Mary Queen of Scots 1542-1587 Part 12

_Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow, from Edinburgh_, January 20, 1567._ Keith's History_, vol. i. p. 101.

For the King our husband, G.o.d knows always our part towards him; and his behaviour and thankfulness to us is semblablement well known to G.o.d and the world; specially our own indifferent subjects see it, and in their hearts, we doubt not, condemn the same. Always we perceive him occupied and busy enough to have inquisition of our doings, which, G.o.d willing, shall aye be such as none shall have occasion to be offended with them, or to report of us any way but honourably; howsoever he, his father, and their fautors speak, which we know want no good will to make us have ado, if their power were equivalent to their minds.

_A WARNING TO THE QUEEN_

_The Archbishop of Glasgow to Queen Mary, from Paris_, January 17, 1567.

_Keith's History_, vol. i. p. 103.

I have heard some murmuring ... that there be some surprise to be trafficked in your country, but he {the Spanish amba.s.sador} would never let me know of any particular, only a.s.sured me he had written to his master to know if by that way he can try any further, and that he was advertised and counselled to cause me haste toward you herewith....

Finally, I would beseech your Majesty right humbly to cause the captains of your guard be diligent in their office; for notwithstanding that I have no particular occasion wherein I desire it, yet can I not be out of fear till I hear of your news.... And so I pray the eternal Lord to preserve your Majesty from all dangers, with long life and good health.

The Visit to Glasgow and the Murder.

_Buchanan's Detection_ (First Scots translation, in _Anderson's Collections_, vol. ii. pp. 17-24).

[Buchanan's account of Queen Mary's visit to Glasgow should be supplemented by a comparison with Crawford's "Deposition" (pp.

208-213), with the Glasgow Letter (pp. 167-182), and with the pa.s.sage from Nau's "Memorials" on p. 111.]

Herself goes to Glasgow; she pretends the cause of her journey to be to see the King alive, whose death she had continually gaped for the month before. But what was indeed the true cause of that journey, every man may plainly perceive by her letters to Bothwell. Being now out of care of her son, whom she had in her own ward, bending herself to the slaughter of her husband, to Glasgow she goes, accompanied with the Hamiltons, and other the King's natural enemies.

_KIRK-OF-FIELD_

Bothwell, as it was between them before accorded, provides all things ready that were needful to accomplish the heinous act; First of all, a house, not commodious for a sick man, nor comely for a King, for it was both riven and ruinous, and had stood empty without any dweller for divers years before, in a place of small resort, between old falling walls of two kirks, near a few almshouses for poor beggars. And that no commodious means for committing that mischief might be wanting, there is a postern door in the Town Wall, hard by the house, whereby they might easily pa.s.s away into the fields. In choosing of the place, she would needs have it thought that they had respect to the wholesomeness. And to avoid suspicion that this was a feigned pretence, herself the two nights before the day of the murder, lay there in a lower room, under the King's chamber. And as she did curiously put off the shows of suspicion from herself, so the execution of the slaughter she was content to have committed to another.

_THE QUEEN GOES TO HOLYROOD_

About three days before the King was slain, she practised to set her brother, Lord Robert, and him at deadly feud, making reckoning that it should be gain to her, whichsoever of them had perished. For matter to ground their dissension, she made rehearsal of the speech that the King had had with her concerning her brother; and when they both so grew in talk, as the one seemed to charge the other with the lie, at last they were in a manner come from words to blows. But while they were both laying their hands on their weapons, the Queen feigning as though she had been perilously afraid of that which she earnestly desired, called the Earl of Murray, her other brother, to the parting, to this intent, that she might either presently bring him in danger to be slain himself, or in time to come to bear the blame of such mischief as then might have happened....

_THE MURDER_

When all things were ready prepared for performing this cruel fact ...

the Queen, for manners' sake, after supper, goes up to the King's lodging. There being determined to show him all the tokens of reconciled good will, she spent certain hours in his company, with countenance and talk much more familiar than she had used in six or seven months before.

