Mary Queen of Scots

by Retha Warnicke

  It is also true, however, that it was unrealistic for the English to expect the acquiescence in her imprisonment of a woman who was a queen regnant from her infancy, was reared at the French court, and had already escaped captivity twice. In a letter of December 1571, she defiantly asked Elizabeth what she would do if they changed places. After receiving this message, as well as another from her in January 1572 protesting her imprisonment, Elizabeth did not respond directly to this question, although she had once experienced the fears and worries of captivity. Instead, she replied that she had never refused Mary’s reasonable requests and pointed out that she was not a captive but lived in a nobleman’s house, waited upon as a queen. The draft of this letter that survives is in Cecil’s hand.

  In September 1571 after discovering the Ridolfi Plot, Elizabeth had required Shrewsbury to confine Mary to Sheffield Castle, her residence since November 1570, and to reduce her household to 16. Grief-stricken by these orders, Mary composed an emotional letter of farewell to her servants. Among those leaving were the Livingstons, Willie Douglas, and her almoner, Ninian Winzet, a recent arrival who was transferred to the imprisoned Leslie’s residence. As Shrewsbury suspected accurately that Winzet was a priest, his employment at Sheffield would soon have ended in any case. Mary arranged passage to France for the Scottish attendants fearful of returning home and pledged her willingness “to endure every kind of misery and suffering, even death, in the cause of my country’s liberty.”9

  Meanwhile, de la Mothe Fénélon sent Norfolk 2,000 crowns10 of which the duke forwarded £600 to an agent to pass on to Grange, still holding Edinburgh Castle for Mary. Instead, the messenger carried the money to Burghley, who had Norfolk’s house searched and acquired Mary’s ciphered letters to him and her cipher key. Hampered by his loyalties to the crown and to Protestantism that gravely weakened his leadership in these conspiracies, Norfolk was imprisoned in the Tower again in September.

  After intercepting a letter to Mary from Ridolfi in which he related his successful visits to Pius V, Philip, and Alva, Burghley placed further restrictions on her household. On 22 November she related to Leslie that she had been detained in her chambers for ten weeks. While continuing to seek help from friends on the continent and requesting Seton to reveal her plight to Alva, Mary reminded Elizabeth that for four years she had been complaining about her good sister’s refusal to assist her restitution that caused her to seek aid elsewhere.11

  In January 1572 as Lord High Stewart, Shrewsbury headed a commission to try Norfolk for treason at Westminster Hall, leaving Sadler as Mary’s substitute custodian. After learning about the duke’s guilty verdict, Sadler informed Lady Shrewsbury so that she could convey the news to his prisoner. The countess found a grieving and weeping Mary, who had already heard about the verdict; she subsequently decided to observe three days of abstinence weekly to pray for his preservation. In June when he was beheaded after parliament requested his execution, Mary became quite ill. She had rightly been concerned about this parliament’s actions. It also demanded her execution and approved a bill to prevent her accession in England on which Elizabeth postponed her decision.

  In June Elizabeth dispatched four commissioners, William West, first Lord de la Warr, Sadler, Thomas Wilson, master of requests, and Christopher Bromley, solicitor-general, to charge Mary with attempting to advance her claims to the throne by marrying Norfolk and participating in the Ridolfi plot. Her response to them was that although she recognized no earthly superior, she would be willing to answer Elizabeth’s accusations in person.12

  Two months later European Protestants were horrified by the St Bartholomew massacre in which Catholics slaughtered 2,000 Huguenots at Paris and another 3,000 in the provinces. Concerned about possible French aid to Mary’s allies in Scotland, Elizabeth attempted to resolve the question of her captivity. Elizabeth sent Killigrew ostensibly to alert James’s governors to the possible danger but actually to negotiate Mary’s return home, her murder trial, and execution, relieving the English of responsibility for her fate and preventing future complications if she escaped or gained restitution. Having succeeded Lennox as regent after he was killed in a scuffle engineered by the Hamiltons in 1571, Mar proved receptive to the English proposals. The terms had not been worked out when he died of natural causes in October 1572, however, and they were dropped under his successor, Morton. Between 1574 and 1576, Elizabeth briefly raised the possibility of her cousin’s restitution with Morton, again unsuccessfully mainly because he did not want her returned. By then the Scottish civil war was over; in late May 1573 Drury led a force of 1,500 equipped with artillery and seized the last stronghold of Mary’s allies, Edinburgh Castle, including its keeper, Grange, who was later hanged, and Lethington, who died somewhat mysteriously.

