Mary astonished the court of France and all the foreign ambassadors there assembled, when only twelve years of age, by reciting with grace and dignity a Latin oration of her own composition, before the king and a distinguished company. Her essay, written in the style of Cicero, was a plea in behalf of the “capacity of females for the highest mental acquirements in literature and the fine arts.”
So beautiful was the young queen at this time that, when on Palm Sunday she, with all the princesses and ladies of the court of France, was carrying a palm branch from church, a woman in the crowd was so dazzled with the beauty and heavenly expression of Mary’s face, that she knelt at the feet of the child in rapturous admiration, exclaiming, “Are you not indeed an angel?”
A portrait of Mary Stuart, formerly in the royal gallery at Fontainebleau, represents her in her fourteenth year. “The color of her hair and eyes which has been as much disputed as the question of her guilt or innocence, is of that rich tint of brown called by the French chestnut; soare her beautiful eyebrows. Her complexion is clear and delicate, but somewhat pale, her nose straight, and her features lovely, refined, and intellectual. She wears a white satin Scotch cap, placed very low on one side of her head, with a rosette of white ostrich feathers, having in the centre a ruby brooch, round which is wrought in gold lettersMariæ Reginæ Scotorum. From this depends a drooping plume formed of small pendant pearls. Her dress is of white damask, fitting closely to her shape, with a small partlet ruff of scalloped point lace, supported by a collar of sapphires and rubies; a girdle of gems to correspond encircles her waist. The dress is made without plaits, gradually widening towards the feet in the shape of a bell, and is fastened down the front with medallions of pearls and precious stones. A royal mantle of pure white is attached to the shoulders of her dress, trimmed with point lace. Her sleeves are rather full, parted with strings of pearls, and finished with small ruffles and jewelled bracelets. Her hands are exquisitely formed. She rests one on the back of a crimson velvet fauteuil, emblazoned with the royalfleurs-de-lys;in the other she holds an embroidered handkerchief. The arms of Scotland, singly, are displayed in a maiden lozenge on the wall above her, for Mary was not yetla Reine Dauphine. She was at that time caressingly called by Catherine de’ Medici and the royal children of France,notre petite Reinette d’Escosse, and was the pet and idol of the glittering court of Valois. ‘Our petite Reinette Escossaise,’ said Catherine de’ Medici, ‘has but to smile to turn the heads of all Frenchmen.’”
When Mary Stuart was in her sixteenth year she was married to the Dauphin, Francis, who was then fifteen years of age. The nuptial ceremonies and festivitieswere magnificent in the extreme. Never had the famous portals of Nôtre Dame received so lovely a bride. Her appearance is thus described:—
“She was dressed in a robe whiter than the lily, but so glorious in its fashion and decorations, that it would be difficult, nay impossible, for any pen to do justice to its details. Her regal mantle and train were of bluish-grey cut velvet, richly embroidered with white silk and pearls. It was of a marvellous length, full six toises, covered with precious stones, and was supported by young ladies. Mary wore a royal crown on this occasion far more costly than any previous Scottish monarch could ever boast, composed of the finest gold and most exquisite workmanship, set with diamonds, pearls, rubies, and emeralds of inestimable worth, having in the centre a pendent stone computed at five hundred thousand crowns. About her neck hung a matchless jewel, suspended by chains of precious stones, which, from its description, must have been none other than that well known in Scottish records by the familiar name of theGreat Harry. This was her own personal property, derived from her royal English great-grandfather, Henry VII., by whom it was presented to her grandmother, Queen Margaret Tudor.” Nôtre Dame blazed with lights, dazzling jewels, andgrande toilettes. As the ceremony was concluded, Mary greeted her husband as Francis I., king of Scotland; and all the Scottish nobles bent in homage to him. Handfuls of gold and silver coin were then thrown in the midst of the assembled crowds of people, while French heralds proclaimed the marriage, and cried, “Largesse, largesse!” and the royal couple received the titles of “Queen-Dauphiness,” and “The King Dauphin.”
Magnificent banquets, gorgeous balls, and splendid pageants succeeded the marriage ceremonies in the church. The royal palace was decorated with superb splendor and regal lavishness of display. At the grand ball the beautiful bride, the dazzling queen of Scotland, danced the stately pavon,—a kind of minuet, which was performed by ladies alone. As her train was twelve yards long, and was borne after her by a gentleman, following her in the dance, it was a difficult exercise of grace and skill for the young bride to achieve. After the dance, a novel pageant took place in the grandsalon. Suddenly there issued from the Chamber of Requests six gallant ships, with sails of silver gauze fastened to silver masts. Seated on the deck of each vessel, which was propelled by artificial means, was a prince attired in cloth of gold. Each handsome prince wore a mask; and as the ship sailed by the groups of ladies, the chivalrous knight seized a maiden and placed her on the gorgeous throne beside him. In this exciting game the Dauphin caught his bride, the lovely Mary Stuart. But Prince de Condé, champion of the Huguenots, caused great merriment by capturing, as his lady, the wife of his opponent of Romish faith, the Duke de Guise.
