Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume II (of 2)

ved when it should have discovered itself. Mary was no longer a rival Queen, but an unfortunate siste

ndemned such conduct in others. If it was too much to expect that the English Queen would supply her with money and arms, to enable her to win back the Crown she had lost, it was surely not to be doubted that she would either allow her to seek assistance in France, or, if she remained i

en with empty civility, whilst in reality she detained her a prisoner, until she had arranged with Murray the precise accusation which was to be brought against her, and which, if it succeeded in blackening her character, might justify subsequent severities. Mary could not at first believe that she would be treated with so much treachery; but circumstances occurred every day to diminish her confidence in the good intentions of the English Queen. Under the pretence that there was too great a concourse of strangers from Scotland, Lord Scroope and Sir Francis Knollys ordered the fortif

d expressed the bitterest disappointment. Checking her grief, however, and assuming a tone of becoming dignity, she said, that if she did not receive without delay, the aid she had been induced to expect, she would immediately demand permission to pass into France, where she did not doubt she would obtain what the English Queen denied.[152] In the meantime, as she was not all

s of forfeiture and banishment against many of the most powerful Lords of the opposite party. Elizabeth, perceiving his success, had no desire to check the progress of his usurped authority, whatever professions to the contrary she chose to make to Mary. On the 8th of June, she wrote Murray a letter, in which she addressed him as her "right trusty, and right well-beloved cousin;" told him falsely that the Queen of Scots had confided to h

peak to her cousin as to a friend and equal, of the wrongs she had suffered. She had voluntarily undertaken to satisfy the English Queen, as soon as they conversed together, of her innocence from all the charges which had been brought against her; but she was not to degrade he

e then to leave your dominions. Your severity encourages my enemies, intimidates my friends, and is most cruelly destructive to my interests. You keep me in fetters, and allow my enemies to conquer my realm. I am defenceless; and they enjoy my authority, possess themselves of my revenues, and hold out to me the points of their swords. In the miserable condition to which I am reduced, you invite them to accuse me. Is it too small a misfortune for me to lose my kingdom? Must I, also, be robbed of my integrity and my reputation? Excuse me, if I speak without dissimulation. In your dominions I will not answer to their calumnies and criminations. To you, in a pers

st not expect any of her commands to be obeyed, unless they met with Elizabeth's approval. The English Privy Council, of course, sanctioned their Sovereign's severity; and gave it as their opinion, that, until an inquiry had taken place into the whole conduct of the Scottish Queen, it would not be consistent with the honour or safety of the realm to afford her the aid she required. The result of all these machinations,-a result which Elizabeth contrived to bring about with the most consummate art,-was, that Mary agreed to nominate Commissioners to meet the Earl of Mu

ed with himself the Earl of Morton, Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, Pitcairn, Commendator of Dunfermlin, and Lord Lindsay. Macgill and Balnaves, two civilians, Buchanan, whose pen was always at the Regent's command "through good report and bad report," Secretary Maitland, and one or two others, came with them as legal advisers and literary a

ficence. Her rival, an independent queen, and the heir of an ancient race of monarchs, was a prisoner in her hands, and appeared, by her ambassadors, before her tribunal. The Regent of Scotland, who represented the Majesty, and possessed the authority of a king, stood in person at her bar, and the fate of a kingdom, whose power her ancestors had often dreaded, but could never subdue, was now absolutely at her disposal." It may, however, be remarked, that the "magnificence" of po

ed her Commissioners to listen particularly to the requests and complaints of the Earl of Murray, and to assure him privately, that if he could prove Mary to have been implicated in her husband's murder, she should never be restored to the throne. Nay, she went further; she desired it to be intimated to the Regent, that even though he could not prove Mary's guilt, yet, that if he could attach sufficient suspicion to her, it would be left to himself and his friends to determine under what conditions they would again consent to receive her into Scotland. This was as much encouragement as Murray could desire; for he knew that, by artifice and effrontery, a shade of suspicion might be made to attach itself even to the most perfect. Mary's Commissioners, on the other hand, though doubting much the i

well came against these nobility, "leading the Queen in his company, as a defence and cloak to his wickedness;" but that, as the quarrel was intended only against him, the Queen was received by the nobles, and led by them into Edinburgh, as soon as she consented to part from the Earl;-that she was then requested to agree that the murderers should be punished, and that the pretended marriage into which she had been led, should be dissolved;-that to this request she only answered, by rigorously menacing all who had taken up arms in her cause, and declaring she would surrender her realm altogether, "so she might be suffered to possess the murderer of he

nly appeared in arms;-that, at Carberry Hill, she willingly parted with Bothwell, as they themselves had seen; but that, if he were in truth guilty of the crimes imputed to him, which she did not then believe, they were to blame for permitting him to escape;-that, upon being taken into Edinburgh, where they had promised to reverence her as their Queen, she found herself treated as their captive;-that, so far from showing any persevering attachment to Bothwell, she repeatedly declared it to be her wish, that the estates of the realm should examine into all the charges which had been made against him;-that, notwithstanding, she had been forcibly carried off under shade of night, and imprisoned against her will in the Castle of Loch-Leven, w

re therefore taken to inform Murray, that unless he was able to strengthen his case, and to bring his charges more directly home, the matter would in all probability go against him. Upon this the Regent held a consultation with his friends, Maitland and Buchanan, and the necessity of bringing into play a new device, which had been prepared as a corps-de-reserve, was by all of them felt and acknowledged. Though no evidence had been adduced against her, Mary had already been accused by her brother of having had a share in the murder of Darnley. But as the charge was made soon after his return from France, it was strongly suspected to have been invented only to justify himself for retaining her in Loc

