James Melville: Life Story

After Mary’s marriage, Melville, less needed by the Queen, busy with her new husband, and not liking the growing strife at the Scottish court, requested leave to return to France. Mary, however, wanted him to stay. She told him that she knew Darnley believed Melville to be a supporter of Moray’s but that she herself knew, that, although Melville liked Moray, he was true to her. She also suggested that he make an effort to get on with Darnley and to continue his friendship with Rizzio.

Melville now advised Mary to forgive Moray and his supporters – they had been badly let down by Elizabeth, and a reconciliation with them would strengthen Mary, as showing herself both powerful enough to defeat rebels, and magnanimous enough to forgive them. Whilst Mary would no doubt have liked to hang them all, there was little she could do, since they were out of her reach in Newcastle, and their families were beginning to talk treason.

This advice was seconded by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, who suggested that treating Moray and his cohorts mercifully, would encourage English Protestants to look kindly on Mary’s claims to the throne, if they saw she could work with their co-religionists. It might persuade those who favoured Lady Katherine Grey as the Protestant heir to change their allegiance to Mary.

The Queen, who had shown herself generally as inclined to compromise, listened to their advice, and sent Melville’s brother, Sir Robert Melville, to England as her Ambassador, with orders to keep her abreast of any discussions in the English Parliament.

Whilst Melville was encouraging reconciliation, Mary received a letter from her brother-in-law, Charles IX, urging her, on the advice of her uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, to have nothing to do with her Protestant rebels. The Cardinal was fresh from the Council of Trent, where the Catholic powers of Europe had pledged themselves to root out Protestantism.

Mary was in a quandary – she did not wish to offend her family, or the powerful kings of France or Spain, but she had accepted the wisdom of Throckmorton and Melville’s advice, and they both knew more of events in England than Charles or Philip.

After some deliberation, Mary continued with the Parliament that had been originally called to forfeit the goods and titles of Moray and his colleagues. Meanwhile, another plot was brewing.

James Douglas, Earl of Morton; his cousin Sir George Douglas, who was Darnley’s illegitimate uncle; Patrick, Lord Ruthven (Douglas’ brother-in-law) and Patrick, Lord Lindsay (Moray’s brother-in-law) now banded together to dispose of the hated David Rizzio. They persuaded Darnley to join with them, playing on the fact that, within a very short space of time after their marriage, Mary had lost all respect for him, and refused to grant him the Crown Matrimonial (ie, the right to remain King should she die with an underage heir, or, if she had no heir, for the Crown to pass to him). Darnley was jealous of Rizzio, suspecting he had undermined him to Mary. There is also a theory that Rizzio and Darnley had been lovers.

The plotters burst into Mary’s supper chamber at Holyrood Palace, held her fast (although she was six months’ pregnant) and stabbed Rizzio to death. Mary was then locked into her room.

Melville claims that, the next day, he came into the gates of the Palace, and Mary called to him from a window for help, telling him to fetch the Provost of Edinburgh, and raise troops to rescue her. As he tried to leave the Palace, he encountered James Nesbit, one of the Earl of Lennox’ men, and persuaded him that he, Melville, was only going to hear the preaching in St Giles Kirk, it being a Sunday. Instead, he hurried to the Provost, but the citizens of Edinburgh declined to involve themselves.

Mary smuggled out another message to Melville to give to Moray, guessing that her half-brother would return immediately. She was right, for he appeared in Edinburgh on the Monday - which suggests he was aware of the plot, as he had been in Newcastle - a distance of 120 miles, which could hardly be done in less than a day. Her message to Moray was that she knew she would not have been so badly treated, had he been there, and that, if he helped her now, she would forgive his previous rebellion.

The Queen turned her undoubted charm on her husband, and, in a show of quick thinking and resolution it is hard not to admire, persuaded him that he should abandon his co-conspirators, who only meant to harm them both.

He realised she was right, and the pair of them came up with a scheme to enable them to escape from Edinburgh and ride as hard as they could for Dunbar Castle.Messages were left with Melville for Moray, and further messengers sent from Dunbar to the lords in exile in Newcastle to return. Their doings were as nothing in Mary’s eyes, compared with the slaughter of her servant in her presence – a proceeding that was surely intended to cause her to miscarry, and perhaps die. If murdering Rizzio were their only goal, Morton and his allies could have done it anywhere.

Moray, who was not, perhaps, as ruthless as some of his fellow nobles, was overcome with remorse when he saw Mary, who kissed and hugged him. He promised to have nothing to do with Morton and his crew.