Tudors Versus Stewarts

by Linda Porter

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  WHILE IN ENGLAND Queen Elizabeth prevaricated on the question of marriage, Mary was actively searching for a husband for herself. Her uncle, the cardinal of Lorraine, believed that the most suitable Catholic bridegroom was the archduke Charles of Austria, younger son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand. Such a match would, in his view, greatly strengthen Mary’s ability to govern Scotland. Archduke Charles was also the first choice of Cecil for Elizabeth’s hand. Yet, perhaps sadly for the young man himself, neither queen was really interested and he became something of a footnote to British history. As the ruler responsible for inner Austria, however, he played a more significant role in Europe and his marriage to his own niece, Anna Maria of Bavaria, produced fifteen children.

  Though there was continued talk of the possibility of a French marriage, with the younger brother of Charles IX being suggested as a possible candidate, Mary was only using this possibility as a feint. The Queen of Scots was not going to marry a child. Yet her own first choice in the early 1560s was, in reality, even more unsuitable. Mary liked the idea of an alliance with Spain and she seriously considered Philip II’s son, Don Carlos, as a prospective husband. This was despite the fact that every court in Europe had heard rumours about the prince’s vicious behaviour and his precarious sanity. An obsession with his stepmother, Élisabeth of Valois, added to the embarrassment and misgivings of his father. This was, after all, the heir to the great Spanish empire. Don Carlos was also physically unprepossessing, with a twisted face, misshapen legs and a slight hunchback. Though not unintelligent, he was, in truth, a very disturbed young man and his condition worsened after a fall in 1562 that nearly killed him. Probably saved by trepanning and the advice of a Moorish doctor, his survival was, at the time, credited to his having been made to touch the embalmed body of a local saint. But the incident left him wilder than ever. This was the seventeen-year-old youth Mary believed could be her consort. Luckily for her, his father did not agree and the marriage idea was slowly abandoned, but not before Mary had been seen studying Spanish as an apparent preparation for becoming Don Carlos’s wife.12

  As the negotiations for Mary’s marriage continued in different European courts, the queen and her councillors received a new offer that was much closer to home. On the surface, it appears almost as strange as the idea of her marrying a sadistic Spanish prince. For the candidate supported by Elizabeth was none other than her favourite, Robert Dudley.

  It is fair to say that there was considerable surprise in Scotland in March 1564, when Elizabeth’s proposal was laid before Mary by Thomas Randolph, the English representative in Scotland.13 The Scottish queen’s immediate response was to ask why it stood with her honour to accept him, a reasonable response given the fact that Dudley was a subject of the English queen, known to be so close to her as to suggest, at least to the malicious, that their relationship was improper, and, furthermore, the son of a man executed for treason. Don Carlos might have been unstable but at least he was the heir of Europe’s most powerful ruler. Dudley must have seemed to Mary an extraordinary suggestion. But Randolph could offer more than just Dudley’s hand; there was also the tantalizing promise that accepting him might finally smooth her path to the Crown of England. Mary was taken aback. The matter, she said, ‘came so suddenly upon her’ that she needed time to digest it and discuss it with her councillors. The next day, Randolph had his knuckles wrapped by Maitland for revealing Elizabeth’s offer to her cousin without first mentioning it to him. He had been operating on the premise that keeping up the appearance of the search for a Catholic husband for Mary would put pressure on England to acknowledge his mistress’s place in the succession. Now it became apparent that this effect had, indeed, been achieved but had not brought forth the unequivocal declaration he and Mary were looking for, while at the same time throwing a name into the ring that neither of them had considered.

