THE CHARACTERS BEFORE RICCIO’S MURDER

After sketching the characters and scenes of the tragedy, we must show how destiny interwove the life-threads of Bothwell and Mary. They were fated to come together. She was a woman looking for a master, he was a masterful and, in the old sense of the word, a ‘masterless’ man, seeking what he might devour. In the phrase of Aristotle, ‘Nature wishes’ to produce this or that result. It almost seems as if Nature had long ‘wished’ to throw a Scottish Queen into the hands of a Hepburn. The Hepburns were not of ancient noblesse. From their first appearance in Scottish history they are seen to be prone to piratical adventure, and to courting widowed queens. The unhappy Jane Beaufort, widow of James I., and of the Black Knight of Lome, died in the stronghold of a Hepburn freebooter. A Hepburn was reputed to be the lover of Mary of Gueldres, the beautiful and not inconsolable widow of James II. This Hepburn, had he succeeded in securing the person of Mary’s son, the boy James III., might have played Bothwell’s part. The name rose to power and rank on the ruin of the murdered James III., and of Ramsay, his favourite, who had worn, but forfeited to the Hepburn of the day, the title of Bothwell. The name was strong in the most lawless dales of the Border, chiefly in Liddesdale, where the clans alternately wore the cross of St. Andrew and of St. George, and impartially plundered both countries. The more profitable Hepburn estates, however, were in the richer bounds of Lothian.

The attitude and position of James Hepburn, our Bothwell, were, from the first, unique. He was at once a Protestant, ‘the stoutest and the worst thought of,’ and also an inveterate enemy of England, a resolute partisan of Mary’s mother, Mary of Guise, the Regent, in her wars against the Protestant rebels, ‘the Lords of the Congregation.’ From this curious and illogical position, adopted in his early youth, Bothwell never wandered. He was to end by making Mary wed him with Protestant rites, while she assured her confessor that she only did so in the hope of restoring the Catholic Church! We must briefly trace the early career of Bothwell.

While Darnley was being educated in England, with occasional visits to France, and while Mary was residing there as the bride of the Dauphin: while Moray was becoming the leader of the Protestant opposition to Mary of Guise (‘the Lords of the Congregation’), while Maitland was entering on his career of diplomacy, Bothwell was active in the field. In 1558, after Mary of Guise had been deserted by her nobles at Kelso, as her husband had been at Fala, young Bothwell, being now Lieutenant-General on the Border, made a raid into England. In the war between Mary of Guise, as Regent, and the Protestant Lords of the Congregation, Bothwell fought on her side. A Diary of the Siege of Leith (among the Lennox MSS.) describes his activity in intercepting and robbing poor peaceful tradesmen. From another unpublished source we learn that he, among others, condemned the Earl of Arran (in absence) as the cause of the Protestant rebellion.[16] On October 5, 1559, Bothwell seized, near Haddington, Cockburn of Ormiston, who was carrying English gold to the Lords.[17] They, in reprisal, sacked his castle of Crichton, and nearly caught him. He later in vain challenged the Earl of Arran (the son of the chief of the Hamiltons, the Duke of ChÂtelherault) to single combat. A feud of far-reaching results now began between Arran and Cockburn on one side, and Bothwell on the other. When Leith, held for Mary of Guise, in 1560, was besieged by the Scots and English, Bothwell (whose estates had been sold) was sent to ask aid from France. He went thither by way of Denmark, and now, probably, he was more or less legally betrothed to a Norwegian lady, Anne ThrondssÖn, whom he carried from her home, and presently deserted. Already, in 1559, he was said to be ‘quietly married or handfasted’ to Janet Beaton, niece of Cardinal Beaton, and widow of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleugh, the wizard Lady of Branxholme in Scott’s ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel.’[18] She was sister of Lady Reres, wife of Forbes of Reres, the lady said to have aided Bothwell in his amour with Mary. In 1567 one of the libels issued after Darnley’s murder charged the Lady of Branksome with helping Bothwell to win Mary’s heart by magic.

