1565.] MARRIAGE OF MARY AND DARNLEY. 135 marriage with her cousin. That assent was refused by the Council on the ground that the marriage would be dangerous to the protestant religion; would strengthen the league of catholic princes which was now organising; and that Mary not yet having renounced her claim to the crown of England, this marriage would more imperil Elizabeth's title. That there was danger to the cause of the Reformation in Scotland may be inferred from the fact that lord Murray, who for four years had kept the kingdom in tolerable peace, holding the scales of justice even between bitterly opposing factions, though an earnest friend to the reformers, now withdrew from the court of Mary. The strong resolve with which Murray and other protestants opposed this union must have been founded upon something more than vague apprehensions of the power of a husband over the queen. They dreaded him as an unreasoning tool of her more determined will. Darnley had no force of character. He was a handsome simpleton. Mary had apparently conceived a passion for the tall stripling, whose folly was only equalled by his pride. They were married on the 29th of July, and he was proclaimed king the same day. "They were married with all the solemnities of the popish time, saving that he heard not the mass. . . . Rather he seemeth a monarch of the world than he that not long since we have seen and known the lord Darnley." The register of marriages in the Canongate has this entry: "Henry and Marie, kyng and qweine of Scots." The three years which followed this marriage are crowded with strange and tragical events. Romance has seized upon them as its peculiar property; and History has been somewhat too eager to follow in the wake of Romance. The occurrences which had so material an influence upon the destinies of the Scottish and English nations are almost unheeded in their public aspects; and thus the writer who desires to convey a sober view of what truly belongs to the province of the historian finds himself bewildered amidst interminable controversies about the moral character of Mary, and the contradictory evidence as to her participation in the foulest of crimes. We are called upon, according to all precedent, to pronounce upon her guilt or innocence; to hold, with the few, that she was the most shameless and abandoned of women; or, with the many, that she was the pure and guileless victim of the most wicked conspiracies. These three years in which, whether supremely guilty or singularly unfortunate, she underwent far more than a common share of peril and anxiety, present the following salient points: In 1565, on the 29th of July, Mary married Henry Darnley. Murray, who had been her chief adviser since her return from France, headed a revolt, without success, and then took refuge in England, with other reforming leaders. Mary was now free to give the most open encouragement to the Romanists, having the countenance of her imbecile husband. The reforming party was too strong to be permanently resisted; and Mary's husband professed to have adopted their views. Within seven months of his marriage Darnley became jealous of David Riccio, an Italian favourite of the queen, and he with a band of fierce nobles, murdered him in Mary's presence on the 9th of March, 1566. Murray returned to Scotland. The differences between the queen and her husband became notorious. James Bothwell was now Mary's chief adviser. 136 THE REFORMERS INDIGNANT AT THE MARRIAGE. [1565. In 1567, on the 10th of February, Darnley was murdered in a lone house in Edinburgh, called the Kirk of Field, and Bothwell was accused of the murder, but was acquitted. On the 24th of April he carried off the queen to one of his castles, and she was married to him on the 15th of May. The nobles now took up arms; and, in little more than two months from this last marriage, Mary was compelled to resign her crown, and was a prisoner at Lochleven. Mary's resignation of her crown to her infant son, who was born June 19th, 1566, took place on the 24th of July, 1567. After nine months' imprisonment in the castle of Lochleven, she escaped on the 2nd of May, 1568. Her Roman Catholic friends assembled an army, which encountered that of Murray the regent, on the 13th of May; and the queen's supporters being defeated, she fled to England, and landed in Cumberland on the 15th of May. We shall endeavour to tell this story as impartially as we can, keeping in view, as much as possible, its national bearings, rather than entering into the minute details of a personal history which, even when viewed under the most favourable light, is sufficiently painful and revolting. Mary was in her twenty-third year when she married, and Darnley was nineteen. The dissatisfaction of Murray and the other reformers was 80 great at the prospects involved in this marriage that they had been making preparations to oppose it by direct resistance in arms. Within three days of the nuptial ceremony Murray was commanded to appear at court, or to be proclaimed a rebel. If we may credit one party-representation of the troubles of this period, we must believe that the ambition of Murray and his followers, stimulated by the intrigues of England, was the sole cause of the opposition to this union. If we are to trust in another view of the matter, we must consider that the resistance of the lords was founded upon a sincere belief that Mary, in taking a husband of her own religious persuasion, who would give additional strength to her will, and to the desire of her foreign relations to re-establish the Roman Catholic ascendency, was perilling the great interests of the Reformation. We must bear in mind not only the character of those times, but the peculiar temper of the Scottish people, to enable us to form a right judgment of the actions of the two great parties in the state. The Reformation in England had attained its consistency, step by