Heretic Queen

by Susan Ronald

  While Elizabeth ascribed to the school of “keeping her friends close and her enemies closer,” O’Neill was proving an elusive man to pin down. It was one thing to have Mary’s bellicose clansmen fighting as mercenaries for O’Neill and quite another to have him plot with de Quadra and the might of Spain. With Sussex also present at court declaiming labyrinthine conspiracies throughout the troubled province of Ireland, Elizabeth concluded her interview with Shane O’Neill prematurely, before the matter of his true allegiance and the Earldom of Tyrone was resolved. Shane vowed revenge.

  On his return to Ireland, unrestrained feudal warfare broke out between Shane and the clan chieftains who were “infringing” on his proclaimed territories. The Earl of Ormond (the Butler family) and his clients—all of whom were Anglo-Irish—ostensibly fought on behalf of the English crown against O’Neill. In reality Ormond and his men were hoping to manipulate his bitter enemy, the Earl of Desmond, and his “Geraldine” followers, who fought alongside the treacherous Shane. As few locals hadn’t aligned themselves with the various feuding lords, a state of virtual civil war gripped Ireland. Shane laid waste to much of the country—burning crops, butchering Irish men, and raping Irish women. Pius IV, Philip II, and the Scots queen watched and waited in dismay.12 Shane’s scorched earth policy, though, directly affecting only Irish affairs, would later be held up to Irish Catholics as a sign of Irish barbarity.

  While Shane pretended that his outrage was religious, it remained a purely sectarian struggle for power against the crown. Fortunately, Elizabeth saw the endgame in Ireland clearly. Where English Catholics had been forced into submission by the Act of Settlement with further legislation rammed through the Parliament of 1563 for their reticence to adopt the Anglican Church, Ireland had by and large escaped the same scrutiny. The perception at court was that the Irish remained lawless and that governance of the land by England’s Lord Lieutenants was akin to moving in “a dark and dangerous labyrinth.”13 Even the Catholic Church feared to tread into the Irish “Wild West” replete with adventurers, scoundrels, and thugs who masqueraded as either Anglican or Catholic clergy as suited their personal agendas.

  Nonetheless, Pius IV dipped a toe in the water, perhaps not believing the outpourings of lawlessness he had heard, and carelessly appointed the flamboyant Miler Magrath as archbishop of Down and Connor. Within no time, Magrath would change sides and become Elizabeth’s eyes and ears as her Anglican bishop in Cashel, riding in full body armor, carrying a skull on a tall pole as his trademark, and trailing an army of outriders behind him.14

  With characteristic political blindness, Pius IV wrote to Shane O’Neill as Prince of Ulster on July 14, 1564, commending him in “his indefatigable zeal and steadfast courage” in the defense of the Catholic faith. The papacy, still believing in its temporal role outside of the Papal States, had joined battle directly with England’s postern gate of Ireland. The Antichrist, as Elizabeth’s godly ministers called the pope, must be stopped.

  EIGHT

  Mary Stuart, the Great Catholic Threat

  The Pope greatly deplores that the peace of the Queen, the Cardinal’s niece, and her realm should be thus broken, but he trusts in God that the authors of the mischief will pay the penalty of their rashness.

  —Pope Pius IV to Charles, cardinal of Lorraine, October 1565

  Within the year, trouble brewed between Elizabeth and Mary. Robert Dudley had been elevated to the rank of Earl of Leicester and was offered to Mary as a handsome bridegroom to seal amity between England and Scotland. Mary famously shunned Elizabeth’s dashing Master of the Horse. Instead, Mary had, it seemed, settled on a far worthier English subject, Henry Darnley.

  Darnley had been put forward as a potential husband for Mary years earlier by his scheming mother, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. The countess, Henry VIII’s elder sister and Elizabeth’s aunt, had been on the wrong side of Elizabeth’s temper once before. In 1562, the Lennox claims supposed that their son’s marriage to Mary of Scotland would ensure young Darnley’s accession as king of England in his own right. After all, Henry Darnley was the great-grandson of Henry VII.

  Yet despite Elizabeth’s understandable concern at Margaret’s overt scheming, resulting in both the Earl and Countess of Lennox being thrown into the Tower suspected of treason, in 1565, Elizabeth allowed the Earl of Lennox and Darnley to pass into Scotland to save their family’s substantial lands from falling into untrustworthy hands.