The death of Mary I., queen of England, in 1558, opened the way for the fatal step of Henry II. of France, regarding his royal daughter-in-law, the queen of Scotland. At a grand tournament held in honor of the marriage of Elizabeth of France with Philip II. of Spain, Mary, queen of Scotland, was borne to her place in the royal balcony on a kind of triumphal car, emblazoned with the royal escutcheon of England and Scotland, while she was preceded by heralds who cried, “Place! place! pour la Reine d’Angleterre!” And as the people took upthe cry, “Vive la Reine d’Angleterre!” they little imagined that they were sounding the death-knell of the lovely wife of their dauphin, whom they all adored. It was the assumption of this title at this time which, twenty-seven years afterwards, cost Mary Stuart her life.
But marriage pageants, funeral obsequies, and coronations followed each other in quick succession. At the very marriage tournament when Henry II. of France had caused his royal daughter-in-law to be proclaimed queen of England, he met with an accident which resulted in his death. Mary’s husband was thereupon crowned king as Francis II. of France. But in less than a year after his coronation, Francis breathed his last, and the beautiful Scottish queen was left a widow. That Mary Stuart was a devoted wife to her French husband, all concede; and Charles IX., brother of Francis, has left this pathetic testimony to her worth. Whenever Charles IX. looked upon Mary’s portrait, he would exclaim: “Ah, Francis! happy brother! Though your life and reign were so short, you were to be envied in this,—that you were the possessor of that angel and the object of her love!”
Mary, Queen of Scots, returned to her native land after the death of her husband, Francis II., and at this point Elizabeth’s injustice begins. Mary sent a courteous request to the queen of England, that she should be allowed to pass to her own kingdom through her cousin’s domains; but this was ungraciously refused. After Mary, Queen of Scots, reached Scotland and assumed royal power there, she was immediately beset by suitors for her hand. The King of Sweden, Philip II. of Spain, and the Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor of Germany, all sued for her hand,—the former and latter in their own behalf, while Philip of Spain desired an alliance between Mary and hisheir, Don Carlos. As these three princes had been previous suitors to the English queen, Elizabeth never forgave the insult, and vented all her spite of wounded vanity upon the poor Queen of Scots. Then followed the schemes and intrigues regarding the marriage of the Scottish queen; Elizabeth claiming that she had no right to marry any one whom she (Elizabeth) did not approve. At length Mary took the matter into her own hands; and being really in love with the handsome Darnley, her cousin,—who had thus far veiled his weak and vicious nature beneath his courtly manners and attractive face,—this unfortunate marriage was consummated, and Mary Stuart became the hapless victim of her many enemies.
We cannot recount the details of the many trials heaped upon her by her weak and unworthy husband and his intriguing father, joined with Scottish noblemen, who desired her ruin because she was a Catholic. These earls were not actuated by any fervent zeal in upholding the Protestant religion; but as Scotland was then professedly a Protestant nation, these wily nobles used the prevailing opinions of the people to further their own ambitious schemes. And in denouncing Mary as a Catholic, and urging that she be dethroned, that her infant son might be declared king, they were simply endeavoring to grasp the reins of government with their own hands. These Scottish noblemen were leagued with the English court; but Bothwell headed another faction, which explains the seeming difficulty in regard to her being still imprisoned by the very party who rescued her from Bothwell’s power, and from whom she was obliged to flee to England, to seek the promised protection of the English queen.
With her last dying breath, Queen Elizabeth, perchance unwittingly, substantiated her own treachery, or that ofthe English cabinet, and acknowledged the rights of Mary, Queen of Scots. When urged to name her successor, she said, “My seat has been the seat of kings, and I will haveno rascalto succeed me.” Secretary Cecil ventured to ask her what she meant by those significant words; to which she replied,—thereby intimating that all who were not royal princes wereperforce rascals,—“I will be succeeded by a king, and who should that be but theKing of Scots.”
In spite of the subtle schemes and wily plotting of the most cunning, keen-witted, and unscrupulous courtiers of those wide-awake and intellectually progressive times, all of them bent upon the destruction of one helpless, imprisoned woman, whose very charms and fascinations and confiding faith in good rather than evil motives, were used by them as the very evidence to convict her of infamous guilt;—whereas, these traits of character are the strongest proof of her innocence;—in spite of all their evil machinations, aided by the jealous vanity of a queen who in other respects evinced a strong mind, and whose reign is regarded as one of the brightest epochs in the world’s history; in spite of all these overwhelming forces conspiring to defame and destroy the hapless Queen of Scots, nevertheless, our higher instincts of humanity intuitively plead for the innocence of this unfortunate Queen Mary, even though, by that very conclusion, we must perforce tarnish the glory of the illustrious Queen of England. For Elizabeth’s acknowledged defects of character harmonize more strongly with such a supposition, than that we should, without violence to our better intuitions, allow that it could be consistent to link with infamy and crime Mary’s equally acknowledged loveliness and kindliness of nature, and devout constancy to whatshefelt to be vital points in her Christian faith, while at the same time she allowed the most generous liberality of belief to others. For of Mary, Queen of Scots, alone it could be said, what no other sovereign of those days could claim, that she never permitted persecution for religious differences.
