Typical of the era, the events following Darnley’s murder were dramatic, ruthless, and bloody. Bothwell kidnapped, raped (so Mary claimed), and married the Queen. Predictably, within days of the wedding Mary was reduced to suicidal despair by Bothwell’s abuse. Yet her willingness to marry Bothwell was not as absurd as it might seem. In spite of all she had been through, Mary remained politically astute. In the political power game playing out around her, she needed a strong ally to protect her from rebellious noblemen. Indeed, Bothwell notwithstanding, less than a year after Darnley’s death the Scottish lords forced Mary to abdicate and flee to England. For the next two decades she was held prisoner by Queen Elizabeth I and finally executed in England at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.

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There is no hint of any culpability on Queen Mary’s part in regard to the Darnley murder in Sir Walter Scott’s romantic epitaph:

Thus died Queen Mary, aged a little above 44 years. She was eminent for beauty, for talents, and accomplishments, nor is there reason to doubt her natural goodness of heart, and courageous manliness of disposition. Yet she was in every sense one of the most unhappy Princesses that ever lived, from the moment she came into the world, in an hour of defeat and danger, to that in which a bloody and violent death closed a weary captivity of 18 years.

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