CHAPTER XIX.
I must pass over, with a very brief and general statement, the events which occurred to the personages connected with this tale during several months. There is always in tale-telling, unless the action be compressed within a very short space, a period during which the interest would flag, if the regular passing of each day was noticed, and the small particulars detailed. Were life filled with those striking events which move and interest the reader, with those passions to which the sympathetic heart thrills, with those grand scenes of action which excite the imagination, or with those lesser incidents which amuse and entertain, the human frame, like an over-sharpened knife, would be ground down upon the whetstone of the world, and existence be curtailed of half its date. It is my belief, that patriarchal age was secured to the earlier inhabitants of earth as much by the long intervals existing between the periods of intense excitement, to which they were sometimes subjected, and by the calm and careless ease of the intervening periods, as by any of the many other causes which combined to extend the space between birth and death to well nigh a thousand years. True, they were not close pent up in cities--true, they were continually changing air and scene--true, that excess in anything was little known--true, that they were nearer to the great architype, fresh from the hands of his God, and framed for the immortality of which sin deprived him--true, that long centuries of vice, folly, contention, and misfortune had not then brought forth the multitudinous host of diseases continually warring against the mortal body, diminishing its powers of resistance from generation to generation; but still I believe that the want of excitement, which can only be known where men are spread wide and far apart over the face of the earth, was absolutely necessary to that vast prolongation of life. The mind and body did not mutually grind down each other. Still, the more peaceful periods in any man's history are those which the least interest his fellow-men, and during the time which elapsed between Gowrie's departure from Paris and his arrival in Scotland, no adventures or impediments occurred which can justify much detail. That departure was delayed for a day or two beyond the period which he had at first fixed; and though the weather was now becoming sharp and cold, yet those few days produced a favourable change, and rain and fog gave way to clear skies and broad sunshine. The days, however, were brief, and the journeys necessarily short; so that a week elapsed between his departure from Paris and his arrival at Calais. Four days more brought him to Loudon, and now a new scene opened upon him.
Furnished with letters from Sir Henry Neville to the principal statesmen of the court of Queen Elizabeth, he was received with every demonstration of respect and esteem in the English capital, and two days after was presented to the queen herself. I find little record in history of what followed; but one historian, whose views, it must be remarked, were strongly biassed by peculiar feelings of partizanship, declares that the honours shown by the English sovereign to the young earl were of the most marked and extraordinary kind. It is sometimes, in the present day, not easy to account for the course of policy pursued by Elizabeth in her conduct to the subjects of the neighbouring crown; but we must not doubt well-authenticated facts because we cannot penetrate their motives. The writer whom I have mentioned states, in speaking of the Earl of Gowrie, that the queen "ordered that guards should attend him, that all honours should be paid him which were due to a Prince of Wales and to her first cousin, and that he should be entertained at the public expense all the time he should remain at her court."
I can scarcely imagine that this account is not exaggerated. We find that she showed no such honours to others, who stood much in the same degree of affinity to herself as he did; and unless she wished needlessly to alarm the King of Scotland, no cause can be supposed for such conduct. That she treated Gowrie with great distinction, however, is undeniable, and even marked her favour for him more strongly than her old affection for his grandfather could account for. This course was very dangerous to the young earl himself, for the court of England at that time was thronged by spies of the Scottish monarch; and even the most familiar friends and counsellors of Elizabeth conveyed information to James of all that could affect his interest, to the most minute circumstances. The natural desire of what is called currying favour, of course, gave some degree of colour to the accounts transmitted; and there is every reason to believe, from an examination of the State Paper Office, that such intimations alone were given as had a tendency to put the monarch on his guard, without discouraging his hopes or diminishing his energies. The way for his advent to the throne had been prepared long beforehand; whether from the general considerations of policy, from personal ambition, or from avarice, such men as Cecil had chosen their course, and were determined to remove or overawe all competitors, and to insure the accession of the King of Scotland. I am inclined to believe--without considering them as anything more than mere mortals--that the purest spirit of patriotism inspired those who thus acted. Every man of common sense must have seen that most important ends were to be obtained by uniting the crowns of Scotland, Ireland, and England upon one head; nor could any one doubt that--apart from all considerations of the personal character of the man--the means of maintaining his claims, of crushing all competitors, and of establishing his power upon a firm and secure basis, were more completely in the hands of the King of Scotland than of any other person who could aspire to the English throne. His faults were all personal, which never enter sufficiently into the calculations of politicians; his advantages were those of position, which almost always have too much weight with those who influence the fate of empires. By personal character, no man was ever less fitted to fill the throne of a great country, or to unite discordant races under one sway, than James I.: by political position, no one could compete with him in pretensions to the throne of England. Happy had it been for Great Britain had such not been the case, for the vices of the man more than compensated the advantages of the prince, and the weakness of his successors consummated what his own wickedness began; but no one can blame those who chose according to the lights they possessed, and who smoothed the way for that which naturally appeared the best for the whole nation at the time.
