Mary, Queen of Scots (21 page)

They arrived at Edinburgh Castle on 21 April.
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Moray told Mary that they had “taken up arms in consequence of the King only, against whom they had acted in their own defence—not against her. They had no share in the interests and indignities offered to the Queen in her own palace, nor with the murder of the late David; for these, Lord Ruthven and his accomplices were entirely responsible.” Mary admitted “she had no private quarrel with Moray: all had come through the King her husband,” and he “was resolved to pardon Moray. The rigour with which she had hitherto acted towards the Earl was chiefly to please her husband,” hence she was “easily induced” to agree to a reconciliation,
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and gave Moray and Argyll permission to stay in Edinburgh Castle with her,
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intending to keep a close watch on their doings. Moray’s wise counsel and political support would be an advantage of which she was sorely in need at this time, and his restoration to power would certainly ease relations with England, but she would never fully trust him again.

Neither would Bothwell, Huntly, the Catholic Bishop Leslie and Darnley, who all immediately allied against Moray. Bothwell and Moray had long been bitter enemies—Moray had once told Lady Argyll that Scotland could not hold them both at the same time; Huntly wanted revenge on Moray for ruining his father; and Darnley was terrified of Moray, believing that he and the exiled Lords “would have their revenge on him, as soon as they could.”
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Together, they tried to convince Mary that Moray was as much to blame for the murder as the fugitive Lords, and urged her to lock him up, at least until her child was born, “alleging that they were assuredly advertised that he and his dependers were resolved to bring in the banished Lords, even at the very time of her child-bearing.” But Mary, believing that their accusations arose “only from their own hatred,”
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refused to listen, declaring that she knew Moray to be well disposed towards her and that she had forgiven him his former offences. Furthermore, in order to prevent any confrontations, she barred Bothwell, Huntly and Moray for a short period from her dinner table. She kept Bothwell sweet by confiding to him that, in the Will she would soon be drawing up, she would be appointing him a member of the Council of Regency in the event of her death in childbirth. Darnley was to be expressly excluded.

Darnley was also determined to prevent the return of Maitland. “The King proposed that the office of Secretary should be given to the Bishop of Ross in the place of Lethington, whom he especially charged with having been a principal in the late conspiracy.”
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When Mary refused to countenance this, Darnley “became exceedingly angry” and sent one of the grooms of his Chamber to tell the Queen “how much he was displeased with her, and that he had primed and made ready his two pistols, which she would find hanging at the back of the bed.” Fearing that he might try to shoot himself, Mary went to his bedchamber at once and, “after having stayed with him for some time, she quietly carried off the pistols.” Next day, she informed her Council what had happened, “hoping thus to remove from her husband’s mind the prejudice which he had conceived against Lethington, and to let them understand the decision at which she had arrived, which they followed.”
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Darnley’s chief objective now “was to play off, by every means in his power, the one party against the other, so that he himself should become stronger than either of them. The Queen had reason to dread this, knowing as she did the inconstancy and treachery which she had found in his character.”
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It was also obvious that Darnley was blind to reality. On 25 April, Randolph reported that Mary wanted all feuds healed, but that there had been discord between her and Darnley, who was being scorned by the nobles. Moray and Argyll showed only contempt for him, and Melville noticed that the King “passed up and down on his own, and few durst bear him company.”

Nau later asserted that the Lords “fomented discord between the King and Queen by underhand dealings,” in order to keep Moray in power, yet Mary had reason enough to be antagonistic towards Darnley, and clearly had no desire for a true reconciliation. Melville tried to mediate between the royal couple, but became so importunate that the Queen got Moray to reprove him and charge him not to be so familiar with the King in the future. Melville was one of the few people who were sympathetic towards Darnley, and believed him to have “failed rather for want of good counsel and experience than from any bad inclinations. It appeared to be fatal to him to like better of flatterers and ill company than plain speakers and good men.”
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Whatever her private feelings, Mary gave a convincing show in public of marital felicity, which was necessary in view of her coming confinement. Lennox states that the King and Queen “accompanied in bed as man and wife,”
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and Castelnau, when he passed through Berwick, told Bedford that they had spent two nights together, and that he had done his best to bring them together.
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Later, in London, he informed de Silva that they were behaving as a married couple should, and that, after his arrival, the Queen had been more openly affectionate towards Darnley, but he had also noticed that there was suspicion and distrust between them. He added that the King did not “seem bad personally, or in his habits,” and passed his time “mostly in warlike exercises. He is a good horseman.”
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Evidently Darnley had been warned to be on his best behaviour.

