/r ^^^^ 
 
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 
 
 AND HER 
 
 MARRIAGE WITH BOTHWELL. 
 
 SEVEN LETTERS TO "THE TABLET," 
 
 REVISED, WITH A PREFACE 6- NOTES, 
 
 AND A SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE HON. COLIN LINDSAY. 
 
 Magna est Veritas et praevalebit. 
 
 LONDON : 
 BURNS & GATES. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 WILLIAM PATERSON. 
 
>n r? 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The Rev. Father Stevenson has sent me, I am most happy 
 to say, the following most ample retractation of the allega- 
 tions made in the Preface to his late work. The History of 
 Mary Stewart^ by Claude Nau, and which has been published 
 in The Month for November, 1883, p. 448 : — 
 
 **MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND HER MARRIAGE 
 WITH BOTHWELL. 
 
 In my Preface to The History of Mary Stewart^ by 
 " Claude Nau, occur two passages which I regret that I 
 " have written, and which I now desire to retract. I have 
 " there said that * Mary seems to have thought that the 
 " necessities of her condition compelled her to accept the 
 " terms offered by her council, while she knew that any 
 " so-called marriage with Bothwell would be illegal, invalid, 
 
 and immoral' (p. civ.), and in a note I added, 'I am 
 " unable to explain, still less to vindicate, all the circum- 
 " stances connected with Mary's union with Bothwell, whom 
 
 she knew to be a married man when she took him for her 
 " husband.' 
 
 " This assertion of mine has been examined, with grea^ 
 " learning and acuteness, by the Hon. Colin Lindsay, in 
 
 seven letters addressed to the Tablet^ and which have just 
 
 appeared in a separate pamphlet. I admit, willingly and 
 " gladly, that Mr. Lindsay has in these letters adduced facts 
 
 and arguments which compel me to retract the statement 
 
iv. 
 
 " which I had previously made. This public recognition of 
 my error is due to Mr. Lindsay, together with my thanks 
 " for the courtesy everywhere conspicuous in his letters. 
 
 Joseph Stevenson.'* 
 
 I am sure that all Catholics in Europe and in the Far 
 West, but especially those in Scotland, as well as every good 
 woman in Christendom, will from their hearts rejoice that 
 one of the most formidable opponents of Queen Mary, after 
 a long and careful reconsideration of her whole case, has 
 now admitted to the full the groundlessness of all the 
 charges that have been alleged against her moral character, 
 and especially in regard to her relationship with the infamous 
 Bothwell. I say formidable^ (i) because Father Stevenson 
 had been employed by the British Government to seek out 
 and copy such documents as he might find in the secret 
 archives of the Vatican, referring primarily to the period of 
 King Henry VIII. ; (2) because, during his investigations at 
 Rome, he discovered " several documents of great value " 
 concerning Queen Mary, of which he has given translations, 
 now published for the first time in his late valuable work ; 
 and (3) because he has on his own account brought to light 
 from among the Cottonian MSS. various papers of transcen- 
 dant interest, chief among w^hich is the manuscript of 
 Claude Nau, which he after great labour (for hitherto it 
 had been regarded as utterly unintelligible) deciphered, and 
 rendered into our language. I mention these facts to show 
 that Father Stevenson is an antiquarian of profound erudi- 
 tion, and on this account a most formidable foe to any cause 
 against which he might have cogent reasons for opposition. 
 
 Father Stevenson is, too, a just and charitable man, — a 
 
V. 
 
 Catholic, a Priest, and a Scotchman, — who would most 
 unwillingly assert any evil against the Queen, except from 
 the most conscientious motives, and from an overwhelming 
 conviction of the credibility of the evidence he believed he 
 had found in the records and traditions connected with 
 Scotland, and which he regarded as conclusive in their testi- 
 mony against her Majesty. I feel certain that when he 
 wrote the words he has now retracted, he did so with great 
 pain and with evident reluctance. Indeed, under the belief 
 of the Queen's misconduct, he endeavoured to show that 
 there were extenuating circumstances, which, though they 
 could not exempt her from the verdict of guilty," nor even 
 from that of non-proven," yet would excite in the breasts of 
 an indulgent public a unanimous commiseration for her, on 
 the ground that her supposed crime was the result of the 
 terrible outrage said to have been inflicted upon her (but 
 which has never been conclusively proved to have been the 
 case) by Bothwell while at Dunbar Castle. 
 
 But now Father Stevenson has seen his way to retract, to 
 the full, every word he has written against the moral cha- 
 racter of the Queen. He says, in regard to the passages he 
 quotes from his Preface to The History of Mary Stewart^ by 
 Claude Nau, that he " regrets that he had written" them ; 
 and that he admits, willingly and gladly," that in the 
 Letters lately published in The Tablet on this subject, there 
 have been " adduced facts and arguments which compel (the 
 italics are mine) him to retract the statement which he had 
 previously made." This retractation, then, thank God, is 
 thorough and complete, and Queen Mary is now proved by 
 the strongest evidence, and by testimony which none of 
 her bitterest enemies can gainsay, to have been through 
 
VI. 
 
 her whole life a good and virtuous woman, whose purity of 
 conduct had never been blemished by any act and deed of 
 her own. 
 
 Queen Mary has had in late years many friends who strove 
 to vindicate her character ; the most conspicuous of them are, 
 in France, M. Petit, whose valuable work has been translated 
 into English by M. de Flandre ; in Scotland, Miss Strickland, 
 whose " charming life of our Queen has won the hearts of 
 many to her cause ; then followed the volumes of Mr. 
 Hosack, who, as an acute lawyer, scattered to the winds all 
 the foul charges, without exception, against her Majest} ; 
 and about the same time, in America, there appeared an 
 excellent treatise by Col. Maline (very lately brought into 
 this country), who has criticised with admirable success the 
 allegations of Mr. Froude, proving at the same time the 
 innocence of the Queen. These four great writers had, up 
 to their time, carried and destroyed every stronghold of the 
 enemy against the illustrious victim of the " Reformation " 
 era. 
 
 But after these valuable works had been published, it fell 
 to the lot of Dr. Stuart, of the General Register House in 
 Edinburgh, and Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of 
 Scotland, to discover the long-lost Dispensation, which had 
 been granted by the Primate of Scotland and Legate of the 
 Holy See, in favour of the marriage between Bothwell and 
 his first wife. Lady Jean Gordon. It had been supposed 
 that no such dispensation had ever been granted, and upon 
 this ground it was believed that this marriage had been 
 nullified, the parties being within the prohibited degrees of 
 consanguinity. Queen Mary's relationship with Bothwell 
 was by this discovery completely changed; for if the Dis- 
 
vii. 
 
 pensation was a genuine one, and had been acted upon, it 
 followed that Both well and Jean Gordon having been both 
 legally and validly married (in which case their marriage 
 was indissoluble), her marriage with this man was ab initio 
 null and void. The whole aspect of the case was entirely 
 altered, and all the charges against the morality of the 
 Queen were re-opened. 
 
 Dr. Stuart, who had been aforetime, as I had been 
 informed, an ardent admirer of this Queen, arrived at 
 the reluctant conclusion that she had married Bothwell, 
 knowing at the time that he was validly married to his first 
 wife, then still living. For she herself had promoted this 
 alliance \ she had presided over the festivities, and could 
 not have been ignorant, as was alleged, that a Dispensation 
 had been asked for and obtained. Such, apparently, was 
 the position of the Queen on this discovery. Mr. Hosack, 
 though evidently puzzled, did not desert her cause. He 
 stood nobly at the breech, and raised the question — fatal, I 
 think, to her enemies — that the Dispensation, if it had been 
 really obtained, had effectually been concealed from the 
 Queen, and from the Tribunal of the Primate and Legate, 
 who declared that no Dispensation had been obtained before 
 the marriage of Bothwell and Jean Gordon took place. 
 The Queen's character was saved, notwithstanding her mar- 
 riage with Bothwell was rendered illegal and invalid. 
 
 But the question remained to be considered, viz., had the 
 Dispensation any operative effect ? After a careful examina- 
 tion of this Dispensation and of all the circumstances sur- 
 rounding it, it was found (i) that its terms had not been 
 compHedwith; (2) that it had been surreptitiously obtained ; 
 and (3) that it had never been acted upon, and consequently 
 
viii. 
 
 that it had no effect in making Both well and Jean Gordon's 
 marriage good in canon and statute law. The Dispensation, 
 by the conduct of the parties concerned, became of no more 
 value than the parchment upon which it was engrossed. 
 
 Queen Mary, then, has triumphed all along the line, and 
 there remains not a single point in her moral character open 
 to attack. Our thanks are due to Almighty God, who has 
 befriended our Queen, and rescued her reputation from the 
 malice of her ancient foes ; and our gratitude is also due to 
 Father Stevenson, for his magnificent retractation and repara- 
 tion, for by this noble act he has done more than all others 
 ])ut together, who have written in her defence, to establish 
 the full integrity of Queen Mary's honour and virtue in the 
 estimation of Scotland, England, and the World. 
 
 Brighton, 
 
 All Saints' Day, 1883. 
 
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, 
 
 AND HER 
 
 MARRIAGE WITH BOTHWELL. 
 LETTER I. 
 
 There are two passages in the Rev. Father Stevenson's 
 recent work, entitled, The History of Mary Stewart^ by 
 Claude Nau, upon which I desire to make a few observa- 
 tions. He says, in his Historical Preface/' " Mary seems 
 to have thought that the necessities of her condition com- 
 pelled her to accept the terms offered by her council, while 
 she knew that any so-called marriage with Both well would 
 be illegal, invalid, and immoral " \ and in a note he adds, 
 " I am unable to explain, still less to vindicate, all the cir- 
 cumstances connected with Mary's union with Bothwell, 
 whom, she knew to be a married man when she took 
 him for her husband." * I most respectfully, and with all 
 deference, join issue with the Rev. Father in his assertion, 
 that Mary knew^^ that her proposed marriage with Both- 
 well would be " illegal, invalid, and immoral," or that she 
 " k?iew " that he was, at the time of her marriage with him, 
 a married man," his lawful wife being still alive. As a 
 Scotchman, to say nothing of my being a Catholic, I could 
 not help feeling deeply wounded on perusing these passages, 
 for if the statements therein are true, Mary would be con- 
 victed as an abandoned woman, an adulteress, and, more- 
 
 * P. civ. 
 
2 
 
 over, a bigamist, or at least an accessory to that crime ] and 
 all hope of vindicating her honour and purity of life would 
 be utterly futile. No doubt she believed that, before the 
 x marriage of Both well and Lady Jean Gordon took place, the 
 laws and customs of the Catholic Church had been complied 
 with, otherwise she would not have been present at the 
 ceremony. The following incident shows that this was 
 evidently the case : — After the death of her husband, the 
 Lords of the Council three times proposed to the Queen 
 that she should marry Bothwell, on the ground that he was 
 the fittest man to govern Scotland. Twice she refused 
 because she believed that he was a married man, and that 
 was a conclusive reason against her accepting their pro- 
 posals.* 
 
 2. What then induced the Queen to conclude that she 
 had made a mistake, and that in point of fact this marriage 
 was found to be invalid ? It was the assertion of the Lords 
 of the Council on the third occasion when they repeated 
 their proposals, that the former marriage of Bothwell and 
 Jean Gordon "had ceased to be an impediment, for he 
 [Bothwell] was either already divorced, or sentence was on 
 the eve of being pronounced." t The Queen, on hearing 
 this, and being pressed by her Council, for the first time 
 entertained their proposal, — being led to suppose that no 
 dispensation had actually been granted to legalise the mar- 
 riage of Bothwell and Jean Gordon, who were within the 
 prohibited degrees of consanguinity, and that consequently 
 it was null and void. The following considerations will 
 cumulatively prove that the Queen could come to no other 
 conclusion than that this was the case. 
 
 * See Hist, Pre/., pp. cliii.-clv. + lb. civ. 
 
3 
 
 First, as I have observed, the Lords of the Council in- 
 formed the Queen that sentence of divorce had been, or was 
 about to be, pronounced ] and when they said this they 
 meant not only by the Protestant Consistorial Court, but 
 also by the Catholic tribunal of the Primate of Scotland.* 
 Secondly, the Primate of Scotland, acting as the Legate of the 
 Pope, did, as a matter of fact, annul the marriage of Bothwell 
 and Jean Gordon on the ground of consanguinity, which he 
 could not possibly have done if a dispensation had been 
 previously obtained.! Thirdly, it is a fact that the Primate 
 subsequently promoted, or at least encouraged, the proposed 
 marriage of the Queen with Bothwell, and sanctioned it by 
 his presence at the ceremony. J Fourthly, some of the 
 leading nobles, inclusive of eight Catholic Bishops, recom- 
 mended her Majesty to accept Bothwell as "the fittest 
 husband" she could obtain among her subjects, among 
 whom were her staunch friends Lords Boyd, Herries, and 
 Seton. § Fifthly, no less than three Catholic Bishops were 
 present at the marriage, viz., the Primate, who was the 
 Legate, and the Bishops of Dunblane and Ross. And 
 lastly, among the laity were the Earl of Crawford, Lords 
 Oliphant, Fleming, and Boyd, warm adherents of the Queen, 
 some of whom subsequently represented her at York and 
 Westminster. || These nobles were loyal and honourable 
 men, and would certainly have been no party in assisting at 
 a ceremony that would have the effect of making their 
 beloved Sovereign, not the wife, but the mistress, of 
 Bothwell. These facts prove that Mary was justified in 
 
 * Hosack's Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers^ vol. i., p. 176, 
 2nd Edit. 
 
 t lb., p. 322. % lb., pp. 321, 328. § lb., p. 302. Fr. Stevenson's 
 Hist. Pref., p. cliv., note. |1 Hosack. lb., p. 328. 
 
4 
 
 believing that no dispensation had been granted in favour of 
 Both well and Jean Gordon, and that consequently their 
 marriage was null and void. And again, that in accepting 
 Bothwell she was breaking no law of the Church : and, 
 further, that her own marriage with Bothwell, however dis- 
 tasteful to her, was legal and valid. She had the sanction of 
 the Church on her side, as represented by the Primate and 
 Legate, and the seven other Prelates referred to above, 
 which was a sufficient guarantee to her of Bothwell's freedom 
 from all matrimonial engagements. For how was it possible 
 for her to conceive the idea that these Bishops would pros- 
 titute their offices and conspire with her enemies in aiding 
 her to commit so flagrant a crime as to marry a man who 
 was lawfully married to another woman still Hving ? 
 
 3. That there was a dispensation, or a document pur- 
 porting to be one, seems to have been the case, for Dr. 
 Stuart, of the Register House, Edinburgh, discovered it a 
 few years ago in Dunrobin Castle, the seat of the then Earl 
 of Sutherland.''' How was it then that it was not produced 
 in the Court of the Primate of Scotland when application 
 was made for the nullification of Bothwell and Jean Gordon's 
 first marriage ? This, I think, may be accounted for. First, 
 it was the object of the lay Lords of the Council to oblige 
 the Queen to marry Bothwell, not for the reason they gave, 
 but to ruin her character in the estimation of her people. 
 Many of the Lords, with Murray at their head, had con- 
 spired and effected the murder of Darnley, and they in- 
 tended to transfer the guilt from themselves to the Queen, 
 whom they falsely accused of this diabolical crime. If 
 they ever knew of this dispensation they concealed the 
 
 * lb., vol. ii., p. V. 
 
s 
 
 knowledge of it from the Queen. Secondly, Jean Gordon 
 desired to get rid of a most profligate husband, and so she 
 had an interest in concealing it ; and she, after her marriage 
 was nullified, wedded the Earl of Sutherland,* and the 
 Dispensation for her former marriage was buried in the 
 archives of the family in Dunrobin Castle. Thirdly, Bothwell 
 was ambitious to be the King of Scotland by marrying 
 the widowed Queen, so that he had the greatest interest 
 of all in agreeing to its concealment. There was a general 
 conspiracy to prevent the Queen from knowing anything 
 about the existence of this Dispensation, otherwise the 
 Lords of the Council and Bothwell would never have 
 effected their infamous purposes. 
 
 Assuming that this Dispensation is not a forgery, how was 
 it that the Primate of Scotland, who was also the Legate of the 
 Pope, and the Bishops of Ross and Dunblane, and others, 
 were deceived ? This is a question difficult to answer, for 
 the Primate had himself, as Legate, so it has been said, 
 granted the Dispensation, and, considering the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the case, he could not have forgotten it. And 
 then it is hardly possible to conceive that the two other 
 named prelates, who were friends of the Queen, and good 
 Catholics, would not have satisfied themselves beforehand 
 that there existed no canonical and legal impediment against 
 her espousing Bothwell. This throws great doubt with 
 regard to the genuineness of the Dispensation, for it cannot 
 be supposed that the Primate and Legate, and the other 
 Bishops would unite with others in so diabolical an act as to 
 
 * According to Dr. Stuart (whose work I had not as yet seen), Jean 
 Gordon did not marry the Earl of Sutherland till after the death of 
 Bothwell. (Dr. Stuart's Lost Chapter^ pp. 24, 52.) 
 
6 
 
 sanction by their presence a marriage which they knew to 
 be illegal, invalid and immoral, thus outraging the laws of 
 the Church, degrading the position of the Pope (for it is he 
 who really dispenses by means of those whom he appoints 
 as his Legates), and aiding and abetting a Catholic to 
 commit a flagrant breach of the moral law.* 
 
 * Some stress has been laid on the Bishops and Clergy of Scotland 
 being immoral and unscrupulous;'* and hence the inference that, 
 although the Primate knew that Bothwell and Jean Gordon had been 
 validly and legally married, yet for reasons of State he might have 
 encouraged the marriage of the Queen with Bothwell, and had been 
 present at its solemnization. Suppose this was the case, how could it 
 effect the position of the Queen? In order to make that objection good, 
 it must be proved that the Queen herself was aware of the ** unscru- 
 pulous" character of the Primate. Considering that she had been 
 deceived by nearly all her officers of State, that she knew not until some 
 time subsequently that her chief Minister of State was one of the mur- 
 derers of her husband, it is more than probable that she was ignorant of 
 the presumed fact that the Primate and others were unscrupulous men. 
 The Queen's position, then, was intelligible ; she was led to believe by 
 both the Ecclesiastical and Temporal authorities that Bothwell was free 
 to marry any one, and consequently in marrying him (if she did so), 
 she was ignorant of committing any act that would be construed as 
 
 invalid, illegal and immoral." And besides, however unscrupulous 
 ecclesiastics of high rank may be in secular affairs, I doubt (writing 
 under correction) whether any instance can be proved of their ever 
 having compromised their sacerdotal offices. I am well aware that great 
 laxity prevailed, else the Reformation would have been impossible ; but 
 in justice to Archbishop Hamilton, I quote the following passage from 
 Mackensie, who says in his Lives of Scotch Writers," that "he was 
 a man of great moderation, and much against violent measures. His 
 Catechism is written with such learning, moderation, and judgment, 
 that it will be always esteemed by the learned of his own communion. 
 It is evident that the prelate was a wise, learned, and devout churchman ; 
 a loyal, active, and faithful subject ; and the death which he suffered is 
 
7 
 
 Be this as it may, the Queen cannot be charged with any 
 guilty knowledge of marrying a man who was a married 
 man, his wife still living. It is evident that she was entirely 
 ignorant of the existence of the Dispensation, or of any im- 
 pediment to her marriage with Bothwell, and having the 
 sanction of no less than eight Catholic Bishops, together 
 with some of her most faithful lay subjects, she had every 
 assurance that, in contracting this marriage, she was innocent 
 of any illegal, invalid, and immoral act. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Since I wrote my last letter I have obtained a copy of 
 Dr. Stuart^s Lost Chapter in the History of Mary Queen of 
 Scots Recovered, in which he gives the text of the Dispensa- 
 tion for the marriage of the Earl of Bothwell and Lady Jean 
 Gordon, who were both related to each other within the 
 prohibited degrees. He found it by accident among the 
 archives of the Sutherland family in Dunrobin Castle, the 
 seat of the present Duke and of his ancestors the Earls of 
 Sutherland. The following are the documents, arranged 
 chronologically, which Dr. Stuart has given in his valuable 
 work, bearing on the subject of this letter. 
 
 an eternal reproach on the memory of those who had a hand in it." 
 (Quoted from Walsh's History of the Catholic Church in Scotland," 
 Glasgow, 1874, p. 381.) Such language as this is inconsistent with the 
 idea of his having been an unscrupulous and immoral man. It must 
 not be forgotten that the majority of Protestant writers in the sixteenth 
 century were utterly untrustworthy, and they were not scrupulous as 
 regards truth. Forgery and false accusations were recognised tools 
 freely used for defaming many of the best in the land. 
 
8 
 
 (i) The marriage contract said to have been dated 12th 
 February, 1565 (O.S.).* (2) The Dispensation signed by 
 the Archbishop of St. Andrews as Legate of the Holy See ; 
 dated xiij Kalends of March, that is 17th February, 1565 
 (O.S.).t (3) The solemnization of the marriage of Bothwell 
 and Jean Gordon in the Church of the Canongate, Edin- 
 burgh, 24th February, 1565-6. J (4) The suit against 
 Bothwell before the Consistorial Protestant Court of Scotland 
 for a divorce, 29th April, 1567. § (5) The sentence pro- 
 nounced by the said Court, 3rd May, 1567.!! (6) The 
 application of Bothwell to the Court of the Archbishop of 
 St. Andrews for the nullification of the marriage on the 
 ground of consanguinity, 27th April, 1567.^ (7) The 
 sentence or decree pronounced, 7th May, 1567.*"^ and (8) 
 The so-called marriage of the Queen with Bothwell, 15th 
 May, 1567.11 Such is the order of events connected with 
 the marriage of Bothwell and Jean Gordon. 
 
