the tall idiot to abandon the conspirators and fly with her to
Dunbar. There, he issued a proclamation, audaciously and falsely
denying that he had any knowledge of the late bloody business; and
there they were joined by the EARL BOTHWELL and some other nobles.
With their help, they raised eight thousand men; returned to
Edinburgh, and drove the assassins into England. Mary soon
afterwards gave birth to a son - still thinking of revenge.
That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after his
late cowardice and treachery than she had had before, was natural
enough. There is little doubt that she now began to love Bothwell
instead, and to plan with him means of getting rid of Darnley.
Bothwell had such power over her that he induced her even to pardon
the assassins of Rizzio. The arrangements for the Christening of
the young Prince were entrusted to him, and he was one of the most
important people at the ceremony, where the child was named JAMES:
Elizabeth being his godmother, though not present on the occasion.
A week afterwards, Darnley, who had left Mary and gone to his
father's house at Glasgow, being taken ill with the small-pox, she
sent her own physician to attend him. But there is reason to
apprehend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and that she
knew what was doing, when Bothwell within another month proposed to
one of the late conspirators against Rizzio, to murder Darnley,
'for that it was the Queen's mind that he should be taken away.'
It is certain that on that very day she wrote to her ambassador in
France, complaining of him, and yet went immediately to Glasgow,
feigning to be very anxious about him, and to love him very much.
If she wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her heart's
content; for she induced him to go back with her to Edinburgh, and
to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house outside the city
called the Kirk of Field. Here, he lived for about a week. One
Sunday night, she remained with him until ten o'clock, and then
left him, to go to Holyrood to be present at an entertainment given
in celebration of the marriage of one of her favourite servants.
At two o'clock in the morning the city was shaken by a great
explosion, and the Kirk of Field was blown to atoms.
Darnley's body was found next day lying under a tree at some
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distance. How it came there, undisfigured and unscorched by
gunpowder, and how this crime came to be so clumsily and strangely
committed, it is impossible to discover. The deceitful character
of Mary, and the deceitful character of Elizabeth, have rendered
almost every part of their joint history uncertain and obscure.
But, I fear that Mary was unquestionably a party to her husband's
murder, and that this was the revenge she had threatened. The
Scotch people universally believed it. Voices cried out in the
streets of Edinburgh in the dead of the night, for justice on the
murderess. Placards were posted by unknown hands in the public
places denouncing Bothwell as the murderer, and the Queen as his
accomplice; and, when he afterwards married her (though himself
already married), previously making a show of taking her prisoner
by force, the indignation of the people knew no bounds. The women
particularly are described as having been quite frantic against the
Queen, and to have hooted and cried after her in the streets with
terrific vehemence.
Such guilty unions seldom prosper. This husband and wife had lived
together but a month, when they were separated for ever by the
successes of a band of Scotch nobles who associated against them
for the protection of the young Prince: whom Bothwell had vainly
endeavoured to lay hold of, and whom he would certainly have
murdered, if the EARL OF MAR, in whose hands the boy was, had not
been firmly and honourably faithful to his trust. Before this
angry power, Bothwell fled abroad, where he died, a prisoner and
mad, nine miserable years afterwards. Mary being found by the
associated lords to deceive them at every turn, was sent a prisoner
could only be approached by boat. Here, one LORD LINDSAY, who was
so much of a brute that the nobles would have done better if they
had chosen a mere gentleman for their messenger, made her sign her
abdication, and appoint Murray, Regent of Scotland. Here, too,
Murray saw her in a sorrowing and humbled state.
She had better have remained in the castle of Lochleven, dull
prison as it was, with the rippling of the lake against it, and the
moving shadows of the water on the room walls; but she could not
rest there, and more than once tried to escape. The first time she
had nearly succeeded, dressed in the clothes of her own washerwoman,
but, putting up her hand to prevent one of the boatmen from
lifting her veil, the men suspected her, seeing how white it was,
and rowed her back again. A short time afterwards, her fascinating
manners enlisted in her cause a boy in the Castle, called the
little DOUGLAS, who, while the family were at supper, stole the
keys of the great gate, went softly out with the Queen, locked the
gate on the outside, and rowed her away across the lake, sinking
the keys as they went along. On the opposite shore she was met by
another Douglas, and some few lords; and, so accompanied, rode away
on horseback to Hamilton, where they raised three thousand men.
