History Of Scotland Vol. 2 - Part 3

( Originally Published 1909 )

Insanity of the Earl of Arran—Lord James Stewart created Earl of Mar—The Grant offends the Earl of Huntley—Breach of the Peace by his Son Sir John Gordon—The Queen makes a Progress to the North, where she is coldly received, and Inverness Castle is held out against her—The Earldom of Murray is conferred on Lord James, instead of that of Mar—Huntley rebels—Battle of Corrichie—Suitors for Mary's Hand—She determines to consult Elizabeth—The Queen of England behaves with In-sincerity; recommends the Earl of Leicester—The Scots cast their eyes on Henry Darnley—His Mother's Claims on the Succession of England—Henry Darnley comes to Scotland, and renders himself personally agreeable to Queen Mary—Her Character at this Period of her Life--Her Love of more private Society—The Rise of Rizzio at the Scottish Court—He becomes French Secretary to the Queen, and a Favorite—Elizabeth's Displeasure at the proposed Match of Mary and Darnley—She intrigues with the Protestant Party in Scotland—The Earl of Murray leaves the Party of the Queen, and joins that of the Reformed Nobles and Clergymen—Desperate Plots of the Earls of Darnley and Murray against each other: both fail-The Queen and Darnley are Married—Murray and the Duke of Chatelherault take up Arms—The Queen gathers an Army, drives the Insurgents from Place to Place, and finally compels them to retreat into England—They are ill received by Elizabeth, who disowns them and their Cause—Mary endeavors to obtain some Toleration for the persecuted Catholics—She accedes to the Catholic League of Bayonne

THE young queen of Scotland conducted herself with great wisdom and popularity in the management of public business. She treated gravely of affairs of State with her council, with whom she held frequent sittings. Hunting, hawking, and other sports, filled up the day; and music and dancing were the usual amusements of the evening. These sports, however, gave additional offence and scandal to the Protestant preachers, men of ascetic and self-denying habits, who accounted such pleasures, if not positively sinful in themselves, as at least the ready inlets to sin, and who did not, in writing or preaching on such vanities, altogether place their pens or tongues under the guidance of that charity which thinketh no evil. Still the majority of her subjects made allowance for their queen's youth, gayety, and beauty, and, so long as she discharged her duty to her subjects in a grave and princely manner, did not blame her for endeavoring to enliven the court of her native kingdom with some shadow of the festivities which had surrounded her while on the throne of France.

In 1562 the young Earl of Arran, son of the Duke of Chatelherault, formerly governor of the kingdom, lodged an account of a plot, whereby the Earl of Bothwell and the Hamiltons had resolved to change the administration, by murdering the prior of St. Andrew's and Lethington. But this information was attended with no important con-sequences, the poor young nobleman who made it having shown symptoms of lunacy. He was afterward placed under confinement in the castle of Edinburgh, and, as will presently appear, was finally made the victim of unjust and cruel confiscation and oppression.

A more serious convulsion took place in the same year. The Earl of Huntley has been mentioned as one of the few Scottish nobles who still professed the Catholic religion. The family, having been always loyal, had been liberally remunerated for their fidelity by former monarchs, and their estates, jurisdictions, and superiorities in the north of Scotland were almost as extensive as those which the great Earls of Douglas had possessed in the south. Their power, however, was less influential, its sources being more distant from the court. The present earl- had expected, from similarity of faith, to have an especial share in the favor of Queen Mary; and, disappointed to find her regard engrossed by her brother, Lord James the Prior, he viewed that statesman with jealous and envious eyes. About this time it happened that the queen conferred upon her brother the earldom of Mar and the lands belonging to it. This very natural liberality toward so near a relative increased the resentment of Huntley, who had occupied some possessions belonging to this estate without challenge, and now foresaw that the Lord James, in virtue of the royal grant, would insist on resuming them. Moreover, considering his high court favor, the new Earl of Mar's settlement in the north was likely to diminish Huntley 's importance, and innovate upon his supremacy in these provinces. In the earldom of Mar the lord prior of St. Andrew's had gained a great point, though it was only a part of what his ambition aimed at; for he raised his hopes to the far more wealthy earldom of Murray, also possessed by Huntley, since the year 1548, in virtue of a grant from the crown. Thus Huntley was ex-posed, in fact, to the hazard of a much greater patrimonial loss than he at first apprehended.

