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

But could Mary herself, it will be asked, refuse to acknowledge her own hand? Her Commissioners would of course be allowed to see the original letters; if not the whole, at least some of them, would be given to them, that they might transmit them to their mistress; and she being either unable to deny them, would confess her guilt, or, perceiving them to be fabrications, would point out the proofs. But nothing of all this was done. Mary’s Commissioners were not present at the only meetings at which the originals were produced; and when they afterwards applied for a sight of them, or for copies, they were put off from time to time till the conference was dissolved, and Murray sent back to Scotland. “Suppose a man,” says Tytler, “was to swear a debt against me, and offered to prove it by bond or bill of my handwriting; if I knew this bond to be a false writing, what would be my defence? Show me the bond itself, and I will prove it a forgery. If he withdrew the bond, and refused to let me see it, what would be the presumption? Surely that the bond was forged, and that the user was himself the forger. The case is precisely similar to the point in hand. The Queen, we have seen, repeatedly demands to see the principal writings themselves, which she asserts are forged. Elizabeth herself says the demand is most reasonable. What follows? Is this reasonable demand of Mary complied with? Far from it; so far from seeing or having inspection of the originals, even copies of them are refused to her and her Commissioners.”225 Under these circumstances, and as the writings were seen only twice by a few of the English nobility, and then locked up again in Murray’s box, that they once existed may perhaps be granted, but that they were what they pretended to be, cannot be believed to have been ever proved.

Seventh, Having effected the purpose they were meant to achieve, it might have been expected that these letters would be carefully preserved in the public archives of the Scottish nation; – that, as they had been the means of bringing about a revolution in the country, they would be regarded not as private, but as public property; – and that Murray would be anxious to lodge them where they might be referred to, both by his cotemporaries and posterity, as documents with which his own reputation, no less than that of his sister, was indissolubly connected. Here again, however, the impartial inquirer is disappointed. The Regent appears to have kept these writings close in his own possession till his death, and they then fell into the hands of his successor, the Earl of Lennox. Towards the end of January 1571, Lennox delivered them to Morton; and after Morton’s execution, the box and its contents became the property of the Earl of Gowrie. Knowing that he would be less anxious to maintain their authenticity, not being influenced by any of the motives which had actuated Murray, Lennox, and Morton, and fearing lest the whole trick should be discovered, Elizabeth became now very anxious to obtain them. She ordered her ambassador in Scotland, in 1582, to promise Gowrie, that if he would surrender them, he should “be requited to his comfort and contentment, with princely thanks and gratuity.” But Gowrie was neither to be bribed nor persuaded; he knew the value of the papers too well, and the power which their possession gave him, both over James and Elizabeth. As long as they befriended him, he would be silent; but should he ever be cast off by them, he would proclaim their fabrication, and remove the stains they had cast upon Mary’s honour. Elizabeth’s earnest endeavours to get them into her own possession can be accounted for, only on the supposition that she knew them to be forgeries; for it was in that case alone, that any dangerous use could have been made of them. Subsequent to the correspondence with Gowrie, in 1582, nothing further is known of these writings. In 1584, Gowrie was executed as a traitor, on account of the conspiracy in which he had engaged, and many of his effects fell into the hands of James VI.; but whether these documents were among them, is uncertain. In so far as the originals are concerned, this celebrated body of evidence is little else than a mere shadow. It was never spoken of at all, till long after it had been discovered, – it was not produced till long after it had been first spoken of, – it appeared only for a few hours before persons predisposed to give it all credit, – it then returned to its former obscurity, and not even copies but merely translations, are all that were ever presented to the world, on which to form an opinion. It is strange that any importance should have ever been attached to papers, which were never fairly exposed to the light, and which the jaws of darkness so soon devoured.226

