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was, however, only apparent; the just indignation of Mary against Darnley continually broke out. "I could perceive nothing," said Melville, "but a great grudge that she had in her heart. He moves about alone; few

dare to bear him company."

The unpopular influence of Bothwell increased: he, with Huntly and the bishop of Ross, laboured to undermine the reviving ascendant of Moray, the sole stay of public quiet. Darnley complained to his wife that he was not trusted with authority; that no one attended him; and that the nobility shunned his society.*" Bothwell," says Killigrew, the new English minister, "is thought, and said, to have more credit with the queen than all the rest. Leslie, bishop of Ross, doth manage all her state affairs."+ Such was the displeasure of the contemptible youth, her husband, that, in his despair, he conceived the wild project of leaving Scotland; and had actually prepared a vessel to convey him to the continent, either to appeal to the compassion of foreign princes, or to escape from the odium which surrounded him. On the 5th of August the earl of Bedford informed Cecil, that "the king and queen agree worse than before. She eateth seldom with him, and does not keep company with him; nor loveth any such as love him. It cannot, for the sake of modesty, nor consistently with the honour of a queen, be reported what she said of him." § On the 15th of September he came to the queen at Edinburgh, to make known to her his chimerical scheme for leaving Scotland he refused to enter, because he found that she was in council with three or four lords. She, however, condescended so far as to meet him without the palace, and conducted him to her own apartment, where he passed the night. After much conversation, in which he denied that he had any discontent, he said, "Adieu, madam; you shall not see my face for a long time." A * Keith, 350.

+ 24th June, 1566, MSS. State Paper Office.

Privy council of Scotland to the queen mother of France. Edinb. 8th Oct. 1566. Lecroc to archbishop of Glasgow, 15th Oct. 1566. Jedburgh. Keith, 345, 350.

Robertson's App. xvii.

project so absurd died out of itself. Meantime, Mary gave suspicious marks of her partiality for Bothwell, in the course of journeys towards the borders, of which he was warden. That lord being wounded in one of the accustomed affrays by a border laird named Elliot, the queen made a journey of twenty miles on horseback to visit him; and returned on the same day to Jedburgh, where the assizes were held. It was then generally suspected that her visit was prompted by passion, and her return hastened by shame. On the 17th of October, the day after her return, she was seized with a dangerous fever in consequence of her violent exertion. Bothwell came to her as soon as he could travel. "Darnley followed her about," says Melville," wherever she went; but he could get no good countenance." "As soon," says a contemporary writer, as he understood her visitation, he addressed himself with expedition towards her, although he was not welcomed as was fit." +

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The queen, on her recovery, went to Craigmillar Castle, near Edinburgh, in November, where she showed such marks of despondency and depression as often to cry out, "I wish that I were dead." The lords who attended her had so little doubt of the source of this despairing language, that they proposed to her their assistance in obtaining a divorce. In answer to Lethington she said, that she might consider such a proposition, if it were to be carried on lawfully, and without prejudice to the rights of her son. "Think not," said Lethington, "that we, your principal nobles, would not find the means to be quit of him without damage to the prince ; and though my lord of Moray be little less scrupulous

* Melville, 173.

Historie of James VI. 4th ed. Edin. 1825. Crauford of Drumsoy, historio.. grapher of Scotland in the reign of queen Anne, had so falsified this work, to suit the politics of a Stuart reign, as to render his publication of it in all important particulars a forgery; which was indeed intimated by Keith, and almost owned by Whitaker; but was first completely detected by my excellent friend, Mr. Laing. Mr. Chalmers's observations on the delay of a few days in the journey to Hermitage are very satisfactorily obviated by the account of this writer. "Understanding the certainty of this accident, she was so highly commoved in mind, that she took no repose in body till she saw him." p. 2.

Le Croc, Disp. 2d Dec. 1566. Keith's pref. vii.

