Bothwell: The Last Exile

James Hepburn, fourth Earl of Bothwell and third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, fades out of history after their confrontation with the Scottish rebels at Carberry Hill. Henceforward it is Mary who holds the attention of historians and romantic novelists.

So long as she was alive, whether at liberty or in close custody, she was a political force of great danger to Elizabeth. Bothwell, however, imprisoned likewise, was for a time no more than a pawn held in reserve by the Danish King, apparently for purposes that had nothing to do with either Scotland or England.

History has not hesitated to accept his enemies’ view of Bothwell’s character: ‘a monstrous beast, of all men that now exist or ever will, the most wicked’, and ‘the turbulent, licentious Earl, the worst man at the Court’. The intemperance of their language is sufficient to show how formidable an opponent they found him. The more convincing judgement of James Maxwell, Lord Herries, is scarcely less damning: ‘high in his own conceit, proud, vicious and vainglorious above measure, one who would attempt anything out of ambition’.