Dana Schwartz (2:44)
AI produced just a quick note before we begin today's episode. This story contains murder, sexual assault and pregnancy loss, so if any of those are particularly sensitive to you, this might be a good episode to skip. And on a more personal note unrelated to the episode, before we dive in, I just wanted to say I have a brand new book coming out. This one comes out in May May 2026. It's called the Arcane Arts and it's a sexy dark academia book about a professor and a student studying illicit magic at magic grad school. I'm not really good at describing it. Hopefully I'll get a little better. It's by a pseudonym by S. D. Coverley because I co wrote it with a friend of mine, Dan Fry. I wrote the female Points of view, he wrote the male Points of View and then we sort of blended it together. It was incredibly fun collaboration. I love this book. It's available for pre order now. If you like dark, twisted, sexy stories in this podcast, I think you'll really like that book. Now let's get to the story. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Erin Manke. Listener discretion advised. In early February 1567, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, the King of Scotland, arrived at a spacious two story house in Kirk A Field, an abbey and church college near Edinburgh. It had been a tough year for Lord Darnley so far. He had been living in Glasgow, away from his wife, Mary, Queen of Scots. But after Darnley fell dangerously ill, Mary arranged to bring him to be with her in Edinburgh to convalesce, perhaps as a gesture of reconciliation after their relationship had gone downhill in recent months, Kirkfield seemed like the perfect spot. The air was said to be the healthiest in the whole town, but still, things didn't seem very optimistic. According to one of Darnley's advisors, a raven followed their caravan from Glasgow to Edinburgh and perched on the roof of the house, an ominous sign. It seemed the raven knew something mere mortals didn't. February 9th was supposed to be the last day of Lord Darnley's convalescence. This was the last Sunday before Lent, and after a day of revelry attending a wedding and a dinner with a bishop, Mary and her royal entourage spent the evening with Lord Darnley in his chamber, playing dice, listening to someone play the lute and chatting. Mary considered sleeping over with Lord Darnley at Kirkafield. But the Earl of Bothwell, the Sheriff of Edinburgh, and a member of her entourage reminded Mary that she had promised to stop by an aristocrat's wedding mass before the end of the night. Besides, she had to be up early the next morning to depart from Holyrood on a diplomatic excursion. Wouldn't it be easier just to sleep in her castle instead? Mary agreed and departed from Kirk Afield, promising to see her husband in the morning. At 2am by the time the queen was asleep in her own bed at Holyrood, an explosion startled the whole town awake, including the queen. One townsperson described it as a clap of thunder, while the queen noted that it sounded like 20 or 30 cannons. Fairly soon after the queen was informed what had happened, somebody had carried two trunks of gunpowder to Lord Darnley's house at Kirkfield earlier that day and came back that night to light it, causing a huge blast and demolishing the house. Her husband, Lord Darnley, had been killed. But strangely, it wasn't the explosion that killed him. His body was found in the back garden with signs of strangulation. He had made it out of the exploded house and been killed anyway. This was a murder, and the suspicious details would unravel the Scottish aristocracy and change the course of Mary, Queen of Scots life forever. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. As news of Lord Darnley's murder spread internationally, there was increasing pressure on Mary to find and convict the culprit. There was no shortage of suspects. Lord Darnley was, to put it mildly, a controversial figure in Scotland and beyond. Because both Mary and Lord Darnley were descendants of Henry VII in England, their marriage could give them a more legitimate claim on the English throne than Queen Elizabeth herself, making Darnley a target of anyone in the Elizabethan court. But even closer to home, Mary herself and her entourage had even deeper enmity for Lord Darnley. Despite the fact that Mary had originally chosen Darnley and married for what seemed to be love, the bloom was off the rose fairly quickly. Darnley had a reputation as a power hungry, paranoid drunkard. He had violently stabbed Mary's secretary in front of her while she was pregnant, out of an unfounded fear that he and Mary were having an affair, traumatizing her and alienating him from the rest of Mary's