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Scotland, was doubtless a most unexpected impediment. John Craig, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, was commanded to publish the banns. His first objection was founded on the rumour that she was imprisoned and ravished by Bothwell. The justice clerk, who was second criminal judge of the kingdom, came to him "with a letter signed by the queen, declaring that she was neither ravished nor detained captive." The intrepid preacher nevertheless urged to the council the rape of the queen, and the suspicion of the king's murder, which this marriage would confirm. On occasion of his almost forced conformity, he declared from the pulpit, that "he abhorred and detested the marriage, as hateful in the sight of the world." * On the day of the nuptials (15th May), about three months after the murder of Darnley, one month after the pretended trial of Bothwell, and within nine days after his collusive divorce from a lawful wife, this marriage was solemnised, in virtue of banns which had been accompanied by a declaration from the clergyman who published them, that the union would be evidence of the wedded parties being accomplices in the murder of the husband of one of them. So headlong was the passion of the queen for Bothwell, who was a professed protestant, that she consented to wed him only by the rites of the reformed religion, though she considered these rites as no more than badges of an adulterous union, instead of having the marriage repeated according to the ceremonial of the catholic church, as she had done in her nuptials with Darnley. +

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A casket containing a correspondence purporting to be carried on by Mary with Bothwell, which, if genuine, establishes her guilt, was said to be seized by the insurgents on the 20th of June, 1567. The genuineness of these letters, and their irresistible force as evidence against the queen, have been already demonstrated by Mr. Hume and Mr. Robertson, and most + Melville, 181.

Archbishop Spottiswood, 203.

acts.

of all by Mr. Laing, who, in the acuteness with which he employs the rules of historical criticism, is not inferior to either. The proofs of Mary's guilt are her own It suffices here to observe, that these documents were seen at Edinburgh, at York, and at Westminster, by hundreds of persons, friends as well as foes to Mary, but most of whom knew her handwriting; and yet that proof of their forgery, which must have been easy, was then never attempted: that they relate to a succession of minute facts, multiplying beyond calculation the means of detecting imposture: that the letters only serve the purpose of an accuser by hints and allusions such as would be found in genuine correspondence, not by those clear and positive manifestations of guilt by which an eager partisan betrays his forgeries: that they are full of inimitable proofs of burning passion, of which the extreme grossness, in such an age, and from such parties, is rather a corroboration of their truth than a difficulty in the way of assenting to it.

There is a species of secondary, but very important, evidence relating to Mary's criminality, on which a few additional sentences may be excused. The silence of a contemporary like Castelnau, who was friendly to her, and who had opportunities of knowing the facts, is very significant. The silence of Melville, her personal attendant and confidential servant, whose brother attended her to her last moment; and of Spottiswood, her grandson's chancellor, and the head of the Scottish church, is still more conclusive; because it is accompanied by admissions, such as those regarding the pretended rape, which are irreconcileable with the supposition of her innocence, and evidently show that none of these respectable writers entertained any doubt of her guilt. The testimony of De Thou is, perhaps, the strongest instance among the secondary proofs. The president De Thou is the most upright of historians. He was a tolerant catholic in an age in which all parties were

persecutors. No effort, no labour, and scarcely any reasonable expense, seemed to this conscientious historian too great a price for truth. He adopted, in the main, the narrative of Buchanan; which was doubtless, in some measure, recommended to him by the genius and eloquence of that illustrious man.* But he tells us himself that he had most diligently enquired of the catholic refugees from Scotland in France, who, in a manner decisive of the whole question respecting the queen, assured him that Moray, notwithstanding his fatal errors in religion, was a man without ambition or avarice; most averse to wrong others; distinguished by courage, gracious manners, active benevolence, and an innocent life. In 1605, Camden, at the suggestion of James I., entered into a correspondence with De Thou, warning the historian of the necessity of circumspection in his narrative of Scottish affairs, and confirming his opinion that the king was incensed at his illustrious preceptor Buchanan. De Thou, with courageous honesty, answered, that he was unwilling to give needless offence, and wished to relate events simply without angry language: but that he deemed the concealment of truth to be as much a crime in an historian as the promulgation of falsehood; and that the calmest account of such a deed as the death of Darnley would, he feared, be as really offensive to the enemies of Buchanan as the eloquent relation of that great man. As the representation of Camden had in no respect shaken the conviction of De Thou, the British monarch soon after employed an advocate of more fame to convert the obstinate historian. This was the famous Genevese Isaac Casaubon, one of the most celebrated scholars who had appeared since the revival of letters, on whom James bestowed the prebends of Canterbury and Westminster, with a pension, then

