He did not

with that of the time and place of fight. neglect the opportunity. At this most critical moment the queen, fearful of being enthralled by the house of Hamilton, and dreading the imposition of one of them upon her as a husband, most unseasonably began a clandestine negotiation with the adverse chiefs, that her dependence might be lightened by her preserving some influence over both parties. When the army was on its march, Argyle was inopportunely attacked by a fit of apoplexy, a circumstance peculiarly injurious in an army where the attachment of friends and followers to a chief was the main bond of authority and discipline. Both parties struggled to obtain possession of a rising ground above the village of Langside. Moray succeeded. He appointed Kirkaldy of Grange, a soldier grown old in continental war, where he earned the esteem of the chief captains of his age, to ride round his line with a small detachment, and aid or animate as the state of things might require. The veteran, having surveyed the ground, caused each of his horsemen to take up a foot soldier behind him, and galloped through a narrow lane to the top of Langside hill, at the highest point of which lane he posted his detachment of infantry with their culverines, covered by cottages and gardens. The queen's army, disappointed in their first object, took post on a lower rising ground immediately adjoining. Some successes were for a short time gained by both parties in their turn. The queen's vanguard, on their march along a lane of forty feet broad, were severely annoyed by the regent's arquebusiers; and on emerging from the lane on the north-east end of the village of Langside, they were received by his vanguard, armed with spears of unusual length, and a conflict took place, in which, for about half an hour, neither party gained much advantage. In about a quarter of an hour after this equal combat, the queen's party began to waver and suddenly took to flight. Macfarlane, the chief of an ancient tribe in the neighbouring country of Lenox, brought 200 of his clansmen to this battle. Calderwood

had been informed that this chief had at one time withdrawn with his followers, and was called back only by the appearance of victory and hope of booty. The accounts sent to England, more just or generous to the mountaineer, ascribe a great share in the event to him. The two statements are not, perhaps, irreconcilable. The most interesting particular of this battle was the unusual clemency of the victor. "The regent," says sir James Melville*, " cried out to save and not to kill. The only slaughter was at the lane head, from the fire of the soldiers whom Kirkaldy had planted there.""The regent sent horsemen all round with a command to spare the men."† "At the moment when the enemy gave way, the earl of Moray willed and required his men to spare bloodshed."+ His exertions were so successful that, though the pursuit was long continued, the whole number killed on the side of the queen did not exceed 200. His mercy did not arise from the dread of retaliation, for he lost no more than two men ; and the accuracy of that enumeration is proved by the remarkable circumstance that the name of one of them, though both were privates, is still preserved.

There are few examples, in the civil dissensions of times accounted the most humane, of so tender a regard to human life as was thus shown by Moray to those among his countrymen who most fiercely sought his destruction.

Mary was so placed as to view from her seat on horseback the chief incidents of an action which decided her fate. Though Melville tells us that she then, for the first time, lost her courage, and abandoned herself to fear, the general temper of that high-minded princess warrants a suspicion that he fell into the vulgar error of taking that for fear which was only a clear and quick perception of danger, without which it is hard

* Melville, 202.

Extract from Calderwood's MS. History. Keith, 479.

Anonymous intelligence from Scotland. State Paper Office MSS. These authorities, from a comparison of which the narrative in the text has been formed, concur in bearing testimony to the anxious and active humanity of the regent.

