BOOK II. to them." They assented, and especially he says, because it would please and content the queen." It was not the forgiveness of Morton that would please her, but the deliverance from her husband. The words had no other meaning. These four noblemen having thus united in a project to procure the consent of Mary to the recal of the exiles, by getting her released from her marriage, proceeded to Bothwell's chamber to take his opinion, and he made no great difficulty." The confederacy being thus formed between these five ruling noblemen, they went altogether to propose it to the queen. Maitland became the orator, and, reminding her of her husband's grievous and intolerable offences and ingratitude done to her,100 he proposed explicitly to her, that if she would pardon Morton and the others, they would find means with the other nobles to make divorcement between her and the king, so as that she need not meddle with it.101 97 Protest. ib. 98 Huntley says as to himself, 'Our answer was, it should not stop by us that the matter came not to effect, in all [that] might be profitable and honorable both for them and us; and specially where the pleasures, will, and contentment of the queen's majesty consisted.' Prot. ib. 99 And thereon we five, viz. earls of Murray, Argyle, Huntley, and secretary Lethington [Maitland] passed all to the earl of Bothwell's chamber, to understand his advise on these things proposed, wherein he gainsayed not more than we.' ib. 100 So thereafter we passed altogether towards the queen's grace, where Lethington, after he had remembered her majesty of a great number of grievous and intolerable offences, that the king, as he said, ingrate of the honor received of her highness, had done to her grace, and continuing every day from evil to worse.' ib. 101 Proponed, That if it pleased her majesty to pardon the earl of Morton, lords Ruthven and Lyndsey, with their company, they should find the means with the rest of the nobility, to make divorcement betwixt her highness and the king her husband, which should not need her grace to meddle therewith.' Prot. ib. XXII. An important condition, because it was not to be CHAP. done by any complaint of her's against him, which is the usual way by which divorces are obtained thro the channels of law; but by some way not legal, and therefore forcible and violent. Such was the offer; not pardon to her husband for his provocation, but pardon to his coadjutors for theirs, tho what they had done was but that which had most offended her in him.102 Each of the other lords addressed her 103 to the same purport. How did she receive these urgencies and this singular proposition to abandon her vindictive feelings against a few peers, on condition of having those gratified which she nourished against her husband? Maitland's language was strong against him; but by what events, a king's forcible divorcement and deposition, for he was spoken of at that moment as king, would, according to all the probabilities which arose from the former experience of mankind, be ultimately followed, could hardly be absent from Mary's recollection; that they were at that moment in her contemplation, the common laws of thought under such circumstances, and with such feelings and desires as were in her mind, would induce us to suppose, and her answer implies. Her friends, who describe the conference, do not exhibit her as expressing any hesitation, aversion, or regret, to a proposal so nefarious. She assented to it immediately, under two conditions: one, that it should be lawfully done; the other, that it should not pre 102 Maitland added, "To the which it was necessary that her majesty take heed to make resolution therein, as well for her own easement, as well of the realm; for he troubled her grace and us all, and remaining with her majesty would not cease till he did her some other evil turn, when that her highness would be much impesched' to put remedy thereto.' ib. 103 Ib. MOD. HIST. VOL. IV. G II. BOOK judice her son.104 That it might be managed without his disinheritance, Bothwell immediately assured her;105 but to bargain that it should be lawfully done, compels us to believe, that unlawful possibilities were then occurring to her mind, tho she was conditioning that they should be avoided. This suggestion of the queen led them all to consider how the royal husband, when degraded, was to be disposed of. That he should be alone in one part, and she in another, or that he should go abroad, was next proposed.106 She suggested, that perhaps she had better withdraw to France till he made submission;107 an alternative which we might refer to some passing feelings of a kinder nature, but that it left him without the protection of her presence, amid his determined enemies. But Maitland, as if he felt that her only objections to their proceedings were the fear of her son's title being shaken, and of the safety of the intended act from Murray's possible opposition to any violence, answered her by an intimation that they could find means that she should 'be quit of him without prejudice to her son,' 108 and that Murray would not interfere.109 The queen's 104 Her grace answered, that