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

Mary’s remains were immediately taken from her servants, who wished to pay them the last sad offices of affection, and were carried into an adjoining apartment, where a piece of old green baize, taken from a billiard-table, was thrown over that form which had once lived in the light of a nation’s eyes. It lay thus for some time; but was at length ordered to be embalmed, and buried, with royal pomp, in the Cathedral at Peterborough, – a vulgar artifice used by Elizabeth to stifle the gnawing remorse of her own conscience, and make an empty atonement for her cruelty. Twenty-five years afterwards, James VI. wishing to perform an act of tardy justice to the memory of his mother, ordered her remains to be removed from Peterborough to Henry VII.’s Chapel, in Westminster Abbey. A splendid monument was there erected, adorned with an inscription, which, if it spoke truth, James must have blushed with shame and indignation whenever he thought of his mother’s fate.

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, died in the forty-fifth year of her age. If the events of her life have been faithfully recorded in the preceding pages, the estimate which is to be formed of her character cannot be a matter of much doubt. To great natural endowments, – to feelings constitutionally warm, – and to a disposition spontaneously excellent, were added all the advantages which education could confer or wealth purchase. That she was one of the most accomplished and talented women of the age, even her enemies allow. But talents do not always insure success, nor accomplishments command happiness; and by few persons in the whole range of history was this truth more fatally experienced than by Mary Stuart. At first sight, her life and fate seem almost a paradox. That one upon whom most of the common goods of fortune had been heaped with so lavish a hand, – one who was born to the enjoyment of all the rank and splendour which earth possesses, – one whose personal charms and fascinations obtained for her an empire over the heart, more lasting and honourable than that which her birth gave her over a nation, – that even she should have lived to lament that she had ever beheld the light of day, is one of those striking examples of the uncertainty of all human calculations regarding happiness, which, while it inspires the commonest mind with wonder, teaches a deeper lesson of philosophy to the wisely reflective. Circumstances are not so much the slaves of men, as men are of circumstances. Mary lived at an age, and in a country, which only rendered her risk the greater the more exalted her station. In France, where civilization had made more progress, she might perhaps have avoided the evils which overtook her at home; but in Scotland, a Princess possessing the refinement of a foreign court, and though with a large proportion of the virtues and captivations of her sex, not entirely destitute of some of its weaknesses, could hardly expect to cope with the turbulent spirit, the fanatical enthusiasm, the semi-barbarous prejudices of the times, without finding her own virtues immerged in the crowd of contending interests, and the vortex of fierce passions that surrounded her.

Mary’s failings, almost without an exception, “leant to virtue’s side.” They arose partly from too enthusiastic a temperament, and partly from a want of experience. Although she lived forty-four years and two months, it ought to be remembered that she was just twenty-five when she came into England, and that all the most important events of her history happened between sixteen and twenty-five. With feelings whose strength kept pace with the unsuspicious generosity of her nature, Mary was one who, in an especial manner, stood in need of experience, to teach what the world calls wisdom. The great mass of mankind, endowed with no finer susceptibilities, and influenced by no hidden impulses of soul or sense, fall into the common track naturally and easily. But they whom heaven has either cursed or blessed with minds, over which external circumstances exercise a deeper sway, whose fancies are more vivid, and whose impressions are more acute, require the aid of time to clip the wings of imagination, – to cast a soberer shade over the glowing pictures of hope, – and to teach the art of reducing an ideal standard of felicity and virtue, to one less romantic, but more practical. Had she continued longer in public life, there is every probability that the world would have been forced to own, without a dissenting voice, the talent which Mary possessed. In youth, genius is often indicated only by eccentricity and imprudence; but its errors are errors of judgment, which have their origin in an exuberance of sensibility. The sentiments of the heart have burst forth into precocious blossom long before the reasoning faculties have reached maturity. Her youth was Mary’s chief misfortune, or rather it was the source from which most of her misfortunes sprung. She judged of mankind not as they were, but as she wished them to be. Conscious of the sincerity of her own character, and the affectionate nature of her own dispositions, she formed attachments too rashly, and trusted too indiscriminately. She often found, when it was too late, that she had been deceived; and the consequence was, that she became diffident of her own judgment, and anxious to be guided by that of others. Here again, however, she fell into an opposite extreme. In yielding, on her return to Scotland, so implicitly to the counsels of Murray, she did what few queens, young and flattered as she had been, would have done, and what, had she been older, or more experienced, she ought not to have done.

