CHAPTER XII.

THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

Accession of Elizabeth--Sir William Cecil--The Coronation--Opening

of Parliament--Ecclesiastical Legislation--Consecration of

Parker--Elizabeth and Philip--Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis--Affairs

in Scotland--The First Covenant--Attitude of Mary of Guise--Riot

at Perth--Outbreak of Hostilities--The Lords of the Congregation

apply to England--Elizabeth hesitates--Siege of Leith--Treaty

of Edinburgh--Return of Mary to Scotland--Murray's Influence

over her--Beginning of the Religious Wars in France--Elizabeth

sends Help to the Huguenots--Peace of Amboise--English Disaster

at Havre--Peace with France--The Earl of Leicester--Project of

his Marriage with Mary--Lord Darnley--Murder of Rizzio--Birth

of Mary's Son--Murder of Darnley--Mary and Bothwell--Carberry

Hill--Mary in Lochleven--Abdicates in favour of Her Infant

Son--Mary's Escape from Lochleven--Defeated at Langside--Her

Escape into England.

Parliament had met on the morning of the 17th of November, 1558, unaware

of the decease of the queen; but before noon, Dr. Heath, the Archbishop

of York and Lord Chancellor of England, sent a message to the House of

Commons, requesting the Speaker, with the knights and burgesses of the

Lower House, to attend in the Lords to give their assent in a matter of

the utmost importance. On being there assembled, the Lord Chancellor

announced to the united Parliament the demise of Mary, and, though by

that event the Commons were dissolved by the law as it remained till

the reign of William III., he called upon them to combine with the

Lords, before taking their departure, for the safety of the country, by

proclaiming the Lady Elizabeth queen of the realm. Whatever might have

been the fears of any portion of the community as to the recognition of

the title of Elizabeth on the plea of illegitimacy, or from suspicion of

her religion, that question had long been settled by the flocking of the

courtiers of all creeds and characters to Hatfield, where she resided;

and now on this announcement there was a loud acclamation from the

members of both Houses of "God save Queen Elizabeth! Long may she reign

over us!"

For two days Elizabeth, as if from due respect to her deceased sister and

sovereign, remained quiescent at Hatfield; but thousands of people of all

ranks were flocking thither; and on the 19th her Privy Council proceeded

thither also, and, after announcing to her her joyful and undisputed

accession, they proclaimed her with all state before the gates of

Hatfield House. They then sat in council with her, and she appointed her

own ministers, having, no doubt, made all these arrangements with the man

whom she had long marked out for her prime minister, Sir William Cecil.

He had for years been her confidential counsellor. By his shrewd and

worldly guidance, she had shaped her future course; and in appointing her

ministers now, she showed by her address to Cecil that it was for him

that she designed the chief post.

Besides Cecil, she named Sir Thomas Parry, her cofferer, Cave, and

Rogers of her Privy Council. Cecil immediately entered on his duties as

her Secretary of State, and submitted to her a programme of what was

immediately necessary to be done, which she accepted; and thus began that

union between Elizabeth and her great minister, which only terminated

with his life.

On the 23rd the new queen commenced her progress towards the metropolis,

attended by a magnificent throng of nobles, ladies, and gentlemen, and

a vast concourse of people from London and from the country round. At

Highgate she was met by the bishops, who kneeled by the wayside, and

offered their allegiance. She received them graciously, and gave them

all her hand to kiss, except to Bonner, whom she treated with a marked

coldness, on account of his atrocious cruelties: an intimation of her own

intentions on the score of religion which must have given satisfaction

to the people. At the foot of Highgate Hill, the Lord Mayor and his

aldermanic brethren, in their scarlet gowns, were waiting to receive her,

and conducted her to the Charter House, then the residence of Lord North,

where Heath, the Lord Chancellor, and the Earls of Derby and Shrewsbury

received her. There she remained five days to give time for the necessary

preparations, when she proceeded to take up her residence in the Tower,

prior to her coronation, which took place on the 15th of January, 1559.

[Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH.

(_From the painting by Zucchero at Hatfield House._)]

On the 25th of January Elizabeth proceeded to open her first Parliament.

She had prepared to carry the decisive measures of religious reform which

she contemplated, by adding five new peers of the Protestant faith to the

Upper House, and by sending to the sheriffs a list of Court candidates

out of which they were to choose the members. Like all other public

proceedings, this was a strange medley of Romanism and Protestantism.

High mass was performed at the altar in Westminster Abbey before the

queen and the assembled Houses, and this was followed by a sermon

preached by Dr. Cox, the Calvinistic schoolmaster of Edward VI., who had

just returned from Geneva. The Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, then

opened the session by a speech, the queen being present, in which he held

very high prerogative language, assuring both Lords and Commons that they

might take measures for a uniform order of religion, and for the safety

of the State against both foreign and domestic enemies; not that it was

absolutely necessary, for she could do everything of her own authority,

but she preferred having the advice and counsel of her loving subjects.

The first thing which the Commons proposed was the very last thing

which she would have wished them to meddle with--that is, an address

recommending her to marry, so as to secure a legitimate heir to the

throne. Elizabeth, as we have seen, had had many suitors, none of whom,

if we except the unfortunate Lord Admiral Seymour, or the handsome

but imbecile Courtenay, Earl of Devon, had she shown any willingness

to marry. There have been many theories regarding the refusal of

Elizabeth to enter into wedlock. The only one which will bear a moment's

examination is, that her love of power was so strong as to absorb every

other feeling and consideration. She made a long speech in reply to the

address, glancing towards the close of it at her coronation ring, and

then saying that when she received that ring, she became solemnly bound

in marriage to the realm, and that she took their address in good part,

but more for their good will than for their message.

Without referring to the questionable marriage of her mother, Anne

Boleyn, an Act was passed restoring Elizabeth in blood, and rendering her

heritable to her mother and all her mother's line. She was declared to be

lawful and rightful queen, lineally and lawfully descended of the blood

royal, and fully capable of holding, and transmitting to her posterity,

the possession of the crown and throne.

Next came the regulations for the government of the Church, which

Elizabeth had so prudently avoided making upon her own responsibility,

but left to the authority of Parliament. By it the tenths and

first-fruits resigned by Mary were again restored to her. The statutes

passed in Mary's reign for the maintenance of strict Romanism were

repealed, and those of Henry VIII. for the rejection of the Papal

authority, and of Edward VI. for the reformation of the Church ritual

were revived. The Book of Common Prayer, considerably modified, was to

be in uniform and exclusive use. The old penalties against seeking any

ecclesiastical authority or ordination from abroad were re-enacted,

and the queen was declared absolute head of the Church by a new Act of

Supremacy.

Notwithstanding the softening of the parts and expressions in the liturgy

most offensive to the Papists, such as the prayer "to deliver us from the

Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities," and the modification

of the terms in administration of the sacrament, to avoid offence to

other Protestant churches, the bishops opposed these measures most

resolutely. Convocation presented to the House of Lords a declaration

of its belief in the Real Presence, transubstantiation, the sacrifice

of the Mass, and the supremacy of the Pope. On the other hand, the

Protestants were grievously disappointed in other particulars, especially

as to restoration of the married clergy, and of the restoration to their

sees of Bishops Barlow, Scorey, and Coverdale. Both these petitions

failed on the question of marriage, for Elizabeth never could tolerate

married priests or bishops, and these expelled bishops were all married

men. The Protestants were equally disappointed in the failure of a Bill

to nominate a commission to draw a code of canon law for the Anglican

Church. Elizabeth, like her father, rather preferred deciding all such

matters herself than allowing any other body to be authority.

But to give an air of liberality to what was not meant to involve any

concession, permission was given for the Papist and Protestant divines to

argue certain great points in public. Five bishops and three doctors on

the part of the former, and as many Protestant divines, were appointed

to dispute before the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, and the debates

of the two Houses were suspended, that the members might attend the

controversy. The Roman Catholics were to have the privilege of opening

the conference, and the Protestants were to reply; but it was speedily

discovered that this gave immense advantage to the Protestants. The Roman

Catholics called for a change of this mode; the Lord Keeper refused to

grant it; the bishops, therefore, protested that the conditions were

not equal, and refused to attend. For this disobedience the Bishops of

Winchester and Lincoln were committed to the Tower, and the other six

disputants were bound to make their appearance at the bar of the Lords

till judgment was pronounced, and they were compelled to do so till the

end of the session, when they were fined in sums from £500 to forty

marks. Parliament was dissolved on the 8th of May, and within a week

Elizabeth summoned the bishops and other dignitaries before herself and

the Privy Council, and admonished them to make themselves conformable to

the laws just passed regarding religion. Heath, the archbishop, replied

by boldly advising her Majesty to remember her own coronation oath, not

to alter the religion which she found by law established; adding that his

conscience could not permit him to conform to the new regulations, and

all the other prelates and dignitaries declared the same. The Council

then charged Heath and Bonner, on the evidence of certain papers, with

having, during the reign of Edward VI., carried on secret conspiracies

with Rome, with the intent to overthrow the Government. To this they

replied by pleading two general pardons, and the Council then proceeded

to administer to them the oath of supremacy. This they all refused except

Kitchen, the Bishop of Llandaff, who had clung to his see through all

changes for the last fourteen years, and clung to it still. They were

then deprived of their sees, and a considerable number of other Church

dignitaries were also deprived by the same test. The bulk of the clergy,

however, conformed, and to those who were ejected pensions for life were

allowed--a policy far more considerate than had ever prevailed in such

circumstances before. The refugees on account of the Marian persecution,

who had now flocked home from Switzerland and Germany, were installed

in the vacant livings, and before the end of this year the Church

of Rome had lost the State patronage in Great Britain for ever. Two

statutes--the Act enforcing the oath of Supremacy, and the other the Act

of Uniformity--became law, during this session. The latter Act prohibited

under heavy penalties the use by a minister of any but the established

liturgy, and confirmed the revised Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI.

To replace the expelled bishops was no very easy matter, not from the

paucity of candidates, but from the revolutions which had taken place in

the ordinal of the Church. Dr. Matthew Parker, who had been the chaplain

of Anne Boleyn, and who had stood so faithfully by her, was appointed by

Elizabeth Archbishop of Canterbury, but how was he to be consecrated? His

election was to be confirmed by four bishops, and his consecration to be

performed by them. Where were they to be found? There was not a bishop

left, except Llandaff. Still more, Mary had abolished the ordinal of

Edward VI., and Elizabeth had abolished that of Mary. The difficulty was,

at first sight, insurmountable, and no way out of it presented itself for

four months. It was then recollected that Barlow, Hodgkins, Scorey, and

Coverdale, the deprived Bishops of Bath, Bedford, Chichester, and Exeter,

had been consecrated by the Reformed ordinal, and that restoration which

had been denied them at the petition of their friends, because they

were married men, was now accorded as an escape from this dilemma. They

were reinstated, and confirmed the election of Parker, consecrated him

according to the form of Edward VI., and helped to confirm and consecrate

all the newly elected prelates.

While Elizabeth and her ministers had been thus engaged in settling the

constitution of the Church, they had also been occupied with effecting a

Continental peace. Philip had refused to conclude a treaty with France

previous to the death of Mary, without including in it the restoration

of Calais to England, and to Philibert the Duke of Savoy his hereditary

estates. The death of Mary at once cut the actual connection of Philip

with England, but he remained firm in his demand, for he had formed the

design of obtaining the hand of Elizabeth. He lost no time in making the

offer, observing that though they were within the proscribed degrees of

affinity the Pope would readily grant a dispensation, and the union of

England and Spain would give them the command of Europe. But, independent

of the partnership in power which this marriage would create, Elizabeth

entertained schemes of Church arrangement very different to any which

would accord with Philip's ideas. She, therefore, courteously excused

herself on the plea of scruples of conscience, and this refusal was

followed by the non-appearance of Feria, Philip's ambassador, at her

coronation. Philip, however, did not give up the suit without employing

all the eloquence and the arguments that he could muster; he kept up a

brisk correspondence for some time with the new queen, and even when the

attempt appeared hopeless, he still offered to assist her in the treaty

with France. He settled his own disputes with France by marrying the

daughter of the King of France, as soon as he saw the hand of Elizabeth

unattainable, and procured the sister of Henry II. for his friend

Philibert.

