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

ntrusted sometimes to the charge of one nobleman, and sometimes of another; but for her the active scenes of life were past,-the splendour and the dignity of a throne were to be enjoyed no

other snows than those of age." Yet, during the whole of this long period, amid sufferings which would have broken many a masculine spirit, and which, even in our own times, have been seen to conquer those who had conquered empires, Mary retained the innate grace and dignity of her character, never forgetting that she had been born a queen, or making her calamities an excuse for the commission of any petty meanness, which she would have scorned in the day of her prosperity. Full of incident as her previous life had been,-brilliant in many of its achievements, fortunate in som

a prisoner, that she should not be allowed to ride out occasionally, which would be death to her, she could not remain any longer at Bolton, for want of forage and provisions.[175] During the year, she was taken about by Shrewsbury, on occasional visits, to several mansions which he possessed in different parts of England; but Tutbury was her head-quarters; and wherever she went, she was very strictly guarded. "If I might give advice," says one of Cecil's friends, in a letter he wrote to him about this time, "there should very few subjects of this land have access to a conference with this lady; for, beside that she is a goodly personage (and yet in truth not comparable to our Sovereign), she hath withal an alluring grace, a pretty Scotch speech, and a searching wit, clouded with mildness. The greatest person about her is the Lord Livingston,

, that she could not be suffered to depart, till she had satisfied the wrong she had done to Elizabeth, in openly claiming the crown of England, and not making any just recompense. But the disavowal of that claim was all the recompense that was necessary; and though Mary had made the claim when married to Francis, she had expressly given it up ever since his death. They said, thirdly, that Elizabeth possessed a superiority over the crown of Scotland. But this antiquated notion, arising from th

of their power, his honourable proposals to the Queen of Scots.[177] Though it does not appear that he was able to obtain a personal interview with Mary, many letters passed between them; and as she soon perceived that her best chance of restoration to the throne of Scotland was by joining her interests with those of Norfolk, (whose power and estates were so extensive, that Melville calls him the greatest subject in Europe,) she promised that, though little disposed to form a new alliance, after the experience she had already had of matrimony, she would nevertheless bestow her hand on him as soon as she should regain her libert

ome reference to her; for in the "Declaration" published by the Earls, one ground of complaint was the want of a law for settling the succession. They marched also towards Tutbury, with the evident intention of restoring Mary to freedom, which they might have succeeded in doing, had she not been removed with all expe

e, had commenced a negotiation with the Earl of Murray for replacing his sister in his hands, when she received the unexpected and unwelcome intelligence of his assassination. The manner and cause of his death are sufficiently known to all who are acquainted with Sco

Reformation, it is somewhat questionable that he would have served the good cause with equal zeal, had he been obliged to fill only a subordinate place in its ranks. There is every reason to believe that in many cases he did good only that he might the more safely do wrong; and that he rigidly observed all the external forms of religion, only that the less suspicion might attach to him when he infringed its precepts. He had enough of moral rectitude to understand the distinctions between right and wrong, but too much selfishness to observe them unostentatiously, and too much prudence to disregard them openly. Thus to the casual observer he appeared strong in unshaken integrity, and full of the odour of sanctity. He possessed the art, which few but profound politicians can acquire, of going in the wrong path, as if he were in the right, and of gaining more estimation for his errors, than others do for their virtues. His conduct towards his sister was altogether unjustifiable; yet with the exception of his rebellion on the occasion of her marriage with Darnley, which was the least objectionable, because the boldest and most straight-forward part of the whole, he contrived to inflict, and to see inf

issued against her, and which she erroneously supposed had been prepared in concert with Mary. A person of the name of Felton, affixed a copy of the Pope's Bull on the gate of the Bishop of London's palace, and, refusing either to fly or conceal himself, he was seized and executed for the crime. In her ill humour, Elizabeth also ordered that Mary should not be allowed to go abroad, and she did not revoke this order, until strong representations were made to her of the cruel effect produced by it on the health of the Queen, whose constitution was now much broken. The weakness in one of her sides which had long pained her, had of late greatly increased, and she was obliged to have recourse to strengthening baths of white wine.[178] During this year she was removed from Tutbury to Chatsworth, and from Chatsworth she was taken to the Earl of Shrewsbury's ca

nd with them he boldly entered into an extensive conspiracy, which, if successful, would entirely have subverted the Government. His plan was, that the Duke of Alva should land in England with a numerous army, and should be immediately joined by himself and friends. They were then to proclaim Mary's right to the throne, call upon all good Catholics to support them, and march direct for London. The Pope, and the King of Spain, readily entered into the scheme; and every thing appeared to be proceeding according to his wishes, when the treachery of one of Norfolk's servants made Elizabeth acquainted with the whole conspiracy. The Duke was immediately seized, and thrown into prison; and, after several private examinations, he was tried for high trea

ations. She protested that she had never imagined any detriment to Elizabeth by her marriage with Norfolk,-that she had never encouraged him to raise rebellion, or been privy to it, but was, on the contrary, most ready to reveal any conspiracy against the Queen of England which might come to her ears,-that though Rodolphi had been of use to her in the transmission of letters abroad, she had never received any from him,-that as to attempting an escape, she will

