As soon as Elizabeth heard of the letters, and reflected on the turn which they might give to the case, she determined on taking the whole of the proceedings under her own immediate superintendence, and with this view removed the conference from York to Westminster. To the Commissioners previously appointed, she there added the Earls of Arundel and Leicester, Lord Clinton, Sir Nicolas Bacon, and Sir William Cecil. Mary at first expressed satisfaction at this new arrangement, but several circumstances soon occurred which proved, that no favour was intended to her by the change. That which galled her most, was the marked attention paid to the Earl of Murray. Though Elizabeth refused Mary a personal interview, she admitted her rebellious brother to that honour, and thus glaringly deviated from the impartiality which ought to have been observed by an umpire. Accordingly, the Queen of Scots commanded her Commissioners, the Bishop of Ross and Lord Herries, to complain of this injustice. Not to be received into Elizabeth’s presence, she could regard in no other light but as an assumption of superiority,—a parade of rigid righteousness,—and an affected dread of contamination, which, whilst it was meant to imply the purity of the maiden Queen, aimed at exciting suspicion of the purity of another. Continuing to believe that her Scottish rebels had been called before the English Commissioners at her instance, Mary had consented that her representatives should proceed from York to Westminster, to make her complaints as a free Sovereign. In her instructions to the Bishop of Ross, and those associated with him, she expressly told them, that the conference was appointed “only for making a pacification between her and her rebellious subjects, and restoring her to her realm and authority.” She never lost sight of the fact, that she did not appeal to Elizabeth as a suppliant, but as an equal; and she always took care to preserve high and dignified ground. But to depart from this, and before the tribunal of Hampton Court, in which such men as Cecil were able to procure any decision they chose, to undertake to answer every calumnious charge which might be brought against her, never entered into her imagination. “It is not unknown to us,” she wrote to her Commissioners from Bolton, “how hurtful and prejudicial it would be to us, our posterity and realm, to enter into foreign judgment or arbitrement before the Queen our good sister, her Council, or Commissioners, either for our estate, Crown, dignity or honour;—we will and command you, therefore, that you pass to the presence of our said dearest sister, her Council and Commissioners, and there, in our name, extend our clemency toward our disobedient subjects, and give them appointment for their offences committed against us and our realm,—so that they may live, in time coming, in surety under us their head.”—“And, in case they will otherwise proceed, then we will and command you to dissolve this present diet and negotiation, and proceed no further therein, for the causes foresaid.”[164]
It may well be conceived, therefore, that when Mary heard of Elizabeth’s kind and familiar treatment of the Earl of Murray, “the principal of her rebels,” she was not a little indignant. She immediately sent word to her Commissioners, that, before proceeding a step further in the negotiation, she considered it right that she should be put on at least an equal footing with the pretended Regent,—for she did not choose that greater respect should be shown to her rebels than to her and her true subjects. There were other three points, of which she thought she had also just cause to complain. First, that though she had come into England on the assurance of friendship, and of her own free will, she had not only seen no steps taken to restore her to her realm and authority, but had most unexpectedly found herself detained a prisoner, and her confinement rendered closer every day;—second, that though, at Elizabeth’s request, she had desired her loyal subjects in Scotland to abstain from hostilities, yet the Earl of Murray had not been prevented from molesting and invading them;—and, third, that having already established the utter groundlessness of the charges brought against her, instead of finding herself reinstated on her throne, the conference had been merely removed to a greater distance, where she could not communicate with her Commissioners so frequently and speedily as was necessary. In consideration of these premises, and especially in consideration of the treatment of the Earl of Murray, “you shall break the conference,” she continued, “and proceed no further therein, but take your leave, and come away. And if our sister allege that, at the beginning, she were content our cause should be conferred on by Commissioners, it is true. But since our principal rebels have free access towards her to accuse us in her presence, and the same is denied to us, personally to declare our innocence, and answer to their calumnies, being held as prisoner, and transported from place to place, though we came into her realm, of our free will, to seek her support and natural amity, we have resolved to have nothing further conferred on, except we be present before her, as the said rebels.”[165]
In the mean time, before these letters arrived, the Commissioners had held several sittings at Westminster; and Elizabeth having personally informed Murray, that if he would accuse the Queen of Scots of a share in the murder of Darnley, and produce the letters he had in his possession, she would authorize his continuance in the Regency, he no longer hesitated. On the 26th of November, after protesting that he had been anxious to save, as long as possible, the mother of his gracious King, James VI., from the perpetual infamy which the discovery of her shame would attach to her, and that he was now forced to disclose it, in his own defence, because it was maintained, that his previous answer to the complaint made against him was not sufficient, Murray, in conjunction with his colleagues, presented to the English Commissioners an “Eik” or addition to their “Answer,” in which they formally charged Mary with the murder. As to the reluctance so hypocritically avowed, it has been already seen, that so far back as December 1567, precisely the same charge, though unsupported by any evidence, was brought forward in the Scottish Parliament; and having then served its purpose, was allowed to lie dormant for eleven months. It is true, that there was then, no less than now, a palpable contradiction between this accusation, and the grounds which had always previously been assigned, both for Mary’s “sequestration” in Loch-Leven, and her alleged voluntary abdication. It was not till the public mind had been inflamed, and till opposing interests contributed to involve the truth in obscurity, that the notorious fact was denied or concealed, that Mary had been forced into an unwilling marriage with Bothwell, and that her abduction, and imprisonment in the Castle of Dunbar, were themselves an answer to any suspicion, that she was one of his accomplices in Darnley’s slaughter. But now that Mary was a prisoner, in the hands of a jealous rival, the Regent naturally supposed, that some contradictions would be overlooked; and all at once, assuming a tone of the utmost confidence, and undertaking “to manifest the naked truth,” he ventured on couching his assertion in these terms:—“It is certain, and we boldly and constantly affirm, that as James, some time Earl of Bothwell, was the chief executor of the horrible and unworthy murder, perpetrated in the person of King Henry, of good memory, father to our Sovereign Lord, and the Queen’s lawful husband,—so was she of the fore-knowledge, counsel, and device, persuader and commander of the said murder to be done, maintainer and fortifier of the executors thereof, by impeding and stopping of the inquisition and punishment due for the same, according to the laws of the realm, and, consequently, by marriage with the said James, some time Earl Bothwell, dilated and universally esteemed chief author of the above named murder.”[166] In support of this new charge, the letters and other documents were referred to, and it was promised to produce them as soon as they were called for.
Before they were able to inform their mistress of the unexpected turn which affairs had taken, Mary’s Commissioners received her instructions from Bolton, to proceed no further in the conference. They therefore stated to Elizabeth, that though they were heartily sorry to perceive their countrymen, with a view to colour their unjust and ungrateful doings, had committed to writing a charge of so shameful a sort, they nevertheless could not condescend to answer it, having begun the conference at York as plaintives, and having afterwards found their relative positions altered, Murray being admitted into her Majesty’s presence, to advance his calumnious falsehoods, and Mary being expected to defend herself against them, though kept in imprisonment at a distance. At the same time, according to Mary’s commands, they said that, although the proceedings of the Regent were altogether intolerable and injurious, they would not yet dissolve the conference, provided their mistress were permitted to appear in her own person before the Queen of England and her nobility.[167] To this request Elizabeth would not agree. Her real motive was the fear of truth; that which she assigned was sufficiently preposterous. “As to your desire,” she said to Mary’s Commissioners, “that your Sovereign should come to my presence to declare her innocence in this cause, you will understand, that from the beginning why she was debarred therefrom, was through the bruit and slander that was passed upon her, that she was participant of such a heinous crime as the murder of her husband; and I thought it best for your mistress’s weal and honour, and also for mine own, that trial should be taken thereof before her coming to me; for I could never believe, nor yet will, that ever she did assent thereto.”[168] If Elizabeth had been anxious to see justice done, she could very easily have overcome the squeamish dread of being brought into contact with Mary, the more especially as she arrogated for herself the superior character of judge, as it was only “bruit and slander” that implicated her “dearest sister,” and as she did not, according to her own confession, believe her guilty, even after she had been informed of the existence of the love-letters, and made acquainted with their contents. Both parties, however, continuing alike resolute, the Commissioners of the Queen of Scots intimated, that in so far as they were concerned, the conference might be considered closed.
It is here of some importance to point out, that both Robertson and Hume have deduced an argument against Mary, from their own erroneous manner of stating the proceedings of the conference at Westminster. According to the narrative of both these historians, the reader is led to believe, that Mary was perfectly willing to go on till the moment that Murray accused her of being a sharer in Darnley’s murder, but that, as soon as this charge was made, she drew back as if afraid to meet it. Robertson and Hume would have themselves discovered how unfair this view of the matter was, had they taken the trouble to attend to the dates of the documents connected with the transaction. By these they would have seen, that Mary refused to proceed on the 22d of November 1568, unless admitted equally with the Earl of Murray into Elizabeth’s presence, and that Murray’s accusation was not produced till the 26th.[169] Thus so far from “recoiling from the inquiry at the critical moment,” as Hume expresses it, she did not hesitate to proceed until she had rebutted every thing which had been advanced against her, and stood on even higher ground than before. It will besides be immediately found, that notwithstanding her previous determination to the contrary, she was no sooner informed of the existence of letters alleged to have been written by her to Bothwell, than she was willing to enter into a proof of their authenticity.
It would not have suited Elizabeth’s views to allow the contending parties to slip through her fingers, before arriving at any definite conclusion. She therefore fell upon an expedient by which she hoped, although the Queen of Scots had withdrawn from the conference, and it consequently should have been considered at an end, to attach to her so great a degree of suspicion, that she might safely detain her from her own realm. She ordered Murray and his colleagues to be called before her Commissioners; and the scene having been arranged before-hand with them, she commanded the Regent to be rebuked for accusing his native Sovereign of a crime so horrible, that if it could be proved true, she would be infamous to all princes in the world. The Regent readily answered, that finding he had displeased her Majesty, he had no objections to show the Commissioners “a collection made in writing of the presumptions and circumstances” by which he had been guided in the charge he had advanced against Mary, and which would satisfy them that it had not been made without due grounds and consideration. This was all that Elizabeth wished. In however glaring a point of view it placed her injustice, she rejoiced that Mary’s Commissioners were no longer attending the conference; for she would now be able to represent to the world, without fear of contradiction, the overwhelming strength of Murray’s evidences, and hold them out as the justification of her own severity. These hopes and plans, however, were very nearly frustrated by the boldness and decision of Mary’s conduct. As soon as she received intelligence of this new accusation, and of the means by which it was to be supported, she resolved that her own innocence and its falsehood should be made apparent; and for this purpose, she even consented to depart from her former demand of being personally admitted to Elizabeth’s presence. She wrote to her Commissioners to resume the duties which they had intermitted, and to renew the conference once more. “We have seen the copy,” she said, “which you have sent us of the false and unlawful accusation presented against us by some of our rebels, together with the declarations and protestations made by you thereon before the Queen of England, our good sister’s Commissioners, wherein you have obeyed our commands to refuse consenting to any further proceedings, if the presence of our sister were refused us. But that our rebels may see that they have not closed your mouths, you may offer a reply to the pretended excuse and cloak of their wicked actions, falsity and disloyalty, whereof you had no information before, it being a thing so horrible, that neither we nor you could have imagined it would have fallen into the thoughts of the said rebels.”[170]
A reply was accordingly made, in which the “Eik” was maintained to be false in every particular, and nothing but a device, contrived to justify Murray’s own “detestable doings and ambitious purpose.” The writings, or at least copies of them, which had been adduced in support of the Regent’s charge, were required to be delivered; and it was intimated, that Mary would undertake to prove, that the very men who now accused her of murder, were themselves the first inventors, and some of them the executors of the deed. It will at first appear hardly credible, but it is nevertheless true, that Elizabeth refused to allow duplicates of the evidence against her to be sent to Mary. On the contrary, she now hastened to break up the conference; Murray was sent back to his Regency, and the Queen of Scots detained in closer captivity than ever; and though she even yet petitioned to see the writings, Elizabeth refused to surrender them, except upon conditions with which Mary’s Commissioners would not comply. They had formally accused the Regent and his adherents of a share in Bothwell’s guilt; yet the latter had been permitted “to depart into Scotland without abiding to hear the defence of the Queen of Scotland’s innocency, nor the trial and proof of their detection, which was offered to verify and prove them guilty of the same crime, but were fully released, and no end put to the cause, according to the equity and justice thereof. It did not appear meet, therefore, that their Sovereign should make any further answer, unless her rebels were made to remain within the realm until the trial ended.”[171]
As no decision had been pronounced against Mary, and as the Regent had been allowed to depart, leave was also asked for her to return to Scotland, or proceed to France, as she might think fit. This, however, was expressly refused; but it was insultingly promised, that if she would yield up the crown and government of Scotland in favour of her son the Prince, she would be permitted to remain privately and quietly in England. Mary, of course, rejected the proposal with scorn. “The eyes of all Europe,” she said, “are upon me at this moment; and were I thus tamely to yield to my adversaries, I should be pronouncing my own condemnation. A thousand times rather would I submit to death, than inflict this stain upon my honour. The last words I speak shall be those of the Queen of Scotland.”[172]
Thus ended this famous conference, which Elizabeth had opened with so many professions of friendship, which she conducted with so much duplicity, and which she concluded without any conclusion, except that of endeavouring to blacken the character of her sister Mary, and give plausibility to her continued imprisonment. To a certain extent it answered her purpose. She had won the reputation, in the eyes of those who looked only at the surface of things, of having endeavoured to do justice between the Queen of Scots and her nobility; she had secured the favour of the Regent; and had obtained a strong hold of the person of her rival, whom she now doomed to lingering and hopeless captivity.[173]