Mary Queen of Scots (63 page)

Unlike Mary herself, the lords now took care to pursue with relentless ferocity those of Bothwell’s underlings who had been involved in the murder of Darnley. This process, which continued throughout the rest of the year, was intended to distract public attention from the complicity of the new governors of Scotland, Morton, Balfour and Maitland, in the crime. William Blackadder – he who maintained he had merely run out of a near-by tavern when he heard the explosion at Kirk o’Field – was the first to be captured; he was hung, drawn and quartered, and his limbs posted up on the gates of the leading burghs of Scotland. William Powrie, who had been in charge of transporting that suspiciously small amount of gunpowder through the streets of Edinburgh, was caught; under threat of torture he provided two separate depositions, contradicting each other in many respects, and he was finally hung. Bastian and Francisco Busso were imprisoned in the Tolbooth. Another of Bothwell’s men, John Spens, was given his life, in return for handing over the coffers full of his master’s money. John Hepburn and John Hay of Tallo were caught and executed before the turn of the year; in each case they made self-incriminatory depositions before the end. It was another year before the lords managed to lay their hands on ‘French’ Paris – he who described how he had been kicked and bullied by Bothwell into participation in the murder; by this time Mary was in an English prison and Moray securely installed as regent; Paris’s deposition therefore proved the most fruitfully damning of them all. But when Cecil sent a request from London that Paris should be sent down for cross-examination, the page was promptly hanged in Scotland. Black Ormiston was hung in 1573, after making a highly dubious death-bed confession to a priest. Pat Wilson and Hob Ormiston were never caught.

The most dramatic capture, from the point of view of the future, was that of the tailor, George Dalgleish, he who had watched Bothwell while
he changed his carnival clothes to a cloak of ‘sad English cloth’; his seizure was afterwards said to have marked the first appearance of those most debatable of all controversial documents – the Casket Letters. The alleged circumstances of their discovery were not made public until eighteen months later, at the Conference of Westminster in December 1568, in a declaration given by Morton. But it is worth giving the declaration’s story in detail here, at the moment in history at which these events were afterwards said to have taken place, in order to see how far this later declaration fits in with the happenings of the time. The story of Dalgleish’s apprehension was given by Morton as follows:
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on 17 June Morton was dining with Maitland in Edinburgh Castle when a spy reported to them secretly that Dalgleish was known to have come into the castle from Dunbar, with the parson of Oldamstocks. Archibald Douglas was sent to catch the clergyman, but Dalgleish himself had almost escaped when his whereabouts were betrayed. Dalgleish protested that he had only arrived on a simple errand to fetch his master’s clothing, but after being threatened by torture he changed his story, and according to Morton’s statement, led his interrogators to a house in the Potterow where he produced from under his bed a silver casket. This was the first appearance of the famous silver casket in which the Casket Letters were said to have been discovered, and it will be seen how dubious the circumstances of its discovery were from the first, with the threat of torture playing a sinister role. Morton’s declaration went on to state how on 20 June he had the casket formally opened; the papers within it were presumably read, but no note was taken of their contents, beyond the fact that the documents pertained to Bothwell. There was absolutely no mention of the queen, or of letters in her hand-writing. Morton sealed up the casket again and took it into his own possession, where it remained.

The strange fact about this declaration, and the whole affair of George Dalgleish’s capture was that absolutely no mention was made of these remarkable facts at the time. According to Morton’s December 1568 statement, the lords were from 20 June 1567 onwards in full possession of the vital evidence of the Casket Letters; but although these letters thoroughly incriminated Mary in Darnley’s murder, it was remarkable that the lords still made no mention of her guilt three weeks later when they made a series of accusations against Bothwell at the Tolbooth. As has been seen, throughout the summer of 1567, the blame for Mary’s downfall was heaped by the lords on Bothwell; the queen’s crime was considered to be her refusal to abandon him; there was no suggestion that she had participated personally in Darnley’s death. Yet the lords were nothing if not
anxious to retain the queen in her prison at Lochleven; it seems inconceivable that they should not have used this damning evidence against her at this point, if indeed they possessed it. More extraordinary still, if Morton’s declaration was to be believed, was the matter of George Dalgleish’s deposition.
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The unfortunate tailor, although later described as so instrumental in its discovery, was asked no questions at the time about the silver casket, nor cross-questioned in any way about its contents. His interrogators concentrated entirely on the subject of Darnley’s murder. By the time the subject of the Casket Letters was raised in England, eighteen months later, George Dalgleish had long since been executed.

