Mary, Queen of Scots (14 page)

It was celebrated, however, by a banquet held at Lochmaben Castle, near Dumfries, on 14 October, which was presided over by the King and Queen. The next day, the royal couple, having disbanded most of their army, left for Edinburgh, staying at Callendar House on the way. Bothwell, in command of 1,500 men, remained at Dumfries to guard the western border.

The honeymoon period was over.

“THERE IS A BAIT LAID FOR SIGNOR DAVID”

MARY WAS BACK IN EDINBURGH by 19 October, free of Moray’s tutelage and ready to rule Scotland with the support of Darnley and her chief advisers, Atholl, Lennox, Huntly and Bothwell, the only four earls who were willing to attend court regularly. None of them, however, enjoyed the political stature and experience of Moray, and Maitland, with his acute understanding of statecraft, was still out of favour. In his absence, Mary turned to Rizzio and other “crafty vile strangers,”
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as well as lesser men like Balfour, for counsel and advice. With the majority of the other Lords hostile to Darnley, Lennox, Bothwell and Rizzio, Mary was in a very precarious situation, and her future success depended greatly on Darnley’s character and his ability to help her control the nobles, as Moray had done so effectively. A pessimistic Randolph wrote scathingly: “How she, with this kind of government, her suspicion of her people and debate with the chief of her nobility, can stand and prosper passes my wit. To be ruled by the advice of two or three strangers, neglecting that of her chief Councillors, I do not know how it can stand.”
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Matters were made worse by the fact that, after less than three months of marriage, relations between Mary and Darnley were already deteriorating. Lennox claims that this first became apparent after the Chaseabout Raid,
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while the
Book of Articles
declares that marital harmony “lasted not above three months.” Mary soon became aware of the defects in her husband’s character, and had to come to terms with the fact that she had married a “wilful, haughty and vicious”
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bully who was not only frequently drunk but also essentially weak in character. Far from being her support, he was more likely to provoke the antagonism of the Lords and further alienate them from her. Clearly, she had made a dreadful mistake in marrying him.

No longer was Mary content to play the role of adoring, submissive wife, for it was obvious that Darnley did not return her love and probably never had done. As soon as he returned to Edinburgh, he began making nightly forays to the city’s taverns and brothels with young “gentlemen willing to satisfy his will and affections,”
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without bothering to conceal his activities from his wife, in whom disgust and disillusionment quickly quenched the fires of infatuation. To add to her humiliation, in late 1565 Darnley had an affair with a lady of the Douglas family, and also made a lady of the court pregnant, according to a report by an Italian visitor to Scotland, Pietro Bizari. Darnley’s promiscuity, his insolence towards the Queen and his vile temper only served to diminish her respect for him. Too soon, they were drifting apart and spending less and less time in each other’s company, Darnley often being away hunting and hawking around Peebles or in Fife.

Darnley’s elevation to kingship had turned his head. He believed that his marriage had taken place “with the consent of the nobility, who thought him worthy of the place,” and “that the whole kingdom would follow and serve him upon the field, where it was a shame a woman should command. These conceits were continuously buzzing in the young man’s head.” Mary, however, took the view that “all the honour of majesty he had came from her,” and that “she had made choice of him by her own affection only.”
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The Spanish ambassador later opined that Darnley would not have been “led astray” and antagonised the Queen had his mother been present, “as the son respects her more than he does his father,”
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who was unable to control him.

It was all too apparent that Darnley was unfit for kingship and would never give Mary the vital support that she needed. His arrogance had already alienated the nobility, his loose tongue was a political liability, and he was more interested in the rights and privileges, rather than the duties and obligations, of his position. Although Mary had made every effort to associate him with her in the government of the kingdom, he was not interested in state affairs or the everyday responsibilities of a ruler, and preferred field sports to attending Council meetings. This meant he was not available to sign the official documents that were supposed to bear both his signature and Mary’s, which caused unreasonable delays; in the end Mary had to resort to having a stamp of his signature made, which was held by Rizzio and used in the King’s absence. Mary was now largely shouldering the burden of government alone,
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and Darnley’s behaviour was giving her enemies a means of making political capital against her. Moray, in exile, was openly lamenting “the extreme folly of his sovereign” which could only lead to the “utter ruin” of Scotland.
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Darnley was also disillusioned with his marriage, chiefly because of Mary’s adamant refusal to bestow upon him the Crown Matrimonial, which was the thing he wanted above all else. His resentment continued to fester, not only because he felt he was being denied his proper share of royal authority as Mary’s equal, but also because he had his eye on the crown, which would be his if Mary died childless after having given him the Crown Matrimonial. But, despite his bitter and frequent complaints and remonstrances, the Queen insisted that he was too young and had yet to prove himself worthy of the honour. In truth, she may have feared that his ambitions implied a threat to her sovereign rights and even her life.

