It was on the 9th of August, 1561, after having lost her mother and her

husband in the same year, that Mary Stuart, Dowager of France and Queen

of Scotland at nineteen, escorted by her uncles, Cardinals Guise and

Lorraine, by the Duke and Duchess of Guise, by the Duc d’Aumale and M.

de Nemours, arrived at Calais, where two galleys were waiting to take

her to Scotland, one commanded by M. de Mevillon and the other by

Captain Albize. She remained six days in the town. At last, on the 15th

of the month, after the saddest adieus to her family, accompanied by

Messieurs d’Aumale, d’Elboeuf, and Damville, with many nobles, among

whom were Brantome and Chatelard, she embarked in M. Mevillon’s galley,

which was immediately ordered to put out to sea, which it did with the

aid of oars, there not being sufficient wind to make use of the sails.

Mary Stuart was then in the full bloom of her beauty, beauty even more

brilliant in its mourning garb—a beauty so wonderful that it shed around

her a charm which no one whom she wished to please could escape, and

which was fatal to almost everyone. About this time, too, someone made

her the subject of a song, which, as even her rivals confessed,

contained no more than the truth. It was, so it was said, by M. de

Maison-Fleur, a cavalier equally accomplished in arms and letters: Here

it is:—

"In robes of whiteness, lo, Full sad and mournfully, Went pacing to and

fro Beauty’s divinity; A shaft in hand she bore From Cupid’s cruel

store, And he, who fluttered round, Bore, o’er his blindfold eyes And

o’er his head uncrowned, A veil of mournful guise, Whereon the words

were wrought: ’You perish or are caught.’"

Yes, at this moment, Mary Stuart, in her deep mourning of white, was

more lovely than ever; for great tears were trickling down her cheeks,

as, weaving a handkerchief, standing on the quarterdeck, she who was so

grieved to set out, bowed farewell to those who were so grieved to

remain.

At last, in half an hour’s time, the harbour was left behind; the vessel

was out at sea. Suddenly, Mary heard loud cries behind her: a boat

coming in under press of sail, through her pilot’s ignorance had struck

upon a rock in such a manner that it was split open, and after having

trembled and groaned for a moment like someone wounded, began to be

swallowed up, amid the terrified screams of all the crew. Mary,

horror-stricken, pale, dumb, and motionless, watched her gradually sink,

while her unfortunate crew, as the keel disappeared, climbed into the

yards and shrouds, to delay their death-agony a few minutes; finally,

keel, yards, masts, all were engulfed in the ocean’s gaping jaws. For a

moment there remained some black specks, which in turn disappeared one

after another; then wave followed upon wave, and the spectators of this

horrible tragedy, seeing the sea calm and solitary as if nothing had

happened, asked themselves if it was not a vision that had appeared to

them and vanished.

"Alas!" cried Mary, falling on a seat and leaning both arms an the

vessel’s stern, "what a sad omen for such a sad voyage!" Then, once more

fixing on the receding harbour her eyes, dried for a moment by terror,

and beginning to moisten anew, "Adieu, France!" she murmured, "adieu,

France!" and for five hours she remained thus, weeping and murmuring,

"Adieu, France! adieu, France!"

Darkness fell while she was still lamenting; and then, as the view was

blotted out and she was summoned to supper, "It is indeed now, dear

France," said she, rising, "that I really lose you, since jealous night

heaps mourning upon mourning, casting a black veil before my sight.

Adieu then, one last time, dear France; for never shall I see you more."

With these words, she went below, saying that she was the very opposite

of Dido, who, after the departure of AEneas, had done nothing but look

at the waves, while she, Mary, could not take her eyes off the land.

Then everyone gathered round her to try to divert and console her. But

she, growing sadder, and not being able to respond, so overcome was she

with tears, could hardly eat; and, having had a bed got ready on the

stern deck, she sent for the steersman, and ordered him if he still saw

land at daybreak, to come and wake her immediately. On this point Mary

was favoured; for the wind having dropped, when daybreak came the vessel

was still within sight of France.

It was a great joy when, awakened by the steersman, who had not

forgotten the order he had received, Mary raised herself on her couch,

and through the window that she had had opened, saw once more the

beloved shore. But at five o’clock in the morning, the wind having

freshened, the vessel rapidly drew farther away, so that soon the land

completely disappeared. Then Mary fell back upon her bed, pale as death,

murmuring yet once again—"Adieu, France! I shall see thee no more."

Indeed, the happiest years of her life had just passed away in this

France that she so much regretted. Born amid the first religious

troubles, near the bedside of her dying father, the cradle mourning was

to stretch for her to the grave, and her stay in France had been a ray

of sunshine in her night. Slandered from her birth, the report was so

generally spread abroad that she was malformed, and that she could not

live to grow up, that one day her mother, Mary of Guise, tired of these

false rumours, undressed her and showed her naked to the English

ambassador, who had come, on the part of Henry VIII, to ask her in

marriage for the Prince of Wales, himself only five years old. Crowned

at nine months by Cardinal Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews, she was

immediately hidden by her mother, who was afraid of treacherous dealing

in the King of England, in Stirling Castle. Two years later, not finding

even this fortress safe enough, she removed her to an island in the

middle of the Lake of Menteith, where a priory, the only building in the

place, provided an asylum for the royal child and for four young girls

born in the same year as herself, having like her the sweet name which

is an anagram of the word "aimer," and who, quitting her neither in her

good nor in her evil fortune, were called the "Queen’s Marys". They were

Mary Livingston, Mary Fleming, Mary Seyton, and Mary Beaton. Mary stayed

in this priory till Parliament, having approved her marriage with the

French dauphin, son of Henry II, she was taken to Dumbarton Castle, to

await the moment of departure. There she was entrusted to M. de Breze,

sent by Henry II to-fetch her. Having set out in the French galleys

anchored at the mouth of the Clyde, Mary, after having been hotly

pursued by the English fleet, entered Brest harbour, 15th August, 1548,

one year after the death of Francis! Besides the queen’s four Marys, the

vessels also brought to France three of her natural brothers, among whom

was the Prior of St. Andrews, James Stuart, who was later to abjure the

Catholic faith, and with the title of Regent, and under the name of the

Earl of Murray, to become so fatal to poor Mary. From Brest, Mary went

to St. Germain-en-Laye, where Henry II, who had just ascended the

throne, overwhelmed her with caresses, and then sent her to a convent

where the heiresses of the noblest French houses were brought up. There

Mary’s happy qualities developed. Born with a woman’s heart and a man’s

head, Mary not only acquired all the accomplishments which constituted

the education of a future queen, but also that real knowledge which is

the object of the truly learned.

Thus, at fourteen, in the Louvre, before Henry II, Catherine de Medici,

and the whole court, she delivered a discourse in Latin of her own

composition, in which she maintained that it becomes women to cultivate

letters, and that it is unjust and tyrannical to deprive flowery of

their perfumes, by banishing young girls from all but domestic cares.

One can imagine in what manner a future queen, sustaining such a thesis,

was likely to be welcomed in the most lettered and pedantic court in

Europe. Between the literature of Rabelais and Marot verging on their

decline, and that of Ronsard and Montaigne reaching their zenith, Mary

became a queen of poetry, only too happy never to have to wear another

crown than that which Ronsard, Dubellay, Maison-Fleur, and Brantome

placed daily on her head. But she was predestined. In the midst of those

fetes which a waning chivalry was trying to revive came the fatal joust

of Tournelles: Henry II, struck by a splinter of a lance for want of a

visor, slept before his time with his ancestors, and Mary Stuart

ascended the throne of France, where, from mourning for Henry, she

passed to that for her mother, and from mourning for her mother to that

for her husband. Mary felt this last loss both as woman and as poet; her

heart burst forth into bitter tears and plaintive harmonies. Here are

some lines that she composed at this time:—

"Into my song of woe, Sung to a low sad air, My cruel grief I throw, For

loss beyond compare; In bitter sighs and tears Go by my fairest years.

Was ever grief like mine Imposed by destiny? Did ever lady pine, In high

estate, like me, Of whom both heart and eye Within the coffin lie?

Who, in the tender spring And blossom of my youth, Taste all the

sorrowing Of life’s extremest ruth, And take delight in nought Save in

regretful thought.

All that was sweet and gay Is now a pain to see; The sunniness of day Is

black as night to me; All that was my delight Is hidden from my sight.

My heart and eye, indeed, One face, one image know, The which this

mournful weed On my sad face doth show, Dyed with the violet’s tone That

is the lover’s own.

Tormented by my ill, I go from place to place, But wander as I will My

woes can nought efface; My most of bad and good I find in solitude.

But wheresoe’er I stay, In meadow or in copse, Whether at break of day

Or when the twilight drops, My heart goes sighing on, Desiring one

that’s gone.

If sometimes to the skies My weary gaze I lift, His gently shining eyes

Look from the cloudy drift, Or stooping o’er the wave I see him in the

grave.

Or when my bed I seek, And-sleep begins to steal, Again I hear him

speak, Again his touch I feel; In work or leisure, he Is ever near to

me.

No other thing I see, However fair displayed, By which my heart will be

A tributary made, Not having the perfection Of that, my lost affection.

Here make an end, my verse, Of this thy sad lament, Whose burden shall

rehearse Pure love of true intent, Which separation’s stress Will never

render less."

"It was then," says Brantorne, "that it was delightful to see her; for

the whiteness of her countenance and of her veil contended together; but

finally the artificial white yielded, and the snow-like pallor of her

face vanquished the other. For it was thus," he adds, "that from the

moment she became a widow, I always saw her with her pale hue, as long

as I had the honour of seeing her in France, and Scotland, where she had

to go in eighteen months’ time, to her very great regret, after her

widowhood, to pacify her kingdom, greatly divided by religious troubles.

Alas! she had neither the wish nor the will for it, and I have often

heard her say so, with a fear of this journey like death; for she

preferred a hundred times to dwell in France as a dowager queen, and to

content herself with Touraine and Poitou for her jointure, than to go

and reign over there in her wild country; but her uncles, at least some

of them, not all, advised her, and even urged her to it, and deeply

repented their error."

Mary was obedient, as we have seen, and she began her journey under such

auspices that when she lost sight of land she was like to die. Then it

was that the poetry of her soul found expression in these famous lines:

"Farewell, delightful land of France,

My motherland,

The best beloved!

Foster−nurse of my young years!

Farewell, France, and farewell my happy days!

The ship that separates our loves

Has borne away but half of me;

One part is left thee and is throe,

And I confide it to thy tenderness,

That thou may'st hold in mind the other part."'

_[Translator’s note.-It has not been found possible to make a rhymed

version of these lines without sacrificing the simplicity which is their

chief charm.]_

This part of herself that Mary left in France was the body of the young

king, who had taken with him all poor Mary’s happiness into his tomb.

Mary had but one hope remaining, that the sight of the English fleet

would compel her little squadron to turn back; but she had to fulfil her

destiny. This same day, a fog, a very unusual occurrence in summer-time,

extended all over the Channel, and caused her to escape the fleet; for

it was such a dense fog that one could not see from stern to mast. It

lasted the whole of Sunday, the day after the departure, and did not

lift till the following day, Monday, at eight o’clock in the morning.

The little flotilla, which all this time had been sailing haphazard, had

got among so many reefs that if the fog had lasted some minutes longer

the galley would certainly have grounded on some rock, and would have

perished like the vessel that had been seen engulfed on leaving port.

But, thanks to the fog’s clearing, the pilot recognised the Scottish

coast, and, steering his four boats with great skill through all the

dangers, on the 20th August he put in at Leith, where no preparation had

been made for the queen’s reception. Nevertheless, scarcely had she

arrived there than the chief persons of the town met together and came

to felicitate her. Meanwhile, they hastily collected some wretched nags,

with harness all falling in pieces, to conduct the queen to Edinburgh.

At sight of this, Mary could not help weeping again; for she thought of

the splendid palfreys and hackneys of her French knights and ladies, and

at this first view Scotland appeared to-her in all its poverty. Next day

it was to appear to her in all its wildness.

After having passed one night at Holyrood Palace, "during which," says

Brantome, "five to six hundred rascals from the town, instead of letting

her sleep, came to give her a wild morning greeting on wretched fiddles

and little rebecks," she expressed a wish to hear mass. Unfortunately,

the people of Edinburgh belonged almost entirely to the Reformed

religion; so that, furious at the queen’s giving such a proof of

papistry at her first appearance, they entered the church by force,

armed with knives, sticks and stones, with the intention of putting to

death the poor priest, her chaplain. He left the altar, and took refuge

near the queen, while Mary’s brother, the Prior of St. Andrews, who was

more inclined from this time forward to be a soldier than an

ecclesiastic, seized a sword, and, placing himself between the people

and the queen, declared that he would kill with his own hand the first

man who should take another step. This firmness, combined with the

queen’s imposing and dignified air, checked the zeal of the Reformers.

