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MARY QUEEN OF
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See also:MARY See also:QUEEN OF SCOTS' (1542-1587), daughter of See also: She arrived nevertheless in safety at Leith, escorted by three of her uncles of the See also:house of Lorraine, and bringing in her See also:train her future biographer, Brantome, and See also:Chastelard, the first of all her voluntary victims. On the 21st of August she first met the only See also:man able to withstand her; and their first passage of arms left, as he has recorded, upon the mind of John Knox an ineffaceable. impression of her " proud mind, crafty wit and indurate heart against See also:God and His truth." And
i In a See also:letter dated the 4th of April 1882, referring to the publication of his See also:drama Mary Stuart, See also:Swinburne wrote to See also:Edmund See also:Clarence See also:Stedman: " Mary Stuart has procured me two satisfactions which I prefer infinitely to six columns of adulation in The Times and any profit thence resulting. (I) A letter from See also:Sir See also: Queen Elizabeth, with the almost incredible want of tact or instinctive delicacy which distinguished and disfigured her vigorous intelligence, had recently proposed as a suitor to the queen of Scots her own See also:low-born favourite, Lord See also:Robert See also:Dudley, the widower if not the murderer of Amy See also:Robsart; and she now protested against the project of See also:marriage between Mary and Darnley. Mary who had already married her kinsman in See also:secret at See also:Stirling Castle with See also:Catholic See also:rites celebrated in the apartment of See also:David See also:Rizzio, her secretary for See also:correspondence with France, assured the English See also:ambassador, in reply to the protest of his mistress, that the marriage would not take See also:place for three, months, when a See also:dispensation from the pope would allow the See also:cousins to be publicly See also:united without offence to the Church. On the 29th of See also:July 1565 they were accordingly remarried at Holyrood. The hapless and worthless bridegroom had already incurred the hatred of two powerful enemies, the earls of See also:Morton and See also:Glencairn; but the former of these took See also:part with the queen against the forces raised by Murray, Glencairn and others, under the nominal leadership of See also: Rizzio, hitherto his friend and See also:advocate, induced the queen to reply by a reasonable refusal to this hazardous and audacious See also:request. Darnley at once threw him-self into the arms of the party opposed to the policy of the queen and her secretary—a policy which at that moment was doubly and trebly calculated to exasperate the fears of the religious and the See also:pride of the patriotic. Mary was invited if not induced by the king of See also:Spain to join his See also:league for the suppression of Protestantism; while the actual or prospective endowment of Rizzio with Morton's See also:office of See also:chancellor, and the projected See also:attainder of Murray and his allies, combined to inflame at once the anger and the apprehension of the Protestant nobles. According to one See also:account, Darnley privately assured his See also:uncle See also:George See also:Douglas of his wife's infidelity; he had himself, if he might be believed, discovered the secretary in the queen's apartment at midnight, under circumstances yet more unequivocally compromising than those which had brought Chastelard to the scaffold. Another version of the pitiful See also:history represents Douglas as infusing suspicion of Rizzio into the empty mind of his See also:nephew, and thus winning his consent to a See also:deed already designed by others. A See also:bond was See also:drawn in which Darnley pledged himself to support the confederates who undertook to punish " certain privy persons " offensive to the See also:state, " especially a See also:strange See also:Italian, called Davie "; another was subscribed by Darnley and the banished lords, then biding their time in See also:Newcastle, which engaged him to procure their See also:pardon and restoration, while pledging them to insure to him the enjoyment of the title he coveted, with the consequent See also:security of an undisputed See also:succession to the crown, despite the See also:counter claims of the house of Hamilton, in See also:case his wife should See also:die without issue—a result which, intentionally or not, he and his See also:fellow-conspirators did all that brutality could have suggested to accelerate and secure. On the 9th of See also: On the 19th of June a son was born to his wife, and in the face of his previous protestations he was induced to acknowledge himself the father. But, as Murray and his partisans returned to favour and influence no longer incompatible with that of Bothwell and Huntly, he See also:grew desperate enough with terror to See also:dream of See also:escape to France. This See also:design was at once frustrated by the queen's See also:resolution. She summoned him to declare his reasons for it in presence of the French ambassador and an See also:assembly of the nobles; she besought him for God's See also:sake to speak out, and not spare her; and at last he left her presence with an avowal that he had nothing to allege. The favour shown to Bothwell had not yet given occasion for See also:scandal, though his See also:character as an adventurous libertine was as notable as his reputation for military hardihood; but as the summer advanced his insolence increased with his influence at court and the general aversion of his rivals. He was richly endowed by Mary from the greater and lesser spoils of the Church; and the three wardenships of the border, united for the first time in his See also:person, gave the lord high See also:admiral of Scotland a position of unequalled See also:power. In the gallant See also:discharge of its duties he was dangerously wounded by a leading outlaw, whom he slew in single combat; and while yet confined to Hermitage Castle he received a visit of two See also:hours from the queen, who rode thither from See also:Jedburgh and back through 20 See also:miles of the See also:wild borderland where her person was in perpetual danger from the freebooters whom her father's policy had striven and had failed to extirpate. The result of this daring ride was a ten days' See also:fever, after which she removed by See also:short stages to Craigmillar, where a proposal for her See also:divorce from Darnley was laid before her by Bothwell, Murray, Huntly, Argyle