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

by Alison Weir

  Buchanan later accused the Queen of “sweetly sleeping” until noon or for most of the day,48but this would have been entirely understandable, given that she had had a very disturbed night followed by shocking news. Nau says she was in such grief that she “kept to her chamber all that day,” but she seems to have been awake for most of the morning at least, attending to sad but necessary duties that could not wait. The first of these was to summon chirurgeons and apothecaries to carry out a post-mortem examination on Darnley’s body. This took place later that morning, in the presence of the Lords of the Privy Council.49During their examination, the doctors discovered that “one rib in the King’s body was found broken by the distance of the jump of the fall” and that Darnley had also suffered grave internal injuries.50 They therefore concluded that he had been blown into the garden by the explosion. Knox claims that the doctors had only said this “to please the Queen,” and that “truly he [Darnley] was strangled.”51If Darnley had been strangled, there would have been evidence of asphyxia and marks around the throat and neck to prove it, but every source states that there were no marks at all on the body.

  Once the post-mortem was concluded, the public were allowed in to view the King’s corpse. According to Buchanan, “for a long time, the King’s body remained a spectacle to a continual crowd of common people,”52yet “no one could bring himself to believe that the force of the explosion had thrown him through the roof.” Contrary to what Buchanan says, the body did not remain on view for a long time, for when Melville arrived later that morning to see it, it had been moved to an inner chamber and Sandy Durham would not let him enter.53

  After the post-mortem, the Privy Councillors held a meeting in the Tolbooth under the presidency of Argyll, Lord Justice-General of Scotland. Realising that they must embark upon a damage limitation exercise if Scotland were not to become the scandal of Europe, they wrote a letter giving an account—the first ever account—of Darnley’s murder to Catherine de’ Medici. This was to be conveyed by her envoy, the Seigneur de Clernault, who had been visiting Scotland and is thought by some writers to have been in league with Moretta and perhaps Darnley, although on the slenderest of evidence. The Lords began:

  Madam,

  The strange event which occurred in this town last night constrains us to be bold to write briefly to you, in order to give you and yours to understand the miserable deed which has been perpetrated on the person of the King, in such a strange manner that one has never heard tell of a similar affair.

  They then described what had happened during the night, before proceeding to offer what was to be the official explanation of events, for the time being at least, an explanation that was based on Mary’s own convictions:

  Those that are the authors of this evil only just failed in destroying the Queen by the same means, with a great part of the nobles and Lords who are for the present in her suite, who were there with the King in his room until nearly midnight. And Her Majesty only just failed to remain in order to lodge there all the night, but God has been so kind to us that these assassins were frustrated in half their attempt, He having reserved Her Majesty to take [the] vengeance such a barbarous and inhuman deed deserves. We are engaged in an inquiry, and we doubt not that shortly we shall arrive at a knowledge of those who did it. For God will never permit such a mischief to remain hidden, and, having once uncovered the matter, Your Majesty and all the world shall know that Scotland will not endure that such a cause for shame should rest upon her shoulders, and which would be enough to render her hateful to all Christianity if similar wickednesses should lie hidden and unpunished.

  We did not wish to miss making this advertisement to the King’s Majesty and yourself by this gentleman, present bearer, the Seigneur de Clernault, who will relate to you all the details, since he is well informed to this end. His sufficience is such that we leave the rest to him, so as not, with a longer letter, to importune Your Majesty.

  From Edinburgh, this 10th February.54

  The letter was signed by Archbishop Hamilton, Argyll, Huntly, Atholl, Cassilis, Bothwell, the Earls of Caithness and Sutherland, Alexander Gordon, Bishop of Galloway, John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, Robert Richardson, the Lord Treasurer, Justice Clerk Bellenden, Secretary Maitland and Lords Livingston and Fleming.

  This letter gives the lie to Buchanan’s allegation that “there was no mention of an investigation into the murder.”

  Some time during the morning, Robert Drury arrived from Paris with Archbishop Beaton’s letter of warning to Mary, too late for it to be of any use; even if she had received it earlier, there was no hint in it of any threat to Darnley. However, Mary believed that the plot of which Beaton had warned her was the plot that had led to Darnley’s death, and that it had been targeted at her also.

  A letter, purporting to be from Mary, was sent in response to the Archbishop, giving an account of the murder; this was dated 11 February, but was probably written on the 10th before the results of the post-mortem were known. As it is written in Scots, a language Mary did not normally write in, and is similar in tone and composition to the letter sent by the Lords to Catherine de’ Medici, there has been speculation that it was written on Mary’s behalf, perhaps by Maitland, as she was too distressed to write herself; on her own testimony, she was unable to attend to her correspondence. The letter probably reflects her views, as expressed to her Councillors, and she may have dictated some or all of it. It begins:

  We have received this morning your letters of the 27th January, containing in one part such advertisement as we find by effect over-true, albeit the success has not altogether been such as the authors of that mischievous fact had preconceived and had put it in execution. And if God in His mercy had not preserved us, as we trust, to the end that we may take a rigorous vengeance of that mischievous deed, which, ere it should remain unpunished, we had rather lose life and all. The matter is so horrible and strange as we believe the like was never heard of in any country.

