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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028150856 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 DA 787.A2D41 
 
 Mary, queen of Scots. 
 
 3 1924 028 150 856 
 
o 
 
 MARY, 
 
 Queen of Scots 
 
 STUDY. 
 
 " Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against ( l>f 
 thee, saying, 'As is the mother [progenitors], so is her daughter.'" 1/ 
 
 Ezekiel xvi., 44 (compare 38). 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES H. LUDWIG, PKINTEH, 10 & 12 READB STREET. 
 
 18 82. 
 

 ./^ 
 
 ~\ 
 
 / CORNELL \ 
 UNIVERSITY 
 xUBRARV 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie j'car 1882, b\- 
 
 .J. Watts de Pbyster, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress,^at Washington. 
 
S '^P^EF7ICE> 1^-^ 
 
 " Nebselt was dearer and nearer to Peniauk than any other of his ahbociateb. He ad- 
 mired his learning and skill ; and when the slightly built surgeon, who was indefatigable in 
 his wanderings, roved through the thickets by the Nile, the desert, or the mountain range, 
 the young poet-priest accompanied him with pleasure and with great benefit to himself, for 
 his companion observed a thousand things to which without him he would have remained 
 forever blind ; and the objects around him, which were known to him only by their shapes, 
 derived connection and significance from the explanations of the naturalist, whose intractable 
 tongue moved freely when it was required to expound to his friend the peculiarities of organic 
 beings whose development he had been the first to detect." 
 
 George Eber's "'C/arda^'" 1., iii., p. 35. 
 
 '' The hollow orb of moving Circumstance 
 RoU'd round by one fix'd law." 
 
 Tennyson's '"''Palace 0/ Art." 
 
 '' Because all words, tho' cuU'd with choicest art, 
 Failing to give the bitter of the sweet., 
 IVither beneath the palate., and the heart 
 Faints ^ faded by its heat." 
 
 Tennyson's '■'' Dream of Fair Women." 
 
 lECUMSTANCES, as Byron says, "mas- 
 ters of men" — circumstances very pecu- 
 liar, a mingling of the pleasant and the 
 painful, led to this "Study." Its germ 
 was a suggestion. It originated very 
 much as if an amateur naturalist, turn- 
 ing the page and finding a mention of a 
 recently extinct bird — like the Dodo {Didm ineptiis) of the 
 island of Mauritius, or V Inoonnu of the Isle de Bourbon, 
 or the gigantic Moa of New Zealand — should become, at 
 
4 
 
 once, so iiiudi iutere.sted as to look ii|i every accessible fact 
 in connection with a lost species. Tlie liistorian, wIjo seel-:s 
 to investigate tlie hidden canses of manifest results, is ni- 
 fluenced in a great degi'ce by the same motives as tlie 
 specialist in natural research. Psychology, likewise, fre- 
 quently steps in with mysterious speculations which stimu- 
 late curiosity, U7itil at length not merely a few but numer- 
 ous dissimilar lines of thought, unite— like many variegated 
 threads in a rich tissue — to render the researches and reflec- 
 tions more and more interesting. Tlais the mind becomes 
 completely absorbed in the investigation. Such a subject is 
 the career of Mary, Queen of Scots, which has enlisted so 
 many able jDens, excited so much feeling, and aronsed such 
 bitter antagonisms, that, strange to say, they are^contrary 
 to the rule — rather intensified than weakened by tlie lapse 
 of time. 
 
 Thus from works, the most superficial while agreeable, 
 like "The Abbot" and "Tales of a Grandfather," of Sir 
 "Walter Scott, the investigation has gone on, throiii^h 
 many nniting the ^^ utile cum dulce,''^ to others deeper and 
 dryer, until it has ended in the examination as well as the 
 accumnlation of enough of books to form a small lilirarv. 
 
 When this "Study" was commenced, it was intended 
 to embrace the whole life of Mary. Ihit as it went deeiKM- 
 and deeper into the svibject, it became aii]>aront tbat Alarv's 
 life as an independent existence ended with \w partin- 
 from IJothwell at Garberry Hill. In the full sense of the 
 
word she never again was a perfectly free agent. Wliat is 
 more, her reign as a reality, terminated at that crisis. After- 
 wards she became an ideality. The dethroned Queen Mary 
 was not the Mary Stuart for whom men lost their senses on 
 beholding her and listening to her. From the moment that 
 she fell' into the hands of Elizabeth, her power consisted 
 altogether in the imagination of those who saw in her the 
 head of a party and a suffering saint, — a wronged princess 
 and a victim, without assistance destined to become a 
 martyr. 
 
 There are admirable works that treat of all the phases 
 of Mary's romantic life, but certainly the best three are 
 John Hill Burton's "History of Scotland," — which covers 
 lier entire career ; Leader's "Mary Queen of Scots in Cap- 
 tivity, 1569—1584," and Schiern's "Life of Bothwell." 
 An excellent article cm Mary appeared in Harper''' s New 
 Monthly Magazine, No. 273, for February, 1873. The 
 latter is perhaps the best accessible compendium. 
 
 After this "Study " was elaborated and already in the 
 hands of the printer, a book turned up, by chance, which 
 is one of the most remarkable and interesting ever published 
 about Mary. It is entitled, '■'■Histoire de Marie Stiiart,^'' 
 a work in two large 12mo. volumes, and was published in 
 Paris, in 1850. Its author is J. M. Dargaud. Tliis "7/?s- 
 ton/'' takes very nmch the same view as this "Study" 
 in regard to the paramount influence exercised upon Mary 
 by Bothwell, and makes him out what he was, the in- 
 
dividual on whom Marj lavislied the matured strength of 
 her artectioii, confidence and fealty. 
 
 Dargaud's '■'History'" is almost nnsjjaring of Mary m 
 many respects, and with these this "Study" is entirely at 
 disagreement. Her history — even if she was as abandoned 
 as Dargand represents her — under the circumstances of 
 the case, in a manly heart, shonld excite only the highest 
 degree of pity, ;ind inspire an attempt at palliation. 
 
 Finally, let readers remember, that the effect of testi- 
 mony depends on temperament, experience, observation, 
 and other physical and mental peculiarities which are be- 
 yond the control of the individual, because they are innate 
 as well as the results of growth and development. Per- 
 fectly cool and dispassionate judgment is as rare as abso- 
 lute truth. Therefore the opinion of any student who ap- 
 proaches his subject with a desire to do justice, examines. 
 analyzes, criticises, and determines, his — such an opinion — 
 is worthy of courteous consideration, and no one has a 
 right to impugn Ids integrity or Hs honestv. 
 
 This "Study" is the expression of such an opinion. 
 If it can be shown to involve error, the author replies with 
 the Greek champion, 
 
 "Give me but light and Ajax asks no inoro." 
 
irtr^it 
 
 REALITIES VERSUS IDEALITIES. 
 
 "And let some strange mysterious dream 
 Wave at his wings, in airy stream 
 Of X\y^\y portraiture display'd, 
 Softly on my eyelids laid." 
 
 Milton's "// Penseroso^ 
 
 " T\\Q portrait soothes the loss it can't repair, 
 And sheds a comfort even on despair," 
 
 Southgate's "Ma?iy Thoughts of Many Things'* 
 
 "A picture is a poem without words." 
 Horace. 
 
 "Mary Stuart was an admirable actress; rarely, perhaps, on the world's stage has 
 there been a more skilful plaj'er," 
 
 Froude's ""History of England^'' VIII., 367. 
 
 'HAT no engraved portrait of Mary is pre- 
 sented with this "Study" is due to the 
 conviction that it is very questionable if 
 any reliable portrait of her — in the flower 
 of her age and charms — exists. John 
 Daniel Leader, in his '^Mary Queen of 
 Scots in Captivity," furnishes a likeness, 
 "reproduced by permission of the Duke of Devonshii-e 
 and of the Marquis of Hartington, from the famous ' Shef- 
 field Portrait' preserved in HardM'ick Hall. The original 
 
is painted on oak panel, and represents tiie Queen, in lier 
 tliirty-sixth year, as anything but the beautiful woman 
 traditionally described. She has, also, a very decided 
 cast in the right eye, which the artist, with some skill, 
 has rendered less obvious by rej^resenting her as looking 
 towards the left. The upper portion of the picture, down 
 to the hands, is reproduced in this volume with striking 
 fidelity ; but the lower part of the dress, the table on the 
 right, and the carpet on which the Queen stands, though 
 approximately correct, are not entirely so, owing to the 
 diflSculty of expressing in photography so dark an image 
 as this old painting shows." 
 
 Before procee(ling with further quotations from Mr. 
 Leader, it seems pertinent to remark that this portraiture 
 in colors is not irreconcilable Math the portraits in words by 
 Brantome, Michelet, and others ; always bearing in mind, 
 however, the remark of Froude, that she was ' ' an ad- 
 mirable actress," and "rarely, perhaps, on the world's 
 stage has there been a more skilful player." 
 
 She was accomplished in the highest degree. Even 
 after her marriage she devoted two hours a day to study. 
 She M'as a poet — that is, not a Sappho, but a rhymster 
 who produced verses not much worse than the poets who 
 made a mark at that time in France. She was a musician, 
 doubtless a good one for her rank. She declaimed well ; 
 and in French, which was in fact her own language, she 
 wrote with force. 
 
r>raiit(iiiie, who kiitnv lier jicrsinuilly, hears witiiosw 
 that her prose was excellent. She was eminent in ejiisto- 
 larj composition, of which he says, "I have seen some very 
 beaiititul, very eloquent and dignified specimens." Her 
 letters, which have been preserved, if not retouched or 
 remodelled by her secretaries, are sufficient evidence of 
 her ability in that line. "Conversing, she used very gentle, 
 winning and agreeable language, mingled with a suitable 
 majesty, a very discreet and modest propriety, t>ut above 
 all an extreme grace. Even her native tongue, which in it- 
 self is very rustic, barbarous, harsh and inflexible, she spoke 
 with such a grace, and managed so deftly, that she made 
 it seem very elegant and very agreeably as coming from 
 her lifis, although not so in the mouths of others." The 
 French chronicler then goes on to say that, if she appeared 
 so charming in the barbarous costume of Scotland, what 
 a glorious picture did she present in that elegant and rich 
 apparel made according to the French or Spanish fashion, 
 or with an Italian head-dress, or again — when she appeared, 
 as often styled, "Za Reine Blanche'^ — in the white other 
 deep widow's mourning. In that she was something lovely 
 indeed to contemplate, for, in it, the fairness of her com- 
 plexion rivalled the whiteness of the veil which she wore, 
 to such a degree that her skin of snoM' outshone the spot- 
 lessness of the tissue. She shone a goddess, whom to 
 behold there was no otlier choice than to die or succumb — 
 ^^mourir ou (Vestre pris.^' Thus, truly captivating did 
 
10 
 
 this princess appear in every style of dress, whether harbai-- 
 ous, wordly, or austere. In addition, she possessed enough 
 perfection to set the world on fire with her remarkably 
 sweet and gentle voice, for she sang with judgment — ad- 
 justing her tone to the lute which she played very prettily 
 with those beautiful white hands, and lovely symmetri- 
 cal fingers which even an Aurora might have envied. 
 Brantome then bursts into a rhapsody, and declares that 
 the sun in Scotland was inferior in brilliancy to her, since, 
 at certain periods of the year, it does not shine over five 
 hours in the day, wdiereas she shone alM'ays, so that her 
 country and her people had no need of other light. This, 
 however, was nothing inore than what Chastelard sang of 
 her, that on her return voyage to her native country, amid 
 the night and fog there was no need of lanterns and 
 torches, for her eyes were brilliant enough to illuminate 
 the enveloping darkness. There is nothing in all this 
 eulogy — the generalities of characteristics rather than the 
 details of likeness — inconsistent with the "Sheffield" or 
 "Hardwick Portrait," which develops dignity, and is con- 
 spicuous for an exceedingly fair complexion and well-formed 
 hands with long, tapering fingers. 
 
 Michelet, who certainly did not love Mary or her 
 Guisan connections, says, "there never was a like bewitch- 
 ing creature {fie). Her beauty, celebrated by contempo- 
 raries, was the least element of her poMaM'. Trustworthy por- 
 traits repi'csent her with decided rod (auburn?) hair, with 
 
11 
 
 that tine transparent and pearly skin wliicli was peculiar 
 to her mother's brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine ; piercing 
 eyes, although brown, which, on occasion, could asswiiie a 
 very hard expression. Marvellously acquainted with books, 
 facts, and men, she was a politician at ten years of age. 
 At fifteen she governed the Court, carried every one away 
 with her conversation, with her charms, influenced every 
 heart. This prodigy of the Guises, like every other 
 member of that family, possessed every gift except dis- 
 cretion and good sense. Visionary in spite of her intrigue, 
 with so much appearance of ruse and cunning, she never- 
 theless fell into every trap set for her. All foresaw that 
 in this flame the royal youth (her husband Francis II.) 
 would soon be consumed." 
 
 "The Duke of Alva, a very acute observer, expressly 
 declared, 'that he [Francis] died of Mary Stuart' — who 
 tried on every one she sought to gain ' the various re- 
 sources of her passionate and subtle nature.' " 
 
 Again, after a long interval of silence, Michelet resumed 
 his work upon this likeness. "All the world knows by heart 
 the intensely beautiful verses, in which Konsard, this time 
 the true as well as the great poet, recalls the charming im- 
 pression, solemn and melancholy, which he experienced 
 when he beheld Mary under her white veils of widowed 
 queen in the forest of Fontainebleau, when the trees, the 
 old oaks, the savage pines, bowed themselves and saluted 
 her as 'a holy thing.' Ineft'aceable remembrance and un- 
 
12 
 
 eeasiiif<l_y renewed l)y tlie poets of all particH. Our most 
 serious [French] historians became subjected to the sorcery. 
 I, myself [Michelet], could not have resisted it, if I had 
 not had so many proofs which demonstrate that in this 
 fatal sorceress were concentrated all that constituted the 
 peril of the world." 
 
 "Her portraits also, it must be confessed, at least the 
 most reliable, protest against the legend. In the Great 
 Library, that of Ste Genevieve, at Versailles, we catch a 
 glimpse of the fantasmagorial charm of this pale rose in 
 prison. But, at the same time, the long face, framed in a 
 white head-dress of a beguine or nun, reveals the genius of 
 the Guises. The small mouth, tightly shut ; the eye, fixed 
 and lowering, do not indicate in the slightest degree the 
 gentle resignation which gave birth to so many menda- 
 ciously favorable stories. Tliey bespeak the Queen, and 
 not the Saint. All these clearly betray the tragic violence 
 which avenged upon Darnley his offence against her royalty, 
 and which, witiiout scriiple, accepted the murder of Eliza- 
 beth." 
 
 All the portraits of distinguished personages of the 
 period of Mary were highly flattered. They were so of ne- 
 cessity. Had they been faithful, Elizabeth would have been 
 handed down as a fright. Elizalieth, if not positively ugly, 
 certainly was no beauty. With the colors of flattery, laid 
 on by sycophantic brushes, slie hecanic a goddess, a Venus. 
 Mary, with undoubted claims to a (H'rtain loveliness, liad a 
 
13 
 
 I'liyal rii^iit to iin even g-rcater perversion of art. Nevertlie- 
 less, truth has the right to ask, how \v(.>iil(l Mary appear 
 divested of her witcheries which cannot be transferred to 
 canvas, lier grace, lier voice which was music, lier ges- 
 ticidation which was eh-xpience, her hundred attractions 
 each of which was a powerful magnet to draw suseeptil>le 
 souls to her and tix them ; or, to cliange the simile, hires 
 like those of an existing fish, wlucli arouses tlie appetites 
 of smaller species, invites, and then devours them. 
 
 According to Chahners, her advocate and panegyrist, 
 ■'As Mary's mother [Mary of Guise] was one of the 
 largest of women [all the Guises were tall*], so was she 
 [Mary] of higher statnre than Elizabeth [tall and large], 
 as we learn from Melville, while Elizabeth considered 
 her own as the only true standard of perfection. Eliza- 
 beth's hair was more red than yelloiv, says Melville, 
 while Mary's was light anbnrn ; with chestnut colored 
 eyes. Mary had Grecian features, with a nose somewhat 
 out of proportion long — as her father's was. The Queen of 
 Scots seems to have been the handsomeu* of the two, ac- 
 cording to the general opinion. [Very slight praise this.'\ 
 Elizabeth asked Melville, whether she, or his Queen, 
 
 *For instance, after Mary Stuart's cousin, Henry of Guise, liad 
 been assassinated at Blois. by order of Henry II., the King, having 
 stepped out the lengtli of tlie corpse as it lay, outstretched, dead, 
 observed: "Ah! how tall he is. Even taller dead than living!" 
 (MiCHELET, X., 299.) 
 
14 
 
 danced best^ He said, my Queen danced not so high and 
 disposedly as Elizabetli did; and lie might have added, 
 that his Queen danced most gracefully, though this would 
 have been amiss. Elizabeth had clothes of every country, 
 which on each successive day she changed, preferring, 
 however, the Italian dress. Mary had a great variety of 
 dresses, as we learn from her wardrobe accounts, though 
 they were not more munerous than Elizabeth's. Mary had 
 ■ ten pair of woolen [wolven] hois [hose] of gold, silver, ^d 
 silk; three pair of woven hois of worsted Guernsey. She 
 had thirty-six pair of velvet shoes pasniental (laced) with 
 gold and silver. She had six pair of gloves of worsted of 
 Guernsey. The two Queens seem to have delighted in 
 
 « 
 
 dress ; and it is not easy to decide which of them was the 
 best provided. ' ' 
 
 "They were both learned women, according to the 
 fashion of the tune : Elizabeth read Greek with Ascham ; 
 Mary read Latin with Buchanan. The minds of both were 
 highly cultivated : but Elizabeth possessed in a high de- 
 gree the masculine faculty of decision and action. Mary, 
 though superior, as a woman, was defective in this quality 
 of a sovereign ; a defect this, which she had learned at the 
 court of France, where she saw the sovereign constantly 
 yielding an easy assent to a predominant minister. And 
 only on two occasions, ill which she was personally inter- 
 ested, did she act powerfidly; the first, when she resolved 
 not to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh ; the second, M'hen 
 
15 
 
 she (letenniued to marry Darnley. She would have heen 
 a hlessing, as a queen, to any civilized country, with 
 ministers of any talents, any honesty, any honor. From 
 her arrival among her people, to the passing moment, she 
 had borne her faculties so meekly ; her conduct was so 
 gracious, and her uiainier was so full of serenity and good- 
 ness, that she was the subject of every one's eidogy, from 
 Melville to Randolph ; all except the reformed ministers, 
 whose charity led them to regard their sovereign as an 
 idolater, who, as such, ought to be maligned and opposed. 
 We have seen how familiarly she took her place in her 
 privy council, with her work bag in her hand, and some 
 pleasant observation on her tongue." 
 
 This comparison recalls the Epigram of Catullus, 
 translated by Elton : 
 
 "Quintia [Elizabeth] is beauteous in the million's eye ; 
 Yes, beauteous in particulars, I own : 
 Fair-skinn'd, straight-shaped, tall-sized: yet I deny 
 A beauteous whole : <ii channingness there's none ; 
 In all that height of figure there is not 
 A seasoning spice of that — I know not what ; 
 That piquant something, grace without a name ; 
 But Lesbia's air is charming as her frame ; 
 Yes — Lesbia [Mary], beauteous in one graceful whole. 
 From all her sex their single graces stole." 
 
 As also the Epigram of Capito, translated by Eawkes: 
 
 " Beauty, without the graces, may impart 
 Charms that will please, not captivate, the heart ; 
 As splendid baits without the bearded hook 
 Invite, not catch, the tenants of the brook." 
 
 In 1575, Mary, in writing to her ambassador, in Paris, 
 observes: "There are some of my friends in this 
 
country who ;isk for my portrait. 1 pruy you liave four of 
 tlieiu made, which must be set in gold, and sent to nie 
 secretly, and as soon as possible." 
 
 "Does not this passage throw some light on that curious 
 subject, the portraiture of Mary Stuart ? Likenesses bear- 
 ing her name abound in the old houses of England, yet few 
 of them can be proved genuine, and many are utterly irre- 
 concilable with the idea that they represent the same face. 
 This letter offers a solution of the puzzle. The portraits 
 were ordered from France, probably copied hastily from 
 some picture there, and were distributed rather as tokens 
 of recognition, than with any idea of recalling the features 
 of a familiar face. Some would go to ]>ersons who had 
 never seen the Queen of Scots, and would be prized, not 
 because they were likenesses, but because they were her 
 gifts. Hence we find all those strange diversities of fea- 
 tures and of complexion which have perplexed enquirers, 
 and led some to ask whether the Queen of Scots were a 
 chameleon in her frequent changes of appearance. 
 
 "The month of August [1577] had been passed at Shef- 
 field Castle, where one of the Queen's recreations w^as sit- 
 ting for her portrait. The work was not quite completed 
 at the end of the month, but the artist had ver}' nearly 
 applied the last touches, and the Queen hoped to be able 
 to send it to her friends in France by the first opi>ortiuntv 
 that might arise. Most probably the jiicture was the one 
 now preserved at Ilardwick Hall. * * * It is 
 
kuown as tlic 'Shejfield I'lctiir,;" and bears the date 1678. 
 Mr. George Scharf, F. S. A., Keopei- of the National Gal- 
 lerv, regards this })ic-tiire as tlie original from which the 
 Morton, the llattield, and others have been painted. He 
 says ; ' There are in existence several pictures of this type, 
 anil all of them bearing the same inscription and date. 
 They are on panel, and exhibit precisely the same details 
 of dress, and peculiarities of countenance ; but they are full 
 length, and represeut the Queen standing on a Persian 
 carpet, the pattern of which is drawn without any regard 
 to perspective. The feet are concealed by the long dress. 
 Her left hand hangs down, with the fingers wide spread, 
 touching the end of her rosary. * * * The 
 
 actual original of these pictures appears to be the Caven- 
 dish one, still preserved in Hardwick Hall, and is the 
 prope2-ty of the Duke of Devonshire. It is the counterpart 
 of the rest, but has on the cross wooden rail of the table, 
 in the left hand corner, the name of the artist, a French 
 one, thus: 'P. Ovdey, Pinxit.' 
 
 "Precisely similar pictures, with the same inscription 
 and date, 1578, on the background, are preserved at Hat- 
 field House (probably intercepted by Burghley), Cobham 
 Hall, the seat of the Lennox family, and at Welbeck, a 
 seat of the Cavendish family. But the name of the artist 
 occurs only on the Hardwick portrait." 
 
 "Again, speaking of the groups of authentic portraits, 
 Mr. Scharf savs: "In these portraits there are certain 
 
18 
 
 destinctivc points which tliey all possess in coinnion. The 
 most remarkable amoni^ them is the color of the eyes. 
 They are decidedly brown, sometimes of a yellowish hue 
 (hazel), but more frequently of an absolutely reddish eolor, 
 lihe chestnut, or the paint known to artists as burnt sienna. 
 With this, as seen in pictures of Venetian women, especi- 
 ally by Paris Bordone, the white of the eye assumes a 
 blueish tint. In all these portraits tbere is a sharp and 
 almost a cunning expression in the eyes. The form of the 
 nostrils is also very pecnliar. The lip often has a V-like 
 dip in the centre, with a strong depression at the corners, 
 and the lower lip by no means protruding. Her cheek 
 bones are very high, and there is a singular space — especi- 
 ally observable in the monument — between the eyes and 
 ears. The eyebrows are raised and arched, although not 
 strongly defined, and the forehead is lofty and capacious." 
 
 "Dr. Chalmers also refers to the portraits of the Queen 
 of Scots, in the introduction to his work on her life. He 
 says : " It is a point of much less importance, even in the 
 life of such a queen, to ascertain what were her character- 
 istic features as a woman. Kobertson, the late historian of 
 her reign, professed not to know whether her hair or eye- 
 brows were black or brown ; whether her eyes were black 
 or blue, whether her nose was long or short; whcthor her 
 complexion was fair or dark." 
 
 "In this state of uncertainty, in respect to her character- 
 istic features, the late Earl of Ilardwicl: ciitcrfahifd some 
 
19 
 
 doubts whether she had ever heen as hand some as flattery 
 had feiyned. If liis lordship had founded his opinion on 
 a view of the ' Hatfield ' Mary, he might well doubt. The 
 portrait has the features of Mary, but not the youth and 
 beauty, the elegant manners and captivating address of the 
 Queen of Scots." 
 
 '■'■To arrive at a portrait to satisfy his ideal, Chalmers 
 entrusted Mr. Pailou, "a very ingenious artist," with a 
 commission to construct a portrait from the different 
 authorities, taking the Morton picture as the basis of his 
 work. In reporting upon what he had done, Mr. Pailou 
 said : "I found the same contour that I had obtained from 
 sketches and drawings, the principal difference arising 
 from the characteristic traits of the marble [of the monu- 
 ment in "Westminster Abbey] being more strongly marked 
 than the drawings and prints, which enabled me more ac- 
 curately to define the true form of the features. The statue 
 discovered also to me," he adds, "two traits which had 
 not been expressed in any one of the drawings, viz., a 
 small degree of flatness at the point of the nose, and a 
 gentle indentation in the chin. A slight indication, indeed, 
 was given in the French print, as I afterwards observed. 
 From this inspection of the tomb, my picture was consider- 
 ably advanced by the introduction of these two traits, and 
 by augmenting the prominence of the upper part of the 
 forehead, which appeared in the marble to project very 
 much." 
 
20 
 
 "After this great advance," continues Mr. Pailoii, "I 
 examined several pictures of Mary, wherein I saw dark 
 gray eyes, instead of chestnut colored, and black hair, in- 
 stead of light auburn. The picture at Scots' Hall, Fleet 
 Street, is a whole length in black, vs^hich we afterward dis- 
 covered to have been copied from Lord Salisbury's Mary, 
 at Hatfield ; the copyist^ however, hawing lost the likeness 
 iy endeavoring to make the face handsomer than the ori- 
 ginal. ' ' 
 
 "I was now carried," continues Mr. Pailou, "to the 
 whole length Mary in the library at Hatfield. This j^i^tnre 
 appeared to me to have heen painted with a strict at- 
 tention to the minuteness of nature., and has niuch more 
 truth than taste. It gives scarcely any idea of the beauty 
 of the personage which it represents ; it looks as if the ori- 
 ginal had been fifty, and has an impleasant expression of 
 sorrow and dejection ; yet, it is the only picture that I 
 have seen of Mary, which then appeared to m,e to he an 
 original. And the artist seemed to me to have aimed at 
 making the face handsome, by making it very smooth ; it, 
 however, gives a very clear and distinct idea of the real 
 form of the features, and was of great iise to me in de- 
 termining the particular and minute turns of those parts of 
 the face that constitute individuality. This picture, if it 
 were handsome, would be extremely like the figure on tlie 
 tomb of Mary ; as it is, tliey bear, indeed, mutual testimony 
 of each other's lilceness to the original." 
 
