[186]See the whole of this letter in Whittaker, vol. iv. p. 399. Camden translated it into Latin, and introduced it into his History; but he published only an abridged edition of it, which Dr Stuart has paraphrased and abridged still further; and Mademoiselle de Keralio has translated Dr Stuart’s paraphrased abridgment into French, supposing it to have been the original letter. Stuart, vol. ii. p. 164.—Keralio, Histoire d’Elisabethe, vol. v. p. 349.
[187]Chalmers, vol. i. p. 395.
[188]They were hanged on two successive days, seven on each day; and the first seven, among whom were Ballard, Babington, and Savage, were cut down before they were dead, embowelled, and then quartered.—Stranguage,p.177.
[189]Stranguage, p. 176.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 427 et seq.
[190]In the first series of Ellis’s Collection of “Original Letters illustrative of English History,” there is given a fac simile of the plan, in Lord Burleigh’s hand, for the arrangement to be observed at the trial of the Queen of Scots. As it is interesting, and brings the whole scene more vividly before us, the following explanatory copy of it will be perused with interest.
Below, in another hand, apparently in answer to Lord Burleigh’s direction, is the following:
“This will be most convenientlye in the greatt Chamber; the lengthe whereof is in all xxiij. yerds with the windowe: whereof there may be fr. the neither part beneth the barre viij. yerds: and the rest for the upper parte. The breadeth of the chamber is vij. yerds.
“There is another chambre for the Lords to dyne in, the lengthe is xiiij. yerds; the breadeth, vij. yerdes; and the deppeth iij. yerdes dim.”
[191]As an example of some of the mistakes which the fabricators of these letters committed, it may be mentioned, that in one of them, dated the 27th of July 1586, Mary is made to say,—“I am not yet brought so low but that I am able to handle my cross-bow for killing a deer, and to gallop after the hounds on horseback, as this afternoon I intend to do, within the limits of this park, and could otherwhere if it were permitted.” Yet on the 3d of June previous, Sir Amias Paulet informed Walsingham—“The Scottish Queen is getting a little strength, and has been out in her coach, and is sometimes carried in a chair to one of the adjoining ponds to see the diversion of duck-hunting; but she is not able to walk without support on each side.” See Chalmers, vol. i. p. 426.
[192]Camden, p. 519, et seq.—Stranguage, p. 192, et seq.—Robertson, Book VII.—Stuart, vol. ii. p. 268, et seq.
[193]It deserves notice, that no particulars of the trial at Fotheringay have been recorded, either by Mary herself, or any of her friends, but are all derived from the narrative of two of Elizabeth’s notaries. If Mary’s triumph was so decided, even by their account, it may easily be conceived that it would have appeared still more complete, had it been described by less partial writers.
[194]Camden, p. 525, et seq.
[195]Murdin, p. 569.
[196]Camden.
[197]Jebb, vol. ii. p. 91.
[198]Tytler, vol. ii. p. 319, et seq., and p. 403.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 447.—Tytler gives a strong and just exposition of the shameful nature of the Queen’s correspondence with Paulet. The reader cannot fail to peruse the following passage with interest:
“The letters written by Elizabeth to Sir Amias Paulet, Queen Mary’s keeper in her prison at Fotheringay Castle, disclose to us the true sentiments of her heart, and her steady purpose to have Mary privately assassinated. Paulet, a rude but an honest man, had behaved with great insolence and harshness to Queen Mary, and treated her with the utmost disrespect. He approached her person without any ceremony, and usually came covered into her presence, of which she had complained to Queen Elizabeth. He was therefore thought a fit person for executing the above purpose. The following letter from Elizabeth displays a strong picture of her artifice and flattery, in order to raise his expectations to the highest pitch.
‘TO MY LOVING AMIAS.