Anne ThrondssÖn, later, accused Bothwell of breach of promise of marriage, given to her and her family ‘by hand and mouth and letters.’ In 1560 the Lady of Branksome circulated a report that Bothwell had wedded a rich wife in Denmark: she does not seem to have been jealous.[19] An anonymous writer represents Bothwell as having three simultaneous wives, probably Anne, the Branxholme lady, and his actual spouse, Lady Jane Gordon, sister of Huntly. But the arrangements in the first two cases were probably not legally valid. There is no doubt that Bothwell, ugly or not, was a great conqueror of hearts. He may have been un beau laid, and he possessed, as we have said, the qualities, so attractive to many women, of utter recklessness, of a bullying manner, of great physical strength, and of a reputation for bonnes fortunes. That Bothwell was extravagant and a gambler is probably true: and, in short, he was, to many women, a most attractive character. To the virtuous, like Lady Jane Gordon, he would appear as an agreeable brand to be snatched from the burning.

Walker & Cockerell. ph. sc.

Le Dueil Blanc

Sketch by Janet 1561.

Dropping poor Anne ThrondssÖn in the Netherlands, on his way from Denmark, Bothwell, in 1560, went to the French Court, where he was made Gentilhomme de la Chambre, but could not procure aid for Mary of Guise. He acquired more French polish, and (so his enemies and his valet, Paris, said) he learned certain infamous vices. Mary Stuart became a widow, and Dowager of France, in December 1560: it is not certain whether or not Bothwell was in her train at Joinville in April 1561.[20] After Mary’s return to Scotland the old feud between Arran and Bothwell broke out afresh. Bothwell and d’Elboeuf paid a noisy visit to the handsome daughter of a burgess, said to be Arran’s mistress. There were brawls, and presently Bothwell attacked Cockburn of Ormiston, the man he had robbed, Arran’s ally, and carried off his son to Crichton Castle. This occurred in March, 1562, and, as early as February 21, Randolph, the English minister at Holyrood, had ‘marked something strange’ in Arran.[21] His feeble ambitious mind was already tottering, which casts doubt on what followed. On March 25, Bothwell visited Knox (whose ancestors had been retainers of the House of Hepburn), and invited the Reformer to reconcile him with Arran. The feud, Bothwell said, was expensive: he dared not move without a company of armed men. Knox contrived a meeting at the Hamilton house near the fatal Kirk o’ Field. The enemies were reconciled, and next day went together to ‘the Sermon,’ a spiritual privilege of which Bothwell was only too neglectful. Knox had done a good stroke for the Anti-Marian Protestant party, of whose left wing Arran was the leader.[22]

But alas for Knox’s hopes! Only three days after the sermon, on March 29, Arran (who had been wont to confide his love-sorrows to Knox) came to the Reformer with a strange tale. Bothwell had opened to him, in the effusions of their new friendship, his design to seize Mary, and put her in Arran’s keeping, in Dumbarton Castle. He would slay Mar (that is Lord James Stuart, later Moray) and Lethington, whom he detested, ‘and he and I would rule all,’ said Arran, who knew very well what sort of share he would be permitted to enjoy in the dual control. I have very little doubt that the impoverished, more or less disgraced Bothwell did make this proposal. He was safe in doing so. If Arran accused him, Arran would, first, be incarcerated, till he proved his charge (which he could not do), or, secondly, Bothwell would appeal to Trial by Combat, for which he knew that Arran had no taste. In his opinion, Bothwell merely meant to entrap him, and his idea was to write to Mary and her brother. Whether Knox already perceived that Arran was insane, or not, he gave him what was perhaps the best advice—to be silent. Arran’s position was perilous. If the plot came to be known, if Bothwell confessed all, then he would be guilty of concealing his foreknowledge of it; like Morton in the case of Darnley’s murder.

