The debauchery and scheming in the last years of Mary, Queen of Scots

For in Darnley’s warped imagination, the baby she was carrying – his own son – was heir to the throne and thus more likely to be king than Darnley himself.

He really did covet the kingship but he was not to get it. In what was nothing other than a blatant attempt at a coup d’état, Darnley used the powers given to him by Mary to stop the Scottish Parliament meeting and the “rebel” Earl of Moray and his Protestant allies came north from Newcastle where, forewarned by Elizabeth I’s spies, they had been waiting for news of the Rizzio murder – they must have had prior notice because they purportedly covered the distance from Newcastle to Edinburgh in a day, and more likely were waiting at the Border.

At this point Darnley appears to have panicked, possibly because the Edinburgh mob were siding with Mary, from whom he begged forgiveness. His wife took charge and converted her husband to her cause. They both escaped overnight to Dunbar Castle, where in one of those stories that may have been more of a legend than outright fact, Mary calmly cooked breakfast.

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Enter the formidable figure of James Hepburn, the 4th Earl of Bothwell. Bothwell was a Protestant Lord but had loyally served both the Queen Regent Marie de Guise and Queen Mary herself – apart from the small matter of wanting to kidnap her to marry the Earl of Arran – and having been Lord High Admiral he was now in charge of Mary’s army.

He promptly put together a force of 4000 troops, including his light cavalry made up of fierce Borderers, and gathered up Mary and Darnley and their retinue before progressing from Dunbar to Edinburgh. On March 18, 1566, Mary entered Edinburgh in triumph – the mob were indeed on her side – forcing the would-be coup plotters to flee. Even John Knox left the city in fear for his life.

Mary ordered the plotters into exile, all except her half-brother the Earl of Moray, who was reported to have hugged and kissed her and promised to have nothing more to do with the likes of the Earl of Morton. Darnley was sidelined and Bothwell, who had married the Earl of Huntly’s sister Lady Jean Gordon only the previous month, became the Queen’s closest adviser. Too close, as it would turn out, though it must be emphasised that at first Bothwell did not want the throne for himself, being content to be the power behind it.

On the morning of June 19, 1566, Mary gave birth to her son, the future King James VI and I, in Edinburgh Castle, from where the news of the birth was conveyed by the firing of cannon. The room where the birth took place has been perfectly preserved and is a popular highlight of any visit to the Castle.

That afternoon Darnley came to see his son, and it was then that a curious incident took place. Attested to by various observers such as Mary’s supporter John Maxwell, Lord Herries, Mary told Darnley to his face: “My Lord, God has given you and me a son, begotten by none but you.” The King consort reportedly blushed and kissed the child.

This was not sufficient for Mary who took her baby in her arms and, according to Herries, said: “My Lord, here I protest to God, and as I shall answer to Him at the great Day of Judgement, that this is your son, and no other man’s son. And I am desirous that all here, both ladies and others, bear witness, for he is so much your son that I fear it will be the worse for him hereafter.”

Bothwell, Earl of Hepburn, third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.

What a humiliating message for a new father. Darnley promptly went off and spent much of the following weeks in a new round of debauchery during which he may have caught syphilis. Certainly his conduct angered even his previous supporters who now rallied to the Queen who had produced the son and heir that meant the continuation of the Stuart dynasty and perhaps might even gain the throne of England.

Mary was so concerned for her baby’s survival that she did much of the nursing herself, though he had a wet nurse.

It was then that a famous incident in Mary’s life occurred. In October, 1566, while on a visit to Jedburgh, Mary received news that the Earl of Bothwell had been wounded in a skirmish with Borders reivers and was then lying in the Hepburn stronghold of Hermitage Castle. Mary immediately set out on the 25-mile journey to Hermitage, perhaps showing her real feelings for the Earl. Lovers’ tryst or not, on the way back Mary’s horse stumbled into a bog and she caught a fever which saw her confined to bed in Jedburgh.

Still recuperating from the fever and post-natal depression, in late autumn the Queen went to Craigmillar Castle near to the area on the south side of Edinburgh known as Little France, as so many French people had settled there.

Craigmillar Castle is key, I believe, to one to the greatest murder mysteries in Scottish history – who killed Henry Darnley and did Mary have prior knowledge? Indeed was she directly involved? Having visited the Castle on numerous occasions I have no doubt that Darnley’s murder was plotted here and Mary was indeed in it up to her neck.

