Mary, Queen of Scots (15 page)

As far as Mary was concerned, her pregnancy was the crowning of her hopes, for her child would inherit the joint claims of its parents to the thrones of Scotland and England, and place her in a very strong position
vis-à-vis
the English succession.

At Linlithgow, Mary was reunited with Darnley, but it may not have been a happy meeting. Far from being overjoyed at the prospect of fatherhood, Darnley must have realised that the coming infant would block for ever his chances of succeeding to the throne, even if Mary did grant him the Crown Matrimonial, for its rights would take precedence in the succession. If, however, the Queen or her infant died in childbirth, Darnley would inherit the throne, but only if he had first secured the Crown Matrimonial. It was imperative now that he do so, and the matter became an obsession with him. But Mary continued to deny him what he wanted, which caused violent arguments between them. Randolph reported: “I cannot tell what misliking of late there hath been between Her Grace and her husband. He presseth earnestly for the matrimonial crown, which she is loath hastily to grant, but willing to keep somewhat in store until she knows how worthy he is to enjoy such a sovereignty.”
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Soon after the meeting at Linlithgow, Darnley left for Peebles on yet another hunting trip, and had not returned by 20 December, when Lennox set out to look for him. Buchanan alleges that Mary had sent the King to Peebles in the depths of winter with only a small following, and that he nearly perished of starvation, but this story is not corroborated by any contemporary account.

Mary was not pleased by her husband’s prolonged absence. On 20 December, Bedford reported: “The Lord Darnley followeth his pastimes more than the Queen is content withal. What it will breed hereafter I cannot say, but in the meantime there is some misliking between them” that was fast becoming public knowledge. When Darnley did return to court he received a very chilly reception.

How serious was the rift was confirmed on 22 December, when the coin giving Darnley precedence was suddenly withdrawn and replaced by a new one, the Mary ryal, on which Mary’s name came first. Randolph was certain that the change was indicative of Mary’s serious displeasure with her husband.
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Documents, however, would continue to be issued in the names of King Henry and Queen Mary until Darnley’s death.
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On Christmas Day, Randolph wrote: “A while ago there was nothing but ‘King and Queen,’ ‘His Majesty and Hers,’ but now ‘the Queen’s husband’ is more common. There are also private disorders amongst themselves, but may be lovers’ quarrels.”
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Mary’s inventories show that her gifts to Darnley, once so numerous, had virtually ceased by the beginning of 1566.
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The rebel Lords’ moveable goods, confiscated by the Crown, had now been publicly auctioned off. On 1 December, Glencairn, Ochiltree and Boyd were pronounced guilty
in absentia
of
lèse-majesté
, while on 18 December Moray and the remaining rebels were summoned to appear before Parliament in February 1566 to hear the formal forfeiture of their lands and estates. According to Randolph, it was now Darnley, rather than Mary, who was adamant that Moray should never be pardoned.
²³

That Christmas, Darnley made an ostentatious parade of Catholic piety, obviously intended to show that he was more staunch in the faith than the Queen. Randolph informed Cecil, “The Queen’s husband never gave greater token of his religion than this last night [Christmas Eve]. He was at Matins and Mass in the morning, before day, and heard the High Mass devoutly upon his knees, though she herself, the most part of the night, sat up at cards and went to bed when it was almost day.”
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After Christmas, Darnley returned to Peebles to join Lennox for another hunting expedition,
²⁵
and did not return until the middle of January.

On 2 January, in Darnley’s absence, and much to his disgust when he found out, Mary pardoned Chatelherault for his part in the Chaseabout Raid, on condition that he remain in exile in France for the next five years. One hundred and sixty members of the Hamilton faction received their remission at the same time.
²⁶
The Queen was softening in her attitude to the rebels, and on 24 January Randolph noted that her extremity towards Moray was partly assuaged. Moray, who was running out of money,
²⁷
had written to her pleading to be allowed to return to Scotland, even undertaking to overlook her association with Rizzio. He and his friends had also offered Darnley a very fine diamond as an inducement to obtain Moray’s reinstatement,
²⁸
and had also dangled a bribe of £5,000 before Rizzio, only to be told that his price was nothing less than £20,000.
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All these efforts proved to be in vain, and Moray grew increasingly desperate.

