Elizabeth next wrote letters to Lennox and Darnley, commanding them both, as her subjects, to return to England without delay. Randolph was desired to wait upon them, to know what answer they were disposed to give. He got little satisfaction from either; – Lennox firmly, and Darnley contemptuously, refused to obey the mandate of recall. Randolph then waited upon the Queen to ascertain her mind on the subject. Mary felt keenly the contemptible jealousy and envy with which she was treated by Elizabeth; and received the English resident with greater reserve than she had ever done before, “as a man new and first come into her presence that she had never seen.” Randolph asked, if she would give Lennox and Darnley permission to depart for England. Mary smiled at the question, which was an artful one, and said, – “If I would give them leave, I doubt what they would do themselves; I see no will in them to return.” Randolph answered with insolence, that they must either return, or do worse; for that, if they refused, and were supported by Mary in that refusal, the Queen his mistress had the power and the will to be revenged upon both them and her. The Queen of Scots merely replied, that she hoped Elizabeth would change her mind, and so dismissed Randolph.
Satisfied of the integrity of her purpose, Mary was not to be easily driven from it. She sent Mr John Hay to the English court, to state once more her anxious wish to avoid giving any just cause of offence to Elizabeth, but at the same time to repeat, that she could not but consider as strange and vexatious, any opposition to a marriage, to which there did not seem to be one plausible objection. He was desired also to complain of the “sharp handling” which had been given to Mary’s aunt, the Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. But her chief anxieties arose from the state of matters nearer home. The Duke of Chatelherault, and the Earls of Murray, Argyle, and Glencairn, had now openly declared themselves adverse to the marriage; and Lethington and Morton were suspected of giving it only a very doubtful support. There was, in consequence, a great change at Mary’s court. They who had formerly most influence kept away from it altogether; and a new set of men, little accustomed to state duties, such as Montrose, Fleming, Cassils, Montgomery, and others, came into favour. It was now that Mary found Rizzio, who was active, and well acquainted with all the details of public business, and was, besides, liked by Darnley, of the greatest use to her; and being deserted by her more efficient, but too ambitious counsellors, she gladly availed herself of his services.
CHAPTER XIII.
MARY’S MARRIAGE WITH DARNLEY
Murray, meanwhile, was busily organizing his scheme of rebellion. “Their chief trust,” says Randolph, alluding to the Earl and his associates, “next unto God, is the Queen’s Majesty, (Elizabeth,) whom they will repose themselves upon; not leaving in the meantime to provide for themselves the best they can.” Elizabeth was not backward to give them every encouragement. She wrote letters to the heads of the party; means were taken to win over to their views the General Assembly, which met in June 1565, the members of which, as Randolph says, were “never more constant or more earnest;” and the nobles summoned by Mary to a convention at Perth, were all tampered with. But the great majority at this convention, gave their consent and approbation to the proposed marriage; and Murray, in despair, begged Randolph to inform his mistress, in the name of himself and those who had joined his faction, that they were “grieved to see such extreme folly in their sovereign; that they lamented the state of their country, which tended to utter ruin; and that they feared the nobility would be forced to assemble themselves together, so to provide for the state, that it should not utterly perish.” In other words, they had made up their mind to rebellion; at all events, to prevent Darnley from obtaining the crown, and an ascendancy over them, – and probably, if an opportunity should offer, to put Mary in confinement, and rule the country themselves. This was exactly the state of feeling which Elizabeth had long laboured to produce in Scotland. “Some that have already heard,” says Randolph, “of my Lady’s Grace imprisonment,” (meaning the Countess of Lennox), “like very well thereof, and wish both father and son to keep her company. The question hath been asked me, whether, if they were delivered us into Berwick, we would receive them? I answered, that we could not nor would not refuse our own, in what sort soever they came unto us.”92 But as it was felt that a plausible apology would be required for proceeding to these extremities, the Earl of Murray gave out that a conspiracy had been formed to assassinate him at the Convention at Perth. His story was, that there had been a quarrel between one of his own servants and another man, who was supported by retainers of Athol and Lennox, and that it had been arranged that they should renew their dispute at Perth, and that he himself should be slain in the affray, which was expected to ensue. But the evidence of a plot against him rests only upon Murray’s own statement and when Mary asked him to transmit in writing a more particular account of it, seeing that he made it his excuse for refusing to come to Court, “it appeared to her Highness and to her Council, that his purgation in that behalf, was not so sufficient as the matter required;” and his excuse was not sustained.93
