Darnley Sentence Examples

Albany had to blockade Margaret in Stirling Castle before she would surrender her sons, After being obliged to capitulate, Margaret returned to Edinburgh, and being no longer responsible for the custody of the king she fled to England in September, where a month later she bore to Angus a daughter, Margaret, who afterwards became countess of Lennox, mother of Lord Darnley and grandmother of James I.

The queen required a protector, whom she found, not in the feeble Darnley, nor in any of the leaders of the factions, but in the strong, determined earl who had ever been a stanch supporter of the throne against the Protestant party and English influence.

Her partiality for him increased as her contempt and hatred of Darnley became more confirmed.

In November she visited him at Dunbar, and in December took place the conference at Craigmillar at which both were present, and at which the disposal of Darnley was arranged, Bothwell with some others subsequently signing the bond to accomplish his murder.

He himself superintended all the preparations, visiting Darnley with Mary on the night of the crime, Sunday, 9th of February 1567, attending the queen on her return to Holyrood for the ball, and riding back to Kirk o' Field to carry out the crime.

On the demand of Lennox, Darnley's father, Bothwell was put upon his trial, in April, but Lennox, having been forbidden to enter the city with more than six attendants, refused to attend, and Bothwell was declared not guilty.

He had stoutly opposed the marriage of Mary with Darnley, and when, after Restalrig, he was captured by the queen's troops, he narrowly escaped execution.

If authentic throughout, they afford perfect proof of Mary's complicity in the murder of her husband, Henry, Lord Darnley.

Of these Maitland of Lethington was consenting to Darnley's murder; the earl of Morton had, at least, guilty foreknowledge; the regent Moray (Mary's natural brother) had "looked through his fingers" at the crime, and for months remained on intimate terms with the criminals.

This is attested as a "true copy," but Moray, who had been present when Bowton was examined (December 8, 1567), knew that the copy presented at Westminster (December 1568) had been mutilated because the excised passages were damning to Lethington and the earl of Morton, accomplices in the crime of Darnley's murder, and accomplices of Moray in his prosecution of his sister.

According to Moray's version of the letter, Mary was to try to poison Darnley in a house on the way between Glasgow and Edinburgh where he and she were to stop. Clearly Lord Livingstone's house, Callendar, where they did rest on their journey, is intended.

If this failed, Mary would put Darnley "in the house where the explosion was arranged for the night upon which one of the servants was to be married."

But the earl of Lennox, Darnley's father, understood Moray to mean that as early as January 21-22, 1567, the house of Kirk o' Field, where Darnley was slain, had already been mined.

Can we suppose that "the man who had read the letter" invented much of its contents, and told them to Moray, who told de Silva, and told Darnley's father, Lennox, then in or near London?

Lennox also gives several stories of cruel words of Mary spoken to Darnley in the hearing of her servants.

It is a self-contradictory history of the relations between Mary and Darnley.

Lennox (June 11, 1568) asked Crawford for his reminiscences, not of Darnley's reports of his talks with Mary, but of Crawford's own interview with her as she entered Glasgow to visit Darnley, probably on the 21st of January 1567.

It follows that Lennox possessed Crawford's written notes of the Darnley and Mary conversations.

Crawford's evidence was all-important, because it corroborated Mary's own account of her interviews with Darnley in Letter II.

If he had access to his original notes of the 21st and 22nd of January 1567, then he was safe - that is, if Darnley's memory of the conversations tallied so exactly with Mary's.

Whether that could be, Darnley dictating while still hot from the exciting interchange of words which he meant to report, is a question for psychologists.

Experiments made by a person who possesses a good memory seem to show that the thing is very possible, especially if Darnley revised Crawford's notes.

Of this he (Darnley) denies half, and above all that he (the brother?) ever came to his (Darnley's) chamber."

The Lennox papers are full of reports of bitter words that passed between Darnley and Mary at Stirling (December 1566), where Darnley was sulking apart while the festivities of the baptism of his son (later James VI.) were being held.

