An Accidental Tragedy

by Roderick Graham

  The beautifully situated Bolton Castle had been completed in 1399 and was now a superb example of the mixture of stately home and fortress. Knollys reported, ‘This house appears very strong, very fair and stately, after the old manner of building and is the highest walled house I have seen with but one entrance. Half the number of soldiers may better watch than the whole could do at Carlisle . . . The queen’s chamber there [Carlisle] had a window looking to Scotland, the bars whereof being filed out of it she might have been let down, with plain ground before her to Scotland.’

  Scotland was, in fact, some 150 miles distant and Mary was now well out of range of the sort of Border raiding party which had been feared at Carlisle. Moreover, alterations had been put in hand to improve the fortifications at Bolton. Five days after Mary’s arrival, ‘5 light cart loads and 4 horse loads of apparel’ arrived from Loch Leven. Sir George Bowes sent Mary carpets and tapestries, while a steady supply of venison came from the Earl of Northumberland. Finally, a consignment arrived bringing her cloths of state. So now Mary’s court was established, but also established was her status in England. Although she did not accept the fact, Mary was a virtual prisoner.

  Herries returned to Mary a few days later, on 24 July, with a proposal from Elizabeth. There was to be no question of Elizabeth sitting in judgment over Mary, nor could Mary, as a sovereign queen, be put to trial. Rather, Elizabeth would summon Moray to explain himself and his actions. If his explanation was satisfactory, which Elizabeth doubted, then Mary would be returned to Scotland in some yet-to-be-decided capacity and the nobles would retain their privileges. However, if their explanations were unsatisfactory, then Elizabeth would reestablish Mary by force, but on certain conditions: that she renounce her claim to the English throne and any league with France, and that she abandon the Mass and embrace the Book of Common Prayer. This proposal was an invitation for Mary to approve being tried, in fact if not in appearance, and in absentia. Further, she would be required to deny her religion and turn apostate. There was no possibility whatsoever of Mary accepting, but instead of being furious at the suggestions, Knollys reported, ‘the Queen is merry and hunteth and passeth the time daily in pleasant manner’.

  Elizabeth was able to make such an offer since a week earlier Middlemore had returned from his visit to Moray with the news that the lords of the Scottish council had in their possession ‘such letters . . . that sufficiently in our opinion prove her consenting to the murder of the king her lawful husband’. The machinery for a trial was already under way, and Cecil and Elizabeth were becoming more and more confident of proving Mary’s guilt. Mary was unaware that Moray had already assured Elizabeth that ‘the noblemen of Scotland had not entered on it [the accusations against Mary] without good ground and occasion’.

  Somewhat to Knollys’s astonishment, Mary actually agreed to all of Elizabeth’s suggestions, including the endorsement of the Book of Common Prayer. Mary had even received a Church of England chaplain and attended his services, though Knollys doubted if this was bona fide. He ended his despatch to Cecil with a further plea for money – but Cecil habitually ignored such pleas.

  A mere three weeks later, on 16 August, Moray summoned a parliament during which he sold some of Mary’s jewellery to pay his army. Parliament also formally forfeited the entire Hamilton family, in spite of which Mary commanded no retribution, to the fury of Herries, whose lands were also forfeited along with all those who supported the queen. He blamed Elizabeth for delaying Mary’s restoration and so causing confusion in Scotland.

  While Cecil, with the enthusiastic help of Moray, set about preparing the case against Mary, life was calm at Bolton. Mary convinced herself that the admonitory letters from Elizabeth were not, in fact, written by her but by ‘one of her highness subjects’ – undoubtedly she had Cecil in mind – and expressed her wish that her case be heard in Westminster Hall. Her plea for a one-to-one interview with Elizabeth now disappeared from her correspondence and she moved more towards appeasing her English hosts in Yorkshire, even attending Church of England services. It must be remembered that Elizabeth herself had asked her own Catholic sister, Queen Mary, if she could be given instruction in the Catholic faith and she even attended Mass – but this was for her own survival. It is unlikely that Mary was so skilled at dissimulation, but, like so many prisoners, she sought after novelty. Mary never, for a moment, wavered in her faith. Knollys’s only complaint was that Mary’s household continued to grow, even her pages and grooms now having servants. He was falling under the spell of Mary’s charm and, when he was advised of a possible rescue bid by one George Herron, Knollys simply refused to believe that Mary would undertake ‘such an uncertain adventure’.

