Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley

by Alison Weir

  Moray trusted Maitland no more than Mary did, suspecting—possibly with good reason—that the Secretary was a secret supporter of the Queen, although Melville says that all who found fault with the Regent’s harsh attitude towards his sister “lost his favour.” From the first, Moray banned Maitland from his counsels, and thereafter, the former colleagues were on increasingly bad terms.

  Elizabeth, not surprisingly, refused to recognise either Mary’s abdication or James VI’s title and Moray’s Regency, and recalled Throckmorton immediately (he left on 30 August). In response, a sanguine Moray wrote with some insight to Cecil: “Although the Queen’s Majesty your mistress outwardly seems not altogether to allow the present state here, yet doubt I not but Her Highness in her heart likes it well enough.”27For the time being, as if to confirm the truth of this, Elizabeth—having realised that the French did not intend to interfere in Scotland—made no serious efforts to restore Mary or overthrow Moray. Although diplomatic relations between England and Scotland had been officially broken off, Moray and Cecil continued to correspond in private. And while Moray told Cecil that his new office was neither welcome nor pleasing,28there is no doubt that the change of government suited both very well.

  Grange’s ships reached the Shetlands at the beginning of September, but Bothwell narrowly evaded capture and was driven by gales towards Norway with two men-of-war and 140 men; among them, perhaps, was Paris.29Bothwell’s other ships were taken, however, and Hay, Hepburn and Cullen, being found on board, were placed under arrest before being conveyed back to Edinburgh, where they were thrown into prison. When interrogated, Hay initially told his captors that Bothwell and Huntly had murdered the King.

  Bothwell later claimed that his plan was to go to France by way of Denmark, “where I could make arrangements for the dispatch of troops and naval forces to Scotland.” He felt sure that Mary would approve of this move, “but to make certain of this, I managed to get details of this plan to her. In her opinion, [it] was excellent, and she begged me to put it into effect as soon as possible.”30Bothwell does not reveal his means of communication with Mary, but it is clear that some people at Lochleven were becoming increasingly sympathetic towards her, and one of them may have smuggled messages. A holograph letter from Mary was later found on Bothwell’s ship: in it, she complained of the treatment meted out to her by the Lords, and lamented that no friends had stood by her, so it must have been written after she was confined at Lochleven.31It is unlikely, given that Mary was constantly watched while she was in the Black Turnpike, that she had managed to get out a letter to Bothwell from there, as the Lords claimed she had tried to do.

  But Bothwell’s scheme did not work out as he had planned. On 2 September, his ship sailed into Bergen, where it was his misfortune to be recognised by Anna Throndssen, the woman he had jilted after promising to marry her, and various other creditors, who took their complaints to Frederick II, King of Denmark and Norway.32As a result, at the end of September, Bothwell was placed in honourable confinement in Copenhagen Castle while Frederick decided what was to be done with him.33It did not help that there had also been found on Bothwell’s ship a copy of the proclamation branding him as the murderer of the King and an outlaw with a price on his head; nor that, during his short rule in Scotland, Bothwell had shown himself friendly towards Sweden, with whom Frederick was at war. Nevertheless, his imprisonment was not entirely punitive, for the King was well aware of Bothwell’s importance as a useful political hostage.

  On 5 September, Bedford reported that Hay had made a deposition revealing “the whole device of the murder, declaring who were the executioners of the same, and went so far as to touch a great many, not of the smallest.”34 Drury informed Cecil that Hay was being spared until the great personages he had accused could be arrested.35But this did not happen. Obviously Hay had “touched” far too many people, for on 13 May, he made a second deposition, accusing only Bothwell.36The other names had evidently been suppressed.

