Mary, Queen of Scots (68 page)

On 25 March, Mary made an abortive attempt to escape from Lochleven. Soon afterwards, Moray visited her to upbraid her for her folly, only to be confronted by a woman in fighting spirit who angrily castigated him for passing the Act of Parliament that had authorised her detention.

Five weeks later, Mary did succeed in escaping.

“I AM NO ENCHANTRESS”

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF GEORGE Douglas, Lord John Hamilton, and an orphaned kinsman of George’s, William Douglas, who stole the Laird’s keys, a disguised Mary got out of Lochleven on 2 May 1568, while the household was diverted by a May Day pageant. She was met on the further shore of the loch by Lord Seton, Alexander Hepburn, Laird of Riccarton, who was Bothwell’s cousin, and Lord Claude Hamilton (another of Chatelherault’s sons) and taken to Seton’s castle at Niddry,
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two miles north of Broxburn in West Lothian. From there, she sent Riccarton to recapture Dunbar Castle from the Lords, and dispatched two messengers, one to Archbishop Beaton in Paris, informing him of her liberation, and the other to Frederick II to demand Bothwell’s release.
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Moray was in Glasgow when the news of Mary’s escape was brought to him. “Sore amazed,” he immediately issued a proclamation summoning the lieges to arms.
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Sir William Douglas was suicidal, but after bungling an attempt to fall on his dagger, pulled himself together and began raising troops to send in pursuit of his prisoner.

On 3 May, Mary led her growing force west to Cadzow Castle near Hamilton, the chief seat of the Hamilton family,
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where she was joined by several nobles. Here, Archbishop Hamilton helped her to draft a strongly worded proclamation repudiating her abdication, reasserting her lawful sovereignty, and condemning the “ungrateful, unthankful and detestable tyrants and treasonable traitors” who had deposed and imprisoned her, “whom no prince, for their perpetrated murders, could pardon or spare.” The proclamation also named the Hamiltons Mary’s next heirs after Prince James. The Hamiltons had masterminded her rescue, and she was now dependent on them; they were determined to wring every advantage from it, and in the event of this restoration succeeding, they expected to be the power behind the throne. Mary was well aware of this, and because she was unwilling to burn her boats and bind herself to them, she never made the contentious proclamation public. Instead, she gave the Hamiltons to believe that she was considering a marriage with Lord John Hamilton.

Mary now wrote to Moray, demanding that, as she had abdicated under duress, he must resign as Regent forthwith. When he refused to negotiate, she concentrated her efforts on gathering an army and, with the help of the Hamiltons and other supporters, raised 6,000 men. As her forces grew, so did the Queen’s optimism and Moray’s alarm; before his troops were at full strength, he decided to march on the royalists. Meanwhile, Argyll had joined Mary and been made Lieutenant of her army; Huntly soon followed. When Queen Elizabeth heard the news of Mary’s escape, she sent a message of congratulation, offering help and support; but Mary was never to receive it.

On 8 May, Mary’s chief supporters—who now numbered nine earls, nine bishops, 18 barons, 14 commendators (receivers of ecclesiastical revenues) and 90 lairds—signed the “Hamilton Bond,” in which they undertook to help her regain her throne. The Queen felt that the best course was to seek an armed confrontation rather than lay the issue of her sovereignty before Parliament, and decided to lead her army west to relieve Dumbarton, which was being held by her supporters against the Lords.

But the Queen’s hopes were suddenly extinguished when, on 13 May, Moray’s army of 4,000 men led by the invincible Kirkcaldy of Grange inflicted a crushing defeat on her less ably commanded force at the Battle of Langside, just outside Glasgow. It did not help matters that, at a crucial moment, Argyll had withdrawn his troops, claiming he had suffered an epileptic fit, which few believed. His retreat demoralised the royalist soldiers, who soon began fighting amongst themselves and deserting. Seton was captured,
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as was Bishop Leslie, and 100 of the Queen’s men were killed. Some, like David Chalmers, escaped into exile.

