At home at Settringham, from the letters that Matthew wrote to her almost on a daily basis, Margaret learned that her longed for, much planned project had come off. Henry was to marry Mary Queen of Scots.
But others knew of it as well. Such breathtaking news could hardly escape detection. Elizabeth’s spies were riding hard for London with the latest information from Holyrood.
Amongst those who supplied it was Mary Beaton, one of the four Marys who served the queen of the same name. Mary Beaton, daughter of an ancient family in Fife, was the mistress of Thomas Randolph, Queen Elizabeth’s ambassador in Scotland. Heartlessly exploited, she gave the secrets of her mistress to the man whom she believed to be in love with her. Through her Elizabeth learned every detail of Mary’s intended marriage. Thwarted in her plans to gain control of both her and her throne through Leicester, the English queen did not try to conceal her feelings. She was very angry indeed.
Margaret, writing to Matthew, told him that the queen of England’s displeasure against the marriage of Mary and Henry was ‘full of affectations’. Her letter, like many of his to her, was probably intercepted. Elizabeth’s agents were effective. She saw to them being well paid.
Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Darnley were married in the private chapel at Holyrood on Sunday 29 July 1565. On the next day, Monday the 30th, Mary ordered the heralds to proclaim her husband King Henry. As the words rang out there was silence. Men looked at each other, shuffling their feet in embarrassment in the audience chamber. Then a lone voice cried out ‘God save his Grace’, and heads were turned to see Matthew Lennox, standing erect, defiant in the honour of his son.
Notes
1 Memoirs of Sir James Melville of Halhilll, p.45
2 Ibid.
35
THE PRICE PAID FOR A MARRIAGE
As the wedding festivities continued Mary and Henry feasted and danced with their courtiers through several days and nights while Henry’s mother, Margaret, remained forsaken in the Tower.
It had all begun in April, some two months after Henry had ridden off for Scotland. Margaret had been at Settrington, when Queen Elizabeth’s messengers had arrived. Summoned to go to London immediately, she was not even given time to make proper arrangements for her younger son Charles, then only a little boy of 9. Queen Elizabeth, in her rage against Henry for marrying the Queen of Scotland without her consent – as was dictated by the law of her father Henry VIII – took revenge on his mother. Once again Elizabeth was to get her own back on the cousin she held responsible for her imprisonment by her sister Mary.
Now, as before, she ordered the property of the Lennoxes to be seized and their household dispersed. Even the young ladies boarding were sent back to their relations elsewhere.
Margaret arrived in London on 22 April to be lodged in her usual apartments in Whitehall Palace under house arrest. Meanwhile, in Scotland, Matthew, with no idea of what was happening, was entrusting his letters to her to the Earl of Bedford, the Governor of Berwick, who sent them on to Cecil, telling him ‘it can not be but there is some news therein, you may use your wisdom in delivering or retaining them.’1 Deprived of her letters, unaware of what was happening in Scotland, Margaret waited in fear and confusion to hear what the queen would do next.
It transpired that she was being held as a hostage. Queen Elizabeth, determined to put an end to the marriage, had ordered the return of both Henry Darnley and his father to England to be held under arrest. The futility of this was all too soon to be proved. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, in an urgent despatch to Cecil, told him that the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to Henry Darnley was now a fait accompli. Elizabeth, determined to prove her authority by punishing the only important member of the Lennox family still within her power, gave an immediate order that Margaret be sent to the Tower.
Taken down the Thames by Sir Francis Knollys, the barge passed under London Bridge where the heads of recently executed prisoners, on the ends of pikes, glared down with hideous grimaces from the roof of the stone gatehouse.
Entering the prison by the water gate below St Thomas’ Tower, the infamous Traitor’s Gate, through which both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard had so recently passed to end their lives, Margaret believed that she would share their fate. ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’, the words must have rung in her mind as once more she was led captive into the now horribly familiar fortress. Here, so many, even if not executed or killed by some deadly disease, simply vanished from sight like the two little sons of Edward IV had.
