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MARY STUART

CHAPTER XXX.

SUMMARY

Sincerity of the reconciliation between Mary and Darnley-She surprises him writing letters to his father-He allows her to read them-She finds them full of her praises-Tender scene between the royal pair-Darnley's devotion to his religious duties-Proceedings of the conspirators-The Earl of Moray determines to absent himself—Asks the Queen's leave to visit his wife-His foreknowledge of the murder-His oracular prediction-Gay Sunday at Holyrood-Marriage of Bastian and Margaret— Queen presides at the wedding-dinner-She is banqueted by the Bishop of Argyll-Four o'clock supper-She brings her nobles to pay their court to Darnley-Powder deposited in her chamber while she is with Darnley -Her tender parting with Darnley-She is escorted by her nobles to Holyrood Abbey-Gives her presence to the bridal ball-Puts the bride to bed-Queen surrounded by the noblest ladies in Scotland-Their respect for her-The assassins enter the house of Kirk-of-Field in her absence, and murder Darnley-Alarm caused by the explosion-Queen sends to inquire the cause-Darnley's body is discovered in the orchard -Contradictory accounts of the manner of his death-Various depositions collated and considered.

THE affectionate terms of conjugal union that subsisted between Mary Stuart and Darnley, during his residence in the Provost's house at Kirk-of-Field, are illustrated by the following interesting fact: One day the royal wife, entering the chamber of her consort unexpectedly, discovered him in the act of closing letters he had been amusing himself during her absence in writing to his father. She had had such bitter and repeated cause to complain of the inimical manner in which Lennox had exerted his paternal influence over the mind of his son, that a shade of uneasi

ness was perhaps perceptible in her countenance. Darnley, with equal good sense and good feeling, allowed her to read the letters. She did so in his presence, and found they were filled with her praises and details of her kind attentions to himself, assuring his father" that he was now satisfied that she was entirely his "-expressing at the same time "his confident hope that all things would change for the better.1" Transported with joy at so gratifying a testimonial of her husband's love and sincere appreciation of her affectionate conduct, Mary tenderly embraced and kissed him many times, and told him "how much pleasure it gave her to see that he was satisfied with her, and that no lingering cloud of jealousy or suspicion was hovering on his mind."2 The recollections of that sweet moment must have been consolatory to Mary in the long years of misery that were destined to succeed the tantalising hopes of domestic happiness with which it flattered her.

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Darnley, by way of employing his solitude profitably, had combined a course of devotional exercises with the sanitary process prescribed by his physicians, having made what the church of which he was a member terms 66 retreat,' "3 or interval of self-recollection, penance and prayer, preparatory to his reappearance on the arena of public life. Reconciled both to his consort and himself, he was rapidly recovering his health and strength, and expected to resume his place in the world under auspicious circumstances. On Sunday, February 9-the last he was ever to spend in life-" he heard mass devoutly," we are told. The more earnestness Darnley manifested in the duties of his unpopular faith, the more dangerous became his position with the lay abbots, secularised priests and impropriators of the lands of the church he was desirous of restoring, such men as Sir James Balfour parson of Fliske, his brother Robert Balfour provost of Kirk-of-Field, Archibald Douglas parson of Glasgow, and many others, who, having abandoned their vows and kept their temporalities, could anticipate nothing but ruin and degradation, if indeed

1 Buchanan's History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 319.

3 Letter of the Bishop of Mondivi to the Duke of Tuscany.

2 Ibid.

they escaped the stake, in the event of his regaining that conjugal influence over the mind of the Queen, of which nothing but his own folly and misconduct had ever deprived him. He was now arriving at years of discretion, had seen and acknowledged his faults, and promised to become all his royal wife could desire. She had accepted his penitence, and the influence of their spiritual directors would in all probability be successfully exerted to prevent future quarrels between them, and to insure the education of their son in the tenets of the Church of Rome. These were alarming contingencies to every member of the confederacy banded against him, and to Bothwell as much as to any one. The Queen had arranged to hold a court at Holyrood Abbey on Monday, February 10, for the farewell audience of the Savoyard ambassador, Count Moretta, and his suite. She probably intended that her husband should reappear in state with her; but that dismal morrow, which his eyes were never to behold, dawned under circumstances of woe and horror that rendered all appointments of human wisdom or policy nugatory.

