The History of England, Volume IV Elizabeth Murder of Darnley
by David Hume
The earl of Bothwel was of a considerable family and power in Scotland; and though not distinguished by any talents either of a civil or military nature, he had made a figure in that party, which opposed the greatness of the earl of Murray, and the more rigid reformers. He was a man of profligate manners; had involved his opulent fortune in great debts, and even reduced himself to beggary, by his profuse expences;x and seemed to have no resource but in desperate counsels and enterprizes. He had been accused more than once of an attempt to assassinate Murray; and though the frequency of these accusations on all sides diminished somewhat the credit due to any particular imputation, they prove sufficiently the prevalence of that detestable practice in Scotland, and may in that view serve to render such rumours the more credible. This man had of late acquired the favour and entire confidence of Mary; and all her measures were directed by his advice and authority. Reports were spread of more particular intimacies between them; and these reports gained ground from the continuance or rather encrease of her hatred towards her husband.y That young prince was reduced to such a state of desperation, by the neglects which he underwent from his queen and the courtiers, that he had once resolved to fly secretly into France or Spain, and had even provided a vessel for that purpose.z Some of the most considerable nobility, on the other hand, observing her rooted aversion to him, had proposed some expedients for a divorce; and though Mary is said to have spoken honourably on the occasion, and to have embraced the proposal no farther than it should be found consistent with her own honour and her son’s legitimacy,a men were inclined to believe, that the difficulty of finding proper means for effecting that purpose, was the real cause of laying aside all farther thoughts of it. So far were the suspicions against her carried, that, when Henry, discouraged with the continual proofs of her hatred, left the court and retired to Glasgow, an illness of an extraordinary nature, with which he was seized immediately on his arrival in that place, was universally ascribed by her enemies to a dose of poison, which, it was pretended, she had administered to him.
While affairs were in this situation, all those who wished well to her character or to public tranquillity, were extremely pleased, and somewhat surprized, to hear, that a friendship was again conciliated between them, that she had taken a journey to Glasgow on purpose to visit him during his sickness, that she behaved towards him with great tenderness, that she had brought him along with her, and that she appeared thenceforth determined to live with him on a footing more suitable to the connexions between them. Henry, naturally uxorious, and not distrusting this sudden reconciliation, put himself implicitly into her hands, and attended her to Edinburgh. She lived in the palace of Holy-rood-house; but as the situation of the place was low, and the concourse of people about the court was necessarily attended with noise, which might disturb him in his present infirm state of health, these reasons were assigned for fitting up an apartment for him in a solitary house, at some distance, called the Kirk of Field. Mary here gave him marks of kindness and attachment; she conversed cordially with him; and she lay some nights in a room below his; but on the ninth of February, she told him, that she would pass that night in the palace, because the marriage of one of her servants was there to be celebrated in her presence. [Feb. 10.] About two o’clock in the morning the whole town was much alarmed at hearing a great noise; and was still more astonished, when it was discovered that the noise came from the King’s house, which was blown up by gun-powder; that his dead body was found at some distance in a neighbouring field; and that no marks either of fire, contusion, or violence appeared upon it.b
No doubt could be entertained but Henry was murdered; and general conjecture soon pointed towards the earl of Bothwel as the author of the crime.c But as his favour with Mary was visible, and his power great, no one ventured to declare openly his sentiments; and all men remained in silence and mute astonishment. Voices, however, were heard in the streets, during the darkness of the night, proclaiming Bothwel, and even Mary herself, to be murderers of the king; bills were secretly affixed on the walls to the same purpose; offers were made, that, upon giving proper securities, his guilt should be openly proved: But after one proclamation from the court, offering a reward and indemnity to any one that would discover the author of that villany, greater vigilance was employed in searching out the spreaders of the libels and reports against Bothwel and the queen, than in tracing the contrivers of the king’s assassination, or detecting the regicides.d
The earl of Lenox, who lived at a distance from court, in poverty and contempt, was rouzed by the report of his son’s murder, and wrote to the queen, imploring speedy justice against the assassins; among whom he named the earl of Bothwel, Sir James Balfour, and Gilbert Balfour his brother, David Chalmers, and four others of the queen’s household; all of them persons who had been mentioned in the bills affixed to the walls at Edinburgh.e Mary took his demand of speedy justice in a very literal sense; and allowing only fifteen days for the examination of this important affair, she sent a citation to Lenox, requiring him to appear in court, and prove his charge against Bothwel.f This nobleman, meanwhile, and all the other persons, accused by Lenox, enjoyed their full liberty;g Bothwel himself was continually surrounded with armed men;h took his place in council;i lived during some time in the house with Mary;k and seemed to possess all his wonted confidence and familiarity with her. Even the castle of Edinburgh, a place of great consequence in this critical time, was entrusted to him, and under him, to his creature, Sir James Balfour, who had himself been publicly charged as an accomplice in the king’s murder.l Lenox, who had come as far as Stirling, with a view of appearing at the trial, was informed of all these circumstances; and reflecting on the small train which attended him, he began to entertain very just apprehensions from the power, insolence, and temerity of his enemy. He wrote to Mary, desiring that the day of trial might be prorogued; and conjured her, by all the regard which she bore to her own honour, to employ more leisure and deliberation in determining a question of such extreme moment.m No regard was paid to his application: The jury was enclosed, of which the earl of Caithness was chancellor; and though Lenox, foreseeing this precipitation, had ordered Cunningham, one of his retinue, to appear in court, and protest in his name, against the acquittal of the criminal, the jury proceeded to a verdict.n The verdict was such as it behoved them to give, where neither accuser nor witness appeared; and Bothwel was absolved from the king’s murder. [12th April.] The jury, however, apprehensive that their verdict would give great scandal, and perhaps expose them afterwards to some danger, entered a protest, in which they represented the necessity of their proceedings.o It is remarkable, that the indictment was laid against Bothwel for committing the crime on the ninth of February, not the tenth, the real day on which Henry was assassinated.p The interpretation generally put upon this error, too gross, it was thought, to have proceeded from mistake, was, that the secret council, by whom Mary was governed, not trusting entirely to precipitation, violence, and authority, had provided this plea, by which they ensured, at all adventures, a plausible pretence for acquitting Bothwel.
[x] Keith, p. 240.
[y] Melvil, p. 66, 77.
[z] Keith, p. 345–348.
[a] Camden, p. 404. Goodall’s Queen Mary, vol. ii. p. 317.
[b] It was imagined, that Henry had been strangled before the house was blown up. But this supposition is contradicted by the confession of the criminals; and there is no necessity to admit it in order to account for the condition of his body. There are many instances that men’s lives have been saved who had been blown up in ships. Had Henry fallen on water he had not probably been killed.
[c] Melvil, p. 78. Cabbala, p. 136.
[d] Anderson’s Collections, vol. ii. p. 38. vol. iv. p. 167, 168. Spotswood, p. 200. Keith, p. 374.
[e] Keith, p. 372. Anderson, vol. ii. p. 3.
[f] Keith, p. 373.
[g] Ibid. p. 374, 375.
[h] Ibid. p. 405.
[i] Anderson, vol. i. p. 38, 40, 50, 52.
[k] Ibid. vol. ii, p. 274.
[l] Spotswood, p. 201.
[m] Keith, p. 375. Anderson, vol. i. p. 52.
[n] Keith, p. 376. Anderson, vol. ii. p. 106. Spotswood, p. 201.
[o] Spotswood, p. 201. Anderson, vol. i., p. 113.
[p] Keith, p. 375. Anderson, vol. ii. p. 93. Spotswood, p. 201.
