Mary Stuart
by
Alexandre Dumas, Pere
Part 1 out of 4
This etext was produced by David Widger
MARY STUART
1587
by Alexandre Dumas, Pere
CHAPTER I
Some royal names are predestined to misfortune: in France, there is
the name "Henry". Henry I was poisoned, Henry II was killed in a
tournament, Henry III and Henry IV were assassinated. As to Henry V,
for whom the past is so fatal already, God alone knows what the
future has in store for him.
In Scotland, the unlucky name is "Stuart". Robert I, founder of the
race, died at twenty-eight of a lingering illness. Robert II, the
most fortunate of the family, was obliged to pass a part of his life,
not merely in retirement, but also in the dark, on account of
inflammation of the eyes, which made them blood-red. Robert III
succumbed to grief, the death of one son and the captivity of other.
James I was stabbed by Graham in the abbey of the Black Monks of
Perth. James II was killed at the siege of Roxburgh, by a splinter
from a burst cannon. James III was assassinated by an unknown hand
in a mill, where he had taken refuge during the battle of Sauchie.
James IV, wounded by two arrows and a blow from a halberd, fell
amidst his nobles on the battlefield of Flodden. James V died of
grief at the loss of his two sons, and of remorse for the execution
of Hamilton. James VI, destined to unite on his head the two crowns
of Scotland and England, son of a father who had been assassinated,
led a melancholy and timorous existence, between the scaffold of his
mother, Mary Stuart, and that of his son, Charles I. Charles II
spent a portion of his life in exile. James II died in it. The
Chevalier Saint-George, after having been proclaimed King of Scotland
as James VIII, and of England and Ireland as James III, was forced to
flee, without having been able to give his arms even the lustre of a
defeat. His son, Charles Edward, after the skirmish at Derby and the
battle of Culloden, hunted from mountain to mountain, pursued from
rock to rock, swimming from shore to shore, picked up half naked by a
French vessel, betook himself to Florence to die there, without the
European courts having ever consented to recognise him as a
sovereign. Finally, his brother, Henry Benedict, the last heir of
the Stuarts, having lived on a pension of three thousand pounds
sterling, granted him by George III, died completely forgotten,
bequeathing to the House of Hanover all the crown jewels which James
II had carried off when he passed over to the Continent in 1688--a
tardy but complete recognition of the legitimacy of the family which
had succeeded his.
In the midst of this unlucky race, Mary Stuart was the favourite of
misfortune. As Brantome has said of her, "Whoever desires to write
about this illustrious queen of Scotland has, in her, two very, large
subjects, the one her life, the other her death," Brantome had known
her on one of the most mournful occasions of her life--at the moment
when she was quitting France for Scotland.
It was on the 9th of August, 1561, after having lost her mother and
her husband in the same year, that Mary Stuart, Dowager of France and
Queen of Scotland at nineteen, escorted by her uncles, Cardinals
Guise and Lorraine, by the Duke and Duchess of Guise, by the Duc
d'Aumale and M. de Nemours, arrived at Calais, where two galleys were
waiting to take her to Scotland, one commanded by M. de Mevillon and
the other by Captain Albize. She remained six days in the town. At
last, on the 15th of the month, after the saddest adieus to her
family, accompanied by Messieurs d'Aumale, d'Elboeuf, and Damville,
with many nobles, among whom were Brantome and Chatelard, she
embarked in M. Mevillon's galley, which was immediately ordered to
put out to sea, which it did with the aid of oars, there not being
sufficient wind to make use of the sails.
Mary Stuart was then in the full bloom of her beauty, beauty even
more brilliant in its mourning garb--a beauty so wonderful that it
shed around her a charm which no one whom she wished to please could
escape, and which was fatal to almost everyone. About this time,
too, someone made her the subject of a song, which, as even her
rivals confessed, contained no more than the truth. It was, so it
was said, by M. de Maison-Fleur, a cavalier equally accomplished in
arms and letters: Here it is:--
"In robes of whiteness, lo,
Full sad and mournfully,
Went pacing to and fro
Beauty's divinity;
A shaft in hand she bore
>From Cupid's cruel store,
And he, who fluttered round,
Bore, o'er his blindfold eyes
And o'er his head uncrowned,
A veil of mournful guise,
Whereon the words were wrought:
'You perish or are caught.'"
Yes, at this moment, Mary Stuart, in her deep mourning of white, was
more lovely than ever; for great tears were trickling down her
cheeks, as, weaving a handkerchief, standing on the quarterdeck, she
who was so grieved to set out, bowed farewell to those who were so
grieved to remain.
At last, in half an hour's time, the harbour was left behind; the
vessel was out at sea. Suddenly, Mary heard loud cries behind her: a
boat coming in under press of sail, through her pilot's ignorance had
struck upon a rock in such a manner that it was split open, and after
having trembled and groaned for a moment like someone wounded, began
to be swallowed up, amid the terrified screams of all the crew.
Mary, horror-stricken, pale, dumb, and motionless, watched her
gradually sink, while her unfortunate crew, as the keel disappeared,
climbed into the yards and shrouds, to delay their death-agony a few
minutes; finally, keel, yards, masts, all were engulfed in the
ocean's gaping jaws. For a moment there remained some black specks,
which in turn disappeared one after another; then wave followed upon
wave, and the spectators of this horrible tragedy, seeing the sea
calm and solitary as if nothing had happened, asked themselves if it
was not a vision that had appeared to them and vanished.
"Alas!" cried Mary, falling on a seat and leaning both arms an the
vessel's stern, "what a sad omen for such a sad voyage!" Then, once
more fixing on the receding harbour her eyes, dried for a moment by
terror, and beginning to moisten anew, "Adieu, France!" she murmured,
"adieu, France!" and for five hours she remained thus, weeping and
murmuring, "Adieu, France! adieu, France!"
Darkness fell while she was still lamenting; and then, as the view
was blotted out and she was summoned to supper, "It is indeed now,
dear France," said she, rising, "that I really lose you, since
jealous night heaps mourning upon mourning, casting a black veil
before my sight. Adieu then, one last time, dear France; for never
shall I see you more."
With these words, she went below, saying that she was the very
opposite of Dido, who, after the departure of AEneas, had done
nothing but look at the waves, while she, Mary, could not take her
eyes off the land. Then everyone gathered round her to try to divert
and console her. But she, growing sadder, and not being able to
respond, so overcome was she with tears, could hardly eat; and,
having had a bed got ready on the stern deck, she sent for the
steersman, and ordered him if he still saw land at daybreak, to come
and wake her immediately. On this point Mary was favoured; for the
wind having dropped, when daybreak came the vessel was still within
sight of France.
It was a great joy when, awakened by the steersman, who had not
forgotten the order he had received, Mary raised herself on her
couch, and through the window that she had had opened, saw once more
the beloved shore. But at five o'clock in the morning, the wind
having freshened, the vessel rapidly drew farther away, so that soon
the land completely disappeared. Then Mary fell back upon her bed,
pale as death, murmuring yet once again--"Adieu, France! I shall see
thee no more."
Indeed, the happiest years of her life had just passed away in this
France that she so much regretted. Born amid the first religious
troubles, near the bedside of her dying father, the cradle mourning
was to stretch for her to the grave, and her stay in France had been
a ray of sunshine in her night. Slandered from her birth, the report
was so generally spread abroad that she was malformed, and that she
could not live to grow up, that one day her mother, Mary of Guise,
tired of these false rumours, undressed her and showed her naked to
the English ambassador, who had come, on the part of Henry VIII, to
ask her in marriage for the Prince of Wales, himself only five years
old. Crowned at nine months by Cardinal Beaton, archbishop of St.
Andrews, she was immediately hidden by her mother, who was afraid of
treacherous dealing in the King of England, in Stirling Castle. Two
years later, not finding even this fortress safe enough, she removed
her to an island in the middle of the Lake of Menteith, where a
priory, the only building in the place, provided an asylum for the
royal child and for four young girls born in the same year as
herself, having like her the sweet name which is an anagram of the
word "aimer," and who, quitting her neither in her good nor in her
evil fortune, were called the "Queen's Marys". They were Mary
Livingston, Mary Fleming, Mary Seyton, and Mary Beaton. Mary stayed
in this priory till Parliament, having approved her marriage with the
French dauphin, son of Henry II, she was taken to Dumbarton Castle,
to await the moment of departure. There she was entrusted to M. de
Breze, sent by Henry II to-fetch her. Having set out in the French
galleys anchored at the mouth of the Clyde, Mary, after having been
hotly pursued by the English fleet, entered Brest harbour, 15th
August, 1548, one year after the death of Francis! Besides the
queen's four Marys, the vessels also brought to France three of her
natural brothers, among whom was the Prior of St. Andrews, James
Stuart, who was later to abjure the Catholic faith, and with the
title of Regent, and under the name of the Earl of Murray, to become
so fatal to poor Mary. From Brest, Mary went to St. Germain-en-
Laye, where Henry II, who had just ascended the throne, overwhelmed
her with caresses, and then sent her to a convent where the heiresses
of the noblest French houses were brought up. There Mary's happy
qualities developed. Born with a woman's heart and a man's head,
Mary not only acquired all the accomplishments which constituted the
education of a future queen, but also that real knowledge which is
the object of the truly learned.
Thus, at fourteen, in the Louvre, before Henry II, Catherine de
Medici, and the whole court, she delivered a discourse in Latin of
her own composition, in which she maintained that it becomes women to
cultivate letters, and that it is unjust and tyrannical to deprive
flowery of their perfumes, by banishing young girls from all but
domestic cares. One can imagine in what manner a future queen,
sustaining such a thesis, was likely to be welcomed in the most
lettered and pedantic court in Europe. Between the literature of
Rabelais and Marot verging on their decline, and that of Ronsard and
Montaigne reaching their zenith, Mary became a queen of poetry, only
too happy never to have to wear another crown than that which
Ronsard, Dubellay, Maison-Fleur, arid Brantome placed daily on her
head. But she was predestined. In the midst of those fetes which a
waning chivalry was trying to revive came the fatal joust of
Tournelles: Henry II, struck by a splinter of a lance for want of a
visor, slept before his time with his ancestors, and Mary Stuart
ascended the throne of France, where, from mourning for Henry, she
passed to that for her mother, and from mourning for her mother to
that for her husband. Mary felt this last loss both as woman and as
poet; her heart burst forth into bitter tears and plaintive
harmonies. Here are some lines that she composed at this time:--
"Into my song of woe,
Sung to a low sad air,
My cruel grief I throw,
For loss beyond compare;
In bitter sighs and tears
Go by my fairest years.
Was ever grief like mine
Imposed by destiny?
Did ever lady pine,
In high estate, like me,
Of whom both heart and eye
Within the coffin lie?
Who, in the tender spring
And blossom of my youth,
Taste all the sorrowing
Of life's extremest ruth,
And take delight in nought
Save in regretful thought.
All that was sweet and gay
Is now a pain to see;
The sunniness of day
Is black as night to me;
All that was my delight
Is hidden from my sight.
My heart and eye, indeed,
One face, one image know,
The which this morrnful weed
On my sad face doth show,
Dyed with the violet's tone
That is the lover's own.
Tormented by my ill,
I go from place to place,
But wander as I will
My woes can nought efface;
My most of bad and good
I find in solitude.
But wheresoe'er I stay,
In meadow or in copse,
Whether at break of day
Or when the twilight drops,
My heart goes sighing on,
Desiring one that's gone.
