Mary’s disappointment in Darnley was political as well as the disappointment of a loving woman. She had hoped that, with the aid of a husband who would be devoted to her body and soul, she would at length be able to shake off the tutelage of Moray, Lethington and the Scottish lords in general; she had dreamt of ruling Scotland jointly with her beloved. But these illusions, likewise, had vanished with the honeymoon. For Darnley’s sake, she had estranged Moray and Lethington, with the result that she was now utterly alone. But a woman of such a nature as hers, however profoundly her hopes have been belied, cannot live without a confidant, so she was continually looking round her for someone upon whom she could unconditionally rely. Better, she thought, that it should be a man of low rank, lacking the prestige of a Moray or a Lethington, but having, in place thereof, a virtue which was more essential to her at the court of Scotland—absolute loyalty, the trustworthiness which is the most precious of boons in a servitor.
Chance had brought such a man to Scotland. When Marchese Moreta, the Savoyard ambassador, visited Scotland, there came in his train a young Piedmontese, David Rizzio by name, “in visage very black”, about twenty-eight years of age, with round, alert eyes and a lively mouth—that of a good singer. (“Particolarmente era buon musico”—He was an especially good musician.) Poets and musicians were always welcome guests at Mary’s court. Both her father and her mother had transmitted to her a passion for the fine arts. Nothing could better relieve the gloom of her environment than the strains of the lute or the violin, as accompaniment of a good voice. It happened, at the moment, that she was short of a basso, and since “Seigneur Davie” (as he came to be called by his intimates at the Scottish court) was not only a competent bass, but a fairly skilled composer, the Queen begged Moreta to allow the “buon musico” to remain behind in her personal service. Moreta had no objection, so Rizzio was appointed, at a salary of sixty-five pounds. In the palace account-books is inscribed “David le Chantre”, but among the domestic staff he was known as “valet de chambre”—groom of the chamber. In those days there was nothing degrading in such a designation for a musician, seeing that down till Beethoven’s time the greatest of musicians were at court accounted as no more than members of the domestic staff. Even Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the old white-haired Haydn, though famed throughout Europe, never sat at meals among the nobles and princes, but took their food in the servants’ hall.
Rizzio was not merely a young man with a fine voice. He had a shrewd intelligence, a lively wit and an all-round artistic education. He spoke Latin and French fluently, as well as his native Italian; he wrote a “fair hand” and in a good style; those of his sonnets which have been preserved are tasteful and correct. Soon an opportunity occurred for promoting him from the servile rank. Paulet, Mary’s private secretary, had not proved immune to a malady that was endemic at the Scottish court, namely corruption by English gold. The Queen was forced to dismiss him at short notice. The vacant place in the Queen’s study was promptly filled by David Rizzio, who now rose rapidly at court. Soon he was something more than a secretary—he became Her Majesty’s adviser. No longer did Mary Stuart dictate her letters to the Piedmontese secretary, for the latter drafted the epistles as he thought best. The precise nature of the diplomatic negotiations in which he became engaged under these circumstances, and whether he worked exclusively in the Scottish interest or also had an eye to the advantage of foreign powers, will probably never be known. This much is certain, that he came to play a more and more important part in state affairs. As we have seen, he had a good deal to do with his royal mistress’ marriage to the Catholic prince consort Darnley, and Mary’s stubborn refusal to pardon Moray and the other rebel lords was ascribed by the latter, probably with good reason, to Rizzio’s influence. Suspicion had been rife that the young Piedmontese was a papal agent at the Scottish court. How much truth there may have been in this idea must remain uncertain. Beyond question, even if Rizzio was devoted to the papal and to the Catholic cause, he served Mary Stuart with a devotion and loyalty that had not been shown by any of her Scottish subjects. Now when Mary was faithfully served, she knew how to reward, and she was wont to give freely to anyone with whom she could converse frankly. She made her favour for Rizzio all too plain, giving him costly apparel, entrusting him with the Great Seal of the realm and making him acquainted with state secrets. Before long David Rizzio, the sometime servant, rose to be a great gentleman, sitting down at table with the Queen and her ladies, helping as maître de plaisir like Chastelard before him (an ominous parallel!), organising musical festivals and other court diversions, and becoming more and more the Queen’s close friend instead of merely her servitor. Until far on into the night, envied by the domestic staff, this low-born foreigner was closeted with the Queen in her private apartment. In princely attire, arrogant and offhand, the man who had arrived in Edinburgh as little better than a lackey and with nothing to recommend him but a fine voice now exercised the highest functions in the realm. He had more influence in such matters than Darnley the Queen’s husband, more influence than Moray when prime minister—the “buon musico” who was actual chief of the state. Nothing happened without his knowledge and consent, but this knowledge and this consent were honestly subservient to the Queen’s interests.