"Let

for a protestant than your grace is for a papist, I am sure he will look through his fingers to our doings, saying nothing to the same." * The queen hinted at scruple and reluctance. Lethington concluded, us guide the matter, and you shall see nothing but what is approved in parliament." This conversation was natural, if applied in its literal meaning to a legal divorce, which it was commonly believed that Thornton had been sent by the queen to solicit at Rome.† That it related solely to such a proceeding, is apparent from the number of persons who were present; from the scruples spoken of, as founded on two opposite systems of religion; and from the reference to a parliamentary ratification. It was necessary, for the honour of the queen, that the proposition to which she patiently listened, and to which she annexed serious conditions, should have been in its nature innocent. Mary's objection to a legal divorce was, by either system of religion, very forcible: for, on catholic principles, there could hardly be any dissolution of marriage except as a consequence of a sentence pronouncing its original nullity, which would bastardise the prince; while, according to the creed of the Scottish reformers, a divorce, allowing the innocent party to marry, was scarcely allowed; and the capital punishment of the offender was proposed as a preferable remedy. The reference to parliament demonstrates that a legal divorce only was contemplated at Craigmillar, and indeed it is not credible that men of sound mind, however depraved, should, so soon after a hurried and superficial reconciliation, trust each other so far as to consult together about a project for the most hazardous of murders. In order to make Moray a party to a black project, blind zeal has represented this conversation as a proposal to put Darnley to death, without adverting to the improbabilities now mentioned, and without considering that such a supposition brings on the queen the imputation of having patiently listened to a plan for the murder of her husband.

Keith's App. 138. This is the account laid by the queen's friends, Huntly and Argyle, before Elizabeth. Robertson's App. xvi.

+ Randolph to Cecil, 25th April, 1566.

Knox's Confession of Faith, 1560, article "Marriage." Spottiswood, 172.

But the conversation at Craigmillar, though it did not contemplate violence, is a decisive proof of the daring hopes of Bothwell, and of the irrecoverable alienation of the queen from her undeserving husband, On the 2d of December, Le Croc despairs of a good understanding between Darnley and Mary, without a special interposition of Providence. "The king," says he, "will not humble himself enough; and the queen cannot see a single nobleman speak to him without suspecting a contrivance."* The baptism of the young prince was performed at Stirling on the 17th day of December, with due solemnity and magnificence, before the earl of Bedford, who was sent by Elizabeth, and the count de Brienne, who was chosen by Charles IX., to represent their sovereigns at this august ceremony, which deeply interested nations. Darnley alone, though mocked with the royal title, was excluded from the christening of his son, by the discouraging treatment which he received from the queen, and the universal alienation of the nobility: he desired an interview with Le Croc three times on the day of the baptism; but Le Croc answered, that, "seeing he was in no good correspondence with the queen, the ambassador was instructed by the most Christian king to have no conference with him." +

While Darnley was thus degraded in the eyes of his country and of Europe,-while he was treated as one who had forfeited the outward distinctions of a husband and a father, to say nothing of his dignity as a titular king, Bothwell had been chosen to receive the two ambassadors, and to direct the ceremonial of the christening; a choice which displeased the nobility. Darnley left

Stirling privately, and without taking leave of the queen, on the evening of the 24th of December, to take shelter from such public affronts in his father's house at Glasgow. At the same time, Mary passed the festive season of

* Le Croc_evidently ascribes the estrangement as much, at least, to the queen as to Darnley.

+ Le Croc's despatch, 23d Dec. 1566.

Sir John Foster to Cecil, 4th Dec. 1566. Robertson's App. xvii.

Christmas at Drummond Castle and Tullibardine, the residences of two noble families in the neighbourhood. On hearing that her husband was attacked by the smallpox, she sent her physician to him.* The visit which she at length made to him occurred at a remarkable moment. Her first known separation from Bothwell was in the end of January, 1567. About the 20th of that month, we learn from lord Morton's dying confession, that Bothwell went to Whittingham, and proposed to Morton to take a part in the murder of the king; which Morton refused without a written order of the queen, from whom Bothwell alleged that he had a verbal authority to propose this crime.† On the 20th of January, Mary speaks to her minister at Paris of her husband in the following terms: "For the king our husband, God knows our part towards him, and his behaviour and thankfulness are likewise well known to God and the world: our subjects see it, and in their hearts doubtless condemn it." Within a day of writing this letter Mary went to Glasgow, to persuade her husband to accompany her to Edinburgh, necessarily with the appearance of perfect reconciliation, and probably with those professions of affection which, in so close a relation, were necessary to obliterate all the angry remembrances of a long and apparently eternal quarrel. It may be doubted whether there be any instance of heartfelt forgiveness by a proud and beautiful queen, who had suffered such indignities as Darnley poured on her during the murder of Rizzio. But if she abstained from retaliation, and had silenced vindictive passion, the merit of her magnanimity would be rather tarnished than brightened by an affectation of tenderness for the assassin of her minister and the slanderer of her own honour. Such forgiveness was rendered more difficult by the innumerable proofs of displeasure which seemed so many public pledges of her steadiness. If she ever remitted her dissatisfaction, it seems only to have been when she had a purpose to serve. Within a few

236.

There was then only one medical practitioner in Scotland.-Scaligerana,

† State Trials, i.

Keith.

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