The Mystery of Mary Stuart. Lang Andrew

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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,

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