  Sandy Durham was also in the Tolbooth at this time, but there is no record of what happened to him. On 15 September, Moray, reporting the return of Grange and Tullibardine with their prisoners, commented that few of those taken were “notable men, excepting Cullen, who chanced by God’s provision in our hands, and being his chamberchild and one of the very executors, he may make us clear in the whole action as it proceeded.”37Moray’s meaning is obscure: was Cullen Bothwell’s cabin-mate on board ship, and did the Regent hope to get from him an account of how Bothwell had managed to escape? Or, which is more likely, had Cullen been Bothwell’s protégé (the word “chamberchild” may have homosexual connotations) and one of the “executors” of Darnley’s murder, and was Moray hoping that he would give details of it to the Lords? If so, why did Moray not rely on Cullen’s earlier testimony, in which he had revealed “the whole manner and circumstance” of the murder? He may have desired to hear it for himself, having been out of Scotland in July, or he may have wanted it put into the form of a deposition, none having been taken before. What is more likely, however, is that Cullen had revealed nothing useful during his earlier interrogation, but that Moray believed that he was able to do so. When this proved not to be the case, Cullen was released. He was next heard of in 1570–1 as an officer of the Edinburgh garrison. Hepburn did not make a deposition until 8 December.38

  It seemed that Mary’s cause was hopelessly lost. On 15 September, Argyll and Huntly came to terms with Moray, and Argyll was given a place on the Regency Council.39But the Hamiltons were determined to overthrow Moray, and had formed their own confederacy for this purpose. At a meeting in September, they announced their appointment of Lord John Hamilton (acting for the exiled Chatelherault), Argyll and Huntly as regents, and stated that the aims of their confederacy were to pursue Darnley’s murderers and liberate Mary. But their embryonic coup was easily suppressed by Moray, whose rule was rapidly gaining popular support.40On 1 October, Dunbar Castle, which had been held for Bothwell by his adherent Patrick Hay of Whitelaw against the Lords since the Earl’s flight, finally fell (the Lords had it destroyed in 1568). The only fortress left in royalist hands was the mighty stronghold of Dumbarton in the west which was being held by Lord Fleming for the Queen. Also on 1 October, a long list of sixty-two Summonses of Forfeiture for the murder of the King was drawn up by the Council. Naturally, there were some significant omissions: none of the Douglases, for example, were mentioned. Soon afterwards, Lord Herries, who had supported the Queen, submitted to Moray, although he privately remained loyal to Mary. By the middle of October, Moray was able to tell Cecil that Scotland was quiet.41 Even Elizabeth had come to terms with the fact that she could do nothing to change the situation there.

  On 11 November, Moray appointed Morton Chancellor in place of Huntly. That month, the Lords acquitted Bothwell’s uncle, the Bishop of Moray, of complicity in Darnley’s murder, which was absurd, considering that the Bishop had never been implicated in it. This may, however, have been a politic exercise to demonstrate the fairness and impartiality of the Lords, who were prepared to acquit Bothwell’s partisans as well as condemn them.

  At the end of September, Drury had reported that Mary had put on weight and, “instead of choler, makes a show of mirth.” In October, Bedford wrote: “The Queen is as merry and wanton42as at any time since she was detained,” and had “drawn divers to pity her, who before envied her, and would her evil.” Now, on 28 November, Drury gleefully reported “a suspicion of over-great familiarity” between the Queen and eighteen-year-old George Douglas, brother of Sir William, which had increased “more and more, and [is] worse spoken of than I may write.”43In December, Drury wrote that Mary had asked Moray to consent to her marriage to Douglas, once she was free of Bothwell—whom she was no longer refusing to abandon—but that Moray had told her that Douglas “was overmean a marriage for Her Grace.”44Mary may have seen Douglas as a means of escape, but Cecil claimed that Douglas had fallen into “a fantasy of love” with her. Nau, however, gives the impression
that his affection for Mary was chivalrous and platonic, but whatever its nature, he was still sent away from Lochleven. Furthermore, the rumours reported by Drury gave rise to the later bruit that Mary had borne Douglas a child.