  Elizabeth had made a dire mistake. Still, it was an error undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of both her most trusted advisers, William Cecil and Leicester. But why? Leicester later avowed his own distaste for his proposed marriage to the Scots queen claiming that “the invention of that proposition proceeded from Mr. Cecil, his secret enemy.”1 Cecil, for his part, must have preferred an English subject to any foreign prince as Mary’s husband and connived with Leicester for Darnley’s “one month sojourn” to Scotland in the hope that Darnley could become a replacement for the hapless Leicester. No wonder Elizabeth couldn’t bear the sight of either Leicester or Cecil for a while—it must have dawned on her that she had been well and truly hoodwinked by them both.

  Darnley and his father wasted no time in inserting themselves into Mary’s court in Edinburgh. At first Mary seemed indifferent to the handsome boy. Yet when Darnley came down with measles, Mary nursed him back to health. Suddenly, Mary became besotted by the tall, dashing, and athletic Darnley.

  What is unclear is if Cecil had expected that the rambunctious Scots lairds and courtiers would rise up against the likely Darnley marriage. Darnley was a Catholic, too, and in the lairds’ eyes, should the couple wed, this could only spell the doom of the fledgling Protestant Presbyterian realm of Scotland. Eventually, they enlisted the aid of their unflinching John Knox to preach against this ill-starred match from the pulpits. The English ambassador, Thomas Randolph, who had been a reliable, if gossipy, source of information about life at Mary’s court, asked to be recalled. Randolph sensed civil war on the wind. Mary’s two most trusted and influential ministers, Sir William Maitland and her half brother the Earl of Moray, took the Protestant line and let the queen know their feelings. Still, Mary chose to ignore them, sending Maitland south to London for Elizabeth’s obligatory permission to marry the English nobleman Darnley.

  When Maitland arrived in London on April 15, 1565, he and Cecil conferred privately for three weeks. No correspondence survives outlining the specific nature of those meetings, only whisperings picked up from the dispatches of the French and Spanish ambassadors. Naturally, Maitland asked Elizabeth for her permission for the match; she declined to respond directly, stating instead that she would send Sir Nicholas Throckmorton to Edinburgh with her reply. By May 21, Throckmorton delivered Elizabeth’s message taken down at the Privy Council meeting that a marriage with Darnley “would be unmeet, unprofitable and perilous.” The same letter also confirmed that there was “no place left to dissolve the same [the Darnley match] by persuasion or reasonable means otherwise than by violence.”2 Catherine Grey’s marriage to Hertford loomed in Elizabeth’s mind; with Darnley, like Catherine’s bridegroom, out of reach.

  She was right to fear the worst. Mary had decided that she didn’t really need Elizabeth’s approval to wed Darnley after all. On July 22, Darnley was granted the coveted Scots title Duke of Albany. On July 28, he was proclaimed Prince Henry, to be styled “king of this our kingdom” of Scotland. On Sunday, July 29, the couple was married by Catholic rite. Mary’s wild infatuation with Darnley would prove her eventual undoing.

  All the while, disquiet was souring into open revolt in Scotland. Moray had spread rumors that the Catholic Lennox faction had planned to assassinate him. The Lennox party claimed that Moray planned to kidnap Lennox and Darnley and take them back to England to face Elizabeth’s displeasure. By July 1, 1565, Moray had asked Randolph for a subsidy of £3,000 from Elizabeth to suppress this overt threat to the Protestant religion in Scotland and to further an English
alliance. Yet somehow, no one seemed to notice that Darnley’s Catholicism was plainly fashioned from convenience rather than faith. Hadn’t Darnley readily listened to John Knox sermonize at St. Giles Church in Edinburgh? Hadn’t he avoided the nuptial Mass at his own wedding?

  * * *

  By August 6, Moray was “put to the horn,” or outlawed, for refusing to explain his behavior to his half sister Mary. When he had heard Elizabeth’s warning against the Darnley marriage, Moray declared himself “the sorrowfullest man that can be,” for he knew he had failed to align the Scottish Protestant cause against the Scottish queen. For Moray, there was no doubt that rebellion was the only solution.

  Moray was outmaneuvered, on all counts. On August 11 Mary sequestered his substantial properties along with those of his followers Rothes and Kirkcaldy. A week later, she proclaimed her intention to march against the rebels and ordered a muster of troops, paid for by the time-honored tradition of pawning her jewels. Mary secured the wild north of the country by making the Earl of Atholl her lieutenant against the expected insurgency of the Earl of Argyll, then led her army westward to face Moray. Yet battle was not joined.

