Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / Bittisode 016: The Murder of Lord Darnley - Scotland's Oldest Cold Case

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Bittisode 016: The Murder of Lord Darnley - Scotland's Oldest Cold Case · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

0:00
Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave of media podcast. Hi everybody,
0:19
Speaker 1: and welcome to Who Did What Now? The history podcast.
0:22
Speaker 1: That's not your history class bitty, So it's the little
0:26
Speaker 1: bits of history that an't quite find anywhere else. And
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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Kerry Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books. Now,
0:35
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago I did touch on the mysterious
0:39
Speaker 1: death of Lord Darnley. So this is Henry Stuart, the
0:43
Speaker 1: King Consort of Scotland, and he is the second husband
0:48
Speaker 1: of three two Mary, Queen of Scots Mary Stuart. Now
0:52
Speaker 1: you're thinking, well, they have the same surname and she's
0:55
Speaker 1: the queen, so she shouldn't take his surname. Well, you're
1:00
Speaker 1: correct in that, gentle listener, you are. So they were cousins.
1:08
Speaker 1: I know you're not surprised because this is royal people.
1:12
Speaker 1: This is those are royal people, and you know the
1:15
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, so you know they're gonna be They're gonna
1:18
Speaker 1: be related. And that's the thing about Royalty is they
1:21
Speaker 1: had this weird obsession with keeping the bloodlines pure. I
1:26
Speaker 1: mean that's not the case in this case, but for
1:28
Speaker 1: a lot of it, it's like we need to keep
1:31
Speaker 1: the bloodlines pure, which is how these family trees end
1:35
Speaker 1: up trunning into a wreath. So this has continued for
1:40
Speaker 1: a long time, even up until at least the twentieth century,
1:44
Speaker 1: but maybe more depending on stuff. But yeah, yeah, So
1:50
Speaker 1: Henry Stewart, right, he's a couple of years younger than Mary,
1:54
Speaker 1: and because both on his mother's side and his father's side,
1:59
Speaker 1: he had can to like the crown, right, so he
2:04
Speaker 1: was in the line of succession. He was pretty far
2:07
Speaker 1: down it, but he was in it. And he was
2:11
Speaker 1: raised you know, knowing this and believing. You know, I
2:18
Speaker 1: know this is probably hard for you to believe, but
2:21
Speaker 1: he grew up believing that the world owed him a living,
2:25
Speaker 1: This rich nobleman was convinced and trained and conditioned to
2:35
Speaker 1: believe that he was the sun and the earth revolved
2:39
Speaker 1: around him, and that he was deserving of the crown
2:45
Speaker 1: and the throne. And so he was raised in that manner.
2:50
Speaker 1: And so when he was like thirteen, he gets sent
2:54
Speaker 1: over to Mary, who's in France, right, She's she's marrying
2:58
Speaker 1: the Dauphin. And he goes over because his parents are
3:03
Speaker 1: currently residing in England to their English subjects, and they
3:07
Speaker 1: don't have their lands in Scotland. And they want their
3:10
Speaker 1: lands in Scotland, so they send their teenage son over
3:13
Speaker 1: there to kind of try and well couldjole Mary into
3:19
Speaker 1: either letting them have their land or at the very
3:21
Speaker 1: least putting him in Mary's sights. Because it's no secret
3:27
Speaker 1: that Francis the dauphint He is not a well boy.