and Lethington, who was chosen spokes-man for the See also:rest. She assented on See also:condition that the divorce could be lawfully effected without See also:impeachment of her son's See also:legitimacy; whereupon Lethington undertook in the name of all present that she should be rid of her husband without any See also:prejudice to the child—at whose See also:baptism a few days afterwards Bothwell took the place of the putative father, though Darnley was actually residing under the same roof, and it was not till after the ceremony that he was suddenly struck down by a sickness so violent as to excite suspicions of See also:poison. He was removed to See also:Glasgow, and left for the time in See also:charge of his father; but on the See also:news of his progress towards recovery a bond was drawn up for execution of the See also:sentence of death which had secretly been pronounced against the twice-turned traitor who had earned his See also:doom at all hands alike. On the 22nd of the next month (See also:Jan. 1567) the queen visited her husband at Glasgow and proposed to remove him to Craigmillar Castle, where he would have the benefit of medicinal See also:baths; but instead of this resort he was conveyed on the last day of the month to the lonely and squalid shelter of the See also:residence which was soon to be made memorable by his murder. Between the ruins of two sacred buildings, with the town-See also:wall to the See also:south and a suburban See also:hamlet known to ill fame as the Thieves' See also:Row to the north of it, a lodging was prepared for the titular king of Scotland, and fitted up with tapestries taken from the Cordons after the battle of Corrichie. On the evening of See also:Sunday, the 9th of See also:February, Mary took her last leave of the miserable boy who had so often and so mortally outraged her as See also:consort and as queen. That night the whole See also:city was shaken out of See also:sleep by an See also:explosion of See also:gunpowder which shattered to fragments the See also:building in which he should have slept and perished ;and the next morning the bodies of Darnley and a See also:page were found strangled in a See also:garden adjoining it, whither they had apparently escaped over a wall, to be despatched by the hands of Bothwell's attendant confederates. Upon a view which may be taken of Mary's conduct during the next three months depends the whole debateable question of her character. According to the professed champions of that character, this conduct was a See also:tissue of such dastardly imbecility, such heartless irresolution and such brainless inconsistency as for ever to dispose of her time-honoured claim to the See also:credit of intelligence and courage. It is certain that just three months and six days after the murder of her husband she became the wife of her husband's murderer. On the See also:firth of February she wrote to the See also:bishop of Glasgow, her ambassador in France, a brief letter of See also:simple eloquence, announcing her providential escape from a design upon her own as well as her husband's life. A See also:reward of two thousand pounds was offered by proclamation for See also:discovery of the murderer. Bothwell and others, his satellites or the queen's, were instantly placarded by name as the criminals. Voices were heard by night in the streets of Edinburgh calling down See also:judgment on the assassins. Four days after the discovery of the bodies, Darnley was buried in the chapel of Holyrood with secrecy, as remarkable as the solemnity with which Rizzio had been interred there less than a year before. On the Sunday following, Mary left Edinburgh for See also:Seton Palace, 12 miles from the See also:capital, where scandal asserted that she passed the time merrily in See also:shooting-matches with Both-well for her partner against Lords Seton and Huntly; other accounts represent Huntly and Bothwell as left at Holyrood in charge of the infant prince. Gracefully and respectfully, with statesmanlike yet feminine dexterity, the demands of Darnley's father for justice on the murderers of his son were accepted and eluded by his daughter-in-See also:law. Bothwell, with a troop of fifty men, rode through Edinburgh defiantly denouncing vengeance on his concealed accusers. As See also:weeks elapsed without See also:action on the part of the royal widow, while the cry of blood was up throughout the country, raising echoes from England and abroad, the murmur of See also:accusation began to rise against her also. Murray, with his sister's ready permission, withdrew to France. Already the See also:report was abroad that the queen was See also:bent on marriage with Bothwell, whose last year's marriage with the sister of Huntly would be dissolved, and the assent of his wife's brother See also:purchased by the restitution of his forfeited estates. According to the See also:Memoirs of Sir James See also:Melville, both Lord See also:Herries and himself resolved to See also:appeal to the queen in terms of bold and earnest remonstrance against so desperate and scandalous a design; Herries, having been met with assurances of its unreality and professions of astonishment at the See also:suggestion, instantly fled from court; Melville, evading the danger of a merely See also:personal protest without backers to support him, laid before Mary a letter from a loyal See also:Scot See also:long See also:resident in England, which urged upon her See also:consideration and her See also:conscience the danger and disgrace of such a project yet more freely than Herries had ventured to do by word of mouth; but the See also:sole result was that it needed all the queen's courage and resolution to See also:rescue him from the violence of the man for whom, she was reported to have said, she cared not if she lost France, England and her own country, and would go with him to the See also:world's end in a See also: It was well known in Edinburgh that Bothwell had a See also:body of men ready to intercept her on the way back, and carry her to Dunbar—not, as was naturally inferred, without See also:good assurance of her consent. On the 24th of April, as she approached Edinburgh, Bothwell accordingly met her at the head of 800 spearmen, assured her (as she after-wards averred) that she was in the utmost peril, and escorted her, together with Huntly, Lethington and Melville, who were then in attendance, to Dunbar Castle. On the 3rd of May See also:Lady Jane See also:Gordon, who had become countess of Bothwell on the 22nd of February of the year preceding, obtained, on the ground of her husband's infidelities, a