‘Good morrow, ’tis St Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime;
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.’
There is one saint in the calendar, who at least has never lacked
worshippers; at whose shrine the strictest sectarians, the bitterest
Reformers, have never failed to lay their votive offerings, and in
whose train shine myriads of the brightest and fairest beings we
can picture to ourselves, the only angels that gladden the sight of
us adoring mortals here below. Yes, blooming maidens, buxom widows,
constituting a phalanx beautiful to look upon, as it is dangerous
to deal with, have for centuries conspired to do honour to sweet St
Valentine, and we can only regret that the anniversary of his martyrdom
(kissed to death, we have always been taught to believe, and buried
by turtle-doves, under a shower of orange-blossoms) should occur at
a season of the year when in our own climate the usual concomitants
of frost and snow seem so inappropriate to the indolent and relaxing
amusement of love-making. We have no reason to believe that the 14th of
February 1564, afforded any contrast to the usual boisterous inclemency
of a Scottish spring, or that Queen Mary and her maidens, looking from
the battlements of Wemyss Castle on the leaden waves of the stormy
Firth, had any sunshine to gladden them save that which originated in
their own breasts.
But the Queen at least was in the height of good-humour and good
spirits; though subject to occasional fits of depression, Mary’s usual
state of mind was kindly and cheerful; nay, when in some rare interval
of peace she was relieved from the pressure of actual distress, or the
anticipation of impending calamity, her gay and cordial manner shed an
influence of happiness over all who came within its range; and even
Randolph--busy, intriguing, heartless, cynical Randolph--could not
but admit that ‘this Queen,’ as he calls her, ‘is a divine thing, far
excelling any (our own most worthy only excepted) that ever was made
since the first framing of mankind.’
Behold, then, Mary Stuart, and her maidens sitting at work in a chamber
overlooking the stormy Firth from the seaward turret of Wemyss Castle.
Without, the leaden hues of sea and sky form a grand though savage
contrast to the white snow-mantle which wraps the undulating shores of
Fife, while the opposite Lothian coast stands out, as it were, into the
water with the distinct outline and startling appearance of proximity
peculiar to an atmosphere charged with coming snow, and a wind from the
north-east.
Within, an old oak-panelled chamber, hung here and there with faded
tapestry, once of priceless value, but now frayed and worn and coming
rapidly into rags; grotesque, gaunt ornaments are strewed about the
room, the spoils of predatory warfare on the Danish coast, brought
hither generations back by stern Sir Michael, the first Lord Admiral of
Scotland. Strange-looking arms and a ponderous axe or two are not in
character with the interior of a lady’s bower, nor do the grim figures
carved in wood that support the chimney on either side of the high wide
fireplace, the least resemble such cupids and other gentle symbols as
would be appropriate to the company and the occasion.
Bending over her work, the Queen’s blushes come and go with a degree of
graceful embarrassment that is not unmarked by her attendants. These
are around her as usual, and, like their mistress, occupy their fingers
with considerable energy, and doubtless allow their thoughts to stray
far and wide during the task. We of the sterner sex have probably not
the faintest idea of the comfort derived by woman from her natural
weapon, the needle.
It is well known, we are told, to physiologists, and the fact is not
lost sight of in our treatment of the insane, that manual labour
requiring a moderate amount of attention, such as the prosecution of
a handicraft, has a remarkably composing tendency on the mind; but
carpentering is perhaps the only male pursuit which combines the exact
proportions of physical and mental exertion supposed to produce such
beneficial results. Few men, however, are carpenters, whereas, speaking
in general times, all women can sew, and the very act of stitching we
believe to be a complete and unfailing anodyne. The delicate fingers
bend unconsciously to their task; the white hand flies to and fro
as the dove flew round the Ark seeking the olive-branch on which it
should find rest at last; the gentle head bends lower and lower, while
thoughts, humbled by sorrow and chastened by resignation, wander
further and further away. Presently the tears are dropping fast upon
the pattern, be it the beads of a queen’s embroidery or the hem of a
peasant’s smock; but like summer showers they do but clear the sky when
they are over, and ere the hair is shook back, and the loving face
looks up to thread the needle afresh, all is sunshine and peace once
more.
Perhaps no woman of any degree had oftener occasion to practise
this healing occupation than ill-fated Mary Stuart, destined to a
pre-eminence in suffering as in beauty.
