Earl of Bothwell

“ Konrad sighed, but made no reply.
"One virtue," continued the priest, "will counterbalance a hundred vices; and if the Earl of Bothwell—ha! thou knittest thy brow with wrath and hatred. Remember that he who cherisheth either, is like unto the fallen angels."
"I am but a mere man, father; and know that none would scorn me more for woman weakness than that proud noble, were I to say unto him—Earl Bothwell, I forgive thee!"
"Nay—bethink thee! he is most deserving of scorn who scorneth the humble; even as he is the weakest who oppresseth the weak." ”

“ He paused, and the blood rushed to his brow at meeting even him at such a moment.
"Ha—whither goest thou?" he asked.
"To the tower of Black Agnes," replied Bothwell in a husky voice, while he staggered from his emotions, and the effects of the wine.
"Thou darest then at last to act like a man."
"Like a fiend, if my fate wills it! What may I not dare now, after all I have dared and done? But hark!" said the Earl, as a ghastly pallor overspread his face; "didst thou hear?" ”

“ And well may he be forgiving, if I, the administrator of the laws (St. Mary help me!) can afford to be so."
"Your majesty is right," said the Earl of Bothwell, who was anxious for Konrad's removal on any terms. "I crave that he may be re-delivered to me, to be treated as he deserves; and I hope your majesty knows me well enough to believe that his usage will be generous."
"Then be it so. Sir John Hepburn, deliver this prisoner to your lord the Earl, who must bring him to me again, for I am dying with curiosity to learn his story."
"Away with him, Bolton!" said the Earl, in a hasty whisper ”

“ Touched by the Earl's gentleness, the eyes of Konrad filled with tears; and, clasping his hands, he said with great bitterness—
"Oh! Lord of Bothwell, in pursuit of this ideal vengeance thou hast destroyed me."
"Forgive me," said the Earl, laying a hand kindly upon his shoulder; "forgive one who has endured all that you now feel; but, mark me, a time will come when thou wilt despise the woman who could so coldly desert thee for another." ”

“ The first transactions of any note were those arising from the condemnation and forfeiture of Stuart, Earl of Bothwell, an illegitimate cousin of the king, and nephew by his mother to the noted Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, the murderer of Darnley. Conceiving himself to be simply a victim of the jealousy of the Chancellor Maitland, this vivacious noble was indisposed to submit to his doom; he thought, if he could reach the king’s ear, he might regain lost power and place. ”

“ Paul! we find kenned faces wherever we go;" said Ormiston to Bolton; "this old sea-dog hath brought us to the right haven. We will have free-house and free-hold here, I doubt not."
"Madam," said the stout captain of the Biornen, bowing as low as his great paunch and long basket-hilted espadone would permit him, "allow me to introduce to you the terrible pirate who, for the last month, has been the terror of our Fiords, and the scourge of the Sound, and whom we find to be no other than the great Earl of Bothwell, with whose astounding misdeeds all Europe has been ringing." ”

“ Hob of Ormiston, and Hepburn, the captain of Hermitage, came in last, with the same tidings; and, with uplifted hand, the wrathful Earl made a vow of vengeance upon the fugitive.
The armour of the whole troop was covered with summer dust, and their horses were jaded by hard and devious riding.
"And now, my lord," said Hepburn of Bolton, "whither wend we?"
"To court—to court! As warden of the three marches, I have received a summons to attend the queen, who holds her court at Linlithgow; and I will return to Bothwell no more—not to night at least," added the Earl; "are all our knaves come up?" ”

“ At any rate she prepared to depart for Scotland. "All the bravest and noblest gentlemen of France assembled themselves around the fairest of Queens and women," to give her a last proof of their love and respect. Among the Scottish nobles who formed part of her cortege on her way to Calais, was he who, a few years later, became the evil genius of her life--the brave and reckless Earl of Bothwell. ”

“ The Earl started and arose; he grew pale, and his eyes sparkled with anger and confusion; but he had still sufficient tact to avert his face, that the countess might not perceive his emotion.
"Saidst thou a gentleman of Norway?" he stammered; "now, what in the fiend's name brought him to swim in the Clyde at midnight?"
"I know not, my lord."
"The fool—in armour, too!"
"That was the only wise part of his proceedings; for no man ventures abroad in these days without his iron case."
"Silence, sirrah! Norway," muttered Bothwell, in great confusion; "ass and jolt-head that I have been! ”

