The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (279 page)

This paper was subscribed by all the considerable nobility there 24th April.

present. In a country, divided by violent factions, such a concurrence in favour of one nobleman, no-wise distinguished above the rest, except by his flagitious conduct, could never have been obtained, had not every one been certain, at least firmly persuaded, that Mary was fully determined on this

measure.NOTE [I]
Nor would such a motive have sufficed to influence men, commonly so stubborn and untractable, had they not been taken by surprize, been ignorant of each other’s sentiments, and over-awed by the present power of the court, and by the apprehensions of farther violence, from persons so little governed by any principles of honour and humanity. Even with all these circumstances, the subscription to this paper may justly be regarded as a reproach to the nation.

The subsequent measures of Bothwel were equally precipitate and audacious. Mary having gone to Stirling to pay a visit to her son, he assembled a body of eight hundred PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

58

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/791

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 4

horse, on pretence of pursuing some robbers on the borders; and having way-laid her on her return, he seized her person near Edinburgh, and carried her to Dunbar, with an avowed design of forcing her to yield to his purpose. Sir James Melvil, one of her retinue, was carried along with her, and says not, that he saw any signs of reluctance or constraint: He was even informed, as he tells us, by Bothwel’s officers, that the whole transaction was managed in concert with her.
u
A woman, indeed, of that spirit and resolution, which is acknowledged to belong to Mary, does not usually, on these occasions, give such marks of opposition to
real
violence, as can appear anywise doubtful or ambiguous. Some of the nobility, however, in order to put matters to farther trial, sent her a private message; in which they told her, that, if, in reality, she lay under force, they would use all their efforts to rescue her. Her answer was, that she had indeed been carried to Dunbar by violence, but ever since her arrival had been so well treated, that she willingly remained with Bothwel.
w
No one gave himself thenceforth any concern to relieve her from a captivity, which was believed to proceed entirely from her own approbation and connivance.

This unusual conduct was at first ascribed to Mary’s sense of the infamy attending her purposed marriage; and her desire of finding some colour to gloss over the irregularity of her conduct. But a pardon, given to Bothwel a few days after, made the public carry their conjectures somewhat farther. In this deed, Bothwel received a pardon for the violence committed on the queen’s person; and for
all other crimes:
A clause, by which the murder of the king was indirectly forgiven. The rape was then conjectured to have been only a contrivance, in order to afford a pretence for indirectly remitting a crime, of which it would have appeared scandalous to make openly any mention.
x

These events passed with such rapidity, that men had no leisure to admire sufficiently one incident, when they were surprized with a new one, equally rare and uncommon.

There still, however, remained one difficulty, which, it was not easy to foresee, how the queen and Bothwel, determined as they were to execute their shameful purpose, could find expedients to overcome. The man, who had procured the subscription of the nobility, recommending him as a husband to the queen, and who had acted this seeming violence on her person, in order to force her consent, had been married two years before to another woman; to a woman of merit, of a noble family, sister to the earl of Huntley. But persons blinded by passion, and infatuated with crimes, soon shake off all appearance of decency. A suit was commenced for a divorce between Bothwel and his wife; and this suit was opened at the same instant in two different, or rather opposite courts; in the court of the archbishop of St. Andrews, which was popish, and governed itself by the canon law; and in the new consistorial or commissariot court, which was protestant, and was regulated by the principles of the reformed teachers. The plea, advanced in each court, was so calculated as to suit the principles which there prevailed: In the archbishop’s court, the pretence of consanguinity was employed, because Bothwel was related to his wife in the fourth degree; in the commissariot court, the accusation of adultery was made use of against him. The parties too, who applied for the divorce, were different in the different courts: Bothwel was the person who sued in the former; his wife in the latter. And the suit in both courts was opened, pleaded, examined, and decided with the utmost precipitation; and a sentence of divorce was pronounced in four days.
y

PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

59

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/791

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 4

The divorce being thus obtained, it was thought proper, that Mary should be conducted to Edinburgh, and should there appear before the courts of judicature, and should acknowledge herself restored to entire freedom. This was understood to be contrived in a view of obviating all doubts with regard to the validity of her marriage.

Orders were then given to publish in the church the banns between the queen and the duke of Orkney; for that was the title which he now bore; and Craig, a minister of Edinburgh, was applied to for that purpose. This clergyman, not content with having refused compliance, publicly in his sermons condemned the marriage; and exhorted all who had access to the queen, to give her their advice against so scandalous an alliance. Being called before the council, to answer for this liberty, he showed a courage, which might cover all the nobles with shame, on account of their tameness and servility. He said, that, by the rules of the church, the earl of Bothwel, being convicted of adultery, could not be permitted to marry; that the divorce between him and his former wife was plainly procured by collusion, as appeared by the precipitation of the sentence, and the sudden conclusion of his marriage with the queen; and that all the suspicions which prevailed, with regard to the king’s murder, and the queen’s concurrence in the former rape, would thence receive undoubted confirmation. He therefore exhorted Bothwel, who was present, no longer to persevere in his present criminal enterprizes; and turning his discourse to the other counsellors, he charged them to employ all their influence with the queen, in order to divert her from a measure, which would load her with eternal infamy and dishonour.