  Moray, with the Scots Lords Châtelherault, Rothes, and Glencairn, had slipped southward, entering Edinburgh without a fight on August 31. Moray was shocked to discover that Mary had claimed his rebellion was merely a laird’s attempt to snatch the crown, when he had believed he was raising a civil war to maintain Protestant liberties. Still, he found that both Catholics and Protestants in the capital had little appetite to put themselves “to the horn.” Even the ubiquitous John Knox expressed a newfound admiration for Mary, whose “courage increased man-like” and who sported a pistol thrust into her saddle, outriding her ladies in the face of danger.3 From Glasgow, Mary issued another proclamation, promising a definite settlement of the religious question. Sir William Maitland straddled the fence, declining to join Moray or throw his weight behind his queen. Six weeks later, Moray was ensconced in exile at Elizabeth’s pleasure in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a pariah for his rebellion, which had been derided in Scotland as the “Chaseabout Raid.” Only help from England could reverse their collective fortunes.

  * * *

  Previously, in June 1565, Elizabeth had decided to lock up Mary’s future mother-in-law in the Tower of London once more for her meddling in the English succession. Elizabeth had warned Mary through Ambassador Randolph that to go ahead with the marriage was “unmeet and perilous” and that waging war against her old and tried councillors could only end in tears. By October 13, the Venetian ambassador in France reported back to the Signory that Moray had had the “secret support” of the English queen. If the Venetian ambassador to France reported this, then Elizabeth’s position could hardly be a secret from Catherine de’ Medici and Mary’s uncle the cardinal of Lorraine in France, or the Vatican or Spain.

  A week before the Venetian ambassador’s report, Moray had fled across the border into England just as Mary prepared to attack. Elizabeth had tried in the previous month to broker a deal between the two sides in the interest of peace, and most particularly to prevent Mary from appealing to her uncle of Lorraine or the Vatican for support of money or men-at-arms. Mary’s reply was categorical: She would not tolerate Elizabeth’s meddling in Scotland’s affairs. The same day, the French ambassador in London, Paul de Foix, received another letter from Mary claiming that Elizabeth was attempting to make her renounce the Catholic faith. Elizabeth had paid, so Mary claimed, 6,000 crowns to the rebels. “God forbid,” Elizabeth responded disingenuously to the Spanish ambassador, Guzman da Silva, later, “that I should help disobedient subjects.”4

  Whilst Moray was called to London to receive a public upbraiding, Cecil concentrated on what mattered most to the Privy Council. Mary had breached faith with Elizabeth by failing to consult with her as she had promised to do regarding her marriage. Mary had assisted the Irish rebels against their anointed queen, and Mary was conspiring with the pope against Elizabeth. Moray had reported these transgressions and more, but Cecil, at the time, lacked written proof that Mary had enlisted the pope in her troubles. The council concluded that war with Scotland should be averted, unless and until proof of Mary’s treason against England could be obtained by “all good means of mediation” by Elizabeth’s command. Cecil could hardly know that on the same day the French ambassador wrote of the Scottish rebellion, Pope Pius IV penned a letter to Mary’s uncle Louis, cardinal of Lorraine:

  Having heard that … some will do their utmost to procure such terms of pacification as may be very far from advantageous, nay actually ruinous to the Catholic religion, he [the Pope] has deemed it his duty to exhort the Cardinal to do his utmost to deter the King and Queen [of Scotland] from making such a composition; which would … be utterly repugnant to the office and dignity of Catholic Princes … and most grievously offend God, the Pope, and all good men.5

  Pius IV immediately wrote to Philip II and the archbishop of Milan, who held sway with Philip’s uncle Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand. Philip’s reply was a resounding endorsement of Mary, promising money and men should England support the rebels or if “the Queen of Scotland should assert by force of arms her pretensions to the succession to the English throne.”6 Philip’s lengthy reply also advised Mary that “she must needs to be at pains to retain the servants she has gained in England, and also to gain all such others as she can, without letting it be known … and still, as ever it will be necessary to keep alive the negotiation with the Queen of England for her designation of the Queen of Scotland as her successor.” As if his advice to deceive Elizabeth were not enough, Philip concluded, “I entreat his Holiness to direct that the like correspondence be had with me on his part, that we may proceed in the business in such concert as it demands, and carry it to the proposed end.”7

