the mother of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and a virgin at the time that she conceived him; daughter of Joachim and of Anna, of the tribe of Judah, and married to Joseph of the same tribe. The scripture tells us nothing of her parents, not so much as their names, unless Heli mentioned by St Luke iii. 23. be the same with Joachim. All that is said concerning the birth of Mary and of her parents is only to be found in some apocryphal writings; which, however, are very ancient.

Mary was of the royal race of David, as was also her husband; 'A virgin, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David,' says our translation. translation of St Luke i. 27, which translation Mr Whitby thinks might be better rendered thus: 'A virgin of the house of David, espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, and the virgin's name was Mary;' because this agrees better with the words of the angel, 'The Lord shall give him the throne of his father David,' ver. 32. For since the angel had plainly told the virgin, that she should have this son without the knowledge of any man, it was not Joseph's but Mary's being of the house of David, that made David his father.

Mary was akin to the race of Aaron, since Elizabeth the wife of Zacharias was her cousin (ver. 36). Mary very early made a vow of chastity, and engaged herself to perpetual virginity. The Proto-evangelium of St James tells us, that she was consecrated to the Lord, and offered in the temple from her earliest youth; and that the priests gave her Joseph for a spouse, who was an holy and venerable old man, whom providence appointed for this purpose by a miracle, the rod which he commonly carried having grown green and flourished as Aaron's did formerly. He espoused Mary, not to live with her in the ordinary use of marriage, and to have children by her, but only that he might be the guardian of her virginity. Though these circumstances are not to be relied on as certain, yet Mary's resolution of continency, even in a married state, cannot be called in question, since her virginity is attested by the gospel, and that herself speaking to the angel, who declared to her that she should become the mother of a son, told him that 'she knew not a man,' (ver. 34.), or that she lived in continency with her husband: for which reason, when Joseph perceived her pregnancy, he was extremely surprized at it, knowing the mutual resolution they had agreed to of living in continency though in a state of marriage.

When Mary was ready to lie in, an edict was published by Cæsar Augustus, which decreed, that all the subjects of the empire should go to their own cities, there to have their names registered according to their families. Thus Joseph and Mary, who were both of the lineage of David, betook themselves to the city of Bethlehem, from whence was the original of their family. But while they were in this place, the time being fulfilled in which Mary was to be delivered, she brought forth her first-born son. She wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in the manger of the stable or cavern whither they had retired: for they could find no place in the public inn, because of the great concourse of people that were then at Bethlehem on the same occasion; or they were forced to withdraw into the stable of the inn, not being able to get a more convenient lodging, because of the multitude of people then at Bethlehem.

At the same time the angels made it known to the shepherds who were in the fields near Bethlehem, and who came in the night to see Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger, and to pay him their tribute of adoration. Mary took notice of all these things, and laid them up in her heart, (Luke ii. 19. Matth. ii. 8, 9, 10, 11, &c.). A few days after, the magi or wise men came from the east, and brought to Jesus the mysterious presents of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; after which being warned by an angel that appeared to them in a dream, they returned into their own country by a way different from that by which they came. But the time of Mary's purification being come, that is 40 days after the birth of Jesus, Mary went to Jerusalem (Luke ii. 21.), there to present her son in the temple, and there to offer the sacrifice appointed by the law for the purification of women after childbirth. There was then at Jerusalem an old man named Simeon, who was full of the Holy Ghost, and who had received a secret assurance that he should not die before he had seen Christ the Lord. He came then into the temple by the influence of the spirit of God, and taking the little Jesus within his arms, he blessed the Lord: and afterwards adressing himself to Mary, he told her, 'That this child should be for the rising and falling of many in Israel, and for a sign which should be spoken against; even so far as that her own soul should be pierced as with a sword, that the secret thoughts in the hearts of many might be discovered.' Afterwards when Joseph and Mary were preparing to return to their own country of Nazareth (Matth. ii. 13, 14.), Joseph was warned in a dream to retire into Egypt with Mary and the child, because Herod had a design to destroy Jesus. Joseph obeys the admonition, and they continued in Egypt till after the death of Herod; upon which he and Mary returned to Nazareth, not daring to go to Bethlehem because it was in the jurisdiction of Archelaus the son and successor of Herod the great. Here the holy family took up their residence, and remained till Jesus began his public ministry. We read of Mary being present at the marriage of Cana in Galilee, with her son Jesus and his disciples (John ii. 1, 2, &c.) On which occasion Jesus having turned water into wine, being the first public miracle that he performed, he went from thence to Capernaum with his mother and his brethren, or his parents and disciples: and this seems to be the place where the holy virgin afterwards chiefly resided. However, St Epiphanius thinks that she followed him everywhere during the whole time of his preaching; though we do not find the evangelists make any mention of her among the holy women that followed him and ministered to his necessities. 'The virgin Mary was at Jerusalem at the last passover that our Saviour celebrated there; she saw all that was transacted against him, followed him to Calvary, and stood at the foot of his cross with a constancy worthy of the mother of God.' There Jesus seeing his mother and his beloved disciple near her, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold thy son;" and to the disciple, "Behold thy mother." And from that hour the disciple took her home to his own house. It is not to be doubted, but that our Saviour appeared to his mother immediately after his resurrection; and that she was the first, or at least one of the first, to whom he vouchsafed this great consolation. She was with the apostles at his ascension, and continued with them at Jerusalem, expecting the coming of the Holy Ghost (Acts i. 14.). After this, she dwelt in the house of St John the Evangelist, who took care of her as of his own mother. It is thought that he took her along with him to Ephesus, where she died in an extreme old age. There is a letter of the oecumenical council of Ephesus, importing, that in the fifth century it was believed she was buried there. Yet this opinion was not so universal, but that there are authors of the same age, who think she died and was buried at Jerusalem. Mary (Magdalen), who has been generally confounded with Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, but very improperly, was probably that sinner mentioned by St Luke, chap. vii. 36, 37, &c., whose name he does not tell us. There are some circumstances sufficient to convince us, that she is the same whom he calls Mary Magdalen in chap. viii. 2, and from whom he says Jesus drove out seven devils. Jesus having healed the widow's son of Nain, entered into the city, and there was invited to eat by a Pharisee named Simon. While he was at table, a woman of a scandalous life came into the house, having an alabaster box full of perfumed oil; and standing upright behind Jesus, and at his feet, for he was lying at table on a couch after the manner of the ancients, she poured her perfume on his feet, kissed them, watered them with her tears, and wiped them with her hair. The Pharisee observing this, said within himself, If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is that touches him, that she is one of a wicked life. Then Jesus, who knew the bottom of his heart, illustrated her case by a parable; and concluded with answering the woman, that her sins were forgiven her.

