1567.1

DARNLEY AT THE KIRK OF FIELD.

145

Crawford, a gentleman attending upon Lennox, in which he relates a conversation between Darnley and himself, in which Crawford said, "She treats your majesty too like a prisoner. Why should you not be taken to one of your own houses at Edinburgh ?" Darnley replied, "It struck me much the same way; and I have fears enough, but may God judge between us. I have her promise only to trust to; but I have put myself in her hands, and I shall go with her, though she should murder me.' The plan of going to Craigmillar was changed, and Darnley was carried to Edinburgh, where he arrived on the 31st of January. Holyrood was declared to be unhealthy, from its low situation; and the king was taken to a suburb called the Kirk of Field, where the duke of Chastelherault had a residence. The attendants were about to convey Darnley to the duke's mansion, when Mary said his apartments were to be in an adjoining house, to which she conducted him. It was a mean building belonging to Robert Balfour, one of Bothwell's dependants. The queen daily attended upon Darnley, and appeared assiduous in promoting his comfort, amidst the rude domestic arrangements which this lodging afforded. Below the chamber where he slept she had one prepared for herself. On Sunday, the 9th of February, Mary passed much of the day with her husband, who is represented as having had his apprehensions of danger somewhat removed by her presence, and by the appearance of renewed confidence between them. On the evening of that Sunday, the queen went to Holyrood, to celebrate by a masque the wedding of Bastian, a foreigner of her household, with one of her favorite attendants. Bothwell was present at the festivities of the palace; but he left about midnight. Darnley had gone to rest, after repeating the 55th Psalm, his page being in his bedroom. At two o'clock in the morning of the 10th a loud explosion roused the inhabitants of Edinburgh from their sleep; and the terrified citizens soon learnt that the Kirk of Field had been blown up and that the king was dead. The house was completely destroyed. Mary has herself described the extent of the destruction: "The house wherein the king was lodged was in an instant blown in the air, he lying sleeping in his bed, with a vehemency that, of the whole lodging, walls and other, there is nothing remaining-no, not a stone above another, but all carried far away, or dung in dross to the very ground-stone."+ But the body of the king was not amongst these ruins. It was found lying under a tree in an orchard, about eighty yards from the house; and the body of his page was lying beside him. The account which Buchanan gives of this circumstance agrees with the general evidence: "The king had only a linen shirt on the upper part of his body; the rest of it lay naked. His other clothes and his shoes lay just by him. The common people came in great crowds to see him, and many conjectures there were; yet they all agreed that he could never be thrown out of the house by the force of gunpowder, for there was no part broken, bruised, or black and blue about his body, which must necessarily have happened in a ruin by gunpowder. Besides, his clothes that lay near him were not so much as singed with the flame, or covered with any ashes." It appears probable that

Tytler, vol. vii. p. 78. Mr. Tytler says that he has not been able to discover any sufficient ground to doubt the truth of this deposition.

+ Letter to Beaton. Dung is the preterite of ding, to strike down violently. Buchanan's "History of Scotland," translated by Bond, vol. ii. p. 323.

VOL. III.

146

ASSASSINATION OF DARNLEY.

[1567.

