Chapter X.TUDOR TIMES.

“The white man landed;—need the rest be told?The New World stretched its dusk hand to the Old;Each was to each a marvel, and the tieOf wonder warmed to better sympathy.”

“The white man landed;—need the rest be told?

The New World stretched its dusk hand to the Old;

Each was to each a marvel, and the tie

Of wonder warmed to better sympathy.”

NOW the procession halts, while a momentous scene is enacted before our eyes. We are in the old seaport of Bristol, on a May morning in the year 1497, treading the rough cobbles of the quay whereat the good shipMatthewand her consort lie. Stout, staunch vessels they are, fitted out and provisioned for the most adventurous voyage ever undertaken by Bristol ships. The royal blazon glistens on their mainsails, the flag of England flies from their mastheads. Some of the boldest and most skilful mariners in the land are on board, busy making everything ship-shape, “Bristol fashion,” for the voyage which is to begin to-day. Now you see a procession approaching. The Lord Mayor in his robes of state, with his chain of office about his neck, leads the way, and behind him troop the city fathers; then comes the bishop, with his attendant train of priests; and behind them, the observed of all observers, you see a father and his three sons. They are John, Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius Cabot—the father a citizen of Venice, the sons men of Bristol. The old city is saying farewell to them to-day, and the lusty cheers that greet them as they traverse the narrow streets show how deeply every Bristol man is interested in their enterprise. What is this enterprise? Whither are they bound?

Any urchin in the streets will tell you. “Why, master, have you not heard of the Genoese seaman, Christopher Columbus?—he who five years ago set sail from Palos in three ships, and sailed to the west’ard across the ocean, seeking a new sea-road to far-off India and Cathay. Do you not know that he lighted on marvellous new lands, which he seized in the name of Spain, and then returned home to tell the wondrous news? There’s gold by the bucketful across the Western Ocean, and we Bristol folks mean to have our share of it. So we have fitted out theMatthewand the other ship which you see yonder, and this very day John Cabot and his sons are to set sail. Would that I could sail with them too!” Many an English lad, in many a seaport, echoes his wish.

“Westward! westward! westward!The sea sang in his head,At morn in the busy harbour,At nightfall on his bed.“Westward! westward! westward!Over the line of breakers,Out of the distance dim,For ever the foam-white fingers,Beckoning, beckoning him.”

“Westward! westward! westward!The sea sang in his head,At morn in the busy harbour,At nightfall on his bed.

“Westward! westward! westward!

The sea sang in his head,

At morn in the busy harbour,

At nightfall on his bed.

“Westward! westward! westward!Over the line of breakers,Out of the distance dim,For ever the foam-white fingers,Beckoning, beckoning him.”

“Westward! westward! westward!

Over the line of breakers,

Out of the distance dim,

For ever the foam-white fingers,

Beckoning, beckoning him.”

And now the procession halts on the quay, and the mariners kneel while the bishop with uplifted hand blesses them and their enterprise. John Cabot, he with the brown face and the close-cropped white hair, proudly unfolds the scroll which he carries, and begins to read his royal commission:——

“Henry, by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, to all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting:“Be it knowen that we haue giuen and granted, and by these presents do giue and grant, for VS and our heires, to our well beloued Iohn Cabot, citizen of Venice, to Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of the sayd Iohn, and to the heires of them and euery of them, and their deputies, full and free authority, leaue and power, to saile to all parts, countreys, and seas of the East, of the West, and of the North, under our banners and ensignes, with fiue ships of what quantity or burden soever they may be, and as many manners or men as they will haue with them in the sayd ships, upon their owne proper costs and charges to seeke out, discouer and finde, whatsoeuer isles, countreys, regions or prouinces, of the heathens and infidels, whatsoeuer they be, and in what part of the world soeuer they be, which before this time haue been unknowen to all Christians.”

“Henry, by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, to all to whom these presents shall come, Greeting:

“Be it knowen that we haue giuen and granted, and by these presents do giue and grant, for VS and our heires, to our well beloued Iohn Cabot, citizen of Venice, to Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius, sonnes of the sayd Iohn, and to the heires of them and euery of them, and their deputies, full and free authority, leaue and power, to saile to all parts, countreys, and seas of the East, of the West, and of the North, under our banners and ensignes, with fiue ships of what quantity or burden soever they may be, and as many manners or men as they will haue with them in the sayd ships, upon their owne proper costs and charges to seeke out, discouer and finde, whatsoeuer isles, countreys, regions or prouinces, of the heathens and infidels, whatsoeuer they be, and in what part of the world soeuer they be, which before this time haue been unknowen to all Christians.”

So the letters-patent of his gracious Majesty King Henry the Seventh run. The reading is finished. The last farewells are taken. The wives and children of the adventurous mariners weep aloud. The Lord Mayor clasps John Cabot warmly by the hand, and the captain goes on board. Deafening cheers are raised as the hawsers are cast off and the good ships are warped out. Now you see them threading the deep gorge of the Avon. Anon they will be out on the heaving waters of the Bristol Channel; then sail will be made, and in the golden sunset glow they will fade away into the unknown.

