Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 2 (of 2)

In accordance with the resolution intimated in the above letter, to seek out and vigorously punish her husband’s murderers, a proclamation was issued upon Wednesday the 12th, immediately after an inquisition had been taken by the Justice-General, offering a reward of two thousand pounds, and “an honest yearly rent,” to whosoever should reveal “the persons, devisers, counsellors, or actual committers of the said mischievous and treasonable murder,” and promising besides to the first revealer, although a partaker of the crime, a free pardon. The same proclamation declared, that as “Almighty God would never suffer so horrible a deed to lie hid, so, before it should remain untried, the Queen’s Majesty, unto whom of all others the case was most grievous, would rather lose life and all.”[61 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 36.] In the mean time, not knowing but that the same traitors who had murdered her husband, might intend a similar fate for herself, Mary removed to the Castle, as a place of greater security than Holyrood Palace. There she remained shut up in a dark chamber, hung with black, till after Darnley’s burial. He lay in the Chapel at Holyrood, from the 12th to the 15th of February. His body having been embalmed, he was then interred in the royal vault, in which King James V., together with his first wife, Magdalene, and his two infant sons, Mary’s brothers, lay. Buchanan, and his follower Laing, have both insisted upon the nocturnal secrecy and indifference with which the funeral ceremony was conducted. “The nobles that were there present,” says Buchanan, “decreed, that a stately and honourable funeral should be made for him; but the Queen ordered it so, that he was carried by private bearers in the night-time, and was buried in no manner of state.” The interpretation to be put upon this insidious passage is, that the Protestant Lords proposed to bury Darnley after the Presbyterian form, and that Mary refused her consent, and, in consequence, only the Catholics attended. “The ceremonies indeed,” says Lesley, “were the fewer, because that the greatest part of the Council were Protestants, and had before interred their own parents without accustomed solemnities.”[62 - Lesley in Anderson, vol. i. p. 23.] That Mary’s calumniators should have insisted upon this circumstance at all, only shows how eager they were to avail themselves of everything which they could pervert to their own purposes. Had Mary wished to act the hypocrite, nothing could have been easier for her than to have made a great parade at Darnley’s funeral.

Bothwell, in the mean time, kept as quiet as possible, attending, as usual, at court, and taking care always to be present at the meetings of the Privy Council. But he had lighted a torch which was not to be extinguished, till it had blazed over Scotland, and kindled his own funeral pyre. On whatever grounds the suspicion had gone abroad, (and it is difficult to say why public attention should so soon have been directed to him as the perpetrator of the late murder, unless we suppose Murray, or some of his other accomplices, to have been now eager to publish his guilt, in order to accomplish his ruin), it is at all events certain, that in a few days after the proclamation for the discovery of the assassins had been issued, a placard was set up at night, on the door of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, in which it was affirmed, that the Earl of Bothwell, together with a Mr James Balfour, a Mr David Chalmers, and a Mr John Spence, were the persons principally concerned in the crime, and that the Queen herself was “assenting thereto.” It might be reasonably concluded, that no notice whatever would be taken of an anonymous paper thus expressed; but the Queen, even although it insultingly accused herself, was so anxious to have the matter of the murder investigated, that she caused another proclamation to be issued, without waiting for the advice of her Privy Council, desiring the author of the placard to divulge his name, and promising that if he could show there was any truth in any part of his averment, he should receive the promised reward.[63 - Keith, p. 368.] A second placard was stuck up in answer, requiring the money to be lodged in honest hands, and three of the Queen’s servants, whom it named, to be put in arrest; and undertaking, as soon as these conditions were complied with, that the author and four friends would discover themselves. This was so palpable an evasion, that it of course met with no attention. To suppose that Government would take upon itself the charge of partiality, and place the public money in what an anonymous writer might consider “honest hands,” was too grossly absurd to have been proposed by any one who really wished to do his country a service.

The circumstance of Bothwell’s name being mentioned in these placards, in conjunction with that of the Queen, probably operated in his favour with Mary. Conscious of her own innocence, she would very naturally suppose that the charge was equally calumnious in regard to him; for if she knew it to be false in one particular, what dependence could she place upon its truth in any other? At the same time, she could not of course see her husband murdered, almost before her eyes, without making various surmises concerning the real author and cause of his death. Her accusers, however, seem to suppose that she ought to have been gifted with an almost miraculous power of discovering the guilty. Only a few days before, every thing had been proceeding smoothly; and she herself, with renovated spirits, was enjoying the returning health and affection of her husband. In a moment the scene was overclouded; her husband was barbarously slain; and all Scotland was in a ferment. Yet around the Queen all wore the same aspect. Murray was living quietly in Fife; her secretary Maitland was proceeding as usual with the official details of public business; the Earl of Morton had not yet returned to Court, and he also was in Fife; the Archbishop of St Andrews was busied in bolstering up the last remains of Catholicism; Athol, Caithness, Huntly, Argyle, Bothwell, Cassils, and Sutherland, were attending their Sovereign, as faithful and attached servants ought. Where then was she to look for the traitor who had raised his hand against her husband’s life and her own happiness? Whom was she to suspect? Was it Murray? – he had left town without any sufficient cause, on the very day of Darnley’s death, and had hated him ever since he put his foot in Scotland. Was it Morton? – he had returned recently from banishment, and that banishment had been the result of Darnley’s treachery, and had not Morton assassinated Rizzio, with far less grounds of offence? Was it Argyle? – the Lennox family had stripped him of some of his possessions, and the King’s death might, perhaps, be the means of restoring them to him. Was it the Hamiltons? – they were the hereditary enemies of the house of Lennox, and Darnley had blasted for ever their hopes of succession to the throne. Was it Huntly? Was it Athol? Was it Bothwell? It was less likely to be any of these, because Darnley had never come into direct collision with them. By what art, or superior penetration, was Mary to make a discovery which was baffling the whole of Scotland? Was she surrounded by the very men who had done the deed, and who used every means to lead her astray from the truth; yet was she to be able to single out the criminal at a glance, and hurl upon him her just indignation?[64 - Laing’s remarks upon this subject, are exceedingly weak. He seems to suppose that Mary, for the mere sake of appearances, ought to have thrown into prison some of her most powerful nobility. He adds, – “If innocent, she must have suspected somebody, and the means of detection were evidently in her hands. The persons who provided or furnished the lodging, – the man to whom the house belonged, – the servants of the Queen, who were intrusted with the keys, – the King’s servants who had previously withdrawn, or were preserved, at his death, – her brother, Lord Robert, who had apprised him of his danger, were the first objects for suspicion or inquiry; and their evidence would have afforded the most ample detection.” Laing does not seem to be aware, that he is here suggesting the very steps which Mary actually took. She had not, indeed, herself examined witnesses, which would have been alike contrary to her general habits and her feelings at the time; but she had ordered the legal authorities to assemble every day, till they ascertained all the facts which could be collected. Nor does Laing seem to remember, that Bothwell had it in his power to exercise over these legal authorities no inconsiderable control, and to prevail upon them, as he in truth did, to garble and conceal several circumstances of importance which came out.]

Worn out by her griefs and her perplexities, her doubts and her fears, Mary’s health began to give way, and her friends prevailed upon her to leave for a short time her confinement in Edinburgh Castle, and visit Seaton House, a country residence of which she was fond, only seven miles off. Lesley, after describing Mary’s melancholy sojourn in the Castle, adds, that she would have “continued a longer time in this lamentable wise, had she not been most earnestly dehorted by the vehement exhortations and persuasions of her Council, who were moved thereto by her physicians informations, declaring to them the great and imminent dangers of her health and life, if she did not in all speed break up and leave that kind of close and solitary life, and repair to some good open and wholesome air; which she did, being thus advised, and earnestly thereto solicited by her said council.”[65 - Killigrew, the English ambassador, sent by Elizabeth to offer her condolence, mentions, that he “found the Queen’s Majesty in a dark chamber so as he could not see her face, but by her words she seemed very doleful.” – Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 209.] She went to Seaton on the 16th of February, accompanied by a very considerable train, among whom were the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, Bothwell, Arbroath, the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Lords Fleming and Livingston, and Secretary Maitland.[66 - Chalmers, vol. i. p. 208.] It was here that a correspondence took place between the Queen and the Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s father, which deserves attention.

In his first letter, the Earl thanked her Majesty for the trouble and labour she took to discover and bring to trial those who were guilty of the “late cruel act;” but as the offenders were not yet known, he beseeched her Highness to assemble, with all convenient diligence, the whole nobility and estates of the realm, that they, acting in conjunction with her Majesty, might take such steps as should seem most likely to make manifest the “bloody and cruel actors of the deed.” This letter was dated the 20th of February 1567. Mary replied to it on the 21st; and in her answer, assured Lennox that in showing him all the pleasure and goodwill in her power, she did only her duty, and that which her natural affection prompted, adding, that on that affection he might always depend, “so long as God gave her life.” As to the assembling of her nobility, she informed him, that shortly before the receipt of his letter, she had desired a Parliament to be summoned, and that as soon as it met, the death of Darnley would be the first subject which it would be called upon to consider. Lennox wrote again on the 26th, to explain, that when he advised her Majesty to assemble her nobility, he did not allude to the holding of a Parliament, which he knew could not be done immediately. But because he had heard of certain placards which had been set up in Edinburgh, in which certain persons were named as the devisers of the murder, he requested that these persons should be apprehended and imprisoned, that the nobility and Council should be assembled, and that the writers of the placards should be required to appear before them, and be confronted with those whom they had accused; and that if they refused to appear, or did not make good their charge, the persons slandered should be exonerated and set at liberty. A proposal so very unconstitutional could not have been made by Lennox, unless misled by the ardour of his paternal feelings, or instigated by some personal enmity towards Bothwell. If Mary had ventured to throw into prison every one accused in an anonymous bill, there is no saying where the abuse might have ended. The most worthless coward might have thus revenged himself upon those he hated; and law and justice would have degenerated into despotism, or civil anarchy. The Queen, therefore, informed Lennox, that although, as she had already written, she had summoned a Parliament, and should lay the matter of the murder before it, it was never her intention to allow it to sleep in the mean time. Her Lords and Council would of course continue to exert themselves, but her whole nobility could not be assembled till the Parliament met. As to his desire, that the persons named in the placards should be apprehended, there had been so many, and so contrary statements made in these placards, that she knew not to which in particular he alluded; and besides, that she could not find herself justified in throwing any of her subjects into prison upon such authority; but that, if he himself would condescend upon the names of such persons as he thought deserved a trial, she would order that trial to take place immediately. She was anxious that Lennox should take this responsibility upon himself, for she had hitherto been kept much in the dark, and was glad to have the assistance of one almost as desirous as herself to come to the truth. She invited him, therefore, in her letter of the 1st of March, to write to her again immediately, with any other suggestion which might occur to him, because she was determined “not to omit any occasion which might clear the matter.” It was the 17th of March before Lennox again addressed the Queen. He thanked her Majesty for her attention to his wishes; he marvelled that the names of the persons upon the placards, against whom the greatest suspicions were entertained, “had been kept from her Majesty’s ears;” and, as she requested it, he now named them himself, putting the Earl of Bothwell first, and several other inferior persons after him. He did not undertake to be their accuser, confessing that he had no evidence of their guilt; but he said he greatly suspected Bothwell, and hoped “her Majesty, now knowing their names, and being a party, as well and more than he was, although he was the father, would take order in the matter according to the weight of the cause.” Mary, who had by this time returned to Edinburgh, wrote to Lennox, the very day after the receipt of his letter, that she had summoned her nobility to come to Edinburgh the first week of April; and that, as soon as they came, the persons named in his letter should “abide and underlie such trial, as by the laws of the realm was usual.” – “They being found culpable,” Mary added, “in any way of that crime and odious fact, named in the placards, and whereof you suspect them, we shall even, according to our former letter, see the condign punishment as vigorously and extremely executed as the weight of that fact deserves; for, indeed, as you write, we esteem ourself a party if we were resolute of the authors.” She further entreated Lennox to come to Edinburgh, that he might be present at the trial, and lend his assistance to it. “You shall there have experience,” she concluded, “of our earnest will and effectuous mind to have an end in this matter, and the authors of so unworthy a deed really punished.”[67 - Vide these Letters in Anderson, vol. i. p. 40, or Keith, p. 369.]

