I must pass over, with a very brief and general statement, the events
which occurred to the personages connected with this tale during
several months. There is always in tale-telling, unless the action be
compressed within a very short space, a period during which the
interest would flag, if the regular passing of each day was noticed,
and the small particulars detailed. Were life filled with those
striking events which move and interest the reader, with those
passions to which the sympathetic heart thrills, with those grand
scenes of action which excite the imagination, or with those lesser
incidents which amuse and entertain, the human frame, like an
over-sharpened knife, would be ground down upon the whetstone of the
world, and existence be curtailed of half its date. It is my belief,
that patriarchal age was secured to the earlier inhabitants of earth
as much by the long intervals existing between the periods of intense
excitement, to which they were sometimes subjected, and by the calm
and careless ease of the intervening periods, as by any of the many
other causes which combined to extend the space between birth and
death to well nigh a thousand years. True, they were not close pent up
in cities--true, they were continually changing air and scene--true,
that excess in anything was little known--true, that they were nearer
to the great architype, fresh from the hands of his God, and framed
for the immortality of which sin deprived him--true, that long
centuries of vice, folly, contention, and misfortune had not then
brought forth the multitudinous host of diseases continually warring
against the mortal body, diminishing its powers of resistance from
generation to generation; but still I believe that the want of
excitement, which can only be known where men are spread wide and far
apart over the face of the earth, was absolutely necessary to that
vast prolongation of life. The mind and body did not mutually grind
down each other. Still, the more peaceful periods in any man's history
are those which the least interest his fellow-men, and during the time
which elapsed between Gowrie's departure from Paris and his arrival in
Scotland, no adventures or impediments occurred which can justify much
detail. That departure was delayed for a day or two beyond the period
which he had at first fixed; and though the weather was now becoming
sharp and cold, yet those few days produced a favourable change, and
rain and fog gave way to clear skies and broad sunshine. The days,
however, were brief, and the journeys necessarily short; so that a
week elapsed between his departure from Paris and his arrival at
Calais. Four days more brought him to Loudon, and now a new scene
opened upon him.
Furnished with letters from Sir Henry Neville to the principal
statesmen of the court of Queen Elizabeth, he was received with every
demonstration of respect and esteem in the English capital, and two
days after was presented to the queen herself. I find little record in
history of what followed; but one historian, whose views, it must be
remarked, were strongly biassed by peculiar feelings of partizanship,
declares that the honours shown by the English sovereign to the young
earl were of the most marked and extraordinary kind. It is sometimes,
in the present day, not easy to account for the course of policy
pursued by Elizabeth in her conduct to the subjects of the
neighbouring crown; but we must not doubt well-authenticated facts
because we cannot penetrate their motives. The writer whom I have
mentioned states, in speaking of the Earl of Gowrie, that the queen
"ordered that guards should attend him, that all honours should be
paid him which were due to a Prince of Wales and to her first cousin,
and that he should be entertained at the public expense all the time
he should remain at her court."
I can scarcely imagine that this account is not exaggerated. We find
that she showed no such honours to others, who stood much in the same
degree of affinity to herself as he did; and unless she wished
needlessly to alarm the King of Scotland, no cause can be supposed for
such conduct. That she treated Gowrie with great distinction, however,
is undeniable, and even marked her favour for him more strongly than
her old affection for his grandfather could account for. This course
was very dangerous to the young earl himself, for the court of England
at that time was thronged by spies of the Scottish monarch; and even
the most familiar friends and counsellors of Elizabeth conveyed
information to James of all that could affect his interest, to the
most minute circumstances. The natural desire of what is called
currying favour, of course, gave some degree of colour to the accounts
transmitted; and there is every reason to believe, from an examination
of the State Paper Office, that such intimations alone were given as
had a tendency to put the monarch on his guard, without discouraging
his hopes or diminishing his energies. The way for his advent to the
throne had been prepared long beforehand; whether from the general
considerations of policy, from personal ambition, or from avarice,
such men as Cecil had chosen their course, and were determined to
remove or overawe all competitors, and to insure the accession of the
King of Scotland. I am inclined to believe--without considering them
as anything more than mere mortals--that the purest spirit of
patriotism inspired those who thus acted. Every man of common sense
must have seen that most important ends were to be obtained by uniting
the crowns of Scotland, Ireland, and England upon one head; nor could
any one doubt that--apart from all considerations of the personal
character of the man--the means of maintaining his claims, of crushing
all competitors, and of establishing his power upon a firm and secure
basis, were more completely in the hands of the King of Scotland than
of any other person who could aspire to the English throne. His faults
were all personal, which never enter sufficiently into the
calculations of politicians; his advantages were those of position,
which almost always have too much weight with those who influence the
fate of empires. By personal character, no man was ever less fitted to
fill the throne of a great country, or to unite discordant races under
one sway, than James I.: by political position, no one could compete
with him in pretensions to the throne of England. Happy had it been
for Great Britain had such not been the case, for the vices of the man
more than compensated the advantages of the prince, and the weakness
of his successors consummated what his own wickedness began; but no
one can blame those who chose according to the lights they possessed,
and who smoothed the way for that which naturally appeared the best
for the whole nation at the time.
