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

Unfortunately, however, for the success of this deception, a gentleman from Fife, of the name of Colville, determined to penetrate, if possible, a little further into the mystery. He prevailed upon the subject of the recent experiment to accompany him to his lodgings in Edinburgh. As soon as they were alone, he locked the chamber-door, and either by bribes or threats, contrived to win from him the whole secret. It turned out, that in his boyhood, this tool, in the hands of the designing, had been employed as a herd by the nuns of the Convent of Sciennes, then in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. It was remarked by the sisterhood, that he had an extraordinary facility in “flyping up the lid of his eyes, and casting up the white.” Some of the neighbouring priests, hearing accidentally of this talent, imagined that it might be applied to good account. They accordingly took him from Sciennes to the monastery near Musselburgh, where they kept him till he had made himself an adept in this mode of counterfeiting blindness, and till his personal appearance was so much changed, that the few who had been acquainted with him before, would not be able to recognise him. They then sent him into Edinburgh to beg publicly, and make himself familiarly known to the inhabitants, as a common blind mendicant. So far every thing had gone smoothly, and the scene at the Chapel of Loretto might have had effect on the minds of the vulgar, had Colville’s activity not discovered the gross imposture. Colville, who belonged to the Congregation, instantly took the most effectual means to make known the deceit. He insisted upon the blind man’s appearing with him next day, at the Cross of Edinburgh, where the latter repeated all he had previously told Colville, and confessed the iniquity of his own conduct, as well as that of the priests. To shelter him from their revenge, Colville immediately afterwards carried him off to Fife; and the story, with all its details, being speedily disseminated, exposed the Catholic clergy to more contempt than ever.9

CHAPTER III.

MARY’S BIRTH, AND SUBSEQUENT RESIDENCE AT THE FRENCH COURT, WITH A SKETCH OF THE STATE OF SOCIETY AND MANNERS IN FRANCE, DURING THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, was the third child of James V. and his wife, Mary of Guise. That lady had born him previously two sons, both of whom died in infancy. Mary came into the world on the 7th of December 1542, in the Palace of Linlithgow.10 She was only seven days old when she lost her father, who at the time of her birth lay sick in the Palace of Falkland. James died, as he had lived, with a kingly and gallant spirit. In the language of Pitscottie, he turned him upon his back, and looked and beheld all his nobles and lords about him, and, giving a little smile of laughter, kissed his hand, and offered it to them. When they had pressed it to their lips for the last time, he tossed up his arms, and yielded his spirit to God. James was considered one of the most handsome men of his day. He was above the middle stature; his hair flowed luxuriantly over his shoulders in natural ringlets, and was of a dark yellow or auburn colour; his eyes were gray, and very penetrating; his voice was sweet toned; and the general expression of his countenance uncommonly prepossessing. He inherited a vigorous constitution, and kept it sound and healthy by constant exercise, and by refraining from all excesses in eating or drinking. He was buried in the Royal Vault in the Chapel of Holyrood House, where his embalmed body, in a state of entire preservation, was still to be seen in the time of the historian Keith.

The young Queen was crowned by Cardinal Beaton at Stirling, on the 9th of September 1543. Her mother, who watched over her with the most careful anxiety, had been told a report prevailed that the infant was sickly, and not likely to live. To disprove this calumny, she desired Janet Sinclair, Mary’s nurse, to unswaddle her in the presence of the English Ambassador, who wrote to his own court that she was as goodly a child as he had seen of her age.

