In the meantime, Mary had sent an ambassador into England to demand a safe conduct for her approaching voyage. This was expressly refused; and Throckmorton was again ordered to request an audience with Mary, to explain the motives of this refusal. “In this conference,” observes Robertson, “Mary exerted all that dignity and vigour of mind of which she was so capable, and at no period of her life, were her abilities displayed to greater advantage.” Throckmorton had recourse to the endless subject of the treaty of 1560, or, as it is more commonly called, the treaty of Edinburgh, as the apology his mistress offered for having, with studied disrespect, denied the suit made by Mary’s ambassador, in the presence of a numerous audience, – a direct breach of courtly etiquette. Mary, before answering Throckmorton, commanded all her attendants to retire, and then said, – “I like not to have so many witnesses of my passions as the Queen, your mistress, was content to have, when she talked with M. D’Oysel. There is nothing that doth more grieve me, than that I did so forget myself, as to require of the Queen, your mistress, that favour, which I had no need to ask. I may pass well enough home into my own realm, I think, without her passport or license; for, though the late king, your master, used all the impeachment he could, both to stay me and catch me, when I came hither, yet you know, M. l’Ambassadeur, I came hither safely, and I may have as good means to help me home again, if I could employ my friends.” “It seemeth,” she added, with much truth, “that the Queen, your mistress, maketh more account of the amity of my disobedient subjects, than she doth of me, their sovereign, who am her equal in degree, though inferior in wisdom and experience, her nighest kinswoman, and her next neighbour.” She then proceeded very forcibly to state, once more, her reasons for refusing to ratify the treaty. It had been made, she said, during the life of Francis II., who, as her lord and husband, was more responsible for it than she. Upon his death, she ceased to look for advice to the council of France, neither her uncles nor her own subjects, nor Elizabeth herself, thinking it meet, that she should be guided by any council but that of Scotland. There were none of her ministers with her; the matter was important; it touched both them and her; and she, therefore, considered it her duty to wait, till she should get the opinions of the wisest of them. As soon as she did, she undertook to send Elizabeth whatever answer might appear to be reasonable. “The Queen, your mistress,” observed Mary, “saith that I am young; she might say that I were as foolish as young, if I would, in the state and country that I am in, proceed to such a matter, of myself, without any counsel; for that which was done by the King, my late lord and husband, must not be taken to be my act; and yet I will say, truly, unto ye, and as God favours me, I did never mean otherwise, unto the Queen, your mistress, than becometh me to my good sister and cousin, nor meant her any more harm than to myself. God forgive them that have otherwise persuaded her, if there be any such.”
It may seem strange, that as the sixth article was the only one in the whole treaty of Edinburgh, which occasioned any disagreement, it was not proposed to make some alteration in it, which might have rendered it satisfactory to all parties. Mary would have had no objection to have given up all claim upon the Crown of England, during the lifetime of Elizabeth, and in favour of children born by her in lawful wedlock, – if, failing these children, her own right was acknowledged. There could have been little difficulty, one would have thought, in expressing the objectionable article accordingly. But this amendment would not by any means have suited the views of Elizabeth.31 To have acknowledged Mary’s right of succession would have been at once to have pointed out to all the Catholics of Europe, the person to whom they were to pay their court, on account not only of her present influence, but of the much greater which awaited her. Besides, it might have had the appearance of leaving it doubtful, whether Elizabeth’s possession of the throne was not conceded to her, more as a favour than as a right. This extreme jealousy on the part of the English Queen, originated in Mary having imprudently allowed herself to be persuaded to bear the arms of England, diversely quartered with her own, at the time Elizabeth was first called to the crown. At the interview we have been describing, Throckmorton, being silenced with regard to the ratification of the treaty, thought he might with propriety advert to this other subject of complaint.
