Lives of Celebrated Women

by Samuel G. Goodrich

There was at the court a young Italian, named Rizzio, who has already been mentioned as forwarding Darnley’s suit. He had come to Scotland in the train of the ambassador of Savoy: the three pages, or songsters, who used to sing trios before Mary, wanted a bass, and Rizzio was appointed. Being not only a scientific musician, but a good penman, well acquainted with French and Italian, supple and intelligent, Rizzio contrived to make himself generally useful, and was, in 1564, appointed French secretary to the queen. Some designing nobles, jealous of the favor enjoyed by this foreigner, and likewise desirous of effecting a permanent breach between Darnley and the queen, persuaded him that Rizzio was the author of the queen’s displeasure, and engaged him in a plot to murder him, which was thus carried into execution. As Mary was sitting at supper, attended by Rizzio, and a few other of the officials of her court, Darnley entered by a private passage which communicated directly with his own apartments, and, casting his arms fondly round her waist, seated himself by her 316 side. A minute had scarcely elapsed, when Ruthven, in complete armor, rushed in. He had just risen from a sick bed; his features were sunken, his voice hollow, and his whole appearance haggard and terrible. Mary started up in affright, and bade him begone; but ere the words were uttered, torches gleamed in the outer room, a confused noise of voices and weapons was heard, and the other conspirators rushed in. Ruthven now drew his dagger, and calling out that their business was with Rizzio, endeavored to seize him; while this miserable victim, springing behind the queen, clung by her gown, and besought her protection. All was now uproar and confusion; the tables and lights were thrown down. Mary earnestly entreated them to have mercy, but in vain. Whilst one of the band held a pistol to her breast, the victim, already wounded and bleeding, was torn from her knees, and dragged through her bed-chamber to the door of the presence chamber, where he was finally despatched. Fifty-six wounds were found in the body, and the king’s dagger was left sticking in it, to show, as was afterwards alleged, that he had sanctioned the murder. Ruthven, faint from sickness, and reeking from the scene of blood, staggered into the queen’s cabinet, where Mary still stood distracted, and in terror of her life. Here he threw himself upon a seat, called for a cup of wine, and plunged a new dagger into the heart of the queen, by declaring that her husband had advised the whole. Mary was kept the whole night locked up, alone, in the room in which this terrible scene had been enacted. The next day Darnley visited her, and she, ignorant of the extent of his guilt, employed all her eloquence 317 to induce him to desert the desperate men with whom he was leagued. He consented, and they fled together to Dunbar.

A new actor must now be brought upon the stage—the ambitious, dissolute, and daring Bothwell. He was the head of one of the most ancient and powerful families in the kingdom, and, in all the plots and intrigues, he had ever remained faithful to the interests of the queen; it was natural, therefore, that he should stand high in her favor. It was chiefly through his active exertions that she now effected her escape; and she soon found herself at the head of a body of men, chiefly his clansmen, sufficiently powerful to bring the murderers of Rizzio to punishment. It is a striking instance of her clemency, that only two persons were executed for this crime.

Three months after the murder, she gave birth to a son, afterwards James I. of England; at whose christening Elizabeth stood godmother, notwithstanding her envious and repining exclamation, that “the queen of Scots should be mother of a fair son, while she was only a barren stock.” Even this joyous event could not dispel the melancholy of Mary, who now suffered so much from the conduct of Darnley as often to be seen in tears, and was frequently heard to wish herself dead. The lords of her council urged a divorce, but she would not listen to this. “I will that you do nothing,” said she, “by which any spot may be laid on my honor or conscience; but wait till God, of his goodness, shall put a remedy to it.” Finding the queen immovable on this point, Bothwell, who had now conceived the ambitious project of succeeding 318 to his place, resolved to murder Darnley, who was just recovering from the smallpox, and was lodged, for the benefit of fresh air, at a house called the Kirk-of-field, near Edinburgh. His illness and lonely situation touched the tender heart of Mary. She visited him constantly, and bestowed on him the kindest attentions. She brought her band of musicians to amuse him. She seldom left him during the day, and usually passed the night in the house. But on Sunday, the 9th of February, on taking leave of him for the night, she went to the palace of Holyrood, to be present at the marriage of two of her servants. While engaged in these festivities, the house in which her husband slept was blown up, and his lifeless body was found in a garden at some distance. Every thing pointed to Bothwell as the author of this crime; but he, after a trial had before a jury composed of the first noblemen of the kingdom, was acquitted.

