as send them to Sir James Balfour in the Castle of Edinburgh, at the very time that a rebellion was rising in the nation, and that he was beginning to suspect Balfour’s fidelity? They were sent, we are informed, “before his flying away” from Edinburgh, in the beginning of June 1567. Was this the moment at which he would be disposed to part with writings he had so carefully treasured? If he was afraid that his enemies would advance upon Edinburgh, why did he not take the “small gilt coffer” with him to Dunbar, instead of sending it to the very place where it was sure to become their prey? If the letters were in truth forged, it was necessary for the forgers to concoct as plausible a story concerning them as possible. They knew it was not likely that Bothwell would send them to the Castle tied up as an open packet; and the idea of a box would therefore occur to them. But as they had not in their possession any box which belonged to Bothwell, they were forced to make use of what they could get; and finding at Holyrood, when they rifled the palace of most of the Queen’s valuables, the coffer in question, they would readily avail themselves of it. It would further occur to them, that Bothwell could not be supposed to have left the letters at Holyrood, which was not a place of any strength; and as they had not followed him to Dunbar, they were obliged to give out that he had made the Castle of Edinburgh their hiding-place. But if the letters had not been forgeries, and if they had been really preserved by Bothwell, they would have been more numerous, – they would not have been kept in one of Mary’s trinket-boxes, – and they would never have found their way out of his own hands into the custody of Sir James Balfour.

Fourth, The next improbability connected with this story, is, that Bothwell sent to reclaim the letters at the time alleged. On the 15th of September 1568, Murray, before going into England, to attend the conference at York, gave the Earl of Morton a receipt for the “silver box, overgilt with gold, with all missive letters, contracts or obligations for marriage, sonnets or love ballads, and all other letters contained therein, sent and passed betwixt the Queen and James, sometime Earl Bothwell; which box, and whole pieces within the same, were taken and found with umwhile George Dalgleish, servant to the said Earl Bothwell, upon the 20th day of June, in the year of God 1567.”215 This, then, was exactly five days after Bothwell had fled from Carberry Hill, and when Edinburgh was in the possession of the opposite faction, with whom Sir James Balfour had now associated himself. Dalgleish, it appears, who was well known to be a servant of Bothwell, was able not only to effect an entrance into Edinburgh, though the city was strictly guarded, but was received into the Castle, and had the box actually delivered to him by Balfour. How he happened to be afterwards discovered, and his property taken from him, is not made out. If Balfour privately intimated to Morton what he had done, then he at once acted knavishly towards Bothwell, and most inconsiderately towards those whom he wished to befriend; for Dalgleish might have either baffled pursuit, or he might have secreted the box, or destroyed its contents before he was taken. Thus we have a tissue of improbabilities, pervading the whole of this part of the narrative. Bothwell could never send to Edinburgh Castle for writings he would never have deposited there: and most especially he would never send, when he himself was a fugitive, and that fortress, along with the adjacent town, in the hands of his enemies. Nor would Balfour have surrendered a box so precious; nor, if he did, would Dalgleish have allowed it again to become the prey of those from whom it was most wished to conceal it.

