The story of Mary Queen of Scots stands out vividly in the history of both Scotland and England. It is a story filled with romance, mystery, and intrigue. Mary is presented as a brilliant myth almost too forceful to have been human, with a story almost to vivid to be four hundred years old. Around Mary is still a cloud of controversy and unknown. The only thing that seems certain is that the eventful life of the beautiful Scottish queen was not the fairy tale dream it may have seemed in her youth in France, but a torrid nightmare.

Prelude
Sweet Dreams
Storms on the Horizon
Downpour!
Ill -Thought Coupling
Outrage at Holyrood House
Lightning Strikes In Edinburgh
Aftermath
Another Match is Lit
The Caged Lioness of Scotland
The Death of Mary Stuart

Prelude

A chill wind blew through the isles of Britain in the winter of 152. Snows fell as few living could recall it falling before as ships sat frozen in their harbors. But in addition to the bitter weather, another wind was blowing. It was a blast of political discontent that carried the scent of war.

James the Fifth, King of Scotland, sat on a bankrupted throne in a harsh land. Only the spring before the two male heirs bore to him by his wife, Mary of Guise, had taken ill and died. James's domestic policies had alienated a large portion of his nobles and his refusal to join with England's Henry VIII in rejecting the Roman church had led to tremulous tensions between the two nations.

In 1541, James had failed to show at a conference demanded by his Uncle Henry, who like many monarchs of England looked down on Scotland while holding that it should rightfully be under English sovereignty. The reason given for this failure was concern that James's life was too valuable to Scotland after the deaths of his heirs. It is obvious that James and his advisors felt they had reason to be wary of their southern neighbours. It may be that this was justified as Henry grabbed this slight as a reason to send his armies north to chastise the Scottish monarch.

On November 24th, 1542, the forces of England met with those of Scotland, under the inapt command of the king's favorite, Oliver Sinclair. The Scottish army, discontent, undisciplined, and untrained, where easily defended as many, including their commander, threw down their weapons to flee or beg mercy from the enemy.

James was stricken when he heard the news of his army and his friend Sinclair in whom he had placed his full and misguided confidence. Ill even before the tidings, the king's health now worsened. The news of an heir newly born to the queen at Linlithgow did little to cheer the king as the child was born female. The king sighed and breathed the cryptic phrase, "It began with a lass, it will pass with a lass." Six days later, James V calmly died.

And so it was that an infant girl was virtually born the Queen of Scotland.

 

Sweet Dreams

Obviously, with an infant Queen, Scotland was facing yet another long regency over a crowned minor. Much of the first year of Mary's life was spent by her elders in debate over who should govern Scotland until Mary was of an age to do so herself. Finally, the selection rested on Arran Stewart, a cousin of Mary's who was in fact next in line to the throne, although it is very doubtful that he could ever had attained it without vast amounts of bloodshed.

The other great debate of Mary's infancy was that of her marriage. It may seem odd to a modern reader that so much fuss should be put into decided who a suckling baby was going to marry when she became a woman, but in the sixteenth century, if that babe was a monarch the issue was of the utmost importance.

In the medieval world, it would have been only too logical for the queen to have been wed to the son of her regent, but although Arran did have an eligible son this was not to be Mary's fate. In this specific case, it is doubtful that such a marriage would have been allowed by the nobles of Scotland, who felt reason to fear a Lennox-Stewart on the throne.

The issue takes on particular importance when one looks at the bloodlines of Mary Stewart. Not only was she clearly born to the Scottish throne, but her grandmother had been the elder sister of Henry VIII of England, giving her a claim to that southern crown as well.

The Treaties of Greenwich signed between Scotland and England in 1543 arranged for the marriage of the infant Mary to the son of Henry VIII, her cousin Edward Tudor. Although the treaty allowed for the recognition of Scotland as an independent nation after the marriage, King Henry demanded that Mary not be allowed to stay in Scotland until her tenth birthday as the Scottish delegates insisted but that she be sent to England immediately to be raised in Henry's court, a concession the Scots where not willing to make.

There were, of course, other problems with a marriage between Mary and Prince Edward, not the least of which was the great Scottish distrust of the English. The Scots greatly feared England would ignore the treaty and make Scotland an English province rather than an independent nation.

It was with this in mind that the lords of Scotland started to look elsewhere for a match as Henry VIII, enraged at the spurning of the marriage treaty, led bloody raids across the Scottish borders in an attempt to beat the Scottish into acting agreeably. For this reason, Mary was moved frequently during her first years of life.

In 1547, France had a new monarch, Henri II, who was eager to placate the powerful Guise fraction of his nobility and hence began to instill in France a certain popularity for the renewal of the "auld alliance" between Scotland and France. England also had a new monarch, the boy Edward VI. This did little improve the relations between Scotland and England as within a year the boy's regent, his uncle Lord Seymour, had sent an army North to quell the Scottish.

In 1548, not surprisingly, an agreement was reached between France and Scotland to marry Mary to the French dauphin, Francois. In late July of that year, the young Mary Stewart boarded a French galley and set sale for a new home in the land of her mother's birth. Her mother herself sadly watched her child wretched away from her to the warm and beloved country of her youth while she stayed alone in the harsh and dismal land that her second marriage had brought her to.

The English did not react well to young Mary's relocation, but despite their efforts the queen and her party, including the famous "four Maries" who were to be with her for many years, made it safely to France. Two of Mary's half brothers also accompanied her, but due to a last minute change her half brother James Stewart, who was to be so very influential in her life, remained in Scotland.

Mary's arrival in France brought her instantly into a new spotlight as she disembarked one of the more well loved figured in France. The common people adored her, most of the nobility smiled upon her, and her future father in law upon first glance was to announce that this was the most perfect and beautiful child her had ever seen. She was given a position in France below that of the king, but above that of his daughters. She was the darling of the French court and the pride of the house of Guise, her mother's domineering and ambitious, but loving family.

Mary lived happily in France as the dauphin's betrothed until just after her fifteenth birthday, when they were married in a lavish ceremony at the Notre Dame Cathedral followed by an even more lavish Parisian banquette and celebration. Three things mar this marriage in the eyes of many historians. They are three pieces of paper in which the young Mary, fifteen, inexperienced, and used to listening to her "father" Henri signed her rights to the thrones of Scotland and England to the French crown should she die without issue, declared Scotland and its revenues to belong to France until such time as the French were repaid the cost of keeping troops in Scotland to protect Mary's throne from England, and renounced in advance anything she might do at a later time that was contrary to the first two documents. It may seem odd that Mary would sign these documents, but she had no one to tell her not to and many people she trusted pushing the secret treaties. Mary, little more than a child, was at this time still very easy to lead.

Her marriage brought Mary the title Queene-Dauphinness and her husband the tittle of King-Dauphin. It was a prestigious alliance that seems to have brought happiness to the couple involved. While the details of their marriage are unknown, the court gossip would leave us to wonder if the reason no child was conceived is that the pair remained virgin due to an impotence of young Francios. However, whatever problems the couple may have had, it seems that the marriage was backed by a genuine affection.

England could only look at the couple with some amount of fear and confusion. England had undergone many changes in government over the last few years. Henry VIII had left his throne to his son Edward VI without dreaming that the boy would die childless at the age of sixteen. Henry's will had named his daughters Mary and Elizabeth to be heirs after Edward, but at other times in his rule, both daughters had been named bastards. This was the reason given for the nine day rule of the girl Jane Grey, who was led to the throne by manipulative parents and beheaded a year later at the age of fifteen by the woman who took the throne from her, Mary I. The years of Mary's reign where bloody as she and her extremely unpopular Catholic husband, Phillip II of Spain, attempted to reinstate the authority of the Pope. However, the country had been Protestant too long to turn back at that point and Mary was met with great resistance. It was with relief that the nation accepted her sister, Elizabeth I, a Queen who refused to do anything to increase religious unrest. However, Elizabeth was the daughter of Anne Bolyn and by Catholic standards Henry had never been legally married to Anne Bolyn as he had not been able to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Argon. Hence, Elizabeth was illegitimate and could not inherit a throne. This scandalous truth led many to look for the next in line to the throne. The one person with the strongest claim to the throne once Elizabeth was discounted was Mary Stuart, already Queen of Scotland and soon to be Queen of France. Under the guidance of her father-in-law, Mary and her husband began to display on their seals the arms of not only Scotland and France, but also of Ireland and England. An enraged Elizabeth stewed on he other side of the channel and was never to forget this slight.

