Margaret Douglas

by Mary McGrigor

  Elizabeth, made more compassionate it would seem by her own near brush with death, finally relented. Matthew was released from the Tower on 26 November and allowed to join Margaret under house arrest at Sheen.

  Finally, in February 1563, they were informed by members of the queen’s council that ‘she had forgiven and forgotten their offence, yet she would not see them’. Freed at last from imprisonment, they were allowed to go home.

  Notes

  1 State Paper Office, Domestic Records

  2 State Paper Office, 21 May 1562, see Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, pp.341–2

  3 Ibid. Domestic, Sheen, 30 May 1562, Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, p.345

  4 Ibid.

  5 Ibid., p.346

  6 Ibid., p.347

  7 Ibid., p.348

  8 Ibid., p.349

  9 State Office Paper, Lady Lennox to Cecil, Sheen, 12 August 1562

  10 State Paper Office, Lady Lennox to Cecil, Sheen, 22 August 1562

  11 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, p.351

  32

  IN POVERTY AND SPLENDOUR

  The Lennoxes returned to find Settrington nearly ruined. On their hasty departure at the queen’s summons, no one had been left properly in charge. Local people, thinking it deserted, had broken into the house and stolen some of the contents. Farm rents had not been collected, cattle had been stolen and buildings left unrepaired.

  Margaret, forced to pay for the accommodation of her family and their servants during the whole of their imprisonment, was so impoverished that she actually had to borrow money from the Sackvilles. Nonetheless, once back at Settrington, with typical determination, she began to put things to rights. Then, to her great joy, during the summer, Henry, her beloved elder boy, returned from France.

  So happy was she to see him that somehow she found the money to commission the full-length portrait, attributed to Hans Eworth, which now hangs in the Royal Collection. Henry, aged 17, had reached his full height, estimated as being between 6ft 1in and 6ft 4in. He was certainly a head above most men of the time, supposedly the reason why he first attracted the young Queen of Scots, who herself, at 6ft, was accustomed to looking down on most men whom she met. In the portrait, his fair hair and blue eyes are set off by a black doublet, relieved by a white ruff; the legs of an athlete are emphasised by black hose.

  Henry stands with his long-fingered hand on the shoulder of his little brother Charles, who, aged 7, is still in skirts, with a crucifix hanging round his neck. The difference in age between them is emphasised by Henry’s unusual height, of which his mother was so proud.

  In 1564, at Whitsuntide, Matthew Lennox at last was granted permission to return to Scotland. He went with the determination to reclaim his ancestral estates, forfeited by the Scottish government for his adherence to Henry VIII. Margaret, dominant as usual, told him to seek the help of her relations, the Melvilles, Sir James and his brother Robert, then rising powers in Scotland.

  Left behind at Settrington, she continued the struggle with the debts and difficulties of trying to restore their lands in Yorkshire so ruined by their enforced absence in London.

  The Earl of Westmorland, who apparently she held in her thrall, helped in this enormous task. It was not a romantic liaison. Not even the ever-watchful Forbes, determined to ruin her reputation, could cast a slur on her name as far as this friendship was concerned. Charles, 6th Earl of Westmorland, was a young man of only 20, barely older than Henry Darnley, while Margaret herself would be 50 in the following year.

  The link between them was religion. Westmorland, an ardent Catholic, was diametrically opposed to Elizabeth’s rule. Already planning rebellion, he turned for assistance to Margaret; in return, in her husband’s absence, he helped her to try to resuscitate their run down estates.

  It may have been at Westmoreland’s suggestion that she tried to sell off some land, estimated to be worth £100. To do this she had to have the queen’s permission, the area in question being part of the royal grant, and she carried on a long communication with Cecil, through the auspices of his secretary Francis Yaxley.