Soon after her birth, the Parliament nominated Commissioners, to whom they intrusted the charge of the Queen’s person, leaving all her other interests to the care of her mother. The two first years of her life, Mary spent at Linlithgow, where it appears she had the small-pox, a point of some importance, as one of her historians remarks, in the biography of a beauty and a queen.11 The disease must have been of a particularly gentle kind, having left behind no visible traces. During the greater part of the years 1545, 46 and 47, she resided at Stirling Castle, in the keeping of Lords Erskine and Livingstone. Here she received the first rudiments of education from two ecclesiastics, who were appointed her preceptors, more, however, as matter of form, than from any use they could be of to her at so early an age. When the internal disturbances of the country rendered even Stirling Castle a somewhat dangerous residence, Mary was removed to Inchmahome, a sequestered island in the Lake of Monteith. That she might not be too lonely, and that a spirit of generous emulation might present her with an additional motive for the prosecution of her studies, the Queen Dowager selected four young ladies of rank as her companions and playmates. They were each about her daughter’s age, and either from chance, or because the conceit seemed natural, they all bore the same surname. The four Maries were, Mary Beaton, a niece of Cardinal Beaton, Mary Fleming, daughter of Lord Fleming, Mary Livingstone, whose father was one of the young Queen’s guardians, and Mary Seaton, daughter of Lord Seaton.

Mary having remained upwards of two years in this island, those who had, at the time, the disposal of her future destiny, thought it expedient, for reasons which have been already explained, that she should be removed to France. She was accordingly, in the fifth year of her age, taken to Dumbarton, where she was delivered to the French Admiral, whose vessels were waiting to receive her, and attended by the Lords Erskine and Livingstone, her three natural brothers, and her four Maries, she left Scotland.

The thirteen happiest years of Mary’s life were spent in France. Towards the end of July 1548, she sailed from Dumbarton, and, after a tempestuous voyage, landed at Brest on the 14th of August. She was there received, by Henry II.’s orders, with all the honours due to her rank and royal destiny. She travelled, with her retinue, by easy stages, to the palace at St Germain En Laye; and to mark the respect that was paid to her, the prison-gates of every town she came to were thrown open, and the prisoners set free. Shortly after her arrival, she was sent, along with the King’s own daughters, to one of the first convents in France, where young ladies of distinction were instructed in the elementary branches of education.

The natural quickness of her capacity, and the early acuteness of her mind, now began to manifest themselves. She made rapid progress in acquiring that species of knowledge suited to her years, and her lively imagination went even the length of attaching a more than ordinary interest to the calm and secluded life of a nunnery. It was whispered, that she had already expressed a wish to separate herself forever from the world; and it is not improbable, that had this wish been allowed to foster itself silently in her bosom, Mary might ultimately have taken the veil, in which case her life would have been a blank in history. But these views were not consistent with the more ambitious projects entertained by Henry and her uncles of Lorraine. As soon as they were informed of the bent which her mind appeared to be taking, she was again removed from the convent to the palace. To reconcile her to parting with the vestal sisters, Henry, whose conduct towards her was always marked by affection and delicacy, selected, from all the noble Scotch families then residing in France, a certain number to constitute her future household. The tears which Mary shed, however, upon leaving the nunnery, proved the warmth of her young heart; and that her feelings were not of merely momentary duration, is evinced by the frequent visits she subsequently paid this asylum of her childhood, – and by the altar-piece she embroidered with her own hands for the chapel of the convent.

In no country of Europe was education better understood than it then was in France. Francis I., who remodelled, upon a magnificent scale, the University of Paris, only followed the example which had already been set him by Louis XII. The youth of all countries flocked to the French schools. The liberal principles which induced the government to maintain, at its own expense, professors, who lectured to as many students as chose to hear them, was amply repaid by the beneficial consequences arising from the great influx of strangers. A competent knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Mathematics, Moral Philosophy and Medicine, could be acquired in France for literally nothing. Nor was it necessary, that he who sought for the blessings of education, should profess any particular system of religious faith. The German Protestant, and the Spanish Catholic, were allowed, in these noble institutions, to take their seat side by side. Henry supported the church as an engine of state, whilst he detested the arrogant pretensions and empty insolence of many of the clergy, and was determined that they should not interfere with the more enlightened views which he himself entertained. In this, he only followed the opinions of his illustrious father, Francis, who used to remark, that monks were better at teaching linnets to whistle, playing at dice, tippling, and gormandizing, than in doing good either to religion or morality.

