An Accidental Tragedy (4 page)

Obviously, to prevent a state of near anarchy it was imperative that a regent, or governor, was appointed as soon as possible. He would take over the palaces and treasure of the king and receive the income from his estates until the new sovereign took power for herself; the governor would also be the most influential man in the kingdom. Immediately, David Beaton, Cardinal-Archbishop of St Andrews, stepped into the gap. He was fifty years old, an experienced diplomat and a dedicated Catholic – in spite of numerous mistresses and illegitimate offspring. He was a supporter of a Franco-Scottish alliance and a bitter opponent of Henry VIII’s reformation of the English Church. He now presented Scotland with what he claimed to be the late king’s will, passing power to a committee of four governors – the earls of Huntly, Moray, Argyll and Arran – with himself as chief of the council and ‘tutor testamentary’ to the princess whom he memorably described as a ‘skittering [inconsequential] lass’. Since the will was detailed in its instructions for the education of a princess, James must have written it in the four days between 10 and 14 December, while he was dying. But he was unconscious for most of the time and lucid for none of it; he called for no secretaries, gave no instructions and apparently died intestate.
The king had died in Beaton’s arms and the cardinal was rumoured to have gained the royal signature to a blank document which he afterwards completed as the king’s will. It was all very neat. Beaton’s ‘will’ was clearly an opportunistic forgery made with the help of one Henry Balfour, and it was immediately challenged by the Earl of Arran.

James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran, had, in fact, an extremely close hereditary claim to the throne himself. His grandfather had married Mary Stewart, the sister of James III, and so James had royal Stewart blood in his veins. However, his grandfather may not have been free to marry Mary since his dubious divorce from his previous wife was tacitly accepted without any solid proof. Arran could, therefore, have been the son of a bastard. An undoubtedly legitimate descendant was the Earl of Lennox, but his claim came entirely from the female line and thus was weaker. It was from this line that Henry Darnley sprang. But if the child Mary should die – always a strong possibility – then Arran could claim the crown for himself.

Arran was, however, one of the most incompetent and vacillating men ever to draw hesitant breath in Scotland. Every move he made was for his own personal gain and advancement, but he lacked the wit or constancy to determine where that gain might lie or how to pursue it. He allied himself at first with Marie de Guise and Catholic France, then changed sides to join John Knox and the Reformation. He made very sure, however, that by January 1542 he was confirmed in the office of governor, where his first act was to appoint Cardinal Beaton as chancellor. Then, with a volte-face which would come to typify the man, he threw the cardinal into prison. He was highly relieved when Henry released the noblemen captured at Solway Moss without asking for any ransom, but it never occurred to him to question this apparent generosity.

Henry VIII had the same ambition for personal power, but, unlike Arran, he knew precisely how to achieve it. His cheapest, and most effective, way to bring Scotland into his orbit was for the young Mary to marry Prince Edward, and so the nobles were
released on condition that they supported this plan. Oaths of fealty and agreements of loyalty were struck, rewards were promised and Arran unwittingly welcomed back a faction totally committed to English domination. Better to be a rich earl under an English king than a poor one under an indecisive governor and a French dowager. Arran suspected none of this.

James V was buried with full royal pomp on 10 January 1543 in Holyrood Abbey beside Madeleine and his two dead sons. He had not had a happy reign. His ruthless expertise at raising money from his nobility struck fear into the clergy, who were well aware of the king’s Tudor uncle’s enthusiasm for looting churches and monasteries, and felt that they could easily be next to be fleeced. James had, however, put in place the basis for contemporary Scots law, founding the High Court of Justiciary in 1532 – albeit based on the Northern Italian courts of Pavia – and he left a treasury of £26,000 Scots. He was also said to be ‘well-plated’; in other words he had a considerable hoard of gold and silver plate. This was a popular form of investment as it could be quickly melted down in time of need. The same was true of the gold chains worn by the nobility. The sixteenth-century historian John Leslie called James the ‘poor man’s king – a maintainer of justice, an executor of the laws and a defender of the innocent and pure’.

