Mary Queen of Scots

by Retha Warnicke

  After reaching France, Mary learned from Henry II, her future father-in-law, important lessons about Scotland’s diplomatic status in Christendom. He granted her first place at court among his daughters, but although she was a queen regnant, he situated her behind Catherine de’ Medici, his queen consort, and his sons. That Mary was destined to marry his heir Francis, the dauphin, was the reason Henry advanced her to this high ranking. Following the medieval papacy’s protocol, European leaders had customarily privileged the princes of the blood of France above all others, except the pope, the emperor, and his heir the king of the Romans. At diplomatic conferences and festive occasions French envoys were placed immediately after papal and imperial legates. When Emperor Charles V no longer governed Spain, however, its monarchs challenged their demotion to the second-place position. Shortly after the accession of the emperor’s son, Philip II, to the Spanish throne in 1556, he began unsuccessfully to dispute the French primacy. Meanwhile, Henry VIII claimed third place for England but occasionally, as, for example, at the imperial court, his envoys had to acquiesce in the loss of their status to Portugal, whose infanta, Isabella, was Emperor Charles’s wife. Scotland came further down the list, after Sicily but before Cyprus and Denmark. Monarchs, as well as their aristocratic subjects, jealously guarded their social and diplomatic standings, sometimes responding violently when threatened with displacement.

  In France Mary also became aware of the prominence of her Guise uncles, her mother’s brothers, who dominated the royal council and government after her husband Francis’s accession. They taught her the political and social advantages of their powerful kin networks. Her mother had, after all, chosen to match Mary with the dauphin rather than an English prince in order not only to ally Scotland with the more prestigious realm but also to enhance the influence and authority of her French relatives in their native land.

  During Mary’s residence in France while receiving a humanist education similar to Francis’s, she was instructed in the strategies conducive to political survival at royal courts. Her mother’s brother, Charles, cardinal of Lorraine, taught her how to manipulate protocol to mask her opinions, to shun gossips that might spread rumors about her, to prevent enemies from entering her household, and to employ ciphers and codes in her sensitive correspondence. Her life in France may have been happy but it was never carefree.

  Earlier in 1543 Henry VIII had demanded her as a bride for his son Edward, partly because Mary was also a claimant to the English throne. Scottish officials agreed to the Treaties of Greenwich, arranging for her removal to England as Edward’s betrothed when she was ten years old, but rejected those treaties a few months later. In retaliation English raids, which have been termed the Rough Wooing since Sir Walter Scott coined the phrase in the nineteenth century, devastated parts of her realm, attempting to capture her and remove her to England. In his will which set out the English succession, Henry ignored the Stewarts, apparently intending that Mary would become England’s queen only if she wed Edward, his heir.

  These childhood experiences and Henry II’s endorsement of her English rights in 1559 after the accession of Henry VIII’s Protestant daughter Elizabeth, whom Catholics viewed as illegitimate, may have strengthened Mary’s dynastic resolve. It would, however, have been uncharacteristic for an early modern ruler to surrender a hereditary asset like hers without a struggle. Henry II and his father, Francis I, for example, fought ruinous wars with Emperor Charles, trying to capture Milan to which they held only a remote claim.

  GENDER ISSUES AND MARITAL DIFFICULTIES

  Believing that it was more appropriate for men than women to wield monarchical power, many British people deplored the rule of queens regnant. When Parliament entailed the Scottish crown in 1373 to Robert II’s sons, it noted the “evils and misfortunes” that had in many places “arisen from the succession of female heirs.”11 In 1542 the crown had reverted to Mary only because her father’s heir apparent and cousin, John Stewart, second duke of Albany, had died childless in 1536. Among the multitudinous early modern voices preferring kings to queens regnant were besides John Knox, a leading reformer, David Lindsay the herald, David Calderwood, historian of the Kirk, and her own son James VI. In a sermon at the court of Edward VI, the English preacher, Hugh Latimer also publicly expressed concerns about the possible accession of the king’s sisters.12

  Before Mary’s reign the only attempt to crown a Scottish queen regnant occurred in the late thirteenth century when Margaret, the Maid of Norway, granddaughter to the deceased Alexander III, died on her voyage to the realm to serve as its queen. Her demise resulted in civil wars, English intervention in Scottish politics, and ultimately the accession of Robert Bruce, who possessed the junior lineal claim to Alexander’s throne.

