1561-1566
David Rizzio. Embassadors. Rizzio’s
position. Rizzio French secretary. Displeasure
of the Scotch nobles. They treat Rizzio
with scorn and contempt. He consults Melville. Melville’s
counsel. Melville and the queen. Rizzio’s
religion. His services to Mary. Rizzio’s
power and influence. His intimacy with
Mary. Rizzio’s exertion in favor of
the marriage. Rizzio and Darnley. Darnley
greatly disliked. His unreasonable wishes. The
crown matrimonial. Darnley’s ambition. Darnley’s
brutality. Signatures. Coins. Rizzio
sides with Mary. Darnley and Ruthven. A
combination. The secretary and his queen. Nature
of Mary’s attachment. Plot to assassinate
Rizzio. Plan of Holyrood House. Description. Apartments. Morton
and Ruthven. Mary at supper. Arrangement
of the conspirators. The little upper room. Murder
of Rizzio. Conversation. Violence
of the conspirators. Mary a prisoner. Darnley’s
usurpation. Melville. Mary appeals
to the provost. Mary defeats the conspirators. Birth
of her son.
Mary had a secretary named David Rizzio.
He was from Savoy, a country among the Alps.
It was the custom then, as it is now, for the various
governments of Europe to have embassadors at the courts
of other governments, to attend to any negotiations,
or to the transaction of any other business which
might arise between their respective sovereigns.
These embassadors generally traveled with pomp and
parade, taking sometimes many attendants with them.
The embassador from Savoy happened to bring with him
to Scotland, in his train, this young man, Rizzio,
in 1561, that is, just about the time that Mary herself
returned to Scotland. He was a handsome and agreeable
young man, but his rank and position were such that,
for some years, he attracted no attention.
He was, however, quite a singer, and
they used to bring him in sometimes to sing in Mary’s
presence with three other singers. His voice,
being a good bass, made up the quartette. Mary
saw him in this way, and as he was a good French and
Italian scholar, and was amiable and intelligent,
she gradually became somewhat interested in him.
Mary had, at this time, among her other officers, a
French secretary, who wrote for her, and transacted
such other business as required a knowledge of the
French language. This French secretary went home,
and Mary appointed Rizzio to take his place.
The native Scotchmen in Mary’s
court were naturally very jealous of the influence
of these foreigners. They looked down with special
contempt on Rizzio, considering him of mean rank and
position, and wholly destitute of all claim to the
office of confidential secretary to the queen.
Rizzio increased the difficulty by not acting with
the reserve and prudence which his delicate situation
required. The nobles, proud of their own rank
and importance, were very much displeased at the degree
of intimacy and confidence to which Mary admitted
him. They called him an intruder and an upstart.
When they came in and found him in conversation with
the queen, or whenever he accosted her freely, as
he was wont to do, in their presence, they were irritated
and vexed. They did not dare to remonstrate with
Mary, but they took care to express their feelings
of resentment and scorn to the subject of them in
every possible way. They scowled upon him.
They directed to him looks of contempt. They turned
their backs upon him, and jostled him in a rude and
insulting manner. All this was a year or two
before Mary’s marriage.
Rizzio consulted Melville, asking
his judgment as to what he had better do. He
said that, being Mary’s French secretary, he
was necessarily a good deal in her company, and the
nobles seemed displeased with it; but he did not see
what he could do to diminish or avoid the difficulty.
Melville replied that the nobles had an opinion that
he not only performed the duties of French secretary,
but that he was fast acquiring a great ascendency in
respect to all other affairs. Melville further
advised him to be much more cautious in his bearing
than he had been, to give place to the nobles when
they were with him in the presence of the queen, to
speak less freely, and in a more unassuming manner,
and to explain the whole case to the queen herself,
that she might co-operate with him in pursuing a course
which would soothe and conciliate the irritated and
angry feelings of the nobles. Melville said, moreover,
that he had himself, at one time, at a court on the
Continent, been placed in a very similar situation
to Rizzio’s, and had been involved in the same
difficulties, but had escaped the dangers which threatened
him by pursuing himself the course which he now recommended.