In the following chapter, St Luke tells us, that Jesus, in company with his apostles, preached the gospel from city to city; and that there were several women whom he had delivered from evil spirits, and had cured of their infirmities, among whom was Mary called Magdalen, out of whom went seven devils. This, it must be owned, is no positive proof that the sinner mentioned before was Mary Magdalen; however, it is all we have in support of this opinion: An opinion which has been ably controverted by others. Mary Magdalen had her surname, it is thought, from the town of Magdalia in Galilee. Lightfoot believes that this Mary is the same with Mary the sister of Lazarus. Magdalen is mentioned by the evangelists among the women that followed our Saviour, to minister to him according to the custom of the Jews. St Luke viii. 2, and St Mark xvi. 9, observe, that this woman had been delivered by Jesus Christ from seven devils. This some understand in the literal sense; but others take it figuratively, for the crimes and wickedness of her past life (supposing her to be the sinner first above mentioned), from which Christ had rescued her. Others maintain, that she had always lived in virginity; and consequently they make her a different person from the sinner mentioned by St Luke; and by the seven devils of which she was possessed, they understand no other than a real possession, which is not inconsistent with a holy life. This indeed is the most probable opinion, and that which has been best supported. In particular, the author of a "Letter to Jonas Hanway" on the subject of Magdalen House, published in 1788, has shown by a variety of learned remarks, and quotations both from the scriptures and from the best commentators, that Mary Magdalen was not the sinner spoken of by Luke, but on the contrary that she "was a woman of distinction, and very easy in her worldly circumstances. For a while, she had laboured under some bodily indisposition, which our Lord miraculously healed, and for which benefit she was ever after very thankful. So far as we know, her conduct was always regular and free from censure; and we may reasonably believe, that after her acquaintance with our Saviour it was edifying and exemplary. I conceive of her (continues our author) as a woman of a fine understanding, and known virtue and discretion, with a dignity of behaviour becoming her age, her wisdom, and her high station: by all which, she was a credit to him whom she followed as her master and benefactor. She showed our Lord great respect in his life, at his death, and after it; and she was one of those to whom he first showed himself after his resurrection."

Mary Magdalen followed Christ in the last journey that he made from Galilee to Jerusalem, and was at the foot of the cross with the holy virgin (John xix. 25. Mark xv. 47.). After which she returned to Jerusalem to buy and prepare the perfumes, that she might embalm him after the sabbath was over which was then about to begin. All the sabbath day she remained in the city; and the next day early in the morning she went to the sepulchre, along with Mary the mother of James and Salome (Mark xvi. 1, 2. Luke xxiv. 1, 2.). On the way, they inquired of one another, who should take away the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre, and were sensible of a great earthquake. This was the token of our Saviour's resurrection. Being come to his tomb, they saw two angels, who informed them that Jesus was risen. Upon this Mary Magdalen runs immediately to Jerusalem, and acquaints the apostles with this good news, returning herself to the sepulchre. Peter and John came also, and were witnesses that the body was no longer there. They returned: but Mary stayed, and stooping forward to examine the inside of the tomb, she there saw two angels sitting, one at the head and the other at the foot of the tomb; and immediately afterwards, upon turning about, she beheld the Lord himself. She would have cast herself at his feet to kiss them. But Jesus said to her, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father." As if he had said, "You shall have leisure to see me hereafter; go now to my brethren, my apostles, and tell them, I am going to ascend to my God and to their God, to my Father and to their Father." Thus had Mary the happiness of first seeing our Saviour after his resurrection. (See Math. xxviii. 5, &c. Mark xvi. 6, &c. John xi. 11, 17.)

She returned then to Jerusalem, and told the apostles that she had seen the Lord, that she had spoken to him, and told them what he had said to her. But at first they did not believe her, till her report was confirmed by many other testimonies.—This is what the gospel informs us concerning Mary Magdalen, different from Mary the sister of Martha, though she has been often called by this name. For as to the pretended History of Mary Magdalen, which is said to have been written in Hebrew by Marcella servant of Martha; this can only relate to Mary sister of Martha, and besides is a mere piece of imposture.

Mary, queen and tyrant of England, was eldest daughter of Henry VIII. by his first wife Catherine 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 Grammar, and afterwards De emendata structura Latina ser- Linacer 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 being cast into sickness, as Udall relates, partly by overmuch 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 before 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 Roman persecution; and to the eternal disgrace of the English prelacy, though the reformation had taken root in both universities, the sound English bishops ready to carry her cruel designs to subvert it, into effectual execution. King Edward his 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 licence; and before the expiration of three months, the Protestant bishops were excluded the house of lords, and all the statutes of Edward VI respecting the Protestant religion were repealed. In July 1554, 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 privy. Without her knowledge and privy 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, over-ruled 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 a 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

---

(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 to 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, histories, 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 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 Siena." 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 were 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 affront, that upon this single occasion the queen showed a strong attachment to her native 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 writing 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 epistolae 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 Char. V.

—There is also a French letter, printed by Stripe from the Cotton 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 prince'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 disaffections, 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, was not neglected, though the regency of the kingdom was entrusted 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 wayed 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 fifteen months. Regret for his death, her own humiliation, the disgrace of her uncles the princes of Lorraine, which instantly followed, and the coldness of Catherine of Medicis 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 he 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, 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 shape 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 inconsistent 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 seat 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 allicate the affections of a high spirited woman, and to open her eyes to those defects in his character which the ardors 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 gun-powder, and his dead and naked body, without any marks of violence, was found in an adjoining field.