For months there will be sad hearts in many a humble Bristol home, and white-faced women will haunt the quay, eagerly questioning incoming sailors for news of their husbands and sons who have sailed with the Cabots. Then one glad day the blazoned sails, torn and worn with tempestuous winds and the rough usage of the sea, appear again in the Avon, and all England rings with the story of the marvellous voyage. The Bristol bells ring out merry peals; the city fathers feast the returning adventurers in the Council chamber; and every lad in the good old city holds his head high because of the new fame that Bristowe men have won. What visits are paid to theMatthewand her consort! The Church of St. Mary Redcliffe is thronged with eager citizens gaping at the whale’s rib which Sebastian Cabot has deposited there in memory of his voyage.

Here is one of the heroes of the expedition. Let us buttonhole him and bid him spin his yarn. Like the true sailor that he is, he readily consents. “Marry, sirs, ’twas a long and dull voyage outward; but the winds were fair, and in two moons we reached a sea with monstrous great lumps of ice floating about like fairy castles. And mark ye, the sun set not, and there was daylight all the clock round. On the twenty-fourth day of June we sighted land.Prima Vistathe captain called it, that being the Latin lingo, so I’m told, for ‘first seen.’ ’Twas an island, thick covered with woods, lying out from the mainland. We went ashore right speedily, and now there’s a bit of England seven hundred leagues to the west’ard across the great ocean.

“The men of that land are savages dressed in skins of beasts. They carry bows and arrows, wooden clubs and slings; and fine hunters they be, every man of them. Their land is barren, and no fruits grow, but there are big white bears in plenty and stags that would make two of ours. Off the island the sea swarms with fish, some as much as an ell long, and sea-wolves, such as ye may see now and then in Bristol Channel.

“The birds are black-hawks and partridges and eagles. When we left the isle we coasted a dreary shore for three hundred leagues, and ’tis my belief, comrades, that we have discovered a rich, new continent, with mines of copper and wonders untold. We sail again next year, and when we come back—if God wills—I’ll tell ye more about it. And now come along with me and see the three savages that the captain has brought home with him to show the king.”

There will be no lack of adventurers now to dare the Western Ocean. Ship after ship will push across the “black waters,” and every year will bring the New World into closer touch with the Old. Pass on, ye great pilots of Bristowe! Your flag is struck, your sails are furled, your ship is beached, but your work is done. In centuries to come the vast continent which ye have revealed shall be peopled by a great race, largely sprung from British loins, and speaking the brave English tongue. “Westward the star of Empire takes its way,” and ye are the first of our seamen to follow the star!

The Departure of John and Sebastian Cabot on the First Voyage of Discovery, 1497.(From the picture by Ernest Board. By permission of the Bristol Corporation and the Artist.)

“I charge thee, fling away ambition;By that sin fell the angels.”

“I charge thee, fling away ambition;

By that sin fell the angels.”

A stately procession now files by, headed by shaven and tonsured priests carrying silver crosses. Behind them a bareheaded noble carries the Great Seal of England, and another a cardinal’s hat on a cushion. Now you hear gentlemen ushers shout, “Make way for my lord’s grace!” and a splendid figure stalks past you with the air of a king. He wears the scarlet robe of a cardinal, with a tippet of fine sable and a gold chain about his neck, while on his feet are shoes of gold studded with jewels. In his hand he carries an orange-skin with a scented sponge in the midst. This he sniffs from time to time, lest he should catch some infection from the crowd that throngs his path. Behind him two great pillars of silver and a gilt mace are borne, and so he proceeds through Westminster Hall to the seat of justice. At his coming, suitors kneel to present their petitions and beg his favour. Anon he will devote himself diligently to the business of his high office, and will spare neither high nor low, but will judge all who come before him according to their merits and deserts.

No man in the kingdom, not even the king, lives in such splendour and magnificence. His palace is always filled with noblemen, gentlemen, and ambassadors from foreign countries, and his banquets and entertainments are the wonder of the age. Bluff King Hal and he are boon companions, and ofttimes you may see the monarch lean lovingly on the shoulder of his splendid chancellor. Sometimes he will visit his palace, and the cardinal will spare neither money nor ingenuity to divert the king.

A writer of the time tells us that “the banquets were set forth, with masks and mummeries, in so gorgeous a sort and costly manner that it was a heaven to behold. I have seen the king suddenly come in thither in a mask, with a dozen of other maskers, all in garments like shepherds, having sixteen torch-bearers, besides their drums. Ye shall understand what joy and delight the cardinal had to see his prince and sovereign lord in his house so nobly entertained and pleased.”

