The object of Philip in marrying Mary had been simply the crown, and his conduct, if not his words, very plainly told her so. Her fondness for him became quite a bore, particularly when he found that she could not get Parliament to agree to the projects he made her propose for his own aggrandisement. She had not long been the wife of Philip when an attack of dropsy was added to her other interesting points, and her heartless husband made her a butt—or, as Strype says, a water-butt—for his unfeeling ridicule. In order to obtain a little popularity, Philip made his wife release Elizabeth, and Courtenay, Earl of Devon, from the Tower, as well as a few other favourites of the public; but the people never took to the husband of the queen, while the quarrels between the Spanish and the English were perpetual. On New-Year's Day, 1555, there was a row among them at Westminster, when a Spanish friar got into the Abbey, and pulled away at the alarum with tremendous fury. He frightened the city almost into fits, and, for thus trifling with the rope, Philip doomed him to the halter, in order to gratify the people, who by no means chimed in with this extraordinary freak of bell-ringing.
The year 1555 was signalised by the revival of all the statutes against heretics, and the Protestants were kept burning night and day, in the neighbourhood of Smithfield. We will not dwell longer than necessary upon this disgraceful portion of our national annals. Among many distinguished persons who suffered death were Ridley, Latimer, and Cranmer, who all exhibited firmness worthy of a better fate, and it is said of Cranmer that he put his right hand into the fire first, for having, some time before, signed some documents of recantation, in the nope of saving his life at the expense of his consistency. In three years about three hundred individuals perished at the stake, through refusing to put their characters at stake by vacillation in the moment of danger.
After the death of Cranmer, Cardinal Pole was installed in the see of Canterbury, for Mary's rage against the Protestants was extreme, and she hoped that the fires of Smithfield would be kept alive by that exalted prelate, though in expecting to stir them up with the long Pole she was somewhat disappointed, for the new archbishop was rather moderate than otherwise in his ecclesiastical policy.
The queen's object was to control England in the war between France and Spain, but Pole, even at the risk of becoming in his turn a scaffold Pole, resisted the royal will to the extent of his power. The fact is that Philip, who had never married for love, was determined to be as plain with his wife as she was plain to him, and told her that unless he could make the union profitable, he should make a slipknot of the nuptial tie, and get away from it altogether. Alarmed at the prospect of being left "a lone woman" on the throne, she sought and found a pretext for declaring a war against France by getting up one of those confessions which in those days a judicious use of the torture could always procure at a few hours' notice.
Some unhappy agitators were detected in a small conspiracy, when the fact or falsehood of their having been encouraged by Henry of France was, after the intense application of the screw, regularly screwed out of them. They were made to fabricate stories to suit the purposes of the queen, and indeed their invention was literally put to the rack by the cruelties to which they were subjected. War against France was now declared, but the revenue was in such a miserable state that Mary was obliged to beg, borrow and steal in every direction for the necessary funds to commence hostilities. Having at last got together an army of ten thousand men, she found that the troops must be fed, and she accordingly seized all the corn she could find, threatening at the same time to thrash the owners like their own wheat if they had the impudence to ask for the value of the stolen property.
The well-known impolicy of interfering in other people's quarrels was powerfully illustrated by the fate of the English interposition in the dispute between France and Spain, for after a few trifling advantages, one of which was the taking of Ham before breakfast by Philip himself, England sustained a loss, which was at that time regarded as one of the most serious character. Valour, under the guise of the great Duke of Guise, wrested Calais from its masters, and restored it to the French, whose hearts rebounded with boundless joy at the acquisition of this valuable fortress.
The exchequer was reduced to such a beggarly condition by the expenses of the late unfortunate war, that the queen, who never called upon her Parliament unless she wanted something, was compelled to summon the Commons. With their usual squeezability they permitted to flow into the public coffers sufficient to keep the royal head above water; and one Copley, who ventured a few words by way of remonstrance, was pusillanimously committed to that custody from which the old English expression of "cowardy cowardy custard" (query, custod.) has been supposed to derive its origin.
Part of the produce of the recent subsidy was laid out in ships, and as the ships came to no good, it was said at the time that this appropriation of the money was very like making ducks and drakes of it. The fleet, after passing over the bosom of the ocean, came to Brest, but the breastworks were so strong, that the British force had not the heart to make an attack upon them. Some miscellaneous pillage was perpetrated in the neighbourhood by the English who nevertheless came off second best; and Philip, who was getting rather tired of the business, was willing to treat with a view to a treaty.
