Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 1 (of 2)

On the 17th of October, Mary was seized with a severe and dangerous fever, and for ten days her life was esteemed in great danger; indeed, it was at one time reported at Edinburgh, that she was dead. The fever was accompanied with fainting or convulsion-fits, of an unusual and alarming description. They frequently lasted for three or four hours; and during their continuance, she was, to all appearance, lifeless. Her body was motionless; her eyes closed; her mouth fast; her feet and arms stiff and cold. Upon coming out of these, she suffered the most dreadful pain, her whole frame being collapsed, and her limbs drawn writhingly together. She was at length so much reduced, that she herself began to despair of recovery. She summoned together the noblemen who were with her, in particular Murray, Huntly, Rothes, and Bothwell, and gave them what she believed to be her dying advice and instructions. Bothwell was not at Jedburgh when the Queen was taken ill, nor did he show any greater haste to proceed thither when he heard of her sickness than she had done to visit him, it being the 24th of October before he left Hermitage Castle.164 After requesting her council to pray for her, and professing her willingness to submit to the will of Heaven, Mary recommended her son to their especial care. She entreated that they would give every attention to his education, suffering none to approach him, whose example might pervert his manners or his mind, and studying to bring him up in all virtue and godliness. She strongly advised the same toleration to be continued in matters of religion, which she had practised; and she concluded, by requesting that suitable provision should be made for the servants of her household, to whom Mary was scrupulously attentive, and by all of whom she was much beloved. Fortunately however, after an opportunity had been thus afforded her of evincing her strength of mind, and willingness to meet death, the violence of her disease abated, and her youth and good constitution triumphed over the attack.

Darnley, who was with his father at Glasgow, probably did not hear of the Queen’s illness till one or two days after its commencement; but as soon as he was made acquainted with her extreme danger, he determined on going to see her. Here again, we discover the marked distinction that characterized Darnley’s conduct towards his wife and towards her nobility. With Mary herself he had no quarrel; and though his love for her was not so strong and pure as it should have been, and was easily forgotten when it stood in the way of his own selfish wishes, he never lost any opportunity of evincing his desire to continue on a friendly footing with her. When he last parted from her at Holyrood, he had said that she should not see him for a long while; but startled into better feelings by her unexpected illness, he came to visit her at Jedburgh, on the 28th of October. The Queen was, by this time, better; but her convalescence being still uncertain, Darnley’s arrival was far from being agreeable to her ministers. Should Mary die, one or other of them would be appointed Regent, an office to which they knew that Darnley, as father to the young prince, had strong claims. It was their interest, therefore, to sow dissension in every possible way, between the Queen and her husband; and they trembled lest the remaining affection they entertained for each other, might be again rekindled into a more ardent flame. Mary, when cool and dispassionate, they knew they could manage easily; but Mary, when in love, chose, like most other women, to have her own way. They received Darnley, on the present occasion, so forbiddingly, and gave him so little countenance, that having spent a day and a night with Mary, he was glad again to take his departure, and leave her to carry on the business of the state, surrounded by those designing and factious men who were weaving the web of her ruin.

On the 9th of November, the Queen, with her court, left Jedburgh, and went to Kelso, where she remained two days. She proceeded thence to Berwick, attended by not fewer than 800 knights and gentlemen on horseback. From Berwick, she rode to Dunbar; and from Dunbar, by Tantallan to Craigmillar, where she arrived on the 20th of November 1566, and remained for three weeks, during which time an occurrence of importance took place.

END OF VOLUME FIRST

1

Polydore, lib. 26. quoted by Leslie – “Defence of Mary’s Honour,” Preface, p. xiv. – Apud Anderson, vol. I.

2

Knox seems not only to justify the assassination of Cardinal Beaton, but to hint that it would have been proper to have disposed of his successor in the same way. “These,” says he, “are the works of our God, whereby he would admonish the tyrants of this earth, that, in the end, he will be revenged of their cruelty, what strength soever they make in the contrary. But such is the blindness of man, as David speaks, that the posterity does ever follow the footsteps of their wicked fathers, and principally in their impiety: For how little differs the cruelty of that bastard, that yet is called Bishop of St Andrews, from the cruelty of the former, we will after hear.” – Knox’s Hist. of the Reformation, p. 65.

