In February 1562, Mary gave a series of splendid entertainments, on the occasion of the marriage of her favourite brother, James. He was then in the thirty-first year of his age, and chose for his wife Lady Agnes Keith, eldest daughter of the Earl of Marschal. The marriage was solemnized in the church of St Giles; and Knox took advantage of the occasion, to offer the Lord James a wholesome, but somewhat curiously expressed advice; “for,” said the preacher to him, “unto this day has the kirk of God received comfort by you, and by your labours; in the which, if hereafter you shall be found fainter than you were before, it will be said that your wife has changed your nature.” Knox and his friends were subsequently much scandalized by “the greatness of the banquetting, and the vanity thereof,” which characterized the honeymoon. The issue of this marriage was three daughters, two of whom married Scotch noblemen, and the third died young.[56]

In August 1562, Mary commenced the progress into the North, which, in so far as some of her principal nobility were concerned, was attended with such very important consequences.

CHAPTER IX.

MARY’S EXPEDITION TO THE NORTH.

The Lord James, now Earl of Mar, had for some time felt, that so long as he was regarded with suspicion by the Hamiltons, and with ill-concealed hatred by the Earl of Huntly and the Gordons, his power could not be so stable, nor his influence so extensive, as he desired. If it is true that he had already proposed to Mary to set aside the succession of the Earl of Arran, it is equally true that she had refused his request. Foiled, therefore, in this, his more ambitious aim, he saw the necessity of limiting, in the meantime, to more moderate bounds, his views of personal preferment. With regard to the Hamiltons, he had succeeded in securing their banishment from court, and in making them objects of suspicion and dislike to the Queen. There was not indeed sufficient talent in the family ever to have made it formidable to him, had it not been that it was of the blood royal. Though not possessing this advantage, the Gordons were always looked upon by Mar as more dangerous rivals. He had long nursed a secret desire, at least to weaken, if not to crush altogether, the power of Huntly. In getting himself created Earl of Mar, he had made one step towards his object. The lands which went along with this title were part of the royal demesnes; but had for some time been held in fee by the Earls of Huntly. Her brother had prevailed upon Mary to recall them in his favour, and he was thus able to set himself down in the very heart of a country, which had hitherto acknowledged no master who did not belong to the house of Gordon. Huntly felt this encroachment bitterly; and it makes it the more probable, that he had secretly joined with Arran in his plot upon Mar; at any rate Mar gave him full credit for having done so. Their mutual animosity being thus exasperated, to the highest pitch, Huntly left the Court, and the Prime Minister waited anxiously for the first opportunity that might occur, to humble effectually the great leader of the Catholics.

In prosecution of his purpose, Mar now obtained a grant under the Privy Seal of the earldom of Murray. A grant under the Privy Seal constituted only an inchoate, not a complete title. To ratify the grant and make it legal, it was necessary to have the Great Seal also affixed to it. The Great Seal, however, was in the custody of Huntly, as Lord Chancellor; and as Mar well knew that the grant of this second earldom infringed upon Huntly’s rights even more than the former, he saw the propriety of keeping it secret for some time. The earldom of Murray, which, with its lands and appurtenances, was bestowed upon Huntly in 1549, for his services in the war with England, had been again recalled by the Crown in 1554, when Huntly fell into the displeasure of the Queen-Regent, in consequence of having refused to punish with fire and sword some Highland rebels. But in 1559, the title and lands were restored, not as a free grant, but as a lease during five years, to Huntly, his wife and heirs, on the condition of a yearly payment of 2500 merks Scots. Till 1564, therefore, Huntly was entitled to consider himself master of all the lands and revenues of this earldom. But in 1561, the title and lands were privately conferred upon the Earl of Mar. It is true, that he might have applied thus early only to prevent himself from being anticipated, and might not have intended to encroach on Huntly’s rights before the legal period of his enjoying them had expired. The advantage, however, he so eagerly took of an incident that occurred in the month of June 1562, proves that Mar had never any intention to keep his title to the earldom of Murray locked up for three years.[57]

The father of James, Lord Ogilvy, had married one of the Earl of Huntly’s sisters, who gave her some lands in liferent as her dowry. Upon her husband’s death, considerations induced her to surrender the liferent to her brother, and the Earl then gave it to his son, Sir John Gordon. But Lord Ogilvy was displeased with his mother’s conduct, and questioned its legality. The matter, however, was decided against him, though not before it had occasioned much bad blood between him and Sir John Gordon. These two noblemen unfortunately met on the streets of Edinburgh; and though Sir John had married Ogilvy’s sister, all ties of relationship were disregarded, and an affray took place, in which both were assisted by their respective servants. It does not exactly appear who was the aggressor in this scuffle, but, from the circumstances which led to it, the probability is, that it was Ogilvy. Both noblemen were severely wounded; and the magistrates, enraged at their breach of the peace, committed them to prison.[58] Mary with her Court was at Stirling, but the Earl of Mar obtained permission to depart for Edinburgh, to examine into the whole affair. The son of the Earl of Huntly was now within his power, and he saw the advantages which might be made to accrue to himself in consequence. After examination, he ordered the Lord Ogilvy and his retainers to be set at liberty, but Sir John Gordon he sent to the common gaol. Sir John, not liking to trust himself in such hands, made his escape, after remaining in prison for about a month, and proceeded to his father’s house in the North to recite to him his grievances.[59]

Such being the state of feeling subsisting between the Queen’s prime minister and these great Northern chieftains, it can scarcely be allowed that Robertson expresses himself correctly when he says, “The Queen happened to set out on a progress into the northern parts of the kingdom.” Her motions were at this time entirely regulated by the Earl of Mar, who, seeing the contempt which had been offered to her authority by the flight of his son, felt satisfied that Mary could not pass through the extensive territories of Huntly, without either giving or receiving some additional cause of offence, which would in all probability lead to consequences favourable to Mar’s ambition. Unless this hypothesis be adopted, no rational cause can be assigned why the Queen should have chosen this particular season for her visit to the North. From the recent suspicion which had attached to the Earl of Huntly, as one of Arran’s colleagues in a conspiracy against her favourite minister, and the still more recent conduct of his son Sir John Gordon, she certainly could have no intention to pay that family the compliment of honouring them with her royal presence as a guest. North of Aberdeen, however, nearly the whole country was subservient to Huntly; and if Mary did not pass through it as a friend, she must as an enemy. This was the consideration that prompted the Earl of Mar to fix this year for the expedition. It was owing to negociations with Elizabeth, concerning a personal interview between the two Queens, that Mary was unable to set out till towards the middle of August.