Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley

by Alison Weir

  Given her recent confinement, and the fact that Buchanan at least was in the business of character assassination, it is unlikely that Mary’s stay at Alloa was one long round of hedonistic indulgence. Moreover, official records show that she did not neglect affairs of state whilst there, and Bedford reported that one purpose of her visit had been to meet and make her peace with Maitland, who was certainly in the district on 28 July.44She also held a reception for the newly arrived ambassador from France, Philippe (or Philibert) du Croc, whom de Silva heard was “a good Catholic” but “restless or unreliable,”45and whom Nau later derided as a “creature” of Catherine de’ Medici. Mary was aware of this, and, in order to keep an eye on him, appointed him a temporary gentleman-in-waiting, so that he would be in daily attendance on her.46The Scottish Lords, however, seeing this and knowing that du Croc had been “advanced by the House of Guise,”47 came to regard him as the Queen’s man. Melville calls du Croc “a grave, aged, discreet gentleman”; he was certainly a diplomat of many years’ experience, and had already served on an embassy to Scotland, back in 1563. Now he had returned, ostensibly to convey Charles IX’s official congratulations on the birth of the Prince.

  On 31 July, Mary returned to Edinburgh, where, according to Buchanan, “she stayed not in her palace but in the nearby home of a private citizen.” But her stay in the capital was not to be tranquil. The bitter feud between Moray and Bothwell had been aggravated by Bothwell’s increasing credit with the Queen. Early in August, Bedford informed Cecil that, thanks to Moray’s efforts, Morton’s friends, notably Lord Home, the Scotts of Buccleuch, the Kers of Cessford and other Border malcontents, had formed a confederacy against Bothwell, which Bedford meant to support as far as he dared without prejudicing peaceful relations with England.

  A few days later, Bedford, whose informant was Kirkcaldy of Grange, reported that Bothwell “hath now, of all men, greatest access and familiarity with the Queen, so that nothing of importance is done without him.” Consequently, he was “the most hated man among the noblemen of this realm, and it is said that his insolence is such as David was never more abhorred than he is now.” If Bedford was implying that Mary and Bothwell had become involved in an illicit affair, then, given the widespread bad feeling about Bothwell’s closeness to the Queen, Darnley would certainly have known about it; but although Bedford states that relations between the Queen and her husband were “rather worse,” and that Darnley was jealous of Mary’s familiarity with men and women, especially “the ladies of Argyll, Moray and Mar, who keep most company with her,” he makes no mention of any jealousy on Darnley’s part specifically towards Bothwell. In fact, he states, in the same letter, that Darnley was jealous of Mary’s reliance on Moray, and had threatened to kill him, “finding fault that she bears him so much company.” Nau says that Darnley, being “naturally of a very insolent disposition,” had begun to “threaten all the Lords, especially Moray, whom he told that the Laird of Balfour had promised him [Darnley] that he would kill him [Moray].”

  Bedford’s use of the word “familiarity” with regard to both men and women indicates that he is not trying to imply a clandestine relationship between Mary and Bothwell. If that had been the case, he would have been more specific about any rumours he had heard. As for Darnley, Bedford added that Mary “eateth but very seldom with him, but lieth not nor keepeth company with him, nor loveth any such as love him,” and concluded, “It cannot for modesty, nor with the honour of a queen, be reported what she said of him.” Mary “fell marvellously out” with Melville for giving Darnley an Irish water spaniel, and called him a dissembler and flatterer, saying “she could not trust him who would give any thing to such one as she loved not.”48

  Mary warned Moray that Darnley bore him ill will and had told her that he was determined to kill him. Then, before the whole court, she took her husband to task, saying “she would not be content that either he or any other should be unfriendly to Moray,” and constraining him to confess to Moray that his enmity had arisen from reports made to him “that Moray was not his friend, which made him speak that of which he repented.”49After this humiliating interview, Darnley sped off to grumble about his wife to Lennox, complaining that she refused to sleep with him. He told his father that he was contemplating leaving his troubles in Scotland and going abroad.50 Mary was not deceived by Darnley’s apology; she had seen “the great danger” in his antipathy towards Moray, “which was calculated to lead to serious troubles within the kingdom. She contrived, therefore, to be always busy near the King, so as to thwart his project. But in private he did not abandon the idea.”51Mary was now in the unenviable position of having to spend time in the company of a husband for whom she felt little but contempt and revulsion, and who had outlived his usefulness to her. It is to her credit that, as will be seen, she tried to make the best of it.

