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 THE 
 
 i^o^al iBviit*
 
 SHEFFIELD : 
 PRINTED BY J. MONTGOMERY.
 
 
 '^'i.iia^.w.wy-'^''*' '
 
 ^F VrHTff 
 
 i% 
 
 jf.
 
 THE 
 
 OR, 
 
 POETICAL EPISTLES 
 
 OF 
 
 NARY, aUEEN OF SCOTS, 
 
 DURING HER CAPTIVITY IN ENGLAND: 
 
 WITH 
 
 4Bti)tv Sxig^inal iJoems. 
 
 BY A YOUNG I.ADY. 
 
 ALSO, BY HER FATHER, 
 
 THE LIFE OF QUEEN MARY, Sfc. Sfc. 
 
 It is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing, 
 than for evil-doing. 1 Pet. iii. 17. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, & BROWN, AND 
 
 TAYLOR &, HESSEY; 
 
 SOLD BY MISS GALES, AND THE OTHER BOOKSELLERS 
 
 IN SHEFFIELD. 
 
 1822.
 
 FR 
 5232 
 
 'R54-05ru 
 
 MEDALLION. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance, that though there are more painted 
 (seemingly original) portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots, than of 
 almost any other person, yet there is not one which is certainly 
 known to be genuine. It is still more remarkable, that there is not, 
 among that great number, any two which greatly resemble each 
 other: Nay, they so far differ as to have various coloured hair and 
 eye-brows; Roman, Grecian, and turned-up noses ; blue and hazle 
 eyes, and complexions of many different shades of dark and fair. 
 
 These circumstances induced Mr. Chalmers to employ a cele- 
 brated artist (Pailob) to examine the effigy of the Queen on her 
 monument, as well as all the best paintings of her, and from them 
 to combine and paint a likeness of her for his interesting " L?/(f 0/ 
 2ueen Mary " The success, however^ of the ablest artist, in such a 
 case, must be very doubtful. 
 
 The Medallion, an engraving of which is prefixed as a frontis- 
 piece to this work, was kindly presented for that purpose, by Mr. 
 Chalmers ; it was originally intended for his Life of Mary, but was 
 finished too late. It is perhaps the most authentic profile of that 
 Queen in existence. The Medallion was engraved (while she was 
 Dauphiness of France) by Primare. Its being pretty generally 
 found in the best collections of Medals is strong evidence of its au- 
 thenticity. 
 
 ^. ''~^ .
 
 33etricaticiu. 
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. HANNAH MORE. 
 
 Madam, 
 
 I TRUST that you will pardon 
 my freedom in presuming thus to dedicate these 
 volumes. I have judged it best to do this without 
 soliciting your consent, because by so doing, I neither 
 subject you to the pain of refusing, nor to the impro- 
 priety of giving the sanction of your name to a work, 
 which you cannot have an opportunity of previously 
 perusing. 
 
 My motive in thus affixing your name, is not so 
 much with a view to promote the success of the under- 
 taking, as to avail myself of an opportunity thus pub- 
 licly to testify the very high esteem in which I hold, 
 and have long held, your admirable writuigs and
 
 vm DEDICATION. 
 
 correspondent life. Of all living authors, I consider 
 you as being the one who has, with the Divine bless- 
 ing, most benefited the cause of pure and undefiled 
 religion, and consequently rendered the most essen- 
 tial service to your fellow-creatures, as well as con- 
 duced to the promotion of God's glory on earth. 
 
 There are several other reasons why this publi- 
 cation may, with peculiar propriety, be inscribed to 
 you. The poetical part of it is the production of a very 
 young female, now first starting (trembhngly, indeed, 
 but ardently,) on that course, wherein, since you were 
 of her age, you have persevered so long, so gloriously, 
 and so successfully. As a father, therefore, I cannot 
 but feel anxious, that, if spai'ed and permitted to pro- 
 ceed, she may emulate so bright and so useful an ex- 
 ample. You have proved that the very highest rank 
 In literature, because the very purest, may be attained 
 and upheld without the relinquishment of any one 
 ordinary and important female duty. That the high- 
 est literary reputation is not incompatible with the 
 greatest humility, and that to be distinguished as an 
 author is not necessarily to be distinguished for eccen- 
 tricities. You have proved, that it is not required,- 
 even for a female, to hide any eminent and peculiar
 
 DEDICATION. IX 
 
 talent with which God has been pleased to endow her, 
 in order to the due cultivation of others, of which she 
 may not be possessed of more than a common share. 
 
 Another reason which may be urged for the de- 
 dication is, that this work is an attempt to do justice 
 to the character of a Female, standing in the very 
 highest rank of station, beauty, and intellectual ac- 
 complishments, the queen of two kingdoms before she 
 was eighteen years of age, and heir-apparent to ano- 
 ther; opposed, afflicted, and calumniated almost be- 
 yond any other instance that history records. You 
 have not escaped either affliction or calumny ; you, 
 therefore, whatever may have been your previous sen- 
 timent, will, more than most others, rejoice in the 
 success (should such attend it) of an undertaking, de- 
 signed to remove those prejudices which have hitherto 
 contributed, in this instance, to oppose the perception 
 of truth, and to prevent that justice being done to the 
 illustrious dead, which an enlightened public is ever 
 ready to pay. 
 
 Again ; the profits of this publication are de- 
 signed to alleviate the sufferings of deserving females, 
 
 afflicted with the bereavements, the infirmities, and 
 VOL. I. b
 
 X DEDICATION. 
 
 the too frequent neglects of old age, — with poverty 
 and want, sometimes with ignorance and evil habits, 
 tottering on the brink of the grave, into which num- 
 bers are, in the course of every year, removed from 
 the lists and the visits of their attentive benefactors. 
 For such, none can, none do, feel more than you ; 
 few have made equal exertions in their cause ; nor 
 will any, I am assured, more rejoice in the mitigation 
 of their sorrows and their sufferings. 
 
 In conclusion, I have only earnestly to pray, that 
 myself, the youthful poetess, and all who read this 
 address, may be stimulated to imitate that example 
 which you have so long and so ilhistriously held up, 
 of the most lively ya/M, evinced by the most eminent 
 good 'works, and that we may, with you, receive, with 
 a crown of glory, that will never fade away, that ex- 
 hilarating commendation of the Righteous Judge of 
 quick and dead, — " Well dojie, good andJaitJifid ser- 
 •vant, enter thou into the joy of thy LordP 
 
 I am, 
 
 Madam, 
 
 Most respectfully, 
 Your sincere admirer and obedient Servant, 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 Jan.1, 1822.
 
 AGED FEMALE SOCIETY. 
 
 " Me let the tender office long engage 
 To rock the cradle of declining aL;e." 
 
 It is with the hope and expectation that similar plans may be adopt- 
 ed in other places, that the following description of the j4^ed Female 
 Society in Sheffield, (to the use of which any profits that may arise 
 from the sale of this publication are intended to be applied,) is here 
 given, together with the General Rules of the Institution. 
 
 The Society was established in April, 1810. The General Rules 
 below, explain its nature and its object. It is a truly Christian In- 
 stitution; all distinction of sect or party being totally excluded. 
 This Charitable Institution is scarcely liable either to imposition, 
 mismanagement, or misapplication of its funds, the means of con- 
 ducting its concerns being simple and clearly defined ; age, charac- 
 ter, and necessity, are all that are required to be ascertained. 
 
 This Society, perhaps more than any other, acts as a double 
 blessing, the Visitors not unfrequently reaping the greatest advan- 
 tage. The benefactors, and the objects of their bounty, become, 
 almost invariably, more or less attached to each other. The visits 
 of the former, though they may be, like those of angels, " short and 
 far between," partake, like them, of a heavenly nature ; they are 
 anticipated with hope, they are received with advantage, and they 
 are remembered with pleasure. 
 
 GENERAL RULES OF THE INSTITUTION. 
 
 I. That the Officers of this Society shall consist of Six Patro- 
 nesses, a Treasurer, Two Secretaries, and a Committee of Sixteen 
 Ladies, any five of which Committee shall be competent to act; that 
 four of the Committee shall go out of office every year, either by re-
 
 Xll AGED FEMALE SOCIETY. 
 
 sisnatioii or ballot, and four others be elected in their places at the 
 General Meetina; to be held annually, on the second Monday in 
 May, at which Meeting the Patronesses, Treasurer, and Secretaries 
 shall be annually chosen. 
 
 2. That Three Ladies be appointed to audit the Accounts, pre- 
 vious to every General Meeting;. 
 
 3. That no Subscriptions of less than Five Shillings be accepted; 
 the first payment to be made on entrance into the Society, and that 
 every Lady being a Subscriber of One Guinea, or making a Dona- 
 tion of Five Guineas, be entitled to vote at all Meetings of the Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 ■4. That Donors shall have the privilege of recommending objects 
 to be relieved by this Society, in tlie proportion of one for every 
 Five Guineas ; annual Subscribers in the proportion of one forevery 
 half Guinea, and that two Subscribers, of Five Shillings each, may 
 unite to recommend one object, to which recommendations particu- 
 lar attention shall be paid. 
 
 6. That poor and infirm Widows and single Women of good 
 character, of sixty-five years of age and upwards, not having an 
 income of more than Five Shillings per week, be deemed proper 
 objects of this Charity. 
 
 6. That no person be relieved by this Society whq resides more 
 than three miles from the Parish Church, nor if residing more than 
 one mile and a half, unless the person recommending have obtained 
 the approbation of one of the Committee, with her promise perso- 
 nally to visit and investigate the circumstances and merits of the 
 Candidate, who shall then be deemed eligible to receive such relief 
 as the Committee, after hearing the Visitors' Report, shall deter- 
 mine. 
 
 7. That the relief granted shall be in Money, Clothing, Fuel, 
 Medicines, or otherwise, as the case in the judgment of the Commit- 
 tee or Visitors may require. 
 
 8. That all Donations made to this Society shall be placed in the 
 public Funds, and the Interest only be employed to aid the Sub- 
 scriptions in relieving the objects of this Charity. 
 
 *** Number of cases upon the List during last year 302. The 
 sum expended in their relief during the year d£^265.
 
 SUBSCRIBERS' NAMES. 
 
 His Grace the Archbishop of York, three fine copies 
 
 His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, two do. 
 
 The Right Hon. Earl Fitzwilliam.^w do. 
 
 The Right Hon. Lady Fitzwilliam, two do. 
 
 The Right Hon. Lonl Milton, ./?7ie 
 
 The Right Hon. Lady Milton, ^ne 
 
 J. A. S. Wortley, Esq. M. P., fine 
 
 Lady Caroline Wortley, ^ine 
 
 The Right Hon. the Earl of Harewood, fine 
 
 The Right Hon. Lord Calthorpe,^iie 
 
 Hon. Miss Calthorpe,^ne 
 
 J. Stevens, Esq., Master in Chancery, ^ne 
 
 Sir Robert Gifford, His Majesty's Attorney-GeneraI,/n« 
 
 Lady Gifford, ^ne 
 
 Hon. Baron Wood, fine 
 
 W. Wilberforce, Esq., M. F.,fine 
 
 Mrs. Hannah More, fine 
 
 Sir J. S. Copley, His Majesty's Solicitor-General,^nc 
 
 Lady Copley,^ne 
 
 Lady Olivia Sparrow, ^ne 
 
 Lady Radcliffe, Violet Bank, fine 
 
 George Chalmers, Esq., F. R.S. A., six fine copies
 
 xiv subscribers' names. 
 
 Alderson, Rev. J. 
 
 Alexander, Mr W., York, one fine, one common 
 
 Bacon, H. A.,^»ie 
 Bagshawe, Rev. Wm.,fine 
 Bailies, Mrs., Leeds 
 Barwick, Mr., Do., fine 
 Beldon, Miss, Darnal,fine 
 Best, Rev. T. 
 Bishop, Mr. E. h.,fine 
 Blakelock, Mr. R.,fine 
 Bright, Mr 
 Brittain, Mr \.,fine 
 Brittain, Miss 
 Broadbent, Mrs., Leeds 
 Brown, Mr 36\\n,finc 
 Broww, G. C, M. J)., fine 
 Brownell, Mrs. Nenfield, fine 
 
 Cadman, Mr G.,fine 
 
 Cadman, Mrs., Handsworth 
 
 Carver, Mrs.,_^ne 
 
 Chambers, Mr M., fine 
 
 Clayton, Mrs M. 
 
 Cockburn, — , Esq., Edinburgh, fine 
 
 Colley, Mr Wm. 
 
 Cotterill, Rev. Thomas, ^ne 
 
 Cotterill, Rev. J., Ampton,fine 
 
 Creswick, Miss,^«e 
 
 Creswick, Mr Thomas,_^ne 
 
 Creswick, Mr James,_^ne 
 
 Creswick, Mr Nathaniel, _^nc 
 
 Darwin, Mr J. G.,fine 
 Didsbiiry, Mrs 
 Dixon, Mr Joseph 
 Dunn, Mr Thomas 
 
 Ellin, Mrs., fine 
 
 Ellis, R., Esq., Lincoln's Inn, fine 
 
 Ellison, M., Esq.,^nc
 
 subscribers' names. XV 
 
 Ellison, Thomas, Esq.,_^«e 
 
 Fairbank, Mr Josiahj/ne 
 Fletcher, Miss, Newark 
 Friend, A, by Miss Hirst 
 
 Greaves, G. B., Esq,,^w<? 
 Greaves, Mrs.,^»e 
 
 Handley, Mrs. S., Newark 
 Hargreaves, Mr William, fine 
 HaiTison, Mrs., WeHon,fine 
 Hazlehurst, Mr D. 
 Hirst, Miss, Whitehouse 
 Hodgson, R., Esq.j^^ne 
 Holy, Thomas, Esq.,_^ne 
 Hounsfield, MrB.,^«e 
 Hunter, Rev. J., Bath 
 Hunter, Mrs., Do. 
 
 Jones, Mr. J., fine 
 
 KiLHAM, Mrs H.j^ne 
 
 Ladies' Book Society, Newark 
 Law, Mrs Philip,^ne 
 Ledger, Mr H. 
 Lockwood, Mr William, _/ine 
 Longden, Mr H. 
 
 Mackenzie, Mrs., Clifford, fine 
 
 Mather, Mr., Organist,^ne 
 
 Martin, Mr R. J., London 
 
 Maude, F., Esq., Brazen Nose College, fint 
 
 M'Coy, Mr Edward, KensinytoH,fine 
 
 Middlebrook, Mrs., Leeds, fine 
 
 Middleton, M. M., Esq.,^ne 
 
 Milner, J., Esq., Attercliffe,fine 
 
 Montgomery, Mr James,_^»ie 
 
 Morton, Mrs. John, fine
 
 xvi subscribers' names* 
 
 Needliani; Miss 
 
 Neilson, VV., Esq., Brazen Nose College, Jine 
 
 Newboiild, Mr Jolin,^?ie 
 
 Nevvboukl, Mrs Henry, fine 
 
 Newbould, Messrs T. £c W.,fine 
 
 Newton, Mr G., ThorHchffe,fine 
 
 Newton, Mr John 
 
 Nichols, Mr R., Waltefield, six common copies 
 
 OuTRAM, Miss 
 
 Oliver, B., Esq., Sudbiirjj,fine 
 
 Pahker, Mrs., Woodlliorpe,fine 
 Parker, E., Esq., Brazen Nose College, fine 
 Peech, Mrs., Market-street 
 Pierson, Miss H., Wingfield 
 
 Rawson, Thomas, Esq.,^ie 
 
 Rawson, Miss.^Vdc 
 
 Rawson, Miss, Philadelphia 
 
 Read, Miss, Nortoji House, fine 
 
 Read, Joseph, Esq., /wje 
 
 Revill, Mrs.,/iHe 
 
 Rhodes, Mr E. 
 
 Riinington, J., Esq. 
 
 Roberts, Samuel Mr., Park Grange, si.i/me copies, and six 
 
 common copies 
 Roberts, Mrs. John, fine 
 Robinson, Mrs., Stamford, fine 
 Rogers, Mr., Organist 
 
 Senior, Mr G. 
 
 Shirt, Miss, Wales, two fine copies 
 
 Shore, J., Esq. 
 
 Shore, W., Esq., Tapton Grove, fine 
 
 Shore, S., Esq., Meershrooh, fine 
 
 Sikes, Rev. J., Nen;arli,fine 
 
 Silcock, Miss 
 
 Skey, B., Esq., Brazen Nose College, fine 
 
 Smith, Mr Albert
 
 subscribers' names. xvii 
 
 Smith, Miss 
 
 Smith, Mrs C. 
 
 Smith, Mrs., /me 
 
 Smith, Mr S.,/ine 
 
 Smith, Rev. Thomas 
 
 Sorby, MrR.,/inc 
 
 Sorby, Mrs Edwin, Button Hill,fine 
 Sorby, Mrs J., Spital Hill, fine' 
 Sorby, H., Esq., Hall Carr,fine 
 Sparrow, Miss, /me 
 Spencer, Miss H., Dronfield, fine 
 Stansfield, Mr 
 Stanton, C, Esq., Mansfield 
 Sterling, Mr., Goddard Hall, fine 
 Sykes, G., Esq., two fine copies 
 Sykes, Mrs., two fine copies 
 Sykes, Mrs D., Mansfield, fint 
 Sykes, Mr Josepl),/t}ie 
 Sykes, N., Esq., Hull, fine 
 Sykes, Mr John, /me 
 Sykes, Mrs., Mansfield, fine 
 Sutton, Mrs., Grey Stones, fine 
 
 Tinker, Mr., two fine copies 
 
 Tinker, Mrs., two fine copies 
 
 Thomas, Mr L.,fine 
 
 Todtl,MrW.,/me 
 
 Tooke, W., Esq., F.R.S., V.P. Society of Ai Ls, fine 
 
 Tooke, Mrs 
 
 Tyas, R., Esq., Doncastcr, fin^ 
 
 Unthamk, Mrs., Leeds 
 
 Vale, Rev. W. H.,/me 
 
 Vavasour, M., Esq., Brazen Nose Coll^,;,; fine. 
 
 Walker, Miss, Mashro' House, fine 
 Walker, Miss M. A., Do., fine 
 Walker, Mis Joshua, Clifton, fine 
 Walker, Mrs Josepli, Eastwood, fine 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 xviii subscribers' names. 
 
 Ward, T. A., Esq.,/ine 
 
 Watson, J., Esq.,/ijie 
 
 Weldon, J., Esq., ^ramiey Hall, fine 
 
 Wheat, Miss, fine 
 
 Wheat, Miss Elizabeth,/ine 
 
 Wiley, Mrs., /me 
 
 Wild, Mr Thomas,/me 
 
 Wilkinson, Mrs., fine 
 
 Wilson, Mrs., Leedi 
 
 Wilson, Miss, Do, 
 
 Wilson, John, Esq., /me 
 
 Wilson, James, Esq., /me 
 
 Wragg, W., Esq., /me 
 
 Wright, C, Esq., two fine copies, one eommon 
 
 Wright, George, Esq., Anston, four fine 
 
 Younge, Mrs M., fine 
 Younge, C. F., Esq., /mc
 
 tfWNwwwMwwiw w wwwiwwyw 
 
 There is not upon earth a more heavenly office than that of disin- 
 terestedly advocating the cause of long calumniated and injured 
 
 innocence. 
 
 Anonymous.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IF the most important use of history be to instruct us by example 
 how to avoid the evil and to choose the .uood, it is ureatly to be 
 lamented that taere are so very few instances in which its accuracy 
 can be implicitly relied upon. Even the most clear and simple facts 
 are frequently so differently related, by different historians, as to be 
 totally at variance with each other, and to lead to diametrically 
 opposite conclusions. This is often the case, with respect even to 
 public occurrences and measures ; but it is more particularly the 
 case when the historian descends to the actions of individuals, and 
 still more so, when he attempts to develope the motives from whence 
 those actions proceed. To explain the cause of much of this variance 
 would not be a difficult task, but it would in this place be leading 
 too far from the object of the present publication. The fact is too 
 notorious to admit of being disputed, and, therefore, I may now ' 
 proceed to the immediate application of it, as attaching to the 
 particular case before us. 
 
 The life of Mary, Queen of Scots, is perhaps one of the strongest 
 instances on record of the fact above-mentioned. Standin^, as she 
 did, in succession, the second, if not the first, most prominent 
 character in three adjacent kingdoms, France, Scotland, and 
 England, at periods not very remote from the present, and yet 
 sufficiently so to have afforded time for the cooling of fiery zeal, the 
 removal of parly prejudice, and the lessening of political anitnosity, 
 she has nevertheless been to this hour represented by one clas= of 
 historians, as little less than a demon in a lovily human form, and by 
 another class, as almost equally perfect in heart, in understanding, iji 
 
 »
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 conduct, and in person. INl ore than two hundred years have not sufficed 
 cleavh' to ascertain exactlj' where, betw en these two, (for between 
 them it is,) the truth lies. To elucidate this subject as far as it is 
 in my power, is the purport of these introductory remarks, and of 
 the Dissertation following them. 
 
 Malignity and prejudice have not any one agent so active and so 
 powerful as, what is termed, Religious zeal. To accomplish its ends, 
 it often seems to regard no means as too base, no instruments as too 
 violent, no persons as too elevated or sacred, no effects as too cruel 
 and dreadful. This uncharitable disposition, unhappily, is not 
 confined to any sect of professing Christians ; the persecuted have 
 almost always in their turns become persecutors. The nominal 
 disciples of the God of Love, and the professors of the relijiion of 
 Charity, have at times hated, traduced, oppressed, and murdered 
 each other with the most insatiable cruelty. Wherever, then, this 
 violent engine is known to have been long and unceasingly directed 
 against the character of any one individual, but especially against 
 the feeble and unprotected, it may well be supposed, that even the 
 most perfect of human creatures would be represented as little less 
 vile than an infernal being. To all this never-ceasing fiery ordeal, 
 it is well known, the character of Mary, Queen of Scots, has, in a 
 peculiar and eminent degree, been exposed. 
 
 In this day, thank God, much of the power, and I trust, of the 
 spirit of malignant persecution is abated ; still, alas, there is much, 
 very much, even among strict religionists, secretly lurking in the 
 Jieart. With self-complacency they too often seek for, and expose, 
 the imputed errors, failings, and absurdities of those who difler from 
 them on abstruse doctrinal points, or on unimportant ceremonials, 
 thereby widening the breach which the efforts of Christian charity 
 might almost close. Nothing can have a greater tendency to awaken 
 and keep alive spiritual pride in the heart, than this habit ot seeking 
 for, and magnifying, the real or imaginary faults of others on religion* 
 subjects. There is no sect of professing Christians but what have 
 their good and bad peculiarities, norpcrhaps any individual members 
 of such sects, without commendable as well as blameable properties; 
 a habit of looking for the former will certainly redound the most to 
 bur own humility, amendment, and future happiness, as well as 
 to the harmony of society, the bond of charity, the diffusion of 
 Christianity, and the salvation of ourscjves and others.
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 If ever there was a human being, who, in a m"bre eminent degree 
 than any other, demanded, and deserved, peculiar concessions ia 
 judging of her conduct, and in estimating her true character, that 
 individual is Mary, Queen of Scots. Taken when a mei-e child out 
 of the hands of her natural guardians, from the pi'otection of her 
 native country, and delivered up into the custody of strangers, in a 
 country the most dissolute in Europe, at a court the most frivolous, 
 gay, and licentious, to be educated professedly to become at some 
 future period thei Queen; her having escaped under these tempta- 
 tions, even tolerably pure, must be looked upon as a matter of 
 surprise. 
 
 When it is considered, in addition to these circumstances, that 
 religion in that country was not only exceedingly indulgent to the 
 frailties and vices of the great, but that it was in its ceremonials 
 singularly calcidated to fascinate the heart of a female so situated j 
 and moreover, that there was a degree of splendour attached to, 
 and surrounding it, in that court, almost, if not fully, equal to what 
 it possessed in Rome itself; these things considered, the passing of 
 a female so situated through such allurements uiicontaminated, 
 must be regarded as truly marvellous. Through all this, however, 
 did the young Princess to whom we are alluding, pass without 
 exciting any imputation of peculiar vice, folly, or weakness. 
 
 The Roman Catholic religion having hitherto been the national 
 religion of Scotland, Mary herself being a Catholic, it was not likely 
 that her education and residence in France would have lessened her 
 attachment to a form of worship so suited (as she had there beheld 
 it,) to captivate her youthful mind, possessing, as she did, a lively 
 imagination, a warm heart, and the love of splendour. To this, the 
 religion of her country and of her forefathers, she was, on her leaving 
 France, too firmly and sincerely attached to be driven by opposition 
 to forsake it. 
 
 At the period of Mary's return to Scotland, the Reformers had 
 succeeded in becoming the stronger, though not the more numerous, 
 party. The Catholics, however, though borne down, were by no 
 means subdued ; they had still suflficient strength and spirit remaining 
 to continue the contest, and to provoke, by defending their religion, 
 the inveterate enmity of their adversaries. Of all Reformers the 
 Scotch appear to have been the rudest and the most unchristian in
 
 XU. PREFACE. 
 
 < 
 their sentiments and practices. The cause, they seemed to think, 
 sanctified the means, however opposite those means might be to that 
 religion which they professed to venerate, and to seek to purge from 
 all impurity. Falsehood, rapine, and murder were the instrumeiits 
 which they frequently employed, to convince, to silence, or to 
 esiirpate the Roman Catholics, By these means, and the most 
 strenuous, loud, and rude exposure of the real and imagined errors 
 and crimes of their opponents, as well as by a longing for at least a 
 share of the rich endowments of the established clergy, the Reformers 
 were daily adding to their numbers and to their power. A young 
 unprotected Queen, well known to be strongly attached to the. 
 falling reli.ion, could not expect to be spared by adversaries such 
 as she had now to encounter. Their very existence as well as their 
 religion, would appear to them to depend on their being able to 
 vilify and to get rid of a monarch so opposed to their object. 
 
 To all these difficulties with wliich poor Mary had to contend, 
 maybe added the treacherous conduct of one of the most artful, 
 suspicious, deceitful, and tyrannical Queens that ever filled a throne. 
 All the evil jiassions of the heart of Elizabeth (and they were many 
 and great) were brought into full exercise by the claims of Queen 
 Mary to the English throne, by her acknowledged abilities, and, 
 above all, by her youth and transcendent beauty. The power which 
 Elizabeth possessed by artful intrigue at the Scottish court, was 
 more than equal perhaps to that of their own Queen. Slie had every 
 inducement as a Protestant to seek to encourage and support the 
 Scottish Reformei"s in their endeavours to establish their religion, 
 and to oppose and vilify the character of the Roman Catholic Mary. 
 To sink her in the eyes of the world, as well as in the estimation of 
 her own subjects, would be alike the wish and the endeavour of the 
 violent Scotch Reformeis and of the jealous English Queen. 
 
 Under all these circumstances, it would naturally follow, that the 
 Queen of Scots would be accused of every crime of which any 
 shadow of proof existed, or which could be invented. The almost 
 daily occurrence of base actions and of violent changes in such 
 turbulent times, in so distracted a country, among so rude an^^. 
 exasperated a people, unhappily afforded but too frequent, and too 
 favourable, opportunities to her enemies to misrepresent her conduct, 
 and to traduce her character. The wonder is, that they were not 
 able so to establish any one of their important charges against her.
 
 PREFACE. xm 
 
 as to produce conviction on the minds of all subsequent enquirers 
 and historians. Her accusers have been many and indefatigable. 
 None of them, however, are fully agi-eed with each other, while later 
 historians, possessed of at least equal impartiality, abilities, and 
 disinterestedness, and, by the discovery of important documents, of 
 more authentic information, have acquitted her of all the serious 
 crimes laid to her charge. That she herself should have escaped 
 death, when even assassination appears to have been considered, if 
 pot a meritorious act, at least an allowable means of serving the 
 cause of religion or the state, — and when it was very commonly 
 practised, even in private quarrels,. — looks like an interposition of 
 Divine providence in her favour. The subsequent transactions of 
 the life of this unhappy Queen, with the exemplary conduct and 
 disposition which she evinced in the last awful scene of the eventful 
 tragedy, seem to add strength to the supposition. 
 
 Had Mary, however, enjoyed a more tranquil life, it is probable 
 that she would have possessed much less of that peace and resignation 
 which she displayed at the hour of death, and which appear totally 
 incompatible with the guilt with which she has been charged. 
 
 If we wanted a contrpst to the life of trouble, and the peaceful 
 death of the Queen of Scots, it would be almost impossible to find a 
 stronger than in that of her rival and oppressor, the Queen of 
 England. With very inferior personal accomplishments, with 
 perhaps no better a head, and with a much woise heart, she lived in 
 prosperity during the greater part of her days, and though undeniably 
 guilty of more crimes than the Queen of Scots was ever accused of, 
 those crimes were not only overlooked, but she received the praise 
 pf her contemporaries and of posterity, as if she had been possessed 
 of every virtue that could adorn and ennoble human nature. Nor 
 did her life afford a greater contrast to that of her rival than her 
 death; she died as she had lived, surrounded with splendour, and 
 with servants devoted to her will ; yet all availed not to afford 
 consolation. No one, on reading an account of it, would be disposed 
 to say, "May my latter end be like hers!" Mary died on the 
 scaffold, surrounded by her enemies ; yet few, on reading a relation 
 of the awful event, would be able to refrain from crying out, " O, may 
 J die the death of the righteous !" 
 
 If there were not hitman hearts so completely occupied by self,
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 that nothing whieli does not seem to promote the gratification of the 
 latter, can any way affect the former, the Queen of Scots, situated 
 as she was, could not have sued in vain for protection to Elizabeth, 
 She did, however, sue in vainj nay, she was not only denied 
 protection, but she was made prisoner and most cruelly oppressed ; 
 she was basely betrayed; she was vilely insulted ; she was unjustly 
 deprived of her personal liberty during eighteen years, and at last 
 foully murdered ! * 
 
 When the Queen of England had a selfish object to attain, the 
 only question with her appears to have been, How can it be most 
 completely obtained? No matter who suffers by the means employed, 
 provided it can be accomplished. The Queen of Scots was to be 
 efiectually secured without her rival having the odium of imprisoning 
 iier. The most central part of the kingdom, then, was fixed upon, 
 and one of the bravest and most trusty noblemen in her dominions 
 appointed to be her keeper: of course himself rendered little less a 
 prisoner for almost fourteen yearj of the best part of his life, than 
 his charge: no remonstrance of his against the injustice of this 
 proceeding could avail him. His life, it is probable, would have 
 been the price of his refusal, while even for some little lenity shewn 
 to her innocent victim, he was rated by his Que^n like a school-boy 
 tsrho had neglected his task. 
 
 The range which the oppressed captive was allowed happened, 
 lanknown probably to her oppressor, to be one of the most beautiful 
 and interesting districts in this kingdom. I have known it intimately 
 
 * She was in England exactly eighteen j'ears, eight months, and 
 |wenty-two days. The following table will exhibit at one view, what 
 proportion of this time was spent at different places where slie 
 resided. I suppose the whole term of her residence in England ta 
 lie divided into a hnn<lrcd parts : — 
 
 1 i)i Cmnl)vrlnii(L 
 
 2 al Coioilrt/, ]Vorksop, and in her journeys. 
 
 2 at FolUvrinijay. 
 
 3 at (Jhnrtlcy. 
 
 3 at Bolton. 
 
 4 at Wiiijidd. 
 4 at Buxton. 
 
 7 at (hdisvorth. 
 12 at Tutbnry. 
 62 at Sheffield. 
 
 Hunter's Ilallamshire.
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 more than half a century ; durins; a moiety of that period, I have 
 resided within the Park of tliat Manor Hou?e, which, ditriag almost 
 fourteen years of the early part of her captivity, was poor Mary's 
 prison. Though this extensive Park, being eight miles in circum- 
 ference, is now despoiled of almost all its ancient sylvan honours 
 and ornaments, as well as of the magnificent and extensive structure, 
 whose hii^h and numerous turrets once crowned its elevated centre, 
 it still exhibits, in all its comparative nakedness, an interesting variety 
 of form, while the prospects which it possesses from three of its 
 sides, are extensive and beautiful. * 
 
 The recent publication of " Tlie History of Hallamshire," by the 
 Rev. Joseph Hunter, of Bath, a native of Sheffield, has served 
 greatly to increase the interest which almost all surrounding objects 
 excited both in themselves and from being connected with many 
 important events of a recent as well as of an ancient date. I now, 
 when at home, seem treading, and looking, on classic ground. 
 
 * " Whatever isay be the appearance of SSeffi^ltl Park at present, 
 its scenery has been at some time inagnilicently sylvan, and the 
 Talbots miglit have walked under the umbrageous canopy of their 
 woods a much greater distance tiian 
 
 " From Sheffield Manor House to Handsivorih Hall." 
 
 Indeed the Park seems to have been celebrated, not only for the 
 number, but the size of its trees." 
 
 " After having mentioned several large oaks in Worksop Park, and 
 the neighbourhood, Shire-oak, then standing, which was distant from 
 bough end to bouih end 90 feet, and which dropped into tiie three 
 shires of York, Nottingham, and Derby, our author [Evelyn in his 
 Sylvci,~\ proceeds to mention another immense tree, once growinij 
 in Sheffield Park:— 
 
 * And notv', before I shut up these enconragins; instances, I am 
 informed by a person of credit, that an oak in Sheffield Park, called 
 the Lrti'/i/'s Oajt, when felJed, contained forty-two tons of timber, 
 which had arms that held at least four feet square for ten yards iti 
 length, — the body six feet of clear timi)cr: That in the same Park 
 ene might have chosen above a tliousand trees, worth above six 
 thousand pounds; another thorjsand worth four tliousand pounds, 
 et sic de ceteris. To tiiis Mr. Halton replies, that it might possibly 
 be meant of the Lord's Oak, already mentioned to !iave grown in 
 Rivelin, for now Rivelin itself is totally destitute of that issue she 
 once might have gloried in of oaks, and as to the computation of one 
 thousand trees, formerly in ShetField Park, worth sixthousand pounds, 
 it is believed tliere were a thousan<i much above that val.ie, since, in 
 what is now enclosed, it is evident touciiiuA' one hundred, worth a. 
 thousand pounds.' ''Sec the Xoies to "■' UluJ^ield Park,'-' a Poem, % 
 J. Holland,
 
 XVI PREFACE. 
 
 Here the chiefs of other days, the Britons, the Romans, the Saxons, 
 the Danes, and the Normans, can all be distinctly traced by the 
 remnant of their works, some of which must endure till the earth 
 itself shall be dissolved. 
 
 Nothing, however, has contributed so 4iuch to increase the interest 
 of the place, as the investigation into the life of Mary, Queen of 
 Scots, which the preparation of these Epistles for the press has 
 induced me to make. A captive Queen, so young, so accomplished, 
 so lovely, so unprotected, so persecuted, so traduced, and at last so 
 foully murdered, cannot fail to excite the strongest interest and 
 commiseration. The man who can walk unconcernedly over the 
 solitude which surrounds the small mouldering remains of Mary's 
 prison walls, and traverse the ground over which she wandered, and 
 ^ iew the scenes which she must often have surveyed with an aching 
 heart, through many a lingering year, must himself, if the subject 
 at all recurs to his mind, have a heart made of no very tender 
 materials. * 
 
 During the first years of the 'confinement of Mary at Sheffield 
 Manor, she was allowed considerably more indulgence and liberty 
 than she afterwards experienced. The Earl of Shrewsbury appears 
 to have been naturally of an affectionate and humane disposition, 
 and allowed his prisoner much more liberty than his tyrannical 
 mistress either intended or approved. The favour of the Countess, 
 whose temper and feelings were the reverse of those of her Lord, 
 
 * "Her comely form and graceful mien 
 Bespoke the Lady and the Queen ; 
 The woes of one so fair and young, 
 Moved every heart and every tongue : 
 Driven from her liome, a helpless child, 
 To brave the «inds and billows wild; 
 An fxilc bred in realms afar, 
 Amid commotio i, broil, and war : 
 In one short year her bo|)es all cross'd, — 
 A parent, husband, kiniidom lost! 
 And all ere ciyhtecn years had shed 
 Tlieir iionouis o'er her royal head. 
 For such a Quorn, the Stuart's heir, 
 A Queen so courteous, youni;-, and fair, 
 Who would not evi-ry foe defy ! 
 VVho vould nQt stand! who would not die!" 
 
 Hocr.'s 2uecn's Walte^
 
 PREl^ACE* Xvii 
 
 Mary judiciously conciliateJ by the sacrifice of a great part of her 
 jewels, on which the lady appears to have cast a longing eye. At 
 the time, then, when these Epistles are stated to have been written, 
 Mary enjoyed a considerable de.cree of personal liberty within certain 
 limits, and even some attention seems to have been then paid (which 
 afterwards was not the case) to tlie preservation of lier health. 
 This appears from her havinij been permitted more than once to 
 visit Buxton for the benefit of the naters. It is probable, then, 
 that during the early part of her residence at the Manor, she enjoyed 
 more tranquillity of mind than she had experienced for any length 
 of time since her leaving France. 
 
 It is, however, in the closing scene of life that the conduct of 
 the Queen of Scots shines with unrivalled lustre. I am not aware 
 of the death of any mere human bein^ that is calculated to raise 
 the sufferer higher in the estimation of all good men than that of 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, as it is related by impartial historians, and 
 remains uncontradicted by her foes. 
 
 The following is the relation of the circumstances attending the 
 death of Mary, Queen of Scots, as given by Mr. Chalmers. This 
 account differs very little in substance from those of other respectable 
 historians. 
 
 "The morning of the 8th of February, 158G-7, being come, she 
 dressed herself as gorgeously as she was wont to do on festival days i 
 and calling her servants together, she commanded her will to be 
 read ; and prayed them to take their lea:acies in a;ood part, for her 
 abilities would not extend to greater matters. Then fixing her mind 
 wholly upon God, in her oratory, with siijhs and prayers, she begged 
 his divine grace and favour, till the SheritF, Andrews, came to 
 acquaint her, that she must now appear in the last scene of her 
 devious life. She came out with grace, countenance, and presence, 
 says Camden, majestically composed, with a cheerful look, and a 
 matron-like habit; with her head covered with a veil which hung 
 down to the ground ; with her prayer-book and beads hanging at her 
 girdle ; and carrying a crucifix of ivory in her hands. In the porch, 
 she was received by the earls and other noblemen, where Melvil, her 
 servant, falling upon his knees, and pouring forth his tears, bewailed 
 his hard hap, that he was to carry into Scotland the woeful tidings of 
 the unliappy fate of his lady and mistress. She thus comforted 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 xviii X ii,i:-irACE. 
 
 him : — ' Lament not, hvit rather rejoice ; thou shalt, by and by, see 
 Mary Stuart freed from all her cares. Tell them, that I die constant 
 in my religion, and firm in my fidelity towards Scotland andFrailce: 
 God foi\?ive them that have tliirsted after my blood as harts do after 
 the fountain. Thou, oh God! who art truth itself, and perfectly 
 and truly understandest the inward thoui^hts of my heart, knowest 
 how greatly I have desired, that the kingdoms of Scotland and 
 England niirht be united in one. Commend me to my son, and 
 assure him tliat I have done nothing which may be prejudicial to the 
 kingdom ; admonish him to hold in amity with the Queen of England ; 
 and see thou do him faithful service.' 
 
