When they were first married, Mary had caused her husband to be proclaimed king, and had taken some other similar steps to invest him with a share of her own power. But she soon found that in doing this she had gone to the extreme of propriety, and that, for the future, she must retreat rather than advance. Accordingly, although he was associated with her in the supreme power, she thought it best to keep precedence for her own name before his, in the exercise of power. On the coins which were struck, the inscription was, "In the name of the Queen and King of Scotland." In signing public documents, she insisted on having her name recorded first. These things irritated and provoked Darnley more and more. He was not contented to be admitted to a share of the sovereign power which the queen possessed in her own right alone. He wished to supplant her in it entirely.
Rizzio sides with Mary.
Rizzio, of course, took Queen Mary's part in these questions. He opposed the grant of the crown matrimonial. He opposed all other plans for increasing or extending in any way Darnley's power. Darnley was very much incensed against him, and earnestly desired to find some way to effect his destruction. He communicated these feelings to a certain fierce and fearless nobleman named Ruthven, and asked his assistance to contrive some way to take vengeance upon Rizzio.
Darnley and Ruthven.
A combination.
Ruthven was very much pleased to hear this. He belonged to a party of the lords of the court who also hated Rizzio, though they had hated Darnley besides so much that they had not communicated to him their hostility to the other. Ruthven and his friends had not joined Murray and the other rebels in opposing the marriage of Darnley. They had chosen to acquiesce in it, hoping to maintain an ascendency over Darnley, regarding him, as they did, as a mere boy, and thus retain their power. When they found, however, that he was so headstrong and unmanageable, and that they could do nothing with him, they exerted all their influence to have Murray and the other exiled lords pardoned and allowed to return, hoping to combine with them after their return, and then together to make their power superior to that of Darnley and Rizzio. They considered Darnley and Rizzio both as their rivals and enemies. When they found, therefore, that Darnley was plotting Rizzio's destruction, they felt a very strong as well as a very unexpected pleasure.
The secretary and his queen.
Nature of Mary's attachment.
Thus, among all the jealousies, and rivalries, and bitter animosities of which the court was at this time the scene, the only true and honest attachment of one heart to another seems to have been that of Mary to Rizzio. The secretary was faithful and devoted to the queen, and the queen was grateful and kind to the secretary. There has been some question whether this attachment was an innocent or a guilty one. A painting, still hanging in the private rooms which belonged to Mary in the palace at Holyrood, represents Rizzio as young and very handsome; on the other hand, some of the historians of the day, to disprove the possibility of any guilty attachment, say that he was rather old and ugly. We may ourselves, perhaps, safely infer, that unless there were something specially repulsive in his appearance and manner, such a heart as Mary's, repelled so roughly from the one whom it was her duty to love, could not well have resisted the temptation to seek a retreat and a refuge in the kind devotedness of such a friend as Rizzio proved himself to be to her.
Plot to assassinate Rizzio.
However this may be, Ruthven made such suggestions to Darnley as goaded him to madness, and a scheme was soon formed for putting Rizzio to death. The plan, after being deliberately matured in all its arrangements, was carried into effect in the following manner. The event occurred early in the spring of 1566, less than a year after Mary's marriage.
Plan of Holyrood House.