Was Mary Queen of Scots a murderess or was she an innocent in the murder of her husband? STEPHEN LEWIS finds out...

ON the night of February 10, 1567, a tremendous explosion blew apart Kirk o'Field, the Edinburgh residence of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. The noise was heard as far away as Holyrood Palace, where Mary was attending a wedding masque. People who rushed to the scene found the naked corpses of Darnley and his valet in the garden. Neither had been killed in the blast: instead, they had been strangled.

But by whom?

This mystery has remained unsolved for centuries. Many people desired the death of Darnley and the Queen herself had her own motives for wanting rid of her husband; but did she play a part in his death? That is the question historian Alison Weir sets out to answer in her new book Mary, Queen Of Scots And The Murder Of Lord Darnley.

On the face of it, says Alison, the circumstantial evidence against Mary was damning. Darnley had a hand in the murder of David Rizzio, who may well have been her lover. The Queen had talked about annulling her marriage to Darnley. Most damning of all, she had visited Darnley at Kirk o'Field on the day before his murder, then left, despite him begging her to stay.

But was she a murderess? Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Alison thinks not: merely a pampered political innocent who was unable to cope with the political intrigue, plotting and counter-plotting rife in the Scotland of her day.

Despite being Queen of Scotland since she was one week old, Mary had been brought up in the luxury of the French court as the intended bride of the French Dauphin, Francis.

The pair became King and Queen of France in 1558 when Mary was 15; but within two years her husband, a sickly youth, had died.

The widowed Mary returned to Scotland, which had been through a radical Protestant reformation. So for the Catholic Mary, life was never going to be easy, says Alison.

In Scotland, she fell under the spell of Lord Darnley, another Catholic, and, in 1565, against the advice of her own court and of England's Queen Elizabeth, married him.

It was, says Alison, a love match on Mary's part. But within weeks, Darnley had begun to show his true colours: dissolute, arrogant, ambitious and a womaniser - a power-hungry young man using Mary for his own ends who was also "a drunkard and a fornicator who went womanising each night".

He and Mary rowed, were reconciled, then rowed again. Somewhere along the way, she became pregnant with the future King James.

He may not even have been Darnley's son, however. Mary had formed a close relationship with David Rizzio, an Italian singer and musician who had become her adviser and with whom she was often "privately and alone".

Darnley plotted with other Scottish lords to get rid of Rizzio. On March 9, 1566, Rizzio, Darnley and others were dining with the Queen when conspirators burst in.

"Darnley was sitting there with his arm around Mary," says Alison. "He held her during the struggle. Rizzio was stabbed once over the Queen's shoulder. The blade passed so close she could feel the cold. Then he was dragged out into an outer chamber and stabbed 56 times."

Mary was now a virtual prisoner. Darnley, too, was terrified, finding that he was not being treated by his co-conspirators with the deference and respect he had expected.

He and Mary slipped out of Holyrood and fled through the night on horseback to Dunbar 25 miles away. The heavily pregnant Mary was frightened she might lose her baby. Darnley reportedly told her: "Forget this one. We can easily make another."

Mary raised an army and returned in triumph to Edinburgh. But she was now desperate to be rid of Darnley, and even discussed the possibility of annulling the marriage. "But if the marriage was annulled, her child would be illegitimate," says Alison. "He was her only child. Also, she didn't want to do anything that would affect her honour."

She soon uncovered evidence, however, that Darnley was plotting against her. He was running out of friends. He had betrayed his co-conspirators in Rizzio's murder, he was distrusted by the Protestant lords of Scotland for being a Catholic and was detested by Mary. He fled to Glasgow and talked of going into exile in England.

That would have been a major embarrassment for the Queen. Mary brought him back to Edinburgh - and he was promptly murdered at Kirk o'Field.

But was Mary involved? Within three months, the Queen had married the Earl of Bothwell, one of the prime suspects in Darnley's murder, fuelling suspicion she may have been. But the marriage may not have been all it seemed. Alison believes the helpless Queen may have been forced into marriage, perhaps after being raped by the ambitious Bothwell.

"The day after the wedding she was weeping and threatening suicide," she says. "That's not the action of a woman who has married her lover."

Within months, Mary had been effectively deposed and Bothwell, his plans coming to nothing, had fled. After being held captive at Lochleven, Mary escaped and fled to England. There, she was imprisoned by Elizabeth for almost 20 years, before being executed for plotting to assassinate the English Queen in 1587.

Alison believes, however, that she was innocent of Darnley's death. Mary's real ambition throughout, Alison says, was to be recognised as Elizabeth's successor to the throne of England. Being married to Darnley strengthened that claim, since he had an independent claim to the throne.

"It was very, very unlikely that Mary would have done anything to prejudice her chance of the English succession," she says.

Her verdict on Mary? "She was very cultivated, quite intelligent, but a political innocent. She had appalling judgement and had to have a strong man to lean on - but her choice of men was disastrous.

"But I like her better having done the book. I feel sorry for her. It is one of the most tragic stories in history."

Alison Weir will be at Waterstones, York, at 7pm on Tuesday as part of its History Month to talk about her new book. Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley is published by Jonathan Cape on April 3, price £20. Throughout April, Waterstone's will be offering promotions on more than 200 history, historical fiction and biography titles.

Updated: 16:32 Tuesday, March 25, 2003