  33

  A DIARIST AT COURT

  Matthew reached Edinburgh on 23 September. An anonymous Scottish diarist, who witnessed his arrival, was much impressed by the display of splendour. ‘Riding before [him] twelve gentlemen clothed in velvet coats, with chains about their necks, upon fair horses, and behind him thirty other gentlemen and servants riding upon good horses, clothed all in grey livery coats.’ Reaching Holyrood, he was received by the queen ‘in presence of the most part of the nobility of the realm’.1

  Acting on his wife’s instructions, Matthew immediately contacted her relations, Sir James Melville and his brother Robert (later Lord Melville), who came from Halhill in Fife.

  It is now that the man whose first-hand account throws such vivid insight into the happenings of those times, first appears on the scene. Sir James Melville, as he was to become, began writing his diary when he was only 14. It so happened that the Bishop of Valence, who had been on a diplomatic mission to Scotland, had been returning to France when Mary of Loraine had asked him to take James with him to be page of honour to her daughter Mary Queen of Scots. After a horrendous voyage, which involved sailing to Ireland and back before eventually reaching France, James had become a page with the young queen. Later, in the service of the Duke of Montmorency, the constable of France, he had fought for the king, Henri II, against the armies of the King of Spain and the Austrian Holy Roman Emperor. During the battle of St Quentin, in which the French were badly defeated, James was hit on the head with a mace. Pushed by his servant onto a horse, he somehow rode through the enemy lines until he reached a place called La Fer, where an old friend, an Englishman, Mr Harry Killigrew,* held his horse while he sat down in a barber’s shop to be treated for the hurt in his head.

  Employed thereafter by the Elector Palatine, learning to speak fluent German, he had been sent on a diplomatic mission to France. But while there he had received a summons from Queen Mary’s half-brother, the Earl of Moray, and her secretary, William Maitland of Lethington, to return to Scotland on business, which he understood to concern the queen’s marriage. Much to the annoyance of the constable, and the Prince Palatine, he had obeyed and had been received by Queen Mary at Perth on 5 May 1564.

  He had not intended to remain in Scotland but Mary’s charm had won him over.

  She was so affable, so gracious and discreet, that she won great estimation and the hearts of many both in England and Scotland and mine among the rest, so that I thought her more worthy to be served for little profit than any other prince in Europe for great advantage. I was vanquished and won to tarry with her, and to lay aside all other profits or preferment in France and other countries, albeit for the time I had no heritage but my service. So about two or three months after my home-coming I was sent to the Queen of England, with instructions out of the Queen’s own mouth.2

  Despite Sir James’ claims that he worked for virtually nothing, Queen Mary did give him a pension and made him her special envoy and a member of her household. Later, in his memoirs, he was to describe how:

  When Matthew, Earl of Lennox, came to Scotland, before the marriage of his son Darnley with the Queen, I went to the Earl, who told me that his long absence out of Scotland had made him a stranger in the knowledge of the State; but that my lady, his wife, at his coming fra her, had willed him to take my brother Robert’s counsel and mine in all he did, as that of her friends and kinsmen.3

  The result of Sir James’ petition to the queen was that Matthew was restored to his lands of the Lennox, his titles and good name by proclamation of a herald in the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh on 9 October 1564.

  Margaret, meanwhile, left at home, despite being overwhelmed with debts, was stripping herself of jewels to achieve her overpowering ambition for her son. To Mary herself she sent ‘a ring with a fair diamo
nd’. Lord Moray got a diamond, the Secretary Liddington [Lethington] a watch set round with diamonds and rubies, and most importantly a ring with a ruby went to Sir Robert Melville, described by Margaret as her brother.4 Melville, in no doubts whatever over Margaret’s intentions, wrote that: ‘Lady Lennox was in guid hope, that her son, Lord Darnley, suld be better sped than the Earl of Leicester anent the marriage with Queen Mary. She was a very wise and discreet matron, and had many favorers in England for the time.’5

  Plainly Sir Robert had heard that both Margaret, now allowed by Queen Elizabeth to enter her presence, and her son Henry were at Queen Elizabeth’s court. Their main reason for going there appears to have been that on 6 July 1564, together with the queen herself, Margaret was a godmother at the christening of William Cecil’s baby daughter, tactfully named Elizabeth.