  If Mary failed to marry and give birth to a legitimate heir, two families with royal pretensions: the senior Hamilton branch, possessing the earldom of Arran and the dukedom of Châtelherault, and the junior Stewart branch, holding the earldom of Lennox, would surely have competed for her crown, perhaps provoking a civil war. Indeed, the heads of both families had schemed to wed their heir to Mary, and when the Stewarts succeeded in their marital ambitions in 1565, the Hamiltons joined the earl of Moray to challenge her authority in the unsuccessful Chaseabout Raid. Ironically, it was Mary’s weddings in Scotland that ultimately led to her captivity. Darnley her second husband was an English subject with strong claims to the Scottish throne, as the heir of Matthew Stewart, fourth earl of Lennox. Like Mary, Darnley also possessed English inheritance rights as a grandson of Margaret Tudor. While Mary was the granddaughter of Margaret and her first husband, James IV, Darnley was a grandson of Margaret and her second husband, Archibald Douglas, sixth earl of Angus.

  About eight months after their wedding, Darnley orchestrated a conspiracy to murder David Riccio, Mary’s secretary for French affairs, who, some believed, was exercising undue influence at court. Darnley seems to have been frustrated personally because he had mistakenly anticipated that his royal wedding would endow him with actual regal authority. It is relevant to his participation in this crime that a man’s honor held both public and private facets, public by displaying personal bravery especially on the battlefield, private by maintaining his household authority and his wife’s sexual loyalty.

  Unfortunately for Mary, who was six months’ pregnant, rumors had spread that she was Riccio’s lover. Whatever were her husband’s motivations in conspiring against Riccio – whether or not he believed he was defending his honor – it is possible that his goal was to injure both her and her unborn child in order to claim the kingship in fact as well as in name.

  After Darnley’s murder in 1567 and her marriage to Bothwell three months later, Mary’s rebels crowned her son with the intention of raising him as a Protestant. Why she married Darnley and then Bothwell are questions that will never be answered to everyone’s satisfaction. There is compelling evidence, however, that she wed Darnley for his lineage, that she was unaware of the conspiracy to murder him, and that she neither colluded in Bothwell’s abduction nor had consensual sexual relations with him while his prisoner at Dunbar. The importance of Darnley’s English claims, the forcible marriage of early modern heiresses, and the Scottish tradition in which men signed bands or bonds agreeing to support a variety of enterprises, such as the murder of Riccio and Darnley, will be explored more fully in later chapters.

  Regardless of the specific details of Mary’s three marriages, they served generally to fulfill contemporary expectations about the husbands of female rulers. If the women chose foreigners, the men might interfere in their realm’s diplomacy and seize its assets or possessions on behalf of their native lands. If they selected one of their subjects, his political ambitions could generate internal strife. No bridegroom in Mary’s likely candidate pool could assuage the fears of the entire Scottish aristocracy, and, indeed, all three of her alliances generated rebellions against her authority.

  After she married Bothwell, her enemies prob
ably created the Casket Letters to prove that her love for him caused her to collude in the murder of her second husband, an act that many condemned as the most despicable crime a woman could commit. It is relevant to the English inquiry in which the Letters were introduced in 1568 that English law categorized husband-killing as petty treason and that English trial judges routinely accepted as evidence testimonies that explained what witnesses and plaintiffs believed had happened, even when referencing fictional and supernatural acts. Despite this inclusive evidentiary standard, which slowly died out after 1700, it is noteworthy that the Letters failed to gain enough credibility for Elizabeth to have Mary condemned as her husband’s murderer. The later publication of them did, however, cause many contemporaries to claim that Moray, as her son’s regent, had irreparably harmed Mary’s reputation, and, of course, she remained in captivity without full exoneration.