  Was Elizabeth serious? She certainly appeared to be, ennobling Dudley with the title of earl of Leicester to make him more acceptable. It has even been suggested that she anticipated a future in which Mary abandoned Scotland to live at the English court with her new husband and Elizabeth in a sort of royal ménage à trois. Elizabeth may have been something of a fantasist but it is hard to believe that she really considered such a possibility. In Scotland, both Moray and Maitland were willing to accept the new earl of Leicester as Mary’s husband, but only and always providing that their queen’s place in the English succession was guaranteed by parliamentary statute in London. They held on to this hope throughout 1564, despite a very unsatisfactory meeting in Berwick between the two leading Scottish politicians, with the earl of Bedford and Randolph representing England. Here Maitland showed his country’s displeasure when he commented: ‘It is now two years since this advice was demanded, a year since my Lord Robert was offered and named to us.’14

  There was to be no further progress. Leicester himself was a reluctant party to being dangled as bait for so long and perhaps embarrassed as well, since his own relationship with Maitland had been good before Elizabeth thrust him into the limelight. In October 1562, as Elizabeth recovered from the smallpox that nearly killed her, he wrote to Maitland: ‘[I] do wish her majesty [Mary] had two Lethingtons that she might spare one here.’15 His relationship with Cecil was not necessarily as bad as it has often been depicted – tales of faction and personal enmity at Elizabeth’s court have been overplayed – but Leicester might well have desired the Scottish secretary’s presence to balance that of his English counterpart. And there was obviously a limit to how long the English could delay, no matter what pretty exchanges had passed between Elizabeth and her cousin in the past. On 5 March 1565, Elizabeth brought a decisive end to the prospect of a marriage with Leicester and, more crucially, to Mary’s hopes of her official recognition as Elizabeth’s heir. For in this letter Elizabeth stated unequivocally that ‘nothing shall be done until her majesty shall be married or shall notify her determination never to marry.’ Severe late winter weather delayed the arrival of Elizabeth’s missive until 14 March, when an anxious Randolph, who could well appreciate the kind of response it might get, presented it to the Queen of Scots. Mary was furious and tearful, walking out on Randolph to go hunting. Moray was ‘stark mad with rage’ and Maitland, though perhaps not surprised, as he had seen the way the wind was setting for some time, was still extremely angry. As well he and the queen’s half-brother might have been. There was now no hope for amity between England and Scotland and their own positions and power would be compromised as a result. They were also well aware that Mary now had another husband in prospect. He was young, good looking and possessed his own claim to the thrones of England and Scotland. United with Mary, he offered a prospect that neither Leicester nor any of her foreign suitors could combine in their own persons – the continuation of Catholic monarchy in Scotland, the reinforcement of the Stewart line and a joint claim to the English throne. His name was Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, and his parents were the ever-ambitious Margaret Douglas and Matthew Stewart, earl of Lennox. They had waited long for their moment and, at last, it had arrived.

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  IN 1565 the Lennoxes had been married for twenty years. They were as devoted to each other as they were to their sense of a destiny that had yet to be fully realized. The couple were confident (sometimes overly so) and did not shy away from taking risks. They were determined to ensure that their potential role, in England and in Scotland, was not something that the rulers of either country could ignore. The countess was more than willing to take on her first cousin, Queen Elizabeth, and to undermine her with the help of European Catholic allies if she could. From her home at Settrington in Yorkshire, far from the prying eyes of the capital, she fostered links with European Catholic allies in Spain and France. As the daughter of Margaret Tudor, the countess never lost sight of her position in the English succession, an inheritance that she was proud to pass on to her two surviving sons, Henry and Charles. She described herself as the second per
son of the realm of England, a claim that overlooked that of Mary Queen of Scots among the Catholic heirs of Henry VIII. But given the ill health that plagued both Mary and Elizabeth during the 1560s, the possibility of a dramatic change of fortune could not be discounted and the devoutly Catholic countess believed that God was on her side. Not surprisingly, there was a price to be paid for such bold assertions. Margaret Douglas was viewed by the English Privy Council as a dangerous Catholic intriguer and shortly before Christmas 1561 the earl, the countess, their younger son, Charles, and their entire household were arrested on Elizabeth’s orders and imprisoned in London. Henry, Lord Darnley, managed somehow to evade capture and fled to France. The Lennoxes spent more than a year in confinement while the Privy Council tried to find sufficient evidence to proceed further against the countess. No charges were actually brought against Matthew, her husband, but there was real concern about the involvement in the Lennoxes’ schemes of the Spanish ambassador, the self-important bishop de Quadra.

