Mary Queen of Scots Part 4

The other translation is as follows:

ADIEU.

Adieu, thou pleasant land of France!

The dearest of all lands to me, Where life was like a joyful dance, The joyful dance of infancy.

Farewell my childhood's laughing wiles, Farewell the joys of youth's bright day, The bark that takes me from thy smiles, Bears but my meaner half away.

The best is thine; my changeless heart Is given, beloved France, to thee; And let it sometimes, though we part, Remind thee, with a sigh, of me.

It was on the 19th of August, 1561, that the two galleys arrived at Leith. Leith is a small port on the sh.o.r.e of the Frith of Forth, about two miles from Edinburgh, which is situated somewhat inland.

The royal palace, where Mary was to reside, was called the Palace of Holyrood. It was, and is still, a large square building, with an open court in the center, into which there is access for carriages through a large arched pa.s.sage-way in the center of the princ.i.p.al front of the building. In the rear, but connected with the palace, there was a chapel in Mary's day, though it is now in ruins. The walls still remain, but the roof is gone. The people of Scotland were not expecting Mary so soon. Information was communicated from country to country, in those days, slowly and with great difficulty. Perhaps the time of Mary's departure from France was purposely concealed even from the Scotch, to avoid all possibility that the knowledge of it should get into Elizabeth's possession.

At any rate, the first intelligence which the inhabitants of Edinburgh and the vicinity had of the arrival of their queen, was the approach of the galleys to the sh.o.r.e, and the firing of a royal salute from their guns. The Palace of Holyrood was not ready for Mary's reception, and she had to remain a day at Leith, awaiting the necessary preparations. In the mean time, the whole population began to a.s.semble to welcome her arrival. Military bands were turned out; banners were prepared; civil and military officers in full costume a.s.sembled, and bon-fires and illuminations were provided for the evening and night. In a word, Mary's subjects in Scotland did all in their power to do honor to the occasion; but the preparations were so far beneath the pomp and pageantry which she had been accustomed to in France, that she felt the contrast very keenly, and realized, more forcibly than ever, how great was the change which the circ.u.mstances of her life were undergoing.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PALACE OF HOLYROOD. With Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat in the Distance.]

Horses were prepared for Mary and her large company of attendants, to ride from Leith to Edinburgh. The long cavalcade moved toward evening.

The various professions and trades of Edinburgh were drawn up in lines on each side of the road, and thousands upon thousands of other spectators a.s.sembled to witness the scene. When she reached the Palace of Holyrood House, a band of music played for a time under her windows, and then the great throng quietly dispersed, leaving Mary to her repose. The adjoining engraving represents the Palace of Holyrood as it now appears. In Mary's day, the northern part only had been built--that is, the part on the left, in the view, where the ivy climbs about the windows--and the range extending back to the royal chapel, the ruins of which are seen in the rear.[E] Mary took up her abode in this dwelling, and was glad to rest from the fatigues and privations of her long voyage; but she found her new home a solitary and gloomy dwelling, compared with the magnificent palaces of the land she had left.

[Footnote E: For the situation of this palace in respect to Edinburgh see the view of Edinburgh, page 179.]

Mary made an extremely favorable impression upon her subjects in Scotland. To please them, she exchanged the white mourning of France, from which she had taken the name of the White Queen, for a black dress, more accordant with the ideas and customs of her native land.

This gave her a more sedate and matronly character, and though the expression of her countenance and figure was somewhat changed by it, it was only a change to a new form of extreme and fascinating beauty.

Her manners, too, so graceful and easy, and yet so simple and unaffected, charmed all who saw her.

Mary had a half brother in Scotland, whose t.i.tle was at this time the Lord James. He was afterward named the Earl of Murray, and is commonly known in history under this latter designation. The mother of Lord James was not legally married to Mary's father, and consequently he could not inherit any of his father's rights to the Scottish crown. The Lord James was, however, a man of very high rank and influence, and Mary immediately received him into her service, and made him one of her highest ministers of state. He was now about thirty years of age, prudent, cautious, and wise, of good person and manners, but somewhat reserved and austere.

