Tudors (History of England Vol 2)

by Ackroyd, Peter

  On hearing the news of Darnley’s death, and of Bothwell’s involvement in it, Elizabeth sent an urgent letter to Mary. ‘Madame,’ she began, ‘my ears have been so deafened and my understanding so grieved and my heart so affrighted to hear the dreadful news of the abominable murder of your mad husband and my killed cousin that I scarcely have the wits to write about it . . .’ She professed to be more grieved for Mary than for her husband but she added that ‘I will not dissemble what most people are talking about; which is that you will look through your fingers at [dispense with] the revenging of this deed’. Mary, in other words, was already rumoured to be complicit or at least acquiescent in the deed. The queen of England exhorted her to lay these reports to rest by taking action; she urged her ‘to touch even him whom you have nearest to you if the thing touches him’. Mary was so angered by this message that she refused to reply to it.

  The courts of Europe were now alive with speculation about Mary’s role in the murder of her husband. Some were already denouncing her, while her Catholic supporters were divided on the matter. ‘Should it turn out she is guilty,’ an envoy at her court wrote, ‘her party in England is gone, and by her means there is no more chance of a restoration of religion.’

  The day after the explosion Mary attended the wedding feast of one of her female attendants; she should have put the court in mourning immediately, but delayed that decision for five days. Her husband was buried without any solemnity in the chapel of Holyrood. It was clear enough that she was relieved by his sudden removal from her life. Mary and Bothwell were now being seen together. The queen gave him her husband’s horses and fine clothes, a gesture which further alienated popular opinion. It was rumoured that, although already married, Bothwell was now actively seeking the queen’s hand.

  The father of Darnley, the earl of Lennox, had brought charges against Bothwell that had to be heard in open court. The trial was to take place on 12 April, at the Tolbooth, but the presiding officers were supporters of Bothwell; at the same time the palace bodyguard was increased by 300 cavalry. Bothwell himself rode to the courtroom with an entourage of 4,000 retainers. The earl of Lennox was too apprehensive to risk any appearance in Edinburgh. It was only to be expected that, after more than eight hours of deliberation, Bothwell was acquitted.

  Yet the course of events was now so precipitate that no one could feel safe. Mary had ridden to Stirling Castle nine days after the trial to collect her infant son, but the boy’s guardian, the earl of Mar, refused to give him up. He had a horror of yielding him to Bothwell, the murderer of the infant’s father. Three days later, on 24 April, the queen was riding from her birthplace at Linlithgow to Holyrood when Bothwell abducted her and took her to Dunbar. It was here that she was ‘ravished’. Yet she remained in his castle for twelve days, and made no serious effort to escape or resist him. On 26 April Bothwell rode to Edinburgh in order to expedite the divorce from his first wife. On the following day the queen formally asked for an annulment of that marriage from the archbishop of St Andrews.

  Some great nobles of the realm had by now become so incensed and alarmed that they bound themselves in a confederacy against Bothwell, whom they described as ‘that barbarous tyrant’ and ‘cruel murderer’. When he and Mary returned in procession to Edinburgh they were met by silent and sullen crowds. Nevertheless the queen raised her champion as duke of Orkney and lord of Shetland. The confederate lords now assembled in Stirling Castle, where they created an alternative royal court around the infant James. On 14 May 1567 Mary Stuart and James Bothwell were married in the great hall of Holyrood Palace. On hearing the news Elizabeth remonstrated with her cousin. ‘How’, she asked, ‘could a worse choice be made for your honour?’ On the gates of Holyrood a placard was nailed with the verse:

  As the common people say,

  Only harlots marry in May.

  William Cecil wrote that Scotland was ‘in a quagmire; nobody seemeth to stand still; the most honest desire to go away; the worst tremble with the shaking of their conscience’.