“ A strange fatality has woven our adventures together. Thou didst save me once from the waves of this very ocean, when last for my sins I was traversing these Norwegian seas; and I saved thee twice from drowning—first in the crystal Clyde, under the windows of my own castle of Bothwell; and once again when thou wert chained like a baited bear to yonder pillar in the North Loch of Edinburgh. But come," added the Earl, clapping him on the shoulder; "let us be friends; are the faith or falsehood of a woman matters for two brave men to quarrel about?" ”

“ Giles, were all unclosed for business, and carlins were brawling with the acquaoli at the Mile-end well, ere the company separated; and the Earl, accompanied by Hob Ormiston and the knights of Tallo and Bolton, with their eyes half closed, their cloaks and ruffs awry, and their gait somewhat oscillating and unsteady, threaded their way down the sunlit Canongate, and reached Bothwell's apartments in Holyrood—that turreted palace, where the unconscious Mary was perhaps asleep with her child in her bosom, and little foreseeing the storm that was about to burst on her unhappy head. ”

“ A smile, both dubious and scornful, lit the face of the Highland Earl, who played ominously with his long dagger, while Bothwell reflected bitterly on—
"What a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive."
"I conjure your majesty not to hear her!" he urged; "and yet, why should I fear? The honour of the house of Hepburn has been sustained untarnished since old Adam of Hailes and Trapraine first unfurled his pennon by the side of Bruce! and assuredly it cannot suffer now by the artful story of a despicable gleewoman—Ha! ha!—a minion of the gallant Lord of Morton." ”

“ So you see, Monseigneur Bothwell, that whatever the Protestants say of poor Mary Stuart, she is not ungrateful for service promptly rendered."
"Oh, Madame!" said the Earl, in a thick voice, as he clasped his hands, and bent his eyes on the ground; "you overpower me! I never deemed thee otherwise than something angelic, and such I find thee now."
"Ah!" replied the Queen merrily, as she seated herself; "every pretty woman is so in the eyes of a brave gallant!" ”

“ The Earl of Bothwell having been drawn into the designs of the popish lords—though led only by a common hatred of the Chancellor Maitland—raised a company of men, under pretence of an expedition for the pacification of the remote isle of Lewis. Under favour of a royal warrant, he demanded a subsidy of five thousand merks from the city of Edinburgh. ”

“ She utterly disregarded the damaging rumors which openly charged Bothwell with the murder, and by this indifference confirmed the{108} suspicion of her silent active (or at best, passive) participation in the crime. The Queen even openly defied public opinion by leaving Bothwell in the undisturbed possession of the honors and dignities she had conferred upon him, and by adding new ones, showing the continued favor the Earl enjoyed, in spite of the public clamor raised against him. ”

“ And with one hand twisting his mustaches, and the other playing with the pommel of his dagger, the Earl strode away, and left his friend and vassal to his own confused reflections.
Bothwell, who had ever been the creature of impulse, without delay sought old Sir Erick of Welsöö, whom he found seated in a nook of the ramparts, basking in the long lingering sunshine, and sheltered from the evening wind by the angle of the turret. ”

“ But, to Anna, these seemed indicative of his generous indignation at Bothwell's faithlessness and cruelty; whereas, the factious Earl felt only joy at the prospect of having it now in his power to stop the successful career of the rising favourite—to set him at feud with the powerful house of Huntly—to bring upon him the wrath of a most immaculate and irascible kirk, and the scorn of a virtuous queen. ”

“ Again Bothwell knelt and kissed the hand of the queen, who glanced furtively at her husband; and in the contrast between his inertness and Bothwell's energy felt a glow of scorn within her which she struggled in vain to repress. He was still coquetting with Mariette Hubert, the same fair girl, and the Earl, whose quick eyes had followed those of Mary, said in a low voice—
"As might be expected in the consort of one so fair, his majesty is ever speaking of love." ”