As we have said, Mary had arrived in the midst of all the heat of the

first religious wars. A zealous Catholic, like all her family on the

maternal side, she inspired the Huguenots with the gravest fears:

besides, a rumour had got about that Mary, instead of landing at Leith,

as she had been obliged by the fog, was to land at Aberdeen. There, it

was said, she would have found the Earl of Huntly, one of the peers who

had remained loyal to the Catholic faith, and who, next to the family of

Hamilton, was, the nearest and most powerful ally of the royal house.

Seconded by him and by twenty thousand soldiers from the north, she

would then have marched upon Edinburgh, and have re-established the

Catholic faith throughout Scotland. Events were not slow to prove that

this accusation was false.

As we have stated, Mary was much attached to the Prior of St. Andrews, a

son of James V and of a noble descendant of the Earls of Mar, who had

been very handsome in her youth, and who, in spite of the well-known

love for her of James V, and the child who had resulted, had none the

less wedded Lord Douglas of Lochleven, by whom she had had two other

sons, the elder named William and the younger George, who were thus

half-brothers of the regent. Now, scarcely had she reascended the throne

than Mary had restored to the Prior of St. Andrews the title of Earl of

Mar, that of his maternal ancestors, and as that of the Earl of Murray

had lapsed since the death of the famous Thomas Randolph, Mary, in her

sisterly friendship for James Stuart, hastened to add, this title to

those which she had already bestowed upon him.

But here difficulties and complications arose; for the new Earl of

Murray, with his character, was not a man to content himself with a

barren title, while the estates which were crown property since the

extinction of the male branch of the old earls, had been gradually

encroached upon by powerful neighbours, among whom was the famous Earl

of Huntly, whom we have already mentioned: the result was that, as the

queen judged that in this quarter her orders would probably encounter

opposition, under pretext of visiting her possessions in the north, she

placed herself at the head of a small army, commanded by her brother,

the Earl of Mar and Murray.

The Earl of Huntly was the less duped by the apparent pretext of this

expedition, in that his son, John Cordon, for some abuse of his powers,

had just been condemned to a temporary imprisonment. He,

notwithstanding, made every possible submission to the queen, sending

messengers in advance to invite-her to rest in his castle; and following

up the messengers in person, to renew his invitation viva voce.

Unfortunately, at the very moment when he was about to join the queen,

the governor of Inverness, who was entirely devoted to him, was refusing

to allow Mary to enter this castle, which was a royal one. It is true

that Murray, aware that it does not do to hesitate in the face of such

rebellions, had already had him executed for high treason.

This new act of firmness showed Huntly that the young queen was not

disposed to allow the Scottish lords a resumption of the almost

sovereign power humbled by her father; so that, in spite of the

extremely kind reception she accorded him, as he learned while in camp

that his son, having escaped from prison, had just put himself at the

head of his vassals, he was afraid that he should be thought, as

doubtless he was, a party to the rising, and he set out the same night

to assume command of his troops, his mind made up, as Mary only had with

her seven to eight thousand men, to risk a battle, giving out, however,

as Buccleuch had done in his attempt to snatch James V from the hands of

the Douglases, that it was not at the queen he was aiming, but solely at

the regent, who kept her under his tutelage and perverted her good

intentions.

Murray, who knew that often the entire peace of a reign depends on the

firmness one displays at its beginning, immediately summoned all the

northern barons whose estates bordered on his, to march against Huntly.

All obeyed, for the house of Cordon was already so powerful that each

feared it might become still more so; but, however, it was clear that if

there was hatred for the subject there was no great affection for the

queen, and that the greater number came without fixed intentions and

with the idea of being led by circumstances.

The two armies encountered near Aberdeen. Murray at once posted the

troops he had brought from Edinburgh, and of which he was sure, on the

top of rising ground, and drew up in tiers on the hill slope all his

northern allies. Huntly advanced resolutely upon them, and attacked his

neighbours the Highlanders, who after a short resistance retired in

disorder. His men immediately threw away their lances, and, drawing

their swords, crying, "Cordon, Cordon!" pursued the fugitives, and

believed they had already gained the battle, when they suddenly ran

right against the main body of Murray’s army, which remained motionless

as a rampart of iron, and which, with its long lances, had the advantage

of its adversaries, who were armed only with their claymores. It was

then the turn of the Cordons to draw back, seeing which, the northern

clans rallied and returned to the fight, each soldier having a sprig of

heather in his cap that his comrades might recognise him. This

unexpected movement determined the day: the Highlanders ran down the

hillside like a torrent, dragging along with them everyone who could

have wished to oppose their passage. Then Murray seeing that the moment

had come for changing the defeat into a rout, charged with his entire

cavalry: Huntly, who was very stout and very heavily armed, fell and was

crushed beneath the horses’ feet; John Cordon, taken prisoner in his

flight, was executed at Aberdeen three days afterwards; finally, his

brother, too young to undergo the same fate at this time, was shut up in

a dungeon and executed later, the day he reached the age of sixteen.

Mary had been present at the battle, and the calm and courage she

displayed had made a lively impression on her wild defenders, who all

along the road had heard her say that she would have liked to be a man,

to pass her days on horseback, her nights under a tent, to wear a coat

of mail, a helmet, a buckler, and at her side a broadsword.

Mary made her entry into Edinburgh amid general enthusiasm; for this

expedition against the Earl of Huntly, who was a Catholic, had been very

popular among the inhabitants, who had no very clear idea of the real

motives which had caused her to undertake it: They were of the Reformed

faith, the earl was a papist, there was an enemy the less; that is all

they thought about. Now, therefore; the Scotch, amid their acclamations,

whether viva voce or by written demands, expressed the wish that their

queen, who was without issue by Francis II, should re-marry: Mary agreed

to this, and, yielding to the prudent advice of those about her, she

decided to consult upon this marriage Elizabeth, whose heir she was, in

her title of granddaughter of Henry VII, in the event of the Queen of

England’s dying without posterity. Unfortunately, she had not always

acted with like circumspection; for at the death of Mary Tudor, known as

Bloody. Mary, she had laid claim to the throne of Henry VIII, and,

relying on the illegitimacy of Elizabeth’s birth, had with the dauphin

assumed sovereignty over Scotland, England, and Ireland, and had had

coins struck with this new title, and plate engraved with these new

armorial bearings.

Elizabeth was nine years older than Mary—that is to say, that at this

time she had not yet attained her thirtieth year; she was not merely her

rival as queen, then, but as woman. As regards education, she could

sustain comparison with advantage; for if she had less charm of mind,

she had more solidity of judgment: versed in politics, philosophy,

history; rhetoric, poetry and music, besides English, her maternal

tongue, she spoke and wrote to perfection Greek, Latin, French, Italian

and Spanish; but while Elizabeth excelled Mary on this point, in her

turn Mary was more beautiful, and above all more attractive, than her

rival. Elizabeth had, it is true, a majestic and agreeable appearance,

bright quick eyes, a dazzlingly white complexion; but she had red hair,

a large foot,—[Elizabeth bestowed a pair of her shoes on the University

of Oxford; their size would point to their being those of a man of

average stature.]—and a powerful hand, while Mary, on the contrary, with

her beautiful ashy-fair hair,—[Several historians assert that Mary

Stuart had black hair; but Brantome, who had seen it, since, as we have

said, he accompanied her to Scotland, affirms that it was fair. And, so

saying, he (the executioner) took off her headdress, in a contemptuous

manner, to display her hair already white, that while alive, however,

she feared not to show, nor yet to twist and frizz as in the days when

it was so beautiful and so fair.]—her noble open forehead, eyebrows

which could be only blamed for being so regularly arched that they

looked as if drawn by a pencil, eyes continually beaming with the

witchery of fire, a nose of perfect Grecian outline, a mouth so ruby red

and gracious that it seemed that, as a flower opens but to let its

perfume escape, so it could not open but to give passage to gentle

words, with a neck white and graceful as a swan’s, hands of alabaster,

with a form like a goddess’s and a foot like a child’s, Mary was a

harmony in which the most ardent enthusiast for sculptured form could

have found nothing to reproach.

This was indeed Mary’s great and real crime: one single imperfection in

face or figure, and she would not have died upon the scaffold. Besides,

to Elizabeth, who had never seen her, and who consequently could only

judge by hearsay, this beauty was a great cause of uneasiness and of

jealousy, which she could not even disguise, and which showed itself

unceasingly in eager questions. One day when she was chatting with James

Melville about his mission to her court, Mary’s offer to be guided by

Elizabeth in her choice of a husband,—a choice which the queen of

England had seemed at first to wish to see fixed on the Earl of

Leicester,—she led the Scotch ambassador into a cabinet, where she

showed him several portraits with labels in her own handwriting: the

first was one of the Earl of Leicester. As this nobleman was precisely

the suitor chosen by Elizabeth, Melville asked the queen to give it him

to show to his mistress; but Elizabeth refused, saying that it was the

only one she had. Melville then replied, smiling, that being in

possession of the original she might well part with the copy; but

Elizabeth would on no account consent. This little discussion ended, she

showed him the portrait of Mary Stuart, which she kissed very tenderly,

expressing to Melville a great wish to see his mistress. "That is very

easy, madam," he replied: "keep your room, on the pretext that you are

indisposed, and set out incognito for Scotland, as King James V set out

for France when he wanted to see Madeleine de Valois, whom he afterwards

married."

"Alas!" replied Elizabeth, "I would like to do so, but it is not so easy

as you think. Nevertheless, tell your queen that I love her tenderly,

and that I wish we could live more in friendship than we have done up to

the present". Then passing to a subject which she seemed to have wanted

to broach for a long time, "Melville," she continued, "tell me frankly,

is my sister as beautiful as they say?"

"She has that reputation," replied Melville; "but I cannot give your

Majesty any idea of hex beauty, having no point of comparison."

"I will give you one," the queen said. "Is she more beautiful than I?"

"Madam," replied Melville, "you are the most beautiful woman in England,

and Mary Stuart is the most beautiful woman in Scotland."

"Then which of the two is the taller?" asked Elizabeth, who was not

entirely satisfied by this answer, clever as it was.

"My mistress, madam," responded Melville; "I am obliged to confess it."

"Then she is too tall," Elizabeth said sharply, "for I am tall enough.

And what are her favourite amusements?" she continued.

"Madam," Melville replied, "hunting, riding, performing on the lute and

the harpischord."

"Is she skilled upon the latter?" Elizabeth inquired. "Oh yes, madam,"

answered Melville; "skilled enough for a queen."

There the conversation stopped; but as Elizabeth was herself an

excellent musician, she commanded Lord Hunsdon to bring Melville to her

at a time when she was at her harpischord, so that he could hear her

without her seeming to have the air of playing for him. In fact, the

same day, Hunsdon, agreeably to her instructions, led the ambassador

into a gallery separated from the queen’s apartment merely by tapestry,

so that his guide having raised it. Melville at his leisure could hear

Elizabeth, who did not turn round until she had finished the piece,

which, however, she was playing with much skill. When she saw Melville,

she pretended to fly into a passion, and even wanted to strike him; but

her anger calmed down by little and little at the ambassador’s

compliments, and ceased altogether when he admitted that Mary Stuart was

not her equal. But this was not all: proud of her triumph, Elizabeth

desired also that Melville should see her dance. Accordingly, she kept

back her despatches for two days that he might be present at a ball that

she was giving. These despatches, as we have said, contained the wish

that Mary Stuart should espouse Leicester; but this proposal could not

be taken seriously. Leicester, whose personal worth was besides

sufficiently mediocre, was of birth too inferior to aspire to the hand

of the daughter of so many kings; thus Mary replied that such an

alliance would not become her. Meanwhile, something strange and tragic

came to pass.

CHAPTER II

Among the lords who had followed Mary Stuart to Scotland was, as we have

mentioned, a young nobleman named Chatelard, a true type of the nobility

of that time, a nephew of Bayard on his mother’s side, a poet and a

knight, talented and courageous, and attached to Marshal Damville, of

whose household he formed one. Thanks to this high position, Chatelard,

throughout her stay in France, paid court to Mary Stuart, who, in the

homage he rendered her in verse, saw nothing more than those poetical

declarations of gallantry customary in that age, and with which she

especially was daily overwhelmed. But it happened that about the time

when Chatelard was most in love with the queen she was obliged to leave

France, as we have said. Then Marshal Damville, who knew nothing of

Chatelard’s passion, and who himself, encouraged by Mary’s kindness, was

among the candidates to succeed Francis II as husband, set out for

Scotland with the poor exile, taking Chatelard with him, and, not

imagining he would find a rival in him, he made a confidant of him, and

left him with Mary when he was obliged to leave her, charging the young

poet to support with her the interests of his suit. This post as

confidant brought Mary and Chatelard more together; and, as in her

capacity as poet, the queen treated him like a brother, he made bold in

his passion to risk all to obtain another title. Accordingly, one

evening he got into Mary Stuart’s room, and hid himself under the bed;

but at the moment when the queen was beginning to undress, a little dog

she had began to yelp so loudly that her women came running at his

barking, and, led by this indication, perceived Chatelard. A woman

easily pardons a crime for which too great love is the excuse: Mary

Stuart was woman before being queen—she pardoned.

