The Bones in the Wall: An Edinburgh Castle Mystery

Engraved print of Edinburgh Castle, 1833

All ancient buildings have secrets, and Edinburgh Castle is no exception.  One of its more obscure mysteries was recorded in the “Glasgow Courier” on August 14, 1830:

“On Wednesday last, [August 11] as the masons were knocking off the loose lime, previous to re-casting the old palace in the Castle, they discovered a hole in the wall. The workmen described it as being three feet and a half long, one foot two inches high and one foot in breadth. Between the end of the opening and the surface of the wall (it is the front of the palace) there was a stone about six inches thick and about the same length which was supposed, from the thickness of the wall, to be between the extremity of the opening and the inner surface of the wall or room. In this cavity was found several human bones, some pieces of oak supposed to have been parts of a coffin, and bits of woollen cloth, in all probability the lining of it. On the lining the letter J was distinctly visible, and some of the masons said they saw the letter G also. The bones appear to have been those of a young child. Some of them are in the possession of the person from whom we received this communication. It is right to add that the opening was across the wall.”

All anyone could say about this strange find is that those bones had obviously been in that wall in the old Royal Apartments for a very long time.  At a February 14, 1831 meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, an account written by one Captain J.E. Alexander was read.  According to Alexander, the shroud was of “Silk and Cloth of Gold, having the letter J embroidered thereupon.”  (Note: other observers thought the letter was an “I”.)  At that same meeting, the Society was presented with several of the bones.  In July of that same year, Sergeant Major Dingwall sent the Society more of the ancient bones and a piece of the coffin.  Unfortunately for historians, the physical evidence of the burial--cloth, coffin, bones, and all--have been lost over the centuries.

Over the years, this simple--if extremely weird--discovery inevitably had all manner of romantic fictions and inaccurate details attached to it.  Castle tour guides were fond of telling visitors that the tiny coffin held the remains of a stillborn child of Mary Queen of Scots, with some newborn baby smuggled in as a substitute.  In 1909, an antiquary named Walter B. Woodgate went even further.  As he thought James VI bore a strong resemblance to the Earl of Mar, he proposed that the Countess of Mar was James’ real mother.  Others have suggested that the bones were those of a “foundation sacrifice”--the body of some small animal buried to ward off evil spirits.  More prosaically, it has been theorized that the box or coffin of bones was a reliquary, although this notion does not explain why a holy relic would be so ignominiously walled up.  Jan Bondeson, who examined this puzzling story in his 2018 book "Phillimore's Edinburgh," threw cold water on all those theories, but did not venture to offer one of his own.

The many embroideries that have grown around the original discovery have caused many historians to automatically assume that the discovery of the secret burial never actually happened.  This is regrettable, because there is a genuine mystery here, one well worth contemplating, even if finding a solution is almost certainly impossible.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

So, you assumed the epic conflict between Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart ended after the two queens went to their graves?

HA!

The "Illustrated Police News" told all in their January 23, 1897 issue:

Two great historical rivals--Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots--have lately reappeared in Paris, and Queen Elizabeth has been unfolding the story of her wrongs before a well-known police commissary.

It seems, says a correspondent to the Daily Graphic, that two Parisiennes--one a young and attractive widow, and another a single lady of riper years--went lately to a well-known medium living in one of the rich quarters of Paris. The wizard was unable to tell them much about their future--it would have been well for the elderly lady if she could have done so--but her revelations about their past were truly startling.

"You," she sail to the fair widow, "were once the hapless Queen of Scotland, and you "--she turned sternly to the alarmed spinster--"you are none other than the cruel Elizabeth of England."

Both ladies departed deeply impressed, and that same evening Mary Stuart borrowed a considerable sum from Elizabeth of England as damages due for imprisonment, ill-treatment, and beheading in another age and another body. This was not, however, the end. Mary Stuart next ran off with Elizabeth's nephew, in whom she professed to recognise the soul of Bothwell. Him she married, much to the distress of England's Queen, who objected strongly to receiving Mary Stuart into the bosom of her family, though the discovering of Bothwell's soul made matters historically correct.