  Margaret and Matthew were not model prisoners. The countess complained constantly, bombarding Cecil and Elizabeth with letters asking for mercy and a full indication of what charges might be brought. Matthew, in solitary confinement, became unwell and indulged in such violent rages that his gaoler complained of his conduct. In an age remarkable for the public display of private emotions, the Lennoxes were notably unbridled and passionate. In their case, raging and writing helped. By November 1562, Matthew had joined his wife in house arrest at Sheen in Surrey. Not until February the following year, however, were Matthew and Margaret Lennox finally released, unpardoned but free. By the middle of 1563 they were back at court, as was Darnley, and apparently enjoying a burst of royal favour, though one possible interpretation of this Elizabethan change of heart is that the queen thought that she could use them as a counterpoint to the claim of Katherine Grey. Yet using the Lennoxes as a distraction was a course dangerous in itself. It solved nothing in relation to the long-term questions of the English succession and it heightened their sense of entitlement. The earl’s proximity to the Scottish throne was a further hand they could play but first he needed to seek rehabilitation of his reputation and restitution of his lands in Scotland. It was his ultimate success in this that would alter the balance of Anglo–Scottish relations.

  Matthew Stewart made suit via a trusted servant for his restoration soon after Mary’s return to Scotland. Mary did not take immediate action but she made very reassuring noises: ‘all she might do for my lord and my lady her aunt, she would do at proper time … with remembrances to them both.’16 She did not, however, take any further action. Support for the Lennoxes was not widespread among the Scottish nobility at the time. Mary herself preferred to wait for the next move to come from England. It duly arrived in June 1563, when Elizabeth made a formal request for Lennox’s restoration in Scotland. It has been suggested that she well appreciated the ructions this would cause in Scotland (the Lennox–Hamilton feud had certainly not disappeared and Châtelherault could hardly be expected to view his rival’s return with anything other than supreme displeasure) but that she wanted, above all, to be rid of the Lennoxes. But since their capacity for intrigue was unlikely to disappear north of the border and the possibilities, not least for their son, Darnley, as a prospective husband for Mary would be greatly enhanced by the earl of Lennox’s return to Scotland, this seems unlikely. Perhaps Elizabeth believed that after his long exile in England the earl was more English than Scottish in his sympathies and would prove a useful ally there. If so, she made a serious error of judgement. The Lennox restoration, granted by Mary in April 1564, was supported by both Maitland and Moray, who wished to see the Hamiltons’ influence curbed. Elizabeth, perhaps having time to ponder the implications of her support for Lennox, did not let him go until the early autumn.

  On 23 September 1564, Matthew Stewart rode into Edinburgh with a glittering retinue of velvet-clad gentlemen. Margaret stayed in England as Elizabeth was unwilling to let her go as well. Margaret is unlikely to have been greatly concerned by this restriction. Like her husband, she had ambitions for her elder son, Henry, and was perfectly confident that Matthew, once ensconced in Scotland, could bring them to fruition. She was even willing to forgo her long-standing claims to her father’s lands if this could open the way for her husband and son to be accepted more readily. What the English government, and particularly the English queen, would make of their ambitions was far less important to the Lennoxes than the realization of all their dreams.