Believing that her cause was lost, Mary fled from the field with Herries, Fleming, Livingston and a dozen other supporters, and rode south-west to Dumfries and Galloway. During her flight, she shaved her head, so as not to be recognised, and was forced to sleep on the ground and subsist on a diet of sour milk and oatmeal.
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Her friends tried to persuade her to make for France, where she had lands and an income, but Mary made the fateful decision to flee to England because she was convinced, in the light of Elizabeth’s recent championship of her cause, that her cousin would do everything in her power to help her regain her throne. By the end of August, she told her supporters, she would be back in Scotland at the head of an English army.

Mary spent her last night in Scotland at the twelfth-century Dundrennan Abbey, a little way south-east of Kirkcudbright. The next day, 16 May, she set sail from Abbeyburnfoot (near Port Mary) with her companions, and crossed the Solway Firth to England. She would never see her kingdom again.

Mary’s boat put in at Workington on the shores of Cumberland. The next day, she wrote to Queen Elizabeth, outlining her troubles and asking for help. In this letter, she accused the Confederate Lords of devising, “subscribing to and aiding” Darnley’s murder, for the purpose of charging it falsely upon me, as I hope fully to make you understand. I, feeling myself innocent, and desirous to avoid the shedding of blood, placed myself in their hands. They have robbed me of every thing I had in the world, not permitting me either to write or speak, in order that I might not contradict their false inventions.
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Arriving in a strange land as a distressed sovereign who had come to place herself under the protection of a neighbouring monarch, Mary had little understanding or appreciation of the political problems that her presence in England would cause her cousin Elizabeth. In her simplistic view, she believed that her “dear sister” would unhesitatingly grant her military and financial aid, and speed her back on her victorious way to Scotland.

But the situation was not as straightforward as Mary thought. As a Catholic and a dynastic rival for Elizabeth’s throne, who had never ratified the Treaty of Edinburgh withdrawing her claim, she represented a dangerous threat to the English Queen’s security, for there were many in Christendom who regarded Mary as the rightful sovereign of England. As a Catholic in a Protestant country, Mary would be a focus for every Catholic agitator and dissident, especially in the north, where the old religion had its greatest following. With her legendary beauty and charm, she might inspire rebellion on both dynastic and religious grounds, and her presence in England would be a magnet to Philip of Spain and the rest of Elizabeth’s foreign enemies.

There was another disturbing aspect, in that Mary had been condemned by the Scottish Parliament for Darnley’s murder, and many believed her to have been an adulteress and fornicator also. Whatever Elizabeth’s personal feelings on the matter, it would be inappropriate and unwise for her, Darnley’s cousin, and a virgin queen with a reputation to protect, to receive someone as notorious as Mary.

Yet Mary was a crowned queen, whose abdication Elizabeth had refused to recognise, and by the laws of blood, hospitality and rank, was entitled to be treated as such. She had also been dealt with appallingly by her own subjects. On the other hand, she was too dangerous a person to be permitted to move about freely in England, nor could she be allowed to go to France, in case the French should send an army to Scotland to restore her, which was the last thing Elizabeth wanted. It was small wonder that, when Elizabeth learned of Mary’s arrival, she was plunged into an agony of perplexity over what to do with her. Mercifully, she was unaware that the political crisis that the Scottish Queen’s coming had precipitated would not be resolved for nearly nineteen years.

Mary had expected to be escorted to London for talks with Elizabeth, but on 18 May, as soon as the local authorities received news of her arrival, she was taken instead to Carlisle Castle, where she was courteously received into what she would soon realise was protective custody. She was deferred to with all the respect and dignity due to a queen, but kept vigilantly under guard, pending instructions from Westminster.

The news spread fast. Two days later, Drury informed Moray of Mary’s flight to England,
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by which time Lennox, who had fought for the Lords at Langside, had already heard of it. When an express messenger reached London on 20 May, Queen Elizabeth summoned an emergency meeting of the Privy Council, at which, with a view to getting rid of Mary as quickly as possible, she declared her wish to receive her honourably and discuss her restoration. This was immediately opposed by Cecil, who had no wish to see the Protestant government in Scotland overthrown. Reminding Elizabeth that Mary had been plotting against her for years, he was all for sending her back to face her fate, but Elizabeth refused to contemplate this on the grounds that she would be sending Mary to her death. On the other hand, she really did not want to embroil herself in a war with Scotland. In the end, it was decided that the Queen of Scots should be kept in honourable custody as her guest until the “vehement presumption” of her complicity in Darnley’s murder was resolved. Elizabeth would be the unwilling arbiter between Mary and her subjects; if innocent, Mary should be restored, if not, some accommodation might be reached whereby she could still remain Queen but Moray would rule. “Our good Queen has the wolf by the ears,” observed Matthew Parker, the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury.