 " And now the tears trickling down, she bade Melvil several 
 times farewell, who wept as much as she. Then turning to the earls, 
 she prayed them that her servants might be civilly dealt withal ; 
 that they might enjoy the legacies which she liad bequeathed them, 
 that they might stand by her at her death, and might be sent back 
 into tlieir own country with letters of safe conduct. The former 
 requests they granted, but that they should stand by her at her 
 death, the Earl of Kent showed himself somewhat unwilling, fearing 
 some superstition. 'Fear it not;' she said, 'these harmless souls 
 desire only to take tlieir last farewell of me. I know my sister 
 Elizabeth would not have me denied so small a matter, that my 
 women sliould be then present, were it but for the honour of the 
 female sex. I am her near kinswoman, descended from Henry VII., 
 Queen-dowager of France, and anointed Queen of Scots.' 
 
 " When she had said tlius much, and turned herself aside, it was 
 at last granted that such of her servants as she should name, should 
 be present with her. She named Melvil, Burgoin, her physician, 
 lier apothecary, her surgeon, two women servants and others. 
 Melvil bore up her train. So, the gentlemen, the two earls, and the 
 sheriff, going before her, she came to the scaffold, which was built at 
 the upper end of the hall, on which was placed a chair, a cushion, 
 and a block, all covered with black cloth. As soon as she was sat 
 down, and silence commanded, Beal read the warrant : she heard it 
 attentively, yet as if her thoughts were taken up with somewhat else. 
 Then Fletcher, the Dean of Peterborough, began a long speech to 
 her, concerning the condition of licr life, past, present, and to come. 
 She interrupted him once or twice as he was speaking, and prayed 
 him not to trouble himself; protesting that she was firmly fixed in
 
 PREFACE. XIX 
 
 the ancient Catholic religion, and for it was ready to shed her blood. 
 When he. earnestly prayed her to true repentance, and to put her 
 whole trust in Christ by an assured faith, she answered that in that 
 religion she was born, bred, and was ready to die. The earls said 
 they would pray for her, to whom she said, that gh§ would yive 
 them hearty thanks, if they would pray with her, ' but to join,' con- 
 tinued she, ' in prayer with you, who are of another religion, would 
 in me be a heinous sin.' 
 
 " Then they appointed the Dean to pray ; with whom, while the 
 multitude that stood round, were praying, she fell down on her 
 knees, and holding the crucifix before her, in her hands, prayed in 
 Latin, with her servants, out of the office of the blessed Virgin Mary, 
 
 " After the Dean had ceased, she, in English words, recommend- 
 ed the church, her son, and Queen Elizabeth to God; beseeching 
 him to turn away his wrath from this island; and professing that she 
 reposed her hope of salvation in the blood of Christ; lifting up the 
 crucifix, she called upon the celestial choir of saints to make inter- 
 cession to Him for her ; she forgave all her enemies, and kissing the 
 crucifix, and signing herself with the cross, she said, ^ As thy arms, 
 oh Christ ! were spread out upon the cross, so receive me with the 
 stretched out arms cf thy mercy, and forgive my sins.' Then the 
 executioners asked her forgiveness, which she granted them. And, 
 when her women-servants had taken off her upper garments, 
 lamenting the while, she kissed them, and signing them with the 
 cross, bade them, with a cheerful countenance, forbear their 
 womanish lamentations, 'for now,' said she, ' shall I rest from all my 
 sorrows.' In like manner, turning to her men-servants, who likewise 
 wept, she signed them likewise with the cross, and smiling, bade 
 them farewell : and now, having covered her face with a linen 
 handkorcliief, and laj'ing hersejf down on the block, she repeated, 
 from the Psalm, 'In I'hee, oh Lord ! do I trust, let me never be 
 confounded.' Then stretching out her body, and repeating many 
 times, ' Into thy hands, oh Lord ! I commend my spirit,' her head was 
 stricken oft", at two strokes: the Dean crying out. So lot Queen 
 Elizabeth's enemies perish ; the Earl of Kent answering,. Amen: the 
 multitude, meanwhile, sighing and sorrowing. A circumstance 
 occurred which added greatly to the interest of this affecting scene : 
 when they were about to remove the body of the unfortunate Queen, 
 
 1,r... i:<^'i. .1 U'li^U Un,1 fn^n-mr-'} ]^f,f to tllC SCaffold UUobsf" ' '
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 amidst more striking objects, was found under her clothes, which 
 could not be gotten forth but by force, and afterwards would not 
 depart from her dead corpse, but went and laid down between her 
 head and shoulders, a thing diligently noted. While fidelity shall 
 be considered as a virtue, this remarkable instance of affectionate 
 attachment will be regarded with satisfaction." 
 
 I do not know that profane history furnishes an instance of a 
 more Christian like death, than the one which has just been recorded. 
 Nothing less than " that ■peace of God which passefh all understand- 
 ing," could, 1 am fully persuaded, be sufficient so to strengthen and 
 support weak human nature on sucli trying occasions. To Iter, death 
 itself appears to have been stripped of its terrors, though it came 
 apparently armed with all that could render it appalling. The 
 victim seems to have been by far the most composed and self-col- 
 lected person present on the awful occasion. She seeks not to make 
 any display of courage, or to attract attention to her magnanimity ; 
 her conduct, on the contrary, appears unembarrassed, easy, and 
 natural. She evidently thinks less of herself than she does of others. 
 She seems to have made her peace before with God, and had then, 
 in the last trying scene, onl j' to soothe and take leave of her friends, 
 to express her pardon of, and pray for, her enemies, before leaving 
 this world, with a full assurance of obtaining happiness in another, 
 yet without relying apparently on any merits of her own. 
 
 I am aware that prejudice may, and will, say, that the absolution 
 of the priest would enable her to consider herself as freed from all 
 the guilt of her sins. Prejudice may say this, because it said, that 
 her Lord and Saviour, when on earth, .vrou^hthis miracles through 
 the a2;ency of the devil. I certainlv could just as soon believe that 
 the devil could produce that humble, contrite spirit, that firm faith, 
 that assured hope, and that boundless Christian charity, which she 
 evinced at the hour of death, ?.s that any human absolution could 
 bestow it. To suppose otherwise would be to ascribe to man the 
 power of conferring that peace of mind, on such occasions, which we 
 are assured can onlj^ be obtained by prayer and an entire devotedness 
 of the will and affections to God. 
 
 The murder of the Queen ofScotswas one of the foulest legalized 
 acts that ever disgraced (I will not say any Christian) any civilized 
 state. Had Elizabeth been guilty of no other baseness and cruelty
 
 PREFACE. XXI 
 
 but that of her conduct towards Queen Mary, it must for ever have 
 stamped her character with infamy. Thi=, ho"vever, iinl'ortunately, 
 ■was far from being the casp ; her life seems to have been as much 
 more stained with evil passions and evil deeds, than that of her 
 unfortunate rival, as her end was more miserable. As a contrast to 
 the death of the Queen of Scots, (as it has here been related,) I 
 shall give the account of that of Elizabeth as described in Miss 
 Aikin's Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 " When I came to the court (saj's Robert Carj^, the kinsman of 
 Elizabeth,) I found the Queen ill-disposed, and she kept her inner 
 lodging ; yet she hearing of my arrival, sent for me. I found her in 
 one of her withdrawing chambers, seated low upon her cushions. 
 She called me to her ; 1 kissed her hand, and told her that it was my 
 chiefest happiness to see her in safety and in healtli. She took me 
 by the hand and wrung it hard, and said. No, Robin, I am not well ; 
 and then discoursed with me on her indisposition; and that her 
 heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days ; and in her 
 discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. I was 
 grieved at the heart to see her in this plight; for in all iny life-time 
 I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the Queen of Scots was 
 beheaded. I used the best words that I could to persuade her from 
 this melancholy humour, but I found by her that it was too deep 
 rooted in the heart, and hardly to be removed." * * * 
 
 " From that day forward she became worse and worse. She re- 
 mained upon her cushions four days and nights at least. AV. about 
 her could not persuade her either to take any sustenance o"- go to 
 bed." * * * " On Wednesday, 23d March, she grew 
 
 speechless. That afternoon by signs she called fur her council ; and 
 by putting her hand to her head when the King of Scots was named 
 to succeed her, they all knew he was the man she desired should 
 reign after her. About six at night siie made signs for the archbishop 
 and her chaplains to come to her; at which time I came in with 
 them, and sat upon my knees full of tears to see that heavy sight. 
 Her Majesty lay upon her back with one hand in the bed and the 
 other without. The bishop kneeled down by her, and examined her 
 first of her faith ; and she so punctually answered all his questions 
 by lifting up her eyes and holding up her hands, as it was a comfort 
 to all beholders. After he had continued long in praj'er till the old 
 man's knees were weary, he blessed her and meant to rise and leave 
 ker. The Queen made signs with her hand. My sister Scrope,
 
 XXU PREFACE. 
 
 knowing her meaning, told the bishop the Queen desired he would 
 pray still. He did so for a long half hour after, and tlien though 
 to leave her. The second time she made signs ta him to continue 
 in prayer. He did so for half an hour more ; with earnest cries to 
 God for her soul's health, which he uttered with that fervency of 
 spirit, as the Queen to all our sight much rejoiced at, and gave 
 testimony to us all of her Christian and comfortable end. By this 
 time it grew late, and every one departed, all but the women that 
 attended her. Between one and two o'clock, on Thursday morning, 
 he that I left in the Coflerer's chamber, brought me word that the 
 Queeu was dead." 
 
 One of her physicians writes, " It was after labouiing under a 
 morbid melancholy for nearly three weeks, which brought on stupor 
 not unmixed with some indications of a disordered fancy, that tlie 
 Queen expired. During all this time, she couldneither by reasoning, 
 entreat: , or artifices, be brought to make trial of any medical aid, 
 and with difficulty was persuaded to take sufficient nourishment to 
 sustain nature, taking also very little sleep, and that not in bed but 
 on cushions, where she would sit whple days motionless and sleepless, 
 retaining, however, the vigour of her intellect to her last breath, 
 though deprived for three days before her death of the power of 
 speech." 
 
 Another contemporary writes, " No doubt you shall hear Her 
 Majesty's death variously related. She made no will, neither gave 
 any thiiig away ; so that they which come after shall find a well 
 furnished jewel house, and a rich wardrobe of more than two thousand 
 gowns, with all things else answerable." 
 
 Such was the miserable end of the merciless persecutor of Mary, 
 Queen of Scots ; what share the recollection of her conduct in that 
 instance had in producin., her evident despondency, it is impossible 
 to say ; in all probability it had a very considerable one. That she 
 was the sole author of the murder of Queen Mary, no one can doubt, 
 though she did not scruple to sacrifice an innocent person, and 
 faithful subject and servant, for the purpose of convincing the 
 world tliat she did not wish for her death. Such artifices deceive 
 no one but their authors. 
 
 If an instance of the worse than vanity of human greatness, aad
 
 PREFACE. XXIU 
 
 the pernicious tendency of unvaried prosperity were wanted, rt would 
 be difficult to jind a stronger than this of Queen Elizabeth. The 
 ceremonial of her court (we are told) rivalled the servility of the 
 east ; no person of whatever rank ventured to address her otherwise 
 than kneeling:: and this attitude was preserved by all her ministers 
 <lurin5 their audiences of business. In passinj: along the state-rooms, 
 wherever she turned her eyes, the spectators threw themselves upon 
 their knees ; so that a stranger must have been ready to cry out, 
 " Is not this a Goddess^" In public she was ever most richly adorned 
 ■with the most costly clothes, set off with much gold and many 
 jewels of inestimable value, and wearing very high shoes that she 
 might appear taller than she was. Her table was most magnificently 
 served with many side -boards of valuable plate, many of the first 
 nobility waiting on her at table. 
 
 On reading, and reflecting on, the very different lives and deaths 
 of these two rival Queens, one can scarcely avoid crying out, 
 " Remember, Elizabeth, that thou in thij life time receivedst thy 
 good things, and likewise Mary evil things : but now, at the hour of 
 death, she is comforted and thou art tormented." If the occurrences 
 of life are in reality only important so far as they affect our state 
 when we come to die, which is certainly the fact; then had Mary- 
 much more cause to be thankful for her afflictions, than Elizabeth 
 had to rejoice at her prosperity. 
 
 The following are a few letters written by the Queen of Scots 
 while in captivity at Sheffield. It is evident that she avoids opening 
 her heart, or even entering at all freely on the circumstances that 
 most intimately occupied her attention. They are from Hunter's 
 Hallamshire. 
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, to M. d'lhnnieres.* 1576. 
 Monsieur d'Humieres, — Despuis la mort du feu roy, Monsig- 
 neur, votre bun maystre, ie n'ayjamays peu auuoir inteli.rence de 
 vottre estast, que despuis peu de temps, eusa que Rallay mena 
 
 * In a volume entitled, Mcmoires du Regne du Roy Henry IIL 
 No. 8715, fo. 7t), of MSS. in the Royal Library at Paris.
 
 XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 esclarsie, etquestics encores en bonne sante, de quoy luy auiioit as- 
 sure vottre bon frere, monsieur df-Baieulx, qui s'estoit tant : nquls alors 
 de mes nouvelles, ce qui ma men se presentent si bonne occasion, du 
 retour du presidrmt de Tours mon chansellier, de luy commander 
 en soustienne vous aller visiter de ma part, et porter la prcsente, et 
 vous fayre entendre comme mon douayre m' estant oste en Touraj'ne, 
 ie suis pour recompance renvoiee etre votre voisinc, que repance 
 n'auriez malagrcable veu I'ansiene conoissance entre nouF, et ce que 
 i' ay eu I'lionneur de vous etre en respect de feu roy vottre maytre i 
 despuis la mort duquel il me senible n' auuoir trouue amitie in co- 
 noissance en ces nouuellcs courts, que I'endroit de ceulx qui estoient 
 des siens, qui sont quasi tous separcs a present. Et pour le fayre 
 court, ie n'eusse sceu auuoir voisin, duquel ie feusse plus contente, 
 comme ce porteur vou dii a ; auquel ie vous prie donner credit comme 
 feriez a moy mesmes : et on il aura besoing' de votre fauueur et con- 
 seiil pour mon service, 1' enayder, comme ma fiance est en vou: et 
 que par son moien dors en amant i' auray de voz nouuellcs, rt vous 
 des miennes. Et pour ne fayre tort a sa sufisance, ie finiray par mes 
 affectionnecsretommendations a vous et a votre fjmme, priant Dieu 
 vous donnor, Monsieur d'Humicres, en sante tres heureuse etlougue 
 vie. De Sc'ielild le xxvi de May. Vottre meilleure et plus assuree 
 ensienne amye, MARIE. 
 
 A Monsieur iV Huiniercs. 
 
 Mary, Snccn of Scots, to the DnJie de Nevers, 1375.* 
 Mon Cousin, — I' ay rtsc-^u vostre honeste et courtoyse lettre, 
 auuesque tres i.rand contentement, pour le tesmoignasge que me 
 donner par isceile, que meslonuues aduersites n'ont eule pouuoir de 
 vous oster la bonne voi-.Ionte en la quelle i auuois tousiours fait estast 
 de vous trouuer, dc fayre pour moy, ou loccasion seu presenteroit 
 comme pour I'luie de voz meilleures parentes et amyes. Et tant 
 senfant que ie veui'le nes>rlisg-er une telle offre de vous, que ie vous 
 priray mcttre amy a present en I'affaire dc mon duche de Tbouraync, 
 lequel on me veut oster ; et me donner et a mes gens fauueur et con- 
 scill pour acscpter I'cschange qui me sera offert. a ce que ie n'i fasse 
 si grande pertc. Vous pouuez assez considerer 1' estast auquel ie 
 
 * No. 8702, fo. 122, MSS. in the Royal Library at Paris.
 
 PREFACE. XXV 
 
 suis, et si i' ay besoing d'estre rudement traitee. Par de la, ie ne 
 vous endiray aultre chose, si non que ie vous prie m' ifayre office de 
 bon amy : et mon Ambassadeur vous pourra informer du reste. 
 Quant a ma sante, ce porteur vous en pourra dire, qui me fera cesser 
 devousimportunerdauuantasge, si non apres m'ettre recommandee 
 de bien bon cueiir a vottre bonne grace, priantDieu qu'il vous doint 
 mon Cousin en sante, longue et heureuse vie. De Schefild cepenul- 
 tiesme de Juillet. 
 
 Vostre bien affectionnee et bonne Cousine, 
 
 MARIE. 
 
 A mon Cousin Monsieur Due de Nevers. 
 
 Mary, 2ueen of Scots, to the Duchess de Nemoiirs.* 
 Ma tante, il i a long temps que ie ne me suis ramantire a votre 
 bonne grace ; non pour ne desirer di ettre continuee, mays pour ettre 
 de si pres rescherchee, que Ion fayt trouuer mauays la grosseur de 
 mes paquets, et Ie nombre de meg lettres ; disant que i ecris a trop 
 degens, que ie n'ay que fayre d'auuoir tant d'inteligence ; si esse 
 quilz ne se font pas prier d' ouurir tout, et en retenir ce quil leur en 
 plaist. Mays a mon advis, il leur fassche de ce que Ion ce formient, 
 que ie suis encores en ce monde. Si esse que tant que ie y seray, 
 vous auresz puissance sur moy, et pourrez fayre estast de la bonne 
 voulonte d'uue pouvre princesse, captiue et en adversite, centant 
 que de niepce qu'avez en ce monde ; ce que ie vous supplie fayre, 
 et me despartir quelques fois de voz bonnes nouuelles, et de celles 
 de mon oncle Monsieur de Nemours, a qui ie vous priray me perme- 
 tre de me recommander issi bien affection'eem', et a tous voz cnfans 
 mes cousins : et vous ayant bese les mayns ie priray Dieu vous don- 
 ner ma tante en sante tres heureuse et longue vie. De Schefild ce 
 Ti. de Nouuembre. 
 
 Vottre bien affectionnee & obeissante bonne niepce, 
 
 MARIE. 
 
 A ma tante Madame de Nemours. 
 
 * AnnofEste, daughter of Henry, Duke of Ferrara. This lady 
 vras first married to Francis, Duke of Guise, who was brother to the 
 Queen of Scots' mother. He died in 1563 : and in 1566 she took to 
 her second husband James, Duke of Nemours. She lived till the 7th 
 of May, 1607. 
 
 TOL. I.
 
 ^ftctcS ot tf)t Eiff 
 
 OF 
 
 miiiiiira diipisiap (^m S(B®a^s
 
 SKETCH OF THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 MARY, QUEEiN OF SCOTS. 
 
 " Time is continually employed in slowly removing' the obstaclefH 
 which Prejudice has interposed to prevent the perception cf 
 Truth." Common Sens*. 
 
 In the Review by Johnson, in 1760, o{ Tyt'L'e.b.'s Enquiry 
 into the Evidence tvhich has been produced against Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, he says, " It has now been fasliiouable for 
 half a century to defame and vilify the house bf Stuart, and to 
 exalt and magnify the reign of Ehzabeth. The Stuarts have 
 found few apologists ; for the dead cannot pay for praise, and 
 who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? Yet 
 there still remains among us, not wholly extinguished, a zeal 
 for truth, and a desire for establishing right, in opposition to 
 fasliion." 
 
 " Since Johnson thus wrote, many and great changes, "says, 
 Mr. Chalmers in his Life of Mary, Queen of Scots, lately 
 published, " have taken place in respect to all these topics. In 
 private investigation, in public opinion, in the fortune of fami- 
 lies,, in the fame of sovereigns, much alteration has occurred. The
 
 2 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 house of Stuart has fallen for ever ; the conduct of Elizabeth 
 has been more minutely examined ; while the policy of her 
 reign has been more precisely investigated. The more the 
 evidence which artifice produced, and ambition propagated 
 against the Scottish Queen, has been examined by criticism, 
 as well as by candour, the more has her conduct been cleared, 
 her innocence established, and her misfortmies pitied. Much 
 does her increasing fame owe to the Examination of Goodall ; 
 much to the Enquiries of Tytler, but much more to the 
 arguments and eloquence of Wiiitaker in his Vindication :" 
 and I may add much more still, to the clear statements, and 
 stubborn facts, of Geouge Chalmers, Esq. F.R.S. R.A., 
 ill his Life of Alary., Queen of Scots. * " Truth may be 
 concealed for a time, but cannot be exploded, by whatever 
 artifice." 
 
 Having made these few preliminary remarks, I wiU now 
 proceed to sketch a slight outline of the L?fe of Mary, Queen 
 of Scots. 
 
 The two rival Roses were united in the marriage of 
 Henry VH. with Elizabeth of York. Of this marriage were 
 born Henry VHI. and the Lady Margaret. Henry VHI. 
 left three legitimate children, Edward the VI., who succeeded 
 him, ^larj', who next reigned, and Elizabeth her successor on 
 the throne. Mary, Queen of Scots, was grandaughter to the 
 Lady Margaret, daughter of Henry VH., who married James 
 IV. of Scotland, and she was daughter to his son and successor, 
 James V. She was therefore clearly, during the reign of 
 Elizabeth, the presumptive heir to the Enghsh throne. James V. 
 
 * Tlie facts and quotations in this Work, not acknowledged, are 
 from this source, iawiiichtlitiy are fully stated a»d clearly established.
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 3 
 
 was twice married : first .to Magdalene of France, daughter 
 of Francis I. She being of a weak and sickly frame, only 
 survived her arrival in Scotland forty days. He next married 
 Mary of Guise, the widowed Duchess of Longueville, the 
 daughter of Claude, Duke of Guise. James, who was a most 
 debauched and profligate character, only survived his second 
 marriage four years and a half; he then died of premature old 
 age, and disappointed ambition. He had three children by 
 his second marriage, viz. James and Arthur, who both died 
 before him, and Mary the subject of these memoirs, who was 
 born on the 7th of December, 154-2. The motiier of Marj-, 
 Queen of Scots, was a woman of a masculine spirit, a strong 
 understanding, and enlightened mind. To her, Maiy was 
 indebted for the foundation of a very excellent education. 
 
 The infant Mary, Queen of Scots, was scarcely a month 
 old, before she was sought for, in his rough way, by Henry 
 VIH., as a wife for his son, afterwards Edward VI. The 
 proposal was so acceptable to almost all parties, that it was 
 soon agreed upon and ratified; the Earl of Huntly, who was then 
 a prisoner in England, only observing, " I mislike not so much 
 the match, as the way of wooing." Henr^-, however, does not 
 appear to have remained much longer satisfied with his son's 
 affianced infant wife, than with any of his own Queens : for he 
 violated the treaty, almost as soon as it was concluded, by 
 seizing a number of Scottish ships without any reasonable 
 pretext. 
 
 This conduct of Henry's, and the subsequent vile, and 
 almost, savage war, led to the acceptance by the Scottish 
 government of the proposal of tlie French ambassador, for a 
 renewal of the ancient alliance with France. Tiiis was followed 
 by the affiancing of the youiig Queen of Scots with the Dauphin,
 
 4 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 and tli« removal of the former, theri about six years of age, to 
 be educated in France. She was accompanied by four young 
 ladies, nearly of her own age, all Maiys, who had been hef 
 play-fellows : they remained with her during the whole of her 
 continuance in France, and returned with her, when a widow, 
 to their native land. The King of France received her with 
 all the attention which her rank and circumstances demanded, 
 and resolved to educate her in a manner likely to form a 
 daughter worthy to share the throne of his kingdom with his 
 son. This intention was allowed on all hands to have been 
 fully accomplished. Her most inveterate enemies have admitted 
 her to have been eminently distinguished by every feminine 
 grace, and by many other accomplishments, rarely possessed in 
 the same degree in those times by females. Her person 
 dignified, graceful, and lovely, her temper amiable, and her 
 mind well informed, perhaps no female ever ascended a throne, 
 at sixteen years of age, so qualified to engage all hearts in 
 her favour, or so warranted by circumstances to look forward, 
 with confident hope, to a life of more of earthly fehcity than 
 commonly falls to the lot of mortals in any station ; i/ct no 
 human being that ever existed, has afforded a stronger instance 
 of the futility of all worldly promises than that of Mary, Queen 
 of Scots. Her whole hfe, from the cradle to the grave, 
 exhibits a moral lesson more intensely interesting, and more 
 powerfully impressive, than perhaps any other which the annals 
 even of thrones have produced. 
 
 The Queen of Scots was married to Francis, the Dauphin 
 of France, in the Church of Notre-Dame, on Sunday, the 
 24th of April, 1558. During the absence of the infant Queen 
 from Scotland, her mother was appointed Queen Regent of 
 that kingdom, then distracted by both civil and religious con- 
 tentions in no common degree -y
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOT^. S 
 
 The Reformation there had then produced few besides 
 lamentable effects. The conduct of its promoters in Scotland 
 appears to have been as directly opposite to that of Him whom 
 they professed to consider as their Divine Master, as can well 
 be conceived. Rude, boisterous, overbearing, treacherous, 
 murderous, they considered all measures lawful which they 
 judged to be expedient. Perpetually harassed by these men at 
 home, and by the unjust interference of the deceptious Queen 
 of England and her intriguing minister Cecil, the Queen 
 Regent died in the Castle of Edinburgh about the end of the 
 year 1559. She died worn out by cares and infirmities, de- 
 claring with her last breath, that she forgave all who had either 
 opposed her government, or insulted her person. A specimen 
 of the different sentiments and language of those whom she 
 thus forgave, may be gathered from the observations of Knox 
 upon this occasion, in the histoiy which he wrote and published : 
 " Shortly after, she (the Queen Regent) finished her unhappy 
 life, — unhappy, we say, to Scotland from the first hour that she 
 entered into it, unto the day that she departed this life. God, 
 for his great mcrcv's sake, rid us from the rest of the Guisian 
 blood ! Amen !" On the 10th July, 1559, died Henry H. of 
 France. He was succeeded by the Dauphin, Francis II., the 
 husband of the Queen of Scots, he being then little more than 
 fifteen years of age. On Dec. 5, 1560, he likewise died. 
 
 What an eventful page has this been to poor Mary, now 
 only eighteen years of age. It is almost impossible to proceed 
 without stopping to reflect and moralize on such a concatenation 
 of rapidly passing important events occurring to one so young. 
 I must, however, go on. 
 
 The peace of Chateau Cambresis, in 1559, left the Scotch 
 fiiore leisure and opportunity to engage themselves in civil broils, 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 6 SKETCH OF THE LIFE Or 
 
 Elizabeth being bound not to mingle with their concerns 
 whether political or religious. This opportunity the Scottish 
 Insurgents and Reformers did not neglect. Perth was taken 
 possession of by them ; the Abbey of Scone, with the religious 
 houses of Stirhng, Linlithgow, and Edinburgh, they consumed 
 with unhallowed fires. The Queen Regent, then fettered and 
 perplexed, became timid, vacillating, and indecisive, while her 
 opponents, daring and ferocious, bound by no ties but expe- 
 diency, neglected not to profit by her growing weakness. 
 
 The Queen of England, regarding as little as the Reformers 
 any treaties which stood in the v/ay of her wishes or her interest, 
 was neither reluctant nor tardy in lending them her aid ; her 
 conscientious and pious Secretary, Cecil, declaring, that " If 
 the Queen will not comply, (with the demands of her rebellious 
 subjects,) then is it apparent, God Almighty is pleased to 
 transfer from her the rule of the kingdom for the weal of all." 
 This was a most convenient conclusion for the " good and 
 loving cousin" of Queen Mary to come to. A war of words, 
 as well as of swords, was waged between the contending parties : 
 in the former the Queen Regent had the advantage, but it 
 stood her in little stead, might in that, as in most similar 
 instances, overcoming right. In this distracted state was the- 
 kingdom on the death of the Queen Regent. 
 
 Ehzabcth now sent a squadron, under the command of 
 Admiral Winter, who cast anchor before Lcitli in January, 
 1559-60, under pretext of searching for pirates. The real 
 object few could doubt. She also put her army in motion 
 northward from Berwick in April, and this without reasonable 
 pretext, in the face of a very recently ratified treaty. She 
 likewise now succeeded in procuring, by very unjustifiable 
 means, from self-appointed Scotch negociators, ^\hat was called
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 7 
 
 the " Peace of Edinburgh," in which it was stipulated, 
 without the concurrence of the Queen of Scots, that she 
 (Mary) should abstain " iii all times coming" from using and 
 bearing the arms and title of the kinsdoms of England and 
 Ireland. If Mary had ratified this, she would have been 
 relinquishing her undoubted right to the thrones of those 
 kingdoms on the demise of Ehzabeth without issue. This, 
 however, she never would consent to do, and the treaty conse- 
 quently never was ratified. 
 
 The Duke de Chattelherault, a weak prince, was the heir 
 presumptive to the throne of Scotland; during the Queen's 
 absence he ought to have been governor of the kingdom ; that 
 office, however, was usurped and possessed by Lord James, a 
 bastard son of the Queen's father, James V. Under his 
 authority, a sort of parliament was assembled, by which the 
 estabhshed religion was abolished, and the coujession of faith, 
 then professed, established. Commissioners were sent by them 
 to Paris to solicit the Queen's ratification of the act ; this, how- 
 ever, as might have been, and was, foreseen, she refused doing. 
 The proceedings of this conventional parliament were never 
 acknowledged as legal by the Queen, nor ever printed. 
 
 After the death of Francis II., the Queen Mother not 
 likine so formidable a rival, behaved in such a manner to her 
 daughter-in-law, as to compel the Queen of Scots to retire, in 
 the first place to Rheims, to her aunt the Abbess, and after- 
 wards to resolve on returning to her native country and throne. 
 
 The Lord James came over to France to invite the Queen 
 back to Scotland. This nobleman had a double and difficult 
 game to play. He had long been acting in the interest of 
 Elizabeth, while he had views in Scotland, and favours to
 
 8 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 obtain from Mary, which rendered it necessary to deceive her. 
 His task unhappily was but too easy for a villain to perform. 
 Among all Mary's good qualities, that of a deep penetration 
 into the human heart, was not one. She was neither suspicious, 
 irritable, nor implacable. A too confiding trust in the specious 
 pretences of deceivers was one of her most fatal errors. 
 
 After obtaining from INIary a promise of the earldom of 
 Murray, Lord James returned to Scotland through London, 
 and it is said, secretly recommended to Cecil to way-lay and 
 secure the person of the Queen of Scots on her voyage to 
 Scotland. Ixandolph and other emissaries of Elizabeth were 
 in the mean time very busy fomenting discontent, and endea- 
 vouring to form associations against the young Queen. 
 
 With a heavy foreboding heart the Queen of Scots left the 
 coast of France. The prospect before her was gloomy in the 
 extreme. She took with her the four faithful Marys, other- 
 wise she seems not to have beheld one single cheering ray 
 beaming from the dreary coast of her native land, to guide or 
 welcome her return. The natural director and the protectress 
 of her infancy had sunk under the struggle (though much more 
 equal to it than herself,) which she knew that she was destined 
 to encounter. Well might she look back upon the receding 
 coast of France, and cry " Farewell, Jarevoelljhr ever, France, 
 fareiKcll .'" 
 
 The fleet of Elizabeth (she having basely refused the 
 Scottish Queen a safe-conduct,) was on the sharp look-out 
 in the channel. Mary escaped it, however, and arrived in safety 
 at Leith, on the 19th August, 1561. Some of her ships, 
 containing her stud and other things, were taken by the
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. » 
 
 English fleet, and detained for some time, though afterwards 
 restored. 
 
 Iler reception at her native court was as cold and as cheer- 
 less as she could have anticipated. So little preparation had 
 been made to receive her, that even Holyrood House was not 
 in a state to accommodate her. She, however, received every 
 one graciously, and accommodated herself, with a good gi-ace, 
 to her situation, appalling as it was. 
 
 The subject of religion, under the circumstances in which 
 Mary returned to ascend in person tlie throne of Scotland, 
 would be, in all respects, of the most importance. To her it 
 certainly appeared of a higher nature than merely a political 
 engine. However yielding Mary may have been in other 
 respects, on the score of religion she was, even then, and 
 remained so through life, firm and sincere. No worldly views 
 or advantages, no promises, no persuasions, no threatenings, no 
 sufferinirs, could ever induce her for a moment to forsake the 
 religion which she venerated, and which was the religion of her 
 country and of her forefathers. This, in such a character, 
 and in such circumstances, is a most remarkable trait, and 
 should, in considering her life, never be lost sight of, because 
 much of the seeming errors of her conduct may be explained 
 by it, consistent with her perfect innocence. So far, however, 
 was she from being a bigotted intolerant persecutor, that when 
 she was convinced that such a choice of ministers of state 
 would be for the peace of the kingdom, she without hesitation 
 a])pointed those of the reformed religion to the offices of 
 most power and trust. Her domestic servants she, of course, 
 chose to have of the Roman Catholic persuasion. Had those 
 officers of state been honest men, the kingdom might have 
 been governed in prosperity and peace, in spite of the treache-
 
 10 SKETCH OF THE LIFE 
 
 rous macliinations of Elizabeth and Cecil. They were not 
 wanting in abilities ; but honourable integrity and fidelity poor 
 Mary never found in any one man of her own country in 
 whovn she placed confidence. Her natural brother, the Lord 
 James, she appointed her minion or prime minister. He was 
 a man of great talents and ambition, and a strenuous supporter 
 of the cause of the reformation. He had long courted the 
 favour of the Queen of England and her minister Cecil, at the 
 ex]>ense of the honour, the peace, and the prosperity of his 
 own country. To this man the Queen of Scots, too confi- 
 dently, intrusted the government of her kingdom. His object, 
 it clearly ap])ears, was, from the first, to obtain the Regency of 
 of the kingdom for himself. This will fully explain his other- 
 wise inexplicable conduct. 
 
 Next to the ambitious treachery of her prime minister, and 
 the determined hatred and opposition of the Reformers in 
 harassing and perplexing the young Queen in the government 
 of her kingdom, was the jealous hatred and unprincipled 
 duplicity of Elizabeth. With a presumption and malignity, 
 never at rest, she was perpetually intermeddling, either directly 
 OB indirectly, with the concerns of a Queen and a kingdom, as 
 independent as herself and her own. 
 
 To assist her in combating and overcoming all these, her 
 difficulties, the Queen of Scots, on her newly acquired and 
 tottering throne, had not one sincere friend, one honest man, 
 one disinterested adviser (possessed of power and influence) to 
 counsel and support her. Malignity was at work on eveiy 
 hand to misrepresent her motives, her words, and her actions. 
 She was reviled, insulted, and persecuted, both by her religious 
 and political opponents. Even on public occasions, wretches 
 were officially employed to insult her in the ojien streets ; and
 
 MARY, gUEEN OF SCOTS. 11 
 
 Knox, the professed disciple of the meek and lowlj' Jesus, who 
 prayed in his history to be rid of her blood, not only dared to 
 speak evil of dignities in the presence of his Sovereign, but so 
 to insult her as to make her weep, while she reproved him with 
 a degree of gentleness that ought to have smote the zealous 
 barbarian to the heart. What could be expected under such 
 circumstances from a widowed Queen scarcely eighteen years 
 of age ? Let any one look at a sister, or a daughter, of those 
 years, and think what she could have done so situated, and 
 then let him answer the question. It was even attempted to 
 restrain her in the private exercise of devotion ; nay, the envoy 
 from her good cousin (Randolph) dared to suggest doubts 
 " whether it was net unlawful to obey her m all civil actions, 
 she being an Idolater." Reports, too, were very prevalent of 
 intentions and plots to carry her off. 
 
 So perplexed and distracted was the young Queen at lengtli 
 by these annoyances, and so little did she dive into the treache- 
 rous callous heart of her good cousin, that she allowed herself 
 to indulge the vain expectation of reaping advantage from a 
 personal interview with tlie Queen of England, and consulted 
 her privy council on the subject. Nothing could shew more 
 dearly both her short-sightedness into vile human nature and 
 the trouble and perplexity in which she was then involved. 
 
 The Lord James now succeeded in attaining the first step 
 towards his ambitious object, that of the earldom of Murray. 
 A? this could only be effected by the ruin of Huntley, the se- 
 ■cond nobleman in Scotland, the Queen was innocently and 
 unsuspectingly made, by the too successful acts of her un- 
 principled minion, the instrument of the most cruel and unjust 
 proceedings.
 
 12 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 The intriguing Queen of England, aware that the Queen of 
 Scots could not long remain under her present embarrassments 
 v.'ithout seeking that assistance, in her arduous labours, which 
 slie might hope for from a husband, set her fertile wits to work 
 to provide one for her. The probability of INIary's taking such 
 a step, miglit appear strengthened, by the alarming circunxstance 
 of the privacy of her bed-room having been twice invaded by a 
 wretch (Chatelard,) who paid the forfeit of his life for his teme- 
 rity. 
 
 It is almost diverting to conceive the self-interested, officious 
 Elizabeth, anxiously employirig herself in providing a proper 
 and suitable match for her dearly beloved cousin Mary. IMary 
 herself must have secretly laughed at it, especially as the gen- 
 tlemen were offered to her as suitors without their own consent. 
 121izaboth's busy agent (Ilandolph) was intrusted with this 
 important negociation. It may easily be conjectured what 
 were Elizabeth's real motives. If the Queen of Scots were to 
 marry, it was of the utmost importance to Elizabeth's plans, 
 that it should be a man whom she believed she could influence. 
 With this view she at length proposed a lover of her own, the 
 Earl of Leicester. The Queen of Scots, however, in this 
 instance, chose to select a husband for herself. In doine so 
 she proved that her choice was not the effect of female levitv, 
 or girlish love. The man whom she selected, she had never 
 s^en. Of all those whom she had seen (she had then seen 
 Bothweil,) not one appeared such as to afford a prospect of 
 connubial happiness. 
 
