tried) at St. Andrews. On the day of his death, Moray caused Sir William
Stewart, Lyon King at Arms, by his own appointment, to be burned for
sorcery. Of _his_ trial no record exists. He had been accused of a
conspiracy against Moray, whom he certainly did not admire, no proof had
been found, and he was burned as a wizard, or consulter of wizards.[163]
The deposition of Paris on August 10 is in the Record Office, and is
signed at the end of each page with his mark. _We are not told who heard
the depositions made._ We are only told that when it was read to him
before George Buchanan, John Wood (Moray’s man), and Robert Ramsay, he
acknowledged its truth: Ramsay being the writer of ‘this declaration,’
that is of the deposition. He wrote French very well, and was a servant of
Moray. There is another copy with a docquet asserting its authenticity,
witnessed by Alexander Hay, Clerk of the Privy Council, who, according to
Nau, wrote the old band against Darnley (October, 1566), and who was a
correspondent of Knox.[164] Hay does not seem to mean that the deposition
of Paris was taken in his presence, but that II. is a correct copy of
Number I. If so, he is not ‘guilty of a double fraud,’ as Mr. Hosack
declares. Though he omits the names of the witnesses, Wood, Ramsay, and
Buchanan, he does not represent himself as the sole witness to the
declaration. He only attests the accuracy of the copy of Number I. Whether
Ramsay, Wood, and Buchanan examined Paris, we can only infer: whether they
alone did so, we know not: that he was hanged and quartered merely on the
strength of his own deposition, we think highly probable. It was a great
day for St. Andrews: a herald was burned, a Frenchman was hanged, and a
fourth of his mortal remains was fixed on a spike in a public place.
Paris said, when examined in August, 1569, that on Wednesday or Thursday
of the week of Darnley’s death, Bothwell told him in Mary’s room at Kirk
o’ Field, Mary being in Darnley’s, that ‘_we Lords_’ mean to blow up the
King and this house with powder. But Bowton says, that till the Friday,
Bothwell meant to kill Darnley ‘in the fields.’[165] Bothwell took Paris
aside for a particular purpose: he was suffering from dysentery, and said,
‘Ne sçais-tu point quelque lieu là où je pouray aller...?’ ‘I never was
here in my life before,’ said Paris.
Now as Bothwell, by Paris’s own account (derived from Bothwell himself),
had passed an entire night in examining the little house of Kirk o’ Field,
how could he fail to know his way about in so tiny a dwelling? Finally,
Paris found _ung coing ou trou entre deux portes_, whither he conducted
Bothwell, who revealed his whole design.
Robertson, cited by Laing, remarks that the narrative of Paris ‘abounds
with a number of minute facts and particularities which the most dexterous
forger could not have easily assembled and connected together with any
appearance of probability.’ The most bungling witness who ever perjured
himself could not have brought more impossible inconsistencies than Paris
brings into a few sentences, and he was just as rich in new details, when,
in a second confession, he contradicted his first. In the insanitary, and,
as far as listeners were concerned, insecure retreat ‘between two doors,’
Bothwell bluntly told Paris that Darnley was to be blown up, because, if
ever he got his feet on the Lords’ necks, he would be tyrannical. The
motive was political. Paris pointed out the moral and social
inconveniences of Bothwell’s idea. ‘You fool!’ Bothwell answered, ‘do you
think I am alone in this affair? I have Lethington, who is reckoned one of
our finest wits, and is the chief undertaker in this business; I have
Argyll, Huntly, Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay. These three last will never
fail me, for I spoke in favour of their pardon, and I have the signatures
of all those whom I have mentioned, and we were inclined to do it lately
when we were at Craigmillar; but you are a dullard, not fit to hear a
matter of weight.’ If Bothwell said that Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay
signed the band, he, in all probability, lied. But does any one believe
that the untrussed Bothwell, between two doors, held all this talk with a
wretched valet, arguing with him seriously, counting his allies, real or
not, and so forth? Paris next (obviously enlightened by later events)
observed that the Lords would make Bothwell manage the affair, ‘but, when
it is once done, they may lay the whole weight of it on you’ (which, when
making his deposition, he knew they had done), ‘and will be the first to
cry _Haro!_ on you, and pursue you to death.’ Prophetic Paris! He next
asked, What about a man dearly beloved by the populace, and the French?
‘No troubles in the country when _he_ governed for two or three years, all
was well, money was cheap; look at the difference now,’ and so forth.
‘Who is the man?’ asked Bothwell. ‘Monsieur de Moray; pray what side does
he take?’
‘He won’t meddle.’
‘Sir, he is wise.’