Bothwell’s next object was to marry the queen; and the steps he took for this purpose were too extraordinary, and apparently unnecessary, to have had her connivance. We are told that, as she was returning to Edinburgh, she was met by Bothwell at the head of a large body of retainers, who forcibly dispersed her small retinue, and carried her to Dunbar Castle. He then procured the signatures of a large number of the most distinguished of the nobles and ecclesiastics to a bond recommending him to the queen as a most fit and proper husband, and binding themselves to consider as a common enemy whoever should oppose the marriage. Armed with this document, strengthened 319 by a vote of the council, Bothwell brought the queen to Edinburgh, and there the marriage was solemnized.

The month which Mary passed with Bothwell after the marriage, was the most miserable of her miserable life. He treated her with such indignity, that a day did not pass in which “he did not cause her to shed abundance of salt tears.” Those very lords, who had recommended the marriage, now made it a pretext for rebellion. Both parties took up arms, and met at Carberry Hill. Mary here adopted an unexpected and decisive step. She offered to the rebels to dismiss Bothwell, and place herself in their hands, if they would be answerable for her safety, and return to their allegiance. Her terms were accepted; Bothwell was persuaded by her to leave the field. They never met again; and thus in less than a month this union was virtually ended.

Mary was soon committed as a prisoner to Lochleven Castle, a fortress in the midst of a lake, to the immediate custody of Lady Margaret Douglas, a woman of harsh and unfeeling temper, and who had personal motives for irritation against her. Cut off from all intercourse with those in whom she had confidence, and harassed by daily ill usage, her enemies trusted that her spirit would at length be broken, and that she would submit to any terms which should promise relief. Accordingly, after some weeks, she was visited by a deputation of the rebels, who demanded her signature to a paper declaring her own incapacity to govern, and abdicating the throne in favor of her son. Upon her refusal to make this humiliating declaration, Lindsay, the fiercest of the confederates, 320 rudely seized her hand with his own gauntleted palm, and, with threats of instant death in case of non-compliance, compelled her to set her signature to the deed; she, in a paroxysm of tears, calling on all present to witness that she did so through her fear for her life, and therefore that the act was not valid.

Bothwell, meanwhile, after wandering from place to place, now lurking among his vassals, now seeking refuge with his friends, at length fled, with a single ship, towards Norway. Falling in with a vessel of that country, richly laden, he attacked it, but was himself taken, and carried to Norway, where for ten years he languished in captivity; till, by melancholy and despair deprived of reason, unpitied and unassisted, he ended his wretched life in a dungeon. A declaration addressed to the king of Denmark, in which he gives a succinct account of all the transactions in which he was engaged in Scotland, is yet preserved in the library of the king of Sweden. In it he completely exonerates Mary from having the slightest concern in the murder of Darnley; and again, before his death, when confessing his own share in it, he solemnly acquits her of all pre-knowledge of the crime.

Mary now, in her distress, found assistance from an unexpected quarter. Her misfortunes, and gentle resignation under them, excited the pity and sympathy of the little William Douglas, a boy of fifteen, a son of her jailer; and he resolved to undertake her deliverance. The first attempt failed. The queen had succeeded in leaving the castle in the disguise of a laundress, and was already seated in the boat, to cross the lake, when she betrayed herself by raising her hand. 321 The beauty and extreme whiteness of that hand discovered her at once, and she was carried back to her chamber in tears and bitterness of heart. The next attempt was more successful, and she reached Hamilton in safety. Many nobles of the highest distinction hastened to offer their support, and, in three days after leaving Lochleven, she was at the head of six thousand men, devoted to her cause.

The other party made haste to assemble their forces. At their head was Murray, a half-brother of the queen—a man whom she had loaded with benefits and honors, and to whom she had twice granted life, when condemned for treason. He now acted as regent, in the minority of the infant prince, whom the confederates assumed to be king. The hostile bands met at Langside. From a neighboring hill, Mary viewed a conflict on which her fate depended. She beheld—with what anguish of heart may be imagined—the fortune of the day turn against her; she saw her faithful friends cut to pieces, taken prisoners, or flying before the victorious Murray. When all was lost, her general, Lord Herries, came up to her, seized her bridle, and turned her horse’s head from the dismal scene. With a few adherents she fled southwards; nor did she repose till she reached Dundrennan, sixty miles from the field of battle. There Mary, trusting in Elizabeth’s recent professions of friendship, took the fatal resolution of throwing herself upon the compassion and protection of the English queen. As she approached the boundary, her resolution faltered; the coming evils seemed to cast their shadows before; but those which awaited her, if she remained, were certain, 322 and she crossed the small stream which formed the parting line.

Mary was at this time in her twenty-sixth year; in the very prime of existence, in the full bloom of beauty and health, when a dark pall was spread over her life. Thenceforward her history presents one painful picture of monotonous suffering on the one hand, and of meanness, treachery, and cruelty, on the other. With relentless cruelty, her rival kept her in perpetual bonds; the only changes were from prison to prison, and from one harsh keeper to another; from the gleam of delusive hope to the blackness of succeeding disappointment.