If sometimes to the skies
My weary gaze I lift,
His gently shining eyes
Look from the cloudy drift,
Or stooping o'er the wave
I see him in the grave.
Or when my bed I seek,
And-sleep begins to steal,
Again I hear him speak,
Again his touch I feel;
In work or leisure, he
Is ever near to me.
No other thing I see,
However fair displayed,
By which my heart will be
A tributary made,
Not having the perfection
Of that, my lost affection.
Here make an end, my verse,
Of this thy sad lament,
Whose burden shall rehearse
Pure love of true intent,
Which separation's stress
Will never render less."
"It was then," says Brantorne, "that it was delightful to see her;
for the whiteness of her countenance and of her veil contended
together; but finally the artificial white yielded, and the snow-like
pallor of her face vanquished the other. For it was thus," he adds,
"that from the moment she became a widow, I always saw her with her
pale hue, as long as I had the honour of seeing her in France, and
Scotland, where she had to go in eighteen months' time, to her very
great regret, after her widowhood, to pacify her kingdom, greatly
divided by religious troubles. Alas! she had neither the wish nor
the will for it, and I have often heard her say so, with a fear of
this journey like death; for she preferred a hundred times to dwell
in France as a dowager queen, and to content herself with Touraine
and Poitou for her jointure, than to go and reign over there in her
wild country; but her uncles, at least some of them, not all, advised
her, and even urged her to it, and deeply repented their error."
Mary was obedient, as we have seen, and she began her journey under
such auspices that when she lost sight of land she was like to die.
Then it was that the poetry of her soul found expression in these
famous lines:
"Farewell, delightful land of France,
My motherland,
The best beloved!
Foster-nurse of my young years!
Farewell, France, and farewell my happy days!
The ship that separates our loves
Has borne away but half of me;
One part is left thee and is throe,
And I confide it to thy tenderness,
That thou may'st hold in mind the other part."'
[Translator's note.-It has not been found possible to make a rhymed
version of these lines without sacrificing the simplicity which is
their chief charm.]
This part of herself that Mary left in France was the body of the
young king, who had taken with him all poor Mary's happiness into his
tomb.
Mary had but one hope remaining, that the sight of the English fleet
would compel her little squadron to turn back; but she had to fulfil
her destiny. This same day, a fog, a very unusual occurrence in
summer-time, extended all over the Channel, and caused her to escape
the fleet; for it was such a dense fog that one could not see from
stern to mast. It lasted the whole of Sunday, the day after the
departure, and did not lift till the following day, Monday, at eight
o'clock in the morning. The little flotilla, which all this time had
been sailing haphazard, had got among so many reefs that if the fog
had lasted some minutes longer the galley would certainly have
grounded on some rock, and would have perished like the vessel that
had been seen engulfed on leaving port. But, thanks to the fog's
clearing, the pilot recognised the Scottish coast, and, steering his
four boats with great skill through ail the dangers, on the 20th
August he put in at Leith, where no preparation had been made for the
queen's reception. Nevertheless, scarcely had she arrived there than
the chief persons of the town met together and came to felicitate
her. Meanwhile, they hastily collected some wretched nags, with
harness all falling in pieces, to conduct the queen to Edinburgh.
At sight of this, Mary could not help weeping again; for she thought
of the splendid palfreys and hackneys of her French knights and
ladies, and at this first view Scotland appeared to-her in all its
poverty. Next day it was to appear to her in all its wildness.
After having passed one night at Holyrood Palace, "during which,"
says Brantome, "five to six hundred rascals from the town, instead of
letting her sleep, came to give her a wild morning greeting on
wretched fiddles and little rebecks," she expressed a wish to hear
mass. Unfortunately, the people of Edinburgh belonged almost
entirely to the Reformed religion; so that, furious at the queen's
giving such a proof of papistry at her first appearance, they entered
the church by force, armed with knives, sticks and stones, with the
intention of putting to death the poor priest, her chaplain. He left
the altar, and took refuge near the queen, while Mary's brother, the
Prior of St. Andrews, who was more inclined from this time forward to
be a soldier than an ecclesiastic, seized a sword, and, placing
himself between the people and the queen, declared that he would kill
with his own hand the first man who should take another step. This
firmness, combined with the queen's imposing and dignified air,
checked the zeal of the Reformers.
As we have said, Mary had arrived in the midst of all the heat of the
first religious wars. A zealous Catholic, like all her family on the
maternal side, she inspired the Huguenots with the gravest fears:
besides, a rumour had got about that Mary, instead of landing at
Leith, as she had been obliged by the fog, was to land at Aberdeen.
There, it was said, she would have found the Earl of Huntly, one of
the peers who had remained loyal to the Catholic faith, and who, next
to the family of Hamilton, was, the nearest and most powerful ally of
the royal house. Seconded by him and by twenty thousand soldiers
from the north, she would then have marched upon Edinburgh, and have
re-established the Catholic faith throughout Scotland. Events were
not slow to prove that this accusation was false.
As we have stated, Mary was much attached to the Prior of St.
Andrews, a son of James V and of a noble descendant of the Earls of
Mar, who had been very handsome in her youth, and who, in spite of
the well-known love for her of James V, and the child who had
resulted, had none the less wedded Lord Douglas of Lochleven, by whom
she had had two other sons, the elder named William and the younger
George, who were thus half-brothers of the regent. Now, scarcely had
she reascended the throne than Mary had restored to the Prior of St.
Andrews the title of Earl of Mar, that of his maternal ancestors, and
as that of the Earl of Murray had lapsed since the death of the
famous Thomas Randolph, Mary, in her sisterly friendship for James
Stuart, hastened to add, this title to those which she had already
bestowed upon him.
But here difficulties and complications arose; for the new Earl of
Murray, with his character, was not a man to content himself with a
barren title, while the estates which were crown property since the
extinction of the male branch of the old earls, had been gradually
encroached upon by powerful neighbours, among whom was the famous
Earl of Huntly, whom we have already mentioned: the result was that,
as the queen judged that in this quarter her orders would probably
encounter opposition, under pretext of visiting her possessions in
the north, she placed herself at the head of a small army, commanded
by her brother, the Earl of Mar and Murray.
The Earl of Huntly was the less duped by the apparent pretext of this
expedition, in that his son, John Cordon, for some abuse of his
powers, had just been condemned to a temporary imprisonment. He,
notwithstanding, made every possible submission to the queen, sending
messengers in advance to invite-her to rest in his castle; and
following up the messengers in person, to renew his invitation viva
voce. Unfortunately, at the very moment when he was about to join
the queen, the governor of Inverness, who was entirely devoted to
him, was refusing to allow Mary to enter this castle, which was a
royal one. It is true that Murray, aware that it does not do to
hesitate in the face of such rebellions, had already had him executed
for high treason.
This new act of firmness showed Huntly that the young queen was not
disposed to allow the Scottish lords a resumption of the almost
sovereign power humbled by her father; so that, in spite of the
extremely kind reception she accorded him, as he learned while in
camp that his son, having escaped from prison, had just put himself
at the head of his vassals, he was afraid that he should be thought,
as doubtless he was, a party to the rising, and he set out the same
night to assume command of his troops, his mind made up, as Mary only
had with her seven to eight thousand men, to risk a battle, giving
out, however, as Buccleuch had done in his attempt to snatch James V
from the hands of the Douglases, that it was not at the queen he was
aiming, but solely at the regent, who kept her under his tutelage and
perverted her good intentions.
Murray, who knew that often the entire peace of a reign depends on
the firmness one displays at its beginning, immediately summoned all
the northern barons whose estates bordered on his, to march against
Huntly. All obeyed, for the house of Cordon was already so powerful
that each feared it might become still more so; but, however, it was
clear that if there was hatred for the subject there was no great
affection for the queen, and that the greater number came without
fixed intentions and with the idea of being led by circumstances.
The two armies encountered near Aberdeen. Murray at once posted the
troops he had brought from Edinburgh, and of which he was sure, on
the top of rising ground, and drew up in tiers on the hill slope all
his northern allies. Huntly advanced resolutely upon them, and
attacked his neighbours the Highlanders, who after a short resistance
retired in disorder. His men immediately threw away their lances,
and, drawing their swords, crying, "Cordon, Cordon!" pursued the
fugitives, and believed they had already gained the battle, when they
suddenly ran right against the main body of Murray's army, which
remained motionless as a rampart of iron, and which, with its long
lances, had the advantage of its adversaries, who were armed only
with their claymores. It was then the turn of the Cordons to draw
back, seeing which, the northern clans rallied and returned to the
fight, each soldier having a sprig of heather in his cap that his
comrades might recognise him. This unexpected movement determined
the day: the Highlanders ran down the hillside like a torrent,
dragging along with them everyone who could have wished to oppose
their passage. Then Murray seeing that the moment had come for
changing the defeat into a rout, charged with his entire cavalry:
Huntly, who was very stout and very heavily armed, fell and was
crushed beneath the horses' feet; John Cordon, taken prisoner in his
flight, was executed at Aberdeen three days afterwards; finally, his
brother, too young to undergo the same fate at this time, was shut up
in a dungeon and executed later, the day he reached the age of
sixteen.
Mary had been present at the battle, and the calm and courage she
displayed had made a lively impression on her wild defenders, who all
along the road had heard her say that she would have liked to be a
man, to pass her days on horseback, her nights under a tent, to wear
a coat of mail, a helmet, a buckler, and at her side a broadsword.
Mary made her entry into Edinburgh amid general enthusiasm; for this
expedition against the Earl of Huntly, who was a Catholic, had been
very popular among the inhabitants, who had no very clear idea of the
real motives which had caused her to undertake it: They were of the
Reformed faith, the earl was a papist, there was an enemy the less;
that is all they thought about. Now, therefore; the Scotch, amid
their acclamations, whether viva voce or by written demands,
expressed the wish that their queen, who was without issue by Francis
II, should re-marry: Mary agreed to this, and, yielding to the
prudent advice of those about her, she decided to consult upon this
marriage Elizabeth, whose heir she was, in her title of granddaughter
of Henry VII, in the event of the Queen of England's dying without
posterity. Unfortunately, she had not always acted with like
circumspection; for at the death of Mary Tudor, known as Bloody.
Mary, she had laid claim to the throne of Henry VIII, and, relying on
the illegitimacy of Elizabeth's birth, had with the dauphin assumed
sovereignty over Scotland, England, and Ireland, and had had coins
struck with this new title, and plate engraved with these new
armorial bearings.
Elizabeth was nine years older than Mary--that is to say, that at
this time she had not yet attained her thirtieth year; she was not
merely her rival as queen, then, but as woman. As regards education,
she could sustain comparison with advantage; for if she had less
charm of mind, she had more solidity of judgment: versed in politics,
philosophy, history; rhetoric, poetry and music, besides English, her
maternal tongue, she spoke and wrote to perfection Greek, Latin,
French, Italian and Spanish; but while Elizabeth excelled Mary on
this point, in her turn Mary was more beautiful, and above all more
attractive, than her rival. Elizabeth had, it is true, a majestic
and agreeable appearance, bright quick eyes, a dazzlingly white
complexion; but she had red hair, a large foot,--[Elizabeth bestowed
a pair of her shoes on the University of Oxford; their size would
point to their being those of a man of average stature.]--and a
powerful hand, while Mary, on the contrary, with her beautiful ashy-
fair hair,--[Several historians assert that Mary Stuart had black
hair; but Brantome, who had seen it, since, as we have said, he
accompanied her to Scotland, affirms that it was fair. And, so
saying, he (the executioner) took off her headdress, in a
contemptuous manner, to display her hair already white, that while
alive, however, she feared not to show, nor yet to twist and frizz as
in the days when it was so beautiful and so fair.]--her noble open
forehead, eyebrows which could be only blamed for being so regularly
arched that they looked as if drawn by a pencil, eyes continually
beaming with the witchery of fire, a nose of perfect Grecian outline,
a mouth so ruby red and gracious that it seemed that, as a flower
opens but to let its perfume escape, so it could not open but to give
passage to gentle words, with a neck white and graceful as a swan's,
hands of alabaster, with a form like a goddess's and a foot like a
child's, Mary was a harmony in which the most ardent enthusiast for
sculptured form could have found nothing to reproach.