But nothing is said in the Lennox papers of words spoken by Darnley to Mary's brother (probably Lord Robert of Holyrood) and revealed by Lord Robert to Mary.

Lord Robert was the only friend of Darnley in Mary's entourage; and he even, according to the accusers, warned him of his danger in Kirk o' Field, to which they said that a Casket Letter (III.) referred.

But Mary, in Letter II., shows that the complaints and the self-defence are Darnley's own.

It was in paragraph 7 that she wrote about the English ship; she did not then give Darnley's remonstrances, as Crawford does.

But in paragraph 18 (Mystery, p. 406) Mary returns to the subject, and writes, "He (Darnley) spoke very bravely at the beginning, as the bearer will show you, upon the subject of the Englishmen, and of his departing; but in the end he returned to his humility."

Thus it is certain that Darnley had reported to Crawford his brave words and reproaches of Mary, which Crawford gives in the proper place.

Here is proof positive that Crawford does not copy Letter but gives Darnley's words as reported to him by Darnley - words that Darnley was proud of, - while Mary, returning on the second day of writing to the topic, does not quote Darnley's brave words, but merely contrasts his speaking "very bravely at the beginning" with his pitiful and craven later submission; "he has ever the tear in his eye," with what follows.

Mary was succeeded in her lifetime in 1567 by her only son James VI., who through his father Lord Darnley was also head of the second branch, there being no surviving male issue of the family from progenitors later than Robert II.

And in the same month, two years from the date of Chastelard's execution, her first step was unconsciously taken on the road to Fotheringhay, when she gave her heart at first sight to her kinsman Henry, Lord Darnley, son of Matthew Stuart, earl of Lennox, who had suffered an exile of twenty years in expiation of his intrigues with England, and had married the niece of King Henry VIII., daughter of his sister Margaret, the widow of James IV., by her second husband, the earl of Angus.

Queen Elizabeth, with the almost incredible want of tact or instinctive delicacy which distinguished and disfigured her vigorous intelligence, had recently proposed as a suitor to the queen of Scots her own low-born favourite, Lord Robert Dudley, the widower if not the murderer of Amy Robsart; and she now protested against the project of marriage between Mary and Darnley.

The hapless and worthless bridegroom had already incurred the hatred of two powerful enemies, the earls of Morton and Glencairn; but the former of these took part with the queen against the forces raised by Murray, Glencairn and others, under the nominal leadership of Hamilton, duke of Chatelherault, on the double plea of danger to the new religion of the country, and of the illegal proceeding by which Darnley had been proclaimed king of Scots without the needful constitutional assent of the estates of the realm.

According to one account, Darnley privately assured his uncle George Douglas of his wife's infidelity; he had himself, if he might be believed, discovered the secretary in the queen's apartment at midnight, under circumstances yet more unequivocally compromising than those which had brought Chastelard to the scaffold.

A bond was drawn in which Darnley pledged himself to support the confederates who undertook to punish "certain privy persons" offensive to the state, "especially a strange Italian, called Davie"; another was subscribed by Darnley and the banished lords, then biding their time in Newcastle, which engaged him to procure their pardon and restoration, while pledging them to insure to him the enjoyment of the title he coveted, with the consequent security of an undisputed succession to the crown, despite the counter claims of the house of Hamilton, in case his wife should die without issue - a result which, intentionally or not, he and his fellow-conspirators did all that brutality could have suggested to accelerate and secure.

The parliament was discharged by proclamation issued in the name of Darnley as king; and in the evening of the next day the banished lords, whom it was to have condemned to outlawry, returned to Edinburgh.

During the night she escaped with Darnley, whom she had already seduced from the party of his accomplices, and arrived at Dunbar on the third morning after the slaughter of her favourite.

The slayers of Rizzio fled to England, and were outlawed; Darnley was permitted to protest his innocence and denounce his accomplices; after which he became the scorn of all parties alike, and few men dared or cared to be seen in his company.