In 1559, the Princess Elisabeth of France was married to King Philip II of Spain. During the farewell celebrations for the princess, there was much feasting and sport, including the joust of which the king was fond. Henri was to spend most of the day in sport, stopping only when during a joust his opponent's spear shattered, sending a shard into the king's eye in the exact same fashion that the queen had dreamed the night before and in a way that somewhat resembled a prophecy by Nostradamus. He lived for another week before passing in pain from this world, leaving a crown behind for his eldest son and his Scottish daughter-in-law.

Francois II was not to be a very strong king. He was content to be led by his advisors, his mother, and his wife in all things. It is unclear what the true feelings between the two women on this list were. At times, their relationship seemed to be fair and at other times, they seemed to be despising rivals. There could not have been much maternal affection on the part of Catherine de Medicis, however, as when later in Mary's life she desperately needed help from foreign friends, Catherine was to deny her the help of France. However, much of Mary's later personality seems to have been inspired by the powerful and independent Catherine.

Despite the proximity of the mother-in-law Mary may or may not have resented, her life as the Queen of France was a good one. The "White Lily" as she was known was still as loved as she had ever been. She now had to contend with her Guise relatives scrabbling for power on the basis of their relation to her, but it is doubtful that she resented this as she had been raised to love and respect the Guise family. Her instinct for power and rule was coming out into brilliant light although the deaths of her mother and father-in-law grieved her deeply, she was surrounded by people she cared about and could hardly not be content.

Then, in November of 1560, the bottom was to fall out of Mary's world. On the sixteenth, Francios began to complain of an earache. On the seventeenth, he fainted during a chapel service, falling to the floor with a large knot swelling up behind his left ear. Despite the frantic nursing of Mary and Catherine, the young king, a month short of seventeen years old, faded from life on the fifth of December.

It is uncertain of precisely what killed Francios. It was widely rumored to have been poison, but that is unlikely. He was definitely not poisoned by the Guise family as has been theorized as this would have been the height of stupidity; the family of Guise lost much power and prestige when their little Mary became a Queen Dowager of France rather than a Queen of France. The most likely explanation is that Francois was simply the victim of a weak immune system, dying from discharge from an ear infection rather than by a political poison.

On the death of Francois, Mary retired to her rooms, where she was to remain in anguish for over a month. Her misery was three fold. She had lost a dear friend from childhood, she had lost a husband, and she had lost her power in France. Her grief at the loss of her was genuine and far from contrived. Poems of lament testify to her sorrow and during her mourning, Mary designed a special seal, depicting a licorice tree bearing the phrase, "My treasure lies under the ground." A device featuring the couple's entwined initials had been designed early in their marriage and Mary would continue to use it throughout her life.

Mary could have remained in France and lived comfortably on the allowance granted to a queen dowager, but she still had to think of Scotland. Mary could not have had much desire to rule alone a land she could hardly remember which was so starkly different from the land that had become her home as Scotland was from France, but when she emerged from her mourning she did indeed announce intentions the leave the warm comfort of France for the throne of a chill and distance land.

The trip was uneventful save for a brief and dramatic encounter with a British Navy ship. Mary had set sail without the passport needed to travel through British waters because Queen Elizabeth has been unpredictably slow at granting the right of passage. It had been Elizabeth's intention to withhold the passport if her cousin Mary did not sign a treaty which gave up her claim to the English throne; however, when Elizabeth heard that Mary was sailing with or without the passport, the English Queen quickly signed the right of passage, although it did not arrive in France until after Mary's departure.

The cold wind and bitter rains that met Mary in Scotland could only serve to highlight the contrasts between the world she had left and the world she would now rule. Mary rode through a dreary landscape on inferior horses rapidly provided on her arrival (her own horses were in quarantine). Though Mary, accustomed to the graces of French weather and equisterinism, must have felt some degree of despair at this new situation, she accepted the hardships with grace and a smile that endeared her in the hearts of her Scottish subjects.

Mary was soon instilled at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. There is a story that on the first night of her arrival at the house a group of locals offered her a nighttime serenade. Although they were totally off key and Mary had a very sensitive musical ear, the queen nevertheless went graciously to the window to accept their well wishes. She thanked them for the service they had bid her and invited them to return and sing to her again, which they were more than happy to do.

However, not everyone in Scotland was happy to see Mary return. John Knox, for example, commented on the weather that surrounded Mary's arrival that the woman brought with her "sorrow, dolour, darkness, and impiety." Knox was never to welcome Mary; he and his followers stood staunchly Protestant and despite her kindness, indulgence, and religious tolerance, they would never accept the beautiful Catholic Queen.

Although she did her best to accept it, the Scotland that Mary arrived in was a very strange place to her. The government had recently enforced the creed of Protestantism on the nation without much up cry as the ministers had the foresight to bribe the religious authorities, an example that would have saved England's Henry VIII much grief. The populace very superstitious and the cry of "witchcraft!" was busy spreading terror into Scottish hearts. Nevertheless, for all their speech of religious piety, lawlessness and lack of trust ran rampant in the government, where murder was often deemed necessary and oaths were seldom kept.

The Queen had allowed it to be known very early that she did not intend to oppose Protestantism in Scotland. However, she did wish for a tolerance of Catholicism and refused to keep herself and her staff from observing the Mass as they had always done. Sadly, the religious activists of the Protestant cause in Scotland refused to be so tolerant and on Mary's first Sunday in her realm, a mob formed outside her chapel. They attached a servant carrying candles into the church and made for the doorway. They did not pass the threshold, however, as there they were met by the imposing figure of the Lord James, elder half-brother of the Queen. But they had caused enough of a fuss to get the message through to those inside the chapel, who could only wonder and fear the fanaticism.

After issuing two decrees, one forbidding the change of the religious situation of Scotland from that which Mary had found and another declaring that no one should interrupt the religious observances of those who had traveled from France with the Queen, bother under pain of death, Mary summoned the agitator John Knox into her presence. The interview did not go well. Mary fond in Knox a religious zealot who could no more accept that someone else might have a valid opinion than Mary could return to her life as Queen of France. Knox left the audience with a conviction that the sovereign was a "fair devil" and Mary was left in tears of frustration and hurt.

Fortunately, the council of Scotland seemed to believe that little could be gained from a fight with the Queen and submitted to her charms. While Mary could not bring the Catholic faith back to Scotland, she could work with the Protestant regime and attempt to lesson religious intolerance and to actually run a government.

The next few months were far from peaceful as plots abounded around the court. It was rumored the Queen was to be kidnapped. Then the Lord of Bothwell, with a group of friends including a half brother of the Queen, attempted while masked to force their ways into a local house to visit a certain daughter in revenge against Lord Arran, who was said to be her lover. This caused a religious uproar and greatly offended Mary's sensitivities. Several months later, Arran reported that Bothwell wanted to murder James and the ambassador Maitland and then kidnap the Queen. This was the second threat of abduction in the first six months of Mary's return. Although Arran was by this point regarded as a mad man, the Queen nevertheless sent Bothwell into the cells of Edinburgh Castle.