“I refer it to your own judgment, Madam,” said he, “if any thing can be more prejudicial to a prince, than to usurp the title and interest belonging to him.” Mary’s answer deserves particular attention. “M. L’Ambassadeur,” said she, “I was then under the commandment of King Henry my father, and of the king my lord and husband; and whatsoever was then done by their order and commandments, the same was in like manner continued until both their deaths; since which time, you know I neither bore the arms, or used the title of England. Methinks,” she added, “these my doings might ascertain the queen your mistress, that that which was done before, was done by commandment of them that had power over me; and also, in reason, she ought to be satisfied, seeing I (now) order my doings, as I tell ye.” With this answer Throckmorton took his leave.32
Seeing that matters could not be more amicably adjusted, Mary prepared to return home, independent of Elizabeth’s permission. Yet it was not without many a bitter regret that she thought of leaving all the fascinations of her adopted country, France. When left alone, she was frequently found in tears; and it is more than probable, that, as Miss Benger has expressed it, “there were moments when Mary recoiled with indescribable horror from the idea of living in Scotland – where her religion was insulted, and her sex contemned; where her mother had languished in misery, and her father sunk into an untimely grave.” At last, however, the period arrived when it was necessary for her to bid a final adieu to the scenes and friends of her youth. She had delayed from month to month, as if conscious that, in leaving France, she was about to part with happiness. She had originally proposed going so early as the spring of 1561, but it was late in July before she left Paris; and as she lingered on the way, first at St Germains, and afterwards at Calais, August was well advanced before she set sail. The spring of this year, says Brantome poetically, was so backward, that it appeared as if it would never put on its robe of flowers; and thus gave an opportunity to the gallants of the Court to assert, that it wore so doleful a garb to testify its sorrow for the intended departure of Mary Stuart.33 She was accompanied as far as St Germains by Catharine de Medicis, and nearly all the French Court. Her six uncles, Anne of Este, and many other ladies and gentlemen of distinction, proceeded on with her to Calais. The historians Castelnau and Brantome were both of the Queen’s retinue, and accompanied her to Scotland. At Calais she found four vessels, one of which was fitted up for herself and friends, and a second for her escort; the two others were for the furniture she took with her.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, was not inattentive to the proceedings of the Scottish Queen. Through the agency of her minister, Cecil, she had been anxiously endeavouring to discover whether she would render herself particularly obnoxious either to Catharine de Medicis, or the leading men in Scotland, by making herself mistress of Mary’s person on her passage homewards, and carrying her a prisoner into England. Her ambassador, Throckmorton, had given her good reason to believe that Catharine was not disposed to be particularly warm in Mary’s defence.34 As to Scotch interference, Camden expressly informs us, that the Lord James, when he passed through England on his return from France, warned Elizabeth of Mary’s intended movements, and advised that she should be intercepted. This assertion, though its truth has been doubted, is rendered exceedingly probable by the contents of two letters, which have been preserved. The first is from Throckmorton, who assures Elizabeth that the Lord James deserves her most particular esteem; – “Your Majesty,” he says, “may, in my opinion, make good account of his constancy towards you; and so he deserveth to be well entertained and made of by your Majesty, as one that may stand ye in no small stead for the advancement of your Majesty’s desire. Since his being here (in France), he hath dealt so frankly and liberally with me, that I must believe he will so continue after his return home.”35 The other letter is from Maitland of Lethington, one of the ablest men among the Scotch Reformers, and the personal friend and co-adjutor of the Lord James, to Sir William Cecil. In this letter he says; – “I do also allow your opinion anent the Queen our Sovereign’s journey towards Scotland, whose coming hither, if she be enemy to the religion, and so affected towards that realm as she yet appeareth, shall not fail to raise wonderful tragedies.” He then proceeds to point out, that, as Elizabeth’s object, for her own sake, must be to prevent the Catholics from gaining ground in Scotland, her best means of obtaining such an object, is to prevent a Queen from returning into the kingdom, who “shall so easily win to her party the whole Papists, and so many Protestants as be either addicted to the French faction, covetous, inconstant, uneasy, ignorant, or careless.” – “So long as her Highness is absent,” he adds, “in this case there is no peril; but you may judge what the presence of a prince being craftily counselled is able to bring to pass.” “For my opinion,” he concludes, “anent the continuance of amity betwixt these two realms, there is no danger of breach so long as the Queen is absent; but her presence may alter many things.”36
