The Fight for Mary, Queen of Scots’ Jewels

Following her escape and flight from Lochleven Castle in May 1568 after almost a year’s imprisonment, Mary, Queen of Scots was determined to maintain her royal status. She left Scotland seeking Elizabeth I’s support to regain her crown from the Protestant nobles who had forced her to abdicate in favour of her infant son, James, on 24 July 1567. Yet within days of her arrival on English soil Mary found herself a prisoner again, this time at the hands of her hoped-for allies. She would be moved between properties and kept away from Elizabeth’s court and person for the next 19 years.

In captivity, the performance of royalty became even more vital to the pursuit of her cause. Mary was a master of the rituals of attendance and an expert in the rhetoric of protocol (and the strategic benefit of deliberately flouting expectations). She knew how to perform power through clothing, jewellery and styling. Recognising the necessity of shaking off the image of a bedraggled traveller, she immediately wrote to her supporters and her former keepers in Scotland, demanding that they send on her dresses and jewels. When Sir Francis Knollys was appointed as her jailer in the summer of 1568 he was embarrassed by the gowns sent by Elizabeth to Mary, acknowledging that such old styles and low-quality fabrics could never be worn by a queen. Knollys was also impressed by how Marie Seton, one of the ‘four Maries’ who had been Mary’s companions since childhood, styled Mary’s hair daily, using full wigs and early modern ‘extensions’ (smaller hair pieces). The styles changed regularly, and gems, feathers and headpieces were used to emphasise Mary’s wealth and taste – crucial aspects of queenship, especially in the uncertain circumstances of her life in England. Throughout her near 20-year captivity Mary continued to buy accessories, asking friends and relatives in France for the latest fashions, or for patterns and fabrics for making gowns.

When she died in 1587 Mary left several pieces to her attendants and servants. Gold rings were bequeathed to her apothecary, physician and cook. Her ladies-in-waiting were honoured through gifts of gold bracelets, chains of jet and amber, strings of coral and pearl beads, and diamond rings. Inventories show that Mary loved playful brooches; her collection included ‘a little bear, enamelled white’, ‘a little bird of gold, enamelled green’ and ‘a little horse of gold, with a man upon it’. Elizabeth Curle, one of her attendants, was also given a ‘jewel made in the form of a scorpion garnished with rubies and other small stones’.

Several key pieces of jewellery were, however, missing from Mary’s possessions at her death, including the ‘Great Harry’. This was a luxury piece shaped like an ‘H’, with a large diamond set in the centre and a ruby beneath. It was attached to a chain to be worn around the neck with the jewel sitting in the middle of the chest. The ‘Great Harry’ was likely a wedding gift, worn at Mary’s marriage to the dauphin of France, François II, in April 1558. Though listed in Mary’s inventories during her reign, it fell into the hands of her half-brother James Stewart, earl of Moray when she was forced to abdicate. The loss of the ‘Great Harry’ and other favoured jewels would infuriate Mary for years to come. It would also lead to a vicious feud between her and one of her closest companions, Annas Keith.

Great sorrow

When Moray became regent of Scotland following Mary’s abdication, he claimed the royal jewels as his right. Several pieces were handed over to his wife, Annas Keith, countess of Moray, as personal gifts and as future capital should they need it. But Moray did not have long to enjoy the benefits of regency; on 23 January 1570 he was shot and killed. Mary reportedly was so overjoyed at her half-brother’s death that she offered to pay the assassin, James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, or his family, a pension. She also realised that this was an opportunity to reclaim her jewels. On 23 March 1570, using a secretary, she wrote to Annas, demanding that she hand over ‘certane of oure jowalles sic as oure H of dyamant and ruby with a nombre of other dyamantis, rubiz, perles, and goldwark’. Mary had been informed of Annas’ devastation at the loss of her husband, but she also knew that Annas was a resilient woman, not easily moved to surrender. Foreseeing a challenge, she added a postscript to the letter in her own hand, threatening that ‘yff yow hold anithing pertins me from me, yow and your bernes and meinteners schal feel my displesour … so I will be to yow, as yow schal deserve’.