But this kindness only increased Chatelard’s confidence: he put down the

reprimand he had received to the presence of the queen’s women, and

supposed that if she had been alone she would have forgiven him still

more completely; so that, three weeks after, this same scene was

repeated. But this time, Chatelard, discovered in a cupboard, when the

queen was already in bed, was placed under arrest.

The moment was badly chosen: such a scandal, just when the queen was

about to re-marry, was fatal to Mary, let alone to Chatelard. Murray

took the affair in hand, and, thinking that a public trial could alone

save his sister’s reputation, he urged the prosecution with such vigour,

that Chatelard, convicted of the crime of lese-majeste, was condemned to

death. Mary entreated her brother that Chatelard might be sent back to

France; but Murray made her see what terrible consequences such a use of

her right of pardon might have, so that Mary was obliged to let justice

take its course: Chatelard was led to execution. Arrived on the

scaffold, which was set up before the queen’s palace, Chatelard, who had

declined the services of a priest, had Ronsard’s Ode on Death read; and

when the reading, which he followed with evident pleasure, was ended, he

turned—towards the queen’s windows, and, having cried out for the last

time, "Adieu, loveliest and most cruel of princesses!" he stretched out

his neck to the executioner, without displaying any repentance or

uttering any complaint. This death made all the more impression upon

Mary, that she did not dare to show her sympathy openly.

Meanwhile there was a rumour that the queen of Scotland was consenting

to a new marriage, and several suitors came forward, sprung from the

principal reigning families of Europe: first, the Archduke Charles,

third son of the Emperor of Germany; then the Duke of Anjou, who

afterwards became Henry III. But to wed a foreign prince was to give up

her claims to the English crown. So Mary refused, and, making a merit of

this to Elizabeth, she cast her eyes on a relation of the latter’s,

Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox. Elizabeth, who

had nothing plausible to urge against this marriage, since the Queen of

Scotland not only chose an Englishman for husband, but was marrying into

her own family, allowed the Earl of Lennox and his son to go to the

Scotch court, reserving it to herself, if matters appeared to take a

serious turn, to recall them both—a command which they would be

constrained to obey, since all their property was in England.

Darnley was eighteen years of age: he was handsome, well-made, elegant;

he talked in that attractive manner of the young nobles of the French

and English courts that Mary no longer heard since her exile in

Scotland; she let herself be deceived by these appearances, and did not

see that under this brilliant exterior Darnley hid utter insignificance,

dubious courage, and a fickle and churlish character. It is true that he

came to her under the auspices of a man whose influence was as striking

as the risen fortune which gave him the opportunity to exert it. We

refer to David Rizzio.

David Rizzio, who played such a great part in the life of Mary Stuart,

whose strange favour for him has given her enemies, probably without any

cause, such cruel weapons against her, was the son of a Turin musician

burdened with a numerous family, who, recognising in him a pronounced

musical taste, had him instructed in the first principles of the art. At

the age of fifteen he had left his father’s house and had gone on foot

to Nice, where the Duke of Savoy held his court; there he entered the

service of the Duke of Moreto, and this lord having been appointed, some

years afterwards, to the Scottish embassy, Rizzio followed him to

Scotland. As this young man had a very fine voice, and accompanied on

the viol and fiddle songs of which both the airs and the words were of

his own composition, the ambassador spoke of him to Mary, who wished to

see him. Rizzio, full of confidence in himself, and seeing in the

queen’s desire a road to success, hastened to obey her command, sang

before her, and pleased her. She begged him then of Moreto, making no

more of it than if she had asked of him a thoroughbred dog or a

well-trained falcon. Moreta presented him to her, delighted at finding

such an opportunity to pay his court; but scarcely was Rizzio in her

service than Mary discovered that music was the least of his gifts, that

he possessed, besides that, education if not profound at least varied, a

supple mind, a lively imagination, gentle ways, and at the same time

much boldness and presumption. He reminded her of those Italian artists

whom she had seen at the French court, and spoke to her the tongue of

Marot and Ronsard, whose most beautiful poems he knew by heart: this was

more than enough to please Mary Stuart. In a short time he became her

favourite, and meanwhile the place of secretary for the French

despatches falling vacant, Rizzio was provided for with it.

Darnley, who wished to succeed at all costs, enlisted Rizzio in his

interests, unconscious that he had no need of this support; and as, on

her side, Mary, who had fallen in love with him at first sight, fearing

some new intrigue of Elizabeth’s, hastened on this union so far as the

proprieties permitted, the affair moved forward with wonderful rapidity;

and in the midst of public rejoicing, with the approbation of the

nobility, except for a small minority, with Murray at its head, the

marriage was solemnised under the happiest auspices, 29th July 1565. Two

days before, Darnley and his father, the Earl of Lennox, had received a

command to return to London, and as they had not obeyed it, a week after

the celebration of the marriage they learned that the Countess of

Lennox, the only one of the family remaining in Elizabeth’s power, had

been arrested and taken to the Tower. Thus Elizabeth, in spite of her

dissimulation, yielding to that first impulse of violence that she

always had such trouble to overcome, publicly displayed her resentment.

However, Elizabeth was not the woman to be satisfied with useless

vengeance: she soon released the countess, and turned her eyes towards

Murray, the most discontented of the nobles in opposition, who by this

marriage was losing all his personal influence. It was thus easy for

Elizabeth to put arms in his hand. In fact, when he had failed in his

first attempt to seize Darnley, he called to his aid the Duke of

Chatellerault, Glencairn, Argyll, and Rothes, and collecting what

partisans they could, they openly rebelled against the queen. This was

the first ostensible act of that hatred which was afterwards so fatal to

Mary.

The queen, on her side, appealed to her nobles, who in response hastened

to rally to her, so that in a month’s time she found herself at the head

of the finest army that ever a king of Scotland had raised. Darnley

assumed the command of this magnificent assembly, mounted on a superb

horse, arrayed in gilded armour; and accompanied by the queen, who, in a

riding habit, with pistols at her saddle-bow, wished to make the

campaign with him, that she might not quit his side for a moment. Both

were young, both were handsome, and they left Edinburgh amidst the

cheers of the people and the army.

Murray and his accomplices did not even try to stand against them, and

the campaign consisted of such rapid and complex marches and

counter-marches, that this rebellion is called the Run-about Raid-that

is to say, the run in every sense of the word. Murray and the rebels

withdrew into England, where Elizabeth, while seeming to condemn their

unlucky attempt, afforded them all the assistance they needed.

Mary returned to Edinburgh delighted at the success of her two first

campaigns, not suspecting that this new good fortune was the last she

would have, and that there her short-lived prosperity would cease.

Indeed, she soon saw that in Darnley she had given herself not a devoted

and very attentive husband, as she had believed, but an imperious and

brutal master, who, no longer having any motive for concealment, showed

himself to her just as he was, a man of disgraceful vices, of which

drunkenness and debauchery was the least. Accordingly, serious

differences were not long in springing up in this royal household.

Darnley in wedding Mary had not become king, but merely the queen’s

husband. To confer on him authority nearly equalling a regent’s, it was

necessary that Mary should grant him what was termed the crown

matrimonial—a crown Francis II had worn during his short royalty, and

that Mary, after Darnley’s conduct to herself, had not the slightest

intention of bestowing on him. Thus, to whatever entreaties he made, in

whatever form they were wrapped, Mary merely replied with an unvaried

and obstinate refusal. Darnley, amazed at this force of will in a young

queen who had loved him enough to raise him to her, and not believing

that she could find it in herself, sought in her entourage for some

secret and influential adviser who might have inspired her with it. His

suspicions fell on Rizzio.

In reality, to whatever cause Rizzio owed his power (and to even the

most clear-sighted historians this point has always remained obscure),

be it that he ruled as lover, be it that he advised as minister, his

counsels as long as he lived were always given for the greater glory of

the queen. Sprung from so low, he at least wished to show himself

worthy, of having risen so high, and owing everything to Mary, he tried

to repay her with devotion. Thus Darnley was not mistaken, and it was

indeed Rizzio who, in despair at having helped to bring about a union

which he foresaw must become so unfortunate, gave Mary the advice not to

give up any of her power to one who already possessed much more than he

deserved, in possessing her person.

Darnley, like all persons of both weak and violent character,

disbelieved in the persistence of will in others, unless this will was

sustained by an outside influence. He thought that in ridding himself of

Rizzio he could not fail to gain the day, since, as he believed, he

alone was opposing the grant of this great desire of his, the crown

matrimonial. Consequently, as Rizzio was disliked by the nobles in

proportion as his merits had raised him above them, it was easy for

Darnley to organise a conspiracy, and James Douglas of Morton,

chancellor of the kingdom, consented to act as chief.

This is the second time since the beginning of our narrative that we

inscribe this name Douglas, so often pronounced, in Scottish history,

and which at this time, extinct in the elder branch, known as the Black

Douglases, was perpetuated in the younger branch, known as the Red

Douglases. It was an ancient, noble, and powerful family, which, when

the descent in the male line from Robert Bruce had lapsed, disputed the

royal title with the first Stuart, and which since then had constantly

kept alongside the throne, sometimes its support, sometimes its enemy,

envying every great house, for greatness made it uneasy, but above all

envious of the house of Hamilton, which, if not its equal, was at any

rate after itself the next most powerful.

During the whole reign of James V, thanks to the hatred which the king

bore them, the Douglases had: not only lost all their influence, but had

also been exiled to England. This hatred was on account of their having

seized the guardianship of the young prince and kept him prisoner till

he was fifteen. Then, with the help of one of his pages, James V had

escaped from Falkland, and had reached Stirling, whose governor was in

his interests. Scarcely was he safe in the castle than he made

proclamation that any Douglas who should approach within a dozen miles

of it would be prosecuted for high treason. This was not all: he

obtained a decree from Parliament, declaring them guilty of felony, and

condemning them to exile; they remained proscribed, then, during the

king’s lifetime, and returned to Scotland only upon his death. The

result was that, although they had been recalled about the throne, and

though, thanks to the past influence of Murray, who, one remembers, was

a Douglas on the mother’s side, they filled the most important posts

there, they had not forgiven to the daughter the enmity borne them by

the father.

This was why James Douglas, chancellor as he was, and consequently

entrusted with the execution of the laws, put himself at the head of a

conspiracy which had for its aim the violation of all laws; human and

divine.

Douglas’s first idea had been to treat Rizzio as the favourites of James

III had been treated at the Bridge of Lauder—that is to say, to make a

show of having a trial and to hang him afterwards. But such a death did

not suffice for Darnley’s vengeance; as above everything he wished to

punish the queen in Rizzio’s person, he exacted that the murder should

take place in her presence.

Douglas associated with himself Lord Ruthven, an idle and dissolute

sybarite, who under the circumstances promised to push his devotion so

far as to wear a cuirass; then, sure of this important accomplice, he

busied himself with finding other agents.

However, the plot was not woven with such secrecy but that something of

it transpired; and Rizzio received several warnings that he despised.

Sir James Melville, among others, tried every means to make him

understand the perils a stranger ran who enjoyed such absolute

confidence in a wild, jealous court like that of Scotland. Rizzio

received these hints as if resolved not to apply them to himself; and

Sir James Melville, satisfied that he had done enough to ease his

conscience, did not insist further. Then a French priest, who had a

reputation as a clever astrologer, got himself admitted to Rizzio, and

warned him that the stars predicted that he was in deadly peril, and

that he should beware of a certain bastard above all. Rizzio replied

that from the day when he had been honoured with his sovereign’s

confidence, he had sacrificed in advance his life to his position; that

since that time, however, he had had occasion to notice that in general

the Scotch were ready to threaten but slow to act; that, as to the

bastard referred to, who was doubtless the Earl of Murray, he would take

care that he should never enter Scotland far enough for his sword to

reach him, were it as long as from Dumfries to Edinburgh; which in other

words was as much as to say that Murray should remain exiled in England

for life, since Dumfries was one of the principal frontier towns.