 Tl'.e young Lord Darnley, on whom the choice of Mary 
 fell, she had every reason to believe would be as acceptable to 
 all parties as any man in tiiose times could be. He was cousin 
 to bi'th the Queens, and his accomplishments were in general
 
 MARY, J^UEEN OF SCOTS. IS 
 
 . Well spoken of. Mary's good sister Elizabeth thought proper to 
 make herself as busy upon the occasion as if the former had 
 been her daughter and dependent upon her, in the end strenu- 
 ously opposing the intended match, with the assistance of her 
 envoy, and of Murray, who were as averse to it as herself. Mary, 
 however, persevered, though the Reformers, with the nobles 
 who were favourers of their cause, endeavoured by force of arms 
 to prevent her from proceeding in her design. She was mar- 
 ried to Darnley, on Sunday, July 29, 1565. 
 
 Murray had conceived that Mary's marriage would give 
 the death-wound to his ambitious prospects, and finding that 
 all his covert opposition was of no avail, he determined to 
 prevent it, if possible, by other means. Regardless of the 
 obhgatioiis under which he lay to the Queen, he joined and 
 headed the rebels in an attempt to take her prisoner, if not to 
 take her life. This treacherous design she narrowly escaped. 
 
 After Mary's marriage, the rebel insurgents (though assist- 
 ed, as usual, by Maiy's good sister Ehzabeth,) were compelled 
 to relinquish their treasonable attempts. Knox, even in 
 the presence of Royalty itself, declaimed from the pulpit 
 against the government of 'women and boys. Damley was 
 four years younger than the Queen. Murray sought refuge in 
 England, but though Elizabeth had no objection to annoy her 
 good sister, she did not think it prudent openly to encourage 
 rebels. She therefore compelled the haughty Murray, on his 
 knees, before the French and Spanish Ambassadors, to declare 
 (what was notoriously false) that she had had nothing to do in 
 the business. Murray then thought it advisable to retrace 
 his steps to the border counties, and endeavour, in the best 
 way he could, to make his peace at home. He had found 
 Elizabeth as much above a match for him in hypgcrisy, as he 
 
 VOL. I. »
 
 14 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 was in tliat way too much Tor his own Queen. Great interest 
 was made from many quarters to obtain the pardon of the 
 rebel Murray. Darnley was soon won to his purpose, by 
 obtaining the promise of his influence, when re-instated, to 
 have the crown-matrimonial secured to him fur life. The 
 crying sin of Mary was not that of implacabihty. Perhaps, 
 too, she might miss the abilities of a man as prime minister, in 
 whom she had been accustomed (however improperly) to con- 
 fide. She was not long, then, before she was induced to 
 re-adu^,it the treacherous Murray to her councils, though not 
 to his office of minion. 
 
 Whatever partiality Mary might feel for Darnley, she had 
 soon cause to perceive that she had been too precipitate in her 
 resolves. A little more deliberation would have let her into 
 the nature of his disposition, temper, habits, and abilities. He 
 had not depth to conceal it long. Weak in intellect, and 
 spoiled by prosperity and indulgence, he was self-opinionated, 
 hasty, suspicious, and overbearing. His sudden elevation 
 turned his head, and he behaved at times as if beside himself. 
 Like all weak men, he was continually receiving, or imagining, 
 affi'onts ; with the waywardness of a child, he possessed the 
 rudeness of the savage. Of a temper close and surly, he 
 created no friends, but made many enemies. To all her other 
 troubles poor Mary soon found that she had, by her marriage, 
 inflicted upon herself a heavier grief than all the rest. She 
 was not only unable to make a friend of her husband, but while 
 he was with her, she could associate with no other, with com- 
 fort or safety, to any j)arty. Her domestic circle became con- 
 tentious or cheerless, and by degrees the King and Queen 
 were nearly estranged from each other. 
 
 It is now necessary to mention four personages, who are to
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 15 
 
 act important parts in the remaming scene of the drama, viz. 
 Rizzio, Bothwell, Morton, and Maitland, or Lethington. 
 
 Rizzio was, by birth, a Piedmontese. He had been well 
 educated, and came to Edinburgh in the suite of the Ambassa- 
 dor of Savoy, in 1561. He was taken into the Queen's ser- 
 vice as valet and occasional singer. He was afterwards ap- 
 pointed her private secretaiy for the French language. In this 
 situation he was assiduous and faithful. He was likewise very 
 attentive and serviceable to Darnley, promoting as much as he 
 could his marriage with the Queen. By this, and by his ad- 
 herence to the Roman Catholic religion, he rendered himself 
 exceedingly obnoxious to Murray, Knox, and their party. 
 He, however, continued faitlifuUy attached both to the King 
 and Queen, till he was murdered in the presence of them both, 
 certainly with the connivance of the former. 
 
 James, Earl Bothwell, was among the first of the Scottish 
 nobles in rank. He was about twelve years older than the 
 Queen. He was a man of considerable abilities, ambitious, 
 and with a turn for business. He was, however, pro .igate in 
 his principles and conduct. He had been employed by the 
 Queen Regent on several important occasions. Before the 
 return of Mary from France, he was appointed one of the 
 commissioners for governing the kingdom in her absence. 
 He was one of the nobles who approved of the Queen's mar- 
 riage with Darnley, and was thus strongly opposed to Murray 
 and his party. 
 
 In 1562, the then Lord James having acquired the almost 
 imbounded confidence of his half-sister and Queen, and ob- 
 tained from her the earldom of Murray by the ruin of the 
 Chancellor Huntley, immediately transferred the seals to his
 
 16 SKETCH OF THE LIFE Ol' 
 
 companion and bosom friend, the Earl of Morton, thereby 
 securing a very considerable degree of additional power and 
 influence in the state to himself. Morton was a man apparently 
 neither desirous of being, nor qualified to be, more than a 
 satellite, and had therefore attached himself to Murray as his 
 primary planet. 
 
 Secretary Maitland was the son of Sir Richard Maitland, 
 of Lethington, by which name he is frequently called. He 
 was Secretary of State to the Queen Regent, and was a man of 
 undoubted abiJities. His principles neither political nor reli- 
 gious were by any means fixed, but seem to have fluctuated as 
 interest or circumstances influenced. He endeavoured to serve, 
 or to appear to serve, two masters, so that he might be ready 
 to hold eventually by the one whose interest should preponde- 
 rate. He was deprived of his office for some time by Mary, 
 •who clearly perceived his treachery, but he was, notwithstand- 
 ing, soon after re-instated. He was more trusted by Ehza- 
 beth and Cecil than any of the other treacherous ministers of 
 the ill-served Queen of ^cots. 
 
 With such a husband, such a prime minister, such a 
 chancellor, such a secretary of state, and such a good cousin as 
 Elizabeth, Mary must have been something more than human 
 to have escaped unsullied and uninjured, surrounded as she 
 was on eveiy hand by the most inveterate enemies of herself 
 and her rehgion. 
 
 O' 
 
 We have now to relate one of the foulest transactions that 
 the pages of history have ever recorded. This cannot be done 
 more clearly than in the words of the Queen herself in her 
 letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, then her Ambassador at
 
 MARY, gUEEN OF SCOTS. 17 
 
 Paris, especially as the account which she there gives is not 
 controverted in any material point by any of her historians. 
 
 " Upon the 9th day of March, we being at even, about 
 seven hours, in our cabinet, at our supper, sociated with our 
 sister, the Countess of Argyle, our brother, the commendator 
 of Holyrood House, the iard of Creich (Beaton,) Arthur 
 Erskin, and certain others our domestic servitors, in quiet man- 
 ner, especially by reason of our evil disposition (illness) being 
 counselled to sustain ourselves with llesh, havmg then passed 
 almost to the end of seven months in our birth, the King, our 
 husband, come to us, in our cabinet, and placed himself beside 
 lis, at our supper. The Earl of Morton, and Lord Lindsay, 
 with their assisters, boden in warlike manner (properly armed) 
 to the number of eighteen persons, occupied the wh.ole entry 
 of our palace of Holyrood House, so that, as they beheved, it 
 was not passable for any person, to escape forth of the same. 
 In that mean time, the Lord Ruthven, boden in like manner 
 (equally armed,) with his complices, took entry perforce, in our 
 cabinet ; and there seeing our secretary' David Riccio, * among 
 others our servants, declared he had to speak with him. In 
 this instant, we required the King, our husband, if he knew 
 any thing of that enterprize, who denied the same : Also, v.'e 
 commanded the Lord Ruthven, under the pain of treason, to 
 avoid him forth of our presence, (he (Riccio) then for refuge 
 took safeguard, having retired him behind our back,) but 
 Ruthven, with his complices, cast down our table upon ourself, 
 put violent hands on him, struck him over our shoulder with 
 whinyards (hangers,) one part of them standing before our face, 
 with bended dags (cocked pistols,) most cruelly took him out 
 of our cabinet, and at the entry of our chamber, gave him fifty- 
 six strokes with whinyards, and swords. In doing whereof, 
 we were not only struck with great dread, but also by sundrie 
 considerations was most jnstly induced to take extreme fear of 
 our hfe. After this deed, immediately, the said Lord Ruthven, 
 coming again into our presence, declared how they, and their 
 complices, were highly offended with our proceedings and ty- 
 ranny, which was not to them tolerable ; how we were abused. 
 
 * This is the proper spelling of the name,
 
 18 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 by the said David, whom they had actually put to deatli, 
 namely, in taking his counsel, for maintenance of the ancient 
 religion ; debating of the lords, who were fugitives, and enter- 
 taining of amity with foreign princes and nations, with whom 
 ve were confederate ; putting also upon council, the lords 
 Bothwell and Huntley, who were traitors, and with whom he 
 (Riccio) associated hhnself." 
 
 After this scene of horror, the Queen fled with her hus- 
 band to Dunbar Castle, where they were joined by many of 
 the loyal nobihty, with their followers, so as to enable them to 
 return with some assurance of safety, in about five days, to 
 Edinburgh. Morton, Ruthven, Maitland, Lindsay, Knox, 
 and others, fled to different places to avoid, for the present, the, 
 arm of the law. Tliey knew Mary's forgiving temper too well 
 not to hope eventually for pardon. In fact (with two excep- 
 tions of mean persons, Scot and Yair,) the conspirators were 
 soon re-admitted to their forfeited stations; Maitland being the 
 last to whom the Queen's lenity was extended. 
 
 The time of the Queen's delivery now drawing near, she 
 retired for peace and safety into the Castle of Edinburgh, to 
 await there the event of her accouchement. The expectation 
 of the murderers and disaffected, of a miscarriage, or a monster, 
 were disappointed ; the Queen was safely delivered of a fine 
 male child on the 19th June, 1565. The news of this unex- 
 pected event happened to reach the ears of Mary's good cousin 
 Elizabeth, when she was in high spirits, dancing, after supper, 
 at Greenwich. She was so unprepared for it, that it spoiled 
 her mirth and her dancing for the niaht. Before morning, 
 however, the Queen had conquered the •woman, and she was so 
 rrjniced to liear of the event, that she informed Melvill, that 
 the news which he had broucrht her had recovered her from a 
 
 O 
 
 fit of sickness which she had had for fifteen days.
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 19 
 
 Tlie King and Queen continued to live in the same uncom- 
 fortable manner, his wayward humours precluding the po.stibi- 
 lirj'"of residing with him with any satisfaction : indeed he almost 
 etitirely absented himself from the Queen's society. His beha- 
 viour to the nobility was so offensive as to become unbearable, 
 and they avoided his company as much as he did theirs. 
 
 In 1566, he proceeded so far as to write to the Pope and 
 other Catholic potentates, complaining that the Queen was 
 neglecting the interest of the Catholics. Copies of these let- 
 ters came to the Queen's hands, which tended not a little to 
 estrange them from each other. He went so far as to make 
 preparations for leaving the kingdom, yet he did the Queen 
 the justice publicly to declare before the privy council, that she 
 had "ivcn him no cause of offence. 
 
 o 
 
 During a tour which the Queen made the same year to 
 Berwick and other places, while at Craigmillar, on the 2d 
 December, a formal proposition was made to her by Murray, 
 Argyle, Huntley, Maitland, and many others, to consent to a 
 dkiorce between herself and Darnley. Though this proposition 
 was backed with all their eloquence, particularly by Bothn:ell, 
 she gave a most strong and decided denial. On the 5th of 
 the same month, she returned to Edinburgh, and remained 
 there till the 11th, when she went to Stirling to prepare for the 
 baptism of her son, which took place on the 17th of the same 
 month, Darnley, though there, refusing, with his usual ob- 
 stinacy and waywardness, to be present at the ceremony. On 
 the '24th, he left the castle abruptly without even taking leave 
 of the Queen, and went to visit his father at Glasgow. On 
 the 14th Januaiy, the Queen arrived at Edinburgh with her 
 infant son.
 
 20 SKETCH OF THE LIFE 
 
 Darnley, on his arrival at Glasgow, was seized with the 
 small pox. Mary, on hearing of it, sent her own physician to 
 him, but having the charge of the infant, did not herself visit 
 him till about the 25th, when he was recoverinsf. She broueht 
 her husband in a chariot, and arrived at Edinburgh on the 31st, 
 By order of the physician, a house belonging to the provost, 
 in a place called the Kirk-o-Ficld, had been prepared for him 
 as a convalescent patient. Here the Queen frequently visited 
 him, and sometimes slept in the house, they having effected 
 a reconciliation before her going to him at Glasgow. She 
 spent the evening of the 9th February with him till eleven 
 o'clock, but having engaged to attend the marriage of two of 
 her domestics, she then left him, kissing him, and putting one 
 of her own rings on his finger, as a token of love and reconci- 
 liation. At two o'clock, an explosion took place, and the 
 house was blown to pieces. The body of the King and that 
 of his servant Taylor were found in an adjoining garden with- 
 out any marks of tire or violence upon them. 
 
 On the 11th, the Queen wrote the following letter to the 
 Archbishop of Glasgow, then her resident at Paris. 
 
 " Maist Rev. Fader in God, and traist counsellor, we grait 
 yc weil : We have receivit, this morning, your letters of the 
 27th of January, by your servant, Robert Dury, containing in 
 ane part sic advirtisenient, as we find, by effect, overtrue, albeit 
 the succes has not altogether been sic, as the authoris of that 
 mischievous fact had prcconceivit in their mind, and had put it 
 in execution, gif God, in his mercy, luul not preservit us, and 
 reservit us, as we traist, to the end we may tak a rigorous ven- 
 geance of that mischievous deed, quhilk, or it sould remain 
 unpunishit, we had rather lose life, and all. The matter is 
 horrible, and sa strange, as we believe the like was never hard 
 of in any country. This night past being the 9th of February, 
 a little after twa houris, after midnight, the house quhairin the 
 King was logit was in ane instant blawin in the air, he lyand
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 21 
 
 feleipand in his bed, with sic a vehemencie, that of the haill 
 loging, wallis, and other, there is uathing remainit, na, not a 
 stane above another, but all either carreit tar away, or dung in 
 dross to the very ground stane. It mon be done be force of 
 powder, and appearis, to have been a myne : Be qiihome it 
 has been done, or in quhat manner, it appearis not as yet. Vv'e 
 doubt not bot, according to the dihgence oure counsal has 
 begun alreddie to use the certaintie of all sal be usit schorthe ; 
 and the same being discoverit, quhilk we wott God will never 
 suffer to ly hid, we hope to punish the same with sic rigor, as 
 sal serve, for example, of this crueltie to all ages to cum. 
 Allvvayes, quhoever has taken this wicked interprys in hand, 
 we assure ourself it was dressit alswel for us, as for the King ; 
 for we lay the maist part of all the last week in that same 
 loging, and was thair acconipanyit with the niaist part of the 
 lordis, that ar, in this town, that same night, at midnight, and 
 of very chance taryit not all night, be reason of sum mask in 
 the abbaye ; but, we believe it was not chance, but God to put 
 it in our hede. We depeschit this berars upon the sudden, 
 and therefor wraitis to you the mair schortlie. The rest of 
 your letter, we sal answer at mair laser, within four or five 
 dayis, by your owne servant. And sua, for the present, com- 
 mittis you to Almightie God. At Edinburgh, the 11th day 
 of Februar, 1566-7." 
 
 The Queen removed from Holyrood House to the Castle, 
 and, shutting herself up in a dark room, remained till the state 
 of her health rendered it necessary, both on her own account 
 and that of her child, to insist on her removing. By the desire 
 of the privy council she retired into the country, on the 16th 
 February, to Lord Seaton's. On the 10th March she return- 
 ed to Edinburgh, and on the 19th the young prince was de- 
 hvered to the Earl of Mar and conveyed to Stirling Castle, 
 there to be educated till the age of seventeen. The Queen's 
 government offered high rewards for the discoveiy of the mur- 
 derers of the king. Bothwell was placarded as the murderer, 
 and even underwent a kiijd of mock trial, and was acquitted. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 22 SKETCH OF THE LIFE 
 
 On the 14th April, the parhament assembled, being open- 
 ed by the Queen in person. In this parhament an Act was 
 passed by the Qiieen^ g'^'hig toleration to all her subjects to 
 worship God in their own way. After the rising of the par- 
 liament the most extraordinary' measure was resorted to that the 
 annals of folly, impertinence, and absurdity can produce. 
 Bothwell, the almost universally accused murderer of the King, 
 was married a little while before to an amiable and accomplish- 
 ed woman. Yet had Morton, Maitland, and Murray's faction 
 (for Murray himself had, without any apparent reason, retired 
 to France,) contrived to obtain from eight bishops and twice 
 as many peers, a declaration of Bothwell's innocence, and of 
 his being the Jiltest husband for the Queen, and engaging to 
 defend the proposed marriage with their lives and fortunes. 
 On the 21st of April, the Queen went to visit her son at 
 Stirling, and on her return on the S^th, was seized by Bothwell 
 at the head of eight hundred horsemen, and conveyed with her 
 attendants to his Castle of Dunbar. The Queen was there 
 detained solely and fully in his power for many days. During 
 all this time (as she afterwards complained,) not a sword was 
 unsheathed, nor a man stirred in her defence or for her rescue. 
 
 On Bothwell brincring the Queen to the Castle of Edin- 
 burgh, his wife and himself both sued for a divorce, which was 
 soon obtained. On the 12th May, the Queen entered the 
 Court of Session, and there made declaration of her good mind 
 towards Bothwell, the murderer of her husband, and the ra- 
 visher of herself. On the 14th she entered into a formal con- 
 tract of marriage with him, having previously created him Duke 
 of Orkney. On the 15th May they were married. 
 
 The whole country, as might well be imagined, was thrown 
 into strong agitation by these extraordinary occurrences, the
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 23 
 
 insurgents raising great clamour : from the effects of these the 
 Queen thought it prudent to take refuge in Dunbar Castle. 
 She was there at length joined by such considenible forces as 
 encouraged her to take the Held against the insurgents. The 
 Queen took post on Carberry Hill, and the insurgents, headed 
 by Morton and Athol, drew up in front of the royal army, 
 which was much inferior in numbers. Before engagintr, how- 
 ever, an arrangement took place through the intervention of 
 the Laird of Grange, by which Bothwell was allowed to with- 
 draw himself, and the Queen went over to Jthe insurgent army, 
 on an assurance of their h nouring and obeying her as their 
 sovereign. These promises, however, were immediately vio- 
 lated ; the Queen was treated as a captive, and, amidst the most 
 gross and disgusting insults, carried, weeping and covered with 
 dust, through the streets of the metropolis, not to the palace, 
 but to the provost's house ; not to sleep, but to be kept awake 
 by the yells of the rabble, and the recollection of her people's 
 profligacy and her own manifold suff'erings. 
 
 The royal captive now required of her insurgent jailors that 
 their promise of obedience might be fulfilled, and that they 
 would immediately convene the estates of the realm. As well 
 might she have desired an assemblage of wolves to release a 
 lamb which they were going to devour. Instead of complying 
 with this her reasonable request, they sent her off, a declared 
 prisoner, to the Castle of Lochleven, belonging to William 
 Douglas, the half brother of Murray, and the presumptive heir 
 of Morton. Under the charge of Ruthven and Lindsay, she 
 was hurried away, disguised, in the night, under a strong guard. 
 On the 18th June, the insurgents seized all the Queen's jewels 
 and plate, with other moveables, breaking into the royal chapel 
 and pulling down the altar, images, pictures, and ornaments.
 
 24 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 I shall not interrupt the coarse of the narrative to account 
 for the pretended discovery now made of a hox full of love- 
 letters from the Queen to Bothwell. They will be duly no- 
 ticed hereafter. 
 
 The insurgent nobles now assumed the title of " The 
 Lords of the Secret Council," Morton being at their head. 
 The French ambassador was refused admission to the Queen, 
 and consequently returned home. The Assembly of the 
 Church joined the Secret Council in their measures, and issued 
 letters to the principal nobihty, informing them " that God at 
 this present has begun to tread down Satan (the Queen) under 
 foot." Mary's good cousin Elizabeth, ever awake to self-in- 
 terest, now sent Throkmorton to deal with the Secret Council 
 and the Queen, for sending the young prince to be entrusted 
 to her maternal care. The Queen he was not permitted to 
 see, and the Secret Council did not think it for their interest 
 to comply with the request. 
 
 The insurgents now detennined, in a conference held on 
 the 23d July, to compel the Queen to execute a formal resig- 
 nation of the crown on the following day ; resolving, in case of 
 her refusal, to deprive her of her attendants, and place her in 
 close confinement. The final result of such measures, had she 
 braved them, may be easily anticipated. Melvill says, " They 
 resolved to send Lindsay, the greatest ruffian of all those 
 ruffians, first to use their persuasions, and in case he could not 
 succeed by fair means, to make use of harder terms." 
 Throkmorton informed Elizabeth, " As far as I can under- 
 stand, in case of the Queen's refusal of their demands, they 
 mean to proceed with violence and force, as well for the 
 coronation of the prince as for the overthroiv of the Queen."
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 25 
 
 The " ruffian" Lord Lindsay returned from Lochleven 
 Castle on the 25th, with the voluntary resignation of the 
 Queen. On the 29th, the baby King was crowned in tlie 
 church of Stirhng, by the Bishop of Orkney, Lindsay and 
 Ruthven pubhcly making oath, that the Queen did voluntarily 
 and ivillingly and ivithout compulsion resign her estate to her 
 son, and the government of the reahn to such persons as by 
 the several commissions she had named. Everj' act was now 
 done in the King's name. The liberation of the Queen did 
 not, as might reasonably have been expected, follov/ this vo~ 
 lunta?-t/ act of abdication. 
 
 About the 16th August, INIurray being returned from 
 France, by the ivay of London, went with other nobles to 
 visit the Queen in Lochleven Castle. At parting, she said to 
 them, " My Lords, you have had experience of my severity 
 and the end of it ; I pray you also let me find tliat you have 
 learned by me to make an end of yours." Murray left her 
 " assured of nothing but God's mercy." In the morning, 
 however, he promised her life, but could not answer for her 
 liberty. On the 22d, Murray was proclaimed Regent. He 
 was now sole ruler in Scotland. On the 11th November, 
 Murray deprived Huntley of the office of Chancellor, in which 
 he re-instated his creature Morton. 
 
 The parhament was assembled on the 15th December, for 
 the purpose of legalizing the revolution which had placed the 
 Queen in prison, her son on a nominal, and Murray on a 
 real, throne. Li March, 1568, the Regent made a second 
 visit to the Queen, the real object of which scarcely appears, 
 in all probability because, whatever it might be, it failed. 
 
 On the 25th March, the Queen, with the assistance of
 
 26 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OP 
 
 George Douglas, tlie younger brother of her gaolor, and half 
 brother to the Regent, attempted an escape m the disguise of 
 a laundress. On the detection of the plan Douglas was ba- 
 nished the Castle. He was not, however, driven from his 
 purpose, but engaged William Douglas, who was an orphan 
 boy, under eighteen years of age, and had been brought up in 
 Lochleven Castle, to contrive, while the family were at supper, 
 on Sunday, May 2, 1568, to steal tlie keys of the castle, and 
 to let the Queen and her maid, out of the strong hold: this he 
 did, and locking the gates behind them, put the fugitives into a 
 small boat, and rowed them to the appointed landing-place. 
 Her faithful servant John Beton, who had been long busy pro- 
 viding for the Queen's escape, was ready on the shore, with 
 George Douglas, to receive her. Seaton, and Hamilton, of 
 Orbieston, with their followers, were not far off; they mounted 
 the Queen and her attendant, and gallopped to Niddery. In 
 the morning they proceeded to Hamilton. The Queen was 
 there soon joined by many nobles with an army of about six 
 tliousand strong. This army, which was conducted by Argyle, 
 left Hamilton on the 13th May, 1568, designing to convey 
 the Queen to Dumbarton Castle, but the Regent, acquainted 
 with the intention, intercepted their march, though with infe- 
 rior numbers. The Queen's army, impatient of delay, begun 
 the attack: after a sharp conflict, they were totally defeated. 
 The Queen fled into Galloway, nor did she stop till she found 
 herself in Dundreinnen Abbey, sixty miles from the field of 
 battle. 
 
 Contrary to the advice of her friends, Mary now resolved to 
 trust to the tender mercies of her good cousin Elizabeth, rather 
 than return, as a fugitive, to the Queen Mother in France, or 
 flee to her husband Bothwell. Without a second habit, or a 
 single shilling in her pocket, she was rowed over in a fishing
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 27 
 
 boat, with sixteen attendants, the gallant Lord Hemes being 
 one of them, to Workington, in Cumberland, where she ar- 
 rived on the 16th May. From thence she removed to Carlisle, 
 where she was at first treated by order of Elizabeth with due 
 respect. It poon, however, became evident, that the Royal 
 Exile was in reality considered by her good cousin as her 
 prisoner. Orders in a little while arrived, that she should be 
 removed to Bolton Castle, a seat of the Lord Scroope, in the 
 North-Riding of York. She arrived there on the 16th July. 
 
 The lontT head of Elizabeth was now set to work to devise 
 a plan by which her good cousin might be degraded in the 
 eyes of the world, and thereby a pretext be obtained for that 
 treatment of her, which she could not but be conscious must 
 appear so cruel and unjust as to require one. For this pur- 
 pose, with the aid of the Regent, means were found to per- 
 suade the Queen of Scots to submit her past conduct to the 
 examination of commissioners appointed by each party, viz. 
 Ehzabeth, Murray, and Mary. The commission was to sit at 
 York. The result of such an investigation, at which she was 
 neither allowed to be present, nor to peruse papers which were 
 produced as being written by her, (though she denied the fact,) 
 could hardly be expected to be in her favour. Without 
 coming, however, to any conclusion at York, it was resolved to 
 remove the enquiry to Westminster, as benig more immediately 
 subject to the control of Elizabeth. New commissioners were 
 sworn to render impart ial Justice, and another new commission 
 was opened at*Hampton Court, on the 30th October. Mary 
 now demanded, as she had done before, to be admitted to the 
 presence of Elizabeth, that she might be heard in her own 
 vindication. This, however, was denied to her, and the com- 
 missioners proceeded, as before, on the evidence of writings, the 
 authenticity of which the Queen of Scots engaged, if permitted,
 
 28 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 to disprove. This she was not allowed to do. Ko one waS 
 examined on her behalf, and, of course, such a conclusion as 
 suited the purposes of Elizabeth was the result. 
 
 Elizabeth, supposing that all this pomp of investigation, 
 and the scurrilous unauthorised result, would alarm the Queen 
 of Scots into a compliance with the base end which she, her 
 good sister, had in view, now endeavoured, through the me- 
 dium of Knollys, to induce her voluntarily/ to relinquish all 
 claim to the throne of Scotland in favour of her son, and to 
 consent to his being brought into England to be educated 
 under the superintendence of herself (Elizabeth.) These mo- 
 dest proposals, Mary received, and treated with merited con- 
 tempt. " No," she exclaimed ; " the last words ivhich I 
 shall utter, ivill be those of the Queen of Scots J" 
 
 The result of all these disgraceful enquiries was the return 
 of the Regent Murray to Scotland, tvilh a reward of Jive 
 thousand pounds from the declared enemy of his country, and 
 the imprisonment of the Queen of Scots in England for life. 
 
 From Bolton Castle Mary was removed to Tutbury, and 
 from thence to Wingfield, and afterwards to Chatsworth, The 
 Duke of Norfolk was one of the commissioners of Elizabeth, 
 against Mary, at York. The arts and deceptions of Murray, 
 Maitland, and others, with the desire, no doubt, of complying 
 with the wishes of his own Queen, seem to have led him to a 
 most unjust condemnation of the Scottish Queen, whom he 
 had never seen. Subsequent reflection, however, and better 
 information, seem to have removed those false impressions so 
 completely, that he not only fell deeply in love with her, but 
 certainly did seek to make her his wife. Very considerable 
 myitery undoubtedly involves the wljole proceedings, but it no
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 29 
 
 where appears that the Queen of Scots encouraged him in any 
 such romantic notions. His conduct, however, was such as 
 to cause him, in the first place, to be for a while imprisoned, 
 and though afterwards released, finally to lose his head by a 
 stretch of tyrannical /power which nothing short of despotism 
 would have ventured upon, nor any thing less than base re- 
 venge have urfred. 
 
 o to 
 
 On the 22d January, 1569-70, the Regent Murray was 
 shot dead in the streets of Linlithgow, by an injured husband, 
 Hamilton, of Bothwell Haugh, whose wife he had persecuted 
 till he had driven her to distraction. The Queen of Scots, 
 with feelings that did honour to her heart, if not to her worldly 
 wisdom, shed tears on hearing of this violent end of a man 
 who, throughout the whole of her reign, had basely deceived 
 her to her ruin, for the vile purpose of aggrandizing himself. 
 The Earl of Lennox was appointed Regent in the room ef 
 Murray, with Morton for his Lieutenant. 
 
 At the end of 1570, the Queen of Scots was removed to 
 the Castle of Sheffield, that being, as well as Tutbury and 
 Chatsworth, the property of the Earl of Shrewsbury, to whose 
 custody the Queen was committed. Here and in the neigh- 
 bourhood the Queen of Scots passed twelve years of her long 
 and unjust captivity. During the early part of it she seems to 
 have been treated by the earl with considerable indulgence. 
 Many causes contributed to abate this, and to produce an in- 
 creasing degree of severity and restraint. The allowance made 
 to him was very inadequate to the expense and inconvenience, 
 and it was very tardily paid. He himself was in fact a prisoner 
 at a home where he was far from being happy. His natural 
 goodness of heart and temper became lessened. He was sus- 
 pected by his Queen of being too partial to his prisoner, and 
 
 VOL. r. H
 
 30 SKETCH OF THE LIFE 
 
 his wife iwas employed to watch him. He certainly led a most 
 uncomfortable life. » 
 
 Many iil-conccived and ill-executed fruitless plans were 
 devised by individuals to liberate the royal captive. Frequent 
 applications, too, were made in her favour by foreign powers. 
 Ehzabeth's temper, likewise, (which was never remarkably sweet,) 
 became daily more and more soured, so that poor Mary's 
 bondage became more severe, when her increasing infirmities 
 and age (for old age came upon her very prematurely,) rendered 
 her less able to support it. The number of her attendants was 
 greatly lessened, the freedom which she had enjoyed was much 
 abridged, and the comforts which had been afforded her were 
 greatly reduced. Insults without number were offered her. 
 Being unwell, she had particularly requested to be allowed a 
 priest to administer the sacrament to her ; instead of this being 
 comphed with, a wretch, named Bateman, (no doubt by au- 
 thority,) brought her a book written in Latin, most grossly 
 defaming her character. " The author" she said, in a letter to 
 the French ambassador, "s^e knew to be George Buchanan, a 
 vile atheist, voho had been appointed schoolmaster to her son." 
 
 On the 2d June, 1572, the highly endowed and accom- 
 plished Norfolk suffered, to satiate the mahgnant passions of a 
 jealous tyrant. This could not but be, as it was intended, a 
 severely cutting stroke to the unhappy Mary, who knew herself 
 the cause (however innocently) of his death. Well might she 
 exclaim, that she was not only doomed to nnsery herself, but 
 also to be the occasion of it to all who loved her. 
 
 So close had Mary's confinement now become, that 
 Shrewsbury informed Cecil, that^ when permitted, " she ivas 
 Ko eager to walk out, that she was content to step over shoes
 
 MARY, gUEEN OF SCOTS. SI 
 
 into the snoto." She had formerly been allowed an excursion 
 to Buxton, but it afterwards required considerable influence to 
 obtain Elizabeth's consent to permit her to repeat the journey, 
 though it was declared absolutely laecessary on account of the 
 complaints which close confinement in damp apartments had 
 brought upon her. Slie did, however, go again, and there it 
 was that Burghley saw her, which raised the jealousy of Eliza- 
 beth lest her old Lord Treasurer himself should be smitteii 
 with the so much dieaded charms of the captive Queen, lis 
 fact, the Queen of England had dwelt so much and so long on 
 this subject, that " she became crazy, and being crazy, sup- 
 posed that she could not exist if the Queen of Scots was free. ' 
 Of the two she was by far the most miserable woman. 
 
 On the 1st Jmie, 1581, Morton was tried and convicted 
 by the assize of the murder of Darnley. He was executed 
 next day, confessing his guilt. James was now turned sixteen, 
 when, in the absence of Lennox and Arran, the Earl of Mar 
 and others invited him to visit them at Ruthven Castle, where 
 they kept him prisoner, compelling him to change both his 
 ministers and his measures. Mary was so much affected by 
 the intelligence, that her life was despaired of. In the subse- 
 quent summer, however, he effected his escape by exertions 
 and contrivance beyond what he was supposed capable of. 
 
 On the 27th August, 1585, the Queen of Scots, without 
 notice or cause assigned, was removed from Sheffield to Wing- 
 field, under the care of Sadler and Somer. She was not per- 
 mitted to remain long there, for though so lame as to be im- 
 able to walk alone, and almost heart-broken, she was removed 
 to the dilapidated Castle of Tutbury, on the 14th January, 
 " the ways being so foul and deep that they could not go 
 through in a day." Here she suffered exceedingly from cold
 
 32 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 and damp, and almost from want, the allowance made by Eliza- 
 beth being totally inadequate to the establishment. She com^ 
 plained, too, of not being permitted to distribute alms, as she 
 had been accustomed to do to the poor in the neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 Conspiracies of Spain and the Pope against England were 
 now attributed to the Queen of Scots, and it was moved in 
 parliament that " she ought to be taken off." Discourses and 
 writings to this effect, too, were common, and every art resorted 
 to, to prepare the people for such an event. At the close of 
 the year, 1585, she was again removed to Chartley, her health 
 and strength so impaired as to render her unable to turn her- 
 self in bed. Sir Amias Paulet was now sent as the Queen's 
 warden, with instructions to introduce new restrictions, — in- 
 structions which he did not fail to obey. 
 
 A conspiracy was now discovered of Babington with a Je« 
 suit of the name of Balland and others, traitorous and dan- 
 gerous to the safety of Elizabeth. The Queen of Scots, of 
 course, was supposed to be at the bottom of it. Her secreta- 
 ries were arrested and examined privately ; they were kept 
 apart, and, by some means or other, induced to accuse their 
 mistress, whose secrets they had been sworn to keep. She 
 was removed to Tixhall, and her cabinet and private drawers 
 at Chartley searched in the presence of Elizabeth. The Queen 
 of England found many things that tended to disquiet her- 
 self, but nothing that could authorise her to take away the life 
 of her hated rival. 
 
 On the 30th August, the Queen of Scots was carried back 
 to Chartley. On leaving Tixhall, she said to the poor people 
 assembled to crave her charity, <' I have nothing for you, poor
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 33 
 
 creatures, I am a beggar as well as you ; they have taken all 
 from me," On arriving at Chartley, and finding all her papers 
 gone, she axclaimed, " Well, there are two things •which they 
 could not take away, my English blood and my Catholic 
 religio7i /" 
 
 Great was now the debating in the pri\y council on what 
 law she should be arraigned, the councillors widely differing 
 (as well they might) in opinion on that subject. In the mean 
 time, the Queen of Scots was removed for the last time, during 
 her hfe, to Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire, on the 
 25th September, 1586. On the 11th October, commissiouers 
 appointed to try the Queen, arrived at Fotheringay, with 
 Burghley at the head of them. She was now tried by judges 
 decidedly prejudiced against her, without any one to defend 
 her cause ; for what could be no crime if she could be proved to 
 have committed it, viz. having endeavoured to escape from the 
 fangs of a tyrant who had kept her eighteen years in thraldom, 
 in violation of all laws, human and divine. Of doing this, 
 her judges did think it prudent to declare her guilty. For this 
 crime, however, even her good sister Elizabeth dared not ven- 
 ture directly to order her execution. She loved dark and 
 crooked ways, she understood them, and they suited her the 
 best. She first tried to have her privately murdered. Paulet 
 and Drury had gone far to serve her, and she thought that 
 they would stop at nothing. It is not often, however, that 
 Englishmen will murder for hire, and they refused the job. 
 
 The next plan was an alarm spread throughout the king- 
 dom, that the Queen of Scots was escaped, and that London 
 was in flames ; and precepts of hue and cry were issued for 
 taking the fugitive. This, however, failed in causmg her de- 
 struction.
 
 S* SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
 
 At length Elizabeth signed the warrant for the execution 
 of her imfortunate captive : but afterwards sent word to her 
 secretary Davison, that it was not to be executed. She was 
 tpld that it was too late. It was sent down immediately to 
 Fotheringay, by Beal the clerk to the privy council, with a 
 warrant and authority to the Earls of Shrewsbury', Kent, 
 Derby, Cumberland, and others, to see her executed according 
 to law. On the 4th Februarj^ they arrived at Fotheringay, 
 and immediately read the warrant to the Queen of Scots, order- 
 ing her to prepare for death on the morrow. With a composed 
 spirit, she replied, " I did not think that the Queen, my sister, 
 would have consented to my death, who am not subject to her 
 laws, but seeing that her pleasure is so, death shall be to me 
 most welcome : neither is that soul worthy of the high and 
 everlasting joys above, whose body cannot endure the stroke of 
 the executioner." On the morrow, the executioner, at two 
 strokes, severed her head from the body, thereby putting an 
 end for ever to her earthly sufFerings, but inflicting a wound 
 on the mind of her murderous sister, which tormented her 
 through many a painful year, and greatly embittered the agonies 
 of a procrastinated death. 
 
 A relation of the last days of these rival Queens has 
 been already given. 
 
 The pages of romance scarcely afford an instance of a life 
 so fruitful of important changes as that of Mary, Queen of 
 Scots. The reader can scarcely imagine that he has here been 
 perusing only the occurrences of one short life of forty-four 
 years. The beneficial lessons which it incidcates, are almost 
 innumerable. The heart and the understanding that can go 
 through with it unmoved, must be hard and dull indeed.
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 35 
 
 That the Queen of Scots has been most basely calumniated, 
 few impartial persons who have examined and judged for them- 
 selves, now, I believe, doubt. Still much difference of opinion 
 exists as to the measure of her deserts, and of the injustice 
 done to her character. In the following Dissertation I shall 
 endeavour to produce such reasons for believing her innocent 
 of the gross crimes which have been attributed to her, as an 
 attentive jierusal of facts, and an impartial consideration of cir- 
 cumstances, have suggested to my mind.
 
 S^issevtatimi on tijt ^itt 
 
 OF 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, 
 
 " The cause which I knew not, I searched out." Job, xixi 16. 
 
 The three great crimes wliich have been laid to the charge of 
 the Queen of Scots, are, 1st. An illicit intercourse with Rizzio; 
 2d. A participation in the murder of her husband Darnley ; 
 and, 3rd. The marrying with the man who was the principal 
 agent in the murder. These serious charges shall be con- 
 isidered in turn, with several other minor crimes and errors of 
 which she has been accused. 
 
 The most remarkable trait in the character of Mary, appears 
 to me to have been a strong sense of the importance of re- 
 ligion, shewing itself in very early life, and continuing unim- 
 paired to the end of it. That rehgion, though she was a 
 Roman Catholic and a Queen, does not appear to have been 
 attended with either bigotry or a persecuting spirit. On the
 
 40 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 contrary, she was, even without making allowance for her situa- 
 tion and the circumstances of the times, tolerant and mild. 
 Tliat this arose not from timidity is evident, because, under 
 no threats, danger, or sufferings, could she be prevailed upon 
 to alter the religion of the state, or to relinquish the exercise of 
 that species of devotion, which education, conscience, and per- 
 haps prejudice, taught her to regard as essential to her own 
 salvation. She bore the persecutions of the rude reformers 
 of her own subjects with singular calmness and magnanimity, 
 and she answered their coarse arguments, both verbally and in 
 writing, with great coUectedness and force ; — so much so, that 
 Keith observes, that Knox himself admitted that the Queen's 
 papers gained the most credit. These are very extraordinary 
 circumstances in so young a woman so circumstanced. 
 
 The Queen was then only eighteen years of age. She had 
 been sent from her only surviving parent when only six year* 
 old ; she had been educated in one of the most bigotted 
 countries in Europe, and was exalted to the throne of one of 
 the most dissolute courts in the world, with a husband much 
 younger, and less capable of ruling, than herself, when she was 
 only sixteen, Tliese facts are undeniable, and I wish them to 
 be particular!)' — strongly impressed upon the reader, as being of 
 importance to be kept in mind in judging of Mary's subsequent 
 conduct. Whenever she was left to act for herself, unrestrained 
 by force or fraud, and her actions are viewed without prejudice, 
 and represented without falsehood or detraction, her conduct 
 appears to bear the marks of wisdom, goodness of heart, and 
 piety ; this would teach us to examine with suspicion such 
 relations of her behaviour as are made by men of notoriously 
 vile character, and strongly if not furiously opposed to her 
 both as a Queen and a Catholic.
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 4 1 
 
 It is a circumstance which pleads powerfully in her favour, 
 that she was beloved by her domestics. She never appears to 
 have descended from the dignity of a sovereign, and yet she had 
 the rare fehcity of being served at home with affection. 
 
 There is to me something almost romantically affecting in 
 the circumstance of her leaving home and her own country at six 
 years of age, accompanied by four of her young play-fellows, 
 all Marys, not perhaps older than herself; — all continuing with 
 her through the happy years of youth, companions of her 
 amusements and her studies, and all waiting on her, at sixteen 
 years of age, the loveliest, youngest Queen, on the gayest 
 throne in the world, with unabated affection ; — all mourning 
 with her when a disconsolate widow, descending at eighteen 
 from that gay throne, and leaving the happy scenes of 
 youth, to encounter together the storms and tempests of a 
 rude court, and a country torn and distracted by wild conten- 
 tions of unfeelinor and designing men. None of these her 
 early companions ever forsook her, though some of them 
 married. Such a Queen could scarcely have been a bad 
 woman. History, I think, does not furnish a stronger in- 
 stance of innate goodness of heart ! 
 
 a^ 
 
 Mr. Chalmers says, " The young Queen arrived at Brest, 
 on the 18th August, 1548. She was now sent, when she 
 was not quite six, to a monastery which was appropriated to the 
 education of the noblest virgins of France. Here she was 
 educated at a distance from court, not only in the accomplisli- 
 ments of her sex, but in those classical studies that are appro- 
 priated to boys ; so that when she was not more than twelve 
 years old, she is said to have been so well acquainted with 
 Latin, Italian, and French, that she made verses in all these
 
 42 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE 
 
 lansuasres, as well as in her own. She was married to the 
 Dauphin at the age of sixteen, when she was admired for her 
 accomplishments, and respected for her virtues. Even the 
 Huguenots of France, who vvere full as censorious as the 
 Knoxites of Scotland, did not so much calumniate Mary's 
 character as her kingdom. The steadiness with which she 
 adhered to her religion, through many a trial of her temper, 
 is the best proof of its effects upon her life." Yet Knox (with 
 his usual malignity), when relating in his history the death of 
 the young king, speaks of him as " the husband of our 
 Jezebel ;'' (for whose blood he had declared that he thirsted.) 
 Again, — " The Scottish Queen, however elevated by her 
 marriage (with the Dauphin), omitted no part of her former 
 attentions, either towards the King or Queen, or even others 
 of inferior rank. She practised, when seated on a throne, 
 that innate mildness to her friends and to her attendants, which 
 had adorned her virgin state ; .and she also attended to those 
 observances which had instructed her infancy, with the same 
 assiduity as in her girlish days. Though the Dauphin, her 
 husband, was inferior to her in age and experience, (as well as 
 understanding,) she asked him to all councils, and ventured 
 upon nothing without his privity. In consequence of this, he 
 shewed as much deference to his wife, as he had always done 
 to his parents." 
 
 Of Mai-y's real regard for the memory of her husband, as 
 well as of her poetical abihties, the following verses, as trans- 
 lated by Wliitaker, may serve as a proof : — 
 
 I. 
 
 While, in a tone of deepest woe, 
 My sweetly mournlul warblings flow,
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 43 
 
 I wildly cast my eyes around, 
 Feel my dread loss, my bosom wound, 
 And see, in sigh succeeding sigh. 
 The finest moments of my life to fly. 
 
 II. 
 
 Did destiny's hard hand before, 
 Of miseries such a store, 
 Or such a train of sorrows shed 
 Upon a happy woman's head ? 
 Who sees her very heart, and eye, 
 Or in the bier, or in the coffin he. 
 
 III. 
 
 Who, in the morning of my day, 
 
 And midst my flowers of youth most gay, 
 
 Feel all the wretchedness at heart, 
 
 That heaviest sorrows can impart; 
 
 And can in nothing find rehef 
 
 But in the fond indulgence of my grief. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What once of joy could lend a strain, 
 
 Is now converted into pain ; 
 
 The day that shines with fullest heht 
 
 I D 
 
 s now to me a darksome night ; 
 
 Nor is there aught of highest joys, 
 
 That now my soul will condescend to prize. 
 
 V. 
 
 Full at my heart and in my eye 
 A portrait and an image lie. 
 That figure out my dress of woe, 
 And my pale face reflected show, 
 The semblance of the violets blue, 
 Unhappy love's own genuine hue. 
 
 VI. 
 
 To ease my sorely troubled mind, 
 I keep to no one spot confined. 
 But think it good to shift my place, 
 In hopes my sadness to efface ;
 
 4^ DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 For now is worst, now best again, 
 The most sequestrate solitary scene. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Whether I shelter in the grove, 
 Or in the open meadow rove ; 
 "Whether the mom is dawning day, 
 Or evening shoots its level ray ; 
 My heart's incessant feelings prove 
 My heavy mourning for my absent love. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 If at a time towards the skies, 
 I cast my sorrow-dropping eyes, 
 I see his eyes sweet-glancing play 
 Amongst the clouds in eveiy ray. 
 Then in the cloud's dark water view. 
 His hearse display'd in sorrow's sable hue. 
 
 IX. 
 
 If to repose my limbs apply, 
 And slumbering on my couch I lie ; 
 I hear his voice to me rejoin, 
 I feel his body touching mine ; 
 Engaged at work, to rest applied, 
 I have him still for ever at my side. 
 
 X. 
 
 No other object meets my sight 
 
 However fair it seems or bright, 
 
 To which my heart will e'er consent 
 
 To yield itself in fond content, 
 
 And robb'd of the perfection be 
 
 Of this impassion'd mournful sympathy. 
 
 XI. 
 
 But here, my song, do thou refrain 
 From my most melancholy strain. 
 Of which shall this the burden prove ; 
 " My honest heart-fvdl hvely love, 
 " Howe'er I am, by death disjoin'd, 
 " Shall never, never diminution find."
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 45 
 
 " These lines," says the translator of them, " have apparently 
 very considerable merit, in the ideas, the imaginations, and the 
 very genius of elegiac poetry : every reader of taste must ad- 
 mire them, for the moumfulness, as well as fancy, that runs 
 through them. To a knowledge of the several tongues, and 
 much other acquaintance of many affairs, the Scotish Queen 
 had a lively taste, and a distinguished talent, for French poetrj'. 
 See les Memoires de Brantome, et les Anecdotes dcs Reines 
 de France. Mary was not only a poetess herself, but the 
 cause of poetry in others : many a Vaudeville was written on 
 her departure, from France." 
 
 *' Francis was so far happy that he had married a wife, 
 who, besides other virtues, dedicated her whole attention to 
 him ; resembhng more the painful and sohcitous regard of 
 wives in common hfe, than those of a Queen, by right, as well 
 as by marriage. The people thanked God for this courteous- 
 ness in her ; and as every nation ordinarily resemble their 
 governors, the population of that great kingdom began to hope 
 for many tranquil years under a marriage so peaceful and 
 happy."* I know not where in the history of crowned heads 
 to find the record of one character so accomphshed, so lovely, 
 so engaging, so prepossessing, and so promising as this. 
 
 Now we are to suppose that this almost faultless being, who 
 had, when thus young, withstood some of the strongest temp- 
 tations of the most trying station that a wicked world affords ; 
 who, in every relation of child, of pupil, wife, and queen, and 
 widow, before she was eighteen years of age, had evinced the most 
 dutiful obedience, purity and goodness of heart, extraordinary 
 
 * Chalmers. 
 VOL. r.
 
 46 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 abilities, constancy and affection, moderation and judgment, 
 piety and resignation, was all at once to be changed into a 
 being wantonly delighting in profligacy, sensuahty, violence, 
 and murder. To convince any human creature possessed of 
 common sense, that such an anomaly in conduct had occurred, 
 must require proofs of no common force and clearness. Those 
 which have been adduced of the guilt of Queen Mary, certainly 
 border not on that description ; their nature shall be in course 
 examined. 
 
 In one quahfication of a Queen, as before observed, Marj 
 certainly was greatly deficient ; I mean in a penetrating insight 
 into the secret recesses of the human heart. Hence arose the 
 dangerous aptitude of believing men and women too, to be 
 what they at first appeared, or professed to be. This credulity, 
 or want of discernment, was apparently the fatal source of many 
 of her misfortunes. In her it was natural, and it was lovely, 
 but it was dreadfully dangerous. It would have been so in a 
 queen of any age, or in any country, or at any time ; in her at 
 lier age, and in her country at that time, it was most fatally so. 
 Her first conspicuous error, arismg from this cause, after her 
 ascending the throne of her fathers, was in the appointment of 
 her ministers and servants of the state. They were men, al- 
 most without an exception, in the interests of her inveterate 
 enemy, the deceptions, intriguing, heartless Queen of England. 
 They were thus attached, not because they loved the Queen 
 of England, but because they sought their own aggrandize- 
 ment. They were opposed to the religion of their own Queen, 
 not, it is to be feared, because they cared much about religion 
 as such, but because they knew, or believed, that opposing the 
 established religion of their own country, and encouraging that 
 of a neighbouring state, might lead to the dethronement of
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 47 
 
 •f tlielr Queen (who did care for religion,) and thereby to the 
 appointment of tliemselves as regal rulers. 
 
 There was not only an unsuspecting credulity in the nature 
 of the Queen of Scots, but also an amiable, though injurious 
 degree of placability, which was proof against all self-interested 
 suggestions, and all kinds of offending. No one ever trans- 
 gressed beyond hopes of pardon and forgiveness from her. 
 Mary was scarcely fit for a throne in this world ; she was at any 
 rate unfit for any throne in bad times ; for the throne of Scot- 
 land in those times, she was totally so. 
 
 The next error committed by Queen Mary, which I shall 
 notice, arising from the causes which have been enumerated, 
 was, that of the choice of a husband. That she should feel 
 disposed to marry again at her age, was neither blameable nor 
 to be wondered at ; that she should find herself compelled to 
 marry, situated as she was, must appear probable. Had she 
 been the slave of her passions, it is scarcely possible that she 
 should not have seen the man on whom she could fix her 
 affections, (she had seen, and been frequently with Dothwell, 
 ivho was then unmarried ;) she, however, fixed her choice on 
 one whom she had not seen. The world spoke highly of this 
 nobleman ; his connections, and station in life, were such as to 
 render him the man whom the public would have fixed upon 
 as the fittest match for her. Even the hard-to-please Ehza- 
 beth started no objections till too late, and then his fitness 
 was in all probablity her real objection. Mary undoubtedly 
 in this match meant to please her people as well as to serve 
 herself. That she was too precipitate, and too confiding, per- 
 haps too determined, all must grant, and all must lament. He 
 was unworthy of her love and confidence. Had he proved a
 
 48 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 better man, the conduct of the Queen had never been consider- 
 ed as blameable. A recent instance of conduct nearly similar 
 in one not much luihke Queen Mary in many respects, in our 
 own country,* had a better termination, as far as regarded the 
 merit of the man : and therefore, the conduct in that instance, 
 of the exalted character who determinedly selected him as the 
 object of her affections, has rarely been blamed. 
 
 The mortification of Queen Mary, on finding that she had 
 united herself to a man, not only totally disinclined to, and in- 
 capable of assisting her in the arduous task of governing such a 
 people, but one who was of a disposition which must inevitably 
 increase her difficulties, and render herself and husband miser- 
 able together, as well as give offence and disgust both to the 
 members of the government and to foreign ministers, bringing 
 disgrace and ridicule and shame upon her best intended mea- 
 sures, must have been great indeed. She appears to have 
 borne with, and screened the humours and the errors of her 
 perverse husband as much as any woman, so situated, could be 
 expected to have done. But no human being can long 
 hide the follies of a fool. The instances of the obstinate per- 
 verseness of Darnley are almost innumerable and incredible. 
 
 When the Queen of Scots found, from the cabals of her 
 ministers and of the prime nobility, as well as from the rude 
 turbulence of the reformers, that it would be eligible to share 
 her throne with a husband, and while she still debated on 
 whom to fix her choice, her good sister Elizabeth, who through 
 life delighted in officiously intermeddhng on such occasions, took 
 great pains (very disinterestedly, no doubt) to induce her to 
 
 * The late greatly lamented Princess Charlotte of Wales.
 
 MARY, gUEEN OF SCOTS. 49 
 
 accept of her own professed admirer Leicester. This proposal 
 Mary had before declined. EHzabeth, knowing, perhaps, that 
 a widow's first nay on such occasions is not always decisive, 
 still persevered, and ordered her envoy, Randolph, more strongly 
 to press the measure. 
 
 The Queen of Scots, harassed out with the cares and 
 perplexities of such a tumultuous court as hers, had sought 
 refuge and peace for a few weeks, by retiring to Fife, desirous 
 of hving there for the time as a private gentlewoman . Thither, 
 however, the persevering advocate of an officious and impatient 
 Queen followed her. The following is his letter to his royal 
 mistress fi'om thence, after he had seen the Queen, and press- 
 ed his suit. Chalmers observes, that " he draws such a 
 descriptive contour of Mary, and places it in so many lights, 
 as to give a new cast to her character, charming as it 
 was." She was then just turned of two and twenty. A 
 lovelier picture of a Queen, drawn by one no way friendly 
 to her, to send to her rival and her enemy, never was drawn. 
 If it be deficient in faithfulness, the deficiency under such cir- 
 cumstances may be supposed not to be in favour of the original. 
 To have abridged the letter, would not have been doing justice 
 either to the writer or to the reader. 
 
 " May it please your Majesty," said Randolph to Eliza- 
 beth : " immediately after the receipt of your letter to tin's 
 Queen, I repaired to St. Andrews. So soon as time served, 
 I did present the same, which being read, and as appeared in 
 her countenance very well liked, she said little to me for that 
 time. The next day she passed wholly in mirth, nor gave any 
 appearance to any of the contrary ; nor would not, as she said 
 openly, but be quiet and merry. Her grace lodged in a mer- 
 chant's house, her train were very few ; and there was small 
 repair, from any part. Her will was, that for the time that I 
 did tarry, I should dine and sup with her. Your majesty was
 
 50 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 oftentimes dranken unto by her, at dinners and suppers. Hav- 
 ing in this sort continued with her grace Sunday, Monday, 
 and Tuesday, T thouglit it time, to take occasion to utter unto 
 her grace that which last I received in command from your 
 Majesty, by Mr. Secretary's letter, which was to know her 
 grace's resolution, touching those matters propounded at 
 Kerwick, by my Lord of Bedford and me, to my Lord of 
 Murray, and Lord of Liddington.* I had no sooner spoken 
 these words, bnt she saith, I see now well that you are weary 
 of this company and treatment. I sent for you to be merry, 
 and to see how like a Bourgeois wife, I live with my httle 
 troop ; and you will interrupt our pastime with your great and 
 grave matters. I pray you, sir, if you be weary here, return 
 home to Edinburgh, and keep your gravity and great embassade 
 until the Queen come thither ; for I assure you, you shall not 
 get her here, nor I know not myself where she is become ; you 
 see neither cloth nor estate, nor such appearance, that you may 
 think that there is a Queen here ; nor I would not that you 
 should think that I am she, at St. Andrews, that I was at 
 Edinburgh. I said that I was very sorrj' for that, for that at 
 Edinburgh, she said, that she did love my mistress, the Queen's 
 majesty, better than any other, and now I marvelled how her 
 mind was altered : it pleased her at this, to be veiy merry, and 
 called me by more names than were given me in my Christen- 
 dom. At these merry conceits, much good sport was made : 
 But, well, sir, saith she, that which then I spoke in words shall 
 be confirmed to my good sister, your mistress, in writing. 
 Before you go out of this town, you shall have a letter unto 
 her, and for yourself, go where you will, I care no more for 
 you. The next day, I was willed to be at my ordinary table, 
 and being placed the next person, (saving worthy Beatcnf ) to 
 the Queen's self. Very merrily she passeth her time. After 
 dinner, she rideth abroad. It pleased her, the most part of the 
 time, to talk with me. She had occasion to speak much of 
 France, for the honour she received there, to be wife unto a 
 great king, and for friendship, shewn unto her, in particular, by 
 many, for which occasions, she is bound, to love the nation ; 
 to show them pleasure ; and to do them good. Her acquaint- 
 
 * Secretnry Maitland. 
 
 f Mary Betoun, wlio, from her infancy, had been amaid of honour.
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 51 
 
 ance is not so forgotten tliere ; nor her friendsliip so little 
 esteemed, but yet it is divers ways sought, to be continued. She 
 hath of her people many well atfected, that way, for the nourri- 
 teur, that they have had, there, and the commodity of service, 
 as those of the guard, and men at arms, besides privileges 
 great, for the merchants, more than ever were granted to any 
 nation. What privately, of long time, hath been sought, and 
 yet is, for myself, to yield unto, their desires in my marri- 
 age : your majesty cannot be ignorant, and you have heard : 
 To have such friends, and to see such offers, without assurance 
 of as good, nobody will give me advice, that loveth me. Not 
 to marry, you know, it cannot be, for me. To deffer it long, 
 many incommodities ensue. How privy to my mind, your 
 mistress hath been herein ; you know how willing I am, to 
 follow her advice ; I have shewn many times ; and yet can I 
 find in her no resolution, nor dcfcermination. For nothing, I 
 cannot be bound unto her ; and to France, my will again^ 
 hers, I have of late given assurance to my brother of Murray, 
 and Liddington, that I am loath, and so do now shew unto 
 yourself, which I will you to bear in mind, and to let it be 
 known to my sister, your mistress : and, therefore, this I say, 
 and trust me I mean it, if your mistress will, as she hath said, 
 use me, as her natural born sister, or daughter, I will take my 
 self either as one, or the other, as she please, and will shew no 
 less readiness to oblige her, and honour her, than my mother, 
 or eldest sister : but, if she will repute me always but as her 
 neighbour Queen of Scots ; how willing soever I be to live in 
 amity, and to maintain peace, yet, must she not look for thai 
 at my. hands, that otherwise I would, or she desireth. To for- 
 sake friendship offered, and present commodity, for uncertainty, 
 no friend will advise me, nor your mistress self approve my 
 wisdom. Let her, therefore, measure my case, as her own, 
 and so will I be hers. For these causes, until my sister, and 
 I, have further proceeded, I must apply my mind to the advice 
 of those, that seem to tender most my profit, that shew their 
 care over me, and wish me most good. I have now disclosed 
 unto you (saith she) all my mind, and require you, to let it be 
 known to your sovereign. My meaning unto her is plain, and 
 so shall my dealings be. I know how well she is worthy ; and 
 and so, do esteem her ; and, therefore, I will thus much say 
 more, that as there is none nearer of kin unto her, than I am ; 
 nor none more worthy, to whom I may submit myself j so is
 
 jS2 dissertation on the life of 
 
 there none, to whom with better will, I desire to be beholden 
 unto, than unto her, or to do any thing, that may be with my 
 honour. To this long discourse of hers, I did not much reply. 
 For her affection towards France, thus much I was bold to say, 
 that whatsoever her giace had found herself, her country hath 
 felt the smart. I approved, greatly, in her, those good words, 
 she spoke of your majesty, and by many tokens, from the be- 
 ginning shewed the like mind, in your grace, towards her. For 
 those matters, that you stood upon, they were so great, that 
 they could not soon be resolved of, and much better it were, 
 to attend a time, than over hastily to press at them ; and rather 
 to let them cciae of themselves, than to seem to urging them 
 out by force. When, saith she, heard you me speak of these 
 matters before ? 1 said, no, of herself, but her ministers bore 
 always her mind, and in their words uttered that which she 
 would. I gave unto them charge, saith she, to consider what 
 is fittest for me, and I find them all together bent towards you, 
 and yet not so, but, I believe, they will advise me for the best. 
 But so your mistress may me, that I will leave their advices, 
 and all others, and follow her's alone. I liked so well these 
 words, that I wished it might so be, which I trusted should be 
 much to both their contentments and weal of your realms. Re- 
 member, said she, what I have said, this mind that now I am 
 of, Cometh not upon the sudden, it is more than a day or two 
 that I have had this thought, and more than this too, that you 
 shall not know. I desired her grace not to cut off her talk 
 there, it was so good, so wise, so well framed, and so comfort- 
 able unto me, as nothing could be more so, than to hear that 
 mind in her towards your majesty. I am a fool, saith she, thus 
 long to talk with you ; you are too subtle for me to deal with. 
 I protested upon my honesty, that my meaning was only to 
 nourish a perpetuid amity between your majesty and her, which 
 could not be done, but by honest means. How much better 
 were it, saith she, that we two, being queens, so near of kin, 
 neighbours, and being in one isle, should be friends, and live 
 together, like sisters, than, by strange means, divide ourselves 
 to the hurt of us both ; and, to say, that we may for all that 
 live friends, we may say, and prove, what we will, but it will 
 pass both our powers. You repute us poor ; but yet you have 
 found us cumbersome enough. We have had loss, ye have 
 taken scathe. Why may it not be between my sister and me, 
 that we, living in peace and assured friendship, may give ouv
 
 MARYj QUEEN OF SCOTS. 5$ 
 
 minds, that some as notable things may be wrought, by us wo- 
 men, as by our predecessors liave been done before. Let us 
 seek this honour against some other, than fall to debate amongst 
 ourselves. I asked here, her grace, whether she would be 
 content, one day, whenever it were, to give her assistance, for 
 the recovery of Calais ? At this question, she laughed ; and 
 said many things must pass, between my good sister, and me, 
 before I can give you answer ; but, I believe to see the day, 
 that all our quarrels should be one, and assure you, if we be 
 not, the fault shall not be in me. 
 
 " Your majesty hath heard the effect of mach long talk, 
 that passed, between this Queen, and me, not so well answer- 
 ed, in every point, by me, as it was spoken by her. I com- 
 mended her good mind, her desire, and opinion, of your ma- 
 jesty, and in this matter, so, ended with her, that no small 
 matter shall make her think otherwise than well, that nothintr 
 should make her over hasty, in her detennination, either to 
 enter, in league, with any, or to match herself, in marriaore, 
 further than either drift of time should be found, in your ma- 
 jesty. Or hasty request of her subjects, or necessity, to provide 
 for her estate, did press her. 1 requested her grace, humbly, 
 that forasmuch as I had moved her majesty by your highness's 
 commandment to let her mind be known, how well she liked of 
 the suit of my Lord Robert, Earl of Leicester, that I might 
 be able somewhat to say-, or write, touching that matter unto 
 your majesty. My mind, towards him, is such, as it ought 
 to be of a very noble man, as I hear say, by very many. And 
 such one, as the Queen, your mistress, my good sister, doth sd 
 well like, to be her husband, if he were not her subject, ought 
 not to mislike me, to be mine. Marry, what I shall do, it 
 Ueth in your mistress's will, who shall wholly guide me, and 
 rule me. I made myself, not well to understand those words, 
 because I would have the better hold of them. She repeated 
 the self same words again ; and I shewed myself fully content- 
 ed with her speech ; desired that I might hastily return to your 
 majesty, whilst they were fresh in memory. My mind is not, 
 that you shall so hastily depart. At Edinburgh, we may com- 
 mune further ; there shall be nothing forgotten, or called back, 
 that hath been said. I have received, said she, a very loving 
 letter, from my good sister, and this night, or to-morrow, will 
 write another which you must send away. I offered all kind 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 .S4< DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 of service, that lied, in my power, reserving the duty to yotir 
 aiajesty. I made a general rehersal, after, oi' this whole con- 
 ference, to my Lord of Murray, and Lord of Liddington ; 
 Shey were very glad, that I had heard so much spoken of her- 
 self, whereby they might be encouraged, to proceed further; 
 but, without that principl point, whereupon your majesty is to 
 resolve, saith they, neither dare, earnestly, press her, nor yet 
 of themselves are willing, for that, in honour, otherwise they 
 see not how she can accord to your majesty's advice, nor so to 
 bend herself unto you, as they are sure she will ; and therein 
 offer their service to your majesty, to the uttermost of their 
 powers. The Lord of Liddington douhteth, that your majesty 
 hath conceived some evil opinion of him. I do assure him to 
 the contrary, and find his dealing, hitherto, honest. Your ma- 
 jesty hath heard, at this time, and also at others, by such let- 
 ters as are come to your highness's hands, as near as I can, the 
 true report of all such words, as I have heard spoken, either by 
 this Queen, or those, in chief credit about her, in such matters, 
 as it did please your majesty, to give me charge, to intreat of. 
 The judgment of them all belongeth imto your majesty. It is 
 sufficient, for me, to obey your will : But how hard it is for one 
 man, alone, to deal with many, your majesty knoweth ; what 
 they are, witli whom I have to do, your majesty is not ignorant, 
 -wise, discreet, circumspect, and men, that leave nothing un- 
 sought, that may serve to their advantage. With these, there- 
 fore, and like, I am in continual fear to deal, less through my 
 gjeat lack, and mean judgment, in all cases, in special of such 
 importance, some thing m.ight so fall out, that might hinder so 
 good a purpose, so great a good, as to have your majesty's 
 realm united with this, and diis Queen, to be wholly at your 
 majesty's devotion. I do, therefore, most humbly crave of 
 your majesty, that before this matter do suddenly break off, as 
 now it is in doubt, what answer will be given, touching the 
 jcoiiferencc had at Berwick, and all those, that favour your 
 majesty's interest, in great suspense, what will become, if all 
 matters be not thoroughly resolved upon, that it will please 
 your majesty, to send some such one hither, the best in judg- 
 ment, and experience, of that great number, your majesty hath 
 to entreat on tiiis matter, to see to what issue it may be brought ; 
 being now in my simple judgment, ui some good towardness, 
 and not far from that point, your majesty would have it at. If 
 yoiir majesty's pleasure be otherv/ise, would God, tlrat I wer»
 
 MARY, 2UEEN OF SCOTSv 5 
 
 R 
 
 SO Happy, that I had some witness of tliose v/ords, that I liave- 
 .heard of this Queen's mouth, what she hath spoken of your 
 majesty, and how much she ofFereth, to be at your majesty's 
 will, which often time, she speaketli, and calleth God to witness- 
 of her true meanins." 
 
 '&• 
 
 Such was the Queen at t-wenty-two, who, before she was 
 twenty-six, was maligned by her enemies as an adulteress, a 
 murderer (the murderer of her own husband), the abandoner 
 of her infant child, the shameless mistress of a married many 
 himself a declared adulterer (her aider in the murder) ; ani 
 lastly, the willing wife of that man- 
 Let us examine, first, the probability, and then the evidence 
 ©f the first ch^ge, viz. her adulterous intercourse with Rizzio^ 
 
 Rizzio, as hath been shewn, had risen to be her private 
 secretary for the French language. He appears to have been 
 a faithful servant to the Queen, and a zealous Roman Catho- 
 lic ; he was a professed musician, and Mary was both a lofer, 
 and an expert performer of music. Rizzio, therefore, was, as; 
 ntiight be expected, a favourite. The dreadful relation of his- 
 murder, as sent by Mary herself to her ambassador in France^ 
 has been already given. Nothing less wicked than Jiends of 
 hell, one would imagine, could plot together, devise, and exe- 
 cute in that manner a murder so infernal. Yet it is unde- 
 niable, that the King her husband, with several of her ministers 
 of state and prime nobility, were the contrivers, the instigators^^ 
 or the perpetrators of the murder». No civiUzed country in the 
 world, I will venture to say, ever furnished a proof of more 
 savage ferocity, among so many of such a class of men, than 
 this, which the court of the young Queen of Scots produced. 
 Men who could take a part in a transaction like tliis, could noi
 
 S& DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 be expected, afterwards, to shrink from any baseness finally t© 
 accomplish their self-interested views. 
 
 To suppose that this murder was committed by such men, 
 in such a manner, in such a place, and by such means, because 
 the Queen had had adulterous intercourse with the victim, is 
 too incredible a supposition to be for a moment entertained by 
 any thing less credulous than party or sectarian prejudice. 
 Many of the perpetrators were notoriously disaffected to both 
 the King and Queen ; seeking to degrade, and if possible to 
 dethrone them both : with this intent they had induced the 
 weak King to join them. Several of them had constant 
 access to the palace, and could have obtained any information 
 that they wanted from the domestics. If they could have 
 proved such improper behaviour in the Queen, it would have 
 served their purpose better than the murder of Rizzio, or any 
 thing else. This they could have done, if it had ever taken 
 place. By murdering Rizzio, they deprived themselves of this 
 opportunity, which was so wished for, that they murdered him 
 even for the sake of raising the suspicion of its reahty. But 
 it is evident that they had another object in view, or the mur- 
 der would have been perpetrated in a different manner, — the 
 indirect murder of the Queen, or at least of the embryo heir 
 to the throne. The Queen was far advanced in her pregnancy. 
 The murder of a faithful servant, clinging to a young Jemale 
 in her situation, might reasonably be supposed to end in the 
 death of either the child or the mother, or both. This, 
 subsequent events shewed, was expected, and the delivery of 
 the Queen, of a living, perfect, healthy child, in the castle of 
 Edinburgh, could scarcely be believed either in Scotland or in 
 England.
 
 MARV, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 57 
 
 If the Queen's incontinence had really been believed by the 
 conspirators, the murder of Rizzio, till the fact had been provedf 
 would have been the last thing that they would have attempted. 
 To have sunk the adulterous pair further and further in guilt, 
 would have been their endeavour, till detection was become 
 easy, and all doubt removed. But what does the fleeinor of 
 the King ivith the Queen, secretly (to escape the farther de- 
 signs of the infernal conspirators), to Dunbar castle, on the 
 following night, prove ? Why, certainly, that the King did not 
 believe the Queen guilty, or rather that he kneiv that she was 
 not so. It likewise proves the Queen's love to her husband, 
 her forgiving temper, and her belief that he had been deceived 
 and misled by wretches, who, in all probability, would follow 
 up the dreadful blow by others stil! more fatal. 
 
 Darnley notxi had signed and sealed his otvn death tvar- 
 rant. He had been a confederate with the Queen's enemies 
 in guilt, and he had (they could have no doubt) betrayed hia 
 associates. Two insignificant wretches were given up to satisfy 
 justice, at the expense of their lives, for this foul violation of 
 all laws, by those who had employed them as auxiliaries. I 
 am persuaded that enough hath been said, to prove that neither 
 the King nor any of the other conspirators believed in the 
 Queen's guilt. And as such guilt tvas never proved, I think 
 that it does not reqiu're any great stretch of Christian charity 
 to believe her in this instance guiltless. 
 
 We will now proceed to the murder of Darnley. 
 
 After what has been related, and the subsequent detestation 
 and contempt which Darnley evinced on many occasions for 
 his former betrayed associates in guilt, it required no uncommon
 
 58 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 sagacity to foresee tliat his life would not be of long duration ; 
 probably even his shallow penetration, though insufficient for 
 preserving him from being drawn in by the murderers of 
 Rizzio, sufficed to convince him of this, before he determined 
 (apparently so very causelessly) to leave the kingdom, when he 
 had candour enough to absolve the Queen from having been 
 in any way the cause of his fleeing. The mode of Dainley's 
 murder, with the preceding circumstances, have been already 
 related. It now remains to shew the improbability, if not 
 impossibility, of the Queen's being accessory to it, and tlieu 
 die evidence of her not being so. 
 
 It has been shewn, that the wretches who had led the 
 King to ]pin in the murder of Rizzio, had every motive (for 
 divine laws must have been with them out of the question) to 
 induce them to murder Darnley. The Queen could have 
 none : it has been shewn, that religion was with her a fixed 
 principle. No advantages could induce her, no dangers could 
 alarm her to forsake the exercise of it (young as she then was) 
 in that way, which to her appeared to be the most acceptable 
 in the sight of God. Before, then, she could be guilty of 
 adultery, or of murder, she must deliberately " curse God and 
 die." She must do that which she believed, and knew would 
 offend God, and which must inevitably (humanly speaking) 
 deprive her of everlasting life. She must forsake, and give up 
 to destruction, a husband whom she had sworn to love, and 
 whom with all his faults she did love ; or she must herd, and 
 plot, and sin with the murderers of her paramour, — ^with men 
 whom she could not but then shrink at the sight of; with 
 men who she knew were continually wishing for, and plotting 
 her destruction. Whatever else the Queen of Scots may have 
 been, she -never was a plotter ^ though she was continually the
 
 MAHY, gUEEN OF SCOTS. ^ 
 
 Tictim of plots. To suppose it possible without proof, that 
 she could have been one of the murderers of her husband, is to 
 suppose a violation of all human probability. If she had been 
 one of them, she either must have been the original contriver 
 and instigator, or she must have been drawn in by the others 
 to assist in it, when they had determined upon it. No one I 
 apprehend will conceive the first to be probable, or even possi- 
 ble. She then must have been induced by the other murder- 
 ers, to join with them. Now in this case, for what pui-pose 
 could they possibly want either her consent or assistance ? Mo^ 
 clearly, for no other purpose than to work her ruin. Will it, 
 then, be beheved, that such being their object, and the attain- 
 ment of it depending, as it must in that case depend, on their 
 being able to prove her participation in the foul deed, that 
 ihey should absolutely have left themselves so totally without 
 evidence of her having any knowledge of the plot, as never to 
 have been able, with all the desire which they possessed, and 
 all the efforts that they could make, to show that she had any 
 hand in it, directly or indirectly ? They were not, on other 
 wicked occasions, such bungling workmen ; they were restrain- 
 ed by no compunctions ; deceit, and fraud, and violence were 
 with them lawful means. If they had had the address to get 
 the Queen to join them, they would have found no difficulty in 
 getting her (who was never famed for being an overmatch for 
 villains,) so far to commit herself, as to put it In their power 
 at any time to convict her. Her ruin must have been their 
 sole end and aim ; and yet without any assignable cause, they 
 totally failed in that part of their design, which would have 
 been clearly the most important to the final success of their 
 measure. A failure of evidence to prove guilt in such a case 
 as this, must be as strong a proof of innocence, as could be 
 possibly expected to be adduced. But when was political and
 
 60 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 religious prejudice convinced ? Never ! they may bo removed, 
 but while they remain (and hitherto against poor Mary they 
 have remained), no evidence will satisfy ; her innocence, there- 
 fore, has not sufiiced to free her character from the accusation 
 .of a crime so dreadful^ that nothing less depraved than a daemon 
 could have been guilty of it. That Mary's general character was 
 fai- removed from any tiling approaching to such blackness, has, 
 I hope, already been sufficiently and clearly shewn. The timej 
 I doubt not, is fast approaching, when that intolerant prejudice 
 which has hitherto condemned her unheard, will either be re- 
 moved, or driven to conceal, in the dark recesses of its own 
 heart, the malignant venom with which it has so long en- 
 deavoured to poison the mind of the public, and to sully the 
 fair character of an uiiofTending, persecuted, murdered Queen. 
 
 Before proceeding to shew the total failure of evidence of 
 the Queen's participation in the crime of murdering Darnley, 
 it will be advisable to recur to the extraordinary circumstance, 
 of her so soon after that event marrying (he man, who, on ex- 
 ceedmgly strong evidence, was accused of being his principal 
 assassin. The two events arc too intimately connected to ad- 
 mit of their being considered totally separate from each other. 
 The Queen was innocent in both cases, or she was guilty in 
 both. 
 
 Pcrhajis one of the most extraordinary circumstances of 
 those extraordinary times, was the declaration signed by one 
 archbishop, eight bishops, nine earls (Morton and Maitland at 
 their head), and by seven lords, only two months after the mur- 
 der of the King, not only that they believed Bothwell to be 
 innocent of his murder, and that they thought him (though a 
 married man) the fittest husband for the Queen ; but also
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 61 
 
 pledging themselves to defend the marriage with their lives 
 and fortunes. The obtainers, and many of the signers, of this 
 curious declaration, were the acknowledged enemies of the 
 Queen, and nothing else than the ruin of their royal mistress 
 CDuld have been their object. Any thing so indelicately pre- 
 posterous, so outrageously indecorous, was never heard of in 
 any country laying claim to civilization. The nobility of 
 Scotland in those days seem to liave been only one remove 
 from semi-barbarians. Their castles and strong holds were 
 little, if any, better than the giants' castles of romance ; 
 within their portcullisses the deeds were often as dark, as se- 
 cret, and as bloody, as fable ever feigned. None dare accuse 
 the tyrant, or if accused, none dare attempt openly to bring 
 him to justice. Unhappy the country where the government 
 is either too weak, or too timid, to punish the most powerful 
 violators of the laws. In this unhappy state was Scotland at 
 that time. 
 
 Bothwell was perhaps the second most powerful peer in 
 Scotland. He was ambitious, but not very penetrating ; he 
 was led, as their cat's paw, by Murray, Morton, and Maitland, 
 to aspire to the Queen's throne and bed. Their views were 
 clearly, by ruining both, to pave the way to their own exaltation 
 in a regency. Having once aroused bis ambition, and got 
 him involved in the labyrinth of guilt, there was but little fear 
 of his being either able or willing to stop till both himself and 
 the Queen were irretrievably lost. Having executed the part 
 assigned him in the murder of Darnley, the instigators shewed 
 him a semblance of sincerity in obtaining from the lords, spiri- 
 tual and temporal, the extraordinaiy and disgraceful declaration 
 in his favour, and in favour of his ambitious views before-men- 
 tioned. Encouraged by this powerful cabal, and by the suc- 
 cess which hitherto had appeared to accompany his plans, the 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 62 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 murderer of his King did not scruple to become the ravisher of 
 his Queen. Bothwell's participation in the murder of Darnley 
 is proved by the immediate, almost general, accusation of him, 
 — by the barefaced falsehoods and lawless exertions to screen 
 his guilt on his mock trial, — by the testimony of his own ser- 
 vants, Powry, Paris, Dalgleish, and John Hepboum, who 
 were executed for the murder ; as well as by the confession of 
 JMorton, before his execution for the same crime, when he 
 cleared the Queen from any previous knowledge of the murder. 
 With an army of SOO horsemen Bothwell seized upon the 
 person of the widowed Queen, and carried her off into the se- 
 cret recesses of that castle in which his will was despotic law, 
 where villainous actions, of every degree of guilt, could be per- 
 petrated with impunity, for no human eye could witness them, 
 and if they did, the tongue that told of them probably told no 
 more. Here the Queen of Scots was subject to the will of 
 her ruffian ravisher many days. The secrets of those awful 
 days will now never be known on earth ; but no one who has 
 any deep insight into human nature, will be so absurd as to 
 suppose that he, who had waded thus far through crimes of the 
 blackest die, towards the attainment of his object, would now 
 stop short of anij means which would insure his speedily and 
 certainly attaining that object. Vv'hat the nature of those un- 
 told, unseen, and unimagined deeds of darkness was, can now 
 be only guessed. The rebels themselves suggested, that admi- 
 nistering stupefying potions was one of the means resorted to 
 to overcome and ruin tlie Queen. Whatever they were, they 
 served the villain's present purpose. However his victim en- 
 tered those dark walls, she left them a devoted sialic, his will 
 her law. She told no tales ; she sought no vengeance. The 
 foul deed was perpetrtited, irrevocably perpetrated. She might, 
 it is true, have died, or lived (perhaps) the mother of a bastard 
 child. I say perhaps, for tiiere can be no doubt but that be-
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 63 
 
 fore she left her prison-walls she knew her fate, if word or 
 deed revealed the secrets that had passed therein, or sought 
 revenge : redress she could not have. 
 
 I am aware that it will be said that this is all suppositious. 
 I know that in a great measure it is so; but something, in a 
 case like this, must be supposed. The leading facts are all 
 imdoubted, strange and dreadful as they must appear, but the 
 circumstances attending those facts are not all quite so clear ; 
 reason then, when other hght fails us, must become our surest 
 guide. If a crime of the deepest die, involving premeditated 
 guilt, deep laid plots, and shameless braving, be committed, 
 and it be clear that it has been committed by one of two per- 
 sons ; if either of those two persons be one who has led a pure 
 and blameless life, is a young and artless female, inexperienced 
 in the ways of men ; if the other be a bold, ambitious man, 
 one who neither fears God nor regards his fellow-creatures, 
 who has been guilty of adultery, murder, and many other 
 crimes, then, the proof of guilt being equal, reason would not 
 hesitate in saying, that the latter must be the perpetrator of the 
 guilty deed. 
 
 It is said, that the crime imputed to Bothwell is too horri- 
 ble to have been perpetrated even by him, and, therefore, that 
 its perpetration becomes incredible. Those, however, who 
 cannot, on strong evidence, believe Bothwell thus guilty, can 
 believe the Queen of Scots, on slighter evidence, to have been 
 (if possible) guiltier still. This h incredible ! It would have 
 been plunging into the depths of the deepest crimes without a 
 motive. Every object which she could have had in view, she 
 miffht have obtained more easily, more certainly, and more 
 safely, without such horrid guilt. The perpetration, however, 
 ©f the crime was, in her, as impossible, as it was unnecessary.
 
 64 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 She possessed not the power if she had had the will. There 
 was not cne of all the crew of conspirators that would have 
 lent her aid, unless they had seen clearly that it led to her ruin. 
 
 T wish to dwell longer than the nature of this undertaking 
 will well admit of, on this subject, because it is the one on 
 which, without due examination, Mary has been more generally, 
 and strongly condemned, than on any other ; and yet it is one 
 the least credible, and the least possible. If she had been so 
 desperately in love, all at once with Bothwell, as to have writ- 
 ten him a box full of love-letters when he was a married man, 
 when she was far advanced iu her pregnancy, when she was just 
 reconciled to her convalescent and repentant husband ; surely, 
 when she was become a mother, when her husband was mur- 
 dered, when archbishops, bishops, earls, lords, and abbots, had 
 solicited her to marry the married, the adulterous Bothwell, 
 and had offered to defend such marriage with their lives and 
 fortunes, she must have been more difficult to persuade to what 
 she was desirous of, than such a woman could be expected to 
 be, not to accept of him then. Every delay, every step after- 
 wards, was not only procrastinating the attainment of the wished- 
 for object, but also hazarding the losing of it altogether. Every 
 subsequent step, supposing her to be consenting, was sinking 
 herself lower and lower in infamy ; not only without a motive, 
 but in direct opposition to every supposable motive. 
 
 Was she, it may be asked, the leader of Morton, Maitland, 
 the archbishops, bishops, carls, lords, and abbots, the recom- 
 menders of the adulterous match ? Had she not only instanta- 
 neously cast off all the delicacy, modesty, and uprightness of her 
 former self ; but acquired also, in a moment, so much cunning, 
 impudence, or authority, as to overreach or overawe all her old 
 powerful enemies into submission to her unlawful desires ?
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 65 
 
 This is really outraging nature and probability, much beyond 
 what they will bear, for no possible purpose, but that of a de- 
 terrauiation to condemn a modest, innocent, unoffending, liighly 
 injured woman, instead of a set of shameless wretches, maaiy 
 of whom forfeited their lives for their crimes, and acknowledsred 
 their guilt, and her innocence. In no case, that I know of, is 
 the accused person required to prove his innocence ; it is suf- 
 ficient that the accusers fail of establishing his guilt. 
 
 Mary's love for Bothwell, supposing her guilty, must have 
 been violent indeed, but surely no evidence of such love has 
 ever been exhibited. She made no objections to parting with 
 jhim so soon after their marriage, when she went over to the 
 insurgents' army, and he was sent off. Melvill says, in describ- 
 ing the temper of her mind on June 15th, at Carbury Hill. 
 ".INIany of those who were with her, were of opinion that she 
 liad intelliorence with the Lords then in arms facin"- her- 
 especially such as were informed of the many indignities pui 
 upon her by the Earl of Bothwell since their marriage. He 
 was so beastly and suspicious, that he suffered her not to pass 
 one day in patience, without making her shed abundance of 
 tears." This supposition is by no means improbable. Both- 
 well finding that when he had the Queen wholly in his power, 
 nothing but force could so overcome her aversion to him and 
 his ways, as to induce her to consent to marry him, was so ex- 
 asperated against her, as to lose no opportunity of revencinor 
 himself upon her after they were married. The rebels them- 
 selves, in a letter to Throgmorton, July 20th^ 1567, acknow- 
 ledge that " she could not have lived half a year to an end 
 with him." So much was poor Mary's spirit broken, when 
 she came forth from Bothwell's den of iniquity, that she sub- 
 mitted, without a struggle, to be married to him in the protcstant 
 manner ; and not in her own catholic chapel, as slie was to
 
 66 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 Darnley, who was equally a protestant with Bothwell. When 
 she escaped from her prison, she attempted not to flee to him ; 
 nay, she chose at last to deliver herself up to her deadliest foe, 
 rather than attempt to find protection with him. When in 
 England she never expressed any anxiety about him, but on 
 the contrary she earnestly sought a divorce from him. Really 
 flu's does not look like the conduct of a woman, madly in love 
 with a husband, with whom she had not passed all the honey 
 moon ; but to such improbabilities as these, is prejudice put, 
 when it is determined, right or wrong, to condemn. 
 
 That both Mary and Bothwell were victims, in this instance, 
 to the deep-laid plots of the villainous conspirators, there can 
 be little doubt. There was a double game playing ; Bothwell 
 conceived that his aggrandisement was their object, while they 
 were only employing him as an instrument to degrade and ruin 
 the Queen, that they might sink them both for ever, and 
 thereby possess themselves of the regal power. If it were 
 possible to beheve that the Queen could have been so base as 
 to have plotted with all those villains, to support her marriage 
 with a married man ; can it be imagined that they would not 
 have been prepared on her trial to prove, by some document or 
 witness, that she had been so far guilty ? They would beyond 
 a doubt have been prepared with overwhelming evidence, but 
 they had none, and were therefore obliged to have recourse to 
 the fabrication of a box full of love-letters which they dared not 
 to produce ; and which they w^ere so unacquainted with, as not 
 to know whether they were signed or not by her. In fact, 
 they were not then quite finished. 
 
 It seems probable, that the getting away from Bothwell was 
 the motive which induced her, without risking the event of an 
 engagement, to trust herself so confidingly in the hands of her
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 67 
 
 most inveterate enemies. Tliis motive, too, mifflit have its 
 influence in determining her, apparently so absurdly, to flee to 
 England, and confide in the tender mercies of her faithless 
 sister. 
 
 We have not only Mary's good conduct, previous to her 
 returning to her native countrj^, to invalidate such imputed 
 misconduct, but a life of eighteen years spent afterward, as far 
 as we know, irreproachably, and a death more truly Christian 
 than almost any one which the histoiy of crowned heads can 
 furnish us with. The fact is, that the Queen of Scots, when- 
 ever she could act for herself, and the true nature of her actions 
 can be known, appears to have acted correctly and purely, though 
 perhaps not always wisely. 
 
 Having now, I trust, shewn the improbability of the 
 Queen's having had any previous knowledge of the intended 
 murder of her husband, as well as of her having been privy 
 and assenting to the designs of Bothwell on her person and 
 throne ; I purpose proceeding to consider the nature of the 
 circumstances and proofs which have been adduced as evidences 
 of her guilt. These consist, almost entirely, of the fact of her 
 having married Bothwell, the publicly accused murderer of her 
 husband, very shortly after that dreadful event, and of a box 
 Jull of love-letters, said to have been written by the Queen, 
 just before the death of her husband. I hope that it hath 
 already been made pretty evidently to appear, that the Queen's 
 marrying Bothwell was not a voluntary act. The letters, 
 however, are the evidence of the Queen's guilt, on which her 
 enemies almost solely relied for her conviction. The history 
 of the discoveiy of these far famed letters, is this : — Morton, 
 the treacherous chancellor of the Queen, who was afterwards 
 tried, condemned, and executed for tlie miu"der of Darnley,
 
 G8 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 asserted, that ou tlie 20tli June, 1567, he had arrested one 
 Dalgleish, a servant of Bothwell's, carrying a gilt box, full of 
 the Queen's love-letteis, from Sir James Balfour, the governor 
 of Edinburgh Castle, to Bothwell at Dunbar, and that these 
 letters were in the liand- writing of the Queen, the first four 
 letters being -dated from Glasgow, on the 22d January, 15G6-7, 
 and two following days. Now, it is a remarkable circum- 
 stance, that this Dalgleish was arrested previously to the 26th 
 June, for being concerned in the murder of Darnley, for on 
 that day he was examined by Morton, Athol, and others, be- 
 fore the privy council, and though it was only six days after 
 tlie one on which Morton aftcrxumrds said that he had taken 
 the box fall of letters from him, not one word was mentioned 
 on the subject by either Morton or any other of the ex- 
 aminers. 
 
 ecvv n-:> 
 After (he persecuted Queen had been compelled," by 
 threatening her life when a prisoner in Lochleven Castle, 
 volunfari/i/ to sign the abdication of her crown, she was ac- 
 cused in Parliament, on Dec. 4, 1567, by the wretches who 
 had themselves murdered Rizzio and Darnley, and had en- 
 couraf^ed and enabled Bothwell to violate her person, of 
 fyranny, incontinence, and mia-der. In proof of these charges, 
 that betrayer of the confidence of his royal mistress (Morton), 
 who himself had been notoriously guilty, declared that he had 
 discovered in the way related, fsix months before,) this said 
 box full of the Queen's love-letters to Bothwell. Of course, 
 then, these important documents would be at the time produced, 
 and the hand-writing verified : no, the examiners were satisfied 
 with the averment of the Queen's accuser, (who was himself 
 afterwards executed for the murder of Darnley,) that such letters 
 existed. Sir James Balfour, who v.as said to have sent the 
 letters by Dalgleish, was present, but not examined. Dalgleish
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 69 
 
 himself was at hand, but he was not sent for ; and yet the 
 guilt or innocence of the Queen, then on her trial, rested on 
 the authenticity of these letters. Can any impartial man, now, 
 beUeve that such letters were then in existence ? I should cer- 
 tainly think not ; yet on such grounds was the Queen deposed. 
 These letters were first declared to possess the signature of the 
 Queen, afterwards they were said not to have been signed by 
 her. 
 
 We do not hear much more relating to these base letters, 
 till after the Queen of Scots was kidnapped by her good sister, 
 Ehzabeth, in her own dominions ; whither she had sought an 
 asylum from the wretches around her throne, who thirsted for 
 and sought to shed her blood. Retained as a criminal, instead 
 of being entertained as a guest and a relative, the unhappy 
 Queen was put upon her trial by her who had no right to try 
 her, for crimes of which she was innocent, and of which her 
 kidnapper knew that she was innocent. Here, as in Scot- 
 land, the evidence of these fabricated letters (for such had then 
 been fabricated,) was to convict the accused Queen. Never 
 certainly was there such a mockery of a trial as this of the 
 Queen of Scots, first at York, then at Westminster, and lastly 
 at Hampton Court. 
 
 These extraordinary letters, and other documents said to be 
 written by the Queen, were produced as evidence against her 
 by her confessedly inveterate enemies ; yet were they not at- 
 tempted to be proved to be genuine. The accused demanded 
 to be heard in self-defence ; she was refused ; she required to 
 see the writings, which she denied being hers, but she was not 
 permitted ; she claimed to be allowed counsel to defend her 
 cause, but was refused ; she wrote repeatedly to be admitted to 
 
 VOL, I, N
 
 70 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 a personal interview with Elizabeth, but her request was not 
 granted. Yet this was called a trial of the Queen of Scots ; it 
 answered the purpose of her insidious sister Elizabeth, by dis- 
 gracing, in some degree, her hated rival in the eyes of the world, 
 who could only learn the particulars from the false representa- 
 tions of the enemies of the accused. The genuineness, how- 
 ever, of the letters is the present question : if any one can now 
 have any doubts on that subject, it mav be further remarked, 
 that the first four of them, dated from Glasgow, are dated at a 
 time when she was not there ; and when she did afterwards 
 go down, it was vohen very Jar advanced in a state of 
 pregnancy ; when she was fully reconciled to her husband, 
 and when she went there to take him to Edinburgh, in a state 
 of convalescence, after the small-pox. Yet this is the precise 
 time which treacherous servants and calumniators have blun- 
 deringly fixed upon for making her first fall in love with 
 Bothwell, and write him four of these notable epistles in tJiree. 
 days, when she herself was returning to Edinburgh. Yet 
 JSothivell uas then a married man. She had known him 
 intimately when they were both single, and both thinking of 
 being married, and yet they neither of them, unfortunately, 
 could then contrive to fall in love with the other. 
 
 As almost the whole evidence of Mary's guilt hinges, as 
 before observed, upon the authenticity of these extraordinary 
 letters, and her consequent marriage with Bothwell ; in at- 
 tempting to prove her innocence, I may be excused for dwell- 
 ing somewhat longer on this subject. 
 
 Nothing so improbable, so preposterous, so unsupported 
 by facts, nay, so clearly proved to be forgeries, ever continued 
 for such a length of time, and so generally, as these letters have
 
 MARY, (JUEEN OF SCOTS. 71 
 
 ionc, to blast the character of an innocent individual.* The 
 fact is, that prejudice, especially religious prejudice, is so far 
 from being open to conviction, that it will not often deign even 
 to look at or listen to what can be written or said, to exculpate 
 those whom it has once unjustly condemned. Ambition, 
 avarice, fiery zeal, disaffection, malignity, jealousy, and many 
 ether vile passions, all united their voices in proclaiming the 
 young, the beautiful, the accomplished, the helpless Catholic 
 Queen of Scots to be an adulteress and a murderer ; religious 
 prejudice caught, disseminated, and continued the dreadful 
 accusation. Religious prejudice was then spread over the 
 whole of the two rival kingdoms. Accusation, with those who 
 are disposed to listen to it, requires no j)roof ; it only wants 
 Tepeating, and it is believed, and by the believers again repeat- 
 ed. Two hundred and fifty years have not served (in this in- 
 stance),^to remove the charge, for two hundred and fifty years 
 ha^ uyt^been able to remove religious prejudice. 
 
 Nine-tenths of this nation have been taught, from their first 
 enquiries, to consider the Queen of Scots as an adulteress and 
 a murderer ; and if any one ventures to assert her innocence, 
 and to request an impartial investigation of the circumstances of 
 her case, he is probably silenced with, " O, she is a most dia- 
 bolical woman ! It is in vain to look into so disgustinor a state- 
 ment of facts ; her imprisonment, her trial, and her death, 
 might be a stretch of power, but it was a useful and necessary 
 one. Her punishment was a just dispensation of Divine justice !" 
 Such is the language at this day, not of the vulgar or illiterate. 
 
 * The extravagance to which forgeries were then carried in the 
 eourt, as well as Church of Scotland, is now almost incredible. The 
 reader who has doubts or curiosity on the subject, may consult 
 Whilaker's Vindication of Queen Mary.
 
 72 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 but of those who have the reputation of being rehgious, 
 highly rehgious cliaracters — men, who profess to be just and 
 true in all their words and dealings. 
 
 This deadener of the senses, this stopper of the ears, this 
 closer of the eyes, this warper of the understanding, (religious 
 prejudice,) is the only power that could possibly have so long 
 sustained the belief of the public in the genuineness of those 
 pretended love-letters, which have been attributed to Queen 
 Mary. As this httle work may perhaps be read by some who 
 think ill of her, who would not peruse a larger one, I shall 
 take this opportunity of pursuing the subject a little farther. 
 
 The letters were said to have been found upon Dalgleish, 
 the servant of Bothwell, in a gilt silver jewel-box, with the 
 arms of France and the name of Francis upon it, it having 
 been a present from him to his young and much beloved 
 Queen. This box, then, (which every body must know at first 
 sight,) Mary must have given during the life-time of her second 
 husband, to Bothwell her paramour ; whether fuU of jewels or 
 not, we are not told. This Queen, whom nobody suspected, 
 (not even Knox,) during the life of Darnley, of any criminal 
 partiality for Bothwell, had nevertheless written love-letters to 
 him, which, according to the first report of them, were likewise 
 death letters, plotting the murder of the King her husband. These 
 were sent by some private hand, unsigned, unsealed, unaddressed, 
 open to the inspection of any one. She then, it seems, was 
 not afraid of what she was doing, nor was Bothwell much more 
 afraid of detection ; for instead of destroying these dangerous 
 tell-tales, he put them, as more precious than rubies, into the 
 Queen's jewel-box, there to remain, probably, to amuse them 
 in reading over together, after they should be married.
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 73 
 
 Well, they were at last married, and obliged to flee together 
 from Edinburgh ; they had little time alForded thera for any 
 thing ; Bothwell might, however, have had time to destroy these 
 valuables, which might some day cause his ruin ; but he had 
 such an unaccountable regard for them, that he would neither 
 burn them, nor take them with him, but sent them (by whom is 
 not said) to Sir James Balfour, the governor of the Castle ; yet 
 was this very man, at that time, if not a declared enemy, a very 
 suspicious friend, and very shortly afterward, a professed foe. 
 To him, however, it appears, were these letters, the disclosure 
 of which might have cost the lives of both Bothwell and the 
 Queen, most prudently sent, instead of either being destroyed 
 or taken with them. The good governor, however, who cer- 
 tainly was treacherous on many other occasions, neither looked 
 at, nor lost them. He kept them very faithfully for his old 
 friend, (whom he was then seeking to ruin by every means in his 
 power,) till it suited him to send for them. 
 
 When at length Bothwell became a proscribed outcast, 
 and had taken refuge at Dundee, it may be supposed that he 
 became low-spirited, and thought that if he had these cheering 
 letters, which did himself and his dear absent wife so much 
 credit, to read, they might serve to amuse and enliven 
 him. I cannot, on any other supposition, account for his 110133 
 running the risk of sending for them. This, however, he did, 
 ^t least we are so given to understand ; this he did by an old 
 servant, well known as his, all over the country, and afterwards 
 arrested, tried, and executed for the murder of the King. 
 
 Well, this said Dalgleish, notwithstanding, got safe to 
 Edinburgh ; he got easily into the strong closely-guarded city, 
 though known to be an enemy, safe through the streets, and
 
 74? DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 safe into the castle ; hut what is more surprising, he easily get 
 safe possession of the gilt silver box and the highly-valued 
 letters. This Sir James Balfour must have been a most 
 obliging, friendly sort of an enemy ; hut no ; he was a cunning 
 rogue ; one, I presume, who loved a little pleasantry, for we are 
 told that he let poor Dalgleish go, merely to have the pleasure 
 of catching him again. He must truly be fond of the sport, 
 to run the risk of losing both man and box and letter^, rather 
 than miss it. Be that as it may, Dalgleish set off, as we are told, 
 with his prize, delighted enough, one may be sure. His joy, 
 however, was but of short duration, for he had not proceeded 
 far before he was turned and stopped by Morton, who had got 
 a-head of him, and was so unaccommodating as to refuse him 
 liberty to proceed, either with or without his box and letters. 
 
 Now Morton must have been exceedingly rejoiced, thus to 
 have obtained possession of this precious box and letters. Of 
 course he would not fail to make the speediest and fullest use 
 of them in his power ; his object was to criminate the Queen ; he 
 had now the means in his possession — means which could not 
 fail to answer his purpose fully. This sagacious politician, this 
 indefatigable enemy of the Queen, did, however, for some reason, 
 or from some cause or other, neglect month after month to 
 avail himself of the weapons thus put into his hands. Meet^ 
 ings, conferences, privy councils were repeatedly held, the ob- 
 ject of which was to criminate the Queen ; yet still was this 
 precious box and its more precious contents kept back ; no 
 one ever heard of them till the month of December following, 
 when Morton did mention that such things were in existence ; 
 but they did not, even then, make their appearance. Never, 
 surely, was such damning evidence so ashamed of shewing its 
 face. Never did such a Proteus appear in any court of justice
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 76 
 
 KS this was found to be when it did appear : sometimes 
 these changeable letters were five in number, sometimes 
 eight, sometimes ten, sometimes sixteen, and finally, eighteen 
 in number. For a long time, there were nothing but letters ; 
 afterwards they were joined by some sonnets, and in the 
 end by two contracts of marriage. Sometimes they had the 
 Queen's signature, sometimes they were without it : sometimes 
 they were dated, at others they had no date at all : sometimes 
 they were said to be sealed with the Queen's seal, but after- 
 wards they were found never to have been any way secured. 
 Nay, what is more surprising still, though they were, on their 
 appearing at York, written in the Scotch language, when they 
 were produced at Westminster, they were found to be in 
 French. They were all affirmed to be in the Queen's own 
 hand -writing, and yet it was admitted that the French ones 
 were not even a translation from the Scotch, but a translation 
 of a Latin translation. 
 
 Now these letters are the damning proofs from which the 
 Queen of Scots has been condemned, and that without having 
 been permitted either to see them during any of their transmigra- 
 tions, or to be heard in her own defence. So much for the exter- 
 nal evidence of the genuineness of these infamous letters ; the 
 internal evidence against them is, if possible, still more decisive. 
 They are earthly, sensual, devilish : the heart of the elegant, 
 delicate, simple Mary was as incapable of dictating them, as 
 the pen of the pious, the enlightened, and the refined Queen of 
 Scots was incapable of writing them. In Scotland, where these 
 letters could easily have been detected as forgeries, they were 
 not produced. In England, where nobody was allowed to call 
 their genuineness in question, they were produced, but their 
 genuineness not attempted to be proved.
 
 76 DISSERTATION ON THE LIl'E OF 
 
 To the possession of the Earl of Gowry, executed for higli 
 treason in 158i, was finally traced this box fuU of fabricated 
 letters, of which it is believed Secretary Maitland, of Lething- 
 ton, was the author; he acknowledged at York, that he 
 both could, and frequently had imitated the Queen's hand- 
 writinor. Morton, on his execution for the murder of 
 the King, confessed his guilt, and accused Bothwell and 
 Maitland as his fellow-conspirators. Bothwell died a prisoner 
 in the Danish Castle of iMalmay, 1576, declaring with his last 
 breath, that the Scottish Queen was quite unconscious of the 
 death of Darnley, which had been procured by Murray, Morton, 
 and Maitland. Murray was shot in the streets of Linlithgow 
 by the much-injured Hamilton, on the 23d January, 1569-70. 
 Maitland died by poison (Morton was suspected of the crime), 
 at Leith, on the 9th June, 1578. I have thus briefly noticed 
 the violent and tragical end of these wretched men. If it does 
 not prove the just retribution of an offended Deity, it does 
 prove the ferocity of the age, and of the higher ranks in 
 society in Scotland during Mary's reign ; and the confessions of 
 several of them serve to establish the innocence of the Queen, 
 with the impossibility of any one, situated as she was, escaping 
 with an unblemished character, if they did with life. 
 
 Though I hope and believe, that enough hath been said to 
 prove, humanly speaking, the impossibility of Maiy having 
 been an accomplice m the murder of Darnley ; still there are 
 among her accusers, who say, " Why, then, did she not ex- 
 plicitly deny her guilt in her famous letter to Elizabeth, and in 
 lier last moments ?"' It is very easy to ask questions, and not 
 always either quite so easy or even possible to answer them, by 
 saying xvliij such and such tilings were not done. In this in- 
 stance, however, it may not prove a very difficult task.
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 77 
 
 In the first place, we will refer to her letter written only 
 one day after the murder of her husband to her ambassador at 
 Paris, the Archbishop of Glasgow. On this occasion, a wo- 
 man who had so recently been guilty of the murder of her hus- 
 band, and was writing on the subject, could scarcely fail of 
 discovering, or raising suspicions of, her guilt by the very 
 means which she v/ould take to conceal it. Here, however, is 
 a letter which I think nothing but innocence, ignorant of such 
 an accusation, could have indited. A more artless, clear, and 
 explicit relation of the occurrence could scarcely have been 
 written. Still let it be remembered, that it is the letter of a 
 Queen to an Archbishop, her ambassador. Here is none of 
 that affectation of feelings which a guilty woman, on such an 
 occasion, would have been sure to have displayed ; here are 
 none even of those natural genuine feehngs, the dictate of the 
 heart, which an innocent woman must have given \\ay to in 
 writing to an intimate familiar friend, and which, therefore, a 
 hypocrite would have assumed, even in writing to an ambassa- 
 dor. It is the letter of a Christian, a Queen, and a woman of 
 discernment. She believed that it was the object of the con- 
 spirators to have murdered her, as well as her husband ; she 
 states her reasons for such a belief without any passionate ex- 
 clamations. She prefers her accusations decidedly, but coolly. 
 She had then been too long -accustomed to treachery and in- 
 sult, to be either greatly surprised or roused by a repetition of 
 them. Damley coidd not then have stood very high in her 
 esteem, and she does not affect to display what she did not 
 feel. Let the reader compare this letter with those written by 
 Murray, Maitland, and Morton, (in Chalmers' Life of Mary,) 
 on the same occasion, and he will hardly fail to perceive clear- 
 ly her innocence, and their guilt. I again repeat, it is impos- 
 sible either that she should have committed the crime herself^ 
 or that she should have been connected with such conspirators 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 78 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OP 
 
 in perpetration of the murder, and not have been convicted 
 of it. 
 
 The only time when it could have been at all expected of 
 the Queen of Scots to assert her innocence of the murder of 
 Darnley, was when she was accused by Elizabeth of the crime 
 before the commissioners at York. Then, she not only asserts 
 her innocence, but she loudly, fearlessly, and repeatedly de*- 
 mands to have the opportunity of proving in person her inno- 
 cence, in the presence of her accuser, the witnesses, and the 
 judges. She stakes her innocence on being able, if permitted, 
 to prove it. This was going a step beyond what is ever ex- 
 pected of an accused person to do, but even this her base ca- 
 lumniators would not permit her to do. She was not allowed 
 either to be confronted with her accusers, or to see or hear the 
 evidence brought forwards to establish her guilt. It is clear, 
 that so desirous were her accusers to prove her guilty, that 
 they would stick at no stretch of power which was likely to 
 accomplish their object. If their evidence was good, the more 
 it was examined into, the more clearly would the guilt of the 
 accused have been established, and the more effectually would 
 their end have been obtained. They, however, all well knew 
 the innocence of the victim, and they trembled at the appre- 
 hension of her being able to throw back the accusation of guilt 
 upon themselves with tenfold force and clearness. 
 
 The long and able letter which was written by Mary to 
 Elizabeth from Sheffield, was for the purjDOse of obtaining 
 something hke justice from the latter, for herself and son. 
 Now, it could hardly have been expected, that a woman of 
 prudence and good sense would have taken such an opportu- 
 nity of needlessly vexing the person whom she was petitioning. 
 That Elizabeth knew her innocent of the murder of Darnley,
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, 79 
 
 none could doubt. Tliat she had meanly, cruelly, and basely 
 resorted to falsehood and wrong to make her appear guilty of 
 it, was well known. To have alluded, then, in that letter to 
 the subject, must inevitably have been at once defeating the 
 end and aim which she had in view. If Elizabeth had been 
 at all open to conviction, she must be then fully convinced ; if 
 she was not, no assertions of Mary's could have produced that 
 effect. As to the Queen of Scots asserting her innocence of 
 the murder of Darnley at the hour of death, it could hardly, 
 inider all the circumstances, have been expected. It was not 
 one of the charges preferred against her. It had then for six- 
 teen years been relinquished. She was a Queen and a Chris- 
 tian ; she had lived as such, and she died as a Queen and a 
 Christian ought to die. She made no proud boasting, she 
 accused none of her enemies ; she sought pardon for her sins 
 from God, not to justify herself either in the sight of God or 
 man. The time allowed her by her judges for preparation for 
 eternity was too short to be uselessly wasted on self-defence. 
 Such an idea as that of being accused of the murder of her 
 husband never once, then, probably occurred to her ; the crimes 
 of which the commissioners accused her, and for which she 
 ostensibly suffered, were of a different nature, and it is not 
 likely that her attendants would remind her of the former accu- 
 sation. It is not probable that she ever heard much, if any 
 thing, of such an accusation, excepting from the commissioners 
 ©n her insulting mock trial. Then she so clearly repelled it, 
 that she might reasonably conceive, that all unprejudiced minds 
 were convinced of the baseness and falsehood of the charge. 
 So far is the circumstance of Queen Mary's silence on the 
 subject of her participation in the murder of Darnley, from 
 being indicative of her guilt, that it is, in my opinion, very 
 strong evidence of her innocence. Had she really been guilty 
 of such a crime, it is morally impossible that she should not.
 
 80 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 in some way or other, have alluded to it. It must in that 
 case, and on all occasions, have been uppermost in her thoughts, 
 and years of solitude, such as she passed, could not fail to 
 have, some way or other, disclosed it. On the contrary, it 
 seems never to have occurred to her recollection, and instead 
 of the agony of a wounded and accusing conscience, continual- 
 ly gaining strength, her serenity of mind and pious resigna- 
 tion kept gradually increasing to the last hour of her eventful 
 life. 
 
 It is probable that the religious fanatics were among the 
 principal instigators of the calumnies, insults, and acts of in- 
 justice which were perpetually heaping upon the Queen. A 
 more rancorous spirit of persecution was perhaps never evinced 
 in any age, in any country, or by any class of professing Chris- 
 tians. The refomied religion was not then the religion of the 
 state, it was then only the tolerated religion, yet did Knox 
 and his followers treat the young Queen and her religion, as if 
 she was an alien, and her religion an innovation. 
 
 If, as is generally asserted, the Roman Catholic religion be 
 in its spirit more intolerant than any other which takes Jesus 
 Christ for its foundation, it was, as practised by Mary, Queen 
 of Scots, (who has never been accused of indifference on the 
 subject,) undoubtedly in that respect much more moderate 
 than that of the reformers. This must certainly speak very 
 Strongly in favour of the young Queen. However useful Knox 
 may have been as an instrument in furthering the reformation, 
 he must ever stand disgraced himself, and a disgracer of the 
 cause which he so violently espoused. If (as we are assured) 
 the essence of Christianity be love, and if Christ himself de- 
 clared that the distinguishing characteristic of his disciples 
 should be that of their " loving one another," then could not
 
 MARY, gUEEN OF SCOTS. 81 
 
 Knox be a Christian. He possessed none of its cliaracteristic 
 gentleness, meekness, forbearance, and long suffering. On 
 the contrary, he was rude, violent, impetuous, impatient, and 
 revengeful ; speaking evil of dignities, and, instead of honour- 
 ing, insulting and persecuting the monarch on the throne. 
 He was one who scrupled not to employ many vmlawful means 
 to effect, as he thought, his purpose the more effectually. 
 Publicly and privately he took every opportunity of traducing 
 the character of the Queen. 
 
 With such a government, with'such a nobility, and with such 
 clergy, how was it possible (humanly speaking) for a Queen of 
 her age, and in her circumstances, to escape the slanderous 
 tongue of calumny ? These, however, were not all the enemies 
 which the defenceless youthful Queen of Scots had to contend 
 with. There was a serpent more subtile, more venomous, 
 more rancorous and powerful than they all, which never ceased 
 trying to tempt her to her destruction, which never forbore to 
 hiss its malignant aspersions against her with all its force, nor 
 to dart its poisonous sting into her tender frame till it had ac- 
 complished its infernal work by bringing her to her grave. 
 The enmity of Elizabeth, Queen of England, to Mary, Queen 
 of Scots, seems never to have abated of its inveteracy from her 
 ascending the throne till it had brought her to the scaffold. 
 On Palm Sunday, 1572, Elizabeth declared that " the Queen 
 of Scots head should never be in quiet" It nevet was till it 
 was off; that of Elizabeth had little rest afterwards. 
 
 Nominally independent, Scotland was in reality governed 
 in a great measure by England, the latter country being not 
 only stronger, but also much richer, and more politic. It was 
 united in itself, and its monarch was s]3irited, sagacious, and 
 discerning. Such a government could not be deficient in the
 
 82 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 means of controlling the councils of a kingdom, sucli as 
 Scotland was at that time, in which the servants of the State 
 were disloyal, venal, and ferocious. 
 
 Elizabeth never appears to have received any just cause for 
 offence from the Queen of Scots. The only circumstance 
 which at all seems to require explanation, is, that of the 
 Dauphin, when he married the Queen of Scots, having assumed 
 with her the arms and title of " King and Queen of England.' 
 This cause of complaint, however, must be entirely done away 
 with, when it is stated, that it was not Maiy, but her husband, 
 who assumed the title ; and that as soon as he was dead, she 
 relinquished it. Elizabeth, at any rate, could not complain of 
 such an infringement of right with any thing like a good grace. 
 She herself was bearing the arms of France, and the title of 
 Queen of France, at the time, on less tenable grounds : be' 
 sides that, the laws of France do not, in any case, acknow- 
 ledge or admit of a Queen. Against the covert and open 
 malignity, then, of this Queen and government of England, 
 not over-nice in the quality of the means which they employed, 
 had the Queen of Scots to guard and contend. That all 
 these enemies, combined, should eventually succeed in first 
 depriving her of her character, then of her throne and child, 
 and lastly of her life, can appear no way surprising to any man 
 capable of discernment and reflection, even on the supposi- 
 tion of her being pure as an angel of light. Poor Mary was 
 no match for any of their arts ; too confiding and perhaps (in 
 her situation) too forgiving, she was, through hfe, a dupe to 
 knavery. Never did she exhibit a stronger or more fatal in- 
 stance of want of common discernment and caution, than in 
 needlessly (as it proved) throwing herself totally on the tender 
 mercies of her good sister Elizabeth. It is true, that, if any 
 one human being existing on the face of the earth possessed
 
 Mary, ^ueen of scots. S3 
 
 <:laims on the compassion and aid of anotlier, which were ir* 
 resistible, that being was Mary, Queen of Scots, when she 
 threw herself, pennvless, wretched, and defenceless, at the 
 feet of her nearest relative and neighbour. Comfort for the 
 afflicted, aid for the helpless, protection for the oppressed, and 
 wine and oil for the wounded, were not things that the Queen 
 of England dealt in. As well might the Iamb bleat in the 
 ears of the famished wolf, when beneath his paws, for mercy, 
 as Mary appeal to Elizabeth, when in her power, for that love 
 which every Christian is bound to extend to his neighbour* 
 Had Elizabeth loved Mary as she loved herself, great indeed 
 would have been her affection for her ; unfortunately for Mary, 
 but more unfortunately for herself, however, she did not. She 
 loved herself so well, that she never seems through life to have 
 had any love to spare for others. It is scarcely possible to 
 conceive an appeal more forcible than that which Mary had to 
 urge to Elizabeth for assistance :: — " Are we not sisters," she 
 might say, " born, only three removes, of the same father and 
 the same mother ; we are both young females, both Queens, 
 both orphans. Thou hast power, I am weak. I never have 
 designedly given offence. Death has driven me from one 
 throne, rebellion from another. My child is in the hands of 
 my enemies. I am an outcast, without money, and without 
 friends. I have thrown myself confidingly on thy mercy as 
 the only earthly being, possessed of the means to afford me as- 
 sistance, from whom I have a natural right to claim it." 
 These are some of the pleas which Mary had to urge, and witli 
 most, if not all, other women they would have prevailed : on 
 Elizabeth, however, they produced little effect. She was not 
 the Levite, who beheld the victim of rapine and cruelty, and 
 passed by on the other side. No ! she was no such careless 
 looker-on : she ordered the wounded, helpless traveller, her 
 Jieis;hbour and her sister, not to be carried to an inn and taken
 
 84) DiSSEKTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 care of, but with feelings peculiar, it is to be Loped, to herself, 
 to be taken and cast into prison ; and after enjoying the plea- 
 sure of torturing her there for more than eighteen years, at 
 last, when prematurely aged and infirm, to bring her forth and 
 murder her. Surely the annals of human depravity and base 
 cruelty do not ofFer another instance of like guilt with this ! 
 The stroke of an assassin is nothing to the procrastinated 
 cruelty of Ehzabeth. The sufferings of her victim appeared 
 to afford her delight. She frequently held out hopes to her, 
 but it seemed to be only to have the pleasure of disappointing 
 them. She was continually urging the unwilling and, at first, 
 revolting gaoler (Shrewsbury,) to treat his prisoner with more 
 severity ; and it was only when the poor suffering Queen was 
 likely to escape the tortures of her rack by death, that she 
 consented to abate, for a time, her sufferings, and permitted 
 her to visit the heahng waters of Buxton to enable her to bear 
 more of the tender mercies of her good and compassionate 
 sister. Thus the death of the captive Queen, when it did take 
 place, seems to have been hastened more than was the inten- 
 tion of her tormentor ; at least if Elizabeth be herself to be be- 
 lieved, that was the case. She only intended the death to have 
 been a still more hngering one, caused by the perpetual dread 
 of it. This was a refinement in cruelty reserved for the great 
 Queen Elizabeth. Little, it is probable, did she then think, 
 that she was herself to experience a much more dreadful, and 
 almost equally lingering death with that which she would have 
 ii-iflicted upon her captive sister. 
 
