Volume II Part 2 (2/2)

Buchanan himself is forced to allow, that affairs took a very different turn fro abated, partly by time, and partly by the consideration of the uncertainty of human affairs, commiseration succeeded; nay, some of the nobility did then no less bewail the Queen's calamity than they had before execrated her cruelty”[112] The truth is, that Mary's friends were at this time much more numerous than her enemies; but unfortunately they were not sufficiently unanimous in their councils, to be able to take any decisive steps in her behalf

Morton earnestly laboured to increase the popularity of his faction by every means in his power To please the multitude, he apprehended several persons, who ih he probably knew them to be innocent, they were all condemned and executed, with the exception of Sebastian, the Queen's servant, as seized with the view of casting suspicion on Mary herself, but who contrived to escape[113] Thus, they who bla the murderers, were able to console themselves with the reflection, that, under the new order of things, persons were iniquitously executed for the sake of appearances, by those who had theainst Bothwell himself, Morton, for his own sake, proceeded with more caution It was not till the 26th of June, that letters were addressed to the keeper of the Castle at Dunbar, ordering hie, because he had received and protected Bothwell; and, on the sa the moderate reward of a thousand crowns to any one who should apprehend the Earl[114] It is singular that these Lords, ere so fully convinced of his criminality, not only allowed him to depart unmolested from Carberry Hill, but took no steps, for ten days afterwards, towards securing his person

The precise period at which Bothwell left Dunbar, the efforts he eneral, most of the particulars of his subsequent fate, are not accurately known He entered, no doubt, into correspondence with the noblemen assembled at Haement, as it was the Queen's cause, not his, in which they were interested He then retired to the North, where he possessed estates as Duke of Orkney, and some influence with his kinsht thither was known, Grange and Tullibardin were sent in pursuit of him, with several vessels which were fitted out on purpose Hearing of their approach, Bothwell fled towards the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and, being closely folloas there very nearly captured His pursuers were at one tiun-shot of his shi+p, and it e and Tullibardin, in the very heat of the chase, both struck upon a sunken rock, which Bothwell, either because his pilot was better acquainted with the seas, or because his shi+p was lighter, avoided They were, however, fortunate enough to seize soh, and having been tried and condemned, made the confessions which have been already referred to, and by which the particulars of the murder beca that the King of that country, Frederick II, as distantly related to Mary, through her great-grandht be disposed to interest hi that the circumstances under which he had left Scotland, would prevent hi at the Danish Court with sohis treasury, byin the North Seas These practices were discovered; a superior force was fitted out against him; and he was carried into a Danish port, not as an exiled prince, but as a captive pirate He was there thrown into prison without cere his naovernreatly in his favour He was retained in durance forto surrender hiht to offend the at least as Mary herself remained a prisoner Broken down by misfortune, and perhaps assailed by remorse, Bothwell is believed to have been in a state of ement for several years before his death There can be no doubt that he died miserably; and he seems, even in this life, to have paid the penalty of his crimes, if any earthly penalty could atone for the ht on the innocent victim of his lawless ambition and systematic villany His character reat poet:--

”Tetchy and as thy infancy; Thy schooldays frightful, desp'rate, wild, and furious; Thy prie confirmed, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody”[115]

In the n courts were not inattentive to the state of affairs in Scotland An a, to his astonishment, that she was ioverne their authority, and ier, who came about the sas could have given that Queen greater satisfaction, than the turn which Scottish affairs had recently taken In the letters she sent by her ambassador Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, are discovered all that duplicity, affected sincerity, and real heartlessness, which so constantly distinguish the despatches of Cecil and his ranted, in direct opposition to the declarations of the rebel Lords thee with Bothwell, and that she was consequently iuilt, Elizabeth proceeds with no little contradiction, to assure her good sister that she considers her imprisonment entirely unjustifiable But the insincerity of her desire, that the Queen of Scots should recover her liberty, is evinced by the very idle conditions she suggests should first be imposed upon her These are, that the murderers of Darnley should be i Prince should be preserved free froer;--just as if Mary could punish murderers before they were discovered or taken, unless, indeed, she chose to follow the example of her Lords, and condemn the innocent; and as if she had lost the natural affection of a mother, and would have delivered her only son to be butchered, as his father had been In short, Morton and his colleagues had no difficulty in perceiving, that though Elizabeth thought it necessary, for the sake of appearances, to pretend to be displeased with theood graces They well knew, as they had observed in the case of Murray, and experienced in their own, that Elizabeth seldom said what she meant, or meant what she said

