Elizabeth and Mary

by Jane Dunn

  As expected, the earl was cleared for lack of evidence and had posters distributed around Edinburgh declaring the ‘not guilty’ verdict, adding belligerently, ‘any person who said he had been concerned in the King’s death would have to meet him in combat, and be taught the truth’.45 What had seemed unthinkable, now seemed to be inevitable. On 19 April, Bothwell summoned his fellow lords to Ainslie’s tavern for supper and there got them to sign a piece of paper consenting to his marriage to the queen. Kirkcaldy of Grange, a man admired for his courage and largely sympathetic to Mary, thought there was little doubt that she would accept this presumptuous offer. Elizabeth would have been made aware of Kirkcaldy’s assessment of Mary’s headlong feelings: ‘She has said that she cares not to lose France, England, and her own country for him, and will go with him to the world’s end in a white peticoat ere she leave him.’ Such passionate abandonment of duty was bad enough, but he seemed more shocked by Mary’s willingness to abuse the law to protect an obviously guilty man: ‘She is so past all shame that she has caused make an Act of Parliament against all them that shall set up any writing that shall speak anything of [Bothwell]. Whatever is unhonest reigns presently in the Court.’46

  Mary’s apparent relinquishing of her princely authority to Bothwell resulted in general unrest, random violence and eruptions of lawlessness, all of which disturbed Elizabeth. She was wary always of the infectious nature of these things and minded very much that monarchy was brought into disrepute by behaviour such as Mary’s. How could she appear to reward the suspected murderers of the king, she wondered, while ‘the father and other of the King’s friends who should orderly seek for revenge are forced to retire from the Court, and some of them deprived from their offices’.47 A man who paraded through Edinburgh at night ‘with the cry of vengeance for the murder’ was summarily incarcerated in a prison called the ‘foul thief’s pit’ because of the ‘loathsomeness of the place’.48 Others, it was rumoured, whose consciences pricked them to talk of their complicity, were secretly disposed of. The unruly borderers, traditionally Bothwell’s people, were emboldened, intent on aggravated mayhem, burning buildings, rustling livestock and killing anyone who opposed them. And even the soldiers guarding the queen ‘began to mutiny, demanding their pay’,49 while in the presence of the queen herself. Not even Bothwell’s threat of violence against the ringleader subdued them; they rushed him, emerging victorious on one of the few occasions when the combative earl was bested by anyone. Confirming that might was the only right, the queen immediately offered them 400 crowns pay. It was a time when no one felt safe and security came armed with sword, dag and harquebus.

  To the astonishing stream of news flowing south to the English court, of regicide, lawlessness, general violence and disrespect was added a sensational tale of sex and bondage. The fact that it involved the highest person in the land, a young and beautiful queen, the widow of a murdered king and mother of the prince, and her swaggering, homicidal favourite, made it all the more sensational. This latest scandal spread like wildfire through the European courts. Everyone had his or her own opinion about how co-operative Mary had been in the whole shameful business. Was the Queen of Scots kidnapped or complicit? Was it rape or a put-up job? Was she a wronged madonna or a murderous, lustful Jezebel? These were the questions avidly discussed and even those closest to her could not be sure of anything, their opposing sympathies and antipathies rehearsed passionately at every turn.

  Astounded as she was, Elizabeth still maintained a more sympathetic stance towards Mary than most of the other commentators at the time. She shared her Tudor blood, she was a woman and a fellow queen. Elizabeth’s letters during this tumultuous time reiterated these relationships, her main concern that Mary salvage her reputation and uphold her status as monarch. Loyalty was one of Elizabeth’s great qualities and she was not yet ready to think the worst of Mary. She relayed the kidnap story as she understood it to Guzman de Silva, the amicable Spanish ambassador. Mary had ridden to Stirling Castle and arrived on 21 April 1567 specifically to see her son who was kept in careful custody there by the Earl of Mar. He refused to let her remove her baby to Edinburgh, and into the environs of the man generally believed to have been his father’s killer, telling Mary, ‘he had in his keeping the treasure of the kingdom and would not risk losing it’.50