While thinking how he should retire from foreign hostilities, he received from England tidings that held out the certain prospect of domestic peace, for he got the news of the death of his wife Mary. Miserable and middle-aged, detested and dropsical, this wretched woman was tormented by every kind of reflection, from that presented by the mirror of her own mind, to the dismal prospect shadowed forth in her own looking-glass. She had lost Calais; but, as the audacious Strype has boldly suggested, she might have become callous to that, had she not known the fearful fact, that her husband Philip declared he had had his fill of double cursedness, and intended to try in Spain what a timely return to single blessedness might do for him.
All these troubles proved, like herself, unbearable, and on the 17th of November, 1558, she expired, after a short and yet too long a reign of five years, four months, and eleven days. She had reached the forty-third year of her age, and must have made the most of her time, in one way at least; for no woman of her age had obtained so much odium of a durable quality, as she in her comparatively short life had acquired.
If we were to draw a faithful character of this princess, we need do nothing more than upset our inkstand over our paper, and cause the saturated manuscript to be transferred to our pages in one enormous black blot; for we are sure that no printer's type could furnish a type of the person whom we have the horribly black job of handing down—or rather knocking down—to posterity. Those indefatigable readers who are desirous of having the appropriate epithets which Mary's character deserves, are requested to take down the dictionary, and having selected from it all the adjectives expressive of badness that the language contains, place them in a string or a series of strings, before the name of Mary.
To look for her virtues would require the aid of one of those solar microscopes which give visibility to the merest atom, and the particle, if even discovered, might be deposited in the mental eye without its being susceptible of anything having entered it. She seems to have possessed some sincerity; but this only gave a certain degree of vigour to her evil propensities. She was perhaps susceptible of some attachments, but so is a boa constrictor, though few would conceive it a privilege to be held in the firm embraces of that paragon of tenacity towards those with whose fate it happens to twine itself. She had a certain vigour of mind, just as a tiger has a certain vigour of spring, a parallel the force of which her victims very frequently experienced.
The loss of Calais was, perhaps, one of the most important events of Mary's reign! and it is said to have had such an effect upon her, that she declared, when she died the word Calais would be found engraved upon her heart: though we are quite sure, that if the word had been found at all, it would not have presented itself as an engraving, but as a lithograph. For two hundred years the town had been in the possession of the English, and it was through a miserable economy in cutting down the garrison during the winter months, and trying to work the thing at a reduced expense, that the whole concern fell into the power of the enemy. This paltry system proved, of course, unprofitable in the end; for when the Duke of Guise made his attack, those points that required two or three stout fellows to defend them, were left to the fatal imbecility of "a man and a boy,"—a couple never yet known to heartily co-operate. It is the unhappy blunder of a man and a boy being left to pull together as unsympathetically as an elephant and an ass, that has impeded the progress of so many of our public works; and it was, unquestionably, the trial of the "man and boy" system at Calais during the winter months, that, in the early part of 1558, caused the loss of the city. The English had been in the habit of trusting during the cold weather to the snow, and the overflowing of the marshes, to keep out the French; but the Duke of Guise was not afraid of getting his feet wet, and besides, as he wittily observed, "I can always rely on the strength of my pumps to keep the water out." He ultimately made a resolute splash, and, though often up to his middle in mud, he drove the English clean out of the citadel.
It may be worth while to mention, that Mary's reign was the first in which friendly relations with Russia were established, through some English traders who found themselves, or rather lost themselves, at Archangel, in the course of a wild-goose search for a north-east passage. The Czar, after asking them what they were doing there, and telling them they had come fearfully out of their way, received them very kindly; but it does not seem that any north-east passage, beyond the old court which used to lead from Holbora Hill to Clerkenwell, was at that time discovered.
Few, if any, salutary laws were passed in her reign, though a bad one was repealed, which had ruined the wool trade, by prohibiting any one from making wool who had not served seven years' apprenticeship. There was of course a great cry and very little wool in consequence of this absurd enactment, which was so decidedly impolitic that we can give Mary very little credit for having done away with it.
HE death of Mary was concealed for some hours, since it is only bad news that will travel very fast; but when the truth did come to be generally known, the joy which burst out on all sides took the more decent form of exultation at the accession of the new sovereign. Elizabeth, Betsy, Bessy, or Bess as she has been indiscriminately called, was at Hatfield when her sister died, and she soon moved to London, escorted by one of those patriotic mobs which are always ready to hoot and halloo for any distance the last new sovereign.
On the 15th of January, 1559, the queen was crowned at Westminster Abbey, but during the ceremony she was compelled to remain bare-headed for a considerable time, as on account of her suspected Protestant predilections, not one of the bishops would invest her with the diadem. In vain did she give appealing looks to the entire bench, until at last a decided ogle took effect on Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, who, snatching up the bauble with a shout of "Here goes!" boldly bonneted the royal maiden.