This was indeed Mary's great and real crime: one single imperfection
in face or figure, and she would not have died upon the scaffold.
Besides, to Elizabeth, who had never seen her, and who consequently
could only judge by hearsay, this beauty was a great cause of
uneasiness and of jealousy, which she could not even disguise, and
which showed itself unceasingly in eager questions. One day when she
was chatting with James Melville about his mission to her court,
Mary's offer to be guided by Elizabeth in her choice of a husband,--a
choice which the queen of England had seemed at first to wish to see
fixed on the Earl of Leicester,--she led the Scotch ambassador into a
cabinet, where she showed him several portraits with labels in her
own handwriting: the first was one of the Earl of Leicester. As this
nobleman was precisely the suitor chosen by Elizabeth, Melville asked
the queen to give it him to show to his mistress; but Elizabeth
refused, saying that it was the only one she had. Melville then
replied, smiling, that being in possession of the original she might
well part with the copy; but Elizabeth would on no account consent.
This little discussion ended, she showed him the portrait of Mary
Stuart, which she kissed very tenderly, expressing to Melville a
great wish to see his mistress. "That is very easy, madam," he
replied: "keep your room, on the pretext that you are indisposed, and
set out incognito for Scotland, as King James V set out for France
when he wanted to see Madeleine de Valois, whom he afterwards
married."
"Alas!" replied Elizabeth, "I would like to do so, but it is not so
easy as you think. Nevertheless, tell your queen that I love her
tenderly, and that I wish we could live more in friendship than we
have done up to the present". Then passing to a subject which she
seemed to have wanted to broach for a long time, "Melville," she
continued, "tell me frankly, is my sister as beautiful as they say?"
"She has that reputation," replied Melville; "but I cannot give your
Majesty any idea of hex beauty, having no point of comparison."
"I will give you one," the queen said. "Is she more beautiful than
I?"
"Madam," replied Melville, "you are the most beautiful woman in
England, and Mary Stuart is the most beautiful woman in Scotland."
"Then which of the two is the taller?" asked Elizabeth, who was not
entirely satisfied by this answer, clever as it was.
"My mistress, madam," responded Melville; "I am obliged to confess
it."
"Then she is too tall," Elizabeth said sharply, "for I am tall
enough. And what are her favourite amusements?" she continued.
"Madam," Melville replied, "hunting, riding, performing on the lute
and the harpischord."
"Is she skilled upon the latter?" Elizabeth inquired. "Oh yes,
madam," answered Melville; "skilled enough for a queen."
There the conversation stopped; but as Elizabeth was herself an
excellent musician, she commanded Lord Hunsdon to bring Melville to
her at a time when she was at her harpischord, so that he could hear
her without her seeming to have the air of playing for him. In fact,
the same day, Hunsdon, agreeably to her instructions, led the
ambassador into a gallery separated from the queen's apartment merely
by tapestry, so that his guide having raised it. Melville at his
leisure could hear Elizabeth, who did not turn round until she had
finished the piece, which, however, she was playing with much skill.
When she saw Melville, she pretended to fly into a passion, and even
wanted to strike him; but her anger calmed down by little and little
at the ambassador's compliments, and ceased altogether when he
admitted that Mary Stuart was not her equal. But this was not all:
proud of her triumph, Elizabeth desired also that Melville should see
her dance. Accordingly, she kept back her despatches for two days
that he might be present at a ball that she was giving. These
despatches, as we have said, contained the wish that Mary Stuart
should espouse Leicester; but this proposal could not be taken
seriously. Leicester, whose personal worth was besides sufficiently
mediocre, was of birth too inferior to aspire to the hand of the
daughter of so many kings; thus Mary replied that such an alliance
would not become her. Meanwhile, something strange and tragic came
to pass.
CHAPTER II
Among the lords who had followed Mary Stuart to Scotland was, as we
have mentioned, a young nobleman named Chatelard, a true type of the
nobility of that time, a nephew of Bayard on his mother's side, a
poet and a knight, talented and courageous, and attached to Marshal
Damville, of whose household he formed one. Thanks to this high
position, Chatelard, throughout her stay in France, paid court to
Mary Stuart, who, in the homage he rendered her in verse, saw nothing
more than those poetical declarations of gallantry customary in that
age, and with which she especially was daily overwhelmed. But it
happened that about the time when Chatelard was most in love with the
queen she was obliged to leave France, as we have said. Then Marshal
Damville, who knew nothing of Chatelard's passion, and who himself,
encouraged by Mary's kindness, was among the candidates to succeed
Francis II as husband, set out for Scotland with the poor exile,
taking Chatelard with him, and, not imagining he would find a rival
in him, he made a confidant of him, and left him with Mary when he
was obliged to leave her, charging the young poet to support with her
the interests of his suit. This post as confidant brought Mary and
Chatelard more together; and, as in her capacity as poet, the queen
treated him like a brother, he made bold in his passion to risk all
to obtain another title. Accordingly, one evening he got into Mary
Stuart's room, and hid himself under the bed; but at the moment when
the queen was beginning to undress, a little dog she had began to
yelp so loudly that her women came running at his barking, and, led
by this indication, perceived Chatelard. A woman easily pardons a
crime for which too great love is the excuse: Mary Stuart was woman
before being queen--she pardoned.
But this kindness only increased Chatelard's confidence: he put down
the reprimand he had received to the presence of the queen's women,
and supposed that if she had been alone she would have forgiven him
still more completely; so that, three weeks after, this same scene
was repeated. But this time, Chatelard, discovered in a cupboard,
when the queen was already in bed, was placed under arrest.
The moment was badly chosen: such a scandal, just when the queen was
about to re-marry, was fatal to Mary, let alone to Chatelard. Murray
took the affair in hand, and, thinking that a public trial could
alone save his sister's reputation, he urged the prosecution with
such vigour, that Chatelard, convicted of the crime of lese-majeste,
was condemned to death. Mary entreated her brother that Chatelard
might be sent back to France; but Murray made her see what terrible
consequences such a use of her right of pardon might have, so that
Mary was obliged to let justice take its course: Chatelard was led to
execution. Arrived on the scaffold, which was set up before the
queen's palace, Chatelard, who had declined the services of a priest,
had Ronsard's Ode on Death read; and when the reading, which he
followed with evident pleasure, was ended, he turned--towards the
queen's windows, and, having cried out for the last time, "Adieu,
loveliest and most cruel of princesses!" he stretched out his neck to
the executioner, without displaying any repentance or uttering any
complaint. This death made all the more impression upon Mary, that
she did not dare to show her sympathy openly.
Meanwhile there was a rumour that the queen of Scotland was
consenting to a new marriage, and several suitors came forward,
sprung from the principal reigning families of Europe: first, the
Archduke Charles, third son of the Emperor of Germany; then the Duke
of Anjou, who afterwards became Henry III. But to wed a foreign
prince was to give up her claims to the English crown. So Mary
refused, and, making a merit of this to Elizabeth, she cast her eyes
on a relation of the latter's, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, son of the
Earl of Lennox. Elizabeth, who had nothing plausible to urge against
this marriage, since the Queen of Scotland not only chose an
Englishman for husband, but was marrying into her own family, allowed
the Earl of Lennox and his son to go to the Scotch court, reserving
it to herself, if matters appeared to take a serious turn, to recall
them both--a command which they would be constrained to obey, since
all their property was in England.
Darnley was eighteen years of age: he was handsome, well-made,
elegant; he talked in that attractive manner of the young nobles of
the French and English courts that Mary no longer heard since her
exile in Scotland; she let herself be deceived by these appearances,
and did not see that under this brilliant exterior Darnley hid utter
insignificance, dubious courage, and a fickle and churlish character.
It is true that he came to her under the auspices of a man whose
influence was as striking as the risen fortune which gave him the
opportunity to exert it. We refer to David Rizzio.
David Rizzio, who played such a great part in the life of Mary
Stuart, whose strange favour for him has given her enemies, probably
without any cause, such cruel weapons against her, was the son of a
Turin musician burdened with a numerous family, who, recognising in
him a pronounced musical taste, had him instructed in the first
principles of the art. At the age of fifteen he had left his
father's house and had gone on foot to Nice, where the Duke of Savoy
held his court; there he entered the service of the Duke of Moreto,
and this lord having been appointed, some years afterwards, to the
Scottish embassy, Rizzio followed him to Scotland. As this young man
had a very fine voice, and accompanied on the viol and fiddle songs
of which both the airs and the words were of his own composition, the
ambassador spoke of him to Mary, who wished to see him. Rizzio, full
of confidence in himself, and seeing in the queen's desire a road to
success, hastened to obey her command, sang before her, and pleased
her. She begged him then of Moreto, making no more of it than if she
had asked of him a thoroughbred dog or a well-trained falcon. Moreta
presented him to her, delighted at finding such an opportunity to pay
his court; but scarcely was Rizzio in her service than Mary
discovered that music was the least of his gifts, that he possessed,
besides that, education if not profound at least varied, a supple
mind, a lively imagination, gentle ways, and at the same time much
boldness and presumption. He reminded her of those Italian artists
whom she had seen at the French court, and spoke to her the tongue of
Marot and Ronsard, whose most beautiful poems he knew by heart: this
was more than enough to please Mary Stuart. In a short time he
became her favourite, and meanwhile the place of secretary for the
French despatches falling vacant, Rizzio was provided for with it.
Darnley, who wished to succeed at all costs, enlisted Rizzio in his
interests, unconscious that he had no need of this support; and as,
on her side, Mary, who had fallen in love with him at first sight,
fearing some new intrigue of Elizabeth's, hastened on this union so
far as the proprieties permitted, the affair moved forward with
wonderful rapidity; and in the midst of public rejoicing, with the
approbation of the nobility, except for a small minority, with Murray
at its head, the marriage was solemnised under the happiest auspices,
29th July 1565. Two days before, Darnley and his father, the Earl of
Lennox, had received a command to return to London, and as they had
not obeyed it, a week after the celebration of the marriage they
learned that the Countess of Lennox, the only one of the family
remaining in Elizabeth's power, had been arrested and taken to the
Tower. Thus Elizabeth, in spite of her dissimulation, yielding to
that first impulse of violence that she always had such trouble to
overcome, publicly displayed her resentment.
However, Elizabeth was not the woman to be satisfied with useless
vengeance: she soon released the countess, and turned her eyes
towards Murray, the most discontented of the nobles in opposition,
who by this marriage was losing all his personal influence. It was
thus easy for Elizabeth to put arms in his hand. In fact, when he
had failed in his first attempt to seize Darnley, he called to his
aid the Duke of Chatellerault, Glencairn, Argyll, and Rothes, and
collecting what partisans they could, they openly rebelled against
the queen. This was the first ostensible act of that hatred which
was afterwards so fatal to Mary.
