Mary Queen of Scots was one of the most remarkable women who
ever presided over the destinies of a nation. She was born at
Linlithgow on December 8, 1542, a few days before the death of
her father, James V., thus becoming a queen before she was a
week old. Her complex personality and varied accomplishments
have inspired many and various historians, but it has remained
for Major Martin Hume to demonstrate the historical fatality
of Mary's love affairs. In "The Love Affairs of Mary Queen of
Scots," published in 1903, Major Hume gives a convincing and
logical reason for Mary's political failure, inasmuch as it
did not spring from her goodness or badness as a woman, but
from a certain weakness of character. This epitome has been
prepared by Major Hume himself.
_I.--Betrothed in her Cradle_
When in the great hall at Worms, on that ever-memorable April day in
1521, before the panic-stricken princes, Luther insolently flung at the
emperor his defiance of the mediaeval church, the crash, though all
unheard by the ears of men, shook to their base the crumbling
foundations upon which, for hundreds of years, the institutions of
Europe had rested. The sixteenth century thenceforward was a period of
disintegration and reconstruction, in which fresh lines of cleavage
between old political associates were opened, new affinities were
formed, and the international balance re-adjusted.
In the long struggle of the house of Aragon, and its successor, Charles
V., with France for the domination of Italy, the only effectual
guarantee against England's actively aiding its traditional ally, the
ruler of Spain and Flanders, against its traditional enemy, France, was
for the latter country to keep a tight hold of its alliance with
Scotland, by means of which English force might be diverted at any time.
The existence of the Scottish "back door" to England, with the ever
probable enemy behind it, had long been a check upon English power, and
a humiliation to English kings in their efforts to hold the balance
between the Continental rivals. But with the spread of Lutheranism in
Germany and Henry VIII.'s defiance of the Papacy, the Catholic powers,
drawn together in the face of common danger, found a fresh bond of union
in their orthodoxy which partially superseded old rivalries.
In these circumstances the English policy, which had aimed at the
control of Scottish foreign relations to the exclusion of French
influence, became not only desirable as it always had been, but vitally
necessary to preserve England's independence.
Henry VIII.'s policy towards Scotland had been that of _divide et
impera_, and a series of royal minorities and the greed and poverty of
the semi-independent Scottish nobles had aided him. The rout of the
Scots at Solway Moss, and the pathetic passing of the gallant James V.,
leaving his new-born daughter, Mary, as queen (December 1542), seemed at
length to place Scotland in England's power. The murder of Cardinal
Beaton, the bribery of the Douglases, and the marriage of Lennox with
Henry's sister were all subsequent moves in the same game. Mary was
betrothed in her cradle to the heir of England, and France, whose sheet
anchor for centuries had been the "auld alliance" with the Scots,
appeared to be helpless against a coalition of England and the emperor.
Thenceforward, England's main object was to keep a tight grip upon
Scotland by religion or otherwise, while at first France, and
subsequently the Catholic league, strove ceaselessly, with the help of
Mary Stuart, to free Scotland from English influence. The marriage
juggle of Elizabeth was largely inspired by her Scottish aims, and if
the fortuitous adjustment of her qualities kept England Protestant, and
France wavering for all those critical years, if she secured the
inactivity of Spain, the resistance of Protestant Holland, and the
freedom of navigation by her skilful statecraft, her rival Mary Stuart
was a hardly less powerful factor in the final triumph of England by
reason of certain defects in her character, the consequences of which
are dealt with in this book.
Mary possessed a finer and nobler nature than Elizabeth; she was a woman
of higher courage and greater conviction, more generous, magnanimous,
and confiding, and, apart from her incomparably greater beauty and
fascination, she possessed mental endowments fully equal to those of the
English queen. But, whilst caution and love of mastery in Elizabeth
always saved her from her weakness at the critical moment, Mary Stuart
possessed no such safeguards, and was periodically swept along
helplessly by the irresistible rush of her amorous passion.
French intrigue and money, aided by the queen-regent of Scotland, Mary
of Guise, succeeded, after Henry's death and Somerset's invasion of
Scotland, in gaining firm hold upon Scotland, and Mary, as the betrothed
wife of the dauphin Francis, was carried to France in 1548, at the age
of six, to be reared by her cunning kinsmen of Lorraine, and made, as it
was hoped, a future powerful instrument to aid Catholic French objects
against England, and the reformation in France and elsewhere. As she
grew towards womanhood in the bravest and most amorous court in Europe,
the queen-dauphiness became a paragon of beauty, charm, accomplishments,
the theme of poets, the despair of lovers innumerable worshipping her
from afar.
