ADDENDUM.
Through the kindness of William Traill, Esq. of Woodwick, Orkney, we are enabled to give the following authentic genealogical account of the manner in which the interesting portrait of Mary Queen of Scots, engraved for this Work, and particularly described in Vol. I. Chap. IV., came into the possession of his family.
“Sir Robert Stewart of Strathdon, son of King James V., by Eupham, daughter of Alexander, 1st Lord Elphingston, obtained a grant of the Crown lands of Orkney and Shetland from his sister Queen Mary in 1565. He was created Earl of Orkney by his uncle James VI., 28th October 1581. He married Lady Jean Kennedy, daughter of Gilbert, fourth Earl of Cassils.
“George Traill, son of the Laird of Blebo in Fife, married, first, Jean Kennedy of Carmunks, a relative of the Earl’s Lady. He accompanied the Earl to Orkney; got a grant from the Earl of the lands of Quandale, in the Island of Ronsay, and, as stewart or factor, managed the affairs of the earldom. By Jean Kennedy he had one son, the first Thomas Traill of Holland. He afterwards married Isobel Craigie of Gairsay, by whom he had James Traill of Quandale, who married Ann Baikie of Burness. Lady Barbara Stewart, the Earl’s youngest daughter, married Hugh Halcro of Halcro, a descendant of the Royal Family of Denmark, and who possessed a great part of the Islands of Orkney. For her patrimony, the Earl wadset to Halcro lands, in Widewall, Ronaldsvoe, and in South Ronaldshay, which lands were afterwards redeemed by Patrick Stewart, the Earl’s eldest son, 1598. Vide Bishop Law’s Rentall 1614. Lady Barbara, being the youngest and the last of the Earl’s family, succeeded to her father’s furniture, plate, pictures, and other moveables, and amongst the rest, the family picture of Queen Mary. Hugh Halcro of that Ilk, the eldest son of this marriage, succeeded his father, and married Jean, daughter of William Stewart of Mains and Burray. Vid. Charters 1615 and 1620. In 1644, this Hugh Halcro executed a settlement in favour of Hugh his Oye, and his heirs; whom failing, to Patrick his brother; whom failing, to Harry fiar of Aikrs; whom failing, to Edward of Hauton; whom all failing, to the name of Halcro. Hugh the Oye, married Margaret, daughter of James Stewart of Gromsay. Vid. Charter by him in her favour of lands in South Ronaldshay and the Island Cava, 12th June 1630. Their son, Hugh Halcro of that Ilk, married Barbara Greem, by whom he had two daughters, Jean and Sibella Halcro. Jean married Alexander Mouat Swenze, and Sibella married James Baikie of Burness; and the estate of Halcro was divided between these families by decreet-arbitral, 21st and 22d December 1677,—Arthur Baikie of Tankerness, and John Kennaday of Carmunks, arbiters; which decreet is in the possession of the present William Traill of Woodwick, Esquire, as is the picture of Queen Mary, and other family relics.”
END OF VOLUME SECOND.
PRINTED BY J. HUTCHISON,
FOR THE HEIRS OF D. WILLISON.
Footnotes:
[1] Robertson, Appendix to vol. i. No. XVII.
[2] Keith, Appendix, p. 139.
[3] Keith, Preface, p. vii.
[4] Melville’s Memoirs, p. 170.
[5] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 316.—Keith, p. 355; Appendix, p. 136.—Anderson, vol. ii. p. 270. vol. iv. p. 183 and 188.—“Martyre de Marie,” in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 210. It would be difficult to explain why Robertson, who, in the Dissertation subjoined to his History, allows the authenticity of the documents which detail the particulars of this important conference at Craigmillar, should not have taken the slightest notice of it in his History. There is surely something indicative of partiality in the omission. Miss Benger, who is not always over-favourable to Mary, remarks on her decision regarding a divorce;—“It is difficult to develope the motives of Mary’s refusal. Had she secretly loved Bothwell, she would probably have embraced the means of liberty; and had she already embarked in a criminal intrigue, she would not have resisted the persuasions of her paramour. If, influenced alone by vindictive feelings, she sought her husband’s life, she must have been sensible that, when the nuptial tie was dissolved, he would be more easily assailable. Why then did she recoil from the proposal, unless she feared to compromise herself by endangering Darnley’s safety, or that some sentiments of affection still lingered in her heart? It has been supposed, that she dreaded the censures which might be passed on her conduct in France; or that she feared to separate her interests from those of her husband, lest she should injure her title to the English crown. All these objections are valid when addressed to reason, but passion would have challenged stronger arguments.”—Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 301.—Blackwood, in his Martyre de Marie, mentions, that Mary upon this occasion told her nobility, that “her husband was yet young, and might be brought back to the right path, having left it principally in consequence of the bad advice of those who were no less his enemies than her’s.”—“This answer,” adds Blackwood, “was far from being agreeable to the Lords, proving to them that her Majesty’s present estrangement from her husband was more from the necessity of the times, than because she had ceased to love him.”
[6] Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 173.—Keith, Preface, p. vii.
[7] The above transaction, in which there is so little mystery, has been converted by Robertson into “a negociation, secretly carried on by Mary, for subverting the Reformed Church.” He cannot, it is true, very easily reconcile the “negotiation” with the fact that, “at the very time, she did not scruple publicly to employ her authority towards obtaining for the ministers of that Church a more certain and comfortable subsistence.” “During this year,” he tells us, “she issued several proclamations and Acts of Council for that purpose, and readily approved of every scheme which was proposed for the more effectual payment of their stipends.” The historian might have inquired a little more closely into the real nature of her correspondence with the Court of Rome, before charging Mary with “falsehood and deceit,” and availing himself of the subject to point a moral.
[8] Keith, p. 359.
[9] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 271.