21 
 
 In the examination of a small library of books (juite a 
 number of portraits were encountered, each one differing 
 from the other. The best looking undoubtedly is the 
 manufactured one according to Leader. In Raumer's 
 work ("Contributions to Modern History from the British 
 Museum and State Paper Office") is found the following 
 note in regard to the engraving inserted therein : ' ' The 
 portrait of the Queen of Scots, prefixed to this volume, is 
 reduced from a contemporary original drawing, slightly 
 sketched with chalk, touched here and there with colored 
 crayons, for a fac-simile of which the author is indebted to 
 the kindness of Mr. Charles Lenormand. It belongs to a 
 series of portraits of distinguished personages in the French 
 Court, from Henry II. to Charles IX., which is preserved in 
 the royal collection of engravings at Paris. The name of 
 the artist who drew them is uncertain. Dumoustier, whose 
 fine portraits in red chalk are well known, was of the time 
 of Henry III.: they might rather be ascribed to Francois 
 Chouet, named Janet, similar portraits by whom are in the 
 possession of Earl Carlisle, in Castle Howard. Though the 
 face may appear older, the Queen must be here represented 
 before her marriage with Francis II., in her sixteenth year, 
 when she received a conventual education. In the original 
 the hair is of a light color ; and this agrees with the fact 
 that a lock, which is preserved in a Scotch family as a relic 
 of the Queen, is blonde." 
 
 Analyzing Brantome's language, she might have pos- 
 
22 
 
 sessed all the advantages which he enumerates, many of 
 which are recognizable in the extraordinary portrait — 
 strongly aiithenticated — presented in his admirable volume, 
 by Mr. Leader, and yet not be accounted at this day a very 
 handsome woman, or perhaps in any day except as a 
 queen. A charming or even a fascinating woman it is 
 very likely that she was, and in the highest degree. When 
 she was executed she had not yet reached her forty-fifth 
 year ; and it is extremely probable that Froude exaggerates 
 when he speaks of her wrinkled ugliness after her head was 
 held up by the executioner. The official report of Mary's 
 execution by an anonymous eye-witness contradicts Froude, 
 and states (Reaumer, 388), "she was of stature tall, cor- 
 pulent, and somewhat roundly-shouldered ; her face fat 
 and broad." Another authority speaks of her hair already 
 white (Bell, II., 144), which she did not fear nevertheless 
 while living to display, nor to curl and crimp, exactly as 
 when it was so beautiful, so blonde, of a pale yellow. 
 There may be some possibility of reconciling blonde hair 
 in early youth with dark brown hair at maturity, for such 
 a change is by no means uncommon. Many persons have 
 witnessed tow-colored hair in children become brown at 
 puberty and almost black long before middle life. 
 
 It often happens, very curiously, that when a "Study "' 
 like the present is undertaken, accident reveals facts and 
 authorities which no reasonable amount of nmney could 
 command and no ordinary research could discover. One 
 
23 
 
 of these was a copj' of a rare engraving wliicli settles tlie 
 relative height of Mary. She must have been an nniisually 
 tall woman, for this picture is of herself and Darnley stand- 
 ing side by side, and she nearly equals him in height. As 
 it is well known that Uarnley was a very tall man, so 
 much so that Queen Elizabeth styled him on that account 
 "yonder long lad," Mary's height must have been such as 
 is rarely seen in ordinary society, and this agrees with her 
 figure as represented in the "Ilardwick" or "Sheffield 
 Portrait. ' ' The inscription below the engraving reads as 
 follows: "Mary Stuart, Queen of France and Scotland, 
 and Henry Lord Darnley, her husband : Engraved by R. 
 Dunkarton after a drawing from the unique print by E. 
 Elstrake, in the possession of [Sir] St. Mark Masterton 
 Sykes, Bart." 
 
 Another remark is necessary. The face in this picture 
 resembles that in Eaumer's work already referred to, but 
 the cheeks are much fuller than in the"Hardwick Por- 
 trait." This discrepancy is again easily reconciled, because 
 the last named was painted after she had experienced long 
 years of safFering, sickness and sorrow. Nevertheless, it 
 is said that she actually took on ilesh subsequently. 
 
 To present the plain truth it would seem that Mary 
 was what would be considered a very tall woman, lithe, 
 well formed, stately — Avith a long face, a disproportionally 
 long nose, light chestnut hair gradually growing darker, 
 with eyes to correspond, not large but susceptible of ex- 
 
24 
 
 trenie brilliancy, and long, beautiful, symmetrical arms and 
 long tapering fingers. She was very active and astonish- 
 ingly enduring, graceful in every movement, fascinating in 
 expression and in voice, a very charming musician, a deft 
 embroiderer and needle-woman. Still with all this, if she 
 had not been a queen and extolled, she might not have 
 ranked as a surpassingly beautiful person. Her exalted 
 rank, her careful education, her brilliant surroundings, all 
 lent attractions to a face and figure which in ordinary life 
 might have passed comparatively unnoticed. 
 
 All "action is the result of forces" and every human 
 being is a "product," the sura of a long process of additions 
 of qualified sums, of less or greater values. Such was 
 Mar}'. She was the hot-bed flower of seeds sown in suc- 
 cessive soils stimulated to their highest capacity for the 
 production of a rank or rich plant. 
 
 If, in painting a portrait, a disciple of Holbein or of 
 Durer, or of Michael Angelo, all realists, is to be pushed 
 aside, and a follower of Giorgione, of Carlo Dolce, or of 
 Raphael be substituted at the easel, what a dilFerent pic- 
 ture will grow beneath the brush of inspiration in ch-awing 
 and in color; the commonplace in the eye and under the 
 hands of the latter will glow in all the perfection of delicate 
 lines and exquisite tints. 
 
 Weighing all these silent yet speaking testimonies, this 
 " Study " has evolved a result of its own from the discord- 
 ance, and evoked from the battlefield — almost chaotic in 
 
25 
 
 the wreck of ceiihiries of conflicts, bloody, bitter, tnicelesH, 
 witli which it is strewn — a new creation, the product of 
 comparison, analysis and thought — a Mai'y Stuart who lost 
 her head at Fotheringay Castle in 1587, but has reappeared 
 from time to time to captivate men's hearts and wring 
 men's souls. She lives in our generation, and will live as 
 Ions; as the sexes are distinct. 
 
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan ; thy father was an Amoritc and 
 thy mother was a Hittite." Ezekiel, xvi. 3. 
 
 " O, thou seed of Canaan and not of Judah, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust hath 
 perverted thy heart." The History of Susannah, § § 56. 
 
 " Thy father Genoese, thy mother Greek, 
 Born on the seas ; ivho truth in thee would seek ? 
 False Greece, Liguria's false, and false the sea ; 
 False all : and all their /alsehoods are in thee." 
 
 Buchanan, in " Collection of Efigranis^^'' lyss, 
 
 '' She seems at point to speak : 
 Now she lies back, and laughs, with her brows drawn, 
 And her lips drawn, too. * * * if 
 
 They will not slay him in her sight. / am sure 
 
 She ivill not have him slain " 
 
 " Nay\ he is dead and slain " 
 
 Swinburne's " Chastelardy 
 
 'HE arrogance of man, liis over-estimate of 
 his powers, leads him "willingly to accept 
 the Arminian doctrine of "free will," be- 
 cause it ministers to his self-importance. 
 If he would only study closely and reflect 
 conscientiously, he would recognize tlie 
 force of the pliilosoi)hical axiom, that 
 '*all action is the result of forces,'^ and that every 
 liuman heing is neither more nor less than a ^^ product.^'* 
 
27 
 
 The rigid doctrine of predestination is one of no recent 
 promulgation. It does not date from Calvin, wlio is 
 accepted as its stern — nay, pitiless — exponent ; nor from 
 the great and glorious St. Paul, who taught it in language 
 unmistakable to those wdio will analyze and compare ; 
 bnt it is to be found throughoiit the Scriptures, the facts 
 of which have never been successfully controverted, but 
 always firmly corroborated by recent discoveries. It is 
 not confined to the Old Testament, but M'as accepted by 
 every one of the ancient religions, all of which originated 
 iu the "Morning Land," — the East, the cradle of the 
 Adamite or civilizing family to which we belong. These 
 again, are children of the Ur=glaube which was an 
 inspiration, the nerves or veins of which are to be dis- 
 cerned by the microscope, if not by the eye, running 
 through all the subsequent faiths: just as in a polished 
 slab of variegated marble it is possible to detect through- 
 out veins of certain colors. Of all the philosophers of 
 antiquity, the purest and the noblest were the Stoics, and 
 they held to the idea that men were the creatures of des- 
 tiny — factors, instruments ; and a learned divine of our 
 day, in a marvellous work, "Judaism at Kome," has 
 shown that Stoicism was founded on the revelations of 
 the Jewish Scriptures, of which the canon, acknowledged 
 as inspired, was closed before Rome had a literature. 
 
 Men are simply "products," creatures of time, place 
 and circumstance. They struggle, and strive, and dream, 
 
28 
 
 tliat, swiiimiing, tlicy caii direct, tlieii- course upon the 
 river of Time, when, after all, the current of Destiny, 
 with more or less rapid and imperial impetus, is only 
 carrying them on, in spite of all their vain and furious 
 etforts, whither it was originally intended that they should 
 be impelled, whether to be submerged or safely thrown 
 ashore. Inscrutable ! the force of the inevitable urges them 
 on, and even the very philosophy Math which they passively 
 accept, or the passion with which they frantically resist, 
 or the weakness with which they foolishly complain, 
 is only part and parcel of the fearfully inexorable. In- 
 vestigation and reflection must recognize that, after all, 
 the constructions of human reason, labor and deter- 
 mination, single or combined, topple over like houses 
 of cards beneath the influence of the slightest form of 
 the irresistible — the terrible must be. Thus men are 
 born, thus they live, and thus they die, without the 
 slightest power to hinder, avert or change, until the}' 
 reach — what ? Who can answer ? That which man 
 accepts as the voice from beyond the grave in response 
 to his anxious appeal, is nothing but the echo of his own 
 hope, his own wish, and his own education. 
 
 These remarks are an almost sufficient explanation of 
 the life of Mary, Queen of Scots. If she had been dif- 
 ferent from what she was, she would have been what no 
 one ever yet has proved to be — an original creation; be- 
 cause she would have i)re8entcd the anomaly — a product 
 
29 
 
 which coukl not be resolved back into the original 
 quantities of which it was composed. 
 
 The Stuarts were a fated race. The decrees of Destiny 
 seemed to pursue their steps. Read their history. It 
 presents scarcely an exainple of what is ordinarily termed 
 a prosperous, a peaceful or a painless career. 
 
 Not to go back further than her great grandparents — 
 although the retrospect might be continued almost indefin- 
 itely — how clearly does investigation reveal qualities that 
 aggregated in Mary. With characteristics brilliant and 
 beneficial, her father, James Y., was a creature of passion. 
 He left one legitimate child — Mary; six natural children 
 who became invested with high dignities — one the famous 
 Regent Murray — and a crowd of unknoMni and unrecog- 
 nized offspring. The mother of Mary, Mary of Guise, 
 although her chastity is not impugned, was a mistress of 
 intrigue and a bigot with occasional glimpses of judgment, 
 which last was particularly manifested in her last moments, 
 when the hand of death was removing the veil with which 
 passion had hitherto obscured her vision. 
 
 One remark of hers is a revelation, nothing more is 
 needed. To a "deputation from the Congregation," she 
 observed : "It became not subjects to burden their princes 
 with promises, further than it pleaseth them to keep the ^ 
 same." (Burton, III, 360.) 
 
 "As is the mother, so is the daughter." 
 
 James IV., the grandfather of Mary, was little better 
 
?,0 
 
 than her father, with this difforence, that he was less 
 clioice in liis amours. lie was a libertine, redeemed by 
 chivalric bravery. Througli this (juality, and characteristics 
 whicli are often inseparable from it, he won the golden 
 opinions of the world, and diverted censure. The same 
 vices in his father, James III., were dealt with far more se- 
 verely. His fiivorite mistress was known among the people 
 by a contemptuous epithet — "the Daisy." On the other 
 hand, the mistresses of James V. manifested themselves in 
 splendor ; and, through the liberality of the King, were 
 enabled to win the admiration of an ignorant peojjle. 
 
 James I. was murdered ; James II. was killed by the 
 bursting of a cannon ; James III. was assassinated ", 
 James IV. died in battle, fighting like a common trooper, 
 and, as in the case of Marmion, it is questionable if his 
 body was ever identified. The corpse supposed to be his 
 was not interred with his race, and his remains eventually 
 experienced a most ignoble end. James V. died of a broken 
 heart, with the prophecy on his lips that "It [the crown] 
 came with a lass [the Stuarts obtained the throne by 
 marrying a daughter of Bruce] and it will go with a lass." 
 Mary was the last Sovereign of independent Scotland, 
 and she fultilled the dreadful destiny of her family on the 
 scaffold. 
 
 On the mother's side, Mary was a Guise. With all 
 tlic zeal and fantasmagorial surroundings of the greatest 
 eai'thly success, calamity ])]'esided ovei- the destiny of this 
 
31 
 
 family as well as over that of the Stuarts, nuinanity, 
 short-sighted and deluded, forgets the marvellous saying 
 of Solon to Croesns, that "no man should be pronounced 
 happy until his end was known." The remembrance of 
 this wrmig from the once prosperou.s King of Lydia that 
 appeal to the past: " O Solon ! Solon ! Solon !" which saved 
 him from the funeral pyre, and won him the friendship 
 of Cyrus. The great Persian appreciated the foresight 
 of the Greek philosopher and was touched with pity. 
 Perhaps, he saw from the height of his mightiness, far off, 
 in the dim futm-e, a portent of his own most disastrous 
 end. The story of Polycrates, Tyrant of Samos, is still 
 more pertinent. The apparent favorite of the gods ended 
 his career in the torments of crucifixion. 
 
 The first and grandest Guise, the capturer of Calais 
 and the defender of Metz, the great idol of the Koman 
 Catholic faction in France, was assassinated by Poltrot, a 
 Huguenot gentleman, incited to the act by the cruelties 
 which Guise had perpetrated iipon his co-religionists, and 
 which the wife of the Duke had witnessed with exultation 
 and enjoyment. Dying, he implored the pardon of his wife 
 for his frequent early infidelities, which had stained a career 
 otherwise resplendent. His even more popular son, Henry 
 of Guise, the cousin of Mary, the idol of the Parisians — who, 
 if Fate had not denied him ' ' the nail to fix the Wheel of For- 
 tune," would have transferred the crown of France from 
 the race of Valois to his own — tliat of Lorraine — passed 
 
32 
 
 t'roDi tlie cinbraecs of Ih'k mistress into tfie liaiids of his 
 assassins — assassins whose daggers drank tlie blood of his 
 brotlier, the Cardinal, almost before they had ceased to 
 drip with his own. Tlie exhaustions of love deprived the 
 Duke of the astuteness which under other circumstances 
 might have protected him against the deadly strokes which 
 stretched his corpse at the feet of tlie king whose ven- 
 geance he had provoked. Thus it was on the side of father 
 and of mother that Mary inherited qualities which imj^elled 
 her headlong to her doom. "Woman was the rock or shoal 
 on wliich both Stuarts and Guises shattered or sunk : and 
 Mary, the woman, struck on bar after bar of men, until 
 her vessel, weakened by successive shocks, went to pieces 
 on the shifting shoal of a miserable Babington. Wonder- 
 ful exemplar of a niiglity truth: Whoever commits the 
 helm to unbridled passion never brings craft or cargo to 
 any port in safety. 
 
 Our unbridled or unregulated passions are simply the 
 heirlooms and the instruments of Fate. 
 
 What Henry VIII. of England was, needs no telling. 
 It is remarked of " BlutFKing Hal " that he dearly loved 
 to look upon a man." Like him, her great uncle, Marv 
 had the same partiality for a man, and it is to the 
 fact that Bothwell was, indeed, a man, that she first 
 looked upon this Earl with favor, then with affection, and 
 finally with irresistible passion. Henry's sister, Margaret, 
 was tlie wife of James IV. and graiulniotlier of Mai'v, of 
 
33 
 
 whom she was ahnost a perfect type. This "English Mar- 
 garet, whose unwomanly lust was not even hid beneath a 
 womanly reserve — ' an ignorant, deceitful, low-minded, 
 odious woman,' drying her widow's tears in three months 
 to marry the handsome Earl of Angus ; divorcing him 
 after two years to marry her paramour, Stewart of Avon- 
 dale ; and in nine years or ten years later seeking a new 
 divorce that she might return to her first love ; as treach- 
 erous to her nation as to her husbands ; selling informa- 
 tion and herself to the English government, and for poor 
 wages, too ; and at the last pajang the penalty all traitors 
 pay in universal neglect and contempt. ' ' 
 
 Institute a parallel between Margaret the grandmother 
 and Mary the grand-daughter. See how strangely it holds 
 good, step by step. After losing first husbands both sought 
 gratification in lovers. Margaret re-married in three 
 months. Mary was anxious to re-marry, after a short de- 
 lay, with d'Amville ; and Dargaud alludes (I. ii. 115-6), 
 to a terrible charge, her proposition that he should 
 make way with his wife in order to be free to marry 
 her. D'Amville, who came from a far diiferent race 
 than the Guises, rejected the proposition, by whomsoever 
 it was suggested, with horror, and fled the temptation 
 which led to such a conception. Conde preceded (?) d'Am- 
 ville, as a lover, and to the latter succeeded Chastelard. 
 Whatever were the relations between this brilliant man of 
 
 the pen and of the sword and Mary — and this "Study" 
 3 
 
34 
 
 rejects the idea that Mary gave herself up to him — there is 
 110 question that she did what ahnost every woman does — 
 when the crisis arrives — she sacrificed Iiim in a vain 
 attempt to preserve her reputation. Even Jolm Hogan, 
 Barrister at Law, her advocate (I, 96), is compelled to ad- 
 mit : " It is impossible to acquit the Queen of all blame in 
 this unfortiinate affair. Chastelar was condemned to death 
 for his audacious conduct, and she allowed him to perish 
 on the scafiold. It may be said, and it is no doubt true, 
 that if she had interfered to save his life, the worst con- 
 struction would have been put upon her motives ; hxit it 
 would have been hetter to incur such imputations than to 
 allow a punishment to he inflicted so disproportioned to 
 the offence^ 
 
 A woman in private life with Mary's passions would 
 most probably have governed them so as not to hazard, or 
 lose, her social position : w^hereas Mary, as Queen, con- 
 sidered herself above all law except her own will. It was 
 this very treading under foot all conventionality that aroused 
 so much feeling against her : Knox and the reformers, and 
 the people whom they influenced, holding that a queen had 
 no more right to break the commandments than any other 
 individual. Mary did as she pleased with herself, and her 
 enemies did as they pleased M'itli her. Had she remained in 
 France she might have broken the whole Decalogue with 
 impunity and M'ithout reproach. To a kindly critic, the sin 
 of lier life was her extraordinary course towards iM^thwell. 
 
35 
 
 If she loved him before she had become thoroughly dis- 
 gusted with Darnley, why did she allow him to mari-y, to 
 quadruple the criminality necessary to unite herself with 
 him ? Burton (IV. 173) explains this and reasons like a 
 man who understands hmnan nature: "That she [Mary] 
 should fix her love on him [Both well] has always been 
 deemed something approaching the unnatural ; but u^hen 
 the circuinstanoes are considered, the conclusion ceases to 
 become so absolutely startling. Mary M^as evidently one 
 of those to whom, at times — and to her the times were apt 
 to come in quick succession — a great affair of the heart is 
 a necessity of life ; the necessity now [as regarded Both- 
 well] increased in intensity by her utter disappointment in 
 her last attachment, and the loathing she entertained 
 towards its object [her husband, Darnley]." 
 
 The real truth is, Mary Stuart, when the fit was on her, 
 
 " Lov'd not wisely, but too well," 
 
 and her passion for Bothw^ell was nothing more nor less 
 than the unbridled love of a woman at the age when the 
 passions are strongest — a woman who considered that she 
 had no restraints to consider but those of her own royal 
 will. She had suffered : she sought solace ; she believed 
 that the arms of Bothwell were a harbor of rest and safety. 
 Unfortunately the .haven was open to the very quarter from 
 which she did not expect the tempest to come, but from 
 which it did come and overwhelmed her. 
 
8fi 
 
 The next lover, in order, after Chastelard, a Bayard 
 in blood and bravery, was the gallant Sir John Gordon. It 
 is averred that she loved him dearly. Policy required his 
 removal. She witnessed his execution, as it is implied 
 that she looked coldly out ujjon that of Chastelard. At all 
 events the misguided lover-troubadour bent his last gaze 
 upon the window where he supposed her to be, and, without 
 a word of blame, bade her an everlasting adieu ' ' as the most 
 lovely and cruel princess in the world." 
 
 The association of Mary and Chastelard is invested 
 with a mystery beneath whichjies j^ teitriblfi^reality, in- 
 visible to the eye but sensible to instinct, just as humanity 
 recognizes the presence of a corpse, although its rigid out- 
 line is not clearly perceptible beneath the drapery in which 
 it is enveloped. The writer realized this once, under very 
 peculiar and startling circumstances, in a hospital in Italy. 
 Ushered suddenlj^ into a chamber, there was an indescrib- 
 able intuition of the presence of the dead, althongh there 
 were no indications appreciable to the senses until they 
 were palpably manifested. 
 
 Swinburne, who has made the life of Mary a long 
 and close study, seems to pivot his Trilogy of poems — 
 "Chastelard," "Bothwell" and "Mary "—covering her 
 whole career, on her sacrifice of this Troubadour-Bayard. 
 In the last, "Mary Stuart," the following lines, com- 
 memorating her death-scene, conclude the tragedy : 
 
37 
 
 Barbara Mmobray. — Hark ! a cry. 
 
 Voice below. — So perish all found enemies of the Queen [Elizabeth] ( 
 Another Voice. — Amen ! 
 
 Mary Beaton. — I heard that very cry go up 
 
 Far off, long since [when Chastelard was executed], to God, who 
 answers here [now that Mary undergoes the same fate]." 
 
 In this case, Mary Beaton seems to point out tiie con- 
 summation of "the law of the inexorable," that terrible 
 ' ' law of compensation, ' ' which rules all and everywhere, 
 demonstrating how the axe at Fotheringay, 1587, avenged 
 the stroke at Edinburgh, or at Saint Andrews, 1564. 
 
 Why? 
 
 Dargaud explains this, "Mary, who, when she loved, 
 was so reckless as regards public opinion, was timid, abso- 
 lutely cowardly, in the case of Chastelard. She was terrified 
 by the calumnies disseminated and preached against her 
 even in the churches by the Protestant ministers. She aban- 
 doned to them as a pledge of her chastity this devoted 
 head [of Chastelard]. She was deaf to all the remon- 
 strances or appeals addressed to her in his favor. Returned 
 [from Burnt Island] to Holyrood, she refused to commute 
 the death penalty pronounced by fanatic judges against 
 Chastelard, and she commanded the effacing of two lines^ 
 incised by some unknown hand upon the plaister or wain- 
 scotting of her room. 
 
 "King's face, 
 
 Gives grace." 
 
 "I (Dargaud) discerned on the wall of the old palace, 
 
38 
 
 beneath the deposits of centuries, the traces of this gener- 
 ous reminder ; Marie must have discovered it very often in 
 her conscience." 
 
 The Eumenides of Grecian Mythology, the Furies, the 
 Avengers were three, and a terrible Three hounded Marie 
 to the block, her sacrifice of Chastelard to public opinion, of 
 Sir John Gordon to policy, and of Darnley to love for 
 Bothwell. 
 
 The fool has said in his heart, there is no God ! There 
 is ! And He reigneth, governeth, and requiteth ; not 
 according to man's mind or measure, but His own. Who 
 knows what faces thrust themselves up before Mary's eyes, 
 between them and the block, when her head lay prone 
 upon the fatal wood. 
 
 That the sacrifice of the representative of the stainless 
 Bayard, of the lofty house of Huntley, and the royal race 
 of Lennox, lay light upon her callous conscience, is easily 
 believable. One of our generals, U. S. A., a profound 
 thinker, sums up thus, the character of Mar}'. "Mary 
 was intensely selfish, and, if not cruel, totally indift'erent 
 to the suff'erings of others. She could sacrifice her wann- 
 est and best friends to her own pleasnre. She deemed 
 that all things were made for Mary Stuart's pleasure 
 and gratification. She was unprincipled, false, without 
 any aff"ection for any one. Passion she had, but she never 
 had love for any one bnt Mary Stuart. Love consists of 
 two eJementH— Affection and Passion. Affection without 
 
39 
 
 passion is Friendship. From tlie degrading custom among 
 the Greeks, Friendsliip between members of tlie same sex 
 sometimes was assimilattid to Love. Passion witliout Afl'ec- 
 tion is " — Mary Stuart ! /Slie was sncli as this deeply read 
 and reflecting officer estimates lier. She was destitute of 
 conscience, unless, perhaps, when life and death were meet, 
 ing, in the supreme moment, a flash of supernal light illum- 
 inated the past, and she saw in all its hideousness a pano- 
 ramic development of her whole career, at once, for an 
 instant, as lightning at midnight reveals a landscape, and 
 then, with the severance of her neck, she passed from the 
 actual Present into the doubtful Future. 
 
 Oh, eternal spirit of truth ! such a "Study" as this 
 recognizes, knows thee, ciece, siren, aemida — Maet 
 Stuaet ! . 
 
 To Chastelard succeeded Sir John Gordon, and, next 
 in order, followed the pliant and astute Rizzio. Sub- 
 sequently, the vile Darnley, who owed his elevation to 
 Rizzio, justified his low licentiousness by attributing to his 
 wife the admission of the Italian to her embraces. No gal- 
 lant spirit will believe Darnley against Mary in regard to 
 Rizzio. Darnley was insanely jealous, and with reason, 
 for Mary already belonged, in heart, to Bothwell. Cynics, 
 like Henry IV., assigned the paternity of James VI. to 
 Rizzio. Darnley acknowledged him (James) as his OM^n 
 honestly begotten child, and with justice; for, like his 
 father, the son was mean and cowardly, while he resembled 
 
40 
 
 his mother in intellect and love of learning. It would have 
 been inconceivable ; contrary to nature ; opjjosite to even 
 woman's most depraved instincts, for Mary to yield her- 
 self to the low born Italian with Darnley (legally) in her 
 arms and Bothwell (really) in her heart of hearts. 
 
