Mary Queen of Scots

by Retha Warnicke

  Between 19 February when she returned to Edinburgh and 23 March when this mourning period ended, she moved back and forth between the castle and the hall. In late February the gossipy Drury at Berwick reported that Argyll, Huntley, and Bothwell dined with her at Tranent and that she competed with Bothwell in an archery match. Since she was observing Lent as well as mourning her husband’s death, Drury’s claim, based on spies’ reports, is absurd. George Buchanan later repeated these rumors, substituting golf for archery.

  On 8 March when Killigrew condoled with her in a dark chamber at the castle, he reported that he could not see her face, which must have still been hidden by her thick black veil, but that she exhibited profound grief in her voice and manner. The limited visibility he described has fueled the speculation that an attendant disguised as Mary met with the ambassador presumably because she was too ill to see him. This deceit seems unlikely: Mary had visited with Killigrew the previous June when she was also unwell, and he would have been somewhat familiar with her subdued voice. Locating a six-foot female attendant who could speak with her accent would surely have constituted a great challenge for Mary’s staff. If Mary had instructed a servant to substitute for her at this audience, she would have breached diplomatic protocol, taking a chance on gravely offending her royal cousin, whom Killigrew represented. Apparently, noting no irregularity in Mary’s behavior or appearance, the ambassador handed over some official documents to her.

  Shortly after Henry’s assassination, rumors began to spread about his killers’ identities. On 16 February an anonymous writer placed a placard on the Tolbooth door blaming Bothwell, Balfour, David Chalmers, and Black John Spens. Others accused Mary’s servants, Pagez, John Francisco de Busso, Francis Sebastien, John de Bordeaux, and Riccio. Steeped in hierarchical notions and convinced that a nobleman must have been involved in a prince’s murder, many named Bothwell. In early March an offensive placard displayed her as a mermaid–siren with a crown on her head and Bothwell as a hare with the Hepburn crest, crouching in a circle of swords. On the 14th the council charged with slander in absentia James Murray, her comptroller’s brother.

  It is impossible given the flawed evidence to identify definitively the ringleader of the murder and the tasks his co-conspirators completed. Conflicting information is scattered in chronicles, memoirs, and the statements of those later convicted, many of whom were threatened with torture and placed on bread-and-water diets. Certainly, Morton, Balfour, Bothwell, and his followers were involved but so were others. The assailants seem to have been so disorganized that the disparate groups moving around the lodge were unaware of each other’s presence. That the explosion failed to kill Henry also indicates inadequate, hurried planning. The knowledge that Mary was reconciling with the king may have prompted the haste, since they would soon be sleeping together in the same residence.

  Even so, it seems reasonable to assert that Balfour organized the plot: he composed the band for Henry’s death, offered his brother’s lodge for the king’s convalescence, and stored the gunpowder in his Canongate and Kirk o’Field houses. Bothwell and his followers delivered and fired the gunpowder while Morton dispatched his allies, including Archibald Douglas and Ker of Fawdonside, to ensure Henry’s death.

  In depositions taken in 1575 before an official of Paris at the instigation of Leslie to obtain evidence supporting Mary’s petition to Gregory XIII for a divorce from her third husband, an interesting story about his involvement in the king’s murder was revealed. A deponent, Cuthbert Ramsay, who was a brother of Lord Dalhousie, recalled having spoken with John Hepburn, a servant of Bothwell and one of the king’s murderers, both in prison and at his execution. Hepburn had confided to Ramsay that he had saved Bothwell’s life at Kirk o’Field. Apparently, the earl had decided to investigate the reason for the delay in the explosion of the train of gunpowder. When he neared the gunpowder, it suddenly caught fire, and reacting quickly, Hepburn had pushed him away from the danger.20

