Elizabeth was extremely anxious to implicate Mary in Norfolk’s guilt, and, for this purpose, sent Commissioners to her to reproach her with her offences. Mary heard all they had to say with the utmost calmness; and, when they called upon her for her answer, she replied, that though she was a free Queen, and did not consider herself accountable, either to them or their mistress, she had, nevertheless, no hesitation to assure them of the injustice of their accusations. She protested that she had never imagined any detriment to Elizabeth by her marriage with Norfolk, – that she had never encouraged him to raise rebellion, or been privy to it, but was, on the contrary, most ready to reveal any conspiracy against the Queen of England which might come to her ears, – that though Rodolphi had been of use to her in the transmission of letters abroad, she had never received any from him, – that as to attempting an escape, she willingly gave ear to all who offered to assist her, and in hope of effecting her deliverance, had corresponded with several in cipher, – that so far from having any hand in the Bull of excommunication, when a copy of it was sent her, she burned it after she had read it, – and that she held no communication with any foreign State, upon any matters unconnected with her restoration to her own kingdom. Satisfied with this reply, the Commissioners returned to London.179
All the miseries of civil war were in the meantime desolating the kingdom of Scotland. The Earl of Lennox was a feeble and very incompetent successor to Murray. Perceiving him unable to maintain his authority, and observing that the current of popular feeling was becoming stronger against the unjust imprisonment which Mary was suffering, many of those who had stood by Murray deserted to the opposite faction. Among the rest were Secretary Maitland and Kircaldy of Grange, the first the ablest statesman, and the second the best soldier in the country. It was now almost impossible to say which side preponderated. Both parties levied armies, convoked Parliaments, fought battles, besieged towns, and ordered executions. “Fellow-citizens, friends, brothers,” says Robertson, “took different sides, and ranged themselves under the standards of the contending factions. In every county, and almost in every town and village, Kingsmen and Queensmen were names of distinction. Political hatred dissolved all natural ties, and extinguished the reciprocal good-will and confidence which hold mankind together in society. Religious zeal mingled itself with these civil distinctions, and contributed not a little to heighten and to inflame them.” One of the most successful exploits performed by the Regent, was the taking of the Castle of Dumbarton from the Queen’s Lords. The Archbishop of St Andrews, whom he found in it, was condemned to be hanged without a trial, and the sentence was immediately executed. No Bishop had ever suffered in Scotland so ignominiously before; and while the King’s adherents were glad to get rid of one who had been very zealous against them, the nobles who supported the Queen were exasperated to the last degree by so violent a measure, and their watchword became, – “Think on the Archbishop of St Andrews!” Lennox was sacrificed to his memory; for the town of Stirling having been suddenly taken, in an expedition contrived by Grange, Lennox, after he had surrendered himself prisoner, was shot by command of Lord Claud Hamilton, brother to the deceased Archbishop; and in his room, the Earl of Mar was elected Regent.
In the year 1572, Mary’s cause sustained a serious injury, by the atrocious massacre of the Hugonots in France, which exasperated all the Protestants throughout Europe, and made the very name of a Catholic Sovereign odious. Although Mary herself, so far from having lent any countenance to this massacre, had expressly avowed her unwillingness to constrain the conscience of any one, and had been all her life the strenuous advocate of toleration, yet, recollecting her connexion with Charles IX. and Catharine de Medicis, whose sanguinary fury made itself so conspicuous on this melancholy occasion, her enemies took care that she should not escape from some share of the blame. Elizabeth, in particular, taking advantage of the excitement which had been given to public feeling, used every exertion to secure the circulation of Buchanan’s notorious “Detection of Mary’s Doings,” which had been published a short time before. She ordered Cecil to send a number of copies to Walsingham, her ambassador at Paris, that they might be presented to the King, and leading persons of the French Court. “It is not amiss,” Cecil wrote, “to have divers of Buchanan’s little Latin books to present, if need be, to the King, as from yourself, and likewise to some of the other noblemen of his Council; for they will serve to good effect to disgrace her, which must be done before other purposes can be attained.” Cecil himself printed and circulated a small treatise, in the shape of a letter, from London to a friend at a distance, giving an account of the “Detection,” and the credit it deserved. The publication, on the other hand, of Bishop Lesley’s “Defence of Queen Mary’s Honour,” was positively interdicted; and Lesley was obliged to send the manuscript abroad, before he was able to present it to the world. To such low and cowardly devices were Elizabeth and her Minister under the necessity of resorting, to blacken the character of Mary, and justify their own iniquitous proceedings!180
In Scotland, too, Mary’s party, beginning to see the hopelessness of the cause, was gradually dwindling away. Through Mar’s exertions, a general peace might have been obtained, had not Morton’s superior influence and persevering cruelty drawn out the civil war to the last dregs. Mar, finding himself thwarted in every measure he proposed for the tranquillity of his country, fell into a deep melancholy, which ended in his death, before he had been a year in office. Morton succeeded him without opposition, and immediately proceeded to very violent measures against all the Queen’s friends, who were now divided into two parties, the one headed by Chatelherault and Huntly, and the other by Maitland and Grange. After gaining some advantages over both, he concluded a peace with the former; and having invested the Castle of Edinburgh on all sides, in conjunction with some troops which Elizabeth sent to his assistance, he at length forced the latter to surrender. Kircaldy of Grange, the bravest and most honest man in Scotland, was hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh; and Secretary Maitland, who, with all his talents, had vacillated too much to be greatly respected, anticipating a similar fate, avoided it by a voluntary death, “ending his days,” says Melville, “after the old Roman fashion.”