‘Monsieur de Moray, Monsieur de Moray! He will neither help nor hinder,
but it is all one.’
Bothwell, by a series of arguments, then tried to make Paris steal the key
of Mary’s room. He declined, and Bothwell left the appropriate scene of
this prolonged political conversation. It occupies more than three closely
printed pages of small type.
Paris then devotes a page and a half to an account of a walk, and of his
reflections. On Friday, Bothwell met him, asked him for the key, and said
that _Sunday_ was the day for the explosion. Now, in fact, _Saturday_ had
been fixed upon, as Tala declared.[166] Paris took another walk, thought
of looking for a ship to escape in, but compromised matters by saying his
prayers. On Saturday, after dinner, Bothwell again asked for the key:
adding that Balfour had already given him a complete set of false keys,
and that they two had passed a whole night in examining the house. So
Paris stole the key, though Bothwell had told him that he need not, if he
had not the heart for it. After he gave it to Bothwell, Marguerite
(Carwood?) sent him back for a coverlet of fur: Sandy Durham asked him for
the key, and he referred Sandy to the _huissier_, Archibald Beaton. This
Sandy is said in the Lennox MSS. to have been warned by Mary to leave the
house. He was later arrested, but does not seem to have been punished.
On Sunday morning, Paris heard that Moray had left Edinburgh, and said
within himself, ‘O Monsieur de Moray, you are indeed a worthy man!’ The
wretch wished, of course, to ingratiate himself with Moray, but his want
of tact must have made that worthy man wince. Indeed Paris’s tactless
disclosures about Moray, who ‘would neither help nor hinder,’ and did
sneak off, may be one of the excellent reasons which prevented Cecil from
adding Paris’s deposition, when he was asked for it, to the English
edition of Buchanan’s ‘Detection.’[167] When the Queen was at supper, on
the night of the crime, with Argyll (it really was with the Bishop of
Argyll) and was washing her hands after supper, Paris came in. She asked
Paris whether he had brought the fur coverlet from Kirk o’ Field. Bothwell
then took Paris out, and they acted as in the depositions of Powrie and
the rest, introducing the powder. Bothwell rebuked Tala and Bowton for
making so much noise, which was heard above, as they stored the powder in
Mary’s room. Paris next accompanied Bothwell to Darnley’s room, and
Argyll, silently, gave him a caressing dig in the ribs. After some loose
babble, Paris ends, ‘And that is all I know about the matter.’
This deposition was made ‘without constraint or interrogation.’ But it was
necessary that he should know more about the matter. Next day he was
_interrogué_, doubtless in the boot or the pilniewinks, or under threat of
these. He _must_ incriminate the Queen. He gave evidence now as to
carrying a letter (probably Letter II. is intended) to Bothwell, from Mary
at Glasgow, in January, 1567. His story may be true, as we shall see, if
the dates put in by the accusers are incorrect: and if another set of
dates, which we shall suggest, are correct.
Asked as to familiarities between Bothwell and Mary, he said, on
Bothwell’s information, that Lady Reres used to bring him, late at night,
to Mary’s room; and that Bothwell bade him never let Mary know that Lady
Bothwell was with him in Holyrood! Paris now remembered that, in the long
conversation in the hole between two doors, Bothwell had told him not to
put Mary’s bed beneath Darnley’s, ‘for that is where I mean to put the
powder.’ He disobeyed. Mary made him move her bed, and he saw that she was
in the plot. Thereon he said to her, ‘Madame, Monsieur de Boiduel told me
to bring him the keys of your door, and that he has an inclination to do
something, namely to blow the King into the air with powder, which he will
place here.’
This piece of evidence has, by some, been received with scepticism, which
is hardly surprising. Paris places the carrying of a letter (about the
plot to make Lord Robert kill Darnley?) on Thursday night. It ought to be
Friday, if it is to agree with Cecil’s Journal: ‘Fryday. She ludged and
lay all nycht agane in the foresaid chalmer, and frome thence wrayt, that
same nycht, the letter concerning the purpose of the abbott of
Halyrudhouse.’ On the same night, Bothwell told Paris to inform Mary that
he would not sleep till he achieved his purpose, ‘were I to trail a pike
all my life for love of her.’ This means that the murder was to be on
Friday, which is absurd, unless Bothwell means to wake for several nights.
Let us examine the stories told by Paris about the key, or keys, of Mary’s
room. In the first statement, Paris was asked by Bothwell at the
Conference between Two Doors, for the _key_ of Mary’s room. This was on
Wednesday or Thursday. On Friday, Bothwell asked again for the _key_, and
said the murder was fixed for Sunday, which it was not, but for Saturday.