Childbirth held many risks for women in those days. With the future security of her heir uppermost in her mind, being loath to “trust her child to the keeping of her husband,”
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Mary’s priority was to seek by all means to ensure the tranquillity of her realm.
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At the end of April, determined to reconcile Moray, Argyll and their ally, the Earl of Glencairn, with Bothwell, Huntly and Atholl, she invited them all to a feast at Edinburgh Castle. Out of courtesy, they acted civilly towards each other, and afterwards worked together as the core of the Privy Council, on which Moray, Argyll and Glencairn were formally reinstated on 29 April, but Mary was aware that their
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was purely superficial. Before long, Moray was attempting to remove Bothwell from court and engage him elsewhere by stirring up trouble in the Borders, with the help of Morton and other exiles. Together, they incited lawless clans such as the Kers of Cessford, the Scotts of Buccleuch and the notorious Elliotts, to create disturbances. Not surprisingly, by 27 April, Mary was seriously contemplating retiring to France for three months after the birth of her child and appointing a regency council to govern during her absence.
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Two days later, she defiantly, and foolishly, recruited Rizzio’s eighteen-year-old brother Joseph (Giuseppe) who had come to Scotland in Castelnau’s train and was a virtual unknown, as her French Secretary.
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In Rome, on 26 April, the Bishop of Dunblane informed the Pope of Rizzio’s murder and urged him to assist the Queen of Scots in her present crisis.
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Mary had also asked the Cardinal of Lorraine for advice about obtaining aid from the Vatican.
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Clearly, she did not want the Catholic powers to think she had abandoned her policies in favour of the old religion, but she also wanted them to be aware of the difficulties she faced.

But Darnley, who feared the Protestant establishment in Scotland and certainly aimed to win support in Europe, seems to have decided to set himself up as the hope of Catholicism, preferably to the detriment of Mary, and in the expectation of securing the power he had been denied by the collapse of the coup. On 29 April, de Silva informed Philip II: “The King continues his devotion to the ancient religion and hears Mass every day.”
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Philip appears to have thought Mary lukewarm in her efforts to restore Catholicism, for, although he condemned Rizzio’s murder, he was no longer so willing to send help to Mary as he had been after the Chaseabout Raid.
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He was also preoccupied with his planned invasion of his Dutch provinces, in which he intended ruthlessly to suppress the heresy that had taken root there. The knowledge that King Philip would soon be in the Netherlands may have given impetus to Darnley’s hopes of enlisting foreign allies in the Catholic—and his own—cause.

On 6 May, in pursuance of this strategy, and forestalling any attempt to make him return his Order of St. Michael, Darnley wrote to Charles IX and Catherine de’ Medici, protesting that he had been “greatly wronged by a rumour that makes me guilty of such a horrible crime. But I hope that my innocence, fully accepted by the Sieur de Mauvissière, to whom I have told the truth of all, will not allow you to have any other than a good opinion of me.” He entrusted the letter to Castelnau, who was about to leave Scotland.
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On 12 May, Pius V wrote to Mary, congratulating her on her escape from “the treason of heretics,” which he attributed to the sharp practice of Queen Elizabeth, and announcing that he would be sending a nuncio to Scotland, along with a subsidy.
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He did not tell the Queen that the Nuncio was to ensure that the money was spent in the Catholic cause, so that she might prevail over her rebels; given her past record, he was not sufficiently convinced of Mary’s zeal for the Faith. His Nuncio, Vincenzo Laureo, a Jesuit hardliner who had recently been appointed Bishop of Mondovi,
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left Rome on 6 June, firstly to visit his new See, and then to pay the first of two visits to the Catholic duchy of Savoy. After that, he intended to travel on to Scotland, although he was well aware that the Protestant establishment would do everything in their power to keep him from setting foot in that land. He carried with him, not only 150,000 gold crowns of the promised subsidy,
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but also a papal brief implying that the Pope himself meant to go to Scotland and mentioning the support that could be expected for Mondovi’s mission from the King of Spain.
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Meanwhile, on 12 May, it was reported by an English observer that the Queen’s hatred for Darnley was such that he could not safely stay in Scotland;
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four days later, Sir John Forster at Berwick informed Cecil that Darnley was now planning to leave the country.
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According to Knox, he was “desolate and half desperate,”
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but there may have been a more tactical reason for this decision, for, as will be seen, he was bent on going to Flanders. It is surely more than mere coincidence that this was at a time when it became known that King Philip was expected in the Netherlands.