Darnley’s other cause for grievance was Rizzio, whom he blamed for Mary’s obstinacy over the Crown Matrimonial. Rizzio had been Darnley’s friend, but as Darnley’s credit with Mary declined, Rizzio’s increased and he came to enjoy the political influence that should have been Darnley’s, which aroused the latter’s bitter resentment and jealousy and put an end to the friendship. Daily, the Queen showed more and more favour to the upstart Italian and spent many of her leisure hours with him, sometimes making music or playing cards late into the night. It was unwise but understandable: her husband was a disappointment and she could not trust most of the Lords who should have been in attendance as her chief advisers, so in her isolation she turned to the faithful Rizzio, in whose lively and witty company she could relax and on whose advice she was beginning to rely heavily.

Yet there were those, Randolph among them, who suspected that her relationship with Rizzio was more than that of monarch and secretary. Darnley, given his wife’s behaviour, had every reason to share his suspicions, and certainly did. Randolph was a hostile witness, and although he referred to Rizzio as “a filthy wedlock breaker” who indulged with Mary in “such filthy behaviour whereof I am ashamed to speak,” there is no conclusive contemporary evidence that Mary and Rizzio were in fact lovers, although circumstantial evidence makes it a possibility. What is more important is that many people believed, or affected to believe, that they were.

In March 1566, Paul de Foix, the French ambassador in London, reported to Catherine de’ Medici that one night, between midnight and 1 a.m., Darnley arrived up the secret stair to Mary’s bedchamber and found the door locked. He knocked, but there was no answer and it was only when he shouted that he would break down the door that Mary opened it. At first, it appeared that she was alone, but Darnley’s suspicions had been aroused and he went straight to a closet, where he found a quailing Rizzio wearing only a shirt covered by a furred robe.
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Buchanan, whose brief was to discredit Mary, later wrote of a similar incident in which Darnley, having been informed that Rizzio had gone to Mary’s bedchamber one night, went to investigate and found the door bolted on the inside. In this version, Darnley did not force his way in, but spent a sleepless night in an agony of suspicion and jealousy.

But Darnley never alleged any such thing against Mary or Rizzio, even when it was imperative that he justify his conduct, and Lord Ruthven’s contemporary eyewitness account does not refer to either incident, stating only that Darnley complained to Mary in March 1566 that he had good reason to be angry because “since yonder fellow David came in credit and familiarity with Your Majesty, you neither regarded me, entertained me nor trusted me after your wonted fashion. For every day before dinner you were wont to come to my chamber, and passed the time with me, and this long time you have not done so; and when I came to Your Majesty’s chamber, you bore me little company except David had been the third person. And after supper Your Majesty used to sit up at cards with David till one or two after midnight. And this is the entertainment I have had of you this long time.” Her Majesty answered that it was not a gentlewoman’s duty to come to her husband’s chamber, but rather the husband’s to come to the wife’s. The King answered, “How came you to my chamber in the beginning, and ever till within these six months that David fell into familiarity with you? Or am I failed in any sort in my body?”

Randolph and Bedford’s account of this quarrel has Darnley saying “that David had more company of her body than he, for the space of two months.” When Mary replied that it was not the wife’s part to seek out the husband, and that the fault was his own—which was probably true, for it must be remembered that Darnley was not blameless in this affair—he answered “that when he came, she either would not, or made herself sick.”
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Few men would have tolerated such a situation, and in the circumstances it was logical for Darnley to experience intense sexual jealousy. By the double standards of the age, his was the greater grievance.

