The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots

by Kate Williams

  Elizabeth stated early that she did not wish Katherine to succeed her – and Katherine was furious and openly dissented against her queen. However, when Mary had declared herself Queen of England back in France, Elizabeth had suddenly became kinder to the Grey sisters, bringing Katherine back to the bedchamber and calling her ‘her daughter’. As one observer put it, ‘the queen has thought it best to put her in the chamber and makes much of her in order to keep her quiet. She even talks of formally adopting her.’5 Unfortunately, Katherine gave the outward mien of being a dutiful daughter to the queen, but she was still in love with the Earl of Hertford, son of the Protector of the late Edward VI and nephew of Jane Seymour. Elizabeth would never have agreed to their marriage, for they had a joint claim on her throne and if they produced a son, then his own claim would have been so strong that people might wish her deposed for him. But Katherine was in love and wouldn’t listen and secretly married Hertford. By marrying in secret, as both the queen’s cousin and her Lady of the Bedchamber, Katherine was taking an impossible risk – for the act was treason. She fell pregnant but then Hertford decided he was going to France, probably because he had begun to panic about what he had done. He had always been the less enthusiastic of the pair; he had charmed Katherine with seductive words because he dreamed of how powerful the marriage might make him. He rather forgot in the haze of power-hungry passion that the queen would see his acts of love as terrible, even treasonous, works of disobedience. Katherine begged him to return but he did not, for he valued his head. By the time she was seven months pregnant, she was desperate, unable to hide her condition for much longer. She pleaded with Robert Dudley to intercede for her – he went to the queen, and she was furious. Katherine was sent to the Tower and Hertford was summoned back and also arrested. Katherine’s only hope was to give birth to a girl, who would be no threat. But on 24 September, Katherine gave birth to a boy. Elizabeth had the Archbishop of Canterbury annul the marriage, so barring the child from succession.

  Elizabeth’s fury with Katherine Grey made her more sympathetic to Mary, Queen of Scots – but not much. Mary was a true queen, and Elizabeth was always a great respecter of royal blood. Really, as the queen had told Maitland, she didn’t want to hear any talk about her successor at all. This was somewhat difficult, given she was choosing to play the role of the Virgin Queen. Mary, however, remained convinced she could win over her cousin by speaking to her, and she humorously said she would have no husband but Elizabeth. Mary sent her a friendly letter in which she said that she valued Elizabeth’s advice above that of any other prince. She asked once again for the meeting, saying, ‘If God will grant a good occasion that we may meet together . . . we trust you shall more clearly perceive the sincerity of our good meaning than we can express by writing’.6 She also sent some charming and flattering poetry dedicated to the queen. In January 1562, Elizabeth wrote to say she did not object to a meeting and in May, Mary gained the council’s agreement, brushing aside their concerns for her safety if she was to enter England. But the English council declared such a meeting would be too expensive. After all, two queens could not simply meet up for a chat over embroidery. It must be a great festival and celebration, planned meticulously, with banquets and receptions – rather like the meeting between Francis I and Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Despite these objections, York was proposed and Elizabeth sent Mary a letter that she liked so much that she put it in her dress, next to her heart.

  Matters were looking optimistic and a meeting was mooted for high summer, when travelling would be easiest. Cecil had even decided that his mistress might be able to persuade Mary to adopt the reformed religion and certainly thought it would end the historic alliance between France and Scotland. But terrible events in France changed everything. The Duke of Guise ordered his men to fire on a Huguenot meeting in Wassy and over sixty worshippers were killed. Hostilities between the two sides mounted, but on 25 June a peace treaty was signed in France and courtiers in England resumed planning the great banquets that would mark the meeting of two queens. Cecil organised the safe passage to England for the Scot queen. But then fighting in France began once more in early July and it seemed impossible that Elizabeth should go travelling into the north of England, when she might be needed at any time to discuss sending troops to France to support the Huguenots there.

  Mary was told that the meeting would be postponed for at least a year. Mary was heartbroken, took to her bed and wept in misery. For she was right in her hunch that she would have been able to press on Elizabeth’s heart if they met. But the queen’s advisors were dubious and she too worried about giving too much favour to a Catholic queen. In the end, the power balance was writ too large.

