The tale of Darnleys then keeping a mistress arose, says Lennox, from the fact that one of two Englishmen in his service, brothers, each called Anthony Standen, brought a girl into the Castle. The sinner was, when Lennox wrote, in France. Nearly forty years after James VI. imprisoned him in the Tower, and he wrote a romantic memoir of which there is a manuscript copy at Hatfield.
Whatever Marys feelings towards Darnley, when making an inventory of her jewels for bequests, in case she and her child both died, she left her husband a number of beautiful objects, including the red enamel ring with which he wedded her.[61] Whatever her feelings towards Moray, she lodged him and Argyll in the Castle during her labour: Huntly and Bothwell would also have lodged there, but were refused.[62] Sir James Melville (writing in old age) declares that Huntly and Lesley, Bishop of Ross, envied the favour that the Queen showed unto the Earl of Moray, and wished her to put him in ward, as dangerous. Melville dissuaded Mary from this course, and she admitted Moray to the Castle, while rejecting Huntly and Bothwell.[63]
James VI. and I. was born on June 19. Killigrew carried Elizabeths congratulations, and found that Argyll, Moray, Mar, and Atholl were linked together at Court. Bothwell had tried to prejudice Mary against Moray, as likely to bring in Morton during her child-bed, but Bothwell had failed, and gone to the Border. He would not gladly be in the danger of the four that lie in the Castle. Yet he was thought to be more in credit with Mary than all the rest. If so, Mary certainly dissembled her love, to the proverbial extent. Darnley was in the Castle, but little regarded.[64] Moray complained that his own credit was yet but small: he was with the Privy Council, Bothwell was not.[65] By July 11, Moray told Cecil that his favour stands now in good case.[66]
He had good reason to thank God, as he did. According to Nau, Huntly and Bothwell had long been urging Darnley to ruin Moray and Lethington, and Darnley had a high regard for George Douglas, now in exile, his agent with Ruthven for Riccios murder.[67] This is confirmed by a letter from Morton in exile to Sir John Forster in July. Morton had heard from Scotland that Bothwell and Darnley were urging Mary to recall the said George Douglas, whom they expected to denounce Moray and Lethington as the devisers of the slaughter of Davy. I now find, says Morton, that the King and Bothwell are not likely to speed, as was written, for the Queen likes nothing of their desire.[68]
Thus Mary was protecting Moray from the grotesque combination of Bothwell and Darnley. This is at a time when Bothwell was all in all, according to Lennox, and when she had just tried to embroil Moray and her husband by bidding Darnley seduce Lady Moray. By Morays and Mortons own showing, Morays favour was in good case, and he was guarded from Darnleys intrigues.
However, Buchanan makes Mary try to drive Darnley and Moray to dagger strokes after her deliverance.[69] We need not credit his tale of Marys informing Darnley that the nobles meant to kill him, and then calling Moray out of bed, half-naked, to hear that he was to be killed by Darnley. All that is known of this affair of the hurried Moray speeding through the corridors in his dressing-gown, comes from certain notes of news sent by Bedford to Cecil on August 15. The Queen declared to Moray that the King had told her he was determined to kill him, finding fault that she bears him so much company. The King confessed that reports were made to him that Moray was not his friend, which made him speak that of which he repented. The Queen said that she could not be content that either he or any else should be unfriend to Moray. Any else included Bothwell. Moray and Bothwell have been at evil words for Lethington. The King has departed; he cannot bear that the Queen should use familiarity with man or woman.[70] This may be the basis of Buchanans legend. Moray and Darnley hated each other. On the historical evidence of documents as against the partisan legends of Lennox and Buchanan, Mary, before and after her delivery, was leaning on Moray, whatever may have been her private affection for Bothwell. She even confided to him that money had been sent from the Pope. Moray was thus deep in her confidence. That she should distrust Darnley, ever weaving new intrigues, was no more than just. His wicked folly was the chief obstacle to peace.
Peace, while Darnley lived, there could not be. Morton was certain to be pardoned, and of all feuds the deadliest was that between Morton and Darnley, who had betrayed him. Meanwhile Marys dislike of Darnley must have increased, after her fear of dying in child-birth had disappeared. When once the nobles were knitted into a combination, with Lethington restored to the Secretaryship (for which Moray laboured successfully against Bothwell), with Morton and the Douglases brought home, Darnley was certain to perish. Lennox was disgraced, and his Stewarts were powerless, and Darnleys own Douglas kinsmen were, of all men, most likely to put their hands in his blood: as they did. Mary was his only possible shelter. Nothing was more to be dreaded by the Lords than the reconciliation of the royal pair; whom Darnley threatened with the vengeance he would take if once his foot was on their necks. But of a sincere reconciliation there was no danger.