under two conditions she might understand the same; the one, that the divorcement were made lawfully; the other, that it were not prejudice to her son; otherwise, her highness would rather endure all torments, and abide the perils that might chance her in her grace's lifetime.' Pref. ib. 105 Ib. 106 Ib. 107 And hereon her majesty said, 'that peradventure he would change opinion; and that it were better that she herself for a time passed in France, abiding till he acknowledged himself.' ib. 108 Then Lethington, taking the speech, said, Madam! fancy you not we are here of the principal of your grace's nobility and council, that shall find the means that your majesty shall be quit of him, without prejudice of your son.' ib. 109 He added, and albeit that my lord of Murray here present, be little less scrupulous for a Protestant than your grace is for a Papist, XXII. final answer was, that she would do nothing to stain CHAP. her honor or her conscience; and desired them rather to let the matter remain as it was, than to do that for her benefit, which might turn to her injury and defamation. Maitland closed the interview, by desiring her to leave the matter to their management, and that the result should be good, and receive a parliamentary sanction."" As these facts implicated Murray in what was then projecting, and alluded to in these conferences, he published a brief answer to the protestation, denying that he was present at any purposes holden at Craigmillar, which, in his hearing, tended to any unlawful or dishonorable end." But this vague affirmation was no denial of the specific conversations detailed by the earls, which were so guarded and so general as to avoid all technical illegality. He does not deny that he concurred to bargain for the pardon of his friends, by offering to the queen to procure her divorcement from I am well assured he will look thro his fingers thereto, and will behold our doings, saying nothing to the same.' ib. 110 The queen's majesty answered, I will that you do nothing wherethro any spot may be laid to my honor or conscience; and therefore I pray you rather let the matter be in the estate as it is, abiding till God of his goodness put remedy thereto, [than] that ye, believing to do me service, may possibly turn to my hurt and displeasure.' ib. "Madam!' said Lethington, let us guide the matter among us, and your grace shall see nothing but good; and approved by Parliament.' ib. 112 2 Goodall, p.321. The most direct charge against Murray is that of the lord Herries, mentioned by the bishop of Ross. Is it unknown, think ye, the earl of Murray, what the lord Harris said to your face openly, even at your own table, a few days after the murder was committed. Did he not charge you with afore knowledge of the same murder? Did not he flatly and plainly burthen you, that you, riding in Fyffe, and coming with one of your most assured trusty servants, the said day wherein you departed from Edinburgh, said to him, among other talk, This night, ere morning, the lord Darnley will lose his life.' Leslie's Defence, And. v. 1. p. 75. BOOK II. her husband. The veracity of the detail stated in the protestation, remains therefore unimpeached. We are only urged to believe by Murray's assertions, and by the queen's limitation of her consent, that nothing unlawful or dishonorable was then resolved upon; the discreditable project itself being not supposed by any of the parties concerned to deserve this character.113 That the actual death of the king was at this time really concerted between these confederating nobles, is no necessary inference from these secret conferences, because his deposition and divorce might have been effected by a parliamentary enactment, and secured by his imprisonment or exile. His destruction may have been at times glanced upon, in their prospective consultations, by some; but the tenor of the preceding language implies, that it would not then have been assented to in December, by either the queen, Murray, Huntley or Argyle. It is only from a report of Bothwell's assertion, that we can now infer that the commission of the most irreparable crime which man can commit against man, was really meditated at Craigmillar."14 Is it not 113 Leslie charges them with these criminal conferences. full well known, that ye and the earl of Bothwell, Morton, and others, assembled at the castle of Craigmillar, and other places at divers times, to consult and devise on this mischief?' Defence, ib. p. 76. 6 114 In his first examination, French Paris stated that Bothwell, in urging him to co-operate in the final plan of murder, mentioned to him, Lethington [Maitland] is the enterpriser of all this thing; and then I have my lord Argyle, Huntley, my brother, my lords of Morton, Ruthven, and Lyndsay. These three will never fail me; for I spake for their grace, and I have the hand-writing of all those that I have told thee of; and also, we were willing to have done it the last time that we were at Craigmillar.' Goodall, 1, p. 140. His plural pronoun, we, may have been only applicable to Maitland and himself; for if some of the others had not been unwilling, why was not the deed there executed? |