That Mary was moved to such anger is understandable. During the 1560s she and Annas had been close companions and, when she returned to Scotland from France in August 1561 following the death of her first husband, Mary was initially on good terms with Moray. She had been delighted when he and Annas married for love in 1562, throwing lavish celebrations after their wedding, much to the chagrin of the austere Reformed theologian John Knox. When Annas lost a son shortly after birth in 1564, Mary wept for her sister-in-law and rode to visit her.

When Mary was taken to Lochleven Castle in Perthshire following her defeat at the Battle of Carberry Hill on 15 June 1567, her imprisonment had dire consequences for her relationship with her half-brother, who had become de-facto leader of the party supporting the young James VI. He questioned and cajoled her, berating her choices – including marrying James Hepburn, earl of Bothwell – and ultimately forced her to accept her own abdication. Throughout this, however, Annas remained at Mary’s side. It was she, alongside Moray’s mother, Margaret Erskine, Lady Lochleven, who nursed Mary through the fever which struck after her devastating miscarriage a few weeks into her imprisonment. And it was Annas who sat with Mary as she slowly lifted herself from the depression that overcame her after signing away the crown. When Annas finally departed Lochleven, the English ambassador Thomas Randolph noted that there was ‘great sorrow between the Queen and her’.

Jewelling queens

Annas ignored Mary’s letter. Instead, to Mary’s fury, she turned to Elizabeth, asking the queen to intervene on her behalf with Mary’s supporters in Scotland who were also pursuing her for the jewels. To make her case, Annas used the rhetoric of a poor widow and devoted mother:

now becaus I am put at by sa mony that makis thame to haif actioun aganis me and my bairnis, we can sie na uther releiffe bot utter ruine except your maiestie put to your helplie hand off your accustomis clemencie to thame that ar in truble as we ar at this punt.

Annas also claimed that the jewels had become the lawful property of the regent, her husband, in 1567 – and that, in Scotland, Parliament had confirmed his ownership of them. She noted that since she had been named as her husband’s executor and inheritor of the jewels, she was now within her own legal rights to hold onto them. The jewels were needed to help pay Moray’s debts and, crucially, as collateral until the new regime had settled their own dues to him. Annas instructed lawyers to emphasise her position and had goldsmiths issue assessments of their value and provide receipts. She also wrote letters to Elizabeth’s closest advisers including William Cecil and Robert Dudley, requesting that they speak on her behalf.

The matter dragged on for almost a year. Elizabeth was preoccupied with obtaining the support of the new regent, Matthew Stuart, earl of Lennox, following Moray’s death. Enraged by her lack of response, Mary wrote again to Annas in January 1571, declaring that Annas’ ‘obstinacy would irritat us to further grief aganis yow’. Annas was by now fully aware of the ‘grief’ that the jewels might cause her; in the intervening period, Mary’s lieutenant in the north of Scotland, George Gordon, earl of Huntly, had taken to blocking Annas from accessing her lands and preventing her servants from collecting rents. Mary offered to have Huntly pay Annas a fair price if she would deliver the jewels to his keeping. Yet her ire was clear when she threatened to authorise further abuses: ‘Oure advise is, that ye honestlie relief the charge ye haue of oure saidis jowellis, conforme to oure desyre, for otherwyse ye will provoque danger to your self as said is, and ewill treitment to your barnis.’

Once more, Annas did not respond. She again refused to hand over the jewels and would not engage in negotiations with Huntly. Instead, she retreated to her father’s home at Dunnottar in Stonehaven, a house perched on a high spit of land off the coast, ordering her secretary to buy cannons and gunpowder declaring that ‘ye ken I am an woman of weir’. Turning to Elizabeth for a second time, Annas went further than legal interpretations. Drawing up a draft letter, she bluntly informed Elizabeth that Mary had intentionally set out to hurt her and her children. Perhaps a secretary stepped in to warn her against sending such an inflammatory letter to Elizabeth, for Annas then had Randolph prepare a draft. The final version that was sent to Elizabeth was less combative, but Randolph did agree that Annas needed to emphasise the Anglo-Scots diplomacy pursued by her late husband to encourage Elizabeth to intervene.