But the highest degree of excellence, both in the material and the moral world, arises out of the skilful combination of many discordant elements. Time must be allowed them to settle down into an harmonious arrangement; and time is all that is required. Before the age of five-and-twenty, it is not to be supposed that Mary’s character had acquired that strength and stability which it would afterwards have attained. Nor was it desirable that it should; for an old head upon youthful shoulders is contrary to nature, and the anomaly frequently ends with a youthful head upon old shoulders. Mary was young – she was beautiful – she was admired – she was a woman; and to expect to have found, in the spring-time of her life, the undeviating consistency, and the cool calculations of riper years, would have been to imagine her that “faultless monster whom the world ne’er saw.” But, considering the situation in which she was placed – the persons by whom she was surrounded – the stormy temper of the age – the pious and deep-rooted prejudices of her subjects against the creed which she professed – the restless jealousy of the Sovereign who reigned over the neighbouring and more powerful country of England – the unfortunate though not precipitate marriage with Lord Darnley, – it may be very safely asked, where there is to be found an example of so much moderation, prudence, and success, in one so recently introduced to the arduous cares of government? Had Mary been vain, headstrong, opinionative, and bigotted, she would never have yielded, as she did, to the current of popular opinion which then ran so tumultuously; – she would never have condescended to expostulate with Knox, – she would never have been ruled by Murray, – she would never have so easily forgiven injuries and stifled resentments. She was in truth only too facile. She submitted too tamely to the insolence of Knox; she was too diffident of herself, and too willing to be swayed by Murray; she was too ready to pardon those who had given her the justest cause of offence; she was too candid and open, too distrustful of her own capacity, too gentle, too generous, and too engaging.

But if her faults consisted only in an excess of amiable qualities, or in those strong feelings which, though properly directed, were not always properly proportioned, the question naturally occurs, why the Queen of Scots should have suffered so much misery? “To say that she was always unfortunate,” observes Robertson, “will not account for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calamities which befel her; we must likewise add, that she was often imprudent.” Here the historian first mistates the fact, and then draws an inference from that mistatement. No “long and uninterrupted succession of calamities” befel Mary. She experienced an almost unparalleled reverse of fortune, but that reverse was sudden and complete. She sunk at once from a queen into a captive, – from power to weakness, – from splendor to obscurity. So long as she was permitted to be the arbitress of her own fortune, she met and overcame every difficulty; but when lawless and ambitious men wove their web around her, she was caught in it, and could never again escape from its meshes. Had she stumbled on from one calamity to another, continuing all the while a free agent, Robertson’s remark would have been just. But such was not her case; – the morning saw her a queen, and the evening found her a captive. The blow was as sudden as it was decisive; and her future life was an ineffectual struggle to escape from the chains which had been thrown round her in a moment, and which pressed her irresistibly to the ground. A calamity which no foresight could anticipate, or prudence avert, may overtake the wisest and the best; and such to Mary was the murder of Darnley, and Bothwell’s subsequent treason and violence. If to these be added the scarcely less iniquitous conduct of Elizabeth, the treachery of Morton, the craftiness of Murray, and the disastrous defeat at Langside, it needs no research or ingenuity to discover, that her miseries were not of her own making.

