MARY

MARY, queen and tyrant of England, was eldest daughter of Henry VIII. by his first wife Catharine of Spain, and born at Greenwich in February 1517. Her mother was very careful of her education, and provided her with tutors to teach her what was fitting. Her first preceptor was the famous Linacre, who drew up for her use the Rudiments of Gram-

mar, and afterwards De emendata structura Latini sermonis libri sex. Linacre dying when she was but six years old, Ludovicus Vives, a very learned man of Valenza in Spain, was her next tutor; and he composed for her De ratione studii puerilis. Under the direction of these excellent men, she became so great a mistress of Latin, that Erasmus commends her for her epistles in that language. Towards the end of her father's reign, at the earnest solicitation of Queen Catharine Parr, she undertook to translate Erasmus's Paraphrase on the gospel of St John; but falling into ill health, as Udall relates, partly by excessive study in this work, after she had made some progress therein, she left the rest to be done by Dr Mallet her chaplain. This translation is printed in the first volume of Erasmus's Paraphrase upon the New Testament, London, 1548, folio; and with it is a Preface, written by Udall, the famous master of Eton school, and addressed to the queen dowager (A).— Had she been educated in Spain, however, and an inquisitor had been her preceptor, she could not have imbibed more strongly the bloody principles of Romish persecution; and to the eternal disgrace of the English prelacy, though the reformation had taken root in both universities, she found English bishops ready to carry her cruel designs to subvert it into effectual execution. King Edward her brother dying the 6th of July 1553, she was proclaimed queen the same month, and crowned in October by Stephen Gardiner bishop of Winchester. Upon her accession to the throne, she declared, in her speech to the council, that she would not persecute her Protestant subjects: but in the following month, she prohibited preaching without a special license; and before the expiration of three months, the Protestant bishops were

(A) As this preface contains many reflections which may very much edify the females of this age, we shall for their sakes here transcribe a part of it. Mr Udall takes occasion in it to observe to her majesty, "The great number of noble women at that time in England, not only given to the study of human sciences and strange tongues, but also so thoroughly expert in the Holy Scriptures, that they were able to compare with the best writers, as well in editing and penning of godly and fruitful treatises, to the instruction and edifying of realms in the knowledge of God, as also in translating good books out of Latin or Greek into English, for the use and commodity of such as are rude and ignorant of the said tongues. It was now (he said) no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses, and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of idle trifling, to have continually in their hands either psalms, homilies, and other devout meditations, or else Paul's epistles, or some book of holy scripture matters, and as familiarly both to read or reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French, or Italian, as in English. It was now a common thing to see young virgins so trained in the study of good letters, that they willingly set all other vain pastimes at nought for learning's sake. It was now no news at all to see queens and ladies of most high estate and progeny, instead of courtly dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises of reading and writing, and with most earnest study, both early and late, to apply themselves to the acquiring of knowledge, as well in all other liberal arts and disciplines, as also most especially of God and his holy word. And in this behalf (says he), like as to your highness, as well as for composing and setting forth many godly psalms, and divers other contemplative meditations, as also for causing these paraphrases to be translated into our vulgar tongue, England can never be able to render thanks sufficient; so may it never be able, as her deserts require, enough to praise and magnify the most noble the most virtuous, the most witty, and the most studious Lady Mary's grace, for taking such pain and travail in translating this Paraphrase of Erasmus upon the gospel of St John.—What could be a more plain declaration of her most constant purpose to promote God's word, and the free grace of his gospel?" &c. Mr Udall was mistaken; she never meant any such thing; for soon after her accession to the throne, a proclamation was issued for calling in and suppressing this very book, and all others that had the least tendency towards furthering the reformation. And Mr Walpole is of opinion, that the sickness which came upon her while she was translating St John, was all affected; "for (says he) she would not so easily have been cast into sickness, had she been employed on the Legends of St Teresa or St Catharine of Sienna."