That Elizabeth could be dissembling and treacherous when actuated by her weak, jealous vanity, all historians fully prove and frankly acknowledge; that Elizabeth scrupled not even at the death of her former friends, when her petty spite was kindled against them, other instances, such as the execution of the Earl of Essex, whom without doubt Elizabeth loved, yet in a fit of anger condemned to death, most clearly demonstrate. But that Mary, Queen of Scots, could display such traits of character, as all testimony, whether that of friends or foes, are forced to concede to her through long years of imprisonment, while still at heart she was the infamous spirit of evil which her accusers have declared her to be,—a very devil clothed in the likeness of an angel of Paradise,—is against all experiences of human nature, against all analogous instances in history.
The question of Mary Stuart’s guilt or innocence regarding the murder of Darnley and willing marriage with Bothwell, is one thing; but the question of Mary Stuart’s political intrigues with Elizabeth’s enemies is entirely another thing. As regards Mary Stuart’s connivance with her Catholic party during her long imprisonment in England, it is not necessary that she should be proven innocent of such charges to insure her innocence of the horrible infamy regarding the murder of Darnley and willing marriage with his murderer. Were she guilty of these nefarious crimes, all others however black and villanouswould be probable. But her innocence regarding those bloody deeds would not be impeached by political intrigues to obtain her rightful liberty. Political scheming was the governmental policy of the times, and he or she who could be the most wily and intriguingdiplomatewas looked upon as one who had achieved the greatest stroke of genius. Surely in this business none were such adepts as Elizabeth. That Mary Stuart would plot in behalf of her Catholic belief would not prove that she was capable of the vilest crimes. And though one should frankly acknowledge that the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, was an advantage to the cause of Protestantism, by weakening Catholicism in Scotland and England, it would not consequently be necessary to prove that her death was the evidence of any crime on her part, save the insatiate thirst for power, and consequent scheming and plotting therefor, of which none of the sovereigns of her time could be said to be guiltless.
Three things are asserted by those who condemn Mary, Queen of the Scots: that she was guilty of murder, and the vilest crimes of which a woman’s nature can be accused; that she was guilty of political intrigues as a Catholic fanatic in behalf of her Roman faith; or that she was without any religious belief, merely employing religion as a cloak to her crimes. Now, of course, if she were guilty of the first accusation, no one could attempt to deny the others; but though she were guilty of both the last accusations, it would not imply that, therefore, she was necessarily guilty of murder and revolting pollution.
The historians who defend Mary, Queen of Scots, claim that she was innocent, not only of connivance at murder and infamous vice, but that she was also free from all political intrigues, either in defence of her ambitiousgreed for power, or in upholding her religious fanaticism; while the historians who denounce Mary Stuart declare that she was guilty of all and every crime, both as wife, woman, and fanatic intriguer. From a close comparison of given evidence on both sides, the truth would seem to lie between them; for the proofs seem the stronger which free Mary, Queen of Scots, of connivance at murder, and vile pollution, while probabilities lean toward the supposition that she knew of, if she did not indeed encourage, plots amongst the enemies of England; but as she was unjustly imprisoned by the English, this was only political scheming; and though it might cost her her head, from political expediency, it is no proof at all that she was therefore guilty also of the most shocking and inexpiable corruption. The plea of thatpolitical expediencywould of course remove infamy from the English cabinet and their sovereign, as regards the one act of decapitating their dangerous prisoner; but at the same time, the same plea of political expediency would excuse the plotting of Mary, Queen of Scots, while her substantiated innocence of the viler and more heinous crimes brought against her character as a wife and a woman, would at the same time heap upon the English government and Elizabeth the deepest and most demoniacal infamy, in conniving at such atrocious and brutal lies against the character and purity of a helpless woman, that they might strengthen their political schemes against her life.
The question of the effect of her downfall upon the world, as regards the upholding of Protestantism, and the check to the onrush of inquisitorial Catholicism, is a very different matter from the question regarding her innocence as a wife and a woman.
That her downfall strengthened Protestantism will beconceded; and that her death from political expediency might have been required may not be denied; which concession would not blot out the treachery of Elizabeth and her ministers, nor would it involve the acknowledgment of Mary Stuart’s guilt of aught save political plotting, which, had she been thequeenon thethronerather than thequeenin theprison, would have been looked upon as justifiable strategy.
There is no doubt that the quarrel of Henry VIII. with the Pope and Romish Church was a great factor in the glorious struggle for religious liberty, and the strengthening of the power of the Reformation, which has filled not only Europe, but the world, with the effulgent light of a broader Christian civilization. But God can make the “very wrath of man to praise him,” and because Henry VIII. was an unconscious and unwilling instrument in the hands of the Almighty, the praise is not to the wicked king, but to an overruling Providence.
If Mary Stuart died for her religion, even though that faith was Catholicism, Protestantism must not fanatically refuse her the martyr’s crown. But if Mary Stuart and Elizabeth were both women utterly devoid of religious principle,—and this Elizabeth’s warmest admirers declare concerning herself, as well as Mary Stuart,—then were these two women engaged in one of the most subtle, ingenious, and well-matched political games which was ever played upon the stage of history; and in this game, Elizabeth showed herself to be the most cunning schemer who ever wore a victor’s crown, while Mary Stuart displayed the most heroic and unconquerable fortitude ever evinced by dying gladiator when vanquished in the Roman amphitheatre.