Arran did not listen to Knox’s counsel. He wrote to Mary and Mar, partly implicating his own father; he then fled from his father’s castle of Keneil, hurried to Fife, and was brought by Mar (Moray) to Mary at Falkland, whither Bothwell also came, perhaps warned by Knox, who had a family feudal attachment to the Hepburns. Arran now was, or affected to be, distraught. He persisted, however, in his charge against Bothwell, who was warded in Edinburgh Castle, while Arran’s father was deprived of Dumbarton Castle.

The truth of Arran’s charge is uncertain. In any case, ‘the Queen both honestly and stoutly behaves herself,’ Randolph wrote. While Bothwell lay, a prisoner on suspicion, in Edinburgh Castle, Mary was come to a crisis in her reign. Her political position, hitherto, may be stated in broad outline. The strains of European tendencies, political and theological, were dragging Scotland in opposite directions. Was the country to remain Protestant, and in alliance with England, or was it to return to the ancient league with France, and to the Church of Rome?

During Mary’s first years in Scotland, she and the governing politicians, her brother Moray and Maitland of Lethington, were fairly well agreed as to general policy. With all her affection for her Church and her French kinsmen, Mary could not hope, at present, for much more than a certain measure of toleration for Catholics. As to the choice of the French or English alliance, her ambitions appeared to see their best hope in an understanding with Elizabeth, under which Mary and her issue should be recognised as heirs of the English throne. So far the ruling politicians, Moray, Lethington, and Morton, were sufficiently in accord with their Queen. A restoration of the Church they would not endure. Not only their theological tenets (sincerely held by Moray) opposed any such restoration, but their hold of Church property was what they would not abandon save with life. The Queen and her chief advisers, therefore, for years enjoyed a modus vivendi: a pacific kind of compromise. Mary was so far from being ardently Catholic in politics, that, while Bothwell was confined in Edinburgh Castle, she accompanied Moray to the North, and overthrew her chief Catholic supporter, Huntly, ‘the Cock of the North,’ and all but the king of the Northern Catholics. Before she set foot in Scotland, he had offered to restore her by force, and with her, the Church. She preferred the alliance of her brother, of Lethington, and of les politiques, the moderate Protestants. Huntly died in battle against his Queen; his family, for the hour, was ruined; but Huntly’s son and successor in the title represented the discontents and ambitions of the warlike North, as Bothwell represented those of the warlike Borderers. Similarity of fortunes and of desires soon united these two ruined and reckless men, Huntly and Bothwell, in a league equally dangerous to Moray, to amity with England, and, finally, to Mary herself.

To restore his family to land and power, Huntly was ready to sacrifice not only faith and honour, but natural affection. Twice he was to sell his sister, Lady Jane, once when he married her to Bothwell against her will: once when, Bothwell having won her love, Huntly compelled or induced her to divorce him. But these things lay in the future. For the moment, the autumn of 1562, the Huntlys were ruined, and Bothwell (August 28, 1562), in the confusion, escaped from prison in Edinburgh Castle. ‘Some whispered that he got easy passage by the gates,’ says Knox. ‘One thing,’ he adds, ‘is certain, to wit, the Queen was little offended at his escaping.’[23] He was, at least, her mother’s faithful servant.

We begin to see that the Protestant party henceforward suspected the Queen of regarding Bothwell as, to Mary, a useful man in case of trouble. Bothwell first fled to Hermitage Castle in Liddesdale. As Lieutenant-General on the Border he commanded the reckless broken clans, the ‘Lambs,’ his own Hepburns, Hays, Ormistouns of Ormistoun, and others who aided him in his most desperate enterprises; while, as Admiral, he had the dare-devils of the sea to back him.

Lord James now became Earl of Moray, and all-powerful; and Bothwell, flying to France, was storm-stayed at Holy Island, and held prisoner by Elizabeth. His kinsfolk made interest for him with Mary, and, on February 5, 1564, she begged Elizabeth to allow him to go abroad. In England, Bothwell is said to have behaved with unlooked-for propriety. ‘He is very wise, and not the man he was reported to be,’ that is, not ‘rash, glorious, and hazardous,’ Sir Harry Percy wrote to Cecil. ‘His behaviour has been courteous and honourable, keeping his promise.’ Sir John Forster corroborated this evidence. Bothwell, then, was not loutish, but, when he pleased, could act like a gentleman. He sailed to France, and says himself that he became Captain of the Scottish Guards, a post which Arran had once held. In France he is said to have accused Mary of incestuous relations with her uncle, the Cardinal.