Eighth, Though it would be perhaps as difficult to prove a negative, as to demonstrate the spuriousness of writings which do not exist, and which were hardly ever seen, the presumption against them is increased a hundred-fold, if it can be clearly established, that the same men who produced them were more than once guilty of deliberate forgery. This could be done in many instances; but it will be enough to mention two, which are sufficiently glaring. The first is the letter which Morton exhibited before Mary was taken to Loch-Leven, and which was never afterwards referred to or produced, even at the time when evidence of all kinds was raked up against her. It was a letter which would not only have gone a great way to corroborate the others, but, as it did not implicate the Queen in Darnley’s murder, was exactly the sort of apology that was wished for keeping her “sequestrated” at Loch-Leven, and forcing from her an abdication. Even though all the other epistles had been kept back, this might have been safely engrossed in the minutes of Morton’s Privy Council, and referred to again and again by the King’s Lords, as the great justification of their conduct. If by any chance a reason could be found, why it was first produced, and again concealed, it would still be impossible to discover why it alone was withdrawn, when all the rest were laid before Elizabeth. There is but one solution of the enigma, which is, that it was too hasty a fabrication to bear minute examination, and that, though it misled Kircaldy of Grange, Morton and Murray were themselves ashamed of it.

A second and even more remarkable example of forgery is to be found in one of the papers which Murray showed to the English Commissioners at York, but which he afterwards thought it prudent to withdraw when the writings were more publicly produced at Westminster. This paper was described as, – “The Queen’s consent given to the Lords who subscribed the bond for the promotion of the said James Earl Bothwell to her marriage.”227 In the “private and secret Conference,” which Lethington, MacGill, Wood, and Buchanan, had with the Commissioners at York; “they showed unto us,” say the latter, “a copy of a band, bearing date the 19th of April 1567, to the which the most part of the Lords and Counsellors of Scotland have put to their hands; and, as they say, more for fear than any liking they had of the same. Which band contained two special points, – the one a declaration of Bothwell’s purgation of the murder of the Lord Darnley, and the other a general consent to his marriage with the Queen, so far forth as the law and her own liking should allow. And yet, in proof that they did it not willingly, they procured a warrant which was now showed unto us, bearing date the 19th of April, signed with the Queen’s hand, whereby she gave them license to agree to the same; affirming, that before they had such a warrant, there was none of them that did or would set to their hands, saving only the Earl of Huntly.”228 This must have been a very curious and interesting warrant; and it is somewhat surprising, that it had never been heard of before. It was a very strong link in the chain; and spoke volumes of Mary’s love for Bothwell, which carried her so far that she not only secretly wished, but openly requested her nobles to recommend him to her as a husband. Besides, if the warrant was genuine, it must have been seen by all the Lords who were present at “Ainsly’s supper;” and they must have been consequently well aware that there was no such thing as a forcible abduction of the Queen’s person. So far from supposing that Bothwell ever kept her in “unlawful bondage,” or forced her into a “pretended marriage,” they would know that she had shown greater anxiety to possess him than he had to secure her. Their only wonder would be, that after so far overcoming the natural modesty of her sex, as to point out to them one of her own subjects, whom she asked them to advise her to marry, she should so palpably have contradicted herself, as to give out afterwards that it was not till she had been carried off, and till every argument had been used which power could supply, or passion suggest, that she reluctantly agreed to become his wife. If she openly and formally licensed her nobles to recommend him, what was the use of all her subsequent affected reluctance? But it was not Murray’s business to explain this problem. The warrant spoke for itself, and it was with it only that he had to do. What, then, were the comments which he made on it at Westminster, and the conclusive presumptions against Mary which he drew from it? The “Warrant” was not produced at Westminster at all, and not a single allusion was made to it.229 This fact alone is sufficient to mark the credit it deserves. It could do no harm to show it privately to Norfolk, Sussex, and Sadler; but it would not have answered so well to have advanced it publicly, as all the nobility of Scotland would at once have known it to be a fabrication. The probability is, that this “Warrant,” or “Consent,” was neither more nor less than a garbled copy of the pardon which Bothwell obtained from Mary, for the Lords who had signed the bond, when he brought her out of the Castle of Edinburgh on the 14th of May, the day previous to her marriage; and she would never have been asked for this pardon if she had before recommended the bond.230 If Murray and his party are thus detected in fabrications so gross, that they themselves, however anxious to bolster up their cause, were afraid to make use of them, what dependence is to be placed upon the authenticity of any writings they chose to produce?