The treasonable views entertained by Murray and his friends, are involved in no such doubt. In these times, the common mode of effecting a change in the government, was to seize the person of the sovereign; and all historians of credit agree in affirming, that Murray was determined on making the experiment. On Sunday, the first of July, 1565, the Queen was to ride with Darnley and a small train of friends from Perth to the seat of Lord Livingston at Callander, the baptism of one of whose children she had promised to attend. Murray knew that it would be necessary for her to pass, in the course of this journey, through several steep and wild passes, where she and her attendants might easily be overpowered. At what precise spot the attack was to be made, or whether that was not left to the chapter of accidents, does not appear. Knox, who was, of course, too staunch a Presbyterian directly to accuse the great lay-head of his church of so treasonable a design, says that the path of Dron (a rugged pass about three miles south of Perth), had been mentioned, whilst Sir James Melville and others, point out the Kirk of Beith, which stood on a solitary piece of ground, between Dumfermline and the Queensferry. But late upon the previous Saturday night, a rumour reached Mary of the contemplated plot. To prevent its execution, she ordered the Earl of Athol and Lord Ruthven, to collect immediately as strong a body of men as possible; and through their exertions, she left Perth next morning at five, accompanied by three hundred horsemen well mounted. Murray was waiting at Loch Leven, Argyle at Castle Campbell, Chatelherault at his house of Kinneil, in the neighbourhood of the Queensferry, and Lord Rothes, who had joined in the conspiracy, at a place called the Parrot Well, not far distant. The Queen, however, to their great disappointment, having passed over the ground on which they intended to intercept her, both much earlier in the day, and much more strongly guarded than they had anticipated, they were obliged to remain quiet; indeed the Earl of Argyle did not come to join Murray, till two hours after Mary had ridden through Kinross.94
On Mary’s return to Edinburgh she found that an attempt had been made, through the conjoined influence of Knox and Murray, to stir up to sedition some of the more bigoted Presbyterians – on the plea that Darnley favoured Popery. Two or three hundred of the malcontents, or brethren, as Knox calls them, assembled at St Leonard’s Hill, and their mutinous proceedings might have led to disagreeable consequences, had not Mary arrived just in time to disperse and overawe them.95 Murray and his associates, keeping at a greater distance, held some secret meetings at Loch-Leven, and then assembling at Stirling on the 17th of July, openly raised the standard of rebellion. But, amidst all these troubles, Mary, conscious that she had right upon her side, remained undaunted, and, at no period of her life, did her strength of mind appear more conspicuous. To retain that confidence, which she knew the great majority of her subjects still placed in her, she issued proclamations announcing her determination to abstain, as she had hitherto done, from any interference in the matter of religion; she wrote, with her own hand, letters to many of her nobles, assuring them of the integrity of her intentions; and, she sent requisitions to all upon whom she could depend, calling on them to collect their followers, and come armed to her assistance.
The Earl of Murray, on the other hand, having thrown off his allegiance to his own Sovereign, became entirely subservient to the wishes and commands of Elizabeth. He and his friends wrote to request that she would send them, as a proof of her sincerity in the cause, the sum of three thousand pounds to meet the expenses of the current year; and they would thus be able, they imagined, to carry every thing before them, unless Mary received foreign assistance. They likewise suggested that Lord Hume, whose estates lay on the Borders, and who was one of the Scottish Queen’s most faithful servants, should be harassed by some ostensibly accidental incursions; – that the Bishop of Dumblane, who was to be sent on an embassy to the Continent, should be delayed in London till “his budgets were rifled by some good slight or other;” – and that Bothwell, whom Mary was about to recall, to obtain his assistance in her present difficulties, should be “kept in good surety” for a time.96 To all this Elizabeth replied, that if the Lords suffered any inconvenience, “they should not find lack in her to succour them.” She hinted, however, that the less money they asked the better, advising them “neither to make greater expense than their security makes necessary, nor less which may bring danger.” “This letter,” says Keith, “is an evident demonstration of the English Queen’s fomenting and supporting a rebellion in Scotland; and the rebellious Lords knew too well what they had to trust to.”