3:34
Speaker 1: He's sickly, he's frail. He's shorter than Mary. Like Mary
3:38
Speaker 1: is five eleven, she's very tall, even for then. I
3:42
Speaker 1: think she's the same height as Taylor Swift, you know
3:45
Speaker 1: what I mean. She's a tall lady and he's a
3:49
Speaker 1: good bit smaller than her. But you know, they were friends,
3:53
Speaker 1: they were close. You know, they weren't exactly the zestiest
3:58
Speaker 1: of relationships, but they were. And when Francis becomes king,
4:04
Speaker 1: she becomes the Queen of France. So she's the queen
4:06
Speaker 1: of both France and Scotland. And she was always kind
4:11
Speaker 1: of brought up herself to believe that she was, you know,
4:17
Speaker 1: going to be a queen concert So even though she,
4:22
Speaker 1: you know, was the ruler of Scotland and she was
4:24
Speaker 1: like a few days old, she kind of she always
4:27
Speaker 1: expected to do so with a husband by her side,
4:30
Speaker 1: and she expected to rule like co role with Francis,
4:33
Speaker 1: like that was how she was brought up. That's what
4:36
Speaker 1: she was expecting. Anyway. Not long after they're married and
4:42
Speaker 1: he becomes the king, he falls ill and dies and
4:46
Speaker 1: Mary goes into the forty days of Mourning, which is
4:51
Speaker 1: just the dune thing. She has officially basically lock herself
4:54
Speaker 1: away and mourn. And as she comes out at those
4:59
Speaker 1: forty days, who shows up but Lord Darnley. So he
5:06
Speaker 1: shows up to show his condolences to Mary and offer
5:10
Speaker 1: her bill, you know, his consideration. See, she's single now effectively,
5:18
Speaker 1: I mean she's a widow, but she's single, and that
5:21
Speaker 1: means that he hasn't in and so he has shown
5:24
Speaker 1: himself off because he wants to catch her attention. So
5:28
Speaker 1: he does that, right, And he's six foot, he's handsome,
5:34
Speaker 1: he's charming, and he's just kind of around. But he
5:39
Speaker 1: can't do anything yet anyway, because they have to make
5:42
Speaker 1: sure that she isn't currently pregnant with the future King
5:45
Speaker 1: of France, right, So turns out she's not, And after
5:51
Speaker 1: a while she gets sent back to Scotland and when
5:53
Speaker 1: she's there, she tries to find her own husband, like
5:57
Speaker 1: she tries to marry I think the Prince of Spain,
6:01
Speaker 1: but the King of Spain basically vetos it. He's like, Nope,
6:05
Speaker 1: not happening, ah, because she's Catholic and she wants to
6:09
Speaker 1: make another Catholic alliance. So it gets to the point
6:13
Speaker 1: where Queen Elizabeth she generally approves of Lord Darnley sort
6:21
Speaker 1: of making his making his step in right because he's
6:25
Speaker 1: an English subject, so she feels like she has power
6:28
Speaker 1: over him, right, and he's he's noble, but he's not
6:33
Speaker 1: like very noble. He's not a king, he doesn't have
6:36
Speaker 1: massive power. And so this is quite comforting to Elizabeth
6:42
Speaker 1: because she is consistently paranoid that someone's going to take
6:47
Speaker 1: her throne. And she knows that because she's Protestant and
6:50
Speaker 1: because Mary's Catholic, there are people who want her on
6:55
Speaker 1: the throne. They're gonna want her to take her place,
6:58
Speaker 1: and she knows this, and so initially she's she's quite
7:02
Speaker 1: supportive of their you know, communication. So her and Henry
7:07
Speaker 1: they're courting and whatnot, and they are causing just a
7:11
Speaker 1: scene because they're partying and dancing and doing sort of
7:15
Speaker 1: like fun stuff at court and he is very charming
7:21
Speaker 1: and he's wooing her, and her put this like she
7:26
Speaker 1: refers to him as being like one of the lustiest
7:30
Speaker 1: like men, like he's so lusty, which I'm not surprised
7:33
Speaker 1: at because her first husband was a frail, sick, young
7:38
Speaker 1: and like he was inexperienced and you know, unwell and
7:44
Speaker 1: it was consistent, right, But this is a strong, viril, exciting,
7:50
Speaker 1: charming man. He can hunt with her and horse ride
7:52
Speaker 1: and dance and they can chat and they're having the
7:57
Speaker 1: best time and yeah, so yeah, he's definitely, you know,
8:04
Speaker 1: he's definitely a horny fellow because he's like nineteen as well,
8:07
Speaker 1: he's a teenager. Like teenage teenage boys are some of
8:12
Speaker 1: the just, i don't know, randiest like humans in existence.
8:16
Speaker 1: I mean, they're just so full of hormones. But yeah,
8:21
Speaker 1: when they do get married, like this priest is Elizabeth
8:24
Speaker 1: off so much because they didn't ask her permission, because
8:27
Speaker 1: Darnley is a subject of hers and she's like so
8:30
Speaker 1: fucking pissed off. She wants to put him in prison,
8:33
Speaker 1: but like he's married to the Queen of Scotland, so
8:35
Speaker 1: that in happening. So they have a couple of months
8:40
Speaker 1: where things are okay, but it's it's not okay because
8:47
Speaker 1: he's he's Christian, right, the women they're both Christian, they're
8:49
Speaker 1: all Christian, but like he's Catholic like she is, Like
8:52
Speaker 1: he was raised Catholic, but he wasn't like a practicing Catholic.
