An Accidental Tragedy (38 page)

By eleven o’clock the sun was well up and the temperature had soared. While the Lords could carry water from the River Esk, Bothwell’s men had brought ‘
vin et viandes
’ and they fell out of line to eat lunch. As a result of wine and sun about 300 of them rode back to Dunbar with headaches.

Kirkcaldy of Grange appeared under a white flag and formally demanded the surrender of Bothwell. Before Mary could answer, Bothwell immediately ordered an arquebusier to shoot Grange – white flag or no – but Mary countermanded this. Bothwell then rode out in front of his troops on his black charger and offered to settle the affair by single combat, asking the Lords, ‘What harm have I done?’ The Lords immediately appointed Grange as their champion, but Mary, displaying a knowledge of the rules of chivalry, rejected him as being of too low a birth to fight with Bothwell. The Laird of Tullibardine offered himself and was rejected on the same grounds, although he sulkily complained that his blood was as noble as Bothwell’s. Both Grange and Tullibardine instantly became the bitter personal enemies of Bothwell.

The farce of playground posturing continued as Bothwell now named the Earl of Morton as a suitable foe. This was admissible under the laws of chivalry but impractical since Morton was fifteen years older than Bothwell and without any battle experience. Bothwell was an experienced hand-to-hand warrior, a skilled swordsman with several killings already to his credit, and the much younger Lord Lindsay immediately offered himself as a surrogate. Morton gave Lindsay his own sword to carry. It was a two-handed six-foot-long weapon which had been Morton’s father’s and was completely unwieldy for use in a formal single combat, but Lindsay accepted – he could hardly refuse –
took off his armour, prayed for God’s assistance, and then, rearmed, he mounted his horse with the giant sword at his waist. He would almost certainly be killed.

Surprisingly, Bothwell had not taken a favour from Mary to wear as her champion, and she now intervened in the contest by forbidding its continuance. Melville of Halhill reports that Mary then spoke again to Grange and offered to give up Bothwell in return for the Lords’ obedience to her. As often with Melville, it is doubtful that this was the exact truth, but Bothwell would have seen his men melting away and recommended to Mary that they retreat to Dunbar to collect more forces. Mary, however, believed in the Lord’s promise of obedience and had previously spoken with Lethington and Atholl, who assured her of their loyalty. She now asked for a safe conduct for Bothwell, but was told by Grange that he had no authority to make such an agreement. However, Grange assured Bothwell that he would do his utmost to see that he was not pursued, and Mary decided to yield to the Lords, provided they promised to hold another parliamentary trial of Bothwell.

Bothwell and Mary then embraced in plain sight of everyone, pledging mutual loyalty. Bothwell, who liked to keep an ace up his sleeve, then gave Mary his copy of the Craigmillar Bond on which were the signatures of Lethington, Argyll, Huntly and Balfour and which also incriminated Morton. Bothwell had brought it with him should he be captured and openly accused of acting alone in the planning of Darnley’s murder. He and Mary then parted and her last sight of the Earl of Bothwell was his horse galloping towards Dunbar.

The rest of his story is soon told. Failing to raise any support in Scotland, he sailed for France, but his ship was captured by Danish pirates and he was sold to the Danish king, Frederick II. Frederick’s chancellor, Erik Rosencrantz, was a cousin of the Anna Throndsen who had pursued Bothwell across Europe in a breach-of-promise suit, and for this Bothwell was now brought to justice. At first he was confined in comparative luxury despite being an embarrassment to the Danes. Neither England nor
France wanted to take possession of the earl, and to return him to Scotland would mean antagonising Mary. Plots and counterplots surrounded him and eventually Rosencrantz, in a blood-chilling phrase, recommended that Frederick should send him ‘where men may forget him’. This was the castle of Dragsholm, where he was chained to a pillar in a dungeon, in dark and solitary confinement. The man who had spent his life in the saddle among the Border hills of Scotland died, ‘distracted of his wits and senses’, in April 1578, nearly eleven years after the aborted Battle of Carberry Hill.

At Carberry, ‘One was sent from the Queen’s side with a long pike and cast it down before the horsemen of the other army in token that victory was theirs.’ Grange was sent to receive the queen and he rode up and kissed her hand. She said, rather formally, ‘Laird of Grange, I render myself unto you, upon the conditions you rehearsed unto me in the name of the Lords.’ Part of this was an offer from Morton that this ‘business [could] be wrought in a right posture’. Mary, out of impulse, managed to antagonise Morton immediately by riding up to him, with the faithful Mary Seton behind her on a pony, and asking, ‘How is this, my Lord Morton? I am told that all this is done in order to get justice against the king’s murderers. I am also told that you are one of the chief of them.’ The arrogance of the Guises immediately took the place of any conciliatory guile.

Mary had expected to be greeted by penitent lords, if not on bended knee, then at least begging her pardon – which she would then graciously grant. Instead she was received by her rebellious nobility with courtesy enough, but the ‘lesser sort’ called out, ‘Burn the murderess! Burn the whore!’ Grange and others beat the mob into silence with the flat sides of their swords.