‘Amias, my most faithful and careful servant, God reward thee treblefold for the most troublesome charge so well discharged. If you knew,my Amias, how kindly, beside most dutifully, my grateful heart accepts and praiseth your spotless endeavours and faithful actions, performed in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it would ease your travail, and rejoice your heart; in which I charge you to carry this most instant thought, that I cannot balance in any weight of my judgment the value that I prize you at, and suppose no treasure can countervail such a faith. And you shall condemn me in that fault that yet I never committed, if I reward not such desert; yea let me lack when I most need it, if I acknowledge not such a merit,non omnibus datum.’*
Having thus buoyed up his hopes and wishes, Walsingham, in his letters to Paulet and Drury, mentions the proposal in plain words to them. ‘We find, by a speech lately made by her Majesty, that she doth note in you both a lack of that care and zeal for her service, that she looketh for at your hands, in that you have not in all this time (of yourselves, without any other provocation) found out some way to shorten the life of the Scots Queen, considering the great peril she is hourly subject to, so long as the said Queen shall live.’—In a Post-script: ‘I pray you, let both this and the enclosed be committed to the fire; as your answer shall be, after it has been communicated to her Majesty, for her satisfaction.’ In a subsequent letter: ‘I pray you let me know what you have done with my letters, because they are not fit to be kept, that I may satisfy her Majesty therein, who might otherwise take offence thereat.’
What a cruel snare is here laid for this faithful servant! He is tempted to commit a murder, and at the same time has orders from his Sovereign to destroy the warrant for doing it. He was too wise and too honourable to do either the one or the other. Had he fallen into the snare, we may guess, from the fate of Davidson, what would have been his. Paulet, in return, thus writes to Walsingham:—‘Your letters of yesterday coming to my hand this day, I would not fail, according to your directions, to return my answer with all possible speed; which I shall deliver unto you with great grief and bitterness of mind, in that I am so unhappy, as living to see this unhappy day, in which I am required, by direction of my most gracious Sovereign, to do an act which God and the law forbiddeth. My goods and life are at her Majesty’s disposition, and I am ready to lose them the next morrow if it shall please her. But God forbid I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity, as shed blood without law or warrant.”
* What a picture have we here, of the heroine of England! Wooing a faithful servant to commit a clandestine murder, which she herself durst not avow! The portrait of King John, in the same predicament, practising with Hubert to murder his nephew, then under his charge, shows how intimately the great Poet was acquainted with nature.O my gentle Hubert,We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh,There is a soul, counts thee her creditor,And with advantage means to pay thy love,And, my good friend, thy voluntary oathLives in this bosom dearly cherished.
* What a picture have we here, of the heroine of England! Wooing a faithful servant to commit a clandestine murder, which she herself durst not avow! The portrait of King John, in the same predicament, practising with Hubert to murder his nephew, then under his charge, shows how intimately the great Poet was acquainted with nature.
O my gentle Hubert,We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh,There is a soul, counts thee her creditor,And with advantage means to pay thy love,And, my good friend, thy voluntary oathLives in this bosom dearly cherished.
[199]Mackenzie’s Lives of the Scottish Writers, vol. iii. p. 336.—Robertson, vol. ii. p. 194.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 449.
[200]La Mort de la Royne d’Ecosse in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 611.
[201]Jebb, vol. ii. p. 622. et seq.
[202]“Mary’s testament and letters,” says Ritson the antiquarian, “which I have seen, blotted with her tears in the Scotch College, Paris, will remain perpetual monuments of singular abilities, tenderness, and affection,—of a head and heart of which no other Queen in the world was probably ever possessed.”
[203]Jebb, vol. ii. p. 628, et seq.
[204]History of Fotheringay, p. 79.
[205]Among these attendants were her physician Bourgoine, who afterwards wrote a long and circumstantial narrative of her death, and Jane Kennedy, formerly mentioned on the occasion of Mary’s escape from Loch-Leven.
[206]Narratio Supplicii Mortis Mariae Stuart in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 163.—La Mort de la Royne d’Ecosse in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 636 and 639.—Camden, p. 535.
[207]Jebb, vol. ii. p. 640, et seq.