 How often do we see the wicked entrapped in the work of 
 their own hands ! Mary was, indeed, tried in the furnace of 
 affliction. Daily, however, she became thereby more and more 
 fitted and prepared for death ; while her persecutor, amidst al- 
 most unvarying prosperity, was hourly unfitting herself for its
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 85 
 
 approach, and accumulating causes of torment to render its ar- 
 rival most dreadful and appalling. The biography of the world 
 scarcely furnishes an instance in any rank of life, certainly not 
 in Mary's exalted station, of an individual who was on every 
 hand and in all places, so beset with enemies, treacherous 
 friends, and calumniators, as she invariably was. Her youth, 
 her beauty, her accomphshments, her forbearance, her confi- 
 dence in others, but, above all, her being seated on a tottering 
 throne, in a half-savage nation, and professing a falling religion, 
 served to create, encourage, and perpetuate calumniators and 
 persecutors. Friends she no doubt had, but they were neither 
 able nor disposed to attempt her protection at the almost cer- 
 tain expense of their own ruin. They might sigh and weep 
 for her, but sighs and tears avail but little against the tongues 
 and daggers of the fanatic and the bravo. Even the favours 
 •which she conferred seemed to serve only to produce maligners 
 and persecutors. 
 
 Buchanan, who struck so speedy, so foul, so treacherous, 
 iso effectual a blow at her fair fame, was one on whom she had 
 heaped (as on many other false friends) numerous and greatly 
 undeserved favours. Pleased, perhaps, with the blandishments 
 of his poetry, (he had been her instructor in Latin,) she not 
 only made him a handsome allowance quarterly from her 
 treasury, but at length granted him, Jbr life, the whole of the 
 revenue of the Abbey of Crossraguel, in Ayrshire, amounting 
 to 5^500 per annum, then no trifling sura ; this was the 
 treacherous friend who struck a deadlier blow than the ex- 
 ecutioner of Elizabeth. More than two hundred years have 
 not sufficed to heal the wound which his poisoned dagger m- 
 flicted. He left both the dagger and the poison behind him, 
 and there have not been wanting those who could not forgive 
 a pious Roman Catholic Queen for being sincerely devoted to 
 VOL. I. i»
 
 86 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 her religion, to take them and use them against her. The 
 deteraiination of Buchanan to traduce the character of his 
 Queen and benefactor, is so clearly apparent in almost every 
 page of his work, that it must serve to weaken all confidence 
 in him, in every impartial reader. Whenever it Yi&s posdble by 
 any art or sophistry to represent either her actions, her words, 
 or her motives, disadvantageously, he seems to have done it. 
 Just as much rehance might have been placed on the repre- 
 sentations of Morton, had he written her lile, as on those of 
 the treacherous Buchanan. This is the fountain whence al- 
 most all the foul and bitter waters, which through two centuries 
 have overwhelmed and defiled the reputation of Queen Mary, 
 have been drawn. 
 
 It has been shewn by what treachery the Queen of Scots 
 was seized and imprisoned by Elizabeth, and the cruelty with 
 which she was treated by her as her prisoner, during eighteen 
 years, in various castles and strong places in England, wearing 
 out her body and her patience by sufferings and trials of al- 
 most every kind. After fourteen years of misery thus passed 
 in bearing the inflictions and insults of her remorseless perse- 
 cutor, she at last wrote a letter to her from Sheffield, on the 
 8th November, 1582 ; it is almost too long to admit of being 
 here given at full length, but to omit any part of it would not 
 be doing the writer justice. This she has been denied so long 
 and so frequently tliat I shall not in this instance continue the 
 practice. My readers, I am sure, will not regret the time spent 
 in the perusal. It shews the workings of an aroused and feel- 
 ing heart, accompanied with unaffected piety and a clear and 
 strong understanding. It is dignified, argumentative, and 
 powerfully persuasive. However Ehaabeth might have suc- 
 ceeded in breaking the constitution of her victim, it is evident 
 that the powers of her mind were not only unbroken but un-
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTSi 87 
 
 impaired. It is the letter of a Queen, of a good and a wise 
 Queen. 
 
 " Madam, 
 
 " Upon that which has come to my knowledge, of the lasf 
 conspiracies executed, in Scotland, agamst my poor child, 
 having reason to fear the consequence of it, from the example 
 of myself; I must employ the very small remainder of my 
 life, and strength before my death, to discharge my heart to 
 you fully, of my just, and melancholy complaints : of which { 
 desire, that this letter may serve you, as long as you live after 
 me, for a perpetual testimony, and engraving upon your con- 
 science ; as much for my discharge to posterity, as to the shame, 
 and confusion of all those, who, under your approbation, have 
 so cruelly, and unworthily, treated me to this time, and reduced 
 me to the extremity, in which I am. But, as their designs, 
 practices, actions, and proceedings, though as detestable as 
 they could have been, have always prevailed with you against 
 my very just remonstrances, and sincere deportment ; and as 
 the power, which you have in your hands, has always been a 
 reason for you among mankind ; I will have recourse to the 
 living God, our only judge, who has established us, equally, 
 and immediately, under him, for the government of his people. 
 
 " I will invoke him to the end of this my very pressing 
 affliction, that he will return to you, and to me, (as he will do 
 in his last judgement,) the share of our merits, and demerits, 
 one towards the other. And remember, madam, that to him 
 we shall not be able to disguise any thing, by the paint, and 
 policy of the world ; though mine enemies, under you, have 
 been able, for a time, to cover their subtle inventions to men, 
 perhaps to you. 
 
 " In his name, and as before him sitting, between you 
 and me, I will remind you ; that by the agents, spies, and 
 secret messengers, sent in your name into Scotland, while I 
 was there, my subjects were corrupted, and er.couraged to 
 rebel against me, to make attempts upon my "person^ and in 
 ©ne word, to speak, do, enterprize^ and execute tliat, which
 
 88 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 has come to the said country, during my troubles.* Of whicK 
 I will not at present specify other proof, than that, which I 
 have gained of it, by the confession of one, who was afterwards 
 amongst those, that were most advanced, for this good service, 
 and of the witnesses confronted with him. To whom, if I had 
 since done justice he had not aftenvards, hy his antient in- 
 telligences, renewed the same practices against my son ; and 
 had not procured for all my traitourous and rebellious subjects, 
 who took refuge with you, that aid, and support, which they 
 have had, even since my detention on this side ; without which 
 support, I think, the said traitours could not since have pre- 
 vailed, nor afterwards have stood out so long, as they have 
 done. 
 
 " During my imprisonment at Lochleven, the late Trog- 
 marton [Throkmorton] counselled me on your behalf, to sign 
 that demission, which he advertised me would be presented to 
 me ; assuring me, that it could not be valid. And there was not 
 afterwards a place in Christendom, where it was held for valid, 
 or maintained, except on this side; [where it was maintained] 
 even to having assisted, with open force, the authors of it. In 
 your conscience, madam, would you acknowledge an equal 
 liberty, and power, in your subjects? Notwithstanding this, 
 my authority has been, by my subjects, transferred to my son, 
 when he was not capable of exercising it. 
 
 " And since I was willing to assure it, lawfully, to him, 
 he being of age to be assisted to his own advantage, it is sud- 
 denly ravished from him, and assigned over to two or three 
 traitours ; who having taken from him the effectiveness of it, 
 will take from him, as they have from me, both the name, and 
 the title of it, if he contradicts them in the manner he may, 
 and perhaps his life, if God does not provide for his preser- 
 vatiorr. 
 
 " When I was escaped from Lochlevin, ready to give 
 battle to my rebels -, I remitted to you, by a gentleman, express, 
 3 diamond jewel which I had formerly received, as a token 
 from you, and with assurance to be succoured by you against 
 
 * The allusion is to Randolph, the corrupt agent of Elizabetfa, 
 in Scotland.
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 89 
 
 my rebels ; and even that, on my retiring towards you, you 
 would come to the very frontiers, in order to assist me ; which 
 had been confirmed to me by divers messengers.* 
 
 " This promise coming, and repeatedly, from your mouth 
 (though I had found myself often abused by your ministers) 
 made me place such affiance on the effectiveness of it ; that, 
 when my army was routed, I came directly to throw myself, 
 into your arms, if I had been able to approach them. But 
 while I was planning to set out to find you, there was I arrested 
 on my way, surrounded with guards, secured in strong places, 
 and at last reduced, all shame set aside, to the captivity, ia 
 which 1 remain, to this day, rifter a thousand deaths, which 
 I have already suffered from it. 
 
 " I know, that you will alledge to me what passed between 
 the late Duke Nortfolk [of Norfolk] and me. I maintain, 
 that there was nothing in this to your prejudice, or against the 
 publick good of this realm ; and that tlie treaty was sanctioned 
 with the advice, and signatures, of the first persons, who were 
 then of your coimcil, under the assurance of making it appear 
 good to you. 
 
 " How could such personages have undertaken the enter- 
 prize, of making you consent to a point, which should deprive 
 you of fife, of honour, and your crown; as you have shown 
 yourself, persuaded, it would have done, to all the embassa- 
 dours, and others, who speak to you, concerning me ? 
 
 " In the mean time my rebels perceiving, that their head- 
 long course was cari-j'ing them much farther than they had 
 thouo-ht before, and the truth beinsf evidenced concernin<T the 
 calumnies, that had been propagated of me at the conference, 
 to which I submitted, in full assembly, of your deputies and 
 mine, with others of the contrary party, in that country, in 
 order to clear myself publickly of them ; there were the princi- 
 pals, for having come to repentance, besieged by your forces, 
 in the castle of Edinburgh, and one of the first among them 
 poisoned,f and the other most cruelly hanged \\. after I had 
 
 * Elizabeth appears, from tliis, to have early formed the dcsiga 
 ©f drawing Mary into England, under the pretence of assisting her. 
 t Secretary Maitfand. % The laird of Grange.
 
 90 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 two times made them lay down their arms, at your request, in 
 hopes of" an agreement, which God knows, wliether my enemies 
 aimed at. 
 
 "I have been, for a long time, trying, whether patience 
 would soften tlie rigour, and ill treatment, which they have 
 begun, for these ten years, peculiarly to make me suffer. And 
 accommodating myself exactly to the order prescribed me, for 
 my captivity in this house ; as well in regard to the number, 
 and quality of the attendants, which I retain, dismissing the 
 others ; as for my diet, and ordinary exercise, for my health ; 
 I am living, even at present, as quietly, and peaceably, as one 
 much inferiour to myself, and more obliged, than with such 
 treatment, I was to you, had been able to do ; even to deprive 
 myself, in order to take away all shadow of suspicion, and 
 diffidence from you, of requiring to have some intelligence with 
 my son, and my country, which is what, by no right, or reason, 
 could be denied me, and principally with my child ; whom, 
 instead of this, they have endeavoured by every way to persuade 
 agauist me, in order to weaken us by our division.* 
 
 " It was permitted me, you will say, to send one to visit 
 him there, about three years ago. His captivity then at Ster- 
 ling, under the tyranny of Morton, was the cause of it ; as his 
 liberty was afterwards, of a refusal to make the like visit. All 
 tliis year past, I have several times entered into divers overtures, 
 for the establishment of a good amity between us, and a sure 
 understanding between these two realms in future. To Chats- 
 worth, about ten years ago, commissioners were sent me, for 
 tJiat purpose. A treaty has been held upon it with yourself, 
 by my embassadours, and those of France. I even myself 
 made, concerning it, the last winter, all the advantageous over- 
 tures to Beal, that it was possible to make. What return have 
 I had thence ? My good intenlion has been despised, the 
 sincerity of my actions has been neglected and calumniated, the 
 state of my affairs has been traversed by delays, postponings, 
 and other such like artifices. And, in conclusion, a worse and 
 more unworthy treatment from day to day, any thing which I 
 am compelled to do in order to deseiTe the contrary, my very 
 
 * How does this continue, to lengthen out the dark, and sloomy 
 picture of Elizabeth's conduct to Mary.
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 91 
 
 long, useless, and prejudicial patience, have reduced me so 
 low, that mine enemies, in their habits ot" using me ill, think 
 this day they have the right of prescription tor treating me, not 
 as a prisoner, which in reason I could not be, but as some 
 slave, whose hfe, and whose death, depend only upon their 
 tyranny.* 
 
 "I cannot, madam, suffer it any longer; and I must, in 
 dying, discover the authors of my deatli, or, living, attempt, 
 under your protection, to find an end to the cruelties, calum- 
 nies, and traitorous designs of my said enemies, in order to 
 establish me in some little more repose for the remainder of 
 my life. To take away the occasions pretended for all dif- 
 ferences between us, clear yourself, if you please, of all which 
 has been reported to you concerning my actions ; review the 
 depositions of the strangers' taken in Ireland ; let those of the 
 Jesuits last executed be represented to you ; give liberty to those 
 who would undertake to charge me publickly, and permit me 
 to enter upon my defence : if any evil be found in mc, let me 
 suffer it, it shall be patiently when I shall know the occasion 
 of it : if any good, suffer me not to be worse treated for it, with 
 your very great commission before God and man. 
 
 " The vilest criminals, tliat are in your prisons, born 
 under your obedience, are admitted to their justification ; and 
 their accusers, and their accusations, are always declared to 
 them. Why then shall not the same order have place, towards 
 me a Sovereign Queen, your nearest relation and lawful heir ? 
 I think, that this last circumstance has hitherto been, on the 
 side of my enemies, the principal cause of it, and of all their 
 calumnies, to make their unjust pretensions slide between the 
 two, by keeping us in division. But, alas ! they have now 
 little reason and less need, to torment me more upon this 
 account. For I protest to you upon mine honour, that I look 
 this day for no kingdom, but that of my God ; whom I see pre- 
 paring me, for the better conclusion of all my afflictions and 
 adversities past. 
 
 " This will be to you [a monition] to discharge your 
 conscience towards my child, as to what belongs to him on this 
 
 * What heart is there, but must here feel, for the injured Queen!
 
 92 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 point after my death ; and in the mean time not to let prevail 
 to. his prejudice, the continual practices and secret conspiracies, 
 •wliich our enemies in this reahn are making daily for the 
 advancement of their said pretensions ; lahouring on the other 
 side with our traitorous subjects in Scotland, by all the means 
 which they can, to hasten his ruin ; of which I do not demand 
 other better verification, than the charges given to your last 
 deputies sent into Scotland, and what the said deputies have 
 seditiously practised there, as I believe, without your know- 
 ledge, but with good and sufficient solicitation of the earl my 
 ffood neighbour at York.* 
 
 " And on this point, madam, by what right can it be 
 maintained, that I, the mother of my child, am totally pro- 
 hibited, not only from assisting him in the necessity so urgent 
 in which he is, but also from having any intelligence of his 
 state ? Who can bring him more carefulness, duty, and since- 
 rity, than I ? To whom can he be more near? At the least, 
 if sending to him to provide for his preservation, as the Earl 
 of Cheresbury [Shrewsbury^ made me lately understand y.oii 
 did, you had pleased to take my advice in the matter ; you 
 would have interposed with a better face, as I ihink, and with 
 more obligingness to me. But consider what you leave me to 
 think, when forgetting so suddenly the offence which you pre- 
 tended to have taken against my son, at the time I was request- 
 ing you that we should send together to him ; you have dis- 
 patched one to the place where he was a prisoner, not only 
 without giving me advice of it, but debarring me at the very 
 time from all liberty, that by no way whatever I might have 
 any news of him. 
 
 " And if the intention of those, who have procured on 
 your part this so prompt a visit of my son, had been for his 
 preservation, and the repose of the country ; they needed not 
 to have been so careful in concealing it from mc, as a matter 
 in which I should not have been willing to concur with vou. 
 By this means they have lost you the good-will, which I should 
 have had for you. And, to talk to you more plainly upon the 
 point, I pray you not to employ there any more such means 
 or such persons. For, although I hold the Lord de Kerri 
 
 * The Earl of Huntingdon, who was then lord president, at York.
 
 MARY, (^UEEN OF SCOTS. 9S 
 
 £Cary, Lord Hiinsdon] too sensible of the ranlt from which 
 he is sprung, to engage his honour in a villainous act; he has 
 had for an assistant a sworn partisan of the Earl of Hunting- 
 don's, by whose bad offices an action as bad lias nearly suc- 
 ceeded to a similar etfect. 1 shall be contented then, only at 
 your not permitting my son to receive any injury from this 
 country (which is all, that I have ever required of you before, 
 even when an army was sent to the borders, to prevent justice 
 from being done to that detestable Morton ;) and that none oi" 
 your subjects directly or indirectly intermeddle any more in the 
 affairs of Scotland, unless it is with my knowledge, to whom 
 all cognizance of these tilings belongs, or with the assistance 
 of some one on the part of the most Christian King, my good 
 brother; whom, as our principal ally, I desire to make privy 
 to the whole of this cause, because of the httle credit that he 
 can have with the traitours, who detain my son at present. 
 
 " In the mean time, I declare with all openness to you, 
 that I hold this last conspiracy and innovation, for pure treason 
 against the life of my son, the good of his affairs, and that of 
 the country ; and that while he shall be in the state, in which 
 I understand he is, I shall esteem no word, writing, or other 
 act, that comes from him, or is passed imder his name, as 
 proceeding from his fiee and voluntai-y disposition, but only 
 from the said conspirators, who, at the price of his life, are 
 making him to serve as a rnasque to them. 
 
 " But, Madam, with all this freedom of speech, which 
 I can foresee, will in some sort displease you, though it be the 
 tri!th itself; you will find it more strange, I assure myself, 
 that I come now to importune you again with a request of 
 much greater importance, and yet very easy for you to grant, 
 and release to me. This is, that having not been able hitherto, 
 by accommodating myself patiently so long a time to the rigo- 
 rous treatment of this captivity, and carrying myself sincerely 
 in all things, yea, even to the least, that could concern you a 
 very little, to gain myself some assurance of my entire affection 
 towards you ; all my hope being taken away by it, of being 
 better treated, for the very short time, which remains to me of 
 life : I supplicate you, by the honour of the sorrowful passion 
 of our Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, again I supphcate 
 you, at once to permit me to withdraw myself out of your 
 realm, into some place of repose ; to search out some comfort 
 VOL. r. a.
 
 Si4> DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE Of 
 
 for my poor body, so wearied as it is with continual sorrows ; 
 and with liberty of my conscience to prepare my sold for God, 
 who is calling for it daily. 
 
 " Believe, Madam, and the physicians, whom you sent 
 me this last summer, are able sufficiently to judge the same ; 
 that I am not for a long continuance, so as to give you any 
 foundation of jealousy or distrust of me. And, notwithstand- 
 ing this, take of me such assurances and conditions, just and 
 reasonable, as you shall choose. The greatest power rests 
 always on your side, to make me keep them ; though for no- 
 tiling whatever would I wish to break them. You have had 
 sufficient experience of my observance of my simple promises, 
 and sometimes to my prejudice ; as I shewed you upon this 
 very point, about two years ago. Recollect, if you please, 
 what I then wrote you : and you will not know how to bind 
 my heart to you so much, as by kindness, though you keep 
 for ever my poor body languishing between four walls ; those 
 of my rank, and nature, not leaving themselves to be gained, 
 or forced, by any rigour. 
 
 " Your prison, without any right or just foundation, has 
 already destroyed my body ; of which you will shortly have the 
 end, if it continues there a little longer ; and my enemies will 
 not have much time, for glutting their cruelties on me ; nothing 
 remains of me, but the soul, which all your prjiver cannot 
 make captive. Give it, then, room for aspiring a little more 
 freely after its salvation ; which alone it seeks for at this day, 
 more than any grandeur of this world. It seems to me, that 
 it cannot be to you any great satisfaction, honour, and advan- 
 tage, for mine enemies to trample my hfe under foot, till they 
 have stifled me in your presence. Whereas, if in this extre- 
 mity, however late it be, you release me out of their hands, 
 you will bind me greatly to you, and bind all those, who belong 
 to me, particularly my poor child ; whom you will perhaps 
 make sure to yourself by it. 
 
 " I will not cease to importune you with this request, 
 until it be granted me. And, on this account, I pray you to 
 let me understand your intention ; having, in order to comply 
 with you, waited even to the present day for two years, to renew 
 my urgency for it ; for which the miserable state of my heakh 
 presses me more than you can think. In the mean time pro-
 
 - MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 95 
 
 \'ide, if you jilease, for the bettering of my treatment on this 
 side, that I may not suffer any longer ; and remit me not to 
 the discretion of any other whatever, but your own self, from 
 whom alone (as I wrote to you lately) I wish for tlie future to 
 hold all the good and the evil, which I shall receive in your 
 country. Do me this favour, to let me have your intention in 
 wi-iting, or the embassadour of France, for me. For to tie me 
 up to what the Earl of Scherusbery [Shrewsbury], or others, 
 shall speak, or WTite about it, on your behalf; I have too much 
 experience, to be able to put any assurance in it : the least 
 point, which they shall capriciously fancy, being sufficient, to 
 innovate the whole from one day to another. 
 
 " Besides tliis, the last time that I wrote to those of j-oiu' 
 council, you made me understand, that I ought not to address 
 myself to them, but to you alone (and so to extend their credit 
 and authority only to do me hurt, could not be reasonable ; as 
 has happened in this last limitation, in which, against your 
 intention, 1 have been treated with much indignity.) This 
 gives me every occasion for doubting, that some of my enemies 
 in your said council may have procured it with a design, of 
 keeping others of the said council from being made privy to my 
 just complaints ; lest the others should see perhaps their com- 
 panions, adhere to their wicked attempts upon my life ; of 
 which, if they should have any knowledge, they would oppose 
 them, for the sake of your honour, and of their duty towards 
 you.* 
 
 " Two things I have principally to require at the close : 
 the one, that, near as I am to going out of this world, I may 
 have with me, for my consolation, some honourable church- 
 man ; to remind me daily of the course, which I have to finish, 
 and teach me how to complete it according to my religion, in 
 which 1 am firmly resolved, to live and to die. 
 
 " This is a last duty, which cannot be denied to the most 
 mean and miserable person that lives : it is a hberty, which 
 vou grant to all the foreign embassadours ; as also all other 
 Catholick Kings give to your embassadours, the exercise of 
 their rehgion. And even I myself have not hitherto forced my 
 
 * The allusion was, probably, to the Earl of Leicester.
 
 i)Q DISSERTATION' ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 own subjects, to any thing contrary to their rehgion ; though 
 I had all power and authority over them. And that I in this 
 extremity should be deprived of such freedom, yon cannot with 
 justice require. What advantage will fedound to you, when 
 you shall deny it to me ? I hope that God will excuse me, 
 if, oppressed by you in this manner, 1 do not render to him 
 any duty, but what I shall be permitted to do in my heart. 
 But you will set a very bad example to the other princes of 
 Christendom, to act towards their subjects with the same rigour, 
 that you shall show to me, a Sovereign Queen, and your 
 nearest relation ; which / am, mid tvill be, as long as I live, 
 in despite of mine enemies. 
 
 " I would not now importune you, concerning the aug- 
 mentation of my houshold ; of which for the time that I see re- 
 maining me to live in this world, I will not have so much care. 
 I require then from you, only two women of the chamber, to 
 assist me, during my sickness ; attesting to you before God, 
 that they are very necessary to me, now I shall be a poor crea- 
 ture among this simple people. Grant these to me, for the 
 honour of God ; and show, in this instance, that mine enemies 
 have not so much credit with you against me, as to exercise 
 their vengeance and cruelty, in a point of so little consequence, 
 and depending upon a simple office of humanity^ 
 
 " I will come now to that, with which the Earl of 
 Scherusbery [Shrewsbury] has charged me, if such a one as 
 he can charge me ; which is this : that contrary to my promise 
 made to Beal, and without your knowledge, I have been ne- 
 gociating with my son, to yield to him my title to the crown 
 of Scotland ; when I had obliged myself not to proceed in 
 it but with your advice, by one of my servants, who should 
 be directed by one of yours in their common journey thither. 
 These are, I think, the very words of the said count. 
 
 " I will tell you upon this. Madam, that Beal has not 
 ever had a simple and absolute promise of me ; but indeed 
 overtures conditional, to which I cannot remain bound, in the 
 fashion, in which the business is, unless the conditions, which 
 I annexed to it, might be previously executed ; about which, 
 so far is he from being satisfied, that on the contrary, I have 
 never had any answer from him, or heard mention of it since 
 en his side. And gn this account I remember very well, that
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 97 
 
 the Earl of Scherusbery [Shrewsbury], about last Easter, 
 wanting to draw from me a new conlirniation of what I had 
 spoken to the said Beal ; I rephed to him very fully, that it 
 was only in case the said conditions might be granted, and 
 consequently eftectuatcd, to me. The one and the other are 
 yet living to testify this to you, if they will tell the truth about 
 it. Then seeing that no answer was made me ; but, on the 
 contrary, that by delays and neglects mine enemies continued 
 more hcentiously than ever their practices, formed since the 
 residence of the said Beal with me, in order to traverse my just 
 intentions in Scotland, so as the effects have been well wit- 
 nessed there ; and that, by this means, the door remained open 
 to the ruin of my son and of myself; I took your silence for a 
 refusal, and discharged myself, by express letters, as well to 
 you as to your council, from all that I had treated upon with 
 the said Beal. 
 
 " I made you fully privy to what monsieur, the King, and 
 madame, the Queen, had written to me, with their own hands, 
 upon this business ; and I asked your advice upon it, which is 
 yet to come, with which it was in truth my intention to pro- 
 ceed, if you had given it me in time, and you had permitted 
 me to send to my son ; assisting me in the overtures, which I 
 had proposed to you, in order to eslablish between the two 
 realms a good amity and perfect intelligence for the future. 
 But, to bind myself, nakedly, to follow your advice, before I 
 knew what it would be, and, for the journey of our servants, 
 to put mine under the direction of yours, even in my own 
 country ; I was never yet so simple, as to think of it. 
 
 " Now I refer to your consideration, if you knew of the 
 false game, which mine enemies on this side have played me in 
 Scotland, to reduce things to the point, at which they stand ; 
 which of us has proceeded witli the greatest sincerity. God 
 judge between them and me, and avert from this isle the just 
 punishment of their demerits. 
 
 " Send back again at once the intelligence, which my 
 traitorous subjects of Scotland can have given you. You will 
 find, and I will maintain it before all the christian princes, that 
 no one thing whatever has there passed on my side, to your 
 prejudice, or against the good and repose of this realm ; which
 
 .^S DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 I affect not less than any counsellor, or subject, that you liave, 
 having more interest in it than any of them. 
 
 " There was a negociation, for gratifying my son with the 
 title, and name of King ; and for making sure, as well the said 
 title to him, as all impunity to the rebels for their offences past ; 
 and for replacing every thing in repose and tranquillity for the 
 future, without any innovation of any thing whatever. Was 
 this to take away the crown from my son ? Mine enemies, as 
 I believe, wished not at all that the crown should be made sure 
 to him ; and on that account are very content, that he should 
 keep it by the unlawful violence of some traitours, enemies, 
 from all antiquity, to all our family.* Was this then to seek 
 for justice ujX)n the past offences of the said traitours, which 
 my clemency has always surpassed ? 
 
 " But an evil conscience cannot ever be assured, carrying 
 continually its fear in its very great trouble witliin itself. Was 
 it to wish a change in the repose of the country ; to procure it 
 by a mild pardon of every thing past, and a general reconcilia- 
 tion between all our subjects ? This is tlie point, which our 
 enemies on this side fear, as much show as they make of de- 
 siring it. Wliat prejudice would be done to you by this ? 
 Mark then, and verify, if you please, by what other point : I 
 will answer to it upon mine honour. 
 
 " Ah ! will vou. Madam, let yourself to be so blind to 
 the artifices of mine enemies, as to establish after you, and 
 perhaps against yourself, their unjust pretensions to this crown : 
 will you suffer them iu your life tnne, and look at them, while 
 they are ruining, and so cruelly destroying, those, who con- 
 cern you so near both in heart and in blood ? What advantage 
 and honour can you hope for, in suffering them to keep us, 
 my son, and me, so long separated, and him and me from 
 you ? 
 
 *' Resume the ancient pledges of your good nature ; bind 
 your relations to yourself; give me the satisfaction before I die, 
 that seeing all matters happily settled again between us, my 
 soul, when delivered from tliis body, may not be constrained 
 to display its lamentations before God, for the wrong, which 
 
 * The allusion is, probably, to the Riitlivens.
 
 MARY, gUEEN OF SCOTS* 99 
 
 you will have suffered to be done me here below ; but rather, 
 that being happily united to you, it may quit this captivity, to 
 set t'orwaid towards him, whom I pray, to inspire you happily 
 upon my very just and more than reasonable complaints and 
 grievances. 
 
 " At Sheffield this 8th of November one thousand five 
 hundred eighty-two. 
 
 " Your very disconsolate, nearest relation, 
 
 " and aflbctionate cousin, 
 
 "Mauie R." 
 
 "TJem. ' Tliis forcible, and pathetic letter,' says a great 
 writer, 'is rendered obscure, in places, by that, which is inci- 
 dent to all letters, the quick glancing of the mind to, and from 
 circumstances, iamiliar to the writer, and to the receiver, and 
 therefore noticed in a cursory manner only. But, it has been 
 considered, as so pathetic, and so forcible, that Blackwood 
 inserted it in his MS. history of Mary's sufferings, even before 
 1585, and actually pubhshed it, in his history, so early as 
 1587. Camden, also, formed an abridgement of it, and 
 placed it in his annals [Orig. i. 332 — 7 ; Transl. 276 — 80.] ' 
 Dr. Stcnart, too, has equally interrupted the course of his nar- 
 rative with It, after he had spoken of it, in these terms : ' When 
 the inteUigence of the captivity of her son,' he says, ' and of 
 the bold proceedings of tiie conspirators reached Mary, her care, 
 agitation, and anguish were driven to the most affecting extre- 
 mity : And giving vent to her sensibility, she addressed a letter 
 to Elizabeth, in which she maintains her dignity, while she 
 yields to her resentments ; and in which she has intermingled, in 
 an admirable manner, the most fervent protestations of innocence, 
 and the boldest language of expostulation, and reproach. Its 
 abihty, and vigour, are uncommon, and give it a title to sur- 
 vive, in the history of the Scotish nation.' [ii. IS'i.] 'And 
 Mademoiselle de Keralio has published it, a fourth time, in 
 her Appendix, v. 349. But, Camden's abridgement, whicli I 
 admired much,' continues Mr. Whitaker, ' before I discovered 
 the original, has lost many of the beauties, in the letter, and 
 has ventured to make some additions of his own. Dr. Steuart, 
 also, has formed his copy of the letter, by abridging the 
 abridgement of Camden, by copying his additions, as parts ot 
 the original, and by licentiously paraphrasing all. And Mad. 
 de Keralio, not attending to this conduct, and not knowing of
 
 100 DlfsSEllTATION ON THE LIFE Ol' 
 
 the French original, has turned Dr. Steiiart's letter into French, 
 and given it to her readers, as t]ie true original.' [The French 
 original is in the Cotton lib. Calig. c. vii. 51.] In this man- 
 ner is history, unintentionally, falsified ; and thus has the French 
 letter been translated back into French again. I have given 
 the original itself. I have added to it a translation. I thus, 
 says the vindicator of Mary, take leave of my reader, even in 
 my Appendix, with a genuine letter of Mary's ; which recapi- 
 tulates the conduct of Eiizabetli to her, in all its principal out- 
 lines ; which shews Elizabeth to us, as we have seen her before, 
 but with an addition of evidence, mean, tyrannical, insidious, 
 and savage ; and also shows the soul of Mary to us, at the 
 seeming approaches of death, recollected in its sentiments, 
 earnest in its feelings, maintaining her innocence with awful 
 solemnity, and appealing to that God, before whom she thought 
 she was going to appear, for the vindication of her honour, and 
 the avenging of her wrongs. 
 
 " From the interesting nature of distress, the elevating force 
 of innocence, and the ennobling dignity of religion ; the sick, 
 and dying Mary here appears, with a majesty, before which 
 the lo\y-souled Elizabeth shrinks abashed, and confounded. 
 Every honest, and generous feeling of our hearts comes fonvard 
 to the aid of the oppressed Queen. And we think of her op- 
 pression, with disgust, with disdain, and with detestation." 
 [The letter of Mary thus published, in English, is from the 
 translation of her very able vhuhcator, iii. App. xvii.] 
 
 It hath been often asserted that if v/e would learn a man's 
 real character we must inquire what it is at home. If we 
 examine that of the Queen of Scots in this way, and estimate 
 it generally by the result of the inquiry in this instance, she 
 will be found to stand very high in the scale of excellence. 
 ■ Perliaps no woman that ever existed passed tlirough greater or 
 more trying vicissitudes. At home, however, she was in all of 
 tlicm, amiable and beloved. From the cradle, through thrones 
 and prisons, to the scaffold, she seems to have engaged and 
 retained the hearts of her friends and her servants, many of 
 tliem acknowledged pious characters. Her four little Marvs,
 
 MARY, OUEEN OF SCOTS. 101 
 
 her first playmates, never forsook her. Her mother doated on 
 her, and left for a while the seat of her government to visit her 
 in France. By her " innate mildness" she engaged the affec- 
 tion of her adopting parents. Her unremitting attentions to 
 her youthful and weak husband were such as not only to se- 
 cure his love, but also to elevate, in some degree, hi charac- 
 ter; " the people of France thanked God for this courteous- 
 ness in her ;" while in conducting public affairs there, " she 
 displayed a clearness of perception, powers of policy, and firm- 
 ness of purpose, that evinced great capacity as a sovereign, and 
 uncommon address as a woman." Her affectnig adieu to 
 France, where she had met with so many friends and enjoyed 
 so much youthful happiness, evinced a feeling heart, if not a 
 presentiment, that she was taking leave of friends and happi- 
 ness in this life almost altogether and for ever. The long time 
 which so young a widow, though a Queen, continued to wear 
 her weeds, with the verses which she wrote on the death of 
 her weak and short-lived husband, shewed the sincerity of her 
 affection to him. 
 
 Of all the vile insults and persecutions of the rude and 
 almost savage reformers, she returned none. This arose not 
 from want of either spirit or abilities, for she was deficient in 
 neither, but from a degree of Christian forbearance which it 
 would have been creditable to her enemies to have imitated. 
 Nay, when they went so far as to attempt to deprive her of 
 what she considered as being essential to the acceptable per- 
 formance of Divine worship, she wept, but she did not (as she 
 might have done) retahate. When induced by circumstances, 
 which seemed to demand it, to marry again, she seems to 
 have made the good of her people, not her own choice, the 
 object, for she had never seen Darnley. Amidst all his ca- 
 pricious conduct, her behaviour must have appeared to him, 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 102 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 not only guiltless but highly correct, since, when preparing to 
 leave her and the country nfter the assassination of Rizzio, 
 he unequivocally declared before many witnesses that " the 
 Queen had given him no cause of complaint." When the 
 treacherous counsellors of the ill-used Queen, Murray, Argyle, 
 Maitland, Huntley, and Bothwell, (though she was said to be 
 in love with the latter,) earnestly urged her to consent to a 
 divorce between her and Darnley, she firmly refused, " and 
 desired them not to meddle any more with such a subject, as 
 she xvas resolved to liave patience tviih her husband's temper^ 
 tvhich might change for the better T Disappointed in this 
 objectj which might have answered their purpose as well, they 
 then planned Darnley s murder, the Queen's marriage with 
 Bothwell, the dethronement of the former, and the ruin of the 
 latter, 
 
 I do not know where we should find, if v/e were to seek it 
 in any station, a picture of a more amiable temper, harassed 
 and wearied by oppositions and villainies, seeking rest, but 
 finding none, in retirement, than that of Mary, as it appears in 
 the letter of Randolph from St. Andrews, which has been no- 
 ticed. What a strong contrast does it form to the buckram 
 state of the never-playful Elizabeth ! The natural constitution 
 of the Queen of Scots was good, her spirits lively, and her 
 activity great. She was fond of exercise. A capital horse- ' 
 woman, she feared neither bad weather nor bad roads. She 
 was passionately fond of hawking, and was expert with the bow 
 and arrow. She occasionally hunted, and was attached to 
 gardening. She delighted in music, and " for a Queen played 
 reasonably well." She understood chess, was a great worker 
 with her needle, drew correctly, and wrote poetry in different 
 languages. Such a woman could scarcely be idle, nor be 
 likely to be misemployed. Her charities appear to have been
 
 MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, 103 
 
 very extensive. She appointed two almoners, Archibald 
 Crawford, and Peter Rorie, both ecclesiastics, for the distribu- 
 tion of her bounty. The education of poor children was a 
 peculiar object of her attention. She continued her father's 
 officer of advocate for the poor, with a considerable salary. 
 All these on her dethronement were discontinued. Her wo- 
 men were her principal companions ; her four IMarj's, Mary 
 Fleming, Mary Betoun, Mary Livingston, and Mary Seton, 
 rarely left her. It was usual for some learned and godly men 
 to read to them after dinner. 
 
