His marriage to Mary was controversial and divided the country; when he fled the growing rebellion to Norway, he was arrested and lived the rest of his life imprisoned in Denmark.

Lord Bothwell appears to have met Queen Mary when he visited the French Court in the autumn of 1560, after he left Anna Rustung in Flanders.

By August, the widowed Queen was on her way back to Scotland in a French galley, some of the organisation having been dealt with by Bothwell in his naval capacity.

Bothwell supported Mary of Guise, queen dowager and Regent of Scotland, against the Protestant Lords of the Congregation.

Bothwell and 24 followers took 6000 crowns of English money destined to be used against Guise from the Laird of Ormiston on Halloween 1559 at an ambush near Haddington.

When Bothwell married Lady Jean Gordon, daughter of The 4th Earl of Huntly, in February 1566, the Queen attended the wedding (the marriage lasted just over a year).

Author Alison Weir agrees, and in fact the records show that Mary waited a full six days after learning of his injuries before going to visit Bothwell.

On 9 February 1567 Bothwell left his lodging at Todrick's Wynd on the south side of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh (east of Blackfriars Street) and with accomplices Dalgliesh, Powrie and Wilson, carried several kegs of gunpowder to Kirk o'Field lodging to the south, almost encountering Queen Mary en route.

Darnley's father, the Earl of Lennox, and other relatives agitated for vengeance and the Privy Council began proceedings against Bothwell on 12 April 1567.

On the appointed day Bothwell rode magnificently down the Canongate, with the Earl of Morton and William Maitland of Lethington flanking him, and his Hepburns trotting behind.

On Saturday 19 April 1567, eight bishops, nine earls, and seven Lords of Parliament put their signatures to what became known as the Ainslie Tavern Bond, a manifesto declaring that Mary should marry a native-born subject, and handed it to Bothwell.

There, Mary was taken prisoner by Bothwell and allegedly raped by him to secure marriage to her and the crown (though whether she was his accomplice or his unwilling victim remains a controversial issue).

[10][11] The marriage divided the country into two camps, and on 16 June, the Lords opposed to Mary and the Duke of Orkney (as Bothwell had newly become) signed a Bond denouncing them.

A showdown between the two opposing sides followed at Carberry Hill on 15 June, from which Orkney (as Lord Bothwell was now known) fled, after one final embrace, never to be seen again by Mary.

He was caught off the coast of Norway (then in a union with Denmark) at Høyevarde lighthouse in Karmsundet without proper papers, and was escorted to the port of Bergen.

[20][21] A body referred to as "Bothwell's mummy" materialised in 1976 in the Edinburgh Wax Museum on the Royal Mile, as the only non-wax exhibit.

Da det viste sig, at Mary Stuart ikke ville komme til magten igen, mistede jarlen sin betydning og blev overført til Dragsholm slot, muligvis fordi han var blevet sindssyg.

When it became clear that Mary Stuart would not be able to return to power, the earl lost all significance and was transferred to Dragsholm Castle (as Zealand) instead, possibly due to have become insane.