MARY'S MARRIAGE WITH DARNLEY.
Murray, meanwhile, was busily organizing his scheme of rebellion. "Their
chief trust," says Randolph, alluding to the Earl and his associates,
"next unto God, is the Queen's Majesty, (Elizabeth,) whom they will repose
themselves upon; not leaving in the meantime to provide for themselves the
best they can." Elizabeth was not backward to give them every
encouragement. She wrote letters to the heads of the party; means were
taken to win over to their views the General Assembly, which met in June
1565, the members of which, as Randolph says, were "never more constant or
more earnest;" and the nobles summoned by Mary to a convention at Perth,
were all tampered with. But the great majority at this convention, gave
their consent and approbation to the proposed marriage; and Murray, in
despair, begged Randolph to inform his mistress, in the name of himself
and those who had joined his faction, that they were "grieved to see such
extreme folly in their sovereign; that they lamented the state of their
country, which tended to utter ruin; and that they feared the nobility
would be forced to assemble themselves together, so to provide for the
state, that it should not utterly perish." In other words, they had made
up their mind to rebellion; at all events, to prevent Darnley from
obtaining the crown, and an ascendancy over them,--and probably, if an
opportunity should offer, to put Mary in confinement, and rule the country
themselves. This was exactly the state of feeling which Elizabeth had long
laboured to produce in Scotland. "Some that have already heard," says
Randolph, "of my Lady's Grace imprisonment," (meaning the Countess of
Lennox), "like very well thereof, and wish both father and son to keep her
company. The question hath been asked me, whether, if they were delivered
us into Berwick, we would receive them? I answered, that we could not nor
would not refuse our own, in what sort soever they came unto us."[92] But
as it was felt that a plausible apology would be required for proceeding
to these extremities, the Earl of Murray gave out that a conspiracy had
been formed to assassinate him at the Convention at Perth. His story was,
that there had been a quarrel between one of his own servants and another
man, who was supported by retainers of Athol and Lennox, and that it had
been arranged that they should renew their dispute at Perth, and that he
himself should be slain in the affray, which was expected to ensue. But
the evidence of a plot against him rests only upon Murray's own statement
and when Mary asked him to transmit in writing a more particular account
of it, seeing that he made it his excuse for refusing to come to Court,
"it appeared to her Highness and to her Council, that his purgation in
that behalf, was not so sufficient as the matter required;" and his excuse
was not sustained.[93]
The treasonable views entertained by Murray and his friends, are involved
in no such doubt. In these times, the common mode of effecting a change in
the government, was to seize the person of the sovereign; and all
historians of credit agree in affirming, that Murray was determined on
making the experiment. On Sunday, the first of July, 1565, the Queen was
to ride with Darnley and a small train of friends from Perth to the seat
of Lord Livingston at Callander, the baptism of one of whose children she
had promised to attend. Murray knew that it would be necessary for her to
pass, in the course of this journey, through several steep and wild
passes, where she and her attendants might easily be overpowered. At what
precise spot the attack was to be made, or whether that was not left to
the chapter of accidents, does not appear. Knox, who was, of course, too
staunch a Presbyterian directly to accuse the great lay-head of his church
of so treasonable a design, says that the path of Dron (a rugged pass
about three miles south of Perth), had been mentioned, whilst Sir James
Melville and others, point out the Kirk of Beith, which stood on a
solitary piece of ground, between Dumfermline and the Queensferry. But
late upon the previous Saturday night, a rumour reached Mary of the
contemplated plot. To prevent its execution, she ordered the Earl of Athol
and Lord Ruthven, to collect immediately as strong a body of men as
possible; and through their exertions, she left Perth next morning at
five, accompanied by three hundred horsemen well mounted. Murray was
waiting at Loch Leven, Argyle at Castle Campbell, Chatelherault at his
house of Kinneil, in the neighbourhood of the Queensferry, and Lord
Rothes, who had joined in the conspiracy, at a place called the Parrot
Well, not far distant. The Queen, however, to their great disappointment,
having passed over the ground on which they intended to intercept her,
both much earlier in the day, and much more strongly guarded than they had
anticipated, they were obliged to remain quiet; indeed the Earl of Argyle
did not come to join Murray, till two hours after Mary had ridden through
Kinross.[94]