During Bothwell’s residence in England, and in France, the equipoise of Mary’s political position had been disturbed. She had held her ground, against the extreme Protestants, who clamoured for the death of all idolaters, by her alliance with les politiques, led by Moray and Lethington. Their ambition, like hers, was to see the crowns of England and Scotland united in her, or in her issue. Therefore they maintained a perilous amity with England, and with Elizabeth, while plans for a meeting of the Queens, and for the recognition of Mary as Elizabeth’s heir, were being negotiated. But this caused ceaseless fretfulness to Elizabeth, who believed, perhaps correctly, that to name her successor was to seal her death-warrant. The Catholics of England would have hurried her to the grave, she feared, that they might welcome Mary. In the same way, no conceivable marriage for Mary could be welcome to Elizabeth, who hated the very name of wedlock. Yet, while Bothwell was abroad, and while negotiations lasted, there was a kind of repose, despite the anxieties of the godly and their outrages on Catholics. Mary endured much and endured with some patience. One chronic trouble was at rest. The feud between the Hamiltons, the nearest heirs of the crown, and the rival claimants, the Lennox Stewarts, was quiescent.

The interval of peace soon ended. Lennox, the head of the House hateful to the Hamiltons, was, at the end of 1564, allowed to return to Scotland, and was reinstated in the lands which his treason had forfeited long ago. In the early spring of 1565, Lennox’s son, Darnley, followed his father to the North, was seen and admired by Mary, and the peace of Scotland was shattered. As a Catholic by education, though really of no creed in particular, Darnley excited the terrors of the godly. His marriage with Mary meant, to Moray, loss of power; to Lethington, a fresh policy; to the Hamiltons, the ruin of their hopes of royalty, while, by most men, Darnley soon came to be personally detested.

Before it was certain that Mary would marry Darnley, but while the friends and foes of the match were banding into parties, early in March 1565, Bothwell returned unbidden to Scotland, and lurked in his Border fastness. Knox’s continuator says that Moray told Mary that either he or Bothwell must leave the country. Mary replied that, considering Bothwell’s past services, ‘she could not hate him,’ neither could she do anything prejudicial to Moray.[24] ‘A day of law’ was set for Bothwell, for May 2, but, as Moray gathered an overpowering armed force, he sent in a protest, by his comparatively respectable friend, Hepburn of Riccartoun, and went abroad. Mary, according to Randolph, had said that she ‘altogether misliked his home-coming without a licence,’ but Bedford feared that she secretly abetted him. He was condemned in absence, but Mary was thought to have prevented the process of outlawry. Dr. Hay Fleming, however, cites Pitcairn’s ‘Criminal Trials,’ i. 462,[25] as proof that Bothwell actually was outlawed, or put to the horn. Knox’s continuator, however, says that Bothwell ‘was not put to the horn, for the Queen continually bore a great favour to him, and kept him to be a soldier.’[26] The Protestants ever feared that Mary would ‘shake Bothwell out of her pocket,’ against them.[27]

Presently, her temper outworn by the perpetual thwartings which checked her every movement, and regardless of the opposition of Moray, of the Hamiltons, of Argyll, and of the whole Protestant community, Mary wedded Darnley (July 29, 1565). Her adversaries assembled in arms, secretly encouraged by Elizabeth, and what Kirkcaldy of Grange had prophesied occurred: Mary ‘shook Bothwell out of her pocket’ at her opponents. In July, she sent Hepburn of Riccartoun to summon him back from France. Riccartoun was captured by the English, but Bothwell, after a narrow escape, presented himself before Mary on September 20. By October, Moray, the Hamiltons, and Argyll were driven into England or rendered harmless. Randolph now reported that Bothwell and Atholl were all-powerful. The result was ill feeling between Darnley and Bothwell. Darnley wished his father, Lennox, to govern on the Border, but Mary gave the post to Bothwell.[28] Her estrangement from Darnley had already begun. Jealousy of Mary’s new secretary, Riccio, was added.

