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James Hepburn, Duke of Orkney, 4th Earl of Bothwell (known at the time as, simply, Bothwell) (c. 1534 – April 14, 1578) was Hereditary Lord High Admiral of Scotland. He is best known because of his association with and subsequent marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, as her third husband.

Contents 1 Family 2 Admiral and Casanova 3 Meets Queen Mary 4 Feuds 5 Royal friendship 6 Darnley's murder 7 The Great Abduction 8 Escape 9 Anna's Revenge 10 The end 11 References

He was the son of Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Earl of Bothwell, whom he succeeded as earl in 1556, by his spouse Agnes (d.1572) daughter of Henry, 3rd Lord Sinclair.

As a high admiral, Bothwell sailed throughout Europe. During a visit to Copenhagen around 1559, he became enamoured of Anna Rustung, a Norwegian noblewoman whose father, Christoffer Trondsen Rustung, a famous Norwegian admiral, was serving as Danish Royal Consul. After their engagement, Anna left with Bothwell, and in Flanders, he announced that he was out of money. He asked Anna to sell all her possessions, which she did, and she left to return to her family in Denmark to ask for more money. Anna Rustung's sister Margaret married Scottish nobleman John Stuart, 4th Earl of Atholl. Anna was unhappy and apparently given to complaining about Bothwell. Bothwell's treatment of Anna Rustung played a part in his downfall.

Bothwell appears to have met Mary when he visited the French Court in the autumn of 1560, after he had left Anna Throndsen in Flanders. He was kindly received by Mary and her husband Francis, and, as he himself put it: "The Queen recompensed me more liberally and honourably than I had deserved" - receiving 600 Crowns and the post and salary of gentleman of the French King's Chamber. He paid a further visit to France in the spring of 1561, and by 5 July was back in Paris for the third time - this time accompanied by the Bishop of Orkney and Lord Eglinton. By August, the widowed Queen was on her way back to Scotland in a French galley, some of the organisation dealt with by Bothwell in his naval capacity.

Bothwell appears to have been not much more than a troublesome noble at court following the Queen's return. His open quarrel with Arran and the Hamiltons, who accused him of intriguing against the Crown, caused some degree of anguish to Mary, and although Arran was eventually declared mad, Bothwell was nevertheless imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle without trial in 1562. Later that year, while Mary was in the Highlands, he escaped.

In February 1566, Bothwell married Jean, the daughter of George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly. Mary attended the wedding. But, in the summer, Jean was seriously ill and on the brink of death. The marriage lasted just over a year.

The Queen and Bothwell were by now very close. Upon hearing that he had been seriously wounded and was likely to die, Mary rode all the way through the hills and forests of the Borders to be with him at Hermitage Castle only a few weeks after giving birth to her son James (later James VI of Scotland and James I of England).

Bothwell was divorced by his wife on the grounds of adultery with her servant, Bessie Crawford, on 7 May 1567, three months after the death of Mary's second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Bothwell was one of those accused of his murder. Sir William Drury reported to Elizabeth's Secretary of State William Cecil that "the judgement of the people" was that Mary would marry Bothwell.

However, in the meantime Darnley's family, in the person of the Earl of Lennox, his father, were agitating for vengeance and upon his Petition the Privy Council began proceedings against Bothwell on 12 April 1567. Drury reported that the Queen was in continuous ill-health "for the most part either melancholy or sickly". On the appointed day Bothwell rode magnificently down the Canongate, with the Earl of Morton and William Maitland flanking him, and his Hepburns trotting behind. The trial lasted from noon till seven in the evening. Bothwell was acquitted.

The next Wednesday the Queen rode to Parliament, with Bothwell carrying the Sceptre, where the proceedings of Bothwell's trial were officially declared to be just according to the law of the land. On Saturday 19 April no less than eight bishops, nine Earls, and seven Lords of Parliament put their signatures to what became known as the Ainslie Bond, a manifesto declaring that Mary should remarry a native, non-foreign born subject, and handed it to Bothwell.

On Wednesday 24 April, while Mary was on the road from Linlithgow Palace to Edinburgh, Bothwell suddenly appeared with 800 men. He assured her that in Edinburgh danger awaited her, and told her that he proposed to take her to his castle of Dunbar, out of harms way. She agreed to accompany him and arrived at Dunbar at midnight. On the 12 May the Queen created him Duke of Orkney, and he married Mary in the Great Hall at Holyrood on May 15, 1567, (eight days after his divorce was decreed). Within three days, Sir William Drury wrote to London that although the manner of things appeared to be forcible, it was known to be otherwise.

The marriage divided the country into two camps, and on June 16 the Lords opposed to Mary and Bothwell signed a Bond denouncing them. There followed the showdown between the two opposing sides at Carberry Hill on 15 June 1567, from which Bothwell fled, after one final embrace, never to be seen again by Mary. In December of the same year, Bothwell's titles and estates were forfeited by Act of Parliament for treason.

He escaped from Scotland and travelled to Scandinavia in the hope of raising an army to put Mary back on the throne. He had during that time the unfortunate experience of being caught off the coast of Norway (then ruled by Denmark) without proper papers, and was escorted to the port of Bergen. Unfortunately, this was the native home of Anna Rustung. Anna raised a complaint against Bothwell, which was enforced by her powerful family; her cousin Erik Rosenkrantz, a high-level official in Norway, remanded Bothwell to a local prison whilst Anna sued him for abandonment and return of her dowry. Reports of the court case are impressive, with Anna having been described as wearing a majestic red dress and impressive jewels. Anna must have had a weak spot in her heart for Bothwell, as he persuaded her to take custody of his ship, as a form of compensation. Bothwell would have been released, but in the meantime, the King of Denmark, Frederick, having heard that the English crown was seeking Bothwell for the alleged murder of Lord Darnley, decided to take him into custody on the mainland of Denmark.

King Frederick at first treated Bothwell with respect but later sent him to the notorious Dragsholm Castle, Denmark, where he was held in what was said to be appalling conditions. A pillar to which he was chained in the castle can still be seen, with a circular groove in the floor around the pillar where Bothwell purportedly remained for the last ten years of his life and where he died. His mummified body could supposedly be seen in Fårevejle, in the church near the castle, until a few decades ago. However, the identity of the body has never been conclusively proven.

• The Royal Families of England Scotland and Wales, with their descendants, etc., by John and John Bernard Burke, London, 1848, volume 2, pedigree XII.
• Scottish Kings, a Revised Chronology of Scottish History, 1005 - 1625, by Sir Archibald H. Dunbar, Bart., Edinburgh, 1899, p. 256.
• Lines of Succession, by Jiri Louda & Michael Maclagan, London, 1981.
• Mary Queen of Scots, by Antonia Fraser, 13th reprint, London, 1989, ISBN 0-297-17773-7

Preceded by New Creation	Duke of Orkney 1567	Succeeded by Forfeit
Preceded by Patrick Hepburn	Earl of Bothwell 1556–1567
Preceded by Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley	Royal Consort of Scotland 1567	Succeeded by Anne of Denmark