Darnley himself reacted predictably. In the same breath as he bewailed his once-honoured queen’s infatuation, Randolph reported that Darnley was now grown so proud that he was intolerable to all honest men, and already almost forgetful of his duty to Mary – she who had adventured so much for his sake. Darnley’s health had taken an unconscionably long time to recover, and even while on his sickbed he had struck the ageing duke of Châtelherault on his pate to avenge some fancied slight. By 21st May he had only been seen outside the four walls of his room once, and was still more or less confined to his bed. Well before Darnley’s final emergence Throckmorton managed to see Mary at Stirling and put to her as strongly as possible Queen Elizabeth’s dislike of what she considered to be a hasty manner of proceeding with Lord Darnley.
At this point Mary would surely have been wise to have taken serious thought. It was true that the approval of Philip II of Spain for the match was sought and won; Charles IX of France was approached through Castelnau and approved; her Guise relations were informed (although Mary’s beloved Anne of Guise must have been somewhat surprised by the development since only in September she had given it as her opinion that Mary’s innate pride was far too strong to permit her to wed a mere subject – ‘her heart was too great to debase it’).3 All these approvals were as nothing compared to the approval of Elizabeth, for after all Elizabeth could offer Mary what none of these other potentates had it in their power to extend – the reversion of her own throne. Over the question of Mary’s marriage, hypocritically as she might behave, maddeningly as she might procrastinate, Elizabeth was still in the position of paying the piper and therefore calling the tune. Only the rashest and most impetuous of women would have proceeded now on the same determined course without taking heed of Elizabeth’s declared disapproval – but this was what love had apparently made Mary Stuart. She and Throckmorton argued fruitlessly, while Mary tried to put her own point of view; finally Throckmorton concluded that the queen was so far committed in this matter with Lord Darnley, as it was irrevocable, and ‘that there was no point in exercising any persuasion and reasonable means any further’. Gloomily the courtier who had once so much admired Mary for her discretion in her first widowhood in France, and had wished that Elizabeth could behave more like her, concluded that she had been captivated, either by love or cunning, or rather, ‘to say truly, by boasting or folly’.4
Darnley’s recovery did nothing to dim the queen’s love. Now she was so infatuated that many began to suggest that Darnley had actually bewitched her, looking for a supernatural explanation of her great love when a natural one was only too obvious. At the beginning of June Randolph moaned again to Leicester that Mary and Darnley were still exchanging great tokens of love every day, and Mary seemed to have laid aside all shame in her behaviour. He even suggested that passion had caused the queen to lose her looks somewhat – but perhaps he merely meant that her dignity had been laid aside in favour of the reckless glowing aspect of a woman in love.5 Darnley’s pride waxed with the queen’s affection: to show his virility, he launched out characteristically with blows towards those who he knew would not dare to retaliate. On the day in May on which he was created earl of Ross, he drew his dagger on the wretched justice clerk who brought him the message, because he was not also made duke of Albany as he had expected. It was the typical gesture of the spoilt and vindictive child. By the beginning of July, Darnley was held in such general contempt that even those who had been his chief friends could no longer find words to defend him. Randolph made the gloomy, but as it proved singularly accurate, prophecy: ‘I know not, but it is greatly to be feared that he can have no long life among these people.’