 ' This "Study" — like Mary — is carried away by Both- 
 well ! With all his stains there was an immense deal of the 
 admirable in him ; he was out and out a man. It was said 
 of the famous Regent d' Orleans that he was a ^'■fanfaron 
 des vices " (a pretender to vices he did not possess) : Both- 
 well was no pretender to anything. He was as great in his 
 vices as iu his virtues, or redeeming qualities ; in all a man. 
 A criminal passion in Mary for Rizzio is incredible. At 
 this time she was already and madly in love with Bothwell ; 
 and no woman who loves ever debases herself to sharing 
 her favors, which she has absolutely given to the object 
 of her affections, with a low dependent. 
 
 It is claimed that true love is the greatest purifier ; that 
 it erects a barrier insurmountable — which cannot be 
 breached — between a man or a woman and everything 
 that is base. There is nothing more true than this. In a 
 man, in the true sense of the word, it ennobles even that 
 which is intrinsically noble. It slays selfishness. It 
 quenches every low desire. An ordinary man it converts 
 into a hero, for the man who is not made brave and gener- 
 ous and self-sacrificing and honest — in a word, noble, in the 
 highest interpretation of the the tei'm — by love, does not 
 
41 
 
 truly love. This covers everytliing ; and whatever comes 
 short of this mingles the dross of earth with the suhlimity 
 of spirit and is unworthy of the name. 
 
 Mary became enamored, at first sight, of Darnley's 
 physical aud superficial attractions, just as her grand- 
 mother, Margaret, was borne away on the tide of passion 
 for Angus. Margaret remained faithful for three months ; 
 Mary, perhaps, as long, certainly not over six — that is, 
 counting from her private or secret marriage which anti- 
 dated the public ceremony by nearly three months. Mary 
 iirst saw her cousin, Darnley, about the middle of February, 
 1565, at Weymiss Castle, on the Firth of Forth. "She 
 presently fell in love with him " and was privately married 
 to him in Stirling Castle, early in the following May. Her 
 public nuptuals were celebrated at Holyrood, 29th July, 
 1565. It is curious to note that all three of Mary's mar- 
 riages occurred in May (Old or New Style) and turned 
 out imhappily, fulfilling the popular belief, that all es- 
 pousals which take place in this month, inevitably bring 
 sorrow or misfortune. 
 
 " MENSE MAIO MALAS NUBERE VULGUS AIT." 
 
 The ties between Mary and Darnley, through vices and 
 infidelities which no woman will tolerate, soon becariie 
 weakened, and their rupture was hurried with ever increas- 
 ing force and rapidity by the devotion of Bothwell. Darn- 
 ley paid for his folly with his life. 
 
42 
 
 Margaret, Mary's grandmother, was constant to 
 Angus three months, when she abandoned him for 
 Stewart. Witliin three months after Darnley was laid be- 
 side his victim — Rizzio — Mary — was the wife of Bothwelh 
 He again was separated from her by the same dishjyal no- 
 bility who had assisted in his elevation and had recom- 
 mended the marriage. Mary was faithful to Bothwell 
 longer than she had been to any other love. It is 
 folly, again, to believe that within seven months she held 
 out the hire of her hand to George Douglas, and after- 
 wards to his boy relative. The poor wretch was almost 
 justified in appearing to accept any assistance which could 
 deliver her from a dungeon when she was the rightful 
 possessor of a throne. Finally, just as Margaret tired of 
 Stewart and sought a restoration to the arms of Angus, 
 Mary desired to espouse the Duke of Norfolk. She 
 would have adhered to Bothwell, if Bothwell had been 
 within possible reach. He, her victim, as assuredly as she, 
 in another sense, had been his, was f)erishing in a Danish 
 dungeon as irremediably as she was pining away in an 
 English prison. Bothwell was relieved of his pains by a 
 premature natural death : Mary, by the axe. 
 
 In view of these melancholy circumstances, Dargaud 
 utters a sentiment which is an absolute revelation of the 
 mental and moral constitution of Mai'y. Mary Stuart, who 
 had been nuirried to Bothwell by double rites, spoke of 
 
43 
 
 her alliance to liim, when slie was allnring Norfolk, as a 
 " pretended marriage." 
 
 "That," says Dargaud, "not only astonishes, but 
 terrifies ! Her mind was [now] completely filled with Nor- 
 folk. She beguiled her captivity with this new passion. 
 Her marriage with the Duke would save her life, give her 
 liberty, and restore her crown. She repeats to him, in an 
 efifusion of sensibility, that she belongs to him, and that 
 what she wishes most in the world is to share with him 
 toitt heur et tout malheur — ' every hour and every mis- 
 fortune which the hour could bring. ' This was even less 
 than she had said to Bothwell, that she ' was willing to 
 follow him throughout the world in a white petticoat ; ' 
 and, again, ' to be set adrift with him in a boat, to drive 
 wherever the Fates might will.' She assures Norfolk 
 that ' she will be faithful to him even to the grave.' She 
 parted with Bothwell in anguish and tears, with a like 
 pledge. " 
 
 Well may Dargaud exclaim: "She forgets everything 
 which is not Norfolk ! She no longer knows Bothwell. 
 She has no more either the memory of the heart, or the 
 memory of the senses, or the memory of the conscience — 
 remorse. She was never able either to remember or to 
 foresee. This time, again, she is incapable of any|;hing 
 than yielding to the impetuosity of the moment. Such 
 M'as Mary Stuart ! For her there was neither yesterdayl 
 nor to-morrow. Nothing but to-day. Her passion! 
 
44 
 
 agitates and consumes like the fire in full blast ; vile 
 wood before, ashes afterwards." 
 
 Every story should have its moral, as every epigram 
 shoidd have its point. The moral of this "Historical In- 
 troduction" is not simple, but complex. Shakspeare says 
 
 that 
 
 " There's such divinity doth hedge a king 
 That treason can but peep to what it would." 
 
 This envelopes royal personages Math an aureola. Seen 
 through such a medium the judgment is often led astray, 
 for this halo makes that which would appear crime in ordi- 
 nary mortals a virtue, often, in a sovereign. This was in- 
 tensely true of Mary Stuart. In her were revived the 
 bigotry of Jezebel, the fascination of Cleopatra, the cour- 
 age of Zenobia, and the accomplishments of Lady Jane 
 Gray. Virtue, in the absolute sense, she had none ; but 
 she was far from being the abandoned woman her enemies 
 represented her to be — a modern Messalina.* Her good 
 qualities were negative and her bad ones positive. As the 
 philosophical Burton remarks, she could not live without 
 a great passion : and passion finds its best food in passion. 
 
 * Of all the writers who have devoted their abilities to presenting, 
 in poetry and prose, the truth about Mary Stuart, there is none who 
 has come so near to it as Algernon Charles Swinburne. It may be 
 heresy to say this, but whoever will examine carefully his " Chastelard '' 
 and "Bothwell," will find in them extraordinary flashes of intuitive 
 perception that are revelations. His last poem (as such, far inferior to 
 its predecessors) is a sort of key to his conception. 
 
45 
 
 Hers found its appropriate aliment in the audacious love 
 of Bothwell. Descended from a long line of ancestors emi- 
 nent for the indulgence of their passionate natures, brought 
 up amidst a complete abandonment to voluptuous enjoy- 
 ment, religious in form yet destitute of piety, when trans- 
 ferred from a "Garden ofArmida" to scenes devoid of 
 refinement and taste, she plucked the only fruits M'hich 
 grew there that could satisfy her natural longings and 
 educated sensibilities, and fell — for certainly the manner 
 and measure of her attachment to Bothwell (unless it was 
 the only true and honest love of her life) M^as a fall into 
 moral, as it was into practical perdition. This "Study" 
 honestly concludes that her love for Bothwell was the only 
 real going and giving out of her heart throughout her 
 whole career ; and her punishment for this lay in the im- 
 mediate withering of her hopes as soon as they came to 
 fruition. What does this prove? One of two things. 
 Either that the supreme felicity of life — the triumph of 
 love — is the acme of earthly bliss, and must be accepted as 
 a " set otf " to numberless sufferings which to many is un- 
 deniably an exquisite boon, or, that Fate M^eighs out joy 
 and misery with the nicest precision, and, for the brief 
 happiness of an earthly Elysium, throws into the opposite 
 scale a fearful counterpoise of evil. 
 
 Human beings who babble of self-restraint as sufficient 
 without Supreme support, will sit in harshest judgment 
 upon the sad career of Mary Stuart ; but philosophical 
 
4B 
 
 minds, who consider the question propounded by the Great 
 Teacher, "Do men gathei' grapes of tliorns or tigs of 
 thistles?" will remember His own answei- : "A good tree 
 cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree 
 bring forth good fruit." Generation after generation, 
 Mary's ancestors had been grafting evil scions on evil 
 stocks. How could such a development produce any other 
 fruit than Mary — the daughter of the Stuarts and of the 
 Guises. Nature is never false to itself; and whoever has 
 read and reflected upon the old allegory of the struggle 
 between Nature and Education will remember that the 
 result was a deformity, and a inoral defornrity was the 
 lovely and lost Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland. 
 
 "Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, 
 Let sage or cynic prattle as lie "will, 
 These hours, and only these, redeem life's years of ill." 
 
" Nestor. — A woman of quick sense. 
 
 Ulysses. — Fie, fie, upon her ! 
 
 There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, 
 Nay, her foot speaks., her wanton spirits look out 
 At every joint and motion of her body. 
 O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, 
 That give a coasting welcome ere it comes, 
 And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts 
 To every ticklish reader ! " 
 
 Shakspere's " Troilus and Cressida."'' 
 
 "" The effect of Homoselle's appearance on Halsey was that of beauty as interpreted by 
 Greek art in its largeness and simplicity. Her tall figure, with its generous fullness of 
 chest ; her long, shapely limbs, round which drapery fell naturally in those flowing lines 
 that give the beauty of life to inanimate objects ; her clear^ pale coloring ; the pose of her 
 head, — all tended to produce the impression made by those grand, simple figures of an 
 earlier age, which exist for us only in marble. Her movements, too, seemed to him to re- 
 spond * + * (qi- they were without superfluous action, * * * -^^j 
 her speech without exaggeration." Homoselle. 
 
 UMAS must have had in his thoughts the 
 ideal Mary, Queen of Scots, " when he con- 
 ceived the in*esistible feminine sorcery 
 with which he invests one of his charac- 
 ters — a very incarnate spirit of seduc- 
 tion — Lady de Winter, in his ^ ' Trois 
 Mousquetalres. ' ' He assigns to this 
 Circean woman a power of expression in the eye, in fact 
 
 * Mary, Queen of Scots, was born in Linlitbgow Castle, 7th 
 or 8th Dec, 1542; baptised in January, 1543, and crowned at Stirling 
 on Sunday, 9th September, 1543. Earlier than April, 1545, she had 
 
 47 
 
48 
 
 in every feature, but particularly in the voice, so great 
 that whoever listened to her, unless actuated by a supreme 
 and more powerful sentiment equivalent to the vengeance, 
 aroused by wounded self-love, or pride, or love, proper, 
 that " casteth out fear," was converted in an instant, from 
 an enemy into an ally. 
 
 Byron, if no other, seems to have completely compre- 
 hended the power of woman's tongue when he wrote the 
 
 lines : 
 
 " The devil hath not in all his quiver's choice, 
 An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice." 
 
 Dvimas — in -working out his plot in "Zes Trois Mous- 
 quetaires,^^ which culminates — as in the case of Mary — in 
 the beheading of the sorceress, confides her, just previous 
 
 " the small-pox, a point this, of great importance, in the biography of a 
 beauty and a Queen." In French gallics, she sailed from the Clyde, 
 towards the end of July, or the beginning of August, 1548, and landed 
 at Brest, in France, 13th August. On the 24th April, 1558, in her six- 
 teenth year, she married the Dauphin, who as Francis 11. became 
 King of France, 10th July, 1559. He died, 5th December, 1560, and 
 left Mary a widow at the age of eighteen. Mary was waited on by 
 Darnley, at Orleans, and by Bothwell at Joinville, early in 1561. She 
 quitted Paris to return to Scotland, 2l8t July, 1561, sailed from Calais 
 on the 15th August, and landed at Leith on the 19th August. Both- 
 well was at her wedding and some say accompanied her back to her 
 native land. On the 16th February, 1565, she first saw Darnley at 
 Weymiss Castle; late in April or early in May she was "handfasted" 
 (?) or secretly married to him in Stirling Castle, " the "Windsor of Scot- 
 land ;" and, on the 29th July, publicly espoused him in Holyrood Pal- 
 ace. On the 9tb March, 1566, Rizzio was assassinated. Darnley was 
 murdered by a different method on the 9tb-10th February, 1567. Set 
 free by this violent measure, Mary married Bothwell on the 15lli May, 
 and she saw him for the last time on C'arbcrry Hill, on the 15th June 
 following. Bothwiil! died 14tb April, 1575(8?); Mary was beheaded 
 8th (18th) Feb. 1587. 
 
49 
 
 to her execution, to the guard of two soldier-servants, who 
 have hitlierto never either flinched, or feebled, or failed. 
 Their master, inexorable in his just hatred of the prisoner, 
 seems instinctively to hear her whisper to these guards, and 
 instantly changes them with the remark : "She has spoken 
 to them ; they are no longer trustworthy." 
 
 In reading this sentence in the romance, it is impossible 
 not to recall a similar one in a much more sad reality. 
 When the unfortunate Duke of Norfolk was about to lay 
 his head on the block, in consequence of yielding to the fas- 
 cination exercised upon him by Mary, he remarked that 
 "he would rather be committed to the Tower," than 
 * * * ^^ marry with such a j)erson where he could 
 not he sure of his pilloio ;''^ and again, "nothing that 
 anybody goeth about for her, nor that else she doth her- 
 self, prospers." Nevertheless, although he was among the 
 first to recognize the evil in Mary's character ■when the 
 "Silver-Casket Letters" were laid before him at York, 
 and expressed his dread and horror of the Circe to whose 
 jwitcheries he was so soon after to succumb, — he did suc- 
 cumb ; and, thus, it actually appears that, in the romance 
 as in the history, whoever was looked upon, caressingly, by 
 Mary, and listened to her siren music, was lost. 
 
 It seems incredible that there should be any doubt as 
 to the real facts in regard to the face, features, and the 
 personal appearance of a woman who, with the exception 
 of Helen, Cleopatra, Zenobia, and a very few others in 
 
5(1 
 
 lesser (lei;;rcH', liaH excited so much intcj-cHt, ho tiiiicli feel- 
 ing, so iinicli Pyn-lioiiisiii, and ho much ])ositive and bitter 
 antagonism. It is very (juestionable iftliere i.s a true pen- 
 oi- brush-portrait of Mai'v. In tlie numerous descrijitions 
 and pictures the c(^h)r of ber liair ranges according to dif- 
 ferent authorities from blacl-; to liglit tlaxen {cendrer), yel- 
 \(m'{flav'us), or auburn; lier eyes from light blue or gray 
 to a more or less dark chestnut. As to the contour of her 
 face, lier figure, heiglit, there seems to be no great dis- 
 crepancies. There can l)e little doubt that she was grace 
 itself and gracious — incomparable, perhaps, in manner 
 and expi-ession — and it is most ])robable that her loveliness 
 lay rather in the general ])otential [)lay of all her features, 
 the j)ecidiar turee and fire of her eyes, and the intense 
 sweetness, fiexiliility and intonation, <ir music, of liei' voice, 
 than in ]}(_)sitive regular lineaments. That such must be 
 the explanation is extremely probable, from the fact that 
 one authentic pictui-e and one or more old writers indicate 
 she had a slight sipiint, or cast in the right eye.* Strange 
 to say this defect does not always detract from, but some- 
 
 * A cast, in the eye is, as a rule, indicative of a defect in character. 
 Great obliquity of vision sometimes infers, at least, ol)li(|uitv of tem- 
 per and morals. [I indicates untrustwortliiness coupled with cun- 
 ning or subtlety. Mahomet, in the Koran, Chap. XX., declares that 
 when, on the Day of .Tu<li;nient, " Ihe trumpet shall be sounded," " wc 
 will gather the wicked losether on that day, having .(/(vr// eyes." The 
 original Arabic word, translated "f/rrfy" by Sale, "signllies also Ibose 
 who are xi/iii)il-ci/c(L" RiuldUk hair ;ind giuxii, or si/iiiiit. eyes were 
 an aboniiniition to the .\rabs, and sucli of one tint ov another were 
 iittribnte.s of Mary. 
 
51 
 
 times even adds a piquancy to expression if it is not too 
 pronounced. The author of this "Study" has met with 
 several women in the course of his life in whom this 
 defect — generally considered a great blemish — constituted 
 a decided attraction. 
 
 After all, beauty like family resemblance very frequently 
 consists altogether in expression — and when eyes are 
 intensely brilliant and alive to feeling, and the pupils are 
 large, it is very difficult to determine whether they are 
 blue, iron-gray, or hazel, or chestnut. A light blue and a 
 gray eye, under the effects of passion, often become violet 
 or brown through consequent injection of blood. 
 
 Ethnologists aver that the black or hazel eye is crowd- 
 ing out the blue. This is no improvement, for variety is 
 charming. Each color has its excellences. There is a 
 fierce fire in the dark eye which is most fitting in the man, 
 and there is a softness in the blue eye which is most be- 
 coming in the woman. They are almost indistinguishable 
 under the dominion of passion, for they are alight, and 
 light has no color, it is simple eflfulgence.* 
 
 * The breast of a dead humming-bird presents no indications to the 
 eye of the superb variety of color which it reveals flitting from flower 
 to flower, in the sunbeams. Apply the microsco])e and at once the 
 cause of such splendor is revealed. Each feather is a prism and each 
 ray of light, caught in every one of these, becomes transmuted into the 
 varied brilliancy of the richest jewels. Light is life ! Fire was the em- 
 blem of the unknowable. Agni, light, the Aryan idea of the most 
 proper symbol of the Deity, gradually transmuted through centuries of 
 change in language and thought into Agmis, a Iamb, became the em- 
 blem of divine-human perfection. Colors are words. All ideas have been 
 
Was Mary indeed a beautiful woman 'i Beautiful ? 
 This suggests a Greek statue, cold. Beautiful? This 
 again gives rise to a question which involves a never-ending 
 controversy. From Cleopatra to Mary, Queen of Scots, 
 through Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, down to the Em- 
 press Eugenie, men have debated as to what constitutes 
 perfect female beauty. There have been some who have 
 dared to question the surpassing beauty of the "Serpent 
 of the Nile.'' ISTo two portraits agree as to Mary Stuart. 
 If the verses of Sir Henry Wotton are worthy of moderate 
 credence, the daiighter of James I. was the paragon of her 
 sex. Christian of Brunswick lived, toiled, fought and died 
 in the belief. Her portrait does not endorse the fond delu- 
 sion. Many reject the superlatives of jsraise lavished upon 
 the French Empress, Eugenie, whose bigotry certainly 
 broilght about the ruin of the second French Empire. The 
 sleek, supple, active, enduring grace of Mary has suggested 
 the comparison of the Queen of Scots to a panther. Among 
 animals the panther is certainly a type of lithe grace, with, 
 however, a drawback. It involves feline beauty, most 
 expressive, but not flattering to a human being, especialh^ 
 a woman, because with physical charms is connected the 
 idea of superlative cunning and cruelty. There remains 
 but one appropriate feminine adjective, Lovely ! Was 
 
 subject to the same transmutations. Words are the most deceptive of 
 things. " Words," said Dr. Johnson, "are the dnughter.t of earth, but 
 deedii (f./ct.i) are tlie sori.n of Ileai'eii." 
 
58 
 
 this applicable to our heroine '< Yes ! superlatively so ! 
 Yes ! Likeness IS often only in expression. Loveliness 
 almost invariably so. It is an onteonie of the sonl. Ed- 
 uiond About, in describing his "Madelon," another form 
 of Mary, does not accord to her a single regular feature, 
 and yet she won the heart of every man on whom she cast 
 her glamour. A contemporary speaking of a lionne in 
 Paris, remarks : "Isabel is a foreigp flower, a production 
 of the Western Continent, but whether from the great 
 Republic of the North or from one of the little Republics 
 of the South I shall not be precise. Is she pretty < That 
 is a question never positively answered. At first sight, 
 you woidd say not a bit; after a half-hour's acquaintance, 
 most people pronounce her "adorable." Adorable, 
 indeed, was Mary Stuart. There are some women who 
 possess an indescribable charm which blinds any observer 
 to every defect, and invests them with an atmosphere which 
 exerts a magic influence on all who inhale it. There is a 
 flower in the tropics the aspect of which magnetizes. 
 Apjproach it, bend over it in admiration, breathe in its 
 fragrance, and a stranger unacquainted with its properties 
 is bewildered. Let him withdraw, if possible, or he is 
 stupified, powerless. Certain females have the same 
 quality. Permit them to exert their incomprehensible 
 wiles and their victims are enmeshed, body and mind. 
 They actually possess the powers attributed to Wilis, 
 Loreleys and Nixes, except that these belong to another 
 
54 
 
 element. Do not venture to tlie shore or in a Vjoat and 
 tlie susceptible are safe, whereas human Wilis are danger- 
 ous, not oulj upon the water but on terra firma. 
 
 Such a one was queenly Mary, who, when she was 
 carried away by her love for Bothwell, had attained that 
 second phase of loveliness when the mind, resplendent 
 through the comjjassing tabernacle, shines out like a lamp 
 through a delicately tinctured vase ; when the charms of 
 youth are renewed by others more glorious, because they 
 are the children of experience, cultivation and thought. 
 
 This is all that needs be said about her age or appear- 
 ance, except that, later in life, she was rather inclined to 
 emhonpoint, but only sufficiently so to round out her fig- 
 ure and render it more stately, without detracting from 
 ease or flexibility. 
 
 Greene (II. vi. 330-1) says of her: "Her beauty, her 
 exquisite grace of manner, her generosity of temper [at 
 times] and warmth of affection [when not crossed], her 
 frankness of speech [when excited], her sensibilitv, her 
 gaiety, her womanly tears, her man-like courage, the play 
 and freedom of her nature, the Hashes of poetry that broke 
 from her at every intense moment of her Ufe [mark this in 
 connection with the "Silver-Casket" letters and sonnets], 
 flung a spell over friend or foe which has only deepened 
 with the lapse of years." 
 
 "The rough Scotch nobles owned tliat tliere was in 
 Mary some enchantment whereby men are bewitched." 
 
65 
 
 And yet "Elizabeth's lying paled indeed before the tv^oZ 
 </uj)//'cify of this girl of nineteen.'' She was a niisti-ess of 
 '^ dissiinulailon.''^ Only a few months had jJiissed since 
 her wedding day when men saw she ''hated the King 
 [Darnley]," while Inring him to his doom. ''Yovruct- 
 /o^is, " wrote Elizabeth [truly], in a break of tierce candor, 
 "are as full of venom as yonr words are of honey." With 
 what justice Dargaud sums up her character, thus: "Mary 
 Stuart, so passionate and so brilliant, pagan by natiu-e, 
 [EonianJ Catholic by education and policy, poet, scholar, 
 princess, woman, was imbued with all the instincts of her 
 times and represents them in all their facets [or phases], 
 shining or sinister." Philip II. "expressed considerable 
 doubt whether she had any religion at all. " " She possessed 
 a grand but unquiet mind," adds [the just and upright 
 French andoassador] Michel de Castelnau. She sought dis- 
 traction in every indulgence of her will and nature, and she 
 found it — physical in Darnley, passionate in Bothwell, and 
 the final inevitable result of such a life in a violent death. 
 She was " chielly interested in herself; " her " most ardent 
 admirer will not claim for her a character of piety, in any 
 sense of the word which connects it with the moral law." 
 She was "fearless," and, until broken down by disease 
 and captivity, she knew none of the I'estraints which im- 
 pose their fetters upon her sex, since she possessed a 
 health and endurance such as might excite the envy of 
 the hardiest men of her veneration and associations. The 
 
explanation of all Mary's misfortunes lay in her utter self- 
 ishness. From time to time and for short periods, her 
 passions conquered or neutralized this, but it speedily re- 
 asserted its sway. In the case of Bothwell, his, the 
 stronger will gradually overcame the relative weaker 
 resistive force of Mary. This reversal of conditions con- 
 tinued until with the certainty that Bothwell, as an active 
 factor, M^as eliminated from her life problem, egotism and 
 self-indulgence reassuraed its sceptre. Thus, one after 
 another Mary, "spoilt beauty," "bonny and wilful, as a 
 queen behoves to be," sacrificed noble, generous and de- 
 voted hearts, without pity to her egotism : finally Nemesis, 
 weary of this, sacrificed her to her own heartlessness. 
 
 It is by no means an uncommon thing for men or women 
 to be human paradoxes, and under different circumstances 
 present such opposite phases of character that, unless long 
 and closely intimate with them and cognizant of the 
 motives under which they act or acted at various times, it 
 would be impossible to recognize them as one and the same 
 mortal. 
 
 Mary M^as one of these, and while friends who did not 
 suffer through her became utter partisans, opponents who 
 did became just as earnestly the contrary. The Eoman 
 Catholic Church exalts her into sanctity, and justlv, , 
 from their point of view, since her devotion to it was 
 unlimited, except for a brief period while fiercelv and 
 fully carried away by her aftection tor Hothwell— and 
 
she certainly did die for it; but then her interests and 
 her ambition were identical with its supremacy. On the 
 other hand, Protestants, as a rule, can find no excuse 
 for her actions, and take the ground that, as she never 
 was idle in sowing the wind, she had no right to com- 
 plain when she inevitably reaped the whirlwand. That 
 her execution was the salvation of the Reformation is gen- 
 erally admitted by even Romanist and French authors — her 
 own people, so to speak, for she was Gallic rather than 
 Gaelic. In any event she was an obstacle, * and as such had 
 to be removed, and Destiny, Fate or Providence does not 
 hesitate at destroying antagonisms when the time has 
 arrived and the result lias to be achieved. Such is the 
 inexorable law of the terrible inevitable. 
 
 If experience and observation had never taught the bit- 
 ter lesson, it might even yet be impossible to comprehend 
 the character of Mary. But they have, and the result is, 
 she suggests a simile which has often been made but not 
 applied to an individual. Mary may be compared to a 
 sheltered valley in Iceland, which in late spring and early 
 summer — she never entered upon the autumn of life — is 
 richly green and thickly sown with delicate and beautiful 
 flowers. Beneath, and only a few inches below the sur- 
 face, the soil is cold with an eternal frost. Still deeper, 
 volcanic agencies are ever at work, and in their throes pour 
 
 * Rev. James Smith's ''The Coming Man,''' London, 1873. "Hand- 
 writing on the Wall of England," II., page 330-2, &e. 
 
