Life of Elizabeth I

by Alison Weir

  By now, it had dawned on Mary that she was effectively a prisoner of her cousin. When told of the impending inquiry, she furiously protested that, as an absolute prince, she would have no other judge but God: 'I see how things frame evil for me. I have many enemies about the Queen, my good sister, such as do all they can to keep me from her at the solicitation of my rebellious subjects.' There was a good deal of truth in this, but Mary clung to the notion that the inquiry was Elizabeth's way of helping her regain her throne, especially when Elizabeth informed her that its real purpose was to examine Moray's conduct towards his sovereign, and assured her that judgement would not be given unless it was against him or his party.

  On 20 June, the Council categorically advised Elizabeth against doing anything that might assist Mary's restoration. She refused to listen: she had given Mary her word, and would stand by it. Subjects had to be shown that they could not depose princes at will. But the strain was telling on her, and in one letter she begged Mary to 'have some consideration of me, instead of always thinking of yourself.

  In July, Mary was taken to Bolton Castle in Yorkshire, which was to be her lodging for the foreseeable future. It was sufficiently far from both Scotland and London to pose any great security risk. At Bolton she kept state like a queen and was allowed to indulge her passion for hunting, but she was constantly guarded. Sir Francis Knollys was her 'host', but had a difficult time coping with her tears and tantrums as she chafed against the restrictions upon her liberty.

  There was by now a strong 'Queen's Party' in Scotland, and two members of it, Lord Herries and the Bishop of Ross, took it upon themselves to go to England and plead Mary's case. 'If Queen Mary will remit her case to be heard by me as her dear cousin and friend', Elizabeth told Herries, 'I will send for her rebels and know their answer why they deposed their queen. If they can allege some reason for doing so, which I think they cannot, then I will restore Queen Mary to her throne, on condition that she renounces her claim to England and abandons her league with France and the mass in Scotland.' These were tough terms, but the promise was implicit, and Mary was desperate. On 28 July, she agreed to 'submit her cause to Her Highness in thankful manner'. What she did not know was that all parties were determined that she should not speak in her own defence. Nor was she aware that, on 20 September, Elizabeth assured Moray that she did not mean to restore Mary, despite reports to the contrary. Armed with this knowledge, he agreed to attend.

  The inquiry opened at York on 4 October. Elizabeth had ordered her commissioners to press for Mary's restoration on terms favourable to the English, but to her annoyance, there were endless intrigues and delays, and very little was achieved, although it became transparently clear that Moray's chief objective was to keep Mary out of Scotland. Provoked by Elizabeth's anger at his initial failure to make the 'rigorous accusations' he had assured her would prove Mary 'privy' to murder, and fortified by her reassurance that if his proofs were convincing there would be no question of her pressing for Mary's restoration, he at length revealed the existence of the Casket Letters. He intended, at the right psychological moment, to produce them in evidence against Mary - in fact, they were to constitute the chief evidence against her. But the question was asked then, and has been asked countless times since: were they forgeries?

  The Casket Letters no longer exist, having disappeared in 1584, although copies of nine of them survive in various archives. The original documents comprised eight letters said to be from Mary to Bothwell, twelve transcriptions of French sonnets, a written but undated promise to marry Bothwell, signed by Mary, and two copies of their marriage contract. All were contained in a small silver-gilt box of about thirty centimetres in length, engraved with an F for Francis II, which may be the one now on display at Lennoxlove House in Scotland. According to the Earl of Morton, this casket had been found in a house in Potterow, Edinburgh, and since then controversy had raged over the authenticity of its contents. There were claims that, although the letters were genuine, the Scots lords had inserted incriminating passages into them. Some said the love letters had been written to Bothwell by another lady. None of these theories were put forward in Mary's defence. When Moray produced these contentious documents at the inquiry, he insisted that the letters purportedly written by Mary were in her handwriting. Mary denied this, but was never allowed to see them. Many modern historians believe therefore that the Casket Letters were forged in an attempt to convict her. If, however, they were authentic, then they were conclusive proof that she was guilty of complicity in Darnley's murder.

