The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots

by Kate Williams

  And Norfolk was moving ahead with his plans, having secured the support of various nobles including Dudley, the Earl of Arundel, and the Catholic noblemen of northern England, the earls of Northumberland and Westmorland (who was married to Norfolk’s sister, Jane Howard). By early July, Norfolk had lost patience with the slow pace of the negotiations and he entered into direct correspondence with Moray over dissolving the marriage – a dangerous move.

  In July 1569, Moray and the lords were given three proposals by Elizabeth. Mary should continue to live in England, after agreeing her abdication; or she should be joint ruler with her son; or she should be restored with promises to protect the reformed religion and with Moray’s safety guaranteed. Led by Moray, the lords voted by forty to nine against Mary returning. They also denied the dissolution of her marriage. Not long afterwards, Mary’s valet, Paris, was hanged without trial, in spite of Elizabeth’s request to have him sent to England for interrogation. By killing Paris, the lords had eliminated the final witness who might have saved the queen. Her only hope now was if one member of the association broke down and confessed his own part and implicated others, which they would never do for fear of the retribution against their family.

  In the late summer of 1569, Elizabeth was given evidence that Norfolk and Mary had talked of betrothal, first by spies linked to Moray, who also had the correspondence from Norfolk pushing for a divorce, and then apparently by Dudley himself, who had supported the plan. The queen was shocked that Dudley had been involved, and emotively declared any marriage would result in her being overthrown. Norfolk was flung in the Tower and his allies put into disgrace. Northumberland and Westmorland were not arrested. But both feared that the investigators would come for them as having conspired for the marriage and against Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth had Mary’s entourage reduced, forbade correspondence and commanded no lassitude or kindness. She appointed a new guard, Henry Hastings, Earl Huntingdon, who she thought would be harder on the beautiful queen than Talbot. Mary, ever determined, began to develop a system of codes and secret letters. At the beginning of 1569, she had written wildly to Philip of Spain suggesting that she could gain the English throne with his help.6 At that point, she had been merely posturing, attempting to win his support. But now, with Elizabeth cold and seemingly allied with Moray, Mary was lost and began to listen to the schemes of her supporters.

  She wrote to her son, now three and a half, sending him presents and loving notes. But Elizabeth’s men confiscated the letters and gifts and little James was left to the ministrations of the Countess of Mar, who hated Mary, and given George Buchanan as his tutor, the man whose pen had dripped venom against Mary. Mary Seton had fallen ill and her mother sent a messenger to Mary, Queen of Scots, asking if she might be sent back to Scotland – for this, the mother was thrown into prison for daring to write to the captive – she was released on a promise never to write again. Mary Seton remained with her mistress, following her wherever she went.

  Still, Mary was living in state. When Huntingdon took over, he was informed she had thirty people officially in her train, including Lord and Lady Livingston and their servants; three bedchamber women (her favourite was Jane Kennedy); the ever-faithful Seton, who had her own personal maid and groom; Willie Douglas; and others including Bastian Pages and a master cook, cupbearer and physician. On top of the official collection was a various group of over ten further servants, to whom Talbot turned a blind eye.

  In late 1569, the East of Westmorland, part of the original marriage plot of Mary and Norfolk, wrote to the Spanish ambassador that he feared he would have to rebel for ‘I know the queen’s Majesty is so highly displeased at me and others that I know we shall not be able to bear it, nor answer it’. On 14 November, Westmorland, along with the Earl of Northumberland and thousands of supporters, entered Durham Cathedral by force and ripped up the Protestant prayer book. They were fighting for the Catholic cause. As they put it:

  Forasmuch as diverse, evil-disposed persons about the queen’s Majesty have, by their subtle and crafty dealings, to advance themselves, overcome in this Realm the true and Catholic religion towards God, and by the same abused the queen, disordered the realm and now lastly seek and procure the destruction of the nobility. We, therefore, have gathered ourselves together to resist by force, and rather by the help of God and you good people, to see redress of these things amiss, with the restoring of all ancient customs and liberties to God’s church and this noble Realm.7

