BOTHA, LOUIS (1862– ), Boer general and statesman, was the son of one of the “Voortrekkers,” and was born on the 27th of September 1862 at Greytown (Natal). He saw active service in savage warfare, and in 1887 served as a field-cornet. Subsequently he settled in the Vryheid district, which he represented in the Volksraad of 1897. In the war of 1899 he served at first under Lucas Meyer in northern Natal, but soon rose to higher commands. He was in command of the Boers at the battles of Colenso and Spion Kop, and these victories earned him so great a reputation that on the death of P. J. Joubert, Botha was made commander-in-chief of the Transvaal Boers. His capacity was again demonstrated in the action of Belfast-Dalmanutha (August 23–28, 1900), and after the fall of Pretoria he reorganized the Boer resistance with a view to prolonged guerrilla warfare. In this task, and in the subsequent operations of the war, he was aided by his able lieutenants de la Rey and de Wet. The success of his measures was seen in the steady resistance offered by the Boers to the very close of the three years’ war. He was the chief representative of his countrymen in the peace negotiations of 1902, after which, with de Wet and de la Rey, he visited Europe in order to raise funds to enable the Boers to resume their former avocations. In the period of reconstruction under British rule, General Botha, who was still looked upon as the leader of the Boer people, took a prominent part in politics, advocating always measures which he considered as tending to the maintenance of peace and good order and the re-establishment of prosperity in the Transvaal. After the grant of self-government to the Transvaal in 1907, General Botha was called upon by Lord Selborne to form a government, and in the spring of the same year he took part in the conference of colonial premiers held in London. During his visit to England on this occasion General Botha declared the whole-hearted adhesion of the Transvaal to the British empire, and his intention to work for the welfare of the country regardless of racial differences. (See Transvaal: History.)
BOTHNIA, GULF OF, the northern part of the Baltic Sea (q.v.).
The name is preserved from the former territory of Bothnia, of
which the western part is now included in Sweden, the eastern in
Finland.
BOTHWELL, JAMES HEPBURN, 4th Earl of, duke of
Orkney and Shetland (c. 1536–1578), husband of Mary, queen of
Scots, son of Patrick, 3rd earl of Bothwell, and of Agnes, daughter
of Henry, Lord Sinclair, was born about 1536. His father,
Patrick, the 3rd earl (c. 1512–1556), was the only son of Adam,
the 2nd earl, who was killed at Flodden, and the grandson of
Patrick (d. c. 1508), 3rd Lord Hailes and 1st earl of Bothwell.
It was this Patrick who laid the foundation of the family fortunes.
Having fought against King James III. at the battle of Sauchieburn
in 1488, he was rewarded by the new king, James IV., with
the earldom of Bothwell, the office of lord high admiral and other
dignities. He also received many grants of land, including the
lordship of Bothwell, which had been taken from John Ramsay,
Lord Bothwell (d. 1513), the favourite of James III.
James Hepburn succeeded in 1556 to his father’s titles, lands and hereditary offices, including that of lord high admiral of Scotland. Though a Protestant, he supported the government of Mary of Guise, showed himself violently anti-English, and led a raid into England, subsequently in 1559 meeting the English commissioners and signing articles for peace on the border. The same year he seized £1000 secretly sent by Elizabeth to the lords of the congregation. In retaliation Arran occupied and stripped his castle at Crichton, whereupon Bothwell in November sent Arran a challenge, which the latter declined. In December he was sent by the queen dowager to secure Stirling, and in 1560 was despatched on a mission to France, visiting Denmark on the way, where he either married or seduced Anne, daughter of Christopher Thorssen, whom he afterwards deserted, and who came to Scotland in 1563 to obtain redress. He joined Mary at Paris in September, and in 1561 was sent by her as a commissioner to summon the parliament; in February he arrived in Edinburgh and was chosen a privy councillor on the 6th of September. He now entered into obligations to keep the peace with his various rivals, but was soon implicated in riots and partisan disorders, and was ordered in December to leave the city. In March 1562, having made up his quarrel with Arran, he was accused of having proposed to the latter a project for seizing the queen, and in May he was imprisoned in Edinburgh castle, whence he succeeded in escaping on the 28th of August. On the 23rd of September he submitted to the queen. Murray’s influence, however, being now supreme, he embarked in December for France, but was driven by storms on to Holy Island, where he was detained, and was subsequently, on the 18th of January 1564, seized at Berwick and sent by Elizabeth to the Tower, whence he was soon liberated and proceeded to France. After these adventures he returned to Scotland in March 1565, but withdrew once more before the superior strength of his opponents to France. The same year, however, he was recalled by Mary to aid in the suppression of Murray’s rebellion, successfully eluding the ships of Elizabeth sent to capture him. As lieutenant of the Marches he was employed in settling disputes on the border, but used his power to instigate thieving and disorders, and is described by Cecil’s correspondents as “as naughty a man as liveth and much given to the most detestable vices,” “as false as a devil,” “one that the godly of this whole nation hath a cause to curse for ever.”[1] In February 1566 Bothwell, in spite of his previous matrimonial engagements—and he had also been united by “handfasting” to Janet Betoun of Cranstoun Riddell—married Jane, daughter of George Gordon, 4th earl of Huntly. Notwithstanding his insulting language concerning Mary and the fact that he was the “stoutest” in refusing mass, he became one of her chief advisers, but his complete ascendancy over her mind and affections dates from the murder of Rizzio on the 9th of March 1566. The queen required a protector, whom she found, not in the feeble Darnley, nor in any of the leaders of the factions, but in the strong, determined earl who had ever been a stanch supporter of the throne against the Protestant party and English influence. In Bothwell also, “the glorious, rash and hazardous young man,” romantic, handsome, charming even in his guilt, Mary gained what she lacked in her husband, a lover. He now stood forth as her champion; Mary took refuge with him at Dunbar, presented him, among other estates, with the castle there and the chief lands of the earldom of March, and made him the most powerful noble in the south of Scotland. Her partiality for him increased as her contempt and hatred of Darnley became more confirmed. On the 7th of October he was dangerously wounded, and the queen showed her anxiety for his safety by riding 40 miles to visit him, incurring a severe illness. In November she visited him at Dunbar, and in December took place the conference at Craigmillar at which both were present, and at which the disposal of Darnley was arranged, Bothwell with some others subsequently signing the bond to accomplish his murder. He himself superintended all the preparations, visiting Darnley with Mary on the night of the crime, Sunday, 9th of February 1567, attending the queen on her return to Holyrood for the ball, and riding back to Kirk o’ Field to carry out the crime. After the explosion he hurried back to Holyrood and feigned surprise at the receipt of the news half an hour later, ascribing the catastrophe to “the strangest accident that ever chancit, to wit, the fouder (lightning) came out of the luft (sky) and had burnt the king’s house.”[2]
Bothwell’s power was now greater, and the queen’s affection for him more ardent than ever. She was reported to have said that she cared not to lose France, England and her own country for him, and would go with him to the world’s end in a white petticoat ere she left him.[3] He was gratified with further rewards, and his success was clouded by no stings of conscience or remorse. According to Melville he had designs on the life of the young prince. On the demand of Lennox, Darnley’s father, Bothwell was put upon his trial in April, but Lennox, having been forbidden to enter the city with more than six attendants, refused to attend, and Bothwell was declared not guilty. The queen’s