[10] That Darnley was actually absent upon this occasion, we are not quite satisfied. Robertson says he was, on the authority of Le Croc’s letter in Keith, preface, p. vii.; and after him, most writers on the subject state the fact as beyond a doubt. All, however, that Le Croc says is this:—“The King had still given out, that he would depart two days before the baptism; but when the time came on, he made no sign of removing at all, only he still kept close within his own apartment. The very day of the baptism, he sent three several times, desiring me either to come and see him, or to appoint him an hour, that he might come to me in my lodgings.” This is no direct evidence that the King was absent from the christening. Neither does Buchanan furnish us with any; he merely says, with his usual accuracy and love of calumny, that “her lawful husband was not allowed necessaries at the christening; nay, was forbid to come in sight of the ambassadors, who were advised not to enter into discourse with the King, though they were in the same part of the castle the most part of the day.”—History, Book XVIII. Nor does Knox say any thing definite upon the subject; but Keith, Crawford, and Spottswood, though not referred to by Robertson, seem to support his opinion. Let the fact, however, be as it may, it is not of great consequence. The erroneousness of the popular belief, that Darnley, during the whole of this time, resided in a citizen’s house in the town of Stirling, is more deserving of being pointed out and corrected.
[11] Knox, p. 400.—Keith, Preface, p. vii.
[12] Keith, p. 369.—Knox, p. 400.—The Historie of King James the Sext, p. 5.
[13] Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 176.
[14] Melville, p. 192.
[15] The Ruthven here spoken of is the son of the Lord Ruthven, who took so active a part in the murder.
[16] Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 175 and 342.
[17] Keith—Preface, p. viii.
[18] Keith, p. 364.
[19] Keith, p. 151.—Laing, vol. ii. p. 76.—Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 268.—Whittaker, in endeavouring to prove (vol. ii. p. 322) that the Catholic Ecclesiastical Courts had never been deprived of their jurisdiction, and that, consequently, there was no restoration of power to the Archbishop of St Andrews, evidently takes an erroneous view of this matter. In direct opposition to such a view, Knox, or his continuator, has the following account of the transaction:—“At the same time, the Bishop of St Andrews, by means of the Earl of Bothwell, procured a writing from the Queen’s Majesty, to be obeyed within the Diocess of his Jurisdiction, in all such causes as before, in time of Popery, were used in the Consistory, and, therefore, to discharge the new Commissioners; and for the same purpose, came to Edinburgh in January, having a company of one hundred horses, or more, intending to take possession according to his gift lately obtained. The Provost being advertised thereof by the Earl of Murray, they sent to the Bishop three or four of the Council, desiring him to desist from the said matter, for fear of trouble and sedition that might rise thereupon; whereby he was persuaded to desist at that time.”—Knox, p. 403. This account is not quite correct, in so far as the Earl of Murray alone, unsupported by Mary’s authority, is described as having diverted the Archbishop from his purpose.
[20] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 199; and vol. ii. p. 176.
[21] Keith, Preface p. viii.
[22] Anderson, vol. iv. p. 165.—Goodall, vol. ii. p. 76.
[23] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 76.—et seq.
[24] Birrel’s Dairy, p. 6.—Laing, vol. i. p. 30.
[25] Keith, p. 364.—Anderson, vol. ii. p. 67.—Goodall, vol. ii. p. 244.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 203.—vol. ii. p. 180, and 271.—Laing, vol. i. p. 30.—and vol. ii. p. 17.—Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 258, and 283.—Arnot’s History of Edinburgh, p. 237. Whittaker has made several mistakes regarding the House of the Kirk-of-Field. He describes it as much larger than it really was; and, misled by the appearance of a gun-port still remaining in one part of the old wall, and which Arnot supposed had been the postern-door in the gavel of the house, he fixes its situation at too great a distance from the College, and too near the Infirmary. Sir Walter Scott, in his “Tales of a Grandfather,” (vol. iii. p. 187.) has oddly enough fallen into the error of describing the Kirk-of-Field, as standing “just without the walls of the city.”
[26] Morton’s Confession in Laing, vol. ii. p. 354; and Archibald Douglas’s Letter, ibid. p. 363.
[27] Idem.
[28] Lesley’s Defence in Anderson, vol. i. p. 75.—Buchanan’s History, p. 350.—Laing, vol. ii. p. 34.
[29] Ormiston’s Confession in Laing, vol. ii. p. 322.
[30] Paris’s Confession in Laing, vol. ii. p. 298-9.
[31] Paris’s Deposition in Laing, vol. ii. p. 296.
[32] Laing, vol. ii. p. 282 and 370.
[33] Deposition of Hepburn—Anderson, vol. ii. p. 183.
[34] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 183.
[35] Keith, Preface, p. viii.
[36] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 179.
[37] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 184.
[38] Laing, Appendix, p. 304.
[39] Deposition of John Hay in Anderson, vol. ii. p. 177.
[40] Deposition of William Powrie, in Anderson, vol. ii. p. 165.
[41] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 183.
[42] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 181.
[43] Buchanan’s History, Book XVIII. may be compared with his Detection in Anderson, vol. i. p. 22 and 72.
[44] Buchanan’s History, Book XVIII.
[45] Freebairn’s Life of Mary, p. 112 and 114.
[46] Deposition of Paris in Laing, vol. ii. p. 305.
[47] Evidence of Thomas Nelson, Anderson, vol. iv. p. 165.
[48] The Confessions and Depositions in Anderson, vol. ii. and vol. iv; and in Laing, vol. ii.
[49] Melville’s Memoirs, p. 174. Lesley in Anderson, vol. i. p. 24. Freebairn, p. 115.
[50] Anderson, vol. i. p. 36.—Goodall, vol. ii. p. 245.
[51] Laing, vol. ii. p. 289 et 290.
[52] Historie of King James the Sext, p. 6.
[53] Miss Benger, vol. ii. p. 313.