3

Dalyell’s “Fragments of Scottish History.”

4

Keith, p. 68. – Knox’s History, p. 94-6.

5

M’Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. i. p. 222.

6

M’Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. ii. p. 206.

7

The Biographer of Knox goes perhaps a little too far, when he proposes to alleviate the sorrow felt for the loss of these architectural monuments of superstition, by reminding the antiquarian that Ruins inspire more lively sentiments of the sublime and beautiful than more perfect remains. This is a piece of ingenuity, but not of sound reasoning. It is rather a curious doctrine, that a Cathedral or Monastery does not look best with all its walls standing. – M’Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. I. p. 271.

8

It is worth while observing with what a total want of all Christian charity Knox speaks of the death of Mary of Guise. Alluding to her burial, he says: – “The question was moved of her burial: the preachers boldly gainstood that any superstitious rites should be used within that realm, which God of his mercy had begun to purge; and so was she clapped in a coffin of lead, and kept in the Castle from the 9th of June until the 19th of October, when she, by Pinyours, was carried to a ship, and so carried to France. What pomp was used there, we neither hear nor yet regard; but in it we see that she, that delighted that others lay without burial, got it neither so soon as she herself (if she had been of the counsel in her life) would have required it, neither yet so honourable in this realm as sometimes she looked for. It may perchance be a pronosticon, that the Guisean blood cannot have any rest within this realm.” Elsewhere he says – “Within few days after, began her belly and loathsome legs to swell, and so continued till that God did execute his judgment upon her.” And again – “God, for his mercy’s sake, rid us of the rest of the Guisean blood. Amen.” As Keith remarks, it was not by this spirit that the Apostles converted the world. – Keith, p. 129.

9

M’Crie’s Life of Knox, Vol. 1. p. 323.

10

By the kindness of Mr Brown of Glasgow, the ingenious delineator of the Royal Palaces of Scotland, we are enabled to give, as the vignette to the present Volume, a view of this Palace, exhibiting the window of the very room where Mary was born, which is the large window on the first floor, immediately under the flight of birds.

11

Sadler’s State Papers and Letters, vol. i. p. 263.

12

Whittaker, vol. iv. p. 144.

13

Mezeray, Histoire de France, tom. iii. p. 50.

14

Miss Benger’s Memoirs, vol. i. p. 189, et seq.

15

Melville’s Memoirs of his own Life, p. 12.

16

In transcribing dates it may be proper to mention, that we do not observe the old division of the year. Down till 1563, the French began the year at Easter; but it was then altered to the 1st of January, by the Chancellor L’Hopital. In Scotland till 1599, and in England till 1751, the year began on the 25th of March. Thus, in all the State Papers and letters of the age, written between the 1st of January and the 25th of March, the dates invariably belong to what we should now consider the preceding year. It is useful to be aware of this fact; though it is unnecessary for a writer of the present day, to deviate from the established computation of time. – Anderson’s Collections, vol. i. – Preface, p. li.; and Laing, vol. i. p. 266.

17

Keith, p. 73.

18

Goodall’s Examination, vol. l. p. 159, et seq. The motto which Goodall put upon his title page,

“Pandere res altà terrâ et caligine mersas,”

he has in more than one instance amply justified.

19

Mezeray, Castelnau, Brantome, Thuanus, Chalmers, Miss Benger.

20

This picture originally belonged to Lord Robert Stuart, Earl of Orkney, one of Mary’s natural brothers, and is now in the possession of William Trail, Esq. of Woodwick, Orkney, into whose family it came, together with other relics of the Earl, by the marriage of an ancestor of Mr Trail, to one of his descendants. Vide Appendix A.

21

It is to the kindness of John Watson Gordon, Esq. deservedly one of the most eminent portrait-painters in Scotland, that we are indebted, both for the use of the painting from which the engraving has been made, and for several of the facts we have stated above. Mr Gordon has executed three copies of the picture – all of them exceedingly beautiful and accurate – possessing the merits, without any of the dusky dimness, which time has thrown over the original.

