Mary Stuart (27 page)

Once more we learn from the Casket Letters that Mary was inwardly rebellious to the harsh will of her new lord and master. She had an inkling that this fresh deception would not impose upon the world. Still, as before, she obeyed him to whom she had surrendered her will. As submissively as when she helped to lure Darnley to Edinburgh, so, though with a heavy heart, she lent herself to the proposed “abduction” and, scene after scene, the comedy of this collusive rape was carried out, strictly according to plan.

On 21st April 1567, only nine days after the extorted acquittal of Bothwell, two days after, at the famous supper party in Ainslie’s Taverne, Bothwell had compelled most of the Scottish lords to consent to the proposed marriage; exactly nine years and two days since Mary’s betrothal, or “handfasting”, to the Dauphin of France in the great hall of the Louvre—the Queen, who had hitherto shown little maternal affection, was seized with an urgent desire to visit her little son at Stirling. The Earl of Mar, guardian of Prince James, gave her a suspicious welcome, for all sorts of rumours had come to his ears. Mary was not allowed to see her baby boy alone, since the Scottish lords were afraid of her kidnapping James and handing him over to Bothwell. It had become plain that she no longer possessed any will of her own, and would, without demur, carry out the most criminal instructions of her tyrant. If there had been any idea of such a kidnapping, it was frustrated by Mar’s caution.

After seeing her son, Mary rode back towards Edinburgh, attended by only a few riders, among whom were Huntly and Lethington, undoubtedly parties to the plot for her “abduction”. When the Queen and her train reached Almond Bridge, between Linlithgow and Edinburgh, six miles from the capital, she found Bothwell, with eight hundred cavalrymen, blocking her way. This overwhelmingly superior force “attacked” the Queen’s troops. Of course there was no fighting, for Mary Stuart, “wishing to avoid bloodshed”, forbade her attendants to resist. It was enough for Bothwell to seize the bridle of her palfrey for the Queen to “surrender”, and allow herself to be led off to the desired captivity at Dunbar. An over-zealous captain, who wished to set out for reinforcements and try to “rescue” the “prisoner”, was given a broad hint that Mary was a consenting party to the capture. Huntly and Lethington were dismissed unhurt. No one was to be injured in this “affray”. The only thing necessary was that Mary herself should remain in the “custody” of her beloved ravisher. For more than a week ensuing she shared his bed at Dunbar, while simultaneously in Edinburgh, with great haste (and with wheels greased by corruption), Bothwell’s divorce from his wife was carried through the ecclesiastical courts, both Protestant and Catholic. As far as the former were concerned, the shabby plea was put in that Bothwell had had adulterous relations with a serving maid. The Catholic court made the belated discovery that his marriage with Lady Jane Gordon was null and void because the pair were related in the fourth degree. At length this dark business was over. Then the world could be informed that Bothwell had carried off the unsuspecting Mary with the strong hand, and had raped her at Dunbar. Nothing but marriage to the man who had possessed her against her will could restore the honour of the Queen of Scotland.

This “abduction” was too obviously accordant with the wishes of those concerned for anyone to believe that the Queen of Scotland had really been “carried off by force and raped”. Even the Spanish ambassador, who was well affected towards Mary, reported to Madrid that the whole affair had been playacting. Strangely enough, however, it was those who were best in a position to see through the pretence that now behaved as if the alleged abduction and rape had been genuine. The Scottish lords, who had meanwhile already signed a bond for the removal of Bothwell, made a grotesque pretence of taking the comedy of the abduction seriously. With a touching display of fidelity they protested themselves enraged because the Queen of their country had been seized and detained against her will, to the dishonour of Scotland. With unwonted unanimity they declared themselves ready, as loyal subjects, to rescue the helpless lamb from the clutches of the wicked wolf Bothwell. Both-well had at length given them a long-desired excuse for, under the mask of patriotism, attacking the military dictator. They hastily got together to “rescue” Mary from his clutches, and thus prevent the marriage which, only a week earlier, they had agreed to promote.