The truth was that even if Darnley had spoke with the tongues of men and of angels, Mary Stuart would have had sufficient problems in persuading her court to accept him as her bridegroom. In the course of the summer Darnley wooed Mary with a light and courtly love poem:6
If langour makes men light
I am for evermore
In joy, both even and morrow …
The turtle-dove for her mate
More dolour may not endure
Than I do for her sake …
If such felicitous pleadings recalled to Mary pleasantly the far-off days of the French court, her advisers were singularly unimpressed by them. To the Scots now around the queen, whatever Darnley’s poetic talent, his arrogant nature was merely the final disaster in a long train of possible disadvantages. Firstly there was the attitude of England, crystallized in the discussion of the English Privy Council on 4th June, where the two great perils of Mary’s marriage were laid down as firstly the plain intention of Mary by such a match to occupy Elizabeth’s throne now rather than later, and secondly ‘the increase and credit of the Romish religion in England’. The avowed hostility of England was naturally fuel to the smouldering flames of Scottish hostility: Moray, for example, had viewed the match with great gloom from the start, since he had little desire to see the rival Lennoxes raised up, and his own credit and influence with his sister, built up over four years, debased. Added to which, Darnley had made it clear that he regarded Moray’s spreading dominions in Scotland as surprisingly and disagreeably extensive, and even passed unpleasant remarks on the subject to Moray’s brother, Lord Robert Stewart, an unwise choice of confidant.
Moray withdrew from the court at the beginning of April, on the ostensible excuse that he did not wish to witness the popish ceremonies at Easter. The whole benefit of his advice and approval which Mary had enjoyed for so long was thus removed from her, at one swoop, as Moray now proceeded to indulge in a series of confused but hostile manoeuvres, whose intention was to demonstrate his opposition to Darnley, without breaking into open rebellion, until he should be assured of English support for his cause. But there were other Scottish nobles, quite apart from Moray, who had ancient, feudal or hereditary reasons for disliking and fearing the Lennoxes: to many Scots Darnley seemed to combine the disadvantages of both the subject and the royal prince as a husband. The Hamilton faction was newly united with Knox in their disapproval of the marriage.* Even the Maries were said to be against the match – and to be out of credit with the queen in consequence. The only name mentioned as encouraging it was that of David Riccio, the queen’s new secretary for her French correspondence, and Darnley’s boon companion.
All the while Mary was caught fast in the tangled bonds of passion. So vehement did her love seem, and so overweening the pride of Darnley, that it was even rumoured that they had been secretly married in early July. It is very probable that the queen had gone through some betrothal ceremony with Darnley at the beginning of May, in the very first ecstasies of love, betrothals then resembling marriages in the sense that much greater liberties were allowed between the betrothed pair. But an actual secret marriage is rendered unlikely by the fact that Mary deliberately and impetuously married Darnley before the arrival of the papal dispensation from Rome. The dispensation was necessary because they were step-first cousins, and Mary was acting on the presumption that the dispensation had already been granted in Rome even if it had not yet arrived in Scotland. She was certainly in no mood for hole-in-the-corner ceremonies.* On 22nd July Darnley was at last given the coveted title of duke of Albany. On 29th July the heralds proclaimed that Darnley (or Prince Henry as he was termed) should henceforth be named and styled ‘King of this our Kingdom’. This was Mary’s ultimate proud pursuit of her own desires, since rightly she should have asked Parliament to give Darnley the coveted title of king. By bestowing it herself, she was pledging her full authority in the cause of her future husband. Finally, on Sunday morning 29th July, between five and six o’clock in the morning, a radiant Mary was conveyed to the chapel royal at Holyrood, on the arm of her future father-in-law the earl of Lennox, and the earl of Argyll, there to await her chosen consort, once the young Lord Darnley, now King Henry of Scotland.
For this wedding, however, there was to be no dazzling white marriage robe for Mary Stuart, whatever the rom
antic passion which inspired her: she wore on the contrary a great mourning gown of black, with a wide mourning hood attached to it, which apparently much resembled the costume which she had worn on the burial day of Francis. This was to indicate that she came to her new husband not as a young and virgin girl, but as a widow, a queen dowager of France. Having been led into the chapel, she remained there until her future husband was brought in by the same lords. They exchanged the vows of the marriage service according to the Catholic rite and three rings were put on Mary’s finger, the middle one a gleaming diamond. Darnley then left Mary alone to hear Mass, abandoning her with a kiss, and himself going straight to her chamber to await her. With the marriage completed, Mary was now at last by custom required to cast off her mourning garments, and signify that she was about to embark upon ‘a pleasanter life’. In Randolph’s words, after ‘some pretty refusal’9 which with some reason he believed was more for form’s sake than from any genuine reluctance to abandon her widowed state, she allowed everyone standing round to take out one pin; then, giving herself into the hands of her ladies, she changed out of her black clothes.