separation which, however, would not under the old See also:laws of Catholic Scotland have left him free to marry again; on the 7th, accordingly, the necessary divorce was pronounced, after two days' session, by a clerical tribunal which ten days before had received from the queen a special See also:commission to give judgment on a plea of somewhat apocryphal See also:consanguinity alleged by Bothwell as the ground of an action for divorce against his wife. The fact was studiously evaded or concealed that a dispensation had been granted by the See also:archbishop of St See also:Andrews for this irregularity, which could only have arisen through some illicit connexion of the husband with a relative of the wife between whom and himself no See also:affinity by blood or marriage could be proved. On the day when the first or Protestant divorce was pronounced, Mary and Bothwell returned to Edinburgh with every prepared appearance of a peaceful See also:triumph. Lest her captivity should have been held to invalidate the late legal proceedings in her name, proclamation was made of forgiveness accorded by the queen to her captor in consideration of his past and future services; and her intention was announced to reward them by further promotion; and on the same day (May 12), he was duly created duke of See also:Orkney and See also:Shetland. The duke, as a conscientious Protestant, refused to marry his mistress according to the rites of her Church, and she, the chosen See also:champion of its cause, agreed to be married to him, not merely by a Protestant but by one who before his See also:conversion had been a Catholic bishop, and should therefore have been more hateful and contemptible in her eyes than any See also:ordinary heretic, had not religion as well as policy, faith as well as See also:reason, been absorbed or superseded by some more mastering See also:passion or emotion. This passion or emotion, according to those who deny her See also:attachment to Both-well, was simply terror—the See also:blind and irrational prostration of an abject spirit before the cruel force of circumstances and the crafty wickedness of men. Hitherto, according to all evidence, she had shown herself on all occasions, as on all subsequent occasions she indisputably showed herself, the most fearless, the most keen-sighted, the most ready-witted, the most high-gifted and high-spirited of women; gallant and generous, skilful and See also:practical, never to be cowed by See also:fortune; never to be cajoled by See also:craft; neither more unselfish in her ends nor more unscrupulous in her practice than might have been expected from her training and her creed. But at the crowning moment of trial there are those who assert their belief that the woman who on her way to the See also: The problem presented by the simple existence of the facts just summed up remains in either case absolutely the same. That the coarse and imperious nature of the See also:hardy and able See also:ruffian who had now become openly her See also:master should no less openly have shown itself even in the first moments of their inauspicious See also:union is what any bystander of See also:common insight must inevitably have foreseen. Tears, dejection and passionate expressions of a despair " wishing only for death," See also:bore fitful and variable See also:witness to her first sense of a heavier yoke than yet had galled her spirit and her pride. At other times her affectionate gaiety would give evidence as trustworthy of a fearless and improvident See also:satisfaction. They rode out in state together, and if he kept cap in hand as a subject she would snatch it from him and clap it on his head again; while in graver things she took all due or possible care to gratify his ambition, by the insertion of a clause in their See also:contract of marriage which made their See also:joint See also:signature necessary to all documents of state issued under the sign-See also:manual. She despatched to France a special See also:envoy, the bishop of Dumblane, with instructions setting forth at length the unparalleled and hitherto ill-requited services and merits of Bothwell, and the See also:necessity of compliance at once with his passion and with the unanimous counsel of the nation—a See also:people who would endure the See also:rule of no See also:foreign consort, and whom none of their own countrymen were so competent to See also:control, alike by See also:wisdom and by valour, as the incomparable subject of her choice. These personal merits and this See also:political necessity were the only pleas advanced in a letter to her ambassador in England. But that neither plea would avail her for a moment in Scotland she had ominous evidence on the .thirteenth day after her marriage, when no response was made to the usual See also:form of proclamation for a raid or See also:levy of forces under pretext of a See also:campaign against the rievers of the border. On the 6th or 7th of June Mary and Bothwell took See also:refuge in Borthwick Castle, twelve miles from the capital, where the fortress was in the keeping of an adherent whom the See also:diplomacy of Sir James Melville had succeeded in detaching from his See also:allegiance to Bothwell. The fugitives were pursued and beleaguered by the earl of Morton and Lord See also:Hume, who declared their purpose to rescue the queen from the thraldom of her husband. He escaped, leaving her free to follow him or to join the party of her professed deliverers. But whatever cause she might have found since marriage to complain of his rigorous custody and domineering brutality was insufficient to break the ties by which he held her. Alone, in the disguise of a page, she slipped out of the castle at midnight, and rode off to meet him at a See also:tower two miles distant, whence they fled together to Dunbar. .The confederate lords on entering Edinburgh were welcomed by the citizens, and after three hours' persuasion Lethington, who had now joined them, prevailed on the See also:captain of the castle to deliver it also into their hands. Proclamations were issued in which the See also:crime of Bothwell was denounced, and the disgrace of the country, the thraldom of the queen and the mortal peril of her infant son, were set forth as reasons for summoning all the lieges of the chief cities of Scotland to rise in arms on three hours' See also:notice and join the forces assembled against the one common enemy. News of his approach reached them on the night of June 14, and they marched before See also:dawn with 2200 men to meet him near See also:Mussel-See also:burgh. Mary meanwhile had