MARY SIGNS HER ABDICATION.

191 a verbal message about the contents of the casket to Cecil, and also to Robert Melville, who had been sent to London by Mary and Bothwell on June 5. He had also, secretly, carried messages from the lords, who were preparing to rise in arms. Melville argued with Elizabeth on Mary's side. Probably it was he who induced Elizabeth to express to the Spanish Ambassador her disbelief in the authenticity of the letters, and her opinion that Lethington had "acted badly in that matter." Nor is it impossible that Lethington had tampered with the papers. days Lethington had been in touch with Sir James Balfour, the custodian of the casket, and Randolph accuses Lethington and Balfour of opening a small casket or coffer of Bothwell's, covered with green velvet (as we know that such coffers usually were), and of abstracting the band for Darnley's murder. abstracted one paper could insert or alter others. 39

For several

They who

As late as July 21, a month after the capture of the casket, the lords still proclaimed that Bothwell had "treasonably ravished her majesty's most noble person," though, if they believed the letters, he had done nothing of the kind. 40 Probably they were keeping back their strongest card; but their conduct was highly inconsistent. Presently they were obliged to play their card. By July 14 Throckmorton was in Edinburgh, to save Mary if he could. He found himself in hard case. He dared not attempt, as Elizabeth desired, to prevent Parliament from meeting (in December). Lethington let him see that France counterbalanced England at this juncture. The general rage against Mary was violent. A movement of the Hamiltons had come to nothing: they really threatened action, the ambassador thought, merely to drive the lords to kill Mary, and leave only her child between them and the crown. Throckmorton and de Lignerolles, the French envoy, were not allowed to visit Mary. She refused to be divorced from Bothwell, urging (it seems truly) that she was with child by him. The lords at first spoke "reverently and charitably" of Mary; but on July 24 Lindsay visited her at Lochleven, and extorted her signature to her abdication, and to the appointment of Murray as Regent, or, failing him, of a Council. As early as July 18 Throckmorton reported that Mary had herself proposed, in a letter, thus to "commit the realm to Murray, or to the same committee.41 She did not even reserve her nominal queenship. This, if true, is curious, and does not suggest that threats were needed on July

192

THROCKMORTON SAVES MARY.

24, when the abdication was signed. Had the casket letters been used to put pressure on Mary? This we do not know. Murray's wife was with her, on very friendly terms. On July 25 Throckmorton wrote that, if Mary would not abdicate, the lords meant to charge her (1) with "tyranny" for not keeping the laws of the illegal Parliament of 1560; (2) with incontinency with Bothwell "and others"; (3) "They mean to charge her with the murder of her husband, whereof they say they have proof by the testimony of her own handwriting as also by sufficient witnesses." The Lennox MSS. speak of witnesses who saw Mary in male costume at her husband's murder. They were never produced: it was a fable. The lords invited Throckmorton to the coronation of James VI. at Stirling on July 29. Throckmorton declined to go, Knox preached, and the preachers had already attacked him.42 But this,

of course, was not his motive for refusal. In his opinion he had preserved Mary's life. 43

On August 11 Murray, who had taken London on his way from France, reached Edinburgh. On the 15th he revisited Mary at Lochleven. 44 He had not come too early. Tullibardine (apparently a man of honour) and Lethington separately informed Throckmorton that envoys had come from the Archbishop of St Andrews, and that Duncan Forbes had been sent to the lords by Huntly. The queen's party, by these messengers, promised to join the lords if they would kill the queen.45 Murray, after his arrival, spoke as bitterly as any man "against the tragedy" of Darnley "and the players therein" (August 12). He had, however, stayed at Whittingham with the brother of Archibald Douglas, one of the murderers, on his way to Edinburgh.46 He was "in great commiseration for the queen, his sister," though he knew, and had told de Silva, about her alleged long murderous letter to Bothwell,—a letter never produced, for it is not letter ii. of the casket series.47 As to Murray's dealing with his sister, Throckmorton informed Elizabeth on August 20. First, Murray, Atholl, and Morton together met the queen, who wept, and drew Murray apart. Murray spoke in darkling and ambiguous terms. They had a later conversation, till an hour after midnight, Murray behaving "like a ghostly father rather than a counsellor." He left her to go to bed "in hope of nothing but God's mercy "-that is, with a prospect of imminent death. Next morning he promised her life, and, as far as he could, "the preservation of her honour." Thereon the poor

CHARACTER OF MURRAY.

193

queen kissed him, and asked him (it was her only chance) to be Regent. So he yielded: he would take the regency, and also take care of her jewels. (Some he sold, others of the best he intrusted to his wife.) All this Murray told Throckmorton, adding that the promise of life was conditional-and depended on his power to assure her safety. The affair was adroitly managed, but historians differ as to the candour and disinterestedness of Murray.48 Mr Froude speaks of Murray as "the one man in all the world who loved her" (Mary) "as his father's daughter, who had no guilt on his heart, like so many of those who were clamouring for her death." Murray had guilt enough on his heart: he had been made privy to Riccio's murder, and few can doubt that he concealed his foreknowledge of the plot to murder Darnley. Then as to the "others," -Lethington, Morton, Balfour, and the rest, who were conspirators, active or passive, to kill Darnley,-what had Murray to say to Mary? He warned her to bear no 66 revenge to the lords and others who had sought her reformation." 49 Murray himself actually told Throckmorton that he had lectured Mary about "the lords who sought her reformation" !

