133 



MARY. 



MARY STUART. 



131 



papal legate, restoring the authority of the pope, repealing all laws 

 made against the sea of Rome since the 20th of Henry VIII., reviving 

 the anci> nt statutes against heresy, and in short re-establishing the 

 whole national system of religious policy as it had existed previous to 

 the firat innovations made by Heury VIII. By one of the acts of this 

 session of parliament also Philip was authorised to take the title 'of 

 King of England during the queeu's life. All these acts appear to 

 have been passed with scarcely any debate or opposition in either 

 house, except occasionally upon mere points of detail and form. 



The remainder of the history of the reign of Mary is occupied 

 chiefly with the sanguinary persecutions of the adherents to the 

 reformed doctrims. The Protestant writers reckon that about two 

 hundred and eighty victims perished at the stake, from the 4th of 

 February 1555, on which day John Rogers was burnt at Smithfield, 

 to the 10th of November 1558, when the last 'auto-da-fe' of the reign 

 took place by the execution in the same manner of three men and two 

 women at Colchester. Dr. Lingard admits that after expunging from 

 the Protestant lists " the names of all who were condemned as felons 

 or traitors, or who died peaceably in their beds, or who survived the 

 publication of their martyrdom, or who would for their heterodoxy 

 have been sent to the stake by the reformed prelates themselves, had 

 they been in possession of the power," and making every other possible 

 allowance, it will still be found " that in the space of four years almost 

 two hundred persons perished in the flames for religious opinion." 

 Among the moat distinguished sufferers were Hooper bishop of Glou- 

 cester, Ferrar of St. David's, Latimer of Worcester, Ridley of London, 

 and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Oardiner, bishop of Winches- 

 ter and lord chancellor, was Mary's chief minister till hu death in 

 November 1555, after which the direction of affairs fell mostly into 

 the hand* of C'ardinal Pole, who after Cranmer's deposition was made 

 archbi.-ihop of Canterbury; but the notorious Bonner, Ridley's successor 

 in the see of London, has the credit of having been the principal 

 instigator of these atrocities, which, it may te remarked, so far from 

 contributing to put down the reformed doctrines, appear to have had 

 a greater effect in disgusting the nation with tho restored church than 

 all other causes together. At the same time that the new opinions in 

 religion were thus attempted to be extinguished by committing the 

 bodies of those who believed in them to the flames, the queen gave a 

 further proof of the ardour of her own faith by restoring to the church 

 the tenths and first-fruits, with all the rectories, glebe-lands, and tithes 

 that had been annexed to tho crown in the times of her father and 

 brother. She also re-established several of the old religious houses, 

 and endowed them as liberally as her means enabled her. 



Tired both of the country and of his wife, Philip left England, in 

 the beginning of September 1555, and continued absent for about a 

 year and a half. The bond however by which this marriage 

 attached the English court to Spain and the Empire remained the 

 same aa ever; and when, after a short cessation of hostilities, war 

 recommenced in the spring of 1557 between Spain and France, Mary 

 was prevailed upon to join the former against the latter power. The prin- 

 cipal consequence of this step, in so far aa this country was concerned, 

 was the losi of the only remaining English continental possession, the 

 town and territory of Calais, which surrendered to the Duke of Guise, 

 in January 1 558, after a siege of a few days. This event, which was 

 regarded as a na'ional disgrace worse than any mere loss, excited the 

 bitterest feelings of dissatisfaction with the policy of the court; and 

 Mary herself is said never to have recovered from the blow. Some 

 ineffectual efforts were made to retaliate upon France by force of ar.tns ; 

 but at la-t negociations for a peace between the three belligerent powers 

 were opened at Cambray, in the midst of which Qu^en Mary died, 

 worn out with bo iily and mental suffering, on the 17th of November 

 1558, in the forty-third year of her age and the sixth of her reign. 

 She ia affirmed to have said on her deathbed, that if her breast should 

 be opened after her decease, Calais would be found to be written on 

 her heart. Mary left no issue, and wag succeeded on the throne by her 

 half-iter Elizabeth. [ELI/ABETH.] 



MARY, WIFE OF WILLIAM III. [WILLIAM in.] 



MARY STUART, Queen of Scotland, was born on the 7th of 

 December 1542. She wan the third child of king James V. of Scot- 

 land, by his wife Mary of Lorraine, daughter of the duke of Guiae, 

 who had previously borne her husband two sons, both of whom died 

 in infancy. A report prevailed that Mary too was not likely to live ; 

 but being unswaddled by her nurse at the desire of her anxious mother, 

 in presence of the English ambassador, the latter wrote to his court 

 that she was as goodly a child as he had seen of her age. At the time 

 of her birth her father lay sick in the palace of Falkland ; and in the 

 coarse of a few days after he expired, at the early age of thirty, his 

 death being battened by distress nf mind occasioned by the defeats 

 which his nobles had sustained at Fain and Solway Moss. James was 

 naturally a person of console: able- energy and vigour both of mind 

 and botiy, but previous to his death he fell into a state of listlessnesa 

 an I deipondency, and after his decease it was found that he had made 

 no provision for the care of the infant princess, or for the administra- 

 tion of the government. The ambitious Beatoun seized this opportunity, 

 and producing a testament which he pretended was that of the late 

 immediately assumed the oiHoe and title of regent. The fraud 

 wu soon discov. re^i ; but by the haste and imprudence of the regent 

 Arran and Henry VIII. of BngUnd, who wiihed a marriage agreed to 



between his sou and the young queen, Beatoun regained his influence 

 in the country ; and on the 9th of September 1543, Mary was crowned 

 by the archbishop, who was also immediately afterwards appointed 

 lord high chancellor of the kingdom. He had even the address to win 

 over the regent Arran to hU views, both political and religious; and 

 thus the French or Roman Catholic party obtained the ascendancy. 