were excluded the house of lords, and all the statutes of Edward VI. respecting the Protestant religion were repealed. In July 1544 she was married to Philip prince of Spain, eldest son of the emperor Charles V.; and now began that persecution against the Protestants for which her reign is so justly infamous. Some have supposed, that the queen was herself of a compassionate and humane disposition; and that most of those barbarities were transacted by her bishops without her knowledge or privity. Without her knowledge and privity they could not be: it would be a better defence of her to say, that a strict adherence to a false religion, and a conscientious observance of its pernicious and cruel dictates, overruled and got the better of that goodness of temper which was natural to her. But neither can this plea be reasonably admitted by any one who considers her unkind and inhuman treatment of her sister the Lady Elizabeth; her admitting a council for the taking up and burning of her father's body; her most ungrateful and perfidious breach of promise with the Suffolk men; her ungenerous and barbarous treatment of Judge Hales, who had strenuously defended her right of succession to the crown; and of Archbishop Cranmer, who in reality had saved her life. Shall we excuse all this by saying, Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum? Her obligations to Cranmer deserve to be more particularly set forth. Burnet says, "that her firm adherence to her mother's cause and interest, and her backwardness in submitting to the king her father, were thought crimes of such a nature by his majesty, that he came to the resolution to put her openly to death: and that when all others were unwilling to run any risk in saving her, Cranmer alone ventured upon it. In his gentle way he told the king "that she was young and indiscreet, and therefore it was no wonder if she obstinately adhered to that which her mother and all about her had been infusing into her for many years; but that it would appear strange, if he should for this cause so far forget the father, as to proceed to extremities with his own child; that if she was separated from her mother and her people, in a little time there might be ground gained on her; but that to take away her life, would raise horror through all Europe against him;" by which means he preserved her.—Along with Archbishop Cranmer, who had thus saved her life, the bishops Ridley and Latimer were also condemned for heresy at Oxford, and afterwards burnt. In 1556, the persecution became general; and Protestants of all ranks and ages, and of both sexes, fell victims to papal fury. It is observable, likewise, that the same perfidious violation of promises and treaties prevailed in the queen's council, with respect to public affairs. By the treaty of marriage concluded between the queen and Philip, it was expressly stipulated that England should not be engaged in any wars with France on account of Spain; yet in 1557, Philip, who had brought immense sums of money into England, procured an offensive and defensive alliance against France, from the English administration, and 8000 of the queen's choicest troops were sent over to the assistance of the Spaniards in the Low Countries; the loss of Calais to the French was the first fruit of this war; and some assert, that upon this single occasion the queen showed a strong attachment to her na-

tive country, lamenting this stroke so deeply, that it occasioned her death; but it is better authenticated that she was carried off by an epidemic fever, which raged so violently that it did not leave a sufficient number of men in health to get in the harvest. She had long, however, been a prey, if not to remorse, yet to disappointment and chagrin, arising from various cross accidents, such as want of children, and the absence and unkindness of Philip consequent thereupon. Her death happened Nov. 7. 1558, in the 43d year of her age, after a reign of five years, four months, and eleven days. There are some things of her writings still extant. Strype has preserved three prayers or meditations of hers: the first, "Against the Assaults of Vice;" the second, "A Meditation touching Adversity;" the third, "A Prayer to be read at the Hour of Death." In Fox's "Acts and Monuments" are printed eight of her letters to King Edward and the lords of the council, on her nonconformity, and on the imprisonment of her chaplain Dr Mallet. In the Sylloge epistolarum are several more of her letters, extremely curious: one of her delicacy in never having written but to three men; one of affection for her sister; one after the death of Anne Boleyn; and one very remarkable of Cromwell to her. In "Haynes's State Papers," are two in Spanish to the emperor Charles V. There is also a French letter, printed by Strype from the Cottonian library, in answer to a haughty mandate from Philip, when he had a mind to marry the Lady Elizabeth to the duke of Savoy, against the queen's and princess's inclination: it is written in a most abject manner, and a wretched style.

MARY of Medicis, wife of Henry IV. king of France, was declared sole regent of the kingdom in 1610, during the consternation which the assassination of that beloved king had occasioned. By her ambitious intrigues, the nation lost all its influence abroad, and was torn to pieces at home by contending factions. After several vicissitudes of fortune, she was abandoned by her son Louis XIII. whose reign had been constantly disturbed by the civil commotions she had occasioned; and died in indigence at Brussels in 1642, aged 68. She built the superb palace of Luxembourg at Paris, and embellished that city with aqueducts and other ornaments.