[Illustration: ELIZABETH'S PUBLIC ENTRY INTO LONDON. (_See p._ 246.)]

The great demand of Elizabeth was the restoration of Calais, and at

Cateau-Cambresis a treaty was concluded on the 2nd of April, 1559, by

which the King of France actually engaged to surrender that town to

England at the end of eight years, or pay to Elizabeth 500,000 crowns;

and he agreed to deliver, as guarantee for this sum, four French noblemen

and the bonds of eight foreign merchants. But to this article was

appended another which, to any one in the least familiar with diplomacy,

betrayed the fact that the whole was illusory, and that the French would

have no difficulty, at the end of the prescribed term, in showing that

England had in some way broken the contract. The article stipulated that

if, within that period, Henry of France, or Mary of Scotland, should

make any attempt against the realm or subjects of Elizabeth, they should

forfeit all claim to the retention of that town; and if Elizabeth should

infringe the peace with either of those monarchs, she should forfeit

all claim to its surrender or to the penalty of 500,000 crowns. The

public at once saw that the French would never relinquish their hold on

Calais from the force of any such condition, and the indignation was

proportionate. The Government, to divert the attention of the people from

this flimsy pretence of eventual restoration, ordered the impeachment of

Lord Wentworth, the late governor of the castle and of the Rysbank, on a

charge of cowardice and treason. Wentworth, as he deserved, was acquitted

by the jury; the captains were condemned, but the object of the trial

being attained, their sentence was never carried into effect.

Elizabeth, at her accession, had assumed the title of Queen of France.

Henry II. immediately, by way of retaliation, caused his daughter-in-law

Mary (she had married the Dauphin in 1558) to be styled Queen of

Scotland and England, and had the arms of England quartered with those

of Scotland. Elizabeth, with her extreme sensitiveness to any claims

upon her crown, and regarding this act as a declaration of her own

illegitimacy and of Henry's assertion of Mary's superior right to the

English throne, resented the proceeding deeply, and from that moment

never ceased to plot against the peace and power of Mary till she drove

her from her throne, made her captive, and finally deprived her of her

life.

We have already shown that Henry VII. commenced, and Henry VIII. and

Edward VI. continued, the system of bribing the Scottish nobility

against their sovereign. Elizabeth, in pursuance of her plans against the

Queen of Scots, now adopted the same practice, and kept in pay both the

nobles and the Protestant leaders of Scotland. To understand fully her

proceedings, we must, however, first take a hasty glance at the progress

of the Reformation in Scotland. That kingdom received the Reformation

in its simplest, most rigid, and severe form. The doctrines which had

sprung up in republican Switzerland, under Calvin and Zwingli, were

imbibed there by Knox and others in their most unbending hardness. There

was little of the gentle and the pliant in their tenets, but a stern

asceticism, which suited well with the grave and earnest character of the

Scots. When summoned by Mary of Guise to appear in Edinburgh and answer

for their conduct, the preachers, attended by thousands of the respective

congregations, presented themselves in such a formidable shape, that

the Regent declared that she meant no injury to them. A period of such

tranquillity succeeded, that the leaders of the Reform party--the Earl

of Glencairn, Lord Lorne, son of the Earl of Argyll, Erskine of Dun,

Lord James Stuart, afterwards the Regent Murray--on the 3rd of December,

1557, drew up that League and Covenant which was destined to work such

wonders in Scotland, to rouse the suffering Reformers into a church

militant, to put arms into the hands of the excited peasants, brace the

sword to the side of the preacher, and, through civil war and scenes of

strange suffering, bloodshed, and resistance on moor and mountain, to

work out the freedom of the faith for ever in Scotland. The Covenant

engaged all who subscribed it, in a solemn vow, "in the presence of the

Majesty of God and His congregation," to spread the Word by every means

in their power, to maintain the Gospel and defend its ministers against

all tyranny; and it pronounced the most bitter anathemas against the

superstition, the idolatry, and the abominations of Rome. This bond

received the signatures of the Earls of Glencairn, Argyll, and Morton,

Lord Lorne, Erskine of Dun, and many other nobles and gentlemen, who

assumed the name of the Lords of the Congregation: and from this hour it

became a scandalous apostacy for any one to flinch or fall away from this

"Solemn League and Covenant."

Mary at first temporised, but eventually determined to stand firm. In a

convention of the clergy held in Edinburgh, in March, 1559, the Lords

of the Congregation demanded that the bishops should be elected by the

gentlemen of the diocese, and the clergy by the people of each parish.

This was peremptorily refused, and it was decreed that the practice of

using English prayers should cease, no language should be permitted in

public worship but Latin, and this was followed by a proclamation of the

Queen-Regent, ordering all people to conform strictly to the established

religion and to attend Mass daily; and, in an interview with the leaders

of the Protestants, she showed them the commands which she had received

on these heads from France, and summoned the chief ministers of the

Reformed body to appear before a Parliament to be held at Stirling to

answer for their conduct in introducing heretical practices and doctrines.

At this moment Knox arrived from France. It was determined by the Lords

of the Congregation to attend their ministers to Stirling in such numbers

as to overawe the Government, and Knox volunteered to take his part

with the other preachers. The nobles and the people mustered at Perth.

There Knox preached a stirring sermon; a riot was the result, and some

religious houses were sacked.

The Queen-Regent, at the news of this destruction, became furious. She

vowed she would raze the town of Perth to the ground, and sow it with

salt as a sign of eternal desolation. She summoned to her aid Arran, now

Duke of Chatelherault, the Earl of Athole, and D'Oyselles, the French

commander, and being joined by two of the Lords of the Congregation,

Argyll and Lord James Stuart, who were averse from the outrages

committed, on the 18th of May she marched to Perth. The Congregation

hastened to address letters both to the Queen-Regent and the two Lords

of the Congregation, who, to their indignation, had joined her. They

told Mary of Guise that hitherto they had served her willingly; but if

she persisted in her persecutions, they should abandon her and defend

themselves. They would obey the queen and her husband if permitted

to worship in their own way, otherwise they would be subject to no

mortal man. To the two Lords of the Congregation they wrote first

in mild expostulation, but they soon advanced their tone to threats

of excommunication, and the doom of traitors, if they did not come

from amongst the persecutors. They addressed another letter "To the

generation of Anti-Christ, the pestilent prelates and their shavelings in

Scotland;" and they warned them that, if they did not desist from their

persecutions, they would exterminate them, as the Israelites did the

wicked Canaanites.

Matters were proceeding to extremity when Glencairn arrived in the

Protestant camp with 2,500 men. This made the Queen-Regent pause, and

an agreement was effected by means of Argyll and the Lord James, by

which toleration was again granted, and the Queen-Regent engaged that no

Frenchman should approach within three miles of Perth, a condition which

she characteristically evaded by garrisoning it with Scottish troops in

French pay. Knox and Willock had an interview with Argyll and the Lord

James, and sharply upbraided them with appearing in arms against their

brethren, to which these nobles replied that they had done it only as a

means of arbitrating for peace; but the Congregation took means to bind

them in future by framing a new covenant, to which every member swore

obedience, engaging to defend the Congregation or any of its members when

menaced by the enemies of their religion.

They were soon called upon to prove their sincerity. The

Queen-Regent--totally regardless of the treaty just entered into--the

very same day that the Lords of the Congregation quitted Perth, entered

it with Chatelherault, D'Oyselles, and a body of French soldiers. She

deprived the chief magistrates of their authority because they favoured

the Reformation; made Charteris of Kinfauns, a man of infamous character,

provost of the city, and left a garrison of troops in French pay to

support him.

The Lords of the Congregation assembled at St. Andrews, and with them

Knox, who had come, as he said, to the conclusion that to be rid of the

rooks it was necessary to pull down their nests. Their action was prompt;

Perth surrendered at the first assault. Argyll and the Lord James had

succeeded in checking the march of the Queen-Regent; and on their advance

to Linlithgow, she and the French forces evacuated Edinburgh, falling

back to Dunbar; whilst the Covenanting army, entering Linlithgow, pulled

down the altars and images, destroyed the relics, and then advanced on

Edinburgh, which they entered in triumph on the 29th of June, 1559.

It was at this crisis that the progress of the Reformers in Scotland

arrested the attention of the Government in England, and a letter was

received from Sir Henry Percy by Kirkaldy of Grange, inquiring into the

real objects of the Lords of the Congregation. Kirkaldy replied that they

meant nothing but the reformation of religion; that they had purged the

churches of imagery and other Popish stuff wherever they had come, and

that they pulled down such friaries and abbeys as would not receive the

Reformed faith; but that they had not meddled with a pennyworth of the

Church's property, reserving the appropriation of that to the maintenance

of godly ministers hereafter; that if the Queen-Regent would grant them

spiritual liberty and send away the Frenchmen, they would obey her; if

not, they would hear of no agreement. Knox also wrote to Percy in the

name of the whole Congregation, and entreated that England should aid

them in their struggle, telling them, in his sturdy way, that if it did

it would be better for it; if not, though Scotland might suffer, England

could not escape her share of the trouble.

[Illustration: ELIZABETH. (_From the Portrait by Isaac Oliver._)]

The parsimony of Elizabeth, however, and the caution of her minister

Cecil, withheld all efficient aid from the Scottish Reformers at the time

that it was most essential. Whilst the Queen-Regent delayed any active

proceedings in the hope of the arrival of fresh troops from France, and

the knowledge that the irregular army brought into the field by the

Scottish barons could not long be kept together, Elizabeth deferred the

promised subsidies. In this predicament, the Lords of the Congregation

made still more impassioned appeals to Cecil, and Knox wrote to him

entreating him to abate the prejudice of Elizabeth towards him. But that

prejudice was of the most bitter and unconquerable kind in the heart of

Elizabeth. Knox had perpetrated the unpardonable offence to Elizabeth in

writing his "First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of

Women." While Elizabeth hesitated, the Regent was fortifying Leith.

At last the English queen determined to help her fellow-religionists,

and by the treaty of Berwick agreed to aid them in an attack on the

Regent. The Covenanters prepared for an assault on Leith, by constructing

scaling-ladders in the High Church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, to the great

scandal of the preachers, who prognosticated that proceedings begun

in sacrilege would end in defeat. This soon appeared likely to be the

result, for the money sent from England being exhausted, the soldiers

clamoured for pay, and the army of 12,000 was on the verge of melting

away very rapidly. In great alarm, the leaders vehemently entreated

Elizabeth for more money, and making a struggle with her natural

parsimony, she sent £4,000 to Cockburn of Ormiston, who undertook the

perilous office of conveying it to headquarters. But a man who afterwards

became notorious for the audacity of his crimes, the Earl of Bothwell,

who now professed to be a zealous supporter of the Congregation, and had

by this means obtained the knowledge of the transmission of the treasure,

waylaid Cockburn, and carried off the money. This was a severe blow to

the Congregation, and was speedily followed by another. Haliburton,

provost of Dundee, had led a party of Reformers to attack Leith. He had

planted his heavy artillery on an eminence near Holyrood; but whilst the

majority of the leaders were attending a sermon, the French garrison

attacked the battery, and drove the Reformers back into the city with

great slaughter.

[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF ELIZABETH.]