passed from Dunbar to See also:Haddington, and thence to Seton, where 1600 men rallied to her side. On the 15th of June, one month from their marriage day, the queen and Bothwell, at the head of a force of fairly equal numbers but visibly inferior discipline, met the army of the confederates at Carberry See also: She grasped the hand of Lord See also:Lindsay as he rode beside her, and swore " by this hand " she would " have his head for this." In Edinburgh she was received by a yelling See also:mob, which flaunted before her at each turn a banner representing the See also:corpse of Darnley with her child beside it invoking on his knees the retribution of divine justice. From the violence of a multitude in which women of the worst class were more furious than the men she was sheltered in the house of the See also:provost, where she repeatedly showed herself at the window, appealing aloud with dishevelled See also:hair and See also:dress to the See also:mercy which no man could look upon her and refuse. At nine in the evening she was removed to Holyrood, and thence to the See also:port of Leith, where she embarked under guard, with her attendants, for the See also:island castle of Lochleven. On the loth a See also:silver See also:casket containing letters and French verses, miscalled sonnets, in the See also:handwriting of the queen, was taken from the person of a servant who had been sent by Both-well to bring it from Edinburgh to Dunbar. Even in the existing versions of the letters, translated from the lost originals and retranslated from this See also:translation of a See also:text which was probably destroyed in 1603 by order of King James on his See also:accession to the English See also:throne—even in these possibly disfigured versions, the fiery pathos of passion, the fierce and piteous fluctuations of spirit between love and hate, See also:hope and rage and See also:jealousy, have an eloquence apparently beyond the See also:imitation or invention of See also:art (see CASKET LETTERS1). Three days after this discovery Lord Lindsay, Lord See also:Ruthven and Sir Robert Melville were despatched to Lochleven, there to obtain the queen's signature to an See also:act of See also:abdication in favour of her son, and another appointing Murray regent during his minority. She submitted, and a commission of regency was established till the return from France of Murray, who, on the 15th of August, arrived at Lochleven with Morton and Athole. According to his own account, the expostulations as to her past conduct which preceded his admonitions for the future were received with tears, confessions and attempts at extenuation or excuse; but when they parted next day on good terms she had regained her usual See also:spirits. Nor from that day forward had they reason to sink again, in spite of the See also:close keeping in which she was held, with the daughters of the house for bedfellows. Their See also:mother and the regent's, her father's former mistress, was herself not impervious to her prisoner's lifelong power of See also:seduction and subjugation. Her son George Douglas fell inevitably under the See also:charm. A rumour transmitted to England went so far as to assert that she had proposed him to their common half-brother Murray as a See also:fourth husband for herself; a later tradition represented her as the mother of a child by him. A third report, at least as improbable as either, asserted that a daughter of Mary and Both-well, born about this time, lived to be a See also:nun in France. It is certain that the necessary removal of George Douglas from Lochleven enabled him to devise a method of escape for the prisoner on the 25th of March, 1568, which was frustrated by detection of her white hands under the disguise of a laundress. But a younger member of the See also:household, Willie Douglas, aged eighteen, whose devotion was afterwards remembered and his safety cared for by Mary at a time of utmost risk and perplexity to herself, succeeded on the and of May in assisting her to escape by a 1 It is to be observed that the above conclusion as to the authenticity of the Casket Letters is the same as that arrived at upon different grounds by the most See also:recent See also:research on the subject.—ED. E. B. See also:postern See also:gate to the See also:lake-side, and thence in a See also:boat to the main-See also:land, where George Douglas, Lord Seton and others were awaiting her. Thence they rode to Seton's castle of Niddry, and next day to Hamilton palace, See also:round which an army of 6000 men was soon assembled, and whither the new French ambassador to Scotland hastened to pay his See also:duty. The queen's abdication was revoked, messengers were despatched to the English and French courts, and word was sent to Murray at Glasgow that he must resign the regency, and should be pardoned in common with all offenders against the queen. But on the day when Mary arrived at Hamilton Murray had summoned to Glasgow the feudatories of the Crown to take arms against the insurgent enemies of the infant king. Elizabeth sent conditional offers of help to her kinswoman, provided she would accept of English intervention and abstain from seeking foreign assistance; but the messenger came too late. Mary's followers had failed to retake Dunbar Castle from the regent, and made for See also:Dumbarton instead, marching two miles south of Glasgow, by the See also:village of Langside. Here Murray, with 4500 men, under leaders of high distinction, met the 6000 of the queen's army, whose ablest man, Herries, was as much distrusted by Mary as by every one else, while the Hamiltons could only be trusted to think of their own interests, and were suspected of treasonable designs on all who stood between their house and the See also:monarchy. On the 13th of May the battle or skirmish of Langside determined the result of the campaign in three-quarters of an See also:hour. Kirkaldy of See also:Grange, who commanded the regent's See also:cavalry, seized and kept the place of vantage from the beginning, and at the first sign of wavering on the other side shattered at a single charge the forces of the queen with a loss of one man to three See also:hundred. Mary fled 6o miles from the field of her last battle before she halted at See also:Sanquhar, and for three days of See also:flight, according to her own account, had to sleep on the hard ground, live on See also:oat-See also:meal and sour See also:milk, and fare at night like the owls, in See also:hunger, See also:cold and fear. On the third day from the rout of Langside she crossed the Solway and landed at See also:Workington