The disgust which Moray's conduct towards his sister had excited among the moderate Scottish nobles is apparent in the action of two leading personages, shortly after the breaking up of the Westminster Conference. William Maitland of Lethington--the "flower of Scottish wit"--and William Kirkaldy of Grange--the "mirror of chivalry"--had been attached to the Regent's party, although it is certain that at least Maitland aimed at a compromise with the Queen and opposed extreme measures. Seeing that a middle course was no longer possible, they unequivocally went over to the Queen's party. Kirkaldy was Governor of Edinburgh Castle, and in April, 1571, Maitland, broken down in body, but mentally the recognized leader of the Queen's men, passed within its walls. From this inacessible height Kirkaldy could look down with indifference on the futile efforts of the Regent's forces to dislodge him, and Maitland could send forth to his associates his letters of advice and encouragement. Throughout the country the opposing forces met in many a bloody conflict. Lennox was killed in an engagement with Huntly in 1571; the Earl of Mar, who succeeded him, died the following year, and the Regency passed into the hands of the fierce and licentious Earl of Morton. Morton renewed the conflict with redoubled vigour. But Kirkaldy's position remained impregnable. "Mons. Meg," the old monster gun, so famous in Scottish history, continued to roar defiance from the ramparts of the Castle, and the Standard of Mary still floated over David's tower. But the old story was repeated; English troops were sent from Berwick to reinforce Morton; and on May the 9th, 1573, the Castle surrendered.
In England the sympathy for the fallen Queen had already burst forth in sudden but ill-directed revolt, under the leadership of two of the most ancient and powerful peers of the realm,--the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland. Slight success at the outset was soon succeeded by disorder and disaster. The Earls fled to Scotland, whence Westmorland passed safely to Flanders. Northumberland was taken by the Regent Moray, and was afterwards, to the great disgust and humiliation of all honest Scotsmen, handed over to Elizabeth by the Regent Morton, in return for a suitable sum of money. Needless to say the Earl was put to death. Sir Walter Scott, always ready to view transaction from the standpoint of chivalry, makes the following reference to this bargain:--
"The surrender of this unfortunate nobleman to England was a great stain, not only on the character of Morton, but on that of Scotland in general, which had hitherto been accounted a safe and hospitable place of refuge for those whom misfortune or political faction had exiled from their own country. It was the more particularly noticed because when Morton himself had been forced to fly to England, on account of his share in Rizzio's murder, he had been courteously received and protected by the unhappy nobleman whom he had now delivered up to his fate. It was an additional and aggravating circumstance, that it was a Douglas who had betrayed a Percy,[#] and when the annals of their ancestors were considered, it was found that while they presented many acts of open hostility, many instances of close and firm alliance, they never till now had afforded an example of any act of treachery exercised by one family against the other. To complete the infamy of the transaction, a sum of money was paid to the Regent on this occasion, which he divided with Douglas of Lochleven." (Tales of a Grandfather.)
[#] Northumberland was a Percy; Westmoreland, a Nevil.
On February 4th, 1568, Mary passed to the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who was destined to be her keeper for the next fifteen years. In November, 1570, she was brought to Sheffield where she was detained, almost without interruption, for fourteen years. Personally, Shrewsbury bore no ill-will to his charge. He appears to have been an upright and cultured man, and was evidently disposed to treat his prisoner with the consideration and leniency her rank and misfortune would seem to demand. But he was a loyal subject of Elizabeth's, and until she should be pleased to relieve him of his unpleasant duty, he would faithfully execute her will in regard to the restrictions which she thought fit to place on the liberty of the Scottish Queen.