While such causes of discontent occurred between these two powerful nobles, one of those instances of feudal violence took place which are so frequent in Scottish history, and so often the prelude to acts of open rebellion. In 1562, Sir John Gordon, the third son of the Earl of Huntley, engaged in a fray with Lord Ogilvy in the streets of Edinburgh, and dangerously wounded him. The queen caused both the offenders to be strictly confined, and was supposed, at the instigation of her brother Mar, to have been peculiarly rigorous in the case of young Gordon. This was a new subject of offence; and Sir John Gordon, escaping out of prison, hastened to his father's domains with loud complaints of ill usage and threats of revenge.

During this altercation the queen had determined on a royal progress to the north. It has been strongly averred that the new Earl of Mar had proposed this expedition for his own purposes. If by this it be only meant that he desired the benefit of the royal presence and countenance to enable him to enter on the estate of Mar, or, if possible, on the earldom of Murray in lieu of it, the suspicion may be very just. But there is room for positively denying that he had any thoughts of using violence against Huntley, since he brought with him, into the province where his enemy was all-powerful, only a very moderate body of southland forces.

The queen made a fatiguing, cold, and laborious journey, and was received with little courtesy in the north, where the effects of Huntley's displeasure against her brother and minister were sufficiently visible. Instead of being hailed with dutiful acclamations by crowds of submissive and faithful subjects, the aspect of the inhabitants was doubtful if not absolutely hostile, and her little troop of attendants were fain to observe the regular duties of watch and ward against surprise. Her retinue of soldiers was indeed so small that it became necessary every man in her train, ambassadors and others, should keep watch in succession; and the queen, instead of showing female affright at the grim front of war, lamented, with the spirit of her warlike fathers, that her sex prevented her mounting guard in turn, and forbade her to parade with jack and steel-cap, a broadsword and a Glasgow buckler. When she arrived at Inverness, the castle was held out against her by the Gordons. But the garrison, proving inadequate to defend it, were forced to surrender, and the captain who had refused admission to his sovereign deservedly suffered the pains of death.

In the meantime, Mar had accomplished the point which he had long struggled for, and prevailed upon the queen to grant him the earldom of Murray instead of that of Mar, to which it was now said to be discovered that Lord Erskine possessed a legal right, prior to that granted to Lord James Stewart. This new arrangement in favor of the queen's brother was the signal for open hostility.

The Earl of Huntley, incensed at the recall of the royal gift of 1548 in his favor, now conceived that the ruin of his house was resolved upon, and determined to take up arms. He summoned together his vassals, and menaced an attack upon the new Earl of Murray and the forces who escorted the sovereign's person.

The queen, in the meantime, proceeded to Darnoway, the principal messuage of the earldom of Murray; and having put her brother in possession of the honors and estates belonging to that great lordship, she summoned the neighboring barons and clans to join her array, and protect her against Huntley and his army. They brought their men to the queen accordingly, and the Earl of Murray led them against the Gordons, who were posted near Corrichie. Huntley had but seven or eight hundred men, but reckoned on his interest among the northern barons, who had ostensibly joined Murray, but who, in reality, neither loved his person nor were willing to endure his power.

The Earl of Murray drew up on a rising ground the small phalanx of Southland men in whom he could confide, and commanded the northern clans, whose faith he doubted, to commence the attack on the Gordons, October 28, 1562. They did so, but with no desire of making a serious impression ; and recoiling from the charge came running back with their antagonist close behind them on Murray's band of spearmen, who received both fliers and pursuers with levelled lances. The onset of the Gordons, made in the Highland fashion, with drawn swords and disordered ranks, was unequal to the task of breaking so firm a battalion. The assailants retired in disorder; and the instant they did so the neighboring clans, who liad begun the fight, anxious to secure the favor of the victors, turned their swords upon the repulsed party, and endeavored to atone for their former flight by making slaughter among those before whom they had just retreated.

