ASSASSINATIONS AND CONSPIRACIES (True Crime) by Rodney Castleden Page A
Authors: Rodney Castleden
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to be lecherous, brutal and power hungry. Mary saw this strong man as her rescuer and he soon became her most trusted advisor.
By the time Mary gave birth to James VI in June 1566, Darnley had slid back into his former life of debauchery, neglecting his royal duties and sullenly watching Mary’s relationship with Bothwell develop. He disappeared from court for a time and this prompted talk of a possible annulment of the royal marriage.
But when the queen learned that he was seriously ill in Glasgow, she (uncharacteristically) made a display of concern by travelling to his bedside and later arranging for a horse-litter to carry him back to Edinburgh to convalesce at Kirk o’ Fields in the Royal Mile, a few hundred yards from her own residence, Holyrood Palace. For months Mary had spoken of her husband with nothing but contempt, and this apparently kindly gesture was out of character. It may be that she wanted her unreliable husband close at hand where she could see what he was doing. It may be that she was cold-bloodedly preparing his death. A recent apologist for Mary has said that she would have had to be a duplicitous character indeed to have constantly rejected all suggestions of assassination, and to have sent Darnley her own doctor if she had secretly been planning to have him murdered. But this level of cunning and duplicity is of course well within the possibilities of Mary’s complex personality, and indeed well within the norms of power politics of the sixteenth century. It must also be significant that the letter Mary wrote to Archbishop Beaton, on the eve of her journey to fetch Darnley from Glasgow, showed absolutely no indication that she planned a reconciliation with her husband.
Then, at two o’clock one February morning in 1576 there was an enormous explosion, and Kirk o’ Fields was reduced to a heap of rubble. It looks as though Darnley may have had some warning, as after the explosion his body was not discovered in the house, but some distance away in the gardens. It was apparent from the lack of damage to his body that he had not been killed by the explosion, but had been done to death while trying to escape from it. Perhaps he had heard suspicious sounds under his bedroom where large amounts of gunpowder had been secretly hidden, perhaps the sounds of unfamiliar activity on the floor below, or the voices of strangers.
A chair and a length of rope were found in the garden; Darnley and his groom had used them to climb out of the first floor window. They both lay dead with just one dagger between them. A contemporary drawing vividly shows the bodies of Darnley and his servant lying in the gardens; they were wearing nightgowns, but the garments were pulled up, exposing the naked lower halves of their bodies, as if the two men had struggled with their assailants on the ground as they were overpowered and throttled. On the right hand side of the drawing of the event is a touching little invention, the infant James VI sitting up in his crib praying, ‘ Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord .’
There is still no definite proof of who murdered Lord Darnley. At the time, most people assumed that Bothwell organized it; the only question was whether he did so with Mary’s complicity. Most modern historians take that same view. The incident scandalized Scotland, and there were calls for Bothwell to be brought to trial for the murder; and the scandal spread across Europe. It was after all the most flagrant of assassinations. The exploding house covered the tracks of the assassins, making it impossible to prove anything. Indeed, when it came to court it was impossible to prove Bothwell’s guilt, and he was acquitted. But most people knew that Bothwell was a ruthless opportunist, aiming at nothing less than the throne of Scotland; everyone knew he was certainly capable of the murder.
Whether Mary herself was involved is unclear. In the wake of the murder she appeared apathetic, and this was taken at the time to
By the time Mary gave birth to James VI in June 1566, Darnley had slid back into his former life of debauchery, neglecting his royal duties and sullenly watching Mary’s relationship with Bothwell develop. He disappeared from court for a time and this prompted talk of a possible annulment of the royal marriage.
But when the queen learned that he was seriously ill in Glasgow, she (uncharacteristically) made a display of concern by travelling to his bedside and later arranging for a horse-litter to carry him back to Edinburgh to convalesce at Kirk o’ Fields in the Royal Mile, a few hundred yards from her own residence, Holyrood Palace. For months Mary had spoken of her husband with nothing but contempt, and this apparently kindly gesture was out of character. It may be that she wanted her unreliable husband close at hand where she could see what he was doing. It may be that she was cold-bloodedly preparing his death. A recent apologist for Mary has said that she would have had to be a duplicitous character indeed to have constantly rejected all suggestions of assassination, and to have sent Darnley her own doctor if she had secretly been planning to have him murdered. But this level of cunning and duplicity is of course well within the possibilities of Mary’s complex personality, and indeed well within the norms of power politics of the sixteenth century. It must also be significant that the letter Mary wrote to Archbishop Beaton, on the eve of her journey to fetch Darnley from Glasgow, showed absolutely no indication that she planned a reconciliation with her husband.
Then, at two o’clock one February morning in 1576 there was an enormous explosion, and Kirk o’ Fields was reduced to a heap of rubble. It looks as though Darnley may have had some warning, as after the explosion his body was not discovered in the house, but some distance away in the gardens. It was apparent from the lack of damage to his body that he had not been killed by the explosion, but had been done to death while trying to escape from it. Perhaps he had heard suspicious sounds under his bedroom where large amounts of gunpowder had been secretly hidden, perhaps the sounds of unfamiliar activity on the floor below, or the voices of strangers.
A chair and a length of rope were found in the garden; Darnley and his groom had used them to climb out of the first floor window. They both lay dead with just one dagger between them. A contemporary drawing vividly shows the bodies of Darnley and his servant lying in the gardens; they were wearing nightgowns, but the garments were pulled up, exposing the naked lower halves of their bodies, as if the two men had struggled with their assailants on the ground as they were overpowered and throttled. On the right hand side of the drawing of the event is a touching little invention, the infant James VI sitting up in his crib praying, ‘ Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord .’
There is still no definite proof of who murdered Lord Darnley. At the time, most people assumed that Bothwell organized it; the only question was whether he did so with Mary’s complicity. Most modern historians take that same view. The incident scandalized Scotland, and there were calls for Bothwell to be brought to trial for the murder; and the scandal spread across Europe. It was after all the most flagrant of assassinations. The exploding house covered the tracks of the assassins, making it impossible to prove anything. Indeed, when it came to court it was impossible to prove Bothwell’s guilt, and he was acquitted. But most people knew that Bothwell was a ruthless opportunist, aiming at nothing less than the throne of Scotland; everyone knew he was certainly capable of the murder.
Whether Mary herself was involved is unclear. In the wake of the murder she appeared apathetic, and this was taken at the time to
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