  At the end of August Mary paid Knollys a singular compliment and wrote to him in English promising a token for his wife – it was a pomander laced with gold wire. It was Mary’s first attempt at writing in English and Scotticisms still occur: ‘nicht’ for ‘night’ and ‘nocht bien’ for ‘not well’. She normally spoke French and, when necessity demanded it, used a version of Scots with a heavy French accent. One modern scholar, Dr Charles McKean, has called her speech ‘Frécossais’, and there is no doubt that Mary was only entirely at ease when speaking French. Elizabeth’s letters to Mary – written in English – were translated into Scots for her.

  During Mary’s time in England, Moray had been busy with Anglo-Scottish affairs and his first and most important task was to make certain that Elizabeth knew that she was harbouring a regicide. Only five days after Langside, Moray sent John Wood to London with copies of what became known as the Casket Letters. Strangely these copies were a translation of the original French into Scots. Since Elizabeth only understood Scots with difficulty but spoke fluent French, why Moray made this translation is only the first puzzle in the bizarre and tangled story of the Casket Letters. Moray was, however, well aware that Elizabeth needed ‘such evident reasons as her majesty may with conscience satisfy herself’ and to this end on 27 May he had sent ‘closed writings’ to George Buchanan in St Andrews – where Moray had appointed him principal of St Leonard’s College. These were presumably further copies, to be used by Buchanan in the preparation of an indictment. Buchanan was a 62-year-old scholar who had befriended Mary during her happier days at Holyrood, writing masques and court entertainments for her, gently tutoring her in Latin, and behaving as scholar-in-residence to her court. From this position of profitable friendship, he would now to become her principal accuser, preparing his Detectio Mariae Reginae, a vituperative pamphlet directly accusing Mary of adultery with Bothwell. One episode Buchanan describes involved Lady Reres being lowered by a sash to Bothwell’s apartments. The sash apparently broke but the good lady none the less plucked Bothwell out of his bed – where he was sleeping with his wife – and into Mary’s lustful arms. This piece of nonsense was attested to by George Dalgleish immediately before his execution, at a time when memory of his recent torture would have inspired him to swear to anything. In any case, Lady Reres had been a mistress of Bothwell’s and would hardly have acted as a bawd on the queen’s behalf.

  Before the publication of the grossly libellous Detectio, Buchanan prepared a formal ‘Indictment’, which he oxymoronically described as ‘an information of probable and infallible conjectures and presumptions’. The manuscript of the first version of the Detectio was ready by 22 June. It was written in Latin but translated into Scots and sent to Lennox who, as Darnley’s father, had been demanding a trial for some time. Moray was now proposing to Elizabeth that she should hold a trial ‘with great ceremony and solemnity’ to examine the situation. With diplomatic skill he suggested that what should be examined were his own actions as regent ‘in hostility against . . . my own countrymen’, thus allowing him to cite as justification the removal of an unjust queen – a murderess and adulteress. Thus all parties could claim that Mary would technically not be on trial herself.

  This was important for Elizabeth, who was well aware that watchful eyes were being trai
ned on her from the Louvre, the Escorial and the Vatican to see if she would dare to try a sovereign queen in public. Thus great care was taken to avoid the word ‘trial’ and to appear even-handed while a structure was put in place which would decide for Elizabeth what action to take. This structure consisted of the two sides pleading their respective cases before an unbiased commission appointed by Elizabeth. On 27 August Mary heard that the Duke of Norfolk was to lead Elizabeth’s commission, which would then make its report; Cecil and Elizabeth could then reflect on their findings. Since Mary was not being tried, she would not be subjected to the indignity of appearing. At first it seemed that the examination would take place in Newcastle, but the venue was switched to York, and in mid September passports were applied for by Mary on behalf of the Earl of Cassilis, the bishops of Ross and of Galloway, lords Herries and Boyd, Sir John Gordon and Sir James Cockburn. Mary was so sure that she would be cleared of all blame by the commission that on 15 September she assured her brother-in-law, Charles IX of France, that Elizabeth had promised to restore her to her ‘honour and grandeur in her country’. Moray, on the other hand, had passports for 100 persons in his train, plus the earls of Morton and Glencairn, Lord Lindsay, the Bishop of Orkney and the Commendator of Dunfermline, each with 100 persons in their trains.