court. Like I said, Darnley was a guy with plenty of enemies. Within days, a primary suspect for Darnley's murder emerged. Lord Bothwell. Bothwell was a key member of Mary's court, and he wielded political and military power. He was the Sheriff of Edinburgh, Lord High Admiral of Scotland, and Lieutenant of the border between England and Scotland. He had access to enough gunpowder to set off the explosion, and some of his lackeys had been spotted near Kirk, a field around the time of the murder. He also had a motive. Because Lord Darnley had murdered Mary's secretary, who was one of Bothwell's allies, he could have been seeking revenge. Bothwell had done this kind of thing before. In 1562, a political enemy, the Earl of Arran, spread a rumor about Bothwell that he planned to abduct Mary, Queen of Scots, and marry her to advance his own political career. These rumors were baseless. They actually came to the Earl of Arryn in a dream. But Bothwell escalated the situation, threatening to retaliate. Mary was so afraid of what Bothwell might do to the Earl of Arran that she sent Bothwell into exile. But even in exile, Bothwell had his lackeys attempt to abduct the Earl of Arryn's mistress as payback. Just days after Darnley's murder in March 1567, he Anonymous placards appeared in Edinburgh, openly accusing Bothwell. The English ambassador, Sir William Drury, reported to London that the Earl Bothwell is most suspected. Even Mary might have been wary around Bothwell by this point. One of Mary's courtiers alleged that one of Bothwell's allies approached Mary a few months before the murder, asking for written permission, permission to dispatch her husband. Allegedly, Mary declined and said she wanted to hear nothing more of the matter. Still, Mary seemed conflicted about bringing Bothwell to court. Mary and Bothwell met in 1560 and had been growing steadily closer ever since. Even though Bothwell had converted to Protestantism. While Mary was a staunch Catholic, Bothwell had been steadfast and loyal. Ambassadors reported that Bothwell commanded her confidence more than any other man. Given the chaos in Mary's court, she felt that she couldn't trust anyone, even her own husband, who was moved to kill her beloved secretary based on rumor alone. After Darnley's murder, she needed support more than ever. Mired in grief, Mary was bedridden and depressed. Sir William Drury, the Ambassador, reported to the Secretary of State of England that she was, for the most part, either melancholy or sickly. Perhaps this breakdown was in part fueled by guilt. As historian Antonia Fraser put it, she had wished Darnley dead, and now he was. Mary's counsel encouraged her to return to matters of state to distract herself, but that backfired. She tried to meet the English ambassador in her sickbed, but she was so ill that she may have had one of her ladies impersonating her. When the queen moved from Holyrood House to Seton a week after Darnley's murder, she left Bothwell to take care of her baby son. Mary's hesitation to convict Bothwell made her a suspect as well. It was widely known that the Mary Darnley marriage was fraught, making her closeness with Bothwell seem increasingly suspect. Placards began appearing in Edinburgh now accusing both Mary and Bothwell of Darnley's death. On one of the placards, Bothwell was depicted as a hare, while Mary was depicted as a mermaid, a symbol for a prostitute. Worse, after Bothwell visited Mary and Seton at the end of March, rumors started spreading that Bothwell intended to marry the queen. Some suspected that they may have been having an affair with and conspired together to have Mary's husband killed. After all, she was the one who insisted that Darnley meet her in Edinburgh, and she set him up to convalesce in Kirk A Field. Maybe it was all part of the murder plan. There's no real evidence that implicates Mary in her husband's murder. If anything, it seems she had tried to prevent conspiracies against her husband throughout their marriage. It was not Mary, but her courtiers aligned with Bothwell who insisted that Darnley stay at Kirkfield. Mary had actually raised some concerns that Kirkfield might be unsafe, and historically, Mary didn't really give Bothwell any special treatment. She had been willing to arrest Bothwell and send him to exile without a trial when he had threatened the Earl of Arran a few years earlier. Anyway, at the beginning of April, with public pressure mounting, Bothwell was formally accused of Darnley's murder, with a trial planned for April 12. In a case like this, it was customary for the victim's family to initiate the proceedings, manage the prosecution and gather evidence. So Mary left the trial to Darnley's father, the Earl of Lennox. A few