At the coming in of Paris, she broke off her talk and prepared to depart. This Paris was a young man born in France, and had lived certain years in the houses of Bothwell and Seton, and afterwards with the Queen. Whereas the other keys of that lodging were in custody of the King's servants, Paris, by feigning certain fond and slender causes, had in keeping the keys which Bothwell kept back, of the back gate and the postern. He was in special trust with Bothwell and the Queen, touching their secret affairs. His coming (as it was before agreed among them) was a watchword that all was ready for the matter. As soon as the Queen saw him, she rose up immediately, and feigning another cause to depart, she said, "Alas! I have much offended toward Sebastian this day, that I came not in a mask to his marriage." This Sebastian was an Avernois {Auvergnois}, a man in great favour with the Queen, for his cunning in music, and his merry jesting, and was married the same day. The King thus left, in manner, alone, in a desolate place, the Queen departs, accompanied with the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, and Ca.s.silis, that attended upon her. After that she was come into her chamber, after midnight, she was in long talk with Bothwell, none being present but the captain of her guard. And when he also withdrew himself, Bothwell was there left alone, without other company, and shortly after retired into his own chamber. He changed his apparel, because he would be unknown of such as met him, and put on a loose cloak, such as the Swartrytters[18]

wear, and so went forward through the watch to execute his intended traitorous fact. The whole order of the doing thereof may be easily understood by their confessions who were put to death for it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [18] German. Black Riders, or heavy cavalry.

Bothwell, after the deed was ended that he went for, returned, and as if he had been ignorant of all that was done, he gat him to bed. The Queen, in the meantime, in great expectation of the success, how finely she played her part (as she thought) it is marvell to tell; for she not once stirred at the noise of the fall of the house, which shook the whole town, nor at the fearful outcries that followed, and confused cries of the people (for I think there happened her not any new thing unlooked for) till Bothwell, feigning himself afraid, rose again out of his bed, and came to her with the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, and Athole, and with the wives of the Earls of Mar and Athole, and with the Secretary. There, while the monstrous chance was in telling, while every one wondered at the thing, that the King's lodging was even from the very foundation blown up in the air, and the King himself slain; in this amazedness and confused fear of all sorts of persons, only that same heroical heart of the Queen maintained itself, so far from casting herself down into base lamentations and tears, unbeseeming the royal name, blood, and estate, that she matched, or rather far surmounted all credit of the constancy of any in former times. This also proceeded of the same n.o.bility of courage, that she sent out the most part of them that were then about her, to inquire out the manner of the doing, and commanded the soldiers that watched to follow, and she herself settled her to rest, with a countenance so quiet, and mind so untroubled, that she sweetly slept till the next day at noon. But lest she should appear void of all naturalness at the death of her husband, by little and little, at length she kept her close, and proclaimed a mourning not long to endure.

_MARY ON THE MURDER_

Mary's Description of the Murder.

_Queen Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow_, February 11 [10?], 1567.

_Keith's History_, vol. i. p. 101.

_A PLOT AGAINST BOTH KING AND QUEEN_

We have received this morning your letters of the 27th January by your servant Robert Dury, containing in one part such advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 G.o.d in His mercy had not preserved us and reserved us, as we trust, to the end that we may take a rigorous vengeance of that mischievous deed, which as it should remain unpunished, we had rather lose life and all. The matter is horrible and so strange as 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 remained, no, not a stone above another, but all carried far away or dashed in dross to the very ground-stone. It must be done by force of powder, and appears to have been a mine. 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 used shortly; and the same being discovered, which we wot G.o.d 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. Always whoever have taken this wicked enterprise in hand, we a.s.sure ourselves it was dressed as well for us as for the King; for we lay the most part of all the last week in that same lodging, and were then accompanied with the most part of the Lords that are in this town that same night at midnight, and of every chance tarried not all night, by reason of some mask in the Abbey: but we believe it was not chance, but G.o.d that put it in our head. We despatched the bearer upon the sudden, and therefore write to you the more shortly....

_NAU'S ACCOUNT OF THE MURDER_

_Nau's Memorials_, p. 33.

He {the King} went to Glasgow, where he was seized with the small-pox.

