An Accidental Tragedy (39 page)

The other inhabitants of Lochleven Castle were Sir William’s mother, the ‘Old Lady’; she was none other than Margaret Erskine, also the mother of the illegitimate Earl of Moray by Mary’s father, James V, and she heartily loathed Mary for her legitimacy. A handsome younger son, George Douglas, was the only other family member present. Ruthven and Lindsay were to act as her gaolers. The island was almost entirely occupied by the castle building, a fourteenth-century structure of four storeys with a single entrance on the second floor, adjoining a medieval round tower from which any view of the loch was blocked by the main building. It was in this bleak tower that Mary was eventually placed after a stay in the Gordons’ apartments, its obscurity preventing her from signalling to the shore. She was now completely cut off from friends and totally at the mercy of the council who, on 16 June, issued a formal warrant for her imprisonment signed by Morton, Glencairn and Home. Lindsay and Ruthven were given the unwelcome duty of continuing on
the island to supervise her close imprisonment. It was an ideal location for a covert assassination.

Argyll, Huntly, Arbroath and eight other minor lords swore to rescue Mary but were powerless to do more than declare their loyalty. The hostile lords now set about tying up loose ends by destroying the Catholic altars in the royal chapel at Holyrood, then seizing the plate and clothes in the palace, although the bulk of Mary’s jewellery was still in Dunbar under the control of Patrick Wilson. Their most urgent need was to exonerate themselves from all guilt in the murder of Darnley, and, if they knew that Mary had a copy of the Craigmillar Bond – although it is difficult to see how she could have kept it in her possession through her experiences in Edinburgh – she was in no position to use it. For the rest they set about rounding up the men involved in the plot at Kirk o’ Field, starting with the unfortunate Captain Blackadder, who, in spite of his most likely innocence, was hanged, eviscerated and quartered. Powrie, Hay, Hepburn and the rest were taken, and, after torture, produced the convenient confessions which totally incriminated Bothwell. They were summarily hanged. The two housewives, the only independent eyewitnesses, were never closely questioned and were probably told that their continued health depended on their silence. French Paris confessed to a confused version of the now-accepted story, and when Cecil asked to continue his interrogation in England the unfortunate page was swiftly hanged. Wilson and Ormiston fled successfully without trace. The truth was now satisfactorily established: Bothwell, with the connivance of the queen, and with the aid of a gang of personal thugs, had murdered Darnley with the intent of seizing the crown for himself. Everyone else was innocent. Some people actually believed it.

On 19 June an event may have occurred which has given rise to many volumes of debate. Morton claimed that on that evening he was dining with Lethington when a servant told him that Thomas Hepburn, John Cockburn and George Dalgleish had all been seen in Edinburgh. They were all Bothwell’s men and on the wanted lists, so Morton despatched servants to arrest them. Thomas Hepburn made his escape, but left his horse behind;
John Cockburn was arrested. Dalgleish was found with ‘divers evidences and parchments’ but denied that he had any other documents. Morton disbelieved him and he was kept overnight in the Tolbooth in the ‘jayne’
⁴
– a cage too small to stand up in and too short to lie down in. At the Tower of London a similar cage was called ‘little ease’, and as ‘tiger cages’ the same devices were used by both sides in the Vietnam War. After a night in the ‘jayne’ there was no need for further torture and the next day Dalgleish eagerly took Robert Douglas, Morton’s agent, to his lodging where he pulled a silver casket from under his bed. It was taken to Morton at eight o’clock that night. The casket had belonged to Bothwell but had been in the keeping of Balfour at the castle. Bothwell had sent for it at the time of Carberry but the treacherous Balfour had let it come into the hands of Dalgleish. Next morning, in the presence of Atholl, Mar, Glencairn, Lethington and five other lords, the lock was forced. The casket was found to contain ‘letters, contracts, sonnets, and other writings’. Morton kept it himself. He gives no account of these witnesses taking the trouble to read or even cursorily examine the contents, although they were all men desperate to blacken Mary and Bothwell’s reputations, and they would all want to read the contents at length before making any statements about them. It was to become one of the most celebrated time bombs in the story of Mary Stewart, and by the time the casket’s contents were made public, George Dalgleish, who alone could verify or deny Morton’s story, had conveniently been executed.