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 least disposed to believe the guilt of Bothwell, who was accused as having only acted as her instrument; but when he was charged with the murder by the earl of Lennox, 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 love-reign, 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 the indignity of a rape; 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 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

(A) Tytler's Dissertation on the Marriage of Queen Mary with the Earl of Bothwell: Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Vol. I. 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 her 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 manners, 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 intrigues 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 distresses, 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 connection 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 foul 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 splendor 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 connection 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 firmed 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 protected 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 princes 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 unsuspicious evidence that the queen had dishonoured the bed of Lord Darnley; and there is the most satisfactory evidence†, that though Bothwell was entrusted with the defense 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 maws. 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 alliance. 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 to create himself a new interest with him in case he should be victorious over the rebels. Yet in these critical moments Bothwell neglected to make any application to him for the casket and the letters! On the 15th of June, all his towering imaginations were at once dashed to the ground. He had come to Carberry-hill, followed by an army and accompanied by a queen; but he fled from it attended only by a single servant, and was glad to shelter himself in the castle of Dunbar from the vengeance due to his crimes. Yet in this extremity of distress he is represented as trying a bold experiment, which he had not courage to try when he was fortified with the authority of his sovereign, and when he was facing the rebels in the field. In the very hour when almost every friend had deserted him, he expected a return of friendship from a man who had deserted him at first only because he suspected him to be in danger. At this period he sent his servant George Dalgleish to wait upon Balfour, the acting governor of the castle of Edinburgh, with a requisition for the box of letters, and to bring back the important charge, through ten thousand dangers, to Dunbar. Though this man was one of his agents in the murder of the king, and might therefore have been safely entrusted with any secret, he did not order him, as common sense requires he should have done, to destroy the letters as soon as he should get them into his possession. No! he sent him to fetch them from the castle, as if there was no danger in going thither, no doubt of receiving them there, and no difficulty in carrying them back. To Whiteker's Vindication, all days are fine. Accordingly this same Dalgleish, though the well-known servant of Bothwell, makes good his entrance at the gates of the city, though these were guarded by 450 harquebusiers all hostile to him. his master, finds his way to the castle, and delivers his message. But what is more astonishing than all, he actually receives the box of letters from Sir James Balfour. This indeed, says Mr Whitaker, is "overdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod." Balfour was the ductile slave of self-interests. He had with infinite perfidiousness turned against his friend, his patron, and his queen, only because he saw them opposed by a party which he thought would prove too strong for them; but now when they were both plunged into the lowest state of distress, and branded with the appellation of regicides, his self-interests was suddenly changed into generosity, his meanness gave place to exalted sentiments, and, at the peril of his own life, he performed an heroic act of kindness! "In such circumstances" (says a contemporary writer), "is it to be thought, either that the earl would send to the said Sir James, or that the said Sir James would send anything to the earl? Is it likely? Is it credible?" No matter: Bothwell is made to send for his papers at a time when his difficulties and his despair render it improbable that he could think of them, and when it was absolutely impossible that he could recover them. His messenger accordingly is intercepted with the casket; and the adversaries of the queen, upon the 20th day of June, became possessed of vouchers with which they might operate her destruction. These inconsistencies are glaring, and of a force not easily to be controverted; and the story is open to other objections, which are, if possible, greater, and altogether insurmountable.

By comparing different proclamations of the rebels with the several dispatches of Throgmorton, who was then Elizabeth's resident in Scotland, Mr Whitaker has made it appear in the highest degree probable, that Dalgleish was not seized till the 17th of July; that he was then, in consequence of an order issued by the court of session, apprehended, together with Powrie, another of Bothwell's servants, in that nobleman's lodgings in the palace of Holyroodhouse; and that therefore he could not be the bearer of the letters intercepted by the earl of Morton on the 20th of June. What adds greatly to this probability is the account which the rebels themselves give of his examination. A few days after he was taken, he was examined, say they, judicially, in a council where the earls of Morton and Athol are marked as present. It was natural upon this occasion to make inquiries about the casket and the papers. No questions, however, were put to him on that subject. He was not confronted with Sir James Balfour, from whom he had received the casket; nor with the domestics of the earl of Morton, by whom it was said that he had been apprehended. He was kept in prison many months after this examination; and during a period when the rebels were infinitely pressed to apologize for their violence against the queen, there were opportunities without number of bringing him to a confession. These opportunities, however, were avoided; and there exists not the slightest evidence that the casket and the papers had ever been in his possession. Is it then to be supposed, that if the casket and the papers had really been discovered with him, the establishment of a fact so important would have been neglected by the adversaries of the queen? No! they would have established it by the most complete evidence; which they were so far from attempting to do, that the earliest account which they give of their pretended seizure of the letters is dated fifteen months after the event itself, and nearly nine months after the death of Dalgleish. To have blazoned their discovery at the time they pretend it was made, might have been attended with very disagreeable consequences; for Dalgleish, who at his execution asserted the innocence of the queen, and actually charged the earls of Murray and Morton as the contrivers of the murder, might have found proof that the casket could not possibly have been intercepted in his custody.

The 20th of June 1567 is fixed as the era of the discovery of the letters. If this discovery had been real, the triumph of the enemies of the queen would have been infinite. They would not have delayed one moment to proclaim their joy, and to reveal to her indignant subjects the falseness and the infamy of her guilt. They preferred, however, a long and a profound silence. It was not till the 4th of December 1567 that the papers received their first mark of notice or distinction; nor till the 16th of September 1568, that the earl of Morton was said to have intercepted them with Dalgleish. From the 20th day of June to the 4th day of December, many transactions and events of the highest importance had taken place; and the most powerful motives that have influence with men had called upon them to publish their discovery. They yet made no production of the papers, and ventured not to appeal to them. In the proclamation which they issued for apprehending Bothwell, they inveigh against his guilt, and express an anxious desire to punish the regicides: yet though this deed was posterior to the 20th of June, there is no assertion in it to the dishonour of the queen; and it contains no mention of the box and the letters. An ambassador arrived in this interval from France, to inquire into the rebellion and the imprisonment of the queen; yet they apologized not for their conduct by communicating to him the contents of the casket. To Throgmorton, who had instructions to act with Mary as well as with her adversaries, they denied the liberty of waiting upon her at Lochleven, where she was detained a close prisoner; and they were earnestly impressed with the idea that her love of Bothwell was incurable. He pressed them on the subject of their behaviour to her. At different times they attempted formally to vindicate themselves; and they were uniformly vehement on the topic of the love which she bore to that nobleman. Yet they abstained from producing the letters to him. "They even spoke of her to him with respect and reverence," which surely they could not possibly have done had they been then in possession of the letters. They were solicitous to divide the faction of the nobles who adhered to the queen; and there could not have been a measure so effectual for this end as the production of the casket and its contents; yet they called no convention of her friends, to surprise and disunite them with this fatal discovery. They flattered the Protestant clergy, attended assemblies of the church, instilled into them a belief of the queen's being guilty of murder and adultery, and incited Mr Knox to "inveigh against her vehemently in his sermons, to persuade extremes..." tremities towards her, and (as Throgmorton continues) to threaten the great plague of God against the whole country and nation if she should be spared from her condign punishment; but they ventured not to excite the fury of these ghastly fathers by exhibiting to them the box and the letters. They compelled the queen to subscribe a renunciation of her crown; and they had the strongest reason to be solicitous to justify this daring transaction. The box and the letters would have served as a complete vindication of them: yet they neglected to take any notice of these important vouchers; and were contented with relying on the wild and frivolous pretence that the queen, from sickness and fatigue, was disgusted with the care of her kingdom.