  Mary then set out to return to Edinburgh, accompanied by Maitland of Lethington, James Melville, the Earl of Huntly and a small armed escort. Elizabeth then continued her view of the series of fateful events which followed:

  on arriving six miles from Edinburgh Bothwell met [Mary] with 400 horsemen. As they arrived near the Queen with their swords drawn they showed an intention of taking her with them, whereupon some of those who were with her were about to defend her, but the Queen stopped them saying she was ready to go with the earl of Bothwell wherever he wished rather than bloodshed and death should result. She was taken to Dunbar, where she arrived at midnight and still remains [some 3 or 4 days later]. Some say she will marry him and they are so informed direct by some of the highest men in the country who follow Bothwell. They are convinced of this both because of the favour the Queen has shown him and because he has the national forces in his hands. Although the Queen sent secretly to the governor of the town of Dunbar to sally out with his troops and release her it is believed that the whole thing has been arranged so that if anything comes of the marriage the Queen may make out that she was forced into it.51

  Elizabeth did not spell out to de Silva what everyone was talking about. The nub of the mystery was what precisely had happened at Dunbar between the queen and Bothwell. There was little doubt that the earl’s marriage proposal was accompanied by at least one incident of sexual intercourse, whether as a means of encouragement or intimidation no one would know. Melville, who was with the queen when she was apprehended by Bothwell, wrote in his memoirs ‘the Queen could not but marry him, seeing he had ravished her and lain with her against her will’. He, however, was sympathetic to Mary and emphatically antagonistic to Bothwell. He did mention, however, that when he was being escorted by Captain Blackater to Dunbar during the notorious ‘kidnap’ of Mary, the captain had told Melville, ‘it was with the Queen’s own consent’.52

  Although, as de Silva said, ‘This [English] Queen is greatly scandalised at the business’53, Elizabeth was amongst the most charitable in her interpretation of Mary’s behaviour. Kirkcaldy of Grange was not a natural enemy of the Queen of Scots but his judgement of her behaviour was harsher. He had some prior intelligence that this pretended abduction was planned and the queen was fully cognisant of events as they unfolded. To Bedford, Elizabeth’s governor at Berwick, he wrote with some anger: ‘This [Scottish] Queen will never cease until such time as she have wrecked all the honest men of this realm. She was minded to cause Bothwell to ravish her, to the end that she may the sooner end [conclude] the marriage which she promised before she caused murder her husband.’54

  This sounds rather too close to the prejudice of woman as Eve, temptress, manipulator and femme fatale, the perpetrator of the Fall. There was little evidence to suggest that Bothwell was shy of either ravishing women or killing men, and it was unlikely that Mary had to persuade him much to do either. Kirkcaldy, however, was considered one of the more steady witnesses, a man described by Melville as ‘very merciful, and naturally liberal, an enemy to greediness and ambition and a friend to all men in adversity’,55 and his belief that Mary was entirely complicit in the whole abduction was the generally held opinion of the time. He certainly recognized that Elizabeth herself was likely to be strongly on the side of the reigning monarch in any dispute Mary might have with her subjects, for he added, ‘There are many who would revenge the murder, but they fear the Queen of England.’56

  By this point Bothwell’s divorce and his marriage with Mary had been so long predicted with vigorous and widespread rumours that the actual fact caused hardly any more outrage. Mary’s hasty elevation of her earl to Duke of Orkney and their precipit
ate marriage with Protestant ceremony on 15 May 1567 appeared to stun the opposition. It took place at four in the morning with hardly anyone in attendance, the most propitious time determined, it was believed, by consultation with ‘witches and sorcerers’.57 Bothwell had been cast as the devil and only those convinced they had God on their side had the courage to speak out in public. Mr Craig, a fearless preacher and friend of Knox, having been forced to publish the banns, railed against the marriage, calling it ‘odious and slanderous befor the world’. Not surprisingly Bothwell threatened to ‘provide him a cord’58 with which to hang him.