Things then calmed down somewhat for a while as Mary dealt with government, budget problems, and recreations such as hunting, dancing, and archery. John Knox still found nothing of value in the Queen and everything of heretical irreligion. He criticized her dances, her song, her hunts, her dogs, her friends, her education, and her gender. He ranted against her to anyone who would listen. However, Mary was still determined not to cause religious strife and allowed the man to remain at liberty at a time when most sovereigns in her position would have had him beheaded. Despite Knox, Scotland ran well and the people where happy with their dear Queen Mary, a beautiful woman with a kind heart and a delicious sense of fun.

However, Philip was ultimately to decline the offer to marry his son into the fairly obscure Scotland monarchy and before Mary and Elizabeth could finally effect the long awaited meeting, a great pot of trouble boiled over in France. A bloody prosecution of the Huguenots began in France, mostly under the guidance of Mary Stuart's own uncle. England was being drawn in to defend the Protestants while Mary was drawn towards Catholic sympathies. Scotland, with its Catholic queen and Protestant government, remained neutral in the conflict. However, it was obvious that then was not the time for a friendly tea party featuring Mary and Elizabeth.

In August, Mary turned her mind from the disappointing fact that she would not be meeting with her cousin that summer and journeyed into the North of her own country. It was to be a most exiting venture.

The Earl of Huntly, the head of the powerful and adamantly Catholic Gordon family, had been raking Mary's nerves for several months. He had openly claimed the lands of Moray, which Mary had granted to her half-brother James. He had made weak excuses to avoid attending Mary on the proposed Southern trip to speak with Elizabeth. His son had recently been involved in a public quarrel on the High Street in Edinburgh. And, perhaps the most annoying, the Earl constantly gave the Queen fear that he would rise in a Catholic rebellion, which would at the present time have only hurt the cause of Scottish Catholicism.

Days into the Queen's progress, she rested in Old Aberdeen. The sights around her were dismal as the city lay in near ruin thanks to the militant Protestantism preached by Knox. Mary could hardly have been in the best of moods when she summoned Huntly to meet her, with no more than one hundred men, in the pathetic remains of the city. The Earl arrived promptly, but not quite as summoned. With Huntly came an escort of fifteen hundred armed men. A disgruntled Mary met briefly with the Earl and caustically refused his invitation to rest the night in his house. Instead, the Queen went on to Inverness to stay in humbler, but more friendly, lodgings.

The Queen's displeasure with Huntly led her to make two quick decisions from Darnaway, undoubtedly at her brother's prompting. The first action was to declare openly that the title of Moray belonged to James Stuart and that no other was in any way entitled to lay claim to it. That this was made public while the Queen was in Huntly's own territory made the insult twice as blatant. Additionally, Mary demanded the houses of Findlater and Auchendown as payment for the slight Huntly had paid her by disobeying the orders specifying the size of his escort to Aberdeen and for assembling his Highlanders to threaten the Queen.

When in mid-September Mary and her escort rode to Inverness, a possession of the crown in the keeping of the Gordons, she attempted to take control of the fortress. However, Alexander Gordon, the deputy in command during the absence of Huntly, refused her entry from behind locked gates. Mary's ire rose as she and her party laid camp outside the walls. Throughout the night, armed Highlanders streamed to the field. Some where there to defend the fortress, but the majority had come to serve their Queen. When the sun rose and those inside the walls looked out on the scene below, they realized that they were hopelessly outnumbered and their cause a lost one. Sensibly, they handed Alexander over to the Queen and welcomed her to Inverness. Alexander was beheaded that same day for treason.

Mary, thrilled by the excitement of leading troops into martial victory and happier than she had ever been since arriving in Scotland, then set her sights firmly on the complete destruction of the Gordon family. She did this aptly and with great zeal. By October, Mary had the head of Lord Huntly and Scotland had one less Catholic leader.

Exhausted, the Queen returned to Edinburgh, where she spent a week in sick bed suffering from an unknown illness. She learned that while she had been chasing Huntly, the Lord of Bothwell had escaped confinement but had been taken into custody in London. Meanwhile, also in England, Elizabeth was also ill. The English sovereign had small pox. She was lucky and emerged without a scar despite the pain filled days when most of the world was convinced she was dying. The brush with death influenced Elizabeth's parliament to demand that their Queen settle the succession. Mary listened very close from the North to hear what Elizabeth would do and was disappointed when her cousin adamantly refused the demands of Parliament and failed to name an heir.

As though she had not recently had enough excitement, Mary soon had another source of stress to deal with. Monsieur de Chastelard was a poet of whom Mary was fond. One February night he was found by guards lying underneath Mary's bed in informal attire with a sword and dagger beside him. It was unclear as to whether he was there to attack the Queen, possibly as a French Huguenot ploy, or if perhaps he thought he could seduce her. Either way, he was dragged away into a prison cell. He escaped and foolishly returned to the Queen's chamber crying that the whole sorry mess had been a dreadful misunderstanding. He had not been found under her bed, he pleaded. He had been waiting for her to return so that he could speak to her, since she had always been so kind, and he had simply fallen asleep. His pleading was to no avail for he was not believed. Chastelard was beheaded on February 22, 1563. Before kneeling for the stroke of death, he gazed upon the balcony of the Queen and named her the most beautiful and cruel princess in all the world.

Ill-Thought Coupling

I find her so captivated either by love or cunning (or rather to say truly by boasting or folly) that she is not able to keep promise with herself. - Ambassador Throckmorton

By the spring of 1563, Mary Stuart was actively seeking a husband. She still favored Don Carlos of Spain, but the Spanish had many fear concerning such a match, not the least of which was the threat of an Anglo-French alliance born in retaliation of the marriage. For the Spanish, the gains to be obtained from a bonding with Scotland did not counteract the dangers involved.

There was brief talk of a match with a prince of Austria, but neither party was particularly adamant and the negations were short lived. The French were no longer interested in Mary. And in all of Scotland, Mary had trouble finding a man she would possibly desire to wed.

While Europe watched to see what Mary would do, her cousin Elizabeth decided that her hand was needed. England was obviously against a match between the Queen of Scotland and a power of mainland Europe. Such a marriage would lead to an alliance that could jeopardize the safety of England, particularly her traditionally troublesome northern border. After receiving several missives from Elizabeth concerning who she should not wed, Mary broke down and asked who Elizabeth would consider a fitting husband for Scotland. The answer shocked both courts.

Lord Robert Dudley had long been the favorite of Queen Elizabeth. The rumors surrounding the pair were numerous and varied. It was known that Dudley desired to marry his sovereign, but it was equally well acknowledged that the said monarch was happy virgin and single. Nevertheless, when Dudley's wife was found at the bottom of a staircase one afternoon with a broken neck, quite a few tongues prattled that he had murdered her to make room for another wife. Although Dudley was acquitted of any connection with his wife's death, the controversy surrounding him would obviously keep such a careful woman as Elizabeth I from ever wedding with him. It was still quite a blow when she suggested sending this man, who may well have been a lover and who was definitely her closest friend, to the cold court of Scotland.

Mary Stuart very firmly did not want to marry the discarded favorite of her cousin. His family record was even farther from clean than his personal one. His father and grandfather had both died as traitors. The reputation of his great-grandfather was, of course, impeccable; he had been a trustworthy and competent tailor. Mary did not want to consider marry one of such weak blood. However, she also did not wish to anger Elizabeth by outright refusal and so pretended to consider the option for a while. Dudley himself was no more eager for the match. Yes, he wanted to marry with a queen, but not the one of Scotland. Yet Elizabeth pushed the issue for months and did not allow it to drop until Mary had slapped her in the face with the marriage she did make.

