The Mystery Of Mary Stuart - free ebook by Andrew Lang

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The Mystery Of Mary Stuart

Andrew Lang

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THE MYSTERY OF MARY STUART

THE MYSTERY OF MARY STUART

BY THE SAME AUTHOR. A MONK OF FIFE. Crown 8vo. 3 s. 6 d. ANGLING SKETCHES. Crown 8vo. 3 s. 6 d. BALLADS OF BOOKS. Fcp. 8vo. 6 s. BAN AND ARRIÈRE BAN. Fcp. 8vo. [ Out of print. BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS. Crown 8vo. 3 s. 6 d. BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. Fcp. 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. net . COCK LANE AND COMMON-SENSE. Crown 8vo. 3 s. 6 d. COMPANIONS OF PICKLE. 8vo. 16 s. CUSTOM AND MYTH. Crown 8vo. 3 s. 6 d. ESSAYS IN LITTLE. Crown 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. GRASS OF PARNASSUS. Fcp. 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. net . HOMER AND THE EPIC. Crow

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PREFACE

PREFACE

In revising this book I have corrected a number of misreadings in the Arabic numerals of dates of years. I owe much to Mr. David Bruce-Gardyne and Mr. Hay Fleming. In deference to other criticisms offered privately, I have somewhat modified certain phrases about the hypothetical forged letter, as quoted by Moray and Lennox (pp. 211-236). That such a letter once existed is, of course, an inference on which readers must form their own opinion. The passage as to the site of Darnley’s house, Kirk o’

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Carlyle not unjustly described the tragedy of Mary Stuart as but a personal incident in the true national History of Scotland. He asked for other and more essential things than these revelations of high life. Yet he himself wrote in great detail the story of the Diamond Necklace of Marie Antoinette. The diamonds of the French, the silver Casket of the Scottish Queen, with all that turned on them, are of real historical interest, for these trifles brought to the surface the characters and pri

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Errata

Errata

Page 38, lines 20-23, the sentence should read : Holyrood is altered by buildings of the Restoration; where now is the chapel where Mary prayed, and the priests at the altar were buffeted? Page 165, line 21, for Blackadder, read Blackader. Page 175, line 18, for Mr. James Spens, read Mr. John Spens. Pages 196-205, 320, 355: Melville was not ‘the bearer,’ as erroneously stated in Bain, ii. 336. THE MYSTERY OF MARY STUART...

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I

I

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ History is apt to be, and some think that it should be, a mere series of dry uncoloured statements. Such an event occurred, such a word was uttered, such a deed was done, at this date or the other. We give references to our authorities, to men who heard of the events, or even saw them when they happened. But we, the writer and the readers, see nothing: we only offer or accept bald and imperfect information. If we try to write history on another method, we become ‘picturesque:’ w

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II

II

THE MINOR CHARACTERS Having sketched the chief actors in this tragedy, we may glance at the players of subordinate parts. They were such men as are apt to be bred when a religious and social Revolution has shaken the bases of morality, when acquiescence in theological party cries confers the title of ‘godly:’ when the wealth of a Church is to be won by cunning or force, and when feudal or clan loyalty to a chief is infinitely more potent than fidelity to king, country, and the fundamental laws o

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III

III

THE CHARACTERS BEFORE RICCIO’S MURDER After sketching the characters and scenes of the tragedy, we must show how destiny interwove the life-threads of Bothwell and Mary. They were fated to come together. She was a woman looking for a master, he was a masterful and, in the old sense of the word, a ‘masterless’ man, seeking what he might devour. In the phrase of Aristotle, ‘Nature wishes ’ to produce this or that result. It almost seems as if Nature had long ‘wished’ to throw a Scottish Queen into

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IV

IV

BEFORE THE BAPTISM OF THE PRINCE Mary’s task was ‘to quieten the country,’ a task perhaps impossible. Her defenders might probably make a better case for her conduct and prudence, at this time, than they have usually presented. Her policy was, if possible, to return to the state of balance which existed before her marriage. She must allay the Protestants’ anxieties, and lean on their trusted Moray and on the wisdom of Lethington. But gratitude for the highest services compelled her to employ Hun

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V

V

BETWEEN THE BAPTISM AND THE MURDER Mary passed from Craigmillar and Edinburgh to the baptism of her son James at Stirling. The 17th December, 1566, was the crowning triumph of her life, and the last. To the cradle came the Ambassadors of France and England bearing gifts: Elizabeth, the child’s godmother, sent a font of enamelled gold. There were pageants and triumphs, fireworks, festivals, and the chanting of George Buchanan’s Latin elegiacs on Mary, the Nympha Caledoniæ , with her crowns of Vir

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VI

VI

THE MURDER OF DARNLEY It is not easy for those who know modern Edinburgh to make a mental picture of the Kirk o’ Field. To the site of that unhappy dwelling the Professors now daily march, walking up beneath the frowning Castle, from modern miles of stone and mortar which were green fields in Mary’s day. The students congregate from every side, the omnibuses and cabs roll by through smoky, crowded, and rather uninteresting streets of shops: the solid murky buildings of the University look down o

