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

by Alison Weir

  Mary now had evidence that two conspiracies were afoot: that of the Lords against Darnley, and that of Darnley against herself. Of the former, she could be in no doubt that the nobles were determined to bring Darnley down and perhaps kill him; nevertheless, she may have felt that her refusal to sanction any move against him would act as a brake upon their designs. Of the latter, she knew only garbled details that were not necessarily linked to each other, but that was enough to set alarm bells ringing in her head. Since Rizzio’s murder, she had lived in fear that Darnley would again plot against her.

  On 20 January, Mary wrote to Archbishop Beaton in Paris, relating the affair of Walker and Hiegait.45It is evident from this letter that she suspected that the rumours of Darnley’s activities were true:

  As for the King our husband, God knows always our part towards him, and his behaviour and thankfulness towards us is similarly well known to God and the world; specially, our own impartial subjects see it and, in their hearts, we doubt not, condemn the same. Always, we perceive him occupied and busy enough to inquire of our doings, which, God willing, shall always be such as none report of us anyway but honourably, however he, his father and their faction speak, which we know want no goodwill to make us have ado [trouble], if their power were equal to their minds. But God moderates their forces well enough, and takes the means of execution of their intentions from them. For, as we believe, they shall find none, or very few, approvers of their counsels and devices imagined for our displeasure or misliking.

  In view of what was to come, it is important to remember Mary’s bitterness towards, and contempt for, Darnley, as expressed in this letter. There is no evidence in it that she was contemplating a reconciliation.

  Unable to bear the uncertainty any longer, Mary had decided to go to Glasgow and confront her errant husband. She had resolved to leave on the very day on which she had written to Beaton. It was a courageous decision, for she knew she might be placing herself in grave danger. But Darnley had to be stopped.

  Many years later, Melville looked back on this period of mounting crisis with what must have been a shudder. “The days were evil,” he wrote; “it was a busy time.”

  14

  “SOME SUSPICION OF WHAT AFTERWARDS HAPPENED”

  MARY INTENDED NOT ONLY TO confront Darnley, but to bring him back to Edinburgh, where she could keep him under her eye. She must, however, have been aware that, in so doing, she was bringing him into the orbit of men who had signed a bond against him, or who had compelling reasons for seeking revenge on him. Yet she also had evidence that he was conspiring against her, and if that were so, she dared not leave him where he was, at the centre of the Lennox power base.

  Mary had the ideal pretext for visiting Darnley for, according to Leslie, he had asked her to do so. Leslie also says that Darnley returned to Edinburgh “by the advice of the nobility and the physicians.” It may be that Mary had confided her fears of a conspiracy to her Lords, and that they, having their own secret agenda, urged her to remove the King from Glasgow.

  It has often been said that Mary had taken pity on Darnley and genuinely wished for a reconciliation, but this is at variance with the attitude towards him expressed in her letter to Archbishop Beaton and with the other evidence. The time to have taken pity on him was when he had been really ill, but she had now learned that he was getting better.

  It has been suggested that Mary wished to bring about a reconciliation, or the semblance of one, in case she became—or already was—pregnant by Bothwell; Darnley could then be passed off as the father, to avoid scandal. This presupposes that Mary and Bothwell were already lovers, of which there is no satisfactory proof, although she had certainly come to rely on him heavily. It will also be shown, in due course, that Mary is unlikely to have conceived, or been expecting, a child at this time. Finally, Mary’s physician must have informed her of the true nature of Darnley’s disease; it is hardly likely that she would have wished to resume marital relations with him now, at such risk to herself, and there was no telling how long it would be before he was cured.