Lord James had the general direction of affairs on Mary's arrival, and things went on very smoothly for a week; but then, on the first Sunday after the landing, a very serious difficulty threatened to occur. The Catholics have a certain celebration, called the ma.s.s, to which they attach a very serious and solemn importance. When our Savior gave the bread and the wine to his disciples at the Last Supper he said of it, "This is my body, broken for you," and "This is my blood, shed for you." The Catholics understand that these words denote that the bread and wine did at that time, and that they do now, whenever the communion service is celebrated by a priest duly authorized, become, by a sort of miraculous transformation, the true body and blood of Christ, and that the priest, in breaking the one and pouring out the other, is really and truly renewing the great sacrifice for sin made by Jesus Christ at his crucifixion. The ma.s.s, therefore, in which the bread and the wine are so broken and poured out, becomes, in their view, not a mere service of prayer and praise to G.o.d, but a solemn _act_ of sacrifice. The spectators, or a.s.sistants, as they call them, meaning all who are present on the occasion, stand by, not merely to hear words of adoration, in which they mentally join, as is the case in most Protestant forms of wors.h.i.+p, but to witness the _enactment of a deed_, and one of great binding force and validity: a real and true sacrifice of Christ, made anew, as an atonement for their sins. The bread, when consecrated, and as they suppose, trans.m.u.ted to the body of Christ, is held up to view, or carried in a procession around the church, that all present may bow before it and adore it as really being, though in the form of bread, the wounded and broken body of the Lord.

Of course the celebration of the ma.s.s is invested, in the minds of all conscientious Catholics, with the utmost solemnity and importance. They stand silently by, with the deepest feelings of reverence and awe, while the priest offers up for them, anew, the great sacrifice for sin. They regard all Protestant wors.h.i.+p, which consists of mere exhortations to duty, hymns and prayers, as lifeless and void. That which is to them the soul, the essence, and substance of the whole, is wanting. On the other hand, the Protestants abhor the sacrifice of the ma.s.s as gross superst.i.tion. They think that the bread remains simply bread after the benediction as much as before; that for the priests to pretend that in breaking it they renew the sacrifice of Christ, is imposture; and that to bow before it in adoration and homage is the worst idolatry.

Now it happened that during Mary's absence in France, the contest between the Catholics and the Protestants had been going fiercely on, and the result had been the almost complete defeat of the Catholic party, and the establishment of the Protestant interest throughout the realm. A great many deeds of violence accompanied this change. Churches and abbeys were sometimes sacked and destroyed. The images of saints, which the Catholics had put up, were pulled down and broken; and the people were sometimes worked up to phrensy against the principles of the Catholic faith and Catholic observances. They abhorred the ma.s.s, and were determined that it should not be introduced again into Scotland.

Queen Mary, knowing this state of things determined, on her arrival in Scotland, not to interfere with her people in the exercise of their religion; but she resolved to remain a Catholic herself, and to continue, for the use of her own household, in the royal chapel at Holyrood, the same Catholic observances to which she had been accustomed in France. She accordingly gave orders that ma.s.s should be celebrated in her chapel on the first Sunday after her arrival. She was very willing to abstain from interfering with the religious usages of her subjects, but she was not willing to give up her own.

The friends of the Reformation had a meeting, and resolved that ma.s.s should _not_ be celebrated. There was, however, no way of preventing it but by intimidation or violence. When Sunday came, crowds began to a.s.semble about the palace and the chapel,[F] and to fill all the avenues leading to them. The Catholic families who were going to attend the service were treated rudely as they pa.s.sed. The priests they threatened with death. One, who carried a candle which was to be used in the ceremonies, was extremely terrified at their threats and imprecations. The excitement was very great, and would probably have proceeded to violent extremities, had it not been for Lord James's energy and courage. He was a Protestant, but he took his station at the door of the chapel, and, without saying or doing any thing to irritate the crowd without, he kept them at bay, while the service proceeded. It went on to the close, though greatly interrupted by the confusion and uproar. Many of the French people who came with Mary were so terrified by this scene, that they declared they would not stay in such a country, and took the first opportunity of returning to France.

