by Kate Forsyth
Not long before midnight, Queen Mary remembered that she had promised to return to Holyrood for the final ceremonies of her valet’s wedding. Lord Darnley protested, and as a sign of her true affection, Queen Mary gave him a ring from her finger.
As she mounted her horse for the ride back to Holyrood, Queen Mary saw her page—who had previously been in the employ of Lord Bothwell—emerge from the cellars, his face and hands blackened as if with coal. She exclaimed, ‘Jesu, Paris, how begrimed you are!’ He muttered some excuse, and she rode back to the palace.
At 2 am on Monday 10 February, a gunpowder explosion blew up the house at Kirk o’ Fields. Darnley and his manservant were found dead in the garden, dressed only in their nightshirts, apparently strangled to death.
There are many different theories about what happened that night. Some thought that the gunpowder had been hidden in the cellars of the house at Kirk o’ Fields—probably by Lord Bothwell—with the aim of blowing up the house and the king together. They believe something, or someone, woke the young king and he had sought to escape, only to be killed by assassins in the garden.
Others believe that Lord Bothwell had nothing to do with the crime, but that he was framed for the murder, probably by Mary’s half-brother, Lord Moray, who wanted to rule in her place.
Still others believe that Darnley himself set up the trap, wanting to kill his wife, Mary, only to be foiled by her insistence in returning to Holyrood Palace. They believe Darnley died in his bungled attempts to defuse the gunpowder.
We can never know the truth. Historians argue over the event, just as scientists argue over the possibility of time travel. What we do know is that Mary seemed shocked and horrified by her husband’s murder and asserted to the end of her life that she had been the true target. The many sharks circling her throne seized upon the scandal and used it to discredit Mary and force her to abdicate in favour of her thirteen month old son, James. Mary’s half-brother, Lord Moray, was appointed regent and ruled for three years before he was assassinated by one of Mary’s supporters.
Some of the mysteries around the murder of Lord Darnley include the decision of Mary to return to Holyrood Palace at such a late hour; the group of mysterious cloaked figures who called out Lord Bothwell’s name to gain entry to the city after midnight; and the discovery of Darnley’s body in the garden, some distance away from the blown-up house. I have used these mysteries in the tale of Hannah and her search for the lost puzzle ring; they do not, of course, really explain the unknown factors in this ancient crime.
The rest of Mary’s history is as bloody and tragic.
She was abducted, willingly or not, by Bothwell and his men in April 1567 and taken to Dunbar Castle. In those days, there was little choice for a woman forcibly abducted. She had to marry her abductor to save her reputation, which she did on 15 May.
Unfortunately, it was too late for Mary. People believed the worst of her, and she was accused of her former husband’s murder. The Scottish lords rebelled against her and raised an army, which confronted Mary and Bothwell at Carberry Hill on 15 June. Mary did not want to fight her own lords and believed their protestations of loyalty. As long as she left Bothwell, the lords said, they would be faithful. However, after Mary gave herself up to them, the lords broke their promise and took Mary captive. She was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle, and in July 1567—after miscarrying twins—she was forced to abdicate in favour of her baby son.
On 2 May 1568, Mary escaped from Loch Leven, but the small army of supporters she managed to raise was defeated on 13 May. She fled to England, but was imprisoned by Elizabeth’s soldiers on 19 May 1568 at Carlisle. Nineteen years later she was beheaded on suspicion of treason, by the orders of her own cousin. Her execution was shockingly mishandled, with the executioner’s sword taking three blows to sever her head from her body. As he lifted her head by its tresses, to show the crowd, her head fell to the ground and rolled away, leaving his hand gripping a wig of red hair. She was only forty-four years old.
One last thing: Roz’s assertion that ninety-five per cent of all Scottish people believed in fairies up until the nineteenth century is quite true. Fairy lore in Scotland is rich and deep and fascinating. I wish I could have included more in this book, but you can read up on it yourselves.