  It was a desperate scheme. Elizabeth sent nearly 15,000 men north and increased her bodyguard. Westmorland and Northumberland fled over the border and the rebels were hunted down. In awful scenes, 800 were executed on gallows that had been quickly mounted, rudimentary and rushed. Elizabeth said Norfolk must remain in the Tower and she demanded that Mary be sent away. She wanted her packed off south to Coventry, but Coventry Castle was so derelict and uninhabitable that when they arrived in the city, she had to stay in an inn. Huntingdon wondered if the tide was turning and encouraged Mary to think once more of marrying Robert Dudley. She angrily wrote to Norfolk, still hopeful that they’d marry, optimistic that Elizabeth might agree. She had little other means of escape and she was constantly ill. The Pope was shocked when he heard of the severe treatment of the northern rebels and promptly excommunicated Elizabeth, declaring Mary should be queen of England in her place. This made her even more of a threat. Any attempt to push Elizabeth off the throne had been licensed by the Pope:

  Since that guilty woman of England rules over two such noble kingdoms of Christendom and is the cause of so much injury to the Catholic faith and loss of so many million souls, there is little doubt that whosoever sends her out of the world with the pious intention of doing God’s service, not only does not sin but gains merit.8

  Any rebel, from a noble leading an army to a lone servant who managed to poison Elizabeth’s soup, was thus engaged in what the Pope called ‘glorious work’.

  Elizabeth’s ministers saw plots everywhere and her churchmen were no less frantic. The Bishop of Winchester wrote in terror of how the Pope was encouraging the ‘desperate’ to ‘besiege the tender frame of the most noble Elizabeth with almost endless attacks and most studiously endeavour to compass her death both by poison and violence and witchcraft and treason and all other means of that kind which could ever be imagined and which it is horrible even to relate’.9 Various Acts were passed to attempt to protect Elizabeth, including making it high treason – and thus punishable by execution – to ‘compass, imagine or practice the death or bodily harm of the queen’ or to practise against the Crown or publish, write or even speak that the queen was not the lawful monarch. A subject could now be executed for merely telling his neighbour in a drunken rant that the queen was a heretic. It was also punishable by death to play guessing games about how long she might live – a game that many of her subjects and nobles had previously indulged in. And, most relevant to Mary, anyone who named an heir to the queen except her ‘natural issue’ (who of course did not exist) was also committing a treasonous crime. One of Mary’s great sources of strength had been her position as Elizabeth’s heir, for it was why so many nobles had tried to support her or had refrained from castigating her. One never knew when Elizabeth might die and Mary become queen in her place.

  In January 1570, Moray was walking through the streets of Edinburgh when a pistol fired through a window fatally wounded him. The assassin was never found but it was widely judged to be at the behest of the Hamilton family, keen to deprive of him of his huge influence and power. The killer appears to have been one James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh and Woodhouselee. The Hamilton family was widely condemned and the young assassin fled to France. Moray had led the charge against Mary and repeatedly resisted her return. Mary hoped that the alliance of lords might crumble, now that Moray was no more.

  Moray’s wife, Agnes Keith, who had given birth to a daughter, Margaret, shortly after the assassination, threw herself into managing the family estates and at
tempting to get compensation. Mary wrote to Agnes in March asking for the return of her jewels that Moray and Agnes had taken when she had been thrown into prison at Lochleven. What she wanted above all was the ‘great H’ – the wonderful and giant diamond given to her at her marriage by the King of France. Agnes did not send them back. Huntly pressed her, Mary wrote again, and then Lennox, who had taken over as regent, demanded them for the Crown. Agnes still refused to relinquish them, requesting that the government first compensate her family for all the debts Moray had incurred as regent. As Mary saw it, ‘the great H’ was hers, not the Crown’s. She needed the diamond, and it was a memory of her wedding day, when she considered herself the most powerful and ‘happiest woman in the world’. But the jewel had been caught up in the strife of Scotland and was denied her.

