Bothwell, << BOTH wehl, >> Earl of (1535?-1578), a Scottish Protestant nobleman, was the third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. In 1565, Mary wed her cousin Henry Stuart, also known as Lord Darnley. In 1567, Darnley was murdered. Bothwell and Mary were suspected of involvement. Bothwell was acquitted in a mockery of a trial, from which he forcibly excluded the chief witnesses against him. Intent on marrying the queen, he abducted Mary. She reluctantly agreed to marry him. A month later, after divorcing his wife, he married the queen. Three days before the wedding, Mary had made him Duke of Orkney and Shetland.
Many lords of Scotland, both Catholic and Protestant, united in rebellion against the marriage. When the armies met at Carberry Hill near Edinburgh in June 1567, Bothwell’s forces scattered, and the queen was taken prisoner. Mary insisted that Bothwell be allowed to escape, and he fled to Norway, where he was arrested. Bothwell spent the end of his life in a Danish prison, where he went insane. He died on April 14, 1578. Bothwell’s given and family name was James Hepburn.