  Mary has often been blamed for a fatal lack of judgement in placing such reliance upon Bothwell, a man who was hated by Catholics and Protestants alike, and feared by the English, but bitter experience and his own record of loyalty to the Crown had convinced her that he was more worthy of her trust than her own husband and most of her Lords. He had saved her from Rizzio’s murderers, and she was full of gratitude towards him. It has been noted that allegations that Mary was having an affair with Bothwell at this time belong to a later period, when her enemies had good political reasons for maligning her character. There is no evidence for such an affair in contemporary sources; sixteenth-century monarchs lived their lives in the public gaze and were surrounded by attendants, some of whom could be bribed for inside information. Foreign ambassadors were avid for the slightest morsel of gossip or scandal, and often made extensive and secret inquiries about the intimate lives of princes: the English in particular would have been grateful for the chance to defame Mary. There had been scurrilous gossip about Mary and Rizzio, pounced on by Randolph, but no one, in the summer and autumn of 1566, claimed that she was on intimate terms with Bothwell.

  In his letter of 3 August, Bedford had mentioned that Mary was now reconciled with Maitland. Maitland had not yet been received back at court but was privately assisting Moray and Argyll in their efforts to bring about the restoration of Morton and the other exiles. Castelnau and du Croc were also working “very earnestly and effectually” towards the same end.52 Mary paid another visit to Alloa on 3 August, returning to Edinburgh five days later. On 10 August, the Papal Nuncio, the Bishop of Mondovi, arrived in Paris on his way to Scotland, only to find letters from Mary awaiting him, in which she begged him to defer his departure for her kingdom, as seditious people would prevent her from receiving him with the honour he deserved. Her messenger, John Beaton, “a man of high character in every respect,”53arrived soon afterwards to offer her apologies. The truth was that Mary had so far failed to “induce the nobles to give free entrance into the kingdom to the Papal Legate; no argument could move [them], especially Moray, to assent.”54 Mary also knew that, if Mondovi came secretly, “great tumults” would result, which would inevitably upset the status quo she was working so hard to maintain. Mondovi sent Beaton back with a portion of the promised subsidy55 and a stern letter exhorting the Queen to do everything in her power to bring about the restoration of the faith in her realm.56

  Meanwhile, Bedford had received intelligence of a plot, or “device,” against Bothwell, who “hath grown of late so hated that he cannot long continue.” Bedford claimed he “might have heard” the “particularities” of the plot, “but, because such dealings like me not, I desire to hear no further thereof”57It would have suited the English very well for someone to assassinate Bothwell, therefore Bedford did not intend to intervene. It has been suggested that Moray was behind this plot, which is possible, given his other activities at this time, but if he was, he took care—as he may have done on other occasions—to cover his traces. Rumour also credited Maitland with an attempt to poison Bothwell: Maitland had regained possession of Haddington Abbey, which had been granted to Bothwell aft
er Maitland’s disgrace, and the two men were now locked in a bitter dispute about ownership. Some believed that murder was Maitland’s way of resolving it, but there is no proof of this.

  Mary was making the best of the situation with Darnley. There was no acceptable way out of her marriage, so the sensible course was to re-establish a good rapport with her husband. This meant resuming sexual relations. On 13 August, Darnley received a large payment of money from her treasury,58 as well as cloth of gold for caparisons for his horse, and a magnificent bed that had belonged to Marie de Guise. This was upholstered in “violet-brown velvet, enriched with cloth of gold and silver, with ciphers and flowers sewn with cloth of gold and silk, furnished with roof and headpiece”; its curtains were of purple damask, its pillows of violet velvet, and its quilt of blue taffeta. The sheets were of the finest Holland linen.59The gift of the bed probably marked what was intended to be, on the Queen’s part at any rate, a reconciliation. Randolph, in England, heard that “the King and Queen are bedded together, whereby ’tis thought some better agreement may ensue.”

