IN this week 450 years ago, Scotland seethed with revolt against Mary Queen of Scots and her third husband, James Hepburn, the 4th Earl of Bothwell and newly minted Earl of Orkney.

It was not a popular revolution led by peasants and citizens, but a rebellion by the noble lords, the Protestant Confederates, who distrusted their Catholic queen, detested the rapacious and ambitious Bothwell, and wanted control of the crown of Scotland in the person of Mary’s infant son, the future James VI and I.

The uprising – technically speaking it was treason and all who took part could have been executed – led to the strangest "battle" in Scottish history at Carberry Hill near Musselburgh in East Lothian on June 15, 1567.

On a hot and sunny day, two opposing armies of about 2,000 armed horsemen and infantry each stared each other down until eventually the Royal forces gave up and went home as Mary surrendered and Bothwell escaped. The Battle of Carberry Hill had involved practically no deaths and the wounding of a few skirmishers on either side.

Yet it was the most pivotal "battle" in young Mary’s reign before her final confrontation with her rebellious Lords at Langside near Glasgow a year later.

The rebellion had started after Mary’s second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was assassinated in Edinburgh in February of that year. He was a wastrel and a gambler, wanted the throne for himself, probably gave his wife a sexually transmitted disease, and lived just long enough to father James. He had also been involved in the plot to murder David Rizzio or Riccio, the Queen’s Italian secretary, who many thought was sharing more than music and poetry with Mary.

Though Darnley was not liked, the killing of the Consort could not go unchallenged. Suspicion for the murder, despite her lamentations, fell upon Mary herself, and most damningly on James Hepburn, a notorious womaniser who became her lover – some said by his physical force – shortly after Darnley’s death or even before it.

Hepburn – we shall call him Bothwell – was accused by Darnley’s powerful father, the Earl of Lennox, of murdering his son. A trial was set for April, but when Lennox failed to appear – his troops were barred from entering the capital by Bothwell’s supporters – the case collapsed and Bothwell had to be acquitted.

A month or so later, Mary made James Hepburn Earl of Orkney and Marquis of Fife to add to his existing Bothwell title, and she then promptly married him. Her Protestant opponents in the aristocracy, some of whom had previously supported her, were outraged and seized their chance to get rid of the Queen and her unlikeable husband.

We know what happened on that Carberry day, 450 years ago on Thursday, because various accounts were written of it, including one attributed to the chronicler Raphael Holinshed, the source of many of William Shakespeare’s plays. Robert Birrel’s famous diary also has a similar account.

Mary and Bothwell knew full well that the Confederate Lords had signed a pact and taken up arms against them. The General Assembly of the nascent Church of Scotland had already condemned them, with John Knox as always to the fore in the anti-Marian camp.

A battle and even a full civil war seemed imminent. For some reason, perhaps disinformation spread to their camp about the Lords falling out, Bothwell seemed confident of success. He was linked to the very powerful Hamilton family, and they had promised a large number of cavalry – perhaps 700 to 800 in all – to add to the Royal army of 2,000 troops including his own crack fighters who had gained hard experience fighting Borders Reivers.

Holinshed recounts: “The Queene in the meane time used what diligence shee mighte to gather forces, specially in the Mers and East Louthian, and thinking that the enterprise of the Lords had bin broken and disappoynted, marched from Dunbar on Saterday the fourteenth of Iune, first to Hathington, and there resting till the euen, set forwarde to Gladismore, and taking there deliberation in the matter, they lodged that nyghte at Seaton.”

Mary and Bothwell spent their last night together at Seton Castle in East Lothian, whose lord was a strong supporter and marched with his men with the Royal pair to Carberry Hill the following day.

According to Holinshed: “There were with the queene and Bothwell, the lords Seiton, Yester, and Borthwicke; also the lards of Wauchton, Bas, Ormiston, Weaderburne, Blackater, and Langton.

“They had with them also two hundred harquebusiers waged, and of great artillerie some field peeces. Their whole number was esteemed to be about 2000; but the more part of them were commons & countriemen.”

Against the Royal force were some of the most powerful men in the land, such as William Maitland of Lethington and James Douglas, the 4th Earl of Morton, the Lord Chancellor who would go on to become regent of Scotland during James’s infancy and who is generally credited with being the overall winner of the civil war against Mary.

Holinshed named them all: “The Earles of Morton, Athol, Mar, Glencarne, the Lordes of Hume, Lindsey, Ruthuen, Simple and Sanquhar.

“The Lardes of Dru(m)lanrig, Tulibarden, Grange, and yong Sesforde, were assembled togither in Edenburgh with a power like in number to the Queenes, but for the more part consisting of Gentlemen, although not furnished with anye number of Harquebusiers, except a fewe of the Townesmen of Edenburgh, that willingly ioyned with them in that quarrell.”