But to put her conduct on the present occasion in a still clearer light, the reader will be soht with him into Scotland two distinct sets of ”Instructions,” both bearing the same date (June 30th 1567), the one of which was to be shown to Mary, and the other to the rebel Lords In the fornation at the Queen's ieance on all her enemies In the latter, the Lords are spoken of in a much more confidential and friendly ht it requisite to send an a that was not for the general weal of the realm; and that, if she were allowed to mediate between their Queen and thes,” because she would consent to nothing that was not ”for their security hereafter, and for quietness to the realm” Nay, she even desired Throckmorton to assure them, that she ”meant not to allow of such faults as she hears _by report_ are iiven hie to lay before, and to _reprove her_, in her name, for the same”--”And in the end also,” she adds, ”we mean not with any such partiality to deal for her, but that her princely state being preserved, she should conforood accord betwixt her and her nobility and people” Thus she was to take upon herself to reprove Mary for faults which ”_she heard by report were ih she herself was of opinion that she had been unlawfully iotiations with her rebel subjects, which would con her character[116]

When Throckh he was allowed no ranted to the French ambassador, yet, as his instructions authorized him to treat with the Lords of Secret Council, he of course remained Fros, containing so contradictions ever exhibited in a State paper They do not throw out theiuilt; on the contrary, they continue to express their conviction that she becaly, and only after force had been used; but they allege, as their reason for ie which took place in her mind an hour or two after she parted with her husband at Carberry Hill They state, that, i for her Majesty” left her to save hi as little for him, had parted coh, they all at once, and most unexpectedly, ”found her passion so prevail in maintenance of him and his cause, that she would not with patience hear speak any thing to his reproof, or suffer his doings to be called in question; but, on the contrary, offered to give over the realht be suffered to enjoy hied on every man who had dealt in the matter”[117] This was surely a very sudden and inexplicable change of mind; for, in the very saht almost have startled themselves, these veracious Lords declare, that ”the Queen, their Sovereign, had been led captive, and, by fear, force, and other extraordinary and more unlawful means, compelled to becoh they had not interfered, ”she would not have lived with him half a year to an end;” and that at Carberry Hill, a separation voluntary on both sides took place

Was it, therefore, for athe short interval of a few hours, which elapsed between this separation and Mary's imprisonment in Loch-Leven, she could either have so entirely altered her senti Bothwell, or, if they had in truth never been unfavourable, so foolishly and unnecessarily betrayed them, as to convince her nobility, that to secure their own safety, and force her to live apart fro her up in a strong and remote castle? And even if this expedient appeared advisable at the moment, did they think that, if Mary was now restored to liberty, she would set sail for Denmark, and join Bothwell in his prison there? No; they did not go so far; for, in conclusion, they assured Throckreat wisdom ith God hath endowed her,” they anticipated that within a short time her mind would be settled, and that as soon as ”by a just trial they had made the truth appear, she would confors”[118]

”By the above answer,” says Keith, ”I nosticate what shall be the upshot of Sir Nicholas Throckotiations with the rebels in favour of our Queen” There can be no doubt that the saht be) which led to Mary's i her there The whole history of this conspiracy may be explained in a feords When Morton and the other Lords took up ar, they were, to a certain extent, sincere; they believed (especially those of them who had been his accomplices) that Bothas theto get the young Prince into his power This they deterovernor of the Castle, they advanced to Edinburgh Bothwell retired to Dunbar, taking the Queen along with him But the Lords knew that Mary entertained no affection for her husband, and they therefore hoped to create a division between them They accomplished this object at Carberry Hill, and reconducted the Queen to Edinburgh There, though not sorry that she had parted froh approbation of the conduct of Lords hen she was first seized by Bothwell, did not draord in her defence, and now that she had beco to their own express recoiven hiainst the authority hich they had induced her to intrust him Morton recollected at the same time his share in Rizzio's assassination, and the disastrous consequences which ensued, as soon as Mary made her escape from the thraldom in which he had then kept her for several days He determined not to expose himself to a similar risk now, especially as he had an arht be executed as a traitor,--if he reent of Scotland These were the secrettaken one step he thought he o on with another; he co the itation, by adopting any of which it was thought the troubles of the kingdoht to a conclusion

The first was suggested by the Queen's friends assembled at Hamilton; their proposal was, to restore the Queen to her liberty and throne, having previously bound her, by an express agreement, to pardon the rebel Lords, to watch over the safety of the Prince, to consent to a divorce from Bothwell, and to punish all persons implicated in the murder of Darnley