Meanwhile the conspiracy proceeded, and Douglas and Ruthven, having

collected their accomplices and taken their measures, came to Darnley to

finish the compact. As the price of the bloody service they rendered the

king, they exacted from him a promise to obtain the pardon of Murray and

the nobles compromised with him in the affair of the "run in every

sense". Darnley granted all they asked of him, and a messenger was sent

to Murray to inform him of the expedition in preparation, and to invite

him to hold himself in readiness to reenter Scotland at the first notice

he should receive. Then, this point settled, they made Darnley sign a

paper in which he acknowledged himself the author and chief of the

enterprise. The other assassins were the Earl of Morton, the Earl of

Ruthven, George Douglas the bastard of Angus, Lindley, and Andrew,

Carew. The remainder were soldiers, simple murderers’ tools, who did not

even know what was afoot. Darnley reserved it for himself to appoint the

time.

Two days after these conditions were agreed upon, Darnley having been

notified that the queen was alone with Rizzio, wished to make himself

sure of the degree of her favour enjoyed by the minister. He accordingly

went to her apartment by a little door of which he always kept the key

upon him; but though the key turned in the lock, the door did not open.

Then Darnley knocked, announcing himself; but such was the contempt into

which he had fallen with the queen, that Mary left him outside,

although, supposing she had been alone with Rizzio, she would have had

time to send him away. Darnley, driven to extremities by this, summoned

Morton, Ruthven, Lennox, Lindley, and Douglas’s bastard, and fixed the

assassination of Rizzio for two days later.

They had just completed all the details, and had, distributed the parts

that each must play in this bloody tragedy, when suddenly, and at the

moment when they least expected it, the door opened and, Mary Stuart

appeared on the threshold.

"My lords," said she, "your holding these secret counsels is useless. I

am informed of your plots, and with God’s help I shall soon apply a

remedy".

With these words, and before the conspirators had had time to collect

themselves, she shut the door again, and vanished like a passing but

threatening vision. All remained thunderstruck. Morton was the first to

find his tongue.

"My lords," said he, "this is a game of life and death, and the winner

will not be the cleverest or the strongest, but the readiest. If we do

not destroy this man, we are lost. We must strike him down, this very

evening, not the day after to-morrow."

Everyone applauded, even Ruthven, who, still pale and feverish from

riotous living, promised not to be behindhand. The only point changed,

on Morton’s suggestion, was that the murder should take place next day;

for, in the opinion of all, not less than a day’s interval was needed to

collect the minor conspirators, who numbered not less than five hundred.

The next day, which was Saturday, March 9th, 1566, Mary Stuart, who had

inherited from her father, James V, a dislike of ceremony and the need

of liberty, had invited to supper with her six persons, Rizzio among the

number. Darnley, informed of this in the morning, immediately gave

notice of it to the conspirators, telling them that he himself would let

them into the palace between six and seven o’clock in the evening. The

conspirators replied that they would be in readiness.

The morning had been dark and stormy, as nearly all the first days of

spring are in Scotland, and towards evening the snow and wind redoubled

in depth and violence. So Mary had remained shut up with Rizzio, and

Darnley, who had gone to the secret door several times, could hear the

sound of instruments and the voice of the favourite, who was singing

those sweet melodies which have come down to our time, and which

Edinburgh people still attribute to him. These songs were for Mary a

reminder of her stay in France, where the artists in the train of the

Medicis had already brought echoes from Italy; but for Darnley they were

an insult, and each time he had withdrawn strengthened in his design.

At the appointed time, the conspirators, who had been given the password

during the day, knocked at the palace gate, and were received there so

much the more easily that Darnley himself, wrapped in a great cloak,

awaited them at the postern by which they were admitted. The five

hundred soldiers immediately stole into an inner courtyard, where they

placed themselves under some sheds, as much to keep themselves from the

cold as that they might not be seen on the snow-covered ground. A

brightly lighted window looked into this courtyard; it was that of the

queen’s study: at the first signal given them from this window, the

soldiers were to break in the door and go to the help of the chief

conspirators.

These instructions given, Darnley led Morton, Ruthven, Lennox, Lindley,

Andrew Carew, and Douglas’s bastard into the room adjoining the study,

and only separated from it by a tapestry hanging before the door. From

there one could overhear all that was being said, and at a single bound

fall upon the guests.

Darnley left them in this room, enjoining silence; then, giving them as

a signal to enter the moment when they should hear him cry, "To me,

Douglas!" he went round by the secret passage, so that seeing him come

in by his usual door the queen’s suspicions might not be roused by his

unlooked-for visit.

Mary was at supper with six persons, having, say de Thou and Melville,

Rizzio seated on her right; while, on the contrary, Carapden assures us

that he was eating standing at a sideboard. The talk was gay and

intimate; for all were giving themselves up to the ease one feels at

being safe and warm, at a hospitable board, while the snow is beating

against the windows and the wind roaring in the chimneys. Suddenly Mary,

surprised that the most profound silence had succeeded to the lively and

animated flow of words among her guests since the beginning of supper,

and suspecting, from their glances, that the cause of their uneasiness

was behind her, turned round and saw Darnley leaning on the back of her

chair. The queen shuddered; for although her husband was smiling when

looking at Rizzio, this smile had assumed such a strange expression

that it was clear that something terrible was about to happen. At the

same moment, Mary heard in the next room a heavy, dragging step draw

near the cabinet, then the tapestry was raised, and Lord Ruthven, in

armour of which he could barely support the weight, pale as a ghost,

appeared on the threshold, and, drawing his sword in silence, leaned

upon it.

The queen thought he was delirious.

"What do you want, my lord?" she said to him; "and why do you come to

the palace like this?"

"Ask the king, madam," replied Ruthven in an indistinct voice. "It is

for him to answer."

"Explain, my lord," Mary demanded, turning again towards Darnley; "what

does such a neglect of ordinary propriety mean?"

"It means, madam," returned Darnley, pointing to Rizzio, "that that man

must leave here this very minute."

"That man is mine, my lord," Mary said, rising proudly, "and

consequently takes orders only from me."

"To me, Douglas!" cried Darnley.

At these words, the conspirators, who for some moments had drawn nearer

Ruthven, fearing, so changeable was Darnley’s character, lest he had

brought them in vain and would not dare to utter the signal—at these

words, the conspirators rushed into the room with such haste that they

overturned the table. Then David Rizzio, seeing that it was he alone

they wanted, threw himself on his knees behind the queen, seizing the

hem of her robe and crying in Italian, "Giustizia! giustizia!" Indeed,

the queen, true to her character, not allowing herself to be intimidated

by this terrible irruption, placed herself in front of Rizzio and

sheltered him behind her Majesty. But she counted too much on the

respect of a nobility accustomed to struggle hand to hand with its kings

for five centuries. Andrew Carew held a dagger to her breast and

threatened to kill her if she insisted on defending any longer him whose

death was resolved upon. Then Darnley, without consideration for the

queen’s pregnancy, seized her round the waist and bore her away from

Rizzio, who remained on his knees pale and trembling, while Douglas’s

bastard, confirming the prediction of the astrologer who had warned

Rizzio to beware of a certain bastard, drawing the king’s own dagger,

plunged it into the breast of the minister, who fell wounded, but not

dead. Morton immediately took him by the feet and dragged him from the

cabinet into the larger room, leaving on the floor that long track of

blood which is still shown there; then, arrived there, each rushed upon

him as upon a quarry, and set upon the corpse, which they stabbed in

fifty-six places. Meanwhile Darnley held the queen, who, thinking that

all was not over, did not cease crying for mercy. But Ruthven came back,

paler than at first, and at Darnley’s inquiry if Rizzio were dead, he

nodded in the affirmative; then, as he could not bear further fatigue in

his convalescent state, he sat down, although the queen, whom Darnley

had at last released, remained standing on the same spot. At this Mary

could not contain herself.

"My lord," cried she, "who has given you permission to sit down in my

presence, and whence comes such insolence?"

"Madam," Ruthven answered, "I act thus not from insolence, but from

weakness; for, to serve your husband, I have just taken more exercise

than my doctors allow". Then turning round to a servant, "Give me a

glass of wine," said he, showing Darnley his bloody dagger before

putting it back in its sheath, "for here is the proof that I have well

earned it". The servant obeyed, and Ruthven drained his glass with as

much calmness as if he had just performed the most innocent act.

"My lord," the queen then said, taking a step towards him, "it may be

that as I am a woman, in spite of my desire and my will, I never find an

opportunity to repay you what you are doing to me; but," she added,

energetically striking her womb with her hand, "he whom I bear there,

and whose life you should have respected, since you respect my Majesty

so little, will one day revenge me for all these insults". Then, with a

gesture at once superb and threatening, she withdrew by Darnley’s door,

which she closed behind her.

At that moment a great noise was heard in the queen’s room. Huntly,

Athol, and Bothwell, who, we are soon about to see, play such an

important part in the sequel of this history, were supping together in

another hall of the palace, when suddenly they had heard outcries and

the clash of arms, so that they had run with all speed. When Athol, who

came first, without knowing whose it was, struck against the dead body

of Rizzio, which was stretched at the top of the staircase, they

believed, seeing someone assassinated, that the lives of the king and

queen were threatened, and they had drawn their swords to force the door

that Morton was guarding. But directly Darnley understood what was going

on, he darted from the cabinet, followed by Ruthven, and showing himself

to the newcomers—

"My lords," he said, "the persons of the queen and myself are safe, and

nothing has occurred here but by our orders. Withdraw, then; you will

know more about it in time. As to him," he added, holding up Rizzio’s

head by the hair, whilst the bastard of Douglas lit up the face with a

torch so that it could be recognised, "you see who it is, and whether it

is worth your while to get into trouble for him".

And in fact, as soon as Huntly, Athol, and Bothwell had recognised the

musician-minister, they sheathed their swords, and, having saluted the

king, went away.

Mary had gone away with a single thought in her heart, vengeance. But

she understood that she could not revenge herself at one and the same

time on her husband and his companions: she set to work, then, with all

the charms of her wit and beauty to detach the kind from his

accomplices. It was not a difficult task: when that brutal rage which

often carried Darnley beyond all bounds was spent, he was frightened

himself at the crime he had committed, and while the assassins,

assembled by Murray, were resolving that he should have that greatly

desired crown matrimonial, Darnley, as fickle as he was violent, and as

cowardly as he was cruel, in Mary’s very room, before the scarcely dried

blood, made another compact, in which he engaged to deliver up his

accomplices. Indeed, three days after the event that we have just

related, the murderers learned a strange piece of news—that Darnley and

Mary, accompanied by Lord Seyton, had escaped together from Holyrood

Palace. Three days later still, a proclamation appeared, signed by Mary

and dated from Dunbar, which summoned round the queen, in her own name

and the king’s, all the Scottish lords and barons, including those who

had been compromised in the affair of the "run in every sense," to whom

she not only granted full and complete pardon, but also restored her

entire confidence. In this way she separated Murray’s cause from that of

Morton and the other assassins, who, in their turn, seeing that there

was no longer any safety for them in Scotland, fled to England, where

all the queen’s enemies were always certain to find a warm welcome, in

spite of the good relations which reigned in appearance between Mary and

Elizabeth. As to Bothwell, who had wanted to oppose the assassination,

he was appointed Warden of all the Marches of the Kingdom.

Unfortunately for her honour, Mary, always more the woman than the

queen, while, on the contrary, Elizabeth was always more the queen than

the woman, had no sooner regained her power than her first royal act was

to exhume Rizzio, who had been quietly buried on the threshold of the

chapel nearest Holyrood Palace, and to have him removed to the

burial-place of the Scottish kings, compromising herself still more by

the honours she paid him dead than by the favour she had granted him

living.

Such an imprudent demonstration naturally led to fresh quarrels between

Mary and Darnley: these quarrels were the more bitter that, as one can

well understand, the reconciliation between the husband and wife, at

least on the latter’s side, had never been anything but a pretence; so

that, feeling herself in a stronger position still on account of her

pregnancy, she restrained herself no longer, and, leaving Darnley, she

went from Dunbar to Edinburgh Castle, where on June 19th, 1566, three

months after the assassination of Rizzio, she gave birth to a son who

afterwards became James VI.

CHAPTER III

Directly she was delivered, Mary sent for James Melville, her usual

envoy to Elizabeth, and charged him to convey this news to the Queen of

England, and to beg her to be godmother to the royal child at the same

time. On arriving in London, Melville immediately presented himself at

the palace; but as there was a court ball, he could not see the queen,

and contented himself with making known the reason for his journey to

the minister Cecil, and with begging him to ask his mistress for an

audience next day. Elizabeth was dancing in a quadrille at the moment

when Cecil, approaching her, said in a low voice, "Queen Mary of

Scotland has just given birth to a son". At these words she grew

frightfully pale, and, looking about her with a bewildered air, and as

if she were about to faint, she leaned against an arm-chair; then, soon,

not being able to stand upright, she sat down, threw back her head, and

plunged into a mournful reverie. Then one of the ladies of her court,

breaking through the circle which had formed round the queen, approached

her, ill at ease, and asked her of what she was thinking so sadly. "Ah!

madam," Elizabeth replied impatiently, "do you not know that Mary Stuart

has given birth to a son, while I am but a barren stock, who will die

without offspring?"