  LESLIE’S DEFENSE AND BUCHANAN’S DENUNCIATION

  While English officials were handling issues relating to Mary’s captivity, Leslie’s and Buchanan’s tracts about her involvement in her second husband’s murder and about her English succession rights were being published. Outraged by the defamation of her character at the inquiry in 1568, Leslie decided to defend her publicly. In his Defence of the Honour of...Marie Quene of Scotland, which appeared in 1570 and in revised form in 1571, he denied that she colluded in her husband’s death and characterized the undated and unsubscribed Casket Letters as forgeries. (Actually, one of the letters was dated.) He condemned the spite and malice of Moray, whom he charged with actually planning the king’s murder. Validating Plowden’s and Browne’s arguments that the common law rule against alien inheritance did not apply to the crown, he explained that even if they were incorrect, she could still succeed because of England’s claim of lordship over Scotland. He also questioned the validity of Henry VIII’s will, which was stamped but unsigned by him. Finally, he rebutted Knox’s arguments limiting the monarchy to males, claiming instead that the law of nature emerged from the historical process in which many women participated as rulers.

  In 1570 Buchanan criticized both the Hamiltons in An Admonitioun to the Trew Lordis, which was published that year, and Lethington in The Chamaeleon, which remained in manuscript until the eighteenth century. The first printed version of his denunciation of Mary appeared in London in November 1571 after Burghley’s discovery of the Ridolfi plot caused Elizabeth to cease opposing the public defamation of her cousin’s character. In De Maria Scotorum Regina (later entitled Detectio Mariae Reginis), which Buchanan prepared in 1568 at the direction of the Scottish privy council, he offered dishonest interpretations and inaccurate facts about Mary’s relationships to her second and third husbands, accusing her of colluding both in the king’s death and in Bothwell’s abduction of her. Appended to De Maria was Actio Contra Mariam Scotorum Reginam, composed by Thomas Wilson, which emphasized female fickleness and claimed Mary aggressively pursued Bothwell, a mere puppet in their liaison. Finally, the appendix contained three of the Casket Letters in Latin. Burghley probably promoted this first publication of Mary as a murderess in the Latin language to attract a large Catholic readership abroad. Wilson also translated the De Maria (Detectio) into a language, identified as Scottish, and added all eight Casket Letters, two editions of which appeared within one month of the Latin rendition. Afterwards, most of the letters were issued in correct Scottish and French.

  It is interesting that the French versions of the letters, which were published in 1572, are bad translations of the Scots, which seem to be versions of Buchanan’s Latin renditions of the originals. Since the Scottish privy council authorized some of the translations that were published and presumably had access to the actual letters, it is extremely odd that they never appeared in their initial French form. This bizarre publication record lends support to the speculation that the Casket Letters were originally written in the Scots version that Moray sent to Elizabeth in 1568. The last known possessor of the letters was a descendant of Morton. After his death, they disappeared.

  Since the Letters were published in various translations in
the 1570s and since the transcriptions of them made in 1568 remained in England, the destruction of the original manuscripts, if they were not in French, would seem to be more important to the agenda of Mary’s enemies than it would be to that of her friends. Without them her sympathizers could not prove definitively that she was defamed. It is not even clear that any of Mary’s commissioners ever saw the alleged originals in England. They were not present when Moray introduced the documents into the inquiry, and Leslie failed to note in his Defence that one of them was dated. Meanwhile, the publications of them in the various translations, other than their original versions, continued to taint Mary’s reputation for centuries. Surely, if the Casket Letters were actually written in French, they would have had an important enough monetary value for Morton’s heir to attempt to preserve or even to market them. Henry VIII’s love letters to Anne Boleyn still survive, after all, at the Vatican. But this, of course, is mere speculation.

