ASSASSINATIONS AND CONSPIRACIES (True Crime) by Rodney Castleden Page B

indicate guilt. Even more incriminating were the infamous ‘Casket’ letters, which she was supposed to have written to Bothwell. There is contemporary evidence that the letters were forgeries commissioned by Protestant lords who were busily trying to trap her. But even if Mary wanted her husband dead, that was no more than many of the rest of the Scottish nobility wanted, and therefore it still did not directly implicate her in his murder. She may have appeared apathetic because she was powerless to do anything about the situation developing round her.
    The events following Darnley’s murder were almost as spectacular and dramatic as the murder itself. In the immediate aftermath, Bothwell met Mary about six miles outside of Edinburgh; whether by chance or pre-arrangement is not known, but if the meeting was pre-arranged Mary must have known about Bothwell’s intention to kill Darnley. He had 600 men with him and asked to escort Mary to his castle at Dunbar; he told her she was in danger if she went to Edinburgh. Mary, unwilling to cause further bloodshed and understandably terrified, did as he asked. 
    According to Mary, Bothwell kidnapped and raped her before marrying her. Within days of the wedding Mary was suicidal with despair at the abuse she had to endure from Bothwell. In many people’s eyes her marriage to Bothwell made her guilty by association of the murder of Darnley, marrying her murdered husband’s murderer made her as good as (or as bad as) a murderess. Yet her willingness to marry Bothwell was a practical necessity. Mary had many enemies in the Scottish nobility and she needed a strong ally to protect her from them. Even with Bothwell’s forceful help, it was less than a year before the Scottish lords forced Mary to abdicate and flee to England. For the next two decades she was held prisoner by Queen Elizabeth I and finally executed in England at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587, compromised and betrayed first by her enemies in Scotland, then by her enemies in England.
    Three months later the baby who would become James VI of Scotland was born. Mary now had an heir, which strengthened her position somewhat. The unmarried and childless Elizabeth of England, ten years older than Mary, watched these events beadily from south of the border; she was intelligent enough to see that though Mary might be a doomed monarch Mary’s son would be not only Mary’s but her heir as well.
    Mary might have produced the next king of Scots, but the Scottish nobles were still dissatisfied. They were angry that Bothwell would be all-powerful and decided to take up arms against him. Not long after the marriage, the rebel nobles and their forces met Mary’s troops at Carberry Hill, not far from Edinburgh. The rebel nobles demanded that Mary abandon Bothwell. She refused and reminded them of their earlier advice, which had been to marry Bothwell. Seeing little alternative, she turned herself over to the rebel nobles, who took her first to Edinburgh and then to Lochleven Castle, where she was held captive. With justification, she feared for her own life, and was forced to abdicate in favour of her son. 
    Within weeks, the infant James was crowned king and James Stewart, the earl of Moray, Mary’s unscrupulous bastard half-brother, became Regent. The appalling Moray seems to have been the architect of the plan to murder Rizzio; he also spread the unfounded rumour that Rizzio and the king were plotting against him, in order to deflect suspicion. Moray got his just deserts when he himself was murdered just three years later. The next regents were also killed; in fact, James himself as a teenager had one of the regents executed in 1580. The Scottish political landscape was a minefield – and not just for the Queen of Scots. Meanwhile, the earl of Bothwell’s extraordinary later life must have looked to many Protestant (and other) Scots like God’s just reward for the murder of Darnley; he managed to escape from Scotland but