downwards, was probably united in a signed ‘band’ against Darnley. The
precise nature of its stipulations is uncertain, but that a hostile band
existed, I think can be demonstrated. The Lords, in their letter of
October 8 to Catherine, declare that they will never consent to let
Darnley manage affairs. The evidence as to a band comes from four sources:
Randolph, Archibald Douglas, a cousin and ally of Morton, Claude Nau,
Mary’s secretary, and Moray himself.
First, on October 15, 1570, Randolph, being in Edinburgh after the death
of the Regent Moray, writes: ‘Divers, since the Regent’s death, either to
cover their own doings or to advance their cause, have sought to make him
odious to the world. The universal bruit runs upon three or four persons’
(Bothwell, Lethington, Balfour(?), Huntly, and Argyll) ‘who subscribed
upon a bond promising to concur and assist one another in the late King’s
death. This bond was kept in the Castle, in a little coffer covered with
green, and, after the apprehension of the Scottish Queen at Carberry Hill,
was taken out of the place where it lay by the Laird of Lethington, in
presence of Mr. James Balfour.... This being a thing so notoriously known,
as well by Mr. James Balfour’s own report, as testimony of other who have
seen the thing, is utterly denied to be true, _and another bond produced
which they allege to be it, containing no such matter, at the which, with
divers other noblemen’s hands, the Regent’s was also made, a long time
before the bond of the King’s murder was made_, and now they say that if
it can be proved by any bond that they consented to the King’s death, the
late Regent is as guilty as they, and for testimony thereof (as Randolph
is credibly informed) have sent a bond to be seen in England, which is
either some new bond made among themselves, and the late Regent’s hand
counterfeited at the same (which in some cases he knows has been done), or
the old bond at which his hand is, containing no such matter.’ Randolph
adds, as an example of forgery of Moray’s hand, the order for Lethington’s
release by Kirkcaldy to whom Robert Melville attributed the forgery.[80]
Thus both sides could deal in charges of forging hands.
But what is ‘the old band,’ _signed by Moray_ ‘a long time before the bond
of the King’s murder was made’? To this question we probably find a reply
in the long letter written by Archibald Douglas to Mary, in April, 1583,
when he (one of Darnley’s murderers) was an exile, and was seeking, and
winning, Mary’s favour. Douglas had fled to France after Riccio’s murder,
but was allowed to return to Scotland, ‘to deal with Earls Murray, Athol,
Bodvel, Arguile, and Secretary Ledington,’ in the interests of a pardon
for Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay. This must have been just after September
20, when the return of Lethington to favour occurred. But Murray, Atholl,
Bothwell, Argyll, and Lethington told Douglas that they had made a band,
with other noblemen, to this effect: that they ‘were resolved to obey your
Majesty as their natural sovereign, _and have nothing to do with your
husband’s command whatsoever_.’ So the Lords also told Catherine de’
Medici. They wished to know, before interfering in Morton’s favour,
whether he would also sign this anti-Darnley band, which Morton and his
accomplices did. Archibald Douglas then returned, with their signatures,
to Stirling, at the time of James’s baptism, in mid December, 1566. Morton
and his friends were then pardoned on December 24.[81] This anti-Darnley
band, which does not allude to _murder_, must be that produced in 1570,
according to Randolph, by ‘divers, since Moray’s death, either to cover
their own doings, or to advance their own cause, seeking to make him
odious to the world.’ We thus find Moray, and all the most powerful
nobles, banded against Darnley, some time between September and December
1566.
Now, Claude Nau, inspired by Mary, attributes Darnley’s murder to a band
‘written by Alexander Hay, at that time one of the clerks of the Council,
and signed by the Earls of Moray, Huntly, Bothwell, and Morton, by
Lethington, James Balfour, and others.’ Moray certainly did not sign the
murderous band kept in the green-covered coffer, nor, as he alleged at his
death, did Morton. But Nau seems to be confusing _that_ band with the band
of older date, to which, as Randolph admits, and as Archibald Douglas
insists, Moray, Morton, and others put their hands, Morton signing as late
as December 1566.