The relations between Darnley, Bothwell, Mary, and Riccio, between the crushing of Moray’s revolt, in October 1565, and the murder of the Italian Secretary, in March 1566, are still obscure. Was Riccio Mary’s lover? What were the exact causes of the estrangement from Darnley, which was later used as the spring to discharge on Riccio, and on Mary, the wrath of the discontented nobles and Puritans? The Lennox Papers inform us, as to Mary and Darnley, that ‘their love never decayed till their return from Dumfries,’ whence they had pursued Moray into England.

Mary had come back to Edinburgh from Dumfries by October 18, 1565. Riccio was already, indeed by September 22, complained of as a foreign upstart, but not as a lover of Mary, by the rebel Lords.[29] The Lennox Papers attribute the estrangement of Mary and Darnley to her pardoning without the consent of the King, her husband, ‘sundry rebels,’ namely the Hamiltons. The pardon implied humiliation and five years of exile. It was granted about December 3.[30] The measure was deeply distasteful to Darnley and Lennox, who had long been at mortal feud, over the heirship to the crown, with the Lennox Stewarts. The pardon is attributed to the influence of ‘Wicked David,’ Riccio. But to pardon perpetually was the function of a Scottish prince. Soon we find Darnley intriguing for the pardon of Moray, Ruthven, and others, who were not Hamiltons. Next, Lennox complains of Mary for ‘using the said David more like a lover than a husband, forsaking her husband’s bed and board very often.’ But this was not before November. The ‘Book of Articles’ put in against Mary by her accusers is often based on Lennox’s papers. It says ‘she suddenly altered the same’ (her ‘vehement love’ of Darnley) ‘about November, for she removed and secluded him from the counsel and knowledge of all Council affairs.’[31] The ‘Book of Articles,’ like Lennox’s own papers, omits every reference to Riccio that can be avoided. The ‘Book of Articles,’ indeed, never hints at his existence. The reason is obvious: Darnley had not shone in the Riccio affair. Moreover the Lennox party could not accuse Mary of a guilty amour before mid November, 1565, for James VI. was born on June 19, 1566. It would not do to discredit his legitimacy. But, as early as September 1565, Bedford had written to Cecil that ‘of the countenance which Mary gave to David he would not write, for the honour due to the person of a Queen.’[32] Thus, a bride of six weeks, Mary was reported to be already a wanton! Moreover, on October 13, 1565, Randolph wrote from Edinburgh that Mary’s anger against Moray (who had really enraged her by rising to prevent her from marrying Darnley) came from some dishonourable secret in Moray’s keeping, ‘not to be named for reverence sake.’ He ‘has a thing more strange’ even than the fact that Mary ‘places Bothwell in honour above every subject that she hath.’ As the ‘thing’ is not a nascent passion for Bothwell, it may be an amour with Riccio.[33] Indeed, on October 18, 1565, he will not speak of the cause of mischief, but hints at ‘a stranger and a varlet,’ Riccio.[34] Randolph and the English diplomatists were then infuriated against Mary, who had expelled their allies, Moray and the rest, discredited Elizabeth, their paymistress, and won over her a diplomatic victory. Consequently this talk of her early amour with Riccio, an ugly Milanese musician, need not be credited. For their own reasons, the Lennox faction dared not assert so early a scandal.