days before the trial, Lennox attempted to gather 3,000 armed retainers, a typical show of force for nobles taking the stand. But his army was outnumbered by Bothwell's, which might have impacted the trial. Bothwell's stronger army could, for instance, implicitly or explicitly threaten witnesses away from testifying against him. Lennox also had a number of other disadvantages he had only recently moved back to Scotland after 20 years, so he didn't have many allies in the region. And his late son was so unpopular that it was hard to galvanize support. Lennox begged Mary to postpone the trial, but she refused. Queens did not participate in matters of criminal justice, so she was ill equipped to go hunting for legal loopholes that could justify the delay. Besides, just a couple of months ago, Lennox had been pressuring her to expedite the trial. The trial went ahead as planned. In face of the opposition and perhaps fearing for his own life, Lennox didn't show up. Fleeing the country entirely, Lennox's absence meant there was no one willing to testify against Bothwell or introduce any evidence that could convict him. It was essentially a sham trial in a courtroom filled with Bothwell's allies. After seven hours of deliberating, Bothwell was acquitted. An obvious choice given that there was no permissible evidence against him. Bothwell installed troops throughout Edinburgh that threatened anyone who undermined the verdict with hand to hand combat. With that, Bothwell technically was off the hook. He could have returned to his plum post as Mary's closest advisor without much fanfare. But he decided to use this chaotic moment to pursue even greater political power. On April 19, 1567, just a week after the trial, he convened a meeting with various bishops, earls and lords of Parliament, Edinburgh's upper crust to Ainslie Tavern to discuss his next moves. There, Bothwell revealed his plan. He wanted to marry Mary and become the king. And he asked everyone present to sign a document formally supporting the marriage. It's almost hard to overstate just how crazy this was. It cast the Darnley murder in an entirely new light. Perhaps Bothwell assassinated Darnley not only for revenge, but to take his place. This union with Mary with would totally undermine Mary's reputation. If she married Bothwell, Mary would be replacing her late husband with the man who, despite his acquittal, remained the only plausible architect of his murder. Still, as many as 24 of the men, competing accounts give different numbers in Ainslie Tavern that night signed the document in favor of the marriage. These men were willing to play along with Bothwell's plan, but we don't know how they might have really felt. Later, many of them revealed that they only agreed to the document because they thought a Bothwell Mary union would confer them political advantages. The signers were a group of Protestant nobles, so ensuring Mary had a Protestant homage husband would undermine the Catholic stronghold over Scotland that Mary represented. Some might have represented Bothwell out of Loyalty, others out of fear, since he had a reputation for being a powerful loose cannon who sought vengeance on those who confronted him and probably wasn't afraid of violence. Others still thought they could see sign onto the document and change Bothwell's mind later. After all, for the record, Bothwell was already married. He would have to get a divorce, not an easy feat in 16th century Scotland, before he could pursue Mary. Mary seemed oblivious to Bothwell's plans. During the Ainslie Tavern meeting, Mary was inside, set in for a short rest. So when Bothwell set off from Edinburgh the next day, met up with Mary and formally proposed marriage, she was caught off guard. It had only been a couple of months since her husband was murdered, and to repeat, Bothwell already had a wife. But here he was, not only demanding her hand in marriage, but carrying a document that suggested that pretty much all of the noblemen in Edinburgh also supported that union. Still, Mary turned him down. A letter she wrote to a bishop the day after confirms that impression. It professed her loyalty to Pope Pius V and announced her plan to die a devout Catholic, which would conflict with having a Protestant wedding with a clean closest advisor. But Bothwell would not be deterred so easily. After all, he had already proven himself willing to go to extreme lengths to get what he wanted. Nothing would stop him on his quest for power, not even the Queen. On April 24, Mary was finally on the road back to Edinburgh, returning from her long trip. Perhaps she was nervous to find out what was waiting for her there. The city had been in chaos since Darnley's murder. Moreover, she