About the same time, John Knox concluded his laborious, and, in many respects, useful life, in the 67th year of his age. Appearing as he did, in treacherous and turbulent times, the rough unpolished integrity of Knox demands the higher praise, because it enabled him the more successfully to maintain an influence over the minds of his countrymen, and effect those important revolutions in their modes of thought and belief, which his superior abilities pointed out to him as conducive to the moral and religious improvement of the land. He had many failings, but they were to be attributed more to the age to which he belonged, than to any fault of his own. His very violence and acrimony, his strong prejudices, and no less confirmed partialities, were perhaps the very best instruments he could have used for advancing the cause of the Reformation. He was without the cunning of Murray, the fickleness of Maitland, or the ferocity of Morton. He pursued a steady and undeviating course; and though loved by few, he was reverenced by many. Courage, in particular, – and not the mere common-place courage inspired by the possession of physical strength, but the far nobler courage arising from a consciousness of innate integrity, – was the leading feature of his mind. Morton never spoke more truly than when he said at the grave of Knox, – “Here lies he who never feared the face of man.”
In the year 1573, Mary, at her own earnest request, was removed, for the benefit of her health, from Sheffield to the Wells at Buxton. The news she had lately received from Scotland, and the apparent annihilation of all her hopes, had affected her not a little. “Though she makes little show of any grief,” the Earl of Shrewsbury wrote to Cecil, “yet this news nips her very sore.” At Buxton, which was then the most fashionable watering-place in England, she was obliged to live in complete seclusion; and it may easily be conceived, that the waters could be of little benefit to her, without the aid of air, exercise, and amusement. Lesley, though detained at a distance, took every means in his power to afford her consolation, and wrote two treatises, after the manner of Seneca, expressly applicable to her condition; both of which he sent to her. The first was entitled, – “Piæ afflicti animi meditationes divinaque remedia,” and the second, – “Tranquillitatis animi conservatio et munimentum.” She thanked him for both of these productions, and assured him, that she had received much benefit from their perusal. With many parts of the first, in particular, she was so pleased, that she occupied herself in paraphrasing them into French verse.181 Lesley was soon afterwards allowed by Elizabeth to pass into France, where he long continued to exert himself in the cause of his mistress, visiting, on her account, several foreign courts, and exposing himself to many inconveniences and hardships. He died at a good old age in 1596, and his memory deserves to be cherished, both for the many amiable qualities he possessed in private life, and his inflexible fidelity and attachment to the Queen of Scots.182
In 1574, a fresh misfortune overtook Mary, in the death of her brother-in-law, Charles IX. He was succeeded on the throne by the Duke of Anjou, who took the title of Henry III., and was little inclined to exert himself in the cause of his sister, having been long at enmity with the house of Guise. But a still more fatal blow was the death of her uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, who had ever made it a part of his policy to identify her interests with his own, and to whom she had always been accustomed to turn, with confidence, in her greatest distresses.