Nau says: ‘They protested that they were acting for the public good of the
realm, pretending that they were freeing the Queen from the bondage and
misery into which she had been reduced by the King’s behaviour. They
promised to support each other, and to avouch that the act was done
justly, licitly, and lawfully by the leading men of the Council. They had
done it in defence of their lives, which would be in danger, they said, if
the King should get the upper hand and secure the government of the realm,
at which he was aiming.’[82] Randolph denies that there was any hint of
murder in the band signed by Moray. Archibald Douglas makes the gist of it
‘that they would have nothing to do with your husband’s command
whatsoever.’ Nau speaks of ‘the act,’ but does not name murder explicitly
as part of the band. Almost certainly, then, there did exist, in autumn
1566, a band hostile to Darnley, and signed by Moray and Morton. It seems
highly probable that the old band, made long before the King’s murder, and
of a character hostile to Darnley’s influence, and menacing to him, is
that which Moray himself declares that he did sign, ‘at the beginning of
October,’ 1566. When Moray, in London, on January 19, 1569, was replying
to an account (the so-called ‘Protestation of Argyll and Huntly’) of the
conference at Craigmillar, in November 1566, he denied (what was not
alleged) that he signed any band _there_: at Craigmillar. ‘This far the
subscriptioun of bandes be me is trew, that indeed I subscrivit ane band
with the Erlis of Huntlie, Ergile, and Boithvile in Edinburgh, at the
begynning of October the same yeir, 1566: quhilk was devisit in signe of
our reconciliatioun, in respect of the former grudgis and displesouris
that had been amang us. Whereunto I wes constreinit to mak promis, before
I culd be admittit to the Quenis presence or haif ony shew of hir
faveur....’[83]
Now Moray had been admitted to Mary’s presence two days after the death of
Riccio, before her flight to Dunbar. On April 25, 1566, Randolph writes
from Berwick to Cecil: ‘Murray, Argyll, and Glencairn are come to Court. I
hear his (Moray’s) credit shall be good. The Queen wills that all
controversies shall be taken up, in especial that between Murray and
Bothwell.’[84] On April 21, 1566, Moray, Argyll, Glencairn, and others
were received by Mary in the Castle, and a Proclamation was made to soothe
‘the enmity that was betwixt the Earls of Huntly, Bothwell, and
Murray.’[85] Thenceforward, as we have proved in detail, Moray was
ostensibly in Mary’s favour. Moray would have us believe that he only
obtained this grace by virtue of his promise to sign a band with Huntly,
Bothwell, and Argyll: the last had been on his own side in his rebellion.
But the band, he alleges, was not signed till October, 1566, though the
promise must have been given, at least his ‘favour’ with Mary was
obtained, in April. And Moray signed the band precisely at the moment when
Darnley was giving most notorious trouble, and had just been approached
and implored by Mary, the Council, and the French ambassador. That was the
moment when the Privy Council assured Catherine that they ‘would never
consent’ to Darnley’s sovereignty. Why was that moment selected by Moray
to fulfil a promise more than four months old? Was the band not that
mentioned by Randolph, Archibald Douglas, and Nau, and therefore, in some
sense, an anti-Darnley band, not a mere ‘sign of reconciliation’? The
inference appears legitimate, and this old band signed by Moray seems to
have been confused, by his enemies, with a later band for Darnley’s
murder, which we may be sure that he never signed. He only ‘looked through
his fingers.’
On October 7, or 8, or 9, Mary left Edinburgh to hold a Border session at
Jedburgh. She appears to have been in Jedburgh by the 9th.[86] On October
7, Bothwell was severely wounded, in Liddesdale, by a Border thief. On
October 15, Mary rode to visit him at Hermitage.[87] Moray, says Sir John
Forster to Cecil (October 15), was with her, and other nobles. Yet
Buchanan says that she rode ‘with such a company as no man of any honest
degree would have adventured his life and his goods among them.’ Life,
indeed, was not safe with the nobles, but how Buchanan errs! Du Croc,
writing from Jedburgh on October 17, reports that Bothwell is out of
danger: ‘the Queen is well pleased, his loss to her would have been
great.’[88] Buchanan’s account of this affair is, that Mary heard at
Borthwick of Bothwell’s wound, whereon ‘she flingeth away like a mad
woman, by great journeys in post, in the sharp time of winter’ (early
October!), ‘first to Melrose, then to Jedburgh. There, though she heard
sure news of his life, yet her affection, impatient of delay, could not
temper itself; but needs she must bewray her outrageous lust, and in an
inconvenient time of the year, despising all incommodities of the way and
weather, and all dangers of thieves, she betook herself headlong to her
journey.’ The ‘Book of Articles’ merely says that, after hearing of
Bothwell’s wound, she ‘took na kindly rest’ till she saw him--a prolonged
_insomnia_. On returning to Jedburgh, she prepared for Bothwell’s arrival,
and, when he was once brought thither, then perhaps by their excessive
indulgence in their passion, Buchanan avers, Mary nearly died.
