THE DEATH OF DARNLEY.
It was on Sunday, the 9th of February 1567, that the final preparations for the murder of Darnley were made. To execute the guilty deed, Bothwell was obliged to avail himself of the assistance of those ready ministers of crime, who are always to be found at the beck of a wealthy and depraved patron. There were eight unfortunate men whom he thus used as tools with which to work his purpose. Four of these were merely menial servants;—their names were, Dalgleish, Wilson, Powrie, and Nicolas Haubert, more commonly known by the sobriquet of French Paris. He was a native of France, and had been a long while in the service of the Earl of Bothwell; but on his master’s recommendation, who foresaw the advantages he might reap from the change, he was taken into the Queen’s service shortly before her husband’s death. Bothwell was thus able to obtain the keys of some of the doors of the Kirk-of-Field house, of which he caused counterfeit impressions to be taken.[31]The other four who were at the “deed-doing,”were persons of somewhat more consequence. They were small landed proprietors orlairds, who had squandered their patrimony in idleness and dissipation, and were willing to run the chance of retrieving their ruined fortunes at any risk. They were the Laird of Ormiston, Hob Ormiston his uncle, “or father’s brother,” as he is called, John Hepburn of Bolton, and John Hay of Tallo. Bothwell wished Maitland, Morton, and one or two others, to send some of their servants also to assist in the enterprise; but if they ever promised to do so, it does not appear that they kept their word. Archibald Douglas, however, who had linked himself to the fortunes of Bothwell, was in the immediate neighbourhood with two servants, when the crime was perpetrated.[32]
Till within two days of the murder, Bothwell had not made up his mind how the King was to be killed. He held various secret meetings with his four principal accomplices, at which the plan first proposed was to attack Darnley when walking in the gardens adjoining the Kirk-of-Field, which his returning health enabled him to visit occasionally when the weather was favourable. But the success of this scheme was uncertain, and there was every probability that the assassins would be discovered.[33]It was next suggested that the house might easily be entered at midnight, and the King stabbed in bed. But a servant commonly lay in the same apartment with him, and there were always one or two in the adjoining room, who might have resisted or escaped, and afterwards have beenable to identify the criminals. After much deliberation, it at length occurred that gunpowder might be used with effect; and that, if the whole premises were blown up, they were likely to bury in their ruins every thing that could fix the suspicion on the parties concerned. Powder was therefore secretly brought into Edinburgh from the Castle of Dunbar, of which Bothwell had the lordship, and was carried to his own lodgings in the immediate vicinity of Holyrood Palace.[34]It then became necessary to ascertain on what night the house could be blown up, without endangering the safety of the Queen, whom Bothwell had no desire should share the fate of her husband. She frequently slept at the Kirk-of-Field; and it was difficult to ascertain precisely when she would pass the night at Holyrood.[35]In his confession, Hay mentions, that “the purpose should have been put in execution upon the Saturday night; but the matter failed, because all things were not in readiness.” It is not in the least unlikely that this delay was owing to Mary’s remaining with her husband that evening.
On Sunday, Bothwell learned that the Queen intended honouring with her presence a masque which was to be given in the Palace, at a late hour, on the occasion of the marriage of her French servant Sebastian, to Margaret Carwood, one of her waiting-maids. He knew therefore that she could not sleep at the Kirk-of-Field that night, and took his measures accordingly. At dusk he assembled his accomplices, and told them that the time was come when he should have occasionfor their services.[36]He was himself to sup between seven and eight at a banquet given to the Queen by the Bishop of Argyle, but he desired them to be in readiness as soon as the company should break up, when he promised to join them.[37]The Queen dined at Holyrood, and went from thence to the house of Mr John Balfour, where the Bishop lodged. She rose from the supper-table about nine o’clock, and, accompanied by the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, and Cassils, she went to visit her husband at the Kirk-of-Field. Bothwell, on the contrary, having called Paris aside, who was in waiting on the Queen, took him with him to the lodgings of the Laird of Ormiston.[38]There he met Hay and Hepburn, and they passed down the Blackfriars Wynd together. The wall which surrounded the gardens of the Dominican monastery ran near the foot of this wynd. They passed through a gate in the wall, which Bothwell had contrived to open by stealth, and, crossing the gardens, came to another wall immediately behind Darnley’s house.[39]
Dalgleish and Wilson had, in the meantime, been employed in bringing up, from Bothwell’s residence in the Abbey, the gunpowder he had lodged there. It had been divided into bags, and the bags were put into trunks, which they carried upon horses. Not being able to take it all at once, they were obliged to go twice between the Kirk-of-Field and the Palace. They were not allowed to come nearer than the Convent-gate at thefoot of Blackfriars Wynd, where the powder was taken from them by Ormiston, Hepburn, and Hay, who carried it up to the house. When they had conveyed the whole, they were ordered to return home; and as they passed up the Blackfriars’ Wynd, Powrie, as if suddenly conscience-struck, said to Wilson, “Jesu! whatna a gait is this we are ganging? I trow it be not good.”[40]Neither of these menials had seen Bothwell, for he kept at a distance, walking up and down the Cowgate, until the others received and deposited the powder. A large empty barrel had been concealed, by his orders, in the Convent gardens, and into it they intended to have put all the bags; and the barrel was then to have been carried in at the lower back door of Darnley’s house, and placed in the Queen’s bedroom, which, it will be remembered, was immediately under that of the King. Paris, as the Queen’s valet-de-chambre, kept the keys of the lower flat, and was now in Mary’s apartment ready to receive the powder. But some delay occurred in consequence of the barrel turning out to be so large that it could not be taken in by the back door; and it became necessary therefore to carry the bags one by one into the bedroom, where they emptied them in a heap on the floor. Bothwell, who was walking anxiously to and fro, was alarmed at this delay, and came to inquire if all was ready. He was afraid that the company up stairs, among whom was the Queen, with several of her nobility and ladies in waiting, might come suddenly out uponthem, and discover their proceedings. “He bade them haste,” says Hepburn, “before the Queen came forth of the King’s house; for if she came forth before they were ready, they would not find such commodity.”[41]At length, every thing being put into the state they wished, they all left the under part of the house, with the exception of Hepburn and Hay, who were locked into the room with the gunpowder, and left to keep watch there till the others should return.[42]
