The Mystery of Mary Stuart. Lang Andrew
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.
IV
BEFORE THE BAPTISM OF THE PRINCE
Mary’s task was ‘to quieten the country,’ a task perhaps impossible. Her defenders might probably make a better case for her conduct and prudence, at this time, than they have usually presented. Her policy was, if possible, to return to the state of balance which existed before her marriage. She must allay the Protestants’ anxieties, and lean on their trusted Moray and on the wisdom of Lethington. But gratitude for the highest services compelled her to employ Huntly and Bothwell, who equally detested Lethington and Moray. Darnley was an impossible and disturbing factor in the problem. He had, publicly, on March 20, and privately, declared his innocence, which we find him still protesting in the Casket Letters. He had informed against his associates, and insisted on dragging into the tale of conspirators, Lethington, who had retired to Atholl. Moreover Mary must have despised and hated the wretch. Perhaps her hatred had already found expression.
The Lennox MSS. aver that Darnley secured Mary’s escape to Dunbar ‘with great hazard and danger of his life.’ Claude Nau reports, on the other hand, that he fled at full speed, brutally taunting Mary, who, in her condition, could not keep the pace with him. Nau tells us that, as the pair escaped out of Holyrood, Darnley uttered remorseful words over Riccio’s new-made grave. The Lennox MSS. aver that Mary, seeing the grave, said ‘it should go very hard with her but a fatter than Riccio should lie anear him ere one twelvemonth was at an end.’ In Edinburgh, on the return from Dunbar, Lennox accuses Mary of threatening to take revenge with
Goodall, i. 274.
Bain, ii. 255.
Printed in a scarce volume,
Bain, ii. 259-261.
Goodall, i. 266-268.
Hosack, ii. 78, note 3.
See Dr. Stewart,
This is alleged by Mary, and by Claude Nau, her secretary.