George Douglas of Rumgally and Helenhill was a Scottish courtier and diplomat. He was involved in the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots from Lochleven Castle in May 1568. After the battle of Langside he accompanied her to England. [1]
George Douglas of Rumgally and Helenhill was a Scottish courtier and diplomat. He was involved in the escape of Mary, Queen of Scots from Lochleven Castle in May 1568. After the battle of Langside he accompanied her to England. [1]
He was a younger brother of William Douglas of Lochleven, later Earl of Morton. He is said to have been called "P[r]ettie Geordie". [2] The English diplomat Robert Bowes called him "little George Douglas". [3] Willie Douglas, his half-brother, was sometimes called "Little Douglas". [4]
George Douglas acquired the lands of Rumgally near Cupar by marriage, and in May 1582 bought Helenhill in Fife near St Andrews, now known as Allanhill. [5]
George Douglas is said to have become an ally of Mary, Queen of Scots, when she was compelled to abdicate at Lochleven in July 1567. Claude Nau wrote that Douglas spoke to Mary and undertook to prevent her enemies taking her from the castle to a worse fate. [6] In April 1568, William Drury heard a rumour that when James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray visited the castle, Mary had talked about marrying again "and named one to her liking, George Douglas, brother to the laird of Lochleven". Drury wrote that George Douglas stayed at Kinross waiting for Mary to make her getaway. John Drysdale secretly carried letters between Mary and George. [7]
Accounts of Mary's escape from the castle vary, possibly conflating reports of an earlier attempt. George Douglas is said to have exchanged signals with the Queen's chamberer Marie Courcelles, including a pear-shaped pearl earring, [8] and rowed the boat from the island, or waited on the shore with horses for her ride to Niddry Castle and the west of Scotland. [9]
On 26 June 1568, Mary sent Douglas from Carlisle Castle to Elizabeth I and to France. It was feared that he would use Mary's French income to raise an army to fight Regent Moray in Scotland. [10]
Douglas visited Mary at Sheffield Castle in May 1571. She offered to assist him to marry a French woman by granting an income from her estates, but this plan fell through. Back in Scotland, he was involved in sending letters in cipher to Mary, passing six letters concealed in a walking stick to a courier at Dirleton. [11]
George Douglas became a gentleman and usher of the bedchamber to James VI in December 1580. [12]
Douglas was sent as an envoy to France in 1581. [15] He was entrusted to ask the French King to recognise the title of James to the Scottish throne, despite Mary's hopes for an associated rule in Scotland. [16] The impetus may have come from Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox, who was lukewarm at the proposition of a conjoint monarchy. [17] [18] Mary discussed this setback with Robert Beale, maintaining that George Douglas was still her faithful friend and a good servant to her son. [19] A deciphered Spanish report of Douglas's French mission names him "Jorge Dunbles". [20]
Douglas came to Stirling Castle in September 1582 to discuss the association, but was arrested as a conspirator. [21] In March 1583, the English diplomat Robert Bowes learnt that "little George Douglas" and William Stewart, Captain of Dumbarton had copies of Lennox's negotiations for the treaty of the "association". [22]
Douglas wrote a letter to Mary's ally Archbishop Beaton, assuring him of his continued support and mentioning that William Schaw might travel to France. Douglas wrote from Glendoick, a property near Perth belonging to his wife's family. [23] Schaw was in Paris in May 1583 and is said to have returned to Scotland with Lennox's heart. [24]
Douglas went to France in October 1585. He told an English diplomat in Edinburgh, Edward Wotton, that he planned to visit the Duke of Guise. Wotton reported to Francis Walsingham that Douglas was working for Mary's faction. He returned in March 1586. Walsingham heard that he had written to his brother, the Laird of Lochleven, advising that the Queen's faction would regain the upper hand in Scotland. [25]
When Mary was brought to trial in England following the discovery of the Babington Plot, Lord Hamilton and George Douglas spoke to James VI, trying to persuade him to intervene. Douglas insisted that James was overly influenced by the "bad reports, devised by some slaves of the Queen of England, which he had near about him". These Scottish courtiers subsided on English pensions. Douglas argued that James ought to support his mother, who was faithful to the religion she had been brought up in. [26]
On 6 August 1587, "litill George Dowglass" was knighted at Falkland Palace. [27] In September 1587, he was suggested as an ambassador to go to Navarre to discuss the marriage of James VI and Catherine of Bourbon. However, on second thoughts, Robert Melville's brother James Melville of Halhill was instead chosen to travel with the returning diplomat Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas because Douglas was not considered "a friend to that alliance". James Melville proved reluctant, and finally his brother William Melville, commendator of Tongland, went to Navarre and brought back Catherine's portrait. [28]
George Douglas married Janet Lindsay (died 1598), a member of the Dowhill family. She had first married Andrew Lundie of Balgonie. She was the mother of James Scott of Balwearie by her second marriage and was known as "Lady Balwearie". Their daughter Margaret Douglas married George Ramsay of Dalhousie, and was the mother of William Ramsay, 1st Earl of Dalhousie. [29]
From 1601, George Douglas was "tutor in law" for his infant niece Mary, Countess of Buchan, daughter of James Douglas, 5th Earl of Buchan (died 1601). [30]
Walter Scott has George Douglas die at the battle of Langside in his 1820 novel The Abbot . Charles Landseer painted this fictional scene including Crookston Castle in the background. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1837. The image was reproduced in engravings and in kits for woolwork embroidery. [31]