Love that cost Mary her life

MARY Queen of Scots got her head chopped off. We all know this, and we also know why.

Mary, the most alluring and enigmatic ruler of the 16th century, had married her lover, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, in indecent haste. There was a murder and a sex scandal.

Few dispute that Bothwell’s men killed Henry, Lord Darnley, Mary’s lawful second husband, at a house on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

Shortly afterwards, Bothwell is said to have “abducted” Mary while she was riding back to Holyrood from Linlithgow. He was said to have “persuaded” Mary to marry him, but their detractors claimed this was a lie, and that they’d been lovers for months.

Mary left Scotland for France as a child and was married to the French Dauphin in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame at Paris. She was crowned Queen of France at the age of just 16. She returned to Scotland in 1561 when she was 18 and already a widow.

A successful ruler for two years, she lost the support of the nobility, and in 1567 they forced her to abdicate. The following year she fled to England, where she was eventually executed by Elizabeth I after 19 years in captivity.

The case for and against Queen Mary has been passionately debated, but now deserves fresh investigation. For new facts about her earlier relationship with Bothwell have been discovered, proving that he was much more influential in her life for a longer period of time than had been believed.

While Mary was in France, her mother, Mary of Guise, ruled Scotland as regent.

Both Mary and her mother were Catholics, but in 1559, Lord James Stewart (later Earl of Moray), Mary’s illegitimate half-brother and the leader of the Protestant nobles, began a revolt.

He deposed Mary of Guise and sought to exclude French influence from Scotland. He wanted to govern Scotland himself, and because he was a Protestant, secured aid from William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s chief minister, who wanted the British Isles to be free of French and Catholic interference, and Scotland to be an English satellite.

Bothwell, by contrast, was a nationalist and virulently anti-English. He would always support the lawful Scottish ruler against the English. He was Mary of Guise’s special ambassador to France, and when Cecil sent money to assist Moray’s revolt, Bothwell intercepted the courier. He stole the money and from then on was Moray’s sworn enemy.

When Mary of Guise died, Bothwell transferred his allegiance to her daughter. He was appointed to her first Privy Council, but his rivals accused him of plotting to kidnap Mary. Imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle, he managed to escape, going into hiding before taking a ship at North Berwick.

Yet far from proclaiming him a rebel, Mary excused him, saying that “whatsoever they say against him, it is rather for hate of his person . . . than that he has deserved”.

Moray was appalled, and plotted with Thomas Randolph, the English ambassador to Holyrood, to intercept Bothwell at sea, urging that he should “be disposed of” as Elizabeth I and Cecil thought fit.

History says that Bothwell was outside Scotland for two years until September 1565 – two months after Mary married Darnley. And we know for a fact that he was recalled then, because Mary summoned him to lead her forces against Moray.

What we didn’t realise, until now though, is that Mary secretly met Bothwell while he was supposedly in exile.

Not in 1563, when he was imprisoned in England, confined in the Tower of London after his ship ran aground off Holy Island and he was captured. But soon afterwards, when he’d talked his way out of prison and Mary had persuaded Elizabeth to permit him to depart.

My research has shown that in Randolph’s reports to Cecil in February 1564, he wrote: “My Lord, Bothwell is returned to Scotland and is come secretly to speak to the Queen” – a report which disproves a ‘fact’ which has been handed down in history.

If Mary had been in love with Bothwell at that time, she could not have married him as he was already married, but by influencing her choice of husband he could shore up his own support in Scotland.



Darnley appeared perfect – he was descended from the Tudor king Henry VII and enhanced Mary’s claim to the English throne. Moray was furious and rose in revolt, planning to do to her what he’d previously done to her mother – depose her with covert English aid.

But she recalled Bothwell, and his forces ensured Moray’s humiliation. And by the end of 1565, Bothwell and his friend the Earl of Huntly were chief among Mary’s “new counsellors”.

Darnley, meanwhile, was proving vain, a drunkard and a womaniser, and in 1566 the Protestant lords, realising he could be manipulated, talked him into the murder of Mary’s Italian-born valet de chambre and secretary, David Riccio.

Bothwell was also a target that night, but he escaped to his castle in Dunbar, where he also sheltered Mary and Darnley and was handsomely rewarded.

He became the mediator between the competing political factions, and after the birth of Mary’s son and heir, Prince James (in June 1566), was increasingly ascendant.

Mary came to rely on Bothwell, who relished his opportunity. His bid for power was not unrealistic, provided he maintained his role as arbiter of the nobility.

So, in November 1566, he met with nobles to discuss how they could rid themselves, and the Queen, of Darnley. Mary was given two options: divorce or assassination. Her religion ruled out the former, but on the question of murder she only said she wanted “nothing against her honour” carried out.

Sensing danger, Darnley fled to Glasgow and Mary joined him there, where she apparently wrote the infamous “casket letters” to Bothwell. Three months later, on February 9, 1567, Darnley was murdered.

While his murder had the support of nobles, enmities were too entrenched and, once Darnley was gone, the English were plotting to oust Bothwell.

The rest is history. But in reaching a verdict, Mary’s earlier dealings with Bothwell cast a fresh light on the finale of her reign.

Mary saw Bothwell as her liberator and protector. “This realm,” she said, “being divided in factions as it is, cannot be contained in order, unless our authority be assisted and set forth by the fortification of a man”. By then she was madly in love with him.

Despite that, the case for her “depravity” was manufactured. The love letters produced to condemn Mary and justify her abdication and imprisonment were at best doctored, and at worst forged, by Moray and his allies with the help of George Buchanan, a professor at the University of St Andrews.

It all fits, because Buchanan was a friend of William Cecil and a former tutor of the very same Thomas Randolph who’d conspired earlier with Moray against Bothwell.

And Buchanan’s diatribe, A Detection of the Doings of Mary Queen of Scots touching the Murder of her Husband, and her Conspiracy, Adultery and Pretended Marriage with the Earl of Bothwell (1571), was actually first printed in London by John Day, Cecil’s “tame” printer, even though it appeared to have been published in Scotland and was written in phoney Scots.

Overall, the winners were the English, because the effect of Mary’s abdication was that Scotland became the satellite state that Cecil had envisaged, even if it was Mary’s son, James VI, who inherited the English throne in 1603 and thereby united the crowns.

Mary made mistakes, but the odds were stacked against her, and her biggest mistake was to fall in love.

John Guy is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews.