At about the same time, Bothwell and two friends left Holyrood and walked up the High Street, which runs exactly parallel to the Cowgate. They then entered Edinburgh proper at the Netherbow Gate and descended by Blackfriars Wynd to cross the Cowgate and come to Kirk o’ Field. They arrived just after Darnley had been strangled. Bothwell, coming directly to the house, found Hay and Hepburn by the door and the fuse lit. The men then locked the doors of the house and retired into the quadrangle. Bothwell felt that the fuse was taking so much time that it had probably gone out and was about to enter the house to check when Hepburn pulled him back – at that point the powder exploded under the now-empty room.
‘There remains nothing, all being carried to a distance and reduced to dross, not only the roof and the floors but also the walls down to the foundations so that there rested not one stone on another.’ Nothing was ‘unruinated’. In fact, Douglas’s men were lucky not to have been struck by falling masonry as they rode off, to be seen again by the two housewives who called them traitors and said that they had been at ‘some evil turn’. As another part of their evidence the good ladies also claimed to have heard Darnley calling for mercy from his kinsmen (since the Douglases were related to him). When the two housewives, the only impartial witnesses, gave their evidence, ‘some words escaped which the inquisitors expected not and they were dismissed as rash and foolish’.
As to the other occupants of the house, Nelson and Simmons, the two servants who were sleeping in the corridor, seem to have followed Darnley and Taylor out of the window, probably having heard the doors being locked, and Nelson himself was alive and well, halfway over the town wall when he was found later by the rescuing party. Two other servants were found dead in the rubble, but everyone else survived. Darnley was certainly dead but the explosion had been, in reality, unnecessary.
The explosion was compared to ‘a volley of 25 or 30 cannon, arousing the whole town’ and people rushed to the scene where the settling dust revealed total devastation. Captain William Blackadder, a supporter of Bothwell’s, was found wandering nearby and promptly arrested, only to be released when he was found to be no more than a late-night reveller returning home from an evening’s drinking near the Tron, or public weighbridge. Bothwell, as sheriff of Edinburgh, was summoned to take charge. In a dubious statement made in 1568 he claimed to have been asleep in bed in Holyrood with his wife, ‘his first Princess, the sister of the Earl of Huntly’. Antonia Fraser, in her biography of Mary, wisely points out that this alibi is time-honoured among the criminal fraternity. Bothwell arranged for Darnley’s body to be duly inspected by those members of the Privy Council available in Edinburgh, most of whom had been involved in the plot – the foreign ambassadors who asked to see the body were refused access. It was then taken to Holyrood where Mary paid £42 6s Scots to have it embalmed. Although Mary looked at the corpse of her dead husband she ‘gave no sign by which the secret emotions of her heart could be discovered’. On 15 February 1567, Darnley was buried in Holyrood Abbey beside James V and a solemn Requiem Mass and dirge was sung over him. A week later Mary entered on the formal forty days of mourning, and for safety’s sake moved back into Edinburgh Castle.
Mary was, in fact, stunned by the all-too-evident result of the Craigmillar Bond and, apart from issuing a proclamation offering £2,000 Scots and a life pension for information, she had no idea what action to take. Almost in a trance she attended the marriage of her bedchamber woman Margaret Carwood on 12 February, the Tuesday after the murder. She then went to Seton, relaxing enough to take part in archery contests, partnered by Bothwell against Huntly and Seton. Huntly and Seton lost the contest and had to buy their opponents dinner in nearby Tranent.