The boy Francis de Valois, to whom she was affianced, was a poor,
bilious, degenerate weakling, stunted in figure, uncomely of face. He
was shy and timid, shunning active exercises, and though at the time of
his marriage (1558) he was too young to have been actively engaged in
the vices of the outwardly devout court, he appears to have been fully
alive to the desirability of his bride. Mary was precocious and
ambitious; she was surrounded by profligates, male and female, and,
though she can hardly have been in love with her young husband, she
appears to have been fully reconciled to the union.
With unsurpassed magnificence the wedding of Mary and Francis took place
in Paris, but it signified to the world much more than the wedding of a
boy and girl. So far as men could see, it meant the triumph of the papal
Guises in France, and a death-blow to Protestant hopes of ranging
Scotland on the side of the reformation.
_II.--Intrigue, Plot, and Intrigue_
Francis died after sixteen months reign, and Mary Stuart and her Guisan
uncles, hated jealously by the queen-mother, Catharine de Medici, and by
the reforming Bourbons, fell, for a time, into the background. Mary can
hardly have loved her puny boy husband, but she nursed him night and day
in his long sickness and his death so affected her that "she would not
receive any consolation, but, brooding over her disasters with constant
tears and passionate, doleful lamentations, she universally inspired
deep pity." She had, indeed, lost much besides her royal husband; and in
a poem written by her afterwards, the waste of her youth in widowhood,
the loss of her great position as Queen of France, and her powerlessness
any longer to enforce her rule in Scotland by French power, are the main
burden of her complaints against Providence, not pity for the husband
she had lost.
The Guises were loath to surrender power without a struggle, and as soon
as Francis died they sought to sell their niece in marriage again. Their
first idea was for her to marry her child-brother-in-law, the new King
Charles IX., but Catharine de Medici at once stopped that plan, though
the boy himself was anxious for it and Mary was not averse. That
failing, Cardinal Lorraine turned to the heir of Spain, Don Carlos, as a
husband for her. This would have been a death-blow to Elizabeth, and
Philip feigned to listen to it; but all the strength and cunning of
Huguenots and Protestants, joined by those of Catharine and Elizabeth,
were brought into play against this threatening move, and Mary went to
Scotland with a sinking, sad, and angry heart in 1561, fearing her
uncouth subjects, foreign to her now, vexed with the Protestant party
for standing in the way of her ambitious marriage, and determined to
oppose Elizabeth to the utmost in her designs against the independence
of Scotland.
With these views, gay and winsome though she was, it was not long before
Mary was at issue with her dour Protestant subjects and their spokesman,
John Knox. It was hoped by her brother, James Stuart (Murray), and
Secretary Lethington that a _modus vivendi_ might be found by persuading
Elizabeth to secure to Mary the English succession in case she herself
died childless, on the undertaking of Mary that her marriage and policy
should be dictated by England; but it was not Elizabeth's plan to pledge
the future of England, and her nimble evasiveness drove the Scottish
statesmen to despair.
Brawls and bitterness grew in Mary's court around the Catholicism of the
queen, and English money and intrigue were freely lavished to set
Scotland by the ears. Half the nobles were disaffected, and Murray and
Lethington, having failed to secure Scottish interests by moderate
counsels and the conciliation of Elizabeth, were forced to take a strong
course. Of foreign suitors Mary had many, some promoted by the
Protestants, some by the Pope and the Guises, while the Catholics of
England were secretly intriguing to force Elizabeth's hand by arranging
Mary's marriage with young Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, eldest son of
Margaret, Countess of Lennox, niece of Henry VIII., who lived at
Elizabeth's court. Cecil's spies were everywhere, and the plot was soon
known and stopped by Elizabeth, violently angry with her kinswoman for
listening to such a scheme.
But Murray and Lethington, in desperation, were aiming at higher game
even than this. They were Protestant, they had tried their best to win
Elizabeth's recognition; but they were Scotsmen first, and if their
country was to be independent it must have a great ally behind it.
France was out of the question while the Guises were in the shade and
Catharine was queen-mother. So the ministers of Mary turned their eyes
to the Protestant heir of the Catholic king. Elizabeth soon heard of
this, too, and suddenly pretended to be in favour of the Darnley match
for Mary, while she developed the most cordial friendship for Mary
herself; for the Guises had again become paramount in France, and
Elizabeth could not afford to flout all the Catholic interests at once.