On the 25th of the same month a Parliament assembled, when Cecil and Sir Nicholas Bacon made their débuts on the treasury benches. Cecil was chief secretary, or key of the Cabinet, while Bacon was great seal, with instructions to keep continually on the watch in the capacity of Keeper. The first act of the Parliament was to restore many of the laws of religion existing in Edward's reign, and an attempt was made to reinstate such clergymen as had been deprived on account of marriage; but Elizabeth, who began to show anti-matrimonial opinions at the very beginning of her reign, would not accede to such an arrangement. Early in the session the Parliament tried its hand at royal match-making by carrying up an address to the queen, recommending her to take a husband; but in a somewhat rudish tone she expressed at once her horror at "the fellows," and her determination to have nothing to do with them. Her sincerity was soon put to the test by a direct offer from Philip, her late sister's husband; but a playful "go along with you," and a coquettish "a-done, do!" were the utmost words of encouragement he could manage no extract from her.
Parliament broke up on the 8th of May, and on the 15th the bishops and other churchmen of note were summoned to take the oath of conformity to the new statutes. Much to the credit of their consistency they all refused, with the exception of one Kitchen, the bishop of Llandaff, a low fellow, whose name implies his origin. This Kitchen had acquired the rotatory motion of the roasting-jack, as well as a fondness for sops in the pan, for he had been twirling round and having a finger in the ecclesiastical pie since the year 1545, from which time to that of Elizabeth he had, through all changes, stuck to his bishopric. The clergy, who had refused to conform to the Protestant religion, were on the whole gently dealt with, some being exported to Spain amid the luggage of the Spanish ambassador, and a few being quartered upon their successors in England. Most of the inferior clergy seemed to have been made of Kitchen-stuff, that is to say, they appeared to be composed of much the same material as the Bishop Kitchen we have named, and were at all events alive to the necessity of keeping the pot boiling, for out of 9400 persons holding benefices, there were scarcely more than a hundred, exclusive of the fifteen bishops, who quitted their preferments rather than change their religion.
We must now look at Scotland, of which the celebrated Mary was queen when she was suddenly called to France to share the throne which had devolved upon her husband, Francis the Second, or rather upon which he had devolved by the death of his father, Henry. This somewhat elderly gentleman had been playing the fool in a tilting match, which was rather infra dig. at his time of life, and ended in his receiving a dig in the eye from a broken lance, which ultimately closed in death both the wounded and its companion optic. In the absence of Mary from Scotland, Elizabeth did her utmost to advance the Protestant cause in that country, and dealt out some heavy blows through the medium of the celebrated Knox against the Catholics. Mary's mamma, who had remained at home to keep house as it were in her daughter's absence, did not exactly like what was passing, particularly when she found that English emissaries were continually passing to and fro, for the purpose of bribing the Scotch, whose "itching palm" has always been a national characteristic that we decline accounting for. The English were bent on getting the French out of Scotland, but the task was as difficult as expelling the fleas from a hay mattress in which they have once got embedded. After a good deal of desultory fighting, the Queen Regent was worried out of her life, and she was no sooner gone, than some of her most devoted adherents were off like shots to draw up a treaty with the enemy. Peace was proclaimed, and the French Governor of Leith gave the besiegers a dinner, at which salted horse was the only animal food, for there was not even a saddle of mutton to make the horse go off with effect at this truly horsepitable banquet. By the treaty mutual indemnities were exchanged, oblivion of the past was determined upon at Leith, which on that occasion became a veritable Lethe. Elizabeth had two or three flags in Scotland surrendered to her, but religion, which was the ostensible cause of the whole dispute, was permitted to stand over as an open question.
It was not to be expected that such a capital match as the Queen of England would fail to be the subject of several flames, and an old beau, in the person of Eric, now the king of Sweden, together with two or three other suitors, royal as well as noble, sent in the most tender tenders for the hand of Elizabeth. Like a true coquette, she gave encouragement to all, and even some seedy adventurers among her own subjects were induced to strike up to her.
Mary, who, as great-niece of Henry the Eighth, had in the first instance assumed the arms and title of Queen of England, a measure almost as futile as if Snooks of Surrey should assume the arms and title of Seringapatam, relinquished her nominal pretensions upon the death of her husband, which happened on the 5th of December, 1560. Mary had become so habituated to the splendid formalities of the French Court, that, on returning to Scotland, the substantial barrenness of that bleak country completely disgusted her. Tears, it is said, came into her eyes when she saw the wretched ponies that were about to convey herself and her ladies from the waterside to Holy-rood, while the saddles, made of wood, gave her such a series of bumpers at parting, that she declared the impression made by her reception would never be forgotten.