The Queen, having waited anxiously till something should occur which might lead to the detection of the murderers, hoped that a clue to the mystery was now about to be discovered. It was a bold and perhaps almost too strong a measure, to arraign a nobleman so powerful, and apparently so respected as Bothwell, of so serious a crime, upon such vague suspicion; but if Mary in this instance exceeded the due limits of her constituted authority, it was an error which leant to virtue’s side, and the feelings of an insulted Queen and afflicted wife must plead her excuse. Her Privy Council, which she summoned immediately upon the receipt of Lennox’s last letter, and before whom she laid it, passed an act directing the trial of the Earl of Bothwell, and the other suspected persons named by Lennox. The trial was fixed to take place on the 12th day of April 1567; letters were directed to the Earl of Lennox to inform him of it, and proclamations were made in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumbarton, and other places, calling upon all who would accuse Bothwell, or his accomplices, to appear in court on the day appointed.[68 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 50.] The Council, however, would not authorize the imprisonment of the suspected persons, seeing that it was only anonymous placards which had excited that suspicion.

As soon as the Earl of Lennox got intimation of the intended trial, he set out for Edinburgh from his estate in Dumbartonshire. Not choosing to proceed thither direct, in consequence of the enmity which he knew Bothwell must bear to him, he went to Stirling, where it was understood he was engaged in collecting all the evidence in his power. Nor can Bothwell be supposed to have felt very easy, under the prospect of his approaching trial. He counted, however, on the good offices of his friends among the nobility; and having removed all who might have been witnesses against him, and brought into Edinburgh a numerous body of retainers, he resolved to brazen out the accusation with his usual audacity. He even affected to complain that he had not been treated with sufficient fairness; that a paper affixed privately to the door of the Tolbooth had been made the means of involving him in serious trouble; and that, instead of the usual term of forty days, only fifteen had been allowed him to prepare for his defence.[69 - Goodall, vol. i. p. 346, et seq.] He assumed the air, therefore, of an injured and innocent man; and he was well borne out in this character by the countenance he received from most of the Lords then at court. We learn from Killigrew, that twenty days after Bothwell had been placarded, he dined with him at the Earl of Murray’s, who had by this time returned from Fife, in company with Huntly, Argyle, and Lethington.[70 - Chalmers, vol. i. p. 209. The above fact is no proof, as Chalmers alleges, that Murray was connected with the conspirators; but it shows, that whatever his own suspicions or belief were, he did not choose to discountenance Bothwell. Could Mary ever suppose that the godly Earl of Murray would entertain a murderer at his table?]

The day of trial now drew near; but, to her astonishment, Mary received a letter only twenty-four hours before it was to take place, from the Earl of Lennox, who did not exactly see how he was to carry through his accusation, and therefore wished that the case should be postponed. The letter was dated from Stirling, and mentioned two causes which he said would prevent him from coming to Edinburgh; one was sickness, and the other the short time which had been allowed him to prepare for making good his charge. He asked, therefore, that the Queen would imprison the suspected persons, and would delay the trial till he had collected his friends and his proofs.[71 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 52.] This request disappointed Mary exceedingly. She had hurried on the trial as much to gratify Lennox as herself; but she now saw that, in asking for it at all, he had been guided more by the feeling of the moment, than by any rational conviction of its propriety. To postpone it without the consent of the accused, who had by this time made the necessary preparations for their defence, was of course out of the question; and, if the time originally mentioned was too short, why did Lennox not write to that effect, as soon as he received intimation of the day appointed? If she put off the trial now, for any thing she knew it might never come on at all. Her enemies, however, were determined, whatever she did, to discover some cause of complaint; – if she urged it on, they would accuse her of precipitancy; if she postponed it, they would charge her with indifference. Elizabeth, in particular, under the pretence of a mighty anxiety that Mary should do what was most honourable and requisite, insolently suggested that suspicion might attach to herself, unless she complied with the request made by Lennox. “For the love of God, Madam,” she hypocritically and insidiously wrote to Mary, “conduct yourself with such sincerity and prudence, in a case which touches you so nearly, that all the world may have reason to pronounce you innocent of a crime so enormous, which, unless they did, you would deserve to be blotted out from the rank of Princesses, and to become odious even to the vulgar, rather than see which, I would wish you an honourable sepulchre.”[72 - Robertson – Appendix to vol. i. No. XIX.] Just as if any one did suspect Mary, or as if any monarch in Christendom would have dared to hint the possibility of her being an adulterous murderess, except her jealous rival Elizabeth, pining in the chagrined malevolence of antiquated virginity. The real motives which dictated this epistle became the more apparent, when we learn that it was not written till the 8th of April, and could not at the very soonest reach Edinburgh till the morning of the very day on which the trial was to take place, and probably not till after it was over. The truth is, the very moment she heard of Darnley’s death, Elizabeth had eagerly considered in her own mind the possibility of involving “her good sister” in the guilt attached to those who had murdered him, and was now the very first who openly attempted to lead the thoughts of the Scottish Queen’s subjects into that channel; – she was the very first who commenced laying the train which produced in the end so fatal a catastrophe.

On Saturday, the 12th of April 1567, a Justiciary Court was held in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, for the trial of the Earl of Bothwell. The Lord High Justice the Earl of Argyle presided, attended by four assessors, or legal advisers, two of whom, Mr James MacGill and Mr Henry Balnaves, were Senators of the College of Justice; the third was Robert Pitcairn, Commendator of Dumfermlin, and the fourth was Lord Lindsay. The usual preliminary formalities having been gone through, the indictment was read, in which Bothwell was accused of being “art and part of the cruel, odious, treasonable, and abominable slaughter and murder, of the umwhile the Right High and Mighty Prince the King’s Grace, dearest spouse for the time to our Sovereign Lady the Queen’s Majesty.”[73 - Anderson, vol. ii. p. 103.] He was then called as defender on the one side, and Matthew Earl of Lennox, and all others the Queen’s lieges, who wished to pursue in the matter, on the other. Bothwell appeared immediately at the bar, supported by the Earl of Morton, and two gentlemen who were to act as his advocates. But the Earl of Lennox, or other pursuers, though frequently called, did not appear. At length Robert Cunningham, one of Lennox’s servants, stepped forward, and produced a writing in the shape of a protest, which his master had authorized him to deliver. It stated, that the cause of the Earl’s absence was the shortness of time, and the want of friends and retainers to accompany him to the place of trial; and it therefore objected to the decision of any assize which might be held that day. In reply to this protest, the letters of the Earl of Lennox to the Queen, in which he desired that a short and summary process might be taken against the suspected persons, were produced and read; and it was maintained by the Earl of Bothwell’s counsel, that the trial ought to proceed immediately, according to the laws of the realm, and the wish of the party accused. The judges, having heard both sides, were of opinion that Bothwell had a right to insist upon the trial going on. A jury was therefore chosen, which does not seem to have consisted of persons particularly friendly to the Earl. It was composed of the Earls of Rothes, Caithness, and Cassils, Lord John Hamilton, son to the Duke of Chatelherault, Lords Ross, Semple, Herries, Oliphant, and Boyd, the Master of Forbes, Gordon of Lochinvar, Cockburn of Langton, Sommerville of Cambusnethan, Mowbray of Barnbougle, and Ogilby of Boyne. Bothwell pled not guilty; and, no evidence appearing against him, the jury retired, and were out of court for some time. When they returned, their verdict, delivered by the Earl of Caithness, whom they had chosen their chancellor, unanimously acquitted Bothwell of the slaughter of the King.[74 - Anderson, vol. ii. p. 104, et seq. – and Keith, p. 375, et seq.]

Immediately after his acquittal, Bothwell, as was customary in those times, published a challenge, in which he offered to fight hand to hand, with any man who would avow that he still suspected him to have had a share in the King’s death; but nobody ventured openly to accept it.[75 - Anderson, vol. ii. p. 157.] As far, therefore, as appearances were concerned, he was now able to stand upon higher ground than ever, and boldly to declare, that whosoever was guilty, he had been found innocent. Accordingly, at the Parliament which met on the 14th of April, he appeared in great state, with banners flying, and a numerous body of retainers; and in compliment to him, an act was passed, in which it was set forth, that “by a licentious abuse lately come into practice within this realm, there had been placards and bills and tickets of defamation, set up under silence of night, in diverse public places, to the slander, reproach and infamy of the Queen’s majesty and diverse of the nobility; which disorder, if it were suffered to remain longer unpunished, would redound not only to the great hurt and detriment of all noblemen in their good fame, private calumniators having by this means liberty to backbite them, but also the common weal would be disturbed, and occasion of quarrel taken upon false and untrue slander;” – it was therefore made criminal to put up any such placards, or to abstain from destroying them as soon as they were seen. At this Parliament, there was also an act passed on the subject of religion, which is deserving of notice. “The same Queen,” says Chalmers, “who is charged by Robertson with attempting to suppress the Reformed discipline, with the aid of the Bishops, passed a law, renouncing all foreign jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs, – giving toleration to all her subjects to worship God in their own way, – and engaging to give some additional privileges.” This is one of the most satisfactory answers which can be given to the supposition, that Mary was in any way a party in the Continental persecution of the Hugonots.

