Lust, Distrust, and other Powerful Emotions
Edinburgh’s Royal Mile is a series of streets running from Holyrood Palace up to the Castle, and is clearly the most historically significant part of the city. For most visitors it is a collection of shops, sights and ancient buildings, but at the same time it is the setting for events driven by lust, distrust and other emotions back in Elizabeth’s time, Queen Elizabeth I, that is. Before getting into those dramatic moments in the middle of the 16th Century, we can set the scene with the landmarks we see along the Royal Mile today, beginning with the castle.
Edinburgh Castle dominates the city’s skyline, standing as it does on top of an extinct volcano plug, Castle Rock, standing some 430 feet above sea level, with rocky cliffs to the south, west, and north, and 260 feet above the surrounding town. Those cliffs ensure the only readily accessible route to the castle is to the east, where the ridge slopes more gently, the site of the Royal Mile. There has been a royal castle on the rock since at least the reign David I (in the 12th century), and if often served as a royal residence until 17th century. There were 26 sieges in its 1,100-year history, giving it a claim to having been “the most besieged place in Great Britain and one of the most attacked in the world”, although few of the present buildings pre-date the Lang Siege of the 16th century. [i] Despite this, St Margaret’s Chapel remains from the early 12th century, which is generally regarded as the oldest building in Edinburgh.
Today, the castle is Scotland’s most and the United Kingdom’s second most-visited paid tourist attraction, with over 2.2 million visitors in 2019. For many it is best known as the backdrop to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo during the annual Edinburgh Festival, and especially the lone piper playing a lament from the top of the castle walls at the end of the Festival. Whether or not you are a lover of bagpipes, on the times I have heard that haunting lament, it has never failed to move me.
As you move down the Royal Mile from the castle, you confront a mix of historic buildings, many of which played an important role in the history of Scotland as an independent nation, sitting cheek by jowl with tourist shops and other commercial outlets, a higgledy-piggledy mix intrinsic to the character of the place. You pass the Outlook Tower, the Camera Obscura, and go on to the Lawnmarket, a separately named part of the High Street. Next you come to Parliament Square, and St Giles’ Cathedral. Having lived for nearly five years south of Edinburgh in Midlothian, I want to add that by an entrance to St Giles’ you’ll see the ‘Heart of Midlothian’ a heart-shaped pattern built into the road, marking the site of a prison. Further on, past John Knox’s House, the road becomes Canongate, ‘the canons’ way’ when it was used by the canons of Holyrood Abbey. Finally, the Royal Mile ends at Holyrood Palace.
Today the palace is the principal royal residence in Scotland since the 16th century, and is now a setting for state occasions and official entertaining. Queen Elizabeth spends one week a year there for official engagements and ceremonies. It contains the 16th-century historic apartments Mary Queen of Scots on the first floor of the north-west tower once occupied by Lord while Mary’s rooms were on the second floor of the tower: the bedchambers are linked by a private spiral stair. The wooden ceilings of both the main rooms date from Queen Mary’s time, and the monograms MR (Maria Regina) and IR (Jacobus Rex) refer to her parents. Sightseeing over, it is time to turn to Mary’s life.
For many Scottish people, Holyrood Palace is an important part of their history, especially as the sometime home of Mary Queen of Scots. For anyone outside the country, her story reads like an improbable melodrama, but for the locals it is an illustration of the ongoing treachery of the English: perfidious Albion! An explanation of the complex relationship between Mary and Elizabeth I needs a book, not a short blog, especially as it starts with Henry VIII, and the mess he left behind. The tensions and alliances from that time are still playing out, flaring up once more as Scottish independence returns as a hot topic after Brexit.