  For Mary, the meeting with Elizabeth was of vital importance, a strong demonstration of both her own position in the succession and her statesmanship. But for Elizabeth, it was a minor matter – with Scotland largely considered neutralised, her attentions were on her own court, Spain and the French wars of religion.

  In the autumn of 1562, Elizabeth had a bout of terrible smallpox. She recovered, with scars that could be covered with make-up, but her faithful lady, Mary Sidney, who had nursed her throughout, was left shockingly, as her husband said, ‘as fowle a lady as any smale pox could make her’.7 Mary hoped that the illness of the queen would bring the question of succession to the forefront but although the Privy Council wished to see a successor named, they did not wish the lucky soul to be Mary. Cecil was as mistrustful as ever and declared that the risk was that the Guises would ‘build their castles so high’ and make themselves so great that they would push Elizabeth off the throne for Mary.

  The Guises gave Mary more trouble than anything else. Her grandmother Antoinette had supported her and her mother had tried her best, but her Guise uncles remained power-obsessed – and now, by fuelling the wars of religion, they were throwing their niece into insecurity. With Protestants being killed in France, Elizabeth was under pressure to be tougher on Catholics in England and showing favour to a Catholic queen was suddenly highly unpopular. Cecil, too, was focused on the Guises. And on the question of Mary, Cecil was vividly preoccupied. On 11 January 1562, he attempted to remove her from the succession with the Act of Exclusion, seemingly with his mistress’s assent. When she heard the news, Mary was close to nervous collapse and confined herself to bed for nearly a week. At every move, she was being outplayed by Elizabeth and Cecil. Mary had had enough. She had become obsessed with being declared Elizabeth’s heir, believing it would prove her royal blood and quell Knox and the others who spoke against her. But ever since she had arrived in Scotland, Elizabeth and her advisors had prevaricated, escaped her grip. Mary was beginning to fear that she could no longer rely on the bonds of blood with her ‘sister’. It was time to seize her position in the succession – and she would find a husband to help her do it.

  In early February, James Stewart married Lady Agnes Keith, a bright and determined young woman of twenty-two he was lucky to have: she had royal blood for she was a descendant of James I and although attractive rather than beautiful she had great wit, spirit and political nous. The wedding took place at Holyrood and the queen threw three days of fine banquets and parties, dancing, eating, drinking and laughing to celebrate the marriage, much to the chagrin of John Knox. She also gave her half-brother the title of Earl of Mar and Earl of Moray. George Gordon, Earl of Huntly and previous holder of the title of Moray, retired to his Highland estates in protest.

  The lords pretended unity but there had already been fighting. At the end of the previous year, a drunken Bothwell had tried to enter into the house of James Hamilton’s mistress, Alison Craik, broke the door and a fight ensued with the Hamilton party the next day. It was hardly the polite formality of court that Mary had been used to in France. Fortunately, James Stewart and Argyll managed to put down the disruption and Mary sent Bothwell to his castle for two weeks. But she refused to have Bothwell and the others tried for their crimes – and there were
complaints that Bothwell was a favourite and gaining unfair preference.

  James Hamilton and Bothwell agreed to bury the hatchet but Hamilton had been distressed by the affair and seemed to be losing his grip on reality. As Elizabeth’s ambassador, Thomas Randolph, put it, he was ‘drowned in dreams’.8 He said to the queen that he and Bothwell had been plotting to carry her off to Dumbarton Castle, where they would treat her however they wished until, as he said Bothwell planned, she agreed to whatever they demanded and would submit to them and then the two of them would take over government. Arran, his father, rushed to say it was all invented by Bothwell to discredit the Hamilton family and shut up his son in a spare castle to stop him from talking further. Lord James Stewart demanded them both arrested and Bothwell accused him of feeding lies to the maddened James Hamilton to repeat. Both men were locked up at Edinburgh Castle, James Hamilton in mental distress, Bothwell imprisoned without trial. Arran wept and begged Mary to ignore the ravings of his son. Mary was shocked that a noble whom she considered a friend would treat her so but she was unsure of who to believe. It was easier to tell herself that Bothwell had been set up.