The Earl of Murray was not present either at this Parliament, or the trial which immediately preceded it. Actuated by motives which do not exactly appear, and which historians have not been able satisfactorily to explain, he obtained permission from Mary, in the beginning of April, to leave Scotland, and, on the 9th, he set off for France, visiting London and the Court of Elizabeth on his way. There is something very unaccountable, in a man of Murray’s ambition thus withdrawing from the scene of action, just at the very time when he must have been anticipating political events of the last importance. His conduct can be rationally explained, only by supposing, that it was suggested by his systematic caution. He was not now, nor had he ever been since his rebellion, Mary’s exclusive and all-powerful Prime Minister; – yet he could not bear to fill a second place; and he knew that, if any civil war occurred, the eyes of many would immediately be turned towards him. If he remained in the country, he would necessarily be obliged to take a side as soon as the dissensions broke out, and might find himself again associated with the losing party; but, if he kept at a distance for a while, he could throw his influence, when he chose, into the heaviest scale, and thus gain an increase of popularity and power. These were probably the real motives of his present conduct, and, judging by the result, no one can say that he reasoned ill. That he was aware of every thing that was about to happen, and that he urged Bothwell forward into a net, from whose meshes he knew he could never be disengaged, as has been maintained so positively by Whittaker, Chalmers, and others, does not appear. The peremptoriness with which these writers have asserted the truth of this unfounded theory, is the leading defect of their works, and has tended to weaken materially the chain of argument by which they would otherwise have established Mary’s innocence. That Bothwell, as they over and over again repeat, was the mere “cat’s-paw” of Murray, is a preposterous belief, and argues a decided want of knowledge of Bothwell’s real character. But supposing that he had been so, nothing could be more chimerical than the idea, that after having made him murder Darnley, Murray would wish to see him first acquitted of that murder, and then married to the Queen, for the vague chance that both might be deposed, and he himself called to succeed them as Regent. “Would it ever enter into the imagination of a wise man,” asks Robertson, “first to raise his rival to supreme power, in hopes that, afterwards, he should find some opportunity of depriving him of that power? The most adventurous politician never hazarded such a dangerous experiment; the most credulous folly never trusted such an uncertain chance.” Murray probably winked at the murder, because he foresaw that it was likely to lead to Bothwell’s ruin. When he left the country, he may not have been altogether aware of Bothwell’s more ambitious objects; but if he was, he would still have gone, for his staying could not have prevented their attempted execution; and if they induced a civil war, whosoever lost, he might contrive to be a gainer. He acted selfishly and unpatriotically, but not with that deliberate villany with which he has been charged.

CHAPTER V.

BOTHWELL’S SEIZURE OF THE QUEEN’S PERSON, AND SUBSEQUENT MARRIAGE TO HER

Every thing appeared now to be going smoothly with Bothwell, and he had only to take one step more to reach the very height of his ambition. Mary’s hand and Scotland’s crown were the objects he had all along kept steadily in view. The latter was to be obtained only through the medium of the former, and hence his reason for removing Darnley, and willingly submitting to a trial, from which he saw he would come off triumphantly. The question he now anxiously asked himself was, whether it was likely that Mary could be persuaded to accept him as a husband. He was aware, that in the unsettled state of the country, she must feel that, unless married to a person of strength and resolution, she would hardly be able to keep her turbulent subjects in order; and he was of opinion, that it was not improbable she would now cast her eyes upon one of her own nobility, as she could no where else find a king who would be so agreeable to the national prejudices. Yet he had a lurking consciousness, that he himself would not be the object of her choice. She had of late, it was true, given him a considerable share in the administration; but he felt that she had done so, more as a matter of state policy, and to preserve a balance of power between himself and her other ministers, than from any personal regard. The most assiduous attentions which it was in his power to pay her, had failed to kindle in her bosom any warmer sentiment; for though she esteemed him for his fidelity as an officer of state, his manners and habits as a man, were too coarse and dissolute to please one of so much refinement, sensibility and gentleness, as Mary Stuart. Bothwell therefore became secretly convinced that it would be necessary for him to have recourse to fraud, and perhaps to force. Had Mary loved him, their marriage would have been a matter of mutual agreement, and would have taken place whenever circumstances seemed to make it mutually advisable; but as it was, artifice and audacity were to be his weapons; nor were they wielded by an unskilful hand.

The Parliament which met on the 14th of April 1567, continued to sit only till the 19th of the same month; and on the evening of the following day, Bothwell invited nearly all the Lords who were then in Edinburgh to a great supper, in a tavern kept by a person of the name of Ainsly, from which circumstance, the entertainment was afterwards known by the name of “Ainsly’s Supper.” After plying his guests with wine, he produced a document, which he had himself previously drawn up, and which he requested them all to sign. It was in the form of a bond; and in the preamble, after expressing their conviction that James Earl of Bothwell, Lord Hales, Crichton, and Liddisdale, Great Admiral of Scotland, and Lieutenant to the Queen over all the Marches, had been grossly slandered in being suspected of having a share in the murder of Darnley, and that his innocence had been fully and satisfactorily proved at his late trial, they bound themselves, as they should answer to God, that whatever person or persons should afterwards renew such calumniation, should be proceeded against by them with all diligence and perseverance. After this introduction, evidently meant to aid in removing any lingering suspicion which the Queen might still entertain of Bothwell’s guilt, the bond went on to state, that, “Moreover, weighing and considering the present time, and how our Sovereign, the Queen’s Majesty, is destitute of a husband, in which solitary state the common weal of this realm may not permit her Highness to continue and endure, but at some time her Highness, in appearance, may be inclined to yield unto a marriage, – therefore, in case the former affectionate and hearty services of the said Earl (Bothwell), done to her Majesty from time to time, and his other good qualities and behaviour, may move her Majesty so far to humble herself as, preferring one of her own native born subjects unto all foreign princes, to take to husband the said Earl, we, and every one of us under subscribing, upon our honours and fidelity, oblige ourselves, and promise, not only to further, advance, and set forward the marriage to be solemnized and completed betwixt her Highness and the said noble Lord, with our votes, counsel, fortification and assistance, in word and deed, at such time as it shall please her Majesty to think it convenient, and as soon as the laws shall permit it to be done; but, in case any should presume, directly or indirectly, openly, or under whatsoever colour or pretence, to hinder, hold back, or disturb the same marriage, we shall, in that behalf, hold and repute the hinderers, adversaries, or disturbers thereof, as our common enemies and evil-willers; and notwithstanding the same, take part with, and fortify the said Earl to the said marriage, so far as it may please our said Sovereign Lady to allow; and therein shall spend and bestow our lives and goods against all that live or die, as we shall answer to God, and upon our own fidelities and conscience; and in case we do the contrary, never to have reputation or credit in no time hereafter, but to be accounted unworthy and faithless traitors.”[76 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 107; and Keith, p. 381.]

This bond having been read and considered, all the nobles present, with the exception of the Earl of Eglinton, who went away unperceived, put their signatures to it. “Among the subscribers,” says Robertson, “we find some who were the Queen’s chief confidents, others who were strangers to her councils, and obnoxious to her displeasure; some who faithfully adhered to her through all the vicissitudes of her fortune, and others who became the principal authors of her sufferings; some passionately attached to the Romish superstition, and others zealous advocates for the Protestant faith. No common interest can be supposed to have united men of such opposite interests and parties, in recommending to their Sovereign a step so injurious to her honour, and so fatal to her peace. This strange coalition was the effect of much artifice, and must be considered as the boldest and most masterly stroke of Bothwell’s address.” It is, indeed, impossible to conceive that such a bond was so numerously subscribed on the mere impulse of the moment. Before obtaining so solemn a promise of support from so many, he must have had recourse to numerous machinations, and have brought into action a thousand interests. He must, in the first place, have influenced Morton, his brother-in-law Huntly, Argyle, and others; and having secured these, he would use them as agents to bring over as many more. The rest, finding that so formidable a majority approved of the bond, would not have the courage to stand out, for they would fear the consequences if Bothwell ever became king. Among the names attached to this bond are those of the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Bishops of Aberdeen, Dumblane, Brechin, and Ross, the Earls of Huntly, Argyle, Morton, Cassils, Sutherland, Errol, Crawfurd, Caithness, and Rothes, and the Lords Boyd, Glamis, Ruthven, Semple, Herries, Ogilvie, and Fleming.[77 - Keith, p. 382. – There are extant two lists of the names of the subscribers, and these differ in one or two particulars from each other; but the one was only a list given to Cecil from memory by John Reid, Buchanan’s clerk; the other is a document authenticated by the subscription of Sir James Balfour, who was at the time Clerk of Register and Privy Council. The chief difference between these two copies is, that Reid’s list contains the name of the Earl of Murray, though on the 20th of April he was out of the realm of Scotland. It has been supposed that the bond, though not produced, might have been drawn up some time before, and that Murray put his name to it before going away. This is possible, but, considering Murray’s cautious character, not probable. The point does not seem one of great importance, though by those who are anxious to make out a case against Murray rather than against Bothwell, it is deemed necessary to insist upon it at length. Perhaps Bothwell forged Murray’s signature, to give his bond greater weight both with the nobles and with the Queen; although one name more or less could not make much difference either to her or them.] Here was an overwhelming and irresistible force, enlisted by Bothwell in his support. The sincerity of many of the subscribers he probably had good reason to doubt; but what he wanted was to be able to present himself before Mary armed with an argument which she would find it difficult to evade, and if she yielded to it, his object would be gained. He was afraid, however, to lay the bond openly and fairly before her; he dreaded that her aversion to a matrimonial connexion with him might weigh more powerfully than even the almost unanimous recommendation of her nobility. But having already gone so far, he was resolved that a woman’s will should not be any serious obstacle to his wishes.

The whole affair of the supper was, for a short time, kept concealed from Mary; and though Bothwell’s intentions and wishes began to be pretty generally talked of throughout the country, she was the very last to hear of them. When the Lord Herries ventured on one occasion to come upon the subject with the Queen, and mentioned the report as one which had gained considerable credit, “her Majesty marvelled,” says Melville, “to hear of such rumours without meaning, and said that there was no such thing in her mind.” Only a day or two after the bond was signed, she left Edinburgh to visit the prince her son, who was then in the keeping of the Earl of Mar at Stirling. Before she went, Bothwell ventured to express his hopes to her, but she gave him an answer little agreeable to his ambition. “The bond being once obtained,” Mary afterwards wrote to France, “Bothwell began afar off to discover his intention, and to essay if he might by humble suit purchase our good will.” – “But finding an answer nothing correspondent to his desire, and casting from before his eyes all doubts that men use commonly to revolve with themselves in similar enterprises, – the backwardness of our own mind – the persuasions which our friends or his enemies might cast out for his hindrance – the change of their minds whose consent he had already obtained, with many other incidents which might occur to frustrate him of his expectation, – he resolved with himself to follow forth his good fortune, and, all respect laid apart, either to tine all in one hour, or to bring to pass that thing he had taken in hand.”[78 - Keith, p. 390.] This is a clear and strong statement, describing exactly the feelings both of Bothwell and Mary at this period.