Who is this favoured mortal? He is Thomas Wolsey, the son of a wealthy wool-merchant of Ipswich. By his great ability and his zeal in the king’s service, he has raised himself from a comparatively humble position to be the envy of the greatest nobles in the land. “He is the person,” writes the Venetian ambassador, “who rules both the king and the kingdom. He is very handsome, learned, extremely eloquent, of vast ability, and indefatigable. He alone transacts all the business that occupies all the magistrates, offices, and councils of Venice. He has the reputation of being extremely just. He favours the people exceedingly, and especially the poor, hearing their suits and making the lawyers plead gratis for them.” But if he has friends among the poor, his pomp and pride have made him hosts of enemies among the proud and rich. The old nobles hate him, and would fain bring his haughty head to the dust. Nevertheless, even his enemies are forced to admit that he is the ablest statesman of his time, and the chief prop of the kingdom.

Truly, he treads all the ways of glory, and sounds all the depths and shoals of honour; but the knell of his greatness is soon to toll. The sun will no longer usher forth his honours, or gild again the noble troops that wait upon his smiles. Even now a woman’s bright eyes are weaning Henry from him, and soon he will be fain to say—

“The king has gone beyond me; all my gloriesIn that one woman I have lost for ever.”

“The king has gone beyond me; all my glories

In that one woman I have lost for ever.”

Listen to the story of his fall.

Never king came to his throne more blessed by nature, fortune, and circumstance than the eighth Henry. Nature had fashioned him as the handsomest and ablest monarch in Christendom. “He was tall and well proportioned . . . his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face that would become a pretty woman.” But there was no effeminacy about him. He was devoted to tennis and extremely fond of jousting and hunting—“never taking his diversion without tiring eight or ten horses.” Nor was there a more accomplished king living. He spoke good French, Latin, and Spanish; he was a musician and an author, and even as a boy his ability and address most favourably impressed the great scholar Erasmus. With all these gifts and graces, Henry began his reign with the highest promise; but as the years went by he steadily changed for the worse. His unbridled self-will grew upon him until he became a cold-hearted despot, who made his whim the law of the land, and ruthlessly sent to the scaffold all on whom his displeasure fell. From the first he was absolute master of the realm, and could say,L’état, c’est moi!Nevertheless, he was always careful to make his acts legal by getting Parliament to endorse them. He greatly valued his popularity with the people, and his ministers had to bear the blame of all his unpopular acts.

During the later years of Henry the Seventh’s reign, Arthur, the heir to the throne, had been married to Catherine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Arthur died young, and the miserly old king, unwilling to part with Catherine’s rich dowry, proposed to marry her to her brother-in-law, Henry, who was six years her junior. Such an alliance was against the law of the Church, but a dispensation was readily obtained, and shortly after his accession Henry married her. For many years they lived happily together. “The king adores her, and her Highness him,” wrote her confessor, and never had any man a more faithful helpmeet. She was a fair-haired, gentle, pious woman, of a lively and gracious disposition, but not beautiful. As she grew older her health failed, and she became prematurely old and lost much of her attraction. All her children died except one—the Princess Mary. After eighteen years of married life Henry fell violently in love with Anne Boleyn, one of the queen’s maids of honour.

“Madame Anne,” wrote an eye-witness, “is not one of the handsomest women in the world. She is of middling stature and swarthy complexion, and has nothing but the king’s great love, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful.” She was, however, bright and lively, and had “wonderful long hair.” Soon Henry pretended to have scruples about the lawfulness of his marriage with his brother’s widow, and he persuaded himself that the death of his children was a visitation of God for his sin. Further, he argued that a son was necessary in the interests of his kingdom, for hitherto the rule of women had always provoked civil war. The real fact of the matter was that the selfish, self-willed king wanted to cast off Catherine in favour of a new, young wife. Before long Henry asked Pope Clement to declare that his marriage was null and void from the beginning.

Wolsey, as the Pope’s legate in England, was the natural channel of communication between the king and the Pope. Wolsey could not believe that Henry desired a dissolution of his marriage tie in order to contract an alliance with a giddy, insignificant lady of the court. Rather, he assumed, Henry was contemplating a union with some lady of the royal house of France, and this fell in with his pet scheme for securing the friendship of that powerful state. Believing this, he used his influence with the Pope. But the wearer of the triple crown was then in a parlous state. He was in the power of Charles the Fifth, nephew of Queen Catherine, and that monarch was determined that his aunt should not be divorced. At the same time, Clement was an ally of Henry’s, and was naturally anxious to assist him. In his dilemma the Pope sought to gain time, and therefore appointed Wolsey and the Italian Cardinal Campeggio to inquire into the case. In June 1529 the two cardinals opened their court in the great hall of the Black Friars’ Monastery in London. Catherine refused to plead, but knelt at the feet of her husband and made a touching appeal to him to spare her the indignity and injustice of divorce.

