baby you're a firework

Or, Part 2 of the Lord Darnley Saga, this time with 200% more gunpowder

Hello friends,

Happy Halloween! In the spirit of trick-or-treating, let me offer you the biggest treat I have in my arsenal: the notorious 16th-century dickbiscuit Lord Darnley getting his just deserts.

For my newcomers, this week’s newsletter is the second half of a two-part special, the first half of which you can find here. Or if you wanna just start in the middle, it’s a free Substack, follow your bliss.

Previously on Dickhead Men of Yore

When we left off last time, it was 1566, and Lord Darnley and Mary Stuart—co-rulers of Scotland and strong contenders for the country’s Most Unhappy Married Couple—had just welcomed their first and only child. For the first eight months of lil James’s life, Darnley continued being as useless as he had ever been. He whined. He got into fights. He refused to attend his son’s baptism. All kinds of great, A+ father-of-the-year behavior.

there is not a SINGLE PORTRAIT of Darnley in which he does not look like a dick

But Mary?? Our schemey queen?? Had had enough. And that’s how we segue into the final and most satisfying portion of this story:

How to Get Away With Murder (Scottish Edition)

Okay, so. Like all good historical plots, there are lots of unknowns about what unfolded in February of 1567. Let me tell you what we know for sure happened, and then we’ll get into all the gossip.

On February 9, Darnley was staying at Kirk o’ Field in Edinburgh, a house I assume was deliberately named to be as whimsically Scottish as possible. Mary, meanwhile, was across the street at Holyrood for one of her servants’ weddings. Darnley didn’t attend because a) he was a little shit, and b) he was having a particularly bad syphilis flareup. But Mary went without him, dressed in men’s clothing according to some witnesses, and partied the night away.

sad lack of “Mary Queen of Scots in pants” images available, so instead please enjoy one of Reign’s more unhinged Mary Stuart costuming choices

As late night turned to early morning, the plot thickened.

And by “the plot thickened” I mean Darnley’s entire house blew up in a giant explosion.

This, naturally, attracted attention, as exploding houses are wont to do. The crowd hurried back to the smoldering house, probably expecting to find little bits of Darnley scattered across the yard like a spilled bag of grisly Chex Mix.

But imagine their surprise when they found Darnley’s body—100% not exploded—lying dead in his pajamas. In a garden nowhere near his bedroom. Next to his servant’s also-dead body. With a seemingly unused dagger between them. Further examination of the bodies suggests that both of them were strangled or suffocated.

somebody make Knives Out 3: Benoit Blanc Investigates the Murder of Lord Darnley, starring Zendaya as Mary Stuart and Timothée Chalamet as Bothwell, I will personally give you a million dollars

The official story ends there, more or less. Mary went into mourning for 40 days. The Privy Council launched an official investigation into the murder on February 12, stating that any conspirators who came forward with information would be pardoned and given two thousand pounds. I really genuinely believe the goal was to pay the murderers two thousand pounds to thank them for successfully murdering Darnley.

But what really happened???

Ah, to get that answer, we will have to wander into my favorite part of history: sorta substantiated but technically unconfirmed speculation.

An Even Worse Man Has Entered the Chat

The most common explanation for Darnley’s murder hinges on the involvement of the Earl of Bothwell, a very powerful Scottish noble and one of Mary’s close friends. (Remember what I said last time about Mary having terrible judgment when it comes to men? Super true about Bothwell.)

this is Bothwell. fuck him.

As best we can figure, Bothwell and his men filled the basement of Kirk o’ Field with gunpowder, with the intent of turning Darnley into dirtbag sprinkles while Mary was out partying. But things went wrong, somehow. Darnley and his servant managed to escape out the window before the house exploded, so Bothwell and his supporters had to strangle them in the garden.

