History Of Scotland Vol. 2 - Part 11

( Originally Published 1909 )

Interference of Foreign Princes in behalf of Mary—Her Intercourse with her Son—Her Presents to him rejected—Nevertheless she interferes with Elizabeth in his Behalf at the Period of the Raid of Ruthven—He disclaims her Title and Cause—Her Sentiments on that Occasion—The Catholics of England continue to make her the chief Object of their Regard, and involve her Name in their Conspiracies—The Plot of Throgmorton—Association of English Subjects, chiefly directed against Mary—She is alarmed, and willing to submit to severer Terms of Liberation—Elizabeth cultivates an Interest with James and his Ministers; her Alarm for Queen Mary in a public and national Point of View—Mary's imprudent and offensive Letter—Sadler intrusted for a Time with the Custody of the Scottish Queen—His Discontent with the Duty imposed—Parry's Conspiracy—Severe Act of Parliament passed in consequence

WE have attended the changes of Queen Mary's imprisonment, and pointed out some of its most remarkable incidents. A more weary and distressing course of oppression, mingled, from time to time, with deceitful glimmerings of delusive hope, is hardly to be found in history.

But the reader may ask, with some surprise, since Mary was queen-dowager of France, and an ally of the king of Spain, whether no efforts were made in her favor by either of these two powerful monarchs, who, for decency's sake at least, were imperatively called upon to interfere in her behalf? That such interference took place is undoubted, but on the part of France it was of a cold and feeble character; for the king was not of a temper to regard any one's interest save his own, which at that period recommended friendship with England. The Spanish ambassador, on the other side, had in some respects lost his right to be listened to in the affairs of Queen Mary, since he had mixed himself with the intrigues of Norfolk; and although his rank was too high to be arrested like the bishop of Ross, he at length received Elizabeth's commands to quit England.

With still more reason might it be demanded, what James VI., the only child of the unfortunate Mary, was doing in her behalf? He was not a twelvemonth old when he succeeded to her crown, and the years which had since passed, which had filled up to him a term of sovereignty, had been to his ill-fated mother, with the intermission of only a few days, a period of rigorous captivity.

Mary at least had not, in the meantime, forgotten the sole tie of affection which continued to bind her to this life. As soon as James had personally assumed the government, the imprisoned queen hastened to send him a present of a garment, embroidered by her own hands, with some jewels, such as her misfortunes had left in her possession. They were, however, addressed not to the king, but to the prince, of Scotland; as indeed it could hardly be supposed that Queen Mary was to acknowledge a title in her son, the existence of which was inconsistent with her reputation as well as her rights. On that account the gift was refused, under pretence of its being misdirected; nor was the bearer permitted to come into the royal presence.

We would gladly hope that James was no party to this undutiful proceeding; nor shall we attempt to estimate the distress of the unfortunate mother, when she received again the gift of maternal affection, ornamented by her hands, and probably stained by her tears, rejected as it was in this unfilial manner through a cold-blooded and insulting scruple of etiquette. Wherever she might cast the blame, maternal partiality prevented her from throwing it upon her son; for when he had soon after fallen into the power of the insurgent nobles at the Raid of Ruthven, her maternal anxiety broke forth in an epistle to Elizabeth, in which, throwing aside the humble tone in which she had pleaded her own sorrows, she remonstrated with warmth and dignity upon the injustice which had deprived her son of his liberty. She in that letter declares herself, with all her heart, willing to gratify her son, by resigning the throne. She desired only that the queen of England would protect him from practices at the hands of his rebellious subjects, such as she had been exposed to herself, and declared that she desired no kindness of her for herself beyond the company of two waiting gentle-women, and the means of performing the duties of her religion. In reply to this intercession, Robert Beale, a rude and morose man, and clerk of Elizabeth's council, was sent to expostulate with the. captive princess, for the freedom which she had thought proper to assume; nor was Queen Elizabeth affected otherwise than with anger by the tenor of the letter which she received.