22

The coat of arms borne by Francis and Mary is worth describing. The coat was borne Baron and Femme; – The first contained the coat of the Dauphin, which took up the upper half of the shield, and consisted of the arms of France. The lower half was impaled quarterly. In one and four the arms of Scotland, and in two and three those of England. Over the whole was half an escutcheon the sinister half being obscured or cut off, to denote that the English crown was in the possession of another, to the bearer’s prejudice. Under the arms were four lines in French, thus wretchedly translated by Strype, in his “Annals of Queen Elizabeth.”

“The arms of Mary Queen Dauphiness of France,The noblest lady in earth for till advance,Of Scotland Queen and of England, alsoOf France, as God hath providet it so.”

Keith, p. 114. Chalmers, vol. 2d, p. 413. A painting (probably a copy) containing these arms, and the above motto, is preserved in Mary’s apartments at Holyroodhouse.

23

Miss Benger, Vol. II. p. 7.

24

Miss Benger, vol. ii. p. 43.

25

Miss Benger erroneously antedates the death of Francis, on the 28th of November. See her Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 74. Chalmers, who is the very historian of dates, gives a copy of the inscription on the tomb of Francis, which of course settles the point, vol. ii. p. 124. Miss Benger does not appear to have seen this inscription.

26

Conæus in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 19.

27

Keith, p. 157 and 160.

28

Keith, p. 160, & seq.

29

Keith, p. 165, et seq.

30

Keith, p. 167, et seq.

31

Robertson says, that the amendment would not have been approved of by “either Queen.” He alleges that Mary had only “suspended” the prosecution of her title to the English Crown; and that “she determined to revive her claim, on the first prospect of success.” That Robertson has, in this instance, done injustice to Mary, is evident, from the exact consistency of her future conduct, with what will be found stated in the text. —Robertson, Vol. ii. p. 200.

32

Keith, p. 170. et seq. Robertson says, that at the period of these conferences, Mary was only in her eighteenth year; but, as they both took place in 1561, she must have been in her nineteenth year, which Keith confirms, who says (page 178), “The readers having now perused several original conferences, will, I suppose, clearly discern the fine spirit and genius of that princess, who was yet but in the 19th year of her age.”

33

Brantome in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 82.

34

Keith, p. 175. Throckmorton writes, “Thereto the Queen-mother said, The King, my son, and I, would be glad to do good betwixt the Queen, my sister, your mistress, and the Queen, my daughter, and shall be glad to hear that there were good amity betwixt them; for neither the King, my son, nor I, nor any of his Council, will do harm in the matter, or show ourselves other than friends to them both.”

35

Keith, p. 164.

36

Keith, Appendix, p. 92.

37

Robertson, Appendix, No. 5. – from the Cotton Library.

38

Keith, p. 178. – Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 418 – Stranguage, p. 9 – and Freebairn, p. 19.

39

Brantome in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 483, et seq. – Keith, p. 179 – and Freebairn, p. 16 et seq.

40

Several translations of this song have been attempted, but no translation can preserve the spirit of the original.

Adieu, thou pleasant land of France!The dearest of all lands to me,Where life was like a joyful dance —The joyful dance of infancy.Farewell my childhood’s laughing wiles,Farewell the joys of youth’s bright day;The bark that bears me from thy smiles,Bears but my meaner half away.The best is thine; – my changeless heartIs given, beloved France! to thee;And let it sometimes, though we part,Remind thee with a sigh of me.

Mary was not the only one who commemorated in verse her departure from France. Numerous Vaudevilles were written upon the occasion, several of which are preserved in the Anthologie Française.

41

Jebb, vol. ii. p. 484. Keith, p. 180. Miss Benger, vol. ii. p. 125. In an anonymous French work, entitled, “Histoire de Marie Stuart, Reine d’Ecosse et de France,” &c. respectably written on the whole, there is an amusing mistake concerning the locality of Holyroodhouse. In tom. i. p. 181, it is said, “The Queen landed at Leith, and then departed for L’Islebourg,” (the name anciently given to Edinburgh), “a celebrated Abbey a mile or two distant. In this Abbey Mary remained for three weeks, and in the month of October 1561 took her departure for Edinburgh.” This departure for Edinburgh alludes to the visit which Mary paid, a short time after her arrival, to the Castle.

