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

by Alison Weir

  The assizes were completed by 15 October. According to Nau, because it was thought that Bothwell was dying, Mary “was both solicited and advised to pay him a visit at his house, in order that she might learn from him the state of affairs in these districts of which the said Lord was hereditary governor.” This is corroborated by a contemporary French narrative,37which states that Mary was advised to consult with Bothwell on the state of the Borders.

  This made good political sense, because Bothwell bore heavy responsibilities in the Borders and had a unique knowledge of the region, and while he was out of action, others might have to deputise for him. Of course, the Queen could have sent someone else to liaise with Bothwell, but she clearly felt that the unrest in the Borders needed to be quelled urgently, and must have been very concerned that so few had been brought to justice. Furthermore, Bothwell had been dangerously wounded in her service, and she doubtless wished to express personally to him her debt of gratitude. No one at the time suggested that her visit was made for amorous reasons.

  Early in the morning of 15 October,38the Queen left Jedburgh for Hermitage Castle. There was no suitable accommodation for her and her entourage at this massive, spartan fortress, and in any case her host was very ill, so she made the sixty-mile round trip in a day, despite wet weather, rough roads and reports of robbers in the region. Buchanan, who was eager to prove that Mary’s visit was made only in consequence of her lust for Bothwell, and who falsely claims that she flew off to Hermitage as soon as she heard he was wounded, alleges that she took with her “such an escort as no one slightly more honourable would have dared to trust with life and fortune.” In fact, it included Moray, Buchanan’s patron, Huntly, Maitland and a strong force of soldiers. Moreover, Lennox, who also accused Mary of impropriety with Bothwell, does not refer to any scandal attaching to her trip to Hermitage; had there been, he would certainly have done so.

  Hermitage Castle, which lies on remote moorland five miles north of Newcastleton, had been built in 1242; its stout keep dated from the fourteenth century. The castle took its name from a nearby hermit’s dwelling on Hermitage Water in Nithsdale, but had a grim history of violence and feuds. The Hepburns had bought this forbidding edifice in 1492, essentially as a military base for controlling the Borders.39

  According to Lord Scrope, Mary sat by Bothwell’s bed for about two hours, with Moray and the others in attendance;40Scrope told Cecil that they discussed Border affairs and the justice eyre, and that it was decided that Bothwell would bring other offenders to justice when he had recovered. Mary also conferred an official post on Bothwell’s kinsman, George Sinclair. Then the royal party returned to Jedburgh through Liddesdale. Between Hermitage and Priesthaugh, according to tradition, Mary’s horse slipped in a bog that is today known as the Queen’s Mire, and she was thrown to the muddy ground. She also lost her watch. The party were forced to stop at a farmhouse near Hawick so that her clothes could be repaired and dried.41Mary’s servants marvelled at her stamina on the long ride, but she told them she “could find it in her heart to do anything that a man dare do, if her strength would serve her.”42

  Scrope informed Cecil that, on the day after her return, Mary sent “a mass of writing” to Bothwell from Jedburgh.43This would appear to confirm that the object of their meeting had been to discuss business. But the arduous journey took its toll on Mary and, on 17 October,44she fell seriously ill, suffering initially from the old pain in her side, “which confined her to bed”;45 she then developed a transient fever, which was rapidly followed, on the first day alone, by more than sixty episodes of violent, prolonged vomiting of blood,46which intermittently reduced her to unconsciousness.

  It is difficult now to determine the nature of Mary’s illness, which has been diagnosed by some as a nervous or psychosomatic collapse as a reaction to the stress of the past months. The Venetian ambassador in Paris reported that “the illness was caused by her dissatisfaction at a decision made by the King to go to a place 25 or 30 miles distant without assigning any cause for it; which departure so afflicted this unfortunate Princess, not so much for the love she bears him, as from the consequences of his absence, reducing her to this extremity.”47Other possible diagnoses are a haemorrhage from a stomach ulcer, haematemesis (i.e., the vomiting of blood as a result of changes in the stomach wall due to an ulcer or acute dyspepsia), or to porphyria, which can give rise to such symptoms. Buchanan maliciously and ludicrously attributes Mary’s illness to her “having gratified her unlawful passions” with Bothwell. Whatever it was, its effects were so alarming that Maitland and many others believed the Queen’s life to be in danger.

