“Had Elizabeth written the story of her reign, she would have prided herself, not on the triumph of England or the ruin of Spain, but on the skill with which she had hoodwinked and outwitted every statesman in Europe during fifty years. Nor was her trickery without political value. Nothing is more revolting in the queen, but nothing is more characteristic, than her shameless mendacity. It was an age of political lying, but in the profusion and recklessness of her lies Elizabeth stood without a peer in Christendom. A falsehood was to her simply an intellectual means of meeting a difficulty.
“She had a quick eye for merit of any sort, and a wonderful power of enlisting its whole energy in her service. Her success, indeed, in securing from the beginning of her reign to its end, with the single exception of Leicester, precisely the right men for the work she set them to do, sprang in great measure from the noblest characteristic of her intellect.
“Elizabeth could talk poetry with Spenser and philosophy with Bruno; she could discuss euphuism with Lyly, and enjoy the chivalry of Essex; she could turn from talk of the latest fashions, to pore with Cecil over despatches and treasury books; she could pass from tracking traitors with Walsingham, to settle points of doctrine with Parker, or to calculate with Frobisher the chances of a northwest passage to the Indies. The versatility and many-sidedness of her mind enabled her to understand every phase of the intellectual movement of her day, and to fix by a sort of instinct on its higher representatives. But the greatness of the queen rests above all on her power over her people. We have had grander and nobler rulers, but none so popular as Elizabeth. It was only on her intellectual side that Elizabeth touched the England of her day. All its moral aspects were simply dead to her. She made her market with equal indifference out of the heroism of William of Orange or the bigotry of Philip. The noblest aims and lives were only counters on her board. No woman ever lived who was so destitute of the sentiment of religion. While the world around her was being swayed more and more by theological beliefs and controversies, Elizabeth was absolutely untouched by them.”
For nineteen long years Queen Elizabeth kept the beautiful Mary, Queen of Scots, in captivity, without right or reason, Mary Stuart’s defenders declare; but Elizabeth’s upholders claim that Mary was guilty of many plots against the English Queen.
It is almost impossible to tread the mazy paths of this epoch with impartial glance and unbiassed opinions. The writers on both sides of these knotty questions are able and apparently conscientious. We can but state both sides, and leave the reader to form his or her own opinion.
That Mary, Queen of Scots, could have been subjected to all the terrible trials and awful accusations which fell upon her seemingly defenceless head and still be entirely innocent of the crimes alleged against her, is quite possible, considering her peculiar situation and the selfish hatred of her enemies; yet those who believe in her guilt bring forth very strong evidence to prove that she connived at murder, and willingly gave herself into the power of the murderer.
This seems too atrocious to claim regarding a woman of the otherwise winning and kindly character of Mary, Queen of Scots. When two entire nations,—and one of them governed by a keen-witted, dissembling, and weakly-jealous queen,—are joined to destroy one poor helpless woman, and that woman a prisoner in the hands of her enemies, with spies at every keyhole and adversaries on every side, hoping to raise themselves to power by her destruction,—it is hardly to be wondered at that evidence can be found or forged which shall aid them in overwhelming her in ruin and at length in death.
Either Mary, Queen of Scots, stands forth in history as the most diabolical instance of hypocritical innocence cloaking the blackest of infamy which the world affords,—for she was too enlightened to be excused as a Cleopatra, and too apparently an embodiment of womanly loveliness and gentleness to be shunned as a Catherine de’ Medici, and therefore all the more dangerous and insidious a tempter to lead others to hideous crimes;—or she was the most pathetic and helpless victim of the most nefarious intrigues, which seemingly none but the devils in Hades could have originated and carried out, to the lasting disgrace of civilized and so-called Christian nations, and the indelible dishonor of the heartless sovereign who abetted and consummated such an atrocious crime.
Either Mary, Queen of Scots, or Elizabeth, Queen of England, must be stamped with disgrace and even infamy; or both of them were victims in the hands of fiendish aspirants for power,—the one, unwillingly, helpless as a prisoner, treacherously betrayed; the other, willingly, tarnishing her royal glory out of weak jealousy veiled under hypocritical protestations of political policy and unselfish devotion to the welfare of her subjects.
If Elizabeth was guilty of putting to death an innocent and persecuted kinswoman, who, relying on her avowed declarations of love and friendship, fled to her for safety, only to meet a lingering and dishonorable imprisonment, and an outrageous and ignominious death, at the hands of her who basely professed the tenderest sympathy and sisterly affection,—then Mary, Queen of Scots’ tragic death is unparalleled in history; for though other queens have died upon the scaffold, the executioner’s hand was not lifted at the command of a near and professedly-devoted relation; nor did an only son behold his mother’s shameful death without raising hand or word to help her when that son was a king upon a throne. That Mary Queen of Scots, rightfully claimed the throne of Scotland is beyond dispute; that she also rightfully claimed her place as successor to Elizabeth for the throne of England, is clearly proven from the fact that her son, James VI. of Scotland, ascended the throne of England, as James I., upon the death of Elizabeth, without any seeming opposition or question of his rights of succession.