Therefore we make a covenant to support, maintain, and hold him
harmless for all his former deeds, and to advance and prefer him to all
honour and profit, and especially to maintain and continue him in the
keeping of the Castle of Edinburgh.
The following day, June twelfth, the Lords put out their own
proclamation, having it called from the Mercat Cross. They stated that
they were determined to "enterprise the delivery of the Queen's most
noble person from the captivity and restraint in which she has been now
for a long time held by the murderer of her husband, who has usurped
the government of her realm; to deliver her forth from captivity and
prison, and to punish Bothwell both for the cruel murder of the late
King Henry, and the ravishing and detention of the Queen."
Men flocked to the Lords' grisly standard a banner showing the dead
Darnley stretched out under a tree with little Prince James praying
"Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord" and by nightfall they had added a
thousand to their side. Lord Home and Morton, with a force of cavalry,
decided to make a night march to Borthwick and surprise Bothwell in the
dark, cutting him off before he could reach the Borders. Under
torchlight they streamed out of the city, twelve hundred strong.
Bothwell lay in the dark, not sleeping. Mary was by his side in the
massive, worm-eaten wooden bed in the uppermost chamber in the tower.
She lay quietly, and by her breathing he knew she slept. But he was
unable to; although the sounds outside were the soothing ones of early
summer the whisking of tree branches, the hooting of owls, and, from
far away, the sound of farmers carousing in a roadside tavern the night
seemed dangerous.
He heard the army when it was still far down the road, heard that
unmistakable sound of marching men, and scrambled out of bed. Quickly
he pulled on his breeches and peered out the window. Nothing was
visible yet. He returned to the bed and woke Mary.
"They are coming," he said quietly. She was instantly awake.
"Where?"
"I hear them down the road. It sounds like a large company."
She, too, jumped out of bed and went to the window. She could see the
winking of their torches, now visible. There were a great many of
them.
"Get dressed," said Bothwell. "And I will tell you what we must do.
They want to trap me here. They will surround the tower. Hold them
off. I will escape from the postern gate."
His voice was crisp and calm. Although her head was clear, jolted
awake by fright, she had trouble grasping what he was saying.
"Do not let them know I have gone. I will go to Black Castle; it is
only two miles away, at Cakermuir. But it is hidden in the moor and
small, and they will likely not know where to find it. I will wait for
you there. When they leave, you can join me."
The torches were coming closer. "What if they do not leave? What if
they capture me?"
"They won't. They cannot storm this castle. Lord Borthwick will hold
it. It is impregnable except against cannon, and they do not have
cannon."
"How do you know?"
"They are moving too fast." Quickly he threw on his mantle. "I must
be gone. Do not let them know I have escaped until twenty-four hours
have passed. Then tell them, or you will never be able to leave the
castle yourself." He grabbed her and pressed her against him for a
moment. Then, letting her go, he made for the stairs.
She heard his footsteps on the stone, growing ever fainter, and then
saw a figure galloping away from the south gate, toward the moors.
Darkness swallowed him up.
God keep you, she prayed. But already there were noises in the
courtyard; she heard voices rising as the castle guards argued and then
gave way. She climbed the stairs to the top of the tower and looked
down at the sea of men in dark cloaks surrounding the tower, like oily
water.
"There she is!" one of them screamed, and a shout rose. "Come down!
Surrender that butcher you call your husband; surrender him to
justice!"
"The justice of the people!" yelled someone.
"Who leads you?" called Mary. "Who is it who dares to besiege and
molest his Queen?" Surely no one would dare admit to it. This was
just a mob.
"I am the one," said Lord Home. "I speak for all the Lords of the
Congregation. We are not ashamed. It is you who should be ashamed!
You have been made a plaything of that vile and perverted Lord
Bothwell, who aims to take the throne entirely. Surrender him!
Surrender him to justice!"
Lord Home! She had ridden with him, eaten with him!
"And I, the Earl of Morton," said a familiar voice. "I am constrained
to take up arms in defence of my country. All who love Scotland must
do so! We cannot sit by and watch that foul fiend, that murderer, that
warlock, rape everything around him!"
"King-killer!" someone screamed.
"Filthy abominator of persons!"
"Sodomite!"
"Nay, it is not so!" called Mary. "The Earl of Bothwell, alone of all
the nobles in the land, has never been disloyal to the crown, nor taken
bribes, nor entered into a murder bond. He is innocent! It is you who
have done all the things you accuse him of!"
"None of us has kidnapped, nor raped, nor murdered the King!"
"He was declared innocent of all those crimes! You yourselves declared
him innocent of the murder of the King, and in marrying him, I forgave
him for any crime against my person. But if Bothwell did not murder
the King, who did? It is you who have the King's blood on your hands!"
she cried.
"Prove it!" yelled Morton. "You cannot! And if you do not abandon
Bothwell, you will be admitting that you are guilty along with him. As
Knox says!"