[54] Sanderson’s Life of Mary, p. 48.—Freebairn, p. 113.
[55] Knox, p. 404.
[56] Keith, p. 365.
[57] Melville, p. 174.
[58] The notion that the powder, with which the Kirk-of-Field was blown up, had been placed in a mine, dug for the purpose, was for a while very prevalent. Mary, of course, never suspected that it had been put into her own bedroom; but the truth came out as soon as the depositions of Bothwell’s accomplices were published. Why Whittaker should still have continued to believe that a mine had been excavated, it is difficult to understand. Laing very justly ridicules the absurdity of such a belief.
[59] There is a sincere piety in this rejection of the word “chance.” Mary was steadily religious all her life, and certainly nothing but a pure and upright spirit could have induced her, on the present occasion, to appeal to her Creator, and say, “It was not chance, but God.”
[60] Keith, Preface, p. viii.
[61] Anderson, vol. i. p. 36.
[62] Lesley in Anderson, vol. i. p. 23.
[63] Keith, p. 368.
[64] Laing’s remarks upon this subject, are exceedingly weak. He seems to suppose that Mary, for the mere sake of appearances, ought to have thrown into prison some of her most powerful nobility. He adds,—“If innocent, she must have suspected somebody, and the means of detection were evidently in her hands. The persons who provided or furnished the lodging,—the man to whom the house belonged,—the servants of the Queen, who were intrusted with the keys,—the King’s servants who had previously withdrawn, or were preserved, at his death,—her brother, Lord Robert, who had apprised him of his danger, were the first objects for suspicion or inquiry; and their evidence would have afforded the most ample detection.” Laing does not seem to be aware, that he is here suggesting the very steps which Mary actually took. She had not, indeed, herself examined witnesses, which would have been alike contrary to her general habits and her feelings at the time; but she had ordered the legal authorities to assemble every day, till they ascertained all the facts which could be collected. Nor does Laing seem to remember, that Bothwell had it in his power to exercise over these legal authorities no inconsiderable control, and to prevail upon them, as he in truth did, to garble and conceal several circumstances of importance which came out.
[65] Killigrew, the English ambassador, sent by Elizabeth to offer her condolence, mentions, that he “found the Queen’s Majesty in a dark chamber so as he could not see her face, but by her words she seemed very doleful.”—Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 209.
[66] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 208.
[67] Vide these Letters in Anderson, vol. i. p. 40, or Keith, p. 369.
[68] Anderson, vol. i. p. 50.
[69] Goodall, vol. i. p. 346, et seq.
[70] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 209. The above fact is no proof, as Chalmers alleges, that Murray was connected with the conspirators; but it shows, that whatever his own suspicions or belief were, he did not choose to discountenance Bothwell. Could Mary ever suppose that the godly Earl of Murray would entertain a murderer at his table?
[71] Anderson, vol. i. p. 52.
[72] Robertson—Appendix to vol. i. No. XIX.
[73] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 103.
[74] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 104, et seq.—and Keith, p. 375, et seq.
[75] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 157.
[76] Anderson, vol. i. p. 107; and Keith, p. 381.
[77] Keith, p. 382.—There are extant two lists of the names of the subscribers, and these differ in one or two particulars from each other; but the one was only a list given to Cecil from memory by John Reid, Buchanan’s clerk; the other is a document authenticated by the subscription of Sir James Balfour, who was at the time Clerk of Register and Privy Council. The chief difference between these two copies is, that Reid’s list contains the name of the Earl of Murray, though on the 20th of April he was out of the realm of Scotland. It has been supposed that the bond, though not produced, might have been drawn up some time before, and that Murray put his name to it before going away. This is possible, but, considering Murray’s cautious character, not probable. The point does not seem one of great importance, though by those who are anxious to make out a case against Murray rather than against Bothwell, it is deemed necessary to insist upon it at length. Perhaps Bothwell forged Murray’s signature, to give his bond greater weight both with the nobles and with the Queen; although one name more or less could not make much difference either to her or them.
[78] Keith, p. 390.
[79] Keith, p. 383.—Melville’s Memoirs, p. 177.—Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 106 and 356.
[80] Melville, p. 177.
[81] Keith, p. 390.
[82] Anderson, vol. i. p. 97.—Keith, p. 390.
[83] Melville, p. 197.
[84] Anderson, vol. i. p. 95.
[85] Anderson, vol. i. p. 95.
[86] Anderson, vol. i. p. 97. et seq. There is something so peculiar in the last passage quoted above, and Bothwell’s conduct was so despotic, during the whole of the time he had Mary’s person at his disposal, that Whittaker’s supposition seems by no means unlikely, that the force to which Mary alludes was of the most culpable and desperate kind. “Throughout the whole of the Queen’s own account of these transactions,” he observes, “the delicacy of the lady, and the prudence of the wife, are in a continual struggle with facts,—willing to lay open the whole for her own vindication, yet unable to do it for her own sake and her husband’s, and yet doing it in effect.” Vide Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 112. et seq.—Melville is still more explicit upon the subject, p. 177. And in a letter from “the Lords of Scotland,” written to the English ambassador, six weeks after the ravishment, it is expressly said, that “the Queen was led captive, and by fear, force, and (as by many conjectures may be well suspected) other extraordinary and more unlawful means, compelled to become the bedfellow to another wife’s husband.”—See the letter in Keith p. 418.
[87] Vide Laing, vol. i. p. 86, and vol. ii. p. 105, and Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 116.
[88] Keith, p. 383.
[89] History of James VI., p. 10.—Buchanan’s History, Book XVII.—Keith, p. 384.—Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 120.
[90] “I plainly refused,” says Craig, in his account of this matter, which still remains among the records of the General Assembly, “because he (Hepburn) had not her handwriting; and also the constant bruit that my Lord had both ravished her and kept her in captivity.”—Anderson, vol. ii. p. 299.