 Unaffected natural sentiments of piety appear in most of 
 the Queen of Scots' written correspondence. Not obtruding- 
 ly, as if designed as a cloak, or to attract attention, but as 
 being always uppermost in her thoughts, at least always present 
 in her heart. That she did not lack spirit, when occasion de- 
 manded it, is evidenced by Randolph, who, in writing to Cecil, 
 says, of her conduct in the field, " I assure you that I never 
 saw the Queen merrier, never dismayed, nor never thought I 
 that stomach to be in her that I find. She repented nothing 
 but that, when the lords and others at Inverness came to her 
 in the mornins from the watch, she was not a man to know 
 what hfe it was to lie all night in the fields, or to walk upon 
 the causeway, with a jack and a knapsack, a Glasgow buckler 
 and a broadsword." 
 
 Surely this woman was in few if any respects inferior to 
 her rival Elizabeth ; yet was the latter almost always success- 
 ful, and the former as uniformly unfortunate. The state of 
 England at that period was highly favourable, and Elizabeth 
 had men of great abilities, determined by all means to serve 
 their Queen and their country to the utmost of their power ; 
 nor were either they or their royal mistress shaclded very tightly
 
 1 04 DISSERTATION ON THE LIFE, &C. 
 
 by the ties of justice or morality. Mary, on the contrary, fell 
 (a Queen when quite a girl) on evil men, and evil times, her 
 country poor, and distracted by contentions both in church 
 and state. Her ministers were men of abilities, but those abi 
 lities were continually employed in furthering their own private 
 interests, in opposing their Queen, and in degrading and ruin- 
 ing their country, which they reduced to httle better than a 
 province dependent upon England. Mary never thought of 
 gaining her ends by any other means than those of strict inte- 
 grity. In one respect she was inferior ns a Queen to Eliza- 
 beth. Unhackneyed in youth in the ways of bad men, she 
 was unsuspicious, believing the professions of the tongue to be 
 the dictates of the heart ; hence she was totally disquahfied for 
 perceiving, detecting, and punishing the treacherous machina- 
 tions of her domestic foes. Could Elizabeth and Mary have 
 exchanged kingdoms, they would both have appeared better 
 fitted for their respective stations. Mary might have been be- 
 loved and served faithfully herself, checking all base motives in 
 her ministers ; and Ehzabeth might have boxed the ears of 
 Knox, Morton, and Murray, without any danger of hurting 
 Xhtix feelings, or of making them worse men than they were.
 
 <i^J)sevbations on tijt %itt 
 
 OF 
 
 4J®IHfr 1K»(DS 
 
 4:i.<i
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN KNOX. 
 
 Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I." Job, xv. 6. 
 
 Since the foregoing Dissertation on the Life of Mary, Queen 
 of Scots, was prepared for the press, I have perused with at- 
 tention and interest M'Crie's Life of John Knox, in 2 vols. 
 8vo. It has served most decidedly to confirm the opinion 
 which I had previously formed and expressed, of the characters 
 of the calumniated Queen of Scots, and of the rude and zea- 
 lous Scotch Reformer. Mr. M'Crie being a minister of the 
 Kirk of Scotland, it may, from that circumstance, be inferred, 
 that he is not quite an impartial biographer of Knox. A pe- 
 rusal of a few pages of his work will convince any liberal- 
 minded inquirer, that he is a strongly prejudiced one, and 
 therefore utterly incapable of duly appreciating the character 
 of the Queen of Scots.* 
 
 **'The prejudiced man is incapal)le of disccrnini;: truth." In 
 those enlightened times when Spectacles were even wauting, wiiat
 
 108 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 In reading the sentiments of such an author, for the pur- 
 pose of attaining a knowledge of the truth, they can be no 
 farther admitted, than as they accord with true Christian prin- 
 ciples, and are supported by incontestable facts. Examined by 
 these tests, the character of Knox, even by the shewing of his 
 eulogist, is far worse than I have before exhibited it, and that 
 of the Queen of Scots at least equally amiable. That Mr. 
 M'Crie may be a very sincere and zealous minister of the 
 gospel, I can easily admit, but that he possesses those hberal 
 principles, and that extensive Christian charity, faith, love, and 
 humihty, which the writing of such a work required, I cannot 
 conceive. For good intention I can give him credit, but he 
 is evidently so far warped by sectarian prejudice, as to make 
 him more anxious to promote the welfare and raise the charac- 
 ter of his sect, than to discover and to display the evidences of 
 truth. Out of the mouth, then, of this his eulogist, shall 
 Knox, in as few words as possible, be judged. It seems ne- 
 cessary to do this for the purjjose of confirming the character 
 of the Queen of Scots, as already given. 
 
 The distinguishing trait in the chai-acter of Knox, appears 
 to have been one which is strongly opposed to the meekness 
 by which his Divine Master was distinguished while on earth, 
 pride, attended with great self-sufficiency. He had much, too, 
 of fanatical zeal, but in this he has been suiyassed by many. 
 
 every thing has, a name, a shopkeeper, who sold almost every thing 
 that had a name, advertised " Enablcrs to read." An elderly gen- 
 tleman, (learned, perhaps, for the times,) called to purchase one, 
 or a. pair, as they are now termed. He fixed one of the Enablers, as 
 directed, upon his nose, and then examined attentively the book 
 which the shopkeeper put into his hands for that purpose, but all in 
 vain ; he declared that he could not read a word in it. He tried 
 another, and another, still with no better success ; at last the shop- 
 keeper exclaimed, " Why, Sir, you can't read at all, can you ?" 
 " No, to be sure I can't," was the reply ; " If I could, what should 
 I want these things for?"
 
 JOHN KNOX. 109 
 
 In him this last quality was so tempered by worldly prudence, 
 if not by feelings of even a more disgraceful kind, that he took 
 especial care that it did not hurry him into imminent personal 
 danger when he could possibly avoid it ; and he shrunk and 
 fled from it, whenever he thought that danger was approaching 
 too near. When Rizzio was murdered, Knox fled to Kyle ; 
 and when the Castle of Edinburgh fell into the hands of the 
 Queen's party, he left his flock and took shelter at St. Andrews. 
 His friend M'Crie does him the justice to say of him, " fVe 
 never jind him yieglecting to take prudent precautions Jvr 
 his sqfeti/" 
 
 He boasted that he feared neither the tears nor the 
 threatenings of xooman, and this might be true when he had 
 only his own amiable, unprotected, betrayed, insulted, youth- 
 ful Queen to contend with ; but when he had either the 
 English Mary, or the English Elizabeth, for an opponentj 
 he fled, or crouched, with a degree of haste and meanness, 
 that appeared very much resembling cowardice. He blew his 
 Jirst " blast against xvoinen' loudly and fearlessly, and he 
 boasted that it should be followed by others louder still ; but 
 the breath of a tcoman stopped his proud boasting, and he 
 never ventured to fill the trumpet again as he had threatened 
 from his inflated cheeks. Nay, he was even base and pusilla- 
 nimous enough, humbly and meanly to apologize to a foreign 
 Queen for his temerity, while he continued to repeat his in- 
 sulting conduct, with exaggerations, towards his own. 
 
 When the Reformation under Edward VI. was going on 
 smoothly in England, Knox was loud and busy enough there 
 in its promotion ; but when, in the reign of the successor of that 
 prince (Mary,) the tide of persecution was turned against the 
 Reformers, and the cause demanded that true zeal which 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 110 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 shrinks not from danger, he forsook his fellow-labourerS, 
 leaving to them the sufferings and the rewards of martyrs, 
 himself fleeing with precipitation to Geneva, where he knew 
 that he could abide in safety, though he chose not to abide in 
 peace, for he th^e soon got embroiled in contests with his 
 fellow-reformers. Afterwards, when the cause of the Refor- 
 mation, from the accoimts which he received, appeared to have 
 gained such strength in his native country, that he might re- 
 turn with safety, he set out for that purpose, but hearing by 
 the way that the danger was not over, he very prudentli/ re- 
 turned to await a more favourable opportunity. 
 
 This is the man who could find heart and courasfe in his 
 owTi country, when he knew that he was well supported, so to 
 insult his young female sovereign in her own palace for con- 
 scientiously adhering to the religion of the state, of her fore- 
 fathers, and of her heart, as to make her shed such floods of 
 tears as moved every heart but his own obdurate one. Thai, 
 it seems, was proof against any less powerful feelings than 
 those of personal fear. This was the minister of the Gospel 
 of Love ; — a minister conspicuously employed in reforming 
 the rehgion of Christ, as practised in his own country, who 
 dared to broach, to encourage, and to maintain, the diabohcal 
 doctrine, that individuals may take the sword of the law into 
 their own hands and execute summary justice on their offend- 
 ing fellow-creatures. This, it is true, he confined to particu- 
 lar cases, but as the determining the fitness of the case must 
 rest with the avenger, it will be Jii whenever it suits his pur- 
 pose to declare it so. This horrid doctrine, so utterly subver- 
 sive of even the existence of society, Mr. M'Crie himself ra- 
 ther hesitatingly defends. Let us see how this practice, if ge- 
 nerally admitted, would have affected John Knox.
 
 JOHN KNOX. Ill 
 
 Kany individual is to be allowed such a privilege, a mo- 
 narch certainly must be so; if any provocation could warrant 
 the exertion of this power in a monarch, it would be that of 
 self-defence, or it would be the defence of the religion of the 
 state from attempts to vilify and overturn it. Now, Knox had 
 publicly, on all occasions, and in all places, not only traduced 
 the character of his sovereign, but he had grossly insulted her 
 in her own palace. He had publicly proclaimed her as a 
 Jezebel, and asserted that she ought to be cut off. He had 
 defended, if not been concerned in, the murder of one of her 
 prelates, and of her secretaiy ; he was seeking, by every means 
 in his power, not only to subvert the religion of his Queen and 
 of the state, but he had even endeavoured to deprive his sove- 
 reign of the privilege of privately worshipping her God in that 
 way which she beheved to be most acceptable. Now, if any 
 person could be provoked to take summary vengeance, or if 
 any occasion could warrant such an action, the Queen of Scots 
 would have been justified, had she, without ceremony, ordered 
 the tyrant Knox to the torture and the gallows. He could 
 have had no right to complain of the adoption, in this instance, 
 of a practice, the propriety and lawfulness of which he had 
 himself maintained to be allowable, even on less justifiable oc- 
 casions. 
 
 Had he had Ehzabeth, instead of Mary, for an opponent, 
 and had dared (which he never would have done) so to insult 
 her, it is very probable that he would only have lived long 
 enough to afford him an opportunity of repenting of his error 
 and of his temerity. The calumniated, persecuted Mary, 
 however, who was branded as the maintainer of a religion 
 whose essence was persecution, not only refrained from reta- 
 liating on the zealous brute, either by murder or abu^e, but 
 she condescended to argue calmly and familiarly, though dig-
 
 112 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 nifiedly, with a man whom no other sovereign in Europe, S9 
 circumstanced, would have admitted into their presence, proba- 
 bly not into their kingdom. 
 
 Nothing need to be adduced to set the amiableness, the 
 candour, and the abihties of this young Queen in a stronger 
 light than the evidence of her traducer M'Crie, in his relation 
 of the controversies which she deigned to hold with her rude, 
 unfeeling, unchristian, enemy, John Knox. Religious preju- 
 dice is the firmest closer of the heart against the yearnings of 
 nature that is in existence, otherwise both Knox and his bio- 
 grapher must have been moved by the situation, the condescen- 
 sion, the loveliness, the youth, the entreaties, and the tears of 
 such a woman and of such a sovereign. They both, however, 
 condemn and abstain from all appearance of such weaknesses. 
 We shall find other evidences of the tender-heartedness of 
 these inflexible reformers, the opponents and traducers of the 
 character of Mary, Queen of Scots, as related and vindicated 
 by Mr. M'Crie, and then judge what mercy she, who was op- 
 posed to their religion, their prejudices, and their self-interest, 
 could expect at their hands. 
 
 Knox was present, if he did not preside at, a General 
 Assembly of the Kirk at Jedburgh, the minister of which 
 place, Paul Methven, they found guilty of adultery. He fled 
 to England ; from thence he wrote expressive of contrition, 
 and a willingness to submit to discipline. The penance pre- 
 scribed him on his return was, " To appear at the church-door 
 of Edinburgh when the second beU rung for public worship, 
 clad in sackcloth, bareheaded, and barefooted, to stand there 
 till the prayers and psalms were finished, then to be brought 
 into the church and placed in the public spectacle above the 
 people, during the sermon, and afterwards to profess his sor-
 
 JOHN KNOX. 113 
 
 row before the whole congregation. This he was to repeat on 
 three successive Sundays at Edinburgh, the same number of 
 times at Dundee, and asjain at his own kirk of Jedbiireh. 
 Such were the tender mercies of Knox and the General As- 
 sembly of those men, who were universally opposed to tlie 
 youthful Queen, to a contrite, repentant fellow-creature, for 
 such they must be convinced that Methven was, or he would 
 never have returned to submit to their award, whatever it might 
 be. The savage delight of the American Inchans in torturing, 
 from day to day, the bodies of their captive enemies, is nothing 
 to this. Methven, it is probable, would have stood the tear- 
 ing of his flesh from the bones without flying ; but he had 
 those feelings which are honourable to human nature, but of 
 which his tormentors appear to have been destitute, which ren- 
 dered this continued exposure to the ostentatious pity of the 
 pharisaical, tlie scoffs of ths unfeeling, the scorn of the proud, 
 the derision of the low, the contempt of the high, the avoidance 
 of the good, and vulgar taunts of the wicked, too much to be 
 borne, and after enduring the torture for some time, he at 
 length fled ao-ain into England. 
 
 Well, indeed, is it for such self-righteous men, that the 
 mercy of their God is not thus exercised towards repentant 
 sinners ; yet this conduct does the biographer of the Scotch 
 Reformer vindicate, by the following beautiful lines from 
 Cowper, — lines which the author would have thought as appli- 
 cable to the torturing of the Indians, as to the present instance 
 ef cruelty : — 
 
 " T«as hard, perhaps, on here and there a waif, 
 Desirous to return, and njt received; 
 But 'twas a wholesome rigour in the main, 
 And taught the nnblemish'd to preserve with care 
 That purity, whose loss was loss of all,"
 
 114- OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 The inveterate foe of the Queen of Scots, the serpent 
 whom she so long cherished in her own bosom, her brother, 
 the treacherous Murray, on wliom she had neaped favours anc\ 
 benefits without number ; who nevertheless betrayed this his 
 best friend and sister, rebelled against his liege sovereign, join- 
 ed her treacherous enemies at home ; — who fled to, and re- 
 ceived reward from, her declared enemy, and the declared enemy 
 of his country, the Queen of England ; — who was guilty of the 
 vilest injustice and the most unmanly cruelty towards a defenceless 
 woman, the wife of Hamilton : — this man Mr. M'Crie desig- 
 nates as the " Great and Good Murray" and furnishes his 
 portrait, as being the brightest ornament (excepting that of the 
 tender-hearted Knox) with which he could adorn his work. 
 "Yet all this he, perhaps, will not allow to be prejudice ! Alas 
 for poor Mary, with such " great anrf^ooc?" ministers of state, 
 and such liberal-minded reverend opposers and historians ! 
 
 Knox, with all his zeal in the cause of purifying Christi- 
 anity, seems neither to have been partial to preaching to the 
 poor, nor of mortifying the Jiesh. His preaching, whenever 
 it was practicable, was both to and at the great. Crowned 
 heads, whenever he dared to attack them, appear to have been 
 his favourite marks. The weak Darnley, and the unprotected 
 INIary, were safe game, and therefore he never spared them. 
 Almost all his sermons abound with gi'oss egotism and perso- 
 nality. There appears to have been no greater man in the 
 world, in his own opinion, than Jolm Knox. Nor did he 
 trust to his abilities alone to raise him in the estimation of 
 the world ; his first marriage was not an imprudent one ; his 
 second was to the daughter of Lord Ochiltree, of the blood 
 royal, after having unsuccessfully paid his addresses to the 
 eldest daughter of the Duke of Chatelherault, the first noble- 
 man of the land, the widow of Lord Fleming.
 
 JOHN KNOX. lis 
 
 On two of his friends calling to see Knox when on his 
 death-bed, he would compel them to stay till they had well 
 drank of a cask of old wine which he then ordered to be 
 broached for them, and with which he jokingly invited them 
 to make free xvhen he toas gone. Really, Mr. M'Crie must 
 excuse his readears, if they do not think Mr. Knox quite so 
 apostolic and humble a Christian in his life and conversation, 
 as he does. 
 
 Mr. M'Crie, I am afraid, possesses not himself quite the 
 essence of Christianity. After relating the circumstance of the 
 taking prisoner Archbishop Hamilton, and the cold-blooded 
 murder of that prelate by the Reformers, he adds, "■ The exe- 
 cution of prisoners, although chargeable with crimes which 
 merit death, is ordinarily avoided in civil contests, because it 
 'produces rej)risals from the opposite parti/ ; but in every 
 other respect, the fate of Hamilton is not a subject of regret 
 or of censured This is speaking out honestly at any rate ; 
 few Christians, however, I apprehend, will think it entitled to 
 any other praise, nor will they be surprised at the Catholic 
 Mary being calumniated by a minister of the Gospel, who can 
 make such an assertion. 
 
 That this said Mr. M'Crie should hold the English Re- 
 formers in contempt because they stopped, as he intimates, 
 half way, i. e. without flying from one extreme to the other, is 
 no way surprising. He probably can have no idea that truth, 
 in almost all cases, lies somewhere in the mid-way, never at 
 either extremity. I lament, though I do not abuse, as much 
 as Mr. M'Crie does, those really lamentable tenets and prac- 
 tices of the Roman Catholic religion, which in the darker ages 
 prevailed more than they do now ; nor am I quite sure that 
 there may not be some such still attaching even to the Kiik of
 
 116 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 Scotland. True wisdom, however, as well as true Christianity, 
 will rather seek to effect mildly, and by degrees, the reforma- 
 tion required, than by violence and haste. The English Re- 
 formers have adopted the former plan, and I dare challenge 
 Mr. M'Crie himself to point out a Church more tolerant in 
 its principles and practices (I do not except even the Kirk of 
 Scotland) than the established Church of England. Forms 
 and ceremonies are not vital parts of Christianity, neither is a 
 dead hedge (as has beeft observed by Mrs. Hannah More,) 
 any part of the living one, but it serves to preserve the latter 
 and to encourasre its growth. Of such use mav be forms and 
 ceremonies to reliirion. 
 
 That national church which, like the Church of England, 
 is an indulgent master, if not a fostering parent, to all such 
 Christian Churches, within her limits, as are peaceable and 
 pious, however widely they may differ from her, is. not to be 
 condemned, because she has not gone the lenorth in dissent 
 that others, more rash or more enthusiastic, thought proper to 
 do. It appears to me to be as much the interest of all Pro- 
 testant Dissenters that this church should retain her supremacy, 
 as it is her own. Within the range of her own pale she is so 
 liberal as to admit her members a liberty of conscience extend- 
 ing almost from the extreme point of Calvinism to the opposite 
 extremity of Arminianism. This certainly cannot be an into- 
 lerant church; her toleration is as truly judicious, as it is purely 
 Christian. I would say to Mr. M'Crie and his Church, 
 " Go, and do likexvise." If he obeyed this call, he would 
 not then talk of the Jblli/ of " listening to the syren song of 
 toleration ;" a song of which he seems to be so sick, because 
 it was sung in seraphic strains by that very Catholic Queen, 
 whose memory he, as a Scotsman and a minister of reh'gion, 
 ought to treat with indulgence (if not affection) instead of insult.
 
 JOHN KNOX. 117 
 
 The Roman Catholic religion, Mary foiirid the religion of 
 the state ; that religion, then, she was bound (a Catholic 
 herself,) to maintain against all opposition, till either she 
 altered her otvn sentiments, or became convinced that a full 
 majority of her subjects were in favour of the reformed re- 
 ligion. This, during her reign, never was the case. In not 
 maintaining, then, the rehgion of her forefathers, of herself, 
 and of her country, she would have been a traitor to her God 
 and to her people ; yet is her conscientious, firm, persevering 
 support of it made the front of her offending. 
 
 It was this woman (his Queen,) thus used, who, with a for- 
 bearanoe, gentleness, and meekness, I think, unprecedented, 
 told that rude intruder Knox, after reproving him for calum- 
 niating her in his sermons, " that if he heard any thing about 
 her conduct, which displeased him, if he would come to her 
 privately, she would hsten to him." Was this a liberty wliich 
 a Queen, conscious of being guilty of murder and adulteryy 
 would have freely granted to such a man as Knox, who would 
 have been sure not to be remiss in either discovering or pro- 
 claiming her sins or errors ? For this the zealot neither praised 
 nor thanked her, but told her, that she ought to attend his 
 pubhc preaching. When he left the room, (as his reverend 
 biographer informs us,) " with a reasonable merry counte- 
 nance, some of the popish attendants said, with some degree 
 of surprise, in his hearing, ' He is not afraid!' ' WTiy should 
 the plesing face of a gentilrvoman afray me,' said he, regarding 
 them with a sarcastic scowl, ' I have luiked in the face of 
 mony angry men, and yet have not been affrayed above mea- 
 sour.' " This might be true, but he dared not to have luiked 
 in tlie face of the angry Elizabeth, without being affrayed 
 above measour. He would, in that case, I am persuaded, 
 have had no room for any proud boasting, of disregarding the 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 ' 118 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE OF 
 
 plesmg face of a gentilwoman. Now, all this conduct of 
 Knix is related by Mr, M'Crie with seeming approbation. 
 
 Let us, in the next place, hear this Christian minii^r on 
 'the subject of Rizzio's murder. " There is no reason to be- 
 lieve that he (Knox) was privy to the conspiracy which proved 
 fatal to Rizzio. But it is probable that he had expressed sa- 
 tisfaction at an event which contributed to the safety of religion 
 and the commonwealth," — a clear admission that Rizzio was 
 murdered for being a Cathohc, *' if not also his approbation of 
 the conduct of the conspirators." Here, then, is the admission 
 of two Hiinlsters of that Gospel of love and peace, which 
 commands all its disciples to abstain even from all appearance 
 of evil, that murder may be meritorious, and contribute to tiie 
 safety of religion. Surely their ideas of either the power or 
 the purity of the Deity must be very far from tlie truth. It is 
 not to be wondered at, then, if tliey, who do not scruple to 
 employ murder in the cause of xeligion, should have thought 
 it meritorious to attempt to fasten the imputation of murder 
 on the innocent in the same cause. This may serve to account 
 for the endeavour of the Scotch Reformers to inculpate the 
 Queen as the murderer erf her husband. 
 
 In this place, then, I shall say a few words more upon the 
 subject of the King's murder in addition to what has already 
 been said; though I trust that more is unnecessary to convince 
 any impartial man (the prejudiced are out of the question,) of 
 her innocence of that crime. Mr. M'Crie says, — " he (Darnley) 
 was naturally vain, rasli, and vindictive ; his unexpected pros- 
 perity rendered him insolent and overbearing ; and it required 
 (lU the prudence of the Queeti to preserve him from falling . 
 into contempt even before marriage." Here, then, by the 
 enemy's admission, is a vain, rash, vindictive young man, reu-
 
 JOHN KNOX. 119. 
 
 dered insolent and overbearing by prosperity, curbed and re- 
 strained from quarrelling with all the nobles about him^ by the 
 prudence of tlie calumniated young Queen. This is no trifling 
 praise of her, in such a case, from such a man. But could it 
 be expected, that if it was with difficulty she could restrain him 
 before marriage, that she should be able to continue to do so 
 afterwards, when he had obtained power and cared but httle 
 about his wife? Certainly not. And the fact was, as was 
 inevitable; that he then became so vain, rash, vindictive, inso- 
 lent, and overbearing, that the nobles, to whose views, of every 
 kind, he was opposed, resolved to be rid of him. The Queen 
 alone never (by his own pubhc assertion,) gave him cause of 
 displeasure. She alone determined to abide by him, in hope 
 that he still would mend his temper and his conduct. She 
 never had been suspected of being a murderer ; many of the 
 nobles had been more than suspected of being such. She 
 could have no motive to risk his murder ; if she had had such 
 evil passions, she could have gratified them without, and if she 
 would not flinch at murdering her husband, she would not have 
 shrunk from adultery. Supposing, however, that the Queen 
 was determined to murder her husband, surely she never could 
 have gone the way that was taken for that purpose. Could 
 not the experienced Bothwell find out for her a more 
 private method of dispatching the King? He was exceedingly 
 ill at Glasgow of the small-pox ; she sent her own physician to 
 him. Were there no physicians, as well as nobleiien and 
 ministers of religion, in those pure and holy times, who 
 thought private murder, in certain cases, justifiable? Could 
 neither Mary, nor her paramour Bothwell, find such an one, 
 who could mix up thaty in his daily potions, which would 
 have removed him out of the way without suspicion ? Surely 
 those who think Mary a murderer, must believe her to have 
 been a. fool also. What, put lierself in the power of her most
 
 120 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE Or 
 
 powerful and inveterate enemies ; combine, conspire, plot, con» 
 trive, and employ, for such a purpose, those who she knew had 
 been long lying in wait on every side to entrap and ruin her, 
 and all without the shadow of an occasion ! What, go down 
 herself to Glasgow to him ; deceive him by a pretended recon- 
 ciliation ; bring him with her to Edinburgh ; provide a house 
 for liim to be blown up in ; charge it with gunpowder ; go and 
 live and lodge in that house herself; kiss him, put a ring upon 
 his finger, and leave him to be strangled or blown to atoms up 
 in the air, while she was amusing herself at the wedding of two 
 of her domestics ! Really, really, this is, to my plain common 
 sense, something beyond belief in such a woman ! I much 
 doubt if Morton could have been villain enough for such a 
 contrivance, or even if she had an enemy, who could have had 
 the heart to go through with it ; but surely, surely, the poor 
 defenceless, artless, religious, prudent, unfriended, Mary, never, 
 never, could be equal to it ! 
 
 Transfer the accusation to those who really did perj^etrate 
 the crime, who have been convicted of it, or who have con- 
 fessed to it, and the whole appears consistent, probable, and 
 natural. They had long been waiting for an opportunity of 
 dispatching the King, who had offended them too grossly to 
 be forgiven ; that opportunity offered, and tliey embraced it. 
 It is true, that their agents made a bungling job of it, blowing 
 up the house after they had strangled their victims and takea 
 them out of it ; but that, where so many were concerned, giving, 
 perhaps, contradictory orders, is not to be wondered at. 
 
 My object in the investigation of the character of Knox 
 and Murray hath been to shew that with two such opponents, 
 occupying the situations which they did, the Queen of Scots, 
 though perfectly innocent, might yet have all the crimes iro-
 
 JOHN KNOX. 121 
 
 puted to her vhicli have been laid to their charge. In giving 
 the characters of those two notable Reformers, the humhle 
 Knox and the great and good Murray, I have drawn them 
 from the facts adduced or admitted by their professed advocate 
 Mr. M'Crie, carefully abstaining from mentioning the many 
 disgusting crimes of which they have been accused by other 
 authors less disposed to judge favourably of them. 
 
 By what hath been said, I trust that it hath been made to 
 appear, that Mary, Queen of Scots, was by nature of a nost 
 amiable disposition, and possessed of very superior talents, ooth 
 natural and acquired ; that she was very early in life deeply 
 impressed with a strong sense of the importance of religion ; 
 that she considered the established religion of her own countiy 
 as the true one, and that through life she remained firm in that 
 belief and constant in the practice of what she conceived to be 
 truth ; that though herself a sincere Roman Catholic, she was 
 neither a bigot nor a persecutor, but that, on the contrary, she 
 was hberal and tolerant in her principles and practices, far be- 
 yond what was prevalent in any class of Christians in those 
 times ; that she was admired and beloved by her domestics, 
 and whoever was in the habit of associating with her in private 
 life, being naturally of an active, benevolent, and cheerful dis- 
 position ; that she was placable and forgiving, in a most un- 
 common degree, even to her basest and most inveterate ene- 
 mies, and so far from being of a suspicious and distrustful 
 disposition, she, by too great confidence, continually exposed 
 herself to the covert treachery of deceitful pretended friends ; 
 that slie was merciful, tender-heailed, and forgiving, possessing 
 nothing of cruelty, and very little of pride ; that of all the great 
 crimes laid to her charge, not one hath been proved ; that if 
 it had been possible to prove any one of them, her numerous 
 enemies would have done it ; that if she had been guilty, it
 
 122 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LIFE, &C. 
 
 must inevitahly have been in the power of enemies in their 
 situations to have established that guilt; that they did use 
 every endeavour in their pov*'er to convict her, but never suc- 
 ceeded ; that many of them were themselves afterwards con- 
 victed of the very crimes of which they had accused her, and 
 then declared her innocence ; that almost all of them came to 
 violent or disgraceful ends ; that her nature rendered her inca- 
 pable of the crimes imputed to her, and that circumstances 
 rendered it, morally speaking, impossible that she could have 
 been guilty of them ; that she had foes on every side of her, 
 both domestic and foreign, determined by every means in their 
 power, however base, to effect her ruin ; that throughout life 
 she never had one sincere powerful friend, so situated, and so 
 disposed, as to lend her any effectual assistance in defending 
 her character, or in repelhng the assaults of her inveterate 
 enemies ; that if the tenour of her whole Jife had not effectual- 
 ly given the lie to the base calumnies invented and propagated 
 against her, her death must effectually have done it ; that that 
 death exhibited a striking instance of the support which a true 
 Christian can obtain under the most appaUing circumstances 
 that this life affords, in a degree almost unexampled in the 
 history of the Christian world ; that neither a hardened sinner, 
 nor a repentant sinner, who had ever been guilty of such 
 crimes, could have died a death like hers ; that her calumniators 
 have been men strongly prejudiced against her, and that a 
 belief of the falsehood of those calumnies is daily gaining 
 ground, as disinterested and impartial investigation is prosecuted^
 
 (B(D]^®ILIP^I1©P^
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Then understood I their end. Ps. Ixxiii. 17. 
 
 In conclusion, I would allude to one other important point of 
 view in which it remains to place the hfe of Maiy, Queen of 
 Scots, — one in which, I think, it has hitherto never been con- 
 sidered. I mean as an instrument in the hands of Providence 
 in Jurthering the great work of reformation in the Christian 
 religion. The supposed tendency of the conduct of Mary in 
 retarding this great object has been the principal means of 
 arousing and continuing to this time the enmity of Protestants 
 against her. I shall, notwithstanding, endeavour to shew, 
 (which is my clear conviction,) that of all the potentates that 
 ever sat upon a throne, who were themselves adverse to the 
 reformed rehgion, she contributed the most towards its speedy 
 and final success. In doing this, she, contrary to all other 
 precedents, seems to have been actuated by the purest motives, 
 and to have employed the mildest means. She is, I believe, 
 the only instance, in the history of the Reformation, of a 
 crowned head, firmly attached to the Catholic religion, yield- 
 
 VOL. I. V
 
 126 CONCLUSION. 
 
 iiig to the desire of many of her people, in employing men, as 
 her ministers of state, whom she knew to be hostilely disposed 
 to the cause of the religion which she herself believed to be 
 the true one, which she loved and venerated, and to which she 
 remained faithfully attached to the last moment of her life, even 
 through many and great trials, of almost every kind. 
 
 Mary, from her earliest youth, never evinced any want of 
 spirit, nor ever seems to have shrunk from danger when it lay 
 directly in her way. It could not be said of her, as it was of 
 her arch-enemy Knox, that " she was never found to fail in 
 taking prudent precaution for her own safety." It was not, 
 then, from timidity, that she adopted these conciliatory inea- 
 sures, but from a desire to allay religious rancour and animo- 
 sities, and to unite, what never can be united, religious parties 
 contending for the supremacy. This desire evinced, however, 
 neither a bad heart, nor a want of courage, but it did evince 
 what was no disparagement to the character of a young woman, 
 though it might be to that of a queen, a deficiency of deep in- 
 sight into the central and corrupt core of the human heart. 
 This attempt would have proved fatal in any country under 
 similar circumstances ; in Scotland, at that time, it was so to- 
 tally an hopeless attempt, that the union of fire and water would 
 have been as practicable. She failed, and she became the 
 victim of her own good intentions and of the innate purity and 
 simplicity of her heart ! She failed in obtaining her earthly 
 object, but not in acquiring the reward which is promised to 
 such conduct, the only object which ought to influence on such 
 occasions, that oi dying " the death of the righteous" 
 
 What were the lives, the enjoyments, and the end of those 
 of whom it is said, that " the tvorld "was iinixorthy ?" "They^' 
 like Queen Mary, *'Jiad trials of cruel mockings, of bonds and
 
 CONCLUSION. 127 
 
 imprisonment : — theij wandered in deserts, in mountains, in 
 dens, and caves of the earth : — they were tempted, they were 
 slain with the sword." 
 
 Had the Queen of Scots, on coming to the throne of her 
 native conntry, been detcnriincd to exert the power, the spirit, 
 and the understanding, which she possessed, in extirpating, 
 what was by most Cathohcs then called, and believed to be, 
 heresy, she would, in all human probabihty, have met with 
 but httle opposition or difficulty. The tide once turned against 
 him, it is probable, that the prudent Knox, notwithstanding 
 all his rude blustering, would soon have again sought refuge in 
 Geneva. Her friends, and the friends of the old faith, (who 
 were then by far the most numerous,) only kept back by fear, 
 would soon have rallied around her; nay, one half of the 
 seemingly strenuous, but really vacillating opponents of th& 
 falling rehgion, would have quickly lent their aid to strengthen 
 and to support it. Scotland, in that case, might have been at 
 this day a Cathohc country. 
 
 Let not this be thought to be all imaginary ; look for a 
 moment at the conduct of this its neighbouring kingdom, 
 about that time, nay in all times. Has not the professed reli- 
 gion of its monarch always been the religion of the state ? Did 
 ever the king change his religion to please the people ? Have 
 not the generality of the people always outwardly altered their 
 religion to please the ruler ? As the despot, Henry VHI,, 
 pulled the wires connected with rehgious opinions, so moved 
 the puppets of popidar favour, sometimes high, sometimes low, 
 sometimes that way, sometimes this. Edward VI. was a Pro- 
 testant King, and his subjects were Protestants. His succes- 
 sor, Mary, was a Catholic, and the people again became Ca- 
 tholics. Elizabeth, who succeeded Mary, strenuously support-
 
 12S CONCLUSION. 
 
 e3 the Protestant cause, and the rehgion of the kingdom be- 
 came established Protestantism. This view of human nature 
 is humiliating, but it is too faitliful. It cannot, then, be 
 doubted, but that, if Queen Mary had pursued the methods 
 which each of these monarchs successively took, i. e. employed 
 and encouraged those only, whose religious professions ac- 
 corded with her own views, she would have been equally suc- 
 cessful in making and keeping her religion, the religion of the 
 state. 
 
 The change of religion in Scotland was thus different from 
 that in most, if not all other countries, by being a change 
 effected in spite of the ruling power ; it was a violent change, 
 or a change effected by violent means. Whenever this is the 
 case, the revolution is almost always sudden, and from one ex- 
 treme to another; such in Scotland was the reform at that 
 time effected in the religion of the country. Where the change 
 in produced by peaceable means, conformable to the wish of 
 the sovereign, little more alteration is made than what is abso- 
 lutely required, and even that, not always at once, but by 
 little and httle, as circumstances or opportunity require and 
 facihtate. Wliere force is required or employed, nothing short 
 of extirpation will satisfy the successful party. Every evil-dis- 
 posed man, and every evil passion of human nature is, in that 
 case, brought into fuU play, and the rudest savage in the coun- 
 try is as active and as operative as the most enlightened philo- 
 sopher- Rapine and plunder become the most stimulating 
 motives, and even the better disposed part of the community 
 too eften find themselves compelled (or fancy so) to employ 
 them as allowable auxiliaiies, while treachery, deception, vio- 
 lence, and murder, are the instruments too frequently used. 
 
 pf all religionists, the Presbyterians, or Kirk of Scotland,
 
 CONCLUSION. 129 
 
 have the least occasion to hate the memory of their Queen 
 Marj'. She was (however unwillingly) the establisher of their 
 religion. Had she either refused to come among them, or, 
 when upon the throne, had she firmly endeavoured to main- 
 tain the Catholic religion, in all human probability Presbyte- 
 rianism would not at this day have been the established reli- 
 gion of Scotland. In the first case, Murray would have been 
 the most likely to have obtained the rule, and he was too 
 much a creature of Elizabeth to have openly countenanced 
 Presbyterianism. In the latter case, Scotland must have re- 
 mained a Catholic country. If the Presbyterians would but 
 consider this, they would hardly let their religious prejudices 
 continue to keep them so unjustly exasperated against their 
 basely calumniated Queen, who was certainly, in effect, the 
 establisher of Presbyterianism in Scotland. 
 
 Throughout the whole of this interesting inquiry, I have, 
 I trust, kept the discovery of Truth in view, as the primary 
 object. I have heard both sides, and have endeavoured to de- 
 cide impartially between them. I must confess, that, in start, 
 ing upon the investigation, I was not without fears of the 
 Heroine not being found free, even from gross crimes ; every 
 step, however, of my progress, has tended to clear her charac- 
 ter more and more from the imputation ; that character has 
 continued throughout to rise, step by step, in every respect, in 
 my estimation, while that of her enemies and calumniators 
 has proportionally sunk. 
 
 If I have, in the course of the investigation, appeared ta 
 be, in some instances, too severe upon her enemies, let it be 
 remembered, that it has been on the side of mercy that I have 
 erred ; it has been in defending the weak from the tyranny of 
 the powerful, the unsuspecting from the treachery of the de-
 
 J 30 CONCLUSION. 
 
 signing ; it has been in vindicating the calumniated from the 
 malice of the traducer ; it has been in stripping the cloak 
 from hypocrisy, and in exposing the deceptious arts of the 
 forger and the betrayer ; it has been in holding up to execra- 
 tion the baseness of lawless rebels openly opposing the mild 
 and legal measures of their legitimate sovereign. Here, if any 
 where, a little excess of severity may surely be allowable.' 
 