  Had Bothwell truly been plotting such a thing? Probably. Late at night, fuelled by alcohol and bravado, lords did speculate about kid­napping Mary and seizing the government. In the summer of 1562, Mary took a tour to the north-east of Scotland and was received graciously by the Earl of Huntly’s wife at Aberdeen. But Huntly was still angry over the loss of the Moray title and as the queen left Aberdeen, Huntly’s son, Sir John, started following her and threatening violence. Mary heard that if she stayed at the family stronghold of Strathbogie, there was a plot to kill her escorts, the new Earl of Moray and Maitland, and seize her until she agreed to marry Sir John. When she arrived at Inverness Castle, it was blocked against her, on the orders of Huntly, and she and her supporters had to fight for access. The queen declared him an outlaw and he was captured in October 1562 and his possessions taken by the crown and given to Moray. He died not long after his capture and Sir John was executed – his second son, George, took the title and was, despite this history, loyal to Mary and Bothwell in future.

  It was not just the Scots nobles who thought that capturing and assaulting Mary was the way to glory. On Saint Valentine’s Day 1563, one of Mary’s French courtiers, the twenty-two-year-old poet, Pierre de Bocosel de Chastelard, was found hiding under her bed by two grooms. She had him sent from court but when she travelled to St Andrews, he burst into her bedroom and attempted to attack her, when she only had a few women as protection. She cried out and Moray rushed in to find a man in his sister’s chamber. He captured him and Chastelard was promptly executed, wishing adieu to the ‘most beautiful and most cruel princess’ as he died. Mary took Mary Fleming to her bedchamber as protection.

  Such was the great difference between Elizabeth and Mary. No matter how much Elizabeth’s nobles detested her or reviled her plans, they would never indulge in late-night chat about sexually assaulting the queen into submission and seizing the government. It would be a horrific crime, reviled by the public at large, and would never gain them the assent of the people. If the English nobles were to attempt to overthrow Elizabeth at all, they would do it by military force or legal action, seen as the proper way. But Mary was vulnerable and, as in the case of so many women at the time, a woman without a husband was fair game. Even though she was a queen.

  Bothwell escaped captivity in August, fled towards France and was forced to abandon ship in Northumberland, where he was captured. After he was released from imprisonment, he remained in Northumberland, working for Mary in secret, much to the distress of her close advisors. James Hamilton did later collapse into insanity, not helped by four years of chained, solitary confinement. Unfortunately, this meant Bothwell’s threat to kidnap the queen was believed to have been entirely fabricated – a great mistake.

  Surrounded by kidnap threats, the nobles at war, keen to have an heir, Mary wished to marry. But who was sufficiently strong to intimidate Elizabeth? The Guises suggested Mary take Archduke Charles of Austria, third son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I. Her uncle started negotiating with him in secret. Mary rejected him for being too close to Elizabeth and having already asked for the English queen’s hand. She still wanted Don Carlos and the powerful support of Philip of Spain, even though she knew Catherine de’ Medici would do all she could to stop such a marriage. John Knox was flung into fury and gave an emotive speech to the Scottish Parliament about the dangers of marrying a Catholic, announcing that Mary was betraying her reign and it would end in sorrow.

  When Mary called Knox to her and demanded he justify his behaviour, he repeated his accusations and she was so shocked by his rudeness that she burst into tears. He shrugged that he had no choice, speak or ‘betray my Commonwealth through my silence’.9 Knox had initially given Mary the benefit of the doubt, seeing her popularity with the people and aware that he could hardly flee to England, since Elizabeth was angry about his writings. While the uneasy concord between Protestants and Catholics lasted, he held back from putting on his passionate anti-queen one-man shows. But the question over Mary’s suitor plunged the Protestant side into a whirl of action and Knox was leading the way. It seemed that the biggest problem for a queen was whom to marry. And she had to marry. Scotland would never have accepted Mary setting herself up as the Virgin Queen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘A Stone of Marble’

  ‘Everything depends on the husband this woman may take’,1 wrote the Spanish ambassador, not long after Elizabeth had ascended to the throne.