The host of authors, and men of genius, who flourished in France about this period, was another cause of its literary eminence. “Learning,” says Miss Benger, “far from being the badge of singularity, had become the attribute of a superior station.” “There was,” observes the ingenious Pasquier, “a glorious crusade against ignorance.” Many of the names then celebrated have since, it is true, passed into oblivion, but the multitude who cultivated letters, show the spirit of the times. Beza, Seve, Pelletier and others, led the van in the severer departments of intellect; whilst Bellay, Ronsard and Jodelle, showed the way, to a host of followers, in the cultivation of poetry, and the softer arts of composition.

Nor must the great statesmen and warriors, whose presence lent a lustre to the court, be forgotten in this view of the existing pre-eminence of France. The two Houses of Bourbon and Guise, had each given birth to many names destined for immortality. The present chiefs of Bourbon were Anthony, Duke of Navarre, and Louis, known in the history of the world as the first Prince of Condé. There were six brothers of the Guises, of whom the two most illustrious were Francis Duke of Guise, and Charles Cardinal of Lorraine. But they all held the very highest offices in the church or state; one was a Cardinal, and another a Grand Prior; a third, the Duke d’Aumale, commanded the army then in Italy; and the fourth, the Marquis d’Elbeuf, was intrusted with the charge of the French troops in Scotland. But he who held the balance of power between all these contending interests, was the great Montmorency, Constable of France. He had, by this time, become a veteran in the service of the French monarchs. Louis XII. had acknowledged his virtues, and Francis I. looked to him for advice and aid in every emergency. Henry felt almost a filial affection and reverence for so distinguished a statesman and patriot; and Diana de Poictiers herself, the fascinating widow of the Duke de Valentinois, frequently found that she possessed less influence with the monarch than the venerable and unostentatious Montmorency. The minister was at all times surrounded by a formidable phalanx of friends and supporters. Of these his own sons were not the least considerable; and his nephews, the two Colignys, need only to be mentioned, to awaken recollections of some of the most remarkable events of French history.

Neither must we omit to mention the two ladies who held the highest places in the French Court. The sister and the wife of Henry II. resembled each other but faintly, yet both secured the admiration of the country. The Princess Margaret had established herself by her patronage of every liberal art, and her universal beneficence, in the hearts of the whole people. Her religion did not degenerate into bigotry, and her charity, whilst it was at all times efficient, was without parade. She became afterwards the Duchess of Savoy; but till past the meridian of life, she continued constantly at her brother’s Court, – a bright example of all that was virtuous and attractive in female character. To her, France was indebted for discovering and fostering the talents of its great Chancellor Michel L’Hopital; and the honourable name by which she was universally known was that of Minerva. The King’s wife, Catherine de Medicis, was more respected for her talents than loved for her virtues. But as yet, the ambition of her nature had not betrayed itself, and little occasion had been afforded for the exercise of those arts of dissimulation, or the exposure of that proneness to envy and resentment, which at a later period became so apparent. She was still in the bloom of youth, and maintained a high character, not without much show of reason.

Such being the general aspect of the country and the Court, it cannot fail to become evident, that so far from being a just cause of regret, nothing could have redounded more to Mary’s advantage than her education and residence in France. If bigotry prevailed among the clergy, it was not countenanced at the Court, for Henry cared little about religion, and his sister Margaret was suspected of leaning to the Reformed opinions. If Parisian manners were known to be too deeply tinctured with licentiousness, the palace of Catherine must be excepted from the charge; for even the deportment of Diana herself was grave and decorous, and for his sister’s sake, the King dared not have countenanced any of those grosser immoralities in which Henry VIII. of England so openly indulged. The Cardinal of Lorraine, who was at the head of the Parisian University, quickly discovering Mary’s capabilities, directed her studies with the most watchful anxiety. She was still attended by the two preceptors who had accompanied her from Scotland, and before she was ten years old, had made good progress in the French, Latin, and Italian languages. French was all her life as familiar to her as her native tongue; and she wrote it with a degree of elegance which no one could surpass. Her acquaintance with Latin was not of that superficial kind but too common in the present day. This language was then regarded as almost the only one on whose stability any reliance could be placed. It was consequently deemed indispensable, that all who aspired at any eminence in literature, should be able to compose in it fluently. Mary’s teacher was the celebrated George Buchanan, who was then in France, and who, whatever other praise he may be entitled to, was unquestionably one of the best scholars of his time. The young Queen’s attention was likewise directed to Rhetoric, by Fauchet, author of a treatise on that subject which he dedicated to his pupil, – to history by Pasquier, – and to the delightful study of poetry, for which her genius was best suited, and for which she retained a predilection all her life, by Ronsard.

