Darnley, in the midst of a severe snow-storm, travelled with all expedition to Edinburgh. Upon his arrival he found that Mary was at Wemyss Castle in Fife, whither, at his father’s desire, he immediately proceeded. The impression which it is said he made upon the Queen, at even his first interview, has been much exaggerated. Chalmers, alluding principally to Robertson’s account of this matter, acutely remarks, “The Scottish historians would have us believe, that Mary fell desperately in love with Darnley at first sight; they would have us suppose, as simply as themselves, that the widowed Queen, at the age of twenty-two,” (it should have been twenty-three), “who knew the world, and had seen the most accomplished gentlemen in Europe, was a boarding-school Miss, who had never till now seen a man.” Mary received Darnley frankly, and as one whom she wished to like; but she had been too long accustomed to admiration, to be prepared to surrender her heart at the first glance. It was not Mary’s character to allow herself to be won before she was wooed. She was, no doubt, glad to perceive that Darnley was one of the handsomest young men of the day. She said playfully, that “he was the lustiest and best proportioned long man she had seen.” She might have said a good deal more; for all historians agree in noticing the grace of his person, the easy elegance of his carriage, the agreeable regularity of his features, and the animated expression of his countenance, lighted up, as it was, by a pair of dazzling eyes. He excelled too in all the showy and manly accomplishments so much in vogue among the young nobility. His riding and dancing were unrivalled; and to gratify Mary, he avowed, whether real or affected, a great fondness for poetry and music. Melville says quaintly, “He was of a heigh stature, lang and small, even and brent up; well instructed from his youth in all honest and comely exercises.”[83]
It was not, however, Darnley’s exterior in which Mary and her subjects were principally interested. The bent which nature and education had given to his mind and character, was a much more important subject of consideration. With regard to his religious sentiments, they seem to have sat loosely upon him; though his mother was a Catholic, he himself professed adherence to the Established Church of England.[84] In Scotland, he saw the necessity of ingratiating himself with the Reformers; and he went, the very first Sunday he spent in Edinburgh, to hear Knox preach. But Darnley’s great misfortune was, that, before he had learned any thing in the school of experience, and in the very heat and fire of youth, he was raised to an eminence which, so far from enabling him to see over the heads of other men, only rendered him giddy, and made his inferiority the more apparent. He was naturally of a headstrong and violent temper, which might, perhaps, have been tamed down by adversity, but which only ran into wilder waste in the sunshine of prosperity. He was passionately fond of power, without the ability to make a proper use of it. It is not unlikely that, had he continued a subject for some years longer, and associated with men of sound judgment and practical knowledge, he might have divested himself of some of the follies of youth, and acquired a contempt for many of its vices. But his honours came upon him too suddenly; and the intellectual strength of his character, never very great, was crushed under the load. Conscious of his inability to cope with persons of talent, he sought to gather round him those who were willing to flatter him on account of his rank, or to join him in all kinds of dissipation, with the view of sharing his ill-regulated liberality. Of the duties of a courtier, he knew something; but of those of a politician, he was profoundly ignorant. The polish of his manners gained him friends at first; but the reckless freedom with which he gave utterance to his hasty opinions and ill-grounded prejudices, speedily converted them into enemies. He had only been a short time in Scotland, when he remarked to one of the Earl of Murray’s brothers, who pointed out to him on the map the Earl’s lands, “that they were too extensive.” Murray was told of this; and, perceiving what he had to expect when Darnley became King, he took his measures accordingly. Mary, whose affliction it was to have husbands far inferior to herself in mental qualifications, beseeched Darnley to be more guarded in future. That he was somewhat violent and self-sufficient, she did not feel to be an insuperable objection, considering, as she did, the political advantages that might accrue from the alliance. She hoped that time would improve him; and besides, she did not yet know the full extent of his imperfections, as he had, of course, been anxious to show her only the fairer side of his character. Melville speaks of him, even when he came to be most hated, as a young prince, who failed rather for lack of good counsel than of evil will. “It appeared to be his destiny,” says he, “to like better of flatterers and evil company, than of plain speakers and good men; whilk has been the wreck of many princes, who, with good company, might have produced worthy effects.” Randolph himself allows, that for some weeks, his “behaviour was very well liked, and there was great promise of him.” He had been about a month at Court before he ventured to propose himself as a husband to Mary; and at first she gave him but small encouragement, telling him she had not yet made up her mind, and refusing to accept of a ring, which he offered her.[85] This was not like one who had fallen in love at first sight. But the Queen invariably conducted herself with becoming self-respect towards Darnley, permitting, as Miss Benger remarks, rather than inviting, his intentions.
