Gladly

they could not be won, he would, equally with Gardiner | them as liberally as her means enabled her.
and Bonner, have had them burned. Gardiner was now
for measures of repression and vigor. He contended
that relaxation in the time of Henry VIII had been the
cause of the rapid spread of the heresy. He was disap-
pointed of the see of Canterbury [which Pole had se-
cured, of course], and enraged because his books against
the papal supremacy were reprinted and dispersed through
the country. The queen was always on the side of the
severest measures," and the remainder of the history of
the reign of Mary is occupied chiefly with the sangui-
nary persecutions of the adherents to the Reformed doc-
trines. Most Protestant writers reckon that about 280
victims perished at the stake from Feb. 4, 1555, on which
day John Rogers was burned at Smithfield, to Nov. 10,
1558, when the last "auto-da-fé" of the reign took place
by the execution in the same manner of three men and
two women at Colchester. Dr. Lingard, the Roman
Catholic, admits that after expunging from the Protes-
tant lists "the names of all who were condemned as fel-
ons 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 200 persons perished in the
flames for religious opinion." The harrowing narrative,
in its details, may be found in part in Burnet, and in full
in Fox's Martyrology. Among the most distinguished
sufferers were Hooper, bishop of Gloucester, Ferrar of
St. David's, Latimer of Worcester, Ridley of London,
and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury. Nor were the
sufferings confined to the stake. Intolerance also car-
ried grief, horror, and ferocity into all England by the
persecution of those who were guilty of heresy, but were
not considered fit subjects for the stake. It is said that
in the last three years of Mary's reign no less than
"30,000 persons were exiled and spoiled of their goods"
(Butler, ii, 445), among whom were not less than 800
theologians (comp. Fisher, p. 328).

would she have restored them all to the Church, but
it was feared that violent commotions would ensue if
that course were adopted;" and the papal legate, while
he "reluctantly assented" to the arrangement as pro-
posed by the Convocation, "that the present titles to
monasteries and Church lands should not be disturbed,"
"admonished those who held those lands of the guilt of
sacrilege, and reminded them of the doom of Belshaz
zar" (!). See MONASTICISM. Froude, whom the Po-
manists are so eager to prove guilty of unfitness as a
historian, has been one of the most lenient commenta-
tors on the conduct of Mary of England towards her
people. He holds that, "To the time of her accession
she had lived a blameless and, in many respects, a noble
life; and few men or women have lived less capable of
doing knowingly a wrong thing." He adds that her
trials and disappointments, "it can hardly be doubted,
affected her sanity," and ascribes the guilt chiefly to
Gardiner, and measurably to Pole. Unless it be on the
point of insanity, we are inclined to hold Mary respon-
sible for the persecutions of her reign, believing, with
Ranke, that "whatever is done in the name of a prince,
with his will and by his authority, decides his repats-
tion in history." In her domestic life Mary was wretch-
ed. Philip, whom she loved with a morbid passion,
proved a sour, selfish, and heartless husband; at once a
bigot and a brute. No children followed their union;
and exasperation and loneliness, working upon a temper
naturally obstinate and sullen, without doubt rendered
her more compliant to the sanguinary policy of the re-
actionary bishops. Fortunately for England, her reign
was brief. She died-after suffering much and long
from dropsy and nervous debility-Nov. 17, 1558. Her
successor on the throne was her sister Elizabeth, who
not only undid all the work she had accomplished, but
finally and successfully established Protestantism as the
faith of the nation. See ELIZABETH.