A difficult problem is to account for the rise of Marys passion for Bothwell. In February, she had given him into the arms of a beautiful bride. In March, he had won her sincerest gratitude and confidence. She had, Lennox says, bestowed on him the command of her new Guard of harquebus men, a wild crew of mercenaries under dare-devil captains. But though, according to her accusers, her gratitude and confidence turned to love, and though that love, they say, was shameless and notorious, there are no contemporary hints of it in all the gossip of scandalous diplomatists. We have to fall back on what Buchanan, inspired by Lennox, wrote after Darnleys murder, and on what Lennox wrote himself in language more becoming a gentleman than that of Buchanan. If Lennox speaks truth, improper relations between Mary and Bothwell began as soon as she recovered from the birth of her child. He avers that Mary wrote a letter to Bothwell shortly after her recovery from child-bed, and just when she was resisting Bothwells and Darnleys plot against Moray and Lethington. Bothwell, reading the letter among his friends, exclaimed, Gyf any faith might be given to a princess, they (Darnley and Mary) should never be togidder in bed agane. A version in English (the other paper is in Scots) makes Mary promise this to Bothwell when he entered her room, and found her washing her hands. Buchanans tales of Marys secret flight to Alloa, shortly after Jamess birth, and her revels there in company with Bothwell and his crew of pirates, are well known. Lennox, however, represents her as departing to Stirling, before her month, when even women of low degree keep the house, and as taking her pleasure in most uncomely manner, arraied in homely sort, dancing about the market cross of the town.
According to Nau, Mary and her ladies really resided at Alloa as guests of Lord Mar, one of the least treacherous and abandoned of her nobles. Bedford, in a letter of August 3, 1566, mentions Marys secret departure from Edinburgh, her intended meeting with Lethington (who had been exiled from Court since Riccios death), at Alloa, on August 2, and her disdainful words about Darnley. He adds that Bothwell is the most hated man in Scotland: his insolence is such that David [Riccio] was never more abhorred than he is now, but Bedford says nothing of a love intrigue between Bothwell and Mary.[71] The visit to Alloa, with occasional returns to Edinburgh, is of July-August.
In August, Mary, Bothwell, Moray, and Darnley hunted in Meggatdale, the moorland region between the stripling Yarrow and the Tweed. They had poor sport: poachers had been busy among the deer. Charles IX., in France, now learned that the royal pair were on the best terms;[72] and Marys Inventories prove that, in August, she had presented Darnley with a magnificent bed; by no means the second-best bed. In September she also gave him a quantity of cloth of gold, to make a caparison for his horse.[73] Claude Nau reports, however, various brutal remarks of Darnley to his wife while they were in Meggatdale. By September 20, Mary, according to Lethington, reconciled Bothwell and himself. This was a very important event. The reconciliation, Lethington says, was quietly managed at the house of a friend of his own, Argyll, Moray, and Bothwell alone being present. Moray says: Lethington is restored to favour, wherein I trust he shall increase.[74] This step was hostile to Darnleys interests, for he had attempted to ruin Lethington. It is certain, as we shall see, that all parties were now united in a band to resist Darnleys authority, and maintain that of the Queen, though, probably, nothing was said about violence.
At this very point Buchanan, supported and probably inspired by Lennox, makes the guilty intimacy of Mary and Bothwell begin in earnest. In September, 1566, Mary certainly was in Edinburgh, reconciling Lethington to Bothwell, and also working at the budget and finance in the Exchequer House. It was large and had pleasant gardens to it, and next to the gardens, all along, a solitary vacant room, says Buchanan. But the real charm, he declares, was in the neighbourhood of the house of David Chalmers, a man of learning, and a friend of Bothwell. The back door of Chalmerss house opened on the garden of the Exchequer House, and according to Buchanan, Bothwell thence passed, through the garden, to Marys chamber, where he overcame her virtue by force. She was betrayed into his hands by Lady Reres.[75]
This lady, who has been mentioned already, was the wife of Arthur Forbes of Reres. His castle, on a hill above the north shore of the Firth of Forth, is now but a grassy mound, near Lord Crawfords house of Balcarres. The lady was a niece of Cardinal Beaton, a sister of the magic lady of Branksome, and aunt of one of the Four Maries, Mary Beaton. Buchanan describes her as an old love of Bothwell, a woman very heavy, both by unwieldy age and massy substance; her gay days, then, must long have been over. She was also the mother of a fairly large family. Cecil absurdly avers that Bothwell obtained his divorce by accusing himself of an amour with this fat old lady.[76] Knoxs silly secretary, Bannatyne, tells us that the Reformer, dining at Falsyde, was regaled with a witch story by a Mr. Lundie. He said that when Lady Atholl and Mary were both in labour, in Edinburgh Castle, he came there on business, and found Lady Reres lying abed. He asking her of her disease, she answered that she was never so troubled with no bairn that ever she bare, for the Lady Atholl had cast all the pain of her child-birth upon her.[77] It was a case of Telepathy. Lady Reres had been married long enough to have a grown-up son, the young Laird of Reres, who was in Marys service at Carberry Hill (June, 1567). According to Dr. Joseph Robertson, Lady Reres was wet-nurse to Marys baby. But, if we trust Buchanan, she was always wandering about with Mary, while the nurseling was elsewhere. The name of Lady Reres does not occur among those of Marys household in her Etat of February 1567. We only hear of her, then, from Buchanan, as a veteran procuress of vast bulk who, at some remote period, had herself been the mistress of Bothwell.
