Mary Stuart (30 page)

I should have written “arrange for her to be accused” rather than “accuse”. The Scottish lords knew that Elizabeth would never allow them to claim jurisdiction over the Queen. They therefore remained prudently in the background, pulling strings to secure that a formal trial should be instigated by a third party. The requisite inflaming of public opinion against Mary Stuart was gladly undertaken by a man who hated her, John Knox. After the murder of Rizzio, this agitator and fanatic had thought it wise to quit the country. Now, when his gloomiest prophecies concerning the “bloody Jezebel” and the disasters her misconduct would bring about had been fulfilled in every particular and even outdone, he returned to Edinburgh clad in the prophet’s mantle. From his pulpit came demand after demand that the sinful papist woman should be put upon trial; in the uncompromising vernacular of the Old Testament, the priest clamoured for an assize upon the adulterous Queen. Nor was Knox’s a solitary voice. Sunday after Sunday the sermons of the preachers of the reformed religion became more acrimonious. No more in the case of a queen than in that of the lowliest woman in the land were adultery and murder to be overlooked. They went so far as to demand the execution of Mary Stuart, and their perpetual incitation did not fail of its effect. Hatred soon spread from the kirk into the street. Excited at the thought of seeing a woman of such exalted position led as a sinner to the scaffold, the mob, which hitherto in Scotland had sung small, now began to insist upon the public trial of the Queen. “The women were most furious and impudent against her, yet the men were bad enough.” Every poor woman in Scotland knew that the pillory and the scaffold would have been her lot had she been proved guilty of adultery. Was this one woman, because she was called a queen, to lecher and to murder unpunished, and to escape the fire? More and more savage became the cries: “Burn the whore!” The English ambassador, honestly alarmed, reported to London his fear lest the tragedy which had begun with the murder of David the Italian and with the slaying of the Queen’s husband would end with the execution of the Queen.

The Scottish lords had all that they wanted. They could bring up their heavy artillery, to batter down Mary Stuart’s resistance to a “voluntary” abdication. The document had been already drawn up to fulfil John Knox’s insistence upon a direct accusation of the Queen, for “a breach of the law” and for “incontinence with Bothwell and others”. If she still refused to abdicate, the letters found in the casket, the letters which proved her to have been privy to the murder, could be read in open court, disclosing her shame. Therewith the rebels would have justified themselves before the world. They did not think that Elizabeth or any other monarch would in that case intervene on behalf of a woman whose own letters showed her to be a murderess and an adulteress.

Armed with this threat of a public trial, Sir Robert Melville and Lord Lindsay arrived at Lochleven Castle on 25th July 1567. They brought with them three parchments for the Queen to sign if she wished to avoid being put on her trial. In the first of them Mary was to declare that she was weary of queenship and was content to lay aside the burden of the crown, a burden which she had neither power nor inclination to sustain any longer. The second parchment announced her consent to the coronation of her son; the third, her approval of Moray’s appointment as regent.

Melville was the chief spokesman. He, of all the rebellious nobles, was most sympathetic to her. Twice he had intervened to avert open conflict, and to urge her to repudiate Bothwell. But on both occasions she had refused, knowing that if she gave way to his demands the child she carried in her womb, Bothwell’s child, would be born a bastard. Now, however, after the discovery of the Casket Letters, her position had become much more difficult. At first she passionately refused to sign the parchments. She burst into tears, declaring that she would rather forfeit her life than her crown. Ruthlessly, and in the crudest colours, Melville explained what awaited her if she persisted in her refusal: a public reading of the letters, the interrogation of Bothwell’s servants, her own examination and condemnation. With horror Mary began to realise the result of her heedlessness, and how she had involved herself in shame and disgrace. By degrees her stubborn resistance was overcome by her fears. After prolonged hesitation and fierce outbursts of indignation and despair, she gave way in the end and signed the three documents.