The queen, on her side, appealed to her nobles, who in response
hastened to rally to her, so that in a month's time she found herself
at the head of the finest army that ever a king of Scotland had
raised. Darnley assumed the command of this magnificent assembly,
mounted on a superb horse, arrayed in gilded armour; and accompanied
by the queen, who, in a riding habit, with pistols at her saddle-bow,
wished to make the campaign with him, that she might not quit his
side for a moment. Both were young, both were handsome, and they
left Edinburgh amidst the cheers of the people and the army.
Murray and his accomplices did not even try to stand against them,
and the campaign consisted of such rapid and complex marches and
counter-marches, that this rebellion is called the Run-about Raid-
that is to say, the run in every sense of the word. Murray and the
rebels withdrew into England, where Elizabeth, while seeming to
condemn their unlucky attempt, afforded them all the assistance they
needed.
Mary returned to Edinburgh delighted at the success of her two first
campaigns, not suspecting that this new good fortune was the last she
would have, and that there her short-lived prosperity would cease.
Indeed, she soon saw that in Darnley she had given herself not a
devoted and very attentive husband, as she had believed, but an
imperious and brutal master, who, no longer having any motive for
concealment, showed himself to her just as he was, a man of
disgraceful vices, of which drunkenness and debauchery was the least.
Accordingly, serious differences were not long in springing up in
this royal household.
Darnley in wedding Mary had not become king, but merely the queen's
husband. To confer on him authority nearly equalling a regent's, it
was necessary that Mary should grant him what was termed the crown
matrimonial--a crown Francis II had worn during his short royalty,
and that Mary, after Darnley's conduct to herself, had not the
slightest intention of bestowing on him. Thus, to whatever
entreaties he made, in whatever form they were wrapped, Mary merely
replied with an unvaried and obstinate refusal. Darnley, amazed at
this force of will in a young queen who had loved him enough to raise
him to her, and not believing that she could find it in herself,
sought in her entourage for some secret and influential adviser who
might have inspired her with it. His suspicions fell on Rizzio.
In reality, to whatever cause Rizzio owed his power (and to even the
most clear-sighted historians this point has always remained
obscure), be it that he ruled as lover, be it that he advised as
minister, his counsels as long as he lived were always given for the
greater glory of the queen. Sprung from so low, he at least wished
to show himself worthy, of having risen so high, and owing everything
to Mary, he tried to repay her with devotion. Thus Darnley was not
mistaken, and it was indeed Rizzio who, in despair at having helped
to bring about a union which he foresaw must become so unfortunate,
gave Mary the advice not to give up any of her power to one who
already possessed much more than he deserved, in possessing her
person.
Darnley, like all persons of both weak and violent character,
disbelieved in the persistence of will in others, unless this will
was sustained by an outside influence. He thought that in ridding
himself of Rizzio he could not fail to gain the day, since, as he
believed, he alone was opposing the grant of this great desire of
his, the crown matrimonial. Consequently, as Rizzio was disliked by
the nobles in proportion as his merits had raised him above them, it
was easy for Darnley to organise a conspiracy, and James Douglas of
Morton, chancellor of the kingdom, consented to act as chief.
This is the second time since the beginning of our narrative that we
inscribe this name Douglas, so often pronounced, in Scottish history,
and which at this time, extinct in the elder branch, known as the
Black Douglases, was perpetuated in the younger branch, known as the
Red Douglases. It was an ancient, noble, and powerful family, which,
when the descent in the male line from Robert Bruce had lapsed,
disputed the royal title with the first Stuart, and which since then
had constantly kept alongside the throne, sometimes its support,
sometimes its enemy, envying every great house, for greatness made it
uneasy, but above all envious of the house of Hamilton, which, if not
its equal, was at any rate after itself the next most powerful.
During the whole reign of James V, thanks to the hatred which the
king bore them, the Douglases had: not only lost all their influence,
but had also been exiled to England. This hatred was on account of
their having seized the guardianship of the young prince and kept him
prisoner till he was fifteen. Then, with the help of one of his
pages, James V had escaped from Falkland, and had reached Stirling,
whose governor was in his interests. Scarcely was he safe in the
castle than he made proclamation that any Douglas who should approach
within a dozen miles of it would be prosecuted for high treason.
This was not all: he obtained a decree from Parliament, declaring
them guilty of felony, and condemning them to exile; they remained
proscribed, then, during the king's lifetime, and returned to
Scotland only upon his death. The result was that, although they had
been recalled about the throne, and though, thanks to the past
influence of Murray, who, one remembers, was a Douglas on the
mother's side, they filled the most important posts there, they had
not forgiven to the daughter the enmity borne them by the father.
This was why James Douglas, chancellor as he was, and consequently
entrusted with the execution of the laws, put himself at the head of
a conspiracy which had for its aim the violation of all laws; human
and divine.
Douglas's first idea had been to treat Rizzio as the favourites of
James III had been treated at the Bridge of Lauder--that is to say,
to make a show of having a trial and to hang him afterwards. But
such a death did not suffice for Darnley's vengeance; as above
everything he wished to punish the queen in Rizzio's person, he
exacted that the murder should take place in her presence.
Douglas associated with himself Lord Ruthven, an idle and dissolute
sybarite, who under the circumstances promised to push his devotion
so far as to wear a cuirass; then, sure of this important accomplice,
he busied himself with finding other agents.
However, the plot was not woven with such secrecy but that something
of it transpired; and Rizzio received several warnings that he
despised. Sir James Melville, among others, tried every means to
make him understand the perils a stranger ran who enjoyed such
absolute confidence in a wild, jealous court like that of Scotland.
Rizzio received these hints as if resolved not to apply them to
himself; and Sir James Melville, satisfied that he had done enough to
ease his conscience, did not insist further. Then a French priest,
who had a reputation as a clever astrologer, got himself admitted to
Rizzio, and warned him that the stars predicted that he was in deadly
peril, and that he should beware of a certain bastard above all.
Rizzio replied that from the day when he had been honoured with his
sovereign's confidence, he had sacrificed in advance his life to his
position; that since that time, however, he had had occasion to
notice that in general the Scotch were ready to threaten but slow to
act; that, as to the bastard referred to, who was doubtless the Earl
of Murray, he would take care that he should never enter Scotland far
enough for his sword to reach him, were it as long as from Dumfries
to Edinburgh; which in other words was as much as to say that Murray
should remain exiled in England for life, since Dumfries was one of
the principal frontier towns.
Meanwhile the conspiracy proceeded, and Douglas and Ruthven, having
collected their accomplices and taken their measures, came to Darnley
to finish the compact. As the price of the bloody service they
rendered the king, they exacted from him a promise to obtain the
pardon of Murray and the nobles compromised with him in the affair of
the "run in every sense". Darnley granted all they asked of him, and
a messenger was sent to Murray to inform him of the expedition in
preparation, and to invite him to hold himself in readiness to
reenter Scotland at the first notice he should receive. Then, this
point settled, they made Darnley sign a paper in which he
acknowledged himself the author and chief of the enterprise. The
other assassins were the Earl of Morton, the Earl of Ruthven, George
Douglas the bastard of Angus, Lindley, and Andrew, Carew. The
remainder were soldiers, simple murderers' tools, who did not even
know what was afoot. Darnley reserved it for himself to appoint the
time.
Two days after these conditions were agreed upon, Darnley having been
notified that the queen was alone with Rizzio, wished to make himself
sure of the degree of her favour enjoyed by the minister. He
accordingly went to her apartment by a little door of which he always
kept the key upon him; but though the key turned in the lock, the
door did not open. Then Darnley knocked, announcing himself; but
such was the contempt into which he had fallen with the queen, that
Mary left him outside, although, supposing she had been alone with
Rizzio, she would have had time to send him away. Darnley, driven to
extremities by this, summoned Morton, Ruthven, Lennox, Lindley, and
Douglas's bastard, and fixed the assassination of Rizzio for two days
later.
They had just completed all the details, and had, distributed the
parts that each must play in this bloody tragedy, when suddenly, and
at the moment when they least expected it, the door opened and, Mary
Stuart appeared on the threshold.
"My lords," said she, "your holding these secret counsels is useless.
I am informed of your plots, and with God's help I shall soon apply a
remedy".
With these words, and before the conspirators hid had time to collect
themselves, she shut the door again, and vanished like a passing but
threatening vision. All remained thunderstruck. Morton was the
first to find his tongue.
"My lords," said he, "this is a game of life and death, and the
winner will not be the cleverest or the strongest, but the readiest.
If we do not destroy this man, we are lost. We must strike him down,
this very evening, not the day after to-morrow."
Everyone applauded, even Ruthven, who, still pale and feverish from
riotous living, promised not to be behindhand. The only point
changed, on Morton's suggestion, was that the murder should take
place next day; for, in the opinion of all, not less than a day's
interval was needed to collect the minor conspirators, who numbered
not less than five hundred.
The next day, which was Saturday, March 9th, 1566, Mary Stuart, who
had inherited from her father, James V, a dislike of ceremony and the
need of liberty, had invited to supper with her six persons, Rizzio
among the number. Darnley, informed of this in the morning,
immediately gave notice of it to the conspirators, telling them that
he himself would let them into the palace between six and seven
o'clock in the evening. The conspirators replied that they would be
in readiness.
The morning had been dark and stormy, as nearly all the first days of
spring are in Scotland, and towards evening the snow and wind
redoubled in depth and violence. So Mary had remained shut up with
Rizzio, and Darnley, who had gone to the secret door several times,
could hear the sound of instruments and the voice of the favourite,
who was singing those sweet melodies which have come down to our
time, and which Edinburgh people still attribute to him. These songs
were for Mary a reminder of her stay in France, where the artists in
the train of the Medicis had already brought echoes from Italy; but
for Darnley they were an insult, and each time he had withdrawn
strengthened in his design.
At the appointed time, the conspirators, who had been given the
password during the day, knocked at the palace gate, and were
received there so much the more easily that Darnley himself, wrapped
in a great cloak, awaited them at the postern by which they were
admitted. The five hundred soldiers immediately stole into an inner
courtyard, where they placed themselves under some sheds, as much to
keep themselves from the cold as that they might not be seen on the
snow-covered ground. A brightly lighted window looked into this
courtyard; it was that of the queen's study: at the first signal give
them from this window, the soldiers were to break in the door and go
to the help of the chief conspirators.
These instructions given, Darnley led Morton, Ruthven, Lennox,
Lindley, Andrew Carew, and Douglas's bastard into the room adjoining
the study, and only separated from it by a tapestry hanging before
the door. From there one could overhear all that was being said, and
at a single bound fall upon the guests.
Darnley left them in this room, enjoining silence; then, giving them
as a signal to enter the moment when they should hear him cry, "To
me, Douglas!" he went round by the secret passage, so that seeing him
come in by his usual door the queen's suspicions might not be roused
by his unlooked-for visit.
Mary was at supper with six persons, having, say de Thou and
Melville, Rizzio seated on her right; while, on the contrary,
Carapden assures us that he was eating standing at a sideboard. The
talk was gay and intimate; for all were giving themselves up to the
ease one feels at being safe and warm, at a hospitable board, while
the snow is beating against the windows and the wind roaring in the
chimneys. Suddenly Mary, surprised that the most profound silence
had succeeded to the lively and animated flow of words among her
guests since the beginning of supper, and suspecting, from their
glances, that the cause of their uneasiness was behind her, turned
round and saw Darnley leaning on the back of her chair. The queen
shuddered; for although her husband was smiling when looking at
Rizzio, this smile lead assumed such a strange expression that it was
clear that something terrible was about to happen. At the same
moment, Mary heard in the next room a heavy, dragging step drew near
the cabinet, then the tapestry was raised, and Lord Ruthven, in
armour of which he could barely support the weight, pale as a ghost,
appeared on the threshold, and, drawing his sword in silence, leaned
upon it.