“Heaven witness,I have been to you a true and humble wife,At all times to your will conformable;Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,Yea, subject to your countenance, glad or sorryAs I saw it inclined.”

“Heaven witness,

I have been to you a true and humble wife,

At all times to your will conformable;

Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,

Yea, subject to your countenance, glad or sorry

As I saw it inclined.”

She appealed to the Pope himself; then rising, bowed to the king, and refused to face the court again. The trial dragged on, and Henry became impatient and demanded speedy judgment.

Meanwhile Clement had made a treaty with the Emperor, and was no longer solicitous to retain the goodwill of the English king. He therefore revoked the commission, and ordered the cause to be transferred to Rome for a new trial. Henry, baffled and beaten, was furious, and Anne Boleyn skilfully fanned the flame of his wrath. She suggested that Wolsey had bungled the matter, and forthwith his doom was sealed. He was dismissed from his office as chancellor, and brought to trial for breaking an old law which forbade appeals to Rome. Wolsey said truthfully that he had only appealed to the Pope at the king’s request. Henry, however, denied that he had sanctioned the proceeding, and Wolsey, to the joy of his enemies, was found guilty. All his property was seized, and after he had made an abject submission, he was ordered to withdraw to his diocese of York.

Here he flung himself with all his old energy into his work as archbishop, and soon won the affection of the north-country folk. But he hungered and thirsted for his former greatness, and made the serious error of communicating with the ambassadors of the French king and the Emperor. When Henry heard of it his anger blazed forth once more. This was treason and nothing less, and Wolsey’s arrest was immediately ordered. Early in November he began his journey southward under an armed guard. Sick and heart-broken, with his health undermined, he travelled as far as Leicester, where at his coming the abbot of the place met him with the light of many torches and received him with great reverence. “Father abbot,” said he, “I am come to lay my bones among you.” Truer words were never spoken. A few days later he died, lamenting with his failing breath—

“Had I but served my God with half the zealI served my king, He would not in my ageHave left me naked to mine enemies.”

“Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, He would not in my age

Have left me naked to mine enemies.”

So died the victim of a headstrong, selfish sovereign, who remorselessly flung away even the most devoted of his servants as soon as they had ceased to be useful to him.

Cardinal Wolsey on his Way to Westminster Hall.(From the picture by Sir John Gilbert, R.A. in the Guildhall Art Gallery, London.)

TRIAL OF QUEEN CATHERINE.(From the picture by Henry O’Neill, A.R.A. By permission of the Art Gallery Committee of the Corporation of Birmingham.)

PORTRAIT OF HENRY VIII.(By Hans Holbein the Younger. From the Royal Gallery at Windsor.)

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,And God fulfils Himself in many ways.”

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils Himself in many ways.”

There is a pause in our pageantry. While the next scene is preparing, let the story of the intervening period be briefly told. Twenty-eight years, long and fateful, have come and gone since Wolsey died of a broken heart, and in the interval a new England with a new destiny and a new faith has arisen. The years that have sped have been marked by religious upheaval, and by an extraordinary outburst of persecuting zeal. The fires of Smithfield have blazed, and the thumb-screw and the rack have done their fiendish work “for the glory of the Lord.” Henry in his rage against the Pope has swept away the monasteries, sent the monks adrift, and plundered them of their lands and riches. Year by year the doctrines of Church reformers have gained ground, and ere Henry’s long reign of terror and crime draws to a close, Protestantism is a powerful force in England. His son, Edward the Sixth, a precocious, consumptive lad of ten, succeeds, and then the reformers gain the upper hand. A new Prayer Book “in the vulgar tongue, understanded of the people at large,” is issued, and the Reformation is hurried on with undue speed. There is a ruthless and irreverent destruction of images, pictures, and stained glass in the churches, and many pious persons, otherwise favourable to the “new worship,” are shocked into opposition. To secure the triumph of Protestantism, Edward is persuaded on his deathbed to make a will excluding his Catholic sister Mary from the throne, and naming Lady Jane Grey as his successor.

The young king dies in his sixteenth year, and three days later Queen Jane is proclaimed. Not a hat is tossed in the air, not a cheer is raised. London declares for Mary; the nobles and gentry flock to her. The poor “eleven days’ queen”—young, innocent, and beautiful—is utterly deserted. She vanishes into the Tower, and her head pays the penalty of her father-in-law’s ambition.

Mary is now queen, and she sets herself immediately to undo the work of the Reformation and to restore England to the power of the Pope. She makes the fatal mistake of marrying Philip of Spain, whose horrible outrages on the Dutch have made him an object of terror and loathing in England. Soon he deserts her, and the miserable queen, racked by painful disease, throws her whole heart into a frenzied attempt to stamp out Protestantism in her realm. Martyrs perish at the stake, and the nation is horrified at the queen’s cruelty. And yet one cannot but be sorry for the wretched woman. In feeble health, miserable, and soured by the desertion of her husband, filled with anxious fears for the future of her kingdom, and conscious of the hatred of her people, she honestly believes that she is doing the will of Heaven in burning and torturing those of her subjects who do not see eye to eye with her in matters of religion. Every week her people grow more and more discontented; every week her health and spirits grow worse.

