A marriage that destroyed a queen
On 15 May 1567, Mary Queen of Scots married James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, in the great hall of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. It was a Protestant ceremony — remarkable for a devoutly Catholic queen — and it was conducted in an atmosphere of scandal, suspicion, and barely concealed horror. Just three months earlier, Mary's second husband Lord Darnley had been murdered at Kirk o' Field in Edinburgh, blown up by gunpowder in the middle of the night. Bothwell was widely believed to be the killer.
The sequence of events that led to this disastrous marriage reads like a catalogue of political self-destruction. In April, Bothwell had abducted Mary — possibly with her consent, possibly not — and taken her to Dunbar Castle. He had divorced his own wife just twelve days before the wedding. A sham trial had acquitted him of Darnley's murder, convincing nobody. The marriage bond, signed by a number of nobles, was widely seen as coerced. Whether Mary was a willing participant, a victim of Bothwell's ambition, or a woman driven to desperate choices by impossible circumstances has been debated for four and a half centuries.
The reaction was immediate and devastating. The Scottish nobility turned against Mary almost unanimously. Protestant and Catholic lords alike were appalled. The Confederate Lords, as they styled themselves, raised an army. On 15 June, barely a month after the wedding, Mary and Bothwell confronted the lords at Carberry Hill near Musselburgh. There was no battle — Mary's supporters melted away, and she surrendered on the promise of honourable treatment. Bothwell fled and eventually died insane in a Danish prison, chained to a pillar.
Mary was taken to Edinburgh, where crowds lined the Royal Mile screaming "Burn the whore!" She was imprisoned at Lochleven Castle and forced to abdicate on 24 July. The Bothwell marriage had cost Mary her crown, her reputation, and her freedom. It remains the most controversial episode in the life of Scotland's most controversial monarch — a single decision that turned a queen into a prisoner and changed the course of British history.