  After outlining the facts, Mary continued:

  By whom it has been done, or in what manner, it appears not yet. We doubt not but, according to the vigilance our Council has begun to already use, the certainty of all shall be used shortly, and, the same being discovered, which we wot [know] God will never suffer to lie hidden, we hope to punish the same with such rigour as serve for an example of this cruelty to all ages to come.

  These strong words do not sound as if they came from a woman with a guilty conscience, but as if they were written by someone desperate for vengeance upon those who have done her so great an injury. The letter goes on to voice a strong conviction—one from which Mary was never to depart—that the explosion was meant to destroy her too.

  Always, whoever has taken this wicked enterprise in hand, we assure ourselves it was designed as well for ourselves as for the King, for we lay the most part of all last week in that same lodging, and was there accompanied with the most part of the Lords that are in this town, and had that same night, at midnight, and of very chance, tarried not all night there, by reason of some masque at the Abbey of Holyrood. But we believe it was not chance but God that put it in our head.

  We dispatched this bearer upon the sudden, and therefore write to you the more shortly. The rest of your letter we shall answer at more leisure within four or five days by your own servant.55

  It may not be going too far to say that Mary’s distress was caused more by the realisation that she herself might have been the target of the murderers than by her sorrow at Darnley’s death. Her feelings of shock and vulnerability could explain her behaviour during the weeks to come, when self-preservation was to be her overriding priority.

  Later that day, Darnley’s corpse was carried back to Holyrood, where it was embalmed by an apothecary and a surgeon. Buchanan says that, on the Queen’s orders, it was borne to the palace by porters on “an old block of form or tree” or “an inverted bench.” An account in the Register House in Edinburgh, dated 11 February, gives details of the expenses incurred in
“opening and perfuming” the King’s body. The receipt was signed by the Queen’s apothecary, Martin Picavet.56

  Buchanan alleges that, when Darnley’s body arrived at Holyrood, Mary went to see it. “As she had satisfied her heart with his slaughter, so she would needs feast her eyes with the sight of his body slain. For she long beheld, and not only without grief, the goodliest corpse of any gentleman that ever lived in this age, not only calmly, but even greedily”; elsewhere, he says “she gave no indication of her secret feelings,” which is echoed by Knox, who states that she gazed upon the corpse “without any outward show or sign of joy or sorrow.” Yet Mary had already gone into seclusion, and kept to her chamber all that day; there is no contemporary evidence that she emerged to look at Darnley’s body.

  Later that morning, according to Buchanan, “the matter being wondered at, and great execration in the mouths of the multitude” against the assassins,57“shame and fear compelled [the Councillors] to do something, and so, shortly before noon, Bothwell and several other conspirators” convened in Argyll’s chamber in the Tolbooth to begin an inquiry into the murder.58 Tullibardine was also present, representing the interests of Lennox. Buchanan implies that the Lords present had a vested interest in keeping the true facts hidden: “at first, they professed ignorance of all that had happened, marvelling at it as a new, unheard of, incredible thing. Then they allowed a very slight examination.” Thomas Nelson was the first witness they examined. He and other deponents were “questioned as to the entry of the murderers” and asked “who prepared and ordained that house for the King” and “who had the keys.” When Nelson denied that the keys had been in his possession, he was asked, “Who had them, then?” He replied, “The Queen,” at which point Tullibardine intervened, saying, “Hold there: he is aground.” There were no further questions, and the inquiry was adjourned until the next day.

  17

  “NONE DARE FIND FAULT WITH IT”

  WHO MURDERED DARNLEY? There can be no doubt that he was murdered, but the identity of the person or persons responsible is surrounded by great mystery, and there have been so many theories that the subject has become one of the most controversial in history. Was this a political assassination, or a crime inspired by passion or revenge?

  All we can be certain of is that, by early February 1567, some people were conspiring to murder the King, and that the chief culprits must have been leading members of the establishment.

  For the historian investigating this mystery today, the problems are manifold. As has already been made clear, there is a vast amount of conflicting and untrustworthy information. Most contemporary sources reflect religious and sexual prejudices, and much of the source material is suspect because it was written by people with reputations to protect and a revolution to justify. Most of the information about Mary’s role in the murder comes from her enemies, who had good cause for blackening her name, and whose works are not strictly contemporary, or from depositions by witnesses who were almost certainly intimidated into giving the politically correct version of events. Some of this “evidence” is very compelling and convincing, yet difficult or impossible to substantiate through strictly contemporary sources. In recent years, however, thanks to the painstaking work of objective historians and investigators, these hostile accounts have been exposed for the libels they undoubtedly were.