Should a still more comprehensive view of this subject be taken, and the whole life of the Queen of Scots reviewed, from her birth to her death, it will be found that, however great her advantages, they were almost always counterbalanced by some evil, which necessarily attended or sprung out of them. She was a queen when only a few months old; but she was also an orphan. She was destined, from her earliest childhood, to be the wife of the future monarch of France; but she was, in consequence, taken away from her native country, and the arms of her mother. The power and talents of her uncles of Guise were constantly exerted in her behalf; but she shared, therefore, in the hatred and jealousy in which they were held by a numerous party, both at home and abroad. Her residence and education, at the Court of Henry II., insured the refinement of her manners and the cultivation of her mind; but it excited the suspicions and the fears of the people of Scotland. She was beautiful even to a proverb; but her beauty obtained for her as much envy as praise. She possessed the heart of her husband Francis; but she only felt his loss the more acutely. She returned to her own kingdom as the Queen-dowager of France; but her power and her pretensions made the English dread, and did not prevent her heretical subjects from openly braving, her authority. She married Darnley in the hopes of brightening her prospects, and securing her happiness; but he was the main cause of overclouding the one, and destroying the other. She was freed, by his death, from the wayward caprices of his ill-governed temper; but she escaped from one yoke only to be forced into another a thousand times worse. She loved her brother, and loaded him with favours; but he repaid them by placing himself upon her throne, and chasing her from the country. She escaped into England; but there she met with reproaches instead of assistance, a prison instead of an asylum, a mortal enemy instead of a sister, an axe and a scaffold instead of sympathy and protection.208

Mary’s misfortunes, therefore, may be safely asserted not to have been the result of her imprudence or her errors. But justice is not satisfied with this merely negative praise. The Queen of Scots was one who needed only to have been prosperous, to be in the eyes of the world all that was great and good. And though the narrow-minded are only too ready, at all times, to triumph over the fallen, and to fancy, that where there is misery there is also guilt, they must nevertheless own, that there are some whose character only rises the higher, the more it is tried. If, on the one hand, the temptations to which Mary was exposed be duly considered, – her youth, – the prejudices of her education, – and the designing ministers by whom she was surrounded; – and, on the other, her conduct towards the Reformers, towards her enemies, towards her friends, towards all her subjects, – the deliberate judgment of calm impartiality, not of hasty enthusiasm, must be, that illustrious as her birth and rank were, she possessed virtues and talents which not only made her independent of the former, but raised her above them. In her better days, the vivacity and sweetness of her manners, her openness, her candour, her generosity, her polished wit, her extensive information, her cultivated taste, her easy affability, her powers of conversation, her native dignity and grace, were all conspicuous, though too little appreciated by the less refined frequenters of the Scottish Court. Nor did she appear to less advantage in the season of calamity. On the contrary, she had an opportunity of displaying in adversity a fortitude and nobility of soul, which she herself might not have known that she possessed, had she been always prosperous. Her piety and her constancy became more apparent in a prison than on a throne; and of none could it be said more truly than of her, – “ponderibus virtus innata resistit.” In the glory of victory and the pride of success, it is easy for a conquering monarch to float down the stream of popularity; but it is a far more arduous task to gain a victory over the natural weaknesses of one’s own nature, and, in the midst of sufferings, to triumph over one’s enemies. Mary did this; and was a thousand times more to be envied, when kneeling at her solitary devotions in the Castle of Fotheringhay, than Elizabeth surrounded with all the heartless splendor of Hampton Court. As she laid her head upon the block, the dying graces threw upon her their last smiles; and the sublime serenity of her death was an argument in her favour, the force of which must be confessed by incredulity itself. Mary was not destined to obtain the crown of England, but she gained instead the crown of martyrdom.209

“Many of us,” said the Archbishop of Bruges, who was appointed to preach Mary’s funeral sermon in the church of Notre Dame at Paris, “Many of us have seen in this very place the Queen whom we now deplore, on her bridal morning and in her royal robes, so resplendent with jewels, that they shone like the light of day, or like her own beauty, which was more resplendent still. Nothing was to be discovered around or within but embroidered hangings, and cloth of gold, and precious tapestry, and couches and thrones occupied by kings and queens, and princes and nobles, who had come from all parts to be present at the festival. In the palace were magnificent banquets, and pageants, and masquerades; in the streets and squares, joustings, tournaments, and processions. It seemed as if the overwhelming brilliancy of our age was destined to surpass the richest pomp of every preceding age, – even the times when Greece and Rome were in all their splendor. A brief space has passed away like a cloud, and we have seen her a captive whom we saw in triumph, – a prisoner, who set the prisoners free, – poor, who gave away so liberally, – disdained, who was the fountain of honour. We have seen her, who was a two-fold Queen, in the hands of a common executioner, and that fair form, which graced the nuptial couch of the greatest monarch in Christendom, dishonoured on a scaffold. We have seen that loveliness, which was one of the wonders of the world, broken down by long captivity, and at length effaced by an ignominious death. If this fatal reverse teaches the uncertainty and vanity of all human things, the patience and incomparable fortitude of the Queen we have lost, also teach a more profitable lesson, and afford a salutary consolation. Every new calamity gave her an opportunity of gaining a new victory, and of evincing new proofs of her piety and constancy. It seems certain, indeed, that Providence made her affliction conspicuous, only to make her virtue more conspicuous. Others leave to their successors the care of building monuments, to preserve their name from oblivion; but the life and death of this lady are her monument. Marble, and brass, and iron decay, or are devoured by rust; but in no age, however long the world may endure, will the memory of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and Dowager of France, cease to be cherished with affection and admiration.”210