To make assurance doubly sure, Cecil desired Randolph, the English resident in Scotland, to feel the pulse of the nobility. On the 9th of August 1561, only a few days before Mary sailed from France, Randolph wrote from Edinburgh an epistle to Cecil, in which he assures him that it will be a “stout adventure for a sick crazed woman,” (a singular mode of designating Mary), to venture home to a country so little disposed to receive her. “I have shewn your Honour’s letters,” he says, “unto the Lord James, Lord Morton, Lord Lethington; they wish, as your Honour doth, that she might be stayed yet for a space; and if it were not for their obedience sake, some of them care not tho’ they never saw her face.” – And again – “Whatsomever cometh of this, he (Lethington), findeth it ever best that she come not.” Knox also, it seems, had been written to, and had expressed his resolution to resist to the last Mary’s authority. “By such letters as ye have last received,” says Randolph, “your Honour somewhat understandeth of Mr Knox himself, and also of others, what is determined, – he himself to abide the uttermost, and others never to leave him, until God hath taken his life.” – “His daily prayer is, for the maintenance of unity with England, and that God will never suffer men to be so ungrate as by any persuasion to run headlong unto the destruction of them that have saved their lives, and restored their country to liberty.”37
Elizabeth having thus felt her way, and being satisfied that she might with safety pursue her own inclinations, was determined not to rest contented with the mere refusal of passports. Throckmorton was ordered to ascertain exactly when and how Mary intended sailing. The Scottish Queen became aware of his drift, from some questions he put to her, and said to him cuttingly, – “I trust the wind will be so favourable, as I shall not need to come on the coast of England; and if I do, then M. l’Ambassadeur, the Queen, your mistress, shall have me in her hands to do her will of me; and if she be so hard-hearted as to desire my end, she may then do her pleasure, and make sacrifice of me. Peradventure, that casualty might be better for me than to live.” Throckmorton, however, made good his point, and was able to inform Elizabeth that Mary would sail either from Havre-de-Grace or Calais, and that she would first proceed along the coast of Flanders, and then strike over to Scotland. For the greater certainty, he suggested the propriety of some spies being sent across to the French coast, who would give the earliest intelligence of her movements. Profiting by this and other information, all the best historians of the time agree in stating, that Elizabeth sent a squadron to sea with all expedition. It was only a thick and unexpected fog which prevented these vessels from falling in with that in which Mary sailed. The smaller craft which carried her furniture, they did meet with, and, believing them to be the prize they were in search of, they boarded and examined them. One ship they detained, in which was the Earl of Eglinton, and some of Mary’s horses and mules, and, under the pretence of suspecting it of piracy, actually carried it into an English harbour. The affectation of “clearing the seas from pirates,” as Cecil expresses it, was a mere after-thought, invented to do away with the suspicion which attached itself to this unsuccessful attempt. Its real purpose was openly talked of at the time. Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper, in a speech he made at a meeting of the Privy Council in 1562, said frankly, – “Think ye that the Scottish Queen’s suit, made in all friendly manner, to come through England at the time she left France, and the denial thereof, unless the treaty were ratified, is by them forgotten, or else your sending of your ships to sea at the time of her passage?” Camden, Holinshed, Spottiswoode, Stranguage, and Buchanan, all speak to the same effect; and Elizabeth’s intentions, though frustrated, hardly admit of a doubt.38