Queen Mary's literary productions, though of but minor interest at present, deserve mention here because of the peculiar bearing they have on her early history. The question has been raised, Who were most respon- She is said to have been a superior Latin scholar, and sible for these persecutions? Gardiner, bishop of Win- was commended by Erasmus. "Scripsit bene Latinas chester and lord chancellor, was Mary's chief minister epistolas," says he. Towards the end of her father's till his death in November, 1555, after which the direc- reign, at the earnest solicitation of queen Catharine Parr, tion of affairs fell mostly into the hands of cardinal Pole, she undertook to translate Erasmus's Paraphrase on the who, after Cranmer's deposition, was made archbishop Gospel of St. John, but being cast into sickness, as Udall of Canterbury; but the notorious Bonner, Ridley's suc- relates, partly by overmuch study in this work, after cessor in the see of London, has the credit of having she had made some progress therein, she left the rest to been the principal instigator of these atrocities, which, be done by Dr. Mallet, her chaplain. This translation it may be remarked, so far from contributing to put is printed in the first volume of Erasmus's Paraphrase down the Reformed doctrines, appear to have had a upon the New Testament (London, 1548, folio). The greater effect in disgusting the nation with the restored "Preface" was written by Udall, the famous master of Church than all other causes together. Says Soames Eton School, and addressed to the queen dowager. Af (iv, 385), "These horrid proceedings filled the whole ter her accession to the throne a proclamation was issued kingdom with amazement, indignation, and disgust. calling in and suppressing this very book, and all others Unfeeling Romish bigots were disappointed because this that had any tendency towards furthering the Refor atrocious ebullition of their party's intolerance had mation. An ingenious writer is of opinion that the sickwholly failed to overawe the spirit of their adversaries. ness which came upon her while she was translating Timid Protestants were encouraged by the noble con- St. John was all affected; "for," says he, "she would stancy displayed among their friends. Moderate Ro- not so easily have been cast into sickness had she been manists were ashamed of their spiritual guides. The employed on the legends of St. Teresa or St. Catharine mass of men, who live in stupid forgetfulness of God, of Sienna." Strype (iii, 468) has preserved three praywere aroused from that lethargy of sensuality, covetous-ers or meditations of hers: the first, Against the Assants ness, or vanity in which they dissipate existence, to re- of Vice; the second, A Meditation touching Adversity; flect upon the principles which could support the human the third, A Prayer to be read at the Hour of Death, mind tranquil, or even exulting, amid such frightful In Fox's Acts and Monuments are printed eight of her agonies." letters to king Edward and the lords of the council on her nonconformity, and on the imprisonment of her chaplain, Dr. Mallet. In the Sylloge epistolarum are several more of her letters, extremely curious: one on her delicacy in never having written but to three men. one of affection for her sister, one after the death of Anne Boleyn, and one, very remarkable, of Cromwell to her. In Haynes's State Papers are two in Spanish, to the emperor Charles V. There is also a French letter, printed by Strype (iii, 318) from the Cotton Library,

At the same time that the attempt was thus made to extinguish the new opinions in religion by persecution at the stake, exile, and other severe measures, the queen gave a further proof of the ardor 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 the crown in the times of her father and brother. She also re-established several of the old monasteries which her father had dissolved, and endowed

[The numerous portraits ascribed to this princess are as various and dissimilar as the circumstances of her life, and have excited almost as much doubt and controversy as the disputed points of her history, agreeing only in representing her as eminently with the greatest care from time immemorial in the mansion of Dalmahoy, the prinbeautiful. The picture which has furnished the plate before us has been preserved cipal seat in Scotland of the earl of Morton. On the upper part of it is inscribed, leven Castle:" and the earl who at present possesses it states that, according to a "Mary Queen of Scots: said to have been painted during her confinement in Lochtradition in his lordship's family, it was once the property of George Douglas, the liberator of Mary, and that it passed from him to his eminent relation, James, fourth earl of Morton, with whose posterity it remains to the present day.]

