there may be detected, undoubtedly, those elements of greatness which, in spite of craft, cupidity, and selfishness, win, and deservedly win, our admiration. He was a man eminently capable of governing, and only a slight slip of a girl stood between him and his true work in the world! They may sit,' as Sir Thomas Browne has observed, 'in the orchestra and noblest seats of heaven, who have held up shaking hands in the fire, and humanly contended for glory.' I will not, therefore, enter into the controversy which Murray's career provokes. I am willing, when speaking of the Protestant nobility, to assume that his name does not figure on the list.

The early Protestantism of Scotland, besides, was a political as well as a religious force. It was an outbreak of the democratic spirit against the fat, sleek, avaricious, luxurious churchman-the most obvious aristocrat of the day. Its ranks were mainly filled by the citizens of the burghs, and by the smaller gentry, both of whom were democratic in their ideas; and the instinctive antipathy to monarchy was necessarily intensified when the monarch was a Catholic.

The Scotch Queen, moreover, gentlemen, was the next heir to the English Crown, and was as such a constant menace to Elizabeth.

It

thus became the policy of Elizabeth, and of the eminent statesmen who surrounded her, to blacken the character and to sap the authority of Mary. During the whole of her short reign, the agents accredited to her court by England were engaged in teaching disloyalty to her subjects. The English faction had long been unpopular in Scotland; England was the ancient enemy, France the ancient ally; but the Reformation reversed the familiar traditions, and the Scotch Reformers were an English as well as a democratic and Calvinistic party. It is true that Elizabeth did not like

them, neither their Calvinism nor their democracy, and more than once it needed all the craft of Cecil to prevent an open rupture. She instinctively recoiled from a party which paid scant reverence to throne or altar, and the shame of an alliance with the 'rascal multitude' must have been keenly_resented by the haughty Tudor. But she could not dispense with their support; had she ceased to retain them in her service, Mary would have grown dangerously strong; so she continued to bribe them and to bully them, to wheedle them and to scold them, in her characteristic fashion.

To these three forces, the ambition and the greed of the Confederate nobles, the fierce intolerance of Calvinism, the jealous susceptibilities of Elizabeth, and the steady animosity of her great minister, all the troubles of Mary's life were due. The English Calvinistic democratic party rebelled against Mary's mother when the Reforming ideas first acquired strength, rebelled against Mary herself when she married Darnley, again rebelled when Rizzio was murdered, again rebelled after the Bothwell marriage. Had she been left unmolested, she might have left the records of a happy and fortunate reign; but she was pursued by an implacable animosity, partly political and partly theological, that never wearied till she was hunted down.

It is obvious, gentlemen, that Mary had little to hope for from any sense of justice or any sentiment of compassion that animated the party to which Knox and Morton and Buchanan belonged. To them this brilliant and bewitching girl was the incarnation of the very Spirit of Evil. Their writers and preachers wrote and preached about her exactly as they wrote and preached about Jezebel or the Witch of Endor. The heavy and lumbering caricature of Buchanan,

for instance, is unworthy of a man of any literary or creative skill. We must be cautious, therefore, in accepting what these bitter fanatics said about one whom they were utterly incapable of judging.

Until her marriage with Darnley, Mary's reign was comparatively peaceful, and there can be no doubt that she succeeded in inspiring her subjects with a strong sentiment of attachment to her person. Elizabeth watched her progress with jealous eyes. Most of the Scotch Protestant nobles were in the pay of England, and the English diplomatic agents maintained throughout the entire reign of Mary confidential relations with what would now be called her Majesty's Opposition. It is clear that Mary resented this habitual and hostile espionage. But she was willing to keep on friendly terms with England. Elizabeth was a dangerously near and formidable neighbour, and Elizabeth might exclude her from the succession. Nay, she professed herself ready to make such a marriage as would be agreeable to her cousin, and there is no reason to doubt her good faith. If she had waited, however, till Elizabeth found her a fit husband, she would have waited till Doomsday. Elizabeth trifled about Mary's marriage much in the same way that she trifled about her own, and when at last Mary insisted on entering into such a marriage as Elizabeth had indicated--a marriage with a native nobleman-she seized the opportunity with treacherous alacrity. She induced Murray and the Protestant nobility to rebel, and she did her best to foster civil war throughout Scotland. Mary had grown too great.

The marriage with Darnleystrengthening and consolidating Mary's claims to the English succession was a highly politic marriage. Elizabeth, of course, did not like it; and Murray, who chose to

regard it as a religious as well as a political alliance, rode off to the country, and called his party to arms. But the rising was quickly suppressed. The Confederate Lords found to their dismay that the people of Scotland had rallied round their Queen. She herself in steel jacket at the head of her troopers swept them away out of Edinburgh, over the Pentlands, to Dumfries, and at last-such of them as remained together-clean across the English border. Elizabeth hastened to make friends with Mary, and to intercede for the banished Lords. But Mary, angry and triumphant, declined, in language which was expressly designed to humiliate Elizabeth, 'to allow either France or England to interfere between her and her revolted subjects.'