On the 25th of August 1561, Mary sailed out of the harbour of Calais, – not without shedding, and seeing shed many tears. She did not, however, part with all the friends who had accompanied her to the coast. Three of her uncles, – the Duke d’Aumale, the Marquis D’Elbeuf, and the Grand Prior, – the Duke Danville, son to Montmorency, and afterwards Constable of France, one of the most ardent and sincere admirers that Mary perhaps ever had, – and many other persons of rank, among whom was the unfortunate poet Chatelard, who fluttered like a moth round the light in which he was to be consumed, – sailed with her for Scotland. Just as she left the harbour, an unfortunate accident happened to a vessel, which, by unskilful management, struck upon the bar, and was wrecked within a very short distance of her own galley. “This is a sad omen,” she exclaimed, weeping. A gentle breeze sprang up; the sails were set, and the little squadron got under way, consisting, as has been said, of only four vessels, for Mary dreaded lest her subjects should suppose that she was coming home with any military force. The feelings of “la Reine Blanche,” as the French termed her, from the white mourning she wore for Francis, were at all times exceedingly acute. On the present occasion, her grief amounted almost to despair. As long as the light of day continued, she stood immoveable on the vessel’s deck, gazing with tearful eyes upon the French coast, and exclaiming incessantly, – “Farewell, France! farewell, my beloved country!” When night approached, and her friends beseeched her to retire to the cabin, she hid her face in her hands, and sobbed aloud. “The darkness which is now brooding over France,” said she, “is like the darkness in my own heart.” A little afterwards, she added, – “I am unlike the Carthaginian Dido, for she looked perpetually on the sea, when Æneas departed, whilst all my regards are for the land.” Having caused a bed to be made for her on deck, she wept herself asleep, previously enjoining her attendants to waken her at the first peep of day, if the French coast was still visible. Her wishes were gratified; for during the night the wind died away, and the vessel made little progress. Mary rose with the dawn, and feasted her eyes once more with a sight of France. At sunrise, however, the breeze returned, and the galley beginning to make way, the land rapidly receded in the distance. Again her tears burst forth, and again she exclaimed, – “Farewell, beloved France! I shall never, never, see you more.” In the depth of her sorrow, she even wished that the English fleet, which she conjectured had been sent out to intercept her, would make its appearance, and render it necessary for her to seek for safety, by returning to the port from whence she had sailed. But no interruption of this kind occurred.39
It is more than likely, that it was during this voyage Mary composed the elegant and simple little song, so expressive of her genuine feelings on leaving France. Though familiarly known to every reader, we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of inserting it here.
Adieu, plaisant pays de France!
O my patrie,
La plus cherie;
Qui a nourri ma jeune enfance.
Adieu, France! adieu, mes beaux jours!
La nef qui déjoint mes amours,
N’à cy de moi que la moitié;
Une parte te reste; elle est tienne;
Je la fie à ton amitié,
Pour que de l’autre il te souvienne!40
Brantome, who sailed in the same vessel with Mary, and gives a particular account of all the events of this voyage, mentions, that the day before entering the Frith of Forth, so thick a mist came on, that it was impossible to see from the poop to the prow. By way of precaution, lest they should run foul of any other vessel, a lantern was lighted, and set at the bow. This gave Chatelard occasion to remark, that it was taking a very unnecessary piece of trouble, so long at least as Mary Stuart remained upon deck, and kept her eyes open. When the mist, at length, cleared away, they found their vessel in the midst of rocks, from which it required much skill and no little labour to get her clear. Mary declared, that so far as regarded her own feelings, she would not have looked upon shipwreck as a great calamity; but that she would not wish to see the lives of the friends who were with her endangered (among whom not the least dear were her four Maries), for all the kingdom of Scotland. She added, that as a bad omen had attended her departure so this thick fog seemed to be but an evil augury at her arrival. At length, the harbour of Leith appeared in sight, and Mary’s eye rested, for the first time, upon Arthur Seat and the Castle of Edinburgh.
CHAPTER VII.
MARY’S ARRIVAL AT HOLYROOD, WITH SKETCHES OF HER PRINCIPAL NOBILITY
Mary landed in Scotland with a mind full of anxiety and uncertainty. She came alone and unprotected, to assume the government of a country which had long been distinguished for its rebellious turbulence. The masculine spirit of her father had quailed before the storm. Her mother, whose intellectual energy she well knew, had in vain attempted to bring order out of confusion, and harassed and worn out, had at length surrendered her life in the struggle. For the last two years, it is true, the country had enjoyed, not peace and tranquillity, but a cessation from an actual state of warfare. Nevertheless, the seeds of discontent, and of mutual distrust and hatred, were as abundant as ever. Mary’s religion was well known; and her confirmed devotion to it, was by one party magnified into bigotry, and pronounced criminal; whilst by another, it was feared she would show herself too lukewarm in revenging the insults which the ancient worship had sustained. Such being the state of things, how could a young, and comparatively inexperienced queen, just nineteen years of age, approach her kingdom otherwise than with fear and trembling?