MARY queen of Scotland, daughter of James V. was born in the royal palace of Linlithgow on the 8th of December 1542. Her mother was Mary, the eldest daughter of Claude duke of Guise, and widow of Louis duke of Longueville. Her father dying a few days after her birth, she scarcely existed before she was hailed queen.

The government of a queen was unknown in Scotland; and the government of an infant queen could not command much respect from martial and turbulent nobles, who exercised a kind of sovereignty over their own vassals; who looked upon the most warlike of their monarchs in hardly any other light than as the chief of the aristocracy; and who, upon the slightest disgusts, were ever ready to fly into rebellion, and to carry their arms to the foot of the throne. James had not even provided against the disorders of a minority, by committing to proper persons the care of his daughter's education, and the administration of affairs in her name. The former of these objects, however,

Mary. however, was not neglected, though the regency of the kingdom was intrusted to very feeble hands. At six years of age Mary was conveyed to France, where she received her education in the court of Henry II. The opening powers of her mind, and her natural dispositions, afforded early hopes of capacity and merit. After being taught to work with her needle and in tapestry, she was instructed in the Latin tongue; and she is said to have understood it with an accuracy, which is in this age very uncommon in persons of her sex and elevated rank, but which was not then surprising, when it was the fashion among great ladies to study the ancient languages. In the French, the Italian, and the Spanish tongues, her proficiency was still greater, and she spoke them with equal ease and propriety. She walked, danced, and rode with enchanting gracefulness; and she was qualified by nature, as well as by art, to attain to distinction in painting, poetry, and music. To accomplish the woman was not, however, the sole object of her education. Either she was taught, or she very early discovered, the necessity of acquiring such branches of knowledge as might enable her to discharge with dignity and prudence the duties of a sovereign; and much of her time was devoted to the study of history, in which she delighted to the end of her life.

Whilst Mary resided in the court of Henry II. her personal charms made a deep impression on the mind of the Dauphin. It was in vain that the constable Montmorency opposed their marriage with all his influence. The importance of her kingdom to France, and the power of her uncles the princes of Lorraine, were more than sufficient to counteract his intrigues; and the Dauphin obtained the most beautiful princess in Christendom.

Though this alliance placed the queen of Scotland in the most conspicuous point of view, in the politest court of Europe, and drew to her those attentions which are in the highest degree pleasing to a female mind in the gaiety of youth; it may yet be considered as having accidentally laid the foundation of the greatest part of her future misfortunes. Elizabeth, who now swayed the sceptre of England, had been declared illegitimate by an act of parliament: and though the English Protestants paid no regard to a declaration which was compelled by the tyrannic violence of Henry VIII. and which he himself had indeed rendered null by calling his daughter to the throne after her brother and elder sister; yet the papists both at home and abroad had objections to the legitimacy of Elizabeth's birth, founded on principles which with them had greater weight than the acts of any human legislature. Mary was unquestionably the next heir in regular succession to the English throne, if Elizabeth should die without legitimate issue; and upon her marriage to the Dauphin, she was induced by the persuasion of her uncles, by the authority of the French king, and no doubt partly by her own ambition, to assume the title and arms of queen of England and Ireland. These, indeed, she forebore as soon as she became her own mistress; but the having at all assumed them was an offence which Elizabeth could never forgive, and which rankling in her bosom made her many years afterwards pursue the unhappy queen of Scots to the block.

Henry II. dying soon after the marriage of the

Dauphin and Mary, they mounted the throne of France. In that elevated station, the queen did not fail to distinguish herself. The weakness of her husband served to exhibit her accomplishments to the greatest advantage; and in a court where gallantry to the sex, and the most profound respect for the person of the sovereign, were inseparable from the manners of a gentleman, she learned the first lessons of royalty. But this scene of successful grandeur and unmixed felicity was of short duration. Her husband Francis died unexpectedly after a short reign of sixteen months. Regret for his death, her own humiliation, the disgrace of her uncles the princes of Lorraine, which instantly followed, and the coldness of Catharine of Medici the queen mother, who governed her son Charles IX. plunged Mary into inexpressible sorrow. She was invited to return to her own kingdom, and she tried to reconcile herself to her fate.