Mary was born in 1542, the daughter of King James V of Scotland, his sole legitimate child. Now, keep your wits about you as I explain that she was the great-niece of Henry VIII, as her grandmother, Margaret Tudor, was Henry’s sister. Just before I forget to mention it, her first cousin (once removed) was Elizabeth I, who, as I am sure your remember, was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. To marry Anne, Henry had separated from the Roman Catholic Church, instituting the Reformation, a move that led to the establishment of the Church of England. However, Anne didn’t last long, and she was executed a mere two and a half years after Elizabeth’s birth, who was promptly declared illegitimate. When Henry died, Elizabeth’s half-brother, Edward became king, ruling from 1547 to until he died in 1553. Things got into a mess, and eventually Mary Tudor became Queen, a Catholic, the daughter of Henry’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Mary I set about trying to counter the Reformation, and imprisoned Elizabeth for a year, suspecting her of encouraging Protestant rebels. Mary died in 1558, and Elizabeth succeeded her, restoring the country to Protestantism. Complicated?
Let’s get back to the other Mary, Mary Stuart. Six days after she was born, James V died, and Mary became Queen of Scotland in 1542. Henry VIII saw an opportunity, and proposed she should marry his son, Edward, a neat way to unite Scotland and England. When Mary was only six months old, representatives of the two countries signed the Treaty of Greenwich which promised that, when she was ten years old Mary would marry Edward and move to England. However, the treaty agreed the two countries would remain legally separate and, if the couple had no children, the temporary union would dissolve. In case you have missed the point, this was also part of the plan to get rid of Catholicism, as well as a way to break the alliance between Scotland and France.
A clever plan, but Henry was impatient, and just before Mary’s coronation in 1543, Henry arrested a group of Scottish merchants heading for France and impounded their goods. No surprisingly, the Scots were outraged, and the Treaty of Greenwich was rejected by Parliament of Scotland. Now angry, Henry began a military campaign, with raids on both Scottish and French territory, in the belief this would persuade the Scots to agree to the marriage of Mary to his son. Not only did that fail, but it encouraged King Henry II of France to come up with a plan to unite France and Scotland by getting Mary to marry his son and heir apparent, Francis.
With her marriage agreement in place, five-year-old Mary was sent to France to spend the next thirteen years at the French court, accompanied by her own ‘court’ including two illegitimate half-brothers, and the ‘four Marys’ (four girls her own age, all named Mary). You have to conclude this was a clever ploy to confuse everyone at the time, and all readers trying to make sense of the history of the time thereafter. Mary proved to be a much liked member of the French court (except for Henry II’s wife, Catherine).
Mary and Francis made an improbable pair: she was gifted, attractive and tall (around 5 feet 11 inches), and Francis was a stutterer and was unusually short. However, they got on well together and in 1558, sixteen years old, Mary signed an agreement bequeathing Scotland and any claim to England to the French crown if she died without any children. She married the Francis, and he became king consort of Scotland. If you recall from earlier, this was the year when Mary I of England died, and Elizabeth became Queen of England. You have to know, the drama continued. Henry VIII’’s last will had excluded the Stuarts from succeeding to the English throne. Yet, for many Catholics, Elizabeth was illegitimate and Mary Stuart was the rightful queen of England, as the senior surviving and legitimate descendant of Henry VII, through her grandmother, Margaret Tudor. Henry II of France leapt into the fray, and proclaimed his eldest son and daughter-in-law king and queen of England. To add to the complications, Henry II died in 1559, and fifteen-year-old Francis and still sixteen-year-old Mary became king and queen of France! [ii] I hope you’re keeping up.
Elizabeth I wasn’t universally acclaimed as the English queen. In the eyes of many Catholics, Elizabeth was illegitimate and Mary Stuart was the rightful queen of England. Henry II of France had proclaimed his eldest son and daughter-in-law king and queen of England, and, to make the point, in France the royal arms of England were quartered with those of Francis and Mary. The issues remained unresolved, and then King Francis II died in 1560. Mary was grief-stricken, while her mother-in-law, Catherine de’ Medici became regent for the late king’s ten-year-old brother Cahrles IX, now king of France. Mary returned to Scotland nine months later, and found herself in a messy hornet’s nest.
As a devout Catholic, she was regarded with suspicion by many of her subjects, as well as by the Queen of England, as Scotland was divided between Catholic and Protestant factions. Perhaps wisely, or perhaps in ignorance, Mary’s privy council was dominated by Protestant leaders, or perhaps because she sought to seize the English throne. Whatever the case, Mary argued she should be the ‘heir presumptive’ to the English crown. While that was lurking on the sidelines, Mary then turned her attention to finding a new husband from the royalty of Europe. Elizabeth attempted to neutralise Mary by suggesting that she marry the English Protestant, Robert Dudley, her own favourite and someone she felt she could easily control. That proposal failed, not least because the intended bridegroom was unwilling!