  The most serious accusation that has been levelled against Mary is that, at Bothwell’s urging, she deliberately lured Darnley to Edinburgh to meet his death. Yet the evidence shows that she had already refused on several occasions to sanction any plot against him. Darnley certainly posed a danger to her, and she had every reason for wishing to be rid of him, but she would have had to be a duplicitous character indeed to have consistently rejected all suggestions of assassination, and to have sent her own doctor to him, had she been secretly planning to have him murdered. After all, Bothwell, whom her enemies later claimed had incited her to bring Darnley to Edinburgh, was the same man who had allegedly asked her to sign a warrant authorising Darnley’s removal, which she had refused to do. She is hardly likely to have been so inconsistent.

  Furthermore, in bringing Darnley to Edinburgh, Mary may have reasoned that she could protect him from those who meant him ill. The last thing she wanted at this time was a scandal that might prejudice the imminent negotiations with England. Without Darnley, her claim to the English throne would have been considerably weakened in the eyes of many of Elizabeth’s subjects. She therefore had every reason to keep him alive. It was also imperative that she and he appeared to be on good terms, for the English would not want a queen to whom scandal had been constantly attached, and the very public breakdown of her marriage did not augur well for the future stability of either kingdom. As will be seen, she herself is said to have stated that she intended a reconciliation.

  Probably unwittingly, therefore, Mary played straight into the hands of Bothwell, Maitland, Douglas and—almost certainly—Moray. Escorted by Bothwell, Huntly and a party of mounted arquebusiers. Mary left Edinburgh on 20 January for Glasgow;1she took with her a horse-litter for conveying her sick husband back to Edinburgh. On the way, she stayed one night with Lord Livingston at Callendar House, and probably sent a summons from there to the Hamiltons to escort her to Glasgow, for, on the 21st, Bothwell and Huntly had to return to Edinburgh;2Bothwell had pressing business to attend to in the Borders. The fact that Mary summoned the Hamiltons, who were—as Buchanan correctly pointed out—deadly enemies of the Lennoxes, shows that she had not come to Glasgow in the spirit of reconciliation.

  Paris was among those in attendance on Mary; according to his later deposition, which should not be regarded as reliable evidence since it was almost certainly obtained under torture, he carried letters and messages between the Queen and Bothwell at this time.

  Archbishop Hamilton,3Sir James Hamilton, the Laird of Luss and about forty other gentlemen gathered and, on 22 January,4accompanied Mary into Glasgow. Lennox was conspicuous by his absence from the reception party, but had sent Darnley’s gentleman, Captain Thomas Crawford of Jordanhill, a staunch Lennox man, to show her cause why he came not to meet her himself, praying Her Grace not to think it was either for stout stomach [pride] or for not knowing his duty towards Her Highness, but only for want of health, and also that he would not presume to come in her presence until he knew farther her mind, because of the sharp words that she had spoken of him to Robert Cunningham, his servant, in Stirling, whereby he thought he was in Her Majesty’s displeasure.

  Mary answered “that there was no recipe against fear.” Crawford replied “that My Lord had no fear for anything he knew in himself, but only of the cold and unkindly words she had spoken to his servant.” Mary retorted that “he would not be afraid [if] he were not culpable,” whereupon Crawford said he “knew so far of His Lordship that there was nothing he desired more than the secrets of every creature’s heart were written in their face.” Clearly angered, Mary asked him if he had any further commission, and when he said no, curtly commanded him to hold his peace.5

  Glasgow, which lies on the banks of the River Clyde, was then a small city with a cathedral dating from 1175, a famous university that had been founded in 1451, and a concentration of houses, gardens and orchards. Another prominent building
was Lennox Castle at Stable Green, which occupied the site of the present Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Since Darnley and his father were both lying ill in the castle, Mary appears to have lodged either in the episcopal palace, which had been unoccupied since 1560, when Archbishop Beaton had been sent as Scotland’s ambassador to Paris, or at Crookston Castle, another Lennox stronghold, standing high above the city, which had a central tower and moat and dated from the fifteenth century. It is also claimed that Mary stayed at the Provand’s House, or “Lordship,” Glasgow’s oldest surviving mediaeval house, dating from 1471, but that seems less likely. Wherever it was the Queen lodged, she was guarded by the Hamiltons and her arquebusiers.

