by Alison Weir
On the day after the birth, St. Giles’s Kirk in Edinburgh was packed to overflowing with the nobility and the citizens, who had come “to thank God for the honour of having an heir to their kingdom.”10 Two days later, the Queen received the Pope’s letter informing her of the sending of a nuncio, and Sir Henry Killigrew, Elizabeth’s envoy, reached Edinburgh. Hearing of his coming, the Queen sent him word “that I was welcome and should have audience as soon as she might have any ease of the pain in her breasts”; despite this, he was told she was “in good state for a woman in her case.”11
The observant Killigrew quickly summed up the political situation and, on the day after his arrival, reported to Cecil, “I find here an uncertain and disquiet sort of men.” The Scottish Lords were divided into factions, with Moray, Argyll, Mar and Atholl in one party, and Bothwell and Huntly in the other. Notwithstanding the birth of the Prince, small account was made of Darnley and his father. Bothwell was in the Borders, apparently dealing with a threat “to bring in Morton during [Mary’s] childbed,” but he had absented himself because he “would not gladly be in danger of the four above-named that lie in [Edinburgh] Castle. Yet it is thought and said that his credit with the Queen is more than all the rest together.”12Bothwell himself later explained that “it was as much through the faithful service I had rendered the Queen’s mother in her wars, as much as my service to the Queen herself, that I was in such favour. I had on several occasions risked my life and incurred considerable expense, which she had most generously made good to me, both by presents and by the appointments with which Her Majesty has honoured me.”13
Killigrew also noted that Henry Gwynn, servant to Francis Yaxley, who had drowned in January whilst bringing the subsidy from Philip II, had arrived in Edinburgh with “letters and tokens from Flanders,” including Philip’s long-delayed reply to Darnley’s letter of September 1565, which de Silva had held on to in London, ostensibly because he could not find a safe messenger, although he could of course have entrusted it to James Thornton; clearly, this letter was not meant for Mary’s eyes. Evidently Darnley found Philip’s words encouraging, even if he perhaps interpreted them to suit his own purposes.
Killigrew concluded his report with a mention of a spy, William Rogers, who had come in secret to Edinburgh. Without a doubt, something suspicious was going on.14
Rogers was an escaped felon, who hoped to evade justice and obtain Cecil’s favour by acting on his own initiative as a spy for the English government. He stayed only a few days in Scotland before going south, and when he reached Oxford, sent a report to Cecil.15In it, he revealed he had won the confidence of Sir Anthony Standen and, through him, gained the favour of Darnley, with whom he had gone hunting and hawking. Rogers had learned that Gwynn had brought Darnley 2,000 crowns from an English merchant, with more to come if he needed it, as well as letters from Lady Lennox and, more ominously, from two English traitors, Arthur and Edward Pole, who themselves had pretensions to the English throne—both were descendants of the Royal House of Plantagenet—and were at present imprisoned in the Tower for inciting an abortive rebellion. In his letter, Arthur Pole had offered to resign his claim to the English throne to Mary and Darnley, but it is unlikely that Mary was told anything of this, for Darnley was formulating grandiose plans of his own. It seems that he not only meant to become the champion of Catholicism in Scotland, but also King of Scots in Mary’s place, and then, after deposing Elizabeth, King of a united Britain, which would be achieved with the support of the Catholic powers in Europe and disaffected English Catholics.
It is impossible to assess to what degree this scheme existed only in Darnley’s fevered imagination, or to what extent his supposed allies were involved. At present, it appears he had secured at least the goodwill of Philip II and perhaps the Papacy, and the support of a number of Catholic malcontents in England.
In Scotland, Darnley’s chief ally at this time appears to have been Sir James Balfour. On 7 June, Randolph had noted that Balfour was out of favour, and Killigrew now reported, “Balfour’s credit [with the Queen] decays” and that Bishop Leslie “manages all her affairs of state.”16
According to Rogers, a friend of the Pole brothers, Martin Dare, was also in attendance on Darnley. He had been a sea captain in the Scilly Isles, and had nautical skills that would prove useful to the King in time to come. Sir Anthony Standen, however, was removed from the King’s orbit when Mary sent him to France to announce the Prince’s birth to Charles IX; Standen would not return for a year.17
After a lightning journey lasting just over four days, Sir James Melville arrived in London and informed Elizabeth of the safe delivery of Mary’s son. The Queen “seemed glad of the birth of the infant,” and told de Silva that the birth would prove “a spur to the lawyers” to resolve the matter of Mary’s right to the English succession, which would, she assured the ambassador, be decided in the next session of Parliament.18Melville had his doubts about this, but when Mary heard, she was jubilant, confidently anticipating that Elizabeth would at last acknowledge her as heir presumptive to the English throne.