"Knox!" she shouted. "That ruthless inciter to disorder and murder!
That wicked slanderer, who knows so well how to destroy by false
accusation, but has no idea of how to build anything. Yes, he has
broken the Ninth Commandment: thou shalt not bear false witness. And
broken it again and again, for he revels in rabble-rousing; what matter
if his words are lies? By the time anyone knows that, by the time
anyone can investigate, he has destroyed another innocent victim."
She could hear the sound of horses' hooves; these men were well
equipped.
"Jezebel!" some yelled.
"Whore!"
"Burn the whore!"
She fled from the rooftop and retreated to her room. All through the
night she heard their yells and curses, and the useless thud of their
guns against the thick stone walls of the castle. But never the
fateful sound of cannon. Bothwell was right; they had no cannon. They
could not take the castle.
They remained there all day, and by the light she could make out many
familiar faces, and for the first time, the force of what was happening
struck her. These were people she had known since childhood, people
whose loyalty she had always taken for granted, men like the kindly
stable master at Stirling, the merchant in the High Street who supplied
the palace with sugar, even the barrel maker who had a commission to
make the beer barrels for Holyrood. Ordinary people had turned against
her. This was different from the fickle Lords, grasping, greedy and
calculating from birth.
"Let the coward appear!" they were yelling. Then, at last, someone
figured out the obvious.
"He must not be here! He is never shy to show himself! He must have
got away!"
Infuriated, they began throwing stones at the castle and firing. But
they showed no signs of leaving. They wanted to capture a prey; they
would not be cheated.
She would have to escape, herself. Their numbers had thinned, and they
were concentrated now entirely in the front; the back of the tower
stood unguarded, although the main entrance, opening into the
courtyard, was closely watched.
Slowly she went over to Bothwell's trunk and opened it. She pulled out
his dark brown leather breeches and his hose; farther down were his
shirts and coats. She took off her gown and stockings and, leaving on
only her underclothing, she pulled on a pair of his hose. They were
rough and scratchy. Then, with trembling fingers, she drew on a wide
linen shirt, buttoning it down the front. The leather breeches went on
easily and were the most comfortable item of clothing. Boots. She
would need boots. Her own would do, which was good, because their feet
were not the same size. She twisted her hair and put it up in a knot
on top of her head, then took one of Bothwell's hats from the wall peg
where it hung, and pulled it down low. Did she look like a man? There
was no mirror in the room for her to check. In any case, she looked
less like a woman than she had ten minutes earlier.
She would have to escape from the window. There was no way out by the
stairs. She looked out and was dismayed to see that the chamber was at
least fifty feet off the ground. Perhaps there was another room,
nearer the ground, that could serve. Silently she tiptoed down the
stairs, and at the first landing she came to the banquet hall. Its
empty spaces seemed to breathe, and she darted her eyes round,
searching all the dark corners. But there was no movement.
She stole over to the window. This one was only about thirty feet,
still too much of a drop. She returned to her room and dragged the
bedsheets off the old bed. Again in the banqueting hall, she tied one
end to a massive chair by the window, praying it would not topple over
when it was jerked. Then she flung the other end out the window,
noticing with satisfaction that it dangled about twenty feet from the
ground. Gritting her teeth, she clasped the rope of sheet and began to
lower herself bit by bit, steadying herself by her arm muscles so that
she would not lose control. A foot at a time she went downward, her
legs wrapped around the sheet and her arms aching. At last she reached
the end and then she slid as far down as possible and hung, dangling,
for a moment before she let go and fell the remaining twelve feet. She
hit the ground hard and rolled over, tucking her legs under her.
Trembling, she stood up. She was uninjured.
She could hear the noises just around the tower. She scrambled across
the back lawn and then climbed the low wall at the rear. Beyond that
was the grassy mound, and beyond that, the moor. But it was pitch
dark.
She stood still and listened, hearing a horse breathing somewhere
nearby. She took a step in what she perceived was the correct
direction, stopped and listened again. Little by little she found her
way to a small, sturdy horse, bridled and wearing a man's saddle.
Dear God, she thought, how did he come to be here? Did You put him
here? For I know that even if Bothwell thought of it, he could not
have placed him here. Unless thoughts have power to create.
She leapt into the saddle; it was not far to leap, as the horse was so
small. She had no idea of where to ride, but headed for where she
perceived the moor to be. The horse was sure-footed and seemed to know
his way.
Soon the sounds of the clamouring men faded away, blocked by the rising
hills. There were other sounds: small creatures that lived on the
moor, the calls of night birds, the soft padding of the horse's hooves
as it stepped on the moss, the scratch of thorny bushes they skirted.
Soon her eyes became accustomed to the dark that was not entirely dark,
because the ground was pulsating with the soft glow from thousands of
glowworms. They provided an eerie fairy light, and made her feel she
was dreaming all this.