The Mystery of Mary Stuart. Lang Andrew

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СКАЧАТЬ the King’s death, the late Regent is as guilty as they, and for testimony thereof (as Randolph is credibly informed) have sent a bond to be seen in England, which is either some new bond made among themselves, and the late Regent’s hand counterfeited at the same (which in some cases he knows has been done), or the old bond at which his hand is, containing no such matter.’ Randolph adds, as an example of forgery of Moray’s hand, the order for Lethington’s release by Kirkcaldy to whom Robert Melville attributed the forgery.[80] Thus both sides could deal in charges of forging hands.

      But what is ‘the old band,’ signed by Moray ‘a long time before the bond of the King’s murder was made’? To this question we probably find a reply in the long letter written by Archibald Douglas to Mary, in April, 1583, when he (one of Darnley’s murderers) was an exile, and was seeking, and winning, Mary’s favour. Douglas had fled to France after Riccio’s murder, but was allowed to return to Scotland, ‘to deal with Earls Murray, Athol, Bodvel, Arguile, and Secretary Ledington,’ in the interests of a pardon for Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay. This must have been just after September 20, when the return of Lethington to favour occurred. But Murray, Atholl, Bothwell, Argyll, and Lethington told Douglas that they had made a band, with other noblemen, to this effect: that they ‘were resolved to obey your Majesty as their natural sovereign, and have nothing to do with your husband’s command whatsoever.’ So the Lords also told Catherine de’ Medici. They wished to know, before interfering in Morton’s favour, whether he would also sign this anti-Darnley band, which Morton and his accomplices did. Archibald Douglas then returned, with their signatures, to Stirling, at the time of James’s baptism, in mid December, 1566. Morton and his friends were then pardoned on December 24.[81] This anti-Darnley band, which does not allude to murder, must be that produced in 1570, according to Randolph, by ‘divers, since Moray’s death, either to cover their own doings, or to advance their own cause, seeking to make him odious to the world.’ We thus find Moray, and all the most powerful nobles, banded against Darnley, some time between September and December 1566.

      Now, Claude Nau, inspired by Mary, attributes Darnley’s murder to a band ‘written by Alexander Hay, at that time one of the clerks of the Council, and signed by the Earls of Moray, Huntly, Bothwell, and Morton, by Lethington, James Balfour, and others.’ Moray certainly did not sign the murderous band kept in the green-covered coffer, nor, as he alleged at his death, did Morton. But Nau seems to be confusing that band with the band of older date, to which, as Randolph admits, and as Archibald Douglas insists, Moray, Morton, and others put their hands, Morton signing as late as December 1566.

      Nau says: ‘They protested that they were acting for the public good of the realm, pretending that they were freeing the Queen from the bondage and misery into which she had been reduced by the King’s behaviour. They promised to support each other, and to avouch that the act was done justly, licitly, and lawfully by the leading men of the Council. They had done it in defence of their lives, which would be in danger, they said, if the King should get the upper hand and secure the government of the realm, at which he was aiming.’[82] Randolph denies that there was any hint of murder in the band signed by Moray. Archibald Douglas makes the gist of it ‘that they would have nothing to do with your husband’s command whatsoever.’ Nau speaks of ‘the act,’ but does not name murder explicitly as part of the band. Almost certainly, then, there did exist, in autumn 1566, a band hostile to Darnley, and signed by Moray and Morton. It seems highly probable that the old band, made long before the King’s murder, and of a character hostile to Darnley’s influence, and menacing to him, is that which Moray himself declares that he did sign, ‘at the beginning of October,’ 1566. When Moray, in London, on January 19, 1569, was replying to an account (the so-called ‘Protestation of Argyll and Huntly’) of the conference at Craigmillar, in November 1566, he denied (what was not alleged) that he signed any band there: at Craigmillar. ‘This far the subscriptioun of bandes be me is trew, that indeed I subscrivit ane band with the Erlis of Huntlie, Ergile, and Boithvile in Edinburgh, at the begynning of October the same yeir, 1566: quhilk was devisit in signe of our reconciliatioun, in respect of the former grudgis and displesouris that had been amang us. Whereunto I wes constreinit to mak promis, before I culd be admittit to the Quenis presence or haif ony shew of hir faveur…’[83]