It is probable that, while the unfortunate Mary indulged herself in all the tenderness of a mother toward the young king of Scotland, the feelings which he cultivated in return were of a cold and unresponsive character, for which, perhaps, his education is more to be blamed than his heart. He had doubtless been carefully trained in the opinion that his right to the throne depended upon the truth of those charges on account of which his mother had been precipitated from the royal dignity. He must have regarded her, therefore, with more aversion than affection, and was probably little anxious to obtain the freedom of one whose liberty might impair his own right to the kingdom of Scotland. To pursue, therefore, the course of James's rare and infrequent intercourse with his mother, we may observe that in 1585, under the direction and by the advice of the Master of Gray, of whom we have said something, and shall have occasion to say more in the sequel, James wrote to his unfortunate mother a harsh and highly undutiful letter; in the course of which he disowned her right to the throne, and expressed himself determined in no respect whatever to connect his own interest or title with hers. Mary felt the ingratitude of this insulting epistle, and expressed her indignation warmly in a letter to the French ambassador. "Am I thus," she said, "requited for all I have done, and all I have suffered, for this ungrateful boy? God knows I en-vied him not the kingdom which he possesses, nor did I ever wish to visit Scotland more, unless for the purpose of seeing him and blessing him. But let him beware how he prosecutes the ungenerous and ungrateful course upon which he has entered. Without my consent he cannot justly hold the regal dignity ; and unless he amends his fault by repentance, I will bestow on him a parent's curse, and bequeath my kingdom to one who will know both how to occupy and how to defend it." This letter, no doubt, was dictated by a passing flash of irritation; but it shows a new instance in which it was Mary's misfortune to be afflicted through those channels of feeling which are usually, to others, the source of the purest happiness. The queen's greatest misfortunes had arisen out of her conjugal connections, and she was now doomed to see them augmented by the ungrateful scorn and negligence of her only child.

Other circumstances, which might in the general case be termed advantageous, were in like manner destined to prove fatal to this unhappy queen. She was, we have seen, the object of fear and suspicion, and even of the hatred naturally connected with these feelings, to the greatly more numerous body of the English, consisting of those who had embraced the Protestant faith, and were loyal subjects of Queen Elizabeth. It was the natural consequence that those of her own religion, who regarded the reign of the existing sovereign as the usurpation of an adulterous bastard, and cruel and heretical persecutor of the Catholic faith, should regard Mary as an innocent and holy sufferer, deprived of her native kingdom by heretical rebels, and most unjustly detained prisoner in that to which she had a better right than her persecuting relative who held the throne. As the English Catholics were zealous, as usual, in proportion to the disqualifications which they were subjected to and the persecution which they underwent, and as they were still numerous and powerful, they failed not to match the ruling party in enthusiasm, and to form many schemes to bring England once more within the limits of what, in their idea, was lawful succession, and the pale of the only Catholic faith. With all these plots the name and cause of Mary was naturally connected. Nor was her name always used without her consent. Some of the plots were undoubtedly communicated to her; nor can we suppose it likely that she should express resolute disapprobation of schemes which tended to accomplish her own liberty, and the dethronement of her own rival, at whose hand she could expect nothing but a continuance of the same malevolent severity which had characterized Elizabeth's conduct toward her since she took refuge in England. It is also plausibly re-ported that her name was used in intrigues of which she never heard, but the managers of which conceived they were calculated for her advantage, and therefore held them-selves secure of her approbation, without her consent being previously obtained. Thus there was an action and reaction in the public mind; and the more the Protestants persisted in regarding Mary as the enemy of their faith and government, the more the Catholics endeavored to fix the same character upon her, by making use of her name and authority in their most violent conspiracies.