  The mystery of Darnley’s death was never satisfactorily solved in the sixteenth century: any investigation of the matter was apparently subverted by the desire to protect the guilty and frame the scapegoats, and vital documents, such as the Casket Letters, have since disappeared. There is, it is true, a vast amount of evidence as to what happened on the night of 9–10 February 1567, but most of it lies in the above-mentioned unreliable depositions of suspects and witnesses made behind closed doors, on the orders of the Privy Council, to the Lords of the Secret Council, namely Maitland, Morton, Huntly, Argyll and Balfour, all of whom were probably involved in the plot to murder Darnley. These depositions were attested by Justice Clerk Bellenden, who was not present when they were taken; most of them were not properly witnessed and were perhaps extracted under torture1by ruthless and powerful men who had good reasons for wanting the real truth suppressed. Neither were these depositions ever made public nor subjected to any independent examination. History was virtually rewritten to suit the party in power, and rewritten by clever men who knew how to make a forceful case.

  The historian’s task therefore seems hopeless, and it has been said that it is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile all the evidence and come up with a credible conclusion. Yet this is not necessarily the case, for amongst the gallons of spilled ink there are plenty of clues.

  There were several people, or factions, who might have wanted Darnley dead, or stood to gain from his death. During the two years after his murder, the only two people who were formally accused of it were Bothwell and the Queen, and it was stressed that their motives were an indecent passion for each other and Bothwell’s overweening ambition. Mary herself had earlier made it clear that she wished to be rid of Darnley, and not without good reason; furthermore, most ways of doing so were closed to her. However, her accusers, the Protestant Lords, led by Moray and Maitland, had no time for Darnley, who was a constant embarrassment and a threat to their own influence, and they may have seen his murder as an opportunity of ridding themselves of another person who posed such a threat, namely Bothwell, and ultimately seizing power themselves, which was what in fact happened. Nor may their aims have been entirely political, for Morton and several others involved in Rizzio’s murder, who had been betrayed by Darnley, had every reason to seek revenge on him. As the years went by, and loyalties shifted, the Lords began accusing each other of the murder, until, in the end, most of the leading nobles of Scotland were among the suspects. There is a more recent theory that Darnley himself plotted the explosion at Kirk o’Field, with a view to killing his wife and most of the Protestant establishment and snatching power for himself, but that something went wrong. Some even pointed the finger at Archbishop Hamilton. There may also have been more than one plot, and more than one culprit or group of persons involved. All of these theories are, on the face of it, plausible.

  The chief suspect, however, was Bothwell. Mary herself later came to believe in his guilt and, from 1568, referred to him several times as one of Darnley’s murderers. Along with Argyll and Huntly, Bothwell had been brought into the conspiracy against Darnley by Maitland and Moray early in December at Craigmillar. There is evidence that he knew all about the Bond for the King’s murder that was probably signed at Craigmillar. It was Bothwell who tried to draw Morton into this conspiracy, and Bothwell who asked Mary to sanction the King’s assassination, which Mary later did not deny. Bothwell was almost certainly driven by his ambition to marry the Queen himself and become King, a theory that is supported by his actions subsequent to the murder and by Melville, who states that “the Earl of Bothwell had a mark of his own that he shot at, . . . that he might marry the Queen.” That Bothwell acted alone, however, seems unlikely, but at the time, there was so much evidence against him that it appeared he was the prime mover in the plot, which, as we have seen, was not the case.

  It is possible that Moray and Maitland, who had long been Bothwell’s enemies, planned to use his involvement in the murder as a means of getting rid of him, for not only did they detest him, but they also had good reason to fear that he would usurp their power—he was already far too influential for comfort. Back in August, Bedford had reported that Bothwell was the most hated amongst the Scots nobles and that there was a device to kill him. Since then, his influence had increased, and so had the other Lords’ bitter resentment. This would explain why Maitland and Moray brought this unlikely ally into the plot against Darnley. Yet, although Bothwell almost certainly planned Darnley’s murder, it is unlikely that he actually killed him.

  Much of the evidence against Bothwell lies in the suspect depositions and confessions of his a
ssociates,2most of whom were certainly his men. As will be seen, these contain improbabilities and irreconcilable discrepancies; more tellingly, there are contradictions in different versions of the same deposition. These inconsistencies may have been the result of confusion on the night of 10 February, or of lapses in memory after the passage of time, but they also support the theory that information given to the interrogators was either manufactured or suppressed in order to isolate and reinforce the case against Bothwell and protect others who may have been involved. There is no doubt that some of these depositions were carefully edited for the same reasons; even Buchanan admits that information was suppressed. There may be an element of truth in these various accounts, for there are several points on which these confessions, obtained from different people at different times, agree, and it is possible that they were not total inventions. Furthermore, their evidence is that of minor players who were acting on the orders of powerful men whose motives and political agenda they were not made privy to and did not fully understand. These depositions were made before men who had no doubt already decided how the official version of events was to be written, and for that reason alone, they should be treated with extreme caution.

  The story that these depositions tell is as follows.

  Paris claimed that he first came into credit with the Queen on 21 January, when she was at Callendar on her way to Glasgow, and Bothwell was about to return to Edinburgh. Mary gave Paris a purse of money to carry to Bothwell, and when he delivered it, Bothwell said to him, “If you take care what you are doing, the Queen will give you letters to bring to me.” It seems strange that Mary should ask Paris to take Bothwell the purse when she could have given it to him herself; they were, after all, staying in the same house.