  Finally, on 24 September, Elizabeth sent a ‘Memorial for the proceedings of Norfolk, Sussex and Sadler, with the Queen of Scots and her son’s commissioners at the city of York’ to her commissioners. Mary’s involvement in the murder of Henry, Lord Darnley, as well as her adulterous relationship with Bothwell, would be examined, and after a complete vindication of these charges she would be restored to her throne by her cousin, Elizabeth. Moray, on the other hand, wanted nothing less than the condemnation of Mary and Elizabeth’s endorsement of his rule. Elizabeth herself had issued precise instructions to her commissioners. They were to hear both sides apart from each other, with Mary’s case heard first, and if there was to be no firm proof of the charges, then Mary must be restored. The proposals, that is to say, the rebuttals, were to come from Mary or from Moray and a treaty was to be agreed jointly by Elizabeth, Mary and Moray. The terms of this treaty would include an Act of Oblivion for past crimes, and a council to be appointed to assist Mary; her future marriage would be agreed by the three estates; Bothwell was to be punished; the legal status of the Reformed Church would be ratified; the infant James would be kept in England and raised by Scots; and titles to the crown of England were to be clarified. Elizabeth was to be the umpire for all this, and if Mary were to break any part of the treaty, then James would immediately succeed as ruler. Inevitably the Treaty of Edinburgh was to be ratified and Mary was forbidden to enter into foreign leagues.

  Elizabeth and Cecil saw this examination as a golden opportunity to tidy up old business, and they felt she could rely on her commissioners. Norfolk was England’s only duke, and was recently widowed for the third time. Thin-faced and with a high forehead, he looked permanently worried, giving the impression that he was trying to look as if he understood what was going on around him. Nominally Protestant, he had many Catholic relations and would need Elizabeth’s permission to remarry; he could, therefore, be relied on. Sadler, who had seen Mary as a naked baby twenty-six years previously, was, like the Earl of Sussex, a professional courtier and could be relied on to do his sovereign’s bidding without too much thought. Mary would have to rely on reports from York being carried back to her at Bolton. Her life would be closely examined in public, but she would only be able to answer through proxies.

  On 29 September Mary sent precise instructions to her commissioners in a document which was to be the sole authority for them to act on her behalf, since her great seal was still in Scotland. Like the quartering of her arms with England, the absence of her seal may seem trivial to us today, but to Mary it represented another petty reduction in her status. In her letter she rehearsed the offences of the Lords: her seizure after Carberry and imprisonment at Lochleven Castle. She pointed out that her abdication was invalid since it had been made under threat and had been ratified by a parliament she did not endorse. Similarly, the coronation of James without her permission had no validity. Now on slightly thinner ice, she denied any knowledge of the murder of Darnley and did ‘nothing thereunto but by the advice of the nobility of the realm’. Mary obviously knew of the existence of the secret Casket Letters and insisted that if they were to be used in evidence against her, then she must be allowed to see the originals and ‘make answer thereto’. She also pointed out that there were ‘divers in Scotland’ who could counterfeit her handwriting and copy her prose style. She did not ask for revenge against Moray, but promised to accept Elizabeth’s judgment, maintaining the freedom of Protestantism, and assuring her of agreement in the matter of succession. There were no wild threats of foreign intervention and her case against the rebel lords was put reasonably and calmly. Mary was certain she would be vindicated and restored.