[91] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 280.
[92] Anderson, vol. i. p. 111.—Keith, p. 384.
[93] Anderson, vol. i. p. 87.
[94] History of James VI. p. 10.—Keith, p. 386.—Melville, p. 78.—Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 127. et seq. Upon this subject, Lord Hailes has judiciously remarked:—“After Mary had remained a fortnight under the power of a daring profligate adventurer, few foreign princes would have solicited her hand. Some of her subjects might still have sought that honour, but her compliance would have been humiliating beyond measure. It would have left her at the mercy of a capricious husband,—it would have exposed her to the disgrace of being reproached in some sullen hour, for the adventure at Dunbar. Mary was so situated, at this critical period, that she was reduced to this horrid alternative, either to remain in a friendless and most hazardous celibacy, or to yield her hand to Bothwell.”—Remarks on the History of Scotland, p. 204.
[95] Melville, p. 178.
[96] Letter from the Lords of Scotland to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, in Keith, p. 417.
[97] Melville, p. 180.
[98] Melville, p. 199.
[99] Keith, p. 394.—Melville, p. 179.—Knox, p. 406.
[100] Anderson, vol. i. p. 131.
[101] Anderson, vol. i. p. 128.
[102] Knox, p. 409.
[103] Laing, Appendix, p. 115.
[104] Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 116. Knox says that it was Bothwell who drew back; but the authority to which we have referred is more to be depended on.
[105] Melville, p. 182.
[106] Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 116.
[107] Keith, p. 402.
[108] Keith, p. 403.—Melville, p. 184.—Knox, p. 409.—Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 117.
[109] Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 119.—Anderson, vol. i. p. 128.—Keith, p. 418.
[110] Anderson, vol. i. p. 134.
[111] Keith, p. 408.
[112] Buchanan’s History, Book XVIII.
[113] Keith, p. 406, et seq.
[114] Anderson, vol. i. p. 139.
[115] The above account of Bothwell’s adventures and fate, after he left Scotland, is taken principally from Melville, and the History of James VI. But an interesting and original manuscript, entitled a “Declaration of the Earl of Bothwell,” which was made at Copenhagen, in the year 1568, for the satisfaction apparently of the Danish government, has recently been discovered, and an authenticated copy of it having been transmitted to this country in August 1824, a careful translation from the old French in which it is written, was presented to the public in “The New Monthly Magazine,” for June 1825. Satisfied as we are of the authenticity of this “Declaration,” we have availed ourselves of some of the information it supplies, though, of course, great allowance must be made for the colouring Bothwell has artfully given to the transactions he details. We shall have more to say of this “Declaration” afterwards; at present, it is necessary only to refer to it.
[116] Keith, p. 411 and 414.
[117] Keith, p. 418. It is worth noticing, that no proof of this absurd falsehood is offered—no allusion being even made to the letter which had been shown to Grange, and which, though only the first of a series of forgeries, yet having been hastily prepared to serve the purpose of the hour, seems to have been destroyed immediately.
[118] Keith, Ibid.
[119] Keith, p. 420.
[120] Throckmorton’s Letter in Keith, p. 420, et seq.
[121] Melville’s Memoirs, p. 197.
[122] Whittaker, vol. i. p. 228.
[123] Throckmorton in Keith, p. 422.
[124] Robertson, Appendix to vol. i. No. XXI.
[125] Robertson, Appendix to vol. i. No. XXII.
[126] Throckmorton, in one of his letters, mentions explicitly, that Mary had given him the very reasons stated above for refusing to renounce Bothwell. But as Throckmorton could communicate with Mary only through the channel of the rebel Lords, who, he says, “had sent him word,” it is not at all improbable, that her message may have been a good deal garbled by the way. The passage in Throckmorton’s letter is as follows:—“I have also persuaded her to conform herself to renounce Bothwell for her husband, and to be contented to suffer a divorce to pass betwixt them. She hath sent me word, that she will in no wise consent unto that, but rather die: grounding herself upon this reason, taking herself to be seven weeks gone with child; by renouncing Bothwell, she should acknowledge herself to be with child of a bastard, and to have forfeited her honour, which she will not do to die for it. I have persuaded her to save her own life and her child, to choose the least hard condition.” Robertson—Appendix to vol. i. No. XXII. It was, perhaps, this passage in Throckmorton’s despatch to England, that gave rise to a vulgar rumour, which was of course much improved by the time it reached France. Le Laboureur, an historian of much respectability, actually asserts that the Queen of Scots had a daughter to Bothwell, who was educated as a religieuse in the Convent of Notre Dame at Soissons. Vide Laboureur Addit. aux Mem. de Castelnau, p. 610. Of course, the assertion is altogether unfounded.
[127] Some historians have asserted, that Lord Ruthven accompanied the two Commissioners mentioned in the text. But this is not the case, for he was present at a conference with the English ambassador, Throckmorton, on the very day the others were at Lochleven. Throckmorton in Keith, p. 426.
[128] Pennant, in his “Tour in Scotland,” thus describes Lochleven, and the island where the Queen resided:—“Lochleven, a magnificent piece of water, very broad but irregularly indented; is about twelve miles in circumference, and its greatest depth about twenty-four fathoms. Some islands are dispersed in this great expanse of water, one of which is large enough to feed several head of cattle; but the most remarkable is that distinguished by the captivity of Mary Stuart, which stands almost in the middle of the lake. The castle still remains, consists of a square tower, a small yard with two round towers, a chapel, and the ruins of a building, where (it is said) the unfortunate Princess was lodged. In the square tower is a DUNGEON, with a vaulted room above, over which had been three other stories.”—Tour in Scotland, vol. i. p. 64.
[129] Keith, p. 431.
[130] Keith, p. 426.—Whittaker, vol. i. p. 299.
[131] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 166, and 344.