  Drury also reported on 28 November that the Lords had met to discuss the documents in the silver casket. He revealed that “the writings which did comprehend the names and consents of the chiefs for murdering of the King are turned to ashes,” but that evidence incriminating Mary had been “kept to be shown”45at the Parliament that had just been summoned to meet in December. The “writings” that had been destroyed almost certainly included the copy of the Craigmillar Bond that Bothwell had entrusted to Mary, which Argyll must have surrendered to Moray. The destruction of the Craigmillar Bond is proof of the Lords’ awareness that it incriminated them in Darnley’s murder and that they could not therefore use it against Bothwell. It has been claimed that they would hardly have informed Drury of its destruction, but there were among the Lords a growing number of those who secretly supported Mary, and his informant may well have been one of them.

  On 4 December, emboldened by the success of their coup and the support of the people for their government, the Lords framed an Act of Council formally charging Mary with Darnley’s murder, and also with an intent to murder her son. The Act stated that “the cause and occasion of the taking of the Queen’s person on 15 June last was in the said Queen’s own default, inasfar as by divers her privy letters written and subscribed with her own hand, and sent to James, Earl of Bothwell, chief executioner of the horrible murder, it is most certain that she was privy, art and part, and of the actual devise and deed of the murder of the King, her lawful husband.” The document was signed by Morton, Maitland and Balfour, all of whom had been implicated in the murder, and twenty-seven others. This was the first official reference to the Casket Letters, and the first occasion on which the Lords formally accused Mary of Darnley’s murder. They had realised by now that they were unlikely to lay hands for some time on their first scapegoat, Bothwell, so they had decided to bring Mary to justice instead, for several reasons. They had to justify their continuing imprisonment of her now that she had abandoned Bothwell, satisfy the people’s thirst for vengeance, damn the swelling wave of sympathy for the imprisoned Queen by a timely reminder of her misdeeds and crimes, and at the same time remove a possible focus for rebellion. Above all, they needed to justify their deposition and imprisonment of the Queen in Parliament, and thereby safeguard themselves from charges of treason. For many days, the Lords had debated what to do about the Casket Letters before coming to the conclusion that the only course to take was to “open and reveal the truth of the whole matter from the beginning, plainly and uprightly, which, insofar as the manifestation thereof may tend to the dishonour of the Queen, they are most loath to enter in.”46Nevertheless, they were going to do it.

  Attention should be drawn to the fact that, in the Act, the Lords stated that the reason they had taken the Queen into custody on 15 June was the proof of her guilt that was evident from the Casket Letters, yet these letters were not in fact discovered until nearly a week later. Furthermore, the Act is known to us through a copy sent to Cecil; it is not mentioned in the record of the Council’s proceedings for 4 December 1567 that is preserved in the Register House in Edinburgh.

  On 8 December, Mary reached twenty-five, the age at which Scottish sovereigns were deemed to have attained their majority, and at which they could rescind any grants of land bestowed during their minority. Aware that Parliament was soon to assemble, she wrote to Moray on that day, begging to be allowed to appear before Parliament to “vindicate her innocence” and answer the false calumnies which had been published about her since her imprisonment. She would submit herself to all the rigour of the laws, according to which she earnestly desired that proceedings should be taken for the punishment of all persons who might be found guilty of the murder of the late King. There was no law which permitted anyone to be condemned outright without his cause having been heard, if it touched but the welfare of the least of her subjects. It was much more reasonable, then, that justice should be done to her, their Queen, in a matter which touched her honour, which was dearer to her than her life.

  Moray sent back a brisk refusal.47There was a high degree of self-interest involved in his decision, as well as political considerations. Too many of the Confederate Lords had received grants from Mary, and they were determined that she should never have the opportunity of cancelling them.

  Nau claims that, at this time, Moray was scheming to make himself King, taking the view that he “could presently rid himself” of young James. “Many of his party were now earnest with him to declare himself King. With these views, Moray had employed various persons to discover how he might establish his legitimacy by proving the marriage which he was now advised to assert as having been secretly contracted between King James V and his mother, although she was then married to another man. This proposition was then abandoned, for Moray saw there was faint hope of the success which he had expected.”