Around 17 May, the Earl and Countess of Bothwell visited Haddington Abbey. Here, Bothwell committed adultery with his wife’s serving maid, twenty-year-old Bessie Crawford, the black-haired daughter of a blacksmith.
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Bothwell sent one of his followers, a local merchant called Patrick Wilson, with an invitation to Bessie to look over the abbey buildings. On Bothwell’s orders, Wilson locked her in a lodging in the cloisters. Half an hour later, Bothwell arrived and took the key from him. A porter and two other people heard whispering behind the door, then watched Bothwell leave soon afterwards with loosened breeches, which Wilson helped him fasten. On another occasion, Bessie emerged from a short tryst with the Earl in the abbey tower, with her hair and clothes in disarray.
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George Dalgleish, Bothwell’s tailor, later stated that Lady Bothwell, suspicious of Bessie’s relationship with her husband, had sent the girl away. On 11 June, Bothwell conferred the lands of Nether Hailes on his wife, possibly as a peace offering. This early infidelity confirms that Bothwell’s marriage was no love match, and that he remained an opportunist where women were concerned.

But Bothwell had little leisure for dalliance, for he had been charged with keeping the Queen’s peace in the Borders, which Moray had deliberately disturbed. On Bothwell’s advice, Mary now announced a series of royal assizes to check lawlessness in the region, and summoned her lieges to attend her at Peebles on 13 August, to allow her time to recover from her confinement.

On 24 May, Morton, now resident in Alnwick and obviously keeping track of Darnley’s movements, reported to Bedford that he had information that the King was “minded to depart to Flanders and such other places as he thinks will best serve for his purpose to complain upon the Queen, for the evil handling and treatment” that he received from her; already, his ship was lying ready at Glasgow. Blinkered by unrealistic ambitions for a crown, Darnley was again dabbling in treason, having learned nothing from past experience. Yet, if his complaints bore fruit, his wife’s crown, and the succession of her child, would again be seriously in jeopardy.

Lennox later alleged that Darnley had told him that, towards the end of her pregnancy, “Bothwell was all in all” to Mary, and that, in an attempt to be revenged upon Moray for his rebellion, she had tried to incite him (Darnley) to seduce the virtuous Countess of Moray, saying “I assure you, I shall never love you the worse.” When a shocked Lennox warned his son never to be unfaithful to his sovereign, Darnley lied that he had “never offended the Queen my wife in meddling with any other woman in thought, let be in deed.” This tale is unlikely: firstly, there is no contemporary evidence to support it, and secondly, Mary and Moray were now on good terms and she needed his support against Darnley. There was no reason why she should wreck the peace she had brought about by instigating a blood feud between her husband and her brother, unless she hoped that Moray, in a jealous rage, would kill Darnley in revenge, and thus rid her of him. But Buchanan, who repeats the tale, does not place this construction on it, and offers the unlikely explanation that Mary “thought by that way to be revenged on three enemies at once, the King, the Earl and his wife, and therewithal to win a colour and cause for divorce, to make empty bed room for Bothwell.”
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This is patently absurd because, not only was Mary about to leave bequests in her Will to Moray and his wife, but elsewhere in his narrative, Buchanan places the commencement of Mary’s alleged affair with Bothwell in September 1566; yet he states that this incident occurred “when she was great with child”; furthermore, adultery would not have provided a Catholic with grounds for annulment, and in any case it is very unlikely that Mary was contemplating an annulment at this time.