Unless volumes were written upon the subject, it wouldbe an impossibility to give a clear recital of the statements made by the partisans and defamers of Mary Stuart. According to one side, the famous “Silver-casket Letters” are proved by acts of the Scottish Parliament and many eminent authorities to have been forgeries; and the whole scheme of Rizzio’s and Darnley’s murder to have been concocted in the English cabinet. According to other acts of Parliament and other eminent authorities, the famous “Silver-casket Letters” are pronounced genuine and convincing proofs of Mary’s guilt of conniving at Darnley’s murder, and most shamelessly marrying his murderer.
Now if the “Casket Letters” are genuine, there indeed remains no doubt of Mary’s guilt. But if the act of the Scottish Parliament, framed Dec. 20, 1567, for Bothwell’s forfeiture, which act of Parliament was signed by James Makgill, clerk-register (and which document, it is stated, may be consulted in the register-house, Edinburgh, in the original Latin), be genuine, the “Casket Letters” must be spurious, and Mary’s innocence would be proved. It is only upon these “Silver-casket Letters” that her defamers rest the most important proof of her abetting Darnley’s death and marrying Bothwellwillingly, knowing that he was her husband’s murderer. In these forged letters, Mary is made to plan with Bothwell the death of Darnley, and her own abduction with a man who had not yet procured a divorce from his wife, whom only six months before he had married with the queen’s most open consent.
This act of Parliament for the forfeiture of Bothwell and sixty-four of his accomplices, after reciting his murder of the “late King Henry,” proceeds in these words: “And also for their treasonable interception of the mostnoble person of our most illustrious mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, on her way from Linlithgow to the town of Edinburgh, near the bridges vulgarly called ‘Foul Bridges,’ besetting her with a thousand armed men, equipped in manner of war, in the month of April last. She suspecting no evil from any of her subjects, and least of all from the Earl of Bothwell, toward whom she had shown as great offers of liberality and benevolence as prince could show to good subject,—he by force and violence treasonably seized her most noble person; put violent hands upon her, not permitting her to enter her own town of Edinburgh in peace, but carried her away that same night to the Castle of Dunbar, against her will; and there detained her as his prisoner for about twelve days.”
This act of Parliament, after specifying the nefarious crime committed against her, in more explicit language, recites: “That, after detaining Queen Mary’s most noble person by force and violence twelve days, or thereabouts, at Dunbar Castle, Bothwell compelled her by fear, under circumstances such as might befall the most courageous woman in the world, to promise that she would as soon as possible contract marriage with him,—all which things were plotted and planned by the said earl and the persons aforesaid, of long time before, even before their aforesaid conspiracy and parricide (the murder of Darnley), notwithstanding that at the same time James, Earl of Bothwell, was bound in marriage to an honorable lady, Janet Gordon, from whom not only was he not divorced, but no process of divorce was begun. And in his nefarious and treasonable crimes and purposes continuing and persevering, he kept and detained the most noble person of our said dearest mother in firm custody and durance, by force andmasterfulhand of his armed friends and dependants,until the sixth day of May last past; on which day, still accompanied by a great number of armed men, he carried her to the Castle of Edinburgh, which was then in his power, and there imprisoned her, and compelled her to remain until the eleventh of the said month, on which day, still accompanied by a great number of armed men, that he might better color his treasonable and nefarious crimes and purposes, he carried her to our palace of Holyrood, and so within four days compelled her to contract marriage with him.”
Regarding this act of Parliament, Agnes Strickland, the English historian, says: “The facts chronicled in the parliamentary record, which are officially attested by the signature of James Makgill of Rankeillour, the clerk-register, demonstrate at once the falsehood of his patron, the Earl of Murray’s journal, of Buchanan’s ‘Detection’ and history of Mary’s reign, of the absurd paper published by Murray under the name of ‘French Paris’s Second Confession,’ and the supposititious letters produced by Morton for the defamation of the queen. These are all refuted by the act of Parliament, which asserts the treasonable constraint that was put on the queen’s will; and that act, be it remembered, was framed, and more than that, proclaimed by the heralds in the ears of the people, six months after the date assigned by Morton to the discovery of the letters which he produced as evidences of a guilty collusion and correspondence between the queen and Bothwell. The act was framed within seven months after the offence was perpetrated; and it behooved to be correct, because several persons assisted in that Parliament, as Huntley, Lethington, Sir James Melville, and others, who were not only present when the abduction was effected, but were carried away with their royal mistress as prisoners to Dunbar.”
Now let it be remembered that these witnesses for her innocence were, with the exception of the faithful Sir James Melville, and perhaps one or two others, no friends of Mary, Queen of Scots, but were the very parties in league with the English cabinet for her overthrow; and as Bothwell was not in this league, but was plotting only for his own scheme of being raised to the throne by marriage with Mary Stuart, these framers of this act of Parliament, exonerating Mary and denouncing Bothwell, were not acting through favor of her; and therefore this strong and overwhelming evidence comes from her very foes.
