Life of Elizabeth I (34 page)

On 2 May, Mary escaped from Lochleven. George Douglas, the laird's brother, 'in fantasy of love with her', under cover of a May Day pageant arranged for a servant to steal the laird's keys and help the disguised prisoner to hasten to a waiting boat. Douglas then escorted Mary to Hamilton Palace, where she was joined by several lords and an army of 6000 men. As soon as she heard of this, Elizabeth sent a handwritten message of congratulation, offering help and support.

But it had not arrived when Mary's force suffered a crushing defeat at Langside on 13 May at the hands of Moray's troops, and she fled in panic from the battlefield knowing that all was lost. For three days she rode southwards, shaving her head to avoid recognition, and existing on a diet of milk and oatmeal. On 16 May, she escaped from Scotland and crossed the Solway Firth to Workington in Cumberland, hoping to obtain refuge in England and announcing that she had come to place herself under Elizabeth's protection. Bitter and vengeful, she was desperate for military aid so that she could crush her enemies for good.

The English authorities, however, were not sure how to receive her, and placed her under guard at Carlisle until instructions about what to do with their uninvited guest arrived from London. Her arrival posed a dilemma for the government that would exercise it tor the next two decades.

The Queen insisted that Mary must be restored at once. Cecil argued that it was folly to assist a queen who had schemed and plotted against her for years and was, in every sense, her enemy and no political innocent. Mary should be sent back to Scotland immediately. Elizabeth protested that to do so would be to send her to her death - it was unthinkable that she should do such a thing.

It was difficult to determine what should be done with Mary, since every option open to Elizabeth carried its dangers. The last thing she wanted was to go to war with Scotland on Mary's behalf, and she felt it would be infinitely preferable if she could bring about a reconciliation between Mary and the Scots lords on terms favourable to England. It would be insane folly to send Mary abroad to France or Spain, yet if Elizabeth left her at liberty in England, she would be an inspiration to every Catholic malcontent in the kingdom. The Queen was aware that there were those of the old faith, at home and abroad, who regarded Mary as having a better title to the English throne than herself, especially in the Catholic north, where Mary had been cultivating support for years and where there was spontaneous rejoicing at her coming to England. Those who had met her were beguiled by her beauty and charm, and also by her powers of persuasion. It therefore required no great leap of the imagination to envisage her becoming a force for 
rebellion, or treason, and there was always the fearful possibility that King Philip might decide to divert that great army in the Netherlands to England in support of her claim.

In the end, Elizabeth decided that Mary must remain, not in prison, but in honourable custody as her 'guest', and under constant observation. 'Our good Queen has the wolf by the ears,' commented Archbishop Parker. Elizabeth sent Sir Francis Knollys to Carlisle to welcome Mary and take charge of her. He was to say that it would be impossible for Mary to be admitted to Her Majesty's presence 'by reason of the great slander of murder whereof she was not yet purged': until Mary had been formally cleared of Darnley's murder, Elizabeth, as an unmarried Queen, could not see her or welcome her to court. Mary wept when she heard this.

Elizabeth had made noises about wanting to recognise Mary as Queen of Scots and receive her as an equal, but she had been easily overridden by her councillors, who could not comprehend why she would contemplate replacing a friendly Protestant neighbouring administration with a Catholic queen who had never renounced her claim to be rightful sovereign of England. Elizabeth wrote to Mary explaining her decision: 'If you find it strange not to see me, you will see it would be malaise for me to receive you before your justification. But once honourably acquitted of this crime, I swear to you before God, that among all worldly pleasures [meeting you] will hold the first rank.' The French ambassador drily observed that, once the two queens were in each other's company, they would be at loggerheads within a week as their friendship turned to envy and jealousy. He believed Elizabeth would never let Mary come near her.