As a second sturdy pillar of her independence, the military power as well as the political was now in trustworthy hands. In the former domain, likewise, she had found someone to serve her faithfully, the Earl of Bothwell, who years before, in early youth, had (though a Protestant) espoused the cause of Mary of Guise against the Lords of the Congregation, and had therefore been driven from Scotland by the enmity of James Stuart. Returning to his country after Moray’s rebellion and downfall, Bothwell put his powers, which were far from inconsiderable, at the Queen’s disposal. A bold soldier, prepared for every hazard, a man of iron nature, passionate both in love and in hatred, Bothwell was devotedly served by the border clansmen, whom he had led in many a guerrilla campaign against the English. His person alone was worth an army. Grateful for his support, Mary confirmed him in the hereditary appointment of Lord Admiral of Scotland.
With these two loyal assistants to rely upon, Mary Stuart, at twenty-three, had at length both the chief implements of power, the political and the military, firmly grasped in her hands. For the first time she could venture to rule alone, and she was never a woman to shrink from risk.
Always, however, in Scotland, when the monarch endeavoured to become an effective ruler, the Scottish lords resisted his will. Nothing could be more distasteful to these insurrectionary-minded nobles than a queen who neither wooed their favour nor was afraid of them. From England, Moray and the other outlaws were clamouring for permission to return. They exploded all possible mines, those of silver and gold as well as the others. The discontent of the nobility was concentrated upon Rizzio, and soon their castles were full of the murmur of scandalous tongues. The Protestants in Holyrood were convinced that the Italian was spinning Machiavellian webs. They suspected rather than knew that Scotland was about to be dragged into the secret schemes of the Counter-Reformation, and it is indeed possible that Mary had given some such pledge to her relatives the Guises who, a few years later, were to found the Catholic League.
Rizzio, having no longer a friend at the Scottish court, was held responsible for these plots. The shrewdest of mortals often act most imprudently. Rizzio made the usual mistake of upstarts. Instead of modestly concealing his power, he boastfully displayed it. He wore splendid attire, bestowed costly gifts, made those with whom he had as a newcomer sat in the servants’ hall feel how high he had risen above them, and he does not seem to have been himself exempt from corruption by presents. What, in any case, could be more insufferable to the Scottish nobles’ pride than that an ex-servant, a strolling musician of dubious origin, should spend hour after hour in the Queen’s private apartments, adjoining her bedchamber, in the most intimate companionship which was denied to them, the bearers of ancient names? Stronger
and stronger grew their suspicions that these secret conversations must concern an attempt to make an end of the Protestant power in the country and, to be beforehand with the Queen, a number of the nobles who were devoted to the Reformed religion joined in a conspiracy.
For centuries the Scottish aristocracy had been accustomed to employ one method, and one only, for dealing with their adversaries—murder. Not until the spider which was spinning these secret threads had been crushed, not until the subtle and inscrutable Italian adventurer had been swept out of their path, would the way be opened for rendering Mary Stuart more pliable. The plan for making a violent end of Rizzio must have been conceived some months in advance, at the time when Randolph reported to Elizabeth that the Italian might expect at God’s hand either a speedy end or an intolerable life. It was long, however, before the malcontents could summon up courage to begin a definite rising. The speed and firmness with which Mary had suppressed the last rebellion was still fresh in their memories, and they had little inclination to share the fate of Moray and the other exiles. They also dreaded the iron hand of Bothwell, who loved to strike hard, and whose pride, they knew, would keep him from joining in their plot. They could only murmur among themselves and clench their fists until at length one of them thought of the brilliant but devilish plan of transforming Rizzio’s murder from a rebellious act into a legal and patriotic deed by making Darnley, the titular King of Scotland, head and front and protector of the conspiracy.