An agreement had been come to. But, as usual with the Scottish “bonds”, neither party to the contract had any intention of being bound by it. The Scottish lords would, nonetheless, read Mary Stuart’s letters in parliament and would trumpet to the world that she had been privy to Darnley’s murder, hoping thereby to make her return to the throne impossible. Mary herself did not for a moment regard herself as discrowned merely because she had affixed her signature to the pieces of parchment. To her, the divine right of a queen was as much a part of herself as the warm blood that coursed through her veins, oaths to the contrary notwithstanding. Considerations of her word of honour counted for nothing with her as compared with the only thing which gave the world reality to her.

A few days later the little King was crowned. The populace had to put up with a less impressive spectacle than an auto-dafé in the public square. At the coronation the Earl of Atholl carried the crown, Morton the sceptre, the Earl of Glencairn the sword, and the Earl of Mar bore in his arms the little boy who was henceforward to be known as James VI of Scotland. Since John Knox preached the coronation sermon, the world was given to understand that the new-made King had for ever put away from him the errors and snares of papistical doctrines. There was great jubilation among the crowd outside the gates; the church bells pealed; bonfires were lit throughout the country. For the moment, and only for the moment, joy and peace were restored to Scotland.

Now, when the burden and heat of the day had been borne by others, Moray, the man of finesse, returned home in triumph. Once more his perfidious policy of absenting himself when danger was in the wind had been justified by results. He kept in the background during the murder of Rizzio, and again during the murder of Darnley; he took no active part in the rebellion against his sister; his loyalty was unsmirched and no blood bespecked his hands. Time had been working on his side. Since he knew how to wait and to hold aloof, there accrued to him without effort and without taint of dishonour what he had been artfully scheming for. Unanimously the Scottish lords offered him the regency.

Moray, able to command others because he knew how to command himself, did not show himself unduly eager. He was too clever to accept this position of dignity and power as a gracious gift, since those who offered it to him were men whom he intended to rule. He also wished to present himself in the light of a loving and devoted brother, who had no thought of claiming the authority of which his sister had been forcibly bereft. It was a psychological masterstroke on his part so to arrange matters that the regency should be forced on him, through the insistence of both parties, the rebel lords and the dethroned Queen.

The stagecraft of his visit to Lochleven was admirable. The unhappy woman, as soon as she caught sight of him, flung herself sobbing into her half-brother’s arms. Now at length, she hoped, she would find consolation, support and friendship; and, more than all, she expected to receive the boon of the good counsel of which she had so long been deprived. Moray, however, instead of responding cordially, assumed a harsh reserve. Leading her to her room, he told her plainly what he thought of her folly and misconduct, without saying a word to arouse in her any hope of considerate treatment. Much perturbed by James’s bitterness and coldness, the Queen wept once more, but tried to excuse herself and explain or extenuate her behaviour. Moray listened to her in silence, with a gloomy countenance, his main object being to intimidate her.

Then Moray left his sister to her own devices for the night; a night of alarms, poisoned by the anxiety he had aroused in her, which he wished to burn deeper and deeper. She, poor woman, was with child; she had had no tidings of what was going on in the outer world, for no one was allowed to visit her; she could not tell whether a shameful trial and a horrible death might not be awaiting her. She did not sleep a wink, and next morning was utterly broken. When they met again, Moray thought fit to utter a few words of consolation. He hinted that if she made no attempt to escape or to get into communication with the foreign powers, and especially if she would no longer seek reunion with Bothwell, it was possible, just possible, that he and her other well-wishers would try to save her honour before the world. This glimmer of hope sufficed to bring comfort to the despairing woman. She embraced her brother, and implored him to assume the regency. Then only would she feel that her son was safe, the kingdom well governed, and she herself freed from danger. She begged him again and again to become regent, and Moray went on allowing her to beg him, before witnesses, for a long time, until at length he magnanimously agreed to accept from her hands the position he had already determined to hold. Having gained his end, now that his sister no less than the Scottish lords wanted him to be regent, he departed well satisfied, leaving Mary likewise consoled, since she knew that the power would be held in her brother’s strong hand, and she hoped that the famous letters would not be made public.

