Queen Mary in Scotland

Mary's two successes alarmed the Protestants, and if Mary could have retained her hold over Darnley, the Reformed Church might have been in some danger. But the birth of a son, Prince James, in June 1566, was followed by a violent and permanent quarrel between the unhappy parents. Darnley's enemies were resolved to have his life, and when the accomplices whom he had betrayed were allowed to return to Scotland at the end of 1566, he was a doomed man. But the enemies of Darnley were also the enemies of Mary, and they found in the earl of Bothwell, a tool for the destruction of both. Darnley was murdered on Feb. Io, 1567, at Kirk-of-Field, in the outskirts of Edinburgh, and his murderers, by blowing up the house with gunpowder, made sure that no alternative explanation of his death should be feasible. Bothwell was known to be a principal actor in the crime, and a collusive trial did nothing to weaken the belief in his guilt. On May 15 Mary married Bothwell. There was another rebellion, the queen had been discredited by the Darnley murder and the Bothwell marriage, and she had no option but to surrender to the rebels (June 5). The question of Mary's guilt or innocence of her husband's murder is rather biographical than historical (see CASKET LETTERS). Guilty or innocent, she could not retain her authority after what had happened. If, as in the present state of the controversy unfortunately seems probable, there was a do mestic conspiracy between Mary and Bothwell, Darnley's death was not merely the result of a plot between a guilty wife and her paramour. If Mary was an accomplice of Bothwell, she was also the unconscious tool of a wider conspiracy, the members of which, after she and Bothwell were both out of the way, fell to accusing each other of a share in the murder of Darnley.

Mary's Abdication.

The insurgent lords imprisoned Mary in Lochleven Castle and forced her to abdicate in favour of her infant son, and Murray extorted from her an assent to his own appointment as regent. Within a year, she escaped from Loch leven, and a few days later her army was defeated at Langside, Relying on an invitation sent by Elizabeth to her in Lochleven, Mary took refuge in England, where she was imprisoned by the English Queen (May 1568). Her vigorous and attractive person ality had introduced a new element into Scottish politics, for, in her army at Langside were Protestants whose interest in the struggle was loyalty to the queen, and during the first years of her English imprisonment, her party in Scotland, which gave considerable trouble to successive regents, was, for a variety of reasons, maintained by two Protestants, Maitland of Letnington and Kirkcaldy of Grange. Her fall meant the complete triumph of English influence, for Elizabeth had only to threaten to release her prisoner in order to exert pressure on the regents. The Regent Murray (1567-7o), the Regent Lennox (1570-1), the Regent Mar (1671-2) and the Regent Morton (1572-8) were all on friendly terms with Elizabeth, and they had English help in the civil war between the king's party and the queen's party. The troubled state of the country, until the capture of Edinburgh Castle in 1573 put an end to the resistance of Mary's adherents, is illustrated by the fate of the first two regents. Murray was assassinated and Lennox died of wounds received in a skirmish at Stirling.