The unfortunate Elizabeth was then exploited by both husband and wife, who claimed frequent sums of money on the ground of the ancient historic wrong. She could in no sense call her soul her own, and finally she appealed to the police. The result is that Mary, Bothwell and the medium have all disappeared, and the police much want to find them.

I have no love for any of the Tudors, including the Virgin Queen (there, I said it,) so this tale of Elizabeth's comeuppance--however belated--rather delighted me.  As the saying goes, Karma is a bitch.

The Gowrie Conspiracy and the Casket Letters

James VI and I

On August 5, 1600, His Royal Majesty King James VI of Scotland (otherwise known, in the memorable words of England‘s Queen Elizabeth, as "that false Scotch urchin,") embarked on a hunting trip in the park of Falkland. On this particular day, however, he wound up making a strange and lethal detour.

Early that morning, as the king and his party were setting out, twenty-year-old Alexander Ruthven, younger brother of the Earl of Gowrie, visited the monarch, evidently at James' private behest.  A few days before, James had secretly written to each of the Ruthven brothers. These letters subsequently disappeared.  By the time the messages became of great possible relevance, the Ruthvens were unable, and James unwilling, to describe them, so their contents have remained forever unknown.

There were no witnesses to this meeting between Ruthven and the king, so we only have James' later account of what was said between them.  According to the king, Alexander told him a very curious story.  The evening before, as he was going for a stroll through the woods, he met an odd, suspicious-looking man with a cloak wrapped around his face.  When Alexander examined him, he discovered the man was carrying an urn filled with foreign pieces of gold. Ruthven imprisoned the unnamed man in a remote chamber in Ruthven's home, Gowrie House.  When James showed little interest in Ruthven's tale, Alexander pointed out that as the mystery man informed him he meant to bury the gold, the hoard could technically be considered buried treasure, and thus the property of the Crown.  He also dropped ominous hints about how the gold was undoubtedly funds being smuggled into Scotland to aid Catholic plotters.

James, as a loyal Presbyterian, proposed to send word for local magistrates to detain the stranger.  Ruthven disagreed, asserting that the magistrates would pocket the riches themselves, thus depriving James of his fair share of the loot.  This was a matter that could be looked into only by James himself.

According to James' later testimony, he ignored Ruthven's peculiar tale and went out hunting.  Midway through the hunt, however, James claimed he had a change of heart.  He informed Ruthven that once the chase was over, he and his companions would ride to Gowrie House to investigate.

Later that day, when James and his entourage arrived at the Gowrie mansion, they discovered that their arrival seemed to be completely unexpected.  There was not even sufficient food on the premises to provide dinner for the Royal party, forcing the cook to hurriedly borrow provisions from the neighbors.

When Gowrie's steward asked Alexander the reason for the king's visit, he said that Robert Abercromby (the court saddler) had brought James to discuss the debt he owed the Ruthvens--a statement that James later had suppressed.  After dinner, the king took Alexander upstairs alone with him, where they went into a turreted room at the far corner of the gallery chamber.  There they remained quietly for some two and a half hours.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party went outside to idly lounge in the garden.  After a while, a servant of the earl's appeared, informing them that the king had left.  The startled group went to ask the porter at the gate if this was true, and received a negative response.  Gowrie announced he would go investigate the matter, soon returning to assure the group that James had indeed departed.  The Duke of Lennox, a member of James’ entourage, later testified that at this moment he saw James frantically leaning out a turret window yelling, “I am murdered! Treason! My lord Mar, help! help!” By the time Lennox, and others in the party, reached the prison chamber, they found that it was not James who was murdered; instead, Alexander Ruthven lay dead.

James' explanation was that he and Ruthven went up to the turret chamber to see the supposed gold.  On arrival, he found a man in armor waiting for them.  Ruthven suddenly took James prisoner, and announced that he meant to avenge James' 1584 execution of his father.

According to James, the king replied mildly, “Mr. Alexander, ye and I were very great together; and as touching your father’s death, man, I was but a minor. My Council might have done anything they pleased. And farther, man, albeit ye bereave me of my life, ye will not be King of Scotland; for I have both sons and daughters; and there are men in this town and friends that will not leave it unrevenged.”  Ruthven claimed he was not seeking James' life, but only wished for a promise from the king.  When asked what it was, he said his brother the earl would tell him.  James urged Ruthven to fetch him.  Before leaving, Ruthven made James promise not to cry for help while he was gone.