Having heard that Mary had no change of raiment, Elizabeth declared she would make good her wants, and sent with Knollys a parcel of clothing. To his mortification it contained 'two torn shifts, two pieces of black velvet, two pairs of shoes, and nothing else'. To cover up his embarrassment he told Mary that 'Her Highness's maid had mistaken and sent things necessary for a maidservant'. In fact, Elizabeth herself had selected the items, intending that Mary should understand she was dependent on English charity, and when Knollys failed to write of Mary's gratitude, she indignantly sent to ask if her cousin had liked the clothes she had sent her.

Mary was angered by this 'cold dealing', and on 13 June replied:

Remove, Madam, from your mind that I am come hither for the preservation of my life, but to clear my honour and obtain assistance to chastise my false accusers; not to answer them as their equal, but to accuse them before you. Being innocent as, God be 
thanked, I know I am, do you not wrong me by keeping me here, encouraging by that means my perfidious foes to continue their determined falsehoods? I neither can nor will answer their false accusations, although I will with pleasure justify myself to you voluntarily as friend to friend, but not in the form of a process with my subjects.

This could not be achieved, of course, unless Elizabeth agreed to see her, and in her frustration she veered from outbursts of anger to spells of passionate weeping, in which she complained of her 'evil usage'.

The Council was not impressed, and on 20 June backed Elizabeth in her refusal to receive Mary, declaring that the Queen could not 'suffer her to depart without a trial'. Of course, English courts had no jurisdiction over foreign princes, so Elizabeth ordered what amounted to a political inquiry - 'a trial of Mary's innocence' before what was in effect a tribunal, although it was not referred to as such. Its purposes were to determine whether Mary had been in any way guilty of Darnley's murder and whether she should be restored to her throne. Six earls were appointed to act as commissioners under the chairmanship of Norfolk, their function being to consider the evidence. The Queen announced that she herself would act as judge between Mary and her Scots subjects.

In a letter to Mary, asking her to proclaim her innocence, Elizabeth wrote, 'O Madam! There is no creature living who wishes to hear such a declaration more than I, or will more readily lend her ears to any answer that will acquit your honour.' Once Mary had been acquitted, she would - she promised - receive her at court.

By now, it had dawned on Mary that she was effectively a prisoner of her cousin. When told of the impending inquiry, she furiously protested that, as an absolute prince, she would have no other judge but God: 'I see how things frame evil for me. I have many enemies about the Queen, my good sister, such as do all they can to keep me from her at the solicitation of my rebellious subjects.' There was a good deal of truth in this, but Mary clung to the notion that the inquiry was Elizabeth's way of helping her regain her throne, especially when Elizabeth informed her that its real purpose was to examine Moray's conduct towards his sovereign, and assured her that judgement would not be given unless it was against him or his party.

On 20 June, the Council categorically advised Elizabeth against doing anything that might assist Mary's restoration. She refused to listen: she had given Mary her word, and would stand by it. Subjects had to be shown that they could not depose princes at will. But the strain was telling on her, and in one letter she begged Mary to 'have some consideration of me, instead of always thinking of yourself.

In July, Mary was taken to Bolton Castle in Yorkshire, which was to be her lodging for the foreseeable future. It was sufficiently far from both Scotland and London to pose any great security risk. At Bolton she kept state like a queen and was allowed to indulge her passion for hunting, but she was constantly guarded. Sir Francis Knollys was her 'host', but had a difficult time coping with her tears and tantrums as she chafed against the restrictions upon her liberty.

There was by now a strong 'Queen's Party' in Scotland, and two members of it, Lord Herries and the Bishop of Ross, took it upon themselves to go to England and plead Mary's case. 'If Queen Mary will remit her case to be heard by me as her dear cousin and friend', Elizabeth told Herries, 'I will send for her rebels and know their answer why they deposed their queen. If they can allege some reason for doing so, which I think they cannot, then I will restore Queen Mary to her throne, on condition that she renounces her claim to England and abandons her league with France and the mass in Scotland.' These were tough terms, but the promise was implicit, and Mary was desperate. On 28 July, she agreed to 'submit her cause to Her Highness in thankful manner'. What she did not know was that all parties were determined that she should not speak in her own defence. Nor was she aware that, on 20 September, Elizabeth assured Moray that she did not mean to restore Mary, despite reports to the contrary. Armed with this knowledge, he agreed to attend.