Elizabeth told Melville that she would gladly stand godmother to Prince James, but would be unable to go to Scotland herself; in her place, she would send “honourable lords and ladies.” She also consented to receive a letter from Darnley pleading for his mother’s release from the Tower, an indication that she was thawing towards the Lennox Stuarts.
Mary had also asked Charles IX of France and Emanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, to be godparents; on 25 June, in a letter to Philip II, de Silva implied that there were reasons why she had not asked him to act as sponsor or send a representative to the baptism, such reasons being connected possibly with Philip’s coolness after Rizzio’s murder; however, she had asked the Duke of Savoy “as she considered him a person attached to Your Majesty.”19As Sir Walter Raleigh was later to proclaim, “Savoy from Spain is inseparable.” Mary had effectively enlisted the might of Catholic Europe to protect the interests of the infant Prince.
Back in Scotland, on 24 June, Mary received Sir Henry Killigrew in her bedchamber. He reported that she was too weak to extend to him more than a formal welcome, but he was allowed to see her child “sucking of his nurse, and afterward as good as naked,” and found James to be “well proportioned and like to prove a goodly prince.” The Queen, he added, “was so bold immediately after delivery that she has not yet recovered; the few words she spoke were faintly, with a hollow cough.”20
Darnley’s behaviour during Mary’s lying-in period was appalling. Nau later wrote of this time, “The King led a very disorderly life.” Every night, he left the castle and went out “vagabondising” and drinking heavily with his young male friends in the streets of Edinburgh. He would return at all hours of the night, so that the castle gates had to be unlocked for him, which left Mary feeling “there was no safety, either for herself or her son.” Darnley also went off for long rides on his own to the coast, where he would strip and bathe in secluded places, thereby leaving himself vulnerable to attack and his wife “apprehensive of the danger which might follow, because of the ill will which the greater number of the Lords bore towards him.” She begged him to be careful “and not to put himself so indiscreetly into the power of his enemies,” but he paid very little attention to her.21 Not surprisingly, Killigrew again reported on 28 June that Darnley was not in favour.22 In every way, he was a liability and a constant thorn in Mary’s side.
Catherine de’ Medici, learning of the birth of Prince James, expressed fears that Darnley was “so bad” that she could not be sure if he felt as he should towards his son. Fearful that he might plot with her enemies to seize her child and rule in his name, Mary decided to keep James with her for the present, rather than establish a separate household for him, as was customary for royal children in that era. James spent his first weeks being cared for in his mother’s chamber by his wet-nurse, Helena Little, and four rockers, and sleeping in his cradle beside Mary’s bed at night, so that she cou
ld watch over him herself.23
Mary’s fears about Darnley’s intentions were almost certainly justified, and she was not the only person to entertain suspicions about his activities. On 29 June, de Silva reported that the English ambassador in Paris “was surprised at the friendship the King of Scotland had with Don Francis[co] de Alava,” the Spanish ambassador to the French court, and that he had learned “that they were intimate friends in Paris.”24 It is possible that they had never even met, for de Alava did not arrive in Paris until February 1564; however, the short visits he had paid there before then may have coincided with one of Darnley’s trips to France. The term “intimate friends” may imply a homosexual connection, but could equally mean that they became confidants in the platonic sense. Regardless of this, the friendship must have been conducted mainly through correspondence, and it is possible, although there is no proof, that Darnley was using de Alava to gain Spanish support for his dynastic schemes.