 The question I desire to raise is this, whether the Dis- 
 pensation was effective for the purpose for which it was 
 granted, viz., to enable the Earl of Bothwell and Jean 
 Gordon to marry, they being within the prohibited degrees? 
 
 After consultation with a high authority in the Catholic 
 Church, I understand that whenever a dispensation for the 
 marriage of persons within the prohibited degrees is granted, 
 compliance with its terms, requirements, or conditions, is 
 essential to give it operative effect. If a dispensation, with- 
 out specifying any conditions or requirements — that is, if it 
 
 * Dr. Stuart, Lost Chapter^ p. 94. + lb., p. 93. 
 
 X lb., p. 8, (according to Pittscottie 22nd February, lb., p. 7). 
 § lb., p. 90. II lb., p. 91. H lb. ♦* lb., p. 93. 
 tt- lb., p. 18. 
 
9 
 
 be an absolute dispensation, then if the parties (one being a 
 CathoHc and the other a Protestant) should contract marriage 
 outside the communion of the Catholic Church, it would be 
 valid, though illicit ; but, on the other hand, if the Dispensa- 
 tion required them to solemnise their marriage in the Face of 
 the Church, and then, instead of complying with this injunc- 
 tion, they married in a Protestant Church, the marriage 
 would be invalid. 
 
 This is what I understand to be the law of the Catholic 
 Church in the matter of dispensations, granted for removing 
 impediments against the marriage of persons within the pro- 
 hibited degrees. 
 
 The following is the text* of the Dispensation granted to 
 
 * I am indebted to a friend for the following translation of the Dis- 
 pensation : 
 
 John, by Divine clemency Archbishop of St. Andrew's, Primate 
 of the whole Kingdom of Scotland, Legate Natus, and Abbot of the 
 Monastery of Paisley, in the Diocese of Glasgow, and Legate of the 
 Apostolic See, with the Authority of Legate a Latere, to our beloved 
 in Christ, the noble and puissant Lord James, Earl of Bothwell, 
 Lord of Creichtoun, Halis and Liddlesdale, High Admiral of the 
 aforesaid Kingdom of Scotland, in our Diocese, and Jane Gordon, 
 Sister Germane of the noble and puissant Lord George, Earl of 
 Huntly and Lord of Gordon, a Lady in the Diocese of Moray — 
 health in the Lord. 
 
 The providence of the Apostolic See sometimes tempers with mercy 
 the rigor of the law, and in its kindness, indulgently allows what the 
 ordinances of the sacred Canons prohibit, and judges it to be expedient 
 in the Lord, having thoroughly considered the nature of the times and 
 persons. Inasmuch as the exposition or petition, lately presented to 
 us on your part, set forth that you, being moved thereto by certain 
 reasonable causes, desired mutually to be joined in matrimony, but that 
 you could not fulfil your desire, because you were related on both sides in 
 
 B 
 
vIO 
 
 the Earl of Bothwell and Lady Jean Gordon, by which you 
 will be able to perceive the point to which I desire to draw 
 your attention : — 
 
 " Joannes miseratione diuina Sancti Andree Archiepiscopus 
 totius regni Scotie Primas legatus natus monasteriique de 
 Pasleto Glasguensis diocesis abbas ac cum potestate Legati 
 a latere sancte sedis apostolice Legatus, Dilectis nostris in 
 Christo nobili et potenti domino Jacobo comiti de Bothuill 
 domino Crechtoun, Halis et Liddisdaill magnoque admirallo 
 regni predicti Scotie, nostre diocesis, et Jonete Gordone, 
 sorori germane nobilis et potentis domini Georgii comitis de 
 Huntlie domini Gordone, mulieri Morauiensis diocesis, 
 salutem in Domino. Sedis apostolice prouidentia nonnun- 
 quam juris rigorem mansuetudine temperat, et quod sacrorum 
 canonum prohibent instituta de gratia benignitatis indulget, 
 prout personarum et temporum qualitate pensata, id in 
 
 the fourth degree of consanguinity, and had not obtained a dispensation. 
 Wherefore, you have humbly petitioned us, by reason of our faculty and 
 office of Apostolic Legate, graciously committed to us, mercifully to 
 grant the opportune favour of a dispensation. We, therefore, being 
 favourably inclined to your supplications in this matter, notwithstanding 
 the obstacle of your double relationship in the fourth degree as aforesaid, 
 by virtue of the Apostolic Authority committed to us, and on which we 
 act in this matter, grant you a dispensation in the Lord by these 
 presents, freely to marry and to solemnise your marriage, in the face of 
 the Church, that you may be able, lawfully and validly, to remain in it 
 afterwards ; and we decree by these presents, that the child or children 
 born of the marriage shall be legitimate. 
 
 Given under our seal, at our Monastery of Paisley, in the year of the 
 Incarnation of our Lord, 1565 [O.S.], the XIII. of the Kalends of March, 
 in the 7th year of our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius IV. 
 
 John Sanctiandrae, Legatus. 
 
 S. A. Forrest, Datary, &c. 
 
II 
 
 Domino expediri agnoscit. Exhibita siquidem nobis nuper 
 pro parte vestra expositio seu petitio continebat quod vos, 
 certis de causis rationabilibus animos vestros mouentibus, 
 desideratis inuicem matrimonialiter copulari, sed quia in 
 duplici quarto consanguinitatis gradibus inuicem estis 
 attingentes, desiderium vestrum in hac parte adimplere non 
 potestis, dispensatione apostolica desuper non obtenta. 
 Quare supplicari fecistis aobis humiliter, ratione nostre 
 facultatis et officii legatie apostolica nobis graciose commissi 
 de opportune dispensationis gratia vobis misericorditer 
 prouideri. Nos igitur vestris in hac parte supplicationibus 
 fauorabiliter inclinati vobiscum vt predicitur duplicis quarti 
 consanguinitatis gradibus huiusmodi non obstantibus matri- 
 monium libere contrahere, illudque in facie ecclesie solemni- 
 zare, et in eo postmodum licite remanere possitis et valeatis, 
 auctoritate apostolica nobis commissa et qua fungimur in 
 hac parte, tenore presentium misericorditer Mn domino 
 dispensamus, prolem seu proles exinde suscipiendum seu 
 suscipiendas legitimam seu legitimas fore decernentes per 
 presentes. Datum sub sigillo nostro apud monasterium 
 nostrum de Pasleto anno incarnationis Dominice millesimo 
 quingentesimo sexagesimo quinto xiij°- Kalendas Martii 
 pontificatus sanctissimi domini nostri Pape Pii quarti anno 
 septimo, etc. 
 
 " Joannes Sanctiandree, Legatus. 
 " S. A. Forrest, datarius. 
 " In dorso R'^- li°- 2^°- fol. 06."* 
 
 After the description of the parties, &c., the Dispensation 
 recites the fact that they (the Earl of Bothwell and Jean 
 
 * Dr. Stuart, pp. 93, 94. 
 
 B 2 
 
12 
 
 Gordon) are desirous of being mutually "joined in matrimony, 
 but that they cannot fulfil their desire because of their 
 relationship on both sides in the fourth degree of con- 
 sanguinity, not having obtained a dispensation." The Dis- 
 pensation then declares that the parties have humbly 
 petitioned the Archbishop of St. Andrews, as the Legate of 
 the Holy See, " for the opportune favour of a dispensation " 
 that they may be permitted to solemnise their marriage. 
 The Dispensation then proceeds to record the decree of the 
 Archbishop, as Legate, in these words : " We, therefore, 
 being favourably inclined to your supplication in this matter, 
 notwithstanding the obstacle of your double relationship in 
 the fourth degree as aforesaid, by virtue of the Apostolic 
 Authority committed unto us, and on which we act in this 
 matter, grant you a dispensation in the Lord by these 
 presents, freely to marry and to solemnise your marriage in 
 the Face of the Church ; " and then the Dispensation con- 
 cludes by declaring legitimate the children that may be born 
 of their marriage. 
 
 This, then, is not an absolute Dispensation, because it 
 contains one condition, submission to which, I submit, is 
 essential to the validity of the marriage, viz., that the 
 solemnization should take place " in the Face of the Church 
 and if it should turn out that Bothwell and Jean Gordon did 
 not contract their marriage " in the Face of the Church " — 
 that is, in a public Church according to the rites and cere- 
 monies of the Catholic Church, it is, as I am informed, null 
 and void. The questions then arise, Where was the marriage 
 solemnised, and by whom ? 
 
 It was the earnest desire of Queen Mary that Bothwell 
 and Jean Gordon should celebrate their marriage in the 
 
13 
 
 chapel at Holyrood Palace, " at the Mass ; " * but Bothwell 
 objected, and would on no consideration be married in 
 a Catholic Church, f Bothwell then being obstinate in 
 this matter, the marriage took place in the church in the 
 canongate at Edinburgh, as is thus stated in the "Kirk Session 
 Records of that parish," "Feb. 24, 1565-6, James Erll 
 Boduell — Jane Gordoune, sister to the Erie of Huntlie, 1, 2, 
 3. ma[rried] in one awen [Kirk]f," and the ceremony was 
 performed by Alexander Gordon, uncle of the bride, who was 
 styled "the Bishop of Galloway." § I suppose it had been 
 assumed by Dr. Stuart and others, that this man was a 
 Catholic Bishop, or if not consecrated, at least a Catholic 
 priest, and that the ceremonies used were those of the 
 Catholic Church. We have seen how Bothwell refused to be 
 married in Holyrood Palace Chapel " at the Mass," is it 
 likely that he who so hated the Church would go into some 
 other Catholic Church and be married by a Catholic Bishop 
 or priest? Certainly not. But this is a mistake, for this 
 so-called Bishop of Galloway was at the time he officiated a 
 Protestant, who had been appointed a minister by Knox, 
 and was at the time superintendent of that province or 
 district in Scotland, called Galloway. || Such are the facts 
 
 * lb., p. 8. 
 
 t Knox Hist. Ref., quoted in Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of 
 Scotland^ vol. iv., p. 259. 
 
 X Dr. Stuart, p. 8. § lb., pp. 20, 92. 
 
 II Alexander Gordon, commonly called Bishop of Galloway, was not a 
 Bishop in the episcopal sense of the term ; and he is not recognised as 
 ever having been a Catholic Bishop ; his name is not to be found in 
 the register as Bishop of Galloway. The last Catholic Bishop of 
 Galloway was Andrew Durie, who died September, 1558, and after 
 320 years vacancy was succeeded by Dr. M'Lachlan, May, 1878. The 
 
14 
 
 of the case, that Bothwell and Jean Gordon were not 
 married " in the Face of the Church," but in a conventicle, 
 by Protestant ceremonies, and by a Protestant minister. 
 If it be objected, that "the Face of the Church" meant 
 no more than that the parties were to be married in any 
 pubHc church, no matter to what denomination it belonged, 
 it cannot be sustained. The Holy See knows no other 
 Church but one, even the One Holy CathoHc, Apostolic, 
 and Roman Church ; and therefore, when it uses this term, 
 it means no other Church than that of which the Pope is 
 the Head and Centre.* It is clear then, I submit, that 
 
 following extracts show that he was a Protestant: — ** Alexander 
 Gordon, bishop of Galloway, was the only bishop in office at this 
 time [a.d. 1560], who had turned Protestant" (wSteph. Hist, of Church 
 in Scot., vol. i., p. loi). At the fourth General Assembly of the Kirk, 
 A.D. 1562, Alexander Gordon, ** who had turned Protestant, petitioned 
 o be permitted to retain his diocese, and to officiate in it as super- 
 intendent of the new order, which Knox had established." (Keith B. 
 III., c. II., p. 512. lb., p. 164.) " In A.D. 1563 Bishop Gordon was 
 at last appointed superintendent of Galloway, and to be inaugurated, that 
 is, ordained, by the superintendent of Glasgow and Master Knox, and in 
 the meantime the assembly licensed him to * admit ministers, exhorters, 
 and readers, and to do such other things as were before accustomed 
 in planting of kirks.'" (Keith B. III., c. III., p. 516-19. lb. 168.) 
 In A.D. 1574, Gordon was still superintendent of Galloway (lb., p. 248). 
 There is no doubt, then, that Alexander Gordon was a Protestant 
 minister at the time of Bothwell and Jean Gordon's marriage. 
 
 * An objection has been raised that the phrase in the Dispensation — 
 **in facie ecclesiae" — was not a condition imposed upon the parties. It 
 is maintained that it signifies no more than that they should solemnise 
 their marriage in a Public Church, not necessarily a Catholic Church. 
 The real question is, what did the Legate mean by the phrase *'in facie 
 ecclesiae?" Evidently as the Canon quoted below (p. 22) prescribed, 
 viz., that marriages were to be solemnised in a ** Public Church," before 
 
15 
 
 the terms of the Dispensation not having been complied 
 with, the marriage having been contracted, not " in the Face 
 of the Church," but outside, in a church not recognised by 
 the Holy See, and solemnised by one possessing no authority 
 to administer the Sacraments, it was ah initio null and void 
 — the Dispensation, in consequence of the violation by the 
 parties of an essential condition, having no operative effect 
 to make it valid. 
 
 I shall be reminded that the civil law of Scotland does 
 * not require persons to be married either in the Kirk or in 
 the Catholic Church ; it being sufficient to contract before 
 witnesses. This may be the case, and had the Dispensation 
 been absolute — that is, without the condition, in the Face 
 of the Church," Both well and Jean Gordon might have been 
 validly married ; but they were bound by the terms of the 
 Dispensation, and strict obedience to its requirements was 
 
 a priest, and in the presence of three or four of the faithful. That is to 
 say, **in facie ecclesiae," means a public church," in communion with 
 the Holy See and no other. The Legate, in the Dispensation, says : — 
 You, who are within the prohibited degrees, may marry, and you may 
 marry in the Face of the Church, in the accustomed manner, as I have 
 first explained. There are two clauses in the sentence — (i) the per- 
 mission, and (2) the denomination wherein the marriage may be 
 solemnised ; and these clauses cannot be so separated as to allow the 
 parties to accept the permission, and to reject the direction in regard to 
 the manner of solemnising their marriage ; this would not be in 
 accordance with the terms of the Dispensation. The expression then, 
 **in facie ecclesiae," is an essential condition imposed upon the parties, 
 the rejection of which is fatal to the validity of the marriage. Benedict 
 XIV. says, that matrimony contracted within the prohibited degrees, 
 for which a Dispensation has been conceded by the Bishop, is declared 
 to be null, unless the conditions prescribed in the concession of this 
 kind of faculty be observed. (Tom. II., Constitut. 19.) 
 
i6 
 
 necessary to give it effect. I conclude, then — subject to 
 correction if I am wrong — that Both well and Jean Gordon's 
 marriage was invalid, and that they stood to each other after 
 the ceremony precisely as they were before — i.e., unmarried. 
 
 A question now arises, why was not the marriage annulled 
 on the ground of non-compliance with the terms of the 
 Dispensation, rather than because of its not having been 
 obtained before the marriage ? The answer is, because it 
 was never submitted to the inspection of the Court of the 
 Legate ; but had it been laid before the Court, there can be 
 no doubt that the marriage would have been declared null 
 and void, because of the contemptuous use the parties had 
 made of the Dispensation, by obtaining from the Primate 
 and Apostolic Legate permission to marry, and then, regard- 
 less of its terms, they, with the assistance of a Presbyterian 
 minister, solemnised their marriage in a Protestant kirk. 
 The union, then, of Bothwell and Jean Gordon being null 
 and void. Queen Mary, as a matter of fact, cannot be 
 accused of espousing the former on the ground of his 
 being at the time a married man.^ 
 
 * Dr. Stuart's argument, implying the guilty knowledge of Queen 
 Mary, is based on the hypothesis that she was herself personally 
 cognisant of the existence of the Dispensation. He says that **the 
 process on which the Dispensation for Lady Jean Gordon's marriage 
 with Bothwell proceeded was to some extent of a public character " — 
 that ' ' the Queen took a special and personal interest tn the marriage 
 arrangements," hence he draws the conclusion "that the Queen's 
 knowledge of the Dispensation is no unreasonable supposition and he 
 notes the fact of the Queen being aware of the necessity of such 
 marriage dispensations," from her obtaining a dispensation to marry 
 her husband. Lord Darnley. (Dr. Stuart, pp. 25, 26.) Now it is to be 
 observed that it by no means follows that the Queen herself was 
 
17 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Before I proceed to the main point I have in view in 
 regard to the subject upon which I am treating in these 
 letters, I must request your consideration of another im- 
 portant matter, viz., the apparent contradiction between the 
 judgment or declaration of the Catholic tribunal of the 
 
 cognisant of the proceedings necessary for obtaining a dispensation. 
 These are matters of detail. Nor is it necessary that she should have 
 seen the Dispensation. The usual course, as I am informed, is this, 
 that when dispensations are granted, they are forwarded to the priest 
 who marries the parties concerned, and then deposited in the archives 
 of the diocese. The probability is that the Queen had no personal 
 knowledge of the existence of the Dispensation ; there is no proof that 
 she even ever saw the document ; but that she, trusting to the ecclesiastical 
 authority, believed that it had been obtained much in the same way 
 as the nearest relations believe that all necessary documents had been 
 obtained for the lawful marriage of those they are interested in, without 
 having such personal knowledge thereof, as would justify them to assert 
 the fact on oath. So also in regard to what Mr. Hosack says on this 
 point, as quoted by Dr. Stuart (lb., p. 25), viz. : — **It is infinitely more 
 probable that the Queen was kept in ignorance of the Dispensation 
 than that she should have consented to a marriage which she knew at 
 the time was not only absolutely void, but which could not by any 
 possibility be rendered valid." I agree with Mr. Hosack that it is far 
 more reasonable to suppose the Queen's ignorance of the Dispensation, 
 than that she would be capable of assenting to an invalid and illegal 
 marriage. But the truth is, that neither Dr. Stuart nor Mr. Hosack 
 had any suspicion that the Dispensation had no operative effect, in 
 consequence of the parties having disobeyed its direction to marry 
 ''in the Face of the Church." Had they understood that this act of 
 disobedience to the terms of the Dispensation was fatal to the validity 
 of the marriage, they would never have thought it necessary, the one 
 to accuse the Queen, and the other to excuse her, of guilty knowledge. 
 
i8 
 
 Primate and the fact of the existence of the Dispensation. 
 The following is the account of the proceedings that took 
 place before this tribunal : — 
 
 Upon the 27th April, 1567, the following were appointed 
 commissioners to cognose and determine " a cause on the 
 part of Bothwell for annulling his marriage with Jean 
 Gordon, on the ground that they were within the prohibited 
 degrees of consanguinity : " Ro^' Bishop of Dunkeld, William 
 Bishop of Dumblane, Mr. Andro Crauford, chanon in 
 Glasgow and parson of Egelshame, Mr. Alexander Creich- 
 toun, and Mr. George Cook, Chancellor of Dunkeld, and 
 Mr. Johne Manderstoune, chanon in Dunbar and prebendar 
 of Beltoune, or any one of them," the last named being the 
 " Judge Delegate under the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 
 allegit Primate and Legate." t 
 
 The commission was opened upon the 3rd of May, 1567, 
 Mr. Thomas Hepburne, parson of Auldhamstocks, and Mr. 
 Henry Kinrosse, were respectively the procurators of Both- 
 well and Jean Gordon; and from the number of persons 
 summoned as witnesses, it would appear that a careful in- 
 vestigation had been made into the matter in question ; and 
 after four days, on the 7th of May, the decree or declaration 
 was pronounced — viz., that the marriage was ^^null from 
 the beginning, in respect of their contingence in blood, 
 which hindered their lawful marriage without a dispensation 
 obtained of before." I Whether these are the ipsissima verba 
 of the judge is not certain, for, as far as is known, all the 
 original documents have been lost ; the document from 
 which I have quoted is described as an " Account of the 
 sentence of divorce between the Earl of Bothwell and Lady 
 * Dr. Stuart, p. 93. + lb., p. 90. % lb., pp. 91-93- 
 
19 
 
 Jean Gordon his wife. From a manuscript belonging to 
 Mr. David Falconar, Advocate, Fol. 455." It is given by 
 Dr.*'Stuart in his work, and it is also to be found in Robert- 
 son's History of Scotlandr The form of the sentence must 
 be taken as correct, until the original documents — if existing 
 — ^shall be discovered. 
 
 In my last letter I showed that the marriage was null, 
 because the parties did not obey the one condition it con- 
 tained ; but the court decided it was null because of " their 
 contingence in blood, which hindered their lawful marriage 
 without a dispensation obtained of before." It has been 
 supposed that there had been a collusion between Bothwell 
 and Jean Gordon, together with the Primate and others, for 
 concealing the existence of this Dispensation from the view 
 of the court, in order that the Judge Delegate might pro- 
 nounce a judgment nulHfying the marriage. This is not im- 
 possible, but this hypothesis is not necessary for reconciling 
 the apparent contradiction between the terms of the sentence 
 and the fact of the pre-existence of the Dispensation. 
 