On Saturday, Bothwell again demands _that key_, after dinner. He says that
he has duplicates, from James Balfour, of all the keys. Paris takes the
_key_, remaining last in Mary’s room at Kirk o’ Field, as she leaves it to
go to Holyrood. Paris keeps the _key_, and returns to Kirk o’ Field. Sandy
Durham, Darnley’s servant, asks for the key. Paris replies that keys are
the affair of the Usher. ‘Well,’ says Durham, ‘since you don’t want to
give it to me!’ So, clearly, Paris kept it. On Sunday night, Bothwell bade
Paris go to the Queen’s room in Kirk o’ Field, ‘and when Bowton, Tala, and
Ormistoun shall have entered, and done what they want to do, you are to
leave the room, and come to the King’s room and thence go where you
like.... The rest can do without you’ (in answer to a remonstrance), ‘for
they have keys enough.’ Paris then went into the kitchen of Kirk o’ Field,
and borrowed and lit a candle: meanwhile Bowton and Tala entered the
Queen’s room, and deposited the powder. Paris does not _say_ that he let
them in with the _key_, which he had kept all the time; at least he never
mentions making any use of it, though of course he did.
In the second statement, Paris avers that he took the _keys_ (the number
becomes plural, or dual) on Friday, not on Saturday, as in the first
statement, and _not_ after the Queen had left the room (as in the first
statement), but while she was dressing. He carried them to Bothwell, who
compared them with other, new, false keys, examined them, and said ‘They
are all right! take back these others.’ During the absence of Paris, the
keys were missed by the Usher, Archibald Beaton, who wanted to let Mary
out into the garden, and Mary questioned Paris _aloud_, on his return.
This is not probable, as, by his own second statement, he had already told
her, on Wednesday or Thursday, that Bothwell had asked him for the keys,
as he wanted to blow Darnley sky high. She would, therefore, know why
Paris had the keys of her room, and would ask no questions.[168] On
Saturday, after dinner, Bothwell bade him take the _key_ of Mary’s room,
and Mary also told him to do so. He took it. Thus, in statement II., he
has his usual De Foe-like details, different from those equally minute in
statement I. He takes the keys, or key, at a different time, goes back
with them in different circumstances, is asked for them by different
persons, and takes a key _twice_, once on Friday, once on Saturday, though
Bothwell, having duplicates that were ‘all right’ (_elles sont bien_), did
not need the originals. As to these duplicates, Bowton declared that,
after the murder, he threw them all into a quarry hole between Holyrood
and Leith.[169] Tala declared that Paris had a key of the back door.[170]
Nelson says that Beaton, Mary’s usher, kept the keys: he and Paris.[171]
Paris, of course under torture or fear of torture, said whatever might
implicate Mary. On Friday night, in the second statement, Paris again
carried letters to Bothwell; if he carried them both on Thursday and
Friday, are both notes in the Casket Letters? The Letter of Friday was
supposed to be that about the affair of Lord Robert and Darnley. On
Saturday Mary told Paris to bid Bothwell send Lord Robert and William
Blackadder to Darnley’s chamber ‘to do what Bothwell knows, and to speak
to Lord Robert about it, for it is better thus than otherwise, and he will
only have a few days’ prison in the Castle for the same.’ Bothwell replied
to Paris that he would speak to Lord Robert, and visit the Queen. This was
on Saturday _evening_ (_au soyr_), after the scene, whatever it was or was
not, between Darnley and Lord Robert on Saturday _morning_.[172] As to
_that_, Mary ‘told her people in her chamber that Lord Robert had enjoyed
a good chance to kill the King, because there was only herself to part
them.’ Lennox in his MSS. avers that Moray was present, and ‘can declare
it.’ Buchanan says that Mary called in Moray to separate her wrangling
husband and brother, hoping that Moray too would be slain! Though the
explosion was for Sunday night, Mary, according to Paris, was still urging
the plan of murder by Lord Robert on Saturday night, and Bothwell was
acquiescing.
The absurd contradictions which pervade the statements of Paris are
conspicuous. Hume says: ‘It is in vain at present to seek improbabilities
in Nicholas Hubert’s dying confession, and to magnify the smallest
difficulty into a contradiction. It was certainly a regular judicial
paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought to have been canvassed
at the time, if the persons whom it concerned had been assured of their
own innocence.’ They never saw it: it was authenticated by no judicial
authority: it was not ‘given in regularly and judicially,’ but was first
held back, and then sent by Moray, when it suited his policy, out of
revenge on Lethington. Finally, it was not ‘a dying confession.’ Dying
confessions are made in prison, or on the scaffold, on the day of death.