Here, she issued a proclamation declaring that the abdication she
had signed in her prison was illegal, and requiring the Regent to
yield to his lawful Queen. Being a steady soldier, and in no way
discomposed although he was without an army, Murray pretended to
treat with her, until he had collected a force about half equal to
her own, and then he gave her battle. In one quarter of an hour he
cut down all her hopes. She had another weary ride on horse-back
of sixty long Scotch miles, and took shelter at Dundrennan Abbey,
whence she fled for safety to Elizabeth's dominions.
Mary Queen of Scots came to England - to her own ruin, the trouble
of the kingdom, and the misery and death of many - in the year one
thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. How she left it and the
world, nineteen years afterwards, we have now to see.
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SECOND PART
WHEN Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England, without money and even
without any other clothes than those she wore, she wrote to
Elizabeth, representing herself as an innocent and injured piece of
Royalty, and entreating her assistance to oblige her Scottish
subjects to take her back again and obey her. But, as her
character was already known in England to be a very different one
from what she made it out to be, she was told in answer that she
must first clear herself. Made uneasy by this condition, Mary,
rather than stay in England, would have gone
to Spain, or to
France, or would even have gone back to Scotland. But, as her
doing either would have been likely to trouble England afresh, it
was decided that she should be detained here. She first came to
Carlisle, and, after that, was moved about from castle to castle,
as was considered necessary; but England she never left again.
After trying very hard to get rid of the necessity of clearing
herself, Mary, advised by LORD HERRIES, her best friend in England,
agreed to answer the charges against her, if the Scottish noblemen
who made them would attend to maintain them before such English
noblemen as Elizabeth might appoint for that purpose. Accordingly,
such an assembly, under the name of a conference, met, first at
York, and afterwards at Hampton Court. In its presence Lord
Lennox, Darnley's father, openly charged Mary with the murder of
his son; and whatever Mary's friends may now say or write in her
behalf, there is no doubt that, when her brother Murray produced
against her a casket containing certain guilty letters and verses
which he stated to have passed between her and Bothwell, she
withdrew from the inquiry. Consequently, it is to be supposed that
she was then considered guilty by those who had the best
opportunities of judging of the truth, and that the feeling which
afterwards arose in her behalf was a very generous but not a very
reasonable one.
However, the DUKE OF NORFOLK, an honourable but rather weak
nobleman, partly because Mary was captivating, partly because he
was ambitious, partly because he was over-persuaded by artful
plotters against Elizabeth, conceived a strong idea that he would
like to marry the Queen of Scots - though he was a little
frightened, too, by the letters in the casket. This idea being
secretly encouraged by some of the noblemen of Elizabeth's court,
and even by the favourite Earl of Leicester (because it was
objected to by other favourites who were his rivals), Mary
expressed her approval of it, and the King of France and the King
of Spain are supposed to have done the same. It was not so quietly
planned, though, but that it came to Elizabeth's ears, who warned
the Duke 'to be careful what sort of pillow he was going to lay his
head upon.' He made a humble reply at the time; but turned sulky
soon afterwards, and, being considered dangerous, was sent to the
Tower.
Thus, from the moment of Mary's coming to England she began to be
the centre of plots and miseries.
A rise of the Catholics in the north was the next of these, and it
was only checked by many executions and much bloodshed. It was
followed by a great conspiracy of the Pope and some of the Catholic
sovereigns of Europe to depose Elizabeth, place Mary on the throne,
and restore the unreformed religion. It is almost impossible to
doubt that Mary knew and approved of this; and the Pope himself was
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so hot in the matter that he issued a bull, in which he openly
called Elizabeth the 'pretended Queen' of England, excommunicated
her, and excommunicated all her subjects who should continue to
obey her. A copy of this miserable paper got into London, and was
found one morning publicly posted on the Bishop of London's gate.
A great hue and cry being raised, another copy was found in the
chamber of a student of Lincoln's Inn, who confessed, being put
upon the rack, that he had received it from one JOHN FELTON, a rich
gentleman who lived across the Thames, near Southwark. This John
Felton, being put upon the rack too, confessed that he had posted
the placard on the Bishop's gate. For this offence he was, within
four days, taken to St. Paul's Churchyard, and there hanged and
quartered. As to the Pope's bull, the people by the reformation
having thrown off the Pope, did not care much, you may suppose, for
the Pope's throwing off them. It was a mere dirty piece of paper,
and not half so powerful as a street ballad.