Yet Elizabeth was too good a politician, in spite of her liability to be

carried away by a first impulse, to compromise herself by a longer

display of her grief. The ball was not discontinued on that account, and

the interrupted quadrille was resumed and finished.

The next day, Melville had his audience. Elizabeth received him to

perfection, assuring him of all the pleasure that the news he brought

had caused her, and which, she said, had cured her of a complaint from

which she had suffered for a fortnight. Melville replied that his

mistress had hastened to acquaint her with her joy, knowing that she had

no better friend; but he added that this joy had nearly cost Mary her

life, so grievous had been her confinement. As he was returning to this

point for the third time, with the object of still further increasing

the queen of England’s dislike to marriage—

"Be easy, Melville," Elizabeth answered him; "you need not insist upon

it. I shall never marry; my kingdom takes the place of a husband for me,

and my subjects are my children. When I am dead, I wish graven on my

tombstone: ’Here lies Elizabeth, who reigned so many years, and who died

a virgin.’"

Melville availed himself of this opportunity to remind Elizabeth of the

desire she had shown to see Mary, three or four years before; but

Elizabeth said, besides her country’s affairs, which necessitated her

presence in the heart of her possessions, she did not care, after all

she had heard said of her rival’s beauty, to expose herself to a

comparison disadvantageous to her pride. She contented herself, then,

with choosing as her proxy the Earl of Bedford, who set out with several

other noblemen for Stirling Castle, where the young prince was

christened with great pomp, and received the name of Charles James.

It was remarked that Darnley did not appear at this ceremony, and that

his absence seemed to scandalise greatly the queen of England’s envoy.

On the contrary, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, had the most important

place there.

This was because, since the evening when Bothwell, at Mary’s cries, had

run to oppose the murder of Rizzio, he had made great way in the queen’s

favour; to her party he himself appeared to be really attached, to the

exclusion of the two others, the king’s and the Earl of Murray’s.

Bothwell was already thirty-five years old, head of the powerful family

of Hepburn, which had great influence in East Lothian and the county of

Berwick; for the rest, violent, rough, given to every kind of

debauchery, and capable of anything to satisfy an ambition that he did

not even give himself the trouble to hide. In his youth he had been

reputed courageous, but for long he had had no serious opportunity to

draw the sword.

If the king’s authority had been shaken by Rizzio’s influence, it was

entirely upset by Bothwell’s. The great nobles, following the

favourite’s example, no longer rose in the presence of Darnley, and

ceased little by little to treat him as their equal: his retinue was cut

down, his silver plate taken from him, and some officers who remained

about him made him buy their services with the most bitter vexations. As

for the queen, she no longer even took the trouble to conceal her

dislike for him, avoiding him without consideration, to such a degree

that one day when she had gone with Bothwell to Alway, she left there

again immediately, because Darnley came to join her. The king, however,

still had patience; but a fresh imprudence of Mary’s at last led to the

terrible catastrophe that, since the queen’s liaison with Bothwell, some

had already foreseen.

Towards the end of the month of October, 1566, while the queen was

holding a court of justice at Jedburgh, it was announced to her that

Bothwell, in trying to seize a malefactor called John Elliot of Park,

had been badly wounded in the hand; the queen, who was about to attend

the council, immediately postponed the sitting till next day, and,

having ordered a horse to be saddled, she set out for Hermitage Castle,

where Bothwell was living, and covered the distance at a stretch,

although it was twenty miles, and she had to go across woods, marshes,

and rivers; then, having remained some hours tete-a-tete with him, she

set out again with the same speed for Jedburgh, to which she returned in

the night.

Although this proceeding had made a great deal of talk, which was

inflamed still more by the queen’s enemies, who chiefly belonged to the

Reformed religion, Darnley did not hear of it till nearly two months

afterwards—that is to say, when Bothwell, completely recovered, returned

with the queen to Edinburgh.

Then Darnley thought that he ought not to put up any longer with such

humiliations. But as, since his treason to his accomplices, he had not

found in all Scotland a noble who would have drawn the sword for him, he

resolved to go and seek the Earl of Lennox, his father, hoping that

through his influence he could rally the malcontents, of whom there were

a great number since Bothwell had been in favour. Unfortunately,

Darnley, indiscreet and imprudent as usual, confided this plan to some

of his officers, who warned Bothwell of their master’s intention.

Bothwell did not seem to oppose the journey in any way; but Darnley was

scarcely a mile from Edinburgh when he felt violent pains none the less,

he continued his road, and arrived very ill at Glasgow. He immediately

sent for a celebrated doctor, called James Abrenets, who found his body

covered with pimples, and declared without any hesitation that he had

been poisoned. However, others, among them Walter Scott, state that this

illness was nothing else than smallpox.

Whatever it may have been, the queen, in the presence of the danger her

husband ran, appeared to forget her resentment, and at the risk of what

might prove troublesome to herself, she went to Darnley, after sending

her doctor in advance. It is true that if one is to believe in the

following letters, dated from Glasgow, which Mary is accused of having

written to Bothwell, she knew the illness with which he was attacked too

well to fear infection. As these letters are little known, and seem to

us very singular we transcribe them here; later we shall tell how they

fell into the power of the Confederate lords, and from their hands

passed into Elizabeth’s, who, quite delighted, cried on receiving them,

"God’s death, then I hold her life and honour in my hands!"

FIRST LETTER

"When I set out from the place where I had left my heart, judge in what

a condition I was, poor body without a soul: besides, during the whole

of dinner I have not spoken to anyone, and no one has dared to approach

me, for it was easy to see that there was something amiss. When I

arrived within a league of the town, the Earl of Lennox sent me one of

his gentlemen to make me his compliments, and to excuse himself for not

having come in person; he has caused me to be informed, moreover, that

he did not dare to present himself before me after the reprimand that I

gave Cunningham. This gentleman begged me, as if of his own accord, to

examine his master’s conduct, to ascertain if my suspicions were well

founded. I have replied to him that fear was an incurable disease, that

the Earl of Lennox would not be so agitated if his conscience reproached

him with nothing, and that if some hasty words had escaped me, they were

but just reprisals for the letter he had written me.

"None of the inhabitants visited me, which makes me think they are all

in his interests; besides, they speak of him very favourably, as well as

of his son. The king sent for Joachim yesterday, and asked him why I did

not lodge with him, adding that my presence would soon cure him, and

asked me also with what object I had come: if it were to be reconciled

with him; if you were here; if I had taken Paris and Gilbert as

secretaries, and if I were still resolved to dismiss Joseph? I do not

know who has given him such accurate information. There is nothing, down

to the marriage of Sebastian, with which he has not made himself

acquainted. I have asked him the meaning of one of his letters, in which

he complains of the cruelty of certain people. He replied that he

was—stricken, but that my presence caused him so much joy that he

thought he should die of it. He reproached me several times for being

dreamy; I left him to go to supper; he begged me to return: I went back.

Then he told me the story of his illness, and that he wished to make a

will leaving me everything, adding that I was a little the cause of his

trouble, and that he attributed it to my coldness. ’You ask me,’ added

he, ’who are the people of whom I complain: it is of you, cruel one, of

you, whom I have never been able to appease by my tears and my

repentance. I know that I have offended you, but not on the matter that

you reproach me with: I have also offended some of your subjects, but

that you have forgiven me. I am young, and you say that I always relapse

into my faults; but cannot a young man like me, destitute of experience,

gain it also, break his promises, repent directly, and in time improve?

If you will forgive me yet once more, I will promise to offend you never

again. All the favour I ask of you is that we should live together like

husband and wife, to have but one bed and one board: if you are

inflexible, I shall never rise again from here. I entreat you, tell me

your decision: God alone knows what I suffer, and that because I occupy

myself with you only, because I love and adore only you. If I have

offended you sometimes, you must bear the reproach; for when someone

offends me, if it were granted me to complain to you, I should not

confide my griefs to others; but when we are on bad terms, I am obliged

to keep them to myself, and that maddens me.’

"He then urged me strongly to stay with him and lodge in his house; but

I excused myself, and replied that he ought to be purged, and that he

could not be, conveniently, at Glasgow; then he told me that he knew I

had brought a letter for him, but that he would have preferred to make

the journey with me. He believed, I think, that I meant to send him to

some prison: I replied that I should take him to Craigmiller, that he

would find doctors there, that I should remain near him, and that we

should be within reach of seeing my son. He has answered that he will go

where I wish to take him, provided that I grant him what he has asked.

He does not, however, wish to be seen by anyone.

"He has told me more than a hundred pretty things that I cannot repeat

to you, and at which you yourself would be surprised: he did not want to

let me go; he wanted to make me sit up with him all night. As for me, I

pretended to believe everything, and I seemed to interest myself really

in him. Besides, I have never seen him so small and humble; and if I had

not known how easily his heart overflows, and how mine is impervious to

every other arrow than those with which you have wounded it, I believe

that I should have allowed myself to soften; but lest that should alarm

you, I would die rather than give up what I have promised you. As for

you, be sure to act in the same way towards those traitors who will do

all they can to separate you from me. I believe that all those people

have been cast in the same mould: this one always has a tear in his eye;

he bows down before everyone, from the greatest to the smallest; he

wishes to interest them in his favour, and make himself pitied. His

father threw up blood to-day through the nose and mouth; think what

these symptoms mean. I have not seen him yet, for he keeps to the house.

The king wants me to feed him myself; he won’t eat unless I do. But,

whatever I may do, you will be deceived by it no more than I shall be

deceiving myself. We are united, you and I, to two kinds of very

detestable people [Mary means Miss Huntly, Bothwell’s wife, whom he

repudiated, at the king’s death, to marry the queen.]: that hell may

sever these knots then, and that heaven may form better ones, that

nothing can break, that it may make of us the most tender and faithful

couple that ever was; there is the profession of faith in which I would

die.

"Excuse my scrawl: you must guess more than the half of it, but I know

no help for this. I am obliged to write to you hastily while everyone is

asleep here: but be easy, I take infinite pleasure in my watch; for I

cannot sleep like the others, not being able to sleep as I would

like—that is to say, in your arms.

"I am going to get into bed; I shall finish my letter tomorrow: I have

too many things to tell to you, the night is too far advanced: imagine

my despair. It is to you I am writing, it is of myself that I converse

with you, and I am obliged to make an end.

"I cannot prevent myself, however, from filling up hastily the rest of

my paper. Cursed be the crazy creature who torments me so much! Were it

not for him, I could talk to you of more agreeable things: he is not

greatly changed; and yet he has taken a great deal o f %t. But he has

nearly killed me with the fetid smell of his breath; for now his is

still worse than your cousin’s: you guess that this is a fresh reason

for my not approaching him; on the contrary, I go away as far as I can,

and sit on a chair at the foot of his bed.

"Let us see if I forget anything:

"His father's messenger on the road;

The question about Joachim;

The−state of my house;

The people of my suite;

Subject of my arrival;

Joseph;

Conversation between him and me;

His desire to please me and his repentance;

The explanation of his letter;

Mr. Livingston.

"Ah! I was forgetting that. Yesterday Livingston during supper told de

Rere in a low voice to drink to the health of one I knew well, and to

beg me to do him the honour. After supper, as I was leaning on his

shoulder near the fire, he said to me, ’Is it not true that there are

visits very agreeable for those who pay them and those who receive them?

But, however satisfied they seem with your arrival, I challenge their

delight to equal the grief of one whom you have left alone to-day, and

who will never be content till he sees you again.’ I asked him of whom

he wished to speak to me. He then answered me by pressing my arm: ’Of

one of those who have not followed you; and among those it is easy for

you to guess of whom I want to speak.’

"I have worked till two o’clock at the bracelet; I have enclosed a

little key which is attached by two strings: it is not as well worked as

I should like, but I have not had time to make it better; I will make

you a finer one on the first occasion. Take care that it is not seen on

you; for I have worked at it before everyone, and it would be recognised

to a certainty.