That danger soon passed, for the Huguenots flew to arms, and Guise was
murdered, Mary losing thus her principal prop abroad. And Lethington now
pushed vigorously what seemed to be Scotland's only chance of
safety--the marriage of Mary with the semi-idiot heir of Spain.
The English Catholics were drawn into the plot. "Only let Mary marry the
heir of Spain, and we will salute her as our leader," said they. But
Elizabeth soon gained wind of it, as usual, and was ready with her
antidote--a most extraordinary one--the proposal that Mary should wed
her own lover, Lord Robert Dudley, with the assurance of the English
succession after Elizabeth's death without issue. It was a mere feint,
of course, but it divided Scotland, and unsettled Mary herself.
Meanwhile, Philip, with his leaden methods, was pondering and seeking
fresh pledges and guarantees from the English Catholics. Before his
temporising answer came Elizabeth had frightened Mary's advisers into
doubt, while she was holding the English Catholics in check by dangling
Darnley and Dudley before Mary's eyes, and swearing deadly vengeance if
she married the Spaniard.
Elizabeth's first aim was to embroil Mary's prospects by discrediting
her in the eyes of foreign powers. To this end was directed the offer
alternately of Dudley and Darnley as a husband, and Elizabeth's pretence
of shocked reprobation of Mary in connection with Chastelard's escapade.
It must be confessed that Mary's imprudence aided Elizabeth's object,
and the sour bigotry of Knox, which looked upon all gaiety as a sin,
served the same purpose. All this drove the unhappy queen more and more
into the arms of the Catholic party as her only means of defence.
_III.--Prudence Overcome by Passion_
The intrigue to wed Mary to the Spanish prince was met by Elizabeth
cordially taking up Lady Lennox, and her son, Darnley, who by many was
now regarded as the intended heir of England, and was held out to Mary
as an ideal husband for her. So long as she had hopes of the Spanish
prince she gave but evasive answers; but late in 1564 the cunning
diplomacy of Catharine and the falseness of Cardinal Lorraine had
diverted that danger; and Philip gave Mary to understand that the match
with his son was impossible, Mary's great hope had been founded upon
this marriage. Unless she could have a foreign Catholic husband strong
enough to defy Elizabeth she knew that she must make terms with
Elizabeth's enemies, the English Catholics, and thus bring pressure to
bear upon her by internal dissensions.
It was a dangerous game to play, for it meant conspiracy; and so long as
the Lennoxes and their effeminate, lanky son were basking in Elizabeth's
favour, the English queen held her trump card. But Lady Lennox was
intriguing and ambitious, the head of English Catholic disaffection, and
could only be held to Elizabeth's side by delusive hopes of the English
succession for her son. Lennox himself, with some misgiving, was allowed
to go to Scotland to claim his forfeited estates, and there, to
Elizabeth's anger, was received with marked respect, which made the
English queen hold Darnley and his mother more firmly than ever, and
again push forward Dudley as a suitor for Mary's hand. Anxious to get
Darnley to Scotland, not necessarily to marry him, but as a useful
instrument, Mary feigned willingness to accept Dudley; and, in face of
this, Elizabeth was induced to allow young Darnley to go to Scotland for
a short time, ostensibly on business of the family estates.
In February 1565, Darnley, aged nineteen, crossed the border, to the
dismay of the English agents in Scotland. It was soon after Mary had
received news that the Spanish match was at an end, and she was ready
for a new plan to circumvent Elizabeth. Darnley as a husband would bring
to her the support of English Catholics, and a new claim to the English
crown. So when her eyes first lit upon the fair stripling at Wemyss
Castle, she looked upon him with favour as "the properest tall man she
ever saw." He was on his best behaviour, and danced delightfully with
the queen. Up to this time Mary had played her game with self-command
and policy, but now for the first time her heart ran away with her, and
she took a false step.
To have married Darnley as part of a transaction with Elizabeth, and
with the approval of her own Protestant subjects, would have been a
master-stroke. But she fell in love with the "long lad," and could not
wait for negotiation; so she at once sent off to pray King Philip to
support her with money and men against England and the Protestants if
she married Darnley and became the tool of Spain. Philip, nothing loth,
consented, and welcomed the coming union as a Catholic alliance and a
powerful weapon against Elizabeth. Mary thus made herself the head of a
vast Catholic conspiracy looking to Spain for support, and Elizabeth was
furious both with Mary and Darnley for having apparently beaten her at
her own cunning game.