The reports which reached Scotland of the honours shown to the Earl of
Gowrie in the English capital, generated, in a jealous and irritable
mind, covetous of extended and despotic rule, a feeling of doubt and
dread most dangerous to its object; and the busy and gossiping spirit
of a small court did not fail to increase the unpleasant impressions
thus produced, by a thousand rumours, which had no foundation in
truth. Reports were circulated and credited, that Queen Elizabeth had
actually designated the Earl of Gowrie as her successor, and even
that, in order to unite two great claims to the crown which she held,
she had made all the arrangements for a marriage between that nobleman
and the Lady Arabella Stuart; one who, like himself, was not very
remote from the direct succession. These facts have been omitted
altogether, or slurred over by modern historians, in noticing that
part of history in which this young nobleman appears; but that such
rumours existed in England and Scotland can be proved from
contemporary authorities; and we can easily conceive the feelings with
which such a man as James was thus prepared to view one whose
influence was already redoubtable, on his return to his native land.
Could he have seen the private life of the earl, it is probable that,
although he might still have remained inimical, the king's fears would
not have assumed the character of hatred. From various motives, which
every one can conceive, Julia was not disposed to mingle with the
gaieties of a foreign court, or, before she was received and
recognised in her own land, to assume the position she was entitled to
in the society of the neighbouring state. She felt it no privation,
indeed--she sought it not--she cared not for it; but even if she had,
she would have forborne, and she had full compensation in the
tenderness of him she loved. Gowrie appeared at the court of England
alone: he put not forth on her behalf, claims which were to be decided
in a different country, and by different laws; and on the only
occasion when the queen jestingly alluded to his fair companion, he
replied, with that courtly reverence towards the sovereign to which
Elizabeth was accustomed, and that due respect for Julia's situation
from which he never deviated, "It is painful, madam, to be torn by two
duties and two inclinations. You may easily suppose it would be
grateful for me to linger here at your majesty's feet, but my duty,
both by kindred and by promise, is to escort my cousin back to
Scotland, in order to establish rights of which she has been too long
deprived. I trust, however," he added, with the air of gallantry which
pervaded Elizabeth's court, "that ere long I shall be enabled to
return, not alone to bask in the beams of your favour, but to ask a
share for one who, I may humbly say, is more worthy than myself of
that honour for which princes might well contend with pride."
He spoke with that serious gravity, and yet with that unembarrassed
ease, which greatly struck the sovereign whom he addressed; and she
replied, in her somewhat abrupt manner, "God's my life, cousin, I have
a great inclination to see this same fair creature, and would do so
too with all honour, either in private or in public, did I not know
that it would do her no good service where she is going. Commend me to
her, however, and tell her we regard her and yourself with favour, and
will do our best to serve you both should need be."
The earl conveyed the message to her he loved; but Julia smiled almost
sadly, as she replied, "I fear me, Gowrie, that I am not fitted for
courts, at all events by inclination. Calm and peaceful quiet with him
I love is all that I desire in life. Nevertheless, understand me, I
would not for the world keep back him whose fame and whose character I
am bound to regard even before my own peace, from the path of honour
and renown, for anything that earth can give. I am ready, when you
require it, to mingle with courts and crowds, to take my share in
whatever may be for your benefit--nay, should need be, to buckle on
your armour with my own hands for the battle-field, and bid God speed
you in the right, while I remain alone to weep and pray for your
deliverance and success. Heaven send me strength when the hour of
trial comes; but in strength or in weakness I will not shrink from my
duty towards you."
About ten days after, when the frost, which was then reigning with
great severity, had broken up, rendering the roads more passable,
Gowrie took his departure from London, and proceeded by slow journeys
towards Scotland. He was detained for somewhat more than a week at
York by a fresh fall of snow; but as soon as that had melted away
under the increasing warmth of the spring, he resumed his way, and
passed the border in the end of February, 1600.