She was now to pass from a situation of elegance and splendour to the very reign of incivility and turbulence, where most of her accomplishments would be utterly lost. Among the Scots of that period, elegance of taste was little known. The generality of them were sunk in ignorance and barbarism; and what they termed religion, dictated to all a petulant rudeness of speech and conduct to which the queen of France was wholly unaccustomed. During her minority and absence, the Protestant religion had gained a kind of establishment in Scotland; obtained, indeed, by violence, and therefore liable to be overturned by an act of the sovereign and the three estates in parliament. The queen, too, was unhappily of a different opinion from the great body of her subjects, upon that one topic, which among them actuated almost every heart, and directed almost every tongue. She had been educated in the church of Rome, and was strongly attached to that superstition: Yet she had either moderation enough in her spirit, or discretion enough in her understanding, not to attempt any innovation in the prevailing faith of Protestantism. She allowed her subjects the full and free exercise of their new religion, and only challenged the same indulgence for her own. She contrived to attach to her, whether from his heart or only in appearance, her natural brother, the prior of St Andrew's; a man of strong and vigorous parts, who, though he had taken the usual oath of obedience to the pope, had thrown off his spiritual allegiance, and placed himself at the head of the reformers. By his means she crushed an early and formidable rebellion and in reward for his services conferred upon him a large estate, and created him earl of Murray. For two or three years her reign was prosperous, and her administration applauded by all her subjects except the Protestant preachers; and had she either remained unmarried, or bestowed her affections upon a more worthy object, it is probable that her name would have descended to posterity among those of the most fortunate and the most deserving of Scottish monarchs.

But a queen, young, beautiful, and accomplished, an ancient and hereditary kingdom, and the expectation of a mightier inheritance, were objects to excite the love and ambition of the most illustrious personages. Mary, however, who kept her eye steadily fixed on the English succession, rejected every offer of a foreign alliance; and, swayed at first by prudential motives,

motives, and afterwards by love the most excessive, she gave her hand to Henry Stuart Lord Darnley, the son of the earl of Lenox. This nobleman was, after herself, the nearest heir to the crown of England; he was likewise the first in succession after the earl of Arran to the crown of Scotland; and it is known that James V. had intended to introduce into his kingdom the Salique law, and to settle the crown upon Lenox in preference to his own daughter. These considerations made Mary solicitous for an interview with Darnley; and at that interview love stole into her heart, and effaced every favourable thought of all her other suitors. Nature had indeed been lavish to him of her kindness. He was tall of stature; his countenance and shapes were beautiful and regular; and, amidst the masks and dancing with which his arrival was celebrated, he shone with uncommon lustre. But the bounty of nature extended not to his mind. His understanding was narrow; his ambition excessive; his obstinacy inflexible; and under the guidance of no fixed principle, he was inconstant and capricious. He knew neither how to enjoy his prosperity nor how to ensure it.

On the 29th of July 1565, this ill-fated pair were married; and though the queen gave her husband every possible evidence of the most extravagant love; though she infringed the principles of the constitution to confer upon him the title of king; and though she was willing to share with him all the offices, honours, and dignities of royalty—he was not satisfied with his lot, but soon began to clamour for more power. He had not been married seven months, when he entered into a conspiracy to deprive Mary of the government, and to set himself on her throne. With this view he headed a band of factious nobles, who entered her chamber at night; and though she was then far advanced in her pregnancy, murdered her secretary in her presence, whilst one of the ruffians held a cocked pistol to her breast. Such an outrage, together with his infidelity and frequent amours, could not fail to alienate the affections of a high spirited woman, and to open her eyes to those defects in his character which the ardours of love had hitherto prevented her from seeing. She sighed and wept over the precipitation of her marriage: but though it was no longer possible to love him, she still treated him with attention and respect, and laboured to fashion him to the humour of her people.

