Mary, Queen of Scots (28 page)

Unperturbed, Maitland replied, “Madame, let us guide the matter amongst us, and Your Grace shall see nothing but good and approved by Parliament.” This rather patronising conclusion to the conversation implied that such an issue would be better resolved by men than left to a woman’s limited understanding, but it must have been clear to Mary that there was no way of freeing herself from Darnley without endangering the succession or compromising her good name. Moreover, she cannot have come away from this meeting without some impression that the Lords intended to get rid of her husband by fair means or foul; unwittingly, she had already told them that she was prepared to wait until death solved the problem of Darnley.

There is ample corroboration of the Protestation in other sources. Although Huntly and Argyll never had a chance to sign that document, they were among the signatories to a paper drawn up by Mary’s Scottish supporters in 1568, which states that, at Craigmillar, the Lords “caused make offers to our Sovereign Lady, if Her Grace would give remission to them that were banished, to find causes of divorce, either for consanguinity, in respect they alleged the dispensation was not published, else for adultery; or to get [Darnley] convicted of treason because he consented to Her Grace’s retention in ward; or what other ways to dispatch him; which altogether Her Grace refused, as is manifestly known.”
⁹
The Protestation, however, is not so specific regarding Mary’s rejection of “other ways” to dispatch Darnley.

Leslie states that the Lords offered to procure a divorce if the Queen pardoned Morton, but that “she would not consent to it, though she were moved thereto by a great number of her nobility, and by such as [later became] her greatest adversaries.” Nau claims that the Lords “fomented discord between the King and Queen by underhand dealings, and then recommended a divorce in order to deprive them of all lawful succession.” This is the interpretation that Mary herself had chosen to place upon events by the 1570s.

Buchanan, in
The Book of Articles
of 1568, written before the Protestation was drawn up, states that, when Mary came to Craigmillar, “in the audience of Moray, Huntly, Argyll and the Secretary”—Bothwell is not mentioned—she referred again to her wish to be rid of the King. In this account, however, it is Mary, and not Maitland, who suggests a divorce on the grounds of consanguinity, and Buchanan says that someone else, not Mary, voiced the objection that, if such a divorce were granted, the Prince “should be declared bastard, since neither the King nor she contracted that marriage as ignorant of the degree of consanguinity wherein they stood.” Hearing this, the Queen “utterly left that opinion of divorce.” A similar account is in Buchanan’s
Detectio
of 1571.

Lennox, however, says nothing of this discussion, since his source for much of his
Narrative
was Darnley himself. What Lennox does say, which Buchanan omits, is that, at Craigmillar, the Council resolved to have Darnley imprisoned after the baptism. The fact that this never happened is perhaps proof enough that it was never an issue, but it may have been one of the proposed solutions to the problem of what to do about Darnley.

When, in 1569, Moray learned of the contents of the Protestation, he denied that anything was said in his presence at Craigmillar “tending to any unlawful or dishonourable end.” At that time, however, Moray had good reason for wishing to dissociate himself from what had taken place there.

It has been suggested that the Lords meant all along to embroil their Catholic Queen in a plot to do away with Darnley and thus bring about her downfall, leaving them free to rule in the name of her infant son, whom they would raise as a Protestant. There is no proof of this, but it is certainly possible, for not only was it the ultimate outcome of the Darnley plot, but it would not have been the first time that the Lords had attempted to overthrow or undermine Mary. Now that she had a son, there was more justification than ever for them to do so. Although the evidence suggests that, in December 1566, their chief aim was the restoration of the exiled Lords, there may well have been a wider aspect to their plan that was not discussed with Bothwell. What is likely is that the discussions that took place at Craigmillar were the beginnings of the plot that led to Darnley’s murder, and that the prime movers were Maitland and Moray.

It was later asserted by both Lennox and Leslie—writing on behalf of both sides—that the Lords plotted the assassination of the King at Craigmillar, and indeed, it is hard to believe that the matter was not touched upon in private by the five nobles who had brought up the matter of divorce with the Queen. Lennox claimed that the time and manner of Darnley’s murder were devised at Craigmillar, but this may be discounted because the evidence strongly suggests that these arrangements were made much nearer the time. Leslie states categorically that Moray, Bothwell and others, at Craigmillar, “consulted and devised this mischief.” Furthermore, the “Protestation of Huntly and Argyll” concludes: “We judge in our consciences, and hold for certain and truth, that Moray and [Maitland] were authors, inventors, devisers, counsellors and causers of the murder, in what manner and by whatsoever persons the same was executed.”

