MY word is my bond is an ancient saying that all Scots should adhere to, not least because verbal contracts were once sacred in the laws of this land.

Another form of bond that was extant for centuries was an alliance in writing, usually signed by members of the nobility to signify a common cause, and today we will look particularly at the most controversial “bond” of that type, the Craigmillar Bond which was the product of the Craigmillar Conference of 1566 that resulted in the assassination of Henry, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary, Queen of Scots.

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This practice of signing bonds first came to the fore in Scotland in the 13th century. Prior to that, kings such as David I and and William the Lion reserved to themselves the right to demand all loyalty which was necessary as Scottish kings of that time ruled by decree.

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One of the most historically important bonds was signed at Turnberry Castle in Ayrshire on September 20 1286 by members of the nobility of Scotland and Ireland.

Known as the Turnberry Band (bond) the agreement allied the Bruce family and their Stewart friends to the powerful lord of Ulster Sir Richard de Burgh. This dynastic alliance assisted the Bruces in their claim to the throne of Scotland – the timing of the signing was crucial as the Band was signed just months after the sudden death of King Alexander III, with the succession of his granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway still far from certain.

Interestingly, one of the signatories of the band was Robert de Brus, Earl of Carrick, then a 12-year-old boy who would grow up to be King Robert the Bruce and marry Richard de Burgh’s daughter Elizabeth. In what is a very rare example of preserved history from mediaeval Scotland, we actually know exactly what the Band said as it was preserved in the memoirs of the Earls of Menteith, known as the Red Book of Menteith.

Here it is in an English translation: “Bond by Patrick Earl of Dunbar, Patrick, John, and Alexander his sons, Walter Stewart, Earl of Menteith, Alexander and John his sons, Robert of Bruce, Lord of Annandale, and Robert of Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and Richard of Bruce his sons, James, Steward of Scotland, and John his brother, Enegus, son of Dovenald, and Alexander his lawful son, whereby they engage to adhere to Sir Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, and Sir Thomas of Clare in all their affairs, and to stand faithfully by them and their accomplices against all their adversaries, saving their fidelity to the King of England, and also to him who should obtain the kingdom of Scotland by reason of relationship to Alexander King of Scotland last deceased. At Turnebyry in Carrick, on the eve of St. Matthew, 20th September 1286.”

As you can see, even then the Bruces were laying down the evidence to back their claim to the throne and the Turnberry Band did indeed assist their cause. The Auld Alliance of 1295 was itself a glorified bond, the first mutual defence treaty between Scotland and France, which led directly to the Wars of Independence and King Robert the Bruce’s eventual victory.

One of the most common forms of bond was that known as manrent, which was extant in Scotland from the 1400s to the 17th century. In a bond of manrent, individuals or groups such as clans or septs of clans promised their support to chiefs or lords, usually in the form of military service.

As such bonds were in effect declarations of prior loyalty to someone other than the king, various monarchs and the Scottish Parliament took a dim view of them and passed laws to suppress the practice – except, of course for bonds of manrent to aid the king or his appointed lord of a burgh.

These anti-manrent laws were often ignored, especially in the Highlands where the decrees of a clan chief were the most important laws in an area. Legal bonds of manrent were also disputed in the Scottish courts, so we know that the practice of manrent was widespread in the 15th and 16th centuries in particular.

Thus we also find bonds of manrent being signed by clan chiefs pledging themselves and their clans to support other chiefs, forging important alliances in a lawless age where the Scottish Parliament was too powerless to impose order on the clans.

Quite a few of these bonds of manrent survive so we know, for instance, that in 1559, Tormod Macleod, laird of Harris, signed a bond with the chief of clan Campbell, the Earl of Argyll. The bond states that Tormod “by these presents, gives and grants his bond of manrent, his faithful and true service, with all his kin and friends, and his heirs and successors of the Harris, to the said Earl, his heirs and successors, of Argyll, perpetually; also shall not marry but with the advice of the said Earl, whose counsel he shall take in marrying a wife.”

As you can see, some bonds were very prescriptive while others were merely declarations of loyalty and mutual support signed on oath – at a time when oaths really were sacred and inviolable – for military and political reasons.

So now we turn to the Craigmillar Bond, a hugely important document in Scottish and indeed British history, but one which has been lost for centuries.

Craigmillar Castle is one of the hidden jewels of Edinburgh, and though it was ruined two centuries ago, it is very well preserved and is cared for by Historic Environment Scotland in a commendable manner.

The castle was burned by the English army in the Rough Wooing of 1544, and was rebuilt by its owner Sir Simon Preston, Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1565 to 1569.