The consequences of the loss of this battle of Corrichie were most disastrous to the family of Huntley. The earl himself, thrown from his horse, and too unwieldy to rise from the ground, was smothered in the retreat. His body, brought to town on a pair of panniers, was afterward produced in parliament, where a doom of forfeiture was pronounced against him. His son, Sir John Gordon, condemned to be beheaded, was butchered at Aberdeen by an unskilful executioner. The doom of forfeiture was pronounced against this powerful family, and was not reversed until the 19th of April, 1567. It was supposed that the Earl of Huntley's purpose, had he possessed himself of the queen's person, was to have united her in marriage with one of his sons; but as there is no evidence to prove such a charge, we cannot extend his guilt beyond his avowed designs against Murray, his feudal enemy.

Excepting the battle of Corrichie, the reign of Queen Mary had hitherto passed with great tranquillity, and, setting aside the suspicions of the clergy and their more zealous followers, with great contentment to her subjects. The Scots became naturally desirous that the race of their monarchs should be prolonged by their young queen forming a suit-able match. This being generally promulgated, a beauty with a kingdom for her dower was not likely to want wooers. The Archduke Charles, third son of the emperor, the infant Don Carlos, then heir of the Spanish monarchy, and the Duke of Anjou, brother of her late husband, preferred suit for Mary's hand; but as all these princes were Catholics and foreigners, the alliances they proposed would have once more revived the jealousies for her freedom in Church and State which Scotland had entertained, and would probably have again involved the country in an intestine war, as well as in a quarrel with England.

This event was the more to be dreaded, because the clergy and the more zealous among the reformers had pressed upon the government the necessity of demanding the queen's assent to the alterations in the Church, and the modern institutions which had supplanted the ancient ecclesiastical system. The Earl of Murray (by which title we must here-after term the Lord James Stewart, hitherto called the prior of St. Andrew's), was, on the contrary, of opinion that the Protestants ought to temporize with the queen, allow for the prejudices of her education, and wait until further conviction should open her eyes to the excellence of the reformed religion; and so warm grew the discussion between John Knox and the earl on this subject that the former renounced Murray's friendship, and a coldness between them ensued which continued for two years.

In these delicate circumstances Mary saw the necessity of paying attention, in her choice of a husband, to the opinions and even to the prejudices of the reformers, and perceived no mode of doing this so certain as by consulting Queen Elizabeth, whose opinions were not likely to be disputed by the Scottish Protestants. Another powerful reason of state strongly recommended that Elizabeth should be advised with upon this occasion. The right which Mary possessed to the English succession was of a kind which Elizabeth, if she pleased, might find means of setting aside by assent of her parliament ; and she might probably do so, should her kinswoman form a union with a foreign or Catholic prince. On the contrary, there were hopes that, if Mary should agree to be guided by her advice, Elizabeth might acknowledge the queen of Scotland, allied to a husband of her own choosing, as the lawful heir of the English throne. Sir James Melville, an accomplished diplomatist, was sent to procure, if possible, some information upon Elizabeth's intentions in this important affair.

It may be said of Elizabeth, that if ever there was a monarch whose conduct seemed, according to the speech of the old heathen, to be governed alternately by two souls of a very different disposition and character, the supposition might be applied to her. Possessing more than masculine wisdom, magnanimity, and fortitude on most occasions, she betrayed, at some unhappy moments, even more than female weakness and malignity. Happy would it have been for both queens had Mary's request for counsel and assistance reached Elizabeth while she was under the influence of her better planet. The English sovereign might then, with candor and good faith, have availed herself of the opportunity to conciliate the genuine friendship and to acquire the gratitude of her youthful relation, by guiding her to such a match as would have best suited the interests and assured the amity of the sister nations. Unfortunately, Elizabeth remembered with too much acuteness Mary's offensive pretensions to the crown of England, pretensions which were founded on the defect of her own title and the illegitimacy of her birth, and she already regarded the queen of Scotland rather as a rival to be subdued than a friend to be conciliated. Besides, as a votaress of celibacy, Queen Elizabeth was not greatly disposed to forward any marriage, more especially that of a princess who stood to her in the painful relation of a kinswoman possessing a claim to her throne, and a neighbor of her own sex and rank, between whom and herself comparisons must needs be frequently drawn with respect to wit, beauty, and accomplishments. The line of conduct prompted by these jealous feelings impelled Queen Elizabeth to embrace the opportunity, afforded by Mary's desiring her opinion upon her marriage, to cross, baffle, and disconcert any negotiations which might be entered into on that topic. For this purpose, after observing a great deal of oracular mystery, in order to protract matters, Elizabeth gave it as her advice that Mary would do well to choose for her husband the Earl of Leicester, as a person on whom she herself would willingly have conferred her own hand, but for her resolution to live and die a maiden queen.