The dowager queen was still at Linlithgow Palace with her daughter, but was well aware of the incompetent machinations of Arran. History has accused Marie de Guise of many things but incompetence has never been one of them. Wisely, since she had her own plans for her daughter, Marie now made sure that the infant Mary stayed at Linlithgow in her personal care rather than that of Arran. She was well aware of the importance of her new daughter as a dynastic prize, knowing that Henry would be keen to gain control over both her and her daughter. Henry’s warden of the Marches, Viscount Lisle, had said of Mary, ‘I would she and her nurse were in my lord prince’s house.’

The first official approach came when Mary was less than four months old. Sir Ralph Sadler rode into Holyrood Palace as
Henry’s ambassador to negotiate a marriage treaty. Sadler was ‘of low stature . . . well skilled in all exercises and remarkable for both strength and activity’. He was a professional diplomat, trained under Thomas Cromwell and no stranger to Scotland. He had attempted to separate James V from his French alliances, but James had ‘weighed the profuse liberality of François I against the niggard present of a set of horses’. A propitiative gift of a mere six geldings had been sent by the parsimonious Henry.

Now, in late March, Sadler was met by Arran, who told him that he would have no objection to the marriage and that the assent of the Scottish estates, could be guaranteed provided Henry dealt with Arran alone. This made it clear that bribes and guarantees of Arran’s continuation as governor would be needed. Sadler hinted that a marriage between Arran’s son, James Hamilton, and Henry’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, might be considered, but Arran was unimpressed by this and made it clear that his current price was a single payment of £1,000. He promised Sadler support for Henry’s religious reformation but, in private, he continued to practise as a Catholic. Arran would cheerfully have sold Sadler the furniture in the palace, all of which, as governor, he had the power to dispose of. The Englishman realised very quickly that Arran represented a problem that could simply be bought off or threatened into submission. Therefore Sadler’s next move was to Linlithgow where, he was certain, a Guise queen mother would be made of sterner stuff.

Sadler, as a properly cautious ambassador, insisted on seeing the infant himself – a not uncommon practice – and Marie instructed the nurses to unwrap the five-month-old baby for him. Sadler was even allowed to hold Mary on his knee while the royal nurses watched anxiously, but Mary gurgled winsomely and Sadler became the first of many men who fell under the spell of Mary Stewart, describing her as ‘as goodly a child as I have seen and as like to live, with the grace of God’.

The child was wrapped up again and removed for her feed
while Sadler and Marie discussed the possibility of a marriage to Edward. Knowing her devotion to the Catholic faith and her strong ties with France, he expected that she would object violently and he would have to return to the venal Arran. But Sadler did not know that on 20 February Marie had received a letter from Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and Henry’s lord lieutenant of the Borders, telling her that the marriage was ‘not only to the high advancement of [her] daughter but also thereby shall cease much trouble and effusion of blood’. It was an offer she was not supposed to be able to refuse, but such threats only brought grim smiles of determination to the face of Marie de Guise. Marie knew what Sadler’s expectations would be and now completely outflanked him by agreeing to every demand. She was ‘most willing and comfortable to [his] majesty’s purpose’, and even to having the child removed to safekeeping in London. She had, of course, no intention of doing any of this.

Arran had dismissed her French ambassadors and was attempting, ineffectually, to isolate Marie by trying to have her correspondence intercepted. However, she had already smuggled out one letter to her mother, who was gathering allies in François I’s court against the possibility of trouble in Scotland. By agreeing completely, if insincerely, with Sadler, Marie sidelined Arran. Sadler could now deal directly with the queen mother and forget Arran. He could reassure Henry that he had influence over the real power, while Marie quietly continued with her own agenda.

Marie knew that, however idyllic Linlithgow Palace was, it could never withstand a siege, and she knew that a weakling like Arran would quickly turn to violence when thwarted. She called Arran ‘the most inconstant man in the world, for whatsoever he determineth today, he changeth tomorrow’. To ensure her continuing custody of Mary, her mother had already started sending covert loads of treasure, plate and furnishings to her own castle of Stirling, which was much more easily defended.

Stirling Castle, which Marie held in her own right as part of her marriage settlement, stands, like Edinburgh’s, high on a rock with an eagle’s viewpoint over the surrounding countryside. It is
all but impregnable. Once there, the infant would be secure, but Arran, who had got wind of her plans, forbad Marie to leave Linlithgow. The dowager queen continued to subvert Sadler, telling him that Arran would break his word, wait until Henry was dead and then marry Mary to his own son and seize the throne himself. Marie had no evidence for this except that most people were willing to believe the worst of Arran, and Sadler was inclined to believe her. In fact, as it turned out, there was no need to implement the move to Stirling, since Marie’s Guise connections in France were beginning to bear fruit.