      Now Moray had been admitted to Mary’s presence two days after the death of Riccio, before her flight to Dunbar. On April 25, 1566, Randolph writes from Berwick to Cecil: ‘Murray, Argyll, and Glencairn are come to Court. I hear his (Moray’s) credit shall be good. The Queen wills that all controversies shall be taken up, in especial that between Murray and Bothwell.’[84] On April 21, 1566, Moray, Argyll, Glencairn, and others were received by Mary in the Castle, and a Proclamation was made to soothe ‘the enmity that was betwixt the Earls of Huntly, Bothwell, and Murray.’[85] Thenceforward, as we have proved in detail, Moray was ostensibly in Mary’s favour. Moray would have us believe that he only obtained this grace by virtue of his promise to sign a band with Huntly, Bothwell, and Argyll: the last had been on his own side in his rebellion. But the band, he alleges, was not signed till October, 1566, though the promise must have been given, at least his ‘favour’ with Mary was obtained, in April. And Moray signed the band precisely at the moment when Darnley was giving most notorious trouble, and had just been approached and implored by Mary, the Council, and the French ambassador. That was the moment when the Privy Council assured Catherine that they ‘would never consent’ to Darnley’s sovereignty. Why was that moment selected by Moray to fulfil a promise more than four months old? Was the band not that mentioned by Randolph, Archibald Douglas, and Nau, and therefore, in some sense, an anti-Darnley band, not a mere ‘sign of reconciliation’? The inference appears legitimate, and this old band signed by Moray seems to have been confused, by his enemies, with a later band for Darnley’s murder, which we may be sure that he never signed. He only ‘looked through his fingers.’

      On October 7, or 8, or 9, Mary left Edinburgh to hold a Border session at Jedburgh. She appears to have been in Jedburgh by the 9th.[86] On October 7, Bothwell was severely wounded, in Liddesdale, by a Border thief. On October 15, Mary rode to visit him at Hermitage.[87] Moray, says Sir John Forster to Cecil (October 15), was with her, and other nobles. Yet Buchanan says that she rode ‘with such a company as no man of any honest degree would have adventured his life and his goods among them.’ Life, indeed, was not safe with the nobles, but how Buchanan errs! Du Croc, writing from Jedburgh on October 17, reports that Bothwell is out of danger: ‘the Queen is well pleased, his loss to her would have been great.’[88] Buchanan’s account of this affair is, that Mary heard at Borthwick of Bothwell’s wound, whereon ‘she flingeth away like a mad woman, by great journeys in post, in the sharp time of winter’ (early October!), ‘first to Melrose, then to Jedburgh. There, though she heard sure news of his life, yet her affection, impatient of delay, could not temper itself; but needs she must bewray her outrageous lust, and in an inconvenient time of the year, despising all incommodities of the way and weather, and all dangers of thieves, she betook herself headlong to her journey.’ The ‘Book of Articles’ merely says that, after hearing of Bothwell’s wound, she ‘took na kindly rest’ till she saw him – a prolonged insomnia. On returning to Jedburgh, she prepared for Bothwell’s arrival, and, when he was once brought thither, then perhaps by their excessive indulgence in their passion, Buchanan avers, Mary nearly died.

      All this is false. Mary stayed at least five days in Jedburgh before she rode to Hermitage, whither, says Nau, corroborated by Forster, Moray accompanied her. She fell ill on October 17, a week before Bothwell’s arrival at Jedburgh. On October 25, she was despaired of, and some thought she had passed away. Bothwell arrived, in a litter, about October 25. Forster says October 15, wrongly. These were no fit circumstances for ‘their old pastime,’ which they took ‘so openly, as they seemed to fear nothing СКАЧАТЬ