  The result of these bewildering events was civil war. The Scottish earls marched against Bothwell under a banner that portrayed Darnley lying dead beneath the tree, with the infant prince kneeling beside him. In the middle of June Mary rode with her new husband to the security of Dunbar Castle, but then led her forces to Carberry Hill outside Edinburgh. Inconclusive negotiations were undertaken between the two sides, but it became clear that Mary’s soldiers did not wish to fight their compatriots in a civil war. As the day wore on they joined the army of the confederate lords or simply went their own way. Delaying only long enough to allow Bothwell to ride back to the castle, she gave herself up to the forces of her lords.

  She had been wearing male attire for her entry into battle but now she put on a borrowed dress and was led downhill on horseback. She was noticeably pregnant, which suggested to all observers that she had consorted with Bothwell before her abduction and marriage. When she rode among the soldiers some of them cried out, ‘Burn the whore!’ She was smuggled out of Edinburgh at night, but the mob was waiting for her with words of fury. ‘Burn her, burn her, she is not worthy to live, kill her, drown her!’ She had never known the openly expressed anger of her subjects before. She was taken 20 miles to the north, and was then rowed across to the island prison upon Loch Leven, where she remained for the better part of a year.

  Elizabeth had been shocked by her cousin’s behaviour, but she was even more dismayed by her treatment at the hands of her lords and people. It was against all laws of heaven and earth to treat with disrespect a sovereign queen. To expose her to the infamous jeers of the populace, and then to imprison her, were unforgivable offences. She wrote that ‘we assure you that whatsoever we can imagine meet for your honour and safety that shall lie in our power, we will perform the same that it shall well appear you have a good neighbour . . .’ She sent an ambassador to Edinburgh, but the lords prevented him from visiting Mary. He did learn, however, that her loyalty to Bothwell was undiminished. He wrote to Elizabeth that she ‘avows constantly to live and die with him’.

  It is unlikely that the English queen was sympathetic to such passionate statements. For her, love and loyalty were all matters of statecraft. The disgrace of Mary meant that her chances of the English throne were severely reduced; thus the whole weary problem of succession once more raised itself. There was a further difficulty. If the French royal family were able to adopt the infant prince James, the power of Scotland might be used against England. Thus in the summer of this year Elizabeth resumed negotiations for the hand of the archduke Charles of Austria. It would be wise to have the Habsburgs as allies, or at least not to rule out the possibility of such an alliance.

  So in the summer of the year, as Mary was being held prisoner on the island, Elizabeth’s envoy, the earl of Sussex, set out for Vienna. As the archduke espoused the Catholic faith, religious difficulties could be anticipated. It would be preferable, and advisable, for him to accept the English liturgy. The Spanish ambassador had already indicated that the first Mass said publicly in England would be the signal for a general rebellion. These were delicate matters.

  It seemed better, therefore, that the archduke should come to England for a personal interview with the queen. Charles considered the idea to be beneath his dignity; what if he should arrive and then be rejected on the ostensible grounds of religion? He demanded that all hindrances should be cleared in advance, and in turn agreed that as the spouse of the queen he would hear Mass only in private. Sussex urged Cecil to entreat the queen to accept the compromise since, without it, ‘I foresee discontent, disunion, bloodshed of her people’.

  The queen prevaricated, and seemed set upon delay. It was perhaps her duty to the nation to accept him, but her innate aversion to matrimony and her affection for Leicester caused her to hesitate. ‘The hatred that this queen has of marriage’, the Spanish ambassador wrote to Philip, ‘is most strange.’ Eventually she sent her suitor a letter in which she affirmed the unity of relig
ion in her kingdom but permitted him the free exercise of his religion, on the proposed visit to England, ‘so far as should be found possible’. The clause could be variously interpreted, and the archduke replied that it was too vague. The negotiations were once more allowed to falter and finally to fade.