He sent several times for the Queen, who was very ill, having been injured by a fall from her horse at Seton. At last she went, stayed with him, and attended him on his return to Edinburgh.... On his return to Edinburgh, the King lodged in a small house outside the town, which he had chosen in the report of James Balfour and some others. This was against the Queen's wishes, who was anxious to take him to Craigmillar, for he could not stay in Holyrood Palace lest he should give infection to the Prince. On his own account, too, he did not wish any one to see him in his present condition.... While he was in this house, the King was often visited by the Queen, with whom he was now perfectly reconciled. He promised to give her much information of the utmost importance to the life and quiet of both of them.... He warned her more particularly to be on her guard against Lethington, who, he said, was planning the ruin of the one by the means of the other.... That very night, as her Majesty was about to leave the King, she met Paris, Lord Bothwell's _valet-de-chambre_, and noticing that his face was all blackened with gunpowder, she exclaimed in the hearing of many of the lords, just as she was mounting her horse, "Jesu, Paris, how begrimed you are!" At this he turned very red.

On the 10th of February 1567, about three or four o'clock in the morning, a match was put to the train of gunpowder, which had been placed under the King's house. It was afterwards made public that this had been done by the command and device of the Earls of Bothwell and Morton, James Balfour, and some others, who always afterwards pretended to be most diligent in searching out the murder which they themselves had committed. Morton had secretly returned from England, to which he had been banished.

_THE ORIGIN OF THE CRIME_

This crime was the result of a bond into which they had entered. It was written by Alexander Hay, at that time one of the clerks of the Council, and signed by the Earls of Moray, Huntly, Bothwell, and Morton, by Lethington, James Balfour, and others, who had combined for this purpose. They protested that they were acting for the public good of the realm, pretending that they were freeing the Queen from the bondage and misery into which she had been reduced by the King's behaviour.... He was but deceiving the Queen, whom they often blamed for so faithfully having come to a good understanding with her husband; and they told her that he was putting a knife not only to their throats but to her own.

The King's body was blown into the garden by the violence of the explosion, and a poor English valet of his, who slept in his room, was there killed.... Earl Bothwell was much suspected of this villainous and detestable murder.... If we may judge by the plots, deeds, and contrivances of his a.s.sociates, it would seem that after having used him to rid themselves of the King, they designed to make Bothwell their instrument to ruin the Queen, their true and lawful sovereign.

Their plan was this, to persuade her to marry the Earl of Bothwell, so that they might charge her with being in the plot against her late husband, and a consenting party to his death. This they did shortly after, appealing to the fact that she had married the murderer.

_ANOTHER ACCOUNT BY BUCHANAN_

Buchanan (_Translated from History_, xx. 35).

The Archbishop of St. Andrews, who lived nearest, willingly undertook the task of killing the King, when it was offered to him, both on account of old enmities, and in the hope of bringing the succession nearer his own family. He chose, accordingly, six or eight of the most abandoned of his retainers, and entrusted the matter to them, giving them the keys of the King's lodging. They entered very quietly into his chamber, strangled him as he lay sleeping, and carried his body through the postern into a garden beside the walls. Then, at a given signal, fire was applied to the house.

[The question as to the manner of Darnley's death has given rise to considerable discussion. The depositions of Hay, Hepburn, and Paris (vide pp. 144, 215-218) agree in representing that the King was killed by the explosion. On the other hand, Drury, who wrote to Cecil on 24th April {Foreign Calendar}, and Count Moretta, the agent of the Duke of Savoy, who was in Edinburgh {Labanoff, vii.

108}, state that he was strangled. The facts that the bodies of Darnley and his servant, Taylor, were found together, in the garden, at some little distance from the house, without violent injury; that Darnley's pelisse and slippers were found beside him; and that the other bodies were found among the ruins, must be taken into account in forming a judgment on the question.]

SECTION V

FROM THE MURDER OF DARNLEY TO THE FLIGHT INTO ENGLAND

_CONTENTS_

1. Introductory Note.

2. Mary's seizure by Bothwell.

(_a_) The Ainslie Bond.

(_b_) Mary's description.

(_c_) Description in the Diurnal of Occurrents.

(_d_) Guzman de Silva to Philip II.

3. The Bothwell Marriage.