  Citing contemporary rumors as well as the Casket Letters, writers have often linked Henry’s murder to Bothwell’s later abduction of Mary as though the two events formed steps in a long-term conspiracy. Since this theory depends on the knowledge of hindsight, it is useful to separate the two crimes, first identifying the assassins’ motives and then the abductor’s goals. Henry’s murder was partly the result of his victims’ reaction to the bloodfeud he initiated when he led Riccio’s armed killers into Mary’s chamber, frightening her attendants and others present at the palace. Relying on a kin-based justice system and a customary code of honor, the injured party or their relatives either retaliated with violence or demanded compensation. When the king denied participating in Riccio’s murder, he left the victims with only the option of force to redeem their honor. His later public denial of involvement, furthermore, antagonized the perpetrators, his former allies, making it possible for them to unite with the victims against him.

  Avenging Riccio, as some observers assumed, were Riccio’s brother Joseph and various Catholic members of the queen’s household. Besides Riccio, the next most aggrieved individual was Balfour, whom Mary believed the armed intruders intended to hang. The king’s killing place belonged to Balfour’s brother, Robert, who was present during the explosion to restore the family honor. Rumors also named Bothwell, who fled the palace in the belief that Henry planned to surrender him to Moray. Although he was declared innocent at his murder trial, the accusations against Bothwell and his adherents are surely accurate.

  In their depositions and confessions, furthermore, some of Bothwell’s accomplices who were executed for the murder, for example, John Hay the younger of Tallo, James Ormiston, and French Paris, claimed both Huntly and Argyll were also endorsers of a band to kill Henry. In his History of Scotland George Buchanan identified Huntly as one of the principal perpetrators. Writing after Huntly died in 1576, John Knox’s secretary, Richard Bannatyne, asserted that both Huntly and Argyll were the king’s assassins. At his trial for Henry’s murder in 1581, Morton claimed Archibald Douglas admitted to being present at Kirk o’Field with Bothwell and Huntly. Finally, a statement drawn up in 1582, listing the offences committed by Esmé Stuart, duke of Lennox, James VI’s former principal minister, included a claim that the duke had restored to their honor and heritage those forfeited for the king’s murder; among the names on its margin was Huntly’s (obviously for his heirs).

  The reason for Huntly’s endorsing the band was that he had escaped Holyrood after Riccio’s death in the belief that Henry meant to turn him over to Moray. If Argyll, who, of course, was not at Holyrood, also signed the band to kill Henry, as is likely, he would have done so to defend his personal reputation and his family’s honor. Although estranged from his countess, he was surely offended that armed murderers had charged into the small chamber, threatening the well-being of his wife and its other occupants. For anyone to assault the earl’s kin-folk or affinity was to insult him as the head of his kindred. An armed attack like the one his countess was forced to witness would have been viewed as a much greater blow to his honor than any physical or emotional damage actually inflicted on her.

  The names of Lethington and Morton also frequently appeared alongside Huntly’s and Argyll’s in the above documents. Henry’s betrayal alienated Lethington, as it did the other Riccio conspirators, but the king’s treatment of Mary further angered the secretary. Executed for Henry’s murder in 1581, Morton and his allies either signed the band or became assassins because Henry publicly denied involvement in Riccio’s death. They may also have felt disdain for his manhood. He had stood by while they restored his honor by completing the murder with his dagger.

  In April 1566 William Henrisson, a secretary of Archbishop Beaton, delivered a letter from Mary to de Silva in London. During their conversation, Henrisson reported his recent audience with Elizabeth during which she asked if Henry drew his dagger during the attack on Riccio. When she learned he had not, she said she was not surprised, recalling he failed to put his han
d to his knife when he was in England. Perhaps she was belittling his courage, as one proof of noble honor was the visible readiness to defend it with violence even for trivial matters.