[Footnote F: The ruins of the royal chapel are to be seen in the rear of the palace in the view on page 114.]

One of the most powerful and influential of the leaders of the Protestant party at this time was the celebrated John Knox. He was a man of great powers of mind and of commanding eloquence; and he had exerted a vast influence in arousing the people of Scotland to a feeling of strong abhorrence of what they considered the abominations of popery. When Queen Mary of England was upon the throne, Knox had written a book against her, and against queens in general, women having, according to his views, no right to govern. Knox was a man of the most stern and uncompromising character, who feared nothing, respected nothing, and submitted to no restraints in the blunt and plain discharge of what he considered his duty. Mary dreaded his influence and power.

Knox had an interview with Mary not long after her arrival, and it is one of the most striking instances of the strange ascendency which Mary's extraordinary beauty and grace, and the pensive charm of her demeanor, exercised over all that came within her influence, that even John Knox, whom nothing else could soften or subdue, found his rough and indomitable energy half forsaking him in the presence of his gentle queen. She expostulated with him. He half apologized.

Nothing had ever drawn the least semblance of an apology from him before. He told her that his book was aimed solely against Queen Mary of England, and not against her; that she had no cause to fear its influence; that, in respect to the freedom with which he had advanced his opinions and theories on the subjects of government and religion, she need not be alarmed, for philosophers had always done this in every age, and yet had lived good citizens of the state, whose inst.i.tutions they had, nevertheless, in some sense theoretically condemned. He told her, moreover, that he had no intention of troubling her reign; that she might be sure of this, since, if he had such a desire, he should have commenced his measures during her absence, and not have postponed them until her position on the throne was strengthened by her return. Thus he tried to soothe her fears, and to justify himself from the suspicion of having designed any injury to such a gentle and helpless queen. The interview was a very extraordinary spectacle. It was that of a lion laying aside his majestic sternness and strength to dispel the fears and quiet the apprehensions of a dove. The interview was, however, after all, painful and distressing to Mary. Some things which the stern reformer felt it his duty to say to her, brought tears into her eyes.

Mary soon became settled in her new home, though many circ.u.mstances in her situation were well calculated to disquiet and disturb her.

She lived in the palace at Holyrood. The four Maries continued with her for a time, and then two of them were married to n.o.bles of high rank. Queen Elizabeth sent Mary a kind message, congratulating her on her safe arrival in Scotland, and a.s.suring her that the story of her having attempted to intercept her was false. Mary, who had no means of proving Elizabeth's insincerity, sent her back a polite reply.

CHAPTER VI.

MARY AND LORD DARNLEY.

1562-1566

Stormy scenes.--Lord James.--Acts of cruelty.--Mary's energy and decision.--Her popularity.--Story of Chatelard.--His love and infatuation.--Trial of Chatelard.--His execution and last words.--Mary and Elizabeth.--The English succession.--Claim of Lady Lennox.--Lord Darnley.--Offers of marriage.--Duplicity of Elizabeth.--Melville sent as emba.s.sador to Elizabeth.--His reception.--Conversation of Melville and Elizabeth.--Dudley, earl of Leicester.--The "long" lad.--Lord Darnley.--Elizabeth's management.--Darnley's visit to Scotland.--Mary's message to Elizabeth.--Elizabeth's duplicity.--Wemys Castle.--Mary's opinion of Darnley.--His interview with her.--The courts.h.i.+p.--Elizabeth in a rage.--Murray's opposition.--Mary hastens the marriage.--A dangerous plot.--Mary's narrow escape.--The marriage.--The mourner and the bride.--Darnley's contemptible character.--Darnley's imperiousness and pride.--Mary's cares.--Rebellion.--Elizabeth's treatment of the rebels.--Mary's generous conduct to Darnley.--The double throne.--Darnley's cruel ingrat.i.tude.

