Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 2 (of 2). Bell Henry Glassford
to the laws of the realm, and the wish of the party accused. The judges, having heard both sides, were of opinion that Bothwell had a right to insist upon the trial going on. A jury was therefore chosen, which does not seem to have consisted of persons particularly friendly to the Earl. It was composed of the Earls of Rothes, Caithness, and Cassils, Lord John Hamilton, son to the Duke of Chatelherault, Lords Ross, Semple, Herries, Oliphant, and Boyd, the Master of Forbes, Gordon of Lochinvar, Cockburn of Langton, Sommerville of Cambusnethan, Mowbray of Barnbougle, and Ogilby of Boyne. Bothwell pled not guilty; and, no evidence appearing against him, the jury retired, and were out of court for some time. When they returned, their verdict, delivered by the Earl of Caithness, whom they had chosen their chancellor, unanimously acquitted Bothwell of the slaughter of the King.74
Immediately after his acquittal, Bothwell, as was customary in those times, published a challenge, in which he offered to fight hand to hand, with any man who would avow that he still suspected him to have had a share in the King’s death; but nobody ventured openly to accept it.75 As far, therefore, as appearances were concerned, he was now able to stand upon higher ground than ever, and boldly to declare, that whosoever was guilty, he had been found innocent. Accordingly, at the Parliament which met on the 14th of April, he appeared in great state, with banners flying, and a numerous body of retainers; and in compliment to him, an act was passed, in which it was set forth, that “by a licentious abuse lately come into practice within this realm, there had been placards and bills and tickets of defamation, set up under silence of night, in diverse public places, to the slander, reproach and infamy of the Queen’s majesty and diverse of the nobility; which disorder, if it were suffered to remain longer unpunished, would redound not only to the great hurt and detriment of all noblemen in their good fame, private calumniators having by this means liberty to backbite them, but also the common weal would be disturbed, and occasion of quarrel taken upon false and untrue slander;” – it was therefore made criminal to put up any such placards, or to abstain from destroying them as soon as they were seen. At this Parliament, there was also an act passed on the subject of religion, which is deserving of notice. “The same Queen,” says Chalmers, “who is charged by Robertson with attempting to suppress the Reformed discipline, with the aid of the Bishops, passed a law, renouncing all foreign jurisdiction in ecclesiastical affairs, – giving toleration to all her subjects to worship God in their own way, – and engaging to give some additional privileges.” This is one of the most satisfactory answers which can be given to the supposition, that Mary was in any way a party in the Continental persecution of the Hugonots.
The Earl of Murray was not present either at this Parliament, or the trial which immediately preceded it. Actuated by motives which do not exactly appear, and which historians have not been able satisfactorily to explain, he obtained permission from Mary, in the beginning of April, to leave Scotland, and, on the 9th, he set off for France, visiting London and the Court of Elizabeth on his way. There is something very unaccountable, in a man of Murray’s ambition thus withdrawing from the scene of action, just at the very time when he must have been anticipating political events of the last importance. His conduct can be rationally explained, only by supposing, that it was suggested by his systematic caution. He was not now, nor had he ever been since his rebellion, Mary’s exclusive and all-powerful Prime Minister; – yet he could not bear to fill a second place; and he knew that, if any civil war occurred, the eyes of many would immediately be turned towards him. If he remained in the country, he would necessarily be obliged to take a side as soon as the dissensions broke out, and might find himself again associated with the losing party; but, if he kept at a distance for a while, he could throw his influence, when he chose, into the heaviest scale, and thus gain an increase of popularity and power. These were probably the real motives of his present conduct, and, judging by the result, no one can say that he reasoned ill. That he was aware of every thing that was about to happen, and that he urged Bothwell forward into a net, from whose meshes he knew he could never be disengaged, as has been maintained so positively by Whittaker, Chalmers, and others, does not appear. The peremptoriness with which these writers have asserted the truth of this unfounded theory, is the leading defect of their works, and has tended to weaken materially the chain of argument by which they would otherwise have established Mary’s innocence. That Bothwell, as they over and over again repeat, was the mere “cat’s-paw” of Murray, is a preposterous belief, and argues a decided want of knowledge of Bothwell’s real character. But supposing that he had been so, nothing could be more chimerical than the idea, that after having made him murder Darnley, Murray would wish to see him first acquitted of that murder, and then married to the Queen, for the vague chance that both might be deposed, and he himself called to succeed them as Regent. “Would it ever enter into the imagination of a wise man,” asks Robertson, “first to raise his rival to supreme power, in hopes that, afterwards, he should find some opportunity of depriving him of that power? The most adventurous politician never hazarded such a dangerous experiment; the most credulous folly never trusted such an uncertain chance.” Murray probably winked at the murder, because he foresaw that it was likely to lead to Bothwell’s ruin. When he left the country, he may not have been altogether aware of Bothwell’s more ambitious objects; but if he was, he would still have gone, for his staying could not have prevented their attempted execution; and if they induced a civil war, whosoever lost, he might contrive to be a gainer. He acted selfishly and unpatriotically, but not with that deliberate villany with which he has been charged.
