Earl Bothwell [Child 174]

DESCRIPTION: A tale of the woes of Scotland. David [Riccio], the Queen's servant, is murdered with twelve daggers. King and Queen quarrel over this. Bothwell takes the king and hangs him. This produces such anger that the Queen flees to England
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1750 (Percy folio)
KEYWORDS: royalty nobility homicide death exile betrayal
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1542 - Mary Stewart, at the age of eight days, becomes Queen of Scotland. She later becomes Queen of France by virtue of her marriage to the French King Francis III.
1560 - Death of Francis III. Mary eventually returns to Scotland to rule it directly for the first time
1566 - Murder of David Riccio (falsely called "Lord David"), secretary to Mary Stewart (rumour had it that he was her lover, but there is no evidence of this)
1567 - Murder of Henry, Lord Darnley, Mary's husband (he was in a house which blew up, but from the state of his body it appears that he was dead before the explosion). Mary Stewart soon after (forcibly?) married to James Hepburn, the fourth Earl of Bothwell (here called "Bodwell"). She was deposed not long after
1568 - Mary escapes to England
1578 - Death of Bothwell
1587 - Execution of Mary Stewart by Elizabeth I of England
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Child 174, "Earl Bothwell" (1 text)
Hales/Furnival-BishopPercysFolioManuscript, volume II, pp. 260-264, "Earl Bodwell" (1 text)
Percy/Wheatley-ReliquesOfAncientEnglishPoetry II, pp. 213-218, "The Murder of the King of Scots" (1 text)
Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory, pp. 95-97, "Earl Bothwell" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSPercyFolio}, The Percy Folio, London, British Library, MS. Additional 27879, page 272
Roud #4004
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mary Hamilton [Child 173]" (subject of Mary Stewart)
NOTES [666 words]: According to Fowler p. 158 n. 25, this is one of eighteen ballads in the Child collection found only in the Percy Folio. Rollins, p. 161, speculates that his item #1843, entitled "concerning the murder of the late kinge of Scottes," registered March 24, 1579 by Thomas Gosson, is this piece. The date makes this possible, but it seems not unlikely that there were multiple items about the murder of Henry Lord Darnley, so there is no real reason to think them the same. In any case, several of the Stuart kings were murdered prior to Darnley, and were probably the subject of songs, although there would obviously be less reason to print such an item in 1579.
A much fuller account of the events here is given in the notes to "Mary Hamilton" (Child #173), which is worth reading in this context, but I'll summarize here, describing only the more likely versions of the history; many more of the uncertainties are discussed in "Mary Hamilton."
Henry Lord Darnley was Mary Stuart's cousin (and heir to the English throne if she remained childless), and after their marriage he was addressed as King (although never formally granted the crown matrimonial -- that is, if Mary died before Darnley, he would not become king in his own right; the crown would pass to her children; Lyon, pp. 190-191). Darnley is thus the "king" of this ballad and Mary Stuart the Queen. The Queen of England is, of course, Elizabeth I (reigned 1558-1603). Mary Stuart was Elizabeth's heir under strict primogeniture, although Henry VIII had barred her branch of the family in his will (Lyon, p. 177).
Darnley was Mary's second husband -- she had earlier been married to Francis II of France, who however died young (Magnusson, pp. 332-333). Mary's and Darnley's relationship seems to have started with passion -- Mary was a very passionate woman -- but cooled extremely quickly. The murder of Riccio at the hands of Darnley and his allies is believed to have been perpetrated by the toy king, among others, to increase his own power (Oram, pp. 255-256).
Darnley's turn came not long after. He had been ill -- it has been suggested that the cause was syphilis (Magnusson, p. 356) and had been recovering at a house called Kirk o the Field. Mary visited him there, but after she left, the house exploded (Magnusson, p. 357). Darnley's dead body was found in the wreckage.
An investigation determined that Darnley had been killed before the explosion -- there were no marks on his body (Oram, p. 256). Contrary to the song, however, it was believed he was suffocated, not hanged.
The person directly responsible has never been determined (Oram, p. 257); some have blamed Mary herself. Suspicion at hte time, however, pointed directly at Earl Bothwell (Magnusson, p. 358). He was actually tried -- but controlled the proceedings and was easily able to secure acquittal (Magnusson, p. 358). It was Mary's response that brought her down: For some inexplicable reason, she voluntarily married Bothwell (Magnusson, p. 359; Oram, p. 257). Things fell apart rapidly after than, and Mary, her government in tatters, soon had to flee to England, leaving her baby son James VI as king (Magnusson, pp. 360-363). She would end up in the hands of Elizabeth I, eventually to be executed for conspiring against that monarch.
It is a tragic and regrettable story -- the more so since almost all of it was the result of Mary's own mistakes.
There is at least one biography of Bothwell, Humphrey Drummond, The Queen's Man: Mary Queen of Scots and the Fourth Earl of Bothwell -- Lovers or Villians?, Leslie Frewin of London, 1975. Yes, that's the actual title! -- it seems to have been conformed to the Luna Lovegood style book. It has no footnotes or index, and an extremely high number of small errors; I finally decided it was so unreliable that I would not cite it here.
(A spelling note: The Scottish spelling of Mary's name was "Stewart." Since, however, she spent much of her youth in France, she used the French spelling "Stuart.") - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.7
File: C174

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