Darnley was strangled in the orchard, as he hurriedly attempted to escape, and that his page shared his fate. The bodies of four of his servants were found in the ruins. Herries gives a circumstantial relation that Darnley and his attendant were strangled by Bothwell and his accomplices, in the bedroom; and being carried out by them by a back-gate, they fired some barrels of powder which they had put in a room below the king's chamber, and so blew up the house. This was the room which the queen had occupied; and according to the confessions of two servants who brought the powder, it was deposited in that room whilst Mary was with her husband above. An opinion has been expressed, with great plausibility, that the gunpowder, brought in a mail and trunk, was insufficient to destroy the house as it was destroyed; that the walls had been undermined by another set of conspirators; that Bothwell was uninformed of this, and was left to take his own course; and that "in consequence, he was looked upon as the sole deviser of the murder, which, however, there are strong reasons for believing was not perpetrated by his means.' This opinion opens up the great question of the guilt or innocence of the queen-the question which we shall have briefly to notice when we come to the judicial examinations which followed Mary's flight to England. Meanwhile, no one has attempted to deny that Bothwell was deeply concerned in this crime; that his servants placed the powder under Darnley's chamber; that he left the palace at midnight, and "went straight to the Kirk of Field, up Roblock's Wynd; "+ that he returned to the palace under cover of the night; and that when a servant rushed into his chamber to tell the news of the catastrophe, he started up in well feigned terror and cried "Treason." Mary was made acquainted with the event by Bothwell and Huntley, two of the conspirators, and she shut herself up in her chamber, as one lost in grief.

Two days elapsed before any public steps were taken to discover the perpetrators of this deed. Then a proclamation was issued offering a large reward. Placards were soon displayed in the city denouncing Bothwell, James Balfour, and others, as the murderers. Mary removed to the seat of lord Seaton. Darnley was buried with great privacy; and his father made ineffectual solicitations to the queen that she should take steps for the immediate apprehension of those named in the placards. Bothwell continued about the queen, having the chief management of public affairs; and the Court at Seaton was occupied with somewhat ill-timed amusements. The opportunities for a searching inquiry into the circumstances of the murder were passing away. Some of the inferior agents who were suspected were leaving Scotland. Bothwell rode through the streets of Edinburgh with fifty guards; passionately declaring, that if he knew the authors of the placards he would wash his hands in their blood. The chief nobles, including Murray, absented themselves from court, as if in disgust. Even Beaton, the queen's ambassador at Paris, wrote to her in the following plain terms: "Of this deed, if I should write all that is spoken here, and also in England, of the miserable estate of the realm by the dishonour of the nobility, mistrust and treason of your whole subjects,-yea, that yourself is greatly and wrongously calumniated to be the motive principal of the whole, and all

*W. E. Aytoun, Notes to "Bothwell," p. 263.

+ Herries.

1567.]

MOCK-TRIAL OF BOTHWELL-MARY CARRIED OFF.

147

done by your command,-I can conclude nothing besides that which your majesty writes to me yourself that since it hath pleased God to preserve you to take a rigorous vengeance thereof, that rather than it be not actually taken, it appears to me better, in this world, that you had lost life and all." Mary did not do what this honest adviser exhorted her to do-"that you do such justice as the whole world may declare your innocence." She received from Elizabeth a message of condolence and advice; and she promised the queen of England's envoy that Bothwell should be brought to an open trial. But she immediately admitted the guilty man to greater favour than ever; bestowed upon him new marks of her confidence, such as the custody of Edinburgh castle; and enabled him so to strengthen himself, that the promised trial was a mockery and an imposture. No one dared to accuse the man who commanded all the military power of the state. The father of Darnley now besought Mary to delay the trial, so that the accused should be less able to control its issue by force. He applied to Elizabeth, who exhorted her sister-queen to listen to so reasonable a request. The provost-marshal of Berwick arrived with Elizabeth's letter on the 12th of April, the day appointed for the trial. The city was wholly in the power of Bothwell, who had four thousand of his followers in the streets and the court of the palace. The castle was under his command. Bothwell's armed men surrounded the Tolbooth, where the trial was to take place. Lennox was commanded to enter Edinburgh with no more than six attendants, and he naturally shrunk from the danger that appeared imminent, and declined to appear in person. A gentleman, on his part, boldly re-iterated the charge against Bothwell, but requested delay. There was no accuser and no evidence, and a verdict of acquittal was pronounced. The parliament confirmed the acquittal. Murray had returned to France. Bothwell received new marks of the queen's favour; and his ultimate elevation was anticipated by the signatures of many nobles to a bond, in which they recommended him as a suitable husband for the queen. But some of the most important men in Scotland were roused by the insolence of the favorite and the infatuation of Mary; who, according to a letter written by sir William Kirkaldy, the laird of Grange, to the earl of Bedford, had said, with reference to Bothwell,-"She cared 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, before she leave him.”* The indignation of the people was soon completed by a most extraordinary proceeding. The queen had been on the 21st of April to Stirling, to see her child. As she was returning to Edinburgh, on the 24th, she was surrounded by a great band of Bothwell's followers, to the number of eight hundred, led by him; and was conducted, as if by force, to his castle of Dunbar. Grange, on the 26th, addressed a letter to Bedford, in which he accuses Mary of complicity in this seizure, "to the end that she may sooner end the marriage whilk she promised before she eaused Bothwell murder her husband." Proceedings for a collusive divorce between Bothwell and his wife, the lady Jane Gordon, were hurried through the courts. Craig, a protestant minister, was ordered to proclaim the banns of matrimony between the queen and Bothwell, which he did in the High Church, adding, "I take Heaven and earth to witness that

