Paris said, when examined in August, 1569, that on Wednesday or Thursday of the week of Darnley’s death, Bothwell told him in Mary’s room at Kirk o’ Field, Mary being in Darnley’s, that ‘we Lords’ mean to blow up the King and this house with powder. But Bowton says, that till the Friday, Bothwell meant to kill Darnley ‘in the fields.’[165] Bothwell took Paris aside for a particular purpose: he was suffering from dysentery, and said, ‘Ne sçais-tu point quelque lieu là où je pouray aller...?’ ‘I never was here in my life before,’ said Paris.
Now as Bothwell, by Paris’s own account (derived from Bothwell himself), had passed an entire night in examining the little house of Kirk o’ Field, how could he fail to know his way about in so tiny a dwelling? Finally, Paris found ung coing ou trou entre deux portes, whither he conducted Bothwell, who revealed his whole design.
Robertson, cited by Laing, remarks that the narrative of Paris ‘abounds with a number of minute facts and particularities which the most dexterous forger could not have easily assembled and connected together with any appearance of probability.’ The most bungling witness who ever perjured himself could not have brought more impossible inconsistencies than Paris brings into a few sentences, and he was just as rich in new details, when, in a second confession, he contradicted his first. In the insanitary, and, as far as listeners were concerned, insecure retreat ‘between two doors,’ Bothwell bluntly told Paris that Darnley was to be blown up, because, if ever he got his feet on the Lords’ necks, he would be tyrannical. The motive was political. Paris pointed out the moral and social inconveniences of Bothwell’s idea. ‘You fool!’ Bothwell answered, ‘do you think I am alone in this affair? I have Lethington, who is reckoned one of our finest wits, and is the chief undertaker in this business; I have Argyll, Huntly, Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay. These three last will never fail me, for I spoke in favour of their pardon, and I have the signatures of all those whom I have mentioned, and we were inclined to do it lately when we were at Craigmillar; but you are a dullard, not fit to hear a matter of weight.’ If Bothwell said that Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay signed the band, he, in all probability, lied. But does any one believe that the untrussed Bothwell, between two doors, held all this talk with a wretched valet, arguing with him seriously, counting his allies, real or not, and so forth? Paris next (obviously enlightened by later events) observed that the Lords would make Bothwell manage the affair, ‘but, when it is once done, they may lay the whole weight of it on you’ (which, when making his deposition, he knew they had done), ‘and will be the first to cry Haro! on you, and pursue you to death.’ Prophetic Paris! He next asked, What about a man dearly beloved by the populace, and the French? ‘No troubles in the country when he governed for two or three years, all was well, money was cheap; look at the difference now,’ and so forth. ‘Who is the man?’ asked Bothwell. ‘Monsieur de Moray; pray what side does he take?’
‘He won’t meddle.’
‘Sir, he is wise.’
‘Monsieur de Moray, Monsieur de Moray! He will neither help nor hinder, but it is all one.’
Bothwell, by a series of arguments, then tried to make Paris steal the key of Mary’s room. He declined, and Bothwell left the appropriate scene of this prolonged political conversation. It occupies more than three closely printed pages of small type.
Paris then devotes a page and a half to an account of a walk, and of his reflections. On Friday, Bothwell met him, asked him for the key, and said that Sunday was the day for the explosion. Now, in fact, Saturday had been fixed upon, as Tala declared.[166] Paris took another walk, thought of looking for a ship to escape in, but compromised matters by saying his prayers. On Saturday, after dinner, Bothwell again asked for the key: adding that Balfour had already given him a complete set of false keys, and that they two had passed a whole night in examining the house. So Paris stole the key, though Bothwell had told him that he need not, if he had not the heart for it. After he gave it to Bothwell, Marguerite (Carwood?) sent him back for a coverlet of fur: Sandy Durham asked him for the key, and he referred Sandy to the huissier, Archibald Beaton. This Sandy is said in the Lennox MSS. to have been warned by Mary to leave the house. He was later arrested, but does not seem to have been punished.
On Sunday morning, Paris heard that Moray had left Edinburgh, and said within himself, ‘O Monsieur de Moray, you are indeed a worthy man!’ The wretch wished, of course, to ingratiate himself with Moray, but his want of tact must have made that worthy man wince. Indeed Paris’s tactless disclosures about Moray, who ‘would neither help nor hinder,’ and did sneak off, may be one of the excellent reasons which prevented Cecil from adding Paris’s deposition, when he was asked for it, to the English edition of Buchanan’s ‘Detection.’[167] When the Queen was at supper, on the night of the crime, with Argyll (it really was with the Bishop of Argyll) and was washing her hands after supper, Paris came in. She asked Paris whether he had brought the fur coverlet from Kirk o’ Field. Bothwell then took Paris out, and they acted as in the depositions of Powrie and the rest, introducing the powder. Bothwell rebuked Tala and Bowton for making so much noise, which was heard above, as they stored the powder in Mary’s room. Paris next accompanied Bothwell to Darnley’s room, and Argyll, silently, gave him a caressing dig in the ribs. After some loose babble, Paris ends, ‘And that is all I know about the matter.’
This deposition was made ‘without constraint or interrogation.’ But it was necessary that he should know more about the matter. Next day he was interrogué, doubtless in the boot or the pilniewinks, or under threat of these. He must incriminate the Queen. He gave evidence now as to carrying a letter (probably Letter II. is intended) to Bothwell, from Mary at Glasgow, in January, 1567. His story may be true, as we shall see, if the dates put in by the accusers are incorrect: and if another set of dates, which we shall suggest, are correct.