An Accidental Tragedy (41 page)

Clumsily wishing to ensure that such things never happened again, the parliament moved against women in general: ‘In no times coming any women shall be admitted to the public authority of the realm or function in public government within the same.’

Lord Herries objected to the letters of abdication, claiming them to be invalid, and he wanted to visit Mary to hear her wishes in person. He led a minority of members in refusing to sign the Act of Abdication. It was, however, passed, along with forty-one other acts stiffening the grip of the Reformation, a Confession of Faith re-affirming the belief in Calvinist doctrines and more extreme acts against the Catholics. The Hamilton faction did not attend the parliament.

Moray spent two days in Edinburgh Castle, where he gave the keepership to Grange, then set about his regency by seizing
whatever had belonged to Bothwell, immediately forcing Patrick Wilson, now declared a regicide, to deliver up the castle of Dunbar after a brief siege. This act had more than territorial significance since it was at Dunbar that the bulk of Mary’s jewellery was kept, and, as she had rightly suspected, Moray took possession of it all, including her rings. Mary had seen this happen before, to Diane de Poitiers at the death of Henri II and to herself at the death of François II. In those cases the gems became royal property, but now Moray gave some to his wife and kept the remainder for his own use.

In September Moray met with the Lords, who presented him with some gilt plate and questioned his intentions towards Bothwell, to which Moray replied that they ‘could not merchandise for the bear’s skin before they had him’. Throckmorton also noted that the Hamiltons had ‘a convention in the west country’ and on 5 September Bedford told Cecil that Moray meant to take up arms against them. However, by 15 September Moray had met Argyll with the Hamiltons for discussions. These must have been fruitless, since on 17 September the Hamiltons demanded the liberty of the queen and the bringing to justice of Darnley’s murderers. They avowed their allegiance to James as prince but not as king, and pledged to seek ‘the relief of the lords that took this in hand’. They had now levied 400 footmen and had the promise of 9,000 more. The battle lines were being drawn up, although on 14 October Moray assured Cecil, ‘the state of the realm draws to a great quietness’. The undercurrent of the secret casket letters – rapidly becoming less and less secret – came to the surface on 16 September, when Moray signed a receipt before the Privy Council for the casket. Along with Morton he declared the letters to be genuine.

Moray also had to face one of the ever-present problems of government: he was now ‘very bare of money’ and undertook the disposition of Mary’s jewels, selling some to the ever-acquisitive Elizabeth. Mary herself, however, was becoming reconciled to her imprisonment, ‘wax[ing] fat’; ‘instead of choler she makes show of mirth and has already drawn divers to pity her’. This
seems to make clear that she always had a propensity to put on weight, which previously she had controlled by vigorous exercise, but now, deprived of that, she was gaining weight rapidly. From June onwards parcels of clothing and other goods started to arrive for the prisoner queen, now joined by Mary Seton, although it was clear that the luxury of her past wardrobe would never be matched again. There were the materials for her embroidery and lengths of material as well as new shoes, handkerchiefs, and underwear. She also received an alarm clock and parcels of false hair for her coiffure. Like all prisoners, for Mary the hope of release was constant, but she was afraid of events which might be taking place outside her prison.

The confessions of the lesser Darnley plotters were extracted and they were barbarously executed. These confessions showed that Bothwell, now safely abroad and imprisoned, was the principal instigator and that his wife, the ex-queen, was his co-conspirator. It was all very satisfactory and the signatories to the Craigmillar Bond could sleep safely in their beds. The nobility even considered the possibility of Mary marrying again – she was still the wife of Bothwell, but that uncomfortable fact could easily be obviated – and several suitors among the nobility were considered, although it is unlikely that Mary herself was consulted.

She was still a close prisoner with thoughts of escape. However, Mary did not want to escape from Loch Leven to reclaim her power as a sovereign, but rather to be free to once again enjoy her life as a princess. She had written to Catherine de Medici and to Elizabeth asking both for help and had managed to get the letters smuggled out, but neither sovereign was inclined to risk a war to rescue a queen accused of murdering her husband. Mary’s own resources for escape were slight, and even the writing of the letters involved her making ink with the soot from her chimney. She had beguiled a boatman to carry her letters, but everyone else was under close supervision and her captors were as much prisoners as Mary herself. She had, however, the willing assistance of
George Douglas, the younger brother of Sir William, and when he was ordered off the island by his brother, as a result of one of the many Douglas family rows, he managed to contact Lord Seton, a close ally of Mary’s.