Rizzio seemed to approve of this counsel,
and promised to follow it; but he afterward told Melville
that he had spoken to the queen on the subject, and
that she would not consent to any change, but wished
every thing to go on as it had done. Now the queen,
having great confidence in Melville, had previously
requested him, that if he saw any thing in her deportment,
or management, or measures, which he thought was wrong,
frankly to let her know it, that she might be warned
in season, and amend. He thought that this was
an occasion which required this friendly interposition,
and he took an opportunity to converse with her on
the subject in a frank and plain, but still very respectful
manner. He made but little impression. Mary
said that Rizzio was only her private French secretary;
that he had nothing to do with the affairs of the
government; that, consequently, his appointment and
his office were her own private concern alone, and
she should continue to act according to her own pleasure
in managing her own affairs, no matter who was displeased
by it.
It is probable that the real ground
of offense which the nobles had against Rizzio was
jealousy of his superior influence with the queen.
They, however, made his religion a great ground of
complaint against him. He was a Catholic, and
had come from a strong Catholic country, having been
born in the northern part of Italy. The Italian
language was his mother tongue. They professed
to believe that he was a secret emissary of the pope,
and was plotting with Mary to bring Scotland back
under the papal dominion.
In the mean time, Rizzio devoted himself
with untiring zeal and fidelity to the service of
the queen. He was indefatigable in his efforts
to please her, and he made himself extremely useful
to her in a thousand different ways. In fact,
his being the object of so much dislike and aversion
on the part of others, made him more and more exclusively
devoted to the queen, who seemed to be almost his only
friend. She, too, was urged, by what she considered
the unreasonable and bitter hostility of which her
favorite was the object, to bestow upon him greater
and greater favors. In process of time, one after
another of those about the court, finding that Rizzio’s
influence and power were great and were increasing,
began to treat him with respect, and to ask for his
assistance in gaining their ends. Thus Rizzio
found his position becoming stronger, and the probability
began to increase that he would at length triumph over
the enemies who had set their faces so strongly against
him.
Though he had been at first inclined
to follow Melville’s advice, yet he afterward
fell in cordially with the policy of the queen, which
was, to press boldly forward, and put down with a strong
hand the hostility which had been excited against
him. Instead, therefore, of attempting to conceal
the degree of favor which he enjoyed with the queen,
he boasted of and displayed it. He would converse
often and familiarly with her in public. He dressed
magnificently, like persons of the highest rank, and
had many attendants. In a word, he assumed all
the airs and manners of a person of high distinction
and commanding influence. The external signs
of hostility to him were thus put down, but the fires
of hatred burned none the less fiercely below, and
only wanted an opportunity to burst into an explosion.
Things were in this state at the time
of the negotiations in respect to Darnley’s
marriage; for, in order to take up the story of Rizzio
from the beginning, we have been obliged to go back
in our narrative. Rizzio exerted all his influence
in favor of the marriage, and thus both strengthened
his influence with Mary and made Darnley his friend.
He did all in his power to diminish the opposition
to it, from whatever quarter it might come, and rendered
essential service in the correspondence with France,
and in the negotiations with the pope for obtaining
the necessary dispensation. In a word, he did
a great deal to promote the marriage, and to facilitate
all the arrangements for carrying it into effect.
Darnley relied, therefore, upon Rizzio’s
friendship and devotion to his service, forgetting
that, in all these past efforts, Rizzio was acting
out of regard to Mary’s wishes, and not to his
own. As long, therefore, as Mary and Darnley
continued to pursue the same objects and aims, Rizzio
was the common friend and ally of both. The enemies
of the marriage, however, disliked Rizzio more than
ever.
As Darnley’s character developed
itself gradually after his marriage, every body began
to dislike him also. He was unprincipled and
vicious, as well as imperious and proud. His friendship
for Rizzio was another ground of dislike to him.
The ancient nobles, who had been accustomed to exercise
the whole control in the public affairs of Scotland,
found themselves supplanted by this young Italian
singer, and an English boy not yet out of his teens.
They were exasperated beyond all bounds, but yet they
contrived, for a while, to conceal and dissemble their
anger.