The only male attendant on the Queen was David Riccio. Splendidly
dressed in the thickest velvet that could be procured, that poor little
Italian shivered in a corner of the ample fireplace, preserving, to
his credit be it said, his southern good-humour even in the rigours of
a cold, raw climate, which, to use an expression from his own land,
seemed ‘to loosen every tooth in his head.’
Three of the maids-of-honour were unusually silent and depressed, Mary
Seton alone incorrigible as usual.
A portentous shiver from Riccio, which he tried in vain to repress,
made the Queen look up from her embroidery. She could not but smile at
the chattering teeth and pinched features of her ungainly secretary,
yet there was a slight tone of irritation in her voice as she said--
‘Heap more wood on the fire, if you are so cold, Signior David; yet
methinks the weather hath moderated since morning. It cannot be so bad
even now on the landward side; but the wind whistles round this old
keep of my brother’s till we might fancy ourselves a plump of wild-fowl
cowering together for shelter on the Bass.’
Her eye happening to rest on Mistress Beton while she spoke, that
demure lady, who was plunged in a profound fit of abstraction, felt
herself called upon to reply, and could find nothing more apposite to
say than--
‘Bitter weather indeed, your Grace, and threatening worse than ever
over the Firth. Heaven help all poor travellers by land and sea!’ she
added piously, drawing at the same time her mantle closer round her
shoulders, to the utter destruction of her stupendous ruff, a neglect
of which ornamental structure always denoted in Mary Beton extreme
discomposure of mind.
‘Psha! child!’ said the Queen, impatiently. ‘Travellers are not so
faint-hearted. What say you, Signior David? We wot of some that would
ride through fire and water at our behest. Is not that the gallop of a
horse I hear even now along the causeway?’
‘I pray you patience, madam!’ answered the cautious Italian, seeing
that the Queen had risen from her chair, and was pacing up and down in
obvious expectation. ‘No traveller that your Grace wotteth of can be on
this side the Firth to-day. Spurs are but steel; horses are but bone
and sinew; riders but flesh and blood. There can be no arrival at the
earliest for twenty hours. I have myself wagered a collar of pearls and
rubies with Mistress Seton.’
‘And lost! and lost! and lost!’ exclaimed that voluble young lady,
dancing rather than walking into the room from which she had not been
five minutes absent. ‘Even now the portcullis is up, and I saw him
myself ride into the courtyard from the passage-window. Good lack,
madam, such a tall cavalier! and his poor horse looked so tired! Not
a living creature with him neither, and he called for a cup of wine
before ever his spurs had touched the pavement.’
Mary Stuart’s cheek turned very red, and her breath came quick and
short! the woman could not but appreciate the compliment, however much
the Queen must study to conceal her feelings. This looked like an
earnest wooer in good truth; no laggard could thus have distanced his
followers and arrived in such an incredibly short space of time from
the southern shore. Aye! there was more lost and won on that ride of
young Lord Darnley’s than the collar of pearls and rubies which David
Riccio delivered the same evening with such a good grace to saucy
Mistress Seton. But the Queen’s innate dignity soon reasserted itself.
Signing to her ladies to attend on her, she paced majestically from the
room.
‘It would ill become us,’ said she, ‘to keep one waiting for an
audience who hath shown such loyal diligence in obeying our summons;
we will receive our guest in the great hall of the castle. Do you,
Signior Riccio, apprise him that we are ready to accept his homage.
Mary Carmichael and Mary Hamilton attend us for a few minutes to our
tiring-room; we will all meet again here, and proceed at once to the
hall.’
Mary seldom spoke in such a measured dignified tone. It may be that
this stately manner covered some little trepidation and heart-beating;
it may be that the Queen felt timid and bashful as the meekest village
maiden. At least it was remarkable that the most beautiful woman in
Europe should have thought it necessary to revise her toilet, and
add to her attractions before receiving the homage of her vassal and
kinsman.
It was no ordinary phalanx of beauty that Darnley had to confront when
the venerable seneschal of Wemyss Castle ushered him into the lofty
hall, at the end of which, on a portion raised by one step above the
level of the floor, was placed the royal lady to whom he had dared to
aspire as his bride; her exquisite loveliness only enhanced by the
presence of the four prettiest women in Scotland who stood behind her.
