Mary at Carbury Hill 1567        from History of Scotland John Hill Burton Historiographer-Royal for Scotland Vol IV pages 238-247

Mary as painted on the mural of the Museum of Antiquities

One of the earliest steps of the confederates was to issue a manifesto; and as they were strong and in command. of the capital, it was pitched in a high tone of authority. It is dated on the 11th June. It is a powerfully-reasoned and eloquent document-very different in tone from the pedantic formality of the bonds and other documents so plentiful on the side of the queen and her new husband. It refers to the murder in due terms of horror and indignation ; and points out that, in a nation where such crimes not only go unpunished but uninvestigated, no one knows what deeds may be committed, and no one, high or low, can feel security for life. They are banded together for the investigation of this crime ; for the release of the queen from the bondage in which she is held; " to cause justice be ministrate equally to all the subjects of this commonweal, and to purge this realm of the infamy and slander wherewith as yet it remains bruited among all nations." In this document there is not a breath of suspicion or of disloyalty to the queen; the object held most prominently forward of all is to rescue her from her present thraldom and danger.

Next day a proclamation was issued in the name of "the Lords of Privy Council and nobility." It charged Bothwell with having murdered the king, and afterwards used other unlawful means to seduce his sovereign into "ane unhonest marriage." It narrates, in its own way, and with its own colours, the other events that had occurred, and asserts that he had made preparations "whilk we look can be with na other effect but to commit the like murther upon the son as was upon the father." Officers-at-arms are directed to pass to the market-crosses of Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, St Andrews, Stirling, and other places, and charge all the lieges to be ready, at three hours' warning, to join their banner, and aid them in delivering the queen from captivity, punishing the murderers, and rescuing the royal infant from his father's fate.' On the night of the 14th the confederates heard that Bothwell was approaching Edinburgh with a force, and they resolved to go forth and meet him. One of their reasons for not abiding his attack in their stronghold appears to have been that they could not have much reliance on the new-born virtue of the captain of the castle, should he be tempted by the presence of his old master at the head of a considerable force. They marched at two o'clock next morning. They were in all eighteen hundred horsemen and four hundred footmen-half of these were craftsmen, accustomed to watch-and-ward duty in the town. They came in sight of their enemy as they approached Musselburgh.

Let us look now - to the other side. The fugitives reached the fortress of Dunbar at three o'clock in the morning. The author of the Diary, attributed to the captain of Inchkeith, hearing of their arrival, set off to join them. He found them at Dunbar with hardly any one but a ,few domestics. He noticed the peculiarity of the queen's dress, especially the brevity of the red petticoat, and that she had prepared a couple of casts of hawks and two single birds for the field. She had other matters, however, to busy her, and was deep in despatches and messages to bring together a force. She set off next day to Haddington, with a guard of two hundred harquebussiers and sixty horsemen. By her own exertions and her husband's, she had six hundred horsemen round her when she reached Haddington. The irrecruiting was in the very centre of the estates and jurisdictions with which she had invested Bothwell; and the old retainers of his house on the border, where he reigned almost supreme as warden, were within reach. The queen went on to Seton, her old haunt, and when there she could count sixteen hundred followers. At what point in the progress her husband joined her, those who narrate the affair, otherwise . so minute, give no information. On the I5th, however, he had a gathering that, in numbers at least, seemed fit to cope with the confederates. These, however, had greatly the advantage in condition for the field. With the exception of a few sturdy burgesses, as the eyewitnesses note, they were mounted gentlemen, trained to fighting, and in excellent condition and discipline. Eighteen hundred of them were mounted; and in the sixteenth century, though artill ' ery was breaking down the enormous superiority of horsemen over footmen, that would have been a formidable element in a considerable army. Le Croc, who noticed the preponderance of horsemen and their fine condition, also noticed, as a specialty he seems not to have seen before, that the Scots horsemen when halting abandoned the saddle, and only mounted for actual fighting. Bothwell's men were hastily collected; there had been no time to handle them, so as to know what they were fit for. He had no good captains; and, as an onlooker remarked, they were chiefly "commons" or peasants. He had with him a few cannon brought from Dunbar, and a portion of these he posted at a ford a little above Musselburgh.

To those anywise acquainted with the ground, it will be best understood how the two armies stood to each other by noting that the Esk, which passes Dalkeith and Musselburgh, was between them when they first saw each other. Bothwell's troops were on the south-east side keeping the upper ridge of the hills or banks. The confederates crossed the river, and competed for the higher ground. They seem to have fidgeted about, trying as well to occupy high ground as to get rid of the annoyance of the sun being in their face, for it was a clear hot day. The country presents no decided sweep of predominant rising ground, but undulates; and so both forces occupied an elevation, with a bum running in the declivity between, now cut by a branch railway. The position taken up by Bothwell on Carbury Hill, where there remained some of the earthworks left by the English army after the battle of Pinkie, is still called Queen Mary's Mount.