Investigators made the drawing below to explain what happened and presented it to William Cecil, head of the Privy Council:

I can’t draw for shit, so who am I to talk, but the scale in this drawing is WILD

I can’t picture Cecil receiving this drawing without cracking the fuck up. Imagine it.

Investigator: Here you are, my lord, the evidence you requested.
Sir William Cecil, squinting: The…evidence
Investigator: Leave no detail out, you said.
Sir William Cecil: How long did you spend doodling those sad little trees
Investigator: Will this help identify the culprits, my lord?
Sir William Cecil: If you ever create a two-page spread from Richard Scarry’s Busytown instead of taking notes like a normal person again I swear I will kill you myself

Bothwell was put on trial for Darnley’s murder in April and acquitted almost immediately. But, like. We all know he did it. The murder was unconvincingly pinned on a soldier named William Blackadder, whose sentence I assume was delivered like this:

Now, I don’t have time to get into it here, but Bothwell? An absolute waste of humanity. The worst. Bothwell ended up marrying Mary Stuart a few months after Darnley’s murder, a union he forced her into after sexually assaulting her. Bothwell is also on my list of “people whose graves I will spit on if I ever make it to Scotland.”

There’s Something (Murderous) About Mary

Now, fair and balanced historians will tell you that we don’t know for sure that Mary was involved in Bothwell’s plot to explode Darnley’s house and strangle him in a garden. They’ll tell you that the only evidence we have that Mary had anything to do with it is a series of letters that were probably forged, and it might have happened entirely without her knowledge.

I call bullshit on that for two reasons.

One: it is the stated policy of this newsletter to take the most dramatic and scandalous possible explanation and treat it as fact, because history is more fun that way.

Two: IT’S SO IN CHARACTER.

Mary Queen of Scots is the Velma Kelly of Tudor England and I love her for it

Mary absolutely loathed Darnley. He was becoming more and more of a nuisance in her plan to rule Scotland and, eventually, England. Mary had been actively brainstorming ways to get rid of him as early as November of 1566, though at the time she’d been thinking “divorce” more than “Gunpowder Plot before the Gunpowder Plot was even a thing.” And there’s strong evidence to suggest she was having an affair with Bothwell even before the murder, which makes the whole thing extra suspicious.

What was she doing in pants the night of the explosion?? Was she maybe sneaking around participating in a little recreational husband-murder?? It’s not impossible!

Anyway. I’m not saying she did it. But if she did do it, I’d get it.

Epilogue: Extra Skullduggery

Darnley was buried at Holyrood Abbey, which in most cases is the logical ending point for a person’s story. But not this time! This time, we get an extra spooky season bonus!

Sometime in the mid-18th-century, Darnley’s tomb got broken into by an angry mob, and in the scuffle, Darnley’s skull mysteriously went missing. Was this for spooky phrenology reasons, or did someone just think it would be fun to drink champagne out of Darnley’s skull like it was the Stanley Cup? Your guess is as good as mine.

(Loyal readers will recall this is not the first instance of a skull going missing for suspicious reasons in this newsletter. Put it on your dirtbag bingo card, right next to “automatic writing” and “silly hats.”)

No one knew for sure where Darnley’s skull went for the next three centuries. Two viable options turned up, but no one was certain which one was the real deal. Then, finally, in 2016, forensic researchers used facial reconstruction to determine which one was Darnley’s actual skull. (Because you know what the calendar year 2016 really needed was Lord Darnley back in the news.)

this is the one that isn’t Darnley’s skull. sorry. just some guy.

Good news: we now know what Darnley’s skull looked like! Bad news: Darnley’s skull got blown up during the Blitz. RIP to an asshole who was destined to get exploded one way or another.

So concludes the tale of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. A man who died the way he lived: an absolute mess.

Thanks again for accompanying me on this two-part super special! Hope you’ll join me next time. Until then, be well, and don’t break open any tombs to steal skulls, even if you really really hate the guy whose skull it is and he doesn’t deserve to have a skull anyway,

-Allison