During the three or four years which elapsed after Queen Mary's arrival in Scotland, she had to pa.s.s through many stormy scenes of anxiety and trouble. The great n.o.bles of the land were continually quarreling, and all parties were earnest and eager in their efforts to get Mary's influence and power on their side. She had a great deal of trouble with the affairs of her brother, the Lord James. He wished to have the earldom of Murray conferred upon him. The castle and estates pertaining to this t.i.tle were in the north of Scotland, in the neighborhood of Inverness. They were in possession of another family, who refused to give them up. Mary accompanied Lord James to the north with an army, to put him in possession. They took the castle, and hung the governor, who had refused to surrender at their summons. This, and some other acts of this expedition, have since been considered unjust and cruel; but posterity have been divided in opinion on the question how far Mary herself was personally responsible for them.

Mary, at any rate, displayed a great degree of decision and energy in her management of public affairs, and in the personal exploits which she performed. She made excursions from castle to castle, and from town to town, all over Scotland. On these expeditions she traveled on horseback, sometimes with a royal escort, and sometimes at the head of an army of eighteen or twenty thousand men. These royal progresses were made sometimes among the great towns and cities on the eastern coast of Scotland, and also, at other times, among the gloomy and dangerous defiles of the Highlands. Occasionally she would pay visits to the n.o.bles at their castles, to hunt in their parks, to review their Highland retainers, or to join them in celebrations and fetes, and military parades.

During all this time, her personal influence and ascendency over all who knew her was constantly increasing; and the people of Scotland, notwithstanding the disagreement on the subject of religion, became more and more devoted to their queen. The attachment which those who were in immediate attendance upon her felt to her person and character, was in many cases extreme. In one instance, this attachment led to a very sad result. There was a young Frenchman, named Chatelard, who came in Mary's train from France. He was a scholar and a poet. He began by writing verses in Mary's praise, which Mary read, and seemed to be pleased with. This increased his interest in her, and led him to imagine that he was himself the object of her kind regard. Finally, the love which he felt for her came to be a perfect infatuation. He concealed himself one night in Mary's bed-chamber, armed, as if to resist any attack which the attendants might make upon him. He was discovered by the female attendants, and taken away, and they, for fear of alarming Mary, did not tell her of the circ.u.mstance till the next morning.

Mary was very much displeased, or, at least, professed to be so. John Knox thought that this displeasure was only a pretense. She, however, forbid Chatelard to come any more into her sight. A day or two after this, Mary set out on a journey to the north. Chatelard followed. He either believed that Mary really loved him, or else he was led on by that strange and incontrollable infatuation which so often, in such cases, renders even the wisest men utterly reckless and blind to the consequences of what they say or do. He watched his opportunity, and one night, when Mary retired to her bed-room, he followed her directly in. Mary called for help. The attendants came in, and immediately sent for the Earl of Murray, who was in the palace.

Chatelard protested that all he wanted was to explain and apologize for his coming into Mary's room before, and to ask her to forgive him. Mary, however, would not listen. She was very much incensed.

When Murray came in, she directed him to run his dagger through the man. Murray, however, instead of doing this, had the offender seized and sent to prison. In a few days he was tried, and condemned to be beheaded. The excitement and enthusiasm of his love continued to the last. He stood firm and undaunted on the scaffold, and, just before he laid his head on the block, he turned toward the place where Mary was then lodging, and said, "Farewell! loveliest and most cruel princess that the world contains!"

In the mean time, Mary and Queen Elizabeth continued ostensibly on good terms. They sent emba.s.sadors to each other's courts. They communicated letters and messages to each other, and entered into various negotiations respecting the affairs of their respective kingdoms. The truth was, each was afraid of the other, and neither dared to come to an open rupture. Elizabeth was uneasy on account of Mary's claim to her crown, and was very anxious to avoid driving her to extremities, since she knew that, in that case, there would be great danger of her attempting openly to enforce it. Mary, on the other hand, thought that there was more probability of her obtaining the succession to the English crown by keeping peace with Elizabeth than by a quarrel. Elizabeth was not married, and was likely to live and die single. Mary would then be the next heir, without much question. She wished Elizabeth to acknowledge this, and to have the English Parliament enact it. If Elizabeth would take this course, Mary was willing to waive her claims during Elizabeth's life.

