by John Guy
The lords heard him out, but replied that there were only two ways to avoid a battle. One was for Mary to leave Bothwell forever. The other was if he would come out into the open ground and fight in single combat.
Du Croc hesitated. Such terms amounted to an ultimatum. He attempted to conciliate the lords, who grew impatient. They protested that they would rather be buried alive in a pit than fail to avenge Darnley’s death. A rhetorical game was being played. Morton was particularly artful, saying “that they had not taken arms against the queen, but against the murderers of the late king; and if Her Majesty would either give [Bothwell] up to be punished or remove him from her company, she should find in them a continuation of all dutiful obedience.”
On Maitland’s urging, the ambassador rode across the open ground and up the hill. He was led straight to Mary, who was sitting on a stone talking to Mary Seton, still wearing her borrowed red dress. He kissed her hands and told her what was proposed. As she listened, her eyes lit with fire. She knew how these lords played their game. “It looks very ill of them,” she said, “to go against their own signed bond, after they themselves married me to him, having already acquitted him of the deed of which they would now accuse him.”
Mary called on the lords to submit. If they surrendered, she would be merciful. “If they ask me for a pardon, I shall be pleased to give it to them and receive them with open arms.”
At this moment Bothwell appeared. Du Croc greeted him, but refused to take his hand. Bothwell spoke loudly so everyone nearby could hear him, insisting on knowing what the lords had said. Du Croc answered just as loudly that they had assured him of their loyalty to Mary. He then lowered his voice and added that as to Bothwell himself, they were his mortal enemies.
Bothwell shouted back, “Is not the bond they gave to me well known to everyone?” Then he said, “I have never meant to offend any of them, but rather to please them all, and they only speak of me as they do out of envy of my high estate.” He then spoke the words that must surely be his epitaph: “Fortune is free to those who may profit from it, and there is not a single one of them who would not gladly be in my place.”
It seemed to be an impasse. Then Bothwell asked du Croc to return to the lords. He was to tell them that, although he was the queen’s husband, he would accept their challenge. He would fight any of them in single combat as long as they were of sufficient rank. “My cause is so just,” he said, “I am quite sure that God is on my side.”
At this Mary interposed. Fighting back tears, she insisted the quarrel was hers. Du Croc, who was fast getting out of his depth, also rejected single combat. Although he loathed Bothwell and would happily have seen him dead, his instructions were to advance French influence in Scotland, not to risk the overthrow of the monarchy. “In that case,” said Bothwell, “there is no need for further talk.” Then, making a joke, he gave the example of the unhappy envoy who had striven in vain to arbitrate between Scipio and Hannibal before the battle of Zama. He could do nothing and so stood aside. Before long he was rewarded with “the biggest show he was ever likely to see.”
Du Croc returned to the lords, informing them that Mary wished them to sue for a pardon. They too became angry. The Earl of Glencairn retorted, “We are not come here to ask pardon for any offense we have done, but rather to give pardon to those that have offended.” His answer confirmed the degree to which a compromise was impossible; du Croc turned on his heels and rode back to Edinburgh.
The standoff continued through the hottest part of the day, giving an advantage to the lords. Whereas the royal army had limited space to maneuver at the top of the hill, the lords could adjust their position below to gain some shade or avoid the glare of the sun in their eyes. They had brought supplies of drinks, probably “small ale,” or low-alcohol beer. They had also struck camp within easy reach of a stream.
Up on Carberry Hill, the temperature soared. When Bothwell’s scouts went in search of water from a nearby well, they were captured. About midday, some casks of wine arrived from Seton for the royal forces. The soldiers fell back to drink. But the alcohol only increased their dehydration. When ordered to return to their ranks, many disobeyed and slipped away. As they did so, the mood changed. Morale collapsed as numbers fell. Those who stayed began to complain that the quarrel was too personal. If the lords wanted Bothwell to fight in single combat, there was no reason why he should not do so. Why should they risk their lives for him unnecessarily?