But ‘faint heart never won fair lady,’ and Darnley’s was by no means
one of those dispositions which are prone to fail from a retiring
modesty and too low an estimate of their own advantages. Besides,
he was playing a great stake, and playing it with all the reckless
audacity of a gambler.
Young as he was, he well knew that the prize now before him represented
not only the Majesty of Scotland, but possibly, nay, in all human
probability, the eventual succession to the English throne. It was
this contingency which made Elizabeth so jealous of all matrimonial
overtures to her beautiful cousin; it was this which caused Cecil
and Throckmorton, and their agent Randolph, to lay their cunning
heads together and devise means for amusing the Scottish Queen with a
procession of suitors, none of whom were ever intended to be more than
the puppets of the moment, each to prevent the attainment of his object
by the other.
The accomplished Warwick, the manly-looking, weak-hearted Norfolk,
nay, the prime favourite of the English Queen herself, the selfish,
handsome, and utterly unscrupulous Leicester, were successively put
forward as appropriate sharers of Mary Stuart’s throne and masters of
her hand. But no sooner did the hapless object of all this intrigue
and duplicity show the slightest preference for one over the other,
the faintest inclination to accede to wishes which seemed so candidly
expressed, than instantly, like some scene in a masquerade, the
performers all changed characters at once. Elizabeth became the stern
monitress, Randolph the delicate adviser, and the belted Earls and
noble Dukes, no longer humble suitors and devoted champions of their
idol, cooled at a breath into very coy and somewhat unwilling parties
to an engagement of political expediency, only binding so long as it
received encouragement at Greenwich or Whitehall. Thus was a woman’s
heart made an object of cruel traffic and shameful double-dealing, none
the less disgraceful because its possession implied the occupancy of a
throne. Some day, perhaps, the world may be brought to see that even
in the highest places expediency can never justify heartlessness or
crime, that not only is ‘honesty the best policy,’ but that chivalrous
unselfishness and frank defiance of evil are the surest beacons to
success.
In the meantime, it is sad to think, that the life’s happiness and the
life itself of Mary Stuart were pitilessly sacrificed by one of her own
blood and her own sex. Surely, since the serpent, woman has had no such
bitter enemy as woman.
Darnley, put forward at eighteen as the rival of so many distinguished
nobles, entered on the contest with all the wilfulness of a Stuart,
and all the joyous temerity of a boy. Though a tool in the hands
of his seniors, it must doubtless have seemed to the adventurous
young nobleman no unwelcome task to woo his beautiful sovereign--the
kinswoman whom he had already once seen when they were both mere
children, but whose charms even at that early age he had not yet
forgotten. Few men would refuse the hand of a queen, even if she were
an ugly one; what shall we say of a proposal to try his fortune with
such a paragon as Mary Stuart? It was no wonder the lightsome young
wooer rode horse after horse to death as he posted northward in the
direction to which his star beckoned him; no wonder that he should
arrive at Wemyss Castle all alone, far ahead of his scattered escort;
no wonder that he should advance into Mary’s presence, under all the
disadvantages of haste, fatigue, and travel-stained riding-gear, with
the gallant air of a gay young knight who goes forth to conquer, rather
than that of a slave who comes to wear a chain. As he walked up the
hall, his step was firm, his head erect, and his eye bright and open
as that of a man who sees his destiny beckoning him forward fairer and
fairer, more and more promising as he approaches.
The colour was very deep in Mary’s cheek, and her eyes were fastened
to the ground while he drew near, yet she stole a good look at him
somehow, too, or she would not have been a woman. What she saw might
have satisfied even her fastidious taste.
Darnley was very tall and slim, but his limbs were so
well-proportioned, his hands and feet so small and beautifully shaped,
that his excessive height only gave him an air of peculiar grace and
distinction above ordinary men. Even in the riding-dress of the period,
though we may be sure that the handsome young noble wore one of the
richest material, and of the most tasteful fashion such a costume
allowed, he betrayed those habits of refinement almost bordering on
coxcombry, which, when they accompany a fine manly person, have such an
attraction for the other sex. All the details of his toilet had been
carefully attended to before he started, and disordered as he now was,
at least on his exterior, nature had written _gentleman_ in characters
that could not be mistaken. Alas! that her pen can sometimes only trace
skin deep.