  The international situation became more difficult when, in August 1567, Philip II sent the duke of Alva into the Netherlands with a force of 10,000 Spanish troops. The presence of a great army in the middle of Europe, with the western reaches of the Netherlands only 100 miles away from the mouth of the Thames, was a matter of great concern to Elizabeth and her advisers. The Netherlands comprised many states, provinces and duchies that had come by inheritance to the Habsburg dynasty; they included most of modern Belgium, part of northern France, Holland and Zeeland. It was not likely that these predominantly merchant states would acquiesce for ever in the rule of a Spanish Catholic king. The Spanish army had been sent to quell large-scale rioting that had broken out in Antwerp and other cities, where a combination of economic grievances and religious discontents stirred a mixed population of Calvinists, Lutherans and Anabaptists. The Calvinist weavers of Ypres, for example, attacked the Catholic churches of that region and smashed the religious statuary.

  It was rumoured that Philip II had already set sail for the Low Countries and might divert to Portsmouth on his way. This set the court into an alarm. Should the king be treated as a welcome guest or as a potential enemy? In the event he did not arrive, but the problems of religion remained. The coincidence of the failure of the negotiations for marriage and the suppression of the Protestant revolt further emphasized the rift between England and Spain. The two countries were already on course for the collision that would occur twenty years later.

  The situation of Europe was further vexed by a revival of civil and religious wars within France, where the Huguenots under the prince of Condé were contesting the Catholic regime of Charles IX; 3,000 French Protestants then joined the cause of their fellow reformers in the Netherlands. Elizabeth and her councillors were inclined to favour their co-religionists across the sea, and did indeed offer them clandestine support; English agents contrived to raise Protestant forces and English money helped to finance them. The seamen of the West Country joined forces with a Huguenot fleet in a Calvinist offensive against Spanish shipping. One sceptical naval chaplain wrote that ‘we could not do God better service than to spoil the Spaniard both of life and goods, but indeed under colour of religion all their shot is at men’s money’. The importance of English sea power was becoming manifest.

  Towards the end of 1568 five Spanish frigates, carrying money for the duke of Alva’s forces, took temporary refuge in Falmouth and in Plymouth; Elizabeth ordered the ships to be impounded and seized the money on the grounds that it belonged not to Philip but to Genoese bankers. She would pay the requisite interest and use the money for her own purposes. The duke of Alva promptly took control of the English warehouse or ‘factory’ in Antwerp and confiscated its goods. In retaliation the property of all Spanish subjects in England was taken. Elizabeth, and her councillors, wished to prove that they could confront the great power of Europe. Yet it was a war without battles. Negotiations and conferences, meetings and audiences, continued over the next four years.

  The confrontation did represent, however, a change in English policy. Cecil was trying to advance the cause of Protestantism by confronting Spain, but only at the cost of turning rivals into enemies. The sovereigns of Spain and of France distrusted the English queen to the extent that Cecil feared a grand Catholic alliance was about to be formed against her. If Spanish forces could be dispatched to the Netherlands, they could also be sent to England.

  Mary remained incarcerated in her prison of Loch Leven, where she miscarried of twins in the early summer of 1567. The Protestant lords of Scotland presented her with a letter of abdication which, in her weakened state, she duly signed. It was said that she had been threatened with death. Her son was proclaimed James VI of Scotland. She had few attendants, and was allowed even fewer visitors. Her powers of persuasion were believed to be marvellous, and charm might succeed where guile failed. She must not be allowed to escape.

  Her captivity lasted for a little over ten months. On the evening of 2 May 1568 a young page, in a predetermined plan, smuggled out the keys of her chambers in the round tower of the castle; she was waiting, dressed in the simple garb of a maidservant. The two of them, together with a young girl designed to waylay suspicion, sprang into a waiting skiff and within a few minutes they were on shore. She was met there by a group of horsemen and taken to her supporters gathered at Hamilton Castle; they were a band of Catholic loyalists in a predominantly Protestant country. She dispatched envoys as well as letters to Paris and to London, pleading for assistance. Elizabeth characteristically chose a middle course, offering to mediate between the Scottish queen and her subjects. William Cecil in turn wrote to the regent ruling Scotland in the young king’s name, the earl of Moray, urging ‘expedition in quieting these troubles’ by defeating the queen. So England spoke with two voices. Two heads, in a phrase of the period, were under one hood. Cecil could therefore countenance policies that Elizabeth could later disown. He was more avowedly Protestant than the queen and could fight her battles for her without any express command to do so.