On Mary's return to Edinburgh she found that an attempt had been made,
through the conjoined influence of Knox and Murray, to stir up to sedition
some of the more bigoted Presbyterians--on the plea that Darnley favoured
Popery. Two or three hundred of the malcontents, or _brethren_, as Knox
calls them, assembled at St Leonard's Hill, and their mutinous proceedings
might have led to disagreeable consequences, had not Mary arrived just in
time to disperse and overawe them.[95] Murray and his associates, keeping
at a greater distance, held some secret meetings at Loch-Leven, and then
assembling at Stirling on the 17th of July, openly raised the standard of
rebellion. But, amidst all these troubles, Mary, conscious that she had
right upon her side, remained undaunted, and, at no period of her life,
did her strength of mind appear more conspicuous. To retain that
confidence, which she knew the great majority of her subjects still placed
in her, she issued proclamations announcing her determination to abstain,
as she had hitherto done, from any interference in the matter of religion;
she wrote, with her own hand, letters to many of her nobles, assuring them
of the integrity of her intentions; and, she sent requisitions to all upon
whom she could depend, calling on them to collect their followers, and
come armed to her assistance.
The Earl of Murray, on the other hand, having thrown off his allegiance to
his own Sovereign, became entirely subservient to the wishes and commands
of Elizabeth. He and his friends wrote to request that she would send
them, as a proof of her sincerity in the cause, the sum of three thousand
pounds to meet the expenses of the current year; and they would thus be
able, they imagined, to carry every thing before them, unless Mary
received foreign assistance. They likewise suggested that Lord Hume, whose
estates lay on the Borders, and who was one of the Scottish Queen's most
faithful servants, should be harassed by some ostensibly accidental
incursions;--that the Bishop of Dumblane, who was to be sent on an embassy
to the Continent, should be delayed in London till "his budgets were
rifled by some good slight or other;"--and that Bothwell, whom Mary was
about to recall, to obtain his assistance in her present difficulties,
should be "kept in good surety" for a time.[96] To all this Elizabeth
replied, that if the Lords suffered any inconvenience, "they should not
find lack in her to succour them." She hinted, however, that the less
money they asked the better, advising them "neither to make greater
expense than their security makes necessary, nor less which may bring
danger." "This letter," says Keith, "is an evident demonstration of the
English Queen's fomenting and supporting a rebellion in Scotland; and the
rebellious Lords knew too well what they had to trust to."
One can hardly attempt to unravel, as has been done in the preceding
pages, the secret causes which led to the iniquitous rebellion now
organized, without feeling it almost a duty to express indignation both at
the malicious interference of the English Queen, and the overweening
ambition and ingratitude of the Earl of Murray. Mary's conduct, since her
return from France, had been almost unexceptionable. The only fault she
had committed, and the necessity of the times forced it on her, was
yielding too implicitly to the counsels of her brother. These had been in
some instances judicious, and in others, the natural severity of his
temper had been rebuked by the mildness of Mary; so that, take it for all
in all, no government had ever been more popular in Scotland than hers.
Her choice of Lord Darnley for a husband, so far from diminishing the
estimation in which she was held by the great body of her subjects, only
contributed to raise her in their opinion. For the sake of the political
advantages which would result to her country from this alliance, she was
willing to forego much more splendid offers; and, though the imperfections
of Darnley's character might ultimately be the means of destroying her own
happiness, his birth and expectations were exactly such as gave him the
best right to be the father of James VI. Nor could his religious opinions
be objected to, for, whatever they were, they did not influence the
Queen;--indeed, ever since she had known him, she had treated the
Protestants with even more than her usual liberality. At the baptism of
Lord Livingston's child, she remained and heard a Protestant sermon; and
about the same time she intimated to some of the leaders of the Reformers,
that though she was not persuaded of the truth of any religion except of
that in which she had been brought up, she would nevertheless allow a
conference and disputation on the Scriptures in her presence, and also a
public preaching from the mouth of Mr Erskine of Dun, whom she regarded as
"a mild and sweet-natured man, with true honesty and uprightness."[97] All
these things considered, one is at a loss to conceive how, even in these
restless times, any set of men dared to enter into rebellion against Mary.
