Two Queens in One Isle

The Deadly Relationship of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots

Alison Plowden

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780750932394
• eBook ISBN: 9780752467184
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The relationship between Queen Elizabeth I of England and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, is one of the most complex, tempestuous and fascinating in history. United in blood but divided by religion, the two women were in some ways uniquely close; in others, poles apart. Championed by English Catholics as the rightful Queen of England, Mary was nevertheless given protection by her cousin after she was deposed amid outrage at her immoral behaviour. Rumours of papist plots involving Mary were rife and Elizabeth was put under extreme pressure to be rid of this dangerous threat to her sovereignty and to the Protestant church in England. After much reluctance and procrastination Elizabeth finally signed Mary's death warrant. Alison Plowden shows how political fear brought out the worst and yet the best in these women, and how history was overshadowed for centuries afterwards.

VIII

A Small Gilt Coffer

Mary’s first act on the morning after her arrival in England was to write again urgently to Elizabeth, once more recapitulating all her woes from the date of the Riccio murder and graphically describing her present predicament—pitiable enough for an ordinary gentle-woman, let alone a queen. She had been obliged to flee for her life with nothing in the world but the clothes she stood up in, and begged her cousin to send for her as soon as possible.

By a curious irony, on that same day, Monday, 17 May Elizabeth was writing from Greenwich to congratulate Mary on her escape from Lochleven, but still regretting that her infatuation for ‘ung malheureuse meschant’ (i.e. Bothwell) should have made her so careless of her estate and honour and lost her so many friends. Elizabeth offered to help the Queen of Scots to recover her throne, provided she made no attempt to bring in aid from France, which the Queen of England must regard as an unfriendly act, and added a warning that ‘those who have two strings to their bow may shoot stronger, but they rarely shoot straight.’

Mary, meanwhile, had no sooner despatched her letter by the hand of Lord Herries than she was ceremoniously waited on by a deputation of local gentry who proceeded to escort her a few miles inland to the town of Cockermouth. There Sir Richard Lowther, deputy governor of Carlisle, ‘made his attendance on her’ in the absence of the governor, Lord Scrope, and it was agreed that she should spend that night in the house of a well-to-do merchant, Master Henry Fletcher. The Queen used this brief respite to do something about her most pressing problem, clothes. Henry Fletcher is said to have presented his guest with thirteen ells of crimson velvet and a black cloth gown was hastily made up for her on credit. Anxious not to be outdone in matters of hospitality Richard Lowther ‘ordered her charges at Cockermouth to be defrayed’ and himself provided horses to carry the Queen and her train to Carlisle.

Lowther, not at all certain about the protocol governing the reception of refugee queens and much harassed by the sudden awesome responsibility which had descended on his shoulders, felt the only safe course was to detain the exotic visitor at Carlisle Castle pending further instructions. His couriers must have ridden fast, for news of Mary’s presence in their midst had reached Queen Elizabeth and her Council by 20 May. Although it cannot have been entirely unexpected, it still caused a considerable stir and the Privy Council met in emergency session to discuss the situation. According to both the French and Spanish ambassadors, Elizabeth’s first impulse had been to take Mary’s part and receive her at Court, but this instinctive desire to show solidarity with the afflicted Queen of Scotland had been hurriedly over-ruled by a majority of councillors ‘who leant to the side of the Regent and his government.’

‘I think they must be somewhat embarrassed’, wrote Guzman de Silva. ‘… If this Queen has her way now, they will be obliged to treat the Queen of Scots as a sovereign, which will offend those who forced her to abdicate, so that, although these people are glad enough to have her in their hands, they have many things to consider. If they keep her as if in prison it will probably scandalise all neighbouring princes, and if she remain free and able to communicate with her friends great suspicions will be aroused. In any case’, he added with studied understatement, ‘it is certain two women will not agree very long.’

The Privy Council was only too conscious of the many things they had to consider, but some action had to be taken quickly to relieve Sir Richard Lowther, who was already having to fend off the bullying attempts of the Earl of Northumberland, well known for his papistical tendencies, to remove Mary from his custody. Elizabeth therefore sent Lord Scrope and Sir Francis Knollys, her Vice-Chamberlain and an old and trusted friend, to take charge at Carlisle and explain as tactfully as possible that the Queen of England could not admit her ‘dearest sister’ to her presence ‘by reason of this great slander of murder, whereof she was not yet purged.’ If, however, she would put her future into Elizabeth’s hands and undertake not to bring a foreign army into Scotland, then the Queen would be happy to do everything she could for her relief and comfort.