That Darnley’s aims were not widely known in Spanish diplomatic circles is perhaps confirmed by a letter written by the Duke of Alva—soon to be the Spanish Governor of the Netherlands—to Philip II on 29 June, informing him that “Your Majesty, being in Flanders, could more easily encompass that which would further her [Mary’s] interests.”25Alva was not specific, but was probably referring to the furtherance of Mary’s claim to the English crown, or to the restoration of the Catholic faith in Britain, and he is hardly likely to have mentioned such things if he had been aware that Philip was supporting Darnley in a plot to dethrone Mary, which is highly unlikely anyway, not least because Philip was counting on the support of the pro-Spanish Guises when he led his invading army along the French border. Nor is there any evidence in contemporary sources that Philip lent support to Darnley’s schemes.
Unable to trust those around her, Mary was turning again to Bothwell. On 30 June, she conferred upon him the priory of North Berwick, and by the end of the following month, Bedford was reporting that Bothwell “had a great hand in the management of affairs.” Buchanan goes further, of course, claiming that “Bothwell was everything: he alone managed all affairs, and so much did the Queen wish to display her partiality for him that no request was granted unless presented through him.” Further evidence of the trust Mary reposed in Bothwell can be found in her dealings with one Christopher Rokesby. Mary believed Rokesby to be a Catholic agent, but he was in fact one of Cecil’s spies. Around this time, she granted him a private audience in Edinburgh Castle, during which she rashly revealed to him her dynastic and religious ambitions, which had burgeoned with the birth of her son.
She told him that she was cultivating the support of those English nobles whom she believed “to be of the old religion, which she meant to restore with all expedition. After she had friended herself in every shire in England, she meant to cause wars to be stirred in Ireland, whereby England might be kept occupied; then she would have an army in readiness, and herself with her army to enter England, and she proclaimed Queen.” She had asked Spain, France and the Vatican for aid—on 17 July, she would write to the Pope to say she was looking forward to the arrival of the Bishop of Mondovi “with no little longing”—and added that soothsayers had told her “that the Queen of England shall not live this year.”26
Randolph had earlier reported that Mary had agents in England inciting Catholic support, one of whom had informed her “that the papists are ready to rise in England when she will have them.” Given the fact that Alva expected Philip II to support Mary in such an enterprise, and that Philip’s arrival in the Netherlands was imminent, the English would have had every cause for alarm. By early August, de Silva was aware that Elizabeth was more suspicious than ever of Mary.27
Rokesby advised the Queen to consult her Privy Council, but she told him she preferred to deal with Bothwell, Mar, Melville and himself, and “willed” him “to confer further of these causes with Bothwell, whom I might well perceive was in more secret favour with her than any other.” Probably as a result of Rokesby’s meeting with Bothwell, Mary became suspicious of the former and ordered his arrest. After letters from Cecil were found in his possession, he was imprisoned in Spynie Palace, the Highland stronghold of Bothwell’s uncle, where he remained for nearly two years.28
According to Bedford, writing on 4 July, Morton and the other exiles were busy with plans for their repatriation, and soon afterwards Killigrew observed that “many are like to venture all for their relief.”29 Darnley, however, was fiercely opposed to them being pardoned for he feared their return more than anything else; Leicester wrote on 11 June that Darnley and Bothwell were making further efforts to procure a pardon for “the shameless butcher” George Douglas, who, in return, was willing to incriminate Moray and Maitland in the Rizzio plot, which would at a stroke rid them of two of their greatest enemies.30 But the Queen refused to pardon any of the fugitives, and was instead concentrating her efforts on reconciling her feuding nobles. Hence, she was deaf to the persuasions of Darnley and Bothwell and unwilling to listen to any allegations against her half-brother. On 13 July, Sir John Forster expressed the opinion that she was reluctant to inquire too closely into Moray’s guilt. Elizabeth, reading these reports, was also loath to have Moray’s role in the Rizzio affair subjected to scrutiny, and had George Douglas put under guard in order to prevent him from returning to Scotland.