* Letter in State Paper Office, Tytler, vol. vii. p. 106.

148

MARRIAGE OF MARY AND BOTHWELL.

[1567.

I abhor and detest this marriage." On the 12th of May the queen came to Edinburgh, and created Bothwell duke of Orkney and Shetland. On the 15th they were married. If there could be happiness in such an union it was quickly over. The French ambassador, within a fortnight after, wrote to Catherine de Medici, " On Thursday the queen sent for me, when I perceived

something strange in the mutual behaviour of her and her husband. She attempted to excuse it, and said, 'If you see me melancholy, it is because I do not choose to be cheerful; because I never will be so, and wish for nothing but death.'"* It is related that she was treated with indignity by the man Raumer, p. 99.

Surrender of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Carberry-hill. From the ancient print published by the Society of Antiquaries.

1567.]

MARY SURRENDERS TO HER NOBLES.

149

for whom she had sacrificed her peace of mind and her reputation; and that on one occasion when she had been subjected to his insults, she called aloud for a knife to stab herself.

A confederacy of nobles was soon formed, with the declared intention of putting down the power of Bothwell. He and the queen were at Borthwick castle, about ten miles from Edinburgh, when the place was surrounded by an armed force. Bothwell escaped by a postern, and reached his own castle of Dunbar. Mary fled, disguised as a man, and joined her new husband in his fortress. The confederates secured the capital. The queen called her followers round the royal banner at Dunbar; and on the 14th of June advanced with a considerable force towards Edinburgh. She entrenched herself on Carberry-hill-a place remarkable as the position which the English held before the battle of Pinkie. On Sunday the 15th the confederates marched out of Edinburgh; and the two armies were soon in presence of each other. Bothwell sent by a herald his personal defiance of any one who accused him of Darnley's murder. The challenge was accepted by Lindsay; but Mary forbad the encounter. Her own army began to desert her, and a general panic soon ensued. The queen demanded a parley. Grange came to meet her, and tendered the obedience of the lords in arms if Bothwell were dismissed. She did dismiss him. There was a brief farewell; and they met no more. He became a pirate and an outcast. Mary was conducted to the camp of the confederates; and she soon perceived that she was a prisoner. "Give me your hand," she said to Lindsay; and placing her delicate fingers in his rough palm, she exclaimed, "By the hand which is now in yours, I'll have your head for this." Riding between Athol and Morton, she was conducted into Edinburgh amidst the execrations of an infuriated populace. The soldiers carried a banner, on which was painted the body of the murdered Darnley lying under the tree near the Kirk of Field, and a child kneeling beside it, with the legend, "Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord." This terrible flag was paraded before her; and when she awoke next morning, and looked out of the window of the provost's house in which she had been lodged, the same dreadful representation was hung up to meet her first gaze. In her despair she attempted to address the people, who were moved to some pity at her agony. That day she was carried as a prisoner to Lochleven.