And now Mary did not delay a moment longer in making decisive advances to the Catholic powers. She had in fact no need to fear that the King of Spain would be offended at her refusing his nephew, if she attached herself to him in other matters. When she announced her marriage to him, she not merely requested him to interest himself for her and her husband's claims in England; she designated him as the man whom God had raised up above all others to defend the holy Catholic religion, and asked for his help to enable her to withstand the apostates in her kingdom: as long as she lived, she would join him against all and every enemy.[212] This quite fell in with the ideas which Philip himself cherished. From the park of Segovia in October 1565 he commissioned Cardinal Pacheco to reassure the Pope with the declaration that he meant to support the Queen of Scots not less than the Pope himself. In this they must, he remarked, keep three points in view: first the subjugation of her rebellious subjects, which he thought not difficult, as Elizabeth would not support them; then the restoration of the Catholic Church in Scotland, than which nothing would give him greater satisfaction; lastly, the most difficult of all, the obtaining the recognition of her right to the English throne: in all this he would support the Queen with his counsel and with money: he could not however come forward himself, it could only be done in the Pope's name.[213]
The ordinary accounts of the conferences at Bayonne have proved erroneous, as the proposals which were certainly made there by the Spaniards were not accepted. But Philip II's resolutions seem not less comprehensive in this case; these were his hostility to Queen Elizabeth, still concealed from the world but fully clear to his own consciousness, and his resolve to do everything in his power to place Mary, if not now, yet at a future time on the English throne. The great movement he was designing was to begin from Scotland. Like the Guises at a later time, so now Mary and her partisans in England and Scotland, if he supported her, were to be instruments in his hand.
Mary had the good fortune to break up the seditious combination of some lords who opposed her marriage. Strengthened by this she prepared for quite a different state of things. She received money from Spain: Pope Pius V had promised to support her as long as he had a single chalice to dispose of. She expected disciplined Italian troops from him: artillery and other munitions of war were brought together for her in the Netherlands. Leaning on Rome and Spain the spirited Queen hoped to become capable of any great enterprise.[214]
It was clearly to be expected that she would unite a political tendency with the religious one. In the letter quoted above Philip reminds her how dangerous to monarchy were the doctrines of the pretended Gospellers:[215] opinions like those which Knox, regardless of all else, put before her personally, as to the limitations of royal power justified by religion, she as a matter of course would not endure. It is more surprising to find that she also called in question the rights which the nobility claimed as against the royal government, assigning a sort of theoretic ground for her view. The nobles base them, so she said, on the services of their ancestors; but if the children have renounced their virtue, neglect honour, care only for their families, despise the King and his laws and commit treason, must the sovereign even then still let his power be limited by theirs? How vast were the plans which this Queen entertained—to restore Catholicism in Scotland, to resume the war against the nobility in which her ancestors had failed, to overthrow the Protestant opinions, and therewith to become one day Queen of England!
Among those around her was an Italian, David Riccio of Poncalieri in Piedmont, who had previously been secretary to the Archbishop of Turin, and then in the same capacity accompanied his brother-in-law, the Conte di Moretta, who went to Scotland as ambassador of the Duke of Savoy. He knew how to express himself well in Italian and French, and was besides skilful in music.[216] As he exactly supplied a voice which was wanting in the Queen's chapel, she asked the ambassador to let him enter her service. Riccio was not a blooming handsome man; though still young, he gave the impression of advanced years: he had something morose and repellent about him; but he showed himself endlessly useful and zealous, and won greater influence from day to day. He not merely conducted the foreign correspondence, on which all now depended and for which he was indispensable,—it became his office to lay everything before the Queen that needed her signature, and through this he attained the incalculable actual power of a confidential cabinet-secretary; he saw the Queen, who took pleasure in his company, as often as he wished, and ate at her table. James Melvil, whom she had commissioned to warn her, if he saw her committing faults, did not neglect doing it in this case; he represented to her the ill effects which favouring a foreigner drew after it: but she thought she could not let her royal prerogative be so narrowly limited.[217] Riccio had promoted the marriage with Darnley: the latter seemed to depend on him;[218] it was even said that the secretary used at pleasure a signet bearing the King's initials. It was no wonder indeed if this influence created him enemies, especially as he took presents which streamed in on him abundantly: yet the real hostility came from quite another quarter.