Even the arrival of an English army did not mend matters. The siege was

carried on against Leith in a manner little creditable to the ancient

fame of the English; as for the Scots, Sadler said, "they could climb

no walls:" that is, they were not famous for conducting sieges and

taking towns by assault. The English, who had acquired great fame in

that kind of warfare, now seemed to have forgotten their skill, though

they had lost none of their courage. Their lines of circumvallation were

ill-drawn, their guns were ill-directed, their trenches were opened

in ground unfit for the purpose, and they were repeatedly thrown into

disorder by sorties of the enemy. To make matters worse, the supplies

of the Scots became exhausted, and they began to make their usual cries

to the English for more money. But from the English court came, instead

of the all-needful money, signs of discouragement. Elizabeth still

maintained her equivocal conduct, and the Lords of the Congregation

were greatly alarmed to find her actually negotiating with the sick

Queen-Regent for an accommodation. At the very time that the Scots and

the English were engaged in a smart action at Hawkhill, near Lochend,

during the siege, Sir James Croft and Sir George Howard were with the

dying Mary of Guise in the castle of Edinburgh. Elizabeth still declared

that she was not fighting against Francis and Mary, the king and queen of

France and Scotland, but against their Ministers in the latter country,

and simply for the defence of her own realm against their attempts. She

desired Sir Ralph Sadler to express her willingness to treat, and to make

it clear that she was no party to any design to injure or depose the

rightful queen. What she aimed at was the expulsion of the French from

Scotland as dangerous to her own dominions, and he was instructed, if

the old plea was raised--namely, that the French only remained there to

maintain the throne of their mistress against disaffected subjects--to

state that his sovereign would not admit this plea, as it was a mere

pretence, and would not lay down her arms till the Queen of Scots was

also secured in her just power and claims.

On the 10th of June, 1560, the Queen-Regent died in the castle of

Edinburgh. On her death-bed she entreated Lord James Stuart, and some

others of the Lords of the Congregation, as well as her own courtiers, to

support the rightful power of her daughter: but, as the events showed,

and the treacherous, ambitious character of the bastard brother of Queen

Mary rendered probable, to very little purpose. The Queen-Regent's

decease, however, opened a way to negotiation. The insurrectionary

feeling in France made the French court readily support such a

proposition, and it was agreed that the French and English commissioners

should meet at Berwick on the 14th of June. The English commissioners

were Cecil and Dr. Wotton, Dean of Canterbury; the French, Monluc, Bishop

of Valence, and Count de Randon. Perhaps four more acute diplomatists

never met. On the 16th of June, they proceeded to Edinburgh, passing

through the English camp on the way, where they were saluted by a general

discharge of firearms. By the 6th of July all the conditions of peace

were settled, and it was announced both to the besiegers and besieged

that hostilities were at an end.

The French commissioners stood stoutly for the rights and prerogatives

of the Crown, but they were compelled to yield many points to the

imperturbable firmness of Cecil. Dunbar and Inchkeith were surrendered

as well as Leith. The French troops, excepting a small garrison in

Dunbar and another in Inchkeith, were to be sent home and no more to be

brought over. An indemnity for all that had passed since March, 1558, in

Scotland, was granted; every man was to regain the post or position which

he held before the struggle, and no Frenchman was to hold any office in

that kingdom. A Convention of the three Estates was to be summoned by

the king and queen, and four-and-twenty persons were to be named by this

Convention, out of whom should be chosen a Council of twelve for the

government of the country, of whom the Queen should name seven, and the

Estates five. The king and queen were not to declare war, or conclude

peace, without the concurrence of the Estates; neither the Lords nor

the members of the Congregation should be molested for what they had

done, and Churchmen were to be protected in their persons, rights, and

properties, and to receive compensation for their losses according to the

award of the Estates in Parliament.

On one point, and that the chief point of the quarrel, the leaders of

the Congregation did not obtain their demand, which naturally was for

the establishment of their religion. We may suppose that Cecil and his

colleague were not very desirous of carrying this; for the Queen of

England regarded the Scottish Reformers as fanatical and she especially

abominated the character and doctrines of Knox. It was conceded, however,

that Parliament should be summoned without delay, and that a deputation

should lay this request before the king and queen.

By a second treaty between England and France, it was determined that

the right to the crowns of England and Ireland lay in Elizabeth, and

that Mary should no longer bear the arms or use the style of these two

kingdoms. Another proposition, however, was refused in this treaty, and

that was the surrender of Calais to England.

It remained now to obtain the consent of Francis and Mary to these

decisions; and Sir James Sandilands, a knight of Malta, was despatched

to Paris for this purpose. His reception was such as might be expected.

Mary refused to sanction the proceedings of a Parliament which had been

summoned without her authority, and which had acted in the very face of

the treaty, by seeking to destroy the religion in which she had been

educated. Thereupon the Estates established Protestantism on their own

authority.

All speculations as to what the Guises would do were cut short by the

death of Francis II., the husband of Mary, on the 5th of December,

1560. He had always been a sickly personage, and his reign had lasted

only eighteen months. His successor, Charles IX., was only nine years

of age, and had a mind and constitution not exhibiting more promise of

health and vigour than those of his late brother. His mother, Catherine

de Medici, became regent, and his uncles of Lorraine lost the direction

of affairs. Catherine and Mary were no friends; the young Queen-Dowager

of France, only nineteen, was now treated harshly and contemptuously by

the Lady-Regent, and she retired to Rheims, where she spent the winter

amongst her relatives of Lorraine.

Mary now prepared to make her way home by sea. Her false half-brother,

the Lord James, instead of being to her, at this trying moment, a friend

and staunch counsellor, was, and had long been, leagued with her most

troublesome and rebellious subjects, and was expecting, by the aid of

Elizabeth of England, to engross the chief power in the State, if not

eventually to push his unsuspecting sister from the throne. The Roman

Catholics of Scotland were quite alive to the dangers which attended

their sovereign in such company, and deputed Leslie the Bishop of Ross,

a man of high integrity--which, through a long series of troubles, he

manifested towards his queen--to go over to France and return with her.

Leslie was so much alarmed by the dangers which menaced her amongst her

turbulent and zeal-excited subjects, that he advised her in private to

extend her voyage to the Highlands, and put herself under the protection

of the Earl of Huntly, who, at the head of a large army, would conduct

her to her capital and place her in safety on her throne, at the same

time that he enabled her to protect the ancient religion. But Mary

would not listen to anything like a return by force. She determined to

throw herself on the affections of her subjects, and to go amongst them

peaceably.

Mary embarked at Calais on the 15th of August, 1561. She eluded the

ships sent to prevent her, and on the 19th she landed on her native

shore at Leith. She had come a fortnight earlier than she had fixed, to

checkmate the schemes of her enemies; but the people flew to welcome

her and crowded the beach with hearty acclamations: the lords, however,

says a contemporary, had taken small pains to honour her reception and

"cover the nakedness of the land." Instead of the gay palfreys of France

to which she had been accustomed, in their rich accoutrements, she saw a

wretched set of Highland shelties prepared to convey her and her retinue

to Holyrood; and when she surveyed their tattered furniture and mounted

into the bare wooden saddle, the past and the present came so mournfully

over her, that her eyes filled with tears. The honest joy of her people,

however, was an ample compensation, had she not known what ill-will

lurked in the background against her amongst the nobles and clergy.

Mary was the finest woman of her time. Tall, beautiful, accomplished, in

the freshness of her youth, not yet nineteen, distinguished by the most

graceful manners and the most fascinating disposition, she was formed

to captivate a people sensible to such charms. But she came into her

country, in every past age turbulent and independent, at a crisis when

the public spirit was divided and embittered by religious controversy,

and she was exposed to the deepest suspicion of the Reforming party, by

belonging to a family notorious for its bigoted attachment to the old

religion. Yet the candour of her disposition and her easy condescension

seemed to make a deep impression on the masses. They not only cheered

her enthusiastically on the way to her ancestral palace of Holyrood,

but about 200 of the citizens of Edinburgh, playing on three-stringed

fiddles, kept up a deafening serenade under her windows all night; and

such was her good-natured appreciation of the motive, that she thanked

them in the morning for having really kept her awake after her fatiguing

voyage. Not quite so agreeable, though, was the conduct of her liege

subjects on the Sunday in her chapel, where, having ordered her chaplain

to perform Mass, such a riot was raised, that had not her natural

brother, the Lord James Stuart, interfered, the priest would have been

killed at the altar.

This was a plain indication that, although the Reformers demanded liberty

of conscience for themselves, they meant to allow none to others; and

a month afterwards the same riot was renewed so violently in the royal

chapel at Stirling, that Randolph, writing to Cecil, said that the Earl

of Argyll and the Lord James himself this time "so disturbed the quire,

that some, both priests and clerks, left their places with broken heads

and bloody ears."

Mary bore this rude and disloyal conduct with an admirable patience.

She had the advantage of the counsels of D'Oyselles, who had spent some

years in the country, and had learned the character of the people. She

placed the leaders of the Congregation in honour and power around her,

making the Lord James her chief minister, and Maitland of Lethington her

Secretary of State, both of whom, however, were in the pay and interests

of the English queen. It was not in the nature of Knox to delay long

appearing in her presence, and opening upon her the battery of his fierce

zeal.

It is, perhaps, impossible to imagine a situation more appalling than

that of this young and accomplished girl suddenly thrown into the midst

of this effervescence of spiritual pride and boorish dogmatism, which

was so insensible to the finer influences of social life, so unconscious

of the rights of conscience in those of a different opinion. Mary showed

a far more Christian spirit. She reminded Knox of his offensive and

contemptuous book against women, gently admonished him to be more liberal

to those who could not think as he did, and to use more meekness of

speech in his sermons.

But the Scottish clergy at that moment received a severe recompense

for their contempt of the social amenities, in their aristocratic

coadjutors treating them as men who had no need of temporal advantages.

The nobles used them to overturn by their preaching the ancient Church;

and that done, they quietly but firmly appropriated the substance of it

to themselves. The example of the English hierarchy had not been lost

upon them. When the clergy put in their claim for a fair share of the

booty, the nobles affected great surprise at such a worldly appetite

in such holy men. The clergy proposed that the property of the Church

should be divided into three portions: one-third for the pastors of the

new Church, one-third for the poor, and one-third for the endowment of

schools and colleges. Maitland of Lethington asked Knox, "Where, then,

was the portion of the nobles? Were they to become hod-bearers in this

building of the Kirk?" Knox replied that they might be worse employed.

But he and his fellow-ministers had different material to operate upon

in the hard-fisted nobles. They might browbeat and insult a young queen,

but they could not force the plunder from the grip of their aristocratic

patrons. The whole sum which they could obtain for the maintenance of

1,000 parish churches was only about £4,000, or about £6 sterling as the

annual income of a parish priest.

As for the unhappy queen, she was equally vexed by clergy and

aristocracy. She was soon called upon for extensive favours by her

ambitious brother, the Lord James, prior of St. Andrews. She created

him Earl of Mar, and she further contemplated conferring on him the

ancient earldom of Murray, which had been forfeited to the Crown in

the reign of James II. A great part of the property, however, of this

earldom had been taken possession of by the Earl of Huntly, the head

of the most powerful family in the north. Huntly had offered, if Mary

would land in the Highlands, to conduct her to Edinburgh at the head

of 20,000 men, and enable her to put down the whole body of Reformers.

Mary had declined this offer, as the certain cause of a civil war, if

accepted. Huntly, therefore, stood aloof from the present Government,

and was especially hostile to the Earl of Mar, who was the leading

person in it. Mar determined to break the power of this haughty chief,

and thus wrest from him the lands he claimed for his new earldom. Mary

was anxious to advance her brother, and did not need much persuasion to

sanction this design of Mar; and the son of Huntly, Sir John Gordon,

having committed some feudal outrage, was seized and imprisoned for a

short term. This punishment was regarded as an indignity by the house

of Gordon, and the symptoms of disaffection towards the Government were

increased. Mary, therefore, took the field with her brother, the Lord

James, and marched into the Highlands at the head of her troops. The Earl

of Huntly, dismayed at this spirit in the young queen, who appeared to

enjoy the excitement and the inconveniences of a campaign, hastened to

make overtures of accommodation; and the matter would probably have been

soon amicably arranged, but, unfortunately, a party of Huntly's vassals

refused Mary and her staff entrance into the castle of Inverness, and

made a show of holding it against her. They were, however, soon compelled

to surrender, and the governor was executed as a traitor. At this time,

Sir John Gordon, escaping from his prison, flew to arms, roused the

vassals of the clan Gordon far and wide; and his father, seeing no longer

any chance of agreement, led his forces into the field. He advanced

towards Aberdeen, and met Mar, who had now exchanged that title for the

title of Earl of Murray, encamped on the hill of Fare near Corrichie.