Contrasted too with her former situation, that which she was now about to fill, appeared particularly formidable. In France, even during the life of her husband, and while at the very height of her power, few of the severer duties of government rested upon her. She had all the essential authority, without much of the responsibility of a sovereign. Francis consulted her upon every occasion, and followed her advice in almost every matter in which she chose to interfere; but it was to him, or her uncles of Guise, that the nation looked, when any of the state-machinery went wrong. It would be very different in Scotland. By whatever counsel she acted, the blame of all unpopular measures would be sure to rest with her. If she favoured the Protestants, the Catholics would renounce her; if she assisted the Catholics, the Protestants would again be found assembling at Perth, listening, with arms in their hands, to the sermons of John Knox, pulling down the remaining monasteries, and subscribing additional covenants. Is it surprising then, that she found it difficult to steer her course between the rocks of Scylla and the whirlpools of Charybdis? If misfortunes ultimately overtook her, the wonder unquestionably ought to be, not that they ever arrived, but that they should have been guarded against so long. Nothing but the wisest and most temperate policy, could have preserved quietness in a country so full of the elements of internal discord. Mary’s system of government throughout all its ramifications, must have been such as no Queen of her age could have established, had there not been more than an empty compliment, in those lines of Buchanan, in which he addresses his Royal mistress as one
“Quae sortem antevenis meritis, virtutibus annos,
Sexum animis, morum nobilitate genus.”
There is, besides, a natural feeling of loyalty, which, though it may be evanescent, hardly fails to be kindled in the breasts of the populace, at the sight of their native sovereign. The Scots, though they frequently were far from being contented with the measures pursued by their monarchs, have been always celebrated for their attachment to their persons. Mary, on her first landing, became aware of this truth. As soon as it was known that she intended returning from all the splendours of France, to the more homely comforts of the land of her birth, the people, flattered by the preference she was about to show them, abated somewhat of their previous asperity. They were the more pleased, that she came to them, not as the Queen of France, who might have regarded Scotland as only a province of her empire, but as their own exclusive and independent sovereign. They recollected that she had been at the disposal of the Estates of the country, from the time she was seven days old, and they almost felt as if she had been a child of their own rearing. They knew, also, that she had made a narrow escape in crossing the seas; and the confidence she evidently placed in them, by casting anchor in Leith Roads, with only two galleys, did not pass unnoticed. But she had arrived sooner than was expected; for, so little were they aware of her intended motions, that when her two ships were first observed in the Frith, from the Castle of Edinburgh, no suspicion was entertained that they carried the Queen and her suite. It was not, till a royal salute was fired in the Roads, that her arrival was positively known, and that the people began to flock in crowds to the shore.
On the 20th or 21st of August, 1561, the Queen landed at Leith. Here she was obliged to remain the whole day, as the preparations for her reception at Holyroodhouse were not completed. The multitude continued in the interval to collect at Leith, and on the roads leading to the Palace. On the road between Leith and Restalrig, and from thence to the Abbey, the different trades and corporations of Edinburgh were drawn up in order, lining the way with their banners and bands of music. Towards evening, horses were brought for the Queen and her attendants. When Mary saw them, accustomed as she had been to the noble and richly caparisoned steeds of the Parisian tournaments, she was struck both with the inferiority of their breed, and the poorness of their furnishings. She sighed, and could not help remarking the difference to some of her friends. “But they mean well,” said she, “and we must be content.” As she passed along, she was every where greeted with enthusiastic shouts of applause – the involuntary homage which the beauty of her countenance, the elegance of her person, and the graceful dignity of her bearing, could not fail to draw forth. Bonfires were lighted in all directions; and though illuminations were then but indifferently understood in Scotland, something of the kind seems to have been attempted. On her arrival at the Palace, all the musicians of Edinburgh collected below her windows, and in strains of most discordant music continued all night to testify their joy for her return. Some of the more rigid Reformers, willing to yield in their own way to the general feeling, assembled together in a knot, and sung psalms in her honour. Among the musical instruments, the bagpipes were preeminently distinguished, which, not exactly suiting the uncultivated taste of Brantome, he pathetically exclaims, “He! quelle musique! et quel repos pour sa nuit!”41