  The Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Pole, had died twelve hours after Mary I. For many, it seemed like a sign that the old Church was in its death throes.

  Elizabeth had done everything she could to disassociate herself from her sister’s disasters. Although she ordered a splendid funeral and a procession with a life-size effigy of Mary on the coffin parading through the city, she wanted to make clear to her people that her reign would be different to that of Mary. As Elizabeth had added to the epitaph about her sister: ‘Marie now dead, Elizabeth lives, our just and lawful queen / In whom her sister’s virtues rare, abundantly are seen.’

  And in every way, Elizabeth was gaining revenge for her own humiliation during the reign of her father and for the horrific treatment of her mother. She exploited the legacy of Henry VIII, identifying herself as sharing his strength and magnificence at every opportunity. But whenever she could, she showed herself as the inheritor of her mother. Anne’s emblem had been the white falcon and Elizabeth brought it front and centre to the pageantry of her glittering coronation. Her palaces became ornamental aviaries, tributes to the white falcon, which appeared on everything from furniture to swords.

  Robert Dudley, on behalf of the new queen, consulted the philosopher Dr John Dee about the best date for her coronation. He reported that his astrological charts suggested 15 January 1559 would ensure a reign of glory and success. It did not give them very much time. The queen desired the most splendid and lavish coronation possible as a reward for her supporters and a warning to her enemies. Despite all the hot air and outrage expended on Spain, the real threat came from France. There lived Mary, Queen of Scots and her claim to the throne. French diplomats had been trying to push the Pope to declare Elizabeth a bastard – which would leave the way open for the Queen of Scots to claim the throne. Philip of Spain was blocking this attempt for he hated France and still hoped to gain ascendancy over England. But Elizabeth could not rely on Philip’s fear of France lasting for ever and, after the actions of her father, the Pope could still choose to declare her illegitimate. She needed to get herself anointed and onto the throne as quickly as possible. John Dee was simply telling his queen what she wished to hear. As one of her subjects stated, ‘in pompous ceremonies a secret of government doth much consist, for the people are both naturally taken and held with exterior shows’.2

  Robert Dudley, overseeing the coronation, devoted himself t
o turning the city into a pageant of colour and devotion for the new, twenty-five-year-old queen. As one visitor noted, somewhat astonished, ‘They are preparing here for the coronation, and work both day and night, on holidays and weekdays.’3 Customs officers had even prevented all sale of crimson cloth that entered the ports – until the queen had acquired what she wanted, everyone else would have to wait. The royal coffers were ransacked to buy gold, silver, velvets and satin, decorations, costumes, horses and to plan pageants – and it all came to over £17,000, a staggering amount. The city was made anew – tapestries were hung on buildings, triumphal arches were erected, the streets swept and covered in new gravel. Seven hundred yards of blue cloth was used to make a carpet all the way from the abbey to Westminster Hall. Mary’s coronation robes were altered to fit her more slender sister, and Elizabeth planned her other elaborate coronation outfits.

  On 12 January, Elizabeth was taken from Whitehall to the Tower by boat. She was accompanied by the mayor and aldermen in barges glittering with decorations, thousands watching as she made her way. Two days later, her ladies dressed her in a dazzling robe of twenty-three yards of gold and silver cloth, overlaid with gold lace and adorned with ermine, and put a gold cap and princess’s crown on her head. With 1,000 mounted dignitaries, Elizabeth climbed into a great chariot furnished in white satin and gold damask and sat back on the enormous satin cushions. The queen thanked God for giving her the throne, and for dealing ‘as wonderfully and as mercifully with me as thou didst with Daniel, whom Thou delivered out of the den from the cruelty of the raging lions’. The litter set off through London, accompanied by her guards in crimson damask, ladies in crimson and gold, musicians in red uniforms, privy councillors in satin – and footmen in red velvet jerkins bearing the initials ER and the Tudor rose.