At length the climax is reached. Her husband drags her into war with France, and in the struggle “the chief jewel of the realm”—Calais—is lost. For two hundred years it has been in English hands, and its possession has meant the command of the “narrow seas.” Now England is without a foot of soil on French ground, and Englishmen grow bitterly angry at the thought. Mary has enough national spirit to understand the magnitude of the disaster. “When I am dead,” she cries, “you will find ‘Calais’ written on my heart!”

Ten months later, on the eve of a great national revolt, the miserable Mary dies, conscious that she has been a hopeless, helpless failure. She has striven to re-establish Romanism in the land, but has only succeeded in ringing its death-knell. Protestantism is again in the ascendant. While Mary’s obsequies are preparing, a great burst of joy sweeps over the country, for Elizabeth, her Protestant sister, is now queen.

Chapter XI.A TRAGIC STORY.

“And from the top of all my trustMishap hath thrown me in the dust.”

“And from the top of all my trust

Mishap hath thrown me in the dust.”

ADARK and murderous scene now awaits your eyes. It is about seven o’clock on a Saturday evening in March 1566. A beautiful queen is supping with her friends in the inner boudoir of the ancient Palace of Holyrood. Some eightscore armed men stealthily enter the courtyard and close the gates behind them. Within the supper-chamber only one person is cognizant of the foul deed which is even now preparing—and he is the queen’s husband! The queen herself is blithe and gay, according to her wont. She strives to rally her husband, who sits by her side; but he is full of drink and jealousy. But a swarthy Italian present responds to every sally with nimble wit and easy grace. Mary smiles upon him, for he alone in that gloomy palace reminds her of the light-hearted merriment and the brilliant frivolity of her dearly-loved France. And as she smiles the queen’s husband scowls darkly, and ever and anon glances furtively towards a door behind the arras.

Suddenly the arras is pushed aside, and a man in armour, his face corpse-like in its pallor, steps into the room, and behind him you see three others. The queen, cool and fearless, rises and demands the meaning of this intrusion. The Italian knows its meaning full well; he has long been bitterly hated by the nobles, and now he fears that his hour has come. He cowers for protection behind the queen, who confronts the armed men without a tremor. “What do ye here, my Lord Ruthven?” she cries, and the intruder roughly replies that he comes to drag the Italian from the queen’s chamber, where he has been overlong.

In a flash the queen perceives a plot, and turning to her wretched husband demands if he knows anything of this enterprise. The ready lie comes to his lips, and he says that he knows nothing of it. “Go,” cries the queen to Ruthven, and points to the door. But he moves not, and bids the accomplice who has disowned him, “Take the queen, your wife and sovereign, to you.” But the royal dastard stands dazed, and wists not what to do; while the Italian, with his drawn dagger in his trembling hand, clings to the queen’s gown, crying, “Save me! save me!” Now one of the guests strives to seize Ruthven, who draws his sword and cries fiercely, “Lay no hands on me, for I will not be handled!”

Then the chamber is filled with armed men, the table and chairs are overthrown, the lights are extinguished save one, and a wild rush is made for the victim. Ruthven flings the queen into the arms of her husband, and the shrieking Italian is dragged from the room with curses and threats and blows. You hear his screams grow fainter and fainter, as his foes plunge their daggers into him. Now all is silent, and the queen’s favourite lies dead with fifty-six wounds in his body. Her husband’s dagger is sticking in the breast of the corpse in testimony of his consent to the deed!

The ghastly scene which you have just witnessed serves to introduce the moving tragedy of Mary Queen of Scots. She was born in the hour of calamity, and conflict, contention, sorrow, and disaster dogged her footsteps from the cradle to the grave. Her heart-broken father, James the Fifth, had turned his face to the wall when her birth was announced. Ere she was christened he was dead, and Scotland was torn with the strife of contending factions. Scotland’s weakness was England’s opportunity, and Henry the Eighth lost no time in proposing his delicate little son, afterwards Edward the Fifth, for the hand of the five-year-old queen. The Scots refused the match, and an English army marched north and sacked Leith and Edinburgh. The invasion was “too much for a wooing and too little for a conquest.”

Four years later an English army again made an attempt to compel the Scots to marry their queen to young Edward. At Pinkie there was a great slaughter, but it was all in vain. The little queen was hurried to France, where she grew up with her four Maries at the gay court of King Henry the Second, and became far more French than Scottish. As she advanced in years, her grace and beauty, herespritand her accomplishments, were the talk of France, and at sixteen she wedded the Dauphin, a sickly weakling, who only survived his marriage a little more than a year. At the age of nineteen Mary was a widow, about to set sail for her northern kingdom.