Ninth, It was Bothwell who murdered Darnley; it was Bothwell who seized the person of the Queen; it was Bothwell who was married to her; it was Bothwell whose daring ambition waded through blood and crime, till at length he set his foot upon a throne. But his triumph was of short duration. The Queen left him, and went over to his enemies; and he himself was forced into a miserable exile. It was this reverse of fortune which he had all along dreaded; and it was to be prepared for the evil day, that he had preserved the eight letters and love-sonnets so carefully in the small gilt box. He had determined, that whatever might happen, he should never lose his hold over Mary, but that, as she had participated in his guilt, she should be made to share his subsequent fortunes. He cannot have been well pleased with her conduct at Carberry Hill; and it was perhaps to revenge himself upon her, that he sent Dalgleish for the casket, part of the contents of which he may have intended to disclose to the world. Dalgleish and the casket were seized, but the secret of Mary’s criminality was still in Bothwell’s possession; and there was surely no occasion that he should become odious in the eyes of all men, whilst his paramour and accomplice preserved her reputation. Did he never, then, throughout the whole course of his life, utter a word, or issue a declaration, or make a confession which in the slightest degree implicated Mary? It is surely a strong presumption in her favour if he never did.

Before Darnley was murdered, Bothwell went to meet Morton at Whittingham, to consult him on the subject. Morton told him, that unless he could produce proof, under the Queen’s hand, of her consent to have her husband removed, he would not interfere in the matter. Before going to Whittingham, Bothwell must have received the two letters which Mary is alleged to have written to him from Glasgow; yet he was unable to show Morton any writing to corroborate his assertion, that the Queen would not be offended at the proposed murder. He promised, however, that he would do all he could to procure the warrant which Morton desired. Some time afterwards, “I being at St Andrews,” says Morton in his confession, “to visit the Earl of Angus a little before the murder, Mr Archibald Douglas came to me there, both with write and credit of the Earl Bothwell, to show unto me that the purpose of the King’s murder was to be done, and near a point; and to request my concurrence and assistance thereunto. My answer to him was, that I would give no answer to that purpose, seeing I had not got the Queen’s warrant in write, which was promised; and therefore, seeing the Earl Bothwell never reported any warrant of the Queen to me, I never meddled further with it.”231 As all that Morton wished, before giving Bothwell his active support, was “the Queen’s hand-write of the matter for a warrant,” what would have been more natural or easy for Bothwell than to have produced any of the letters he had got from Mary, which would exactly have answered the purpose, and satisfied all Morton’s scruples? As Bothwell told him that the Queen approved of the design, he could not have any objection to make good that assertion, by any written evidence in his possession. He need not even have shown the whole of any one letter, but only such detached parts of it as bore directly on the subject in question. It is strange, that Bothwell should have gone so far, and should have been so anxious to secure the co-operation of Morton; yet, that he did not obviate the only objection which Morton started, by putting into his hands a letter, or letters, which, if they ever existed, he must have then had.232

Various occasions occurred afterwards, which held out every inducement to Bothwell to produce the letters and accuse the Queen. Passing over his silence at Carberry Hill, notwithstanding her desertion of him there, and during all the rest of the time that he remained in Scotland, it may be mentioned, that Murray, shortly after he had been appointed Regent, wrote to the King of Denmark, to request that Bothwell should be delivered up to him. The King refused, on several grounds, and among others, that Bothwell maintained he had been unjustly driven from the kingdom, – that he had been legally tried and acquitted, – that he had been lawfully married to the Queen, – and that no blame whatever attached to her.233 Not at all satisfied with this answer, Mr Thomas Buchanan was afterwards sent out to Denmark, to procure, if possible, Bothwell’s surrender. Buchanan, of course, made himself acquainted with all that Bothwell had been saying and doing, since he fled from Scotland; and in January 1571, he sent home a full account of his discoveries to his constituents. The letter was addressed to the Earl of Lennox, who was then Regent; but it fell first into the Earl of Morton’s hands, who was at the time in London. Perceiving that it contained matter by no means favourable to their cause, and afraid lest it might produce some effect on the mind of Elizabeth, he played the same game with her he had formerly been so successful in with Mary, and passed off upon her a garbled copy as a genuine transcript of the original. “We had no will,” the Earl of Morton wrote to Lennox, “that the contents of the letter should be known, fearing that some words and matters mentioned in the same being dispersed here as news, would rather have hindered than furthered our cause. And, therefore, being desired at Court to show the letter, we gave to understand that we had sent the principal away, and delivered a copy, omitting such things as we thought not meet to be shown, as your Grace may perceive by the like copy, which also we have sent you herewith; which you may communicate to such as your Grace thinks it not expedient to communicate the whole contents of the principal letter unto.”234 Both the original despatch and the spurious copy have unfortunately been lost, or were more probably destroyed by Lennox himself; so that their contents can only be conjectured; but it is evident, that so far from tending to hurt Mary’s reputation, they must rather have served to exculpate her.