[208]See Mezeray, Histoire de France, tome iii.
[209]“We may say of Mary, I believe, with strict propriety,” observes Whittaker, “what has been said of one of her Royal predecessors,—‘the gracious Duncan,’ that she
“Had borne her faculties so meek, had beenSo clear in her great office, that her virtues,Will plead, like angels, trumpet-tongued, againstThe deep damnation of her taking off.”
[210]“Oraison Funebre” in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 671.
[211]Anderson, vol. ii. p. 92.
[212]Keith, p. 79.
[213]Anderson, vol. i. p. 117.—Keith, p. 379.
[214]Melville, p. 175. et seq.
[215]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 90.
[216]Keith, p. 406.
[217]Anderson, vol. i. p. 139.
[218]Keith, p. 417.
[219]Haynes, p. 454.—Stuart, vol. i. p. 361.
[220]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 66.
[221]Keith, p. 467.—Anderson, vol. ii. p. 173.
[222]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 140.
[223]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 235.
[224]Ibid. 256.
[225]Tytler, vol. i. p. 144.
[226]There is preserved at Hamilton Palace, a small silver box, said to be the very casket which once contained the Letters. Laing, who appears to believe in the genuineness of this relic somewhat too hastily, mentions, that “the casket was purchased from a Papist by the Marchioness of Douglas (a daughter of the Huntly family) about the period of the Restoration. After her death, her plate was sold to a goldsmith, from whom her daughter-in-law Anne, heiress and Dutchess of Hamilton, repurchased the casket.”
“For the following accurate and satisfactory account of the casket,” adds Mr Laing, “I am indebted to Mr Alexander Young, W. S., to whom I transmitted the description of it given in Morton’s receipt, and in the Memorandum prefixed to the Letters in Buchanan’s ‘Detection.’”
“‘The silver box is carefully preserved in the Charter-room at Hamilton Palace, and answers exactly the description you have given of it, both in size and general appearance. I examined the outside very minutely. On the first glance I was led to state, that it had none of those ornaments to which you allude, and, in particular, that it wanted the crowns, with the Italic letterF. Instead of these, I found on one of the sides the arms of the house of Hamilton, which seemed to have been engraved on a compartment, which had previously contained some other ornament. On the top of the lock, which is of curious workmanship, there is a large embossed crown withfleurs de lis, but without any letters. Upon the bottom, however, of the casket, there are two other small ornaments—one near each end, which, at first sight, I thought resembled our silver-smiths’ marks; but, on closer inspection, I found they consisted each of a royal crown above afleur de lis, surmounting the Italic letterF.’”—Laing, vol. ii. p. 235.
Upon this description of the box, it may be remarked, that it doesnotexactly agree with the account given of it by Buchanan; for it would appear, that in the casket preserved at Hamilton, there are only two ItalicF’s; while Buchanan describes it as “a small gilt coffer, not fully a foot long, beinggarnished in sundry placeswith the Roman letter F, under a king’s crown,” an expression he would not have used, had there been only two of these letters. Besides, there seems to have been a king’s crown above each; but on the coffer at Hamilton, there is only one crown on the top of the lock, and not above the letter F. Antiquarians, however, have investigated subjects of less curiosity, and have been willing to believe upon far more slender data.
[227]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 87.
[228]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 140.
[229]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 235; and p. 257.
[230]The authentic “Warrant” and “Consent,” has been already described,supra, vol. ii. p. 95, and may be seen at length in Anderson, vol. i. p. 87.
[231]Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 356.
[232]See in further corroboration of the facts stated above, a Letter of Archibald Douglas to the Queen of Scots, in Robertson’s Appendix, or in Laing, vol. ii. p. 363.
[233]“Nec ullam hac in causa reginæ accusationem intervenire.”—See the King of Denmark’s Letter in Laing, vol. ii. p. 328.
[234]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 382.
[235]Keith, Appendix, p. 141.