All this is false. Mary stayed at least five days in Jedburgh before she
rode to Hermitage, whither, says Nau, corroborated by Forster, Moray
accompanied her. She fell ill on October 17, a week before Bothwell’s
arrival at Jedburgh. On October 25, she was despaired of, and some thought
she had passed away. Bothwell arrived, in a litter, about October 25.
Forster says October 15, wrongly. These were no fit circumstances for
‘their old pastime,’ which they took ‘so openly, as they seemed to fear
nothing more than lest their wickedness should be unknown.’ ‘I never saw
her Majesty so much beloved, esteemed, and honoured,’ du Croc had written
on October 17.
[Illustration: House occupied by Queen Mary at Jedburgh.
G. W. Wilson & Co. Aberdeen photo
Walker & Cockerell. ph. sc.]
Buchanan’s tale is here so manifestly false, that it throws doubt on his
scandal about the Exchequer House. That Mary abhorred Darnley, and was
wretched, is certain. ‘How to be free of him she sees no outgait,’ writes
Lethington on October 24. He saw no chance of reconciliation.[89] That she
and Bothwell acted profligately together while he was ill at Hermitage,
and she almost dead at Jedburgh, is a grotesquely malevolent falsehood.
Darnley now visited Jedburgh: it is uncertain whether or not he delayed
his visit long after he knew of Mary’s illness. Buchanan says that he was
received with cruel contempt.[90] In some pious remarks of hers when she
expected death, she only asks Heaven to ‘mend’ Darnley, whose misconduct
is the cause of her malady.[91] On November 20, Mary arrived at
Craigmillar Castle, hard by Edinburgh. Du Croc mentions her frequent
exclamation, ‘I could wish to be dead,’ and, from Darnley, and his own
observation, gathered that Darnley would never humble himself, while Mary
was full of suspicions when she saw him converse with any noble. For
disbelieving that reconciliation was possible du Croc had several reasons,
he says; he may have detected the passion for Bothwell, but makes no
allusion to that subject; and, when Darnley in December behaved sullenly,
his sympathy was with the Queen. In the ‘Book of Articles’ exhibited
against Mary in 1568, it is alleged that, at Kelso, on her return from
Jedburgh, she received a letter from Darnley, wept, told Lethington and
Moray that she could never have a happy day while united to her husband,
and spoke of suicide. Possibly Darnley wrote about his letter against her
to the Pope, and the Catholic Powers. But the anecdote is dubious. She
proceeded to Craigmillar Castle.
Then came the famous conference at Craigmillar. Buchanan says (in the
‘Detection’) that, in presence of Moray, Huntly, Argyll, and Lethington,
she spoke of a divorce, on grounds of consanguinity, the Dispensation
‘being conveyed away.’ One of the party said that her son’s legitimacy
would be imperilled. So far the ‘Book of Articles’ agrees with the
‘Detection.’ Not daring to ‘disclose her purpose to make away her son’
(the ‘Book of Articles’ omits this), she determined to murder her husband,
and her son. A very different story is told in a document sent by Mary to
Huntly and Argyll, for their signatures, on January 5, 1569. This purports
to be a statement of what Huntly had told Bishop Lesley. He and Argyll
were asked to revise, omit, or add, as their recollection served, sign,
and return, the paper which was to be part of Mary’s counter-accusations
against her accusers.[92] The document was intercepted, and was never seen
nor signed by Huntly and Argyll. The statement, whatever its value (it is
merely Lesley’s recollection of remarks by Huntly), declares that Moray
and Lethington roused Argyll from bed, and suggested that, to induce Mary
to recall Morton (banished for Riccio’s murder), it would be advisable to
oblige Mary by ridding her of Darnley. Huntly was next brought in, and,
last, Bothwell. They went to Mary’s rooms, and proposed a divorce. She
objected that this would, or might, invalidate her son’s legitimacy, and
proposed to retire to France. Lethington said that a way would be found,
and that Moray would ‘look through his fingers.’ Mary replied that nothing
must be done which would stain her honour and conscience. Lethington
answered that, if they were allowed to guide the matter, ‘Your Grace shall
see nothing but good, and approved by Parliament.’