The gunpowder, brought by Bothwell's order from Dunbar, had been conveyed on the Saturday evening to his lower apartments in Holyrood Abbey, by his vassal kinsman, John Hepburn of Bolton. The acting committee for the murder then hasted forward their operations, with full intent that the deed should be enterprised on the Sunday soon after midnight.1 The Earl of Moray, true to his cautious policy, in order to be out of the way while inferior villains performed the butcher's work, requested the Queen's permission "to cross into Fifeshire to visit his lady, who had sent word to him," he said, "that she was ill of a burning fever, much swollen, with pustules breaking out all over her," 2 which, if true, was probably an attack of small-pox. The Queen entreated him to delay his departure only one day, to assist at her Court to be holden on the morrow for the leave-taking of the Savoyard ambassade. Moray protested "the impossibility of delay, as his wife was in danger of premature childbirth, 1 Deposition of Hay of Tallo-Anderson.

2 Buchanan.

and might possibly be dead before he arrived, unless he used despatch in hastening to her."1 Feminine humanity forbade the Queen to detain him after this piteous plea for immediate permission to depart, however unseasonable the absence of her principal minister of state might be from her diplomatic circle on the morrow.

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"At nine o'clock on the Sunday morning," says Hubert, in his first confession,2 "I went to the Queen's chamber, where I heard the news that my Lord of Moray had been to take his leave of the Queen, to go and see my lady his wife. I instantly perceived by these words that he did so in order to get him out of the way of the wicked deeddoing, and remembered the words I had said of my Lord of Moray to my Lord of Bothwell, and his rejoinder namely, My Lord of Moray will neither help nor hinder in the matter; but it's all one.'" This observation being permitted to go forth uncontradicted by Moray, is a strong corroboration of his guilty cognisance of the intended murder. The occult inspirer of all the various agencies employed in the mysterious tragedy thus glided off the stage, leaving to them the danger, the responsibility, and the penalty of its consummation. No one can deny that Moray was an accomplice in the assassination of Riccio, because his signature appears to the band for the slaughter of that defenceless foreigner; nor can it be supposed that a person capable of entering into one league for murder would be more scrupulous in regard to another. In consequence of the assassination of Riccio having been perpetrated in his absence, Moray had escaped all the inconveniences in which the acting murderers were involved, and succeeded in persuading his royal sister of his innocence, in spite of her husband's assurances to the contrary. The policy that had answered his purpose so well in that instance was to be again repeated, with as good success, in regard to the immolation of his personal foe and rival Darnley, who had provoked a far more deadly debt of vengeance than the insignificant Piedmontese Riccio. Darnley had, on his first arrival in 2 Laing's Appendix.

1 Buchanan.

Scotland, supplanted him in the favour of the Queen, driven him from the helm of State, impertinently scanned the length and breadth of his questionably acquired demesnes, and pronounced the ominous sentence "that he had too much for a subject." Then Moray's first conspiracy to assassinate Darnley at the Kirk of Beith had been retaliated by secret practices against him, and open threats of vengeance. Moray's conduct in regard to this formidable opponent was clearly dictated by the same feeling which, a few months later, he boldly expressed in regard to a less dangerous enemy: "If he purposes, as I understand, our destruction, and to cut our throats, ye shall be assured that we shall find remedy, and cut his, and all them that would do so, rather than our own should be cuttit.” 1

It was affirmed by Lord Herries," that Moray, as he was crossing the ferry, the same evening he left Edinburgh, on his passage into Fifeshire, observed to one of his dependents, a gentleman of that country, 'This night, ere morning, the Lord Darnley shall lose his life." "2 Lord Lindsay of the Byres-Moray's sister's husband-stoutly denied that his gude-brother had ever used such words, and gave the lie direct to Herries, who, as he spoke from hearsay, could not prove his assertion; nor was it likely that a statesman so cautious and feline in his practice as Moray would have committed himself by such plain speech. Hearsay had interpreted too literally the oracular intimation which Moray had uttered to his own creatures, in the malignant excitement of his spirit, as the appointed hour drew nigh. "This night the King will be cured of all his maladies!"-a sarcastic equivoque, which might have been verified as a loyal prediction by the happy recovery of the princely invalid, if the cruel purpose of the assassins had proved abortive.3

1 Hamilton State Papers, No. 22.

2 Lesley's Defence of Queen Mary's Honour.

3 Lord Lindsay's Challenge, in Anderson's Collections. This statement appears in a letter addressed by the Earl of Huntley, Gavin Hamilton, and Lesley, Bishop of Ross, to the English Commissioners appointed to hear the evidences for and against her. A most able and logical defence of their unfortunate Sovereign, being a true digest of all the arguments contained in their replies to the calumnies of her accusers, printed in

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