But no one has pity for the powerless. As soon as Moray was installed as Lord Regent, he naturally determined to do that which would make the restoration of his sister for ever impossible. He was resolved to render her queenship morally impossible. There was no further word of her liberation from prison, and all preparations were made to keep her there for the rest of her life. Although he had promised both Elizabeth and Mary to safeguard the latter’s honour, on 15th December 1567, he had the compromising documents found in the silver casket, the letters and sonnets, read aloud in the Scottish parliament, examined by those assembled and unanimously declared to be in the dethroned Queen’s handwriting. Four bishops, fourteen abbots, twelve earls and somewhere near fifty of the lesser lights of the nobility and gentry (among whom were not a few that were friendly to the Queen) swore to the genuineness of the letters and the sonnets.

On this occasion not a single voice, not even that of any of those friendly to the Queen (and this fact is of great evidential value), expressed the slightest doubt as to the authenticity of the documents. Thus the meeting of the Scottish parliament became a tribunal. Invisibly the Queen was present at an assize held by her subjects. After the reading and examination of the letters, the illegal actions of the Scottish lords during late months, their rebellion, their taking prisoner of the Queen and so on were formally approved, and it was expressly declared that Mary had deserved her fate, since she had had “art and part” in the murder of her lawful husband. This was said to be “proven by the letters written with her own hand before and after the deed to James Bothwell, who had been mainly instrumental in the murder, and also by her shameful marriage to Bothwell immediately after the murder.” In order that the world at large should be informed as to Mary’s guilt, and should learn that the worthy Scottish lords had risen in rebellion only under the stimulus of moral indignation, copies of the letters were sent to the foreign courts, that thereby Queen Mary might be publicly stigmatised as an adulteress. Moray, the Lord Regent, and the Scottish lords in general, hoped that, with this red brand on her forehead, Mary would never again venture to claim the crown of Scotland.

But Mary was too strongly fortified by her sense of divine right to be shaken by public humiliation. No brand, she felt, could mark a forehead which had worn a crown and been duly anointed. No judgement and no command would ever make her bow her head. The more violent the attempt to cast her down from her high estate, the more resolutely would she resist. A will such as hers cannot long be imprisoned. It breaks through the strongest walls, snaps the bars of any cage. If you put such a woman as Mary Stuart in chains, she will strain against her bonds so forcibly that stronghold and hearts will quake.

N
O IMAGINATIVE WRITER
but Shakespeare could have adequately encompassed the Bothwell tragedy as a drama or a work of fiction but a British writer of less weight has, with considerable success, described the romantic and touching postlude at Lochleven Castle—Walter Scott. Yet anyone who has read
The Abbot
in childhood will continue, throughout life, to regard this historical “fiction” as more vivid and even more truthful than what is called historical “truth”, for when a gifted imaginative writer sets to work, the beautiful legend he constructs will often gain the victory over reality. We have all had our early emotions touched by these scenes, which have made a deep impress on our affective life and have permanently influenced our sympathies, for the elements of romance were ready to the writer’s practised hand: there were the grim jailers who kept watch over the unhappy Queen; the calumniators who blotted her scutcheon; she herself, young, kindly and beautiful, able to transform her enemies’ cruelty into clemency, to inflame the hearts of the men with whom she came into contact until they were filled with a spirit of chivalry and self-sacrifice. The setting, too, was no less romantic than the motif—the gloomy stronghold on an island in a lovely lake. From the dormer window Mary could catch glimpses of her beautiful Scottish realm with its forests and mountains, its perpetual charm. In the far distance she could discern the chill waters of the North Sea. The poetic energies in the hearts of the Scottish people have been, so to say, embodied in this romantic episode of Mary at Lochleven, and when once such a legend has been created, it comes to form a lasting element in the blood of a nation. For each successive generation it is recreative, arousing fresh faith. Like an imperishable tree, it throws forth new blossoms year after year, possessed of a higher truth beside which the arid truths of documents wither. What has once been thus created by the immortal power of imaginative genius maintains itself in virtue of its beauty. Those who, in a later, maturer and more sceptical epoch, try to elicit the facts that underlie so impressive a legend find that these facts are repellently bald—like a prose paraphrase of a magnificent poem.