Though Huntly and Argyll never saw this piece, they signed, in September,
1568, another, to like purpose. Starting from the same point, the desire
to win Morton’s pardon, they say that they promised to secure a divorce,
either because the dispensation for Mary’s marriage was not published
(conceivably the marriage occurred before the dispensation was granted) or
for adultery: or to bring a charge of treason against Darnley, ‘or quhat
other wayis to dispeche him; quhilk altogidder hir Grace refusit, as is
manifestlie knawin.’[93] It is plain, therefore, that Huntly and Argyll
would have made no difficulty about signing the Protestation which never
reached them.
While Buchanan’s tale yields no reason for Mary’s consent to pardon the
Riccio murderers (whom of all men she loathed), Huntly and Argyll supply a
partial explanation. In Buchanan’s History, it is casually mentioned,
later, that Mary wished to involve Moray and Morton in the guilt of
Darnley’s murder. But how had Morton returned to Scotland? Of _that_, not
a word.[94] In truth, both French and English influence had been used;
Bothwell, acting ‘like a very friend,’ says Bedford, and others had openly
added their intercessions. James’s baptism was an occasion for an amnesty,
and this was granted on Christmas Eve. The pardon might well have been
given, even had no divorce or murder of Darnley been intended, but the
step was most threatening to Darnley’s safety, as the exiles hated him
with a deadly hatred. On the whole, taking the unsigned ‘Protestation’ of
Huntly and Argyll with the document which they did sign, it seems
probable, or certain, that a conference as to getting rid of Darnley, in
some way, was held at Craigmillar, where Moray certainly was.
Moray, in London, was shown the intercepted ‘Protestation,’ and denied
that anything was said, at Craigmillar, in his hearing ‘tending to ony
unlawfull or dishonourable end.’[95] But, if the Protestation can be
trusted, nothing positively unlawful was proposed. Lethington promised
‘nothing but good, and approved by Parliament.’ Moray also denied having
signed a ‘band,’ except that of October 1566, but about a ‘band’ the
Protestation says nothing. Moray _may_ have referred to what (according to
the ‘Diurnal,’ pp. 127, 128) Hay of Talla said at his execution (January
3, 1568). He had seen a ‘band’ signed by Bothwell, Huntly, Argyll,
Lethington, and Sir James Balfour. The first four, at least, were at
Craigmillar. Buchanan, in the ‘Detection,’ gives Hay’s confession, but not
this part of it. Much later, on December 13, 1573, Ormistoun confessed
that, about Easter, after the murder, Bothwell tried to reassure him by
showing him a ‘contract subscryvit be four or fyve handwrittes, quhilk he
affirmit to me was the subscription of the erle of Huntlie, Argyll, the
Secretar Maitland, and Sir James Balfour.’ The contract or band stated
that Darnley must be got rid off ‘by ane way or uther,’ and that all who
signed should defend any who did the deed. It was subscribed a quarter of
a year before the murder, that is, taking the phrase widely, after the
Craigmillar conference.[96]
What did Lethington mean, at Craigmillar, by speaking of a method of
dealing with Darnley which Parliament would approve? He may have meant to
arrest him, for treason, and kill him if he resisted. That this was
contemplated, at Craigmillar, we proceed to adduce the evidence of Lennox.
This hitherto unknown testimony exists, in inconsistent forms, among the
several indictments which Lennox, between July and December, 1568, drew up
to show to the English Commissioners who, at York and Westminster,
examined the charges against Mary. In the evidence which we have hitherto
seen, the plans of Mary’s Council at Craigmillar are left vague, and
Mary’s objections, as described by Huntly and Argyll, are spoken of as
final. Mention is made of only one conference, without any sequel. But
Lennox asserts that there was at least one other meeting, at Craigmillar,
between Mary and her advisers. His information is obviously vague, but he
first makes the following assertions.
‘In this mean time’ (namely in December 1566, when the Court was at
Stirling for James’s baptism), ‘his father, being advertised [‘credibly
informed’][97] that at Craigmillar the Queen and certain of her Council
_had concluded_ upon an enterprise to the great peril and danger of his
[‘Majesty’s’] person, which was that he should have been _apprehended and
put in ward_, which rested’ (was postponed) ‘but only on the finishing of
the christening and the departure of the said ambassadors, which thing
being not a little grievous unto his father’s heart, did give him warning
thereof; whereupon he, by the advice of sundry that loved him, departed
from her shortly after the christening, and came to his father to Glasgow,
being fully resolved with himself to have taken ship shortly after, and to
have passed beyond the seas, but that sickness prevented him, which was
the cause of his stay.’
