It would, I fear, be a difficult undertaking, in the eyes of dispassionate and reasoning persons, to throw a charitable doubt upon the motives of this unseasonable intrusion. The fair and obvious inference is, that he depended upon the impression he had made upon Mary’s heart, and the impossibility of their lawful union. In some degree, too, he might have been influenced by the perilous consequences of a discovery, to which he possibly thought her love would not permit her to expose him. The propriety of this argument, if he made use of it, was not put to the test, for his discovery fell to the lot of Mary’s female attendants before she retired.
There is, however, another class of readers who will give him credit for other thoughts. I mean those best of all possible judges of love-affairs, in whom the commonplaces of life have not entirely destroyed that kindly feeling of romance which Nature thought it necessary to implant in them, and which the usage of modern days renders it necessary for them to be ashamed of. The readers of whom I speak will decide more from the heart than the head; and then what an interminable field of defence is laid open! What strange feelings and unaccountable exploits might be furnished from the catalogue of love vagaries! Were Chatelar to be judged by other examples, the simple circumstance of his secreting himself for the mere purpose of being in the hallowed neighbourhood of his mistress, and without the most distant idea of making her acquainted with it, would appear a very commonplace and very pardonable occurrence. And if we keep in mind his poetical character and chivalrous education, this belief is materially strengthened.
On the following morning the affair was made known to the Queen by her ladies. Had they been wise enough to hold their peace, it is odds but the lover’s taste for adventure would have been satisfied by the first essay. Instead of this, being forbidden all future access to her presence, he became more desperate than ever. His motives had been misconstrued; his actions, he thought, had been misrepresented; he was bent on explanation, and he hoped for pardon. Thus it was that when Mary, on the same day, quitted Edinburgh, her disgraced admirer executed his determination of following her, and, on the night of the 14th, seized the only opportunity of an interview by committing the very same offence for which he was then suffering: Mary had no sooner entered her chamber than Chatelar stood before her.
Whatever her feelings may have been towards him, it is not surprising that this sudden apparition should have proved somewhat startling, and have produced an agitation not very favourable to his cause. It may be presumed that she was not mistress of her actions, for certain it is, that she did that which, if she possessed one half of the womanly tenderness for which she has credit, must have been a blight and a bitterness upon her after life. Chatelar comes, wounded to the quick, to supplicate a hearing, and the Queen, it is said, “was fain to cry for help,” and desire Murray, who came at her call, to “put his dagger into him.”
Thus, by dint of unnecessary terrors and unmeaning words, was Chatelar given over to an enemy who had always kept a jealous eye upon him, and to justice, which seemed determined to strain a point for his sake, and give him something more than his due. In a few days he was tried, and experienced the usual fate of favourites by being condemned to death.
Alas! how bitter is the recollection of even trifling injuries towards those who loved and are lost to us! Yet what had this been in counterpoise to the reflections of Mary? She had given over a fond and a fervent heart to death for no fault but too much love, and any attempt to recall the deed might have afforded a colour to the aspersions which malignant persons were ever ready to cast upon her character, but could have availed no further.
For Chatelar there was little leisure for reflection. The fever of the first surprise,—the strange, the appalling conviction as to the hand which hurled him to his fate,—the shame, the humiliation, the indignation, had scarce time to cool in his forfeit blood, before he was brought out to die the death of a culprit upon the scaffold.
It has been the fashion for writers upon this subject, in the quiet and safety of their firesides, to exclaim against his want of preparation for his transit; but, under such circumstances, I cannot much wonder that he should rather rebel against the usual ceremonies of psalm-singing and last speeches. If he chose to nerve himself for death by reading Ronsard’s hymn upon it, it is no proof that he looked with irreverence upon what was to follow it. His last words are extremely touching; for they prove that, though he considered that Mary had remorselessly sacrificed his life, his sorrow was greater than his resentment, and his love went with him to the grave. “Adieu,” he said, turning to the quarter in which he supposed her to be, “adieu, most beautiful and most cruel princess in the world!” and then submitting himself to the executioner, he met the last stroke with a courage consistent with his character.
Of Mary’s behaviour on this event, history, I believe, gives no account.
My ponderings upon this singular story had detained me long. The old pictures on the walls glistened and glimmered in the moonshine like a band of spectres; and, at last, I fairly fancied that I saw one grisly gentleman pointing at me with his truncheon, in the act of directing his Furies to “seize on me and take me to their torments.” It was almost time to be gone, but the thought of Chatelar seemed holding me by the skirts. I could not depart without taking another look at the scene of his happiest hours, and I stole, shadow-like, with as little noise as I could, through the narrow passages and staircases, till I stood in Mary’s little private apartment. As I passed the antechamber, the light was shining only on the stain of blood; the black shadows here and elsewhere made the walls appear as though they had been hung with mourning. I do not know that ever I felt so melancholy; and had not the owl just then given a most dismal whoop, there is no telling but that I might have had courage and sentiment enough to have stayed until I had been locked up for the night. I passed by the low bed, under which Chatelar is said to have hidden himself. It must have cost him some trouble to get there! I glanced hastily at the faded tambour work, which, it is possible, he might have witnessed in its progress; and I shook my head with much satisfaction to think that I had a head to shake. “If,” said I, “there is more interest attached to the old times of love, it is, after all, in some degree, counterbalanced by the safety of the present; and I know not whether it is not better to be born in the age when racks and torments are used metaphorically, than in those in which it is an even chance that I might have encountered the reality.”—Literary Souvenir, 1825.