The Earl of Lennox had been placed in the Tower of London in years past on the charge of attempting to marry his son to the Queen of Scotland. This was viewed as a direct threat to Queen Elizabeth as the couple where both in direct line to her throne. (Mary and Henry Stuart were the grandchildren of Margaret Tudor, the elder sister of Henry VIII.) Hence, it was surprising that Elizabeth allowed Lennox to travel to Scotland in 1563. She apparently had second thoughts on the matter as she recalled him and wrote to Mary requesting that he not be allowed to enter Scotland. Mary and many of her lords where greatly angered by this and welcomed Lennox with open arms while writing nasty notes to England.

At this time, Mary's marriage prospects had been severely limited. She had only four choices and none of them were pleasing to her. There was, of course, the English Dudley, who was named Earl of Leiscester in order to make him more appealing to Mary. There were also the Scottish lords Warwick and Arran, the latter of which was thought insane. Lastly, there was the son of Lennox, one Henry Darnley, a lord of both England and Scotland.

With the scarcity of husbands available to her, Mary was seriously considering Lord Darnley. However, she would obviously want to meet him before making a commitment. Mary sent Lord Melville to the English court to ask permission for Darnley to travel to Scotland. Elizabeth's reply to this envoy was to write Mary with an offer. If Mary would wed Dudley and live in England, than she would be named heir to the English throne. This was a definite temptation to a woman who had spent so much of her life struggling for that recognition. However, Mary refused to commit unless Elizabeth would sign a contract confirming the offer. No one was surprised when Elizabeth failed to do so.

In February 1565, Mary and Darnley finally met. While it was not love at first site, Mary seemed quite taken by the graceful lord. He was of feminine feature, true, but he was also very tall, even taller than Mary, who was over 5'10'' and towered over most men. Over the next few months, Mary showed great favor to Darnley. When he took seriously ill, she played nurse and sat by his bedside through several nights. It was obvious to most observers by this point that the Queen was in love.

The lords of Scotland did not react well to the rise of Darnley. They did not wish a Catholic king and they most certainly did not wish to anger Elizabeth by refusing Dudley. Furthermore, they simply did not like Darnley. He was arrogant, abusive, petulant, and lacking in thought. Unlike Mary, her lords could see him clearly without the tint of infatuation to hide his faults.

When Queen Elizabeth heard the rumors that Mary was planning to marry Darnley, she flew into a royal rage. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton rode rapidly to Scotland with orders from his mistress to demand that Mary accept either Dudley or a foreign lord, or at least to postpone a decision. He was to make it abundantly clear that Elizabeth was firmly against the idea of Mary and Darnley wedded.

Despite the harsh reaction of those around her, Mary was determined to follow her heart and her royal prerogative, so long ignored by all around her. On July 29th 1565, before the dispensation from the Pope necessary for Catholic cousins to marry arrived, Mary once again became a wife and Scotland once again had a king.

Elizabeth indulged in the expected temper tantrum when informed of the marriage. However, historians cannot help but wonder if perhaps it was what she had intended all along. Indeed, the marriage was doomed almost from the start and the unhappy marriage of the Queen of Scotland turned into only too good a fortune for the Queen of England.

Also within months of her wedding, Mary had to deal with another betrayal from her brother, the illustrious Earl of Moray. Backed by the money and verbal support of Elizabeth Tudor, Lord James gathered a force to defend his position of power and to defend his Protestant church against the two Catholics now claiming the monarchy. His plan was to fall upon Edinburgh on the twenty-fourth of August, where he hoped the city would flock to his banner. He was somewhat disappointed. Instead of meeting with a populace welcoming his aide and armed men offering him their services into battle, he was met by closed gates and troops loyal to Her Majesty. When the cannons of the castle fired on Moray, he wisely retreated his force.

Moray traveled south and attempted to subvert the countryside there. He was not overly successful. In desperation, he sent to Queen Elizabeth a petition for actual troops to be sent from England. However, the cautious Elizabeth could only shake her head and send more funds. She refused to openly involve herself in this conflict, although it is certain that Mary realized her cousin was very much involved. Before riding out to battle the rebels plaguing her country, Queen Mary took the time to write a brief note chastising Elizabeth and threatening to bring the actions of England into international light if that country did not desist in aiding the rebels.

Mary rood at the head of her army as they marched to meet her brother's forces. It is this image that is seen as one of the strongest of Mary Stuart's life. Wearing a man's apparel, she led her army with a zeal unseen in the rest of her life. The battle was brief. Moray lost and Mary returned home with elation and a false sense of security.

Mary set herself in Holyrood House to relax and await the birth of her child. However, her peace was not to be long lived for her tranquility was shattered by yet another betrayal from those closest to the Queen. This time, her own husband was a culprit.

The head secretary to Queen Mary of Scotland was a small Italian man named David Riccio. At one point, Riccio and Darnley had been close. It was "Davie" who had encouraged Darnley to lay suite to Mary and it had been he who had argued with the Queen on her cousin's behalf. Riccio had once done all within his power to help Darnley to the throne of Scotland. So why was it that Darnley came to hate this inoffensive man? It was the simple jealousy of an insecure husband.

It was well known that Mary Stuart had grown quite found of Riccio. Aside from being a trusted secretary, he was also a favored vocal artist and a close friend. The idea that the two of them had ever had a love affair is ludicrous not only to their positions, but also to their physical attributes. Mary, as we have established before, was very tall. Riccio was short and he was deformed. It is highly unlikely that such a pairing ever occurred, but despite all sense, Darnley seems to have thought that it did. Perhaps Darnley simply did not understand that a man and a woman can simply be friends, or perhaps his own numerous infidelities clouded his judgement of his wife. Or maybe he was simply insecure enough to see only that Mary was found of Riccio and that was enough to drive him to madness. At any rate, Darnley fixed his jealous eyes upon Riccio and would not let go of the thought that this deformed little man bore more of his wife's affections than did he, her husband.

Ambassador Randolph of England wrote of Riccio and Darnley, "The suspicion of this king towards David is so great that it must shortly grow to a scab amongst them." He continued to proclaim, "I know that there are practices in hand, contrived between the father and the son, to come by the crown against her will. I know that if it takes effect which it intended, David, with the consent of the king, shall have his throat cut within ten days. Many things more grievous and worse than these are brought to my ears..." He also forwarded to Elizabeth a copy of the declaration of the murder of an unnamed man known to be David Riccio, signed by Darnley and intended to grant him the crown.

Public opinion of the time was against Riccio, but for different reasons than those of Lord Darnley. The Scottish Protestants saw the secretary as a strong Catholic with the ear of the Queen. Indeed, the cause of Catholicism in Scotland seemed to be gathering strength despite the tirades of men like John Knox. Mary had not seemed as determined about religion before Riccio came onto the scene, so it was easy for the Protestant lords to point a finger at him as something that must be eliminated for the sake of their church.

A group of Protestant lords led by Moray, whom Mary had begun to think of more favorably of late, and the Douglas family beset unto Edinburgh. A conspiracy had been formed to murder Riccio. In exchange for his aide, Darnley was finally to be granted the crown matrimonial. And for the Protestants, there was the knowledge that they had aided their church and a pardon from the newly empowered king for the rebellion of the previous fall.

One evening, Queen Mary was supping in her private apartments with a few of her closest friends, including, of course, David Riccio, there to sing for Her Majesty's pleasure. Towards the end of the meal, Darnley entered his wife's apartments through the backstairs, which led up form his own rooms. While it was uncommon for Darnley to attend Mary's suppers, it was not unheard of for he had blanket invitations. However, the men who followed Mary's husband were far from expected or welcome.

The Lord of Ruthven stood in the entranceway flanked by armed men. He pointed to Riccio and ordered him to leave the room. Mary quickly rose to defend her secretary proclaiming that as he was there by her will he would only leave by it. But then the main entrance to the Queen's chamber was flung open to allow the entrance of yet more armed ruffians. Riccio clung to Mary's skirts in terror. Two men approached Mary, one with a pistol held to her stomach and another threatening her person with a dagger. A third man rammed a knife into the back of David Riccio. David was forcefully removed form the room, shrieking terribly, as Darnley held his trembling wife to keep her from following.