How Elizabeth sought a diversion, at first by new matrimonial schemes of
her own, has been told elsewhere, but her more effectual weapon was to
arouse the fears of Scottish Protestants, and breed dissension in Mary's
realm. "The young fool," Darnley, insolent and proud of his new
greatness, offended all the nobles, whilst Mary grew daily more
infatuated with him. They were married in July 1565, and the great
conspiracy against Elizabeth and Protestantism was complete. Already the
Scottish Protestant lords were in a panic, and after an abortive rising,
they fled before Mary's bold attack, taking refuge in England.
The queen herself led her forces, armed and mounted, with her stripling
husband by her side; but she was followed close by the shaggy, stern,
martial figure of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, just returned from
exile to serve her; and upon him she looked with kindling eyes as a
stouter man than the fribble she had wed. Mary had now apparently
triumphed by her Darnley marriage, but the avalanche was gathering to
crush her. She looked mainly to Spain and the Pope for help, and had all
Protestantism against her, led by Elizabeth, whose hate and fury knew no
bounds. It was a duel now of life or death between two systems and two
women, one with a heart and the other without; and, as usual, the
heartless won.
English money and skill honeycombed Scottish loyalty. Darnley, vicious,
vain, and passionate, was an easy prey to intrigue. The tools of England
whispered in his ear that his wife was too intimate with the Italian
secretary Rizzio, who had conducted the correspondence with the Catholic
powers. Darnley, who had earned his wife's contempt already, was beside
himself with jealousy, and himself led the Protestant conspirators and
friends of England, who murdered Rizzio in the queen's presence at
Holyrood (March 1566). From that hour Darnley's doom was sealed.
He had thought to be king indeed now, but Mary outwitted him; for she
recalled her exiled lords, welcomed her brother Murray, and threw
herself into the arms of Darnley's Protestant foes, the very men who had
risen in arms against the marriage. As she fled by night with Darnley
after Rizzio's murder, to betray him, she swore over Rizzio's new-made
grave that a "fatter one" than he should lie there ere long. Whether she
knew of the plot of his foes to murder her husband is not proved, but
she almost certainly did so, and welcomed the deed when it was done. She
made no pretence of love for him after Rizzio's death, and her husband
repaid her coldness by sulky loutishness and bursts of drunken violence.
Mary's conduct toward Bothwell, too, began to arouse scandal. By
November 1566, matters had reached a crisis, and Mary, at Kelso, said
that unless she was freed from Darnley she would put an end to herself.
She spoke not to deaf ears. Morton, and the rest of Rizzio's slayers and
bitter enemies, were pardoned, and the deadly bond was signed.
_IV.--Dire Infatuation_
On February 9, 1567, as the doomed consort lay sick and sorry outside
Edinburgh at the lone house of Kirk o' Field, he was, done to death by
Bothwell and the foes of the Lennoxes; and Mary Stuart's first true love
affair was ended in tragedy. But already the second was in full blast.
Bothwell had recently married; he was disliked by the Scottish nobles,
and the queen's constant association with him had already brought
discredit upon her. There had been a good political excuse for her union
with Darnley, but Bothwell could bring no support to her cause; for his
creed was doubtful, and he had no friends. Nothing, indeed, but the
infatuation of an amorous woman for a brutally strong man could have so
blinded her to her own great aims as to make her take Bothwell, the
prime mover of Darnley's murder, for her husband.
As soon as the crime was known, all fingers were pointed to Bothwell and
the queen as the murderers, and Protestants everywhere hastened to cast
obloquy upon Mary for it. But for the nobles' jealousy of Bothwell, and
the religious animus, probably Darnley's death would soon have been
forgotten or condoned; but as it was, Scotland blazed out in
denunciation of it, and though Bothwell was put upon a mock trial and
acquitted, the hate against him grew, especially when he arranged to
divorce his wife in April 1567, and, ostensibly by force, but clearly by
Mary's connivance, abducted the queen and bore her off to his castle of
Dunbar.
On her return to Edinburgh a few weeks later Mary publicly married
Bothwell--she swore afterwards against her will, but, in any case, to
the anger and disgust of her subjects. She found her new husband an
arrogant tyrant rather than her slave, and he watched her closely. The
dire infatuation of the lovelorn woman soon wore off, and again she
sighed to be free; but it was too late, for the Catholic powers stood
aloof from her now that she had married a divorced man, and all her
nobles had abandoned her. So Mary clung to Bothwell still, for he was
strong, and all Scotland cried shame upon her.