  Inevitably, there was talk of poison. A Venetian envoy voiced this suspicion to the Doge in November, adding, “By whom, and with what design this great wickedness has been perpetrated, Your Serenity, who remembers past affairs, may form your own judgement.”48Nau, perhaps reiterating Mary’s own suspicions, states that, “from the frequency and the violence of the vomiting within the period of a single day, it was suspected that she had been poisoned, particularly as among the matter ejected from the stomach was found a lump of green substance, very thick and hard.”

  As Mary lay sick, “news came that the Prince was so ill that his life was despaired of, but, after having been made to vomit, he recovered.”49Not so his mother, for on the third day she lost both her sight and her power of speech “and had a very severe fit of convulsions.”50

  Around 21 October, four days after Mary had fallen ill, Bothwell had himself carried to Jedburgh on a horse litter.51On the 26th, de Silva reported from London that the Earl was “still in danger from his wounds,”52but however ill Bothwell felt, every day that he was absent gave Moray a chance to usurp his influence; moreover, should the Queen die, Bothwell meant to ensure that he was there to hear her final wishes. Buchanan states that Mary had Bothwell brought to Jedburgh and lodged in a chamber below hers. “When he arrived, their meetings and behaviour were beyond all propriety.” But Buchanan incorrectly places Bothwell’s arrival before Mary’s illness, which he attributes to “her exertions by day and night.”53

  At Jedburgh, Bothwell improved steadily, and on 25 October Leslie was able to write that he “convalesces well of his wounds”; by that date, he was able to attend a meeting of the Privy Council.54However, he would be scarred on the forehead for life, and his wounds would continue to trouble him for some time.

  Du Croc was with the court at Jedburgh, and on 23 October he sent a messenger, Alexander Bog, to inform Catherine de’ Medici that Mary’s life was in danger. Bog also carried a letter for Archbishop Beaton from the Council, instructing him to tell the King and Queen Mother of France that, the previous night, Mary had had “some fits of swooning, which put men in some fear; nevertheless, we see no tokens of death.” On 24 October, Mary “got some relief,”55and du Croc wrote to Beaton: “We begin to have more hope of the Queen, and for the present the doctors have no fears. I assure you Her Majesty is well looked after. God knows how all the Lords who are here occupy themselves. You may imagine the trouble they are in and the distress of this poor kingdom. The King is at Glasgow, and has never come here. If he has been informed by someone and has had time enough to come if he wished, it is a fault which I cannot excuse.”56

  Maitland informed Beaton that Bog’s message was more desperate than it should have been, as, although she had been “sorely handled, and looked herself for nothing but death,” Mary was “well relieved of the extremity of her sickness” and now, “praised be God, we think her out of all danger.” He added that the occasion of the Queen’s sickness, so far as I understand, is thought and displeasure, and I trow, by what I could wring further of her own declaration to me, the root of it is the King. For she has done him so great honour, contrary to the advice of her subjects, and he, on the other part, has recompensed her with such ingratitude and misuses himself so far towards her that it is a heartbreak for her to think he should be her husband, and how to be free of him she sees no outgait. I see betwixt
them no agreement, nor no appearance that they shall well agree thereafter. I am assured that it has been her mind this good while.57

  In her extremity, Mary had lowered her guard and revealed her desperation at the prospect of being tied to Darnley for life. There had been unsubstantiated rumours that she had sent to Rome for an annulment after Rizzio’s death, but this is the first evidence that she had seriously considered ways of freeing herself from her husband.