One can hardly attempt to unravel, as has been done in the preceding pages, the secret causes which led to the iniquitous rebellion now organized, without feeling it almost a duty to express indignation both at the malicious interference of the English Queen, and the overweening ambition and ingratitude of the Earl of Murray. Mary’s conduct, since her return from France, had been almost unexceptionable. The only fault she had committed, and the necessity of the times forced it on her, was yielding too implicitly to the counsels of her brother. These had been in some instances judicious, and in others, the natural severity of his temper had been rebuked by the mildness of Mary; so that, take it for all in all, no government had ever been more popular in Scotland than hers. Her choice of Lord Darnley for a husband, so far from diminishing the estimation in which she was held by the great body of her subjects, only contributed to raise her in their opinion. For the sake of the political advantages which would result to her country from this alliance, she was willing to forego much more splendid offers; and, though the imperfections of Darnley’s character might ultimately be the means of destroying her own happiness, his birth and expectations were exactly such as gave him the best right to be the father of James VI. Nor could his religious opinions be objected to, for, whatever they were, they did not influence the Queen; – indeed, ever since she had known him, she had treated the Protestants with even more than her usual liberality. At the baptism of Lord Livingston’s child, she remained and heard a Protestant sermon; and about the same time she intimated to some of the leaders of the Reformers, that though she was not persuaded of the truth of any religion except of that in which she had been brought up, she would nevertheless allow a conference and disputation on the Scriptures in her presence, and also a public preaching from the mouth of Mr Erskine of Dun, whom she regarded as “a mild and sweet-natured man, with true honesty and uprightness.”97 All these things considered, one is at a loss to conceive how, even in these restless times, any set of men dared to enter into rebellion against Mary. But the selfish and insidious policy of Elizabeth – the jealousy of the Duke of Chatelherault, in whose family rested the succession to the Scottish crown, and who had hoped that his son Arran might have obtained Mary’s hand – the envy and rage of the Earl of Argyle, who had been obliged to surrender to Lennox some of his forfeited estates – and, above all, the artful and grasping spirit of Murray, solve the enigma. Whatever opinion may be entertained of Mary’s subsequent proceedings it appears but too evident, that the first serious troubles of her reign were forced upon her in spite of her utmost prudence, by the intrigues of enemies who were only the more dangerous, because they had for a time assumed the disguise of friends.
Whatever the hopes or wishes of the conspirators might be, Mary resolved that they should not long have it in their power to make their desire to prevent her nuptials a pretext for continuing in arms. On Sunday, the 29th of July 1565, she celebrated her marriage with Darnley, upon whom she had previously conferred various titles, and among others that of Duke of Albany.98 The banns of matrimony were proclaimed in the Canongate church, the palace of Holyrood being in that parish; and, as Mary and Darnley were first cousins, a Catholic dispensation had been obtained from the Pope. The ceremony was performed, according to the Catholic ritual, in the chapel of Holyrood, between five and six in the morning – an hour which appears somewhat strange to modern habits. John Sinclair, Dean of Restalrig, and Bishop of Brechin, had the honour of presiding on the occasion. It was generally remarked, that a handsomer couple had never been seen in Scotland. Mary was now twenty-three, and at the very height of her beauty, and Darnley, though only nineteen, was of a more manly person and appearance than his age would have indicated. The festivities were certainly not such as had attended the Queen’s first marriage, for the elegancies of life were not understood in Scotland as in France; and, besides, it was a time of trouble when armed men were obliged to stand round the altar. Nevertheless, all due observances and rejoicings lent a dignity to the occasion. Mary, in a flowing