  On the day after the bed was delivered, Mary and Darnley went on a stag-hunting expedition to the wild moors of Meggetland, which lay south of Peebles, and the nearby Ettrick Forest. They were accompanied by Bothwell, Moray, Huntly, Atholl and Mar:60given the ill feeling between some of these nobles, the atmosphere must have been tense.

  In Meggetland, Mary and Darnley stayed at Cramalt, in a tower house whose remains now lie beneath a reservoir. Their sport was disappointing, and they were obliged to issue a proclamation prohibiting anyone from shooting the royal deer, which were proving elusive. Nor was the reconciliation working. Buchanan claims that Mary behaved “capriciously, arrogantly and disdainfully” towards Darnley, “openly, in the face of all”; if this is true, his insulting behaviour certainly gave her sufficient provocation. On 19 August, the party stayed at Traquair House, near Innerleithen, as the guests of the Laird, Sir John Stewart, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, who had helped the royal couple escape from Holyrood after Rizzio’s murder. Traquair was a fortified three-storey tower house that had been a hunting lodge of the Kings of Scots since c.1100 before passing to a junior branch of the Stewart line. Mary and Darnley occupied chambers on the first floor, now the King’s Room and a dressing room.61

  At supper, Darnley asked Mary to accompany him on another stag hunt on the morrow. “Knowing that, if she did so, she would be required to gallop her horse at a great pace, she whispered in his ear that she suspected she was pregnant.”62This is confirmation in itself that she had resumed sexual relations with Darnley. However, it was far too soon to tell if she had conceived: it was exactly two months since the birth of James, and she had been unwell and estranged from Darnley for much of that time. It may be that, in the interests of happy marital relations, she wished people to think that she and the King had been reconciled for longer than they had. Darnley’s reaction shows that she had every cause to think she might be pregnant, but it was unpardonably brutal.

  “Never mind,” he told her, “if we lose this one, we will make another.” It was the same thing he had said to her on that terrible night ride to Dunbar in March, and, seeing the Queen’s distress, the Laird rounded on his King and “rebuked him sharply,” telling him “he did not speak like a Christian.” But Darnley was unrepentant.

  “What? Ought we not to work a mare when she is in foal?” he retorted.63 After this, all hopes of reconciliation faded, and on the way back to Edinburgh, which they reached on 20 August, Mary decided that it might be wiser to place her son in the stronghold of Stirling, in the care of a governor. There was every chance that Darnley might try to force the issue of the Crown Matrimonial, and if he succeeded, James’s security, even his life, would be under threat.

  From Paris, on 21 August, having no doubt conferred with statesmen and foreign ambassadors, including Francisco de Alava, Mondovi expressed, in a confidential letter to the Cardinal of Alessandria in Rome, his opinion that Mary’s difficulties “might be obviated if the King of Spain should come, as it is hoped, with a strong force to Flanders, or, as certain persons of weight believe, if justice were executed against six rebels, who were leaders and originators of the late treason against the Queen, and whose deaths would effectually restore peace and obedience in that kingdom.” He then listed their names: Moray, Argyll, Morton, Maitland, Justice Clerk Bellenden and former Clerk Register MacGill, “a man of no family and contriver of all evil.” They comprised effectively the core of the Protestant establishment in Scotland. Moray’s inclusion on the list shows how widespread was the belief that he was behind the Rizzio plot, and Mondovi’s willingness to have him executed for it suggests that he had access to diplomatic intelligence confirming Moray’s role in the affair.