  The optimism expressed by Beaton and Maitland about Mary’s health was premature. At 10 p.m. that evening, “Her Majesty swooned again and failed in her sight; her feet and knees were cold, which were handled by extreme rubbing, drawing and other cures, by the space of four hours, that no creature could endure greater pain, and through the vehemence of this cure, Her Majesty got some relief.”58

  Believing she was dying, Mary summoned the Lords and du Croc, and made her final dispositions, declaring that the crown must pass to her son, not to Darnley, “not doubting that the King his father would wrong him as to the succession of the crown,” and entrusting Moray with charge of the Prince and “the principal part of the government.” Moray was also to ensure that James was “nourished in the fear of God and all virtues” and that “no evil company be near him during his youth.” In an obvious reference to Darnley, she beseeched God to mend one “whom I have advanced to a great degree of honour and pre-eminence among others; who, notwithstanding, has used ingratitude towards me, which has engendered the displeasure that presently most grieves me, and is also the cause of my sickness.” She remitted to God the exiled traitors, but urged that, if they returned to Scotland, the Lords would not suffer them to come near her son. She asked Moray to be as tolerant of Catholics as she had been of Protestants, then asked pardon for sins that had arisen from “the fragility of my nature” and, finally, protested that she died in the Catholic religion. As she “disposed herself as one at the point of death,” Bishop Leslie offered up prayers for her.59

  That night, Mary slipped into a coma and became so stiff and cold that everyone thought she had died. Her servants threw open the windows “to let her spirit go free,” her ladies ordered mourning clothes, her Privy Councillors, including Bothwell,60prepared for her funeral and issued an edict to safeguard public order, while Moray, with unseemly haste, “started to lay hands on her silver plate and jewels.”61But Arnault, the Queen’s French surgeon and “a perfect man of his craft,” noticed that one of Mary’s arms had not completely stiffened, and worked frantically to revive her. He tightly bandaged her limbs and extremities, massaged her body vigorously for three hours, forced wine down her throat, and gave her some medicine and an enema of wine and herbs, “the evacuations produced by which were considered by the physicians to be very suspicious.”62Gradually, Mary’s sight and speech were restored, then she began to sweat, and “from that time, she gradually recovered.”63

  Up to 27 October, Darnley was “hawking and hunting” in Glasgow and the west of Scotland,64perhaps unaware of Mary’s illness; there is no record of any messenger being sent to inform him. On the 22nd, Robert Melville had reported that the King was still threatening to leave the country because the Queen had not agreed to his demand that she dismiss Maitland, Bellenden and MacGill.65

  It appears that Darnley finally learned that Mary was sick on 27 October because, on that day, he suddenly set off for Edinburgh and the Borders; both Knox and Buchanan claim he travelled with the utmost haste to his wife’s bedside.

  He arrived at Jedburgh on the 28th, but did not stay long. In the Diurnal of Occurrents, Buchanan and Lennox all state that he was offended by a hostile reception from Mary and her nobles, which is hardly surprising, given that most of them, including Mary herself, believed him to have been the cause of her illness. Certainly, his visit did nothing to improve relations between him, Mary and the Lords. After spending only one night in Jedburgh— in one account, Buchanan claims he stayed in the lodgings of Lord Home, in another he states he slept in the bed of the Bishop of Orkney—Darnley rode north to Edinburgh, and thence to Stirling.66Buchanan says “his departure seemed the more shameful because, at the same time, Bothwell was openly transferred from the house where he had been lodging to the Queen’s apartments”—which contradicts his earlier account.

  By 30 October, Mary was well enough to order material for a new dress. Buchanan alleges that, around this time, she and Bothwell, “though not yet fully recovered, returned to their former pastime, and that blatantly”—so blatantly, in fact, that no one else noticed it. Buchanan also states that “the world in the same days began to speak of it,” but there were many people present at Jedburgh, and no other contemporary source, not even Lennox, mentions such flagrant behaviour.

  On 30 October, Mary’s convalescence was disrupted by a fire that destroyed part of her lodgings, and she and her entourage were obliged to move to a “bastel” (fortified) tower owned by the Kers of Ferniehurst, which was perhaps that which survives today and is known as Mary, Queen of Scots’ House. This was one of six fortified houses built in the fifteenth century after Jedburgh Castle was demolished. In Mary’s day, it had four storeys, a thatched roof, gables, turrets, tiny windows and a garden.67The service quarters were on the ground floor, but the upper floors could be accessed only by an outside stair. There was a banqueting room, forechamber and garderobe on the first floor, and bedchambers and a guard room above. The Queen paid Lady Ferniehurst £40 for the use of the house.