These letters seemed to show Mary’s complicity in her seizure by Bothwell and her guilty involvement in Darnley’s murder, and they were now in the hands of her enemies. The opposition was, however, confused. On 1 July the Lords still maintained that Bothwell had forcibly ravished the queen when they might have claimed that they had equally damning evidence to the contrary.

On 23 June 1567, Elizabeth wrote to Mary, who was now allowed to receive mail in Loch Leven:

It has always been held in friendship that prosperity provideth but adversity proveth friends. We understand by your trusty servant Robert Melville of your estate, and as much as could be said for your marriage. To be plain with you our grief has not been small thereat; for how could a worse choice be made for your honour than in such haste to marry such a subject who, beside his other lacks, public fame has charged with the murder of your late husband, besides touching yourself in some part, though we trust on that behalf falsely!

She then commiserated with Mary’s plight and assured her that she would do all in her power for her honour and safety, and to let Mary’s nobility know that she had Elizabeth’s backing. In other words, ‘If you will be so stupid as to marry a murderer who incriminates you, what did you expect?’

She sent Throckmorton north with her careful instructions: ‘He is to urge concord between their sovereign and them – also to declare that as a sister sovereign their queen cannot be detained prisoner or deprived of her princely state.’ He was also to warn the Scots that it did ‘not appertain to subjects to reform their prince, but to deal by advice and counsel’. He was given freedom, as an ambassador for Elizabeth, to reprove Mary for her faults, his embassy legitimising such
lèse-majesté.
Elizabeth was always careful to stress the inviolability of an anointed sovereign. The Scots were warned against forming an alliance with France.

Throckmorton – for whom one cannot but have sympathy in his task – was also given a memorandum by Cecil: the facts of Bothwell’s guilt were to be established; Mary was to commission the nobility to proceed against Bothwell; parliament had to be recalled; all Bothwell’s lands were to be given to Mary for Prince James’s education; the succession was to be ‘renovated and confirmed’ – presumably according to the Treaty of Edinburgh; the Reformed religion was to be established – excepting ‘none but the Queen’s person’; and, finally, four or six councillors were to attend the queen monthly. Throckmorton was given no guidance as to how he was to persuade the rebel lords to
undertake all this, but these instructions conform precisely with Cecil’s passionate desire for a legitimate Protestant regime acting under the law. He then added, as a postscript to the memorandum, the Latin text ‘Athalia 4 regum, interrempta par Joas Regem’. This is a reference to 2 Chronicles 22–3 in the Old Testament, in which Athaliah, Queen of Israel, was murdered by the high priests and nobility in the fourth year of her reign for her slaughter of the ‘seed royal of Judah’, rending her clothes and crying ‘Treason, treason!’ She was replaced with the boy-prince Joash under a regency until he took the throne on attaining his majority. So Throckmorton was to uphold the rigour of the law, but if anything else should happen to occur, Cecil would not be astonished and at least there was a biblical precedent.

Throckmorton replied, presumably in a private conversation, that he agreed with Cecil that Prince James would be better off in England, and that he was worried about the growing split of the nobility into Mary’s partisans and the proponents of a possible regency. He added that he would accompany the French ambassador to ‘see his countenance’. James Melville gave an account of how the sides were coalescing, with Morton, Hume, Atholl, Lethington and Sir James Balfour on one side – the King’s Party – and their enemies, the Hamiltons and Huntly – the Queen’s Party – on the other. ‘The lords who were refused in friendship drew themselves together at Dumbarton, under the pretext to procure by force of arms their sovereign’s liberty . . . which they would not have done if they could have been accepted in society with the rest’.