[236]Jebb, vol. ii. p. 227.—Keith, Appendix, p. 143.
[237]See the New Monthly Magazine, No. LIV. p. 521.
[238]Lesley’s “Defence” in Anderson, vol. i. p. 40.
[239]Miss Benger, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 494.
[240]Buchanan, book xix.—Stuart, vol. i. p. 460.
[241]Robertson, Appendix to vol. i. No. xxii.
[242]Anderson, vol. iv. Part I. p. 120 and 125.
[243]Keith, Appendix, p. 145.
[244]Jebb, vol. ii. p. 671.
[245]Anderson, vol. ii. p. 185.
[246]Anderson, ibid. p. 187.—Laing, vol. ii. p. 296.
[247]Laing, Appendix p. 323.
[248]Laing, vol. ii. p. 298.
[249]Ibid. p. 300.
[250]Tytler, vol. i. p. 20.
[251]It is unnecessary to enter into any discussion regarding the second Confession of Paris, which has been so satisfactorily proved to be spurious, by Tytler, Whittaker, and Chalmers, and on which Robertson acknowledges “no stress is to be laid,” on account of the “improbable circumstances” it contains. See Tytler, vol. i. p. 286.—Whittaker, vol. ii. p. 305.—Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 50.—Robertson, vol. iii. p. 20.
[252]Robertson, vol. iii. p. 21.
[253]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 371 and 375.—Robertson, vol. iii. p. 28.
[254]The French edition of the Detection, p. 2.—Goodall, vol. i. p. 103.
[255]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 235.
[256]Laing, vol. i. p. 250.
[257]See the Letter in Laing, vol. ii. p. 202; and an unsuccessful attempt to give a criminal interpretation to it, in vol. i. p. 311. It is quite unnecessary to allude here to several other flimsy forgeries which, at a later period, have been attempted to be palmed upon the world as genuine letters of Mary. In 1726, a book was published, entitled, “The genuine Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, to James Earl of Bothwell, found in his Secretary’s Closet after his Decease, and now in the Possession of a Gentleman at Oxford. Translated from the French by Edward Simmons, late of Christ-Church College, Oxford.” These had only to be read, to be seen to be fabrications. Yet so late as the year 1824, a compilation was published by Dr Hugh Campbell, containing, among other things, eleven letters, which the Doctor thought were original love-letters of the Queen to Bothwell, although, with a very trifling variation, they were the same as those published in 1726; only, not being described as translations, and being written in comparatively modern English, which Mary never could write, they bear still more evidently the stamp of forgery. This is put beyond a doubt, by a short Examination of them, published by Murray, London, 1825, and entitled, “A Detection of the Love-Letters, lately attributed, in Hugh Campbell’s Work, to Mary Queen of Scots; wherein his Plagiarisms are proved, and his fictions fixed.”
[258]Whittaker, vol. ii. p. 79.
[259]Goodall, vol. i. p. 79—Laing, vol. i. p. 209.
[260]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 342.
[261]Jebb, vol. ii. 244.
[262]Camden, p. 143.—Tytler, vol. i. p. 101.
[263]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 31.
[264]It is proper to state, that Robertson has considered this argument at some length; and though he has not overturned, he has certainly invalidated the strength of the evidence adduced by Goodall in support of it.—Goodall, vol. i. p. 118.—Whittaker, vol. i. p. 383.—Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 375.—Laing, vol. i. p. 315.
[265]Whittaker, vol. i. p. 332.
[266]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 64 & 67.
[267]Whittaker, vol. i. p. 408.
[268]Goodall, vol. ii. p. 51.
[269]Regarding these sonnets, the curious reader may consult Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 55.—Stuart, vol. i. p. 395.—Jebb, vol. ii. p. 481—and Laing, vol. i. p. 230. 347. 349. and 368. For remarks on the marriage-contracts, see Goodall, vol. ii. p. 54 & 56, and vol. i. p. 126.—Whittaker, vol. i, p. 392, and Stuart, vol, i. p. 397.