Mary, who had been born and bred a Catholic, was, of course, anxious for the privilege of following her own religion; but her Scotch subjects, who claimed liberty of conscience for themselves, practised upon their unfortunate sovereign the most brutal and intolerant tyranny. She was insulted on her way to mass, her indulgence in the most harmless amusements was savagely condemned, and she was continually exposed to the hardest raps from Knox, who undertook the task of converting her. This vulgar, but zealous, and no doubt sincere personage endeavoured to effect his purpose by coarse abuse, and always spoke of his queen from the pulpit as Jezebel. In vain did Mary endeavour to quiet her turbulent and libellous assailant by offering him private audiences, but, as if nothing short of mob popularity would answer his purpose, he rudely declined her invitation, telling her it was her duty to come to him, and continued to make the pulpit the medium of the most malignant assaults on his sovereign. However honest and upright the intentions of Knox may have been, his brutal manner of telling his home truths deprived them of much of their influence; and Knox made very few effective hits in the course of his noisy and vituperative career as a Presbyterian reformer.
Elizabeth saw with unamiable pleasure that her rival, Mary, was having what, very figuratively speaking, may be termed a nice time of it. The English queen busily occupied herself in feathering her own nest in a variety of ways, and, among other measures, she called in all the debased coin; for, as she sometimes said, with a sneer at poor Mary, "I have a great objection to light sovereigns." She filled her arsenals with arms, and had quite a conservatory of grape at the Tower, while, by way of putting the country into a state of defence, she resorted to the very odd expedient of reviewing the militia. She improved the arts of making gunpowder and casting cannon, so that, as she used to say, "every brave brick in my army may have a supply of mortar, with which, in the hour of battle, he may cement the interests of my empire."
The increase of the navy occupied her special care, and she laid the foundation of that glorious system which has given immortality to our naval hornpipes ana made our enemies dance at the balls given by our British seamen. It was to Elizabeth we owe the origin of that enthusiasm which induces "honest Jack," as he facetiously calls himself, to spend all his wages in a week, and to conclude a rapid series of lighthearted freaks as the helplessly inebriated fare of a metropolitan cab or the equally inanimate inmate of a London station-house. The interior of Elibabeth's Court was a scene of petty rivalries and jealousies, for she was surrounded with various suitors, and though she gave encouragement to nearly all, the valuable precept, "Ne sutor ultra crepidam," seems never to have escaped her memory. She would treat them with easy familiarity, such as thumping their backs and patting their cheeks; but if any of them ventured upon tiring to get on with her at the same slapping pace, she would administer a rap of the knuckles that at once discouraged them from trying their hands at a renewal of such familiarity.
Though not blinded by the adulation of her courtiers, she was very nearly becoming so by the small-pox, against which, however, a good constitution was happily pitted. On her recovery, the Parliament fearing the explosion that might have ensued had she popped off without a successor having been named, entreated her either to marry, or appoint some lady or gentleman to fill the throne in the event of there being a vacancy. With a good deal of that old traditional feeling imputed to the anonymous dog in the very indefinite manger, who was unwilling to relinquish to others what he was unable personally to enjoy, Elizabeth was very reluctant to say who should come after her as queen, but she held out a vague prospect that her marriage would not be impossible, in the event of any very eligible offer happening to present itself. This indirect advertisement of her hand was at once answered by the Duke of Wurtemburg, a small German, whose pretensions were contemptuously pooh-pooh'd I and indeed every post brought letters from various single men of prepossessing appearance, gentlemanly manners, and amiable disposition, who were anxious to take this somewhat unusual method of placing their hands and hearts at the service of the Queen of England. In the very largest field there will generally be one or two favourites, and in Elizabeth's good books the names of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex, stood so high, that there might have been even betting upon both, with a shade or two, perhaps, in the former's favour.
Mary of Scotland was less indifferent on the subject of marriage than the English queen, and, indeed, the former went so seriously into the matrimonial market, as to consult the latter on the subject of a judicious selection. Apparently with the intention of throwing the matter back, Elizabeth offered her own favourite, Dudley, Earl of Leicester, as a husband for Mary; but on the latter, after recovering from her surprise, exclaiming, "Well, I don't mind," the virgin Queen of England, mentally responding, "Oh! yes! I dare say," backed out of her proposition. The Earl of Leicester was one of those good-looking scamps who used, in the last century, to go by the name of "pretty fellows," but in our own more enlightened age, would obtain no gentler appellation than "pretty scoundrels." The virtuous Elizabeth liked to have him about her on account of his good looks, but if the homely proverb, that "handsome is as handsome does," had prevailed he would have been thought as little ornamental in person, as in mind he was deformed and hideous. Notwithstanding the pattern of propriety as which the virgin Queen of England has been, by some historians, extolled, she gave encouragement to Leicester, whom she knew to be a married man, until, by murdering his wife, he removed that slight barrier to the accomplishment of his ambitious wishes. He reported that his unfortunate lady had tumbled down stairs, but this was a daring flight of a guilty imagination, and there is little doubt that while staying in the house of her husband's servant, Foster, he forced her either over the balustrade, or got rid of her by some other means of equal violence.
Poor Mary, who was really in need of a protector, becoming impatient at the delay in choosing her a husband, at length selected one for herself, in the person of her cousin, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. This young nobleman was a mere lad in age, but a perfect ladder in height, for he was very tall, and very thin, so that if he could offer Mary no substantial support, he was, at all events, a person she might look up to, as may be said, familiarly, "at a stretch," in cases of great emergency.
He was the son of Henry the Eighth's sister's daughter's second husband, and was accordingly the next heir but one to the English throne, if anyone could be called an heir at all in those days, when might overcame right in a manner somewhat unceremonious.
Darnley, though showy in appearance, was in reality a fool, and it might be said that instead of having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was in himself the embodiment of that auspicious article. Though exceedingly tall, he was tremendously shallow, and before he had been married two months, he acted with so much insolence, that Mary could scarcely get a servant to stay with her. His own father, old Lennox, who had got a snug place in the household, packed up his box at a moment's notice, declaring he would not stop, and the wretched royal spoon found in the glass the only pursuit with which his habits were congenial.
Though neglectful of his young and lovely wife, he claimed the bad husband's privilege of being jealous of the attentions of others, and Signor David Rizzio, the first and only tenor at the Scotch Court, soon furnished ground for Darnley's suspicions of Mary's fidelity. Rizzio had come over in the suite of the ambassador of Savoy, as a professor of the spinette, and a teacher of foreign languages. In his vocal capacity he attended evening parties, and having been introduced at Court, his airs soon wafted him into the favour of his sovereign. His knowledge of the French language caused him to be promoted to the vacant post of French secretary to the queen, when an outcry was raised because a Scotchman was not appointed to the office, though not a soul among the natives had any pretensions to understanding the language in which the services of a secretary were required. Many of them maintained that their broken Scotch would have been an excellent substitute for Rizzio's unintelligible gibberish, and the nobles used to make faces at him, shoulder him, or taunt him as a base-born fiddler even in the presence of his sovereign.
The ill-used musician, who understood scarcely a word of the insulting language that was addressed to him, happening to catch the sound of the word fiddle, gallantly declared that he would be found toujours fidèle to the royal lady who had honoured him by her favour. There seems to be good reason for doubt whether the scandalous stories concerning Mary and her French secretary were true, and as in duty bound we give the benefit of the doubt to the accused parties. Poor Rizzio had, however, become such an object of hatred to the people about the Court, that one evening, as he sat at the side-table taking his supper, as he always did when the queen was present, a party of armed men, headed by Darnley himself, rushed into the chamber where the Duchess of Argyle and Erskine, the Governor of Holyrood, were also present. Rizzio had probably been favouring the company with a song or songs, and was whetting his whistle, with a view perhaps to farther melody, when he was brutally desired to "come out of that" by the ruffian Ruthven, whose gout for murder was so excessive that he had left a sick bed to take a part in the sanguinary business. To make a long and painful story short, Rizzio was savagely butchered as he clung to the skirts of Mary's dress in a vain hope to find shelter under petticoat influence. For having caused the death of Rizzio, Mary never forgave Darnley, who took to drink, in the hope of drowning care; but an evil conscience seems to be supplied with corks, which carry it up to the surface of the deepest bowl in which an attempt was ever made to get rid of it.
On the 19th of June, 1566, there appeared, among the births of the day, the announcement of "Mary, Queen of Scots, of a son and heir, at Holyrood." The infant was James the Sixth of Scotland, and subsequently the first of England, who was not a Jem remarkable for any particular brilliancy. It had previously been arranged that Elizabeth should stand godmother to the firstborn of Mary, and intelligence of the interesting event was therefore conveyed to the English queen by special express through that diligent overland male, the faithful Melville. Elizabeth was having a romp after a supper at Greenwich when the news arrived, and was in the midst of a furious fandango, when Cecil whispered something in her ear which struck her all of a heap, and caused her to leave her fandango unfinished. Speedily, however, regaining her composure, she gave the ambassador something for himself, and charged him with the usual infantine presents for her royal godson.
The question of a successor to Elizabeth now turned up again with increased interest since the birth of little James; but Elizabeth, becoming irritable and ill-humoured, declared she was looking out for a husband, and intended to have an heir of her own, which would put an end to all the airs and graces which other people were exhibiting.