Bothwell, having dismissed the others, went up stairs and joined the Queen and her friends in Darnley’s apartment, as if he had that moment come to the Kirk-of-Field. Shortly afterwards, Paris also entered; and the Queen, being either reminded of, or recollecting her promise, to grace with her presence Sebastian’s entertainment, rose, about eleven at night, to take leave of her husband. It has been asserted, upon the alleged authority of Buchanan, that, before going away, she kissed him, and put upon his finger a ring, in pledge of her affection. It seems doubtful, however, whether this is Buchanan’s meaning. He certainly mentions, in his own insidious manner, that Mary endeavoured to divert all suspicions from herself, by paying frequent visits to her husband, by staying with him many hours at a time, by talking lovingly with him, by paying every attention to his health, by kissing him, and making him a present of a ring; but he does not expressly say that a kiss and ring were given upon the occasion of her parting with Darnley for the lasttime.[43]It is not at all unlikely, that the fact may have been as Buchanan is supposed to state; but as it is not a circumstance of much importance, it is unnecessary to insist upon its being either believed or discredited so long as it is involved in any uncertainty. Buchanan mentions another little particular, which may easily be conceived to be true,—that, in the course of her conversation with her husband this evening, Mary made the remark, that “just about that time last year David Rizzio was killed.” Bothwell, at such a moment, could not have made the observation; but it may have come naturally enough from Mary, or Darnley himself.[44]
Accompanied by Bothwell, Argyle, Huntly, Cassils, and others, Mary now proceeded to the palace, going first up the Blackfriars’ Wynd, and then down the Canongate. Just as she was about to enter Holyrood House, she met one of the Earl of Bothwell’s servants (either Dalgleish or Powrie), whom she asked where he had been, that he smelt so strongly of gunpowder? The fellow made some excuse, and no further notice was taken of the circumstance.[45]The Queen proceeded immediately to the rooms where Sebastian’s friends were assembled; and Bothwell, who was very anxious to avoid any suspicion, and, above all, to prevent Mary from suspecting him, continued to attend her assiduously. Paris, who carried in his pocket the key of Mary’s bed-room at the Kirk-of-Field,in which he had locked Hay and Hepburn, followed in the Earl’s train. Upon entering the apartment where the dancing and masquing was going on, this Frenchman, who had neither the courage nor the cunning necessary to carry him through such a deed of villany, retired in a melancholy mood to a corner, and stood by himself wrapt in a profound reverie. Bothwell, observing him, and fearing that his conduct might excite observation, went up to him, and angrily demanded why he looked so sad, telling him in a whisper,that if he retained that lugubrious countenance before the Queen, he should be made to suffer for it. Paris answered despondingly, that he did not care what became of himself, if he could only get permission to go home to bed, for he was ill. “No,” said Bothwell, “you must remain with me; would you leave those two gentlemen, Hay and Hepburn, locked up where they now are?”—“Alas!” answered Paris, “what more must I do this night? I have no heart for this business.” Bothwell put an end to the conversation, by ordering Paris to follow him immediately.[46]It is uncertain whether the Queen had retired to her own chamber before Bothwell quitted the Palace, or whether he left her at the masque. Buchanan, always ready to fabricate calumny, says, that the Queen and Bothwell were “in long talk together, in her own chamber after midnight.” But the falsehood of this assertion is clearly established; for Buchanan himself allows, that it was past eleven before Mary left the Kirk-of-Field, and Dalgleish and Powrie both state, that Bothwell came to his ownlodgings from the Palace about twelve. If, therefore, he was at the masque, as we have seen, he had no time to talk with the Queen in private; and, if he had talked with the Queen, he could not have been at the masque. It is most likely that Mary continued for some time after Bothwell’s departure at Sebastian’s wedding, for Sebastian was “in great favour with the Queen, for his skill in music and his merry jesting.”
As soon as Bothwell came to his “own lodging in the Abbey,” he exchanged his rich court dress for a more common one. Instead of a black satin doublet, bordered with silver, he put on a white canvass doublet, and wrapt himself up in his riding-cloak. Taking Paris, Powrie, Wilson and Dalgleish with him, he then went down the lane which ran along the wall of the Queen’s south gardens, and which still exists, joining the foot of the Canongate, where the gate of the outer court of the Palace formerly stood. Passing by the door of the Queen’s garden, where sentinels were always stationed, the party was challenged by one of the soldiers, who demanded, “Who goes there?” They answered, “Friends.” “What friends?” “Friends to my Lord Bothwell.” They proceeded up the Canongate till they came to the Netherbow Port, or lower gate of the city, which was shut. They called to the porter, John Galloway, and desired him to open to friends of my Lord Bothwell. Galloway was not well pleased to be raised at so late an hour, and he kept them waiting for some time. As they entered, he asked, “What they did out of their beds at that time of night?” but they gave him no answer. As soon as they got into the town,they called at Ormiston’s lodgings, who lived in a house, called Bassyntine’s house, a short way up the High Street, on the south side; but they were told that he was not at home. They went without him, down a close below the Blackfriars Wynd, till they came to the gate of the Convent Gardens already mentioned. They entered, and, crossing the gardens, they stopped at the back wall, a short way behind Darnley’s residence. Here, Dalgleish, Wilson, and Powrie, were ordered to remain; and Bothwell and Paris passed in, over the wall. Having gone into the lower part of the house, they unlocked the door of the room in which they had left Hay and Hepburn, and the four together held a consultation regarding the best mode of setting fire to the gunpowder, which was lying in a great heap upon the floor. They took a piece of lint, three or four inches long, and kindling one end of it, they laid the other on the powder, knowing that it would burn slowly enough to give them time to retire to a safe distance. They then returned to the Convent gardens; and having rejoined the servants whom they had left there, the whole group stood together, anxiously waiting for the explosion.