At the first glance the notion seems absurd. Involve the king of a country in a conspiracy against his own wife, the king against the queen? But the scheme proved psychologically sound, for in Darnley’s case, as in that of all weaklings, the mainspring of his activities was his measureless vanity. Since the “iron stamp”, the facsimile of the Queen’s signature, had been confided to Rizzio’s charge, the friendship between the two men had been broken, for the right to sign documents in Mary’s name gave Rizzio powers which Darnley coveted on his own account. Was this beggar on horseback to conduct diplomatic negotiations about which Darnley, Henricus Scotiae, was not informed? The secretary was wont to stay in the Queen’s room until one or two in the morning—to spend there the midnight hours when a husband had the right to demand his wife’s company—and the Italian’s power grew from day to day as, in the sight of the whole court, Darnley’s diminished. It must be Rizzio’s fault that the crown matrimonial had been refused him, and that alone would have sufficed to explain the hatred of a man who was no less mean-spirited than mortified. But the Scottish nobles instilled a yet more virulent poison into the open wound of Darnley’s vanity, stimulating him where he was most sensitive, in his virile jealousy. By numberless hints they encouraged his suspicion that Rizzio shared not only the Queen’s board, but also her bed. Though there was no proof of any such misconduct, Darnley was the readier to believe the tale because his wife had of late refused conjugal embraces. It was a hateful thought that Mary’s aloofness must be due to a preference for this black-haired musician. A man whose feelings have been wounded is easy to enrage, and one who does not trust himself is apt to distrust others. Ere long Darnley was convinced “that he had suffered the greatest dishonour which can be inflicted on a man.” The incredible became fact; the King assumed the leadership of the conspiracy against the Queen.
It has never been proved, nor is ever likely to be proved, that this swarthy little musician David Rizzio was really the Queen’s lover. The very fact that Mary showed open favour for her private secretary in face of the whole court speaks against the supposition. Even if we admit that there is but a narrow line separating spiritual intimacy between a man and a woman from carnal relationship—a line which can be crossed in any incautious moment or as the outcome of an unconscious gesture—still, as regards Rizzio, Mary Queen of Scots, a woman with child, showed her royal friendship with such confidence and carelessness as would have never been shown in such circumstances by an adulteress. Had the pair really crossed the aforesaid line to become lovers, Mary’s first and most natural thought would have been to avoid giving tokens of manifest intimacy; she would not have made music or played cards with her lover until the small hours in her private apartment; nor would she have secluded herself with him in her study when diplomatic correspondence was being indited. But as had already been shown in the case of Chastelard, one of her most gracious qualities was a danger to her—her absolute self-confidence when she knew herself to be blameless, her contempt for what “they say”, her sovereign disregard of gossip, her amiable nonchalance. Almost always incaution and courage go together, as virtue and danger, like the obverse and reverse of a coin; it is only cowards and those who are unsure of themselves that dread the semblance of guilt.
But when rumour has once charged a woman with misconduct, however malicious and nonsensical the rumour may be, it continues to spread, being perpetually nourished by malicious curiosity. Forty years later, Henry IV of France was to keep the ball of calumny rolling, for he said mockingly of his fellow sovereign James I (whom, as a babe, Mary was now bearing in her womb) that he well deserved the name of “Solomon” because, like King Solomon of old, he was a son of David. For the second time Mary’s reputation was gravely damaged, not by any fault she had committed, but by her lack of caution.
At the Scottish court, no one took this fable seriously; for afterwards, when the nobles were publicly accusing Mary Stuart of all possible crimes, they simultaneously declared her son James to be the rightful King of Scotland. Hate her though they did, they knew the truth of this matter. Only in Darnley, irritated beyond endurance, his judgement confused by an inferiority complex, did the suspicion take root and grow rankly. Like fire, it coursed through his veins; like a bull, he charged the red cloth waved in front of his eyes, and entered blindly into the plot. Without stopping to reflect, he allowed himself to be entangled in a conspiracy against his own wife, so that within a few days no one thirsted more ragingly than he for the blood of Rizzio, who had been his close friend, who had shared bed and board with him—the insignificant musician from Italy who had helped Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley to a crown.