Elizabeth, however, was not willing to do this decidedly. She wished to reserve the right to herself of marrying if she chose. She also wished to keep Mary dependent upon her as long as she could. Hence, while she would not absolutely refuse to comply with Mary's proposition, she would not really accede to it, but kept the whole matter in suspense by endless procrastination, difficulties, and delays.

I have said that, after Elizabeth, Mary's claim to the British crown was almost unquestioned. There was another lady about as nearly related to the English royal line as Mary. Her name was Margaret Stuart. Her t.i.tle was Lady Lennox. She had a son named Henry Stuart, whose t.i.tle was Lord Darnley. It was a question whether Mary or Margaret were best ent.i.tled to consider herself the heir to the British crown after Elizabeth. Mary, therefore, had two obstacles in the way of the accomplishment of her wishes to be Queen of England: one was the claim of Elizabeth, who was already in possession of the throne, and the other the claims of Lady Lennox, and, after her, of her son Darnley. There was a plan of disposing of this last difficulty in a very simple manner. It was, to have Mary marry Lord Darnley, and thus unite these two claims. This plan had been proposed, but there had been no decision in respect to it. There was one objection: that Darnley being Mary's cousin, their marriage was forbidden by the laws of the Catholic Church. There was no way of obviating this difficulty but by applying to the pope to grant them a special dispensation.

In the mean time, a great many other plans were formed for Mary's marriage. Several of the princes and potentates of Europe applied for her hand. They were allured somewhat, no doubt, by her youth and beauty, and still more, very probably, by the desire to annex her kingdom to their dominions. Mary, wis.h.i.+ng to please Elizabeth, communicated often with her, to ask her advice and counsel in regard to her marriage. Elizabeth's policy was to embarra.s.s and perplex the whole subject by making difficulties in respect to every plan proposed. Finally, she recommended a gentleman of her own court to Mary--Robert Dudley, whom she afterward made Earl of Leicester--one of her special favorites. The position of Dudley, and the circ.u.mstances of the case, were such that mankind have generally supposed that Elizabeth did not seriously imagine that such a plan could be adopted, but that she proposed it, as perverse and intriguing people often do, as a means of increasing the difficulty.

Such minds often attempt to prevent doing what _can_ be done by proposing and urging what they know is impossible.

In the course of these negotiations, Queen Mary once sent Melville, her former page of honor in France, as a special emba.s.sador to Queen Elizabeth, to ascertain more perfectly her views. Melville had followed Mary to Scotland, and had entered her service there as a confidential secretary; and as she had great confidence in his prudence and in his fidelity, she thought him the most suitable person to undertake this mission. Melville afterward lived to an advanced age, and in the latter part of his life he wrote a narrative of his various adventures, and recorded, in quaint and ancient language, many of his conversations and interviews with the two queens. His mission to England was of course a very important event in his life, and one of the most curious and entertaining pa.s.sages in his memoirs is his narrative of his interviews with the English queen. He was, at the time, about thirty-four years of age. Mary was about twenty-two.

Sir James Melville was received with many marks of attention and honor by Queen Elizabeth. His first interview with her was in a garden near the palace. She first asked him about a letter which Mary had recently written to her, and which, she said, had greatly displeased her; and she took out a reply from her pocket, written in very sharp and severe language, though she said she had not sent it because it was not severe enough, and she was going to write another.

Melville asked to see the letter from Mary which had given Elizabeth so much offense; and on reading it, he explained it, and disavowed, on Mary's part, any intention to give offense, and thus finally succeeded in appeasing Elizabeth's displeasure, and at length induced her to tear up her angry reply.

Elizabeth then wanted to know what Mary thought of her proposal of Dudley for her husband. Melville told her that she had not given the subject much reflection, but that she was going to appoint two commissioners, and she wished Elizabeth to appoint two others, and then that the four should meet on the borders of the two countries, and consider the whole subject of the marriage. Elizabeth said that she perceived that Mary did not think much of this proposed match.

She said, however, that Dudley stood extremely high in _her_ regard, that she was going to make him an earl, and that she should marry him herself were it not that she was fully resolved to live and die a single woman. She said she wished very much to have Dudley become Mary's husband both on account of her attachment to him, and also on account of his attachment to her, which she was sure would prevent his allowing her, that is, Elizabeth, to have any trouble out of Mary's claim to her crown as long as she lived.