She was lodged, it would seem, as before in part of the residence of the Lieutenant of the Tower, adjacent to the Bell Tower in which Queen Elizabeth herself, as she claimed at Margaret’s instigation, had been held in her sister’s reign. Three hundred years later, as workmen were making repairs, the names of the servants who were with Margaret were found inscribed on one of the 18ft-thick walls.
Upon the twentieth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand, five hundred, three score and five, the Right Honorable Countess of Lennoxe’s Grace committed prison to this lodging, for the marriage of her son my Lord Henry Darnley and the Queen of Scotland. Here is their names that do wait upon her noble Grace in this place.
M Elizabeth Husey.
M Jhan Baily
M Elizabeth Chambrlen.
M Robert Portynger
M Edward C. Veyne
Anno Domini 15662
(The letter M signified either Mr, Mrs, or Miss)
Margaret was not forgotten. Much effort was made to set her free. Foremost amongst those who tried to rescue her was her new daughter-in-law, Mary Queen of Scots. Deeply concerned as she saw Henry’s distress over the fate of his mother, she sent John Hay, her Master of Requests, to plead with Elizabeth in person.
Whatever Hay said failed to move her. Elizabeth, tyrannical as her father, refused to even countenance a reprieve. Told of this rebuff, Queen Mary then wrote to the young king of France, Charles IX, to beg him to intervene. His letter, pleading for Margaret’s release, arrived on 30 June, but Elizabeth remained adamant in her refusal to set Margaret free.
In Scotland, only the Congregationalists were pleased; Randolph reported spitefully that ‘Some that have heard of the imprisonment of the Lady Lennox like very well thereof and wish both her husband and son to keep her company. It is no small comfort to those who favour God’s word to hear that the Queen’s Majesty, Elizabeth, is determined to advance the true religion and to abase the contrary.’3
He then gave Cecil the details of a plot to capture both Matthew and Henry and deliver them as prisoners to Lord Bedford, the Governor of Berwick, a scheme that had fallen through.
Margaret was still in prison for her fiftieth birthday, which fell on 5 October 1565.
The only good news she had by then received was that on the queen’s orders, her little son Charles, left almost alone in the large empty house at Settringham, was being sent to live with a Norfolk neighbour, Lady Knevet, who had married a Mister Vaughan.
Queen Elizabeth, at least feeling pity for the lonely child, then apparently felt some contrition over the plight of his mother, instructing her Lord Treasurer to send her winter clothing and bedding, the cost of which, surprisingly, she undertook to pay herself.
The list was substantial.
Two petticoats – the one scarlet, the other of crimson silk.
A gown of black velvet furred with konnye [rabbit]
A nightgown of satin furred with the same.
A round kirtle of black velvet.
A piece of Holland cloth at 3s. 4d. the ell
Sixteen ells of Holland cloth, for kerchers and rails, at 6s. per ell, to make handkerchiefs and chemisettes [chemises.]
A French hood, a cornet or white cap, and a billiment [borders of the cap front, usually in lace or jewels]
Twelve pairs of hose or stockings and six pairs of velvet shoes.
Two pairs of slippers, and two pairs of moyles [mules.]
A rug, a quilt, a pair of fustian
s [bolsters] and two pairs of sheets.4
For furniture she had a dining table, six joint stools, a chair and two covered stools, a side table, a table to brush on, four tablecloths and two dozen napkins, eight platters (plates), eight dishes and saucers, four porringers, a salt cellar, two silver spoons and a drinking cup, a basin, a ewer, and a great basin [a hip bath?] for the chamber.
In addition there were a pair of creepers (double triangles on which to make toast), a fire pan, a pair of tongs, a pair of bellows and snuffers.