Among the Scottish nobles of those days, political assassination was a solemn affair. Those who had determined on it did not rush hastily upon their victim in the first blast of anger. The conspirators entered into a formal bargain. Word of honour was not security enough for them, for they knew one another too well. This remarkable scheme of chivalry had to be contracted for with seal and charter, as if it had been a legal undertaking. When the Scots had determined on violence, the details were clearly stipulated on parchment, upon one of the so-called “covenants” or “bonds” in which the princely bandits pledged themselves to abide by one another through weal or woe—for only as a troop, as a clan, did they feel courageous enough to rise against their sovereign lady. This time, as a novelty in Scottish history, the conspirators were honoured by having a king’s signature upon their covenant. Between Darnley and the conspirators two bonds were entered into and duly signed, bonds in which the King who had been cold-shouldered and the lords who had been banished reciprocally pledged themselves to overthrow the authority of Mary Stuart. In the first bond Darnley promised to hold the conspirators “shaithless” (unharmed), and to protect and defend them even in the palace and in the presence of the Queen. He further agreed to recall the banished lords from outlawry and to overlook their “faults”, on condition “that they would procure for him the crown matrimonial of Scotland, and that, in the event of Queen Mary’s death, he should be declared her rightful successor, and his father the next heir after himself; and that the lords would pursue, slay and extirpate all who opposed this resolution.” He also promised to defend the Kirk against any diminution of its rights. In the second bond the conspiring lords pledged themselves to procure for Darn-ley the crown matrimonial, and even (we shall see why this possibility was considered) in the event of the Queen’s premature death to leave Darnley in possession of the royal rights. These words, seemingly plain, impl
ied more than Darn-ley realised. But Randolph, who saw the text of the bonds, understood well enough, reporting to London: “If persuasion to cause the Queen to yield to these matters” (the resignation of the crown) “do no good, they purpose to proceed we know not in what sort.” This is a broad hint of the intention of the conspirators to rid themselves of Mary during the chance medley of which Rizzio’s assassination was the avowed object.
Hardly was the ink dry upon the signatures to this iniquitous bargain, when messengers galloped off to inform Moray, who was at Newcastle awaiting the issue of the plot, that he might make ready for his return to Scotland, while Randolph, who was likewise across the border at Berwick, and was actively participating in the conspiracy, hastened to inform Elizabeth of the bloody surprise which was preparing for her royal sister. On 13th February 1566, several weeks before the murder, he wrote to London:
I now know for certain that the Queen regrets her marriage, and hates her husband and all his kin. I know also that he believes he will have a partaker in his play and game, and that certain intrigues have been going on between father and son to seize the crown against her will. I know that if these come to fruition, David, with the King’s assent, will have his throat cut within the next ten days.” The spy went on to convey fuller knowledge of that at which he had already hinted. “Even worse things than these have come to my ears, actually proposals for attacking her own person.
There can then be no doubt that the conspiracy had more extensive aims than those disclosed to the foolish Darnley; that the blow which was ostensibly directed against Rizzio alone was intended to destroy Mary as well, so that her life was just as much in peril as her secretary’s. Darnley, however, being cruel, as cowards always are when they win power, was blindly longing for vengeance upon the man who had wormed his way into Mary’s confidence, and who signed documents in her name. He insisted, therefore, wishing to debase his wife as much as possible, that the murder must take place in her presence; being moved by the illusion of a weakling, who hopes that “punishment” will make a strong nature pliable, and believing that a brutal exhibition of force would render once more submissive the wife who had come to despise him. Such crude and vengeful natures as his are capable of the last extremity of baseness. The conspirators acceded to the wretched creature’s desire that the slaughter should take place in Mary’s apartment, and in her presence, with child though she was. The 9th of March was chosen for the deed, whose performance was to prove even more abominable than its planning had been.