Darnley, meantime, little aware of his impending fate, had gone to bed within an hour after the Queen had left him. His servant, William Taylor, lay, as was his wont, in the same room. Thomas Nelson, Edward Simmons, and a boy, lay in the gallery, or servant’s apartment, on the same floor, and nearer the town-wall. Bothwell must have been quite aware, that from the mode of death he had chosen for Darnley, there was every probability that his attendants would also perish. Butwhen lawless ambition once commences its work of blood, whether there be only one, or a hundred victims, seems to be a matter of indifference.[47]
The conspirators waited for upwards of a quarter of an hour without hearing any noise. Bothwell became impatient; and unless the others had interfered, and pointed out to him the danger, he would have returned and looked in at the back window of the bedroom, to see if the light was burning. It must have been a moment of intense anxiety and terror to all of them. At length, every doubt was terminated. With an explosion so tremendous, that it shook nearly the whole town, and startled the inhabitants from their sleep, the house of the Kirk-of-Field blew up into a thousand fragments, leaving scarcely a vestige standing of its former walls. Paris, who describes the noise as that of a storm of thunder condensed into one clap, fell almost senseless, through fear, with his face upon the earth. Bothwell himself, though “a bold, bad man,” confessed a momentary panic. “I have been at many important enterprises,” said he, “but I never felt before as I do now.” Without waiting to ascertain the full extent of the catastrophe, he and his accomplices left the scene of their guilt with all expedition. They went out at the Convent-gate, and, having passed down to the Cowgate, they there separated, and went up by different roads to the Netherbow-Port. They were very desirous to avoid disturbing the porter again, lest they should excite his suspicion. They therefore went down a close,which still exists, on the north side of the High Street, immediately above the city gate, expecting that they would be able to drop from the wall into Leith Wynd; but Bothwell found it too high, especially as a wound he had received at Hermitage Castle, still left one of his hands weak. They were forced, therefore, to apply once more to John Galloway, who, on being told that they were friends of the Earl Bothwell, does not seem to have asked any questions. On getting into the Canongate, some people were observed coming up the street; to avoid them, Bothwell passed down St Mary’s Wynd, and went to his lodgings by the back road. The sentinels, at the door of the Queen’s garden again challenged them, and they made the usual answer, that they were friends of the Earl Bothwell, carrying despatches to him from the country. The sentinels asked,—“If they knew what noise that was they had heard a short time before?” They told them they did not.[48]
When Bothwell came home, he called for a drink; and, taking off his clothes, went to bed immediately. He had not lain there above half an hour when the news was brought him that the House of the Kirk-of-Field had been blown up, and the King slain. Exclaiming that there must be treason abroad, and affecting the utmost alarm and indignation, he rose and put on the same clothes he had worn when he was last with the Queen. The Earl of Huntly and others soon joined him, and, after hearing from them as much as was then known of the matter, it was thoughtadvisable to repair to the Palace, to inform Mary of what had happened. They found her already alarmed, and anxious to see them, some vague rumours of the accident having reached her. They disclosed the whole melancholy truth as gradually and gently as possible, attributing Darnley’s death either to the accidental explosion of some gunpowder in the neighbourhood, or to the effects of lightning. Mary’s distress knew no bounds; and seeing that it was hopeless to reason with her in the first anguish of her feelings, Bothwell and the other Lords left her just as day began to break, and proceeded to the Kirk-of-Field.[49]There they found every thing in a state of confusion;—the edifice in ruins, and the town’s-people gathered round it in dismay. Of the five persons who were in the house at the time of the explosion, one only was saved. Darnley, and his servant William Taylor, who slept in the room immediately above the gunpowder, had been most exposed to its effects, and they were accordingly carried through the air over the town wall, and across the lane on the other side, and were found lying at a short distance from each other in a garden to the south of this lane,—both in their night-dress, and with little external injury. Simmons, Nelson, and the boy, being nearer the town-wall, were only collaterally affected by the explosion. They were, however, all buried in the ruins, out of which Nelson alone had the good fortune to be taken alive. The bodies were, byBothwell’s command, removed to an adjoining house, and a guard from the Palace set over them.[50]
Darnley and his servant being found at so great a distance, and so triflingly injured, it was almost universally supposed at the time, and for long afterwards, that they had been first strangled or assassinated, and then carried out to the garden. This supposition is now proved, beyond a doubt, to have been erroneous. If Darnley had been first murdered, there would have been no occasion to have blown up the house; and if this was done, that his death might appear to be the result of accident, his body would never have been removed to such a distance as might appear to disconnect it with the previous explosion. Before the expansive force of gunpowder was sufficiently understood, it was not conceived possible that it could have acted as in the present instance; and various theories were invented, none of which were so simple or so true, as that which accords with the facts now established. It is the depositions already quoted that set the matter at rest; for, having confessed so much of the truth, there could have been no reason for concealing any other part of it. Hepburn declared expressly, that “he knew nothing but that Darnley was blown into the air, for he was handled with no men’s hands that he saw;” and Hay deponed that Bothwell, some time afterwards, said to him, “What thought ye when ye saw him blown into the air?” Hay answered,—“Alas! my Lord, why speak ye of that, for whenever I hear such athing, the words wound me to death, as they ought to do you.”[51]There is nothing wonderful in the bodies having been carried so far; for it is mentioned by a cotemporary author, that “they kindled their train of gunpowder, which inflamed the whole timber of the house, and troubled the walls thereof in such sort, that great stones of the length of ten feet, and of the breadth of four feet, were found blown from the house a far way.”[52]Besides, after the minute account, which a careful collation of the different confessions and depositions has enabled us to give, of the manner in which Bothwell spent every minute of his time, from the period of the Queen’s leaving Darnley, till the unfortunate Prince ceased to exist, it would be a work of supererogation to seek to refute, by any stronger evidence, the notion that he was strangled.
It is, however, somewhat remarkable, that, even in recent times, authors of good repute should have allowed themselves to be misled by the exploded errors of earlier writers. “The house,” says Miss Benger, “was invested with armed men, some of whom watched without, whilst others entered to achieve their barbarous purpose; these having strangled Darnley and his servant with silken cords, carried their bodies into the garden, and then blew up the house with powder.”[53]This is almost as foolish as the report mentioned by Melville, that he was taken out of his bed, and brought down to a stable, where they suffocated him by stopping a napkin into hismouth; or, as that still more ridiculous story alluded to by Sanderson, that the Earl of Dunbar, and Sir Roger Aston, an Englishman, who chose to hoax his countrymen, by telling them that he lodged in the King’s chamber that night, “having smelt the fire of a match, leapt both out at a window into the garden; and that the King catching hold of his sword, and suspecting treason, not only against himself, but the Queen and the young Prince, who was then at Holyrood House with his mother, desired him (Sir Roger Aston) to make all the haste he could to acquaint her of it, and that immediately armed men, rushing into the room, seized him single and alone, and stabbed him, and then laid him in the garden, and afterwards blew up the house.”[54]Buchanan, Crawford and others, fall into similar mistakes; but Knox, or his continuator, writes more correctly, and mentions, besides, that medical men “being convened, at the Queen’s command, to view and consider the manner of Darnley’s death,” were almost unanimously of opinion that he was blown into the air, although he had no mark of fire.[55]
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Duke of Albany and King of Scotland, perished in the twenty-first year of his age, and the eighteenth month of his reign. The suddenness and severity of his fate excited a degree of compassion, and attached an interest to his memory, which, had he died in the ordinary course of nature, would never have been felt. He had been to Scotland only a cause of civil war,—to his nobility an object of contempt,of pity, or of hatred,—and to his wife a perpetual source of sorrow and misfortune. Any praise he may deserve must be given to him almost solely on the score of his personal endowments; his mind and dispositions had been allowed to run to waste, and were under no controul but that of his own wayward feelings and fancies. Keith, in the following words, draws a judicious contrast between his animal and intellectual qualities. “He is said to have been one of the tallest and handsomest young men of the age; that he had a comely face and pleasant countenance; that he was a most dexterous horseman, and exceedingly well skilled in all genteel exercises, prompt and ready for all games and sports, much given to the diversions of hawking and hunting, to horse-racing and music, especially playing on the lute; he could speak and write well, and was bountiful and liberal enough. But, then, to balance these good natural qualifications, he was much addicted to intemperance, to base and unmanly pleasures; he was haughty and proud, and so very weak in mind, as to be a prey to all that came about him; he was inconstant, credulous, and facile, unable to abide by any resolutions, capable to be imposed upon by designing men, and could conceal no secret, let it tend ever so much to his own welfare or detriment.”[56]With all his faults, there was no one in Scotland who lamented him more sincerely than Mary. She had loved him deeply; and whilst her whole life proves that she was incapable of indulging thatviolent and unextinguishable hatred which prompts to deeds of cruelty and revenge, it likewise proves that it was almost impossible for her to cease to esteem an object for which she had once formed an attachment. Murray must himself have allowed the truth of the first part of this statement; and for many days before his death, Darnley had himself felt the force of the latter. She had, no doubt, too much good sense to believe that Darnley, in his character of king, was a loss to the country; but the tears she shed for him, are to be put down to the account, not of the queen, but of the woman and the wife.