In 1584 a conspiracy of this nature was discovered of a very extensive and dangerous character. One Francis Throgmorton, a Catholic gentleman of Cheshire, after undergoing the torture, in consequence of some suspicious documents found upon him, was unable to sustain a second interrogation of the same nature, and confessed a private correspondence with the Queen of Scots, and a projected design to invade England on the part of Spain, where most of the English Catholics were alleged to be ready to join them in arms. Arrangements to this effect, he stated, were made with the approbation of the Spanish ambassador. The House of Guise, the near relatives of Mary, were alleged to be in preparation for the same purpose, and the Duke of Guise was to be leader of the enterprise. The alarm through England was extreme ; and the discovery was of a nature which touched the main fear of all true Protestants. The immense power of Spain had been much in-creased by the late acquisition of Portugal; and the bigotry of Philip to the Catholic religion was well known to be sufficiently vehement to lead him to exertions in proportion to his immense means. The Duke of Guise was regarded justly as one of the chief defenders of the Catholic faith; and arguing upon Queen Mary's natural desire of freedom, and attachment to her relations, there was no reason to doubt the truth of Throgmorton's confession, when he accused her of being an accomplice in the conspiracy.

Queen Elizabeth, acting upon Throgmorton's confession, instantly, as already hinted, dismissed the Spanish ambassador from England. Throgmorton himself was tried and executed as a traitor. His behavior was such as to leave his guilt doubtful. He retracted his confession when placed .upon trial, again confirmed it after sentence had been pronounced, and retracted it a second time when brought to the scaffold for execution, alleging that it was extorted at first by torture, and afterward adhered to from the fear of death.

A singular circumstance in Scotland augmented the general alarm excited by Throgmorton's plot.

One Crichton, a Jesuit, chanced to be on board of a vessel sailing from Flanders toward Scotland, of which last country he was a native : being chased by a corsair or pirate, Crichton tore to pieces and threw away certain papers, which an extraordinary eddy of wind brought back into the vessel. The fragments were picked up from the deck by some of the passengers; and being industriously pieced together, were found to contain the model of a plot for the invasion of England, upon the same footing with that which Throgmorton had confessed.

This reiterated alarm greatly affected the party in the kingdom of England who accounted that the peace and honor of the country depended upon the continuance of its present form of government in Church and in State. To counteract by a public declaration any attempt to disturb the present government, an association was formed, and a document generally signed, by which the subscribers "bound themselves to defend Queen Elizabeth against all her enemies, foreign or domestic; engaging, moreover, if violence should be offered to the queen's life, in order to favor the title of any one pretending a claim to the crown, they the parties subscribing not only engaged, in such case, never to acknowledge the title of the person in whose behalf so foul a crime had been committed, but, moreover,- to pursue such person or persons to the death, and to her or their utter over-throw and extirpation." This association was obviously directed against the rights of Queen Mary, who.. was thus unjustly rendered accountable not only for such connivance at treasonable practices against Elizabeth as she might absolutely encourage, but for whatever schemes the fanatics of her religion might form, without her consent, or which might perhaps receive birth from the treacherous insinuations of the spies of the English ministry.

This association had such an awful appearance that Mary seems to have become intimidated by the danger to her per-son and right of succession which it inferred. She pressed for permission to sign the association herself, and at the same time offered more full concessions than Elizabeth had been yet able to extort from her. She was, indeed, so humbled in spirit that Walsingham - gave it earnestly as his opinion that her terms ought to be complied with, and she should be admitted to her freedom.

But another effect of these discoveries was their recommending to Queen Elizabeth the cultivation of a closer inter-course between King James than she had of late entertained. The reader will recollect that the queen of England had of late been disposed to support against the temper of the king those nobles who had been engaged in the Raid of Ruthven, and mixed reproof with requests in her application to James on this subject. Under this interference the king of Scots had repeatedly winced and shown signs of impatience, as when he retorted upon Elizabeth the aphorisms of Isocrates. She became now apprehensive that this exertion of authority might prove a doubtful, and, perhaps, an ineffectual road to the influence which she desired to acquire in the affairs of Scotland. She resolved, therefore, to move by gentler methods; and instead of attempting to dictate to James the choice of his ministers, she resolved to rest satisfied with gaining over to the English interest those Scottish statesmen, who, being already the favorites of the king, were in possession of their master's ear, as well as possessing the direction of the government. For this purpose she spared no pains to bring over to her views the Master of Gray, in which she perfectly succeeded, and to form an alliance, even though it should prove merely temporary, with the usurping Earl of Arran.