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  THE EARL OF LENNOX speedily set about ingratiating himself with Mary. He made sure he was as close to her as possible, becoming an indispensable part of her social life. At balls and masques, the kind of entertainment she particularly loved, Matthew made sure that he was at Mary’s side. And this social proximity gave him an ideal opportunity to influence a young woman who was naturally inclined to admire gallantry and affability. They were blood relations and had the experience of the manners of the French court in common. Keeping up with Mary cost Lennox money, and his restitution, granted in October 1564 and hailed by Maitland in parliament, was, predictably, badly received by Châtelherault, who saw the role of the Hamiltons in Scottish affairs disappearing with the return of his hated rival. Mary, however, was happy to curb Hamilton power, having successfully dealt with Huntly in northern Scotland. Maitland gave a revealing justification of her policy when he declared that she had ‘a certain inclination to pity the decay of noble houses, and … has a great deal more pleasure to be the instrument of the uphold, maintenance and advancement of the ancient blood, than to have the matter ministered of the decay or overthrow of any good race.’17 This was music to the ears of the Lennoxes. But what they most wanted to hear were the wedding vows that the Queen of Scots would take when she married their elder son.

  Matthew Stewart did not waste time. Two months after his own return to Scotland he made a formal request of Elizabeth that his son be allowed to join him. This was couched as a legal nicety; Darnley needed to be present so that they could be restored to their Scottish lands together. By now, the English were well aware that Darnley’s name was in the frame as a suitor to Mary Queen of Scots. As was her custom, Elizabeth delayed for a while. Then, in January 1565, she issued a passport allowing the young lord to travel to Scotland. It had a limited time frame and she expected him to return. In retrospect, this seems naïve to the point of foolishness. But Elizabeth was living in a complex present, not a past for which we seek easy explanations. Her decision to let Darnley go has been held against her for centuries. Whether she had carefully, in her own mind, weighed the odds and convinced herself that Mary would not marry a subject or whether she calculated that Mary Stewart married to Henry Darnley was less of a threat to England than her sister queen married to a member of a powerful European family we shall never know. Perhaps she was still playing games, hoping to muddy the waters and prolong the confusion over Mary’s marriage and her own. But if this was so, then she had definitely misjudged Mary’s character. Unlike the queen of England, the Scottish monarch was ready to marry and, if the choice pleased her personally, then so much the better.

  The idea of Darnley as a consort for the Queen of Scots was raised publicly by Elizabeth herself, after the ceremony in which Robert Dudley was created earl of Leicester. Elizabeth displayed an inappropriate affection for Leicester, memorably described by the Scottish ambassador Sir James Melville who reported that ‘she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck to tickle him smilingly … she asked me how I liked him.’ Melville, ever the diplomat, replied, ‘I answered that as he was a worthy subject, so he was happy who had a princess who could discern and reward good service.’ The Scottish ambassador refrained from making any observation that Leicester was being elevated to make him more acceptable to Mary Queen of Scots. It was then that Elizabeth, indicating Darnley, who had borne the sword of honour as the nearest prince of the blood, uttered the famous and prophetic question: ‘Yet you like bette
r of yonder long lad?’ Melville demurred, perhaps too fervently: ‘My answer was that no woman of spirit would make choice of such a man, that was more like a woman than a man; for he was very lusty, beardless and lady-faced.’ (The word ‘lusty’ in the sixteenth century had several meanings but was often used to denote cheerfulness and good spirits.) The ambassador wanted to make it clear that he felt Darnley was too young to be a serious contender for Mary’s hand, though he went on to acknowledge that he had ‘a secret charge to deal with his mother, my Lady Lennox, to procure liberty for him to go to Scotland [where his father was already] that he might see the country and convoy the earl, his father, back again to England.’18 Here Melville was probably being disingenuous. He must have suspected, even before Elizabeth voiced the possibility herself, that the Lennoxes were manoeuvring for something greater than an educational visit for Darnley to the land of his parents’ birth. So, actively supported by Leicester, who seems to have viewed the Darnley suit as a way of getting him out of a difficult situation, and unopposed by Cecil, Henry, Lord Darnley, arrived in Edinburgh on 12 February 1565, travelling through some of the most icy conditions in years to get there.19