[132] Leslie, p. 37.—Jebb, vol. ii. p. 221 and 222.
[133] Goodall, ibid.—Freebairn, p. 147.—Whittaker, vol. i. p. 301. et seq.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 248.
[134] Keith, p. 436.
[135] History of James VI. p. 17. Keith, p. 438.
[136] Melville’s Memoirs, p. 193. Keith, p. 442. et seq.
[137] Throckmorton’s Letter in Keith, p. 444 et seq.
[138] What Mark Antony, according to Shakespeare, said of Cæsar, might be, with propriety, applied to the Earl of Murray:
“You all did see that, on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse.—Was this ambition?”
[139] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 251 and 254.—Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 355.
[140] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 66.—Anderson, vol. ii. p. 206 et seq.
[141] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 299, and Chalmers, vol. i. p. 275 and 278.
[142] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 230.—Keith, p. 471—and Chalmers, vol. i. p. 275.
[143] Sir William Drury’s Letter in Keith, p. 470.
[144] Buchanan’s Cameleon, p. 13.
[145] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 65 and 230.—Keith, p. 471.—Freebairn, p. 152, et seq.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 277, et seq. The interest taken in Queen Mary by George Douglas, is ascribed by Mackenzie to a motive less pure than the affection of a good subject. His chief characteristic, we are told by that author, was an excessive love of money, and it was by bribing him, he asserts, with the best part of what gold and jewels she had about her, that Mary prevailed upon him to assist her. But this statement does not seem well authenticated. Another story, still more improbable, was told by the Earl of Murray to the English ambassador, Sir William Drury, namely, that Mary had entreated him to allow her to have a husband, and had named George Douglas as the person she would wish to marry. Murray must have fabricated this falsehood, in order to lower the dignity of the Queen; but he surely forgot that the reason assigned in justification of her imprisonment in Loch-Leven, was her alleged determination not to consent to a separation from Bothwell. How then did she happen to wish to marry another? See Sir William Drury’s Letter in Keith, p. 469.
[146] Keith, p. 472, et seq.
[147] Buchanan, Book xix.—Melville’s Memoirs, p. 200. et seq.—Keith, p. 477.—Calderwood, Crawfurd, and Holinshed. The accounts which historians give of this battle are so confused and contradictory, that it is almost impossible to furnish any very distinct narrative of it, even by collating them all. Robertson hardly attempts any detail, and the few particulars which he does mention, are in several instances erroneous.
[148] Keith, p. 481 and 482.—Anderson, vol. iv. p. 1.
[149] Anderson, vol. iv. p. 1. et seq.—Keith, p. 481.
[150] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 69.
[151] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 283.
[152] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 71.
[153] Anderson, vol. iv. p. 6.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 288. Even at Carlisle, Mary was always strictly watched. In one of his letters to Cecil, Knollys writes thus:—“Yesterday, her Grace went out at a postern, to walk on the playing green, towards Scotland; and we, with twenty-two halberdeers, diverse gentlemen and other servants, waited upon her. About twenty of her retinue played at foot-ball before her the space of two hours, very strongly, nimbly, and skilfully,—without any foul play offered, the smallness of their ball occasioning their fair play. And before yesterday, since our coming, she went but twice out of the town, once to the like play of foot-ball, in the same place, and once she rode out a hunting the hare, she galloping so fast upon every occasion, and her whole retinue being so well horsed, that we, upon experience thereof, doubting that, upon a set course, some of her friends out of Scotland might invade and assault us upon the sudden, for to rescue and take her from us; we mean hereafter, if any such riding pastimes be required that way, so much to fear the endangering of her person by some sudden invasion of her enemies, that she must hold us excused, in that behalf.”
[154] Anderson, vol. iv. p. 95.—Stuart, vol. i. p. 300. It is of Dr Stuart’s translation that we have availed ourselves.
[155] Anderson, vol. iv. part ii. p. 33.
[156] Buchanan, book xix. It is worth remarking, that of these particular friends of Murray, the two Commissioners, Lord Lindsay and the Commendator of Dunfermlin, and the two lawyers, Macgill and Balnaves, sat on the trial of Bothwell when he was unanimously acquitted. Yet they afterwards accused the Queen of consenting to an unfair trial.
[157] Anderson, vol. iv. Part ii. p. 3.
[158] Anderson, vol. iv. Part I. p. 12.
[159] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 128.
[160] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 144.
[161] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 162.
[162] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 62.
[163] We do not at present stop the course of our narrative to examine these letters more minutely, but we shall devote some time to their consideration afterwards.
[164] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 182.
[165] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 184.
[166] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 206.
[167] Ibid. p. 220.
[168] Ibid. p. 221.
[169] Ibid. p. 184 and 206.
[170] Ibid. p. 283.
[171] Ibid. p. 312.
[172] Ibid. p. 300 and 301.
[173] There is one other circumstance connected with this conference, which, though not bearing any immediate reference to Mary, is worth mentioning. We allude to the challenges which passed between Lord Lindsay, one of Murray’s Commissioners, and Lord Herries, one of Mary’s most constant and faithful servants. Lindsay, whose passionate violence we have formerly had occasion to notice, attempted to force a quarrel upon Herries, by writing him the following letter:
“Lord Herries,—I am informed that you have spoken and affirmed, that my Lord Regent’s Grace and his company here present, were guilty of the abominable murder of the late King, our Sovereign Lord’s father. If you have so spoken, you have said untruly, and have lied in your throat, which I will maintain, God willing, against you, as becomes me of honour and duty. And hereupon I desire your answer. Subscribed with my hand, at Kingston, the twenty-second day of December 1568. Patrick Lindsay.”
