Contrasting strongly with all this frippery, in the dignity of his aspect and bearing, and the plainness of his dress, Sir William Maitland of Lethington, secretary of the kingdom—the Scottish Machiavel, the greatest and most vacillating statesman Scotland ever produced—stood at the foot of the green table.
Attired in simple black velvet, but having a long stomacher dotted with seed pearls, an enormous fardingale, and a little ruff round her delicate neck, Mary, having little other adornment than those which nature had given her, sat under the purple canopy of her grandsire, James IV. From a brow that bore the impress of intelligence and candour, her auburn hair that gleamed like gold (when, from a lofty casement above, the sunlight fell upon it), was drawn back from her snowy temples, and, by being puffed out on each side, while her little velvet cap was depressed in the centre by a gold drop, increased the dignified contour of a face that was never beheld without exciting admiration and love. The steady brilliance of her splendid dark eyes, the form of her nostrils, together with the exquisite curve of her short upper lip, and dimpled chin, all expressed in an eminent degree the various emotions of her acute and sensitive mind; while they were ever full of a sweetness and beauty that were no less singular in their character than remarkable in their degree.
Every turn of her beautiful head, every motion of her rounded arms and dimpled hands, were full of grace; so that even "dark Morton," the ferocious Lindesay, and subtle Moray, while at that moment plotting her downfall and destruction, could not but in their secret souls acknowledge how noble and bewitching was that being whom they were seeking to hurl from the Scottish throne.
She carried at her waist a little amber rosary, or Saviour's chaplet, of thirty-three beads, being one for each year that Christ dwelt among us on earth; and, true to that religion which formed her last and best consolation in that terrible hour which none could then foresee, she wore on her bosom a little crucifix of gold.
Behind her state chair were several ladies of the court, wearing enormous fardingales and high ruffs, and some of them—particularly the Countesses of Argyle and Huntly—having their heads loaded with ornaments.
The captain of the archer guard, Arthur Erskine, a handsome young cadet of the house of Mar, clad in half armour of the richest steel, and having his helmet borne by a page, stood near the doorway of the hall, about thirty yards from the green table, and quite beyond earshot. Close by the door stood his lieutenant, the knight of Bolton, leaning on his drawn sword, and dividing his time between watching the ladies of the court, tracing diagrams on the oak floor with the point of his weapon, and complacently viewing his own handsome person in a large mirror that hung opposite.
Mary's pleading eyes were full of tears; for the rudeness and rebellious spirit of her council stung her pride and wounded her delicacy.
The principal matter in debate had been the muster of troops and commissioning of a noble to lead them to the borders, where a court of justice was to be held for the repression of turbulence among the moss-trooping lairds of Teviotdale; but the proceedings had been constantly interrupted by the boisterous Patrick Lord Lindesay, and William Earl of Glencairn, who in harsh and scandalous terms urged upon their compeers the necessity of enforcing stringent laws against the church of Rome, as a just meed for its tyranny in the noon of pride and power.
"Yea, my lords," continued the latter, pursuing with kindling eyes and furious gesture the train of his address; "methinks I need not inform you, that there have been divers and sundry acts of estate passed in the days of the James's, her majesty's royal predecessors, yea, and in our sovereign lady's time, quhilk aggreith not with the holy word of God—acts tending to the maintenance and upholding of idolatory and the mass, the superstition and the mummery of the Church of Rome"——
"Ma chere, Madame!" began the Marquis d'Elboeuff, rising with his hand on his sword, and his kindling eyes fixed on Mary.