Pope Pius IV had died in December, and on 10 January 1566, his successor, Pius V, a fanatical champion of the faith who was to be an energetic force behind the Counter-Reformation, wrote—somewhat prematurely—praising Mary for her zeal in “restoring the true worship of God throughout your whole realm,” exhorting her to complete what she had commenced and congratulating her on her victory over the Protestants.
³⁰
The Pope’s letter was delivered in February by Clerneau de Villeneuve, an emissary of the Cardinal of Lorraine, who travelled to Scotland with James Thornton, who had been sent by Archbishop Beaton from Paris to urge Mary to proceed to the utmost against the rebel Lords.
³¹

Although, on 10 December, Mary had again promised her subjects liberty of conscience, in a letter to the Pope dated 31 January, she informed him that she planned to restore Catholicism in Scotland and, later on, in England, when the time was ripe and her enemies were neutralised. On the same day she appointed the Bishop of Dunblane her orator at the Vatican, with instructions to ask for spiritual and financial aid from the Holy Father.

Mary had also been expecting monetary support from King Philip, who had granted Francis Yaxley an audience on 13 October. Ten days later, Yaxley had left Brussels with letters of congratulation on Mary’s marriage and the subsidy of 20,000 crowns.
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But Yaxley drowned when his ship was wrecked off Northumberland in January 1566, and the money was seized by the Earl of Northumberland and claimed by Queen Elizabeth as treasure trove.
³³
Darnley took Yaxley’s servant, Henry Gwynn, into his service.

Cecil was annoyed that no letters had been discovered on Yaxley’s body when it was washed ashore, but Philip had prudently written separately to Mary and Darnley via de Silva in London, begging the Queen not to make any attempt on the English throne until he invaded the Netherlands, “where he can with greater facility assist them.” Because of the highly sensitive nature of this letter, de Silva was obliged to hold on to it for several months.
³⁴

On Candlemas Day (2 February), Mary and Darnley attended High Mass together at Holyrood, carrying candles in procession to the chapel royal. Mary “used great persuasions to divers of her nobility to hear Mass with her, and took the Earl of Bothwell by the hand, to procure him in.” Bothwell refused, and went off with Huntly to hear Knox preach, at which Mary was somewhat offended.
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Alarmed at this overt display of Catholicism, Randolph reported on 5 February that Mary had “said openly that she will have Mass free for all men that will hear it.” Darnley, Lennox, Atholl and others “now daily resort to it. The Protestants are in great fear, and doubt of what shall become of them. The wisest so much mislike [Darnley’s] government that they design nothing more than the return of the Lords.”

Two days later, Darnley was again making a great display of Catholic devotion, swearing that he would have Mass celebrated in St. Giles and urging the same in Council, but more (thought Randolph) to test opinion than carry out his boast. Nevertheless, when several Lords resisted his attempts to make them accompany him to Mass, he “gave them all very evil words.” Bedford heard that he wanted to shut them all in their rooms until they did as he wished.
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On the same day, Randolph recorded another rumour that Mary had subscribed to a Catholic League “to maintain papistry throughout Christendom,”
³⁷
while Melville believed that Rizzio “had secret intelligence” with the Vatican.

Mary was doing her best to maintain her pro-Catholic policy, but Darnley may have had an ulterior motive in his overt displays of piety, and was perhaps trying to enlist Catholic support in Scotland, England and abroad for his bid for the Crown Matrimonial. He may also have been trying to convince Mary’s Catholic allies that he was more vigorous in the faith than she was, and therefore more likely to be effective in bringing about a counter-reformation in Scotland.

In such a climate, Rizzio’s position was growing daily more dangerous. On 29 January, Randolph voiced the opinion that the Italian was the father of Mary’s unborn child, and warned Leicester: “Woe indeed to you when a son of David should bear rule over Scotland.”
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Randolph was not the only person, then or later, to express doubts about the baby’s paternity. In 1600, Alexander, Lord Ruthven, sneeringly referred to James VI as “thou son of Signor David,” and in the early seventeenth century, that same King James earned the nickname “the British Solomon” after Henry IV of France had said he deserved to be called the modern Solomon, since he was the son of David.

