Mary Queen of Scots is one of the most tragic figures in Scottish history,
but in all her tragedy, which do you think was the worst week in the life of Mary Queen of Scots
and how would you have coped with a week like it? If you re interested in the people,
places and events in Scottish history then click the subscribe
button at the bottom right of the screen. In the meantime, let me tell you a story
Behind me is Holyrood Palace. It s the Queen s official residence in Scotland.
Of course 500 years ago, we d have been talking about Mary Queen of Scots.
She d come back to Scotland and based herself here after the death of her
first husband Francis II, king of France. In spite of religious opposition, factionalism and
in fighting, rebellion and loads of misogyny she d actually done not that bad.
Things did start to slide during her second marriage.
Henry, Lord Darnley, turned out to be an idiot and a syphilitic drunk who, was complicit in
the murder of her secretary, then got murdered himself.
But it was only AFTER the death of her first husband in his teens,
the murder of her closest confidant, and the further murder of
her second syphilitic husband that things started to get difficult for Mary
and if you ll turn round It all happened in the street
behind me That s the Cannon s Gait. It s the first part of the long sloping
Royal Mile from Holyrood Palace that eventually leads up to the Castle
and in April 1567 it would lead to Mary s septimana horribilis
What s made me focus on this horrible week for Mary was a conversation I had with Dr
Steven Reid of Glasgow University. If you re a regular watcher then you ll know
that I like to reward my Patreon members who support the channel by filming much
longer conversations with experts . These conversations always make me think about
stories I thought I knew in a different way. If you re a Patreon member then you can see
my conversation with Steven on the Patreon member site NOW.
If you re not a Patreon member then you can click the white tab
up there to become one and view the growing library of conversations with experts.
Anyway Steven is the main guy behind a fantastic online course called
The Life and Afterlife of Mary Queen of Scots on a platform called Futurelearn.
I highly recommend it, and I ll leave a link in the description.
When I met him one of the things we ended up talking about was a dinner party in a pub called
Ainslie s Tavern here on the Cannon s Gait on Saturday 19th April 1567.
A group of 28 Scottish nobles and clergymen met at the behest of a guy called James
Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. Bothwell was actually the
main suspect in that murder of Mary s second husband two months before on 10th February.
In fact, he d been taken to court accused of the murder on 12th April,
exactly a week before this dinner. BUT, on the day of the trial Edinburgh
was flooded with Bothwell s armed supporters and his main accuser
didn t turn up to the trial. How convenient.
So exactly a week after Bothwell was acquitted of murdering her husband,
Mary s terrible week started with this prime suspect holding a lavish
dinner party for nobles and prelates at which he presented them with a bond
a declaration for them sign, proclaiming Bothwell s innocence of the murder AND
declaring that what Mary needed to do now was to marry a strong man as soon as possible
and who better than the man so recently acquitted of her own husband s murder.
It was balsy I ll give you that. It was also ridiculous.
There is absolutely no way that you d convince eight bishops,
nine earls and seven barons to sign a document like that.
They did? Oh bugger.
The next day Bothwell heads straight to Lord Seton s house where Mary was trying to relax
from the strain of the past two months, totally unaware that this week was about to get
even more mental than what had gone before... because Bothwell presented his proposal
of a proposal to Mary... to Mary Now I can only imagine what it s
like for your spouse to be murdered and I imagine it s a pillow to the face.
Maybe a nasty fall down the stairs or from a ladder when she s cleaning the windows
The point is that even if her pain in the backside second husband s death was a relief,
even if the scary bloke who s suspected has always been loyal
Oh apart from that time before she married Darnley when he and his mate were involved in a plot
to kidnap her and force her into marriage but apart from that he s been pretty loyal.
The point is that if he came to you a week after getting off with the murder and said:
Now you need to marry me and I ll take care of you.
That would send a shiver down your spine When he shows you a document signed by nobility
on whom you depend confirming they re behind him. That shudder just reached your sphincter muscle.
Once Mary had pulled herself together from the shock, she politely declined the offer due to the
impropriety so close upon her husband s death. Then the next day she headed for Stirling Castle
This was the nursery for Scottish royal children, and Mary s son James was here in the custody of
The Countess and Earl of Mar, the governor of the castle. Once before Mary had taken the child from
the castle to be with her when that syphilitic, drunk second husband had made threats. If you
were the monarch, you d feel just that little bit safer if the heir to the throne was with you.
If you re in any doubt about the risks of the heir to the throne being in the custody of somebody
other than the monarch then check out my video on how James IV came to the throne
or just keep watching this one because the Earl of Marr refused to let Mary take
her own son with her away from the castle here. Can you see it? a mother being told by social
services that: No you can t have custody of your own child. You ve made some terrible life choices,
you may have been involved in your man s murder and your neighbours tell us you ve been on the
gin. But you have to give me my boy. Yesterday the guy who probably did kill his my husband said that
I have to marry him and the day before that he got the backing of a bunch of the nobility to do it.
I have to be with my son and hold on are you on their side?
How does it feel like this week is going? The next day, on Wednesday 23rd April she
left Stirling to head back to Edinburgh without her son,
Along the way she fell violently ill and spent Wednesday night here at Linlithgow Palace,
On Thursday 24th she set off again
This is the river Almond that runs through West Lothian into the Firth of Forth.
The bridge I m on crosses it about 100 yards west of the Gogar Burn.
Before it was on the Edinburgh flight path We re told that when Mary arrived at the bridges
over the Almond not far from the Gogar Burn Bothwell arrived with a force of 800 men.
Whilst some of her company protested Bothwell took Mary s horse by the bridle and,
claiming that Edinburgh wasn t safe and he was doing this for her benefit
he abducted her, skirted south round Edinburgh and by midnight she was locked behind the barred
gates of Dunbar Castle, shut in by Bothwell s men as Bothwell raped her.
Now I know there s some debate about the level of consent for that last bit,
but the number of historians that have come down to this conclusion is enough for me.
An event like that would be horrific to report to the police in 2021.
In 1567, when you re the queen, you are the police,
locked behind the gates of a castle, with the guy who may have killed your husband, and
has signed and documented support of much of your nobility
The illogical morality of the times was that, for the sake of her honour,
she now had to marry her abductor, just as he had convinced the nobility she
should do less than a week before. I don t know about you,
but if Mary had a worse week before her death 20 years later,
I can t imagine what it was. It was because of this week
that she married Bothwell. It was because she married
Bothwell that her nobles, some of whom had signed the bond supporting that marriage
stood against her at Carberry Hill. It was because of that she was imprisoned
in Loch Leven, then escaped, lost the Battle of Langside and fled to England.
Of all the tragedy in her life this must have been the worst week that
Mary Queen of Scots spent in Scotland If you d like to find out about the
last week she spent in Scotland, I ve got a video about that coming
up on screen now. In the meantime
tha mi an dòchas gum bi lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.