From this period to the year 1581, Mary seems to have been nearly forgotten by all parties. Elizabeth, satisfied with keeping her rival securely imprisoned, busied herself with other affairs of political moment; and, in Scotland, as the Prince grew up, and years passed on, death, or other causes, gradually diminished the number of Mary’s adherents; and though the country was far from being in tranquillity, the dissensions assumed a new shape, for even they who opposed the regency of the Earl of Morton, found it more for their interest to associate themselves with the young King than with the absent Queen. Mary became gradually more solitary and more depressed. Though yet only in the prime of womanhood, she had lived to see almost all her best friends, and some of her worst enemies, depart from the world before her. The specious Murray, – the imbecile Lennox, – Hamilton, the last supporter of Catholicism, – Knox, the great champion of the Reformation, – the gentle Mar, – the brilliant but misguided Norfolk, – the gallant Kircaldy, – and the sagacious Maitland, – had all been removed from the scene; and in the melancholy solitude of her prison, she wept to think that she should have been destined to survive them. But Elizabeth had no sympathy for her griefs, and every rumour which reached her ear, only served as an excuse for narrowing and rendering more irksome Mary’s captivity. Even the few female friends who had been at first allowed to attend her, were taken from her; no congenial society of any sort was allowed her; it was rarely, indeed, that she was permitted to hunt or hawk, or take any exercise out of doors; and the wearisome monotony of her sedentary life, at once impaired her health and broke down her spirits. The manner in which she spoke of her own situation, in letters she wrote about this period to France and elsewhere, is not the less affecting, that it is characterized by that mental dignity and queenly spirit which no afflictions could overcome. “I find it necessary,” she wrote from Tutbury in 1680, “to renew the memorial of my grievances respecting the remittance of my dowry, the augmentation of my attendants, and a change of residence, – circumstances apparently trivial, and of small importance to the Queen, my good sister, but which I feel to be essential to the preservation of my existence. Necessity alone could induce me to descend to earnest and reiterated supplications, the dearest price at which any boon can be purchased. To convey to you an idea, of my present situation, I am on all sides enclosed by fortified walls, on the summit of a hill which lies exposed to every wind of heaven: within these bounds, not unlike the wood of Vincennes, is a very old edifice, originally a hunting lodge, built merely of lath and plaster, the plaster in many places crumbling away. This edifice, detached from the walls, about twenty feet, is sunk so low, that the rampart of earth behind the wall is level with the highest part of the building, so that here the sun can never penetrate, neither does any pure air ever visit this habitation, on which descend drizzling damps and eternal fogs, to such excess, that not an article of furniture can be placed beneath the roof, but in four days it becomes covered with green mould. I leave you to judge in what manner such humidity must act upon the human frame; and, to say every thing in one word, the apartments are in general more like dungeons prepared for the reception of the vilest criminals, than suited to persons of a station far inferior to mine, inasmuch as I do not believe there is a lord or gentleman, or even yeoman in the kingdom, who would patiently endure the penance of living in so wretched an habitation. With regard to accommodation, I have for my own person but two miserable little chambers, so intensely cold during the night, that but for ramparts and entrenchments of tapestry and curtains, it would be impossible to prolong my existence; and of those who have sat up with me during my illness, not one has escaped malady. Sir Amias can testify that three of my women have been rendered ill by this severe temperature, and even my physician declines taking charge of my health the ensuing winter, unless I shall be permitted to change my habitation. With respect to convenience, I have neither gallery nor cabinet, if I except two little pigeon-holes, through which the only light admitted is from an aperture of about nine feet in circumference; for taking air and exercise, either on foot or in my chair, I have but about a quarter of an acre behind the stables, round which Somers last year planted a quickset hedge, a spot more proper for swine than to be cultivated as a garden; there is no shepherd’s hut but has more grace and proportion. As to riding on horseback during the winter, I am sure to be impeded by floods of water or banks of snow, nor is there a road in which I could go for one mile in my coach without putting my limbs in jeopardy; abstracted from these real and positive inconveniences, I have conceived for this spot an antipathy, which, in one ill as I am, might alone claim some humane consideration. As it was here that I first began to be treated with rigour and indignity, I have conceived, from that time, this mansion to be singularly unlucky to me, and in this sinister impression I have been confirmed by the tragical catastrophe of the poor priest of whom I wrote to you, who, having been tortured for his religion, was at length found hanging in front of my window.”183
In 1581, Mary made a still more melancholy representation of her condition. “I am reduced to such an excessive weakness,” she says, “especially in my legs, that I am not able to walk a hundred steps, and yet I am at this moment better than I have been for these six months past. Ever since last Easter, I have been obliged to make my servants carry me in a chair; and you may judge how seldom I am thus transported from one spot to another, when there are so few people about me fit for such an employment.”184 In the midst of all this distress, it was only from resources within herself that she was able to derive any consolation. Her religious duties she attended to with the strictest care, and devoted much of her time to reading and writing. At rare intervals, she remembered her early cultivation of the Muses; and she even yet attempted occasionally to beguile the time with the charms of poetry. She produced several short poetical compositions during her imprisonment; and of these, the following Sonnet, embodying so simply and forcibly her own feelings, cannot fail to be read with peculiar interest:
“Que suis je, helas! et de quoi sert ma vie?
Je ne suis fors q’un corps privé de coeur;
Un ombre vain, un objet de malheur,
Qui n’a plus rien que de mourir envie.
Plus ne portez, O ennemis, d’envie
A qui n’a plus l’esprit à la grandeur!
