That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after his late
cowardice and treachery than she had had before, was natural enough.
There is little doubt that she now began to love Bothwell instead, and
to plan with him means of getting rid of Darnley. Bothwell had such
power over her that he induced her even to pardon the assassins of
Rizzio. The arrangements for the Christening of the young Prince were
entrusted to him, and he was one of the most important people at the
ceremony, where the child was named James: Elizabeth being his
godmother, though not present on the occasion. A week afterwards,
Darnley, who had left Mary and gone to his father’s house at Glasgow,
being taken ill with the small-pox, she sent her own physician to
attend him. But there is reason to apprehend that this was merely a
show and a pretence, and that she knew what was doing, when Bothwell
within another month proposed to one of the late conspirators against
Rizzio, to murder Darnley, ‘for that it was the Queen’s mind that he
should be taken away.’ It is certain that on that very day she wrote to
her ambassador in France, complaining of him, and yet went immediately
to Glasgow, feigning to be very anxious about him, and to love him very
much. If she wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her
heart’s content; for she induced him to go back with her to Edinburgh,
and to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house outside the city
called the Kirk of Field. Here, he lived for about a week. One Sunday
night, she remained with him until ten o’clock, and then left him, to
go to Holyrood to be present at an entertainment given in celebration
of the marriage of one of her favourite servants. At two o’clock in the
morning the city was shaken by a great explosion, and the Kirk of Field
was blown to atoms.
Darnley’s body was found next day lying under a tree at some distance.
How it came there, undisfigured and unscorched by gunpowder, and how
this crime came to be so clumsily and strangely committed, it is
impossible to discover. The deceitful character of Mary, and the
deceitful character of Elizabeth, have rendered almost every part of
their joint history uncertain and obscure. But, I fear that Mary was
unquestionably a party to her husband’s murder, and that this was the
revenge she had threatened. The Scotch people universally believed it.
Voices cried out in the streets of Edinburgh in the dead of the night,
for justice on the murderess. Placards were posted by unknown hands in
the public places denouncing Bothwell as the murderer, and the Queen as
his accomplice; and, when he afterwards married her (though himself
already married), previously making a show of taking her prisoner by
force, the indignation of the people knew no bounds. The women
particularly are described as having been quite frantic against the
Queen, and to have hooted and cried after her in the streets with
terrific vehemence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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