To the irrefragable proof of the forgery of the letters arising from their having been so long concealed, it has been replied, that the rebels could not produce them sooner with any regard to their own safety. "A considerable number of their fellow-subjects, headed by some of the most powerful noblemen in the kingdom, was combined against them. This combination they could not hope to break or to vanquish without aid either from France or England. In the former kingdom, Mary's uncles, the duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorraine, were at that period all-powerful, and the king himself was devotedly attached to her. The loading the queen, therefore, with the imputation of being accessory to the murder of her husband, would be deemed such an inexpiable crime by the court of France, as must cut off every hope of countenance or aid from that quarter. From England, with which the principal confederates had been long and intimately connected, they had many reasons to expect more effectual support; but, to their astonishment, Elizabeth condemned their proceedings with asperity. Her high notions of royal authority, and of the submission due by subjects, induced her on this occasion to exert herself in behalf of Mary, not only with sincerity but with zeal: she negotiated, she solicited, she threatened. From all these circumstances, the confederates had every reason to apprehend that Mary would soon obtain her liberty, and by some accommodation be restored to the whole, or at least to a considerable portion, of her authority as sovereign; and therefore they were afraid of the consequences of accusing her publicly of crimes so atrocious as adultery and murder."

This apology for the rebels consists of assertions for which there is no evidence, and of arguments which are wholly untenable. There is no evidence that Elizabeth exerted herself in behalf of Mary with sincerity and with zeal. If she had, she would have done more than threaten. An English army of 3000 men, aided by the Scottish combination which continued faithful to the queen, would have overturned the rebel government in the space of a month. It is inconceivable that the rebels were prevented by any apprehension of the queen's restoration from accusing her of the crimes of murder and adultery; for we learn from a dispatch of Throgmorton's dated the 19th of July 1567, that "men of good regard did then boldly and overtly by their speech, utter great rigour and extremity against their sovereign; saying, it shall not be in the power of any within this realm, neither without, to keep her from condign punishment for her notorious crimes." From another dispatch of the same ambassador's, dated five days after the former, we learn, that through him they actually did accuse her to Elizabeth of "incontinency, as well with the earl of Bothwell as with others, and likewise of the murder of her husband, of which, they said, they had as apparent proof against her as might be; as well by the testimony of her own hand-writing, which they had recovered, as also by sufficient witnesses." This testimony, however, was not produced till more than four months afterwards; a certain proof, that though it was now in the hands of the manufacturers, it was not yet ready for inspection.

But let us take the facts of this ablest antagonist of Mary as he has stated them, and consider the argument which they are made to support. It is apparent, from the last quoted dispatch of Throgmorton, that while it could not be unknown, either to the court of France or the court of England, that the rebels were at all events determined to crown the prince, and either to put the queen to death or to keep her a close prisoner for life. These desperate enterprises, however, could not, it seems, be carried into effect without the countenance and aid of Elizabeth or Charles; but Elizabeth's notions of regal authority, and of the submission due by subjects, were high; and the French king was devotedly attached to the deposed queen. If this was so, common sense says, that the kindness of the confederates, since they expected aid from these princes, was to charge Mary at once with the murder and adultery, and support the charge with the most convincing evidence which they had to produce. No! says this apologia of theirs, Charles IX. would have considered such conduct as a crime inexpiable, though he might reasonably be expected to give them his countenance in putting to death, or keeping in perpetual prison, for a comparatively venial offence, the queen to whom he was devotedly attached! This is strange reasoning; but it seems not to have occurred to the rebels themselves. The letters made their first appearance in a secret council assembled by the earl of Murray on the 4th of December 1567; and the reason there assigned by the confederates for their unwillingness to produce them was, "That hitherto they bear unto his person, who sometime was their sovereign, and for the reverence of his majesty, what moderation is, as all the many good and excellent gifts and virtues quotheth with God sometimes induceth him." And they proceed to say, that they would not have produced them at all, "if otherwise the sincerity of their intentions and proceedings from the beginning might be known to foreign nations and the inhabitants of this isle (of whom many yet remain in suspense in judgment) satisfied and resolved of the rightness of their quarrel, and the sincerity of them and their posterity be any other means might be provided and established." So far were they from dreaming that the production of the letters would injure their cause in the court of France, that we see they frankly acknowledged that the sincerity and rectitude of their proceedings could not otherwise be manifested to foreign nations. In this instance they think and talk like reasonable men; but they do not long preserve the same consistency.

In this act of council the rebels discover the greatest anxiety for their pardon and security: And "the matter matter being largelie and with gude deliberacion ressonit at great length, and upon sundry daies; at last all the said lords, barrones, and others above expressit, can find no other way or moyen how to find or make the said securitie but oppynyngge and reveling of the truth and grund of the boill matter fire the beginninge, plaintif and uprightlie, &c. Therefore the lords of secrete council, &c. desires it to be found and declarit be the eltates and haill body of the parliament, that the caufe and occasion of the tacking of the queen’s person upon the 15th daie of Junii last by past, and holding and detaininge of the same within the hous and place of Lochleven continewallie senfyne, prefentlie, and in all tymes comynge; and generally all other things inventit, spokin, writtin, or done be them, or onny of them, fen the tent daie of February last by past unto the daie and date heirof, twiching the saied queen hir person: that caus, and all things depending theron, or that onie wife maie apperteyne thereto, &c. was in the saied queen’s awin default, in as far as be divers his privie letters written and subscribit with hir awin hand, and fent by her to James Erll Bothwell, &c.—and be her ungodlie and dishonourable procedinge in a privat marriage, foddanlie and unproviftly, it is most certain, that she was previe, art and part, and of the actual devise and deid of the for-mencionit murther of the kinge, her lawchfull husband, our soverenie lorde’s father, commitit be the saied James Erll Bothwell, &c.”

