Bothwell had kept Mary at Dunbar for nearly a week, when, in order to make it be believed that her residence there was voluntary, he ventured to call together a few of the Lords of the Privy Council on whom he could depend, and on the 29th of April there was one unimportant act of Council passed, concerning provisions for the Royal Household. From the influence he at that time possessed over the Scottish nobles, Bothwell might have held a Privy Council every day at Dunbar, and whether he allowed the Queen, pro forma, to be present or not, nobody would have objected to any thing he proposed.[87] In the meantime, mutual actions of divorce were raised by Bothwell and his wife, the Lady Jane Gordon, and being hurried through the courts, only a few days elapsed before they were obtained.[88] This is another circumstance which tends to prove, that Bothwell’s seizure of Mary was not collusive; for had it been so, she would certainly never have allowed it to take place till these actions had been decided.
The die was now cast; Mary was in Bothwell’s fangs, and her ruin was completed. On the 3d of May 1567, he thought it expedient to conduct her, closely guarded, from Dunbar to the Castle of Edinburgh. When they came near the town, he desired his followers to conceal their arms, lest it should be supposed that he was still keeping the Queen an unwilling prisoner. But the truth broke out in spite of his precautions; for at the foot of the Canongate, Mary was about to turn her horse towards Holyrood, upon which Bothwell himself seized the bridle, and conducted her up the High Street to the Castle, which was then in the keeping of Sir James Balfour, who was entirely subservient to Bothwell.[89] He was now resolved that his marriage should be consummated with as little delay as possible, having wrung a consent to it from the unfortunate Queen, by means of which, it is impossible to think without shuddering. In the state to which she was reduced, she had no alternative; she chose the least of two evils, in becoming, with an aching heart, the wife of her ravisher. Yet it would appear, that she did not herself take a single step to advance the matter. Three days after she arrived at the Castle, a person of the name of Thomas Hepburn, (probably a relation of the Hepburn who was engaged with Bothwell in Darnley’s murder), was sent to Craig, Knox’s colleague in the church of St Giles, to desire that he would proclaim the banns of matrimony betwixt the Queen and Bothwell. But the clergyman refused, because Hepburn brought no authority from the Queen.[90] Neither Mary nor Bothwell were so ignorant as to suppose that any minister would publish banns without receiving a written or personal order; and Hepburn would hardly have been sent on so idle an errand, had not the Queen been still reluctant to surrender herself to one whose person and manners she had never liked, and who was now so odious to her. But not a voice was raised,—not a sword was drawn to protect her,—and what resource was left? In a day or two, the Lord Justice Clerk conveyed a written mandate to Craig; but the preacher, had still some scruples: not thinking such a marriage agreeable to the laws either of God or man, he insisted upon seeing the Queen and Bothwell, before he gave intimation of it. He was admitted to a meeting of the Privy Council, where Bothwell presided, but at which Mary does not seem to have been present. “In the Council,” says Craig, “I laid to his charge the law of adultery, the ordinance of the kirk, the law of ravishing, the suspicion of collusion betwixt him and his wife, the sudden divorcement and proclaiming within the space of four days, and lastly, the suspicion of the King’s death, which his marriage would confirm; but he answered nothing to my satisfaction.”—“Therefore, upon Sunday, after I had declared what they had done, and how they would proceed, whether we would or not, I took heaven and earth to witness, that I abhorred and detested that marriage, because it was odious and scandalous to the world; and seeing the best part of the realm did approve it, either by flattery or by their silence, I desired the faithful to pray earnestly, that God would turn it to the comfort of this realm.”[91]
It was not till after the banns had been twice proclaimed, that Bothwell allowed the Queen, on the 12th of May, to come forth from the Castle for the first time. He conducted her himself to the Court of Session, where he persuaded her to affix her signature to two deeds of great importance to him. The bond he had obtained from the nobles, recommending him as a husband to the Queen, has been already fully described; but when the Lords put their names to it, they were not aware that Bothwell would, in consequence, conceive himself entitled to have recourse to violence; and they now became alarmed lest the Queen should imagine that they were themselves implicated in an act which many of them, though they did not yet venture to express their sentiments, viewed with disgust. By way of precaution, therefore, they required Bothwell to obtain, from her Majesty, a written