This was labour in vain. His preposterous vanity and aspiring pride roused the resentment and the scorn of the nobles: his follies and want of dignity made him little with the people. He deserted the conspirators with whom he had been leagued in the assassination of the secretary; and he had the extreme imprudence to threaten publicly the earl of Murray, who, from his talents and his followers, possessed the greatest power of any man in the kingdom. The consequence was, that a combination was formed for the king's destruction; and, on the 10th day of February 1567, the house in which he then resided was early

in the morning blown up with gunpowder, and his dead and naked body, without any marks of violence, was found in an adjoining field. Mary

Such a daring and atrocious murder filled every mind with horror and astonishment. The queen, who had been in some measure reconciled to her husband, was overwhelmed with grief, and took every method in her power to discover the regicides; but for some days nothing appeared which could lead to the discovery. Papers indeed were posted on the most conspicuous places in Edinburgh, accusing the earl of Bothwell of the crime; and rumours were industriously circulated that his horrid enterprise was encouraged by the queen. Conscious, it is to be presumed, of her own innocence, Mary was the less disposed to believe the guilt of Bothwell, who was accused of having only acted as her instrument; but when he was charged with the murder by the earl of Lenox, she instantly ordered him on his trial. Through the management of the earl of Morton and others, who were afterwards discovered to have been partners in his guilt, Bothwell was acquitted of all share and knowledge of the king's murder; and what is absolutely astonishing, and shows the total want of honour at that time in Scotland, this flagitious man procured, by means of the same treacherous friends, a paper signed by the majority of the nobles, recommending him as a fit husband for the queen!

Armed with this instrument of mischief, which he weakly thought sufficient to defend him from danger, Bothwell soon afterwards seized the person of his sovereign, and carried her a prisoner to his castle at Dunbar. It has indeed been alleged by the enemies of the queen, that no force was employed on the occasion; that she was seized with her own consent; and that she was even privy to the subscribing of the bond by the nobles. But it has been well observed by one of her ablest vindicators (A), that "her previous knowledge of the bond, and her acquiescence in the seizure of her person, are two facts in apparent opposition to each other. Had the queen acted in concert with Bothwell in obtaining the bond from the nobles, nothing remained, but, under the sanction of their unanimous address, to have proceeded directly to the marriage. Instead of which, can we suppose her so weak as to reject that address, and rather choose that Bothwell should attempt to seize and carry her off by violence?—an attempt which many accidents might frustrate, and which at all events could not fail to render him or both of them odious to the whole nation. Common sense, then, as well as candour, must induce us to believe, that the scheme of seizing the queen was solely the contrivance of Bothwell and his associates, and that it was really by force that she was carried to Dunbar." Being there kept a close prisoner for 12 days; having, as there is reason to believe, actually suffered violence on her person; perceiving no appearance of a rescue; and being shown the infamous bond of the nobles; Mary promised to receive her ravisher for a husband, as in her opinion the only refuge for

Mary. for her injured honour. Without condemning with asperity this compliance of the queen, it is impossible not to recollect the more dignified conduct which Richardson attributes in similar circumstances to his Clarissa; and every man who feels for the sufferings, and respects the memory of Mary, must regret that she had not fortitude to resist every attempt to force upon her as a husband the profligate and audacious villain who had offered her such an insult as no virtuous woman ought ever to forgive. This, however, is only to regret that she was not more than human; that she who possessed so many perfections, should have had them blended with one defect. "In the irretrievable situation of her affairs, let the most severe of her sex say what course was left for her to follow? Her first and most urgent concern was to regain her liberty. That probably she attained by promising to be directed by the advice of her council, where Bothwell had nothing to fear." The marriage, thus inauspiciously contracted, was solemnized on the 15th of May 1567; and it was the signal for revolt to Morton, Lethington, and many of the other nobles, by whose wicked and relentless policy it had been chiefly brought about, and who had bound themselves to employ their swords against all persons who should presume to disturb so desirable an event.

As Bothwell was justly and universally detested, and as the rebels pretended that it was only against him and not against their sovereign that they had taken up arms, troops flocked to them from every quarter. The progress and issue of this rebellion will be seen in our history of SCOTLAND: suffice it to say here, that upon the faith of promises the most solemn, not only of personal safety to herself, but of receiving as much honour, service, and obedience, as ever in any former period was paid by the nobility to the princes her predecessors, the unhappy queen delivered herself into the hands of the rebels, and persuaded her husband to fly from the danger which in her apprehension threatened his life. These promises were instantly violated. The faithless nobles, after insulting their sovereign in the cruellest manner, hurried her as a prisoner to a castle within a lake, where she was committed to the care of that very woman who was the mother of her bastard brother; who, with the natural insolence of a whore's meanness, says Mr Whitaker, asserted the legitimacy of her own child and the illegitimacy of Mary; and who actually carried the natural vulgarity of a whore's impudence so far, as to strip her of all her royal ornaments, and to dress her like a mere child of fortune in a coarse brown cassock.

