Mary, Queen of Scots (54 page)

Seeing ourselves in his power, sequestered from the company of our servants and others, of whom we might ask counsel, yea, seeing them upon whose counsel and fidelity we had before depended, already welded to his appetite, and so we left alone, as it were, a prey to him, many things we resolved with ourself, but never could find a way out. And yet he gave us little space to meditate with ourself, ever pressing us with continual and importunate suit. In the end, when we saw no hope to be rid of him, never man in Scotland making a move to procure our deliverance, we were compelled to mitigate our displeasure, and began to think upon that he propounded.

Mary was well aware that her troubled realm needed a man’s strong hand to restore order and good government, and that she herself was no longer capable of controlling affairs. Such a man could take pain upon his person in the execution of justice and suppressing their insolence that was rebel, the travails whereof we may no longer sustain in our own person, being already wearied and almost broken with the frequent uproars and rebellions raised against us since we came to Scotland.

It had been made plain to Mary that her Lords would not accept a foreign consort. Bothwell had rendered her loyal service in the past, and she felt that no other of her subjects could equal him, either for the reputation of his House, or for the worthiness of himself, as well in wisdom, valiance, as in all other good qualities. Albeit we found his doings rude, yet were his words and answers gentle. As by a bravado in the beginning he had won the first point,
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so ceased he never, till by persuasion and importunate suit, accompanied not the less with force, he had finally driven us to end the work begun, at such time and in such form as he thought best might serve his turn, wherein we cannot dissemble that he has used us otherwise than we would have wished or yet deserved at his hand.
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Mary’s letter was intended for her envoy to the French court, and she doubtless felt that she had to justify her acceptance of Bothwell’s suit whilst at the same time avoiding criticism of the man who was to be her husband, who could not, for the sake of his honour and her own, be openly accused of raping his sovereign. It has also been conjectured by several historians that, after experiencing sexual relations only with immature or callous youths, Mary was surprised to find that intercourse could be very satisfying with a mature man like Bothwell. Yet there is no evidence to support this theory, and her future behaviour does not bear it out.

In July, the Scottish Lords told Sir Nicholas Throckmorton “how shamefully the Queen was led captive, and by fear, force and (as by many conjectures may well be suspected) other extraordinary and more unlawful means, compelled to become bedfellow to another wife’s husband.”
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Lennox, Mary’s enemy, and Leslie, her supporter, both claimed that Bothwell used black magic to seduce her, and he is said to have admitted as much in a dubious document known as his Confession, which is almost certainly a fabrication. Throughout his career, Bothwell was frequently accused by his enemies of witchcraft; in a superstitious age, it was an infallible method of character assassination, and even Knox was not immune from such accusations.
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Nau does not mention the rape at all.
The Book of Articles
, however, graphically describes how Bothwell “met and ravished” the Queen, “conveying her in haste to Dunbar Castle, where he plainly passed to bed with her, abusing her body at his pleasure, which form of ravishing he practised also to his own advantage, thinking it being a crime of lèse-majesté to take a remission therefor as he did, and under the same crime to comprehend the King’s murder in case it might be tried thereafter.” This means that Bothwell abducted and raped Mary with a view to securing, amongst other things, a general remission for any treasons he might have committed, which would mean he could never again be tried for Darnley’s murder. This assumption may well be correct, for the assize judges had given permission for a retrial in the event of new evidence coming to light, and Bothwell certainly did not want that particular sword of Damocles hanging over him. However, he never got his general remission, merely a pardon for the abduction and rape.

Many years later, Mary informed the Pope, “We were constrained to yield our consent, yet against our will.”
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Leslie states that she took into account her constant fear of imminent danger, and called to mind “the sundry and divers uproars and seditions already made against her, the wretched and most cruel murder of her secretary, the late strange and miserable murder of her husband, the discomfort and desolation wherein she was presently be-wrapped, the Earl’s activity in martial feats, and the good and faithful service done by him to her mother and to herself.” She also feared “some new and fresh stir and calamity if she should refuse her nobility’s request.” But “though very circumspect and naturally prudent in all her doings,” she was “nevertheless a woman, and never to that hour once admonished, either openly or privately after the Earl’s acquittal, that he was guilty of the said fact, nor suspecting any thing thereof, yielded to that, to the which these crafty, colluding, suspicious [Lords], and the necessity of the time, as then to her seemed, did in a manner enforce her.” She had many good, even compelling, reasons for consenting to marry Bothwell, but the fact remained that most people still believed he had murdered Darnley; by marrying him, Mary would lend credence to the widespread rumours that she had been his willing accomplice, and the consequences would be devastating for her.

