Mary Queen of Scots / Makers of History

by Jacob Abbott

Mary's opinion of Darnley.
His interview with her.

Mary was very much pleased with Darnley. She told Melville, after their first interview, that he was the handsomest and best proportioned "long man" she had ever seen. Darnley was, in fact, very tall, and as he was straight and slender, he appeared even taller than he really was. He was, however, though young, very easy and graceful in his manners, and highly accomplished. Mary was very much pleased with him. She had almost decided to make him her husband before she saw him, merely from political considerations, on account of her wish to combine his claim with hers in respect to the English crown. Elizabeth's final answer, refusing the terms on which Mary had consented to marry Leicester, which came about this time, vexed her, and determined her to abandon that plan. And now, just in such a crisis, to find Darnley possessed of such strong personal attractions, seemed to decide the question. In a few days her imagination was full of pictures of joy and pleasure, in anticipations of union with such a husband.

The courtship.

The thing took the usual course of such affairs. Darnley asked Mary to be his wife. She said no, and was offended with him for asking it. He offered her a present of a ring. She refused to accept it. But the no meant yes, and the rejection of the ring was only the prelude to the acceptance of something far more important, of which a ring is the symbol. Mary's first interview with Darnley was in February. In April, Queen Elizabeth's embassador sent her word that he was satisfied that Mary's marriage with Darnley was all arranged and settled.

Elizabeth in a rage.
Murray's opposition.
Mary hastens the marriage.

Queen Elizabeth was, or pretended to be, in a great rage. She sent the most urgent remonstrances to Mary against the execution of the plan. She forwarded, also, very decisive orders to Darnley, and to the Earl of Lennox his father, to return immediately to England. Lennox replied that he could not return, for "he did not think the climate would agree with him!" Darnley sent back word that he had entered the service of the Queen of Scots, and henceforth should obey her orders alone. Elizabeth, however, was not the only one who opposed this marriage. The Earl of Murray, Mary's brother, who had been thus far the great manager of the government under Mary, took at once a most decided stand against it. He enlisted a great number of Protestant nobles with him, and they held deliberations, in which they formed plans for resisting it by force. But Mary, who, with all her gentleness and loveliness of spirit, had, like other women, some decision and energy when an object in which the heart is concerned is at stake, had made up her mind. She sent to France to get the consent of her friends there. She dispatched a commissioner to Rome to obtain the pope's dispensation; she obtained the sanction of her own Parliament; and, in fact, in every way hastened the preparations for the marriage.

A dangerous plot.
Mary's narrow escape.

Murray, on the other hand, and his confederate lords, were determined to prevent it. They formed a plan to rise in rebellion against Mary, to waylay and seize her, to imprison her, and to send Darnley and his father to England, having made arrangements with Elizabeth's ministers to receive them at the borders. The plan was all well matured, and would probably have been carried into effect, had not Mary, in some way or other, obtained information of the design. She was then at Stirling, and they were to waylay her on the usual route to Edinburgh. She made a sudden journey, at an unexpected time, and by a new and unusual road, and thus evaded her enemies. The violence of this opposition only stimulated her determination to carry the marriage into effect without delay. Her escape from her rebellious nobles took place in June, and she was married in July. This was six months after her first interview with Darnley. The ceremony was performed in the royal chapel at Holyrood. They show, to this day, the place where she is said to have stood, in the now roofless interior.

The marriage.
The mourner and the bride.

Mary was conducted into the chapel by Lennox and another nobleman, in the midst of a large company of lords and ladies of the court, and of strangers of distinction, who had come to Edinburgh to witness the ceremony. A vast throng had collected also around the palace. Mary was led to the altar, and then Lord Darnley was conducted in. The marriage ceremony was performed according to the Catholic ritual. Three rings, one of them a diamond ring of great value, were put upon her finger. After the ceremony, largess was proclaimed, and money distributed among the crowd, as had been done in Paris at Mary's former marriage, five years before. Mary then remained to attend the celebration of mass, Darnley, who was not a Catholic, retiring. After the mass, Mary returned to the palace, and changed the mourning dress which she had continued to wear from the time of her first husband's death to that hour, for one more becoming a bride. The evening was spent in festivities of every kind.