Mary Stuart (21 page)

(Into his hands and into his full power I put my son, my honour, and my life, my country, and my subjects; my subjugated heart is his alone; and I have no other wish in life than, without deceiving him, to follow him, despite all the troubles that may result …) “Despite all the troubles”! Though it be a thousand times a crime she means to follow the path which leads nowhere. Having given herself wholly, body, soul and destiny, to the man she loved so abjectly, the only thing that remains to be dreaded is that she may lose him.

The most obnoxious feature of her situation, the utmost extremity of her torment, remains to be told. Mad folly notwithstanding, Mary Stuart was too shrewd not to recognise that she had once more given herself in vain, that the man towards whom her whole being turned did not really love her. Bothwell had possessed her, as he had possessed many another wench, sensually, swiftly and brutally. He was as ready to leave her in the lurch as he had been ready to leave other women when the hot fit was over. For him, the rape of Mary Stuart had been no more than a passing adventure. In her despairing verses she discloses her knowledge that the man who had worshipped her body for a fleeting moment did not love her mind.

(I see that you esteem me inconstant, and have no faith in me, and suspect my heart without just cause, suspecting me to my own detriment. You do not realise the love I bear you; you suspect that another love is carrying me away, my words you look upon as light as wind, you picture my tired heart as though of wax, you think me a woman lacking in judgement, and all this does but intensify my love.) Instead of turning away proudly from her unappreciative lover, instead of exercising a modicum of self-control, Mary, carried away as she was by passion, flung herself on her knees before the indifferent Bothwell, in the hope of retaining him. Painful was the way in which her previous arrogance was now replaced by self-abasement. She implored, she supplicated, she extolled her own merits, offering herself to her lover, to the man who would not love her, after the manner of a salesman making the most of his goods. So completely had she lost all sense of personal dignity that she, who had once been queenly and self-reliant, retailed to him like a chaffering market woman the sacrifices she had made for him, and went on to emphasise her submissiveness.

(For it is your beloved's sole desire, to serve you and love you faithfully, and to count all misfortunes as less than nothing, and to place your will before mine own. You will know how obediently never forgetting my duty I shall study to please you always loving none but you, under whose guidance I wish, without any reserves to live and die …) With consternation we recognise the disappearance of the self-assertive impulse in a young woman who has hitherto been afraid of no sovereign ruler in the world and of no earthly peril, and who now debases herself by exhibiting a most shameful and spiteful jealousy. Bothwell must have given Mary cause to believe that he was more attached to the wife whom she had provided for him than he was to herself, and that he had no inclination to desert his wife for the Queen. Now, therefore (is it not horrible that a great love can make a woman so paltry?), she proceeded to disparage Lady Bothwell in the most ignoble and malicious way. She tried to stimulate his erotic masculine vanity by telling him that his wife did not show enough ardour when in his embraces. The gossip must have been passed on to her by some intimate of the Bothwell household. “
Quant vous l'aymez, elle usoit de froi-deur
”
—
When you made love to her, she showed coldness
—
she writes, implying that Lady Bothwell surrendered herself hesitatingly, frigidly, instead of with the warmth of true passion. In contemptible self-praise, she tells him how much she, the adulteress, is sacrificing for Bothwell, whereas his wife reaps advantages and pleasure from his greatness. Let him stay then with herself alone, not allowing himself to be humbugged by the letters and tears and conjurations of that “false” woman.

(Now she begins to see that she has made a great mistake in not valuing the love of such a lover and would gladly deceive you, my beloved, by writing letters stuffed with knowledge … nevertheless, her inflated words, her tears, her fictitious plaints, her loud cries and lamentations, have so won you over that you have kept her letters, in which you believe, and thus you love her and trust her more than me.) More and more despairing do her cries become. She is the only woman worthy of his love; he must not forsake her for an unworthy wife. He must put away this creature and unite his lot with that of his Queen and lover who is ready to walk beside him whatsoever may befall, through life and into the very jaws of death. Mary implores Bothwell to ask what proof he will of her everlasting devotion, for she is prepared to sacrifice all—house, home, possessions, crown, honour and child. Let him take everything from her, so long as he keeps her who has wholly given herself to him, body, soul and destiny.

For the first time a lambent ray was shed upon the background of this tragical landscape; the scene was flooded with light by Mary's frenzied avowals. Bothwell had possessed her in a casual way as he had possessed so many others and, so far as he was concerned, that would have sufficed. Queen Mary, however, a thrall to him both with her soul and her senses, all fire and ecstasy, wanted to bind him to her for ever. Now, for this ambitious man, happy in his recent marriage, a mere liaison had no charm. At most, Bothwell might have thought it advantageous to remain, for a while, on terms of intimacy with the woman in whose gift were the supreme honours and dignities of Scotland, to have Mary as concubine without disturbing his relations towards his legal wife. This did not suffice the Queen, who was of a regal disposition; nor the woman, who cared not to share a lover, but wanted him for herself alone. Yet how could she bind him to her side, this wild and unbridled adventurer? Her promises of fidelity, her asseverations of humility, could not be particularly alluring to Bothwell. They were more likely to bore him, for he must have heard them too often from other feminine lips. Only one prize was calculated to attract so greedy and ambitious a man: the highest, which so many had coveted—the crown. However disinclined Bothwell may have been to go on playing the part of lover to a woman whom he did not love, he could not but find it a seductive thought that this woman was a queen, and that by her will he might become King of Scotland.