The Earl of Leicester, as is well known, stood toward Elizabeth in the relation of a handsome and aspiring favorite. His claims, those of personal appearance excepted, were of a very ordinary character; yet the queen had conferred upon him the highest offices of the state, and it was shrewdly suspected had favored him with a larger share of her own affections than she would willingly have acknowledged. It is evident that by proposing this nobleman as a husband for Mary, Elizabeth could have no other view than to involve the queen of Scotland in a matrimonial treaty, which, while it might divert her mind from any other match, could never be brought to a satisfactory conclusion.

The queen of Scots listened with approbation to Elizabeth's advice, as far as it recommended to her to honor with her choice a subject and a native of Britain, so as neither to excite the resentment of England nor the suspicions of her own subjects, by again engaging in a foreign connection. But many very reasonable considerations directed her thoughts to a person different from Leicester, a subject of her own, and a near relation to Queen Elizabeth. There were circumstances in the favored party's connection and descent which rendered the selection highly expedient.

The person on whom the choice of Mary fell was Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, eldest son of the Earl of Lennox, at this time an exile in England. Matthew, the father of Darnley, was himself the son and successor of that Lennox who was slain fighting against the allied forces of Hamilton and Douglas, near Kirkliston, on the 4th of September, 1526. Earl Matthew had been devotedly desirous of forwarding the proposed match between Edward VI. and Mary, while the latter was yet in infancy; and when the rest of the nobility entirely deserted what was called the English party he continued attached to his engagements with Henry VIII., and rather than renounce them fled to England, under a certainty of being attainted, and placed himself under that monarch's protection. Henry was grateful, and did what he could to compensate Lennox for the evils of banishment and the loss of his Scottish estates. He bestowed on the exiled earl the fine manor of Temple Newsome, near Leeds, and the hand of his own niece. This lady was daughter of King Henry's sister Margaret, queen-dowager of Scot-land, by her second husband, the Earl of Angus, and was mother of the reigning Queen Mary. It will be remembered that the queen-dowager was delivered of Lady Margaret Douglas during the time that her husband and she were expelled from Scotland. Lady Margaret was, there-fore, a native Englishwoman.

Now, on the failure of Henry VIII.'s issue, those circumstances of genealogy and birth tended to establish in Lady Margaret Douglas a claim to the English throne, which, according to the notion of the times, was capable of being placed in competition with those of the queen of Scotland. This will appear more plainly from the following considerations.