Had the letters been really genuine, into the absurdity of this declaration no man of common sense could possibly have fallen. Truth is always confident with itself; but in a series of forgeries contradictions are scarcely avoidable. The confederates rose in rebellion against the queen on the 10th of June; they faced her in rebellion at Carberry-hill on the 15th; they sent her away into prison on the 16th: yet they afterwards justified all that they had done since the tenth of February by letters, which, they said, they had not till the twentieth of June! “This (says Mr Whitaker), if we consider it as folly, is one of the most striking and eminent acts of folly that the world has ever beheld. But it ought to be considered in a light much more dishonourable to the rebels; and as knavery, it is one of the rankest that has ever been attempted to be imposed upon the sons of men.” On the 4th of December, it must be remembered that they had not fixed any day for the discovery of the letters. The story of the seizure of Dalgleish with the casket was not thought of till near a year afterwards; and when it was invented, they had certainly forgotten the date of their act of council. In that act, therefore, they were free to rove at large; but they roved very incautiously. By grounding upon the letters, proceedings prior to the 10th of June, they plainly declare the discovery of these fatal papers to have been antecedent to the twentieth. By grounding upon them their secret messages for sedition, their private conventions for rebellion, and “every thing inventit, spokin, written, or done be them, or any of them, respecting the queen, Bothwell, or Darnley, fen the tent daie of February last by past,” they even intimate the discovery to have been previous to the murder of the king; and yet by their own accounts some of the letters were then actually un-

written. This is astonishing; and shows the extreme difficulty of carrying to any length a consistent series of falsehoods. Even Murray, Morton, and Lethington, could not do it. They knocked down one ninepin in endeavouring to set up another; and they finally threw down all, by making them mutually and successively to strike one another.

We have not yet done with this act of council. It was with a view to the approaching convention of the eltates that it had been formed and managed. It was a preparation for the parliament in which the conspirators had secured the fullest sway, and where they proposed to effectuate their pardon and security, and to establish the letters as decisive vouchers against the queen. Accordingly, upon the 15th day of December 1567, the three eltates were assembled. The conspirators invited no candid or regular investigation. The friends of the nation and of the queen were overawed. Everything proceeded in conformity to the act of council. The conspirators, by a parliamentary decree, received a full approbation of all the severities which they had exercised against the queen. A pardon by anticipation was even accorded to them for any future cruelty they might be induced to inflict upon her. The letters were mentioned as the cause of this singular law; and this new appeal to them may be termed the second mark of their distinction. But, amidst the plenitude of their power, the conspirators called not the eltates to a free and honest examination of them. This, indeed, had the letters been genuine, would have annihilated for ever all the consequence of the queen. Upon this measure, however, they ventured not. The letters were merely produced in parliament, and an act founded on them; but the queen was not brought from her confinement to defend herself, nor was any advocate permitted to speak for her. We learn from a paper of unquestionable authenticity, that “findrie nobilmen that was her Grace’s favouraris then present, buir with all (the rebel proceedings in this parliament), maist principellie for safety of hir Grace’s lyfe, quilkil, or their coming to parliament, was concludit and subfervyvit be ane greit part of hir takeris, to be taken frai hir in meit crewel manner, as is notourlie known.” By the power of this magic, the friends of Mary were bound fast. They durst not venture to question publicly the authenticity of the letters, from their dread of exposing the queen to the dagger of the assassins. The parliament, therefore, sustained these forgeries as vouchers of her guilt, without scrutiny or debate of any kind. The conspirators, who were themselves the criminals, were her accusers and her judges, and passed a law exactly in the terms in which the act of secret council had before drawn it up.

It was necessary to describe the letters both in the act of council and in the ordination of parliament; and these deeds having fortunately descended to posterity, it is apparent, from a comparison of them, that between the 4th and the 15th days of December, the letters must have undergone very essential alterations under the management of the conspirators. In the act of council the letters are described expressly as “written and subscribit with the queene’s awin hand;” but in the act of parliament they are said to be only “written helike with hir awin hand,” and there is no intimation that they were subscribed by her. Whence arises this difference? From a blunder in the clerk penning the act of council, says one; From a habit contracted by the same clerk, which made him mechanically add subscribed to written, says another; From the carelessness of the writer who transcribed the copy of the act of council which has descended to us, says a third. These subterfuges have been exposed in all their weakness by Messrs Tytler and Whitaker; but in this abstract it is sufficient to observe, that they are mere suppositions, supported by no evidence; and that the copy of the act of council which we have was given to the ministers of Elizabeth by the leaders of the faction, who were neither blundering clerks, nor under the habit of mechanically adding subscribed to written. Under one form, therefore, the letters were certainly exhibited before the council, and under another form they were produced in parliament; but had they been genuine, they would have appeared uniformly with the same face. The clerk of the council was Alexander Hay, a notary public accustomed to draw up writings and to attest them; and what puts his accuracy with respect to the letters beyond all possibility of doubt, his description of them is authenticated in the fullest manner by the signatures of Murray, Morton, and a long train of others who formed the secret council. The letters, therefore, were actually presented to the secret council with the customary appendage of subscription to them. But when these artificers of fraud came to reflect more closely on the approach of parliament, and to prepare their letters for the inspection of the friends of Mary, they began to shrink at the thoughts of what they had done. To substantiate the charge by letters under her own hand, they had naturally annexed her own subscription, a letter unsubscribed being a folecism in evidence. But most unfortunately for the cause of complete forgery, Mary was still in possession of her own seal, and he who fabricated the letters was not an engraver. For this reason, "the allegit writings in form of missive letters or epistles," says the bishop of Ross, in an address to Elizabeth, "are not falsit nor signetit." They were neither attested by her subscription at the bottom, nor secured by her seal on the outside. In the secret council, where all were equally embarked in rebellion, these omissions were of no importance. But that letters containing intimations of adultery and of murder, should be sent by the queen to the earl of Bothwell, with her subscription to them, and yet without any guard of a seal upon them, so far exceeds all the bounds of credibility, that they could not expect it to gain the belief of parliament. They were struck with the absurdity of their plan, and dreaded a detection. They were under the necessity of altering it; but they could not supply the defect of the seal. They, therefore, wrote over the letters anew, and withheld the subscription.

These letters were now as complete as the conspirators wished them; yet in this state, while they were unsubscribed and unsealed, they wanted other formalities which are usual in dispatches. They were without directions, and they had no dates. They must, therefore, have been sent by the queen to Bothwell as open and loose papers; yet they contained evidence against herself, and against him, of the most horrid wickedness; and Nicholas Hubert, the person who is said to have carried most of them, was of the lowest condition, and, as Dr Robertson characterizes him, "a foolish talkative fellow." He would, therefore, surely read those papers, which are polluted from end to end with open and uncovered adultery, and as surely report their contents to others. There are most incredible circumstances, on the supposition that the letters are authentic, unless the queen was, what none of her enemies ever represented her, an absolute idiot.

