MARY STUART

CHAPTER XXVII.

SUMMARY

Queen Mary leaves Craigmillar Castle for Edinburgh-She completes her twenty-fourth year-Goes to Stirling with her babe-Her dejected spiritsWill not eat--Walks in Stirling park and town with Melville-Their conversation-Arrival of the English ambassade-Queen's state-reception of the Earl of Bedford-English commissioners for the baptism forbidden by their Sovereign to give Darnley the title of King-His irritationBaptism of the Prince-Royal banquet-English commissioners take umbrage at a pageant-Queen pacifies the tumult-Display of fireworks -Queen creates her baby Duke of Rothesay, &c.—Progress of the twofold conspiracy for Darnley's murder and her deposition-Mary's presents to the English ambassadors-Urged by them and her own Ministers to pardon Morton and the other outlaws-Her reluctant consent-Her illness and dejection-Temporary reconciliation with her husband-He owns his faults-Their want of money-They agree to have some of their plate coined-Queen's Act of Grace for Morton and seventy-six outlaws, published-Darnley leaves Stirling in anger-Queen Mary goes to Drummond Castle-Returns to Stirling to attend to ecclesiastical affairs -Restores the Consistorial Court-Visits Tullibardin-Returns to Stirling-Darnley falls ill of the small-pox at Glasgow-His illness mistaken for poison-Calumnies on Queen Mary-Darnley desires to have her physician-She sends him-Darnley's rash plots against Queen Elizabeth's government, and intrigues with the English Roman Catholics discovered-Queen Mary presides at the marriage of Mary Fleming and Lethington.

QUEEN MARY found herself sufficiently recovered to leave her retreat in the wood-embosomed towers of Craigmillar, for her palace of Holyrood, on the 7th of December 1566. It was the day on which her Consort entered his one-andtwentieth year. She completed her twenty-fourth on the

morrow

The unkind

with which the misinde

"So

ing Darnley had again withdrawn himself from her conju gal society, and his incurably bad deportment, rendere these anything but joyful anniversaries to either. If Joh Knox himself had been in Edinburgh at that time, layin down the law on royal manners, and thundering out ana themas from his pulpit in auld St Geilis on "fiddling an flinging," he could not have prescribed a more lugubriou commemoration for the birthdays of the fair Popish Queer and her Popish Consort. There were neither games, balls banquets, nor masks, as on former occasions, for Mary took no pleasure now in anything but tears. Nor did change of scene produce change of cheer with her, when she left Edinburgh and proceeded to Stirling, taking her royal infant with her, to be in readiness for the baptism. many and great sighs as she would give," observes Sir James Melville,1" that it was pity to hear her, and overfew were careful to comfort her. Sometimes she would declare part of her griefs to me, which I essayed to put out of her mind by all possible persuasions, telling her 'how I believed that the greater multitude of friends she had acquired in England should have caused her to forget, in Scotland, the lesser number of enemies and unruly offenders, unworthy of her wrath; and that her excellent qualities, her temperance, clemency, and fortitude, should not suffer her mind to be oppressed with remembrance of that vile turn." To this soothing language Melville, being unfortunately entirely guided by Moray, added strong persuasions for her to forgive and recall Morton and the other banished traitors. Knowing her compassionate disposition, he represented to her the destitute condition to which the offenders were reduced, "not having," he said, "a hole to put their heads in, nor a penny to buy them a dinner; so that persons of her noble nature would think them almost punished enough. This communing," continues Melville, "began at the entry of her supper, in her ear, in French, when she was casting great sighs, and would not eat for no persuasion that my Lords of Moray and Mar could make her. The supper being ended, her Majesty took me by the hand,

1 Memoirs of Sir James Melville-Bannatyne Club edition.

and past down through the park of Stirling, and came up through the town, ever reasoning with me upon those purposes; and albeit she took hardly with them [Morton and the other outlawed traitors] at the first, she began to alter her mind, and think meet that my Lord of Bedford should make suit for the rebels, they to be banished out of England and Scotland during her pleasure, and to be better unto them with time, according to their deportment. And, for her part, she intended to proceed with such a gracious government as might win the victory over herself and all her competitors and enemies in times coming,' as she had done at her first home-coming, which she could do as well as any prince or princess in Europe." 1

Queen Mary's winter-evening stroll with Sir James Melville, down from the castled rock, through the royal park of Stirling, to the town and back, a round of about a mile and half, must have occurred before she had succeeded in inducing her wayward consort to leave his separate establishment in Willie Bell's lodgings and return to his apartments in the Castle; for she was, it appears, at that melancholy meal, of which neither Moray nor Mar could persuade her to taste, seated in companionless state at her regal board. Darnley was, therefore, absent. His conduct, so strangely opposed to the usages of royalty, and the idea of the comments his behaviour would excite among the distinguished foreigners who were coming to assist at the christening of her son, was of course most vexatious to her.