The Earl did not long dally on the brink of his fate. Ascertaining that Mary was to return from Stirling on the 24th, he left Edinburgh with a force of nearly 1000 men well mounted, under the pretence of proceeding to quell some riots on the Borders. But he had only gone a few miles southward, when he turned suddenly to the west, and riding with all speed to Linlithgow, waited for Mary at a bridge over the Almond about a mile from that town. The Queen soon made her appearance with a small train, which was easily overpowered, and which indeed did not venture to offer any resistance. The Earl of Huntly, Secretary Maitland, and Sir James Melville, were the only persons of rank who were with the Queen; and they were carried captive along with her; but the rest of her attendants were dismissed. Bothwell himself seized the bridle of Mary’s horse, and turning off the road to Edinburgh, conducted her with all speed to his Castle at Dunbar.[79 - Keith, p. 383. – Melville’s Memoirs, p. 177. – Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 106 and 356.]

The leading features of this forcible abduction, or ravishment, as it is commonly called by the Scottish historians, have been greatly misrepresented by Robertson and Laing. Both of these writers mention, as a matter of surprise, that Mary yielded without struggle or regret, to the insult thus offered her. That she yielded without struggle, – that is to say, without any attempt at physical resistance, is exceedingly probable; for when was a party of a dozen persons, riding without suspicion of danger, able to offer resistance to a thousand armed troopers? There is little wonder that they were surrounded and carried off, “without opposition,” as Laing expresses it; for by a thousand soldiers, a dozen Sir William Wallaces would have been made prisoners “without opposition.” But the very number which Bothwell brought with him, and which even Mary’s worst enemies allow was not less than six hundred, proves that there was no collusion between him and the Queen. Had it been only a pretended violence, to afford a decent excuse for Mary’s subsequent conduct, fifty horsemen would have done as well as a thousand; but Bothwell knew the Queen’s spirit, and the danger of the attempt, and came prepared accordingly. But it is urged, that, if displeased, she must have expressed her resentment to those who were near her. And there is certainly no reason to suppose that she was silent, though neither Huntly nor Lethington would be much influenced by her complaints, for they had both secretly attached themselves to Bothwell. Sir James Melville, who was more faithful to the Queen, was dismissed from Dunbar the day after her capture, lest she should have employed him to solicit aid for her relief, as she had formerly done on the occasion of the murder of Rizzio.[80 - Melville, p. 177.] Mary herself, in the letter already quoted, sets the matter beyond dispute, for she there gives a long and interesting detail, both of her own indignation, and of the arts used by Bothwell to appease it.[81 - Keith, p. 390.] Nothing, indeed, can be more contrary to reason, than to suppose this abduction a mere device, mutually arranged to deceive the country. If Mary had really loved Bothwell and was anxious to marry him, it would have been the very last thing she would have wished to be believed, whether she thought him guilty of Darnley’s murder or not, that she gave him her hand, after he had been publicly acquitted, and all her principal nobility had declared in his favour, only in consequence of a treasonable act, committed by him against her person. If she hoped to live in peace and happiness with him, why should she have allowed it to be supposed, that she acted from necessity, rather than from choice, or that she yielded to a seducer, what she would not give to a faithful subject? This pre-arranged ravishment, would evidently defeat its own purpose, and would serve as a pretence suggested by Mary herself, for every malcontent in Scotland to take up arms against her and Bothwell. It was a contrivance directly opposed to all sound policy, and certainly very unlike the open and straight-forward manner in which she usually went about the accomplishment of a favourite purpose. “But one object of the seizure,” says Laing, “was the vindication of her precipitate marriage.” Where was the necessity for a precipitate marriage at all? Was Mary so eager to become the wife of Bothwell, with whom, according to the veracious Buchanan, she had long been indulging an illicit intercourse, that she could not wait the time required by common decency to wear her widow’s garb for Darnley? Was he barbarously murdered by her consent on the 9th of February, on the express condition that she was to have Bothwell in her arms as her husband on the 15th of May? Was she, indeed, so entirely lost to every sense of female delicacy and public shame, – so utterly dead to her own interests and reputation, – or so very scrupulous about continuing a little longer her unlicensed amours, that, rather than suffer the delay of a few months, she would thus run the risk of involving herself in eternal infamy? Even supposing that she was perfectly assured the artifice would remain undiscovered, – was her conscience so hardened, her feelings so abandoned, and her reason so perverted, as to enable her to anticipate gratification from a marriage thus hastily concluded, with so little queenly dignity, or female modesty, and with a man who was not yet divorced from his own wife? There is but one answer which can be given to these questions, and that answer comes instinctively to the lips, from every generous heart, and well-regulated mind.

For ten days Bothwell kept Mary in Dunbar “sequestrated,” in her own words, “from the company of all her servants, and others of whom she might have asked counsel, and seeing those upon whose counsel and fidelity she had before depended, already yielded to his appetite, and so left alone, as it were, a prey to him.”[82 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 97. – Keith, p. 390.] Closely shut up as she was, she long hoped that some of her more loyal nobles would exert themselves to procure her deliverance. But not one of them stirred in her behalf, for Bothwell was at this time dreaded or courted by all of them, and finding the person of the Queen thus left at his disposal, he did not hesitate to declare to her, that he would make her his wife, “who would, or who would not, – yea, whether she would herself or not.”[83 - Melville, p. 197.] Mary, in reply, charged him with the foulest ingratitude; and his conduct, she told him, grieved her the more, because he was one “of whom she doubted less than of any subject she had.”[84 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 95.] But he was not now to be driven from his purpose. He spent his whole time with Mary; and his whole conversation was directed to the one great object he had in view. He called to his aid every variety of passion; sometimes flinging himself at her feet, and imploring her to pardon a deed which the violence of his love had made imperative; and, at other times, giving vent to a storm of rage, and threatening dishonour, imprisonment, and death, if she hesitated longer to comply with his demands. Mary herself is the best chronicler of these distracting scenes, although it must be observed, that she did not write of them till Bothwell had achieved his purpose; and consequently, making a virtue of necessity, she was anxious to place them in as favourable a point of view as possible. “Being at Dunbar,” she says, “we reproached him the honour he had to be so esteemed of us, the favour we had always shewn him, his ingratitude, with all other remonstrances which might serve to rid us out of his hands. Albeit we found his doing rude, yet were his answer and words but gentle, that he would honour and serve us, and would noways offend us, asking pardon of the boldness he had taken to convoy us to one of our own houses, whereunto he was driven by force, as well as constrained by love, the vehemency whereof had made him to set apart the reverence, which naturally, as our subject, he bore to us, as also for safety of his own life. And then began to make us a discourse of his whole life, how unfortunate he had been to find men his unfriends whom he had never offended; how their malice never ceased to assault him on all occasions, albeit unjustly; what calumnies they had spread of him, touching the odious violence perpetrated in the person of the King our late husband; how unable he was to save himself from the conspiracies of his enemies, whom he could not know by reason that every man professed himself outwardly to be his friend; and yet he found such hidden malice that he could not find himself in surety, unless he were insured of our favour to endure without alteration; and on no other assurance of our favour could he rely, unless it would please us to do him that honour to take him to husband, protesting always that he would seek no other sovereignty but as formerly, to serve and obey us all the days of our life; joining thereunto all the honest language that could be used in such a case.”[85 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 95.] But these arguments were of no avail, and he was obliged to go a step farther. “When he saw us like to reject all his suit and offers,” says Mary, “in the end he shewed us how far he had proceeded with our whole nobility and principals of our estates, and what they had promised him under their handwriting. If we had cause then to be astonished, we leave to the judgment of the King and Queen, (of France), our uncle, and our other friends.” “Many things we resolved with ourself, but never could find an outgait (deliverance); and yet he gave us little space to meditate with ourself, ever pressing us with continual and importunate suit.” “As by a bravade in the beginning, he had won the first point, so ceased he never till, by persuasions and importunate suit, accompanied not the less with force, he has finally driven us to end the work begun, at such time, and in such form, as he thought might best serve his turn; wherein we cannot dissemble that he has used us otherwise than we would have wished, or yet have deserved at his hand; having more respect to content them, by whose consent granted to him beforehand, he thinks he has obtained his purpose, than regarding our contentation, or weighing what was convenient for us.”[86 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 97. et seq. There is something so peculiar in the last passage quoted above, and Bothwell’s conduct was so despotic, during the whole of the time he had Mary’s person at his disposal, that Whittaker’s supposition seems by no means unlikely, that the force to which Mary alludes was of the most culpable and desperate kind. “Throughout the whole of the Queen’s own account of these transactions,” he observes, “the delicacy of the lady, and the prudence of the wife, are in a continual struggle with facts, – willing to lay open the whole for her own vindication, yet unable to do it for her own sake and her husband’s, and yet doing it in effect.” Vide Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 112. et seq. – Melville is still more explicit upon the subject, p. 177. And in a letter from “the Lords of Scotland,” written to the English ambassador, six weeks after the ravishment, it is expressly said, that “the Queen was led captive, and by fear, force, and (as by many conjectures may be well suspected) other extraordinary and more unlawful means, compelled to become the bedfellow to another wife’s husband.” – See the letter in Keith p. 418.]

Bothwell had kept Mary at Dunbar for nearly a week, when, in order to make it be believed that her residence there was voluntary, he ventured to call together a few of the Lords of the Privy Council on whom he could depend, and on the 29th of April there was one unimportant act of Council passed, concerning provisions for the Royal Household. From the influence he at that time possessed over the Scottish nobles, Bothwell might have held a Privy Council every day at Dunbar, and whether he allowed the Queen, pro forma, to be present or not, nobody would have objected to any thing he proposed.[87 - Vide Laing, vol. i. p. 86, and vol. ii. p. 105, and Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 116.] In the meantime, mutual actions of divorce were raised by Bothwell and his wife, the Lady Jane Gordon, and being hurried through the courts, only a few days elapsed before they were obtained.[88 - Keith, p. 383.] This is another circumstance which tends to prove, that Bothwell’s seizure of Mary was not collusive; for had it been so, she would certainly never have allowed it to take place till these actions had been decided.

