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

“Most Reverend Father in God, and trust Counsellor, we greet you well: We have received this morning your letters of the 27th January, by your servant Robert Dury, containing in part such advertisement as we find by effect over true, albeit the success has not altogether been such as the authors of that mischievous fact had preconceived in their mind, and had put it in execution, if God in his mercy had not preserved us and reserved us, as we trust, to the end that we may take a vigorous vengeance of that mischievous deed, which, before it should remain unpunished, we had rather lose life and all. The matter is horrible, and so strange, that we believe the like was never heard of in any country. This night past, being the 9th February, a little after two hours after midnight, the house wherein the King was lodged was in an instant blown in the air, he lying sleeping in his bed, with such a vehemency, that of the whole lodging, walls, and other, there is nothing remaining, – no, not a stone above another, but all either carried far away, or dung in dross to the very ground-stone. It must be done by force of powder, and appears to have been a mine.58 By whom it has been done, or in what manner, it appears not as yet. We doubt not but, according to the diligence our Council has begun already to use, the certainty of all shall be obtained shortly; and the same being discovered, which we wot God will never suffer to lie hid, we hope to punish the same with such rigour, as shall serve for example of this cruelty to all ages to come. At all events, whoever has taken this wicked enterprise in hand, we assure ourself it was devised as well for us as for the King; for we lay all the most part of all the last week in that same lodging, and were there accompanied with the most part of the lords that are in this town, that same night at midnight, and of very chance tarried not all night, by reason of some masque in the Abbey; but we believe it was not chance, but God that put it in our head.59 We despatch this bearer upon the sudden, and therefore write to you the more shortly. The rest of your letter we shall answer at more leisure, within four or five days, by your own servant; and so, for the present, commit you to Almighty God. – At Edinburgh, the 11th day of February 1556-7. – Marie R.”60

In accordance with the resolution intimated in the above letter, to seek out and vigorously punish her husband’s murderers, a proclamation was issued upon Wednesday the 12th, immediately after an inquisition had been taken by the Justice-General, offering a reward of two thousand pounds, and “an honest yearly rent,” to whosoever should reveal “the persons, devisers, counsellors, or actual committers of the said mischievous and treasonable murder,” and promising besides to the first revealer, although a partaker of the crime, a free pardon. The same proclamation declared, that as “Almighty God would never suffer so horrible a deed to lie hid, so, before it should remain untried, the Queen’s Majesty, unto whom of all others the case was most grievous, would rather lose life and all.”61 In the mean time, not knowing but that the same traitors who had murdered her husband, might intend a similar fate for herself, Mary removed to the Castle, as a place of greater security than Holyrood Palace. There she remained shut up in a dark chamber, hung with black, till after Darnley’s burial. He lay in the Chapel at Holyrood, from the 12th to the 15th of February. His body having been embalmed, he was then interred in the royal vault, in which King James V., together with his first wife, Magdalene, and his two infant sons, Mary’s brothers, lay. Buchanan, and his follower Laing, have both insisted upon the nocturnal secrecy and indifference with which the funeral ceremony was conducted. “The nobles that were there present,” says Buchanan, “decreed, that a stately and honourable funeral should be made for him; but the Queen ordered it so, that he was carried by private bearers in the night-time, and was buried in no manner of state.” The interpretation to be put upon this insidious passage is, that the Protestant Lords proposed to bury Darnley after the Presbyterian form, and that Mary refused her consent, and, in consequence, only the Catholics attended. “The ceremonies indeed,” says Lesley, “were the fewer, because that the greatest part of the Council were Protestants, and had before interred their own parents without accustomed solemnities.”62 That Mary’s calumniators should have insisted upon this circumstance at all, only shows how eager they were to avail themselves of everything which they could pervert to their own purposes. Had Mary wished to act the hypocrite, nothing could have been easier for her than to have made a great parade at Darnley’s funeral.