In January and February 1566, a plot to do away with Rizzio was hatched by a confederacy of Protestant Lords, who believed that he was the chief obstacle in the way of Moray’s return. It is not certain who instigated the conspiracy, and there are essentially four theories about it: the first, according to Melville, was that it was conceived by Morton, Ruthven, Lindsay and the Douglases, who drew Darnley into it by playing on his jealousy of Rizzio and his conviction that it was Rizzio who was preventing his receiving the Crown Matrimonial—this seems the most likely theory; the second theory, according to Ruthven’s deathbed account, was that the plot originated with Darnley, who was urged on and abetted by Lennox,
³⁹
which is less probable; the third theory is that Moray was the mastermind behind the plot and carefully orchestrated it from England, which was later alleged by Bothwell and is certainly possible; and the fourth, that it emanated from the clever brain of Maitland, who had every reason to detest the man who had supplanted him, an equal possibility.

One of the prime movers was Morton, who not only desired the return of his co-religionist Moray, but was also bound by ties of blood to Darnley and felt outraged that his kinsman had been ousted from Mary’s affections and counsels by a foreign upstart who had got too far above himself and was meddling in matters that were no business of his. Morton was also motivated by a degree of self-interest, for he had heard a rumour that, in the coming Parliament, the Crown meant to resume possession of certain lands he had improperly obtained, and he had no intention of allowing that to happen.
⁴⁰

Anthony Standen, a gentleman of Darnley’s household whose younger brother, also Anthony, was the King’s cupbearer, told James I years later that “wicked Ruthven” was the chief conspirator,
⁴¹
although Ruthven denied this.
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Ruthven was also related to Darnley, as was Lindsay, who was married to a Douglas. As far as Morton, Ruthven and Lindsay were concerned, therefore, the plot was a bid for familial advancement, for all would have benefited from Darnley receiving the Crown Matrimonial, which they would dangle before him like a carrot, and wielding sovereign power. In addition, these Lords, all Protestants, were anxious to see the return of Moray.
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Ruthven was to justify the plot by claiming that Rizzio was preventing the return of Moray and, through his dominance over the Queen, excluding Darnley from her counsels.
⁴⁴

Ruthven’s activities, and Morton’s, may have been a front for Moray’s machinations. Moray was seeking a return to power. He and other Protestants believed that Rizzio was responsible for the Bill of Attainder against the exiles that would shortly come before Parliament, and which would deprive them of everything they owned. Moray feared this consequence greatly, but the Protestant Lords in the plot were determined to forestall it, and meant at all costs to prevent Parliament from sitting.
⁴⁵
Ruthven states that the exiled Lords were not drawn into the plot until 20 February, with Morton acting as a link, but Ruthven may not have been aware of any prior involvement on the part of Moray. Moray was a cunning and cautious man, and would have taken care—as he did on other occasions—not to incriminate himself.

Rizzio was not, however, the main target of the conspirators, whose real objective was almost certainly the removal of the Queen from power,
⁴⁶
the elimination of the threat of a Catholic revival, and the reinstatement of a Protestant government under Moray, with Darnley, wearing the Crown Matrimonial, as a puppet king. Claude Nau, who probably obtained his information from Mary in the 1570s when he served as her Secretary, claims that the “chief design” of these “crafty foxes” was “the elevation of Moray to the throne, and the deprivation of [Darnley] and the Queen.” Had Darnley’s elimination really been envisaged, Morton and his Douglas connections would surely not have devised or backed the plot, for there would have been little personal advantage in it for them. But Moray’s appearance in Edinburgh immediately after the murder argues the fact that the slaying of Rizzio was secondary to the coup that it initiated.

Ruthven, Randolph and Bedford assert that Darnley, “being entered into a vehement suspicion of David, that by him something was committed which was most against the King’s honour, and not to be borne of his part, first communicated his mind to George Douglas,”
⁴⁷
the bastard son of Archibald, 6th Earl of Angus and half-brother to Darnley’s mother. Douglas had been pursuing a career in the Church from a young age. In 1546, aged only sixteen, he had been involved in the murder of Cardinal Beaton, and had then seized the lucrative office of Postulate of Arbroath, despite being a lacklustre preacher, a fornicator and a devious and violent ruffian. Now, finding Darnley in great sorrow, “he sought all the means he could to put some remedy unto his grief.”
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