  Any analysis of the Casket Letters and other defamations of her character must consider early modern views about female sexuality. Possessing wombs that were said to wander about their bodies causing them to become hysterical, women were thought to be dominated by their biological drive to conceive babies. The easiest means of dishonoring a woman in this society in which female virginity was highly valued, was to spread rumors that she had committed fornication or adultery.

  Concerned about the alleged inability of women to suppress their biological urges and weaknesses, husbands and male guardians sought to supervise the activities of their female dependents closely. Because contemporaries expected all women to be subject to the headship or authority of men, the power of husbands over their wives and family members was rarely disputed. In her study of political culture in Elizabethan England, Anne McLaren discovered that even queens regnant were strongly admonished to accept the advice of their male councilors. In realms, such as England and Scotland, which experienced both the Protestant reformation and the accession of queens regnant, McLaren found that male reformers viewed “social order and male primacy” as interdependent. They presumed not only that they should be the ones counseling women rulers but also that their advice should be heeded. In 1572, for example, Thomas Digges, a member of parliament, threatened to withdraw his allegiance from Elizabeth if she did not agree to Mary’s execution.13

  A study comparable to McLaren’s does not exist for Scotland, but Roger Mason has examined the long-held Scottish tradition of challenging monarchs who relied on evil councilors.14 Functioning within this cultural and political context, William Maitland of Lethington and the future earl of Moray began to discuss whether Mary upon returning to Scotland in 1561 would accept their advice rather than that of her Guise uncles. They believed that if she would “trust only in her native subjects” that she would convert to Protestantism.15 That Mary should seek appropriate counsel was also a concern of the English government. In February 1561 Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the English ambassador in France, wrote home with assurances that Mary would be ruled by good counsel and wise men.

  That it was assumed she was incapable of individual judgment, of weighing advice, and coming to an independent conclusion is proved by the developing events after her decision to marry Darnley was revealed. Rumors spread, repeated by Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador to Scotland, that in selecting him she had followed the advice of the Italian David Riccio and Darnley’s uncle, the earl of Atholl, among others. These rumors helped fuel the animosity that led later to Darnley’s conspiracy against Riccio.

  To clerics, especially, it also seemed critical for the queens regnant to accept male advice, reigning, as the women did, over tiers of religious institutions mostly staffed by men. Presenting themselves as God’s messengers, preachers often gave advice to their queens publicly. In a sermon in 1587, which was later printed, for example, Edward Harris criticized the activities at Elizabeth’s court and portrayed her as a helpless victim who needed to depend on God for her successes.16 The warnings of John Knox to the Scottish queen are well known and will be briefly described below.

  MARY’S CATHOLIC STATUS AND CONSPIRACIES AGAINST ELIZABETH

  Another of Mary’s political disadvantages when she returned to Scotland in 1561 was her commitment to Catholicism. While a majority of her subjects still clung to her faith,17 Protestants, including her half brother, the future Moray, had previously gained control of the government and had outlawed the mass. One of his early allies was the outspoken Knox, who has been likened to an Old Testament Prophet by both friends and foes. In 1558 he attacked women rulers in The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, criticizing the persecution of Protestants by Mary Tudor and to a lesser extent by Mary of Guise, her daughter’s regent in Scotland. Claiming it was monstrous for a realm to have a woman as its head, Knox validated rebellion against the rule of ungodly governors. Too much attention can focus on Knox, however, for Protestantism was a strong international movement seeking far-reaching changes. In France, the Catholic Guise family participated in murderous civil wars against Huguenots, including the future Henry IV.