robe of black, with a wide mourning hood, was led into the chapel by the Earls of Lennox and Athol, who, having conducted her to the altar, retired to bring in the bridegroom. The Bishop having united them in the presence of a great attendance of Lords and Ladies, three rings were put upon the Queen’s finger – the middle one a rich diamond. They then knelt together, and many prayers were said over them. At their conclusion, Darnley kissed his bride, and as he did not himself profess the Catholic faith, left her till she should hear mass. She was afterwards followed by most of the company to her own apartments, where she laid aside her sable garments, to intimate, that henceforth, as the wife of another, she would forget the grief occasioned by the loss of her first husband. In observance of an old custom, as many of the Lords as could approach near enough were permitted to assist in unrobing her, by taking out a pin. She was then committed to her ladies, who, having attired her with becoming splendour, brought her to the ball-room, where there was great cheer and dancing till dinner time. At dinner, Darnley appeared in his royal robes; and after a great flourish of trumpets, largess was proclaimed among the multitude who surrounded the palace. The Earls of Athol, Morton, and Crawfurd, attended the Queen as sewer, carver, and cup-bearer; and the Earls of Eglinton, Cassilis, and Glencairn, performed the like offices for Darnley. When dinner was over, the dancing was renewed till supper-time, soon after which the company retired for the night.99
The rejoicings that attended the commencement of Darnley’s career as King of Scotland, were but of short duration. Randolph, expressing the sentiments of Elizabeth and the rebels, hesitated not to say, that “God must either send the King a short end, or them a miserable life; that either he must be taken away, or they find some support, that what he intendeth to others may light upon himself.”
CHAPTER XIV.
MURRAY’S REBELLION
Murray had now gone too far to recede, though, had he been so inclined, Mary’s leniency would willingly have given him the opportunity. Mr John Hay, who had formerly acted as her ambassador in England, and who was one of her brother’s personal friends, was sent to him to declare the good will which both the Earl of Lennox and Darnley bore towards him. Mary even avowed her readiness to bring to trial any one he would accuse of having conspired against his life; but he had no evidence to prove that such a conspiracy had ever existed, much less to fix the guilt upon any individual. He had made the accusation originally, only the better to conceal his own nefarious purposes; for Murray well understood the practical application of Machiavel’s maxim, – “Calumniare audacter aliquid adhærebit.”
Acting in concert with this nobleman, Elizabeth now sent more imperative orders than before for the return of Lennox and Darnley. But the former answered, that, considering his wife had been committed to the Tower for no fault on her part, he thought it unlikely that the climate of England would suit his constitution; and the latter said boldly and gallantly, that he now acknowledged duty and obedience to none but the Queen of Scots, whom he served and honoured; and though Elizabeth chose to be envious of his good fortune, he could not discover why he should leave a country where he found himself so comfortable. Randolph coolly replied, that he hoped to see the wreck and overthrow of as many as were of the same mind; “and so turning my back to him, without reverence or farewell, I went away.”100 The disaffected Lords, on their part, as soon as they heard of Mary’s marriage, and the proclamations in which she conferred upon her husband the rank and title of King, renewed their complaints with increased bitterness. The majority of their countrymen, however, saw through their real motives; and even Knox allows it was generally alleged, that these complaints were “not for religion, but rather for hatred, envy of sudden promotion or dignity, or such worldly causes.” The recalling of the Earls Bothwell and Sutherland, and the restoring Lord Gordon to the forfeited estates and honours of his father, the Earl of Huntly, was another source of exasperation. From the tried fidelity of these noblemen, Mary knew she could depend upon their services; though Bothwell, personally, as we have already seen, was far from being agreeable to her.