There Murray, as an excellent soldier, defeated Huntly, who was killed on

the field, or died soon after. His son, Sir John Gordon, was seized, and

executed at Aberdeen, three days after the battle. Murray was thus placed

in full possession of his title and new estate, and Mary, with so able

and powerful a relative as her chief minister, appeared in a position

to command obedience from her refractory subjects. But now a new danger

menaced her from the rival queen of England, who was still bent on seeing

Mary so married as to give her no additional power.

In the spring of 1562 Elizabeth became engaged in the support of the

Huguenots, or Protestants of France, against their Government, as she had

supported the Covenanters of Scotland. After the failure of a conspiracy

to surprise the court at Amboise, and the accession of Catherine de

Medici to the Regency, the heads of the party again flew to arms; but

Catherine making concessions, in order to engage the Huguenot chiefs

Condé and Coligny to assist her in counteracting the influence of the

house of Guise, a treaty was entered into by which the Protestants

were to be allowed free exercise of their religion. But the Duke of

Guise becoming possessed of the person of the king, soon persuaded

Catherine--his mother and Regent--to break the treaty. The Huguenots

again rose in defence of their lives and principles, and no less than

fourteen armies were soon on foot in one part or another of France. The

Duke of Guise headed the Catholics; the Prince of Condé, Admiral Coligny,

Andelot, and others, commanded the Huguenots. The Parliament of Paris

issued an edict, authorising the Papists to massacre the Protestants

wherever they found them; the Protestants retaliated with augmented fury,

and carnage and violence prevailed throughout the devoted country. The

Duke of Guise found himself so hard driven by the Protestants, in whose

ranks the very women and children fought fiercely, that he entreated

Philip of Spain to come to his aid. Philip gladly engaged in a work so

congenial, his own Protestant subjects having had bloody experience of

his bigotry, and sent into France 6,000 men, besides money. On this the

Prince of Condé appealed to Elizabeth for support against the common

enemies of their religion. To induce her to act promptly in their favour,

he offered to put Havre-de-Grâce immediately into her hands. Nowadays,

in such a case, the English Government would take the public means of

endeavouring by negotiation to lead its ally to concede their rights

to its subjects. But Elizabeth took her favourite mode of privately

aiding the discontented subjects of a power with whom she was at peace,

against their sovereign. She made no overtures to Catherine de Medici,

as Queen-Regent. She made no declaration of war, but despatched Sir

Henry Sidney, the father of the afterwards celebrated Sir Philip Sidney,

ostensibly to mediate between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, but

really to enter into a compact with Condé. She was to furnish him with

100,000 crowns, and to send over 6,000 men, under Sir Edward Poynings, to

take possession of the forts of Havre and Dieppe.

[Illustration: THE PREACHING OF JOHN KNOX BEFORE THE LORDS OF THE

CONGREGATION, 10TH JUNE, 1559.

FROM THE PAINTING BY SIR DAVID WILKIE, R.A., IN THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF

BRITISH ART.]

[Illustration: MARS' WORK, STIRLING.]

On the 3rd of October a fleet carried over the stipulated force, took

possession of the ports, and Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the brother

of the favourite Lord Robert Dudley, was made commander-in-chief of

the English army in France. The French ambassador, with the treaty of

Cateau-Cambresis in his hand, demanded the cause of the infringement of

the thirteenth article of this treaty, and reminded the queen that, by

proceeding to hostilities, she would at once forfeit all claim to Calais

at the expiration of the prescribed period. Elizabeth replied that she

was in arms, in fact, on behalf of the King of France, who was a prisoner

in the hands of Guise, and when the ambassador required her, in the name

of his sovereign, to withdraw her troops, she refused to believe that

the demand came from the king, because he was not a free agent, and that

it was the duty of Charles IX. to protect his oppressed subjects, and to

thank a friendly power for endeavouring to assist him in that object.

But these sophisms deceived nobody. The nobility of France regarded

Guise, who had driven the English out of France by the capture of Calais,

as the real defender of the country; and Condé, who had brought them in

again by the surrender of Havre and Dieppe, was considered a traitor.

Numbers flocked to the standard of Guise and the Queen-Regent, who were

joined by the King of Navarre. The Royal army, with Charles in person,

besieged Rouen, to which Poynings, the English commander at Havre, sent a

reinforcement. The governor of the city defended it obstinately against

this formidable combination, and the Englishmen, mounting a breach which

was made, fought till their last man fell. Two hundred of them thus

perished, and the French, rushing in over their dead bodies, pillaged the

place for eight days with every circumstance of atrocity.

The fall of Rouen and the massacre of a detachment of her troops was news

that no one dared to communicate to Elizabeth. The ministers induced

her favourite, Lord Robert Dudley, to undertake the unwelcome task;

but even he dared only at first to hint to her that a rumour of defeat

was afloat. When at length he disclosed the truth, Elizabeth blamed

nobody but herself, confessing that it was her own reluctance to send

sufficient force which had caused it all. She determined to send fresh

reinforcements; commissioned Count Oldenburg to raise 12,000 men in

Germany, and ordered public prayers for three days in succession for a

blessing on her arms in favour of the Gospel.

Condé, who had been engaged near Orleans, on the arrival of 6,000

mercenaries from Germany, advanced towards Paris; and at Dreux, on the

banks of the Eure, where the Duke of Guise achieved a victory over the

Huguenots, Condé and Montmorency, a leader of each party, were taken

prisoners; and Coligny, who now became the chief Huguenot general, fell

back on Orleans, and sent pressing entreaties to Elizabeth for the

supplies which she was bound by the treaty to furnish. The English queen,

never fond of parting with her money, had at this crisis none in her

exchequer. But money must be forthcoming, or the cause of Protestantism

must fail through her bad faith. The German mercenaries were clamorous

for their pay, none of which they had received, and the representations

of Coligny were so urgent that Elizabeth was compelled to summon a

Parliament and ask for supplies.

Meanwhile affairs in France had been anything but satisfactory. The

Huguenot chiefs had promised Elizabeth, as the price of her assistance,

the restoration of Calais. Elizabeth, on her part, ordered the Earl

of Warwick not to advance with his troops beyond the walls of Hammes;

and when Coligny reduced the chief towns of Normandy, he gave up their

plunder to his German auxiliaries, and, instead of awarding any share to

the English, complained loudly of the neutrality of Warwick's troops,

and the more so when he saw the Duke of Guise preparing to lay siege to

Orleans. But Guise was assassinated (February 24, 1563) by Poltrot, a

deserter from the Huguenot army, and this circumstance produced a great

change amongst the belligerents on both sides. The Catholics were afraid

of the English uniting with Coligny, and gaining still greater advantages

in Normandy; and, on the other hand, Condé was anxious to make peace,

and secure the position in the French Government which Guise had held. A

peace was accordingly concluded at Amboise on the 6th of March, in which

freedom for the exercise of their religion was conceded to the Huguenots

in every town of France, Paris excepted; and the Huguenots, in return,

promised to support the Government.

Elizabeth, in her anger at this treaty, made without any reference

to her, appeared to abandon her own shrewd sense. Though the French

Government offered to renew the treaty of Cateau, to restore Calais at

the stipulated time, Havre being of course surrendered, and to repay her

all the sums advanced to the Huguenots, she refused, and declared that

she would maintain Havre against the whole realm of France. But when

she saw that the two parties were united to drive the English troops

out of France, she thought better of it. She despatched Throgmorton to

act for her in conjunction with Sir Thomas Smith, her ambassador. But

Throgmorton arrived too late. The united parties were now pretty secure

of the surrender of Havre, and, as Throgmorton's intrigues in France were

notorious, to prevent a repetition of them they seized him on pretence of

having no proper credentials, and delayed audience to Sir Thomas Smith

from day to day, while they pushed on the siege.

To prevent insurrection, or co-operation with the French outside, Warwick

had expelled most of the native inhabitants from Havre. He had about

5,000 men with him, and during the siege Sir Hugh Paulet threw in a

reinforcement of about 800 more. Elizabeth had now the mortification

of seeing her old allies take the command against her. Montmorency, the

constable, had the chief command; and Condé, who had been the principal

means of leading her into the war, served under him. It was clear that

the place could not hold out long, yet the English manned the walls,

defended the breaches and, till the whole garrison was reduced to less

than 1,500 men, gave no sign of surrender. The Constable made the first

proposals for a capitulation, which Warwick agreed to accept; but such

was the fury of the French soldiers, or rather, the rabble collected from

all quarters to the siege, that, in spite of the truce, they fired on

the besieged repeatedly, and shot the Earl of Warwick through the thigh,

as he stood in the breach. The next day the capitulation was signed, the

garrison and people of the town being allowed to retire within six days,

with all their effects. The chief marshal, Edward Randall, caused the

sick to be carried on board, that they might not be left to the mercy of

the French, and himself lent a helping hand. But the infected troops and

people carried out the plague with them; it spread in various parts of

England, and raged excessively in London. The inns of court were closed;

those who could fled into the country. To the plague was added scarcity

of money and of provisions. There were earthquakes in Lincolnshire,

Northamptonshire, and other places; terrific thunders and lightnings--and

all these terrors were attributed by the Papists to the heresies which

were in the ascendant.

Thus terminated Elizabeth's demonstration in favour of the Huguenots.

She contemplated the humiliating result with indignation, which she

was unable to conceal even in the presence of Castelnau, the French

ambassador. At one moment she declared that she would not consent to

peace, at another she vowed that she would make her Commissioners pay

with their heads for offering to accept conditions which were gall to

her haughty spirit. But there was no alternative. She first attempted

to compel the French court to liberate Throgmorton, by seizing the

French envoy De Foix, and offering him in exchange; but the French would

not admit that Throgmorton was a duly appointed ambassador, and in

retaliation for the seizure of De Foix, they arrested Sir Thomas Smith,

and consigned him to the castle of Mélun. Elizabeth still held the bonds

for 500,000 crowns, or the restoration of Calais, and the hostages; and

in the end she submitted to surrender the hostages for the return of

Throgmorton, and reduced her claim of 500,000 crowns to one-fourth of

that sum. Thus, not only Havre but Calais was virtually resigned, though

Elizabeth still claimed to negotiate on that point. The proud English

queen was, in fact, most mortifyingly defeated, both in the cabinet and

the field. The treaty was signed on April 11th, 1564.

This French campaign terminated, Elizabeth turned her attention again

to Scotland, and the subject on which she was most anxious was the

marriage of the Scottish queen. To Elizabeth, who abhorred the idea of

any one ever succeeding her on the throne, it was of much consequence

how Mary, her presumptive heir, should wed. If to a foreign prince, it

might render the claim on the English throne doubly hazardous. By this

time it was pretty clear that Elizabeth herself was resolved to take no

partner of her power, as the hands of numerous other princely suitors

had been refused besides that of Philip. Of all the long array of the

lovers of this famous queen, foreign or English, none ever acquired such

a place in her regard and favour as the Lord Robert Dudley, one of the

sons of the Duke of Northumberland, who had been attainted, with his

father and family, for his participation in the attempt to place Lady

Jane Grey on the throne, to the exclusion of Queen Mary and of this

very Elizabeth. The queen restored him in blood, made him Master of the

Horse, installed him Knight of the Garter, and, soon after this period,

Earl of Leicester. This maiden queen, who had rejected so many kings

and princes, soon grew so enamoured of this young nobleman, that their

conduct became the scandal of the Court and country, but probably it was

nothing more than indiscreet. The reports were believed of their living

as man and wife, even whilst Leicester was still the husband of Amy

Robsart, whom he is said, though falsely, to have murdered. The Queen of

Scots, in one of her letters, tells her that she hears this asserted,

and that she had promised to marry him before one of the ladies of the

bed-chamber. Throgmorton, her ambassador, sent his secretary, Jones, to

inform Elizabeth privately, and at the suggestion of Cecil and the other

ministers, of the common remarks on this subject by the Spanish and

Venetian ambassadors at Paris. Elizabeth, listening to Jones's recital,

including the account of the murder of Amy Robsart, sometimes laughed,

sometimes hid her face in her hands, but replied that she had heard it

all before, and did not believe in the murder. From the evidence on this

subject, it appears that Elizabeth had promised Dudley to marry him, and

was this time very near being involved in the trammels of matrimony; but

she escaped to have another long string of princely suitors.