When the Commons grew more urgent on the point, she became angry in the extreme, for the subject must have been rather a delicate one with Elizabeth, who was growing every day a less eligible match, and might not perhaps have succeeded in finding a husband equal in point of station to an alliance with the Queen of England.
MARY and her husband were leading the life familiarly known as cat and dog; but the cat was in this instance getting rather the best of it. She would not allow him to be present at the christening party given in honour of their little son, and he was never permitted to hold the baby, or enjoy any of those privileges of paternity which are rather honorary than agreeable to the individual by whom they are exercised. In ordering a dinner or forming a Cabinet his wishes were equally disregarded, and if he happened to have objected to a particular dish he was very likely to be told there was nothing else in the house; while Murray, Bothwell, and Huntley, whom he hated, were appointed to the ministry. It was at length determined to get him entirely out of the way; and, as he happened to have taken the small-pox, it was agreed that he should sleep out, on account of the baby, who, though very soon cowed in his alter life, had not undergone the process of vaccination, for the simple reason that Dr. Jenner had not invented it. Darnley had consequently a bed at a lonely house called the Kirk-a-field, where he was taken in only that he might be the more effectually done for by his enemies.
An explosion was heard in the middle of the night, and on the next morning the house was found in ruins, with Darnley doubled up under a tree at some considerable distance. It was reported that lightning had been the cause of the event; but it is not likely that lightning would have known how to conduct itself with such precision as to have carried Darnley out of a three-pair of stairs window, and lay him down at a considerable distance from the house, without breaking a bone, or inflicting a bruise of any description whatever. There is every ground for suspicion that Bothwell and his colleagues were instrumental to Darnley's death; but in order to throw dust—or gold dust—in the public eye, they offered a reward of £2,000 for the murderers. This liberality was cheap enough, for they knew they could not be called upon to pay any reward, they being themselves the parties for whom they advertised. A paper war was nevertheless commenced upon the walls, in which the murderers were advertised for on one side, and pointed out by name upon the other, when fresh rewards were offered, and the bill-stickers warned to beware of the libel they were helping to disseminate. At length, such a stir was created, that, on the 12th of April, 1567, Bothwell was put upon his trial, when by some wilful negligence the counsel for the prosecution had no brief, and was of coarse unable to offer any evidence. The accused was accordingly acquitted, and the ends of Justice were defeated in a manner that sometimes prevails in our own day, by an omission to instruct counsel; which seems to be a failing that may at least claim the merit of antiquity.
Though Bothwell was not to be executed for his crime, he was destined to be married; which, next to the capital penalty, was perhaps the highest he could pay, particularly as Mary, who had already seen out a couple of husbands and a favourite, was the lady destined for his future partner. Bothwell had the audacity to give a supper at a tavern in Edinburgh, at the close of the session of Parliament—an entertainment somewhat similar to our ministerial whitebait arrangement at Blackwall—when he drew from his pocket a recommendation of himself as a fitting husband for the Queen of Scotland. Eight bishops, nine earls, and seven lords, most of whom were under the influence of toddy, which turned them into toadies of Bothwell, affixed their names to the document; and armed with this instrument, he, at the head of a thousand horse, effected the forcible abduction of Mary on her way from Stirling Castle. An elopement on such an extensive scale was something very unusual, even in those days of extravagance, and it has been doubted whether it was with Mary's own consent that Bothwell ran away with her. It is, however, indisputable that after making him Duke of Orkney on the 12th of May, she married him on the 15th, and a number of fresh raps from Knox followed, as a matter of course, the imprudence she had been guilty of. Her subjects took so much offence at this proceeding, that they rose against her; and Bothwell, abandoning her to her fate by flying to Denmark, left her to settle the matter as she could with her own people. A defenceless woman, and a female in distress, was of course impotent against an army of raw Scotchmen—whose rawness is so excessive, that they can very seldom be done—and Mary was consigned as a prisoner to the island of Lochleven. It may be as well to dispose of Bothwell at once, before we proceed; and, having traced him to Denmark, we meet him picking up a scanty subsistence by doing what we are justified in terming pirates' work in general. The badness of business or some other cause ultimately turned his head, and we find him subsequently an inmate of an asylum for lunatics. Here he took to writing confessions; but some of them were so vague, and all of them so contradictory, that, recollecting the horrid story-teller Bothwell was known to be, we are at a loss to decide how much credit may be attached to his statements. If, as a general rule, we may believe half what is said, we shall believe nothing that Bothwell has told us; for he has himself contradicted one half of his own story, and the other moiety must be struck off in pursuance of the principle we have just been adverting to. The fact of his death, not having come from his own mouth, may, however, be safely relied upon.