The English Council of State did not fail to notice the danger which lay in a policy of estrangement on the part of Scotland. It was proposed to put an end to its progress once for all by an invasion of Scotland: or at least the wish was expressed to arm for defence, e.g. to fortify Berwick, and above all to renew the understanding with the Scotch lords; Murray, whom Mary had in vain tried to gain over by reminding him of the interest of their family and the views of their father, would most gladly have delivered Darnley at once into the hands of the English. By thus openly choosing his side he had been forced, together with his chief friends, Chatellerault, Glencairn, Rothes, and some others, to leave Scotland: the Queen, refused with violent words the demand of the English court that she should receive them again; she called a Parliament instead for the beginning of March, in which their banishment was to be confirmed and an attempt made to restore Catholicism. This was not so difficult, as the resolutions of 1560 had never yet been ratified. There appeared at court the Catholic lords, Huntley, Athol, and Bothwell who was ever ready for fighting (he had returned from banishment); they came to an understanding with Riccio. But now it happened that the personal union (on which all rested) between the King, the Queen, and the powerful secretary changed to discord. Darnley, who wished not merely to be called King but to be King, demanded that the matrimonial crown should be conferred on him by the Parliament; this would have given him independent rights. The Queen on her side wished to keep the supreme power undiminished in her hands: and Riccio may well have confirmed her in this, as his own importance depended thereon: Darnley ascribed the opposition he met with from his wife not so much to her own decision as to the low-born foreigner against whom he now conceived a violent hatred. His father, Lennox, who cared little for the restoration of Catholicism in itself, entirely agreed with him as to this. They held it allowable to put out of the way the intruder who dared to hinder their house from mounting to the highest honours, and who by the confidential intimacy in which he stood with the Queen gave rise to all kinds of offensive rumours. With this object they—for the instigation came from them—joined in a union with the Protestant nobles. These regarded Riccio as their most thoroughgoing opponent: they too wished him to be got rid of; but his death alone could not content them. A Parliament was to meet at once, from which they expected nothing but a complete condemnation of their former friends, and absolutely ruinous resolutions against themselves. They made the overthrow of this system a condition of their taking a share in getting rid of Riccio. The King consented that Murray should be again placed at the head of the government, in return for which the matrimonial crown was promised him.
On the 7th March the Queen went to the old council-house of Edinburgh to make the necessary arrangements for the Parliament. The insignia of the realm, sword crown and sceptre, were borne before her by the Catholic lords, Huntley, Athol, and Crawford, the heads of those houses which had once already, in France, offered her their alliance. The King had refused to take part in the ceremony. She named the Lords of Articles, who from of old exercised a decisive influence in the Scotch Parliaments, and restored the bishops to their place among them. As the Queen declares, her object was to promote the restoration of the old religion and to have the rebels sentenced by the assembled Estates. In Holyrood, besides Huntley and Athol, Bothwell, Fleming, Levingstoun, and James Balfour had also found favour, all men who had taken an active part for the restoration of Catholicism or for the re-establishment of the power of the crown: how much it must have surprised men to find that the Queen granted Huntley and Bothwell, who had been declared traitors, admittance into the Privy Council. If the Parliament adopted resolutions in accordance with these preliminaries, it was to be expected that the work of political and religious reaction would begin at once, with the active participation not only of the Pope from whom some money had already come, but also of other Catholic powers with whom Riccio kept the Queen in communication.
A serious danger assuredly for the lords and for Protestantism; there was not a moment to lose if they wished to avert it; but the attempt to do so assumed, through the wild habits of the time and the country, that character of violence which has made it the romance of centuries. The event had such far-reaching results that we too must devote a discussion to it.
In the low, narrow, and gloomy rooms of Holyrood House there is a little chamber to which the Queen retired when she would be alone: it was connected by an inner staircase with the King's lodgings. Here Mary was sitting at supper on Saturday the 9th March 1566, with her natural sister the Countess of Argyle, her natural brother the Laird of Creich, who commanded the guard at the palace, and some other members of her household, among whom was also Riccio; when the King, who had been expected somewhat earlier, appeared and seated himself familiarly by his wife. But at the same moment other unexpected guests also entered. These were Lord Ruthven, who had undertaken to execute the vengeance of King and country on Riccio, and his companions; under his fur-fringed mantle were seen weapons and armour: the Queen asked in affright what brought him there at that unwonted hour. He did not leave her long in doubt. 'I see a man here,' said Ruthven, 'who takes a place that does not become him; by a servant like this we in Scotland will not let ourselves be ruled,'[219] and so prepared to lay hands on him.
Riccio took refuge near her; the Queen declared that she would punish an attack on him as high treason, but swords were bared before her eyes, Riccio was wounded by a thrust over her shoulder, and dragged away: on the floor and on the steps he received more than fifty wounds: the King's own dagger was said to have been seen in the body of the murdered man. This may be doubted, as his jealousy was by no means so real; yet he said soon after that he was responsible for the honour of his wife. In the turmoil he had only just stretched out his hand, to guard her person from any accident. For the nobles, who though acting with the utmost violence yet did not wish to risk their whole future, it was enough that he was there: his presence would authorise their act and give it impunity. When the murder was done Ruthven returned to the Queen and declared to her that the influence she had given Riccio had been unendurable to them, as had been also his counsels for the restoration of the old religion, his enmities against the great men of the land, his connexions with foreign princes; he announced to her plainly the return of the banished lords, with whom the others would unite in an opposite policy. For they had not merely aimed at Riccio: at the same time the Lords Morton and Lindsay, who had collected a number of trustworthy men, had advanced with them and beset the approaches to the palace-yard. Their plan was to get into their hands all their enemies who had gathered round the Queen. But while their attention was fastened on Riccio's murder, most of the threatened persons succeeded in escaping. All the rest who did not belong to the household, and were taken in the palace, were removed without distinction: the Queen was treated like a prisoner.[220] She still possessed a certain popularity, as being hereditary sovereign: a movement arose in the city in her favour, but this was counterbalanced by the antipathies of the Protestants, and a declaration of the King sufficed to still it. The next day a proclamation appeared in his name which directed the members of the Parliament, who had already arrived, to depart again.