  Five days earlier, on 24 September, Mary had written a long letter to her childhood friend Elisabeth, now Queen of Spain. She assured her that she was surrounded by adoring Catholics and, further, that Elizabeth of England was jealous of Mary’s strength of faith, but would restore her in spite of the unjust accusations against her. Mary told Elisabeth of her plans to marry James to a Spanish princess, but could not have known that Elisabeth would die in childbirth before she could read this letter from her friend of the far-off days of tournaments at Chambord and of the nursery at St Germain. Mary Stewart was whistling in the dark and Cecil, who intercepted all her correspondence, knew it only too well. He would also know that his most Catholic Majesty Philip II of Spain was now free to remarry. With a satisfactory verdict from York, Cecil would be able to tie up a lot of the loose ends, which were starting to resemble a nest of writhing snakes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A lawful prisoner?

  By 7 October 1567 the three groups of commissioners had met in York and sworn oaths to deal only in truth, with each side showing a profound distrust of the other two. On the first day, 8 October, Mary’s commissioners made a formal presentation of their case, and two days later Moray asked for a guarantee that if Mary was found guilty, she would be ‘delivered in our hands’, and declared that without such a guarantee he could not proceed. While Norfolk was considering this extravagant request an indictment arrived from Lennox. This was a compilation of Buchanan’s fantasy with additions by Lennox himself and, according to John Hosack in his Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers, ‘the English commissioners were not greatly impressed by the taradiddles of Lennox and they wanted stronger stuff and they got it’.

  On 11 October, Lethington, Buchanan, and James Macgill met with the commissioners without the knowledge of Mary’s advisers. Macgill was clerk to the register of the Privy Council, described as a ‘subtle chicaner and embroiler of the laws’. This group produced the various bonds they had signed agreeing to Bothwell’s ‘purgation’ of the murder, the Ainslie Tavern Bond supporting him, and their agreement to his marrying the queen, claiming that all of this had been done under threat of violence from Bothwell’s 200 arquebusiers. Since Bothwell was ‘purged’ of his treason in carrying off the queen, they claimed that by law he was also purged of all lesser crimes, including the murder of Darnley. This fantastic piece of legal logic-chopping – ‘a fit policy for a detestable fact’ – was followed by the Scots commissioners’ trump card: they showed Elizabeth’s commissioners the Casket Letters.

  This action was completely invalid in legal terms and the letters would have been declared inadmissible in any court. They were ‘closed in a little coffer of silver and gilt, heretofore given by her to Bothwell’, but there was no forensic link with either Mary or Bothwell. There was no method of verification given to the commissioners. Neither Mary nor her commissioners had seen these letters or were given opportunity to confirm or deny their veracity. No comparisons of handwriting were made with known examples of her handwriting. Norfolk, who was making u
p the rules governing the commission as he went along, read the letters and was appalled to discover ‘such inordinate love between her and Bothwell, her loathsomeness and abhorring of her husband that was murdered’. The letters were locked away again in their casket.

  The Casket Letters which so appalled Norfolk have been the subject of intense debate and many books. They consisted of letters and other documents supposedly sent by Mary to Bothwell and kept by him in the celebrated silver casket, only to come into the hands of Morton on 19 June 1567. Thereafter they were the property of Moray. The originals no longer exist, having vanished from history in May 1584, and evidence based on copies translated from the French is extremely doubtful.

  In the first letter – known as the Short Glasgow Letter and, like all the documents, undated and unsigned – the writer, presumably Mary, tells Bothwell that she is bringing Darnley to Craigmillar. It is an affectionate and chatty letter in which she gives good news of the infant James, but complains of the pain in her side. Mary must have written it in Stirling and the note at the foot of the document, ‘from Glasgow, this Saturday morning’ is a later addition, meant to add further veracity to what is almost certainly a genuine document.

  The second letter, however – the Long Glasgow Letter – is altogether another matter. It recounts Mary’s visit to Darnley in January 1567, just before he left for Craigmillar, and varies from the prosaic ‘I thought I should have been killed with his breath’, to the amorous ‘God forgive me, and God knit us together for ever’. While this variance is possible for anyone writing while in love, Mary’s other letters are normally as brisk and as businesslike as she could manage. This reads like a genuine letter of Mary’s but heavily ‘salted’ with interpolations of passion to increase the presumption of her guilt. She shows herself to be disenchanted with Darnley and besotted with Bothwell, but there is no evidence of, or even ambition for, adultery. It is clearly a forgery that uses fragments of truth to stitch together the whole.