Queen Mary claimed the throne of England, failing Queen Elizabeth and her heirs, as grand-niece of Henry VIII., by her mother, the same Queen Margaret. Lady Lennox was that queen's full niece, and one degree nearer in blood to the reigning queen than was Mary herself. Besides, the Countess of Lennox had the great advantage over the queen of Scotland that she was a native Englishwoman, and it was at least possible that the English lawyers, in ease of a con-test for the crown, might give the native of the soil a preference over the alien. This rendered the getting rid of Lady Margaret Lennox's pretensions of the greatest importance to Queen Mary, considering her prospects of the English succession; and it seemed so obviously desirable to unite both these titles by a marriage between Henry Darnley and the young queen of Scots, that a suspicion of it appears to have flashed across the mind of Elizabeth herself. After pointing out to Melville the various excellences which distinguished her favorite Leicester, whom she pretended to recommend to Mary's choice, she added, pointing to Henry Darnley, "Yet you prefer to him that long lad yonder." This betrayed a suspicion which Elizabeth was little disposed to see realized, that there were, even thus early, thoughts of a match between Mary and Henry Darnley. It does not, however, appear to have been deep-rooted; for, upon Lennox applying to the queen of England for leave to go to Scotland under pretence of his wife having a claim as heir female on the earldom of Angus, her royal license for the journey seems to have been willingly granted. The truth, probably, was, that Elizabeth was too confident of her power to perplex any negotiation for marriage which Mary might enter into, both by her influence over the queen of Scotland herself, which she probably overestimated, and by the interest which her intrigues had maintained among the nobility of that kingdom. In this view, her permitting Darnley to appear as a suitor might serve only to embroil a transaction which she did not desire to terminate.

Receiving the permission of Elizabeth, the Earl of Lennox returned to Scotland after twenty years' absence, where he was most favorably received. He did not indeed succeed in making good his wife's claims on the earldom of Angus, which as a male fief was in the grasp of the Earl of Morton, who managed it in behalf of his nephew Archibald Douglas; but great favor was shown him by the queen, his claims on Angus were compensated by gifts from the crown, and he himself was restored in blood and estate against the forfeiture by which he was attainted.

In a few months afterward Henry, Lord Darnley, the earl's only son, set sail for Scotland, with Elizabeth's permission, and about the 16th February, 1564-5, he waited upon Queen Mary, at Wemys Castle; a most unfortunate meeting, as it proved, both for Mary and himself. There was nothing in Darnley's appearance which could raise any personal objection on the queen's part to weigh the policy which strongly recommended to her as a husband the high-born young nobleman who possessed, through his mother, a title to the succession of England which might stand in competition with her own. On the contrary, Henry, Lord Darnley, though of uncommon stature, was well made in proportion, possessed courteous manners and a noble mien, gained the eye and the heart of the queen by the showy accomplishments of dancing, tilting, hunting, and the like, and won the goodwill of her retinue by liberality, which large remittances received from his mother enabled him to maintain. He was at length emboldened by Mary's own smiles, and the general favor with which he had been received at court, to propose love to his sovereign; and though he at first received a modest repulse, he came in course of a little time to. be favorably listened to.

With the purpose better to judge of the events which follow, we must take here a short review of the queen's personal character and behavior, adopting for our guide Sir James Melville, one who had the best opportunities of knowing her, who was himself at once a sound Protestant and an accomplished courtier, and whose memoirs, now freed from all suspicion of interpolation, may be justly compared with the most valuable materials which British history affords.

Queen Mary, since her arrival from France, had behaved herself after a manner so princely, honorably, and discreetly, that her reputation was spread abroad in all countries; and she was at the same time so courteous and affable, that, excepting the Protestant preachers, whose judgment concerning a papist sovereign cannot be supposed unprejudiced, she had gained the universal love and approbation of her subjects. Unimpeachable in her public conduct, this accomplished princess loved to retire into something like private society, but always with the honorable attendance of her ladies, and accessible to the ambassadors who resided at her court. When Randolph, the English envoy, pressed matters of state upon her at such a moment, "I see," she said, "you are weary of this reception. You had better preserve your diplomatic gravity, and return to Edinburgh, and keep all your weighty conversation till the queen return there; for I promise you I do not know myself what is now become of her, or when she will return to her throne and canopy of state."

It would seem that Mary herself was conscious of her tendency to this easy pleasantry, and had an apprehension that it might, in an unguarded moment, be carried too far. Indeed, something of this kind occurred in the case of one Chastellar, a French cavalier, half poet, half courtier, and entire madman. The queen used to amuse herself with this adventurer's eccentricity, by which ill-judged familiarity he was encouraged to conceal himself one night in her apartment. Being detected, he was dismissed with severe censure, which did not hinder a man of such ill-regulated under-standing from renewing his attempt, for which he was tried and executed. His death suited his extravagant character. He refused ghostly consolation, prepared himself for his end with the verses of Ronsard, a French poet; and as he knelt down to the block exclaimed, as his last words, "Farewell to the most beautiful and most cruel queen that ever lived."