Her ordeal began as she was separated from her servant women and, with the banner showing Darnley’s death held in front of her, she was ridden back to Edinburgh. It became clear that she was now a prisoner when she was taken not to Holyrood, but to a house belonging to the Provost, Sir Simon Preston. This was an old dilapidated building, called the Black Turnpike
because of its narrow staircase, on the junction of what is now Hunter Square and the High Street, and when Mary arrived, about midnight, a dinner had been prepared for the Lords, who asked her to join them at their table. This was a complete reversal of etiquette that appalled the protocol-obsessed Mary. She replied that they had already provided her with food enough and now, having reduced her to her present state, she required rest. This was false bravado as she now feared the worst for her future, but the Lords, who had also had a hard day in the saddle, merely shrugged as if a servant had refused their largesse. Mary was thrust unceremoniously into a room thirteen feet square and eight feet high, furnished only with a small bed. Still trying to preserve some of her royal dignity, she waited for her serving women to arrive and undress her, but instead armed guards took up their posts outside. Some guards even lounged against the walls of what seemed to Mary to be her prison cell. It was now past midnight and Mary had not eaten since dawn at Seton. She was still in the clothes she had worn at Carberry – Mary who was so particular about her appearance – covered with the dust of the day, completely alone without servants and uncertain how long she would remain under these conditions. It was the first time in her life that she would spend the night alone. As a child there had always been an ever-present nurse, and from adolescence a lady-in-waiting had slept in Mary’s room. She would have been dressed and undressed several times a day and never would a servant have been out of earshot. This was an entirely new and unpleasant experience for a woman of her rank, and it was not going to be the last.

She was allowed to write a letter to Grange complaining of her plight, and even this involved further indignity for her. She, Mary, Queen of Scots, had to address a guard directly, not through a court servant, and ask for writing materials, which would normally have been kept close at hand, and then write her letter while he watched her. The answer to her letter came back with suspicious speed, obviously never having reached Grange. Her loyal nobles, it read, fearing that she might fatally harm
herself, were obliged to keep a close guard over her and dared not give her a key to her room. Exhaustion overcame her and she lay down, still fully dressed, on the bed, from where she could hear the chatter of the guards. But the mention of her possible death gave rise to the fear, that if she fell asleep, a pillow held over her face would give the rebels the opportunity to say she had taken poison and killed herself in the grief of parting from her murderous husband. After all, she knew that some of her captors had been party to Darnley’s assassination, and although she was now in a state of complete exhaustion she was afraid to sleep.

By morning she was half mad with the unreasoning terror which had grown through the night. The window of the room gave onto the High Street and the placard showing the death of Darnley had been hung beneath it so that the Edinburgh mob had no difficulty in establishing the presence of their whore-queen. Indeed, they were shouting for her to face them. She screamed from the window that she was being imprisoned by her own subjects and the mob replied with jeers and calls of ‘whore’, ‘adulteress’ and ‘murderer’. Now completely demented with sleeplessness, terror and impotence, she tore her already dusty and dishevelled hair down to ‘hang about her lugs’ and stripped to the waist exposing her breasts to the gaze of the crowd, who were now thoroughly enjoying the sight of a totally mad woman. She saw Lethington pass up the High Street to the council and shouted after him, but he ‘drew down his hat and made as if [he had] neither seen nor heard her Majesty’. The crowd became angrier and started throwing the always dangerously available cobble stones, shouting for a ladder to be fetched, but her guards, wisely, pulled her away from the window and she was given some bread and a little water to drink.

The council spent all day debating the outcome of Carberry. The idea of keeping Mary captive while they ruled through the infant James had clearly been in their minds, but they were unprepared for the sudden reality of their imprisoned queen, half naked and screaming like a madwoman from a first-floor window in the capital. Lethington, having the coolest head and the
greatest grasp of diplomacy, was sent to reason with her, while the council thought out their next move. Mary continued to scream treachery to Lethington until he managed calm her down and persuade her that he was the only friend she had left among the nobility. Morton came to visit her at nine o’clock in the evening and told her that she would be conveyed to Holyrood as soon as it was dark. As it was mid June, it was not until after eleven o’clock that she was taken to the palace where, at last, supper had been prepared and her female servants were assembled. Perhaps now she would be restored to her proper station, although the servants no longer knelt as they served her the food, and Morton stood behind her chair throughout the meal. She was given no chance to change her clothes and had to mend the damage to her bodice as best as she could. She was told that she would be given fresh clothes after she had slept.

This was, in fact, only a ruse. While she was still hungrily devouring her first food for two days, a servant confirmed to Morton that the second part of Mary’s journey could be undertaken. On his orders the dishes were cleared – she had not finished eating – and she was told she could now be accompanied by two servants only, but would presently be taken to visit Prince James. She was not even allowed to take her nightdress, which led her to think her normal entourage would be following her, probably for an intermediate stop at Linlithgow. It was well after midnight, and, with a close guard, she was escorted to Leith, where she was put into the care of Ruthven and Lindsay, who saw her across the Forth to North Queensferry, where she expected to turn west for the ride to Stirling. To her complete surprise, however, they headed north towards Loch Leven, where Sir William Douglas had a castle on the island. Mary had visited the castle many times and enjoyed the hunting grounds around the shore, but now she guessed that she was being taken as a prisoner. Hoping that she might be rescued as she travelled the ten miles or so to the loch, she tried to ride slowly – after all, she was three months pregnant – but her escort whipped her horse for her. On the shore she was met by Sir
William and his brothers, rowed across the lake to the island and shown into a room which formed part of the Douglas apartments on the ground floor, which had been roughly furnished by the laird with his own surplus furniture. The door was locked and Mary stood alone again, still in the clothes she had been wearing since she had left Seton two long days before.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It does not appertain to subjects to reform their prince

It had been determined by the council that Mary must not be allowed to ‘follow her inordinate passion’ and that she should be ‘sequestered from all society of the said Earl of Bothwell’, whose whereabouts were still unknown. Grange and Tullibardine, both of whom Bothwell had insulted at Carberry, were sent on what proved to be a fruitless pursuit of the earl. Meanwhile, Sir William Douglas received a formal commission to keep Mary ‘without skaith [harm]’ until ‘further trial be taken about the cruel murder and treasonable slaughter of erstwhile Henry, King, spouse to the Queen’.