Miss Strickland, in the last volume of her life of Mary, Queen of Scots, gives a version of this epitaph, and mentions the fact of the burial of these ladies in the church of St. Andrew. The version of the epitaph which we have given is more exact than that given by Miss Strickland; and Miss Strickland is mistaken in saying that the church of St. Andrew is a "small Scotch church."
Indeed it is difficult to know how such an expression could be applied to St. Andrew's church. It is certainly not a small church, as we have said; and is certainly not a Scotch church, in any intelligible sense of that expression. It was built in 1529, under the government of Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Parma. Miss Strickland mentions the painting at the top of the monument as having been brought over to Antwerp by Elizabeth and Barbara Curle. But in speaking of the family, of Mowbray she has failed to do justice to the religion of these ladies.
She says that "Barbara and Gillies Mowbray, the two youngest daughters of the Laird of Barnborough, a leading member of the Presbyterian Congregation, . . . sought and succeeded in obtaining the melancholy privilege of being added to the prison-household [{815}] of their captive queen—a favor they might probably have solicited in vain if they had not been Protestants, and their father, Sir John Mowbray, a staunch adherent of the rebel faction" (p. 380).
She gives no authority for her statement as to the religion of the daughters, Barbara and Gillies, and the probabilities, in the absence of evidence, seem all to lie the other way. But in any case, it is obvious that they were Catholics in Antwerp.
Miss Strickland, in describing the absurd travestie of a funeral performed by the Protestant ministers in Peterborough cathedral over the body of the Scotch queen, five months after she had been murdered, mentions that none of the queen's train would attend at the Protestant services, "with the exception of Sir Andrew Melville and the two Mowbrays, who were members of the Reformed Church."
If it is true that those two ladies did consent to be present when all the others refused, with great contempt, there certainly is a presumption that at that time they continued in the religion of Knox.
The fact is, indeed, capable of another very natural explanation. They might have chosen to see the last of their mistress; remaining present without taking any part in the shameful ceremonies.
One significant statement in the epitaph which we have given, and which Miss Strickland has omitted, makes it certain that if Gillies Mowbray continued in Knox's or any other form of heresy, her sister Barbara Mowbray, wife of Gilbert Curie, was a Catholic before leaving England. The words omitted by Miss Strickland we now reprint in italics: "You behold, oh traveller, the monument of two noble matrons of Great Britain, who, flying to the protection of the Catholic king from their country for the sake of orthodox religion, here repose in the hope of the resurrection."
Miss Strickland's account of the monument also omits to notice the queen's arms which we have mentioned. This Widow's Lozenge tells the whole case against her rival Elizabeth. Persons who understand the laws of heraldry see its meaning at once. But for general readers it is enough to say that the arms of Scotland are put first, then the arms of England as they were used at that period by English sovereigns. Now, if Elizabeth had been legitimate, and had a just title to the throne, Queen Mary would have had no just right to place the English arms in her lozenge. The act of placing these arms on the monument of the Curles was a protest against the illegitimate usurper who had murdered the true heir.
Miss Strickland furnishes the date of the marriage of Gilbert Curie and Barbara Mowbray. It took place in Tutbury Castle, in Staffordshire, in November, 1586, a few weeks after the sisters had arrived there to attend upon the queen. Very soon afterward, at Fotheringay, they had to attend her on her way to death. Elizabeth Curle was one of the two, Jane Kennedy being the other, who were allowed by the wretches who directed her murder to stand by her and see it done.