8:57
Speaker 1: Well he kind of was. Basically he he did whatever
9:01
Speaker 1: religion worked for him at the time, so whicheverone was popular.
9:06
Speaker 1: He wasn't so much religious as he would like go
9:09
Speaker 1: to like a Protestant like Mass, and then you'd go
9:11
Speaker 1: to like a Catholic Mass to sort of appease like
9:14
Speaker 1: the lords and stuff, because there was a Reformation in
9:17
Speaker 1: Scotland and so you had these Protestant lords and these
9:20
Speaker 1: Catholic lords and it was just a lot of back
9:23
Speaker 1: and forth in bullshit and tom fuckery right consistent. So
9:29
Speaker 1: a few months go by and things things are not
9:33
Speaker 1: going well. So this this honeymoon period is clearly over
9:39
Speaker 1: because he is fucking piessed, right, He's mad because Mary
9:48
Speaker 1: isn't allowing him to have the crown matrimonial and if
9:52
Speaker 1: you remember from the Mary Quina Scotts episode a few
9:54
Speaker 1: weeks ago, the whole thing, but the crown matrimonial was
9:57
Speaker 1: that he would be king and have all kingly powers
10:02
Speaker 1: if Mary died, which I don't know about you, but
10:06
Speaker 1: if someone is pushing for that, like at the very
10:09
Speaker 1: beginning of your marriage, that to me is kind of
10:13
Speaker 1: a red flag. I want all the stuff in case
10:17
Speaker 1: you die, new young wife, but of a red flag
10:23
Speaker 1: to say, So, things are going badly. He is out
10:29
Speaker 1: at brothels, he's shagging his way around Edinburgh like he
10:34
Speaker 1: is out in the town, right, and their marriage is
10:41
Speaker 1: kind of on the rocks. But she's Catholic, so that
10:47
Speaker 1: is a whole issue. So it gets to the point
10:50
Speaker 1: where you know, something happens. They reconcile at least once, right.
10:56
Speaker 1: They're both relatively young hormones, I assume, and they do
11:00
Speaker 1: end up shagging enough that she becomes pregnant, and so
11:04
Speaker 1: she is pregnant with Gems, who's going to be like
11:06
Speaker 1: the next King of Scotland. So and when she's pregnant
11:11
Speaker 1: throughout this time, you know, she's still doing all their
11:15
Speaker 1: stuff and she is doing so much more work because
11:19
Speaker 1: he he wants to be a king, but he's doing
11:22
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing, like he's not performing any duties he'd le's
11:27
Speaker 1: shirking all his responsibilities, right, because again he's just too
11:30
Speaker 1: busy drinking and partying and shagging and so like a
11:37
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff would end up being delayed. So if
11:39
Speaker 1: they needed the king's signature and something like, they would
11:42
Speaker 1: have to wait for him to be ready, and he
11:44
Speaker 1: just wouldn't show up to shit. So it got to
11:46
Speaker 1: the point where Mary actually gets a stamp made of
11:50
Speaker 1: his signature because he was just consistently inconsistent so that
11:54
Speaker 1: she could just stamp him on and so that shit
11:57
Speaker 1: would get done. And so she's pregnant, she is still
12:01
Speaker 1: ruling the country, right, and he is an aggressively bitter
12:08
Speaker 1: and paranoid man, and he starts getting really jealous that
12:14
Speaker 1: she is spending all of her time with her private secretary,
12:17
Speaker 1: David Ritzio. And Ritzio is he's he's Catholic too, He's
12:21
Speaker 1: Italian and he's Catholic and he's her private secretary, so shocking.