In 1561 Mary had briefly met her English-born half-cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, the son of Scottish aristocrats as well as English landowners. He had been sent to France by his parents, to extend their condolences, but also hoping for a potential match between their son and Mary. Was it lust or politics? Whichever, Mary fell in love and they married at Holyrood, although, in an echo of past events as they both were Catholic, they did so without a papal dispensation for the marriage of first cousins. Contemporary reports suggest Mary’s insistence on marriage seems to have stemmed from passion. For sure, it angered Elizabeth, who felt the marriage should not have gone ahead without her permission, as Darnley was both her cousin and an English subject.
Mary’s marriage to a leading Catholic started a series of changes. She changed her privy council, adding Catholics alongside Protestants. At the same time, Darnley began to show signs of frustration with being a ‘king consort’, he demanded to recognised as co-sovereign of Scotland Mary refused his request, straining their marriage. Mary was pregnant, and her Catholic private secretary, David Rizzio, was rumoured to be the father. By March 1566, Darnley had entered into a secret conspiracy with Protestant lords, including the nobles who had rebelled against Mary and a group of the conspirators accompanied by Darnley murdered Rizzio in front of the pregnant Mary at a dinner party in Holyrood Palace. Bizarrely, Darnley switched loyalty back to Mary, but Rizzio’s murder led inevitably to the breakdown of their marriage. Later in the year, Mary and leading nobles held a meeting to discuss the “problem of Darnley”. Divorce was considered, while Darnley went to Glasgow to stay on his father’s estates. In late January 1567, Mary prompted her husband to return to Edinburgh, where he recovered from an illness in Kik o’ Field, a house just within the city wall. On the night of 9–10 February 1567, Mary visited her husband in the early evening and in the early hours of the following morning, an explosion devastated Kirk o’ Field. Darnley was found dead in the garden. Problem solved!
Mary must have been of the marrying kind (although marriages for her were clearly ;political) In May, Mary and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh. On 15 May 1567, she married Lord Bothwell, following his divorce twelve days previously. While Mary believed many supported her marriage, relations turned bad between Bothwell, who was created Duke of Orkney, and his former peers and the marriage was deeply unpopular especially as Catholics considered the marriage unlawful, since they didn’t recognise Bothwell’s divorce or the validity of the Protestant service. Both Protestants and Catholics were shocked that Mary should marry the man accused of murdering her husband.
By the middle of the year, now imprisoned in a castle in the middle of Loch Leven, Mary was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, James. A year later, Mary escaped and, after a battle,, she fled south., ending up in ‘protective custody’ in Carlisle Castle. Mary hoped Elizabeth would help her regain her throne. Ever cautious, ordered an inquiry into whether Mary was guilty of Darnley’s murder As an anointed queen, Mary refused to acknowledge the power of any court to try her. Despite the evidence of some damning letters, Elizabeth concluded that nothing was proven against either the confederate lords or Mary: she didn’t want to convict nor to acquit Mary of murder. Elizabeth had succeeded in maintaining a Protestant government in Scotland, without either condemning or releasing her fellow sovereign. The rest of the story remains well away from Edinburgh. Caught conspiring to have Elizabeth assassinated, Mary was tried for treason, and beheaded in 1587.
When we read the column-inches covering the goings-on in the British royal family today, they seem vaguely newsworthy. They look trivial and insignificant when placed alongside the events of Mary Queen of Scots life, a real-life ‘game of thrones’, and one of which I have given just a sample: they did it in style back then! Perhaps there’s something in the Scottish air. Talking about events driven by lust, distrust and other emotions, I confess to a foolish short-lived affair living there. Lust, or was I misled and confused, addled by the aroma of single malt whiskies?
[i] Caldwell, David H, Besieged, Historic Scotland Magazine: pp. 20–24.
[ii] As a sometime teacher, I am tempted to add: there will be a written exam on this!