On 5 July, William Rogers wrote a second report to Cecil, having been informed by the Standens how Darnley had “said before twenty gentlemen that he was not so ill-loved in England but that forty gentlemen there would serve him, and more soon after conveyance of my Lady’s [his mother’s] letters”; one Master Poule (or Pole, which perhaps makes him a relative of Arthur Pole) “and divers gentlemen in his company are looked for shortly in Scotland, offering to serve the King at their own charges.” Darnley was also in possession of a chart of the Scilly Isles, doubtless given him or drawn up by Martin Dare, and was plotting with some men in the north of England to seize Scarborough Castle “and have all the North at his command.” Both the Scillies and Scarborough were strategically placed as bridgeheads for a Spanish invasion of England. Furthermore, Arthur Pole had written claiming that he could raise the west of England in Darnley’s cause, and a man surnamed Moon, who was later in Lennox’s employ, was regularly bringing the King letters from his friends in that region.31 Cecil read all this with mounting dismay.
Moray was still apparently stirring up trouble in the Borders and, as rumour had it, covering the conspirators’ traces. On 17 July, Bedford reported that William Ker, Abbot of Kelso, had spoken “infamy and words of dishonour” of Glencairn, and hinted at the latter’s involvement in Rizzio’s murder. As a result, two of the Abbot’s kinsmen savagely murdered him, chopping off his head and arms. The chief suspect was his nephew and godson, the young Laird of Cessford, whom Bothwell was sent to apprehend.32 But it was Moray whom many suspected of being the real culprit.
Mary was now recovering from her confinement, and it was felt that a change of air would greatly benefit her, so around 27/28 July,33 she left Edinburgh Castle and travelled to Newhaven, where she boarded a boat for Alloa, further up the Forth, having been invited by the Earl of Mar to be his guest at his fourteenth-century family seat, Alloa Tower. According to Bedford34 and Buchanan, the Queen left Edinburgh early in the morning without telling anyone where she was going. Darnley was “so far out of her books” that he knew nothing of her plans.35
Buchanan claims that her boat was manned by notorious pirates, William and Edmund Blackadder, Leonard Robertson and Thomas Dickson, who were all “avowed men and dependants of the Earl Bothwell,” who accompanied Mary on her journey; he adds that “honest persons” were astonished that “she should hazard her person among a sort of such ruffians.” The tale is suspect, however, because, although, as Lord High Admiral, Bothwell was in charge of the preparations for the trip, he did not travel with Mary, but remained in Edinburgh as Captain of the Prince’s Bodyguard; it was Moray, Mar and other leading nobles wh
o made up the Queen’s escort.36As for William Blackadder, although he and his brother Edmund had received pardons for the crime of murder, on 2 September following, he was appointed “general and universal Searcher to the Crown” with authority to “search, seek, apprehend and take all and sundry pirates, thieves, robbers, rebels and malefactors upon the seas”;37such a commission would hardly have been granted to a notorious pirate.
As soon as Darnley discovered where Mary had gone, he followed her on horseback via Stirling “as fast as he could, with the hope and purpose of being alone with her, that he might enjoy his conjugal rights.”38 But he was clearly “an unwelcome intruder,”39and Buchanan says that Mary ordered him to “depart or do worse. So great was her disdain that she could not suffer him to remain in her company, nor yet would she declare any good cheer in his presence.” This may well have been true, because Darnley departed after only a few hours40 and went to Dunfermline.41Buchanan alleges he was “hardly allowed time to refresh his servants.” Nau, however, says that Darnley had merely made, “as it were, a passing call,” yet reveals that the original arrangement had been “that they should go back to Edinburgh Castle together.” Melville and others were of the opinion that Mary, in going to Alloa, “had fled from the King’s company.” Obviously, the relationship between the royal couple was now fraught with suspicion and resentment, at the very least, and had all but broken down.
At Alloa Tower,42 Mar laid on dancing, masques and sports for his royal guest. According to Buchanan, Mary “passed several days there, if not in princely magnificence, yet in rather unprincely licentiousness. How she behaved herself I had rather every man should imagine it than hear me declare it,” for she “demeaned herself as if she had forgot not only the majesty of a queen but even the modesty of a matron.” Buchanan was writing on the erroneous premise that Bothwell was with her, although elsewhere he claims that their alleged affair did not commence until the following month. Lennox, writing independently, incorrectly states that Mary visited Stirling, not Alloa, and that she took her pleasure “in most uncomely manner, abandoning herself to all riotousness, forgetting her princely state and honour.”43 Nau, however, says that Mary remained at Alloa for several days, but “in the company of the ladies of the court” and the Earl of Mar.