had just turned down Bothwell's marriage proposal, and he was one of the most powerful men in Scotland. It's a risky position, going against one of your closest allies. Mary wouldn't even make it halfway to Edinburgh before Bothwell suddenly appeared on the road with 800 men. He warned Mary that it was too dangerous to return to the city and that she should instead accompany him to his castle in Dunbar to hide away. We don't know what was going through Mary's mind at the time. She was still feeling physically ill. The day before, she had been delayed on her journey because she was too weak to continue. She was probably tired, overwhelmed, confused and conflicted. Maybe she didn't believe Bothwell and wanted to continue on to Edinburgh, but she was outnumbered by Bothwell's army and was worried he might retaliate or force her if she refused. Or maybe she believed Bothwell, or at least assumed that Bothwell was less dangerous than whatever conspiracy might be afoot in Edinburgh, Mary was already paranoid that she might be assassinated just like her ex husband. In any case, she said that she would not like to be the cause of any more bloodshed and agreed to go with Bothwell to Dunbar. Historians debate whether or not this constitutes a kidnapping. To some, like Fraser, Mary clearly consented. She describes Mary as docile and that the proceedings were so calm and placid that it is difficult to describe what happened as an abduction, especially since she didn't even attempt to refuse Bothwell or seek rescue from the country people as she passed. She also argues that Mary must have known ahead of time that Bothwell was on his way. Letters from earlier in the week between the Earl of Lennox and another noble discussed the plan, suggesting that it was fairly common knowledge in Mary's court. Other historians, like the French historian Catherine Ermeville, take a more extreme view that Bothwell was actually doing Mary a favor by intervening, that the two were actually secretly in love and Bothwell pretended to kidnap Mary so that they could marry without ruining her reputation or at least mitigating the damage. These theories have some flaws. First is that there's no concrete proof that Mary had been having an affair with Bothwell. While some interpret her closeness with Bothwell as romantic, Bothwell's overtures only became explicit after the death of Mary's husband and Mary had shut them down. There's also no proof that Mary had heard of Bothwell's plan plan to take her before it occurred, other than Fraser's sense that it seems likely. Her courtiers may just as well have heard of the plan and decided not to tell Mary, not wanting to interfere, get in the way. These theories are also more focused on the explicit consent itself than the larger conditions that influenced it. Mary was, I remind you, surrounded by 800 armed forces men and the guy who probably killed her husband. Even if she did refuse and Bothwell let her go back to Edinburgh, her political allies there signed a document professing their loyalty to Bothwell, so Mary may have faced consequences from them. Instead, Bothwell had gathered enough literal and metaphorical ammunition against Mary that her choice to go with him to Dunbar may not have really felt like a choice at all. After she was taken, Mary sent a member of her entourage ahead to Edinburgh to alert the provost that she had been kidnapped. The provost rang the literal alarm bell and the citizens called on the government to engineer a rescue. But by then it was too late. Mary arrived at Dunbar at midnight with an army surrounding her. That night, Bothwell raped her. There are a number of accounts that confirm this, one Noble, who was at Dunbar while it happened, wrote that regardless of whether or not she had wanted to marry Bothwell, she had been ravished against her will. Mary herself said in a cryptic note that Bothwell's actions were quite quote rough and that given the circumstances, she had no choice but to make the best of it. The story got back to Edinburgh days later. By then, the mood had shifted. While some contemporaries maintained that she had been kidnapped, most thought that she had gone willingly and harbored secret romantic feelings for Bothwell. That said, no one cast any doubt that Bothwell had assaulted her. Mary was known for being straight laced and pious and Bothwell for being lecherous and scheming. Still, no one thought that a rape would exempt Mary from her impending marriage to Bothwell. If anything, it forced her hand because the only way to lessen the sin of sleeping with a man out of wedlock was would be to marry him. According to them, Bothwell did a heinous act to break down Mary's sexual boundaries, but she would have to suffer