  After John Bateman, Shrewsbury’s secretary, delivered Buchanan’s denunciatory work to Mary, already in possession of Leslie’s favorable treatise, she blamed Cecil for sending it to her. Some of her contemporaries claimed that the public attacks of critics, like Buchanan, whether true or false, irreparably damaged her reputation. When the 64-year-old Buchanan, whom Mary denounced as an atheist, became James’s tutor in 1570, the outraged queen protested her enemy’s appointment to her young son’s household.

  HOUSEHOLD MATTERS

  In the years following the forced reduction in 1571 of Mary’s own household to 16 individuals, some of its members had to be replaced because of deaths. In the summer of 1575 Claude Nau, a Guise client, assumed the office of French secretary, formerly held by the late Pierre Raulet, who had in 1568 rejoined the captive queen’s staff.13 In 1577 the master of her household, Andrew Beaton, the archbishop’s brother, died while returning from a mission to the continent to obtain the release from a vow of celibacy for his betrothed, Mary Seton. Andrew had actually succeeded his deceased older brother, John, to this office in 1570. When Seton expressed concerns about marrying Andrew, a younger son of inferior lineage, the queen had reassured her that she would enhance his status before their wedding.

  Other members departed because of illness or old age. In 1583 Seton’s poor health prompted her to retire to the abbey of St Pierre at Rheims. Even before her departure, Mary had longed for the company of her former Scottish dames of honor and had requested unsuccessfully that either Livingston’s or Lethington’s widow rejoin her household.

  Another of Mary’s pressing concerns was obtaining a resident Catholic priest. When she asked specifically for a cleric to administer to her spiritual needs, Shrewsbury inevitably responded negatively. She complained bitterly to English officials about her lack of a priest, pointing out that even foreign ambassadors were permitted to observe the Catholic faith at their embassies. Until Leslie’s imprisonment and Winzet’s dismissal in 1571, she had, of course, been able to rely on them for spiritual guidance. In fact, Leslie did continue to send her his published treatises.14

  By 1578 long bereft of a priest, she was requesting Edmund Augier for prayers to say on solemn days and at times of great necessity. Finally, in late 1581 or early 1582, some ten years after Winzet’s departure, Henri de Samerie alias Henry de la Rue, a Jesuit priest, joined her household disguised as a physician. Departing after eight or nine months, he returned for brief periods in the summers of 1583 and 1584.

  Even without a cleric, she continued to participate in some traditional religious services. At the annual Maundy, celebrating Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet, a ceremony Elizabeth also observed, Mary gave to some poor women, the number equaling her age, one and one-half yards of woolen cloth, two yards of linen cloth, and 13 pence in coin. In addition, she bestowed six pence to the elderly in the nearby town. Since an English farm laborer in the 1560s might hope to earn £3 a year, these were generous offerings.

  Besides seeking to continue some religious traditions and to employ appropriate staff, she also attempted to acquire clothes suitable for her royal status and fine items for her chambers. In 1574 she requested that Archbishop Beaton forward patterns of dresses of cloth-of-gold and silver and of silk like those worn at the French court. She also required some Italian headdresses, veils, and ribbons as well as a crown of gold and silver, similar to ones formerly created for her. In 1576 Mauvissière asked Walsingham’s permission to send Mary four boxes of wearing apparel and clothes and two boxes of preserves that had arrived for her. Moreover, she ordered a bed and six great candlesticks in 1577 and some gold articles for tokens and New Year’s gifts for her servants in 1579.

  In 1575 as some individuals had requested portraits of her, she instructed Beaton to send her four set in gold. Two years later, Nau noted that an artist, who was not identified, was painting her portrait. In all only 50 images of her are extant, a small number when contrasted to the 250 images of Elizabeth. In France the master artist, Francis Clouet, had painted Mary: his rendition of her in white mourning, en deuil blanc, is the most well known of her early portraits, and a number of copies were derived from it. The surviving Scottish images are limited to engravings on medals and coins or sketches in crude drawings. It is not known when she sat for the exquisite English miniaturist, Nicholas Hilliard. As he was in France until at least August 1578, he was not the artist painting her in 1577, and it is possible that he rendered her miniatures from French models, although his work has the appearance of having been taken from life. The famous Sheffield types, the original of which is reportedly at Hardwick Hall, are standard Jacobean portraits. Among other extant English images of her are drawings of her execution and memorials in martyrologies.