  Mary Queen of Scots, who claimed that she had agreed to receive Matthew Lennox at Elizabeth’s request, was much annoyed when the English queen, at the last moment, revoked her permission to allow both the Lennoxes to leave England. This proved to be because Elizabeth had discovered that they meant to take with them ‘a son of theirs … who is an amiable youth’, plainly meaning Henry. Elizabeth, guessing that his parents were aiming for a match with the Scottish queen, when she was planning to marry the queen to her favourite Robert Dudley, was piqued.

  So also was Mary, who, losing her temper, wrote an angry letter to Elizabeth accusing her of going back on her word. Then, realising that her taunts were enough to cause a diplomatic incident, she hastily despatched Sir James Melville to Elizabeth’s court to smooth things over.

  Sir James arrived to find Margaret much in favour with the fickle English queen; so also was Henry. Elizabeth is known to have liked good looking young men, this probably being an added reason why she did not want him to marry her cousin, of whose known attraction for the opposite sex she was certainly jealous.

  Henry was thought so wonderful that he was sent to meet the new Spanish ambassador, Don Diego Guzman d’ Silva, appointed to succeed his predecessor who had died of the plague. Then Margaret’s heart must almost have burst with pride as she watched him, at least a head taller than most of the courtiers, dressed in the magnificence of the royal regalia, carry the sword before Elizabeth on all formal occasions. The climax was reached on 29 September when Henry participated in the ceremony as the queen made Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester.

  Sir James Melville, watching, eyes agog, famously noted for posterity all that occurred on this memorable day.

  The queen herself helping to put on his ceremonial, he [Leicester] sitting upon his knees before her, keeping a great gravity and discreet behaviour. But she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck to tickle him smilingly, the French ambassador and I standing by. Then she asked at me how I liked him. I answered that as he was a worthy subject, so he was happy who had a princess who could discern and reward good service. ‘Yet’, she said, ‘you like better of yonder long lad’, pointing towards my Lord Darnley, who, as nearest prince of the blood, did bear the sword of honour that day before her. My answer was that no woman of spirit would make choice of such a man, that was more like a woman than a man; for he was very lusty, beardless and lady-faced. And I had no will that she should think that I liked him, or had any eye or dealing that way, albeit I had a secret charge to deal with his mother, my Lady Lennox, to procure liberty for him to go to Scotland (where his father was already) that he might see the country and convey the earl, his father, back again to England.6

  Melville soon realised that Queen Elizabeth was determined to liaise with Mary Queen of Scots over her proposed marriage to Leicester. She told him that she had a great desire to meet her and even took him to her bedroom where:

  … she opened a little desk, wherein were divers little pictures wrapt within paper, and their names written with her own hand upon the papers. Upon the first which she took up was written ‘my Lords picture’. I held the candle, and pressed to see that picture so named. She was loath to let me see it; at length my importunity prevailed for a sight thereof [and found it to be the Earl of Leicester’s picture]. I desired that I might carry it to carry home to my queen, which she refused, alleging that she had but that one picture of his … Then she took out the queen’s picture, and kissed it, and I kissed her hand, for the great love I saw she bore to my mistress. She showed me also a fair ruby, as great as a tennis ball. I desired that she would either send it, or my Lord of Leiester’s [sic] picture, as a token unto the queen.7

  Queen Elizabeth refused to part with the ruby, saying that ‘if the queen would follow her counsel’ she would in process of time ‘get them both, and all she had.’ In the meantime, in token of her affection, she sent Queen Mary a diamond, which Melville, after being cross-questioned by Elizabeth about everything concerning Mary, from her height down to her clothes, eventually took back to Scotland.

  Melville implies that it was actually Mary Queen of Scots who bribed Elizabeth’s ministers to win her permission for Darnley to join his father in Scotland. Certainly, somehow it was done. Surprisingly Queen Elizabeth agreed to Margaret’s petition for her son to join his father at the court of Queen Mary early in the new year of 1565.

