Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 2 (of 2). Bell Henry Glassford
so busy in giving an erroneous colouring even to Mary’s most trifling transactions, has not forgotten to misrepresent that to which we now refer.
Darnley’s death being resolved, Bothwell began to consider how he was to act after it had taken place. He probably made arrangements for various contingencies, and trusted to the chapter of accidents, or his own ingenuity, to assist him in others. But there was one thing certain, that he could never become the legal husband of Mary, so long as he continued united to his own wife, the Lady Jane Gordon. Anticipating, therefore, the necessity of a divorce, and aware that the emergency of the occasion might not permit of his waiting for all the ordinary forms of law, he used his interest with the Queen at a time when his real motives were little suspected, to revive the ancient jurisdiction of the Catholic Consistorial Courts, which had been abolished by the Reformed Parliament of 1560, and the ordinary civil judges of Commissary Courts established in their place. In accordance with his request, Mary restored the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Primate of Scotland, to the ancient Consistorial Jurisdiction, granted him by the Canon laws, and discharged the Commissaries from the further exercise of their offices. Thus, Bothwell not only won the friendship of the Archbishop, but secured for himself a court, where the Catholic plea of consanguinity might be advanced, – the only plausible pretext he could make use of for annulling his former marriage. This proceeding, however, in favour of the Archbishop and the old faith, gave great offence to the Reformed party; and when the Primate came from St Andrews to Edinburgh, at the beginning of January, for the purpose of holding his court, his authority was very strenuously resisted. The Earl of Murray took up the subject, and represented to Mary the injury she had done to the true religion. Bothwell, of course, used every effort to counteract the force of such a representation; but he was unsuccessful. By a letter which the Earl of Bedford wrote to Cecil from Berwick, on the 9th of January 1567, we learn that the Archbishop was not allowed to proceed to the hearing of cases, and that “because it was found to be contrary to the religion, and therefore not liked of by the townsmen; at the suit of my Lord of Murray, the Queen was pleased to revoke that which she had before granted to the said bishop.” Probably the grant of jurisdiction was not “revoked,” but only suspended, as Bothwell subsequently availed himself of it; but even its suspension sufficiently testifies, that Mary, at this period, listened implicitly and exclusively neither to one nor other of her counsellors.19
In the meantime, Darnley, who, as we have seen, left Stirling for Glasgow on the 24th of December, had been taken dangerously ill. Historians differ a good deal concerning the nature of his illness, which is by some confidently asserted to have been occasioned by poison, administered to him either before he left Stirling, or on the road, by servants, who had been bribed by Bothwell; and by others is as confidently affirmed to have been the small-pox, a complaint then prevalent in Glasgow. On the whole, the latter opinion seems to be the best supported, as it is confirmed by the authority both of the English ambassador, and of the cotemporary historians, Lesley and Blackwood. Knox, Buchanan, Melville, Crawford, Birrell and others, mention, on the other hand, that the belief was prevalent, that the King’s sickness was the effect of poison. But as the only evidence offered in support of this popular rumour is, that “blisters broke out of a bluish colour over every part of his body,” and as this may have been the symptoms of small-pox as well as of poison, the story does not seem well authenticated. Besides, in the letter which Mary is alleged to have written a week or two afterwards to Bothwell from Glasgow, she is made to say that Darnley told her he was ill of the small-pox. Whether the letter be a forgery or not, this paragraph would not have been introduced, unless it had contained what was then known to be the fact.
Be this matter as it may, it is of more importance to correct a mistake into which Robertson has not unwillingly fallen, regarding the neglect and indifference with which he maintains Mary treated her husband, during the earlier part of his sickness. We learn, in the first place, by Bedford’s letter to Cecil, already mentioned, that as soon as Mary heard of Darnley’s illness, she sent her own physician to attend him.20 And, in the second place, it appears, that it was some time before Darnley’s complaint assumed a serious complexion; but that, whenever Mary understood he was considered in danger, she immediately set out to visit him. “The Queen,” says Crawford, “was no sooner informed of his danger, than she hasted after him.” – “As soon as the rumour of his sickness gained strength,” says Turner (or Barnestaple), “the Queen flew to him, thinking more of the person to whom she flew, than of the danger which she herself incurred.” – “Being advertised,” observes Lesley, “that Darnley was repentant and sorrowful, she without delay, thereby to renew, quicken, and refresh his spirits, and to comfort his heart to the amendment and repairing of his health, lately by sickness sore impaired, hasted with such speed as she conveniently might, to see and visit him at Glasgow.” Thus, Robertson’s insinuation falls innocuous to the ground.