"I always return, in spite of myself, to the frightful attempt that you

advise. You compel me to concealments, and above all to treacheries that

make me shudder; I would rather die, believe me, than do such things;

for it makes my heart bleed. He does not want to follow me unless I

promise him to have the selfsame bed and board with him as before, and

not to abandon him so often. If I consent to it, he says he will do all

I wish, and will follow me everywhere; but he has begged me to put off

my departure for two days. I have pretended to agree to all he wishes;

but I have told him not to speak of our reconciliation to anyone, for

fear it should make some lords uneasy. At last I shall take him

everywhere I wish.... Alas! I have never deceived anyone; but what would

I not do to please you? Command, and whatever happens, I shall obey. But

see yourself if one could not contrive some secret means in the shape of

a remedy. He must purge himself at Craigmiller and take baths there; he

will be some days without going out. So far as I can see, he is very

uneasy; but he has great trust in what I tell him: however, his

confidence does not go so far as to allow him to open his mind to me. If

you like, I will tell him every thing: I can have no pleasure in

deceiving someone who is trusting. However, it will be just as you wish:

do not esteem me the less for that. It is you advised it; never would

vengeance have taken me so far. Sometimes he attacks me in a very

sensitive place, and he touches me to the quick when he tells me that

his crimes are known, but that every day greater ones are committed that

one uselessly attempts to hide, since all crimes, whatsoever they be,

great or small, come to men’s knowledge and form the common subject of

their discourse. He adds sometimes, in speaking to me of Madame de Rere,

’I wish her services may do you honour.’ He has assured me that many

people thought, and that he thought himself, that I was not my own

mistress; this is doubtless because I had rejected the conditions he

offered me. Finally, it is certain that he is very uneasy about you know

what, and that he even suspects that his life is aimed at. He is in

despair whenever the conversation turns on you, Livingston, and my

brother. However, he says neither good nor ill of absent people; but, on

the contrary, he always avoids speaking of them. His father keeps to the

house: I have not seen him yet. A number of the Hamiltons are here, and

accompany me everywhere; all the friends of the other one follow me each

time I go to see him. He has begged me to be at his rising to-morrow. My

messenger will tell you the rest.

"Burn my letter: there would be danger in keeping it. Besides, it is

hardly worth the trouble, being filled only with dark thoughts.

"As for you, do not be offended if I am sad and uneasy to-day, that to

please you I rise above honour, remorse, and dangers. Do not take in bad

part what I tell you, and do not listen to the malicious explanations of

your wife’s brother; he is a knave whom you ought not to hear to the

prejudice of the most tender and most faithful mistress that ever was.

Above all, do not allow yourself to be moved by that woman: her sham

tears are nothing in comparison with the real tears that I shed, and

with what love and constancy make me suffer at succeeding her; it is for

that alone that in spite of myself I betray all those who could cross my

love. God have mercy on me, and send you all the prosperity that a

humble and tender friend who awaits from you soon another reward wishes

you. It is very late; but it is always with regret that I lay down my

pen when I write to you; however, I shall not end my letter until I

shall have kissed your hands. Forgive me that it is so ill-written:

perhaps I do so expressly that you may be obliged to re-read it several

times: I have transcribed hastily what I had written down on my tablets,

and my paper has given out. Remember a tender friend, and write to her

often: love me as tenderly as I love you, and remember:

"Madame de Rere's words;

The English;

His mother;

The Earl of Argyll;

The Earl of Bothwell;

The Edinburgh dwelling."

SECOND LETTER

"It seems that you have forgotten me during your absence, so much the

more that you had promised me, at setting out, to let me know in detail

everything fresh that should happen. The hope of receiving your news was

giving me almost as much delight as your return could have brought me:

you have put it off longer than you promised me. As for me, although you

do not write, I play my part always. I shall take him to Craigmiller on

Monday, and he will spend the whole of Wednesday there. On that day I

shall go to Edinburgh to be bled there, unless you arrange otherwise at

least. He is more cheerful than usual, and he is better than ever.

"He says everything he can to persuade me that he loves me; he has a

thousand attentions for me, and he anticipates me in everything: all

that is so pleasant for me, that I never go to him but the pain in my

side comes on again, his company weighs on me so much. If Paris brought

me what I asked him, I should be soon cured. If you have not yet

returned when I go you know where, write to me, I beg you, and tell me

what you wish me to do; for if you do not manage things prudently, I

foresee that the whole burden will fall on me: look into everything and

weigh the affair maturely. I send you my letter by Beaton, who will set

out the day which has been assigned to Balfour. It only remains for me

to beg you to inform me of your journey.

"Glasgow, this Saturday morning."

THIRD LETTER

"I stayed you know where longer than I should have done, if it had not

been to get from him something that the bearer of these presents will

tell you it was a good opportunity for covering up our designs: I have

promised him to bring the person you know to-morrow. Look after the

rest, if you think fit. Alas! I have failed in our agreement, for you

have forbidden me to write to you, or to despatch a messenger to you.

However, I do not intend to offend you: if you knew with what fears I am

agitated, you would not have yourself so many doubts and suspicions. But

I take them in good part, persuaded as I am that they have no other

cause than love—love that I esteem more than anything on earth.

"My feelings and my favours are to me sure warrants for that love, and

answer to me for your heart; my trust is entire on this head: but

explain yourself, I entreat you, and open your soul to me; otherwise, I

shall fear lest, by the fatality of my star, and by the too fortunate

influence of the stars on women less tender and less faithful than I, I

may be supplanted in your heart as Medea was in Jason’s; not that I wish

to compare you to a lover as unfortunate as Jason, and to parallel

myself with a monster like Medea, although you have enough influence

over me to force me to resemble her each time our love exacts it, and

that it concerns me to keep your heart, which belongs to me, and which

belongs to me only. For I name as belonging to me what I have purchased

with the tender and constant love with which I have burned for you, a

love more alive to-day than ever, and which will end only with my life;

a love, in short, which makes me despise both the dangers and the

remorse which will be perhaps its sad sequel. As the price of this

sacrifice, I ask you but one favour, it is to remember a spot not far

from here: I do not exact that you should keep your promise to-morrow;

but I want to see you to disperse your suspicions. I ask of God only one

thing: it is that He should make you read my heart, which is less mine

than yours, and that He should guard you from every ill, at least during

my life: this life is dear to me only in so far as it pleases you, and

as I please you myself. I am going to bed: adieu; give me your news

to-morrow morning; for I shall be uneasy till I have it. Like a bird

escaped from its cage, or the turtle-dove which has lost her mate, I

shall be alone, weeping your absence, short as it may be. This letter,

happier than I, will go this evening where I cannot go, provided that

the messenger does not find you asleep, as I fear. I have not dared to

write it in the presence of Joseph, of Sebastian, and of Joachim, who

had only just left me when I began it."

Thus, as one sees, and always supposing these letters to be genuine,

Mary had conceived for Bothwell one of those mad passions, so much the

stronger in the women who are a prey to them, that one the less

understands what could have inspired them. Bothwell was no longer young,

Bothwell was not handsome, and yet Mary sacrificed for him a young

husband, who was considered one of the handsomest men of his century. It

was like a kind of enchantment. Darnley, the sole obstacle to the union,

had been already condemned for a long time, if not by Mary, at least by

Bothwell; then, as his strong constitution had conquered the poison,

another kind of death was sought for.

The queen, as she announces in her letter to Bothwell, had refused to

bring back Darnley with her, and had returned alone to Edinburgh.

Arrived there, she gave orders for the king to be moved, in his turn, in

a litter; but instead of taking him to Stirling or Holyrood, she decided

to lodge him in the abbey of the Kirk of Field. The king made some

objections when he knew of this arrangement; however, as he had no power

to oppose it, he contented himself with complaining of the solitude of

the dwelling assigned him; but the queen made answer that she could not

receive him at that moment, either at Holyrood or at Stirling, for fear,

if his illness were infectious, lest he might give it to his son:

Darnley was then obliged to make the best of the abode allotted him.

It was an isolated abbey, and little calculated by its position to

dissipate the fears that the king entertained; for it was situated

between two ruined churches and two cemeteries: the only house, which

was distant about a shot from a cross-bow, belonged to the Hamiltons,

and as they were Darnley’s mortal enemies the neighbourhood was none the

more reassuring: further, towards the north, rose some wretched huts,

called the "Thieves’ cross-roads". In going round his new residence,

Darnley noticed that three holes, each large enough for a man to get

through, had been made in the walls; he asked that these holes, through

which ill-meaning persons could get in, should be stopped up: it was

promised that masons should be sent; but nothing was done, and the holes

remained open.

The day after his arrival at Kirk of Field, the king saw a light in that

house near his which he believed deserted; next day he asked Alexander

Durham whence it came, and he heard that the Archbishop of St. Andrew’s

had left his palace in Edinburgh and had housed there since the

preceding evening, one didn’t know why: this news still further

increased the king’s uneasiness; the Archbishop of St. Andrew’s was one

of his most declared enemies.

The king, little by little abandoned by all his servants lived on the

first floor of an isolated pavilion, having about him only this same

Alexander Durham, whom we have mentioned already, and who was his valet.

Darnley, who had quite a special friendship for him, and who besides, as

we have said, feared some attack on his life at every moment, had made

him move his bed into his own apartment, so that both were sleeping in

the same room.

On the night of the 8th February, Darnley awoke Durham: he thought he

heard footsteps in the apartment beneath him. Durham rose, took a sword

in one hand, a taper in the other, and went down to the ground floor;

but although Darnley was quite certain he had not been deceived, Durham

came up again a moment after, saying he had seen no one.

The morning of the next day passed without bringing anything fresh. The

queen was marrying one of her servants named Sebastian: he was an

Auvergnat whom she had brought with her from France, and whom she liked

very much. However, as the king sent word that he had not seen her for

two days, she left the wedding towards six o’clock in the evening, and

came to pay him a visit, accompanied by the Countess of Argyll and the

Countess of Huntly. While she was there, Durham, in preparing his bed,

set fire to his palliasse, which was burned as well as a part of the

mattress; so that, having thrown them out of the window all in flames,

for fear lest the fire should reach the rest of the furniture, he found

himself without a bed, and asked permission to return to the town to

sleep; but Darnley, who remembered his terror the night before, and who

was surprised at the promptness that had made Durham throw all his

bedding out of the window, begged him not to go away, offering him one

of his mattresses, or even to take him into his own bed. However, in

spite of this offer, Durham insisted, saying that he felt unwell, and

that he should like to see a doctor the same evening. So the queen

interceded for Durham, and promised Darnley to send him another valet to

spend the night with him: Darnley was then obliged to yield, and, making

Mary repeat that she would send him someone, he gave Durham leave for

that evening. At that moment Paris; of whom the queen speaks in her

letters, came in: he was a young Frenchman who had been in Scotland for

some years, and who, after having served with Bothwell and Seyton, was

at present with the queen. Seeing him, she got up, and as Darnley still

wished to keep her—

"Indeed, my lord, it is impossible," said she, "to come and see you. I

have left this poor Sebastian’s wedding, and I must return to it; for I

promised to come masked to his ball."

The king dared not insist; he only reminded her of the promise that she

had made to send him a servant: Mary renewed it yet once again, and went

away with her attendants. As for Durham, he had set out the moment he

received permission.

It was nine o’clock in the evening. Darnley, left alone, carefully shut

the doors within, and retired to rest, though in readiness to rise to

let in the servant who should come to spend the night with him. Scarcely

was he in bed than the same noise that he had heard the night before

recommenced; this time Darnley listened with all the attention fear

gives, and soon he had no longer any doubt but that several men were

walking about beneath him. It was useless to call, it was dangerous to

go out; to wait was the only course that remained to the king. He made

sure again that the doors were well fastened, put his sword under his

pillow, extinguished his lamp for fear the light might betray him, and

awaited in silence for his servant’s arrival; but the hours passed away,

and the servant did not come. At one o’clock in the morning, Bothwell,

after having talked some while with the queen, in the presence of the

captain of the guard, returned home to change his dress; after some

minutes, he came out wrapped up in the large cloak of a German hussar,

went through the guard-house, and had the castle gate opened. Once

outside, he took his way with all speed to Kirk of Field, which he

entered by the opening in the wall: scarcely had he made a step in the

garden than he met James Balfour, governor of the castle.

"Well," he said to him, "how far have we got?

"Everything is ready," replied Balfour, "and we were waiting for you to

set fire to the fuse". "That is well," Bothwell answered—"but first I

want to make sure that he is in his room."

At these words, Bothwell opened the pavilion door with a false key, and,

having groped his way up the stairs; he went to listen at Darnley’s

door. Darnley, hearing no further noise, had ended by going to sleep;

but he slept with a jerky breathing which pointed to his agitation.

Little mattered it to Bothwell what kind of sleep it was, provided that

he was really in his room. He went down again in silence, then, as he

had come up, and taking a lantern from one of the conspirators, he went

himself into the lower room to see if everything was in order: this room

was full of barrels of powder, and a fuse ready prepared wanted but a

spark to set the whole on fire. Bothwell withdrew, then, to the end of

the garden with Balfour, David, Chambers, and three or four others,

leaving one man to ignite the fuse. In a moment this man rejoined them.

There ensued some minutes of anxiety, during which the five men looked

at one another in silence and as if afraid of themselves; then, seeing

that nothing exploded, Bothwell impatiently turned round to the

engineer, reproaching him for having, no doubt through fear, done his

work badly. He assured his master that he was certain everything was all

right, and as Bothwell, impatient, wanted to return to the house

himself, to make sure, he offered to go back and see how things stood.