While they were watching each other, Le Croc, the French ambassador, appeared on the scene, his diplomatic mind sorely perplexed by the anomalous sight. Here was royalty on the one side, and rebellious subjects on the other. But with these was the bulk of the rank, statesmanship, and military capacity of the country-the men with whom he used to hold counsel as its government heads; here, too, was an army, small, but respectable both for the social condition of the men and their effective training. On the side of royalty he saw crime, follv a few border lairds for a court, and a force of undrilled peasants. Le Croc, however, wished to be of service. He was a man of kindly nature, and, as representing the crown that had so long exercised a high influence in Scotland, he sought to do what he could to stay a conflict that must be the first of a civil war. In fact he must have felt that whatever he did on the occasion might have a material influence on the interests of his own country, and on his own position and repute as a statesman. The tone of the diplomacy of the day shows that the French Court at once took the alarm about the ancient alliance. It was predicted that the end of the doings at Holyrood would be that Scotland, severed from France, would be attached to England. The instructions to Le Croc and others pressed him to do his utmost to avert this calamity; and, in the sincerity of urgent pleading, the importance of keeping a hold on Scotland was set forth in terms that would have made any true Scot on either side indignant.' His way led first to the force of the confederates. With these he held talk, but not so long as to give the impression that he favoured their cause. Finding there no opening for accommodation, he left them, and returned in three hours to find the aspect of things unchanged. He besought them, for the love of God, and in the name of his master, who wished well both to the queen and to them, to try and find a way to accommodation. They said there was no other but the queen's giving up her husband to them. Speak of it, he said, as they would, their act was war against their queen; and should God favour them so that they gained a battle, they would be more than ever at a loss how to act. They said there were just two ways of averting bloodshed: the one was for the queen to part with the traitor in whose hands she was, the other was for him to step forth prepared for single combat. He would find one ready to fight him, and another, and another, up to ten or a dozen, if he desired it. The ambassador said both alternatives would be offensive to the queen, and he would have to do with neither: bad they nothing else to offer? No, nothing; and in strong language they swore that they would get the truth of the king's death laid bare. He seems to have found himself in controversy with them. He intended, apparently, if he saw any hope of good results, to have passed at his case between the two forces, bringing matters by degrees to a reconciliation. Having found as yet nothing but defiance among the confederates, he proposed to cross over and speak with the queen. This was objected to. He complained loudly of the awkward position in which he was thus placed. Communicating with them alone, he would appear to throw his weight into their side. They had no right to put him in that position; he must retire if he were not to see the queen. No restraint was put on him; but to pass over to the queen's force he required to have a proper convoy. He does not tell who they were who were so discourteous as to refuse him this; but he describes with vividness how Secretary Lethington came forward with graceful courtesy, expressed his respect for the ambassador of so great a king, to whom he and his friends offered their humble duty, desiring earnestly that the old alliance between the two nations might exist uninterrupted. He told the ambassador frankly that he was free to come and go at his will between the two forces, and would be provided, so far as concerned their side, with the means of doing so. They gave him an escort of fifty horse, who had to take him beyond their own proper lines; for he found that there had already crossed the brook, in advance on the queen's party, some two hundred troopers, with nine hundred as a support.

He was brought first in presence of the queen alone; and having paid his duty, he told her what grief the knowledge of her present position would bring to the King of France, and also to the queen-as to whom, however, the sincerity of his remark may be doubted. He told her that he had spoken with the confederate lords, and what they had said, begging her to weigh their words and intentions well; for they were still her loving subjects, though the position they had taken might look otherwise. She said that they used her Carbery Hill, since she had only complied with their own bond, and taken the husband they bad dictated to her. Nevertheless, if they would acknowledge his position and ask his pardon, she was ready to open her arms to them.

At this point the husband came up. He and the ambassador saluted each other ; but the proud Frenchman specially notes that he declined the embrace of friendship. He tells how Bothwell demanded, with an air of assurance, and in a loud voice that his followers might hear, if it was he that was wanted. The ambassador answered aloud that he had spoken to the other force, and they had assured him they were the very humble subjects and servants of the queen; and then, in a whisper for his own particular ear, that they were his mortal enemies. Bothwell, again speaking so as to be heard around, asked what he had done to them. He had never wished to offend any one, but desired to please all; they were influenced by mere envy of his greatness; but every man was free to enjoy his own good fortune; and there was no tone of them but would gladly be in his place. Then he became very earnest, and besought the ambassador, for the love of God, to relieve the queen from a position which gave him great pain, and also to prevent bloodshed. Le Croc he said was free to tell the confederates that, though he had the honour to be husband to the queen, he would enter in gage of battle with any of them, provided he were of proper quality; and he would fight, holding his cause to be so just that he felt assured God would be with him.

But the queen forbade this, and Le Croc declined to take the message.