The supreme danger of legend, however, is that those who give it currency tend to ignore that which is genuinely tragical in favour of that which is merely sentimental. Thus the balladesque tale of Mary Stuart’s imprisonment at Lochleven makes no mention of the innermost, the most human of her distresses. Sir Walter Scott stubbornly omits to relate that Queen Mary was with child by the murderer of her previous husband, and thus leaves out of account the full horror of her position during those months of humiliation. For if the babe she bore in her womb were (as was likely enough in the circumstances) to come prematurely into the world, the pitiless calendar of nature would disclose for all to read when she had first given herself to Bothwell. There is little or no doubt that she had done so before the formal wedding—maybe at a time when surrender to his embraces signified adultery; maybe during the period of mourning for Darnley, at Seton, or in the time of her strange wanderings from castle to castle; maybe (and probably) while Darnley was still alive. No one can fully understand Mary’s distressful state of mind at Lochleven who fails to recall that the birth of Bothwell’s child would betray to a censorious world the date at which her fatal passion for the Earl had begun.

What actually occurred in this respect remains a mystery from which the veil has never been lifted. We do not know how many months Mary had been with child when she was imprisoned at Lochleven; we do not know when she was freed from the burden of this undesired pregnancy; we do not know whether the child came into the world alive or was stillborn; if the pregnancy was brought to a premature conclusion, we do not know at what stage. Obscurity and suppositions envelop the whole affair; the witnesses are contradictory; and only this much is certain—that Mary had good reason for keeping the birth secret. It is suspicious enough that in none of her letters does she say a word about the birth of Bothwell’s child. According to the reports of Claud Nau, Sieur de Fontenay, who was her private secretary at this time, she gave birth at Lochleven to twins, prematurely and, since she had her apothecary with her in the castle, we may guess that the prematurity was assisted. According to another account, which equally lacks confirmation, the fruit of her union with Bothwell was not twins born too early to be viable, but a living daughter, who was secretly shipped to France, to be brought up there in a nunnery, ignorant of her royal descent. The key that might have unlocked these mysteries has been sunk for ever in the waters of Lochleven.

The fact that Queen Mary’s guardians helped her to cover up the mystery of the birth of Bothwell’s child at Lochleven Castle shows that they were not the hard-hearted jailers of the legend. Lady Douglas of Lochleven, to whose care the Queen had been committed, had more than thirty years before been mistress of King James V, to whom she had borne six children, the eldest being now the Regent Moray. After King James’s death she married Earl Douglas of Lochleven, and by him had seven children. A woman who had thirteen times experienced the pangs of labour and who had suffered the spiritual distress of bearing her first children out of wedlock was well able to understand and sympathise with Mary Stuart’s pitiable plight. The stories of her harshness towards the royal prisoner may be regarded as fabulous, and we cannot doubt that Mary, though a prisoner, was treated as an exalted guest. The dethroned Queen had a suite of rooms, her own cook, her own apothecary, four or five ladies-in-waiting or female domestics; she had the free run of the castle and the island, and she seems even to have been allowed the pleasures of the chase. If we strip the story of her life at Lochleven of sentimental trammels, we shall come to the conclusion that her treatment at the castle was extremely considerate. For, though the sentimentalists would fain have us overlook the fact, Mary had (to say the least of it) been somewhat remiss in her conduct, having married the murderer of her husband three months after the crime. As regards the question of her complicity in the murder, were she to be re-tried by a modern court of justice, the best plea that could be put in for her would be “extenuating circumstances” on the ground of her spiritual thraldom to Bothwell. If this woman whose behaviour had been a scandal to Europe and who had thrown the country over which she ruled into renewed disorder was kept in seclusion for a while, this was to her own advantage as well as to that of Scotland. During these months of retreat, she was given a chance of calming her over-stimulated nerves, of regaining command of her will, which had been paralysed by her infatuation for Bothwell. In a word, imprisonment at Lochleven saved her for a time from the dangers to which she would otherwise have been exposed by her own foolhardiness, unrest and impatience; safeguarded her from the opportunity for committing numerous follies.

