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sent two or three small barks to sea, in pursuit of certain Scottish pirates."* These last words must be considered as substantially an assurance that orders had been given to the commander of the English vessels equivalent to a safe-conduct. A breach of such an assurance would have been as infamous as that of the most formal instrument. The law of nations, which has the imperfection of being destitute of tribunals to decide its disputes, and of force to carry judgments into execution, has, at least, some compensation in being free from pettifogging, and knows little of the distinction between formal and informal instruments.

Though Mary surpassed her cousin both in vivacity and address, Elizabeth had undoubtedly the better cause; and in her last letter showed more prudence. When asked for a favour, she required the payment of a debt of justice. Mary would have forfeited no fair advantage by ratifying the renunciation. Whatever influence Mary might gain in England by declining to renounce a present claim to the crown superior to that of Elizabeth, was evidently inconsistent with her professed desire of peace, and could only be kept up at the expense of the quiet and safety of the English nation. By the renunciation of the claim to possession, on the other hand, the succession of the house of Stuart, after the death of Elizabeth without issue, according to the hereditary nature of the monarchy, was left inviolate. The two claims to possession and succession, so far from being naturally connected, were practically inconsistent. The claim to possession asserted by the arms supposed Elizabeth to be an usurper - the right of succession recognised her as a lawful sovereign.†

The queen of Scots began her voyage about the 14th

* Elizabeth to Mary, 16th Aug. 1561. Robertson's Appendix, No. VI. + Dr. Robertson, a judicious and accurate historian, has argued this case as if the consequence acquired by Mary's pretensions to England were not unlawful; and has confounded the right of succession with the claim to possession. Notwithstanding his general correctness, and his uniform solicitude for truth, he has suffered the words "in all times to come" to slide into his summary of the renunciation, which may seem to favour his argument; though they would, in truth, be of little moment if they were part of the treaty. Robertson, ii. 49. Ed. 1802. 8vo.

of August, 1561: she had been accompanied to Calais by six of her princely uncles, and attended thither by a brilliant company of the lords and ladies of the French court. A smaller number followed her to her kingdom; among whom, fortunately for posterity, was Peter de Bourdeille, lord of Brantome, whose artless and picturesque narrative has furnished to historians the materials of a story which for three centuries has touched the hearts of mankind.

At the moment when the queen was leaving the harbour of Calais, and just before the oars of her galley were first dipped into sea water, a vessel perished before her eyes, from disregarding the soundings and currents, and the greater part of the mariners were lost. On beholding this, Mary exclaimed, "Good God, what an omen for a voyage!" When they had cleared the harbour a breeze sprung up, so that they made sail, and the oars of the galley slaves ceased from their noise. The queen, leaning on both arms, stood on the poop, and, amidst the big tears which fell from her fine eyes, looked back on the port and country which she was quitting, repeating, "Farewell, France! farewell, France!" She continued in this mournful state for some hours, till it waxed dark; and she was entreated to go into the cabin, and eat a little supper. She exclaimed, weeping more plentifully and more bitterly, "It is now, my dear France, that I lose sight of thee: I shall never see thee more." A bed was prepared for her on the poop, where she had some interrupted and disturbed sleep. The steersman awakened her at break of day; for so she had ordered him to do if the French coast were then in view. As it disappeared, she redoubled her farewell ejaculations, exclaiming, "Farewell, France! it is over ; I shall never see thee again:”- -so poignant were the feelings inspired by the affections, the fears, and the recollections of a royal beauty, whose days of magnificence and power were now closed. Let it not be forgotten that the experience of unwonted sorrow disposed her to pity: she did not allow a slave in the gallies to

be struck, requesting, and even expressly commanding, her uncle of Aumale to enforce the execution of her humane orders. The weather was clear till the day before the landing of the vessels, when they were surrounded by a fog so thick that the eye could see no object so far as from poop to prow. They were obliged to cast anchor in open sea, and to take soundings often; and on Monday morning, the 19th of August, when the fog was dispersed, they found themselves so surrounded with rocks, that if they had not stopped they must have perished.*

A small English squadron, sent out, as has been said, in pursuit of Scottish pirates, saw the royal vessels,— saluted them,—and, after searching the baggage vessels for pirates, dismissed the whole convoy amicably, except one vessel, which was suspected of having pirates on board.† That such pirates were then cruising in the Scottish sea is indisputable: for, on the 25th of August, Elizabeth sent to Mary a list of their names, desiring that they might be delivered up to justice; and, on the 6th of September, Mary answered that news of this disorder had reached her before she had left France; that on her arrival in Scotland she had prohibited suspicious cruisers; and that, on the receipt of Elizabeth's letter, she had ordered search to be made for the plunderers. That the English fleet saw the galleys, and might have captured them, is evident from the fact admitted by Cecil, that one of the ships was actually detained. The conduct of the English commanders towards Mary's vessels minutely corresponds with the assurance of Elizabeth, in her letter of the 16th of August, that she suspended her displeasure at the refusal to ratify the treaty, and had given

Brantome, i. 119-125. Edit. Lond. 1779.