5H 
 
 forth scalding streams and incandescent masses. Tlie gey- 
 ser spouts in tiie midst of tlie meadow, and tlie volcano, 
 asleep at one moment, may at the next burn u]) evei-ything 
 with a belch or vomit of laA'a ; or — to present the same idea 
 somewhat differently — exteriorly she resembled that itrief 
 display of summer bloom which often astonishes visitors 
 to the Arctic regions, most beautiful and attractive as de- 
 veloped on the thin thawed surface, beneath which lies a 
 stratum of eternal frost, and still deepier subterranean fires, 
 ever active, pulsating with a violence frequently exhibited 
 in outbursts worthy of kindred powers in the tropics. 
 
 Scotland, during her reign, in the coarseness of man- 
 ners and lack of refinement which permeated all classes, in 
 the mode of living and tone of thought, resembled — in com- 
 parison to France, where Mary was brought up,— positively 
 resembled a cavern of chilliness and darkness. The dense 
 fog that prevailed when Mary reached Leith was a type of 
 the state of the country and her gloomy future in it. Amid 
 this darkness Mary shone with peculiar brilliancy, just as a 
 figiire coated with illuminating pigment glows with startling- 
 phosphoric brightness in a room completely deprived of 
 other light. The repulsiveness of the characteristics and 
 manners of the Scottish high life which environed the 
 queen obscured her defects, while by contrast it revealed 
 and intensified her attractions : just as the efligy above men- 
 tioned covered with chemical color that appears nothing 
 but plain lustreless white— Mary, it will be remembered, 
 
59 
 
 was styled "the White Queen," — in the dayliglit, shines in a 
 dark room with niarvellons eft'ulgence. Scotland M'as indeed 
 a land of darkness as to morality and elegance ; and Mary's 
 fascination against snch a dark haek-gronnd made her a 
 figure of light — a realization of Chastelard's poetic ideas 
 and Brantonie's enthusiastic devotion. 
 
 Conceding what is claimed, Mary — who perished before 
 she had scarcely attained the maturity of life (forty-five) — 
 was yet in the full flower of her beauty (twenty-six) when 
 she entered upon her captivity of nineteen years. The 
 whole of her independent action was over before she was 
 twenty-five, wdien as yet she had not lost a single one of 
 those ideal or real charms the possession of which have made 
 her in some respects pre-eminent among women — the syn- 
 onym of feminine fascination. Outwardly, to the eye, to 
 whatever cause it was due, she was most loveable or lovely. 
 Inwardly, mentally, she was cold and insensible as ice, 
 desperately unfeeling, except where her interests were con- 
 cerned ; playing with the hearts of men — alluring men 
 through their best afi^ections, using them for her purposes 
 or amusement. But beneath this intermediate corslet of aji- 
 parent or real insensibility, there were fierce passions ever 
 ready to awaken to unrestrainable influences, ruinous to 
 herself eventually, but almost invariably destructive, mean- 
 while, to those who were exposed to their irresistible blan- 
 dishment or sorcery. Is it wonderful that the Puritans, 
 considering her succession of lovers and their woeful ends. 
 
fiO 
 
 whether she was criininMl <^i- not, in the light of results 
 and the twilight of motives, styled her the "Jezebel of the 
 North — a (queenly, imperious, magnificent, but wicked or 
 selfish woman?" 
 
 Chalmers, who wrote a life of Mary which is neither 
 more nor less than a eulogy and an apology, actually 
 begins it with a remark which in itself expresses the remote 
 causes — as explained more at length in the preceding chap- 
 ter — which led to such sad consequences in Mary. " James 
 v., her father," says this writer, " after a thousand amours 
 which were as discreditable to himself as injurious to his 
 family, and dangerous to his kingdom, married in May, 
 1557, Magdalene of France, the sickly daughter of Francis 
 1. She only survived her arrival in Scotland forty days of 
 weakness." His second wife, the mother of Mary, was 
 Mary of Lorraine, eldest daughter of Claude, Duke of 
 Guise. Whether this second wife did or did not justify the 
 expression of Ezekiel xvi., 44- — "As is the mother, so is 
 her daughter," — Margaret, her grandmother, wife of James 
 IV., did. The family of the Guises were not likely to 
 transmit qualities which would fruit otherwise than in in- 
 tolerance, selfishness and incontinence. Mignet — (^"]\[em- 
 ber of the French Academy," and "Perpetual Secretary 
 of the Academy of Moral and Political Science"), who also 
 wrote a life of Mary, (I., 39)— observes: "Francis I. (^grand- 
 father of Mary's first husband), in his unblushing licen- 
 tiousness, prided himself on training the ladies who arrived 
 
m 
 
 at bis CoTirt. His second in this work of debauchery and 
 corruption was Mary Stuart's uncle, the opulent and liber- 
 tine Cardinal of Lorraine. "To this," Brantonie adds, "I 
 have heard it related that wiien some pretty girl or new 
 dame who was handsome arrived at the Court, he (the Car- 
 dinal) came at once to make up to her, and, arguing the 
 case, said that he wished to train her with his own hand. 
 What a trainer ! * * * It was also said at 
 
 that time that there were scarcely any dames or girls resid- 
 ing at the Court, or freshly arrived, who were not de- 
 bauched or captured by tlie desire or munificence of the said 
 M. le Cardinal ; and few or none of them left this Court 
 virtuous women or girls." Henry II., father-in-law of 
 Mary, set a scarcely less dangerous example. Diana of 
 Poictiers, his mistress, more powerful than his cpieen, is 
 said to have been previously the mistress of Francis I., and 
 passed from his arms to those of his son. 
 
 The atmosphere of a eonrt in which honest women were 
 almost as scarce as the rarest diamonds, rubies and sap- 
 phires, which are exceptional and marvellous — a court ruled 
 by successive mistresses who actually overshadowed the 
 queens, must have been fearful in its pestiferous effects 
 upon characteristics inherited direct from a grandmother 
 like Margaret of Lancaster, a paternal ancestry like the 
 Stuarts, a father like James V. and the maternal house of 
 Guise. 
 
 Mary is no myth, neither is she what Wordsworth said 
 
62 
 
 of "a cataract seen a mile (jff, that it was frozen by dis- 
 tance." She is alive to-day — as living in the hearts of 
 many — as when in person she moved hefore the admiring 
 eyes of France, Scotland, England — indeed, of all Western 
 Europe. 
 
 Forty years of the study of the Bible, collating, tracing 
 words back to their original meaning, and comparison of 
 texts in different languages, has led to the definite conclu- 
 sion that it is the most marvellous exj:)osition of common 
 sense, as well as of inspiration, that humanity possesses. 
 Criticize and eliminate who will, enough remains which 
 carries with it irrefragible demonstration of truth sufficient 
 for every purpose for which it was inspired or designed. 
 This remark may seem to be a divergence from the subject 
 of Mary, Queen of Scots, but a little reflection will demon- 
 strate that it is not so. The Scriptures are the most reli- 
 able records, historical and political, that we possess of 
 ages long since elapsed, and are also perfect expositions of 
 the mode and intensity of thought which ruled and in- 
 fluenced thousands of years ago. Moses was a type. A 
 David has reigned elsewhere than in Jewry. A Solomon 
 has sat on other thrones than that in Jerusalem. There is 
 scarcely a prominent character reju-escnted in the Scrip- 
 tures M'hicli lias not been rejirochiced in modern times. 
 Many a Pontius Pilate has sacrificed the innocent to his 
 own political stability. Gallios have " cared for none of 
 these things" because they did not afl'cct their iiulividual 
 
63 
 
 interests. Many an Ahitophel has gone home and hanged 
 or otherwise destroyed himself to escape the catastrophe 
 which he knew to be impending through a disregard 
 of his sagacious counsels ; and many a Festiis has 
 "left [a] Paul bound" to pander to the prejudices of the 
 populace or even to win its suffrages. 
 
 The conflict between Elijah and Aliab was simply a 
 type of the struggle for religious reform and political au- 
 thority which had occurred in England and elsewhere, and 
 was taking place in Scotland, under the lead of the fearless 
 John Knox, when Mary of Guise was Hegent, and after 
 Mary Stuart returned from France to assume her throne. 
 Consequently every allowance must be made for the bitter- 
 ness with which the Queen attempted to maintain or re- 
 store her own Creed, and the effoiis of the other party to 
 counteract it. This bitterness, nay, spite, tinctures every 
 opinion for, or against, Mary. Therefore an impartial ex- 
 aminer must weigh every piece of evidence derived from 
 either source with the greatest nicety. Above and below 
 this, however, there are public and private documents, 
 written with no expectation of ever being brought into the 
 court of history, which cannot be disregarded. Such are 
 the letters of Mary herself, of ambassadors, councillors, 
 men of note. Sometimes a single sentence clears up a 
 doidjtful point. The weight of all this evidence is against 
 Mary. Far more important still are uncontroverted facts. 
 Lover after lover comes to a dismal end. It is the same 
 
fi4 
 
 way witli liusbands. ITer |)aHHioiis or her weaknesses were 
 the causes of a series of the saddest results — iiiiniolations. 
 
 Mary uiust have Ijeen surrounded by an atmosphere 
 which deceived men and led them to do what they would 
 not have dared to hope, or to attempt, to do if she had not 
 held out lures to them. 
 
 The "good" (or honest) Schiller — as Michelet con- 
 scientiously styles him — while strongly inclined to take 
 sides with Mary and make the most of her case, neverthe- 
 less brings out, in the clearest light, certain features in her 
 character which condemn her in spite of his manifest parti- 
 sanship. If she had not been a siren no man could have 
 made her so ; if she had not been false at heart, neither 
 Darnley nor Elizabeth could have made her so. Being 
 what she was by nature and blood, through education, 
 early association and religious training, she could scarcely — 
 with her inclinations to intrigue in every line and degree, 
 and with every objective — have been other than what she 
 was. 
 
 Eead carefully and reflect upon his "Marie Stuart," 
 and jiidge what must have lain at the bottom of Schiller's 
 judgment in developing scene after scene of his truly grand 
 tragedy. Every one who undertook to champion Mary 
 was fired with a wild hope of ultimately possessing her. 
 Even Schiller, who wrote his great drama to glorify her, 
 represents the young Mortimer as exhibiting the fiercest 
 passion for her, when about to peril everything for her 
 
66 
 
 deliverance. Thus the greatest German poet puts on her 
 lips words which serve as the most powerful electric light to 
 illuminate the idea which lies at the basis of this "Study,' 
 that it was the physical attractiveness of Mary, ' ' a lusty 
 princess,'" and its direct appeal to the senses which led 
 victim after victim to steps descending to destruction. 
 
 "Mary," says Bayle (VII., 716), " has been compared 
 with Jane I. [or Joanna], Queen of Naples." Louis, King 
 of Hungary, made the following shocking answer to Jane : 
 
 ' ' The dissolute life thou hast led, the government of 
 the Kingdom which thou hast kept in thy hands, thy neg- 
 lecting to revenge thy husband's death on those who mur- 
 dered him ; thy marrying immediately a second husband, 
 the excuse which thou hast sent to me since ; these are all 
 plain proofs that thou wast concerned, and an accomplice 
 in the murder of thy husband." 
 
 How far does this comparison hold good ? Mary, car- 
 ried away by a fierce flood of passion, first secretly, and 
 about three months afterwards publicly married Darnley 
 altogether for his goodly person and accomplishments. He 
 was destitute of mental gifts — a mere gaudy butterfly. Un- 
 doubtedly he was a man of whom a woman of ability would 
 soon tire. His participation in the murder of Mary's favor- 
 ite Italian musician and secretary, Eizzio, filled the cup of 
 her indignation, satiety, digust and contempt. 
 
 Darnley perished. Whether Mary was an active or 
 passive agent in his murder, Bothwell was. In a few days 
 
66 
 
 over three iiioiitliH lidthwcll was (elevated to the hiphest 
 dignities and becatnc her liuwhaiKJ ; and slie was only torn 
 from his arms by superior iuilitury force. Tlieir jiarting 
 wa's tender. Mer only thought at the ci'isis seemed to be 
 for his safety; and it is said tliat the fruit of tliis sliort 
 marital relation was a daughter, who disappeared, swal- 
 lowed up in a French convent. 
 
 Scarcely three months had elapsed after the murder 
 of Darnley, before Mary was remarried to Ijothwell. 
 "The funeral-baked meats (literally, not merely poetically) 
 coldly furnished forth the mai-riage tables." Tliis may 
 seem horrible, and, indeed, ,it would be so under ordinary 
 circumstances. And yet the apparently inexplicable may 
 be nuide comprehensible by a careful consideration of the 
 occurrences. The life of Mary hitherto had been rather 
 one of positive suffering than of relative happiness. The 
 unserably sickly husband of her youth and superb blossom- 
 ing liad died after nineteen months of a jirolonged exhaus- 
 tive honeymoon, thi-oughout which the wife had been little 
 better than a nurse or governess. The interval between 
 the death of Fi'ancis and the espousals with Darnlev was 
 certainly one of trial of heart, mind, and even body. 
 Mary expected to find in her again-young husband, a so- 
 lace and a support. lie proved to be neither. ITis youth- 
 ful vigor, his fine jierson and good looks were masks that 
 concealed a vile dis])ositioii and an insane ambition, 
 and his ungrateful efforts lo ,.hlain the crown-matrimonial. 
 
with an authority ecmal, if not superior, to that of Mary, 
 were characterized by exhibitions and efforts that prove 
 him to have been devoid of any manliness and every other 
 quality which might have measurably redeemed his want 
 of intelligence and base ingratitude. He assassinated 
 the affection which his outside attractions had aroused 
 and stimulated in an even greater degree when, after plan- 
 ning, he assisted in the dastardly murder of the unhappy 
 Rizzio. Mary, who to feminine graces united masculine 
 courage and energy, saw hi Bothwell the qualities whicli 
 constitute a real man. Pie had befriended her, sustained 
 her, championed her; he was fearless, devoted — in a 
 word, a rough but resolute Scottish lord, and also a bold 
 Scottish MAN ; far better and in no wise worse than his 
 peers in rank — yes, better than every one but Murray, who 
 is lauded to the skies and was anything but an example, 
 except as among the villains with whom he had to consort 
 and work. Her best affections had been crushed in upon 
 herself by the adverse circumstances of her position and 
 the meannesses of Darnley. They had been chilled by an 
 utter absence of the sympathy, in all save Bothwell, which 
 she so greatly needed — a sympathy necessary to bring out 
 and develop aught that was loving and loveable in her 
 nature. When freed from such a mate as Darnley, iier af- 
 fections, suddenly relieved from the terrible constriction of 
 the tie that bound her to such an uncongenial creature ; her 
 very capabilities of feeling, stretched themselves out as a 
 
68 
 
 vine planted in the darkness of a vault grows towards the 
 crevice through which filters a single ray of light ; and, 
 then, when her arms thus expanded to the warmth, and 
 comfort, and confidence of a new hope, a new faith, a new 
 love — when her arms and hands, outstretchd, met each 
 other again, beseechingly, in a fond embrace — those 
 beautiful, soft, white, rounded arms and the hands that 
 betrayed her at Lochleven — they enclosed — Both well. 
 
 Or, when, crushed in her affections and her spirits, she 
 opened wide her arms for sympathy, support and love, and 
 the expanded fingers which were symmetry itself drew to- 
 gether and clasped each other again, about the columnar 
 support she so greatly needed and for which she yearned, 
 they locked within the magic circle — the stalwart Bothwell. 
 She must have felt with Grace Frere: "Ah! to be well- 
 loved must be paradise to a true heart." 
 
 Mary, wrenched by irresistible force from the only real 
 love of her career — Bothwell — was immured in Lochleven 
 Castle. Burton observes that the old ruined walls of this 
 fortalice make no reliable revelations except that George 
 Douglas, the son of her custodian. Sir William, undertook 
 her deliverance. The English Ambassador reported that 
 the reward, if George succeeded, was to be the hand of 
 Mary. Such were the wild hopes of the yoimg man. Is 
 it likely that any nobleman would have jeopardized life, 
 fortune, the ties of family, very warm and strong at this 
 time and especially so in Scotland, without great cause for 
 
69 
 
 determined and persistent championship ? Still it does not 
 follow that Mary, with Bothwell in her heart of hearts, did 
 more than mislead one ready and willing, through infatua- 
 tion, to be misled. When "the little Douglas," not yet of 
 age, in turn succiimbed to the fascination of the Queen 
 and did achieve her escape, the first man to receive her 
 when she touched the mainland was George Douglas. He 
 was with her in arms and in the midst of the hereditary 
 foes of his blood at Langside, and did not leave her side 
 until she abandoned Scotland, and only then because he 
 was not allowed to follow her. 
 
 A fugitive from crown and country, and confided to the 
 care of the Earl of Shrewsbury, Michelet insinuates that 
 even this aged nobleman, past the prime of life, was en- 
 snared by her. It is not only certain that his Countess 
 became the prey of the most violent and fierce jealousy, 
 but equally so that this jealousy was baseless. She was 
 compelled to humbly recall her charges against Mary and 
 the Earl ; but still, the latter was undeniably interested in 
 his prisoner to the last. Next in the series appears the 
 Duke of Norfolk. The lure of Mary's hand made him a 
 traitor to his own sovereign, and consigned him to the 
 Tower and the block. How bitter his reflections upon 
 Mary — equivalent to the idea that whoever yielded to her 
 fascinations was lost — when the edge of the axe-blade was 
 turned and directed towards him, in token of condemnation 
 after his trial ! The Earl of Arandel was her next victim, 
 
70 
 
 and, if lie did not lose liis head, lie lost his liberty and also 
 his life in captivity tliroiisj;ii this e.s])onsal of the cause of 
 the Scottish queen. 
 
 To look upon Mary was to love her, and to love her 
 was to lose life — everything. " Skin for skin, what will a 
 man not give for his life," said Job. Men of mark and of 
 means do not place their heads in the jaws of a lion for a 
 woman, without inducement ; but men, as a rule, where a 
 marked woman is concerned, require very little to make 
 fools of themselves. 
 
 Last in the fatal list looms up the young enthusiast, 
 Babington. As a page in the little court of the Earl of 
 Shrewsbury he had fallen into the same snare that had 
 previously enmeshed so many. Michelet states that he, 
 too, was led away by the vain expectation that if he de- 
 livered Mary he was to receive her hand. It is said that 
 in the mouth of two or three witnesses the truth is estab- 
 lished. In a career of thirty years, wlien so many estim- 
 able or maidy men or men of mark perished in succession 
 through the passion inspired h\ a w^oman, it is neither 
 reasonable nor sensible to believe that the woman was not 
 highly blamable. Actually crimiiuil she may not have 
 been, except in everything that concerned Both well. His- 
 tory may be in error when one or two are concerned, be- 
 cause a little fire often creates more smoke than a laro-e 
 one, but it is utterly inqwssiblc that it can be altogether 
 astray when a beautifid, alluring, passitnuite, "lusty"" 
 
woman is the cause of such a long succession of catas- 
 trophes. 
 
 Perhaps tliere is nothing whicli arouses such lasting 
 sympathy and extreme admiration as the exhibition of 
 courage in meeting death and the inevitable. Mary's 
 bravery at the supreme moment was magnificent. Not but 
 that thousands of others, through patriotism, for religion, 
 or to win tlie worhi's applause, have exhibited a like sub- 
 limity of heroism. Still, Mai'y was a woman, a Queen, a 
 paragon of loveliness and grace, a ca]:)tive, in the prime of 
 life, and, according to the opinion of vast numbers, a 
 martyr to her religious convictions. It is true that she 
 held to a creed that, if the professor has a firm belief in it, 
 makes the payment of ' ' the last full measure of devotion ' ' 
 extremely or at least comparatively easy. The absolution 
 of a pope, if a Iniman being can put implicit faith in it, is 
 a very comforting passp(jrt in the short journey from suffer- 
 ing to salvation. Mary had this ; and it cannot be denied 
 that never did a female in the prime of life pass from the 
 light of day into the darkness of the grave with a grander 
 exhiljition of courage ; not even the pure Jane (rrey, the 
 patriotic Charlotte Corday, or the "Widow Caf>et, the 
 once adored Marie Antoinette. 
 
 ..-■ In physical bravery Mary was ai)parently unsurpassed, 
 especially in dying; but not more so than the convict, King, 
 recently hung for murder, or rather sudden homicide, in 
 the New York State prison at Clinton, in 1881. Never- 
 
72 
 
 theless, she did not die more courageously, after all, than 
 thousands of martyrs. Pagan, Protestant, political and 
 patriotic, who have laid down their heads upon the block 
 or given up the ghost amid the ghastlier horrors of the 
 fagot and funeral pyre. 
 
 She did not die more finely than those of the Scottish 
 leaders, who, again and again, engaged in a series of 
 plots against a forgiving woman, "betrothed, betrayer 
 and betrayed," who condoned their treasons more than 
 once. They all received due recompense for their crimes. 
 All these forsworn and unprincipled wretches went to their 
 dread accounts like heroes. The Kegent Murray lost his life 
 through his fearlessness. Had he paid the slightest heed to 
 repeated warnings he would have escaped the bullet of the 
 assassin that took his life. He rode as gallantly to his doom 
 as Mary walked to the headsman. Morton, unredeemed by 
 any virtue but political sagacity, laid down his own head on 
 the block like a very martyr. Kirkaldy of Grange ascended 
 the scaifold with like calm intrepidity, and the subtle Leth- 
 ington drank the fatal draught with the serenity of a Cato. 
 None escaped the grasp of the inexorable lex talionis. It is 
 startling to learn how Mary and Bothwell were avenged, 
 in turn, upon each and all who wronged them ; but it is 
 equally certain that M'hen the iron law of compensation 
 took effect, it was met with the courage and composure 
 supposed to be the peculiar acconipaninicnt of a clear 
 conscience and a mind at peace with God and man, like 
 
Wishart — Wishart delivered over to the flames of martyr- 
 dom by the father of Bothvrell ; a ruthless deed, fearfully 
 avenged by Fate upon his son. 
 
 In conclusion, well may Mich elet exclaim: "Knights 
 of Mary Stuart (I speak above all to the good Schiller, 
 dupe of his own heart to the point of writing his violent 
 drama against his real convictions) — let us examine, I beg 
 you, the true cause which has blinded, misled you to such 
 a degree as to follow, as if you had no eyes, the most silly 
 pamphlets of the Jesuits. 
 
 ' ' Her trial or sentence was irregular ! No, that is not 
 the real cause why you are so carried away by passion. 
 Very many other analogous proceedings have passed 
 through your hands without enlisting your sympathies. 
 State the fact as it is and do not blush. The real motive 
 which stirs you up, which arouses every man, is because 
 this [the victim] was a woman. 
 
 "Kill a woman ! This in fact is a horrible thing, and 
 this, it is, that excites indignation. The death of the most 
 criminal [woman] seems a crime on the part of the law. 
 
 " I will not, however, enter upon an examination of 
 what would have become of England if the Spanish inva- 
 sion had found still living the dangerous creature who con- 
 stituted the secret unity of the English-Eoman-Catholic 
 party, its bond with the Guises, with all the conspiracies 
 of the continent. How many women, however, then, how 
 many thousands of English women would have experienced 
 
74 
 
 worse tliaii deiitli in (•oiise(|iieii«' of the [spared] life of 
 this [ouej woman. 
 
 "I, prefer, puttinji; this last eoiisideration aside, to re- 
 peat that which I have said elsewhere — more forcibly than 
 every other writer — in my French Revolution, Vol. VII. : 
 'Against women there exists no real means of re]>ression. 
 They are often guilty ; they are morally responsible ; and, 
 nevertheless, strange fact, they are not pvnifihalAi'. Woe 
 to the government which exhibits them on the scaffold ; 
 it is never excused. "WTioever strikes them strikes him- 
 self; whoever punishes them punishes himself They be- 
 long to the world for whom there is nothing but mercy ; the 
 law has no power over them.' " 
 
 "Elizabeth felt this most cruelly, profoundly. * * 
 She saw clearly that this death, just or not, would pursue 
 her throughout the future. She comprehended that the 
 odious act which wrenched peril away from her would save 
 England, but would lose her forever in the hearts of men. " 
 
 Fronde, overwhelmed with abuse by the partisans of 
 Mary for his presentation of her, at best, dubious career, 
 concludes it (Chap. XXXIY.,Vol. XII.) with a paragraph 
 which is a perfect reply and justification, that sums up the 
 case better than it lias ever been (bme anywhere, bv anv 
 one else. 
 
 "Who now doubts," asks an ehxpient modern faiiuny- 
 nious?] writer, "that it would have been wiser in Eliza- 
 beth to 8])are her [Mary's] bfeT' 
 
7n 
 
 To this query Fi'oiide replies: " Ratlier, the politieal 
 wisdom of a critical and difheidt act has never in the 
 world's histor}' been more sig-nally justitied. It cu^ away 
 the only interest on which the Scotch and English Catho- 
 lics could possibly have combined. It determined Philip 
 upon the undisguised pursuit of the English throne, and it' 
 enlisted against him and his projects the passionate patriot- 
 ism of the Englisli nobility, who refused to be tempted, 
 even by their creed, to betray the independence of their 
 country. At once and forever it destroyed the hope that 
 the Spanish Armada would find a party to welcome it. 
 The entire Catholic organization, as directed against Eng- 
 land, was smitten with paralysis ; and the Queen found 
 herself, when the invader arrived at last, supported by the 
 loyal enthusiasm of an undivided nation." 
 
 'iii^ 
 
i0ttiittfii 
 
 JAMES HEPBURN, EARL OF BOTHWELL 
 
 A n Usher. — " Make way there for the lord of Bothwell ; room — 
 Place for my lord of Bothwell next the Queen." 
 
 Swinburne's '"'"Chastelard" last lines. 
 
 Queen [Mary]. — " Who went there ? 
 
 What, hear you not ? " 
 Mary Seyton. — " My lord of BothwelPs foot ; 
 
 His tread rings iron, as to battleward." 
 
 ♦ + * * • 
 
 Qiieen. — " By heaven, I have no heart for any on earth, 
 
 Any man else, nor any matter of man's, 
 
 But love of one man ; nay, and never had. 
 
 if *. it * * 
 
 I have loved no man, man never hath had me whole, 
 
 I am virgin toward you : O my love, love, love ! " 
 — *' Ah God, that we were set 
 
 Far out to sea alone by storm and night 
 
 To drive together on one end, and know 
 
 If life or death would give us good or ill 
 
 And night or day receive, and heaven or earth 
 
 Forget us or remember ! " * * * 
 
 " Here is the end." 
 