That of Paris ‘took God to record, at the time of his death’ (August 15),
‘that this murder was by your’ (the Lords’) ‘counsel, invention, and
drift committed,’ and also declared that he ‘never knew the Queen to be
participant or ware thereof.’ So says Lesley, but we have slight faith in
him.[173] He speaks in the same sentence of similar dying confessions by
Tala, Powrie, and Dalgleish.
I omit the many discrepant accounts of dying confessions accusing or
absolving the Queen. Buchanan says that Dalgleish, in the Tolbooth,
confessed the Exchequer House _fabliau_, and that this is duly recorded,
but it does not appear in his Dying Confession printed in the ‘Detection.’
In his, Bowton says that ‘the Queen’s mind was acknowledged thereto.’ The
Jesuits, in 1568, were informed that Bowton, at his trial, impeached
Morton and Balfour, and told Moray that he spared to accuse him, ‘because
of your dignity.’[174] These statements about dying confessions were
bandied, in contradictory sort, by both sides. The confession of Morton,
attested, and certainly not exaggerated, by two sympathetic Protestant
ministers, is of another species, and, as far as it goes, is evidence,
though Morton obviously does not tell all he knew. The part of Paris’s
statement about the crime ends by saying that Huntly came to Bothwell at
Holyrood, late on the fatal night, and whispered with him, as Bothwell
changed his evening dress, after the dance at Holyrood, for a cavalry
cloak and other clothes. Bothwell told Paris that Huntly had offered to
accompany him, but that he would not take him. Morton, in his dying
confession, declared that Archibald Douglas confessed that he and Huntly
were both present: contradicting Paris as to Huntly.
The declarations of Paris were never published at the time. On November 8,
1571, Dr. Wilson, who was apparently translating something--the
‘Detection’ of Buchanan, or the accompanying Oration (‘Actio’), into sham
Scots--wrote to Cecil, ‘desiring you to send unto me “Paris” closely
sealed, and it shall not be known from whence it cometh.’ Cecil was
secretly circulating libels on Mary, but ‘Paris’ was not used. His
declarations would have clashed with the ‘Detection’ as written when only
Bothwell and Mary were to be implicated. The truth, that there was a great
_political_ conspiracy, including some of Mary’s accusers, and perhaps
Morton, Lindsay, and Ruthven (for so Paris makes Bothwell say), would have
come out. The fact that Moray ‘would neither help nor hinder,’ and sneaked
off, would have been uttered to the world. The glaring discrepancies would
have been patent to criticism. So Cecil withheld documents unsuited to his
purpose of discrediting Mary.[175]
The one valuable part of Paris’s declarations concerns the carrying of a
Glasgow letter. And that is only valuable if we supply the accusers with
possible dates, in place of their own impossible chronology, and if we
treat as false their tale[176] that Bothwell ‘lodged in the town’ when he
returned from Calendar to Edinburgh. The earlier confessions, especially
those of Tala, were certainly mutilated, as we have seen, and only what
suited the Lords came out. That of Paris was a tool to use against
Lethington, but, as it also implicated Morton, Lindsay, and Ruthven, with
Argyll and Huntly, who might become friends of Morton and Moray, Paris’s
declaration was a two-edged sword, and, probably, was little known in
Scotland. In England it was judiciously withheld from the public eye.
Goodall writes (1754): ‘I well remember that one of our late criminal
judges, of high character for knowledge and integrity, was, by reading it
[Paris’s statement], induced to believe every scandal that had been thrown
out against the Queen.’ A criminal judge ought to be a good judge of
evidence, yet the statements of Paris rather fail, when closely inspected,
to carry conviction.
Darnley, in fact, was probably strangled by murderers of the Douglas and
Lethington branches of the conspiracy. On the whole, it seems more
probable that the powder was placed in Mary’s room than not, though all
contemporary accounts of its effects make against this theory. As touching
Mary, the confessions are of the very slightest value. The published
statements, under examination, of Powrie, Dalgleish, Tala, and Bowton do
not implicate her. That of Bowton rather clears her than otherwise. Thus:
the theory of the accusers, supported by the declaration of Paris, was
that, when the powder was ‘fair in field,’ properly lodged in Mary’s room,
under that of Darnley, Paris was to enter Darnley’s room as a signal that
all was prepared. Mary then left the room, in the time required ‘to say a
paternoster.’ But Bowton affirmed that, as he and his fellows stored the
powder, Bothwell ‘bade them make haste, before the Queen came forth of the
King’s house, for if she came forth before they were ready, they would not
find such commodity.’ This, for what it is worth, implies that no signal,
such as the entrance of Paris, had been arranged for the Queen’s
departure. The self-contradictory statements of Paris can be torn to
shreds in cross-examination, whatever element of truth they may contain.