 Let us examine this point. When an application is made 
 to the Holy See, or its Deputy, for a Dispensation in matri- 
 monial concerns, first a petition is presented, stating the 
 reasons for the prayer ; and if it be a case for relaxing the rigor 
 of the law relating to prohibited degrees of consanguinity or 
 affinity, a statement to that effect is made in the petition, 
 and humbly presented to the Holy See or its Deputy. If 
 the reasons are satisfactory, Letters of Dispensation are 
 accordingly granted ; upon the receipt of which, at or before 
 the time of marriage, they are presented to the proper local 
 ecclesiastical authority, and then the marriage may lawfully 
 
 * See his works ; Appendix No. xx., edit. Oxf., 1825. Dr. Stuart, 
 pp. 90-93. 
 
20 
 
 take place. Until these conditions are complied with, it 
 cannot be said that the Dispensation has been obtained in 
 the strict sense of the term ; for I apprehend it is not enough 
 to issue the Letters of Dispensation, but they must be acted 
 upon according to its terms ; and if there has been any 
 failure to do so, the Dispensation, in the view of the court, 
 would be non-existant* 
 
 Having stated the law in this matter, as I have been in- 
 formed, and as I understand it, I will proceed to apply it to 
 the point now to be discussed. 
 
 First, it is necessary that the Letters of Dispensation 
 should be presented to the Catholic priest whose duty it is 
 to marry the parties ; but inasmuch as Bothwell and Jean 
 Gordon Avere married outside the Church, there was no such 
 priest to whom they could have been presented. The Dis- 
 pensation, then, not having been presented according to the 
 requirements of the Church, was for all intents and purposes i 
 non-existant, and consequently the marriage was null. The 
 only recourse of the parties, if they still continued in the 
 same mind, was to apply for a new dispensation, and be 
 re-married according to the terms therein expressed. 
 Secondly, it is a law in the Church, that if a supplicant 
 prays the Holy See to grant a dispensation, and if he keeps 
 it or its deputy in ignorance of some important matter of 
 which it ought to be cognisant, such dispensation, if granted, 
 would have no effect. That Bothwell did conceal an im- 
 portant point from the Primate and Legate is so evident as 
 to be indisputable. According to the marriage contract, 
 dated 12th of February, 1565-6, Bothwell entered into an 
 
 * It would seem that non-publication of a dispensation would nullify 
 the marriage. (>S'^'<f Instructions to Queen's Commissioners, Miss Strick- 
 land, vol. vi., p. 396.) 
 
21 
 
 engagement with Jean Gordon to " solemnise the band of 
 matrimony with her in Face of Holy Church by words of 
 the present time, with solemnities required thereto as 
 effeirs."* From these words it is clear that Bothwell ex- 
 pressed his consent to comply with the engagement just 
 stated; and subsequently he joined with Jean Gordon in 
 applying for the usual dispensation in cases like theirs. But 
 Bothwell had no intention of carrying into effect his promise 
 of marrying " in the Face of the Church," nor of complying 
 with the terms of the Letters of Dispensation in this respect, 
 for he was a rigid Protestant of the most bigoted type. A 
 few days before his marriage he declined the Queen's re- 
 quest to take part in the ceremonies of the feast of Candle- 
 mas ; he refused, as we know, to be married at the Mass," 
 and was actually married in a Protestant church ; and sub- 
 sequently when, as a great officer of state, he attended the 
 Queen on the occasion of the baptism of her infant son, no 
 consideration would induce him to cross the threshold of the 
 Church. It cannot be doubted that he never informed the 
 Primate and Legate, when applying for a dispensation, of 
 his determination to marry in a Protestant church : this is 
 quite certain, because if he had made this communication, 
 which under the circumstances he was bound to do, the 
 Primate and Legate would not have granted it. Indeed, he 
 C02/M not because no Authority in the Catholic Church 
 could possibly grant a dispensation to enable parties to 
 marry outside the Church: such a proceeding would be 
 ultra vires. It is clear, then, that Bothwell deceived the 
 Primate and Legate in an essential point ; and consequently 
 the Dispensation became a dead lejter, of no greater value 
 than waste paper. 
 
 ♦ Dr. Stuart, p. 95. 
 
22 
 
 Thirdly, Dr. Stuart gives us a copy of a canon made at 
 Aberdeen before the Reformation, which he says is to be 
 found in the "Statut. Eccles. Scotic, vol. i., pp. xiii., clxxxix," 
 the effect of which is that marriages are to be contracted in 
 "a Public Church" "in the presence of a priest and three or 
 four of the faithful." Whether this canon is diocesan or 
 provincial does not matter, because, if Dr. Stuart is right, it 
 expresses the principles of the canon law and of the law of 
 Scotland before the Reformation; and he adds, "By the 
 canon [i.e., in its /ega/ aspect] just recited it was illegal for 
 persons within the fourth degree of affinity or consanguinity 
 to intermarry." * According to this canon, forming as it 
 did part of the civil law of Scotland, the marriage of Bothwell 
 and Jean Gordon, being within the prohibited degrees, and 
 the Dispensation, for reasons above stated, having no 
 operative effect, was ecclesiastically and legally null and void. 
 
 If it be alleged that the Catholic Church and the canon law 
 had in the time of Bothwell been abolished, this is a mistake. 
 True, a bill passed through the Scottish Legislature in 1560 
 to this effect, but the Queen, in spite of her Council, her 
 Ministers, and in spite of Elizabeth of England, resolutely 
 and persistently refused her royal assent, t The Catholic 
 
 ^ lb., pp. 65, 66. 
 
 t Tytler s **Hist. Scot.," vol. vii., p. 145^. 
 
 There is no doubt that the pre- Reformation canon law, with regard 
 to marriage, was, legally, in force in Scotland at this time. Dr. Stuart 
 says — **With respect to the point of Bothwell's previous marriage," the 
 Bishop of Dunblane was thus directed: *Item, in case it should be 
 objected to you by the King [of France], the Queen, or our uncle, or any 
 other friends, that our present marriage cannot be lawful, in respect 
 that Jie with whom we are presently joined was before coupled to a 
 wife, ye shall reply and answer according to the very truth, that albeit 
 
23 
 
 Church then, though practically overthrown by violence, was 
 still the legal establishment of the realm, and consequently, 
 whether the people wished it or not, the canon law, as it stood 
 before the Reformation, was still part of the Civil Code of 
 the Kingdom. 
 
 From these considerations I draw the conclusion that the 
 marriage of Bothwell and Jean Gordon was null and void, 
 not only because of the disobedience to the requirements of 
 the Dispensation, but also because (i) the Letters of Dis- 
 pensation had never been presented; (2) because the Dis- 
 pensation was surreptitiously obtained ; and (3) because in 
 the violation of the canon law, then in legal force in Scot- 
 land, they had not been married before a priest. The judg- 
 ment of the court was then technically correct, notwith- 
 standing the existence of the Letters of Dispensation, which 
 in point of fact was a dead letter, not having been executed 
 according to the law and customs of the Church, being des- 
 titute of any operative effect. It is impossible then to assert 
 that, in any sense of the term, Bothwell was a married man 
 when he compelled the Queen to pass through a ceremony 
 purporting to be a marriage. 
 
 he was before married, yet the marriage with him, the former contract 
 an^J band was, by the order of law expressed in the canons received 
 (ressavit) and practised in the realm, for lawful cause of consanguinity, 
 and others relevant dissolved.'" (Dr. Stuart, p. 30.) And again, in 
 the letter to Elizabeth, she is made to say, ** his former marriage was 
 dissolved, and the process of divorce orderly led for resolute causes of 
 consanguinity and others, before our marriage with him." (lb.) 
 
 I quote from these two letters, which the Queen wrote while under 
 the power of Bothwell, simply to shew that the old canon law was still 
 in force in Scotland, and formed part of the civil law of the realm. 
 
24 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 The question still remains, whether the terms of the 
 sentence of the Judge Advocate may not after all be 
 literally true, that the marriage of Bothwell and Jean Gordon 
 was null, on the ground of no dispensation having been 
 " obtained of before." This involves the serious charge of 
 forgery, upon which I desire to say a few words, as I think 
 there are some good reasons for supposing this to have been 
 the case. 
 
 I. It is remarkable that no mention is made in the 
 contract of marriage between Bothwell and Jean Gordon 
 of the fact of the parties being related to each other in the 
 fourth degree of consanguinity, and of the necessity of ap- 
 plying for a dispensation from the Holy See, or its Legate, 
 to allow them to marry. It appears that in Scotland there 
 were many families, especially in the higher ranks, which 
 were related within the prohibited degrees ; and in ignorance 
 thereof not a few intermarriages took place without first ob- 
 taining a dispensation, and in some cases when this was 
 discovered, the parties concerned, changing their minds 
 towards each other, separated to enter into other alliances. 
 As a remedy against this monstrous scandal, " careful pro- 
 visions were generally introduced " in the marriage contracts,* 
 
 * Dr. Stuart, p. 73. Dr. Stuart gives a few examples : (i) In A.D. 
 1 49 1, Patrick, Earl of Bothwell, grandfather of Bothwell, agreed to marry 
 one of the daughters of the then Earl of Huntly, and in the contract it was 
 provided that * * if there be any impediments of affinity or consanguinity 
 found in the meantime whereby the said marriage may not have progress 
 according to the law of Holy Church, the remedy thereof be procured 
 and a Dispensation gotten in all possible haste at the common expences 
 of both parties." (Dr. Stuart, p. 74.) (2) In the case of George Earl 
 
25 
 
 obliging the parties to obtain the necessary dispensation, 
 if perchance any impediment should subsequently be 
 discovered. The question is naturally raised, why was no 
 statement of Bothwell and Jean Gordon's mutual relation- 
 ship made in their contract of marriage, and no engagement 
 entered into between the parties to obtain a dispensation ? 
 As has been said before, Bothwell was a Protestant, 
 so was the Earl of Huntly,* as also Alexander Gordon, 
 
 of Huntly and Elizabeth Keith, A. D. 1 530, it was provided in the contract, 
 that if after their marriage was completed ''there happened or occurred 
 any cause of divorce or impediment of law whereby the said " parties 
 *'may not lawfully remain together in marriage . . . the said George, 
 Earl of Huntly, shall as soon as any such impediments come to his ears, 
 with all possible diligence send to the Court of Rome for new dispensa- 
 tions, and shall obtain and get them, and bring them home to confirm 
 the matrimony standing between them, making the children" legitimate. 
 And then it was provided that the Earl of Huntly ''shall move no 
 cause of divorce to part from the said Elizabeth . . . the said Elizabeth 
 being ready thereto." (lb., 74, 75.) (3) In 1554 a contract of marriage 
 was entered into between Hugh Earl of Eglinton and Lady Jane 
 Hamilton, in which it was provided that "if it happened in any time 
 hereafter that any cause or impediment of consanguinity or affinity . . . 
 be known or knowing between the said " parties " which happened not 
 to be dispensed before the contracting of the said marriage, the said 
 Earl shall" obtain at his expense "a new dispensation or dispensa- 
 tions." (lb., 78). And similarly, in the year 1562, in the marriage 
 contract of the Earl of Eglinton and Dame Agnes Drummond the same 
 provisions were made. (lb., p. 79.) Dr. Stuart gives other examples, 
 but these are sufficient to show that it was customary in Scotland, 
 during the reign of Queen Mary, to make provision in marriage con- 
 tracts for obtaining a dispensation if an impediment should hereafter be 
 discovered to exist. 
 
 * It has been alleged that the Earl of Huntly was a Catholic at tliis 
 time. If he was, he acted as a Protestant, and in company with 
 
 C 
 
26 
 
 who calls himself a protonotary, these, together with 
 others, were contracting parties for the purpose of carrying 
 into effect the provisions of this marriage contract. None 
 of these Protestants would care to introduce any provision 
 for obtaining a dispensation from the Holy See or its 
 Legate ; and hence we may conclude that at that time there 
 was no intention of obtaining one. 
 
 2. After the death of the Queen's husband it does not 
 appear that the subscribers to the famous Ainsley band 
 were aware of any existing dispensation authorising Eothwell 
 and Jean Gordon's marriage, when they recommended the 
 Queen to espouse Bothwell. Dr. Stuart, quoting " Keith's 
 History" (Vol. ii., p. 563), observes that "the subscribers 
 of this document made no account of BothwelFs existing 
 marriage, and assume that it was null, or would be annulled."* 
 The subscribers and those who joined in their recom- 
 mendation to the Queen, " comprised all the Bishops that 
 were in Parliament but one, all the Earls but two, and all 
 the Lords but five." t 
 
 Taking no account of some among these who were the 
 murderers of Damley, this is strong testimony to the pre- 
 dominant belief that no dispensation existed, and indeed, if 
 we may rely upon any statement made by Bothwell, the 
 following extracts from his " Memoir " confirms what I have 
 stated : " Having gained my cause [ie., his acquittal of the 
 murder of Damley] as aforesaid, there came to my place of 
 residence, twenty-eight of the said Parliament, of their own 
 
 Bothwell, Fleming, Levingston, and Lindsay, refused to obey the 
 summons of the Queen to assist at Mass on Candlemas-day. (See 
 Robertson, **Hist. Scot," Append. No. xiv.) 
 * lb., p. 15, note. 
 
 t Camden, i., 138, see Lingard's Hist. Eng.," vol. vi., p. 73, note. 
 
27 
 
 free accord, without being asked ; being twelve Earls, eight 
 Bishops, and eight Lords, doing me the honour of offering me 
 their alliance and friendship, in the manner following." And 
 here follows the recommendation of the Queen's marriage 
 with him ; and then Bothwell continues : At the same time 
 they deliberated in what manner I could lawfully repudiate 
 my first princess [Jean Gordon] according to the divine laws 
 of the Church and the customs of the country ; on which 
 they instantly agreed."* None of them, apparently, believed 
 
 * Hosack, vol. ii., pp. 586, 587. 
 
 It seems to me that Jean Gordon had become convinced that no 
 genuine dispensation had been granted in favour of her marriage with 
 Bothwell. The following observation indicates this. The process of 
 divorce on the part of Lady Jean Gordon against Bothwell for adultery 
 commenced upon 29th April, 1567. In her petition, after stating 
 that she had lived with him for several months, she, on account of 
 Bothwell's adultery with one of her own household, prays that she be 
 no longer "reputed the bone of his bone nor flesh of his flesh, but that 
 she be decerned [adjudged] to be free to marry in the Lord where she 
 pleases." After an investigation which lasted five days, it was decreed 
 that * ' the said noble Lord [Bothwell] to be separate, cut off and 
 divorced simpliciter from the said noble lady, and she to be free to marry 
 in the Lord where she pleases, as freely as she might have done before 
 the contract and solemnisation of marriage with the said noble 
 Lord. . . ." (See Fr. Stevenson's Nau's Life of Mary Stewart^ 
 pp. clxiv., clxv.) This is strong evidence against the existence of any 
 dispensation. As a Catholic (and it is said she was a strict one), she knew 
 that no marriage could possibly be dissolved if it had been canonically and 
 lawfully solemnised. It seems evident, then, that after her marriage she 
 discovered that the Dispensation was either a forgery, or, not having 
 been published {see note, p. sup. 20) and executed according to its terms, 
 it was a dead letter having no operative effect. If this is the true 
 version of the affair it explains how she became a party to its concealment, 
 or rather to its non-presentation to the civil and ecclesiastical courts. 
 
 C 2 
 
28 
 
 that any dispensation had been applied for and granted, 
 otherwise they could not have " instantly agreed " how to 
 get rid, according to the Divine laws of the Church" of 
 Jean Gordon as the wife of Bothwell. 
 
 3. I believe I am correct that no contemporary writer 
 alluded to this Dispensation ; none of the Ambassadors 
 from England and France mentioned it as a bar against her 
 marriage with Bothwell, which is certainly most remarkable 
 considering the very high rank of the parties concerned, so 
 intimately connected as they were with the Queen, and 
 mixed up in the affairs of the Kingdom. 
 
 4. Murray, the Regent, w^as evidently ignorant of this 
 Dispensation. It would have been a trump card in his 
 hands, by which he might have fixed, in the mind of the 
 Queen's enemies, though unjustly, an irremediable stain on 
 her character, especially when he accused her of immorality 
 before the Commissioners at York and Westminster. He 
 could then have asserted, with apparent truth, that she had 
 knowingly wedded a man already married, his wife still living. 
 
 5. There is a document existing, which seems to witness 
 that a dispensation had been granted. It is entitled on the 
 back, " Proces of Divorce twixt Erie Bothwell and his Wife. 
 Feb. 21, 1565 " (O.S.). It states that a dispensation had been 
 obtained, and then it gives the various steps in the genealogy 
 of the parties, showing how Bothwell and Jean Gordon were 
 related to each other, on both sides, in the fourth degree of 
 consanguinity. This document is attested by " A. Forrest, 
 protonotary and datary to the most reverend Lord the Lord 
 Legate." * According to the endorsement, this document was 
 prepared to assist the court of the Primate and Legate in 
 
 * Dr. Stuart, pp. 87, 89. 
 
29 
 
 determining the cause for the nullification of the marriage of 
 Bothwell and Jean Gordon, three days before their marriage 
 — so it would seem that " Process had commenced for a 
 dissolution of their marriage before it was even solemnised ! 
 If, on the other hand, this paper had reference to the supplica- 
 tion for a dispensation, it was too late, for the petition had 
 already been made, and the Dispensation granted, four days 
 previously — viz., the 17th Feb., 1565 (O.S.) Surely there is 
 something very suspicious in this, for who, in the one case, 
 would commence proceedings for a divorce before the cele- 
 bration of the marriage of the parties concerned? And 
 again, who, on the other hand, would prepare the materials 
 for a petition for a dispensation subsequent to its grant ? 
 whichever way we look at this document, it has a very sus- 
 picious appearance. 
 
 6. I am not learned enough in antiquarian research to ex- 
 press any opinion respecting the correctness of the form or 
 wording of the text of this Dispensation ; or whether it is 
 fatal or not to its genuineness, that the seal of the Primate 
 should be wanting ; for, considering that this document had 
 been lying amongst the archives in Dunrobin Castle for 
 three centuries undisturbed, it is scarcely possible to have 
 disappeared. However, these points I leave for those who 
 have made such matters their special study to determine.* 
 
 * The following is a remarkable observation from Dr. Stuart 
 respecting this document. He says, in a note : It is singular that 
 this curious document [the Dispensation] should have remained so long 
 in its obscurity. The charters no doubt were carefully examined in 
 last century during the great law case which involved the descent of 
 the family honours, and in recent times they have been referred to by 
 several of our best record scholars who had access to them. An 
 elaborate historical account of the Sutherland family, based on the 
 
30 
 
 7- There is no doubt that Bothwell was a consummate 
 scoundrel. He had brought with him from Denmark two 
 noble ladies under promise of marriage ; he had led astray 
 many "gentlewomen" in France, England, and in Scotland,* 
 and it is by no means improbable that he never intended 
 to contract a lawful marriage with Jean Gordon. He used 
 the forms of law to effect his object, and when accomplished 
 repudiated the woman whose feelings in every way he had 
 outraged. It is not unHkely that Bothwell at the very time 
 of his marriage with this lady intended at a favourable 
 opportunity to marry the Queen. When her Majesty first 
 arrived in Scotland he laid his plans for becoming her 
 husband, she being then a widow. Her marriage with Lord 
 Darnley defeated his purpose for a time, and there is little 
 doubt that the object of his murdering her husband was to 
 obtain her hand. 
 
 8. The language of the Judge Delegate points to the fact 
 that no Letters of Dispensation had been granted from the 
 office of the Primate and Legate. If there had been, 
 Forrest, the Datary and Secretary of the Primate, who 
 countersigned this document, would have known of it. In the 
 course of inquiry of the Judge Delegate, he would have 
 
 charters at Dunrobin, was recently prepared for * the Origines Parochiales 
 Scotiae,' but it makes no allusion to the Dispensation." (Dr. Stuart, pp. 
 24, 25, note.) I give the extract for what it is worth, but I agree with 
 Dr. Stuart in observing that **it is singular" that this long-lost 
 document, never heard of at the time of its supposed issue, nor since, 
 until very lately, should have escaped the observation of **our best 
 record scholars," and of those who were seeking for materials for a 
 history of the Sutherland family. 
 
 * See **Will of Bothwell," M. Petit's Hist. Queen of Scots, vol. i., 
 p. 345. Tr. by De Flandre. 
 
31 
 
 easily discovered the fact. The other Commissioners, too, 
 consisting of high ecclesiastical dignitaries, would likewise 
 have searched the records in the office, and if the Judge 
 Delegate was wrong in his assertion that no dispensation 
 had been granted before the marriage, they would have 
 corrected him. It seems to me more probable that no 
 Letters of Dispensation had been issued by the Legate, and 
 consequently it was not to be found in the Datary Office, 
 else the judgment or decree would not have turned upon the 
 point whether there had, or had not, been a dispensation 
 granted before the marriage, but whether its terms had been 
 properly complied with. 
 