While Mary was in prosperity, nothing discreditable to her arose from Chastellar's insane conduct, yet, considering the fatal issue, it must have given her much pain, and may have been the cause of the injunction which she laid upon Melville. Under this anxiety; she amiably represented to him her youth and turn to cheerfulness, and imposed upon him the delicate task, that should she at any time forget herself, and be hurried into any impropriety of speech or behavior, he must interpose his admonition to reform the same. Melville would willingly have shifted this office upon the Earl of Murray and Lethington, by whom Mary's state affairs were managed; but the queen compelled him to accept the office of her monitor, as she could, she said, endure rebuke more willingly from a disinterested friend than from her immediate ministers.

There was at this time in the court of Mary a man named. David Rizzio, or Riccio, a native of Turin, a person of poor parentage, who had been, however, well educated, and, among other accomplishments, was an excellent musician. He came to Scotland in the train of an ambassador from Savoy; but his assistance being found useful to fill a part in the queen's private concerts, he left the envoy's service for that of Mary. Rizzio's knowledge of languages recommended him to the queen, who employed him in conducting her foreign correspondence; and finding him apt, intelligent, and useful, upon the departure of her French secretary she promoted the Piedmontese to that confidential office. This situation, of course, procured him easy and frequent access to her presence and to her ear. The familiarity with which -the queen naturally received him, as a man of little consequence, whose_ talents served, and whose accomplishments amused her, excited the resentment of the fierce nobility of Scotland. They observed with indignation that the foreign secretary, in virtue of his office, presented all papers to be signed by her majesty; and some of them would shoulder him, and frown on him, when they met him in the presence chamber. Others who had suits at court made the same observations, but, acting upon different principles, addressed themselves to the secretary for the furtherance of their business; and Rizzio became rich from the gifts that flowed in upon him.

Yet the poor secretary felt himself surrounded by enemies, and bewailed his condition to Melville as one of envy and danger. Melville, with his usual good sense, counselled him to decline making any ostentation of his credit with the queen, and to avoid showing any possession of her ear by forbearing to speak with her apart in the presence of her nobility. But Rizzio afterward told Melville that the queen desired him to wait upon her with his usual freedom. The sensible and faithful Melville then mentioned to the queen herself the conversation which had taken place, and the envy which her favor to Rizzio was drawing upon a man whose understanding was not very well able to endure it. The queen took no offence at the rebuke, but said she had used Rizzio no otherwise than his predecessor in office; nor would she be controlled in the management of her private correspondence.

However imprudent Mary's conduct might be, there is no reason to believe that her intercourse with her secretary excited at this period of her life any further censure than that she allowed too much influence in affairs of business to a low-born foreigner raised from a mean condition. It has been since used as affording a pretext for charges of a grosser nature.

The influence of Signor David, as he was termed, was accounted so powerful that Henry Darnley, in his suit to Mary, conceived it prudent to secure the countenance of Rizzio, whose vanity became more highly- elevated by his being supposed to possess influence on such an occasion.

Meantime Elizabeth, to her astonishment and mortification, learned that the queen of Scotland had formed an engagement with young Darnley, which was about to end in marriage. That sovereign had, no doubt, hoped that, in permitting Darnley to go down to Scotland, she was only putting another puppet on the stage, whom she could with-draw at pleasure, since, having all the Earl of Lennox's English property in her power, she might conceive that she possessed the regulation of his motions and those of his son. She was highly irritated at her disappointment. Her privy council echoed back a list, which she herself had suggested, of imaginary dangers attending Mary's match with Darnley, and an ambassador extraordinary was sent to enforce at the Scottish court the representations of Elizabeth and her council against the choice of an independent sovereign. Mary would 'certainly have acted as a weak queen, and an unusually tame-spirited person, if she had submitted to this insult. She avowed her intention of marrying Darnley, justified her-self with dignity for so doing, affected at the same time a great desire to reconcile her sister sovereign to the match, and succeeded in adducing plausible arguments to prove that her choice possessed those recommendations which Elizabeth had in the commencement of their negotiation so pointedly demanded. She even offered to delay the actual marriage, if she could by that sacrifice obtain the approbation of her good sister and ally.