for it. As historian Ruth Warnick put it, Mary reacted like many other early modern victims who believed their ravishment polluted them. Unwilling to dishonor her family by revealing the rape and eliciting charges that she was immensely immodest or that she deserved to be attacked because she had not lived virtuously enough, Mary stayed at Dunbar for three weeks, where she seemed to give up and accept her fate. By the time she received an offer of rescue at the end of April, she rejected it. Resigned now that Bothwell had secured his new marriage, he set out to dissolve his old one. That turned out to be way easier than anyone could have anticipated. His wife was all too happy to get rid of him. Bothwell set up two divorce trials in both Protestant and Catholic ecclesiastical courts, and within days the courts agreed to end his marriage on the grounds that he cheated on his wife, not with Mary incidentally, but with his wife's sewing maid. His servants also found court officials and threatened to cut off their noses and ears if the verdict wasn't reached quickly enough. The threats worked. By May 7, Bothwell was officially single. That week, Bothwell also finally brought Mary back to Edinburgh. One onlooker reported that he was holding the Queen Queen by the bridle of her horse as if she were a captive. On May 12, Mary declared formally that although she had been abducted, she would agree to marry Bothwell. Three days later, Bothwell and Mary were wed in a small Protestant ceremony at the Great hall of Holyrood. After the wedding, the Earl of Bothwell technically had a new title, the Duke of Orkney. But I'll keep referring to him as Bothwell for clarity's sake. The atmosphere was hardly festive. The wedding banquet was a rush job. Some protesters placed on the palace gates the words wantons Mary. In the month of May, Mary seemed miserable. She had already been depressed before Bothwell's abduction, and now she was doing even worse. One of her advisors wrote a letter describing a conversation she had had with the queen on her wedding day. Mary apologized for seeming too formal with her new husband. It was because she felt no joy about the wedding and longed for suicide. Mary had no idea that behind the scenes, the political elite of Edinburgh were trying to overturn the marriage. Even though many of them had signed the letter at Ainslie Tavern, they had begun to turn against Bothwell a few months before. They had assumed that Bothwell would repay them for their support by including them in his plans. Besides, Bothwell probably seemed like a more reasonable choice of a husband for Mary than the paranoid, murderous Lord Darnley. But by May 1567, Bothwell seemed much more dangerous than Darnley. He had murdered someone, kidnapped and raped the queen, and manipulated the government toward his own ends. Bothwell had shut out his former allies, going against their wishes and concentrating his own power. Even the more specious claims against Bothwell that these nobles had initially dismissed seemed increasingly rare. Reasonable. Earlier in this episode, we mentioned that in 1562, five years before any of this happened, Lord Arryn spread a rumor that Bothwell would kidnap the queen and marry her to advance his own political career. Lord Arryn was ruled crazy. Lest we forget, the information had come to him in a dream. But Lord Arryn turned out to be right. His dream became a reality. Maybe Lord Arryn had even given Bothwell the idea. At the beginning of May, while Mary was still in captivity at Dunbar, the nobles of Edinburgh met up to figure out what to do next. These Confederates planned to gather an army in secret. If Mary couldn't escape the marriage herself, they would do it for her, with will, whatever force necessary. By June, the anti Bothwell nobility, known as the Confederates, had gotten organized. The Confederate lords had occupied the city of Edinburgh and taken over Parliament, installing troops throughout the city. On June 11, they issued a proclamation that they would rescue the queen, arrest Bothwell and avenge Darnley's murder once and for all. Bothwell had already caught wind of the plan. Fearing a military coup, Bothwell took Mary to Borthwick Castle about 12 miles south of Edinburgh to avoid a surprise attack. He had an army of his own and was ready to fight back. But when Bothwell and Mary heard that 1200 Confederate troops were on their way to Borthwick Castle, they fled. Once again, Bothwell dressed Mary in men's clothing to avoid suspicion, and they headed back to Dunbar. On June 15, the two armies finally met up for a showdown at Carberry Hill, about seven miles from Edinburgh. One of the Confederates promised Mary that if she abandoned Bothwell, he would