  In addition to obtaining portraits and other items from France, Mary attempted to recover her jewels from Scotland. While serving as regent, Moray seized many precious items, including a huge diamond called the Great Harry given to her by Henry II as a wedding present. Having learned Moray was selling off her jewels, Mary petitioned Elizabeth to prevent him from disposing of them. In 1568 Elizabeth did ask him to refrain from marketing them, a somewhat disingenuous request since she had recently obtained from him the magnificent set of large pearls Catherine gave to Mary as a wedding present and ultimately collected a rather extensive inventory of the gems. When Moray died in 1570, his widow refused to surrender the remaining jewels, even seeking Burghley’s protection against anyone who might attempt to recover them. After succeeding Moray as regent, Lennox gathered an assortment of Mary’s gems from her friends by threatening their imprisonment unless they relinquished them. Following the fall in 1573 of Edinburgh Castle, the depository of Mary’s other jewels, Morton, then her son’s regent, collected them and ignored her request for those dating from her French marriage. A confiscated letter by Grange to Mary, which was written two days before his death, probably assisted Morton in obtaining them. It declared Grange’s devotion to her and revealed where all her jewels were kept. Morton later also acquired the ones Lady Moray still retained.

  FRENCH DOWER INCOME

  The repossession of her jewels would have been a welcome boon to Mary, helping to offset the loss of dower funds her French servants and relatives had been siphoning off. Without naming a particular individual, she claimed in 1574 that someone was forging her documents to seize her funds illegally. The shortages caused great concerns. She relied on this income to pay her household wages, to support the defense of her castles until 1573, to provide pensions for those leaving her service and for Catholic refugees, and to take care of her personal needs.

  While in Scotland she never obtained the total amount due her, but her English captivity compounded the collection woes. From her prisons, she had difficulties communicating with her French council, which was convened by Archbishop Beaton as chancellor until 1573 when he reluctantly relinquished this office to Gilles, sieur du Verger, President of Tours. It was only in 1573, five years after Mary reached England, that Elizabeth permitted her to confer with a
French advisor. Du Verger visited with her then and again in 1577. Sometimes Mary’s councilors ignored her long-distance instructions; she often criticized, for example, the uncooperative attitude of her treasurer, René Dolu, sieur d’Ivoi in Berry, who traveled to England in 1576 but failed to obtain permission to consult with her. Two years later, she complained to Mauvissière about the denial of her recent request for the visit of one of her treasury commissioners. In 1581 Mary blamed her problems on the lack of good management in France and on Elizabeth’s refusal to allow her staff access to her. That year she replaced Dolu with Anthony Arnault, sieur de Chérelles, whose brother Jean was employed at the French embassy.

  In late 1582 Elizabeth permitted Mary to meet with two of her French councilors who happened to be Nau’s brothers-in-law. En route to Scotland in September 1582 to confer with King James, Albert Fontenay, secretary of her council, stopped by to discuss his mission with her. Jean de Champhuan, sieur du Ruisseau, her chancellor, also met with her at that time to audit the dower accounts. Since Elizabeth began accurately to suspect that du Ruisseau was discussing the plans of Henry, third duke of Guise, to liberate his cousin, Mary, the English queen instructed Shrewsbury to delay momentarily du Ruisseau’s departure. After returning to the English court in October, he elicited permission for Mary to consult annually with a French advisor, a promise that was apparently kept in 1583 but retracted thereafter, according to Mary’s complaint in September 1585.

  Du Ruisseau’s appointment to Mary’s French council actually represented a change in the nature of its membership. By the early 1580s, Catholic refugees from Britain had gained considerable influence over Mary’s French officers, who were mainly men of lesser social status than her earlier appointees. The institution had changed from an administrative unit with the goal of preserving and investing her funds into an arm of her household intent on coordinating political activities, a development that reflected her interest in utilizing her revenue for Catholic goals.