The reports which reached Scotland of the honours shown to the Earl of Gowrie in the English capital, generated, in a jealous and irritable mind, covetous of extended and despotic rule, a feeling of doubt and dread most dangerous to its object; and the busy and gossiping spirit of a small court did not fail to increase the unpleasant impressions thus produced, by a thousand rumours, which had no foundation in truth. Reports were circulated and credited, that Queen Elizabeth had actually designated the Earl of Gowrie as her successor, and even that, in order to unite two great claims to the crown which she held, she had made all the arrangements for a marriage between that nobleman and the Lady Arabella Stuart; one who, like himself, was not very remote from the direct succession. These facts have been omitted altogether, or slurred over by modern historians, in noticing that part of history in which this young nobleman appears; but that such rumours existed in England and Scotland can be proved from contemporary authorities; and we can easily conceive the feelings with which such a man as James was thus prepared to view one whose influence was already redoubtable, on his return to his native land.
Could he have seen the private life of the earl, it is probable that, although he might still have remained inimical, the king's fears would not have assumed the character of hatred. From various motives, which every one can conceive, Julia was not disposed to mingle with the gaieties of a foreign court, or, before she was received and recognised in her own land, to assume the position she was entitled to in the society of the neighbouring state. She felt it no privation, indeed--she sought it not--she cared not for it; but even if she had, she would have forborne, and she had full compensation in the tenderness of him she loved. Gowrie appeared at the court of England alone: he put not forth on her behalf, claims which were to be decided in a different country, and by different laws; and on the only occasion when the queen jestingly alluded to his fair companion, he replied, with that courtly reverence towards the sovereign to which Elizabeth was accustomed, and that due respect for Julia's situation from which he never deviated, "It is painful, madam, to be torn by two duties and two inclinations. You may easily suppose it would be grateful for me to linger here at your majesty's feet, but my duty, both by kindred and by promise, is to escort my cousin back to Scotland, in order to establish rights of which she has been too long deprived. I trust, however," he added, with the air of gallantry which pervaded Elizabeth's court, "that ere long I shall be enabled to return, not alone to bask in the beams of your favour, but to ask a share for one who, I may humbly say, is more worthy than myself of that honour for which princes might well contend with pride."
He spoke with that serious gravity, and yet with that unembarrassed ease, which greatly struck the sovereign whom he addressed; and she replied, in her somewhat abrupt manner, "God's my life, cousin, I have a great inclination to see this same fair creature, and would do so too with all honour, either in private or in public, did I not know that it would do her no good service where she is going. Commend me to her, however, and tell her we regard her and yourself with favour, and will do our best to serve you both should need be."
The earl conveyed the message to her he loved; but Julia smiled almost sadly, as she replied, "I fear me, Gowrie, that I am not fitted for courts, at all events by inclination. Calm and peaceful quiet with him I love is all that I desire in life. Nevertheless, understand me, I would not for the world keep back him whose fame and whose character I am bound to regard even before my own peace, from the path of honour and renown, for anything that earth can give. I am ready, when you require it, to mingle with courts and crowds, to take my share in whatever may be for your benefit--nay, should need be, to buckle on your armour with my own hands for the battle-field, and bid God speed you in the right, while I remain alone to weep and pray for your deliverance and success. Heaven send me strength when the hour of trial comes; but in strength or in weakness I will not shrink from my duty towards you."
About ten days after, when the frost, which was then reigning with great severity, had broken up, rendering the roads more passable, Gowrie took his departure from London, and proceeded by slow journeys towards Scotland. He was detained for somewhat more than a week at York by a fresh fall of snow; but as soon as that had melted away under the increasing warmth of the spring, he resumed his way, and passed the border in the end of February, 1600.