Around two o’clock, Kirkcaldy of Grange arrived under a white flag to speak to Mary. Bothwell ordered a soldier to shoot him, but Mary gave a cry and ordered that “he should not do her that shame.” Although a friend of Knox and Buchanan, Kirkcaldy was far from an outright republican. In his heart, he was loyal to Mary. He begged her to leave Bothwell, assuring her that if she did so, the lords would disperse. They would honor and serve their queen, but first she had to divest herself of the man who had murdered her second husband.
On the likely assumption that Bothwell had by now given Mary his own expurgated version of the events at Kirk o’Field, she finally knew that it was always going to be his word as a “man of honor” against those of his former accomplices, and that word, she must have realized now, was worth little. When Bothwell stepped forward again, reiterating his offer to fight in single combat, Kirkcaldy nodded with approval. It was what the Confederate Lords had suggested. He would return promptly with their answer.
After the briefest discussion, the lords nominated Kirkcaldy as their champion. Bothwell, however, rejected him. He said that a mere laird was not his equal in honor or degree and “could not be his peer.” He made the same answer to Sir William Murray, the Laird of Tullibardine, the ousted comptroller of Mary’s household, whose brother was the suspected author of the placards denouncing Bothwell as Darnley’s murderer.
Bothwell demanded that he fight with Morton, his partner in Darnley’s murder and his ally for two months afterward until they fell out. Bothwell wanted Morton dead. He challenged him “to come forth and fight with him hand to hand between the two armies.”
Faced with a fight to the death, Morton blinked. He was fifteen years older than Bothwell and a lot less fit. He had not borne a sword in the heat of battle for twenty years, whereas Bothwell was a skilled swordsman, a man still physically and mentally in his prime.
Lord Lindsay, a relative of Darnley, volunteered to be Morton’s surrogate. He was some years younger than Morton and had fought with distinction at the battle of Co rrichie. He advanced, and in full sight of both armies knelt on the ground, praying that God would preserve the innocent and punish the cruel and evil assassin who had shed his kinsman’s blood.
Morton gave Lindsay his own double-handed sword, a weapon prized by his family as the one wielded by their ancestor the great Earl of Angus, nicknamed Archibald “Bell the Cat.” It was a trenchant gesture, since this same ancestor of the Douglas clan had been ousted from his birthright by Bothwell’s great-grandfather. This really was going to be a fight to the death.
Drury claimed that Bothwell drew back at the sight of Lindsay, and so proved himself a coward. This was shameless propaganda. Whatever his faults, Bothwell was a brave soldier. Moreover, he believed it was his best chance to vindicate himself from the charge of sole complicity in Darnley’s murder, since by the laws of trial by combat, the winner was acquitted of the crime by the “voice,” or judgment, of God.
Just when the combatants prepared to advance, Mary intervened. She had first agreed to, but in a split-second decision forbade, the combat with Lindsay. She stopped the fight because, whatever happened, she knew nobody would be satisfied. If Bothwell lost, she would be the lords’ prisoner and would have lost her protector. If he won, she would still lose, because she had come to know Morton for what he really was. He would never accept the result. Either the rebel lords would order their forces to charge or else they would send other champions to repeat the challenge until Bothwell collapsed from exhaustion or died of his wounds.
What Mary now intended is disputed. There are two conflicting reports. According to Sir James Melville, who hated Bothwell and wanted him dead, she summoned Kirkcaldy. She offered to surrender. She would separate herself from Bothwell and put herself under the lords’ protection if they would promise to guarantee her safety.
According to Bothwell’s man, the captain of Inchkeith, her reaction was the exact opposite. Although forbidding Bothwell to fight, she cried out to him to order their army to charge. She “desired nothing more than that her forces should do battle.”
It is impossible to judge between these versions. Neither is corroborated, and neither recorded Bothwell’s response to Mary’s order forbidding the man-to-man combat.