In this version, Lennox is warned, by whom he does not say, of a plan,
formed at Craigmillar, to arrest Darnley. The plan is not refused by the
Queen, but is ‘concluded upon,’ yet postponed till the christening
festivities are over. _Nothing is said about the design to kill Darnley if
he resists._ The scheme is communicated to Darnley by Lennox himself.
Next comes what seems to be the second of Lennox’s attempts at producing a
‘discourse.’ This can be dated. It ends with the remark that, after
Langside fight, Mary spoke with Ormistoun and Hob Ormistoun, ‘who were of
the chiefest murderers of the King, her husband.’ These men now live with
the Laird of Whithaugh, in Liddesdale, ‘who keepeth in his house a
prisoner, one Andrew Carre, of Fawdonside, by her commandment.’ This was
Andrew Ker of Faldonside, the most brutal of the murderers of Riccio. Now
on October 4, 1568, in a list of ‘offences committed by the Queen’s
party,’ a list perhaps in John Wood’s hand, we read that Whithaugh, and
other Elliots, ‘took ane honest and trew gentleman, Ker of Faldonside, and
keep him prisoner by Mary’s command;’ while Whithaugh cherishes the two
Ormistouns.[98] This discourse of Lennox, then, is of, or about, October
4, 1568, and was prepared for the York Conference to inquire into Mary’s
case, where it was not delivered.
He says: ‘How she used him (Darnley) at Craigmillar, my said Lord Regent
(Moray), who was there present, can witness. One thing I am constrainit to
declare, which came to my knowledge by credible persons, which was that
certain of her familiar and privy counsellors, of her faction and
Bothwell’s, should present her a letter at that house, subscribed with
their hands, the effect of which letter was to apprehend the King my son’s
person, and to put him in ward, and, _if he happened to resist them, to
kill him_: she answered that the ambassadors were come,[99] and the
christening drew near, so that the time would not then serve well for that
purpose, till the triumph was done, and the ambassadors departed to their
country.... Also I, being at Glasgow about the same time, and having
intelligence of the foresaid device for his apprehension at Craigmillar,
did give him warning thereof;’ consequently, as he was also ill-treated at
Stirling, Darnley went to Glasgow, ‘where he was not long till he fell
sick.’ Lennox here adds the plot to kill Darnley if he resisted arrest.
His reference to certain of Mary’s Privy Council, who laid the plot,
cannot have been grateful to Lethington, who was at York, where Lennox
meant to deliver his speech.
The final form taken by Lennox’s account of what occurred at Craigmillar
looks as if it were a Scots draft for the ‘Brief Discourse’ which he
actually put in, in English, at Westminster, on November 29, 1568. He
addresses Norfolk and the rest in his opening sentences. The Privy Council
who made the plot are they ‘_of thay dayis_,’ which included Moray,
Argyll, Huntly, Lethington, and Bothwell. These Lords, or some of them,
either subscribe ‘a lettre’ of warrant for Darnley’s capture alive or
dead, or ask Mary to sign one; Lennox is not certain which view is
correct. She answered that they must delay till the ambassadors departed.
‘But seeing in the mean time this purpose divulgate,’ she arrested the
‘reportaris,’ namely Hiegait, Walker, the Laird of Minto (we do not
elsewhere learn that he was examined), and Alexander Cauldwell. Perceiving
‘that the truth was like to come to light, she left off further
inquisition.’
This version does not state that Lennox, or any one else, revealed the
Craigmillar plot for his arrest to Darnley. It later describes a quarrel
of his with Mary at Stirling, and adds, ‘Being thus handled, at the end of
the christening he came to me to Glasgow.’ This tale of a plot to arrest,
and, if he resisted, to kill Darnley, corresponds with Paris’s statement
that Bothwell told him, ‘We were much inclined to do it lately, when we
were at Craigmillar.’
This evidence of Lennox, then, avers that, after the known conference at
Craigmillar, which Lethington ended by saying that ‘you shall see nothing
but good, and approved of by Parliament,’ there was another conference. On
this second occasion some of the Privy Council suggested the arrest of
Darnley, who, perhaps, was to be slain if he resisted. Parliament might
approve of this measure, for there were reasons for charging Darnley with
high treason. Mary, says Lennox, accepted the scheme, but postponed it
till after the Baptism. Within two or three weeks Lennox heard of the
plan, and gave Darnley warning. But Lennox’s three versions are hesitating
and inconsistent: nor does he cite his authority for the conspiracy to
kill Darnley.
V
_BETWEEN THE BAPTISM AND THE MURDER_