It is not impossible [Footnote: The case for this view is effectively put in Lang, Hist. of Scotland, ii., pp. 136 ff.; and cf. Creighton, Queen Elizabeth, p. 87.] that privately Elizabeth had expected and desired that Mary should jeopardise her position precisely in this manner, counting on the animosity to the marriage not only of Knox's party but of all the adherents of the rival house of Hamilton. If so she was justified in the event. But publicly she expressed a strong disapproval, which took colour from the risk that the marriage might serve to rally the English Catholics in support of the joint Stewart succession. At any rate, whether Mary merely miscalculated the political forces; or, weary of the shackles which preachers and politicians sought to impose on her, determined to take her own way at last at any cost; or allowed herself to be swayed by an unaccountable fancy for the person of her young cousin, a spoilt, arrogant, and vicious boy; marry him she did, at the end of July: in defiance of the sentiment of all her Protestant subjects, half of whom were really afraid of the attempted revival of Catholic domination, while the rest foresaw, at the best, the gravest political complications, and the revival of internecine clan and family feuds and intrigues. Mary however had not taken the step until she was sure in the first place that there was no prospect of her marriage with Don Carlos, and had in the second place received assurances of support from Philip [Footnote: Cf. Hume, Love Affairs of Mary Queen of Scots, p. 262. Mary was aiming at a Catholic combination under Philip, with the active co-operation of Rome. Cecil and Elizabeth however had good reason from experience to count on Spain's immobility, and may very well have counted also on Darnley's imbecility. They knew him.] if she married Darnley. For a girl of two and twenty, working single handed, it was an exceedingly clever move—on the hypothesis that Philip was capable of taking open action, and Darnley of acting with common decency and common intelligence.
[Sidenote: Mary and Murray]
The Protestant lords however were not unanimous. Maitland and the Douglases did not join Murray and the Hamiltons who, even before the actual marriage, were practically in open rebellion. But Mary was now playing for her own hand; if she had any trusted counsellor it was her deformed Italian secretary, David Rizzio. She dropped diplomatic fencing. Elizabeth, who had been privately sending money to Murray, remonstrated on his behalf; but Mary asserted her right to deal with her own rebellious subjects. Now, as always, she maintained that she had no intention of subverting the Protestant religion, though she desired the same freedom for Catholics as for Calvinists. But she would not submit to dictation; and any promises she was willing to make were conditional on the recognition first of herself and her heirs and afterwards of Lady Lennox's heirs, as Elizabeth's successors. At the end of August she marched against Murray and the insurgents; they however avoided battle. On October 6th Murray and his principal adherents crossed the Border. A little later he was allowed to present himself at the English court, where Elizabeth [Footnote: Froude, viii., pp. 213 ff. (Ed. 1864): with which cf. Lang, Hist. Scotland, ii., pp. 150 ff., and authorities there cited.] publicly rated him, and declared that she would never assist rebels against their lawful sovereign. Murray, who had just written to Cecil that he would "never have enterprised the action but that he had been moved thereto by the Queen" of England, accepted Elizabeth's lecture without protest.
[Sidenote: The murder of Rizzio, 1566]
The expulsion of Murray from Scotland did not hinder the coming tragedy; perhaps it had the contrary effect. The lords round Mary were bitterly aggrieved by Rizzio's influence; Darnley long before he was six months married, chose to be jealous of the secretary, a sentiment carefully fostered by the lords. The common hatred united them in a "band" for the murder of Rizzio, of which Sadler, the English envoy, was cognisant; Murray probably knew just so much as he chose to know. The plot was carried out in March. The conspirators broke into Mary's room at Holyrood, and butchered Rizzio almost before her eyes.
[Sidenote: Kirk o' Field, 1567]
It may be doubted whether Mary ever forgave any one who was implicated or supposed to be implicated in that outrage. For her husband, as the offence in him was foulest and the insult from him to her deepest, she assuredly conceived and cherished a bitter loathing. But there was one man who had always been ready to champion her cause, the daring, reckless, ruffianly James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who nevertheless was no mere swash-buckler, but according to Scottish standards of the day, a man of education [Footnote: Lang, Hist. Scotland, ii., p. 168.] and even, it would seem, of some culture. From this time, Bothwell was her one ally. She had the policy and the self-control to profess a desire for reconciliation even with Darnley: to receive Murray and even Lethington into apparent favour. But Darnley's brief rapprochement with the lords was soon over; his intolerable arrogance was made the worse by his contemptibility. Three months after Rizzio's murder, the envy of the Virgin Queen of England was roused by the birth of a son to Mary. The history of the following months becomes a chaos of which there are a dozen conflicting versions. The one clear fact is that another "band" was formed to put Darnley out of the way. There were pretences at attempted reconciliation between Mary and Darnley, while the Queen's relations with Bothwell were so intimate as to produce rumours no less scandalous than those which had prevailed about Elizabeth and Dudley. Darnley fell ill; a better appearance than usual of reconciliation was patched up. The sick man was conveyed to Kirk o' Field, a house near Edinburgh, where Mary joined him. Thence one evening she went to Holyrood to attend a bridal masque. That night the house was blown up; Darnley's unscathed corpse was found in the garden.
From the tangled mass [Footnote: The evidence has been discussed in many volumes. The most judicial examination with which the present writer is acquainted is that in Mr. Lang's Mystery of Mary Stewart, summarised in his History of Scotland, ii., pp. 168 ff.] of letters, narratives, and confessions, it remains, and will for ever remain, impossible to ascertain more than a fragment of the real truth. As to many of the documents, it is hard to say whether the theory of their genuineness or of their forgery is the more incredible. For the confessions, every man had a dozen good reasons for sheltering some of the guilty, implicating some of the innocent, and garbling the actual facts. That the thing was done by Bothwell is absolutely certain; it is hardly less doubtful that both Maitland and Morion helped to hatch the plot; there is no conclusive proof that Mary was active in it. No single act can be brought home to her which was necessarily incompatible with innocence—or with guilt. It is the accumulation of suspicious circumstances which makes the presumption lean heavily to guilt; but it remains no more than a presumption; no jury would have been justified in convicting. Her accusers had a strong case; but they tried to strengthen it by inventing or suborning additional evidence palpably false, with the result of discrediting the whole—and her friends adopted the same tactics. That both Mary and Murray knew that some plot existed, and that neither of them stirred a finger to frustrate it, is hardly an open question.
Guilty in the fullest sense or not guilty, Mary's detestation of Darnley was notorious; and within three months of the murder she was the wife of the man whom the whole world accounted the murderer. Naturally, the whole world believed that she was Bothwell's accomplice in the act, and his mistress before it. There was a show at least of the marriage being brought about by force. A formal attempt at investigation into the murder had collapsed. Bothwell had his supporters; he kidnapped the Queen and Maitland—not one of his supporters-with her. A scandalous divorce was pronounced between him and his wife, and Mary wedded him. The only credible explanation is that she was over-mastered by a passion for the daring ruffian who at least had always stood by her. The lords—accomplices in the murder with the rest—were almost immediately in arms to "rescue" the Queen, who took the field by her husband's side. The opposing forces met at Carberry Hill; Bothwell, seeing the contest to be hopeless, fled; Mary surrendered.
[Sidenote: Mary made prisoner]