be alike displeasing to both of the extreme parties, to the vehement accusers, and to the vehement admirers, of Queen Mary, to those who would brand her as a murderess, and to those who would enshrine her as a martyr. We think, however, that an intermediate judgment will be found to combine, in a remarkable degree, nearly all the valid arguments that both parties have put forward. But, amidst this tangled web of controversies, and with Mr. Tytler's new lights to apply to them, our only clear course will be, in the first place, to recapitulate the leading events, as we believe them to have happened, even at the hazard of repeating many facts already known to the reader. The misfortunes of Mary began even with her earliest days. The news of her birth, at Linlithgow, (December 8, 1542*) found the King, her father, secluded in the lonely palace of Falkland, and dying of a broken heart. He was weighed down to the grave by the untimely loss of his two sons, and, more recently, the disgraceful rout of his army. For whole days he would sit in gloomy silence, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, sometimes dropping his arms listlessly by his side, and sometimes convulsively striking them upon his heart, as if he sought to tear from out his breast the load of grief which oppressed it. Thus sunk into despair, he received the messenger from his Queen without welcome, and the news of a daughter's birth without pleasure: but his thoughts wandered back to the times of old, when the daughter of the Bruce had brought his ancestor the kingdom for her dowry, and he exclaimed, with mournful forebodings, It came with a girl, and it will go with a girl!' A few of his more favoured counsellors and servants stood around his couch: after some space the dying monarch stretched out his hand for them to kiss, and, casting upon them his last look of placid affection, turned round upon his pillow and expired. He was aged only thirty years, and his infant daughter and successor only six days. Six years pass, and the infant Queen becomes transferred, for safe custody and for future marriage, to France. Twelve years more, and we find her again embarking for her native land, with all the hopes for which she had left it, already blighted,her youthful husband, Francis the Second, having sunk under a languishing disease, during which she had watched over him with devoted care and affection,-and she now returning to encounter, at scarcely yet eighteen, the stormy factions of her own northern realm. Warm-hearted and confiding, her most eager We may observe that Mr. Tytler is not always sufficiently dates, except where he decides any controversy respecting them. Queen Mary's birth, nor of King James's death, for instance, are careful in giving the Neither the dates of to be found in his desire desire at this time was for the friendship and alliance of Elizabeth. In her own words to the ambassador of England,―There are more reasons to persuade to amity between Elizabeth, my good sister, and myself than between any two princes in Christendom. We are both in one isle, both of one language, both the nearest Far kinswoman that each other hath, and both Queens.'* different were Elizabeth's designs. Not merely did she refuse the passport which Mary sought, but sent some ships of war with secret instructions to intercept her on her voyage. Mary's reply to Throckmorton, when she found the safe conduct withheld, was affecting, and, as Mr. Tytler observes, seemed almost to shadow. forth her future fate: 'If,' said she, 'my preparations were not so much advanced as they are, peradventure the Queen's, your mistress's, unkindness might stay my voyage, but now I am determined to adventure the matter, whatsoever come of it. I trust the wind will be so favourable as I shall not need to come on the coast of England: and if I do, then, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, the Queen, your mistress, shall have me in her hands to do her will of me; and if she be so hard-hearted as to desire my end, she may then do her pleasure, and make sacrifice of me: peradventure that casualty might be better for me than to live. In this matter God's will be fulfilled." + Notwithstanding these-let us use a Scottish word in speaking of a Scottish Queen-ower true' forebodings of evil, and lingering regrets, Mary, having taken leave of her uncles of Guise, embarked at Calais and proceeded on her voyage. It has often been related how, until the night, she never ceased to look upon the lessening shores of France-how she commanded a couch to be spread for her on deck-how at sunrise she eagerly sought another parting glance before the coast finally faded from her sight -how sadly she bade adieu to that cherished country where her early love lay buried, and where her remaining affections were enshrined. Farewell, France,' she said, beloved France, I shall never see thee more!' Soon after this sprung up a favourable breeze to waft her on her voyage: a still more auspicious fog screened her galley from the notice of the English ships, and enabled her to arrive in safety; although Brantôme, who was one of the gentlemen attending her, most ungratefully denounces le brouillard as a fitting emblem-de son royaume brouillé, brouillon et malplaisant!‡ On the 19th of August, 1561, Mary landed at Leith, amidst the rude attempts at state, but sincere rejoicings of her people. * Sir N. Throckmorton and the Earl of Bedford to the Council, Feb. 26, 1561. Keith, p. 176. Tytler, vol. vi., p. 273. May May not then her thoughts have wandered back, as ours do now, to recall how, at the same port, five-and-twenty years before, another Queen of Scotland had landed-Madeline of France, the bride of King James-how, on descending from the ship, Madeline had knelt down upon the shore, and taking up some of the sand kissed it with deep emotion, while she implored a blessing upon her new country and her beloved husband! * Madeline was young and fair as herself-her steps as buoyant, and her hopes as bright. But Madeline was more happy than Mary. Only a few weeks from her landing she expired-with no doubtful fame-no blighted affections-no violent and ignominious death! 