In June, Mary and her husband, fearing attack or treachery, fled from
Edinburgh Castle, which at once opened its gates to Morton and the rebel
lords. A parley was sent to Mary offering submission if she would leave
Bothwell to his fate. She indignantly refused, for she feared the lords
and hated Morton. Bothwell was strong, she thought, and he was the
father of her unborn child; be might protect her. So by Bothwell's side
she rode out at the head of the border clansmen, and met the rebel army
at Carberry Hill, hard by Edinburgh.
It was agreed that the dispute should be decided by the single combat
between Bothwell and Lindsay, but before the duel began Mary's bordermen
became disordered, and then she knew that all was lost. Kirkaldy of
Grange came from her opponents to parley with her and offer safety for
her, but not for Bothwell. Whilst they were speaking, Bothwell attempted
to murder Grange; and when Mary forbade such treachery, he lost his
nerve and began to whimper. In a moment the scales fell from Mary's
eyes. This man was but a lath painted like steel. His strength was but a
lie, and he was unworthy of her. She turned from him in contempt, and
surrendered to the lords; while Bothwell fled, and unhappy Mary saw him
no more.
_V.--Langside and After_
Cursed by crowds, who reviled her as a murderess and adulteress, Mary
was led, a captive, to her capital. By night, to save her from the fury
of the mob, she was smuggled out of Edinburgh and lodged, a prisoner, in
the island fortress of Lochleven. During her long incarceration there
the story of her wrongs and sufferings stirred the Catholics at home and
abroad in her favour, and her friends and foes were again sharply
divided according to their religious creeds. The rulers of Scotland,
too, headed by her brother Murray, were far from easy; for the Catholics
were strong, and foreign crowned heads looked black at those who kept a
sovereign in durance. So attempts were made to conciliate her by
proposing marriage with some harmless Scottish noble, conjoined with her
abdication. But her heart was high still, and she would bate no jot of
her queenship; rather would she exercise her glamour upon her gaolers
and escape to power and sovereignty again. Her fascination was
irresistible, and Murray's half-brother, young George Douglas, a mere
lad, fell a victim to her smiles. Once more Mary fell in love, and
proposed to marry the youth who had endeavoured to aid her escape.
Murray was shocked, and had his brother expelled the castle; but in
April 1568 the faithful George planned her evasion of the guard and
joyfully welcomed her on the shore of the lake. To her standard flocked
the Catholic lords, and, safe at Hamilton, Mary, again a queen, swore
vengeance upon her foes. On her way with her army to Dumbarton she met
Murray's force at Langside, near Glasgow. She had been strong at
Carberry Hill with Bothwell at her side. Here she was weak, for no man
of weight or character was with her, and as her men wavered she turned
rein and fled.
For sixty miles on bad roads she struggled on, almost without sleep, and
living on beggar's fare. With no adviser or woman near her, in her panic
and despair she took the fatal resolve and crossed the Solway into
Elizabeth's realm, trusting to the magnanimity of the woman whom she had
tried to ruin and supplant. Again her heart had deceived her. Elizabeth
had no pity for a vanquished foe, and for the rest of her miserable
life, well nigh a score of years, Mary Stuart was a prisoner. But in all
those years she never ceased to plot and plan for the overthrow of
Elizabeth and her own elevation to the Catholic throne of all Britain.
Amidst her many weapons, that of marriage and her personal fascination
were not forgotten. Twice, at least, she tried to make her love affairs
serve her political ambition. Poor, feckless Norfolk was drawn by his
vanity and ambition into her net. Love epistles, breathing eternal
devotion, passed between them, but murder was behind it all--the murder
of Elizabeth, and the subjection of England to Spain to work Mary's
vengeance on her foes, and Norfolk lost his head deservedly.
Again she dreamed of marrying the Christian champion, Don Juan of
Austria, and conquering and ruling over a Catholic England. But this
plot, too, was discovered, and Don Juan, like all the rest of Mary's
lovers, died miserably. Mary thenceforward was the centre of Spain's
great conspiracy against England's queen, but she sought the end no more
by love; for that had failed her every time she tried. She and her cause
were beaten because her heart of fire was pitted against a heart of ice,
and she lost all because she loved too much.
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