AN EXAMINATION OF THE LETTERS, SONNETS, AND OTHER WRITINGS, ADDUCED IN EVIDENCE AGAINST MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

O place and greatness! millions of false eyesAre stuck upon thee! Volumes of reportRun with these false and most contrarious guestsUpon thy doings! Thousand ’scapes of witMake thee the father of their idle dream,And rack thee in their fancies. —Shakespeare.

Considering the very opposite opinions which have been long entertained, regarding the character and conduct of the Queen of Scots, no memoirs of her life would be complete, that did not contain some examination of the evidence upon which they who believe her guilty principally rest their conviction. This evidence consists of eight Letters, eleven Love-Sonnets, and one Marriage Contract, all alleged to have been written in the Queen’s own hand, and addressed to the Earl of Bothwell. In corroboration of these, another Contract, said to have been written by the Earl of Huntly, and signed by the Queen; and the Confessions and Depositions of some of the persons who were known to be implicated in Bothwell’s guilt, were likewise produced. Of the Letters, two were supposed to have been written from Glasgow, at the time Mary went thither to visit Darnley when he was ill, and are intended to prove her criminal connection with Bothwell; two or three from the Kirk-of-Field, for the purpose of facilitating the arrangements regarding the murder; and the rest after that event, and before her abduction, to show that the whole scheme of the pretended ravishment was preconcerted between them. The precise time at which it is pretended the Sonnets were composed, does not appear; but expressions in them prove, that it must have been posterior to the Queen’s residence at Dunbar. The Contract of Marriage, in Mary’s own hand, though without date, must have been written very soon after Darnley’s death, and contained a promise never to marry any one but Bothwell. The Contract, said to be in Huntly’s hand, was dated at Seton, the 5th of April 1567, eight weeks after Darnley’s death, a week before Bothwell’s trial and acquittal, and three weeks before he was divorced from his first wife. The Confessions and Depositions are various, but only in one or two of them is any allusion made to Mary. The Letters, Sonnets, and Contracts, were said to have been discovered in a small gilt coffer, which the Earl of Bothwell left in the Castle of Edinburgh, in the custody of Sir James Balfour, at the time he fled from Edinburgh to Borthwick, about a month after his marriage, and shortly before the affair at Carberry Hill. After his discomfiture there, he is stated to have sent his servant, Dalgleish, into Edinburgh from Dunbar, to demand the coffer from Balfour. Sir James, it was said, delivered it up, but at the same time gave intimation to the Earl of Morton, who seized Dalgleish, and made himself master of the box and its contents. The Letters and Sonnets, which were written in French, were afterwards all translated into Scotch, and three into Latin.

Anxious to put beyond a doubt, either the forgery or the authenticity of these writings, numerous authors have exercised their ingenuity and talents, in a most minute and laborious examination, not only of their leading features, but of every line, and almost of every word. It would seem, however, not to be necessary, in so far as the great interests of truth are concerned, to descend to such microscopic investigation, and tedious verbal criticism, as have extended pages into volumes, and rendered confused and tiresome, disquisitions which might otherwise have been simple and interesting. If Mary’s innocence is to be established, it must not be by the discovery of petty inconsistencies, or trifling inaccuracies. If her guilt is to be proved, the impartial reader is not to be satisfied with vague suspicions or ingenious suggestions, but must have a body of evidence set before him, which, if it does not amount to actual demonstration, contains a circumstantial strength equally calculated to convince.