The Darnley marriage, as I have said, was dictated by policy as well as by affection. I see no reason to doubt, however, that at first Mary really loved in a way the tall handsome lad. But it was impossible that he could retain her regard. The King was a base, unmannerly, vicious, dissolute boy, and if any faith is to be placed in the Chronique Scandaleuse of the day, his amours were of the vilest and most degraded description. Before long, it became known at Court that the King and Queen were far from friendly. Mary treated the young fool, who was making himself hateful to all parties, with unconscious contempt: and in his weak, crazy, diseased brain-for he was half-mad-all sorts of angry and jealous delusions harboured. The poor irritable creature was in the mood for murder when Ruthven and Morton suggested to him that it would be prudent to put the Italian secretary out of the way.

David Rizzio conducted the foreign correspondence of the Scotch Government, and a skilful man in that capacity must of course have been highly useful to a Queen who

had many foreign correspondents. But, except that he was an Italian, there is really no evidence of any kind against him. The scandal which associated his name with the Queen's has been expressly disowned by my learned friend. The Protestant Lords, however, felt instinctively that the accomplished secretary was in some way or other an impediment. He did not belong to their persuasion, and he was known to have influence with Mary. Yet his murder after all was a mere cloak to the real object of the conspiracy. The Lords of the Congregation had been scattered by Mary's swift and decisive energy, and their most distinguished leaders were now in England under the protection of Elizabeth. Some of them, however, were stillat Holyrood-Morton, Ruthven, Lindsay, and others. The Parliament of 1566 was about to meet, and it was presumed that the Parliament would attaint the banished Lords, and confirm the forfeiture of their estates. Mary, during the recent troubles, had shown that she was a woman of eminent capacity and courage, and quite able to rule her unruly subjects by her own mother-wit. She at least could not be made the tool of their cupidity or their fanaticism; on the contrary, were she permitted to retain power, their cupidity and their fanaticism would be steadily checked, if not sternly repressed. The dissensions between the Queen and her husband had by this time become public, and the foolish boy was induced to join the conspiracy -the Lords undertaking to remove his rival, and make him King, he, on the other hand, consenting to recall Murray, and dissolve the Parliament. Such were the illassorted allies who joined hands over the mangled body of Rizzio.

The tragedy took place late at night in the Palace of Holyrood, in the presence of Mary Stuart, who

was within three months of her confinement. Rizzio fell at the feet of his mistress, and clung to her dress. Darnley held her back, while the unfortunate secretary was dragged to the door, and stabbed again and again. The outraged indignant Queen, with angry tears in her eyes, turned fiercely upon her craven husband. It shall be dear blood for some of you if his be spilt,' she said, before she knew that he was dead. When the news was communicated to her by one of her ladies, she dried her eyes: 'No more tears-I will think upon a revenge.'

There is no conclusive evidence that these speeches were uttered by the Queen. But there can be no doubt that they represent with tolerable accuracy the bitter emotions which the bloody fate of her favour ite minister, as well as the indignity offered to herself, were calculated to excite. From that night, it may be admitted, the breach between the Queen and King was not to be repaired. Separation of some kind became obviously only a question of time.

The conspirators were not per mitted to reap the fruit on which they had reckoned. Murray, Rothes, Ochiltree, Kirkaldy of Grange, indeed, rode into Edinburgh next day to find the Queen a virtual prisoner in Holyrood. But during the night that followed Mary con vinced her foolish husband that he had chosen dangerous allies, as indeed was true enough, and persuaded him to fly with her to Dunbar. Bothwell and Huntley had escaped from the palace immediately after the murder, and were already in the field. Again the chivalry of Scotland rallied round its Queen, and, in the course of a week, Mary found herself at the head of an army which the Confederates did not dare to face. To escape her rapid hawk-like swoop they retired from Edinburgh and dispersed in all directions, the majority seeking

the hospitality of Elizabeth, to whose ministers the nature and details of the plot had been communicated several weeks before its execution.

The conspiracy was foiled. But it read, gentlemen, a highly instructive lesson both to Mary and to her enemies. It taught the discontented Lords that their Sovereign had succeeded in winning the confidence of the better part of her subjects, and that intrigue and rebellion would continue to be unremunerative un

less they could contrive to bring her into disrepute. It taught the Queen that there could never be any real amity between herself and the fanatical faction which regarded her as an idolatress, and that the sentiment of personal loyalty which was felt by men like Huntley and Bothwell, and Seton and Herries, was the mainstay of her throne.

Now, gentlemen, I must ask you to examine with the utmost attention the events that immediately followed the suppression of the Rizzio conspiracy in March 1566.

