They accordingly sent commissioners to Loch Leven to propose these measures to the queen. There were three instruments of abdication prepared for her to sign. By one she resigned the crown in favor of her son. By the second she appointed Murray to be regent as soon as he should return from France. By the third she appointed commissioners to govern the country until Murray should return. They knew that Mary would be extremely unwilling to sign these papers, and yet that they must contrive, in some way, to obtain her signature without any open violence; for the signature, to be of legal force, must be, in some sense, her voluntary act.
The commissioners.
The two commissioners whom they sent to her were Melville and Lindsay. Melville was a thoughtful and a reasonable man, who had long been in Mary's service, and who possessed a great share of her confidence and good will. Lindsay was, on the other hand, of an overbearing and violent temper, of very rude speech and demeanor, and was known to be unfriendly to the queen. They hoped that Mary would be induced to sign the papers by Melville's gentle persuasions; if not, Lindsay was to see what he could do by denunciations and threats.
Melville unsuccessful.
When the two commissioners arrived at the castle, Melville alone went first into the presence of the queen. He opened the subject to her in a gentle and respectful manner. He laid before her the distracted state of Scotland, the uncertain and vague suspicions floating in the public mind on the subject of Darnley's murder, and the irretrievable shade which had been thrown over her position by the unhappy marriage with Bothwell; and he urged her to consent to the proposed measures, as the only way now left to restore peace to the land. Mary heard him patiently, but replied that she could not consent to his proposal. By doing so she should not only sacrifice her own rights, and degrade herself from the position she was entitled to occupy, but she should, in some sense, acknowledge herself guilty of the charges brought against her, and justify her enemies.
Lindsay called in.
Lindsay's brutality.
Abdication.
Melville, finding that his efforts were vain, called Lindsay in. He entered with a fierce and determined air. Mary was reminded of the terrible night when he and Ruthven broke into her little supper-room at Holyrood in quest of Rizzio. She was agitated and alarmed. Lindsay assailed her with denunciations and threats of the most violent character. There ensued a scene of the most rough and ferocious passion on the one side, and of anguish, terror, and despair on the other, which is said to have made this day the most wretched of all the wretched days of Mary's life. Sometimes she sat pale, motionless, and almost stupefied. At others, she was overwhelmed with sorrow and tears. She finally yielded; and, taking the pen, she signed the papers. Lindsay and Melville took them, left the castle gate, entered their boat, and were rowed away to the shore.
Coronation of James.
This was on the 25th of July, 1567, and four days afterward the young prince was crowned at Stirling. His title was James VI. Lindsay made oath at the coronation that he was a witness of Mary's abdication of the crown in favor of her son, and that it was her own free and voluntary act. James was about one year old. The coronation took place in the chapel where Mary had been crowned in her infancy, about twenty-five years before. Mary herself, though unconscious of her own coronation, mourned bitterly over that of her son. Unhappy mother! how little was she aware, when her heart was filled with joy and gladness at his birth, that in one short year his mere existence would furnish to her enemies the means of consummating and sealing her ruin.
Ceremonies.