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VII

VII

THE CONFESSIONS OF PARIS Fatal depositions, if trustworthy, are those of the valet lent by Bothwell to Mary, on her road to Glasgow, in January, 1567. The case of Paris is peculiar. He had escaped with Bothwell, in autumn, 1567, to Denmark, and, on October 30, 1568, he was extradited to a Captain Clark, a notorious character. On July 16, 1567, the Captain had killed one Wilson, a seaman ‘much esteemed by the Lords,’ of Moray’s faction. They had quarrelled about a ship that was ordered to pursue

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VIII

VIII

MARY’S CONDUCT AFTER THE MURDER Nothing has damaged Mary’s reputation more than her conduct after the murder of Darnley. Her first apologist, Queen Elizabeth, adopted the line of argument which her defenders have ever since pursued. On March 24, 1567, Elizabeth discussed the matter with de Silva. Her emissary to spy into the problem, Killigrew, had dined in Edinburgh at Moray’s house with Bothwell, Lethington, Huntly, and Argyll. All, except Moray, were concerned in the crime, and this circumsta

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IX

IX

THE EMERGENCE OF THE CASKET LETTERS I. First hints of the existence of the letters The Lords, as we have seen, nominally rose in arms to punish Bothwell (whom they had acquitted), to protect their infant Prince, and to rescue Mary, whom they represented as Bothwell’s reluctant captive. Yet their first success, at Carberry Hill, induced them, not to make Bothwell prisoner, but to give him facilities of escape. Their second proceeding was, not to release Mary, but to expose her to the insults of t

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X

X

THE CASKET LETTERS II. A POSSIBLY FORGED LETTER Were the documents in the possession of the Lords, after June 21, those which they later exhibited before Elizabeth’s Commissioners at Westminster (December, 1568)? Here we reach perhaps the most critical point in the whole inquiry. A Letter to Bothwell, attributed to Mary, was apparently in the hands of the Lords (1567-1568), a Letter which was highly compromising, but never was publicly produced . We first hear of this Letter by a report of Moray

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XI

XI

THE LETTERS AT THE CONFERENCE OF YORK In tracing the history of the mysterious letter cited by Moray in July, 1567, and by Lennox about July, 1568, we have been obliged to diverge from the chronological order of events. We must return to what occurred publicly, as regards the Letters, after Throckmorton was told of their existence, by Lethington in Scotland in July, 1567. Till May, 1568, Mary remained a prisoner in Loch Leven. For some time after July, 1567, we hear nothing more of the Letters.

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XII

XII

THE LETTERS AT WESTMINSTER AND HAMPTON COURT The Commission opened on November 25 at Westminster, after Elizabeth had protested that she would not ‘take upon her to be judge.’ [300] On the 26th Moray put in a written Protestation, as to their reluctance in accusing Mary. They then put in an ‘Eik,’ or addition, with the formal charge. [301] On the 29th November, the Lords said that this charge might be handed to Mary’s Commissioners. Lennox appeared as an accuser, and put in ‘A Discourse of the U

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XIII

XIII

MARY’S ATTITUDE AFTER THE CONFERENCE The haggling was not ended. On December 16, 1568, Elizabeth offered three choices to Lesley: Mary might send a trusty person with orders to make a direct answer; or answer herself to nobles sent by Elizabeth; or appoint her Commissioners, or any others, to answer before Elizabeth’s Commissioners. [324] Lesley fell back on Elizabeth’s promises: and an anecdote about Trajan. On December 23 or 24, Mary’s Commissioners received a letter by her written at Bolton o

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XIV

XIV

INTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE LETTERS Letter I This Letter, usually printed as Letter I., was the first of the Casket Letters which Mary’s accusers laid before the Commission of Inquiry at Westminster (December 7, 1568). [332] It does not follow that the accusers regarded this Letter as first in order of composition. There exists a contemporary copy of an English translation, hurriedly made from the French; the handwriting is that of Cecil’s clerk. The endorsing is, as usual, by a Scot, and runs, ‘An

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XV

XV

THE SIX MINOR CASKET LETTERS If the accusers had authentic evidence in Letters I. and II., they needed no more to prove Mary’s guilt. But the remaining six Letters bear on points which they wished to establish, such as Mary’s attempt to make her brother, Lord Robert, assassinate her husband, and her insistence on her own abduction. There are some difficulties attendant on these Letters. We take them in order. First Letter III. (or VIII.). This Letter, the third in Mr. Henderson’s edition, is the

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XVI

XVI

THE CASKET SONNETS When the ‘Detection’ of Buchanan was first published, La Mothe Fénelon, French ambassador in England, writing to Charles IX., described the Sonnets as the worst, or most compromising, of all the evidence. They never allude to Darnley, and must have been written after his death. As is well known, Brantôme says that such of Mary’s verses as he had seen were entirely unlike the Casket Sonnets, which are ‘too rude and unpolished to be hers.’ Ronsard, he adds, was of the same opini