Soon after her arrival at her destination Mary was | to yield her place on the throne, and the reins of power placed with the French king's own daughters in one were seized by the queen-mother, Catharine of Medicis, of the first convents of the kingdom, where she made as regent for her son, Charles IX. Mary must have been rapid progress in the acquisition of the literature and prepared, under almost any circumstances, to quit a court accomplishment of the age. She received instructions which was now swayed by one whom, during her brief in the art of making verses by the famous Ronsard, reign, she had taunted with being "a merchant's daughand Latin was taught her by the great Scottish scholar ter." But there were other reasons for her departure Buchanan. When only fourteen years old she had from France. Her presence was urgently needed in attained to such a mastery of the language that she Scotland, which the death of her mother, a few months pronounced before Henry II a Latin oration, in which before, had left without a government, at a moment she maintained that it is becoming for women to study when it was convulsed by the throes of the Reforma literature and master the liberal arts. Introduced at tion. Her kinsmen of Lorraine had ambitious projects the court of Henry II, which, as Robertson observes, for her marriage; great schemes were based on her near"was one of the politest but most corrupt in Europe," ness of succession to the English crown; and both these, Mary, while yet a child, became the envy of her sex, it was thought, might be more successfully followed out surpassing the most accomplished in the elegance and when she was seated on her native throne. The queen fluency of her language, the grace and liveliness of her of England, however, interposed; and, as Mary would movements, and the charm of her whole manner and not abandon all claim to the English throne, refused to behavior. "Graceful alike in person and intellect,” says grant her a free passage. Mary, notwithstanding, reFroude, "she possessed that peculiar beauty in which the solved to go, and at length, after repeated delays, still form is lost in the expression, and which every painter, lingering on the soil where fortune had augured so therefore, has represented differently. Rerely, perhaps, much, she reached Calais, attended thus far by the carhas any woman combined so many noticeable qualities dinals of Guise and Lorraine, while three other uncles, as Mary Stuart: with a feminine insight into men and D'Elboeuf, D'Aumale, and the grand prior, had come to things and human life, she had cultivated herself to see her safely to Edinburgh. August 14 she finally set that high perfection in which accomplishments were no sail, "and with "Adieu, belle France,' sentimental verses, longer adventitious ornaments, but were wrought into and a passionate châtelar sighing at her feet in melodiher organic constitution. . . . She had vigor, energy, ous music, she sailed away over the summer seas,” and, tenacity of purpose, with perfect and never-failing self- safely escaping the English ships-of-war Elizabeth had possession, and, as the one indispensable foundation for despatched to intercept her, reached Leith on the 19th. the effective use of all other qualities, she had indomi- Her arrival on her native shores is thus beautifully detable courage" (Hist. of England, vol. vii, ch. iv). The scribed in Harper's Magazine, Feb. 1873, p. 348: “August dauphin, to whom she was betrothed, was about two 19, 1561. The thickest mist and most drenching rain years her junior, but, as they had been playmates in men remembered ever to have seen. A fog so thick early childhood, a mutual affection had sprung up be- that the very cannon in the harbor boom with a muftween them, and when, on April 24, 1558, she was to be fled sound, and the peal of bells from the Edinburgh joined to him in wedlock, she hesitated not to submit to churches sounds ominously, as if it rang out the funeral the most absurd stipulations. Not only was she obliged knell of the young queen. Such is the day that greets to agree that her intended husband should have the title French Mary when she lands on Scottish shores. Betof king of the Scots, but she was even betrayed into the ter far for her had not this fog hid her squadron from signature of a secret deed, by which, if she died child- the watchful eyes of her royal cousin. Better that she less, both her Scottish realm and her right of succession had fallen then into the hands of queen Elizabeth than to the English crown, as the granddaughter of Henry to have become her wretched prisoner seven years later, VII, were conveyed to France. The foolishness of this shorn of that good name which is woman's chief protec secret compact Mary had afterwards sufficient cause to tion-always and everywhere her best 'safe-conduct." regret more than once. A great change had taken place in Scotland since Scarce were the nuptial solemnities fairly over, when Mary had left her country nearly thirteen years ago queen Mary of England died (1558). In accordance The Roman Catholic religion was then supreme; and, with the agreement entered into, France promptly put under the direction of cardinal Beatoun, the Romish forward her claims to the vacated throne, and, though clergy displayed a fierceness of intolerance which seemed Elizabeth was made successor, Mary Stuart's rights were to aim at nothing short of the utter extirpation of every insisted upon, and continued to be urged with great per- seed of dissent and reform. The same causes, however, tinacity by her ambitious uncles the princes of Lorraine. which gave strength to the ecclesiastics gave strength "On every occasion on which the dauphin and dau- also, though more slowly, to the great body of the peophiness appeared in public, they were ostentatiously ple; and at length, after the repeated losses of Flodden greeted as the king and queen of England; the English and Fala, and Solway Moss and Pinkie—which, by the arms were engraved upon their plate, embroidered on fall of nearly the whole lay nobility and leading men their banners, and painted on their furniture; and Mary's of the kingdom, brought all classes within the influence own favorite device at the time was the two crowns of of public events-the energies, physical and mental, of France and Scotland, with the motto 'Aliaque mora- the entire nation were drawn out, and under the guidtur,' meaning that of England." July 10, 1559, Henry ance of the reformer Knox expended themselves with died, and the young dauphin ascended the throne of the fury of awakened indignation upon the whole fabric Charlemagne as Francis II. "Surely," thought Mary, "I of the ancient religion. The queen-regent died June am soon to realize my highest expectations. Over three 10, 1560. In August following the estates convened kingdoms I shall sway the sceptre. The holy father adopted and approved the Calvinistic Confession of himself will come from Rome and pronounce his bless- Faith, and, abolishing the Roman Catholic religion, for ing upon me as his most faithful daughter. The lately-bade at the same time the administering of the mass of deceased queen of England received her name in honor attendance upon it-the penalty for the third offence be of the blessed Virgin, I shall be pronounced more worthy ing death. "On the morning of Aug. 25, 1560,” says of it still." Alas for human frailty. Man proposeth, Burton (iv, 89), "the Romish hierarchy was supreme; but God disposeth. Mary had reached the summit of her splendor at a moment when she believed herself only ascending the heights. Feeble and sickly, Francis II was scarcely seated on the throne when he was seized by disease, and, fast wasting away, died Dec. 5, 1560. Only a year and a half had the young pair enjoyed their royal honors. Childless, Mary was obliged