12:26
Speaker 1: They do spend a lot of time together, and you
12:28
Speaker 1: know what, if you were actually doing your bit as king,
12:32
Speaker 1: you'd probably see him a lot too. So he starts
12:35
Speaker 1: spreading a rumor, right, he and whatever, I don't know,
12:41
Speaker 1: we thought this was a good idea clearly adolescent men
12:45
Speaker 1: should not be making world changing decisions. He starts a
12:50
Speaker 1: rumor that Mary's baby is actually David Ritzio's, like he's
12:56
Speaker 1: convinced himself all of it. Basically, he is pissed, he's mad,
13:01
Speaker 1: he doesn't have her attention, he's mad, he doesn't have
13:04
Speaker 1: any power, and he lashes out as one expects him to,
13:10
Speaker 1: in a fucking batshit way. So he ends up conspiring
13:15
Speaker 1: with a bunch of Protestant lords who could jewel him
13:18
Speaker 1: and convince him and say, well, you know what, we
13:21
Speaker 1: will help you get power. We will make you our
13:25
Speaker 1: king right if we get rid of, you know, the
13:29
Speaker 1: Catholic threat in the country. And so what they do is,
13:34
Speaker 1: when Mary is having supper with David Ritzio, they enter
13:38
Speaker 1: her quarters and her loving husband comes up to her,
13:42
Speaker 1: wraps his arms around her waist, and he's followed by
13:46
Speaker 1: several Protestant lords who grab David Ritzio and stab him,
13:52
Speaker 1: and shit is flying about this room. Mary almost gets
13:55
Speaker 1: hit by a chair and Lord Darnley Henry Stewart doesn't
14:01
Speaker 1: fucking flinch. It's like he doesn't care, right, So what
14:06
Speaker 1: happens is she's like seven months pregnant at the time.
14:10
Speaker 1: We're eight months, she's very, very pregnant at this point,
14:13
Speaker 1: and an act like this happening in front of her.
14:16
Speaker 1: They knew that a big shock could cause an issue
14:21
Speaker 1: with birth, an issue with pregnancy, and that this could
14:24
Speaker 1: be very harmful for Mary and the baby. Like they
14:28
Speaker 1: know this, Like we like to think that people in
14:31
Speaker 1: the past didn't have certain knowledge, but like there was
14:34
Speaker 1: a few things they knew, and this was one of them.
14:37
Speaker 1: So they stab this man, David Ritziel, in front of
14:40
Speaker 1: the Queen, her best friend, her secretary. Right then they
14:46
Speaker 1: drag him out and stab him fifty six times, leaving
14:48
Speaker 1: the king's dabber in his chest. Dabber, No, the king's
14:52
Speaker 1: dagger in his chest as a warning, A dabber a dabber.
14:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, a bunch of Protestant lords, the one
14:59
Speaker 1: just Gottish nobleman just fucking dabbed after stabbing a man
15:03
Speaker 1: in the chest. That's exactly what happened. Yep, yep, no, no,
15:08
Speaker 1: The king's dagger was just thrust into the chest of
15:15
Speaker 1: the very dead David Ritzio, and Mary was then held captive.
15:21
Speaker 1: Like some people try to argue, you know, let's just
15:24
Speaker 1: be a bit more careful, wait until after the birth
15:27
Speaker 1: of the baby, and then do the shit. But no, no, no, no, no, no,
15:31
Speaker 1: that wasn't happening. So within a couple of days, Darnley
15:37
Speaker 1: becomes very aware that the Protestant lords had absolutely, absolutely
15:43
Speaker 1: no intention of making him their king, like he is
15:49
Speaker 1: is made aware by their words and their actions, like
15:53
Speaker 1: he's not exactly a secret, but yet they don't respect him,
15:56
Speaker 1: and he knows it. Now. He knows he's not gonna
15:58
Speaker 1: be their king. He knows that the we're just using
16:00
Speaker 1: him to get to the queen. And so he decides
16:07
Speaker 1: to switch sides and get back with Mary because he
16:10
Speaker 1: knows which side is bread is breed. So he tries
16:13
Speaker 1: to do that, and he manages to convince a few
16:16
Speaker 1: people to get involved, and Mary pretends to go into labor,
16:22
Speaker 1: and so they do this. They escape because they're like,
16:26
Speaker 1: we need the guards to leave the room so that
16:28
Speaker 1: she can she can have you know, a safe birth,
16:31
Speaker 1: somebody fit to the doctors and stuff. And then they
16:33
Speaker 1: just fucking leg it out of there and they get
16:35
Speaker 1: on a horse. We're getting horses, and they gently canter away,
16:39
Speaker 1: like so they don't want to make like a loud
16:40
Speaker 1: noise and make it clear that they're escaping, but they escape.
16:45
Speaker 1: Long story short, they end up excelling some Protestant lords,
16:49
Speaker 1: and Mary takes her place back as the queen right,
16:54
Speaker 1: and then she goes into actual labor and gives birth
16:58
Speaker 1: to James. And it is after this point that that
17:05
Speaker 1: Mary's lords and Mary try to work some stuff out.