Mary had agreed to marry Bothwell as soon as he was free. It is possible, but unproven, that she signed a marriage contract at Dunbar, and it has been suggested that it was possibly one of the two contracts amongst the Casket Letters, but they are probably forgeries.

Buchanan was voicing a belief that had been prevalent at the time when he later asserted that “for coverture of their filthy ways,” Bothwell and the Queen “devised a counterfeited ravishing of her person.” Even before the abduction, Grange had hinted that it would take place with Mary’s consent, and two days afterwards he wrote again to Bedford to say that the Queen “was minded to cause Bothwell to ravish her, to the end that she may sooner end the marriage, which she has promised before she caused murder her husband.”
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At Dunbar, Melville’s captor, Captain William Blackadder, told him that the kidnapping “was with the Queen’s own consent.”
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On the 27th, Drury reported that “the manner of Bothwell’s meeting with the Queen, although it appeared to be forcibly, is yet known to be otherwise.”
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De Silva heard that “all had been arranged beforehand, that the Queen, when the marriage was completed, might pretend that she had been forced to consent.”
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Mary’s enemies believed that she was looking for a way to avoid the public opprobrium that would be sure to follow upon her marriage to Bothwell, and if it could be made to appear that she had been forced into consenting to the union, she might just get away with it. “It seemed to them a marvellous fine invention that Bothwell should ravish and take away the Queen by force and so save her honour,” wrote Buchanan. Modern historians often point out that she offered little resistance to Bothwell when he ambushed her, and refused her attendants’ offer of help.

Yet there was no reason for staging the abduction as a sop to public opinion, for the Lords and the Bishops had already given their written and verbal approval of the marriage, thereby implying their support against any critics of it. It was Mary’s consent that Bothwell needed, and he was prepared to take drastic measures to get it. Moreover, Melville, who was present at Dunbar and knew what was going on, states that Bothwell had lain with Mary “against her will,” and his brother Robert, in a letter written to Cecil on 7 May, was in no doubt that the abduction was contrary to her wishes.
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As for her lack of resistance, how could her small entourage of thirty-three persons have hoped to prevail against Bothwell’s 800 armed men? Had Mary permitted them to try, a bloodbath would almost certainly have ensued; instead, she courageously went quietly with her captors. And if the abduction had been staged, why would she send to the Provost of Dunbar for help? The theory of the collusive seizure falls down on the evidence of an Act of Parliament passed against Mary by her enemies on 20 December 1567, in which they refer to her abduction by Bothwell and state: “She suspected no evil from any of her subjects, and least of all from him.”
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Buchanan says that whether the abduction was with Mary’s consent or not “every man may easily perceive by her own letters that she wrote to [Bothwell] by the way as she was in her journey.” The letters to which he is referring are Casket Letters VI, VII and VIII, which, along with a love poem from the Casket Documents, are supposed to have been written on 21, 22 or 23 April, during Mary’s visit to Stirling.

Casket Letter VI is endorsed by Cecil’s clerk, “From Stirling before the ravishment—proves her mask of ravishing.” It reads:

Alas, my Lord, why is your trust put in a person so unworthy to mistrust that which is wholly yours? I am wood. You had promised me that you would resolve all, and that you would send me word every day what I should do. You have done nothing thereof. I advertise you well to take heed of your false brother-in-law. He came to me, and without showing me anything from you, told me that you had willed him to write to you that I should say, and where and when you should come to me, and that you should do touching him; and thereupon hath preached unto me that it was a foolish enterprise, and that with mine honour, I could never marry you, seeing that, being married, you did carry me away. And that his folk would not suffer it. And that the Lords would unsay themselves and would deny that they had said. To be short, he is all contrary. I told him that, seeing I was come so far, if you did not withdraw yourself of your self, that no persuasion nor death itself should make me fail of my promise. As touching the place, you are too negligent (pardon me) to remit yourself thereof to me. Choose it yourself and send me word of it. And in the meantime, I am sick. I will differ as touching the matter it is too late. It was not long of me that you have not thought thereupon in time. And if you had not more changed your mind since mine absence than I have, you should not be now to ask such resolving. Well, there wanteth nothing of my part. And seeing that your negligence doth put us both in the danger of a false brother, if it succeed not well, I will never rise again. I send this bearer unto you, for I dare not trust your brother with these letters, nor with the diligence. He shall tell you in what state I am, and judge you what amendment these new ceremonies have brought unto me. I would I were dead, for I see all goeth ill. You promised other manner of matter of your foreseeing, but absence hath power over you, who have two strings to your bow. Dispatch the answer that I fail you not. And put no trust in your brother for this enterprise. For he hath told it, and is all against it. God give you good night.

If this letter was written by Mary to Bothwell, the false brother-in-law to whom she refers can only be Huntly, whom Bothwell is using as a go-between, much to her annoyance, for she does not think that Huntly is to be trusted. She is also angry that her irresolute and apparently incompetent suitor has not been in touch with her on a daily basis, as he promised, to plan the abduction. She fears it will all go wrong, and wishes she was dead.

Huntly, however, had refused to have anything to do with the abduction plot, and had been taken captive along with Maitland and Melville. In the letter, Huntly had told Mary that his family would never suffer her to marry Bothwell, but in fact Huntly had already given his consent to his sister filing for divorce. If Mary had been a party to Bothwell’s plans, they would surely have been finalised before her departure on 21 April, when she knew that Bothwell was intending to raise a force. There was therefore no need for him to write to her on a daily basis, as she was only going to be away for three days. Even Buchanan contradicts the “evidence” in this letter, stating that, before she left Edinburgh, Mary had fully arranged with Bothwell the plan and place of the seizure. The inescapable conclusion must be that Casket Letter VI is a forgery.

Casket Letter VII is also written on the premise that Huntly was assisting the abduction plot:

Of the place and the time, I remit myself to your brother and to you. I will follow him and will fail in nothing of my part. He finds many difficulties. I think he does advertise you thereof and what he desires for the handling of himself. As for the handling of myself, I heard it once well devised. Methinks that your services, and the long amity, having the good will of the Lords, do well deserve a pardon, if above the duty of a subject you advance yourself, not to constrain me, but to assure yourself of such place near to me, that other admonitions or foreign persuasions may not let [prevent] me from consenting to that that ye hope your service shall make you a day to attend. And to be short, to make yourself sure of the Lords and free to marry, and that you are constrained for your surety, and to be able to serve me faithfully, to use a humble request joined to an importune action. And to be short, excuse yourself, and persuade them the most you can, that you are constrained to make pursuit against your enemies. You shall say enough, if the matter or ground do like you, and many fair words to Lethington. If you like not the deed, send me word, and leave not the blame of all unto me.

The “importune action” is almost certainly the abduction. From the wording of the beginning of this letter, it would appear that a reply to Casket Letter VI had been received, which would have arrived late on 22 April at the earliest; therefore, if Mary wrote this letter on that day, expecting a reply confirming that Bothwell did indeed intend to proceed with his plans, she was cutting it fine if she expected to hear from him before the 24th. There is no record of Huntly racing back and forth from Linlithgow or Stirling to Edinburgh and Calder with these letters. Moreover, if Mary and Bothwell were in collusion, they could have finalised their plans with Huntly when Bothwell visited Linlithgow. There was no need for this correspondence. Nor is it clear what difficulties Huntly himself had to face. All he had to do was go quietly with the Queen to Dunbar. It was also rather late in the day to advise Bothwell to make sure of the Lords, since he already had their signatures on the Ainslie’s Tavern Bond. Armstrong-Davison thought that Casket Letter VII was a genuine letter from Mary to George Douglas, the man who helped her escape from Lochleven in 1568, which the Lords adapted to suit the abduction plot; if so, then it was added to the Casket Documents a year after their discovery. Otherwise, it must be a forgery.