The queen thought he was delirious.
"What do you want, my lord?" she said to him; "and why do you come to
the palace like this?"
"Ask the king, madam," replied Ruthven in an indistinct voice. "It is
for him to answer."
"Explain, my lord," Mary demanded, turning again towards Darnley;
"what does such a neglect of ordinary propriety mean?"
"It means, madam," returned Darnley, pointing to Rizzio, "that that
man must leave here this very minute."
"That man is mine, my lord," Mary said, rising proudly, "and
consequently takes orders only from me."
"To me, Douglas!" cried Darnley.
At these words, the conspirators, who for some moments had drawn
nearer Ruthven, fearing, so changeable was Darnley's character, lest
he had brought them in vain and would not dare to utter the signal
--at these words, the conspirators rushed into the room with such
haste that they overturned the table. Then David Rizzio, seeing that
it was he alone they wanted, threw himself on his knees behind the
queen, seizing the hem of her robe and crying in Italian, "Giustizia!
giustizia!" Indeed, the queen, true to her character, not allowing
herself to be intimidated by this terrible irruption, placed herself
in front of Rizzio and sheltered him behind her Majesty. But she
counted too much on the respect of a nobility accustomed to struggle
hand to hand with its kings for five centuries. Andrew Carew held a
dagger to her breast and threatened to kill her if she insisted on
defending any longer him whose death was resolved upon. Then
Darnley, without consideration for the queen's pregnancy, seized her
round the waist and bore her away from Rizzio, who remained on his
knees pale and trembling, while Douglas's bastard, confirming the
prediction of the astrologer who had warned Rizzio to beware of a
certain bastard, drawing the king's own dagger, plunged it into the
breast of the minister, who fell wounded, but not dead. Morton
immediately took him by the feet and dragged him from the cabinet
into the larger room, leaving on the floor that long track of blood
which is still shown there; then, arrived there, each rushed upon him
as upon a quarry, and set upon the corpse, which they stabbed in
fifty-six places. Meanwhile Darnley held the queen, who, thinking
that all was not over, did not cease crying for mercy. But Ruthven
came back, paler than at first, and at Darnley's inquiry if Rizzio
were dead, he nodded in the affirmative; then, as he could not bear
further fatigue in his convalescent state, he sat down, although the
queen, whom Darnley had at last released, remained standing on the
same spot. At this Mary could not contain herself.
"My lord," cried she, "who has given you permission to sit down in my
presence, and whence comes such insolence?"
"Madam," Ruthven answered, "I act thus not from insolence, but from
weakness; for, to serve your husband, I have just taken more exercise
than my doctors allow". Then turning round to a servant, "Give me a
glass of wine," said he, showing Darnley his bloody dagger before
putting it back in its sheath, "for here is the proof that I have
well earned it". The servant obeyed, and Ruthven drained his glass
with as much calmness as if he had just performed the most innocent
act.
"My lord," the queen then said, taking a step towards him, "it may be
that as I am a woman, in spite of my desire and my will, I never find
an opportunity to repay you what you are doing to me; but," she
added, energetically striking her womb with her hand, "he whom I bear
there, and whose life you should have respected, since you respect my
Majesty so little, will one day revenge me for all these insults".
Then, with a gesture at once superb and threatening, she withdrew by
Darnley's door, which she closed behind her.
At that moment a great noise was heard in the queen's room. Huntly,
Athol, and Bothwell, who, we are soon about to see, play such an
important part in the sequel of this history, were supping together
in another hall of the palace, when suddenly they had heard outcries
and the clash of arms, so that they had run with all speed. When
Athol, who came first, without knowing whose it was, struck against
the dead body of Rizzio, which was stretched at the top of the
staircase, they believed, seeing someone assassinated, that the lives
of the king and queen were threatened, and they had drawn their
swords to force the door that Morton was guarding. But directly
Darnley understood what was going on, he darted from the cabinet,
followed by Ruthven, and showing himself to the newcomers--
"My lords," he said, "the persons of the queen and myself are safe,
and nothing has occurred here but by our orders. Withdraw, then; you
will know more about it in time. As to him," he added, holding up
Rizzio's head by the hair, whilst the bastard of Douglas lit up the
face with a torch so that it could be recognised, "you see who it is,
and whether it is worth your while to get into trouble for him".
And in fact, as soon as Huntly, Athol, and Bothwell had recognised
the musician-minister, they sheathed their swords, and, having
saluted the king, went away.
Mary had gone away with a single thought in her heart, vengeance.
But she understood that she could not revenge herself at one and the
same time on her husband and his companions: she set to work, then,
with all the charms of her wit and beauty to detach the kind from his
accomplices. It was not a difficult task: when that brutal rage
which often carried Darnley beyond all bounds was spent, he was
frightened himself at the crime he had committed, and while the
assassins, assembled by Murray, were resolving that he should have
that greatly desired crown matrimonial, Darnley, as fickle as he was
violent, and as cowardly as he was cruel, in Mary's very room, before
the scarcely dried blood, made another compact, in which he engaged
to deliver up his accomplices. Indeed, three days after the event
that we have just related, the murderers learned a strange piece of
news--that Darnley and Mary, accompanied by Lord Seyton, had escaped
together from Holyrood Palace. Three days later still, a
proclamation appeared, signed by Mary and dated from Dunbar, which
summoned round the queen, in her own name and the king's, all the
Scottish lords and barons, including those who had been compromised
in the affair of the "run in every sense," to whom she not only
granted full and complete pardon, but also restored her entire
confidence. In this way she separated Murray's cause from that of
Morton and the other assassins, who, in their turn, seeing that there
was no longer any safety for them in Scotland, fled to England, where
all the queen's enemies were always certain to find a warm welcome,
in spite of the good relations which reigned in appearance between
Mary and Elizabeth. As to Bothwell, who had wanted to oppose the
assassination, he was appointed Warden of all the Marches of the
Kingdom.
Unfortunately for her honour, Mary, always more the woman than the
queen, while, on the contrary, Elizabeth was always more the queen
than the woman, had no sooner regained her power than her first royal
act was to exhume Rizzio, who had been quietly buried on the
threshold of the chapel nearest Holyrood Palace, and to have him
removed to the burial-place of the Scottish kings, compromising
herself still more by the honours she paid him dead than by the
favour she had granted him living.
Such an imprudent demonstration naturally led to fresh quarrels
between Mary and Darnley: these quarrels were the more bitter that,
as one can well understand, the reconciliation between the husband
and wife, at least on the latter's side, had never been anything but
a pretence; so that, feeling herself in a stronger position still on
account of her pregnancy, she restrained herself no longer, and,
leaving Darnley, she went from Dunbar to Edinburgh Castle, where on
June 19th, 1566, three months after the assassination of Rizzio, she
gave birth to a son who afterwards became James VI.
CHAPTER III
Directly she was delivered, Mary sent for James Melville, her usual
envoy to Elizabeth, and charged him to convey this news to the Queen
of England, and to beg her to be godmother to the royal child at the
same time. On arriving in London, Melville immediately presented
himself at the palace; but as there was a court ball, he could not
see the queen, and contented himself with making known the reason for
his journey to the minister Cecil, and with begging him to ask his
mistress for an audience next day. Elizabeth was dancing in a
quadrille at the moment when Cecil, approaching her, said in a low
voice, "Queen Mary of Scotland has just given birth to a son". At
these words she grew frightfully pale, and, looking about her with a
bewildered air, and as if she were about to faint, she leaned against
an arm-chair; then, soon, not being able to stand upright, she sat
down, threw back her head, and plunged into a mournful reverie. Then
one of the ladies of her court, breaking through the circle which had
formed round the queen, approached her, ill at ease, and asked her of
what she was thinking so sadly. "Ah! madam," Elizabeth replied
impatiently, "do you not know that Mary Stuart has given birth to a
son, while I am but a barren stock, who will die without offspring?"
Yet Elizabeth was too good a politician, in spite of her liability to
be carried away by a first impulse, to compromise herself by a longer
display of her grief. The ball was not discontinued on that account,
and the interrupted quadrille was resumed and finished.
The next day, Melville had his audience. Elizabeth received him to
perfection, assuring him of all the pleasure that the news he brought
had caused her, and which, she said, had cured her of a complaint
from which she had suffered for a fortnight. Melville replied that
his mistress had hastened to acquaint her with her joy, knowing that
she had no better friend; but he added that this joy had nearly cost
Mary her life, so grievous had been her confinement. As he was
returning to this point for the third time, with the object of still
further increasing the queen of England's dislike to marriage--
"Be easy, Melville," Elizabeth answered him; "you need not insist
upon it. I shall never marry; my kingdom takes the place of a
husband for me, and my subjects are my children. When I am dead, I
wish graven on my tombstone: 'Here lies Elizabeth, who reigned so
many years, and who died a virgin.'"
Melville availed himself of this opportunity to remind Elizabeth of
the desire she had shown to see Mary, three or four years before; but
Elizabeth said, besides her country's affairs, which necessitated her
presence in the heart of her possessions, she did not care, after all
she had heard said of her rival's beauty, to expose herself to a
comparison disadvantageous to her pride. She contented herself,
then, with choosing as her proxy the Earl of Bedford, who set out
with several other noblemen for Stirling Castle, where the young
prince was christened with great pomp, and received the name of
Charles James.
It was remarked that Darnley did not appear at this ceremony, and
that his absence seemed to scandalise greatly the queen of England's
envoy. On the contrary, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, had the
most important place there.
This was because, since the evening when Bothwell, at Mary's cries,
had run to oppose the murder of Rizzio, he had made great way in the
queen's favour; to her party he himself appeared to be really
attached, to the exclusion of the two others, the king's and the Earl
of Murray's. Bothwell was already thirty-five years old, head of the
powerful family of Hepburn, which had great influence in East Lothian
and the county of Berwick; for the rest, violent, rough, given to
every kind of debauchery, and capable of anything to satisfy an
ambition that he did not even give himself the trouble to hide. In
his youth he had been reputed courageous, but for long he had had no
serious opportunity to draw the sword.
If the king's authority had been shaken by Rizzio's influence, it was
entirely upset by Bothwell's. The great nobles, following the
favourite's example, no longer rose in the presence of Darnley, and
ceased little by little to treat him as their equal: his retinue was
cut down, his silver plate taken from him, and some officers who
remained about him made him buy their services with the most bitter
vexations. As for the queen, she no longer even took the trouble to
conceal her dislike for him, avoiding him without consideration, to
such a degree that one day when she had gone with Bothwell to Alway,
she left there again immediately, because Darnley came to join her.
The king, however, still had patience; but a fresh imprudence of
Mary's at last led to the terrible catastrophe that, since the
queen's liaison with Bothwell, some had already foreseen.