 Swinburne's " Bothiveliy 
 
 ENEKAL hibtory and general report — 
 
 "a common liar" — are, as a rule, hard 
 
 as a flint in judging independent men, 
 
 men of great individuality, who will 
 
 not doff their caps to win the world's 
 
 applause, and who, like steamers, flrst 
 
 rates, cleave on their way, through the 
 
 opposing mountain seas, by their own nuiss (inherent force) 
 
 76 
 
77 
 
 or vast momentum (iron M'ill) and safely come to port, 
 unless they shatter on a hidden rock, imperceptible to 
 their sight or unrevealed by charts — charts drawn by ex- 
 perience, education and foresight upon the tablets of the 
 brain. 
 
 We have no picture or description of James Hepbuen, 
 Eael of Bothwell — or as he wrote his name, James, 
 Eble Boithuille — drawn or written by a friendly hand. 
 The idea of him is, as a rule, derived from English states- 
 men, diplomatists, or historians, all of whom blacken his 
 character on account of his antagonism to England and its 
 interests, his patriotism and his thorough Scottish feeling. 
 Murray is exalted at his expense because the former was 
 the astute, supple, willing instrument of Elizabeth, and 
 consequently the sly enemy of his halt-sister Mary. His was 
 "a mind in which diplomacy stifled every instinct of man- 
 hood, every chivalric spark of honor, loyalty, and good 
 faith." This is one picture ; others exalt him almost into 
 a saint. Such are the difficulties of weighing human judg- 
 ment. Bothwell was impelled to his destruction by this 
 wily tempter, the self-seeking Kegent, who was devoid of 
 the frank, natural manliness of Mary's third and last hus- 
 band of a month. Murray was the favorite of the clergy, 
 who are evil cattle to provoke and invaluable friends if 
 cunningly cultivated. Charles Martel preserved France 
 from Mahometanism, but taxed the priesthood for the bene- 
 fit of the troops which enabled him to triumph, and the 
 
priests coiisii^iR'd llic savioi- of Western Cliristeiidom to 
 eternal tire and niisrepresentati(jii. Tlie Puritans and tiieir 
 descendants wrote the liistor\' of the Tnited States, and 
 they arrogate to New England the origin of a greatness 
 due far more to NeM' York and llollandisli-IIuguenfjt 
 inilnence. Even s(.) it was witii Ijotliwell. The ]jartie3 he 
 opposed in ])oliey and in arms have furnislied the particu- 
 lars of his story. The very endeavor tu depi-eciate him is 
 an evidence of enmity, for a man who was born s<.) well, 
 T)ore himself so hravely, and accomplished so greatly, 
 could not have been an ordinar)- one; no common-place 
 creation eithei' as man or devil. As far as nobility, posi- 
 tion and property go, he was born second to but one in 
 Scotland. The ilay ant! month and even year of his birtli 
 are not accurately known. His best, if not his only real 
 biographer, Schieru, says he was born in 1536 or 1537. 
 If so he was five or six years older tlian Queen ilary. He 
 came of a race remarkable for startling peculiarities, even 
 among the Scottish nobility, each mendjcr of which seemed 
 to unite in himself the strangest contrailictions, good and 
 bad. Cruelty and magnanimity, genei'osity and greed, 
 sanctity and sacrilege, purity and profligacy, often actu- 
 ated the same individiial at different times and under dif- 
 ferent circumstances. 
 
 Bothwell was no exception to tliis rule. His liahits — 
 if his enemies are to he believed — woidd shock the outward 
 decorum of tiie pri'sent hy])ercri1 ical, h vpoci-itical genera- 
 
Y9 
 
 tion. Still his ideas of morality were better, not worse, 
 than those of his compeers and his time. He was fond of 
 women, but he did not soil himself as many, particularly 
 as Darnley, even after his marriage with the Queen, un- 
 doubtedly and habitually did. He drank deep, but who, 
 then, did not ! lie always kept himself sober for business 
 and ready for action : his brain was always clear — a saga- 
 cious brain, as Mary's mother (the Regent), and Marj^ (the 
 Queen), herself always found it when they needed supjDort 
 or his services were wanting. 
 
 Bothwell could not have been either disagreeable in 
 appearance or deportment, as his unprincipled calumni- 
 ators have tried to make it appear. If he had been so, 
 Mary would not have cast her favoring glances ujion him. 
 Mary, brought up in a circle of the grandest and most po- 
 lished men of the most goodly piresence, was so siisceptible 
 of appearance that she married Darnley for his general 
 comeKness. And here, by-the-by, is one of the strongest 
 proofs that Bothwell nmst have had a manly figure, since 
 Marj' presented to him the rich wardrobe of the deceased 
 Darnley, who was a tall and remarkably well-made man, 
 and Bothwell at once put on and wore, and was at ease in, 
 these clothes. Had be been "an ape in magniiicent attire," 
 as the bitter Buchanan declared — a writer intensely hostile 
 to Mary and all whom she favored — a woman of exquisite 
 taste would have been disgusted with the contrast, whereas 
 this was the very time when her passion manifested itself 
 
so 
 
 with tlie f^reatest fervor. Honest Burton remarks that this 
 expression "is no more to be taken as accurate than any 
 other scolding objurgation." All the misrepresentations 
 of Both well were in the same spirit as Hogarth's concep- 
 tions of Frenchmen, or the caricatures of Bonaparte dur- 
 ing England's fiercest antagonism to her most bitter ene- 
 my. Flattery painted the portraits of Mary ; envy, hatred, 
 jealousy and vindictiveness those of BothwelL* 
 
 That the Bothwell best known, aspired to the hand of 
 Mary Stuart, should not excite surprise when his ante- 
 cedents are investigated. Burton clearly indicates the im- 
 portant influence of Bothwell upon the story of Mary 
 (IV., 273): "With all her beauty and wit, her political 
 ability and her countless fascinations, Mary, Queen of 
 Scots, would not have occupied nearly the half of her 
 present place in the interest of mankind had the episode 
 of Bothwell not belonged- to her story. ' ' His grandfather, 
 Lord Patrick Hepburn, of Hales, was created first Earl of 
 Bothwell by James IV., grandfather of Mary Stuart, in 
 1481. This king, in addition, bestowed upon him the 
 hereditary ofl!ice of Lord High Admiral of Scotland, 
 together with many other dignities, and extensive posses- 
 sions. Adam, the second Earl, was slain in the battle of 
 
 * " I present no list of the authorities from which my facts are de- 
 rived, but will merely say that the result of much study may lie some- 
 times contained in the form given to a single sentence."— "ic^cnd of 
 Thoman Didymua." by James Fkkeman Clakkr. 1881. 
 
81 
 
 Flodden Field, 1511, in which the flower of the Scottish 
 nobility were cut down at the same time with their King, 
 James lY. Patrick, the third Earl, was known as the 
 "Fair Earl," and bore the reputation of being the proud- 
 est and haughtiest man in all Scotland. James, the fourth 
 Earl, was left a minor. He was brought up by his great- 
 uncle, Patrick Hepburn, Bishop of Moray. Whatever 
 other education he received, he certainly acquired French, 
 and was instructed in mathematics and military matters. 
 There are indications that he visited France while yet a 
 youth. He was in his eighteenth or nineteenth year when 
 his father, Patrick, died. 
 
 He was not of age when, in 1557, he was a member of 
 the Scottish parliament; and in the same year he took 
 part in the war with England. In 1658, he was appointed 
 Lieutenant-General of the southerly Scottish frontier — 
 Marches or Borders — and made a destructive raid upon 
 the English. On the 29th of JSTovember, 1558, he was 
 again member of Parliament in Edinburgh. His first 
 military exploits were against England, and he showed 
 himself an enemy to the English government and to the 
 EngKsh party in Scotland from this time forward. This is 
 sufficient to account for the misrepresentations of English 
 writers who always found in him an able and determined 
 opponent to the schemes of Elizabeth, who succeeded 
 Mary Tudor as Queen of England, on the 17th of Novem- 
 ber, 1558. In 1559, Bothwell was particularly active 
 
 against her agents and the foreign faction, and made power- 
 6 
 
'82 
 
 fill eiieniiee whose unrelenting malice pursued him through- 
 out life. This is sufficient to account for the misrejjresenta- 
 tione of English writers, who always found in Ixim an able 
 and determined opponent to the schemes of Elizabeth.* 
 In 1560 and 1561 he was on the Continent and in France 
 and thus saw Mary at her loveliest. One of these meet- 
 ings, at Joinville, is a matter of record. In August, 1561, 
 Mary returned to Scotland, and Bothwell either accompa- 
 nied her or soon followed, to find that she bore him ever 
 favorably in mind. 
 
 The peculiar relations of Mary to Bothwell rest main- 
 ly on the startling revelations of the rude but expressive 
 verses, styled "Sonnets," and the fervent communications 
 foimd in the "Casket," left behind him by Bothwell in 
 Edinburgh Castle, in the custody of Balfour, the Gov- 
 ernor, his appointee. Whether or not he betrayed his 
 patron, the Earl, and the Queen, is not clearly sboimi ; 
 but the party to whom he entrusted the casket was inter- 
 cepted, and thus it came into the hands of the deadlv ene- 
 mies of the Royal Pair. 
 
 The contents of this famous " Silver Casket" — these ar- 
 dent verses and these impassioned love-letters of Marv to 
 Bothwell, have given rise to controversies even more pas- 
 
 * When this "Study" was begun it wtis intcmiod [o omlinicc a 
 complete, detailed exhibit of the career of Bothwell ; but, havini; al- 
 ready tar exceeded the limits proposed, it breaks otV here, abruptly, 
 leaving the reader to pick out the narrative of what succeeded this, 
 from the " Study" itself. 
 
88 
 
 sionate. These documents — of which the originals disap- 
 peared shortly after their production as evidence — were de- 
 clared to he "inventions" by all the legal advocates, so to 
 speak, and devoted champions of Mary. Chalmers, Tytler, 
 Whithaker, Goodall, Lingard and Prince Labanoif, besides 
 other writers of lesser note, have pronounced them forgeries, 
 totally unreliable. On the other hand, the three great his- 
 torians of France, England and Scotland, De Thou, Hume 
 and Robertson, considered them authentic. This trio of 
 massive intellects do not stand alone in their judgment. 
 Their opinion is indorsed by Sharon Turner, Hallam, Mal- 
 colm, Laing, Raumer, Philarete Chasles — the humorous, 
 the eloquent, and the spiritual professor, Dargaud, and 
 finally M. Mignet, who, in a series of excellent articles, 
 knew how to temper, by the most prudent reserve, an able, 
 curious and learned criticism. Buchanan would be the most 
 trustworthy witness on this subject, because he was a con- 
 temporary, if he had not shown a bitterness, almost fiend- 
 ish, that demonstrates his unreasonable prejudice and fierce 
 partisanship. The Regent, Murray, half-brother to the 
 Queen, displayed, occasionally, qualities that did honor to 
 his times, and even to a period beyond them. He was not 
 utterly bad, and, it is claimed^ "he kept away from scenes 
 of tumult and bloodshed, which vexed his righteous soul, 
 and taught him to despise his bretheren of the Scots aristoc- 
 racy as a band of ferocious barbarians." His character 
 was good for his era and associations. Is it likely — if this 
 
84 
 
 be only half true — that such a man, occupying such a posi- 
 tion as he did, woiild have Itrought forward evidence like 
 that found in the " silver casket" against liis own father's 
 child, if he had not believed it to be reliable ? The often- 
 cited lines of rude poetry — the " Sonnets " — accompanying 
 the letters in question, contain allusions so coherent with 
 actual occurrences, that honest criticism cannot reject 
 them; and as these were lirought forward with tlie letters 
 and the whole are conceived in the same spirit, the entire 
 burden of disproof rests upon the friends and advocates of 
 Mary. Simple opinion on the part of these carries with 
 it little or no weight, because the counter testimony has the 
 powerful support of consistency. While the career of the 
 Queen may excite, in a- generous and magnanimous mind, 
 a sentiment of supreme pity which prompts it to make a 
 mighty eflFort to lift her from the degradation into which 
 so many seek to plunge her, it cannot clear her from the 
 consequences of her passion for Bothwell. This is what 
 makes the remark of Hume, hereinafter quoted textually 
 and emphasized, so terribly decisive against her. 
 
 All the special pleading, legal acumen, subtlety and 
 oratory ; all the casuistry and blind enthusiasm of parti- 
 sanship ; all the efforts of logic and creed, cannot overthrow 
 the authenticity of the "Silver Casket Letters and Sonnets." 
 James VI., meanest of men in many things, sought, after 
 his obtaining of the English throne, to do everything to 
 cleanse his tarnished reputation as a son and sovereion. 
 
S5 
 
 He razed Fotheringay Castle and he destroyed every 
 original document or indication which attainted his origin 
 or avouched his cowardice. Thus the originals of these 
 letters disappeared from the eyes of men ; but neither he 
 nor his emulators or imitators can annihilate the indestruc- 
 tible effect of concurrent circumstances that renders their 
 authenticity so apparent. No human brain, however 
 wickedly inclined, could have conceived such a flawless, end- 
 less chain of testimony. It is inherent, and Mary's life, 
 Mary's acts, and Mary's peculiar line of thought, stamp them 
 as hers as indelibly as the brand upon the Stuart race deter- 
 mined that each in succession should terminate his or her ca- 
 reer by a catastrophe, the assassin's knife, a broken heart, 
 the headsman's axe, the bitter bread of exile, or, worse 
 than all, the disgrace which attaches to an individual who 
 is destitute of the attributes of true manhood. 
 
 In a word, the "Casket Letters and Sonnets" or "Verses" 
 cannot be inventions or forgeries. They are too natural, 
 too consistent with themselves and with each other, and 
 with patent facts, and with the workings of the human 
 heart. That Mary was their author is corroborated by 
 circumstantial evidence as irresistible as direct proof. In- 
 ventions, that is discoveries — in the primitive sense of the 
 Latin original word used by the writers of Mary's time — 
 they truly were, for they were found in the ' ' Silver 
 Casket;" but " inventions, " in the sense (yi forgeries — 
 which is an English perversion of the radical meaning^ — 
 
Hi) 
 
 tliey just as certainly were not. They are exactly such as 
 might be written at this time by a passionate woman ; in- 
 deed, they contain expressions, manifestations of the 
 struggle of the better angel with the demon of passion, which 
 find utterance every day. Many of the sentences are such 
 as the pen of an enamored and cultured ■woman sends to 
 the man who has won her entire heart, and whose afi^ec- 
 tions she fears to lose ; torturing herself with a groundless 
 fear of forfeiting his regard. 
 
 Scarcely a single one of the champions for, or against, 
 the conclusive Casket correspondence seems to have en- 
 listed common-sense in forming an opinion or pointing a 
 criticism. Raumer, notwithstanding his German phlegm, 
 has a paragraph in regard to these letters which carries 
 conviction with it : " Liugard thinks it foolish that Mary, 
 who had spoken to Bothwell in the evening, and might 
 speak to him again in the morning, should, instead of going 
 quietly to sleep, have sat down to write him a letter ' of 
 no consequence.' This ohjecMon proves nothing, unless it 
 be that Dr. Lingard never was in love.'''' 
 
 As human nature was and is — while the nature of 
 women remains unchanged — there is nothing in the passion 
 of Mary Stuart for Bothwell that should excite astonish- 
 ment or pven surprise. In letters which her warmest ad- 
 mirers admit that she did write, she explains why she re- 
 posed such faith in Bothwell. lie was a master spirit in 
 the land ; and when she fonnd stall' after stalf on which she 
 
87 
 
 leaned splinter and wound the hand that grasped it, is 
 it wonderful that she clnng to hiui with all the force of 
 which she was capable — and no oue can deny to her the 
 possession of tremendous force of will when once it was 
 fully aroused. 
 
 Amid all the obloquy that has been heaped upon the 
 mighty Earl, tlie fact remains unshakable that he was a 
 power who overtopped the powerful around him. He was 
 acclimated to broil and battle ; as Saul said of Goliath, ' ' he 
 [liad been] a man of war fropi his youth " — nay, boyhood, 
 for he had "worn steel since he was twelve years old." 
 He could "drain a deeper cup, back a wilder horse," "ride 
 it like a whirlwind, and couch a heavier spear than the 
 rudest of his jackmen" (border or moss-troopers); pos- 
 sessed a fine stalwart person, divested of superfluous flesh, 
 "biiilt more like a tower than a man;" great strength 
 and military bearing — exercising a fascination over his 
 savage hereditary liegemen that won while it controlled 
 them. His features were manly — bronzed by exposure to 
 the changing vicissitudes of his native climate — and his 
 determined mouth was concealed beneath long drooping 
 moustachios, that mingled with his fair curling beard. No 
 wonder that Mary looked upon him with favor, for she had 
 agreeable recollections of his respectful homage when she 
 first wore the white robes of queenly widowhood ; and 
 after her return to Scotland, still found his loyalty so 
 
88 
 
 lofty and unchangeable that "it seemed to partake of 
 that devotion which shed a halo over the days of chivalry." 
 
 One of the epithets hurled at him by those who hated 
 and feared him, is the stigma that he was "one-eyed." 
 But the same epithet is applicable to Hannibal, perhaps 
 the greatest individual, not a king, who ever trod this 
 planet, and to Potemkin, tlie mighty Russian potentate, 
 who never lost the heart of the Empress Catherine II. nor 
 his control of her empire. What is more to the point, if 
 he had lost the sight of an eye in combat, by sea or land, 
 the orb itself was uninjured, and it has been observed that 
 the scar on his forehead, which was the only visible vestige 
 of the injury, "became his face as it would have become 
 none other." Men are not always disfigured by such 
 casualties ; and it is well known that Marie Louise, daugh- 
 ter of imperial Austria, willingly exchanged the embraces 
 of the Emperor Napoleon for those of Count Niepperg, an 
 extraordinarily handsome officer, although he had lost an 
 eye in battle. 
 
 Bothwell, like Mary, was a being entirely out of the 
 common run. His appearance was no index to his age. He 
 was one of those, so completely imbued with vitality, that 
 years pass over them and leave none of the traces which 
 stamp, season after season, their impress on ordinary men, 
 or sear them deeply, as the glaciers furrow the rocks over 
 which they glide, grinding on age by age, leaving channels 
 that remain indelible after the superiiu-nmbent ice has 
 
89 
 
 melted away. There may have beeii silver mingled with 
 his darker locks, but this was not the result of time biit of 
 thought ; just as in the days of j)late armor a soldier could 
 be recognized by fringes of gray where the helmet had 
 pressed most closely and persistently, while everywhere else 
 the original color held its own. He was a carious com- 
 mingling of the self possession that results from deep 
 thought and severe discipline of mind and body in 
 war, politics and courts, and the mobility which is in- 
 separable from an original nervous temperament, while as 
 yet the frame has not known sufficient rest to take on su- 
 perfluous flesh. If Michael Angelo's '■'■Penseroso'''' could 
 have been transmuted from bronze into flesh,* the effigy 
 would have lived in such a one as Bothwell. 
 
 It is as difficult to decide what constitutes the handsome 
 in man as in woman. Figure has as much to do with it 
 as face, but whenever the latter indicates mind and man- 
 liness and is susceptible of illumination, it cannot be other- 
 
 * A short divergence is pardonable at tliis point. The '^Penseroso " 
 (the "Thoughtful One," or the "Thinker"), or II Pemiero (the 
 "Thought"), of the great Florentine sculptor, does not represent 
 Lorenzo da Medicis the furious soldier, who comhlned all the vices and 
 very few of the virtues of the Italian prince and general of his day 
 — who was rotten to the core before he was mature — but his moderate, 
 religious, deeply-reflecting uncle, Giuliano, who was absolutely and truly 
 a " Thinker," as was evinced in his " Treatise on Suicide." The other 
 statue of the pair with bare head, sitting erect, looking out with a fierce 
 gaze, with short, crisp, curling hair, one hand grasping the truncheon 
 of command, is indeed a fitting memorial of the cruel, sinful, sensuous, 
 sensual Lorenzo. 
 
wiw tliaii liaudsoiiic. It matters not tiic color <>i' the eye for 
 effect, in the excitement of jjassion the liglit eye often 
 becomes dark ; and tliere are hazel eyew wliich when they 
 scintillate or burn have no coloi- ; they are simply living 
 tires — brown diamonds of the clearest and intensest lustre. 
 
 Contemporaries attributed the domination exerciseil 
 by Bothwell over Mary to necromancy ; but the best ansM^er 
 to such a charge is that made by the unfortunate Leonora 
 Galigai, daughter of the nurse of Mary de Medicis, and 
 widow of the assassinated Concino Concini, Marshal d'An- 
 cre, when accused of similar poM^ers over the Florentine 
 (^ueen of Henry IV. of France. She replied, "My arts 
 were simply the superiority of a sti'ong mind over a 
 weak one." Hei- exact words were these : " J/ora charnu- 
 fut celvi de P esprit svr In. hettse.''^ ("^.T charm [or ma- 
 gic] was the ascendency of mind over inferior intelli- 
 gence.") And, as regarded Bothwell, Mary Stuart was 
 "weak, however strong in other cases. While so many writers 
 have sought to degrade and even to caricature Bothwell, 
 there is one (Dargaud), if no nu)re, who seeks to do him 
 justice without sacriticing truth. 
 
 Bothwell was a gentleman of ancient race. He had the 
 manners of a great lord, and the haughtiness of feudal au 
 tliority. His resolute features never blushed. His eyes 
 were beautiful, although one had been deprived of vision ; 
 and he was far from being distigured by the aeciilent which 
 had occurred in his early adventurous nutritime (?) career; 
 
91 
 
 indeed, tlie defect of liis sight m'us hardly perceptible. Tlis 
 voice, wliicli had a genuine manly ring, was susceptible of 
 the gentlest inflections. His mouth expressed his feeling of 
 superiority. He had a marked nose and a patrician phj's- 
 iognomy, and his fascinating look resembled that of a bird 
 of prej'. This martial visage, this noble and easy figure, 
 this soul without scruples, this mind full of audacity, am- 
 bition and arrogance — wicked — seduced Mary and carried 
 her away. To this must be added the attest of Sir Walter 
 Scott, as to "the bold address and com-tly manners of 
 Bothwell."* 
 
 ' 'AH these ' gifts of hell ' were relieved by a lofty de- 
 meanor and by an air that seemed to defy foj'tune, danger 
 and adversity." Alas! Whence came "these gifts of 
 hell?" In all things Bothwell was more sinned against 
 than sinning, according to the touchstone and measur- 
 ing rod of his times. It is said that Bothwell was in 
 love with Mary from the first moment that he beheld 
 
 * "Of all the border nobles," says Greene (II., vi., B(53), "James 
 Hepburn, the Earl of Bothwell, was the boldest and most unscrupulous. 
 But, Protestant as he was, he had never swerved from the side of the 
 Crown ; he had supported the Regent, and crossed the seas to pledge 
 as iirm a support to Mary, and his loyalty and daring alike appealed to 
 the young Queen's heart." This elegant author adds a remark, tliat 
 Mary's passion for him touched hira little, except that it stirred up liis 
 ambition. This justities the presumption that it was Mary who was 
 desperately in love with the Earl; and he, to awaken such a passion, 
 must have been a man who appealed not only to her senses by his 
 gallant appearance, but also through his innate gallantry. 
 
his '■'■ Reine Blanche'''' in tlie Park of Fontainebleau, 
 as early as 1560, and that he welcomed her home with a 
 loyalty as pure as his devotion was strong. His cap- 
 tivity in Edinburgh Castle, by the warrant of Mary, to 
 gratify Murray and his party, is said to have changed 
 the whole nature of Botliwell. He felt that lie had suffered 
 a grievous injustice from one to whom he had given heart 
 and hand, or rather brand ; and after his release he brooded 
 over the wrong until his naturally violent temper overcame 
 all gentler restraints. His temper had hitherto resembled 
 a mountain lake, confined within bounds by artificial bar- 
 riers. Thus dyked, it fed a swift and even beneficent 
 stream ; but, as soon as storm and flood had breached the 
 bulwark, it poured forth a wild and unrestrainable torrent 
 that wasted where it had formerly blessed. Botliwell was 
 brave to a degree sufficient to encounter any peril. Still, 
 it is true that, while he possessed the physical courage which 
 triumphs triumphantly and succumbs without yielding, his 
 end did not manifest tlie purest, the higher moral intrepidity 
 inspired by fanaticism or love. If he had possessed either of 
 these grander forms of courage, he could not have been in- 
 duced to abandon the field at Carberry Hill without one des- 
 perate blow stricken for the trusting woman who loved him 
 so intensely. Nor would he have lingered out so long in 
 a loathsome dungeon. The real bird of prey would have 
 beaten out its life against the bars, or soon would have 
 drooped and died. 
 
93 
 
 Tlie anonymous author of the ' ' Life of the Celebrated 
 Regent Moray," published at Edinburgh in 1528, fully 
 corroborates Dargaud's portrait of Bothwell. He admits 
 that when Bothwell was recalled from France in 1565, 
 shortly before Mary's marriage Math Darnley, "tlie Queen 
 pretended to be displeased at his arrival, yet it is certain 
 she rejoiced at it." And when Moray insisted upon his 
 being tried, and Bothwell fled because he was not power- 
 ful enough to meet the military force assembled by his ac- 
 cusers, "the Queen proceeded not against him, as the 
 law requires," but allowed him to retain his property, and 
 would not permit him to be outlawed. If there were any 
 accounts which could be relied on of the interior life of the 
 prominent personages of this time, the relations between 
 Bothwell and Mary, their beginning and progress, might 
 be comprehended. There are not : consequently everyone 
 who examines must judge for himself. 
 
 Even as Mary was already very partial, if not more, to 
 Bothwell, when she was carried away by a burst of pas- 
 sion awakened by the exterior attractions of Darnley — 
 this passion was of very short duration, and, as it rapidly 
 chilled, just so quickly her feeling for Bothwell revived 
 and became more and more intensified. Darnley was ad- 
 dicted to every vice which could disabuse a wife of her in- 
 fatuation, when the honeymoon had set and the sun of 
 common sense had arisen. Henceforward the only link 
 that bound them together was that tie which often keeps 
 
04 
 
 diseiicliaiited couples fVoin separating — an unborn child. 
 Nevei'tlieless, even this was not so potent that Mary did 
 not contemplate a divorce within seven months after her 
 marriage ; and already Bothwell was in such high favor that 
 he was actually hated for his influence over the Queen as 
 much as ever Darnley or Kizzio had been. Mary cared 
 for Bothwell, in a lesser or greater degree, long before she 
 thought of or came in contact with Darnley ; then, carried 
 away by something akin to insane infatuation, she sacri- 
 ficed herself to it and to that miserable, gaudy, immature 
 man. The revulsion rekindled the embers of her yearning 
 for the manly Earl, and soon fanned them into flame, re-/ 
 suiting in a conflagration which consumed her queenly dig- 
 nity and his pre-eminence in Scotland. 
 