Nothing could have been more distressing to Mary than this sudden determination of her “loyal” nobles to protect her against her “ravisher”. They were plucking from her hands the cards she had so carefully and deceitfully arranged. Since she had no wish to be “liberated” from Bothwell, but desired to be bound to him for ever, she now found it necessary to make short work of the lying statement that Bothwell had carried her off by force. Whereas yesterday she had wanted to blacken him, today it was incumbent on her to whitewash him, and thus to destroy the whole effect of the farce she had been playing. To prevent any serious charge being brought against Bothwell, she became the most zealous defender of the ravisher. His behaviour had, indeed, “been rather strange at first; but since then he had given her no grounds for complaint.” As no one had assisted her to resist the abduction, she had been “compelled to modify her first disinclination and to give serious attention to his proposal.” More and more deplorable grew the situation of this unhappy woman, entangled in the thorny thicket of her passion. The last veils were stripped from her, leaving her naked to the scorn of the world.

It was with consternation that Mary’s friends watched her return to Edinburgh in the beginning of May. Bothwell was leading her horse by the bridle, and to show that she came with him of her own free will, his spearmen were ostentatiously unarmed. Vainly did those who honestly wished well to Mary Stuart and to Scotland warn the Queen of the error of her present courses. Du Croc, the French ambassador, told her that if she married Bothwell, this would put an end to the friendship with France. One of her most trusty adherents, Lord Herries, threw himself at her feet, imploring her to think better of what she was doing; while Sir James Melville, as ever a loyal and sagacious adviser, had to flee from the wrath of Bothwell when, at the last moment, he tried to hinder this unhappy marriage. All her adherents were heavy-hearted because this splendid woman was in thrall to a dastardly adventurer, and they foresaw that the mad haste with which she was wedding the murderer of her husband would lose her both her crown and her honour. Good days had dawned for her opponents. The gloomy prophecy of John Knox was being disastrously fulfilled. John Craig, who had succeeded Knox as minister at St Giles’, refused at first to have the banns published in the kirk. He openly stigmatised the marriage as “odious and slanderous before the world”. Not until Bothwell threatened him with the gallows did he lend himself to promoting the marriage.

Mary, however, had to bow her neck lower and lower beneath the yoke. For now, when everyone knew how urgently the Queen needed this marriage, she was shamelessly blackmailed by those whose help and approval were requisite. Huntly demanded and secured the return of all the estates that had been escheated to the crown, this being his payment for consenting to his sister’s divorce from Bothwell. The Catholic bishop received manifold offices and dignities; but the highest price was demanded by the Protestant minister, who insisted upon the Queen’s public humiliation. Since the urgency of her need was well known, she was compelled to declare that she, a Catholic princess, on the maternal side a descendant of the Guises, would have her marriage celebrated in accordance with the Reformed, that is to say heretical, rites. By acceding to this demand, Mary Stuart flung away the last card which might have enabled her to secure the support of Catholic Europe and to retain the favour of the Pope, the sympathies of Spain and France. Henceforward united Catholicism would be against her. Terribly true had become the words of the sonnet:

(For him since then I have despised honour, which alone can provide us with happiness. For him I have risked dignity and conscience. For him I have forsaken all my relatives and friends.) Nothing now could save her, since she had forsaken herself. The gods will not accept such foolish sacrifices as hers.

It will be hard to find in the pages of history a more painful description of a wedding than that of Mary’s third marriage on 15th May 1567; the picture is one of the utter debasement of an unhappy queen. Her first marriage, to the Dauphin, afterwards Francis II of France, had been a resplendent occasion. Tens of thousands had acclaimed the young bride who was Queen of Scotland and was to be Queen of France. From far and wide the nobility of France, the envoys of all lands, had assembled to watch the Dauphiness’ progress to Notre Dame, attended by the royal family and the flower of French chivalry. The second marriage had been a quieter affair. No longer at high noon, but between five and six o’clock in the morning, the priest had wedded her to the great-grandson of Henry VII. Still, the Scottish nobles had been on hand, and the foreign ambassadors likewise, while the good people of Edinburgh kept high festival throughout the day. But this third marriage, that to Bothwell—who at the last moment had been created Duke of Orkney—was perpetrated as secretly as a crime. In the small hours (four o’clock), when the city was still asleep, a few persons assembled, almost furtively, in the old chapel of Holyrood. It was not three months since Darnley’s murder, so his widow was married in her “dule-weed”
—
her mourning garb. The chapel was almost empty. Numerous guests had been invited, but few of them wished to grace the occasion by their presence, or to see the Queen of Scotland accept a wedding ring from the hand of him who had slain Darnley. Almost all the Scottish lords had stayed away, with or without excuse. Moray and Lennox had left the country; Lethington and Huntly, who were half in the plot, absented themselves; and the only man to whom, as a devout Catholic, Mary had hitherto been able to disclose her most secret thoughts, even her father-confessor, had taken leave of her for ever. Her spiritual director had sadly acknowledged that he regarded her henceforward as lost. No one in whom there persisted a spark of honour wished to witness the marriage of Darnley’s murderer to Darnley’s widow, or the alleged consecration of this crime by religious rites. Fruitlessly had Mary implored the French ambassador to be present so as to give the wedding a semblance of respectability. Du Croc, her good friend, steadfastly refused to attend. His presence would have signified the assent of France. “Had I gone, one might have believed that my King had had a hand in these affairs.” Besides, he did not wish to recognise Bothwell as the Queen’s consort. The marriage service was read by Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, assisted by the Reverend John Craig. No Mass was said, no organ sounded, short work was made of the ceremony. No arrangements were made for a dance or a banquet that evening. Nor, as when Mary had wedded Darnley, was money scattered among a rejoicing crowd, with cries of “Largesse, largesse!” The capital was as cold, as empty and as chill as a new-made grave, and the few witnesses of this strange wedding were as mournful and silent as mutes at a funeral. There was no procession through the streets. The wedded pair hastened from the doleful chapel to lock themselves up in the privacy of their own apartments.

