THE QUEEN OF SCOTS DETAINED A PRISONER.
Mary's cause, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, was now hopeless, although the unfortunate Queen was not given to understand as much. She was removed from Carlisle, which was too near her English friends and her faithful Scottish Borderers. The danger of leaving her at Carlisle is thus hinted by Mr. Skelton, where he describes the effect she produced on Sir Francis Knollys:--
"When she first flashed upon him in her dishevelled beauty and strong anger--travel-stained though she was from her long ride after the Langside panic--the puritanic veteran warmed into unpremeditated welcome. When we read the remarkable letters in which he describes the fugitive Queen, we cease to wonder at the disquietude of Elizabeth; a glance, a smile, a few cordial words, from such a woman might have set all the northern counties in a blaze. The cold and canny Scot, whose metaphysical and theological ardour contrast so curiously with his frugal common sense, could stolidly resist the charm; but the Catholic nobles, the Border chivalry, would have responded without a day's delay to her summons."
It will not be amiss to give, as recorded from time to time in his own words, the impression which the fugitive and impassioned Queen made on Sir Francis during the short time she was under his care.
"We found her," he writes, "in her chamber of presence ready to receive us, when we declared unto her Your Highness' (Queen Elizabeth's) sorrowfulness for her lamentable misadventure. We found her in answer to have an eloquent tongue and a discreet head; and it seemeth by her doings she hath stout courage and liberal heart adjoining thereto." Later: "This lady and princess is a notable woman. She seemeth to regard no ceremonious honour besides the acknowledgment of her estate royal. She showeth a disposition to speak much, to be bold, to be pleasant, to be very familiar. She showeth a great desire to be revenged of her enemies. She shows a readiness to expose herself to all perils in hope of victory. She desires much to hear of hardiness and valiancy, commending by name all approved hardy men of her country, although they be her enemies; and she concealeth no cowardice even in her friends. The thing she most thirsteth after is victory; and it seemeth to be indifferent to her to have her enemies diminished either by the sword of her friends, or by the liberal promises and rewards of her purse, or by division and quarrels among themselves. So that for victory's sake, pain and peril seem pleasant to her; and in respect of victory, wealth and all things seem to her contemptuous and vile. Now what is to be done with such a lady and princess, and whether such a lady and princess is to be nourished in our bosom, or whether it be good to halt and dissemble with such a lady, I refer to your judgment. The plainest way is the most honorable in my opinion." Yes; "the plainest way is the most honourable," but "to halt and dissemble" was esteemed the most profitable. Again Knollys writes: "She does not dislike my plain dealing. Surely she is a rare woman; for as no flattery can lightly abuse her, so no plain speech seemeth to offend her, if she think the speaker thereof to be an honest man." If we knew nothing of Mary but what we have learned from the pen of this cold and critical adversary, who saw her only when misfortune and disappointment might well have soured and irritated her nature, yet found her "eloquent, discreet, bold, pleasant, very familiar," unmoved by flattery and unruffled by "plain speech," we could legitimately infer that fascinating beyond all ordinary measure must have been the days of her unclouded girlhood in France, and even the less cheerful years of her prosperity in Holyrood;[#] and we could well understand why Elizabeth--who hated her for her claim to the English throne and for her surpassing personal beauty--was anxious to place her as far as possible beyond reach of her friends and sympathizers. The necessity of doing this was emphasized nearly a year later, when Mary was at Tutbury in charge of the Earl of Shrewsbury, by a certain friend of Cecil's named Nicholas White, whose curiosity had lead him to seek an audience with the far-famed captive. In a letter to Cecil, which, as its parenthetical clauses clearly demonstrate, was intended also for the eye of Elizabeth, he wrote:--
[#] Randolph, the English Ambassador to Scotland, has left us, in a letter to Queen Elizabeth, a lively picture of the Scottish queen at the age of twenty-two. He had waited on her at St. Andrews, whither she had withdrawn to pass a few quiet days with some friends, and he describes how good-humouredly she upbraided him for interrupting their merriment with his "grave matters." Among other things he wrote:--"Immediately after the receipt of your letter to this Queen, I repaired to St. Andrews. So soon as time served, I did present the same, which being read, and as appeared in her countenance very well liked, she said little to me for that time. The next day she passed wholly in mirth, nor gave any appearance to any of the contrary; nor would not, as she said openly, but be quiet and merry. Her grace lodged in a merchant's house, her train were very few; and there was small repair from any part. Her will was, that for the time that I did tarry, I should dine and sup with her. Your Majesty was aftertimes dranken unto by her, at dinners and suppers. Having in this sort continued with her grace Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I thought it time to take occasion to utter unto her grace that which last I received in command from your Majesty, by Mr. Secretary's letter.... I had no sooner spoken these words, but she saith, I see now well that you are weary of this company and treatment. I sent for you to be merry, and to see how like a Bourgeois wife I live with my little troop; and you will interrupt our pastime with your great and grave matters. I pray you, sir, if you weary here, return home to Edinburgh, and keep your gravity and great embassade until the Queen come thither; for I assure you, you shall not get her here, nor I know not myself where she is gone; you see neither cloth nor estate, nor such appearance that you may think that there is a queen here; nor I would not that you should think that I am she, at St. Andrews, that I was at Edinburgh."