Not satisfied even with this admonition, he took the first opportunity of informing the public, from the pulpit, of the whole transaction, and expressed to them his fears, that, notwithstanding all remonstrances, their sovereign was still obstinately bent on her fatal purpose. “For himself,” he said, “he had already discharged his conscience, and yet again would take heaven and earth to witness, that he abhorred and detested that marriage, as scandalous and hateful in the sight of mankind: But since the Great, as he perceived, either by their flattery or silence, gave countenance to the measure, he besought the Faithful to pray fervently to the Almighty, that a resolution, taken contrary to all law, reason, and good conscience, might, by the divine blessing, be turned to the comfort and benefit of the church and kingdom.” These speeches offended the court extremely; and Craig was anew summoned before the council, to answer for his temerity, in thus passing the bounds of his commission. But he told them, that the bounds of his commission were the word of God, good laws; and natural reason; and were the queen’s marriage tried by any of these standards, it would appear infamous and dishonourable, and would be so esteemed by the whole world. The council were so over-awed by this heroic behaviour in a private clergyman, that they dismissed him without farther censure or punishment.
z

But though this transaction might have recalled Bothwel and the queen of Scots from their infatuation, and might have instructed them in the dispositions of the people, as well as in their own inability to oppose them; they were still resolute to rush forward, to their own manifest destruction. The marriage was solemnized by the bishop of Orkney, a protestant, who was afterwards deposed by the church for this scandalous compliance.

Few of the nobility appeared at the ceremony: They had, most of 15th May.

them, either from shame or fear, retired to their own houses. The French ambassador, Le Croc, an aged gentleman of honour and character, could not PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

60

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/791

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 4

be prevailed on, though a dependant of the house of Guise, to countenance the marriage by his presence.
a
Elizabeth remonstrated, by friendly letters and messages, against the marriage:
b

The court of France made like opposition; but Mary, though on Queen of Scots

all other occasions she was extremely obsequious to the advice marries Bothwel.

of her relations in that country, was here determined to pay no regard to their opinion.

The news of these transactions, being carried to foreign countries, filled Europe with amazement, and threw infamy, not only on the principal actors in them, but also on the whole nation, who seemed, by their submission and silence, and even by their declared approbation, to give their sanction to these scandalous practices.
c
The Scots, who resided abroad, met with such reproaches, that they durst no where appear in public; and they earnestly exhorted their countrymen at home, to free them from the public odium, by bringing to condign punishment the authors of such atrocious crimes. This intelligence, with a little more leisure for reflection, roused men from their lethargy; and the rumours, which, from the very beginning,
d
had been spread against Mary, as if she had concurred in the king’s murder, seemed now, by the subsequent transactions, to have received a strong confirmation and authority. It was every where said, that even though no particular and direct proofs had as yet been produced of the queen’s guilt, the whole tenor of her late conduct was sufficient, not only to beget suspicion, but to produce entire conviction against her: That her sudden resolution of being reconciled to her husband, whom before she had long and justly hated; her bringing him to court, from which she had banished him by neglects and rigours; her fitting up separate apartments for him; were all of them circumstances, which, though trivial in themselves, yet, being compared with the subsequent events, bore a very unfavourable aspect for her: That the least which, after the king’s murder, might have been expected in her situation, was a more than usual caution in her measures, and an extreme anxiety to punish the real assassins, in order to free herself from all reproach and suspicion: That no woman, who had any regard to her character, would allow a man, publicly accused of her husband’s murder, so much as to approach her presence, far less give him a share in her counsels, and endow him with favour and authority: That an acquittal, merely in the absence of accusers, was very ill-fitted to satisfy the public; especially if that absence proceeded from a designed precipitation of the sentence, and from the terror, which her known friendship for the criminal had infused into every one: That the very mention of her marriage to such a person, in such circumstances, was horrible; and the contrivances of extorting a consent from the nobility, and of concerting a rape, were gross artifices, more proper to discover her guilt than prove her innocence: That where a woman thus shews a consciousness of merited reproach, and, instead of correcting, provides only thin glosses to cover, her exceptionable conduct, she betrays a neglect of fame, which must either be the effect or the cause of the most shameful enormities: That to espouse a man, who had, a few days before, been so scandalously divorced from his wife; who, to say the least, was believed to have, a few months before, assassinated her husband, was so contrary to the plainest rules of behaviour, that no pretence of indiscretion or imprudence could account for such a conduct: That a woman, who, so soon after her husband’s death, though not attended with any extraordinary circumstances, contracts a marriage, which might, in itself, be the most blameless, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

61

http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/791

Online Library of Liberty: The History of England, vol. 4

cannot escape severe censure; but one who overlooks, for her pleasure, so many other weighty considerations, was equally capable, in gratifying her appetites, to neglect every regard to honour and humanity: That Mary was not ignorant of the prevailing opinion of the public, with regard to her own guilt, and of the inferences which would every where be drawn from her conduct; and therefore, if she still continued to pursue measures which gave such just offence, she ratified, by her actions, as much as she could by the most formal confession, all the surmizes and imputations of her enemies: That a prince was here murdered in the face of the world; Bothwel alone was suspected and accused; if he were innocent, nothing could absolve him, either in Mary’s eyes or those of the public, but the detection and conviction of the real assassin; yet no enquiry was made to that purpose, though a parliament had been assembled; the sovereign and wife was here plainly silent from guilt, the people from terror: That the only circumstance, which opposed all these presumptions or rather proofs, was, the benignity and goodness of her preceding behaviour, which seemed to remove her from all suspicions of such atrocious inhumanity; but that the characters of men were extremely variable, and persons, guilty of the worst actions, were not always naturally of the worst and most criminal dispositions: That a woman who, in a critical and dangerous moment, had sacrificed her honour to a man of abandoned principles, might thenceforth be led blindfolded by him to the commission of the most enormous crimes, and was in reality no longer at her own disposal: And that, though one supposition was still left to alleviate her blame, namely, that Bothwel, presuming on her affection towards him, had of himself committed the crime, and had never communicated it to her, yet such a sudden and passionate love to a man, whom she had long known, could not easily be accounted for, without supposing some degree of preceding guilt; and as it appeared, that she was not afterwards restrained, either by shame or prudence, from incurring the highest reproach and danger, it was not likely that a sense of duty or humanity would have a more powerful influence over her.