but we believe that it was not chance, but that God put it in our head." Persons of both religions make very free with that awful name.3 Probably gunpowder was used for the very purpose of the pretence that Mary and the lords were aimed at as well as Darnley. Beaton replied that it were better for her to lose "life and all" than not to punish the crime. Men averred that "all was done by her command." She was now the common talk of Europe. Mary did not-in her position she could not-take the advice of her faithful servant. Even if innocent, what could she do, with Bothwell, Argyll, Huntly, and Lethington all concerned in the plot? As Beaton predicted, all went from bad to worse. The inquiry which was begun ceased as soon as it became dangerous. No man durst earn the reward which was offered for a discovery.5 Caricatures of Bothwell and the queen were posted on the walls, and (March 13) James Murray of Tullibardine was denounced as the artist and fled." Nocturnal voices denounced the guilty. Mary's mourning was regarded as a farce. James Murray of Tullibardine in vain offered to denounce and fight the culprits. Lennox, granted a trial, accused Bothwell, who overawed justice as the friends of the preachers had done, as everybody did, by a display of force. Lennox, on the other hand, was not allowed to bring in his own following. Yet even here Mr Hosack makes out a fair forensic defence of the queen.7 Lennox asked Elizabeth to back his petition for the adjournment of the trial. Elizabeth's messenger reached Holyrood on the morning of the "day of law." He was not allowed to enter Holyrood, and was insulted. Finally, Bothwell took the letter of Elizabeth in, but returned and said that Mary was asleep. His horse (once Darnley's) was brought, he mounted, and glanced back at the palace; the messenger saw Mary nod to him from her window. At the trial a friend of Lennox, Cunningham, entered a protest, behaving with great courage. After long debate the jury, for fear or favour, and helped by a technical error in the pleas, acquitted Bothwell in the lack of evidence, some giving no vote.9 Parliament met (April 14-19), and an attempt was made to conciliate all parties. The spiritual members sat, and some of them acted as Lords of the Articles. All old laws against Protestantism were annulled, and holders were secured in their possession of Church lands. The General Assembly "obtained for every borough" the altarages and obits, for the maintenance 182 MURRAY RETIRES TO FRANCE. Arch of ministers, schools, and the poor.10 Edinburgh Castle had been taken from Mar, who received Stirling Castle, where he protected the infant prince as honourably as he had acted in his tenure of Edinburgh Castle. Bothwell got Dunbar Castle, a strong place of retreat, with power of escape by sea. The placarding of charges against Mary was denounced under severe penalties. As Kirkcaldy avers, in a letter to Bedford, that the queen "caused ratify the cleansing of Bothwell," it is difficult to doubt a fact not chronicled in the public records.11 Many lords, including Huntly, were confirmed in their estates, some of which Mary might have legally resumed.12 Among the names of the nobles present in Parliament that of Murray does not appear; Lethington and his kinsman, Atholl, are also absent, which is strange. On March 13 Murray had asked Cecil, in haste, for a safe-conduct. bishop Beaton, in Paris, was just then warning Mary that the Spanish Ambassador knew of, but would not reveal, another plot against her.18 Murray had a remarkable knack of keeping out of the way when conspiracies were about to come to a head. Just before asking Cecil for a safe-conduct, Murray had entertained the new English envoy, Killigrew, at dinner (March 8). The other guests, Argyll, Huntly, Bothwell, and Lethington, were all in the band to murder Darnley.14 Is it not clear that Murray had no suspicions as to the character of these designing men? The ardent advocates of Mary will urge that she was as guileless as her brother. Bothwell had, indeed, been placarded as the chief assassin; but Murray was not the man to be moved by anonymous accusations. Things had even been said against himself. Of Mary his generous nature entertained no suspicion. Just as he chose a select party of murderers to meet the English envoy, so, before leaving Scotland, he made his will, leaving Mary guardian to his infant daughter (April 3, 1567).15 Then Murray departed on a visit to France, taking England on the way. By making this opportune jaunt Murray missed a singular event -the signing, by many nobles, of the Ainslie band advising Mary to marry Bothwell. To this band the signatures were placed, after a supper given by Bothwell at Ainslie's Tavern, on the night of April 19. In December 1568, when the Commission on Mary met at Westminster, a copy of this band was given to Cecil by John Read, a clerk of George Buchanan. The signatures were not appended, and Cecil himself has written them as supplied by Read from "AINSLIE'S BAND" (APRIL 19, 1567). 183 memory. Murray, we are certain, was not present at the supper, yet Read heads the list with his name.16 Nothing is much darker in these intrigues than the truth about Ainslie's band, an association for supporting Bothwell, and recommending him as a husband to Mary. When Murray, Morton, and Lethington prosecuted Mary before the English commission in 1568 they do not appear, as a body, to have put in an official copy of this band, at least not of the signatures. Murray's name, as we saw, is in the list supplied by the memory of Read, but Murray was not even in the country on April 19. Mary's confessor told the Spanish Ambassador, in London, in July 1567, that Murray did not sign.17 There was for long a copy of the band in the Scots College at Paris, attested by Sir James. Balfour as authentic. The signatures differ from those in Read's list, and include Archbishop Hamilton, the Bishop of Orkney, and Lesley, Bishop of Ross. The second of these performed in May the marriage service between Mary and Bothwell, yet he was one of the Scottish commissioners who prosecuted the queen. Lesley avers that he cannot account (unless by art magic) for Mary's conduct in wedding Bothwell. According to a MS. of Lethington's son (1616), Lesley was a hanger-on at this time of the Hepburns. It is to be remarked that Lethington did not sign, nor did his kinsman, Atholl, though Nau, Mary's