His face, too, was in accordance with the high-bred beauty of his form.
The line of features was soft and delicate as a woman’s, the dark eyes
shone out soft and tender from beneath a pair of pencilled eyebrows,
the dark hair clustered in silken curls round a fair and open brow,
pure and unruffled in the calm spring-time of youth, and though the
mouth was that of a voluptuary rather than a hero, the small teeth were
so white and regular, the lips so full and red, that, had it not been
for the down beginning to shade its contour, it might have belonged to
a girl. The whole countenance would indeed have been too effeminate,
but for a bold sparkle in the eye, which corresponded well with the
manly proportions of the frame.
The subject was not half so much abashed as the sovereign. Darnley
advanced confidently up the hall, then kneeling before the Queen and
kissing the hand she tendered him, he looked boldly in her face and
asked leave to deliver certain packets with which he was charged from
his mother and kinsfolk.
‘But your mails have not yet arrived, my lord,’ said Mary. ‘You have
outridden your retainers; you are the only one of your party who hath
yet reached us here in our hiding-place beyond the Firth.’
She stopped in some embarrassment, unwilling that Darnley should learn
how much his coming had been looked for and his arrival watched.
‘I have them with me here, your Grace,’ answered he, producing at the
same time a packet from his bosom. ‘I would trust my Queen’s letters
to no hands but my own, although to remind me of her I do not need to
carry them next my heart.’
He dropped his voice at the latter part of his sentence, but looked
her boldly in the face while he spoke, as if to mark the effect of his
words. Boy as he was, he knew well how to woo a woman already, and had
not been slow to learn that the reticence of true affection is the
worst auxiliary in the world. He had studied his own motto to some
advantage this adventurous young suitor, and now or never was the time
to say--
‘Avant, Darnlé,
D’arrière jamais.’
So he kissed the fair hand once more that took the packet from his own,
and added--
‘None of my servants can be here for hours, madam, and I have dared
to appear before your Majesty all disordered and travel-stained.
May my rudeness stand excused in the ardour of my desire to see the
beauty which now dazzles me so that I can hardly look upon it, and my
loyal anxiety to obey the commands of my mistress and my Queen? Am I
forgiven, madam? ’Tis said that “a lady’s face should show grace”.’
‘And well it might, to such a face as yours,’ _thought_ the Queen; but
she only answered a few words of commonplace courtesy; bidding her
cousin rise from his knees, and affected to busy herself in the packet
of letters she had just received,--for Mary was again blushing deeply,
and not unwilling to hide her confusion, in the task she had thus set
herself. Truth to tell, though she had hitherto been so impervious to
flattery, the words she had just heard were stealing their way very
softly and pleasantly to her heart.
Seeing her thus occupied, Darnley proceeded to pay his compliments with
graceful ease to the attendant ladies, finding time to note in his own
mind their respective attractions, and to discover that Mary Seton was
the most to his taste of all the four.
After a while, and it may be, somewhat disturbed in her studies by
the merry voice of her gay suitor, who came (such is the advantage of
being young) as fresh from his ride of so many hundred miles, as if he
were lately out of bed, the Queen looked up, and with kindly courtesy
bade him join them at the noon-day meal, then about to be served. The
young courtier had the good taste to excuse himself, pleading the want
of proper attire in which to meet Her Majesty at table, and reflecting
in his own mind that he could satisfy the hunger which he now began to
feel so keenly more comfortably alone. He saw too that he had made an
agreeable impression, and wisely determined to give it time to work.
So he asked permission to wait on his sovereign at supper instead,
and retired to refresh himself in private, and curse the delay of his
servants, whom he expected hour by hour, with some portion of his
baggage.
It may easily be imagined that in the seclusion of Wemyss Castle, such
an event as the arrival of a guest like Darnley created no small amount
of excitement and conversation. Doubtless every point in his doublet,
every hair of his head, was thoroughly discussed and criticised, in
kitchen, buttery, and hall. The rumour spread like wild-fire through
the Castle that this dashing springald was a suitor for the hand of the
bonny Queen.