There then followed the usual dancing and festivities of a nuptial celebration; if they did not compare with the grandiose ceremonies which had accompanied Mary’s marriage to Francis, they were at least considered magnificent by Scottish standards, and seven years was perhaps long enough for the memories of such far-off grandeurs to have faded in Mary’s mind. There was a banquet for the full court of nobles, the sound of trumpets, largesse scattered among the crowd and money thrown about the palace in abundance. After the dinner there was some dancing, and a brief respite for recovery, before the supper, as magnificent as had been the dinner. Finally, as Randolph reported, ‘and so they go to bed’. It is to be hoped that Mary Stuart, who had sacrificed so much for this match, found at least this part of the ceremony to her satisfaction: there is no evidence to prove that she had anticipated the marriage ceremony and become Darnley’s mistress in the course of the summer, beyond the bawdy rumours of their enemies, who said that they had lain together at Seton. It is significant that Randolph, who had had every opportunity of observing the young couple throughout the summer, specifically advised the English Council to the contrary:10 ‘Suspicious men,’ he wrote, ‘or such as are given of all things to make the worse, would that it should be believed that they knew each other before that they came there [to bed]. I would not that your Lordships should so believe the likelihoods are so greatly to the contrary.’ Certainly the wildness of Mary’s infatuation seems to point to tormenting and unslaked physical feelings rather than the comparative satisfaction of a liaison. Throughout her four and a half years of widowhood, Mary Stuart had displayed a strong sense of her own ‘majesty’ where the attentions of young gallants were concerned; in the course of the last year she had seemed in addition obsessed by the subject of marriage. Darnley had long been one of those on her list of possible husbands. Therefore when she finally fell in love with him in the Easter of 1565, she had no reason to surrender herself to him outside the bonds of marriage, when there was the prospect of connubial bliss with him in the future.
Knox wrote of the prolonged rejoicing after the marriage ceremony: ‘During the space of three or four days, there was nothing but balling, and dancing, and banqueting.’11 The pen of Buchanan, who owed feudal allegiance to the earl of Lennox, was pressed into service for the many masques which followed; in one Diana complained that the foremost of her bright band of five Maries had been taken from her by the envious powers of love and marriage, and in another the four remaining Maries offered oblations to the goddess of Health.12 To many, the most significant ceremony which followed was that which took place the next day. On Monday, 30th July, Mary deliberately had the fact of Darnley’s new title of King Henry* announced once more by the heralds, with the further proclamation that henceforward all documents and proclamations would be signed by them jointly in the two names MARIE and HENRY, that is, ‘set forth in the names of both their Majesties as King and Queen of Scotland conjunctly’. At this news, there was a heavy ominous silence among the nobles of Scotland. Not one as much as said ‘Amen’. Only the happy doting father, Lennox, at seeing his darling thus glorified, cried aloud: ‘God save his Grace!’
