While Buchanan’s tale yields no reason for Mary’s consent to pardon the Riccio murderers (whom of all men she loathed), Huntly and Argyll supply a partial explanation. In Buchanan’s History, it is casually mentioned, later, that Mary wished to involve Moray and Morton in the guilt of Darnley’s murder. But how had Morton returned to Scotland? Of that, not a word.[94] In truth, both French and English influence had been used; Bothwell, acting ‘like a very friend,’ says Bedford, and others had openly added their intercessions. James’s baptism was an occasion for an amnesty, and this was granted on Christmas Eve. The pardon might well have been given, even had no divorce or murder of Darnley been intended, but the step was most threatening to Darnley’s safety, as the exiles hated him with a deadly hatred. On the whole, taking the unsigned ‘Protestation’ of Huntly and Argyll with the document which they did sign, it seems probable, or certain, that a conference as to getting rid of Darnley, in some way, was held at Craigmillar, where Moray certainly was.
Moray, in London, was shown the intercepted ‘Protestation,’ and denied that anything was said, at Craigmillar, in his hearing ‘tending to ony unlawfull or dishonourable end.’[95] But, if the Protestation can be trusted, nothing positively unlawful was proposed. Lethington promised ‘nothing but good, and approved by Parliament.’ Moray also denied having signed a ‘band,’ except that of October 1566, but about a ‘band’ the Protestation says nothing. Moray may have referred to what (according to the ‘Diurnal,’ pp. 127, 128) Hay of Talla said at his execution (January 3, 1568). He had seen a ‘band’ signed by Bothwell, Huntly, Argyll, Lethington, and Sir James Balfour. The first four, at least, were at Craigmillar. Buchanan, in the ‘Detection,’ gives Hay’s confession, but not this part of it. Much later, on December 13, 1573, Ormistoun confessed that, about Easter, after the murder, Bothwell tried to reassure him by showing him a ‘contract subscryvit be four or fyve handwrittes, quhilk he affirmit to me was the subscription of the erle of Huntlie, Argyll, the Secretar Maitland, and Sir James Balfour.’ The contract or band stated that Darnley must be got rid off ‘by ane way or uther,’ and that all who signed should defend any who did the deed. It was subscribed a quarter of a year before the murder, that is, taking the phrase widely, after the Craigmillar conference.[96]
What did Lethington mean, at Craigmillar, by speaking of a method of dealing with Darnley which Parliament would approve? He may have meant to arrest him, for treason, and kill him if he resisted. That this was contemplated, at Craigmillar, we proceed to adduce the evidence of Lennox.
This hitherto unknown testimony exists, in inconsistent forms, among the several indictments which Lennox, between July and December, 1568, drew up to show to the English Commissioners who, at York and Westminster, examined the charges against Mary. In the evidence which we have hitherto seen, the plans of Mary’s Council at Craigmillar are left vague, and Mary’s objections, as described by Huntly and Argyll, are spoken of as final. Mention is made of only one conference, without any sequel. But Lennox asserts that there was at least one other meeting, at Craigmillar, between Mary and her advisers. His information is obviously vague, but he first makes the following assertions.
‘In this mean time’ (namely in December 1566, when the Court was at Stirling for James’s baptism), ‘his father, being advertised [‘credibly informed’][97] that at Craigmillar the Queen and certain of her Council had concluded upon an enterprise to the great peril and danger of his [‘Majesty’s’] person, which was that he should have been apprehended and put in ward, which rested’ (was postponed) ‘but only on the finishing of the christening and the departure of the said ambassadors, which thing being not a little grievous unto his father’s heart, did give him warning thereof; whereupon he, by the advice of sundry that loved him, departed from her shortly after the christening, and came to his father to Glasgow, being fully resolved with himself to have taken ship shortly after, and to have passed beyond the seas, but that sickness prevented him, which was the cause of his stay.’
In this version, Lennox is warned, by whom he does not say, of a plan, formed at Craigmillar, to arrest Darnley. The plan is not refused by the Queen, but is ‘concluded upon,’ yet postponed till the christening festivities are over. Nothing is said about the design to kill Darnley if he resists. The scheme is communicated to Darnley by Lennox himself.
Next comes what seems to be the second of Lennox’s attempts at producing a ‘discourse.’ This can be dated. It ends with the remark that, after Langside fight, Mary spoke with Ormistoun and Hob Ormistoun, ‘who were of the chiefest murderers of the King, her husband.’ These men now live with the Laird of Whithaugh, in Liddesdale, ‘who keepeth in his house a prisoner, one Andrew Carre, of Fawdonside, by her commandment.’ This was Andrew Ker of Faldonside, the most brutal of the murderers of Riccio. Now on October 4, 1568, in a list of ‘offences committed by the Queen’s party,’ a list perhaps in John Wood’s hand, we read that Whithaugh, and other Elliots, ‘took ane honest and trew gentleman, Ker of Faldonside, and keep him prisoner by Mary’s command;’ while Whithaugh cherishes the two Ormistouns.[98] This discourse of Lennox, then, is of, or about, October 4, 1568, and was prepared for the York Conference to inquire into Mary’s case, where it was not delivered.
He says: ‘How she used him (Darnley) at Craigmillar, my said Lord Regent (Moray), who was there present, can witness. One thing I am constrainit to declare, which came to my knowledge by credible persons, which was that certain of her familiar and privy counsellors, of her faction and Bothwell’s, should present her a letter at that house, subscribed with their hands, the effect of which letter was to apprehend the King my son’s person, and to put him in ward, and, if he happened to resist them, to kill him: she answered that the ambassadors were come,[99] and the christening drew near, so that the time would not then serve well for that purpose, till the triumph was done, and the ambassadors departed to their country.... Also I, being at Glasgow about the same time, and having intelligence of the foresaid device for his apprehension at Craigmillar, did give him warning thereof;’ consequently, as he was also ill-treated at Stirling, Darnley went to Glasgow, ‘where he was not long till he fell sick.’ Lennox here adds the plot to kill Darnley if he resisted arrest. His reference to certain of Mary’s Privy Council, who laid the plot, cannot have been grateful to Lethington, who was at York, where Lennox meant to deliver his speech.
The final form taken by Lennox’s account of what occurred at Craigmillar looks as if it were a Scots draft for the ‘Brief Discourse’ which he actually put in, in English, at Westminster, on November 29, 1568. He addresses Norfolk and the rest in his opening sentences. The Privy Council who made the plot are they ‘of thay dayis,’ which included Moray, Argyll, Huntly, Lethington, and Bothwell. These Lords, or some of them, either subscribe ‘a lettre’ of warrant for Darnley’s capture alive or dead, or ask Mary to sign one; Lennox is not certain which view is correct. She answered that they must delay till the ambassadors departed. ‘But seeing in the mean time this purpose divulgate,’ she arrested the ‘reportaris,’ namely Hiegait, Walker, the Laird of Minto (we do not elsewhere learn that he was examined), and Alexander Cauldwell. Perceiving ‘that the truth was like to come to light, she left off further inquisition.’
This version does not state that Lennox, or any one else, revealed the Craigmillar plot for his arrest to Darnley. It later describes a quarrel of his with Mary at Stirling, and adds, ‘Being thus handled, at the end of the christening he came to me to Glasgow.’ This tale of a plot to arrest, and, if he resisted, to kill Darnley, corresponds with Paris’s statement that Bothwell told him, ‘We were much inclined to do it lately, when we were at Craigmillar.’