QUESTION OF TOLERATION.
Randolph strangely finds fault with Mary for her toleration in religious matters. "Her will to continue papistry, and her desire to have all men live as they list, so offendeth the godly men's consciences, that it is continually feared that these matters will break out to some great mischief." And lo! the mischief did break out. The Assembly of the Kirk presented, under the singular garb of a "supplication," a remonstrance to the queen, in which they declared that "the practice of idolatry" could not be tolerated in the sovereign any more than in the subject, and that the "papistical and blasphemous mass" should be wholly abolished. To whom the queen:
"Where it was desired that the mass should be suppressed and abolished, as well in her majesty's own person and family as amongst her subjects, her highness did answer for herself, that she was noways persuaded that there was any impiety in the mass, and trusted her subjects would not press her to act against her conscience; for, not to dissemble, but to deal plainly with them, she neither might nor would forsake the religion wherein she had been educated and brought up, believing the same to be the true religion, and grounded on the word of God. Her loving subjects should know that she, neither in times past, nor yet in time coming, did intend to force the conscience of any person, but to permit every one to serve God in such manner as they are persuaded to be the best, that they likewise would not urge her to any thing that stood not with the quietness of her mind."
"Nothing," remarks Mr. Hosack, "could exceed the savage rudeness of the language of the assembly; nothing could exceed the dignity and moderation of the queen's reply." Of all this, in Mr. Froude's pages, not one word! Indeed he at all times religiously keeps out of sight all Mary says or writes, admitting rarely a few words under prudent censorship and liberal expurgation. Sweetly comparing the assembly to "the children of Israel on their entrance into Canaan," he dissimulates their savage rudeness, and adds, almost pensively, that Murray, though he was present, "no longer raised his voice in opposition." Randolph fully confirms what Throckmorton reported four years before—that she neither desired to change her own religion nor to interfere with that of her subjects. Mary told Knox the same thing when she routed him, by his own admission, in profane history, and his own citations from the Old Testament. Where she obtained her familiarity with the Scriptures we cannot imagine, if Mr. Froude tells the truth about her "French education." "A Catholic sovereign sincerely pleading to a Protestant assembly for liberty of conscience, might have been a lesson to the bigotry of mankind," (vol. viii. p. 182;) "but," adds Mr. Froude, "Mary Stuart was not sincere." When Mr. Froude says Mary Stuart is intolerant, we show him, by a standard universally recognized, her words and actions, all always consistent with each other and with themselves, that she was eminently tolerant and liberal. But when he gives us his personal and unsupported opinion that "she was not sincere," he passes beyond the bounds of historical argument into a realm where we cannot follow him.
Still greater than Mr. Froude's difficulty of quoting Mary at all, is his difficulty of quoting her correctly when he pretends to. Randolph comes to Mary with a dictatorial message from Elizabeth, that she shall not take up arms against the lords in insurrection. Mr. Froude calls it a request that she would do no injury to the Protestant lords, who were her good subjects. Mary replied, according to Froude, (vol. viii. p. 188,) "that Elizabeth might call them 'good subjects;' she had found them bad subjects, and as such she meant to treat them." Mary really said,
"For those whom your mistress calls 'my best subjects,' I cannot esteem them so, nor so do they deserve to be accounted of that that they will not obey my commands; and therefore my good sister ought not to be offended if I do that against them as they deserve."
The truth is, Mary's unvarying, queenly dignity and womanly gentleness in all she speaks and writes is a source of profound unhappiness to Mr. Froude, refuting as it does his theory of her character. Consequently it is his aim to vulgarize it down to a standard in vogue elsewhere.
Mr. Froude is most felicitous when he disguises Mary, as he frequently does, with Elizabeth's tortuous drapery. Thus:
"Open and straightforward conduct did not suit the complexion of Mary Stuart's genius; she breathed more freely, and she used her abilities with better effect, in the uncertain twilight of conspiracy."
"Uncertain twilight" is pretty. But where were Mary's conspiracies? Had she Randolphs at Elizabeth's court, and Drurys on the border, plotting, intriguing, and bribing English noblemen? Had she two thirds of Elizabeth's council of state pensioned as paid spies? Had she salaried officials to pick up or invent English court scandal for her amusement? Truly it is refreshing to turn from Mary's twilight conspiracies to the honest and noble transactions of Elizabeth, Cecil, and Randolph. But of the malicious gossip of Elizabeth's spies one might not so much complain, if Mr. Froude had the fairness to give their reports without his embroidery of rhetoric and imagination. Thus, when Randolph writes, "There is a silly story afloat that the queen sometimes carries a pistol," Mr. Froude considers himself authorized by Randolph to say, "She carried pistols in hand and pistols at her saddle-bow;" and, as usual, reading her thoughts, goes on to tell us that "her one peculiar hope was to destroy her brother, against whom she bore an especial and unexplained animosity." The personal intimacy between Randolph and Murray more than sufficiently explains the source of the information given in Randolph's letter of Oct. 13th. (Vol. viii. p. 196.) Mr. Froude has a moment of weakness when he says that the intimacy between the queen and Riccio was so confidential as to provoke calumny. That any thing said of Mary Stuart could possibly be calumny is an admission for Mr. Froude only less amazing than that "she was warm and true in her friendships." The queen's indignation against Murray is sufficiently accounted for by the existence of the calumnies, and the fact that Murray's treasons sent him at this time a fugitive to his mistress Elizabeth. A few pages further on, we have Mary riding "in steel bonnet and corselet, with a dagg at her saddle-bow," (vol. viii. p. 213,) for which Mr. Froude quotes Randolph. But Randolph wrote, "If what I have heard be true, she rode," etc., questionable hearsay where Mary Stuart is concerned, answering Mr. Froude's purpose somewhat better than fact.
Through Randolph, Elizabeth announced to Mary that one of the conditions on which she would consent to the Darnley marriage was, that "she must conform to the religion established by law." Upon this, the singular comment is, "It is interesting to observe how the current of the reformation had swept Elizabeth forward in spite of herself." (Vol. viii. p. 187.) Mary's answer was, she "would make no merchandise of her conscience."