restore her to power. Mary refused. It may seem weird for her to have declared loyalty to Bothwell, given that he abused her, raped her, and forced her to marry him. But Mary had a secret. She was pregnant. She feared that the child was Bothwell's and didn't want to sully her reputation further by giving birth to an illegitimate child. No matter how they had gotten there, she and Bothwell were married. The two armies were at a standoff, neither of them particularly wanting to fight. Instead, they argued about what to do next. After a few hours, Bothwell's soldiers began wandering off, bored. Bothwell finally called for single combat to settle the dispute, but then back to down immediately, claiming that he was too high status to fight the guy who had volunteered a higher status. Confederate Lord Linday agreed to fight Bothwell, but Bothwell backed down yet again. Mary finally took decisive action. She surrendered to the Confederates on a promise of good treatment. And if they let Bothwell go free again, her choice is somewhat puzzling. Why would she want to protect Bothwell after everything he did to her? Some historians interpret this as an expression of love or affection for Bothwell, while others think she did so out of political strategy to separate herself from Bothwell and his influence, to argue for her own innocence. Historians also dispute the order of events. Rita Vornick suggests that Bothwell decided to flee before Mary agreed to surrender. In any case, the Confederates accepted her conditions and Bothwell fled, first to the south of Scotland, then to Denmark. Mary would never see him again. Mary was led back to Edinburgh by her horse's bridle yet again, this time a captive of the state. As she entered the city, soldiers yelled, burn the whore. Banners flew across town depicting Darnley's corpse lying under a tree and their son kneeling, praying to the Lord for revenge. In her tattered clothes, Mary was imprisoned, first in Edinburgh and then at a castle in Loch Leven. Weeks passed before anyone figured out what to do with Mary. She spent her days wandering around the castle. There, with barely anything to do in captivity, her allies met with her and begged her to divorce Bothwell and repudiate him to gain her release. Mary still refused, finally admitting that she was seven weeks pregnant. She emphasized that she was only seven weeks pregnant despite not being absolutely sure of the date to claim that conception occurred after the wedding, thereby implicitly denying the premaritum. A week later, Mary had a miscarriage, leaving her bedridden for the rest of the month of July. On July 24, Mary signed a statement claiming that her illness made it impossible for her to reign. She abdicated the throne to her one year old son with Lord Darnley and appointed her half brother, the Earl of Moray, as the king regent. When Mary's health began to improve in August, Moray arrived in Loch Leven to scold her about her mistakes in a two day lecture. Before formally assuming the regency, Mary spent nearly a year in captivity, writing secret messages in code and planning an escape. Finally, on May 2, she boarded a stolen boat in a disguise and rode horses to Hamilton House a few miles from Glasgow. Two days later, she told Mouret that she disavowed giving up the crown. Six thousand men joined her to protect her and reinstall her as the queen, angry with Moray for treating her so poorly, morley in prison and holding her accountable for her husband's death rather than Bothwell. As Mary and her army headed toward Dunbarton Castle, Moray sent a force of troops to go after her. Even though Moray had a smaller army of only 4,000 soldiers, he managed to defeat Mary. She was not expecting Moray to actually engage them in battle, so her troops were too chaotic and disorganized to prevail. Mary also hadn't expected Mori to focus on apprehending her when she tried to escape in the middle of the battle, Maury redirected his soldiers from fighting to seize her. Instead, after narrowly escaping after the humiliating defeat, Mary decided to serve out the rest of her imprisonment in England. She felt like she had no choice. While France, a Catholic country, would have been friendlier to Mary, she couldn't make it all the way there on the dinghy fishing boat provided to her. She figured that in England, her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, would keep her safe and maybe even help her win back the Scottish throne. Elizabeth had to thread a delicate political needle. She didn't want to openly support Mary since Mary was accused of murder, but she didn't want to execute her or send her back to Scotland and create a Catholic martyr. So she called for a formal inquiry into the accusations