And some others, dispersed among the works of pope Pius the fifth, Buchanan, Camden, Udal, and Sanderson 5. [Mary, the daughter of James the fifth of Scotland by Mary of Lorraine, was born in 1542, and succceded to the crown by the death of her father, when she was but seven days old. Her mother, the queen dowager, together with cardinal Beaton, favoured the interest of the French in Scotland, and projected the marriage of Mary with the dauphin of France, which took place in 1558. Henry the eighth of England, desirous of uniting both kingdoms, thought he had a right to demand a matrimonial alliance with his niece in behalf of his son Edward. The monarch's rage therefore became excessive when his views were frustrated; he both threatened and executed vengeance by the overthrow of the Scotish army at the battle of Musselburgh in 1547. Yet the English profited less than the French by that event, as Scotland soon became little more than a province of France. In 1559 Henry the second and the Guises compelled the dauphin and his consort to take up the stile and arms [Several others occur in Murdin's Collection of State Papers, and one of them contains a libel on Elizabeth, which it seems very doubtful whether Mary could have had the rancour or impolicy to compose.] 6 Campbell's Tour in North Britain, vol. i. p. 66. of king and queen of England: an ill-fated measure, as Mr. Lodge observes, which completed the ruin of the French interest in Scotland, and opened that scene of misery which terminated in the murder of Mary. On the death of her husband Francis the second in 1560, all the gay prospects of future grandeur vanished from her view. She quitted the refined attractions of a voluptuous court for the sterile mountains of Scotland, a change rendered more uninviting by the fury of fanaticism and the craftiness of cabal. Being left in the full bloom of her beauty, and possessed of sovereign power in her own right, some of the chief potentates in Europe sought to tempt her to a second marriage 9: but the personal graces and superficial accomplishments of lord Darnley alone captivated her heart, and she wedded him in defiance to the remonstrances of Elizabeth, after remaining five 'This is forcibly adverted to in Mr. Stewart's well-written historical drama of Mary, Queen of Scots, p. 9. * Vide Illustrations, vol. i. p. 312. ' Alexander Scot presented a poetical new year's gift to the queen, when she came home in 1562, and thus exhibited his skill in alliterative metre: Fresch, fulgent, flurist, fragrant flower formose, Lantern to luve, of ladys lamp and lot, Sweit smyling sovraign, shining bot a spot, Blest, beautyful, benygn, and best begot; Sent by thy simple servant Sanders Scot, Evergreen, vol. ii. p. 15. years a widow. The subsequent history of the unfortunate Mary is too notorious and too perplexing for circumstantial detail. Her crimes, her follies, and her misfortunes, have been so long the playthings of historical speculators, that little remains untold, and most of that little may be found in Mr. Lodge's valuable Illustrations of British History. Such were the charms of her person and behaviour, that every one who saw and conversed with her was inclined to think her innocent, at least to wish her so, and all concurred in pitying her sufferings 3. She was brought to the block on the 8th of February 1587, and in that awful conjuncture displayed a fortitude and a decency which would have honoured a matron of Rome; and to the moment of her death, united the majesty of a queen with the meekness of a martyr4. • To this ill-fated connexion Mr. Andrews candidly attributes that first deviation to vice, which pitiably debased a mind naturally disposed to virtue; since, had Mary met from Darnley a proper return for that tender affection which gave him her person and her crown, she would probably have shone as the most amiable as she was the most lovely sovereign of the age she lived in. Continuation of Henry's History, vol. i. p. 133. 'Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. i. p. 185. 4 • Andrews' Continuation of Henry's Hist. vol. i. p. 130.In the late duke of Roxburgh's library is a scarce tract entitled, The Scottish Queen's Buriall at Peterborough, upon Tuesday being Lammas Day, 1587. It contains a description of the melancholy ceremonial, and of the personages who attended it; and cites the following very guarded passage from a prayer used by the bishop of Lincoln before his funeral sermon :"Let us blesse God for the happie dissolution of Marie, late Many curious papers relative to her history are said to be reposited in the library of the Scots college at Paris. The last time that David Hume was in that city, the learned principal showed them to him, and asked, why he had pretended to write her history in an unfavourable light without consulting them? Hume, on hearing this, looked over some letters which the principal put into his hands, and though unused to the melting mood, burst into tears 5. Had Mary written the memoirs of her own life, adds Mr. Seward, how interesting must they have been! a queen, a beauty, a wit, a scholar, in distress, must have laid hold on the heart of every reader: and there is all the reason in the world to suppose that she would have been candid and impartial 6. the Scottish queen and dowager of France; of whose life and departure, whatsoever shall be expected, I have nothing to say: for that I was unacquainted with the one, and not present at the other; of her M. faith and end `I am not to judge. It is a charitable saieing of the father Luther; Many one liveth a Papist and dieth a Protestant :' onely this I have been enformed, that she tooke her death patiently, and recommended her selfe wholy to Jesus Christ." Mr. Ballard has printed from the Ashmole MSS. a circumstantial account of the person and behaviour of Mary in her last moments, from the declaration of an eye-witness; and Mr. Irving has pointed out an unpublished poem in the advocates' library, by an unknown English poet, John Woodward, entitled, The Life and Tragedy of the heroicall Lady, Mary, late Queen of Scottes, written on the model of the Mirror for Magistrates. Lives of Scotish Poets, vol. ii. p. 110. › Seward's Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 161. 'When one of the Cecil family was speaking of the wis From its original" in the British Museum Mr. Seward published the first letter that this unfortunate princess ever wrote in English; and it is a curiosity which may fitly be incorporated into the present work. It appears to have been written on the 1st of September 1568, and was addressed to sir Francis Knollys 8. "Mester Knoleis, y hevv har sum neus from Scotland, y send you the double off them. Y vreit to the quin my gud sister, and pres you to du the lyk conforme to that y spak yesternicht unto you, and sut hesti ansur y refer all to your discretion, and wil lip ne beter in your gud delin for mi, nor y kan persuad you; nemli, in this langasg. Excus mi ivel vreitin, for y nevver used it afor, and am hestet ye schal si my bel vhuilk is opne; it is sed Seterdey my unfrinds will be vth you. Y sey nething, bot trests weil and ye send oni to your wiff, ye may asur her schu wald a bin weilcom to a pur strenger, hua nocht bien aquentet dom of his sovereign queen Elizabeth, Mary stopped him short by saying, "Seigneur chevalier, ne me parlez jamais de la sagesse d'une femme; je connois bien mon sexe; la plus sage de nous toutes n'est qu'un peu moins sotte que les autres." Seward's Anecdotes, ut sup. 7 Cotton MSS. Caligula, C. i. • Vice-chamberlain of the household, and afterwards treasurer of the chamber. He had the joint custody of Mary with lord Scroop, during her abode at Bolton Castle. Queen Elizabeth used to say that she promoted him because he was an honest man. See Lodge's Illustrations, vol. i. p. 311. |