dolph from his diplomatic craft by leading off the dance with him. Neither Mary Stuart nor Mary Fleming were ever to see such jocund days again. The dark purpose that occupied the attention of Mary Fleming's astute bridegroom, even during their honeymoon, could scarcely have failed to shed mysterious and portentous gloom over that usually happy season of wedded love; while the consequences of his successful crime led to a tragic and untimely fate for him, involving her and the offspring of their marriage in want and misery.

MARY STUART

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SUMMARY

Queen Mary sends a kind message and friendly letters to Darnley-Their reconciliation alarming to the conspirators-Reports spread of Darnley and his father plotting against Queen Mary.-Aggravating representations of tale-bearers-Queen Mary leaves Stirling for Edinburgh-Takes the Prince her son with her-Agitating rumours in Edinburgh-Queen traces them to Walcar and Hiegate-Examines and confronts themDetects their discrepancies-Communicates her opinion to Archbishop Beton-Her pathetic allusion to her husband's misconduct—Proceedings of the conspirators against Darnley-Morton, Bothwell, Lethington, and Archibald Douglas, meet at Whittinghame to discuss his murder-Her Ministers require Queen Mary to sign an order for Darnley's arrest-She refuses-Darnley's verses-His penitence and desire to see her-She promises to come to him-Her journey delayed by bad weather-Disputes among her Italian servants-Chicanery of Joseph Riccio-He accuses Joseph Lutini of carrying off the Queen's bracelets-She makes Lethington write to Drury to send Lutini back to her-Her disdain of falsehood and fraud.

QUEEN MARY had sent a kind message to her husband by her physician, promising to come and see him herself as soon as the weather would allow her to travel so far.1 It must be remembered that she was herself in very ill health; the cold was unusually severe, and the roads nearly impassable at that season. These circumstances, and the necessity of bestowing her undivided attention on public business connected with church affairs, the General Assembly being then sitting, combined to delay her journey; but she received due information of her husband's progress from her

1 Lingard's History of England, vol. vi. p. 138.

physician, and, even according to Buchanan's statement, "she wrote many very friendly letters to him during his illness."1 A virtual reconciliation had, therefore, taken place between the royal pair; they were on terms of amicable correspondence once more, and a reasonable prospect might be entertained of a most affectionate reunion when they met. Such prospect suited neither the selfish policy of Moray nor the audacious designs of Bothwell. As for Lethington, he being the object of Darnley's undisguised hostility, and having the fate of David Riccio before his eyes, the laws of self-preservation impelled him rather to destroy than be destroyed.

Reports of a nature calculated both to alarm and irritate the Queen began to be circulated. While she was at Stirling, she was assured by Moray and his colleagues that her husband and his father were assembling a force at Glasgow for the purpose of dethroning and imprisoning her for life,2 and crowning the infant Prince, in order to govern the realm in his name. On the other hand, Darnley was told, for the purpose of goading him to some rash enterprise, that it was the Queen's intention to arrest and imprison him. Some bitter words appear to have escaped him, which were of course repeated, with the wonted exaggerations of tale-bearers, to the Queen. The persons from whom the reports emanated were Hiegate, the town-clerk of Glasgow,3 and another Glasgow man of the name of Walcar, both servants of Archbishop Beton, Mary's representative at the Court of France. She summoned an especial Privy Council at Stirling Castle on the 10th of January, to take this agitating business into consideration. As the members of her Cabinet were leagued for the destruction of the unfortunate Darnley, and determined to make a last effort to induce her to consent to his death, everything was done to excite her

1 History of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 318.

2 Letter of Queen Mary to Archbishop Beton-Labanoff, vol. i. p. 398. Blackwood's History of Queen Mary.

3 Hiegate was indeed a notorious busy-body and falsifier. He had been brought before the Privy Council two years before, on the complaint of one of the bailies of Glasgow, for speaking slanderous words of him.Chalmers, from Privy Council Register, Dec. 13, 1564.

apprehensions that her boy would be torn from her, and set up by his father as a rival Sovereign. Not con

sidering herself and the infant Prince safe at Stirling, she departed with him precipitately for Edinburgh on the 13th of January, slept one night at Callander, and arrived at Holyrood Abbey on the 14th.1 She found the same reports prevalent in her metropolis that had disquieted her at Stirling.

Moray strenuously advised his royal sister to frustrate the treasonable designs of her ungrateful husband and his confederates, by hastening to Glasgow at the head of a strong force, and taking the whole party by surprise before they could be aware of her intentions.2 She had, however, the good sense to perceive that all these painful statements rested on hearsay; and she spent several days in entering into a personal investigation, sent for Walcar and Hiegate, and after questioning them separately, she caused them to be confronted in the presence of the Lords of her Council, and by collating and noting the discrepancies and palpable falsehoods in their depositions and those of the other witnesses who came to testify against her husband, satisfied herself that there was no reliance to be placed on their evidence. Happy would it have been for Mary Stuart if the malignant charges subsequently brought against herself had been tried by the like test.

She ascertained that neither Lennox nor her husband was in a position to disturb her government, yet her equanimity was ruffled by the repetition or invention of many offensive observations reported to have been made of her by both. Wounds scarcely healed, having been rudely touched in the course of this investigation, bled anew, and the vexation of a sorely wearied, but surely not vindictive spirit, is perceptible in her communication of the 20th of January to her ambassador at the Court of France, Archbishop Beton. The whole of that letter relates to matters of an annoying nature, for she commences with a complaint that the command of the Scotch Archer-Guard, which per courtesy,

1 Chalmers.

2 Adam Blackwood.

3 Queen Mary's Letter to Archbishop Beton-Labanoff, Keith.

and almost of right, pertained to the heir of the Scottish crown, had been, she understood, promised, if not given, to the son of the Duke of Savoy; and she desires Beton to enter a protest in her name against any other appointment than her son, and promises, "if it be given to him, she will appoint such a nobleman for his deputy as shall be agreeable to the King of France.1" That there should have been need of such remonstrance was, of course, displeasing to Mary, both as the Sovereign of Scotland and the sister-in-law of the King of France, for the nonappointment of her son to the above honorary post was a marked affront to her. When any one sits down to write or dictate a letter which begins with a complaint, the same tone is sure to pervade the context; and Mary, after detailing the mischief-making reports circulated by Walcar, and traced to Hiegate, expresses her surprise that such malign inventions should have proceeded from persons in the service of the Archbishop, whom she had always found so faithful and affectionate to her, and doubts not he will be very highly offended with them, such matters tending to her inquietation and disadvantage, and troubling the tranquillity of the realm, which her study is to maintain, and retain in such integrity as may be. "And for the King our husband," she mournfully but proudly adds, "God knows always our part towards him, and his behaviour and thankfulness to us is likewise well known to God and the world. Always we perceive him occupied and busy enough to have inquisition of our doings, which, God willing, shall aye be such as none shall have occasion to be offended with them, or to report of us any ways but honourably, howsoever he, his father, and their fautors, speak, which we know want no good-will to make us have ado, if their power were equivalent to their minds: but God moderates their forces well enough, and takes the means of execution from them; for as we believe, they shall find none, or very few, approvers of their counsels or devices imagined to our displeasure." 2

Let any one compare this genuine outpouring of Mary

1 Queen Mary's Letter to Archbishop Beton-Labanoff, Keith. 2 Ibid.