Darnley, thus finding that, though the ball was at his foot, the game was not already won, saw it necessary to engage with his father’s assistance, as powerful a party as possible to support his pretensions. Sir James Melville was his friend, and spoke in his favour to Mary. All the Lords who hated or feared Murray did the same; among whom were, the Earls of Athol and Caithness, and the Lords Ruthven and Hume. A still more useful agent than any of these, Darnley found in David Rizzio, who, as the Queen’s French Secretary, and one whose abilities she respected, had a good deal of influence with her. Rizzio knew that for this very reason he was hated by Murray, and others of the Privy Council. He was, therefore, not ill pleased to find himself sought after by her future husband, for he hoped thus to retain his place at Court, and perhaps to rise upon the ruin of some of those who wished his downfal. An accidental illness which overtook Darnley, when the Queen, with her Court, was at Stirling, about the beginning of April 1565, was another circumstance in his favour. At first, his complaint was supposed to be a common cold, but in a few days it turned out to be the measles. The natural anxiety which Mary felt for Darnley’s recovery, induced her to exhibit a tenderer interest in him than she had ever done before. She paid him the most flattering attentions, and continued them unwearyingly, though her patient was provokingly attacked by an ague, almost immediately after his recovery from the measles.[86]
It is worth noticing, that while Mary was thus occupied in attending to Darnley, the Earl of Bothwell returned to Scotland from his involuntary banishment. His former misdemeanours were not yet forgotten, and he was summoned by the Queen and Murray to take his trial in Edinburgh; but not liking to trust himself in the hands of his ancient enemies, he again left the country for six months. He did not depart before giving utterance to several violent threats against Murray and Maitland, and speaking so disrespectfully of the Queen, that Randolph says she declared to him, upon her honour, that he should never receive favour at her hands.[87]
The Queen of Scots being now resolved to bestow her hand on Darnley, sent her Secretary, Maitland, to London, to intimate her intentions, and to request Elizabeth’s approbation. This was the very last thing Elizabeth meant to give. The matter had now arrived exactly at the point to which she had all along wished to bring it. She had prevailed upon Mary to abandon the idea of a foreign alliance; she had induced her to throw away some valuable time in ridiculous negociations concerning the Earl of Leicester; she had consented, first that the Earl of Lennox, and then that his son Darnley, should go into Scotland; and she did not say a single syllable against it till she had allowed Mary to be persuaded, that no marriage in Christendom could be more prudent. It was now that the cloven-foot was to betray itself; that her faction was to be called upon to exert itself in Scotland; that the cup was to be dashed from Darnley’s lips; and that Mary was to be involved in the vortex of civil dissension. The historian Castelnau, whom Mary at this time sent as her ambassador to France, and who there obtained their Majesties’ consent to the marriage, mentions, that when he returned through England, he found the Queen much colder than formerly, complaining that Mary had subtracted her relation and subject, and that she was intending to marry him without her permission, and against her approbation. “And yet I am sure,” adds Castelnau, “that these words were very far from her heart; for she used all her efforts, and spared nothing to set this marriage a-going.”[88]
Elizabeth seldom did things by halves. She assembled her Privy Council, and, at the instigation of Cecil, they gave it as their unanimous opinion, that “this marriage with my Lord Darnley appeared to be unmeet, unprofitable, and directly prejudicial to the sincere amity between both the Queens.”[89] Upon what reasons this sage determination was founded, the Privy Council did not condescend to state. It is not difficult, however, to do so for them, the more especially as an official paper is still preserved, drawn up by Cecil himself, in which the explanations he attempts serve to disclose more fully his own and his Queen’s policy. He did not think this marriage “meet or profitable;” because, in the first place, it would have given great content to those who were anxious that Mary’s succession to the English crown should not be set aside; and in the second place, because, by representing it as dangerous, a plausible pretence would be furnished to all Mary’s enemies to join with Elizabeth in opposing it, and harassing the Queen of Scots. Cecil proceeds to point out explicitly how the harassing system was to be carried on. First, It was to be represented, that in France the houses of Guise and Lorraine, and all the other leading Catholics; and in Scotland, all who hated the Duke of Chatelherault and the Hamiltons, and Murray and the Reformers, and were devoted to the authority of Rome, approved of the marriage. Second, It was to be spread abroad that the Devil would stir up some of the friends of Mary and Darnley, to alienate the minds of Elizabeth’s subjects, and even to attempt the life of that Sovereign; and, under the pretext of preventing such evils, the most rigorous measures might be taken against all suspected persons; and, Third, Tumults and rebellions in Scotland were to be fomented in all prudent and secret ways.[90]