to make a bold effort either to resist it or to escape it. Her happy conformation, which united the beauty of delicate proportions with healthy vigour and youthful nimbleness; the skilfulness and boldness of her horsemanship, an accomplishment for which she had been celebrated at the court of Paris, stood her in much stead at this moment of disastrous overthrow. Foiled in an attempt to gain Dumbarton Castle, which was garrisoned by her troops, commanded by lord Fleming, she rode on, accompanied by lord Herries, the most tried of her friends, to the abbey of Dundrennan, on the Solway frith, near Kirkudbright, at the distance of sixty miles from the field of battle. At that monastery, of which lord Herries's son was the abbot, she found a short repose, and hoped for opportunities of escape from the resentment of, her people, into a foreign country. But there was neither time, nor calmness, nor, indeed, any subject for long deliberation: unless she preferred the revival of civil war, which held out little prospect of good to her friends, and threatened her with destruction in its most odious form, there was no alternative but a flight to England. Had she tried to reach the rugged territories of Argyle, or the remote domains of Huntly, she must have gone through the disguises, the affronts, the indignities incident to such an attempt; she must patiently have endured the privations, the surprises, the inconveniences, the exposures, the rapid advances, the frequent flights of a mountain war levied by rude and wild tribes, evils from which the nerves of a woman might shrink, without any disparagement to her spirit. It is probable that there was not then a vessel in the Solway frith which would have adventured on a voyage to France, with the chances of capture by Scotch or even English vessels. England, therefore, was the sole asylum. Though Elizabeth had long made common cause with the conquerors, she had shown the utmost displeasure at the extremities which some of them had meditated against the person of their sovereign.

The assurances of Elizabeth, to which Mary afterwards alluded, could not have imported any promise of asylum, the necessity for which could not have been felt, till the moment of need had arrived. Nevertheless, it is probable that Mary considered the late friendly behaviour of her cousin of England as ground enough for expecting a welcome reception. But stern necessity now left her no other choice. However she might then or afterwards represent herself as voluntarily trusting to her royal sister's affection or justice, England was, in truth, her only refuge from pursuers now likely to be uncontrollable and inexorable. Desirous, however, to preserve some appearance of liberty, she directed lord Herries, on Saturday, the 15th of May, to write a letter to Mr. Lowther, the governor of Carlisle, desiring to know whether, if the queen were compelled to seek refuge in England, she might come safely to Carlisle. He answered, that, being without instructions, and in the absence of lord Scroop, the warden of the borders, he could only promise to receive her with due honour at Carlisle, and to keep her in safety till the pleasure of the queen of England was known. She could not, however, wait for the answer; but embarked from Dundrennan on Sunday, with lord Herries and about twenty companions, guarded by a company of soldiers in a fishing boat, which landed them the same evening at Workington, a small town near the mouth of the Derwent, distant about sixteen miles from the place of their embarkation, which must have been either the mouth of the Dee or that of the Nith. At this moment were closed for ever the dignity, the power, the personal liberty of the queen of Scotland; whose early life shone with more unclouded splendour, and whose later years were darkened by more unremitting adversity, than have fallen to the lot of any other royal lady whose fortunes have been the subject of authentic history. The sequel of our undertaking will oblige us to return to her life in England, when her mind, ennobled by calamity, and taught to

feel horror against wrong, by suffering from the vices of others, will be contemplated in a purer light.

The council of Elizabeth were called upon by the arrival of Mary to determine questions of no small moment, of which the decision was rendered difficult by considerations, apparently conflicting, of justice as well as of convenience. The papers of Cecil, which are still extant, contain a careful comparison of the various plans of policy to be adopted towards the illustrious suppliant, under the heads of justice, expediency, necessity, or facility; an enumeration which seems to exhaust every member of the subject under consideration.* "The best way for England, but not the easiest," was, "that the queen of Scots might continue to be deprived of the crown, and that the government of that country might remain in the same hands." The second mode was 66 profitable for England, but not so hard;" which was, "that the queen and her son should be jointly vested with the sovereignty, with a truce in Scotland, a meeting of the Scottish parliament, and a limitation of the queen's power in appointments to office, or in measures of state." It was considered as desirable that the young king should be educated in England; that his mother should remain there twelve months, and should not leave that country without licence from Elizabeth. In another paper, dated in May, 1568, he represents it to be essential to ascertain whether there be positive proof of Mary's accession to her husband's murder, with a view to the propriety of acceding to her demand of an interview with Elizabeth; and in order that, if evidently innocent, she might be restored, or that, even if guilty, she might be guarded against violence; though her restoration must, in the latter case, be accompanied with conditions which * In an unpublished MS. of Cecil, entitled Zubovλrizn, these heads re presented thus:

This paper, in the State Paper Office, is not dated, but was probably written on the news of Mary's crossing the Solway, and certainly within a month of that event.