Mary, who had already married her kinsman in secret at Stirling castle
with Catholic rites celebrated in the apartment of David Rizzio, her
secretary for correspondence with France, assured the English
ambassador, in reply to the protest of his mistress, that the marriage
would not take place for three months, when a dispensation from the Pope
would allow the cousins to be publicly united without offence to the
Church. On July 29, 1565, they were accordingly remarried at Holyrood.
The hapless and worthless bridegroom had already incurred the hatred of
two powerful enemies, the Earls of Morton and Glencairn; but the former
of these took part with the Queen against the forces raised by Murray,
Glencairn, and others, under the nominal leadership of Hamilton, Duke of
Chatelherault, on the double plea of danger to the new religion of the
country, and of the illegal proceeding by which Darnley had been
proclaimed king of Scots without the needful constitutional assent of
the estates of the realm.
Murray was cited to attend to the "raid" or array levied by the King and
Queen, and was duly denounced by public blast of trumpet for his
non-appearance. He entered Edinburgh with his forces, but failed to hold
the town against the guns of the castle, and fell back upon Dumfries
before the advance of the royal army, which was now joined by James
Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, on his return from a three years' outlawed
exile in France. He had been accused in 1562 of a plot to seize the
Queen and put her into the keeping of Earl of Arran, whose pretensions
to her hand ended only when his insanity could no longer be concealed.
Another new adherent was the son of the late Earl of Huntly, to whom the
forfeited honors of his house were restored a few months before the
marriage of his sister to Bothwell. The Queen now appealed to France for
aid; but Castelnau, the French ambassador, replied to her passionate
pleading by sober and earnest advice to make peace with the malcontents.
This counsel was rejected, and in October, 1565, the Queen marched an
army of eighteen thousand men against them from Edinburgh; their forces
dispersed in face of superior numbers, and Murray, on seeking shelter in
England, was received with contumely by Elizabeth, whose half-hearted
help had failed to support his enterprise, and whose intercession for
his return found at first no favor with the Queen of Scots.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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