Bothwell, in the mean time, kept as quiet as possible, attending, as usual, at court, and taking care always to be present at the meetings of the Privy Council. But he had lighted a torch which was not to be extinguished, till it had blazed over Scotland, and kindled his own funeral pyre. On whatever grounds the suspicion had gone abroad, (and it is difficult to say why public attention should so soon have been directed to him as the perpetrator of the late murder, unless we suppose Murray, or some of his other accomplices, to have been now eager to publish his guilt, in order to accomplish his ruin), it is at all events certain, that in a few days after the proclamation for the discovery of the assassins had been issued, a placard was set up at night, on the door of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, in which it was affirmed, that the Earl of Bothwell, together with a Mr James Balfour, a Mr David Chalmers, and a Mr John Spence, were the persons principally concerned in the crime, and that the Queen herself was “assenting thereto.” It might be reasonably concluded, that no notice whatever would be taken of an anonymous paper thus expressed; but the Queen, even although it insultingly accused herself, was so anxious to have the matter of the murder investigated, that she caused another proclamation to be issued, without waiting for the advice of her Privy Council, desiring the author of the placard to divulge his name, and promising that if he could show there was any truth in any part of his averment, he should receive the promised reward.63 A second placard was stuck up in answer, requiring the money to be lodged in honest hands, and three of the Queen’s servants, whom it named, to be put in arrest; and undertaking, as soon as these conditions were complied with, that the author and four friends would discover themselves. This was so palpable an evasion, that it of course met with no attention. To suppose that Government would take upon itself the charge of partiality, and place the public money in what an anonymous writer might consider “honest hands,” was too grossly absurd to have been proposed by any one who really wished to do his country a service.

The circumstance of Bothwell’s name being mentioned in these placards, in conjunction with that of the Queen, probably operated in his favour with Mary. Conscious of her own innocence, she would very naturally suppose that the charge was equally calumnious in regard to him; for if she knew it to be false in one particular, what dependence could she place upon its truth in any other? At the same time, she could not of course see her husband murdered, almost before her eyes, without making various surmises concerning the real author and cause of his death. Her accusers, however, seem to suppose that she ought to have been gifted with an almost miraculous power of discovering the guilty. Only a few days before, every thing had been proceeding smoothly; and she herself, with renovated spirits, was enjoying the returning health and affection of her husband. In a moment the scene was overclouded; her husband was barbarously slain; and all Scotland was in a ferment. Yet around the Queen all wore the same aspect. Murray was living quietly in Fife; her secretary Maitland was proceeding as usual with the official details of public business; the Earl of Morton had not yet returned to Court, and he also was in Fife; the Archbishop of St Andrews was busied in bolstering up the last remains of Catholicism; Athol, Caithness, Huntly, Argyle, Bothwell, Cassils, and Sutherland, were attending their Sovereign, as faithful and attached servants ought. Where then was she to look for the traitor who had raised his hand against her husband’s life and her own happiness? Whom was she to suspect? Was it Murray? – he had left town without any sufficient cause, on the very day of Darnley’s death, and had hated him ever since he put his foot in Scotland. Was it Morton? – he had returned recently from banishment, and that banishment had been the result of Darnley’s treachery, and had not Morton assassinated Rizzio, with far less grounds of offence? Was it Argyle? – the Lennox family had stripped him of some of his possessions, and the King’s death might, perhaps, be the means of restoring them to him. Was it the Hamiltons? – they were the hereditary enemies of the house of Lennox, and Darnley had blasted for ever their hopes of succession to the throne. Was it Huntly? Was it Athol? Was it Bothwell? It was less likely to be any of these, because Darnley had never come into direct collision with them. By what art, or superior penetration, was Mary to make a discovery which was baffling the whole of Scotland? Was she surrounded by the very men who had done the deed, and who used every means to lead her astray from the truth; yet was she to be able to single out the criminal at a glance, and hurl upon him her just indignation?64

Worn out by her griefs and her perplexities, her doubts and her fears, Mary’s health began to give way, and her friends prevailed upon her to leave for a short time her confinement in Edinburgh Castle, and visit Seaton House, a country residence of which she was fond, only seven miles off. Lesley, after describing Mary’s melancholy sojourn in the Castle, adds, that she would have “continued a longer time in this lamentable wise, had she not been most earnestly dehorted by the vehement exhortations and persuasions of her Council, who were moved thereto by her physicians informations, declaring to them the great and imminent dangers of her health and life, if she did not in all speed break up and leave that kind of close and solitary life, and repair to some good open and wholesome air; which she did, being thus advised, and earnestly thereto solicited by her said council.”65 She went to Seaton on the 16th of February, accompanied by a very considerable train, among whom were the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, Bothwell, Arbroath, the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Lords Fleming and Livingston, and Secretary Maitland.66 It was here that a correspondence took place between the Queen and the Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s father, which deserves attention.

In his first letter, the Earl thanked her Majesty for the trouble and labour she took to discover and bring to trial those who were guilty of the “late cruel act;” but as the offenders were not yet known, he beseeched her Highness to assemble, with all convenient diligence, the whole nobility and estates of the realm, that they, acting in conjunction with her Majesty, might take such steps as should seem most likely to make manifest the “bloody and cruel actors of the deed.” This letter was dated the 20th of February 1567. Mary replied to it on the 21st; and in her answer, assured Lennox that in showing him all the pleasure and goodwill in her power, she did only her duty, and that which her natural affection prompted, adding, that on that affection he might always depend, “so long as God gave her life.” As to the assembling of her nobility, she informed him, that shortly before the receipt of his letter, she had desired a Parliament to be summoned, and that as soon as it met, the death of Darnley would be the first subject which it would be called upon to consider. Lennox wrote again on the 26th, to explain, that when he advised her Majesty to assemble her nobility, he did not allude to the holding of a Parliament, which he knew could not be done immediately. But because he had heard of certain placards which had been set up in Edinburgh, in which certain persons were named as the devisers of the murder, he requested that these persons should be apprehended and imprisoned, that the nobility and Council should be assembled, and that the writers of the placards should be required to appear before them, and be confronted with those whom they had accused; and that if they refused to appear, or did not make good their charge, the persons slandered should be exonerated and set at liberty. A proposal so very unconstitutional could not have been made by Lennox, unless misled by the ardour of his paternal feelings, or instigated by some personal enmity towards Bothwell. If Mary had ventured to throw into prison every one accused in an anonymous bill, there is no saying where the abuse might have ended. The most worthless coward might have thus revenged himself upon those he hated; and law and justice would have degenerated into despotism, or civil anarchy. The Queen, therefore, informed Lennox, that although, as she had already written, she had summoned a Parliament, and should lay the matter of the murder before it, it was never her intention to allow it to sleep in the mean time. Her Lords and Council would of course continue to exert themselves, but her whole nobility could not be assembled till the Parliament met. As to his desire, that the persons named in the placards should be apprehended, there had been so many, and so contrary statements made in these placards, that she knew not to which in particular he alluded; and besides, that she could not find herself justified in throwing any of her subjects into prison upon such authority; but that, if he himself would condescend upon the names of such persons as he thought deserved a trial, she would order that trial to take place immediately. She was anxious that Lennox should take this responsibility upon himself, for she had hitherto been kept much in the dark, and was glad to have the assistance of one almost as desirous as herself to come to the truth. She invited him, therefore, in her letter of the 1st of March, to write to her again immediately, with any other suggestion which might occur to him, because she was determined “not to omit any occasion which might clear the matter.” It was the 17th of March before Lennox again addressed the Queen. He thanked her Majesty for her attention to his wishes; he marvelled that the names of the persons upon the placards, against whom the greatest suspicions were entertained, “had been kept from her Majesty’s ears;” and, as she requested it, he now named them himself, putting the Earl of Bothwell first, and several other inferior persons after him. He did not undertake to be their accuser, confessing that he had no evidence of their guilt; but he said he greatly suspected Bothwell, and hoped “her Majesty, now knowing their names, and being a party, as well and more than he was, although he was the father, would take order in the matter according to the weight of the cause.” Mary, who had by this time returned to Edinburgh, wrote to Lennox, the very day after the receipt of his letter, that she had summoned her nobility to come to Edinburgh the first week of April; and that, as soon as they came, the persons named in his letter should “abide and underlie such trial, as by the laws of the realm was usual.” – “They being found culpable,” Mary added, “in any way of that crime and odious fact, named in the placards, and whereof you suspect them, we shall even, according to our former letter, see the condign punishment as vigorously and extremely executed as the weight of that fact deserves; for, indeed, as you write, we esteem ourself a party if we were resolute of the authors.” She further entreated Lennox to come to Edinburgh, that he might be present at the trial, and lend his assistance to it. “You shall there have experience,” she concluded, “of our earnest will and effectuous mind to have an end in this matter, and the authors of so unworthy a deed really punished.”67