Careful to avoid the bonds of matrimony herself, Elizabeth was, however,

bent on securing in them the Queen of Scots. Since Mary of Scotland had

become a widow, the suitors of Elizabeth had transferred their attentions

to her. She was younger and much handsomer; her kingdom was much less

important, but then she was by no means so haughty and immovable. She

was of a warm, a generous, a poetic nature, and would soon have found a

congenial husband, but either her own subjects or her rival Elizabeth

had something in each case to object. Her French relatives successively

proposed Don Carlos, the son of Philip, and heir of Spain; the Duke of

Anjou, one of the brothers of her late husband; the Cardinal de Bourbon,

who had not yet taken priest's orders; the Duke of Ferrara, and some

others. But none of these would suit her Scottish subjects, for they

were all Papists; and they suited Elizabeth as little, for they would

create too strong a foreign coalition. Mary, with an extraordinary

amiability, listened to all the objections of Elizabeth, and expressed

herself quite disposed to accept such a husband as should be agreeable to

her. Be it understood, however, that Mary was not without policy in this

condescension. She hoped to induce Elizabeth, by thus being willing to

oblige her in this particular, to acknowledge her right to succeed her,

but in this she was grievously disappointed.

[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF ELIZABETH.]

Mary at last sent Sir James Melville to London to consult with Elizabeth,

in personal interview, fully and candidly as to the person that she would

really recommend as her consort. Elizabeth received him at her palace at

Westminster, at eight o'clock, in her garden. She asked Melville if his

queen had made up her mind regarding the man who should be her husband.

He replied that she was just now thinking more of some disputes upon the

Borders, and that she was desirous that her Majesty should send my Lord

of Bedford and my Lord Dudley to meet her and her Commissioners there.

Elizabeth affected to be hurt at Melville naming the Earl of Bedford

first. She said that "it appeared to her as if I made but small account

of Lord Robert, seeing that I named Bedford before him; but ere it were

long she would make him a greater earl, and I should see it done before

me, for she esteemed him as one whom she should have married herself, if

she had ever been minded to take a husband. But being determined to end

her life in virginity, she wished that the queen her sister should marry

him, for with him she might find it in her heart to declare Queen Mary

second person, rather than any other; for, being matched with him, it

would best remove out of her mind all fear and suspicion of usurpation

before her death."

Elizabeth immediately carried into effect her word that she would make

Dudley an earl, by creating him, whilst Melville was present, Earl of

Leicester and Baron Denbigh. "This was done," he says, "with great state

at Westminster, herself helping to put on his robes, he sitting on his

knees before her, and keeping a great gravity and discreet behaviour; as

for the queen, she could not refrain from putting her hand in his neck to

tickle him, smilingly, the French ambassador and I standing beside her.

Then she asked me 'how I liked him.' I said, 'as he was a worthy subject,

so he was happy in a great prince, who could discern and reward good

service.' 'Yet,' she replied, 'ye like better of yon long lad,' pointing

towards my Lord Darnley, who, as nearest prince of the blood, that day

bare the sword before her. My answer was, 'that no woman of spirit would

make choice of _sic_ a man, that was liker a woman than a man, for he was

lusty, beardless, and lady-faced.' I had no will that she should think

I liked him, though I had a secret charge to deal with his mother, Lady

Lennox, to purchase leave for him to pass to Scotland."

[Illustration: MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.

(_From a Contemporary Portrait on Wood._)]

Lord Darnley, "the long lad," as Elizabeth called him, was the son of

that Earl of Lennox who in the time of Henry VIII. joined with Glencairn,

Cassillis, and others in attempting to betray Scotland to Henry. For

these services, and especially for attempting to betray Dumbarton Castle

to the English, he was banished and suffered forfeiture of his estates,

but received from Henry VIII., as the promised reward for his treason,

the hand of the Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret, Queen

of Scotland, and sister of Henry VIII., one of the lewdest and most

turbulent women of the age. Thus Darnley was the son of Mary's aunt, the

Lady Margaret Douglas, and grandson of Elizabeth's aunt, Margaret Tudor.

He was thus near enough to have laid claim to the crown of England, and

of Scotland too, in case of the failure of issue by the present queens.

His nearness to the thrones of both kingdoms seems to have suggested the

idea of marrying him to the Queen of Scots, whereby her claim on the

English throne would receive added force. Mary was induced to favour the

family, her near relatives. She corresponded with the Countess of Lennox,

and invited Lennox to return to Scotland, and reversed his attainder.

He did not recover the patrimony of Angus, his father, for that was in

possession of the powerful Earl of Morton, Chancellor of the kingdom, but

Mary promised to make that up to him by other means. Once restored to

favour and rank in Scotland, Lennox pushed on the scheme of marrying his

son Darnley to the queen. Melville was commissioned to intercede for his

return to Scotland, but Elizabeth, who could not be blind to the danger

of Darnley's wedding the Queen of Scots, for a time would not listen to

it. We may believe too that Cecil did his best to prevent this, for of

all his desires, the most earnest was that of the removal of Leicester

from the Court, and therefore he used all his eloquence to get Leicester

chosen for that honour.

On returning from Hampton Court, Leicester conducted Melville to London

by water, and on the way he asked him what the Queen of Scots thought

of him as a husband. The answer of Melville, who did not care so nicely

to flatter the favourite, was not very complimentary, and thereupon

Leicester made haste to assure the Scottish envoy that he had never

presumed so much as to think of marrying so great a queen; that he knew

he was not worthy to wipe her shoes, but that it was the plot of Cecil to

ruin him with both the queens.

Melville, on his return to Edinburgh, assured the Queen of Scots that she

could never expect any real friendship from the Queen of England, for

that she was overflowing with jealousy, and was made up of falsehood and

deceit. These royal courtships and rivalries went on still for some time:

Queen Mary finally determined to refuse the Archduke Charles of Austria,

probably to avoid giving umbrage to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth received

one more suitor in no less a personage than the young King of France.

This was a scheme of the busy and intriguing Catherine de Medici, who

thought it would be a fine thing to link England and France together by

marriage, but Elizabeth was not likely to perpetrate anything so shallow.

The king was only fourteen, and Elizabeth replied that "her good brother

was too great and too small; too great as a king, and too small, being

but young, and she already thirty." Catherine, however, again pressed it,

by De Foix the ambassador; but Elizabeth, laughing, said, she thought

her neighbour Mary Stuart would suit him better; this, however, was only

thrown out because Elizabeth had heard of some such project, which, if

real, she would oppose resolutely. But a circumstance now took place

which it seems difficult to account for. Having refused to permit Lord

Darnley to go to Scotland, lest he should marry the Queen of Scots,

and add to her claims on the English throne, all at once her objection

seemed to vanish, and in February, 1565, she permitted him to travel to

Edinburgh. Darnley was at this time in his twenty-fourth year, tall and

handsome, possessing the courtly accomplishments of the age, and free in

the distribution of his money. He waited on the young queen at Wemyss

Castle, in Fife, and was well received by Mary, who was now about the

same age. There appears no doubt but that the marriage had been planned

and promoted by the Lennox party, and it is said that Murray encouraged

it, thinking that with a young man of Darnley's weak and pleasure-loving

character, he could easily retain the power of the State in his hands. Be

that as it may, Darnley soon proposed, and was rejected; but Elizabeth,

contrary to her own intentions, contributed to alter Mary's resolution.

Elizabeth, probably apprehensive that Darnley being present might obtain

the queen's goodwill, again sent Randolph to press the marriage with

Leicester; on which Mary, bursting into tears, declared that the Queen of

England treated her as a child, and immediately favoured the pretensions

of Darnley. The marriage took place on the 29th of July, 1565.

As Darnley was a Catholic, the Protestant party was much alarmed. The

lords, headed by Murray, assembled at Stirling, and entered into a bond

to stand by each other. They sent off a messenger to urge speedy aid

from Elizabeth, and actively diffused reports that Lennox had plotted

to take away the life of Murray. This, both Lennox and Darnley stoutly

denied, and the queen, to leave no obscurity in the case, gave Murray a

safe conduct for himself and eighty others, and ordered him to attend

in her presence and produce his proofs. She declared that such a thing

as enforcement of the religion or consciences of her subjects had never

entered her mind, and she called on her loyal subjects to hasten to

her defence. This call was promptly and widely responded to, and Mary,

finding herself now in security, declared the choice of Darnley as her

husband, created him Duke of Albany, and married him openly, in the

chapel of Holyrood. He was by proclamation declared king during the time

of their marriage, and all writs were ordered to run in the joint names

of Henry and Mary, King and Queen of Scotland.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, had complied with the demands of the Scottish

lords; sent off money, appointed Bedford and Shrewsbury her lieutenants

in the north, and reinforced the garrison of Berwick with 2,000 men.

Finding, however, that the call of Mary on her subjects had brought

out such a force around her as would require still more money and men

to cope with it, she despatched Tamworth, a creature of Leicester's,

to Scotland, to deter Mary by menaces and reproaches. It was too late;

and Mary, assuming the attitude of a justly incensed monarch, compelled

the ambassador to deliver his charge in writing, and answered it in the

same manner, requesting Elizabeth to content herself with the government

of her own kingdom, and not to interfere in the concerns of monarchs

as independent as herself. When Tamworth took leave, he refused the

passport given him bearing the joint names of the king and queen, out

of fear of his imperious mistress, for which Mary ordered him to be

apprehended on the road by Lord Home as a vagrant, and detained a couple

of days; and on Randolph remonstrating, she informed him that unless he

ceased to intrigue with her subjects, she would treat him the same. This

bold rebuff to the meddling Queen of England, and the demonstration of

affection on the part of the people, confounded the disaffected lords,

and their resistance collapsed.

The Queen of Scots, victorious by arms over her enemies, determined

to call together a Parliament, and there to procure the forfeiture of

Murray and his adherents. This threw the rebel lords into the utmost

consternation; for, in the then temper of the nation at large, the

measure would have been passed, and they would have been stripped of

their estates and entirely crushed. To prevent this catastrophe no time

was lost. It was actively spread amongst the people that Mary, having

signed the league, it was the intention, through the Kings of France

and Spain, to put down the Reformation in Scotland. It was represented

that David Rizzio, a Milanese, who had become Mary's secretary for the

French language, was the agent of the league and a pensioner of Rome,

and that it was necessary to have him removed. Unfortunately for

Rizzio, he had incurred the hatred not only of these Protestant lords,

but of Darnley, the queen's husband. That young man had soon displayed

a character which could bring nothing but misery to the queen. He was a

man of shallow intellect, but of violent passions, and, as is usually the

case with such persons, of a will as strong as his judgment was weak. He

was ambitious of the chief power, and sullenly resentful because it was

denied. Mary, who was of a warm and impulsive temperament, in the ardour

of her first affection, had promised Darnley the crown matrimonial, which

would have invested him with an equal share of the royal authority;

but soon unhappily perceiving that she had lavished her regard on a

weak, headstrong, and dissipated person, she refused to comply, fully

assured of the mischiefs which such power in his hands would produce.

Darnley resented this denial violently. He reproached the queen with her

insincerity in most intemperate language; treated her in public with

scandalous disrespect; abandoned her society for the lowest and worst

company, and threw himself into the hands of his enemies, who soon made

him their tool. They persuaded him that Rizzio, who, in his quarrels with

the queen, always took her part, and who, as the keeper of the privy

purse, was obliged to resist his extravagant demands upon it, was not

only the enemy of the nation, the spy and paid agent of foreign princes,

but was the queen's paramour, and the author of the resolve to keep him

out of all real power. The scheme took the effect that was desired.

Darnley became jealous and furious for revenge. His father, the Earl of

Lennox, joined him in his suspicions, and it was resolved to put Rizzio

out of the way.

