Mary, Queen of Scots, 1542-1587; Queens -- Scotland -- Biography; Scotland -- History -- Mary Stuart, 1542-1567
This hitherto unknown testimony exists, in inconsistent forms, among the
several indictments which Lennox, between July and December, 1568, drew up
to show to the English Commissioners who, at York and Westminster,
examined the charges against Mary. In the evidence which we have hitherto
seen, the plans of Mary’s Council at Craigmillar are left vague, and
Mary’s objections, as described by Huntly and Argyll, are spoken of as
final. Mention is made of only one conference, without any sequel. But
Lennox asserts that there was at least one other meeting, at Craigmillar,
between Mary and her advisers. His information is obviously vague, but he
first makes the following assertions.
‘In this mean time’ (namely in December 1566, when the Court was at
Stirling for James’s baptism), ‘his father, being advertised [‘credibly
informed’][97] that at Craigmillar the Queen and certain of her Council
_had concluded_ upon an enterprise to the great peril and danger of his
[‘Majesty’s’] person, which was that he should have been _apprehended and
put in ward_, which rested’ (was postponed) ‘but only on the finishing of
the christening and the departure of the said ambassadors, which thing
being not a little grievous unto his father’s heart, did give him warning
thereof; whereupon he, by the advice of sundry that loved him, departed
from her shortly after the christening, and came to his father to Glasgow,
being fully resolved with himself to have taken ship shortly after, and to
have passed beyond the seas, but that sickness prevented him, which was
the cause of his stay.’
In this version, Lennox is warned, by whom he does not say, of a plan,
formed at Craigmillar, to arrest Darnley. The plan is not refused by the
Queen, but is ‘concluded upon,’ yet postponed till the christening
festivities are over. _Nothing is said about the design to kill Darnley if
he resists._ The scheme is communicated to Darnley by Lennox himself.
Next comes what seems to be the second of Lennox’s attempts at producing a
‘discourse.’ This can be dated. It ends with the remark that, after
Langside fight, Mary spoke with Ormistoun and Hob Ormistoun, ‘who were of
the chiefest murderers of the King, her husband.’ These men now live with
the Laird of Whithaugh, in Liddesdale, ‘who keepeth in his house a
prisoner, one Andrew Carre, of Fawdonside, by her commandment.’ This was
Andrew Ker of Faldonside, the most brutal of the murderers of Riccio. Now
on October 4, 1568, in a list of ‘offences committed by the Queen’s
party,’ a list perhaps in John Wood’s hand, we read that Whithaugh, and
other Elliots, ‘took ane honest and trew gentleman, Ker of Faldonside, and
keep him prisoner by Mary’s command;’ while Whithaugh cherishes the two
Ormistouns.[98] This discourse of Lennox, then, is of, or about, October
4, 1568, and was prepared for the York Conference to inquire into Mary’s
case, where it was not delivered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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