Nor must it be imagined that Mary’s childhood was exclusively devoted to these more scholastic pursuits. She and her young companions, the Scotch Maries and the daughters of Henry, were frequently present at those magnificent galas and fêtes, in which the King himself so much delighted, and which were so particularly in unison with the taste of the times, though no where conducted with so much elegance and grace, as at the French Court. The summer tournaments and fêtes champêtres, and the winter festivals and masquerades, were attended by all the beauty and chivalry of the land. In these amusements, Mary, as she grew up, took a lively and innocent pleasure. The woods and gardens also of Fontainbleau, afforded a delightful variation from the artificial splendours of Paris. In summer, sailing on the lakes, or fishing in the ponds; and in winter, a construction of fortresses on the ice, – a mimic battle of snow-balls, – or skating, became royal pastimes. Mary’s gait and air, naturally dignified and noble, acquired an additional charm from the attention she paid to dancing and riding. The favourite dance at the time was the Spanish minuet, which Mary frequently performed with her young consort, to the admiration of the whole court. In the livelier gailliarde, she was unequalled, as was confessed, even by the beautiful Anne of Este, who, in a pas des deux, acknowledged that she was eclipsed by Mary.

The activity of her body indeed, kept, upon all occasions, full pace with that of her mind. She was particularly fond of hunting; and she and her maids of honour were frequently seen following the stag through the ancestral forests of France. Her attachment to this amusement, which continued all her life, exposed her, on several occasions, to some danger. So early as the year 1559, when hunting in France, some part of her dress was caught by the bough of a tree, and she was cast off her horse when galloping at full speed. Many of the ladies and gentlemen in her train passed by without observing her, and some so near as actually to tread on her riding-dress. As soon as the accident was discovered, she was raised from the ground; but, though the shock had been considerable, she had too manly a spirit to complain, and, readjusting her hair, which had fallen into confusion, she again mounted her horse, and rode home smiling at the accident.12

Another, but more sedentary amusement with Mary, was the composition of devices. To excel in these, required some wit and judgment. A device was the skilful coupling of a few expressive words with any engraved figure or picture. It was an art intimately connected with the science of heraldry, and seems to have suggested the modern seal and motto. The composition of these devices was, as it is somewhere called, only “an elegant species of trifling;” but it had something intellectual in it, which the best informed ladies of the French court liked. An old author, who writes upon this subject, elevates it to a degree of importance rather amusing. “It delights the eye,” he says, “it captivates the imagination, it is also profitable and useful; and therefore surpasseth all other arts, and also painting, since this only represents the body and exquisite features of the face, whereas a device exposes the rare ideas and gallant sentiments of its author; it also excels poetry, in as much as it joineth profit with pleasure, since none merit the title of devices unless they at once please by their grace, and yield profit by their doctrine.”

Mary’s partialities were commonly lasting, and when in very different circumstances, she frequently loved to return to this amusement of her childhood. Some of the emblems she invented, betray much elegance and sensibility of mind. On the death of her husband Francis, she took for her device a little branch of the liquorice-tree, whose root only is sweet, all the rest of the plant being bitter, and the motto was, Dulce meum terra tegit. On her cloth of state was embroidered the sentence, En ma fin est mon commencement; “a riddle,” says Haynes, “I understand not;” but which evidently meant to inculcate a lesson of humility, and to remind her that life, with all its grandeur, was the mere prologue to eternity. The French historian, Mezeray, mentions also that Mary had a medal struck, on which was represented a vessel in a storm, with its masts broken and falling, illustrated by the motto, Nunquam nisi rectam; indicating a determination rather to perish than deviate from the path of integrity.13 When she was in England, she embroidered for the Duke of Norfolk a hand with a sword in it, cutting vines, with the motto Virescit vulnere virtus. In these and similar fancies, she embodied strong and often original thoughts with much delicacy.