Two of her female servants, Mrs Elizabeth Hussey and Mrs Elizabeth Chamberlin, who actually slept in the Tower, were amongst those who carved their names on the wall as did others who were lodged elsewhere. But all had to be clothed and fed and paid wages from money which Margaret was forced to borrow, having no income from her estates. Despite her desperate poverty, her portrait, painted by an unknown artist, which originally belonged to Lord Morton and which now hangs in the City of Leeds Art Galleries, was painted at this time, as is proved by it being dated 1565.
The full-length likeness shows her very much the matron in a thick black damask gown, over which she wears a full-length cloak edged with fur. Round her throat is a ruff of lace, while just a few strands of her still red-gold hair, escape beneath a scallop shaped cap. One hand rests on one of the tables, which Elizabeth allowed her to have, while the other holds a glove. Most touchingly, a little pug dog, companion during her captivity, stands on its hind legs, demanding attention, at her feet.
From Scotland Matthew wrote to her continually, although his letters, usually intercepted, seldom reached the Tower. In one written from his house in Glasgow, he tells her the great news that Queen Mary is expecting Henry’s child.
To my wife, my Lady Margaret,
Glasgow, December 19, 1565.
My sweet Madge
After my most hearty commendations. If ye should take unkindly my slowness in writing to you all this while (as I cannot blame you to do), God, and this bearer, our old servant Fowler, can best witness the occasion thereof, it being not a little to my grief now to be debarred, and want the commodity and comfort of intelligence by letters that we were wont [to have] passing between us during our absence … My Madge, we have to give God most hearty thanks for that the King, our son, continues in good health, and the Queen is great with child (God save them all) for which cause we have great cause to rejoice the more.
Yet for my part, I confess I want and find a lack of my chief comfort, which is you; whom I have no cause to forget for any felicity or wealth that I am in, But I trust that will amend. Although I do not doubt that their Majesties forgetteth you not, yet I am still remembering them for your deliverance, to work therein as much as they can, as I doubt not but that their Majesties will; else ere you should tarry there any longer, I shall wish of God I may be with you, our life being safe.
Thus being forced to make no longer letter, for want of time, as this bearer knoweth … I bid mine own sweet Madge most heartily farewell, beseeching Almighty God to preserve you in health and long life, and send us with our children a merry meeting.
From Glasgow the 19th December
Your own Mathiu, and most loving husband.5
What Matthew did not say, perhaps he did not want her to know, was that Mary and Henry were quarrelling. Only later was he to admit that, in the previous month of November, Mary had ‘suddenly altered’ in her affection for their son.6 Even as he was writing, he must have been only too aware that the situation was deteriorating. Mary’s half-brother Moray had rebelled against her marriage. Riding at the head of her army, with Henry beside her, she had defeated him in what became known as ‘the Chaseabout Raid’. Moray himself had fled across the Border to Newcastle but Mary soon pardoned Châtelhérault for supporting him. Henry Darnley was furious. The Hamiltons were his family’s greatest enemies. Encouraged by his father to assert his rights, he told her that as her husband and superior he forbade her to make similar dispensations.
Mary reacted with rage. By Christmas it had become an open secret that the two were constantly in contention. Soon there was open proof. Mary had promised him joint rule. Now this was revoked. At his investiture at Candlemas at the beginning of February, she refused him the right to bear the royal arms. Further to this she made it clear that the promised crown matrimonial would now never be his. This could only be granted by parliament but Matthew swore to Henry that he could exert enough influence to gain it without her consent.
Meanwhile, ignorant of what was happening in Scotland, Margaret remained in the Tower. Little had changed since her last incarceration thirty years before. Then she had been young, with more resistance to the cold, which, even in summer, was still penetrating thanks to the thickness of the walls. The same rats, or their descendants, squeaked and scuttered within them as she lay, so often sleepless, during long reaches of the night. Eagerly she asked her servants, allowed to leave the Tower to go to the markets to buy food, for any news from outside. Was there any word from Scotland? Had the Scot’s queen’s child been born?