But the selfish and insidious policy of Elizabeth--the jealousy of the
Duke of Chatelherault, in whose family rested the succession to the
Scottish crown, and who had hoped that his son Arran might have obtained
Mary's hand--the envy and rage of the Earl of Argyle, who had been obliged
to surrender to Lennox some of his forfeited estates--and, above all, the
artful and grasping spirit of Murray, solve the enigma. Whatever opinion
may be entertained of Mary's subsequent proceedings it appears but too
evident, that the first serious troubles of her reign were forced upon her
in spite of her utmost prudence, by the intrigues of enemies who were only
the more dangerous, because they had for a time assumed the disguise of
friends.
Whatever the hopes or wishes of the conspirators might be, Mary resolved
that they should not long have it in their power to make their desire to
prevent her nuptials a pretext for continuing in arms. On Sunday, the 29th
of July 1565, she celebrated her marriage with Darnley, upon whom she had
previously conferred various titles, and among others that of Duke of
Albany.[98] The banns of matrimony were proclaimed in the Canongate
church, the palace of Holyrood being in that parish; and, as Mary and
Darnley were first cousins, a Catholic dispensation had been obtained from
the Pope. The ceremony was performed, according to the Catholic ritual, in
the chapel of Holyrood, between five and six in the morning--an hour which
appears somewhat strange to modern habits. John Sinclair, Dean of
Restalrig, and Bishop of Brechin, had the honour of presiding on the
occasion. It was generally remarked, that a handsomer couple had never
been seen in Scotland. Mary was now twenty-three, and at the very height
of her beauty, and Darnley, though only nineteen, was of a more manly
person and appearance than his age would have indicated. The festivities
were certainly not such as had attended the Queen's first marriage, for
the elegancies of life were not understood in Scotland as in France; and,
besides, it was a time of trouble when armed men were obliged to stand
round the altar. Nevertheless, all due observances and rejoicings lent a
dignity to the occasion. Mary, in a flowing robe of black, with a wide
mourning hood, was led into the chapel by the Earls of Lennox and Athol,
who, having conducted her to the altar, retired to bring in the
bridegroom. The Bishop having united them in the presence of a great
attendance of Lords and Ladies, three rings were put upon the Queen's
finger--the middle one a rich diamond. They then knelt together, and many
prayers were said over them. At their conclusion, Darnley kissed his
bride, and as he did not himself profess the Catholic faith, left her till
she should hear mass. She was afterwards followed by most of the company
to her own apartments, where she laid aside her sable garments, to
intimate, that henceforth, as the wife of another, she would forget the
grief occasioned by the loss of her first husband. In observance of an old
custom, as many of the Lords as could approach near enough were permitted
to assist in unrobing her, by taking out a pin. She was then committed to
her ladies, who, having attired her with becoming splendour, brought her
to the ball-room, where there was great cheer and dancing till dinner
time. At dinner, Darnley appeared in his royal robes; and after a great
flourish of trumpets, largess was proclaimed among the multitude who
surrounded the palace. The Earls of Athol, Morton, and Crawfurd, attended
the Queen as sewer, carver, and cup-bearer; and the Earls of Eglinton,
Cassilis, and Glencairn, performed the like offices for Darnley. When
dinner was over, the dancing was renewed till supper-time, soon after
which the company retired for the night.[99]
The rejoicings that attended the commencement of Darnley's career as King
of Scotland, were but of short duration. Randolph, expressing the
sentiments of Elizabeth and the rebels, hesitated not to say, that "_God
must either send the King a short end, or them a miserable life; that
either he must be taken away, or they find some support, that what he
intendeth to others may light upon himself_."