42

The day that his present Majesty George IV. arrived at Leith, in August 1822 (whose landing and progress to Holyroodhouse, though much more brilliant, resembled in some respects that of his ancestor Mary), was as wet and unfavourable as the weather so piously described by Knox. Was this a “forewarning” also of the “comfort” our gracious Sovereign brought into the country? If Knox believed in warnings, there is no telling to what conclusions these warnings might have led.

43

M’Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. ii. p. 22.

44

Miss Benger (vol. ii. p. 132) erroneously supposes, that the Archbishop of St Andrews had died before Mary’s return to Scotland. She should have known that it was he who presided at the baptism of James VI., of which ceremony she gives so particular an account. See Keith, p. 360, and Chalmers, vol. i. p. 196.

45

Jebb, vol. ii. p. 486. Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 202.

46

Buchanan’s Detection, in Anderson’s Collections, vol. ii. p. 52 and 58.

47

This is apparently the first time Mary had ever expressed to Knox her sentiments regarding this pamphlet. He had been treated less ceremoniously by Elizabeth. But knowing the respect in which she was held by the Protestants, he saw it for his interest to attempt to pacify her, and wrote to her several conciliatory letters. Elizabeth put a stop to them, by desiring Cecil, to forward to Knox the following laconic epistle, which merits preservation as a literary curiosity: – “Mr Knox! Mr Knox! Mr Knox! there is neither male nor female: all are one in Christ, saith Paul. Blessed is the man who confides in the Lord! I need to wish you no more prudence than God’s grace; whereof God send you plenty. W. Cecil.” Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 494. Knox himself gives a somewhat different edition of this letter, (Hist. of the Reformation, p. 212.) Where Chalmers found the above, he does not mention.

48

Knox’s History of the Reformation, p. 287, & seq. – Keith, p. 188. It is worth observing, that Knox is the only person who gives us any detailed account of these interviews, and he, of course, represents them in as favourable a light for himself as possible. “The report,” says Randolph, “that Knox hath talked with the Queen, maketh the Papists doubt what will become of the world.” – “I have been the more minute in the narrative of this curious conference,” says M’Crie, “because it affords the most satisfactory refutation of the charge that Knox treated Mary with rudeness and disrespect.” Different people have surely different modes of defining rudeness and respect.

49

Keith supposes erroneously, that this disturbance took place in the Chapel at Holyrood. Randolph, his authority, though his expressions are equivocal, undoubtedly alludes to the Royal Chapel at Stirling. Keith, p. 189 and 190.

50

Knox, p. 292.

51

Keith, p 192.

52

It is worth while attending to the very partial and grossly perverted account which Knox gives of this proclamation, actually introducing into his History an edition of it, fabricated by himself. He then proceeds to find fault with the Magistrates for yielding to “Jezabel’s” commands, and remarks, in allusion to a counter proclamation which the Queen issued, that the town should be patent to all her lieges until they were found guilty of some offence, – “The Queen took upon her greater boldness than she and Balaam’s bleating priests durst have attempted before. And so murderers, adulterers, thieves, whores, drunkards, idolaters, and all malefactors got protection under the Queen’s wings, under colour that they were of her religion. And so got the Devil freedom again, whereas before he durst not have been seen by daylight upon the common streets. Lord deliver us from that bondage!” – Knox, p. 292-3.

53

Randolph in Keith, p. 210.

54

Goodall, vol. i. p. 199, et seq.

55

Freebairn’s translation of Bois Guilbert, p. 32, et seq. – Knox’s History, p. 307. – Chalmers, vol. i. p. 62, and vol. ii. p. 212. – Keith, p. 215 and 216. – and Goodall, vol. i. p. 191.

56

Knox, p. 302. – Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 425.

57

Chalmers, vol. i. p. 78.; vol. ii. p. 293, et seq.; and p. 426, et seq.

58

Knox, p. 315.; Goodall, vol. i. p. 192. – Chalmers says, that Sir John Gordon’s antagonist was not a Lord Ogilvy, but only James Ogilvy of Cardell, a son of the deceased Alexander Ogilvy of Findlater. But as he does not give any authority for this assertion, we have preferred following Knox, Goodall, and Robertson.