To report to Mary the decision of her Privy Council, Elizabeth sent Sir Nicolas Throckmorton into Scotland. He arrived at Stirling on the 15th of May 1565, and, in an audience which Mary gave him, he set forth Elizabeth’s disliking and disallowance of what she was pleased to term “the hasty proceeding with my Lord Darnley.” Mary, with becoming dignity and unanswerable argument, replied, that she was sorry Elizabeth disliked the match, but that, as to her “disallowance,” she had never asked the English Queen’s permission,—she had only communicated to her, as soon as she had made up her own mind, the person whom she had chosen. She was not a little surprised, she added, at Elizabeth’s opposition, since it had been expressly intimated to her, through the English resident, Randolph, that if she avoided a foreign alliance, “she might take her choice of any person within the realms of England or Scotland, without any exception.” Her choice had fallen upon Lord Darnley, both from the good qualities she found in him, and because being Elizabeth’s kinsman and her’s, and participating of the English and Scottish blood royal, she had imagined that none would be more agreeable to her Majesty and the realm of England. Convinced, by so decided an answer to his remonstrance, that Mary’s resolution was fixed, Throckmorton wrote to Elizabeth, that she could not hope to stop the marriage, unless she had recourse to violence. But Elizabeth had too much prudence to take up arms herself; all she wished was, to instigate others to this measure. Accordingly, Throckmorton, one of the wiliest of her diplomatic agents, received orders to deal with the Scottish malcontents, and especially the Earl of Murray, whom he was to assure of Elizabeth’s support, should they proceed to extremities. Murray was likewise invited to enter into a correspondence with Cecil, an invitation with which he willingly complied;[91] and to give the whole affair as serious an air as possible, a fresh supply of troops was sent to the Earl of Bedford, Elizabeth’s Lieutenant of the Borders; and her Wardens of the Marches were commanded to show no more favour to Mary’s subjects than the bare abstaining from any breach of peace. The Earl of Northumberland, who was attached to the Lennox family, was detained in London; and Lady Lennox herself, was committed to the Tower. Lady Somerset, who pretended a sort of title to the English succession in opposition to Mary, was received very graciously at the Court of Westminster. Means were used to induce Secretary Maitland to associate himself with Murray, and the other discontents; and, all this time, that no suspicion of such insiduous enmity towards the Scottish Queen might be entertained on the Continent, the good opinion of France and Spain was carefully courted.
Elizabeth next wrote letters to Lennox and Darnley, commanding them both, as her subjects, to return to England without delay. Randolph was desired to wait upon them, to know what answer they were disposed to give. He got little satisfaction from either;—Lennox firmly, and Darnley contemptuously, refused to obey the mandate of recall. Randolph then waited upon the Queen to ascertain her mind on the subject. Mary felt keenly the contemptible jealousy and envy with which she was treated by Elizabeth; and received the English resident with greater reserve than she had ever done before, “as a man new and first come into her presence that she had never seen.” Randolph asked, if she would give Lennox and Darnley permission to depart for England. Mary smiled at the question, which was an artful one, and said,—“If I would give them leave, I doubt what they would do themselves; I see no will in them to return.” Randolph answered with insolence, that they must either return, or do worse; for that, if they refused, and were supported by Mary in that refusal, the Queen his mistress had the power and the will to be revenged upon both them and her. The Queen of Scots merely replied, that she hoped Elizabeth would change her mind, and so dismissed Randolph.
Satisfied of the integrity of her purpose, Mary was not to be easily driven from it. She sent Mr John Hay to the English court, to state once more her anxious wish to avoid giving any just cause of offence to Elizabeth, but at the same time to repeat, that she could not but consider as strange and vexatious, any opposition to a marriage, to which there did not seem to be one plausible objection. He was desired also to complain of the “sharp handling” which had been given to Mary’s aunt, the Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. But her chief anxieties arose from the state of matters nearer home. The Duke of Chatelherault, and the Earls of Murray, Argyle, and Glencairn, had now openly declared themselves adverse to the marriage; and Lethington and Morton were suspected of giving it only a very doubtful support. There was, in consequence, a great change at Mary’s court. They who had formerly most influence kept away from it altogether; and a new set of men, little accustomed to state duties, such as Montrose, Fleming, Cassils, Montgomery, and others, came into favour. It was now that Mary found Rizzio, who was active, and well acquainted with all the details of public business, and was, besides, liked by Darnley, of the greatest use to her; and being deserted by her more efficient, but too ambitious counsellors, she gladly availed herself of his services.