The following letter is from Mary Stuart to the Pope when she was at last out of the power of Bothwell. This letter is from the collection of Prince Labanoff: “Lettres de Marie Stuart, from the Secret Archives of the Vatican at Rome,”—and will reveal Mary’s feelings on the subject: “Tell to his Holiness,” writes she to her accredited envoy, “the grief we suffered when we were made prisoner by one of our subjects, the Earl of Bothwell, and led as prisoner with the Earl of Huntley the Chancellor, and the nobleman, our Secretary, together to the Castle of Dunbar, and after to the Castle of Edinburgh, where we were detained against our will in the hands of the said Earl of Bothwell, until such time as he had procured a pretended divorce between him and the sister of the said Lord of Huntley, his wife, our near relative; and we were constrained to yield our consent, yet against our will, to him. Therefore your Holiness is supplicated to take order on this, that we are made quit of the said indignity by means of a process at Rome, and commission sent to Scotland, to the bishops and other Catholic judges as your Holiness seemeth best.”
On the other hand, Mr. Froude, the English historian, does not refute this act of Parliament, but as evidence of Mary’s guilt, which he most vehemently declares, cites another act of Parliament, and states the following:—
“The Parliament met on the 15th of December. A series of acts embodying the resolutions of the Council were prepared by the Lords of the Articles,—among them were Huntley and Argyle. The abdication of Lochleven, the coronation of James, and the regency of Murray were successively declared to have been lawful; and lastly, in an act ‘anent the retention of their sovereign Lord’s mother’s person,’ the genuineness of the evidence by which her share in the murder was proved was accepted as beyond doubt or question.
“When the measure was laid before Parliament, Lord Herries, with one or two others, protested, not against the truth of the charges, but ‘against an act which was prejudicial to the honor, power, and estate of the Queen.’ But their objections were overruled. The acts were passed; the last and most important declaring that ‘the taking of arms by the lords and barons, the apprehension of the queen’s person, and generally all other things spoken and done by them to that effect, since the 10th of February last period, were caused by the said queen’s own default.’ It was most certain, from divers her privy letters, written wholly with her own hand, to the Earl of Bothwell, and by her ungodly and dishonorable proceeding to a pretended marriage with him, that she was privy art and part of the device and deed of the murder, and therefore justly deserved whatever had been done to her. Indirect counsel and means had been used to hold back the knowledge of the truth, yet all men were fully persuaded in their hearts of the authors and devisers of thefact. The nobility perceiving the queen so thrall and so blindly affectionate to the tyrant, and perceiving also that both he and she had conspired together such horrible cruelty, they had at length taken up arms to punish them.”
Surely both of these acts of Parliament cannot be trustworthy. Froude refers to Anderson’s Collection as his authority; Miss Strickland, to the register-house, Edinburgh, where the act may be seen in the original Latin. According to one, Mary, Queen of Scots is most clearly proven innocent; according to the other, Mary is most clearly proven guilty. The question therefore rests on the validity of the two acts. The reader may choose between them.
Regarding the famous “Silver-casket Letters,” these two English authorities thus comment. Miss Strickland says: “Several hundreds of Mary Stuart’s genuine letters are now before the public, commencing with those she wrote to her mother in her artless childhood. Not one of these bears the slightest analogy, either in style, sentiment or diction, with the eight suspicious documents she is alleged to have written. But argument is rendered unnecessary by the fact that the discovery of letters so discrepant with anything ever written, ever said or done, by Mary Stuart, rests solely on the testimony of Morton, one of the conspirators in the murder of Darnley. Prince Labanoff, who has devoted his life to the collection and verification of Mary Stuart’s letters, rejects this supposititious series, because, as he briefly observes, ‘there is nothing to prove their authenticity’; while the elder Tytler, who, as a lord of session, or judge, had been accustomed to study and collate evidences in the criminal courts of Scotland, has written two able volumes to expose their fallacies, under the title of ‘A Critical Enquiry into the Evidences.’”
Dr. Henry, the historian of England and Scotland, gave his private and most impartial opinion on this controversy in a letter to William Tytler, printed in “Transactions of Scottish Antiquarian Society,” in these words: “I have been long convinced that the unfortunate Queen Mary was basely betrayed and cruelly oppressed during her life, and calumniated after her death. Many things contributed to involve her in difficulties and dangers on her return to Scotland; her invincible adherence to her religion, her implicit submission to the dictates of her French friends, her having roused the jealousy of Elizabeth by assuming the English arms, the ambition of her brother James, and the faithless, plotting characters of others near her person,—in a word, an invisible political net seemed to have been spread around her, from which it was hardly possible for her to escape. Your efforts, sir, to relieve the memory of a much injured princess from a load of calumny are generous and commendable, and I can assure you they have not been unsuccessful. There is a great and general change in the sentiments of the public on that subject. He would be a bold man who should publish a history of Queen Mary now in the same strain with our two late historians,—Malcolm Laing and Robertson, whose sophistries were rightly estimated by that clear-headed and honest historian, Dr. Henry. Dr. Johnson, a person of a very different way of thinking from either, pronounced a most decided opinion in favor of Mary’s innocence, and expressed his firm conviction ‘that the Silver-casket Letters were spurious, and would never again be brought forward as historic evidences.’”