There were no immediate arrests but rumours were rife, and the Diurnal of Occurrents reported, ‘It was said that many great men gave consent to this treasonable deed, the like of which was never heard or seen in this realm. The Earl of Bothwell is more familiar with the queen than honesty requires.’ Evidence was gathered in June 1567, when official statements were taken from the main protagonists. All had been tortured with great efficiency and all of their testimony now had a suspicious similarity. They claimed that Bothwell had brought the gunpowder from Dunbar and stored it in his apartments at Holyrood. In fact, Balfour had bought the powder, and since his house was next to the Provost’s lodging and had a perfectly good cellar, the explosive would have been stored there. Hay testified that Bothwell had warned him to be ready on 7 February, then that Powrie, Hepburn, Hay and the two Ormistons were briefed by Bothwell at four o’clock on 9 February, and that at ten o’clock the powder was transferred to Kirk o’ Field in ‘trunks’ on horseback. Bothwell had returned to the palace having left Darnley and changed his silver-trimmed black clothes for more practical black velvet. He was seen entering Edinburgh at the Netherbow Port, so that fragment of the ‘evidence’, at least, is true. Bothwell was then said to have personally supervised the powder being carried in bags into the room below Darnley’s, although one version has the powder being transported in barrels which were too wide for the door and then having to be carried loose into the building. However, Mary saw French Paris with a blackened face when she left the house with Bothwell on the night of 9 February, so the powder must have been in place already. All the versions agreed that the powder was heaped loosely in a ‘mine’ or ‘bing’ on the floor. Gunpowder in this state is highly flammable but not explosive, and if a light had then been set to it, it would have flared briefly with a not-very-satisfying ‘phutt’. To have caused an explosion of such destructive power it must have been tightly packed by James Cullen, the mercenary soldier. Darnley and Taylor presumably slept through all this activity, and one version has the plotters wearing slippers over their shoes to muffle the sound of their feet. Hepburn then lit the fuse, locked the door and joined Bothwell in the garden until the explosion took place and the conspirators scattered, Hepburn dropping the copied keys down the Quarry Hole, a nearby well, as he made his way home to Leith. Bothwell was challenged by the sentries at the palace but reassured them that he was ‘a friend of Lord Bothwell’ and then retired to bed in Holyrood. Half an hour later he was roused by George Hackett, a palace guard, with the news that ‘The King is blown up. I trow the King is slain!’ Testimony from French Paris on 9 August 1569 and Ormiston on 13 December 1573 confirmed these unlikely stories. The explosives expert Cullen was examined and confirmed everyone else’s story, after which he was allowed to escape.
Veracity was actually of no importance since all the testimonies placed the blame firmly on Bothwell’s shoulders and no other member of the nobility was mentioned. Clearly from the evidence obtained it could be stated that Bothwell had acted single-handedly and was solely to blame. Since all the others were under his direct command they were obliged to carry out his orders. It was a very satisfactory solution since, by the time the evidence was obtained, Bothwell himself had fled into exile.
Immediately after the assassination, the ripples of gossip as to Mary’s involvement spread. Guzmán, the Spanish ambassador at Elizabeth’s court, heard that Mary was at Dunbar with Argyll, Bothwell and Morton. He made the immediate presumption that Mary had had prior knowledge of the assassination and concluded, ‘Even if the Queen clears herself from it the matter is still obscure.’ Mary was not, in fact, at Dunbar, but Guzmán had already linked her with the principal conspirators.
When news reached Elizabeth, she reacted with customary practicality by having the doors leading to all her apartments locked, with the keys removed, leaving only one available, but closely guarded, entrance. Elizabeth also voiced her doubts as to the real culprits to Guzmán and the vexed question of a remarriage was raised. She sent Killigrew to investigate the state of affairs in Scotland with a strongly worded letter to Mary:
Madame, my ears have been so astounded and my heart so frightened to hear of the horrible and abominable murder . . . yet I cannot conceal that I grieve more for you than him. I should not do the office of a faithful cousi
n and friend if I did not urge you to preserve your honour, rather than look through your fingers at revenge at those who have done you such service . . . I counsel you to take this matter so far to heart that you will not fear to touch even those you have nearest to you and may show the world what a noble princess and loyal woman you are.
This letter shows Elizabeth’s secret service at its most efficient. The repetition of the exact phrase ‘look through your fingers’ might be a coincidence, but it might also give a strong hint that an eavesdropping servant at Craigmillar had reported the substance of the Craigmillar Bond to Elizabeth. Also, as far as one sovereign queen could suggest to another, Mary was being told to arrest Bothwell – ‘those you have nearest to you’. At the same time, the erroneous rumour in London was that Mary’s nobility suggested to her that ‘being a lone and solitary woman . . . she would do well to make him [Bothwell] partaker of her bed’. Killigrew was also told that all appearance of ‘amity’ would cease and that ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh was once again paramount. In early March, Killigrew met with Mary ‘in a dark chamber and could not see her face’ but found her very doleful. The diplomatic clock had been put back seven years.
Moretta, the Savoy ambassador, also had suspicions of Mary’s direct involvement and reported that a placard had been posted outside Holyrood saying, ‘I, with the Earl of Bothwell and with others whose names shall shortly be declared, did this deed.’ Bothwell reacted to this typically by declaring that when he discovered the authors of these calumnies he would ‘wash his hands in their blood’. Drury said of him. ‘His hand when he talks to any that is not assured to him, [is] upon his dagger, with a strange countenance’.
At the beginning of March another placard had appeared, making yet another accusation of guilt and linking Mary directly to Bothwell. It showed a naked mermaid wearing a crown (in this period a ‘mermaid’ was street slang for a prostitute). In its right hand was a sea anemone, representing the female genitalia, and in its left hand was the rolled-up net used to trap unwary seamen. Since the mermaid was framed with the royal initials ‘MR’, there could be no doubt as to who it represented. Below it was a hare – the crest of Bothwell as a Hepburn – with the letter ‘H’, surrounded with drawn swords. To the sixteenth-century mind, attuned to the niceties of heraldry, the implication was clear: the whore Mary had seduced the brute Bothwell.
At this point Mary had the opportunity to show her power as a ruling queen and could have acted decisively. Diane de Poitiers would have easily persuaded her monarch to undertake mass arrests; Catherine de Medici would have given the instructions herself and, after carefully focused torture, a scenario clearing her of all blame would have become the accepted truth; Elizabeth would have denied all knowledge of the Craigmillar Bond and turned her theatrical wrath on the signatories, despatching them to the Tower. But Mary, seemingly inert and under the control of Bothwell, did nothing at all. Not so inert was Sir James Balfour: he was accused, probably justly, of having had one of his servants killed to prevent him from turning informer. Moray, who had, of course, been in Fife on the fatal night, was now urgently requesting a passport for foreign travel. This was granted, and on 7 April he hastily undertook a five-year exile. The plotters were now isolated and ripe for arrest. But Mary had no trustworthy allies to prompt her into unwilling action, and the only voice calling for justice was that of the Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s father and a sworn enemy of Châtelherault and Moray. Mary had alienated herself from all the nobility except for the plotters, whom she had tacitly encouraged and who would have had no qualms about throwing her to the wolves. As so often happened in Mary’s life, she had created a power vacuum, and into it stepped the Earl of Bothwell. By the end of March, Drury reported to Cecil that ‘Bothwell does all’ and that the rumour was that Mary would marry him.
Bothwell was a short-term opportunist with the philosophy of a Mafia boss. He had no far-sighted strategy to become King of Scotland; he merely seized whatever came to hand and was to his further advantage. Militarily he was an expert in the short, sharp attack coupled with surprise, a tactic which was most effective in ruling his turbulent Border lands. Diplomatically he applied force and, if that failed, he applied more force until his opponent decided to join him rather than be annihilated. Now he realised that no one was exerting any influence over the country and that the queen would never undertake any initiative on her own behalf. The plum of power was ripe for picking.
Catherine de Medici, who was amazed by Mary’s inactivity, wrote that unless Mary revenged the death of her husband she would not only be dishonoured but would become the enemy of France. However, Mary continued to sleepwalk. After Darnley’s murder ‘she hath been for the most part either melancholy or sickly ever since’. J.P. Lawson, the nineteenth-century historian, said, ‘The conduct of Queen Mary at this period evinces a fatality and imbecility which can only be explained by viewing her as under the influence of a strong, engrossing and ungovernable passion.’ With the Privy Council now lacking Moray, and all of its other members lacking unity, Bothwell, whose wife was now ill, made his first move to gather power by supervising the removal of the prince back to his traditional nursery at Stirling under the governorship of Mar. This allowed him to appoint Sir James Balfour, a supposedly trusted ally, to be governor of Edinburgh Castle. This turned out to be a nearly fatal mistake.