In fact, he went back to the pavilion, and, putting his head through a

kind of air-hole, he saw the fuse, which was still burning. Some seconds

afterwards, Bothwell saw him come running back, making a sign that all

was going well; at the same moment a frightful report was heard, the

pavilion was blown to pieces, the town and the firth were lit up with a

clearness exceeding the brightest daylight; then everything fell back

into night, and the silence was broken only by the fall of stones and

joists, which came down as fast as hail in a hurricane.

Next day the body of the king was found in a garden in the

neighbourhood: it had been saved from the action of the fire by the

mattresses on which he was lying, and as, doubtless, in his terror he

had merely thrown himself on his bed wrapped in his dressing-gown and in

his slippers, and as he was found thus, without his slippers, which were

flung some paces away, it was believed that he had been first strangled,

then carried there; but the most probable version was that the murderers

simply relied upon powder—an auxiliary sufficiently powerful in itself

for them to have no fear it would fail them.

Was the queen an accomplice or not? No one has ever known save herself,

Bothwell, and God; but, yes or no, her conduct, imprudent this time as

always, gave the charge her enemies brought against her, if not

substance, at least an appearance of truth. Scarcely had she heard the

news than she gave orders that the body should be brought to her, and,

having had it stretched out upon a bench, she looked at it with more

curiosity than sadness; then the corpse, embalmed, was placed the same

evening, without pomp, by the side of Rizzio’s.

Scottish ceremonial prescribes for the widows of kings retirement for

forty days in a room entirely closed to the light of day: on the twelfth

day Mary had the windows opened, and on the fifteenth set out with

Bothwell for Seaton, a country house situated five miles from the

capital, where the French ambassador, Ducroc, went in search of her, and

made her remonstrances which decided her to return to Edinburgh; but

instead of the cheers which usually greeted her coming, she was received

by an icy silence, and a solitary woman in the crowd called out, "God

treat her as she deserves!"

The names of the murderers were no secret to the people. Bothwell having

brought a splendid coat which was too large for him to a tailor, asking

him to remake it to his measure, the man recognised it as having

belonged to the king. "That’s right," said he; "it is the custom for the

executioner to inherit from the-condemned". Meanwhile, the Earl of

Lennox, supported by the people’s murmurs, loudly demanded justice for

his son’s death, and came forward as the accuser of his murderers. The

queen was then obliged, to appease paternal clamour and public

resentment, to command the Earl of Argyll, the Lord Chief Justice of the

kingdom, to make investigations; the same day that this order was given,

a proclamation was posted up in the streets of Edinburgh, in which the

queen promised two thousand pounds sterling to whoever would make known

the king’s murderers. Next day, wherever this letter had been affixed,

another placard was found, worded thus:

"As it has been proclaimed that those who should make known the king’s

murderers should have two thousand pounds sterling, I, who have made a

strict search, affirm that the authors of the murder are the Earl of

Bothwell, James Balfour, the priest of Flisk, David, Chambers,

Blackmester, Jean Spens, and the queen herself."

This placard was torn down; but, as usually happens, it had already been

read by the entire population.

The Earl of Lennox accused Bothwell, and public opinion, which also

accused him, seconded the earl with such violence, that Mary was

compelled to bring him to trial: only every precaution was taken to

deprive the prosecutor of the power of convicting the accused. On the

28th March, the Earl of Lennox received notice that the 12th April was

fixed for the trial: he was granted a fortnight to collect decisive

proofs against the most powerful man in all Scotland; but the Earl of

Lennox, judging that this trial was a mere mockery, did not appear.

Bothwell, on the contrary, presented himself at the court, accompanied

by five thousand partisans and two hundred picked fusiliers, who guarded

the doors directly he had entered; so that he seemed to be rather a king

who is about to violate the law than an accused who comes to submit to

it. Of course there happened what was certain to happen—that is to say,

the jury acquitted Bothwell of the crime of which everyone, the judges

included, knew him to be guilty.

The day of the trial, Bothwell had this written challenge placarded:

"Although I am sufficiently cleared of the murder of the king, of which

I have been falsely accused, yet, the better to prove my innocence, I

am, ready to engage in combat with whomsoever will dare to maintain that

I have killed the king."

The day after, this reply appeared:

"I accept the challenge, provided that you select neutral ground."

However, judgment had been barely given, when rumours of a marriage

between the queen and the Earl of Bothwell were abroad. However strange

and however mad this marriage, the relations of the two lovers were so

well known that no one doubted but that it was true. But as everyone

submitted to Bothwell, either through fear or through ambition, two men

only dared to protest beforehand against this union: the one was Lord

Herries, and the other James Melville.

Mary was at Stirling when Lord Herries, taking advantage of Bothwell’s

momentary absence, threw himself at her feet, imploring her not to lose

her honour by marrying her husband’s murderer, which could not fail to

convince those who still doubted it that she was his accomplice. But the

queen, instead of thanking Herries for this devotion, seemed very much

surprised at his boldness, and scornfully signing to him to rise, she

coldly replied that her heart was silent as regarded the Earl of

Bothwell, and that, if she should ever re-marry, which was not probable,

she would neither forget what she owed to her people nor what she owed

to herself.

Melville did not allow himself to be discouraged by this experience, and

pretended, to have received a letter that one of his friends, Thomas

Bishop, had written him from England. He showed this letter to the

queen; but at the first lines Mary recognised the style, and above all

the friendship of her ambassador, and giving the letter to the Earl of

Livingston, who was present, "There is a very singular letter," said

she. "Read it. It is quite in Melville’s manner."

Livingston glanced through the letter, but had scarcely read the half of

it when he took Melville by the hand, and drawing him into the embrasure

of a window,

"My dear Melville," said he, "you were certainly mad when you just now

imparted this letter to the queen: as soon as the Earl of Bothwell gets

wind of it, and that will not be long, he will have you assassinated.

You have behaved like an honest man, it is true; but at court it is

better to behave as a clever man. Go away, then, as quickly as possible;

it is I who recommend it."

Melville did not require to be told twice, and stayed away for a week.

Livingston was not mistaken: scarcely had Bothwell returned to the queen

than he knew all that had passed. He burst out into curses against

Melville, and sought for him everywhere; but he could not find him.

This beginning of opposition, weak as it was, none the less disquieted

Bothwell, who, sure of Mary’s love, resolved to make short work of

things. Accordingly, as the queen was returning from Stirling to

Edinburgh some days after the scenes we have just related, Bothwell

suddenly appeared at the Bridge of Grammont with a thousand horsemen,

and, having disarmed the Earl of Huntly, Livingston, and Melville, who

had returned to his mistress, he seized the queen’s horse by the bridle,

and with apparent violence he forced Mary to turn back and follow him to

Dunbar; which the queen did without any resistance—a strange thing for

one of Mary’s character.

The day following, the Earls of Huntly, Livingston, Melville, and the

people in their train were set at liberty; then, ten days afterwards,

Bothwell and the queen, perfectly reconciled, returned to Edinburgh

together.

Two days after this return, Bothwell gave a great dinner to the nobles

his partisans in a tavern. When the meal was ended, on the very same

table, amid half-drained glasses and empty bottles, Lindsay, Ruthven,

Morton, Maitland, and a dozen or fifteen other noblemen signed a bond

which not only set forth that upon their souls and consciences Bothwell

was innocent, but which further denoted him as the most suitable husband

for the queen. This bond concluded with this sufficiently strange

declaration:

"After all, the queen cannot do otherwise, since the earl has carried

her off and has lain with her."

Yet two circumstances were still opposed to this marriage: the first,

that Bothwell had already been married three times, and that his three

wives were living; the second, that having carried off the queen, this

violence might cause to be regarded as null the alliance which she

should contract with him: the first of these objections was attended to,

to begin with, as the one most difficult to solve.

Bothwell’s two first wives were of obscure birth, consequently he

scorned to disquiet himself about them; but it was not so with the

third, a daughter of that Earl of Huntly who been trampled beneath the

horses’ feet, and a sister of Gordon, who had been decapitated.

Fortunately for Bothwell, his past behaviour made his wife long for a

divorce with an eagerness as great as his own. There was not much

difficulty, then, in persuading her to bring a charge of adultery

against her husband. Bothwell confessed that he had had criminal

intercourse with a relative of his wife, and the Archbishop of St.

Andrews, the same who had taken up his abode in that solitary house at

Kirk of Field to be present at Darnley’s death, pronounced the marriage

null. The case was begun, pushed on, and decided in ten days.

As to the second obstacle, that of the violence used to the queen, Mary

undertook to remove it herself; for, being brought before the court, she

declared that not only did she pardon Bothwell for his conduct as

regarded her, but further that, knowing him to be a good and faithful

subject, she intended raising him immediately to new honours. In fact,

some days afterwards she created him Duke of Orkney, and on the 15th of

the same month—that is to say, scarcely four months after the death of

Darnley—with levity that resembled madness, Mary, who had petitioned for

a dispensation to wed a Catholic prince, her cousin in the third degree,

married Bothwell, a Protestant upstart, who, his divorce

notwithstanding, was still bigamous, and who thus found himself in the

position of having four wives living, including the queen.

The wedding was dismal, as became a festival under such outrageous

auspices. Morton, Maitland, and some base flatterers of Bothwell alone

were present at it. The French ambassador, although he was a creature of

the House of Guise, to which the queen belonged, refused to attend it.

Mary’s delusion was short-lived: scarcely was she in Bothwell’s power

than she saw what a master she had given herself. Gross, unfeeling, and

violent, he seemed chosen by Providence to avenge the faults of which he

had been the instigator or the accomplice. Soon his fits of passion

reached such a point, that one day, no longer able to endure them, Mary

seized a dagger from Erskine, who was present with Melville at one of

these scenes, and would have struck herself, saying that she would

rather die than continue living unhappily as she did; yet, inexplicable

as it seems, in spite of these miseries, renewed without ceasing, Mary,

forgetting that she was wife and queen, tender and submissive as a

child, was always the first to be reconciled with Bothwell.

Nevertheless, these public scenes gave a pretext to the nobles, who only

sought an opportunity for an outbreak. The Earl of Mar, the young

prince’s tutor, Argyll, Athol, Glencairn, Lindley, Boyd, and even Morton

and Maitland themselves, those eternal accomplices of Bothwell, rose,

they said, to avenge the death of the king, and to draw the son from

hands which had killed the father and which were keeping the mother

captive. As to Murray, he had kept completely in the background during

all the last events; he was in the county of Fife when the king was

assassinated, and three days before the trial of Bothwell he had asked

and obtained from his sister permission to take a journey on the

Continent.

The insurrection took place in such a prompt and instantaneous manner,

that the Confederate lords, whose plan was to surprise and seize both

Mary and Bothwell, thought they would succeed at the first attempt.

The king and queen were at table with Lord Borthwick, who was

entertaining them, when suddenly it was announced that a large body of

armed men was surrounding the castle: Bothwell and Mary suspected that

they were aimed at, and as they had no means of resistance, Bothwell

dressed himself as a squire, Mary as a page, and both immediately taking

horse, escaped by one door just as the Confederates were coming in by

the other. The fugitives withdrew to Dunbar.

There they called together all Bothwell’s friends, and made them sign a

kind of treaty by which they undertook to defend the queen and her

husband. In the midst of all this, Murray arrived from France, and

Bothwell offered the document to him as to the others; but Murray

refused to put his signature to it, saying that it was insulting him to

think he need be bound by a written agreement when it was a question of

defending his sister and his queen. This refusal having led to an

altercation between him and Bothwell, Murray, true to his system of

neutrality, withdrew into his earldom, and let affairs follow without

him the fatal decline they had taken.

In the meantime the Confederates, after having failed at Borthwick, not

feeling strong enough to attack Bothwell at Dunbar, marched upon

Edinburgh, where they had an understanding with a man of whom Bothwell

thought himself sure. This man was James Balfour, governor of the

citadel, the same who had presided over the preparation of the mine

which had blown up Darnley, and whom Bothwell had, met on entering the

garden at Kirk of Field. Not only did Balfour deliver Edinburgh Castle

into the hands of the Confederates, but he also gave them a little

silver coffer of which the cipher, an "F" crowned, showed that it had

belonged to Francis II; and in fact it was a gift from her first

husband, which the queen had presented to Bothwell. Balfour stated that

this coffer contained precious papers, which in the present

circumstances might be of great use to Mary’s enemies. The Confederate

lords opened it, and found inside the three genuine or spurious letters

that we have quoted, the marriage contract of Mary and Bothwell, and

twelve poems in the queen’s handwriting. As Balfour had said, therein

lay, for her enemies, a rich and precious find, which was worth more

than a victory; for a victory would yield them only the queen’s life,

while Balfour’s treachery yielded them her honour.