To put in the clearest point of view the utter worthlessness of all the grounds of offence which Elizabeth and the Scottish rebels pretended at this time to have against Mary, a short and impartial account of a message sent by the English Queen, early in August 1565, and of the answer it received, will be read here with interest. The person who brought this message was one of Elizabeth’s inferior officials, of the name of Tamworth, “a forward, insolent man,” says Camden, and, with marked disrespect, chosen for this very reason. He was ordered not to acknowledge Darnley as King, and to give him no title but that which he had borne in England; but Mary, “having smelt,” as Camden adds “the nature both of the message, and of the animal who brought it,” would not admit him into her presence. His objections were therefore committed to writing, and the answer given in similar form. On the part of Elizabeth it was stated, that her Majesty had found Mary’s late proceedings, both towards herself and towards her subjects, very strange, upon diverse grounds. These, as they were brought forward, so were they replied to methodically and seriatim. First, Elizabeth took God to witness, that her offer to Mary, of any of her own subjects in marriage, was made sincerely and lovingly; and that she was grieved to hear that Mary, listening to false council, had been made to think otherwise. – To this it was answered, that the Queen of Scots did not doubt Elizabeth’s sincerity and uprightness in her offer of a husband from England, and that no counsel had been given to induce her to change her opinion. Second, Elizabeth was much surprised, that notwithstanding the offer made by Mary to Sir Nicolas Throckmorton, to delay her marriage till the middle of August, that she might have longer time to prevail upon Elizabeth to consent to it, she had consummated that marriage without giving her Majesty any intimation, on the 29th of July, and had thereby disappointed both Elizabeth and some foreign princes, who thought as strangely of the alliance as she did. – To this it was answered, that it was true, that though Mary’s resolution was fixed before Sir Nicolas Throckmorton came into Scotland, she had, nevertheless, promised to delay her marriage in the hope that the doubts entertained by Elizabeth, as to the propriety of the said marriage, might in the meantime, be removed; but that this promise was made expressly on the condition, that Commissioners should be appointed on both sides to discuss the matter, and that, as Elizabeth refused to nominate any such commissioners, Mary was relieved from her promise; that further, she had good reasons, known to herself and her own people, with which no other prince needed to interfere, for consummating her marriage at the time she did; and that, with regard to foreign princes thinking the alliance strange, she had a perfect knowledge of the opinions, and had obtained the express consent of the principal and greatest princes in Christendom. Third, Elizabeth was astonished how Mary, in direct opposition to the conditions of the treaty of peace, existing between England and Scotland, could detain her Majesty’s subjects, Lennox and Darnley in Scotland, having allured them thither under a pretence of suits for lands, but in reality to form an alliance without her Majesty’s consent and license, – an offence so unnatural, that the world spoke of it, and her Majesty could not forget it. – To this it was answered, that Mary marvelled not a little at the Queen, her good sister, insisting any further upon this head, for she did not understand how it could be found strange that she detained within her realm the person with whom she had joined herself in marriage, or a Scottish Earl, whom Elizabeth herself named by his Scottish title, the more especially as they both came to her with Elizabeth’s consent and letters of recommendation; and that she had no doubt that the world spoke as sound sense would dictate, judging that her detaining of them was in no ways prejudicial to any treaty of peace, existing between the two realms, since no annoyance was intended towards Elizabeth, her kingdom, or estate. Fourth, Elizabeth wondered that Mary’s ambassador, Mr John Hay, came to ask to be informed of her Majesty’s objections to the marriage, and of what she wished to be done, but had no authority either to agree to, or refuse her requests; and she therefore supposed that he had been sent more as a piece of empty form, than for any useful purpose. – To this it was answered, that Mary, though willing to hear Elizabeth’s objections, if any such existed, and to endeavour to remove them, had yet expressly declared, that she would make such endeavour only through the medium of commissioners mutually agreed on; and that she was still so convinced of the expediency of the match, that though now married, she was still willing, if Elizabeth wished it, to have its propriety discussed by such commissioners. Fifth, Elizabeth begged that an explanation might be given of a sentence in one of Mary’s French letters, which she found somewhat obscured, and which ran thus, – “Je n’estimerois jamais que cela vienne de vous, et sans en chercher autre vengeance, j’aurois recours à tous les princes mes allies pour avec moi vous remonstrer ce que je vous suis par parentage. Vous savez assez ce que vous avez resolu sur cela.” – To this it was answered, that Mary, by the whole of her letter, as well as the passage in question, meant no other thing but to express her desire to