Cecil had commented on the ill-fated marriage of Leicester and Amy Robsart that Nuptiae carnales a laetitia incipiunt et in luctu terminantur – Carnal marriages begin with happiness and end in strife.13 Mary was allowed little enough time to enjoy the happiness of her own ‘carnal marriage’ before the first presages of strife were made apparent. Already, before her wedding, Moray had indulged in behaviour which was at best menacing, at worst plainly rebellious; he declined to attend the convention of the nobility called at Perth at the end of June on the grounds that he was ill, and lurked at Lochleven; from here he spread a rumour that the Lennox faction was planning to assassinate him. It was a time when rumours were spreading freely – the Lennox party in their turn suggested that Moray intended to kidnap Lennox and Darnley and ship them back to England, but the existence of this plot has never been concretely proved. Moray was also involved in more practical schemes: on 1st July he asked Randolph for a subsidy of £3000 from Elizabeth to support the Protestant religion in Scotland, and the English alliance. Furious with Mary for her choice of Darnley as a husband, Moray’s intention was to show that she was endangering the Protestant religion. But in her desire to win support for the Darnley marriage, Mary had on the contrary taken the trouble to court the favour of the reformers. Nor was Darnley himself, although now a professed Catholic, a shining example to the other members of his faith: in England he had acted as a Protestant, and once back in Scotland, he had happily listened to the sermon of John Knox in St Giles Church, as well as avoiding the nuptial Mass to his own wedding, which Mary had attended: Darnley’s faith appeared to have a chameleon quality about it, which enabled it to assume whatever colour seemed convenient at the time. Mary’s conciliatory attitude on the subject of religion showed up Moray’s rebellion for what it was – jealous disaffection springing from feudally inspired hatred of the Lennoxes, with religious overtones introduced for the sake of English subsidies, rather than a genuine revolt of conscience.
On 6th August Moray was put to the horn or outlawed, having refused to put in any appearance before his sister to explain his behaviour, despite promises of safe-conduct for himself and eighty of his followers. His two most powerful allies, Châtelherault and Argyll, were informed that they would be outlawed in their turn if they gave him any further assistance. Mary now acted with admirable promptness. The properties of Moray, Rothes and Kirkcaldy were seized on 14th August; on 22nd August Mary announced that she intended to march against the rebels, and ordered a muster of troops (to pay for which she pledged her jewels). In order that Moray’s rebellion should be seen for what it was – the foray of a rebellious noble rather than a religious crusade – Mary once more announced that no religious change was intended. Atholl was made lieutenant in the north, in order to hold Argyll at bay. On 26th August Mary rode out of Edinburgh towards the west of Scotland, with Darnley swaggering at her side in gilt armour: she was swearing revenge on Moray, but the vivid emotion brought such a sparkle into her spirits that in the course of the campaign even Knox’s narrative expressed admiration of her as she rode at the head of her troops: ‘Albeit the most part waxed weary, yet the Queen’s courage increased man-like, so much that she was ever with the foremost.’14
In her absence, Moray, Châtelherault, Glencairn and Rothes entered the city; but they discovered that there was little support for them there from Protestants and Catholics alike, Mary having by now made herself extremely popular with the ordinary people – who in the course of her four years in Scotland had seen no evidence that she intended to deprive them of the practice of their new religion, and their minds set at rest on this subject positively enjoyed the acquisition of a young and beautiful queen, who understood better how to reach the hearts of her humb
ler subjects than those of her nobility. Threatened by the guns of Edinburgh Castle, manned by Lord Erskine, now earl of Mar, Moray departed. In Glasgow, Mary decided to wait until her northern levies should reach her at Stirling at the end of September before finally attacking Moray. In the meantime she issued another proclamation promising a definite settlement of the religious question. Randolph heard that Mary was putting such enthusiasm into her cause that she frequently rode with a pistol at her saddle, outriding all her ladies and gentlemen except ‘one stout lady’.15
It was left for Moray and his associates to appeal endlessly for the help from England which they believed had been promised to them by Elizabeth, but by the end of September the most Moray had got out of Elizabeth was the promise of an asylum in England, if he should need it. Meanwhile the English Council dithered and finally came down against him. Early in October, Moray realized his cause was hopeless, and on 6th October fled across the border from the southwest of Scotland, as Mary prepared to attack him. In London he underwent the humiliating experience of being told by Elizabeth, in the course of a personal audience, duly witnessed by the French ambassador, that he had done very wrong in rebelling against Mary. Having publicly exculpated herself from the charge of abetting the Scottish rebels, Elizabeth, in a triumph of double-talk, said that she would intercede with Mary for the return of Moray. Moray now settled down at Newcastle, to brood on the possibility of more favourable developments in Scotland.