6. Reformation Statutes.—Soon after the conclusion of this treaty, the Regent died. The Estates then approved the Geneva Confession of Faith, abjured the authority of the Pope, and forbade the saying of the mass, or even assisting at the mass, on pain of forfeiture for the first offence, banishment for the second, death for the third; 25th August, 1560. Thus the old ecclesiastical system, with all its rites and ceremonies, was suddenly overthrown. But this was only in name; in reality it only died out bit by bit.
7. Return of the Queen.—Just a year after this, the Queen came home, August 1561. She was now a widow, so the Scots were freed from the fear they had felt of seeing their country sink into a province of France. The people, who had an almost superstitious reverence for kingship, which was very inconsistent with their contempt for kingly authority, welcomed her with open arms, and showed their good will by a greater display of discordant and grotesque rejoicing than the austere teachers of the new doctrines could approve. As yet they only saw in her the representative of that long line of Celtic kings whom they chose to look on as their own. She was the "child," for whom they had struggled so long, and had suffered so much from the English. They had yet to find out that she had come back to them French in all but birth, gifted with wit, intellect, and beauty, but subtle beyond their power of searching, and quite as zealous for the old form of religion as they were for the new one. The Queen, too, who came thus as a stranger among her own people, had to deal with a state of things unknown in former reigns. Hitherto the Church had taken the side of the Crown against the nobles; now both were united against the Crown, whose only hope lay in the quarrels between these ill-matched allies.
8. Division of the Church Lands.—The chief cause of discord between them was the property of the Church. The Reformed ministers fancied that they had succeeded, not only to the Pope's right of dictation in all matters, public and private, but to the lands of the Church as well. To neither of these claims would the Lords agree. They were as little inclined to submit to the tyranny of presbyters as to the tyranny of the Pope. They withstood the ministers who wished to forbid the Queen and her attendants hearing mass in her private chapel, and they refused to accept as law the First Book of Discipline, a code of rules drawn up by the ministers for the guidance of the new Church. As to the land, much of it had already passed into the hands of laymen, who, with the lands, generally bore the title of the Church dignitary who had formerly held them. The Privy Council took one-third of what remained to pay the stipends of the ministers, while the rest was supposed to remain in the hands of the Churchmen in possession, and, as they died out, it was to fall in to the Crown.
9. Fall of Huntly.—Lord James Stewart, Prior of St. Andrews, whom the Queen created Earl of Murray, was the hope of the Protestants, but in the north the Romanists were still numerous and strong. Their head was the Earl of Huntly, chief of the Gordons, who reigned supreme over most of the north, and whose word was law where decrees of parliament would have been set at nought. As his great power was looked on as dangerous to the state, his downfall was resolved on. Murray and the Queen set out for the north to visit him, as was said, but with so large a force that he thought it expedient to keep out of their way. His Castle of Inverness was besieged and taken and the governor hanged, and his followers were defeated and he himself slain at Corrichie, near Aberdeen, in 1562. His body was brought to Edinburgh, as was the custom in cases of treason, that the sentence of forfeiture might be passed on it. His son was beheaded at Aberdeen; and thus the power of the Gordons was broken. Thus Mary during the first part of her reign showed no favour to the Romanists, but still she did not confirm the Reformation Statutes.
10. Second Marriage of the Queen.—The most interesting question now for all parties was, whom the Queen would marry. Many foreign princes were talked of, and Elizabeth suggested her own favourite, the Earl of Leicester, but Mary settled the matter herself by falling in love with her own cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. He was son of Lennox and Margaret Douglas, and was therefore the grandson of Margaret Tudor, and was received as first prince of the blood at the English court. Mary called a special council and announced to them her intended marriage. She then raised Darnley to the Earldom of Ross, and afterwards created him Duke of Albany. They were married with the rites of the Romish Church, July 29, 1565. Murray had refused his consent to the marriage. He and some others of the lay Lords now took up arms. They got into the town of Edinburgh, but were fired at from the Castle, and, as they were disappointed in their hopes of recruits, they retreated to Dumfries. There they issued a declaration that their religion was in danger, and that the Queen had acted unconstitutionally in proclaiming Darnley King of Scots without the consent of the Estates. The feudal force was summoned, and the King and Queen led it against them. On this the Lords retreated into England and disarmed their followers.
11. Murder of Rizzio.—Mary soon began to tire of her worthless husband. She had all the weakness of her family for making favourites, and no wisdom in the choice of them. At this time she had taken a fancy to an Italian, David Rizzio, who acted as her secretary, and who had great skill in music to recommend him. The nobles grew jealous of this foreigner and determined to get rid of him; but, to save themselves from any ill-consequences of the murder which they had planned, they persuaded Darnley to sign a bond promising to stand by them in anything they might do. At the same time he signed another bond for the recall of Murray and the other banished lords. The Queen summoned a parliament, which she expected would pronounce sentence of forfeiture on those banished lords. In order to secure compliance with her wishes, she interfered with the choosing of the Lords of the Articles, into whose hands all the real business of the parliament was thrown. One evening, as she was sitting at supper in the palace at Holyrood, the conspirators, who had secured the gates, burst into the room, headed by the Lord Ruthven. They seized on Rizzio, who clutched at the Queen for help; they dragged him into the outer room; killed him, and then threw the body downstairs, March 9, 1566. His fate was not made known to the Queen till next day. James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who already stood high in the Queen's favour, and the Earl of Huntly, who had been restored to the titles and estates which his father had forfeited, were in the palace when it was thus taken possession of, but they contrived to escape.
12. Flight to Dunbar.—The Queen showed no signs of anger at first. She pretended to be reconciled to Darnley, and promised pardon to the banished lords. When they appeared before her the next day, she received Murray affectionately. But the confederates soon found that they had been mistaken in their hopes of Darnley, for in the night following he fled with the Queen to Dunbar. Bothwell brought up a force for her protection, and before the end of the month she re-entered Edinburgh. Rizzio's body was taken up and buried among the kings in the palace chapel, and James Douglas, Earl of Morton, Ruthven, and others were cited to answer for the murder of Rizzio, and, as they did not appear, they were outlawed.
13. Murder of Darnley.—A new favourite soon took the place of Rizzio in the Queen's favour. This was Bothwell, who had lately done such good service in coming to her aid at Dunbar. The abbey-lands of Melrose and Haddington were given to him. He was made Lord High Admiral, and Warden of the Borders, and it was noticed that it was he and not Darnley who played the principal part at the baptism of her son, the Prince of Scotland. Darnley was hated by everyone; by his wife, because he had connived at the murder of her favourite, and by his accomplices for his treachery in deserting them. Shortly after this he fell ill of the small-pox, and was taken to Glasgow, to be tended by his father, Lennox. There, when he was getting better, the Queen paid him a visit, and proposed that he should be taken to Craigmillar Castle, in order to hasten his recovery; but this plan was afterwards changed, and he went instead to a house called the Kirk-o'-Field, close to Edinburgh. This house was blown up on the night of February 9, 1567, while the Queen was present at a ball at Holyrood, and the bodies of Darnley and of his page were found in a field hard by, as though they had been killed while trying to make their escape. It was commonly believed that Bothwell was guilty of the murder, and it was suspected that he had done it to please the Queen and with her consent. This suspicion was strengthened by her conduct. She made no effort to find out the murderer and to bring him to punishment, and on the day of the funeral she gave Bothwell the feudal superiority over the town of Leith. Lennox now came forward and demanded that Bothwell and the other persons suspected of the murder should be tried by the Estates. This was granted, and a day was fixed for the trial. But as Lennox was forbidden to bring any but his own household when he appeared as the accuser of the murderer, while Bothwell had a great following, he thought it more prudent not to appear. As no one came forward to bring evidence against Bothwell, he was acquitted, and he offered to give wager of battle to anyone who should still accuse him.
14. Third Marriage of the Queen.—Bothwell was now determined on marrying the Queen, and, after the parliament rose, he got many of the nobles to sign a bond agreeing to help him to do so. As he was already married to Huntly's sister, his wife had to be got rid of first. This was not now such an easy matter as it had been in former times. The canon law had been done away with along with the old Church; the Reformers had set up a court of their own to try such cases, while the Queen had lately restored the old one. To make the matter sure Bothwell's marriage was dissolved in both these courts. As the Queen was coming back from Stirling, where she had been to visit her child, Bothwell met her and carried her off to Dunbar, and on the day the divorce was sent they came back to Edinburgh together. He was created Duke of Orkney and Shetland, and they were married by Adam Bothwell, who had been Bishop of Orkney, but was now one of the ministers of the new Church, May 15, 1567.
15. Surrender at Carberry.—A fortnight later Mary called out the feudal force for an attack on the Borderers, but the barons did not answer to her summons. On this the Queen and Bothwell, alarmed at the increasing signs of discontent, shut themselves up in his strong castle of Borthwick, but they were scarcely there before an army with the Lords Morton and Home at its head appeared at its gates, and they fled to Dunbar. The barons then entered Edinburgh; the governor of the Castle gave it up to them. They had the Prince in their hands, and they took measures for carrying on the government, though they still professed to act in the Queen's name, and to be only striving to free her from Bothwell. He meanwhile had mustered his followers, who, though nearly equal in numbers, were in discipline far inferior to their opponents. The two armies came in sight near Musselburgh, but there was no battle, for the Queen surrendered to William Kirkcaldy of Grange, who had been sent out with a body of horse to cut off her retreat to Dunbar, at Carberry, June 15, 1567, on condition that Bothwell should be allowed to return to Dunbar unhurt. Bothwell escaped first to his own dukedom of Orkney, and afterwards to Denmark, where he died about ten years later.