Darnley, in his blind fury, sent for Lord Ruthven, imploring him to

come to him on a matter of life and death. Ruthven was confined to his

bed by a severe illness, yet he consented to engage in the conspiracy

for the murder of Rizzio, on condition that Darnley should engage to

prevent the meeting of Parliament, and to procure the return of Murray

and the rebel chiefs. Darnley was in a mood ready to grant anything

for the gratification of his resentment against Rizzio; he agreed to

everything; a league was entered into, a new covenant sworn, the objects

of which were the murder of Rizzio, the prevention of the assembling

of Parliament, and the return of Murray and his adherents. Randolph,

the English ambassador, now banished from Scotland for his traitorous

collusion with the insurgents, yet had gone no farther than Berwick,

where he was made fully acquainted with the plot, and communicated

it immediately to Leicester in a letter, dated February 13th, 1566,

which yet remains. He assured him that the murder of Rizzio would be

accomplished within ten days; that the crown would be torn from Mary's

dishonoured head, and that matters of a still darker nature were

meditated against her person which he dared not yet allude to.

Mary was not without some warnings of what was being prepared, but she

could not be made sensible of her danger, neither could Rizzio; though

Damiot, an astrologer, whom he was in the habit of consulting, bade him

beware of the bastard. The obscurity attending all such oracles led

Rizzio to believe that Damiot alluded to Murray, and Rizzio laughed at

any danger from him, a banished man; but we shall see that he received

his first wound from another bastard, George Douglas, the natural son of

the Earl of Angus.

On the 3rd of March Parliament was opened, and a statute of treason

and of forfeiture against Murray and his accomplices was immediately

introduced on the Thursday, which was to be passed on the following

Tuesday. But on the Saturday evening, the queen, sitting at supper in

a small closet adjoining her chamber, attended by her natural sister

the Countess of Argyll, the Commendator of Holyrood, Beaton Master of

the Household, Arthur Erskine captain of the guard, and her secretary

Rizzio, was surprised by the apparition of Darnley suddenly putting aside

the arras which concealed the door, and standing for a moment gloomily

surveying the group. Behind him came a still more startling figure; it

was that of Ruthven, in complete armour, just come from his sick bed,

and with a face pale and ghastly as that of a ghost. Mary, who was seven

months gone with child, started up at this terrible sight, and commanded

Ruthven to be gone; but at this moment Darnley put his arm round her

waist as if to detain her, and other conspirators entered, one after

another, with naked weapons, into the room. Ruthven drew his dagger, and

crying that their business was with Rizzio, endeavoured to seize him.

But Rizzio, rushing to his mistress, caught the skirt of her robe, and

shouted, "Giustizia! giustizia! sauve ma vie--Madame, sauve ma vie!"

Darnley forced himself between the queen and Rizzio, to separate them

from one another, and probably the intention was to drag him out of her

presence, and dispatch him. But George Douglas, the bastard, in his

impetuosity, drove his dagger into the back of Rizzio over the queen's

shoulder, and the rest of the conspirators--Morton, Car of Faudonside,

and others--dragged him out to the entrance of the presence-chamber,

where, in their murderous fury, they stabbed him with fifty-six wounds,

with such blind rage that they wounded one another, and left Darnley's

dagger sticking in the body as an evidence of his participation in the

deed. This done, the hideous Ruthven, exhausted with the excitement,

staggered into the presence of the shrieking queen, and, sinking upon a

seat, demanded a cup of wine. Mary upbraided him with his brutality; but

he coolly assured her that it was all done at the command of her husband

and king. At that moment one of her ladies rushed in crying that they had

killed Rizzio. "And is it so?" said Mary; "then farewell tears, we must

now study revenge."

It was about seven in the evening when this savage murder was

perpetrated. The palace was beset by troops under the command of Morton.

There was no means of rousing the city, the queen was kept close prisoner

in her chamber, whilst the king, assuming the sole authority, issued

letters commanding the three Estates to quit the capital within three

hours, on pain of treason, whilst Morton with his guards was ordered to

allow no one to leave the palace. Notwithstanding this, Huntly, Bothwell,

Sir James Balfour, and James Melville, made their escape in the darkness

and confusion; and as Melville passed under the queen's window, she

suddenly threw up the sash, and entreated him to give the alarm to the

city. Her ruffianly guards immediately seized her, and dragged her back,

swearing they would cut her to pieces; and Darnley was pushed forward to

harangue the people, and assure them that both the queen and himself were

safe, and commanding them to retire in peace, which they did.

[Illustration: THE MURDER OF RIZZIO. (_See p._ 264.)]

But Mary was not long left alone with Darnley, before she convinced him

of the dupe he had made of himself. She asked him whether he was so mad

as to expect that after they had secured her, after they had imperilled

the life of his child, they would spare him? And she bade him look at

their conduct now, where they usurped all authority and did not even

allow him to send his own servants to her. Darnley became thoroughly

alarmed; he vowed he had had no hand in the conspiracy, and offered to

call the conspirators into her presence, and declare that the queen was

ready to pardon them, on condition that they withdrew their guards,

replaced her own servants, and treated her as their true queen. The noble

traitors were this time over-reached in their turn; probably trembling

for the consequences of their daring conduct, on seeing Darnley and

the queen reconciled, they consented, and in the night the queen and

Darnley mounted fleet horses and fled to Dunbar. The consternation of the

murderers in the morning may be imagined. The outraged and insulted queen

had escaped their hands, and the news came flying that already the nobles

and the people were hurrying from all sides to her standard. Huntly,

Athole, Bothwell, and whole crowds of barons and gentlemen flew to her,

and at Dunbar a numerous army stood as if by magic ready to march on the

traitors and execute the vengeance due. They fled. Morton, Ruthven--the

grisly, pale-faced assassin--Brunston, and Car of Faudonside, escaped to

England. Maitland of Lethington betook himself to the hills of Athole,

and Craig, the colleague of Knox, dived into the darksome recesses of the

city wynds.

The spirit of Mary was not of a character long to brood over revenge;

that belonged rather to such men as Ruthven, Murray, and Morton. They

vowed deadly vengeance on Darnley, and from that hour his destruction

was settled, and never lost sight of. As for Elizabeth of England,

she was loud in denunciation of the outrage on the queen, and wrote

expressing deep sympathy; and the virtuous Murray was indignant at the

villainy in which he had been engaged, but now only seemed to perceive

the full extent of. The assurances of the friendship of England and

France seemed, however, to tranquillise the queen's mind, and the hour

of her confinement drawing nigh, she called her councillors around her,

became reconciled to the king, and prepared everything for her own life

or death. On the 19th of June she was, however, safely delivered, in

the castle of Edinburgh, of a son, who was named James, and Sir James

Melville was dispatched to carry the tidings to Elizabeth. The messenger

arrived as the English queen was dancing after supper at Greenwich.

Cecil, who had seen Sir James, took the opportunity to whisper the news

to her in preparation. No sooner did she hear the news than she seemed

struck motionless. She ceased, sat down, leaning her cheek on her hand,

and when her ladies hastened to ascertain what ailed her, burst out, "The

Queen of Scots is mother of a fair son, and I am a barren stock!" Her

agitation was so visible that the music stopped, and there was general

wonder and confusion. There were not wanting spies to carry this to

Melville, and, aware of the truth, he was curious to mark the official

look which the great dissembler wore the next morning. She was then

all smiling and serene, and even received the message, he says, with a

"merry volt," that is, we suppose, a caper of affected joy. She declared

that she was so delighted with the news, that it had quite cured her of

a heavy sickness which she had had for fifteen days. Melville was too

much of a courtier to congratulate her on being able to dance merrily

in sickness; but he wanted her to become godmother, which office she

accepted cheerfully, by proxy. She expressed quite an ardent desire to

go and see her fair sister, but as she could not she sent the Earl of

Bedford, with a font of gold for its christening and £1,000. With Bedford

and Mr. Carey, son of her kinsman, Lord Hunsdon, she sent a splendid

train of knights and gentlemen to attend the christening. The ceremony

was performed at Stirling by the Archbishop of St. Andrews, according

to the rites of the Romish Church, the Kings of France and the Duke

of Savoy being godfathers by their ambassadors. The English embassy

remained outside the chapel during the service, for they dared not take

part in the idolatries of the mass. They reported that Mary looked very

melancholy, and Darnley was not present, it was supposed for fear the

officers of Elizabeth should not give him the homage of royalty; for

Elizabeth had still refused to acknowledge his title as King of Scotland.

The attention of Elizabeth and her ministers was soon attracted to

Scotland by the startling events in progress there. The birth of the

young prince had only for the moment had the effect of softening the

wayward temper of Darnley. It became absolutely necessary for Mary to

construct a strong Government if she was to enjoy the slightest power or

tranquillity. Had she known the villainous materials out of which, at

best, she must erect such a Government, she would have despaired. All the

men of talent and influence were more or less tainted by treason, and in

the enjoyment of bribery to work her evil. She leaned on Murray as on

a brother, and he was at heart a very Judas. He advised her to recall

Morton and reinstate Maitland. By his efforts Bothwell and Maitland were

reconciled; the Lairds of Brunston, Ormiston, Hatton, and Calder, the

heads of the Church party, were admitted to favour. But the prospect of

so many of the traitors, cognisant of his own treason, assembling about

the throne, rendered Darnley desperate. He resolved on throwing himself

into the arms of the Roman Catholic party, and actually wrote to the

Pope, blaming the queen for not taking measures for the restoration of

the Mass. His letters were intercepted and, in his indignation, he gave

out that he would quit the kingdom.

Nothing availed to show Darnley the folly of his proceedings, everything

tended rather to aggravate his waywardness. He persisted in his

declarations that he would leave the kingdom, yet he never went. He

denounced Maitland, Bellenden the justice-clerk, and Macgill the clerk

register, as principal conspirators against Rizzio, and insisted that

they should be deprived of office. He opposed the return of Morton, and

thus embittered his associates, Murray, Bothwell, Argyll, and Maitland.

There was no party, except the Roman Catholics, which did not regard him

with suspicion or aversion. The Reformers hated him for his intriguing

with their enemies; Cecil suspected him of plotting with the Papists

of England; the Hamiltons had detested him from the first for coming

in between them and the succession. The queen now became grievously

impatient of his intractable stupidity, and deeply deplored her union

with the man who had already endangered the life of herself and her

child, and now kept the Government in a constant state of struggle and

uncertainty.

Matters were in this state when, in the commencement of October, 1566,

disturbances on the Borders rendered it necessary for the queen to go

thither in person. Her lieutenant, the Earl of Bothwell, in attempting

to reduce the Borderers to subordination, was severely wounded, and left

for dead on the field. He was not dead, however, and was conveyed to

Hermitage Castle. Mary arrived at Jedburgh on the 7th of October, and

the next day opened her Court. The trials of the marauders lasted till

the 15th, when she rode over to Hermitage, a distance of twenty miles,

to visit her wounded lieutenant. This visit excited much observation and

remark amongst her subjects, and the events which succeeded have given

deep significance to it. Bothwell was a bold and impetuous man, who had

from the first maintained a sturdy attachment to the service of the

queen, even when all others had deserted and betrayed her. This had won

him a high place in Mary's estimation, and she was not of a character

to conceal such preference. He was a man of loose principles, which he

had indulged freely on the Continent. Ambition and gallantry, united

to unabashed audacity, made up a forcible but dangerous character. The

manifest favour of his young, beautiful, and unhappy sovereign seems

very soon to have inspired him with the most daring designs, which still

lay locked in his own heart. There is little doubt that he had entered

into the conspiracy to kill Darnley, for he was mixed up with that

clique; and the miserable and irritating conduct of Darnley towards the

queen was now rousing the indignation of far better men than Bothwell.

The favour in which Bothwell was with the queen was early observed and

encouraged by Murray, Maitland, and their associates, because it tended

to punish and might eventually lead to the dismissal of Darnley. Sir

James Melville, indeed, attributes Bothwell's scheme for murdering

Darnley and gaining possession of the queen to this time.