It was not very long after the marriage
of Mary and Darnley before they began to become alienated
from each other. Mary did every thing for her
husband which it was reasonable for him to expect her
to do. She did, in fact, all that was in her
power. But he was not satisfied. She made
him the sharer of her throne. He wanted her to
give up her place to him, and thus make him
the sole possessor of it. He wanted what was
called the crown matrimonial. The crown
matrimonial denoted power with which, according
to the old Scottish law, the husband of a queen could
be invested, enabling him to exercise the royal prerogative
in his own name, both during the life of the queen
and also after her death, during the continuance of
his own life. This made him, in fact, a king
for life, exalting him above his wife, the real sovereign,
through whom alone he derived his powers.
Now Darnley was very urgent to have
the crown matrimonial conferred upon him. He
insisted upon it. He would not submit to any delay.
Mary told him that this was something entirely beyond
her power to grant. The crown matrimonial could
only be bestowed by a solemn enactment of the Scottish
Parliament. But Darnley, impatient and reckless,
like a boy as he was, would not listen to any excuse,
but teased and tormented Mary about the crown matrimonial
continually.
Besides the legal difficulties in
the way of Mary’s conferring these powers upon
Darnley by her own act, there were other difficulties,
doubtless, in her mind, arising from the character
of Darnley, and his unfitness, which was every day
becoming more manifest, to be intrusted with such
power. Only four months after his marriage, his
rough and cruel treatment of Mary became intolerable.
One day, at a house in Edinburgh, where the king and
queen, and other persons of distinction had been invited
to a banquet, Darnley, as was his custom, was beginning
to drink very freely, and was trying to urge other
persons there to drink to excess. Mary expostulated
with him, endeavoring to dissuade him from such a
course. Darnley resented these kind cautions,
and retorted upon her in so violent and brutal a manner
as to cause her to leave the room and the company in
tears.
When they were first married, Mary
had caused her husband to be proclaimed king, and
had taken some other similar steps to invest him with
a share of her own power. But she soon found that
in doing this she had gone to the extreme of propriety,
and that, for the future, she must retreat rather
than advance. Accordingly, although he was associated
with her in the supreme power, she thought it best
to keep precedence for her own name before
his, in the exercise of power. On the coins which
were struck, the inscription was, “In the name
of the Queen and King of Scotland.”
In signing public documents, she insisted on having
her name recorded first. These things irritated
and provoked Darnley more and more. He was not
contented to be admitted to a share of the sovereign
power which the queen possessed in her own right alone.
He wished to supplant her in it entirely.
Rizzio, of course, took Queen Mary’s
part in these questions. He opposed the grant
of the crown matrimonial. He opposed all other
plans for increasing or extending in any way Darnley’s
power. Darnley was very much incensed against
him, and earnestly desired to find some way to effect
his destruction. He communicated these feelings
to a certain fierce and fearless nobleman named Ruthven,
and asked his assistance to contrive some way to take
vengeance upon Rizzio.
Ruthven was very much pleased to hear
this. He belonged to a party of the lords of
the court who also hated Rizzio, though they had hated
Darnley besides so much that they had not communicated
to him their hostility to the other. Ruthven
and his friends had not joined Murray and the other
rebels in opposing the marriage of Darnley. They
had chosen to acquiesce in it, hoping to maintain
an ascendency over Darnley, regarding him, as they
did, as a mere boy, and thus retain their power.
When they found, however, that he was so headstrong
and unmanageable, and that they could do nothing with
him, they exerted all their influence to have Murray
and the other exiled lords pardoned and allowed to
return, hoping to combine with them after their return,
and then together to make their power superior to that
of Darnley and Rizzio. They considered Darnley
and Rizzio both as their rivals and enemies.
When they found, therefore, that Darnley was plotting
Rizzio’s destruction, they felt a very strong
as well as a very unexpected pleasure.
Thus, among all the jealousies, and
rivalries, and bitter animosities of which the court
was at this time the scene, the only true and honest
attachment of one heart to another seems to have been
that of Mary to Rizzio. The secretary was faithful
and devoted to the queen, and the queen was grateful
and kind to the secretary. There has been some
question whether this attachment was an innocent or
a guilty one. A painting, still hanging in the
private rooms which belonged to Mary in the palace
at Holyrood, represents Rizzio as young and very handsome;
on the other hand, some of the historians of the day,
to disprove the possibility of any guilty attachment,
say that he was rather old and ugly. We may ourselves,
perhaps, safely infer, that unless there were something
specially repulsive in his appearance and manner,
such a heart as Mary’s, repelled so roughly from
the one whom it was her duty to love, could not well
have resisted the temptation to seek a retreat and
a refuge in the kind devotedness of such a friend
as Rizzio proved himself to be to her.