CHAPTER V.
BOTHWELL’S SEIZURE OF THE QUEEN’S PERSON, AND SUBSEQUENT MARRIAGE TO HER
Every thing appeared now to be going smoothly with Bothwell, and he had only to take one step more to reach the very height of his ambition. Mary’s hand and Scotland’s crown were the objects he had all along kept steadily in view. The latter was to be obtained only through the medium of the former, and hence his reason for removing Darnley, and willingly submitting to a trial, from which he saw he would come off triumphantly. The question he now anxiously asked himself was, whether it was likely that Mary could be persuaded to accept him as a husband. He was aware, that in the unsettled state of the country, she must feel that, unless married to a person of strength and resolution, she would hardly be able to keep her turbulent subjects in order; and he was of opinion, that it was not improbable she would now cast her eyes upon one of her own nobility, as she could no where else find a king who would be so agreeable to the national prejudices. Yet he had a lurking consciousness, that he himself would not be the object of her choice. She had of late, it was true, given him a considerable share in the administration; but he felt that she had done so, more as a matter of state policy, and to preserve a balance of power between himself and her other ministers, than from any personal regard. The most assiduous attentions which it was in his power to pay her, had failed to kindle in her bosom any warmer sentiment; for though she esteemed him for his fidelity as an officer of state, his manners and habits as a man, were too coarse and dissolute to please one of so much refinement, sensibility and gentleness, as Mary Stuart. Bothwell therefore became secretly convinced that it would be necessary for him to have recourse to fraud, and perhaps to force. Had Mary loved him, their marriage would have been a matter of mutual agreement, and would have taken place whenever circumstances seemed to make it mutually advisable; but as it was, artifice and audacity were to be his weapons; nor were they wielded by an unskilful hand.
The Parliament which met on the 14th of April 1567, continued to sit only till the 19th of the same month; and on the evening of the following day, Bothwell invited nearly all the Lords who were then in Edinburgh to a great supper, in a tavern kept by a person of the name of Ainsly, from which circumstance, the entertainment was afterwards known by the name of “Ainsly’s Supper.” After plying his guests with wine, he produced a document, which he had himself previously drawn up, and which he requested them all to sign. It was in the form of a bond; and in the preamble, after expressing their conviction that James Earl of Bothwell, Lord Hales, Crichton, and Liddisdale, Great Admiral of Scotland, and Lieutenant to the Queen over all the Marches, had been grossly slandered in being suspected of having a share in the murder of Darnley, and that his innocence had been fully and satisfactorily proved at his late trial, they bound themselves, as they should answer to God, that whatever person or persons should afterwards renew such calumniation, should
Anderson, vol. ii. p. 104, et seq. – and Keith, p. 375, et seq.
Anderson, vol. ii. p. 157.