There is, however, no reason to believe that Mary consciously encouraged

the unhallowed passion of Bothwell at this period. As an officer high

in her Court, and in her esteem for his fidelity, it was not out of the

generous course of Mary's usual proceedings to pay him a visit, which,

moreover, was only of two hours, for she rode back to Jedburgh the same

day, ordering a mass of official papers to be immediately sent after her.

Immediately on reaching Jedburgh she was seized with a fever so severe

and rapid, that for ten days her physicians despaired of her life. This

was ascribed to the fatigue of her long ride to Hermitage and back;

but it probably arose from that fatigue operating on a mind and body

already shaken by deep anxiety. She recovered, but her peace of mind

and cheerfulness were gone. Darnley never went to see her during the

extremity of her illness; and though he made her two visits during her

convalescence, they were not visits of peace or regard. They left her in

a state of great melancholy, and she often wished that she was dead. The

recollection of what Darnley had shown himself capable of in the plot

against Rizzio, and his duplicity on that occasion, seemed now to inspire

her with a dread that he would conspire against her life, and she never

saw him speaking to any of the lords but she was in alarm.

Bothwell, Murray, and Maitland, now invited Huntley and Argyll to meet

them at Craigmillar Castle, and there proposed that a divorce should be

recommended to the queen, on condition that she pardoned Morton and his

accomplices in the death of Rizzio. Mary listened to the scheme with

apparent willingness, on the understanding that the measure was not to

prejudice the rights of her son; but when it was proposed that Darnley

should live in some remote part of the country, or retire to France,

the idea appeared to realise their separation too vividly. She evidently

cherished a lingering affection for him, and expressed a hope that he

might return to better mind. She even offered to pass over to France

herself, and remain there till he became sensible of his faults. On this

Maitland exclaimed that, sooner than that she should banish herself, they

would substitute death for divorce. This effectually startled Mary, and

she commanded them to let the matter be, for that she should wait and see

what God in His goodness would do to remedy the matter.

The conspirators expressed their obedience to the queen's demands, but

they still proceeded with the plot. At Craigmillar they met again, and

drew up a bond or covenant for the murder of Darnley, which was signed

by Huntly, Maitland, Argyll, and Sir James Balfour, of which Bothwell,

kept possession. It declared Darnley a young fool and tyrant, and bound

them to cut him off as an enemy to the nobility, and for his unbearable

conduct to the queen.

Soon after the Earl of Bedford arrived to attend the baptism of the

child. As we have stated, Darnley, though in the palace, did not attend

the ceremony, and the queen was observed to be oppressed with melancholy

and to shed tears. The ministers now prevailed on the queen to pardon all

the murderers of Rizzio, except Car of Faudonside, who had held a pistol

to her breast, and George Douglas, who was the first to stab Rizzio.

This gave such offence to Darnley that he quitted Edinburgh, and went

to his father's, at Glasgow. There he was seized with a severe attack

of illness, and an eruption which came out all over his body. It was

believed to be poison, but proved to be the small-pox.

Whilst he was lying ill, Morton returned to Edinburgh. Bothwell and

Maitland met him at Whittingham, the seat of Archibald Douglas, where

they pressed him to join the conspiracy for the murder of Darnley,

professing that it was all done at the queen's desire. Morton insisted

that they should bring him the queen's warrant, under her own hand, but

this they failed to do. At the time that these plottings were going on,

in the month of January, 1567, the queen set out to visit Darnley, who

had received some hints of the plots against him, and was greatly alarmed

by the tidings that the queen, whose severe censure of him he was well

acquainted with, was on the way to see him. He sent a messenger to meet

her, apologising for not waiting on her in person. The queen replied

there was no medicine against fear, and rode on. She went direct to his

father's, entered his room, and greeted him kindly. Darnley professed

deep repentance of his faults, pleading his youth and the few friends

and advisers that he had. He complained of a plot got up at Craigmillar,

and that it was said that the queen knew of it but would not sign it. He

entreated that all should be made up, and that she should not withdraw

herself from him, as he complained she had done. Mary conducted him

by short journeys to Edinburgh, herself travelling on horseback, and

Darnley being carried in a litter. They rested two days at Linlithgow,

and reached Edinburgh on the last day of January. It was intended to take

Darnley to Craigmillar, on account of Holyrood being thought to lie too

low for a convalescent; but probably Darnley, after what he had heard,

objected to go thither, and he was therefore taken to a suburb called

Kirk-of-Field, an airy situation, where the Duke of Chatelherault had a

palace. The attendants proceeded to the duke's house, but the queen told

them the lodging prepared for the king was not there, but in a house just

by, and also by the city wall, near the ruinous monastery of the Black

Friars.

The place appeared a singular one for a king, for it was confined in size

and not over well furnished. What was more suspicious was, that it was

the property of Robert Balfour, the brother of that Sir James Balfour

who was of the league sworn to destroy Darnley, and the same who drew

up the document. He was a dependent of Bothwell's, who held the bond,

and who met the king and queen a little way before they reached the

capital, and accompanied them to this place. These circumstances taken

along with those which followed, show that the whole had reference to

the catastrophe, and the great question which has divided historians to

this hour is, how far the queen was a party to the proceedings. For the

present, so far as Mary was concerned, all appeared fair and sincere.

She seemed to have resumed all her interest in her husband. She was

constantly with him, and attended to everything necessary for his comfort

and restoration. She passed the greater part of the day in his chamber,

and slept in the room under his. Though Darnley was apprehensive of

danger from the circumstance that his mortal enemies were now in power

and about the Court, the constant presence and affection of the queen

were a guarantee for his safety, and appeared to give him confidence.

But the conspirators were watching assiduously for an opportunity to

destroy him. Morton, Maitland, and Balfour, had now gathered into the

plot the Earls of Huntly, Argyll, and Caithness, Archibald Douglas, the

Archbishop of St. Andrews, and many other lords and leading men of the

bench and bar. Murray alone seemed to stand aloof; though, from the

evidence existing, there can be no question that he was privy to the

whole affair.

[Illustration: HOLYROOD PALACE, EDINBURGH. (_From a photograph by J.

Valentine, Dundee._)]

Darnley during this time received a warning of his danger from the Earl

of Orkney, who, finding opportunity, told him that if he did not get

quickly out of that place it would cost him his life. Darnley told this

to the queen, who questioned the earl, and he then denied having said

so. This was precisely what Morton stated would take place, when on his

death-bed, confessing a knowledge of the plot, he was asked why he had

not revealed it. He replied, that there was nobody to tell it to; that

it was no use telling it to the queen, for he was assured that she was

in the plot; and that if he had told Darnley, he was such a fool that

he would immediately tell it to the queen. The circumstance, however,

startled the conspirators, and determined them to expedite the terrible

business. The desired opportunity arrived. The queen agreed to be present

on the evening of the 9th of February at the marriage of Sebastiani and

Margaret Carwood, two of her servants, which was to be celebrated with

a masque. The queen remained with the king the greater part of the day,

which was passed in the most apparent cordiality, and Mary declared her

intention of remaining all night at Kirk-of-Field. However, she suddenly

recollected her promise to attend the marriage, and taking leave of

Darnley, kissed him, and taking a ring from her finger placed it on his

own. It was now that the hired assassins executed their appointed task.

How Darnley and his page were murdered is yet a disputed point. The house

was blown up with gunpowder, but the bodies of the king and his page

were found in the orchard adjoining the garden wall, the king only in his

night-dress, his pelisse lying by his side, and no marks of fire upon the

body.

However doubtful may be other matters, there is no question of the

presence of Bothwell at the tragedy. He attended the queen from

Kirk-of-Field to Holyrood, but about midnight quitted the palace, changed

his rich dress, and in disguise joined the murderers, who were waiting

for him. About two o'clock two of them entered the house and lit a

slow-burning match, the other end of which was placed amongst the powder.

They remained some time expecting the catastrophe, till Bothwell grew so

impatient that he was with difficulty withheld from entering the house

to ascertain whether the match still burnt. This was done by one of the

fellows, who looked through a window and perceived the match alight.

The explosion soon after took place, and with a concussion which seemed

to shake the whole city. Bothwell hurried away and got to bed before

a servant rushed in with the news. He then started up with well-acted

astonishment, and rushed forth shouting, "Treason! treason!" Huntly, and

some others of the conspirators then proceeded to the queen's chamber,

and informed her of what had taken place. She seemed petrified with

horror, gave herself up to the most violent expression of grief, and,

shutting herself up in her chamber, continued as if paralysed by so

diabolical a tragedy.

The demands of the outraged people for inquiry were loud. The city was

placarded with the names of Bothwell, James Balfour, David Chambers,

black John Spens, Signors Francisco, Joseph Rizzio--the brother of

David--Bartiani, and John de Bourdeaux, as the leading murderers. The

Earl of Lennox, the father of Darnley, called on the queen to bring

them to trial; but he demanded in vain. Bothwell, the man whom the

whole public denounced, continued the first in favour with the queen.

Everything demonstrated the necessity of the queen exerting herself to

discover the murderers of her husband. Sir Harry Killigrew arrived from

Elizabeth, bearing a message of condolence, but at the same time urging

the absolute necessity of the trial of Bothwell. Killigrew found the

capital in a most excited state, clamorous for inquiry, and loud in its

censures of the queen. At the same time a letter arrived from Bishop

Beaton, her ambassador in France, stating in plainest terms that she was

publicly accused there of being herself the chief mover in the whole

dark business, and telling her that if she did not exert herself to take

a rigorous vengeance she had better have lost life and all. Mary promised

Killigrew that Bothwell should be brought to strict trial; but as soon

as he was gone means were taken to secure Bothwell more completely

from any effectual inquiry. The Earl of Mar was induced to give up the

possession of the castle of Edinburgh to Bothwell, Morton had his lands

and his castle of Tantallon restored to him, and in return supported

Bothwell with all his influence. The castle of Blackness, the Inch, and

the superiority of Leith, were conferred on Bothwell; and Murray--who

neither liked to play the second to the aspiring favourite, nor to run

any risk of exposure in those inquiries which must sooner or later

ensue--requested permission to visit France.

Mary could not possibly be happy in such circumstances. Whatever might

be the state of her conscience, her character was fearfully implicated,

and on all sides came calls for inquiry, which she did not seem to have

the power or the will to make. The climax to her trouble was put by the

queen-mother of France and her uncle, the cardinal, sending her the most

cutting message of reproach; calling on her without delay to avenge

the death of the king, and to clear her own reputation, or regard them

as no longer her friends, but the proclaimers of her utter disgrace.

There was no possibility of delaying inquiry any longer, but every means

was adopted to make it a mockery. Lennox was forbidden to appear with

more than six followers, and his efforts to obtain a postponement were

fruitless. In his absence Bothwell was unanimously acquitted.

Rumours now arose that Bothwell was about to divorce his wife, the

sister of Huntly--to whom he had been married only six months--and to

marry the queen; and in the face of these reports Mary conferred on him

the castle and lordship of Dunbar, with extension of his powers as Lord

High Admiral. As tidings of the queen's intended marriage grew, Murray,

her brother, stole away out of contact with danger or responsibility

and retired to France. But, nevertheless, she did not lack warning.

Her ambassador at the French Court entreated her, in the most serious

manner, to punish her husband's murderers, and not allow the world to

use such freedom with her character as it did. She had equally strong

letters from her friends in England, which Melville showed to her, and

was advised by Maitland of Lethington to get away from Court for fear

of Bothwell. Bothwell, however, soon put the matter beyond doubt. He

invited the principal nobility to a tavern, kept by one Ainslie, and

there he drew out of his pocket a bond expressing his innocence of the

murder of Darnley, as established by the bench and the legislature, and

his intention to marry the queen, and containing, it is said, her written

warrant empowering him to propose the matter to the nobility. The company

was composed partly of his friends and accomplices. The rest were taken

with confusion, but they had all been deeply drinking, and they found

the house surrounded by 200 of Bothwell's hackbutters. Under constraint,

eight bishops, nine earls, and seven lords, subscribed the paper.