against Mary, hoping to produce A verdict that could guide her towards a decision. Mary agreed to go along with the inquiry if she maintained her royal rank during the trial, and if the inquiry was not about her alleged murder of Darnley or the marriage with Bothwell, but instead focused on whether or not she would be able to rule over Scotland. On October 4, 1568, the first day of the hearing, the inquiry did not follow either of those conditions. One reason is that Moray took over the prosecution and he aimed to prove without a doubt that Mary was behind Lord Darnley's murder so that she could never rule again. Moray, a Protestant who happily accepted Elizabeth's authority, had many allies in the English court. Mary felt like the English officials in charge of the trial were already on Moray's side. After a few days of taking oaths and reading commissions, Mary's team still had some hope that the trial would reach an agreement that could satisfy both sides. But Maury went straight for the jugular. He accused Mary of having an affair with Bothwell before her husband's death, hoping to exploit the fact that, as Varnick put it, many contemporaries viewed fornication not only as more criminal criminal than murder, but also as inevitably leading to murder. Moray introduced his primary evidence for that claim. A series of documents in a foot long silver casket, including six love letters written by Mary to Bothwell, two contracts of marriage, one signed before Bothwell's murder trial, a request from Mary to the nobleman to sign the Ainslie Tavern band and a French love ballad. These casket letters, named after the casket they were stored in, seemed to damn Mary's case, proving that she was not a victim of Bothwell at all, but rather that she had been in love with Bothwell for years and conspired with him to murder Lord Darnley. Most historians think these letters were forged. Some were entirely invented, while others were probably rewrites of actual letters that Mary had written to other people. The casket letters were said to have been discovered at Edinburgh Castle In June of 1567, after Mary had been captured. But why would Bothwell keep his letters from Mary there when he didn't live there? He barely spent any time in Edinburgh, aside from his wedding to Mary. Mary also tended to use ciphers and codes to write about sensitive material. And the letters contained several inaccuracies. In 1569, Mary told Elizabeth, quote, that even if she had imagined the foolish remarks in the Cascade letters, she never would have put them in writing. It seems that Elizabeth did not take these letters particularly seriously because the inquiry continued on for months, Mary's side offered various concessions to the Crown, like vowing to educate her son in England in exchange for her reinstatement. While Moray sought to destroy Mary's reputation entirely, Mary's side thought Elizabeth had been unfair. She had agreed to meet with Moray outside of the inquiry and allowed him to appear at the hearings. While Mary could not participate in her own investigation or testify for herself, Mary didn't even know what she was being accused of. In any case, Elizabeth ended the inquiry in January 1569, refusing to issue a decision, arguing that there was not enough proof to convict Mary nor to exonerate her. Our other episode about Mary, Queen of Scots, goes into more depth about what happened during the rest of Mary's imprisonment and how Elizabeth eventually made the decision to execute her in 1587. But this inquiry in 1569, even though it ended inconclusively, cemented a narrative of the relationship between Bothwell and Mary in the historical record. Even though the courts didn't take the casket letters seriously, they were published in 1571 in a book accusing Mary of pursuing Bothwell and orchestrating Darnley's murder. Another account denied this reading and proclaimed Mary's innocence, dismissing the letters as forgeries. These two competing versions of the story of Bothwell and Mary's relationship persist even after four centuries. By now, most historians, with a few exceptions, believe that while Mary may have had a hostile relationship with Darnley, she did not actively participate in his death. She chose to marry and defend Bothwell not out of love but out of desperation. She had suffered the death of her husband, a debilitating illness, a kidnapping and a rape. In a society that punished adultery even over murder, and blamed women for their own assaults, Mary was stuck between a rock and a hard place, a place where even a queen had no power. That's the tragic story of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Bothwell. But stick around to hear about Mary's favorite prison needlepoint.