It was hardly likely that such untoward events in Scotland would pass unnoticed or undigested in England and France. Queen Elizabeth’s first reaction was strong distaste for such unmannerly treatment of queens, and her second characteristic reaction was to see what advantage could be obtained from the situation for England. She sent Throckmorton north to parley with the lords, and also to see if there would be a possibility of obtaining the wardship of the little Prince James whom she now suggested could be brought up conveniently in England by his grandmother the countess of Lennox, conveniently forgetting that day when Elizabeth had flung her into the Tower out of rage at the marriage of James’s parents. The French were animated with the same happy idea of bringing up the young prince; the discussions over his welfare were strongly reminiscent of the arguments over Mary’s own custody during her infancy. Throckmorton reached Edinburgh before the middle of July; his letters back to London provide a valuable insight into the state of affairs in the Scottish capital, since he brought the fresh mind of an outsider to his commentary. It is more difficult to assess Mary’s own state of mind during the crucial early weeks of her captivity: none of her own letters from this period has survived, with the exception of two or three smuggled out of the island towards the end of her stay there; it is more than probable that the strict conditions of her confinement simply did not permit her to write them. The narrative of her secretary, Nau, dictated by the queen while in captivity in England, is the only guide extant to her personal feelings, and it suffers from the obvious disadvantage of having been written many years after the events in question took place, by one who had not himself been present on the island.

The first fortnight of Mary’s incarceration was an agonizing experience, not only on account of her wretched health. Throckmorton heard that the queen was kept ‘very straightly’; the lords did not intend that there should be any dramatic midnight flits from Lochleven. After a fortnight her total
nervous collapse seems to have drawn to an end; Drury heard from Berwick that she was ‘better digesting’ her captivity, and could even take a little exercise. Bedford heard about three weeks later that her health was improving.
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With the return of her strength, some of her personal magnetism seemed also to be exerting itself, since Lord Ruthven, son of that Lord Ruthven who had appeared like a vengeful ghost at the murder of Riccio, was considered by his colleagues to be falling under her spell, and was removed from his post. According to the queen’s own account,
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he made advances to her, throwing himself on his knees near her bed, promising that he would free her, if only she would love him. From the amorous behaviour of this former enemy of Mary’s can be deduced either the glamorous effect of her personal presence or, more cynically, the quickness of Ruthven’s wits. He may have realized already that the departure of Bothwell made the queen once more potentially marriageable, with all the advantages likely to ensue from such a match.

The queen still absolutely refused to hear of divorcing Bothwell: her reasons for this, as before Carberry Hill, were twofold. Her pregnancy by Bothwell was now thoroughly established in her own mind, and she feared more than ever to compromise the legitimacy of her unborn child; secondly, her extreme suspicion of the intention of the lords towards her own person had only been deepened by their behaviour since Carberry Hill. Although Maitland told her that if she agreed to divorce Bothwell she would be restored to liberty and freedom, Queen Mary must have doubted whether the lords would have carried out their part of the bargain. Why should the same men who had planned to ward her in Stirling Castle eighteen months before have agreed to release her now, even if she put away Bothwell as they suggested? Her return could not fail to threaten their newly acquired power, as well as bringing out into the open once more the events leading up to the death of Darnley. Had the lords really wished to re-establish her, they had an excellent opportunity after Carberry Hill, instead of which they locked her up on Lochleven. The existence of the infant Prince James, held at Stirling Castle under the governorship of the earl of Mar, one of the principal confederate lords, which had once seemed to promise so much for Mary’s future, now told as strongly against her. A long royal minority, with a series of noble regents, was traditionally regarded by the Scottish aristocracy as a time for aggrandizement. It should be borne in mind that on 8 December 1567 Mary herself was approaching her twenty-fifth birthday, on which date it was possible by custom for a sovereign to call back wardships and properties given out during his or her own minority. To the Scottish nobility, the rule of the
thirteen-month-old James was an infinitely preferable prospect to that of his twenty-five-year-old mother, whether she divorced Bothwell or not.

