Should a still more comprehensive view of this subject be taken, and the whole life of the Queen of Scots reviewed, from her birth to her death, it will be found that, however great her advantages, they were almost always counterbalanced by some evil, which necessarily attended or sprung out of them. She was a queen when only a few months old; but she was also an orphan. She was destined, from her earliest childhood, to be the wife of the future monarch of France; but she was, in consequence, taken away from her native country, and the arms of her mother. The power and talents of her uncles of Guise were constantly exerted in her behalf; but she shared, therefore, in the hatred and jealousy in which they were held by a numerous party, both at home and abroad. Her residence and education, at the Court of Henry II., insured the refinement of her manners and the cultivation of her mind; but it excited the suspicions and the fears of the people of Scotland. She was beautiful even to a proverb; but her beauty obtained for her as much envy as praise. She possessed the heart of her husband Francis; but she only felt his loss the more acutely. She returned to her own kingdom as the Queen-dowager of France; but her power and her pretensions made the English dread, and did not prevent her heretical subjects from openly braving, her authority. She married Darnley in the hopes of brightening her prospects, and securing her happiness; but he was the main cause of overclouding the one, and destroying the other. She was freed, by his death, from the wayward caprices of his ill-governed temper; but she escaped from one yoke only to be forced into another a thousand times worse. She loved her brother, and loaded him with favours; but he repaid them by placing himself upon her throne, and chasing her from the country. She escaped into England; but there she met with reproaches instead of assistance, a prison instead of an asylum, a mortal enemy instead of a sister, an axe and a scaffold instead of sympathy and protection.208
Mary’s misfortunes, therefore, may be safely asserted not to have been the result of her imprudence or her errors. But justice is not satisfied with this merely negative praise. The Queen of Scots was one who needed only to have been prosperous, to be in the eyes of the world all that was great and good. And though the narrow-minded are only too ready, at all times, to triumph over the fallen, and to fancy, that where there is misery there is also guilt, they must nevertheless own, that there are some whose character only rises the higher, the more it is tried. If, on the one hand, the temptations to which Mary was exposed be duly considered, – her youth, – the prejudices of her education, – and the designing ministers by whom she was surrounded; – and, on the other, her conduct towards the Reformers, towards her enemies, towards her friends, towards all her subjects, – the deliberate judgment of calm impartiality, not of hasty enthusiasm, must be, that illustrious as her birth and rank were, she possessed virtues and talents which not only made her independent of the former, but raised her above them. In her better days, the vivacity and sweetness of her manners, her openness, her candour, her generosity, her polished wit, her extensive information, her cultivated taste, her easy affability, her powers of conversation, her native dignity and grace, were all conspicuous, though too little appreciated by the less refined frequenters of the Scottish Court. Nor did she appear to less advantage in the season of calamity. On the contrary, she had an opportunity of displaying in adversity a fortitude and nobility of soul, which she herself might not have known that she possessed, had she been always prosperous. Her piety and her constancy became more apparent in a prison than on a throne; and of none could it be said more truly than of her, – “ponderibus virtus innata resistit.” In the glory of victory and the pride of success, it is easy for a conquering monarch to float down the stream of popularity; but it is a far more arduous task to gain a victory over the natural weaknesses of one’s own nature, and, in the midst of sufferings, to triumph over one’s enemies. Mary did this; and was a thousand times more to be envied, when kneeling at her solitary devotions in the Castle of Fotheringhay, than Elizabeth surrounded with all the heartless splendor of Hampton Court. As she laid her head upon the block, the dying graces threw upon her their last smiles; and the sublime serenity of her death was an argument in her favour, the force of which must be confessed by incredulity itself. Mary was not destined to obtain the crown of England, but she gained instead the crown of martyrdom.209