 Not to be accused of warping evidence, the following 
 paragraph is quoted entire, because, if the writer could use 
 such bitter language against Bothwell, the greater is the 
 reason for believing that his guarded praises are trustwor- 
 thy and far less than Bothwell' s deserts : 
 
 "The breach between Mary and her husband [Darnley] 
 was becoming wider every day, and Moray hehdd it with 
 secret satisfaction. The licentious Bothwell had acquired a 
 great ascendancy in the national councils ; that ambition 
 which he had long cherished now began to unfold; lie cast his 
 aspiring eyes towards Mary, and already marked lier oiit as his 
 own, wliile Mary only noticed him with her favor on account 
 of his devotedness to lier service ; and he had long meditated 
 the destruction of her Iniaband. Of insinuating manners, he 
 
!>5 
 
 easily acquired tlie Queen's eonfideiice ; and liis pretended 
 courtesy and respect not only made favorable impressions on 
 her, but taught her to behold liim with gratitude. He ap- 
 peared to her the only one of her nobles whom she could trust; 
 for she had found them all one day her friends, and the next 
 joining in cabals against her. He was at this time almost at 
 the head of the government, and yet he was destitute of talent 
 and ability [this is inconsistent]. He knew nothing of politics, 
 was insensible to glory and magnanimity, a despiser of i^a- 
 tiiotism, a man of boisterous passions and unruly desires [this 
 is ridiculous]. In private life he was the same unprincipled 
 man — ambitious, licentious, prodigal and libertine. * * 
 He was able to form the most criminal enterprises, and e(jual- 
 ly courageous to put them to the trial. * * Jlis 
 
 exterior was handsome, his manners ptleasing ; he was an adept 
 in the practice of those allurements which attract the notice 
 and excite the admiration of the female sex. Reckless of 
 futurity, he only sought the gratification of his vicious, un- 
 principled and libertine desires ; and he cared not whether he 
 accomplished these by the sword, the dagger, or the poisonous 
 draught. 
 
 This licentious nobleman had formerly been Moray's ene- 
 my, but now they were sworn friends. Moray, perceiving his 
 importance, courted and flattered him; while the Queen, who 
 knew little of Bothwell's private conduct, and who, at best, 
 was only attached to him on account of his devotion to her 
 service, thinking that her happiness and security consisted in 
 the union of those two powerful noblemen, used every en- 
 deavor to promote their friendship ; thus, while unaware of 
 the danger, actually aiding her own ruin. Moray and Both- 
 well, therefore, now invited each other with every appearance 
 of friendship ; and the former, easily comprehending the rest- 
 
96 
 
 less disposition of the latter, availed himself of his grandeur, 
 while Uothwell, no less ambitious, was completely undermined 
 by a man whose talents were far more profound, whose refine- 
 ment appeared the result of prudence, and whose dissimulation 
 and knowledge of business enabled him to lay the most effec- 
 tual plans for hastening the downfall of his profligate asso- 
 ciate." 
 
 This presentation of the saintly (sic) Murray by his own 
 biographer, makes him out as little better than a dissimu- 
 lating rascal, and far worse than his victims, Bothwell and 
 Mary. Gilbert Stuart, ' ' one of the most zealous advo- 
 cates of Mary," admits that when he won the favor of the 
 Queen '■'he [Bothwell] was in thej)rime of youth and ex- 
 tremely hnndsom.e.'''' Finally, not to enlarge too much 
 upon this topic, Throckmorton, the English envoy, who 
 was no friend to Bothwell, reported of him : ' ' He is a 
 glorious, rash, and hazardous young man." 
 
 What is the reality of the pen portrait drawn and 
 colored by the enmity of Murray's panegyrist? Bothwell 
 was handsome, smart, alluring, fearless, utterly free from 
 the superstitions and fanaticism of his era — ambitious, a 
 lay Eichelieu, who, when he saw his objective, reached it 
 by clearing away obstacles, as did Hannibal, Frederic 
 or Napoleon. He was not as politic or self-restrained as 
 Moray, or Murray, hut he was in every respect as tar su- 
 perior to the avaricious and dissolute Morton ; to the 
 unprincipled Huntley; and to the combined or simple 
 
97 
 
 vices inherent in the rest of the prominent Scottish nobility 
 as he was inferior in conduct and decorum to the Regent, in 
 whom the shrewd instincts were in masterly ascendency 
 over their contrasts. For his generation Bothwell was not 
 as bad as very many whose opportunities tor evil were 
 not in accordance with their vile desires. And not to 
 be absolutely vicious where so many — with rare excep- 
 tions — were altogether so, entitles him to a consideration 
 and a fair judgment which is inconsistent with the influences 
 of to-day. Circumstances alone make men, and men must 
 be judged by the circumstances which environed and 
 mastered them. Many a man and many a woman who 
 pass for a saint in the XIX. Century, might have been 
 very devils had they lived iu Scotland or in France three 
 hundred and twenty-live years ago. 
 
 Bothwell' s religous convictions were directly opposite 
 to those of Mary. He was an ultra-Protestant. Such a 
 combination of principle and the want of it in a man 
 stigmatized by his enemies as most wicked, may be a 
 seeming paradox, but it is not unexampled. Many a man 
 who appears to be destitute of principle possesses, never- 
 theless, underlying everything, a determination in regard 
 to creed which is insurmountable, inaccessible to bribe or 
 seduction, a bed-rock belief which defies Are itself. Evei-y- 
 thing seemed calculated to separate the bigoted Papist, 
 Mary, and the political Presbyterian, Bothwell. It ap- 
 peared, however, as if even the vices of so strange a lover. 
 
98 
 
 their divergences, united to make him irresistible in the 
 heart of the Queen, corrupted in its first developing bud 
 in the flagitious Coui-t of the Valois, in which the presid- 
 ing Circe was Catherine de Medicis, surrounded by her one 
 hundred and fifty '^JiUes (Vhonneur'''' (sic), the sirens of 
 her Italian policy. Mary and Bothwell were physical, 
 moral and mental enigmas while living, and they are 
 still enigmas. 
 
 It is painful, it is almost nauseating, to see how minds 
 will abuse their powers to pervert or obscure the truth, 
 when it is contrary to the theories they have undertaken 
 to maintain. Mary did not give Bothwell up after he had 
 left her at Carberry Hill. The woman who bears within 
 her bosom the life which love has begotten there, especially 
 if it has been engendered in the face of peril, in the midst 
 of suifering, and in defiance of the world, very, very rarely 
 can free her heart from the sovereign remembrance of the 
 father of her unborn child. If ever, among subjects, con- 
 temporaries or after generations, Mary had a champion, 
 she possessed one in Prince LabanofF, and in his publications 
 of her letters, united, or illustrated, by a chronological 
 statement of events, he says, in connection with the " 18th 
 of July, 1667, the Lords of the Secret Council proposed to 
 Marie Stuart to disavow her marriage with Bothwell ; she 
 refuses to do so ; unwilling to consent to render illegitimate 
 the child which she then bore in her bosom." Raunier, in 
 
99 
 
 his ' ' Contributions to Modern History, ' ' quotes from letters 
 of the British Ambassador to the same effect. 
 
 In the midst of all her misery, after she was cap- 
 tured by the Confederated Lords, the first moments 
 that she was left to herself she devoted to writing to 
 Bothwell. And scantily as she was furnished at the 
 time with money (Schiern, 288), "in further pruif of her 
 inordinat affectioun towardes him she convoyit a purs with 
 gold to him be David Kintor the same XVI. day." She 
 again wrote to him during her imprisonment, and when 
 delivered from Lochleven her first thought was to dispatch 
 a messenger to find Bothwell, wherever he might be, to 
 announce to him, that she was once more free. In this con- 
 nection, how true the remark of Osip, the heroic serf, 
 in Dumas' play, "The DanichefFs:" "Do you know a 
 spot on earth, Nickepor, where a man [a lover] can go un- 
 accompanied by the love in her [his sweetheart's] heart? 
 If Anna [Mary] still loves the count [Earl] she will leave 
 her soul with him and naught but an empty casket will be 
 by my [anyone else's] side." 
 
 LabanofF again, under date 1668, states, "in February 
 (nine months after marriage) Marie Stuart gives birth, at 
 Lochleven, to a daughter,* who is taken to France, where 
 she became afterwards a nun, at Notre Dame de Soissons." 
 
 * Labanoflf, or his editor, under date 1568, states, "In February 
 (nine months after marriage) Marie Stuart gives birth at LochJeven to 
 a daughter who is talien to France, where she became afterwards a nun 
 at Notre Dame de Soissons." 
 
IIIO 
 
 Botliwell ha« becTi accused of treating Mary roughly 
 after hia marriage to her. lie had hjved her for many 
 years and from the beginning witli tlie intense love of a 
 tierce nature. He knew her nature. With possession her 
 passion soon became satiated. Tiie Moor, (')thello, born 
 under a torrid sun, when his jealousy became aroused, slew. 
 The Idumean, Herod, first guarded, watched, and tempor- 
 ized, until, carried away by a burst of passion, he executed. 
 Bothwell, of a colder nature, constituted himself the senti- 
 nel of his honor ; and the prisoner for whatever cause, 
 especially a woman, never fails to resent stern supervision 
 with tears and reproaches. It is asserted that Mary, re- 
 senting BothwelTs jealousy, called for a knife to kill her- 
 
 The note to this reads as follows : "The pregnancy of the Queen 
 of Scotland has been denied by GHlbert Stuart, who wrote in 1782 ; but 
 Dr. Lingard having reproduced this fact as unshaken in his history 
 of England, I have considered myself compelled to adopt his version, 
 relying especially on the testiraon)' of Le Laboureur, a very praise- 
 worthy historian, who, in his additions to the Memoires of Castelnau 
 (French Ambassador to Scotland at the time). Vol. I., page 010, edition 
 of 1731, speaks^of the daughter of Marie Stuart. [This is the Castelnau 
 to whom Alice Strickland, in her 'Life of Mary Stuart.' alludes in such 
 very high terms.] 
 
 " It must be remembered that the author (Le Lab(uireur) cited, filled 
 a post of confidence at the (*ourt of France (he was counsellor and 
 almoner to the King), and that he had every means of knowing the 
 different particulars kept secret for so long a time. Resides, when he 
 published his work, it was easy for him to consull fhe registers of the 
 Convent of Notre Dame de Soissons ami lo assuri' himself in fact if 
 the daughter of Marie Stuart Iwul bei'ii ii nun therein." 
 
101 
 
 self.* She liad iitsed the same expi-ession before, while 
 Darnley was still aliv^e. Mary's words were ominous. Both- 
 well could not have forgotten her threat when her favorite, 
 Tlizzio, was murdered, and that she quitted Darnley the 
 night before he perished with an allusion to this menace. 
 
 *"But under Le Croc's eyes, and even while he was explaining these 
 views to Lethington, the aftair tooli a sudden and disagreeable change. 
 Believing that the Queeu led a miserable life with her husband [Both- 
 well], the confederates thought she would be easily severed from him. 
 Her wild talk the night before, however, had led them to suspect that 
 she was frantic to return to his arms, and she had acted so as to confirm 
 this view. Le Croc was told by Lethington that he bad had a conver- 
 sation with her, in which she reproached him for severing her from her 
 husband, with whom she hoped to live and die with all the satisfaction 
 in the world. He answered that he and his comrades were far from 
 feeling that they did her injury by this separation ; on the contrary, 
 they believed it to be in every way the best thing for her future honor 
 and happiness. He tried what jealousy would do, and said her husband 
 was still in correspondence with his former wife, and had told her that 
 she was his real wife and the Queen his mistress. 
 
 " The Queen gave an angry denial to this, and he shortly replied that 
 the letters would show it. Lethington said the conference ended by her 
 asking ' if she and her husband would be permitted to depart together in 
 a ship, to sail where fortune should direct.' To this draft on t"he pre 
 cedents of the romances the " Chameleon," as Buchanan calls him, made 
 answer, evidently, in a vein of dry sarcasm, that, provided the pair 
 did not happen to land in Prance, he thought it about the best thing 
 they could do. It seems clear too, that she wrote a letter to her husband, 
 which the messenger she had hired to convey it faithlessly delivered 
 to the confederates. Melville renders its purport as " calling him lier 
 dear heart, whom she should never forget nor abandon for absence ; and 
 that she sent him away only for his own safety, willing him to be com- 
 forted, and to be upon his guard." (Burton's " History of Scotland," 
 Vol. IV., pp. 2.')1, 252.) 
 
102 
 
 When morning broke Ilizzio's imirder had been avenged. 
 It is not unlikely that Bothwell might have had some ex- 
 perience of her temper, and, although recently married to 
 her, his i-elations had been very intimate with her for a 
 longer period than is usually accorded to the honeymoon. 
 How many recently -married couples, even at this civilized 
 time, find ample occasion for quarrels on their wedding 
 trip, and yet live out long, loving and edifying lives, whose 
 warmth or heat is tempered by frequent and violent storms. 
 Should it excite any astonishment that Bothwell deemed 
 himself worthy of the hand of Mary when Darnley, a man 
 of inferior position and influence had obtained it, and when 
 his own ancestors had acquired a reputation for their rela- 
 tions to royal ladies. One of t^e Hepburns, according to tra- 
 dition, married a sister of the celebrated Eobert Bruce, of 
 Bannockburn fame, and King of Scotland, which his abil- 
 ities and audacity had made independent. Hepburn 
 of Hales held the Castle of Dunbar and in it, with 
 him, the beautiful Jane Beaufort, widow of James I., 
 spent her latter days and died. How or why she was thus 
 under the same roof with Hepburn, the great-great grand- 
 father of Bothwell — whether by her own consent or by 
 force — was one of the undetermined problems of the day. 
 A son of the same Hepburn was one of the suitors of Mai-y 
 of Gueldres, widow of James U. BothweH's own father 
 was the rival of Darnley's father for the hand of Mary of 
 Guise, mother of Mary Stuart, who, according to the pub- 
 
103 
 
 lications of the Baniiatyne Club, "promest t'aithfullie, be 
 her hand writ, at twa sindre tymes, to tak the said Erie 
 in mariage." Again, does it seem strange for the second 
 earl in Scotland to marry his accomplice, even if a queen, 
 in the murder of her husband, when that husband came 
 between him and his ambitious hopes at a time when the 
 woman was as yet unstained by any act which might not 
 be attributed to imprudent favoritism '< Again, was it 
 more audacious or startling for a belted earl, equal by 
 birth, manhood, acquirements, influence and courage to 
 any nobleman in Scotland, to expect to win a queen whose 
 hand Elizabeth had considered not too exalted for her 
 favorite, if not her actual lover — Leicester — who was 
 not even born to the rank of earl, and never attained to 
 the oflicial dignities held as hereditary rights by the Both- 
 wells from generation to generation ? Again, justly or other- 
 wise, Mary, although a queen, had been charged by her own 
 husband, Darnley, with criminal intercourse with Rizzio, 
 which was his principal excuse for the assassination of the 
 Italian favorite ; while doubts hung over her with regard to 
 others. Was it sublime presumption in Bothwell to raise 
 his eyes to one of whom Mignet, Michelet and Dargaud 
 have written so severely, and whom the ministers and 
 population of Edinburgh did not hesitate publicly to brand 
 with the harshest epithet that can be applied to her sex ; 
 and when Bothwell himself counted among his mistresses 
 the daughter of the Earl of Angus and cousin of the Earl 
 of Morton, afterwards Regent, and wife of a gentleman of 
 
104 
 
 distinction; likewise her sister, Lady Ticres, wlio, in lofiT, 
 was Chaniberwoinan, or intimate confidante of Mary Stuart 
 herself, and attainted as Both well's jjander with the 
 Qneen. The foregoing demonstrates the condition of iriorals 
 in Scotland at this time, indeed, throughout Europe in the 
 Sixteenth Century; and, although this "Study" utterly 
 rejects the idea that Mary was unchaste, except with Both- 
 well, her associations were such that it is not astonishing 
 that a bold and favored noble and a devoted and consistent 
 chamj^ion should consider himself entitled by birth and 
 position to occupy the place of a Dariiley, especially when 
 the murder of the unhappy boy-husband was done, at best, 
 with the tacit consent of the wife. 
 
 The idea that because the highly accomplished, insinuat- 
 ing Italian musician, Bizzio, was ugly he could not inspire 
 passion in a susceptible woman is preposterous. Bright 
 minds in repulsive caskets are sometimes the most success- 
 ful wooers. Schopenhauer never uttered a greater truth 
 than this : "Women often love ugly men, but nerer an 
 immanly man." 
 
 It is also laid to the charge of Bothwell that he was 
 destitute of any personal advantages. Nevertheless, Mary 
 loved him at a period of life when, as Byron makes the 
 Devil remark in his "Deformed Transformed," 
 
 " Then you are far more dillicull to pleiuse 
 Than Cato's sister, or than Brutus' raolhor. 
 Or Cleopatra at sixteen — an apo 
 When love is uot less in tlie eye than heart." 
 
105 
 
 III other words, Byroii ine.iuis to say that, in the teens, 
 love conies through the eye as a rnle ; hut, with developed 
 intelligence, through the mental as well as through the 
 actual vision. This is true. 
 
 Notwithstanding, if ftfary did not love Bothwell, she 
 never loved anybody. She may have been captivated by 
 his manliness, intrepidity, devotion, and other similar 
 characteristics ; but, ugly or handsome, he had her 
 affections. 
 
 While on this subject, this seems the proper place to sit, 
 again, in judgment upon Mary's half-brother, the bepraised 
 but not the praiseworthy Kegent Muj-ray. There is the 
 same antagonism in the estimates of the Regent Murray. 
 It is very likely he was what Raumer cpiotes, "concealing" 
 "his ambition under the cover of sincere piety ; he had a 
 cold, ungrateful heart, capable and guilty of all kinds 
 of deceit, crimes and baseness." He was <jne of those 
 politicians whose passions were controlled by their poli- 
 cy, and both were entirely subordinate to their intellect. 
 He could handle pitch without any adhering to his fin- 
 gers. He was invariably absent when any dark deed was 
 to be done, but always let drop some expression or acted 
 in such a manner as showed that he was a tacit, if not an 
 active, accessory before the fact. He kept in with the 
 clergy, especially J(jhn Knox, and their Geneva cloaks 
 covered up many a rent and stain on Murray's vesture, 
 and still hide them from any but tlie' bold hands that dare 
 
106 
 
 to lift them up or tear them <>]>eii. He betrayed Mary, he 
 betrayed Darnley, he betrayed Bothwell ; and he alone 
 profited by this; and if an aKwassin's bullet had not cut 
 short his subsequent admirable administration, it is most 
 probable that his career, if it had lasted a few years longer, 
 would have ended as did that of his associate, Morton. 
 The object of Murray and the associate lords was to pull 
 Mary down into the mire. Their iirst instrument was 
 Darnley, and the next Bothwell. As the fool fell, so fell 
 the hero — for, in barbarous times, such was Bothwell. As 
 soon as the fearless man, BotliM'ell, was out of the way of 
 the helpless woman, Mary became an easy victim. Mur- 
 ray became virtual king, and Morton eventually succeeded 
 him. Poetic justice followed the conspirators ; and, before 
 Mary had been executed or Bothwell had died, the majority 
 of their persecutors had preceded them before that dread tri- 
 bunal where, if there be another life, such crimes as theirs 
 are judged. At all events, they were judged in this world, 
 and capital sentences awarded. Bothwellhaugh slew Mur- 
 ray for cruelty shown by the latter' s subordinate to the 
 former's wife. Lennox, father of Darnley, next in order 
 as Eegent, was killed by a pistol shot in an affray ; Mar, 
 his successor, died suddenly — poison the suspected cause ; 
 and the "Maiden" — a sort of guillotine which Morton 
 had introduced into Scotland — avenged upon him the 
 wrongs of many a matron and maiden, husband and rela- 
 tive. Nor did the series of retaliations end with him. 
 
107 
 
 Sir William Stuart, "sum tyme lioun king of Arms," 
 "sent to Denmark to demand the surrender of Both well," 
 "being eonvictet of witcherie was burnt," 16th August, 
 15fi9, at St. Andrews. Captain John Clark, another bitter 
 persecutor, died actually in the same prison, Dragsholm, 
 with his intended victim. Thus, upon one after another, 
 Bothwell's wrongs were fearfully visited. 
 
 Eaumer remarks (Letter XIX.) : "Seldom has Nemesis 
 avenged wicked deeds so rapidly as in this part of the 
 Scotch history. Without repeating my narrative of the 
 facts, I will merely sum them up in chronological order. 
 Three months after the murder of Daridey, three weeks 
 after the pretended ravishment, fourteen days after the 
 fraudulent divorce, Mary was married to Bothwell, the 
 murderer of her husband, according to the rites of the 
 Roman Catholic and of the Protestant Church. Four 
 weeks later, on the 15th of June, she was already hurled 
 from the throne, and taken prisoner at Carberry Hills." 
 
 In this world, failure, regarded as a crime, always re- 
 ceives the severest punishment. This crime of failure 
 hangs like a pall over Bothwell. It is like the black cur- 
 tain covering the space which should have been filled by 
 the portrait of Marino Faliero, and bears an inscription to 
 the effect that this Doge was beheaded for his crimes. 
 Crimes ? He was decapitated for seeking to give greater 
 freedom to a people held in abject subjection by a corrupt 
 aristocratic oligarchy. 
 
lOS 
 
 No liisturiiui liMs ever done liotliwcll justice. To pre- 
 sent him fairly, the truth lias to be winnowed out from the 
 falsehood as grain from chatf, and then cleaned from smut. 
 He was not more ambitious than Muri-ay, and not as 
 stained with vices as Morton, lie was as brave and able 
 as Kircaldy, and as sagacious as Maitland of Lethington. 
 He was far supei-ior to the rest of the vile rabble, who, 
 like a pack of wolves, hunted him down, not one of whom 
 but fell far below him as a man of truth, loyalty and con- 
 sistency. 
 
 Throughout his clieckered career, Eothwell displayed 
 hesitation and want of determination or sagacity in only 
 one instance — at Oarberry Hill. Why he was so false to 
 himself on this occasion is one of the nnexplained and in- 
 explicable riddles of history. 
 
 There were two ci'ises in the career of Mary — Carberry 
 Hill, 15th of Jmie, 1567, and Langside, IStli of May, 
 1568, the latter the anniversary of her marriage with 
 Bothwell. In l)oth cases it was the obvious policy of 
 Mary to avoid a conflict, and as long as hei' person was 
 secure, the number of her adherents would daily augment ; 
 while, on the (jther hand, the forces of those opposed to 
 her M'ould have diminished and their spirits become 
 broken. This had freipiently liapi)cned, previously, in the 
 course of her reign. A few days delay in Dunbar would 
 have saved her and l^)othM'ell ; and had she thrown herself 
 at once into some Scottish stronghold — Dmn barton, if 
 
109 
 
 possible — before Laiigside, she iiiiglit have preserved hei- 
 erowu. Chiilniers, her advocate (1. 165), admits this. 
 
 John Xnox, whose general trustworthiness as a histo- 
 rian has been questioned, was nevertheless deej) in the 
 secrets of the associated lords whose "Band" triumphed 
 over the lioyal Pair at Oarberry Hill, and miist have known 
 the truth of this wlien he wrote. (Jonsequently when 
 Ivnox, corroborated l)^' Buchaium — devilishly inimical both 
 to Mary and Bothwell — "expressly declares that if the 
 latter had only for two days remained cpiiet with the Queen 
 in the fastness of Dunbar, which the lords were unable to 
 capture, those in Edinburgh would have disbanded, and 
 every one would have souglit to care for himself alone." 
 This statement of Knox deserves implicit confidence. 
 Bothwell' s issuing forth from Dunbar, to fight troops more 
 or less disciplined with mere feudal levies, was the irrepar- 
 able mistake. Doubtless he thought that the presence of 
 the Queen would be as efiectnal in 15firt as it had been in 
 1562 and 1565, wlien at the head of a similar array she 
 crushed or hunted other "bands" of rebel lords out of 
 her realm. To charge Bothwell with cowardice for quit- 
 ting the Queen at Carberry Hill, without striking a blow 
 for himself and her, is as ungenerous as the motive imputed. 
 There was not a drop of dastard blood in BothM'ell's veins. 
 He did not consent to leave her until Xii'caldy of Grange, 
 the "chivalric" {sic) representative of the " Band " of 
 traitor nobles, bad assured her of the respect due to her. 
 
no 
 
 and consideration worthj her dignity — and her consequent 
 surrender on his assurances. Believing that a man like Kir- 
 caldy would not submit to become the agent of the basest 
 deception, and that Mary was safe in person and position, 
 and would receive at least decent treatment as a woman, 
 Eothwell left her. He had every reason to base his calcu- 
 lations at Carberry Hill on those which had proved correct 
 in similar emergencies. Hitherto Fate had been propi- 
 tious. It was noM' to prove adverse. Every man is simply 
 a tool fashioned for a particular purpose. Bothwell, as an 
 instrument, had accomplished his work. The implement 
 was now useless, was thrown aside to become the prey of 
 rust — to disappear in the vast deposit of tools which had 
 performed their office. Again and again he had left his 
 native land because he could not successfully breast the 
 innuediate fury of the storm, but only to return with re- 
 newed force, to higher influence and vaster power, to put 
 his foot on the very same "Bands" that drove him forth. It 
 was not the first time that he had been compelled to aban- 
 don Scotland for political reasons, and to escape the tem- 
 porarily overwhelming strength and violence of enmity. 
 Had he not gone forth, before, only to return stronger. 
 Exile to him had been his mother earth, the same as to An- 
 taeus in the struggle with Hercules. He kne-w that if faith 
 was kept with Mary, the wretches who had associated 
 against her would soon be at each other's throats, and that 
 if he preserved his life again to clasp lier hand there was 
 
Ill 
 
 every prospect of ultimate triumph. He did not take into ac- 
 count Fate, and tliat, having risen so high by crime, like 
 Macbeth, the deceitful hags whose counsels and prophesies 
 had led him to its commission would l)ecome transnmted 
 into Eiimenides to hunt him, as they hunted Orpheus, to 
 his doom. And then, when this retribution had fallen 
 with pitiless power, it is a comfort to remember that the 
 Furies turned with fangs as sharp and whips as pitiless 
 upon their mortal agents. If the Queen had not trusted 
 to Kircaldy of Grange, she would not have consented to 
 divide her lot from that of Bothwell. Retributive justice 
 found Kircaldy out. At Carberry Hill he was the tool of 
 Morton. Afterwards he became his adversary and was 
 besieged in Edinburgh Castle by troops sent by Elizabeth 
 to the assistance of the latter. To the English he surren- 
 dered, and by them was delivered up to Morton, and as a 
 deserter was he hanged at the market cross of the Scottish 
 capital. At the same time, Lethington, another of these 
 subtle fiends, was taken prisoner, and, to escape the halter, 
 ' ' he took a drink and ' died, ' ' and justice was done upon 
 his dead body. To follow out the story of all the enemies 
 of Bothwell would fill a vohnne. Suffice it to say that all 
 were punished, and the majority adequately in the fullest 
 degree for their deviltries. Murray, in the full blossom of 
 his dignity, fell a victim to private vengeance; Lennox 
 was shot ; Morton was decapitated ; and so, in succession, 
 great and small, sooner or later, Are fou)id them out. 
 