The Queen, having waited anxiously till something should occur which might lead to the detection of the murderers, hoped that a clue to the mystery was now about to be discovered. It was a bold and perhaps almost too strong a measure, to arraign a nobleman so powerful, and apparently so respected as Bothwell, of so serious a crime, upon such vague suspicion; but if Mary in this instance exceeded the due limits of her constituted authority, it was an error which leant to virtue’s side, and the feelings of an insulted Queen and afflicted wife must plead her excuse. Her Privy Council, which she summoned immediately upon the receipt of Lennox’s last letter, and before whom she laid it, passed an act directing the trial of the Earl of Bothwell, and the other suspected persons named by Lennox. The trial was fixed to take place on the 12th day of April 1567; letters were directed to the Earl of Lennox to inform him of it, and proclamations were made in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumbarton, and other places, calling upon all who would accuse Bothwell, or his accomplices, to appear in court on the day appointed.68 The Council, however, would not authorize the imprisonment of the suspected persons, seeing that it was only anonymous placards which had excited that suspicion.

As soon as the Earl of Lennox got intimation of the intended trial, he set out for Edinburgh from his estate in Dumbartonshire. Not choosing to proceed thither direct, in consequence of the enmity which he knew Bothwell must bear to him, he went to Stirling, where it was understood he was engaged in collecting all the evidence in his power. Nor can Bothwell be supposed to have felt very easy, under the prospect of his approaching trial. He counted, however, on the good offices of his friends among the nobility; and having removed all who might have been witnesses against him, and brought into Edinburgh a numerous body of retainers, he resolved to brazen out the accusation with his usual audacity. He even affected to complain that he had not been treated with sufficient fairness; that a paper affixed privately to the door of the Tolbooth had been made the means of involving him in serious trouble; and that, instead of the usual term of forty days, only fifteen had been allowed him to prepare for his defence.69 He assumed the air, therefore, of an injured and innocent man; and he was well borne out in this character by the countenance he received from most of the Lords then at court. We learn from Killigrew, that twenty days after Bothwell had been placarded, he dined with him at the Earl of Murray’s, who had by this time returned from Fife, in company with Huntly, Argyle, and Lethington.70

