Answeris Sr James balfor can better tell nor he And knew better and befoir the deponer yof. And quhen the Quene wes in glasgow my lord Boithuile send the deponar to Sr James balfor desiring that he wald cum and meit my lord at the kirk of feild To quhome Schir James ansuerit, will my lord cum thair? gif he cum it wer gude he war quiet. And yit they met not at that place than nor at natyme thairefter to the deponers knawledge.
Thair wes xiiii keyis quhilkis this deponer efter the murthor keist in the grevvell hoill [? quarrel-hoill, i. e. quarry hole] betuix the abbay and leith. And towardes the makers of the keyis they were maid betuix Leuestoun and Sr James balfor and thai twa can tell. Item deponis that Ilk ane that wer of the band and siclike the erle of Morton and Syr James balfor suld haif send twa men to the committing of the murther. And the erle boithuile declarit to the deponar are nyt or twa afore the murthor falland in talking of thame that wer in the kingis chalmer My lord said that Sandy Durham wes ane gude fallowe and he wald wische that he weir out of the same.
This is the trew copy, etc.
Perhaps few will argue that this passage has been fraudulently inserted in the Cambridge MS. If not, Bellenden lied when he attested the mutilated deposition to be a true copy. His own autograph signature attests the Cambridge copy. Moray, who heard Bowton make his deposition, was a partner to the fraud. The portion of the evidence burked by Moray is corroborated, as regards the signatures of the band for Darnleys murder, by Ormistoun, much later (Dec. 13, 1573) in Laing, ii. 293. Ormistoun, however, probably by an error of memory, says that he saw what Bothwell affirmed to be the signature of Sir James Balfour, in addition to those spoken of by Bowton, namely Argyll, Bothwell, Huntly, and Lethington. This statement as to Balfour Bowton withdrew in his dying confession as published. Bowtons remark that Lethingtons signature came far beneath the rest sounds true. Space would be left above for the signatures of men of higher rank than the secretary.
Bowton saw the band at Dunbar (April-May, 1567, during Marys detention there), in one of two silver coffers. He only understands that the band was with the remanent letters, and put in the Castle by George Dalgleish. If the remanent letters are the Casket Letters, and if Bowton, at Dunbar, had seen them with the band, and read them, his evidence would have been valuable as to the Letters. But as things are, we have merely his opinion, or understanding, that certain letters were kept with the band, as Drury, we know, asserted that it was in the Casket with the other papers, and was destroyed, while the Letters attributed to Mary were kept to be shown. Of course, if this be true, Morton lied when he said that the contents of the Casket had neither been added to nor diminished.
Next, Bowton denied that, to his knowledge, Bothwell and Balfour met at the Kirk o Field, while Mary was at Glasgow, or at any other time. If Bowton is right, and he was their go-between, Paris lied in his Deposition where he says that Bothwell and Sir James had passed a whole night in Kirk o Field, while Mary was at Glasgow.[3]
Bowtons confession that Morton should have sent two men to the committing of the murder, explains the presence of Archibald Douglas, Mortons cousin, with Binning, his man. These two represented Morton. Finally, Bowtons confession in the Cambridge MS. joins the copy of his confession put in at Westminster, on the point of the fourteen false keys of Kirk o Field, thrown by Bowton into a gravel hole. Unless then the Cambridge MS. is rejected, the Lord Justice Clerk and Moray deliberately suppressed evidence which proved that Moray was allied with two of Darnleys murderers in prosecuting his sister for that crime. Such evidence, though extant, Moray, of course, dared not produce, but must burke at Westminster.
I have shown in the text (p. 144) that, even on Bowtons evidence as produced at Westminster, Moray was aware that Bothwell had allies among the nobles, but that, as far as the evidence declares, he asked no questions. But the Cambridge MS. proves his full knowledge, which he deliberately suppressed. The Cambridge MS. must either have been furnished to Lennox, before the sittings at Westminster; or must have been the original, or a copy of the original, later supplied to Dr. Wilson while preparing Buchanans Detection, the Actio, and other documents for the press in November 1571.[4] It will be observed that when Lethington was accused of Darnleys murder, in September 1569, Moray could not well have prosecuted him to a conviction, as his friends, Atholl and Kirkcaldy, having been present at Bowtons examination, knew that Moray knew of Lethingtons guilt, yet continued to be his ally. The Cambridge copy of the deposition of Hay of Tala contains no reference to the guilt of Morton or Lethington; naturally, for Morton was present at Hays examination. Finally, the evidence of Binning, in 1581, shows that representatives of Lethington and Balfour, as well as of Morton, were present at the murder, as Bowton, in his suppressed testimony, says had been arranged.