"If I (who in the sight God bear the Queen's majesty a natural love beside my bounded duty) might give advice, there should be very few subjects in this land have access to, or conference with, this lady. For besides that she is a goodly personage (and yet in truth not comparable to our Sovereign), she hath withal an alluring grace, a pretty Scottish speech, and a searching wit, clouded with mildness." We are indebted to Mr. White for the following piece of information also: "Her hair of itself is black; and yet Mr. Knollys told me that she wears hair of sundry colours."
From this time forward Mary's history is the history of sustaining hope and depressing disappointment. Hopes of an accommodation with her rebel subjects were held out to her by Elizabeth; non-committal promises of her restoration were made; kill-time negotiations were sometimes entered into. It is distressing to read the history of her nineteen years of imprisonment. She never ceased to hope for her release, and yet her hopes were repeatedly disappointed. She continued to write Elizabeth in a friendly tone, hoping, no doubt, to touch a chord of sympathy in her cousin's heart; but she never cringed, she never abased herself. The proud spirit of her forefathers, which she had so fully inherited, lent courage and dignity to her utterances. Various plans were laid for her rescue; but her great distance from any point from which she could be carried out of the realm, rendered them ineffectual. She was removed from place to place, more than a dozen times. The close confinement and the advance of years began to tell on her once lithe and beautiful form. And, indeed, what suffering could be more terrible to a young woman of Mary's lively temperament, than prolonged confinement under a rigorous regime and complete separation from the society of friends. No wonder the Bard of Ayr indignantly addresses Elizabeth:--
The weeping blood in woman's breast
Was never known to thee,
Nor the balm that draps on wound of woe
Frae woman's pitying e'e.
If Mary continued to languish in an English prison, it was not because the majority of the Scottish people had not the good-will to liberate her and place her on the throne. But now, as in the days of her imprisonment in Lochleven Castle, the very love they bore her paralyzed their efforts in her behalf. A miscarried attempt at rescuing her would most probably involve the loss of her life. Elizabeth had received assurance that Mary would never be allowed to pass the precincts of her prison alive. The most distinguished and powerful nobles in Scotland--Argyll, Huntly, Chatelheraut, Athol, Herries, and many others--continued to support her cause, and there is hardly room to doubt, that if Scotland had been left to settle its own internal disputes, Mary would have been restored. But Elizabeth was resolved that Scotland should not settle its own disputes. She laid aside the mask, when she could no longer wear it, and, according as the need arose, sent her soldiers into Scotland to help overpower the friends of Mary. From the day on which Moray returned to Scotland from the Westminster farce, the Queen's party began to gain strength. But what could this avail, since Elizabeth was determined that the cause of the helpless captive should not prosper. The Regent was shot at Linlithgow in January, 1570, and the Earl of Lennox, who succeeded him in the Regency, gave notice to the Ambassador of Elizabeth that English aid would be necessary for the maintenance of his position. The aid, of course, was granted, and the English auxiliaries, under Sussex, by the severity which they exercised against the adherents of the Queen, fully demonstrated their claim to the title of "auld enemies." Mary's party had done enough to prove their loyalty, but when Elizabeth unreservedly cast her lot with the opposite side, they could not hope for permanent success, and they ultimately came to terms with the Regent.