From "Secreit" Script to Public Print: Punctuation, News Management, and the Condemnation of the Earl of Bothwell

Abstract

the Privy Council of Scotland met at the great palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh to deal with an emergency. The council was composed of the kingdom's most powerful magnates and officers of state and usually governed, at least officially, in conjunction with the monarch or (if the monarch was too young) a regent. However, on this occasion no such person was available. The "lordis of secreit counsale, " as they were usually styled in the "Register" of their acts, were on their own. The reason is well known. On May 15, 1567, Mary, Queen of Scots, had married James Hepburn, fourth Earl of Bothwell, who had been divorced the previous month by his wife, Lady Jean Gordon, on the grounds of his adultery with a maidservant. 1 A glamorous, violent man, Bothwell is, quite rightly, one of the most notorious figures in sixteenth-century Scottish history. He had almost certainly planned and been 1.