  Norfolk did see the originals and was in no doubt as to who had written them; in fact, he was utterly appalled at their contents, writing to Elizabeth that they described 'such inordinate love between [Mary| and Bothwell, her loathsomeness and abhorring of her husband that was murdered, in such sort as every good and godly man cannot but detest and abhor the same'. The widowed Duke was therefore astonished at a suggestion made by William Maitland, on a hunting expedition, that he consider marrying Mary himself, especially since the terms of his appointment as chief commissioner forbade him from doing so on pain of death. Knollys thought the marriage might be a good way of keeping Mary under control, but Elizabeth, alerted by the French ambassador and Cecil's spies, most certainly did not, and sharply reproved Norfolk for even discussing such an idea.

  'Should I seek to marry her, being so wicked a woman, such a notorious adulteress and murderer?' he protested.

  I love to sleep upon a safe pillow. I count myself, by Your Majesty's favour, as good a prince at home in my bowling aUey at Norwich as she is, though she were in the midst of Scotland. And if I should go about to marry with her, knowing as I do that she pretendeth a title to Your Majesty's crown, Your Majesty might justly charge me with seeking your crown from your head.

  At this, Elizabeth appeared outwardly mollified, and no more was said then about the marriage. However, a seed of ambition had been sown in Norfolk's mind.

  When Elizabeth received copies of the Casket Letters, she claimed to be convinced that they were genuine, stating that they 'contained many matters very unmeet to be repeated before honest ears, and easily drawn to be apparent proof against the Queen'. Irritated by the lack of progress made by the commissioners, and suspicious of Norfolk's loyalties, Elizabeth adjourned the inquiry to Westminster and appointed Leicester, Cecil and other councillors - most of whom were no friends of Mary - as additional commissioners. Meanwhile, Cecil was urging that Mary be moved to the greater security of Tutbury Castle in the Protestant Midlands, but Elizabeth demurred, wishing to preserve the fiction that Mary was a royal guest and not a prisoner to be shunted from stronghold to stronghold. Even Leicester could not persuade her that Cecil spoke sense.

  Although she accepted an English prayerbook, Mary remained a devout Catholic, and - in an effort to wipe out her unfortunate recent history - had told King Philip she would die for her faith. The new Spanish ambassador, Don Gerau de Spes, shared the concern of his master for Mary's welfare, and by 9 November had decided upon action, having contacted her known supporters in England. Overestimating the numbers of her partisans, a mistake made repeatedly by foreign Catholic powers in the years to come, de Spes believed that it would not be difficult to arrange Mary's escape, nor even a rebellion against Elizabeth, with the intent of deposing her and setting up Mary as queen in her place.

  It appears that Mary was plotting against Elizabeth almost as soon as she arrived on English soil. She told Knollys she had no desire to cause any more trouble, yet both the Council and Moray, having censored and read all her correspondence, suspected she was not telling the truth. In September she had told the Queen of Spain that with Philip's help she would 'make ours the reigning religion' in England; Philip, however, was just then too shocked by her conduct seriously to contemplate forceful intervention on her behalf. It was probably the realisation that Mary would not scruple to intrigue against her that prompted Elizabeth to assure Moray that the tribunal would after all pronounce on Mary's gui
lt or innocence, on the basis of the proofs contained in the Casket Letters.

  Elizabeth was at Hampton Court when the Westminster tribunal met on 25 November. On the following day Moray accused Bothwell of Darnley's murder and Mary of having guilty foreknowledge of it. Her commissioners demanded that she be allowed to reply to this charge herself. On 4 December Elizabeth agreed this was reasonable, but declared that 'for the better satisfaction of herself, Moray must first present his proofs. She then refused to allow Mary to give evidence in her own defence, even though her cousin was insisting vehemently that the Casket Letters were forgeries and claiming that it was easy to copy her handwriting. She had still not been allowed to see them. Elizabeth stated that it would be degrading for Mary to have to give evidence, but in reality she did not want her beautiful, appealing cousin winning hearts and minds by publicly protesting her innocence, for then it would be virtually impossible to present the Casket Letters as credible evidence.