  Citing Mary’s tolerant attitude toward the reformed religion and her Protestant marriage to Bothwell, some skeptics have doubted that she merits recognition as a Catholic martyr. While early in her English captivity, Mary also agreed to wed an English Protestant, Thomas Howard, fourth duke of Norfolk, she viewed the marriage as a means of gaining liberation, her restitution to Scotland, and recognition of her English rights. Later, however, she promoted a series of Catholic plots against Elizabeth and the return of Britain to the Roman confession. After her execution, many contemporary Catholics revered her as a martyr. Indeed, Christians do not need to behave in a pious manner during their entire lifetime to gain recognition for holiness after death.

  FEARING ASSASSINATION AND PREPARING FOR DEATH

  Although Mary approved Anthony Babington’s scheme to rescue her in 1586, she probably did not support as a first step toward her freedom his plan to murder Elizabeth, the charge for which she was beheaded. Mary had long worried that when Elizabeth died, whether by natural causes or violence, her jailors would assassinate their captive. These fears became more acute after 1584 when thousands of Englishmen endorsed the Bond of Association, promising to kill the perpetrators and anyone for whom an assassination attempt against Elizabeth was made. Mary fully understood that the Bond, enacted as a statute in 1585, was directed at her. Fearing for her own life if Elizabeth were killed, Mary also endorsed the Bond. Like Elizabeth who later exhibited great reluctance to sign her cousin’s death warrant, Mary belonged to an early modern royal network that deplored regicide. Monarchical honor dictated, for example, that rulers ransom their royal prisoners, even enemies captured on the battlefield, rather than have them executed.

  In the weeks preceding her death in the spirit of the ars moriendi, the continuing medieval tradition instructing Christians in how to die well, Mary prepared through a series of devotional exercises to accept the fate God planned for her, that is to face calmly the violent end of her pilgrimage on earth. Her faith sustained her in those final moments when she publicly forgave both her captors for imprisoning her and her executioner for the task he would shortly carry out. Even hostile commentators testified to her good Christian death.

  As this introduction indicates, when her royal positions, her inheritance rights, and her family relationships are analyzed in the context of early modern culture, they gain richer and fresher nuances. Clearly, her upbringing and socialization instilled in her the duty to marry and provide her dynasty with legitimate heirs. Most individuals, even those who remained single, accepted the contemporary impulse to strengthen their familial networks and to transmit enhanced political, social, and financial assets to the next generation. In that respect, Mary fulfilled her society’s expectations, but her marriages created alternatives to her rule in the persons of her husbands and son. Her status as a female monarch lent her a certain vulnerability when confronting assertive reformed clerics and aggressive, power-hungry noblemen.

/>   PRIMARY SOURCES

  Fortunately, Marian scholars have access to extensive primary documentation, most of which is in print but much of which is flawed and requires cautious treatment. Scottish chronicles are, for example, riddled with inaccuracies, since the annalists, writing usually long after the events occurred, sometimes failed to authenticate rumors or other scurrilous reports they repeated. Many assertions in Buchanan’s and Leslie’s polemical works, as well as in some memoirs composed in their authors’ old age, also require careful analysis. Public documents, especially diplomatic dispatches, contain much problematic data, as rulers often deliberately leaked false information to ambassadors, who spread through the rumor mill that information, as well as unconfirmed gossip forwarded to them by their paid spies.18 In addition, further questions will be raised about the governmental records that have been employed to condemn Mary’s personal rule.

  The most important of the primary sources is her voluminous correspondence; many, but not all, of her letters are available in Alexandre Labanoff’s nineteenth-century edition.19 Some of her personal writings contain statements that are obviously contradictory because she sometimes pursued conflicting goals. For example, in 1565 she simultaneously negotiated to marry Don Carlos of Spain, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, and Darnley. She was not the open, trusting, uncomplicated woman described by some of her sympathetic biographers. She remembered well and routinely employed the strategies, such as putting her communications in cipher and keeping her personal matters secret, that she learned from her Guise uncles to overcome the notorious backbiting and snooping at royal courts.

  SUCCEEDING CHAPTERS