Mary made no attempt to conceal her disappointment when this message was conveyed to her on the evening of 28 May. In the twelve days which had passed since her arrival, frightened and exhausted, on the English coast, her naturally buoyant spirits had bubbled up again and she had aready written to the Earl of Cassilis telling him that she expected to be back in Scotland at the head of an army, French if not English, before the end of the summer. It never seems to have occurred to her that the Queen of England might refuse to see her, and she shed tears of angry frustration over Knollys and Scrope before hurrying away to write again to Elizabeth. She had evidently not made it clear that her principal reason for coming to England had been her urgent desire to lay all her grievances before her cousin in person, to complain of the unjust treatment she had received and to clear herself of those wicked calumnies being spread against her by her ungrateful subjects—subjects whom she had previously pardoned at Elizabeth’s own request.

Mary now proposed to send the faithful Lord Herries to London with a request that Elizabeth should ‘believe him as myself, and forthwith to let me have your answer in writing, whether it would be agreeable to you if I were to come without delay and without ceremony to you, and tell you more particularly the truth about all that has happened to me, in contradiction to their lies.’ This, she indicated, should be more than enough to convince any right-minded person of her innocence of any crime and of the absolute justice of her cause.

If, for any reason, Elizabeth was unable or unwilling to help, then Mary felt sure her cousin would not refuse to let her go and seek assistance from her friends abroad, of which, she thanked God, she was not destitute. She thought it harsh and strange, after all she had suffered, that she should now be detained ‘in manner a prisoner’ and ended by begging Elizabeth for some sign of natural affection ‘for your good sister, cousin and firm friend.’

If the Queen of Scots was dissatisfied by her present situation, so too was Francis Knollys. He had, in his often quoted estimation, found Mary to have ‘an eloquent tongue and a discreet head’, with ‘stout courage and liberal heart adjoined thereunto.’ She was already beginning to turn the heads of the susceptible gentlemen around Carlisle who had come flocking to pay their respects and listen sympathetically to the impassioned recital of her wrongs with which she favoured all her visitors—a fact that caused Knollys, himself a hard-line Protestant, to worry about the seditious rumours which might be spread if once the impression gained ground, in a district notoriously given to ‘papistry’, that this charming and unfortunate lady was being unfairly treated by the Queen.

Knollys was also seriously worried about the risk of another escape. He did not for a moment doubt the Queen of Scots’ courage to make the attempt, or her ability to climb out of her bedroom window if need be. The devoted George Douglas was actually living in the Castle, while a growing number of her friends and their hangers-on were gathered in the town, and no restrictions had yet been placed on letters and visits.

As the days passed and it became more and more difficult to keep up the polite fiction of her ‘guest’ status, Sir Francis’ anxiety and embarrassment increased, as did his impatience for some ‘resolute order and direct way with this Queen.’ He and Scrope were really in an impossible position. They had been instructed not to let their charge escape, but had been given no authority to control her activities or to detain her against her will.

Knollys was convinced that Mary meant nothing but trouble and after an uneasy fortnight in her company saw no reason to change his opinion. ‘This lady and princess is a notable woman’, he wrote on 11 June. ‘She seemeth to regard no ceremonious honour beside the acknowledgement of her estate regal. She showeth a disposition to speak much, to be bold, to be pleasant, and to be very familiar. She showeth a great desire to be avenged of her enemies. She showeth a readiness to expose herself to all perils in hope of victory.’ In fact, it seemed ‘the thing that most she thirsteth after is victory’ and she was not at all particular about the means used to achieve it. ‘Now what is to be done with such a lady and princess?’ enquired Francis Knollys of his friend William Cecil.

Despite all the anxious discussion going on round the council table and the memoranda flowing from William Cecil’s busy pen, the answer to that question was never really in doubt. Although Queen Elizabeth was naturally more concerned than some of her advisers with saving her cousin’s face, she was in broad agreement with them on the fundamental issue that Mary Stewart must never again be allowed to enjoy unrestricted possession of the Scottish throne. Nor did she quarrel with Cecil’s conclusion that she would be obliged to ‘intermeddle’, if for no other reason than that ‘the Queen of Scots has heretofore openly challenged the crown of England, not as a second person after the Queen’s majesty, but afore her.’ In practical terms this meant accepting responsibility for Mary’s safe-keeping, at least for the time being. It was obviously out of the question either to hand her back to Moray and the lords or to let her go to France, where her Guise kinsfolk would inevitably stir up a hornets’ nest of faction on her behalf.

No one in government circles viewed the prospect of, as Francis Knollys put it, nourishing the exiled queen in their bosoms with any relish. On the contrary, wrote the historian William Camden, ‘they reasoned lest she (who was as it were the very pith and marrow of sweet eloquence) might draw many daily to her part which favoured her title to the crown of England, who would kindle the coals of her ambition, and leave nothing unassayed whereby they might set the crown upon her head.’