In this distress the queen's fortitude and presence of mind did not forsake her: She contrived to make her escape from her prison, and soon found herself at the head of 6000 combatants. This army, however, was defeated; and, in opposition to the advice and entreaties of all her friends, she hastily formed the resolution of taking refuge in England. The archbishop of St Andrew's in particular accompanied her to the border; and when she was about to quit her own kingdom, he laid hold of her horse's bridle, and on his knees conjured her to return: but Mary proceeded, with the utmost reliance on the friendship of Elizabeth, which had been offered to her when she was a

prisoner, and of the sincerity of which she harboured not a doubt.

That princess, however, who had not yet forgotten her assumption of the title and arms of queen of England, was now taught to dread her talents, and to be envious of her charms. She therefore, under various pretences, and in violation not only of public faith, but even of the common rights of hospitality, kept her a close prisoner for 19 years: encouraged her rebellious subjects to accuse her publicly of the murder of her husband: allowed her no opportunity of vindicating her honour: and even employed venal scribblers to blast her fame. Under this unparalleled load of complicated distress, Mary preserved the magnanimity of a queen, and practised with sincerity the duties of a Christian. Her sufferings, her dignified affability, and her gentleness of disposition, gained her great popularity in England, especially among the Roman Catholics; and as she made many attempts to procure her liberty, and carried on a constant correspondence with foreign powers, Elizabeth became at last so much afraid of her intrigues, that she determined to cut her off, at whatever hazard. With this view she prevailed upon her servile parliament to pass an act which might make Mary answerable for the crimes of all who should call themselves her partizans; and upon that flagitious statute she was tried as a traitor concerned in the conspiracy of Babington: (See SCOTLAND). Though the trial was conducted in a manner which would have been illegal even if she had been a subject of England, and though no certain proof appeared of her connexion with the conspirators, she was, to the amazement of Europe, condemned to suffer death.

The fair heroine received her sentence with great composure; saying to those by whom it was announced, "The news you bring cannot but be most welcome, since they announce the termination of my miseries. Nor do I account that soul to be deserving of the felicities of immortality, which can shrink under the sufferings of the body, or scruple the stroke that sets it free." On the evening before her execution, for which, on the succeeding morn, she prepared herself with religious solemnity and perfect resignation, she ordered all her servants to appear before her, and drank to them. She even condescended to beg their pardon for her omissions or neglects; and she recommended it to them to love charity, to avoid the unhappy passions of hatred and malice, and to preserve themselves steadfast in the faith of Christ. She then distributed among them her money, her jewels, and her clothes, according to their rank or merit. She wrote her will with her own hand, constituting the duke of Guise her principal executor; and to the king and queen of France she recommended her son, provided he should prove worthy of their esteem.—In the castle of Fotheringay she was beheaded on the 8th of February 1587, in the 45th year of her age; and her body, after being embalmed and committed to a leaden coffin, was buried with royal pomp and splendour in the cathedral of Peterborough. Twenty years afterwards her bones were, by order of her son and only child King James I. removed to Westminster, and deposited in their proper place among the kings of England.

The general character of Mary, which in the regular order of biography should now be laid before the reader, has furnished matter of controversy for 200 years.— She is universally allowed to have had considerable talents, and a mind highly cultivated. By one party she is painted with more virtues and with fewer defects than almost any other woman of the age in which she lived. By another, she is represented as guilty of the grossest crimes which a woman can commit—adultery and the murder of her husband. By all it is confessed, that, previous to her connexion with the earl of Bothwell, her life as a Christian was exemplary, and her administration as a queen equitable and mild; and it has never been denied that she bore her tedious sufferings with such resignation and fortitude as are seldom found united with conscious guilt. These are strong presumptions of her innocence. The moral characters of men change by degrees; and it seems hardly consistent with the known principles of human nature, that any person should at once plunge deliberately from the summit of virtue to the depths of vice; or, when sunk so low, should by one effort recover his original state of elevation. But in this controversy presumptions must go for nothing. The positive evidences which were brought against the queen of Scots are so conclusive, that if they be genuine she must have been guilty; and if they be spurious there can be no doubt of her innocence. They consisted of a box with letters, contracts, and sonnets, said to be written by herself and sent to the earl of Bothwell. In addition to these, the supposed confessions of the criminals who had suffered for the king's murder were originally urged as proofs of her guilt: but those confessions are now admitted by all parties to be either wholly forged, or so grossly interpolated, that no stress whatever can be laid upon them; and during Mary's life it was affirmed by her friends, and not sufficiently contradicted by her enemies, that the persons who had accused Bothwell, and were doubtless his accomplices, instead of criminating the queen, had openly protested her innocence in their dying moments.