Thus held restrained, Mary listened to the pleas of Riccio as he called for her to save him. She listened to his cries of pain as numerous daggers where thrust into him. And she listened to the final sound of a body flung down a flight of stairs.

Mary was astounded. Her loyal servant was now dead, killed by men who had burst into her own apartments and threatened her own life. Men who had been aided it seemed by her husband. She began to cry out to Darnley demanding explanations. He could only hurl accusations at her for the shambles their marriage was in, accusations that the Queen had no difficulty throwing right back at him. Sullenly Darnley asked his wife what harm he had ever done her. Reportedly, the Queen trembling replied that he had done her enough wrongs that she was no longer his wife and collapsed weeping.

As Darnley begged for a chance to regain his wife's favor, the courtyard below was filling with guards and the Protestant lords who had formed the idea of this murder where on their way to Holyrood house. The Queen was soon to be a prisoner in her own house.

By morning, Parliament had been dissolved and all prelates, peers, barons, and burgesses where to leave the city within hours. The Queen was now facing imprisonment in a disserted city where none would be able to see the injustice. Something had to be done.

When Darnley entered Mary's chambers the morning after the murder, he found a subdued wife who spoke to him of her fear for his safety with the rebel faction, who could quickly overcome him. She showed him how he had been used for these lords, who cared nothing for him and who promoted only their own cause.

Filled with paranoia and guilt, Darnley devised a way to get himself and his wife out of Holyrood house. Two nights after the murder, Mary and Darnley galloped from Edinburgh to Dunbar Castle in a five-hour race. Mary was many months pregnant and would have slowed, but when asked to relent the pace her husband only replied that, "If this baby dies, we can have more!"

Mary did not stay long away from Edinburgh. When she rode proudly through the gates of her capital city, the populace greeted her with hearty approval. They did not approve so much of the lavish tomb Mary ordered for David Riccio or of the appointment of his brother Joseph as secretary to the Queen. However, despite matters such as these and the obvious disrespect of her unruly nobles, Queen Mary was still held in great affection by her people.

Soon the people had another cause to celebrate; on the nineteenth of June Mary gave birth to a healthy heir, the Prince James. Elizabeth of England was not quite so happy to hear the news of her cousin's motherhood. In fact, when the messenger arrived in London to announce the birth to the English court, it brought a crashing halt to Elizabeth's ball.

The child was christened on the 17th of September, 1566, as James Charles, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham. His uncle, Lord Moray, and the Lord Bothwell both observed the christening from the doorway as a statement against the popish ceremony. The child's father refused to attend at all. Instead, Lord Darnley spent the day sulking in his rooms. He was to declare that the boy was a bastard, but as he had already claimed the child as his and was seen to be in a disagreeable mood, few people give much credence to the accusation.

To Mary, Darnley's misbehavior had passed the point of forgiveness. While it has been said that the quarrel between the couple was fired by scheming outsiders, it is a certainty that Darnley's own behavior was more than reproachable. Beyond his established boorishness, apparently Darnley now continued with his plots and intrigues to replace Mary, either with himself or with their son. Mary was despondent. She knew that her marriage was in shambles, but she knew not how to remedy the situation. Even had the two lived in an age of marriage counselors, it is unlikely that the marriage could have been saved. But Mary was uncertain that the Church would recognize a divorce and knew that pressing for an annulment would be to declare her son illegitimate, and hence ineligible for the crown. Mary discussed all of this with her counselors, and in the end sighed and told them that they should take whatever methods were necessary to rid her of her husband. The only stipulation she put on this was that they were to do nothing to blemish her honour.

In January of 1567, Darnley, in his stronghold of Glasgow, took ill. It seems that he had either small pox, or more in keeping with his character, syphilis. Mary rode to see him and the details of what happened then are relied, probably with reasonable accuracy, in the second of the Casket Letters. It seems that this sick bed visit resulted in some sort of reconciliation between the ailing man and his queenly wife. Whether Mary was sincere in extending the olive branch is unknown. It is possible that she saw no easy way to be free of Darnley and hence decided to try to live with him. It is also more than possible that she simply wanted to remove him from his territory and return him to hers, where she could at least monitor his doings. It is certain that Darnley saw her overtures as genuine. In a letter written to his father after Mary's visit, Darnley gushed of his love for the Queen and of her kindness towards him. But there was to be no reconciliation.

By this time, there was a plot against Darnley, probably led by the soon to be infamous Lord Bothwell. Over a decade after the event, Morton witnessed that Darnley had come to him for help in the murder of the Queen's husband. Morton was still recovering his reputation from his participation in the Riccio affair and was loath to participate in the intrigue without written word from Queen Mary stating that this was her will. A firm answer was returned to him that the Queen would have no discourse on the subject. Darnley painted a different picture in which he played the reluctant party and Morton coerced his participation. However, in neither story is the Queen involved as a conspirator. In fact, as Mary was known for clemency and dislike of blood, it is not a stretch of the imagination to pose that the plotters deliberately kept her out of the conspiracy. While they could not have doubted that Mary would shed little tears over the outcome, they would have been sound in fearing that with foreknowledge the Queen would forbid their actions.

However, the Queen did assist in one valuable way. She brought Darnley back to Edinburgh, and for this, she has been forever implicated in the eyes of history. Many a historian has pointed a finger at Mary saying that since she brought Darnley to Kirk o'Field, she must have known that there he would die. However, it is important to note that not only did she have other reasons for not wanting her husband out of Glasgow, but she had intended to have him taken to Craigmiller. Darnley's own servants testified that the man was loath to enter Craigmiller, being for some reason afraid of the castle, and insisted that the Queen take him to a house of his choosing. It was Darnley who had the idea to rest in the house at Kirk o'Field. And he had it after the party had left Glasgow.

The royal party settled into Kirk o'field with little complication on the first Monday of February. The Queen was lodged in a room directly beneath her husbands, a fact that was to be given a great deal of later significance. Darnley was to spend a week in the house and many tapestries and furnishings, including a bed which had belonged to Marie de Guise, where brought for his comfort. Mary visited her husband frequently and slept in the house several nights. Things seemed to be going relatively well for the couple, who actually got along during the Kirk o'Field stay. By Friday, Darnley wrote to his father saying that his wife was treating him well and lovingly and that he was recovering rapidly. This was the last letter the man ever wrote.

It is difficult to say exactly what followed on the night of February ninth as so many of the essential witnesses were soon executed. There was no lack of testimony at Mary's later trials, but to consider this witnessing to be impartial and accurate is shear folly. The witnesses where all selected by Lord Moray, who was by that time regent of Scotland and had no intention of allowing his sister back into her country. The one thing that is very clear, is that by morning, enough gun powder had been brought into the little house to cause an explosion heard throughout the city.

The mystery surrounding this incident is of such great magnitude that historians cannot even say how it was that Darnley died. That the house at Kirk o'Field exploded is not under question, but exactly what Darnley was doing at the time most certainly is. One would expect that his body had been found in pieces, burnt to a crisp, or possibly even not found at all since his bedroom was completely destroyed. This was not the case. The body of Darnley was found lying in the garden next to that of a servant. He was in his nightclothes and although his cloak was with him, he had not had the time to put it on. Between the bodies lay a dagger, a rope, and a broken chair. Apparently, they were strangled.

Although details are unknown, a general outline of the night can be made. Early in the evening, a large group of royal friends gathered in the King's chamber, where the Queen talked pleasantly with her husband and many nobles played dice. Mary had been intending to spend the night in the chamber below her husband's, but around ten or eleven, she was reminded that she had promised to attend a wedding masque. Quickly, Mary made off to the celebration, telling her husband that she would rest that night in Holyrood since she would be at the masque until it was quite late. She promised to see him the next day when he moved back to Holyrood and, as a token of goodwill, gave him a small ring as she departed.