  Immediately after the king’s assassination, rumors accused the absent Moray of the crime, but he was probably not one of the conspirators. Like Henry, Moray was a Stewart and may have been disinclined to participate personally in another Stewart’s death. It is true he was a Chaseabout raider but he had been reacting to concerns that Mary’s new husband would damage his political and economic standing and jeopardize the Protestant religion. At least by Riccio’s death most individuals understood that Henry had little influence with Mary. The king did, moreover, keep his word to Moray and the other raiders when he dissolved the parliament summoned to forfeit their estates. Without blemishing his honor, Moray could, therefore, refuse to sign the band for the king’s murder. In this context, the comment in French Paris’s confession that Moray would neither help nor hinder the conspiracy seems to ring true. If Moray did know about the plan to kill the king, as he surely must have, he obviously did not feel honor bound to warn Henry of the danger. In April as Moray was planning to go abroad, he drew up a will, naming Mary as his daughter’s guardian, apparently not yet committed to charging his half-sister with her husband’s death. George Buchanan was later to claim that the underlying motive for Moray’s decision to attack her honor was his own exculpation.

  On 23 March after emerging from seclusion, Mary ordered a requiem mass and a dirge for Henry. She next faced mounting pressure to bring someone, principally Bothwell, to trial for her husband’s assassination and to combat rumors that she colluded in his death. Traditionally, writers, who have doubted that she was innocent of the murder, have claimed either that she aided and abetted it or that she at least knew about it. Those who believe she conspired against him have erroneously pointed to her restoration of Hamilton’s ecclesiastical powers, permitting him to grant Bothwell’s divorce. Next, they have contended that she returned Henry to the lodge to make him vulnerable to the plot, but she preferred Craigmillar for his convalescence. Finally, they have cited contemporary rumors as well as the Casket Letters, which contain her alleged confessions of love for Bothwell. Surely forgeries, the Letters will be briefly discussed in Chapter 7.

  Another larger group of writers, believing that she must have at least known a conspiracy was afoot, have cited other evidence. They have referred to the so-called coded language at Craigmillar that should have alerted her to the danger, but she seemed forthright enough when she demanded, while discussing a divorce from her husband not his murder, that her reputation must remain unsullied. They have also pointed to Morton’s claim that after the Whittingham conference, he sent Bothwell and Lethington to obtain from her a warrant for Henry’s death. No transcript of that conversation is available, but Morton denied receiving her written permission to kill the king.

  These writers have further argued that because so many people knew about the conspiracy, a hint of it must have reached her or intuitively she must have guessed its existence. The number involved should not be cited as proof that she became aware of the plot. She could have known about it only if someone revealed it to her. To provide a perspective for the allegation that she must have guessed something was brewing, no one has ever claimed that she knew about the Riccio assault, which attracted over 100 conspirators. The royalty, furthermore, did not often welcome the bearer of bad news. In 1562, for example, when Arran alerted Mary that Bothwell planned to abduct her, she agreed to have both earls incarcerated. In his letter to her in 1583, cited above, Archibald Douglas denied scheming to kill the king but admitted failing to warn her that most of her nobility were angrily disposed toward him. Even brave individuals would have hesitated to reveal information to her that might well draw upon them the wrath of so many noblemen.

  Determining whether she could have realized that a conspiracy against her husband was afoot must involve a consideration of her state of mind. She seems to have been so fearful that Henry was scheming with his father against her that she did not seem to be aware of, or at least sense, his political vulnerability. In January as she planned to fetch him from Glasgow, she ordered investigations into rumors about his machinations to usurp her throne, and after his death in February she believed that the assailants had also targeted her. As she entered mourning seclusion, she probably viewed Beaton’s message concerning a rumored plot against her as confirmation of her concerns that the villains meant to harm her as well as Henry.

  Only twenty-four years old that February, Mary had already under-gone numerous life-threatening experiences: the forcible attempts by Henry VIII and Somerset between 1543 and 1548 to remove her to England, the poisoning conspiracy in France in 1551, the bloody attacks at Amboise in 1560, the Scottish rebellions during her personal reign, 1562 and 1565, several abduction scenarios, the Châtelard incidents in 1563, and the assault on Riccio in 1566. It is no wonder that she viewed the explosion at Kirk o’Field as a foiled attack on herself.