  Queen Elizabeth, fearing the intervention of Philip II in Flanders, was now finding the prospect of an alliance with Scotland attractive, and had instructed Cecil to draw up instructions for an embassy in which it was to be intimated that Elizabeth was prepared to acknowledge Mary as her heir. On 31 October, Elizabeth asked the Countess of Argyll, a Protestant, to stand proxy for her at James’s christening.68At the beginning of November, the Comte de Brienne arrived in Scotland to represent Charles IX at the ceremony.69In his train was the son of du Croc, who may have acted as the Cardinal of Lorraine’s messenger to Mary,70for he already held a post in her household and could therefore easily gain access to her. It was probably one of these men who informed Mary that Papal support would be dependent upon her agreeing to execute Moray and the other leading Protestants listed by Mondovi.

  Meanwhile, on 29 October, King Philip had ordered the Duke of Alva to make ready for war on the Netherlands, which was probably what Darnley was waiting for. Darnley’s grievances had already reached the ears of the Nuncio in Paris, who reported on 4 November: “He cannot obtain from the Queen the authority he had before the late tumults, that is, to sit by the side of his wife in Council and in public places [and] set his name with hers in treaties and public affairs.”71But Darnley was about to have his revenge in full measure.

  Mary was making slow progress, but on or just before 1 November,72she received a letter from, or about, Darnley73that, according to Buchanan, caused her “miserably to torment herself, wailing wretchedly as if she would have fallen again into her former sickness.” She told Moray, Maitland and Huntly that, “unless she might by some means or other be despatched of the King, she would never have any good day, and if by no other way, she would attain it, rather than she would abide to live in such sorrow she would slay herself.” Buchanan put these words into Mary’s mouth with the aim of demonstrating that she was in a frame of mind in which she could contemplate murdering Darnley, but there is independent corroboration of her reaction to the letter, for by 13 November, de Silva in London had been given details of it by Mary’s messenger, Stephen Wilson, who left Scotland around 8 November and arrived in London on the 13th. De Silva informed his master that Mary “had heard that her husband had written to Your Majesty, the Pope, the King of France and the Cardinal of Lorraine that she was dubious in the faith.”74 Knox confirms this, and states that Darnley had also complained “of the state of the country, which was all out of order, all because that Mass and Papacy were not again erected, giving the whole blame thereof to the Queen as not
managing the Catholic cause aright.”

  This was the first concrete evidence of Darnley’s dealings abroad, and the first intimation that Mary had received of the extent of his duplicity, and it is hardly surprising that she was devastated by his embarrassing betrayal. She had certainly not done as much for the Catholic faith in Scotland as she could have done, and in some respects she had actively undermined it, but she was in an impossible political situation and had made a virtue of necessity in order to ensure her own survival. Of the two of them, she was personally by far the more genuinely devout, while Darnley bent with the wind, but, by his condemnation of her lack of zeal, he meant to show himself in the best possible light as the champion of Catholicism in Britain. Mary was ignorant of the wider implications of his calumnies, but she was all too aware that they had the power to ruin her credit with the Catholic rulers of Europe; in the case of Philip II and Catherine de’ Medici, they seem to have succeeded, for hereafter neither offered much support to Mary, even though Philip later denied that he had ever received from Darnley any letter detrimental to her.75

  Mary was desperate to repair the damage her husband had caused. De Silva told Philip that she had asked him to assure Your Majesty that, as regards religion, she will never, with God’s help, fail to uphold it. Although she has entrusted this man [Wilson] to assure me verbally in the matter, she has in addition written to me as regards her steadfastness in the Faith, and I believe, from all that has ever been heard of the Queen, she is as faithful in religion as she professes to be. It seems to me, however, difficult to believe that her husband should have taken such a course, and it must be some French device to sow discord.76