17:11
Speaker 1: So for Mary, she needs she needs Darnley to confirm
17:17
Speaker 1: his parentage. She needs him to confirm that he's the
17:19
Speaker 1: dad because her child needs to be legitimate, because her
17:24
Speaker 1: honor has honor. You know, this line of succession, you
17:28
Speaker 1: know it can't be fucked with, right, So they need
17:31
Speaker 1: him to come and say it and prove it. So
17:34
Speaker 1: he comes in, he announces that this is his son
17:36
Speaker 1: and everything, and once he makes his big public declaration,
17:39
Speaker 1: she's like, okay, bye, you need to go away now.
17:42
Speaker 1: I can't be dealing away, right, And so he does.
17:45
Speaker 1: He leaves, and so her and her advisors they all
17:49
Speaker 1: meet to try and deal with the Darnley problem. Because
17:55
Speaker 1: he's he's not he's not great, and because he is
18:00
Speaker 1: this privileged piece of shit who had temper town trips
18:04
Speaker 1: whenever things didn't go his way, I mean, very extreme,
18:08
Speaker 1: very extreme. He also, you know, he accused Mary of
18:13
Speaker 1: having an affair, like he started rumors about her, knowing
18:17
Speaker 1: that this could destroy everything, and he did it anyway.
18:21
Speaker 1: And the advice is trying to like sort out the
18:24
Speaker 1: Darnley problem, and he's, well, he's he's just shitty. But
18:30
Speaker 1: they're Catholic and so they needed to try and get
18:33
Speaker 1: either him to like try and divorce her or he
18:37
Speaker 1: would have to just like disappear. But on the how
18:41
Speaker 1: or why that wasn't quite discussed. But the thing is
18:50
Speaker 1: Darnley threatened, you know that to say that James wasn't
18:56
Speaker 1: his Like he threatened that, and of course that's a
18:59
Speaker 1: big fun issue for Scottish nobility. They can't be having
19:02
Speaker 1: that he's not involved in any of the state's affairs,
19:06
Speaker 1: like she's got the stamp with the signature, because like,
19:09
Speaker 1: I mean, that's beyond lazy. And so she has this
19:12
Speaker 1: meeting at craigmother Castle with her lords to try and
19:15
Speaker 1: figure out what to do, right, So, but she sent
19:18
Speaker 1: him away. She sent him away and then it turns
19:22
Speaker 1: out that he's ill and she's like, okay, okay, he's ill.
19:27
Speaker 1: Turns out what he's ill from is syphilis. So there's
19:33
Speaker 1: every possibility that he could have given this to Mary.
19:39
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't think he did because of her health,
19:42
Speaker 1: but there's every possibility this could have happened. So here's
19:46
Speaker 1: here's the thing. He's staying at his dad's and then
19:49
Speaker 1: he's moved to the Kirkerfield, right it's and he's staying
19:57
Speaker 1: in the old Provst's house and he's there but because
20:00
Speaker 1: Mary went and got him from Glasgow, like she actually
20:03
Speaker 1: went and collected him from his dad's and brought him back,
20:08
Speaker 1: and so she's got him staying there like bank smack
20:10
Speaker 1: in the middle of Edinburgh. And she was supposed to
20:13
Speaker 1: stay there at night because like her and Margaret Beaton,
20:16
Speaker 1: they would like play music and sing there at night.
20:19
Speaker 1: But then that night she was supposed to be staying there,
20:24
Speaker 1: but then she realized that she had a wedding to
20:26
Speaker 1: go to. She went to the wedding of a servant.
20:31
Speaker 1: Can you yeah, yeah, can you imagine I would love
20:34
Speaker 1: to be the interviewer, like the inspector trying to interrogate Mary.
20:41
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, I was. I was at
20:43
Speaker 1: the wedding of a servant, which is totally something a
20:48
Speaker 1: queen would do, by the way. Yeah, yeah, So she
20:54
Speaker 1: ends up going to the wedding of this servant and
20:55
Speaker 1: then heading back to Hollywood, I think. So she out
21:00
Speaker 1: in the castle. She's staying there because it's closer to
21:02
Speaker 1: where the wedding is, but she had stopped in to
21:05
Speaker 1: check and her husband before she left. So she's there
21:09
Speaker 1: and then in the middle of the night, like a crack,
21:13
Speaker 1: a massive sound like shudders through Edinburgh, like everybody hears it,
21:19
Speaker 1: and there are these eleven men that are seen by
21:22
Speaker 1: like three separate witnesses. She's sort of running through talking
21:26
Speaker 1: about traders and whatnot. And as it turns out, so
21:32
Speaker 1: Mary wakes up and she freaks out because she is
21:34
Speaker 1: convinced the castle's under attack, which of course there's a
21:38
Speaker 1: loud explosion, you're convinced it's you know, canons and whatnot.