The castle hosted Mary, Queen of Scots in 1563 when she is known to have visited those people who had settled there after immigrating upon the Queen’s return from the French court. The area around the castle is known as Little France to this day.

After the birth of her son James in June 1566, Mary came again to Craigmillar Castle. It is reported that by October she was seriously ill, either with post-natal depression or something rather more sinister, namely a sexually transmitted disease caught from her wastrel rake of a husband, Henry, Lord Darnley.

Earlier that year, Darnley had himself entered into a bond – though not in writing – to murder David Rizzio or Riccio, his wife’s secretary and favourite courtier whom Darnley suspected of being too intimate with the Queen. Led by the Earl of Ruthven, the conspirators entered the Queen’s bedchamber and stabbed Rizzio to death in front of her even though she was six months pregnant – or perhaps because they hoped it would lead her to miscarry, as Darnley suspected the child was not his.

It was indeed his child, however. Mary delivered Darnley’s son in Edinburgh Castle but in retrospect, his fate was already sealed as the nobles loyal to Mary were certain that Darnley’s main aim was to seize the throne for himself and they could not allow that, not least because Darnley was Catholic and his ascension to the throne would imperil the Protestant Reformation.

The Queen arrived at Craigmillar on November 20 and sometime during the next fortnight or so, a meeting or meetings took place in the main hall of the Castle. Present were the men who would either directly kill or, more likely, arrange the killing of Darnley.

They included James Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, who had designs on the Queen and the throne himself; the Secretary of State William Maitland of Lethington and the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Huntly, and Archibald Campbell, the Earl of Argyll.

They discussed the state of her marriage with Mary and the view of pro-Marian historians is that she wanted nothing to do with a plot to remove Darnley either by divorce or death. As a Catholic, though she toyed with the idea she eventually could not countenance divorce and her supporters always say she would never have even discussed killing Darnley.

I can’t quite believe that. Even a cursory visit to Craigmillar Castle, which I highly recommend, will convince you that Mary must have known what her allies were planning.

The various rooms where the conspirators met are just too close to each other for her not to have known what was going on, even if, as has been suggested by several historians, she had taken to her bed in the east wing of the Castle. It’s just too small and intimate a setting for Mary not to have at least understood what was going to happen, especially if she was in the tiny Queen Mary’s Room, as it is still called, immediately adjacent to the main hall of the Castle

It is known that Mary did not sign the Craigmillar Bond. What exactly it stated and who was involved is a mystery as no copy of the Bond has ever been found.

By the time the Queen left Craigmillar on December 7, arrangements had been made to bring Darnley, sick with what was most likely syphilis, to the Castle for recuperation in the healthier countryside. But Darnley insisted on being housed inside the city walls and was taken to Kirk o’Field, a comfortable residence on the outskirts of Holyrood.

It was there on the morning of February 10, 1567, that a tremendous explosion and fire gutted the house. In the garden of Kirk o’Field were found the bodies of Darnley and his servant. Both had been strangled. However it had happened, and whether the Queen had prior knowledge or not, the Craigmillar Bond had been carried to fruition, setting in train the chain of events that led to the Union of the Crowns under Darnley and Mary’s son, James VI and I, in 1603. For had Darnley lived he might well have had a prior claim to the throne of Elizabeth of England as he too, like Mary, was a descendant of Henry VII.

After the assassination there was an immediate hue and cry and within hours, the Edinburgh mob was blaming Bothwell. So, too, did Darnley’s father the Earl of Lennox. James Hepburn faced his accusers at the Privy Council on April 12, 1567, and was acquitted of all charges. That’s when another bond came into play.

The so-called Ainslie Tavern Bond was a document prepared by Bothwell’s camp which was signed a little over a week after his acquittal. Again the actual Bond document is lost but we know what it said. It was effectively a reference for Bothwell as a suitable husband for Mary, one which confirmed his acquittal and promoted his marriage cause - this just weeks after his first wife had been forced to annul their marriage.

This bond was little more than a piece of propaganda and was seen as such from the outset.

It was named after the tavern where it was signed in Edinburgh and the names attached to it were impressive enough - it would eventually be signed by nine earls, eight bishops and seven Parliamentary lords, with some suggestion that coercion was involved.

The majority of people were not fooled by the Ainslie Tavern Bond and even after Bothwell and Mary were married – her by force, some said – the couple were still blamed for Darnley’s murder.

Bonds of one sort or another would continue to be drafted and signed and it could be argued that the greatest bond of them all was the National Covenant of 1638. But that’s a story I’ve already told.

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