These political considerations lead to another view of the question between Elizabeth and Mary. It would be injustice to the former to suppose that her personal interest and prejudices were the sole motives by which she was guided in her conduct toward her prisoner. It is no doubt true that from an early period the two queens had been rivals in the points in which women, from the princess to the peasant girl, de-sire to excel. They had been also rivals in power, for the premature usurpation of the title and armorial bearings of England was never forgotten by Elizabeth; yet that sovereign, patriotic as she certainly was, might justify her fear and hatred of Mary upon principles of a public and more generous nature, applicable to her country as well as to herself.

Elizabeth was well entitled to suppose herself able to maintain a contest with all her powerful antagonists abroad, though in the holy league which was adopted at Bayonne, and which united all the Catholic powers in Europe, they must necessarily have had the destruction of her power in view as their principal object. Even amid their wildest expressions of hatred and denunciations of vengeance, the queen of England had the noble confidence that with a united kingdom she might resist them with perfect security of the event. The state of Scotland was no doubt less secure than it had been during the regency of Murray and Morton. It was now under a separate prince, who, if he were hostile to English interests, must at all times be enabled, by a seacoast abounding in harbors, and an extensive southern frontier, to have opened an easy access to foreigners proposing to invade South Britain. But the character of James and the influence of Elizabeth in his court was such as might secure her on the part of that monarch. He was in no respect likely to prefer the sounding promises of France and Spain to the prospects of real and solid advantage presented to him by the friendship of Elizabeth; and the forfeiture of the succession of England would have been a sacrifice which could not possibly have been compensated by any indemnification which the monarchs of the holy league could bestow. James was also a Protestant prince, at the head of a people zealously Protestant, and therefore must be held upon principle to have viewed the prime object of the holy league with alarm and detestation.

Besides the security which James's circumstances and personal interests afforded to Queen Elizabeth, the measures by which she had insured a predominating influence in his court in almost any political change seemed to insure for her the zealous support of either party which might be predominant in the Scottish counsels. If Arran should remain the favorite of James, he had, since the meeting with Lord Hunsdon, become her instrument and pensioner; and though she must have contemned and despised his parts, he was not the less likely to be useful while his interest with the king remained unabated; nor was Elizabeth, however much she might wish his interest diminished or destroyed, the less willing to avail herself of it while it still existed. If, on the other hand, the restoration of the Scottish nobles engaged in the Raid of Ruthven should put the king once more into the hands of a party more zealously Protestant, they who had been lately the guests of Elizabeth must have been still more docile and attentive to her interests than the minion Arran, upon whom there could be no reliance, except through a direct appeal to his vanity or avarice.

Thus, in almost every supposable circumstance, Britain was invulnerable to Queen Elizabeth's enemies, excepting only through the charm which they possessed in the person and title of Queen Mary. To her the Catholic princes were most of them allied by birth or affinity, and all of them by similarity of religion, so that her name and title afforded the only plausible pretext under which they might urge even those Englishmen that were of their own persuasion to join the invaders of their native country.