She was now the most charming princess of her time, fond of music, dancing, laughter, and gaiety, yet eager for risk and adventure, and always rejoicing in the clash of arms. Often she wished she were a man “to know what life it was to lie all night in the fields, or to walk on the causeway with a jack and knapsack, a Glasgow buckler, and a broadsword.” In statecraft she was the equal of Queen Elizabeth, and in person and charm she far exceeded her royal kinswoman. Her beauty, grace, and easy cordiality won the hearts of all with whom she came in contact.

She left France most reluctantly, and as long as the shores of that gay, joyous land remained in sight she riveted her gaze on them. As they gradually faded from her sight she sighed, and said again and again, “Adieu, France! I shall never see thee more!” She arrived at Leith unexpectedly on a dismal day of thick fog and incessant rain. Never was a more unpropitious home-coming. She had returned to a stern, poor, unruly kingdom, which had adopted Reformation doctrines with remarkable zeal and austerity. The guiding spirit of the time was John Knox, the most implacable and fearless Reformer who ever lived. Well indeed did he deserve the eulogy spoken at his graveside, “Here lyeth a man who in his life never feared the face of man.” The Covenant had been signed, the authority of the Pope had been thrown off, and Protestantism had taken deep root in the land. Mary was a strong Romanist, and she meant to restore her kingdom to the old faith. In this she failed utterly, for almost the whole of her people were bitterly opposed to Romanism in any shape or form.

While in France, Mary and her husband had assumed the style and title of King and Queen of England, and Elizabeth was naturally aggrieved. Now Mary offered to give up her claim if Elizabeth would recognize her as heir to the English throne. The Scottish queen said that she asked for nothing more than her due. Should Elizabeth—the Virgin Queen—die without children, Mary would be heir to her throne by right of birth, though her claim had been barred by Henry the Eighth. Elizabeth, however, flatly refused to make any such agreement.

For a time Mary was popular with her subjects, but soon the heather was on fire. All sorts of suitors aspired to her hand, and the rival factions were eager to marry her to a Catholic or a Protestant, according to the character of their respective beliefs. At length, however, she decided to marry Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, “a long lad . . . beardless and lady-faced,” and only nineteen years of age. He was a Roman Catholic like herself.

The inevitable rising took place, but it was ineffective, and for a while the Protestant cause was undone and Mary triumphed. Meanwhile the queen had discovered that her youthful husband was vain, spiteful, foolish, untrustworthy, and drunken. He was eager for the “crown matrimonial,” and yearned to rule in her name; but Mary consistently refused his request, and Darnley believed that her Italian secretary, David Riccio, was at the back of her refusal. Some of the nobles were bitterly jealous of the foreigner, who was supposed to sway the queen’s counsels, and with these malcontents Darnley came to an understanding. The result you have witnessed in the savage scene with which this chapter opened.

Riccio was dead, and Mary, maddened with rage at the night’s work, determined to have her revenge. Within a year Darnley was murdered in the lonely house of “Kirk of Field,” which stood on the site of the present University of Edinburgh. No one knew exactly how Darnley had perished, though thousands heard the roar of the explosion which blew up the house in which he was lying. His murderer was unknown, though anonymous placards on the walls of the Tolbooth accused the Earl of Bothwell of the foul deed. This earl was a masterful, bold, and vicious man, with whom Mary had fallen over head and ears in love. He was the very antithesis of Darnley with his “heart of wax,” and Mary needed a strong arm to lean upon. So flinging every prudential consideration to the winds, she gave her whole heart to the dangerous and showy man who was accused of murdering her husband. Bothwell was tried for the crime, but the trial was a mere mockery, and the accused rode to the court of justice on Darnley’s favourite steed. No witnesses were called, and the jury, composed of Bothwell’s partisans, triumphantly acquitted him.

Bothwell had already been divorced, and now he was free to marry the queen. The ceremony took place in the presence-chamber at Holyrood, and when the news leaked out men’s hearts were hot with shame and indignation. For a brief time Mary and her new husband seemed happy, but Bothwell’s fierce and brutal nature soon revealed itself. There were angry quarrels between the pair, and on one occasion Mary called for a knife with which to kill herself.

Ere long a rebellion broke out, and the insurgents marched to battle beneath a banner painted with the figure of a murdered king with an infant prince kneeling beside the body, crying, “Judge and avenge my cause, O God.” At Carberry Hill, on the longest day of the year 1567, Bothwell offered to decide the contest by single combat, but this the queen would not allow. Her forces melted away. Bothwell fled, and she was a captive in the hands of an exasperated people. A month later she was rowed across Loch Leven to the castle which still stands upon its little island. Here she was imprisoned, and here she was forced to abdicate the throne in favour of her infant son James. The Earl of Moray, her half-brother, was named regent, and the Protestant party was once more supreme.