For, at the very moment when, after blindly straining forward to her goal, Mary had achieved her purpose, she underwent a spiritual collapse. She had fulfilled her wish of making Bothwell her own. Up to the hour of the wedding she had persisted in the illusion that a union with him, the formal sanctification of their love, would rid her of her anxieties. But now, when she no longer had a purpose to fulfil, no object on which to fix her gaze, her eyes were opened and she stared round her—into vacancy. Discord between the pair seems to have begun directly after the wedding. As invariably happens when two persons have dragged one another down towards destruction, each was inclined to blame the other for what had gone awry. On the afternoon of the wedding day, du Croc, who visited Mary at her request, found her in despair. Night had not yet fallen, but a chill spectre had arisen to separate Mary from Bothwell. “Repentance has already begun,” reported the French ambassador to Paris. “When I went to see Her Majesty on Thursday afternoon, I noticed something strange in the manner of her and her husband, which she sought to excuse—saying that if she was sad, it was because she wished to be so, and she never wished to rejoice again. All that she wished for was death. Yesterday, while she and her husband were together, shut up in their cabinet, she cried out aloud for a knife with which to kill herself. Those who were in the outer chamber heard her. They fear that unless God comes to her aid she will, in her despair, do herself a mischief.” Soon there were other trustworthy reports of dissension between the newly wedded pair. Bothwell, indeed, was said to regard the divorce from his pretty young wife, Lady Jane Gordon, as invalid, and spent nights with her instead of with Mary. “From the day of the wedding,” reports du Croc once more, “there was no end to the fears and the plaints of Mary Stuart.” Now that the blinded woman had forced the hand of fate, she knew that all was lost, and that death would be better than the life of torment she had brought upon herself.

This ghastly honeymoon endured for three weeks and was a time of agony throughout. Whatever the pair tried to do in the hope of holding together and of saving themselves proved futile. When in the public eye, Bothwell, indeed, made a parade of respect and affection for the Queen, feigning love and humility; but his words and gestures counted for nothing in view of his dreadful record. The populace was gloomy, and looked askance at the pair of criminals. Vainly did the dictator, since the nobles held aloof, woo the favour of the commonalty, playing the liberal, the kindly, the pious ruler. He attended the services of the Reformed Church, only to find that the Protestant clergy were as hostile to him as the Catholic. He wrote humbly worded letters to Elizabeth, which she left unanswered. He wrote to Paris, but his epistles were ignored. Mary summoned the Scottish lords, but they held aloof in Stirling. She demanded the custody of her child, but the Earl of Mar refused to surrender little James to her care. A horrible silence surrounded the Queen and Bothwell. To give the semblance of security and cheerfulness, Bothwell hastily improvised a masque and a regatta. This water pageant was held at Leith, and Mary graced it with her presence, to watch her consort ride at the ring and review the troops. Wanly she smiled at her spouse. The common folk, always ready for a show, assembled in great numbers, but did not rejoice. The country seemed paralysed with fear, which was likely, in a moment, to blaze up into wrath.