But whatever she intended to happen, her army did not charge and she surrendered. Her forces had melted away, reduced to some four hundred of Bothwell’s men. Even the captain of Inchkeith conceded that she and Bothwell were glancing around anxiously, looking for Huntly and his retainers, who they hoped might arrive at the last minute to save the day.
Using Kirkcaldy as her intermediary, Mary reached an agreement with the lords. Bothwell would be allowed to escape. He would be free to go where he pleased, fleeing with a handful of supporters without immediate fear of pursuit. She would then give herself up and return to Edinburgh in exchange for honorable treatment.
Mary was torn by conflicting emotions. She now resented Bothwell for his treachery over Darnley’s murder. She had been too trusting. It was in her nature, as she had shown since her teenage years. Far from rising above noble infighting by marrying him, she had become more embroiled in factionalism than ever. He had been dishonest and manipulative. Stirred by ambition and a desire to trump his old rivals, he had betrayed the queen to whom he had pledged loyalty and his heart.
She was also calculating the odds. She knew that if Bothwell escaped, he would be free to fight another day. Mary, at her most ingenious in a crisis, was keeping her options open. For all his faults, Bothwell was her protector. She had been born a queen and was not a woman to surrender her throne lightly, least of all to a junta of factious nobles.
When Mary parted from Bothwell, she was weeping. She was pregnant by him, the result of her sojourn at Dunbar. The fact may have been widely known. It was reported to Cecil on the same day as the battle, and so must have been talked about in Mary’s circle for a week or so. Her reluctance to allow Bothwell to engage in single combat might have been at least partly because he was the father of her new baby.
Now it was Bothwell’s turn to be agitated. He began to waver and protest, unsure of the conditions Mary had agreed to with her captors. Would he be allowed to escape only to be taken and killed when he was out of her sight? He appealed to her to tell him the truth. Would he have safe-conduct? She answered “Yes” and held out her hand.
Bothwell clasped it in farewell and, turning his horse’s head, rode at a gallop toward Dunbar, closely watched but still unopposed by the lords. He was flanked by a dozen or so followers. Only when they had ridden almost two miles and were slipping from view did Mary turn to the waiting Kirkcaldy.
The report of Mary and Bothwell’s parting is from du Croc. His account was compiled the next day from his conversations with eyewitnesses and is likely more accurate than anything put out for public consumption by the lords, who claimed that Mary kissed Bothwell passionately in full sight of both armies, and each promised to be true to the other.
Mary never saw Bothwell again. As she turned to Kirkcaldy, she said in a matter-of-fact way, “Laird of Grange, I give myself up to you on the terms you explained to me on the lords’ behalf.” He knelt and kissed her hand. She mounted her horse and rode down the hill at a walking pace. A few steps behind her, Mary Seton followed dutifully on her pony.
As Mary approached her captors, she held her head high. A colored drawing illustrating the scene was prepared for Drury and sent to Cecil. It shows her in her borrowed clothes, determined to keep her dignity as the soldiers stood motionless in awe, watching a spectacle they would one day tell to their children and grandchildren.
Mary’s reception was deferential at first, but once the spell was broken, the Earl of Atholl’s men and those of the Laird of Tullibardine cried out, “Burn the whore! Burn the murderess!” Such insults stunned Mary. She turned to the lords in bewilderment, but they looked away.
Mary’s honor and reputation had been dragged through the mud. No longer would she keep up a pretense. She hated the lords for the humiliation they had inflicted on her; she would do anything she could to destroy them. As she regained her confidence on the road back to Edinburgh, she “talked of nothing but hanging and crucifying them all.” In high dudgeon, she summoned Lindsay, Bothwell’s challenger, to present himself. When he arrived, she offered him her hand. As he took it, she snarled, “By the hand that is now in yours, I will have your head for this and therefore [I] assure you.”
Mary’s threats cost her dearly. She had betrayed her intentions at a moment when she and the Confederate Lords were locked in a struggle for survival. She reached Edinburgh between eight and nine in the evening. The lords had sent a message ahead, and onlookers packed the streets. It was a world apart from her triumphal entry into the town six years earlier, when she was cheered by civic dignitaries and welcomed by “Moors” in yellow taffeta. Then she had ridden in state. Now she was “all disfigured with dust and tears.”