in See also:Cumberland, May 16, 1568. On the loth Lord See also:Scrope and Sir Francis See also:Knollys were sent from court to carry messages and letters of comfort from Elizabeth to Mary at See also:Carlisle. On the rlth of June Knollys wrote to See also:Cecil at once the best description and the noblest See also:panegyric extant of the queen of Scots—enlarging, with a brave man's sympathy, on her indifference to form and ceremony, her daring See also:grace and openness of manner, her See also:frank display of a great desire to be avenged of her enemies, her readiness to expose herself to all perils in hope of victory, her delight to hear of hardihood and courage, commending by name all her enemies of approved valour, sparing no cowardice in her See also:friends, but above all things athirst for victory by any means at any See also:price, so that for its sake See also:pain and peril seemed pleasant to her, and wealth and all things, if compared with it, contemptible and vile. What was to be done with such a princess, whether she were to be nourished in one's bosom, above all whether it could be advisable or safe to try any See also:diplomatic tricks upon such a lady, Knollys left for the See also:minister to See also:judge. It is remarkable that he should not have discovered in her the qualities so obvious to See also:modern champions of her character—easiness, gullibility, incurable innocence and invincible See also:ignorance of evil, incapacity to suspect or resent anything, readiness to believe and forgive all things. On the 15th of July, after various delays interposed by her reluctance to leave the neighbourhood of the border, where on her arrival she had received the welcome and the See also:homage of the leading Catholic houses of See also:Northumberland and Cumberland, she was removed to See also:Bolton Castle in North See also:Yorkshire. During her residence here a conference was held at York between her own and Elizabeth's commissioners and those appointed to represent her son as a king of Scots. These latter, of whom Murray himself was the chief, privately laid before the English commissioners the contents of the famous casket. On the 24th of October the place of the conference was shifted from York to See also:London, where the inquiry was to be held before Queen Elizabeth in council. Mary was already aware that the chief of the English commissioners, the duke of See also:Norfolk, was secretly an aspirant to
the peril of her hand; and on the 21st of October she gave the first sign of assent to the suggestion of a divorce from Bothwell. On the 26th of October the charge of complicity in the murder of Darnley was distinctly brought forward against her in spite of Norfolk's reluctance and Murray's previous hesitation. Elizabeth, by the mouth of her chief justice, formally rebuked the audacity of the subjects who durst bring such a charge against their See also:sovereign, and challenged them to advance their proofs. They complied by the See also:production of an See also:indictment under five heads, supported by the necessary evidence of documents. The number of English commissioners was increased, and they were See also:bound to preserve secrecy as to the matters revealed. Further evidence was supplied by See also: In October Cecil had an interview with Mary at See also:Chatsworth, when the conditions of her possible restoration to the throne in compliance with French demands were debated at length. The queen of Scots, with dauntless dignity, refused to yield the castles of Edinburgh and Dumbarton into English keeping, or to deliver up her fugitive English partisans then in Scotland; upon other points they came to terms, and the articles were signed the 16th of October. On the same day Mary wrote to Elizabeth, requesting with graceful earnestness the favour of an interview which might reassure her against the suggestion that this treaty was a mere pretence. On the 28th of November she was removed to See also:Sheffield Castle, where she remained for the next fourteeen years in charge of the earl of See also:Shrewsbury. The detection of a plot, in which Norfolk was implicated, for the invasion of England by Spain on behalf of Mary, who was then to take him as the fourth and most contemptible of her husbands, made necessary the reduction of her household and the stricter confinement of her person. On the 28th of May 1592 a demand from both houses of parliament for her execution as well as Norfolk's was generously rejected by Elizabeth; but after the See also:punishment of the traitorous pretender to her hand, on whom she had lavished many eloquent letters of affectionate protestation, she fell into " a passion of sickness " which convinced her honest keeper of her genuine grief for the ducal caitiff. A treaty projected on the news of the See also:massacre of St See also:Bartholomew, by which Mary should be sent back to Scotland for immediate execution, was broken off by the death of the earl of Mar, who had succeeded Lennox as regent; nor was' it found possible to come to acceptable terms on a like understanding with his successor Morton, who in 1599 sent a proposal to Mary for her restoration, which she declined, in suspicion of a plot laid to entrap her by the policy of Sir Francis See also:Walsingham, the most unscrupulously patriotic of her English enemies, who four years afterwards sent word to Scotland that the execution of Morton, so long the ally of England, would be answered by the execution of Mary. But on that occasion Elizabeth again refused her assent either to the trial of Mary or to her transference from Sheffield to the Tower. In 1581 Mary accepted the advice of Catherine de' Medici and Henry III. that she should allow her son's title to reign as king of Scotland conjointly with herself when released and restored to a share of the throne. This See also:plan was but part of a scheme including the invasion of England by her kinsman the duke of Guise, who was to land in the north and raise a Scottish army to place the re-leased prisoner of Sheffield beside her son on the throne of Elizabeth. After the overthrow of the Scottish accomplices in this notable project, Mary poured forth upon Elizabeth a torrent of pathetic and eloquent reproach for the many wrongs she had suffered at the hands of her hostess, and pledged her See also:honour to the assurance that she now aspired to no See also:kingdom but that of See also:heaven. In the See also:spring of 1583 she retained enough of this saintly resignation to ask for nothing but liberty, without a share in the See also:government of Scotland; but Lord See also:Burghley not unreasonably