  Elizabeth occupied herself in trying to find a regent for Scotland who would do her bidding and returned to the old efforts to try to have young Prince James brought to England. Mary was still hopeful for her future – she was moved back to Chatsworth and there the local nobles conceived a plot for rescuing her, overseen by a member of the Catholic Northumberland family. But Mary refused: she still hoped for Norfolk and a dignified release. If she ran, she would lose her chance to be restored to the throne by Elizabeth. After everything Elizabeth had said, Mary’s belief in the importance of blood ties with her cousin was touchingly and hopelessly naive. The regency was given to men who hated Mary, such as Lennox (Darnley’s father, Matthew Stewart), although he was soon after killed in a raid on Stirling. In 1571, the Earl of Mar took over, who had long been James’s guardian. He, too, was no friend to the imprisoned queen. Elizabeth and Cecil had ensured regents – pro-her, anti-Mary.

  Norfolk was freed from the Tower in the summer of 1570 (there had been pressure from other nobles to release him), although he was still being watched over, and almost immediately became embroiled in plots, this time helmed by Italian agent and banker Roberto Ridolfi, who was in the pay of Philip of Spain – and often dealt information to Walsingham on the side. Ridolfi had been arrested around the time of the northern uprising for funnelling money to Mary’s supporters and had been taken to Walsingham’s home for a period of house arrest. He was released and promptly set about plotting again to bring Catholicism to England and put Mary on the throne. Mary wrote enthusiastically of ‘my constancie to you’, complained ‘my friends gladly hear all parts of my Enemy’s against me.’ She offered ‘my Norfolk’ everything, saying she ‘in all things would follow you’.10

  The letters flew thick and fast between the parties but then reached something of a stalemate. Philip declared he would not invade before the Catholic nobles had begun a rebellion in his favour – and the terrifying deaths of so many rebels on the gallows acted as a powerful dissuader to any further plotters. And although the question of Mary’s marriage to Bothwell had now been sent to the Pope for nullifying on the basis that Bothwell and Jean Gordon had not been divorced when he married Mary (and also that Mary and Jean were related), the Pope appeared to be doing little to pursue the issue. Frederick II was still holding Bothwell in Denmark as a hostage, to win concessions from Elizabeth. Unfortunately for Mary, it was not in Frederick’s interests to allow access to Bothwell for a divorce – for Cecil and the council did not want Mary to be single and thus chased after by every power-hungry aristocrat in the country. Bothwell was a useful bargaining tool and Frederick meant to keep him that way.

  After an alliance was agreed between the two countries, Bothwell was, on the face of it, no longer politically useful – and yet still Frederick kept him imprisoned, in a dank and horrible castle, in case relations with Elizabeth might turn sour again. Elizabeth had actually asked that Bothwell be executed for regicide in 1570, and in the following year asked for him to be sent to England for trial. A trial in which Bothwell would be allowed to speak for himself – and would no doubt implicate as many of the other lords as possible – could have been Mary’s salvation. The man who had brought Mary so low could have been the one to free her. The lords had no desire for a trial: they wanted his head chopped off and no opportunity for public discussion. It seems almost unbelievable that Elizabeth was considering putting him on trial, for any public appearance would have been a sensation and likely thrown yet more doubt on Mary’s guilt. But Elizabeth was weary of Frederick using Bothwell against her as a pawn and most likely never intended to put Bothwell on trial at all, instead planning to keep him in prison in England as a way of holding Scotland to order.

  Cecil visited Mary in October 1570 at Sheffield Castle and she attempted to charm him. Mary threw all her heart into it. He raised various articles and appeared to Mary and Leslie, her envoy, to be offering the possibility of Elizabeth’s presence.11 He gained a pleasant impression of her and was gratified by her willingness to listen to his advice. But he was meeting her to provide a sop to the King of France – who had written with queries about Mary’s treatment – and also to extract a promise she would no longer engage in betrothals. Cecil wanted her imprisoned in England, if not executed, and if he seemed kinder, it was only momentary.

