And certain Stars shot madly from their spheres.......

A certain Star

By the end of March it was already being rumoured that Bothwell was to marry the Queen, and that Huntly had given consent for his sister's divorce.

Bothwell stood trial for the murder of the king, as ordered by Parliament, on 12th April 1567. Remembering Moray's behaviour at his previous trial, he filled Edinburgh with four thousand of his own men. Lennox gathered three thousand at Linlithgow, but then realised that his bluff had been well and truly called since he had no evidence. He retreated to Stirling and pleaded illness in a failed attempt to get the trial postponed. He later made out that he was ordered to bring only the six attendants allowed by law with him to Edinburgh, but he would have been aware that he could take as many men with him as he wanted to, so long as only six accompanied him to the court itself.

Moray, crafty as ever, left Scotland on 9th April and travelled to France.

On the morning of the trial, John Selby, an envoy from Elizabeth I, attempted to deliver a letter from her to Mary. It was rumoured that he was attempting to have the trial postponed, and Bothwell's men refused to admit him to Holyrood Palace. He was told that the Queen could not deal with business until after the trial, and then that she was asleep. She roused herself sufficiently to see Bothwell leave up the Canongate, nodding to him as he rode under her window.

The court session lasted until seven that evening. Bothwell was charged and his counsel appointed. Matthew, Earl of Lennox was called, and the court heard from his servant that he requested a postponement of forty days. Argyll, the Lord Justice, perused the correspondence between Mary and Lennox, noting that an urgent trial had been requested, and the court ruled that the trial proceed. No evidence was offered, and the jury acquitted Bothwell.

Buchanan writes 'there sat the judges, not chosen to judge, but to acquit.' As usual he's telling big porkies. The four assessors, Robert Pitcairn, James MacGill, Lord Lindsay and Harry Balnaves, were all anglophile and anti-Bothwell. Of the jury, Rothes and Boyd had been on the opposing side in 1565, Sempill and Forbes opposed him at Carberry, Herries hated him, Lord John Hamilton was the Earl of Arran's brother, Caithness was Moray's creature, and Ogilvie of Boyne had wanted to marry Jean Gordon. This only leaves seven jury members as neutral or pro-Bothwell.

On hearing the verdict Lennox fled to England.

Bothwell was determined to try to counteract the harm being done to his reputation, and had notices posted across Edinburgh offering to duel with any gentleman who charged him with Darnley's murder. He also sent a challenge to William Drury, the Marshall of Berwick, challenging him to a duel over comments he had made during the Dandie Pringle scandal of 1565.

But his opponents were not going to give up. An anonymous acceptance of the challenge was posted, offering to fight Bothwell in France or England. The following night, a duel in Scotland was suggested, again via anonymous placard. A third offered to fight Bothwell's accomplices, dragging in a whole new set of names including the Lairds of Beanston, Ormiston, Talla and Bolton, the Balfours, the Blackadders, James Cullen, Sandy Durham, Archibald Beaton, Harry Lauder and 'Wanton Sym' Armstrong.

Parliament ratified Bothwell's court acquital when it met on 14th April. Mary herself did not attend until two days later, and she was guarded by hagbutters. This Parliament passed a bill which required citizens to remove foul placards or face the same punishment as those who posted them. Bothwell's influence was also apparent on acts passed concerning religious toleration and the titles to church lands, both of these being favourable to the Protestant faith. He did this not just out of religious conviction, but to strengthen support for Mary.

On 19th April Bothwell acted to shore up his own position, entertaining twenty eight nobles and prelates in his apartments in Holyrood. After a good dinner and copious quantities of alcohol, he urged them to sign a document in which they pledged to take his part against those who had made the placards defaming him, and, more importantly, to support his marriage to the Queen. They would defend him with life and goods, or be branded 'unworthy and faithless traitor's. Well, it was a tall order, but this didn't deter nine Earls, eight bishops and seven barons from signing it. Morton and Argyll were amongst the signatories.

This bond has been the subject of much myth and rumour, most of it invented a year and a half later when the signatories needed to exonerrate themselves. It wasn't signed after a meal at Ainslie's tavern, and so there were no soldiers surrounding the building. The Queen had not given prior consent.

Morton and his faction knew exactly what they were doing in signing. Moray had still not given up his ambitions to rule, yet he wrote to Mary urging the match. Although he was in London, it could be that his seal appeared on the bond in place of his signature. It would seem that by now Moray and his party had realised that in marrying Mary to Bothwell they could ruin both of them.

Bothwell's motives in marrying Mary are more obscure. Yes, it was a way to save himself - but in the past he had fled Scotland when threatened. He knew that to do that now was to leave Mary weak and at the mercy of Moray. Bothwell gambled that with a touch of luck he could pull her and Scotland back from the brink, along with himself. I think this is further evidence of his innocence. Only an innocent man or a mad one could believe in his ability to win around his accusers and the populace. Bothwell wasn't mad - yet (but see note 1).

It's also most likely that by this time Mary wanted to marry him anyway. The affair that probably hadn't existed before Kirk o' Field probably did now. Mary wouldn't be the first woman to fall for a knight in shining armour, and Bothwell was the one man she had always been able to rely on. She knew that she needed to act quickly to rescue her reign, and she was at a physical and emotional low point, if not the all out collapse depicted by Antonia Fraser.

Bothwell followed her to Seton, where he discovered that her guards had not been paid for two months. This was partly his responsibility as Captain of the Guard, yet typically, he ended up in a fracas, trying to keep the complaining guards away from the Queen. Asking her to marry him immediately after this wasn't a good move, especially since he compounded his error by showing her the bond calling for their marriage. According to Mary herself, she refused his offer. I'm not the first to think she was lying.

Shortly afterwards she departed for Stirling to visit her son. It turned out to be the last time she saw him.

Note