promise, that she would not at any time hereafter impute to them as a crime the consent they had given to the bond. Here is another argument against the idea of collusion between Mary and Bothwell; for in that case, so far from having any thing to fear, Bothwell’s friends would have known that nothing could have recommended them more to Mary, than the countenance they gave his marriage; and if, for the sake of appearances, she wished it to be believed that she was forced into it, she would certainly have carefully avoided recording her approval of the previous encouragement given to Bothwell by her nobility. Mary’s calumniators are thus placed between the horns of a dilemma. If she did not consent to the abduction, then the marriage was not one of her choice; if she did, then why defeat the only object she had in view, which was to deceive her subjects, by publicly declaring that the Lords who signed the bond had done nothing to displease her? and why, moreover, should such a declaration have been thought necessary, either by Bothwell or his friends? The deed which Mary signed in the Court of Session, and which, taking this view of it, is worthy of every attention, was subjoined to a copy of the bond, and expressed in these words: “The Queen’s Majesty having seen and considered the bond above written, promises, on the word of a Princess, that she, nor her successors, shall never impute as crime or offence, to any of the persons subscribers thereof, their consent and subscription to the matter above written therein contained; nor that they nor their heirs shall never be called nor accused therefor; nor yet shall the said consent or subscribing be any derogation or spot to their honour, or they esteemed undutiful subjects for doing thereof, notwithstanding whatever thing can tend or be alleged in the contrary. In witness whereof, her Majesty has subscribed the same with her own hand.”[92]
On the same day, Mary granted a formal pardon to Bothwell, before all the Lords of Session and others, for his late conduct, in taking her to, and holding her in Dunbar, “contrary to her Majesty’s will and mind,” which is also very much against the supposition of collusion. It states,—“That albeit her Highness was commoved for the present time of her taking at the said Earl Bothwell; yet for his good behaviour, and thankful service in time past, and for more thankful service in time coming, her Highness stands content with the said Earl, and has forgiven and forgives him, and all others his accomplices, being with him in company at the time, all hatred conceived by her Majesty, for the taking and imprisoning of her, at the time foresaid.”[93]
All these preparations having been made, Mary at length became the wife of Bothwell, after he had been previously created Duke of Orkney. Even in the celebration of the marriage ceremony, the despotic power which Bothwell now exercised over the unhappy and passive Queen, is but too evident. She, who had never before failed in a single instance, to observe the rites of her own faith, however tolerant she was to those who professed a different persuasion, was now obliged, in opposition to all the prejudices of education, and all the principles of her religion, to submit to be married according to the form of the Protestant church. Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, who, though holding an Episcopal order, had lately renounced that heresy, and joined the Reformers, presided on the occasion. The marriage took place, not at mass in the Queen’s chapel, but in the Council Chamber, where, after a sermon had been delivered, the company separated, with little demonstrations of mirth.[94] Melville, who came to Court the same evening, mentions some particulars, which show how the dissolute Bothwell chose to spend his time:—“When I came to the Court,” he says, “I found my Lord Duke of Orkney, sitting at his supper. He said I had been a great stranger, desiring me to sit down and sup with him. The Earl of Huntly, the Justice-Clerk, and diverse others, were sitting at the table with him. I said that I had already supped. Then he called for a cup of wine, and drank to me, that I might pledge him like a Dutchman. He made me drink it out to grow fatter, ‘for,’ said he, ‘the zeal of the commonweal has eaten ye up, and made ye lean.’ I answered, that every little member should serve to some use; but that the care of the commonweal appertained most to him, and the rest of the nobility, who should be as fathers to it. Then he said, I well knew he would find a pin for every bore. Then he discoursed of gentlewomen, speaking such filthy language, that I left him, and passed up to the Queen, who was very glad at my coming.”[95]
Such was the man who was now inseparably joined to Mary, and who, by fraud and villany, had made himself, for the time, so absolute in Scotland, that her possession of the throne of her ancestors, nay, her very life, seems to have depended upon his will and pleasure.
CHAPTER VI.
THE REBELLION OF THE NOBLES, THE MEETING AT CARBERRY HILL, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.