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XVII

XVII

CONCLUSIONS AS TO THE LETTERS AND THE POSSIBLE FORGERS A few words must be said as to a now obsolete difficulty, the question as to the language in which the Letters were originally written. That question need not be mooted: it is settled by Mr. Henderson’s ‘Casket Letters.’ The original language of the epistles was French. I. The epistles shown at Westminster were certainly in French, which was not (except in the first one or two sentences) the French later published by the Huguenots. That Fren

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XVIII

XVIII

LATER HISTORY OF CASKET AND LETTERS The best official description of the famous Casket is in the Minutes of the Session of Commissioners at Westminster, on December 7, 1568. It was ‘a small gilt coffer, not fully one foot long, being garnished in many places with the Roman ( Italic ) letter F set under a king’s crown.’ This minute is in the hand of Cecil’s clerk, and is corrected by Cecil. [397] The Casket was obviously long in shape, not square, like a coffer decorated with Mary’s arms, as Dowa

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APPENDIX A

APPENDIX A

THE SUPPOSED BODY OF BOTHWELL Monsieur Jusserand, the well-known writer on English and Scottish literature, has kindly allowed me to print the following letter on the burial-place of Bothwell, and on the body which is traditionally regarded as his corpse. Légation de France, à Copenhague, December 26, 1900. My dear Lang ,—Our poor Queen’s last scoundrel lies low in a darksome place. The Faarvejle church is quite isolated on a little eminence formerly washed by the water of a fiord now dried up (

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APPENDIX B

APPENDIX B

THE BURNING OF LYON KING OF ARMS Among the mysteries of Mary’s reign, none is more obscure than the burning of Sir William Stewart, the Lyon King at Arms: at St. Andrews, in August, 1569. In 1560, Stewart was Ross Herald, and carried letters between Mary and Elizabeth. [404] On February 11, 1568, when Moray was Regent, we find Stewart sent on a mission to Denmark. He was to try to obtain the extradition of Bothwell, or, at least, to ask that he might be more strictly guarded. [405] Now we know t

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APPENDIX C

APPENDIX C

THE DATE OF MARY’S VISIT TO GLASGOW The question of the possibility that Letter II. may be authentic turns on dates. If the Lords are right in declaring, in ‘Cecil’s Journal,’ that Mary left Edinburgh on January 21, 1567, and arrived in Glasgow on January 23, then the evidence of the Letter is incompatible with that of Paris, and one or both testimonies must be abandoned. They fare no better if we accept the statement of Drury, writing from Berwick, that Mary entered Glasgow on January 22. It is

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APPENDIX D

APPENDIX D

THE BAND FOR DARNLEY’S MURDER This Band, which is constantly cited in all the troubles from 1567 to 1586, is a most mysterious document. We have seen that Mary’s secretary, Nau, wilfully or accidentally confuses it with an anti-Darnley band signed by Morton, Moray, and many others, early in October, 1566. We have also seen that Randolph, in 1570, distinguishes between this ‘old band’ and the band for the murder, which, he says, Lethington and Balfour abstracted from a little coffer in the Castle

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APPENDIX E

APPENDIX E

THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE CASKET LETTERS The casual treatment of the Casket Letters by Mary’s accusers, and by the English Commissioners, is demonstrated by an inspection of the texts as they now exist. One thing is absolutely certain, the Letters were produced, at Westminster and Hampton Court, in the original French, whether that was forged, or garbled, or authentic. This is demonstrated by the occurrence, in the English translation, of the words ‘I have taken the worms out of his nose.’ This ug

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THE CASKET LETTERS

THE CASKET LETTERS

I print the Scots Texts with one or two variations from C (the Cambridge MS.) and Y (the Yelverton MS.). The English Texts are given, where they are not merely taken direct from the Scots translations; these and Crawford’s Deposition are from MSS. in the Record Office and Hatfield Calendar. Letter I Letter II Letter III ORIGINAL FRENCH VERSION AT HATFIELD (See Calendar of Hatfield Manuscripts, vol. i. pp. 376-77.) J’ay veille plus tard la hault que je n’eusse fait si ce neust esté pour tirer c

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CRAWFORD’S DEPOSITION

CRAWFORD’S DEPOSITION

(State Papers, Scotland, Elizabeth, vol. xiii. No. 14. Cal. Foreign State Papers, Elizabeth, vol. viii. No. 954, February 1566-7.) The Wordes betwixt the Q. and me Thomas Crawforde bye the waye as she came to Glasco to fetche the kinge, when mye L. my Master sent me to showe her the cause whye he came not to mete her him sellfe. Firste I made my L. mye masters humble com̃endac̃ons vnto her Ma ti w th thexcuse y t he came not to mete her praing her grace not to thinke it was eath r for prowdnesse

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