They, however, insisted that Mary, in November, ‘removed and secluded’ Darnley from her Council. To prevent his knowing what letters were written, when he signed them with her, she had his name printed on an iron stamp, ‘and used the same in all things,’ in place of his subscription. This stamp was employed in affixing his signature to the ‘remission’ to the Hamiltons.[35]

In fact, Darnley’s ambitions were royal, but he had an objection to the business which kings are well paid for transacting. Knox’s continuator makes him pass ‘his time in hunting and hawking, and such other pleasures as were agreeable to his appetite, having in his company gentlemen willing to satisfy his will and affections.’ He had the two Anthony Standens, wild young English Catholics. While Darnley hunted and hawked, Lennox ‘lies at Glasgow’ (where he had a castle near the Cathedral), and ‘takes, I hear, what he likes from all men,’ says Randolph.[36] He writes (November 6) that Mary ‘above all things desires her husband to be called King.’[37] Yet it is hinted that she is in love with Riccio! On the same date ‘oaths and bands are taken of all that ... acknowledge Darnley king, and liberty to live as they list in religion.’ On November 19, Mary was suffering from ‘her old disease that commonly takes her this time of year in her side.’ It was a chronic malady: we read of it in the Casket Letters. From November 14 to December 1, she was ill, but Darnley hunted and hawked in Fife, from Falkland probably, and was not expected to return till December 4.[38] Lennox was being accused of ‘extortions’ at Glasgow, complained of ‘to the Council.’ ChÂtelherault was ‘like to speed well enough in his suit to be restored,’ after his share in Moray’s rebellion.

Darnley was better engaged, perhaps, in Fife, than in advocating his needy and extortionate father before the Council, or in opposing the limited pardon to old ChÂtelherault. In such circumstances, Darnley was often absent, either for pleasure, or because his father was not allowed to despoil the West; while the Hamilton chief, the heir presumptive of the throne, was treated as a repentant rebel, rather than as a feudal enemy. He was an exile, and lost his ‘moveables’ and all his castles, so he told Elizabeth.[39] During, or after, these absences of Darnley, that ‘iron stamp,’ of which Buchanan complains, was made and used.

The Young Fool had brought this on himself. Mary already, according to Randolph, had been heard to say that she wished Lennox had never entered Scotland ‘in her days.’ Lennox, the father-in-law of the Queen, was really a competitor for the crown. If Mary had no issue, he and Darnley desired the crown to be entailed on them, passing over the rightful heirs, the House of Hamilton. A father and son, with such preoccupations, could not safely be allowed to exercise power. The father would have lived on robbery, the son would have shielded him. Yet, so occupied was Darnley with distant field sports, that, says Buchanan, he took the affair of the iron stamp easily.[40] Next comes a terrible grievance. Darnley was driven out, in the depth of winter, to Peebles. There was so much snow, the roads were so choked, the country so bare, that Darnley might conceivably have been reduced to ‘halesome parritch.’ Luckily the Bishop of Orkney, the jovial scoundrel, ‘Bishop Turpy,’ who married Mary to Bothwell, and then denounced her to Elizabeth, had brought wine and delicacies. This is Buchanan’s tale. A letter from Lennox to Darnley, of December 20, 1565, represents the father as anxious to wait on ‘Your Majesty’ at Peebles, but scarcely expecting him in such stormy weather. Darnley, doubtless, really went for the sake of the deer: which, in Scotland, were pursued at that season. He had been making exaggerated show of Catholicism, at matins on Christmas Eve, while Mary sat up playing cards.[41] Presently he was to be the ally of the extreme Protestants, the expelled rebels. Moray was said not to have two hundred crowns in the world, and was ready for anything, in his English retreat. Randolph (Dec. 25) reported ‘private disorders’ between Darnley and Mary, ‘but these may be but amantium irÆ,’ lovers’ quarrels.[42] Yet, two months before he had hinted broadly that Riccio was the object of Mary’s passion.

On this important point of Mary’s guilt with Riccio, we have no affirmative evidence, save Darnley’s word, when he was most anxious to destroy the Italian for political reasons. Randolph, who, as we have seen, had apparently turned his back on his old slanders, now accepted, or feigned to accept, Darnley’s anecdotes of his discoveries.