However this may be, Ruthven made
such suggestions to Darnley as goaded him to madness,
and a scheme was soon formed for putting Rizzio to
death. The plan, after being deliberately matured
in all its arrangements, was carried into effect in
the following manner. The event occurred early
in the spring of 1566, less than a year after Mary’s
marriage.
Morton, who was one of the accomplices,
assembled a large force of his followers, consisting,
it is said, of five hundred men, which he posted in
the evening near the palace, and when it was dark he
moved them silently into the central court of the
palace, through the entrance E, as marked upon
the following plan.
E. Principal entrance. Co.
Court of the palace. PP. Piazza around
it. AA. Various apartments built in modern
times. H. Great hall, used now as a gallery of
portraits. T. Stair-case. o. Entrance to
Mary’s apartments, second floor. R. Ante-room.
B. Mary’s bed-room. D. Dressing-room in
one of the towers. C. Cabinet, or small room in
the other tower. SS. Stair-cases in
the wall. d. Small entrance under the tapestry.
Ch. Royal chapel. m. Place where Mary
and Darnley stood at the marriage ceremony. Pa.
Passage-way leading to the chapel.]
Mary was, at the time of these occurrences
in the little room marked C, which was built
within one of the round towers which form a part of
the front of the building, and which are very conspicuous
in any view of the palace of Holyrood. This room
was on the third floor, and it opened into Mary’s
bed-room, marked B. Darnley had a room of his
own immediately below Mary’s. There was
a little door, d, leading from Mary’s
bed-room to a private stair-case built in the wall.
This stair-case led down into Darnley’s room;
and there was also a communication from this place
down through the whole length of the castle to the
royal chapel, marked Ch, the building which
is now in ruins. Behind Mary’s bed-room
was an ante-room, R, with a door, o,
leading to the public stair-case by which her apartments
were approached. All these apartments still remain,
and are explored annually by thousands of visitors.
It was about seven o’clock in
the evening that the conspirators were to execute
their purpose. Morton remained below in the court
with his troops, to prevent any interruption.
He held a high office under the queen, which authorized
him to bring a force into the court of the palace,
and his doing so did not alarm the inmates. Ruthven
was to head the party which was to commit the crime.
He was confined to his bed with sickness at the time,
but he was so eager to have a share in the pleasure
of destroying Rizzio, that he left his bed, put on
a suit of armor, and came forth to the work.
The armor is preserved in the little apartment which
was the scene of the tragedy to this day.
Mary was at supper. Two near
relatives and friends of hers a gentleman
and a lady and Rizzio, were with her.
The room is scarcely large enough to contain a greater
number. There were, however, two or three servants
in attendance at a side-table. Darnley came up,
about eight o’clock, to make observations.
The other conspirators were concealed in his room
below, and it was agreed that if Darnley found any
cause for not proceeding with the plan, he was to return
immediately and give them notice. If, therefore,
he should not return, after the lapse of a reasonable
time, they were to follow him up the private stair-case,
prepared to act at once and decidedly as soon as they
should enter the room. They were to come up by
this private stair-case, in order to avoid being intercepted
or delayed by the domestics in attendance in the ante-room,
R, of which there would have been danger if
they had ascended by the public stair-case at T.
Finding that Darnley did not return,
Ruthven with his party ascended the stairs, entered
the bed-chamber through the little door at d,
and thence advanced to the door of the cabinet, his
heavy iron armor clanking as he came. The queen,
alarmed, demanded the meaning of this intrusion.
Ruthven, whose countenance was grim and ghastly from
the conjoined influence of ferocious passion and disease,
said that they meant no harm to her, but they only
wanted the villain who stood near her. Rizzio
perceived that his hour was come. The attendants
flocked in to the assistance of the queen and Rizzio.