BOTHWELL’S TRIAL AND ACQUITTAL.
During the whole of the day that succeeded her husband’s death, (Monday the 10th of February 1567), Mary shut herself up in her own apartment, and would see no one. Bothwell was anxious to have conversed with her, but overpowered with grief, she was unable to listen to any thing he wished to say.[57]In the meantime all was confusion and dismay in Edinburgh, and wherever the news of this strange murder arrived, a thousand contradictory reports went abroad. Some suspected one thing, and some another; and it must be recollected, that although, at a subsequent date, facts came out sufficient to fix the guilt upon those who had really committed the crime, as yet there was nothing but mere vague conjecture. Mary herself was lost in wonder and doubt. Most of the nobility who were near her wished to persuade her, at Bothwell’s instigation, that her husband’s death was either the effect of accident, or that it had been brought about by the malice and villany of some obscure and ignoble traitors;and every endeavour being thus made to mislead her, she was the very last who could be expected to know the truth. Accordingly, it appears by a letter she wrote to the Archbishop of Glasgow, her ambassador at Paris, on Tuesday the 11th (two days after the murder), that she was still but very imperfectly informed even of the manner of Darnley’s death. This letter, at once so simple and natural, must not be omitted here. She had, the same morning, received a despatch from her ambassador, in which he had expressed a fear, that the pardon she had lately given to Morton, Ruthven, Lindsay and others, might involve her in trouble. Mary’s answer was as follows:
“Most Reverend Father in God, and trust Counsellor, we greet you well: We have received this morning your letters of the 27th January, by your servant Robert Dury, containing in part such advertisement as we find by effect over true, albeit the success has not altogether been such as the authors of that mischievous fact had preconceived in their mind, and had put it in execution, if God in his mercy had not preserved us and reserved us, as we trust, to the end that we may take a vigorous vengeance of that mischievous deed, which, before it should remain unpunished, we had rather lose life and all. The matter is horrible, and so strange, that we believe the like was never heard of in any country. This night past, being the 9th February, a little after two hours after midnight, the house wherein the King was lodged was in an instant blown in the air, he lying sleeping in his bed, with such a vehemency, that of the whole lodging, walls, and other, there is nothing remaining,—no, not a stone aboveanother, but all either carried far away, or dung in dross to the very ground-stone. It must be done by force of powder, and appears to have been a mine.[58]By whom it has been done, or in what manner, it appears not as yet. We doubt not but, according to the diligence our Council has begun already to use, the certainty of all shall be obtained shortly; and the same being discovered, which we wot God will never suffer to lie hid, we hope to punish the same with such rigour, as shall serve for example of this cruelty to all ages to come. At all events, whoever has taken this wicked enterprise in hand, we assure ourself it was devised as well for us as for the King; for we lay all the most part of all the last week in that same lodging, and were there accompanied with the most part of the lords that are in this town, that same night at midnight, and of very chance tarried not all night, by reason of some masque in the Abbey; but we believe it was not chance, but God that put it in our head.[59]We despatch this bearer upon the sudden, and therefore write to you the more shortly. Therest of your letter we shall answer at more leisure, within four or five days, by your own servant; and so, for the present, commit you to Almighty God.—At Edinburgh, the 11th day of February 1556-7.—Marie R.”[60]
In accordance with the resolution intimated in the above letter, to seek out and vigorously punish her husband’s murderers, a proclamation was issued upon Wednesday the 12th, immediately after an inquisition had been taken by the Justice-General, offering a reward of two thousand pounds, and “an honest yearly rent,” to whosoever should reveal “the persons, devisers, counsellors, or actual committers of the said mischievous and treasonable murder,” and promising besides to the first revealer, although a partaker of the crime, a free pardon. The same proclamation declared, that as “Almighty God would never suffer so horrible a deed to lie hid, so, before it should remain untried, the Queen’s Majesty, unto whom of all others the case was most grievous, would rather lose life and all.”[61]In the mean time, not knowing but that the same traitors who had murdered her husband, might intend a similar fate for herself, Mary removed to the Castle, as a place of greater security than Holyrood Palace. There she remained shut up in a dark chamber, hung with black, till after Darnley’s burial. He lay in the Chapel at Holyrood, from the 12th to the 15th of February. His body having been embalmed, he was then interred in the royal vault, in which King James V.,together with his first wife, Magdalene, and his two infant sons, Mary’s brothers, lay. Buchanan, and his follower Laing, have both insisted upon the nocturnal secrecy and indifference with which the funeral ceremony was conducted. “The nobles that were there present,” says Buchanan, “decreed, that a stately and honourable funeral should be made for him; but the Queen ordered it so, that he was carried by private bearers in the night-time, and was buried in no manner of state.” The interpretation to be put upon this insidious passage is, that the Protestant Lords proposed to bury Darnley after the Presbyterian form, and that Mary refused her consent, and, in consequence, only the Catholics attended. “The ceremonies indeed,” says Lesley, “were the fewer, because that the greatest part of the Council were Protestants, and had before interred their own parents without accustomed solemnities.”[62]That Mary’s calumniators should have insisted upon this circumstance at all, only shows how eager they were to avail themselves of everything which they could pervert to their own purposes. Had Mary wished to act the hypocrite, nothing could have been easier for her than to have made a great parade at Darnley’s funeral.