After Ruthven left, the armored man, who all this while had been standing docilely in a corner, told James that he himself was a prisoner there, and that he knew nothing of what was going on.

James urged his companion to open a window.  As he was doing so, Ruthven entered, and upon viewing the scene, exclaimed, "By God!  There is no remedy!"  He tried to bind James' hands.  The king managed to stick his head outside the window and shriek for help.

John Ramsay, one of James’ companions, ran up a small spiral staircase leading to the turret chamber, where--so he later said--he saw the king and Ruthven fighting. Ramsay came to his monarch’s defense by stabbing Ruthven and throwing the young man down the stairs. Hugh Herries and Thomas Erskine, two more of the king’s friends, finished Alexander off.  The dying young man managed to gasp out a declaration that he was not to blame for what had happened.

Meanwhile, Lord Gowrie wandered around in utter bewilderment, wailing, “What is the matter, I ken [know] nothing. Oh my God what can all this mean? What is wrong? I go to defend the king.” In a state of horror and confusion, he ran up the stairs to the turret room. There he was met by his brother’s murderers, who promptly killed him as well.  The alleged man in armor had mysteriously vanished, and was therefore unable to provide eyewitness testimony.  (A servant of Gowrie's named Andrew Henderson later claimed to have been this mystery man, but most contemporaries--as well as quite a few historians--believed he was lying, by order of the king.)

Jan Luyken's depiction of the Gowrie killings

Meanwhile, local residents were becoming more and more alarmed. Sensing that harm had come to their hereditary masters, the Ruthvens, a crowd of townspeople angrily surrounded Gowrie House, demanding to know what was happening. Instinctively feeling that whatever dirty business was afoot, their king was inevitably the culprit, they insisted that he show himself to them.

In their fury, some recalled the persistent stories alleging that Lord Darnley, the second husband of James' mother, Mary Queen of Scots, did not father James--that his sire was Mary's Italian secretary, David Rizzio. "Come down, thou son of Seigneur Davie!" voices from the crowd shouted. "Thou hast slain an honester man than thyself!"

Sensing that the crowd was not with him, James wisely opted to sneak out a back entrance, making his exit by boat via a river that ran behind the house. However, he left a number of his men behind with orders to search the castle from top to bottom. What he was looking for was never fully specified.

With his departure, the curtain descended on the highly confusing and very bloody incident known to history as the Gowrie Conspiracy. Nearly everything we "know" about this alleged kidnapping/attempted murder of the king and the subsequent killing of the Ruthvens comes from either James himself or his two main cohorts, Lennox and Ramsay, who were widely suspected of merely parroting a tale taught by their master. No matter. This was James' story of how the two Ruthvens wound up dead, patently bizarre though it may have been, and he was sticking to it. Possibly it was the only explanation he could think of that incorporated a number of disparate facts known to too many people to be covered up altogether.

The king soon realized that he was facing disconcerting skepticism about the account he gave detailing his providential escape from traitorous assassins. He responded by attempting to force his subjects to show a loyal (and unquestioning) gratitude for their monarch's survival. Upon returning to Edinburgh, he ordered his ministers to perform sermons giving thanks for his deliverance. Unfortunately, most of the men of God flatly refused to participate in the planned national rejoicing. They, along with all of Scotland, instead persisted in asking uncomfortable questions, most of them focused on their doubts about James' veracity, despite the king's increasingly peevish pleas for a bit more faith in the Royal word.

The strange affair at Gowrie House was quickly followed by an equally inexplicable persecution of the entire Ruthven clan.  The two dead Ruthvens were posthumously tried and convicted of treason.  The family's vast wealth was then seized by the Crown.  James, swearing that he would kill every male member of the family, chased the Ruthvens' two young brothers, Patrick and William, into England where the justifiably terrified boys went into hiding. When James became King of England three years later, his first act was to seize Patrick Ruthven and without formal charges or a trial, throw him into the Tower of London, where he was left to rot for nearly twenty years. The youngest boy, William, was more fortunate. He managed to flee abroad, where he changed his name and managed to live out his life in nervous obscurity.

As a final blow, James literally outlawed the use of the very name of Ruthven, an ordinance that was not revoked until many years after his death.