The reports coming in both from Carlisle and Berwick, where William Drury ‘marvelled to hear how divers are gladded with the Queen of Scots’ escape’ and warned that she had many well-wishers northwards, served to reinforce Cecil’s gloomy conviction that Mary would ‘practise with her friends for this crown’, embolden all evil subjects and become even more of a menace in England than she had been in Scotland. Elizabeth, too, was worried about the situation. ‘As well she may be’, reported Guzman de Silva, ‘for the Queen of Scots has certainly many friends, and they will increase in number hourly, as the accusations of complicity in the murder of her husband are being forgotten, and her marriage with Bothwell is now being attributed to compulsion and fear.’ Friends, he added sagely, ‘easily persuade themselves of the truth of what they wish to believe.’

It was plainly essential from Elizabeth’s point of view that Mary’s murky past should not be forgotten, for it offered the only half-way legal excuse for holding her in England and the Queen had to be able to justify herself to her fellow sovereigns—especially the King of France, who was hurriedly informed that her Majesty meant to take her cousin’s causes into her protection and would proceed to consider how best to ‘reduce her honourably in concord with her subjects.’ As a first step towards this laudable goal, Elizabeth announced her intention of setting up a court of enquiry to hear both sides of the Scottish dispute and herself act as an impartial arbitrator between them. To emphasise her neutral stance, a letter was despatched to Moray requiring him to suspend hostilities against Mary’s party in Scotland, though it seems that another message containing a warning to get on with his mopping-up operations as quickly as possible went by more private channels.

On 12 June Henry Middlemore, Nicholas Throckmorton’s cousin and one of the most promising of the younger civil servants, arrived at Carlisle to see the Queen of Scots and outline the English government’s plans for her immediate future. He also brought a letter from Elizabeth in which the Queen of England promised to be so careful of Mary’s life and honour that no parent could have them more at heart, but again refused to receive her until she had been ‘honourably acquitted’ of the crimes charged against her. ‘Whatever my regard for you, I can never be careless of my own reputation.’

Middlemore delivered this discouraging communication at the beginning of a long, stormy and unproductive interview. He repeated Elizabeth’s assurances of friendship and protection and tried to point out that if she were to receive and entertain the Queen of Scotland before her ‘justification’ it would look as if ‘her Majesty would rather wink at her grace’s faults, than have the truth known or justice done.’ It would not help Mary’s cause to destroy Elizabeth’s credit as an impartial judge and give the world an excuse for saying that she ‘little regarded the murder of her near kinsman’ or the infamy her cousin had incurred by marrying the principal murderer.

Mary was not impressed. As Knollys had predicted, this cool approach to the situation did nothing to satisfy her fiery stomach, or her ‘bloody appetite to shed the blood of her enemies.’ She complained passionately about deliberately created delays and reiterated her demands to be allowed to go and seek help elsewhere—from the Grand Turk if necessary. As for the suggestion that a trial should be made of her ‘innocency’, the Queen of Scots ‘had no other judge but God, neither none could take upon them to judge of her: she knew her degree of estate well enough.’ It was true she had previously offered to submit to the Queen of England’s judgement but, reported Henry Middlemore, ‘“how” sayeth she, “can that be, when the Queen my sister will not suffer me to come at her?”’

To Mary Stewart it was as simple as that. If she could only ‘come at’ her cousin and tell her side of the story as one queen to another, any unworthy suspicions Elizabeth might be harbouring would be dispelled without further ado. As it was, her enemies on the English Council were being given a free hand to conspire against her with her own rebellious subjects and Queen Elizabeth was apparently quite willing to receive them. Mary wept and raged at the unfairness of it all, impervious to Middlemore’s reasoned arguments, his promises and pleas for patience, and when he told her, hoping ‘to make a pleasant parting’, that she was soon to be transferred from Carlisle to some other place where she might enjoy more pleasure and liberty she at once asked if she was to go as a prisoner.

Middlemore was due to go on to Scotland to confer with the Earl of Moray and thankfully left Francis Knollys to cope with the task of moving his charge to the greater security of Bolton Castle, an isolated stronghold on the Yorkshire moors, without resort to actual coercion. Mary, understandably reluctant to leave her vantage point on the Border, insisted that she would not stir unless taken by force and was also still flatly refusing to discuss her affairs with anyone but the Queen of England in person.

The Queen of England thought her cousin’s obstructive attitude ‘very strange.’ ‘Your innocence being such as I hope, you need not refuse answer to any noble personage I shall send’, she wrote on 30 June. While as for the difficulties Mary was making about the simple matter of changing her residence—‘pray do not give me occasion to think that your promises are but wind.’ ‘Good sister, be of another mind’, pleaded Mary. ‘Win the heart, and all shall be yours and at your commandment. I thought to satisfy you wholly, if I might have seen you. Alas! do not as the serpent that stoppeth his hearing, for I am no enchanter, but your sister and natural cousin.’ But the serpent in London remained obstinately deaf. Whatever impression to the contrary she may have contrived to make on the Spanish ambassador, it seems highly unlikely that Elizabeth had, even for a moment, ever seriously intended to give the Scottish enchantress an opportunity to outshine her at her own court.

