In Byways of Scottish History. Louis Auguste Barbé
of the same month, Randolph, faithful to his habit of communicating all the gossip of the Court in his reports to England, informs Bedford of the intended marriage: "I learned yesterday that there is a conspiracy here framed against you. The matter is this: the Lord Sempill's son, being an Englishman born, shall be married between this and Shrovetide to the Lord Livingston's sister. The Queen, willing him well, both maketh the marriage and indoweth the parties with land. To do them honour she will have them marry in the Court. The thing intended against your lordship is this, that Sempill himself shall come to Berwicke within these fourteen days, and desire you to be at the bridal."83 Writing to Leicester, he repeats his information: "It will not be above 6 or 7 days before the Queen (returning from her progress into Fifeshire) will be in this town. Immediately after that ensueth the great marriage of this happy Englishman that shall marry lovely Livingston."84 Finally, on the 4th of March, he again writes: "Divers of the noblemen have come to this great marriage, which to-morrow shall be celebrated".85 Randolph's epistolary garrulity has, in this instance, served one good purpose, of which he probably little dreamt when he filled his correspondence with the small talk of the Court circle. It enables us to refute a calumnious assertion made by John Knox with reference to the marriage of the Queen's maid of honour. "It was weill knawin that schame haistit mariage betwix John Sempill, callit the Danser, and Marie Levingstoune, surnameit the Lustie."86 Randolph's first letter, showing, as it does, that preparations for the wedding were in progress as early as the beginning of January, summarily dismisses the charge of "haste" in its celebration, whilst, for those who are familiar with the style of the English envoy's correspondence, his very silence will appear the strongest proof that Mary's fair fame was tarnished by no breath of scandal. The birth of her first child in 1566, a fact to which the family records of the house of Sempill bear witness, establishes more irrefutably than any argument the utter falsity of Knox's unscrupulous assertion.
John Sempill, whose grace in dancing had acquired for him the surname which seems to have lain so heavily on Knox's conscience, and whose good fortune in finding favour with lovely Mary Livingston called forth Randolph's congratulations, was the eldest son of the third lord, by his second wife Elizabeth Carlyle of Torthorwold. At Court, as may have been gathered from Randolph's letters, he was known as the "Englishman", owing to the fact of his having been born in Newcastle. Although of good family himself, and in high favour at Court, being but a younger son he does not seem to have been considered on all hands as a fitting match for Mary Livingston. This the Queen, of whose making the marriage was, herself confesses in a letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, reminding him that, "in a country where these formalities were looked to", exception had been taken to the marriage both of Mary and Magdalene Livingston on the score that they had taken as husbands "the younger sons of their peers —les puînés de leurs semblables".87 Mary Stuart seems to have been above such prejudices, and showed how heartily she approved of the alliance between the two families by her liberality to the bride. Shortly before the marriage she gave her a band covered with pearls, a basquina of grey satin, a mantle of black taffety made in the Spanish fashion with silver buttons, and also a gown of black taffety. It was she, too, who furnished the bridal dress, which cost £30, as entered in the accounts under date of the 10th of March: —
Item: Ane pund xiii unce of silver to ane gown of Marie Levingstoune's to her mariage, the unce xxv s. Summa xxx li.
The "Inuentair of the Quenis movables quhilkis ar in the handes of Seruais de Condy vallett of chalmer to hir Grace", records, further, that there was "deliueret in Merche 1564, to Johnne Semples wiff, ane bed of scarlett veluot bordit with broderie of black veluot, furnisit with ruif heidpece, thre pandis, twa vnderpandis, thre curtenis of taffetie of the same cullour without freingis. The bed is furnisit with freingis of the same cullour." To make her gift complete, the Queen, as another household document, her wardrobe book, testifies, added the following items: —
Item: Be the said precept to Marie Levingstoun xxxi elnis ii quarters of quhite fustiane to be ane marterass, the eln viii s. Summa xii li xii s.
Item: xvi elnis of cammes to be palzeass, the eln vi s. Summa iiij li xvj s.
Item: For nappes and fedders; v li.
Item: Ane elne of lane; xxx s.
Item: ij unce of silk; xx s.
The wedding for which such elaborate preparation had been made, and for which the Queen herself named the day, took place, in the presence of the whole Court and all the foreign ambassadors, on Shrove Tuesday, which, as has already been mentioned, was on the 5th of March. In the evening the wedding guests were entertained at a masque, which was supplied by the Queen, but of which we know nothing further than may be gathered from the following entry: —
Item: To the painter for the mask on Fastionis evin to Marie Levingstoun's marriage; xij li.88
The marriage contract, which was signed at Edinburgh on the Sunday preceding the wedding, bears the names of the Queen, of John Lord Erskine, Patrick Lord Ruthven, and of Secretary Maitland of Lethington. The bride's dowry consisted of £500 a year in land, the gift of the Queen, to which Lord Livingston added 100 merks a year in land, or 1000 merks in money. As a jointure she received the Barony of Beltreis near Castle Semple, in Renfrewshire, the lands of Auchimanes and Calderhaugh, with the rights of fisheries in the Calder, taxed to the Crown at £18, 16s. 8d. a year.89
A few days after the marriage, on the 9th of March, a grant from the Queen to Mary Livingston and John Sempill passed the great seal. In this official document she styles the bride "her familiar servatrice", and the bridegroom "her daily and familiar serviter, during all the youthheid and minority of the said serviters". In recognition of their services both to herself and the Queen Regent, she infeofs them in her town and lands of Auchtermuchty, part of her royal demesne in Fifeshire, the lands and lordships of Stewarton in Ayr, and the isle of Little Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde.
After her marriage "Madamoiselle de Semple" was appointed lady of the bedchamber, an office for which she received £200 a year. Her husband also seems to have retained some office which required his personal attendance on the Queen, for we know that both husband and wife were in waiting at Holyrood on the memorable evening of David Rizzio's murder. The shock which this tragic event produced on Mary was very great, and filled her with the darkest forebodings. She more than once expressed her fear that she would not survive her approaching confinement. About the end of May or the beginning of June, shortly before the solemn ceremony of "taking her chamber", she caused an inventory of her personal effects to be drawn up by Mary Livingston and Margaret Carwod, the bedchamber woman in charge of her cabinet, and with her own hand wrote, on the margin opposite to each of the several articles, the name of the person for whom it was intended, in the event of her death and of that of her infant. Mary Livingston's name appears by the side of the following objects in the original document, which was discovered among some unassorted law papers in the Register House, in August, 1854: —
Quatre vingtz deux esguillettes xliiij petittes de mesme facon esmaillez de blancq.
Une brodure du toure contenante xxv pieces esmaille de blanc et noir facon de godrons.
Vne brodeure doreillette de pareille facon contenante xxvij pieces esmaillees de blanc et noir.
Vne cottouere de semblable facon contenante lx pieces de pareille facon esmaillee de blanc et noir.
Vng carcan esmaille de blanc et noir contenant dixsept pieces et a chacune piece y a vng petit pandant.
Vne chesne a saindre de semblable facon contenante liiij pieces esmaillees de blanc et noir et vng vaze au bout.
Vne corde de coural contenante lxiij pieces faictes en vaze.
Vne aultre corde de coural contenante treize grosses pieces aussy en vaze.
Vne aultre corde de coural contenante xxxviij pieches plus petittes aussy en vaze.
Vng reste de patenostres ou il a neuf meures
Miss Strickland's
Prince Labanoff,