The result of this daring ride was a ten days' fever, after which she removed by short stages to Craigmillar, where a proposal for her divorce from Darnley was laid before her by Bothwell, Murray, Huntly, Argyle and Lethington, who was chosen spokesman for the rest.

She assented on condition that the divorce could be lawfully effected without impeachment of her son's legitimacy; whereupon Lethington undertook in the name of all present that she should be rid of her husband without any prejudice to the child - at whose baptism a few days afterwards Bothwell took the place of the putative father, though Darnley was actually residing under the same roof, and it was not till after the ceremony that he was suddenly struck down by a sickness so violent as to excite suspicions of poison.

That night the whole city was shaken out of sleep by an explosion of gunpowder which shattered to fragments the building in which he should have slept and perished;and the next morning the bodies of Darnley and a page were found strangled in a garden adjoining it, whither they had apparently escaped over a wall, to be despatched by the hands of Bothwell's attendant confederates.

Four days after the discovery of the bodies, Darnley was buried in the chapel of Holyrood with secrecy as remarkable as the solemnity with which Rizzio had been interred there less than a year before.

Gracefully and respectfully, with statesmanlike yet feminine dexterity, the demands of Darnley's father for justice on the murderers of his son were accepted and eluded by his daughter-in-law.

In Edinburgh she was received by a yelling mob, which flaunted before her at each turn a banner representing the corpse of Darnley with her child beside it invoking on his knees the retribution of divine justice.

On the 26th of October the charge of complicity in the murder of Darnley was distinctly brought forward against her in spite of Norfolk's reluctance and Murray's previous hesitation.

In the following century it passed into the possession of a branch of the Stewarts, who retained it until the murder of Darnley (1567).

The mission entrusted to him was to prevent Queen Mary's marriage with Darnley, which however he was unable to do.

After the murder of Darnley he was again sent to Scotland in June 1567 on a still more hopeless mission than the first.

Their eldest son was the miserable Henry Darnley, second husband of Mary Stuart.

In the spring of 1561, Mary's brother, Lord James Stewart, lay prior of St Andrews, visited her in the mission to France, Elizabeth announced that a marriage of Mary with a Spanish, Imperial or French prince would mean war, while she still hinted at the Leicester marriage, or perhaps at a union with young Henry Darnley, son of Lennox.

The negotiations for the Leicester marriage were prolonged till March 1565, when Elizabeth had let slip on Mary Henry Darnley (the young son of Lennox, who himself had been allowed to return to Scotland), and at the same time made it clear that she had never been honest in offering Leicester.

Darnley was esteemed handsome, though his portraits give an opposite impression; his native qualities of cowardice, perfidy, profligacy and overweening arrogance were at first concealed, and in mid April 1565 Lethington was sent to London, not to renew the negotiations with Leicester (as had been designed till the 31st of March), but to announce Mary's intended wedding with her cousin.

Darnley being a Catholic, as far as he was anything, the jealous fears of the Brethren under Knox reached a passionate height.

A week earlier Mary, without waiting for the necessary papal dispensation (Pollen, Papal Negotiations with Mary Stuart), had publicly married Darnley, who bore the title of king, but never received the crown matrimonial.

Lethington had not left her, but he was overlooked; Lennox and the impracticable Darnley were neglected; and the dangerous earl of Morton, a Douglas, had to tremble for his lands and office as chancellor, while Mary rested on her foreign secretary, the upstart David Riccio; on Sir James Balfour, noted for falseness even in that age; and on Bothwell.

While Mary was arranging a marriage between Bothwell and the late Huntly's daughter, Lady Jane Gordon, Darnley intrigued with Lord Ruthven and George Douglas, a bastard kinsman of Morton, for the murder of Riccio, and for his own acquisition of the crown matrimonial.

While Mary was at supper, on the 9th of March, Darnley, with Ruthven, George Douglas and others, entered the boudoir in Holyrood, by his private stair, while Morton and his accomplices, mainly Douglases, burst in by way of the great staircase.