secretary, avers that Lethington urged her to the marriage. He cannot have approved of it; he was now on the worst terms with Bothwell. The lords later averred that they had Mary's warrant for signing; they showed it at the York meeting, October 1568, but it is not mentioned in the subsequent proceedings at Westminster, 18 Thus we know not exactly what lords signed (Morton certainly did) or why. "Ainslie's band" was clearly a subject on which the God-fearing men who later prosecuted Mary wished to say as little as possible. Later they denounced her for wedding Bothwell, though in Ainslie's band they had urged her to marry him. Their excuses were, now that they were frightened into signing by the musketeers of the guards, now that they had a warrant for signing from Mary. Neither apology, nor both combined, seems worthy of highspirited, sagacious, and deeply religious men. A more valuable, if more subtle, apology is that of modern admirers of the lords. They had advised Mary to marry Bothwell, but that did not imply that Bothwell was licensed to carry her off by force. However, they still publicly maintained that he had carried her off by force, after they 184 BOTWWELL ABDUCTS MARY. had professed privately that they knew her to be in collusion with him (June 30, 1567).19 Thus Ainslie's band remained a stone of stumbling to the men who first signed it, and then prosecuted the queen. On April 20 Kirkcaldy, giving a fresh account of the doings of the previous day, told Bedford that Bothwell, "the night Parliament was dissolved, called most of the noblemen to supper, to desire their promise in writing and consent to the queen's marriage, which he will obtain, for she has said she cares not to lose France, England, and her own country for him, and shall go with him to the world's end in a white petticoat ere she leave him.” 20 Kirkcaldy probably did not hear her say so, but her behaviour made the report credible to him. He says nothing here about the employment of force and terror at Ainslie's tavern. He asked whether Elizabeth would aid his allies in avenging Darnley's murder. Drury reports that, on the night after Ainslie's supper, Bothwell's men mutinied for pay in the queen's presence, and were pacified by her with 400 crowns. On the 21st (Monday) she went to Stirling to see her child, and Kirkcaldy reported that she meant to place him in Bothwell's hands. Mar was not the man to permit this, if intended. Drury tells an absurd tale, that Mary offered her child an apple, a natural dainty for a child of nine months. The young Solomon declined the fruit, so tempting to a toothless nursling; but it was thankfully shared by a greyhound and her puppies, which all incontinently expired. Greyhounds are not usually fond of raw apples. Such are the legends of Drury to Mary's disadvantage. The next event was the abduction of Mary by Bothwell on her way from Stirling to Edinburgh. Was she in collusion? Mr Hosack, in his defence, does not remark on the circumstance that, if Mary was ignorant of the enterprise, many of her subjects were not. Intelligence of the scheme is given in a letter of the day of the deed (April 24), signed "by him that is yours, who took you by the hand. At midnight." Drury knew the purpose on the same day.21 As early as April 23, Lennox, in the west, knew, determined to fly, and wrote about the plot from his ship to Lady Lennox.22 Bothwell apparently did not rely on the Ainslie band, and he, or Mary, was in a hurry. Mr Froude prints, and dates "April 23," one of the Kirkcaldy seems to write on April 24, "at midnight,” and merely foretells the seizure of Mary. By midnight of April 24 he must have known the fact. He must have written, then, at midnight of April 23. See Calendar, ii. 324. Drury, writing from Berwick on April 24, had certainly read Kirkcaldy's letter. THE FALL OF MARY. 185 disputed casket letters, alleged to have been written at this time by Mary from Stirling (letter vii.) There are, in fact, three letters on this subject of the abduction-iii. (viii.), vi., vii. They express distrust of Huntly, the brother of that wife whom Bothwell was about to divorce. There are difficulties concerning these letters. In vii. Mary says that Sutherland is with her at Stirling, and many who would rather die than let her be taken. We have no proof or hint that Sutherland was at Stirling. Moreover, as Lethington was apparently with Mary, why does she bid Bothwell say "many fair words to Lethington"? Again, letter viii. is clearly not third in order, as is alleged in "Murray's Diary" of dates supplied to Cecil, but, if genuine, was written at Linlithgow the night before the abduction. This extraordinary piece of euphuistic jargon is discussed in the author's 'Mystery of Mary Stuart.' On April 24, at some undetermined spot near Edinburgh, Mary was abducted by Bothwell with a large force, and carried to Dunbar. Huntly (in collusion), Sir James Melville, and Lethington were taken with her. Had Lethington been aware of the scheme he would not have been there. Did Mary know more than Lethington? Drury reports that he would have been slain on the first night "if the queen had not hindered Huntly, and said that if a hair of Lethington's head perished, she would cause him to forfeit lands, goods, and life." 23 Sir James Melville says that Lethington was in danger from Bothwell, not Huntly, and Lethington's son (MS. of 1616) gives a minute account of how Mary bravely rescued her secretary. Mary implies, in a letter to the French Court, that Bothwell actually violated her person-this as an excuse for her consent to marry him.24 All this line of defence is inconsistent with Mary's determined courage, as just proved by her rescue of Lethington. It is the natural inference that she, like many other women, was not proof against the charms of Bothwell, who, moreover, had practically saved her after Riccio's murder. No man can record this opinion without regret. Charm, courage, kindness, loyalty to friends and servants, all were Mary's. But she fell; and passion overcame her, who to other hostile influences presented a heart of diamond. They who have followed her fortunes, cruel in every change, must feel, if convinced of her passion, an inextinguishable regret, a kind of vicarious remorse, a blot, as it were, on their personal honour. Not all earth's rivers flowing in one channel can wash the stain away. As in the tragedy |