Lennox’s
Narrative
is the only one of the later libels against Mary to give a full account of the Rizzio affair. The others were written under the auspices of the Lords involved, who naturally did not want their role in it publicised. Lennox wrote independently, and much of his information must have come from Darnley himself, whose murder Lennox was doing his best at the time to avenge. Lennox makes much of Darnley’s jealousy of Rizzio, “whom the King might see increase in such disordinate favour to his wife, as he [Darnley], being in his lusty years, bearing such great love and affection unto her, began to enter into such jealousy as he thought he could not longer suffer the proceedings of the said David, she using the said David more as a lover than a servant, forsaking her husband’s bed and board very often, liking the company of David, as appeared, better than her husband’s.”
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This corroborates Ruthven’s account of Darnley’s complaints.

Rizzio had usurped the Lords’ natural privileges, ensured that Maitland was sidelined, and was believed not only to be a papal agent working in secret for the restoration of Catholicism, but also to be blocking any ideas on Mary’s part of recalling the exiled Protestant nobles. He aroused more hatred than Darnley ever did, but Mary seemed oblivious to the Lords’ boiling resentment. She knew she could trust Rizzio absolutely. Yet in continuing to favour him above all others, she displayed incredible folly and an alarming lack of awareness of aristocratic sensibilities and of the scandal to which she was laying herself open by her conduct, which suggests that she was indeed infatuated with the Italian.

On 18 October, Randolph expressed his outrage that Rizzio, “a stranger, a varlet, should have the whole guiding of Queen and country.” As for Mary, “a more wilful woman, and one more wedded to her own opinion, without order, reason or discretion, I never did hear of.” Darnley was even worse, and her Councillors were “men never esteemed for wisdom or honesty.” Of course, Randolph was prejudiced, but he added, with what seems like a touch of sincerity, that “though I oftentimes set forth her praises wherever I could, she is so much changed in her nature that she beareth only the shape of that woman she was before” and was “hardly recognisable by one who had known her in the happy days when she heeded worthy counsel and her praise ran through all nations.” Without Moray’s guiding influence, Mary’s poor judgement and lack of political sense were becoming all too apparent.

Although Elizabeth had commanded Moray to remain in Newcastle, he had gone hotfoot to London to plead his cause in person, and on 22 October, the Queen agreed to see him in private with Cecil present. She was anxious not to provoke either Mary or the French by appearing to favour the Scottish rebels, and, according to Guzman de Silva, it was arranged at this meeting that she would publicly express her displeasure. The next day, therefore, a charade was staged in which Moray, kneeling before Elizabeth, was severely castigated for having rebelled against his anointed sovereign, in the presence of Paul de Foix, the French ambassador, and all the court. Afterwards, although the Queen had said she would not permit him to remain in England, he was allowed to return unmolested to Newcastle with Elizabeth’s assurance that she would mediate with Mary for his return to Scotland. Mary, for her part, rejoiced to hear from Randolph of Moray’s humiliation, not realising that it was mere duplicity.
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From then on, relations between the two Queens were slightly warmer, although Mary adamantly refused to pardon Moray, even in exchange for Lady Lennox’s release.
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Bothwell returned to Edinburgh at the end of October, and was put in charge of reorganising Scotland’s artillery defences and keeping the border secure. But when Mary appointed him as one of her commissioners to negotiate with Bedford for a new peace treaty between England and Scotland, the English withdrew, insulted.

On 31 October, Randolph reported that members of Mary’s household had told him “that she is with child. It is argued upon tokens, I know not what, that are annexed to them that are in that case.” By 12 November, having spoken to Mary, he was able to announce: “She is with child, and the nurse already chosen. There can be no doubt, and she herself thinks so.” Two days later, Mary became unwell, suffering from a grievous pain in her side; while she was confined to bed, Darnley spent nine days hunting in Fife. By 1 December, Mary had recovered and was “taking as much exercise as her body can endure.”
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Her pregnancy had not been officially announced, but most people drew conclusions when, on that day, she chose to travel to Linlithgow in a litter instead of on horseback, as usual.
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Lennox wrote to inform his wife of their daughter-in-law’s pregnancy on 19 December, giving God “most hearty thanks for that the King our son continues in good health and the Queen great with child.”
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