Moray had been a keen advocate of the policy of amity between England and Scotland, largely, though not entirely, fuelled by shared Protestant convictions. He confirmed his loyalty to Elizabeth when he returned Thomas Percy, earl of Northumberland to the English after his capture in Scotland following the defeat of the Northern Rebellion of 1569, in which English Catholics led by Percy had attempted to depose Elizabeth. Moray’s actions had created discontent among the Scottish nobility, who felt that an ancient agreement to shelter exiles had been broken for political gain. In the end, Annas made a great show of Moray’s allegiance to Elizabeth, describing him as a ‘maist assured friend and trusty servitor’ to the queen and framing her request for support as a means for Elizabeth to be ‘fully revengit’ of Moray’s assassination.

Elizabeth, though offering little in terms of practical assistance beyond writing off a ruinously large loan she had issued Moray in 1569, did take Annas’ side in the quarrel over the jewels. She agreed that they should not be given up – though no doubt this was motivated in part by her reluctance to confirm that she had herself purchased some of Mary’s jewels from Moray, handpicking a string of pearls. For his obstructive behaviour, Huntly also received a dressing down. Annas had successfully outmanoeuvred Mary.

Hostilities resumed

A few years later, however, the issue reared its head again. In 1572 Annas married Colin Campbell and, upon the death of his older brother, in 1573 they became earl and countess of Argyll. Mary’s supporters, led by Huntly, had continued to agitate and campaign for the return of the royal jewels, without success. But by 1574 Mary had found an unexpected ally (at least in the case of the jewels) in the form of James Douglas, earl of Morton, the most recent, and final, regent of Scotland during her son James VI’s minority. Morton encouraged a renewal of hostilities between Huntly and Annas to temper the growing influence of her new husband at the Scottish court, and for a few months it seemed that the jewels might make their way back to Mary. Morton ordered Annas and Colin to appear before him in the matter and, when they failed to do so, had them declared rebels on 24 May 1574. Mary was thrilled to hear that Annas had been ordered to appear before the court of session to hand over the jewels.

In response, Annas gathered letters, receipts and testimonies and sent copies to her allies at Elizabeth’s court. At the same time, she petitioned the new ambassador to Scotland, Henry Killigrew, for his support, securing it with the gift of a pair of hugely expensive hunting dogs from her Argyll estates, a breed considered among the best in Europe.

Despite these efforts, this time Elizabeth agreed that Annas should give up the jewels. Wider Anglo-Scots diplomatic concerns had to be considered: between 1574 and 1576 there were secret negotiations between Elizabeth’s representatives and the Scottish court for Mary’s return to Scotland, predicated on her being only a figurehead removed from any real power. The aim was to avoid any potential threat while also ridding Elizabeth of the burden of maintaining Mary in England. Stepping in on Annas’ behalf would have threatened these negotiations. Notably, however, Elizabeth made no suggestion that the jewels be sent on to Mary: on the contrary, they would stay in the regent’s hands, which had been Morton’s aim all along. Elizabeth did order Morton to pay Annas a competitive price for each item, though no money was ever exchanged.

‘Harry’ returns

On 5 March 1575 Mary’s jewels, including the ‘Great Harry’, finally returned to the Scottish Crown. Although Mary never had the pleasure of seeing the jewels returned to her personally, the ‘Great Harry’ did eventually become her son’s. It was kept in the royal collection until Morton was accused of treason and executed on 2 June 1581. The jewel, however, survived: that same year James made a gift of the piece to Esmé Stuart, duke of Lennox. It was returned when Lennox was forced to leave Scotland, after James was held captive by nobles who resented the Frenchman’s influence over the young king. After this, for a brief time the jewel fell into the possession of the earl and countess of Arran. The countess formally returned the ‘Great Harry’ in 1586 and it was eventually given as a gift from James to his new wife, Anna of Denmark, who is depicted wearing it in several portraits.

For all that so many had fought to keep the ‘Great Harry’ in their possession, it was ultimately broken into smaller pieces. The central diamond and ruby were worn in a new piece commissioned by James to celebrate the Union of the Crowns in 1603. The other jewels remained in the royal collection at least until 1606, though the chain and gems were kept separately. This rather subdued end nevertheless hides a dramatic history. Mary and Annas’ bitter fight over the royal jewels offers an insight into both the complexities of Anglo-Scots diplomacy in the mid-16th century and the agency women could achieve through epistolary culture.

Jade Scott is an affiliate in History at the University of Glasgow and the author of Captive Queen: The Decrypted History of Mary, Queen of Scots (Michael O’Mara, 2024).

This article edited to correct the name of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. [24 September 2024]