It is strange that Mary at the end of 1565, and the beginning of 1566, seems to have had no idea of the perils of her position. On January 31, 1566, she wrote ‘to the most holy lord, the Lord Pope Pius V.,’ saying: ‘Already some of our enemies are in exile, and some of them are in our hands, but their fury, and the great necessity in which they are placed, urge them on to attempt extreme measures.’[43] But, ungallant as the criticism may seem, I fear that this was only a begging letter in excelsis, and that Mary wanted the papal ducats, without entertaining any great hope or intention of aiding the papal cause, or any real apprehension of ‘extreme measures’ on the side of her rebels. Her intention was to forfeit and ruin Moray and his allies, in the Parliament of the coming March. She also wished to do something ‘tending to’ the restoration of the Church, by reintroducing the spiritual lords. But that she actually joined the Catholic League, as she was certainly requested to do, seems most improbable.[44] Having arranged a marriage between Bothwell and Huntly’s sister, Lady Jane Gordon, she probably relied on the united strength of the two nobles in the North and the South. But this was a frail reed to lean upon. Mary’s position, though she does not seem to have realised it, was desperate. She had incurred the feud of the Lennox Stewarts, Lennox and Darnley, by her neglect of both, and by Darnley’s jealousy of Riccio. The chiefs of the Hamiltons, who could always be trusted to counterbalance the Lennox faction, were in exile. Moray was desperate. Lethington was secretly estranged. The Protestants were at once angry and terrified: ready for extremes. Finally, Morton was threatened with loss of the seals, and almost all the nobles loathed the power of the low-born foreign favourite, Riccio.

Even now the exact nature of the intrigues which culminated in Riccio’s murder are obscure. We cannot entirely trust the well-known ‘Relation’ which, after the murder, on April 2, Morton and Ruthven sent to Cecil. He was given leave to amend it, and it is, at best, a partisan report. Its object was to throw the blame on Darnley, who had deserted the conspirators, and betrayed them. According to Ruthven, it was on February 10 that Darnley sent to him George Douglas, a notorious assassin, akin both to Darnley and Morton. Darnley, it is averred, had proof of Mary’s guilt with Riccio, and desired to disgrace Mary by slaying Riccio in her presence. The negotiation, then, began with Darnley, on February 10.[45] But on February 5 Randolph had written to Cecil that Mary ‘hath said openly that she will have mass free for all men that will hear it,’ and that Darnley, Lennox, and Atholl daily resort to it. ‘The Protestants are in great fear and doubt what shall become of them. The wisest so much dislike this state and government, that they design nothing more than the return of the Lords, either to be put into their own rooms, or once again to put all in hazard.’[46] ‘The wisest’ is a phrase apt to mean Lethington. Now, on February 9, before Darnley’s motion to Ruthven, Lethington wrote to Cecil: ‘Mary! I see no certain way unless we chop at the very root; you know where it lieth.’[47] When Mary, later, was a prisoner in England, Knox, writing to Cecil, used this very phrase, ‘If ye strike not at the root, the branches that appear to be broken will bud again’ (Jan. 2, 1570). When Lethington meant to ‘chop at the very root,’ on February 9, 1566, he undoubtedly intended the death of Riccio, if not of Mary.

In four days (February 13) Randolph informed Leicester of Darnley’s jealousy, and adds, ‘I know that there are practices in hand, contrived between the father and son’ (Lennox and Darnley), ‘to come by the crown against her will.’ ‘The crown’ may only mean ‘the Crown Matrimonial,’ which would, apparently, give Darnley regal power for his lifetime. ‘I know that, if that take effect which is intended, David, with the consent of the King, shall have his throat cut within these ten days. Many things grievouser and worse than these are brought to my ears: yea, of things intended against her own person....’[48]