  * * *

  On December 9, Pope Pius IV was dead. His successor, Michele Ghisleri, took the name Pius V. With his election came the enthronement of the Papal Inquisition and a stated aim for the utter extinction of so-called Christian heresies. A former Dominican monk, Pius V sought to make asceticism a way of life at the Vatican, naturally making powerful and rich enemies amongst the nobility. There would be a tightening up of laws long ignored, a hatred of accepted papal nepotism, and an unabashed attempt to bring sobriety to Rome. Prostitutes were expelled, profanity and animal baiting banned, nuns and monks compelled to live in the strictest seclusion according to their vows, and a new catechism instructed. Far from Pius V offering an olive branch to the beleaguered Protestant countries like England, this was a fire-breathing pope who saw Roman Catholicism as his country, disregarding all national boundaries and the desires of those who ruled them.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, for Mary, the future seemed bright. The popes—both old and new—had provided her with emotional succor and financial aid; her people had rallied to her; Philip II had planted both feet firmly in her camp, and she was expecting her first child. It hadn’t mattered to her that there had been no time for a honeymoon. Mary had relished grabbing hold of the reins of power, assessing who could be trusted and who might turn against her.

  Still, she hadn’t noticed that governing was an anathema to her husband. Darnley’s sole interest as king was the official bestowal of the “crown matrimonial” that would allow him equal status with his wife and strengthen his claim to England’s throne. Frustrated by his desire, he was frequently seen about the town, drunk and in the company of commoners. At other times, Darnley processed through Edinburgh with lighted tapers, in an ostentatious Catholic gesture, asking others if they would be content to go to Mass with him. In fact, Darnley’s whereabouts became so unreliable that Mary was obliged to cast an iron stamp of her husband’s signature in order to avoid delaying affairs of state. Hunting, hawking, and other manly pleasures occupied his days and nights. The iron stamp, once made, was entrusted to the custody of David Rizzio, Mary’s secretary.

  * * *

  It was Rizzio’s service that became the fo
cal point of Darnley’s jealousy. Sir William Maitland had miraculously found his way back into Mary’s service without demur. Yet in Maitland’s absence, David Rizzio, an ambitious and talented Italian musician, had been catapulted to power as Mary’s private secretary, gaining the queen’s entire trust. Rizzio, a Catholic, was believed to be a papal agent to Pope Pius V, who had, in turn, urged Mary to weed out “the thorns and tares of heretical depravity.”

  In no time at all, rumors swirled about that Rizzio was more than a secretary to Mary, much more. Darnley himself, in a fit of rage, publicly accused his wife of lying with the dwarfish man and Rizzio of being the father of the child in Mary’s womb. The more Darnley railed against Rizzio, the more dear Rizzio became to Mary. By March 1566, this Italian Catholic was undoubtedly the most powerful man in Mary’s government.

  * * *

  There were already plots afoot to dislodge him from Mary’s favor. Maitland wrote to Cecil that unless matters changed, he saw no way forward but to “chop at the very root” of the problems that were bound to face Mary in the weeks ahead. To discuss these issues, Maitland sent Robert Melville to Cecil on an extraordinary mission: to officially warn that the English ambassador, Randolph, had been suspected by Mary of assisting the Chaseabout rebels. In fact, Melville conveyed the extent of Maitland’s double-dealing as being more labyrinthine than originally suspected.

  Before Cecil could act, Maitland had Randolph ejected from Scotland. When Randolph wrote to Cecil, he confirmed that Darnley’s father, the Earl of Lennox, was now conspiring with the former rebels to oust Rizzio, providing that they would support Darnley’s bid for the crown matrimonial.

  It hardly came as a shock a week later when both the Earl of Bedford and Randolph wrote in a joint communiqué to Cecil from Berwick that “a great attempt [is] to be made by such advice as the Lord Darnley hath gotten of some noblemen in Scotland whereby he thinketh to advance himself unto that which by other means he cannot attain unto.” These most trusted English diplomats urged that only Elizabeth, Leicester, and Cecil should know of the contents of the letter, since “you have heard of discords and jars between this Queen [Mary] and her husband … He is himself determined to be at the apprehension and execution of him whom he is able manifestly to charge with the crime.”8 The “him” referred to was David Rizzio, and Darnley himself was now part of the plot to murder Rizzio in exchange for the Protestant Lords’ cooperation in bestowing upon him the crown matrimonial. The most extraordinary part of the whole adventure was that only four months earlier, these same Protestant Lords had risen in revolt against Mary for wedding Darnley, and once Parliament was convened on March 7, 1566, their lands would be confiscated under a bill of attainder for their actions.