  Once Mary was in England, it is difficult to know what she could have done better. She created cordial, often good relationships with her jailers, wrote to Elizabeth and was emollient and willing to listen and agree to terms when meeting any of Elizabeth’s men, and she did not refuse requests unless she felt she really had to – pertaining to being tried as a subject, not a queen. So much preparation went into her meeting with Cecil – and all the Englishmen who came to visit her – the apartments spruced up, new decorations or tapestries purchased, new liveries for the servants, a new gown and endless hours perfecting her hair and cosmetics. For Mary, imprisoned and having no idea of what she might be asked to answer for, it was worrying and unsettling, as she and her secretaries ran over different scenarios and what she might say. She put weeks, months into preparations for the meetings – and nothing came of them. She should not have paid attention to plots or agreed to marry Norfolk – but if she had stayed steadfastly clear of plotting, the only likely difference would have been that she would either have wasted away in awful dank prisons, or possibly Cecil and Walsingham would have somehow found a way to try her, based on a re-examination of the casket letters. She had the chance to escape at Chatsworth, but the days when she could have galloped for miles, young and vigorous, were gone. When she had ridden through Scotland, she rode past villages and settlements who actively supported her. But in England, locals would be suspicious of such a person riding in company (even if she had disguised herself as a man), and many believed the anti-Marian propaganda that she wished to unseat and kill the queen.

  Mary’s life in England was small moments of light followed by long dark periods of privation and suspicion. In the spring of 1571, Charles Bailly, a young Scottish courier for John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, Mary’s envoy, was arrested at Dover and found to be carrying letters from Ridolfi to Leslie that appeared to encompass a plot to seize Elizabeth’s throne for Mary. Norfolk was then discovered to be in on the plans, sending word and money to those who supported Mary in Scotland. Elizabeth refused the advice of her ministers to refrain from her summer progress and set off, stately as ever, a galleon in full sail, visiting Norfolk at Audley End near Saffron Waldon and accepting his promise of allegiance. Four days later, he was arrested and sent to the Tower again.

  Leslie was imprisoned and threatened with torture, and said anything that came into his head: that Mary was behind the uprising in the North of England, led by Westmorland and Northumberland, that papal funds had been used and a foreign invasion was planned, and then he finally declared that Mary had killed the dauphin and Darnley, had attempted to murder Bothwell and would dispose of Norfolk as well. Despite this, he wrote to Mary begging her to have him released.12

  Elizabeth had lost all patience with Mary and wrote to chide her for her ‘sorrowful, passionate and vindictive expressions.’13 Cecil was sent a letter from Mary to her supporters ask
ing, ‘What works could be more acceptable to God than to succour the Catholic Church, to defend the rightful title of a prince, to deliver afflicted Christians from bondage?’ Although there was no mention of war or deposition, this for Cecil was evidence of Mary’s guilt and her desire to have her cousin thrust off the throne. It wasn’t enough to put her on trial, so instead he used all his diplomatic powers to dissuade France from taking her side and rushed out a grimy pamphlet of Buchanan’s horrible accusations, along with translations of the casket letters, titled ‘A Detection of the Doings of Mary, Queen of Scots Touching the Murder of Her Husband and Her Conspiracy, Adultery and Pretended Marriage with the Earl of Bothwell’. The pamphlet was circulated privately – Elizabeth would have been furious at the leak – to all those who mattered, damning Mary again and again.

  In the ensuing parliament, Cecil’s clique called for Mary to be executed as a threat to the queen for she was a ‘very unnatural sister’ and had sought to dispossess the queen’s majesty of the throne, throwing all Elizabeth’s favour back in her face. Many of those present were swayed by the passion of the speakers to Cecil’s view that the way to protect England was by removing Mary – as one of his circle put it, the death of Mary was ‘of necessity, it may lawfully be done’. But was it really lawful? Could a queen, who was not a subject, commit treason at all? Elizabeth refused to engage with their demands. But she bowed to the protests about the behaviour of Norfolk. The Duke did his best, writing desperately to Elizabeth. His spiky hand is perfectly preserved in the British Library: bemoaning the ‘lamentable complaint of my oppressed mind’ and pleading with her to ‘extende your most gracious mercy upon me your most desolate subject.’ He vows he never desired ‘any rebellion’ and waxes sadly about his ‘waterye chekes’. To no avail.14 He was put on trial at Westminster Hall for treason in January 1572, and Talbot, Mary’s captor, came to sit on the panel. Elizabeth signed Norfolk’s death warrant in February and then took it back, only to give in and agree to it again soon after. He was executed in June. Mary was left heartbroken, weeping hopelessly and refusing to leave her room.