Some further reading
NON-FICTION
Time & Space by John and Mary Gribbon, part of the ‘Eyewitness’ series published by Dorling and Kindersley
An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and other Supernatural Creatures by Katharine Briggs
FICTION
(the most useful time travel stories I have read and loved)
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley (this is about a girl who goes back in time to the days of Mary, Queen Of Scots’ imprisonment in England)
Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston
Stonewords by Pam Conrad
Jessamy by Barbara Sleigh
A Chance Child by Jill Paton Walsh
A String in the Harp by Nancy Bond
The Time Garden by Edward Eager
Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park
The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
Gideon the Cutpurse by Linda Buckley-Archer (also published as The Time Travelers)
FICTION
(the most useful novels about Mary, Queen of Scots, that I have read and loved)
Masque for a Queen by Moira Miller
Queen’s Own Fool: A Novel of Mary Queen of Scots by Jane Yolen and Robert J Harris
The Lady of Fire and Tears by Terry Deary, book three of the ‘Tudor Chronicles’
Mary, Queen of Scots: Queen Without a Country, France, 1553 by Kathryn Lasky, part of the ‘Royal Diaries’ series
The Dog Who Loved A Queen by Jackie French
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(the most useful of the many books I read while researching this book)
Time & Space by John and Mary Gribbon, part of the ‘Eyewitness’ series published by Dorling and Kindersley
An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and other Supernatural Creatures by Katharine Briggs
Abbey Lubbers, Banshees & Boggarts: A Who’s Who of Fairies by Katharine Briggs
The Book of Curses: True Tales of Voodoo, Hoodoo and Hex by Stuart Gordon
Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser
Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley by Alison Weir
Mary Queen of Scots: The Fair Devil of Scotland by Jean Plaidy
Scotland Under Mary Stuart: An Account of Everyday Life by Madeleine Bingham
Food and Feast in Tudor England by Alison Sim
Pleasures and Pastimes in Tudor England by Alison Sim
The Tudor Housewife by Alison Sim
Scottish Fairy Tales by Grant Campbell
Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales edited by Gordon Jarvie
Folk Tales from Moor and Mountain by Winifred Finlay
Scottish Ghosts by Dane Love
WEBSITES
www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/folklore/fairies/scottish-fairies.html
www.electricscotland.com/kids/stories
http://faerie.monstrous.com
Scottish Recipe for Marmalade Cake
When I was a little girl, my mother taught me and my sister how to make marmalade from oranges we grew in our garden. She told me that marmalade got its name when it was made for Mary, Queen of Scots, who was very seasick travelling from France to Scotland as a young women (‘Marie malade’ is French for ‘Mary is ill’.) Another old story says that marmalade was first invented in Scotland after a Spanish ship carrying oranges was shipwrecked on the wild Scottish shores; the oranges were found to be too bitter to eat so were cooked with sugar.
Historians actually think a form of marmalade was first made by the ancient Romans, who cooked quince in wine and then added honey, causing the release of the pectin, which sets the mixture into jelly. It was used
as medicine for tummy aches and pains. The word marmalade comes from the Portuguese word for quince, marmelo. Quince preserves, called marmelada, were imported into the UK from Portugal in the late fifteenth century.
So although Mary may have eaten marmalade made from quinces when she felt unwell, it was nothing like the orange-based recipe we use today. Apparently, though, there is some truth to the story about the Spanish ship . . . the first marmalade factory in the world was built in Dundee in 1797 by the Keiler family, apparently after Mr Keiler bought a cargo of oranges from a Spanish ship that had been blown by a storm into Dundee Harbour. His wife, Janet, finding them too bitter to eat, set about finding a use for them . . .
Here is a recipe for marmalade cake—it’s easy to make and very delicious.
Ingredients
1 cup of self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
4 rounded tablespoons of butter
3 rounded tablespoons of caster sugar
1 teaspoon of orange rind, finely grated
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons of orange marmalade
2 tablespoons of milk
1 drop of vanilla essence
Preparation Method
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, then half the orange rind. Add the beaten eggs, marmalade, milk and vanilla. Mix well to achieve the consistency of thick batter. Grease a 6-inch round cake tin and bake in the centre of a pre-heated oven at 350F/175C for around 1 hour and 20 minutes until golden brown. Sprinkle the rest of the orange rind on top and allow to sit for a few minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