21:43
Speaker 1: So she's awoken and she's told that Kirkerfield, the provosts
21:47
Speaker 1: at Cirkerfield, is gone. It disappeared. Now the exact location
21:54
Speaker 1: of where this is we're not sure. There is debate.
21:58
Speaker 1: Ever since people were like digging up Colgate and figuring
22:01
Speaker 1: out things, Archaeologists are sort of disputing the exact location.
22:06
Speaker 1: But we know it's in the heart of Edinburgh, we
22:08
Speaker 1: know that much. And so the house smotherings, it's blown
22:12
Speaker 1: to pieces, it's fucking rubble. But what's weird is that
22:22
Speaker 1: Lord Darnley, the King, the King Consort of Scotland, wasn't inside,
22:29
Speaker 1: like he wasn't in the building when it exploded. His
22:34
Speaker 1: body was found a little while away between the house
22:40
Speaker 1: and the orchard. His body is found on the ground.
22:44
Speaker 1: He's in a night shirt and so is his valet.
22:48
Speaker 1: So he and his valet are both in their night
22:52
Speaker 1: shirts on the ground, apparently strangled. So what had happened
22:58
Speaker 1: Now people are really suspicious of Mary because when she
23:02
Speaker 1: found out that her husband was ill, she arranged for
23:05
Speaker 1: a litter to bring him back. So she'd gone got
23:09
Speaker 1: and got the litter, brought him back from Glasgow to Edinburgh,
23:13
Speaker 1: and she was taking care of him, which, considering their
23:17
Speaker 1: tempestuous relationship, is a wee bit of a character. And
23:24
Speaker 1: what else is that he's in this house. He's in
23:27
Speaker 1: the upper floor of the Provost's house in Cirkerfields and
23:34
Speaker 1: will he's been there resting and you know, trying to
23:38
Speaker 1: regain strength or whatever. Maybe she's trying to keep an
23:41
Speaker 1: eye on him for whatever reason. But he's their bedridden
23:46
Speaker 1: and while he's there, people had been filling the cellars
23:52
Speaker 1: of the house with gunpowder, Like what is it? What
23:58
Speaker 1: is it with people and gunpowder and cellars? And at
24:04
Speaker 1: two o'clock in the morning on the tenth of February
24:07
Speaker 1: fifteen sixty seven, kaboom, tire house smothereens now nothing left.
24:14
Speaker 1: Everyone agrees there was nothing left, like there was enough
24:17
Speaker 1: gunpowder in here to destroy an entire building. And so
24:23
Speaker 1: Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, him and his valet, they're beside
24:29
Speaker 1: a pear tree. They're in their night shirts, their arses
24:32
Speaker 1: are hanging out and there's a dagger between them. But
24:36
Speaker 1: neither of them are being stabbed, right, no stabbing. So
24:43
Speaker 1: they believe that they heard something happen. They woke up
24:48
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and they're suspicious. I remember,
24:51
Speaker 1: these are eleven men running through the streets of Edinburgh
24:53
Speaker 1: that they think were involved in the plot. So there's
24:56
Speaker 1: eleven men ran around, clearly made some noise, I mean, yeah,
25:03
Speaker 1: wake up Lord Darnley, and he and his groom is valid.
25:07
Speaker 1: They escape through a window because they're at the top
25:10
Speaker 1: floor of the house, so they think they either climbed
25:13
Speaker 1: it like on a chair or on a rope, but
25:15
Speaker 1: they were noticed, so as they leave, they get strangled
25:23
Speaker 1: and just left and left in their nightgowns just because
25:28
Speaker 1: they're so disrespected they want them to see them. Now,
25:31
Speaker 1: it's kind of implied that they were left together to
25:35
Speaker 1: sort of imply a sort of homosexual relationship now are
25:41
Speaker 1: There are stories that the man was bisexual, but being
25:46
Speaker 1: a member of the LGBT community does not automatily make
25:49
Speaker 1: you an oursehole. This man just happened to be one.
