MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 



75 



were based on her nearness of succession to the 

 English crown ; and both these, it was thought, 

 might be more successfully followed out when she 

 was seated on her native throne. 



She sailed from Calais on the 15th, and arrived 

 at Leith on the 19th August 1561, having escaped 

 the English ships of war which Elizabeth de- 

 spatched to intercept her. Her government began 

 auspiciously. The Reformation claimed to have 

 received the sanction of the Scottish parliament, 

 and if Mary did not formally acknowledge the 

 claim, she was at least content to leave afl'airs as 

 she found them, stipulating only for liberty to use 

 JUT own religion a liberty which Knox and a few 

 of tlie more extreme Reformers denounced as a sin 

 against the law of God. She is said to have re- 

 jected the violent counsels of the Unman Catholics ; 

 it is certain that slie surrounded herself with 

 Protestant advisers, tier chief minister being her 

 illegitimate brother, James Stuart, whom she soon 

 afterwards created Earl of Moray. Under his 

 guidance, in tlie autumn of 1562, slie made a pro- 

 gress to the north, which, whatever was his design, 

 ended in the defeat and death of tlie Earl of 

 Hunt ly, the powerful chief of the Roman Catholic 

 party in Scotland. For the Cliastelard episode, 

 see CHASTELARD. 



Meanwhile the courts of Europe were busy 

 with schemes for Mary's marriage. The king 

 of Sweden, the king of Denmark, the king of 

 France, the Archduke Charles of Austria, Don 

 Carlos of Spain, the Duke of Ferrara, the Duke 

 of Nemours, tlie Duke of Anjou, the Scottish 

 Earl of Arran, and the English Earl of Leicester 

 were proposed as candidates for her ham!. 

 Her own preference was for Don Carlos, the 

 heir of what was then the greatest monarchy in 

 Christendom ; ami it was not until all hopes of 

 obtaining liim were quenched that she thought 

 seriously of any other. Her choice fell, somewhat 

 suddenly, on her cousin, Henry Stewart, Lord 

 Darnley, son of the Earl of Lennox, by his mar- 

 riage with a granddaughter of King Henry VII. 

 of Kngland. He was thus among the nearest heirs 

 to the English crown, and his claims to the suc- 

 ri-ii in were Iwlieveil to have the support of the 

 great body of English Roman Catholics. Hut 

 except this and his good looks he had no other 

 recommendation. He was weak, needy, insolent, 

 and vicious ; his religion, such as it was, was 

 Roman Catholic ; his house had few friends and 

 many enemies in Scotland ; and he was three 

 vt-ars younger than Mary. Her best friqpils, 

 both Uoinaii Catholic and Protestant, warned her 

 against him, but ill vain. The marriage was cele- 

 brated at Holyrood on the 29th July 1505. It was 

 the signal for an insurrection by Moray and the 

 Hamiltons, who hoped to be joined by the whole 

 Protestant party. Hut their hope was disappointed ; 

 and the queen, taking the field in person, at once 

 quelled the revolt, and chased the rebels beyond 

 the Tweed. 



Her triumph was scarcely over when mis- 

 understandings liegan to arise between her and 

 her liu.iliaml. Darnley's worthlessness and folly 

 Ixraiiie only too apparent ; she was disgusted by 

 liis debauchery, and alarmed by his arrogance and 

 ambition. She had given him tlie title of king, 

 but, In- now demanded that the crown should lie 

 secured to him for life, and that, if the queen died 

 without issue, it should descend to his heirs. Mary 

 hesitated to comply with a demand wliich would 

 have set aside the settled order of succession ; and 

 what she refused to grant by favour the king pre- 

 pared to extort by force. 



Mary's chief minister, since Moray's reliellion, 

 hail U-en l)avid lti//io, a mean-looking Italian, of 

 great astuteness and many accomplishments, but 



generally hated beyond the palace walls as a base- 

 born foreigner, a court favourite, and a Roman 

 Catholic. The king and Rizzio had been sworn 

 friends, sharing the same table, and even sleeping 

 in the same bed ; but the king was now persuaded 

 that it was Rizzio who was the real obstacle to his 

 designs upon the crown. In this belief, he entered 

 into a formal compact with Moray, Ruthven, 

 Morton, and other chiefs of tlie Protestant party, 

 undertaking, on his part, to prevent their attainder, 

 or procure their pardon, and to support and advance 

 the Protestant religion ; while they, on the other 

 part, bound themselves to procure the settlement 

 of the crown upon him ana his heirs, and to take 

 and slay, if need were, even in the queen's palace 

 and presence, every one who opposed it. The 

 result of this conspiracy was the murder of Rizzio 

 on the 9th of March 1566, the king leading the way 

 into the queen's cabinet, and holding her in his 

 grasp, while the murderers dragged the poor Italian 

 into an ante-chamber, and, mangling his body with 

 more than fifty wounds, completed what they 

 deemed a justifiable act. When Mary learned 

 what liad been done she broke out in reproaches 

 against the king as being the chief cause of the 

 deed. ' I shall be your wife no longer,' she told 

 him, 'and shall never like well till I cause you 

 have as sorrowful a heart as I have at this present.' 

 As had been agreed beforehand among the con- 

 spirators, Mary was kept prisoner in Holyrood ; 

 while the king, of his own authority, dismissed 

 the parliament which was al>out to forfeit Moray 

 and his associates in the late insurrection. The 

 plot was thus far successful ; but Mary no sooner 

 perceived its objects than she set herself at work 

 to defeat them. Dissembling her indignation at her 

 (midland's treachery and the savage outrage of 

 which he hail been the ringleader, she succeeded by 

 lier blandishments in detaching him from the con- 

 spirators, and in persuading him not only to escape 

 with her from their power by a midnight flight to 

 Dunbar, but to issue a proclamation in which he 

 denied all complicity in their designs. The con- 

 spiracy was now at an end ; Ruthveu and Morton 

 fled to England, while Moray was received by the 

 queen ; and the king, hated by both sides, because 

 he liad betrayed botJi sides, became an object of 

 mingled abhorrence and contempt. 



It was an aggravation of the murder of Rizzio 

 that it was committed, if not in the queen's presence, 

 at least within a few yards of her person, only- 

 three months before she gave birth (on the 19th 

 June 1566) to tlie prince who became James VI. 

 As that event drew near, the queen's affection 

 for her husband seemed to revive ; but the change 

 was only momentary ; and before the boy's baptism, 

 in Decemlmr, her estrangement from the king was 

 greater than ever. Divorce was openly discussed 

 in lier presence, and darker designs were not 

 obscurely hinted at among her friends. The king, 

 on his part, spoke of leaving the country ; but 

 before liis preparations were completed he fell ill 

 of the smallpox at Glasgow. This was about the 

 9th of January 1567. On tlie 25th Mary went to 

 see liim, and, "travelling by easy stages, brought 

 liim to Edinburgh on the 31st. He was lodged in 

 a small mansion beside the Kirk of the Field, nearly 

 on the spot where tlie south-east corner of the 

 university now stands. There Mary visited him 

 daily, and slept for two nights in a room below his 

 tedchamber. She passed the evening of Sunday 

 the 9th of February by his bedside, talking cheer- 

 fully and affectionately with him, although she is 

 said to have dropped one remark which gave him 

 uneasy forebodings that it was much about that 

 time twelvemonth that Rizzio was murdered. She 

 left him between ten and eleven o'clock to take 

 part in a masque at Holyrood, at the marriage of 