The letters in their composition bear no resemblance to the other writings of the queen. They have a vulgarity, an indelicacy, and a coarseness of expression and manner, that by no means apply to her. They breathe nothing of the polish of love beholds the impulses of the sensual appetite; and they represent a queen highly accomplished in love with one of her subjects, as acting with all the sneaking humility of a cottager to a peer. A few instances will show this.

"The devil finder us," she is made to exclaim, "and God knit us together for ever for the maist faithful couplik that ever he unitit: this is my faith; I will die in it." "I am," she says in another place, "varrey glad to wryte unto zow quhen the rest are fleapand; fen I cannot sleip as they do, and as I wold defyre, that is, in your armes, my dear luze." "Seeing to obey zow, my dear luze, I spare neuther honor, conscience, hafurde, nor gretnes qubatfumerwe; tak it, I pray zow, in gude part, as from the maist faithful luifer that ever zae had, or ever fall have." "Se not hir (his wife), quhais fenzzeit teires sild not be fa nikkle preifst nor emitit as the trew and faithful travellis qubilk I sustine for to merite her place." "God give zow, my only luze, the hap and prosperitie qubilk your bumble and faithful luze defyres unto zow, who hopes to be shortly another thing to you for the reaward of my irkosome travailles." "When I will put you out of dout, and cleir myselfe, refuse it not, my dear luze; and suffer me to make zow some prufe be my obedience, my faithfullnes, constancie, and voluntary subjection, qubilk I tak for the plelandef gude that I might refilet, gif xe will except it." "Such (says Mr Whitaker) was the coarse kirtle, and the homely necktie, in which these wretched representatives of Mary dressed themselves up, for the exhibition of a queen dignified, refined, and elegant—a queen whom, according to their own account, 'God had endowit with mony gude and excellent gifts and virtues!'

The evidence which points to the forgery of the letters is profuse and instructive. In its separate parts, it is powerful and satisfactory. When taken together, and in the union of its parts, it is invincible. But, amidst all its cogency and strength, there is a circumstance most peculiarly in its favour, and of which it required no aid or assistance. By this peculiarity, it is eased completely in steel, and armed at every point. The letters have come down to us in the French, the Scottish, and the Latin languages. Now the conspirators affirmed, that they were written by the queen in the French language. But by a critical examination of them in these different languages, Mr Goodall demonstrated, that the pretended French originals are a translation from the Latin of Buchanan, which is itself a version from the Scotch. This is indeed acknowledged by Dr Robertson, the ablest and most persevering of all Mary's enemies, who pretends, that, so far as he knows, it never was denied. Determined, however, to support the authenticity of the letters at all events, the same elegant and ingenious writer supposes, that the French originals are now lost, but that two or three sentences of each of those originals were retained, and prefixed to the Scottish translation; and that the French editor observing this, foolishly concluded that the letters had been written partly in French and partly in Scottish. In support of this singular hypothesis, he proceeds to affirm, that "if we carefully consider those few French sentences of each letter which still remain, and apply to them that species of criticism by which Mr Goodall examined the whole, a clear proof will arise, that there was a French copy, not translated from the Latin, but which was itself the original from which both the Latin and Scottish have been translated." He accordingly applies this species of criticism, points out a few variations of meaning between what he calls the remaining sentences of the original French and the present Latin; and thinks, that in the former he has discovered a spirit and elegance which neither the Latin nor the Scottish have retained. His critical observations have been examined by Mr Whitaker; who makes it apparent as the noon-day sun, that the Doctor has occasionally mistaken the sense of the Latin, the French, and even the Scotch; and that he has forgotten to point out either the elegance or the spirit of any particular clause in his pretended originals. The same matterly vindicator of Mary then turns his antagonist's artillery against himself; and demonstrates, that such variations as he has thought sufficient to prove the existence of a former French copy, are not confined to the first sentence of each of the three first letters, but are extended to other sentences, and diffused over all the letters. Hence he observes, that this mode of proving will demonstrate the present French, and every sentence in it, to be that very original, which it primarily pretended to be, which Mr Goodall has so powerfully proved it not to be, and which even the Doctor himself dares not assert it is. Our limits will not admit of our transcribing the observations of these two illustrious critics; nor is it necessary that we should transcribe them. By acknowledging that "Buchanan made his translation, not from the French but from the Scottish copy (of which he justly observes, that, were it necessary, several critical proofs might be brought)," Dr Robertson, in effect, gives up his cause. Had there been any other French letters than the present, what occasion had Buchanan for the Scotch, when he himself must have had possession of the originals? It is evident from Mr Anderson's account, that those letters were translated by Buchanan at London during the time of the conferences. He was one of the assistants appointed to the rebel commissioners, and entrusted with the whole conduct of the proceedings against the queen. By him, with Lethington, Macgill, and Wood, the original letters were exhibited, and their contents explained to the English commissioners; and we know from the authentic history of those papers, that they were neither lost nor misplaced for many years afterwards. It cannot be pretended that Buchanan did not understand the French; for he past most of his life in that country, and taught a school there. He was, indeed, a daring zealot of rebellion; but, with all his audacity, he must have felt the talk in which he was engaged a very ungracious one. When he sat down to defend, in the eyes of all Europe, a queen to whom he owed not only allegiance but also personal gratitude, it is not conceivable that he could have translated from a Scotch translation, had he known anything of a French original; and if the rebel commissioners, who were said to produce them, knew nothing of such originals, certainly nobody else ever did; if they existed not with Buchanan, they existed nowhere.

