pointed out as the one he occupied. Previous to his removal he had composed in the castle of Copenhagen a narrative of his doings (published by the Bannatyne Club, under the title ‘Les Affaires du Conte de Boduel’), intended to show that he was the victim of ill-will on the part of the Scottish nobility. As this exposition of his wrongs did not produce an adequate impression on the king, he, on 13 Jan. 1568, stated that if the king would aid him, he was empowered to offer him as a recompense the islands of Orkney and Shetland. It had long been the ambition of the Danish sovereign to win back these islands from Scotland, and although Bothwell's offer was not accepted, simply because it was difficult to render it effective, the fact that it had been made secured the king's goodwill, and probably was the main reason why he refused to deliver Bothwell up or agree to his execution, although repeatedly pressed to do so both by Moray and Elizabeth. Meanwhile a proposal had been mooted for the marriage of Queen Mary to Norfolk, and on this account Queen Mary empowered Lord Boyd to take measures to obtain her divorce from Bothwell on the ground that the marriage ‘was for divers respects unlawful.’ The matter came before a convention held at Perth on 29 July 1569, when by a large majority liberty to take action in the matter was refused, the Earl of Huntly, Atholl, and other catholics voting for granting it, while Moray and Morton declined to vote (Reg. P. C. Scotl. ii. 8–9). Sentence of divorce was, however, passed in September 1570 by the pope, on the ground that she had been ravished previous to the marriage (Cal. State Papers, For. Ser. 1569–71, entry 1412). Bothwell is said to have given a mandate signifying his assent to the divorce. According to Chalmers (Mary Queen of Scots, 1st ed. ii. 242), the mandate remained among the papers of the Boyd family until 1746, but no such paper has yet been brought to light. Nor was a mandate from Bothwell likely to have any effect in enabling the queen to obtain a divorce. It would simply have proved collusion between the parties. In any case it would appear that the proposals for a divorce caused no break in the friendship between Bothwell and the queen, for on 19 Jan. 1571 Thomas Buchanan reports to Cecil that they constantly corresponded (Cal. State Papers, Scott. Ser. i. 310).
After the queen's cause in Scotland became completely lost, Bothwell was treated with less respect by the Danish king, and in June 1573 was removed to Drachsholm in Zeeland, described as ‘a much worse and closer’ prison. From this time he would appear to have been cut off from all communication with the outside world. The rigour of his confinement, the despair of deliverance from it, and the uncertainty as to whether at any moment he might not be sent to execution, gradually broke down his iron nerve. Accustomed as he was to an active outdoor life, his physical health suffered, and this doubtless also contributed to the overthrow of his mental balance. In any case the statements that he passed his latter years in insanity are made by so many contemporaries—Buchanan, Sir James Melville, De Thou, Lord Herries, &c.—that they must be accepted as conclusive. The Danish authorities give the year 1578 as that of his death, the ‘Calendar of Eiler Brockenhaus’ naming 14 April as the day. The so-called deathbed confession by Bothwell, exonerating Mary from the murder of Darnley, was professedly written when at Malmoe in 1575 (only abstracts of this document are known to exist); this must be regarded as conclusive against its genuineness, for he was removed from Malmoe in 1573, and died, not in 1575, but in 1578. He was buried in Faareveile Church. A coffin, indicated by tradition as his, was opened on 31 May 1858, and a portrait which was then taken of the head of the body is now in the museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Nothing was discovered, however, clearly to identify the body as Bothwell's, and as a large number of Scottish prisoners have been buried there, the matter is enveloped in considerable doubt. No portrait of Bothwell is now known to exist. He was famed for bodily strength. The tradition as to his ugliness rests wholly on the statements, more or less vituperative in form, of Brantôme and Buchanan. He left no lawful issue. His wife, Lady Jean Gordon, was married on 13 Dec. 1573 to Alexander Gordon, twelfth earl of Sutherland [see under {{sc|Gordon, John]], eleventh Earl of Sutherland, 1526?–1567], and after his death in 1594 to Alexander Ogilvy of Boyne. She survived till 1629.
