The Mystery of Mary Stuart. Lang Andrew
hostile to Darnley’s influence, and menacing to him, is that which Moray himself declares that he did sign, ‘at the beginning of October,’ 1566. When Moray, in London, on January 19, 1569, was replying to an account (the so-called ‘Protestation of Argyll and Huntly’) of the conference at Craigmillar, in November 1566, he denied (what was not alleged) that he signed any band there: at Craigmillar. ‘This far the subscriptioun of bandes be me is trew, that indeed I subscrivit ane band with the Erlis of Huntlie, Ergile, and Boithvile in Edinburgh, at the begynning of October the same yeir, 1566: quhilk was devisit in signe of our reconciliatioun, in respect of the former grudgis and displesouris that had been amang us. Whereunto I wes constreinit to mak promis, before I culd be admittit to the Quenis presence or haif ony shew of hir faveur…’[83]
Now Moray had been admitted to Mary’s presence two days after the death of Riccio, before her flight to Dunbar. On April 25, 1566, Randolph writes from Berwick to Cecil: ‘Murray, Argyll, and Glencairn are come to Court. I hear his (Moray’s) credit shall be good. The Queen wills that all controversies shall be taken up, in especial that between Murray and Bothwell.’[84] On April 21, 1566, Moray, Argyll, Glencairn, and others were received by Mary in the Castle, and a Proclamation was made to soothe ‘the enmity that was betwixt the Earls of Huntly, Bothwell, and Murray.’[85] Thenceforward, as we have proved in detail, Moray was ostensibly in Mary’s favour. Moray would have us believe that he only obtained this grace by virtue of his promise to sign a band with Huntly, Bothwell, and Argyll: the last had been on his own side in his rebellion. But the band, he alleges, was not signed till October, 1566, though the promise must have been given, at least his ‘favour’ with Mary was obtained, in April. And Moray signed the band precisely at the moment when Darnley was giving most notorious trouble, and had just been approached and implored by Mary, the Council, and the French ambassador. That was the moment when the Privy Council assured Catherine that they ‘would never consent’ to Darnley’s sovereignty. Why was that moment selected by Moray to fulfil a promise more than four months old? Was the band not that mentioned by Randolph, Archibald Douglas, and Nau, and therefore, in some sense, an anti-Darnley band, not a mere ‘sign of reconciliation’? The inference appears legitimate, and this old band signed by Moray seems to have been confused, by his enemies, with a later band for Darnley’s murder, which we may be sure that he never signed. He only ‘looked through his fingers.’
On October 7, or 8, or 9, Mary left Edinburgh to hold a Border session at Jedburgh. She appears to have been in Jedburgh by the 9th.[86] On October 7, Bothwell was severely wounded, in Liddesdale, by a Border thief. On October 15, Mary rode to visit him at Hermitage.[87] Moray, says Sir John Forster to Cecil (October 15), was with her, and other nobles. Yet Buchanan says that she rode ‘with such a company as no man of any honest degree would have adventured his life and his goods among them.’ Life, indeed, was not safe with the nobles, but how Buchanan errs! Du Croc, writing from Jedburgh on October 17, reports that Bothwell is out of danger: ‘the Queen is well pleased, his loss to her would have been great.’[88] Buchanan’s account of this affair is, that Mary heard at Borthwick of Bothwell’s wound, whereon ‘she flingeth away like a mad woman, by great journeys in post, in the sharp time of winter’ (early October!), ‘first to Melrose, then to Jedburgh. There, though she heard sure news of his life, yet her affection, impatient of delay, could not temper itself; but needs she must bewray her outrageous lust, and in an inconvenient time of the year, despising all incommodities of the way and weather, and all dangers of thieves, she betook herself headlong to her journey.’ The ‘Book of Articles’ merely says that, after hearing of Bothwell’s wound, she ‘took na kindly rest’ till she saw him – a prolonged insomnia. On returning to Jedburgh, she prepared for Bothwell’s arrival, and, when he was once brought thither, then perhaps by their excessive indulgence in their passion, Buchanan avers, Mary nearly died.
All this is false. Mary stayed at least five days in Jedburgh before she rode to Hermitage, whither, says Nau, corroborated by Forster, Moray accompanied her. She fell ill on October 17, a week before Bothwell’s arrival at Jedburgh. On October 25, she was despaired of, and some thought she had passed away. Bothwell arrived, in a litter, about October 25. Forster says October 15, wrongly. These were no fit circumstances for ‘their old pastime,’ which they took ‘so openly, as they seemed to fear nothing more than lest their wickedness should be unknown.’ ‘I never saw her Majesty so much beloved, esteemed, and honoured,’ du Croc had written on October 17.
Buchanan’s tale is here so manifestly false, that it throws doubt on his scandal about the Exchequer House. That Mary abhorred Darnley, and was wretched, is certain. ‘How to be free of him she sees no outgait,’ writes Lethington on October 24. He saw no chance of reconciliation.[89] That she and Bothwell acted profligately together while he was ill at Hermitage, and she almost dead at Jedburgh, is a grotesquely malevolent falsehood. Darnley now visited Jedburgh: it is uncertain whether or not he delayed his visit long after he knew of Mary’s illness. Buchanan says that he was received with cruel contempt.[90] In some pious remarks of hers when she expected death, she only asks Heaven to ‘mend’ Darnley, whose misconduct is the cause of her malady.[91] On November 20, Mary arrived at Craigmillar Castle, hard by Edinburgh. Du Croc mentions her frequent exclamation, ‘I could wish to be dead,’ and, from Darnley, and his own observation, gathered that Darnley would never humble himself, while Mary was full of suspicions when she saw him converse with any noble. For disbelieving that reconciliation was possible du Croc had several reasons, he says; he may have detected the passion for Bothwell, but makes no allusion to that subject; and, when Darnley in December behaved sullenly, his sympathy was with the Queen. In the ‘Book of Articles’ exhibited against Mary in 1568, it is alleged that, at Kelso, on her return from Jedburgh, she received a letter from Darnley, wept, told Lethington and Moray that she could never have a happy day while united to her husband, and spoke of suicide. Possibly Darnley wrote about his letter against her to the Pope, and the Catholic Powers. But the anecdote is dubious. She proceeded to Craigmillar Castle.
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