  On 13 May Mary’s small army was defeated at Langside Hill, outside Glasgow; Mary had watched the fortunes of the battle from a hillside, half a mile distant, and had now determined to flee. She was in continual danger of detention and even death; in desperation, she crossed the Solway into England and made her way to the safety of the castle at Carlisle. She was now in Elizabeth’s kingdom. If Elizabeth refused to receive her, she would at least give Mary free passage to France. ‘I fear’, the archbishop of Canterbury wrote, ‘that our good queen has the wolf by the ears.’ There was an additional connotation; an outlaw was known as a ‘wolf’s head that anyone might cut down’.

  In a letter to Elizabeth, Mary vented her fury against the rebels who, as she implied, had been tacitly supported by English policy. She also hinted that she had friends and allies elsewhere who would come to her aid; it is clear enough that she meant the Catholic sovereigns of France and Spain. The intervention of those nations in Scottish affairs was not to be endured. Elizabeth had already written to Mary that ‘those who have two strings to their bow may shoot stronger, but they rarely shoot straight’.

  What was to be done with her? Elizabeth had at first considered inviting her to the English court, but was quickly persuaded otherwise. It would afford her too much prominence, and her presence at Whitehall or Greenwich would greatly boost her claim to the throne. Already the northern Catholic lords were paying court to her, and it seemed likely that a Catholic party would congregate around her. The Scottish lords themselves would not look favourably on the support that Elizabeth would give her; it might drive them in the direction of France, with the infant king as the prize. Mary herself must not be allowed to travel to France, where she could provoke infinite troubles.

  So the Scottish queen continued in what might be described as honourable captivity. From Carlisle she was transferred to Bolton Castle in North Yorkshire. She had said defiantly that she would have to be carried there but, after many scenes of passion and demonstration, she eventually consented to her removal. Thereupon it was decreed that an inquiry should be established into the events surrounding the murder of Darnley. Elizabeth herself determined to be the ultimate judge and mediator in the matter. If Mary was proven to be innocent, she should in theory be instantly restored to her throne. If she were found to be guilty, it would be impossible for Elizabeth to receive her. ‘Oh Madam!’ Elizabeth wrote, ‘there is not a creature living who more longs to hear your justification than myself; not one who would lend more willing ear to any answer which will clear your honour.’ She added an important proviso, however. ‘But I cannot sacrifice my own reputation to your account.’ Elizabeth sent her councillors to York, whe
re they were instructed to arrange a settlement between Mary, Elizabeth and King James’s supporters that would precede Mary’s return. Elizabeth could then be seen as the benign healer of Scotland’s ill. It did not quite go to plan.

  The queen, meanwhile, went on a progress in the summer of the year. A ‘progress’ was a long peregrination through the more accessible counties of England, in the course of which the queen would graciously consent to accept the hospitality of the greater nobles whose large houses lay along her route. For them, it was an expensive business; for her, it was an opportunity to live more cheaply while at the same time showing herself to selected groups of people. It was a complex and cumbersome undertaking, the queen’s belongings alone requiring 400 wagons. She was also accompanied by approximately 500 courtiers and servants.

  Sometimes she travelled in the newly fashionable royal coach, although two years before she had been a little shaken and bruised when it was driven too fast. But more often she was carried in an open litter or rode on horseback, her route lined with her welcoming subjects calling out ‘God save your grace!’ while she replied with ‘God save my people!’ Sometimes she called a halt to the process so that a suitor might present a petition or even speak to her. ‘Stay thy cart,’ Serjeant Bendlowes of Huntingdonshire called out to her coachman, ‘stay thy cart, that I may speak to the queen!’ Elizabeth laughed and listened to what he had to say; then she offered him her hand to kiss.