“Many of us,” said the Archbishop of Bruges, who was appointed to preach Mary’s funeral sermon in the church of Notre Dame at Paris, “Many of us have seen in this very place the Queen whom we now deplore, on her bridal morning and in her royal robes, so resplendent with jewels, that they shone like the light of day, or like her own beauty, which was more resplendent still. Nothing was to be discovered around or within but embroidered hangings, and cloth of gold, and precious tapestry, and couches and thrones occupied by kings and queens, and princes and nobles, who had come from all parts to be present at the festival. In the palace were magnificent banquets, and pageants, and masquerades; in the streets and squares, joustings, tournaments, and processions. It seemed as if the overwhelming brilliancy of our age was destined to surpass the richest pomp of every preceding age, – even the times when Greece and Rome were in all their splendor. A brief space has passed away like a cloud, and we have seen her a captive whom we saw in triumph, – a prisoner, who set the prisoners free, – poor, who gave away so liberally, – disdained, who was the fountain of honour. We have seen her, who was a two-fold Queen, in the hands of a common executioner, and that fair form, which graced the nuptial couch of the greatest monarch in Christendom, dishonoured on a scaffold. We have seen that loveliness, which was one of the wonders of the world, broken down by long captivity, and at length effaced by an ignominious death. If this fatal reverse teaches the uncertainty and vanity of all human things, the patience and incomparable fortitude of the Queen we have lost, also teach a more profitable lesson, and afford a salutary consolation. Every new calamity gave her an opportunity of gaining a new victory, and of evincing new proofs of her piety and constancy. It seems certain, indeed, that Providence made her affliction conspicuous, only to make her virtue more conspicuous. Others leave to their successors the care of building monuments, to preserve their name from oblivion; but the life and death of this lady are her monument. Marble, and brass, and iron decay, or are devoured by rust; but in no age, however long the world may endure, will the memory of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and Dowager of France, cease to be cherished with affection and admiration.”210
AN EXAMINATION OF THE LETTERS, SONNETS, AND OTHER WRITINGS, ADDUCED IN EVIDENCE AGAINST MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
O place and greatness! millions of false eyes
Are stuck upon thee! Volumes of report
Run with these false and most contrarious guests
Upon thy doings! Thousand ’scapes of wit
Make thee the father of their idle dream,
And rack thee in their fancies. —
Shakespeare.
Considering the very opposite opinions which have been long entertained, regarding the character and conduct of the Queen of Scots, no memoirs of her life would be complete, that did not contain some examination of the evidence upon which they who believe her guilty principally rest their conviction. This evidence consists of eight Letters, eleven Love-Sonnets, and one Marriage Contract, all alleged to have been written in the Queen’s own hand, and addressed to the Earl of Bothwell. In corroboration of these, another Contract, said to have been written by the Earl of Huntly, and signed by the Queen; and the Confessions and Depositions of some of the persons who were known to be implicated in Bothwell’s guilt, were likewise produced. Of the Letters, two were supposed to have been written from Glasgow, at the time Mary went thither to visit Darnley when he was ill, and are intended to prove her criminal connection with Bothwell; two or three from the Kirk-of-Field, for the purpose of facilitating the arrangements regarding the murder; and the rest after that event, and before her abduction, to show that the whole scheme of the pretended ravishment was preconcerted between them. The precise time at which it is pretended the Sonnets were composed, does not appear; but expressions in them prove, that it must have been posterior to the Queen’s residence at Dunbar. The Contract of Marriage, in Mary’s own hand, though without date, must have been written very soon after Darnley’s death, and contained a promise never to marry any one but Bothwell. The Contract, said to be in Huntly’s hand, was dated at Seton, the 5th of April 1567, eight weeks after Darnley’s death, a week before Bothwell’s trial and acquittal, and three weeks before he was divorced from his first wife. The Confessions and Depositions are various, but only in one or two of them is any allusion made to Mary. The Letters, Sonnets, and Contracts, were said to have been discovered in a small gilt coffer, which the Earl of Bothwell left in the Castle of Edinburgh, in the custody of Sir James Balfour, at the time he fled from Edinburgh to Borthwick, about a month after his marriage, and shortly before the affair at Carberry Hill. After his discomfiture there, he is stated to have sent his servant, Dalgleish, into Edinburgh from Dunbar, to demand the coffer from Balfour. Sir James, it was said, delivered it up, but at the same time gave intimation to the Earl of Morton, who seized Dalgleish, and made himself master of the box and its contents. The Letters and Sonnets, which were written in French, were afterwards all translated into Scotch, and three into Latin.
