There must be something about the name Bothwell that invites trouble. James Hepburn the 4th Earl was probably involve dint he murder of Henry Stuart Lord Darnley’s murder, kidnapped Mary Queen of Scots, married her and ended up imprisoned in Dragsholm in Denmark chained to a post where he died in a state of filth and ever increasing insanity.
The 5th Earl was James’ nephew. His mother was James’ sister Janet and his father was John Stewart – one of Mary Queen of Scots’ illegitimate half-brothers. He became the earl in 1576 but travelled abroad so only became an important, if troublesome, figure in the court of James VI in 1581 when he returned home.
Unfortunately Francis wasn’t keen on the Earl of Arran – who was James VI of Scotland’s favourite at that time. In 1583 he was part of a kidnap plot which aimed to separate James from Arran. Another attempt was made in 1584. This time Francis had to flee to England to escape the repercussions of his plans. In 1585 he returned to Scotland with an army provided by Elizabeth I – Arran fled and Francis returned to court.
The calm was quickly shattered with the execution of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. Francis took a dim view of the death of his aunt and wasn’t impressed by James’ response. When James ordered the court into mourning after no attempt to save his mother’s life, Francis turned up in a suit of armour.
And then in 1590 it swiftly became clear that James regarded his cousin as the devil. James had travelled to Denmark to marry his bride. Once there he’d become intrigued with the idea of witchcraft. He believed that the storm which had driven Ann back to Norway, then part of Denmark’s realm, had been caused by witchcraft.
Investigations commenced. James VI oversaw them. It turned out that the North Berwick coven had men on October 31st in North Berwick churchyard – many of them arriving by broom or axe – then several unfortunate cats were thrown into the sea having been tortured and strangled. This was what caused the storms.
Geillis Duncan was questioned first. She had a reputation for being good with herbs and widened to encompass a net of some three hundred alleged witches. James VI oversaw the interrogation of Agnes Sampson which involved shaving all the hair from her body and then wrenching her head with a rope. Oddly enough she confessed to avoid further torture.
Conveniently for James the Earl of Bothwell’s name kept making an appearance- there are two schools of thought on this i) he was framed or ii) he was indeed a practitioner of dark arts – his uncle was similarly accused. In April 1591 the Earl of Bothwell was summoned to Edinburgh to answer charges. James believed that Francis wanted his throne and what better way of achieving it than by bumping off the current incumbent by witchcraft?
The earl escaped and went into hiding – the outcomes of James’ trials tended to be unpleasant. When the jury cleared Barbara Napier the king had them put on trial as well. James declared that Francis had given himself over to the devil and promptly confiscated his belongings.
The earl then attempted to seize Holyrood House with the idea of capturing James and making him change his mind. The bid was not a success. In 1593 he captured the king using the stratagem of simply marching in upon the hapless monarch with a pistol and asking for forgiveness. Francis extracted a praise of pardon for his previous misdemeanours from James who was caught on the privy stool. Later, and presumably in a position of more dignity James forbade his cousin from coming within ten miles of him.
Francis failed to change his behaviour. In March 1594 he launched the Raid of Leith to capture the king with four hundred men. It was unsuccessful and James’ patience was completely exhausted. In 1595 the earl fled to France and from there to Naples where he died.
He was the last Earl of Bothwell.
Borman, Tracey. Wichen: James I and the English Witch hunts.
As you might expect Elizabeth I had many godchildren including Mary Queen of Scots’ infant son James – her proxy had to lurk outside the chapel during the baptism as Mary obviously had her son baptised within the Catholic faith whilst Elizabeth was very clearly Protestant. Once Mary was forced to abdicate and her half-brother the Earl of Moray took charge of the new king crowned by John Knox in Stirling, James was raised a Protestant. In later years, when James was nineteen Elizabeth started to write to James with advice. The pair exchanged correspondence occasionally thereafter.
In 1590 James VI of Scotland got married. His wife was a Protestant princess. She had been raised in a Lutheran court. The dowry of £150,000 helped as did a hand full of islands including Orkney which Scotland already held but which now legally became Scottish rather than Scandinavian.
Margaret’s son Ferdinando Stanley the 5th earl of Derby was much less lucky. Ferdinando became earl in 1593 after his father’s death. The following year the fifth earl died rather unexpectedly following a sudden and violent illness. At the time witchcraft was mentioned but poisoning was the more generally accepted reason – as this extract from Camden’s history reflects:
One of the portraits is unquestionably Elizabeth in her middle years. The other is a woman who looks remarkably like Anne Boleyn because of the french hood that she wears although it has been argued that it could be Katherine Parr- there are issues over hair colouring. It has even been suggested that it is the image of a more youthful Elizabeth – now Elizabeth was unquestionably vain but would she really cart around two secret images of herself? Not being an art historian I couldn’t comment. Dr Starkey observed, at the time he curated the exhibition in the National Maritime Museum where the ring was first displayed, it is likely to be an image of Anne because despite the fact that Elizabeth knew her mother for only a very short time she was likely to be a huge influence on her daughter’s life. This view is supported by Tracey Borman in The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen. Elsewhere it is pointed out that Elizabeth is known to have spoken of her mother only twice in her lifetime but it would also have to be said that if as Alison Weir suggests a youthful Elizabeth can be seen wearing her mother’s famous pearls in the Whitehall family group portrait along with a pendant that looks suspiciously like the letter A then she did indeed feel a closeness to her mother which History can only speculate upon.
Elizabeth I is a monarch of notoriously dodgy temperament. She was also prone to locking people up who got married without asking her permission first – Sir Walter Raleigh and Bess Throckmorton being a notable example as indeed were Ladies Katherine and Mary Grey when they married without their cousin’s approval. It is perhaps not surprising then that when another scion of the Tudor family tree married on the quiet that there was repercussions. Aside from Liz’s dodgy temper there was the fact that under the 1536 Act of Attainder it was necessary for people in line to the throne to acquire Royal Assent before marrying. The fact that permission wasn’t usually given was, under the law, neither here nor there.
Bess invited the Countess to stay at Rufford during her journey north. Travelling with Margaret was her other son Charles Stuart. He was nineteen at that time and already earl of Lennox – though not necessarily terribly wealthy. For once this does not seem to have bothered Bess.