Fifth, What was done with the letters immediately after Morton and the other Lords got possession of them? Bothwell had been already accused of the murder of Darnley; his former acquittal had been declared unjust; he had been separated from the Queen; and she herself had been sequestrated in Loch-Leven, until the whole affair should be duly investigated. Surely, then, the discovery of these letters would be regarded with signal satisfaction, and the associated Lords would lose not a moment in announcing their existence to the nation, as the best justification of their own proceedings. They had sent Mary, it is true, to Loch-Leven, somewhat precipitately, five days before they were aware of her enormous guilt; but if their own ambition had prompted that step, they would now be able to free themselves from blame, and would silence at once the boldest of the Queen’s defenders. As it appears by the records, that a meeting of Privy Council was held on the 21st of June, the very day after Dalgleish was seized, we shall surely find that all the papers were produced, and their contents impressively recorded in the Council-books. Nothing of the kind took place; and though Morton was present at the meeting, not a single word was said of the letters.216 Again, on the 26th of June, an act was passed for sanctioning the imprisonment of the Queen in Loch-Leven, and a proclamation issued for apprehending the Earl of Bothwell; but though the latter was accused of having “treasonably ravished” the person of her Highness the Queen, and also of being the “principal author of the late cruel murder,” no hint was given of the evidence which had been recently discovered against him, and which, indeed, had it been in their possession, would have directly contradicted the assertion, that Bothwell had been guilty Of “treasonable ravishment,” or of keeping the Queen in “thraldom and bondage;” for it would have appeared, that he had obtained her previous consent for every thing he had done.217 Between this date and the 11th of July, several other meetings of Council were held, and acts published, but not a whisper was heard concerning these important letters. When Sir Nicolas Throckmorton was sent by Elizabeth, as her ambassador into Scotland, the Lords presented him, on the 11th of July, with a formal justification of their doings; but, in all that long and laboured paper, the letters were never once alluded to. On the contrary, in direct opposition to them, such passages as the following occur more than once: – “How shamefully the Queen, our Sovereign, was led captive, and, by fear, force, and (as by many conjectures may be well suspected) other extraordinary and more unlawful means, compelled to become bed-fellow to another wife’s husband, and to him who, not three months before, had in his bed most cruelly murdered her husband, is manifest to the world, to the great dishonour of her Majesty, us all, and this whole nation.” – “It behoved us, assuredly, to have recommended the soul of our Prince, and of the most part of ourselves, to God’s hands; and as we may firmly believe the soul also of our Sovereign the Queen, who should not have lived with him half a year to an end, as may be conjectured by the short time they lived together, and the maintaining of his other wife at home in his house.” – “The respects aforesaid, with many others, and very necessity, moved us to enterprise the quarrel we have in hand, which was only intended against the Earl of Bothwell’s person, to dissolve the dishonourable and unlawful conjunction under the name of marriage.”218 These are positive declarations, which not only bear no reference to the box of love-letters, but which deliberately and conclusively give the lie to their contents. When was it, then, that these momentous letters were introduced to the world? The Lords, not satisfied with “sequestrating the person” of the Queen, forced from her an abdication of her throne on the 25th of July. Surely, before venturing on so audacious a proceeding, these criminal writings would be made known to the country. But no; we in vain expect to hear any thing of them; – “shadows, clouds, and darkness” still rest upon them.

At length, a fresh actor returned to that scene, in which he had formerly played with so much success; and his inventive genius brought the mystery to light. Early in August, the Earl of Murray rejoined his old associates; and on the 22d of that month, he was proclaimed Regent. It was necessary for him, shortly afterwards, to hold a Parliament; and the Queen’s party being then almost as strong as his own, it was still more necessary for him to fall upon some means to justify his usurpation, as well as those severe proceedings against Mary to which he had given his sanction. Accordingly, after he had been in Scotland four months, and had cautiously prepared his body of written evidence, we find it mentioned, for the first time, in an act of Council, passed on the 4th of December, only ten days before the meeting of Parliament, and evidently in anticipation of that event. In this act it is expressly declared, “that the cause and occasion of the private conventions of the Lords, Barons and others, and consequently their taking of arms, and coming to the field, and the cause and occasion of the taking of the Queen’s person, upon the 15th day of June last, and holding and detaining of the same within the house and place of Loch Leven, continually since, presently, and in all time coming, and generally all other things invented, spoken, or written by them since the 10th day of February last, (upon which day umwhile King Henry was shamefully and horribly murdered), unto the day and date hereof, touching the Queen’s person, cause, and all things depending thereon, was in the said Queen’s own default, in as far as, by diverse her privy letters, written and subscribed with her own hand, and sent by her to James Earl of Bothwell, chief executor of the said horrible murder, as well before the committing thereof as after, and by her ungodly and dishonourable proceeding in a private marriage with him, suddenly and unprovisedly thereafter, it is most certain that she was privy, art and part, and of the actual device and deed of the forementioned murder.”219 The ensuing Parliament passed an act, which, after a preamble expressed in nearly the same words, sanctioned the Queen’s imprisonment and Murray’s Regency;220 and nothing more whatever is known or heard of these “privy letters,” till nearly the end of the following year, 1568.

