Ql'EEN MARY. — CARBERRY HILL. 77 



nately slauglitered. The loss, according to the historians of the time, is stated 

 at ten thousand killed, and one thousand five hundred prisoners, on the part 

 of Scotland; and this at an expense of less than two hundred on that of 

 England.* The field is often visited by strangers, who take an interest — and 

 who does not?- -in contemplating a scene with which are incorporated so much 

 noble blood, and so much heroic dust. But to such as are less moved by such 

 associations, the beauty of the surrounding scenery will afford ample indemnifi- 

 cation for the time spent in walking over the ground. 



The last conflict with which this district is so closely identified, and that which 

 awakens a keener sympathy than its predecessor, is the affair of Carberry. 

 By this the Scottish realm was annexed to that of England, and the fairest 

 and most unfortunate sovereign that ever wore its crown, transferred from a 

 throne to a prison — from a prison to a scaffold — and thence to an immortality 

 in which tlie evil she had done must ever be viewed as greatly disproportionate 

 to the vrrongs she endured. 



" A crown and rebel crowds beneath her ; 

 A lofty fate — a lowly fall 1 

 She was a woman — and let all 

 Her faults be buried with her !" 



The spot where she sat to view the battle as a queen — but retired as a captive 

 — is now a wooded height, and the general face of the country changed by many 

 recent embeUishments ; but enough of its primitive features still remains to 

 give the stranger a correct and vivid idea of the relative position of the rival 

 armies. On the eminence, which is now dignified with the epithet of Mary's 

 Mount, she held a conference with Kirkaldy of Grange, who had been com- 

 missioned for that purpose by the confederate lords ; and in the interval thus 

 occupied, Bothwell found means to effect his escape from the field. Assured 

 of his safety, for whom she had sacrificed her own, Mary suffered herself to be 

 conducted into the presence of Morton, and the confederate nobles, by whom 

 she was received with marked respect and loyalty. But the sceptre had virtually 

 dropt from her hand ; and she could now only expect from courtesy, what she 

 could once command. She soon felt that the guardians of her person were 

 no longer men to be won by promises — intimidated by threats — softened by the 



* It is not a little remarkable, that, on a field so nearly contiguous as that of Preston, and after an 

 interval of almost two centuries, victory should have declared itself as decisively in favour of the High- 

 land chiefs, as, in the present instance, it was against them ; and that, in both instances, it should have been 

 the result of panic. 



X 