Bothwell, in the mean time, kept as quiet as possible, attending, as usual, at court, and taking care always to be present at the meetings of the Privy Council. But he had lighted a torch which was not to be extinguished, till it had blazed over Scotland, and kindled his own funeral pyre. On whatever grounds the suspicion had goneabroad, (and it is difficult to say why public attention should so soon have been directed to him as the perpetrator of the late murder, unless we suppose Murray, or some of his other accomplices, to have been now eager to publish his guilt, in order to accomplish his ruin), it is at all events certain, that in a few days after the proclamation for the discovery of the assassins had been issued, a placard was set up at night, on the door of the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, in which it was affirmed, that the Earl of Bothwell, together with a Mr James Balfour, a Mr David Chalmers, and a Mr John Spence, were the persons principally concerned in the crime, and that the Queen herself was “assenting thereto.” It might be reasonably concluded, that no notice whatever would be taken of an anonymous paper thus expressed; but the Queen, even although it insultingly accused herself, was so anxious to have the matter of the murder investigated, that she caused another proclamation to be issued, without waiting for the advice of her Privy Council, desiring the author of the placard to divulge his name, and promising that if he could show there was any truth in any part of his averment, he should receive the promised reward.[63]A second placard was stuck up in answer, requiring the money to be lodged in honest hands, and three of the Queen’s servants, whom it named, to be put in arrest; and undertaking, as soon as these conditions were complied with, that the author and four friends would discover themselves. This was so palpable an evasion, that it of course met with no attention. To supposethat Government would take upon itself the charge of partiality, and place the public money in what an anonymous writer might consider “honest hands,” was too grossly absurd to have been proposed by any one who really wished to do his country a service.
The circumstance of Bothwell’s name being mentioned in these placards, in conjunction with that of the Queen, probably operated in his favour with Mary. Conscious of her own innocence, she would very naturally suppose that the charge was equally calumnious in regard to him; for if she knew it to be false in one particular, what dependence could she place upon its truth in any other? At the same time, she could not of course see her husband murdered, almost before her eyes, without making various surmises concerning the real author and cause of his death. Her accusers, however, seem to suppose that she ought to have been gifted with an almost miraculous power of discovering the guilty. Only a few days before, every thing had been proceeding smoothly; and she herself, with renovated spirits, was enjoying the returning health and affection of her husband. In a moment the scene was overclouded; her husband was barbarously slain; and all Scotland was in a ferment. Yet around the Queen all wore the same aspect. Murray was living quietly in Fife; her secretary Maitland was proceeding as usual with the official details of public business; the Earl of Morton had not yet returned to Court, and he also was in Fife; the Archbishop of St Andrews was busied in bolstering up the last remains of Catholicism;Athol, Caithness, Huntly, Argyle, Bothwell, Cassils, and Sutherland, were attending their Sovereign, as faithful and attached servants ought. Where then was she to look for the traitor who had raised his hand against her husband’s life and her own happiness? Whom was she to suspect? Was it Murray?—he had left town without any sufficient cause, on the very day of Darnley’s death, and had hated him ever since he put his foot in Scotland. Was it Morton?—he had returned recently from banishment, and that banishment had been the result of Darnley’s treachery, and had not Morton assassinated Rizzio, with far less grounds of offence? Was it Argyle?—the Lennox family had stripped him of some of his possessions, and the King’s death might, perhaps, be the means of restoring them to him. Was it the Hamiltons?—they were the hereditary enemies of the house of Lennox, and Darnley had blasted for ever their hopes of succession to the throne. Was it Huntly? Was it Athol? Was it Bothwell? It was less likely to be any of these, because Darnley had never come into direct collision with them. By what art, or superior penetration, was Mary to make a discovery which was baffling the whole of Scotland? Was she surrounded by the very men who had done the deed, and who used every means to lead her astray from the truth; yet was she to be able to single out the criminal at a glance, and hurl upon him her just indignation?[64]
Worn out by her griefs and her perplexities, her doubts and her fears, Mary’s health began to give way, and her friends prevailed upon her to leave for a short time her confinement in Edinburgh Castle, and visit Seaton House, a country residence of which she was fond, only seven miles off. Lesley, after describing Mary’s melancholy sojourn in the Castle, adds, that she would have “continued a longer time in this lamentable wise, had she not been most earnestly dehorted by the vehement exhortations and persuasions of her Council, who were moved thereto by her physicians informations, declaring to them the great and imminent dangers of her health and life, if she did not in all speed break up and leave that kind of close and solitary life, and repair tosome good open and wholesome air; which she did, being thus advised, and earnestly thereto solicited by her said council.”[65]She went to Seaton on the 16th of February, accompanied by a very considerable train, among whom were the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, Bothwell, Arbroath, the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Lords Fleming and Livingston, and Secretary Maitland.[66]It was here that a correspondence took place between the Queen and the Earl of Lennox, Darnley’s father, which deserves attention.
In his first letter, the Earl thanked her Majesty for the trouble and labour she took to discover and bring to trial those who were guilty of the “late cruel act;” but as the offenders were not yet known, he beseeched her Highness to assemble, with all convenient diligence, the whole nobility and estates of the realm, that they, acting in conjunction with her Majesty, might take such steps as should seem most likely to make manifest the “bloody and cruel actors of the deed.” This letter was dated the 20th of February 1567. Mary replied to it on the 21st; and in her answer, assured Lennox that in showing him all the pleasure and goodwill in her power, she did only her duty, and that which her natural affection prompted, adding, that on that affection he might always depend, “so long as God gaveher life.” As to the assembling of her nobility, she informed him, that shortly before the receipt of his letter, she had desired a Parliament to be summoned, and that as soon as it met, the death of Darnley would be the first subject which it would be called upon to consider. Lennox wrote again on the 26th, to explain, that when he advised her Majesty to assemble her nobility, he did not allude to the holding of a Parliament, which he knew could not be done immediately. But because he had heard of certain placards which had been set up in Edinburgh, in which certain persons were named as the devisers of the murder, he requested that these persons should be apprehended and imprisoned, that the nobility and Council should be assembled, and that the writers of the placards should be required to appear before them, and be confronted with those whom they had accused; and that if they refused to appear, or did not make good their charge, the persons slandered should be exonerated and set at liberty. A proposal so very unconstitutional could not have been made by Lennox, unless misled by the ardour of his paternal feelings, or instigated by some personal enmity towards Bothwell. If Mary had ventured to throw into prison every one accused in an anonymous bill, there is no saying where the abuse might have ended. The most worthless coward might have thus revenged himself upon those he hated; and law and justice would have degenerated into despotism, or civil anarchy. The Queen, therefore, informed Lennox, that although, as she had already written, she had summoned a Parliament, and should lay the matter of the murder before it,it was never her intention to allow it to sleep in the