While Mary was a prisoner at Lochleven, her subjects took advantage of her helplessness to make her sign her own abdication, and settle the crown on the head of her baby son, whose first caps had scarcely been laid aside when they had to be replaced by the royal diadem. Her half-brother, Murray, was appointed regent, and coming over to Scotland he was crowned at Stirling, where all who declared themselves sterling friends of poor Mary gave in their adherence to the new ruler.
There was staying with the governor of the prison a young hobble-dehoy of the name of George Douglas, who, being on a visit to his brother, was allowed the privilege of seeing the royal captive. Master George Douglas, in natural accordance with the sentimentality peculiar to seventeen, fell sheepishly in love with the handsome Mary. She gave some encouragement to the gawky youth, but rather with the view of getting him to aid her in an escape, than out of any regard to the over sensitive stripling. Going to his brother's bedroom in the night, the boy took the keys from the basket in which they were deposited, and letting Mary out, he handed her to a skiff and took her for a row, without thinking of the row his conduct was leading to.
When she reached the shore she was joined by several friends, and marched, as the only lady among six thousand men, in the direction of Dumbarton. Murray, however, was instantly on the alert, and meeting her near Glasgow, he gave her such a routing, that she was glad to fly anywhere she could, to get out of the way of his rough treatment. After some little consideration she determined to make for England; and, throwing herself and retinue into a fishing-smack, she sailed smack for Workington, whence she resolved on walking to Carlisle, against the advice of her followers.
Though Elizabeth had expressed some sympathy towards Mary in her struggles, the English queen determined that her Scottish sister was not a person that could be received at the Court of a virgin—and such a virgin—sovereign. The unfortunate woman, who had come over for protection as a fugitive, was at once made a prisoner, first at Carlisle and then at Bolton, when she was virtually put upon her trial for the purpose of ascertaining whether she was good enough to be visited by that dragon of virtue, the chaste Elizabeth.
In order to inculpate the Queen of Scots, an old melodramatic incident, that then perhaps had the merit of novelty, was resorted to by Murray, who produced, towards the closing scene of the trial, a packet of letters, by which it was pretended that Mary had furnished proofs of her own share in the murder of her husband Darnley. It was not very likely that, if guilty, she would have taken the trouble to commit the fact to paper, or to leave the letters about; and it only wanted a dagger wrapped in rag smeared over with red ochre, to complete the melodramatic dénouement that Murray seemed anxious to arrive at. These "properties," if we may be allowed the expression, had an unfavourable effect upon Mary's cause, and a delay having taken place in the proceedings, Murray took advantage of it to offer to wash out the red ochre from the retributive rag, and throw all the letters in the fire, on condition of his being left to do as he pleased with the Scotch regency. To this proposition Mary refused to accede, and defied him to the proof of his charges, which were believed to be chiefly false; and she retaliated upon him by accusing him of having been accessory to the death of Darnley. As Elizabeth candidly acknowledged that she believed neither, she at first thought of punishing both; but at length Murray was furnished with means to return home, while poor Mary was conveyed to Tutbury in the county of Stafford, where it does not appear that even the old woman of Tutbury was allowed to be sometimes the companion of her captivity.
The royal prisoner was now under the supervision of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and was permitted, at last, to see a few visitors, several of whom were smitten by the charms of one who, though become a little passé, was, from the gentleness of her manners, always sure to be popular. Norfolk was so much taken with her that he offered her his hand, and promised to employ it in handing her on to the throne of England. As there was still an obstacle to the marriage, outstanding in the name of Bothwell, Mary could only consent, subject to that person's approval. The piratical business in Denmark having become slack, he was glad to take a small bonus to agree to a divorce, and an alliance between Norfolk and Mary, Queen of Scots, was understood, in private circles, to be one of the marriages in high life, which the season would soon see solemnised. Unfortunately for the parties interested, Mary had to send a remittance, in the year 1571, to some friends in Scotland, and the post being either irregular or untrustworthy, she had despatched the communication by hand, through one Banister, a confidential servant of the Duke of Norfolk.
Banister, who was not in the secret, went gaping about with the letter in his hand, and, thinking there was something mysterious about it, took it to Lord Burleigh, whose significant shakes of the head have earned him a note of admiration (!) in the pages of history. Burleigh, taking the letter in his hand, and placing his fore-finger on the side of his nose, began to wag his head from side to side, like the pendulum of a clock, as if he would be up to the time of day, according to his usual fashion; when, deliberately holding the letter up to the light, he, in the most ungentlemanly manner, perused every word of it.