Je consomme d’excessive douleur, —
Votre ire en bref ce voira assouvie;
Et vous amis, qui m’avez tenu chere,
Souvenez vous, que sans heur – sans santé
Je ne saurois aucun bon œuvre faire:
Souhaitez donc fin de calamité;
Et que ci bas étant assez punie,
J’aye ma part en la joye infinie.”185
But the most celebrated of all Mary’s efforts during her captivity, is a long and eloquent letter she addressed to Elizabeth, in 1582, when she heard that her son’s person had been seized at the Raid of Ruthven, – and when, dreading, with maternal anxiety, that he might be involved in the woes which had overtaken herself, she gave vent to those feelings which had long agitated her bosom, and which she now, with pathetic force, laid before Elizabeth, as the author of all her misfortunes. The ability and vigour with which this letter is written, well entitle it, as Dr Stuart has remarked, to survive in the history of the Scottish nation. It was Mary’s own wish that it should do so. “I am no longer able,” she says, “to resist laying my heart before you; and while I desire that my just complaints shall be engraved in your conscience, it is my hope that they will also descend to posterity, to prove the misery into which I have been brought by the injustice and cruelty of my enemies. Having in vain looked to you for support against their various devices, I shall now carry my appeal to the Eternal God, the Judge of both, whose dominion is over all the princes of the earth. I shall appeal to him to arbitrate between us; and would request you, Madam, to remember, that in his sight nothing can be disguised by the paint and artifices of the world.” She proceeds to recapitulate the injuries she had sustained from Elizabeth ever since she came to the throne of Scotland, – reminding her, that she had busied herself in corrupting her subjects and encouraging rebellion; that when imprisoned in Loch-Leven, she had assured her, through her ambassador, Throckmorton, that any deed of abdication she might subscribe, was altogether invalid; yet that, upon her escape, though she at first allured her by fair promises into England, she had no sooner arrived there, than she was thrown into captivity, in which she had been kept alive only to suffer a thousand deaths; that she had tried for years to accommodate herself to that captivity, to reduce the number of her attendants, to make no complaint of the plainness of her diet, and the want of ordinary exercise, to live quietly and peaceably, as if she were of a far inferior rank, and even to abstain from correspondence with her friends in Scotland; but that the only return she had experienced for her good intentions was neglect, calumny, and increasing severity. “To take away every foundation of dispute and misunderstanding between us,” Mary continued, “I invite you, Madam, to examine into every report against me, and to grant to every person the liberty of accusing me publicly; and while I freely solicit you to take every advantage to my prejudice, I only request that you will not condemn me without a hearing. If it be proved that I have done evil, let me suffer for it; if I am guiltless, do not take upon yourself the responsibility, before God and man, of punishing me unjustly. Let not my enemies be afraid that I aim any longer at dispossessing them of their usurped authority. I look now to no other kingdom but that of Heaven, and would wish to prepare myself for it, knowing that my sorrows will never cease till I arrive there.” She then speaks of her son, and entreats that Elizabeth would interfere in his behalf. She concludes with requesting, that some honourable churchman should be sent to her, to remind her daily of the road she had yet to finish, and to instruct her how to pursue it, according to her religion, in which she would wish to die as she had lived. “I am very weak and helpless,” she adds, “and do beseech you to give me some solitary mark of your friendship. Bind your own relations to yourself; let me have the happiness of knowing, before I die, that a reconciliation has taken place between us, and that, when my soul quits my body, it will not be necessary for it to carry complaints of your injustice to the throne of my Creator.”186 The only result which this letter produced, was a remonstrance from Elizabeth which she sent by Beal, the Clerk of her Privy Council, against such unnecessary complaints.187
In Scotland, meanwhile, the event of greatest consequence which had taken place, was the trial and execution of the Earl of Morton, for having been art and part in the murder of Darnley. Morton’s intolerable tyranny having rendered him odious to the greater part of the nobility, and the young King having nearly arrived at an age when he could act and think for himself, he found it necessary, very unwillingly, to retire from office. He did not, even then, desist from carrying on numerous intrigues; and it was rumoured, that he intended seizing the King’s person, and carrying him captive into England. Whether there was any truth in this report or not, it is certain that James became anxious to get rid of so factious and dangerous a nobleman. The only plausible expedient which occurred to him, or his Council, was, to accuse Morton of a share in Bothwell’s guilt. His trial does not seem to have been conducted with any very scrupulous regard to justice. But a jury of his peers was allowed him; and they, having heard the evidence in support of the charges, found him guilty of having been in the council or knowledge of the conspiracy against the late King, of concealing it, and of being art and part in the murder. It was to the latter part of this verdict alone that Morton objected. He confessed that he knew of the intended murder, and had concealed it, but positively disclaimed having been art and part in it. This seems, however, to have been a distinction without a difference. On the 1st of June 1581, he was condemned to the block, and next day the sentence was executed. The instrument called the Maiden, which was used to behead him, he had himself brought into Scotland, and he was the first to suffer by it. His head was placed on the public gaol at Edinburgh, and his body buried privately by a few menials. He had been universally hated, and there was hardly one who lamented his death.