25:53
Speaker 1: And so they believe that the explosion was like the
25:58
Speaker 1: intended like murder, like it was intended to be, you know,
26:03
Speaker 1: the way of it, because you know, there's enough gunpowder
26:09
Speaker 1: to destroy a house. But they managed to get out
26:12
Speaker 1: and flee and escape, and that fucks things up a bit.
26:15
Speaker 1: So they killed them very quickly and easily. But the
26:20
Speaker 1: question is were they killed before the explosion or after
26:24
Speaker 1: the explosion, Like we won't know, Like I think the
26:27
Speaker 1: initial plan was to like kill them and then just
26:31
Speaker 1: like blow the house up, or they thought by blowing
26:34
Speaker 1: the house up, you know, they would kill him. Anyway,
26:36
Speaker 1: but they went like expecting him to escape. So like
26:40
Speaker 1: another theory is that he was on the loo, like
26:42
Speaker 1: because he had so many issues because he was so ill,
26:45
Speaker 1: that he had diarrhea, and that he was on the
26:47
Speaker 1: loo and that was how he managed to escape. But
26:50
Speaker 1: they had chamber pots, so like I don't know, maybe
26:53
Speaker 1: maybe not, but people start getting really suspicious and the
26:57
Speaker 1: first person, I mean, it's like a who's who Scottish nobility,
27:02
Speaker 1: like the prime suspects of this, And it gets a
27:07
Speaker 1: bit weird because like the first person they blame is
27:10
Speaker 1: Mary because they accused Mary of conspiring and that this
27:13
Speaker 1: Craigmuller castle, meaning they had led to this, that she
27:17
Speaker 1: was involved in it. But the main theory actually now
27:24
Speaker 1: at the time, they blame Mary and it was a
27:26
Speaker 1: use for her downfall basically because when she ends up
27:30
Speaker 1: marrying Bothwell, who was the main conspirator, who if he
27:36
Speaker 1: wasn't directly involved in the plot, he was at least
27:39
Speaker 1: adjacent to it, like he was attached somehow, and it
27:43
Speaker 1: was like the Earl of Moray and things like that,
27:46
Speaker 1: all these Protestant lords that wanted to get back at
27:48
Speaker 1: Well him for being a dick and double crossing them,
27:54
Speaker 1: and others just didn't like him because either way, he
27:58
Speaker 1: was bad for Scottish nobility. He wasn't on anybody's side.
28:02
Speaker 1: He was on his own side and that wasn't really
28:04
Speaker 1: approved of. And so when he dies, but Mary she
28:12
Speaker 1: gets a lot of the blame. See, rumor starts swirling
28:16
Speaker 1: that she was behind it, right, which I don't know.
28:19
Speaker 1: It doesn't really make sense to me, because why would
28:22
Speaker 1: she do that when she knows she could be implicated
28:25
Speaker 1: because she's trying to keep Elizabeth Tutor sweet because she
28:28
Speaker 1: wants her to name her as you know, next in
28:32
Speaker 1: the line of succession. Or is she so convinced that
28:36
Speaker 1: she's right that she doesn't anyway. So the prevailing theory
28:42
Speaker 1: is that Maury and the other Protestant lords with Bothwell
28:46
Speaker 1: were involved in this plot. And while Mary's supposed to
28:52
Speaker 1: be doing this forty days the morning she ends up
28:56
Speaker 1: being sent like the seaside, she gets sent away and
28:59
Speaker 1: this is seen sort of her not really mourning the
29:02
Speaker 1: death of her husband. And yes, so this gets to
29:06
Speaker 1: the point where she ends up marrying Bothwell like pretty
29:14
Speaker 1: soon after the death of her second husband, she marries
29:17
Speaker 1: this dude basically he is for said trial, like she
29:21
Speaker 1: organizes a trial in the Privy Council basically says he's
29:25
Speaker 1: not guilty. They're like, no, it wasn't him a So
29:29
Speaker 1: the whole plan was apparently to just get him out
29:33
Speaker 1: of the way, get Bothwell in and have him take
29:36
Speaker 1: control of Mary and have it that way. So when
29:40
Speaker 1: Mary and both Will get married, this just pisses off
29:43
Speaker 1: Elizabeth because now she's convinced that Mary was involved in this,
29:48
Speaker 1: and when she marries Bothwell it doesn't bode well where
29:54
Speaker 1: people just think it's too soon and that it's clearly
29:56
Speaker 1: means that she was fucking things up. But the things
30:01
Speaker 1: Mary was kidnapped and assaulted by both Will and so
30:06
Speaker 1: in order to preserve her honor, she has to marry him.