  Henry left London on 3 February. Riding to Yorkshire, he stayed briefly with his mother at Settrington. There she made plain to him that it was duty, both as a good son to his parents and to the country to which rightly they all belonged, to marry the Queen of Scotland, thereby becoming king. It was, as she had told him from childhood, the dynasty for which he was bred. While his father, through descent, had a right to the Scottish throne, she, as the daughter of the King of England’s sister, should now be Queen of England had she been given her due. Moreover, the Catholic countries of Europe would support a revolution against the Calvinists who had driven Scotland from the true faith.

  Henry had heard it all before, his parent’s ambition had been drummed in almost from infancy and as a loyal son, it was his duty to achieve it.

  On 3 February, in bitter weather, he said farewell to his mother before riding for Scotland. It is easy to picture Margaret, standing before Settringham House, hugging her cloak around her against the wind blasting across the fens from the North Sea. It must have been with a catch in her throat, heart beating fast, that she watched him ride away, followed by five of his father’s armed men wearing the grey Lennox livery. He was so tall and handsome in the saddle. Perhaps her last sight of him was turning to doff his cap to her before disappearing from view. So great were their hopes in the early light of that morning in 1565. Little could either of them have guessed that they would never see each other again.

  Notes

  * Made Sir Henry Killigrew, he became the English envoy to Scotland

  1 Bingham, C., Darnley, p.84

  2 Memoirs of Sir James Melville of Halhilll, pp.22–3 (London, The Folio Society,1969)

  3 Ibid., September 1564

  4 Ibid.

  5 Ibid.

  6 Ibid., pp.35–6

  7 Ibid., pp.36–7

  34

  THE BITTER BITE OF TRIUMPH

  Henry Darnley rode first to take a look at his old home of Temple Newsam, where he had been so happy as a boy. Then, spurring on across the Border, he reached Scotland in just seven days, a journey that usually took a fortnight over the rough roads. Not surprisingly, considering the weather, he arrived with a bad cold, something not reported to his mother, who, had she known about it, might well have made herself ill with worry. At Holyrood, he was told that his father was with the Earl of Atholl at Dunkeld.

  Matthew Lennox, since his return to Scotland, had wasted no time in finding allies against the all-powerful triumvirate of Moray, Argyll and Chätelheraut, united against a possible Catholic marriage for the queen. Amongst those who supported him, in addition to Atholl, were the Earl of Caithness and the Lords Seton, Ruthven and Home.1 Waiting for letters from his father, Henry was entertained by his uncle, Lord Robert Stewart, the Bishop of Caithness. The
Earl of Glencairn came to see him, as did another, more sinister visitor, his cousin Lord Morton, whose sycophantic flattery failed to conceal his aim to achieve the lands and title of Angus, as Henry must well have known.

  Told that the court was at Wemyss Castle in Fife, Henry borrowed horses from Queen Elizabeth’s ambassador, Thomas Randolph, and crossed the Forth by the Queens’ Ferry. Then, riding along the north coast of the firth, he kept up a good speed until, on the cliffs before him, the towering block of the early fifteenth-century castle rose before his eyes.

  Striding into an inner court, he knelt before the tall, auburn-haired young woman of 23 who was Mary Queen of Scots. Tapping him on the shoulder, she told him to rise and was surprised to find him taller than herself.

  Sir James Melville, there as a witness, described in his journal what occurred.

  Her Majesty took well with him, and said that he was the lustiest and best proportioned long man that she had seen; for he was of a high stature, long and small [finely built], even and erect, from his youth well instructed in all honest and comely exercises.

  Having spent five days in Dunkeld, Henry returned to cross the Forth on the same ferry as Mary. Melville continues:

  After he had haunted court some time, he proposed marriage to Her Majesty, which she took in an evil part at first, as that same day she herself told me, and that she had refused a ring which he then offered unto her. I took occasion, as I had begun, to speak in his favour, that their marriage would put out of doubt their title to the succession to the crown of England. I know not how he fell in acquaintance with Riccio [sic], but he also was his great friend at the queen’s hand, so that she took ever the longer the better liking of him, and at length determined to marry him.2