The other three schemes came from Morton and his party, and orthy of the source fron all governal authority in favour of her son, under whoovern the realland, and never again return to her own country The _second_ was, to have the Queen tried, to condemn her, to keep her in prison for life, and to crown the Prince The _third_ was, to have her tried, conderaced Scotland in even itsbut the violence of party feeling could now have suggested[119] The English a the wishes of his mistress, did not hesitate to assure her that there was no probability of any of theadopted; and he took care to remind the Lords, that ”it would be convenient for thes they should not wipe away the Queen's infamy, and the Lord Bothwell's detestableall the slander upon theested to Elizabeth, that it would be proper to send a supply of ten or twelve thousand crowns to aid the Lords in their present increased expenditure; and this he said was the ton and others had re all her Majesty's fair words, Murray, Morton, and the rest, ”had in their troubles found cold relief and small favour at her Majesty's hands”[120] No wonder that, in mousted with the double part he was obliged to act, and spoke ”honestly and plainly” of it to Melville ”Yea,” says Sir Jaland for the ti themselves to that end; namely, how that one of their finest counsellors (Cecil) proposed openly to the rest, that it was needful for the welfare of England, to foster and nourish the civil wars, as well in France and in Flanders, as in Scotland; whereby England ht after by all parties, and in the reat riches This advice and proposition ell liked by most part of the Council; yet an honest counsellor stood up and said, it was a very worldly advice, and had little or nothing to do with a Christian commonweal”[121]

The Earl of Murray was in the ress of affairs in Scotland, and, though still in France, had so contrived, that he possessed as much influence in the counsels of the nation as Morton hi been in close correspondence with him

Letters froed frequent communications with Murray; and, on the 26th of June, four days before Throcklish ambassador at Paris, that ”Murray's return into Scotland was land and Scotland”[122] But as Murray had atteerating his fidelity to Mary, he found it ie himself immediately fro so sudden a revolution in the state of affairs at hoent into Scotland, of the name of Elphinston, whom he commissioned to attend to his interests, and whoh they refused every body else It is not likely that Morton, who had thus a second ti up a ladder for Murray to ascend by, was altogether pleased to find that he could not obtain the first place for himself As soon as he determined to force Mary to abdicate the Crown, he saw that he would be obliged to yield the Regency to Murray, supported as that nobleland and Scotland, and the earnest recommendations of Knox and the other preachers, who, in their anxiety to see their old patron once more Lord of the ascendant, ”took pieces of Scripture, and inveighed veheainst her, by application of the text”[123] Morton, however, consoled hireat favour with Murray, and that, by acting in concert with hiree of power and honour

Preparatory to extorting from her an abdication, the Lords anxiously circulated a report, that the Queen was devotedly and almost insanely attached to Bothwell They did not venture, it is true, to put this attach her reasonable terms of accommodation, which, if she had refused, all ed her infatuation, and deserted her cause;--they brought her to no trial,--they proved her guilty of no criar They asserted that Mary would not agree to prosecute the perpetrators of the murder, after she had already prosecuted them,--and that she would not consent to abandon a husband whom she had already abandoned, and hom, they themselves had declared, only a feeeks before, she could not, under any circumstances, have lived for ate all the absurd falsehoods they told him, wrote to Elizabeth,--”she avoweth constantly that she will live and die with him; and saith, that if it were put to her choice to relinquish her Crown and kingdonity, to go as a simple damsel with him; and that she will never consent that he shall fare worse, or have more harm than herself”[124] But the numerous party in favour of the Queen openly avowed their disbelief of these reports; and Elizabeth herself, who began to fear that, in sending Throckmorton to the rebel Lords, she had countenanced the weaker side, wrote to her a terms, which, as they are used by an enemy so determined as Elizabeth, speak volumes in favour of Mary:--”We cannot perceive, that they, hom they have dealt, can answer the doubts moved by the Hamiltons, who, howsoever they s which they move will be allowed by all reasonable persons For if theynoblemen of the realn, declare herthe reports which are made of her by such as keep her in captivity, how should they believe the reports, or obey them which do report it?”[125]

That Mary refused to return to her throne, unless Bothas placed upon it beside her, is an assertion so ridiculous, that no ti it That she may not have chosen to submit to an immediate divorce from one whom all her nobility had recoht possibly have a child, is within the verge of probability She would naturally be anxious to avoid doing any thing which would be equivalent with acknowledging her belief of his guilt, and ht have appeared to implicate her in the suspicion attached to him She had not married Bothwell till he had been judicially acquitted; and were she to consent to be divorced froain tried, she would seem to confess, that she had previously sanctioned a procedure possessing the show of justice, without the substance[126] There can be no doubt, however, that if Bothwell's guilt had been distinctly proved to her, and if she could have disunited herself from him without injury to her reputation or her prospects, she would have been the very last person to have objected either to see Darnley's death revenged, or herself freed froainst her will