On the very day when Felton was brought to his trial, the poor Duke
of Norfolk was released. It would have been well for him if he had
kept away from the Tower evermore, and from the snares that had
taken him there. But, even while he was in that dismal place he
corresponded with Mary, and as soon as he was out of it, he began
to plot again. Being discovered in correspondence with the Pope,
with a view to a rising in England which should force Elizabeth to
consent to his marriage with Mary and to repeal the laws against
the Catholics, he was re-committed to the Tower and brought to
trial. He was found guilty by the unanimous verdict of the Lords
who tried him, and was sentenced to the block.
It is very difficult to make out, at this distance of time, and
between opposite accounts, whether Elizabeth really was a humane
woman, or desired to appear so, or was fearful of shedding the
blood of people of great name who were popular in the country.
Twice she commanded and countermanded the execution of this Duke,
and it did not take place until five months after his trial. The
scaffold was erected on Tower Hill, and there he died like a brave
man. He refused to have his eyes bandaged, saying that he was not
at all afraid of death; and he admitted the justice of his
sentence, and was much regretted by the people.
Although Mary had shrunk at the most important time from disproving
her guilt, she was very careful never to do anything that would
admit it. All such proposals as were made to her by Elizabeth for
her release, required that admission in some form or other, and
therefore came to nothing. Moreover, both women being artful and
treacherous, and neither ever trusting the other, it was not likely
that they could ever make an agreement. So, the Parliament,
aggravated by what the Pope had done, made new and strong laws
against the spreading of the Catholic religion in England, and
declared it treason in any one to say that the Queen and her
successors were not the lawful sovereigns of England. It would
have done more than this, but for Elizabeth's moderation.
Since the Reformation, there had come to be three great sects of
religious people - or people who called themselves so - in England;
that is to say, those who belonged to the Reformed Church, those
who belonged to the Unreformed Church, and those who were called
the Puritans, because they said that they wanted to have everything
very pure and plain in all the Church service. These last were for
the most part an uncomfortable people, who thought it highly
meritorious to dress in a hideous manner, talk through their noses,
and oppose all harmless enjoyments. But they were powerful too,
and very much in earnest, and they were one and all the determined
enemies of the Queen of Scots. The Protestant feeling in England
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was further strengthened by the tremendous cruelties to which
Protestants
were exposed in France and in the Netherlands. Scores
of thousands of them were put to death in those countries with
every cruelty that can be imagined, and at last, in the autumn of
the year one thousand five hundred and seventy-two, one of the
greatest barbarities ever committed in the world took place at
Paris.
It is called in history, THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW, because
it took place on Saint Bartholomew's Eve. The day fell on Saturday
the twenty-third of August. On that day all the great leaders of
the Protestants (who were there called HUGUENOTS) were assembled
together, for the purpose, as was represented to them, of doing
honour to the marriage of their chief, the young King of Navarre,
with the sister of CHARLES THE NINTH: a miserable young King who
then occupied the French throne. This dull creature was made to
believe by his mother and other fierce Catholics about him that the
Huguenots meant to take his life; and he was persuaded to give
secret orders that, on the tolling of a great bell, they should be
fallen upon by an overpowering force of armed men, and slaughtered
wherever they could be found. When the appointed hour was close at
hand, the stupid wretch, trembling from head to foot, was taken
into a balcony by his mother to see the atrocious work begun. The
moment the bell tolled, the murderers broke forth. During all that
night and the two next days, they broke into the houses, fired the
houses, shot and stabbed the Protestants, men, women, and children,
and flung their bodies into the streets. They were shot at in the
streets as they passed along, and their blood ran down the gutters.
Upwards of ten thousand Protestants were killed in Paris alone; in
all France four or five times that number. To return thanks to
Heaven for these diabolical murders, the Pope and his train
actually went in public procession at Rome, and as if this were not
shame enough for them, they had a medal struck to commemorate the
event. But, however comfortable the wholesale murders were to
these high authorities, they had not that soothing effect upon the
doll-King. I am happy to state that he never knew a moment's peace
afterwards; that he was continually crying out that he saw the
Huguenots covered with blood and wounds falling dead before him;