‘Set him up!’ as the Scottish lower orders say when they opine that
the aspirant is hardly worthy of the prize. Nevertheless the young
lord’s height, appearance, and easy manners had already won him golden
opinions of those who judge chiefly by the eye, and when he had
finished the best part of a capon, and a goodly stoup of Bordeaux for
his breakfast, the old seneschal delivered himself of the opinion that
‘the youth was a bonny lad, an’ a fair-spoken--forbye bein’ a Stuart
himsel’, an’ no that far off frae him that lies out bye yonder at
Flodden!’
Had there been any dissentients, an allusion to their favourite hero,
James IV., would at once have brought them over to an agreement with
the majority.
But in Mary Stuart’s bower the engrossing theme was canvassed with
considerably less freedom. The Queen herself was restless and ill
at ease, constrained in manner and reserved in conversation. Mary
Carmichael was absent on certain household duties; Mary Hamilton
seldom opened her pale lips now, save at matins or vespers, when she
poured from them such floods of melody as if she were indeed an angel
from that heaven to which she was so obviously hastening; Mistress
Beton had been too long a courtier ever to broach a fresh topic of
conversation, or indeed to give an opinion frankly upon any subject
whatsoever--moreover, she had no means of learning what Randolph said
to all this, and she felt somewhat at a loss to form her own ideas
without the assistance of her false English lover; Mary Seton alone led
the charge bravely, by asking the Queen point-blank what she thought of
her young kinsman.
‘Nay,’ replied Her Majesty, with a smile, ‘you would not have me give
an opinion after a five minutes’ interview. The _outside_ methinks is
of fair promise; at least, if “all be good that be upcome.”’[11]
[11] A Scotch saying, equivalent to the converse of our ‘Ill
weeds grow apace.’
‘Aye, he’s well enough to look at,’ answered the young lady, with the
air of a consummate judge. ‘Long and small, even and straight; a proper
partner for a galliard, and, I should say, would grace velvet doublet
and silken hose better than steel corslet and plumed head-piece.
But _my_ choice, now, would be something sterner, stronger, rougher
altogether; something more of a _man_; like stout Earl Bothwell, for
instance!’
The Queen started as if she had been stung, and answered angrily--
‘How mean ye? The one is a loyal and accomplished gentleman, the other
a brawling swordsman and a traitorous rebel.’
‘A woman might have worse help at her need than the Lord Warden in
jack and morion, with a score of those daring borderers at his back,’
retorted the staunch little partisan, following out, it may be, some
wandering fancy of her own.
The Queen did not seem loth to pursue the subject.
‘You were talking of looks,’ said she, ‘not sword-strokes; and
Bothwell, at his best, was bronzed and marred and weather-beaten, and
built more like a tower than a man.’
‘That was exactly what I admired in him,’ interposed the damsel; ‘I
even thought that scar over his eye became his face as it would have
become none other.’
The Queen smiled once more, and resumed, in the tone of one who is
looking far back into the past--
‘He certainly had more of the warrior than the courtier in him, and
doubtless he hath always done his part well and knightly in the
field; I will do him that justice. Poor Bothwell! he must have been
ill-advised indeed when he could refuse to obey _me_. I thought I could
have trusted him if all Scotland besides had failed me. Well, well! all
must be forgiven now--and forgotten.’
She spoke the last words in a melancholy tone, and each relapsed into
silence, for both the Queen and her damsels seemed to have ample food
for thought; so their fingers flew over the tapestry more nimbly than
ever, and the work proceeded with extraordinary perseverance till
supper-time.
But if Darnley had been pleasant to look at in his travel-stained
riding-gear, the most fastidious eye must have admitted that he was
indeed splendidly handsome when he appeared, prepared to perform the
menial offices of the Queen’s supper-table, clad in a suit of gorgeous
apparel, cut in the newest fashion of the English Court. Refreshed
with food and repose, sleek from the bath and perfumes of his toilet,
radiant with hope and excitement, the young courtier stood before his
sovereign probably the best dressed and the best looking man that day
in her dominions.
After he had gone through the form of presenting Mary with the basin
and ewer, which she declined, she bade him sit down at the same table
with herself and her ladies, for the Queen disliked ceremony, and
always dispensed with it in private to the utmost. Then did Lord
Darnley strain every nerve to be agreeable, and with so partial
an audience, it is needless to say, succeeded beyond his highest
expectations. Skilled in those outward graces which make so good a show
and are so effective in society, it was an easy task to him, even in
the presence of royalty, to lead the conversation round to those topics
on which he was best qualified to shine.