A few days after the treasonable and infamous action of Bothwell in violating his Queen, we are to believe that Mary, still in the Exchequer House, sent Lady Reres for that hero. Though it would have been simple and easy to send a girl like Margaret Carwood, Mary and Margaret must needs let old Lady Reres down by a string, over an old wall, into the next garden. Still easier would it have been for Lady Reres to use the key of the back door, as when she first admitted Bothwell. But these methods were not romantic enough: Behold, the string suddenly broke, and down with a great noise fell Lady Reres. However, she returned with Bothwell, and so began these tragic loves.
This legend is backed, according to Buchanan, by the confession of Bothwells valet, George Dalgleish, which still remaineth upon record, but is nowhere to be found. In Dalgleishs confession, printed in the Detection, nothing of the kind occurs. But a passage in the Casket Sonnet IX. is taken as referring to the condoned rape:
Pour luy aussi jai jeté mainte larme,
Premier, quand il se fist de ce corps possesseur,
Duquel alors il navoit pas le cœur.
In the Lennox MSS. Lennox himself dates the beginning of the intrigue with Bothwell about September, 1566. But he and Buchanan are practically but one witness. There is no other.
As regards this critical period, we have abundant contemporary information. The Privy Council, writing to Catherine de Medici, from Edinburgh, on October 8, make Mary, ten or twelve days before (say September 26), leave Stirling for Edinburgh, on affairs of the Exchequer. She offered to bring Darnley, but he insisted on remaining at Stirling, where Lennox visited him for two or three days, returning to Glasgow. Thence he wrote to Mary, warning her that Darnley had a vessel in readiness, to fly the country. The letter reached Mary on September 29, and Darnley arrived on the same day. He rode to Mary, but refused to enter the palace, because three or four of the Lords were in attendance. Mary actually went out to see her husband, apparently dismissed the Lords, and brought him to her chamber, where he passed the night. On the following day, the Council, with du Croc, met Darnley. He was invited, by Mary and the rest, to declare his grievances: his attention was directed to the wise and virtuous conduct of his wife. Nothing could be extracted from Darnley, who sulkily withdrew, warning Mary, by a letter, that he still thought of leaving the country. His letter hinted that he was deprived of regal authority, and was abandoned by the nobles. To this they reply that he must be aimable before he can be aimé, and that they will never consent to his having the disposal of affairs.[78]
A similar account was given by du Croc to Archbishop Beaton, and, on October 17, to Catherine de Medici, no friend of Mary, also by Mary to Lennox.[79]
We have not Darnleys version of what occurred. He knew that all the powerful Lords were now united against him. Du Croc, however, had frequent interviews with Darnley, who stated his grievance. It was not that Bothwell injured his honour. Darnley kept spies on Mary, and had such a noisy and burlesque set of incidents occurred in the garden of Exchequer House as Buchanan reports, Darnley should have had the news. But he merely complained to du Croc that he did not enjoy the same share of power and trust as was his in the early weeks of his wedding. Du Croc replied that this fortune could never again be his. The Book of Articles entirely omits Darnleys offence in the slaying of Riccio. Du Croc was more explicit. He told Darnley that the Queen had been personally offended, and would never restore him to his authority. He ought to be well content with the honour and good cheer which she gave him, honouring and treating him as the King her husband, and supplying his household with all manner of good things. This goes ill with Buchanans story about Marys stinginess to Darnley. It is admitted by the Lennox MSS. that she did not keep her alleged promise to Bothwell, that she and Darnley should never meet in the marriage bed.