Botliwell wAn an extiauidiiiarily brave man, at a time 
 when physical bravery was an absolute necessit}' t(j hold 
 any public position, much more to make headway against 
 opposing factions. His very personal encounter with the 
 freebooter, John Elliot, demonstrates that he possessed 
 unusual intrepidity. Schiern, Petit, and Aytoun, together, 
 farnish all the particulars, apd these prove that Botliwell 
 was just the man to cope with the fearlessness and reck- 
 lessness of border desperadoes. Severely, almost mortally, 
 wounded, and for a brief period at the mercy of his adver- 
 sary, he roused himself up to inflict such deadly injuries 
 that these cost Elliot his life. Kinall}', BothM^ell even from 
 his earliest years was a sagacious leader, a wise adminis- 
 trator, an astute di])loniatist, a judicious counsellor, an 
 intrepid soldier, and an able general. A single I'emark 
 of his made to the venerable Le Croc, the French Am- 
 bassador — no friend to Both well — in regard to Le Croc's 
 representing, on this occasion, the mediator between Han- 
 nibal and Scipio, before Zania, indicates that Botliwell, so far 
 from having neglected the study of the " Humanities " — as 
 they were called — could apply the lessons derived from tlieni. 
 Grave historians have alleged that his youthful studies in 
 Paris and elsewhere were especially devoted to the ai't of 
 enchantnient, and that these were subsocpiently prosecuted 
 in the breathing spells of his boistei-oiis and laborious 
 manhood, and that through these he had bewitched the 
 yueen (Mary) to fall in love with him. This nonsense 
 
113 
 
 roused up defenders, equally erudite with those who spread 
 the report, who maintained the incredibility of admissions, 
 credited even to Bothwell himself. He most likely was 
 master of several languages, certainly English and French, 
 for he was sent on diplomatic missions to both countries, 
 and at one time he either commanded, or was an offi- 
 cer in, the Royal Scottish Archer Guard, to whom was 
 intrusted the protection of the person of the sovereign 
 of France. From this appointment he came back to Scot- 
 land, the native gem cut and polished into a brilliant. 
 In addition, he must have possessed a colloquial acquaint- 
 ance with the Latin, for this was the language of diplomacy 
 and even familiar intercourse, occupying the place after- 
 ward filled by French. A strong proof of this is shown 
 by the fact that he found himself, at various periods 
 of his life, in contact with personages with whom he could 
 not otherwise have conversed. Consequently, in all 
 human probability, Latin was perfectly familiar to him, 
 since on no occasion is there any mention of the necessity 
 or the presence of interpreters. His whole career presents 
 unmistakable proofs that he was not illiterate, nor re- 
 pulsive, nor ignoble, in person or carriage or conduct, but 
 directly the opposite. 
 
 This ' ' Study, ' ' close and careful, has led to the firm con- 
 viction that Swinburne — whose tragedies (a Trilogy, 1865- 
 '75 -'81, Chastelar, Bothwell and Mary) show that he had 
 investigated with attention all the details which he wove 
 8 
 
114 
 
 into lu« verse — was correct when lie makes Mary declare 
 that Bothwell was the Urst man whom she had ever loved 
 with the full force of a matured woman's intense affec- 
 tion. , v 
 
 Furthermore, what does Algernon Charles Swinburne 
 say in the !< ortnightly lievievj (1. Jan. 'H2) in regard to 
 Mary's innocence and her relations to Darnley and to 
 Bothwell ? 
 
 " Outside the range of the clerical and legal professions 
 it should be difficult to find men of keen research and 
 conscientious ability who can think that a woman of such 
 working brain and burning heart as never faltered, never 
 quailed, never rested till the end had come for them of all 
 things, could be glorified by degradation to the likeness of 
 a brainless, heartless, sexless and pusillanimous fool. Sup- 
 posing she had taken pat^t in the slaying of Darnley, there 
 is every excuse for her ; supposing she had not, there is 
 none. Considered from any possible point of view, the tra- 
 gic story of her life in Scotland admits hut of one interpre- 
 tation which is not incompatible with the impression she 
 has left on all friends and all foes alike. And this inteipre- 
 tation is simply that she hated Darnley with a passionate 
 hit justifiahle hatred' and lovexl Bothundl with a passion- 
 ate hutpa/rdonahle love. For the rest of her career, I cannot 
 but think that whatever was evil and ignoble in it was tlie 
 work of education or of circumstance ; wliatever was irood 
 and noble, the gifts of nature or of (lod." 
 
116 
 
 Madame Saiul — as quoted by Saiiite-Benve — very indul- 
 gent for Mary, considers tliat the tliree capital sins of this 
 Queen were her abandonment of Chastelard [to the execu- 
 tioner] ; her feigned caresses lavished upon the unhappy 
 Darnley [when luring liim to his doom] ; and her for- 
 yetfulness of Bothwell [who had sacrificed everything for 
 her]. 
 
 Although tliis " Study " is woven of words, its story is, 
 nevertheless, built up of facts. "I go in for facts," quoth 
 Frederic the Great, " that is my motto." Man, in his means, 
 has passed through an infinitude of developments ; but his 
 thoughts, his methods, his passions, his objects, have under- 
 gone no change since Cain smote Abel with a club — a brand 
 caught from a sacrificial fire, half burned, charred, but potent 
 as a weajjon of malice. It was as fatal in the hand of the 
 first-born of Adam as the Gatling gun which mows down a 
 company at a volley, just as the scythe lays prostrate, at one 
 sweep, a swathe of another develoiDment. Before the Deluge 
 came, — chronicled on cuniform cylinders, laid aside in libraries 
 collected before the growth of mind had formulated the 
 alphabetic characters through which science afterward trans- 
 mitted its discoveries with greater comparative certainty, — 
 the Sons of God fell in love with the Daughters of men, and 
 thence resulted what the Germans style the ©unb:f(iitl^ — the 
 cataclysm — on which the Ark floated over a submerged world 
 until the Dove — the emblem of Venus — brought back an olive 
 branch as a symbpl of a new birth. Love, 
 
 "Thou tyrant of gods and men — Eros!" 
 
 reigned in Eden. Its sceptre was as potent in the antediluvian 
 era as it is to-day, when thought is flashed over the wires with 
 
IIP) 
 
 ;i rapidity almost transcending calculation. Before it, crowns 
 bow their splendors and weapons lower their deadly points. 
 It will reign when the same sun which now blazes upon this 
 planet illumines an extinguished orb like the cold, rugged, 
 simply reflecting moon. It will hold its own throne when life, 
 as we understand it, is being blotted, or burned, out. Love is 
 immortal — not in the sense of Canon Farrar, an indefinite era, 
 an age, anything except eternal — but everlasting as that Being 
 through whose will the universe came into existence and whose 
 laws will govern when the starry host which now are mar- 
 shaled into incalculable systems, revolving in circuits whose 
 sweep is beyond the grasp of mind, ends in what the astrono- 
 mer can neither conceive nor the ordinary mind comprehend, 
 because it depends on the decrees of the Infinite. Amor, Om- 
 nipotent, source and end of all true happiness, is a god ; his 
 home is in the Spiritual world ; but he condescends to the 
 Material, through Spiritism, and his sway is illimitable. In 
 obedience to his gentle influences beat the hearts of the beggar 
 and the monarch ; or, as the old proverb justly asserts, "As 
 much pains are taken with the development of the embryo of 
 a pauper as with the germ of a king." In the heart or mind 
 which is capable of cold-blooded calculation, passion may 
 have held sway, but not love. AVherever selfish considerations 
 exert authority love does not exist, or is losing ground, or is 
 dying. 
 
'^TKEvMVE^g. 
 
 '"'■Queen \_Mary].— Life of that [my] heart, 
 
 There is but one thing hath no remedy, 
 Death ; all ills else have end or hope of end — 
 ******* 
 
 Bothwell. — Well, being sundered, we may live, 
 
 And living meet \ — * * * * 
 
 * * * * I will go. 
 
 Till good time bring me back ; and you that stay. 
 Keep faith with me. 
 
 Queen. — My soul, my spirit, my very and only God, 
 My truth and trust, that makes me true of heart. 
 My life that feeds and life that lightens me, 
 My breath and blood of living * * 
 
 Bothwell. — Keep then this kiss too with the word you gave 
 And with them both my heart and its good hope, 
 To find time yet for you and me. Farewell ! 
 
 Mary. — I do not think one can die more than this." 
 
 Swinburne's ''''Both-well.^ 
 
 *0 UNDEKTAKE to preseiit in detail evidence 
 (and authorities) for the origin and devel- 
 opment of Mary's interest in Bothwell 
 wonld require a huge volume, for they 
 would have to be extracted from quite a 
 library of works, not only treating of her 
 and of him, but of their time. Tokens 
 of the interest she took and the confidence that she 
 placed in him, were visible as soon as she returned to 
 
 117 
 
118 
 
 Scotland. Tliej manifest themselves M'itli increasing force 
 as slie came to know liini better and lietter, and njore 
 tliorouglily to appreciate liis character. When imprisoned 
 through adverse political influences in 1564, his escape 
 from Edinburgh Castle was attributed to her connivance. 
 Driven on the English coast, captured and committed to 
 the Tower by Elizabeth, he owed his release to the 
 earnest appeals of Marj^ 5vfl"ft=>^e'^t { fd-hm), the law 
 of possession and force, was then almost the only law 
 recognized in Scotland ; and Mary comprehended that 
 Bothwell, "the reliable," was the only man on whom she 
 (the Queen) could lean and in whom she could confidently 
 trust to enforce her authority. Just as she was secretly 
 "handfasted" — not married (consult John Stewart's "A 
 Lost Chapter in the History of Mary, Queen of Scots, 
 Kecovered," * pp. 26, 27) — to Darnley over three months 
 
 * "During the spring of 1565, Mary, after mucli liesitation, finally 
 resolved to take Darnley to be lier husband, and, it appears, from evi- 
 dence which seems sufficient, that slie was espoused or ' handfasted' to 
 him at Stirling in the earlj' part of April of that year." 
 
 Any curious reader can get a complete understanding of what 
 " handfasting " signifies by reading Sir Walter Scott's "Monastery" 
 (Vol. II., chap. vii. and xviii.), in regard to Julian Avenel and Catherine 
 Grajme. It seems hardly severe to say that even a queen who could 
 submit to be "handfasted" to a Darnley, would commit a more venial 
 sin in being married to a Bothwell. 
 
 "'It must be admitted,' writes Mr. llosack, 'that >lary on tliis 
 occasion kept Throgniortou | English Agent or Ambassador) in Ihc 
 dark on a very important point. We now know that she had already 
 privately m-irric^d Darnley, but that Ihey had determined to wait for 
 
119 
 
 before she was publicly espoused to him, even so she 
 had secretly given her heart, if not her person — the latter 
 most probably — to Bothwell long before the rupture with 
 her husband was clearly shown to be irremediable. Even 
 while, in the iirst instance, she was exposing herself to 
 conunent by apparently courting Darnley, the influence of 
 Bothwell over her was already plainly visible. Two 
 months after her marriage with Darnley, Both-well had 
 returned to her side and was in high favor. Within three 
 months he shared the military command in chief with 
 Lennox, the father of her consort; and "the first open 
 difficulty between husband and wife ' ' arose from her 
 appointment of Bothwell as her Lieutenant-General in 
 preference to Lennox. Within another month her affec- 
 tion, if not her passion, for "the eminently handsome 
 Earl," was so clearly recognizable, that foreign ambas- 
 
 the Pope's dispensation, which was necessary on account of their rela- 
 tionship, before the ceremony was celebrated in public' (Hosaoli, 
 ' Queen Mary,' p. 103.) The ceremony thus referred to could hardly be 
 called a marriage, as that was a sacramental rite which did not admit 
 of being repeated. It is no doubt described as having taken place in 
 presence of a priest ; but, so early as the thirteenth century, it was 
 required by our canon law that espousals or handfastings should be 
 made in presence of a priest and trustworthy witnesses. (Statut. Eccl. 
 Scot., Vol. II., p. 68.) In a contemporary memoir addressed to Cosmo 
 de Medici, printed by Labanoif, the ceremony is described as having 
 occurred in Stirling Castle, in an apartment of David Riccio — Fossero 
 da un capellano catholicamente sponsati in camera di esso David.' 
 (Lahanoff, Vol. VII., p. 67.) " , 
 
120 
 
 sadors saw in him the present power behind the throne, 
 and drew inferences of what was impending. 
 
 In this connection, again, another observation appears 
 to be most pertinent. Perhaps there is no better proof that 
 Bothwell could not have been the unprincipled villain that 
 his enemies represent him, than Mary's piteous appeals to 
 him not to despise her for the dissimulation she was mani- 
 festing towards Darnley, in order to serve their interests. 
 In regard to Darnley, Mary acted like a decoy female 
 elephant, used by huiiters in luring the wild male into a 
 trap, which caresses him with her trunk while the chains 
 are being adjusted to his legs. All the while this simile 
 holds good, Mary seemed fearful that the man for whom 
 she was thus lowering herself as queen and woman would 
 dis-esteem her for this proof of the very height of her 
 love which is pulling her down into such a depth of moral 
 degradation. v 
 
 Mary's feeling for Bothwell was no sudden passion. 
 It certainly dates back to the period when she first dis- 
 covered hoM^ she had deceived herself in selecting the empty 
 Darnley as her consort. Tokens of it may even be traced 
 much farther back than this. Bothw^ell had been a favored 
 servant of her mother, the politic Marie de Guise, one in 
 whom the sagacious Eegent had learned to put her trust, 
 This feminine ruler had had long and sore experience of 
 the Scottish nobility, and for her to single out Bothwell 
 as a champion gives him a strong title to respect and ajipre- 
 
121 
 
 ciation. He was her right-hand man. Chambers tells us 
 that Both well "avoided marriage as long as lie could, en- 
 amored of the species of roving life that he led vmtil he had 
 attained his thirtieth year," and remain free to bestow 
 his affections and dignities where and as he willed. 
 
 Burton, the historian of Scotland, whose work evinces 
 little if any enthusiasm, and great calmness, if not cold im- 
 partiality, is favorable to Bothwell and to the opinion ar- 
 rived at through this ' ' Study. ' ' He agrees with Randolph, 
 the English Ambassador, as to the tirst traces noted by a 
 contemporary on the spot of the Queen's partiality for 
 Bothwell. This was in April, 1565. It is much more 
 likely, however, that her ardent affection for him was 
 kindled in the previous year, 1564. Mary first saw Darnley 
 in the February preceding, and was privately ' ' handfasted ' ' 
 to him in April or May, and publicly married on the 29th of 
 July in the same year. Swinburne intimates that there was 
 some apparent intelligence between Mary and Bothwell as 
 early as the execution of Chastelard in 1562. And here 
 it may be pertinent to make an observation as to the con- 
 nection between Mary and a number of the reputed lovers 
 with whom she is charged with having had improper rela- 
 tions. That she was indiscreet in her conduct cannot be 
 explained away, however great may have been her excuse. 
 The manners of her period, of the French court — in which 
 she was bred — a hundred exculpations or palliations, can be 
 adduced in her favor. She is said to have loved Conde and 
 
Marshal d' A 111 ville — both wereM'ortliyof it; Chastelard, the 
 gallant troubadour ; Sir John Gordon, a brave young noble- 
 man, and even Rizzio, the possessor of many refinements and 
 acconiplishnients, and a succession of others. iSTevertheless 
 there is nothing which amounts to positive proof that she 
 was absolutely culpable or criminal with a single one of 
 them. Burton observes that she M^as fond of trying upon 
 everyone whom she desired to win the various resources 
 of her passionate and subtle nature. She was a coquette, 
 and, as a queen, justified herself in the exercise of the arts 
 peculiar to this type. But did not the unmarried Elizabeth 
 avail herself of a similar prerogative ? Yet she is accepted 
 as the "Virgin Queen." 
 
 This "Study" has now reached a point when it is 
 necessary to consider the interest exhibited by Mary in 
 promoting the marriage between Bothwell and Lady Jane 
 Gordon, Mdiich occurred on the 24tli of February, 1566. 
 Burton disposes of this eifectually in a few lines of irrefu- 
 table philosophical sagacity: "The interest taken bv 
 Queen Mary in this marriage has been pitted against the 
 many presumptions that her heart then belonged to Both- 
 well. But experience in poor hnmiDi nature teacJu's us 
 that people terrified hy the pressure of temptation do 
 sometimes set up harriers against it, vh/ch they after- 
 wards make frantic efforts to (/et ore?:'" 
 
 There were now two obstacles between Mary and her 
 lover— her husband and his wife. She was already es- 
 
123 
 
 tranged from Darnley, wlio was destitute of character, and 
 prone to every vice which would disgrace a man and dis- 
 gust a proud and refined woman. Nothing hut consider- 
 ation for her unborn cliild i-endered her deaf to i)roposals for 
 a divorce. His brutal and cowardly conduct, planning, and 
 with his Judas kiss (Froude, VIII., 258) assisting in the 
 murder of Rizzio, filled the cup of her indignation, and 
 quenched any lingering sparks of feeling for the creature 
 on whom she had bestowed her hand. Who was the first 
 to come to her assistance in this crisis* Bothwell ! From 
 this time onward they were indissolubly linked together. 
 He was her champion. Listen to Burton. (IV. xlv. 162.)* 
 Mary had made Bothwell, in 1566, sole Warden or 
 Lieutenant of the Scottish Marches or Border Lands. In the 
 discharge of his duties, he, riding alone, far ahead of his 
 train, encountered, in Billhope Glen, a noted desperado, 
 John Elliot, of "The Park." They had a hard fight. 
 Bothwell was nearly killed, and Elliot died of his wounds. 
 The Warden was carried to his own castle of Hermitage. 
 When Mary learned his condition she was at Jedburgh. 
 She got on horseback and galloped off with a scanty escort, 
 through a country dangerous in itself, and more perilous 
 from reckless lurking villains, to Bothwell' s side, and re- 
 mained for two hours with him. This ride of fifty miles 
 
 * Burton, IV. xlv. 163, &c. ; 172-3 ; 174 ; 176 ; 177 (1 and 2) ; 181 ; 
 182-191. Consult '' Biographie Qenerale," Art. ''Marie (Ecosse)," 1870, 
 XXXIII., and Art. " Mary, Queen of Scots," Harper's Magazine. 
 
124 
 
 across country, and much longer if she made certain detours 
 wliicli are surmised from corroborative circumstances, in the 
 month of October, which is a rude season in so high a lat- 
 itude and harsh climate as that of Scotland, brought on a 
 fever that nearly cost her her life. Leaving, however, 
 these last considerations aside, whom did Mary dash off to 
 the Hermitage to visit? A suffering lover, or a trusted 
 official, wounded in the discharge of his duty ? Eulogists 
 and excusers have shed as much ink as Bothwell lost blood 
 in the endeavor to gloss over this adventure, so inexpli- 
 cable as the mere gracious consideration of a queen. But 
 the human heart, if it has had any experience of life and 
 love, can solve the problem better than all the partisans 
 and penmen in the world. In response to the intelligence 
 that Bothwell lay dying, as was supposed, Marj^'s heart 
 flew to him — flew to the man on whom her affections were 
 fixed — and she followed it and the instincts of her woman's 
 nature. 
 
 The following detailed account of the fight between 
 Bothwell and Elliot is a harmony of the views of Prof. 
 Schiern, the stern Danish narrator of the career of Both- 
 well, and of M. Petit, a perfect chevalier of Mary, and of 
 Mr. Aytoun, no partisan of the "fair Erie." 
 
 The many instances which Mary had ah-eady witnessed, both 
 under the government of her deceased mother and her own, 
 of Bothwell's readiness to venture his life in her cause, con- 
 vinced her that in him. .the had found a inoxt true and truM- 
 
'125 
 
 worthy servant. The behaviour too, which he had shown 
 during the last trying occasion [tlie murder of Rizzlo and its 
 consequences] had recently drawn from her a fresh proof of 
 her favour, inasmuch as she had rewarded him with the ap- 
 pointment of " Keeper" of the Castle of Dunbar, the strongest 
 of all the Scottish sea-fortresses, which was likewise an arsenal 
 for the whole kingdom, in which the most of its gunpowder 
 was kept, and which by its proximity to Bothwell's estates was 
 of special importance to him. Nor was this all ; for it has 
 been believed that shortly after the birth of James VI. [19th 
 June, 1566], the Queen began to show an interest in the Eai'l 
 which was of another and more tender nature than simply 
 political. ******* 
 
 When the Earl, in the autumn of 1566, left Edinburgh 
 and entered upon the charge of the turbulent Border regions 
 intrusted to him, and the peace of which happened at this 
 period to be specially disturbed by the Elliots, the Armstrongs, 
 and the Johnstons, this arrangement displeased the nobles of the 
 country. They found that Bothwell had been driven to most 
 fearful acts out of revenge and that he could not be bribed. 
 Bothwell had already laid hold of some of the many lawless 
 foresters in Liddesdale, the Lairds of Maugerton and White- 
 laugh and several Armstrongs, and put them in custody in 
 Hermitage Castle in order to have them brought to justice. 
 One day — -the 7th of October [1566] — in a wood close in front 
 of the Castle — Billhope Glen — he, having gone bravely in ad- 
 vance of his attendants, met face to face with a notorious 
 outlaw, John Elliot, also known by the name of "John of the 
 Park." On coming up with him the latter demanded whether 
 the Earl would spare his life, to which Bothwell answered that 
 he would be heartily satisfied should the Court set him at 
 liberty, but that he must appear before the Queen's Court of 
 
12« 
 
 justice. They attacked each otlier with fury. They were well 
 matched, and their hravery, quickened by anger, was un- 
 doubted. After a heroic fight, John Elliot had the worst of 
 it, and was obliged to crave quarter from his adversary. 
 Slipping down from his horse, he attempted to run away 
 througli the wood and slough. Irritated at this evasion. Both- 
 well then wounded him with one or two pistol-shots, and 
 sprang from his saddle to pursue the fugitive. In dis- 
 mounting, Bothwell lost his balance — doubtless through the 
 excited condition of his horse — and fell over a gtump and into 
 a slough. The fall was so violent that he lay for some 
 moments completely stunned. As the soil was too marshy for 
 a quick pace, Elliot had not made much progress. As soon as 
 he saw the Earl fall he came back to where he lay, and with 
 his sword gave him, in return for the shots by which he him- 
 self had been struck, three wounds in succession — one in his 
 body, one in the head, and one in the hand — until at length 
 Bothwell, recovering himself, with his dagger stabbed his 
 adversary twice in the breast, so that he staggered away 
 mortally wounded, crawled to a neighboring hill, and soon 
 breathed his last. Meanwhile, the Earl had again swooned 
 when his followers reached him, and his servants bore him, 
 senseless and weltering in blood, back to the Hermitage, where 
 the imprisoned bandits had meanwhile been able to effect 
 their liberty and to take possession of the Castle, so that it 
 was only after having promised to them, in Bothwell's name, 
 that their lives should be spared, and they themselves allowed 
 to go away, that the Earl could be brought in and have a 
 resting-place. This hand-to-hand fight alone in a wood speaks 
 volumes in favor of Bothwell's intrepidity and force. During 
 this time the Queen was staying in the neighborhood, having, 
 according to the royal Scottish custom of holding Assize- 
 
127 
 
 Courts throughout tlie country, just arrived for this purjiose 
 at Jedburgh, the chief town in Roxburghshire, near the foot 
 of the Cheviot Hills. Here she immediately got tidings of 
 the accident the Earl had met witli, and wften she afterwards 
 found an opportunity, on the 16th October, she rode at- 
 tended by her half-brother, the Earl of Murray, and some 
 other lords, notwithstanding the insecurity of the district, 
 the almost impassable roads, the bad weather and a fall on 
 the way over to the Hermitage, to visit the wounded Both- 
 well.* With him she passed a couple of hours, and imme- 
 diately rode back to Jedburgh, having thus accomplished 
 a distance of about fifty miles 4n one day. In spite of her 
 fatigue she spent a great part of the night writing to Both- 
 well, some say on business [very iinlikely!]; others, more 
 generous, from affection [much more probable] ; and the result 
 was a fever so severe that it nearly cost her life. Indeed 
 at one time she was given up for dead. 
 
 Schiern attributes this malady solely to the coiise- 
 
 *"The most celebrated antiquity of Liddlesdale is Hermitage 
 Castle, which consists of a tall, massive, gloomy-looking double tower, 
 protected by a ditch and strong rampart, and rising aloft from the centre 
 of an extensive waste, overlooking the limpid murmuring waters of the 
 Hermitage River, amid a scene of barrenness and desolation. This fort- 
 ress was one of the largest and strongest on the Border. * * * 
 When in the possession of the storied Earl of Bothwell * * * 
 it was visited by Queen Mary. In order to attain her purpose, she 
 penetrated the mountainous and almost trackless region which lies be- 
 tween Teviotdale and Liddlesdale, attended by only a few followers ; 
 returning on the same day to Jedburgh, whence she started, and per- 
 foi'ming a journey of upwards of forty -eight miles through all conceiv- 
 able varieties of difficulty and obstructions." "The Topographical, 
 Statistical and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland," 1856, Art. Castletown, 
 I, 318. 
 
128 
 
 qxiences of this foi-ced ride. This view is incorrect- All 
 mention is avoided by Mary's advocates that the night 
 after this exertion, which should have been devoted to 
 repose, was consumed in writing to Bothwell ; and the fever 
 ■was due much more to anxiety on liis account than to 
 purely physical exhaustion and exposure. When, subse- 
 quently, Darnley came to pay his duty to his wife, he was 
 promptly dismissed ; but, as soon as Bothwell had recovered 
 sufficiently to be transported to Mary's side, he was 
 affectionately welcomed and caressingly retained. 
 
 Among the versifications or sonnets found in the 
 "Silver Casket" already considered, is the following: 
 
 Pour luy aussi ie jette mainte larme, 
 
 Premier qu'il se fust de ce corps possesseur, 
 
 Duquel alors il n'avait pas le coeur ; 
 Puis me donna un autre dur alarme, 
 Quand il versa de son sang mainte dragme, 
 
 Dont de grief me vint lesser douleur 
 
 Qui m'en pensa oster la vie, et frayeur 
 De perdre, las ! le seul rempar qui m'arme. 
 