thington to approve of his plans, and promise him his support. But Robertson asserts further, that soon after his arrival at York, he won over Murray also to his views, and persuaded him to keep back, for a time, the heaviest part of his accusation against Mary, that her character might not be so fatally blackened. The historian's assertion, however, is un

t with the Duke of Norfolk; for, so far from keeping back his box-full of letters, he was nervously anxious to ascertain, as speedily as possible, whether Elizabeth would attach any weight to them, or allow them to be branded as palpable forgeries. Had Robertson attended a little more to dates, he would have discovered, that so far from wishing to favour the views of the Duke of Norfolk, Murray informed Elizabeth regarding the letters and their contents, on the very day on which he gave in his first "Answer" to Mary's Commissioners. Nor had these letters been entirely unheard of till now; for, though they had never been exhibited, they had been expressly alluded to nearly a year before, in an act published by the Lords of Secret Council, on the 4th of December 1567, in which it was asserted, that by the discovery of certain of

zabeth's presence, she could regard in no other light but as an assumption of superiority,-a parade of rigid righteousness,-and an affected dread of contamination, which, whilst it was meant to imply the purity of the maiden Queen, aimed at exciting suspicion of the purity of another. Continuing to believe that her Scottish rebels had been called before the English Commissioners at her instance, Mary had consented that her representatives should proceed from York to Westminster, to make her complaints as a free Sovereign. In her instructions to the Bishop of Ross, and those associated with him, she expressly told them, that the conference was appointed "only for making a pacification between her and her rebellious subjects, and restoring her to her realm and authority." She never lost sight of the fact, that she did not appeal to Elizabeth as a suppliant, but as an equal; and she always took care to preserve high and dignified ground. But to depart from this, and before the tribunal of Hampton Court, in whic

restore her to her realm and authority, but had most unexpectedly found herself detained a prisoner, and her confinement rendered closer every day;-second, that though, at Elizabeth's request, she had desired her loyal subjects in Scotland to abstain from hostilities, yet the Earl of Murray had not been prevented from molesting and invading them;-and, third, that having already established the utter groundlessness of the charges brought against her, instead of finding herself reinstated on her throne, the conference had been merely removed to a greater distance, where she could not communicate with her Commissioners so frequently and speedily as was necessary. In consideration of these premises, and especially in consideration

ack as December 1567, precisely the same charge, though unsupported by any evidence, was brought forward in the Scottish Parliament; and having then served its purpose, was allowed to lie dormant for eleven months. It is true, that there was then, no less than now, a palpable contradiction between this accusation, and the grounds which had always previously been assigned, both for Mary's "sequestration" in Loch-Leven, and her alleged voluntary abdication. It was not till the public mind had been inflamed, and till opposing interests contributed to involve the truth in obscurity, that the notorious fact was denied or concealed, that Mary had been forced into an unwilling marriage with Bothwell, and that her abduction, and imprisonment in the Castle of Dunbar, were themselves an answer to any suspicion, that she was one of his accomplices in Darnley's slaughter. But now that Mary was a prisoner, in the hands of a jealous rival, the Regent naturally supposed, that some contradictions would be overlooked

said that, although the proceedings of the Regent were altogether intolerable and injurious, they would not yet dissolve the conference, provided their mistress were permitted to appear in her own person before the Queen of England and her nobility.[167] To this request Elizabeth would not agree. Her real motive was the fear of truth; that which she assigned was sufficiently preposterous. "As to your desire," she said to Mary's Commissioners, "that your Sovereign should come to my presence to declare her innocence in this cause, you will understand, that from the beginning why she was debarred therefrom, was through the bruit and slander that was passed upon her, that she was participant of such a heinous crime as the murder of her husband; and I thought it best for your mistress's weal and honour, and also fo

aid to meet it. Robertson and Hume would have themselves discovered how unfair this view of the matter was, had they taken the trouble to attend to the dates of the documents connected with the transaction. By these they would have seen, that Mary refused to proceed on the 22d of November 1568, unless admitted equally with the Earl of Murray into Elizabeth's presence, and that Murray's accusation was not produced till the 26th.[169] Thus so far from "recoiling from the

cumstances" by which he had been guided in the charge he had advanced against Mary, and which would satisfy them that it had not been made without due grounds and consideration. This was all that Elizabeth wished. In however glaring a point of view it placed her injustice, she rejoiced that Mary's Commissioners were no longer attending the conference; for she would now be able to represent to the world, without fear of contradiction, the overwhelming strength of Murray's evidences, and hold them out as the justification of her own severity. These hopes and plans, however, were very nearly frustrated by the boldness and decision of Mary's conduct. As soon as she received intelligence of this new accusation, and of the means by which it was to be supported, she resolved that her own innocence and its falsehood should be made apparent; and for this purpose, she even consented to depart from her former demand of

ppear hardly credible, but it is nevertheless true, that Elizabeth refused to allow duplicates of the evidence against her to be sent to Mary. On the contrary, she now hastened to break up the conference; Murray was sent back to his Regency, and the Queen of Scots detained in closer captivity than ever; and though she even yet petitioned to see the writings, Elizabeth refused to surrender them, except upon conditions with which Mary's Commissioners would not comply. They had formally accused the Regent and his adherents of a share

at if she would yield up the crown and government of Scotland in favour of her son the Prince, she would be permitted to remain privately and quietly in England. Mary, of course, rejected the proposal with scorn. "The eyes of all Europe," she said, "are upon me at t

the character of her sister Mary, and give plausibility to her continued imprisonment. To a certain extent it answered her purpose. She had won the reputation, in the eyes of those who looked only at the surface of things, of having