preferred, if feasible, to reconcile the See also:alliance of her son with the detention of his mother. In 1584 the long-suffering earl of Shrewsbury was relieved of his fourteen years' charge through the involuntary good offices of his wife, whose daughter by her first husband had married a brother of Darnley; and their See also:orphan child Arabella, born in England, of royal descent on the father's side, was now; in the hopeful view of her grandmother, a more plausible claimant than the king or queen of Scots to the See also:inheritance of the English throne. In December 1583 Mary had laid before the French ambassador her first complaint of the slanders spread by Lady Shrewsbury and her sons, who were ultimately compelled to confess the falsehood of their imputations on the queen of Scots and her. keeper. It was probably at the time when a desire for revenge on her calumniatress made her think the opportunity good and safe for discharge of such a two-edged dart at the countess and the queen that Mary wrote, but abstained from despatching, the famous and terrible letter in which, with many gracious excuses and professions of regret and attachment, she transmits to Elizabeth a full and vivid report of the hideous See also:gossip retailed by Bess of Hardwick regarding her character and person at a time when the reporter of these abominations was on friendly terms with her husband's royal charge. In the autumn of 1584 she was removed to See also:Wingfield See also:Manor under charge of Sir See also:Ralph See also:Sadler and John See also:Somers, who accompanied her also on her next removal to Tutbury in January 1585. A letter received by her in that cold, dark and unhealthy castle, of which fifteen years before she had made painful and malodorous experience, assured her that her son would acknowledge her only as queen-mother, and provoked at once the See also:threat of a See also:parent's curse and an application to Elizabeth for sympathy. In April 1585 Sir Amyas See also:Paulet was appointed to the office of which Sadler, accused of careless See also:indulgence, had requested to be relieved; and o_ n See also:Christmas See also:Eve she was removed from the hateful shelter of Tutbury to the castle of Chartley in the same See also:county. Her correspondence in See also:cipher from thence with her English agents abroad, intercepted by Walsingham and deciphered by his secretary, gave eager encouragement to the design for a See also:Spanish invasion of England under the prince of See also:Parma,—an enterprise in which she would do her utmost to make her son take part, and in case of his refusal would induce the Catholic nobles of Scotland to betray him into the hands of See also: In August the conspirators were netted, and Mary was arrested at the gate of Tixall See also:Park, whither Paulet had taken her under pretence 'of a See also:hunting party. At Tixall she was detained till her papers at Chartley had undergone thorough research. That she was at length taken in her own toils even such a dullard as her admirers depict her could not have failed to understand; that she was no such dastard as to desire or deserve such defenders the whole brief course of her remaining life bore consistent and irrefragable witness. Her first thought on her return to Chartley was one of loyal gratitude and womanly sympathy. She cheered the wife of her English secretary, now under See also:arrest, with promises to See also:answer for her husband to all accusations brought against him, took her new-born child from the mother's arms, and in default of See also:clergy baptized it, to Paulet's Puritanic horror, with her own hands by her own name. The next or the twin-born impulse of her indomitable nature was, as usual in all times of danger, one of passionate and high-spirited defiance on discovering the seizure of her papers. A fortnight afterwards her keys and her See also:money were confiscated, while she, bedridden and unable to move her hand, could only ply the terrible weapon of her See also:bitter and fiery See also:tongue. Her secretaries were examined in London, and one of them gave evidence that she had first heard of the conspiracy by letter from Babington, of whose design against the life of Elizabeth she thought it best to take no notice in her reply, though she did not hold herself bound to reveal it. On the 25th of September she was removed to the strong castle of Fotheringay in See also:Northamptonshire. On the 6th of October she was desired by letter from Elizabeth to answer the charges brought against her before certain of the chief English nobles appointed to sit in commission on the cause. In spite of her first refusal to submit, she was induced by the arguments of the See also:vice-See also: Alone, " without one counsellor on her side among so many," Mary conducted the whole of her own See also:defence with courage incomparable and unsurpassable ability. Pathos and indignation, subtlety and simplicity, personal appeal and political reasoning, were the alternate weapons with which she fought against all odds of evidence or inference, and disputed step by step every See also:inch of debatable ground. She repeatedly insisted on the production of proof in her own handwriting as to her complicity with the project of the assassins Who had expiated their crime on the 20th and 21st of the month preceding. When the charge was shifted to the question of her intrigues with Spain, she took her stand resolutely on her own right to convey whatever right she possessed, though now no kingdom was left her for disposal, to whomsoever she might choose. One single slip she made in the whole course of her defence; but none could have been more unluckily characteristic and significant. When Burghley brought against her the unanswerable charge of having at that moment in her service, and in See also:receipt of an See also:annual pension, the instigator of a previous See also:attempt on the life of Elizabeth, she had the unwary audacity to cite in her See also:justification the See also:pensions allowed by Elizabeth to her adversaries in Scotland, and especially to her son. It is remarkable that just two months later, in a conversation with her keepers, she again made use of the same extraordinary See also:argument in reply to the same inevitable imputation, and would not be brought to admit that the two cases were other than parallel. But except for this single instance of oversight or perversity her defence was throughout a masterpiece of indomitable ingenuity, of delicate and steadfast courage, of womanly dignity and See also:genius. Finally she demanded, as she had