THE RICCIO MURDER.
Mr. Caird presents with great force the result of modern discoveries in the State Paper Office touching the details of the Riccio conspiracy, and shows conclusively that Murray was its real head, and also the chief organ of communication between the conspirators and the English government. The previous knowledge of the intent to murder Riccio, and the probable danger to Mary's life, is brought home to Elizabeth. She could not have been accounted guiltless, even if she had remained passive, merely concealing from her royal sister the bloody tragedy which was being prepared for her with the knowledge of her agent in Scotland. This agent (Randolph) she supported vehemently, protected the assassins, negotiated and trafficked until she got them restored, supplied Murray with large sums of money immediately before and immediately after Riccio's death, and took the first opportunity to gratify her vindictiveness against Darnley by open insult.
In the conspiracy for the murder of Riccio, no one was more deeply implicated than Darnley. He had allowed himself to be flattered and tempted by Murray, Maitland, and the rest with the prospect of a royal crown. But while these crafty men used him in this way for their own ends, they had not the slightest idea of allowing him to be more than a puppet in their hands. The knowledge of Darnley's complicity in the murder had wrung Mary's heart; but after the first burst of grief, she saw clearly that he was the dupe and tool of others. Her respect for him could not be otherwise than shaken; but her affection preserved him from the punishment which he richly merited. And for his sake she spared his father (Lenox) also, whom she justly blamed most; but she never permitted him to enter her presence again. Considering that she had released him from the consequences of treason only twelve months before, and that he had now repeated the offence under such aggravated circumstances, and had beguiled his son into the same evil course, bringing misery upon her household, her forbearance can be attributed only to surviving tenderness for her husband.
Mr. Caird places in a very clear light the development of the contempt and hatred of the conspirators for Darnley, which gradually hardened and intensified into the conspiracy to murder him; and as we watch its growth, it is sad to witness the suffering, sacrifices, and self-denial of a noble-hearted woman all wasted in vain, and upon a most unworthy object. And yet more sad is it when we see, in such falsifiers of history as Mr. Froude, the very clearest and highest proofs of womanly goodness and wifely devotion wrenched and perverted into evidence of crime and murder.
In connection with this subject, Mr. Caird draws attention to the record of the Scotch Privy Council—an account the more valuable because the very men composing the council attempted at a later period to cast discredit on the queen. Here is their testimony: "So far as things could come to their knowledge, the king (Darnley) had no ground of complaints; but, on the contrary, that he had reason to look upon himself as one of the most fortunate princes in Christendom, could he but know his own happiness." And they added, "That although they who did perpetrate the murder of her faithful servant had entered her chamber with his knowledge, having followed him close at the back, and had named him the chief of their enterprise, yet would she never accuse him thereof, but did always excuse him, and willed to appear as if she believed it not; and so far was she from ministering to him occasion of discontent, that, on the contrary, he had all the reason in the world to thank God for giving him so wise and virtuous a person as she had showed herself in all her actions."
There are few points in the history of this period on which writers are so thoroughly agreed as the utter worthlessness and incapacity of Darnley, and there are also few cases which so completely as that of Darnley exemplify the too common weakness of the superior woman for the inferior man who possesses her affection. Trafficking on her affection, and seeking to wring from her a consent to his demands, he came very tardily to what was by all supposed to be her dying-bed at Jedburg. His bearing shocked all beholders. It was at this time Mary made her will, the inventory attached to which is a modern discovery. She left Darnley twenty-five jewels of great value, and opposite one cherished ring wrote with her own hand, "It is the ring with which I was betrothed. I leave it to the king who gave it to me." And yet Mr. James Anthony Froude informs us that Mary was then planning this husband's murder!
The most admirable chapters of Mr. Caird's work are those which treat of