Mém. de Castelnau, liv. iii. c. i. Hardw. State Papers, 176. Cecil to Throgmorton. Brantome limits the duration of the fog to the last day. Castelnau mentions that the English vessels were seen from the queen's galleys; which must refer to a time before objects on the prow were invisible from the poop. They both corroborate the intelligence of Cecil.

These last letters (not yet published) are in the State Paper Office. They show that piracy was not a pretext. A letter from Randolph, in March, 1561, speaks of the pirates six months before the queen's voyage.

orders to her naval officers which were equivalent to a safe-conduct.

66

On landing at Leith, the queen and her company were obliged to mount the wretched hackney horses of the country, still more wretchedly caparisoned. The queen burst into tears, exclaiming, " Are these the pomps, the splendours, and the superb animals on which I used to ride in France?" When they arrived at the abbey of Holyrood*, the French courtiers owned that it was a fine building, and that it did not partake of the barbarism of the country. In the evening, however, they were annoyed by a multitude of 500 or 600 persons, who sung Psalms under the windows, an early and offensive badge of their Calvinism,—playing on sorry rebecks and unstrung fiddles, with such neglect of all harmony, that the Parisian connoisseurs thought it worth their while to criticise their performance. Next morning, the queen's chaplain narrowly escaped with his life from the hands of the fanatical rabble, who viewed him with horror as a priest of Baal.† "Such," said the queen, "is the beginning of welcome and allegiance from my subjects: what may be the end I know not; but I venture to foretell that it will be very bad."

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It would have perplexed a philosophical moralist to have estimated the comparative depravity of the country where she had lived, and of the country where she came to rule in falsehood, circumvention, in faithless disregard of engagements, in every black crime which requires hateful forethought and wicked contrivance, the court of Catherine de' Medici was unmatched; in shameless and gross dissolution of manners it surpassed every other the number of political atrocities was probably greater at Paris than at Edinburgh. The guilty deeds to which men are instigated by violent passions were, in all likelihood, most numerous in Scotland: the reformation, which taught more severe manners, had not yet breathed the Christian spirit of love and charity; but from the eye of the young princess the varnish of manner and

* Holy Cross.

† Brantome, i. 123.

pageantry of apparel, however slight and unequal, and the little tincture of arts and letters which began to spread a somewhat fairer hue over the society of France, altogether hid the near approach to equality of the two nations with respect to the weightier matters of the law. Notwithstanding the forebodings of Mary on her arrival, her administration was for several years prudent and prosperous. The presbyterian establishment continued inviolate, without any enquiry into the irregularities of its origin. The revolts against legal authority were overlooked; and an act of oblivion was passed in the parliament of 1564.

During this period, the Scottish policy of Elizabeth continued to be governed by the same principle of countenancing and encouraging the protestant party, her natural and necessary allies. Mary's powerful and ambitious uncles were desirous of extending their sway by the marriage of their niece to a catholic prince. The policy of Elizabeth would disincline her to give that strength to the catholic presumptive heiress which a powerful or able husband would necessarily bestow. But, whatever her inclinations might be, it is not likely that so sagacious a woman would actively pursue a project of perpetual celibacy for a young and beautiful queen. The objects which were perhaps attainable, though with much difficulty, were to prevent her wedding a catholic or a foreign prince; because the latter might have formidable connections, and because he was likely to be of the catholic party.

An Englishman was the person whom it would best suit the queen's policy that Mary should espouse and as Elizabeth had listened without displeasure to the proposal of the states of Scotland, that the earl of Arran should be her husband*, the like tender of the hand of an English subject could not in England be thought derogatory from the honour and dignity of the Scottish queen. Although it was as lawful for Elizabeth to prevent by fair means the accession of

*For this tender see the statute above cited; also the original suggestion, unpublished, in the State Paper Office, in February, 1561: to which queen Elizabeth's answer may be seen in Haynes, 364.

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