Dr Robertson, however, has another argument against Mr Goodall, which he thinks conclusive. Of the eight letters "the five remaining (he says) never appeared in Latin; nor is there any proof of their ever being translated into that language. Four of them, however, are published in French. This entirely overturns our author's hypothesis concerning the necessity of a translation into Latin."—An authentic fact will indeed overturn any hypothesis; but, most unluckily for this argument, the Doctor advances the hypothesis, and the fact rests with Mr Goodall. It is indeed true that Buchanan published only the three first letters in Latin at the end of his Detection; but it does not therefore follow, that the other five were never translated into that language. Indeed Mr Whitaker has made it as apparent as any thing can be, that the whole eight were turned into Latin for the use of the French translator, who, by his own account, understood not the Scotch. He has made it in the highest degree probable, that this translator was one Camuz, a French refugee; and he has demonstrated, that the translation was made in London under the eye of Buchanan himself. We do not quote his arguments, because they consist of a great number of observations which cannot be abridged; and because the translator himself confesses every thing which is of importance to the cause maintained by Mr Goodall. "Au reste (he tells us) epitras misas sur la fin," which were all but the eighth, "avaient été écrites par la Royne, partie en François, partie en Escoffois; et depuis traduites entièrement en Latin; mais n'ayant connaissance de la langue Escoffoise, j'ai mieux aimé exprimer tout ce, que j'ay trouvé en Latin, que," &c. "This confession (says Mr Whitaker) takes a comprehensive sweep. It makes all the seven letters at least, and the whole of each, to have been translated into Latin, and from thence to have been rendered into French. It starts no piddling objections about sentences or half-sentences, at the head or at the tail of any. It embraces all within its widespread arms. And it proves the fancied existence of a French copy at the time to be all a fairy vision; the creation of minds that have subjected their judgments to their imaginations; the invited dreams of self-delusion."

The letters, so weak on every side, and so incapable of sustaining any scrutiny, give the marks of suspicion and guilt in all the stages of their progress. Even with the parliamentary sanction afforded to them by the three estates, which the earl of Murray assembled upon the 15th day of December 1567, he felt the delicacy delicacy and the danger of employing them openly to the purposes for which they were invented. For while he was scheming with Elizabeth his accusation of the queen of Scots, he took the precaution to submit privately the letters to that princess by the agency of his secretary Mr Wood. The object of this secret transaction, which took place early in the month of June 1568, was most flagitious, and professed not only against the integrity of Murray, but also against that of the English queen. Before he would advance with his charge, he solicited from her an assurance that the judges to be appointed in the trial of Mary would hold the letters to be true and probative.

By the encouragement of Elizabeth, the earl of Murray was prevailed upon to prefer his accusation. He was soon to depart for England upon this business. A privy-council was held by him at Edinburgh. He took up in it with formality the letters of the queen from the earl of Morton, and gave a receipt for them to that nobleman. That receipt is remarkable and interesting. It is dated upon the 16th day of September 1563, and contains the first mention that appears in history of the discovery of the letters as in the actual possession of Dalgleish upon the 20th of June 1567. This, as we have already noticed, is a very suspicious circumstance; but it is not the only suspicious circumstance which is recorded in the receipt. In the act of secret-council, and in the ordination of parliament, in December 1567, when the earl of Murray and his associates were infinitely anxious to establish the criminality of the queen, the only vouchers of her guilt to which they appealed were the letters; and at that time, doubtless, they had prepared no other papers to which they could allude. But in Murray's receipt in September 1568, there is mention of other vouchers beside the letters. He acknowledges, that he also received from the earl of Morton contracts or obligations, and sonnets or love-letters. These remarkable papers, though said to have been found upon the 20th of June 1567, appeared not till September 1568; and this difficulty is yet to be solved by those who conceive them to be genuine. The general arguments which affect the authenticity of the letters apply to them in full force; only it must be observed, that as the original letters were undoubtedly in Scotch, the original sonnets were as certainly written in French. This has been completely proved by Dr Robertson, and is fully admitted by Mr Whitaker, who has made it in the highest degree probable that Lethington forged the letters and Buchanan the sonnets. Be this as it may, the sonnets have every external and internal evidence of forgery in common with the letters, and they have some marks of this kind peculiar to themselves. In particular, they make the love of Mary still more grovelling than the letters made it; and with a degree of meanness, of which the soul of Lethington was probably incapable, the author of the sonnets has made the queen consider it as "na lytill honor to be maistres of her subject's gudis!" In this the dignified princess is totally lost in "the maid Marien" of her pretended imitators; and Buchanan, who in his commerce with the sex was a mere sensualist, forgot on this occasion that he was patronizing a lady and a queen.

There is, however, in these sonnets, one passage of singular importance, which we must not pass wholly unnoticed. The queen is made to say,

Pour luy ays j'ay jeté mainte larme, Premier qu'il fuys de ce corps pisseur, Duquel oors il n'avoir pas le cœur. Puis me donna un autre dur alarme, Quand il versa de son sang mainte drame.

For him also I powrit out mony teiris, First quhen he made himself possefoure of this body, Of the quilk then he had not the hart. After he did give me ane uther hard charge, Quhen he bled of his blude greit quantitie, &c.

If these sonnets could be supposed to be genuine, this passage would overthrow at once all the letters and both the contracts which were produced; and would prove, with the force of demonstration, that the seizure of Mary by Bothwell was not with her own consent; that he actually committed a rape upon her; that she had for him no love; and that she married him merely as a refuge to her injured honour. The sonnets, however, are undoubtedly spurious; but, considered in this light, the verses before us prove with equal force the full conviction in the minds of the rebels of what in an ungarded moment they actually confessed to Throgmorton, and was manifest to all the world: viz. that "the queen their sovereign was led captive, and by fear, force, and (as by many conjectures may be well suspected) other extraordinary and more unlawful means compelled to become bedfellow to another wife's husband." They prove likewise, that after the rape, finding Mary highly indignant at the brutality done her, Bothwell actually stabbed himself; not, we may believe, with any intention to take away his own life, but merely that by shedding many a "drachm" of blood he might mollify the heart of the queen.

But we mean not to pursue the history of the sonnets any farther. Though they were undoubtedly invented in aid of the letters, to prove that fundamental principle of the conspirators,—that the love of Mary to Bothwell was inordinate; yet they are so incompatible with history, and with one another, that they demonstrate the spuriousness of themselves, and of the evidence which they were intended to corroborate. By thus endeavouring to give an air of nature and probability to their monstrous fictions, the rebels at once betrayed the fabrication of the whole. They have themselves supplied us with a long and particular journal, to show the true dates of facts; and by that journal have their letters and their sonnets been demonstrated to be spurious. "The makers of these papers (says Mr Whitaker) have broken through all the barriers of their own history. They have started aside from the orbit of their own chronology. They have taken a flight beyond the bounds of their own creation, and have there placed themselves conspicuous in the paradise of fools."