She spent much time doing accounts, endlessly adding up the costs of the food and drink they needed to exist, which seemed to get more expensive all the time. Otherwise she sewed beautiful, intricate embroidery, stitching until it hurt her eyes in the poor light near the fireplace, where she sat to get a little warmth. Most of her silks were of the bright colours so popular in Tudor times. But amongst them were twists of grey, as she worked in some of her own once lovely hair, now faded by all the worry and sorrow that she had known.
Notes
1 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, p.359
2 Ibid., p.62
3 Ibid., p.360
4 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, p.364
5 Ibid., p.363
6 Guy, J., My Heart is my Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots, p.241
36
‘FOR WANT OF GOOD COUNSEL’
Melville, who was there at the time, indicates plainly in his memoirs that Matthew Lennox was a predominant influence behind the murder of Rizzio. Many historians appear to have overlooked the fact that Henry’s father, allotted some of the best rooms in Holyrood Palace, was there when the assassination took place. Melville, while not openly accusing him, says that ‘he knew of the said design’. Nonetheless, he implies that it was largely under his influence that Henry was so disastrously led astray. ‘The King was yet very young, and not well acquainted with the nature of this nation.’ 1
‘The Earl of Morton had a crafty head’, wrote Melville, ‘and had a cousin called George Douglas, natural son to the Earl of Angus, who was father to Dame Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, the king’s mother. The said George was continually about the king, as his mother’s brother, and put into his head such suspicion against Riccio [sic] that the king was won to give his consent over easily to the slaughter of Signor David.’
George Douglas, the half-brother to whom Margaret had given sanctuary at Wressil Castle when Henry was still a little boy, was used as a cat’s-paw by Lord Morton, as is proved by Melville’s account. ‘This the Lords of Morton, Lindsay, Ruthven and others had devised, to become that way masters of the court, and to stop the parliament.’2
The reason for cancelling or postponing the parliament was that it was known that revocation was to be made to the Crown of land granted to certain nobles during the queen’s minority. Amongst others, the Earl of Morton was earmarked to lose some of his estates.
It had also been put about that Queen Mary had been persuaded into doing this by her uncle the Cardinal of Lorraine, who had recently returned to France from the council of Trent. The cardinal had sent an envoy, Monsieur de Vilamonte, to Scotland with a commission ‘to stay the queen in no ways to agree with the Protestant banished lords, because that all Catholic princes were banded to root them out of Europe’. He had caused the King of France to write earnestly to Queen Mary to that effect.3
Resentme
nt amongst the men, about to be deprived of land, had reached a crescendo. Blame was focussed on Rizzio, known to be an emissary of Rome.
Henry was young, inexperienced and naturally jealous of his wife’s infatuation with what, both to him and his father, was an upstart Italian; he had been all too easily manipulated by George Douglas, who, according to Melville, was always by his side. It was George who ‘plucked forth the king’s dagger that was behind his back and struck Riccio [sic] first with it, leaving it sticking in him’, ensuring that Henry’s involvement in the murder could afterwards never be denied. Melville then told how:
The next morning, being Sunday, I was let forth at the gate, and passing through the outer close, the queen, looking forth from a window, cried unto me to help her. I drew near and asked what lay in my power. She said ‘Go to the Provost of Edinburgh, and bid him in my name convene the town with speed and come and relieve me out of these traitor’s hands. But run fast,’ says she, ‘for they will stay you.’4 Then, most significantly, even as the queen was talking to him, Mr Nisbet, master of the household of the Earl of Lennox, was sent with a company to stay me. 5
Melville kept his head, telling them ‘that he was only going to hear a sermon at St Giles’ church, for it was Sunday.’6 Fortunately, they believed him, and once out of their sight, he ran headlong to find the Provost, who said, again with some significance, that he had already had another order from the king, but that nonetheless ‘he would draw the people to the Tolbooth’.*
Margaret Douglas Page 16