Elizabeth also asked Melville to wait in Westminster until the day appointed for making Dudley an earl. This was done, a short time afterward, with great ceremony. Lord Darnley, then a very tall and slender youth of about nineteen, was present on the occasion. His father and mother had been banished from Scotland, on account of some political offenses, twenty years before, and he had thus himself been brought up in England. As he was a near relative of the queen, and a sort of heir-presumptive to the crown, he had a high position at the court, and his office was, on this occasion, to bear the sword of honor before the queen. Dudley kneeled before Elizabeth while she put upon him the badges of his new dignity. Afterward she asked Melville what he thought of him. Melville was polite enough to speak warmly in his favor. "And yet," said the queen, "I suppose you prefer yonder _long_ lad," pointing to Darnley. She knew something of Mary's half-formed design of making Darnley her husband. Melville, who did not wish her to suppose that Mary had any serious intention of choosing Darnley, said that "no woman of spirit would choose such a person as he was, for he was handsome, beardless, and lady-faced; in fact, he looked more like a woman than a man."

Melville was not very honest in this, for he had secret instructions at this very time to apply to Lady Lennox, Darnley's mother, to send her son into Scotland, in order that Mary might see him, and be a.s.sisted to decide the question of becoming his wife, by ascertaining how she was going to like him personally. Queen Elizabeth, in the mean time, pressed upon Melville the importance of Mary's deciding soon in favor of the marriage with Leicester. As to declaring in favor of Mary's right to inherit the crown after her, she said the question was in the hands of the great lawyers and commissioners to whom she had referred it, and that she heartily wished that they might come to a conclusion in favor of Mary's claim. She should urge the business forward as fast as she could; but the result would depend very much upon the disposition which Mary showed to comply with her wishes in respect to the marriage. She said she should never marry herself unless she was compelled to it on account of Mary's giving her trouble by her claims upon the crown, and forcing her to desire that it should go to her direct descendants. If Mary would act wisely, and as she ought, and follow _her_ counsel, she would, in due time, have all her desire.

Some time more elapsed in negotiations and delays. There was a good deal of trouble in getting leave for Darnley to go to Scotland. From his position, and from the state of the laws and customs of the two realms, he could not go without Elizabeth's permission. Finally, Mary sent word to Elizabeth that she would marry Leicester according to her wish, if she would have her claim to the English crown, _after_ Elizabeth, acknowledged and established by the English government, so as to have that question definitely and finally settled. Elizabeth sent back for answer to this proposal, that if Mary married Leicester, she would advance him to great honors and dignities, but that she could not do any thing at present about the succession. She also, at the same time, gave permission to Darnley to go to Scotland.

It is thought that Elizabeth never seriously intended that Mary should marry Leicester, and that she did not suppose Mary herself would consent to it on any terms. Accordingly, when she found Mary was acceding to the plan, she wanted to retreat from it herself, and hoped that Darnley's going to Scotland, and appearing there as a new compet.i.tor in the field, would tend to complicate and embarra.s.s the question in Mary's mind, and help to prevent the Leicester negotiation from going any further. At any rate, Lord Darnley--then a very tall and handsome young man of nineteen--obtained suddenly permission to go to Scotland. Mary went to Wemys Castle, and made arrangements to have Darnley come and visit her there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WEMY'S CASTLE--The Scene of Mary's first Interview with Darnley.]

Wemys Castle is situated in a most romantic and beautiful spot on the sea-sh.o.r.e, on the northern side of the Frith of Forth. Edinburgh is upon the southern side of the Frith, and is in full view from the windows of the castle, with Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat on the left of the city. Wemys Castle was, at this time, the residence of Murray, Mary's brother. Mary's visit to it was an event which attracted a great deal of attention. The people flocked into the neighborhood and provisions and accommodations of every kind rose enormously in price. Every one was eager to get a glimpse of the beautiful queen. Besides, they knew that Lord Darnley was expected, and the rumor that he was seriously thought of as her future husband had been widely circulated, and had awakened, of course, a universal desire to see him.