The lords’ propaganda was in full flood. As Mary passed by, the mob shouted insults at her. As a final indignity, she was not taken to Holyrood, but billeted in the provost’s house opposite the Market Cross. “That same night,” said Sir James Melville, drawing on information supplied by the lords, she wrote to Bothwell, “calling him her dear heart, whom she should never forget nor abandon for absence.” She assured him that she had sent him away for his own safety. She urged him to be comforted, and warned him to be on his guard. She gave the letter to a messenger and paid him to carry it to Dunbar. He took the money, but gave the letter to the lords.
The story is quite improbable. Even Melville doubted it, adding a marginal note: “Some suspect this letter to be invented.”
Drury was fed the same story. Then he was told: “The queen hath made a vow she would not eat no flesh [i.e., fast] till she saw Bothwell again.” That may be true. It was entirely in character that Mary should refuse to eat when she knew she was cruelly deceived. The lords had promised her honorable treatment only to keep her under arrest. She would rather die than subject herself to such indignity.
Next day, said Drury’s spy, Mary appeared at a window and called to the people for help. “She came to the said window sundry times in so miserable a state, her hairs hanging about her ears, and her breast, yea the most part of all her body, from the waist up, bare and discovered, that no man could look upon her but she moved him to pity and compassion.” Seeing Maitland go past, Mary begged him to come and speak to her, but he pulled his hat over his ears and pretended not to hear.
Maitland told du Croc a different story. Mary had leaned out the window and demanded to know why she had been separated from Bothwell, “with whom she had hoped to live and die with the full approval of the world.”
In a dark intrigue lasting three hours, Maitland put out feelers to see how du Croc would react to Mary’s imprisonment or exile abroad while the lords ruled in the name of Prince James. A secret pact was reached. Du Croc agreed that France would not interfere, but only if England did not become involved. If Elizabeth intervened, then Charles IX would be forced to declare in Mary’s favor.
The truth was, as long as Mary was still queen, she had the support of a majority of her subjects. An otherwise reliable chronicler, one not in the pay of the Confederate Lords, gave by far the most credible account of this episode. His version was that when Mary leaned out the window and appealed for help, “the people of the town convened to her in great number, and perceiving her so afflicted in mind, had pity and compassion of her estate. The lords perceiving that, came unto
her with dissimulate countenance, with reverence and fair speeches, and said that their intentions were no ways to thrall her.”
This fits the independently known facts. To disperse a large crowd, the lords had to make an announcement. Mary would be allowed to return to Holyroodhouse, where she would be free “to do as she list.” When Mary heard this, she “was so pacified that the people willingly departed.” That evening Mary was escorted to Holyrood by Morton and Atholl, one on either side of her, preceded by a force of musketeers carrying the banner of the murdered Darnley. At a prearranged signal, a carefully selected group of onlookers shouted out, “Burn her, burn her, she is not worthy to live, kill her, drown her.”
But the lords were treacherous. Mary was kept for just a few hours at Holyrood, and only then because it was unsafe to move her elsewhere in daylight. As night fell, she was told to make herself ready. With only a mantle thrown over her nightdress, the fearful Queen of Scots was taken by ferry across the Firth of Forth to Fife, and on to the island castle of Lochleven, near Kinross. Shortly after daybreak on Tuesday, June 17, she climbed into a boat and was rowed to the island in the middle of the loch. The castle loomed eerily out of the morning mist: a square tower four stories high with round projecting turrets at the corners, encircled by a loch that then was about fifteen miles in circumference and at least half a mile from the mainland at its narrowest point.
When Mary disembarked at the foot of the stairs leading to the fortress’s drawbridge, she was met by Sir William Douglas, the Laird of Lochleven, who took her to a sparsely furnished room on the ground floor. Later she was moved to a more secure place, the round turret at the southeast corner of the castle.