Within a year Mary was free again. She found a knight-errant in the person of “pretty George Douglas,” younger brother of the Laird of Loch Leven. He fell deeply in love with the deposed queen, and ere long he had planned her escape. The story goes that when all was ready Douglas sent Mary a signal in the shape of a pearl fashioned like a pear. The key of the castle was obtained by the ruse of Willie Douglas, a page boy. It was the custom of the governor of the castle to have the key of the great gate placed on the table beside him when at supper. The page, who served at table, placed a plate before the governor, and at the same time dropped a napkin on the key, and then lifted key and handkerchief together. He slipped out to the queen, who was waiting for him. They gained the gate unperceived, locked it behind them, and threw the key into the water. The lad put Mary and her companion, a little maid of ten, into a boat, cast off, and plied his oars manfully. The queen waved a white veil to and fro, and at the signal George Douglas rose up from the reeds by the side of the lake and hurried to the village, from which he soon afterwards returned with a troop of armed men and some led horses. By the time the boat touched the shore the horsemen were waiting for the queen, and in a few minutes she was galloping southwards towards the ferry across the Forth. On the way she was joined by another troop of horse. That night she slept in Niddrie Castle, and next day reached Hamilton in safety.

The news of her escape spread like wildfire through the land, and speedily many of the barons and nobility flocked to her with offers of support and service. Before long she had five or six thousand men about her, while the regent, who was at Glasgow, mustered some four thousand. With this force, inferior as it was, he decided on an immediate battle. As the queen advanced from Hamilton towards Dumbarton, where she proposed to take ship for France, she had to pass through a narrow lane leading up to the hill on which the village of Langside stands. Moray posted his main battle on Langside Hill, and stationed his hagbutters or matchlock men along the hedges on both sides of the lane and amongst the cottages of the village. The queen took her station on an eminence half a mile distant and watched the battle which now began. She saw her troops charge up the hill and endeavour to force the passage of the lane. She saw them roll back under the heavy fire of the hagbutters, and then make a second attempt to storm the village. This, too, was unsuccessful, and soon she saw Moray’s pikemen and his Highlanders sweeping down on her friends with the utmost fury. With a cry of anguish she saw them break before the flashing claymores of the yelling Macfarlanes, and betake themselves to headlong flight. All was over, and the miserable queen put spurs to her horse and galloped away. She tried to reach Dumbarton, but she was too late. So hot was the pursuit that she was obliged to gallop for the wilds of the south-west. On and on she rode, and never halted until she reached Sanquhar, where she drank a bowl of milk at a cottage door. Then her wearied horse was urged on again until she reached the remote and lonely Abbey of Dundrennan, on the Solway, sixty miles from the field of battle.

On Sunday afternoon, May 16, 1568, she made the fatal mistake of her life. She determined to throw herself upon the generosity of Elizabeth, and no argument of her attendants could make her change her purpose. That reckless decision practically signed her death-warrant. She crossed the Solway and arrived at Workington. The next day she was brought by Richard Lowther to Cockermouth, and thence to Carlisle Castle, where she arrived in great distress and mean attire, and by the instructions of Elizabeth’s council was detained as a prisoner.

Elizabeth was by no means pleased at the turn which events had taken. Mary was a most embarrassing guest. Many of Elizabeth’s Catholic subjects regarded the Queen of Scots as the rightful sovereign of England, and now this dangerous rival was within her kingdom. Obviously, Mary could not be permitted to go to and fro unrestrained, gathering her adherents about her, the centre of a movement which might hurl Elizabeth from the throne. Equally obviously, Elizabeth could not send the refugee back to Scotland, where the scaffold or a life-long imprisonment awaited her. It would similarly be the height of folly to permit her to return to France and there raise an army to subdue the Protestants of the kingdom which had rejected her. Elizabeth was in a dilemma, and for the moment she saw no way out of it. Meanwhile, she wrote to Mary that she would be careful of “her life and honour,” and regretted that she could not receive her as a royal guest until she had been acquitted of the hideous crime charged against her. She would be the gladdest in the world to see her Grace well purged of this crime, that thereby she might aid her fully and amply to regain her throne.

At length, after much discussion and negotiation, a trial was agreed upon, and three sets of commissioners—one set for Elizabeth, one for Mary, and one for the confederate Scottish lords—were appointed to inquire into the complaints which the Scottish queen brought against those who had risen in arms against her, seized her, and imprisoned her, forced her to abdicate, and crowned her infant son. The conference began at York and ended at London. The Regent Moray appeared before the commissioners, and, as a last resort, produced a silver casket containing letters which were alleged to be written by Mary to Bothwell. These letters, if their genuineness could be proved, clearly showed her to be the accomplice of Bothwell in the murder of her husband. Mary constantly declared that the casket letters were forgeries, and to this day no man can positively say that she did not speak the truth. Mary demanded that the letters should be shown to her, but most unfairly her demand was refused. Then she indignantly broke off the conference, and the commissioners reported that nothing dishonourable had been proved against Moray and his friends, and nothing against Mary that could lead Elizabeth to take any evil opinion of her good sister. Nevertheless, Mary remained a prisoner in England, while Moray returned to Scotland and resumed his regency.