To this epistle Lord Herries made the following spirited reply:
“Lord Lindsay,—I have seen a writing of yours, the 22d of December, and thereby understand,—‘You are informed that I have said and affirmed, that the Earl of Murray, whom you call your Regent, and his company, are guilty of the Queen’s husband’s slaughter, father to our Prince; and if I said it, I have lied in my throat, which you will maintain against me as becomes you of honour and duty.’ In respect they have accused the Queen’s Majesty, mine and your native Sovereign, of that foul crime, far from the duty that good subjects owed, or ever have been seen to have done to their native Sovereign,—I have said—‘There is of that company present with the Earl of Murray, guilty of that abominable treason, in the fore-knowledge and consent thereto.’ That you were privy to it, Lord Lindsay, I know not; and if you will say that I have specially spoken of you, you lie in your throat; and that I will defend as of my honour and duty becomes me. But let any of the principal that is of them subscribe the like writing you have sent to me, and I shall point them forth, and fight with some of the traitors therein; for meetest it is that traitors should pay for their own treason. Herries. London, 22d of December 1568.”
No answer appears to have been returned to this letter, and so the affair was dropped.—Goodall, vol. ii. p. 271.
[174] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 313.
[175] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 327.
[176] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 332.
[177] Anderson, vol. i. p. 80.
[178] Strype, vol. i. p. 538.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 337.
[179] Stranguage, p. 114.
[180] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 375.—Anderson, vol. ii. p. 261.—Stuart, vol. ii. p. 59.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 349.
[181] Anderson, vol. iii. p. 248.
[182] See “An Account of the Life and Actions of the Reverend Father in God, John Lesley, Bishop of Ross,” in Anderson, vol. iii. p. vii.
[183] Miss Benger, vol. ii. p. 439.
[184] Additions to the Memoirs of Castelnau, p. 589, et seq.
[185] Laing, vol. ii. p. 285.
Alas! what am I?—what avails my life?
Does not my body live without a soul?—
A shadow vain—the sport of anxious strife,
That wishes but to die, and end the whole.
Why should harsh enmity pursue me more?
The false world’s greatness has no charms for me;
Soon will the struggle and the grief be o’er;—
Soon the oppressor gain the victory.
Ye friends! to whose remembrance I am dear,
No strength to aid you, or your cause, have I;
Cease then to shed the unavailing tear,—
I have not feared to live, nor dread to die;
Perchance the pain that I have suffered here,
May win me more of bliss thro’ God’s eternal year.
[186] See the whole of this letter in Whittaker, vol. iv. p. 399. Camden translated it into Latin, and introduced it into his History; but he published only an abridged edition of it, which Dr Stuart has paraphrased and abridged still further; and Mademoiselle de Keralio has translated Dr Stuart’s paraphrased abridgment into French, supposing it to have been the original letter. Stuart, vol. ii. p. 164.—Keralio, Histoire d’Elisabethe, vol. v. p. 349.
[187] Chalmers, vol. i. p. 395.
[188] They were hanged on two successive days, seven on each day; and the first seven, among whom were Ballard, Babington, and Savage, were cut down before they were dead, embowelled, and then quartered.—Stranguage, p. 177.
[189] Stranguage, p. 176.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 427 et seq.
[190] In the first series of Ellis’s Collection of “Original Letters illustrative of English History,” there is given a fac simile of the plan, in Lord Burleigh’s hand, for the arrangement to be observed at the trial of the Queen of Scots. As it is interesting, and brings the whole scene more vividly before us, the following explanatory copy of it will be perused with interest.
Below, in another hand, apparently in answer to Lord Burleigh’s direction, is the following:
“This will be most convenientlye in the greatt Chamber; the lengthe whereof is in all xxiij. yerds with the windowe: whereof there may be fr. the neither part beneth the barre viij. yerds: and the rest for the upper parte. The breadeth of the chamber is vij. yerds.
“There is another chambre for the Lords to dyne in, the lengthe is xiiij. yerds; the breadeth, vij. yerdes; and the deppeth iij. yerdes dim.”
[191] As an example of some of the mistakes which the fabricators of these letters committed, it may be mentioned, that in one of them, dated the 27th of July 1586, Mary is made to say,—“I am not yet brought so low but that I am able to handle my cross-bow for killing a deer, and to gallop after the hounds on horseback, as this afternoon I intend to do, within the limits of this park, and could otherwhere if it were permitted.” Yet on the 3d of June previous, Sir Amias Paulet informed Walsingham—“The Scottish Queen is getting a little strength, and has been out in her coach, and is sometimes carried in a chair to one of the adjoining ponds to see the diversion of duck-hunting; but she is not able to walk without support on each side.” See Chalmers, vol. i. p. 426.
[192] Camden, p. 519, et seq.—Stranguage, p. 192, et seq.—Robertson, Book VII.—Stuart, vol. ii. p. 268, et seq.
[193] It deserves notice, that no particulars of the trial at Fotheringay have been recorded, either by Mary herself, or any of her friends, but are all derived from the narrative of two of Elizabeth’s notaries. If Mary’s triumph was so decided, even by their account, it may easily be conceived that it would have appeared still more complete, had it been described by less partial writers.
[194] Camden, p. 525, et seq.
[195] Murdin, p. 569.
[196] Camden.
[197] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 91.
[198] Tytler, vol. ii. p. 319, et seq., and p. 403.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 447.—Tytler gives a strong and just exposition of the shameful nature of the Queen’s correspondence with Paulet. The reader cannot fail to peruse the following passage with interest:
“The letters written by Elizabeth to Sir Amias Paulet, Queen Mary’s keeper in her prison at Fotheringay Castle, disclose to us the true sentiments of her heart, and her steady purpose to have Mary privately assassinated. Paulet, a rude but an honest man, had behaved with great insolence and harshness to Queen Mary, and treated her with the utmost disrespect. He approached her person without any ceremony, and usually came covered into her presence, of which she had complained to Queen Elizabeth. He was therefore thought a fit person for executing the above purpose. The following letter from Elizabeth displays a strong picture of her artifice and flattery, in order to raise his expectations to the highest pitch.