mean time. Her Lords and Council would of course continue to exert themselves, but herwholenobility could not be assembled till the Parliament met. As to his desire, that the persons named in the placards should be apprehended, there had been so many, and so contrary statements made in these placards, that she knew not to which in particular he alluded; and besides, that she could not find herself justified in throwing any of her subjects into prison upon such authority; but that, if he himself would condescend upon the names of such persons as he thought deserved a trial, she would order that trial to take place immediately. She was anxious that Lennox should take this responsibility upon himself, for she had hitherto been kept much in the dark, and was glad to have the assistance of one almost as desirous as herself to come to the truth. She invited him, therefore, in her letter of the 1st of March, to write to her again immediately, with any other suggestion which might occur to him, because she was determined “not to omit any occasion which might clear the matter.” It was the 17th of March before Lennox again addressed the Queen. He thanked her Majesty for her attention to his wishes; he marvelled that the names of the persons upon the placards, against whom the greatest suspicions were entertained, “had been kept from her Majesty’s ears;” and, as she requested it, he now named them himself, putting the Earl of Bothwell first, and several other inferior persons after him. He did not undertake to be their accuser, confessing that he had no evidence of their guilt;but he said he greatly suspected Bothwell, and hoped “her Majesty, now knowing their names, and being a party, as well and more than he was, although he was the father, would take order in the matter according to the weight of the cause.” Mary, who had by this time returned to Edinburgh, wrote to Lennox, the very day after the receipt of his letter, that she had summoned her nobility to come to Edinburgh the first week of April; and that, as soon as they came, the persons named in his letter should “abide and underlie such trial, as by the laws of the realm was usual.”—“They being found culpable,” Mary added, “in any way of that crime and odious fact, named in the placards, and whereof you suspect them, we shall even, according to our former letter, see the condign punishment as vigorously and extremely executed as the weight of that fact deserves; for, indeed, as you write, we esteem ourself a party if we were resolute of the authors.” She further entreated Lennox to come to Edinburgh, that he might be present at the trial, and lend his assistance to it. “You shall there have experience,” she concluded, “of our earnest will and effectuous mind to have an end in this matter, and the authors of so unworthy a deed really punished.”[67]
The Queen, having waited anxiously till something should occur which might lead to the detection of the murderers, hoped that a clue to the mystery was now about to be discovered. It was a bold and perhaps almost too strong a measure, to arraign a nobleman so powerful, andapparently so respected as Bothwell, of so serious a crime, upon such vague suspicion; but if Mary in this instance exceeded the due limits of her constituted authority, it was an error which leant to virtue’s side, and the feelings of an insulted Queen and afflicted wife must plead her excuse. Her Privy Council, which she summoned immediately upon the receipt of Lennox’s last letter, and before whom she laid it, passed an act directing the trial of the Earl of Bothwell, and the other suspected persons named by Lennox. The trial was fixed to take place on the 12th day of April 1567; letters were directed to the Earl of Lennox to inform him of it, and proclamations were made in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dumbarton, and other places, calling upon all who would accuse Bothwell, or his accomplices, to appear in court on the day appointed.[68]The Council, however, would not authorize the imprisonment of the suspected persons, seeing that it was only anonymous placards which had excited that suspicion.
As soon as the Earl of Lennox got intimation of the intended trial, he set out for Edinburgh from his estate in Dumbartonshire. Not choosing to proceed thither direct, in consequence of the enmity which he knew Bothwell must bear to him, he went to Stirling, where it was understood he was engaged in collecting all the evidence in his power. Nor can Bothwell be supposed to have felt very easy, under the prospect of his approaching trial. He counted, however, on the good offices of his friends among the nobility; andhaving removed all who might have been witnesses against him, and brought into Edinburgh a numerous body of retainers, he resolved to brazen out the accusation with his usual audacity. He even affected to complain that he had not been treated with sufficient fairness; that a paper affixed privately to the door of the Tolbooth had been made the means of involving him in serious trouble; and that, instead of the usual term of forty days, only fifteen had been allowed him to prepare for his defence.[69]He assumed the air, therefore, of an injured and innocent man; and he was well borne out in this character by the countenance he received from most of the Lords then at court. We learn from Killigrew, that twenty days after Bothwell had been placarded, he dined with him at the Earl of Murray’s, who had by this time returned from Fife, in company with Huntly, Argyle, and Lethington.[70]
The day of trial now drew near; but, to her astonishment, Mary received a letter only twenty-four hours before it was to take place, from the Earl of Lennox, who did not exactly see how he was to carry through his accusation, and therefore wished that the case should be postponed. The letter was dated from Stirling, and mentioned two causes which he said would prevent him from coming to Edinburgh; one was sickness, and the other theshort time which had been allowed him to prepare for making good his charge. He asked, therefore, that the Queen would imprison the suspected persons, and would delay the trial till he had collected his friends and his proofs.[71]This request disappointed Mary exceedingly. She had hurried on the trial as much to gratify Lennox as herself; but she now saw that, in asking for it at all, he had been guided more by the feeling of the moment, than by any rational conviction of its propriety. To postpone it without the consent of the accused, who had by this time made the necessary preparations for their defence, was of course out of the question; and, if the time originally mentioned was too short, why did Lennox not write to that effect, as soon as he received intimation of the day appointed? If she put off the trial now, for any thing she knew it might never come on at all. Her enemies, however, were determined, whatever she did, to discover some cause of complaint;—if she urged it on, they would accuse her of precipitancy; if she postponed it, they would charge her with indifference. Elizabeth, in particular, under the pretence of a mighty anxiety that Mary should do what was most honourable and requisite, insolently suggested that suspicion might attach to herself, unless she complied with the request made by Lennox. “For the love of God, Madam,” she hypocritically and insidiously wrote to Mary, “conduct yourself with such sincerity and prudence, in a case which touches you so nearly, that all the world may have reason topronounce you innocent of a crime so enormous, which, unless they did, you would deserve to be blotted out from the rank of Princesses, and to become odious even to the vulgar, rather than see which, I would wish you an honourable sepulchre.”[72]Just as if any onedidsuspect Mary, or as if any monarch in Christendom would have dared to hint the possibility of her being an adulterous murderess, except her jealous rival Elizabeth, pining in the chagrined malevolence of antiquated virginity. The real motives which dictated this epistle became the more apparent, when we learn that it was not written till the 8th of April, and could not at the very soonest reach Edinburgh till the morning of the very day on which the trial was to take place, and probably not till after it was over. The truth is, the very moment she heard of Darnley’s death, Elizabeth had eagerly considered in her own mind the possibility of involving “her good sister” in the guilt attached to those who had murdered him, and was now the very first who openly attempted to lead the thoughts of the Scottish Queen’s subjects into that channel;—she was the very first who commenced laying the train which produced in the end so fatal a catastrophe.