But the Lords of Secret Council, conscious as they were of the injustice of their proceedings, had gone too far to recede, and were determined not to rest satisfied with any half-measures On the 24th of July 1567, Lord Lindsay and Sir Robert Melville (brother to Sir James), were commissioned to pass to Loch-Leven, and to carry with them deeds or instruments of abdication[127] These instruments were three in nun the Crown in favour of her son,--by the second, to constitute the Earl of Murray Regent during his nonage,--and, by the third, to appoint a Council to administer the Government until Murray's return hoency, until her son's majority It was of course well known to the rebels, that the Queen would not willingly affix her signature to deeds by which she was to surrender all power, and to reduce herself at once to the station of a subject, without receiving in return any proood Yet they had the effrontery to aver, that rather than submit to a separation from one hom ”she could not have lived half-a-year to an end,” she preferred beco a landless and crownless pensioner, on the bounty of such le out the day in Mary's whole life in which it ht be fairly concluded that she suffered the uish, we should fix on the 25th of July 1567, the day on which the Coloonified with the name of a castle, was little else than a square tower of three stories; and instead of a nue of obsequious nobles, attended by only three or four female servants;--it must have required a reat a reverse of fortune[128] But the misery of her situation was now to be increased a hundred fold, by a blow the severest she had yet experienced When the report first reached her, that it was in contenantly refused to believe so lawless an attempt possible Mary had been all her life fond of power, and proud of her illustrious birth and rank; and there were few subjects on which she dith greater pleasure, than her unsullied descent frole, to surrender the crown of the Stuarts into the hands of the bastard Murray, or the blood-stained Morton? Was she to submit to the bitter mockery, introduced in the very preamble to the instrument of demission, which stated, that, ever since her arrival in her realm, she had ”eovern in such sort, that her royal and honourable estate ht stand and continue with her and her posterity, and that her loving and kind liegesnoearied with the fatigues of administration, she wished to lay down her sceptre?[129] Even though prepared to lay it doas she also to countenance falsehood, and practise dissimulation?

When the co that Lindsay was personally disagreeable to his Sovereign, ca to her his errand, and, addressing her with respect, and professions of attachment (for she had often employed hin courts), he urged every argunature to the deeds She listened to hinity and unshaken resolution She heard him describe the distracted state of Scotland--the iain to her sway--the virulence of her enemies, and the apparent lukewarmness of her friends She allowed hieneral topics, to others more intimately connected with her own person She listened to his assurance, that, if she continued obstinate, it was deter her to trial,--to blacken her character, by accusing her of incontinency, not only with Bothwell, but with others, and of the murder of her late husband, and, upon whatever evidence, to condemn and execute her[130] But she remained unh not without ratitude and perfidy of those whom she had so often befriended and advanced As a last expedient, Melville produced a letter from Throckmorton, in which the ambassador advised her to consult her personal safety, by consenting to an abdication--a soiven by one who affected to have co her restoration to the throne[131] But she only remarked on this letter, that it convinced her of the insincerity of Elizabeth's promises of assistance

Melville no that there was no alternative, and that Lindsayone of the most passionate men in Scotland, Lindsay burst into the Queen's presence, with the instru in his eyes Mary, for the first ti of Rizzio's aunt for him to the commission of that deed of cruelty With fearful oaths and imprecations, this unmannered barbarian, entitled to be called a man only because he bore the external form of one, vowed, that unless she subscribed the deeds without delay, he would sign them himself with her blood, and seal them on her heart[132] Mary had a bold andunder the prospect of iger already drawn, she became suddenly pale and motionless, and would have fallen in a swoon, had not a flood of tears afforded her relief Melville, moved perhaps to contrition by the depth of her ned in captivity could not be considered valid, if she chose to revoke theestion ht; but almost before she had tiain broke forth, and, pointing to the lake which surrounded her confined residence, he swore that it should becoer Driven to distraction, and scarcely knohat she did, Mary seized a pen, and without reading a line of the volus before her, she affixed her naibly as her tears would permit The Co the and ferocity, they had gained their end Mary, no longer a Queen, was left alone to the desolate solitude of her own gloohts[133]

As soon as Lord Lindsay returned to Edinburgh, and notified the success of his mission, it was determined by Morton and his associates that the Prince should be croith as little delay as possible Sir James Melville, as considered a moderate man by both parties, was sent to the Lords at Hamilton, to invite their concurrence and presence on the occasion He was received courteously; but the nobility there would not agree to countenance proceedings which they denounced as treasonable On the contrary, perceiving the turn which matters were about to take, they retired from Hamilton to Dumbarton, where they prepared for ned a bond of mutual defence and assistance, in which they declared, that owing to t