demanded before; a trial either before the estates of the realm lawfully assembled or else before the queen in council. So closed the second day of the trial; and before the next day's See also:work could begin a See also:note of two or three lines hastily written at midnight informed the commissioners that Elizabeth had suddenly deter-See also:mined to adjourn the expected judgment and See also:transfer the place of it to the See also:star-chamber. Here, on the 25th of October, the commissioners again met; and one of them alone, Lord See also:Zouch, dissented from the verdict by which Mary was found guilty of having, since the 1st of June preceding, compassed and imagined See also:divers matters tending to the destruction of Elizabeth. This verdict was conveyed to her, about three weeks later, by Lord Buckhurst and Robert See also:Beale, clerk of the privy council. At the intimation that her life was an impediment to the security of the received religion, " she seemed with a certain unwonted alacrity to triumph, giving God thanks, and rejoicing in her heart that she was held to be an instrument " for the restoration of her own faith. This note of exultation as in martyrdom was maintained with unflinching courage to the last. She wrote to Elizabeth and the duke of Guise two letters of almost matchless eloquence and pathos, admirable especially for their loyal and grateful remembrance of all her faithful servants. Between the date of these letters and the day of her execution wellnigh three months of suspense elapsed. Elizabeth, fearless almost to a See also:fault in face of physical danger, See also:constant in her confidence even after discovery of her narrow escape from the poisoned bullets of household conspirators, was cowardly even to a crime in face of subtler and more complicated peril. She rejected with resolute dignity the intercession of French envoys for the life of the queen-dowager of France; she allowed the sentence of death to be proclaimed and welcomed with bonfires and See also:bell-ringing throughout the length of England; she yielded a See also:respite of twelve days to the pleading of the French ambassador, and had a charge trumped up against him of participation in a conspiracy against her life; .at length, on the 1st of February 1587, she signed the death-See also:warrant, and then made her secretaries write word to Paulet of her displeasure that in all this time he should not of himself have found out some way to shorten the life of his prisoner, as in duty bound by his See also:oath, and thus relieve her singularly See also:tender conscience from the See also:guilt of blood-See also:shed. Paulet, with loyal and regretful indignation, declined the disgrace proposed to him in a suggestion " to shed blood without law or warrant "; and on the 7th of February the earls of Shrewsbury and See also:Kent arrived at Fotheringay with the commission of the council for execution of the sentence given against his prisoner. Mary received the announcement with majestic tranquillity, expressing in dignified terms her readiness to die, her consciousness that she was a See also:martyr for her religion, and her See also:total ignorance of any conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth. At night she took a graceful and affectionate leave of her attendants, distributed among them her money and jewels, wrote out in full the various legacies to be conveyed by her will, and charged her See also:apothecary Gorion with her last messages for the king of Spain. In these messages the whole nature of the woman was revealed. Not a single friend, not a single enemy, was forgotten; the slightest service, the slightest wrong, had its place assigned in her faithful and implacable memory for retribution or reward. Forgiveness of injuries was as See also:alien from her fierce and loyal spirit as forgetfulness of benefits; the destruction of England and its liberties by Spanish invasion and See also:conquest was the strongest aspiration of her parting soul. At eight next morning she entered the hall of execution, having taken leave of the weeping envoy from Scotland, to whom she gave a brief See also:message for her son; took her seat on the scaffold, listened with an See also:air of even cheerful unconcern to the See also:reading of her sentence, solemnly declared her innocence of the charge conveyed in it and her See also:consolation in the prospect of ultimate justice, rejected the professional services of See also:Richard See also:Fletcher, See also:dean of See also:Peter-See also:borough, lifted up her See also:voice in Latin against his in English See also:prayer, and when he and his fellow-worshippers had fallen duly silent prayed aloud for the prosperity of her own church, for Elizabeth, for her son, and for all the enemies whom she had commended overnight to the notice of the Spanish invader; then, with no less courage than had marked every hour and every action of her life, received the stroke of death from the wavering hand of the headsman. Mary Stuart was in many respects the creature of her See also:age, of her creed, and of her station; but the noblest and most noteworthy qualities of her nature were independent of rank, See also:opinion or time. Even the detractors who defend her conduct on the plea that she was a dastard and a dupe are compelled in the same breath to retract this implied reproach, and to admit, with illogical See also:acclamation and incongruous See also:applause, that the world never saw more splendid courage at the service of more brilliant intelligence, that a braver if not " a rarer spirit never did See also:steer humanity." A kinder or more faithful friend, a deadlier or more dangerous enemy, it would be impossible to dread or to desire. Passion alone could shake the double fortress of her impregnable heart and ever-active See also:brain. The passion of love, after very sufficient experience, she apparently and naturally outlived; the passion of hatred and revenge was as inextinguishable in her inmost nature as the emotion of See also:loyalty and gratitude. Of repentance it would seem that she knew as little as of fear, having been trained from her See also:infancy in a religion where the See also:Decalogue was supplanted by the Creed. See also:Adept as she was in the most exquisite delicacy of dissimulation, the most salient note of her See also:original disposition was daring rather than subtlety. Beside or behind the voluptuous or intellectual attractions of beauty and culture, she had about her the fresher charm of a fearless and frank simplicity, a genuine and enduring See also:pleasure in small and