utions. "Fellow-citizens, friends, brothers," says Robertson, "took different sides, and ranged themselves under the standards of the contending factions. In every county, and almost in every town and village, Kingsmen and Queensmen were names of distinction. Political hatred dissolved all natural ties, and extinguished the reciprocal good-will and confidence which hold mankind together in society. Religious zeal mingled itself with these civil distinctions, and contributed not a little to heighten and to inflame them." One of the most successful exploits performed by the Regent, was the taking of the Castle of Dumbarton from the Queen's Lords. The Archbishop of St Andrews, whom he found in it, was condemn

are of the blame. Elizabeth, in particular, taking advantage of the excitement which had been given to public feeling, used every exertion to secure the circulation of Buchanan's notorious "Detection of Mary's Doings," which had been published a short time before. She ordered Cecil to send a number of copies to Walsingham, her ambassador at Paris, that they might be presented to the King, and leading persons of the French Court. "It is not amiss," Cecil wrote, "to have divers of Buchanan's little Latin books to present, if need be, to the King, as from yourself, and likewise to some of the other noblemen of his Council; for they will serve to good effect

efore he had been a year in office. Morton succeeded him without opposition, and immediately proceeded to very violent measures against all the Queen's friends, who were now divided into two parties, the one headed by Chatelherault and Huntly, and the other by Maitland and Grange. After gaining some advantages over both, he concluded a peace with the former; and having invested the Castle of Edinburgh on all sides, in conjunctio

out to him as conducive to the moral and religious improvement of the land. He had many failings, but they were to be attributed more to the age to which he belonged, than to any fault of his own. His very violence and acrimony, his strong prejudices, and no less confirmed partialities, were perhaps the very best instruments he could have used for advancing the cause of the Reformation. He was without the cunning of Murray, the fickleness of Maitland, or t

enefit to her, without the aid of air, exercise, and amusement. Lesley, though detained at a distance, took every means in his power to afford her consolation, and wrote two treatises, after the manner of Seneca, expressly applicable to her condition; both of which he sent to her. The first was entitled,-"Pi? afflicti animi meditationes divinaque remedia," and the second,-"Tranquillitatis animi conservatio et munimentum." She thanked him for both of these productions, and assured him, that she had received much benefit from their perusal. With many parts of the fir

little inclined to exert himself in the cause of his sister, having been long at enmity with the house of Guise. But a still more fatal blow was the death of her uncle, the Cardinal of L

sewhere, is not the less affecting, that it is characterized by that mental dignity and queenly spirit which no afflictions could overcome. "I find it necessary," she wrote from Tutbury in 1680, "to renew the memorial of my grievances respecting the remittance of my dowry, the augmentation of my attendants, and a change of residence,-circumstances apparently trivial, and of small importance to the Queen, my good sister, but which I feel to be essential to the preservation of my existence. Necessity alone could induce me to descend to earnest and reiterated supplications, the dearest price at which any boon can be purchased. To convey to you an idea, of my present situation, I am on all sides enclosed by fortified walls, on the summit of a hill which lies exposed to every wind of heaven: within these bounds, not unlike the wood of Vincennes, is a very old edifice, originally a hunting lodge, built merely of lath and plaster, the plaster in many places crumbling away. This edifice, detached from the walls, about twenty feet, is sunk so low, that the rampart of earth behind the wall is level with the highest part of the building, so that here the sun can never penetrate, neither does any pure air ever visit this habitation, on which descend drizzling damps and eternal fogs, to such excess, that not an article of furniture can be placed beneath the roof, but in four days it becomes covered with green mould. I leave you to judge in what manner such humidity must act upon the human frame; and, to say every thing in one word, the apartments are in general more like dungeons prepared for the reception of the vilest criminals, than suited to persons of a station far inferior to mine, inasmuch as I do not believe there is a lord or gentleman, or even yeoman in the kingdom, who would patiently endure the penance of livi

may judge how seldom I am thus transported from one spot to another, when there are so few people about me fit for such an employment."[184] In the midst of all this distress, it was only from resources within herself that she was able to derive any consolation. Her religious duties she attended to with the strictest care, and devoted much of her time to reading and w

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o recapitulate the injuries she had sustained from Elizabeth ever since she came to the throne of Scotland,-reminding her, that she had busied herself in corrupting her subjects and encouraging rebellion; that when imprisoned in Loch-Leven, she had assured her, through her ambassador, Throckmorton, that any deed of abdication she might subscribe, was altogether invalid; yet that, upon her escape, though she at first allured her by fair promises into England, she had no sooner arrived there, than she was thrown into captivity, in which she had been kept alive only to suffer a thousand deaths; that she had tried for years to accommodate herself to that captivity, to reduce the number of her attendants, to make no complaint of the plainness of her diet, and the want of ordinary exercise, to live quietly and peaceably, as if she were of a far inferior rank, and even to abstain from correspondence with her friends in Scotland; but that the only return she had experienced for her good intentions was neglect, calumny, and increasing severity. "To take away every foundation of dispute and misunderstanding between us," Mary continued, "I invite you, Madam, to examine into every report against me, and to grant to every person the liberty of accusing me publicly; and while I freely solicit you to take every advantage to my prejudice, I only request that you wil

this report or not, it is certain that James became anxious to get rid of so factious and dangerous a nobleman. The only plausible expedient which occurred to him, or his Council, was, to accuse Morton of a share in Bothwell's guilt. His trial does not seem to have been conducted with any very scrupulous regard to justice. But a jury of his peers was allowed him; and they, having heard the evidence in support of the charges, found him guilty of having been in the council or knowledge of the conspiracy against the late King, of concealing it, and of being art and part in the murder. It was to the latter part of this verdict alone