In the year 1576, Mary wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow, that she had received intelligence of Bothwell’s death, and that, before his decease, he had declared himself the murderer of Darnley, and expressly freed her from any share in it, attesting her innocence in the most solemn manner. “If this be true,” Mary added, “this testimony will be of great importance to me against the false calumnies of my enemies. I therefore beseech you to take every means in your power to discover the real state of the case.”235 The Archbishop proposed, in consequence, to send a messenger to Denmark, to procure a properly authenticated copy of the testament, but for want of money and other causes, it appears that he was never able to carry his intentions into effect. The confession was transmitted to Elizabeth by the King of Denmark, but its publication was anxiously suppressed by her;236 and is now lost. Its place, however, has been not unsatisfactorily supplied by a discovery which has recently been made in the Royal library at Drottningholm, entitled, a “Declaration of the Earl of Bothwell,” made by him when a prisoner at Copenhagen in the year 1568. It contains a full account of all the principal events of his past life; and though it was written, not as a confession, but as a justification, and is consequently an artful piece of special pleading in his own defence, and not always particularly accurate in its detail of facts, it cannot fail nevertheless to be regarded as an interesting and important document. One thing is especially to be remarked, that throughout the whole, he never attempts in the most distant manner to implicate Mary in the blame attachable to his own conduct. On the contrary, he speaks of her throughout with the utmost respect. It may be said, that if Bothwell had accused Mary, he could not have defended himself, and that he abstained only from a selfish motive. There were, however, a thousand different degrees of responsibility with which he might have charged Mary. There was no necessity to have accused her of the murder of Darnley, or of a criminal attachment to him; but if it had been the truth, it would certainly have been for his own interest, to have proved that the Queen loved him sincerely and warmly. Even this he does not venture to state; and the impression left by the whole tone of the declaration unquestionably is, that he felt it would be for his advantage to say as little about Mary as possible, knowing that, of all others he had offended most against her, and that to attempt to cast any imputation upon her innocence, would be only to throw a darker shade over his own villany.237

Tenth.– Some historians have ventured to assert, that however little credit they might be disposed to give to the statements of such men as Murray and Morton, they have been somewhat startled to find that Mary herself never denied them very positively, or evinced much indignation against them. These historians cannot have looked very deeply into the records on this subject, else they would have found that the fact was exactly the reverse of what they suppose it to have been. “And yet is there one injury more,” says Bishop Lesley, “that doth grieve and molest this good guiltless lady more than all their foretold villanous pranks played by them against her, and surely not without just cause of grief; for, indeed, it far passeth and exceedeth them all, and that is, their shameful and most traitorous defaming her, being altogether innocent therein, with the death of her husband, as though that she had suborned the Earl of Bothwell thereto, and rewarded him therefor with the marriage of her own body.”238 It is altogether unnecessary to refer to any particular authorities upon this subject; for a volume might be easily filled with Letters, Despatches, and Instructions from Mary, which not only deny her guilt, but, by the arguments they contain, go very far to establish her innocence. A communication, which she addressed, in the year 1569, to the States of Scotland, must, however, be mentioned, as it distinctly shows what her feelings then were towards Bothwell; for whom, indeed, she had so little affection, that, very soon after her arrival in England, she lent a favourable ear to the proposals of marriage made by the Duke of Norfolk. Her letter to the Scottish Parliament is to be considered in connection with this contemplated marriage. Its purpose was, to obtain the sanction of the States to a divorce from Bothwell; and she alluded to him in the following terms: “Forasmuch as we are credibly informed, by sundry and diverse noblemen of our realm, that the pretended marriage, some time contracted, and in a manner solemnized, between us and James Earl of Bothwell, was, for diverse respects, unlawful, and may not of good conscience and law stand betwixt us, (albeit it seemed otherwise to us and our Council at that time); – considering, therefore, with ourselves, and thinking that the same does touch us as highly in honour and conscience that it daily and hourly troubles and vexes our spirit quite through, we are moved to seek remedy.”239 The very Lords, however, who had before affected so much anxiety to free her from that “ungodly alliance,” now refused to take any steps towards forwarding the divorce; and they were thus convicted of another inconsistency.240 Little more than eighteen months had elapsed since they had not only imprisoned her, but forced her to surrender her crown, because, as they alleged, she “would not consent, by any persuasion, to abandon the Lord Bothwell for her husband, but avowed constantly that she would live and die with him, saying, that if it were put to her choice to relinquish her crown and kingdom, or the Lord Bothwell, she would leave her kingdom and dignity to go as a simple damsel with him, and would never consent that he would fare worse, or have more harm than herself.”241 Yet she now expressly asked a divorce from this Lord Bothwell, her connection with whom had “daily and hourly troubled and vexed her spirit;” and the Lords, forgetting all their former protestations, were not disposed to accede to it.