 The firat two years of Mary's life were spent at Linlitbgow, in the 

 royal palace of which she was born ; she was then removed to Stirling 

 Castle ; and when the disputes of parties in the country rendered this 

 a somewhat dangerous residence, she was carried to Inchmahome, a 

 sequestered island in the Lake of Monteith, where she remained about 

 two years. In the meantime a treaty of marriage had been concluded 

 between her and the Dauphin Francis ; and in terms of the treaty it 

 was resolved she should be sent into France to be educated at the 

 French court, until the nuptials could be solemnised. Accordingly in 

 the fifth year of her age she was taken to Dumbarton, where she was 



?ut on board the French fleet ; and setting sail towards the end of 

 uly 1548, she was, after a tempestuous voyage, landed on the 14th 

 of August at Brest, whence she proceeded by easy stages to the palace 

 at St. Germaiue-en-Laye. 



Soon after her arrival at her destination Mary was placed with the 

 French king's own daughters in one of the first convents of the king- 

 dom, where she made rapid progress in the acquisition of the literature 

 and accomplishments of the age. She did not however remain long 

 in this situation, being soon carried to the court, which, as Robertson 

 observes, was one of the politest but most corrupt in Europe. Here 

 Mary became the envy of her ssx, surpassing the most accomplished 

 in the elegance and fluency of her language, the grace and liveliness of 

 her movements, aud the charm of her whole manner and behaviour. 

 The youthful Francis, to whom she was betrotheJ, aud was soon to be 

 united in wedlock, was about her own age, and tbey had been play- 

 mates from early years : there appears also to have grown up a mutual 

 affection between them ; but the dauphin had little of her vivacity, 

 aud was altogether considerably her inferior both in mental endow- 

 ments and personal appearance. The marriage, which took place on 

 the 24th of April 1558, was celebrated with great pomp, the vaulted 

 roof of the cathedral ringing with the shouts and congratulations of 

 the assembled multitude. 



The solemnities being over, the married pair retired to one of their 

 princely retreats for the summer ; but that season was hardly gone 

 when, a vacancy having occurred on the throne of England by the 

 death of Queen Mary, claims were put forth on behalf of the queen of 

 Scots through her grandmother, who was eldest daughter of King 

 Henry VII. of England ; and notwithstanding that Elizabeth had 

 ascended the throne, and was, like her sister Mary (both daughters of 

 King Henry VIII.), queen both ' de facto ' and by the declaration of 

 the parliament of England, yet this claim for the Scottish princess 

 was made and continued to be urged with great pertinacity by her 

 ambitious uncles the princes of Lorraine. On every occasion on which 

 the dauphin and dauphiness appeared in public, they were ostenta- 

 tiously greeted as the king and queen of England ; the English arms 

 were engraved upon their plate, embroidered on their banners, and 

 painted on their furniture; aud Mary's own favourite device at the 

 time was, the two crowns of France and Scotland, with the motto 

 'Aliamque moratur,' meaning that of England. Henri II. died iu 

 July 1559, and in September of the same year Francis was solemnly 

 crowned at Kheims. Mary was now at the height of her splendour; it 

 was doomed however to be only of short continuance. In June 1560 

 her mother died ; and in December of the same year, her husband, 

 who had been wasting away for some mouths, expired. By this latter 

 event, Catherine de' Medici rose again into power in the French court, 

 and Mary, who did not relish being second where she had beeu the 

 first, immediately determined on quitting France and returning to her 

 native country. The queen of England however interposed ; and as 

 Mary would not abandon all claim to the English throne, refused to 

 grant her a free passage. Mary notwithstanding resolved to go, and 

 at length, after repeated delays, still lingering on the soil where 

 fortune had smiled upon her, she reached Calais. Here she bade adieu 

 to her attendants, and sailed for Scotland ; but as long as the French 

 coast remained in view, she continued involuntarily to exclaim, " Fare- 

 well, France ! Farewell, beloved country ! " She landed at Leith on 

 the 19th of August 1561, in the nineteenth year of her age, and after 

 an absence from .Scotland of nearly thirteen years. Sha was now, in 

 the language of Robertson, " a stranger to her subjects, without 

 experience, without allies, and almost without a friend." 



A great change had taken place in Scotland since Mary was last in 

 the country. The Roman Catholic religion was then supreme ; and 

 under the direction of Cardinal Beatoun the Romish clergy displayed 

 a fierceness of intolerance which seemed to aim at nothing short of 

 the utter extirpation of every seed of dissent and reform. The same 

 causes however which, gave strength to the ecclesiastics gave strength 

 also, though more slowly, to the great body of the people ; und at 

 length, after the repeated losses of Flodden and Fala, and Solway Moss 

 and Pinkey, which, by the fall of nearly the whole lay nobility and 

 leading men of the kingdom, brought all classes within the influence 

 of public events, tht energies, physical and mental, of the entire 

 nation were drawn out, and under the guidance of the reformer Knox 

 expended themselves with the fury of awakened indignation upon tha 