‘TO MY LOVING AMIAS.
‘Amias, my most faithful and careful servant, God reward thee treblefold for the most troublesome charge so well discharged. If you knew, my Amias, how kindly, beside most dutifully, my grateful heart accepts and praiseth your spotless endeavours and faithful actions, performed in so dangerous and crafty a charge, it would ease your travail, and rejoice your heart; in which I charge you to carry this most instant thought, that I cannot balance in any weight of my judgment the value that I prize you at, and suppose no treasure can countervail such a faith. And you shall condemn me in that fault that yet I never committed, if I reward not such desert; yea let me lack when I most need it, if I acknowledge not such a merit, non omnibus datum.’[*]
Having thus buoyed up his hopes and wishes, Walsingham, in his letters to Paulet and Drury, mentions the proposal in plain words to them. ‘We find, by a speech lately made by her Majesty, that she doth note in you both a lack of that care and zeal for her service, that she looketh for at your hands, in that you have not in all this time (of yourselves, without any other provocation) found out some way to shorten the life of the Scots Queen, considering the great peril she is hourly subject to, so long as the said Queen shall live.’—In a Post-script: ‘I pray you, let both this and the enclosed be committed to the fire; as your answer shall be, after it has been communicated to her Majesty, for her satisfaction.’ In a subsequent letter: ‘I pray you let me know what you have done with my letters, because they are not fit to be kept, that I may satisfy her Majesty therein, who might otherwise take offence thereat.’
What a cruel snare is here laid for this faithful servant! He is tempted to commit a murder, and at the same time has orders from his Sovereign to destroy the warrant for doing it. He was too wise and too honourable to do either the one or the other. Had he fallen into the snare, we may guess, from the fate of Davidson, what would have been his. Paulet, in return, thus writes to Walsingham:—‘Your letters of yesterday coming to my hand this day, I would not fail, according to your directions, to return my answer with all possible speed; which I shall deliver unto you with great grief and bitterness of mind, in that I am so unhappy, as living to see this unhappy day, in which I am required, by direction of my most gracious Sovereign, to do an act which God and the law forbiddeth. My goods and life are at her Majesty’s disposition, and I am ready to lose them the next morrow if it shall please her. But God forbid I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity, as shed blood without law or warrant.”
* What a picture have we here, of the heroine of England! Wooing a faithful servant to commit a clandestine murder, which she herself durst not avow! The portrait of King John, in the same predicament, practising with Hubert to murder his nephew, then under his charge, shows how intimately the great Poet was acquainted with nature.
O my gentle Hubert,
We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh,
There is a soul, counts thee her creditor,
And with advantage means to pay thy love,
And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
Lives in this bosom dearly cherished.
[199] Mackenzie’s Lives of the Scottish Writers, vol. iii. p. 336.—Robertson, vol. ii. p. 194.—Chalmers, vol. i. p. 449.
[200] La Mort de la Royne d’Ecosse in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 611.
[201] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 622. et seq.
[202] “Mary’s testament and letters,” says Ritson the antiquarian, “which I have seen, blotted with her tears in the Scotch College, Paris, will remain perpetual monuments of singular abilities, tenderness, and affection,—of a head and heart of which no other Queen in the world was probably ever possessed.”
[203] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 628, et seq.
[204] History of Fotheringay, p. 79.
[205] Among these attendants were her physician Bourgoine, who afterwards wrote a long and circumstantial narrative of her death, and Jane Kennedy, formerly mentioned on the occasion of Mary’s escape from Loch-Leven.
[206] Narratio Supplicii Mortis Mariae Stuart in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 163.—La Mort de la Royne d’Ecosse in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 636 and 639.—Camden, p. 535.
[207] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 640, et seq.
[208] See Mezeray, Histoire de France, tome iii.
[209] “We may say of Mary, I believe, with strict propriety,” observes Whittaker, “what has been said of one of her Royal predecessors,—‘the gracious Duncan,’ that she
“Had borne her faculties so meek, had been
So clear in her great office, that her virtues,
Will plead, like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of her taking off.”
[210] “Oraison Funebre” in Jebb, vol. ii. p. 671.
[211] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 92.
[212] Keith, p. 79.
[213] Anderson, vol. i. p. 117.—Keith, p. 379.
[214] Melville, p. 175. et seq.
[215] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 90.
[216] Keith, p. 406.
[217] Anderson, vol. i. p. 139.
[218] Keith, p. 417.
[219] Haynes, p. 454.—Stuart, vol. i. p. 361.
[220] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 66.
[221] Keith, p. 467.—Anderson, vol. ii. p. 173.
[222] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 140.
[223] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 235.
[224] Ibid. 256.
[225] Tytler, vol. i. p. 144.
[226] There is preserved at Hamilton Palace, a small silver box, said to be the very casket which once contained the Letters. Laing, who appears to believe in the genuineness of this relic somewhat too hastily, mentions, that “the casket was purchased from a Papist by the Marchioness of Douglas (a daughter of the Huntly family) about the period of the Restoration. After her death, her plate was sold to a goldsmith, from whom her daughter-in-law Anne, heiress and Dutchess of Hamilton, repurchased the casket.”
“For the following accurate and satisfactory account of the casket,” adds Mr Laing, “I am indebted to Mr Alexander Young, W. S., to whom I transmitted the description of it given in Morton’s receipt, and in the Memorandum prefixed to the Letters in Buchanan’s ‘Detection.’”
