James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell

James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, was a powerful Scottish nobleman and the third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. He was accused of involvement in the murder of Mary’s second husband, Lord Darnley, but was acquitted after a controversial trial.

Bothwell’s subsequent marriage to Mary intensified opposition to the queen and contributed to her deposition in 1567. He fled Scotland, was captured in Denmark and died after years of imprisonment.

Nigel Tranter’s Marie and Mary brings Bothwell into the collapse of Mary, Queen of Scots’ rule, where her marriage to him after Darnley’s murder becomes inseparable from scandal, rebellion and deposition. Sarah Gristwood’s The Queen’s Mary views the same crisis through Mary Seton, making Bothwell’s rise and marriage one of the shocks that test the attendants’ loyalty to their queen. In Warden of the Queen’s March, Tranter places Bothwell among the volatile nobles surrounding Mary as Border warfare and religious conflict intensify. Alison Weir’s Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley examines the historical Bothwell directly, testing the evidence for his part in Darnley’s killing and the political consequences of his subsequent marriage to Mary.