step; and having passed through its most perilous crisis under Mary Tudor, had become the established religion of the country, never to be seriously shaken. It had attained this position by a cautious adaptation to popular usages and opinions -a graft upon the ancient stock rather than the forced growth of a new plant taking the place of the old decaying tree. The Reformation in Scotland was, from the first, a negation. Whatever was Protestant was to be diametrically opposed to Catholic. Old things were to be destroyed before new things could be established. Whatever made the slightest approach to the ceremonies of the earlier church was idolatry. Whatever, in a stern refusal to comply with habits either harmless or indifferent, was opposed to the practice of the Romanists, was true religion. The character of the queen, as exhibited under its most innocent aspects, was an offence to this severe judgment. Her general cheerfulness, her fondness for the chase, her balls and masquerades, her love of poetry and music, were represented as sins. It is scarcely to be wondered at, however to be lamented, that she often acted in de fiance of a prudent decorum. It is less a matter of surprise that she had a deep 1565.] REVOLT OF MURRAY AND OTHER NOBLES. 137 batred of the Reformers, and entertained a vague desire for a political alliance that would free her from the control of her Protestant subjects, and from the supervision of England. In the first four years of her personal rule in Scotland she yielded to the strong power that was over her. She would not surrender her own habits of ceremonial religion to what had become the prevailing faith of the majority of her subjects; but she abstained from any rash attempts to interfere with the course they were following. Had she been less cautious her fall would have been more immediate. But, supported probably by the avowed determination of France and Spain to uproot Protestantism— probably stimulated by the growing coldness, if not enmity, between herself and Elizabeth, and by the idle belief that the English Catholics would support her pretensions to the crown which she claimed as the legitimate descendant of Henry VII.,—she grew bolder upon the occasion of her marriage, and resolved, not indeed to persecute the Reformers in Scotland, but only to tolerate them. Cecil, in August 1565, wrote thus to the English ambassador in France:-"The duke [Chatelherault], the earls of Argyle, Murray, and Rothes, with sundry barons, are joined together, not to allow of the marriage otherwise than to have the religion established by law; but the queen refuseth in this sort-she will not suffer it to have the force of law, but of permission to every man to live according to his conscience." The great minister adds, " And herewith she hath retained a great number of Protestants from associating openly with the other." The leading Reformers knew that the queen's rejection of the legal establishment of their religion would be its destruction amongst a people whose inborn habit was to take one of two sides. If Protestantism ceased to be regarded as "established by law," Catholicism would come back to be so established. The Reformers would not accept this toleration, and they rose in arms. Murray was proclaimed a rebel. "She hath put the earl of Murray to the horn," writes Cecil. His life and estates were declared forfeited, by sound of horn. Mary, who had caused Darnley to be proclaimed king upon the occasion of their marriage, was desirous that the Scottish parliament should bestow upon him the crown-matrimonial. Chastelherault, who was next to Mary in succession, was offended at this, and took part with Murray. This able man, with kingly blood in his veins, is held to have had himself designs upon the crown. The sundry barons are reputed to have opposed Mary, lest with the re-establishment of the Romish religion they should lose their church-lands. Elizabeth envied Mary, as lord Herries writes, "the comfort of a husband and the happiness of children." These are the base and sordid motives which are assigned as the impelling causes of the opposition to the queen at this juncture. It is singular that some of the Scottish historians, and some English, will not allow anything for the strength of a great principle; and constantly present to us the ministers of England as base intriguers and the Scottish statesmen as anti-national mercenaries. Elizabeth sent an envoy to Mary, to endeavour to promote her reconciliation with Murray. There were cold and sarcastic words delivered by Tamworth, Elizabeth's messenger, and haughty answers returned by Mary. She engaged for herself and her husband that they would attempt nothing to the prejudice of the queen of England; but she required that the English crown should be settled by Act of parliament upon herself and Darnley; and that Elizabeth should afford no countenance 138 REVOLT SUPPRESSED, AND THE LORDS BANISHED. [1565. to Scottish rebels. It is held that Murray was countenanced and assisted by Elizabeth, though to a very limited extent. Mary showed her vigour of character at this crisis. She took the field with her forces; and headed her troops with pistols at her saddle-bow. The revolt was crushed without any decisive contest. The rebel lords transmitted to the English government a declaration that they were persecuted as traitors for their zeal for true religion, and for their attempt to redress "the great enormities lately crept into the public regimen of this miserable commonwealth." They affirmed that the efforts of Mary and Darnley were solely directed to the subversion of the reformed religion within the realm, and the re-establishment of superstition and papistry." There was ample foundation for this assertion. The Roman see had sent money to Mary; and Philip II. had placed twenty thousand crowns in the hands of his ambassador at London, to be employed "with secrecy and