The Queen of Scots hung on at Carlisle until mid-July, banging her head against the stone wall of her gaolers’ stolidly courteous but implacable determination to remove her. ‘Surely’, reported the much-tried Knollys, ‘if I should declare the difficulties that we have passed, before we could get her to remove, instead of a letter I should write a story and that somewhat tragical!’ However, being a fairminded man, he added that once she realised tears and tantrums were having no effect, Mary had given in gracefully and shown herself ‘very quiet, tractable and void of displeasant countenance’ on the journey to Bolton.

Before the end of the month she had given way on another, more crucial issue, agreeing to commit her cause to be heard by Elizabeth, not as a judge—nothing like that—but as ‘her dear cousin and friend.’ The Queen of England intended to summon the noblemen of Scotland to give an account of themselves before a panel of commissioners. If they failed to justify their actions to her satisfaction (and she told Lord Herries that she expected them to fail), then she would restore the Queen of Scots to her former state, by force of arms if necessary. It was not quite so clear what she meant to do if the lords did succeed in making out a case for having deposed their sovereign, but she assured Herries that whatever happened she would continue to look after Mary’s interests, and make every effort to arrange an honourable reconciliation between the Scottish queen and her subjects. In return for these good offices, Mary was required formally to renounce all claim and title to the English throne during Elizabeth’s lifetime (or that of her increasingly doubtful offspring), to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh, abandon her French alliance in favour of a ‘straight league’ with England, abolish the mass altogether in Scotland and instead ‘receive the common prayer after the form of England.’

This was not what Mary had wanted. But after nearly two and a half months’ unsuccessful agitation and with little or no encouragement forthcoming from abroad—the French ambassador told her frankly that he thought she was better off where she was—she seems to have reached the conclusion that she had better settle for what she could get; especially since Elizabeth’s message as delivered by Lord Herries appeared to contain a promise that she would be conditionally restored whatever the outcome of the enquiry.

Moray also accepted the Queen of England’s terms, though he was not entirely happy about them either. He resented being cast in the role of defendant and was distinctly nervous that Elizabeth did indeed intend somehow to restore his sister whatever happened, in spite of certain private assurances to the contrary. The English Council shared his unease, and had already expressed its collective misgivings over the prospect of Mary’s restoration, even in name only, ‘considering the comforts and aids from her kindred, and also from Rome, whereby she may vanquish all both here and in Scotland.’ For once she was back on her throne, what possible oaths and promises could be imagined to withstand her appetite for the English crown?

William Cecil was equally sceptical. ‘The Queen’s Majesty’, he wrote to Henry Norris in France early in August ‘… meaneth to have the matter between the Queen of Scots and her subjects heard in this realm and compounded, as I think, with a certain manner of restitution of the Queen and that limited with certain conditions; which how they shall be afterwards performed, wise men may doubt.’

Wise men continued to doubt, but it seems the Queen of England continued to hope that it might yet be possible to strike a bargain with the Scots by which Mary could be returned home in some purely nominal capacity, while the Earl of Moray remained in effective control as Regent. Elizabeth was no doubt aware that, given the deep-rooted passions of vengeful hatred, fear and distrust on both sides, the chances of reaching such a compromise were remote and it is hard to say whether she ever rated them very seriously—the Spanish ambassador believed that the English had always intended to sell the Queen of Scots down the river and keep her in ‘an honourable prison.’ Nevertheless, any settlement which would preserve the decencies and secure the Anglo-Scottish alliance without forcing Elizabeth to take on the expense, responsibility and social embarrassment of holding her cousin and sister queen in detention possessed obvious appeal and was at least worth trying for.

Mary, too, was doing her best to keep her options open. She edified the godly Francis Knollys by listening to Protestant sermons up at Bolton and seeming outwardly ‘not only to favour the form, but also the chief articles, of the religion of the gospel.’ When some of her orthodox friends took alarm, she made a public reaffirmation of her devotion to Rome, saying coolly to Knollys in private that she could not be expected to risk losing France and Spain and her friends in other places by appearing to change her religion, at least until she was assured that Queen Elizabeth meant t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Quote
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Map
• Prologue
• I The Thistle and the Rose
• II France and Scotland are Now One Country
• III Queen of France, England and Scotland
• IV Think You I could Love My Own Winding Sheet?
• V Yonder Long Lad
• VI The Killing at Kirk o’Field
• VII She is not Worthy to Live!
• VIII A Small Gilt Coffer
• IX A Determination with the Queen of Scots
• X The Bosom Serpent
• XI If We Were but Two Milkmaids …
• Genealogical Table
• A Note on Sources
• Copyright