in the evening of the same day Calvinistic Protestant ism was established in its stead." Hardly a year had passed since these changes had been effected. A strange atmosphere this for Mary, who had been taught in France to abhor Protestant opinions. But, fortunately for Mary, she had enjoyed a training which fitted het well for the part she was now to play. Had she not

6

spent the most susceptible years of her life in the court | the same privilege which she accorded to her subjectsof France under those worthy custodians of the con- "that of worshipping God according to her own creed." science-Vasquez, Escobar, Mendoza? These Jesuit "So the nation rested in tolerable peace, trusting in Murfathers had not hesitated to defend by their casuistry, ray rather than in Mary, and suffering her mass, though and under color of religion, fraud, forgery, falsehood, always under protest, so long as she suffered herself to be and murder. Their teachings, before counteracted by guided by his counsels. But of this kind of compromise the protests of such believers as Pascal and such heretics the holy Mother Church is always impatient. Although as Luther, had brought forth their fruit in the assassina- there was no papal legate at the court of Edinburgh, tion of William of Orange and of Coligni, and in the Rome did not lack for envoys-shrewd ones, too. Of wholesale massacre of St. Bartholomew. Surely it could these the chief was an Italian, David Rizzio (q. v.). He not be expected that Mary would prove herself unwor- entered her service as a musician soon after she went to thy of her birth and her costly education. Indeed, as Scotland; was promoted to the office of valet de chambre; early as 1558 she had shown herself an apt pupil wor- became her private secretary; conducted all her private thy of her Jesuitical masters. Never a blush of secret and secret correspondence; became eventually the powshame mantled her maiden cheek when she signed the er behind the throne greater than the throne itself, treaty which the Scotch commissioners brought her for usurping the very government. Chief we have called the purpose of guarding the independence of the nation, him, yet he was not alone. The court of Scotland had her jealous of foreign interference; never a hint from which representatives in foreign courts, as befitted her dignity; diplomats could guess that fifteen days before she had but her true representatives were unknown to courtly signed away the kingdom to the crown of France, an- fame-Chesein in France, Yaxley in the Netherlands, nulling beforehand whatever solemn promise to the con- Ranlet in the Low Countries. So there was an outer and trary she might make to her own most beloved and inner court. My lord James, earl of Murray, was, indeed, trusting subjects. So young, so fair, and yet so false, the queen's prime minister; but this unknown adventurwas Mary queen of Scots. "The enthusiastic admirers er from Piedmont-unknown because he succeeded best and apologists of Mary maintain that she was sincerely while he hid his office, as his designs-was virtually in favor of toleration. They would make her a kind of her secretary for foreign affairs, and her most confidenapostle of religious liberty. It is an unreasonable stretch tial adviser. The earl of Murray must be dismissed. of charity, however, to suppose that she would not... No easy task, surely, but one that art can accomplish. have rejoiced in the restoration, and, had it been feasi- Who so fitting to come between sister and brother as a ble, the forcible restoration of the old religion.... That husband? Queen Mary shall be married. It is time she should serve the time and still commode herself she laid off her widow's weeds. And who so fitting a discreetly and gently with her own subjects,' and 'in spouse as my lord Darnley-the only one who, when effect repose most on them of the Reformed religion,' Elizabeth dies, can compete with Mary for the throne was the policy which had been sketched for her in of England? So my lord Darnley and Mary queen of France, as we learn from her faithful friend, Sir James Scots are brought together. They meet in Wemyss Melville" (Fisher, Reform. p. 858, 859). But Mary was Castle, by