It is therefore clear that Moray, in arraigning his sister with the aid of her husbands assassins, could suppress authentic evidence. Marys apologists will argue that he was also capable of introducing evidence less than authentic.
I
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
History is apt to be, and some think that it should be, a mere series of dry uncoloured statements. Such an event occurred, such a word was uttered, such a deed was done, at this date or the other. We give references to our authorities, to men who heard of the events, or even saw them when they happened. But we, the writer and the readers, see nothing: we only offer or accept bald and imperfect information. If we try to write history on another method, we become picturesque: we are composing a novel, not striving painfully to attain the truth. Yet, when we know not the details; the aspect of dwellings now ruinous; the hue and cut of garments long wasted into dust; the passing frown, or smile, or tone of the actors and the speakers in these dramas of life long ago; the clutch of Bothwell at his daggers hilt, when men spoke to him in the street; the flush of Darnleys fair face as Mary and he quarrelled at Stirling before his murder then we know not the real history, the real truth. Now and then such a detail of gesture or of change of countenance is recorded by an eyewitness, and brings us, for a moment, into more vivid contact with the past. But we could only know it, and judge the actors and their conduct, if we could see the personages in their costume as they lived, passing by in some magic mirror from scene to scene. The stage, as in Schillers Marie Stuart, comes nearest to reality, if only the facts given by the poet were real; and next in vividness comes the novel, such as Scotts Abbot, with its picture of Mary at Loch Leven, when she falls into an hysterical fit at the mention of Bastians marriage on the night of Darnleys death. Far less intimate than these imaginary pictures of genius are the statements of History, dull when they are not picturesque, and when they are picturesque, sometimes prejudiced, inaccurate, and misleading.
We are to betake ourselves to the uninviting series of contradictory statements and of contested dates, and of disputable assertions, which are the dry bones of a tragedy like that of the Agamemnon of Æschylus. Let us try first to make mental pictures of the historic people who play their parts on what is now a dimly lighted stage, but once was shone upon by the sun in heaven; by the stars of darkling nights on ways dimly discerned; by the candles of Holyrood, or of that crowded sick-room in Kirk o Field, where Bothwell and the Lords played dice round the fated Darnleys couch; or by the flare of torches under which Mary rode down the Blackfriars Wynd and on to Holyrood.
We are to betake ourselves to the uninviting series of contradictory statements and of contested dates, and of disputable assertions, which are the dry bones of a tragedy like that of the Agamemnon of Æschylus. Let us try first to make mental pictures of the historic people who play their parts on what is now a dimly lighted stage, but once was shone upon by the sun in heaven; by the stars of darkling nights on ways dimly discerned; by the candles of Holyrood, or of that crowded sick-room in Kirk o Field, where Bothwell and the Lords played dice round the fated Darnleys couch; or by the flare of torches under which Mary rode down the Blackfriars Wynd and on to Holyrood.
The foremost person is the Queen, a tall girl of twenty-four, with brown hair, and sidelong eyes of red brown. Such are her sidelong eyes in the Morton portrait; such she bequeathed to her great-great-grandson, James, the King over the Water. She was half French in temper, one of the proud bold Guises, by her mothers side; and if not beautiful, she was so beguiling that Elizabeth recognised her magic even in the reports of her enemies.[5]
This lady and Princess is a notable woman, said Knollys; she showeth a disposition to speak much, to be bold, to be pleasant, and to be very familiar. She showeth a great desire to be avenged of her enemies, she showeth a readiness to expose herself to all perils in hope of victory, she delighteth much to hear of hardiness and valiance, commending by name all approved hardy men of her country, although they be her enemies, and concealeth no cowardice even in her friends.
There was something divine, Elizabeth said, in the face and manner which won the hearts of her gaolers in Loch Leven and in England. Heaven bless that sweet face! cried the people in the streets as the Queen rode by, or swept along with the long train, the targetted tails and stinking pride of women, that Knox denounced.
She was gay, as when Randolph met her, in no more state than a burgesss wife might use, in the little house of St. Andrews, hard by the desecrated Cathedral. She could be madly mirthful, dancing, or walking the black midnight streets of Edinburgh, masked, in male apparel, or flitting in homely attire, said her enemies, about the Market Cross in Stirling. She loved, at sea, to handle the boisterous cables, as Buchanan tells. Pursuing her brother, Moray, on a day of storm, or hard on the doomed Huntlys track among the hills and morasses of the North; or galloping through the red bracken of the October moors, and the hills of the robbers, to Hermitage; her energy outwore the picked warriors in her company. At other times, in a fascinating languor, she would lie long abed, receiving company in the French fashion, waited on by her Maries, whose four names are four sweet symphonies, Mary Seton and Mary Beaton, Mary Fleming and Mary Livingstone. To the Council Board she would bring her womans work, embroidery of silk and gold. She was fabled to have carried pistols at her saddle-bow in war, and she excelled in matches of archery and pall-mall.
