On the evening of the ninth day of this severe illness, after a particularly acute attack of convulsions, the Queen sank, and her whole body became cold and rigid. "Every one present, especially her domestic servants, thought that she was dead, and they opened the windows. The Earl of Moray began to lay hands on the most precious articles, such as her silver plate and jewels. The mourning dresses were ordered, and arrangements were made for the funeral." * John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, writing from Jedburgh at the time, says that on the Friday "her Majesty became deid and all her memberis cauld, her Eene closit, Mouth fast, and Feit and Armis stiff and cauld."
* MS. in British Museum, by Claude Nau, Secretary to Queen
Mary, 1575-1587.
Buchanan's account is that, after leaving Hermitage, "she returneth again to Jedworth, and with most earnest care and diligence provideth and prepareth all things to remove Bothwel thither. When he was once brought thither, their company and familiar haunt together was such as was smally agreeing with both their honours. There, whether it were by their nightly and daily travels, dishonourable to themselves and infamous among the people, or by some secret providence of God, the Queen fell into such a sore and dangerous sickness that scarcely there remained any hope of her life." It would be hard to conceive anything more poisonous than this, or anything less in accord with the facts. Buchanan's zeal outran his love of the truth; with both hands he flung mud at the Queen. In his eyes, any story against her was worthy of credence—or at least he wished it to appear so. As a matter of fact, before Bothwell reached Jedburgh the Queen had been dangerously ill, and incapable of making any preparation to receive him had she wished to do so, for close on ten days, and the day after his coming she lay for several hours unconscious, and as one dead. Writing on 24th October to the Archbishop of Glasgow, M. Le Groc, the French Ambassador, can only say that he hopes "in five or six days the Queen will be able to sign" a dispatch; but on the following day her illness again took an unfavourable turn.
She left Jedburgh within fifteen days of the date of M. Le Croc's letter, not an excessive time in which to recover from an illness which admittedly had brought her to the point of death, and which must have left her in a condition of extreme weakness. Yet, according to Buchanan, this time of convalescence was devoted to "their old pastime again, and that so openly, as they seemed to fear nothing more than lest their wickedness should be unknown." His conscience must have been of an elastic nature, if, having any knowledge of the facts, he could so write; and if he had no knowledge of the farts, one wonders how it is possible that a man of his position and ability should commit himself to statements so foul and uncharitable.
But at any cost, and by any means, he wanted to make out his case; and he knew his audience.
Buchanan's bias against the unfortunate Queen was very great. It even caused him to lend himself here to the task of bolstering up the case of that petulant, contemptible creature, Darnley. In view of the latter's known degrading habits and evil practices, as well as of his general conduct towards the Queen, the following sentence from the historian's waitings is almost grotesque: "When the King heard thereof," [Mary's illness] "he hasted in post to Jedburgh to visit the Queen, to comfort her in her weakness by all the gentle services that he could, to declare his affection and hearty desire to do her pleasure." Of course Darnley did nothing of the sort. When he did come, (twelve days after her illness began,) he came most reluctantly and tardily from his "halkand and huntand" in the west country. He "has had time enough if he had been willing; this is a fault which I cannot excuse," wrote M. Le Croc on the 24th October.
According to Buchanan, Darnley, when he did reach Jedburgh, found no one ready to receive him, or "to do him any reverence at all"; the Queen, he says, had "practised with" the Countess of Moray to feign sickness and keep her bed, as an excuse for not receiving him. "Being thus denied all duties of civil kindness, the next day with great grief of heart he returned to his old solitary corner." A pathetic story, if it were wholly true; a heart-stirring picture, that of the "solitary corner." But all the King's horses and all the King's men could not have set Darnley back again in the place he had forfeited in the esteem of the Nobles, and in the esteem of the country at large. If the nobles were not pleased to welcome him, if he was forsaken of all friends, whose fault was that but Darnley's? "The haughty spirit of Darnley, nursed up in flattery, and accustomed to command, could not bear the contempt into which he had now fallen, and the state of insignificance to which he saw himself reduced." * Darnley was an undisciplined cub. It was the sulky petulance of a spoilt child, that delayed his visit to Jedburgh; it was the offended dignity of an unlicked schoolboy that took him out of it again so hurriedly. The Queen's sufferings were as nought, weighed in the scale against a petty dignity offended by the lack of "reverence" with which he was received in Jedburgh. Truly, Queen Mary at her marriage had "placed her love on a very unworthy object, who requited it with ingratitude and treated her with neglect, with violence, and with brutality." **
* Robertson's History of Scotland.
** Robertson.
Buchanan, the historian, Queen Mary's traducer, died in September, 1582. His contemporary, Sir James Melville of Halhill, in writing of him says he was "a man of notable endowments for his learning and knowledge in Latin poesy, much honoured in other countries, pleasant in conversation, rehearsing at all occasions moralities short and instructive, whereof he had abundance, inventing where he wanted. He was also religious, but was easily abused, and so facile that he was led by every company that he haunted, which made him factious in his old days, for he spoke and wrote as those who were about him informed him; for he was become careless, following in many things the vulgar opinion; for he was naturally popular, and extremely revengeful against any man who had offended him, which was his greatest fault." Truly these phrases: "he spoke and wrote as those who were about him informed him"; "inventing where he wanted"; "easily abused, and so facile that he was led by every company that he haunted"; "extremely revengeful against any who had offended him," seem to be not without application to much of what he wrote regarding Mary Stuart.
On 9th November Jedburgh saw its last of this most unfortunate among women. On that day the Queen and her Court set out for Craigmillar, travelling on horseback by way of Kelso, Home Castle, Berwick, and Dunbar. But the effects of that grievous sickness at Jedburgh long remained with her.