Regarding these same “Silver-casket Letters,” Froude says: “These letters were found in the celebrated casketwith the others to which reference was made in the preceding volume; I accept them as genuine, because, as will be seen, they were submitted to the scrutiny of almost the entire English peerage, and especially to those among the peers who were most interested in discovering them to be forged, and by them admitted to be indisputably in the handwriting of the Queen of Scots; because the letters in the text especially refer to conversations with Lord Huntley, who was then and always one of Mary Stuart’s truest adherents,—conversations which he could have denied had they been false, and which he never did deny; because their contents were confirmed in every particular unfavorable to the queen by a Catholic informant of the Spanish ambassador, who hurried from the spot to London immediately after the final catastrophe for which they prepared the way; and lastly, because there is no ground whatever to doubt the genuineness of the entire set of the casket-letters, except such as arises from the hardy and long-continued but entirely baseless denial of interested or sentimental partisans.”
But in connection with Mr. Froude’s declaration that his faith rests on them because they were submitted to theEnglish Peerage, impartial statement of evidence demands another comparison between these conflicting testimonies upon a different link in the chain of evidence for and against the guilt of Mary Stuart. Randolph was the English ambassador at the court of Scotland, and in some of his letters to Leicester he has revealed the English plotting and connivance in the scheme to ruin Mary, Queen of Scots. Regarding this point Miss Strickland says:—
“In the selfsame letter which records the round of banquets, masks, and princely pleasures, the EnglishMephistopheles, Randolph, exultingly unfolds to Leicester the items of the black budget prepared with his approval, against the meeting of the Scottish Parliament, by the unscrupulous coalition of traitors who were secretly allied with their sovereign’s husband and his father in a dastardly bond for murder, premeditated in cold blood, and intended to be perpetrated in the presence of their queen; and the crime was to be justified, as such deeds generally are, by slander.
“‘I know now for certain,’ writes he, ‘that this queen repenteth her marriage,—that she hateth him and all his kin. I know that he knoweth himself that he hath a partner in play and game with him. I know that there are practices in hand, contrived between the father and the son, to come by the crown against her will. I know that if it take effect, which is intended, David, with the consent of the king, shall have his throat cut within these ten days. Many thinggrieveouser, and worse than these are brought to my ears, yea, of thingsintended against her own person, which, because I think better to keep secret than to write to Mr. Secretary, I speak not of them, but now to your lordship.’ By one of the secret articles of the atrocious pact to which our worthy ambassador alludes, the life-long imprisonment of Mary was agreed, and her death, in case of her attempting to resist the transfer of the whole power of the crown to the ungrateful consort she had associated in her regality; and to this wrong Cecil, Bedford, and Elizabeth tacitly consented.”
Such was the villanous treachery of Darnley and his father, leagued with the English ministers and malcontents in Scotland, headed by Murray, the plotting half-brother of the queen, against Mary Stuart, who time and again received her inconstant and petulant husband intofavor, forgiving his outrageous behavior towards her. But Darnley little knew the schemes of his vile fellow-conspirators. They but used him as a tool, as long as he could avail their purposes, and then blew him up with gunpowder, when they had matured their infamous plans, so that his death should seemingly be the work of his shamefully abused and marvellously forbearing wife.
Miss Strickland further says:—
“A startling light is thrown by a careful collation of the above letters of Randolph to Leicester and Throckmorton on the agency, as well as the incentives, employed in the successive Edinburgh assassinations of Mary Stuart’s faithful and incorruptible minister, David Rizzio, in March, 1566, and that of her husband in February, 1567, which led to the deposition of that unfortunate princess and the transfer of the government of Scotland to the sworn creatures of the English sovereign, agreatbutdiabolical stroke of policy. The cool revelation of our unscrupulous ambassador, that the faithful minister who would not barter his royal mistress’s interests for English gold, ‘would have his throat cut within ten days,’ is sufficient proof of his iniquitous coalition in the murderous confederacy against the first victim of the English cabinet. His hostile expressions regarding Mary’s husband, with whom he was at that very moment enleagued in the secret intrigues for obtaining the signatures of Murray and the banished lords to the bond for the murder of Rizzio, are no less worthy of observation, together with his earnest deprecation of Mary and her husband ever succeeding to the throne of England, and the emphatic desire he expressed to Throckmorton that ‘something may be done to preclude the possibility of such a contingency.’
“This subtle diplomatist first excited and then worked on the natural fears of better men than either himself, Leicester, or Throckmorton, to wink at, if not to sanction, the systematic train of political villany to which David Rizzio, Henry Stuart, and Mary Stuart were the successive victims. After the consummation of these astute schemes of wickedness—when Rizzio and Darnley were festering in their untimely graves, and the more pitiable survivor, Mary Stuart, languishing in her damp, noisome prison-room in Tutbury Castle, her infant son set up as a puppet king, to color the usurpation of the murderers of his father and her defamers, and her realm convulsed with civil strife—‘then,’ observes Sir James Melville, ‘as Nero stood upon a high part of Rome to see the town burning, which he had caused to be set on fire, so Master Randolph delighted to see such fire kindled in Scotland, and by his writings to some in the court of England, glorified himself to have brought it to pass in such sort that it could not be easilyslokened(slaked) again.’”
In proof of the importance of this link in the chain of evidence, we will quote Mr. Froude’s own words: “As the vindication of the conduct of the English government proceeds on the assumption of her guilt, so the determination of her innocence will equally be the absolute condemnation of Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s advisers.”