 9. I think there is every probabiHty that this document is 
 a forgery, prepared no doubt to satisfy the scruples of Jean 
 Gordon, who, being a Catholic, could not marry Bothwell 
 without a dispensation;* and also of the Queen, who would 
 not have sanctioned the marriage without one. The docu- 
 ment, then, having accomplished its purpose, was carefully 
 concealed, having been seen by no one ; not by the 
 Primate and Legate, who is supposed to have granted 
 it ; not by any of the signers of the marriage contract ; 
 not by the Protestant minister who married the parties ; 
 
 * Supposing the Dispensation had been a genuine document, how 
 came Jean Gordon to be in possession of it? As observed, original 
 documents of this sort are always preserved in the archives of the See, 
 copies only being made for the parties concerned. This seems to me 
 very suspicious, and has the appearance of its having been prepared 
 under Bothwell's supervision, and handed over to Jean Gordon. If this 
 be the true view of the case, it was never in the office of the Datary ; 
 in other words, the Dispensation had never been granted. Hence 
 the discovery of the Legatine Court that the marriage was null, on the 
 ground that no Dispensation had been obtained before the marriage. 
 
32 
 
 not by the Bishops of Ross and Dunblane, who were 
 present at the Queen's marriage; not by the Lords, 
 Spiritual and Temporal, who had assumed its absence ; 
 not by Murray, who would have rejoiced in its acquisition, 
 and which would have saved him much trouble in forging 
 false evidence against the Queen not even by the court 
 of the Primate and Legate, which by the mouth of the 
 Judge Delegate decreed that no Dispensation had been 
 ''obtained of before" the marriage. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Having disposed of the Dispensation, as I believe I have 
 done, I now invite your attention to two questions : first, 
 Whether Queen Mary ever had any tender feelings for 
 Bothwell ? and, secondly, Whether the marriage of the latter 
 with the former was valid ? So far as the moral law and 
 political expediency (apart from the charge of murder against 
 Bothwell at that time unproved) were concerned, I know of 
 no legitimate reason why the Queen should not have married 
 Bothwell,* if she thought that it would have been for the 
 good of Scotland, as she was led to believe would be the 
 case, when the Lords of the Council proposed it to her. I 
 say that if she entertained anything of the sort, and carried 
 it into effect, she would have committed no immorality, 
 
 * This was not a case for a re-marriage of Bothwell and Jean Gordon, 
 because the latter had sued her supposed husband in the Protestant 
 Consistorial Court for adultery with one of her household, and she could 
 have had no desire for a re-marriage. Bothwell was, by virtue of the 
 nullification of his marriage by the Legatine Commission, free to marry 
 any one. 
 
33 
 
 because Bothwell was in the eye of both Church and State un- 
 married, and therefore free to marry any one. And you must 
 remember that Queen Mary had been assured by the sentence 
 of both the CathoUc and the Protestant Courts that the 
 marriage of Bothwell and Jean Gordon had been annulled. 
 
 I. Whether Queen Mary ever entertained any tender 
 feelings for Bothwell ? 
 
 The numerous charges brought against the Queen — that 
 she was in love with Bothwell in the lifetime of her late 
 husband ; that an amorous correspondence, not over decent, 
 passed between them ; that they had criminal intercourse ; 
 and that she connived at the conspiracy for the murder of 
 her husband in order to facilitate her legal union with this 
 man — founded upon a number of letters, sonnets, &c., which 
 after the Queen's departure from Scotland were said to have 
 been discovered, and which were laid before the Commis- 
 sioners appointed to investigate her case at York aiad 
 Westminster as proofs of her depravity and crimes — I pass 
 by as wholly irrelevant to this inquiry. For many years 
 these papers were believed to be genuine, and Hume and 
 other historians, Scottish and English, founded upon them 
 their estimate of the character of this Queen. But in late 
 years these documents have been subjected to the severest 
 criticism, and under the able pens of M. Petit, Miss Strick- 
 land,* and especially of Mr. Hosack, an eminent barrister, 
 
 * Since I wrote this, a most valuable little work has appeared in this 
 country, by the late Col. Meline, an American gentleman. It consists 
 of a most able criticism on Mr. Froude's abominable attacks on the 
 public and private character of Queen Mary. I recommend all who 
 care for truth to peruse this work. The title of the work is Mary- 
 Queen of Scots and her latest English Historian," by James F. Meline, 
 New York. He was a Catholic. 
 
34 
 
 have been proved to have been a series of horrible 
 forgeries designed for the purpose of destroying, in the 
 estimation of the world, her moral character ; by which it 
 was hoped that her influence as a good and virtuous woman 
 and sovereign, over the hearts of her people in Scotland 
 might be hopelessly annihilated. So malignant was the 
 hatred of her implacable enemies, that they actually made 
 use of some of the Queen's letters of fond affection to her 
 former husband, and by skilful manipulations and interpola- 
 tions exhibited them to the Commissioners above mentioned 
 as having been addressed to Bothwell. Those who desire 
 to form a just idea of the Queen's character, should study 
 the works of the authors above named, but especially that of 
 Mr. Hosack, who with the legal acumen of an accomplished 
 lawyer, and with the calm impartiality of an upright judge, 
 has most ably and conclusively exposed the falsehoods 
 contained in these documents. 
 
 It is unnecessary for me to enter into any investigation of 
 these false testimonies ; I prefer to prove the case in hand 
 from such evidences as may be drawn from certain well- 
 known historical facts, and from the inferences which 
 naturally and of necessity flow from them. And I contend 
 that this sort of evidence is far more satisfactory than 
 hundreds of dubious documents.* I pass over all these 
 documentary evidences as worthless ; I take the liberty, too, 
 of ignoring the letters of the English Ambassadors to the 
 Court of Scotland, to Elizabeth and the EngHsh Government, 
 
 * It is to be observed that a very large proportion of the history of 
 Scotland in this reign is founded upon documents composed by the 
 enemies of the Queen (whose object was to injure her as much as they 
 could), and consequently they ought to be studied with the greatest 
 reserve. 
 
35 
 
 as being, so far as the conduct of the Queen was concerned, 
 of very doubtful authority, most of their information having 
 been derived from mere hearsay evidence, or obtained from 
 the enemies of the Queen; and, further, the words and 
 letters of Queen Mary herself, so long as she was under the 
 power of Bothwell, are not, and cannot be regarded as fair 
 exponents of the real state of her mind and feelings. 
 
 I. There is no doubt that up to February, 1567, the 
 Queen had a great regard for Bothwell, and very justly so, 
 for during her reign he, while all around her were either 
 secret or open traitors, had been, so far as appearances went, 
 a true and a loyal subject, faithful to herself and the realm. 
 She, therefore, as every other Sovereign would do, rewarded 
 him by promoting him to be one of her Ministers of State, 
 and by adding to his fortune. But an incident occurred, 
 of which the enemies of the Queen sought to make capital, 
 by accusing her of an unholy affection for him. It happened 
 that upon the occasion of her going to Jedburgh to hold an 
 assize court, hearing that Bothwell was lying ill in his castle, 
 from the effects of a severe wound he had received in 
 her service, she visited him, accompanied by her whole 
 court, for the purpose of showing her kind sympathy 
 and regard, and having performed this act of charity, she 
 returned to Jedburgh.'''' Had Mary been really in love with 
 Bothwell at this time, she had an ample opportunity of 
 gratifying her predilection. It is well known that she and 
 Darnley were on bad terms ; Darnley had proved himself to 
 be false to his Queen and wife, conspiring with her enemies 
 against her, and opposing her will in everything. To such a 
 pass had things come, that it was proposed to the Queen to 
 
 * Mi3s Strickland's Lives of the Queens of Scotland, vol. v., c. xxv. 
 
36 
 
 apply for a divorce ; and if she had been the wicked character 
 she was said to have been, she could easily have found 
 means, not only of obtaining a divorce, but of disposing of 
 him altogether.* But she refused to listen to the proposal 
 for a divorce, saying that she would trust in Providence.! 
 This does not indicate any improper partiality for Bothwell 
 at that time. But all absence of such partiality was clearly 
 shown, when she gave her favourite lady of her household 
 and her personal friend, to Bothwell for his wife. She took 
 great interest in this wedding. She loaded Jean Gordon 
 with rich presents, and she presided over the festivities. It 
 is not usual for a woman in love with a man to gratify her 
 desires by bestowing upon him not her own, but the hand 
 of another. This, I think, sufficiently disposes of the ques- 
 tion whether the Queen had at this time any tender regard 
 for Bothwell. 
 
 2. The murder of Lord Darnley occurred in February, 
 1567. It is well known that not long before he had been 
 taken ill with a malignant disorder. The Queen at once 
 joined him, nursed him tenderly, and upon his convalescence, 
 brought him by slow stages to Edinburgh. J During that 
 period Darnley confessed to the Queen all his crimes against 
 her, and the tender heart of the Queen was melted. They 
 became reconciled, resolving for the future to live as man 
 and wife in all true love and affection. All along the heart 
 of Mary was true to her husband. She refused to be 
 divorced from him when she had good cause ; but the 
 
 * Darnley had been repeatedly guilty of treason, for which he might 
 have been tried and executed. The Queen was, however, so fond of 
 him, that she forgave him as often as he offended her. 
 
 t lb., pp. 52-57. t lb., c. xxix.-xxx. ^ 
 
37 
 
 instant she heard of his illness she flew to his side, taking 
 the greatest care of him. Women who hate their husbands 
 and love illicitly other men, do not behave in this manner ; 
 and especially if the disease should be exceedingly mahgnant 
 and highly contagious. Does not this little insight into the 
 heart of the Queen demonstrate far more eloquently than 
 words can express, the deep attachment she had for her 
 husband, and at the same time her entire absence of any 
 passion for another ? It may, then, be safely averred that, 
 until the death of Darnley, the Queen's heart was as true to 
 him as steel is to the magnet. 
 
 3. Soon after the murder of Darnley, the Queen paid a 
 visit to Seton Castle,*' when Bothwell seized the opportunity 
 of commencing operations for securing for himself the hand 
 of his widowed Sovereign. Previously he had submitted 
 his case to the Lords who had been present in Parliament ; 
 and, as I mentioned in a former letter, he obtained from 
 them a document called a " band," the subscribers of which 
 together with others of the Spiritual and Temporal Lords, 
 recommending to the Queen himself as her future husband. 
 And with this document he visited the Queen at Seton, and 
 opened his suit, but finding her Majesty gave no encourage- 
 ment, he returned without bringing it to any definite result, t 
 Certainly BothwelFs first attempt at wooing the Queen was 
 not a success ; he seems to have been awkward, shy, and 
 embarrassed, and so feebly did he press his suit, that it was 
 not until after a considerable time that the Queen became 
 conscious of his intentions. If all the falsehoods that have 
 been told concerning the Queen's unholy partiality for 
 Bothwell were true, would she have had any difficulty in 
 * lb., p. 203. t lb., p. 259. 
 
38 
 
 quickly comprehending his object ; and would there have 
 been any necessity for Bothwell to win her affections, seeing 
 that he had already, even before the death of Darnley, won 
 them ? No ; her tardiness to apprehend the object of his 
 attentions, and the embarrassment of Bothwell himself, show 
 with great force how utterly unconscious she was of any 
 tender feeling for him ; and this she further indicated by 
 withdrawing herself as much as possible from his society. 
 
 4. In April, 1567, the Queen set out for StirHng to visit 
 her infant son ; it was part of Bothwell's duty, as sheriff of 
 the county, to escort her Majesty there and back. The 
 Queen, however, was determined to dispense with his 
 services. In making her arrangements, she passed him 
 over, and selected some of her other Lords to accompany 
 her.* Considering what had so lately occurred, this was a 
 most natural proceeding, clearly showing that the Queen 
 was averse to any intimate association with him, which 
 would have been very difficult for her to avoid during 
 her ride to Stirling. Had she been in love with him, and 
 Bothwell free to marry any one, this journey would have 
 afforded both a natural and legitimate opportunity of gratify- 
 ing her predilection, for at that time there was no proof of 
 his having been one of the murderers of her late husband. 
 But having no such affection for him, she designed, as we 
 have seen, to secure his absence. 
 
 5. Upon the 21st of this month she started, accompanied 
 with her lords and ladies and a small guard. She reached 
 Stirling in safety, and on the morrow commenced her return 
 journey. When she had arrived within a few miles of 
 Edinburgh, she heard that Bothwell at the head of a thousand 
 
 * lb., p. 261. 
 
39 
 
 horse was approaching, and we read that she hurried on 
 hoping to get within the gates of the city before his arrivaL 
 But he was too quick for her ; and arriving, he surrounded 
 her, making her and the lords prisoners, and ordering the 
 ladies to return home. He took the Queen to Dunbar 
 Castle, refusing her the protection of her lords, and allowing 
 her only one attendant, his own sister, who was in his 
 interest. Bothwell had received a rebuff from the Queen ; 
 she had given him no encouragement to his suit for her hand; 
 she had passed him over as her proper guard on the road, 
 and now that he had her in his power, he would make the 
 most of his opportunity, and compel her to yield to his 
 wishes. A terrible struggle ensued. Bothwell swore that 
 he would m^-rry her whether she would or not ; he threat- 
 ened her with the vilest consequences if she still held out, 
 and at last he compelled her from bodily fear to consent to 
 become his wife.* Her enemies, with characteristic impu- 
 dence, asserted that this abduction of the Queen on the 
 road, and her captivity at Dunbar, had been previously 
 arranged between them. This infamous story was told to 
 Melville by a captain in BothwelFs corps, who mentioned it 
 to Sir William Drury,+ who, in his turn, informed Cecil, and 
 he, doubtless, Elizabeth. But the surrounding circumstances 
 contradict this story. 
 
 First, with regard to the abduction, if the Queen had been 
 in love with Bothwell, where was the necessity for this 
 outrage ? Is it usual for men to make prisoners of the 
 women who love them, and by threats of worse than death 
 compel them to accept them for their husbands, they being 
 all the while ready to throw themselves into their arms? 
 * lb., p. 271-277. + Tytler, HisL Scot., vol. vii., p. 108. 
 
40 
 
 This is certainly a new mode of wooing, to strive to destroy 
 the reputation of a woman when both at the same time are 
 wilHng to take each other for husband and wife ! I do not 
 see what stronger evidence can be adduced to show that the 
 Queen had no tender affection for Bothwell, and had no 
 desire to become his wife. Indeed the violence of his 
 language, the rudeness of his behaviour, and the brutality of 
 his conduct, indicate more emphatically than any words can 
 express, the absence of all affection on the part of the Queen 
 for him, and at the same time her intense dislike to making 
 him her husband. Secondly, if the abduction was effected 
 with the Queen's consent in order to oblige the great nobles 
 of the country to acquiesce in an affair which could not be 
 undone, where was the necessity for this so-called collusion ? 
 Bothwell had only to take from his pocket " the band," 
 which would have explained to her Majesty that the consent 
 of the nobles had been already obtained, and consequently 
 there was no difficulty of that kind against her marrying him. 
 
 But Bothwell did not produce this " band," for the obvious 
 reason that he had not obtained possession of the Queen's 
 heart, and that he well knew that no amount of consent on 
 the part of the Lords of Parliament would induce her to 
 marry him against her will. This also is an overwhelming 
 testimony that the Queen had no love for this man. As 
 soon as Bothwell had accomplished his execrable purpose, 
 he conducted the Queen to Edinburgh ; he would not permit 
 her to lodge in her own palace, but took her to the castle, 
 where he kept her a close prisoner, permitting no one to 
 visit her except Melville. He forced her to authorise the 
 banns of marriage to be published ; he then took her to 
 Holyrood Palace, where she was obliged to hold a Court, to 
 
41 
 
 grant a public pardon to Bothwell for his treasonable outrage 
 upon her, and to create him Duke of Orkney and Shetland 
 — acts and deeds which, under the circumstances, were 
 absolutely void in law. Shortly afterwards the marriage was 
 celebrated, the Queen appearing in her widow's dress.* 
 Who ever heard of such a case as this ? — a woman madly in 
 love with the man of her choice, who captures her on her 
 way home from Stirling, imprisons her in a stronghold ; 
 wrings from her a willing consent to marry him ; brings her 
 a prisoner to another stronghold ; compels her to agree to 
 the banns being published ; conducts her to her palace, and 
 there obliges her to marry him, she being all the while most 
 willing to be all in all to him, and at the same time showing 
 her excessive ardour for him, and her pleasure, by appearing 
 dressed in " widow's weeds !" Can any sane man assert that 
 this was a love match ? Can any one be so silly as to sup- 
 pose that love and captivity are convertible terms ? Was 
 there ever such a case as this heard of before ? that it was 
 necessary for success to capture, to imprison, to torture, to 
 humiliate in the presence of the world, and to employ force 
 to oblige the woman who loves him to marry him ! It is a 
 unique case, and it proves that the Queen never cared for 
 Bothwell, and that she never intended to accept him for her 
 husband. Before such testimony as this, drawn from events 
 narrated by all historians, no amount of papers, letters, 
 sonnets, &c., &c., already discovered, or which may be here- 
 after discovered, in derogation of her character, can stand 
 against the force of recorded facts, and the natural and 
 necessary inferences flowing therefrom. 
 
 Queen Mary then stands forth in the midst of her enemies 
 with a heart unsullied by unholy love ; with a mind un- 
 * Miss Strickland, vol. v., 278-290. 
 
 D 
 
42 
 
 tarnished with any impurity; and although insulted, outraged, 
 maltreated and misused by this monster of iniquity, she 
 remains as she was before — a good and a virtuous w^oman. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 No fair mind can doubt that Queen Mary never enter- 
 tained any tender feelings for Bothwell ; she had a great 
 regard for him, on account of his loyalty and fidelity to the 
 Crown and State of Scotland, but beyond this nothing she 
 did could be construed as bordering on the domain of the 
 affections. 
 
 II. I have now to answer the second question put in my 
 last letter, viz., Whether the marriage of Bothwell and the 
 Queen was valid and legal ? 
 
 There are, inter alia, three things that will render a 
 marriage invalid and illegal: (i) Forcible abduction of a 
 woman by a man who intends against her will to make her 
 his wife; (2) Absence of consent on her part; (3) Violation 
 of the law in regard to the manner of its celebration. 
 
 T. Abduction. It is an historical fact that Queen Mary 
 was seized near the gates of Edinburgh by Bothwell, and 
 kept a prisoner by him until after the marriage. This is 
 clear from an x\ct of the Scottish Parliament, passed in the 
 first year of the reign of King James VI. This Act states : 
 (i) That Bothwell, "by force and violence treasonably 
 seized" the Queen when returning from Stirling to Edin- 
 burgh ; and that he " put violent hands upon her, not per- 
 mitting her to enter " the city, " but carried her away that 
 same night to the Castle of Dunbar against her will." (2) 
 That he " there detained her, as his prisoner, for about 
 
43 
 
 twelve days," ^^in firm custody and durance, by force and 
 masterful hand of his armed friends and dependants." (3) 
 That, upon the sixth of May, he, " still accompanied by 
 a great number of armed men, carried her to the Castle 
 of Edinburgh," and there imprisoned her, and compelled 
 her to remain until the eleventh day" of May. (4) That 
 " on which day, still accompanied by a great number 
 of armed men " ^' he carried her " to Holyrood Palace? 
 " and so, within four days," that is, upon the fifteenth 
 day of May, at four o'clock in the morning, he " com- 
 pelled her to contract marriage with him." No statement 
 can be clearer than this, that from the moment of the 
 abduction of the Queen, until after the marriage, she was the 
 prisoner of the bridegroom who captured her in order to make 
 her by force and violence his wife. The testimony of this Act 
 of Parliament cannot be assailed ; it was passed, not hastily, 
 but within seven months after the event, in the presence of 
 the very lords who were accompanying the Queen at the 
 time, and by a Parliament unfriendly to her interests.! 
 
 The Queen in her instructions to the Bishop of Dunblane 
 confirms the statement in this Act of Parliament. She says : 
 
 * Act. Pari,, vol. lii., pp. 5-10. See Miss Strickland's Lives of the 
 Queens of Scotland, vol. v., pp. 272, 289. 
 t lb., p. 274. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the Act of Parliament was a dead 
 letter, for it was acted upon. Miss Strickland says : ' * The statute for 
 Bothwell's forfeiture, reciting the overt treasons he had committed, was, 
 moreover, proclaimed to the people of Edinburgh by the heralds, first 
 from the window of the Tolbooth, where the Parliament then sat, then 
 from the Mercat [Market] Cross and other public places, in the ears of 
 hundreds who might certainly have been eye-witnesses of the facts 
 alleged." (lb.) 
 