Anxious to put beyond a doubt, either the forgery or the authenticity of these writings, numerous authors have exercised their ingenuity and talents, in a most minute and laborious examination, not only of their leading features, but of every line, and almost of every word. It would seem, however, not to be necessary, in so far as the great interests of truth are concerned, to descend to such microscopic investigation, and tedious verbal criticism, as have extended pages into volumes, and rendered confused and tiresome, disquisitions which might otherwise have been simple and interesting. If Mary’s innocence is to be established, it must not be by the discovery of petty inconsistencies, or trifling inaccuracies. If her guilt is to be proved, the impartial reader is not to be satisfied with vague suspicions or ingenious suggestions, but must have a body of evidence set before him, which, if it does not amount to actual demonstration, contains a circumstantial strength equally calculated to convince.
It may be observed, at the outset, that unless the conclusions, to which these writings would lead, be corroborated by the established facts of History, it cannot be expected that a great deal of weight will be attached to them. Besides, it must not be forgotten, that as the originals have been lost, it is by means of translations alone that their alleged contents are known to the world. Upon their authority, Mary is accused of having first committed adultery, and then murder. Whatever opinion may have been formed of her from her behaviour during the rest of her existence, – however gentle her dispositions may have appeared, – however strong her sense of the distinction between right and wrong, – however constant her religious principles, – however wise her government, – however excellent the culture of her mind, – if the letters are to be credited, the whole was either hypocrisy from beginning to end, or, (overcome by some sudden impulse,) a year of gross criminality was introduced into the very middle of a well spent life. If she made so rapid a descent into a career of vice, she as rapidly rose again; and reassuming the character she had laid aside, lived and died with the purity of a saint, and the fortitude of a martyr. It cannot therefore be upon slight grounds that evidence so fatal to her reputation is to be admitted; and there will be little necessity to engage in minute cavilling, or to enter upon points of minor importance, if, by a distinct statement of some of the leading arguments against its authenticity, the whole shall be made to appear nugatory, improbable, and unentitled to credit.
The evidences naturally divide themselves into the two heads of external and internal; and, without further preface, it will be best to consider these in succession.
The External Evidences. – It was on the 20th of June 1567, that Dalgleish was seized, with the box and writings. The official account given by Buchanan is, – “That in the Castle of Edinburgh there was left by the Earl Bothwell, before his flying away, and was sent for by one George Dalgleish, his servant, who was taken by the Earl of Morton, a small gilt coffer, not fully a foot long, being garnished in sundry places with the Roman letter F, under a king’s crown, wherein were certain letters and writings well known, and by oaths, to be affirmed to have been written with the Queen of Scots own hand, to the Earl of Bothwell.”211 The question to be decided is, whether these letters and writings are genuine, or whether they can be proved to be fabrications? That the latter is the correct conclusion, appears on the following grounds.