Towards the end of the month of October, 1566, while the queen was
holding a court of justice at Jedburgh, it was announced to her that
Bothwell, in trying to seize a malefactor called John Elliot of Park,
had been badly wounded in the hand; the queen, who was about to
attend the council, immediately postponed the sitting till next day,
and, having ordered a horse to be saddled, she set out for Hermitage
Castle, where Bothwell was living, and covered the distance at a
stretch, although it was twenty miles, and she had to go across
woods, marshes, and rivers; then, having remained some hours tete-d-
tete with him, she set out again with the same sped for Jedburgh, to
which she returned in the night.
Although this proceeding had made a great deal of talk, which was
inflamed still more by the queen's enemies, who chiefly belonged to
the Reformed religion, Darnley did not hear of it till nearly two
months afterwards--that is to say, when Bothwell, completely
recovered, returned with the queen to Edinburgh.
Then Darnley thought that he ought not to put up any longer with such
humiliations. But as, since his treason to his accomplices, he had
not found in all Scotland a noble who would have drawn the sword for
him, he resolved to go and seek the Earl of Lennox, his father,
hoping that through his influence he could rally the malcontents, of
whom there were a great number since Bothwell had been in favour.
Unfortunately, Darnley, indiscreet and imprudent as usual, confided
this plan to some of his officers, who warned Bothwell of their
master's intention. Bothwell did not seem to oppose the journey in
any way; but Darnley was scarcely a mile from Edinburgh when he felt
violent pains none the less, he continued his road, and arrived very
ill at Glasgow. He immediately sent for a celebrated doctor, called
James Abrenets, who found his body covered with pimples, and declared
without any hesitation that he had been poisoned. However, others,
among them Walter Scott, state that this illness was nothing else
than smallpox.
Whatever it may have been, the queen, in the presence of the danger
her husband ran, appeared to forget her resentment, and at the risk
of what might prove troublesome to herself, she went to Darnley,
after sending her doctor in advance. It is true that if one is to
believe in the following letters, dated from Glasgow, which Mary is
accused of having written to Bothwell, she knew the illness with
which he was attacked too well to fear infection. As these letters
are little known, and seem to us very singular we transcribe them
here; later we shall tell how they fell into the power of the
Confederate lords, and from their hands passed into Elizabeth's, who,
quite delighted, cried on receiving them, "God's death, then I hold
her life and honour in my hands!"
FIRST LETTER
"When I set out from the place where I had left my heart, judge in
what a condition I was, poor body without a soul: besides, during the
whole of dinner I have not spoken to anyone, and no one has dared to
approach me, for it was easy to see that there was something amiss.
When I arrived within a league of the town, the Earl of Lennox sent
me one of his gentlemen to make me his compliments, and to excuse
himself for not having come in person; he has caused me to be
informed, moreover, that he did not dare to present himself before me
after the reprimand that I gave Cunningham. This gentleman begged
me, as if of his own accord, to examine his master's conduct, to
ascertain if my suspicions were well founded. I have replied to him
that fear was an incurable disease, that the Earl of Lennox would not
be so agitated if his conscience reproached him with nothing, and
that if some hasty words had escaped me, they were but just reprisals
for the letter he had written me.
"None of the inhabitants visited me, which makes me think they are
all in his interests; besides, they speak of him very favourably, as
well as of his son. The king sent for Joachim yesterday, and asked
him why I did not lodge with him, adding that my presence would soon
cure him, and asked me also with what object I had come: if it were
to be reconciled with him; if you were here; if I had taken Paris and
Gilbert as secretaries, and if I were still resolved to dismiss
Joseph? I do not know who has given him such accurate information.
There is nothing, down to the marriage of Sebastian, with which he
has not made himself acquainted. I have asked him the meaning of one
of his letters, in which he complains of the cruelty of certain
people. He replied that he was--stricken, but that my presence caused
him so much joy that he thought he should die of it. He reproached
me several times for being dreamy; I left him to go to supper; he
begged me to return: I went back. Then he told me the story of his
illness, and that he wished to make a will leaving me everything,
adding that I was a little the cause of his trouble, and that he
attributed it to my coldness. 'You ask me,' added he, 'who are the
people of whom I complain: it is of you, cruel one, of you, whom I
have never been able to appease by my tears and my repentance. I
know that I have offended you, but not on the matter that you
reproach me with: I have also offended some of your subjects, but
that you have forgiven me. I am young, and you say that I always
relapse into my faults; but cannot a young man like me, destitute of
experience, gain it also, break his promises, repent directly, and in
time improve? If you will forgive me yet once more, I will promise
to offend you never again. All the favour I ask of you is that we
should live together like husband and wife, to have but one bed and
one board: if you are inflexible, I shall never rise again from here.
I entreat you, tell me your decision: God alone knows what I suffer,
and that because I occupy myself with you only, because I love and
adore only you. If I have offended you sometimes, you must bear the
reproach; for when someone offends me, if it were granted me to
complain to you, I should not confide my griefs to others; but when
we are on bad terms, I am obliged to keep them to myself, and that
maddens me.'
"He then urged me strongly to stay with him and lodge in his house;
but I excused myself, and replied that he ought to be purged, and
that he could not be, conveniently, at Glasgow; then he told me that
he knew I had brought a letter for him, but that he would have
preferred to make the journey with me. He believed, I think, that I
meant to send him to some prison: I replied that I should take him to
Craigmiller, that he would find doctors there, that I should remain
near him, and that we should be within reach of seeing my son. He
has answered that he will go where I wish to take him, provided that
I grant him what he has asked. He does not, however, wish to be seen
by anyone.
"He has told me more than a hundred pretty things that I cannot
repeat to you, and at which you yourself would be surprised: he did
not want to let me go; he wanted to make me sit up with him all
night. As for me, I pretended to believe everything, and I seemed to
interest myself really in him. Besides, I have never seen him so
small and humble; and if I had not known how easily his heart
overflows, and how mine is impervious to every other arrow than those
with which you have wounded it, I believe that I should have allowed
myself to soften; but lest that should alarm you, I would die rather
than give up what I have promised you. As for you, be sure to act in
the same way towards those traitors who will do all they can to
separate you from me. I believe that all those people have been cast
in the same mould: this one always has a tear in his eye; he bows
down before everyone, from the greatest to the smallest; he wishes to
interest them in his favour, and make himself pitied. His father
threw up blood to-day through the nose and mouth; think what these
symptoms mean. I have not seen him yet, for he keeps to the house.
The king wants me to feed him myself; he won't eat unless I do. But,
whatever I may do, you will be deceived by it no more than I shall be
deceiving myself. We are united, you and I, to two kinds of very
detestable people [Mary means Miss Huntly, Bothwell's wife, whom he
repudiated, at the king's death, to marry the queen.]: that hell may
sever these knots then, and that heaven may form better ones, that
nothing can break, that it may make of us the most tender and
faithful couple that ever was; there is the profession of faith in
which I would die.
"Excuse my scrawl: you must guess more than the half of it, but I
know no help for this. I am obliged to write to you hastily while
everyone is asleep here: but be easy, I take infinite pleasure in my
watch; for I cannot sleep like the others, not being able to sleep as
I would like--that is to say, in your arms.
"I am going to get into bed; I shall finish my letter tomorrow: I
have too many things to tell to you, the night is too far advanced:
imagine my despair. It is to you I am writing, it is of myself that
I converse with you, and I am obliged to make an end.
"I cannot prevent myself, however, from filling up hastily the rest
of my paper. Cursed be the crazy creature who torments me so much!
Were it not for him, I could talk to you of more agreeable things: he
is not greatly changed; and yet he has taken a great deal o f %t.
But he has nearly killed me with the fetid smell of his breath; for
now his is still worse than your cousin's: you guess that this is a
fresh reason for my not approaching him; on the contrary, I go away
as far as I can, and sit on a chair at the foot of his bed.
"Let us see if I forget anything.
"His father's messenger on the road;
The question about Joachim;
The-state of my house;
The people of my suite;
Subject of my arrival;
Joseph;
Conversation between him and me;
His desire to please me and his repentance;
The explanation of his letter;
Mr. Livingston.
"Ah! I was forgetting that. Yesterday Livingston during supper told
de Rere in a low voice to drink to the health of one I knew well, and
to beg me to do him the honour. After supper, as I was leaning on
his shoulder near the fire, he said to me, 'Is it not true that there
are visits very agreeable for those who pay them and those who
receive them? But, however satisfied they seem with your arrival, I
challenge their delight to equal the grief of one whom you have left
alone to-day, and who will never be content till he sees you again.'
I asked him of whom he wished to speak to me. He then answered me by
pressing my arm: 'Of one of those who have not followed you; and
among those it is easy for you to guess of whom I want to speak.'
"I have worked till two o'clock at the bracelet; I have enclosed a
little key which is attached by two strings: it is not as well worked
as I should like, but I have not had time to make it better; I will
make you a finer one on the first occasion. Take care that it is not
seen on you; for I have worked at it before everyone, and it would be
recognised to a certainty.
"I always return, in spite of myself, to the frightful attempt that
you advise. You compel me to concealments, and above all to
treacheries that make me shudder; I would rather die, believe me,
than do such things; for it makes my heart bleed. He does not want
to follow me unless I promise him to have the selfsame bed and board
with him as before, and not to abandon him so often. If I consent to
it, he says he will do all I wish, and will follow me everywhere; but
he has begged me to put off my departure for two days. I have
pretended to agree to all he wishes; but I have told him not to speak
of our reconciliation to anyone, for fear it should make some lords
uneasy. At last I shall take him everywhere I wish.... Alas! I have
never deceived anyone; but what would I not do to please you?
Command, and whatever happens, I shall obey. But see yourself if one
could not contrive some secret means in the shape of a remedy. He
must purge himself at Craigmiller and take baths there; he will be
some days without going out. So far as I can see, he is very uneasy;
but he has great trust in what I tell him: however, his confidence
does not go so far as to allow him to open his mind to me. If you
like, I will tell him every thing: I can have no pleasure in
deceiving someone who is trusting. However, it will be just as you
wish: do not esteem me the less for that. It is you advised it;
never would vengeance have taken me so far. Sometimes he attacks me
in a very sensitive place, and he touches me to the quick when he
tells me that his crimes are known, but that every day greater ones
are committed that one uselessly attempts to hide, since all crimes,
whatsoever they be, great or small, come to men's knowledge and form
the common subject of their discourse. He adds sometimes, in
speaking to me of Madame de Rere, 'I wish her services may do you
honour.' He has assured me that many people thought, and that he
thought himself, that I was not my own mistress; this is doubtless
because I had rejected the conditions he offered me. Finally, it is
certain that he is very uneasy about you know what, and that he even
suspects that his life is aimed at. He is in despair whenever the
conversation turns on you, Livingston, and my brother. However, he
says neither good nor ill of absent people; but, on the contrary, he
always avoids speaking of them. His father keeps to the house: I
have not seen him yet. A number of the Hamiltons are here, and
accompany me everywhere; all the friends of the other one follow me
each time I go to see him. He has begged me to be at his rising to-
morrow. My messenger will tell you the rest.
"Burn my letter: there would be danger in keeping it. Besides, it is
hardly worth the trouble, being filled only with dark thoughts.