The die was now cast; Mary was in Bothwell’s fangs, and her ruin was completed. On the 3d of May 1567, he thought it expedient to conduct her, closely guarded, from Dunbar to the Castle of Edinburgh. When they came near the town, he desired his followers to conceal their arms, lest it should be supposed that he was still keeping the Queen an unwilling prisoner. But the truth broke out in spite of his precautions; for at the foot of the Canongate, Mary was about to turn her horse towards Holyrood, upon which Bothwell himself seized the bridle, and conducted her up the High Street to the Castle, which was then in the keeping of Sir James Balfour, who was entirely subservient to Bothwell.[89 - History of James VI., p. 10. – Buchanan’s History, Book XVII. – Keith, p. 384. – Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 120.] He was now resolved that his marriage should be consummated with as little delay as possible, having wrung a consent to it from the unfortunate Queen, by means of which, it is impossible to think without shuddering. In the state to which she was reduced, she had no alternative; she chose the least of two evils, in becoming, with an aching heart, the wife of her ravisher. Yet it would appear, that she did not herself take a single step to advance the matter. Three days after she arrived at the Castle, a person of the name of Thomas Hepburn, (probably a relation of the Hepburn who was engaged with Bothwell in Darnley’s murder), was sent to Craig, Knox’s colleague in the church of St Giles, to desire that he would proclaim the banns of matrimony betwixt the Queen and Bothwell. But the clergyman refused, because Hepburn brought no authority from the Queen.[90 - “I plainly refused,” says Craig, in his account of this matter, which still remains among the records of the General Assembly, “because he (Hepburn) had not her handwriting; and also the constant bruit that my Lord had both ravished her and kept her in captivity.” – Anderson, vol. ii. p. 299.] Neither Mary nor Bothwell were so ignorant as to suppose that any minister would publish banns without receiving a written or personal order; and Hepburn would hardly have been sent on so idle an errand, had not the Queen been still reluctant to surrender herself to one whose person and manners she had never liked, and who was now so odious to her. But not a voice was raised, – not a sword was drawn to protect her, – and what resource was left? In a day or two, the Lord Justice Clerk conveyed a written mandate to Craig; but the preacher, had still some scruples: not thinking such a marriage agreeable to the laws either of God or man, he insisted upon seeing the Queen and Bothwell, before he gave intimation of it. He was admitted to a meeting of the Privy Council, where Bothwell presided, but at which Mary does not seem to have been present. “In the Council,” says Craig, “I laid to his charge the law of adultery, the ordinance of the kirk, the law of ravishing, the suspicion of collusion betwixt him and his wife, the sudden divorcement and proclaiming within the space of four days, and lastly, the suspicion of the King’s death, which his marriage would confirm; but he answered nothing to my satisfaction.” – “Therefore, upon Sunday, after I had declared what they had done, and how they would proceed, whether we would or not, I took heaven and earth to witness, that I abhorred and detested that marriage, because it was odious and scandalous to the world; and seeing the best part of the realm did approve it, either by flattery or by their silence, I desired the faithful to pray earnestly, that God would turn it to the comfort of this realm.”[91 - Anderson, vol. ii. p. 280.]

It was not till after the banns had been twice proclaimed, that Bothwell allowed the Queen, on the 12th of May, to come forth from the Castle for the first time. He conducted her himself to the Court of Session, where he persuaded her to affix her signature to two deeds of great importance to him. The bond he had obtained from the nobles, recommending him as a husband to the Queen, has been already fully described; but when the Lords put their names to it, they were not aware that Bothwell would, in consequence, conceive himself entitled to have recourse to violence; and they now became alarmed lest the Queen should imagine that they were themselves implicated in an act which many of them, though they did not yet venture to express their sentiments, viewed with disgust. By way of precaution, therefore, they required Bothwell to obtain, from her Majesty, a written promise, that she would not at any time hereafter impute to them as a crime the consent they had given to the bond. Here is another argument against the idea of collusion between Mary and Bothwell; for in that case, so far from having any thing to fear, Bothwell’s friends would have known that nothing could have recommended them more to Mary, than the countenance they gave his marriage; and if, for the sake of appearances, she wished it to be believed that she was forced into it, she would certainly have carefully avoided recording her approval of the previous encouragement given to Bothwell by her nobility. Mary’s calumniators are thus placed between the horns of a dilemma. If she did not consent to the abduction, then the marriage was not one of her choice; if she did, then why defeat the only object she had in view, which was to deceive her subjects, by publicly declaring that the Lords who signed the bond had done nothing to displease her? and why, moreover, should such a declaration have been thought necessary, either by Bothwell or his friends? The deed which Mary signed in the Court of Session, and which, taking this view of it, is worthy of every attention, was subjoined to a copy of the bond, and expressed in these words: “The Queen’s Majesty having seen and considered the bond above written, promises, on the word of a Princess, that she, nor her successors, shall never impute as crime or offence, to any of the persons subscribers thereof, their consent and subscription to the matter above written therein contained; nor that they nor their heirs shall never be called nor accused therefor; nor yet shall the said consent or subscribing be any derogation or spot to their honour, or they esteemed undutiful subjects for doing thereof, notwithstanding whatever thing can tend or be alleged in the contrary. In witness whereof, her Majesty has subscribed the same with her own hand.”[92 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 111. – Keith, p. 384.]

On the same day, Mary granted a formal pardon to Bothwell, before all the Lords of Session and others, for his late conduct, in taking her to, and holding her in Dunbar, “contrary to her Majesty’s will and mind,” which is also very much against the supposition of collusion. It states, – “That albeit her Highness was commoved for the present time of her taking at the said Earl Bothwell; yet for his good behaviour, and thankful service in time past, and for more thankful service in time coming, her Highness stands content with the said Earl, and has forgiven and forgives him, and all others his accomplices, being with him in company at the time, all hatred conceived by her Majesty, for the taking and imprisoning of her, at the time foresaid.”[93 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 87.]

All these preparations having been made, Mary at length became the wife of Bothwell, after he had been previously created Duke of Orkney. Even in the celebration of the marriage ceremony, the despotic power which Bothwell now exercised over the unhappy and passive Queen, is but too evident. She, who had never before failed in a single instance, to observe the rites of her own faith, however tolerant she was to those who professed a different persuasion, was now obliged, in opposition to all the prejudices of education, and all the principles of her religion, to submit to be married according to the form of the Protestant church. Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, who, though holding an Episcopal order, had lately renounced that heresy, and joined the Reformers, presided on the occasion. The marriage took place, not at mass in the Queen’s chapel, but in the Council Chamber, where, after a sermon had been delivered, the company separated, with little demonstrations of mirth.[94 - History of James VI. p. 10. – Keith, p. 386. – Melville, p. 78. – Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 127. et seq. Upon this subject, Lord Hailes has judiciously remarked: – “After Mary had remained a fortnight under the power of a daring profligate adventurer, few foreign princes would have solicited her hand. Some of her subjects might still have sought that honour, but her compliance would have been humiliating beyond measure. It would have left her at the mercy of a capricious husband, – it would have exposed her to the disgrace of being reproached in some sullen hour, for the adventure at Dunbar. Mary was so situated, at this critical period, that she was reduced to this horrid alternative, either to remain in a friendless and most hazardous celibacy, or to yield her hand to Bothwell.” —Remarks on the History of Scotland, p. 204.] Melville, who came to Court the same evening, mentions some particulars, which show how the dissolute Bothwell chose to spend his time: – “When I came to the Court,” he says, “I found my Lord Duke of Orkney, sitting at his supper. He said I had been a great stranger, desiring me to sit down and sup with him. The Earl of Huntly, the Justice-Clerk, and diverse others, were sitting at the table with him. I said that I had already supped. Then he called for a cup of wine, and drank to me, that I might pledge him like a Dutchman. He made me drink it out to grow fatter, ‘for,’ said he, ‘the zeal of the commonweal has eaten ye up, and made ye lean.’ I answered, that every little member should serve to some use; but that the care of the commonweal appertained most to him, and the rest of the nobility, who should be as fathers to it. Then he said, I well knew he would find a pin for every bore. Then he discoursed of gentlewomen, speaking such filthy language, that I left him, and passed up to the Queen, who was very glad at my coming.”[95 - Melville, p. 178.]

Such was the man who was now inseparably joined to Mary, and who, by fraud and villany, had made himself, for the time, so absolute in Scotland, that her possession of the throne of her ancestors, nay, her very life, seems to have depended upon his will and pleasure.

CHAPTER VI.

THE REBELLION OF THE NOBLES, THE MEETING AT CARBERRY HILL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

Mary’s first step, after her marriage, was to send, at her husband’s desire, ambassadors into England and France, to explain to these Courts the motives by which she had been actuated. The instructions given to these ambassadors, as Buchanan has justly remarked, and after him the French historians De Thou and Le Clerc, were drawn up with much art. They came, no doubt, from the pen of Bothwell’s friend, Secretary Maitland; and they recapitulate so forcibly all the Earl’s services, both to Mary and her mother, enlarge so successfully upon his influence in Scotland, his favour with the nobility, and their anxiety that he should become King; and finally, colour so dexterously his recent conduct, that after their perusal, one is almost induced to believe that the Queen could not have chosen a better husband in all Christendom. Of course, Mary would herself see them before they were despatched, as they are written in her name; and the consent she must have given to the attempt made in them to screen her husband from blame, confirms the belief that she did not plan, along with him, the scheme of the abduction; for she would, in that case, have represented, in a much stronger light, the consequences necessarily arising from it. If she had consented to such a scheme, it must have been with the view of making it be believed that her marriage with a suspected murderer (suspected at least by many, though probably not by Mary herself), was a matter of necessity; and she could never have been so inconsistent as labour to convince her foreign friends, that though violence had been used in the first instance, she had ultimately seen the propriety of voluntarily becoming Bothwell’s wife. But it was her sincere and laudable desire, now that she was married, to shelter her husband as much as possible; and, conscious of her own innocence, she did not anticipate that the measures she took in his behalf might be turned against herself. It must indeed be distinctly remembered, in tracing the lamentable events which followed this marriage, that though force and fraud were not perhaps employed on the very day of its consummation, yet that they had previously done their utmost, and that it was not the Queen who surrendered herself to Bothwell, but Bothwell who forced himself upon the Queen.