The ‘dying confessions’ are contradictorily reported, and all the reports
are worthless. The guilt of some Lords, and their alliance with the other
accusers, made it impossible for the Prosecution to produce a sound case.
As their case stands, as it is presented by them, a jury, however
convinced, on other grounds, of Mary’s guilt, would feel constrained to
acquit the Queen of Scots.
VIII
_MARY’S CONDUCT AFTER THE MURDER_
Nothing has damaged Mary’s reputation more than her conduct after the
murder of Darnley. Her first apologist, Queen Elizabeth, adopted the line
of argument which her defenders have ever since pursued. On March 24,
1567, Elizabeth discussed the matter with de Silva. Her emissary to spy
into the problem, Killigrew, had dined in Edinburgh at Moray’s house with
Bothwell, Lethington, Huntly, and Argyll. All, except Moray, were
concerned in the crime, and this circumstance certainly gave force to
Elizabeth’s reasoning. She told de Silva, on Killigrew’s report, that
grave suspicions existed ‘against Bothwell, and others who are with the
Queen,’ the members, in fact, of Moray’s little dinner party to Killigrew.
Mary, said Elizabeth, ‘did not dare to proceed against them, in
consequence of the influence and strength of Bothwell,’ who was Admiral,
and Captain of the Guard of 500 Musketeers. Elizabeth added that, after
Killigrew left Scotland, Mary had attempted to take refuge in the Castle,
but had been refused entry by the Keeper, who feared that Bothwell would
accompany Mary and take possession. This anecdote is the more improbable
as Killigrew was in London by March 24, and the Earl of Mar was deprived
of the command of the Castle on March 19.[177] To have retired to the
Castle, as on other occasions of danger, and to have remained there, would
have been Mary’s natural conduct, had the slaying of Darnley alarmed and
distressed her. Those who defend her, however, can always fall back, like
Elizabeth, on the theory that Bothwell, Argyll, Huntly, and Lethington
overawed her; that she could not urge the finding of the murderers, or
even avoid their familiar society, any more than Moray could rescue or
avenge Darnley, or abstain from sharing his salt with Bothwell.[178] De
Silva inferred from Moray’s talk, that he believed Bothwell to be
guilty.[179]
The first efforts of Mary and the Council were to throw dust in the eyes
of France and Europe. The Council met on the day of Darnley’s death. There
were present Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Atholl, Caithness,
Livingstone, Cassilis, Sutherland, the Bishop of Galloway (Protestant),
the Bishop of Ross, the treasurer, Flemyng, Bellenden, Bothwell, Argyll,
Huntly, and Lethington. Of these the last four were far the most powerful,
and were in the plot. They must have dictated the note sent by express to
France with the news. The line of defence was that the authors of the
explosion had just failed to destroy ‘the Queen and most of the nobles and
lords in her suite, who were with the King till near midnight.’ This was
said though confessedly the explosion did not occur till about two in the
morning. The Council add that Mary escaped by not staying all night at
Kirk o’ Field. God preserved her to take revenge. Yet all the Court knew
that Mary had promised to be at Holyrood for the night, and the
conspirators must have seen her escort returning thither with torches
burning.[180] The Lennox MSS., in a set of memoranda, insist that Mary
caused a hagbut to be fired, as she went down the Canongate, for a signal
to Bothwell and his gang. They knew that she was safe from any explosion
at Kirk o’ Field.
On the same day, February 10 (11?), Mary, or rather Lethington for Mary,
wrote, in Scots, the same tale as that of her Council, to Beaton, her
ambassador in Paris. She had just received his letter of January 27,
containing a vague warning of rumoured dangers to herself. The warning she
found ‘over true’ (it probably arose from the rumour that Darnley and
Lennox meant to seize the infant Prince). The explosion had been aimed at
her destruction; so the letter said. ‘It wes dressit alsweill for us as
for the King:’ she only escaped by chance, or rather because ‘God put it
in our hede’ to go to the masque. Now all the world concerned knew that
Mary was not in Kirk o’ Field at two in the morning, and Mary knew that
all the world knew.[181] To be sure she did not actually write this
letter. Who had an interest in this supposed plot of general destruction
by gunpowder? Not Lennox and Darnley, of course; not the Hamiltons, not
Mary and the Lords who were to be exploded. Only the extreme Protestants,
whose leader, Moray, left on the morning of the affair, could have
benefited by the gunpowder plot. In Paris, on February 21, the deed was
commonly regarded as the work of ‘the heretics, who desire to do the same
by the Queen.’[182]