He ascertained that Norfolk and Mary were contriving to drive Elizabeth from the throne, and the duke was accordingly brought to trial. The stupidity of his servants completed his ruin, for his secretary, instead of destroying the evidences of his master's guilt, had merely stowed them away under the door mats, and stuffed them among the tiles, so that the house from top to toe bore testimony to the guilt of its owner. He was beheaded in 1752, Elizabeth declaring, as she always did when it was too late, that she intended pardoning him, but that somehow or other her royal clemency was not forthcoming until it was too late to be of any use to its contemplated object.
The queen was urged by many of her admirers to get rid of Mary at once; but, as a cat delights to play with a mouse, Elizabeth seemed to take pleasure in exercising a feline influence over her unfortunate prisoner. The Protestant cause had, about this time, been violently assailed in France, and Elizabeth encouraged the departure of English volunteers to aid the French Huguenots. Among the British auxiliary legion that went forth on this expedition were, of course, a number of adventurers, but one of them in particular, was destined to cut a conspicuous figure in the history of his country. This was Walter Raleigh, who had been in the habit of huzzaing at every royal progress, and keeping up a loyal shouting at the side of the carriage of the queen, whenever he met it in the public thoroughfares. In her visits to Greenwich, Raleigh was often found waiting at the stairs to see her land, and on one occasion the queen was about to set her foot in a puddle, when the adventurer, taking off his cloak, converted it into a temporary square of carpeting, to prevent Elizabeth from making a greater splash than she intended, on her arrival at Greenwich. The cloak itself was of no particular value, and a little water was more likely to freshen it up than to detract from its already faded beauty; but the incident flattered the vanity of the queen, and it is said that she never forgot the delicate attention that Walter Raleigh had shown to her.
In the year 1571 a rumour got into circulation that a match was on the tapis between Mary and the Duke of Anjou, one of the brothers of the French king; and though the report was unfounded, Elizabeth was so jealous of anyone marrying anybody but herself, that she, for about the twentieth time, threw herself into the European market, as an eligible investment for any one who would venture upon a speculation of such a very awful character. She sent over Walsingham as her ambassador, to see what could be done; but the Duke of Anjou, after sufficient negotiation to put an end to any match that might have been contemplated between Mary and himself, had the firmness to decline the honour of an alliance with Elizabeth. The aged angler next baited a hook for the young Duke of Alençon, the boy brother of the Duke of Anjou, but the friends of the child stepped in to prevent the sacrifice.
It was not long after the events we have described, that a conspiracy to take Mary out of prison, and put Elizabeth out of the world, was by accident discovered. One Babington, a man of ardent mind, was implicated in this disgraceful affair, which was discovered by the dangerous and irregular practice of thrusting letters through chinks in walls,—at a time, however, when the post-office arrangements were not so complete as to afford the comfort and convenience of a regular letterbox. Mary was undeniably implicated in the plot, which was so clumsily carried on that fourteen of the parties concerned were executed before she even knew that the scheme had been detected. She was taking an airing on a palfrey—one of those whose wretched trappings had made her think "comparisons are indeed odious," as she thought of her riding excursions in her dear France—when a messenger from the queen turned her horse's head towards Fotheringay Castle, in Northamptonshire. Commissioners were instantly sent down to try her for conspiracy, and on the 25th of October, 1586, sentence was pronounced against her in the Star Chamber.
When Elizabeth heard the decision, she affected the utmost reluctance to sign the warrant for Mary's execution; and, indeed, this reluctance seems to have been somewhat sincere, for she wished the death of her rival without any of the odium attaching to a share in an act of so much cruelty. The English queen would have preferred that one of her subjects should have anticipated the effect of a death-warrant, by taking the life of Mary a little in advance; but no one was base or brutal enough to further the obvious wishes of the female tyrant. The signing of the warrant was performed amid sighs and tears, before Sir Robert Cary, Dame Gary, and the little Carys, when some of the children thought they recognised tears of sincerity falling from Elizabeth's eyes; but Mother Cary's chickens we must not depend upon. After some months of delay and duplicity, during which poor Mary was kept in a state of suspense more cruel than death itself, the warrant was signed; but Elizabeth endeavoured, as far as possible, to throw the blame on her ministers. This only aggravates her conduct, for her being ashamed of it, shows she was aware of its enormity, and that she did not consider herself to be merely performing an act of straightforward duty, though a painful one, in consigning to an ignominious death her sister sovereign. Mary was executed on the 7th of February, 1587, in the forty-fifth year of her age; and it is said that when the executioner held up her head by its auburn locks, they came off in his hand, and the grey stubble underneath proved too plainly that Mary had lived for many years a secret adherent to wig principles.