Kirkcaldy of Grange

by Louis A. Barbé

As early as the beginning of January 1566, steps were being taken to procure an amnesty in favour of Sir William Kirkcaldy, and to enable him to return to Scotland. They were not successful, however, and two months later he was still in England, and according to a communication made by Bedford and Randolph to Cecil, was one of those who were privy to the plot for the assassination of David Rizzio. That he knew of it can scarcely be doubted. It may even be admitted that he entertained no special scruples with regard to the removal of an officious and obnoxious foreigner, whose influence on the Queen was being exercised to prevent her receiving the exiles into favour, and whom it was, moreover, originally intended to bring to trial, not, it is true, in a formal and legal manner, but with some sort of judicial proceeding sufficient to make his death appear an execution rather than a brutal murder. But there is no evidence to prove that his complicity went any further; on the other hand, it is noteworthy that his name does not appear in the list of ‘such as were consenting to the death of Davy,’ forwarded to Cecil within a fortnight after the occurrence. Nor can this omission be explained by the fact that Grange was known not to have returned to Edinburgh, with Murray and his company, till twenty-four hours after the murder. Knox has never been accused of being actually present at the grim tragedy either, and yet his name figures on the black roll. Finally, it is not unimportant to note that as early as the 4th of April, less than a month after the assassination of Rizzio, Bedford was able to announce to Cecil that the Laird of Grange was now restored to favour. If that did not refer to the remission of the pains and penalties he had incurred through his connection with the Round About Raid, it may be taken as evidence that his complicity with the murderers of the Secretary was not thought to be very direct.

Not many months elapsed before events far more startling and far more momentous in their results again called upon Sir William Kirkcaldy to play a prominent part both as a politician and as a soldier. On the 10th of February 1566, Darnley was murdered under circumstances which led many to believe not only that Bothwell was the murderer, but that Mary was his accomplice. Such was the view adopted by the Laird of Grange. When the mock trial of the Earl convinced him that the law of the land was powerless to inflict punishment on the perpetrator of the foul deed; and when, in addition to this, the subservience of five and twenty bishops, earls, and barons, who affixed their signatures to the notorious Ainslie Bond, showed him that a union with Mary would probably be the unscrupulous adventurer’s next step, he made an earnest appeal for help from England. ‘It may please your Lordship to let me understand,’ he wrote to Cecil, ‘what will be your sovereign’s part concerning the late murder committed among us; for albeit her Majesty was slow in all our last troubles, and therefore lost that favour we did bear unto her, yet nevertheless, if her Majesty will pursue for the revenge of the late murder, I dare assure your Lordship she shall win thereby all the hearts of all the best in Scotland again. Further, if we understand that her Majesty would assist us and favour us, we should not be long in revenging of this murder. The Queen caused ratify in Parliament the cleansing of Bothwell. She intends to take the Prince out of the Earl of Mar’s hands, and put him into Bothwell’s keeping, who murdered the King, his father. The same night the Parliament was dissolved, Bothwell called the most part of the noblemen to supper, for to desire of them their promise in writing and consent for the Queen’s marriage, which he will obtain; for she has said that she cares not to lose France, England, and her own country for him, and shall go with him to the world’s end in a white petticoat ere she leave him. Yea, she is so far past all shame, that she has caused make an act of Parliament against all those that shall set up any writing that shall speak anything of him. Whatever is unhonest reigns presently in this court. God deliver them from their evil!’

Before any answer could be returned to Sir William, his worst anticipations had been verified. With or without her consent, Mary had been carried off by Bothwell. Two days later another letter was sent from the Grange to the English agent in Berwick. It ran as follows: ‘The Queen will never cease till she has wrecked all the honest men of this realm. She was minded to cause Bothwell ravish her, to the end that she may the sooner end the marriage which she promised before she caused murder her husband. There is many that would revenge the murder, but that they fear your mistress. I am so suited to, for to enterprise the revenge, that I must either take it upon hand or else leave the country, which I am determined to do, if I can obtain license; but Bothwell is minded to cut me off ere I obtain it. The Queen minds hereafter to take the Prince out of the Earl of Mar’s hands, and put him in his hands that murdered his father. I pray your Lordship let me know what your mistress will do, for if we seek France we may find favour at their hands, but I would rather persuade to lean to England.’

That Kirkcaldy’s determination to go abroad was not merely empty and exaggerated talk was proved by the two plain facts reported by Sir William Drury—that Grange had sold all his corn and moveables, and that he had obtained a license to leave Scotland for seven years. It might have been well for him if his purpose had been carried out; but events shaped his conduct differently.

Sir William’s communications were duly forwarded to Elizabeth. The tone adopted by a subject in writing of his sovereign was highly displeasing to the English Queen, and shocked her exalted notions of regal dignity and prerogative. She consequently vouchsafed no reply to them; but she took occasion to express her indignation to Randolph, who thus reports to Leicester the substance of her remarks to him on the subject of Kirkcaldy’s plainly-worded arraignment of Mary’s conduct: ‘Her Majesty also told me that she had seen a writing sent from Grange to my Lord of Bedford, despitefully written against that Queen, in such vile terms as she could not abide the hearing of it, wherein he made her worse than any common woman. She would not that any subject, what cause soever there be proceeding from the prince, or whatsoever her life and behaviour is, should discover that unto the world; and thereof so utterly misliketh of Grange’s manner of writing and doing, that she condemns him for one of the worst in that realm, seeming somewhat to warn me of my familiarity with him, and willing that I should admonish him of her misliking. In this manner of talk it pleased her Majesty to retain me almost an hour.’

In the meantime, discontent at the Queen’s treatment of Bothwell had been spreading through the country, and was gradually assuming the tangible shape of a coalition having for its avowed object the punishment of Darnley’s murderers. The leading men of the movement were Argyle, Athole, and Morton. They made Stirling their headquarters; and it was there the Laird of Grange joined them in the early days of May. On the eighth of that month he again wrote to Bedford, no longer as a private individual, but with the authorisation, and in the name of the confederate Lords. ‘All such things as were done before the Parliament, I did write unto your Lordship at large,’ said he. ‘At that time the most part of the nobility, for fear of their lives, did grant to sundry things, both against their honours and consciences, who since have convened themselves at Stirling, where they have made a “band” to defend each other in all things that shall concern the glory of God and commonweal of their country. The heads that presently they agreed upon is, first, to seek the liberty of the Queen, who is ravished and detained by the Earl of Bothwell, who was the ravisher, and hath the strengths, munitions, and men of war at his commandment. The next head is the preservation and keeping of the Prince. The third is to pursue them that murdered the King. For the pursuit of these three heads they have promised to bestow their lives, lands, and goods. And to that effect their lordships have desired me to write unto your lordship, to the end they might have your sovereign’s aid and support for suppressing of the cruel murderer Bothwell, who, at the Queen’s last being in Stirling, suborned certain to have poisoned the Prince; for that barbarous tyrant is not contented to have murdered the father, but he would also cut off the son, for fear that he hath to be punished hereafter. The names of the Lords that convened in Stirling were the Earls of Argyle, Morton, Athole, and Mar. These forenamed, as said is, have desired me to write unto your Lordship, to the end that I might know by you if your sovereign would give them support concerning these three heads above written. Wherefore I beseech your lordship, who I am assured loveth the quietness of these two realms, to let me have a direct answer, and that with haste; for presently the foresaid Lords are suited unto by Monsieur de Croc, who offereth unto them, in his master, the King of France’s name, if they will follow his advice and counsel, that they shall have aid and support to suppress the Earl Bothwell and his faction. Also he hath admonished her to desist from the Earl Bothwell, and not to marry him; for if she do, he hath assured her that she shall neither have friendship nor favour out of France, if she shall have to do:[2] but his saying is, she will give no ear. There is to be joined with the four forenamed lords, the Earls of Glencairn, Cassillis, Eglinton, Montrose, Caithness; the Lords Boyd, Ochiltree, Ruthven, Drummond, Gray, Glammis, Innermeith, Lindsay, Hume, and Herries, with all the whole West Merse and Teviotdale, the most part of Fife, Angus and Mearns. And for this effect the Earl of Argyle is ridden in the West, the Earl of Athole to the North, and the Earl of Morton to Fife, Angus, and Montrose. The Earl of Mar remaineth still about the Prince; and if the Queen will pursue him, the whole Lords have promised, upon their faiths and honour, to relieve him. In this meantime the Queen is come to the Castle of Edinburgh, conveyed by the Earl Bothwell, where she intendeth to remain until she have levied some forces of footmen and horsemen, that is, she minds to levy five hundred footmen, and two hundred horsemen. The money that she hath presently to do this, which is five thousand crowns, came from the font your Lordship brought unto the baptism; the rest is to be reft and borrowed of Edinburgh, or the men of Lothian. It will please your Lordship also to haste these other letters to my Lord of Moray, and write unto him to come back again into Normandy, that he may be in readiness against my Lords write unto him.’

This time Queen Elizabeth deemed it expedient to take notice of Grange’s communication; and on the 17th of May, she instructed Bedford as to the answers which he was to return in her name, with regard to the three points indicated in the letter. As to the first of them—to have their sovereign delivered from bondage—Elizabeth pointed out that Mary’s own statement to herself was at variance with that of the Lords, and that the Scottish Queen attributed their hatred of Bothwell to the anger and disappointment which they felt at his having ‘in her distress recovered her liberty out of their hands.’

Respecting the preservation of the young prince, Elizabeth professed not to understand what was intended—whether the Lords merely wished to entrust him to the care of his grandmother, Lady Margaret Lennox, or whether they had some other object in view. She did not hide her anxiety to get him into her own keeping; and suggestively added that if she could not be trusted with his protection, she thought intermeddling with the rest of the matters would prove more hurtful than profitable. The notion of placing the Crown on the child’s head in the event of his mother’s marriage with Bothwell, was one which Elizabeth altogether refused to entertain—‘it was a matter for example’s sake, not to be digested by her or any other monarch.’

With reference to the pursuit of the murderers of the King, the English Queen confined herself to the diplomatic remark that she saw great difficulties in the way of undertaking it if Bothwell were to marry Mary.