Another reason for Throckmorton wishing to keep close to the French ambassador was his knowledge that Moray, still in France, had been seeking help from the Cardinal of Lorraine and putting pressure on Catherine de Medici. Throckmorton, now at Ware, some twenty miles from London, and sending dispatches as he travelled, still defined Mary’s liberty as the main ‘mark to shoot at’. By Ferry Bridge in Yorkshire he noted that Argyll, Fleming, Seton and Boyd had joined with the Hamiltons and Huntly and that Dumbarton Castle was at the disposal of
Bothwell himself – should he ever return. Then in Berwick, where he complained that his lodging would make a better jail than a resting place, Throckmorton met Lethington. When asked how the Lords stood, Lethington smiled, shook his head and said, ‘It were better for us you would let us alone, than neither to do us or your selves good, as I fear in the end it will prove.’ Throckmorton had heard a rumour that Mary had been given the offer of a peaceful reclusion in a French abbey with her aunt, and that Prince James would accompany her ‘at the French devotion’, leaving Scotland to be governed by a council of regents. But since neither the French ambassador nor any other diplomat was to be allowed access to Mary, this was clearly nonsense. There was nothing for it but for Throckmorton ‘to leap on horseback and go to Edinburgh’. Here he received another letter from Elizabeth telling him to assure Mary that her best course was to send Prince James to her in England, where he would be treated as her own child and ‘become acquainted with her country’. Throckmorton also very quickly learned that ‘no prince’s ambassador, nor stranger, should speak with her [Mary] until the Earl of Bothwell be apprehended’. His task was indeed unenviable.

Meanwhile, Mary was recovering from the considerable trauma of her capture. On 14 July Throckmorton reported that she now had five or six ladies in attendance, that three or five gentlewomen and two of her serving women had been restored to her and that she was now taking what exercise she could on the confines of the island. She was still able to supervise her absent household and gave authority for Throckmorton to come to Edinburgh – he was, in fact, already there. It seems very likely that this information was false and that Throckmorton had been given a rosy picture in the hope of ameliorating Elizabeth’s wrath – Mary still had only the two ladies she had brought from Holyrood. However, some of her seductive charm was returning and, coupled with close proximity to Mary’s undoubted beauty, young Lord Ruthven proceeded to make a fool of himself.

One morning he burst into her bedchamber at four o’clock in the morning, threw himself on his knees and begged her to marry
him in exchange for his organising her escape. This was not a surprise, since he had previously sent her a love letter, and this night Mary had concealed her chamber-women behind the tapestries to act as witnesses. This presupposes that Ruthven had told them of his intention and having summoned up his courage – probably with drink – he made his bid. Mary was four months pregnant, still married to Bothwell and with a very uncertain future, but Ruthven was young and stupidly impetuous. Mary indignantly refused him, reported his behaviour to Lady Douglas and Ruthven was recalled. This story was told to Nau by Mary during her captivity and may simply be a pathetic tale told by a prematurely ageing beauty nostalgically recalling, ‘Of course they were all in love with me!’ It does, however ring true of the Ruthven personality.

Throckmorton was not allowed access to Mary but duly reported the improvement in her condition, as well as her total intractability towards any abandonment of Bothwell. The women of Edinburgh were ‘most furious and impudent against the Queen’ and Throckmorton was fearful for his own safety among them. All were holding their breath while the Lords made up their minds as to what move to make next; some nobles were starting to consider what Mary’s attitude to them might be if she gained her liberty. They all had an eye on the calendar, since Mary was only five months away from the age of twenty-five, when she could withdraw her grants of possession for their lands and, therefore, income. Throckmorton had given the Lords Elizabeth’s requests for Mary’s release and the prosecution of Bothwell, and they, in the best traditions of diplomacy, asked for time to consider.

Mary saw Robert Melville about 16 July, by which time Throckmorton had suspicions that Mary would be forced to abdicate. There is a quite believable story that he wrote to Mary telling her that a signature obtained under duress was legally invalid. Melville wrapped Throckmorton’s letter around his sword and, thus hidden by the scabbard, delivered it to her. Mary, however, gave him her proposals to the Lords. Could she
be moved to Stirling to be near her son? Could she have some more of her gentlewomen, an apothecary, a ‘modest minister’, an embroiderer and a page? She asked to be allowed to see ambassadors and said that if the Lords would not treat her as their queen, then would they please treat her as the late king’s daughter and the young prince’s mother? She refused to renounce Bothwell, since this would make her forthcoming child a bastard. She also claimed to be ‘seven weeks gone with child’. This implies that she conceived the child safely after her marriage to Bothwell, but it is most likely that she was adjusting the dates forward – the reality being that the child was conceived out of wedlock at Dunbar, which would make her nearly three and a half months pregnant.