Buchanan's famous lie concerning Mary's visit to the Castle of Alloa, which, to his shame, Mr. Froude substantially repeats, is disposed of effectually in a few words by Mr. Hosack.
The ride from Jedburg, too, as recounted by Buchanan in his own peculiar style, repeated by Robertson and by Froude, as far as he dares, in the teeth of the testimony on the subject, also receives its quietus at Mr. Hosack's hands.
Then follow the dangerous illness of Mary, the aggravating and fatal misconduct of Darnley, the poor queen's mental suffering and anxiety, the preliminary plotting by Murray, Maitland, Argyll, and Huntly to put Darnley out of the way, the signing of the bond among them for the murder of the "young fool and tyrant," and the insidious attempt by these scoundrels to entrap the poor heart-broken Mary into some such expression of impatience or violence against Darnley as would enable them to set up the charge of guilty knowledge against her. The conspirators themselves have put on record the noble and Christian reply of Mary Stuart, "I will that ye do nothing through which any spot may be laid on my honor or conscience; and therefore, I pray you, rather let the matter be in the state that it is, abiding till God of his goodness put remedy thereto."
Following upon the baptism of the infant prince, who afterward became James VI. of Scotland, came the unfortunately too successful endeavors of Murray, Maitland, Bothwell, and Queen Elizabeth to obtain the pardon of the Riccio murderers.
Poor Mary's political success would have been assured if she had possessed but a small share of Elizabeth's hardness of heart and vindictiveness. Always generous, always noble, always forgiving, she allowed herself to be persuaded to grant a pardon to these villains—seventy-six in number—excepting only George Douglas, who stabbed Riccio in presence of the queen, and Ker of Faudonside, who held his pistol at her breast during the perpetration of the murder. This ruffian remained safely in England until Mary's downfall, when he returned to Scotland and married the widow of John Knox.
It was about this period that Buchanan was extolling to the skies, in such Latin verses as those beginning
"Virtute ingenio, regina, et munere formæ
Felicibus felicior majoribus,"
the virtues of a sovereign whom he afterward told us every one knew at the time to be a monster of lust and cruelty! His libel was written when Mary was a fugitive in England, to serve the purposes of his employers, who had driven her from her native kingdom. The most assiduous of her flatterers as long as she was on the throne, he pursued her with the malice of a demon when she became a helpless prisoner. His slanders were addressed not to his own countrymen, for whom they would have been too gross, but to Englishmen, for the great majority of whom Scotland was a terra incognita. His monstrous fictions were copied by Knox and De Thou, and later by Robertson, Laing, and Mignet, who, while using his material, carefully abstained from quoting him as authority. Mr. Froude, the author of that popular serial novel which he strangely entitles The History of England, with delicious naïveté declares his belief in the truth of Buchanan's Detection, and makes its transparent mendacity a leading feature of his work.
According to Buchanan, the Queen of Scots was, at the period above referred to, leading a life of the most notorious profligacy. Mr. Hosack, in his calm, lawyer-like manner, shows conclusively that at that very time she never stood higher in the estimation both of her own subjects and of her partisans in England. Considering the difficulties of her position, he adds, Mary had conducted the government of Scotland with remarkable prudence and success; and her moderation in matters of religion induced even the most powerful of the Protestant nobility to regard her claims with favor.
And still the plotting went on. Motives enough, for them, had Murray, Morton, Maitland, and the rest to seek the destruction of Darnley—revenge and greed of gain. These men had imposed upon the generous nature of the queen in the disposal of the crown lands, and they well knew that Darnley had made no secret of his disapproval of the improvident bounty of his wife. These grants of the crown lands, under the law of Scotland, could be revoked at any time before the queen attained the age of twenty-five. That period was now at hand, and the danger of their losing their spoils under the influence of Darnley was imminent.