harmless things no less than in such as were neither. In 1562 she amused herself for some days by living " with her little troop " in the house of a See also:burgess of St Andrews " like a burgess's wife," assuring the English ambassador that he should not find the queen there,—" nor I know not myself where she is become." From Sheffield See also:Lodge, twelve years later, she applied to the archbishop of Glasgow and the cardinal of Guise for some See also:pretty little See also:dogs, to be sent her in baskets very warmly packed,—" for besides reading and working, I take pleasure only in all the little animals that I can get." No See also:lapse of reconciling time, no extent of See also:comparative indulgence, could break her in to resignation, submission, or See also:toleration of evert partial See also:restraint. Three months after the massacre of St Bartholomew had caused some additional restrictions to be placed upon her freedom of action, Shrewsbury writes to Burghley that " rather than continue this imprisonment she sticks not to say she will give her body, her son, and country for liberty "; nor did she ever show any excess of regard for any of the three. For her own freedom of will and of way, of passion and of action, she cared much; for her creed she cared something; for her country she cared less than nothing. She would have flung Scotland with England into the See also:hell fire of Spanish Catholicism rather than forgo the faintest See also:chance of personal revenge. Her profession of a desire to be instructed in the doctrines of See also:Anglican Protestantism was so transparently a pious See also:fraud as rather to afford See also:confirmation than to arouse suspicion of her fidelity to the teaching of her church. Elizabeth, so shamefully her inferior in personal loyalty, fidelity and gratitude, was as clearly her superior on the one all-important point of patriotism. The saving See also:salt of Elizabeth's character, with all its wellnigh incredible mixture of heroism and egotism, meanness and magnificence, was simply this, that, overmuch as she loved herself, she did yet love England better. Her best though not her only See also:fine qualities were See also:national and political, the high public virtues of a good public servant; in the private and personal qualities which attract and attach a friend to his friend and a follower to his See also:leader, no man or woman was ever more constant and more eminent than Mary Queen of Scots. (A. C. S.) State Papers See also:relating to Scotland and Mary Queen of Scots (Scottish Record Publ. 1898) ; See also:Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, principally in the Archives at See also:Simancas (vols. i.–iv., 1392–1899) ; and the Calendars of State Papers: Domestic See also:Series, Edw. VI.–James I.; Foreign Series, Elizabeth; See also:Venice Series. The most important unofficial contemporary See also:works are the Histories of John Knox, Bishop John See also:Lesley, George See also:Buchanan, and Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie; the Diurnal of Remarkable Occurrents from the death of James IV. till 1575 (See also:Bannatyne See also:Club, 1833) ; Robert See also:Birrell's " Diary " in Sir J. G. Dalzell's Fragments of Scottish History (Edinburgh, 1798) ; History of Mary Stuart, by her secretary See also:Claude Nau, ed. by J. See also:Stevenson (Edinburgh, 1883) ; Sir James Melville's Memoirs of his own Life (Bannatyne Club, 1827); Richard Bannatyne, Memoriales of Transactions in Scot-land (Edinburgh, 1836) ; William See also:Camden's Annales (Eng. trans., London, 1635) ; See also:Michel de Castelnau's Memoires (See also:Brussels, 1731) ; the Memoires of Brantome (ed. by L. Lalanne, 12 vols., See also:Paris, 1864–1896) ; Relations politiques de la France et de l'Espagne avec l'Ecosse au be siecle (ed. by J. B. A. Teulet, 5 vols., Paris, 1862), containing important original letters and documents; Thomas See also:Wright's Queen Elizabeth and her Times (2 vols., London, 1838), consists of private letters of Elizabethan statesmen many of which refer to Mary Stuart, and others are to be found in Sir Henry See also:Ellis's Original Letters illustrative of English History (London, 1825–1846) ; much of Mary's own correspondence will be found in Prince A. Labanoff's Lettres inedites, 1558–1587 (Paris, 1839), and Lettres, instructions, et memoires de See also:Marie Stuart (7 vols., London, 1844), selections from which have been translated into English by W. Turnbull in Letters of Mary Queen of Scots (London, 1845), and by See also:Agnes See also:Strickland in Letters of Mary Queen of Scots and Documents connected with her Personal History (3 vols., London, 1842). Among authorities not actually contemporary but written within a See also:century of Mary's death are David See also:Calderwood's Hist. of the See also:Kirk of Scotland (8 vols., Edinburgh, 1842–1849) ; Archbishop See also:Spottiswoode's Hist. of the Church of Scotland (ed. by M. See also:Russell, 3 vols., Edinburgh, 1847–1851), and Robert See also:Keith's Hist. of Affairs of Church and State in Scotland (Spottiswoode Society ed., 1844); to which should be added the modern classic, George See also:Grub's Ecclesiastical History of Scotland (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1861). Of modern general histories those of chief importance on the subject are the Histories of England by Hume, See also:Lingard and See also:Froude; and the Histories of Scotland by See also:Robertson, P. F. See also:Tytler, John Hill See also:Burton, See also:Malcolm See also:Laing and See also:Andrew See also:Lang. Numerous See also:biographies of Mary Stuart have been published, as well as essays and See also:treatises dealing with particular episodes in her life, of which the most worthy of mention are: George See also:Chalmers, Life of Mary Queen of Scots, (2 vols., London, 1818) ; Henry Glassford Bell, Life of Mary Queen of Scots (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1828–1831) ; the ` Life " in Agnes Strickland's Lives of the Queens of Scotland (8 vols., Edinburgh, 1850) ; J. D. Leader, Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity (Sheffield, 188o) ; See also:Colin Lindsay, Mary Queen of Scots and her Marriage with Bothwell (London, 1883) ; Mrs See also:Maxwell-See also:Scott, The Tragedy of Fotheringay (London, 1895) ; F. A. M. See also:Mignet, Histoire de Marie Stuart (2 vols., Brussels, 1851); See also: C. Swinburne—Chastelard (1865), Bothwell (1874), and Mary Stuart (1881). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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