address, in the support of the Scottish queen and her husband." That the English government knew well that the combinations for the restoration of Catholicism in Scotland were connected with the pretensions of Mary to the throne filled by the Protestant Elizabeth, is evident from its incessant watchfulness over every indication of Mary's projects. It was a measure of self-defence to hold a stedfast alliance with the Scottish Reformers. There would be intrigue and dissimulation in pursuing this policy; but that Elizabeth was actuated by a mere womanly jealousy of Mary, as we are asked to believe, and that her ministers causelessly sought to embroil Scotland, is the dream of a very weak prejudice, which assumes the garb of a poetical nationality. Elizabeth is held to have dissembled when, Murray having fled to her court, she "spoke very roundly to him, before the ambassadors, that whatsoever the world said or reported of her, she would by her actions let it appear, that she would not, for the price of a world, maintain any subject in any disobedience against a prince." The right divine of princes was too deeply rooted in her thoughts to carry her beyond a certain point of opposition to her most dangerous enemy. In this she spoke her true mind. In the declaration of the banished lords to the English government, they complained that two crafty Italians, David Riccio and Francisco, with other unworthy persons, had dispossessed the ancient nobility of their place in the queen's council. Riccio, a Milanese, had been a singer in Mary's service, and was afterwards promoted to the office of her private secretary. He had soon acquired considerable influence; had been assiduous in promoting Darnley's marriage; and when Mary's first passionate love for that weak young man had given way to contempt for his follies and vices, Riccio became her chief adviser in place of the husband she had chosen. At the beginning of 1566 Randolph, the English ambassador, wrote to Cecil that the Protestants were in such fear and doubt that they knew not what shall become of them; and that the wisest desire nothing more than the return of the banished lords. There were agencies at work to inspire the Protestants with still greater dread. There came from France an envoy of the cardinal Lorraine, and a messenger from the Scottish ambassador. They had high powers entrusted to them. They were to oppose the recall of the banished *Memorandum of Cecil, in Raumer, p. 70. Ellis, First Series, vol. ii. p. 206. 1565.] DARNLEY AND RICCIO. 139 lords; they were to induce Mary to sign the "Bond" which had been concluded, under the auspices of Catherine de Medici and the duke of Alva, for the extermination of the Protestants in Europe. "Riccio, who at this moment possessed much influence, and was on good grounds suspected to be a pensioner of Rome, seconded these views with all his power." Mary did "Mary join this league; did become a party to the dark conspiracy, whose grand result was the massacre of St. Bartholomew in France, and which, but for the wisdom of Elizabeth and her counsellors, might have produced a St. Bartholomew in England. The passionate impulses of Mary were equally the safety of Scotland. She was unfitted for the conduct of a policy which would cherish its schemes of vengeance, and smile upon its devoted victims, as in France, until thousands could be cut off as if they had but one neck. Mary had strong hatreds, but she looked only at individuals for their gratification. Murray and his adherents were the objects of her wrath in 1565; when she "declared to Randolph that she would rather peril her crown than lose her revenge." Deeper offences than rebellion were now to agitate her. Darnley had been displaced from her confidence, and perhaps justly so. Riccio was her most cherished counsellor. Darnley used to sign his name to public documents as king, before that of Mary. The queen now signed her name, and Riccio was provided with a stamp to add that of Darnley. The weak young man abandoned himself to drinking; quarrelled with the queen in publie; was persuaded that Riccio was the instigator of his humiliations; and, says Mr. Tytler, "had the folly to become the dupe of a more absurd delusion-he became jealous of the Italian secretary." The absurdity of this jealousy must be estimated by the general impression as to Mary's character. In the unhappy affair of Chastellart, three years before, Randolph pointed out "what mischief ensues of the over great familiarity that any such personage showeth unto so unworthy a creature and abject a varlet, as even her grace used with him." The man was hanged for the presumption which this "over great familiarity" encouraged. Mary brought to Scotland the indiscretions of the French court, if not its vices; and her education in this school of impurity may suggest some apology for the imprudences which her warmest advocates cannot wholly defend. No one doubts that the deportment of Riccio was calculated to excite the suspicion of a neglected husband, and the hatred of those who saw his influence over the queen employed for their personal abasement and the subversion of their religious opinions. The common desire for revenge associated Darnley with some of the fierce Scottish nobles, such as Morton and Ruthven, in a conspiracy against the life of the obnoxious secretary. The king was engaged with the superior Protestant leaders, in a separate bond for the restoration of the banished lords, upon their promise to support him and to give him the crownmatrimonial. They were to maintain the protestant religion as one of the conditions of this alliance. Mixing up these separate contracts, "for the murder of Riccio, the restoration of Murray, and the revolution in the government," we are told that one only step remained: to communicate the plot to the queen of England and her ministers, and to obtain their Tytler's Scotland, vol. vii. p. 19. |