There is only one other point in this evidence for and against the guilt of Mary Stuart, which will be cited. Regarding the famous confessions of Paris, Mr. Froude says:—
“Nicholas Hubert,aliasFrench Paris, was Bothwell’s page. He was taken privately to St. Andrews, where the Regent happened to be, and examined by George Buchanan, Robert Ramsey, Murray’s steward, and JohnWood, his confidential secretary. Paris made two depositions: the first not touching Mary Stuart, the second fatally implicating her. This last was read over in his presence. He signed it, and was then executed, that there might be no retraction or contradiction.”
Regarding these confessions, Agnes Strickland says:—
“Nothing can, in fact, afford clearer evidence of Mary’s ignorance of the plot of her husband’s murder than this first confession of Hubert. Malcolm Laing, the most able of all the writers who have adopted the self-interested calumnies of the conspirators against Mary, put forth by their venal organ, Buchanan, and the political agents of Cecil, insists on the authenticity and credibility of this document. It contains, indeed, such strong internal evidences of reality that we fully coincide with him in its being genuine evidence, and for this reason reject the so-called second confession of Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, as spurious, because one or the other must be false, and the second is palpably a fabrication between Murray and his secretary, Alexander Hay, to bolster up the forged letters and defame the queen. As poor Hubert could not write, it was unlikely he could read the paper to which Murray’s secretary made him put his mark. He had no trial, and though Queen Elizabeth requested he might be sent to London, Murray hanged him, that he might not contradict what had been put forth in his name.”
We mention Agnes Strickland, in these comparisons with the testimony of Froude, because she was also an English writer; and she quotes from the very same authorities, for nearly all of the historians, letters, state papers, and authorities are cited by Miss Strickland which are used by Froude in proof of his statements. We also quote Agnes Strickland because her works are within thereach of every one, and those desiring to investigate the evidences on both sides will find her authorities in the foot-notes of her “English and Scottish Queens,” and in separate lives of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth, in her historical series. It is not the authority of Agnes Strickland as against that of Froude, but the weight of the many authorities and state papers which both refer to, as evidence in proof of the different sides they take upon this perplexing question. Froude pronounces Mary Stuart as probably innocent of all evil intent regarding Rizzio, and exonerates her of any improper conduct with him further than a good-natured condescension towards one in her employ. But if Mary Stuart’s guilt with Bothwell is proven, it is idle to talk of her innocence with Rizzio.
Mary Stuart was rescued from the power of the infamous Bothwell, and he was obliged to flee the country, and died in exile ten years after. But poor abused Mary was not yet free from her enemies. The very men who rescued her from Bothwell were leagued with England, with the ambitious Murray at their head. Their plan was now to get rid of the queen and get hold of the baby prince, that they might in his name get possession of the government. And with this scheme England and Elizabeth were well pleased, forsooth, for by bribes and threats the regent of the baby king could be held in England’s power. As these nefarious schemers planned, so did they execute. Queen Mary was apparently aided by them to escape the power of Bothwell, but so cruelly was she treated that it was but an exchange of jailors. Poor, slandered, persecuted queen, thinking good of every one, she was betrayed on every hand. Husband, father-in-law, half-brother, Scottish ministers, and England’s courtiers, incited by a jealous cousin-queen, all plotted and counter-plottedand wove the web so closely around her that there was no escape. She was betrayed by one party, only to find herself more cruelly betrayed by her supposed deliverers.
To whom could she turn? Elizabeth had treacherously and hypocritically sympathized with her terrible woes. Elizabeth was a woman, and a cousin, and a queen; would she not succor her? and so the confiding heart of Mary, Queen of Scots, thinking no evil of those who professed kindness, fled to England and delivered herself unwittingly into the hands of her very worst foe. The poor fly now was entrapped, and the wily spider prepared her final doom.
The captive Queen of Scots had been transferred from prison to prison, each day more closely confined, each day treated with less respect and greater cruelty. At length Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought to trial and accused of high treason. Mary Stuart had neither advocates, counsel, nor documents; no one was allowed to plead for her, but notwithstanding, for two days, the ablest lawyers in England were held in check by her wit, skill, and marvellous presence of mind. Mary demanded to be heard by Parliament, and to be permitted to see the queen in person. But this was denied her, and sentence of death was passed upon her. It was at this time that Henry III., of France, endeavored to awaken in the heart of James VI., of Scotland, some sentiments of regard for his helpless mother. If the conduct of the King of Scotland shocked thesonofCatherine de’ Medici, what severer condemnation of the unnatural treatment of James VI. can be required?
Such is Guizot’s comment upon the treatment of the young Scottish king towards his unfortunate mother,whose pitiable misfortunes roused many princes in Europe to espouse her cause and endeavor to effect her freedom, which efforts in the end proved most disastrous, as they only brought down greater accusations upon her head.
Some writers do declare, however, that James VI., of Scotland, did make some feeble efforts in her behalf, which were quickly made unavailing through the wily cunning of Elizabeth and her scheming ministers.
