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Keeping Courage, Resisting Groupthink: The Great Escape of Mary Queen of Scots

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For a teenage boy like Willy Douglas, there was bound to be something appealing about the tall, beautiful, spirited, and forsaken 24-year-old queen imprisoned in Lochleven Castle, which lay on an island in the middle of a gray lake in lowland Scotland. Is it any wonder that 16-year-old Willy and his 18-year-old cousin George set about plotting Mary’s escape—even though it was their own family, the Douglases, who were the young queen’s chief jailers?

The draw of this romantic, swashbuckling endeavor was too much for the young men to resist, and the fiery Mary had more than enough courage to play her part in it, too. The story of the three young Scots is an inspiring one of perseverance and resistance to the “political correctness” of the time.

But how had it come to this? How was it that in the year 1567, the reigning queen of Scotland had been spirited away by her own nobles to a remote and forbidding fortress surrounded by water? To understand this, we must set the stage.

Mary had been born into a tumultuous time. The Reformation had wrought extensive political, social, and religious changes throughout Europe, reshaping the world in fundamental ways. In addition, the ever-present intrigue amongst nobles and royal families made for complicated political situations and oft-contested royal successions to the various thrones of Europe.

In Mary’s case, she acceded to the Scottish throne when she was only six days old, upon the death of her father, James V. Naturally, various figures scrambled to rule as regent while the infant queen grew up, including the infamous King Henry VIII, notorious for his series of six wives. But ultimately, the regency fell to Mary’s French mother, Mary of Guise.

Her mother had young Mary brought up in France at the court of Henry II, where she lived a charmed life with many comforts and received a good education. In addition to French, which became her first language, she also learned Latin, Italian, Spanish, and a bit of Greek. She was instructed in the Catholic faith as well. Mary blossomed into a tall (nearly six feet), good-looking, cultured, and pious woman, but with little political experience to prepare her for the chaos she would soon encounter in Scotland with unruly lords and earls.

By the time Mary was old enough to rule in Scotland, she had already experienced tragedy in her life. Her young husband, King Francis II of France, after ruling for only a few months, died from an ear infection, leaving Mary a widow at 18. Meanwhile, Scotland had become a Calvinist nation, and the Calvinist preacher John Knox stirred up dissent against Mary as a foreign monarch holding to an outdated religion. The Scottish nobles were also embroiled in their own feuds with one another and cared little about loyalty to Mary. Still, things held together well enough at the beginning of Mary’s reign.

But her marriage to a prominent Catholic, Lord Darnley, caused trouble. It distanced an important ally, the Earl of Moray (Mary’s half-brother), who joined the rebellious nobles against Mary. Things began to fall apart in the kingdom.

Darnley and Mary had a son together, James, but their marriage was quickly deteriorating. Darnley wanted to rule on equal terms with Mary, but she refused him this position. In a jealous fury, Darnley had Mary’s friend and secretary, David Rizzio, murdered right before her eyes. In February of 1567, Darnley was himself murdered—possibly by the Earl of Bothwell. The latter soon proposed marriage to Mary, who turned him down.

Not long after, on Mary’s way back from visiting her baby soon, Bothwell waylaid the young queen with some vague warnings that she was in danger and took her to Dunbar Castle. According to historian Warren H. Carroll in The Cleaving of Christendom, Bothwell forced himself upon Mary, and she conceived twins. Then he made her marry him according to Protestant rites, despite the fact she was a Catholic. Mary suffered tremendously from all this. Caroll writes, “Agony and desperation had so altered her countenance that she was almost unrecognizable.”

Meanwhile, the rebellious lords had raised an army against their queen. Bothwell and Mary attempted to gather their supporters to oppose the oncoming force, but without success. The rebels allowed Bothwell to leave the battlefield unscathed and promised Mary that they would support her as queen if she parted with Bothwell. Mary was happy to part from the man who had so tyrannized her, but the rebel lords’ promises turned out to be more lies and betrayals. They had no intention of allowing her to remain on the throne.

On the night of June 15, 1567, they took the queen to the castle of William Douglas on the island in the middle of Lochleven to imprison her. When the lords tried to force her to sign an abdication, she resisted. Only when they threatened to cut her throat did she finally give in, resigning the throne in favor of her infant son, James, and naming the Earl of Moray as regent. Not long after coming to Lochleven, Mary miscarried her twins. It seemed things could not get much worse for her.

But still, Mary had not abandoned all her dignity and grace, and she remained an impressive personage, even in her destitution. At least, she was impressive to young George Douglas and Willy Douglas, who lived at the castle. “Not all even among the dour Scots were insensible to the romantic appeal of the beautiful … queen shut up on an island in the midst of a lake in the midst of her deadliest enemies,” Carroll writes. The two young men began hatching plans with Mary and smuggling her letters.

At last, the attempt was made. Mary was disguised as a washerwoman and led down to a boatman at the shore, asking for passage to the mainland. However, the whiteness of her hands gave her away. A real washerwoman would have reddish hands from scrubbing, not these pale, aristocratic white ones. He turned the boat around, and the attempt failed.

But still, the conspirators were not defeated. The second attempt occurred on May 2, 1568. Young Willy held a party at the castle, dressing himself up as the “Abbot of Unreason,” and getting everyone to dance, and sing, and drink … a lot. In the midst of the festivities, Willy twirled here and there, and deftly whisked the keys to the main gate from Sir William Douglas’ belt—the latter, quite possibly, out of his wits with drink.

Then, in the confusion, Willy and Mary raced to the boats and took off into the great expanse of the lake. Earlier, Willy had knocked holes in all the other boats so the jailers were unable to pursue the fugitives and could only watch, powerless, from the castle, as the queen and her loyal subject moved out into the cold and misty waters. At the mainland, Mary and Willy were met by George, who had left the castle some time prior, and a band of loyal followers. From there, they rode to safety.

This historical anecdote contains lessons for us. Mary’s extrication from her dire situation was due to two main factors: First, she had the courage to persevere when all hope seemed lost, a trait that all of us can learn from. Second, she had the good fortune to encounter two young men for whom chivalry was not dead. They held their loyalty to their queen above the partisan politics of their time. Even though they were surrounded by men who hated their queen, the young nobles refused to give in to the groupthink and participate in the persecution of someone they believed to be innocent.

Courage and resistance to groupthink are two virtues that we, too, may need to practice, especially as our country continues to fall deeper into political division and infighting. We must remain loyal to our country, even when others do not.

Image credit: public domain