That the plot was already underway is not questioned. By her own testimony, when the Queen reached the courtyard and stood waiting for her horse, she saw man named Paris, a servant of Lord Bothwell. Reportedly, Mary looked at the man and startled, "Jesu, Paris, how begrimed you are!" Apparently, she thought nothing a the time of Paris's lack of cleanliness, but hindsight tells us the man was covered in gun powder.

The number of conspirators involved in placing the gunpowder is supposedly nine. These nine included several kinsmen, servants, and friends of Bothwell. The story of exactly how they placed the gunpowder is hazy. At one point, it was testified that they moved the gunpowder in two barrels from Bothwell's apartments in Holyrood to Kirk o'Field on Sunday evening, walking boldly through the streets of Edinburgh were they should have been very visible. The problems with this story are many, ranging from the question of "Why on Earth would Bothwell have kept to the gunpowder in his own palace rooms?" to "Why didn't anyone ask what they were up to?" to "Wouldn't the barrels have to have been very heavy indeed to contain enough powder to destroy a two story house?" The story continues that when the powder arrived at Kirk o'Field it was placed in a huge heap on the floor of the Queen's chamber while the court frolicked above. Had two barrels full of powder been left in a heap on the floor and ignited, it probably would not have exploded as much as simply burned. And the blaze would have been so weak as to scarcely have damaged one room, let alone destroyed a house. To do any of the damage described , the powder would have had to have been tamped in near the foundations of the house. One even wonders if that would have helped much since two barrels conveyed easily through the streets could not have contained very much powder and the strength of the powder available at the time was much, much less than that used in our century. The story is obviously very flawed and seems designed to blacken the names of Mary and Bothwell. While Bothwell was undoubtedly involved, one can only think that he must not have acted alone. The aide of one James Balfour was most likely involved. Balfour was in a much better position to move above the city in secrecy and he was at the time a close associate of Bothwell. However, since he later abandoned Bothwell in favor of Bothwell's enemies, his part in the plot was understandably shushed.

It is reported that after Mary left he masque and before she went to bed, she spoke with Bothwell. There is no record of what was said. If one is willing to assume that Mary had no knowledge of the plot against her husband, then one can also assume that she was given no hint of it now. There would be absolutely no reason for Bothwell to make such a revelation so shortly before his plan was to culminate. It is much more likely that he made an excuse to see the Queen simply to assure himself that she would not be returning to Kirk o'Field that night. As a light snow fell over the capitol, Mary calmly went to sleep.

Bothwell now made his way to Kirk o'Field. Despite the stories that latter arouse of his bold acts on this short journey, he most likely went quietly through the back streets to avoid detection.

While Bothwell was scheming and Mary sleeping, Darnley made the last of his preparations for an early departure the next morning (his horses were ordered for five AM) and himself went to bed.

At two o'clock in the morning, the infamous explosion that was to be the talk of Europe for years to come rent the silence of the Edinburgh night.

Aftermath

We believe the matter is so horrible and strange as we believe the like was never heard of in any other country.
-Mary Stuart on the Murder of Darnley

Queen Mary, and indeed all of Edinburgh, arose well before dawn on the morning of February tenth, their sleep ripped from them by an incredible noise. The noise, of course, was the mighty detonation of kegs of gunpowder at the house at Kirk o'Field.

In letters to her foreign correspondents written the morning of the blast, Mary expressed an incredible depth of shock and alarm. She felt, or at least she wrote, that the attack had not been meant merely to rid Scotland of the Darnley, but to rid that nation also of its queen. It was Mary's conviction that she had survived unscathed solely through the grace and favor of God Himself.

As the scandalous news of the king's murder swept through Edinburgh and beyond, Mary urged her council to uncover the culprits and to see to it that they were swiftly punished. It does not seem that Mary realized how highly ranked the men responsible were. It is debatable as to whether Mary was motivated out of grief for her recently deceased husband or out of outrage stemming from the belief that she too had been targeted.

It has been widely reported that Mary failed to show signs of grief following her husband's murder. However, she did show many signs of stunned disbelief. The court was ordered into mourning and although Mary did attend a wedding on the eleventh, she observed the other rituals of mourning. It is unfair to say that her strange appearance following the murder implicates foreknowledge on her part. The idea that anyone would ever dare to murder a king who was husband to a sovereign queen and father to a crown prince was preposterous. That the death had been accomplished in such a violent and unsubtle method defied comprehension. Quite simply put, it was not the sort of thing that happened in civilized society. That Mary, who believed herself to have narrowly escaped murder, may have been bewildered into coldness is no stretch of the imagination.

Due to shock, or perhaps unwillingness to think the sort of dark thoughts that needed to be thought, Mary seems to have been slow to realize who the real culprits behind Darnley's demise were. What to do about that knowledge would tax anyone. The identity of the chief criminal was soon recognized in Bothwell, the Sheriff of Edinburgh and the man responsible for the murder investigation. When, by March first Mary had not raised a finger against Bothwell a placard began to circulate in Edinburgh featuring a hare, representative of Bothwell, crouched beside a mermaid with Queen Mary's face. The mermaid was an obvious allusion to a prostitute and the drawing an obvious indication of the indignation of Edinburgh.

Despite the pushing of her citizens, Mary did not pursue the criminals in this most blasphemous of cases. This does little to argue her innocence in the matter even if it is fairly easy to prove that her advisers did not urge her into action. Her brother, Moray, was more interested in saving his own reputation than in aiding his sister so he fled to London shortly after the murder to assure that his name was not associated with the crime by the courts of Europe. Maitland and Bothwell were both involved in the crime. Her relatives in France ceased their letters. In short, Mary had no one to turn to for help in this situation and without guidance made a series of errors which accumulated into a gigantic pile of circumstantial evidence against her.

March twenty-third marked the official end of mourning, but the tumult over Darnley's death was nowhere near complete. On the twenty-fourth, Lord Lennox, Darnley's father, was granted permission to bring process before Parliament against Bothwell on April twelfth.

On the day of the trail, Bothwell rode majestically through the city. Lennox did not. When that lord had requested permission to enter Edinburgh with a force of a hundred, he was duly rejected and told that he was allowed only six attendants. To enter a city filled with Bothwell's men with only six of his own followers would have been folly. Morton also absented himself from the hearings, claiming conflict of interest due to his kinship with the deceased. Bothwell was acquitted.

The verdict, reached in one day, led one observer to write that Bothwell was, "made clean of the said slaughter, albeit that it was heavily murmured that he was guilty thereof." Bothwell strutted about Edinburgh bragging of his acquittal. Lennox stewed. The denizens of Scotland tittered. Europe looked on in amazement. And Darnley's lands were handed out to those who had aided his demise.

Another Match is Lit

"This poor young princess, inexperienced in such devices, was circumvented on all sides by persuasions, requests, and importunities..."
- Claude Nau

When Parliament adjourned on Saturday April nineteenth, the members were invited to a lavish feast hosted by none other than James Bothwell at Ainslie's Tavern. At the end of that evening, a document that gained fame as the Ainslie Bond appeared. It was to cause great effect, for this bond was a written recommendation singed by the most prominent men in Scotland approving of a marriage between Bothwell and Mary Stuart.

The list of names on the Ainslie Bond was impressive. They included amongst them eight bishops, nine earls, and seven barons. Morton, Maitland, Argyle, Huntly, Cassillis, Sutherland, Glancairn, Rothes, Seton, Sinclair, Boyd, and Herries all put their names on the document. One can only wonder what motivated some of these men. Perhaps they had drunk too deeply. Perhaps they honestly thought it a good idea. Perhaps it was a trap.