The day of trial now drew near; but, to her astonishment, Mary received a letter only twenty-four hours before it was to take place, from the Earl of Lennox, who did not exactly see how he was to carry through his accusation, and therefore wished that the case should be postponed. The letter was dated from Stirling, and mentioned two causes which he said would prevent him from coming to Edinburgh; one was sickness, and the other the short time which had been allowed him to prepare for making good his charge. He asked, therefore, that the Queen would imprison the suspected persons, and would delay the trial till he had collected his friends and his proofs.71 This request disappointed Mary exceedingly. She had hurried on the trial as much to gratify Lennox as herself; but she now saw that, in asking for it at all, he had been guided more by the feeling of the moment, than by any rational conviction of its propriety. To postpone it without the consent of the accused, who had by this time made the necessary preparations for their defence, was of course out of the question; and, if the time originally mentioned was too short, why did Lennox not write to that effect, as soon as he received intimation of the day appointed? If she put off the trial now, for any thing she knew it might never come on at all. Her enemies, however, were determined, whatever she did, to discover some cause of complaint; – if she urged it on, they would accuse her of precipitancy; if she postponed it, they would charge her with indifference. Elizabeth, in particular, under the pretence of a mighty anxiety that Mary should do what was most honourable and requisite, insolently suggested that suspicion might attach to herself, unless she complied with the request made by Lennox. “For the love of God, Madam,” she hypocritically and insidiously wrote to Mary, “conduct yourself with such sincerity and prudence, in a case which touches you so nearly, that all the world may have reason to pronounce you innocent of a crime so enormous, which, unless they did, you would deserve to be blotted out from the rank of Princesses, and to become odious even to the vulgar, rather than see which, I would wish you an honourable sepulchre.”72 Just as if any one did suspect Mary, or as if any monarch in Christendom would have dared to hint the possibility of her being an adulterous murderess, except her jealous rival Elizabeth, pining in the chagrined malevolence of antiquated virginity. The real motives which dictated this epistle became the more apparent, when we learn that it was not written till the 8th of April, and could not at the very soonest reach Edinburgh till the morning of the very day on which the trial was to take place, and probably not till after it was over. The truth is, the very moment she heard of Darnley’s death, Elizabeth had eagerly considered in her own mind the possibility of involving “her good sister” in the guilt attached to those who had murdered him, and was now the very first who openly attempted to lead the thoughts of the Scottish Queen’s subjects into that channel; – she was the very first who commenced laying the train which produced in the end so fatal a catastrophe.

On Saturday, the 12th of April 1567, a Justiciary Court was held in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, for the trial of the Earl of Bothwell. The Lord High Justice the Earl of Argyle presided, attended by four assessors, or legal advisers, two of whom, Mr James MacGill and Mr Henry Balnaves, were Senators of the College of Justice; the third was Robert Pitcairn, Commendator of Dumfermlin, and the fourth was Lord Lindsay. The usual preliminary formalities having been gone through, the indictment was read, in which Bothwell was accused of being “art and part of the cruel, odious, treasonable, and abominable slaughter and murder, of the umwhile the Right High and Mighty Prince the King’s Grace, dearest spouse for the time to our Sovereign Lady the Queen’s Majesty.”73 He was then called as defender on the one side, and Matthew Earl of Lennox, and all others the Queen’s lieges, who wished to pursue in the matter, on the other. Bothwell appeared immediately at the bar, supported by the Earl of Morton, and two gentlemen who were to act as his advocates. But the Earl of Lennox, or other pursuers, though frequently called, did not appear. At length Robert Cunningham, one of Lennox’s servants, stepped forward, and produced a writing in the shape of a protest, which his master had authorized him to deliver. It stated, that the cause of the Earl’s absence was the shortness of time, and the want of friends and retainers to accompany him to the place of trial; and it therefore objected to the decision of any assize which might be held that day. In reply to this protest, the letters of the Earl of Lennox to the Queen, in which he desired that a short and summary process might be taken against the suspected persons, were produced and read; and it was maintained by the Earl of Bothwell’s counsel, that the trial ought to proceed immediately, according to the laws of the realm, and the wish of the party accused. The judges, having heard both sides, were of opinion that Bothwell had a right to insist upon the trial going on. A jury was therefore chosen, which does not seem to have consisted of persons particularly friendly to the Earl. It was composed of the Earls of Rothes, Caithness, and Cassils, Lord John Hamilton, son to the Duke of Chatelherault, Lords Ross, Semple, Herries, Oliphant, and Boyd, the Master of Forbes, Gordon of Lochinvar, Cockburn of Langton, Sommerville of Cambusnethan, Mowbray of Barnbougle, and Ogilby of Boyne. Bothwell pled not guilty; and, no evidence appearing against him, the jury retired, and were out of court for some time. When they returned, their verdict, delivered by the Earl of Caithness, whom they had chosen their chancellor, unanimously acquitted Bothwell of the slaughter of the King.74