From all this it follows that Mary was not only feared and hated by Elizabeth from the common motives of female rivalry, but that she was also dreaded by her as a patriotic princess, conscious of the baneful effects which the pretensions of the Scottish queen were qualified to produce upon the independence of England, and the institutions of the Protestant Church. So deceitful is the human heart, and so ingenious are mortals in imposing upon themselves a false view of the motives under which they act, that it may be doubted whether Elizabeth, conjured by high and low, exhorted by her prelates, her lords, and commons, to take measures for the protection of her own life, by suffering what they called the law to take place on her prisoner, might not have conceived that she was yielding to the voice of her people, and consulting their interest, rather than her own will, in conceding to their importunity what she might suppose she would have refused to her own irritated feelings. It is true that, justly considered, the danger arising from Mary Stuart lay not in her power but in her weakness. She had not the slightest show of a party left in her native kingdom. In England she was a close prisoner, attainted by parliament, and excluded from all intercourse with the world beyond her prison-house. The Catholics were more affected by knowing that she was suffering such grievous usage in their immediate vicinity than they could have been by learning that, liberated by Queen Elizabeth, she was living upon her dowry, at ease and at freedom, either in France or any other distant country. In their extreme jealousy for their own interest or for their sovereign's safety, the ministers of Elizabeth overacted their part, and were guilty of instigating conspiracies by the very mode which they took to discover them. Camden informs us "that there were at this time some subtle ways taken to try how men stood affected. Counterfeit letters were privately sent in the name of the queen of Scots and the per-sons concerned in Throgmorton's treason to the houses of Catholics. Spies were dispersed through the country to make remarks, and to report them to the government; and many individuals of rank were imprisoned and narrowly examined."

The Catholics, finding themselves thus in danger of being inveigled into imaginary plots, endeavored to obviate the danger by plunging into real ones; and thus the excessive precaution of Burleigh and Walsingham, and the unjustifiable mode in which it was manifested, increased the danger which it was intended to cure.

Neither was Mary herself, although, as we have seen, patient to a degree of unexpected self-possession, at all times able to forbear retaliation upon her good sister Elizabeth. Upon one occasion she took a female revenge, which, how-ever much it might be justified by the ill-usage she had received, was, in point of prudence, the most impolitic course she could have pursued. Under pretence of writing to Queen Elizabeth the manner in which the Countess of Shrewsbury spoke of her, she transmitted (always professing to disbelieve them) a long train of charges equally dishonorable to Elizabeth as a queen, and highly offensive to female delicacy, and even disgraceful to her as a woman. Mary affirmed, in this imprudent letter, that the countess accused her sovereign of practicing the grossest indecencies, not only with the Duke of Anjou, who pretended to her hand, but with his favorite Simier; that she was so extravagantly attached to Hatton that she hunted him as a hound pursues a stag; that having quarrelled with Hatton on account of some buttons of gold which he had upon his dress, and the latter having in disgust retired from the court, she had boxed the ears of Killigrew because he had not been able to prevail on Hatton to return; and that she gave three hundred pounds a year 'to a gentleman of her chamber who had been more successful on the same occasion; although she was so meanly narrow on other occasions that she had never made the fortune of more than one or two persons in her dominions. This cutting epistle, always under pretence of reporting Lady Shrewsbury's words, accused Elizabeth of entertaining as high an opinion of her beauty as if she had been a heavenly goddess, and that her maids of honor used the most extravagant praises to soothe her childish vanity, while they turned about and laughed behind her back at her excess of credulity. There were yet more degrading circumstances alleged by Mary to have been stated by the Countess of Shrewsbury concerning the person and habits of the queen of England; and, upon the whole, the letter contained an imputation of almost every vice which could affect the queen's reputation, and every foible which could wound her vanity. There is much reason to believe that this imprudent communication, while it gave Elizabeth great pain, and so far satisfied the purpose of the writer, was at the same time accounte an inexpiable offence, never to be pardoned or forgiven.

It was a natural consequence of the increasing discord between the queens that the imprisonment of Queen Mary should be rendered yet more rigorous than formerly. The Earl of Shrewsbury, who had been so long, to his great in-convenience, loss, and mortification, charged with the care of this unfortunate queen, was at length released and Sir Ralph Sadler was for a time intrusted in his place.

