Chapter IX: Letter I: Published Scots Translation and English Translation (6)

Next day the Lords marched to encounter Bothwell, met him posted on Carberry Hill, and, after many hours of manœuvres and negotiations, very variously reported, the Lords allowed Bothwell to slip away to Dunbar (he was a compromising captive), and took Mary, clad unqueenly in a ‘red petticoat, sleeves tied with points, a velvet hat and muffler.’ She surrendered to Kirkcaldy of Grange: on what terms, if on any, is not to be ascertained. She herself in Nau’s MS. maintains that she promised to join in pursuing Darnley’s murderers, and ‘claimed that justice should be done upon certain persons of their party now present, who were guilty of the said murder, and were much astonished to find themselves discovered.’ But, by Nau’s own arrangement of his matter, Mary can only have thus accused the Lords (there is other evidence that she did so) _after_ Bothwell, at parting from her, denounced to her Morton, Balfour, and Lethington, giving her a copy of the murder band, signed by them, and bidding her ‘take good care of that paper.’ She did ‘take good care’ of some paper, as we shall see, though almost certainly not the band, and not obtained at Carberry Hill.[202] She asked for an interview with Lethington and Atholl, both of whom, though present, denied that they were of the Lords’ party. Finally, after parting from Bothwell, assuring him that, if found innocent in the coming Parliament, she would remain his loyal wife, she surrendered to Kirkcaldy, ‘relying upon his word and assurance, which the Lords, in full Council, as he said, had solemnly warranted him to make.’ So writes Nau. James Beaton (whose narrative we have followed) merely says that she made terms, which were granted, that none of her party should be ‘invaded or pursued.’[203] Sir James Melville makes the Lords’ promise depend on her abandonment of Bothwell.[204]

Whatever be the truth as to Mary’s surrender, the Lords later excused their treatment of her not on the ground that they had given no pledge, but on that of her adhesion to the man they had asked her to marry. According to Nau, Lethington persuaded the Lords to place her in the house then occupied by Preston, the Laird of Craigmillar, Provost of Edinburgh. She asked, at night, for an interview with Lethington, but she received no answer. Next morning she called piteously to Lethington, as he passed the window of her room: he crushed his hat over his face, and did not even look up. The mob were angry with Lethington, and Mary’s guards dragged her from the window. On the other hand, du Croc says that Lethington, on hearing her cries, entered her room, and spoke with her, while the mob was made to move on.[205] Lethington told du Croc that, when Mary called to him, and he went to her, she complained of being parted from Bothwell. He, with little tact, told her that Bothwell much preferred his wife. She clamoured to be placed in a ship with Bothwell, and allowed to drift at the wind’s will.[206] Du Croc said to Lethington that he hoped the pair would drift to France, ‘where the king would judge righteously, for the unhappy facts are only too well proved.’ This is a very strong opinion against Mary. Years later, when Lethington was holding Edinburgh Castle for Mary, he told Craig that, after Carberry ‘I myself made the offer to her that, if she would abandon my Lord Bothwell, she should have as thankful obedience as ever she had since she came to Scotland. But no ways would she consent to leave my Lord Bothwell.’[207] Lethington’s word is of slight value.

To return to Nau, or to Mary speaking through Nau, on June 16 Lethington did go to see her: ‘but in such shame and fear that he never dared to lift his eyes to her face while he spoke with her.’ He showed great hatred of Bothwell, and said that she could not be allowed to return to him: Mary, marvelling at his ‘impudence,’ replied that she was ready to join in the pursuit of Darnley’s murderers: who had acted chiefly on Lethington’s advice. She then told him plainly that he, Morton, and Balfour had chiefly prevented inquiry into the murder. _They_ were the culprits, as Bothwell had told her, showing her the signatures to the murder band, when parting from her at Carberry. She reminded Lethington that she had saved his life. If Lethington persecuted her, she would tell what she knew of him. He replied, angrily, that she would drive him to extremities to save his own life, whereas, if matters were allowed to grow quiet, he might one day be of service to her. If he were kept talking, and so incurred the suspicion of the Lords, her life would be in peril. To ‘hedge,’ Lethington used to encourage Mary, when she was in Loch Leven. But he had, then, no ‘assurance’ from her, and, on a false alarm of her escape, mounted his horse to fly from Edinburgh.[208] Thus greatly do the stories of Mary and of Lethington differ, concerning their interview after Carberry. Perhaps Mary is the more trustworthy.

On June 17, 1567, John Beaton wrote to his brother, Mary’s ambassador in Paris. He says that no man was allowed to speak to Mary on June 16, but that, in the evening, she asked a girl to speak to Lethington, and pray him to have compassion on her, ‘and not to show himself so extremely opposed to her as he does.’[209] Beaton’s evidence, being written the day after the occurrences, is excellent, and leaves us to believe that, in the darkest of her dark hours in Scotland, insulted by the populace, with guards placed in her chamber, destitute of all earthly aid, Mary found in extreme opposition to her the man who owed to her his lands and his life.