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* Thuani Historiar. sui Temporis, lib. xl. c. 13-24. fortasse a Buchanano scripta et audio discipulum præceptori ob id succensere, et tamen quia gesta sunt CITRA FLAGITIUM dissimulari non possunt." Thuan. to Camden, Feb. 1605. Thuani Historiæ Successus apud Jac. I. art. v. in the supplementary (viith) volume of Carte's edition of Thuanus.

+ Thuan. to Camden, Aug. 1606. Carte's Thuanus, vii. u. s.

Same to same, April 1603

Id.

enormous, of 2001. sterling. Casaubon began his approaches from a secure distance, immediately after his arrival in England. "The king declares that he prefers one Thuanus to many such writers as Tacitus."* Shortly after which he apprises his friend that the king was disturbed by the deviation from truth into which rebels and libellers had seduced De Thou in his account of Scottish affairs; and that, to remove the delusion of that historian, he had caused a true account of these events to be composed from authentic materials by sir Robert Cotton, which, when complete, should be sent to him at Paris. In consequence of these communications and solicitations, which were continued by Casaubon and renewed by Camden almost to the death of De Thou, he appears to have proved his candour by suppressing some acrimonious passages which he owed to Buchanan; but he also proved his honesty by at last leaving his text in such a condition that no reader who forms his judgment from it, can doubt that Mary was an accomplice in the murder.

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In perusing those parts of Camden's annals which relate to Scotland, it ought to be borne in mind, that the agent of James, in labouring to soften the sincerity of De Thou, must have composed his narrative of the reign of Mary under a strong temptation to suppress truth.

The remaining transactions in Scotland, which at this period form a part of English history, will not occupy a large space. The dominion of Bothwell lasted only a month, and involved in its fall the throne of his wife, thenceforward the most unfortunate of women. He endeavoured to possess himself of the person of the infant prince; but his guilty purpose was defeated by sir James Melville, who confirmed lord Mar, the prince's guardian, in his resolution to save his ward "from the hands of those who had slain his father," especially as Bothwell already boasted among his companions" that he should *Casaubon to Thuanus, 16th Nov. 1610. Id. p. 12. † Same to same, 22d Feb. 1611. Id. p. 14.

warrant the child from revenging his father's death." Melville persuaded Balfour, the governor of the castle of Edinburgh, not to part with it to Bothwell, but to join the lords, who had secretly confederated " to prosecute the murderer and to crown the prince."* Such was the prevalence of the rumours that Bothwell intended to murder the royal infant, that Mary was reduced to the dreadful necessity of disclaiming, in a solemn proclamation, such designs against her own child. On the 6th of June, Bothwell and the queen, to whom one of the confederated lords had revealed the intended revolt, fled from Holyrood House, and sheltered themselves in Borthwick Castle. The lords took possession of Edinburgh, supported by the people, in spite of the efforts of Mary's lieutenants. They published a proclamation against Bothwell and his adherents, charging him with "having made a dishonest marriage with the queen, after having murdered the king, and now gathering a force to cover his intended murder of the prince."

On the 15th of June, precisely a month after the marriage, the queen and Bothwell collected a small army, with few men of importance, at Carberry hill, within a few miles of Edinburgh. She issued a proclamation, offering land producing annually forty pounds to the slayer of an earl, half that sum for the head of a lord, and an estate of ten pounds by the year to him who killed a baron.+ Dismay, the natural effect of an unpopular and odious cause, spread rapidly among men who, with all their vices, were strangers to fear. Le Croc vainly laboured to perform his usual part as mediator. On his assuring the lords of peace and pardon from the queen, the earl of Morton said, " that they would be satisfied with the punishment and removal of the murderer of the late king."- "As to pardon," said the earl of Glencairn, we have not come here to ask pardon for any offence we have done, but rather to grant pardon to those

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* Melv. 180.

+ History of James VI., 14. Baron denoted inferior baron, i. e. landed gentleman.

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