This ancient statesman, having been a servant of Henry VIII., was now advanced in life, and altogether unable to endure the restraints which Elizabeth's jealousy imposed upon those to whom Mary's custody was intrusted. His answer upon receiving an angry expostulation concerning his having carried out Queen Mary a-hawking, although he was attended by a strong guard, furnished with firearms, and having orders to put the queen to death should any danger, or suspicion of danger, have offered, is remarkable, and worthy of being quoted. In a letter to Walsingham he in-formed that statesman that having sent for his hawks and falconers, the better to pass the miserable life he led at Tutbury, he had been unable to resist the entreaties of his charge that she might be permitted the recreation of seeing his hawks fly, a sport in which she greatly delighted. In this he had three or four times indulged her, but under a sufficient guard, and never at more than three miles from the castle. "In this," Sir Ralph Sadler concludes, "he used his discretion, and he thought he did well; but," he adds, "since it is not well taken, I would to God some other had the charge, who would use it with more discretion than I can; for, I assure you, I am so weary of it, that if it were not more for that I would do nothing that should offend her majesty than for fear of any punishment, I would come home, and yield myself to be a prisoner in the Tower all the days of my life, rather than I would attend any longer here upon this charge. And if I had known, when I came from home, I should have tarried here so long, contrary to all the promises which were made to me, I would have refused, as others do, and have yielded to any punishment rather than I would have accepted of this charge; for a greater punishment cannot be ministered unto me than to force me to remain here in this sort; since, as it appears, things well meant, by me, are not well taken." ' One is here tempted to ask what must have been the feelings of the prisoner, when even her jailers felt their duty so intolerably irksome. While Mary was restrained with this severity, those changes took place in Scotland which removed Arran forever from the king's ear, and induced James to put the management of his affairs under the guidance of statesmen of better morals and more judgment. It was by the advice of Maitland and others, that, taking his part between the great con-tending factions of Catholic and Protestant, which divided the civilized world, the king of Scots formed an alliance offensive and defensive with Elizabeth, in which there was no mention made of Mary's name and title. She might thus be considered as abandoned by her son, whom it would have well become to have mingled some stipulations for his mother's freedom, or her safety at least, with his laudable anxiety for the defence of his own rights. Meantime events rolled on, and the spirit of the times again gave rise to a conspiracy which was the more immediate pretence of Mary's fatal death.

While Elizabeth was fortifying herself by a more intimate alliance with Scotland, her life was again threatened by a Roman Catholic zealot. This was one Parry, a doctor of laws, who had a seat in parliament, and some reputation as a man of talents; but he had lately become a convert to popery, and, with the zeal of a new convert, had taken upon him the assassination of Elizabeth. Such a crime could only be committed by observing the most absolute silence upon his purpose, and exhibiting a total disregard for his own life while he attempted that of the queen. Upon such terms the life of the most powerful and best defended sovereign is at the mercy of one determined individual. Fortunately the mixture of desperate courage and resolved taciturnity is seldom met with. Parry possessed neither in the requisite degree. He was encouraged in his purpose by the pope's nuncio at Venice, the pope himself, and the Cardinal de Como. Yet, though he repeatedly obtained access to Elizabeth's person, his heart failed him when he should have struck the blow. In the dubious state of mind which his irresolution indicated, the secret grew too burdensome to be locked within his own bosom. He committed it to one Neville, by whom it was betrayed to the ministers of Elizabeth. The alarm was extreme, when the risk incurred from this desperate purpose was made public. Parry was arrested; confessed his nefarious purpose, and suffered the just punishment attached to it.

This meditated treason induced the English parliament, upon the 2d of March, 1585, to pass an act; the plain object of which was to make the queen of Scots, in her own person, responsible, with her rights and her life, for any attempt which might be made on the person or government of Elizabeth. It is thus abridged by Dr. Robertson, the elegant historian of this interesting period.