Elizabeth sent orders to Sir Francis Knollys and Lord Scrope to go to Carlisle to formally welcome Mary, take charge of her, and explain that it would be impossible for her to be received by their mistress until “the great slander of murder” had been “purged.”
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In London, the French ambassador was expressing the opinion that Elizabeth would never let Mary come near her.
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In order to show herself impartial, Elizabeth requested Moray to stop harassing Mary’s supporters. Cecil, who had his own agenda, ordered Drury to keep in close touch with Moray, and when Drury received these instructions on 25 May, he at once informed Moray of them.
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They may have included an adjuration to the Regent to present as convincing a case as possible against Mary.

Cecil was greatly in favour of an investigation into Mary’s guilt, but English courts had no jurisdiction over foreign princes, and as this particular crime had been committed in Scotland, it was clear from the first that the Queen of Scots could not be put on trial; the only course open to the English was to hold an inquiry into her conduct. If Mary’s guilt could somehow be established, and her reputation publicly destroyed, Elizabeth would be justified in keeping her in custody, and her supporters would hopefully abandon her; thus the threat she posed would be neutralised. The first priority, therefore, was to convince Mary that an inquiry was in her best interests.

As soon as Moray received Drury’s message, which was around 26/27 May, he began to prepare his case. He was, of course, concerned to justify the continued existence of his government, and his own political survival, by proving Mary’s guilt. If she were found innocent, his position in Scotland, and that of his fellow Lords, would become untenable. It was therefore imperative that he use all the resources at his disposal to establish her guilt. Once again, the Scottish propaganda machine swung into action, this time in a deliberate campaign to blacken Mary’s name.

Moray had already sent John Wood to London on 21 May, “to damage the cause of Mary with Queen Elizabeth and the English nobility.”
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Wood arrived in London before 27 May, and Nau says that, after Elizabeth had heard what he had to say, her kindness towards Mary diminished somewhat. Moray also dispatched at this time a mercenary soldier, Captain John Clerk, to Denmark to take Bothwell dead or alive.

On 21 or 22 May, Cecil had asked Lennox, who was visiting his wife at Chiswick, to demand justice against Mary for Darnley’s murder. Lennox needed no further prompting, and immediately set to work on a “Supplication,” which would later form the basis of the three versions of his
Narra
tive;
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he used as his chief sources Thomas Crawford and Thomas Nelson, with whom he had no doubt discussed Darnley’s murder on several occasions. The resulting text, which was completed between 26 and 28 May, was a masterpiece of character assassination, in which authentic details blended with falsehoods and distortions. For example, Nelson had testified that Mary initially meant to take Darnley to Craigmillar in January 1567, but Lennox does not mention Craigmillar; instead, he states that Darnley was taken to a place “already prepared with undermines and trains of powder,” which cannot be true. In some respects, the “Supplication” is contradicted by the evidence in the depositions, which had been kept secret. In the later versions of the
Narrative
, some of these discrepancies have been amended. Lennox is also at variance in many respects with the propaganda of Buchanan. One example is his claim that Mary’s adultery with Bothwell began before the birth of the Prince; Buchanan states it began about three months afterwards.

Curiously, Lennox refers to only one of the Casket Letters; he says it was “written to Bothwell from Glasgow” before Mary left with Darnley for Edinburgh, and sent to let him understand that, although the flattering and sweet words of the King her husband had almost overcome her, yet she, remembering the great affection which she bare unto [Bothwell], there should be no such sweet baits dissuade her or cool her said affection from him, but would continue therein, yea, though she should thereby abandon her God, put in adventure the loss of her dowry in France, hazard such titles as she had to the crown of England and also the crown of her realm. Wishing him then presently in her arms, [she] therefore bade him go forward with all things according to their enterprise, and that the place and everything might be finished as they had devised, against her coming to Edinburgh And for the time of execution thereof, she thought it best to be the night of Bastien’s marriage. She also wrote in her letter that Bothwell should in no wise fail in the meantime to dispatch his wife, and to give her the drink as they had devised before.
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