From the firm tone of Mary's reply it was evident that she had determined on the match; and Elizabeth saw it could only be broken off by some domestic opposition among the Scottish subjects, for exciting which the English queen possessed ample means. The most formidable of these was her influence with the whole body of zealous Protestants, who, since the wars with the French in 1560, looked upon Elizabeth as their especial friend, and the surest protectress of their faith. This influence was much increased at the crisis we speak of, from the Earl of Murray having withdrawn himself from the court, and placed himself in opposition to the queen's intended marriage with Darnley.

The Earl of Murray had hitherto been the queen's principal minister, and had managed the affairs of the kingdom with equal skill and good fortune. But in this proposed match he foresaw the loss of his power. He was besides especially offended that the Earl of Bothwell, his personal enemy, was suffered to return to court, having been banished from thence for an alleged conspiracy against his life. To remove this cause of complaint, Bothwell was again driven into exile; yet no persuasion could make Murray give consent to the proposed marriage. Darnley, with the rash folly and impetuosity of youth, had shown himself unfriendly to his bride's brother, jealous of his power, and envious of the large estates which that power had been the means of accumulating. On such topics he dwelt in the hearing even of those who were sure to report what he said to the jealous minister, whom it chiefly interested. Foreseeing, therefore, an enemy to his own person and authority in the queen's proposed husband, Murray's eyes at the same time became rather suddenly opened to the great dangers which this match was likely to bring upon the Protestant religion. Hitherto his zeal had not been alarmed at the exercise of the Catholic superstition in the queen's house-hold; we have even seen him in person, with his drawn sword in his hand, defend the entrance of her private chapel during the celebration of the mass. But now that Mary was about to take a husband of her own persuasion, though by no means a bigoted papist, he joined the opinion of those who held one mass to be more dangerous to the common-wealth than an invasion of ten thousand men. A reconciliation was effected between the Earl of Murray and John Knox, between whom a quarrel had previously arisen, on account of the indulgence of the earl to Queen Mary; and as the same difference of opinion no longer existed between them, they once more thought with the same heart, and saw with the same eye, on the affairs of Church and State.

Murray, therefore, now countenanced the ministers of the reformed religion, who demanded, by a formal act of the national assembly of the Church, that the celebration of the mass should in all cases be restrained, as well before the queen's person as in view of the subject. This extravagant proposal was followed by the more reasonable request that some means of subsistence, out of the revenues and domains of the Catholic Church, should be assigned to the clergy. Then came a condition that the remainder of the church property, after deducting the stipends of the clergy, should be applied to the maintenance of the poor, and the support of schools and places of education. That this last stipulation should be granted, considering it must have greatly impoverished the nobles who had possessed them-selves of these religious revenues, was very improbable; but it was followed by one which, in the present state of the world, was totally impossible, since it prayed for the entire suppression of vice and immorality. To these demands the queen mildly replied that she was not yet satisfied of the idolatry of the mass, and pleaded with much gentleness for the enjoyment of that liberty of conscience for herself which she was willing to allow to others. She promised relief to the complaints of the preachers, and regular payment of their salaries. The other demands she passed over in prudent silence.

The queen's proposals and exertions gained a consider-able majority of the nobility to assent to her marriage; but Murray remained irreconcilable. The Duke of Chatelherault joined his party, in apprehension that the exaltation of the Lennox family would prove the destruction of his own, considering the deadly feud that existed between the House of Hamilton and that of Lennox, and not forgetful, probably, of his own claims to the throne, in case the queen died with-out issue.

