Questions for King Œdipus, Riddle of the Sphinx, Mystery of Queen Mary! She herself is the Mystery; the rest is simple enough. There had been men in Scotland from old time, and Stuarts for six generations to break themselves upon them. Great in thought, frail in deed, adventurous, chivalrous, hardy, short of hold, doomed to fail at the touch—so ventured, so failed the Stuarts from the first James to the fifth. There had been men in Scotland, but no women. Forth from the Lady of Lorraine came the lass, born in an unhappy hour, tossing high her young head, saying, ‘Let me alone to rule wild Scotland.’ They had but to give her house-room: no mystery there. The mystery is that any mystery has been found. Maids’ Adventure—with that we begin. A bevy of maids to rule wild Scotland! What mystery is there in that? Or—since Mystery is double-edged, engaging what we dare not, as well as what we cannot, tell—what mystery but that?
A hundred books have been written, a hundred songs sung; men enough of these latter days have broken their hearts for Queen Mary’s. What is more to the matter is that no heart but hers was broken in time. All the world can love her now; but who loved her then? Not a man among them. A few girls went weeping; a few boys laid down their necks that she might walk free of the mire. Alas! the mire swallowed them up, and she must soil her pretty feet. This is the nut of the tragedy; pity is involved rather than terror. But no song ever pierced the fold of her secret, no book ever found out the truth, because none ever sought her heart. Here, then, is a book which has sought nothing else, and a song which springs from that only: called, on that same account, ‘The Queen’s Quair.’