Scotland Back In The Day: Royal love affair that led to dishonour and death

Yet not everyone in Scotland was pleased that she and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, had produced an heir. The Protestant nobles who were her reluctant subjects and the reformer John Knox were particularly displeased, especially when she demanded a Catholic baptism for her son.

Mary had undergone a difficult period of ill-health during the pregnancy and was not much better after the birth. With modern hindsight we can probably say that she suffered post-natal depression, but she was still Queen and had to carry on her reign.

Events moved with hideous rapidity as Mary determined to rid herself of her drunken, womanising fool of a husband. She had met the man that she wanted to replace him with – James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, who had come to her aid after the murder of David Rizzio.

The extent of her growing love for the tough Bothwell can be determined by the fact that though ill, she rode across many miles of rough country to Hepburn’s forbidding hulk of a fortress, Hermitage Castle, to visit him after he was wounded in a skirmish with Borders reivers.

In late 1566, Mary took herself to stay at the home of the Preston family, Craigmillar Castle on the south side of Edinburgh, and Darnley was told to keep away. The castle is next to an area called Little France because many of Mary’s courtiers from France made their home there. Craigmillar Castle has been relatively well preserved and you can visit the Great Hall where Bothwell and other conspirators loyal to Mary are said to have signed a “bond” that committed them to getting rid of Darnley – by fair means or foul we do not know as no copy of the bond survives.

If you visit the castle, you can only conclude that Mary must have known what was happening inside its walls as there is no way there could have been secret meetings in such a confined space.

The Catholic baptism of James VI took place in Stirling Castle in December, 1566, and it was an opulent ceremony designed in great part by Mary herself. The child’s father did not attend, and it was soon clear that Darnley was very ill with his good looks ravaged, most probably by syphilis. James stayed at Stirling – he would spend most of his childhood there – in the care of the Earl of Mar and his wife as Mary returned to Edinburgh.

Mary invited her husband to convalesce at Craigmillar but he preferred to be cared for by his servants at a place now known as Kirk o’ Field, a stout house on the edge of Edinburgh but just inside the protective city walls. Mary did indeed go there to care for him and some thought a reconciliation was possible.

In the early hours of February 10, 1567, Mary having departed the scene the previous evening, Kirk o’ Field was blown to smithereens. Darnley’s body was found next to a pear tree in a nearby garden. He and his servant Taylor both lay dead, unmarked and probably smothered or strangled.

Bothwell immediately became the chief suspect, and Mary was guilty by association. She said she knew nothing, however, and wrote to her cousin Elizabeth that she herself might have been the target.

Mary wrote: “The matter is so horrible and strange, as we believe the like was never heard of in any country.

“There is nothing remaining, no, not a stone above another, but all carried far away, or dung in dross to the very groundstone. It must have been done with the force of powder, and appears to be a mine.

“With the diligence our Council has begun already to use...the same being discovered...we hope to punish the same with such rigour as shall serve for example of this cruelty to all ages to come.

“Always who ever have taken this wicked enterprise in hand, we assure our self it was dressed always for us as for the King; for we lay the most part of all the last week in that same lodging, and was there accompanied with night at midnight, and of very chance tarried not all night, by reason of some mask in the abbey; but, we believe it was not chance but God that put it in our head.”

Bothwell was charged with the murder, but after a farce of a trial in Parliament from which his accusers absented themselves – Edinburgh was occupied by thousands of Bothwell’s mosstroopers, funnily enough – James Hepburn was declared innocent. He also challenged anyone who accused him to trial by combat, and such was his reputation as a soldier that there were no takers.

Mary once attempted to describe her love for Bothwell, writing to a bishop: “Albeit we found his doings rude, yet were his words and answers gentle.”

More importantly perhaps, Bothwell was a strong man, a ferocious character who was feared by many, and also a well-read polyglot who had a reputation as a soldier and womaniser across Europe. He also had a big ambition, and that was to have Mary as his wife and become king himself.

He organised another bond among his supporters in the nobility and duly proposed marriage to Mary, showing the support he had. She declined because it was too soon after Darnley’s death and the following trial, but Bothwell pressed his case.

