The bustle about the palace gates was unusual, for the Lords of the Privy Council were assembled in the Parliament hall, and Mary was seated on the throne.
Into that magnificent apartment, which measures a hundred feet in length by thirty in breadth, and which had a roof nearly forty feet in height, light was admitted by two rows of arched windows, between each of which projected a double tier of beautiful corbels, the lower upholding a line of statues—the upper sustaining the ceiling of elaborate oak, which sprung away aloft into intricacy and brown obscurity. A vast fireplace yawned at one end; it was supported by four gothic columns, clustered and capitalled with the richest embossage.
The young King Henry, a tall and handsome, but pale and beardless youth, whose effeminate aspect contrasted strongly with those of the mustached and sunburned lords of the council, sat on the Queen's left hand. His face was a perfect oval, and his eyes were dark like his hair, which was short and curly. His attire was fashioned in the extreme of gorgeous extravagance; the sleeves and breast of his blue satin doublet being loaded with lace and precious stones. He had nothing military about him save a small walking-sword, for arms were not King Henry's forte, which was quite enough to make the Scots heartily despise him.
A long career of debauchery, drinking, and excess, had ruined his constitution, and now a pallor like unto that of death was visible in his hollow cheek and lustreless eye; and as he lounged back in his cushioned seat, much more interested in flirting with the maids of honour than listening to affairs debated by the council, he had all the aspect of the prematurely worn out man of pleasure—the satiated roué—the ennuyée, whom the slightest exertion of mind or body was sufficient to bore to death. Mary, disgusted by his daily excesses, which shocked her delicacy and wounded her pride, had long since ceased to love him, and had learned to deplore that alliance which youthful inclination, and the ardour of her impulsive nature, rather than the dictates of prudence, had led her to form; when from among all her suitors, many of whom were the sons of kings—the Archduke of Austria, Don Carlos of Spain, and others—she, the most beautiful woman in Europe, she, whose genius equalled her beauty, and whose piety equalled her genius, preferred the worthless heir of the exiled house of Lennox! This ill-fated marriage began the long series of those disastrous events which ended in the towers of Fotheringay; but who then, when Mary was seated on the throne of a hundred kings, in the palace of her fathers, with the crown of Bruce, the sceptre of James V., and the consecrated sword of Pope Julius before her, could have foreseen that dark hour of humiliation and of death?
The beauty of Darnley's person was his only merit. He was alike destitute of honour, religion, and morality—in all, the reverse of Mary. Vain and imperious, fierce, jealous, and capricious, his temper soon excited disgust in her sensitive mind; and the ruthless murder of her poor Italian secretary, had converted her rash and youthful love into contempt and hatred—for such at times is the transition; such is the fickleness of the human heart; and "the vivacity of Mary's spirit," says an historian, "not being sufficiently tempered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the restraint of discretion, betrayed her into errors."
At this very time, when the council were most intent upon some knotty points of state policy, the king, oblivious of all, or affecting to be so, was alternately playing with the gold tassels of his embroidered mantle, and coquetting with Mariette Hubert, a young French lady, by conversing in the symbolical language of flowers; for each had taken a bouquet from a row of Venetian vases that decorated the hall windows, and filled its vast space with delightful perfume. When addressed by the Queen, he replied with a hauteur and brevity that she could ill brook; for, although he had acquired the title of King, and been admitted to share her councils, he was dissatisfied that she did not invest him with greater power, and content herself with the rank of mere queen-consort. To this measure, Mary, aware of his utter incapacity for governing, and the aversion of the fierce noblesse, wisely declined an assent; and Darnley's haughty spirit never forgave the affront, which he attributed to the influence of Rizzio; hence his leaguing with Moray and Morton; and hence the murder in the queen's chamber at Holyrood, fifteen months before.
A succession of strong flakes of light fell through the lozenged casements of the stained windows on one side of the hall, and threw their prismatic hues on the long table which was covered with green cloth, and on the bearded peers who sat around it. All were richly attired in satin and velvet, slashed and furred with miniver; all were well armed, some having corselets and plate sleeves, others pyne doublets, calculated to resist the points and edges of the best-tempered weapons.
There were present the Earl of Morton, lord high chancellor, whose fine countenance compensated in some degree for the shortness of his stature. His face was dark and swarthy; his beard long and sweeping, but its blackness was now beginning to be touched with grey; his eyes, quick and cunning, keen and penetrating, watched every visage, but chiefly that of his colleague and compatriot—his partner in many a deep intrigue and desperate counter-plot, James Stuart, the still more famous Earl of Moray, who seemed the living image of his handsome father, James V. He had the same dark oval face, so melancholy and dignified in its contour, the same short beard and close shorn chin, the same thick brown mustache, and deep dark hazel-eye. But under that calm exterior were a heart and mind unequalled in ambition, and unsurpassed in state-craft—a wisdom that bordered on cunning—a caution that (at times) bordered on cowardice—a bravery that bordered on rashness; yet never for an instant did he lose sight of that object which every secret energy had for years been bent to attain, and for which his life was staked—POWER!
And there were Cassilis, Lindesay, and Olencairn, dark-browed, savage, brutal, and illiterate as any barons that ever figured in the pages of romance—each the beau-ideal of a feudal tyrant; morose by fanaticism, and inflated by power; for a few short years had seen them and their compatriots gorged to their full with the plundered temporalities of the fallen hierarchy. And there, too, were the venerable Le Crocq, the good and wise ambassador of Charles IX., wearing the silver shells of St. Michael glittering on his plain doublet of black taffeta; and Monsieur le Marquis d'Elboeuff, brother of the late Queen Regent, Mary of Lorraine.
This gay and thoughtless, but handsome noble, was dressed in the extremity of Parisian foppery. His doublet was cloth of gold; his breeches, of crimson velvet, reached to within six inches of his knees, from whence he had long hose of white silk. He wore a very high ruff, with the Golden Fleece of Burgundy, and the Thistle of the order of Bourbon under it. A yellow satin mantle dangled from his left shoulder; his gloves were perfumed to excess; his hat was conical and broad-brimmed, but he carried it tinder his left arm. His short Parmese poniard and long Toledo sword were covered with precious stones, and in imitation of the great English beau, the effeminate Earl of Pembroke, in addition to ear-rings, he had dangling at his right ear a flower—presumed to be the gift of some enamoured belle—while from the left depended a long love-lock.