In any case Mary’s detention at Lochleven must be regarded as mild punishment for what she had done amiss, when compared with what befell her accomplice and lover. Notwithstanding the solemn pledges that had been given, Bothwell became a hunted outlaw; a price of a thousand crowns had been set on his head, and his best friends in Scotland would have betrayed and sold him for that sum. The Earl, however, was not so easy to get hold of. Having vainly attempted to rally the borderers, he fled to the Orkneys, hoping thence to levy war against the Scottish lords. Regent Moray, however, dispatched four warships against him, and Bothwell escaped capture only by taking to sea in a nutshell of a boat. This little vessel was intended merely for coasting traffic among the islands, but in it, through stormy weather, the Earl made his way to Norway, arriving with torn sails, and being taken on board a Danish warship. Bothwell hoped to remain unrecognised, and borrowed a suit of ordinary clothing from some of his shipmates. He thought he would fare better if regarded as a pirate than if he were known to be the outlawed consort of the Queen of Scotland and the Isles. He was recognised, however, carried hither and thither, and at length set at liberty in Denmark. But even there, when fortune seemed to favour him, this adventurer wrecked his chances by seducing a Danish girl under promise of marriage. She brought a suit against him.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Copenhagen had learnt of what crimes Bothwell was accused in Scotland, so that the axe seemed ready for his neck. Diplomatic couriers hastened hither and thither. Moray demanded his extradition, and Queen Elizabeth was yet more urgent in the matter, wanting him as witness for the crown against Mary Stuart. The latter’s French relatives, however, were secretly working upon the King of Denmark, in order to prevent the surrender of one whose testimony might have proved so defamatory to the Queen of Scots. He was kept in rigorous confinement, and in prison he was safer than he would have been at large. Day after day, however, the man whose boldness was notorious in a hundred fights and forays had to dread lest he should be sent back to Scotland in chains, to perish under fearful tortures as a regicide. He was continually moved from one prison to another, kept behind strong bars like a dangerous beast, and he knew well that nothing but death would free him. Intolerably lonely and inactive, this vigorous man, who had been the terror of his enemies and the darling of the fair sex, now week after week, month after month, year after year, had to endure the living death of perpetual imprisonment. Could there be conceived a more horrible torture for one whose natural element was activity and freedom, one who loved the chase, who had ridden often to battle surrounded by his faithful retainers, who had enjoyed the favour of women wherever he went and had taken delight also in the things of the spirit? Now this paralysing inactivity in one prison cell after another! We learn from credible reports that he became frenzied in his solitude, dashing himself against the bars and the walls, to die insane in 1578, at the age of forty-two, after ten years of purgatory. Of the many who suffered death and martyrdom for Mary Stuart, Bothwell, the man whom she had most ardently loved, atoned longer and more horribly than any other.

Did Mary Stuart continue to think of Bothwell? Was she still in thrall to him, in spite of time and distance? Or was her glowing bondage gradually dissolved? The latter is true, for, as we shall learn, she entertained various schemes for other marriages and, to pave the way for these, begged the Pope to annul the “forced” wedding to Bothwell. She also sent a messenger to Denmark and induced the Earl to sign a document agreeing to the dissolution of their marriage. It is plain that, as soon as she had risen from childbed, she was able once more to exercise the old lure and become again a centre of disturbance. She drew a young man into her charmed circle, and involved his fate with hers.