Mary described it thus: “He obtained an writing subscribed with all their hands, wherein they not only granted their consent to our marriage with him, but also obliged them to set him forward with their lives and goods...This realm being divided in factions as it is, cannot be contained in order, unless our authority be assisted and forthset by the fortification of a man who must take upon his person in the execution of justice...the travail therof we may no longer sustain in our own person, being already wearied, and almost broken with the frequent uproars and rebellions raised against us since we came in Scotland.”

Mary went off to Stirling to see James, and returned on April 21, 1567 – the last day she ever saw her son.

Bothwell met her on the way back to Edinburgh and diverted the Queen to his Dunbar castle, where, to put it mildly, he had his wicked way with Mary, who would later say he took her “not the less by force”.

Whatever happened, Mary made Bothwell the Duke of Orkney and on May 15, 1567, in a Protestant ceremony at Holyroodhouse, she married him, in doing so signing her own death warrant.

For many of the nobles who had previously supported Bothwell now turned against him, becoming known as the Confederate Lords. They included the Earl of Morton, Lord Lindsay, the Earl of Mar – Prince James’s guardian – the Earl of Gowrie and William Kirkcaldy of Grange, and jointly they decided to stage a coup and “free” Mary from Bothwell.

They brought their thousands of well-armed troops to a village called Carberry near Musselburgh. Mary rode at the head of her small army with Bothwell who offered single combat to any lord who would face him. Only Kirkcaldy wanted it, though Bothwell refused to meet him because he was a mere laird.

At the end of a long hot day, Bothwell’s troops began to drift away and the Earl himself went to Dunbar and then Orkney. He never saw his wife again, and died insane in a Danish castle six years later.

Mary surrendered and was promptly imprisoned in Lochleven Castle. Within weeks she suffered a miscarriage. On July 24, she was offered the Deeds of Abdication with the alternative being a show trial and death.

On July 29, 1567, her infant son was crowned James VI, King of Scots, at the Holy Rude kirk in Stirling. It was a Protestant ceremony and John Knox was the preacher. The Earl of Moray, who was half-brother to the Queen and thus James’s uncle, became Regent, and at first it seemed that Mary would live out her days in internal exile.

Then in early May, 1568, Mary escaped and soon her followers flocked to her. She raised an army, intending to make for Dumbarton Castle and safety, but at Langside, then a hamlet near Glasgow, on May 13, 1568, Mary’s forces – superior in number but inferior in experience – fled the field after the Regent Moray’s troops devastated their front ranks.

Mary fled south seeking the security she thought would be provided by her cousin Elizabeth. Instead, she had to endure almost 19 years of virtual imprisonment.

Elizabeth of England knew only too well that Mary and subsequently her son had strong claims to her throne. So did her courtiers, including her chief adviser and head of a vast spy network, Francis Walsingham.

Over the course of her incarceration, several plots revolved around killing Elizabeth and making Mary queen to restore the Catholic faith. The Throckmorton and Babington Plots are the best known and after the latter, in which he had entrapped Scotland’s queen into supporting a coup, Walsingham decided that Mary had to die.

Her show trial in front of hand-picked judges, including Walsingham, started with a ringing declaration from Mary: “I came to England on my cousin’s promise of assistance against my enemies and rebel subjects and was at once imprisoned.

“As an absolute Queen, I cannot submit to orders, nor can I submit to the laws of the land without injury to myself, the King my son and all other sovereign princes.

“For myself I do not recognize the laws of England nor do I know or understand them as I have often asserted. I am alone without counsel, or anyone to speak on my behalf. My papers and notes have been taken from me, so that I am destitute of all aid, taken at a disadvantage.”

The verdict was inevitable and Mary was sentenced to death. As a queen, she was given the mercy of beheading.

Elizabeth did not want to kill her cousin, but Walsingham eventually persuaded her to sign the death warrant.

On being told her fate by the Earl of Shrewsbury, Mary said: “I thank you for such welcome news. You will do me great good in withdrawing me from this world out of which I am very glad to go.”

She wrote her last letters, including one to the King of France containing a plea to be recognised as a Catholic martyr and then on the morning of February 8, 1587, Mary was beheaded.

The Queen of Scots died bravely, but as the executioner lifted the severed head, her auburn “hair” came away in his hand. She had been wearing a wig to conceal her greyness. Mary always did things with a certain style.