59

Chalmers, vol. i. p. 80.; and vol. ii. p. 298.

60

Keith, p. 225.

61

Keith, p. 226.

62

Chalmers, vol. i. p. 84, and vol. ii. p. 302.

63

Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 306.

64

Chalmers, vol. i. p. 90.

65

“The time and place for perpetrating this horrid deed,” says Robertson, “were frequently appointed; but the executing of it was wonderfully prevented by some of those unforeseen accidents which so often occur to disconcert the schemes, and to intimidate the hearts of assassins.” There is something strangely inconsistent between this statement, and that which Robertson makes immediately afterwards in a note, where he says, – “We have imputed the violent conduct of the Earl of Huntly to a sudden start of resentment, without charging him with any premeditated purpose of rebellion.” And that Huntly did not intend to seize the Queen and her ministers, the historian argues upon these grounds: – “1st, On the Queen’s arrival in the North, he laboured in good earnest to gain her favour, and to obtain a pardon for his son. – 2d, He met the Queen, first at Aberdeen and then at Rothiemay, whither he would not have ventured to come had he harboured any such treasonable resolution. – 3d, His conduct was irresolute and wavering, like that of a man disconcerted by an unforeseen danger, not like one executing a concerted plan. – 4th, The most considerable persons of his clan submitted to the Queen, and found surety to obey her commands; had the Earl been previously determined to rise in arms against the Queen, or to seize her ministers, it is probable he would have imparted it to his principal followers, nor would they have deserted him in this manner,” Yet in direct opposition to this view of the matter, Robertson, in telling the story of Huntly’s wrongs, throws upon him the whole blame, and entirely exculpates Murray. – Robertson, vol. i. p. 222, et seq.

66

Chalmers, vol. i. p. 93, and vol. ii. p. 306.

67

Keith, p. 226.

68

Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 307.

69

Knox, p. 320. – Buchanan’s History, Book xvii. – Chalmers, vol. i. p. 95, and vol. ii. p. 309, whose authority is a letter of Randolph, preserved in the Paper Office, and written the evening of the very day on which the battle took place. Randolph, though not on the field himself, had two servants there, and saw the dead body of the Earl, when it was brought into Aberdeen. Robertson and others have said, that Huntly, who was very corpulent, was slain on the field, or trodden to death in the pursuit. Chalmers, however, has truth on his side, when he remarks, that “Doctor Robertson, who never saw those instructive letters (of Randolph), grossly misrepresents the whole circumstances of that affair at Corrachie; he says, ‘Huntly advanced with a considerable force towards Aberdeen, and filled the Queen’s small court with the utmost consternation; and that Murray had only a handful of men in whom he could confide; but, by his steady courage and prudent conduct, gained a miraculous victory.’ For the assertion of Murray’s having only a handful of men, he quotes Keith, p. 230, in which there is not one word of the force at Corrachie on either side. The force there spoken of is what the Queen had about her two months before on her first progress into the North, not on her return to Aberdeen, after new troops had been raised, and old ones summoned to that premeditated and barbarous scene.” Knox is also a better authority upon this subject than Robertson. He gives the following curious account of the Earl’s death and subsequent fate: – “The Earl, immediately after his taking, departed this life, without any wound, or yet appearance of any stroke, whereof death might have ensued; and so, because it was late, he was cast over athwart a pair of creels, and so was carried to Aberdeen, and was laid in the tolbooth thereof, that the response which his wife’s witches had given might be fulfilled, who all affirmed (as the most part say), that that same night he should be in the tolbooth of Aberdeen, without any wound upon his body. When his lady got knowledge thereof, she blamed her principal witch, called Janet; but she stoutly defended herself (as the Devil can ever do), and affirmed that she gave a true answer, albeit she spoke not all the truth; for she knew that he should be there dead.” Knox, p. 328. “It is a memorable fact,” Chalmers elsewhere remarks, “that Huntly and Sutherland” (who was forfeited soon afterwards, as implicated in this pretended rebellion) “were two of those nobles who had sent Bishop Lesley to France, with offers of duty and services to the Queen, while Murray, Maitland, and other considerable men offered their duties and services to Elizabeth.”