"As for you, do not be offended if I am sad and uneasy to-day, that
to please you I rise above honour, remorse, and dangers. Do not take
in bad part what I tell you, and do not listen to the malicious
explanations of your wife's brother; he is a knave whom you ought not
to hear to the prejudice of the most tender and most faithful
mistress that ever was. Above all, do not allow yourself to be moved
by that woman: her sham tears are nothing in comparison with the real
tears that I shed, and with what love and constancy make me suffer at
succeeding her; it is for that alone that in spite of myself I betray
all those who could cross my love. God have mercy on me, and send
you all the prosperity that a humble and tender friend who awaits
from you soon another reward wishes you. It is very late; but it is
always with regret that I lay down my pen when I write to you;
however, I shall not end my letter until I shall have kissed your
hands. Forgive me that it is so ill-written: perhaps I do so
expressly that you may be obliged to re-read it several times: I have
transcribed hastily what I had written down on my tablets, and my
paper has given out. Remember a tender friend, and write to her
often: love me as tenderly as I love you, and remember
"Madame de Rere's words;
The English;
His mother;
The Earl of Argyll;
The Earl of Bothwell;
The Edinburgh dwelling."
SECOND LETTER
"It seems that you have forgotten me during your absence, so much the
more that you had promised me, at setting out, to let me know in
detail everything fresh that should happen. The hope of receiving
your news was giving me almost as much delight as your return could
have brought me: you have put it off longer than you promised me. As
for me, although you do not write, I play my part always. I shall
take him to Craigmiller on Monday, and he will spend the whole of
Wednesday there. On that day I shall go to Edinburgh to be bled
there, unless you arrange otherwise at least. He is more cheerful
than usual, and he is better than ever.
"He says everything he can to persuade me that he loves me; he has a
thousand attentions for me, and he anticipates me in everything: all
that is so pleasant for me, that I never go to him but the pain in my
side comes on again, his company weighs on me so much. If Paris
brought me what I asked him, I should be soon cured. If you have not
yet returned when I go you know where, write to me, I beg you, and
tell me what you wish me to do; for if you do not manage things
prudently, I foresee that the whole burden will fall on me: look into
everything and weigh the affair maturely. I send you my letter by
Beaton, who will set out the day which has been assigned to Balfour.
It only remains for me to beg you to inform me of your journey.
"Glasgow, this Saturday morning."
THIRD LETTER
"I stayed you know where longer than I should have done, if it had
not been to get from him something that the bearer of these presents
will tell you it was a good opportunity for covering up our designs:
I have promised him to bring the person you know to-morrow. Look
after the rest, if you think fit. Alas! I have failed in our
agreement, for you have forbidden me to write to you, or to despatch
a messenger to you. However, I do not intend to offend you: if you
knew with what fears I am agitated, you would not have yourself so
many doubts and suspicions. But I take them in good part, persuaded
as I am that they have no other cause than love--love that I esteem
more than anything on earth.
"My feelings and my favours are to me sure warrants for that love,
and answer to me for your heart; my trust is entire on this head: but
explain yourself, I entreat you, and open your soul to me; otherwise,
I shall fear lest, by the fatality of my star, and by the too
fortunate influence of the stars on women less tender and less
faithful than I, I may be supplanted in your heart as Medea was in
Jason's; not that I wish to compare you to a lover as unfortunate as
Jason, and to parallel myself with a monster like Medea, although you
have enough influence over me to force me to resemble her each time
our love exacts it, and that it concerns me to keep your heart, which
belongs to me, and which belongs to me only. For I name as belonging
to me what I have purchased with the tender and constant love with
which I have burned for you, a love more alive to-day than ever, and
which will end only with my life; a love, in short, which makes me
despise both the dangers and the remorse which will be perhaps its
sad sequel. As the price of this sacrifice, I ask you but one
favour, it is to remember a spot not far from here: I do not exact
that you should keep your promise to-morrow; but I want to see you to
disperse your suspicions. I ask of God only one thing: it is that He
should make you read my heart, which is less mine than yours, and
that He should guard you from every ill, at least during my life:
this life is dear to me only in so far as it pleases you, and as I
please you myself. I am going to bed: adieu; give me your news to-
morrow morning; for I shall be uneasy till I have it. Like a bird
escaped from its cage, or the turtle-dove which has lost her mate, I
shall be alone, weeping your absence, short as it may be. This
letter, happier than I, will go this evening where I cannot go,
provided that the messenger does not find you asleep, as I fear. I
have not dared to write it in the presence of Joseph, of Sebastian,
and of Joachim, who had only just left me when I began it."
Thus, as one sees, and always supposing these letters to be genuine,
Mary had conceived for Bothwell one of those mad passions, so much
the stronger in the women who are a prey to them, that one the less
understands what could have inspired them. Bothwell was no longer
young, Bothwell was not handsome, and yet Mary sacrificed for him a
young husband, who was considered one of the handsomest men of his
century. It was like a kind of enchantment. Darnley, the sole
obstacle to the union, had been already condemned for a long time, if
not by Mary, at least by Bothwell; then, as his strong constitution
had conquered the poison, another kind of death was sought for.
The queen, as she announces in her letter to Bothwell, had refused to
bring back Darnley with her, and had returned alone to Edinburgh.
Arrived there, she gave orders for the king to be moved, in his turn,
in a litter; but instead of taking him to Stirling or Holyrood, she
decided to lodge him in the abbey of the Kirk of Field. The king
made some objections when he knew of this arrangement; however, as he
had no power to oppose it, he contented himself with complaining of
the solitude of the dwelling assigned him; but the queen made answer
that she could not receive him at that moment, either at Holyrood or
at Stirling, for fear, if his illness were infectious, lest he might
give it to his son: Darnley was then obliged to make the best of the
abode allotted him.
It was an isolated abbey, and little calculated by its position to
dissipate the fears that the king entertained; for it was situated
between two ruined churches and two cemeteries: the only house, which
was distant about a shot from a cross-bow, belonged to the Hamiltons,
and as they were Darnley's mortal enemies the neighbourhood was none
the more reassuring: further, towards the north, rose some wretched
huts, called the "Thieves' cross-roads". In going round his new
residence, Darnley noticed that three holes, each large enough for a
man to get through, had been made in the walls; he asked that these
holes, through which ill-meaning persons could get in, should be
stopped up: it was promised that masons should be sent; but nothing
was done, and the holes remained open.
The day after his arrival at Kirk of Field, the king saw a light in
that house near his which lie believed deserted; next day he asked
Alexander Durham whence it came, and he heard that the Archbishop of
St. Andrew's had left his palace in Edinburgh and had housed there
since the preceding evening, one didn't know why: this news still
further increased the king's uneasiness; the Archbishop of St.
Andrew's was one of his most declared enemies.
The king, little by little abandoned by all his servants lived on the
first floor of an isolated pavilion, having about him only this same
Alexander Durham, whom we have mentioned already, and who was his
valet. Darnley, who had quite a special friendship for him, and who
besides, as we have said, feared some attack on his life at every
moment, had made him move his bed into his own apartment, so that
both were sleeping in the same room.
On the night of the 8th February, Darnley awoke Durham: he thought he
heard footsteps in the apartment beneath him. Durham rose, took a
sword in one hand, a taper in the other, and went down to the ground
floor; but although Darnley was quite certain he had not been
deceived, Durham came up again a moment after, saying he had seen no
one.
The morning of the next day passed without bringing anything fresh.
The queen was marrying one of her servants named Sebastian: he was an
Auvergnat whom she had brought with her from France, and whom she
liked very much. However, as the king sent word that he had not seen
her for two days, she left the wedding towards six o'clock in the
evening, and came to pay him a visit, accompanied by the Countess of
Argyll and the Countess of Huntly. While she was there, Durham, in
preparing his bed, set fire to his palliasse, which was burned as
well as a part of the mattress; so that, having thrown them out of
the window all in flames, for fear lest the fire should reach the
rest of the furniture, he found himself without a bed, and asked
permission to return to the town to sleep; but Darnley, who
remembered his terror the night before, and who was surprised at the
promptness that had made Durham throw all his bedding out of the
window, begged him not to go away, offering him one of his
mattresses, or even to take him into his own bed. However, in spite
of this offer, Durham insisted, saying that he felt unwell, and that
he should like to see a doctor the same evening. So the queen
interceded for Durham, and promised Darnley to send him another valet
to spend the night with him: Darnley was then obliged to yield, and,
making Mary repeat that she would send him someone, he gave Durham
leave for that evening. At that moment Paris; of whom the queen
speaks in her letters, came in: he was a young Frenchman who had been
in Scotland for some years, and who, after having served with
Bothwell and Seyton, was at present with the queen. Seeing him, she
got up, and as Darnley still wished to keep her--
"Indeed, my lord, it is impossible," said she, "to come and see you.
I have left this poor Sebastian's wedding, and I must return to it;
for I promised to came masked to his ball."
The king dared not insist; he only reminded her of the promise that
she had made to send him a servant: Mary renewed it yet once again,
and went away with her attendants. As for Durham, he had set out the
moment he received permission.
It was nine o'clock in the evening. Darnley, left alone, carefully
shut the doors within, and retired to rest, though in readiness to
rise to let in the servant who should come to spend the night with
him. Scarcely was he in bed than the same noise that he had heard
the night before recommenced; this time Darnley listened with all the
attention fear gives, and soon he had no longer any doubt but that
several men were walking about beneath him. It was useless to call,
it was dangerous to go out; to wait was the only course that remained
to the king. He made sure again that the doors were well fastened,
put his sword under his pillow, extinguished his lamp for fear the
light might betray him, and awaited in silence for his servant's
arrival; but the hours passed away, and the servant did not come.
At one o'clock in the morning, Bothwell, after having talked some
while with the queen, in the presence of the captain of the guard,
returned home to change his dress; after some minutes, he came out
wrapped up in the large cloak of a German hussar, went through the
guard-house, and had the castle gate opened. Once outside, he took
his way with all speed to Kirk of Field, which he entered by the
opening in the wall: scarcely had he made a step in the garden than
he met James Balfour, governor of the castle.
"Well," he said to him, "how far have we got?
"Everything is ready," replied Balfour, "and we were waiting for you
to set fire to the fuse". "That is well," Bothwell answered--"but
first I want to make sure that he is in his room."
At these words, Bothwell opened the pavilion door with a false key,
and, having groped his way up the stairs; he went to listen at
Darnley's door. Darnley, hearing no further noise, had ended by
going to sleep; but he slept with a jerky breathing which pointed to
his agitation. Little mattered it to Bothwell what kind of sleep it
was, provided that he was really in his room. He went down again in
silence, then, as he had come up, and taking a lantern from one of
the conspirators, he went himself into the lower room to see if
everything was in order: this room was full of barrels of powder, and
a fuse ready prepared wanted but a spark to set the whole on fire.
Bothwell withdrew, then, to the end of the garden with Balfour,
David, Chambers, and three or four others, leaving one man to ignite
the fuse. In a moment this man rejoined them.
There ensued some minutes of anxiety, during which the five men
looked at one another in silence and as if afraid of themselves;
then, seeing that nothing exploded, Bothwell impatiently turned round
to the engineer, reproaching him for having, no doubt through fear,
done his work badly. He assured his master that he was certain
everything was all right, and as Bothwell, impatient, wanted to
return to the house himself, to make sure, he offered to go back and
see how things stood. In fact, he went back to the pavilion, and,
putting his head through a kind of air-hole, he saw the fuse, which
was still burning. Some seconds afterwards, Bothwell saw him come
running back, making a sign that all was going well; at the same
moment a frightful report was heard, the pavilion was blown to
pieces, the town and the firth were lit up with a clearness exceeding
the brightest daylight; then everything fell back into night, and the
silence was broken only by the fall of stones and joists, which came
down as fast as hail in a hurricane.