Though Mary attempted to conceal her misery from the prying eye of the world, they who had an opportunity of being near her person easily saw that her peace of mind was wrecked. So little love existed either on the one side or the other, that even the days usually set aside for nuptial rejoicings, were marked only by suspicions and wranglings. They remained together at Holyrood from the 15th of May to the 7th of June; but during the whole of that time, Bothwell was so alarmed, lest she should yet break from him, and assert her independence, that he kept her “environed with a continual guard of two hundred harquebuziers, as well day as night, wherever she went;” – and whoever wished an audience with her, “it behoved him, before he could come to her presence, to go through the ranks of harquebuziers, under the mercy of a notorious tyrant, – a new example, wherewith this nation had never been acquainted; and yet few or none were admitted to her speech, for his suspicious heart, brought in fear by the testimony of an evil conscience, would not suffer her subjects to have access to her Majesty as they were wont to do.”[96 - Letter from the Lords of Scotland to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, in Keith, p. 417.] The letter from which these passages are quoted, deserves, at this period of Mary’s history, every attention, for it was written, scarcely two months after her marriage, by the Lords who had associated themselves against Bothwell, but who had not yet discovered the necessity of implicating Mary in the guilt with which they charged him. The declarations therefore, they then made, contrasted with those which ambition and selfishness afterwards prompted, prove their sincerity in the first instance, and their wickedness in the last. “They firmly believe,” they say, “that whether they had risen up against her husband or not, the Queen would not have lived with him half a year to an end, as may be conjectured by the short time they lived together, and the maintaining of his other wife at home at his house.” This last fact is no less singular than it is important. It seems distinctly to imply, that though Bothwell was divorced from his first wife, and that though her brother, the Earl of Huntly, had given his consent to the divorce, yet that in reality, the dissolution of the marriage was, on the part of Bothwell, merely pro forma, to enable him to prosecute his scheme of ambition, that his attachment to the Lady Jane Gordon continued unabated, and that if Mary had ever loved him, she must have loved him, knowing that he did not return her affection. No wonder that under such an accumulation of miseries – the suspicion with which she was regarded by foreign courts, – the ready hatred of many of her more bigoted Presbyterian subjects, – the dependence, almost amounting to a state of bondage, in which she was kept, – and the brutal treatment she experienced from her worthless husband, – no wonder that Mary was heard, in moments almost of distraction, to express an intention of committing suicide.[97 - Melville, p. 180.] Her heart was broken, – her prospects were blighted, – her honour, which was dearer to her than life, was doubted. She was a Queen without the command of her subjects, – a wife without the love of her husband. The humblest peasant in Scotland was more to be envied than the last daughter of the royal line.

But Bothwell was not permitted to triumph long in the success of his villany. Many, even of his own friends, now began to think that he had carried through his measures with too high a hand. They were willing that he should have won Mary by fair means, but not by foul; and when they saw that he had not only imperatively thrust himself upon her as a husband, but was taking rapid strides towards making himself absolute in Scotland, they trembled for the freedom of the Constitution, and the safety of the Commonweal. With an imprudence equal to his audacity, Bothwell was at no pains either to disguise his wishes, or to conciliate the good will of those whose assistance might have been valuable. With the restless uneasiness of one conscious of guilt, and dreading its probable consequences, he scrupled not to avow his anxiety to get into his possession the person of the young Prince, and had even “made a vaunt already among his familiars, that if he could get him once into his own hands, he should warrant him from revenging his father’s death.”[98 - Melville, p. 199.] But the Prince was lodged in the Castle of Stirling, in the custody of the Earl of Mar, a nobleman of approved fidelity and honour, who positively refused to deliver him up. It was not easy, however, to divert Bothwell from his object; and though the Queen did not countenance it, being, on the contrary, rather desirous that her son should remain with Mar, yet he ceased not to cajole and threaten, by turns, until all Scotland was roused into suspicion and anger.[99 - Keith, p. 394. – Melville, p. 179. – Knox, p. 406.] A number of the nobility met at Stirling, and entered into an association to defend the person of the Prince; and they soon saw, or thought they saw, the necessity of taking active measures to that effect. On the 28th of May, proclamations were issued at Edinburgh, intimating the intention of the Queen and Bothwell to proceed, with a strong force, to the Borders, to suppress some disturbances there, and requiring all loyal subjects to assemble in arms at Melrose. It was immediately rumoured that this expedition was only a pretence, and that Bothwell’s real design was to march to Stirling, there to make himself master of the Castle and its inhabitants. In a second proclamation, made for the purpose, this suspicion was characterized as most unfounded; but whether just or not, it had taken a strong hold of the public mind, and was not easily removed. The Prince’s Lords, as they were called, the chief of whom were Argyle, Athol, Morton, Mar, and Glencairn, busied themselves in collecting their followers, as if in compliance with the requisition to assemble at Melrose. On the 6th or 7th of June 1567, Bothwell took the Queen with him from the Palace of Holyrood to the Castle of Borthwick, situated about eight miles to the south of Edinburgh, having discovered, only a day or two before, that Edinburgh was no longer a safe residence for him. Sir James Balfour, the Governor of the Castle, seeing so strong a party start up against his former patron, had allowed himself to be tampered with, and Bothwell now suspected that he held the Castle not for him, but for the Lords at Stirling. He feared, that Balfour might be persuaded by them to sally down to Holyrood with a party of troops, and carry him off a prisoner to the Castle, and therefore thought it wise to withdraw to a safer distance.

It was not long before the nobility at Stirling heard of Bothwell’s retreat to Borthwick, and they resolved to take advantage of it. They advanced unexpectedly from Stirling, and, marching past Edinburgh, suddenly invested the Castle of Borthwick. It was with great difficulty that Bothwell and the Queen escaped to Dunbar, and the Lords then fell back upon Edinburgh. Huntly commanded there for Bothwell; but though, at his request, the magistrates shut the gates of the city, the opposite party found little difficulty in forcibly effecting an entrance. Huntly, and the rest of Bothwell’s friends, still trusting to Sir James Balfour’s fidelity, retreated into the Castle. The opposite faction, with Morton at its head, immediately issued proclamations, in which they demanded the assistance of all loyal subjects, on the grounds, “that the Queen’s Majesty, being detained in captivity, was neither able to govern her realm, nor try the murder of her husband, and that they had assembled to deliver her and preserve the Prince.”[100 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 131.] These proclamations prove, that no feelings of hostility were as yet entertained or expressed against Mary. One of them, issued at Edinburgh on the 12th of June, commences thus: – “The Lords of Secret Council and Nobility, understanding that James, Earl of Bothwell, put violent hands on our Sovereign Lady’s most noble person upon the 24th day of April last, and thereafter warded (imprisoned) her Highness in the Castle of Dunbar, which he had in keeping, and, before a long space thereafter, conveyed her Majesty, environed with men of war, and such friends and kinsmen of his as would do for him, ever into such places where he had most dominion and power, her Grace being destitute of all counsel and servants, during which time the said Earl seduced, by unlawful ways, our said Sovereign to a dishonest marriage with himself, which, from the beginning, is null and of no effect.” And the proclamation concludes with announcing their determination, “to deliver the Queen’s Majesty’s most noble person forth of captivity and prison,” and to bring Bothwell and his accomplices to trial, both for the murder of Darnley, and for “the ravishing and detaining of the Queen’s Majesty’s person,” as well as to prevent the enterprise intended against the Prince.[101 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 128.] Can any thing establish an historical fact more explicitly than such evidence?

Bothwell was, in the meantime, busily collecting his friends at Dunbar. In a few days, upwards of 2000 men had resorted to him, more because the Queen was with him, than from any love they bore himself; and, as he was unwilling that the hostile Lords should be allowed time to collect their strength, he marched, with this force, from Dunbar on the 14th of June. When the news of his approach reached Edinburgh, the Lords immediately advanced to meet him, though with a somewhat inferior strength. The two armies did not come in sight of each other till the morning of the 15th, when Bothwell’s troops were discovered upon Carberry Hill, a rising ground of some extent between Musselburgh and Dalkeith. The Lords, who had spent the night at Musselburgh, made a circuit towards Dalkeith, that they also might get on the high ground, and took up a position to the west of Bothwell. It was here discovered that neither party was very anxious to commence an engagement; and the French ambassador, Le Croc, spent several hours in riding between both armies, and endeavouring to bring them to terms of mutual accommodation, being authorized on the part of the Queen, to promise that the present insurrection would be willingly forgiven, if the Lords would lay down their arms and disband their followers. But the Earl of Morton answered, “that they had taken up arms not against the Queen, but against the murderer of the King, whom, if she would deliver to be punished, or at least put from her company, she should find a continuation of dutiful obedience from them and all other good subjects.”[102 - Knox, p. 409.] Le Croc, despairing of effecting his purpose, unwillingly quitted the field, and returned to Edinburgh. But both parties were still desirous to temporize, – Bothwell, because he hourly expected reinforcements from Lord Herries and others, – and the Lords, because they also looked for an accession of strength, and because the day was hot, and the sun shining strong in their faces.[103 - Laing, Appendix, p. 115.] To draw out the time, Bothwell made a bravado of offering to end the quarrel, by engaging in single combat any Lord of equal rank who would encounter him. Kircaldy of Grange, one of the best soldiers of the day, and Murray of Tullibardin, both expressed their willingness to accept the challenge, but were rejected on the score of inferiority in rank. Lord Lindsay then offered himself, and him Bothwell had no right to refuse. It was expected, therefore, that the whole quarrel would be referred to them, the Queen herself, though at the head of an army superior to that of her opponents, having consented, that a husband to whom she had so short a while been married, and for whom the veracious Buchanan would have us believe she entertained so extravagant an affection, should thus unnecessarily risk his life. Twenty gentlemen on either side were to attend, and the ground was about to be marked out, when the Lords changed their minds, and declared they did not choose that Lord Lindsay should take upon himself the whole burden of a quarrel in which they all felt equally interested.[104 - Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 116. Knox says that it was Bothwell who drew back; but the authority to which we have referred is more to be depended on.]

In these negotiations the day passed over. It was now between seven and eight in the evening, and a battle must have ensued, either that night or next morning, had not an unexpected step been taken by the Queen. Without betraying Bothwell, she formed a resolution to rid herself from the bondage in which he kept her. She sent to desire that Kircaldy of Grange should come to speak with her, and she intimated to him her willingness to part from Bothwell as was demanded, if Morton and the other Lords would undertake to conduct her safely into Edinburgh, and there return to their allegiance. This overture, on being reported by Grange, was at once accepted, provided Mary agreed to dismiss Bothwell on the field. It may be easily conceived that to Bothwell himself such an arrangement was not particularly agreeable, and could never have entered the imagination, much less have been the deliberate proposal, of a loving and obedient wife. Historians, we think, have not sufficiently insisted on the strong presumption in Mary’s favour, afforded by her conduct at Carberry Hill. It is true, that there might have been an understanding between her and Bothwell, that as soon as she was re-instated in her power, she would recall him to a share of her throne and bed. But even supposing that, notwithstanding the alleged violence of her love, she had been willing to consent to a temporary separation, both she and Bothwell knew the spirit of the men they had to deal with too well, to trust to the chance of outwitting them, after yielding to their demands. Mary must have been aware, that if she parted with Bothwell at all, she in all probability parted with him for ever. Had she truly loved him, she would rather have braved all risks (as she did with Darnley when Murray rebelled) than have abandoned him just at the crisis of his fortune. But she had at no period felt more than the commonest friendship for Bothwell; and since she had been seized by him at the Bridge of Almond, she had absolutely hated him. Melville, accordingly, expresses himself regarding this transaction in these terms. “Albeit her Majesty was at Carberry Hill, I cannot name it to be her army; for many of them that were with her, were of opinion that she had intelligence with the Lords; chiefly such as understood of the Earl Bothwell’s mishandling of her, and many indignities that he had both said and done unto her since their marriage. He was so beastly and suspicious, that he suffered her not to pass a day in patience, or without giving her cause to shed abundance of salt tears. Thus, part of his own company detested him; and the other part believed that her Majesty would fain have been quit of him, but thought shame to be the doer thereof directly herself.”[105 - Melville, p. 182.] Melville adds, that so determined was Bothwell not to leave the field if he could avoid it, that he ordered a soldier to shoot Grange when he overheard the arrangement which he and the Queen were making. It was “not without great difficulty,” says another cotemporary writer, that Mary prevailed upon Bothwell to mount his horse, and ride away with a few followers back to Dunbar.[106 - Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 116.] There is no wonder; – but that a wife of one month’s standing, who is said for his sake to have murdered her former husband, should permit, nay beseech him, thus to sneak off a field he might have won, had she allowed him to fight, is indeed strange and unaccountable. When Bothwell left Carberry Hill, he turned his back upon a Queen and a throne; – he left hope behind, and must have seen only ruin before.