First, The conduct of Murray, Morton, and others of the Scottish nobility, on various occasions, proves that ambition was the ruling passion of their lives. Murray’s iniquitous extermination of the Gordons in 1562, the influence he afterwards exercised in Mary’s councils, and his unjustifiable opposition to her marriage with Darnley, carried even the length of open rebellion, illustrate his character no less clearly, than the share he had in the murder of Rizzio, and his proceedings after the meeting at Carberry Hill, do that of Morton. A train of events, arising out of the audacious machinations of Bothwell, placed Mary at the disposal of men thus devoted to the attainment of power. Yielding to their irresistible desire to secure its possession, they first imprisoned, and then dethroned their sovereign. She escaped from their hands, and, though driven from the country, threatened to return with foreign aid, to place herself at the head of her own party, which was still powerful, and to force from them their usurped authority. The urgency of the case called for a bold and decisive remedy. If Mary could prove, as there was no doubt she could, that, according to all the facts yet before the world, she had suffered severely and unjustly, they must either fall upon some means to vindicate their own actions, or be ruined for ever. Nothing would more naturally suggest itself than the expedient they adopted. The circumstance of Mary having been actually married to the man who murdered her former husband, opened a door to the very worst suspicions; and if they could artfully conceal the events which led to the marriage, and which not only justified it, but made it a matter of necessity, they hoped still to retain possession of the government. They were aware, indeed, that by their own proclamations and acts of council, they had acknowledged Mary’s innocence, and pointed out the real cause of her connection with Bothwell; and it was now not enough, after they had involved themselves in deeper responsibility, merely to retract their former allegations. They were called upon to show why they departed from them; – they were called upon to prove, that when they first imprisoned her, though they confessed the Queen was innocent, they were now satisfied she was guilty. There was a positive necessity for the appearance of the letters; and if they had not been fortunately discovered, just at the proper time, Murray and his colleagues must either have had recourse to some other expedient, or have consented to Mary’s restoration, and their own disgrace.
Second, That Mary may have written love-letters to Francis II., and to Darnley, before and after she was married to them, is not unlikely; that she wrote sonnets and letters of affection to many of her friends, both male and female, is beyond a doubt; but that she would ever have written such letters and sonnets to the Earl of Bothwell, whom she never loved, whom she at one time threw into prison, and at another sent into banishment, whom she knew to be a married man, and whose marriage she had herself countenanced and encouraged, is against all probability. If Bothwell had never become Mary’s husband, history does not record one circumstance, which would at all lead to the belief, that she was attached to him. Her very marriage, when fairly and fully considered, only makes the fact more certain, that she had no regard for Bothwell, else there would have been no forcible abduction on his part, or pretended reluctance on hers. Even though she had consented to marry Bothwell, which the clearest evidence proves her not to have done, it would afford no presumption against her, that he was afterwards discovered to have been the murderer of Darnley. He had not only been legally acquitted, but all her chief nobility had recommended him to her as a husband, stating the grounds of their recommendation to be the high opinion they entertained of his worth and loyalty. Robertson, Laing, and others, it is true, copying Buchanan, have laboured to show, that Mary discovered in various ways her extreme partiality for Bothwell. Most of their arguments have been already considered elsewhere; but it will be worth while attending for a moment to such of the circumstances collected by Robertson, and drawn up in formidable array, in the “Critical Dissertation” subjoined to his History of Scotland, as have not yet been noticed. The answers and explanations which immediately suggest themselves are so entirely satisfactory, that we can only wonder the historian did not himself perceive them.
Robertson states, that on the 15th of February 1567, five days after the murder, Mary bestowed on Bothwell the reversion of the superiority of the town of Leith, and that this grant was of much importance, as it gave him both the command of the principal port in the kingdom, and a great ascendancy over the citizens of Edinburgh. But this assignation, as is expressly stated in the charter, was made to Bothwell as a reward for his faithful services, both to Mary’s mother and to herself, especially on the occasion of Rizzio’s death, and must have been in contemplation for some time; nor can it be supposed to have occupied the Queen’s thoughts, at a moment when she was refusing to see any one, and was shut up by herself in a dark room, a prey to the bitterest regrets. It ought to be recollected, besides, that she had not yet conferred on Bothwell any adequate recompense for his fidelity and exertions after her escape from Morton; and that the grant of the superiority of the town of Leith, was only a very tardy acknowledgment of her obligations. She made presents of a similar description to others of her nobility about the same time: if any of them had afterwards forced her into a marriage, these gifts might have been raked up with equal plausibility, to prove that she was then in love with Morton, Huntly, Secretary Maitland, or any body else. At the Parliament which assembled on the 14th of April 1567, ratifications of grants were passed to many of the principal persons in the realm; and among others to the Earl of Mar, Morton, Crawford, Caithness, and Lord Robert Stuart.212 It will not be asserted, that Mary was attached to any of these persons; and is there any thing wonderful that she included in the list of those to whom she made donations, her Lord High Admiral? The case, no doubt, would have been worse, had she known that Bothwell was the murderer of Darnley, but throughout the whole of this discussion, it must be remembered, that if Mary was really innocent, she could not believe Bothwell guilty till he had been actually proved so.