The inquiry opened at York on 4 October. Elizabeth had ordered her commissioners to press for Mary's restoration on terms favourable to the English, but to her annoyance, there were endless intrigues and delays, and very little was achieved, although it became transparently clear that Moray's chief objective was to keep Mary out of Scotland. Provoked by Elizabeth's anger at his initial failure to make the 'rigorous accusations' he had assured her would prove Mary 'privy' to murder, and fortified by her reassurance that if his proofs were convincing there would be no question of her pressing for Mary's restoration, he at length revealed the existence of the Casket Letters. He intended, at the right psychological moment, to produce them in evidence against Mary - in fact, they were to constitute the chief evidence against her. But the question was asked then, and has been asked countless times since: were they forgeries?

The Casket Letters no longer exist, having disappeared in 1584, although copies of nine of them survive in various archives. The original documents comprised eight letters said to be from Mary to Bothwell, twelve transcriptions of French sonnets, a written but undated promise to marry Bothwell, signed by Mary, and two copies of their marriage contract. All were contained in a small silver-gilt box of about thirty centimetres in length, engraved with an F for Francis II, which may be 
the one now on display at Lennoxlove House in Scotland. According to the Earl of Morton, this casket had been found in a house in Potterow, Edinburgh, and since then controversy had raged over the authenticity of its contents. There were claims that, although the letters were genuine, the Scots lords had inserted incriminating passages into them. Some said the love letters had been written to Bothwell by another lady. None of these theories were put forward in Mary's defence. When Moray produced these contentious documents at the inquiry, he insisted that the letters purportedly written by Mary were in her handwriting. Mary denied this, but was never allowed to see them. Many modern historians believe therefore that the Casket Letters were forged in an attempt to convict her. If, however, they were authentic, then they were conclusive proof that she was guilty of complicity in Darnley's murder.

Norfolk did see the originals and was in no doubt as to who had written them; in fact, he was utterly appalled at their contents, writing to Elizabeth that they described 'such inordinate love between [Mary| and Bothwell, her loathsomeness and abhorring of her husband that was murdered, in such sort as every good and godly man cannot but detest and abhor the same'. The widowed Duke was therefore astonished at a suggestion made by William Maitland, on a hunting expedition, that he consider marrying Mary himself, especially since the terms of his appointment as chief commissioner forbade him from doing so on pain of death. Knollys thought the marriage might be a good way of keeping Mary under control, but Elizabeth, alerted by the French ambassador and Cecil's spies, most certainly did not, and sharply reproved Norfolk for even discussing such an idea.

'Should I seek to marry her, being so wicked a woman, such a notorious adulteress and murderer?' he protested.

I love to sleep upon a safe pillow. I count myself, by Your Majesty's favour, as good a prince at home in my bowling aUey at Norwich as she is, though she were in the midst of Scotland. And if I should go about to marry with her, knowing as I do that she pretendeth a title to Your Majesty's crown, Your Majesty might justly charge me with seeking your crown from your head.

At this, Elizabeth appeared outwardly mollified, and no more was said then about the marriage. However, a seed of ambition had been sown in Norfolk's mind.

When Elizabeth received copies of the Casket Letters, she claimed to be convinced that they were genuine, stating that they 'contained many matters very unmeet to be repeated before honest ears, and easily drawn 
to be apparent proof against the Queen'. Irritated by the lack of progress made by the commissioners, and suspicious of Norfolk's loyalties, Elizabeth adjourned the inquiry to Westminster and appointed Leicester, Cecil and other councillors - most of whom were no friends of Mary - as additional commissioners. Meanwhile, Cecil was urging that Mary be moved to the greater security of Tutbury Castle in the Protestant Midlands, but Elizabeth demurred, wishing to preserve the fiction that Mary was a royal guest and not a prisoner to be shunted from stronghold to stronghold. Even Leicester could not persuade her that Cecil spoke sense.