“ On 10 July 1588 he had a controversy, in the king's presence, with Francis Stewart Hepburn, fifth earl of Bothwell [q. v.] , when each gave the other the lie; and, after the king crossed the Forth a brawl occurred on 30 July between them in the High Street of Edinburgh. Sir William stabbed one of Bothwell's followers, whereupon he was attacked by Bothwell, and, after being stabbed with a rapier, fled to a hollow cellar in the Blackfriars Wynd, where he was despatched (30 July 1588) . ”

“ Good morning, my Lord Glencairn!—good Lindesay, I kiss your hand! Athole, and ma bonne soeur, Jane of Argyle, come, we will retire; and as the king, my husband, seems so much better occupied, we will leave him to his reflections. My Lord of Bothwell, favour me with your hand!"
The queen's brother, James Stuart, Earl of Moray, on seeing Darnley's inattention, had approached and drawn off his leather glove; but on hearing Bothwell summoned thus, he drew back with a smile on his lip, and a shade on his open brow. ”

“ Poor Hans now with dismay beheld a great foreign banner displayed; but though he knew it not, Konrad immediately recognised the cheverons and lions of Bothwell, and he perceived that the figure on the bow was the Earl's coroneted crest, a white horse's-head, with a gilded bridle; and one glance at the lofty sides, the grim cannon tier, and gigantic poop of the Scottish frigate, and her gunnels lined by pikemen and arquebusiers in their steel caps and coats-of-mail, sufficed to shew him that he was again completely in the power of his ancient enemy ”

“ The queen and her courtiers watched their departure, together with Darnley, who had joined them, and seemed in better humour from the issue of his encounter with the Earl; but being naturally proud and jealous, he found to his no small exasperation that the ladies were more than ever inclined to praise the handsome peer, and then, for the first time, the demon of jealousy began to whisper in his ear.
"Tell me, Henri, mon ami," said Mary, with perfect innocence, "did not the Lord Bothwell look enchanting in his plate armour?" ”

“ He sighed heavily.
"God be with thee, thou sinful and vainglorious—thou rash and headstrong—lord!" said the priest; "now thou seest to what thy manifold transgressions against the blessed law have brought thee."
"It was my doom—my destiny," replied the Earl, pressing his bony hands upon his thin, wan temples.
"Nay, Lord Earl," replied the other, in a sad and broken accent; "unless it be that a man maketh his own destiny, as assuredly thou didst thine."
"And who," he asked, endeavouring to pierce the gloom with his hopeless eye; "who art thou that speakest thus to Bothwell?" ”

“ Indignant as she was at Moray, Morton, and other Protestant lords who had been concerned in the Riccio assassination, she was little inclined to lean upon them as before. As the only remaining resource, she began to give her confidence to the Earl of Bothwell and the Earl of Huntly, two nobles of great power, but whose administration could not bring her so much popularity. Bothwell was a man of coarse character, fully as much disposed as any man in that age to gain his ambitious ends by violence. ”

“ A plain narrative of facts, told without violence or party-spirit, is that upon which most reliance will be placed, and which will be most likely to advance the cause of truth by correcting the mistakes of the careless, and exposing the falsehoods of the calumnious.
The Earl of Bothwell was now irrevocably resolved to push his fortunes to the utmost. ”

“ He sailed to Flanders, and during his absence he was on 22 April 1563 convicted of treason at the meeting of parliament, which passed a decree of attainder against the dead Earl of Huntly and his descendants. After the marriage of Mary with Darnley he was recalled, but was captured at sea in a lugger 1 Sept. 1565 (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1564-5, entry 1443) by a vessel on the outlook for the Earl of Bothwell, and Elizabeth ordered that he should be detained in England. Notwithstanding the remonstrances of Mary he was not permitted to leave till the beginning of 1566. ”

“ Tell your people, sirs, he is a tall fellow, with a long sword, a corselet, breeches and hosen of sable sarcenet. Twenty unicorns to the finder and capturer!"
"We must breathe our steeds first," said Ormiston, as he drew the clasps and buckles of the Earl's armour; "we have had a tough night's work with Clelland and Lauchope. They stood it stoutly, with a hundred lances and fifty archers a-side. We have had a raid on Bothwell-muir that will make a noise among the justiciary lords at Edinburgh." ”