 D 2 
 
44 
 
 " We thought his continuance in waiting upon us, and readi- 
 ness to fulfil all our commandments, had proceeded only 
 upon the acknowledging of his duty, being our born subject, 
 without further hid respect, which moved us to make him 
 the better visage, thinking nothing less than the same, being 
 an ordinary countenance to such noblemen as are found 
 affectionate to our service, should encourage him, or give 
 him boldness to look for any extraordinary favour at our 
 hands. But he as well, as appeared since, making his 
 profit of everything might serve his turn, not discovering to 
 ourself his intent, or that he had any such purpose in head, 
 was content to entertain our favour by his good outward be- 
 haviour and all means possible. In the mean time, he went 
 about, by practising with the noblemen secretly, to make 
 them his friends, and to procure their consent to the 
 furtherance of his intents, and so far proceeded by means 
 with them before ever the same came to our knowledge, that, 
 our whole Estates, being here assembled in ParHament, he 
 obtained a writing, subscribed with all their hands, wherein 
 they not only granted their consents to our marriage with 
 him, but also obliged themselves to set him forward thereto 
 with their lives and goods, and to be enemies to all would 
 disturb or impede the same, which letter he purchased [pro- 
 cured], giving them to understand ' that we were content 
 therewith.' And the same being once obtained, he began 
 afar off to discover his intention to us, and to essay if he 
 might, by humble suit, purchase our good will ; but finding 
 our answer nothing correspondent to his desire, and casting 
 before his eyes all doubts, that customably men use to re- 
 volve with themselves in semblable enterprises, the outward- 
 ness [untowardness] of our own mind, the persuasions which 
 
45 
 
 our friends or his unfriends might cast out for his hindrance, 
 the change of their minds whose consent he had already 
 obtained, with many other accidents which might occur to 
 frustrate him of his expectation, he resolved with himself to 
 follow up his good fortune, and all respects laid apart either 
 to tine [lose] all in an hour, or to bring to pass that thing he 
 had taken in hand ; and so, resolving quickly to prosecute 
 his deliberation, he suffered not the matter to sleep, but 
 within four days thereafter, finding opportunity by reason 
 we were past secretly towards Stirling to visit the Prince, 
 our dearest son, in our returning he awaited us by the way, 
 accompanied by a great force, and led us with all diligence 
 to Dunbar. In what part we took that dealing, but specially 
 how strange we found it of him, of whom we doubted less 
 than of any subject we had, is easy to be imagined." ^ 
 
 There are three points clearly expressed in this remarkable 
 State Paper; (i) Both well's conspiracy, by engaging the 
 principal members of the nobility to aid him in his enter- 
 prise, the only excuse for the nobles being that he falsely 
 informed them of the Queen's consent. (2) The Queen's 
 refusal to accept him, expressed by the words, " finding our 
 answer nothing correspondent to his desire." (3) The ab- 
 duction ; Both well lying in wait for his Sovereign, and by a 
 great force, against her will, taking her to Dunbar Castle. 
 
 Bothwell then, after having been refused by the Queen, 
 by means of an overwhelming armed force, seized her, and 
 conveyed her against her will to Dunbar Castle, from thence 
 to Edinburgh Castle, and thence to Holyrood Palace, and 
 there compelled her to marry him. 
 
 2. The next point is. Did the Queen consent to marry 
 * lb., v., pp. 259, 260. 
 
46 
 
 Bothwell? There is no doubt she did, but it was forced, 
 upon her from the circumstances in which she found herself. 
 According to the doctrine of the CathoUc Church, the con- 
 sent must not only be an outward agreement or pact ex- 
 pressed by words," but also an inward consent," * that 
 is, the mind consenting to the words spoken. Did the 
 Queen give an inward" as well as "an outward" consent 
 to her marriage with Bothwell ? The Queen herself thus 
 answers the question : — " But as by a bravade in the 
 beginning he had won the first point, so ceased he never, 
 till, by persuasions and importune suit, accompanied not 
 the less by force, he has finally driven us to end the work 
 begun at such time, and in such form as he thought might 
 best serve his turn, wherein we cannot dissemble that he 
 hath used us otherways than we would have wished, or yet 
 have deserved at his hand." t And again, in her instructions 
 to her envoy, the Queen says : " Tell to his Holiness the 
 grief we suffered when we were made prisoner by one of 
 our subjects, the Earl of Bothwell, and led as prisoner 
 with the Earl of Huntley the Chancellor, and the noble- 
 man our Secretary, together to the Castle of Dunbar, and 
 after to the Castle of Edinburgh, where we were detained 
 against our will in the hands of the said Earl of Bothwell, 
 until such time as he had procured a pretended divorce 
 between him and the sister of the said Lord of Huntley, 
 his wife, our near relative; and we were constrained to 
 yield our consent, yet against our will, to him." \ In 
 
 * Cat, Trent. ^ part ii. Sacrat. Mat., c. v. 
 + Miss Strickland, vol. v., p. 282. 
 % lb., pp. 291, 292. 
 
 With regard to the letters written by the Queen immediately after 
 
47 
 
 these two passages the Queen informs us that Bothwell 
 importuned her to marry him by force " — that is, by such 
 " force " as was sufficient to excite in her mind a great fear 
 of consequences (even worse than that of death itself) if she 
 persisted in her refusal, and which urged her to give a 
 consent to her marriage with him, described by herself as 
 " constrained," that is, by compulsion, against her will* 
 
 And the absence of consent is confirmed by her conduct. 
 Before her marriage she did all she could to avoid the 
 society of Bothwell. She appeared at her marriage in her 
 " widow's weeds " — perhaps the strongest evidence she CQuld 
 give of her intense dislike and disgust at the whole affair.! 
 After the marriage, in the presence of the French Ambassador, 
 she showed her aversion to her so-called husband, and the 
 Queen, observing the Ambassador's surprise, said to him 
 "that he must not be surprised if he saw her sorrowful, for 
 she could not rejoice, nor ever should again. All she desired 
 
 her marriage with Bothwell, in which she apologises for w^hat she had 
 done, and justifies her act on the ground that Bothwell's previous 
 marriage had been nullified, it should be borne in mind that the Queen 
 was under the power of this man, and could not be regarded in any sense 
 as a free agent. The moment she was free from Bothwell we observe 
 a great difference in style and matter. For historical evidence as to 
 the state of her feelings, her letters, when subject to the tyranny of 
 Bothwell, are absolutely worthless. 
 
 * Col. Meline, quoting Mr. Caird (p. i6o), says **that the violence 
 used by Bothwell to the Queen is characterised in the act for Bothwell's 
 forfeiture, as *Vis aut metus qui cadit in constantem virum' — such 
 force and fear as would shake a man of firmness and resolution. It is 
 the law phrase for such violence as would annul a deed." The substance 
 only, not these very words, are in the Act. (Alary Queen of Scots a7id 
 her Latest Historian^ p . 191.) 
 
 t Miss Strickland, p. 290. 
 
48 
 
 was death." Upon the following day, being alone with 
 Bothwell in her chamber, she was heard by those in an 
 adjoining room to " scream and threaten self-destruction." 
 She was heard also by the captain of her guard "to call 
 for a knife that she might stab herself," or, if she could not 
 obtain one, "she would drown herself"! In the face of such 
 a desperate state of things as this, it is impossible to come 
 to any other conclusion than that her consent to the marriage 
 was extorted from her against her will. 
 
 3. Violation of the law in regard to the manner of cele- 
 brating this marriage. It is really very questionable whether 
 the Queen passed through any valid or legal form of mar- 
 riage. Historians do not agree how she was married. The 
 Diurnal of Occurrents and BirreVs Diary, according to Miss 
 Strickland, " both attest the fact that the marriage was made 
 not with the Mass, but with the preachings." \ Murray 
 declared " that she was married according to both sorts of the 
 kirks, reformed and unreformed." And " Buchanan testifies, 
 as plainly as he can, to the irregularity of his [Bishop of 
 Orkney's — an apostate bishop, who married them] pro- 
 ceedings by the general observation, * There were some public 
 ceremonies performed after a mock kind of manner.' " § 
 And M. Mignet, according to Miss Strickland, asserts that 
 "the ceremony was performed according to the Catholic 
 ritual, and afterwards in the fashion of the Protestant 
 
 * Du Croc to the Queen -mother in France, lb., p. 293. 
 
 t Sir James Melville's Memoirs^ lb., 293. It seems that Queen 
 Mary would not live with Bothwell as his wife, for according to the 
 local tradition at Borthwick, while in the castle, they slept far remote 
 from each other in different quarters of the castle." (lb., p. 304.) 
 X lb., p. 290. § lb., p. 291. 
 
49 
 
 Church," but this, she says, is a mistake, founded upon a 
 letter from Sir William Drury to Sir William Cecil, in which 
 he says, that this Queen was married with the Duke of 
 Orkney [Bothwell], the witnesses being few;" and that the 
 marriage took place " in the Chamber of Presence, with a 
 sermon, and not with a Mass, although the day before it was 
 judged she would have one, and thereof grew at the Bishop 
 of Ross's some speech. The Bishop of Orkney [Protestant] 
 with Mr. Craig were present, and had to do." It may be 
 concluded, then, that the Queen was married, not according 
 to the ceremonies of the Catholic Church, but "with the 
 preachings," but how or in what manner no evidence exists. 
 
 And I think the Queen affirms that this was the case ; for, 
 in a document discovered by Father Stevenson among the 
 Cottonian MSS., and entitled, " Extracts from the heads of 
 the matters which the Queen of Scotland has entrusted to 
 the Bishop of Ross on being sent to the Pope," occurs 
 the following very remarkable passage : " Take good heed 
 that the Holy Father shall publicly announce that the 
 pretended marriage contracted between me and Bothwell, 
 without any legality but by a pretended procedure, is of no 
 [force]. For, although there are many reasons which, as you 
 know, make it clearly invalid in itself, yet the matter will be 
 much clearer if his Holiness, acting as the most certain 
 lawyer of the Church, will come forward to annul it." t 
 Such was the opinion of the Queen herself, that her marriage 
 being a " pretended " one, contracted by a " pretended 
 procedure," could have no legal force. The marriage, then, 
 was no marriage at all, the necessary and binding words 
 that make a marriage, seem to have been wanting, and 
 * lb. f Fr. Stephenson's Nau's History of Mary Stewart, p. clxxi. 
 
50 
 
 most probably the Queen never opened her lips from the 
 moment she was compelled to stand by the side of Bothwell, 
 until the conclusion of the so-called ceremony. This will 
 account for her being married " with the preachings," and by 
 some " ceremonies performed after a mock kind of manner." 
 
 But there is another point we must not overlook — viz., that 
 by the law of Scotland, the Queen, being a Catholic, could 
 not be legally married outside the Church. As I said in a 
 former letter, the status of the Church had not as yet been 
 legally overthrown. True, an Act of Toleration had very 
 lately been passed by the Legislature, but that only con- 
 cerned the Protestants, leaving the position of the Catholics 
 as they were before it was passed. The canon law then, 
 still being in force, required the Queen, in order to make a 
 valid marriage, to be married in a Public Church before a 
 priest, and in the presence of three or four of the faithful, 
 which canon, I showed, formed part of the statute law of 
 Scotland. The Queen's marriage was contracted in a 
 manner contrary to the canons of the Church, and also to 
 the law of the land, and this alone would render it invalid 
 and illegal. 
 
 Upon these foregoing considerations, the following results 
 are obtained; that the Queen's marriage was invalid and 
 illegal: (i) Because she was a prisoner in the hands of 
 Bothwell from her capture till after the marriage — being all 
 this time in or under his power; (2) Because her consent 
 was extorted from her by force and violence, under fear of 
 personal danger by assault ; (3) Because no such ceremony 
 of marriage was performed, as could be recognised by the 
 canons of the Catholic Church, or by the law of Scotland. 
 
 In one word, the Queen never by any free act of her own 
 
51 
 
 married Bothwell, for the ceremony was nothing else but " a 
 pretended procedure." And it is a pleasure to assert that 
 the Holy Father pronounced this marriage to be null and 
 void, which he did about the year 1570."^ 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 I have now, I think, vindicated the honour and purity of 
 Queen Mary from the charge that she had contracted mar- 
 riage with Bothwell, " whom she knew to be a married man 
 when she took him for her husband ; " and from the asper- 
 sion that in accepting him, " she knew that any so-called 
 marriage with Bothwell would be illegal, invalid, and im- 
 moral." I showed in my first letter that the crimes imputed 
 to her by these words were by no means obvious. No 
 doubt at first she beheved that Bothwell was a married man, 
 for she had been present at the festivities connected with his 
 marriage with Jean Gordon, and knowing, as she did, that a 
 dispensation was necessary on account of the near relation- 
 ship of the parties, she beheved it had been obtained. But 
 being assured by every one in authority — by her own 
 Council, by the Spiritual and Temporal Lords, by the conduct 
 of the Primate and Legate, by the sentence of the Catholic 
 Tribunal, and, moreover, by the presence of the said Primate 
 and Legate and two other Bishops at her marriage — that 
 Bothwell's marriage with Jean Gordon having been annulled, 
 it was open to her Majesty, if she deemed fit, to espouse 
 him, he being at that time a bachelor. 
 
 Upon these grounds alone — and they are amply sufficient 
 — I claim for her a verdict of " not guilty" of any act, con- 
 
 * lb., clxvii. 
 
sciously or unconsciously, which was illegal or immoral. I 
 rest my whole case upon my first letter, and declare that the 
 Queen could come to no other conclusion than that Bothwell 
 was free to marry any one, having on her side the opinion of 
 both the ecclesiastical and civil Authorities of the realm, 
 together with that, which was superior to all, of the Arch- 
 bishop of St. Andrew's, who was both Legatus Natus and 
 Legate a latere of the Holy See. But since I addressed you 
 my first letter, I obtained a copy of Dr. Stuart's Lost Chapter^ 
 &c., in which was a copy of the text of the Dispensation 
 permitting the marriage of Bothwell and Jean Gordon. After 
 having myself received some instructions in the canon law 
 relating to matrimony, it appeared to me that there were 
 several flaws in this marriage which would render it void ab 
 initio. 
 
 In my second letter I showed that this Dispensation 
 contained a clause requiring the parties to solemnise their 
 marriage "in the Face of the Church" — a phrase which 
 meant, and could only mean, in a public Catholic Church, 
 and before a Catholic priest. Upon examination it was 
 found that the parties did not celebrate their marriage in a 
 Catholic Church, and that the clerical personage who per- 
 formed the ceremony was not a Catholic priest, but a Pro- 
 testant minister. This alone, under the circumstances, would 
 nullify the marriage. 
 
 In my third letter I demonstrated, that the Dispensation 
 was never made use of, nor acted upon ; for in order that 
 it may have operative effect, it must be presented to the 
 officiating Catholic priest (and it could be presented to no 
 one else) ; but inasmuch as there was no such Catholic 
 priest present, it was never presented j and this also would 
 
53 
 
 render the marriage invalid. Another point fatal to the 
 marriage was, that Bothwell had evidently deceived the 
 Primate and Legate; he had engaged himself to marry 
 Jean Gordon "in the Face of holy Church," and in "words 
 of the present time, with solemnities required thereto 
 and subsequently had applied to the Legate for a dispen- 
 sation, which he graciously granted, denoting that the 
 marriage should take place "in the Face of the Church;" 
 and then Bothwell, notwithstanding his engagement and 
 the terms of the Dispensation, refused compliance, and 
 celebrated his marriage, as I have said, in a Protestant 
 kirk in the presence, not of a Catholic priest, but of a 
 follower of John Knox. Such deception as this, and 
 contempt of the Holy See, as well as of the Legatine 
 Authority of the Primate, would render the Dispensation of 
 no effect. And again I pointed out that according to the 
 law, not only of the Church, but also of the State at that 
 time (for the Catholic Church had not been as yet legally 
 overthrown), it was necessary that all marriages should be 
 celebrated in a public Catholic Church before a Catholic 
 priest, and in the presence of three or four of the Faithful, 
 so that on this ground the marriage was illegal as well as 
 invalid. 
 
 It was shown also, that in all probability the Letters of 
 Dispensation were a forgery. At that time there were 
 persons who were famous for their skilful forgeries, which 
 they, by diligent practice, had converted into a science ; 
 and they so well imitated the handwriting of various per- 
 sonages and their signatures, as to render it a matter of no 
 small difficulty to discover what was genuine and what 
 was false ; and it is extremely likely, that in order to satisfy 
 
54 
 
 the scruples of Jean Gordon, Bothwell obtained some 
 iniquitous and clever scribe to draw up a pseudo document 
 purporting to be a dispensation. Certain it is that there are 
 many suspicious circumstances about this Dispensation as to 
 render it very doubtful whether it is genuine. First, the 
 universal ignorance of every one concerning its existence ; 
 secondly, the silence of contemporary writers, which, con- 
 sidering the notoriety of the parties concerned, is very re- 
 markable ; thirdly, the evident ignorance of the Primate and 
 Legate, who counselled the Queen to marry Bothwell, being 
 seemingly unconscious of having himself granted it ; and, 
 lastly, the assertion of the Catholic court itself, that no dis- 
 pensation had been " obtained of before " the marriage. 
 
 Under all these circumstances, there can be no rational 
 doubt whatever, that if the Letters of Dispensation were 
 genuine, they were rendered absolutely valueless by the con- 
 duct of the parties, who treated with contempt the canons 
 and laws of the Church and State^ by the non-observance of 
 which, they rendered their marriage invalid and illegal. 
 Bothwell then, never having been really married, was free to 
 marry any one he chose ; and consequently, if the Queen 
 believed that it would have been conducive to the better 
 government of Scotland, she had a moral, valid, and 
 legal right to espouse this man. But it is evident that this 
 was not her opinion; for, beyond respecting him for his 
 hitherto loyal fidelity to the throne and realm, she had 
 entertained not a particle of any tender feeling in his regard ; 
 and this I showed was the case in my fifth letter. 
 
 Bothwell, however, whose object was to usurp the sceptre, 
 was determined to marry the Queen, as I indicated in a sub- 
 sequent letter j for he seized her, and carried her, a captive, 
 
55 
 
 to Dunbar Castle, thence to Edinburgh Castle, and again to 
 Holyrood Palace, where he obliged her, against her will, to 
 stand by his side, while an apostate bishop performed some 
 sort of ceremony, which Buchanan described as done in " a 
 mock kind of manner,'^ and the Queen as by a peculiar 
 ceremony." Such a marriage as this — she being at the time 
 in or under his power, and her will being under constraint — 
 could not be otherwise than invalid and illegal ; and so the 
 Holy Father declared it to be. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, permit me to draw your attention 
 to the general character of this great and eminent Queen. 
 It is said that the child is the father of the man ; and this, 
 mutatis mutandis^ was pre-eminently the case with Queen 
 Mary. From the dawn of her reason until the completion 
 of her eighteenth year, she was regarded by all who came in 
 contact with her, as a most excellent, modest, virtuous, and 
 in every respect a good woman. King Henry H. of France 
 and his Queen, visiting St. Germain, where she was living 
 with the Royal Family, describe her as so wise and good 
 for a child of her tender age that they saw nothing that 
 they could wish altered."* Later on, the Cardinal of Lor- 
 raine, her uncle, in a letter to her mother, says : " The said 
 lady, your daughter, improves in stature, goodness, beauty, 
 wisdom, and worth. She is so perfect and accomplished in 
 all things, honourable, and virtuous, that the like of her is 
 not to be seen in this realm, whether noble damsel, maiden 
 of low degree, or in middle station ; and I must tell you, 
 Madam, that the King has taken such a liking for her 
 that he spends much of his time in chatting with her, some- 
 
 * From Catherine de Medicis to Mary of Lorraine. Miss Strickland's 
 Lives of the Queens of Scotland^ vol. iii., p. 28. 
 
56 
 
 times by the hour together ; and she knows as well how to 
 entertain him with pleasant and sensible subjects of con- 
 versation, as if she were a woman of five-and-twenty."* And 
 again, in another letter, the Cardinal remonstrating against 
 the continued absence of her governess, says : It displeases 
 me much to see the Queen your daughter, at her time of life, 
 without having a suitable person with her ; although she is 
 so discreet and virtuous that she could not conduct herself 
 better, or more prudently, if she had a dozen governantesJ^ t 
 Once more, I can sincerely assure you, that no one can be 
 more charming, or more excellent, than the Queen your 
 daughter ; and she is also very religious. She governs both 
 the King and the Queen." | And the English ambassador, 
 too, Throckmorton, who bore the Queen no good-will, was 
 constrained thus to describe her in a letter to Sir William 
 Cecil : For assuredly the Queen of Scotland, her Majesty's 
 [Elizabeth's] cousin, doth carry herself, so honourably, 
 advisedly, and discreetly, as- 1 cannot but fear her progress." § 
 What a testimony is this to her early goodness, from both 
 friendly and unfriendly critics, — " so wise and good," so full 
 of " goodness," "wisdom," and "worth;" "carrying herself 
 
 * Labanoff," vol. i., p. 9 ; lb., p. 38. 
 
 t From Cardinal of Lorrain to Queen Regent of Scotland, Balcarras 
 Coll.^ in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. lb., 56. 
 
 X lb., p. 58. § State Paper Office MS., lb., p. 148. 
 
 Miss Strickland remarks that "this may be certain that Throck- 
 morton, if he could have detailed a grain of slander, or even the report 
 of an indecorum relating to Mary, whether as Dauphiness, Queen 
 Consort, or Queen Dowager of France, would not have withheld 
 it from Elizabeth, to whom anything in the shape of detraction would 
 have been far more palatable than these testimonials of the prudence 
 and wisdom of her hated rival, with which his French dispatches 
 abound. (lb., p. 216.) 
 