Bothwell then remarked that more talk was useless; he saw his enemies coming, some of them having passed the brook. He hinted to the ambassador that, if he desired to imitate him who mediated between the armies of Scipio and Hannibal, he should hold himself impartial, and take part with neither side, but stand aloof during the fighting and see the best fun that ever was; and if he would imitate this example, he would have the like, for he would see good fighting. Le Croc said it was not where the queen and these two armies were concerned that he would enjoy such a sight; on the contrary, it had never been his lot to behold a scene that could so grieve him. Some more talk of a general character they seem to have had before parting. Bothwell boasting of his own strength, the other admitted that he had a greater number of men four thousand, while they had some five hundred fewer, and he had three pieces of artillery-but were all to be trusted to hold by his cause? Le Croc had just come from a force gallantly and sagaciously led, where there were several wise heads, and all were resolute; but here was no one to be depended on but the leader, and he questioned if more than a half would stand by him. In fact several slipped over to the other side, and the force was much weakened by many others falling out to refresh themselves in the hot day. Le Croc bade adieu to the queen with extreme regret, leaving her with the tear in her eye. He went back to the confederate lords, and told them the condition on which the queen would be reconciled to them; but they were resolute, and would have no more discussion; and each taking his morion in his hand, bade him for God's sake depart, thanking him for his well-meant efforts. He withdrew accordingly, and returned to Edinburgh with a heavy heart.

After he went, the two forces, which bad stood immovable from eleven in the forenoon till five in the afternoon, crept near each other-but each still sought an elevation; and when they were very close, it required that the one making the attack should go down into a little valley in the first place. The ambassador noticed the banners. The queen's was the royal lion; that of the confederate lords, their favourite picture of the murdered man and the infant prince.

Presently a small party of the queen's force descended and proffered a parle. They were joined by a like body on the other side, and it was determined between them that the gage of battle should be tried. Tullibardine, understood to have been active in the affair of the accusatory placards, came forward, but Bothwell declined to acknowledge him as of sufficient rank. He wished to measure swords with Morton, but this life the confederates thought too valuable to be so risked. Lindsay was the next. He imitated, so far as was consistent with Protestant usage, the religious ceremony of the old gage of battle, and prayed on his knees conspicuously between the two forces. When the queen's consent was asked, she wavered, appeared to yield to such a sacrifice for the avoidance of bloodshed, but in the end forbade the combat.

The confederates now were determined to advance and it became clear to Bothwell that his own party, thinned by deserters, and not all disposed to combat, would not stand the charge of the well-disciplined force descending into the hollow. Seeing this, it became part of the policy of the confederates to prevent the escape of Bothwell; and Kirkcaldy of Grange was detached, with two hundred mounted men, to flank the enemy, and intercept his retreat to Dunbar. The queen observing Kirkcaldy, sent a message desiring to have conference with him; and having got a safe-conduct, lie consented. He appears to have bluntly told the queen that all would honour and serve her if she would abandon the murderer of her husband. Melville tells us that, while he so spoke, "the Earl Bodwell had appointed a soldier to shoot him, until the queen gafe a cry, and said that he should not do her that shanie wha had promised that he should come and return safely." This incident is not mentioned by the other narrators. It is not quite clear whether it was then, or when called on a second time to confer with the queen, that the confederates grew uneasy about his detention, and continued their advance. A hasty stipulation then passed that Bothwell should, unmolested, depart for Dunbar, and the queen render herself. They parted, as we are told, like fond lovers, with many kisses, and much sorrow on her part. He mounted and galloped off with a slender train. His last words to the queen were an exhortation to continue true to her plighted faith.

At that moment the cup of the wretched woman's bitterness must have been filled to the brim. One by one every refuge had been closed ; and over the wide world at home, as well as abroad, there was no quarter to which she could look for countenance. England from the first was not to be thought of. But at the Court of France the door was even more hopelessly closed. There was strong suspicion there of her guilt; and the deed was not one of those acts, perpetrated with Italian subtlety and external decorum in the inner recesses of courts, of which people circulate timid whispers, but was a flagrant act the common talk of her own people. At all events she had become the husband of one guilty beyond all question of the crime held in chief abhorrence at Court; and not only so, but she had brought scandal on the royalty of France-she, the queen-dowager, allying herself with one too well known in Paris-noble, no doubt, as all Scots were, but a needy adventurer, seeking fortune wherever and however he could find her, and notorious for indulgence in vices of a low cast. Then the bulk of what was - honourable and respectable, among her own subjects bad taken arms against her, and the rest would not strike in her defence. But sorest, perhaps, of all the arrows at her heart, was the unkindness of him for whom she had encountered all. This dread skeleton in the house can receptacle in the courts of moderate respectability; but everything in Holyrood went on too passionately and flagrantly for concealment. Many noticed that she was little incidents referred to by persons present are more expressive than general accusations. Le Croc said that, immediately after the marriage, she was curious to know whether he bad noticed somewhat of her husband's strange usage towards her, and told him not to wonder if her manner were sad, for she was in deep distress. Once, too, in an inner chamber, where she was alone with her husband, she was heard to weep, and to say she wished she had a knife, that she might put an end to her existence. By a rare coincidence this was beard both by Le Croc and Melville - it was reported by the former to the King of France, and recorded by the latter in his diary.