While Mary, Darnley and Ruthven exchanged threats and taunts, Bothwell and Huntly escaped from the palace, but next day, Mary contrived to send letters to them and Atholl.

Darnley had taken on him (his one act of kingly power) to dismiss the parliament, but he now found himself the mere tool of his accomplices.

Darnley betrayed some obscure accomplices.

She tried to assuage all feuds; in an inventory of her jewels she left many of them to Darnley, in case she and her child did not survive its birth.

On Mary's recovery, her aversion to Darnley, and her confidence in Bothwell, were unconcealed; and, early in September, she admitted Lethington to her presence.

On her return she fell into an almost fatal illness and prepared for her end with great courage and piety; Darnley now visited her, but was ill-received, while Bothwell was borne to Jedburgh from Hermitage in a litter.

On the 24th of November Mary was at Craigmillar castle, near Edinburgh, where undoubtedly she held a conference with her chief advisers that boded no good to Darnley; and there were rumours of Darnley's design to seize the infant prince and rule in his name.

The evidence on these points is disputable, but now, or not long after, Huntly, Bothwell, Lethington and Argyll signed a " band " for Darnley's murder.

Meanwhile, in December, Mary held the feasts for the baptism of her son by Catholic rites at Stirling (17th of December), while Marriage with Darnley.

Darnley stood aloof, in fear and anger.

Darnley had retired to his father's house at Glasgow, where he fell ill of small-pox, and, on the 14th of January 1567 Mary, from Holyrood, offered to visit him, though he had replied by a verbal insult to a former offer of a visit from Stirling.

About this week must have occurred the interview in the garden at the Douglas's house of Whittingehame, between Morton, Bothwell and Lethington, when Morton refused to be active in Darnley's murder, unless he had a written warrant from the queen.

On the 10th of January 1567 Mary left Edinburgh for Glasgow, her purpose being to bring Darnley back to Craigmillar.

The kirk was robbed afresh, benefices were given to such villainous cadets of great families as Archibald Douglas, an agent in Darnley's murder; and though, under the scholarly but fierce Andrew Melville, the kirk purified herself afresh and successfully opposed the bishops, James VI.

Meanwhile Morton found the old Marian party-feud reviving, and in 1577, knowing his own guilt in Darnley's murder, he attempted to win the alliance of Mary for his own security.

The Hamiltons, now in English exile, were forfeited; d'Aubigny received the earldom of Lennox; and, as after Darnley's death, placards, were posted urging the trial of Morton for that crime.

Morton was tried on the 1st of June 1581, was found guilty, and, with one Binning, who had accompanied Archibald Douglas to the scene of Darnley's murder, was executed.

Mary had wearied of her guiding statesmen, Moray and the more pliant Maitland; the Italian secretary David Rizzio, through whom she had corresponded with the pope, now more and more usurped their place; and a weak fancy for her handsome cousin, Henry Darnley, brought about a sudden marriage in 1565 and swept the opposing Protestant lords into exile.

Darnley, though a Catholic, thought it well to go to Knox's preaching; but was so unfortunate as to hear a very long sermon, with allusions not only to "babes and women" as rulers, but to Ahab who did not control his strong-minded wife.

Mary and the lords still in her council ordered Knox not to preach while she was in Edinburgh, and he was absent or silent during the weeks in which the queen's growing distaste for her husband, and advancement of Rizzio over the nobility remaining in Edinburgh, brought about the conspiracy by Darnley, Morton and Ruthven.

It was thus during the reformer's absence that the murder of Darnley, the abduction and subsequent marriage of Mary, the flight of Bothwell, and the imprisonment in Lochleven of the queen, unrolled themselves before the eyes of Scotland.

He was a consenting party to the murder of Darnley, although he had favoured his marriage with Mary, but the enmity between Bothwell and himself was one of the reasons which drove him into the arms of the queen's enemies, among whom he figured at Langside.

Consequently in 1561 both Lady Margaret and her son, who were English subjects, were imprisoned by Elizabeth; but they were soon released, and Darnley spent some time at the English court before proceeding to Scotland in February 1565.