'Whom the gods love die young, was said of And many deaths do they escape by this yore, The death of friends-and that which slays even more, The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is Besides mere breath.' Never was young sovereign hailed in more beautiful verse than Buchanan prepared for Mary-never was poetical prophecy worse fulfilled than that of his 'Nympha Caledoniæ quæ nunc feliciter oræ Missa per innumeros sceptra tueris avos!' We shall not pause to examine in detail the four first years of her administration. It seems admitted that her general conduct in this period was distinguished both by sense and spirit. Amidst the fearful elements she was called to rule-cruelty and revenge, oppression and corruption, in every form-all the fierce and lawless passions of a dark age, which had been not softened or subdued, but only taught dissimulation and treachery by frequent intercourse with more polished nations-amidst these, how hard, how apparently hopeless, the task of a youthful Queen, already denounced as a papist and a stranger! Her beauty and accomplishments, indeed, made a favourable impression on her subjects. May God save that sweet face!' was the cry as she rode in procession to the parliament; she speaks as properly as the best orator amongst them!' But the more austere preachers of the Evangele' frowned-and taught their flocks to frown-on the foreign idolatress.' Although, on her landing, she had issued a proclamation promising to maintain the Protestant form of worship which she found established-although she had scrupulously fulfilled this promise-she could not easily obtain for herself the same freedom of conscience that she granted. 'I mean,' she had said even while yet in France, to constrain none * See Mr. Tytler's History, vol. v. p. 257. of of my subjects, but would wish they were all as I am; and I trust * Loud and that they shall have no support to constrain me.' fierce, however, were now the clamours against the celebration of mass in her own private chapel : : 'It was even argued by Knox,' observes Mr. Tytler, that the Jews were more tolerable in their tenets than the Romish Church; he would rather see, he said, ten thousand French soldiers in Scotland than suffer a single mass. And when the Master of Lindsay, a furious zealot, heard that it was about to be celebrated, he buckled on his harness, assembled his followers, and rushing into the court of the palace, shouted aloud that the priests should die the death. The Lord James, however, opposed this violence, placed himself at the door of the chapel, overawed the multitude, and preserved the lives of the chaplains who officiated for which he was bitterly and ironically attacked by Knox.' Nearly four years from her landing (July 29, 1565) was solemnised the Queen's second marriage with Lord Darnley. At the altar Mary appeared in deep mourning; and it was remarked by the superstitious that it was the same dress which she had worn on the melancholy day of her late husband's obsequies. She was now in her twenty-third year, and it needed but little of courtly exaggeration to declare her the most lovely woman of Europe. Her matchless beauty of person and bewitching grace of manner are warmly extolled by her partisans, and reluctantly acknowledged by her enemies. Her taste for all the fine arts and accomplishments, and her skill in several, especially poetry and music, were never denied; though sometimes, by the Puritans, charged on her as crimes. On her character there is no such unanimity. So far as we may judge it from her proceedings up to this time, it appears warm, generous, and confiding; but with each of these qualities carried to a faulty extreme. Impatient of contradiction, as a sovereign from her cradle, her warmth often impelled her beyond all prudent bounds, and rendered her heedless of advice and incapable of judgment. Her generosity was seldom tempered by caution; and her confidence once granted was credulous and unguarded. It was Mary's weakness,' says Mr. Tytler, speaking of her in 1564, to be hurried away by the predominating influence of some one feeling and object.' And we find her on most occasions act or speak from the impulse of the moment, instead of firm resolve and unswerving principle. On the whole, we may pronounce her, according to the words of Robertson, 'an agreeable woman rather than a great Queen:' and, in both respects, we may add, the very opposite to her good sister' of England. Lord Darnley, who henceforth took the title of King Henry, * Keith, p. 167. + Vol. vi. p. 373. was was the eldest son of the Earl of Lennox, and his mother, next to Mary herself, the nearest in succession to the throne of England. He was now scarcely nineteen years of age, of a tall and graceful stature, and of outward graces and accomplishments, but utterly wanting, as it proved, in good qualities, both of head and heart. Not many months elapsed ere he began to show ingratitude to the Queen; he became addicted to drunkenness and other low debauchery, in pursuit of which he forsook her company, and even in public treated her with harshness and disrespect.* He openly aspired to the Crown matrimonial'-implying an equal share with the Queen in the government; and by a strange but not uncommon combination, the more incapable he showed himself of wielding power, the more eager he appeared to grasp it. But it is very remarkable that even before the marriage had been solemnised he had so far aggrieved many of the nobles by his insolence, that they already began to mutter amongst themselves vague threats of his assassination. This appears from a secret letter of the English ambassador, which we owe to Mr. Tytler's researches in the State-Paper Office: 6 His (Darnley's) pride is intolerable, his words not to be borne, but where no man dare speak again. He spareth not also, in token of his manhood, to let some blows fly where he knoweth that they will be taken. Such passions, such furies, as I hear say that sometimes he will be in, is hard to believe. When they have said all, and thought what they can, they find nothing but that God must send him a short end, or themselves a miserable life. To see so many in hazard as now stand in danger of life, land, and goods, it is great pity to think. Only to remedy this mischief, he must be taken away, or such as he hateth find good support.'† Darnley, however unfit to lead any of the factions, was sometimes found by them an useful tool, and always an easy dupe. The Queen had at this time for her foreign secretary a Milanese, named David Riccio, who had lately risen from an humble station into high Court favour, and therefore, we need not add, made numerous enemies. The Protestant party, above all, were justly and reasonably alarmed at the rapid rise of this zealous adherentand perhaps, as they said, secret pensioner-of Rome, at the very moment when a league was forming on the continent for the utter * Among other fragments of verse in Mary's handwriting on the leaves of her Missal now at St. Petersburg, there is this stanza, which a recent traveller, Mr. Venables, transcribes (p. 300):— Un coeur que l'outrage martire, Par un mepris ou d'un refus, A le pouvoir de faire dire le ne suis pas ce que ie fus-Marie.' + Letter of Randolph, dated June 3, 1565, and addressed, Mr. Tytler in one place says, to Cecil (vol. vi. p. 402), in another place, to Leicester (p. 403). But this is of little importance. suppression |