His descriptions of his journey, his humorous account of the
difficulties he experienced in procuring horses at the different posts,
with a covert allusion here and there to his impatience to get on,
were listened to with laughter and interest by all--with rising colour
and heaving breast by _one_; while in no circle probably of either
kingdom could his graphic sketch of the English Court, with its petty
intrigues and latest scandal, have been appreciated with such thorough
zest and good-will.
It does not follow that Mary Stuart was displeased because she checked
him when he mimicked her ‘good sister’ to the life, hitting, with a
happy mixture of fun and malice, on some of the most prominent foibles
and grotesque points in the character of ‘good Queen Bess.’
Ere the ladies rose from table they had made up their minds that this
new acquisition to their society was of unspeakable merit; and later
in the evening, when they discovered that he could play and sing as
well as he could talk, and that his leg and foot were as beautiful as
his face and hand, Mary Seton had almost decided that such courtly
graces as these were worth all the ruder virtues of a less accomplished
gallant; and judging from her subsequent conduct, we may fairly
conclude that Mary Stuart’s opinion followed on the same side.
A few more days of the seclusion of Wemyss Castle, lightened by the
lively talk and winning manners of the guest, served but to establish
Darnley more securely in the good graces of his sovereign. The weather
was of unexampled severity, and a deep snow prevented all attempts at
out-door amusements, and especially forbade those field-sports in which
Mary took such delight. The society of a handsome young gallant, fluent
and accomplished, was not likely to be rated below its real value, when
it represented the only amusement available to five such ladies as
the Queen and her Maries, shut up in an old house during a snowstorm;
and Darnley found he had free access at all hours of the day to their
agreeable presence; but he had as yet enjoyed no opportunity of seeing
Her Majesty alone. Mary, with her own good sense and womanly reserve,
had resolved to judge for herself more at leisure ere she committed her
happiness to the keeping of her possible husband, or encouraged him
avowedly in his suit.
The young lord, however, impatient by disposition, and now reckless on
principle, had resolved that this brief visit to the old seaside tower
should determine his fate; he would never have such a chance again; and
on the last day of Mary’s sojourn at Wemyss Castle he made up his mind
to hazard all upon the cast.
Darnley entertained few scruples of delicacy when he had an object
in view. He chose the hour when Mary Hamilton was sure to be in an
oratory which the Queen had temporarily fitted up, to get the three
other ladies out of his way; a few gold pieces judiciously administered
induced the venerable dame who charged herself with the domestic
details of the Castle, to request the presence of Mistresses Beton and
Carmichael on a visit of inspection to vast hoards of linen hid away
in an old walnut-wood press; then seducing Mary Seton into the long
gallery under pretence of a match at billiards, or _bilies_, as it was
called, he coolly left the game unfinished and turned the key upon
that young lady, who found herself, somewhat to her dismay, a prisoner
in a remote apartment of the Castle without the slightest prospect
of escape. Chance, too, further favoured his designs, for a blink of
sunshine had tempted the Queen out upon the battlements, and he found
her there alone looking wistfully across the Firth towards the southern
shore.
We are no eavesdroppers on the courtships of royalty. Turn after
turn Mary Stuart paced up and down those leads, and still Darnley
urged and argued and gesticulated, and still his fair companion
blushed and listened and shook her head. That the interview was
not entirely without results, Mary Seton gathered from what she
witnessed at its conclusion. She had been released from durance by
a domestic who happened to be passing the door of the gallery, and
hastened immediately to excuse her absence to her Mistress. As she
approached the battlements, Darnley was offering the Queen a ring,
with every appearance of eagerness and agitation; and although the
latter obviously declined the gift, it was with a kindliness and an
embarrassment that made the refusal tantamount to an acceptance.
‘For _my_ sake,’ said Darnley, imploringly, ‘your subject, your vassal,
your slave for ever!’
‘Not yet,’ murmured the Queen, in answer; and although she spoke very
low, her whisper reached the keen ears of the attentive maid-of-honour.
As Darnley left the presence he did not stop to apologise to Mary Seton
for their unfinished match. His colour was high, his eye was very
bright, there was an air of joyous triumph in his whole aspect and
bearing; perhaps he was quite satisfied in his own mind that he had won
the game.