CHAPTER IV

Meanwhile Bothwell had levied some troops, and thought himself in a

position to hold the country: accordingly, he set out with his army,

without even waiting for the Hamiltons, who were assembling their

vassals, and June 15th, 1567, the two opposed forces were face to face.

Mary, who desired to try to avoid bloodshed, immediately sent the French

ambassador to the Confederate lords to exhort them to lay aside their

arms; but they replied "that the queen deceived herself in taking them

for rebels; that they were marching not against her, but against

Bothwell." Then the king’s friends did what they could to break off the

negotiations and give battle: it was already too late; the soldiers knew

that they were defending the cause of one man, and that they were going

to fight for a woman’s caprice, and not for the good of the country:

they cried aloud, then, that "since Bothwell alone was aimed at, it was

for Bothwell to defend his cause". And he, vain and blustering as usual,

gave out that he was ready to prove his innocence in person against

whomsoever would dare to maintain that he was guilty. Immediately

everyone with any claim to nobility in the rival camp accepted the

challenge; and as the honour was given to the bravest, Kirkcaldy of

Grange, Murray of Tullibardine, and Lord Lindsay of Byres defied him

successively. But, be it that courage failed him, be it that in the

moment of danger he did not himself believe in the justice of his cause,

he, to escape the combat, sought such strange pretexts that the queen

herself was ashamed; and his most devoted friends murmured.

Then Mary, perceiving the fatal humour of men’s minds, decided not to

run the risk of a battle. She sent a herald to Kirkcaldy of Grange, who

was commanding an outpost, and as he was advancing without distrust to

converse with the queen, Bothwell, enraged at his own cowardice, ordered

a soldier to fire upon him; but this time Mary herself interposed,

forbidding him under pain of death to offer the least violence. In the

meanwhile, as the imprudent order given by Bothwell spread through the

army, such murmurs burst forth that he clearly saw that his cause was

for ever lost.

That is what the queen thought also; for the result of her conference

with Lord Kirkcaldy was that she should abandon Bothwell’s cause, and

pass over into the camp of the Confederates, on condition that they

would lay down their arms before her and bring her as queen to

Edinburgh. Kirkcaldy left her to take these conditions to the nobles,

and promised to return next day with a satisfactory answer. But at the

moment of leaving Bothwell, Mary was seized again with that fatal love

for him that she was never able to surmount, and felt herself overcome

with such weakness, that, weeping bitterly, and before everyone, she

wanted Kirkcaldy to be told that she broke off all negotiations;

however, as Bothwell had understood that he was no longer safe in camp,

it was he who insisted that things should remain as they were; and,

leaving Mary in tears, he mounted, and setting off at full speed, he did

not stop till he reached Dunbar.

Next day, at the time appointed, the arrival of Lord Kirkcaldy of Grange

was announced by the trumpeters preceding him. Mary mounted directly and

went to meet him; them, as he alighted to greet her, "My lord;" said

she, "I surrender to you, on the conditions that you have proposed to me

on the part of the nobles, and here is my hand as a sign of entire

confidence". Kirkcaldy then knelt down, kissed, the queen’s hand

respectfully; and, rising, he took her horse by the bridle and led it

towards the Confederates’ camp.

Everyone of any rank in the army received her with such marks of respect

as entirely to satisfy her; but it was not so at all with the soldiers

and common people. Hardly had the queen reached the second line, formed

by them, than great murmurs arose, and several voices cried, "To the

stake, the adulteress! To the stake, the parricide!" However, Mary bore

these outrages stoically enough but a more terrible trial yet was in

store for her. Suddenly she saw rise before her a banner, on which was

depicted on one side the king dead and stretched out in the fatal

garden, and on the other the young prince kneeling, his hands joined and

his eyes raised to heaven, with this inscription, "O Lord! judge and

revenge my cause!" Mary reined in her horse abruptly at this sight, and

wanted to turn back; but she had scarcely moved a few paces when the

accusing banner again blocked her passage. Wherever she went, she met

this dreadful apparition. For two hours she had incessantly under her

eyes the king’s corpse asking vengeance, and the young prince her son

praying God to punish the murderers. At last she could endure it no

longer, and, crying out, she threw herself back, having completely lost

consciousness, and would have fallen, if someone had not caught hold of

her. In the evening she entered Edinburgh, always preceded by the cruel

banner, and she already had rather the air of a prisoner than of a

queen; for, not having had a moment during the day to attend to her

toilet, her hair was falling in disorder about her shoulders, her face

was pale and showed traces of tears; and finally, her clothes were

covered with dust and mud. As she proceeded through the town, the

hootings of the people and the curses of the crowd followed her. At

last, half dead with fatigue, worn out with grief, bowed down with

shame, she reached the house of the Lord Provost; but scarcely had she

got there when the entire population of Edinburgh crowded into the

square, with cries that from time to time assumed a tone of terrifying

menace. Several times, then, Mary wished to go to the window, hoping

that the sight of her, of which she had so often proved the influence,

would disarm this multitude; but each time she saw this banner unfurling

itself like a bloody curtain between herself and the people—a terrible

rendering of their feelings.

However, all this hatred was meant still more for Bothwell than for her:

they were pursuing Bothwell in Darnley’s widow. The curses were for

Bothwell: Bothwell was the adulterer, Bothwell was the murderer,

Bothwell was the coward; while Mary was the weak, fascinated woman, who,

that same evening, gave afresh proof of her folly.

In fact, directly the falling night had scattered the crowd and a little

quiet was regained, Mary, ceasing to be uneasy on her own account,

turned immediately to Bothwell, whom she had been obliged to abandon,

and who was now proscribed and fleeing; while she, as she believed, was

about to reassume her title and station of queen. With that eternal

confidence of the woman in her own love, by which she invariably

measures the love of another, she thought that Bothwell’s greatest

distress was to have lost, not wealth and power, but to have lost

herself. So she wrote him a long letter, in which, forgetful of herself,

she promised him with the most tender expressions of love never to

desert him, and to recall him to her directly the breaking up of the

Confederate lords should give her power to do so; then, this letter

written, she called a soldier, gave him a purse of gold, and charged him

to take this letter to Dunbar, where Bothwell ought to be, and if he

were already gone, to follow him until he came up with him.

Then she went to bed and slept more calmly; for, unhappy as she was, she

believed she had just sweetened misfortunes still greater than hers.

Next day the queen was awakened by the step of an armed man who entered

her room. Both astonished and frightened at this neglect of propriety,

which could augur nothing good, Mary sat up in bed, and parting the

curtains, saw standing before her Lord Lindsay of Byres: she knew he was

one of her oldest friends, so she asked him in a voice which she vainly

tried to make confident, what he wanted of her at such a time.

"Do you know this writing, madam?" Lord Lindsay asked in a rough voice,

presenting to the queen the letter she had written to Bothwell at night,

which the soldier had carried to the Confederate lords, instead of

taking to its address.

"Yes, doubtless, my lord," the queen answered; "but am I already a

prisoner, then, that my correspondence is intercepted? or is it no

longer allowed to a wife to write to her husband?"

"When the husband is a traitor," replied Lindsay, "no, madam, it is no

longer allowed to a wife to write to her husband—at least, however, if

this wife have a part in his treason; which seems to me, besides, quite

proved by the promise you make to this wretch to recall him to you."

"My lord," cried Mary, interrupting Lindsay, "do you forget that you are

speaking to your queen."

"There was a time, madam," Lindsay replied, "when I should have spoken

to you in a more gentle voice, and bending the knee, although it is not

in the nature of us old Scotch to model ourselves on your French

courtiers; but for some time, thanks to your changing loves, you have

kept us so often in the field, in harness, that our voices are hoarse

from the cold night air, and our stiff knees can no longer bend in our

armour: you must then take me just as I am, madam; since to-day, for the

welfare of Scotland, you are no longer at liberty to choose your

favourites."

Mary grew frightfully pale at this want of respect, to which she was not

yet accustomed; but quickly containing her anger, as far as possible—

"But still, my lord," said she, "however disposed I may be to take you

as you are, I must at least know by what right you come here. That

letter which you are holding in your hand would lead me to think it is

as a spy, if the ease with which you enter my room without being asked

did not make me believe it is as a gaoler. Have the goodness, then, to

inform me by which of these two names I must call you."

"Neither by one nor the other, madam; for I am simply your

fellow-traveller, chef of the escort which is to take you to Lochleven

Castle, your future residence. And yet, scarcely have I arrived there

than I shall be obliged to leave you to go and assist the Confederate

lords choose a regent for the kingdom."

"So," said Mary, "it was as prisoner and not as queen that I surrendered

to Lord Kirkcaldy. It seems to me that things were agreed upon

otherwise; but I am glad to see how much time Scotch noblemen need to

betray their sworn undertakings".

"Your Grace forgets that these engagements were made on one condition,"

Lindsay answered.

"On which?" Mary asked.

"That you should separate for ever from your husband’s murderer; and

there is the proof," he added, showing the letter, "that you had

forgotten your promise before we thought of revoking ours."

"And at what o’clock is my departure fixed?" said Mary, whom this

discussion was beginning to fatigue.

"At eleven o’clock, madam."

"It is well, my lord; as I have no desire to make your lordship wait,

you will have the goodness, in withdrawing, to send me someone to help

me dress, unless I am reduced to wait upon myself."

And, in pronouncing these words, Mary made a gesture so imperious, that

whatever may have been Lindsay’s wish to reply, he bowed and went out.

Behind him entered Mary Seyton.

CHAPTER V

At the time appointed the queen was ready: she had suffered so much at

Edinburgh that she left it without any regret. Besides, whether to spare

her the humiliations of the day before, or to conceal her departure from

any partisans who might remain to her, a litter had been made ready.

Mary got into it without any resistance, and after two hours’ journey

she reached Duddington; there a little vessel was waiting for her, which

set sail directly she was on board, and next day at dawn she disembarked

on the other side of the Firth of Forth in the county of Fife.

Mary halted at Rosythe Castle only just long enough to breakfast, and

immediately recommenced her journey; for Lord Lindsay had declared that

he wished to reach his destination that same evening. Indeed, as the sun

was setting, Mary perceived gilded with his last rays the high towers of

Lochleven Castle, situated on an islet in the midst of the lake of the

same name.

No doubt the royal prisoner was already expected at Lochleven Castle,

for, on reaching the lake side, Lord Lindsay’s equerry unfurled his

banner, which till then had remained in its case, and waved it from

right to left, while his master blew a little hunting bugle which he

wore hanging from his neck. A boat immediately put off from the island

and came towards the arrivals, set in motion by four vigorous oarsmen,

who had soon propelled it across the space which separated it from the

bank. Mary silently got into it, and sat down at the stern, while Lord

Lindsay and his equerry stood up before her; and as her guide did not

seem any more inclined to speak than she was herself to respond, she had

plenty of time to examine her future dwelling.

The castle, or rather the fortress of Lochleven, already somewhat gloomy

in its situation and architecture, borrowed fresh mournfulness still

from the hour at which it appeared to the queen’s gaze. It was, so far

as she could judge amid the mists rising from the lake, one of those

massive structures of the twelfth century which seem, so fast shut up

are they, the stone armour of a giant. As she drew near, Mary began to

make out the contours of two great round towers, which flanked the

corners and gave it the severe character of a state prison. A clump of

ancient trees enclosed by a high wall, or rather by a rampart, rose at

its north front, and seemed vegetation in stone, and completed the

general effect of this gloomy abode, while, on the contrary, the eye

wandering from it and passing from islands to islands, lost itself in

the west, in the north, and in the south, in the vast plain of Kinross,

or stopped southwards at the jagged summits of Ben Lomond, whose

farthest slopes died down on the shores of the lake.

Three persons awaited Mary at the castle door: Lady Douglas, William

Douglas her son, and a child of twelve who was called Little Douglas,

and who was neither a son nor a brother of the inhabitants of the

castle, but merely a distant relative. As one can imagine, there were

few compliments between Mary and her hosts; and the queen, conducted to

her apartment, which was on the first floor, and of which the windows

overlooked the lake, was soon left with Mary Seyton, the only one of the

four Marys who had been allowed to accompany her.

However, rapid as the interview had been, and short and measured the

words exchanged between the prisoner and her gaolers, Mary had had time,

together with what she knew of them beforehand, to construct for herself

a fairly accurate idea of the new personages who had just mingled in her

history.

Lady Lochleven, wife of Lord William Douglas, of whom we have already

said a few words at the beginning of this history, was a woman of from

fifty-five to sixty years of age, who had been handsome enough in her

youth to fix upon herself the glances of King James V, and who had had a

son by him, who was this same Murray whom we have already seen figuring

so often in Mary’s history, and who, although his birth was

illegitimate, had always been treated as a brother by the queen.