 Pour luy depuis j'ay mesprise I'honneur ; 
 Ce qui nous peult seul pourvoir de bonheur ; 
 
 Pour luy j'ay hazarde grandeur et conscience : 
 Pour luy tons mes parentz j'ay quite et amis ; 
 Et tons autres respetz sont apart mis ; 
 
 Brief de vous seul je cherche I'alliance. 
 
 Well may it have been urged, as adverted to by tlie 
 phlegmatic Danish professor, Schiern, that these lines can 
 refer only to the severe wounding of Bothwell bv John 
 Elliot "of the Park," on the Sth of October, ITitiB, in 
 which the former nearly bled to death, and the almost 
 
129 
 
 fatal fever of Mary which followed her visit to Bothwell's 
 bedside, "and that we tlms have [in] the sonnets attrib- 
 uted to her, a confession from herself that she had even 
 before that event, long ere Darnley's death, entirely given 
 herself up to Bothwell. ' ' 
 
 Men and women M^ho have passed through life without 
 experiencing any of the temptations the barriers of which 
 yield to the tenderest impulses of the human heart, have 
 reason for intense thanksgiving, that they have never been 
 exposed to them or fallen. Were there windows in the 
 bosom, strange revelations they would show that red snow 
 does not fall only within the polar circles. In other words, 
 many have experienced and succumbed, although they 
 rose again, whose secrets are concealed from human ob- 
 servation. On the other hand, the many more honest, 
 who will acknowledge the truth to themselves, can per- 
 fectly comprehend that a woman, a queen, above all human 
 law, who had been deceived, betrayed, outraged, and had 
 been brought up in circles within which principle was an 
 unknown quantity, would, when her affections were wholly 
 conquered by manliness and fidelity, take refuge in the 
 arms of the brave man whom she loved to the uttermost 
 and whom she believed loved her in the same degree, and 
 cling to him until Fate, remorseless, irresistible, and in- 
 evitable, absolutely wrenched her from his embrace. 
 
 This "Study" — to repeat and emphasize — can arrive 
 at no other conclusion than that Mary was attached to 
 9 
 
130 
 
 Botliwcll witli all the fierce force of her underlying exceed- 
 ingly passionate nature. Two barriers existed between 
 them. The time had now come when these had to be 
 breached or levelled. Of these, Darnley would naturally 
 be tlie first object of attack. The Qu^en was an outraged 
 wife and injured woman— both to the uttermost. Whether 
 she deliberately, in conjunction with Bothwell, planned 
 the death of her husband, cannot now be positively shown. •* 
 
 *" Much has been said and written about this horrid crime [Darn- 
 ley's murder] and the perpetrators of it ; and we therefore abstain, both 
 from necessity and from inability to go over the ground already occu- 
 pied by such men as Bishop Leslie, Buchanan, Hume, Robertson, 
 Goodall,Whittaker, Tytlerand Laing [and others of more recent date]. 
 We only offer a few very desultory remarks, more especially applicable 
 to the Earl of Moray. 
 
 " The question is, who committed, who were the actors in, or who 
 were accessories to, this execrable and atrocious regicide ? One party 
 has condemned Bothwell, and implicated Mary ; another party, how- 
 ever, has charged Moray, Maitland, Bothwell, Morton, and others, solely 
 with the villainy ; but Mr. Goodall has adopted the most ridiculous and 
 extravagant hypothesis of all, and has endeavored to prove that even 
 Bothwell was not the murderer. We are well aware that there are only 
 two views of the transaction. ' One of two things,' says the learned 
 Bayle, on this subject, 'must have been the case ; cither that they 
 who forced that princess [Mary] out of her kingdom were the great- 
 est villains in nature, or that she was the most infamous of women. 
 * * * whatever serves to load the Queen, extenuates their 
 crime in a like degree.' Nor are we ignorant of the illustrious men, 
 who, after a most laborious and patient investigation, have endeavored 
 to substantiate the charges brought against her, and which her subse. 
 qucnt connection with the profligate Bothwell has, in appearance, at 
 least, .sanctioned. Sir Robert Walpole observes, that ■ a /tha of xuch 
 length serves rather to confirm tlion to weaken the eridence for the 
 
13] 
 
 This " Study" has arrived at the conclusion tliat she did. 
 If she did, wonhl it have been an anomalous case ? Have 
 none such been made the subjects of trial again and again, 
 
 fact;' and, again, in another place, '/ have read the apologies for 
 Mary, but Mil must believe her guilty of her husband's death. So much 
 of the advocate, so many suppositions, appear in tliose long apologies 
 that they shew of themselves that plain truth can hardly be on that 
 side. Suppose her guilty, and all is easy ; there is no longer a laby- 
 rinth and a clue ; — all is in the highway of human affairs.' And Mr. 
 Hume has expressed himself with the most dogmatical decision, in the 
 following language : ' An English Whig, who asserts the reality of the 
 Popish plot ; an Irish Catholic, who denies the massacre of 1641 ; and a 
 Scotch Jacobite, who maintains the innocence of Queen Mary; must 
 be considered as men beyond the reach of argument or reason.' 
 
 "To be considered as 'beyond the reach of argument or reason,' 
 is not the most consolatory reflection. But, while we reject the ex- 
 travagant and absurd assertion of Whittaker, that ' if a story so au- 
 thenticated as the innocence of Mary is to be rejected, half of the his- 
 tory of mankind must be rejected with it," on this very principle, 
 because, to quote Sir Roger De Coverley's maxim, much may be said, 
 and has been said, on both sides ; nevertheless, it appears to us that 
 Mary has been unjustly treated in this lamentable catastrophe. For 
 ourselves, indeed, we candidly confess that we cannot divest our- 
 selves of the conviction that Mary was aware, or had been 
 made aware, that some plot was in contrivance to shorten the 
 life of her unhappy husband ; and it may be true, that, viewing 
 the report as visionary or unfounded, she did not take the 
 necessary steps to ensure its defeat. But, from the intimacy which 
 subsisted between Moray, Bothwell, Morton and Maitland, at this 
 juncture,— from a view of their conference at Craigmillar,— and from 
 the general conduct of those confederates,— we do believe that his 
 death was first compassed by them, without, perhaps, the actual, but 
 certainly with the tacit, sanction of Moray ; and it is a probable case 
 that, if Mary really did know it, as murder was held in those wretched 
 days no great crime,— as the king had provoked her by his brutal and 
 
132 
 
 even within the knowledge of the present generation ? And 
 have not wives and their paramours been convicted fre- 
 quently of equally successful guilt ? Still, give Mary the 
 
 imbecile conduct,— she might after all, have lieen prevailed on to be 
 passive in an affair which was sanctioned by the greatest and most 
 powerful of her nobles. But it remains to be proved [?] that Mary 
 did actually bring her husband from Glasgow to the Kirk of Field 
 for the express purpose of getting him murdered ; * * * 
 
 Morton knew of Bothwell's intention, yet he neither revealed or frus- 
 trated it, as he afterwards confessed on the scaffold ; Moray, it is 
 alleged, on departing for Saint Andrews to visit his lady who was 
 sick, was heard to exclaim, ' This night, before the morning. Lord 
 Darnley shall lose his life ; ' and, as it appears that this was still the 
 leaven of that conspiracy set on foot in 1565, at Perth * » » But 
 it must not be forgotten that Moray, Morton and Maitland were at 
 that time only secondary in their influence at court, and in their assist- 
 ance to the public administration. They cordially hated the king, 
 because he had often betrayed them, had disappointed their hopes, and 
 in truth had been the actual author of their several humiliations ; in 
 any other light he was too contemptible to be regarded by them with 
 fear or vengeance ; moreover, they could not lose by the murder of the 
 king, and therefore it was not to be expected that they would prevent 
 it, or avenge his cause. Their ambition had not the same incitement 
 as Bothwell's ; to him, in truth, the king's removal was everything, 
 though he was already in possession of a degree of power which Moray 
 and Morton were determined to overthrow * » * though 
 we think it is clear thai they knew of the murder, it is undeniable thai 
 they had no hand in it themselves. * * * He and his friends 
 
 were no doubt arming themselves with influence, that, wliile they were 
 preserving an appearance of intimacy with Bothwell, who had loni; 
 meditated the atrocious enterprise, they were working his [Bothwell's] 
 ruin and advancing themselves ; and it is like\vise true that they aided 
 tiie regicide in his future proceedings ;— that they insinuated into his 
 mind what he liad already adopted, the hopes of the Queen's person— 
 and that their influence was not wanting in that mock trial, which 
 
133 
 
 benefit of a slight doubt as to active complicity— either in 
 the preliminary preparations or in tlieir final fatal applica- 
 tion — can any one who reads the inside evidence of con- 
 temporaries rise from the examination of them— that is, 
 provided they study them without bias and without preju- 
 dice — without feeling assured that Mary was not ignorant 
 that a catastrophe was impending which would result in 
 accordance with her feelings? The annals of the French 
 Court, in which she had been brought up, teem with ex- 
 amples of atrocious murders, which only differ from that of 
 Darnley in that they were quietly consummated by means 
 of a dagger or a dose, instead of a barbarous and clumsily- 
 contrived explosion of gunpowder. Both well's blunder 
 lay in the means employed. It was an audacious disregard 
 of every propriety — even as they were then understood — 
 consistent with his fearless character, so glaring that it 
 amounted to an insult to the prejudices of a large portion 
 of the population. Greater crimes were, common in Scot- 
 land, but there was always a veil of condoning circum- 
 stance thrown over them with a sort of cynical deference 
 
 ended in the regicide's challenging any one [person] to single combat, 
 because he well knew no one could accept his challenge * * * 
 nay, it is almost impossible that Moray, associating with the principal 
 nobles, and intimate in particular with Morton and Lethington, knew 
 nothing at all of the murder until it was accomplished ; still these do 
 not make him the actual murderer, or even accessory to Bothwell's own 
 deed of villainy." " Life of the Celebrated Regent Moray." Edinburgh, 
 1838, pp. 255—260. 
 
i;34 
 
 to public opinion. The gunpowder Ijlurted out a terrible 
 secret, which, if it had been whispered in the ear, might 
 have been passed over as a thousand similar crimes were 
 treated in this century of blood and immorality. 
 
 The report which roused Edinburgh and shook it wide 
 awake scarcely seems to have affected Mary. Bothwell 
 brought her the first news that she was free. ' She at once 
 bestowed upon him the wardrobe, and even the favorite 
 horse which Darnley loved and ordinarily rode — and her- 
 self, i 
 
 Here again a reflection is opportune. 
 
 Mary's champions dwell vipon a supposititious deathbed 
 confession of Bothwell as to Mary's innocence as regards 
 complicity. Schiern, who is no apologist for Bothwell, 
 dismisses this as utterly improbable, and presents argu- 
 ments to establish his views. Leader (374-6), like^vise Bur- 
 ton (IV., 470-2), is equally against its credibility. What is 
 more, Prince Labanoff, Mary's latest, grandest, most enthu- 
 siastic champion (Y. 41, 399), is constrained to coincide. 
 
 The rubbish of the first barrier, heretofore alluded to — 
 Darnley' 8 corpse — was buried beside, or near, the Italian 
 musician, w^hose assassination was the remote or moving 
 cause of the second crime. Mary's bitter threat when she 
 learned that Eizzio — who received his first wound over her 
 own shoulder — had been slain with fifty-six ghastly stabs, 
 was ominously repeated, oi- at least alluded to, when she 
 quitted Darnley the night before he perished. 
 
135 
 
 Sir Walter Scott admits that, even as " Bothwell was in 
 high favor before Darnley's death," the "Queen continued 
 to treat Bothwell (after that catastrophe) as if he had been 
 acquitted in the most ample and honorable manner." 
 
 What is the next step in advance ? Mary, within ten 
 days, repairs to Seton Castle, and there is happy with 
 Bothwell. She suggests a trial to clear him of the charges 
 with which the night resounds. He is tried. He is ac- 
 quitted. A confederation of nobles recommend him to 
 Mary as the fittest man to share her bed and throne. If 
 she had not previously suggested this course, she ratified 
 it at once. 
 
 The removal of the second obstacle to this consumma- 
 tion requires the commission of no crime which human law 
 can arraign. 
 
 Bothwell' s wife commences a suit for divorce before the 
 proper Koman Catholic court, and Bothwell, himself, an- 
 other, before a similar tribunal of the Reformed Church. 
 The fii-st was decided favorably on the 3d of May ; the 
 second on the Yth. Mary, who had been freed by Both- 
 well' s audacity, now foimd Bothwell free by hmnan cas- 
 uistry. 
 
 Mary rides to Stirling, 21st April, to see her child, 
 afterwards King James. Eeturning, at Almond, Foul, 
 or Fountain, Bridge, without the then existing walls of 
 Edinburgh, she and her escort, on the 24th, were met by 
 Bothwell with a large body of armed retainers. Mary's par- 
 
130 
 
 tisans shout "rape" or " ravislmieiit, " for Both well carries 
 her oif with him to Dunbar. Mary, brave as a lioness, 
 utters no complaint at this apparent outrage; submits 
 quietly, counsels non-resistance, and allows herself to be 
 led away by her audacious lover. ' ' Brutal Both well ! ' ' shout 
 her partisans. Burton, with a lew sentences — a single 
 paragraph — again brushes away their specious arguments. 
 She expected Bothwell ! As one of her sex once remarked 
 in a similar case, ' ' If restrained by honor, I did not expect 
 you ; but, if impelled by love, I knew you would be here." 
 Oh ! inscrutable heart of woman, when, where, did you 
 ever admire your lover if the impvdse of honor proved 
 more potent than the imperial promptings of his affection ? 
 Here comes in, most appositely, the following paragraph 
 from Sir Walter Scott's History of Scotland (II., 121). The 
 acute David Hume, being told of a new work which had 
 appeared, in which the author made a well-argued defence 
 of Queen Mary: "Has he shown," said the historian, 
 " that the Queen did not marry Bothwell ? " He was an- 
 swered, of course, in the negative. "Then," replied 
 Hume, " in admitting that fact he resigns the whole ques- 
 tion." 
 
 Mary was a bigoted Roman Catholic — bigoted in the 
 ultra sense of the expression. What alone in the world 
 can trample down the ramparts of religious bigotry 'I Love ! 
 Notliing else? Nothing! lieligion, as a rule, never pre- 
 vents a woman from obeying her art'ections. Mary con- 
 
137 
 
 sents to be married according to the rites of the Church 
 she was ever ready and willing to persecute ; and during 
 her brief honeymoon with Bothwell his ascendancy 
 triumphs over her religious opinions. Whether or not 
 she was married according to the rites of her own religion 
 is slightly susceptible of doubt. History says she was, 
 but the ceremony was very unostentatious. She was 
 publicly married according to the form of Both well's 
 creed by Adam Bothwell, who had been Roman Catholic 
 Bishop of Orkney, and was a convert to the ' ' Reformed 
 doctrines." Mary's Roman Catholic adherents were driven 
 away from her side by this Protestant marriage, and 
 by her acknowledgment, under the paramount influence 
 of love for Bothwell, of the "Reformed Church." 
 
 Attempts have been made to prove that she was un- 
 happy with Bothwell after she became his wife. That he 
 was a jealous and therefore an exacting husband is very 
 likely. Strong minds feel strongly. Mary was equally 
 jealous of the divorced wife. Solomon, in the ' ' Song of 
 Songs," uses language on this subject which can neither 
 be added to nor improved. (Chap. VIII., 6-7.) 
 
 '■'■Little do I reek^'''' she was heard to exclaim, '■'■the 
 Zoss/b/" A*m [Bothwell] of ^r mice, Scotland and England. 
 Rather than give him tip I would follow him to the end 
 of the earth, v^ere it but in a v;hite under-shirt.''' Could 
 any woman declare her absorbing love and perfect fidelity 
 in more unmistakeable language. 
 
188 
 
 Bothwell knew that Mary was a coniirmod and, in some 
 respects, conscienceless co(iuette, Init liis fierce manhood 
 could not tolerate this, once he became master of the situa- 
 tion and of her person. '^^ To attempt to demonstrate that 
 
 * It is not worth the while to combat the charge that Bothwel) was jealous of Mary. 
 He may have been justly so. His experience of her gave him reason to feel thus. But, 
 is there any high degree of love without jealousy? Mary, on her part, however, was 
 even more anxious to deprecate his suspicions, and the following lines C'Sonne^")^ found 
 with her letters and her contracts of marriage in the " Silver Casket," testify how she 
 humbled herself to appease his distrust, and grovelled, queen as she was. at the feet of the 
 lover she positively adored : 
 
 " Et vous doutez de ma ferme Constance. 
 O mon sent bien et ma seuie esperance 
 Et ne vous puis asseurer de ma foy, 
 Vous m'estimez 16gere que je voy, 
 Et si n'avez en moi nulle asseurance, 
 Et soupijonnez mon coL'ur sans apparence 
 Vous defiant a trop grand tort de moy. 
 Vous ignorez Vajnour guc je vous porte^ 
 Vous soupt^onnez qu" autre avtour nte transporter 
 Vous estimez mes paroles de vent, 
 Vous depeignez de cire, mon, las, cceur, 
 Vous me pensez femme sans jugement, 
 Et tout cela augmenth mon ardeur." 
 
 Could language go further to demonstrate the excess of the passion with which Mar>' 
 gave herself up to the Earl! 
 
 Moreover, and directly to the point, she wrote to the French Court that " among her 
 Scotch nobility she had not found one who could enter into a comparison with the Earl of 
 Bothwell either in the elevation {'''' reputatioiC^) of his house or lineage, his own personal 
 merits, his wisdom, his valor, and that she had yielded with the utmost willingness to the 
 desire of the " Three Estates" in espousing him." This is as grand and sufficient as a more 
 recent letter of a noble lady to her knight under somewhat similar circumstances : " Of late 
 you have filled me with so much confidence that I venture to give you some of my thoughts. 
 My heart is overflowing with love. First I admire you for your brains, I think you have a 
 brilliant mind. Secondly, you are a gentle gentleman and know how to please and treat a 
 lady. Thirdly, you are a person one could lean on and feel secure. But, above all, you have 
 much good in you ; I believe you love me and that you are true to me." Here we have 
 almost identically the same sentiment that Mary expressed in her portraiture of Bothwell. 
 Tf History often repeats itself. Love inevitably does. 
 
 Nor docs even John Hosack, Marj-'s advocate (t. 155), fall short of this testimony. 
 " Bothwell was the only one of the great nobles of Scotland who from first to last had 
 remained faithful both to her [Mary's] mother and herself. ♦ * Whatever may 
 have been his follies or his crimes, «<? 7nan could say that Jatnes Hepburn was eithrr a 
 hypocrite or a traitor. Though staunch to the religion which he professed, he never 
 >itadc it the cloak for his ambition : though driven into exile and reduced to extreme 
 poverty by the malice of his enemies, he nezu-r^ so far as we know, accepted 0/ a forei^i 
 bribe, [All the others were for sale or bought,] In an age when political fidelity was the 
 rarest of virtues, we need not be surprised that his sovereign at this linic trusted and 
 
Mary regretted the step she had taken, or that she had 
 ceased to love Bothwell, or that the tide of her love had 
 known the slightest ehh, is effectually disposed of by a 
 single fact. The Confederated Lords, a "healthy crowd" 
 — traitors to their country, to their queen, and to each other, 
 as the passions or interests of the moment moved them to 
 be — about as big a set of rascals as ever made an associate 
 and better man their catspaw, and then sacrificed him — who 
 had recommended her marriage, and entered into a bond 
 to abet and protect it (Chalmers I., 159), now that it was 
 coDsimimated, banded together against the very husband 
 of their selection. They summoned their retainers, and 
 as there was no standing army in Scotland to protect the 
 royal pair, the latter abandoned Edinburgh and took refuge 
 in Borthwick Castle — untenable against artillery. There 
 they were " surprised while banqueting ' ' together, and 
 surrounded by a strong force, eight himdred to a thousand 
 horse, under the Earl of Morton and Lord Home (or 
 Hume), with the avowed purpose of delivering Mary from 
 what they undertook to show was a compulsory bond. If 
 the Queen was not bound to her husband by the ties of 
 undoubted affection — which her partisans undertake to 
 gliow — all she had to do was to order the gates to be 
 thrown open ; because Bothwell had made his escape, dis- 
 
 rewarded him * * although the common people admired his liberality and courage 
 (his "characteristic daring," i. 158) Bothwell among his brother nobles had no friends." 
 Why ? They envied his gifts, and they envied his influence with the Queen. 
 Need anv man ask a higher eulogv than this? 
 
140 
 
 guised as a Presbyterian clergyman, by a secret passage. 
 What did she do? Welcome lier deliverers? No! She 
 tlung out to the night wind and to the rebels bitter words, 
 and fiercer taunts, which she never would have done had she 
 recognized those without as friends : and then, disguised 
 as a page, in male apparel, booted and spurred, by night, 
 she threw herself into a man's saddle and galloped off. 
 Where ? Into the ranks of those who claimed to be her 
 friends? Again, no! Into the arms of Bothwell. Why? 
 Becaiise he was the unique love of her life, and she cast in 
 her lot with him. 
 
 The sophistries of those who undertake to explain, 
 and excuse and palliate what she did before and after the 
 death of Darnley are swept away by such an incident as a 
 slight fog is broomed away by a sudden gust of wind. 
 With Bothwell, Mary took refuge in Dunbar. If discretion 
 had rilled their counsels the royal pair would have tri- 
 umphed. With little delay the ' ' Band ' ' of the Confederated 
 Lords would have dissolved like a rope of sand. Bothwell's 
 audacity led him to make a sortie, and the opposing forces 
 confronted each other at Carberry Hill. Hoping to save 
 him — solely to save him — in view of the base desertion of 
 her little army, Mary consented to surrender herself to her 
 opponents — who professed dutious loyalty to her — if her 
 lover M^as allowed to withdraw in safety. Mary and her 
 husband parted like fond lovers, with many kisses, with 
 anguish and mutual protestations of fidelity. 
 
141 
 
 Bothwell wrenched liiiuself away and left the field 
 and coimtry. 
 
 Mary, in violation of the most solemn compact, was led 
 away to a dungeon. 
 
 Both were blasted in reputation. 
 
 The unhappy Bothwell, falsely branded as a pirate, was 
 driven by the elements, rather than by men, into a port of 
 Norway. Trepanned there, and made a prisoner of State, 
 he paid for his brief dream of happiness and love by an 
 imprisonment, at first honorable, and gradually more or 
 less severe, in diiferent castles and dungeons. For ten 
 years he continued a captive, the victim of a State policy 
 subservient to the wishes of the various Scottish adminis- 
 trations during that period. The Danish king, Frederic 
 II., at first treated him well and courteously, and for a 
 long time protected him, expecting that Mary would be 
 restored to her throne and the Earl recalled to her side. 
 (Bothwell died 14th April, 1575. Schiern, 385.) 
 
 That he died insane is one of the errors propagated 
 by enemies, among these the Buchanans; Thomas, the 
 Scottish representative in Denmark, and George, the 
 scurrilous pretender to be an honest historian. (Schiern, 
 387, 389.) 
 
 Mary, refusing to consent to a divorce from Bothwell, 
 by whom, according to the English ambassador Throck- 
 morton, and the French representative, the iipright Cas- 
 telnau de Mauvissiere, "so good and honest a man," she 
 
142 
 
 said she was with child, after a year's detention in Loch- 
 loven escaped, had a short taste of freedoiri, was defeated at 
 Langside ; fled into England, and on her part expiated the 
 mistake at Carberry Hill by an imprisonment of nineteen 
 years. The axe of the headsman terminated lier struggles 
 and sufferings at Fotheringay Castle in 1587. 
 
 Her son by Darnley, James VI. of Scotland — became 
 James I. of England — who would not raise his voice or 
 hand to save his mother, sought out and destroyed every 
 evidence of her complicity in the murder of her husband, 
 Darnley, and razed the edifice in which she perished, in 
 deference to the opinion of posterity, whereas he had not 
 shown the slightest sense of shame for the sentiments 
 of contemporaries. 
 
 The unique love of Mary, Queen of Scots, was James 
 Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. Her previous husbands did 
 not possess the parts to retain the affections of such a 
 woman. Bothwell was a man, and as such she loved 
 him. 
 
 There is no passage in history which should enlist the 
 sympathy of men or women susceptible of real aifection, 
 more than this bright, short, sad episode, the brief honey- 
 moon of these two unfortunates. Both were the victims 
 of their passions, but the great cause of their unhappiness 
 was their undeniable, fierce love for each other. \ 
 
 It is very clear that the associated Lords first impelled 
 Bothwell to marriage to ruin the Queen and his influence, 
 
 /^ 
 
 \ 
 
143 
 
 and then assailed the Queen to dispose of Bothwell forever. 
 Their action was devilish in its inception and doiibly so in 
 its execution. Mary was ardently in love with Bothwell, 
 and he was devotedly in love with her. Both were sacri- 
 ficed by Satanic Scottish cnnning and wickedness. The 
 real beginning of Mary's misfortunes took its fatal spring 
 in her intense abiding love for Bothwell. The remote 
 alighting of the leap was his death in a foreign, inhuman 
 dungeon ; hers on the block. The union of Mary and 
 Bothwell was the finest love episode of Mary's unhappy 
 life. This was her real love, short and sweet, the honey- 
 moon or halcyon season of her life. 
 
 The Queen was tired of boys like Francis or unbearded 
 youths like Darnley, or swordsmen, poets, or musicians, 
 who could turn or sing a stave, not handle one pointed 
 and braced and shod with steel ; and she sought a man to 
 counsel her with words of practiced wisdom, to buttress 
 her with constant stalwart mind, to guide her with astute, 
 audacious, adamantine will, to set her battle in array and 
 fight it too. All this she sought, and found in James 
 Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. He was the only man she 
 ever loved; he was the only man she loved who was 
 worthy of the love— criminal in whatever degree it was— 
 that she gave so grandly, greatly to him. 
 
 According to Swinburne the unique, honest, absorbing 
 love of her life was Bothwell, and he— like so many 
 others— expiated his devotion to her, as all her admirers 
 
144 
 
 did, by a miserable end, and she lier passion for liini 
 by twenty years of vitter wretchedness. Fate willed it 
 to be so. Bothwell's audacity withered in the light of 
 Mary's preference, so that he added his own marked man- 
 hood to the terrible list of martyrs to the annihilating 
 preference of Mary Stuart. 
 
 Better had he realized, at Carberry Hill, the words 
 which Swinburne' places in the mouth of a far, far lesser 
 man, when Mary asked, 
 
 " Douglas, I have not won a word of you ; 
 What would you do to have me tarry ? " 
 "DIE!" 
 
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