It is worth while remarking here, how Knox, in his History of the Reformation, betrays his chagrin at the affectionate manner in which Mary was received. “The very face of the heavens, at the time of her arrival,” he says, “did manifestly speak what comfort was brought into this country with her, by sorrow, dolor, darkness, and all impiety; for in the memory of man that day of the year was never seen a more dolorous face of the heavens, than was at her arrival, which two days after did so continue; for, besides the surface wet, and the corruption of the air, the mist was so thick and dark, that scarce could any man espy another the length of two pair of butts. The sun was not seen to shine two days before, nor two days after. That forewarning gave God to us, but alas! the most part were blind.”42 Knox proceeds to reprobate, in the severest terms, the unhallowed amusements which Mary permitted at Holyroodhouse. “So soon as ever her French fillocks, fiddlers, and others of that band, got the house alone, there might be seen skipping not very comely for honest women. Her common talk was, in secret, that she saw nothing in Scotland but gravity, which was altogether repugnant to her nature, for she was brought up in joyeusitye.” If Knox really believed in the omens he talks of, or thought the less of a young and beautiful woman for indulging in innocent recreation, his judgment is to be pitied. If he, in truth, did not give any credence to the one, and saw no sin in the other, his candour and sincerity cannot be very highly praised.
M’Crie, the able but too partial biographer of Knox, and the defender of all his errors and failings, speaking of Mary at this period, says; – “Nursed from her infancy in a blind attachment to the Roman Catholic religion, every means had been employed before she left France, to strengthen this prejudice, and to inspire her with aversion to the religion which had been embraced by her people. She was taught that it would be the great glory of her reign, to reduce her kingdom to the obedience of the Romish See, and to co-operate with the Popish Princes on the Continent in extirpating heresy. With these fixed prepossessions, Mary came into Scotland, and she adhered to them with singular pertinacity to the end of her life.”43 The whole of this statement is in the highest degree erroneous. We have seen that Mary was not nursed in a blind attachment to the Catholic religion – some of her best friends, and even one or two of her preceptors, being attached to the new opinions. We have seen, that so far from having any “prejudice” strengthened before she left France, she was expressly advised to give her support to the Reformers; and we have heard from her own lips, her mature determination to tolerate every species of worship throughout her kingdom. That she ever thought of “co-operating with the Popish Princes of the Continent, that she might reduce her kingdom to the obedience of the Romish See, and extirpate heresy,” will be discovered immediately to be a particularly preposterous belief, when we find her intrusting the reins of Government to the leaders of the Reformed party. To this system of moderation, much beyond that of the age in which she lived, Mary adhered, “with singular pertinacity, to the end of her life.” M’Crie, in proof of his gratuitous assertions, affirms, that she never examined the subjects of controversy between the Papists and Protestants. This also is incorrect, as he would have known, had he read that letter of Throckmorton’s, in which, as has been seen, she informed the Ambassador of the frequent opportunities she had enjoyed of hearing the whole matter discussed in the presence of the Cardinal Lorraine; and the confession which that discussion extorted both from the Cardinal and herself, of the necessity of some reformation among the Catholics, though not to the extent to which the Protestants pushed it. M’Crie further objects, that Mary never went to hear Knox, or any of the Reformed divines, preach. Knox, from the invariable contempt with which he affected to treat Mary, no doubt particularly deserved such a compliment; and as to the other divines, by all of whom she was hated, what would have been the use of leaving her own chapel to listen to sermons which could not have altered the firm conviction of her mind, and which, consequently, it would have been hypocrisy to pretend to admire? We return from this digression.
The nobility, who now flocked to Holyrood from all parts of the country, constituted that portion of the inhabitants of Scotland, who, for many centuries, had exercised almost unlimited influence over their native sovereigns. Their mutual dissensions during the late long minority, had a good deal weakened their respective strength; and the progress of time was gradually softening the more repulsive features of the feudal system. But still the Scottish barons deemed themselves indispensable to the councils of their monarch, and entitled to deliver opinions, which they expected would be followed, on every affair of state. They collected at present, under the influence of a thousand contending interests and wishes. With some of the more distinguished figures in the group, it will be necessary to make the reader better acquainted.