With the paper in hand, Bothwell followed the Queen to Seton. There he laid suite to her, proclaiming that he was the most suited husband for her in Scotland and that he had the full support of Parliament. By Mary's reports, this threw her into a state of confusion. According to her testimony, she rejected this initial proposal on the grounds that there were too many scandals surrounding Darnley's death for her to marry at that time.

Whether in fact Mary encouraged or discouraged Bothwell will never be known. The only certainty is that the matter did not end there.

Mary went to Sterling to visit her son, never guessing that it would be the last time she ever saw the child. While there she wrote to the Bishop of Mondovi for advice. His reply, written before the bishop received words of the week's later events, recommended that Mary attain a husband, preferably the Lord Bothwell.

Such advice was redundant. The Queen left Sterling, spending the night on the road at Linlithgow due to a slight illness. On the twenty-fourth of April, as Mary neared Edinburgh, a force reported to contain hundred men swiftly surrounded her party. The men were led by Bothwell.

The Earl approached the Queen and grabbed her bridle. He told her that there was danger in Edinburgh and he would see her safely away. When Mary's attendants protested, she silenced them saying that she would go with the earl rather than cause bloodshed. With her party so grievously outnumber she had little choice.

This was the famous abduction of the Queen to Dunbar Castle. Much has been made of Mary's lack of resistance in this instance. Although she sent a man to Edinburgh with word of her situation, she did not ask for help from the people she passed on the road and she made no move to break away from her captures. This is seen by many to be evidence that she was a willing partner in the exercise and that the abduction was a fraud, a mere cover-up for a romantic getaway. However, her actions may also be seen as prudence. Bothwell was the man recommended to her by her lords as a suitable husband. He was a man with much power. And, most importantly, he was the man who commanded the eight hundred armed soldiers surrounding the Queen's person.

"The queen could not but marry him, seeing he had ravished her and lain with her against her will." Lord Melville, present at Dunbar, wrote these words the morning after Mary's abduction. Mary's own accounts make the instance not a scene of passion, but one of rape. Based on her past actions and prudence, it seems likely that even if Mary was the love-crazed madwoman she has so often been painted to be she would have wanted to wait until she was married to consummate her relationship to Bothwell. It appears that Bothwell, for reasons of political shrewdness or lust, was simply not willing to wait that long.

On the third of May, Bothwell divorced his wife. To be doubly secure, he gained both a Protestant divorce based on an adultery charge and a Catholic annulment based on the fact that he and his wife, being Protestant, had not obtained a Papal dispensation for a union that was within fourth degree consanguinity. On the fifteenth of May, mid-way through a month held to be very unfortuitous for weddings, the Queen of Scotland was married to James Bothwell, a man widely thought to have murdered her previous husband and who had once been quoted as saying, "Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor rolled together would not suffice to make one proper woman."

The ceremony was strictly Protestant. The groom, unlike Mary's previous husbands, met with no shower of gifts from his new bride. Mary herself, so found of clothing, was hastily and carelessly dressed. Tension was visible between the couple and Mary was obviously depressed. At at least one point during the Queen threatened suicide.

Mary's melancholy did not end on her wedding day. Those in her court observed daily tears and a complete lack of her former gaiety. The Lords were to complain that they could never gain access to the queen lest her husband also be present. The picture painted is that of a miserable prisoner. But this confinement, the first of many for Mary, was not to last long.

The scent of war was in the air as June descended on Edinburgh. Many of the lords left the city in a quiet foreboding. Mary was herself removed from Holyrood to the castle of Borthwick on June sixth. Bothwell has chosen Borthwick because it was surrounded by lands loyal to him. However, nowhere in Scotland was safe that summer. At the first hint of trouble, Bothwell fled, leaving Mary to defend the castle and speak with the insurgents who demanded that she abandon her husband. Mary may not have been happy in her marriage, but not only was she too proud to bow to the will of such a rabble, but she was pregnant and unwilling to risk her child's legitimacy. In a daring fashion, Mary disguised herself as a man and left the castle under the cover of darkness. She met with her husband and the couple proceeded to Dunbar.

At Dunbar, Mary received a message from Lord Balfour, who urged her to return to Edinburgh, where the cannon of the city were under his command. Mary made the mistake of attempting to do so. The queen's forces where not to reach the capitol city. On the fifteenth of June, 1567, they were stopped in Leith by an army of the opposition. Mary was again begged to leave Bothwell and again she refused. However, by the end of a long and exhausting day, the queen's husband rode away from the would-be battle field and never saw his wife again. He proceeded to Europe and ended his days imprisoned by the king of Norway.

Completely abandoned, Mary walked into the camp of her enemy. She was met not with the love to which she was accustomed, but with jeering insults and cries for her death. She was led into Edinburgh, but not to one of her homes. She was placed instead in the protective custody of a rebellious lord.

Hopeless, and humiliated, the queen's composure soon broke and she was seen by the people of Edinburgh hanging, her clothes in pathetic tatters and her face devoid of colour, out of a small window as she pled for deliverance from her unexpected plight.

The Caged Lioness of Scotland

And I'm the sovereign of Scotland
And mony a traitor there
Yet here I lay in foreign bands
And never-ending care
-Robert Burns, Queen Mary's Lament

Deeply melancholy and without any possessions, the queen was moved to a remote castle on an island in the middle of Lochleven. She was placed in the custody of Sir William Douglas, whose interests were tied very firmly to those of the new Scottish government. She was locked in a squalid room containing none of the comforts to which she was accustomed. She lay down and at once descended into a depression driven semi-coma from which she did not emerge for two weeks.

As the queen lay in her disassociated stupor, events in Scotland continued at a riotous pace as the lords newly in power sought to eliminate everyone linked to Bothwell. After her health began to improve and Mary returned to her sense, she was again admonished to divorce Bothwell. But Mary was still pregnant and she did not trust, nor did she have any reason to trust, the men trying to bargain with her. Indeed, Ambassador Throckmorton, on his arrival from England, quickly came to the conclusion that Mary's life was in danger no matter what she did.

In July, Mary had a miscarriage. As she was lying in bed recovering from the loss of twins, possibly feverish and certainly very weak, papers were presented to her. Lacking to the will to fight Lindsay's threats and frightened for her life, Mary signed them. They were a formal abdication, which left the throne to young James.

On the twenty-ninth of July, James VI of Scotland was crowned in Sterling at the age of thirteen months. In august, James of Moray was proclaimed regent.

Over the next few months, Mary managed to escape from her prison twice. The first time, she left by boat only to be returned to the castle when one of the boatsmen recognized her by her long, delicate hands. The second attempt was a success. With the help of members of her jailer's family, Mary was set to liberty once more on May 2, 1568

Loyalists flocked to Mary's banner. By all accounts, she now had a force much greater than that of her brother, the Regent Moray. However, Moray had clever generals who were not only well versed in warfare, but who could actually stop fighting amongst themselves long enough to stage a battle. When the two forces met at Langside, Mary's army dissolved and the queen, who could not lead her bickering generals to fight, was forced to flee.

At this point, Mary made perhaps the most dire of her famous mistakes. The wise choice would have been to set sail for France, where she was still a dowager queen. Mary did have a thought to do this, but for some reason, she changed her mind. Instead of going to France, Mary sought the protection and aide of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I of England. This ill-thought decision led Mary to decades of imprisonment and her eventual execution.

In a small fishing boat, with minimum companions, Mary sailed in the port of Workington, Cumberland, on the evening of May sixteenth. Her residence was surrounded by a force of four hundred led by the deputy governor the very next morning. The deputy governor, like the rest of England, was incredibly bewildered as to how to treat this unusual visitor.

Elizabeth soon thought of a stall tactic. Francis Knolls, a cousin by marriage to Queen Elizabeth, was sent to Mary. It was his unenviable task to inform Mary that she would not be allowed to see her cousin until she had been cleared of Darnley's murder.