Bothwell was now exercising more authority than Darnley had ever possessed and Lennox brought forth a formal petition that Bothwell be arraigned for the murder. On 21 March, while still at Seton, Mary did agree to summon a parliament, and five days later Lennox asked for Bothwell to be arrested. Nothing was done, but on 28 March a reluctant Privy Council did call Bothwell to appear before an assize on 12 April. Lennox, rather feebly, then claimed he had not enough time to prepare a case and asked for a deferment, also writing to Elizabeth and asking her to intercede.
Mary had been forced by public opinion to allow the move against ‘those you have nearest to you’, while Bothwell had his own way of dealing with an assize in Edinburgh. On the day of the assize Bothwell had brought 4,000 armed men into the city and posted 200 arquebusiers around the Tolbooth, where the assize was being held, totally controlling who was to be allowed entrance; ‘no one had the courage to accost such a dangerous and unprincipled man.’
As Bothwell, accompanied by Lethington and Morton, were about to ride from Holyrood, Drury arrived with a letter from Elizabeth endorsing Lennox’s request for a delay. He gave the letter to Lethington but was told that the queen was still asleep and the party rode off. Du Croc then pointed out to Drury that the ‘sleeping’ queen was, with Mary Fleming, Lethington’s wife, standing at a window of the palace enthusiastically waving goodbye to Bothwell.
Bothwell passed ‘with a merry and a lusty cheer’ to the Tolbooth – the ‘lusty cheer’ being given by his 200 arquebusiers at the door. Lennox was allowed by law to present six supporters, but he claimed illness and sent only one, Robert Cunningham, while his advocates desired forty days for more perfect collection of his proofs, threatening that if the assize cleared Bothwell, they would lodge a formal protest for wilful error. ‘The Earl Morton refused to be of that assize. It is affirmed that at this assize none were sworn. Bothwell has set up a cartel declaring himself clear of this murder, and offering to defend any challenge thereof with his body.’ The charge was read and the court ‘had long reasoning’ but Bothwell, to no one’s surprise, was ‘made clean of the said slaughter, although it was heavily murmured that he was guilty thereof ’. The court did not even notice that Bothwell had been accused of Darnley’s murder on 9 February, the day before it actually took place. Less than three weeks later Lennox and his family left for England.
Bothwell, who had already been showered with gifts by the now totally entranced Mary, gilded the lily by appearing on Darnley’s own horse, having had some of the dead man’s clothes re-tailored for his own use. The tailor, taking his life in his hands, had remarked to Bothwell that this was rig
ht since ‘according to the custom of the country the clothes of the deceased were given to the executioner’. After an uneasy pause Bothwell decided that this was a joke, and the tailor lived.
The war of the placards continued and two were attached to the Market Cross, one giving a detailed list of some of the conspirators and another, thinking ahead, claiming that no one could ‘with upright conscience’ part Bothwell and his wife even although he had murdered the husband of his intended new spouse, ‘whose promise he had long before the murder’.
On 16 April, Mary rode to open parliament in the same Tolbooth. This was a ceremony she had always revelled in, glittering in jewels, assured of the cheers of an adoring crowd and surrounded by her nobility. Now Bothwell carried her sceptre, Argyll – in place of Moray – carrying the crown, and Crawford, the Sword of State. Her guard of honour, normally provided by the bailies of the Edinburgh Council, was now not ceremonial, but openly protective, and was formed by her own arquebusiers. The population of Edinburgh were no longer cheering their queen.
The parliament did not overtly ratify Bothwell’s innocence but awarded him the lands which went with Dunbar Castle, as well as confirming Huntly and his relatives in their lands. It was altogether a more muted affair, and as Mary returned to Holyrood, she must have realised that she had lost the love of the people and passed whatever power she had – but had never used – into the hands of Bothwell. Her court was no longer the site of Renaissance celebration, dancing and masqueing, but a closely guarded military enclave of plotting and politics.
An Accidental Tragedy Page 27