On Saturday, the 12th of April 1567, a Justiciary Court was held in the tolbooth of Edinburgh, for the trial of the Earl of Bothwell. The Lord High Justice the Earl of Argyle presided, attended by four assessors, or legal advisers, two of whom, Mr James MacGill and Mr Henry Balnaves, were Senators of the College of Justice; the third was Robert Pitcairn, Commendator ofDumfermlin, and the fourth was Lord Lindsay. The usual preliminary formalities having been gone through, the indictment was read, in which Bothwell was accused of being “art and part of the cruel, odious, treasonable, and abominable slaughter and murder, of the umwhile the Right High and Mighty Prince the King’s Grace, dearest spouse for the time to our Sovereign Lady the Queen’s Majesty.”[73]He was then called as defender on the one side, and Matthew Earl of Lennox, and all others the Queen’s lieges, who wished to pursue in the matter, on the other. Bothwell appeared immediately at the bar, supported by the Earl of Morton, and two gentlemen who were to act as his advocates. But the Earl of Lennox, or other pursuers, though frequently called, did not appear. At length Robert Cunningham, one of Lennox’s servants, stepped forward, and produced a writing in the shape of a protest, which his master had authorized him to deliver. It stated, that the cause of the Earl’s absence was the shortness of time, and the want of friends and retainers to accompany him to the place of trial; and it therefore objected to the decision of any assize which might be held that day. In reply to this protest, the letters of the Earl of Lennox to the Queen, in which he desired that a short and summary process might be taken against the suspected persons, were produced and read; and it was maintained by the Earl of Bothwell’s counsel, that the trial ought to proceed immediately, according to the laws of the realm, and the wish of the party accused. The judges, having heard both sides, were of opinionthat Bothwell had a right to insist upon the trial going on. A jury was therefore chosen, which does not seem to have consisted of persons particularly friendly to the Earl. It was composed of the Earls of Rothes, Caithness, and Cassils, Lord John Hamilton, son to the Duke of Chatelherault, Lords Ross, Semple, Herries, Oliphant, and Boyd, the Master of Forbes, Gordon of Lochinvar, Cockburn of Langton, Sommerville of Cambusnethan, Mowbray of Barnbougle, and Ogilby of Boyne. Bothwell plednot guilty; and, no evidence appearing against him, the jury retired, and were out of court for some time. When they returned, their verdict, delivered by the Earl of Caithness, whom they had chosen their chancellor, unanimously acquitted Bothwell of the slaughter of the King.[74]
Immediately after his acquittal, Bothwell, as was customary in those times, published a challenge, in which he offered to fight hand to hand, with any man who would avow that he still suspected him to have had a share in the King’s death; but nobody ventured openly to accept it.[75]As far, therefore, as appearances were concerned, he was now able to stand upon higher ground than ever, and boldly to declare, that whosoever was guilty, he had been found innocent. Accordingly, at the Parliament which met on the 14th of April, he appeared in great state, with banners flying, and a numerous body of retainers;and in compliment to him, an act was passed, in which it was set forth, that “by a licentious abuse lately come into practice within this realm, there had been placards and bills and tickets of defamation, set up under silence of night, in diverse public places, to the slander, reproach and infamy of the Queen’s majesty and diverse of the nobility; which disorder, if it were suffered to remain longer unpunished, would redound not only to the great hurt and detriment of all noblemen in their good fame, private calumniators having by this means liberty to backbite them, but also the common weal would be disturbed, and occasion of quarrel taken upon false and untrue slander;”—it was therefore made criminal to put up any such placards, or to abstain from destroying them as soon as they were seen. At this Parliament, there was also an act passed on the subject of religion, which is deserving of notice. “The same Queen,” says Chalmers, “who is charged by Robertson with attempting to suppress the Reformed discipline, with the aid of the Bishops, passed a law, renouncing all foreign jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs,—giving toleration to all her subjects to worship God in their own way,—and engaging to give some additional privileges.” This is one of the most satisfactory answers which can be given to the supposition, that Mary was in any way a party in the Continental persecution of the Hugonots.
The Earl of Murray was not present either at this Parliament, or the trial which immediately preceded it. Actuated by motives which do not exactly appear, and which historians have not been able satisfactorily to explain, he obtainedpermission from Mary, in the beginning of April, to leave Scotland, and, on the 9th, he set off for France, visiting London and the Court of Elizabeth on his way. There is something very unaccountable, in a man of Murray’s ambition thus withdrawing from the scene of action, just at the very time when he must have been anticipating political events of the last importance. His conduct can be rationally explained, only by supposing, that it was suggested by his systematic caution. He was not now, nor had he ever been since his rebellion, Mary’s exclusive and all-powerful Prime Minister;—yet he could not bear to fill a second place; and he knew that, if any civil war occurred, the eyes of many would immediately be turned towards him. If he remained in the country, he would necessarily be obliged to take a side as soon as the dissensions broke out, and might find himself again associated with the losing party; but, if he kept at a distance for a while, he could throw his influence, when he chose, into the heaviest scale, and thus gain an increase of popularity and power. These were probably the real motives of his present conduct, and, judging by the result, no one can say that he reasoned ill. That he was aware of every thing that was about to happen, and that he urged Bothwell forward into a net, from whose meshes he knew he could never be disengaged, as has been maintained so positively by Whittaker, Chalmers, and others, does not appear. The peremptoriness with which these writers have asserted the truth of this unfounded theory, is the leading defect of their works, and has tended to weaken materiallythe chain of argument by which they would otherwise have established Mary’s innocence. That Bothwell, as they over and over again repeat, was the mere “cat’s-paw” of Murray, is a preposterous belief, and argues a decided want of knowledge of Bothwell’s real character. But supposing that he had been so, nothing could be more chimerical than the idea, that after having made him murder Darnley, Murray would wish to see him first acquitted of that murder, and then married to the Queen, for the vague chance that both might be deposed, and he himself called to succeed them as Regent. “Would it ever enter into the imagination of a wise man,” asks Robertson, “first to raise his rival to supreme power, in hopes that, afterwards, he should find some opportunity of depriving him of that power? The most adventurous politician never hazarded such a dangerous experiment; the most credulous folly never trusted such an uncertain chance.” Murray probably winked at the murder, because he foresaw that it was likely to lead to Bothwell’s ruin. When he left the country, he may not have been altogether aware of Bothwell’s more ambitious objects; but if he was, he would still have gone, for his staying could not have prevented their attempted execution; and if they induced a civil war, whosoever lost, he might contrive to be a gainer. He acted selfishly and unpatriotically, but not with that deliberate villany with which he has been charged.
BOTHWELL’S SEIZURE OF THE QUEEN’S PERSON, AND SUBSEQUENT MARRIAGE TO HER.