the Firth of Forth. It is a clear case of wise enough to comprehend that the situation was such 'love at first sight.' Royal husbands not a few have that any active opposition to the newly-established re- been proposed for Mary's hand, but nothing more is ligion would be futile and disastrous to herself, and she heard of them. He is the handsomest and best-proaccommodated herself to the circumstances. Yet even portioned long man,' says Mary, I have ever seen.' this she did only moderately. Her letters to pope Pius Everything goes as Rizzio and the papal court would IV and to her uncle, the cardinal of Lorraine, in 1563, have it. The Protestant interest takes fire, for Darnley plainly reveal the secret working of her desire to re- is a Catholic. It is not less furious in England than in store the old religious system to supremacy as soon as Scotland, for the nation has little hope now that queen practicable. With this purpose in view she refused to Elizabeth will ever take a husband, and in the absence grant her assent to the acts of Parliament which estab- of her heirs the throne of the united kingdom will fall lished the new religion as the faith of the nation; while into the hands of this Catholic couple. . . . Queen Elizshe herself failed not to seize every opportunity to prove abeth, who has been playing fast and loose, with fair her attachment to Romanism. The very first Sunday promises and fickle performance, finds herself no match after her arrival Mary commanded a solemn mass to be for the cunning Italian. Her own kingdom is threatcelebrated in the chapel of the palace; and, as might ened with faction; and rumors of Catholic rebellion, to have been expected, an uproar ensued, the servants of unseat her and place her rival and cousin on the empty the chapel were insulted and abused, and had not some throne, fill the court and the nation with perplexity. of the lay nobility of the Protestant party interposed, She indignantly summons Darnley back again, and gets the riot might have become general. The next Sunday for answer that he has no mind to return.' 'I find myKnox preached a violent sermon against idolatry, and self,' he says, shortly and almost contemptuously, 'very in his discourse he took occasion to say that a single well where I am, and so I purpose to keep me.' My mass was, in his estimation, more to be feared than ten lord Murray sees the end of all this from the beginning. thousand armed men. Upon this, Mary sent for the Neither Mary's tears nor Mary's threats, and she uses Reformer, desiring to have an interview with him. The both with a woman's consummate skill, can wring from interview took place, as well as one or two subsequent him an approval of the marriage. But all his affectionones from a like cause; but the only result was to make ately-earnest protests are powerless to hinder it. Opplainer the fact that she was at variance with the newly- position is only fuel to the flame. Marry she will, established religious power of her country. Her youth, though all the world opposes. Love, blind as it always however, her beauty and accomplishments, and her af- is said to be, for the ignoble Darnley, revenge on Elizafability, interested many in her favor; she had, more- beth, whom Mary cordially hates, and who hates her as over, from the first continued the government in the cordially, and ambition-the ambition to make good her hands of the Protestants. The principal direction of claim to the English throne, which since she was a girl affairs she had left in the hands of her half-brother, the eighteen years old she has never ceased to nourish--all earl of Murray (q. v.), the leader of the Protestant no- push her on to this destructive marriage. And Mebles, and she had made William Maitland, of Lethington, phistopheles is at her side to remove every obstacle and another great Protestant leader, one of her most trust-clear the way. It is Rizzio who arranges for the first ed advisers. The government in the hands of worthy leaders, the court sacredly promised to the unimpaired preservation of the Reformed faith and worship, no Protestant felt inclined to ask more; and there were but few to complain when Mary only demanded for herself