The biographer of Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles finds reason again and again to complain that the portraits of her which have come down to us were limned by mediocre artists, so that they give us no insight into her true nature. They show nothing more than a charming, tranquil, kindly, gentle face, making no disclosure of the sensual charm this extraordinary woman must have exerted. Wherever she went she won friends, even from among her foes. As bride and as widow, on every throne and in every prison, she radiated an aura which aroused sympathy and made the environing atmosphere warm with friendliness. Very soon after her arrival at Lochleven, she awakened so much interest in the young Earl of Ruthven (son of the man who had been among the leaders in the murder of Rizzio) that the Scottish lords thought it expedient to remove him from his position as jailer. Thereupon she exercised her witchery upon another stripling, George Douglas, youngest son of Lady Douglas of Lochleven, and therefore Moray’s half-brother, though not Mary’s blood relation. Within a few weeks George was ready to do anything for her and became the chief assistant in her flight.

Was he merely this? Was not George Douglas something more during her months of imprisonment at Lochleven? Did his liking for her remain purely chivalrous and platonic?
Ignorabimus—
we will never know. Anyhow, Mary turned the young fellow’s fondness to practical account, using her customary arts of deception and cunning. A queen can always exert another lure in addition to personal charm, for the man who wins her hand may win to power. We guess, though we do not know, that Mary made Lady Douglas of Lochleven more pliable by talking of the possibility of a marriage to George. At any rate, it was not long before the supervision over the imprisoned Queen’s movements was slackened, and Mary forthwith concentrated her thoughts and activities upon plans for escape.

The first attempt, on 25th March 1568, miscarried, although it had been carefully thought out. Every week a washerwoman with some other girls came across to the island in a boat. Douglas had a talk with this laundress, who agreed to exchange clothes with the Queen. Safeguarded against recognition by the laundress’ coarse clothing and by a thick muffler, Mary walked boldly past the sentries at the castle gates. She was already being rowed across the lake, towards the shore where George Douglas was to await her with horses, when it occurred to one of the oarsmen to dally with the slender, muffled woman who was clad as a laundress. Wanting to see whether her face was as pretty as her figure, he tried to draw aside the muffler, which Mary obstinately held with her slender and delicate white hands. These hands, being well cared for, were obviously out of keeping with her dress. The boatmen became alarmed, and although the Queen angrily commanded them to continue on their course, they put about and took her back to prison.

The attempt at escape was promptly reported to Edinburgh, and thenceforward the prisoner was kept under closer supervision. George Douglas was forbidden to re-enter the castle. From the neighbourhood, however, he managed to communicate with the Queen, and conveyed tidings from her to her supporters. For by now, after a year of Moray’s regency, although Mary had been exposed to public opprobrium as a murderess, fresh supporters came to her aid. Some of the Scottish lords, especially the Huntlys and the Setons, being no friends to the regent, were faithful to her cause. Strangely enough, however, Mary found her most trusty adherents to be the Hamiltons, who had hitherto proved her fiercest adversaries. Of course there had been an old feud between the Hamiltons and the Stuarts. The Hamiltons came next in power to the Stuarts among the great families, and had long hoped to secure the crown for a member of their clan; now there had suddenly dawned the possibility of gaining their ambition by marrying off one of their number to Queen Mary. Since politics have no concern with morality, this fine scheme immediately led them to espouse the cause of the woman for whose execution as murderess they had been clamouring a few months before. We need hardly suppose that Mary seriously intended to marry one of the Hamiltons. Had she forgotten Bothwell so soon? More likely she only toyed with the proposal in order to escape from Lochleven. George Douglas, to whom (in the desperation of a prisoner) she had also promised her hand in marriage, went on with the preparations for her escape. By 2nd May 1568, everything was ready, and, as always when courage would serve her turn better than prudence, Mary was equal to the occasion.