Next day the body of the king was found in a garden in the
neighbourhood: it had been saved from the action of the fire by the
mattresses on which he was lying, and as, doubtless, in his terror he
had merely thrown himself on his bed wrapped in his dressing-gown and
in his slippers, and as he was found thus, without his slippers,
which were flung some paces away, it was believed that he had been
first strangled, then carried there; but the most probable version
was that the murderers simply relied upon powder--an auxiliary
sufficiently powerful in itself for them to have no fear it would
fail them.
Was the queen an accomplice or not? No one has ever known save
herself, Bothwell, and God; but, yes or no, her conduct, imprudent
this time as always, gave the charge her enemies brought against her,
if not substance, at least an appearance of truth. Scarcely had she
heard the news than she gave orders that the body should be brought
to her, and, having had it stretched out upon a bench, she looked at
it with more curiosity than sadness; then the corpse, embalmed, was
placed the same evening, without pomp, by the side of Rizzio's.
Scottish ceremonial prescribes for the widows of kings retirement for
forty days in a room entirely closed to the light of day: on the
twelfth day Mary had the windows opened, and on the fifteenth set out
with Bothwell for Seaton, a country house situated five miles from
the capital, where the French ambassador, Ducroc, went in search of
her, and made her remonstrances which decided her to return to
Edinburgh; but instead of the cheers which usually greeted her
coming, she was received by an icy silence, and a solitary woman in
the crowd called out, "God treat her as she deserves!"
The names of the murderers were no secret to the people. Bothwell
having brought a splendid coat which was too large for him to a
tailor, asking him to remake it to his measure, the man recognised it
as having belonged to the king. "That's right," said he; "it is the
custom for the executioner to inherit from the-condemned".
Meanwhile, the Earl of Lennox, supported by the people's murmurs,
loudly demanded justice for his son's death, and came forward as the
accuser of his murderers. The queen was then obliged, to appease
paternal clamour and public resentment, to command the Earl of
Argyll, the Lord Chief justice of the kingdom, to make
investigations; the same day that this order was given, a
proclamation was posted up in the streets of Edinburgh, in which the
queen promised two thousand pounds sterling to whoever would make
known the king's murderers. Next day, wherever this letter had been
affixed, another placard was found, worded thus:
"As it has been proclaimed that those who should make known the
king's murderers should have two thousand pounds sterling, I, who
have made a strict search, affirm that the authors of the murder are
the Earl of Bothwell, James Balfour, the priest of Flisk, David,
Chambers, Blackmester, Jean Spens, and the queen herself."
This placard was torn down; but, as usually happens, it had already
been read by the entire population.
The Earl of Lennox accused Bothwell, and public opinion, which also
accused him, seconded the earl with such violence, that Mary was
compelled to bring him to trial: only every precaution was taken to
deprive the prosecutor of the power of convicting the accused. On
the 28th March, the Earl of Lennox received notice that the 12th
April was fixed for the trial: he was granted a fortnight to collect
decisive proofs against the most powerful man in all Scotland; but
the Earl of Lennox, judging that this trial was a mere mockery, did
not appear. Bothwell, on the contrary, presented himself at the
court, accompanied by five thousand partisans and two hundred picked
fusiliers, who guarded the doors directly he had entered; so that he
seemed to be rather a king who is about to violate the law than an
accused who comes to submit to it. Of course there happened what was
certain to happen--that is to say, the jury acquitted Bothwell of the
crime of which everyone, the judges included, knew him to be guilty.
The day of the trial, Bothwell had this written challenge placarded:
"Although I am sufficiently cleared of the murder of the king, of
which I have been falsely accused, yet, the better to prove my
innocence, I am, ready to engage in combat with whomsoever will dare
to maintain that I have killed the king."
The day after, this reply appeared:
"I accept the challenge, provided that you select neutral ground."
However, judgment had been barely given, when rumours of a marriage
between the queen and the Earl of Bothwell were abroad. However
strange and however mad this marriage, the relations of the two
lovers were so well known that no one doubted but that it was true.
But as everyone submitted to Bothwell, either through fear or through
ambition, two men only dared to protest beforehand against this
union: the one was Lord Herries, and the other James Melville.
Mary was at Stirling when Lord Herries, taking advantage of
Bothwell's momentary absence, threw himself at her feet, imploring
her not to lose her honour by marrying her husband's murderer, which
could not fail to convince those who still doubted it that she was
his accomplice. But the queen, instead of thanking Herries for this
devotion, seemed very much surprised at his boldness, and scornfully
signing to him to rise, she coldly replied that her heart was silent
as regarded the Earl of Bothwell, and that, if she should ever re-
marry, which was not probable, she would neither forget what she owed
to her people nor what she owed to herself.
Melville did not allow himself to be discouraged by this experience,
and pretended, to have received a letter that one of his friends,
Thomas Bishop, had written him from England. He showed this letter
to the queen; but at the first lines Mary recognised the style, and
above all the friendship of her ambassador, and giving the letter to
the Earl of Livingston, who was present, "There is a very singular
letter," said she. "Read it. It is quite in Melvine's manner."
Livingston glanced through the letter, but had scarcely read the half
of it when he took Melville by the hand, and drawing him into the
embrasure of a window
"My dear Melville," said he, "you were certainly mad when you just
now imparted this letter to the queen: as soon as the Earl of
Bothwell gets wind of it, and that will not be long, he will have you
assassinated. You have behaved like an honest man, it is true; but
at court it is better to behave as a clever man. Go away, then, as
quickly as possible; it is I who recommend it."
Melville did not require to be told twice, and stayed away for a
week. Livingston was not mistaken: scarcely had Bothwell returned to
the queen than he knew all that had passed. He burst out into curses
against Melville, and sought for him everywhere; but he could not
find him.
This beginning of opposition, weak as it was, none the less
disquieted Bothwell, who, sure of Mary's love, resolved to make short
work of things. Accordingly, as the queen was returning from
Stirling to Edinburgh some days after the scenes we have just
related, Bothwell suddenly appeared at the Bridge of Grammont with a
thousand horsemen, and, having disarmed the Earl of Huntly,
Livingston, and Melville, who had returned to his mistress, he seized
the queen's horse by the bridle, and with apparent violence he forced
Mary to turn back and follow him to Dunbar; which the queen did
without any resistance--a strange thing for one of Mary's character.
The day following, the Earls of Huntly, Livingston, Melville, and the
people in their train were set at liberty; then, ten days afterwards,
Bothwell and the queen, perfectly reconciled, returned to Edinburgh
together.
Two days after this return, Bothwell gave a great dinner to the
nobles his partisans in a tavern. When the meal was ended, on the
very same table, amid half-drained glasses and empty bottles,
Lindsay, Ruthven, Morton, Maitland, and a dozen or fifteen other
noblemen signed a bond which not only set forth that upon their souls
and consciences Bothwell was innocent, but which further denoted him
as the most suitable husband for the queen. This bond concluded with
this sufficiently strange declaration:
"After all, the queen cannot do otherwise, since the earl has carried
her off and has lain with her."
Yet two circumstances were still opposed to this marriage: the first,
that Bothwell had already been married three times, and that his
three wives were living; the second, that having carried off the
queen, this violence might cause to be regarded as null the alliance
which she should contract with him: the first of these objections was
attended to, to begin with, as the one most difficult to solve.
Bothwell's two first wives were of obscure birth, consequently he
scorned to disquiet himself about them; but it was not so with the
third, a daughter of that Earl of Huntly who been trampled beneath
the horses' feet, and a sister of Gordon, who had been decapitated.
Fortunately for Bothwell, his past behaviour made his wife long for a
divorce with an eagerness as great as his own. There was not much
difficulty, then, in persuading her to bring a charge of adultery
against her husband. Bothwell confessed that he had had criminal
intercourse with a relative of his wife, and the Archbishop of St.
Andrews, the same who had taken up his abode in that solitary house
at Kirk of Field to be present at Darnley's death, pronounced the
marriage null. The case was begun, pushed on, and decided in ten
days.
As to the second obstacle, that of the violence used to the queen,
Mary undertook to remove it herself; for, being brought before the
court, she declared that not only did she pardon Bothwell for his
conduct as regarded her, but further that, knowing him to be a good
and faithful subject, she intended raising him immediately to new
honours. In fact, some days afterwards she created him Duke of
Orkney, and on the 15th of the same month--that is to say, scarcely
four months after the death of Darnley--with levity that resembled
madness, Mary, who had petitioned for a dispensation to wed a
Catholic prince, her cousin in the third degree, married Bothwell, a
Protestant upstart, who, his divorce notwithstanding, was still
bigamous, and who thus found himself in the position of having four
wives living, including the queen.
The wedding was dismal, as became a festival under such outrageous
auspices. Morton, Maitland, and some base flatterers of Bothwell
alone were present at it. The French ambassador, although he was a
creature of the House of Guise, to which the queen belonged, refused
to attend it.
Mary's delusion was short-lived: scarcely was she in Bothwell's power
than she saw what a master she had given herself. Gross, unfeeling,
and violent, he seemed chosen by Providence to avenge the faults of
which he had been the instigator or the accomplice. Soon his fits of
passion reached such a point, that one day, no longer able to endure
them, Mary seized a dagger from Erskine, who was present with
Melville at one of these scenes, and would have struck herself,
saying that she would rather die than continue living unhappily as
she did; yet, inexplicable as it seems, in spite of these miseries,
renewed without ceasing, Mary, forgetting that she was wife and
queen, tender and submissive as a child, was always the first to be
reconciled with Bothwell.
Nevertheless, these public scenes gave a pretext to the nobles, who
only sought an opportunity for an outbreak. The Earl of Mar, the
young prince's tutor, Argyll, Athol, Glencairn, Lindley, Boyd, and
even Morton and Maitland themselves, those eternal accomplices of
Bothwell, rose, they said, to avenge the death of the king, and to
draw the son from hands which had killed the father and which were
keeping the mother captive. As to Murray, he had kept completely in
the background during all the last events; he was in the county of
Fife when the king was assassinated, and three days before the trial
of Bothwell he had asked and obtained from his sister permission to
take a journey on the Continent.
The insurrection took place in such a prompt and instantaneous
manner, that the Confederate lords, whose plan was to surprise and
seize both Mary and Bothwell, thought they would succeed at the first
attempt.
The king and queen were at table with Lord Borthwick, who was
entertaining them, when suddenly it was announced that a large body
of armed men was surrounding the castle: Bothwell and Mary suspected
that they were aimed at, and as they had no means of resistance,
Bothwell dressed himself as a squire, Mary as a page, and both
immediately taking horse, escaped by one door just as the
Confederates were coming in by the other. The fugitives withdrew to
Dunbar.
There they called together all Bothwell's friends, and made them sign
a kind of treaty by which they undertook to defend the queen and her
husband. In the midst of all this, Murray arrived from France, and
Bothwell offered the document to him as to the others; but Murray
refused to put his signature to it, saying that it was insulting him
to think he need be bound by a written agreement when it was a
question of defending his sister and his queen. This refusal having
led to an altercation between him and Bothwell, Murray, true to his
system of neutrality, withdrew into his earldom, and let affairs
follow without him the fatal decline they had taken.
In the meantime the Confederates, after having failed at Borthwick,
not feeling strong enough to attack Bothwell at Dunbar, marched upon
Edinburgh, where they had an understanding with a man of whom
Bothwell thought himself sure. This man was James Balfour, governor
of the citadel, the same who had presided over the preparation of the
mine which had blown up Darnley, and whom Bothwell had, met on
entering the garden at Kirk of Field. Not only did Balfour deliver
Back to Full Books
|