The intelligence from France was that François was financing Mary’s uncle the Duc de Guise to raise an army, if it should be needed. In the event, François sent Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, Arran’s rival in the line of inheritance, to Scotland. (While living in exile, Lennox had become a French citizen and changed the spelling of Stewart to Stuart, the French version of his name.) Lennox came prepared for conflict and occupied his castle at Dumbarton on the north coast of the Clyde – another impregnable rock-perched stronghold. Cardinal Beaton – called by Henry ‘the best Frenchman in Scotland’ – had been moved from prison to his own stronghold at St Andrews, and the Catholic lords were gathering around him. Henry, impatient and sickened by the lack of results in Scotland, now ordered Arran to move the child to Edinburgh Castle. The impotent Arran, since he had no power to do this without a confrontation with Marie, Lennox and Beaton, prevaricated. His feeble excuse was that the baby was teething and could not be moved. The two sides were now clearly defined. Marie, Beaton and Lennox had the growing backing of François and were in possession of the infant Mary. Arran had a few of the lords, who were fulfilling their promises given to Henry during their imprisonment after Solway Moss, and Henry himself was breathing down Arran’s neck, demanding action.

Tudor patience was very limited and Henry’s had run out. ‘The king’s majesty causeth such preparations of force and power to be made on the borders, as in case these promises, gentle
handling and reasonable communication take not effect, the king’s majesty may use his own princely power and strength.’ He let Arran know that he would send a treaty to be agreed with the implied threat that if it was not immediately agreed to Scotland could expect an English invasion. This was the Treaty of Greenwich, and on 1 July 1543 it was duly agreed with no great enthusiasm. Henry, above all, wanted Scotland to be tied to him by treaty and to be unlikely to call for French help, while he himself had the freedom to look across the Channel for an opportunity to invade France. The terms of the treaty were therefore surprisingly favourable to Scotland. Mary would stay in Scotland until she was aged ten, and Henry would send a nobleman and his wife to supervise her education when she was of a suitable age. In other words he wanted Edward’s bride to speak English, not French or Scots. On her tenth birthday Mary would marry Prince Edward in England, the implication being that she would not return to Scotland. The terms of the dowry were agreed, although both sides knew they could be renegotiated. Astonishingly, Henry agreed that the kingdom of Scotland should ‘retain its ancient laws and liberties’. He was guaranteeing Scotland’s independence for ten years, with the promised marriage postponed for the same period. In the manner of these treaties, both sides knew that everything could change in this space of time, and all the parties involved set about making what profit they could from it.

In the meantime, Sadler was receiving the inevitable requests for money to secure the loyalty of the Scottish lords. These ranged from £100 from the Earl Marischal and the Earl of Angus, through £300 for Lord Maxwell, up to the £1,000 for Arran himself. Arran assured Sadler that he could control the Scottish lords: ‘If they would not do their duties to him he would notify the world of their disloyalty and would seek help of England and all parts of the world to be revenged on them.’ If his adversaries opposed him he would ‘surely stick’ to Henry, and all the strongholds south of the Forth ‘should be ready at [Henry’s] commandment’. He now wanted to have a contract of
marriage between Elizabeth and his son, and hinted that his purchasing loyalty for Henry had meant that he had had to melt some of his own plate into coin, but the immediate payment of £1,000 would put matters right. Sadler, wisely, had withheld this money since he felt that Arran’s use of it would be ‘unfruitful’, but in July he released the funds. The effect of this was that by August, Arran was asking for another £5,000.

To Sadler’s disquiet, Arran still wanted to have close supervision over Mary, in case she was whisked away to France. This was beginning to look more likely as Marie had made a formal alliance with Beaton and Lennox and their troops were gathering at Linlithgow. There was a rumour that French ships were lying off the coast, although no one had actually seen them directly. Sadler wanted Mary to be taken to Stirling, out of the way of possible armed conflict, and, since this was precisely what Marie wanted, she was delighted to oblige.