As soon as her husband had departed, Mary desired Grange to lead her to the Lords. Morton and the rest came forward to meet her, and received her with all due respect. The Queen was on horseback, and Grange himself walked at her bridle. On riding up to the associated Nobles, she said to them, – “My Lords, I am come to you, not out of any fear I had of my life, nor yet doubting of the victory, if matters had gone to the worst; but I abhor the shedding of Christian blood, especially of those that are my own subjects; and therefore I yield to you, and will be ruled hereafter by your counsels, trusting you will respect me as your born Princess and Queen.”[107 - Keith, p. 402.] Alas! Mary had not calculated either on the perfidy of the men to whom she had surrendered herself, or on the vulgar virulence of their hired retainers, who, having been disappointed in their hopes of a battle, thought they might take their revenge, by insulting the person of a Roman Catholic Sovereign, now for the first time standing before them somewhat in the light of a suitor and a prisoner. They led her into Edinburgh between eight and nine in the evening; and the citizens, hearing of the turn which affairs had taken, came out in great crowds, and lined the way as they passed. The envy and hatred of the more bigoted part of the rabble did not fail to exhibit itself. Royalty in misfortune, like a statue taken from its pedestal, is often liable to the rudest handling, simply because it has fallen from a height which previously kept it at a distance from the multitude. There had long rancoured in the bosoms of the more zealous and less honest Presbyterians, an ill-concealed jealousy of Mary’s superiority; and in the mob which now gathered round her, the turbulent and unprincipled led the way, as they commonly do in a mob, to insult and outrage. So far from being allowed to return to Edinburgh as a Queen, and to take possession of her wonted state, Mary was forced to ride as a captive in a triumphal show. The hatred which was borne towards Bothwell was transferred to her, and the Lords, at the head of whom was the crafty Morton, forgetting the proclamation they had made only two days before, announcing their intention to rescue the Queen from the bondage in which she was held, only took her from one tyrant to retain her in the hands of many. As the cavalcade proceeded, a banner was displayed in front, on which was represented the King lying dead at the foot of a tree, and the young Prince upon his knees near him, exclaiming – “Judge and revenge my cause, O Lord!” The people shouted with savage exultation, as this ensign was carried past, and turning their eyes on the Queen, who was dissolved in tears, they scrupled not, by the coarse malice of their expressions, to add to the agony of her feelings.

When Mary arrived in Edinburgh, and found she was not to be taken to Holyrood House, (from which, indeed, the Lords had previously carried off much of her valuable furniture), she gave up all for lost, and in her despair called upon all who came near her to rescue her from the hands of traitors. But an excitement had just been given to the public mind, which it required some hours of sober reflection to allay. No one interfering in her behalf, she was taken to the Provost’s house in the High Street, where she was lodged for the night. The crowd gradually dispersed, and the Lords were left to themselves to arrange their future plan of procedure. Kircaldy of Grange, was the only one among them who was disposed to act honourably. He reminded them that he had been commissioned to assure the Queen of their loyal services, provided she parted from Bothwell, and came over to them, – and as she had fulfilled her part of the agreement, he did not think it right that they should fail in theirs. Influenced by these representations, a division might thus have taken place among themselves, had not Morton fallen on an expedient to silence the scruples of Grange. He produced a letter, which he alleged Mary had just written to Bothwell, and which he had intercepted, in which she was made to declare, that she was resolved never to abandon him, although for a time she might be obliged to yield to circumstances. Kircaldy, possessing all the blunt sincerity of a soldier, and being little given to suspicion, was startled by this letter, and left Morton, in consequence, to take his own way. That the pretended epistle was in truth a mere hasty forgery, is proved to demonstration, by the fact that, important as such a document would have been, it was never afterwards alluded to by the Lords, nor produced in evidence along with the other papers they so laboriously collected to lay before Elizabeth’s Commissioners. From this specimen of their honesty, we may guess what reliance is to be placed on the authenticity of writings, subsequently scraped together by men who, on the spur of the moment, executed a forgery so clumsily, that they were unable to avail themselves of it on any future occasion. But Morton’s intriguing spirit was again busily at work; and having the Queen’s person once more in his possession, and being apparently supported by the people, he was determined on taking a step which would secure him Elizabeth’s lasting gratitude, and might ultimately raise him to the regency of Scotland. He, therefore, veered suddenly round; and though he had asserted, on the 12th of June, that Mary was kept in unwilling bondage by Bothwell, he saw it prudent to maintain on the 15th, that there was no man in Scotland to whom she was so passionately attached. In support of this assertion, the letter became a necessary fabrication; and Morton well knew that a political falsehood, though credited only for a day, may be made a useful engine in the hands of a skilful workman.

It would appear, however, that a night’s reflection operated a considerable change in the minds of the ever-fluctuating populace. In the course of the 16th, they collected before the Provost’s house; and the Queen having come several times to the window, and represented to them strongly the iniquity of the constraint in which she was kept by her own nobles who had betrayed her, a general feeling began to manifest itself in her favour. Morton and his colleagues no sooner perceived this change, than they waited on the Queen, and, with the most consummate hypocrisy, protested that she had quite mistaken their intentions, and that, to convince her of their sincerity, they should immediately replace her in the palace of Holyrood. Mary listened to them, and was again deceived. In the evening, as if to fulfil their promise, they conducted her to Holyrood, Morton walking respectfully on one side of her horse, and Athol on the other. But when she reached the Palace, she was as strictly watched as ever; and about midnight, to her terror and surprise, they suddenly came to her, and forcing her to disguise herself in an ordinary riding-habit, mounted her on horseback, and rode off, without informing her whither she was going. She was escorted by the Lords Ruthven and Lindsay, and, after riding all night, arrived at the castle of Loch-Leven early in the morning. This castle was a place of considerable strength, standing on a small island in the centre of the lake, which is ten or twelve miles in circumference. It was possessed by Lady Douglas, the Lady of Loch-Leven, as she was commonly called, the widow of Sir Robert Douglas, and mother to the Earl of Murray, by James V. “It is needless to observe,” says Keith, “how proper a place this was for the design of the rebels, the house being surrounded with water on all sides, for the space, at shortest, of half a mile; and the proprietors of it being so nearly related to some principal persons among them, in whom, therefore, they could the more securely confide. And indeed it has been said, that the Lady Loch-Leven answered the expectation of the Lords to the full, having basely insulted the captive Queen’s misfortune, and bragged, besides, that she herself was King James V.’s lawful wife, and her son, the Earl of Murray, his legitimate issue, and true heir of the crown. The Lady Loch-Leven was not only mother to the Earl of Murray, but likewise to the Lord Lindsay’s lady, by her husband Robert Douglas of Loch-Leven. The family of Loch-Leven was moreover heirs-apparent to that of Morton; and to that family they did actually succeed some time after. The Lord Ruthven also had to wife a natural daughter of the Earl of Angus; – all which considerations centering together in one, made the house of Loch-Leven, humanly speaking, a most sure and close prison for the Royal captive.”[108 - Keith, p. 403. – Melville, p. 184. – Knox, p. 409. – Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 117.]

To give an air of something like justice to a measure so violent and unexpected, Morton and his friends endeavoured to sanction it by what they were pleased to term an Act of Privy Council. They experienced, however, no little difficulty in determining on the proper mode of expressing this act. They recollected the proclamations in the Queen’s favour to which they had so recently put their names; they recollected also the solemn engagement into which they had entered at Carberry Hill; and though might was with them of greater value than right, they did not choose, if they could avoid it, to stand convicted of treason in the face of the whole country. They tried, therefore, to excuse the step they had taken, by asserting, that though they still believed her Majesty had unwillingly married Bothwell, and had been kept in bondage by him, and that, though she had quitted his company for theirs at Carberry, yet that after they had “opened and declared unto her Highness her own estate and condition, and the miserable estate of this realm, with the danger that her dearest son the Prince stood in, requiring that she would suffer and command the murder and authors thereof to be punished, they found in her Majesty such untowardness and repugnance thereto, that rather she appeared to fortify and maintain the said Earl Bothwell and his accomplices in the said wicked crimes.” The truth of this statement is directly contradicted by the transactions of the 15th of June, when Mary, though at the head of an army, had agreed to do every thing the Lords desired, and when, with a degree of facility only to be accounted for on the supposition that she was anxious to escape from his company, she had separated herself finally from Bothwell in the face of the whole world. So far from charging her with “fortifying” and “maintaining” him in his crimes, these Lords themselves declared, on the 11th, that they had assembled “to deliver their sovereign’s most noble person out of bondage and captivity;” and, a month afterwards, they told the English ambassador they “firmly believed the Queen would not have lived with Bothwell half a year to an end.”[109 - Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 119. – Anderson, vol. i. p. 128. – Keith, p. 418.]

In addition to this act of Privy Council, which was no doubt the production of Morton, and is signed by him and Athol, and six other noblemen of less note, a bond of association was drawn up the same day, in which an explanation was given at greater length, of the system on which the Lords were about to proceed. It is a remarkable feature of this bond, that, in so far as Mary is concerned, it very materially contradicts the act of Council. Instead of containing any accusation against her, it represents her throughout as having been the victim of force and fraud. It commences by stating the conviction of the subscribers, that Bothwell was the murderer of Darnley, and that, had he himself not taken means to prevent a fair trial, he would have been convicted of the crime. It goes on to assert, that, adding wickedness to wickedness, the Earl had treasonably, and without any reverence for his native Prince, carried her prisoner to his castle at Dunbar, and had afterwards pretended unlawfully to marry her; which being accomplished, his cruel and ambitious nature immediately showed itself, “no nobleman daring to resort to her Majesty to speak with her without suspicion, unless in his presence and hearing, and her chamber-doors being continually watched by armed men.” It is therefore maintained that their interference was necessary, both on account of the “shameful thraldom” in which the Queen was kept, and the great danger of the young Prince, her only son. They had taken up arms, they say, against Bothwell, and to deliver their sovereign; and though they had already chased him from his unlawful authority, they considered themselves obliged to continue in arms till “the authors of the murder and ravishing were condignly punished, the pretended marriage dissolved, their sovereign relieved of the thraldom, bondage, and ignominy, which she had sustained, and still underlies by the said Earl’s fault, the person of the innocent prince placed in safety, and, finally, justice restored and uprightly administered to all the subjects of the realm.”[110 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 134.]