  Parliament met on 15 December, and passed an Act declaring that Mary’s abdication, James’s coronation and Moray’s Regency were all “lawful and perfect.” Another Act ratified “the retention of our Sovereign Lord’s mother’s person” and stated that the conduct of the Lords had been fully justified by her actions, “inasmuch as it was clearly evident, both by the evidence from divers her privy letters written wholly with her own hand to the Earl of Bothwell, and her marriage to Bothwell, that she was privy, art and part, of the actual devise and deed” of Darnley’s murder. The Act had effectively tried and condemned Mary without her being heard. There were objections from Huntly, Herries and others, but they were speedily overruled.48

  Some historians have made much of the fact that the words “and subscribed,” which appeared in the Act of Council of 4 December, do not appear in the Act of Parliament. None of the Casket Letters that were later produced in evidence against Mary was signed, and it may be that the Lords noticed their error in the Act of Council and were quick to amend it in the Act of Parliament. It has also been suggested that the Act of Council found among Cecil’s papers is a forgery,49but why such a document should have been counterfeited is a mystery. In addition it has been claimed that the signatures and addresses were removed from the Casket Letters between 4 and 15 December.50Yet the discrepancy may be due to simple error: after all, Bothwell is referred to as “James, Earl of Bothwell” in the Act of Council, and as “James, sometime Earl of Bothwell” in the Act of Parliament.

  A declaration by the Queen’s loyal nobles issued at Dumbarton in 1568 stated that “Her Majesty’s writing” was “produced in Parliament”;51in this document, the “writing” is constantly referred to as “it,” which suggests that only one piece of writing was produced. Yet there is no mention of this in any other source. If one or more of the Casket Letters were indeed produced in Parliament, no one questioned their veracity. There were too many vested interests involved and too many reputations to protect.52

  Between 15 and 20 December, Parliament re-enacted the legislation of the Reformation Parliament of 1560, and restated the Protestant Confession of Faith, which was the cornerstone of the reformed Kirk. It also repeated the Act of 1564 that declared Mary of age, so that no one could say that the Lords had forced a minor to abdicate. On 20 December, Parliament ratified the forfeiture of Bothwell’s titles and estates and declared him guilty of treason. This Act stated that the Queen had “suspected no evil from any of her subjects, least of all from him,” which appeared to exonerate her of the crimes of which she had just been declared guilty.53On the day this Act was passed, Caithness protested, on behalf of all the jurors at Bothwell’s trial, that the evidence had not been adequate to justify his condemnation.54

  On 6 February 1568, Archbishop Beaton reported that Moray had been determined to prosecute Archbishop Hamilton in Parliament “on the plea that he had a hand in the murder, which is only a calumny.” I
f the report was true, Moray stayed his hand, but Lennox and his supporters certainly believed in the Archbishop’s guilt, which would have serious consequences for him later on.

  When Mary heard of the Acts passed against her, she was horrified at these terrible slurs upon her honour, and fearful that she was in danger of death. In desperation, she appealed to both Elizabeth I and Catherine de’ Medici for help, but neither responded. In fact, each was more concerned to outbid the other for Mary’s black pearls, which, as has been noted, Moray finally sold to Elizabeth.

  Around this time, Moray, Morton, Balfour and others visited Mary at Lochleven, but they showed her “such contempt and disdain that the breach ever afterwards grew wider. Moray could never bear her to insist, as she did earnestly and continually, that she ought to be discharged of the crimes imputed to her, about which she was much more solicitous than for her life and the re-establishment of her authority.” Mary showed herself particularly contemptuous of Balfour, who had betrayed her and Bothwell twice in June, and called him an “arch traitor” to his face, which caused him to hide himself behind the other Lords, “reddening excessively.”55

  By 22 December, only seven of the sixty-two persons summoned for Darnley’s murder remained at liberty: the Ormistons, James Murray, Patrick Wilson, Paris and two others. Wilson had disappeared, and was never caught. The Ormistons were still hiding out in Liddesdale, in the house in which Ker of Fawdonside was being held under arrest. Murray was in exile in England, and Paris was probably in Denmark with Bothwell.

  Argyll, Huntly and Herries formally recognised Moray as Regent on 29 December,56but although it seemed that Mary’s former supporters had one by one fallen away, by the end of that fateful year of 1567, public opinion was changing in her favour.