Every thing appeared now to be going smoothly with Bothwell, and he had only to take one step more to reach the very height of his ambition. Mary’s hand and Scotland’s crown were the objects he had all along kept steadily in view. The latter was to be obtained only through the medium of the former, and hence his reason for removing Darnley, and willingly submitting to a trial, from which he saw he would come off triumphantly. The question he now anxiously asked himself was, whether it was likely that Mary could be persuaded to accept him as a husband. He was aware, that in the unsettled state of the country, she must feel that, unless married to a person of strength and resolution, she would hardly be able to keep her turbulent subjects in order; and he was of opinion, that it was not improbable she would now cast her eyes upon one of her own nobility, as she could no where else find a king who would be so agreeable to the nationalprejudices. Yet he had a lurking consciousness, that he himself would not be the object of her choice. She had of late, it was true, given him a considerable share in the administration; but he felt that she had done so, more as a matter of state policy, and to preserve a balance of power between himself and her other ministers, than from any personal regard. The most assiduous attentions which it was in his power to pay her, had failed to kindle in her bosom any warmer sentiment; for though she esteemed him for his fidelity as an officer of state, his manners and habits as a man, were too coarse and dissolute to please one of so much refinement, sensibility and gentleness, as Mary Stuart. Bothwell therefore became secretly convinced that it would be necessary for him to have recourse to fraud, and perhaps to force. Had Mary loved him, their marriage would have been a matter of mutual agreement, and would have taken place whenever circumstances seemed to make it mutually advisable; but as it was, artifice and audacity were to be his weapons; nor were they wielded by an unskilful hand.
The Parliament which met on the 14th of April 1567, continued to sit only till the 19th of the same month; and on the evening of the following day, Bothwell invited nearly all the Lords who were then in Edinburgh to a great supper, in a tavern kept by a person of the name of Ainsly, from which circumstance, the entertainment was afterwards known by the name of “Ainsly’s Supper.” After plying his guests with wine, he produced a document, which he had himself previously drawn up, and which he requested them all to sign. It wasin the form of a bond; and in the preamble, after expressing their conviction that James Earl of Bothwell, Lord Hales, Crichton, and Liddisdale, Great Admiral of Scotland, and Lieutenant to the Queen over all the Marches, had been grossly slandered in being suspected of having a share in the murder of Darnley, and that his innocence had been fully and satisfactorily proved at his late trial, they bound themselves, as they should answer to God, that whatever person or persons should afterwards renew such calumniation, should be proceeded against by them with all diligence and perseverance. After this introduction, evidently meant to aid in removing any lingering suspicion which the Queen might still entertain of Bothwell’s guilt, the bond went on to state, that, “Moreover, weighing and considering the present time, and how our Sovereign, the Queen’s Majesty, is destitute of a husband, in which solitary state the common weal of this realm may not permit her Highness to continue and endure, but at some time her Highness, in appearance, may be inclined to yield unto a marriage,—therefore, in case the former affectionate and hearty services of the said Earl (Bothwell), done to her Majesty from time to time, and his other good qualities and behaviour, may move her Majesty so far to humble herself as, preferring one of her own native born subjects unto all foreign princes, to take to husband the said Earl, we, and every one of us under subscribing, upon our honours and fidelity, oblige ourselves, and promise, not only to further, advance, and set forward the marriage to be solemnized and completed betwixt her Highness and the said noble Lord, with our votes, counsel, fortificationand assistance, in word and deed, at such time as it shall please her Majesty to think it convenient, and as soon as the laws shall permit it to be done; but, in case any should presume, directly or indirectly, openly, or under whatsoever colour or pretence, to hinder, hold back, or disturb the same marriage, we shall, in that behalf, hold and repute the hinderers, adversaries, or disturbers thereof, as our common enemies and evil-willers; and notwithstanding the same, take part with, and fortify the said Earl to the said marriage, so far as it may please our said Sovereign Lady to allow; and therein shall spend and bestow our lives and goods against all that live or die, as we shall answer to God, and upon our own fidelities and conscience; and in case we do the contrary, never to have reputation or credit in no time hereafter, but to be accounted unworthy and faithless traitors.”[76]
This bond having been read and considered, all the nobles present, with the exception of the Earl of Eglinton, who went away unperceived, put their signatures to it. “Among the subscribers,” says Robertson, “we find some who were the Queen’s chief confidents, others who were strangers to her councils, and obnoxious to her displeasure; some who faithfully adhered to her through all the vicissitudes of her fortune, and others who became the principal authors of her sufferings; some passionately attached to the Romish superstition, and others zealous advocates for the Protestant faith. No common interest can be supposed to have united men of such oppositeinterests and parties, in recommending to their Sovereign a step so injurious to her honour, and so fatal to her peace. This strange coalition was the effect of much artifice, and must be considered as the boldest and most masterly stroke of Bothwell’s address.” It is, indeed, impossible to conceive that such a bond was so numerously subscribed on the mere impulse of the moment. Before obtaining so solemn a promise of support from so many, he must have had recourse to numerous machinations, and have brought into action a thousand interests. He must, in the first place, have influenced Morton, his brother-in-law Huntly, Argyle, and others; and having secured these, he would use them as agents to bring over as many more. The rest, finding that so formidable a majority approved of the bond, would not have the courage to stand out, for they would fear the consequences if Bothwell ever became king. Among the names attached to this bond are those of the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Bishops of Aberdeen, Dumblane, Brechin, and Ross, the Earls of Huntly, Argyle, Morton, Cassils, Sutherland, Errol, Crawfurd, Caithness, and Rothes, and the Lords Boyd, Glamis, Ruthven, Semple, Herries, Ogilvie, and Fleming.[77]Herewas an overwhelming and irresistible force, enlisted by Bothwell in his support. The sincerity of many of the subscribers he probably had good reason to doubt; but what he wanted was to be able to present himself before Mary armed with an argument which she would find it difficult to evade, and if she yielded to it, his object would be gained. He was afraid, however, to lay the bond openly and fairly before her; he dreaded that her aversion to a matrimonial connexion with him might weigh more powerfully than even the almost unanimous recommendation of her nobility. But having already gone so far, he was resolved that a woman’s will should not be any serious obstacle to his wishes.
The whole affair of the supper was, for a short time, kept concealed from Mary; and though Bothwell’s intentions and wishes began to be pretty generally talked of throughout the country, she was the very last to hear of them. When the Lord Herries ventured on one occasion to come upon the subject with the Queen, and mentioned the report as one which had gained considerable credit, “her Majesty marvelled,” saysMelville, “to hear of such rumours without meaning, and saidthat there was no such thing in her mind.” Only a day or two after the bond was signed, she left Edinburgh to visit the prince her son, who was then in the keeping of the Earl of Mar at Stirling. Before she went, Bothwell ventured to express his hopes to her, but she gave him an answer little agreeable to his ambition. “The bond being once obtained,” Mary afterwards wrote to France, “Bothwell began afar off to discover his intention, and to essay if he might by humble suit purchase our good will.”—“But finding an answer nothing correspondent to his desire, and casting from before his eyes all doubts that men use commonly to revolve with themselves in similar enterprises,—the backwardness of our own mind—the persuasions which our friends or his enemies might cast out for his hindrance—the change of their minds whose consent he had already obtained, with many other incidents which might occur to frustrate him of his expectation,—he resolved with himself to follow forth his good fortune, and, all respect laid apart, either to tine all in one hour, or to bring to pass that thing he had taken in hand.”[78]This is a clear and strong statement, describing exactly the feelings both of Bothwell and Mary at this period.