30:11
Speaker 1: But like the death of Lord Darnley, it leads to
30:17
Speaker 1: all of these issues and eventually turns both Scotland and
30:22
Speaker 1: England against her to the point where like it's the
30:28
Speaker 1: reason that Elizabeth puts her in captivity, it's the reason
30:32
Speaker 1: she ends up imprisoned for like twenty years and it
30:36
Speaker 1: caused her downfall. And like Lord Darnley, Henry Stewart he's
30:41
Speaker 1: an absolute prick, but he was like twenty one at
30:45
Speaker 1: the time, Like he's young, he's young, and and he
30:49
Speaker 1: was probably gonna die as cyphil As anyway, Like it
30:52
Speaker 1: feels like an unnecessary death because he was gonna go,
30:57
Speaker 1: Like he was very very ill, and they were like
31:00
Speaker 1: keeping an eye on him. So what was there to
31:04
Speaker 1: gain for Mary by telling him in this convoluted way?
31:09
Speaker 1: Like what was there again? When they could have just waited,
31:13
Speaker 1: they could have poisoned him. He already had sephalis, like
31:18
Speaker 1: he he was not doing well. Why would his death
31:23
Speaker 1: have to happen by explosion? Like, and what the weird
31:29
Speaker 1: thing is is that he had to have died after
31:31
Speaker 1: the explosion because otherwise, why wouldn't they just put his
31:36
Speaker 1: body in the building and then blow up? Like why
31:40
Speaker 1: would they? Why would they fuck around? It doesn't make sense.
31:45
Speaker 1: It's just weird. It's weird and it bothers me, and
31:47
Speaker 1: I had to share it with all of you. And
31:49
Speaker 1: that's why it's a bitty sword, because it's just I
31:51
Speaker 1: just had to talk about it. But if you liked
31:54
Speaker 1: this bitterisode, feel fit to writing review of five stars.
31:56
Speaker 1: It'd be great if you did. It's just been it's
32:00
Speaker 1: been a bit of a week and I really wanted
32:01
Speaker 1: to tell this story to you and I wanted to
32:02
Speaker 1: share it. And I know it's just a wee bit extra,
32:05
Speaker 1: and I hope you enjoy it. And I can't wait
32:07
Speaker 1: for you to hear next week's episode because I have
32:12
Speaker 1: gone back into a bit of true crime, but it's
32:15
Speaker 1: from the eighteen hundreds and involves a doctor, his wife,
32:23
Speaker 1: and the saltiest jury I have ever read in my life.
32:29
Speaker 1: These these men are just I'm going to reenact some
32:33
Speaker 1: of it for you in the actual episode because it's
32:36
Speaker 1: too good. It's my favorite thing. I cannot do the accents,
32:39
Speaker 1: though I make it help on that. I hope you
32:42
Speaker 1: will have a great weekend and I can't wait to
32:44
Speaker 1: release Tuesday's episode for you. And I'm going to do
32:47
Speaker 1: my best to bring back the berrysodes. They might only
32:50
Speaker 1: come like every fortnight every two weeks. Just well, I
32:54
Speaker 1: try and get stuff done because I'm trying to work
32:56
Speaker 1: on Patreon stuff. I just released the new Patreon my
33:00
Speaker 1: arch and also a bonus discount for Patreon users, so
33:06
Speaker 1: hopefully that will work out well for everybody. And then
33:11
Speaker 1: I have I have a bedtime story coming up on Patreon.
33:17
Speaker 1: I just need to edit it and actually get it up,
33:19
Speaker 1: so that's coming the hood on it what now. I'm
33:23
Speaker 1: also trying to work on doing live shows and getting
33:25
Speaker 1: some tours sorted, but I genuinely don't know where to start.
33:30
Speaker 1: So if anybody has any thoughts or recommendations, feel feel
33:36
Speaker 1: free to message me. The email is the emails down below,
33:40
Speaker 1: but anyway, I will chat to you next time. Adios
33:43
Speaker 1: or revoir w is all my friends, Bye bye