We know there was murder done that summer day in 1600. What continues to be debated is why it happened. If, as some historians accept, this was indeed some obscure plot of the Ruthvens to avenge the long-ago execution of their father by kidnapping or killing James, nothing except familial insanity could provide a good explanation for their methods.

An alternative explanation is that the Gowrie Conspiracy was an elaborate trap that James himself set for the Ruthvens--a lethal playlet with James himself as author, producer, stage manager, and male lead. The question remains: why?

Some have pointed out that the Earl of Gowrie had recently led the successful opposition to a tax meant to fund James' negotiations to obtain the English succession. (Reportedly, Gowrie himself felt he had a claim to the English crown.) While James was no doubt unhappy with this disobedience, that seems inadequate motivation to kill Gowrie and destroy his entire family. Other stories suggest a revenge motive straight from a paperback romance novel--that Alexander Ruthven may have been the lover of James' wife, Anne of Denmark. Not only is there no particle of evidence for such an allegation, but once Anne had fulfilled her duty as queen by giving James an heir, he promptly lost all interest in her and her activities.

Still other attempts to explain the downfall of the Ruthvens involve the reputation that the clan had long enjoyed for being deeply involved in sorcery. It was even said that their grandfather had employed a "necromantical jewel" in an effort to gain a mystical influence over Queen Mary.

It is at least interesting, and perhaps important, that James owed Gowrie some 80,000 pounds. The earl's father, at the time of his execution, had been Scotland's Treasurer. As the government was then in an even more chaotic and financially-strapped condition than was usual for the Scots, the Treasurer was compelled to meet the most basic State expenses out of his own pocket. Did James simply take a bloody way out of repaying this debt?

Or could the Gowrie Conspiracy somehow be connected to another of the era's great mysteries, the Casket Letters allegedly written by Mary Queen of Scots to the Earl of Bothwell?

During Mary's long captivity in Scotland and England, those controversial documents were kept in the possession of the successive Scottish regents (it was said that none of them ever left the precious letters out of his sight.) After the last of the regents, the Earl of Morton, was executed in 1581, the letters somehow landed in the possession of the Earl of Gowrie. (The father of the two Ruthvens killed in the Gowrie Conspiracy.)  When the English government heard Gowrie had the letters, Elizabeth's envoy, Robert Bowes, was given the job of obtaining the letters from him. Elizabeth desperately wanted them in her own possession, for, in Bowes' supremely enigmatic phrase, "the secrecy and benefit of the cause."

Bowes tried to steal the letters, but as that proved unsuccessful, he appealed directly to the earl. At first, Gowrie refused to even admit he had the letters. Bowes persisted--this was obviously something the English found of extreme importance--pointing out to Gowrie the jeopardy in his ownership of the letters. Mary herself, Bowes noted, was making determined efforts to get the letters into her own possession, "and that the means which she will make in this behalf shall be so great and effectual as these writings cannot be safely kept in that realm without dangerous offense to him that hath the custody thereof; neither shall he that is once known to have them be suffered to hold them in his hands."

Gowrie remained uncooperative, apparently undeterred by the uncomfortable fact that all previous owners of the letters had come to a bad end. He told Bowes that, "after he had found and seen the writings, that he might not make delivery of them without the privity of the king." This reply displeased the envoy, who commented that consulting James "should adventure great danger to the cause." Gowrie later confided to Bowes that James' friends had also made efforts to retrieve the letters, adding that he could do nothing with the papers without the king's consent. (It is not explained why he refused to simply give the letters to James.) Elizabeth's representative finally had no choice but to return to England empty-handed.

Just before Bowes' unsuccessful mission to obtain the letters, "for the secrecy and benefit of the cause," Gowrie and his political allies kidnapped the king. James was brought to one of Gowrie's residences, and remained virtually his prisoner for a year. This odd episode--known to history as the "Raid of Ruthven"--was apparently a coup aimed at ensuring James was controlled by Scottish Protestants, rather than French Catholics. It also indicates the hold Gowrie felt he had over the king. James eventually escaped, but was still sufficiently cowed by Gowrie to feel compelled to "forgive" him. The next year, 1584, however, James had Gowrie arrested and quickly executed.

