There could but have been one comfort--to hear and know that all men thought him innocent; that the best and noblest of the clergy in his native land refused, even under pain of deprivation and banishment, to mock God as they were required, and that far and wide, throughout Europe, the history of his asserted treason was treated with contempt, and the tale of his death received with sorrow and with pity. But she died, and, without ever recovering a glimpse of reason to groan under the burden or to feel the relief, went down to that calm home where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
CHAPTER XLVI.
POSTSCRIPT.
It may seem strange to place at the end of a work like the present, those observations which are usually placed at the beginning, and to add in a postscript, that general view of a subject which is generally afforded in a preface. Except in those cases where a right understanding of the scope and object of the work, and a clear view of the principles upon which the author writes, are necessary to the comprehension of that which is to follow, I greatly object to prefaces. I do not wish to prepossess my reader in favour of my book, nor to imbue him with my own peculiar ideas in order to gain his assent to what is to come after. I, therefore, may as well say at the close, where the reader is more likely to peruse it, what many others would have said at the commencement, and having formed a very strong and decided opinion upon a matter of history, in regard to which, others, inconceivably to me, have adopted a different view, add a few remarks in justification of my own judgment.
On the work itself I have little to say, except inasmuch as it is an essay intended to prove what is really the feeling of the public in regard to cheap literature.
I was aware, from the first, that should the experiment not succeed, I might be met by the reply, that what the public desire is good as well as cheap literature, and I therefore chose a subject of deep interest, which I had pondered for some years, which was first brought to my attention by a gallant officer[[12]] descended from the family which figures most conspicuously in the foregoing pages. To those who have really read the book and arrived fairly at these concluding pages, I think I may venture to appeal as to whether I have spared labour, research, and thought upon the work. I know that I have not, and I believe the evidence thereof will be found in the tale itself.
I would have done as I have said, had it been merely because the work was to be given to the public at a cheaper rate than usual; but there were other strong motives for considering well every sentence I wrote. An important point of history was involved: a point which has been rendered dark by the passions and prejudices of partizans, who refused to judge of it as they would judge of any other matter of evidence brought before them.
The question is, whether the young Earl of Gowrie and his brother laid a plot for entrapping James VI., King of Scotland, to their house at Perth, for the purpose of murdering him, the king escaping by a miracle, and causing them to be slain in return: or whether he laid a plot for surprising them in their house, under the appearance of a friendly visit, and, by a pre-arranged plan, murdered them in their own dwelling.
I have maintained, as the reader has seen, and ever shall maintain, that the latter was the case.
When any man is accused of a crime, it must be shown that the crime was committed, that the accused had a sufficient motive, and that the act is brought home to him by conclusive evidence.