  On 22 January, du Croc had left Edinburgh for Paris. With him, he took Mary’s letter for Archbishop Beaton, and “some suspicion of what afterwards happened”; later, he claimed he had not been “ignorant of the Lord Darnley’s death to draw nigh.”6There is no way of knowing how he came to have these suspicions, and he may have seen some remarks or events as significant only with the benefit of hindsight.

  Mary did not visit Darnley on the day she arrived in Glasgow because “he was in so bad a state with the eruptions on his face that he begged her not to see him till he was somewhat better, to which she agreed.”7The next day, he changed his mind and agreed to receive her.

  Mary’s interviews with Darnley on 23 January and the following days were recorded both in Casket Letter II and by Thomas Crawford, who claimed that Darnley afterwards told him what had transpired and asked him to report it to Lennox. There is evidence, however, that Crawford’s Deposition of 1568 was constructed from Casket Letter II, as there are remarkable similarities between them, and some passages appear to have been copied word for word, one of them 300 words long, which is too much to be coincidental. It may be that Crawford wrote a report at the time and later, at the instance of the Privy Council, improved on it, or amended it, by referring to Casket Letter II.

  The Deposition exists in its draft form, with numerous corrections and alterations,8and a doctored version was presented as evidence to the English Commissioners in 1568.9Because it was produced for propaganda purposes, it should be treated with caution. Some historians believe that the Deposition is a complete forgery but, if so, why does it not refer to Darnley’s jealousy of Bothwell? On the contrary, it reflects fairly accurately the tensions between Mary and Darnley.

  On the 23rd, Darnley was in a truculent but apparently contrite mood. According to Crawford, after a short conversation, Mary demanded of him why he had complained in his letters “of the cruelty of some. He answered that he complained not without cause, as he believed she would grant herself, when she was well advised.” When she inquired about his sickness, he accused her of being the cause of it, adding, You asked me what I meant by the cruelty contained in my letters; it is of you only, that will not accept my offers and repentance. I confess that I have failed in some things, and such like greater faults have been made to you sundry times, which you have forgiven. I am but young, and you will say you have forgiven me sundry times. May not a man of my age, for lack of counsel, of which I am very destitute, fall twice or thrice, and yet repent himself and be chastised by experience. If I have made any fail, I crave your pardon and protest that I shall never fail again. I desire no other thing but that we may be together as husband and wife, and, if you will not consent hereto, I desire never to rise forth of this bed. Therefore, I pray you, give me an answer hereunto. God knoweth how I am punished for making my god of you and for having no other thought but on you. And if at any time I offend you, you are the cause for it. When any offendeth me, if for my refuge I might disclose my heart to you, I would speak it to no other; but when anything is spoken to me, and you and I not being as husband and wife ought to be, necessity compelleth me to keep it in my breast, and bringeth me in such melancholy as you see I am.

  Illness, it appeared, had wrought a great change in Darnley, but Mary was unsure that it was genuine. She asked him, out of the blue, “why he would have passed away with the English ship. He answered that he had spoken with the Englishman, but not of mind to go away with him, and if he had, it had not been without cause, in respect of the manner how he was used, for he had [money] neither to sustain himself nor his servants, and need not to make further discourse thereof, for she knew it as well as he.

  “Then she asked him the purpose of Hiegait. He answered that it was told him. She required how and by whom it was told him. He answered that the Laird of Minto told him that there was a letter presented to her in Craigmillar, made by her own advice and subscribed by certain others, who desired her to subscribe the same, which she refused to do.” Clearly, Darnley was well informed, although the facts had become somewhat garbled in the telling. He assured her that “he would never trust that she, who was his own proper flesh, would do him any evil, and if any other would do it, they should buy it dear, except they took him sleeping, albeit he suspected nobody. So he desired her effectuously that she would bear him company, for she found ever some ado to draw herself from him to her own lodging, and would never remain with him past two hours together at once.”

