though hitherto employed as one of the persons whose office it was to keep guard over her, he became from that hour the most devoted of her friends and champions, and the contriver of her escape. His elder brother, Sir William Douglas, the castellan, absolutely refused to be present, entered a protest against the wrong that had been perpetrated under his roof, and besought the Queen to give him a letter of exoneration, certifying that he had nothing to do with it, and that it was against his consent, which letter she gave him.1 The agitation and distress Mary had suffered in the contest, brought on a fever which confined her to her bed for several weeks. The Countess of Moray, who had been sojourning for a few days with her mother-in-law, Lady Douglas, at Lochleven Castle, now returned to St Andrews. "There was," says Throckmorton, "great sorrow betwixt the Queen and her at their meeting, and much greater at their parting." 2 Lindsay hastened to Edinburgh, and exultingly presented to his confederates the deeds which were to be imposed on Mary's subjects in token of her voluntary resignation of her crown to her babe. But an important ceremony was yet required to render them valid. They were not sealed, and her Majesty's Privy Seal was in the keeping of an honest and courageous gentleman of the loyal family of Sinclair. As Thomas Sinclair's honourable principles were too well known to admit the possibility of tampering with him, a warrant in the Queen's name had been prepared, in the form of a precept addressed to him, requiring him "to affix her Majesty's Privy Seal to the three instruments for the demission of her crown, appointing the Earl of Moray regent for the infant Prince, and a Provisional Council to act in the interim." This warrant bore the royal signature, having been either extorted from her Majesty at the same time with the others, or, as only three are mentioned, forged, on consideration of " the necessity of their cause," by the Lords 1 Goodall. 2 Throckmorton to Queen Elizabeth-Stevenson's Illustrations. 2 A of Secret Council.1 Lindsay having succeeded in forcing the Queen to sign the documents asserting her voluntary resignation of the crown, was deputed to get them sealed. Accompanied by a party of the confederates, he proceeded to the Privy Seal Office, and in the name and behalf of the Lords of Secret Council required Thomas Sinclair to seal the said instruments, presenting the alleged warrant from the Queen authorising him to do so. Faithful to the trust that had been confided to him by his unfortunate Sovereign, Sinclair intrepidly replied, "As long as the Queen's Majesty is in ward, I will seal no such letters as be extraordinary.” Lindsay, finding he was neither to be persuaded nor intimidated, effected his purpose by violence, tore the seal from him, and by dint of superior numbers compelled him to affix it to the three instruments, Sinclair protesting all the time that "what he did was against his will, through a force he could not resist."2 The next day the conspirators came to the lodgings of the English ambassador Throckmorton, booted and spurred, to announce the pretended abdication of the Queen, on which occasion the following statement was shamelessly made by Lethington, in the character of their spokesman: My Lords have willed me to declare unto you what it hath pleased the Queen my Sovereign to conclude on, upon her own voluntary advice. That is to say, finding herself both in health unmeet to take the care and governance of this realm, and also unfortunate in the administration thereof, being very desirous to see her son, the young Prince, settled in her seat in her lifetime, hath commanded, under her handwriting, to proceed to the coro 1 The cause of historic truth is indebted to that learned and indefatigable antiquary John Riddell, of the Faculty of Advocates, for the discovery of this important document, together with the protest of the indignant Sinclair, duly witnessed. 2 This proceeding, which occurred on the afternoon of July 25, 1567, is thus noticed in the supplication of the Lords of the Queen's party to the Parliament, on the 12th of June 1571 : "It is not to be passed over with silence in what manner the Privy Seal was appended to that letter: how it was violently and by force reft out of the keeper's hands, may appear by authentic documents: so as her Majesty's subscription was purchased by force, so was the seal extorted by force."Pitcairn's Preface to Bannatyne's Memorials. nation of her son, as a thing that she shall take most pleasure to see ;"1 adding "that they were then about to proceed to Stirling to perform her desire, by the inauguration of the young Prince," and requested him to assist at the said solemnity as the representative of the Queen of England. Throckmorton refused to commit himself by appearing at the coronation, perceiving that the revolution that was to transfer the regal diadem of Mary Stuart to her infant son was not the act of the nation, nor even of a closely balanced moiety of the people, but the successful enterprise of a daring section of the nobility, consisting only of five earls, eight lords, and their armed followers, supported by a company of preachers. Our shrewd English diplomatist, in his letters to both Cecil and Leicester, written on the same day, makes the following significant observation on the progressive acts of the conspiracy against the government and life of Mary Stuart: "It is to be feared that this tragedy will end in the Queen's person, after this coronation, as it did begin in the person of David the Italian, and the Queen's husband." Can words speak plainer his opinion that the real actors by whom the murder of Darnley was perpetrated were the assassins of David Riccio, and that the deposition and slaughter of their hapless Sovereign was the ultimate object to which these crimes had been the prelude? Throckmorton's remark assumes the greater weight in the scale of evidence when the position occupied by him is considered ; ; for he had been partially admitted behind the scenes, and was writing confidentially on the aspect of Scottish affairs to his own colleagues, men who had had guilty foreknowledge of every plot that had been devised to compass the destruction of the unfortunate North British Queen. "Mary's affirmation that Lady Lennox believed and declared her innocent," observes Malcolm Laing, in his onesided dissertation on the death of Darnley, " amounts to no more in the scale of evidence than her own affirmation of her innocence, which she never failed to assert." But 1 Letter of Throckmorton to Queen Elizabeth, June 26, 1567-Stevenson's Illustrations. Mary was, to use the words of Darnley, who knew her better than her calumniators, " a true Princess," and whatsoever she asserted has sooner or later been verified by documentary proofs. A letter from Lady Lennox to her has recently been found among Cecil's papers,-one which proves the friendly correspondence in which Darnley's mother had established herself with his royal widow eight years after his death, and which demonstrates, as forcibly as words can go, her respect and affection for Mary, and her indignant conviction of the wickedness of the traitors by whom she had been dethroned. It is perhaps impossible to conclude the present volume of Mary Stuart's biography more satisfactorily to the lovers of truth, than by placing this letter before them. In point of chronology, it belongs to a later epoch of this biography, having been penned by Lady Lennox when Mary was a forlorn captive, withering in an English prison; but as I have been accused of partial views, in Mary's favour, by reviewers, who have neither had patience nor inclination to enter into the documentary evidences by which I have been guided, it becomes expedient to bring so important a voucher of her innocence forward to prove that Darnley's mother was satisfied with her; and if she were, who shall dare to doubt her? A fac-simile tracing of the holograph document, from a reserved volume in the State Paper Office, is annexed. MARGARET COUNTESS OF LENNOX TO MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.1 [November 1575.] "It may please your Majesty, I have received your token and mind, both by your letter and other ways, much to my comfort, specially perceiving what zealous natural care your Majesty hath of our sweet and peerless jewel? in Scotland. I have been no less fearful and careful as your Majesty of him, that the wicked Governor 3 should not have power to do ill to his 1 From the original in the handwriting of Margaret Countess of Lennox, extant in State Paper Office-Correspondence of Mary Queen of Scots. 2 James VI., son of Queen Mary, and grandson of Margaret Douglas. He was then nine years of age. 3 The Regent Morton, with whom, at least until June 1573, Margaret Countess of Lennox held most intimate correspondence. He was her cousin-german, and hitherto had contrived to prejudice her against her daughter-in-law, the Queen of Scots. This letter, however, gives ample evidence of the change in the convictions of Darnley's mother. |