remain in perfect friendship and good intelligence with the Queen her sister, from whom she expected such treatment as reason and nature required from one princess to another, who was her cousin; and that if, as God forbid, other treatment were received, which Mary would not anticipate, she could do no less than lay her case before other princes, her friends and allies. Sixth, Elizabeth was grieved to see that Mary encouraged fugitives and offenders from England, and practised other devices within her Majesty’s realm; and that, in her own kingdom, seduced by false counsellors and malicious information, she raised up factions among the nobility. – To this it was answered, that if the Scottish Queen really wished to offend Elizabeth, she would not be contented with such paltry practices as those she was accused of towards English subjects; – and that, with regard to her proceedings in her own realm, as she had never interfered with Elizabeth’s order of government, not thinking it right that one state should have a finger in the internal policy of another, so she requested that Elizabeth would not meddle with her’s, but trust to her discretion, as the person most interested, to preserve peace and quietness. Seventh, Elizabeth warned Mary to take good heed that she did not proceed in her intention to suppress and extirpate the religion already established in Scotland, or to effect the suppression of the Reformed faith in England, for that all such designs, consultations, intelligences, and devices, should be converted to the peril and damage of those that advised and engaged in them. – To this it was answered, that Mary could not but marvel at Elizabeth’s fears for a religion upon which no innovation had ever been attempted, but for the establishment of which every arrangement had been made most agreeable to her Scottish subjects; that as to an intention to interfere with the spiritual faith of England, she never heard of it before; but that, if any practices to such effect could be condescended on, they should instantly be explained and altered; and that, with regard to her designs, consultations, intelligences and devices, such as she really engaged in, would be found no vainer or more deceitful than those of her neighbours. Eighth and lastly, Elizabeth wished that Mary would not show herself so given to change, as to conceive evil of the Earl of Murray, whose just deserts she had so long acknowledged, for that by indifference and severity, there were plenty examples to prove, that many noble men had been constrained to take such measures for their own security, as they would otherwise never have resorted to; and that these were part of the reasons why Elizabeth was offended with Mary. – To this it was answered, that Mary wished her good sister would not meddle with the affairs of her Scottish subjects any more than Mary meddled with the affairs of Elizabeth’s English subjects; but that, if Elizabeth desired any explanation of her conduct towards Murray, it would be willingly given, as soon as Elizabeth explained her motives for committing to the Tower Lady Margaret, Countess of Lennox, mother-in-law and aunt of Mary; and that, as soon as Elizabeth stated any other grounds of offence, they should be answered as satisfactorily as the above had been.101
Having thus triumphantly replied to the English Queen’s irritating message, Mary, in the true spirit of conciliation, had the magnanimity to propose that the following articles should be mutually agreed upon. On the part of the King and Queen of Scotland, —First, That their Majesties being satisfied of the Queen their sister’s friendship, are content to assure the Queen, that during the term of her life, or that of her lawful issue, they will not, directly or indirectly, attempt any thing prejudicial to their sister’s title to the Crown of England, or in any way disturb the quietness of that kingdom. Second, They will enter into no communication with any subject or subjects of the realm of England, in prejudice of their said sister and her lawful issue, or receive into their protection any subjects of the realm of England, with whom their sister may have occasion to be offended. Third, They will not enter into any league or confederation with any foreign prince, to the hurt, damage, and displeasure of the Queen and realm of England. Fourth, They will enter into any such league and confederation with the Queen and realm of England, as shall be for the weal of the princes and subjects on both sides. And, Fifth, They will not go about to procure in any way, alteration, innovation, or change in the religion, laws, or liberties of the realm of England, though it should please God at any time hereafter to call them to the succession of that kingdom. In consideration of these offers, the three following equally reasonable articles were to be agreed to, on the part of England; —First, That by Act of Parliament, the succession to the Crown, failing Elizabeth and her lawful issue, shall be established first, in the person of Mary and her lawful issue, and failing them, in the person of the Countess of Lennox and her lawful issue, as by the law of God and nature, entitled to the inheritance of the said Crown. Second, That the second offer made by the King and Queen of Scotland be also made on the part of England; and, Third, That the third offer shall be likewise mutual. To have agreed to these liberal articles would not have suited Elizabeth’s policy, and we consequently hear nothing farther concerning them.