The conspiracy seems to have been political and theological in its beginnings. Mary was certainly making more open show of Catholicism: very possibly to impress the French envoys who had come to congratulate her on her marriage, and to strengthen her claim on the Pope for money. But Lennox and Darnley were also parading Catholic devoutness: they had no quarrel with Mary on this head. The Protestants, however, took alarm. Darnley was, perhaps, induced to believe in Mary’s misconduct with Riccio after ‘the wisest,’ and Lethington, had decided ‘to chop at the very root.’ Ruthven and Morton then won Darnley’s aid: he consented to secure Protestantism, and, by a formal band, to restore Moray and the exiles: who, in turn, recognised him as their sovereign. Randolph, banished by Mary for aiding her rebels, conspired with Bedford at Berwick, and sent copies to Cecil of the ‘bands’ between Darnley and the nobles (March 6).[49]

Darnley himself, said Randolph, was determined to be present at Riccio’s slaying. Moray was to arrive in Edinburgh immediately after the deed. Lethington, Argyll, Morton, Boyd, and Ruthven were privy to the murder, also Moray, Rothes, Kirkcaldy, in England, with Randolph and Bedford. It is probable that others besides Riccio were threatened. There is a ‘Band of Assurance for the Murder.’[50] Darnley says that he has enlisted ‘lords, barons, freeholders, gentlemen, merchants, and craftsmen to assist us in this enterprise, which cannot be finished without great hazard. And because it may chance that there be certain great personages present, who may make them to withstand our enterprise, wherethrough certain of them may be slain,’ Darnley guarantees his allies against the blood feud of the ‘great persons.’ These, doubtless, are Bothwell, Atholl, and Huntly. The deed ‘may chance to be done in presence of the Queen’s Majesty, or within her palace of Holyrood House.’ The band is dated March 1, in other texts, March 5. The indications point to a design of killing Mary’s nobles, while she, in her condition, might die of the shock. She was to be morally disgraced. So unscrupulous were Mary’s foes that Cecil told de Foix, the French Ambassador in London, how Riccio had been slain in Mary’s arms, reginam nefario stupro polluens.[51] Cecil well knew that this was a lie: and it is natural to disbelieve every statement of a convicted liar and traitor like Darnley.

Just before the explosion of the anti-Riccio conspiracy, Bothwell se rangea. Mary herself made a match for him (the contract is of February 9, 1566) with Lady Jane Gordon, a Catholic, a sister of Huntly, and a daughter of that Huntly who fell at Corrichie burn. The lady was only in her twentieth year. The parties being akin, a dispensation was necessary, and was granted by the Pope, and issued by the Archbishop of St. Andrews.[52] The marriage took place in the Protestant Kirk of the Canongate, though the bride was a Catholic, and Mary gave the wedding dress (February 24). The honeymoon was interrupted, on March 9, by the murder of Riccio.

The conspirators made the fatal error of not securing Bothwell and Huntly before they broke into Mary’s room and slew Riccio. While Bothwell, Huntly, and Atholl were at large, the forces of the Queen’s party had powerful friends in the North and on the Border. When the tumult of the murderers was heard, these nobles tried to fight their way to Mary’s assistance, but were overpowered by numbers, and compelled to seek their apartments. An attempt was made to reconcile them to the situation, but they escaped under cloud of night. In her letter to the French Court (May 1567) excusing her marriage with Bothwell, Mary speaks of his ‘dexterity’ in escaping, ‘and how suddenly by his prudence not only were we delivered out of prison,’ after Riccio’s death, ‘but also that whole company of conspirators dissolved....’ ‘We could never forget it,’ Mary adds, and Bothwell’s favour had a natural and legitimate basis in the gratitude of the Queen. Very soon after the outrage she had secretly communicated with Bothwell and Huntly, ‘who, taking no regard to hazard their lives,’ arranged a plan for her flight by means of ropes let down from the windows.[53] Mary preferred the passage through the basement into the royal tombs, and, by aid of Arthur Erskine and Stewart of Traquair, she made her way to Dunbar. Here Huntly, Atholl, and Bothwell rallied to her standard: Knox fled from Edinburgh, Morton and Ruthven with their allies found refuge in England: the lately exiled Lords were allowed to remain in Scotland: Darnley betrayed his accomplices, they communicated to Mary their treaties with him, and the Queen was left to reconcile Moray and Argyll to Huntly, Bothwell, and Atholl.

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