The marriage of Mary and Darnley was now a question of practical politics, and the queen, having nursed her new suitor through an attack of measles, soon made up her mind to wed him, saying he "was the properest and best proportioned long man that ever she had seen."

She had permitted Darnley to journey to Scotland, and it has been asserted that she entangled Mary into this union; but on the other hand she and her council declared their dislike of the proposed marriage, and ordered Darnley and his father to repair to London, a command which was disobeyed.

Although Mary had doubtless a short infatuation for Darnley, the union was mainly due to political motives, and in view of the characters of bride and bridegroom it is not surprising that trouble soon arose between them.

Contrary to his expectations Darnley did not receive the crown matrimonial, and his foolish and haughty behaviour, his vicious habits, and his boisterous companions did not improve matters.

Unable to take any serious part in affairs of state, Darnley soon became estranged from his wife.

The first intention may have been to obtain a divorce for the queen, but it was soon decided that Darnley must be killed.

Another reconciliation took place between husband and wife, and Darnley was persuaded to journey with Mary by easy stages to Edinburgh.

Darnley's body was found at some distance from the house, and it is supposed that he was strangled whilst making his escape.

As the father of King James I., Darnley is the direct ancestor of all the sovereigns of England since 1603.

When Mary married Darnley she had the ball at her feet; the pair had the best claims to the English succession and enjoyed the united affections of the Catholics.

There followed rapidly the murders of Rizzio and Darnley, the Bothwell marriage, Marys defeat, captivity, and flight into England (1568).

Broad Street contains the ruins of Mar's Work, the palace built by John Erskine, 1st (or 6th) earl of Mar, about 1570, according to tradition, out of the stones of Cambuskenneth Abbey; the old town house, erected in 1701 instead of that in which John Hamilton, the last Roman Catholic archbishop of St Andrews, was hanged for alleged complicity in the murders of Darnley and the regent Moray; the town cross, restored in 1891, and the house which was, as a mural tablet says, the "nursery of James VI.

The 4 Marys withdraw as Darnley joins Mary, walks down the center, he showing arrogance, she displeasure.

They find that the documents are of composite origin, partly notes from Mary to Darnley, partly a diary of Mary's, and so on; all combined and edited by some one who played the part of the legendary editorial committee of Peisistratus (see Homer), which compiled the Iliad and Odyssey out of fragmentary lays !

These facts, again, in Letter II., are worthless to a forger, because they concern matters never alluded to in any of the records; never employed in any indictment (though Lennox's are copious in private talk between Darnley and Mary, "reports of her servants"), and totally useless for the purposes of the accusers.

Darnley at once threw himself into the arms of the party opposed to the policy of the queen and her secretary - a policy which at that moment was doubly and trebly calculated to exasperate the fears of the religious and the pride of the patriotic. Mary was invited if not induced by the king of Spain to join his league for the suppression of Protestantism; while the actual or prospective endowment of Rizzio with Morton's office of chancellor, and the projected attainder of Murray and his allies, combined to inflame at once the anger and the apprehension of the Protestant nobles.

In 1584 the long-suffering earl of Shrewsbury was relieved of his fourteen years' charge through the involuntary good offices of his wife, whose daughter by her first husband had married a brother of Darnley; and their orphan child Arabella, born in England, of royal descent on the father's side, was now, in the hopeful view of her grandmother, a more plausible claimant than the king or queen of Scots to the inheritance of the English throne.

Knowing all the secrets of Darnley's murder, Balfour revenged himself by raking up Morton's foreknowledge of the deed; and here he was helped by the influence exercised over the young king by his cousin Esme Stuart d'Aubigny (a son of Darnley's paternal uncle, John), who came to Scotland from France in September 1579.

He was one of the Scots who met Elizabeth's representatives at York in 1568; here he showed a desire to exculpate Mary and to marry her to the duke of Norfolk, a course of action probably dictated by a desire to avoid all revelations about the Darnley murder.