This mass of forgery was clandestinely shown to Elizabeth's commissioners during the conferences at York: (See Scotland.) It was shown again to the same commissioners and others during the conferences at Westminster. But neither Mary nor her commissioners could ever procure a sight of a single letter or a single sonnet. By the bishop of Ross and the Lord Herries Herries she repeatedly demanded to see the papers said to be written by her; but that request, in itself so reasonable, Elizabeth, with an audacity of injustice of which the history of mankind can hardly furnish a parallel, thought fit to refuse. Mary then instructed her commissioners to demand copies of the letters and sonnets; and offered even from these to demonstrate in the presence of the English queen and parliament, and the ambassadors of foreign princes, that the pretended originals were palpable forgeries. Even this demand was denied her; and there is undoubted evidence still existing, that neither she nor her commissioners had so much as a copy of these criminal papers till after those important conferences had for some time been at an end. This last demand perplexed Elizabeth; the conferences were suddenly broken up; Murray was dismissed with his box to Scotland; and the letters were seen no more!

But the letters, we are told, were at Westminster compared with letters of the queen's, and found to be in the same Roman hand. They were indeed compared with other writings; but with what writings? This question let Elizabeth's commissioners themselves answer. They collated them, they say "with others her letters, which were shewed yeeternight," and avowed by THEM (the rebel commissioners) to be written by the said queen." This was such a collation as must have pronounced them to be idiots, if we had not known them to be otherwise; and such as must pronounce them to be knaves, as we know them to have been men of sense. Like persons totally incompetent to the management of business, but in truth acting ministerially in the work of profligacy, they compared the letters produced, not with letters furnished by Mary's commissioners, but with letters furnished even by indifferent persons, but with letters presented by the producers themselves.—"This (says Mr Whitaker) is such an instance of imposition upon Mary and the world, as can scarcely be paralleled in the annals of knavery. Many instances of imposition, indeed, occur in the wretched history of our race; but we can hardly find one, in which the imposition was so gross, so formal, so important, and so clear. It was very gross, because it has not a shred of artifice to cover its ugly nakedness. It was very formal, because it was done by men some of whom were of the first character in their country; and all were bound by honour, and tied down by oaths, to act uprightly in the business. It was very important, because no less than the reputation of a queen, and the continuance of an usurpation, depended upon it. And it is very clear, because we have the fact related to us by the commissioners themselves, recorded to their shame in their own journal, and transmitted by their own hands to posterity with everlasting infamy on their heads."

When Tytler's Inquiry into the Evidence produced by the Earls of Murray and Morton against Mary Queen of Scots was first published, it was reviewed in the Gentleman's Magazine by the late Dr Johnson. The review, which consists of a brief analysis of the work, with reflections interposed on the force of the evidence, concludes thus:—"That the letters were forged is now made so probable, that perhaps they will never more be cited as testimonies." Subsequent experience has shown, that the great critic's knowledge of human nature had not deserted him when he guarded his prediction with the word perhaps. Few authors possess the magnanimity of Fenelon; and it is not to be expected that he who has once maintained the letters to be genuine, should by reasoning or criticism be compelled to relinquish them; but we are persuaded, that, after the present generation of writers shall be extinct, these letters and sonnets will never be cited as evidence, except of the profligacy of those by whom they were fabricated. Having said this, we leave the general character of Mary to the reflection of the reader.

She wrote, 1. Poems on various occasions, in the Latin, French, and Scotch languages. One of her poems is printed among those of A. Blackwood; another in Brantome's Dames illustres, written on the death of her first husband Francis. 2. Consolation of her long imprisonment, and royal advice to her son. 3. A copy of verses, in French, sent with a diamond-ring to queen Elizabeth. There is a translation of these verses among the Latin poems of Sir Thomas Chaloner. 4. Genuine Letters of Mary queen of Scots, to James earl of Bothwell; translated from the French, by E. Simmonds, 1726. There are, besides, many other of her epistles to queen Elizabeth, secretary Cecil, Mildmaye, &c. which are preserved in the Cottonian, Ashmolean, and other libraries.

Mary II. queen of England, eldest daughter of James II. by his first wife, was born at St James's in 1662. She was bred up a Protestant, and married to William Henry of Nassau, then prince of Orange, afterward king of England, in the 16th year of her age. She staid in Holland with her husband till February 12, 1689, when she came over, and was solemnly proclaimed queen of England, &c. She was an equal sharer with her husband in all the rights belonging to the crown; but the administration and execution thereof was lodged solely in the king. She was a princess endowed with the highest

---

(A) This article stands in need of an apology; but whether for its length or its shortness, our readers may perhaps differ in opinion. If it be considered as a piece of common biography, and compared with the limits which we have prescribed to our other articles of the same kind, it has swelled to an extent beyond all proportion. But as a piece of common biography it ought not to be considered: it is intimately connected with the history of Scotland at a very interesting period; and it has been justly observed, by one of the ablest writers of the age, that "the fact under dispute in the life of Mary, is a fundamental and essential one; and that, according to the opinion which the historian adopts with regard to it, he must vary and disprove the whole of his subsequent narration." Viewed in this light, our abstract of the evidence which has been urged on both sides of this controversy will by many be deemed too short. To such as wish for complete satisfaction, we can only recommend the unbiased study of the writings of Buchanan, Leslie bishop of Ross, Goodall, Robertson, Hume, Tytler, Sir David Dalrymple, Stuart, and Whitaker. eff perfections both of body and mind: she loved history, as being proper to give her useful instructions; and was also a good judge as well as a lover of poetry. She studied more than could be imagined, and would have read more than she did if the frequent returns of ill-humours in her eyes had not forced her to spare them. She gave her minutes of leisure to architecture and gardening; and since it employed many hands, she said she hoped it would be forgiven her. She was the most gracious of sovereigns to her subjects, and the most obliging of wives to her husband, as well as the most excellent of mistresses to her servants: she ordered good books to be laid in the places of attendance, that persons might not be idle while they were in their turns of service. She was exceeding zealous for a reformation of manners; charitable in the highest degree, without the least ostentation. This excellent queen died on the 28th of December 1695, at Kensington, of the small-pox, in the 33rd year of her age. In her the arts lost a protector, the unfortunate mother, and the world a pattern of every virtue. As to her person, she was tall, of a majestic graceful mien, her countenance serene, her complexion ruddy, and her features beautiful.

Mary Magdalen's Day, a festival of the Romish church, observed on the 22nd of July.

Mary-Geran's-House, a name given to Dunmorehead, in the parish of Dunqueen, county of Kerry, and province of Munster, in Ireland. It is the most western point of all Europe, and called by the Irish Ty Vorney Geerone. It is a point as much celebrated by them as John-of-Groat's-house by the Scots, which is the utmost extremity of North Britain.