It was on the 13th of January 1567 that Mary returned from Stirling to Edinburgh, having spent the intermediate time, from the 27th of December, in paying visits to Sir William Murray, the Comptroller of her household, at Tullibardin, and to Lord Drummond at Drummond Castle. As is somewhere remarked, “every moment now begins to be critical, and every minuteness and specific caution becomes necessary for ascertaining the truth, and guarding against slander.” The probability is, that Bothwell was not with Mary either at Tullibardin or Drummond Castle. Meetings of her Privy Council were held by her on the 2d and 10th of January; and it appears by the Register, that Bothwell was not present at any of them. Chalmers is of opinion, that, during the early part of January he must have been at Dunbar, making his preparations, and arranging a meeting with Morton. When the Queen arrived at Edinburgh on the 13th, she lodged her son, whom she brought with her, in Holyroodhouse. A few days afterwards, she set out for Glasgow to see her husband. Her calumniators, on the supposition that she had previously quarrelled with Darnley, affect to discover something very forced and unnatural in this visit. But Mary had never quarrelled with Darnley. He had quarrelled with her ministers, and had been enraged at the failure of his own schemes of boyish ambition, but against his wife he had himself frequently declared he had no cause of complaint. Mary, on her part, had always shown herself more grieved by Darnley’s waywardness than angry at it. Only a day or two before going to Glasgow, she said solemnly, in a letter she wrote to her ambassador at Paris, – “As for the King, our husband, God knows always our part towards him.” – “God willing, our doings shall be always such as none shall have occasion to be offended with them, or to report of us any way but honourably.”21 So far, therefore, from there being any thing uncommon or forced in her journey to Glasgow, nothing could be more natural, or more likely to have taken place. “Darnley’s danger,” observes Dr Gilbert Stuart, with the simple eloquence of truth, “awakened all the gentleness of her nature, and she forgot the wrongs she had endured. Time had abated the vivacity of her resentment, and after its paroxysm was past, she was more disposed to weep over her afflictions, than to indulge herself in revenge. The softness of grief prepared her for a returning tenderness. His distresses effected it. Her memory shut itself to his errors and imperfections, and was only open to his better qualities and accomplishments. He himself, affected with the near prospect of death, thought, with sorrow, of the injuries he had committed against her. The news of his repentance was sent to her. She recollected the ardour of that affection he had lighted up in her bosom, and the happiness with which she had surrendered herself to him in the bloom and ripeness of her beauty. Her infant son, the pledge of their love, being continually in her sight, inspirited her sensibilities. The plan of lenity which she had previously adopted with regard to him; her design to excite even the approbation of her enemies by the propriety of her conduct; the advices of Elizabeth by the Earl of Bedford to entertain him with respect; the apprehension lest the royal dignity might suffer any diminution by the universal distaste with which he was beheld by her subjects, and her certainty and knowledge of the angry passions which her chief counsellors had fostered against him – all concurred to divest her heart of every sentiment of bitterness, and to melt it down in sympathy and sorrow. Yielding to tender and anxious emotions, she left her capital and her palace, in the severest season of the year, to wait upon him. Her assiduities and kindnesses communicated to him the most flattering solacement; and while she lingered about his person with a fond solicitude, and a delicate attention, he felt that the
Keith, p. 151. – Laing, vol. ii. p. 76. – Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 268. – Whittaker, in endeavouring to prove (vol. ii. p. 322) that the Catholic Ecclesiastical Courts had never been deprived of their jurisdiction, and that, consequently, there was no
Chalmers, vol. i. p. 199; and vol. ii. p. 176.
Keith, Preface p. viii.