Robertson states further, that two days after the trial, Mary allowed Bothwell to carry the sceptre before her when she went to open the Parliament; that she there granted him a ratification of all the vast possessions and honours which she had conferred upon him; and that, when Sir James Melville warned her of the danger which would attend a marriage with that nobleman, she not only disregarded his admonition, but discovered to Bothwell what had passed. But, as to the carrying of the sceptre, it was surely not to be expected, that after a full acquittal, without even the shadow of evidence being advanced against him, Mary could have ventured to refuse his accustomed honours to the most powerful noble in the realm. As to the Parliamentary ratification of “all the vast possessions and honours which she had conferred upon him,” the misrepresentation is glaring in the extreme; for she never conferred on Bothwell any vast possessions and honours, and the ratification alluded only to certain lands which were given him, to defray his charges in keeping the Castle of Dunbar.213 Bothwell no doubt enjoyed “vast possessions and honours;” but they were mostly hereditary, or had been obtained by him before Mary came into the kingdom. And as to the manner in which Mary took Sir James Melville’s warning, – the facts were these: – Sir James received a letter out of England, from a person of the name of Bishop, telling him that it had been rumoured (and there is no wonder, considering the bond which had been previously obtained from the nobility) that Bothwell was to be married to her Majesty, and assuring him, that if she consented to such an alliance, it would be much against her own reputation and interest. When Sir James showed this letter to Mary, she immediately sent, not for Bothwell, but for Secretary Maitland, to whom she handed it, expressing her surprise at its contents, and her suspicion that it was only a device on the part of some of Bothwell’s enemies, who wished to ruin him in her estimation. She afterwards took an opportunity to speak of it to Bothwell himself, who affected to be highly indignant, and was so enraged against Melville, that, had not Mary interfered, he would have forced him to fly from the Court to save his life. Bothwell’s rage is easily accounted for, considering the designs he then had in view, and the necessity for concealing them. But had he known that Mary was disposed to favour them, he would of course have taken the whole matter much more coolly. When Melville came upon the subject with Mary, she assured him that she did not contemplate any such alliance, and she had in like manner previously told Lord Herries, that “there was no such thing in her mind.”214 If deductions like those of Robertson, so contrary to the premises on which they are founded, be allowed, it is impossible to say to what belief they may not be made to lead.
Robertson states, lastly, that even after Mary had been separated from Bothwell, and confined in Loch-Leven, her affection for him did not abate; and that the fair conclusion from all these circumstances is, that had Mary really been accessory to the murder of her husband, “she could scarcely have taken any other steps than those she took, nor could her conduct have been more repugnant to all the maxims of prudence or of decency.” But that Mary’s affection for a man she had never loved, continued after she had left him to his fate, at Carberry Hill, and gone publicly over in the face of the whole world to his bitterest enemies, (on whose authority alone Robertson’s assertion is made, though expressly contradicted by their own previous declarations, as well as by Mary’s statements whenever she regained her liberty), is not to be believed; and had she been really innocent, “she could scarcely have taken any other steps than those she took,” nor could her conduct have been more accordant with all the maxims of prudence and propriety.
