Mary, Queen of Scots (29 page)

JOHN KNOX “He neither feared nor flattered any flesh.”

JAMES DOUGLAS, EARL OF MORTON “The most accomplished and perfidious scoundrel.”

HENRY STUART, LORD DARNLEY “He was so weak in mind as to be a prey to all that came about him.”

MEDAL STRUCK TO COMMEMORATE THE MARRIAGE OF MARY AND DARNLEY “She has given over unto him her whole will to be ruled and guided as himself best likes.”

DOUBLE PORTRAIT OF MARY AND DARNLEY Marital harmony “lasted not above three months.

DAVID RIZZIO He was often with the Queen “privately and alone.”

HOLYROOD PALACE In this tower, in Mary’s apartments, was enacted one of the bloodiest deeds of her reign.

MARY’S BEDCHAMBER IN HOLYROOD PALACE The open door leads to the supper room. The entrance to the secret stairway from Darnley’s room below is concealed in the wall behind the bed-curtains.

THE MURDER OF RIZZIO “Justice! Justice! Save me, my Lady, I am a dying man!”

THE OLD PALACE IN EDINBURGH CASTLE Mary retreated here after Rizzio’s murder.

THE BIRTH CHAMBER OF JAMES VI, EDINBURGH CASTLE Here was born Mary’s son. The frieze and panelling are of later dates.

Hepburn added that, on the night of Darnley’s murder, “he thought that no man durst say it was evil done, seeing the handwriting and acknowledging the Queen’s mind thereto.” He seems to have inferred from what he had seen—or been told by Bothwell—that Mary had given her consent to the murder, but, had there been any evidence of this in the original document, the Lords, and later Buchanan, would certainly have made use of it to destroy her.

A third adherent of Bothwell, John Hay of Talla, stated on the scaffold in January 1568 that Huntly, Argyll, Maitland and Balfour had all entered into a Bond to murder Darnley.

Nau says that the murder of Darnley was the result of the bond, and that Moray, Huntly, Bothwell, Maitland and Balfour “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. They promised to support each other and to avouch that the act was done justly and lawfully by the leading men of the Council. They had done it in defence of their lives, which would be in danger, they said, if the King should get the upper hand and secure the government of the realm, at which he was aiming.”

According to Nau, Bothwell gave the Craigmillar Bond to Mary in June 1567, just prior to her capture by the Lords. In 1580, Balfour claimed that it was in his possession, but was unable to produce it as evidence at Morton’s trial the following year. He had probably been bluffing in order to gain favour with Morton’s accusers, for the Lords had almost certainly taken the incriminating document from Mary years before and destroyed it.

In his answer to the Protestation, Moray wrote, “In case any man will say and affirm that ever I was present when any purposes were holden at Craigmillar in my audience, tending to any unlawful or dishonourable end, or that ever I had subscribed any bond there, or that any purpose was holden anent the subscribing of any bond by me to my knowledge, I avow they speak wickedly and untruly, which I will maintain against them, as becomes an honest man, to the end of my life.”
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He was not saying that a Bond had not been drawn up at Craigmillar, merely that he had not subscribed to it. But Bishop Leslie and Nau were both certain that he had signed it. Neither Ormiston nor Hepburn listed Moray among the signatories, but their confessions had been edited by a government that had its own interests and reputation to preserve.

Maitland had said that Moray would “look through his fingers,” and although Moray was afterwards to protest that he had never done nor approved of anything that was unlawful, he must have known about the plot against Darnley, and may even have initiated it, but he remained detached from it. Yet, of all those involved, he was to be the chief beneficiary.

Mary, it appeared, would also benefit from the removal of her husband, and there is no doubt that she had compelling reasons for wanting to be rid of him. Many, then and now, have seen her despair at being chained to Darnley and her bitter resentment against him as strong enough motives for having him killed or approving a plot to kill him. In 1568, Lennox, anxious to bring Mary to justice for the unlawful killing of his son, claimed that, although Mary had pardoned and forgiven many of those involved in Rizzio’s murder, she “yet continued still in her deadly hatred towards her husband, till she had his life. Shortly after her coming to Craigmillar, she with her accomplices invented and resolved the time and manner of the most horrible murder of her most innocent and loving husband.” The flaws in this latter statement are only too apparent, as we have seen.