Darnley, as we have seen, had meanly and basely abandoned his associates in that affair. His baseness did not stop there. He appeared before the Council and declared solemnly that he was entirely innocent of the late murderous plot; and a proclamation to the same effect was made at the market-cross of Edinburgh. From the day on which that declaration was made Darnley was a doomed man. Men like Morton and Ruthven and Lindsay were not ready to forgive, and from his first coming it had been foreseen that among a proud and jealous nobility this foolish and presumptuous boy was likely to fare badly. But now he had proved himself to be a traitor as well as a fool, and honour, especially among thieves, is an indispensable virtue. He had not a friend left in the world. The Queen was his wife no doubt, but he had bitterly wronged

her. In fact, if we believe only onehalf of the scandalous rumours of the time, it is clear that Darnley deserved to be forcibly put awaywith more or less of indignant disgust-like a noxious unclean reptile. The position of this unhappy lad during the last year of his life almost provokes our pity by its tragical isolation.

We cannot now probe, gentlemen, the feelings which Mary experienced when the character of her wretched husband was first plainly manifested to her. She had quickly learned that she had made a frightful blunder, and the murder of Rizzio must have turned natural vexation into burning and uncontrollable resentment. It is quite possible that for some days thereafter she thirsted for revenge. But Mary was not a good hater; she was always engaged in pardoning (from her brother downwards) her rebellious subjects. This facility of disposition was associated with, or rather was due to, that indolence of temperament to which I have adverted. Rizzio was murdered in March, and before her confinement, which took place in June, her heart had obviously softened. In the inventories of her effects drawn up before the birth of her boy, there are numerous bequests to Darnley, among the rest a diamond ring, enamelled in red, and against which is written, 'It was with this that I was married; I leave it to the King who gave it me.' It is to be noted, moreover, that neither in these inventories nor in her 'State,' as it is called, does Bothwell's name appear among the beneficiaries. From these and other circumstances it may be fairly concluded that Mary's study of revenge was not consistently pursued, and that she sometimes relented.

It is at this time that Earl Bothwell first rises into note. He alone, among all the Protestant nobility, had never been a pensioner of Elizabeth. The old national ani

6

mosity against England was embodied and personified in James Hepburn. He is as mortal an enemy to our nation,' said the sagacious Randolph, as any man alive.' On the other hand, he had been the devoted servant both of Mary and of her mother-among the faithless faithful only found. He had ever been loyal to the monarchy. His fidelity was incorruptible. When the policy to which, through good and evil report, he had steadily adhered became a success, it was inevitable that he should attain a great political position. Mary was bound to advance the most trusty and serviceable of her subjects. He became virtually the first minister of the Queen. But there was no whisper, gentlemen, until after the murder of Darnley, that he was more than a faithful and trusted adviser of the Crown, and the busy slanderers of the Court, so far as we can judge from the documents that remain, never coupled his name with Mary's.

Buchanan, indeed, has ventured to assert that the criminal relations between them were at this time notorious, and that they sinned openly and recklessly. They seemed to fear nothing more than that their wickedness should be unknown.' Had this been true some contemporary allusion would surely have been preserved. My learned friend has failed to recover a single line or word tending to show that such an impression prevailed. Buchanan himself attended the baptism of the infant Prince, which was celebrated at Stirling in December 1566, and he wrote an ode in honour of the event in which Mary's graces and virtues are celebrated in undeniable Latin. This was at the very close of the year which, according to his narrative, had been passed in the open gratification of lawless passion. 'I never,' wrote De Croc, the French Ambassador about the same time,

saw her Majesty so much beloved, honoured, and esteemed, nor SO great a harmony among all her subjects, as at present is by her wise conduct; for I cannot perceive the smallest difference or division.'

Two incidents, and two incidents only, occurred during that year, which by perverse ingenuity have been made to assume a malignant complexion. The Queen, in the first place, interested herself in Bothwell's marriage with the Lady Jean Gordon, a sister of Lord Huntley. You and I, gentlemen, would be inclined to fancy that, if her heart then belonged to Bothwell, she would not have been anxious to make a present of him to another woman. My learned friend takes a different view. 'Experience in poor human nature,' he says, 'teaches us that people, terrified by the presence of temptation, do sometimes set up barriers against it which they afterwards make frantic efforts to get over.' It is for you, gentlemen, to say which explanation is most consistent with your knowledge of the human heart. Anxious to erect a barrier between herself and Bothwell! if no barrier had already existed! As if she, a married woman about to become a mother, could not otherwise secure immunity from the temptation of becoming-What?

As

his wife or his mistress! The other incident to which I allude was the ride from Jedburgh to the Hermitage. A special assize was being held by Mary at Jedburgh. Bothwell, who had been wounded while engaged in securing a culprit, was unable to attend the Court, at which, in virtue of his office as Warden of the Marches, he ought to have assisted. The Court sat for several days, and when the business was finished Mary, attended by her brother, rode over to the Castle of Hermitage, eighteen miles distant, and stayed for an hour or two with the wounded Warden. There could