The trail of clear, undisputed ownership of the letters ends with Gowrie. It has often been stated as fact by historians that after Gowrie's execution, James got possession of the letters and destroyed them. There is no evidence whatever for this supposition. Although it's possible James executed Gowrie in an effort to get the letters, he does not seem to have been successful. Although the letters have not been seen publicly since Gowrie's death, they apparently still existed for at least some time afterward, but more secretly. People had learned by then just how lethal their ownership could be.

The letters may have remained in possession of the Ruthven family until at least 1600. The Scottish historian John Hill Burton speculated that they were stored in Gowrie House. After James had Gowrie House searched--without, it seems, discovering the mysterious papers he had hoped to find--and had driven the surviving Ruthvens into ruin and exile, the whereabouts of the Casket Letters became impossible to document with any certainty.

Despite four hundred years of trying, no one has been able to find a universally satisfactory explanation, not only of the events at Gowrie House, but of James' seemingly inexplicable, unnecessary, and extremely unpopular savagery against all who bore the name of Ruthven. One can only echo the words of the elderly Scottish woman who once exclaimed, "It is a great comfort to think that at the Day of Judgment we shall know the whole truth about the Gowrie Conspiracy at last!"

Where In the World Is the Earl of Bothwell?

The only accepted portrait of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell and Duke of Orkney, although  this identification has sometimes been disputed.

Mary Queen of Scots married James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, in May of 1567, only three months after the baffling, and still hotly-debated murder of her previous husband, Henry, Lord Darnley. One month after the wedding, Mary’s enemies captured the Queen and imprisoned her on Lochleven island, where she was eventually forced to abdicate. After a year, she escaped and fled across the border, only to trade her Scottish prison for an English one. Elizabeth I kept her in captivity for nearly twenty years until her execution in 1587.

Bothwell’s end is much more mysterious. After Mary was sent to Lochleven, he made desperate efforts to raise an army on her behalf, but, dogged by the allegations that he had been Darnley’s murderer, he had limited success. After a few months on the run, a storm drove him into the hands of the Danish authorities. Denmark’s King Frederick, in the hope that holding Bothwell in custody might prove useful, kept him in “honorable confinement” while debating how best to manage this international hot potato he had unexpectedly acquired. He proved surprisingly sympathetic to his controversial visitor. Frederick refused to agree to extradite him to England or Scotland until Bothwell could be guaranteed a fair and open trial—which was the last thing Bothwell’s enemies wanted. Whether the Queen’s new husband was guilty or innocent, he knew too much.

Frederick himself was left struggling to find a solution to the Bothwell controversy that he felt was consistent with his own sense of honor. He confided to the French Ambassador, Charles de Dancay (France, for its own mysterious reasons, had done everything in its power to block Bothwell’s extradition) that he would dearly love to have an end to the problem.  However, he did not believe it was right to simply turn Bothwell over to his enemies, particularly as he had consistently and vehemently denied "either killing Darnley or having had him killed nor having in any way consented to his death." Some time afterwards, Dancay, writing to France about the dilemma of what to do with Bothwell, advised that it would be best to simply play for time, adding a slightly cryptic comment to the effect that all parties involved, particularly Mary, might benefit most by news that her contentious husband had simply died. And Bothwell himself, as far as anyone can ascertain, was never directly heard from again after 1570.

At some time during that year, Scottish mercenaries, returning home after having fought for Denmark in the war against Sweden, carried with them the news that Frederick had given Bothwell his freedom. It was feared that the King planned to outfit ships and crews for Bothwell's use. When Danish warships were spotted off the northern Scottish coast, word spread through the country that it was Bothwell, returning to reclaim his wife and his kingdom. This was no trivial rumor. Elizabeth herself appears to have been informed, as a statement of fact, that Bothwell was free, as she was inspired to write Frederick a blistering letter excoriating him for releasing from custody an infamous villain who, if Frederick refused to execute him as he deserved, certainly was entitled to nothing better than chains and fetters!