This box, then, with its contents, was the evidence upon which her accusers had the chief and indeed the only reliance; and it is upon this evidence, whatever it be, that the guilt or innocence of the Scottish princess must finally be determined. It is uniformly affirmed upon the part of the earl of Murray and his faction, that the casket with the letters and the sonnets had been left by Bothwell in the castle of Edinburgh; that this nobleman, before he fled from Scotland, sent a messenger to recover them; and that they were found in the possession of this person. The 20th day of June 1567 is fixed as the date of this remarkable discovery. The governor of the castle at that time was Sir James Balfour. George Dalgleish, a servant of Bothwell's, is named as his messenger upon this errand. He was seized, it is said, by the domestics of the earl of Morton; and it was the earl of Morton himself who made the actual production of the casket and its contents.

This story is unsupported by vouchers, contains improbabilities, and cannot be reconciled with history and events. There remains not any authentic or unsuspected evidence that the queen had dishonoured the bed of Lord Darnley; and there is the most satisfactory evidence*, that though Bothwell was intrusted

with the defence of the borders on account of his tried courage and loyalty, he was privately disliked by Mary for his uncommon zeal in the cause of Protestantism. At the very time when the queen is said to have had the most violent love for that nobleman, and with him to have been carrying on the most criminal intercourse against her husband, we know both from Randolph and from Knox, that Bothwell refused to gratify her by the smallest compliance with the ceremonies of her religion, though many of the other Protestant peers scrupled not to accompany her to the celebration of the mass. That the villain who could deliberately commit murder, should be so scrupulously conscientious with respect to modes of faith and worship, as to stand forward with a peculiar strain of bravery to oppose, in a favourite measure, the queen, who was then admitting him to her bed, and actually forming plans for raising him to her throne, is surely, to say the least of it, extremely improbable.

But let us suppose this non-compliance on the part of Bothwell to have been a measure concerted between the queen and him to conceal more effectually from the eyes of the public the criminal intercourse in which they were engaged; is it not very surprising, that of such politicians, the one should have written those letters, and the other have left them in the power of their enemies? The earl of Bothwell was exposed to more than suspicions of a concern in the murder of the king. These papers contained manifest proofs of his guilt. It evidently was not his interest to preserve them: or admitting, that till his marriage was solemnized with the queen he might look upon them as his best security for the realizing of his ambitious hopes, yet, after that event, when all his former friends had deserted him, he must have felt the strongest inducements to destroy such a criminal correspondence; and Mary must have been ardently animated with the same wish. The castle of Edinburgh, where the box is said to have been lodged, was at this time entirely at their command; and Sir James Balfour, their deputy, was the creature of Bothwell. If his enemies, who were now in arms against him, should possess themselves of this box and its contents, his destruction was inevitable. From his marriage till the 5th day of June, it was in his power to have destroyed the fatal papers; and if they had existed, it is not to be imagined that he would have neglected a step so expedient, not only for his own security and reputation, but also for those of the queen. During all this time, however, he made no effort to recover his box and letters: he had lodged them in the castle of Edinburgh; and there he chose to leave them in the custody of a man in whom he could not have one particle of affiance. This was excessively foolish; but his subsequent conduct was still more so. Upon the 6th day of June, it is evident that he had reason to suspect the fidelity of Sir James Balfour, since he avoided to take refuge in the castle of Edinburgh and fled to Dunbar. He returned, however, with an army in order to fight the rebels. The balance of empire might then seem to hang suspended between himself and his enemies: and in that state of things, a man of such commodious principles as Balfour appears to have been, might be inclined to do his old friend and patron a secret service, both to efface his former perfidy and