meeting between Mary and Darnley. It is Rizzio who affects such liking for the young lord that he shares his bed with him. It is Rizzio who promises to secure the pope's dispensation-for Mary and Darnley are cousins. It is Rizzio who, while negotiations are still pending

esty assures her subjects that in any event the religion of the realm shall not be interfered with. At the same time she writes to Pius V to congratulate him on the victories already gained, and to inspire him with hopes of victories yet to come: 'With the help of God and his holiness,' she says, 'she will yet leap over the wall" (Harper's Magazine, 1873, Feb., p. 352, 353). "To this fatal resolution," says Robertson (History of Scotland), "may be imputed all the subsequent calamities of Mary's life." Many of the Protestant lords who had hitherte supported the queen now took fright lest they should suffer the fate of the adherents of the Protestant religion

and the envoy is yet on his way to the court of Rome, fits up a private room in the palace, where the marriageceremony, which the Church pronounces void, is clandestinely performed. For the papal benediction is needed, it appears, not to hallow the marriage-tie, but only to give it respectability before the public. Elizabeth might as well spare her diplomacy, since all is virtually settled. Rizzio has not exceeded his instructions. There are no delays at the court of Rome. Fast as wind and wave can carry him comes back the messenger with the promised dispensation. The marriage, already performed in secret, is repeated in public. It takes place on June 29, 1565. Queen Mary, as though some secret conscious-under Mary of England. The bloody deeds of that foul ness hung over her of the sorrows on which she is entering, wears at the marriage-altar her mourning dress of black velvet. It is a gloomy ceremony. When the herald proclaims in the streets of Edinburgh that Henry, earl of Ross and Albany, is hereafter king of Scotland, the crowd receive the proclamation in sullen silence. Even the money distributed in profusion among them awakens no enthusiasm. Only one voice cries, 'God save his Grace.' It is the voice of Darnley's father. My lord the earl of Murray has tried dissuasion. It has failed. He has tried wile against wile, has planned to abduct lord Darnley and send him back to the queen of England. But the rough Scotchman is no match in craft for the cunning Italian. This fruitless conspiracy has only incensed the queen against him. His honest portraiture of the poor fool with whom queen Mary is so infatuated has awakened all her womanly indignation. The court is no longer safe. Rumors are rife of plans for his assassination. True or false, they are probable enough to make him avoid Rizzio and Darnley. The queen summons him to court, and offers him a safeconduct. But Protestants have learned to look with suspicion on safe-conducts proffered by Roman Catholic princes. Murray is conveniently sick, and cannot come. Sentence of outlawry is pronounced against him. All the hate of a hot woman's heart is aroused; 'hatred the more malignant because it was unnatural.' Revenge is sweeter than ambition. I would rather lose my crown than not be revenged upon him,' she is heard to say. He calls to arms. The interest of the Protestant religion is his battle-cry. But there are few responses. He despatches messengers to queen Elizabeth for the help she has long since promised. She hesitates, delays, falters. Mary knows no delay. She takes the field in person. Lord Darnley rides at her side. He is clad in gilt armor, she in steel bonnet and corslet, with pistols at her saddle-bow and pistols in her hand. In August the standard of rebellion was raised. In October Murray and his few retainers are flying across the border into England (Burton, ix, 286). Mephistopheles no longer conceals his purpose. Mass is no longer confined to the queen's private chapel. The retainers of Darnley's father go openly to the Catholic service. The General Assembly have passed a resolution that the sovereign is not exempt from the law of the land, and that the Reformed service take the place of the mass in the royal chapel. This is Rizzio's answer to their demand. Negotiations are opened with pope Pius V and Philip of Spain. One promises soldiers, twelve thousand men; the other sends money, twenty thousand crowns. The Catholic powers of Europe have at length settled their political controversies, and joined in a secret league for the extirpation of heresy by fire and sword; a league of which that Alva was the founder whose estimate of Protestantism was summed up in the epigrammatic saying, 'One salmon is worth a multitude of frogs; a league of which the outcome was the Inquisition in Holland, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew in France. That Mary was in hearty sympathy with this league is undoubted; that she was actually a party to it is both asserted and denied by men behind the scenes who had every opportunity to know. That a vigorous attempt was to be made to re-establish the Catholic faith and worship is certain. Her most Catholic maj