57 
 
 so honourably, advisedly, and discreetly ; " so " perfect," not 
 only in accomplishments, but in all things honourable and 
 virtuous," that no lady of rank, no virtuous peasant girl, and 
 no damsel of middle degree could be compared to this in- 
 comparable Queen. And further, " so discreet and virtuous," 
 that she needed no lady of mature age to take charge of 
 her. And again, not only was she so " charming," as to 
 fascinate all who approached her, but she was in every respect 
 excellent," and " very religious." So beautiful was her 
 character that she governed the King of France and his 
 proud Queen Catharine de Medicis. But this is not all ; as 
 a child she was dutiful and obedient to her mother and those 
 set over her ; in her youth she was modest, never having 
 been known to yield to vanity or levity.^ As a wife she was 
 humble in the midst of her greatness, and loving and 
 obedient to her husband, Francis II. ; and when he fell into 
 his last sickness, she nursed him tenderly ; and so deeply 
 did she impress him with her faithful and watchful attendance, 
 that he rose in his bed to bless her in the presence of all, 
 commending her as a daughter to his mother, and as a 
 sister to his brothers.! So overcome was his brother, 
 Charles IX., whenever he looked at this Queen's portrait, 
 as to exclaim : Ah ! Francis ! happy brother ! though your 
 life and reign were so short, you were to be envied in this, 
 that you were the possessor of that angel, and the object of 
 her love." J And this reminds me of a circumstance which 
 happened to the Queen not long before her marriage, when 
 assisting at Mass on Candlemas Day : a woman in the 
 congregation " was so dazzled with the beauty and heavenly 
 
 * lb., pp. 215, 216. t Mathieu, J/isf. de France, lb., p. 135. 
 % Brantome, lb., 136. 
 
 E 
 
58 
 
 expression of Mary's countenance, and the splendour of 
 her dress, as to fancy her into a celestial instead of a mortal 
 assistant in the ceremonial ; and flinging herself at the feet of 
 the royal child, exclaimed, ^\re you not indeed an angel ?' "* 
 
 Yes, indeed. Queen Mary was an angel, in piety, goodness, 
 modesty, gentleness, humility, purity, and I may add, in every 
 virtue. And this, I think, is confirmed by the following 
 account given of her court in France. Her mother-in-law, 
 Catharine de Medicis, who aspired to rule the young King and 
 Queen, "found herself circumvented and forestalled in all her 
 projects. Mary Stuart and her maternal kindred were all in 
 all with Francis and his court, and herself a cypher. Fain 
 would she have proceeded to hostiHties with the young 
 Queen, 'but there was no point in her conduct or character 
 open to attack. Mary was as remarkable for the purity of 
 her life and manners, and the moral influence she exercised 
 in her household, as Catharine was the reverse ; nor have 
 her most malignant foes found it possible to connect a tale of 
 scandal with her name during her residence in France." 
 
 Such was the character of this great Queen up to the 
 period when she landed at Leith in the nineteenth year of 
 her age. The question we ought to put to ourselves is this : 
 Are we to believe without incontestable proof that within a 
 very few years this saintly woman became the vilest of her 
 sex ? That she who was so illustrious for her goodness and 
 virtue should become renowned for all that is execrable and 
 corrupt among women of ill fame ? Had the good treq re- 
 sulted in the issue of evil fruit ? had the foundation so early 
 laid in all goodness and modesty become the basement of a 
 superstructure of infamy? Impossible; and yet we have 
 been taught from our infancy, that while Elizabeth of Eng- 
 
 * Miss Benger's Life of Mary Stuart^ lb., 52. t lb., p. 108. 
 
59 
 
 land excelled in every virginal purity, Mary of Scotland, on 
 the contrary, was a slave to the very worst passions of our 
 nature. But now, thank God, the veil has dropped from 
 our eyes, and we are able to estimate impartially the conduct 
 of this great heroine of antiquity. We live in a critical age, 
 when the conduct of our great forefathers have been weighed 
 in the balance, and those who did evil in their day, have 
 been distinguished from those who did good. I should like 
 to know on what grounds other than upon forged documents 
 and false testimonies, it can be shown that Queen Mary was 
 guilty of any crimes, great or small, against morality, from 
 the day she landed in Scotland until her departure for Eng- 
 land? We have a right to be informed, and until such 
 proofs have been adduced to her discredit, no man has a 
 right to breathe a word of slander against her fair fame. 
 
 Until such genuine proof is adduced, I beg to assert with 
 all the force I can, that there is not a tittle of evidence to be 
 found, that, either directly or indirectly, proves that the 
 Queen was otherwise than good, pure, and virtuous in every 
 phase of her short and eventful reign. It is false to assert 
 that she ever behaved improperly with Riccio ; it is false to 
 say that she was otherwise than faithful to her husband, 
 Lord Darnley ; it is false to declare that she was privy to his 
 murder in order that she might marry Bothwell ; it is a 
 cruel calumny to proclaim that she was guilty of an unholy 
 love for Bothwell before Darnley's death, or that she 
 married him, believing him to have been at the time a 
 married man. I assert that all these are calumnies founded 
 upon evidence so polluted in its source, as to be absolutely 
 inadmissible, not only in a court of justice, but in a court of 
 honour. But I can present some proofs for these assertions. 
 
 E 2 
 
6o 
 
 About August 1566, the Privy Council of Scotland 
 addressed Lord Darnley by way of remonstrance against his 
 leaving the Queen, saying : *^ As for us, we are ready to submit 
 ourselves in everything reasonable ; and as for her Majesty, 
 it was impossible that she could have given him cause for 
 discontent, but, on the contrary, he had all the reason in 
 the world to praise God for having given him a wife so wise 
 and virtuous as she has shewn herself in all her actions." * 
 Miss Strickland thus remarks on this passage : Let it be 
 distinctly remembered that this testimony to Mary's stainless 
 integrity and discreet conduct as a wife, and that it was 
 impossible that she could have given just cause of offence to 
 her husband, is from the pen of Lethington, attested by 
 Murray and the rest of the Privy Council, as having beien 
 verbally made in the presence of Darnley himself, who could 
 not and did not contradict it." + The point in the above 
 extract is that the Queen was regarded as ^*wise and 
 virtuous ... in all her actions," and that she had given 
 him no "cause for discontent " — a valuable testimony from 
 her worst enemies, inclusive of Murray. 
 
 In a document drawn up upon the 12th September, 1568, 
 after Queen Mary's departure for England, and signed by 
 the Archbishop of St. Andrew's and a number of Catholic 
 and Protestant lay Lords, and addressed by way of " Instruc- 
 tions " to Queen Mary's Commissioners appointed to meet 
 those nominated by Queen Elizabeth, occurs the following 
 passages in point: "Yet nevertheless, in respect of her 
 honest, just, and righteous cause, and of her good and clean 
 conscience on all proceedings, we are assured she will not 
 
 * *' Letter of the Lords of the Privy Council," Keith, p. 349; Miss 
 Strickland's Queens of Scot., vol. iv., p. 375. 
 t lb. 
 
6i 
 
 refuse, in presence of great princes, to declare her honourable 
 part in all these causes invented calumniously against her 
 Grace, provided always they be not admitted judges against 
 her;" i.e.^ saving her imperial dignity. With reference to 
 the Bothwell affair, the Primate and the Lords thus declare : 
 " And in case it be alleged that the marrying of the Earl of 
 Bothwell is one great suspicion of her knowledge, it is 
 answered that before ever that marriage was laid to her 
 charge, the most part of the nobility, and principally the 
 usurpers .... gave their consent to the Earl of Bothwell. 
 And to remove all suspicions wherethrough he might be able 
 thereto, they declared him innocent of that crime [Darnley's 
 murder] by a public assize, and cleansed him by an enrol- 
 ment thereof, and the same was ratified again in Parliament 
 by consent of the Three Estates, and so the same can infer 
 no presumption against her Majesty. And further, in testi- 
 fication of her innocency, and that her conscience does per- 
 suade her to abide all trial, she has rendered her most noble 
 person within the realm of England, where his [Darnle/s] 
 father, mother, and principal friends make residence, having 
 special commodity [convenience] to sue trial thereof, which, 
 if her Grace had known herself guilty, she would not, of her 
 own free motion, have come therein." * 
 
 * lb., vol. vi., pp. 393-397- 
 
 ** Subscribed with our hands at Dumbarton respective, the 1 2th 
 September, 1568 : — ^John, Archbishop of St. Andrew's. Eglintoun. 
 Fleming. Glenluse. Sinquhar. Rosse. Argyle. Cassilis. Maxwell. 
 Laurence, Lord Oliphant. David, Lord Drummond. Huntly. 
 Crawfurd. Errol. James, Lord Ogilvy. Somerville, Yester. 
 
 *'My Lord Bishop of Ross, Lord Livinstone, Lord Boyd, Lord 
 Herries, and Lord Kilwinning, subscribed not these articles, nor the 
 commission, because they were appointed Commissioners accepting the 
 same." (lb., pp. 401, 402.) 
 
62 
 
 What the Primate and the Lords assert is this (i), That 
 the Queen was guiltless of the murder of Darnley; and (2), 
 That ^^no presumption against her Majesty" can be inferred 
 in her marriage with Both well, seeing that he had been 
 acquitted by the courts of law, and by Parliament. They 
 declare the Queen to have been possessed in all these 
 matters of a good and clean conscience," which they could 
 not have asserted if it had been true that she had fallen into 
 the lowest pit of immorality and crime. And this testimony 
 is confirmed by Du Croc, the French Ambassador, when, in 
 a letter to the King of France, dated June, 1567, he says 
 that " he knew her [Queen Mary] to be a Princess of the 
 greatest goodness." * How could she be "a Princess of the 
 greatest goodness," having " a good and clean conscience," if 
 she had committed the abominable crimes imputed to her ? 
 
 Again, Queen Elizabeth, after she had reviewed all that 
 had passed at the conferences at York and Westminster, 
 declared that there had been nothing sufficient produced 
 nor shown by them against their Sovereign, whereby the 
 Queen of England should conceive or take any evil opinion 
 of the Queen [Mary], her good sister, for any thing she had 
 yet seen." t This amounts to an acquittance, in the judgment 
 of Elizabeth, of all the charges brought against the Queen 
 of Scots, in regard to the murder of Darnley, and her alleged 
 misconduct with Bothwell. And Mr. Hosack informs us 
 that the late Mr. Markham Thorpe, who had been employed 
 by the Master of the Rolls " to peruse and arrange the vast 
 collection of letters and papers relating to the Queen of Scots, 
 
 * Labanoff, vol. ii., p. 112. lb., vol. v., p. 314. 
 + Goodall's Append., p. 303. Labanoff, vol. ii., p. 227, &c. 
 lb., vol. vi., p. 310. 
 
63 
 
 contained in the Record Office;" and after having accom- 
 pHshed this work, expressed himself as follows : — The 
 evidence they contain is all important ; there is abundance 
 of insinuation, there is much assertion of guilt, but proof 
 nowhere, as far as the compiler has been able to seek it 
 and Mr. Hosack adds, in a note, that the testimony of this 
 gentleman is of the highest value, as it was his duty to 
 examine in detail every document in the collection, including 
 what he justly calls Hhe monstrous letters,' said to have been 
 written by the Queen to Bothwell." t 
 
 Mr. Hosack well observes : — We can well understand 
 that a person of an amiable, constant, noble, and generous 
 nature, might, under the impulse of some strong and sudden 
 provocation, be induced to commit a great crime. But that 
 is not the charge against Mary Stewart. She is accused of 
 a murder requiring in its execution, not only the greatest 
 deliberation, but the most consummate deceit. She is 
 accused of feigning the tenderest affection for the husband 
 she abhorred, that she might lure him to the snare prepared 
 for him by his assassins. To assert that any human being, 
 possessed by the highest moral qualities attributed to her 
 by her modern adversaries to Mary Stewart, could have been 
 guilty of such monstrous wickedness, is an absurdity, which 
 refutes itself." I 
 
 And these testimonies in favour of the Queen are more 
 than confirmed by the circumstance of the Supreme Pontiff 
 granting to this estimable Princess the high privilege of 
 keeping in her possession the most Blessed Sacrament, 
 not only for her consolation, but in order that by com- 
 
 * Cal. State Papers relating to Scotland. Preface, 26. Hosack's 
 Mary and her Accusers^ vol. ii., 490. 
 t lb., note. % lb., p. 492. 
 
64 
 
 municating herself, she might be so fortified in the true faith 
 as to be ready to undergo martyrdom when summoned 
 thereto by her enemies. It is an extremely rare privilege, 
 only granted to those who are deprived by force of Priest 
 and Sacraments, and are likely any moment to be martyred. 
 And this most kind and charitable act of the Pontiff indicates 
 as strongly as possible his good opinion of the Queen, that 
 she was a person of intrinsic holiness and purity of life.* 
 
 I am entitled, then, to assert that Queen Mary never fell 
 away, in the slightest degree, from the high standard of 
 morality of her early life, that she never lost her purity, but, 
 on the contrary, maintained her virtue unsullied to the end. 
 
 The truth is, it was because the Queen was a Cathohc of 
 a high type that it was necessary for Protestantism to 
 destroy her character. Had Queen Mary been a Protestant, 
 her reign would have been, in an earthly sense, a glorious 
 one; for, with her great talents, she would have raised 
 Scotland to a great and powerful nation; but, as an 
 honest woman, she preferred Truth to falsehood, and Light 
 to darkness. Hence she elected to remain a Catholic, and, 
 whilst tolerating that which she could not resist, to bring her 
 people back by degrees to the religion of their fathers, from 
 which they, by false counsellors, had been alienated. If 
 she failed to effect this true reformation, it was from no fault 
 of her own, but because she had for her implacable foes 
 Queen Elizabeth and Cecil her minister, who, under the 
 guise of a base and seeming friendship, by means of a dis- 
 
 ^ See Card, de Lugo's De Eucharistia: Disput. xviii., Sec. 21, No. 25. 
 I am indebted to a Right Rev. learned Prelate of the Church for this 
 reference, which, so far as the fact of the Queen having the Blessed 
 Sacrament, is relevant to my subject. 
 
65 
 
 honourable diplomacy (for her envoys were more spies than 
 ambassadors), by wholesale bribery, by secret emissaries who 
 corrupted the people, by false and traitorous Scotchmen, and 
 by means also of foul, vile, and filthy reports maliciously 
 circulated for the purpose of defaming her character, that it 
 was impossible for her, or for any woman however highly 
 gifted, to stand against the overwhelming current that set in 
 against her, which obliged her to succumb to circumstances 
 beyond her power to overcome. 
 
 We Catholics ought to be exceedingly proud of this great, 
 illustrious and saintly lady, for she was the brilliant orna- 
 ment of Catholicism in the darkest age of the world, who for 
 nineteen years and upwards was a suffering Confessor for the 
 Faith, and at last laying down her weary head upon the 
 block, she died a true Martyr'^ for God and His Christ, for 
 the Holy Catholic Church, and for the immortal Chair of 
 Peter. 
 
 * There is no doubt whatever that Queen Mary was put to death 
 because she was dangerous to the Reformation. This is evident from 
 the following statements, (i) The Lords deputed to announce to the 
 Queen that she was sentenced to death, informed her that ** her life was 
 incompatible with the security of the Reformed Church." (Instructions 
 to Lord Buckhurst and Beale, in Labanoff, vol. vii. ; Miss Strickland, 
 Queens of Scotland, vol. vii., p. 447. ) (2) Upon the eve of her execution, 
 the Earl of Kent observed to her that * * your life would be the death of 
 our religion, and your death will be its preservation ;" to which she 
 replied, **Ah! I did not flatter myself with the thought that I was 
 worthy of such a death, and I humbly receive it as an earnest of my 
 acceptance into the number of God's chosen servants." {Mort de la Royne 
 d^Ecosse, Jebb, vol. ii., p. 612; Tytler, Hist. Scot.^ vol. viii., p. 393; 
 lb., p. 470.) This evidence would not be complete without one from a 
 Lord Spiritual. The Protestant Archbishop Parker of Canterbury, 
 Primate of all England, in a letter addressed to Cecil, says : ** If that 
 
66 
 
 only [one] desperate person [Queen Mary] were taken away, as by 
 justice soon it might be, the Queen's Majesty's good subjects would 
 be in better hope, and the papists' daily expectation vanquished." 
 (" Life of Parker," 354, quoted from Hallam's Const. Hist. Eng.^ vol. i., 
 p. 189.) The religion which the Queen professed, of which she was 
 an ardent follower, was the real cause of her death, not the reasons 
 imputed to her at her trial. These were mere pretexts, founded upon 
 forgeries and false testimonies. It was the case of the Catholic Church 
 in Britain versus the Protestant Church : if Mary had lived and survived 
 Elizabeth, the former would have been restored ; but if Mary died before 
 Elizabeth, the latter would be preserved. And it must not be forgotten 
 that the Catholic party at this time was strong enough to effect a full 
 restoration of Catholicism, if Mary had been their {de facto as she 
 certainly was their de jure) Queen. Mary then was a real Martyr for 
 the Faith. 
 
A SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 The following letter was addressed by me to the Editor of 
 The Tablet^ complaining of certain statements made in a 
 Review upon Mr. Wilmot's Story of the Scottish Reformation^ 
 which I considered defamatory of the character of Queen 
 Mary of Scotland : — 
 
 " Mary Queen of Scots and her Marriage with 
 bothwell. 
 
 " To the Editor of ' The Tablet: 
 
 " Sir, — I see ' Scrutator' has published in your paper of to- 
 day, the Rev. Father Stevenson's retractation of the words he 
 had written concerning the conduct of Queen Mary. I agree, 
 of course, with his comment on the Rev. Father's act and deed 
 in this matter, but with regard to myself, I have only to say 
 that, if it is gratifying to me, it is not so on my own account, 
 but because Queen Mary has triumphed over all her 
 opponents. This controversy, which has lasted for three 
 hundred years, is now closed for ever; and any one who 
 now or hereafter attacks her moral character, will be Uable 
 to be charged with the crime of calumny. 
 
 1 desire to call your attention to a Review, which ap- 
 peared in your issue of September ist of this year, of a work 
 written by Mr. A. Wilmot, F.R.G.S., and published by 
 Messrs. Burns and Gates, in which the Reviewer says, 
 relying on the testimony of Father Stevenson in his Preface 
 
68 
 
 to the History of Mary Stewart, by Claude Nau : — ' The 
 history of Mary Stuart, recently edited by the Rev. Joseph 
 Stevenson, SJ., from the original MS. of her secretary, 
 Claude Nau, might serve to shew that many of the matters 
 concerning the character and career of Mary of Scots, 
 cannot be settled as easily as Mr. Wilmot's pages would 
 lead the reader to suppose. History must be impartial and 
 documentary, or it is of little worth. It is in vain, if not worse 
 than vain, to predicate of Mary that "she obtained the 
 priceless advantage of suffering martyrdom for the Catholic 
 Faith." It would be wiser not to claim what can never be 
 proved, and martyrdom " is a very exalted gift to claim for 
 one who married the man whose hands were red with the 
 murder of her own husband.' 
 
 " These words are a bitter reflection on the character of 
 Queen Mary, and I must in all charity courteously request 
 your Reviewer either to substantiate what he has written, or 
 to follow the noble example of the learned antiquarian. 
 Father Stevenson, by retracting them. The Rev. Father, in 
 his retractation, says : ' I admit willingly and gladly that Mr. 
 Lindsay has in these letters [lately published in the Tablet'] 
 adduced facts and arguments which compel [the italics are 
 mine] me to retract the statements which I had previously 
 made in p. civ.' That Queen Mary was a martyr, and an 
 heroic one, is evident from history, which the following 
 extracts will prove. The Lords deputed by the English 
 Government to announce to the Queen that she had been 
 sentenced to death, informed her that ^her life was in- 
 compatible with the security of the Reformed Church.' 
 (Instructions to Lord Buckhurst and Beale in Lebanoff; 
 see Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queen of Scotland, vol. vii., 
 
69 
 
 p. 447). Again, upon the eve of her execution, the Earl of 
 Kent observed to her Majesty that 'your Hfe would be the 
 death of our religion, and your death will be its preservation;' 
 to which she replied ' Ah ! I did not flatter myself with the 
 thought that I was worthy of such a death, and I humbly 
 receive it as an earnest of my acceptance into the number 
 of God's chosen servants.' (Mort de la Reyne d'Ecosse, 
 Jebb, vol. ii., p. 612 ; Tytler's History of Scotland^ vol. viii., 
 393 ; and lb., p. 470). I put it to your Reviewer, whether 
 he can deny, in the face of these testimonies, that Queen 
 Mary really and truly did obtain ' the priceless advantage of 
 suffering martyrdom for the Catholic faith?' He cannot, 
 if he accepts his own dictum that ' history must be impartial 
 and documentary,' deny that Queen Mary was as true a 
 martyr as was Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Fisher, &c. — 
 aye, as any of those who shed their blood for Christ and his 
 Church in the early ages; for her life was a good and 
 virtuous one, and her death, by the hand of England, a 
 glorious one. 
 
 Colin Lindsay. 
 
 "Brighton, 3rd November, 1883." 
 