And why was Lethington thus ‘extremely opposed’? First, Mary, if free, would join Bothwell, his deadly foe. Secondly, he knew from her own lips that Mary knew his share in Darnley’s murder, and had proof. While she lived, the sword hung over Lethington. He, therefore, insisted on her imprisonment in a place whence escape should have been impossible. He is even said to have advised that she should be secretly strangled. Years later, when time had brought in his revenges, and Lethington and Kirkcaldy were holding the Castle for Mary, her last hope, Lethington explained his change of sides in a letter to his opponent, Morton. Does Morton hate him because he has returned to the party of the Queen? He had advised Morton to take the same course, ‘being assured that, with time, she would recover her liberty (as yet I have no doubt but she will). I deemed it neither wisdom for him nor me to deserve particular ill will at her hands.’ This was a frank enough explanation of his own change of factions. If ever Mary came to her own, Lethington dreaded her feud. We shall see that as soon as she was imprisoned, Lethington affected to be her secret ally. Morton replied that ‘it was vain in Lethington to think that he could deserve more particular evil will at Mary’s hands than he had deserved already.’[210]

Lethington could not be deeper in guilt towards Mary than he was, despite his appearance of friendship. The ‘evil will’ which he had incurred was ‘particular,’ and could not be made worse. In the same revolution of factions (1570-73) Randolph also wrote to Lethington and Kirkcaldy asking them why they had deserted their old allies, Morton and the rest, for the Queen’s party. ‘You yourselves wrote against her, and were the chiefest causes of her apprehension, and imprisonment’ (at Loch Leven), ‘and dimission of her crown.... So that you two were her chiefest occasion of all the calamities, _as she hath said_, that she is fallen into. You, Lord of Lethington, _by your persuasion and counsel to apprehend her, to imprison her, yea, to have taken presently the life from her_.’[211] To this we shall return.

When we add to this testimony Mary’s hatred of Lethington, revealed in Nau’s MS., a hatred which his death could not abate, though he died in her service, we begin to understand. Sir James Melville and Throckmorton were (as we shall see) deluded by the ‘dulce manner’ of Lethington. But, in truth, he was Mary’s worst enemy, till his bolt was shot, while hers remained in her hands. Then Lethington, in 1569, went over to her party, as a charge of Darnley’s murder, urged by his old partisans, was hanging over his head.

Meanwhile, after Mary’s surrender at Carberry, the counsel of Lethington prevailed. She was hurried to Loch Leven, after two dreadful days of tears and frenzied threats and entreaties, and was locked up in the Castle on the little isle, the Castle of her ancestral enemies, the Douglases. There she awaited her doom, ‘the fiery death.’

IX

_THE EMERGENCE OF THE CASKET LETTERS_

I. First hints of the existence of the letters

The Lords, as we have seen, nominally rose in arms to punish Bothwell (whom they had acquitted), to protect their infant Prince, and to rescue Mary, whom they represented as Bothwell’s reluctant captive. Yet their first success, at Carberry Hill, induced them, not to make Bothwell prisoner, but to give him facilities of escape. Their second proceeding was, not to release Mary, but to expose her to the insults of the populace, and then to immure her, destitute and desperate, in the island fortress of the Douglases.

These contradictions between their conduct and their avowed intentions needed excuse. They could not say, ‘We let Bothwell escape because he knew too much about ourselves: we imprisoned the Queen for the same good reason.’ They had to protect themselves, first against Elizabeth, who bitterly resented the idea that subjects might judge princes: next, against the possible anger of the rulers of France and Spain; next, against the pity of the mobile populace. There was also a chance that Moray, who was hastening home from France, might espouse his sister’s cause, as, indeed, at this moment he professed to do. Finally, in the changes of things, Mary, or her son, might recover power, and exact vengeance for the treasonable imprisonment of a Queen.

The Lords, therefore, first excused themselves (as in Lethington’s discourses with du Croc) by alleging that Mary refused to abandon Bothwell. This was, no doubt, true, though we cannot accept Lethington’s word for the details of her passionate behaviour. Her defenders can fall back on the report of Drury, that she was at this time with child, as she herself informed Throckmorton, while Nau declares that, in Loch Leven, she prematurely gave birth to twins. Mary always had a plausible and possible excuse: in this case she could not dissolve her marriage with Bothwell without destroying the legitimacy of her expected offspring. Later, in 1569, when she wished her marriage with Bothwell to be annulled, the Lords refused assent. In the present juncture, of June, 1567, with their Queen a captive in their hands, the Lords needed some better excuse than her obstinate adherence to the husband whom they had selected for her. They needed a reason for their conduct that would have a retro-active effect: namely, positive proof of her guilt of murder.

No sooner was the proof wanted than it was found. Mary was imprisoned on June 16: her guilty letters to Bothwell, the Casket Letters, with their instigations to Darnley’s murder and her own abduction, were secured on June 20, and were inspected, and entrusted to Morton’s keeping, on June 21. To Morton’s declaration about the discovery and inspection of the Casket and Letters, we return in chronological order: it was made in December, 1568, before the English Commissioners who examined Mary’s case.

The Lords were now, with these letters to justify them, in a relatively secure position. They could, and did, play off France against England: both of these countries were anxious to secure the person of the baby Prince, both were obliged to treat with the Lords who had the alliance of Scotland to bestow. Elizabeth wavered between her desire, as a Queen, to help a sister Queen, and her anxiety not to break with the dominant Scottish party. The Lords had hanged a retainer of Bothwell, Blackader, taken after Carberry, who denied his guilt, and against whom nothing was proved: but he had a Lennox jury. Two other underlings of Bothwell, his porter Powrie and his ‘chamber-child’ Dalgleish, were taken and examined, but their depositions, as reported by the Lords themselves, neither implicated Mary, nor threw any light on the date at which the idea of an explosion was conceived. It was then believed to have been projected before Mary went to bring Darnley from Glasgow. This opinion reflected itself in what was conceivably the earlier forged draft, never publicly produced, of the long ‘Glasgow Letter’ (II.) Later information may have caused that long letter to be modified into its present shape, or, as probably, induced the Lords to fall back on a partly genuine letter, our