  On 6 December Mary's commissioners withdrew from the inquiry. It seems that even they were not wholly convinced of their mistress's innocence. On 7 December, Moray again accused Mary of murder and produced the Casket Letters, to sensational effect, with the result that the commissioners spent the next few days comparing the handwriting with authenticated samples of Mary's. Mary herself repeatedly begged to see copies of the Casket Letters, but her pleas were refused. The Queen pleaded with her several times to reply formally in writing to the accusations made against her, but she repeatedly refused to do so unless Elizabeth promised that the inquiry would bring in a verdict of not guilty. This, of course, was out of the question.

  The English commissioners and Council unanimously accepted the Casket Letters as authentic, on the grounds that they contained information 'such as could hardly be invented or devised by any other than [Mary] herself, for that they discourse on some things which were unknown to any other than to herself and Bothwell'. They were divided, however, as to how to proceed against Mary. The last thing Elizabeth wanted was for her cousin to be proclaimed guilty of murder, but she did see the necessity for Mary to accept her deposition and live quietly in England as a private person for the rest of her life, and told Knollys to persuade Mary to agree to this. Another option was for Mary to rule Scotland as joint sovereign with James VI, with Moray acting as regent. Alternatively, Mary could remain titular Queen but live permanently in England while Moray ruled in her name.

  On 14 December, Elizabeth summoned her councillors and nobility to Hampton Court to hear the commission's proceedings read out to them and inspect the Casket Letters. The peers expressed their gratitude to Elizabeth for letting them know the particulars of the inquiry, 'wherein they had seen such foul matters as they thought truly in their consciences that Her Majesty's position was justified'. Mary's crimes were now so apparent that she could never be received at court. However, she could not be declared guilty unless she had put forward a defence, and this she had consistently refused to do, unless it was to Elizabeth in person - which, again, was out of the question.

  A week later Elizabeth, still upset by the impact of the Casket Letters, as well as by the death of her old tutor, Roger Ascham, sent the commissioners to give Mary a detailed report of the inquiry and a letter in which the Queen informed her that, 'As one Prince and near cousin regarding another, we are heartily sorry and dismayed to find such matter of your charge,' and giving Mary one last chance of stating her defence. Mary did not respond.

  Given the strength of English public opinion against Mary, Elizabeth could not allow her to be declared innocent, yet neither did she want a queen to be subject to the judgement of a tribunal, and in January 1569, the commissioners delivered the only verdict possible - that nothing had been proved against Mary. Mary herself refused to acknowledge that they had the jurisdiction to deliver any verdict at all.

  But Elizabeth dared not set her at liberty: she posed too great a threat, even as a prisoner, for already there were signs that Catholics in England were beginning to regard her as their figurehead. As for Mary, she seemed more interested now in claiming the English throne than in recovering the Scottish one.

  'The Queen of Scots', Cecil warned Elizabeth, 'is, and always shall be, a dangerous person to your estate.'

  Chapter 12

  A Vain Crack of Words'

  By the winter of 1568-9, Norfolk was becoming increasingly disaffected, and with Sussex out of the way as a result of his appointment as President of the Council of the North, he came under the influence of Elizabeth's former suitor, the Earl of Arundel. Along with several northern Catholic lords, including the Earls of Northumberland and Derby, both men wanted to see ousted from the Council Cecil and other 'heretic' hardliners, including Leicester, who was now championing the extreme Protestants who were referred to as Puritans.

  Relations between England and Spain had suffered a further deterioration in November, when Cecil had masterminded the theft of #85,000 - loaned to Philip II by bankers in Genoa to pay the wages of Alva's soldiers - from Spanish ships in distress off Southampton. In January 1569, instead of returning the money to Spain, Elizabeth, who was short of funds, impudently confiscated it and declared she would repay the loan herself. For a time it was feared that a furious Philip might use this incident as an excuse to declare war on England, while Norfolk and Arundel, encouraged by de Spes, did their best to ensure that the blame for the rift with Spain was laid at Cecil's door, hoping to prompt his speedy overthrow and committal to the Tower.