"Thenceforth," says Mr Froude, "she hated him with an intensity to which her past dislike was pale and colourless." It is no marvel if she did hate him, as men hate Pecksniff or Tartuffe. Murray cannot have been ambitious of the regency, Mr Froude thinks, because "a less tempting prospect to personal ambition has been rarely offered." Yet for the regency, or the crown, with authority over a poor, fierce, treacherous, and now hypocritical band of high-born ruffians, Houses and men were ready to brave all perils and to attempt all crimes. The feeble Lennox presently grasped at the same power, and his ambition had the same end. Much has been written about the character of Murray; but no minutely critical account of his life and character exists. He has fascinated some students; in others, not especially favourable to Mary, as in Tytler and Monsieur Philippson, he has excited either suspicion or loathing. At this moment, and during his regency, he had a most invidious task. His courage and his self-restraint have never been doubted: his character was free from the sensual vices, and it is probable that his religion was sincere. In accepting the regency, and steering the State through perilous passages of time, he did his duty with patience and fortitude. It was a duty that some one must do. But when he plays "the ghostly father,"

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194

MURRAY REGENT.

BOTHWELL IN DENMARK.

when he tells his sister that the lords desired her "reformation,”we must regard him either as innocent beyond the innocence of childhood or as an accomplished hypocrite. He came to Mary from the Council, where he sat with men banded to procure her late husband's murder, and with men who, knowing that the deed was planned, as he himself must have known it, had cowardly held their peace. He himself, on his passage through England, had not concealed his sister's shame. On the strength of a report of a letter of Mary's, a letter which, as described by de Silva from Murray's report, never was in existence, he had revealed her guilt (Mr Froude informs us) to the ambassador of an "Idolatrous" Power. This was the kinsman who, Mr Froude tells us, assured her that "if possible he would shield her reputation, and prevent the publication of her letters." 50

Mary's own account of her interview with Murray, in Claude Nau, naturally differs much from Murray's version to Throckmorton. The part which Murray played, in his private relations with his sister, cannot be made to appear graceful or magnanimous. But he could not possibly release her from prison without provoking civil war. Lethington and he made Throckmorton understand that, if hard pressed by Elizabeth, they had no refuge from ruin except by justifying their conduct (with the aid of the casket letters probably) and proceeding to extremities. Elizabeth might, and did, intrigue with the Hamiltons, but "we have in our hands to make the accord" (with the Hamiltons) "when we will." Lethington doubtless meant to repeat his previous statement, that if the lords put Mary to death, the Hamiltons would join them.51 Murray declared that he would spend his life in the cause of reducing all men to obedience in the king's name. He kept his promise; and for the hour he saved Scotland from the civil war which Elizabeth would fain have lighted. He awed the western and northern malcontents, and Throckmorton withdrew to England. Murray then secured his authority by prudent measures. Balfour, for a large consideration, resigned Edinburgh Castle, of which Kirkcaldy, to his undoing, was appointed captain. He had just failed to catch Bothwell in the Orkney Isles. Dunbar Castle, strongly held for Bothwell, capitulated on October 1. A few days later Bothwell was summoned to appear at Parliament in December, and Sir William Stewart, the herald, was sent to Denmark to demand Bothwell's extradition. This Stewart was later burned on a

MURRAY'S PARTY DISUNITED (1568).

195 charge of sorcery at St Andrews, doubtless, really, for some political

reason.

Presently (October 28) Drury reported that Mary was on too good terms with George Douglas, younger brother of William Douglas of Lochleven, her jailer. Not much is ascertained as to their love-affair, if love-affair there was, but Mary had already found and won the author of her deliverance. That the lords would keep her prisoner while they could was assured in the Parliament of December, when they acquitted themselves of rebellion by an Act announcing that they had proof of her guilt in the casket letters.52 They declined to allow her to appear in person, and plead her own She would have exposed Morton and Lethington, perhaps

cause.

with others.

Before this Parliament Murray had tried to restore order on the Marches by hanging and drowning a number of rievers at Hawick.53 The Black Laird of Ormiston, one of Darnley's murderers, made his escape. The severities of Murray, however needful, did not increase his popularity, which was probably still more diminished by the public confession of Hay, younger of Talla, when executed for Darnley's murder on January 3, 1568. He declared that Huntly, Argyll, Lethington, Sir James Balfour, "with divers other nobles," had signed the band for Darnley's murder, "whereto the queen's grace consented," according to the 'Diurnal.' Public indignation caused the men denounced to leave Edinburgh, so that the alleged destruction of the band had been of no avail, the secret was out, and Murray's party was now rent by internal suspicions.54 Moreover, the intolerance of Murray, in re-enacting the penal statutes of 1560, helped to break Scotland into divisions. Catholic noblemen like Atholl were driven into the arms of the Hamiltons. Murray's oath, as Regent, bound him to "root out all heretics and enemies to the true worship of God, that shall be convicted by the True Kirk of God of the aforesaid crimes." 55 But presently we find Murray offering to renew the ancient league with idolatrous France, and offering his humblest service to the French king and Catherine de' Medici. Murray was not "a consistent walker." 56 He was soon selling Mary's pearls secretly to Elizabeth.57 Ballads about the shielding of the chief conspirators to murder Darnley, now members of the Government pledged to avenge Darnley, rained upon the Regent.

In Lochleven Mary had found means to write, and send letters,