Great as were the bodily and mental sufferings which close confinement, disappointed hopes and the ingratitude of men produced, they would have been greatly aggravated, had Mary only known by what a slender thread her life sometimes hung. Elizabeth entered into negotiations with successive Regents, from Moray to Morton, for the delivery of Mary into their hands. The remonstrations of the French and Spanish Ambassadors, who represented that such an action would be equivalent to condemning her to instant death, arrested the progress of the first negotiations till the death of Moray brought them to an abrupt ending. During the regency of Mar, the project was revived and almost realized, the necessary condition that Mary should be quickly put to death having been agreed to by the Regent and Morton. But here the death of another Regent intervened to save the doomed Queen from assassination or judicial murder. On the death of Mar, Morton, who had hitherto been the real, though not the nominal Regent, assumed the reins of government. He had no scruples about executing the will of Elizabeth, but he demanded a higher price for his services than she cared to pay. Morton and Elizabeth were well matched; they both knew the value of money, and were unwilling to close a bargain that would not promise to be a safe business transaction. Morton was, no doubt, confident that he would not be hampered by competition in the work he was undertaking, and that he could exact what wages he pleased for his expert labour. Killegrew, the agent of Elizabeth, understood this, and was anxious that the bargain should be clinched before Morton took it into his mind to demand a greater reward. "I pray God," he wrote; "we prove not herein like those who refused the three volumes of Sibylla's prophecies, with the price that they were afterwards pleased to give for one; for sure I left the market here better cheap than now I find it." But Elizabeth would not be outwitted--and Mary lived on.
A never-failing source of sorrow to Mary was the knowledge that her son, whom she had seen for the last time an infant, scarcely twelve months old, at Stirling, was in charge of those who had contrived her own overthrow, and was under the tutorship of the venal and ungrateful Buchanan. The burden of her captivity would have been immeasurably lightened, could she have been assured that he had learned to love her and feel for her misfortunes. But the young James, whatever may have been his desire, was in the hands of her enemies, and could communicate with his mother only in the manner and through the means that they were pleased to specify. Nevertheless, as he grew older he had ample opportunity of learning the real character of the men who had dethroned her, and would, it must be presumed, have done what he could to procure her release, did not the promptings of human interest run counter to the dictates of natural love. He was not of that stuff of which heroes are made. The bravery and chivalry for which his forefathers had long been distinguished, found no abode in his bosom. A sound skin and the prospect of succeeding to the English throne weighed more with him than the thought of adopting a firm and uncompromising policy in defence of his mother. While the projects of Mary's friends on the Continent gave promise of being carried to a successful issue, he was not averse to plotting with the Guises and seeking the aid of the Pope in behalf of his "dearest and most honoured lady mother"; but when these projects came to naught, he was found closely allied to the winning cause. Later on, it is true, when Mary was declared a party to a conspiracy against the life of Elizabeth, and her execution was imminent, he dispatched Ambassadors to the English Court to intercede for her life; and when at last the fatal blow was struck, he gave vent to angry feelings and expressed a desire of revenge. A large number of the Scottish nobility were anxious to avert by armed force the contemplated insult to their nation, and to secure Scotland against a humiliation such as their ancestors would never have tolerated. But a cowardly King and a divided nobility were not the forces which, in earlier days, had awakened terror in the heart of England. Elizabeth and her advisers know this, and were well aware that the fear of never reaching the goal of his ambition--the united thrones of England and Scotland--would curb within harmless limits the half-hearted anger of the selfish James.
CHAPTER X.
ELIZABETH UNMOVED BY HER CAPTIVE'S APPEALS.
Reading the history of Mary's prison life in England, one is surprised at the frequent expressions of hope in Elizabeth's good will which are found in her letters. How she could continue to hope in one who had repeatedly deceived her is difficult to explain, except on the supposition that she was constitutionally incapable of believing that misery such as hers could fail to awaken sympathy in the heart of a woman. There can be little doubt, however, that she believed considerably less in Elizabeth's friendship than she professed. But the absence of all well-founded hope, except through the favourable action of Elizabeth, led her to employ every subtle means in her power to induce her "good cousin" to break the fetters of her captivity, and restore her once more to liberty. Still, she did not always restrain her actions within these diplomatic lines; she was human,--noble and courageous, it is true, but only human--and the desire of freedom, the sense of the injustice she suffered, and the pains of her illness, occasionally broke forth in angry and impassioned language. But she never lost the consciousness that she was a Queen, nor did she hesitate, when mild and guarded language proved vain, to speak with bold and dignified straightforwardness, that seemed almost designed to challenge the direst resentment of her royal captor. Her letter to Elizabeth, dated from Sheffield, November 8th, 1582, is a good specimen, both of her plain, outspoken style, and of her insinuating pathos, and likewise witnesses the clearness and vigour of her mind, despite long years of bodily and mental suffering. The document is lengthy, and I shall omit those paragraphs which I may consider of lesser interest to the reader:--