With regard to these acts of Council and Parliament, it is to be remarked, in the first place, that they refer to the Letters as the grounds upon which the nobles took up arms, separated the Queen from Bothwell at Carberry Hill, and imprisoned her at Loch-Leven; although, according to a subsequent confession, the Letters were not discovered till after she had been in captivity for five days, and although, in all the proclamations and acts of the time, Mary’s innocence was openly allowed, and the bondage in which she had been kept by Bothwell as openly proclaimed. It is to be remarked, in the second place, that no account is given, either of the contents of these Letters, of the time of their discovery, or of the evidence by which their authenticity was ascertained. Dalgleish was at the very moment in custody, and a few days afterwards was tried and executed for his share in Darnley’s death, of which he made a full confession. But why was he not brought forward and examined concerning the Letters; and why is there not a word about them in his confession?221 Why was Dalgleish never mentioned as having any connection with the Letters at all till after he was dead? And if it was originally intended to refer to the Letters as the authorities on which the Lords sent Mary to Loch-Leven, may it not be fairly concluded, that the idea of their having been taken from Dalgleish on the 20th of June, was an after-thought, when it became necessary to account for the manner in which they had fallen into their hands? Was it, besides, enough to satisfy the nation to allude, in vague and general terms, to the existence of documents of so much weight? If they were thus obscurely locked up in Murray’s custody, – if nothing further was said about them but that they existed, – if all the nobility of Scotland were not requested to come and examine them, – if they were not printed and published that the people might see them, and feel convinced that the Lords had acted justly, can it be cause of wonder, that, not only all Mary’s friends, but even Elizabeth herself, intimated doubts of their authenticity?

Sixth, If it is strange that these important writings were so long kept from the public eye, it is no less strange, that, when they were at length produced, a degree of caution and hesitation was observed regarding them not a little suspicious. If the Regent had been satisfied of their authenticity, he would fearlessly have exhibited them to all who were interested in their contents. Even allowing that he had a fair excuse for concealing them so long, he would have been eager to challenge for them, when he at last determined to bring them forward, the minutest examination, so that the most sceptical might be convinced they were genuine. If he acted honestly, and, on the authority of these writings, believed his sister unworthy of continuing on the Scottish throne, he must have been anxious that the whole country should acknowledge the propriety of his conduct; or if he had himself been misled, he ought not to have been unwilling to have had the forgery pointed out to him, and Mary restored to the government. But we look in vain for any thing frank, open, and candid, in Murray’s proceedings.

When the conference began at York, there was not a word said of the letters, till it was found that, without their aid, no plausible answer could be given to the complaints made by Mary. Even then they were not boldly produced, and openly laid before the Commissioners; but Maitland, Macgill, Wood, and Buchanan, were sent to hold a “private and secret conference” with Norfolk and his colleagues, in which they produced the letters and other papers, and asked their opinion concerning them.222 As soon as Elizabeth was informed of their contents, she removed the conference to Westminster; and Mary sent her Commissioners thither, still ignorant of the alleged existence of any such writings. It was not till the 8th of December 1568 that the letters made their appearance in an official manner. As Elizabeth herself, departing from the impartiality of an umpire, had already secretly encouraged their production, and as she had evidently entered into Murray’s views regarding them, there was now surely no further trepidation or concealment. But what is the fact? On only two occasions were the originals of these writings ever shown; and on neither occasion does their authenticity appear to have been at all determined. On the 8th of December, “they produced seven several writings, written in French, and avowed by them to be written by the said Queen; which seven writings being copied, were read in French, and a due collation made thereof, as near as could be, by reading and inspection, and made to accord with the originals, which the said Earl of Murray required to be re-delivered, and did thereupon deliver the copies, being collationed.”223 Here, therefore, nothing was done except comparing copies with what were called originals, to see that they agreed. These copies were left in the hands of the Commissioners, and the originals, by whoever they were written, were immediately returned to Murray. On the 14th of December, they again made their appearance, for the second and last time; “and being read, were duly conferred and compared, for the manner of writing and fashion of orthography, with sundry other letters, long since heretofore written, and sent by the said Queen of Scots to the Queen’s Majesty.”224 Was this all the proof that was offered? Yes; the whole. Elizabeth, who was no less anxious than Murray himself to blacken the character of the Queen of Scots, was allowed to supply the letters with which the other writings were to be compared; and, for any thing that is known to the contrary, these “other letters, long since heretofore written,” were only a few more forgeries from the same hand, prepared for the very use to which they were applied. And be this as it may, is it likely that, by a hasty collation of this kind, any accurate decision could be formed; or that, in a single forenoon, a number of different individuals could come to a conclusion on so very nice a point as a comparison of hands, especially having before them so great a number of documents to decide upon? It is a maxim in law, that “fallacissimum genus probandi sit per comparationem litterarum;” and surely the fallaciousness of such a proof was not diminished by the hasty examination given to them by some English nobles, probably unacquainted previously with the writing of the Queen of Scots.