 In answer to this letter the Editor inserted in The Tablet 
 of the 17th November, 1883, the following "Note" : — 
 
 *'Our attention has been called to a Review of Mr. 
 Wilmot's History of the Scottish Reformation^ which appeared 
 in TJie Tablet of the ist of September, in which the writer 
 expressed an opinion that * martyrdom was a very exalted 
 gift to claim for one who married the man whose hands 
 were red with the murder of her own husband.' The Hon. 
 Colin Lindsay, in an admirable series of letters published 
 
70 
 
 in our columns, and subsequently in the form of a pamphlet, 
 succeeded, we think, in demolishing another statement 
 which had been made elsewhere, namely, that at the time of 
 Queen Mary's marriage to Bothwell, Bothwell was already 
 validly married, and that the Queen knew it. This charge 
 was immediately retracted in the most candid and honour- 
 able manner by the Rev. Father Stevenson, who had made 
 it, and we think that we also are bound to say with regard 
 to the observation which we ourselves hazarded, that it 
 appears to us equally unproved that Queen Mary knew, 
 with any certainty, that Bothwell was an accomplice in the 
 murder of her former husband." 
 
 This retractation by the Editor of The Tablet^ suffices so 
 far as it concerns that journal, though, I think, it is a pity 
 that he did not express some regret for the calumny (for if 
 the Queen is innocent it is a calumny) therein published, 
 and his joy that her Majesty has been acknowledged to 
 have been innocent of all the crimes imputed to her as 
 respects her moral conduct. 
 
 The Reviewer of Mr. Wilmot's work has not thought 
 proper to take any notice of my letter addressed to The 
 Tablet^ a copy of which I have given above ; nor has he 
 considered it necessary to answer the private note I wrote 
 to him on the same subject. The presumption is that he 
 is not convinced of his error, and that consequently he 
 adheres to his opinion, which, I hold, is detrimental to the 
 interests of truth. I asked him to prove his assertions or to 
 retract them, but he has not, and I presume he does not 
 intend to do so. I shall now, for his benefit, and that of 
 all who are interested in the furtherance of truth, proceed to 
 examine, more in detail than I have done (for my Letters 
 
71 
 
 on the Queen, concerned chiefly her conduct as regards 
 Bothwell), the accusations against her respecting the murder 
 of Lord Darnley, her husband, prefacing it by an investiga- 
 tion of her conduct in regard to David Riccio, her French 
 Secretary. 
 
 I. Riccio. 
 
 Riccio was an Itahan, who, on account of his great 
 proficiency in music, and the beauty of his singing, was 
 appointed one of the choir at the Chapel Royal, and the 
 Queen herself being extremely partial to music, invited him 
 to her court, that she might enjoy some recreation by 
 listening to his matchless voice." Perceiving that he was 
 a well-educated and accomplished man, she appointed him 
 her Secretary for French affairs. No doubt his position 
 enabled him to exercise considerable influence in state 
 affairs, especially in regard to the government of the 
 country, which gave great umbrage to the turbulent nobles 
 of the day, and to her husband in particular. It was 
 determined, then, to put him to death, and so get rid of him. 
 Accordingly two ^' bands " or covenants were drawn up, one 
 in Darnley's name, and the other in the names of certain 
 conspirators, who complained, among other things, that he 
 was urging the Queen to subvert the Reformed faith, and to 
 restore the prestige of the Catholic Church. It was, then, 
 chiefly on account of the reHgious question that Riccio was 
 to be sacrificed. 
 
 The motives that actuated Darnley were wholly different. 
 He was a Catholic, and in that respect was an upholder 
 of the Catholic Religion, but he was angry with the Queen 
 because of her non-fulfilment of a promise that she would 
 
72 
 
 give him "the crown matrimonial." Tytler observes "in 
 the early ardour of her affection, the Queen had promised 
 Darnley the * crown matrimonial,' by which was meant 
 an equal share with herself in the government ; but after 
 a few months she had the misery to discover, that her 
 love had been thrown away upon a husband whom it was 
 impossible for her to treat with confidence or respect : " 
 and he describes him as " fickle, proud, and suspicious ; 
 ambitious of power, yet incapable of business, and the 
 easy dupe of every crafty or interested companion whom 
 he met. It became necessary, then," he continues, "for 
 Mary to draw back from her first promise." The enemies 
 of the Queen persuaded him " that Riccio was the 
 sole author of those measures which had deprived him 
 of his due share in the government." But he was also 
 induced to believe in the infidelity of his Queen and wife, 
 which Tytler justly describes as an absurd delusion," and 
 hence he became jealous of Riccio, accusing him of having 
 " supplanted him in the affections of the Queen ;" of having 
 "dishonoured his bed;" and in his fury entered into a 
 conspiracy for the destruction of this Italian.* 
 
 Upon this " absurd delusion" there has sprung up a 
 tradition of the Queen's unfaithfulness to her marriage vows 
 — the charge of impurity being a ready means on the part 
 of her infamous foes for insuring the ruin, in the estimation 
 of the world, of the character of the Queen, t 
 
 * Ty tier's Hist. Scot., vol. vii., pp. 21, 22. 
 
 f Miss Strickland, in a note, observes **The following brief state- 
 ment, from the pen of Sir James Melville, sufficiently explains what the 
 motives of some of the leading actors in the tragedy were, and that the 
 base calumny about the Queen's affection for Riccio was a mere political 
 
73 
 
 Malicious charges of this sort are invariably very difficult 
 to rebut, and many have fallen victims to wicked and un- 
 scrupulous persons, by whom they have been effectually, 
 though innocent, destroyed. Direct evidence against this 
 abominable charge against the Queen does not exist, but 
 there is sufficient to indicate its improbability, from the 
 known characters of Riccio and her Majesty; and that it 
 rests upon no better foundation than upon that of her 
 dissolute husband arfd his wicked companions in treason 
 and iniquity. 
 
 I. Fortunately there is ample proofs from contemporaries 
 concerning the character of David Riccio : — Miss Strickland 
 gives us some valuable testimonies in his favour. Quoting 
 from Adam Blackwood's Fragmentary Life of Mary Stuart^ 
 she says : " * He [Riccio] was,' says a contemporary, who 
 knew him well, 'a man of no beauty or outward shape, 
 for he was misshapen, evil favoured, and very black ; but 
 
 fiction, got up for the purpose of defending the assassination. * The 
 Earl of Morton and his defenders feared a resolution ... to bring 
 back to the Crown divers great dispositions [grants], given out during the 
 Queen's minority, and some benefices that were taken by noblemen, at 
 their hands, during the civil wars, under pretext of religion.' This, 
 and other particularities, moved them to consult together how to get the 
 Parliament stayed, and to make a change in Court. The Earl of Morton 
 had a crafty head, and had a cousin called George Douglas the Postulate, 
 son natural to the Earl of Angus, who was also father to Dame 
 Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, the King's mother. The said 
 George was continually about the King [Darnley], as his mother's 
 brother, and put in his head such suspicion against Seigneur David 
 [Riccio], that the King was won to give his consent over facily to 
 the slaughter of Seigneur David, which the Lords of Morton, Ruthven, 
 Lindsay, and others had devised, that way to be Masters of the Court 
 and to stay the Parliament. " {Lives of Queens of Scotland, vol. iv. , p. 263. ) 
 
 F 
 
74 
 
 for his fidelity, wisdom, prudence, virtue, and other good 
 parts and qualities of his mind, he was richly adorned.'"^ 
 The " author of Le Livre de la Mart Marie Stuart^ printed 
 in 1587, declares he was ^ disgracie de corps ^ [in allusion to 
 his ungainly person], and of mature years, but great 
 sagacity."! Again: "The author of Martire de Marie 
 says: *The credit he enjoyed with his mistress was not on 
 account of any beauty he possessed, being an old man, 
 and ugly, swarthy, and ill favoured^ but because of his 
 great fidelity, wisdom, prudence, and many other excellent 
 endowments/ " \ She continues : " Connaco declares that 
 ' he was old and deformed, but of spotless faith, and possessed 
 of rare talents.' " § Once more : " Louis Guryon, conseiller 
 de finances to the King of France, gives the most conclusive 
 testimony of all ; for he says : ' I was well acquainted with 
 David Riccio, from whom I received many civilities in that 
 Court [Scotland]. He was in years, of dark hue, and very 
 ill favoured; but of a rare prudence, and very skilful in 
 business.' " || 
 
 Two points are here to be noticed. First, that the cha- 
 racter of Riccio was irreproachable, for he was remarkable 
 for "rare prudence," "virtue," and other good qualities of 
 mind, both in the moral and intellectual order. He was, 
 moreover, faithful and wise, and was considered by his 
 contemporaries as a thoroughly good man, of " spotless 
 faith," "prudent," "wise," and "virtuous," and con- 
 sequently incapable of any such crimes as his enemies and 
 Darnley in particular have imputed to him in regard to the 
 Queen. 
 
 * Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of ScoUaitd, vol. iii. p. 339. 
 + lb., iv., p. 264. X lb. § lb. II lb. 
 
75 
 
 The second point to be observed is this : that Riccio was 
 " in years," of " mature years," in fact, " an old man ;" that 
 he was a " man of no beauty," " misshapen," " very ill- 
 favoured j" " deformed," " ugly," " swarthy," and " very 
 black." So remarkable were his personal deformities, that 
 Buchanan says that it " baffled the power of his tailor to 
 conceal" them.* I thSnk, then, that every fair man will 
 conclude (i) that Riccio was a man of irreproachable cha- 
 racter ; and (2) that his age and external defects would, 
 among chivalrous men, have protected the Queen from the 
 abominable charges made against her in regard to this evi- 
 dently good and virtuous man. 
 
 2. It has been alleged that on the eve of the murder of 
 Riccio, he and the Queen were alone in a small room at 
 Holyrood, adjoining her Majest/s bed-chamber. I do not 
 know whether there is any authority for this assertion ; there 
 certainly is a tradition, founded upon what Tytler describes 
 as "an absurd delusion," that such was the case, and I am 
 under the impression that I have seen somewhere a picture 
 or caricature, representing the Queen and Riccio as alone, 
 sitting together in a manner not befitting her dignity. Be 
 this as it may, I think it is necessary to show that this story 
 is absolutely false. 
 
 Tytler informs us that on the evening of the murder, the 
 Queen was at supper, " attended by the Countess of Aygile, 
 the commandator of Holyrood, Beaton, master of the house- 
 hold, Arthur Erskine, captain of the guard, and her secretary, 
 Riccio/' t who " was at the foot of the table." I 
 
 * lb., iii., p. 339, note. 
 
 t Tytler's JIls^. Scof.y vol. vii., p. 34. 
 
 t Petit's J^ist. Mary Stuart, vol. i., p. 104. 
 
 F 2 
 
76 
 
 3- With regard to the character of the Queen, I have 
 already in my Letters given ample testimony to her good- 
 ness, modesty, and virtuous conduct ; * so it may be regarded 
 as a certainty that Queen Mary was incapable of any such 
 aberration of conduct as was imputed to her. The following 
 testimony of her Privy Council, which I here reproduce, 
 some time after the murder of Ricci», confirms what I have 
 said. Addressing a remonstrance to Darnley, they say : 
 
 . . . as for her Majesty, it was impossible that she could 
 have given him cause for discontent, but, on the contrary, 
 he had all the reason in the world to praise God for having 
 given him a wife so wise and virtuous as she has shown 
 herself in all her actions." To which Darnley gave no 
 reply, which he would have done, had there been any cause 
 of scandal, t 
 
 II. Lord Darnley. 
 
 Except from the forged documents and false testimonies 
 prepared by the enemies of Queen Mary, there exists not a 
 tittle of evidence, direct or indirect, implicating her Majesty 
 in the murder of Lord Darnley, her husband. Her marriage 
 with him had not been a happy one, Darnley being a harsh, 
 unkind, and a cruel man, and moreover weak, silly, and 
 treacherous, in whom it was impossible for the Queen to 
 place any confidence. He became a tool in the hands of 
 her enemies for accomplishing the murder of Riccio, and 
 subsequently they determined in self-defence to sacrifice him. 
 They were fully aware of Darnley's treacherous disposition, of 
 
 \ * Letter vii., pp. 55 — 63. 
 
 t Letter of the Lords. Miss Strickland, Lives, vol. iv., p. 375. 
 
77 
 
 which they soon after had proofs, for he, subsequently to the 
 murder, revealed their plots to the Queen, and facilitated her 
 escape from Holyrood, wherein she had discovered she was 
 a prisoner. I will now detail how this was carried into effect. 
 
 I. Taking advantage of the conduct of Darnley towards 
 the Queen, they suggested to her Majesty the expediency of 
 obtaining a divorce or separation from her husband, and 
 they offered " to unite their efforts " for this end. The 
 Queen " professed her willingness to consent" to this arrange- 
 ment, on the condition that " its effect should not prejudice 
 the rights of her son.""^ The Lords then suggested "that 
 after the divorce," Darnley " had better live in a remote part 
 of the country," " or retire to France." Instantly the Queen 
 took alarm, for she well knew that his life would not be safe, 
 if such a plan should be carried out. The curse of Scotland 
 had always been the feuds that prevailed among the nobles, 
 in which assassination was very frequently resorted to, 
 for the extermination of enemies. The Queen then " re- 
 lenting, drew back from the proposal, [and] expressed 
 a hope that he might return to a better mind," and she 
 even "proposed her willingness to pass into France, and 
 remain there till he acknowledged his faults." This did not 
 suit the policy of the traitors ; for if the Queen was in 
 France, she would be beyond the power of their machi- 
 nations, for their ultimate aim was the ruin of the Queen. 
 Maintland, the Secretary, then made this rejoinder, "hinting 
 darkly, that rather than subject the Queen to such an 
 indignity as retiring from her kingdom, it would be better to 
 substitute murder for divorce," saying; " saucy [mind ye not] 
 that we are here of the principal of your Grace's nobility 
 ♦ Tytler, Hist, Scot.y vol. vii., pp. 62, 63. 
 
78 
 
 and Council, that shall not find the mean well to make your 
 Majesty quit of him, without prejudice of your son : and 
 albeit, that my Lord of Murray here present, be little less 
 scrupulous for a Protestant nor [than] your Grace is for a 
 Papist, I am assured he will look through his fingers, 
 and will behold our doings, and say nothing thereto."* 
 These Lords had now shewn their hand, and the indigna- 
 tion of the Queen was effectually roused ; but she knew 
 with whom she had to deal; she was aware also that she 
 was in their power, and so she guardedly replied as follows : 
 I will that ye do nothing whereto any spot may be 
 laid to my honour or conscience, and therefore, I pray you, 
 rather let the matter be in the estate it is, abiding till 
 God of his goodness find remedy thereto ; that ye believing 
 to do me service may possibly turn to my hurt and dis- 
 pleasure." This drew an answer from Lethington to this 
 effect : " Madam, let us guide the business among us, and 
 your Grace shall see nothing but good, and approved by 
 Parliament"! This proposal also tlie Queen rejected, and 
 in the language of the Spanish Ambassador, she " negatived 
 the conspiracy in every point."! Certainly the last alter- 
 native was open to the Queen's acceptance, for Darnley 
 having been guilty of repeated treasons, he might have been 
 constitutionally tried for his life and executed. But the 
 Queen's love for her husband was far from being extin- 
 guished, and so she resolved to bear with him, like a true 
 woman, than have him sacrificed. 
 
 * lb., p. 63. 
 
 t Anderson's Collections. Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of 
 Scot., vol. v., p. 57. 
 X lb. 
 
79 
 
 2. The Lords being, baffled on all points, they next 
 entered into a conspiracy to effect the murder of the Queen's 
 husband. The conspirators consisted of Lethington, Huntly, 
 Argyll, and Sir James Balfour, who signed a "band" or 
 covenant, " declaring their resolution to cut off the King 
 [Darnley] as a young fool and tyrant, who was the enemy to 
 the nobility, and had conducted himself in an intolerable 
 manner to the Queen and they agreed to stand by one 
 another, and defend their " deed as a measure of state, 
 resolved on by the chief councillors of the realm, and neces- 
 sary for the preservation of their lives." 
 
 While this conspiracy was hatching, Darnley was taken ill 
 of a malignant disorder, and the Queen hastened to him to 
 nurse him, and by her assiduous attention she greatly aided 
 in promoting his convalescence. She brought him back to 
 Edinburgh, and lodged him in a house called Kirk of Field, 
 where he was to remain until danger of infection had passed 
 away. The Queen remained with him day and night ; but 
 an occurrence happened which obliged her to leave him one 
 night. A servant of hers was engaged to be married to one 
 of her favourite women, and she had promised to give them 
 an entertainment to celebrate the event, t The greater part 
 of the day she spent with her husband, and in the evening 
 she returned to the palace to fulfil her promise. The oppor- 
 tunity was seized by the conspirators to carry into effect 
 their infamous design ; and they contrived during the day to 
 secrete in the Queen's chamber, under the room where 
 Darnley slept, some gunpowder : and the parties employed 
 by Bothwell to do this were " Hay of Tallo, Hepburn of 
 Bolton, and other ruffians." J The result is well known. 
 * Tytler, vol. vii., p. 65. + lb., p. 81. t lb., p. 82. 
 
8o 
 
 The explosion produced a tremendous report, which 
 roused the Queen and her household, and she sent to 
 inquire the cause. She was soon informed of the destruction 
 of her husband and of the house wherein he was sojourning. 
 
 3. Such is the simple narrative of the event; and we have 
 now to enquire, (i) How did the Queen receive the terrible 
 news ? (2) What did she do to bring the culprits to justice ? 
 and (3) What is the evidence upon which the Queen has 
 been condemned by her enemies as an accomplice ? 
 
 (i.) How did her Majesty receive the report of her hus- 
 band's murder? Miss Strickland says that she was "over- 
 powered with grief and horror, and weeping bitterly," and that 
 " the Queen withdrew instantly to her own chamber." In the 
 morning Bothwell, one of the chief ministers of the Crown, 
 came to speak to her Majesty. The Queen being in bed, 
 he " spoke to her secretly under the curtain," Madame de 
 Briante, " an elderly matron of the highest rank and most 
 approved discretion," being present. When Bothwell left 
 her, he said " that her Majesty was sorrowful and quiet." 
 Upon this Miss Strickland justly remarks that " such, indeed, 
 like the ^ stillness of the streams that flow deepest,' is the 
 character of intense grief." "It would have been easy 
 enough," adds Miss Strickland, " for Mary to have affected 
 all the noisy demonstrations of audible sobs, hysterics, and 
 passionate exclamations, if she had been of the deceitful 
 nature imputed to her by her foes ; had she been conscious 
 of guilt, she would have seen, at once, the expediency of 
 acting a part." Her sorrow for the death of her second 
 husband was similar in kind with that of her first : on that 
 occasion " she had made no such parade ; she had then 
 * Miss Strickland's Lives, vol. v., p. 185. 
 
8i 
 
 been sorrowful, but quiet, as a true mourner generally is, and 
 no one questioned the reality of her woe." * Had the 
 Queen been guilty, there would have been much excitement, 
 a great deal of lamentation for an irreparable loss, a wringing 
 of hands, and manifestations that make show of intense 
 grief ; but the Queen, after the first shock, was quiet, sor- 
 rowful, and overcome with anguish. That this was the fact, 
 is testified to by one " who avowedly derived his information 
 from Monsieur de Clernault, the French envoy then at the 
 Court of Holyrood," the following extract will shew : The 
 fact being communicated to the poor Queen, one can 
 scarcely think what distress and agony it has thrown her 
 into — the more so, because it has happened at a time when 
 her Majesty and the King were on the best possible terms. 
 The said Lord of Clernault has left her in as much affliction 
 as it was possible to be, and one of the most unhappy 
 Queens in the world." t 
 
 There is no doubt whatever of the sincerity and the reality 
 of Queen Mary's mourning for the loss of her husband ; and 
 it carries with it the force of conviction that she was no 
 party, direct or indirect, to his murder. 
 
 (2.) But what measures did the Queen take to bring the 
 culprits to justice ? The first thing she did was to order a 
 Proclamation to be made offering a reward of ;^2ooo [a 
 very large sum in those days], and a pension for life, to 
 whomsoever would reveal and bring to justice the person or 
 persons by whom the horrible and treasonable murder had 
 been committed." J Free pardon was promised, at the same 
 
 ♦ lb., p. 186. 
 
 t State Paper Off. MS., being the fragment of a letter intercepted by 
 the English authorities at Berwick. lb., p. 186. 
 I Anderson's Collectmts^ ^c, lb., p. 188. 
 
82 
 
 time, " to such person, even if a partaker in the crime, 
 provided he would be the means of bringing the authors of 
 the same to Hght and it was added, " that the Queen's 
 Majesty, unto whom, of all others, the case was most 
 grievous, would rather lose life and all than that it should 
 remain unpunished." * 
 
 The Queen herself could do no more ; it was the duty of 
 her Ministers and Council to render the Proclamation effec- 
 tive. An illustration occurs to me in what recently occurred 
 in Ireland, when Lord Frederick Cavendish, the Chief 
 Secretary for Ireland, and Mr. Burke, the Under-Secretary, 
 were murdered in the Phoenix Park. The Queen in Council 
 offered a reward of 10,000 to any one, and a free pardon, 
 for the apprehension of the murderers, not being a principal 
 actor in the tragedy. Her Majesty our gracious Queen 
 performed her part ; but what more could she have done, if 
 her Ministers and Council had been themselves principals 
 or accessories to those murders? Her hand would have 
 been paralysed. And this was precisely the case with Queen 
 Mary. The murderers of her husband were her own cabinet 
 Ministers and Councillors, whose greatest interest it was to 
 render the Proclamation of no effect. Hence the Queen was 
 powerless to act in this matter with any hope of success. 
 The Queen may have had suspicions who the murderers 
 were, but she possessed no proofs; and even in that bar- 
 barous age, some proofs were necessary before condemning 
 and executing criminals. 
 