Nor was it by Mary herself alone, that a direct contradiction was given to the defamatory accusations of the regent and his associates. Numerous state papers exist which show, that all the impartial and disinterested part, not only of her own nobility, but of Elizabeth’s, considered her entirely innocent. In the year 1568, letters were addressed to the Queen of England, by many of the Lords of Scotland, which spoke very strongly in her favour. Among the signatures to these, will be found the names of the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Earl of Huntly, Argyle, Crawfurd, Errol, Rothes, Cassils, Eglinton, and Caithness, and the Lords Fleming, Ross, Sanquhar, Ogilvy, Boyd, Oliphant, Drummond, Maxwell, and others.242 In England, the great number of Lords and gentlemen of the first rank who joined with Norfolk in aid of Mary, affords perhaps a still stronger presumption in her favour. But Robertson, on the other hand, asserts that her father and mother-in-law, Lord and Lady Lennox, were convinced of her guilt. By attaching himself to the Prince’s faction, Lennox came to be elected Regent, and that he was willing to believe, or affect to believe, all that Mary’s enemies advanced, cannot be matter of much wonder; for he had in truth identified his interests with those of Murray and Morton, and if their fabrications had been detected, he must have suffered along with them. But in so far as regards the Countess of Lennox, Robertson’s statement is directly contrary to the fact. He quotes a letter, it is true, written by Mary to that Lady in the year 1570, in which, with ingenuous sincerity, the Queen laments that the Countess should allow herself to be persuaded to think evil of her; and it was perhaps partly in consequence of this appeal, that Lady Lennox began to consider the subject more seriously. Robertson either did not know, or chose to conceal the fact, that she saw cause soon after receiving Mary’s letter decidedly to change her opinions. In 1578, Mary wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow to this effect: – “The Countess of Lennox, my mother-in-law, died about a month ago. This good lady, thanks to God, has been in very good intelligence and correspondence with me for the last five or six years. She has confessed to me, by diverse letters under her hand which I carefully keep, the wrong she did me in the unjust prosecutions which she allowed to proceed against me in her name, and which originated, partly in erroneous information, but principally in the express commands of the Queen of England, and persuasions of those of her Council who were always averse to our reconciliation. As soon as she became persuaded of my innocence, she desisted from these prosecutions, and resolutely refused to countenance the proceedings which were carried on against me under her name.”243 Thus, however prejudiced her husband necessarily was, the Countess was unable to resist the force of truth, as soon as she was allowed to judge for herself. It may further be mentioned, that in France there was scarcely an individual who thought Mary guilty; and that the funeral orations which were ordered by the Government to be preached upon her death, were attended by hundreds, who wept over the injuries and the misfortunes of their beloved Queen-dowager.244 It appears, therefore, both by Mary’s own declarations, repeated over and over again with undeviating consistency, up to the very hour of her death, when she passed into the presence of her Maker, solemnly protesting her innocence, and by the deliberate opinions of nearly all her cotemporaries who are deserving of credit, that the strongest and most positive contradiction was given to the malicious insinuations of the opposite party.