  Mary was quick to write to the heads of state with her own story before the scandal ran away with itself. Her version of the controversial abduction was slipped into the middle of a painstakingly detailed explanation to the French king and Catherine de Medici of the good qualities of Bothwell, and the progress of their relationship that had led to such a surprising and hasty marriage. In alluding to the ‘kidnap’ she wrote ‘Albeit we fand his doingis rude, yit wer his answer and wordis bot gentill, that he wald honour and serve ws, and nawayis offend ws [Albeit we found his actions discourteous, yet were his response and words but gentlemanly, that he would honour and serve us, and in no way offend us].’59 She wrote a very similar apologia to Elizabeth, anxious to deflect her displeasure at her increasingly wayward cousin whose latest marriage had occurred without any prior discussion whatsoever. Surprisingly, Mary appeared to think this discourtesy might be Elizabeth’s main concern, when the looming issue of Bothwell’s supposed guilt of regicide still remained unresolved.

  To Elizabeth Mary wrote her defensive explanation:

  Destitute of ane husband, oure realme not rrouchlie purgit of the factiounis and conspiraceis that of lang tyme hes continewit thairin, quhilk occurring sa frequentlie, had alreddie in a maner sa weryit and brokin ws, that be oure self we were not abill of any lang continewance to sustene the pynis and travell in oure awin persoun, quhilkis wer requisite for repressing of the insolence aand seditioun of oure rebellious subjectis, being, [Destitute of a husband, our realm not truly purged of the factions and conspiracies that for a long time has continued therein, which occurring so frequently, had already in a manner so wearied and broken us, that by our self we were not able for any long continuance to sustain the pains and travail in our own person, which were required for repressing of the insolence and sedition of our rebellious subjects, being,

  as is knawin, a peopill als factious amangis thameselfis, and als fassious for the governour as any uther natioun in Europe; and that for thair satisfaction, quhilk could not suffer we lang to continew in the stait of widoheid, mowit be thair prayeris and requeist, it behuvit ws to zield unto ane marriage or uther. as is known, a people as factious among themselves, and as troublesome for the governor as any other nation in Europe; and that for their satisfaction, which could not suffer us long to continue in the state of widowhood, moved by their prayers and requests, it behoves us to yield unto one marriage or other.]60

  She was really admitting to Elizabeth that she could not rule alone; she had neither the authority nor the determination to impose her will unaided. Mary went on to explain her haste as a pragmatic response to the danger of the times. News had reached Elizabeth and the English court that the reason offered for the urgency of the marriage was that the Scottish queen was already pregnant with Bothwell’s child.

  The true nature of this extraordinary series of events will probably never be fully known. The only certainty was that they led to the wreck of all Mary’s immediate hopes and the destruction of her reign. Certainly the extent of her culpability and her state of mind were a much more complicated story than any of the simplistic characterizations that have shadowed her from this moment to the present. And central to the whole tragedy was her relationship with the omnipotent figure of Bothwell. Mary was still only twenty-four years old. She was without any real political support or disinterested advice, she had been ill, and was certainly under great duress. Emotional, instinctive and sensation-driven, she did not have a naturally cautious or thoughtful nature but was kind-hearted. The murders of Riccio and then Darnley would have left her with feelings of loss and uncertainty, possibly troubled by guilt, even remorse. The Catholic de Silva, naturally an ally of Mary’s and aware of her simple devotion to the tenets of their religion, reckoned the emotional extremes she suffered with Bothwell were part of the wages of sin: ‘an evil conscience can know no peace’.61