But the daring ambition of the man now roused even his old accomplices to

conspire against him, for the safety of the young prince and Government.

Morton, Argyll, Athole, and Kirkaldy of Grange, were at the head of this

plot; and they wrote to Bedford the day after the supper at Ainslie's,

saying it was high time that his dangerous career was checked, and

engaging by Elizabeth's aid to avenge the murder of the king. Kirkaldy,

who was the scribe, added that the queen had been heard to say that "she

cared not to lose France, England, and her own country for him, and would

go with him to the world's end in a white petticoat, before she would

leave him."

An anonymous letter, but undoubtedly from some of this party, soon

followed, declaring that the queen had concerted with Bothwell the

seizure of her person. The correctness of this information was

immediately proved. On Monday, the 21st of April, the very day foretold,

Mary rode to Stirling to visit her son, where the Earl of Mar,

entertaining strong suspicions of her intentions, refused to allow her

access to him with more than two attendants, to her great indignation.

On her return, as had been foreseen in the letter quoted, Bothwell

met her at the head of 1,000 horse, at Almond Bridge, six miles from

Edinburgh; and, according to Melville, who was in the queen's train,

taking the queen's bridle, he boasted that "he would marry the queen,

who could or who would not; yea, whether she would herself or not." He

says that Captain Blackadder, one of Bothwell's men, told him that it

was with the queen's own consent. Whether this were so or not, has been

argued eagerly on both sides, but it is probable from what we have seen,

that Mary really was a consenting party. The royal retinue was suffered

to continue its journey, with the exception of Melville, Maitland, and

Huntly, who were conducted along with the queen to the castle of Dunbar,

the recent gift of Mary to Bothwell. The queen seems to have made no loud

outcries against her apparently forcible abduction, and the country was

so convinced of the sham nature of the affair, that there was no attempt

to rescue her.

The divorce of Bothwell from his wife was now hastened, and after

detaining the queen five days at the castle of Dunbar, he conducted her

to Edinburgh, and led her to the castle, where she was received with a

salute of artillery, Bothwell holding her train as she dismounted. The

ministers of the Church were ordered to proclaim the banns of marriage

between the queen and Bothwell, but they declined; and Craig, the

colleague of Knox, who was absent, declared that he had no command from

her Majesty, who was held in disgraceful constraint by Bothwell. This

brought to him the Justice Clerk with a letter under the queen's own

hand, stating that the assertions he had made were false and commanding

him to obey. Craig still refused till he had seen the queen herself;

and, before the Privy Council, charged Bothwell with murder, rape, and

adultery. No punishment followed so daring a charge, and the preacher

having done his duty, obeyed the Royal mandate and published the banns,

at the same time exclaiming, "I take heaven and earth to witness that I

abhor and detest this marriage, as odious and slanderous to the world;

and I would exhort the faithful to pray earnestly that a union against

all reason and good conscience may yet be overruled by God to the conform

of this unhappy realm."

Nothing moved by these public expressions of censure and disgust, the

queen appeared, on the 12th of May, at the high court of Edinburgh, and

informed the Chancellor, the judges, and the nobility that, though she

was at first incensed against the Earl of Bothwell for the forcible

detention of her person, she had now quite forgiven him for his

subsequent good conduct. That day she created Bothwell Duke of Orkney and

Shetland, and with her own hand placed the coronet on his head. On the

15th they were married, at four o'clock in the morning, in the Presence

Chamber of Holyrood. The ceremony was performed by the Bishop of Orkney,

according to the Protestant form, Craig being present; and afterwards

privately, according to the Romish rite.

Very soon circumstances hastened the inevitable insurrection in Scotland.

Mary had summoned her nobles to accompany her on an expedition to

Liddesdale, but many disobeyed the order. Murray had now arrived in

England, and was using all his influence with Elizabeth to make a

movement for the expulsion of Bothwell from his usurpation; and even

Maitland, who to the last had remained at Court, wearing the air of a

staunch supporter of the queen, slipped away and joined the opposition.

These were ominous circumstances, and suddenly, while the queen and

Bothwell were at Borthwick Castle, about ten miles from Edinburgh,

the conspirators made a rapid night march, and morning saw the castle

surrounded by nearly 1,000 Borderers, under the command of Hume and other

Border chiefs, with whom were Morton, Mar, Lindsay, Kirkaldy, and others

of the nobles.

The confederates deemed the queen and Bothwell now safe in their hands,

but they were deceived. Bothwell escaped through a postern to Haddington,

whence he reached Dunbar; and the queen also eluding them disguised as a

man, rode booted and spurred after him. The confederates, disappointed of

their grand prize, marched on the capital, forced the gates, and entered,

proclaiming that they came to revenge the death of the king, and to

rescue the queen from the murderer. There the Earl of Athole and Maitland

joined them, and a banner was displayed on which was painted the body

of the murdered king lying under a tree, and the young prince kneeling

beside it, exclaiming, "Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord!" The people

flocked to this exciting standard, and the leaders speedily commanded a

strong force.

Mary and Bothwell, meanwhile, summoned the nobles and people around

Dunbar, and the Lords Seton, Yester, and Borthwick, appeared in arms,

with a body of 2,000 men. Impatient to quell the confederates at once,

they marched to Seton, where Mary issued a proclamation, declaring that

all the pretences of the confederates were false; that her husband,

the duke, was no murderer but had, as they knew, been fully acquitted;

she was under no restraint but freely married to Bothwell, by consent

and approbation of these very nobles; nor was her son in any danger,

unless it were from them, for he was in their hands. Mary advanced and

entrenched herself on Carberry Hill, in the old works which the English

had thrown up before the battle of Pinkie.

The confederates marched out of Edinburgh and confronted the Royal army,

eager for the battle. De Croc, the French ambassador, now attempted to

mediate between the two parties, and carried a message to Morton and

Glencairn, offering the queen's pardon, on condition that they all

returned to their allegiance; but Glencairn replied that they were not

come there to seek pardon, but rather to give it those who had sinned;

and Morton added, "We are not in arms against our queen, but the Duke

of Orkney, the murderer of her husband, and are prepared to yield her

our obedience, on condition that she dismisses him from her presence and

delivers him up to us."

It was clear that these terms must be complied with or they must fight;

and it was soon perceived that the soldiers of the queen's army began

to show symptoms of disaffection. Bothwell, therefore, rode forward,

and defied any one who dared to accuse him of the king's murder. His

challenge was accepted by James Murray of Tullibardine, the baron who was

said to have charged Bothwell with the murder, in a placard affixed to

the Tolbooth gate. Bothwell declined to enter the lists with Murray, on

the plea that he was not his peer, whereupon Lord Lindsay of the Byres

offered himself and was accepted, but at the moment of action the queen

forbade the fight. By this time the defection in the queen's army became

so conspicuous that Mary rode among her men to encourage them, assuring

them of victory; but her voice had lost its charm, and the soldiers

refused to fight in defence of the alleged murderer of the king. Whilst

this was passing, it was observed that Kirkaldy of Grange was wheeling

his forces round the hill to turn their flank, and the panic becoming

general, the queen and Bothwell found themselves abandoned by all but

about sixty gentlemen and the band of hackbutters.

To prevent Kirkaldy from advancing his troops so as to cut off their

retreat towards Dunbar, the queen demanded a parley, which was granted.

Kirkaldy went forward and assured the queen that they were all prepared

to obey her authority, provided she put away the man who stood by her

side stained with the blood of the king. The queen promised to acquiesce,

and she held a moment's conversation with Bothwell, gave him her hand,

and followed Kirkaldy; Bothwell turning his horse's head and riding off

to Dunbar. This brutal and unheroic man afterwards became a rover in the

North Sea, and died in prison in Denmark in 1578. Mary did not follow

Kirkaldy of Grange far till she saw Bothwell out of danger, when she

reminded him that she relied on the assurances of the lords, on which

Grange, kissing her Majesty's hand, took her horse by the rein, and

led her towards the camp. On reaching the lines, the confederate lords

received the queen on their knees, and vowed to obey and defend her as

loyally as ever the nobility of the realm did her ancestors; but they

very soon showed the hollowness of these professions, and the common

soldiers assailed her ears with the most opprobrious language.

[Illustration: MARY SIGNING THE DEED OF ABDICATION IN LOCHLEVEN CASTLE.

(_See p._ 273.)]

The unfortunate but guilty queen at every step learned more plainly her

real situation, and the faith which she was to put in these nobles. She

was conducted like a captive into Edinburgh, the soldiers constantly

waving before her eyes the banner on which was painted the murdered

king. The mob was crowding round in thousands, shouting and yelling in

execration, and the women heaped on her all the coarsest epithets of

adulteress and murderess. On arriving in the city, instead of conducting

her to her own palace, the patriot nobles shut her up as a solitary

prisoner in the house of the Provost, not even allowing her to have her

women to attend her; and in the morning she was greeted by a repetition

of the scenes of the previous day--the same hideous banner was hung

out opposite her window, and the yells of the mob were furious. Driven

to actual delirium by this treatment, she rent the clothes from her

person, and almost naked attempted to speak to the raving populace. This

shocking spectacle roused the sympathy of the better class of citizens,

and they determined on a rescue of the insulted queen, when the watchful

nobles removed her to Holyrood. There they held a Council, and concluded

to send her prisoner to Lochleven Castle, at Kinross, under the stern

guardianship of Lindsay and the savage Ruthven. While there she was

persuaded (July 23, 1567), to resign in favour of her baby, and Murray,

who was summoned home, became Regent.

The queen, seeing herself destined by Murray to perpetual captivity,

resolved to exert every faculty to effect her escape. After several

unsuccessful efforts, she succeeded in May, 1568, through the ingenuity

of a page called Little Douglas. The news of Mary's escape flew like

lightning in every direction; the people, forgetting her crimes in her

beauty and her sufferings, gathered to her standard; and she who a few

days before was a deserted captive, now beheld herself at the head of

6,000 men. Many of the nobility, and some of those who had sinned deeply

against her, now flocked around her. Murray, on the first news of their

movement, marched out of Glasgow, and took possession of a small hamlet

called Langside, surrounded by gardens and orchards, which occupied each

side of a steep narrow lane directly in the way of the queen's army.

Instead of avoiding this position, and making their way to Dumbarton by

another course, Lord Claud Hamilton charged the troops there posted with

his cavalry, 2,000 strong, in perfect confidence of driving them thence;

but the hackbutters, who had screened themselves behind walls and trees,

poured in on the cavalry a deadly fire which threw them into confusion.

Lord Claud cheered them on to renew the charge, and with great valour

they pushed forward and drove the enemy before them. But, pursuing them

up the steep hill, they suddenly found themselves face to face with

Murray's advance, composed of the finest body of Border pikemen, and

commanded by Morton, Home, Ker of Cessford, and the barons of the Merse,

all fighting on foot at the heads of their divisions.

The battle was unequal, for the troops of Murray were fresh, while

those of the queen were out of breath with their up-hill fight.

Notwithstanding, the main body of the queen's forces coming up, there

was a severe struggle, and the right of the Regent's army began to give

way. Grange, who was watching the field from above, quickly brought up

reinforcements from the main body, and made so furious a charge on the

queen's left as to scatter it into fragments; and Murray, who had waited

with the reserve for the decisive moment, rushed forward with so much

impetuosity, that the main battle of the queen was broken, and the flight

became general (May 13, 1568). Mary, who had surveyed the conflict from

the castle of Crookston, on a neighbouring height, about four miles from

Paisley, beholding the rout of her army, turned her horse and fled, and

never drew bit till she reached the abbey of Dundrennan, in Galloway. She

then set sail in a boat, and landed at Workington, in Cumberland. Here

she wrote to Elizabeth, expressing her strong confidence that Elizabeth

would receive her and protect her against her rebellious subjects. She

concluded her letter with these words:--"It is my earnest request that

your majesty will send for me as soon as possible, for my condition is

pitiable, not to say for a queen, but even for a simple gentlewoman. I

have no other dress than that in which I escaped from the field. My first

day's ride was sixty miles across the country, and I have not since dared

to travel except by night."