In the midst of these occupations and amusements, Mary was not allowed to forget her native country. Frequent visits were paid her from Scotland, by those personally attached to herself or her family. In 1550, her mother, Mary of Guise, came over to see her, accompanied by several of the nobility. The Queen-dowager, a woman of strong affections, was so delighted with the improvement she discovered in her daughter’s mind and person, that she burst into tears of joy; and her Scottish attendants were hardly less affected by the sight of their future Sovereign. Henry, with his young charge, was at Rouen, when the Queen-dowager arrived. To testify his respect for her, he ordered a triumph to be prepared, which consisted of one of those grotesque allegorical exhibitions then so much in vogue; and, shortly afterwards, the two Queens made a public entry into Paris. Mary of Guise had there an opportunity likewise of seeing her son by her first husband, the Duke de Longueville, Mary’s half-brother, but who seems to have spent his life in retirement, as history scarcely notices him. It may well be conceived, that the widow of James V. returned even to the regency of Scotland with reluctance, since she purchased the gratification of her ambition by a final separation from her children.14

It was about the same time that Mary first saw Sir James Melville, who was then only a few years older than herself, and who was sent over in the train of the Bishop of Monluc, when he returned after signing the Treaty of Edinburgh, to be one of Mary’s pages of honour. Sir James was afterwards frequently employed by the Queen as her foreign ambassador, and his name will appear more than once in the sequel. We have spoken of him here for the purpose of introducing an amusing anecdote, which he gives us in his own Memoirs, and which illustrates the state of manners at that period. Upon landing at Brest, the Bishop proceeded direct to Paris. But Sir James, who was young, and could hardly have endured the fatigue of this mode of travelling, was intrusted to the care of two Scotch gentlemen, who had come over in the same ship. Their first step was to purchase three little “naigies,” on which they proposed riding to Paris, any thing in the shape of a diligence being out of the question. To ensure greater safety on the journey, three others joined the party, – two Frenchmen, and a young Spaniard, who was on his way to the College at Paris. On the evening of the first day, they arrived at the town of Landerneau, where all the six were lodged in one room, containing three beds. The two Frenchmen slept together in one, the two Scotsmen in another, and Melville and the Spaniard in the third. The company on the whole does not appear to have been of the most respectable kind; for, as Melville lay awake, he heard “the twa Scotchmen devising how they were directed to let him want naething; therefore, said they, we will pay for his ordinair all the way, and shall count up twice as meikle to his master when we come to Paris, and sae shall win our ain expenses.” The two Frenchmen, on their part, thinking that nobody in the room understood French, said to each other, “These strangers are all young, and know not the fashion of the hostelries; therefore we shall deal and reckon with the hosts at every repast, and shall cause the strangers pay more than the custom is, and that way shall we save our expenses.” At all this Melville, as he tells us, could not refrain from “laughing in his mind,” and determined to be upon his guard. “Yet the twa Scotch young men,” he adds in his antique phraseology, “would not consent that I should pay for myself, hoping still to beguile the Bishop, but the Spaniart and I writ up every day’s compt.” The Frenchmen being foiled in their swindling intentions, had recourse to a still bolder manœuvre. One day, as the party were riding through a wood, two other Frenchmen, who had joined them a short time before, suddenly leapt off their horses, and, drawing their swords, demanded that the others should deliver up their purses. Melville and his Scotch friends, however, were not to be thus intimidated. They also drew their swords, and prepared for resistance; on seeing which, the Frenchmen affected to make a joke of the whole affair, saying that they merely wanted to try the courage of the Scotchmen, in case they should have been attacked by robbers. “But the twa last loons,” says Melville, “left us at the next lodging; and the twa Scotch scholairs never obtenit payment frae the Bishop for their pretendit fraud.” Sir James arrived in safety at Paris, having taken thirteen days to ride from Brest to the capital.15