Nothing more is heard about Bothwell until June 1573. This was an important time in Mary's history. Just days before, at the end of May, Edinburgh Castle, which had been held by the remnants of Mary's party in Scotland for the past several years, finally surrendered, ending whatever small chance remained of Mary being restored to her kingdom. Coincidentally or not, just two weeks after this event--immediately after the news reached Denmark, in fact--Dancay casually remarked in one of his dispatches that Frederick, for reasons unknown, had suddenly removed Bothwell to a "very bad" prison.

Dancay does not say where Bothwell was moved, or why the hitherto friendly King took such an odd and unexpected step. Some time later, a Danish chronicler gave Bothwell's new residence as Dragsholm Castle, which was then the state prison. There are, however, no strictly contemporary accounts of the prison being identified by name.

We have no first-person accounts of his removal to Dragsholm, no witnesses, no reliable records that this was done at all. From this point on, we have nothing but rumors and hearsay regarding Bothwell‘s fate.

We have no idea why Frederick would suddenly move Bothwell to a prison. It was a mystery to their contemporaries. Around this time, rumor spread through Europe that Bothwell had gone insane, and it has been suggested that this was the reason for the change in his treatment. However, Dancay, who had been deeply involved in the intrigues surrounding Bothwell's captivity, said nothing about insanity, and indeed there is no evidence Bothwell had gone mad, other than vague rumor. The story of his insanity seems to have been what is today called an "urban legend."

Soon after 1573, the insanity tales were followed by rumors that Bothwell was dead. His death was reported throughout Europe at various times between 1573 and 1578, which is more evidence of the lack of any reliable information about him. Remarkably, the Danish government itself was responsible for starting these fictitious rumors of Bothwell's death, and for one simple reason--so people would stop making troublesome inquiries about him. Frederick and his ministers were weary of the Scots continually pestering them for Bothwell's extradition, so, in an effort to be rid of the matter, instructions were given that the report should be spread, at home and abroad, that the bothersome Scot was dead. (The previous fables about Bothwell's insanity very possibly came from the same source, and for the same reason.)

This raises the obvious question: Why was Frederick so determined for the world to forget about Bothwell?

The tales of Bothwell's imprisonment lost nothing in the telling. Several contemporary and near-contemporary historians relate, with a rather distasteful relish, that the great villain Bothwell came to an appropriately hideous end in some loathsome Danish dungeon, hopelessly insane, left to wallow in filth, reduced to the level of a wild beast, and completely forgotten by the world.

There is no more evidence for these lurid stories than there is for anything else about Bothwell's end. Historians of that period dearly loved a good moral, and these tales of Bothwell's ghastly fate seem to have grown because the chroniclers felt this was the end he should have had--there is a definite "serves him right!" air to their descriptions. (In truth, many of Mary's modern biographers, relating these "insane in a dungeon" tales as unquestionable fact, do so in a similarly unpleasant tone of moral rejoicing.)

Even if Bothwell was at Dragsholm, there are no clear accounts of his condition. Other stories, which are just as credible (or, if you prefer, incredible,) depict him as living in comfort at Dragsholm, with no reference to dungeons or insanity. One report claims he was even allowed to go hunting!

It all comes down to this: If any of Bothwell's contemporaries, even in Denmark itself, had the least idea of what became of him, they left no record. Frederick, who must have known the truth, whatever it was, never revealed it.

During Bothwell's alleged stay at Dragsholm, a Scotsman, William Lummisden, came to the prison numerous times for the purpose of visiting John Clark, a Scottish mercenary who had managed to run afoul of Frederick--and Bothwell--and thus was incarcerated there in 1571. In the accounts of Lummisden's dealings with Clark, Bothwell is not even mentioned. Nothing is said about him, even though the Scots were still taking a great interest in him. (This is particularly relevant, as the Scots blamed Bothwell for Clark's incarceration. He had informed Frederick of the fact that Clark had, among other crimes, taken a troop of Danish mercenaries, hired to battle the Swedes, to Scotland to fight against Mary. As Lummisden had an interest in Clark, surely it would have been natural for him to show interest in Bothwell, as well.) This omission is inexplicable, unless there was nothing on Bothwell to report...because Bothwell was not there.