When her sentence was read to the hapless Queen of Scots, Mary made the sign of the cross and calmly said “that death was welcome, but that she had not expected after having being detained twenty years in prison that her sister Elizabeth would thus dispose of her.” At the same time Mary placed her hand upon a book beside her, and swore a solemn oath that she had never contemplated nor sought the death of Elizabeth.
“That is a popish Bible,” exclaimed the Earl of Kent, rudely; “your oath is of no value.”
“It is a Catholic testament,” said the queen with calm dignity, “and therefore, my lord, as I believe that to be the true version, my oath is the more to be relied on.”
Some writers claim that Elizabeth did not herself sign the death-warrant of Mary, Queen of Scots, but tacitly consenting thereto, her signature was at last forged by one Thomas Harrison, a private and confidential secretary of Sir Francis Walsingham. According to Elizabeth’s secretary, Davison, the warrant had been ready for six weeks when the queen signed it in private, consigning it to the Secretary of State, Davison, “without other orders,” as she afterwards declared. Regarding Harrison’s confession, which did not come to light until twenty years after Mary’s execution, it is stated that a document was found, purporting to be a Star-Chamber investigation,dated 1606. It is a deposition, attested by the signatures of two persons of the names of Mayer and Macaw, affirming, “that the late Thomas Harrison, a private and confidential secretary of the late Sir Francis Walsingham, did voluntarily acknowledge to them that, in conjunction with Thomas Phillipps and Maude, he, by the direction of his master, Sir Francis Walsingham, added to the letters of the late queen of Scotland those passages that were afterwards brought in evidence against her, and for which she was condemned to suffer death; and that he was employed by his said master, Sir Francis Walsingham, to forge Queen Elizabeth’s signature to the death-warrant of the Queen of Scots, which none of her ministers could ever induce her to sign; and that he did this with the knowledge and assent of four of her principal ministers of state.”
Regarding this point, Miss Strickland, in her life of Queen Elizabeth, says: “If she did not sign the warrant for Mary’s execution,—and we have only Davison’s asseveration in proof that she did,—then was her ignorance of the consummation real, her tears and lamentations unaffected, and her indignation against her ministers no grimace.”
But were this the case, why did Elizabeth not clear her own reputation from the stain of this infamous deed by denouncing her unscrupulous ministers who had dared thus tamper with her royal name and royal authority? Miss Strickland claims that she could not, giving the reason in these words: “The position in which her ministers had placed Elizabeth, was the more painful because, unless she could have brought them to a public trial, convicted them of the treasonable crime of procuring her royal signature to be forged, she could not explain theoffence of which they had been guilty. The impossibility of proclaiming the whole truth, rendered her passionate protestations of her own innocence not only unsatisfactory, but apparently false and equivocating. While she denied the deed, she was in a manner compelled to act as if it were her own, being unable to inflict condign punishment on the subtle junta who had combined to make unauthorized use of her name for the immolation of the heiress-presumptive of the crown.”
But if Elizabeth was innocent of the death of Mary, Queen of Scots, it seems evident that with her imperious nature, she would have most daringly and publicly resented and punished such audacious villany. Had she in reality desired the death of Mary, and yet refused to sign the warrant, and had her name been forged upon it, this would have given her the very opportunity to clear her own name from infamy and the condemnation of the powers of Europe, which she well knew this execution would call forth; and yet the very end she dared towish for, if not tocommand, would have been accomplished, and the blame would rest upon others rather than herself.
That Elizabeth desired the death of Mary all her previous conduct would prove; and if that death was accomplished at last through the crimes of others, unknown to the queen of England, surely she could not have had a better opportunity for proving her own innocence than the denunciation of the treacherous ministers who had committed the crime. That she denounced them it is true; but the strength and manner of those denunciations were more in keeping with the supposition that she was hypocritically screening her own aid and connivance in the treachery, than that they had dared commit so criminal a villany as the forging of her own royal name, and thecommission of so grave an offence upon the strength of that forged signature.
At six o’clock on the fatal morning of the 8th of February, 1587, Mary Stuart told her ladies that “she had but two hours to live, and bade them dress her as for a festival.” The particulars of the lasttoilettehave been preserved. “She wore a widow’s dress of black velvet, spangled over with gold, a black satin pourpoint and kirtle, and under these a petticoat of crimson velvet, with a body of the same color, and a white veil of the most delicate texture, of the fashion worn by princesses of the highest rank, thrown over her coif and descending to the ground. She wore a pomander chain, and anAgnus Deiabout her neck, and a pair of beads at her girdle, with a cross.”
Mary Stuart had gained the reluctant consent of her inhuman jailers, that her faithful ladies, Jane Kennedy and Elizabeth Curie, should attend her in her last moments. This had been stoutly refused at first, but the eloquent exclamation of the royal captive, “I am cousin to your queen, descended of the blood-royal of Henry VII., a married queen of France, and the anointed queen of Scotland!” at length shamed them into granting this last request.
When the still-beautiful, heroic Mary Stuart entered the hall of death, followed by her faithful attendants, she gazed upon the sable scaffold, the dread block, the gleaming axe, and the revolting executioner, with calm and undaunted courage, manifesting by her majestic and intrepid demeanor, and the angelic sweetness of her countenance, that in spite of calumny and hostile hosts of pitiless foes, Mary, Queen of Scots could face the world and death undismayed.