And now began Mary’s long captivity of nineteen years. She was moved about from castle to castle, and at first was permitted as much liberty as was consistent with the safe custody of her person. We read that she had a stud of sixteen horses, and frequently went hunting. She amused herself with needlework, in which she was very skilful, and kept dogs, turtle doves, and Barbary fowls. She practised her religion with great devotion, and she did not fail to charm all who came in contact with her by her gracious condescension.

But all the while she was ceaselessly plotting and intriguing, not only with Elizabeth’s disaffected subjects, but with her French friends, the King of Spain, and the Pope. Elizabeth’s life was in hourly danger, and her councillors constantly warned her that Mary was a terrible menace to her safety. In 1569 news arrived that the Pope was about to depose Elizabeth, and declare Mary Queen of England. Almost immediately there was a great rising of the Catholics of the north. The Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland marched into Durham, and mass was once more said in the cathedral. The insurgents, however, received but little support, and some of the leaders perished on the scaffold. Next year the long expected Bull of Deposition arrived. While most of the Catholics remained loyal, some of the more violent schemed to depose and even murder Elizabeth.

One of the plots, known as the “Ridolfi Plot” from the name of an Italian banker who played an important part in it, was headed by the Duke of Norfolk, an ambitious noble of thirty-two, who undertook to seize Elizabeth and marry Mary, who had now obtained a divorce from Bothwell. Norfolk was the leader of the English Catholics, and had the support of many noblemen in the northern counties. Some of his papers, however, fell into the hands of Burleigh, and the whole plot was exposed. Norfolk, who said truly that nothing done for Mary ever prospered, paid the penalty with his head on Tower Hill. Both Houses of Parliament now petitioned that the Queen of Scots should share his fate, but Elizabeth replied that “she could not put to death the bird that had fled to her for succour from the hawk.” Henceforth Mary was more strictly confined.

At length in 1583 another great plot was unmasked. France and Spain were to unite in an invasion of England, the English Catholics were to rise, Elizabeth was to be murdered, and Mary was to ascend the throne. Six desperate fanatics undertook to dispatch the English queen by steel or poison as a service pleasing to Heaven. Mary was in the plot up to the eyes. She had corresponded with Anthony Babington, a vain fool who was the chief agent in the plot, and had accepted his offer to assassinate Elizabeth. In extenuation it must be said that she was now desperate. She felt no compunction in lending her support to the murderous project, for she had the wrongs of a lifetime to revenge, and she knew that she would ultimately come to the scaffold if Elizabeth were permitted to live. Walsingham knew every move of the plot, and encouraged it to develop until he had sufficient evidence to bring Mary to trial on the capital charge.

She was arrested at a neighbouring seat, whither she had been allowed to go on the pretext of a stag-hunt, and was there detained until her papers had been secured. Then she was removed to Fotheringhay Castle and brought to trial. Mary faced the court with great tact and dignity, and defended herself with the utmost skill. She totally denied all knowledge of the Babington plot; but her case was hopeless, both because the court had what it considered sufficient evidence of her complicity, and because it was considered necessary for political purposes that she should be found guilty.

On October 25, 1586, the commissioners reported that she had contrived “divers matters tending to the hurt, death, and destruction of the Queen of England.” Therefore both Houses of Parliament again petitioned for Mary’s speedy execution. Elizabeth replied that she was unwilling to shed the blood of that wicked woman, the Queen of Scots, though she had so often sought her life. She wished that she and Mary were two milkmaids with pails upon their arms, and then she would forgive her all her wrongs. As for her own life, she had no desire on her own account to preserve it. She had nothing left worth living for; but for her people she could endure much. She was most reluctant to sign the death-warrant, and endeavoured to evade the painful task by all sorts of shifts and devices, even going so far as to make the cowardly suggestion that Mary’s guardians should act upon their own responsibility. At length she put her name to the document, and her councillors hurried on the execution lest their mistress should change her mind.

The Earl of Shrewsbury, who had been Mary’s guardian for nineteen years, broke the news to her. She heard her fate with the utmost calmness, saying that she was content and even happy that she was so soon to be freed from so many miseries and afflictions, and rejoicing that God had given her grace to die for the honour of His name and for His Church. Finally she asked when she was to suffer. “To-morrow morning at eight o’clock,” was the reply.

Let us not linger over the painful scene of her execution. She laid her head upon the block with calm fortitude, the axe descended, and the long tragedy of her life was over. She sinned grievously, but she suffered greatly, and she will never lack champions who will stoutly maintain even to the crack of doom that she was more sinned against than sinning.

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