The story is that a conspiracy was set up at Craigmillar and a Bond was signed by the plotters, who included the Earls of Moray, Argyll, Bothwell and Huntly, the latter as Chancellor of the realm, and Maitland of Lethington as Secretary of State. They may have originally suggested that the Queen divorce Darnley, but as a devout Catholic she could not countenance that.

HER supporters say Mary had nothing to do with the eventual Bond which was signed in the first week of December, 1566, and which has long been lost. It apparently stated that Darnley was to be got rid of by any means possible, i.e. murder. But look inside Craigmillar Castle and you will find it impossible to conceive of such a plot being put together in such a relatively small space without Mary either personally hearing of it or her aides listening in.

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Several historians have suggested that the original plan was to have Darnley recuperate from his then illness – syphilis, most likely – at Craigmillar Castle, where he could then be dispatched via “natural causes”. Darnley was then in his family stronghold of Glasgow – key point this – it was Mary who insisted on him being brought back for treatment in Edinburgh. Why would she do that when she already loathed the man?

He did not fancy Craigmillar and was lodged in the Provost’s House at Kirk o’Field in the capital where Mary herself showingly went to nurse him for two nights before she left for royal duties on February 9, 1567. That night Darnley and his servant Taylor were strangled and their bodies left openly in the garden of Kirk o’Field which was demolished by a huge explosion in the middle of the night.

It was murder most foul and the first person accused was the Earl of Bothwell, though rumours began to circulate in Edinburgh that the Queen was not entirely innocent, though she seemed to some observers to be genuinely shocked and posted a reward of £2000 for information leading to the conviction of the killers. Meanwhile the plotters, including the Earl of Moray and Secretary Lethington, wisely vacated the scene.

Re-enter Mathew Stewart, the Earl of Lennox and Darnley’s father. At the end of 40 days of mourning, Lennox was allowed to formally charge Bothwell with the murder of his son but the trial on April 12, 1567, was a travesty. Bothwell was entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers and as a Privy Councillor, that meant only the Privy Council could take the case.

Bothwell packed the capital with his Borders troopers and Lennox marched from Glasgow with his soldiers only to turn back rather than face an armed confrontation with a superior force. Without an accuser and witnesses, Bothwell was acquitted unanimously and was now de facto the most powerful man in the kingdom.

Mary’s infatuation with Darnley had been her greatest mistake, but now she was forced to rely on a rough, bluff soldier in the shape of Bothwell. What happened next has baffled historians for centuries and this writer has no more insight than them, except that I can state my view that Mary as a queen needed a strong-arm enforcer and as a woman of that era and having been married and widowed twice to younger men at the age of 24, she probably felt the need for a more mature man in her life, though Bothwell was only around 31 or 32 in 1567 – we don’t know his exact birthdate.

There’s no doubt that after Darnley’s murder, Bothwell was intent on becoming Mary’s third husband. It was how this headstrong individual did things – he usually got what he wanted and was prepared to intrigue and fight for what he considered to be justifiably his.

Bothwell was not unaware of politics, however, and on April 9, 1567, as the session of Parliament closed, he gathered ten earls, eight bishops, and 11 lords of the realm in the Ainslie Tavern in Edinburgh where they all signed a bond promising to support Bothwell’s case for marrying Mary.

Was it “merely” Mary that he wanted, or did he want the Crown Matrimonial that she had refused to give to Darnley? Probably a bit of both – he was by all accounts no oil painting, was shorter than the Queen, and had made it abundantly clear that he desired her.

It perhaps helps to know that the earl was also highly intelligent, spoke and wrote several languages, and had several affairs with women married and unmarried across Europe, including a purported marriage to a Danish-Norwegian noblewoman, Anna Thorndsen. Historians still argue about whether they were indeed married, but the authorities at the time were satisfied that he had not committed bigamy when marrying Lady Jean Gordon. Given his track record with women you can perhaps understand why he was able to bend Mary to his will, though she rejected his first proposal. And then there was the rape – historians have argued back and forth about whether Hepburn raped the queen in Dunbar Castle to where he had forcibly removed her in late April, 1567.

We will never know exactly what transpired between them at Dunbar over the course of a fortnight, but afterwards things moved fast. Bothwell’s wife of two months, Lady Jean Gordon, was persuaded to procure a legal divorce – she was not unhappy to do so – while Bothwell sought a Catholic annulment of that marriage. Mary herself signed a document stating that she had not been coerced or ravished, and on May 12, 1567, she personally crowned Bothwell as Duke of Orkney.

Three days later they were married in a Protestant ceremony at Holyrood.

Find out what happened to “King” Bothwell next week.