Bothwell knew the land well and he and Mary took up an advantageous position. Skirmishers were sent out by both sides and that was when the few casualties occurred as they met near Carberry.

The chronicle states that as the two armies came into view “the one stood upone Carberry Hills, with 4 regiments of shouldiours, and six field-pieces of brasse: the uther armey stoode over against it.”

Mary was reluctant to see battle commence, considering herself Queen of all Scots, and France – Scotland’s great ally and her former husband’s kingdom – intervened at this point.

One Monsieur La Croque, the French ambassador, “tooke greate paine in trauelling betwixte the parties to reduce them to some agreement.”

But no amount of negotiation would suffice. The Confederate Lords wanted Bothwell’s head and Mary’s crown, while Bothwell himself offered single combat to any of the Lords to settle the matter.

Amazingly, given the ruthless earl’s reputation as a murderous fighter, several of the Lords were happy to take him up on the challenge, especially Lord Lindsay, yet Mary would not permit it.

THE day wore on and it was the Royal army that suffered most from the heat – some accounts said that, exposed on the hill, they only had wine to drink. During the long hours of parley, more and more Royal troops began to drift off the hill and at some stage, Bothwell seems to have concluded that the Hamilton forces weren’t coming – it was too late in the evening before they did – and the game was up for him.

The decisive offer seems to have come from Morton, who made it clear that if Mary parted from Bothwell they would retain her as queen.

His words were chronicled as saying “he did not take armor against the queene; but against him that had killed the king. Whome if the queene would deliuer to punishment, or separat him from hir; she should well vnderstand, that they & the rest of hir subiects held nothing more deere vnto them, than to continue in their dutifull obedience.”

What an absolutely outrageous lie. Yet Mary fell for it. We do not know what transpired between the Queen and her husband, but Bothwell suddenly slipped away with a few of his men and did not stop riding until he reached the safety of the castle at Dunbar.

Having been assured of their good intentions by William Kirkcaldy of Grange, a Protestant loyal to her before her marriage to Bothwell, the Queen rode over to the Lords and surrendered. The "Battle" of Carberry Hill was over before it had even begun.

We know exactly where all this happened because on Carberry Hill there is a mouldering memorial stone. It says: “M.R. 1567 – At this spot Mary Queen of Scots after the escape of Bothwell mounted her horse and surrendered herself to the Confederate Lords, 15 June 1567”.

The chronicles tell what happened next: “The queene after this was conueied over the Forth, and brought to Lochleuin (Loch Leven Castle), where she was appointed to remaine in ward under the safe keeping of William Dowglas, lord of that place.”

Within days, despite William Kirkcaldy’s angry pleas that she had been misled and should be Queen again, Mary abdicated in favour of her baby son. The following year she escaped, found forces loyal to her and then fought the Battle of Langside, fleeing to England after her defeat for the long imprisonment that ended with her execution at the signature of her cousin, Elizabeth of England.

The Confederate Lords went in pursuit of Bothwell’s supporters. The chronicles record: “Diverse persons afterwards were apprehended as parties to the murther of the king, and thereupon condemned, were executed, confessing the said earle to be the principall executor of the same murther.”

How convenient for them that confessions were made implicating Bothwell. For his part, Bothwell fled to Norway, where he was arrested and kept under house arrest.

His past caught up with him when Anna Throndssen, his former mistress, sued Bothwell for breach of his promise to marry her, and the earl was confined to his quarters in Bergen. In late September, the royal house of Denmark, then in control of Norway, began to intrigue for the return of the Orkney and Shetland Islands to their kingdom and the Earl of Orkney made a good bargaining chip. Bothwell was taken to Copenhagen and put under house arrest again.

He even had time to write his memoirs: “I have been falsely accused, detained without justification, and prevented from going about the business I have in certain kingdoms with various princes and noblemen for the freeing of my princess.”

King Frederick of Denmark was convinced that the Earl of Orkney would some day fetch a huge ransom. He confined him to Dragsholm Castle and after contracting liver and kidney disease, possibly from too much imbibing, Bothwell became increasingly infirm of body and mind. He died on April 14, 1578, apparently covered in his own filth.

Bothwell was buried in the parish churchyard of Dragsholm. His ghost apparently haunts the castle, which is now a hotel.

We will never know whether Mary sent her husband away from Carberry Hill to protect him in a gesture of love, or whether Bothwell just realised the odds were too great against him and ran away. Whatever happened, June 15, 1567, at Carberry was the last time they ever saw each other.