Virtually all modern reference books give the date of Bothwell's death as April 14, 1578. This is no more definite than any of the other reports of his death. The sole source for this date is the so-called "Calendar of Eiler Brockenhuus,” which records certain notable events of the period. This "Calendar" is of dubious authority, having been compiled at unknown times by contributors of unproven credibility. (An oddity in this so-called record is that under the year 1575, the same date, April 14, is given as the time of death for John Clark.) A number of contemporary authorities also give 1578 as the year of his death, but others, seemingly with equal certainty, give other years. Dancay, who had always closely monitored Bothwell's situation, reported his death in November 1575. All any of this proves is that all reports dealing with Bothwell seem to have been based on nothing but hearsay.

We are on stronger ground with the question of the body said to be that of Bothwell, which was exhumed from the church near Dragsholm in the 1850s, and that was publicly exhibited there for many years. These remains are not his.

In 1858, a coffin, reputed to be Bothwell's, was opened, apparently out of mere curiosity. There was nothing in or around the coffin to show the body's identity. As the spectators, of course, had no idea of what Bothwell looked like, no one could confirm that the body was his. The head of the corpse (which was found separated from the body,) was fancifully described as looking "like a Scotchman," but as Bothwell was not the only Scot said to be buried there, even that was no help. Everyone, however, liked the idea that they had found the last resting place of the notorious Earl of Bothwell. The fact that a number of people who saw the body could not help but notice that it was dressed in clothes that appeared to date from around 1700 was determinedly ignored.

The body was displayed for over one hundred years, turning Dragsholm, which later became a hotel, into something of a "tourist trap" for romantically-inclined history buffs. (Which is undoubtedly why the body's identity went largely unquestioned--anachronistic burial clothes and all.)

However, there were questions asked in the late 1930s. When certain prominent Scottish citizens vociferously decried what they considered the desecration of Bothwell's body in Denmark, and demanded its return so that the man who was so briefly their King could, at long last, rest in peace in his homeland, King George VI of England became involved. His secretary, Alexander Hardinge, engaged in extensive correspondence with interested parties and directed, in the King's behalf, that the matter be appropriately resolved.

On November 7, 1938, a member of the British legation in Copenhagen wrote representatives of King George that, "investigations have recently been carried out by an expert committee using modern methods, including X-ray photography, to decide definitely on the identity of the mummy hitherto shown as the remains of Lord Bothwell and, if not, whether these remains are to be found at all within the confines of Faarevejle Church."

The letter stated that the report of this investigation was published in the Sunday Illustrated Supplement of the Berlingske Tidende newspaper. "Put briefly," the correspondent, a Patrick Ramsay, went on, "the committee is of the opinion that the mummy generally accepted as that of Lord Bothwell (hereafter referred to as No. 1 mummy) is really that of a certain baliff by name of Chresten Pedersen Poder, who died in 1683..." It must, indeed, have been a proud moment for the Poder family, but a somewhat dark day for Denmark.

Ramsay explained that the crypt in which the No. 1 mummy--formerly known as Bothwell--lay, was not built until seventy-five years after Bothwell's death. Also, the cheap coffin had been carried by poles, a method "dating about 1700, but never earlier." The committee's findings were later affirmed by the Director of the Danish National Museum, Dr. Phil. P. Norlund, who stated that "...the so-called 'Bothwell's Burial' originates in the decades around 1700."

Ramsay's letter mentioned that "three coffins of people known to have been buried in Faarevejle Church about the 17th century could not be found." Obviously, one of those missing coffins had now been discovered: Within was the body that had been masquerading as James Hepburn, Fourth Earl of Bothwell. No trace of any burial that could possibly have been that of the Scottish Queen’s final consort was ever found.

It is strangely appropriate that Bothwell--who many contemporaries insisted was a warlock--vanished into legend just as suddenly and enigmatically as he appeared. This strange, compelling man, eulogized even by an enemy as "a man valiant and for magnanimous powers above all others," disappeared, trusting his legacy to, as he once wrote, "Time, mother of truth." (To which his 20th century biographer Robert Gore-Browne added tartly, "She has abused his confidence with four hundred years of full-throated execration.")

A 19th century defender of Bothwell's, J. Watts de Peyster, in pondering the unsolvable riddle of Bothwell's exact fate, wrote of him as being enveloped in "the opaque mists evoked by a magician, and in them this important personage again sinks into deep obscurity."

And perhaps he was more literally correct than he knew.