It is noticeable that Throckmorton was deeply shocked by the brutal attitude of the Scots towards their sovereign on his arrival from England. He was genuinely convinced that her life was in danger, and believed that it was his appearance and intervention which actually saved her; otherwise she too might have died as violently as Riccio and her husband. The common people too he found to be highly hostile to their queen, especially the women: Tullibardine took the opportunity of explaining to him that Mary would be in danger of death if they released her. But of course this attitude was only increased by the propaganda of the nobles in her enforced absence: what especially shocked Throckmorton was to find that noble families like the Hamiltons, who had a vested interest in the succession, were ready to join the lords if Mary died, and on 18 July he wrote to England that the Hamiltons would concur with the confederate lords in all things, ‘yea, in any extremity against the Queen’, as long as they were assured that Darnley’s younger brother, Charles, would not be preferred in the Scottish succession over them, if Prince James died.
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On 7 August Murray of Tullibardine went as far as to tell Throckmorton that the Hamiltons, Argyll, Huntly and others in their groups only refrained from joining the confederates because they had so inconveniently allowed the queen to live. The Hamiltons were ambitious enough to see how their chances of succession were greatly improved with the disappearance of Mary; there was now only the little king to be eliminated ‘and then we are home’.
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The behaviour of Maitland was as before highly ambivalent: Throckmorton accused him also of threatening the queen’s life, and pointed out to him that her death, apart from being an outrage, would only clear the way for the Hamiltons; Maitland in turn accused Throckmorton of having liberty in his mouth but not in his heart. At all events, by 9 August Throckmorton was convinced that his intervention had saved the Scottish queen’s life and that ‘this woefull Queen’ would not now die except by an accident, although he could not forbear from commenting, when he heard of the new agreement between the lords and the Hamiltons, that he hoped their accord would not be like that of Herod and Pilate who agreed to put Christ to death.
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On one point the lords were adamant: Throckmorton should not visit the queen personally, despite his many requests to do so. He was thus compelled to depend on their own bulletin as to her state of mind. They assured him that Mary was still madly infatuated with Bothwell, and said in addition that she would be willing to abandon her kingdom for him
and live like a simple damsel (a statement for which there was no other confirmation and on which Mary’s subsequent career casts considerable doubt). On 16 July Throckmorton heard that the queen was in great fear of her life, and had said to some of the lords about her that she would be well contented to live in a close nunnery in France or with her grandmother, Antoinette of Guise.
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These sentiments, if indeed Mary expressed them, must be regarded as coming out of the depths of her despair and physical weakness. More importance can be attached to her first communication to Throckmorton, which he reported on 18 July, when she sent word that she would in no way consent to a divorce from Bothwell ‘giving this reason, that taking herself to be seven weeks gone with child, by renouncing him, she should acknowledge herself to be with child of a bastard and forfeit her honour’.
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It was now some eight weeks since the queen’s marriage to Bothwell: in her letter she therefore suggests that the baby had been conceived subsequent to the marriage. But at some date before 24 July, no doubt as a result of privations and stress, she miscarried the child, and according to Nau, who inserted the phrase very carefully as an afterthought on the page, found herself to have been bearing
‘deux enfants’.
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If the twins had been conceived at Dunbar, on or about 24 April, they were about three months old at the moment of miscarriage, and the double gestation would have been easily recognizable. Even at eight weeks, the foetus is just over one inch in length; but at twelve to thirteen weeks, the foetus is three and a half inches long, which would have made the recognition of
‘deux enfants’
perfectly possible. On balance of probabilities, it seems likely therefore that the queen conceived the twins at Dunbar at the end of April, and that by Carberry Hill, at least, if not earlier, knew for certain that she was pregnant by Bothwell; uncertainty on the subject could have been a factor in hastening on her actual wedding date in May.