Ruthven’s confederates advanced to join in the
attack, and there ensued one of those scenes of confusion
and terror, of which those who witness it have no
distinct recollection on looking back upon it when
it is over. Rizzio cried out in an agony of fear,
and sought refuge behind the queen; the queen herself
fainted; the table was overturned; and Rizzio, having
received one wound from a dagger, was seized and dragged
out through the bed-chamber, B, and through
the ante-room, R, to the door, o, where
he fell down, and was stabbed by the murderers again
and again, till he ceased to breathe.
After this scene was over, Darnley
and Ruthven came coolly back into Mary’s chamber,
and, as soon as Mary recovered her senses, began to
talk of and to justify their act of violence, without,
however, telling her that Rizzio had been killed.
Mary was filled with emotions of resentment and grief.
She bitterly reproached Darnley for such an act of
cruelty as breaking into her apartment with armed men,
and seizing and carrying off her friend. She told
him that she had raised him from his comparatively
humble position to make him her husband, and now this
was his return. Darnley replied that Rizzio had
supplanted him in her confidence, and thwarted all
his plans, and that Mary had shown herself utterly
regardless of his wishes, under the influence of Rizzio.
He said that, since Mary had made herself his wife,
she ought to have obeyed him, and not put herself in
such a way under the direction of another. Mary
learned Rizzio’s fate the next day.
The violence of the conspirators did
not stop with the destruction of Rizzio. Some
of Mary’s high officers of government, who were
in the palace at the time, were obliged to make their
escape from the windows to avoid being seized by Morton
and his soldiers in the court. Among them was
the Earl Bothwell, who tried at first to drive Morton
out, but in the end was obliged himself to flee.
Some of these men let themselves down by ropes from
the outer windows. When the uproar and confusion
caused by this struggle was over, they found that
Mary, overcome with agitation and terror, was showing
symptoms of fainting again, and they concluded to
leave her. They informed her that she must consider
herself a prisoner, and, setting a guard at the door
of her apartment, they went away, leaving her to spend
the night in an agony of resentment, anxiety, and
fear.
Lord Darnley took the government at
once entirely into his own hands. He prorogued
Parliament, which was then just commencing a session,
in his own name alone. He organized an administration,
Mary’s officers having fled. In saying
that he did these things, we mean, of course,
that the conspirators did them in his name. He
was still but a boy, scarcely out of his teens, and
incapable of any other action in such an emergency
but a blind compliance with the wishes of the crafty
men who had got him into their power by gratifying
his feelings of revenge. They took possession
of the government in his name, and kept Mary a close
prisoner.
The murder was committed on Saturday
night. The next morning, of course, was Sunday.
Melville was going out of the palace about ten o’clock.
As he passed along under the window where Mary was
confined, she called out to him for help. He
asked her what he could do for her. She told
him to go to the provost of Edinburgh, the officer
corresponding to the mayor of a city in this country,
and ask him to call out the city guard, and come and
release her from her captivity. “Go quick,”
said she, “or the guards will see you and stop
you.” Just then the guards came up and
challenged Melville. He told them he was going
to the city to attend church; so they let him pass
on. He went to the provost, and delivered Mary’s
message. The provost said he dared not, and could
not interfere.
So Mary remained a prisoner.
Her captivity, however, was of short duration.
In two days Darnley came to see her. He persuaded
her that he himself had had nothing to do with the
murder of Rizzio. Mary, on the other hand, persuaded
him that it was better for them to be friends to each
other than to live thus in a perpetual quarrel.
She convinced him that Ruthven and his confederates
were not, and could not be, his friends. They
would only make him the instrument of obtaining the
objects of their ambition. Darnley saw this.
He felt that he as well as Mary were in the rebels’
power. They formed a plan to escape together.
They succeeded. They fled to a distant castle,
and collected a large army, the people every where
flocking to the assistance of the queen. They
returned to Edinburgh in a short time in triumph.
The conspirators fled. Mary then decided to pardon
and recall the old rebels, and expend her anger henceforth
on the new; and thus the Earl Murray, her brother,
was brought back, and once more restored to favor.
After settling all these troubles,
Mary retired to Edinburgh Castle, where it was supposed
she could be best protected, and in the month of July
following the murder of Rizzio, she gave birth to a
son. In this son was afterward accomplished all
her fondest wishes, for he inherited in the end both
the English and Scottish crowns.