While England hesitated, Mary was housed in Carlisle Castle. The lodgings were mean, far beneath what any noble woman should have expected. Mary's possessions where in short supply. Her brother sent part of Mary's wardrobe, but nothing of use. When Elizabeth was asked to lend clothing, the clothes were in such shoddy condition that, deeply embarrassed, Knolls stammered that the gift must have been intended for Mary's servants.

Moray, working with Englishman William Cecil, set out to keep Mary safely imprisoned in England. Meanwhile, Mary was moved to Bolton Castle, further from the Scottish border, despite the fact that she was technically not a prisoner yet.

The English had no right to put a foreign sovereign, abdicated or no, on trial for something that occurred in that sovereign's nation. So, without ever actually using the word "trial," the English began official proceeds of a trial-like nature to determine Mary's guilt or innocence in Darnley's death. Mary agreed, having been assured by representatives of her cousin that Elizabeth would still aide her despite the outcome. A verdict of guilty, Mary was assured, would only determine the fate of the Scottish rebels. Moray, of course, was assured differently. He was told that a guilty verdict would keep the English from intervening on Mary's behalf. With this in mind, Moray stepped up his campaign against his sister.

What followed is known as "The Conference of York." It has been described as a farce and a charade. During the conference, Mary remained in Bolton. Her prosecutors brought forth evidence against her based entirely on the Casket Letters. (I have provided a copy of said letters as well as a critique of them. I have linked to these items in the interest of brevity in this article.) The allegations and the letters have caused no little amount of debate in the last few centuries, but contemporaries thought little of them. When the prosecution rested, Mary was given the opportunity to answer the allegations through her representatives at the court, in writing, or in person to a delegation sent to Bolton. But how, Mary protested, was she to answer ridiculous accusations based on evidence she and her representatives had never seen? Elizabeth was not sympathetic. Having been told that not answering would be considered an admission of guilt, Mary indignantly wrote a defense and counterattack.

The conference ended on January eleventh, by order of Queen Elizabeth. The verdict was undecided. Moray returned to Scotland and Mary remain, a prisoner, in England.

Mary was shuffled about various castles over the next several years. Her guards were frequently changed and her visitors severely limited. Her jailors were given little money with which to support her and as a result her needs were met with care that was markedly substandard for a noble of the time. Her health rapidly deteriorated and this long-term illness combined with a captive state and lack of exercise led the deposed queen into a deep depression.

Despite her poor spirits and health, Mary never resigned herself to captivity. There were many plots designed to gain her release, most of which she did not approve. However, she did encourage the aide and attentions of European and British nobles, the most notable of which was Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. She and Norfolk had a romance-by-letter resulting in the gift of a diamond ring and an engagement. However, neither plotting nor pleading resulted in the granting of Mary's freedom. As for the Duke of Norfolk, he was executed for treason in 1572.

1572 was not a good year for Mary. In addition to Norfolk's death, Mary's cause was further harmed by her uncles' instigation of the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in Paris. The Massacre of the Huguenots increased tensions between Catholic and Protestants in Europe and made the release of Catholic Mary by Protestant Elizabeth all the less likely.

After years of plots and plans, Mary finally becomes too involved in a secret that was not nearly secret enough. A young Catholic zealot named Babington devised a method to gain Mary's freedom. Unfortunately, there was a mole amongst his confidants. A man reporting to Elizabeth's secretary Walsingham became entrusted with Mary's correspondents. Elizabeth's man read every letter that Mary sent in connection to Babington. One of these letters mentioned, in a hazy fashion, the possible removal of Elizabeth from the throne of England. When Walsingham received this missive, he drew a gallows on it.

On October 14th, 1586, Mary again stood before an English court. She had no counsel. She did not hear the witnesses against her. Babington and the other involved in his plot were already dead. Mary denied that she had meant harm to her cousin Elizabeth, although she did openly admit that she has sought her own escape.

When the judges met in the Star Chamber on October 24th, it was not a surprise to any when they read their verdict.

The Death of Mary Stuart

Mary Stuart had been convicted of treason. Had she been anyone not of royal blood, the decision of her fate would have been quite simple. However, she was closest kin of Elizabeth I and even if she had signed letters of abdication, she had once been a sovereign queen. Elizabeth wavered for some time over Mary's sentence and claimed that the "unfortunate affair" of her cousin had caused her more tears than the death of any other member of her family. But, however reluctant Elizabeth was to sign away the life of her cousin, in the end she decided that she had no choice.

Scotland protested, but weakly. France protested much more vehemently, but to no avail. On February first, 1587, Elizabeth signed Mary's death warrant. She ordered the execution be held in private and that she did not want to hear anything more about it other than the announcement that the sentence had been carried out.

Elizabeth, however, did not ignore her cousin's impending death. Rather, she attempted to influence Paulet to quietly dispose of Mary, hence saving the English crown the burden of executing a monarch. Paulet's honour, however, would allow him to execute the royal prisoner but would not allow him to murder her.

Saved from a secreted death by the jailer that she hated, Mary was slated to be beheaded on the morning of February eighth. She and her servants were not informed of this date until after Mary had retired to bed the night before. They had, of course, been expecting such an announcement and Mary met the news with calm and dignity.

Mary's servants were frantic that night and many tears were shed by them. Mary, herself, however, seems to have remained remarkably stable. She refused the offices of a Protestant priest and by Catholic practices prepared herself for death as best she could while denied the services of a Catholic priest. She spent the rest of the evening setting her affairs into order. She wrote to both Elizabeth I and Henri III of France (see The Last Letters of Mary Stuart). She organized her wardrobe, setting aside items for family members, foreign royalties, and her servants. And she spoke with her staff, urging them to have strength. And, after all of these things were done, she laid herself down on her bed to await her fate.

At six o'clock, Mary rose and went into her oratory to pray as the sun rose on an oddly spring-like day. The execution had been set for eight, but it was close to nine when the knock came on Mary's door summoning her to her death.

Mary was to go alone. This was an unexpected blow that sent her servants again into tears. After much pleading, Paulet relented and allowed Mary to choose six companions to enter the execution chamber.

Silence fell over the chamber as Mary entered, tall and regal. She was dressed in black satin with a white veil, purple inner sleeves, green silken garters, and a dramatic crimson velvet petticoat. Gracefully, Mary walked to the center of the room to climb the stairs of the wooden stage on which she was to be beheaded.

As Mary stood in quite dignity, the order of execution was read aloud. Mary's face betrayed no emotion until a Protestant zealot began to assail her with Protestant doctrine. "I am settled in the ancient Catholic Religion," she stated to the man, "and mind to spend my body in defense of it." She was told to listen to the man, but when he knelt before her and began to pray she turned away and began to read aloud from a Latin prayer book. When the Protestant had finished his prayer, Mary changed her own into English, invoking the forgiveness of God onto Elizabeth, James, and England.

As her prayers died away, the executioners made the traditional plea for forgiveness. "I forgive you with all of my heart," they were told, "for now I hope you shall make an end of all my troubles."

Mary removed her black dress and stood before the audience clad solely in crimson. Thus, she knelt and with three stroke of an ax, lay dead on the floor of Fortheringhay.

As Mary's ladies wept and blood rushed from the opening of her neck, the queen's skirts began to move and a little Skye terrier emerged. Refusing to be coaxed away, the little dog stayed steadily by its late mistress's side, crying in confusion next to the body of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots.

Lady Antonia Fraser's well known work, Mary Queen of Scots is available for purchase from Amazon.com at a 20% discount.

The above essay is the sole work and property of Andrea Marie Brokaw and is copyright as of October 11th, 2002.

For more information on Mary Stuart, please see the Lady's work Letters in a Casket. Question, comments, or suggestions may be e-mailed to Andrea Marie, the Lady of Hedgehog, as ladyhedgehog@hedgie.com.

External links:

The World of Mary, Queen of Scots The Official Site of the Marie Stuart Society

Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot