Buchanan's Detection.
About the 5th November she returned from Jedburgh to a village called Kelso, and there she received letters from the King. When she had read these in the presence of the Regent, the Earl of Huntly, and the Secretary, with a sad countenance, she said that unless by some means she were freed from the King her life would not be worth living; and that if it could be done in no other way, rather than live in such misery, she would take her life with her own hand.... When, about the end of November, she came to Craigmillar, a castle about two miles from Edinburgh, she commenced a similar conversation in the presence of the Earl of Moray (afterwards Regent, and now himself dead), the Earl of Argyle, and the Secretary. She mentioned what seemed to her a satisfactory plan. She projected a suit of divorce against the King, and doubted not but that it could easily be done, since they were in that degree of consanguinity which is forbidden by Canon Law for the contraction of matrimony, although they had been by letters easily exempted from that law. At this point some one raised an objection, that, if it were so managed, their son would be illegitimate, being born out of matrimony, and the more so that neither of the parents was ignorant of the causes that rendered the marriage null. She considered that reply for a little, and recognised its truth. Not daring to enter upon a scheme which would thus affect her son, she abandoned her project of a divorce, nor did she ever afterwards let slip any opportunity of getting rid of the King, as may be readily gathered from what remains to tell.
The Protestation of the Earls of Huntly and Argyll, 1568, Goodall's Examination, vol. ii. pp. 316-321, from Cott. Lib. Calig., vol. i. p. 282.
[The following "Protestation" was drawn up by Queen Mary's advisers during the Westminster Conference (infra, [pp. 143] et seq.), and was despatched to Huntly for his own and Argyll's signature. It was, however, seized and sent to Cecil, without its having reached its destination. It is placed here for the sake of comparison with Buchanan's account of the Conference. It may be noted here that in another document (Instructions and Articles to be advised on and agreed, so far as the Queen's Majesty, our Sovereign, shall think expedient, at the meeting of the Lords in England, committed in credit by ... her Grace's true faithful subjects—Goodall, vol. ii. p. 354), signed by Lords Huntly, Argyll, Crawford, Eglinton, Cassilis, Errol, Ogilvie, Fleming, and many others of Mary's supporters, the following sentence refers to this Conference:—"They caused make offers to our said Sovereign Lady, if her Grace would give remission to them that were banished at that time, to find causes of divorce, either for consanguinity, in respect they alleged the dispensation was not published, or else for adultery; or then {else} to get him convict of treason, because he consented to her Grace's retention in ward; or what other ways to despatch him; which altogether her Grace refused, as is manifestly known." The "Dispensation" is the Papal Dispensation for the Darnley marriage, Mary and Darnley being within the forbidden degrees.]
A CONFERENCE OF THE EARLS
In the year of God 1566 years, in the month of December, or thereby, after her Highness's great and extreme sickness, and return from Jedburgh, her Grace being in the castle of Craigmillar, accompanied by us above written {i.e. Huntly and Argyll}, and by the Earls of Bothwell, Murray, and Secretary Lethington; the said Earl of Murray and Lethington came into the chamber of us the Earl of Argyll in the morning, we being in our bed; who, lamenting the banishment of the Earl of Morton, Lords Lindsay and Ruthven, with the rest of their faction, said, that the occasion of the murder of David, slain by them in presence of the Queen's Majesty, was to trouble and impesche {prevent} the parliament; wherein the Earl of Murray and others were to have been forfeited and declared rebels. And seeing that the same was chiefly for the welfare of the Earl of Murray, it should be esteemed ingratitude if he and his friends in reciprocal manner, did not strive all that in them lay for relief of the said banished ones; wherefor they thought that we, of our part, should have been as desirous thereto as they were.
And we agreeing to the same, to do all that was in us for their relief, providing that the Queen's Majesty should not be offended thereat; on this Lethington proposed and said, "That the nearest and best way to obtain the said Earl of Morton's pardon, was, to promise to the Queen's Majesty to find a means to make divorcement between her Grace and the King her husband, who had offended her Highness so highly in many ways."
And then they send to my Lord of Huntly, praying him to come to our chamber.... And thereon we four, viz., Earls of Huntly, Argyll, Murray, and Secretary Lethington, passed all to the Earl of Bothwell's chamber, to understand his advice on the proposals; wherein he gainsaid no more than we.
THEIR PROPOSITION MADE TO THE QUEEN
So thereafter we passed altogether to the Queen's Grace; where Lethington, after he had remembered her Majesty of a great number of grievous and intolerable offences, that the King, as he said, ungrateful for the honour he had received from her Highness, had done to her Grace, and continued every day from bad to worse; proposed, "That if it pleased her Majesty to pardon the Earl of Morton, Lords Ruthven and Lindsay, with their company, they should find the means with the rest of the nobility, to make divorcement between her Highness and the King her husband, which should not need her Grace to meddle therewith. To the which, it was necessary that her Majesty take heed to come to a decision therein, as well for her own relief as for the good of the realm; for he troubled her Grace and us all; and remaining with her Majesty, would not cease till he did her some other evil turn."