At the first glance such a notion must have seemed preposterous. Mary Stuart's lawful spouse, Henry Darnley, was alive and bore the title of King. There was no room for another bearing that title. Yet this preposterous thought was the only link that could keep Mary and Bothwell together, the former yearning for love and the latter for power. He was a strong man, craving for freedom and independence; she was completely under his spell; nothing could permanently bind him to her but the crown. In her infatuation, forgetting honour, prestige, dignity and law, she was ready to pay the price. Even though she could bestow the crown on Bothwell only through committing a crime, she would not shrink from crime.

Just as Macbeth could fulfil the witches' demoniacal prophecy, could become King, only by the slaughter of a whole royal kinship, so Bothwell's path to the throne must lead him over Darnley's corpse. Blood must be spilt before his blood and Mary's could mingle.

Moral scruples never troubled Bothwell. We cannot doubt that so bold a man as he must have been ready enough to slay a king in order to wear a crown. Even if the written promise, said to have been found among the papers in the casket, the letter in which Mary avers in so many words that she will marry Bothwell in defiance of objections that might be raised by her relatives and others, were ultimately proved to be a forgery, yet the earl was so sure of his ground that he needed no signed and sealed document to force the Queen to carry out any plan that might mature in his mind. Often had she complained to him, as to all and sundry, that the thought of her irreparable union with Darnley oppressed and mortified her; over and over again, in her love verses (and we may well surmise in private interviews too), she assured Bothwell that her one and only desire was to bind herself to him for ever; why, then, should he hesitate to risk the most foolhardy deeds when he knew himself to be backed up by such plain-spoken assurances?

He knew, likewise (though nothing was openly said in the matter), that he could count upon the support of the Scottish lords, since they were unanimous in their hatred for their tiresome and vicious young master who had not kept faith with them but had shamelessly betrayed them in the Rizzio and in other affairs. Nothing would please them better than that by some means the King could be got out of the country. Bothwell was present too at Craigmiller Castle during the famous conference, attended by the Queen, when all conceivable ways of freeing Mary and Scotland from Darnley were discussed. The highest dignitaries of the realm, Moray, Lethington, Argyll, Huntly and Bothwell, were agreed in trying to strike a bargain with their sovereign lady. If she would recall Morton, Lindsay and Ruthven, who had been banished on account of their complicity in Rizzio's murder, they, for their part, would “find the means that Your Majesty shall be quit of him.” At the time they merely spoke of getting “quit of him” by legal measures, such as a divorce. Mary herself made the riddance conditional on its not bringing any slur upon her son. Lethington hinted that she could leave ways and means to her faithful servants, and that they should so act as to bring no “prejudice to your son”. Moray too, who as Protestant was even less scrupulous in such questions, is reported as saying that he would “look through his fingers and will behold our doings, saying nothing of the same.” The proposals, however, made Mary uneasy, so that she insisted: “I will that ye do nothing through which any spot may be laid upon my honour or conscience.” Behind these dark sayings there lurked a sinister meaning, which Both-well was the last man in the world to misconstrue. This point comes out perfectly clear—Mary Stuart, Moray, Lethington and Bothwell, the star performers of the tragedy, were determined to rid themselves of Darnley. One problem alone remained to be solved—how was the deed to be executed? Was it to be done by gentle means or by force?

Bothwell, since he was the boldest and the most impatient member of the Scottish aristocracy, preferred force. He could not and would not wait, since he was not, like the others, moved merely by the wish to sweep the troublesome youngster out of the path, but by the determination to succeed to crown and realm. Though the others might be satisfied to wish, while watching the progress of events, he had to act resolutely. There is reason to suppose that, on the quiet, at this juncture he was already on the lookout for confederates among the Scottish lords. Once more, however, the lights of history burnt low, since the preparations for a crime are naturally made in dark places. We shall never know how many of the lords were implicated in this matter, whether as confederates or acquiescent onlookers. It seems possible that Moray knew of the scheme, but refrained from active participation. Lethington, on the other hand, appears to have behaved less cautiously. The most trustworthy information is derived from Morton's dying confession. He had just returned from outlawry full of hatred for Darnley, the traitor. Knowing this, Bothwell bluntly proposed that they should co-operate in the murder of Darnley. Morton's experience after the assassination of Rizzio, when his associates left him in the lurch, made him cautious. He insisted upon safeguards. Was the Queen privy to the affair? Bothwell, eager for Morton's aid, did not hesitate to answer in the affirmative. But Morton knew that verbal assurances were apt to be repudiated when a plot such as this had achieved its goal, so he refused to move in the matter without the Queen's written approval. He demanded one of those famous bonds, wherewith he could exonerate himself in case of need. Bothwell promised that a bond should be forthcoming. Manifestly, however, the pledge was futile, for the Queen would be able to marry him after the murder only if she remained in the background and could affect surprise when the deed was done.