The discord between the two parties, according to the genius of the time, first broke out in secret conspiracies of the most deadly kind. Darnley engaged in a plot to assassinate Murray; and Murray laid an ambush for the purpose of making Darnley and the queen prisoners, with the intention of delivering up the proposed bridegroom to Elizabeth, and placing Mary in some place of secure confinement. Roth plots were doomed to succeed, but not at the time or by the means now resorted to. They failed for the present on either side.

Matters being come to this crisis, the queen resolved to complete, without delay, the purpose which she meditated; and which, recommended first by considerations of policy, had now become an affair in which her heart was deeply though hastily interested. On the 29th of July, 1565, she married Darnley, a dispensation by the pope having been previously obtained, and the ceremonial being performed after the forms of the Catholic ritual. At their union he was declared king of Scotland.

Murray and the Duke of Chatelherault, together with Argyle, Glencairn, and Rothes, took arms, all, the duke excepted, zealous professors of the Protestant religion. But, ere they could assemble two thousand horse, they were attacked by the queen's army, the royal vassals having on Mary's summons appeared with good will and in great numbers. She herself, arrayed in light armor, and wearing pistols at the saddle-bow, rode at the head of her troops. The insurgents were obliged to retreat before the queen from one place to another, apparently without any aim or object save to escape her pursuit, from which circumstance their war was remembered by the name of the Roundabout Raid. The insurgent nobles were at length pressed so hard that they were compelled to disband their forces, and retreat into England, where, as they had taken arms in consequence of Elizabeth's instigation, they hoped for relief and protection. Murray and the abbot of Kilwinning, one on the part of the reformers, the other as representing his kinsmen the Hamiltons, were despatched by their associates to represent their necessities, and to crave the aid and support which they thought themselves entitled to expect from the English queen.

But their reception was very different from their expectations. Elizabeth now beheld in them persons who could render her no immediate services; and she was anxious to escape from the reproaches of the ambassadors of the principal European powers, who accused her of betraying the cause of sovereigns in general by the encouragement she had afforded to the rebels of Scotland.

Galled at finding herself exposed to reproaches to which her own notions of royal authority made her peculiarly sensitive, Elizabeth resolved so to deal with the envoys of the banished lords as should make them the means of clearing her from such a scandal at the expense of their own honor.

With this view she caused it to be secretly intimated to the Earl of Murray and his associate that they would lose Queen Elizabeth's favor and protection at once and forever, if they presumed to bring forward claims in virtue of any understanding between her and them previous to their insurrection. The envoys were forced to consent to this humiliating compromise, expecting, no doubt, that the queen would of herself recollect the promises which they, in obedience to her command, abstained from insisting upon.

Accordingly when Murray and the abbot of Kilwinning, in presence of the French and Spanish ambassadors, appeared before Elizabeth, she extorted from the fugitive Scots an avowal that she had not encouraged them in their rebellion, and, having thus secured her own exculpation, she turned short on them, saying, "You have now spoken truth, for neither I nor any in my name has instigated your revolt from your sovereign. Begone, like traitors as you are!" Notwithstanding this seemingly severe reception, the exiles were permitted to skulk about on the southern side of the border, and were secretly supplied with money by Elizabeth. The Hamiltons had cooperated but not coalesced with Murray and his associates. The insurrection of the former was on different principles from that of the latter.

The Duke of Chatelherault negotiated for himself and his party independently of Murray, and with much difficulty obtained on submission a separate pardon from the Scottish queen.

Mary was now at the summit of her wishes. She was wedded to the choice of her heart : all opposition to her will lay prostrate at her feet; and by pressing a prosecution against Murray and his associates, it was in her power to have their estates forfeited, and their persons banished from Scotland forever.

In a parliament which was convoked for this purpose, the queen entertained a hope that she might procure for those of her own communion at least some degree of toleration and some relief from the persecution of the other party. It was but a short time before that a Catholic priest had been seized in the act of saying mass at Easter. Invested in his garments, and with the chalice bound to his hand, he was tied to the market cross of Edinburgh, and there pelted with filth and mud, which the historian of the kirk calls serving him with his Easter eggs. Where such disgraceful violence could be permitted, the queen might be pardoned, when she desired that those who followed the same religion with herself might be sheltered at least from violence and indignity.