Her costumes, when she would be queenly, have left their mark on the memory of men: the ruff from which rose the snowy neck; the brocaded bodice, with puffed and jewelled sleeves and stomacher; the diamonds, gifts of Henri II. or of Diane; the rich pearls that became the spoil of Elizabeth; the brooches enamelled with sacred scenes, or scenes from fable. Many of her jewels the ruby tortoise given by Riccio; the enamel of the mouse and the ensnared lioness, passed by Lethington as a token into her dungeon of Loch Leven; the diamonds bequeathed by her to one whom she might not name; the red enamelled wedding-ring, the gift of Darnley; the diamond worn in her bosom, the betrothal present of Norfolk are, to our fancy, like the fabled star-ruby of Helen of Troy, that dripped with blood-gouts which vanished as they fell. Riccio, Darnley, Lethington, Norfolk, the donors of these jewels, they were all to die for her, as Bothwell, too, was to perish, the giver of the diamond carried by Paris, the recipient of the black betrothal ring enamelled with bones and tears. Her feet go down to death, her feet that were so light in the dance, her steps take hold on hell Her lips drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. The lips that dropped as honeycomb, the laughing mouth, could wildly threaten, and vainly rage or beseech, when she was entrapped at Carberry; or could waken pity in the sternest Puritan when, half-clad, her bosom bare, her loose hair flowing, she wailed from her window to the crowd of hostile Edinburgh.
She was of a high impatient spirit: we seem to recognise her in an anecdote told by the Black Laird of Ormistoun, one of Darnleys murderers, in prison before his execution. He had been warned by his brother, in a letter, that he was suspected of the crime, and should get some good way to purge himself. He showed the letter to Bothwell, who read it, and gave it to Mary. She glanced at it, handed it to Huntly, and thereafter turnit unto me, and turnit her back, and gave ane thring with her shoulder, and passit away, and spake nothing to me. But that thring spoke much of Marys mood, unrepentant, contemptuous, defiant.
Marys gratitude was not of the kind proverbial in princes. In September 1571, when the Ridolfi plot collapsed, and Marys household was reduced, her sorest grief was for Archibald Beaton, her usher, and little Willie Douglas, who rescued her from Loch Leven. They were to be sent to Scotland, which meant death to both, and she pleaded pitifully for them. To her servants she wrote: I thank God, who has given me strength to endure, and I pray Him to grant you the like grace. To you will your loyalty bring the greatest honour, and whensoever it pleases God to set me free, I will never fail you, but reward you according to my power Pray God that you be true men and constant, to such He will never deny his grace, and for you, John Gordon and William Douglas, I pray that He will inspire your hearts. I can no more. Live in friendship and holy charity one with another, bearing each others imperfections You, William Douglas, be assured that the life which you hazarded for me shall never be destitute while I have one friend alive.
In a trifling transaction she writes: Rather would I pay twice over, than injure or suspect any man.
In the long lament of the letters written during her twenty years of captivity, but a few moods return and repeat themselves, like phrases in a fugue. Vain complaints, vain hopes, vain intrigues with Spain, France, the Pope, the Guises, the English Catholics, succeed each other with futile iteration. But always we hear the note of loyalty even to her humblest servants, of sleepless memory of their sacrifices for her, of unstinting and generous gratitude. Such was the Queens natural, mon naturel: with this character she faced the world: a lady to live and die for: and many died.
This woman, sensitive, proud, tameless, fierce, and kind, was browbeaten by the implacable Knox: her priests were scourged and pilloried, her creed was outraged every day; herself scolded, preached at, insulted; her every plan thwarted by Elizabeth. Mary had reason enough for tears even before her servant was slain almost in her sight by her witless husband and the merciless Lords. She could be gay, later, dancing and hunting, but it may well be that, after this last and worst of cruel insults, her heart had now become hard as the diamond; and that she was possessed by the evil spirits of loathing, and hatred, and longing for revenge. It had not been a hard heart, but a tender; capable of sorrow for slaves at the galley oars. After her childs birth, when she was holiday-making at Alloa, according to Buchanan, with Bothwell and his gang of pirates, she wrote to the Laird of Abercairnie, bidding him be merciful to a poor woman and her company of puir bairnis whom he had evicted from their kindly rowme, or little croft.