  Within weeks Leicester had entered into the conspiracy, fired by the knowledge that Cecil was still doing his utmost to prevent him from marrying the Queen - a prospect that was becoming increasingly unrealistic as the years went by. Despite their antipathy towards him, Norfolk and Arundel could not afford to reject his support, and for a time relations between the three men were relatively harmonious.

  Far from declaring war, however, Philip merely ordered his troops in the Netherlands to seize English ships and property. His priority was to bring his Dutch subjects to heel before entering into any overt hostility with England.

  In January 1569, Mary Stuart was moved to Tutbury, a grim, crumbling castle in Staffordshire, which she loathed, and placed in the care of George Talbot, Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who was to remain her custodian for the next fifteen years - underpaid and overburdened with the responsibility. His wife was the formidable Elizabeth Cavendish -known to history as 'Bess of Hardwick' - and although Bess clashed with the Queen on several occasions, Elizabeth trusted Shrewsbury implicitly. Mary got on fairly well with both of them, making gifts to Bess and charming the puritanical Shrewsbury with 'her eloquent tongue, discreet head, her stout courage and liberal heart'. The Council warned him not to 'allow her to gain rule over him, or practise for her escape'. Cecil in particular feared Mary's wiles, believing 'She is able, by her great wit and sugared eloquence, to win even such as before they shall come to her company shall have a great misliking.'

  Elizabeth had no time for Mary as a person, only as a queen. She had a low opinion of her character, irritably observing to the French ambassador that there must be something 'divine about the speech and appearance of the Queen of Scots, in that one or the other obliges her very enemies to speak for her'.

  Whilst in the Earl's care, Mary lived at one or other of his many houses in the Midlands: Tutbury, Wingfield, Chatsworth and Sheffield Castle. In 1569, Shrewsbury, who admitted that he was not unaffected by Mary's charm, recorded his impressions of her for posterity: 'Besides that she is a goodly personage, and yet in truth not comparable to our sovereign, she hath withal an alluring grace, a pretty Scottish accent, and a searching wit, clouded with mildness. Fame might move some to relieve her, and glory joined to gain might stir others to adventure much for her sake.' He could see what the sight of Mary 'might work in others. Her hair is black, and yet Knollys told me that she wears her hair in sundry colours.'

  Encouraged by reports of worsening relations between England and Spain, Mary that January se
nt a message to de Spes, averring that she would rather die than resign the throne of Scotland, and promising that, 'if his master will help me, I shall be Queen of England in three months, and mass shall be said all over the country'. The message was duly conveyed by the ambassador, who urged Philip to step up his embargo on English goods in the Netherlands, a strategy that was doomed to failure, since too many mercantile interests were at stake.

  It was Throckmorton, supported by Leicester, who revived the plan for a marriage between Mary and Norfolk, to be followed by her restoration to the Scottish throne, which would be conditional upon Mary agreeing to maintain the Protestant faith in Scotland and remaining an aUy of England. Once Mary was married to Norfolk, Elizabeth might be persuaded to recognise her as her successor, and with the succession settled, and Mary hopefully no longer a focus for Catholic rebels, friendly relations with Spain could be restored. The chief obstacle to this plan was Cecil, which was one more reason why the Norfolk- Arundel faction wanted him displaced. By now, they had been joined in their conspiracy against him by several other northern lords and the Spanish ambassador de Spes, who was ever ready to make mischief.

  It appears that the scheme to marry Mary to Norfolk was devised without Elizabeth's knowledge, although the details were communicated to Mary in a letter signed by the noblemen concerned, even Leicester, who must have known that he was embarking upon a perilous course. However, the evidence suggests that Elizabeth, who was already suspicious of Norfolk, may have been aware of what was going on and was waiting to see what transpired before endorsing or condemning the project.