Mary’s first attempted escape, in late spring, involved disguising herself as a laundress while Mary Seton acted as a decoy on the island. However, one of the boatmen suspected the identity of the six-foot-tall servant and made to pull off the scarf hiding her face. Mary instinctively put her hands up to the scarf, giving herself away – a laundress’s hands are red and roughened with continual washing, but these hands were pure white with elegantly long fingers. Although she was returned to captivity the boatmen did not reveal her attempted escape to anyone else.

Mary now used Willy Douglas, a young orphan, as a courier, but he was slipshod and even dropped secret letters meant for Mary, which were found by the laird’s daughter. The girl promised to keep the matter quiet if Mary took her with her, but Mary, scenting a possible trap, told her that she had no plans to escape. Willy, who had been rewarded with gold pieces by Mary, was now accused of planning an escape and sent away from the island. Surprisingly, Sir William and Lady Douglas took no steps to increase security, but boasted to Mary’s face that they would take good care of her. Meanwhile, George Douglas and Lord Seton had established a body of armed men in the shoreside village of Lochleven and waited for news. Young Willy was allowed to return, bringing Mary news that the escape was planned for 2 May.

There was an unplanned fracas when some servants raised a false alarm as a joke, which turned sour when one of Sir William’s men grabbed an arquebus – which he claimed to have thought was loaded only with paper – and fired it into the crowd, injuring two bystanders. The actual plan involved Mary jumping from a seven- or eight-foot-high wall into a garden. One of her gentlewomen tried the jump first – ‘for she thought it a matter of duty’ – and seriously injured ‘one of the joints of her foot’. This plan was promptly abandoned.

On 2 May 1568 Willy organised a Feast of Unreason at which he took the part of the Abbot of Unreason, insisting that Mary follow him wherever he went. With this he managed to disrupt all the routines on the island and to divert attention from behaviour that otherwise would have sent out serious alarm signals. A large troop of horsemen under James Hamilton of Ormiston was seen passing through the village on the shore, and Mary kept Lady Douglas in conversation until suppertime in order that she would not notice them. Sir William had seen Willy chaining and pegging all the island’s boats – bar one – but Mary managed to divert his attention as well. Mary had received a pearl from George Douglas via a heavily bribed boatman as a signal that everything was now in place.

Sir William served Mary supper by himself and then left her in the charge of ‘a person called Drysdale’, who later absented himself for a game of handball. Mary withdrew from the two daughters of the house, telling them that she wished to pray, which she did ‘very devoutly’ before disguising herself with a hood, as did one of her domestics. Mary’s ladies in waiting, in particular Mary Seton, Jane Kennedy and a Frenchwoman, Marie de Courcelles, were all privy to the plan. Meanwhile, Willy, while serving Sir William, pocketed the key to the great gate, and crossed the courtyard with Mary, in sight of several servants, then passed through the gate, which he locked behind him, throwing the key into a nearby cannon. Mary was seen by some washerwomen whom Willy cautioned to keep quiet, and she got into the boat. Here, the boatman advised her to lie on the bottom boards in case of gunshots. The crossing from imprisonment to freedom took only a very few minutes. She was met by George Douglas and John Beaton, who had horses for her and the loyal Willy Douglas. Two miles further on, Lord Seton and the Laird of Riccarton joined her escort and conveyed her across the River Forth at Queensferry. On the south side of the river she was greeted by Claude Hamilton, second son of Châtelherault, with twenty more horses, and arrived safely at Seton’s palace in the village of Niddry about midnight.

For all the foregoing account we depend on Mary’s reminiscences to Claude Nau and, typically, she recalls how waiting for her at Niddry was not news of the politics of Scotland but ‘dresses and all other necessaries befitting her sex and dignity’. Since her personal wardrobe was in the hands of Moray and the Confederate Lords, these must have been borrowed clothes. From Niddry Castle she then travelled the twenty-five miles west to Hamilton, where she could be sure of safety from the Lords, although Throckmorton mistrusted the motives of the Hamilton faction: ‘Those who provided the means of escape did so with no other intention than to seize the government of the realm.’