  ABDUCTION AND RAPE

  While writers have paid little attention to how her fears that the conspirators also meant to kill her might have affected her emotionally, they have sometimes argued that Bothwell planned her husband’s murder as a prelude to abducting her. An assessment of his personality is an important consideration in determining whether this was his motive for plotting against the king. In fact, Bothwell seems to have been more adept as a fierce, opportunistic combatant than as a patient conspirator with long-term schemes. In 1566 Robert Melville described him as courageous but of little help in policy discussions. Since he was more physical than mental in his problem-solving capacity, it seems uncharacteristic for him to have invented this complicated assault on Henry; other reports do indicate that he favored an attack on the king in the open fields. A second trait of Bothwell’s, which partially explains the mermaid–hare cartoon, was his lechery. He had promised, for example, to marry a Norwegian woman named Anna Throndssen, whom he deserted after living with her for a few months in Flanders. The daughter of Christian Throndssen, an admiral at the Danish court, she apparently bore him a son named William. In 1563 Randolph commented on the earl’s lustful reputation while he was in England awaiting permission to go to France. Warning about the dangers Bothwell posed to women, Randolph pleaded that Bothwell not be sent to Dover Castle, which stood near the residence of the ambassador’s still youthful sister and her daughters.

  Although the cartoonist’s motives can never be fully known, three additional reasons besides Bothwell’s lechery can be offered to explain why he and others validated the rumors linking the queen to the earl. First, Mary increasingly turned to him for advice especially about the Borders; without negative criticism, du Croc noted her reliance on him at Jedburgh. Second, it was common knowledge that she imprisoned him in 1562 for plotting to abduct her. Finally, the easiest way to besmirch a female ruler, especially a widow, since women with marital experience were viewed as sexually insatiable, was to charge her with illicit relations with a male advisor. Had Bothwell not been available, the cartoonist would have named some other councilor, perhaps, as odd as it may seem, even Bishop Leslie. Clerics were a favorite target of sexual rumors; gossip earlier linked Mary of Guise to Cardinal Beaton and Mary, herself, to her uncle, Lorraine.

  Before emerging from seclusion, Mary made a decision that helped to perpetuate her dynasty but ultimately enabled the usurpation of her crown. She transferred her son from Bothwell’s and Huntly’s care at Holyrood to Mar’s custody at Stirling. On 19 March she discharged Mar, whose father had served as one of her guardians, from the captaincy of Edinburgh Castle, and on the 29th provided instructions for his governance of James at Stirling. To safeguard her son she ordered Mar to prevent anyone from entering the castle with more than two or three attendants.

  Rumors claimed she transferred Edinburgh Castle to Bothwell, already the keeper of Dunbar Castle, but instead she assigned Edinburgh to James Cockburn of Skirling, he
r comptroller who later assisted her in England. Those who believe incorrectly that Mary granted Edinburgh to Bothwell to permit his abduction of her have overlooked the significance of her removing James from his custody. That Bothwell readily relinquished control of the prince supports the conclusion that he had not yet settled on an abduction plan although seizing her may have crossed his mind.21

  While still in seclusion Mary also agreed to Lennox’s request of 20 February for parliament to try his son’s murderers. On 26 February, five days after she informed him that she had summoned parliament to meet, he requested a change in procedures for two reasons. He wanted an earlier trial than could be held in parliament, which required a 40-day notice, and had concluded that punishing murderers was not a parliamentary matter. He requested instead that the crown imprison the men listed on the placards and try them for murder. Since parliament’s original jurisdiction in judicial matters usually involved treason accusations, Lennox probably realized that some members might question whether the death of his son, who lacked the crown matrimonial, was a treasonable act. On 1 March Mary asked Lennox for greater specificity, pointing out that many names appeared on the often contradictory placards. Although he had asked her to arrange an early trial, he did not respond to her request until the 17th, over two weeks later, when he repeated eight names from the placards with Bothwell and Balfour heading the list.