 The royal Proclamation was answered by an anonymous 
 placard found on the door of the Tolbooth, accusing " the 
 Earl of Bothwell, Mr. James Balfour, parson of Fliske, Mr. 
 * Life of Mary, lb. 
 
83 
 
 David Chambers, black Mr. John Spens, who was the prin- 
 cipal deviser of the murder, and the Queen assenting thereto, 
 through the persuasion of the Earl of Bothwell, and the 
 witchcraft of the Lady Buccleuch."''' The Queen's answer 
 was prompt, " requiring the setter-up of the libel to come 
 forward and avow the same, and he should have the sum 
 promised in her first Proclamation, and further, according 
 to his ability to make good his words before her and her 
 Council." But no other answer was vouchsafed than by another 
 anonymous placard, which desired as a condition, that the 
 money should be placed in the hands of some impartial 
 person, which, if done, he would come forward and " declare 
 what every man did in particular, with their complices."! 
 As a matter of course, no further notice was taken of these 
 anonymous placards, as evidently proceeding from " some 
 person of disordered intellect." A third anonymous placard 
 made its appearance, which was in these words, after reciting 
 the Queen's first proclamation : " I and the L. Bodewell, 
 Mr. Jembes Bafourde, Mr. Davyd Chambers, and black Mr. 
 John Spence, were the doers of the same. If this be not 
 true, ask Mr. Gylbard Baforde." | It seems that those who 
 really knew the names of the murderers of Darnley were 
 afraid to come forward. Indeed, the Council did their 
 utmost to prevent any solution of this horrible affair. They 
 endeavoured to raise suspicions against the Queen, for their 
 own protection, as appears from Chalmers, who thus writes : 
 " No one cared for him [Darnley] during his life ; and had 
 his death occurred under any other circumstances than those 
 which had been purposely arranged by the enemies of both 
 * lb., pp.. 196, 197. + Anderson's Collections. lb., p. 197. 
 X lb., p. 198. 
 
84 
 
 to throw suspicion on the Queen, it would have been 
 regarded by the people in general as a national deliverance, 
 and hailed with savage exultation by the parties who were 
 banded together for his murder, even before his marriage 
 with their Sovereign." And Randolph, the English Ambas- 
 sador, whose hand had been with them in their secret 
 councils, had predicted ' that this new master [Darnley] 
 would have brief days in Scotland/ " There is no doubt, 
 then, that the real impediment to the discovery of the cul- 
 prits was not the Queen, but her Ministers and Councillors. 
 
 Murray, a few hours before the murder of Darnley, had 
 resigned his office of Prime Minister, and he was succeeded 
 by Both well, who with Huntly and Argyll, in conjunction 
 with Lethington, became the ruling power in the Court at 
 Holyrood Palace, t The Queen had no suspicion of Bothwell 
 being one of the murderers of her husband. He was residing, \ 
 as her Prime Minister, at the Palace when it occurred, and 
 he was the one who reported the terrible event to her 
 Majesty. Lennox, the father of Darnley, formally addressed 
 several letters to the Queen on his son's murder, informing 
 her of his suspicions of Bothwell and others, as being the 
 murderers, and expressing that her Majesty would "take 
 order in the matter, according to the weight of the cause." J 
 To which she replied without any delay, that "for the 
 convention of our nobility and Council, we have pre- 
 vented [anticipated] the thing desired by you in your 
 letter, and has sent for them to be at [with] us in Edinburgh 
 this week approaching, where the persons nominate in 
 your letter [i.e., Bothwell and others] shall abide, and 
 
 ♦ State Paper Office M.S. lb., p. 198. t lb., p. 207. 
 
 J Keith, Bis^.j p. 372. lb., pp. 224, 225. 
 
85 
 
 underly [undergo] such trial as by the laws of this realm 
 is accustomed ; and being found culpable in any wise 
 of that crime and odious fact nominate on the tickets 
 [placards], and whereof ye suspect them, we shall, even 
 according to our former letter, see condign punishment as 
 rigorously and extremely executed as the weight of that 
 fact deserves." The result was that Bothwell was tried 
 for the murder of Darnley at the Tolbooth, and acquitted, 
 the verdict being subsequently confirmed by the Parliament 
 — a result obtained by the influence and power of his 
 murderers. 
 
 It is clear then that Queen Mary did all she could to 
 discover and bring to justice the murderers of her husband ; 
 but she being surrounded by traitors and false advisers, was 
 powerless to carry into effect her most anxious desires. 
 
 (3.) The next point is what is the evidence upon which 
 the Queen has been condemned as an accessory to the 
 murder of her husband ? 
 
 It appears that the earliest mention of this charge against 
 the Queen was contained in the first anonymous placard, in 
 
 * Labanoff. lb., p. 225. In the previous letter, to which the Queen 
 refers, she says and for the assembly of the nobility and Estates 
 
 which ye advise us cause be convened, for a perfect trial to be had of the 
 King our husband's cruel slaughter, it is indeed convenient that so should 
 be ; and even before the receipt of your letter we had caused proclaim 
 a Parliament, at the which we doubt not but they all, for the most part, 
 shall be present, where, first of, all, this matter, being most dear to 
 us, shall be handled, and nothing left undone which may further the 
 clear trial of the odious fact ; and we for our part, as we ought, and all 
 noblemen likewise, we doubt not, shall most willingly direct all our 
 wits and ingines [ingenuity] to this end, as experience in fine, with 
 God's grace, shall give witnessing to the world." (Keith and Labanoff, 
 vol. ii. lb., pp. 209, 210. 
 
86 
 
 answer to her Majesty's Proclamation — viz., "and the 
 Queen, assenting thereto, through the persuasion of the Earl 
 of Both well, and the witchcraft of the Lady Buccleuch."* 
 This was followed by the dissemination of anonymous papers 
 and caricatures, by which the Queen, who had been loved 
 by her people, was now the object of their aversion : and 
 this aversion was increased by another placard on one of 
 the public buildings in Edinburgh, on which was witten — 
 " Farewell, gentyl Henrye [Darnley] ! but a vengeance on 
 Mary." t The idea then, of the Queen being an accomplice, 
 rapidly gained ground, so that the belief in her guilt became 
 very general. After her surrender at Carberry Hill, on her 
 way to Edinburgh, flags were exhibited before her eyes 
 depicting herself and the slaughtered body of her husband, 
 in a manner to convey the idea that she was his murderess. J 
 
 Having thus poisoned the minds of her people against 
 her by these false libels, it was not difficult for her enemies 
 to frame a fraudulent indictment against her before the 
 Commissioners at York and Westminster. 
 
 4. I now proceed to prove the Queen's innocence of 
 
 * lb., V. 197. 
 
 t Drury to Cecil, Border Correspondence. lb., p. 206. Miss 
 Strickland thus remarks : Mary had been severely censured for not 
 taking active means for discovering the authors of these anonymous 
 denunciations. They were, in reality, directed against herself, and the 
 tocsin notes of the approaching revolution. She was of all persons 
 most deeply interested in unmasking the skulking incendiaries, who 
 were thus inflaming the minds of the citizens against her ; but environed 
 by traitors, what was she to do ? " (pp. 206, 207). She was abandoned 
 by all, even by Murray, her late Prime Minister, who was the arch- 
 traitor of all. 
 
 t lb., p. 327, 328. 
 
87 
 
 the murder of Lord Darnley, The people in Scotland were 
 urgent on the government to prosecute the murderers, but 
 Murray the Regent found himself surrounded with enormous 
 difficulties, for the real culprits were some of the chief 
 nobility by whose power he had succeeded to the Regency. 
 Shielding, as far as he could, his patrons, he began by 
 attacking the Queen and the inferior actors in the tragedy. 
 
 (i.) An indictment called "The Book of Articles,'^ was 
 drawn up by Murray, and presented to the Commissioners 
 jointly appointed by the Queens of Scotland and England, 
 in which, inter alia, Queen Mary was accused of conspiring 
 with Bothwell to murder King Henry [Darnley]. This 
 "Book of Articles" was handed to the Enghsh Com- 
 missioners, but a copy was not given to the Queen of 
 Scotland, nor to her Commissioners. In vain they de- 
 manded one, but it was rigorously refused. This alone was 
 sufficient to throw grave suspicions on the honesty of 
 Murray and the English authorities, showing a determination 
 on their part to obtain a foregone conclusion. But such 
 justice as this was too much even, for Elizabeth and her 
 Council ; and so the former decided and announced to 
 Murray and his coadjutors in crime her decision in these 
 words : — " That forasmuch as there has been nothing 
 deduced against them as yet that might impair their honor 
 and allegiance, so, on the other part, there had been nothing 
 sufficient produced nor shown by theni against their 
 Sovereign, whereby, the Queen of England should conceive 
 or take any evil opinion of the Queen, her good sister, for 
 anything she had yet seen." * Queen Mary, then, was 
 
 * Goodall's Append., p. 303. LabanofF, vol. ii., p. 227. Chalmers 
 and Bell's Life of Mary. lb., vol. vi., p. 310. 
 
88 
 
 acquitted of the murder by even her bitterest enemies, 
 Queen Elizabeth and Cecil. 
 
 (2.) In Letter VII., I give an extract from "The Instruc- 
 tions " to Mary's Commissioners, in proof of her good moral 
 character, to which I refer my readers ; but there is another 
 one which is equally, if not more, in point. " . . . So that 
 it may be clearly considered, and is sufficient presumption in 
 these respects, her Grace having the commodity [convenience] 
 to find the means to be separate, and yet would not consent 
 thereto, that her Grace would never have consented to 
 his murder, having such other likely means to have quit 
 of him by the Lords' own device ; but that it may be 
 inferred that they were the doers thereof, only as was 
 deponed [deposed] by them who suffered death therefor, 
 who declared at all times, the Queen our Sovereign, to be 
 innocent thereof." * This is the testimony of the Arch- 
 bishop of St. Andrew's, and of some sixteen of the chief 
 nobiHty, and is conclusive of the innocence of the Queen 
 of the murder, direct or indirect, of her husband. t I 
 
 * Instruction to Commissioners, lb. vi., p. 396. 
 
 + There is no doubt that the Queen, if she was the wicked woman 
 as she has been accused of being, could at any time have disposed 
 of her husband. She might have had him tried for high treason 
 and executed ; she might have accepted the advice of her Ministers, and 
 permitted them to take him to some remote place in Scotland, as they 
 proposed, and left him to his fate. She might have so nursed him when 
 ill, as to cause his death. She might have accomplished her purpose 
 in a way which would completely exonerate her from all human 
 responsibility, without a suspicion being raised to her discredit. The 
 Queen, then, was by far too clever a woman to place herself at the 
 mercy of her government, when she could have relieved herself of her- 
 husband m. other and more secret ways. I think this consideration 
 greatly disposes of the false and shameful charges brought against her. 
 
89 
 
 follow this up by giving an account of the confessions of 
 some of the culprits, inclusive of that of Bothwell himself. 
 
 (3.) It will be remembered that Murray, for the sake of 
 his own interests, protected the principal culprits ; but as the 
 clamour for justice was predominant, he caused the arrest 
 of Powrie, John Hay of Tallo, Dalgleish, and others who had 
 been employed by the conspirators to carry out the murder. 
 These men were tried, condemned, and hanged the same 
 day, but they made a confession, acknowledging that "the 
 Queen was innocent of the deed and they further declared 
 that they had not read the depositions to which they had 
 been compelled to set their hands, and desired to warn the 
 people, in case anything hereafter should be set forth to the 
 disadvantage of her Majesty"; for though they had been 
 examined by severe inflictions of torture, under which they 
 had made full acknowledgment of their own crimes, and 
 had then been promised their lives if they would bear 
 witness against her Majesty, they had been preserved from 
 the guilt of falsely accusing their good and virtuous Queen of 
 being participant in that iniquity." It would seem that no 
 amount of torture would force them to confess that Queen 
 Mary was an accomplice in the murder of her husband. 
 
 John Hepburn, a domestic servant of Bothwell, before his 
 execution " confessed in the presence of all the people, by 
 whom the same was heard, the innocence of the Queen his 
 Sovereign Lady," making solemn protestations as to the truth 
 of his confession, t 
 
 * Innocens de la Royne (TEcosse^ printed in 1572, and published in 
 Jebb's Collections, lb., pp. 51, 52. 
 
 t lb., p. 51. He also said : declare that Moray [Murray] and 
 Morton were the sole contrivers, movers, and counsellors of Bothwell in 
 
 G 
 
90 
 
 Kirkaldy of the Grange, Miss Strickland says, " lived to 
 change " his opinion of the Queen, and acknowledged her 
 innocence and the falsehood of her accusers and he 
 " branded Morton as the contriver, and Archibald Douglas 
 as the executor, of the murder he had previously charged on 
 her/' * 
 
 The Countess of Lennox, also, the mother of Lord 
 Darnley, exonerated the Queen from all blame touching the 
 murder of her son.t 
 
 the commission of this murder, and that they have assisted in all the 
 enterprises and conspiracies formed against Lord Darnley, and exhorted 
 the Earl my master not to hesitate to execute boldly a deed so 
 necessary for all the nobles of Scotland. I confess to have had 
 knowledge of this, not only by word of mouth from my Lord, with 
 whom they were associated in it . . . but by the letters and indentures 
 signed by both of them, which he showed me, and I have seen and 
 read them myself, setting forth and describing the whole plot»" 
 ♦ lb., vii., p. 1 88. 
 
 t Queen Mary, in a letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, thus writes 
 in regard to the Countess of Lennox, her mother-in-law, who had just 
 died, in which she says — . . This good lady, thank God, was on 
 the very best terms with me, since the last five or six years we have cor- 
 responded together, and she has acknowledged to me in letters, written by 
 her own hand, the wrong she had done me by her unjust persecutions, 
 excited, as she has given me to understand, by her having been badly 
 informed, but principally by the express commands of the Queen of 
 England, and by the persuasion of her Council, who were bent on 
 preventing our agreement ; but when she became convinced of my 
 innocence, she desisted from persecuting me herself, and refused plainly to 
 sanction what they might do against me under her name." The letters 
 referred to by the Queen were no doubt seized at the time when '*all her 
 drawers, coffers, escritoires, and other secret repositories, were broken 
 open in 1586 in quest of evidence of her implication in Babington's 
 plot." They had not, in Miss Strickland's time, been found, and in all 
 
91 
 
 But the most important evidence in favour of the Queen's 
 innocence is from Bothwell himself Miss Strickland says : 
 
 The fact of Bothwell's confession previous to his removal 
 from Malmoe is confirmed in the curious Latin MS. Bio- 
 graphy of Mary Stuart, by a contemporary Hungarian his- 
 torian, the learned Michael Entzinger, a most valuable 
 because a thoroughly impartial authority; for the Hungarians, 
 intent only on maintaining the honour and independence of 
 their noble country, stood proudly apart from the intrigues, 
 passions, and political falsehoods which have polluted the 
 historical literature of Western Europe. Entzinger affirms 
 * that the wise and just Frederick II. of Denmark chose to 
 see and confer with this notable prisoner [Bothwell] himself, 
 and in a personal interview (which took place before Bothwell 
 was transferred to the dungeons of Dragsholm) solemnly 
 adjured him to declare the truth by making a free and clear 
 avowal whether the Queen of Scotland was guilty or innocent 
 of her husband's death.' Then Bothwell, after praying God 
 in a loud voice, ^ to be merciful to him, as he spake truly,' 
 declared ' that the Queen was innocent of having cognisance 
 or foreknowledge of her husband's murder.' On being desired 
 by the King of Denmark to name the assassins, he replied, 
 
 probability were destroyed by the English government. One letter, at 
 least, remains, which could only have been written by one who believed 
 in the Queen's innocence. In that letter, dated November 1575, Lady 
 Lennox commends her Majesty **to trust in God," and she informs her 
 that "the treachery of her^ traitors is better known than before;" she 
 promises to "play her part to her Majesty's content," and expresses her 
 hope that Arabella Stuart, her grand-daughter, may sometime "serve 
 her Highness." Such sentiments as these are inconsistent with a 
 "belief of the Queen having murdered her husband." (lb., vol. vii., 
 pp. 277, 278 ; vol. v., pp. 372, 373.) 
 
92 
 
 * The bastard [Murray] began, Morton drew, and I wove the 
 web of this murder.' " Both well was not put to death, but he 
 was no longer recognised as a nobleman and " the consort of 
 a Queen," but treated "as a condemned criminal." After two 
 years imprisonment he died (14th April, 1578), leaving a con- 
 fession (or will), in Avhich he confirmed what he had told the 
 King, declaring the Queen's innocence in the following lan- 
 guage : " In primis, he did take it upon his death, that the 
 Queen never knew nor consented to the death of the King 
 [Darnley], but he and his friends by his appointment, divers 
 Lords consenting and subscribing thereunto ; who yet was 
 [were] not present at the deed doing." This confession was 
 made " in the presence of divers Lords of Denmark," and 
 also in that of the Lutheran Bishop of Skone and four 
 Baylies of the town." t 
 
 In the face of these testimonies, how is it possible to 
 deny Queen Mary's innocence of the charge of murdering, 
 or of being in any way an accomplice in the murder of 
 her husband. Lord Darnley? Murray failed to convince 
 Elizabeth and her ministers; Kirkaldy of the Grange and 
 
 * lb., vii., 249, 250. 
 
 + The authenticity of this Will or Confession has been disputed, but 
 without sufficient grounds. Several versions exist, one in the library at 
 St. James's Palace, another in the British Museum, and another was 
 sent to Scotland. They vary in particulars, but all agree in exonerating 
 the Queen from all complicity in the murder of Darnley. (See Petit's 
 Life of Mary, vol. i., pp. 344-349). Entzinger says *'that Bothwell left 
 written letters declaring the names and number of the conspirators, the 
 pledges given by them, the means prescribed, the place and manner of 
 its execution, and explaining all things concerning the murder and its 
 authors." (Miss Strickland's Lives, vol. vii., p. 251.) 
 
 See Petit's Life of Queen Mary Stuart, vol. i., p. 348. 
 
93 
 
 Lady Lennox were convinced of her innocence ; the culprits 
 who were executed previously, in spite of torture, acknow- 
 ledged the same, and so did Bothwell, once before the King 
 of Denmark in person, and subsequently, when he was at 
 the point of death.* 
 
 Queen Mary, then, has been proved by evidence, decisive 
 and unassailable, to have been innocent of all the crimes 
 that have been charged against her. The case respecting 
 her alleged conduct with Bothwell has completely broken 
 down ; the foul slanders in connection with Riccio rest only 
 on the "absurd delusion" of Darnley, the dupe of the 
 Queen's inveterate enemies ; and her complicity in the 
 murder of her husband has been exhaustingly proved to 
 
 * A copy of Bothwell's Will or Confession was brought to Stirling 
 Castle, where King James was residing ; and while TuUibardine, the 
 Comptroller of the Household, was reading it in company with another 
 gentleman, and whispering their comments upon its contents, the 
 young King overheard something that aroused his attention, and 
 approaching them silently, snatched the paper out of their hands. 
 After reading it he made no comment at the time, but being observed 
 to be **in better spirits" than he had been for some time, TuUibardine, 
 the Comptroller, expressed *'his pleasure at seeing him so cheerful"; to 
 which the King answered — Have I not reason, TuUibardine, to be so, 
 very grievous accusations and calumnies having been all along impressed 
 upon me against her Majesty the Queen, my mother, that I have this 
 day seen so manifest a testimony of her innocence ;" and on another 
 OGcasion the King remarked — *' For fifteen years I was among them," in 
 allusion to those in whose power he had been placed, "but not of them ; 
 how they treated that poor lady, my mother, is only too well known." 
 The King had thus discovered the wicked treachery of the Queen's 
 enemies, and he boldly proclaimed her innocence of the murder of his 
 Father. (King James' Address to the Convocation at Hampton Court, 
 lb., pp. 252, 253.) 
 
94 
 
 be a malignant falsehood invented by Murray, Lethington, 
 Morton, Archibald Douglas, and others for the purpose of 
 screening themselves, who were the real murderers, from the 
 doom they richly deserved. As far as I can see I cannot 
 discover any moral failure in the Queen's character and 
 conduct other than what is common to all good people, born 
 in original sin. She is far superior in excellence to the 
 generality of men and women who lead holy lives ; and I 
 am not at all sure that her religious practices, her self-denial, 
 her patience under adversity, and her heroic death would 
 not place her on a par with the martyrs of old. Queen 
 Elizabeth and her Government, the rebellious nobles in 
 Scotland, and the Presbyterian clergy and their disciples 
 combined to effect her ruin, and in the mysterious Providence 
 of God they succeeded. 
 
 I appeal to all good Catholics, especially those in Scotland 
 and in France, to cherish the memory of this glorious Queen 
 and Martyr, and to vindicate her honour as often as it shall 
 assailed. Indeed, this legacy she left to the descendants of 
 her subjects. 
 
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