 I cannot close this investigation, without expressing my 
 gratitude for having been led, as I hope, to a successful attempt 
 to serve the cause of the persecuted, and to rescue in some 
 degree the memory of the unfortunate from the effects of op- 
 pression and injustice ; for " there is not upon earth a more 
 heavenly office than that of disinterestedly advocating the 
 cause of long calumniated and injured innocence"
 
 IDlsAiplJIi 
 
 AND THE 
 
 HiUTiilL ^WlSlSPg*
 
 DEATH. 
 
 Death, restless destroyer, 
 King of this world, 
 How vast are thy triumphs, how sure are thy darts ! 
 Thou art swifter than the swift, 
 Thou art stronger than the strong; 
 He who has slain his thousands shall be slain by thee, 
 He to whom nations bow shall bow to thee. 
 Thou who strikest no second stroke, 
 Thou whose power is o'er every clime, 
 Thou who wakest by night and by day, 
 Thou at whose hand 
 Come life and destruction, 
 Blessing and cursing, 
 Thou loved and longed for. 
 Hated and shunned, (alas, how vainly !) 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 154? DEATH. 
 
 Inexorable king, 
 
 How vast are thy triumphs ! 
 Where art thou not ? — 
 A field of slaughter, wrath and agony, 
 There shrieks the conquer'd, there the conqueror 
 
 shouts ; 
 Earth quakes beneath, and heaven flames bright above, 
 
 And there art thoic! 
 Thunders the cannon's mouth the herald of thy path, 
 Swift fly the feather'd darts, thy winged messengers; 
 The trampling hoofs and the extended spear. 
 The glittering poniard, and the crooked blade, 
 Thy beck obey ; 
 As high amid the throng, 
 Towering on every side, 
 Another yet the same, 
 There reignest thou. 
 Fired by one kindred impulse, thousands and tens of 
 thousands 
 
 Rush onward to thine arms : 
 Wild o'er the field of woe gleameth thy rolling eye, 
 
 Bright with unreal glory : 
 Arm'd with unerring weapons hangeth thy "red right 
 hand," 
 
 Impatient to descend :
 
 DEATH. 
 
 135 
 
 Thy left extended forth, proffers the laurel wreath, 
 Deceitful lure; 
 For 'tis an earthly crown, 
 Withering like man. 
 
 A land of flowers and sunshine, pomp and glory, 
 A land of terror, bondage, chains, and darkness, 
 It is the La7id of Canes : 
 There, on his pinnacle of power, vain man 
 Reigns o'er his fellow-man, 
 " / am" he saith, " and there is none beside me." 
 Illusive dream ! 
 ThoUi hour by hour, passest amid his legions. 
 Falling at thy approach ; 
 The swelling veins, 
 Tlie limbs relaxing, and the failing breath, 
 Denote thy coming ; 
 Thou, a shadowy form, 
 Dark, indistinct, and wonderful, 
 Half welcomed, half repulsed, 
 Lay'st on the negro sufferer thy cold hand, 
 
 And his spirit fleeth 
 From the hands of the unjust, to the Just, — - 
 From the unmerciful, to the Merciful.
 
 1 S6 DEATH. 
 
 The tempest beats, the thunder roars, 
 The lightnings flash, the torrents fall, 
 And o'er the earth the pall of darkness spreads; 
 An hour of dread ; all nature feels its sway ; 
 
 The solid earth 
 Shrinketh beneath the horrors raging o'er her; 
 The mighty deep 
 Tosseth in agony her troubled waves ; 
 
 The forest trees, 
 Rairing to madness at the crash. 
 Give to the winged blast their sever'd arms ; 
 
 Torn with intestine war, 
 The savage beasts fly to their covert, 
 And despotic man. 
 Shrinking and pale, and trembling at the view, 
 Hideth his lordly head ; — 
 Tiiou, 
 Thou ridcst on the flaming levin, 
 Darkness thy covering, the blast thy minister. 
 
 The thunder is thy voice, 
 And the clouds are thine artillery. 
 Yea Thou art there also. 
 
 Thou art in the shepherd's cot and in the monarch's 
 palace.
 
 DEATH. 137 
 
 Thou art in the scatter'd hamlet and in the crowded 
 city; 
 
 The young and the old, 
 The strong and the feeble, 
 The low and the lofty, 
 Bow before thee. 
 The darkness hideth not from thee ; 
 The bars of iron and the gates of brass exclude thee not. 
 
 Ages on ages hence removed, when Time, 
 
 Troubling the surface of Eternity, 
 Breaking the' unbroken calm where the Lord God 
 As yet was all in all. 
 
 Sprang from the fathomless abyss to last 
 
 Its term allotted, and again go down. 
 
 The latest ripple closing o'er its breast. 
 Lost in the unbounded depths from whence it rose; 
 
 Then God created man upon the earth, 
 
 And placed him in the garden He had made : 
 There love and joy, and praise and thankfulness, 
 
 (A blooming train, whose mirth no sighs dispel. 
 Whose smiles no tears,) 
 
 Sported amid the scene, and led more swift 
 The hours aye swift, — their flight nor hoped nor 
 
 feared ;
 
 1S8 DEATH. 
 
 For chance and change, decay and destruction, 
 Not then were known ; they are thy baneful train, 
 O Death ! 
 
 And till thou wert, were not ; 
 — For added joys, for seasons' pleasant change, 
 They could not come where dwelt perpetual spring, 
 
 And fulness of delight : 
 Celestial gales awoke the perfumed air; 
 With freshness never-fading grew the turf; 
 Bending with fruit where never canker lurk'd, 
 Blushing with flowers that bloom'd and wither'd not, 
 Fresh with perennial verdure, hung the trees 
 In majesty erect, beneath whose shade 
 Man walk'd, creation's lord ; above his head 
 No thunder gather'd, in the earth beneath 
 No fires intestine raged ; around his feet 
 The serpent twined innocuous ; while beside 
 The lambkins frolick'd, oft the enormous wolf 
 Stalk'd round and made them sport ; the little hare 
 Play'd with the delicate grey-hound lightsomely; 
 The mighty lion sported with the kid ; 
 The eagle bask'd beside the cooing dove; 
 
 And the sweet warbling birds, 
 
 Fluttering their glorious wings, 
 
 Play'd round the falcon's nest.
 
 DLATH. 139 
 
 One mighty voice from hills and dales and floods 
 Accordant burst; — that voice Jehovah's p-aise ; 
 
 His praise the streams 
 Pour'd as they roll'd upon their pearly beds : 
 With it the woods were vocal, in whose bowers 
 The birds caroll'd their orisons ; and man, 
 With heart and voice alike concordant, raised 
 His grateful paeans ; or angel visitants, 
 (For angels thought it then no shame to join 
 A concert such as theirs,) sent forth on earth 
 
 Strains such as rise in heaven ; 
 Loudly the billows of the ocean utter'd 
 
 " Hosa7inah to the Lord ;" 
 The sun, ascending in his majesty, 
 Rejoicing as a giant to run his course, 
 Heard the glad hymn and answer'd, " The Lord is 
 
 good ;" 
 — The moon, the stars of heaven, consenting join'd 
 The imiversal chorus ; discord none 
 Disturb'd the music of the scene, that kept 
 Perpetual jubilee: 
 
 Till Sin 
 Enter'd the paradise that God had made, 
 And Death with Sin. 
 
 At thy nativity,
 
 140 DEATH. 
 
 The thunder roar'd thy welcome ; earth beneath, 
 Quaked at the monstrous birth ; the breezes changed 
 To poison'd gales blowing around the sphere ; 
 —These were thy harbingers ; and shrieks and groans 
 
 Welcomed the wondrous tale. 
 Dreadful thy natal robe, for thou wert clad 
 With fear as with a garment; in thy hand 
 The arrows of destruction ; pain and torture, 
 Horror and terror, agony and woe, — 
 These went before thy footsteps ; — behind, 
 A mournful band ; partings to those who love, 
 Blightings to youthful hopes ; heart-withering despair, 
 
 Anguish and lamentation. 
 
 Thou, at thy birth rejoicing, didst cross the turf; 
 
 It shrivell'd at thy tread ; 
 On the vernal boughs thy hand was laid ; 
 Their verdure wither'd and their blossoms died, 
 Their ruby fruit canker'd, and parch'd, and fell. 
 
 At thy approach 
 Darkness as with a canopy o'erspread 
 The firmament of heaven : to work thy will. 
 One upon another all creatures turn'd. 
 Hastening thy certain stroke ; the serpent's dart 
 Assail'd the heel of man ; the prowling wolf
 
 DEATH. 14,1 
 
 Rush'd on the feeble lamb ; upon the hare 
 The eager greyhound darted ; on the kid 
 The lion turn'd, the eagle on the dove; 
 The falcon on the songsters of the grove ; 
 Lord of the earth, all the living at thy tread 
 Felt the strange presence, and their sinking forms 
 Confess'd the empire of their new-born king 
 Omnipotent below. 
 The little warbling birds 
 Ceased their love-kindled songs, 
 
 Folded their weary wings, 
 And droop'd and mourn'd and fell ; 
 The cooing doves 
 Sank at the touch of thy supremacy ; 
 Bent to thy dire behest the bounding kid ; 
 In the sad homage join'd the sportive lambs; 
 The forest beasts beneath thy sceptre fell ; 
 
 And man^ the last, 
 — Man his Creator's image, lordly man, 
 He own'd thy sway ; and, as from dust he came, 
 So he to dust return'd. 
 Then first unstrung. 
 To jarring tones the " lyre of nature" thrill'd ; 
 The voice of discord was creation's voice ; 
 " Woe to the 'world" the bursting floods denoujiced; 
 VOL. r. Y
 
 142 DEATH. 
 
 Earth knew its sentence ; and the forest depths 
 
 With groans and howlings answer'd to the tale ; 
 
 Man cursed his fellow man ; the stormy deep, 
 Raising its angry billows, loud proclaim'd 
 
 " Anguish and pain and tvoe ," and at its sound 
 The clouded sun, the ineffectual moon, 
 The fickle stars, with simultaneous cry, 
 Echoed the voice that came. 
 
 Nature inanimate perform'd thy will : 
 The lightning, shooting from the heights of heaven, 
 Obey'd thy mandates ; earth let forth her fire, 
 To execute thy wrath ; unknown and unfear'd, 
 Silently, secretly, the dews of heaven 
 Perform'd thy bidding ; with a louder voice, 
 'Mid stormy majesty and cloudy pomp, 
 The whirlwhid issued from the darken'd sky. 
 And did thy work of doom. 
 
 Men, spread upon the earth, thy engines spread; 
 The " ravening deep" received thy victims then> 
 The furnace seized them ; then the warrior's sword 
 Leapt from its scabbard, eager to destroy. 
 
 Men spread their mighty works upon the earth,
 
 KEATH. HS 
 
 They made them gods, and bent the knee before them; 
 
 Till those vast works confess'd themselves thy power ; 
 
 The gods they bow'd to, bow'd themselves to Thee ; 
 Yea, till the solid globe 
 On its changed surface bore herself thy marks : 
 Temples and towers, and domes and palaces, 
 Waned from their glory ; Bel and Ashtorelh, 
 Dagon and Chemosh, Nebo and Diana, 
 Baal and Moloch, fell beneath the touch 
 Of thine oblivious hand ; the' eternal hills, 
 The adamantine rocks, crumbled and sunk 
 Before thee. 
 Conquering king ! 
 Through the long vista of futurity. 
 Not mine the eye of light, the tongue of flame, 
 
 To trace thy lengthen'd course : — A ray from heaven 
 Descendeth there, and to a ransom'd world 
 Displays, (oh sight of joy!) thy vanquish'd form 
 With hell and with the grave, a captive bound 
 To His triumphal car, who, having borne, 
 That he might break, thy yoke, ascendeth now, 
 And to his Father's throne victorious leads 
 Captive captivity — honour yet more high 
 Given thee, the conquer'd now, tlian heretofore 
 
 Was thine while conqueror,— given thee at that hour
 
 144 UEATH. 
 
 When to His work he chose thee, — when he robed 
 thee 
 In glory not thine own ; and sent thee forth, 
 His chosen messenger, from earth to heaven 
 To lead his servants ; — terrible alone 
 To those who, shunning his light yoke, would not 
 That he should reign o'er them. — Well, stay thou on 
 
 Thy term allotted, {7/et doth it endure,) 
 And at His word, who call'd thee when thou wert not!, 
 Thou, the last enemy, shalt be destroy'd, 
 And God be all in all.
 
 MARY. 
 
 " Harp of the North," with trembling hand 
 
 I woo to life thy magic string : 
 No powers revive, no hopes expand, 
 
 My soul, presumptuous while I sing ; 
 
 And as, with spirit faltering. 
 Reluctant I thy chords engage, 
 And all unwont such part to wage, 
 
 O'er the strange notes my fingers fling,— 
 
 This, only this, the suit I bring, 
 " Forgive, forgive, the sacrilege :" 
 For thou, sweet lyre, by bolder hand, 
 
 By bard, far other waked than I, 
 Hast pour'd in rapture o'er the land 
 
 A tide of richest harmony ; 
 Till her deep caves in darkness hid. 
 Her mountains' loftiest pyramid,
 
 146 SIARY. 
 
 Her deserts, silent, as the tomb, 
 Her forests, to their inmost gloom, 
 Till every rock, and hill, and plain. 
 Was vocal with the' inspiring strain. 
 
 When erst, like mist with radiance rife, 
 Arose the music from thy wire ; 
 
 And, thrilling to the strings of life, 
 Stole thy soft notes, enchanter-lyre; 
 
 Broke not thy spell the barrier dread, 
 
 That parts the living from the dead ? — 
 
 Then might ye see the warrior's form 
 
 Ride on the chariot of the storm ; 
 
 In the high hall of shield and shell. 
 
 The hero-wraiths rejoicing dwell; 
 
 Then from the clouds, in sunder rent, 
 
 The manes of the mighty bent; 
 
 When rose the vapour dense and vast, 
 
 Wrapt in its shroud, a spirit pass'd. 
 
 " Harp of the North," that spell is dead, 
 The spirit of the shades is fled ; 
 A power more mighty reigns instead : 
 Thine is the lay, 'mid thrall and gloom, 
 
 Which lures the grey-hair'd statesman's ear ;
 
 MARY. 147 
 
 And, pausing in her work of doom, 
 
 Which bright-eyed beauty bends to hear ; 
 
 Wliose artless strain, whose careless glee. 
 
 Beguiles the ear of infancy ; — 
 
 Wakes the wild wonder of the crowd, 
 
 And gains the a})plauses of the proud. 
 
 Like Zion's towers, whose ramparts strong 
 
 Stand in eternity of song, 
 
 Raised by thy voice before our eyes. 
 
 The long forgotten halls arise ; 
 
 The motley crowd, in barbarous state. 
 
 Those silent walls repopulate ; 
 
 The lonely hill, sequester'd spot, 
 
 Lone and secluded now is not ; 
 
 The palace, long unsought, again 
 
 Is peopled with a radiant train ; 
 
 For in those walls, in lofty tower. 
 The wakeful watch his vigil keeps; 
 
 Apart within her lonely bower. 
 
 The love-lorn maiden wakes and weeps ; 
 
 The duteous squires, the yeomen tall, 
 
 Attendant throng the lofty hall ; 
 
 By night, by day, there, ready dight. 
 
 Terrific towers the mail-clad knight ;
 
 148 MARY, 
 
 Appearing o'er that lonely hill, 
 (I see their forms, they linger still,) 
 'Mid tufted broom and willow wand, 
 With axe and bow, and lance and brand, 
 Wide hanging o'er the glen below, 
 The plaided warriors forward bow ; 
 Again, 'mid pomp, and power, and state. 
 The gay, the noble, and the great, 
 In glistening silks, and jewels sheen, 
 In those deserted domes are seen ; 
 While high amid that splendid throng, 
 The glorious monarch moves along; 
 Fix'd OP his glance each warrior's eyne. 
 Each lady's look — such power is thine. ^• 
 
 What means this gloom, portentous spread. 
 Sad as the stillness of the dead ? — 
 Why hovering round, in sable shrouds, 
 Spread their thick veil the murky clouds ? — 
 
 * See Lady of the Lake.
 
 WARY. H& 
 
 Why seems the sun with blood defiled ? 
 Why cease the warblers of the wild ? 
 Why, wheeling round with circling flight, 
 Forsake their caves the birds of night ? 
 Is it that earth no more may stand, — 
 The end of all things now at hand ? 
 Does nature, in o'erwhelming gloom, 
 In awe await her final doom ? 
 The land of rock, and hill, and dell, 
 Of heath and mountain, flood and fell. 
 The land whence sprung the free, the brave. 
 Is now their bane, their death, their grave. 
 The sounds of gladness all are o'er; 
 The voice of joy is heard no more; 
 Solemn and sad, with heavy swell, 
 Floats on the air the deep death-knell ; 
 The rank grass springs erect and tall, 
 Beside the sanctuary wall ; 
 Along the temple's threshold spread, 
 The gray moss lies on lowly bed ; 
 The wily fox, secure and lone, 
 Looks from behind the altar-stone; 
 And from the window's tracery light 
 Discordant hoots the bird of night ; 
 
 VOL. I. z
 
 150 MARY. 
 
 The mountain-pine the tempest rends, 
 To earth the beardless thistle bends, 
 While o'er the stream's dry stony bed, 
 The dying willow's leaves are shed ; 
 The flame-spoil'd cot's black embers glow, 
 And still at intervals will throw 
 The blue smoke from the fire below. 
 The public paths are all untrode ; 
 The trembling traveller winds his road 
 Through desert waste and tangled glen, 
 Till now unmark'd by feet of men : 
 Along the highways' sides are spread 
 The bones and bodies of the dead ; 
 Thence scarcely can the birds of prey 
 Be scared to leave their feast away ; 
 The father from his offspring flies, 
 The brother by the brother dies ; 
 The son his mother drags to death, 
 The mother stops her infant's breath : 
 The Bible, with the cross at war, 
 Has driven affrighted peace afar ; 
 While guilt and treachery, hand in hand, 
 With fire and sword lay waste the land ; 
 Religion, peace, and bliss are fled. 
 On other climes their smiles to shed ;
 
 MARY. 151 
 
 To rocks and barren mountains high 
 The persecuted righteous fly ; 
 To caverns deep, to clefts and shelves. 
 The godly haste to hide themselves : 
 The brave, the noble of the land, 
 Have died, or fled their native strand : 
 Why, why, this desolation spread 
 O'er Caledonia's humbled head ? 
 
 What lovely form, in deepest gloom 
 Of prison cave, awaits her doom ? — 
 Her seat, the' appalling emblems dire 
 Of bondage, torture, death, and ire ; 
 Her shackles, such as well might tame 
 The strongest, wildest human frame; 
 Before her on the earth are placed — 
 As if they once her head had graced — 
 Two splendid diadems, so bright 
 As round to cast a radiant light ; 
 One, richer still, by slenderest thread, 
 Hangs o'er the lovely captive's head. 
 
 Oh ! can the form we there behold, 
 Be aught of earth or earthly mould ?
 
 1 52 MARY. 
 
 Can looks like her's to form pertain, 
 Which is not free from mortal stain? 
 Serene she sits, in sable vest, 
 While to her palpitating breast 
 The holy cross is warmly prest : 
 From earth, and earthly crowns, her eyes 
 Are raised to meet much dearer ties ; — 
 A heavenly throne, a heavenly crown 
 She sees, and knows them for her own : 
 She sees, and, wrapp'd in ecstasy. 
 Forgets that she has yet to die. 
 While lovelier still her charms appear 
 ' Amidst the horrors glooming near. 
 
 Thus when the murky clouds of night 
 Combine to veil her heavenly light. 
 Beyond their reach the lunar queen 
 Still reigns in majesty serene. 
 Thus, too, when wild waves raging fly 
 Around the towering Pharos high. 
 Its steady light remains to steer 
 The seamen through the dangers near. 
 
 Oh ! who, then, is this saint oppress'd ? 
 This angel in a mortal vest ?
 
 MARY. 153 
 
 'TIs Scotia's basely-injured Queen ! 
 
 'Tis she — who, cherish'd, would have been 
 
 The loveliest, brightest, richest gem 
 
 In Caledonia's diadem, — 
 
 A gem too polish'd, pure, and bright 
 
 For Scotia's sons, in Scotia's night. 
 
 When evil men and evil times 
 
 Were stain'd with basest, blackest crimes. 
 
 Hark ! from the depths conceal'd I hear 
 
 Unearthly music floating near ! 
 
 A concert sweet ! — nigh, yet more nigh 
 
 Is heard the solemn harmony ! 
 
 What forms are those, in flowing dress. 
 
 Emerging fiom the deep recess ? 
 
 The flaring light is dimly shed 
 
 On each time-whiten'd reverend head ; 
 
 Low spread, beneath, their beards of snowj 
 
 With graceful sweep their mantles flow ; 
 
 Sedately as they take their way. 
 
 Their Angers o'er the lyre-strings stray ; 
 
 Their eyes (some sightless) dew'd with tears ; — 
 
 These are the hards of other years ! 
 
 As slow they pass the monarch's seat. 
 
 They lowly bend with reverence meet;
 
 154; MARY. 
 
 Then take, with solemn steps, their stand, 
 In silence ranged on either hand 
 
 Before the rest, advancing slow, 
 With locks and beard like Mona's snow. 
 Was seen a form which awe impress'd 
 On every look, in every breast; 
 His eyes were sightless, yet his face 
 Of inward light bore strongest trace ; 
 A mournful, deep, and solemn air, 
 Full of unutter'd thought, was there ; 
 A moment o'er his harp he hung, 
 Its chords to woe were ready strung ; 
 Who, who is this — this man of years — 
 Who more than mortal man appears ? 
 'Tis Ossian, sovereign of the lyre ! 
 'Tis Fingal's son, 'tis Oscar's sire ! 
 'Tis he, the prince of bards, whose song 
 Enraptured nations still prolong. 
 He touch'd the chords, — a sudden thrill 
 Through nature rah, and she was still ! 
 The sighing strings his fingers swept, 
 And sympathizing nature wept; 
 With harp and voice the air he tried, 
 It seem'd as if all nature sigh'd ;
 
 MARY. 155 
 
 In stirless, breathless stillness bound, 
 Creation listen'd to the sound ; 
 At every pause the' attendant choir 
 Accordant struck each mournful lyre. 
 
 Hail to thee, hail to thee, child of the glorious, 
 
 Majestic in sorrow thy face and thy form, 
 O'er the shades that surround thee thy splendour 
 victorious. 
 Like the rainbow that shines on the skirts of the 
 storm. 
 These hai*ps to the living no longer now swelling, 
 
 That wake where the footstep of man cannot be, 
 That hang where the souls of the mighty are dwell- 
 ing? 
 They yet may be vocal, oh ! monarch, to thee. 
 
 Hail to thee, hail to thee, &c. &c. 
 
 For in night's shrouding shadows the pale ghosts 
 that wander. 
 In the beams of the moon, on the eddying blast,
 
 1S6 MARY. 
 
 Where rise the green hills, or the streamlets meau- 
 der, 
 Have beckon'd to tliee, as around thee they pass'd. 
 From the blue waving mists that environ them 
 bending. 
 The shades of thy fathers appear in the sky ; 
 We see the clear flame of their glory descending, 
 To welcome thee up to their dwelling on high ' 
 Hail to thee, hail to thee, &c. &c. 
 
 Cease the lay : — the bards low bend ; 
 The deep black clouds appear to rend ; 
 One flash of light pervades the sphere ; 
 One crash of thunder thrills the ear ; 
 In lengthen'd course, from rock to rock, 
 Streams the broad lightning, bursts the shock ; 
 — The blaze is past, the crash is o'er, — 
 The shadowy choir are seen no more. 
 
 The wind is up: along the sky 
 The heavy clouds divide and fly; 
 Thence, where the stranger's snowy sail 
 Has disappear'd before the gale,
 
 MARY. 157 
 
 The wailing comes upon the ear 
 Of the expiring mariner ; 
 Now red, now lost, the sun is seen ; 
 Pale flashes break the clouds between ; 
 Swellinij and fallino; on the gale, 
 Departed heroes' voices wail; 
 The robes of chiefs in waving shrouds 
 Appear upon the driving clouds ; 
 Seen dimly where the openings rend. 
 The mothers of the mighty bend ; 
 Far music cometh from the height. 
 Commingling with the din of fight ; 
 In the deep caves the wind roars high ; 
 The mountain-pines uprooted lie ; 
 From steep to steep the torrents gush ; 
 The wild stags swift to shelter rush ; — • 
 And yonder now, approaching near, 
 Behold a warrior band appear ! 
 Thin as the lakes light vapoury screen. 
 Their unsubstantial forms are seen; 
 Their rolling eye-balls tearless shew. 
 But yet their looks are looks of woe ; 
 Far o'er our own degenerate I'ace, 
 Towers high aloft each kingly face ; 
 VOL. I. 2 A
 
 158 MARY. 
 
 Bright targets on their arms expand ; 
 Gleams the red falchion in their hand ; 
 The emblem meet of royalty 
 Appears upon each forehead high ; 
 Solenni and slow their steps are found— 
 They wake no echo from the ground ; 
 And as they pass the monarch's seat, 
 Thrice on the targe their falchions beat 
 Hither they come, that shadowy band, 
 Departed rulers of the land, 
 Their line's last relic hence to call, 
 To grace her fathers' lofty hall. 
 To that they point ; advancing then, 
 Before them steps the first of men — 
 The first of kings — a monarch he, 
 Where only kings can claim to be : 
 'Tis FiNGAL — tuneful Ossian's sire — 
 With heart of flesh, but soul of fire; 
 His arm from earth could armies sweep, 
 Yet could his eye in pity weep. 
 Majestic towering o'er the rest 
 The monarch stood — the first confest— 
 Before the queen, with looks subdued, 
 And eyes with pity's tears bedew'd :
 
 Mary. 159 
 
 A man of deeds, his words were few ; 
 These, only these, — he then withdrew : — 
 
 " Daughter, to our halls on high, 
 Heralds of thy path, we fly ; 
 Daughter, long thou may'st not stay ; 
 Hie thee, daughter, hie away." 
 
 The sceptred shadows all have past ; 
 Hush'd is the raginop of the blast: 
 Break the bright sunbeams from the sky j 
 The summits of the mountains high, 
 The lucid lakes, the ocean's breast, 
 The wooded glens, in glory rest ! 
 
 Are these the sounds of shield and shell, 
 That in the air vibrating swell ? 
 Hark to the pibroch's loud alarms ! 
 — It calls the northern clans to arms ; 
 It bids them with their parting breath 
 Redeem their captive queen from death ; 
 And instant as it rolls around. 
 Swift to her rescue forth they bound. 
 Sons of the brave ! as o'er the lake 
 On rippling waves the sunbeams wake,
 
 160 MARY. 
 
 So on the mountain's rising side, 
 The copse-clad glen, the moorlands wide, 
 Bright flash your glittering claymores light, 
 Your burnish'd spears, your targets bright; 
 As burst the tumults of the wind 
 Within the mountain-caves confined, 
 So in the air your voices high 
 Arise, as on your course ye fly. 
 — Sons of the brave ! — too late ! too late ! 
 Your palaces are desolate, 
 Retire ye to your father's domes ; 
 Protect your monarch's sculptured tombs; 
 For in your land no more shall spread 
 The tomb o'er Scottish monarch's head. 
 Past is the sceptre from your land ; 
 Outstretch'd is retribution's hand ; 
 The wild blast unconfined shall sigh, 
 Your forests overturn'd shall lie; 
 Your courts, your cities shall decay, 
 Your seats of learning pass away ; 
 Disturb not, then, the mournful scene, 
 Where yon meek sufferer sits serene. 
 
 All ! who is that, who, lialf display'd, 
 Stands in the rude clift's gloomy shade ? —
 
 MARY. 161 
 
 Majestic as the mountain-pine's, ' 
 Her brow with richest jewels shines | 
 The regal sceptre of command 
 She graspeth in her awful hand ; 
 Is she indeed of mortal birth, 
 A creature born to tread on earth ? — ■ 
 Can that proud eye relax and melt. 
 For grief and pain by others felt ? — 
 Can she be one whom man may move, 
 Vv^ho ever felt a mother's love ? — 
 It is the honour'd, the revered, 
 The loved, the' applauded, and the fear'd. 
 The queen of Albion's glorious isle : 
 Why came she hei'e to wound — beo-uile ? 
 She comes, by hate and envy led, 
 To bring the King of Terrors dread ; 
 To her so dire his form of fear. 
 She shudders to behold him near. 
 Unmoved her victim sees him stand. 
 And gives him, unappall'd, her hand ; 
 Bright beams from heaven a cheering rav. 
 The dreadful emblems melt awav : 
 The tyrant shrieks ; she flies to hide, 
 And seeks m cavern clefts to bide.
 
 162 MARY. 
 
 Slow rises now a vapour pale 
 O'er all the scene, like misty veil; 
 Aerial sounds, approaching near, 
 Swell like the music of the sphere, 
 While with the more than earthly sound 
 Celestial odours float around. 
 
 The vapoury veil enveloping 
 The victim and the potent king, 
 Ascends like cloud at morning's dawn, 
 Aloft from ocean's breast withdrawn; 
 High, yet more high, from earth they rise; 
 Faint, yet more faint, they reach the eyes ; 
 The ear in vain is turn'd to hear, 
 The eye to see — they disappear.
 
 ELIZABETH. 
 
 With the ocean-throne for her lofty seat, 
 Nations around her in homage meet, 
 Worship and power at her right hand. 
 Riches and honours at her command, 
 Beeirt with the liffht of fortune's smiles. 
 The empress, see, of the Isle of Isles. 
 
 From the magic loom of trade was won 
 The tissued robe of the mighty one, 
 Where subject Nature beholds a stealth 
 From the' earth and the sea of her ravish'd wealth; 
 Here the regal rose in crimson flaunts. 
 The violet has quitted her secret haunts, 
 The jasmine in clustering buds is spread, 
 The imperial lily hangs her head :
 
 16 h ELIZABETH. 
 
 Diamond and ruby there assist, 
 
 Emerald, and topaZj and amethyst ; 
 
 And the depths of the ocean their pearls afford ; 
 
 (Meet tribute they for their earthly lord :) 
 
 The blazing sceptre her hands display ; 
 
 On her head is the ecm-irirt tiara. 
 
 Surely the powers that, as fables tell, 
 
 Supreme in the kingdoms of nature dwell. 
 
 Mermaid, gnome, dryad, and sylphid fair. 
 
 From ocean, and water, antl earth, and aiv. 
 
 Have hither hied with their choicest dower 
 
 An aula to rear for this mightier power : 
 
 Ivory and cedar of Lebanon 
 
 Chequer the floor she treads upon ; 
 
 Pillars of marble and porphyry 
 
 The G-lowino- ceilinii; sustain on high : 
 
 For sight too dazzling, that dome behold, 
 
 One blazing sun of radiant gold ; 
 
 From a hundred chrystal girandoles. 
 
 The liffht on a hundred mirrors rolls : 
 
 From wherever the winds and waters flow, 
 
 On the high-wrought pannels in beauty glow 
 
 The brightest pictures in nature's page : 
 
 Of every clime and of every age,
 
 ELIZABETH. 165 
 
 The noblest and wisest in years that are gone, — 
 
 Plato, or Caesar, or Xenophon, — 
 
 Around the temple are ranged apart : — 
 
 Are they the creatures of human art ? — 
 
 Or is it that she, whom mankind obey, 
 
 Can raise the dead from their cells of clay ? 
 
 What vision of splendour disturbs the fane ? — ■ 
 
 A train, a train — a gorgeous train — 
 
 From north and south, from west and east. 
 
 Princess and prince, and lord and priest, 
 
 Baron and knight, of every land, 
 
 Legate and lady, a votive band, 
 
 With uncover'd heads move reverent on : — • 
 
 They are bending ever and anon : 
 
 Their path is ended, and they are nigh 
 
 To the goddess of their idolatry : 
 
 An offering rich at her feet they pour, 
 
 Spikenard and odour, and precious store. 
 
 Then bowing to earth on the knee, they raise 
 
 The tribute of worship, the incense of praise. 
 
 In vain, in vain ! — behind conceal'd. 
 To her, to her alone, reveal'd, 
 A minister of vengeance nigh. 
 The form of Death hath fix'd her eye. 
 TOL. I. 2 b
 
 166 ELIZABETH. 
 
 What forms are these? 'Tis magic all, 
 
 That reigns in this enchanted hall. — 
 
 Before the throne and from the ground, 
 
 Soft floating music steals around, 
 
 While, rising slowly on the scene, 
 
 In homage to their goddess queen, 
 
 The perfumed air to view presents 
 
 The sovereigns of the elements. 
 
 To the vestal, from his car, 
 
 Vulcan yields the bolts of war ; 
 
 Ceres brings her teeming horn, 
 
 Rife with ears of golden corn : 
 
 By his ocean chargers fell, 
 
 Borne within his pearly shell, 
 
 Mighty Neptune to her hand 
 
 Gives his trident of command : 
 
 jEolus, who bringeth in his train, — 
 
 Boreas, tyrant of the main, 
 
 Aquilo, harsh, severe, and rude, 
 
 Eurus, keen as ingratitude, 
 
 Auster, with plenty on his wing, 
 
 Zephyrus, that opens the flowers of spring,- 
 
 jEolus consigns to her right hand 
 
 The sceptre that awes the boisterous band.
 
 ELIZABETH. 167 
 
 Vain homage all ; for lingering near 
 The form of Death is ever here. 
 
 Now shifts the scene; soft, trembling nigh, 
 
 Strange gales of fragrance wander by, 
 
 While swift, yon sovereign queen to tend, 
 
 Behold the smiling Loves descend, 
 
 Around their azure wings expand ; 
 
 The' enchantress waves her sceptral wand, 
 
 And lo, subservient to her will, 
 
 From Tempe's vale or Ida's hill, 
 
 Soft gliding in ethereal state, 
 
 On her the linked Graces Avait ; 
 
 — Ah, vain the sight ! their charms are vain ; 
 
 She looks where Death is in her train. 
 
 What incense scents this charmed bound ? 
 
 What gales celestial tremble round, 
 
 What airs of symphony divine ! 
 
 — They come, they come, the Muses nine, — 
 
 Here soft Euterpe sweeps the strings ; 
 
 Here to her lyre Erato sings. 
 
 Bends on the queen her melting eyes, 
 
 While soft the warbled paeans rise ;
 
 168 ELIZABETH. 
 
 To the throned Queen Urania here 
 
 Reveals the wonders of the sphere; 
 
 Lo there, from fiction's regions wild, 
 
 The young Thalia, fancy's child, 
 
 Its gayest, wildest forms recal 
 
 To decorate the wondrous hall ; 
 
 Then, buskin'd maid, Melpomency 
 
 In loose robe amply floating see. 
 
 Known by her sceptre and her crown. 
 
 By her extended dagger known, 
 
 Conjures, from scenes and ages fled, 
 
 The spirits of the mightj^ dead : 
 
 And swiftly there, with lively measure, 
 
 Light foot, and eye that beams with pleasure, 
 
 Her form in varied figure bending, 
 
 Loose on the gale her arms extending, 
 
 Behold Terpsichore advance, 
 
 And gaily lead the flying dance : 
 
 Commanding nymph, in beauty gay, 
 
 Divinest Polyhymnia 
 
 A mortal's flatterer stoops to be. 
 
 And pours the soft hyperbole ; 
 
 She chants yon mighty monarch's dower. 
 
 Her glory, honour, riches, power,
 
 ELIZABETH. 169 
 
 Her beauty, mercy, wit, and might, 
 
 Wisdom in peace, and power in fight ; 
 
 Calliope has ceased to tell 
 
 How patriots fought and heroes fell, 
 
 And, tutor'd to a woman's praise. 
 
 She deigns to pour her pander lays : 
 
 Nor Clio's self disdains to join 
 
 Her homage at the idol's shrine ; 
 
 E'en Clio's quill has lent its might 
 
 To make the wrong appear the right ; 
 
 She winds her trumpet to proclaim 
 
 The glories of a tyranfs name : — 
 
 Vain efforts all to charm her ear. 
 
 For Death, stern Death, still lingers near 1 
 
 There stood a carle in that lordly hall. 
 
 Amid its splendours unseen by all ; 
 
 For pomp and show, ah — could they stay ? 
 
 Ah, could they .deaden the tyrant's sway ? — 
 
 For pomp and show have a blinding might 
 
 To hide his aspect from human sight : 
 
 But I saw him yet, (for the bard may scan,) 
 
 Who meteth the labours of mortal man, 
 
 Who leads the tide on its swift career. 
 
 And governs the wheels of the circling sphere ;
 
 170 ELIZABETH. 
 
 Whose cold touch quenches the eye of light, 
 
 And turns the auburn to locks of white ; 
 
 Whose hand can crumble the Alps away ; — 
 
 I knew his scythe and his forelock gray ; 
 
 I knew his regulating glass, n 
 
 Whose sands in unvaried rotation pass ; — 
 
 I saw, unseen by the glittering throng, 
 
 As he stretch'd his finger lean and long, 
 
 Touch'd with its point the temple's side. 
 
 The hall of power ; — where now its pride? 
 
 Pictures and statues here are not, — 
 
 Graces and Muses have fled the spot, — 
 
 Jewels and crystal all are gone, — 
 
 Sceptre and diadem here are none, — 
 
 Marble and porphyry, where are they ? 
 
 — Past like the gleam of an April day ; — 
 
 Crumbling heaps of mis-shapen stone, 
 
 Dust and corruption remain alone. 
 
 Where are the strains that were heard ere lonsr ? 
 
 — The sound of the viol, the raptures of song ? 
 
 Singing nor harping here I find. 
 
 But the howling blast of the lonely wind. 
 
 Where is the train august and bright, 
 
 Baron and noble, prince and knight.
 
 ELIZABETH. IVj 
 
 And high-born lady in glittering vest ? — 
 
 Ah ! here is the blindworm, the pamper'd guest, 
 
 And the owlet that hoots from a ruin'd bed, 
 
 And the vulture that raveneth o'er the dead : 
 
 And she — the praise and the awe of all, — 
 
 The Enchantress that ruled the enchanted hall ! 
 
 Go — over the tomb let your spell be thrown. 
 
 And ask of the worm to resign its own, 
 
 And death and the grave let your voice condemn 
 
 To give up the dead which are in them, 
 
 Or ever ye seek her where man has breath — 
 
 Dreadful and dreaded Elizabeth. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
 SHEFFIELD : 
 PRINTED BV J. MONTGOMERT. 
 
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