  It appears Mary was having trouble believing Darnley’s protestations of loyalty and devotion, for he had not satisfactorily explained away the allegations of Walker, but had harped on the conspiracy against himself; she remained “very pensive, whereat he found fault.” Then abruptly, he said he had heard she had brought a litter with her. She told him she intended to take him back to Edinburgh with her but she had understood that he was not able to ride a horse, so she had brought the litter to have him carried “more softly.” Darnley answered “that it was not meet for a sick man to travel that could not sit on a horse, and especially in so cold weather.” Mary told him that she was taking him to convalesce at Craigmillar, “where she might be with him and not far from her son.” He had little choice in the matter, so he told her that he would go, but only on one condition: “that was, that he and she might be together at bed and board as husband and wife, and that she should leave him no more. And if she would promise him it, upon her word, he would go with her where she pleased, without respect of any danger or sickness wherein he was. And if she would not grant him the same, he would not go with her in no wise.”

  Mary replied that it was for that that she had come, “and if she had not been minded thereto, she had not come so far to fetch him, and so she granted his desire, and promised him that it should be as he had spoken, and thereupon gave him her hand and faith of her body that she would love him and use him as her husband.” Then caution overrode her, and she insisted that, “notwithstanding, before they could be together, he must be purged and cleansed of his sickness, which she trusted should be shortly, for she minded to give him the bath at Craigmillar.”

  Darnley said “he would do whatsoever she would he do, and would love all that she loved,” but “she required him in especial whom he loved of the nobility and whom he hated. He answered that he hated no man, and loved all alike well. She asked him how he liked the Lady Reres, and if he were angry with her.” (This seems to have been a later interpolation, inserted after Buchanan’s libel naming Lady Reres as Bothwell’s procuress had become officially received wisdom.) Darnley merely said “he had little mind of such as she was, and wished of God that she might serve her to her honour.”

  Then Mary “desired him that he would keep to himself the promise between him and her, and declare it to nobody, for peradventure the Lords would not think good of their sudden agreement, considering he and they were at some words before.” Darnley said “he knew no cause why they should mislike of it, and desired her that she would not move any of them against him, like as he would persuade not against her, and that they would work both in one mind, otherwise it might turn to greater inconvenience to them both.” Mary replied that “she never sought any way by him, but he was in the fault himself. He answered again that his faults were published, and that there were [those] that made greater faults than ever he ma
de that [he] believed were unknown, and yet they would speak of great and small.” Mary asked him “if he might be ready to travel at that time,” but his answer is unrecorded.

  Several things emerge from this conversation. Firstly, Mary had achieved her stated purpose, which was to persuade Darnley to come to Edinburgh and, although she was uncomfortable in his company, to arrive at a better understanding with him. This is corroborated by a report by a French agent, the Seigneur de Clernault,10who stated that entire confidence had been restored between the King and Queen, and by Lennox,11Leslie and Nau. It was not out of character for Mary to show such forgiveness to Darnley, since she had done so to the Lords who had been involved in the Chaseabout Raid and the murder of Rizzio. Secondly, her doubts about Darnley’s loyalty were unresolved. Thirdly, he was aware that, in leaving Glasgow and the protection of the Lennox affinity, which was certainly against his father’s wishes,12he might be putting himself in danger. Fourthly, he had almost certainly not been honest with her about his plans for the future; he had meekly agreed to return with her and shown himself unusually trusting of Mary to protect him. Either it suited him to go to Edinburgh, because there he would be better placed to bring his schemes to fruition; or Mary’s promise of a resumption of sexual relations heralded, in his mind, his return to power. Lastly, Mary feared the Lords finding out about her reconciliation with Darnley; given their hatred of him, they would be reluctant to accept his restoration to favour and influence, and this might be all that was needed to precipitate the carrying out of their plan to do away with him. It was perhaps not so much for his health as for his own safety that she chose to house him initially at Craigmillar. Given time, and his improved behaviour, his enemies might grow to tolerate him.