Third, Supposing Mary to have actually written the letters to Bothwell, it may very fairly be asked, – Why he was so imprudent as preserve them? – why he chose to keep only eight? – why he put them all into the same box? – and why he should ever have intrusted that box to the custody of Sir James Balfour? It is extremely difficult to answer satisfactorily any of these questions. The only explanation which the first admits of, is, that Bothwell was afraid lest Mary should afterwards quarrel with him, and resolved therefore not to destroy the evidence of her participation in the murder. But if he acted upon this principle, why did he limit himself to a collection of eight letters? If Mary ever corresponded with him at all, he must have had in his possession many more of her epistles; for the first of the series which has been preserved, is evidently not the letter of one commencing a correspondence, but of one who writes as a matter of course, to a person whom she has often written to before. It may be said, perhaps, that none of her previous letters bore upon the subject of Darnley’s murder; but they must at all events have contained expressions of affection, which would have served as an indirect proof of her guilt. If, by preserving these documents, and running the risk of their falling into the hands of his enemies, who would so eagerly use them to his disadvantage, Bothwell thought he was choosing the least of two dangers, he would certainly have been anxious to make his evidence of Mary’s connexion with him as full and complete as possible. Accordingly, some love-sonnets, and a contract of marriage, were said to have been put into the same box, but only eight letters; as if, during the whole course of his amour with the Queen, and all its anxious days and nights, she had limited herself to eight epistolary testimonials of her love. But having preserved them, and having limited their number to eight, and having chosen to put them, not into a strong iron box locked and pad-locked, of which he alone kept the key, but into a “small gilt coffer” which never belonged to him at all, but had been a gift to Mary from her first husband Francis, – why was he so very absurd as send them to Sir James Balfour in the Castle of Edinburgh, at the very time that a rebellion was rising in the nation, and that he was beginning to suspect Balfour’s fidelity? They were sent, we are informed, “before his flying away” from Edinburgh, in the beginning of June 1567. Was this the moment at which he would be disposed to part with writings he had so carefully treasured? If he was afraid that his enemies would advance upon Edinburgh, why did he not take the “small gilt coffer” with him to Dunbar, instead of sending it to the very place where it was sure to become their prey? If the letters were in truth forged, it was necessary for the forgers to concoct as plausible a story concerning them as possible. They knew it was not likely that Bothwell would send them to the Castle tied up as an open packet; and the idea of a box would therefore occur to them. But as they had not in their possession any box which belonged to Bothwell, they were forced to make use of what they could get; and finding at Holyrood, when they rifled the palace of most of the Queen’s valuables, the coffer in question, they would readily avail themselves of it. It would further occur to them, that Bothwell could not be supposed to have left the letters at Holyrood, which was not a place of any strength; and as they had not followed him to Dunbar, they were obliged to give out that he had made the Castle of Edinburgh their hiding-place. But if the letters had not been forgeries, and if they had been really preserved by Bothwell, they would have been more numerous, – they would not have been kept in one of Mary’s trinket-boxes, – and they would never have found their way out of his own hands into the custody of Sir James Balfour.
Fourth, The next improbability connected with this story, is, that Bothwell sent to reclaim the letters at the time alleged. On the 15th of September 1568, Murray, before going into England, to attend the conference at York, gave the Earl of Morton a receipt for the “silver box, overgilt with gold, with all missive letters, contracts or obligations for marriage, sonnets or love ballads, and all other letters contained therein, sent and passed betwixt the Queen and James, sometime Earl Bothwell; which box, and whole pieces within the same, were taken and found with umwhile George Dalgleish, servant to the said Earl Bothwell, upon the 20th day of June, in the year of God 1567.”215 This, then, was exactly five days after Bothwell had fled from Carberry Hill, and when Edinburgh was in the possession of the opposite faction, with whom Sir James Balfour had now associated himself. Dalgleish, it appears, who was well known to be a servant of Bothwell, was able not only to effect an entrance into Edinburgh, though the city was strictly guarded, but was received into the Castle, and had the box actually delivered to him by Balfour. How he happened to be afterwards discovered, and his property taken from him, is not made out. If Balfour privately intimated to Morton what he had done, then he at once acted knavishly towards Bothwell, and most inconsiderately towards those whom he wished to befriend; for Dalgleish might have either baffled pursuit, or he might have secreted the box, or destroyed its contents before he was taken. Thus we have a tissue of improbabilities, pervading the whole of this part of the narrative. Bothwell could never send to Edinburgh Castle for writings he would never have deposited there: and most especially he would never send, when he himself was a fugitive, and that fortress, along with the adjacent town, in the hands of his enemies. Nor would Balfour have surrendered a box so precious; nor, if he did, would Dalgleish have allowed it again to become the prey of those from whom it was most wished to conceal it.