It may be observed, at the outset, that unless the conclusions, to which these writings would lead, be corroborated by the established facts of History, it cannot be expected that a great deal of weight will be attached to them. Besides, it must not be forgotten, that as the originals have been lost, it is by means of translations alone that their alleged contents are known to the world. Upon their authority, Mary is accused of having first committed adultery, and then murder. Whatever opinion may have been formed of her from her behaviour during the rest of her existence, – however gentle her dispositions may have appeared, – however strong her sense of the distinction between right and wrong, – however constant her religious principles, – however wise her government, – however excellent the culture of her mind, – if the letters are to be credited, the whole was either hypocrisy from beginning to end, or, (overcome by some sudden impulse,) a year of gross criminality was introduced into the very middle of a well spent life. If she made so rapid a descent into a career of vice, she as rapidly rose again; and reassuming the character she had laid aside, lived and died with the purity of a saint, and the fortitude of a martyr. It cannot therefore be upon slight grounds that evidence so fatal to her reputation is to be admitted; and there will be little necessity to engage in minute cavilling, or to enter upon points of minor importance, if, by a distinct statement of some of the leading arguments against its authenticity, the whole shall be made to appear nugatory, improbable, and unentitled to credit.

The evidences naturally divide themselves into the two heads of external and internal; and, without further preface, it will be best to consider these in succession.

The External Evidences. – It was on the 20th of June 1567, that Dalgleish was seized, with the box and writings. The official account given by Buchanan is, – “That in the Castle of Edinburgh there was left by the Earl Bothwell, before his flying away, and was sent for by one George Dalgleish, his servant, who was taken by the Earl of Morton, a small gilt coffer, not fully a foot long, being garnished in sundry places with the Roman letter F, under a king’s crown, wherein were certain letters and writings well known, and by oaths, to be affirmed to have been written with the Queen of Scots own hand, to the Earl of Bothwell.”211 The question to be decided is, whether these letters and writings are genuine, or whether they can be proved to be fabrications? That the latter is the correct conclusion, appears on the following grounds.

First, The conduct of Murray, Morton, and others of the Scottish nobility, on various occasions, proves that ambition was the ruling passion of their lives. Murray’s iniquitous extermination of the Gordons in 1562, the influence he afterwards exercised in Mary’s councils, and his unjustifiable opposition to her marriage with Darnley, carried even the length of open rebellion, illustrate his character no less clearly, than the share he had in the murder of Rizzio, and his proceedings after the meeting at Carberry Hill, do that of Morton. A train of events, arising out of the audacious machinations of Bothwell, placed Mary at the disposal of men thus devoted to the attainment of power. Yielding to their irresistible desire to secure its possession, they first imprisoned, and then dethroned their sovereign. She escaped from their hands, and, though driven from the country, threatened to return with foreign aid, to place herself at the head of her own party, which was still powerful, and to force from them their usurped authority. The urgency of the case called for a bold and decisive remedy. If Mary could prove, as there was no doubt she could, that, according to all the facts yet before the world, she had suffered severely and unjustly, they must either fall upon some means to vindicate their own actions, or be ruined for ever. Nothing would more naturally suggest itself than the expedient they adopted. The circumstance of Mary having been actually married to the man who murdered her former husband, opened a door to the very worst suspicions; and if they could artfully conceal the events which led to the marriage, and which not only justified it, but made it a matter of necessity, they hoped still to retain possession of the government. They were aware, indeed, that by their own proclamations and acts of council, they had acknowledged Mary’s innocence, and pointed out the real cause of her connection with Bothwell; and it was now not enough, after they had involved themselves in deeper responsibility, merely to retract their former allegations. They were called upon to show why they departed from them; – they were called upon to prove, that when they first imprisoned her, though they confessed the Queen was innocent, they were now satisfied she was guilty. There was a positive necessity for the appearance of the letters; and if they had not been fortunately discovered, just at the proper time, Murray and his colleagues must either have had recourse to some other expedient, or have consented to Mary’s restoration, and their own disgrace.