These Lords had little reason to love Darnley, and had bitterly resented him almost from the first. He was a Catholic, a troublemaker and an embarrassment, and the Queen’s desperation to be rid of him was welcome news to them, which is why they appeared so overtly sympathetic towards her. In fact, they were eager to exploit her marital problems to their own advantage. Neither they nor their fellow nobles would have wished to see a reconciliation between the royal couple, for this would inevitably have seen Darnley restored to ascendancy over them, which was an intolerable prospect. The Protestant Lords hated him for his betrayal of the fugitive Lords, and Moray and Maitland had long had personal scores to settle with him. They may well have considered that it was worth risking the penalties for high treason in order to do away with him.

There is good evidence that, whilst at Craigmillar, several Lords entered into a Bond for the murder of Darnley, much as they had done for the murder of Rizzio, who had also fallen foul of them. No such Bond has survived, but one of Bothwell’s followers, James Ormiston, confessed, just before his execution in 1573, that he had been shown and read the bond by Bothwell in April 1567. Bothwell had told him that the Bond was his security, and when Ormiston expressed doubts about this, the Earl replied, “Tush, Ormiston, ye need not take fear of this, for the whole Lords have concluded the same long since in Craigmillar, all that were there with the Queen, and none dare find fault with it.” Six years later, displaying a remarkable memory, Ormiston quoted the substance of the text of the Bond, which read:

It was thought expedient and most profitable for the Commonwealth, by the whole nobility and Lords underscribed, that such a young fool and proud tyrant should not reign or bear rule over them; and that, for divers causes therefore, that these all had concluded that he should be put off by one way or another; and whosoever should take the deed in hand, or do it, they should defend and fortify as themselves.

Ormiston added that the bond had been drawn up “a quarter of a year before the deed was done”
¹⁰
and signed by Huntly, Argyll, Bothwell, Maitland and Sir James Balfour.
¹¹
It should be said that, by 1573, all of these men had fallen foul of the government in one way or other, and that it is highly likely that this was an edited list of signatories.

Ormiston stated that Bothwell had told him that the subtle, devious lawyer, Sir James Balfour, was enlisted to draw up the Bond, which seems likely; according to Nau, who must have got his information from Mary, who had seen the Bond and doubtless recognised the handwriting, it was written out by Alexander Hay, one of the Clerks of the Council. In the original text, Balfour is unlikely to have used the word murder, as seems clear from Ormiston’s statement.

The fact that, between 5 and 10 December 1566, Balfour’s brother Robert was granted by the Queen the provostry of Kirk o’Field,
¹²
the house where Darnley was to be murdered, has been seen by some historians as sinister, yet it is almost certain that it was not until several weeks later that this house was chosen as a lodging for the King, after others had been rejected.

In December 1567, another of Bothwell’s men, John Hepburn of Bolton, stated in his confession that Bothwell had shown him a Bond that listed “some light causes against the King, such as his behaviour contrar the Queen.” This document was signed by Huntly, Argyll, Maitland and Bothwell: when asked if he had seen Balfour’s name, Hepburn denied it, but declared he would warrant that Balfour was the principal deviser of the deed; this part of his confession was suppressed by the government, and does not appear in the official record.
¹³
It would have been strange for Balfour to have instigated the plot against Darnley, his fellow Catholic and friend, unless of course he wished to dissociate himself from the disgraced King, or unless he was playing a double game, which is possible. There have been several theories that Balfour was in fact acting in concert with Darnley to destroy the Protestant establishment in Scotland, and that he was luring them into a trap. It is important to bear this in mind when charting Balfour’s movements over the next weeks.

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS “The most beautiful in Europe.”

FRANCIS II & MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS Francis was Mary’s “sweetheart and friend.”

JAMES STEWART, EARL OF MORAY “At deeds of treachery and blood, Moray looked through his fingers.”

SIR WILLIAM MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON His contemporaries called him “the Scottish Machiavelli.”