“‘The silver box is carefully preserved in the Charter-room at Hamilton Palace, and answers exactly the description you have given of it, both in size and general appearance. I examined the outside very minutely. On the first glance I was led to state, that it had none of those ornaments to which you allude, and, in particular, that it wanted the crowns, with the Italic letter F. Instead of these, I found on one of the sides the arms of the house of Hamilton, which seemed to have been engraved on a compartment, which had previously contained some other ornament. On the top of the lock, which is of curious workmanship, there is a large embossed crown with fleurs de lis, but without any letters. Upon the bottom, however, of the casket, there are two other small ornaments—one near each end, which, at first sight, I thought resembled our silver-smiths’ marks; but, on closer inspection, I found they consisted each of a royal crown above a fleur de lis, surmounting the Italic letter F.’”—Laing, vol. ii. p. 235.
Upon this description of the box, it may be remarked, that it does not exactly agree with the account given of it by Buchanan; for it would appear, that in the casket preserved at Hamilton, there are only two Italic F’s; while Buchanan describes it as “a small gilt coffer, not fully a foot long, being garnished in sundry places with the Roman letter F, under a king’s crown,” an expression he would not have used, had there been only two of these letters. Besides, there seems to have been a king’s crown above each; but on the coffer at Hamilton, there is only one crown on the top of the lock, and not above the letter F. Antiquarians, however, have investigated subjects of less curiosity, and have been willing to believe upon far more slender data.
[227] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 87.
[228] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 140.
[229] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 235; and p. 257.
[230] The authentic “Warrant” and “Consent,” has been already described, supra, vol. ii. p. 95, and may be seen at length in Anderson, vol. i. p. 87.
[231] Laing, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 356.
[232] See in further corroboration of the facts stated above, a Letter of Archibald Douglas to the Queen of Scots, in Robertson’s Appendix, or in Laing, vol. ii. p. 363.
[233] “Nec ullam hac in causa reginæ accusationem intervenire.”—See the King of Denmark’s Letter in Laing, vol. ii. p. 328.
[234] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 382.
[235] Keith, Appendix, p. 141.
[236] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 227.—Keith, Appendix, p. 143.
[237] See the New Monthly Magazine, No. LIV. p. 521.
[238] Lesley’s “Defence” in Anderson, vol. i. p. 40.
[239] Miss Benger, Appendix, vol. ii. p. 494.
[240] Buchanan, book xix.—Stuart, vol. i. p. 460.
[241] Robertson, Appendix to vol. i. No. xxii.
[242] Anderson, vol. iv. Part I. p. 120 and 125.
[243] Keith, Appendix, p. 145.
[244] Jebb, vol. ii. p. 671.
[245] Anderson, vol. ii. p. 185.
[246] Anderson, ibid. p. 187.—Laing, vol. ii. p. 296.
[247] Laing, Appendix p. 323.
[248] Laing, vol. ii. p. 298.
[249] Ibid. p. 300.
[250] Tytler, vol. i. p. 20.
[251] It is unnecessary to enter into any discussion regarding the second Confession of Paris, which has been so satisfactorily proved to be spurious, by Tytler, Whittaker, and Chalmers, and on which Robertson acknowledges “no stress is to be laid,” on account of the “improbable circumstances” it contains. See Tytler, vol. i. p. 286.—Whittaker, vol. ii. p. 305.—Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 50.—Robertson, vol. iii. p. 20.
[252] Robertson, vol. iii. p. 21.
[253] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 371 and 375.—Robertson, vol. iii. p. 28.
[254] The French edition of the Detection, p. 2.—Goodall, vol. i. p. 103.
[255] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 235.
[256] Laing, vol. i. p. 250.
[257] See the Letter in Laing, vol. ii. p. 202; and an unsuccessful attempt to give a criminal interpretation to it, in vol. i. p. 311. It is quite unnecessary to allude here to several other flimsy forgeries which, at a later period, have been attempted to be palmed upon the world as genuine letters of Mary. In 1726, a book was published, entitled, “The genuine Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, to James Earl of Bothwell, found in his Secretary’s Closet after his Decease, and now in the Possession of a Gentleman at Oxford. Translated from the French by Edward Simmons, late of Christ-Church College, Oxford.” These had only to be read, to be seen to be fabrications. Yet so late as the year 1824, a compilation was published by Dr Hugh Campbell, containing, among other things, eleven letters, which the Doctor thought were original love-letters of the Queen to Bothwell, although, with a very trifling variation, they were the same as those published in 1726; only, not being described as translations, and being written in comparatively modern English, which Mary never could write, they bear still more evidently the stamp of forgery. This is put beyond a doubt, by a short Examination of them, published by Murray, London, 1825, and entitled, “A Detection of the Love-Letters, lately attributed, in Hugh Campbell’s Work, to Mary Queen of Scots; wherein his Plagiarisms are proved, and his fictions fixed.”
[258] Whittaker, vol. ii. p. 79.
[259] Goodall, vol. i. p. 79—Laing, vol. i. p. 209.
[260] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 342.
[261] Jebb, vol. ii. 244.
[262] Camden, p. 143.—Tytler, vol. i. p. 101.
[263] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 31.
[264] It is proper to state, that Robertson has considered this argument at some length; and though he has not overturned, he has certainly invalidated the strength of the evidence adduced by Goodall in support of it.—Goodall, vol. i. p. 118.—Whittaker, vol. i. p. 383.—Chalmers, vol. ii. p. 375.—Laing, vol. i. p. 315.
[265] Whittaker, vol. i. p. 332.
[266] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 64 & 67.
[267] Whittaker, vol. i. p. 408.
[268] Goodall, vol. ii. p. 51.
[269] Regarding these sonnets, the curious reader may consult Whittaker, vol. iii. p. 55.—Stuart, vol. i. p. 395.—Jebb, vol. ii. p. 481—and Laing, vol. i. p. 230. 347. 349. and 368. For remarks on the marriage-contracts, see Goodall, vol. ii. p. 54 & 56, and vol. i. p. 126.—Whittaker, vol. i, p. 392, and Stuart, vol, i. p. 397.