The journal subsequently fabricated for her defamation has the following entry: "Dec. 5. They [meaning the Queen and Bothwell] pass to Stirling, and take the King from his lodging in Willie Bell's house, and place him very obscurely in the castle." But Mary did not leave Edinburgh till the 10th. She generally rested either at Linlithgow or Mid Calder one night, and sometimes another at Callander House. She had the infant Prince with her, and was in very ill health herself, so that she could not travel fast at that season, and probably did not reach Stirling till the 12th, or the 11th at the earliest.

1 Momoing of Sin Tomas Malvill

Bannatyne Club adition

Darnley's objection to reside in the castle was on account of his distrust of Moray's uncle, the Earl of Mar, the captain of that royal fortress, and his hatred of Lady Mar; but he was induced by the Queen to return, probably the day after her arrival.

1

Mary sent Sir James Melville, well accompanied, to meet and welcome the Earl of Bedford, Queen Elizabeth's ambassador extraordinary for the baptism of the Prince, in order to have the first speech of the Earl, to inform him rightly of her proceedings, and overthrow all the evil bruits invented by her enemies; "for," observes Melville emphatically," as I have said before, it was a perverse time, and the more the number of her friends increased in England, the more practices her enemies made, and the manier lies they invented against her." This is an important testimony, as all that Melville says in her favour is-first, because, being her particular confidant, always in her personal suite, and authorised by her to act the part of a faithful monitor in anything he considered amiss in her proceedings, he enjoyed a far better opportunity of knowing her real characteristics and conduct than any of her defamers; secondly, because he was in the interest of Moray, for whose rich and fat things he forsook Mary in her adversity, and lent the aid of his facile pen to gild the crimes of that false supplanter of his royal mistress, when she, in her desolate prison-house, despoiled of regal authority and wealth, had no power of rewarding him for the testimony he occasionally bears to her virtues, and the falsehood of her political libellers. Bedford affected so much regard for Mary that she believed he was one of the surest friends she had in England: a very fatal mistake; for not only had he been a confederate in David Riccio's murder, and for her deposition, but he continued leagued with both Moray in Scotland and Morton in England in their designs for her ruin, and was himself one of the most unscrupulous of her defamers. The evil reports of this unfortunate Princess, with which his letters teem, are undeserving of credit, being, for the most part, hearsay scandals, derived from nameless

1 Sir James Melville's Memoirs, p. 170-Bannatyne edition.

and probably disreputable authorities; and due allowance must be made for the alarm naturally entertained by so enormous an engrosser of Church lands as the Earl of Bedford, lest a Roman Catholic sovereign should ever be permitted to succeed to the throne of England. If Mary had embraced the Reformed faith, her path would have been clear and triumphant in both realms.

Bedford was received very honourably by the gentlemen of Lothian, and was by them convoyed to the Duke of Châtelherault's house in the Kirk-of-Field,1 where he was lodged during his sojourn in Edinburgh. He made his state entrance into Stirling on the 14th of December, with the other English gentlemen deputed by Queen Elizabeth on this mission—namely, Sir Christopher Hatton, her Vicechamberlain and reigning favourite; George Carey, Lord Hunsdon's eldest son, cousin to Elizabeth; Mr Lyggon, the confidential friend of the Duke of Norfolk; a good number of the knights and gentlemen of Yorkshire, and almost all the captains of Berwick.2 The ambassade, consisting of eighty persons, arrived at Stirling on the 14th of December. Queen Mary held a Court at Stirling Castle for their reception the same day, when Bedford presented to her, with all proper compliments, the splendid christening-gift Queen Elizabeth had sent for her godson, being a massive silver font, richly gilt, weighing 333 ounces, having cost the sum of £1043, 198.3 In allusion to the rapid growth and plumpness of the infant heir of Scotland, Bedford had been instructed to say pleasantly to the royal mother, on presenting the font, "that it was made as soon as the Queen his mistress heard of the Prince's birth, and was big enough for him then; but now he, being grown, is peradventure too big for it, it might be used for the next child, provided it be christened before it outgrew the font." 4

He was also the bearer of a ring, of the value of a hundred marks, as a token from Queen Elizabeth to the

1 Diurnal of Occurrents.

2 Sir James Melville's Memoirs.

3 Stowe's Chronicle. Chambers's Life of James VI.

4 Kaith

Church and Stato in Scotland