This, then, was all the length to which Morton and the other Lords, as yet ventured. They had sent Mary to Loch-Leven, merely to keep her at a safe distance from Bothwell; and as soon as they had seized his person, or driven him from the kingdom, it was of course implied that they would restore their sovereign to her throne. They did not hint, in the most distant manner, that she was in the least implicated in the guilt of her husband’s death; and they expressly declared that, for every thing which had taken place since, Bothwell alone was to blame. Judging by their own words, they entertained as much respect for the Queen as ever; and the impression they gave to the country was, that they intended she should remain at Loch-Leven only for a short time, and that so far from meaning to punish one whom they accused of no crime, by forcing from her an abdication of her crown, and condemning her to perpetual imprisonment, they would soon be found rallying round her, and conducting her back to her capital in triumph. These may have been the hopes entertained by some; but they forgot that Morton, who was at the head of the new faction, had assassinated Rizzio, and countenanced the murder of Darnley; – and that Murray, though at present in France, had left the country only till new disturbances should afford new prospects for his inordinate ambition.

CHAPTER VII.

MARY AT LOCHLEVEN, HER ABDICATION, AND MURRAY’S REGENCY

Scotland was now in the most unfortunate condition in which a country could possibly be. Like a ship without a pilot, it was left at the mercy of a hundred contrary opinions; and it was not long before there sprung out of these two opposing currents or distinct parties, known by the name of the Queen’s and the Prince’s. Morton and his friends calling themselves the Prince’s Lords, continued at Edinburgh; whilst the Queen’s nobles assembled at Hamilton Palace in very considerable force, having among them, besides the Hamiltons, Huntly, (who had been allowed by Sir James Balfour to escape from the Castle of Edinburgh, in which he had taken shelter some time before), Argyle, (who, though he had at first joined with Morton and Mar at Stirling, when they announced their determination to keep the Prince out of Bothwell’s hands, never intended taking up arms against the Queen), Rothes, Caithness, Crawfurd, Boyd, Herries, Livingston, Seaton, Ogilvie, and others.[111 - Keith, p. 408.] Morton laboured to effect a coalition with these Lords; but though he employed the mediation of the General Assembly, they would not consent to any proposals he made them. Buchanan himself is forced to allow, that affairs took a very different turn from what was expected. “For popular envy being abated, partly by time, and partly by the consideration of the uncertainty of human affairs, commiseration succeeded; nay, some of the nobility did then no less bewail the Queen’s calamity than they had before execrated her cruelty.”[112 - Buchanan’s History, Book XVIII.] The truth is, that Mary’s friends were at this time much more numerous than her enemies; but unfortunately they were not sufficiently unanimous in their councils, to be able to take any decisive steps in her behalf.

Morton earnestly laboured to increase the popularity of his faction by every means in his power. To please the multitude, he apprehended several persons, whom he accused of being implicated in the murder of Darnley; and though he probably knew them to be innocent, they were all condemned and executed, with the exception of Sebastian, the Queen’s servant, who was seized with the view of casting suspicion on Mary herself, but who contrived to escape.[113 - Keith, p. 406, et seq.] Thus, they who blamed Mary for being too remiss in seeking out and punishing the murderers, were able to console themselves with the reflection, that, under the new order of things, persons were iniquitously executed for the sake of appearances, by those who had themselves been Bothwell’s accomplices. Against Bothwell himself, Morton, for his own sake, proceeded with more caution. It was not till the 26th of June, that letters were addressed to the keeper of the Castle at Dunbar, ordering him to deliver up his charge, because he had received and protected Bothwell; and, on the same day, a proclamation was issued, offering the moderate reward of a thousand crowns to any one who should apprehend the Earl.[114 - Anderson, vol. i. p. 139.] It is singular that these Lords, who were so fully convinced of his criminality, not only allowed him to depart unmolested from Carberry Hill, but took no steps, for ten days afterwards, towards securing his person.

The precise period at which Bothwell left Dunbar, the efforts he made to regain his authority in Scotland, and in general, most of the particulars of his subsequent fate, are not accurately known. He entered, no doubt, into correspondence with the noblemen assembled at Hamilton; but probably received from them little encouragement, as it was the Queen’s cause, not his, in which they were interested. He then retired to the North, where he possessed estates as Duke of Orkney, and some influence with his kinsman, the Bishop of Murray. As soon as his flight thither was known, Grange and Tullibardin were sent in pursuit of him, with several vessels which were fitted out on purpose. Hearing of their approach, Bothwell fled towards the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and, being closely followed, was there very nearly captured. His pursuers were at one time within gun-shot of his ship, and it must have been taken, had not the vessels of Grange and Tullibardin, in the very heat of the chase, both struck upon a sunken rock, which Bothwell, either because his pilot was better acquainted with the seas, or because his ship was lighter, avoided. They were, however, fortunate enough to seize some of his accomplices, who were brought to Edinburgh, and having been tried and condemned, made the confessions which have been already referred to, and by which the particulars of the murder became known. Bothwell himself proceeded to Denmark, imagining that the King of that country, Frederick II., who was distantly related to Mary, through her great-grandmother Margaret of Denmark, the spouse of James III., might be disposed to interest himself in his behalf. But finding that the circumstances under which he had left Scotland, would prevent him from appearing at the Danish Court with so much eclat as he desired, he ventured on enriching his treasury, by making a seizure of one or two merchantmen, trading in the North Seas. These practices were discovered; a superior force was fitted out against him; and he was carried into a Danish port, not as an exiled prince, but as a captive pirate. He was there thrown into prison without ceremony; and though he lost no time in letting his name and rank be known to the government, it does not appear that the discovery operated greatly in his favour. He was retained in durance for many years, the King of Denmark neither choosing to surrender him to Elizabeth or his enemies in Scotland, nor thinking it right to offend them by restoring him to liberty, so long at least as Mary herself remained a prisoner. Broken down by misfortune, and perhaps assailed by remorse, Bothwell is believed to have been in a state of mental derangement for several years before his death. There can be no doubt that he died miserably; and he seems, even in this life, to have paid the penalty of his crimes, if any earthly penalty could atone for the misery he brought on the innocent victim of his lawless ambition and systematic villany. His character may be summed up in the words of our great poet: —

“Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;
Thy schooldays frightful, desp’rate, wild, and furious;
Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;
Thy age confirmed, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody.”[115 - The above account of Bothwell’s adventures and fate, after he left Scotland, is taken principally from Melville, and the History of James VI. But an interesting and original manuscript, entitled a “Declaration of the Earl of Bothwell,” which was made at Copenhagen, in the year 1568, for the satisfaction apparently of the Danish government, has recently been discovered, and an authenticated copy of it having been transmitted to this country in August 1824, a careful translation from the old French in which it is written, was presented to the public in “The New Monthly Magazine,” for June 1825. Satisfied as we are of the authenticity of this “Declaration,” we have availed ourselves of some of the information it supplies, though, of course, great allowance must be made for the colouring Bothwell has artfully given to the transactions he details. We shall have more to say of this “Declaration” afterwards; at present, it is necessary only to refer to it.]

In the meantime, foreign courts were not inattentive to the state of affairs in Scotland. An ambassador arrived from Mary’s friends in France; but finding, to his astonishment, that she was imprisoned, and that some of the nobility had usurped the government, he refused to acknowledge their authority, and immediately left the country. Elizabeth’s messenger, who came about the same time, was less scrupulous; and, indeed, few things could have given that Queen greater satisfaction, than the turn which Scottish affairs had recently taken. In the letters she sent by her ambassador Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, are discovered all that duplicity, affected sincerity, and real heartlessness, which so constantly distinguish the despatches of Cecil and his mistress. After taking it for granted, in direct opposition to the declarations of the rebel Lords themselves, that Mary had given her consent to the hasty marriage with Bothwell, and that she was consequently implicated in all his guilt, Elizabeth proceeds with no little contradiction, to assure her good sister that she considers her imprisonment entirely unjustifiable. But the insincerity of her desire, that the Queen of Scots should recover her liberty, is evinced by the very idle conditions she suggests should first be imposed upon her. These are, that the murderers of Darnley should be immediately prosecuted and punished, and that the young Prince should be preserved free from all danger; – just as if Mary could punish murderers before they were discovered or taken, unless, indeed, she chose to follow the example of her Lords, and condemn the innocent; and as if she had lost the natural affection of a mother, and would have delivered her only son to be butchered, as his father had been. In short, Morton and his colleagues had no difficulty in perceiving, that though Elizabeth thought it necessary, for the sake of appearances, to pretend to be displeased with them, yet that they had, in truth, never stood higher in her good graces. They well knew, as they had observed in the case of Murray, and experienced in their own, that Elizabeth seldom said what she meant, or meant what she said.

But to put her conduct on the present occasion in a still clearer light, the reader will be somewhat surprised to learn, that Throckmorton brought with him into Scotland two distinct sets of “Instructions,” both bearing the same date (June 30th 1567), the one of which was to be shown to Mary, and the other to the rebel Lords. In the former, she expresses the greatest indignation at the Queen’s imprisonment, and threatens vengeance on all her enemies. In the latter, the Lords are spoken of in a much more confidential and friendly manner. They are told, that Elizabeth thought it requisite to send an ambassador; but that he came to solicit nothing that was not for the general weal of the realm; and that, if she were allowed to mediate between their Queen and them, “they should have no just cause to mislike her doings,” because she would consent to nothing that was not “for their security hereafter, and for quietness to the realm.” Nay, she even desired Throckmorton to assure them, that she “meant not to allow of such faults as she hears by report are imputed to the Queen of Scots, but had given him strictly in charge to lay before, and to reprove her, in her name, for the same.” – “And in the end also,” she adds, “we mean not with any such partiality to deal for her, but that her princely state being preserved, she should conform herself to all reasonable devices that may bring a good accord betwixt her and her nobility and people.” Thus she was to take upon herself to reprove Mary for faults which “she heard by report were imputed to her;” and to insist, though she herself was of opinion that she had been unlawfully imprisoned, that she should enter into negotiations with her rebel subjects, which would compromise her dignity, and even impugn her character.[116 - Keith, p. 411 and 414.]