  Mary had an undeniable emotional and sexual connection with Bothwell, and there was evidence of their mutual passion and jealousy. Bothwell watched the queen closely and hated her natural sociability and flirtatious ways. Maitland of Lethington had told the French ambassador that, ‘Bothwell would not allow her to look at or be looked on by anybody, for he knew very well that she loved her pleasure and passed her time like any other devoted to the world.’62 ‘He is held the most jealous man that lives’, Drury, the Marshal of Berwick, related to Cecil with some hyperbole. But Mary too appeared to be equally possessive, seen to ‘hang upon his arm’ when walking in public, and their tempestuous arguments and her weeping were just as publicly paraded. Bothwell’s reputation for ‘unsatiateness towards women’ was well known and Mary cried bitterly that he continued regular conjugal visits to his newly divorced wife: ‘The Lady Bothwell remaining at Crighton* is much misliked of the Queen.’63

  Messengers galloped south with the steady stream of sensational news and speculation about the latest indiscretions of the Queen of Scots and her unruly subjects. While all around her, even the Catholic contingent, expressed their disappointment and dismay, Elizabeth remained largely sympathetic to Mary. She told de Silva how surprised she was by the marriage but ‘deplores [recent events] very much as touching the honour of that Queen’. When the Spanish ambassador replied he thought the King of France, despite Bothwell’s evident guilt, would honour him with the chivalric order of St Michael,† Elizabeth was acerbic: ‘She said she quite believed that, as he held the order so light as to give it to his grooms.’64

  Elizabeth was much more sensitive, however, than Mary to the struggle to maintain authority against the inveterate prejudices concerning women in power. She had been pushing hard for the restitution of Calais – the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis had allowed for French possession for eight years only and this time was now up. But the categorical and disrespectful rejection of their rights by the French negotiators had taken the English aback, and Elizabeth knew that these failures too easily were blamed on her being a monarch of the wrong sex. ‘These Frenchmen know we have a woman for our head and therefore esteem us so little,’65 was the reaction of her dejected ambassadors. In a world where political power was overwhelmingly masculine, Elizabeth had a natural solidarity with Mary and was loath to vilify ‘one not different in sex, of like estate, and my near kin’.66 Nor was she quick to cast the first stone: she was a woman too with natural appetites for affection, admiration and the fulfilment of desire. She knew what it was to love recklessly and too well, but she recognized also when the woman in her had to be sacrificed for the queen she wished to be.

  As Mary entered into her third marriage with all the worst omens in the world, Elizabeth was once more pretending to entertain the proposition of her own marriage to the Archduke Charles. Mary’s star appeared to be on a trajectory of self-destruction, while Elizabeth half-heartedly rehearsed the actions of a dutiful monarch by pursuing the marriage alliance her ministers required. Her public face was difficult enough to read, especially by her prospective suitors. The Austrian Emperor Maximilian wrote to his younger brother Charles thoroughly puzzled by the English queen: ‘This answer is most obscure, ambiguous, involved and of such a nature that we cannot learn from it whether the Queen is serious and sincere or whether she wishes to befool us.’67 In fact befooling the Hapsburgs was entirely within Elizabeth’s capacity. They were tentative, procrastinating and not the brightest of men. Austria’s most famous poet, Franz Grillparzer, characterized them t
hus:

  This is the curse of our most noble house:

  But half-equipped, to try to do half-deeds;

  And half-way up, to falter and to stop.

  Charles’s courtship of Elizabeth was to be protracted over nine long years before petering out as another Hapsburg project fallen by the way.

  Although Elizabeth, for political reasons, allowed the courtship to be resuscitated, her private opinions remained as uncompromising as ever. Having to endure performed before her at court a comedy, dealing pointedly with the subject of marriage, and keeping her up until one in the morning, she dismissed this unwelcome piece of propaganda, and told de Silva how much she disliked the woman’s part. The Spanish ambassador wrote to Philip II, ‘The hatred that this Queen has of marriage is most strange’:68 an antipathy perhaps less strange given the catalogue of marital disasters paraded by her cousin over the border.