  With regard to Darnley, Mondovi had learned that he was “an ambitious and inconstant youth, [who] would like to rule the realm, which was the subject of the plot he hatched a few months back, with the purpose of getting himself crowned King. He continues to go to Mass, but maintains strict friendship and intercourse with the heretical rebels, in order to preserve and increase his credit and authority.” By all reports, and possibly on the recommendation of de Alava, Darnley was the man to engineer the arrests of the Lords concerned “without any disturbance arising, and with the assured hope that afterwards the holy Catholic religion would soon be restored with ease throughout that kingdom, as no leader of faction would remain. The danger is that the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Queen, in their excessive clemency, would not consent to such an act.” The implication was clear: it was Darnley, not Mary, who would act as the champion of Catholicism. The Pope was said to be “delighted” with Mondovi’s suggestions.64

  That August, the French ambassador to Spain reported that Philip’s visit to the Netherlands was certain. Men and ships were being assembled for the invasion. On 23 August, de Silva warned that some disturbance or rising was expected before the English Parliament met in the autumn.65A week earlier, Darnley’s man, Anthony Standen the Elder, had left Scotland;66he remained abroad, plotting on behalf of the Catholic cause, until 1605, and may well have initially acted in secret as Darnley’s agent. At the end of August, Darnley received another sum of money from the treasury.67There has been speculation that he used this and the earlier payment to fund his treasonable schemes, but there is no evidence of this, and Mary herself must have authorised the grants, which were probably made to finance Darnley’s household and pleasures and keep him sweet.

  On 31 August, Mary and Darnley, attended by an escort of 500 arquebusiers, took Prince James to Stirling Castle, where Mary entrusted him to the keeping of her good friend, the Earl of Mar, who was to be the Prince’s Governor. By tradition, the Erskines were guardians of royal heirs—Mar’s father had been given charge of Mary as a child—and Stirling was by custom the nursery palace of future kings. James was now assigned his own household, with a luxuriously furnished nursery; for the next four years, he would be “nursed and upbrought” by the Countess of Mar, the Catholic Annabella Murray. Lady Reres now replaced Helena Little as his wet-nurse,68and Bothwell was made one of two Captains of his Bodyguard.

  Soon afterwards, thanks to the efforts of his friend Atholl and Moray, Maitland arrived at Stirling and was formally welcomed back to court by the Queen. Mary had agreed to his return “as there was no proof of the charge against [him], trusting more than he deserved to his good qualities and his loyalty to herself.”69On 4 September, Maitland dined with Mary, who behaved as if she “liked him very well.”70She knew that Maitland would be far more effective than the Anglophobic Bothwell when it came to negotiating with Elizabeth for recognition of James’s rights to the English succession. Naturally, Bothwell was not pleased by this turn of events.

  By 6 September, Mary was back in Edinburgh, where she stayed at the Exchequer House in the Cowgate, below St. Giles’s Kirk. Here, she attended an audit of the royal finances, “to understand her revenues and arrange for the maintenance of the Prince.”
71She also wished to ascertain her financial position with a view to paying for a lavish christening for her son. Darnley remained at Stirling, having refused to accompany her. The rift between them now seemed irreparable.

  11

  “NO OUTGAIT”

  ACCORDING TO BUCHANAN, IN SEPTEMBER 1566, Mary began an adulterous affair with Bothwell. He alleges that the chief attraction of the Exchequer House for her was that its “pleasant, almost solitary” gardens gave access to the back door of the residence of David Chalmers, Bothwell’s man, who was shortly to be appointed, through Bothwell’s good offices, Common Clerk of Edinburgh. “By this door, Bothwell could come and go as he liked.” According to Buchanan’s scarcely believable and farcical tale, at Bothwell’s request, an accommodating Lady Reres, “a most dissolute woman who had been one of Bothwell’s whores,” smuggled him through the Exchequer House garden and up to the Queen’s room, where he “forced her against her will” to have sexual intercourse with him.

  On reflection, Mary decided she had, after all, enjoyed the experience, and, “not many days after, desiring [Buchanan supposed] to repay force with force, sent Lady Reres to bring [Bothwell] captive unto her.” We are to believe that Mary and Margaret Carwood let the stout Lady Reres “down by a sash over the wall into the next garden. But behold! The sash suddenly broke! Down with a great noise tumbled Lady Reres. But the old warrior, nothing dismayed by the darkness, the height of the wall or her unexpected flight to earth, reached Bothwell’s chamber, opened the door, plucked him out of bed—out of his wife’s embrace—and led him, half-asleep, half-naked, to the arms of the Queen.”