Meanwhile, at Lochleven Castle, the Douglas daughters quickly discovered that Mary was missing, and Sir William realised that the most important prisoner in Scotland had escaped from his personal care. His theatrical, though unsuccessful, attempt at suicide by stabbing himself was duly noted and no revenge was taken against him. He does not give the impression of being a man of great intelligence, but he had been in the difficult position of having to please his half-brother Moray while, at the same time, behaving honourably to Mary just in case she returned to power. Like so many men faced with the situation of a coup d’état, he was sensibly cautious about making his choice of sides too obvious. Three days later he sent Mary’s belongings after her and she was once again reunited with some of her possessions.

Mary now had two new attendants with her in the persons of George and Willy Douglas, both of whom had fallen under her spell and willingly continued in her service. Also, her very presence as a free woman was acting as a magnet for her supporters, and on 8 May a bond was signed at Hamilton by nine earls, nine bishops, eighteen lords and many others, who promised ‘to bind themselves to serve and obey her with their bodies, lands, good friends, etc.’ However, ‘Their force is not great and very evil frayed’.

Regent Moray had not been idle. On 3 May, when he was said to be ‘fair amazed’, he had summoned an army to convene at
Glasgow, while four days later a broadsheet was printed by Robert Leprevik outlawing any Marian supporters as traitors. Since Moray himself was at Glasgow only eight miles distant from Hamilton, the two sides could meet very rapidly, so the likelihood of another farcical Chase-about Raid was very slim. Mary had now repudiated her forced abdication and Drury told Throckmorton that he doubted if she had ever read the document. Mary now behaved as if she were restored to full power and sent Hepburn of Riccarton to Dunbar with instructions to seize the castle before proceeding to Denmark and recalling Bothwell. The journey was a sad failure and achieved neither of its ambitions.

Mary, however, had to decide how aggressively she should pursue her restoration, and Melville reported that ‘she was not minded to fight, or hazard battle’ – understandable after Carberry – but she was advised by the house of Hamilton, who realised that they had a numerical advantage over Moray’s forces and recommended a move to a swift engagement. With this in mind letters were written on 5 and 6 May to ‘all and sundry kings, princes, dukes, dominators, and magistrates, our friends . . . to all and sundry our lawful and well advised friends’. The contents were vitriolic in the extreme – she called Moray a ‘spurious bastard’, a ‘bestial traitor’ who murdered Darnley and incited Bothwell to ravish her. Châtelherault was now her ‘father adoptive’; she revoked her abdication and appointed Châtelherault and his heirs as regents and tutors to James ‘in the event of her absence in foreign countries’. In the event of her death, Châtelherault and the house of Hamilton would inherit the crown. Lethington and Balfour were condemned as traitors, as was the Laird of Craigmillar, while Cessford and Kerr of Fawdonside were soulless bloody tyrants. The list continued in this vein, but it is doubtful whether the letters were ever signed or delivered. Mary certainly saw and approved them, and she may even have had a hand in drafting them, but the historian Hay Fleming infers that the true author was Hamilton, the Archbishop of St Andrews.

Undoubtedly, Mary’s best option was to reach a defensible strong point and from there summon a united army against Moray, some of whose forces were already bleeding away to join Mary’s troops led by Argyll. A swift move north to encircle Glasgow from the east would open the path to Dumbarton, while her superiority in numbers could contain Moray. At Dumbarton Mary could draw breath and collect her forces – ‘Little by little to draw home again unto her obedience the whole subjects.’ It also provided a ready outlet to the sea should a flight to France become necessary – we have already heard her consider her ‘absence in foreign countries’. Moreover, if she moved with enough speed she could reach Stirling, presently held by Mar, before he could join forces with Moray. Unfortunately the warlike counsels of Argyll and the Hamiltons prevailed, and Mary, rejecting her earlier plan ‘not to hazard battle but to pass to the castle of Dumbarton’, chose the worst option and marched north-west with 6,000 men. Moray was astonished at this move but marched south-east to the Gallowgate Port and drew up his much inferior forces on the hill overlooking the village of Langside. Mary expected no conflict and led her army as she was used to – in ‘a sort of parade’.