woman were yet fresh in the minds of all. What was
there to hinder Mary Stuart from uprooting heresy in
her dominions, with her hands stayed by all the other
Romish powers of Europe? Moved by such fears, several
of the Scotch nobles, whose covetousness had had mere
to do with their interest in the new religion than their
soul's salvation (Fisher, p. 351-353), determined to strike
boldly against the throne. Mary, however, was not now
the ruler of Scotland. She was only called so. Upon
the throne sat the Italian singer. When Mary was
married to Darnley she had promised him an equal share
in the royal authority, and accordingly the public pa
pers and the public coin were issued in the name of
Henry and Mary. But Darnley had not proved the
right husband for her, and ere long she manifested her
disappointment by placing her name first. Gradually
the place lost by the husband is occupied by the Italian
adventurer. The public seal is given to Rizzio, and
with his own hand he signs and stamps the official pa-
pers for the king. There is no access to Mary but
through Rizzio: he who would gain the ear of the one
must buy the favor of the other. "He had the control.”
says Froude, "of all the business of the state." The
king himself finds the door barred-David admitted
himself shut out. Whispers such as no true woman can
afford to suffer circulate freely, and Mary suffers them;
ugly stories, aptly illustrated by the saying of a later
day, that "King James the Sixth's title to be called
the modern Solomon was, doubtless, that he was the
son of David, who performed upon the harp." History
does not justify these scandals. Neither can it justify
the queen who suffered them. David Rizzio was not a
man to entertain passion or to inspire it. His power
over Mary was not that which love gives. It was that
of a Jesuit father over an obedient child. To Mary,
Rizzio was the pope, whose benediction he carried with
him, whose secret envoy he was. But no husband in
such an issue is apt to weigh pros and cons nicely, least
of all such a man as Darnley. "Handsome long man
he may have been, but he carried all his merits in his
face and figure. Intriguing nobles easily played the part
of Iago to one who was in heart anything but an Otheli
A jealous husband and an unscrupulous nobility were rat
slow to make common cause; and so the death of the
queen's favorite was determined, and accordingly Rizzie
fell a prey to both Darnley and the nobles, March 9,
1566. The assassins, of course, suffered their merited
punishment. High in position and power, they were n
given to the hangman, but an ever-watchful Provide
meted out to all their merited award. (The char
formerly made by some [e. g. Tytler] that Knox an
the Reformed clergy were privy to this scheme to mur-
der Rizzio has been so thoroughly exploded that it is
hardly necessary for us even to allude to it here. These
who wish to examine particularly
Sketches of Scottish Ch. Hist., and Hetherington, Hist
Ch. of Scotland, i, 124, 402 sq.) 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 ber
person, only three months before she gave birth (June
19, 1566) to the prince who became king James VI. As
that event drew near, the queen's affection for her bus
band, who had unblushingly declaimed against all part
in the conspiracy, seemed to revive; but the charge P

are referred to M-Crie